|
PS360 - Political Parties and Voting Behavior |
Professor Russell D. Renka |
| Fall 2006 - Course no. 12077 |
Campus Office: Carnahan
211L |
| MWF 11:00-11:50 a.m. |
Office Hours:
MWF 9:00-9:50 a.m. |
| Classroom: Carnahan
Hall, Room 210 |
Office Telephone:
(573) 651-2692
|
| Home Website:
http://cstl-cla.semo.edu/renka/ |
Office FAX: (573) 651-2695
|
| Email:
rdrenka@semo.edu |
Departmental Telephone: (573) 651-2183 |
PS360 Syllabus Sections - Fall 2006:
°Introduction
° On-line Instructor Suite
° Course Books and Readings
° Course Requirements
° Standards of Conduct
° Journal and On-line Resources
° Reaching me
° Weekly Topics and Readings
Introduction
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This course addresses topics at the very core of the practice of American democratic politics:
the behavior of voters and non-voters, 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 answer
that with theory from political science filtered
through the uniquely 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 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 interest groups, political factions, and political coalitions. We look at
parties as organizations, which run elections, including the complicated
American national primary system. We
look at the strange current system of financing parties and candidates.
We look directly at national and state elections, with intensive review
of recent national results including the bizarre doings last year in Florida. 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.
On-line
Instructor Suite
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OIS is run by Center for
Scholarship in Teaching and Learning. OIS gives you access to a class bulletin board
(Forum),
locale to post for posting papers and assignments (Drop
Box),
and your personal grade and assignment record (Gradebook).
PS360 Course Books and Readings:
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The "reader", at Textbook Service, is: Maisel, L. Sandy, and Kara Z. Buckley. 2005. Parties and
Elections in America:
The Electoral Process, 4th edition. Lanham, MD: Rowman
& Littlefield Publishers. In the Itinerary, this is labeled "Reader."
The publisher's website
(Rowman &
Littlefield, Inc. Study Guide for Parties and Elections in America) includes
a chronicle of 2004 election events plus reviews of each chapter with a Glossary
of key terms used there.
The Textbook, at Southeast Bookstore (or Barnes and Noble at
current price below $40), is: Morton, Rebecca B. 2006.
Analyzing Elections. New York: W.W. Norton. In the
Itinerary, this is labeled "Text," and we'll use it as such.
The publisher's website doesn't have a blurb on it yet since it was published in
July 2006 (as of 8 August 06). This new text is the primary basis for the
course, as you'll see.
Additional readings come from reserve readings at
Kent Library, website materials, journal articles, and occasional in-class
handouts. See Symposium:
Voting Gaps in the 2004 Election from PS: Political Science and Politics - July 2006.
PS360 Course
Requirements
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One can earn up to 1000 credit points in the
course. These divide among four categories:
600 points - three exams worth 200 points each (100 in class, 100 via take-home
essay)
200 points - term paper
100 points - classroom assignments, roundtables
100 points -
Forum
Examinations: Each examination has two 100-point sections. First
is an in-class objective type of exam consisting of multiple-choice questions
derived from readings and class lecture/discussion (100 points).
Second is a take-home essay of some two and a half to three pages on a
specified topic (also 100 points). 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 600 points.
Term Paper (200 points): 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 11 (start of Week 5):
due date for topic selection (subject to revision or change later on)
° Monday,
October 16 (Week 9):
deadline for topical outline plus sources (with a minimum of ten separate
sources).
° Friday, November 17 (Week 13):
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!)
° Friday,
December 1 (end of Week 15): final
paper deadline (Seem far away now? It
really isn’t!)
In-class assignments- "The Great Divide": There has never
been a modern period with such division of partisans as now in America.
We'll explore why this is so with a classroom discussion. Each of you will
" choose a side" for this in-class exercise. Details will be forthcoming on the
Forum and
in later versions of this syllabus. Background is shown now in Week 11 of
the Itinerary at end of October.
Value of participation:
100 points.
Forum
participation: Everyone should read the on-line
Forum and make periodic
postings there. This site will include material I covered in class, and any related political or public
happenings and news. It's an ideal place to post queries about what
lecture or readings are about.
I'll inventory participation and periodically post it on an entry slot in the
Gradebook. Credit applies only to
meaningful participation, that is, saying something that contributes to
furtherance of a conversation on one or more appropriate topics. Board
Value is 6 points per meaningful posting, up to 100 points total.
