PS360 Course Syllabus –Renka - Fall 1999
| PS360-01 - Political Parties and Voting Behavior | Professor Russell D. Renka |
| Fall 1999 | Campus
Office: Social
Science (Carnahan) 211-L |
| MF 12:00 - 1:15 p.m. | Office Hours: MWF 11-11:50, TR 10-10:50 |
| Classroom: Social Science (Carnahan) 210 | Office Telephone:
573/651-2692 |
| Home Website: http://cstl-cla.semo.edu/renka/ | Office FAX:
573/651-2695 |
| email: rdrenka@semovm.semo.edu |
Introduction
PS360
Course Books
and Readings
Course
Requirements
Course
Expectations
Journal
Resources
Reaching
me
Weekly
Topics and Readings
This is a mainline upper-division political science course on topics at
the very core of the practice of democratic politics:
the creation and maintenance of political parties, and the conduct of
competitive elections for public office. These
are not separate topics, for parties are essential in every democracy (but not
in non-democracies) to running elections and governing the polity.
Parties are currently regarded with great suspicion by most middle-class
Americans, yet we have found no alternative to them.
First up is why political parties are essential parts of a
democracy. We start with answers to
that, emphasizing the peculiar 160-year American tradition of having just two
national political parties with a realistic chance for each to elect a President
and control the national Congress. It
is fairly unusual among democracies to do this, as we shall see.
We take a comparative look at party systems (contrasting American to
foreign systems) and a historical one (evaluating past American party
practices). We distinguish parties
from other political entities such as interest groups, factions, and ad hoc
political coalitions. We look at
parties as organizations, which run elections, including the complicated
American national primary system. We
look at the byzantine financing arrangements of parties and candidates.
We look directly at national and state elections, with intensive review
of recent national results. We
study voters and nonvoters, together with the business of polling by which we
learn about it. We look at parties-in-government, as the central organizing
entity of the national legislature and most state assemblies.
Finally, we look closely at the current and future relevance of political
parties in the American polity.
Course
Books
and Readings:
The text, available through Textbook Service, is:
Beck, Paul Allen. 1997.
Party Politics in America, 8th
ed. New York: Addison Wesley Longman. In Readings list, this is
labeled "Beck."
The reader, available at Southeast Bookstore, is: Maisel, L. Sandy, ed. 1998. The Parties Respond: Changes in American Parties and Campaigns, 3d ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. In Readings list, this is labeled "Maisel."
Additional readings come from reserve readings at
Kent Library, website materials, journal articles, and occasional in-class
handouts.
PS360 Course Requirements Return to Top
One can earn up to 500 credit points in the
course. These divide among three
categories:
300 points - three exams, including a final that is exam no. 3 (at 100
points each)
100 points - term paper
100 points - classroom assignments, classroom participation, roundtables
Examinations: Each
examination has two 50-point sections. First
is an in-class objective type of exam consisting of multiple-choice questions
derived from readings and class lecture/discussion.
Second is a take-home essay of some two and a half to three pages on a
specified topic. The final is not
comprehensive; rather, it is really exam no. 3 on the third and last section of
the course. Total valuation of
exams is 300 points.
Term Papers: Follow
the “ten and ten” rule. A term
paper should be an honest 10-pager with ten or more sources. Shorter papers and those with few sources are typically the
result of casual or last minute efforts. No
one could use that approach to successfully perform in a play, run well in a
distance race, maintain a great love relationship, or rise to a new and higher
job in the work world. Neither can
a good paper be written that way. I expect you to select a topic and clear it with me.
You can start this at any time not later than times outlined below.
Here are dates for steps toward completion of the term paper:
Monday, September 20 (start of Week 5):
due date for topic selection (Note:
This is Yom Kippur. If that
intervenes, turn it in ahead of time.)
Monday, October 18 (Week 9):
deadline for topical outline plus sources (with a minimum of ten separate
sources).
Monday, November 22 (Week 14):
deadline for submitting drafts (I will review and amend a draft if you
choose to turn one in. This is not
required and does not involve a grade, but is just about guaranteed to make for
a better final paper!)
