Tag Archives: US
There are many unusual things about the 2016 election, but here are two that seem particularly telling about the anti-institutionalism of our current political moment.
First, for the first time in modern polling history we go into the general election with two candidates whose unfavorable ratings far exceed their favorable ratings.
Second, one of those candidates (Donald Trump) has never held elected office, and when asked to do standard candidate things (like, say, disclose his tax returns), his surrogates reasonably posit that “people are judging Donald Trump as to whether or not he’s someone that’s going to go to Washington and shake things up. And that’s why he’s doing so well.”
This may or may not be a winning argument, but it does speak to our times. People are so fed up with the status quo that it is at least plausible.
As they say: “time will tell”
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Leave a comment | tags: Clinton, Donald, fail, faith, fate, judging.judge, politics, polls, result, trump, US, USA, viwe, vs, whathappening | posted in Global news, International Relations
In the last years the role of pressure groups in the political process have been broadly discussed as the groups roles today seems to be unclear and the level of influence is difficult to measure. This essay will discuss. What role do pressure groups play in the British political system? Why are some groups more influential than others?
As a common definition: pressure groups are voluntary organisations formed to advance or defend a common cause or interest. Therefore they are unlike political parties in that they do not wish to assume responsibility for governing the country; rather they seek to influence those who do so. [1]To some extend, pressure groups do not aspire to govern the country and are concerned with a relatively narrow range of problems; is has been argued that much of their work is non-political but as much as their concerns and aspirations are affected by government they seek to have an influence over the conduct of public policy. Another view is “Pressure groups seek to influence rather than power, yet pluralist argue that power is effectively dispersed through the widespread influence of countless groups on government and policy making”. [2] Additionally, groups seek to defend and advance their own interest or cause, and government policy or specific decisions may affect them adversely or beneficially. Therefore they have a strong motive to seek to influence government, especially as power in the British political system is concentrated with the core executive. However, the universe of pressure groups now requires more systematic subdivisions. The problem at once encountered is that the traditional ways of doing it hardly seem adequate. The oldest classification in the technical literature is the one introduced in 1935 by Harwood Childs of Princeton University[3], who distinguished between those groups “whose community of interests is based on such fundamental differentials as age, sex, occupation and race, from those existing merely to further special ideas or groups of ideas. Furthermore, because their concerns are liable to be affected by government decisions, they need to be organised in order to influence ministers and respond to what they propose. “In Britain the tendency is to use the term ‘pressure groups’ and then to sub-divide them into different categories. The world ‘pressure’ has an unfortunate connotation and many groups operate without resorting to any degree of coercion”.[4] In both case and its simplest; pressure groups are not counting political parties that influence or attempt to influence the public authorities, mainly the central government and they traditionally operated at four main levels, seeking to influence the Executive, the Legislature, the Judiciary and the public at large. In Britain and Europe, they tend to be more closely associated with government.
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Leave a comment | tags: based, BMA, british, community, DEFRA, democracy, discuss, existence, groups, health, ideas, influence, interest, interests, link, NFU, nuclear, options, organizations, policy, policy making, political forces, political participation, political process, political system, politicians., power, pressure, public policy, representation, roles, strong, survival of system, system, UK, universe, US, values, weak | posted in British Politics, Global news
In democratic theories there is the debate whether democracy can be fully consolidated or not. There is the common argument that consolidation is possible in every democratic regime, but a ‘fully consolidation’ seems to be more unlikely. This essay will discuss: Can democracy ever be ‘fully consolidated’?
In the last decades ‘democracy has been widely recognized as the best political regime yet invented, because its citizens are both treated with respect, dignity and have some say in political decision-making’.[1] In this sense, democracy can be consolidated, but not completely. To understand this: consolidation is seen as a scale; because of multiple different factors that are used to work out whether a democracy is consolidated or not. Therefore, it would be wrong to see democratic consolidation as a dichotomy. For example; if two democracies (A,B) were equal in almost every way sharing similar political institutions, ethnic divisions, size, region, political culture; it would be absurd to classify A as a consolidated democracy and B not just because A has more equality of wealth. Instead a better classification would be to say that A is more consolidated than B. The bottom-line here is that, democratic consolidation is best understood as a scale; this means that for a country to be ‘fully consolidated’ it must be at the very top of the consolidation scale. Moreover, for a country to be consolidated it would have to be on balance more likely to it to remain a democracy than to revert back to a non-democracy. In this case; it could be argued that for such a state to exist is almost impossible as for it to do so all the possibly relevant factors would have to be a factor strengthening democracy or at least not weakening it. To a national level, even in Britain for example, the lack of a codified constitution, the rise of BNP and declining turnout can all be pointed to as factors which make Britain’s democracy not fully consolidated because under the right conditions they could make the UK slide into authoritarianism. Although this is not likely the existence of these weaknesses in Britain’s democracy still mean that the UK can’t be called a fully consolidated democracy.