Grades: The online
Gradebook posts interim grades and the eventual course grade, to let you
keep up with your assignments and grades. It includes the criteria for A,
B, C, and D level performances so you can track your performance whenever you
wish.
Standards of Conduct
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This section refers to disabilities, class attendance, cell phones, text messaging, guns, personal
disruptions, cheating, plagiarism, and paper citations. Some of this isn't
fun for me to say or you to read, but it's all important. I ask every
student to carefully read this section. Once classes commence, I'll assume
you have read this and are responsible for heeding it.
Any student with a disability
that may require special accommodation should contact me about that as soon as
the need is recognized. I will take all reasonable measures to assist you
so long as they're within the law and not an undue burden on me or on other
students. Experience shows that many special needs can readily be met, but
only if I know about them. So please visit with me about that. I'll
hold our discussion in strict confidence and will do what I can.
Good students regularly attend
classes, while poor ones often don't. You're expected to attend all
regularly scheduled classes within reasonable time of their start. Each
session you'll have a sign-in sheet based on your classroom seat. I use
those to call names and make queries. I keep an open door as a rule and do
understand delays on entry due to other classes, inclement weather, and gossip
time; but be reasonable and do avoid habitual late entries. If
you know you'll need to leave a class early, just advise me in advance of that.
If it's sudden and necessary to leave, then do so but let me know next time
what's happened.
Cell phones may attend my classes only when turned off
(on vibrate).
I do not want to hear them; and it's truly rude to answer calls in class.
Should one ring anyhow, please silence it immediately and tell the offending implement
"no mas!" or its equivalent. If you must be on phone alert, use only
vibrate or a visual signaler.
If you must take the call, kindly leave class to do so--and only for emergency,
at that.
And now on text messaging: as with Nancy Reagan on
illegal drugs, I just say no. There are two reasons why. One is that I
don't buy into the general belief that this generation is adept at multi-tasking
so that they can pay attention in class and send messages to and fro at the same
time. Automobile drivers are dangerous when a cell phone is attached to
one hand and ear, because they pay no damned attention to other drivers.
This summer I saw someone texting while driving 75mph on a Dallas urban freeway.
Not good. As for the second reason, it's cheating during exams.
Messaging invites a modern version of whispering an answer or glomming your
neighbor's paper; it's a new variant on old-fashioned cheating.
I'm not trying to be anti-tech. Laptops are A-OK in class
(but no solitaire, please). So are tape recorders. I
encourage both.
But I do discourage guns. Real weapons may not attend any of my classes. The State of
Missouri passed a 'concealed carry' gun statute in 2003, leaving many unanswered
questions on when and where it's permissible to pack concealed heat. My
rule is very simple: no firearms of any kind are permitted in any of my
classes, or in my office, under any circumstances. Should there be a
violation, I will not confront the offender. Instead I will contact the
university's legal authorities and have them press action to ensure that the
offender may not continue this practice. There are no exceptions to this
rule unless the student is: a) a law enforcement authority authorized to
carry a gun in the normal performance of duties, and b) this student gets
my advance clearance to carry in class. Note: None of this refers to
minor weapons such as Swiss Army knives, Gerber tools, nail files, or the like.
I refer to guns.
I've never had a seriously disruptive student in a class, but hear from others that
some problems exist along this line. If someone is seriously disruptive
during class in such manner as makes you or others uncomfortable with being
there, please advise me of that. We have lively conversations that address
politics, so I don't refer to strongly worded opinions or even an occasional
shout. I mean personal
behavior that seriously offends you or others. That might include sexual
harassment. My policy is to directly ask the party to cease the offending
behavior. Should that fail, then I bring the university legal authority in
to resolve the issue. I can't be more specific than that, for the moment.
I can be very specific about cheating. See Southeast's
Academic
Honesty brochure on this subject. I had a certain nasty little cheater
in 2003, haven't forgotten that, and have since studied some methods for
catching and docking offenders. If a student cheats on an assignment, it's
an automatic zero grade on that work. If there's evidence of cheating on more
than one assignment, it's a zero on each affected assignment. Once I have
documented evidence, then I first confront the offender to elicit an explanation
of the behavior, after which I file a report with the Department chair. If
I catch the evidence post hoc and cannot confront the offender, I proceed
directly to the report.
