United States Political System

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The political system of the United States comprises the state institutions, the political decision-making processes and their outcomes as the sum of the laws and regulations in the United States . It is based on the constitution of 1787, which in turn incorporated state theories of the Enlightenment . Because of historical developments, US foreign policy has become an unusually strong constant in the political system.

In the 2019 Democracy Index, the United States ranks 25th out of 167 countries, making it an "incomplete democracy".

Constitution

After the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the Articles of Confederation were adopted in 1777 as the forerunner of the American Constitution that is in force today. The articles reflected the strong self-assertion of the thirteen founding states, which only formed a loose confederation . Although there was a joint congress that had the right to decide on war and peace, taxes and laws were levied individually in each state and partly shared with the central government through a complicated pay-as-you-go system. This practice created widespread economic problems that were exacerbated by the war with Britain . In this respect, the founding fathers decided to revise the constitution. The final version of the American Federal Constitution was adopted in Philadelphia in 1787 .

The constitution consists of seven original articles and 27 amendments . This short length for a constitution goes back to case law and to Germanic and English common law legal traditions.

The final constitutional text represents a compromise solution between the Democratic-Republican Party , proponents of a decentralized state structure on the one hand and representatives of a strong central government on the other, the federalists . While some did not want to be determined by an overpowering central authority, they saw others their salvation in a hands-on, centralized community. In order to make an agreement possible, the anti-federalists accepted a second state level, the states, whereas the federalists recognized the central authority. In addition, the opponents of federalism were able to prevail with their demand for a comprehensive catalog of fundamental rights, which became a model for many other constitutions worldwide. Known as the Bill of Rights, this set of guaranteed rights consists of the first ten amendments to the constitution.

Introducing the ten amendments to the constitution ( Bill of Rights )

The constitution of the United States provides for the federal government to be a presidential republic , in which the president unites both state and government leadership. The president is indirectly elected by the elected citizens of the United States for four years.

The legislative body is called the Congress , which consists of two chambers , the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives is elected every two years. The number of representatives per state is determined in the House of Representatives in proportion to the size of its population and is redetermined in the census every ten years. In the Senate , a third of the members are elected every two years. Every state, regardless of size, is entitled to two senators. The constitution tries to establish a system of mutual control between the state organs ( checks and balances ). On compliance with the Constitution of the wakes Supreme Court (Engl. Supreme Court ).

The aversion to a disproportionate strengthening of the federal government also shapes the constitutional reality to this day, which can be seen in specifically American principles for the organization of the distribution of power. The strong executive , of which the president is the central actor, is delimited by a system of reciprocal power restrictions and entanglement . The powers of the president therefore extend further than those of most heads of government of parliamentary countries; In return, the President of the USA is forced to work with Congress due to a lack of resolution.

In the political discourse of the United States of expression is central government ( "Central Government") in use, of a pejorative connotation concerning central government has controlled Affairs and implies an ignorance of the federal over local affairs. However, the term is better translated as "state" in the sense of the word, since many Americans view not only the actions of the executive branch, but also judgments of the state's Supreme Court as interference in state law.

Core values

The political and legal culture of the United States is deeply shaped by core beliefs. These are documented in some political-theoretical documents, which meanwhile enjoy the status of constitutional documents. These include, above all, the Constitution, the United States Declaration of Independence, and the articles of federalism .

The constituent ideals of the USA go back to the striving for independence of the originally almost exclusively Protestant settlement and enlightenment-minded nobles, citizens and the previously unknown large landowners ( gentry ). In England this class gradually implemented the parliamentarization of the monarchy.

Freedom of belief and secularism

The far-reaching freedom of conscience and expression goes back to the circumstances of the white colonization of North America. The movement of the Pilgrim Fathers , who led them, arose in England in the late sixteenth century , which was marked by brutal religious conflicts . In 1620, Puritans who crossed the Atlantic on the subsequently famous sailing ship Mayflower , sealed the Mayflower Treaty , in which the future settlers, as is commonly understood, committed themselves to building a free and just community. Although the white colonies in North America were dominated by Protestants for centuries, the colonists rejected the formation of a state church due to their dissent with the Catholic clergy and the temporary oppression by the Catholic and state-Anglican clergy . For this reason, the United States has remained strictly secular to this day . Therefore, national and state holidays are a reminder of events in United States history and are mostly used to create extended weekends. Christian holidays are only taken into account for their actual duration and are not used to establish general rest periods as in Europe. Specific Catholic holidays are not taken into account by politics.

