us government essay

25 Essay Topics for American Government Classes

Writing Ideas That Will Make Students Think

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If you are a teacher searching for essay topics to assign to your U.S. government or civics class or looking for ideas, do not fret. It is easy to integrate debates and discussions into the classroom environment. These topic suggestions provide a wealth of ideas for written assignments such as  position papers , compare-and-contrast essays , and  argumentative essays . Scan the following 25 question topics and ideas to find just the right one. You'll soon be reading interesting papers from your students after they grapple with these challenging and important issues.

• Compare and contrast what is a direct democracy versus representative democracy. 
• React to the following statement: Democratic decision-making should be extended to all areas of life including schools, the workplace, and the government. 
• Compare and contrast the Virginia and New Jersey plans. Explain how these led to the Great Compromise .
• Pick one thing about the U.S. Constitution including its amendments that you think should be changed. What modifications would you make? Explain your reasons for making this change.
• What did Thomas Jefferson mean when he said, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants?" Do you think that this statement still applies to today's world? 
• Compare and contrast mandates and conditions of aid regarding the federal government's relationship with states. For example, how has the Federal Emergency Management Agency delivered support to states and commonwealths that have experienced natural disasters?
• Should individual states have more or less power compared to the federal government when implementing laws dealing with topics such as the legalization of marijuana  and abortion ? 
• Outline a program that would get more people to vote in presidential elections or local elections.
• What are the dangers of gerrymandering when it comes to voting and presidential elections?
• Compare and contrast the major political parties in the United States. What policies are they preparing for upcoming elections?
• Why would voters choose to vote for a third party, even though they know that their candidate has virtually no chance of winning? 
• Describe the major sources of money that are donated to political campaigns. Check out the Federal Election Regulatory Commission's website for information.
• Should corporations be treated as individuals regarding being allowed to donate to political campaigns?  Look at the 2010 Citizens United v. FEC ruling on the issue. Defend your answer. 
• Explain the role of social media in connecting interest groups that have grown stronger as the major political parties have grown weaker. 
• Explain why the media has been called the fourth branch of government. Include your opinion on whether this is an accurate portrayal.
• Compare and contrast the campaigns of U.S. Senate and House of Representatives candidates.
• Should term limits be instituted for members of Congress? Explain your answer.
• Should members of Congress vote their conscience or follow the will of the people who elected them into office? Explain your answer.
• Explain how executive orders have been used by presidents throughout the history of the U.S. What is the number of executive orders issued by the current president?
• In your opinion, which of the three branches of the federal government has the most power? Defend your answer.
• Which of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment do you consider the most important? Explain your answer. 
• Should a school be required to get a warrant before searching a student's property? Defend your answer. 
• Why did the Equal Rights Amendment fail? What kind of campaign could be run to see it passed?
• Explain how the 14th Amendment has affected civil liberties in the United States from the time of its passage at the end of the Civil War.
• Do you think that the federal government has enough, too much or just the right amount of power? Defend your answer.
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The Foundations of American Government

Are people good or evil? Your answer probably depends on how you have seen people around you behave. If you have studied history, the answer might further depend on what you think of past wars, as well as how people manage to live alongside one another in peace. People can be both hateful and noble, can’t they? James Madison, an ardent student of political philosophy , put it this way:

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions. (James Madison, Federalist No. 51)

Madison, along with others who had experienced the British government’s violation of the traditional rights of Englishmen in the years leading to America’s independence, looked to the lessons of human nature and history to determine how best to structure a competent government that would promote liberty.

If you were asked to establish a new government for you and your neighbors, the rules you would make – and the amount of power you would give to future government officials – would probably depend on how much you trust people to behave well. The problem is that people are capable of doing many wonderful things, but history also shows that otherwise peaceful citizens can be persuaded to allow – or even join in – the use of government to abuse others. For example, after five centuries of British monarchs (mostly) recognizing such traditional rights as protection of property rights and trial by jury, the three King Georges in succession began to rule the colonies by fiat. The Declaration of Independence listed specific violations committed by King George III. Among other abuses, he dissolved colonial legislatures, depriving colonists of the right of representation. He made judges dependent on his will alone, leading to the corruption of justice. He deprived Americans of fair jury trials. He stationed standing armies in the colonies in times of peace and required colonists to provide room and board for them. He imposed taxes without representation. He cut off their trade with foreign countries. The majority in Parliament approved these policies. Seeking to offset the debt accumulated during the French and Indian War, Parliament passed a number of measures which the colonies viewed as blatant violations of traditional liberties of Englishmen. In his 1776 pamphlet, Common Sense , the British revolutionary Thomas Paine wrote, “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” The time had come to cut ties with the mother country and become free and independent states. How to design a system that would “first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself” was the challenge the American Founders faced.

The prevailing view through times past had been that powerful rulers of noble upbringing were needed to keep people from falling back into the tribal warfare that stains much of human history. They believed not only that kings were fit to rule people, but also that God himself gave monarchs that authority – a concept known as “divine right of kings.” The reasoning was that God could have given anybody the right to rule, and He selected the specific people who should govern others.

In his 1776 pamphlet, Common Sense, the British revolutionary Thomas Paine wrote, “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”

The American Founders – and the American people generally – did not trust a king. They had seen kings behave like spoiled children, destroying businesses they disliked and imprisoning people without just cause. The world was changing, with new inventions making it possible for more and more people to work their way out of poverty. People needed not only to be free from fear of what kings might do to them, but to engage in commerce. The Founders believed that liberty was essential to human progress, and that we all have inherent rights to make decisions about ourselves and our property – rights that not even a king has the authority to take away. As John Locke explained in his Second Treatise of Civil Government , the only legitimate government was one to which the people had given consent. The people themselves have a voice, and need not simply submit to rulers who violate their liberties. If there were no king, could the Founders settle on a pure democracy, in which the majority gets whatever it wants? The Founders rejected this solution, too. They believed history proved that democratic majorities often end up behaving like tyrants – abusing minorities, starting wars, and running up huge debts. As children they had learned about persuaders like the Greek orator and general Alcibiades, who enticed Athenians to wage a disastrous war with Sparta, and Gaius Flaminius Nepos, who violated the Roman constitution to win popularity with the masses. The tyranny of the majority, expressed through corrupt politicians, can happen anywhere, anytime.

History, the Founders believed, showed how otherwise decent people can be swayed by emotion, selfish impulses, and corrupt leaders to do terrible things to one another. The Founders worried that a democracy would become just another version of tyranny.

The point of government, as the Founders saw it, was to enable a people to live without fear of having their persons or property violated, to cooperate to govern themselves peacefully, and to repel foreign threats. Without government, the powerful would rule, and nobody’s rights would be secure. Philosophers like John Locke, who strongly influenced the Founders, argued that citizens form for themselves a “social contract” in which they sacrifice a small amount of their natural freedom to a government whose protection makes them more free to live their lives than would otherwise be possible. When government repeatedly violates this contract by taking more freedom than is necessary – and especially when it violates the rights that it was created to protect – the Founders believed that people have a right and duty to abolish and replace it with something better. That is precisely what they did when they declared independence from Great Britain.

The Founders knew that legitimate governing authority must be just. This did not mean that everybody gets an equal share of everything, but that everyone has the right to be treated equally and fairly by their government. While earlier generations defined nations by the power it takes to rule, the Founders were thinking about a nation of citizens, born with inalienable rights, who should only be governed by virtuous representatives accountable to the people. Earlier philosophers believed ruling authority came from an aristocracy, a military power, or from God.

The Founders believed legitimate ruling authority only comes from the citizens themselves.

But the Founders faced a dilemma: How to give people the power to control their government while also denying to them the power to use government to violate the rights of others. People, even though they frequently live and work alongside one another in harmony, can behave selfishly. It is human nature to pursue what we believe will make us wealthy, powerful, or popular – even to the point of harming others.

Worse still, we can convince ourselves that our bad behavior is actually virtuous. A thief, for example, might tell himself he has no choice, even as poorer people work to survive without stealing. A powerful politician may tell herself that slandering her opponent is excused by all the good she will do once she is elected. People are clever. We are good at justifying our actions – especially to ourselves

The Founders’ challenge, as they built on their experience with a national government under the Articles of Confederation, which many considered too weak, was to establish a government that was not so powerful that people could use it to pursue their own interests at the expense of other people’s rights. As a result, they settled on what is called a constitutional republic .

It was an ingenious solution. Our Constitution’s authors sought to leverage for the common good people’s natural inclinations toward ambition and self-interest. That is why they divided our government’s power between executive, legislative, and judicial branches. It is also why they split Congress into two bodies. They gave members of the House of Representatives smaller districts and shorter terms so they would keep the desires of their constituents first and foremost. But they balanced this more democratic body with Senators who represent entire states, for longer terms, with the expectation that they would therefore have the freedom to make decisions that they considered right even when they were not popular. The Founders gave this Congress the power to make laws, but gave the power of administering those laws to the president and the executive branch. Separate from these was the Supreme Court, its members appointed by the president but with the Senate’s approval. In addition to splitting government power among three branches, the Founders also guarded against a concentration of power by dividing governing authority geographically. The national or central government would have carefully enumerated and limited powers, and all other functions that the people wanted their government to have would be left to state and local decision-making. The significance of state authority is reflected in the manner by which the Constitution was ratified. It did not take effect until approved by nine of the thirteen states through conventions called specifically for that purpose. The Constitution was engineered so that the competing ambitions of government officials – as well as the competing ambitions of different branches and levels of government – would work to form a system of checks and balances.

If all government power rested with just a few people, these few might begin to abuse other’s rights. But because the Constitution spreads government power among many people, and sets up those powers so that they are “checks” on one another, natural self-interest works in favor of “We, the people.” In this way, ambition – properly exercised – becomes a useful tool for the preservation of rights.

Equally important with these checks and balances, however, is the principle expressed in the Preamble of the Constitution itself. “We the People…do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” The Founders knew that all legitimate government authority comes from the citizens. That is why the Constitution is written as a narrow list of government powers. The first eight amendments, meanwhile, make especially clear the kinds of things the federal government is not allowed to do. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments emphasize that rights and powers not listed remain with the states and people.

The Founders tried to design a government that would protect citizens from tyrants and from the tyranny of unrestrained democracy, but they knew that a clever design would never be enough. They counted on citizens to embrace virtues like honesty, respect, humility, and personal responsibility. The American republic was designed to encourage and depend on those citizen virtues.

They also counted on people to be tolerant of one another’s differences and to act justly, standing up to attempts to violate people’s liberty or their right to their own property. Even though the Founders designed a government that harnesses human self-interest to check itself, they knew that freedom will always depend, ultimately, on the willingness of citizens to defend it. While the Founders expected government officials to keep an eye on one another, they knew it was even more important for citizens to keep an eye on government and to vote for capable and trustworthy officers. It is our responsibility to exercise vigilance and to refuse power to anyone who behaves as if the Constitution is not the law of the land. Effective government requires that the governed choose well.

Finally, the Founders expected citizens to be educated, to understand why freedom is important, and to have the wisdom to recognize when laws or ideas that sound good at first might cause long-term harm. John Adams noted that wisdom, knowledge, and virtue are essential to preserving freedom. Each generation must help cultivate these qualities in the next.

