Forums in the Master of Public Administration

By Roberto Miguel Rodriguez

Discussion points published throughout all the courses of a Master of Public Administration at American Military University

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Oct 3, 2018
• ISBN: 9780359134076

Book preview

Forums in the Master of Public Administration

Forums in the Master of Public Administration

Forums in the Master of Public Administration

PADM520 – Public Administration in Society

NSEC 610 – National Security and Globalization

PADM 612 – Public Finance

POLS 620 – Legislatures and Legislative Behavior

PADM 610 – Public Management

PADM 620 – Local Political Administration

PADM620 – Local Political Administration

PADM 699 – Public Administration Capstone

PADM520 – Public Administration in Society

WEEK 1 DISCUSSION

This week students will answer the discussion questions:

What is the difference between a true democratic form of government and a Constitutional Republic?

Does the United States have a true democratic form of government or do citizens of the US enjoy living in a Constitutional Republic?

How are minority viewpoints protected in the US Republic?

What is the difference between a Republic and Parliamentary form of government?

In old Athens, the citizens used to gather together to deliberate on all important issues concerning the city, including issues of war and peace. This was so because the citizens were relatively few. In a country of over 300 million people and growing, it is not possible to put all the population in city hall to deliberate issues and the form of constitutional republic was devised as a good compromise. The citizens will have the right to elect the politicians and the politicians are supposed to represent the constituencies which elected him or her. In this manner, some principles of democracy are retained, while at the same time delegating the legislative power to those individuals elected by the public. The constitutional republic obviously requires a Constitution, and the United States has one which has endured the test of time. This Constitution limits the powers of the elected officials, including the President of the country, protects the rights of all individuals including those who disagree with the elected politicians and establishes a judiciary system to check out whether the laws passed by the elected officials conform to the principles established in the constitution.

The United States has a republican form of government (Box, 2014, p. 31). In the United States citizens enjoy living in a Constitutional Republic, because a pure democracy would be impossible, at least until now. Today, with sophisticated new technologies, it could be possible at least in theory to submit all laws to the population for approval, although this is unlikely to be done anytime soon. Let’s say that the country decides to go to war, but before this can be done the decision has to be submitted to the whole population, which has to vote yes or no. This will be a pure democracy. The United States is a constitutional republic, and voters have an opportunity, every so often, to replace the elected representatives with new individuals, but after they are elected there is little control that the voters can exercise over their representatives. However, some authors believe that we are both a republic and a democracy, because democracy does not necessarily have to be exercised in its pure form and can be implemented in a representative variant (Volokh, 2015, p. 1-2).

The rights of the minority of the population, those who voted for the person that was not elected, still have certain rights provided by the constitution and its bill of rights. These people can criticize the elected government, join organizations, publish their ideas and enjoy all the political rights protected by the laws of the nation. If these rights were not protected, then the majority could take decisions which could abuse the minority. The majority could decide, for example, that all the wealth of the top one percent should be distributed among all the citizens. The majority may want to do that but the constitution protects the rights and property of that one percent minority. They can be subject to higher tax rates but their wealth cannot be confiscated because doing so is prohibited by the constitution. In a democracy unrestrained by a Constitution, the majority can impose a tyranny on the minority (Horowitz, 2011, p. 2).

A republic is a form of government where power resides with the elected representatives. A republic comes in many forms. One of these forms is a parliamentarian form of government, where the people elects the members of a parliament who then elect or nominate a president or somebody by another title who has the functions of president in the United States. In the republic the citizens elect both the legislators and the president.

Democracy has been accepted in most parts of the world as the best form of government. In general, it can exist in its pure form, by direct vote of the people, or representative, where the people is represented by elected officials. However, democracy is a flexible term which can take the most ridiculous forms. Many of the former communist governments in Eastern Europe, Asia and the Middle East had the name democracy in their official names, such as the German Democratic Republic, the Democratic Popular Republic of Korea and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen.

References

Box, R. C. (2014). Public administration and society: critical issues in American governance. (3rd ed.). M.E. Sharpe. Preface and pp. vii-38

Horowitz, D. (2011). We the People: A Constitutional Republic, Not Democracy. Red Estate, September 16 http://redstate.com/dhorowitz3/2011/09/16/we-the-people-a-constitutional-republic-not-a-democracy (accessed September 5, 2016.

Volokh, E. (2015) Is the United States of America a republic or a democracy? Washington Post, May 13 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/05/13/is-the-united-states-of-america-a-republic-or-a-democracy/?utm_term=.f89e4c816a9b (accessed September 5, 2016.

