American Democracy in Context. Joseph A. Pika

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СКАЧАТЬ to succeed with a new party than in most countries (we will look at this topic in detail in Chapter 8); (2) immigration and slavery, which had established a patchwork quilt of Irish, Germans, Czechs, African Americans, and others in which politics was dominated by disputes between ethnic groups rather than between workers and capitalists; and (3) the prosperity of the country, which gave workers a living standard better than anywhere else.¹⁹

      Fascism was a nationalist, often racist ideology that flourished in Europe in the 1930s in the midst of the Great Depression and the devastation of World War I. Leaders such as Hitler in Germany and Mussolini in Italy adopted a showy, militaristic style of politics centered on a single, charismatic leader (themselves). A credible fascist movement in the United States has never come about, although some white power movements have adopted many of the symbols of fascism, such as the lightning bolt or the Nazi swastika.

      Comparative and Historical Contexts

      Our fundamental goal in writing this text is to help you understand how our particular form of democracy works and how it came to be. You may already know many facts about American politics—for example, about the separation of powers or the process by which a bill becomes a law. You will learn such facts from this book as well, but beyond learning what makes up American politics and government, you will also explore causes (what makes the U.S. system work as it does) and effects (what difference does that make, and why should we care?).

      We chose to title our book American Democracy in Context because our main tool to help you understand American politics is to place it in a comparative and historical context. When we use comparison, we compare aspects of U.S. government and politics to those same aspects in the governments and politics of other countries. This comparative tool exposes us to possibilities beyond what we observe in the United States while offering insights into why various aspects of U.S. government and politics operate as they do. A second tool, historical analysis, allows us to investigate the roots and evolution of the U.S. system, allowing us to more knowledgeably evaluate how and why the U.S. system came to exist in its current form. The goal is to help you gain a more in-depth understanding of American democracy than you could acquire from a simple description of our politics.

      As an example of how comparison and historical analysis may help us to understand American politics, consider the fact that Americans volunteer more for public purposes than people in many countries do (see Figure 1.4). In a survey of the citizens of 40 countries, U.S. citizens ranked near the top in volunteerism. When asked, for example, if they had volunteered to do charitable activities such as giving money or time or helping strangers in the last month, 62 percent of Americans responded in the affirmative.²⁰

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      Figure 1.4 Americans Volunteer at a High Rate

      Sixty-two percent of Americans volunteered time, gave money, or helped strangers in a given month—more than the citizens of many other countries. In general, citizens of prosperous European and North American countries were more generous in this way than citizens of other countries. Why is this so?

      Source: “Panorama de la Société 2014,” OECD, 2014, 153.

      Why do Americans volunteer so much more readily than citizens of many other countries? Comparison may help us to some extent in answering this question. First of all, we notice from Figure 1.4 that in general, citizens of more prosperous countries tend to volunteer more than others. Of the top 10 countries in the figure, all but one are among the fifty most prosperous countries in the world; of the bottom countries, none are among the fifty most prosperous.²¹ Of course, there are exceptions to this tendency. Indonesia is not a prosperous country and ranks just above the United States; and France and Japan, which are prosperous, rank low on the table. Nonetheless, the tendency is a strong one. We may hypothesize that in prosperous countries, people are secure enough in their own economic situations that they can more readily spare time or money to help others.

      We also notice that six of the top ten countries share a common heritage as former parts of the British Empire: the United Kingdom and its former colonies (Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States). It seems likely that there is something in the culture all of these countries share that encourages helping others.

      In addition to comparison, historical analysis may help us to understand why Americans volunteer so readily to help others. Volunteering has a long-established tradition in the United States. As early as 1832, Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat who journeyed to the United States to study how the new democracy worked, commented on how willing Americans were to work voluntarily for the common good. American society at that time was made up mostly of farming communities with a great deal of social equality, in which neighbors helped each other more or less as a matter of course. On the frontier, in fact, neighbors had to rely on each other, because the government had little presence there. The evolution of American society from these roots may have had a good deal to do with the high incidence of volunteering today.

      Picture Yourself …

      As a German Citizen

As a German, how would your values compare with those of an American? In a survey conducted in 2006, both Americans and Germans were asked whether people should take more responsibility for themselves or whether the government should take more responsibility to see that everyone is provided for. The response gap was telling: Sixty-six percent of Germans thought that the government should take more responsibility while 41 percent of Americans agreed with this sentiment.^a Why?

^a Inglehart, R., C. Haerpfer, A. Moreno, C. Welzel, K. Kizilova, J. Diez-Medrano, M. Lagos, P. Norris, E. Ponarin & B. Puranen et al., eds. 2014. World Values Survey: Round Six—Country-Pooled Datafile Version: www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSDocumentationWV6.jsp. Madrid: JD Systems Institute.

      Classical liberalism, with its doctrine of giving individuals as much room for independent decision making as possible, never caught on as strongly in Germany as it did in the United Kingdom and its former colonies. As a result, as a German citizen, you are less suspicious of government activity and less anxious about wanting to preserve your own individual sphere of choice from government regulation. You are neither bothered by very detailed governmental supervision of people’s lives nor by rules such as barring stores from opening on Sunday or requiring that all trash must be sorted into multiple categories.

      Another value that is fairly distinctive comes from Germany’s experience with Hitler and World War II in the 1930s and 1940s. Tired of tumult and defeat and knowing that many neighboring countries have blamed Germany for committing terrible crimes during that war, you are suspicious of military action. You are also wary of nationalism based in emotion, which was a hallmark of the Nazi regime.

This reluctance to pursue military options and suspicion of nationalism shows up in opinion surveys. Only 24 percent of you said you were “very proud” of your nationality compared with 56 percent of U.S. citizens who were asked the same question. When asked whether you would be willing to fight for your country in the event of war, only 41 percent of you said “yes” compared with 57 percent of Americans.^b

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