"B-1 BOB" LEARNS ABOUT HIS DISTRICT

The chapter opens with the story of the surprising defeat of long-time incumbent Republican Congressman Bob Dornan by the lesser-known and more inexperienced Loretta Sanchez. Dornan's staunch support for defense (hence the "B-1" nickname) and vociferous attacks on liberal opponents earned him election to nine terms in the conservative 46^th District in California's Orange County. However, during the 1990s, the district changed from being a primarily white, middle-class bastion to one of mostly minority and working-class composition. Dornan campaigned as he had done in the past, stressing his conservative themes. Sanchez, on the other hand, actively courted minority and working-class voters, and connected Dornan with the anti-immigrant policies of California's Governor Pete Wilson.

Dornan's failure to change his message and issue stands with the changing nature of his district proved fatal to his electoral chances. Hispanics, low participants in previous elections, not only increased in numbers but also in their voting turnout, thereby helping to fuel Sanchez's narrow victory in 1996 and her wider-margin reelection against Dornan in 1998.

The opening vignette thus illustrates several structural influences on American politics, such as how demographic changes, and social and economic factors more generally, influence political outcomes. The impact of changing structural factors such as the economy, society, international system, and political culture are the focus of the chapter.

AMERICAN SOCIETY: HOW IT HAS CHANGED AND WHY IT MATTERS

The United States is a racially diverse society and is becoming more so every year. This section examines how the American people have changed and why the change is important. Some periods of immigration were marked by anti-immigration agitation and demands on public officials to curb the flow of immigrants, and the current wave of Spanish-speaking immigration has generated political and social tensions. Many Americans seem worried about the rising tide of immigration. In 1994, Californians approved Proposition 187, which barred welfare, health, and education benefits to illegal immigrants (federal district court has declared the Proposition unconstitutional). Congress considered a bill in 1996 to drastically cut the number of legal immigrants and passed a measure to better protect U.S. borders against illegal entrants. Legislation has been passed in several states to make English the official language. In 1998, California banned bilingual education. Although the doors to the United States have been relatively wide open for immigrants since the early 1970s, these doors may be closing a bit in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

As tough economic times set in, many other Americans grew increasingly resistant to government programs whose benefits are targeted to specific minority groups. Racial division between blacks and whites has been an especially important feature of American society and its politics. African-Americans are much worse off economically than white Americans and have suffered discrimination; as a result, they have been much more supportive of an activist role for government in providing jobs, public services, and protection against discrimination.

This chapter considers the roles of population growth and population diversity; the political ramifications of urbanization, suburbanization, and the reverse migration that accompanied the rise of the Sun Belt states and the decline of the Rust Belt, which have led to changes in the relative political power of the states. The transformation of the occupational structure that was brought on first by the Industrial Revolution and later by the shift of employment from factory and farm to the office matters a great deal in our society. Emphasis is placed on political implications that flow from structural factors such as population and occupational changes.

In a relatively short period of time, the United States has changed from a society in which the largest percentage of the population lived in rural areas to one in which the largest percentage lives in suburbs. Population movement has also had a significant political and economic impact. This was originally a nation of rural and small-town people, but industrialization led to rapid urbanization. After World War II, movement to the suburbs followed unprecedented levels of government spending on highways and mortgage loan guarantees for veterans. Population movement was accompanied by diminished political power for rural areas and small towns. Currently, exurbia-the areas beyond the older, first ring of suburbia-is the fastest growing part of America's metropolitan areas. The shrinking tax base for central cities makes it difficult to provide essential public services. There has been significant movement west and south as employment opportunities shifted.

The United States has one of the highest standards of living in the world, but there is mounting evidence that Americans are not entirely happy about their living standards. The median income of American families has barely improved in real dollar terms between 1973 and 1993. From 1994 through 2000 the high-tech economic boom spurred household incomes to rise among all demographic groups. Median household income feel every year from 2001 to 2003 catapulted by the recession of 2001 and the jobless economic growth that followed. Changes in household income can have important political effects. Discontent generated by unmet expectations probably plays an important part in rising hostility toward taxes, new immigrants, and welfare recipients.

The disparity between rich and poor has been high among Americans for a long time and is becoming even more pronounced. While mean family income stagnated and declined, the income and wealth situation of the very richest Americans improved substantially. By 2000, the top 20 percent of households took home almost 50 percent of national income, the highest proportion ever recorded. The decline of the middle class has had notable political implications for American politics. Middle class anger was undoubtedly a factor in the defeat of incumbent President George Bush in the 1992 election. A similar middle-class anger was aimed at congressional Democrats in 1994 and gave the Republicans control of Congress for the first time in 40 years. While the economic boom of the 1990s brought real growth to all economic classes and increased American satisfaction and confidence in the future, the current economic instability could re-kindle middle class discontent.

THE AMERICAN ECONOMY

The U.S. economic system is based on capitalism, sometimes called a market economy or a free enterprise system. A capitalist economy has two defining features: private ownership of the means of production, and markets to coordinate economic activity. The development of foreign competition in American markets is used to illustrate several of the structural factors that shape American politics; many developments that occur in the economy and in society affect issues that become part of the American political agenda.