Despite religious freedom and the actual separation of church and state, politics is influenced by Christian values. The president's speeches usually end with the words “God bless you”. The Union's motto has been In God We Trust since 1956 , before that it was de facto E pluribus unum . It appears in the state emblem as well as on coins and banknotes.

In the various federal states that have educational sovereignty, as in Germany , there are also different influences of Christian beliefs in the school system. On the other hand, the jurisprudence regularly enforces a strict separation of state and religion. For example, prayer in public schools is unconstitutional. The school prayer is an ongoing political controversy in the political culture of the United States.

freedom of speech

To the idea of liberalism in the United States includes the conviction that one should forbid anyone, his opinion to say. This view is enshrined in the first amendment to the constitution and has always been recognized by the courts.

Freedom of expression has been partially curtailed, especially in recent years. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act has made publicizing methods of evading copyright a criminal offense. Critics therefore also speak of censorship . The use of vulgar swearwords and the depiction of nudity or other performances classified as harmful to minors on terrestrial radio and television are strictly regulated by law. In order to prevent persecution by the FCC , numerous broadcasters are relying on "censorship machines" that enable the delayed broadcast of live broadcasts. Furthermore, conservative and classically liberal circles in the United States perceive the political correctness, which has been widespread since the 1980s, as a threat to freedom of expression.

Political extremism, on the other hand, is given a fairly broad freedom of expression. For example, membership in openly National Socialist associations, the use of National Socialist symbols or the denial of the Holocaust are not prohibited, unlike in many EU countries.

"Right to happiness"

When the Declaration of Independence was filed, its author quoted Thomas Jefferson from John Locke's “Two Treatises on Government” and adopted his postulate that it is reasonable to understand that every person has the right to life, liberty and happiness . In view of a lack of social consolidation and in connection with a secularized modification of the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, the latter led to the idea of ​​the American Dream . With the unbalanced economic order and the real dependence of the colonies of the United States on trade with the indigenous peoples of the continent and metropolitan England, all of this in turn led to the spread of virtues such as personal responsibility. Ideological preferences such as belief in the market economy and free trade were also decisive . This conviction soaked only with the global economic crisis and the apparent success of the New Deal of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the early 1930s slightly.

Sovereignty in domestic and foreign policy

The idea of sovereignty plays a crucial role in the values ​​of American society , both internally and externally. There is a strong sense of subsidiarity in domestic politics , while externally the United States has always distrusted excessive submission to international agreements and the feared loss of sovereignty.

Especially after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 , this theory was temporarily postponed in order to adapt to the circumstances. In addition, the federal authorities FBI and CIA as well as the Ministry of Internal Security were given numerous special rights to take action against suspected terrorists, sometimes by circumventing certain basic rights.

Political culture

The party system in the United States is dominated by the Republican Party with a conservative orientation and the Democratic Party with a left-liberal orientation. Both parties are poorly structured and organized compared to many other democratic states. Some political scientists therefore speak of electoral associations . Local political issues dominate the programs of the respective constituency candidates. Thanks to the comprehensive system of primaries , they also have no monopoly in the selection of candidates. The cost of campaigning in the United States is often very high, and campaign contributions and their origins are an important issue when the independence of candidates and officials is called into question.

The United States is considered unusually stable for a presidential system of government . With over 200 years of democratic tradition, it is one of the oldest uninterrupted democracies in the world.

Power structures and distribution of power in the American system

The distribution of power and influence in the US political system has been assessed differently in the political and social sciences, with two different perspectives opposing each other. On the one hand, advocates of the so-called theories of pluralism such as Robert A. Dahl characterize the American system as a polyarchy in which political power is widely dispersed within society and the subject of open competition. Other scholars note the political dominance of a small power elite . The sociologist C. Wright Mills believed that intertwined elite circles from politics, the military and business set the tone in the USA. According to the sociologist G. William Domhoff , it is a small and financially strong economic elite that determines the basic guidelines of politics through a complex network of political foundations , think tanks and political advisory agencies .

A 2004 report by a working group of the American Political Science Association , the largest association of US political scientists, warned that fundamental ideals of US democracy were currently in serious danger. While social inequality in the United States is increasing significantly, the privileged and wealthy would participate in politics more and much more effectively than the lower income groups. This in turn influences the actions of the government, which accordingly takes more account of the concerns of the wealthy than those of the lower classes.

