How was the American political system established?

Although the United States was founded just over 200 years ago, it has been the number one power in the world for more than half a century. Although there are many reasons for the development and stability of American society in the past two hundred years, the democratic system has contributed a lot. At the same time, people have also criticized the American political system, one of which is the inefficiency of decision-making, because the government's inability to make decisions can no longer adapt to the rapid development of today's society.

The formation of any social system has its profound roots. The emergence of political system is not only related to the corresponding productivity level, but also closely related to its historical tradition, social life, cultural background and dominant political philosophy. Studying and investigating the American political system in this way and principle will help us fully understand the advantages and disadvantages of American politics.

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The United States is a typical capitalist democracy. Democratic values and principles are mainly embodied in American political system and practice, such as separation of powers, representative system, party politics, interest group politics, press freedom and civil rights. American government agencies, including legislative, executive and judicial systems, perform their respective duties and restrict each other. They are direct decision makers. In addition, the United States is a society with diversified powers, and various social forces such as political parties, interest groups and the media also participate in policy formulation. Robert Dahl, a modern American political scientist, believes that the United States is a typical pluralistic democracy. In a pluralistic democratic society, people live in different interest groups, and democratic decision-making "is not a process in which many people unite to March solemnly to the government on specific policies, but a process of steady compromise among groups." Pluralistic democracy in the United States is characterized by decentralization of power or diversification of power centers. Therefore, the political life of the United States is the process and result of the interaction of multiple power centers.

An important principle of democratic politics is "majority rule". However, because the political process in the United States is reflected by the operation of multiple power centers, and the number of power centers in the United States is still increasing, it is really not easy to reach a consensus on some major issues and formulate relevant policies quickly and promptly in American politics. In this way, the efficiency of decision-making can not be very high. . For example, the social welfare and social security system in the United States came into being during President Roosevelt's New Deal in the 1930s. This system has made some achievements, but it has also accumulated many contradictions. When Clinton entered the White House, he vowed to "end the current welfare system in the United States", and regarded medical reform and welfare reform as the two major social reform goals during his term of office, and successively put forward reform plans for them. However, because the current social security system involves the interests of countless groups, the health insurance industry is most firmly opposed to the reform plan. There was a fierce debate among interest groups, which eventually turned into a partisan struggle. Congress and the president tear each other down. When Clinton left office, his health insurance reform plan had not yet been realized. In addition, on issues such as environmental protection legislation and gun control. We can also find a lot of evidence of the inefficiency of the US government's decision-making. Among them, the issue of gun control is particularly prominent. Although opinion polls show that 60% of Americans are in favor of making gun control laws, gun control legislation has been delayed. The proliferation of guns in the United States has become a serious social problem. "At present, there are more than 200 million privately owned weapons in the United States, and this number is still increasing at an annual rate of 65.438+0 million. The gun crime rate in the United States has always been the highest in the world, and the losses caused by gun crimes are also amazing, about 674 billion US dollars per year. " In recent years, there have been many shootings in the United States, which has aggravated people's concerns about this issue. The proliferation of guns has caused many negative effects on the public order and stability of American society and the legitimate rights and interests of citizens.

When efficiency is associated with government decision-making, this concept has two meanings: one is the ability to put plans or ideas into practice; And the ability to make decisions by considering existing information as much as possible. In today's era of informationization and globalization, the American government, like other governments, has also encountered many new problems, and the handling of these problems requires the government departments to make quick and timely responses, so the requirements for the efficiency of government decision-making will be improved accordingly. Therefore, people naturally doubt whether American politics can meet the challenges of the high-tech era. Many people are skeptical about the flexibility of American politics and put forward various reform plans. This raises a very interesting question, that is, is there a contradiction between democracy and efficiency in American politics?

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On the surface, it is difficult for any policy under a democratic system to obtain the consent of the majority, and the decision-making efficiency cannot be very high. However, after further analysis and research, it is found that the problem is not that simple. This paper attempts to explore the relationship between democracy and efficiency in American politics from the following aspects.

(A) democratic politics is the basis of the legitimacy of the government.

