Question

explain how each of the political factors below makes it difficult for the federal government to enact public policy: divided government, weak party discipline, growth in the number of interest groups and political action committees

Answer 1

Answer:

These political factors affect the way and time that it requires for the federal government to enact public policy adversely.

Explanation:

Divided government: when a government in power is divided along party lines and also if each arm of the government : legislative, executive and Judiciary arm of the government does not work to pursue a similar policy with each other  then enacting public policies will be difficult

Weak party discipline: The public official in the government represents and carries out the policy of the party and this requires strict party discipline within the party members to agree and obey the policy/agenda of the party over individual agenda and this can hinder the enactment of the policy in Government.

Growth in the number of interest groups : interest groups influence the public opinions and public policies in a country hence so many interest groups with several interests will make it difficult for the federal government to enact public policies

political action committees : the group of people are responsible for the financing of several government campaigns hence they will have a way of influencing public policy hence making it difficult for federal government to enact public policies

Answer 2

Divided government: occurs when the governors are unable to reach an agreement about the governance of the country. On that occasion, several different aspects of how the government should act arise, lacking an efficient consensus among politicians and generating strong cases of politicization, which prevents efficient and necessary public policies from being established and voted to allow their execution.

Weak party discipline: Prevents rapid voting on the implementation of public policies. As a result, the implementation of these policies is delayed and precarious. In addition, it makes the work of the federal government more difficult, forcing each parliamentarian to negotiate for these policies separately, making it difficult for political agreements to exist, as the governor starts to act individually.

Growth in the number of interest groups: When a public policy is established and needs to go into the execution process, it is necessary that all government officials work together, which does not happen when interest groups are generated. Each interest group acts individually, seeking personal and not collective benefits.

Political action committees: They can promote the interests of just a group of government officials, generate politicization and polarization of political thought, in addition to generating power gaps that can prevent the implementation of public policies.