A study published in 2014 by the political scientists Martin Gilens ( Princeton University ) and Benjamin Page ( Northwestern University ) showed that the elites prevail when the preferences of a majority of citizens conflict with the elites. Gilens and Page do not directly characterize the United States as an " oligarchy " or " plutocracy ", but tie in with the idea of ​​a "civil oligarchy" as used by Jeffrey A. Winters: "Winters has a comparative theory of 'oligarchy' in which the richest citizens - even in a 'civilian oligarchy' like the United States - dominate politics on crucial issues of property and income protection. " In their study, Gilens and Page came to the following conclusions:

When the majority of citizens disagree with economic elites and / or organized interests, they generally lose. Because of the strong status quo bias built into the US political system, a larger majority of Americans generally do not get a policy change, even if it advocates a change. ... The preferences of the average American seem to have only a tiny, statistically insignificant influence on policy . - Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, 2014

Parties and Associations in the American System

The US party system is very different from many European party systems, including the German one. The two big parties in the USA, the Republicans and the Democrats , have hardly any continuous party structures, no mandate to form an opinion, and appear at the federal level mainly in presidential elections . The constitutional convention of 1787 did not provide for any parties either. In the second half of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th, a “rule of the bosses” (am .: boss rule ) was the dominant pattern in the big cities , with a clique of local politicians trying to use the votes of the immigrant voters.

While German parties have many roles to play, the main role of the American two-party system is their recruiting function. Unlike in parliamentary systems, there is no classic party membership with contribution payments and hierarchical work through from the local level upwards. Rather, many voters see themselves as sympathetic Democrats or sympathetic Republicans by embracing the more progressive goals of the Democrats or rather the economically liberal and conservative goals of the Republicans, by being for or against abortion or restrictions on arms purchases.

Organized interest groups in the USA are broken down into corporate, employee, professional and agricultural associations and citizens 'groups that can represent broad interests (e.g. environmental protection) or single issues ( e.g. the gun owners' lobby of the National Rifle Association (NRA)). In addition, think tanks and foundations influence the political opinion-forming process and play a much greater role than in Germany, for example.

Referendums in the USA

In the United States, referendums take place in the legal systems of individual states; B. California , a big role, but often suffer from low turnout in the votes. For this reason, and for reasons of economy, they are, if possible, placed on the day of an election of more general interest. In connection with the 2004 presidential election, for example, 163 referendums were held on a wide variety of topics in 34 countries. Referendums vary from state to state, and there are up to 56 different types of referendums in the United States alone.

Certain laws - such as tax cuts or the abolition of race quotas in public institutions - can only be enforced by referendum for political reasons. Referendums are politically important at the local level (in counties, cities, school districts, etc.), as elected representatives must always be prepared for the possibility of legislation being annulled by a people's veto.

Another variant of the referendum is the recall , which elected representatives are subject to during the election period. For example, B. the deselection of California Governor Gray Davis to a new election in which Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected as the new governor.

Federal violence

executive

president

The president is considered to be the center of power in the political system. His position is more influential than that of prime minister or chancellor in parliamentary democracies, since it combines the functions of head of state and head of government. Under no circumstances may the President be a member of the legislature. In parliamentary democracies, on the other hand, the executive is mostly divided. B. with the Federal President as head of state and the Federal Chancellor as head of government - and embedded in parliament.

The strong powers of the US president are balanced by a comprehensive system of power control and power entanglement mechanisms, the so-called checks and balances . The relationship between President and Congress is of central importance. Unlike in parliamentary democracies, the executive does not emerge from parliament, but is largely separate from it. The president has no formal rights of initiative in the legislative process. Instead, the domestic “success” of a president manifests itself through his ability to informally bring Congress into line on legal issues, for example through the “ State of the Union Address ”. However, the president has a suspensive veto right (suspensive veto right), so he cannot prevent laws, but can delay their adoption. This means that the draft law can be voted again.

In addition to these manifestations of the President as a state organ, he is the head of the American executive and, with the approval of the Senate, appoints the ministers (English secretaries ). He is also Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces; however, the power to declare or end war rests with Congress. Under certain conditions and under parliamentary control, the president can order military operations and has access to nuclear forces. In addition, the president is the top diplomat in his country. Ambassadors and international treaties must, however, be confirmed by the Senate.

The election of the president also shows clear differences from the usual practice in parliamentary systems. The formal requirement for the highest office in the state is any native American who is at least 35 years old and has been permanently resident in the United States for 14 years. Because there is no standing party structures such as in Austria here, the nomination of suitable candidates through primary elections ( primaries ). In these open or closed area codes, the citizens of the individual states choose their favorite among several alternatives. The winner of the primaries is then chosen by the delegates of the " National Conventions ", a kind of party congress, to be the presidential candidate of a party concerned. The actual election campaign still requires the candidates to make extensive use of their own funds, which, in addition to donations, have been expanded by a principle of state campaign support that has existed since the 1970s.