Monday, November 29: final
paper deadline (Seem far away? It
really isn’t!)
In-class assignments: I do evaluate class participation, usually by posing a
problem or question derived from readings and asking you to respond.
I illustrate something using websites and ask for judgment about it in
the next session. There’s no
substitute for being on hand when this happens.
PS360
Course
Expectations:
Return
to Top
Attendance:
You are expected to attend each class session unless there’s a valid
reason to miss (i.e., personal illness or ill child, death in immediate family,
motorcycle wreck, full blown Midwestern blizzard, New Madrid Fault disturbance
of 6.0 or greater magnitude on Richter Scale).
We often use class discussion for short writing assignments and/or
assignments to find relevant information from journals, the library, or
websites. Some of these are
impromptu, and it’s often difficult or impossible to compensate by asking
later that I email you the assignment details.
Use email or telephone voice mail to advise me if you will miss or have
missed class. On being late: just come on in. I
don’t encourage deliberate lateness, but traffic, weather, and professors in
earlier classes all can cause you to arrive at six after the hour.
On plagiarism: You
should review the Student Handbook on the problem of plagiarism.
Most of you are familiar with the chronic problem of someone passing off
another’s work as his or her own, yet it still crops up with distressing
regularity. I cannot accept
any work except your own. In
academic circles, proper recognition of authorship is the coin of the realm.
We are all required to maintain the currency.
Distinguish what’s yours from what is borrowed from and attributed to
someone else.
Journal Resources: Return to Top
The best work on political parties and elections is in the broadly
defined political science journals. These
are filled with articles on topics relevant to us.
Chief among them are American
Political Science Review, American
Journal of Political Science, Journal
of Politics, British Journal of
Political Science, American Politics
Quarterly, and Political Research
Quarterly.
Among monthly magazine journals, nuts-and-bolts practice of politics by
campaign professionals is shown in Campaigns
and Elections. Weekly journals
of considerable value for regular Washington watchers are Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report (for stuff from the Hill,
chiefly), and National Journal
(especially useful for stuff “downtown” in the executive agencies and White
House). All are on KL open shelves
except CQWR, which is behind the KL
counter.
I
have an open door policy, and can very often be found at or near my office
computer. My office is located in
the new A.J.S. Carnahan Social Science Building, in Room 211-L. The Department of Political Science is also located at SS211;
you can leave messages for me there if I am absent. In general, I can be reached as follows:
a)
Leave a message at my Department mailbox or with the department
office.
b)
Leave a message at the drop outside my door at 211-L.
c)
Place a voice mail message at 651-2692.
d) Email me at rdrenka@semovm.semo.edu.
e) If you’re out of town and cannot send a paper or assignment by email, then FAX it to 573/651-2695.
f)
Consult my website at Home Page
(or http://cstl-cla.semo.edu/renka)
for other details about myself and my courses, including this syllabus.
PS360
Weekly
Topics and
Readings
-
Fall
1999
Week 1.
August 23, 27
What are parties?
Why are
they essential in democracies?
Beck, Part One, Parties and Party Systems.....pp. 1-5
Beck Ch. 1 - In search of the parties.....pp. 7-29
Silbey, J. in Maisel Ch. 1 - Rise and Fall of American Parties
The two-party system and causes thereof;
the SMDP and PR election rules
Beck Ch. 2 -
The American two-party
system
Week 2. August
30, September 3
The American two-party system
Website sources review
A comparative perspective on parties in democracy--presentation by Prof. Alynna Lyon
Week 3. September
10
Note: Mon, September 6:
Labor Day--no
student or faculty labor! Class is held only on F, Sept. 10, this week.
