The United States of America’s political system is rather complicated and multi-level. It includes federal, state, and local governments with their own legislative, executive, and judicial powers. Embracing the fifty states that constitute the country, this political system has been developed in order to protect the interests of the citizens of America whose population amounts to 305. 529. 237 million people as for January 1, 2009 survey data.
However, the proportion of the citizens and the people involved in making the public policy is rather impressive. Only 7, 314 people are responsible for the well-being of those 305 million Americans. The situation is complicated by the fact that a relatively small number of people is unable to settle the issues of public policy. As Dye (2002) argues, it is impossible to imagine that people from various regions of the country, from various social layers and communities would agree completely on the public policy issues and adopt a uniform vision of this or that social problem.
The main factor that does not allow even hoping for such an understanding and agreement between 7, 314 people lies in their various backgrounds and experiences. For instance, politicians representing the region of the US – Mexican border will focus more on the immigration and illegal labor force issues, while the New Orleans representatives will be more concerned with fighting natural disasters. Therefore, different focuses of the public policymakers will definitely prevent them from considering the same issues and coming to the same conclusions that are satisfactory for all the social groups in the US society.