Because of this strong position of the president and because a simple by-election by parliament is not possible, detailed rules about his successor are necessary. The successor to the president is regulated by the constitution and the Presidential Succession Act of 1947.

Vice President

The vice president of the United States has two functions: he is the deputy president in the event of permanent incapacity or death. In this case, the Vice President immediately becomes the new President and takes on this office until the regular end of the predecessor's term of office. If the president is only temporarily incapable of office, for example due to an operation, the vice-president can perform the president's duties on the basis of the 25th amendment to the constitution . In addition, he is the President of the Senate, where he does not have the right to vote , but his vote is decisive in the event of a tie. In addition, the vice-president is a de facto member of the executive branch and performs ceremonial tasks.

Executive Office of the President

Executive Office of the President overview

The Executive Office reports directly to the President and consists of various independent units:

  • White House Office: includes, among others, the personal assistant and advisor to the President and the Chief of Staff (Engl. Chief of Staff ).
  • Office of Management and Budget : primarily responsible for the federal budget
  • National Security ( National Security Council ) and National Security Advisor : acts as a central authority in foreign policy decision-making. In addition to the President and Vice-President, the Council also includes the Foreign and Defense Ministers as well as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , the Director of the Office for Emergency Planning and the Director of the CIA .

Presidential election

One of the few acts by which one affirms a party is registering in the primaries and donating to a party or candidate. The American system has no country lists in the presidential election. If an American wants to run for president, he can register either as an independent individual or as a representative of a party. The latter has the advantage of receiving more support and more money.

If there are several candidates, the primaries begin. Here, the individual states choose their favorites from the party candidates. A distinction is made between “open” and “closed” area codes. While you have to register as a party voter in closed primaries, in some states theoretically all voters can vote on the presidential candidate, for example the Democrats. Each state then sends a delegation to the so-called “National Conventions” - a kind of party convention - at which the candidates are chosen in the summer of an election year. Formally, electors do not have to vote for the candidate chosen by the majority of their state's voters. However, the primary elections, which were only introduced in the middle of the 20th century, contributed significantly to the disempowerment of the parties, because previously unknown but charismatic candidates also received high approval ratings across the country through success stories in the primary elections.

The hot phase of the presidential election campaign begins in August and ends in November. The national elections always take place in a year that can be divided by four without remainder, on the Tuesday following the first Monday in November. Unlike in Germany, parties are not the most important actors in the election campaign. Rather, main election campaigns concentrate social forces - above all the so-called PACs ( Political Action Committees ), which take on election campaign management, the distribution of donations and the support of candidates and parties. PACs are groups from the social environment that have been brought into being by an individual, company, party, lobby group or similar structure. Since anyone can advertise for any candidate, most of the campaign support takes place in this way. Since large donations to candidates have been strictly prohibited since the introduction of public campaign support, the PACs have another central task: collecting donations. Donations without size limits can only be forwarded to a party and to a candidate through a PAC. Since companies and trade unions can also set up appropriate groupings, campaign assistance is usually provided to several candidates at the same time.

The constitution does not provide for a direct popular election of the president. Instead, the citizens of the United States choose electors ( Electors ), which in turn in turn elect the president and vice president. The number of electors per state is equal to the number of state congressmen. Each state is therefore allowed to send at least three electors, as each state sends two senators and at least one member of the House of Representatives. The original reason for the indirect election of the president by electors was not only the distances between the original thirteen states, but also the founding fathers' fear that the people of a state would prefer a candidate from their state. So populous states would have a great advantage in the election of the president. Since the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution , which came into effect in 1961, residents of the District of Columbia have also been able to vote in the presidential elections. Previously, they were not allowed to do so because this area is administered by Congress itself and is not a state. In the presidential election, this district sends three electors.

The constitution leaves it to the individual states in which way the electors are appointed. Originally the electors were partly elected by direct popular vote, partly determined by the legislature of a federal state. By the middle of the 19th century, however, electoral elections had prevailed in all states, and South Carolina was the last state to introduce it in 1860. Together with this tendency, the principle of the winner takes it all developed , i.e. a majority vote at the state level. The party that has a relative majority of the votes in a state sends all of the state's electors. Since the states determined the electoral code, there are exceptions to this rule: Maine and Nebraska elect their electorate for each House of Representative constituency and two additional electorates (corresponding to the two senators of each state) nationwide. A simple majority decides both in each constituency and nationwide. This also makes it possible for electors from different parties to be elected, but this is very rare because these two states are rather small and politically relatively homogeneous. On the occasion of the 2004 presidential election , there was a referendum in Colorado , with the aim of voting for the state's electorate by proportional representation (again according to a different system than in Maine and Nebraska); however, the vote failed.