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Leave a comment | tags: actors, belief, BNP, Britain, challenge, challenges, citizen, codified, completed, consitution, consolidation, country, decay, decision making, democracy, democracy promotion, democratic, electoral, elegant, elite, elites, establish, established, happiness, influence, institution, liberal, Linz and Stepan, naivity, norm, part, party, policy, political regime, politics, popular, power, promotion, regime, Robert Dahl, rules, Samuel Huntington, scale, shadow, share, society, structure, struggle, system, theories, theory, translation, tropico, UK, US, values, Venezuela, waves of democratization | posted in Global news, International Relations
How far does Britain’s special relationship with the US constrain its foreign policy?
The ‘special relationship’ is a phrase used to describe close political, diplomatic, cultural and historical relations between the United Kingdom and the United States. The term was first used in 1946 in a speech made by Winston Churchill. In recent decades, it has been argued that the’ special relationship’ is about control and how to keep both interests aligned. Today, is to believe that to a very large extent Britain special relationship with the United States constrained its foreign policy. This essay will discuss: How far does Britain’s special relationship with the US constrain its foreign policy?
As a concept foreign policy aims to ensure the security of its people and territory, promotes its aims in the international arena, and encourage co-operation with other countries. The special relationship between Britain and United States is close and robust because British and American values are essentially the same, which explains why national interests are often aligned. ‘The US-UK relationship is strong because it delivers for both of us. The alliance is not sustained by our historical ties or blind loyalty. This is a partnership of choice that serves our national interests.’[1] Still, in many aspects for both parties foreign policy is dependant one on each other. At the moment, it is evident that there is a distinctive relationship between Britain and the United States, but it exists at the top and bottom with very little in between. At the top, the common language and a degree of shared relationship and culture between leaders has clearly provided Britain with some extra diplomatic leverage with US policy-makers. At the bottom, there is a degree of detailed co-operation and understanding between the armed services of the two countries and their intelligence organizations. However, Britain and the US perhaps understood one another much less well than they assumed, despite the link of a common language. Britain was a ‘little island’, the US a subcontinent; Britain believed in the committed to the welfare state and massive state intervention in the economy; the US, at least in theory, remained committed to private enterprise. ‘Anti-Americanism in Britain was matched by certain anti-British sentiments in the US, especially among the Irish.’[2]
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Leave a comment | tags: 1970, 1982, 1983, Andrew Marrs, benefit, Blair, bomb, Bosnia, Britain, Cameron, CIA, co-operation, commitment, Conservative, constitution, constrain, death, degree, diplomatic, economy, FBI, foreign policy, Gordon Brown, institution, intervention, Ireland, iron Lady, language, Major, NATO, Obama., organizations, Parliament, people, PM, president, relations, rights, Ronald Reagan, rules, special, special relationship, state, terrorism, Thatcher, Thatcherism, UK, United States, US, US state, visa, welfare, youtube | posted in British Politics
Compare the powers of the American President and British Prime Minister. Which can provide more effective leadership?
After comparing British Prime Minister and American President roles is believed that the U.S president leadership can provide more effectiveness, the reason are the following:
The president of the US is the head of the State, while the British prime minister is the effective head of British government. In this case is believed that the US president as head of the state is able to make decisions without consulting the executive.
The Article II, Section 2 of the US Constitution determines that the president is the sole commander-in-chief of the nation’s armed forces and of the state militias when they are called into national duty. In other words, the president is given the power to require responses from the principal officers in each constituent department of the executive. As commander-in chief the president leads an armed force of almost 1.5 million. There are also many civilian personnel involved, and the Department of Defense is the largest executive department.[1]
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Leave a comment | tags: alliance, Blair, Bosnia, Brown, Bush, Cameron, Churchill, citizen, Clinton, degree, democratic, effective, equallity, EU, external, fault, foreign, leadership, Major, national interest, NATO, Obama., partnership, peace, peacekeeping, people, policy, policy making, pound, Reagan, relation, right, states, term, territory, Thatcher, UK, UN, understanding, US, war, weaponry, William Hague | posted in British Politics
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