Civics Lesson

Two questions: what is the single aspect of your nation's system of government most misunderstood by residents/citizens of your country, and what aspect of your nation's system of government is hardest to explain to people from other countries?

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The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)



Comments

[Lonespark]

I feel like what's least understood is the history of the institutions and the rules. Like, what a long process expanding the franchise has been. And rules in Congress, how they have been different in different eras.

[Leum]

I find explaining the US extremely broad free speech laws difficult, in part because it's very hard to explain to someone why you think allowing Holocaust denialism and Ku Klux Klan rallies is a good thing. To people not raised in a culture where allowing that sort of thing is indispensable, and even to many people raised in that culture, it's not easy to explain.

And, sadly, I think our protections for accused and convicted criminals are something that many of my fellow citizens don't understand at all.

[thebewilderness]

The electoral college seems to confuse citizens, while the right to free speech application by the courts seems to confuse citizens and foreigners alike.

[storiteller]

When I lived in the U.K., I found that people seriously overestimated how much power the President had over Congress and in particular, his/her own party members. I think it's because the Prime Minister is considered the straight-up leader of the party, whereas the President really isn't. But then, I think people in the U.S. seriously overestimate that too.

[Winter]

For the US, I think people have a very narrow understanding of the idea of freedom of conscience. I like that phrase a lot more than "freedom of worship" or "freedom of religion" because it does not exclude atheists or other non-religious people. Most Americans seem to think of it as "freedom to follow MY religion" or "freedom to choose from this list in my head, while making obeisance to MY religion."

This is the mindset that cannot comprehend the difference between not mandating public prayer in schools and forbidding private prayers in schools. Or, for that matter, the impropriety of opening governmental meetings with a prayer.

[Slow Learner]

For the UK, I find that very, very few people understand how the Union works; that is both for Brits and for people from elsewhere.
To outline briefly:
We have four nations (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) in one country (the UK), which is technically a unitary state (in that the Westminster Parliament strictly has the power to make decisions for the whole country, in all areas of policy).
However, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved governments, a Parliament in Scotland and Assemblies in Wales and Northern Ireland. All of these have different powers, with the remainder being exercised in Westminster.
Of course that leaves the *English problem*.
England is the largest, most populous, and richest of the four nations; as such, in the same way that poorer US States are net recipients of federal funds, the other nations in the UK receive more funding per head from Westminster than is spent in England. However, England has no devolved Parliament, so the UK Parliament makes decisions for England which, in Scotland fall to the Scottish Parliament. This occasionally led in the last government to Scottish MPs casting the decisive votes on a law which affected their constituents not at all...which is deservedly somewhat controversial. However, splitting off an English Parliament is a very difficult proposition, and there is no sensible level for English self-government above the counties - and Westminster having been steadily stripping power from County Councils for over forty years now, persuading them to devolve power to that level seems highly unlikely.

So anyway, not even Brits seem to have a very good understanding of the Union, so it's hardly surprising that non-Brits get confused. I think this is linked to the problem of people not knowing whether to refer to the UK, Britain or England and thus talking about, e.g. "The Queen of England", a position which has not existed since 1603...

[Slow Learner]

@storiteller, yes. That's something I had trouble with myself. We are used to having a Prime Minister who, by virtue of that position, is both head of the executive branch of government and also holds serious power in the legislature; in fact, if zie cannot command a majority in the legislature on either a vote of confidence or a budgetary matter, the government falls. So the idea that the President of the US, who is presented by popular culture as the most powerful man in the world, can't even run his own party, can come as something of a shock.

[Jake]

No one understands how the Canadian Senate works. In Canada, the senators are officially appointed by the Governor General (another role no one understands), but in practice they are chosen by the Prime Minister. Their terms are for life. In principle they can originate non-taxation legislation, but in practice they rarely do. Bills do have to be approved by a majority of senators before they can become law, however.

Because senators are appointed and the appointments are for life, they function as a small-c conservative house in Parliament, effectively a governor (in the engineering sense) on how fast the House of Commons can move the country.

