Free Example of Positive and Negative Governments Essay

A government is a unit of legislators, responsible for the administration and arbitration of a political state. This unit takes further diverse outlook on the manner in which it exercises its legal mandate and obligations. Therefore, there are two forms of governance with regard to their mandate and obligations; these include positive and negative government. A positive government focuses on the research and solutions to the problems its citizens face. In other words, a positive government carries out the analysis of possibilities to identify the viable projects for the investment in order to achieve its legitimate goal.

In the United States, it was during the reign of the President John Quincy Adams that a positive government was experienced. Indeed, the needs of the people were prioritized, and this guided it in decision making and the social policies that it projected further on. For instance, on February 1787, the Constitution of the US was drawn through a convened conference of delegates, summoned from all member states. On May 25 the same year, a conference to revise the clauses and articles of the Constitution was convened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the Constitution took effect in 1789. This was a significant step in the attainment of federal government under inauspicious conditions with the headship of the President John Quincy Adams (Patterson & Thomas 158).

The form of government in the United States, however, has had numerous moderations. Virtually, every new president changed to new federalism, perhaps, with a view to achieve the national goal. At the onset, dual federalism enabled the national government to be in charge of the entire economy in the country. US government, however, boasted of various positive political alignments: a good constitution, power separation, devolved system of local and central governments as well as the avenue for citizens to own up the government through empowerment to participate in decision making. This also marked an essential feature of positive government in the same period, when the members were allowed to participate in decision making concerning the matters affecting them. Furthermore, the above mentioned draft included a greater scope of interest of the citizens, their backgrounds and also prospects of their future as well as it incorporated the interests of the founding fathers of the nation.

American government has gone through a series of federalism growth. Indeed, it has moved from dual federalism, where equality of states was exercised between 1836 and 1933, to the current federalism, reinventing federalism through the President Clinton with improved service delivery, when the national government lead, while the states and decentralized governments’ organs delivered the core to the respective citizens in line with the national objectives in order to paint a national outlook. However, the key concern was Social policies strategic plan on the projects, aimed at improving the life of citizens and regime transformation from negative governance to positive one. These include education policy, health policy, social security policy etc. In the UK, for instance, the central government spearheads most government projects. Conversely, in the Northern Ireland and Scotland, the situation is slightly different. Instead, each area has its own state secretary and administration department within the central government as well as an independent national assembly, commanding certain government ministries.

On the other hand, negative government does not consider the benefit of possibility analysis. It considers pitiable determination of the relative costs of investments with regard to the social demands. Negative government has had a considerable share in the US politics. This was mainly evidenced in United State of America during the time of President Gerald Ford, who was the thirty-eighth President of the United State of America. Following the inception of his term in office, Ford declared, "Our long national nightmare is over". However, it was under his leadership that the economy steadily deteriorated despite his pledge to take the country forward. Furthermore, inflation and unemployment rate escalated simultaneously and this portrayed his leadership as a negative government due to its inability to address pressing issues facing American citizens.

In addition, money flow efficiency, the citizen rights such as women’s rights and crime rate rose at a wide margin, making the whole situation of the states worse. Furthermore, the President failed to synchronize his predecessor, Nixon’s staffs into his manifesto and this posed an enormous challenge to his regime, as government projects were pegged on its staff for the drafting and implementation.  The main position in the White House, "chief of staff", was held by Alexander Haig during Nixon’s presidency and retained it until he was appointed a commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Europe. The new President’s appointees as well as Nixon’s holdovers collapsed. This contributed to the failure of Ford’s government to deliver the social policy outlay to its citizens.  This marked a shed of negative government in the USA. 

In addition, negative government was also experienced During Ford’s regime, when energy crises skyrocketed. This resulted from the decrease in predominance of Americans in the world economies and low levels of investments and this had a negative impact on the US citizens. Rise in the federal outlays was further enhanced by the increase of costs on oil which resulted from the extensive consumption of oil, necessitating the import to counter the increment. Yom Kippur War also led to the oil price increment as the OPEC blamed Nixon of supporting Israel and cut short their shipment though resumed shortly before Ford took office (Patterson & Thomas 474)

In conclusion, negative government in the US led to the social unrest and deterioration of the state of the economy. Furthermore, it led to mistrust in the government as political ideologies emerged and took a share in the national government. On the other hand, positive government has led to the growth of the economy and the entire macro outlook in term of living standards, social and scientific advancement. Indeed, through positive government, the state is in a position to post positive economic growth through rising level of investments.