Related Content

The Declaration of Independence – Docs of Freedom

The Declaration of Independence was drafted by Thomas Jefferson in June of 1776. The Declaration announced to the world that the thirteen American colonies regarded themselves independent sovereign states. It articulates the fundamental ideas that form the American Nation: All people are created free and equal and possess the same inherent, unalienable rights. This lesson plan includes six activities. The activities can be taught in sequence as a comprehensive overview of the Declaration of Independence or individual activities can be taught as stand-alone lessons.

Justice for All

By examining primary source documents, students will analyze the Founders’ concept of justice, liberty, and rights; where those concepts came from; and how they have changed over time.

The Constitution

In 1787, many Americans were concerned that the Articles of Confederation did not grant enough power to the central government to protect the rights of the people. Under the Articles, the national government was unable to regulate commerce, taxation, currency, treaties, and protect the rights of individuals and states. The states called a delegation to meet in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 and from that convention the new Constitution was born.

Equal and Inalienable Rights

All humans are born with equal inherent rights, but many governments do not protect people's freedom to exercise those rights. The way to secure inalienable rights, the Founders believed, was to consent to giving up a small amount of our freedom so that government has the authority to protect our rights. Freedom depends on citizens having the wisdom, courage, and sense of justice necessary to take action in choosing virtuous leaders, and in holding those leaders to their commitments.

Popular Sovereignty and the Consent of the Governed

The Founders believed that the government’s authority needed to come from the people. Under the reign of King George III, the colonists believed that they were deprived of their opportunity to consent to be governed by Parliament through representatives, and, therefore, the British could not force their laws upon the colonies. The Founders made sure to uphold this right in the American Constitution. The people, through their representatives at state ratification conventions, had to ratify the document in order for it to become law.

Rule of Law

The benefits of freedom are safest when officials cannot make arbitrary and unpredictable laws. The rule of law means that laws are stable, limited in scope, and applied to every citizen, including those who make them. Laws must be created in the open, according to clear rules, and must reflect the consent of the governed. Ultimately, the rule of law depends on people with the courage, self-reliance, and wisdom to make prudent decisions, and who have enough tolerance for others to let them live as they see fit.

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Essays on American Government

The American Government is a fascinating and important subject that affects all aspects of our lives. Writing an essay about the American Government can help you understand how our political system works and how it impacts our society.

When choosing a topic for your American Government essay, think about what interests you the most. Do you want to explore the role of the President in shaping policy? Or perhaps you're more interested in the impact of the Supreme Court on civil rights? Once you have a topic in mind, consider the type of essay you want to write - argumentative, cause and effect, opinion, or informative.

For an argumentative essay on American Government, you could explore topics like the Electoral College, gun control laws, or the role of money in politics. If you're interested in writing a cause and effect essay, you could examine the effects of gerrymandering, the impact of political polarization, or the consequences of voter suppression. For an opinion essay, you might want to discuss your views on the role of government in healthcare, immigration policy, or environmental regulation. And if you're writing an informative essay, you could delve into topics like the branches of government, the history of the Constitution, or the functions of Congress.

To give you an idea of what a well-written American Government essay looks like, here are a few examples. For your thesis statement, you might consider statements like "The American Government plays a crucial role in shaping public policy," or "The balance of power between the branches of government is essential for a functioning democracy." In your , you could start with a brief history of the American Government, discuss the purpose of your essay, and provide an overview of your main points. And in your , you could summarize your key arguments, restate your thesis, and offer some thoughts on the future of American Government.

With these tips and examples, you'll be well on your way to writing a top-notch American Government essay!

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Lesson Plan: AP Government: Argumentative Essay Practice

The Federalist Papers

Boston College professor Mary Sarah Bilder gives a brief overview backgrounding the Federalist Papers

Description

This is intended as an end-of-course review activity for practice with the argumentative essay format included on the AP United States Government and Politics exam since the 2018 redesign. Eleven practice prompts are provided, reflecting content from Units 1-3.

ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY PROMPT ANALYSIS

• Review the provided Argumentative Essay Prompts in either an individual or jigsaw format.
• Write a thesis statement for your selected prompt(s) and identify the selection you would make from the provided list and the second piece of evidence you would choose.
• If there are prompts for which you struggle to develop a thesis, or items on the bulleted lists with which you are not conversant, use the hyperlinked C-SPAN Classroom resources to extend your understanding of the required founding documents and SCOTUS cases that you found challenging.

ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY

• Chose one or more of the provided Argumentative Essay Prompts , as assigned, and use the planning and exploration you did above to write a full essay in response to your designated prompt(s) in 25 or fewer minutes , since that's the time limit you'll face on the AP Exam!
• Exchange essays with a classmate and evaluate each others' work.
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332 American Government Essay Topics & Research Ideas

18 January 2024

last updated

American Government essay topics present a comprehensive spectrum for exploration, each varying in depth and complexity. Some themes may include the functionality of constitutional democracy in the United States (U.S.), the examination of civil liberties and rights, or the intricacies of the federal system. Students may delve into the analysis of influential Supreme Court decisions, the evolving role of the Presidency, or the workings of Congressional lawmaking. Contemporary subjects, like campaign finance reform, immigration policy, or the impact of media on political discourse, are also important. Unraveling the politics of environmental policy or the checks and balances system’s practicality offers bright themes. In turn, investigating the role of lobbyists and interest groups or dissecting the dynamics of public opinion and voting behavior can give intriguing insights. Thus, American government essay topics not only foster a deeper understanding of the nation’s political landscape but also stimulate critical thinking and analytical skills.

Top Government Essay Topics

• Privatization of Public Services: Merits and Criticisms
• Freedom of Information Laws: Transparency and Accountability in Government
• Understanding E-Governance: Potential and Pitfalls
• Interrogating Federalism: Power Dynamics in Multi-Tier Governments
• Political Polarization and Governance: A Detailed Analysis
• Digital Surveillance: Privacy Concerns and State Interests
• Immigration Policies: Comparative Analysis of Different Governments
• Climate Change Policies: Effectiveness and Implementation Challenges
• Political Accountability in the Age of Social Media
• Public Health and Governance: Lessons From Pandemics
• Decentralization in Government: A Thorough Examination
• State Autonomy vs. Federal Overreach: Tensions and Resolutions
• Analyzing the Concept of Sovereignty in the 21st Century
• Justice System Reforms: Understanding the Need and Potential Approaches
• Social Welfare Programs: Effectiveness and Public Reception
• Education Policy and Governance: Ensuring Equal Opportunities
• Tensions Between Civil Liberties and National Security
• Emergency Powers: Necessary Tool or Slippery Slope to Authoritarianism
• Campaign Finance Reforms: Balancing Transparency and Political Freedom
• Understanding the Separation of Powers: Checks and Balances in Action

Easy Government Essay Topics

• Understanding Democracy: Basic Concepts and Principles
• Different Types of Government: A Comparative Study
• Voting Systems: Pros and Cons of First-Past-the-Post
• Government’s Part in Economic Development: An Overview
• Public Health: Government’s Responsibilities and Duties
• Rights and Responsibilities of Citizens: A Closer Look
• Elections: Understanding the Electoral College System
• Why Do We Need a Constitution? An Elementary Explanation
• Importance of Civic Education in a Democracy
• Federal vs. State Powers: An Introduction
• Social Security: Functions and Challenges
• Government Regulation of Media: Freedom vs. Responsibility
• Public Transportation and Government’s Involvement: An Overview
• Differences Between Presidential and Parliamentary Systems of Government
• Local Governments: Responsibilities and Functions
• Citizen Participation in Government: Why Does It Matter?
• Understanding Public Policy: A Basic Analysis
• Freedom of Speech: Government and Constitutional Protection
• National Security and Individual Privacy: Striking a Balance

Interesting Government Essay Topics

• Privatization vs. Public Ownership: Theoretical Considerations
• Decentralization of Power: Unraveling Its Implications
• State Surveillance: Dilemma of Privacy vs. Security
• National Debts: Examining Their Economic and Political Effects
• Monarchies in the 21st Century: An Analytical Perspective
• Cryptocurrency Regulation: Assessing Different Government Approaches
• Digital Governance: Opportunities and Pitfalls
• Constitutional Interpretation: Originalism vs. Living Constitution Theory
• Understanding Federalism: A Comparative Analysis
• Emerging Role of Artificial Intelligence in Governance
• Climate Change Policy: National vs. International Responsibilities
• Democracy and Technology: Influence of Social Media on Governance
• Public Administration Reforms: Lessons From Around the World
• Immigration Policy: Factors Influencing Government Decisions
• Separation of Powers: An Inquiry Into Its Real-World Implications
• Fiscal Policy during Recessions: Strategies and Outcomes
• Authoritarian Regimes in a Digital Age: Unpacking the Complexities
• Intelligence Agencies: Examining Oversight and Control Mechanisms
• Social Equity and Government Policy: Challenges and Opportunities
• Political Dynasties: Assessing Their Influence on Democratic Governance

U.S. Government Research Paper Topics for College

• Gun Control Policies: Analyzing the Effectiveness in the U.S.
• Unraveling the Complexity of U.S. Immigration Reform
• Affordable Care Act: A Comprehensive Analysis Post Implementation
• Effects of Social Media on the U.S. Electoral Process
• Campaign Finance Laws in the United States: A Closer Look
• Government Shutdowns: Causes and Consequences in the U.S.
• Federalism in the United States: Changing Dynamics
• Dissecting the Patriot Act: Implications for Civil Liberties
• Constitutional Rights and Digital Privacy: An American Perspective
• Polarization in American Politics: Causes and Effects
• U.S. Tax Reform: An Analysis of Recent Changes
• Influence of Lobbying on Law-Making in the United States
• Supreme Court Appointments: Politics and Consequences
• Federal Reserve’s Monetary Policy: A Comprehensive Review
• Investigating the Role of Super PACs in U.S. Elections
• American Infrastructure Spending: Assessing Need and Impact
• Analyzing the U.S. Response to Climate Change
• Understanding the U.S. Electoral College: Pros and Cons
• U.S. Drug Policy: Lessons Learned From the War on Drugs

U.S. Government Research Paper Topics for University

• Native American Treaties and U.S. Government: A Detailed Study
• Rise of Partisanship: An Exploration Into U.S. Politics
• Education Policy in the United States: A Critical Assessment
• American Antitrust Legislation: A Review and Analysis
• U.S. Military Strategy in the Post-Cold War Era: A Comprehensive Study
• Housing Policy and Inequality in the United States: A Detailed Examination
• U.S. Trade Agreements: Analyzing Their Success and Failures
• Unfolding American Diplomacy in the Asia-Pacific Region: An In-Depth Review
• Citizens United Decision: An Analysis of Its Implications on U.S. Elections
• Racial Profiling and Law Enforcement in the U.S.: A Study on Systemic Bias
• Space Exploration Policies of the U.S.: A Comprehensive Overview
• Gerrymandering in the United States: Analyzing Its Impacts on Representation
• Public Health Policy in the U.S.: Lessons From the Covid-19 Pandemic
• Women in U.S. Politics: A Study on Representation and Influence
• Privatization in the U.S.: A Critical Analysis of Its Effects on Public Services
• U.S. Welfare Policy: An Evaluation of Its Efficacy and Inclusivity
• Privacy Rights in the U.S.: Analyzing the Balance Between Security and Liberty
• Minimum Wage Policies in the United States: A Comparative Study
• U.S. Energy Policy: A Study of Transition towards Renewable Resources
• Cybersecurity in the U.S.: Analyzing Government’s Role in Protecting National Infrastructure

