Olivia Bonomo Dr Trask American National Government Section 002 23 January 2023 Analysis 1 Political science is an academic study that has to take many different factors into account and can be observed everywhere in our day to day lives To begin to understand political relations positivism is a useful concept that explains how society functions based on a set of laws By observing social life around us we can develop reliable and consistent knowledge about how society functions This theory does not base facts and knowledge off of a divine god or supernatural source instead it bases facts off of the data of experience Positivism is an essential idea used in our society today by the government to ensure that leadership and decision making processes are legitimate Equally important positivism helps us deal with collective action problems in which all individuals would be better off cooperating but fail to do so because of conflicting interests between individuals that discourage group action Positivism helps solve collective action problems such as the spread of Covid 19 It does so by suggesting people wear masks to prevent spreading the illness to one another as they were scientifically proven to do so People choosing to not wear masks during the Covid 19 pandemic was a collective action problem because some individuals did not wear masks due to conflicting political ideologies even though it would have been a better and safer environment for everyone if all did comply with the mask mandate According to an article published on Grist org and titled What Greater Good Covid is Unmasking America s Collective Action Problem people would be better off if everyone wore masks but there s a small cost to each person that wears them fogged up glasses irritated skin or just the annoyance of putting it on and taking off That means there s an incentive to free ride if everyone else wears a mask their caution keeps you safe and spares you the trouble of having to wear one yourself This demonstrates a collective action problem because the more people that take a free ride and do not wear a mask the less effective wearing a mask becomes for everyone else However if everyone cooperated and wore a mask the rates of Covid 19 would have decreased faster and everyone would have benefitted To solve collective action problems we must look to institutions Institutions are both formal and informal rules that organize social political and economic relations Institutions include the family education government religion and the economy Institutions can relieve and solve collective action problems through laws sanctions government regulations and community self organization For the collective action issue of people choosing not to wear masks during the pandemic the most practical solution was implementing a mask mandate The mask mandate made it so people choosing to be in public places such as stores and restaurants must wear a mask Imposing mask mandates reduced everyone s risk of Covid 19 including workers customers and everyone in between Institutions solve collective action problems by driving people to comply with something that will benefit everyone including themselves Political scientists and political journalists are both similar and different in many ways however both make meaningful contributions to the world of politics For many years political science was viewed as irrelevant when it came to coverage of politics This is most likely because political science does not focus on the next big news story that will grab an audience s attention In turn many political scientists viewed political journalism with disregard However recently the internet has made it feasible for political journalists and political scientists to collaborate According to the Columbia Journalism Review just since 2013 the political science blog The Monkey Cage has become part of WashingtonPost com and UC Berkeley Ph D Jonathan Bernstein was hired as a columnist for Bloomberg View Harkin As social media is becoming the mainstream form of communication and all other things politics related more and more political scientists are contributing to political blogs and websites with their own academic insight It would be beneficial for learning about politics if more political scientists collaborated with journalists because it would make academic political information more easily accessible to the public I chose the major I currently have nursing because I really enjoy science and I want to help people I expect this course will help me with my future career because I will be working in an institution such as a hospital where I will have to deal with collective action problems such as the one discussed above This course will help me better understand the wide variety of people I will be working with and how their political beliefs might affect their medical choices Learning about different political beliefs and how our government operates in general will allow me to understand and therefore connect with people on a more personal level which is very important in the nursing field A useful scale for measuring democracy would be the 1 10 pain scale used in doctor s offices and hospitals One being no democracy and ten being a perfectly functioning democracy Characteristics that would move the democracy up my scale would be equality in voting which would mean ensuring everyone has the same opportunity to make it to a polling spot and everybody s vote counts equally Another important aspect that would move the democracy higher up the scale would be enlightened understanding or that all of the citizens are educated and informed enough to make a political decision The next most crucial aspect would be freedom of speech including on social media I do not believe social media companies have the right to censor opinions they do not agree with Free speech also goes hand and hand with effective participation because people must be able to access a wide variety of information to be informed Lastly citizen control of the agenda would be important in my ideal democracy because the government is put in place to benefit its people and if the people do not have a say in their government then it is no longer a democracy A democracy would move lower on my scale if the government began censoring free speech such as removing websites on the internet that have opposing views It would also move lower if one person s vote counted more than another s as there