The American Nation, State, and Regime (Chapter 1) | The United States is a relatively new nation and state but has a strong sense of national identity. The regime is defined by the Constitution, which is nearly as old as the state itself. | Many countries are rooted in ethnic identities that greatly predate their modern states; others are more modern creations like the United States. Most states have experienced several changes in regime. |
The U.S. Constitution (Chapter 2) | The U.S. Constitution is the oldest and longest continuously functioning such document, although quite brief and even vague. | Most constitutions are much longer and more detailed, are significantly changed or replaced more often, and enumerate social as well as political rights. |
Federalism (Chapter 3) | The United States first introduced the idea of federalism, and both national and state governments have distinctive constitutional status and play active roles. | Most large and/or diverse countries practice federalism, but about seven-eighths of countries overall are “unitary” states with nearly all political power in the national capital. |
Separation of Powers (Chapter 4) | The United States has a robust system of separation of powers with effective checks and balances among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, each of which is largely autonomous of the others. | Parliamentary systems have no separation between legislative and executive authority. Many other countries with separation of powers, as in Latin America and Africa, tend to be strongly dominated by the executive. |
The Executive Branch (Chapter 5) | The U.S. president is both the country’s ceremonial head of state and hands-on head of government. Due to separation of powers, the president does not answer to Congress and can exercise significant powers unilaterally. The U.S. bureaucracy is comparatively small and dispersed between the national, state, and city levels. | Parliamentary systems have purely ceremonial heads of state, while prime ministers act as head of government as long as they control a parliamentary majority. Nondemocratic countries also tend to have very strong executives. Many developed countries have large, centralized bureaucracies that form a national elite. |
The Legislative Branch (Chapter 6) | The upper and lower houses of the U.S. Congress, the Senate and the House of Representatives, have equal authority. Congress has a great deal of power, but it is widely dispersed due to relatively weak parties, independent-minded members, and strong committees. | Most parliamentary systems have very strong lower houses but much weaker upper houses that mostly review and revise rather than initiate laws. Parliaments tend to be heavily dominated by the ministers they elect. In nondemocratic countries, legislatures usually play a consultative rather than governing role. |
The Judicial Branch (Chapter 7) | The courts in the United States are an independent, coequal branch with the power of judicial review to strike down laws and executive acts as unconstitutional. Judges play an active role in the governing process. | Most court systems are more limited in their scope, dealing more with the case before them than with issuing broad legal rulings. Some countries have constitutional courts with judicial review, although few in practice can easily override executive or legislative acts. |
Unconventional Political Participation (Chapter 8) | Since the Civil War, the United States has experienced limited political violence. Nonviolent political protest has been more important, especially since the 1950s. Social movements and interest groups flourish, although they are not usually organized along lines of class. | Many countries experience great political violence, with challengers seeking to overtake the government or form a breakaway state. Political protest, both violent and nonviolent, is also common. |
Voting and Elections (Chapter 9) | The United States uses a “single-member plurality” system in which each elected office has its own election with a single winner, whoever gets the most votes. | Most countries use some form of proportional representation (PR), in which each election produces several winners from multiple parties on the basis of the percentage of the vote won. |
Political Parties (Chapter 10) | The United States has a stable, long-term two-party system, with the two parties agreeing on many fundamental political, economic, and social questions. The two major parties are decentralized and cannot readily control their members. | Largely because of PR, most countries have multiple political parties that win votes and elect officials to office. These parties often have more means to control their members and are more powerful than most interest groups, with the possible exception of organized labor. |
Political Opinion and Mass Media (Chapter 11) | Public opinion in the United States has some distinctive features, particularly religiosity and skepticism of big government. U.S. mass media are the most unregulated in the world, which has both positive and negative effects. | Citizens of most developed countries hold more liberal views on issues relating to religion and morality and are generally more in favor of activist government. Freedom of expression exists and is widely protected in most democracies, but may be less absolute than in the United States. |
Domestic Policy (Chapter 12) | The United States has a long tradition of civil liberties, particularly freedom of religion, expression, and due process guarantees under the law.... |