American Government and Foreign Policy Essay Topics

• Middle East Policies: A Review of U.S. Strategy and Diplomacy
• Democratization and American Foreign Policy: A Critical Examination
• China-U.S. Relations: A Study of Economic and Security Dilemmas
• American Strategy in Containing North Korea’s Nuclear Ambition
• Shifts in U.S.-Russia Relations: Post-Cold War Analysis
• Climate Change and American Foreign Policy: An In-Depth Study
• Human Rights in American Foreign Policy: Case Studies From the 21st Century
• Evaluating U.S. Intervention in Afghanistan: A Retrospective Study
• Cyber Warfare and U.S. Foreign Policy: Exploring Strategies and Consequences
• U.S. and NATO: Analyzing the Changing Dynamics of Transatlantic Alliance
• Latin America in U.S. Foreign Policy: A Historical Analysis
• American Policy in the Indo-Pacific: Security, Diplomacy, and Economics
• U.S. Foreign Aid: Analysis of Trends and Effectiveness
• Arms Control and American Foreign Policy: A Review of Key Agreements
• U.S.-EU Relations: Trade, Security, and Diplomatic Perspectives
• American Policy Towards Israel and Palestine: A Critical Evaluation
• The Iran Nuclear Deal and U.S. Foreign Policy: A Comprehensive Study
• Global Health and American Foreign Policy: Priorities and Challenges
• Climate Diplomacy in U.S. Foreign Policy: A Study of the Paris Agreement

American Government and Media Essay Topics

• Media Influence on Presidential Elections: A Case Study
• Influence of Media in Shaping Public Policy: An Analysis
• The First Amendment: Press Freedom and Its Limits
• Media Portrayal of U.S. Foreign Policy: A Critical Examination
• Partisan Media and Polarization in American Politics: An Exploratory Study
• Fake News and Its Influence on American Political Discourse
• Public Broadcasting in America: A Historical Analysis
• Digital Media and American Politics: Understanding the Shift
• Social Media’s Influence on Political Mobilization: Case Studies From the U.S.
• Media Bias in Coverage of Gun Control: A Comparative Study
• Media Framing of Immigration Policies in the U.S.: A Discourse Analysis
• Network News and Its Influence on Public Perception of the Presidency
• The Power of Political Cartoons in Shaping Public Opinion
• Censorship and Self-Censorship in American Media: A Comprehensive Study
• Media Coverage of the Supreme Court: A Critical Review
• Cable News and Polarization in U.S. Politics: A Longitudinal Study
• The Role of Satirical News in American Political Discourse
• Media and Public Perception of Climate Change Policies in America
• Traditional Media vs. Social Media in U.S. Political Campaigns: A Comparative Analysis

American Political Parties and Elections Topics

• Campaign Strategies in Modern American Elections: An Analysis
• Transformative Elections in American History: Case Studies
• Minor Political Parties in U.S. Electoral Politics: A Comparative Study
• Influence of Lobbying on Election Outcomes: An Empirical Investigation
• How Gerrymandering Shapes American Politics: A Comprehensive Review
• American Presidential Primaries: A Historical Examination
• The Electoral College: An Evaluation of Its Efficacy in Modern U.S. Politics
• American Politics and the Issue of Voter Suppression: A Critical Study
• Dynamics of Swing States in U.S. Presidential Elections: An In-Depth Analysis
• Candidate Image Crafting in American Elections: A Semiotic Analysis
• Polarization and Its Effect on American Elections: An Empirical Investigation
• Public Financing in American Elections: A Comparative Study
• Third-Party Candidates and Their Influence on U.S. Elections: An Exploratory Study
• American Midterm Elections and Their Effect on Presidential Governance: An Analysis
• Effects of Negative Campaigning in U.S. Elections: A Quantitative Study
• Dynamics of Coalition Building in American Political Parties: A Case Study
• Presidential Debates and Their Influence on Election Outcomes: An Empirical Investigation
• Changes in Electoral Behavior in the American South: A Longitudinal Study
• The Effect of Voter Turnout on Election Results: A Statistical Analysis
• The Future of American Elections: Predicting Trends in the Digital Age

Government Research Paper Topics About the Executive Arm

• Presidential Decision-Making in Times of Crisis: A Comparative Analysis
• Foreign Policy Execution and the American President: A Critical Study
• Cabinet Appointments and Policy Outcomes: An Empirical Investigation
• Transformations in the Executive Office: A Historical Review
• Executive Orders: A Quantitative Analysis of Their Use and Effectiveness
• Exercise of Veto Power: A Comparative Study Across Presidential Administrations
• War Powers and the U.S. Presidency: A Constitutional Analysis
• American Presidency and the Pardon Power: A Legal Examination
• Executive Privilege: Its Use and Misuse in American Politics
• Presidential Succession and Continuity of Government: A Policy Analysis
• Dynamics of Executive-Legislative Relations: An Interdisciplinary Study
• The Vice Presidency: Evolution and Influence in Modern American Politics
• Presidential Campaigns: Financing and Its Influence on Policy Outcomes
• National Emergency Declarations and Presidential Power: A Constitutional Study
• The Power of Persuasion: Rhetoric and the American Presidency
• The Cabinet’s Influence on Presidential Decision-Making: A Qualitative Study
• Presidential Nominations and the Confirmation Process: A Policy Analysis
• Environmental Policy-Making in the Executive Branch: A Historical Review
• Immigration Policy Execution and Presidential Discretion: A Comparative Analysis
• National Security and the Use of Executive Power: A Critical Investigation

Legislative Branch of Government Essay Topics in American Politics

• Committee Power in the U.S. Congress: A Quantitative Study
• Bicameralism and Its Influence on Legislation: A Comparative Analysis
• Parliamentary Procedure and Democratic Governance: A Policy Review
• Policy-Making Dynamics in the Senate: A Historical Review
• Congressional Oversight and Its Effect on Executive Power: A Qualitative Study
• Gridlock in Congress: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions
• House Rules Committee and Its Influence on Legislation: An Empirical Investigation
• Legislative Agendas: Partisanship and Its Effects on Lawmaking
• Lobbying and Influence in the Lawmaking Process: A Critical Analysis
• Congressional Elections: Campaign Financing and Electoral Outcomes
• Redistricting and Its Effect on the Balance of Power in Congress: A Quantitative Analysis
• Filibuster and Its Impact on Legislative Efficiency: A Policy Analysis
• Political Polarization in the House of Representatives: A Comparative Study
• Congressional Ethics and Conduct: A Legal Examination
• Minority Representation in the U.S. Congress: A Quantitative Analysis
• Leadership Dynamics in Congress: A Historical Review
• Term Limits and Legislative Productivity: An Empirical Investigation
• Congressional Budgeting Process: A Critical Examination
• Lawmaking and the Influence of Interest Groups: A Comparative Analysis
• Checks and Balances: The Role of Congress in National Security Policy-Making

Political Behavior and American Government Essay Topics

• Identity Politics and Policy Preferences in American Government
• Shifts in American Political Behavior: Historical Analysis
• Public Opinion, Ideology, and Policy Change in U.S. Politics
• Media Consumption and Its Influence on Political Preferences
• Digital Democracy: How the Internet Has Transformed Political Participation
• Voting Behavior and Electoral Outcomes: An Empirical Examination
• Effects of Civic Education on Political Engagement: A Comparative Study
• Partisan Realignment and Its Consequences for American Politics
• Dynamics of Political Polarization in Contemporary America
• Political Trust and Its Relationship With Government Performance
• Cultural Factors and Their Influence on Political Attitudes
• Citizen Engagement and Its Relationship With Political Accountability
• Exploring the Nexus Between Socioeconomic Status and Political Behavior
• Environmental Concerns and Their Influence on Voting Behavior
• Political Socialization and Its Impact on Political Affiliation
• Understanding Populism in the Context of American Politics
• Racial Politics and Its Effect on the American Government
• Religious Beliefs and Their Influence on Political Behavior
• Public Opinion and Foreign Policy: A Historical Analysis

Political Theory and American Government Essay Topics

• Applying Rawlsian Justice to American Policy Making
• Hobbes and the Foundation of American Political Structure
• Lockean Ideals in the American Declaration of Independence
• Exploring the Influence of Machiavellian Theory on U.S. Politics
• Marxist Interpretations of American Economic Policies
• Application of Communitarianism in U.S. Social Welfare Policies
• Classical Republicanism and Its Echoes in American Government
• Neo-Conservatism and Its Theoretical Foundations in U.S. Politics
• Postmodern Perspectives on American Democracy
• Utilitarianism and Its Reflection on American Economic Policies
• Feminist Political Theory and Its Relevance in U.S. Politics
• Concepts of Liberty in American Political Discourse: A Theoretical Analysis
• Civil Disobedience: From Thoreau to Modern American Protests
• Pluralism and Interest Group Politics in America
• Exploring Libertarianism in the Context of U.S. Government Policies
• Populism as a Political Theory: Reflections in American Politics
• Deliberative Democracy in Practice: U.S. Town Hall Meetings
• Contractualism and the American Constitution: A Theoretical Analysis
• Understanding Identity Politics through the Lens of Queer Theory in the U.S.
• Anarchist Theories and Their Relevance to American Political Movements

Public Policy and Administration Topics

• Understanding Policy Feedback and Its Implications on Program Sustainability
• Public Administration Reforms: Comparative Analysis of Best Practices
• Fiscal Federalism and Public Policy Making in Decentralized Systems
• Emergent Public Policy Challenges in Cybersecurity
• Public Administration and Crisis Management: Lessons From the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Public Policy Responses to Technological Disruption
• Transparency, Accountability, and Ethics in Public Administration
• Policy Diffusion in Intergovernmental Relations: Patterns and Challenges
• Incorporating Behavioral Insights Into Public Policy Design
• Interrogating the Influence of Lobbying on Public Policy
• Urban Planning Policies and Sustainable Development Goals
• Gender Mainstreaming Strategies in Public Policy and Administration
• Public Administration’s Adaptation to Digital Transformation
• Healthcare Policy Reforms: Balancing Efficiency and Equity
• Exploring the Nexus of Public Policy and Social Justice
• Multiculturalism in Public Policy: Incorporating Diversity in Service Delivery
• Trade Policy Negotiations and National Interests: A Diplomatic Tightrope
• Fostering Innovation and Creativity through Education Policies
• Public Policy Making in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Opportunities and Challenges

Questions About the American Government

• American Government System: Why Does It Operate on a Two-Party Structure?
• Supreme Court Appointments: How Do They Influence the Balance of Power?
• Understanding the Bill of Rights: Which Amendments Have Provoked the Most Controversy?
• Federalism in America: How Does It Affect State Policies?
• Impeachment Process in the United States: What Are the Criteria and Consequences?
• Why Does the United States Employ an Electoral College in Presidential Elections?
• American Government and Lobbying: Is There a Need for Stricter Regulations?
• Deciphering the Role of Super PACs in American Politics: Are They a Necessity?
• How Does Gerrymandering Influence Political Representation in America?
• Citizens United Decision: What Are Its Implications on American Democracy?
• Understanding the Powers and Limitations of the American Presidency: Is It Truly a Democratic Office?
• How Does the American Constitution Protect Individual Rights?
• Campaign Finance in American Elections: How Does It Affect Political Outcomes?
• Functioning of the American Legislative Branch: What Makes It Efficient?
• Why Do Executive Orders Play a Vital Part in the Functioning of the American Government?
• Effect of Gridlock in Congress on American Policy Making: Is It Detrimental?
• How Does Public Opinion Influence Government Decision-Making in the United States?
• Influence of Interest Groups on American Government: Boon or Bane?
• Bicameral Legislature in America: What Are Its Rationale and Significance?

