University of Southern Mississippi

University of Southern Mississippi

Department of Political Science, International Affairs, and International Development

Political Science 700 Dr. Troy Gibson

Fall, 2005 223 Hardy Hall

Office Hours:

TR, 9-10

Seminar on American Politics

The purpose of this seminar can be expressed generally and specifically. First, it is to help socialize graduate students for in-depth study in the field of Political Science. This course is qualitatively different than undergraduate courses in American Politics. The course focuses not on the facts of American Politics but the academic study of American Politics. As graduate students, you must learn to analyze and critique scholarship in Political Science. This course will also help to introduce you to topics in American Politics that may spark your interests for future research. In any case, your personal scholarly library will expand as a result of this course. Secondly, as a survey course, we will not do justice to any one topic in American Politics research. However, you will be the subfield. Because of time constraints, and because this course may be taken twice for credit, this particular edition of PS 700 will center on political behavior in American Politics. Perhaps the next edition will focus more on the institutions of the American political system.

From each graduate student, I expect a high degree of preparation and effort. Each student must demonstrate an unambiguous attempt to critically read the material, analyze it, and discuss it in class. This is a seminar. Seminar participants will lead the way in this course. Not only will your grade reflect ultimately your personal investment in the course, but your grade will also likely reflect the energy and contributions of your peers. In this sense, others will depend in part upon your level of commitment. Therefore, it is to your advantage not to wait until the last minute before you begin to read and process the material. Let me caution you. These readings are often not easy, especially for relatively new graduate students. My responsibility is limited to clarifying concepts, answering, and asking basic questions regarding the complexities of the scholarship and keeping the discussion moving along the right track. This is NOT a lecture course. On the other hand, you will be challenged each week not only to adequately understand the material, but to understand the material well enough to engage in lively discussion and debate that flow from the material.

Requirements:

Participation (presentation*, discussion, and debate; both quantity and quality are important): 40%

Papers** (weekly essays; 1-3 pages typed & single-spaced; copy for all): 40%

Final Exam*** (comp style): 20%

*Each seminarian will be responsible for presenting a mini-lecture from week to week to the class. Particularly, the lecture should include not only a summary of the primary themes and controversies in the area of study, but also questions to the class that are provocative and challenging and ultimately enhance our discussion of the assigned readings and topic.

**Each seminarian will write an essay and present his/her weekly reading assignment using the following set guidelines:

Summary: What is the main research question? What are the hypotheses? From what theory are these hypotheses derived? What data and methods are used to address the research question or test the hypotheses? What are the primary and substantive findings or arguments?

Critique: Is the evidence used to support the findings sufficient to support the conclusions? Does the author utilize appropriate techniques of analysis?

Contribution: What research questions (perhaps new ones) are raised from the readings? How do the readings expand our understanding of American politics?

***The final exam will be essay style and comprehensive in nature. This will be a nice introduction to comprehensive exams in our graduate program. It will cover the research topics from the entire semester. There will be some choice over questions, however.

Course Reading Materials:

For your convenience, most of the readings assigned are available through the Southern Miss library online at www.lib.usm.edu (use the searchable databases: JSTOR and/or EBSCOhost). Other assignments are available on e-reserve through the library as well. In addition, the following texts are required:

Flanigan and Zingale. 2002. Political Behavior of the American Electorate, 10th edition.

Niemi and Weisberg. 2001. Controversies in Voting Behavior, 4th edition.

Kernell and Smith. 2004. Principles and Practice of American Politics: Classic and Contemporary Readings, 2nd ed.

Topics and Assignments[1]:

I.  Thinking/Reading like a Political Scientist

What do they do? How do they do it? What do they study? How do they evolve?

·  F&Z Ch. 1

·  Dahl, Robert. 1961. “The Behaviorial Approach in Political Science: Epitaph for a Monument to a Successful Protest.” American Political Science Review 55:763-772.

·  Polsby, Nelson. 1982. “Contemporary Transformations of American Politics: Thoughts on the Research Agendas of Political Scientists.” Political Science Quarterly 96:551-570.

·  Arnold, Douglas. 1982. “Overtilled and Undertilled Fields in American Politics.” Political Science Quarterly 97:91-103.

II.  Participation: Turnout

Why do some participate in politics? Why do others not participate? What encourages/discourages turnout? How do we explain variation in turnout rates? Why is the turnout rate as low as it is? Why has the turnout rate declined over the last 40 years?