The presidential election campaigns in the USA concentrate on the so-called “ swing states ”, ie those states in which the election results are considered to be open. Since in the non-swing states, i.e. those in which it is clear which party will win, the other party will not get a single voter anyway, this party usually foregoes any noteworthy commitment in this state and instead relies on the swing states.

According to the constitution, electors meet on the second Wednesday in December and elect the president and vice-president. The elections take place separately for each state, the founding fathers wanted to prevent corruption and trade. The electors cast one vote each for a president and one for a vice-president. Either the president or the vice-president must come from a different state than the electors. The winner of the election is the candidate who has an absolute majority of the electoral votes.

The electors are not formally bound by the voter's vote. So-called unfaithful electors do indeed occur sometimes, but mostly in cases in which a clear vote is already clearly foreseeable. In 1836, however, Richard Mentor Johnson , Martin Van Buren's vice-presidential candidate , was unable to secure the absolute majority of electors required. According to the constitution, the decision then went to the Senate, which still elected Johnson.

The election of the Vice President was changed with the 12th Amendment to the Constitution . Previously, the electors cast two votes for a presidential candidate, although this candidate was not allowed to come from the electors home state. This was intended to dampen the imbalance in the populous states. The candidate with the most votes then became President, and the candidate with the second most votes became Vice President. This system was originally designed for a political system without parties. However, as parties emerged, this resulted in the president and vice-president coming from different parties and working against each other. After a stalemate between the two first-placed candidates Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr in the 1800 elections , the House of Representatives only elected Jefferson President after 36 ballots. The 12th Amendment was just created to prevent this from happening in the future.

The indirect election of the president via electors is controversial. The main points of criticism are above all the distribution of electoral votes, which does not exactly correspond to the distribution of the population. Since a state always has two more votes than the number of representatives in the House of Representatives, this leads to an overweighting of low-population states. For the 1988 election, the seven most populous states ( Alaska , Delaware , District of Columbia, North Dakota , South Dakota , Vermont and Wyoming ) with a total of 3,119,000 eligible voters had 21 electoral votes, just as Florida with 9,614,000 eligible voters. Because of this and the principle of majority voting, it is possible for a candidate to be elected President who did not receive a majority of the votes cast. In fact, such a case occurred as early as 1824 ( John Quincy Adams ), 2000 ( George W. Bush ) and 2016 ( Donald Trump ). The case that a candidate was elected who received only a relative majority of the votes cast also occurred 15 times, in the 20th century among others with John F. Kennedy in 1960, Richard Nixon in 1968 and Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996.

Proponents, on the other hand, argue that the electoral system was not originally intended to represent the majority in the population alone. Instead, the indirect electoral system is a compromise that ensures that only candidates are elected who can rely on both sufficient popular support and the broadest possible base in different countries.

legislative branch

congress

The Congress does not see itself as a parliament in the classical sense, but as the highest legislative instance. The American bicameral system , which consists of the Senate and the House of Representatives, is called Congress . Both chambers jointly carry the legislative procedure and have the extremely extensive power to approve expenditure. In addition, Congress must be consulted when entering into treaties with foreign powers; he has the formal power to declare war, prosecute federal officials, judges, cabinet members and the president for offenses (" impeachment "), and he has the right to conduct interrogations and to request appropriate documents. Both houses thus represent an effective counterweight to the president, whose success is measured by the ability to bring the congress “on its line” (“checks and balances”). Group discipline based on the German model does not exist in the United States because the parties play only a minor role. For a long time, senators and members of parliament did not see themselves as representatives of the party and as a counterweight to the president. However, the willingness to reach a bipartisan consensus has decreased significantly, especially since the 2000s, so that there has been extreme polarization between the two major camps that paralyzes the work of Congress.

Congress does not have the right to dissolve itself, nor can it be dissolved by the president or express his distrust in him. In addition, no member of the legislature may hold an office in the executive or judiciary (incompatibility).