State and Local Government Essay Topics in the American System

• Decentralization Dynamics: A Study of Power Shifts in State and Local Governments
• Strategizing Municipal Finance: Effective Revenue Generation Models
• State Sovereignty vs. Federal Guidelines: An Examination of Conflict and Cooperation
• Examining the Efficacy of Participatory Budgeting in Local Government
• Local Governments and Environmental Sustainability: Policy Design and Implementation
• Diversity in Local Government Leadership: A Comprehensive Analysis
• Education Policy Formulation at the State Level: A Comparative Study
• Municipal Bond Market: Understanding Its Function in Infrastructure Development
• Public Health Management at the State Level: Lessons From Pandemic Response
• Understanding Land Use Policy: A Perspective From Local Governments
• Fiscal Decentralization: Its Effect on State and Local Economic Development
• Urban Planning and Local Governments: A Critical Analysis of Current Practices
• Evaluating the Effectiveness of State Governments in Disaster Management
• State Government Pension Systems: An Analytical Review of Their Sustainability
• Public Transportation Policy: A Case Study of State-Level Initiatives
• Revenue Sharing Between States and Localities: An Assessment of Current Mechanisms
• Local Government and Community Engagement: Strategies for Effective Citizen Participation
• Accountability Measures in State Government: An Investigation of Transparency Practices
• Public-Private Partnerships in Local Government: A Review of Best Practices
• Challenges and Solutions in State-Level Cybersecurity Policy Implementation

The Constitution and Bill of Rights Topics

• Interpreting Freedom: First Amendment Controversies in the Digital Age
• Second Amendment Debates: Understanding the Constitution and Gun Control
• Protection vs. Privacy: The Fourth Amendment in an Era of Technology
• The Eighth Amendment: Contemporary Challenges in the Context of Criminal Justice
• Dilemmas of Due Process: A Critical Examination of the Fifth Amendment
• Origins and Applications: A Deep Dive Into the Tenth Amendment
• Historical Analysis of Constitutional Amendments: Understanding Their Significance
• Cultural Shifts and Constitutional Interpretation: Exploring the Changing Landscape
• Examining the Thirteenth Amendment: The Legacy of Abolition and Modern-Day Implications
• Constitutional Equality: The Unratified Equal Rights Amendment
• The Nineteenth Amendment and Beyond: Women’s Suffrage and Contemporary Gender Politics
• Voting Rights: The Twenty-Sixth Amendment and Current Debates on Age and Citizenship
• The Jurisprudence of the Supreme Court: Notable Cases Interpreting the Bill of Rights
• Constitutional Debates and Democracy: Analyzing the Balance of Powers
• Influence of International Law on Constitutional Interpretation
• How the Bill of Rights Influences Modern Social Movements
• The Constitution and Indigenous Rights: Historical Context and Present Implications
• Reevaluating the Commerce Clause: A Critical Exploration in the Context of Globalization
• Constitutional Perspectives on Data Privacy and Protection

The Judicial Branch of Government Essay Topics in American Politics

• Deciphering Judicial Independence: Origins, Challenges, and Prospects
• Understanding the Supreme Court: Composition, Function, and Influence
• Appointment Controversies: Analyzing the Supreme Court Nominations
• Federal Courts and Politics: An Examination of Judicial Decision-Making
• Checks and Balances: The Judiciary and the Executive Power
• Courts as Policy Makers: Exploring Activism Within the Judicial Branch
• The Art of Interpretation: Statutory Construction in the Supreme Court
• From Marbury to Modernity: The Evolution of Judicial Review
• Exploring Sentencing Disparities: An Examination of Federal Courts
• Diversity in the Judiciary: Assessing Representation in Federal Courts
• Law, Order, and Ethics: A Critical Analysis of Judicial Conduct
• Public Perception and Confidence in the Judicial Branch
• Case Precedent and Legal Stability: The Doctrine of Stare Decisis
• Securing Justice: The Role of Federal Public Defenders
• Judicial Power in the Context of Constitutional Crises
• Assessing the Effectiveness of Specialized Courts: A Comparative Study
• Judicial Restraint and Activism: Ideology in Supreme Court Rulings
• The Federal Judiciary and Civil Liberties: Trends and Implications
• Administrative Law and Federal Courts: A Study in Regulatory Litigation
• International Law in U.S. Courts: Application and Controversy

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Item 1 - purpose and function of our government - general.

Published on Mon, May 17, 2021 9:00AM PDT | Updated Mon, May 17, 2021 9:10AM PDT

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The United States of America (US) is a federal republic composed of 50 states, a federal district of Washington, D.C., five major and various minor insular areas, as well as over 90,000 local governments, including counties, municipalities, townships, school districts, and special district governments. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 329 million people, the US is the world’s third-largest country by total area and the third most populous.

Our vision and mission

As documented in the US Constitution, the people of the US, through our Government, seek to form a more perfect union by establishing justice, ensuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

Our strategy

To achieve the mission of the people, our Government raises money, spends money, and exercises its authority. Through these actions, it enables, incentivizes, and forces certain behaviors (e.g. saving for retirement through Social Security and Medicare, attending minimum years of school, getting vaccinated) in an effort to maintain or improve various key metrics related to American life.

Raising and spending money

Our Government raises money through taxes and non-tax sources, including businesses it runs. This money is used to pay government expenditures and to transfer money to individuals and others. At the federal level, when the money raised is not sufficient to cover the money spent (most years), the US Department of the Treasury may borrow money to finance the difference. States may borrow funds for projects but may not borrow to fund annual deficits, except Vermont, where its constitution does not preclude it from doing so.

Exercising authority

Our Government exercises its authority directly by regulating, legislating, and issuing executive orders and court orders. It also grants authority to, and rescinds it from, government agencies and state and local governments.

See more at Government operations below.

Continue exploring

About this report, government structure, explore the 2021 government 10-k, introduction, item 1a. risk factors, item 2. properties, item 3. legal proceedings, item 6. selected financial data, item 7. management’s discussion and analysis of financial condition and results of operations, item 7a. quantitative and qualitative disclosures about market risk, item 8. financial statements and supplementary data, item 9a. controls and procedures, item 10. executive officers and governance, item 11. executive officer compensation, item 13. certain relationships and related transactions, and director independence, item 15. exhibits, sign up for the newsletter.

1.1 What is Government?

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain what government is and what it does
• Identify the type of government in the United States and compare it to other forms of government

Government affects all aspects of people’s lives. What we eat, where we go to school, what kind of education we receive, how our tax money is spent, and what we do in our free time are all affected by government. Americans are often unaware of the pervasiveness of government in their everyday lives, and many are unsure precisely what it does. Here we will look at what government is, what it does, and how the government of the United States differs from other kinds of governments.

DEFINING GOVERNMENT

The term government describes the means by which a society organizes itself and how it allocates authority in order to accomplish collective goals and provide benefits that the society as a whole needs. Among the goals that governments around the world seek to accomplish are economic prosperity, secure national borders, and the safety and well-being of citizens. Governments also provide benefits for their citizens. The type of benefits provided differ according to the country and their specific type of governmental system, but governments commonly provide such things as education, health care, and an infrastructure for transportation. The term politics refers to the process of gaining and exercising control within a government for the purpose of setting and achieving particular goals, especially those related to the division of resources within a nation.

Sometimes governmental systems are confused with economic systems . This is because certain types of political thought or governmental organization are closely related to or develop with certain types of economic systems. For example, the economic system of capitalism in Western Europe and North America developed at roughly the same time as ideas about democratic republics, self-government, and natural rights. At this time, the idea of liberty became an important concept. According to John Locke , an English political philosopher of the seventeenth century, all people have natural rights to life, liberty, and property. From this came the idea that people should be free to consent to being governed. In the eighteenth century, in Great Britain’s North American colonies, and later in France, this developed into the idea that people should govern themselves through elected representatives and not a king; only those representatives chosen by the people had the right to make laws to govern them.

Similarly, Adam Smith , a Scottish philosopher who was born nineteen years after Locke’s death, believed that all people should be free to acquire property in any way that they wished. Instead of being controlled by government, business, and industry, Smith argued, people should be allowed to operate as they wish and keep the proceeds of their work. Competition would ensure that prices remained low and faulty goods disappeared from the market. In this way, businesses would reap profits, consumers would have their needs satisfied, and society as a whole would prosper. Smith discussed these ideas, which formed the basis for industrial capitalism, in his book The Wealth of Nations , which was published in 1776, the same year that the Declaration of Independence was written.

Representative government and capitalism developed together in the United States, and many Americans tend to equate democracy , a political system in which people govern themselves, with capitalism. In theory, a democratic government promotes individualism and the freedom to act as one chooses instead of being controlled, for good or bad, by government. Capitalism, in turn, relies on individualism. At the same time, successful capitalists prefer political systems over which they can exert at least some influence in order to maintain their liberty.

Democracy and capitalism do not have to go hand in hand, however. Indeed, one might argue that a capitalist economic system might be bad for democracy in some respects. Although Smith theorized that capitalism would lead to prosperity for all, this has not necessarily been the case. Great gaps in wealth between the owners of major businesses, industries, and financial institutions and those who work for others in exchange for wages exist in many capitalist nations. In turn, great wealth may give a very small minority great influence over the government—a greater influence than that held by the majority of the population, which will be discussed later.

Socialism is an alternative economic system. In socialist societies, the means of generating wealth, such as factories, large farms, and banks, are owned by the government and not by private individuals. The government accumulates wealth and then redistributes it to citizens, primarily in the form of social programs that provide such things as free or inexpensive health care, education, and childcare. In socialist countries, the government also usually owns and controls utilities such as electricity, transportation systems like airlines and railroads, and telecommunications systems. In many socialist countries the government is an oligarchy : only members of a certain political party or ruling elite can participate in government. For example, in China, the government is run by members of the Chinese Communist Party.

In the United States, the democratic government works closely together with its capitalist economic system. The interconnectedness of the two affects the way in which goods and services are distributed. The market provides many goods and services needed by Americans. For example, food, clothing, and housing are provided in ample supply by private businesses that earn a profit in return. These goods and services are known as private goods . 1 People can purchase what they need in the quantity in which they need it. This, of course, is the ideal. In reality, those who live in poverty cannot always afford to buy ample food and clothing to meet their needs, or the food and clothing that they can afford to buy in abundance is of inferior quality. Also, it is often difficult to find adequate housing; housing in the most desirable neighborhoods—those that have low crime rates and good schools—is often too expensive for poor or working-class (and sometimes middle-class) people to buy or rent.