"The history of western political thought depicts the development and interpretation of a set of values-justice, freedom, equality and inviolability of private rights. Therefore, people have always been concerned about the extent to which the system has promoted these values that are considered to be the core of the regime. " The most important value of American politics is freedom. Patrick Henry's famous saying "Give me liberty or give me death" became the ideological weapon for colonial people to resist British rule and strive for independence during the American War of Independence. The political ideology behind this kind of values is liberalism. Liberalism is a set of theories about the relationship between individuals, society and countries, which has a profound and lasting impact on American politics. Liberalism is based on individualism, which emphasizes individual freedom, individual participation or individual economic activities, and holds that the nature of the individual determines the nature of the collective. The law stipulates the relationship between individuals and the state, freedom and coercion, the scope of application of the coercive power of public authorities, and also contains the necessary legal structure to regulate the relationship between individuals and authorities.

In the eyes of America's early founders, freedom equals life. However, the relationship between freedom and power is an eternal problem that puzzles mankind. A basic feature of American political psychology is that people are full of doubts about absolute and unlimited power from the beginning, insist that power is the natural enemy of freedom, and vigorously advocate the theory of limited government. James madison, known as the "father of the American Constitution", once said in 1792: "In Europe, the charter of freedom has always been granted by power. The United States set an example that was later followed by France, that is, the Charter of Power was granted by freedom. " "The exercise of power is the key for western institutional theorists to realize social value; What they care about is to ensure that the exercise of government power is controlled so that the exercise of government power will not undermine the value that government power intends to promote. "

In American politics, the value orientation of "individual freedom and protection of civil rights" is the first. "Democracy is an instrumental value and the most effective means to protect individual freedom, or from the perspective of individual rights, the democratic system is the most legitimate. Because of this, democracy has become "the core component of American political culture, which determines Americans' positions and views on government and politics." [8](p. 16) Since Locke put forward that the legitimacy of the government comes from the consent of the ruled, this principle has always been regarded as a standard by western political circles, especially in the United States, which regards freedom as its life. Therefore, on the issue of the state, American politics recognizes the necessity of the existence of the state, but regards the state as the price that human beings have to pay in order to live an orderly life. In order to limit this necessary cost to a small extent, American politics is committed to limiting the power and functions of the state. "There are two ways to restrict it: one is to form internal checks and balances between state power institutions in a decentralized way to prevent arbitrary power; Second, limit the activity space of state power and emphasize the rights of individuals and civil society. " In short, it is to establish a democratic constitutional system with separation of powers, and at the same time make the government's power spread to the society. Various measures to restrict state power in turn become the institutional basis for inefficient government decision-making.

The efficiency of decision-making means that the government makes decisions in time and quickly, thus ensuring the effective implementation of policies. Judging from the historical and political system, the authoritarian system has the highest decision-making efficiency. But the problem is that once the efficiency is overemphasized, the authority will be strengthened, and the actions of the whole society will be highly coordinated, which may damage individual rights and freedoms, and the negative consequences of state power that Americans are worried about will appear. Therefore, from the perspective of the early founders of the United States, they did not need a strong central government and were afraid that an efficient government based on a high degree of centralization might do harm to freedom. They just want to establish a mutually restrictive and even contradictory government framework and inefficient democratic system, so that the government has little chance to interfere in personal life and ensure citizens' freedom and other democratic rights.

Therefore, in American politics, democracy involves the legitimacy of the government, while efficiency is another category, and the two cannot be compared. In modern society, doing things according to democratic procedures is not just a system, but a universal belief, far beyond the scope of efficiency.

(B) the definition of public interest

An important reason for criticizing the inefficiency of American democratic political decision-making is that it harms the interests of the public. When the government needs to make timely and decisive decisions on some major issues related to national interests or the overall interests of the whole nation, the disadvantages of low decision-making efficiency are obvious. But there is an indispensable premise for affirming the efficiency of decision-making, that is, the decision made with high efficiency is correct and in line with the public interest. How to ensure the correctness of decision-making has become the core of the relationship between democracy and efficiency.

The United States is an immigrant country, and people differ greatly in race, nationality, language, economic status, cultural background and religious beliefs. It can be said that the United States has been a society with diversified interests from the beginning. In such a society, the contradiction of interests is particularly complicated. "An important role of the American political system must be regarded as its task, that is, to ensure minimum consistency in a potentially explosive and diverse society." Coordinating various conflicts of interest is not only the national conditions of the United States, but also the requirements of American society for its political system.