·  FZ Ch. 2

·  N&W Ch. 2

·  Putnam. “Tuning in, Tuning out: The Strange Disappearance of Social Capital in America.” (N&W Ch. 3)

·  Rosenstone and Hansen. “Solving the Puzzle of Participation in Electoral Politics.” (N&W Ch. 4)

·  Franklin. “Electoral Participation.” (N&W Ch. 5)

·  Lijphart, Arend. 1997. “Unequal Participation: Democracy’s Unresolved Dilemma.” American Political Science Review 91:1-14. (I’ll present this one)

·  Michael P. McDonald and Samuel Popkin. 2001. "The Myth of the Vanishing Voter." American Political Science Review 95: 963-974.

III.  Participation: Voting behaviors/choices (2 sessions)

What determines one’s vote choice? Are elections predetermined? What role does the economy play?

·  F&Z Ch. 8

·  N&W Ch. 10

·  Nadeau and Lewis-Beck. “National Economic Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections.” (N&W Ch. 11)

·  MacKuen, Erikson, and Stimson. 1992. “Peasants or Bankers? The American Electorate and the U.S. Economy.” APSR 86:597-611.

·  Lanoue. 1996. “Retrospective and Prospective Voting in Presidential-Year Elections.” PRQ 47:193-206.

·  Bartels. 2000. “Partisanship and Voting Behavior, 1952-1996.” AJPS 44:35-50.

·  Miller and Shanks. “Multiple-Stage Explanation of Political Preferences.” (N&W Ch. 12)

·  Popkin. “The Reasoning Voter.” (K&S Ch. 11-1)

·  Stimson and Carmines. 1980. “Two Faces of Issue Voting.” APSR 74:78-91.

Supplemental:

·  Gomez and Wilson. 2001. “Political Sophistication and Economic Voting in the American Electorate: A Theory of Heterogeneous Attribution.” AJPS 45:899-914.

IV.  Ideology and Public Opinion

De we have an ideology? What accounts for the development of ideology? Are we more ideological today than before?

·  F&Z Ch. 6

·  Jennings and Niemi. 1968. “The Transmission of Political Values from Parent to Child.” APSR 62:169-184.

·  Asher. “Analyzing and Interpeting Polls.” (K&S Ch. 10-1)

·  Stimson, MacKuen, and Erikson. “Dynamic Representation.” (K&S Ch. 10-2)

·  Lau and Redlawsk. “Voting Correctly.” (N&W Ch. 8)

·  Page and Shapiro. “Rational Public Opinion.” (N&W Ch. 9)

V.  Political Parties: Partisanship

Is partisanship the unmoved mover or should it be treated as an independent variable? What about dealignment?

·  F&Z Ch. 4

·  N&W Ch. 17

·  Bartels. “Partisanship and Voting Behavior, 1992-1996.” (K&S Ch. 12-2)

·  Miller. “Generational Changes and Party Identification?” (N&W Ch. 18)

·  Green, Palmquist, and Schickler. “Partisan Stability: Evidence from Aggregate Data.” (N&W Ch. 19)

·  Erikson, MacKuen and Stimson. “Macropartisanship: The Permanent Memory of Partisan Evaluation.” (N&W Ch. 20)

·  Lockerbie. 2002. “Party Identification: Constancy and Change.” American Politics Research 30:384-405.

VI.  Political Parties: Organizations and Role in Democracy (2 sessions)

Do party organizations matter in elections? What explains our two-party system? Are we experiencing a 6th realignment?

·  F&Z Ch. 3

·  N&W Ch. 21

·  Riker. 1982. “The Two Party System and Duverger’s Law.” APSR 76:753-766.

·  Hernson. 1986. “Do Parties Make a Difference? The Role of Party Organizations in Congressional Elections.” APSR 84:225-236.

·  Stanley and Niemi. “Party Coalitions and Group Support, 1952-1996.” (N&W Ch. 22)

·  Aldrich and Niemi. “The Sixth American Party System: Electoral Change, 1952-1992.” (N&W Ch. 23).

·  Aldrich. “Why Parties.” (K&S Ch. 12-1

·  Maisel. “American Political Parties: Still Central to a Functioning Democracy?” (K&S Ch. 12-3)

VII.  Divided Government: Causes

Do voters purposefully or accidentally choose divided government?

·  N&W Ch. 14

·  Fiorina. “Balancing Explanations of Divided Government?” (N&W Ch. 15)

·  Burden and Kimball. “A New Approach to the Study of Ticket-Splitting.” (N&W Ch. 16)

·  Mattei and Howes. 2000. “Competing Explanations of Split-Ticket Voting in American National Elections.” APQ 28:379-407.