Thus, the market cannot provide everything (in enough quantity or at low enough costs) in order to meet everyone’s needs. Therefore, some goods are provided by the government. Such goods or services that are available to all without charge are called public goods . Two such public goods are national security and education. It is difficult to see how a private business could protect the United States from attack. How could it build its own armies and create plans for defense and attack? Who would pay the men and women who served? Where would the intelligence come from? Due to its ability to tax, draw upon the resources of an entire nation, and compel citizen compliance, only government is capable of protecting the nation.

Similarly, public schools provide education for all children in the United States. Children of all religions, races and ethnicities, socioeconomic classes, and levels of academic ability can attend public schools free of charge from kindergarten through the twelfth grade. It would be impossible for private schools to provide an education for all of the nation’s children. Private schools do provide some education in the United States; however, they charge tuition, and only those parents who can afford to pay their fees (or whose children gain a scholarship) can attend these institutions. Some schools charge very high tuition, the equivalent to the tuition at a private college. If private schools were the only educational institutions, most poor and working-class children and many middle-class children would be uneducated. Private schooling is a type of good called a toll good . Toll goods are available to many people, and many people can make use of them, but only if they can pay the price. They occupy a middle ground between public and private goods. All parents may send their children to public schools in the United States. They can choose to send their children to a private school, but the private school will charge them. On the other hand, public schools, which are operated by the government, provide free education so all children can attend school. Therefore, everyone in the nation benefits from the educated voters and workers produced by the public school system. Another distinction between public and private goods is that public goods are available to all, typically without additional charge.

What other public goods does government provide in the United States? At the federal, state, and local level, government provides stability and security, not only in the form of a military but also in the form of police and fire departments. Government provides other valuable goods and services such as public education, public transportation, mail service, and food, housing, and health care for the poor ( Figure 1.2 ). If a house catches on fire, the fire department does not demand payment before they put the fire out. If someone breaks into a house and tries to harm the occupants, the police will try to protect them and arrest the intruder, but the police department will not request payment for services rendered. The provision of these goods and services is funded by citizens paying into the general tax base.

Government also performs the important job of protecting common goods : goods that all people may use free of charge but that are of limited supply, such as fish in the sea or clean drinking water. Because everyone can use these goods, they must be protected so a few people do not take everything that is available and leave others with nothing. Some examples of common goods, private goods, public goods, and toll goods are listed below ( Figure 1.3 ).

Link to Learning

This federal website shares information about the many services the government provides.

Finding a Middle Ground

Fishing regulations.

One of the many important things government does is regulate public access to common goods like natural resources. Unlike public goods, which all people may use without charge, common goods are in limited supply. If more public schools are needed, the government can build more. If more firefighters or mail carriers are needed, the government can hire them. Public lands and wildlife, however, are not goods the government can simply multiply if supply falls due to demand. Indeed, if some people take too freely from the supply of common goods, there will not be enough left for others to use.

Fish are one of the many common goods in which the government currently regulates access. It does so to ensure that certain species are not fished into extinction, thus depriving future generations of an important food source and a means to make a living. This idea is known as sustainability. Environmentalists want to set strict fishing limits on a variety of species. Commercial fishers resist these limits, claiming they are unnecessary and, if enforced, would drive them out of business ( Figure 1.4 ). Currently, fishing limits are set by a combination of scientists, politicians, local resource managers, and groups representing the interests of fishers. 3

Should the government regulate fishing? Is it right to interfere with people’s ability to earn money today in order to protect the access of future generations to the nation’s common goods?

Besides providing stability and goods and services for all, government also creates a structure by which goods and services can be made available to the people. In the United States, people elect representatives to city councils, state legislatures, and Congress. These bodies make laws to govern their respective jurisdictions. They also pass measures to raise money, through the imposition of taxes on such things as income, property, and sales. Local, state, and national governments also draft budgets to determine how the revenue taken in will be spent for services. On the local level, funds are allotted for education, police and fire departments, and maintenance of public parks. State governments allocate money for state colleges and universities, maintenance of state roads and bridges, and wildlife management, among other priorities. On the national level, money goes to such things as defense, Social Security, pensions for veterans, maintenance of federal courts and prisons, and management of national parks. At each level, representatives elected by the people try to secure funding for things that will benefit those who live in the areas they represent. Once money has been allocated, government agencies at each level then receive funds for the purposes mentioned above and use them to provide services to the public.

Local, state, and national governments also make laws to maintain order and to ensure the efficient functioning of society, including the fair operation of the business marketplace. In the United States, for example, Congress passes laws regulating banking, and government agencies regulate such things as the amount of toxic gases that can be emitted by factories, the purity of food offered for sale, and the safety of toys and automobiles. In this way, government checks the actions of business, something that it would not do if capitalism in the United States functioned strictly in the manner that Adam Smith believed it should…almost entirely unregulated.

Besides providing goods to citizens and maintaining public safety, most governments also provide a means for citizens to participate in government and to make their opinions known to those in power. Western democracies like the United States, Britain, France, and others protect citizens’ freedom of speech and the press. These nations, and others in the world, also allow citizens to vote.

As noted earlier, politics is the process by which choices are made regarding how resources will be allocated and which economic and social policies government will pursue. Put more simply, politics is the process of who gets what and how. Politics involves choosing which values government will support and which it will not. If government chooses to support an ideal such as individualism , it may choose to loosen regulations on business and industry or to cut taxes so that people have more money to invest in business. If it chooses to support an ideal such as egalitarianism , which calls for equal treatment for all and the destruction of socioeconomic inequalities, it may raise taxes in order to be able to spend more on public education, public transportation, housing for the poor, and care for the elderly. If, for example, the government is more concerned with national security than with individual liberty , it may authorize the tapping of people’s phones and restrict what newspapers may publish. If liberty is more important, then government will place greater restrictions on the extent that law enforcement agencies can intrude upon citizens’ private communications. The political process and the input of citizens help determine the answer.

Civic engagement, or the participation that connects citizens to government, is a vital ingredient of politics. In the United States, citizens play an important role in influencing what policies are pursued, what values the government chooses to support, what initiatives are granted funding, and who gets to make the final decisions. Political engagement can take many forms: reading about politics, listening to news reports, discussing politics, attending (or watching televised) political debates, donating money to political campaigns, handing out flyers promoting a candidate, voting, joining protest marches, and writing letters to their elected representatives.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF GOVERNMENT

The government of the United States can best be described as a republic, or representative democracy. A democracy is a government in which political power —influence over institutions, leaders, and policies—rests in the hands of the people. In a representative democracy , however, the citizens do not govern directly. Instead, they elect representatives to make decisions and pass laws on behalf of all the people. Thus, U.S. citizens vote for members of Congress, the president and vice president, members of state legislatures, governors, mayors, and members of town councils and school boards to act on their behalf. Most representative governments favor majority rule : the opinions of the majority of the people have more influence with government than those of the minority. If the number of elected representatives who favor a proposed law is greater than those who oppose it, the law will be enacted.

However, in representative governments like the United States, minority rights are protected: people cannot be deprived of certain rights even if an overwhelming number of people think that they should be. For example, let’s say American society decided that atheists, people who do not believe that God exists, were evil and should be imprisoned or expelled from the country. Even though atheists only account for about 7 percent of the population, they would be protected due to minority rights. 4 Even though the number of Americans who believe in God far outweighs the number who do not, the minority is still protected. Because decisions are made through majority rule, making your opinions known and voting for those men and women who make decisions that affect all of us are critical and influential forms of civic engagement in a representative democracy such as the United States.

In a direct democracy , unlike representative democracy, people participate directly in making government decisions. For example, in ancient Athens, the most famous example of a direct democracy, all male citizens were allowed to attend meetings of the Assembly. Here they debated and voted for or against all proposed laws. Although neither the federal government nor any of the state governments function as a direct democracy—the Constitution requires the national and state governments to be representative forms of government—some elements of direct democracy do exist in the United States. While residents of the different states vote for people to represent them and to make laws in their behalf in the state legislatures and in Congress, people may still directly vote on certain issues. For example, a referendum or proposed law might be placed on the ballot for citizens to vote on directly during state or local elections instead of leaving the matter in the hands of the state legislature. At New England town meetings, all residents are allowed to debate decisions affecting the town ( Figure 1.5 ). Such occasions provide additional opportunities for civic engagement.

Most countries now have some form of representative government. 5 At the other end of the political spectrum are elite-driven forms of government. In a monarchy , one ruler, usually a hereditary ruler, holds political power. Although the power of some monarchs is limited by law, and such kings and queens often rule along with an elected legislature that makes laws for the country, this is not always the case. Many southwest Asian kingdoms, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, have absolute monarchs whose power is unrestricted. As discussed earlier, another nondemocratic form of government is oligarchy, in which a handful of elite members of society, often those who belong to a particular political party, hold all political power. For example, in Cuba, as in China, only members of the Communist Party are allowed to vote or hold public office, and the party’s most important members make all government decisions. Some nondemocratic societies are totalitarian in nature. Under totalitarianism , the government is more important than the citizens, and it controls all aspects of citizens’ lives. Citizens’ rights are limited, and the government does not allow political criticism or opposition. These forms of government are fairly rare. North Korea is an example of a totalitarian government.

The CIA website provides information about the types of government across the world.

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Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/american-government-3e/pages/1-introduction

• Authors: Glen Krutz, Sylvie Waskiewicz, PhD
• Publisher/website: OpenStax
• Book title: American Government 3e
• Publication date: Jul 28, 2021
• Location: Houston, Texas
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Guest Essay

Do Not Empower the Criminals in Haiti

By Jean-Philippe Austin

Dr. Austin is a Miami-based oncologist and a co-founder of the Haitian American Foundation for Democracy.

Here’s what I remember most about my childhood growing up under a dictatorship in Haiti: fear.

We could never speak against the president-for-life, François Duvalier. My classmates, the children of regime officials, were dropped off at school by big men with guns. One night, men came to take our neighbor’s father, and no one ever saw him again. Sometimes we would walk by the National Palace and avert our eyes, too afraid to even look onto the grounds.

It is agonizing to watch yet another generation of Haitians living with terror. Since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021, the country’s network of gangs, some sponsored by government officials, have gained territory, arms and audacity. Earlier this month, they formed a confederation and effectively launched war on the state, blocking Ariel Henry, the unelected and unpopular acting prime minister, from flying back into the country. They overran the capital, orchestrated multiple jail breaks, burned government buildings and police stations and attacked the central bank.

I am safe in Miami, but my relatives and friends in Port-au-Prince have told me they are not. One recently had his car shot up; another fled his home after the neighborhood was taken over by gangs; another saw gang members shoot into his convenience store and threaten his employees; another had his house burned to the ground. Most people I know there are terrified they will run out of food and water.

Now some of the same individuals imposing this chaos and destruction are jockeying for power as Haiti’s next government takes shape. Haitians deserve better. Haitians have always deserved security and a say over the fate of their country. They deserve to be led by people who represent the population and strive to keep them safe — not the criminals who have caused their fear and misery, year after year.