In a society with very complex and diverse interests, is there what people usually call * * * interests consistent? There are two different answers to this. Most scholars believe that there are public interests in a society that exceed the accumulation of various private interests or the sum of local interests. Public interest exists objectively and will not change with the different understanding of various stakeholders. The opposite view is represented by Truman, who pointed out that "if all kinds of group interests are put aside, there will be no abstract public interest." Interest groups provide the necessary link between the people and the government, and the process in which countless groups pursue their own interests is the process in which public interests are determined. "In other words, different stakeholders pursue their own interests, and after struggle and bargaining, they reach a temporary balance on the basis of mutual restraint and compromise. This is the public interest in one way or another.

On the surface, the difference between these two views lies in whether to recognize the public interest, but the author thinks that the core of their differences is the way to define the public interest. Public interest exists objectively, but it is also inseparable from people's level of understanding. It can be said that public interest is the unity of objective existence and subjective judgment. In a society with centralized power, the individual or group of rulers have the privilege of explaining or judging the public interest, and they can make decisions quickly on some major issues, thus ensuring the efficiency of decision-making. However, such a decision is only the judgment of a few people, and mistakes will inevitably occur on major issues, which will harm the interests of the public. Historically and realistically, authoritarian regimes often make decisions according to their own subjective assumptions, and some efficient decisions are more likely to harm the public's interests. I don't mean to equate efficiency with autocracy, but it can't be ignored that the authoritarian centralized government did make wrong decisions and even implemented tyranny on the grounds of "public interest" or "efficiency".

The subordination of the minority to the majority is an important principle of democratic politics. However, on a wide range of issues, decision-making concerns the interests of many stakeholders. In order to safeguard their own interests, all relevant groups participate in the political process and have endless disputes with each other. So, they hold their own opinions, bargain, discuss without deciding. Therefore, it is difficult to get a majority in any major decision in American politics. Once the conflict of interests between relevant interest groups reaches irreconcilable level, the government will not and cannot make decisions easily. From another point of view, the reason why this happens in the decision-making process is precisely because the issues discussed are of great importance. If we make decisions hastily and quickly from the perspective of decision-making efficiency, it will lead to social unrest. Put some particularly important issues on hold for the time being, and don't make decisions in a hurry, so as to have more time to discuss, brainstorm, fully reflect various opinions and achieve maximum understanding. In this sense, some major issues can't be discussed, and sometimes it's not a bad thing.

In essence, American democracy does not emphasize the issue of public interest, although it does not exclude the concept of public interest. American politics emphasizes that the judgment and definition of public interest should be determined through appropriate channels and procedures, not just by subjective understanding. In American politics, democracy is the procedure and way for citizens to participate in decision-making. Individuals or groups participating in democracy should completely pursue their own interests. They use democratic procedures to express their self-interest, and through the process of interaction, bargaining, compromise and concession of various interests, in order to reach a consensus on some major issues, so as to reach an agreement. Democracy is conducive to the formulation of compromise policies, which often reconcile the differences between various interest groups and power centers and represent the opinions with the smallest differences among interest groups. As Dahl said, "the foundation of democracy is compromise." [1 1](p.4) and this compromise is not only conducive to resolving conflicts of interest, but also enables public interests to be defined through legal procedures and channels.

Judging from the results of policy implementation, the inefficiency of decision-making does harm the public interest to a certain extent, but this defect of democratic system is the price paid to prevent the centralized system from causing greater harm to the public interest. Some people say that democracy does not necessarily guarantee the best, but it avoids the worst. This is the truth.

(B) the gradual nature of reform

Efficiency is mainly aimed at the degree to which a political system meets the basic functions of the government. The viability of a social system depends not only on value judgment factors such as "democracy", but also on efficiency. Value judgment and orientation solve the problem of whether political rule is legal or not. With the expansion of government functions and the continuous improvement of people's requirements for the government, efficiency has become increasingly prominent, and it has risen from the original non-value judgment to one of the factors of value judgment. If the efficiency of a government is repeatedly destroyed, its legitimacy will also be affected, the contradictory primary and secondary relations will be transformed, and the legitimacy foundation of an extremely inefficient government will be shaken. But based on the mechanism and adaptability of democratic politics itself, this situation will not happen.