NSEC 610 – National Security and Globalization

Based on the readings, offer a brief definition of globalization and analyze why it can be seen as a security issue from the individual, state, and systems-levels. Focusing on one facet of globalization, please provide a contemporary example that supports your security argument

Globalization has both positive and negative aspects

Globalization is not a new phenomenon. It has existed since people could communicate and trade with other people by whatever means. However, in the post-Cold War years, globalization has embraced the world and made everybody experience its positive and negative aspects. Globalization reduces the distance between people and countries and makes possible a rapid exchange of goods, services and ideas. Greatly helped by modern technology, globalization is an unstoppable event to which nations and people need to adapt or perish. Globalization and extensive trade relations can improve the standard of living of people but can also highlight the differences between the haves and have-not in society. It helps the rich become richer while inevitably some segments of the world population continue to live in misery. Developing countries in general have been slow to integrate into the world economy (World Bank, p. 1).

Modern nations such as the United States are affected by globalization in many ways. Not only has globalization intensified the commercial links of American companies and corporations throughout the world but has allowed the average American citizen to enjoy a variety of relative cheap but high-quality products never before seen in the supermarkets and department stores (IMF Issues Brief, 2008. p.1). Globalization also has increased the capacity with which criminal gangs and terrorists can communicate with each other and plan acts of sabotage or conspiracy against the American public. Jihadists in Indonesia can share their operational plans with extremists in the Middle East (Naim, 2009, p. 28). Technology has worked both on our side and against our interests. Enemy countries have stolen business and state secrets, opening secret communications as painless than the United States was able to break into the Japanese military code or the British to break into the German’s Enigma machine. Globalization has changed the way in which we think about security (Cha, 2000, p. 391). Globalization has opened an opportunity to countries such as China and India which are rapidly integrating their economies into the world trade system. The rise of the rest means that eventually the loss of the top-dog status will not be a trivial matter for the average American (The Economist, 2011, p. 2). However, this American loss of status is not yet in the horizon.

Globalization has influenced the individual because we can acquire grapes from Chile and kiwi from New Zealand at relatively modest prices. It has influenced the state because new threats are now possible. The surge of extremism in many parts of the Middle East is a constant headache not only for the United States but for most of the countries in the world. Lastly, globalization has affected the system because it has helped in the development of a transnational culture, the growth of multinational organizations both corporations and non-profit organizations and has made the world more complex.

References

Cha, V. (May 2000). Globalization and the Study of International Security. Journal of Peace Research 37(3), 391-403.

IMF Issues Brief. (May 2008). Globalization: A Brief Overview.

Naim, M. (Mar/April 2009). Globalization. Foreign Policy, 171, 28-3 https://edge.apus/edu/access/content/group/security-and-global-studies-commonNSEC610 (accessed 5 September 2016).

The Economist. (2011). A Game of Catch-up: Special Report The World Economy http://www.economist.com/node/21528979.print (accessed 5 September 2016).

World Bank. Globalization and International Trade

How are minority viewpoints (not rights or ethnic groups) protected in the federal government?

The first amendment to the Constitution protects our right to speech, to assemble, to practice our religion and to petition our government. It protects minority views for expressing their opinions regardless of how unpopular these opinions may be. The Supreme Court watches whether these rights are protected and from time to time comes up with a decision reaffirming these rights. The minority viewpoints can be manifested even in what many of us think is outrageous behavior – burning the American flag. On June 11, 1990, the Supreme Court declared that all laws against desecrating the flag are unconstitutional and that the government could not stop citizens from desecrating the nation’s flag. A more recent event was when Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the national anthem saying that he was not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color (Business Insider, 2016, p. 2). A few days later President Obama agreed that the player had a right not to stand for the national anthem. As in the flag situation, many Americans see not standing for the national anthem as something unpatriotic, something that should not be used to convey a political message or to complain about a problem in society. However, our Constitutions and our laws are unique in the world because minority views are protected by the federal government.

Santerria, an African religion practiced by some 70,000 Cubans living in South Florida, uses animal sacrifice during their religious rites, something that was forbidden by the state of Florida. In 1993, the Supreme Court ruled that Florida’s ban on ritual animal sacrifice violated religious freedom of the followers of the Afro-Cuban religion and authorized this group of people to continue doing something that most of us find disgusting.

References

Gaines,  C. Colin Kaepernick refuses to stand for the national anthem again. Business Insider, September 1, 2016 http://www.businessinsider.com/colin-kaepernick-takes-knee-national-anthem-2016-9 (accessed September 7, 2016).

Greenhouse, L. The Supreme Court: Animal Sacrifice; Court, Citing Religious Freedom, Voids a Ban on Animal Sacrifices. The New York Times, June 12, 1993 http://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/12/us/supreme-court-animal-sacrifice-court-citing-religious-freedom-voids-ban-animal.html (accessed September 7, 2016).

Today, there is an effort in Congress to cut funding to Planned Parenthood (the majority position).  How is the minority position on this issue protected in the federal government?

