American Politics and the Marginalized Groups - Term Paper Example

?American Politics and the Marginalized Groups Thesis: Bartels’ position on representation and economic equality in the country is supported by Frymer’s position that the changing income distribution in the United States is influenced by the contrasting policy choices by the elected Democratic and Republican presidents. 1.) Bartels” book focuses on the economic inequality and the role of politics and the politicians or elected officials representing. 2.) In Frymer’s book, he told about Clinton who was evidently distancing himself from the party’s previous efforts to implement the civil rights goals of the 1960’s if his campaign messages will be taken into consideration during his campaign for the 1992 presidential elections. 3.) The party system exacerbates, and further marginalizes the position of a historically disadvantage minority group like the African-American through the forwarding of the political agenda of the party. Counter Evidence 1.) There have been black American politicians who are members of political parties long before and they could have done something to help and present black Americans’/minorities’ interests in the legislative arena. Response: 1.) The minority is often excluded in terms of involvement in a great deal of substantive decision making. This aside from party leaders distancing themselves from any black leaders attempting to raise issues associated in subtle ways with African Americans such as contemporary welfare politics, crime, or social spending in inner cities. Name Professor Subject Date American Politics and the Marginalized Groups I. Introduction In today’s American society, politicians and their policies greatly affect the poor, or the marginalized group as evidenced by income and social inequality. The rich become richer and the poor become poorer with control over policy being forwarded and enacted by the leading political parties. In his book, Paul Frymer defined electoral capture as the result of party leaders’ resistance on mobilizing and incorporating blacks into the political system to the point of denying black Americans their democratic rights completely in their parties’ efforts to win elections (p. 6). It is my belief that Bartels’ position on representation and economic equality in the country is supported by Frymer’s position that “the most important single influence on the changing United States income distribution over the past half century is the contrasting policy choices (made by the elected) Democratic and Republican presidents” (p. 30). This paper presents and discusses Frymer’s theory regarding electoral capture and then presents and discusses Bartels’ findings about economic inequality and representation. In the end, the paper will try to prove how Frymer’s theory explains and supports it. II. Frymer’s Electoral Capture and key empirical findings Frymer defines and explains his electoral capture theory, where black voters are often considered a minority and ignored that Democratic Party leaders refuse to acknowledge the numerical support cast by black voters. He observes that the party does not give due recognition to black votes even though their votes “have often been crucial in (winning) national elections” (p. 10). He added that “opposition party leaders have generally been reluctant to even make general political appeals to blacks” (p. 10) even when they have expressed interests in transferring membership to the opposition. Marginalization starts with party leaders. Frymer argued that for party leaders, there is a negative effect on appealing to black voters and that, “public appeals to black voters will result to national electoral defeats”. This for him is the primary reason for electoral capture, where marginalized groups become even more marginalized as their interests are not represented in the legislative arena. Frymer cited several examples in the country’s political campaign and election history to support his statements. One is the November 1992 elections, where the Democratic Party had their first victory in sixteen years with Bill Clinton winning the presidential elections. Despite claims by critics that his campaign has restored the party’s biracial coalition and that victory allowed for a party that could again “represent people in the broadest sense”, many African American Democrats are less enthusiastic due to the party’s general neglect of the interests of the black democrats during the campaign, as Clinton was evidently distancing himself from the party’s previous efforts to implement the civil rights goals of the 1960’s. According to Frymer, party leaders argued that actively promoting African American concerns means difficulty in maintaining the whites’ support, particularly the New Deal coalition of southern, working- and middle-class whites. By identifying with policies which integrate blacks more into the country’s social, economic, and political institution, they are damaging the party’s appeal among key groups of white voters (p 4). Based on his studies, he states that during most events in American history, most political parties’ desire to elect candidates into national positions result to the marginalization of the African-American (p. 6). In “Uneasy Alliances”, Frymer notes that there are some compelling reasons why political parties do not mobilize and educate marginalized groups. Parties however, educate and persuade their own party members to support their interests as well as the political agenda and represent them in the legislative arena (p. 6). He also states that the party system exacerbates, and further marginalizes the position of a historically disadvantage minority group like the African-American through the forwarding of the political agenda of the party (p.6). Through the democratic process of majority rule, Frymer noted that this rule often denies a minority group the effective access to power as they are outnumbered. The minority is often excluded or left out in terms of involvement in a great deal of substantive decision making, being fewer in number than the majority (p. 7). Because of the former, the party system helps avoid devastating conflicts by appealing to racial moderates and conservative whites in suppressing or minimizing open expression of black political interests (p. 7). Through these, party leaders continue to distance themselves from any black leaders who attempt to raise issues of specific concern to black voters as well as distance themselves from issues which are associated in subtle ways with African Americans such as contemporary welfare politics, crime, or social spending in inner cities (p. 45). This resulted into further pushing the minority’s interests in the back burners, which will further marginalize black voters. His empirical findings about black Americans being marginalized are based on his observations and supported by facts gathered and presented in his book, such as the Republicans’ and the Democrats’ actions with regards to black populations from the late 1800s to 1960s, as discussed in Chapter 4. It is not surprising to learn that marginalization and electoral capture exist in the country today as history shows that both parties benefit more from favoring and presenting the white majority’s interests in the political and legislative arena to be able to win and maintain their position in the government. III. Bartels’ representation, economic inequality and empirical findings Bartels discussed representation in terms of income inequality. According to him, constituents with higher income are better represented in legislative voting. This is the result of what he says about political process in the country “evolving in ways that seem likely to reinforce the advantages of wealth”. (p. 2) According to him, since the 1950’s, elected officials have increasingly relied on the rich to finance their bids for reelection. Trends in lobbying activities have increased tremendously because of this, with membership in labor unions declining, resulting to lower representation of the working class in the government process (p.2). This is one proof that “politics also profoundly shapes economics”. (p. 2) Based on his studies, some of his empirical findings focus on economic inequality and the role of politics and elected officials representing them. He posited that policy preferences of lower income citizens have been left unattended by elected officials, forwarding only their political interests and serving the dictates of the incumbent elites (p.2). Though there are many changes in globalization and other socio-economic factors that has created increasing inequality, it is the political agenda of elected officials that reinforce or mitigate such pressures (p. 2-3). Inequality in terms of economy on the part of the middle and low income classes is a result of partisan politics and the political phenomenon as observed by Bartels (p. 3). Though America has favored for a minimum wage, elected officials have, through time and measures, allowed the value to decline by more than 40% since the 1960’s (p. 27). IV. Analysis As stated above, Frymer supports Bartels’ statements about representation and economic inequality. Both authors say that marginalization exists in the country. In Frymer’s book, he presented marginalization by discussing the plight of the African Americans in the political arena, specifically electoral capture, while Bartels presented it by discussing economic inequality. Frymer stated that many party leaders oppose the agenda of African-Americans due to racism. By this, many African-Americans are not able to significantly participate in normal political coalitions. But while this is the case, many whites are unwilling to block the black voters for fear of losing white voters sympathetic to black Americans. Leaders of the black coalition cannot represent their voters as a swing vote even if their numbers is able to influence state or local elections” (p. 10). Bartels, states that in 2005, data on income show that a typical American family earns approximately $56,200 before taxes, while one out of every five families earned less than $25,600 with a similar number, more than $103,100 with the richest 5% of American families, with incomes more than %184,500. These sample data, though do not reflect the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor family incomes, they still show a great disparity on the incomes of American families. The large gap in income between the poor and the rich shows the economic inequality on the country. (p. 6-7). Bartels’ statement about “elected officials being utterly unresponsive to the policy preferences of millions of low-income citizens, leaving their political interests to be served or ignored as the ideological whims of incumbent elites may dictate” (p.2) can be explained and proved by Frymer when he presented information about Clinton calling for welfare reform and cutbacks on excessive unemployment benefits and other spending of government that has got to do with the benefits of African Americans when he ran and won the presidential election of 1992(p. 3-4). This also proves Bartels empirical findings about politics and public policy significantly reinforcing or mitigating those pressures depending on the political aims and priorities of elected officials albeit technological change, globalization, demographic shifts, and other economic and social forces have producing powerful pressures toward greater inequality in recent decades (p. 2-3). The same goes for Bartels’ findings about minimum wage of which he states that “although Americans have strongly and consistently favored raising the federal minimum wage, their elected representatives have allowed the real value of the minimum wage to decline by more than 40% since the late 1960s” (p. 27) because elected officials paid little or no attention to the people poor enough to be directly affected by this policy change. Bartels stated that as a result of the political phenomenon, there is economic inequality on America. This stems from Partisan politics and the ideological convictions of political elites that mold the economic fortunes of middle-class and poor people (p. 3). One cannot argue these points when one considers Frymer’s points of views on electoral capture since he elaborately explained it by laying various facts and information which directly agree with and strengthen Bartels’ statements about economic inequality. And although we cannot deny that blacks have now been able to be elected in various offices locally and nationally, as proven by having a black president, marginalization still exists in the country today. As Frymer stated in his book, “a number of features of electoral capture still continue to exist and have political consequence, serving to marginalize African American interests in varying ways.” V. Conclusions: As stated in the introduction part of this paper, this paper aims to prove how Frymer’s theory supports Bartle’s theory of representation and economic inequality. Politicians and their policies greatly affect the poor, or the marginalized group as evidenced by income and social inequality. The rich become richer and the poor become poorer with control over policy being forwarded and enacted by the leading political parties. In our political system, in which Bishin says the majority is supposed to rule, it is impossible to deny the existence of marginalization and economic inequality. Unless the present political system where social identities are often politically relevant, Frymer’s and Bartels theories will always hold true for the whole country. Works Cited Bartels, Larry. Unequal Democracy. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 2008. Print. Bishin, Benjamin G. Tyranny of the Minority. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 2009. Web. 19 February 2013. Frymer, Paul. Uneasy Alliances. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 2010. Print Read More