As with other structural factors, the economy was transformed over a period of time. The economy was characterized by numerous small enterprises before the Civil War, originally linked to agriculture. The Civil War helped spur the Industrial Revolution, and the economy became increasingly industrialized after the war. Industrial enterprises grew to unprecedented size in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, accompanied by transformations in technology, corporate law, and industrial organization. The transformation in the relative position of the United States in the world economy - and what to do about it - have become important issues in American politics.

Steady growth in the size, health, and economic importance of corporations continued (except for the period of the Great Depression) until the early 1970s. Corporations were consolidated into massive units, and played increasingly important roles in the economy. The largest American corporations gradually globalized after World War II. American corporations dominated world markets during this period. Globalization affected U.S. foreign policy, with economic interests placing American political leaders under great pressure to pay attention to developments and events in other areas of the world. Although the U.S. economy continued to grow in the 1970s and 1980s, its rate of growth began to fall behind that of Western Europe and Japan. American corporations began to face intense competition from foreign corporations.

Between the early 1970s and the late 1980s, the U.S. share of world manufacturing declined; a large part of the reason was the lower share of its gross domestic product (GDP) that the United States devoted to fixed investment in plant, equipment, and research and development as compared to the percentage spent by major competitors. The United States lost its position as the world's preeminent and unchallenged economic power. The relative decline of the United States in the international economy had important political consequences. These consequences included a devastating impact on workers' wages, increasing protectionist sentiments accompanied by proposals to shield American industry from foreign competition, and influences on public policies, including federal taxes, education, social welfare, national defense, and business regulation. During these years, the United States also lost its position as the undisputed leader in world finance.

The American economy rebounded in the 1990s. The economies that were once seen as the principal threats to America's position began to lose ground, and American corporations were better positioned to succeed in the new global economy. The most important characteristic of this new global economy is the integration of most of the world into a single market and production system. The determination of where dollars are needed is made almost entirely by private and institutional investors, not governments. Global corporations no longer depend on their home country citizens or governments to generate the investment capital they need. U.S. corporations are proving to be the dominant actors in the new global economy, and the new dynamism of the American economy has several effects that are politically consequential. There is some question as to whether or not the pace of globalization and America's growing dominant role in it can continue. The 2001 economic recession, the 2002-2003 jobless economic growth, as well as the collapse of dot-com, high-tech and telecommunications companies, the shaken confidence created by financial chicanery and growing concerns about terrorism could possibly chock off the blood flow of globalization.

THE UNITED STATES IN THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM

World War II propelled the United States into a position of leadership. The United States emerged from the war as the economic, political, and military power among the Western nations. For the first time, the United States was willing and able to exercise leadership on the world level. At the same time, the Soviet Union entered the postwar era with the world's largest land army, superpower ambitions of its own, and a strong desire to keep border nations of Western and Southern Europe in hands it considered friendly. The Cold War, which began in the late 1940s and lasted for four decades, characterized that era of tensions between the United States and Soviet Union. The United States and the Soviet Union became adversaries in conflicting political, economic, and ideological policies.

Dramatic changes occurred in the world political, military, and economic systems in the 1980s and 1990s, centering on the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the break-up of the Soviet Union into independent republics. The bipolar world of the post-World War II years has given way to a multipolar world with multiple centers of power as the United States has found it increasingly difficult to lead Europe and Japan on economic, trade, and military matters. With the end of the Cold War, the role of the United States has changed significantly in a new world order that places economic concerns before military ones. The United States, while still a military superpower and very powerful economically, often cannot influence what other nations, even allies, do. Most Americans now recognize we cannot go back to isolationism, and must be involved in world affairs, with the debate not centering around whether the U.S. will play a world leadership role, but how it will do so.

THE FOUNDATION BELIEFS OF AMERICAN POLITICAL CULTURE

Public policy tends to reflect our ideas and beliefs as a people. Fundamental beliefs that have political consequences make up the American political culture. Your text deals with the general outlines of American political culture, including the influence of competitive individualism, the importance of private property and private enterprise, a distrust of government, the core beliefs of democracy, freedom and liberty, and political tenets such as populism. Another is piety - on the whole Americans are far more religious than people in most other democratic nations. There is a great deal of evidence that Americans share a political culture. A broad consensus seems to exist among Americans on many of the fundamental beliefs that shape our political life. The political culture is interrelated with the market, competitive individualism, and private property.

The behavior of citizens and political decision makers are influenced by certain beliefs about what kind of political order is appropriate and what role citizens should play. Freedom (also called liberty) is at the top of the list of American beliefs and is more strongly honored here than elsewhere. Paradoxically, there have been many intrusions on basic rights over the course of American history. Democracy - one of the foundations of the American belief system - was not highly regarded during the early part of our history.

STRUCTURAL INFLUENCES ON AMERICAN POLITICS

Chapter 4 deals with the main features of American society, economy, political culture, and the international system, and how each influences important aspects of politics and government in the United States. These structural factors are interrelated, and each helps define the others. One of the recurring themes that appears throughout this book is the substantial growth in the size, reach, and responsibilities of the federal government. Much of this growth is related to changes in the structural factors that are described in this chapter. The authors believe that four structural factors are especially important in shaping what is going on in the political system today (the threat of terrorism, the emergence of the United States as the world's single superpower, rapid technological growth and changes in the demographics of the American population).

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