Instructors

Your Professor

• Dr. Matthew C. Nowlin, Ph.D.
• Email: matthew.nowlin@uta.edu
• Office Hours: By appointment. Email me!

Your Teaching Assistants

• Jake Flowers: jmf3765@mavs.uta.edu

What is this course about?

This course is designed to introduce students to the core concepts of American government and politics.

• The emphasis of this course will be placed on approaching topics associated with government and politics as social scientists

Three Parts

• Part I: The Constitutional Order and the American Political System
• Part II: Formal Institutions
• Part III: Individual Agency and Mediating Institutions

Learning Outcomes

1. Identify and explain the central principles, institutions, procedures, and decision-making processes of the American political system
2. Evaluate the basic strengths and weaknesses of the American political system through the application of political concepts and ideas
3. Relate historical events and/or developments to contemporary political issues, debates, and outcomes in the United States
4. Develop an analytical, social science disposition toward American politics

Course Information

• Readings
  • Book: Wilson, James, John DiIulio Jr, Meena Bose, and Matthew Levendusky. 2025. American Government: Institutions & Policies. 18th ed. Cengage Learning.
  • The book is available through the UTA bookstore
  • In general, read half of the readings for Mondays and the other half for Wednesdays
  • You will have weekly quizzes over the readings

Course Information

• Attendance Policy
  • Attendance will be taken, each class session is worth ~4 points, and lecture slides will not be posted on Canvas
• Technology Policy
  • Laptops are not allowed in class
  • Phones should be put away at all times
  • AI is not to be used for quizzes or exams in this class
• Late Work Policy
  • Late work will not be accepted
• Extra Credit
  • There will be no opportunities for extra credit in this course

Assignments

Assignments and Points (700 points possible)

• Quizzes: 200 points total
  • 11 multiple choice quizzes (20 points each); lowest quiz score will be dropped
  • 10 multiple choice questions; 5 minutes to complete
  • Available on Canvas Monday morning, and due by Friday night at 11:59 PM
  • LockDown Browser: see information on Canvas

Assignments

Assignments and Points (700 points possible)

• Exams: 400 points total
  • Exam 1: 100 points. IN CLASS?, Wed Sept 23
  • Exam 2: 100 points. IN CLASS?, Wed Oct 28
  • Final Exam: 200 points. Comprehensive, IN CLASS?, Wednesday, December 9 from 11-1:30
• Attendance: 100 points

Quick Overview of Topics

Quick Overview of Topics

• Part III: Individual Agency and Mediating Institutions
  • Public opinion
  • Political participation
  • Political parties
  • Election and campaigns
  • Interest groups

How to Well in this Course

• Do the readings and take handwritten notes
  • Look for headings and sub-headings
  • Look for terms in bold
• Attend class and take handwritten notes
  • Ask when something isn’t clear
• Digitize your handwritten notes
  • Use AI to help you organize your notes
• Review your digitized notes
  • Before quizzes
  • Before exams

What is this course about?

This course is designed to introduce students to the core concepts of American government and politics.

Government and Politics

• A government is the system by which a society organizes itself and allocates authority in order to accomplish collective goals and provide benefits to that society

• Politics refers to the process of gaining or exercising control within a government by an association of persons with shared goals or objectives for society

  • is the activity by which an issue is agitated or settled.
  • Who gets what, when, how (Lasswell, 1936)

Power, Authority, and Legitimacy

• Power: The ability of one person to get another person to act in accordance with the first person’s intentions

• Authority: The right to use power

• Legitimacy: Political authority conferred by law or by a state or national constitution

  • In the US, the Constitution is widely accepted as a source of legitimate authority

The State of Nature: Hobbes

Leviathan (1651)

The Social Contract

An agreement between people and their leaders in which the people agree to give up some of their liberties so that their other liberties are protected

The Social Contract: Hobbes

Leviathan (1651)

• Social Contract: Absolute monarch
  • The surrender of individual liberty for security

Locke

Two Treatises on Civil Government (1689)

Government

• A government is the system by which a society organizes itself and allocates authority in order to accomplish collective goals and provide benefits to that society