·  Born. 2000. “Policy-Balancing Models and Split-Ticket Voters, 1972-1996.” APQ 28:131-162.

·  Lewis-Beck. 2004. “Split-Ticket Voting: The Effects of Cognitive Madisonianism.” JOP 66: 97-112.

VIII.  Interest Groups (2 sessions)

Why do interest groups form? How do they survive? What kinds of groups survive?

·  Ainsworth. 2002. Analyzing Interest Groups, Ch. 2 (on e-reserve; I’ll present this one)

·  Schattschneider. “The Scope and Bias of the Pressure System.” (K&S Ch. 13-1)

·  Wright. “The Evolution of Interest Groups.” (K&S Ch. 13-1)

·  Rothenberg, Lawrence. 1988. “Organizational Maintenance and the Retention Decision in Groups.” APSR 82:1129-1152.

·  Walker, Jack. 1983. “The Origins and Maintenance of Interest Groups in America.” APSR 77:390-406.

·  Jankowski and Brown. 1995. “Political Success, Government Subsidization, and the Group Freerider Problem.” SSQ 76:853-862.

·  Salisbury, Robert. 1969. “An Exchange Theory of Interest Groups.” Midwest Journal of Political Science 13:1-32.

·  Caldeira and Wright. 1998. “Lobbying for Justice: Organized Interests, the Senate, and the Bork, Souter, and Thomas Nominations.” AJPS 42:499-523.

IX.  Religion and Politics in America

Does religion influence the political behavior of lawmakers and voters? How? Is there really a culture war emerging in American politics?

·  Leege and Kellstadt. Rediscovering the Religious Factor in American Politics. (e-reserve).

·  Jelen. 1998. “Research in Religion and Mass Political Behavior in the United States: Looking Both Ways after Two Decades of Scholarship.” APQ 26:110-134.

·  Layman. 1999. “Culture Wars in the American Party System: Religious and Cultural Change among Partisan Activists since 1972.” APQ 27:89-121.

·  Layman and Carmines. 1997. “Cultural Conflict in American Politics: Religious Traditionalism, Postmaterialism, and U.S. Political Behavior.” JOP 59:751-777.

·  Gibson. 2004. “Culture Wars in State Education Policy: A Look at the Relative Treatment of Evolutionary Theory in State Science Standards.” Social Science Quarterly 85: 1129-1149.

·  Wald, Owen, and Hill. 1990. “Political Cohesion in Churches.” JOP 52:197-215.

X.  News Media

What impact does the Media have on electoral behavior? How does the Media go about fulfilling its self-proclaimed role in American politics?

·  F&Z (Ch. 7)

·  Robinson. 1976. “Public Affairs Television and the Growth of Political Malaise: The Case of ‘The Selling of the Pentagon,’” APSR 70:409-432.

·  Craig, Brians, and Wattenberg. 1996. “Campaign Issue Knowledge and Salience: Comparing Reception from TV Commercials, TV News and Newspapers.” AJPS 40:172-193.

·  Schudson. “Is Journalism Hopelessly Cynical?” (K&S Ch. 14-1)

·  Edsall. “The People and the Press: Whose Views Shape the News?” (K&S Ch. 14-2)

·  Althaus. “American News Consumption during Times of National Crisis.” (K&S Ch. 14-3)

If a student has a disability that qualifies under the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) and requires accommodations, he/she should contact the Office for Disability Accommodations (ODA) for information on appropriate policies and procedures. Disabilities covered by ADA may include learning, psychiatric, physical disabilities, or chronic health disorders. Students can contact ODA if they are not certain whether a medical condition/disability qualifies.

Address:

The University of Southern Mississippi on the Gulf Coast

Office for Disability Accommodations

730 East Beach Blvd

Long Beach, MS 39560

Voice Telephone: (228) 214-3232 or (601) 266-5024 Fax: (601) 266-6035

Individuals with hearing impairments can contact ODA using the Mississippi Relay

Service at 1-800-582-2233 (TTY) or email Suzy Hebert at .

[1] There are numerous suggested or supplemental readings that correspond to each topic in addition to those required. If you want or need these, please let me know. Key to journals: SSQ=Social Science Quarterly, JOP=Journal of Politics, APSR=American Political Science Review, AJPS=American Journal of Political Science, APR=American Politics Research, APQ=American Politics Quarterly, PRQ=Political Research Quarterly,