For several weeks, Haitian political parties, civil society organizations and diaspora groups have been negotiating what Haiti’s transitional government will look like after Prime Minister Henry resigns , as he has pledged to do. Many hope for a representative council that can re-establish security, rebuild institutions and inspire Haitians’ confidence to vote for a new government in elections later next year. The Caribbean Community , or Caricom, has brokered negotiations, mostly over Zoom, that have created a transitional presidential council, including both democracy advocates and members of several political parties. That council will select a new interim prime minister.

As these negotiations have taken place, the violent leaders controlling the streets of Port-au-Prince are vying for legitimacy. Both Jimmy Chérizier, known as Barbecue, whose gangs have reportedly massacred and raped civilians, and Guy Philippe, who recently served time in U.S. prison for money laundering related to drug trafficking, are casting themselves as freedom fighters and legitimate political leaders . They have said they will reject any internationally organized agreement, raising questions about how the Caricom-brokered council will be able to regain control of the country.

Some observers of Haiti say that involving those criminal leaders in the next phase of Haiti’s governance could help restore order. That is both a dangerous misconception and a ludicrous idea: It is these men who are currently fomenting violence in a bid to gain power. More than 1,500 Haitians have died in gang violence since the start of the year, according to a new United Nations report . After a bully knocks everyone down, you don’t give him what he wants and expect him to stop. He will always want more and use violence to get it.

Haitians deserve governance by the talented, capable people of integrity and technical skill who have been reluctant, and often afraid, to participate in public life, which has been taken over by a criminally connected political class. The transition government in formation must not include criminals, their deputies or any political party with ties to drug trafficking, arms dealing or gangs.

I have watched state violence destroy lives. When I was a child in Haiti, my father’s twin brothers, Roger and Rodrigue Austin, were involved in a plot to overthrow President Duvalier. Roger helped hide other conspirators in cane fields near where my father worked for the Haitian American Sugar Company. Soldiers eventually burned the fields, killed some of the men and imprisoned my uncles. They never came home. My grandfather was briefly imprisoned as well — Mr. Duvalier believed in collective punishment — and died soon after his release. My father went into hiding, and eventually my parents, siblings and I fled to the United States.

The gangs holding Haiti hostage today are in some ways the direct heirs of that era. Mr. Duvalier governed by violent enforcers: the feared Tonton Macoutes, who imposed state power with machetes. After the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship, other leaders followed, employing neighborhood gangs to safeguard their power. Politicians’ use of gangs has gone even further in the past dozen or so years, as a series of manipulated elections allowed Haitian leaders with little popular support to gain office. Instead of winning people over with good policy, empathy and transparency, leaders relied on gangs to intimidate the electorate.

The United States has had a defining role in Haitian politics for generations. Washington supported the savage Duvalier regime, valuing its stability and its opposition to communism during the Cold War. Recently, for more than a decade, the United States has supported Haitian leaders as they dismantled democratic institutions and instrumentalized gangs, and even as the country devolved into gang warfare.

Now the United States is taking a back role in the ongoing negotiations for the transition government, ceding the position of deal maker to Caricom. That is a mistake. Despite Washington’s less than helpful interventions in the past, Haitians need more forceful U.S. involvement to ensure that gang leaders and those connected with them receive a strong message that this time, the United States will not tacitly support their participation in running the country. The U.S. government should not work with gang affiliates and should guard against the engagement of any of their associates with power in this transition.

And the United States will need to take specific actions. Washington should immediately release funds so that an international force led by Kenya can deploy to help restore order and provide security. The installation of the government will need international security support — or there will be no installation.

Washington has a longer-term role to play as well. It should help ensure over time that the new transition government is both functional and remains unbeholden to gangs. Haiti needs to rebuild its police force and establish effective vetting and other processes that will ensure its independence from corrupt politicians and gangs. The judiciary, too, must be rebuilt so that courts work and prosecutors and judges cannot be bought off. The United States and the international community have sponsored elections in the past, but have not meaningfully invested in building these critical institutions and developing citizens’ participation in the system. Only strong institutions and government agencies can support security and stability — and eventually, democracy.

The new transitional government offers a chance — now it is up to Haitians in every sector of society, the Haitian diaspora, the United States and the international community to support it. Without that, the gangs will keep winning, and will extinguish Haitians’ chance to live in a democratic country without fear.

Dr. Jean-Philippe Austin is a Miami-based oncologist. He is a co-founder of the Haitian American Foundation for Democracy.

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Discrimination Power of Short Essay Questions Versus Multiple Choice Questions as an Assessment Tool in Clinical Biochemistry

Basmah eldakhakhny.

1 Clinical Biochemistry, King Abdulaziz University Faculty of Medicine, Jeddah, SAU

Ayman Z Elsamanoudy

2 Medical Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Mansoura University, Faculty of Medicine, Mansoura, EGY

Assessment is fundamental to the educational process. Multiple choice questions (MCQs) and short essay questions (SEQs) are the most widely used assessment method in medical school. The current study evaluated the discriminating value of SEQs compared to MCQs as assessment tools in clinical biochemistry and correlated undergraduate students' SEQ scores with their overall scores during the academic years 2021-2022 and 2022-2023. This is a descriptive-analytical study in which MCQ and SEQ papers of clinical biochemistry were analyzed. The mean score for SEQs in males was 66.7 ± 1.2 and for females it was 64.0 ± 1.1 SEM, with a p-value of 0.09; for MCQs, the mean score for males was 68.5 ± 0.9 SEM and for females it was 72.6 ± 0.8. When analyzing the difficulty index (DI) and discrimination factor (DF) of the questions, MCQs have a mean DI of 0.70 ± 0.01,and DF of 0.05 to 0.6. SEQs have a mean DI of 0.73 ± 0.03 and DF of 0.68 ± 0.01; there was a significant difference between the DF of MCQs and SEQs (p < 0.0001). Furthermore, there was a significant difference between SEQs and MCQs when categorizing students based on their scores, except for A-scored students. According to the current study, SEQs have a higher discriminating ability than MCQs and help differentiate high-achieving students from low-achieving students.

Introduction

Assessment is fundamental to the educational process. It has benefits beyond measuring knowledge and competence alone. It is also crucial for directing and stimulating the learning process, as well as providing feedback to teachers and learners [ 1 ]. The assessment of the competence of undergraduate medical students is a very crucial mission [ 2 ]. The following three learning domains are to be evaluated: knowledge and understanding, skill, and value. The skills' domain is assessed at the levels of comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and criticism [ 3 ].

There are many methods for assessing the skills domain. They include a free response examination, long essay questions, short essay questions (SEQs), modified essay questions, multiple choice questions (MCQs), and others. Each of these methods has its advantages and disadvantages. The evaluation method's reliability and validity necessitate combining these methods [ 2 , 3 ]. MCQs emphasize mainly on knowledge recall, level I of revised Bloom's taxonomy; they can also assess a higher cognitive level when properly constructed. SEQs are efficient in assessing higher-order thinking and are associated with item writing flaws [ 4 , 5 ].

Assessment can be formative and summative. Formative assessment helps teachers identify students' learning gaps and modify teaching strategies [ 6 ]. Summative assessment is done at midterm and final examinations in most medical schools [ 7 ]. In the Faculty of Medicine at King Abdulaziz University (KAU), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Clinical Biochemistry core course assessment tools are in the form of MCQs, SEQs, and practical examinations. The MCQs and SEQs are components of the written examinations (midterm and final examinations).

The study was conducted to compare and contrast the discriminating value of SEQs and MCQs as assessment tools in clinical biochemistry. Moreover, it aimed to correlate the students' scores of SEQs with their overall academic scores in the clinical biochemistry course at the Faculty of Medicine, KAU.

Materials and methods

This study was conducted in the Clinical Biochemistry Department, School of Medicine, KAU, during the study years 2021-2022 and 2022-2023. It is a descriptive-analytical study in which MCQ and SEQ examinations of clinical biochemistry were analyzed. The ethical committee (Ethics Committee of Human Research at KAU) ruled that no formal ethics approval was required in this case.

Clinical biochemistry (BCHM 201) is a five-credit course for second-year medical students. The contact hours are in the form of four theoretical interactive lectures, one tutorial session, and one practical session per week. The students were familiarized with the assessment plan from day 1 of the course. The total score of the course (out of 100) was divided between different methods of assessments: 75% for written examinations (22.5% SEQs and 52.5% MCQs) which were in the form of midterm and final examinations, 10% for practical laboratory reports, 10% for final practical experiments, and the last 5% for team-based learning, with 60% as a passing grade. Students were divided into five groups based on their total scores in percentage: A for students who scored ≥ 90%, B for those who scored 80-89.99%, C for those who scored 70-79.99%, D for those who scored 60-69.99%, and F for those who scored < 60%.

Study protocol

In the current study, a total of 726 students' grades were analyzed, of whom 358 were male and 368 were female. The detailed scores were analyzed to study how students' achievement may differ between SEQs and MCQs. Each student's MCQ and SEQ scores were recorded, normalized to a percentage (%), and compared to the total score they received upon course completion. After each examination, an item analysis report with difficulty index (DI) and discrimination factor (DF) was created. For MCQs, item analysis was done using QuestionMark perception 5.7 software for Windows, whereas SEQ item analysis was done using the ZipGrade App Version 2.56. SEQs were marked, and the score was recorded on a ZipGrade answer sheet designed to record scores ranging from 0 to 3, with three counts as the primary answer and equal to 100% and zero counts as the lowest mark and equal to 0%. Any number in between is considered a partial answer, and students receive a percentage of the mark based on their score; the SEQs’ DF was calculated by ZipGrade using the Pearson correlation. Examinations were constructed based on the course learning outcome (CLO)-dependent blueprint and included MCQs and SEQs for each CLO from the knowledge and understanding as well as skills domain. All questions were reviewed by the examination committee members, including three professors and two associated professors of clinical biochemistry, to evaluate question quality, scientific information, and the English language. SEQs, as mentioned above, cover all CLOs and are constructed as figure interpretation, pathway completion, comparison, or written a directed brief description. Two raters (one male and one female faculty member) evaluated the SEQs as per the pre-formed standards and model answers.

Statistical analysis

Data analysis was conducted using SPSS Version 23 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY) and GraphPad Prism Version 9.5 (GraphPad Software, San Diego, California). P-value was calculated using an individual t-test to compare the mean score for males and females, a paired t-test was used for individual students' scores (SEQs, MCQs, and total), and the Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare the MCQs and SEQs’ difficulty and discrimination. Pearson correlation coefficient (r) was computed to assess the linear relationship between the SEQs and MCQs in different groups. Data are presented as mean ± standard error of the mean (SEM), and a p-value was considered significant if it was <0.05.

The item analysis of 160 MCQs and 34 SEQs was conducted and is summarized in Table ​ Table1 1 and Figure ​ Figure1. 1 . MCQs have a mean DI of 0.70 ± 0.01 SEM, with a minimum score of 0.25 and a maximum score of 0.98. Their DF ranged from 0.05 to 0.6, with an average of 0.40 ± 0.01. On the other hand, the DI of SEQs ranged from 0.4 to 0.95, with an average of 0.73 ± 0.03. Their DF ranged from 0.45 to 0.85, with an average of 0.68 ± 0.01. There was no statistical difference between the DI of MCQs and SEQs. In contrast, there was a statistical significance with a p-value of <0.0001 for the DF.