Every society seeks progress and development, however, the social and political system determines the way of social change. Under the system that emphasizes efficiency, when instability attacks social order, the common way is to strengthen authority and promote social progress through radical changes or revolutions, which often lays a hidden danger for another instability. Democracy can bring social stability and progress through gradual reform. American society has developed steadily for more than two hundred years, and the political system has played a considerable role.

The American political system has a revolutionary tradition, but this tradition opposes extreme social changes and advocates maintaining the existing structure of American society. Early American politicians advocated respecting the gradual legal order in the Constitution. Will said well, "Americans are Democrats, but they are conservative Democrats;" They are revolutionaries who oppose the revolution. " [9] (Page 7)

There are many power centers in the political process of the United States. There are contradictions and struggles between them, but at the same time they are constantly coordinating to reach a consensus. Policies are not formulated through great and solemn debates on the premise of striving for abstract national interests. Policy is only the result of bargaining, and the purpose of bargaining-compromise is to agree. Such a decision-making mechanism is regarded as an important symbol of American democracy. More importantly, the United States not only has such a democratic system, but also contains the means of reform.

In a centralized society, the reform on narrow issues (such as gun control) is relatively easy to realize and the decision-making efficiency is relatively high; However, in a decentralized democratic society, it is possible to carry out broader and more sustainable reforms. Linde blom believes that a decentralized society may actually be in a state of "constant revolution". [12](p.652) The United States did not systematically and comprehensively study the significance of various options when formulating policies, and the policy change was only a series of minor adjustments to the existing policies. This gradualism is adopted because it is impossible to speculate that drastic reforms will bring complex and changeable consequences and repercussions, and also because the political process of decision-making requires a series of power centers to reach a consensus. An important social force is unwilling to carry out radical reform, but they may agree to carry out preliminary and cancelable experiments. This gradual decision-making process is to avoid destroying the basic social and political structure. In this sense, it is conservative. But in some cases, a series of gradual changes will happen soon, and after a long period of accumulation, fundamental changes will take place, which will lead to the overall progress of society.

American politics certainly needs reform. From the development history of American politics, it experienced the transition from confederacy to confederacy, witnessed Roosevelt's "New Deal" and witnessed the revival of conservatism in the middle and late 20th century. The focus of this series of changes is how to define the scope of state power, which can also be understood as the interaction between democracy and efficiency. The American political system adjusted between democracy and efficiency according to the actual situation at that time, but this reform and adjustment was carried out in a gradual way. Similarly, American society can only make some slow and inefficient progress in correcting unfair phenomena or stopping behaviors that damage the environment and health.

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From the above analysis, we can see that democracy and efficiency are contradictory to some extent in American politics, but the solution of this contradiction cannot be achieved by abolishing the democratic system. "The way to eliminate the disadvantages of democracy is more democracy." The author has no intention to beautify the American political system, let alone ignore the importance of government decision-making efficiency. Many disadvantages of American society do have their institutional reasons. In some key policy areas that require coordinated and effective actions, the compromise approach seems to have potentially destructive effects. Compromise politics based on the principle of unanimity gives the interested power centers the opportunity to delay and modify the final policies. The government cannot efficiently solve many issues that need centralized management and involve public interests, resulting in inconsistent policies, waste and inefficiency.

A government that gives consideration to both democracy and efficiency is people's ideal and goal. But in terms of human feelings, there is no gain without paying the price, and so is the beautiful pursuit of the political system. The experience of political science research tells us that any solution is based on creating new problems. Therefore, don't expect a once-and-for-all solution, there is no once-and-for-all political system. No political system is perfect. For the future of American politics, Hilsman optimistically pointed out at the end of his book How America is Governed, "From any angle, the political process in the United States is far from perfect. But it has its advantages, and more importantly, this political process may be improved. Due to the limited knowledge of human beings, it is difficult to estimate the effect of the reform of social, economic and political institutions, so it is wise to carry out the reform slowly. "