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Political Science Questions: Political Parties and the Congress

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respond to five of the following six short response questions posted below. Your answers should be short, focused, and complete, ranging from two to three paragraphs. Please make sure to answer each specific part of every question. Successful answers will reflect your own thinking and understanding of the material. These answers will provide details and context that support your arguments and explain your position to the readers. You may also want to provide real world examples taken from the readings, lectures, group discussions, or your own independent thinking. Only the first five responses you enter will be graded (there is no benefit to answering all 6 questions).
Finally, each question is broken up into parts. Please be sure to address every part of the question!
I strongly recommend answering 2 questions a week to help you space out your work.
Each answer will be worth 20 points, for 100 points total. The Question Set is due on Canvas at 11:59 pm on Monday November 8th. You should plan on uploading your response as a docx file or PDF to this Question Set #2 assignment tab. We will be using Turnitin for the assignment.
1. Why do we have parties? What roles do they play in a representative democracy? How can these roles be beneficial? How can they be harmful?
2. a) Why does the US have only two major political parties? Make sure and describe Duverger’s law and strategic behavior on the part of voters, politicians, and parties. b) Explain why it would be hard for a third party to be electorally successful. c) What institutional/electoral reforms could be made to create more viable opportunities for additional parties in American politics? d) Would these reforms be helpful? Why or why not?
3.a) ) How does the desire for reelection shape the behavior of members of Congress? b) How do these electoral incentives help explain what elected officials do while in office and what they want to avoid? c) How do electoral incentives make individual Congresspeople individually responsive but Congress as a whole collectively irresponsible? d) How does the leadership in Congress help overcome the problems of collective action to make Congress work?
4. a) What are the benefits of the Congressional committee system? b) What are the possible downsides? c) How do the parties use this structure to their advantage?
5. a) In your view, what are the most important factors that contributed to the rise of presidential power in modern American Government? (for this question, please choose two or three factors from the readings and lectures that you personally found most interesting/persuasive). b) Do you think the Presidency is too powerful today? Why or why not? What reforms (if any) would you recommend to address presidential power?
6. Neustadt & Kernell both describe ways in which a President can deal with Congress & others outside of the executive branch. a) What are their central arguments? b) How does Kernell’s theory update Neustadt’s idea? c) Are they compatible?

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Political Science Questions
Question 1
Political parties are groups of people or individuals with shared ideologies on governance, and through which they form the basis for electing interested members to political offices in government towards creating and implementing policies for addressing problems in society. Political parties play a significant role in representative democracy in ensuring the representation of individuals and groups with diverse opinions and ideologies at the local, state, and national levels of government. The majority of the United States electorate, for instance, supports either liberal or conservative political ideologies. Those sharing liberal political ideologies tend to support the Democrat Party, while those associating with the conservative ideological beliefs belong to the Republican Party. In essence, political parties are beneficial in society as they allow for the realization of equal rights and freedoms at all levels of governance, upon which thrives the essence of democracy. The use of political parties to influence discriminatory or unfair policies and agendas contradicts the essence of democracy and thus harms society. The nationalist political beliefs peddled by the Republican Party under President Trump, for instance, gained massive support from both the republicans and moderates, leading to increased marginalization of the minority groups across the nation due to polarization of the nation.
Question 2
Duverger’s law captures the essence of the United States’ election structure in that plurality voting in a single geographic district allows for the dominance of the two-party system. The Republican and Democrat parties enjoy a majority share of the United States’ electorate though they are not the only parties in the nation. Voters tend to avoid the risk of wasting their votes on candidates running on third parties as they have lower chances of winning the elections and thus strategically voting for their respective parties. Politicians also tend to vie for seats using the two major parties because they enjoy large support bases for gaining the majority of votes to win the elections.
Abandoning the two-party system calls for the adoption of a majoritarian voting system where candidates may only win the elections if a majority of voters support them. Such a system requires candidates to win over 50% of the votes cast and a run-off election if none of the competitors gains the majority of votes. The system would allow candidates from less popular parties and who enjoy majority support from voters to win elections, thus allowing other parties to participate in the U.S. elections.
Question 3
The desire for reelection makes members of Congress increase their legislative activities by introducing and furthering policies and agendas perceived to be endearing to the voters. Such candidates also tend to increase visits to their districts while also increasing their members of staff and promptly attending to roll-call voting. Candidates seeking reelection, such as former President Donald Trump, embarked on claiming credit for rejuvenating the American economy in the recent election campaigns. Such electoral incentives...
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