• Questions of …

  • Power
  • Authority
  • Legitimacy

Forms of Government

Aristotle

• Two axes: who rules (one, few, many) and for whose interest (common good, or private interest of the rulers)

Forms of Government

Authoritarian

• Authoritarianism: Absence of citizen control over government
  • Dictatorships: One leader
  • Monarchies: Leaders emerge from a ruling family
  • One-party states: a ruling party runs the country with no political competition
  • Totalitarian: no limits on government power
  • Competitive Authoritarianism: elections are held, but are unfair

Forms of Government

Socialism

• Socialism: Society as a whole, and not private individuals, owns and controls property for the benefit of all
  • Centralized: Government owns the means of production
  • Decentralized: Communities owns the means of production
  • Democratic Socialism: Combines political democracy with an economy more democratically controlled by workers and the public
• Communism: A classless society in which the major means of production are owned and controlled by the public
  • In its strict form: no government, no private property, no currency
  • Socialism is often treated as the transitional phase toward fully realized communism

Forms of Government

Oligarchy

• Oligarchy: A form of government in which a small class of political and economic elites control the government
  • Power-elite view in the extreme

Forms of Government

Fascism

• Fascism: Individuals and classes are to be absorbed into an all-embracing whole
  • Nationalism: Nation-state built around a shared ethic identity
  • National socialism: Nazism
    • Used the word socialist in its name partly to appeal to the German working class in the 1920s

Forms of Government

Democracy

• Democracy: The rule of many
  • A form of government in which political power–influence over institutions, leaders, and policies–is controlled by the people
• Direct or Participatory Democracy: A government in which all or most citizens participate directly
• Representative Democracy: A government in which leaders make decisions by winning a competitive struggle for the popular vote

Forms of Government

Republic

• Republic: a government with no monarch — sovereignty derives from the citizens
• Democracy: the people hold power
• These describe different dimensions of government and are not opposites:
  • Republic and democracy: United States, France
  • Republic, not a democracy: People’s Republic of China
  • Democracy, not a republic: United Kingdom (retains a monarch)
  • Neither: Saudi Arabia

Madison’s Republic

Federalist 10 & 14

Majority Rule and Minority Rights

• Majority rule: the opinions of the majority carry more weight in government decisions
• Minority rights: people cannot be deprived of certain rights — free speech, due process, equal protection — even if an overwhelming majority wants to

Dahl’s Criteria for a Democratic Process

• All members of a polity should be treated as equally qualified to participate in decisions about the policies that govern them (Robert Dahl)
• Five criteria:
  • Effective participation — equal opportunity to make your views known
  • Equality in voting — equal opportunity to vote, all votes counted equally
  • Enlightened understanding — equal opportunity to learn about alternatives and consequences
  • Control of the agenda — members retain final say over what is decided
  • Inclusion of adults — the above rights extend to (nearly) all adult members

Threats to Democracy

• Tyranny of the majority: majorities using democratic power to oppress minorities
• Political ignorance: most voters know very little about government or policy; this is largely a rational response, since one vote almost never decides an outcome
• Democratic self-destruction: elections bringing to power movements that then dismantle democratic institutions from within

How Do Democracies Die Today?

• Levitsky & Ziblatt (2018): modern democracies rarely die in a sudden coup — they die gradually, through nominally legal means
• Two informal norms they argue are essential to democratic survival:
  • Mutual toleration: rivals accept one another as legitimate
  • Forbearance: restraint in the use of one’s own institutional powers
• Democratic backsliding: capture of the referees (courts, election administrators), weakened press and civil society, and delegitimizing the opposition — while elections keep happening

Measuring Democracy

Measuring Democracy

Forms of Government from Left to Right

Political Power in America: Five Views

Who Governs? To What Ends?

• Which groups shape the government and drive policymaking in the United States?
  • Unions? Big business? Special interests? Politicians? The people?
• Political Agenda: Issues that people believe require government action
  • Does our political agenda reflect a particular group?

Costs and Benefits

• Cost: A burden that people believe they must bear if a policy is adopted
• Benefit: A satisfaction that people believe they will enjoy if a policy is adopted
• Costs and benefits can be distributed (spread broadly across society) or concentrated (borne/enjoyed by a small group)

Four Types of Politics

Wilson’s Cost-Benefit Framework