Political parties as organizations
Beck Ch. 3 - The State and Local
Party Organizations.....pp. 65-84
Bibby, J. in Maisel Ch. 2 - State
Party Organizations ..., pp. 23-49
Week 4. September
13, 17
The national party organizations
Beck Ch. 4 - National Organizations ..., pp. 85-105
Herrnson, P. in Maisel Ch. 3 - National Party Organizations at the
Century's End, pp. 50-82
Week 5. September
20, 24
Week
6. September 27, October 1
Party activists since 1968
Beck
Ch. 5 - the Political Party of the Activists
Party activists
Stone, W. and Rapoport, R., in
Maisel Ch. 4 - ... Nomination Activists
Week 7. October
4, 8
The electorate of the 1990s
Beck Part Three - The Political Party
in the Electorate, pp. 127-130
Beck Ch. 6 - The Loyal
Electorates.....pp. 131-150
Electorates and party detachment
Miller, W. in Maisel Ch. 5
- Party Identification and the Electorate of the 1990s.....pp. 109-127
Week 8. October
11, 15
Party alignment and ideology
Abramowitz. A. and Saunders, K in Maisel Ch. 6 -
Party Polarization and Ideological Realignment..., pp. 128-143
How the electorate votes
Beck Ch. 7 - The Party within the Voter, pp. 151-167
Why do so many Americans stay home?
Beck Ch. 8 - The Active Electorate,
pp. 168-195
Wattenberg article in October 1998
issue of The Atlantic, entitled Should Election Day Be a Holiday? - 98.10.
Week 10. October
25, 29
Discussion--on democratic citizenship
**Friday, Oct. 29 -
Examination no. 2**
Week 11. November
1, 5
Beck, Part Four - The Political
Parties in the Electoral Process, pp. 193-195
Beck Ch.9 - The Naming of the Party
Candidates, pp. 196-217
Choosing the next president
Beck Ch. 10 - Choosing the Presidential
Nominees
Week 12. November 8,12
A candidate-centered system
Dodenhoff,
D. and Goldstein, K.
Resources, Racehorses, and Rules: Nominations in the 1990s.....pp. 170-201
The presidential campaign
Beck
Ch. 11 - Parties and the Campaign for Election, pp. 246-269
Candidates as stars
Crotty, W in Maisel Ch. 9 - ..Parties in the 1996 Election: The Party as Team or the Candidates as
Superstars?.....pp. 202-224
Week 13. November 15,19
Money, money, more money
Sorauf,
F. in Maisel Ch. 10
- Political Parties and the New World of Campaign Finance, pp. 225-242
Any hope for campaign finance reform?
Beck
Ch.12 - Financing the Campaigns, pp. 270-300
The parties in the media
Kerbel, M. in Maisel Ch. 13 - Parties
in the Media: Elephants, Donkeys, Boars, Pigs, and Jackals.....pp. 243-259
Week 14. November
22
The party in the Congress
Beck Part Five, The Party in
Government, pp. 301-304
Beck
Ch. 13 - ... Party and Partisans in the Legislature
Policy-oriented parties
Sinclair, B. in Maisel Ch. 12 -
...Policy-oriented Congressional Parties in the 1990s, pp. 263-285
Abandonment of cross-party coalitions
Brady, D. and Buckley, K. in Maisel
Ch; 13 - Coalitions and Policy in the U.S. Congress: Lessons from the
103rd and 104th Congresses.....pp. 286-315
Week 15. November
29, December 3
Party rule in the House, coalition
Brady
and Buckley in
Maisel, Ch. 13 (continued from previous week)
Beck
Ch. 14
Presidential appointments and
MacKenzie,
C. in Maisel, Ch. 14 - Partisan Presidential Leadership: The President's Appointees,
pp. 316-337
Beck Ch. 15 - The Quest for Party
Government, pp. 353-376
Week 16. December 6, 10
Future of parties
Beck, Part Six - Political Parties in
the American Setting, pp. 377-378
Beck Ch. 16 - The Place of Parties in
American Politics, pp. 379-397
Shribman, D. in Maisel, Ch. 15
- Era of Pretty Good Feelings: The Middle Way of Bill Clinton ..., pp. 341-355
Maisel, S. in Maisel, Ch. 16 -
Political Parties on the Eve of the Millennium, pp. 356-371
Final Examination Week: **Examination
is Monday, December 13, 12:00 noon – 2:00 p.m
Introduction
PS360
Course Books
and Readings
Course
Requirements
Course
Expectations
Journal
Resources
Reaching
me
Weekly
Topics and Readings