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Political science America the unusual essay

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Political science America the unusual essay
Annabel Nganga Political science America the unusual essay

America the Unusual by John Kingdon explores the uniqueness of the American system of government and how it acquired its distinctiveness. Kingdon argues that America is different from other industrialized countries in many ways. He explains the advantages and disadvantages of having an American system of government. John Kingdon considers the United States to be unusual in many different ways. First is the system of government, while many Americans complain about high taxes the truth is that American government, compared to most foreign democracies such as Japan, is very limited in power and scope. One area American government differs greatly from others is its scope of public policy. Americans desire limited public policy, a result of several components of American ideology, the most important being the desire for individuality and equal opportunity for all citizens. There are many possible explanations for the reason Americans think this way, including the personality of the immigrants who fled here. The limited scope of limited public policy is explained by the health insurance in this country. The government only manages to provide health insurance for the elderly and the poor through Medicare and Medicaid, while other countries such as Canada and Great Britain provides health insurance for the whole population. According to Kingdon the American government differs from other countries in that while many industrialized countries have a unitary kind of government America has a federal kind where it is divided between the national and state government. Americans do not like the idea of one central government controlling all the policies that’s why they prefer the federal kind of government because in this way the states have their own sovereign power. Kingdon also talks about how elections differ from other industrialized countries, In the United states the individual

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