[Ross]

The one thing I know about the canadian senate is that, canonically, the slovenly dad character on "You Can't Do That On Television" is a Canadian senator.

[Amaryllis]

@Slow Learner: I understand (more or less) the structure of the United Kingdom. And I thought I understood about counties. But what in the world is a Unitary Authority, and why is it better than a nice, simple "county"?

Um, background: according to Jasper Fforde, the Cheshire Cat is now known as the Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat. ??

As a U. S. resident, what I don't understand about my own country is the state of perpetual campaign politics we seem to be living under. We haven't even had the 2012 election yet, and the media is all on about 2016 and 2020.

That is, I understand it, I guess, I just hate it.

[Lonespark]

perpetual campaign politics

I just had a thought. I wondered if this could lead to nobody running for re-election who is serious about governing. And in positions where there's a backup person, Vice President or Lt. Governor or whatever, maybe that person would either 1) take over governing halfway through when the main person goes on the campaign trail, or 2) Be the clearly annointed successor who campaigns.

[Nick Kiddle]

//But what in the world is a Unitary Authority, and why is it better than a nice, simple "county"?//

Counties are a traditional division, and a bunch of local government reshuffles have left huge gaps between the traditional counties and the current governing areas. I've heard "unitary authority" used mostly for cities that are their own governing areas, such as Peterborough. If the governing area aligns fairly well with a traditional county, most people just say "county".

Then there are places like Scunthorpe: traditional county of Lincolnshire, less traditional former county of Humberside, now in the unitary authority of North Lincolnshire ... don't ask me why they had to make it so complicated.

[Timothy (TRiG)]

Ireland's elections are done by PR-STV (Proportional Representation by means of the Single Transferable Vote. It's a blooming complicated (and quite rare, on a global scale) system, but I like it. Explaining it takes time, though.

As for the composition of the Irish Senate. Yaaargh! David Norris, for example, is the senator elected by the graduates of Trinity College. Yes, that's one of the constituencies. A constitutional amendment was passed allowing the government to add more third-level institutions, but they've never actually done so.

TRiG.

[Amaryllis]

@Nick Kiddle: for a moment there, I thought I got it: a Unitary Authority is like what we'd call an Independent City-- that is, not part of a county government. But I guess it's not always so simple.

Speaking of Scunthorpe, how's the football these days? Or should I ask?

[Nick Kiddle]

//Speaking of Scunthorpe, how's the football these days? Or should I ask?//

I'll put it this way: a friend and I decided last week that we would drink until we'd convinced ourselves that Scunthorpe United was a figment of our rivals' imagination, cooked up so they could feel better about their own problems. It's that bad :(

[Amaryllis]

@Nick: Oh dear. That's too bad. :(

Uh, better luck next year?

[storiteller]

I'll put it this way: a friend and I decided last week that we would drink until we'd convinced ourselves that Scunthorpe United was a figment of our rivals' imagination, cooked up so they could feel better about their own problems. It's that bad :(

It's always bad when something acts like a Poe, but it's actually the real thing. I had hoped it was true for Clint Eastwood and the Republican party, but I'm afraid it's not.

[sarah]

[[Amaryllis: As a U. S. resident, what I don't understand about my own country is the state of perpetual campaign politics we seem to be living under. We haven't even had the 2012 election yet, and the media is all on about 2016 and 2020.]]

Yes.

I get the Penn Gazette, which is basically Penn's alumni magazine. Sometimes there are even interesting articles (and not just PENN IS SO GREAT LOOK WHAT WE TURNED OUT). Anyway, this month, they had an excerpt from Amy Gutmann's (Penn's president) new book on political compromise in which she writes about perpetual campaigning and how it takes politicians away from their actual job--you know, governing.

I had to take an American Government class during my freshman year of high school. They cut the class the year after, and I wonder if students are worse off for it. I learned a lot in that class.

[Nick Kiddle sees spam]

And in this thread too. Ick.