House of Representatives

The House of Representatives is the legislative will-representation of all Americans, which corresponds most closely to the German Bundestag. Representatives from all states, from the District of Columbia and extraterritorial administrative units (without voting rights in plenary) are elected according to a proportional representation principle . That means: every two years (every even year) it is re-determined how many MPs per state move into the House of Representatives. Each state sends at least one MP (e.g. Alaska with a small population has only one MP and California has 53). The final number of MPs is determined according to the population of the country. There are currently 435 House members. MPs must be at least 25 years old, have been US citizenship for seven years, and be resident in the state that appointed them. Votes are based on majority voting, i.e. H. The candidates who received the relative majority of the votes in their districts are elected. The votes for all other candidates are meaningless. A majority voting system, according to Duverger's law, in principle favors the emergence of a two-party system, which is very clearly visible in the United States. This secures the system against - even minor - changes, so a green party has just as little chance as a left socialist party. The House of Representatives has equal rights with the Senate in the approval of laws, except for budget proposals in which the House of Representatives has the right of initiative. Its rules of procedure stipulate that all bills relating to the budget and social security systems must go through the Committee on Ways and Means .

See also: Congressional constituency

senate

The Senate forms the legislative representation of the American states at the federal level and is thus the second chamber of parliament. Unlike the composition of the House of Representatives, all states (not the District of Columbia ) each send two senators. These are also directly elected for six years by the electorate after a relative majority election, with a third of the senators standing for (re) election every two years (every even year). Therefore, at least two-thirds of the senators are people with some national legislative experience. The Senate is largely on an equal footing with the House of Representatives in legal matters, but it must approve the appointment of ministers, federal judges, ambassadors and other high-ranking state officials, and it decides on impeachment cases after an indictment by the House of Representatives under the chairmanship of the highest federal judge. A unique feature of the political system is the fact that the Vice President is ex officio Chairman of the Senate. Although he only has voting rights in the event of a tie, this double function theoretically undermines the strict separation of all executive and legislative bodies, but this procedure avoids a possible stalemate. The Senate usually elects a pro tempore president , ie a “temporary president” who presides over the day-to-day work.

Judiciary

The Supreme Court is the highest federal and at the same time constitutional court and the only judicial organ mentioned in the constitution. It currently presides over nine judges who are confirmed by the Senate on the proposal of the President and then, if they do not resign, are appointed for life. The Court of Justice does not have a formally regulated mandate to review the constitution, but exercises it as a result of the judgment in Marbury v. Madison out. Unlike in Germany, for example, his work does not include the abstract control of norms, but only the constitutionality of concrete cases that are referred to him via thirteen courts of appeal. The Supreme Court is the first legal point of contact for central federal issues, including legal disputes with foreign consuls or maritime law.

Territorial division

The United States is divided into 50 partially sovereign states , which in turn are divided into counties and townships , cities, villages, other types of municipalities, and other independent or subordinate institutions. The organizational form of the political system is that of the federal state. There are therefore several levels of government: federal, state and subordinate levels.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Democracy-Index 2019 Overview chart with comparative values ​​to previous years , on economist.com
  2. ↑ See Bernd Arnold: Political parties, referendums and referendums: Studies on the relationship between direct and representative democracy in Switzerland (PDF; 207 kB). Dissertation, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, 2004, p. 200.
  3. ^ Robert A. Dahl: Pluralist democracy in the United States. Conflict and consent. Chicago 1967.
  4. ^ C. Wright Mills: The American Elite. Society and Power in the United States. Hamburg 1962.
  5. ^ G. William Domhoff: Who rules America? Challenges to corporate and class dominance. New York 2009.
  6. ↑ American Democracy in an Age of Rising Inequality (PDF; 368 kB). Task Force on Inequality and American Democracy Report , APSA Paper, 2004.
  7. ↑ Martin Gilens, Benjamin I. Page: Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens . In: Perspectives on Politics . tape 12 , no. 3 , 2014, ISSN  1537-5927 , p. 564-581 , doi : 10.1017 / S1537592714001595 ( cambridge.org [accessed October 11, 2019]).
  8. ↑ Martin Gilens, Benjamin I. Page: Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens . In: Perspectives on Politics . tape 12 , no. 3 , 2014, ISSN  1537-5927 , p. 564-581 , doi : 10.1017 / S1537592714001595 ( cambridge.org [accessed October 11, 2019] "... When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy. ... ").
  9. ^ Boss rule. In: The Handbook of Texas Online. Retrieved October 26, 2009.
  10. ↑ Hannes Richter: The increasing political polarization in the USA as a challenge. In: Austrian Society for European Politics : Policy Brief No. 27, 2016.