P-value was calculated using the Mann-Whitney U test. Data are presented as mean ± SEM.

SEQ, short essay question; MCQ, multiple choice question; SEM, standard error of mean

A total of 160 MCQs and 34 SEQs were analyzed. (a) There is no statistically significant difference in the difficulty of SEQs and MCQs. (b) The difference between the DF of SEQs and MCQs shows that SEQs have much higher discrimination with p < 0.0001 (as indicated by asterisks).

The data are presented as mean ± SEM

A total of 726 students' grades were analyzed, of whom 358 were male and 368 were female. The mean score for SEQs in males was 66.7 ±1.2 SEM and for females it was 64.0 ± 1.1 SEM, with a p-value of 0.09. For MCQs, the mean score for males was 68.5 ± 0.9 SEM and for females it was 72.6 ± 0.8 SEM, with p < 0.001. Finally, the total mean scores were 79 ± 1 SEM in males and 81 ± 1 in females, with a p-value of 0.02. Data can be seen in Figure ​ Figure2 2 .

A total of 726 students' grades were analyzed, of whom 358 were male and 368 were female. Data showed statistical significance in MCQs and total scores.

Data are presented as mean ± SEM.

**P-value of 0.001. *P-value of 0.02.

Students were further classified into A-F groups based on their overall course grades, and their SEQ scores were compared to their MCQ and total scores. Group B had the highest number of students (258), while group F had the lowest (47). Interestingly, looking at the average grade of all students, there was a 5% difference between the mean SEQ and MCQ scores, and almost a 15% difference between SEQs and total scores, with the higher grade in MCQs and total scores compared to SEQs. These differences are not statistically significant in students with average grades A. However, the gap keeps increasing in students with lower scores (group F). The difference reaches 15 % between SEQs and MCQs and 30% between SEQs and the total scores. These comparisons are detailed in Table ​ Table2 2 and Figure ​ Figure3. 3 . Finally, a Pearson correlation coefficient (r) was calculated, as shown in Table ​ Table3, 3 , to determine whether there was a linear relationship between SEQs, MCQs, and total grades. When looking at overall students, there was a strong positive correlation between SEQ scores and both MCQ (r = 0.85 and p < 0.0001) and total grades (r = 0.91 and p < 0.0001). Interestingly, this correlation becomes weak when looking at the group individually, ranging from 0.27 to 0.38, between SEQs and MCQs, although it is statistically significant, and ranging from 0.58 to 0.65 between SEQs and total score. Only group D had an r of 0.18, with no significance.

P-value was calculated using paired t-test. SEQs. Data are presented as mean ± SEM.

r: Pearson correlation coefficient

SEQ, short essay question; MCQ, multiple choice question

The overall scores of 726 students were divided into five groups (A-F), and the means of their SEQs, MCQs, and total scores were compared. A-F show that the difference in all students and each group between SEQs, MCQs, and totals scores are all statistically significant except for group A.

Data are presented as mean ± SEM. ****p-value < 0.0001.

The current study was designed to assess the use of SEQs (structured essay type and short answer questions) in addition to MCQs as an assessment method for higher cognitive skills in clinical biochemistry.

MCQs have high reliability when the set of questions is valid with sufficient numbers of questions applied [ 8 , 9 ]. From our point of view, MCQs alone are not enough. They must be combined with another type of assessment to test the higher cognitive function.

MCQs are applicable for evaluating knowledge, understanding, and conception of factual information (the lower levels of cognitive processing) [ 10 ]. It can be constructed to measure application and analysis, but it requires a level of experience in formulating questions to measure a higher level of cognition [ 11 ]. MCQs are widely used due to their high reliability, validity, and ease of counting [ 12 ]. On the other hand, SEQs are structured in an open-ended format and intended to increase reproducibility and objectivity [ 9 ]. They are more complex, requiring students to recall facts and use higher-order cognitive skills [ 13 ]. It encourages the students to develop and use their critical thinking capabilities [ 14 ] besides their ability to enable the student to think and come to a conclusion about the answer, which is not a benefit in MCQs [ 15 ]. Therefore, it provides more benefits for assessment despite the time consumption during its preparation and scoring [ 4 ].

In the current study, the SEQs are more discriminating than MCQs, even though there is no statistically significant difference between the two types of questions in their DI scores.

Kunjappagounder et al. [ 16 ] reported that a well-framed essay question is an efficient tool for evaluating students' levels in the cognitive domain [ 16 ]. It is more discriminating than multiple questions. Our study's results are in agreement with those in the studies by Jaleel et al. (2020) [ 17 ], Kunjappagounder et al. [ 16 ], and Maryani et al. [ 18 ].

Evaluating questions item analysis is very important for assessing the SEQs. It consists of the analytical study of the individual questions and the whole test [ 19 ]. Measuring the degree of difficulty and discrimination is necessary for the reliability and validity of the assessment [ 16 ].

Item analysis is used for evaluating the degree of understanding by the students as well as providing feedback to the examiner. The most important indices are discrimination and difficulty indices. The DF shows the ability of a question to differentiate between a higher- and a lower-ability student [ 19 - 21 ].

The mean score of MCQs is much higher than that of the SEQs in the present study, which is consistent with the results of many earlier studies by Oyebola et al. [ 22 ], Wilkinson and Shaw [ 23 ], and Aalaei et al. [ 24 ].

Aalaei et al. [ 24 ] reported a similar finding; good discrimination is documented in the essay question more than in the multiple choice type [ 24 ]. Many factors can explain this finding, including guessing and the presence of the correct answer between the distractors, which can make them easier to be answered. However, the level of thought and concentration applied to the essay questions has a significant impact on distinguishing high achievers from lower achievers [ 24 ].

Moreover, SEQs necessitate students to interpret and analyze their thoughts to provide the answers; they also evaluate written communication skills [ 17 ].

This finding could show that any student with a reasonable degree of conceptual knowledge of the subject can score well in MCQs regardless of the depth of their understanding, which does not apply to essay-type questions. Consequently, the teaching process and examination model must highlight the deep learning approaches and structure concepts rather than memorization learning.

The high discriminating value of the essay question is also confirmed by the finding of the current study when categorizing the grades into A to F, which showed that the low achievers (F grades students) have a 30% gap between their MCQs and total scores in comparison to their SEQ scores.

As expected, the present study revealed positive linear correlations between SEQs, MCQs, and total grades. These correlations were also reported in other subjects, such as pharmacology [ 25 ], otorhinolaryngology [ 26 ], pediatrics [ 27 ], and basic medical sciences, including physiology and medical biochemistry [ 4 , 17 ].

However, the observed weak correlations in the low achiever grades (F) with non-significant correlation in D scorers confirm the previous concept of the higher discrimination ability of the essay question over the MCQs.

The limitation of the current study is the low number of SEQs compared to the MCQs. This is due to examination time limitations, as answering SEQs requires a longer duration than that for MCQs. Therefore, in this study, the proportion of the SEQs is much low in relation to the whole examination.

Conclusions

We conclude that when comparing MCQs and SEQs (the structured and the open-ended ones) with the same level of cognition, SEQs have a higher discriminating ability and are helpful in differentiating high scorers from low scorers. Moreover, it is a good tool for assessing the high cognitive function regarding analysis and building concepts. Therefore, it is recommended to increase the percentage of the SEQs in the summative examinations and apply other types, such as extended essays, modified essays, and constructed-response questions. Moreover, we recommend using these questions in different branches of basic medical science.

The content published in Cureus is the result of clinical experience and/or research by independent individuals or organizations. Cureus is not responsible for the scientific accuracy or reliability of data or conclusions published herein. All content published within Cureus is intended only for educational, research and reference purposes. Additionally, articles published within Cureus should not be deemed a suitable substitute for the advice of a qualified health care professional. Do not disregard or avoid professional medical advice due to content published within Cureus.

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Human Ethics

Consent was obtained or waived by all participants in this study

Animal Ethics

Animal subjects: All authors have confirmed that this study did not involve animal subjects or tissue.

What to know about the crisis of violence, politics and hunger engulfing Haiti

A long-simmering crisis over Haiti’s ability to govern itself, particularly after a series of natural disasters and an increasingly dire humanitarian emergency, has come to a head in the Caribbean nation, as its de facto president remains stranded in Puerto Rico and its people starve and live in fear of rampant violence. 

The chaos engulfing the country has been bubbling for more than a year, only for it to spill over on the global stage on Monday night, as Haiti’s unpopular prime minister, Ariel Henry, agreed to resign once a transitional government is brokered by other Caribbean nations and parties, including the U.S.

But the very idea of a transitional government brokered not by Haitians but by outsiders is one of the main reasons Haiti, a nation of 11 million, is on the brink, according to humanitarian workers and residents who have called for Haitian-led solutions. 

“What we’re seeing in Haiti has been building since the 2010 earthquake,” said Greg Beckett, an associate professor of anthropology at Western University in Canada. 

What is happening in Haiti and why?

In the power vacuum that followed the assassination of democratically elected President Jovenel Moïse in 2021, Henry, who was prime minister under Moïse, assumed power, with the support of several nations, including the U.S. 

When Haiti failed to hold elections multiple times — Henry said it was due to logistical problems or violence — protests rang out against him. By the time Henry announced last year that elections would be postponed again, to 2025, armed groups that were already active in Port-au-Prince, the capital, dialed up the violence.

Even before Moïse’s assassination, these militias and armed groups existed alongside politicians who used them to do their bidding, including everything from intimidating the opposition to collecting votes . With the dwindling of the country’s elected officials, though, many of these rebel forces have engaged in excessively violent acts, and have taken control of at least 80% of the capital, according to a United Nations estimate. 

Those groups, which include paramilitary and former police officers who pose as community leaders, have been responsible for the increase in killings, kidnappings and rapes since Moïse’s death, according to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program at Uppsala University in Sweden. According to a report from the U.N . released in January, more than 8,400 people were killed, injured or kidnapped in 2023, an increase of 122% increase from 2022.

“January and February have been the most violent months in the recent crisis, with thousands of people killed, or injured, or raped,” Beckett said.

Armed groups who had been calling for Henry’s resignation have already attacked airports, police stations, sea ports, the Central Bank and the country’s national soccer stadium. The situation reached critical mass earlier this month when the country’s two main prisons were raided , leading to the escape of about 4,000 prisoners. The beleaguered government called a 72-hour state of emergency, including a night-time curfew — but its authority had evaporated by then.

Aside from human-made catastrophes, Haiti still has not fully recovered from the devastating earthquake in 2010 that killed about 220,000 people and left 1.5 million homeless, many of them living in poorly built and exposed housing. More earthquakes, hurricanes and floods have followed, exacerbating efforts to rebuild infrastructure and a sense of national unity.

Since the earthquake, “there have been groups in Haiti trying to control that reconstruction process and the funding, the billions of dollars coming into the country to rebuild it,” said Beckett, who specializes in the Caribbean, particularly Haiti. 

Beckett said that control initially came from politicians and subsequently from armed groups supported by those politicians. Political “parties that controlled the government used the government for corruption to steal that money. We’re seeing the fallout from that.”