Hi Prof. here I go again…

Planned Parenthood receives about $ 400 million nationwide from the federal government to keep, among many other services, legal and safe access to abortion for poor women. Although the non-profit organization provides many other non-controversial services, such as Papa tests, breast exams, tests for sexually transmitted diseases and others, the main opposition by Congress is the organizations abortion services, which represent only three percent of all the Planned Parenthood budget (Planned Parenthood, p. 3). However, even if Congress were to cut the budget of Planned Parenthood, women still will have a right to have access to abortion, if such abortion is allowed by law. The federal position on abortion was expressed by the US Supreme Court in 1973 in the famous case Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, which codified, regulated and limited whether, when and under what circumstances a woman may obtain an abortion (Guttmacher Institute, p. 1). In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) the Court affirmed that a woman had a right to abortion until fetal viability, rejecting the Roes trimester framework. In addition, doctors still can open an abortion clinic and perform abortions. Although 45 states have laws which allow individual health care providers to refuse participation in an abortion, there are physicians willing to perform the procedure.

In the United States, generally, abortion is allowed on request, although not all medical establishments offer abortion services. I suppose that if funds are cut from an organization such as Planned Parenthood that many poor women may be very limited as to where they can go to have an abortion. Many of them may not have the funds to travel to an appropriate place.

However, Congressmen and women and Senators in the minority have some prerogatives that they can use to reduce the negative effects of a complete ban on funding Planned Parenthood. They can fight the decision within the appropriate committee, where members of both parties may be represented. They may propose committee hearings, where testimony can be taken from witnesses representing the affected populations. They can suggest amendments to the law. They can mobilize public opinion. They can vote against the proposal. An issue of such importance as abortion, widely considered as a women right is likely to have lots of support among many Congress personnel and Senators.

References

Guttmacher Institute. An Overview of Abortion Laws, September 1, 2016 https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/overview-abortion-laws?gclid=Cj0KEQjw9b6-BRCq7YP34tvW_uUBEiQAkK3svTr2gZNlqp9zMOuTlfznvHRNtTn_wFXiyiqzD0QDPigaAr-w8P8HAQ (accessed September 7, 2016).

Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood at a Glance, no date https://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/who-we-are/planned-parenthood-at-a-glance (accessed September 7, 2016).

How is it done in Congress given that the majority party (today it is Republican in both chambers) has the majority membership in every committee as well as chair of the various committees?

Thanks, Elizabeth. I think your answer is exactly what our Prof. was looking for. The tactic of filibuster has been used quite successfully throughout our history. In 1917, President Wilson encouraged the Senate to adopt the cloture vote, which you mention in your post, which could end a filibuster if a super-majority of Senators can force an end to the debate and bring the question under consideration to an up or down vote. In 1953, Senator Wayne Morse set a record by filibustering for 22 hours and 26 minutes while protesting the Tidelands Oil legislation. However, that record did not last very long. In 1957, Senator Strom Thurmond established a new record by talking against the Civil Rights Act of 1957 for 24 hours and 18 minutes, although this minority action could not avoid the eventual passage of the Act (U.S. Senate, p. 1).

Reference

U.S. Senate. Committee on Rules and Administration how is it done in Congress given that the majority party (today it is Republican in both chambers) has the majority membership in every committee as well as chair of the various committees? (accessed September 9, 2016).

Hi Monika,

Those of us who have watched the many Youtube videos about the violent manner in which many groups of refugees to Europe have behaved toward their new countries cannot avoid feeling a great resentment against these groups. As a refugee myself, it really bothers me to see these hordes of immigrants breaking posts and windows without any respect for the country that is welcoming them. Some of them have moved from one European country to another because the welfare benefits of one nation is higher than the others. Some of them have gone on strike, complaining that the moneys they receive is not enough. Others complain about the houses they have been given. It is really sad to see how these groups of refugees believe that Europe owes them rather than the other way around. I did not know that 1,200 German women had been assaulted by refugees during the New Year celebration. Yes, when you see these barbarians you wonder if Europe has done the right thing by opening their borders to all sort of delinquents.

On another note, most nations in Europe now have established new rules to separate the good from the bad apples, trying to put those seeking a better life in Europe in a separate group from the deserving refugees, but that task is likely to have many loopholes. Most of the refugees we see in the videos are single men, not families. In Germany, the last elections demonstrated dramatic gains by the anti-refugee parties (The Guardian, 2016, p. 1). That problem also has infected the American view about immigrants. Just listen to Donald Trump and his intention to build a wall, which to many does not look like a bad idea at all.

Reference

Crazy European Immigration Crisis (2015 )https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4K4okVa7dU

The Guardian. (2016). Angela Merkel defends immigration policy after election blow, September 7, 2016 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/07/angela-merkel-defends-german-immigration-policy-elections-afd (accessed September 9, 2016).

