Controvesies
Following feedback from lecturers and students, a new feature of this edition is the inclusion of “controversies”. These case studies can be used to inspire debate within the classroom.
The book features ten “controversies” discussing subjects such as immigration, federal versus state power, non-voting, the decline in social capital, the Supreme Court, gun control, foreign economic policy and the bush administration.
A selection of controversies from the book are featured below:
Controversy 1 – Immigration: Are greater controls needed?
Controversy 3 – Non-voting: Does it matter?
Controversy 8 – What's so wrong with gun control?
CONTROVERSY 1
IMMIGRATION: ARE GREATER CONTROLS NEEDED?
Immigration has been a source of controversy in American politics since the first part of the nineteenth century. Throughout, critics of immigration have argued that mass immigration would “flood” the country with people who were culturally alien and/or would fail to contribute economically. Hence, the Irish, southern and eastern Europeans, Jews, east Asians (Chinese and Japanese) and, most recently, south-east Asians and, in particular, Hispanics from Central and South America have successively been the target of anti-immigrant sentiment.
Originally, opposition came from “nativist” Americans, or those who believed that the “purity” of the northern European Protestant stock would be corrupted by the new arrivals. Indeed, the 1924 Immigration Act was specifically designed to favour north-west Europeans (see p. 21). In the event, the southern and eastern Europeans against whom the law was directed became fully assimilated into American society. Today the debate is argued on what at first look like different grounds, although racist nativist sentiment persists in places. There are three main dimensions to the current debate. First, opponents of immigration argue that many Hispanics, and especially immigrants of Mexican origin, hold a greater allegiance to the mother country than to the USA . Unlike earlier waves of immigrants, they maintain their linguistic and cultural identity across generations. Second, illegal immigration is widespread across poorly policed borders. Third, they argue that during difficult economic times, the new immigrants – and especially their children – constitute a strain on hard pressed welfare and social services.
While illegal immigration is a serious problem – although hardly a new one – the other criticisms have little foundation in fact. We simply do not know how the Mexican American community will develop over time. Precisely the same criticisms were directed at Italian, Jewish and Polish communities at the beginning of the twentieth century. As for constituting an economic burden on social services, in the longer run the opposite is likely, for immigrants play a large part in bringing down the average age of the American population. As such they or their progeny may be the very people who will pay the taxes to finance the pensions and medical care of older, longer established Americans.
None the less, anti-immigrant sentiment is on the rise, as a number of statewide initiatives and immigration control bills in Congress testify.
CONTROVERSY 3
NON-VOTING: DOES IT MATTER?
According to rational choice theory – the school of social behaviour arguing that all an individual's political actions are motivated by self-interest – rational citizens rarely have an incentive to vote. In other words, the costs of voting, including actually registering and travelling to the polling station, are usually greater than the benefits – the chance that an individual vote will make a difference to the outcome. In the vast majority of cases the individual vote makes not the slightest difference. (The major exceptions are elections with very small electorates; for example, committee or small town meetings.) Indeed, most of us know perfectly well when we go to the polling booth that our one vote will not, on its own, count. Instead we reason collectively rather than individually and assume that the total of votes for a particular candidate is what matters. It could be argued that in the United States , where turnout is low, a more individualistic political culture has deterred ‘rational' citizens from voting. Moreover, American political parties are made up of broad coalitions of interests rather than particular groups and interests. It is therefore more difficult for citizens to make a close identity between their own interests and those of a party. Compare this with Northern Ireland , for example, where it would be almost inconceivable for a Protestant to vote for Sinn Fein or for a Catholic to vote Unionist. Perhaps not surprisingly, turnout in Northern Ireland is high.
This analysis implies that, by some measures and notably voter rationality, it does not matter that election turnout is low in the United States . However, there is a further dimension to US turnout, which is simply the fact that, as in all other countries, low turnout is closely correlated with social class. Low-income Americans vote the least; higher-income better-educated Americans vote the most. Moreover, unlike in some other countries, non-voters often permanently exclude themselves from participation in the electoral process and fail to vote throughout their lifetimes. This phenomenon has led some commentators to conclude that political alienation among the disadvantaged is greater in the US than elsewhere. The fact that so many poor and disadvantaged people do not vote also helps to skew the electoral agenda towards the middle class and the rich. As a result, the claim is that political parties are reluctant to pursue redistributive policies in such areas as taxation, health and education for fear of offending the majority of middle-class voters.
This sociological analysis is partly contradicted by the technical reasons for not voting, such as registration laws (see pp. 107–9). Whatever the causes and consequences of non-voting in the US , deep concern at the low levels of turnout remain. Most observers agree that when citizens fail to participate in the democratic process, the system can lack legitimacy. This in turn can have serious longer-term consequences for the constitutional order.
CONTROVERSY 8
WHAT'S SO WRONG WITH GUN CONTROL?
Foreign observers of the US scene are constantly amazed at the passion with which many Americans defend their right to own firearms. Most opponents of gun control cite the Second Amendment to the Constitution in support of their position. The amendment reads: ‘A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state , the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.' In recent years the debate over gun control has intensified, not least because of the increasing evidence – much of it publicized by the national media – of the link between violence and the availability of firearms. Periodic assassinations and assassination attempts as well as mass shootings have added impetus to gun control advocates. Some of the first federal laws were introduced following the assassinations of the 1960s (John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King) and further measures were taken in the wake of the attempt on Ronald Reagan's life in 1981. Hence, the so-called Brady Bill (named after James Brady, the president's press secretary, who was disabled in the attack) requires a waiting period and background check for gun purchases. More recently the 1994 Crime Control Bill banned a range of assault rifles.
Tighter controls, including safety locks on all hand guns and more stringent checks on purchasers, have so far foundered in Congress – even when (as the tragic events at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, in 1999 showed) access to deadly weapons remains easy. (Two teenage boys murdered 13 students and teachers and then shot themselves.)
Opponents of gun control and especially the lead interest group in this area, the National Rifle Association (NRA), insist that what is needed is not more control but public education. With such slogans as ‘guns don't kill people, people do', they argue that to restrict access to guns would not only be unconstitutional but would be the thin end of the wedge on the road to the removal of all liberty. Federal legislation is regarded as particularly pernicious because it represents the spread of ‘big government' and the advance of a centralized state against individual freedom. The NRA is also opposed to state controls on gun sales (and some states such as Massachusetts have imposed quite Draconian restrictions), but knows that in many southern, mountain and western states state legislators will continue to oppose restrictions.
Politically, the issue has taken on new salience in recent years as large numbers of voters – and especially women – have become increasingly angry at the failure of government to protect the innocent against gun outrages. The position taken by the NRA and its president, conservative movie star Charlton Heston, is increasingly viewed as extremist. Even so, presidential candidates such as George W. Bush still cannot afford to take a strong anti-gun stance. For among many Americans the right to own a gun remains an ‘inalienable right'.