Many armed groups have formed in recent years claiming to be community groups carrying out essential work in underprivileged neighborhoods, but they have instead been accused of violence, even murder . One of the two main groups, G-9, is led by a former elite police officer, Jimmy Chérizier — also known as “Barbecue” — who has become the public face of the unrest and claimed credit for various attacks on public institutions. He has openly called for Henry to step down and called his campaign an “armed revolution.”

But caught in the crossfire are the residents of Haiti. In just one week, 15,000 people have been displaced from Port-au-Prince, according to a U.N. estimate. But people have been trying to flee the capital for well over a year, with one woman telling NBC News that she is currently hiding in a church with her three children and another family with eight children. The U.N. said about 160,000 people have left Port-au-Prince because of the swell of violence in the last several months. 

Deep poverty and famine are also a serious danger. Gangs have cut off access to the country’s largest port, Autorité Portuaire Nationale, and food could soon become scarce.

Haiti's uncertain future

A new transitional government may dismay the Haitians and their supporters who call for Haitian-led solutions to the crisis. 

But the creation of such a government would come after years of democratic disruption and the crumbling of Haiti’s political leadership. The country hasn’t held an election in eight years. 

Haitian advocates and scholars like Jemima Pierre, a professor at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, say foreign intervention, including from the U.S., is partially to blame for Haiti’s turmoil. The U.S. has routinely sent thousands of troops to Haiti , intervened in its government and supported unpopular leaders like Henry.

“What you have over the last 20 years is the consistent dismantling of the Haitian state,” Pierre said. “What intervention means for Haiti, what it has always meant, is death and destruction.”

In fact, the country’s situation was so dire that Henry was forced to travel abroad in the hope of securing a U.N. peacekeeping deal. He went to Kenya, which agreed to send 1,000 troops to coordinate an East African and U.N.-backed alliance to help restore order in Haiti, but the plan is now on hold . Kenya agreed last October to send a U.N.-sanctioned security force to Haiti, but Kenya’s courts decided it was unconstitutional. The result has been Haiti fending for itself. 

“A force like Kenya, they don’t speak Kreyòl, they don’t speak French,” Pierre said. “The Kenyan police are known for human rights abuses . So what does it tell us as Haitians that the only thing that you see that we deserve are not schools, not reparations for the cholera the U.N. brought , but more military with the mandate to use all kinds of force on our population? That is unacceptable.”  

Henry was forced to announce his planned resignation from Puerto Rico, as threats of violence — and armed groups taking over the airports — have prevented him from returning to his country.  

Now that Henry is to stand down, it is far from clear what the armed groups will do or demand next, aside from the right to govern. 

“It’s the Haitian people who know what they’re going through. It’s the Haitian people who are going to take destiny into their own hands. Haitian people will choose who will govern them,” Chérizier said recently, according to The Associated Press .

Haitians and their supporters have put forth their own solutions over the years, holding that foreign intervention routinely ignores the voices and desires of Haitians. 

In 2021, both Haitian and non-Haitian church leaders, women’s rights groups, lawyers, humanitarian workers, the Voodoo Sector and more created the Commission to Search for a Haitian Solution to the Crisis . The commission has proposed the “ Montana Accord ,” outlining a two-year interim government with oversight committees tasked with restoring order, eradicating corruption and establishing fair elections. 

For more from NBC BLK, sign up for our weekly newsletter .

CORRECTION (March 15, 2024, 9:58 a.m. ET): An earlier version of this article misstated which university Jemima Pierre is affiliated with. She is a professor at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, not the University of California, Los Angeles, (or Columbia University, as an earlier correction misstated).

Patrick Smith is a London-based editor and reporter for NBC News Digital.

Char Adams is a reporter for NBC BLK who writes about race.

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Even the Supreme Court’s Conservatives Are Fed Up With the Garbage Coming Out of the 5th Circuit

What happens when a lawless judge and a terrible appeals court embrace the dopiest First Amendment claim you’ve ever heard out of pure spite toward a Democratic president? That would be Murthy v. Missouri , a brain-meltingly dumb case that the Supreme Court was unfortunate enough to hear oral arguments in on Monday. Murthy poses a question so asinine that to ask it is to answer it: Can government officials encourage social media companies to moderate certain content that they deem harmful—most importantly, disinformation about COVID-19 in the middle of the pandemic?

Yes, of course they can: The First Amendment does not gag public officials from urging Facebook or the Washington Post or anyone else to publish or not publish certain information, especially when it contains dangerous lies about a once-in-a-century pandemic that could exacerbate the crisis. The First Amendment bars government censorship, not government persuasion, and the Biden administration planted itself on the latter side of that bright line. At least six justices grasped this basic constitutional principle on Monday. Several of them used arguments to highlight how this inane case illustrates so much of what’s wrong with the judiciary today, and hinted at the dangers it could pose to American democracy in the future. That we should pay attention to. The rest was an unfortunate sideshow.

Like so many Supreme Court cases these days, Murthy is built atop a heap of fake facts. The case began when Missouri and Louisiana sued agencies and officials across the Biden administration, falsely accusing them of coercing social media companies into censoring their residents’ free speech. (These states later added a handful of fringe anti-vaxxers to the suit.) They filed their complaint in the Monroe Division of the Western District of Louisiana, where—surprise!—they were guaranteed to draw a Trump appointee, Terry Doughty, the one judge hearing cases in that division. Judge Doughty has a record of issuing nationwide injunctions against the Biden administration on the basis of dubious legal and factual analysis. Most notably, he issued a nationwide bar against Biden’s vaccine mandate for health care workers in an opinion riddled with anti-vax nonsense (which the Supreme Court reversed ).

Doughty, in other words, was certain to rule against Biden in the social media case. Even still, the opinion he handed down on July 4, 2023, was a humiliating mess of contradictions, fabrications , and (ironically) misinformation . Doughty adopted the plaintiffs’ theory that the administration “coerced” social media companies into removing “conservative” speech about COVID, including posts promoting hydroxychloroquine and rejecting the efficacy of vaccines. He accused government officials of launching a “coordinated campaign” to silence conservatives by forcing private companies to take down anti-vax content, as well as false claims about election fraud. And he issued one of the most sweeping injunctions in the history of the American legal system, prohibiting any employee—including Homeland Security, the State Department, the Department of Justice, and the FBI—from “engaging in any communication of any kind with social-media companies” encouraging content moderation.

Doughty, it turns out, grievously butchered the record to reach his conclusion. An exhaustive analysis by Mike Masnick proves that Doughty consistently misrepresented testimony and other evidence in the record to construct a conspiracy theory with zero basis in reality. He distorted emails and other exchanges to make them look coercive when they were nothing of the sort, cherry-picking and rearranging quotations to put them in a censorious light. Yet the hard-right U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5 th Circuit, where law goes to die , affirmed Doughty’s conclusions and upheld much of his injunction (while narrowing it in part). That move sent the administration racing to the Supreme Court for an emergency stay, which it granted in October, over the dissents of Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas. Monday’s arguments confirmed that a majority is prepared to side with Biden on the merits.

The justices did not sound happy to have the case before them. Justice Sonia Sotomayor scolded Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga (a former Alito clerk) for his lack of candor. “I have such a problem with your brief,” she told him. “You omit information that changes the context of some of your claims. You attribute things to people who it didn’t happen to.” Aguiñaga was unable to defend Doughty’s more extreme deceptions. So he had to fall back on what Justice Elena Kagan called an “extremely expansive” argument: the notion that “encouraging people to suppress their own speech” violates the First Amendment, even if it isn’t coercive. Kagan drew upon her past work in the executive branch to explain that, actually, government officials do this all the time . “I’ve had some experience encouraging press to suppress their own speech,” Kagan told Aguiñaga. Example: “You just wrote a bad editorial. Here are the five reasons you shouldn’t write another one.” Is that really unconstitutional?

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a former White House staff secretary, also provided a real-world perspective after Alito fumed that officials had been too mean to the platforms and would never treat the traditional press so sharply. Kavanaugh gave Alito a reality check: “I’d assumed, thought, [and] experienced government press people throughout the federal government who regularly call up the media and berate them,” he told Deputy Solicitor General Brian Fletcher, who defended the administration. “You said the anger was unusual. I wasn’t entirely clear on that from my own experience.” Translation: Government employees yell at members of the media all the time. The media can accept or reject their requests. That is how it works .

But did Biden officials berate social media employees? Only on a few rare occasions. Here’s what really happened: The platforms in question, most prominently Facebook and Twitter, invited the government to help them identify and remove the most toxic disinformation. At the time, as Fletcher explained, these companies were eager to present themselves as “partners” with the administration in its push for COVID vaccination. Officials could “flag” questionable content, but the platforms made their own judgment calls, without any demonstrable fear of retaliation. Everyone agrees that the government violates free speech when it explicitly coerces companies into censoring expression under the threat of punishment. But, Fletcher persuasively argued, no such thing happened here.

That left Aguiñaga to lean on the theory that the government contravenes the First Amendment when it merely “encourages” specific content moderation. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a stickler for legible rules, sounded borderline aghast at this baggy, boundless standard; she lobbed a series of hypotheticals at Aguiñaga that showed he was pushing a meaningless and impracticable test. Chief Justice John Roberts tried to help Aguiñaga understand that multiple agencies with competing agendas may pressure platforms in contradictory directions; doesn’t that “dilute the concept of coercion significantly?” (Aguiñaga just sounded confused.) Kavanaugh pointed out that the plaintiffs’ position could prevent officials from urging the press to safeguard national security by, for instance, asserting that a forthcoming article might imperil the troops.

Even Gorsuch, who started out sympathetic to Aguiñaga, was exasperated by the end, complaining that Doughty’s “universal injunction” was part of the “epidemic” that had to be stopped. Only Alito and Thomas sounded like surefire votes for the plaintiffs after nearly two hours of arguments, and Thomas’ heart was not fully in it. Alito stood alone in his increasingly uncontrolled and seething aggrievement .

The pandemic may be over, but Murthy remains a hugely relevant case. Perhaps most obviously, it is a cautionary tale about the extremism of Trump judges like Doughty, who keep issuing these lawless injunctions at the behest of red-state politicians, and the 5 th Circuit, which keeps upholding them. A disproportionate number of the Supreme Court’s cases this term emerge from the 5 th Circuit, which keeps appeasing the Trump-appointed zealots attempting to seize unimaginable amounts of power from the democratic branches. The chief justice is attempting to crack down on the kind of judge-shopping that occurred here, but the fight is just beginning. The evident frustration of Roberts, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and even Gorsuch on Monday suggests that a majority of the court is fed up with this political manipulation of the judiciary by rogue judges with undisguised partisan loyalties.

So, yes, SCOTUS is likely to reach the right result in Murthy . Alarmingly, though, so much damage has already been done. In light of Doughty’s injunction, the federal government shut down all of its efforts to combat disinformation, fearful of judicial sanctions. Bad actors have exploited this development to flood the internet with lies about the upcoming 2024 election. If foreign entities attempt to interfere with the election via social media, the Biden administration will have few tools left to fight them. It is just too late to revive the various task forces that worked with platforms before Doughty disbanded them last year. For the Murthy plaintiffs, then, a Supreme Court defeat may not matter much. They have already done immense damage to truth and transparency on the internet. And at this late date, the worst of it cannot be undone.