Hi Kelsey,

I agree that the IMF definition of globalization is the broadest and the best of all those we have read this week. Globalization really is taking place at all levels and affecting everybody, although in different ways. I also agree with you about the manner in which MERCOSUR has been able to remedy the intense rivalry between Brazil and Argentina. I hope that something similar could be created in Asia in relation to India and Pakistan.

The economic integration in South America has been impressive, although obviously the challenges are still tremendous. Paiva and Gazel in 2004 mentioned that the main problems facing MERCOSUR nations was the negative balance of payments of many of its members (Paiva and Gazel, 2004, p. 29). Ten years later, Baer and Elizagaray concluded that foreign investments flow to all the members, but has been heavily concentrated in Brazil and that despite all the successes non-tariff barriers have continued to proliferate (Baer and Elizagaray, 2014, p. 191). However, it is without a doubt that economic integration has helped solve many of the antagonisms between the two larger economies in South America. However, Argentina has not yet endorsed Brazil’s bid to become a member of the Security Council of the United Nations, something that does not matter much because the United States is doing the same, although the Obama administration favors the admission of both Japan and India to the select club.

References

Baer, W. and Elizagaray, A. (2014). Introduction to the Special Issue on Mercosur: Its Successes and Failures. Latin American Business Review, 15, 191-192 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10978526.2014.931775?journalCode=wlab20 (accessed September 9, 2016).

Paiva, P. and Gazel, R. (2004). MERCOSUR Economic Issues: Successes. Failures and Unfinished Business. CLAS Working Papers http://escholarship.org/uc/item/3zd0h0z0#page-29 (accessed September 9, 2016).

Hi Kelsey,

Thanks for your post. Living in Cairo was an extraordinary experience. It was at the time when President Sadat abandoned Nasser’s ties with the Soviet Union and started to open his arms to the West. He introduced an economic policy called the open door policy but which was not very successful because of the tremendous red tape in the Egyptian Government. In one of my two conversations with President Sadat I remember telling him that his open door policy was only half open and that he should either open it completely and allow foreign investments to flow into Egypt in a normal way or just close the door to the West and continue the policy inherited from Nasser. He looked and me and just smiled. He knew exactly what he was doing. At the time he was still trying to get loans and economic aid from the former Soviet Union and specifically Eastern Germany but targeting the Americans as well. Cuba had relatively close ties with Egypt born out of their mutual participation in the non-aligned movement, of which Nasser was one of the main proponents, together with Nehru from India and Tito from Yugoslavia. Cuba was a founding member of the non-aligned movement. When Sadat was killed, the person who was sitting beside him, and who was gravely injured, was my successor, the Cuban Ambassador to Cairo.

The Egyptian population is extremely friendly, but a very poor country as well. Corruption was so high that people used to throw coins to the policeman taking care of the traffic light so that they changed the light and let you continue your way. Salaries were the equivalent of ten dollars a month. Our Embassy had about ten Egyptian employees and their combined monthly salaries were about two hundred dollars. You can imagine the rest.

Best regards,

Roberto

Hi Kelsey,

Thanks for your post. I think there are many reasons why the less developed countries have been very slow to integrate their economies into the global economy. Probably the three factors you mention are important: lack of foreign investments, high entry costs and the volatile nature of most governments in these countries.  These countries have very rudimentary commercial laws, which are important to foreign investors so that they feel secure that they will be able to enforce their contracts, move moneys to and from the country and so on. Corruption is another factor. Unfortunately, these very poor countries, highly depending on foreign aid, have very corrupt politicians. Much of the funds provided to these nations by the United States, the European Union and other countries ends up in the Swiss accounts of the country’s leaders. Businesses need to bribe officers to obtain the necessary permits and licenses, otherwise nothing gets done. In addition, most of these countries have few natural resources. Their populations are mostly illiterate, with very few technicians.

The United Nations groups under this label all countries with an annual per-capita income under $ 750 per person; and then use a composite of nutrition, health, education and adult literary (Nations Online, p. 1). In our continent, Haiti is the only country that is included in this category, but the majority of the countries in Africa, 34 out of 53, are included in this category.

Reference

Nations Online. List of Least Developed Countries http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/least_developed_countries.htm (accessed September 9, 2016).

NSEC 610

For Constitution Day, September 17th, please do the following. Locate a recent news article or op/ed piece that illustrates a Constitutional issue relevant to the military or national security. Provide a link to that article and in a minimum of 250 words provide a brief summary of the issue and the Constitutional point that illustrates a practical connection with the Constitution.  Focus on highlighting that it is a living document that affects our lives and is tied closely to the subject matter of our program.

The article, written by Jim Talent, from the Heritage Foundation,