Plagiarism is a common form of cheating and a chronic plague of the academic
community. It refers, of course, to someone taking the work of others and
passing it off as his or her own. It can be as simple as taking a
quotation and failing to show it properly, to lifting an entire piece verbatim
and pasting it to one's own paper or exam. The common element of this
noxious practice is always the same, namely that of falsely claiming for oneself
that which another person has created. In the commercial world, plagiarism
brings lawsuits for copyright violation. In the academic world, it brings
verdicts of both moral and academic failure on the offender. For insight
on what it is, see Southeast's
Academic
Honesty brochure, or Professor Hamner Hill's
Policy on
Plagiarism.
I do not tolerate plagiarism. I check for
it--and know from bitter experience and plenty of web-smarts how to find it.
If the plagiarism is intentional, I report that as a violation of the
University's academic integrity policy while assigning that paper or exam an
irreversible grade of zero. If it is not, I return the paper
without a grade to its creator for immediate and thorough correction.
The best
method of avoiding plagiarism is to acquire the habit of properly citing your
source material as you go along. I do so above on the listed books for
this course. The books do so as well. I do not stipulate a particular source guide, but will
expect you to cite one in your References section of any term paper. See
Kent Library's final touches -
tools for citing sources for proper use of MLA, APA, Chicago Style, and
others. I employ APA myself, but any of them are fine. The
core rule is simple: cite your stuff so that
anyone who reads your paper can easily track its sources. So give full
citation to all sources, including names of all authors, the
book/article/website file name or name and position of an interviewee, and all
publication information (publisher's location, publisher's name, year of pub,
volume and issue of journal, URL of a website plus date of its access). If
you got specific information from one page of a 900-page tome, do the reader the
courtesy of citing that page so they can avoid poring through 899
superfluous pages. Simple.
Websites are a special problem for proper citation.
Please do not cite a URL alone, as URLs are frequently changed.
If I cannot find your URL, then it won't count as a source. Cite the author, the
filename, the URL, and the date or dates of access.
Filenames are easily acquired from Google, or just take the article's
self-assigned title at its heading. A general guide on
separating good from crappy websites is
Evaluating Websites
from Donnelley and Lee Library in Chicago. On use of blogs: better
establish why it is authoritative enough to use. Some are, but others are just rants.
As a professional skeptic, I won't assume a blog is valid;
you have to establish that it is. On Wikipedia, I will accept these, but
only when coupled with another source on same subject. Wikipedia is
useful, but error-prone; so cross-check anything you get from them.
For local writing help, visit our
Online Writing Lab.
A webguide is
Expository Writing - Resources at
Harvard. For how-to guidance on writing by political science students, see
Excerpts-Van Evera at
web.mit.edu/17.423/www/writingtips.html.
There is always Strunk and White: see Bartleby's
Strunk, William, Jr. 1918. The
Elements of Style for on-line use. And for the godmother of all
sources, confer the
Chicago Manual of Style - Q&A. Splendid.
To do a web search now, look below:
Journal and On-line Resources:
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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.
Among these 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. Also see Parties and Elections. Access
the first three of these via JSTOR Journals Browser#Political Science.
You'll find nine major journals there.
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 (for
Capitol Hill,
chiefly), and National Journal
(especially useful for stuff "downtown" in the executive agencies and White
House). All are on Kent Library's
open shelves.
For other on-line resources, see my
PS360 Links - Russell D. Renka.
Reaching me:
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I have an open door policy, and I normally lurk very near my office computer in Room 211L
of the Political Science office suite on Floor 2 of the Carnahan Building.
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 Carnahan 211L.
c) Place a voice mail message at 573-651-2692.
d) Email me at rdrenka@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 cstl-cla.semo.edu/renka)
for other details about myself and my courses, including this syllabus.
PS360 Weekly Topics and Readings
- Fall 2006
Top
°Master Calendar - click at upper left corner for Academic
Calendar
Week 1 - August 21-25, 2006
How elections rule American politics
Readings:
° Morton text (Text), Chapter 1 - How elections rule American politics
Week 2 - August 28 - September 1
Voters and voter turnout
Note: I'll be in Philadelphia on Friday (September 1) to participate in
the American Political Science Association annual meeting We'll have a
guest presentation from Professor Nomi on Duverger's law. Be
sure to do the reading. We'll discuss it all in Week 3 on Wednesday
(September 6) after Labor Day.
° Text Chapter 2 - Understanding Turnout
° VEP over VAP: Voter
Turnout from United States Election Project; Michael McDonald, Turnout Rates for
Voting (VEP atop VAP); and
2004 Voting-Age and Voting-Eligible Population Estimates
and Voter Turnout (last update: 6/7/05)
° Comparative perspective on political parties in democracies
- Duverger's
law - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
° Duverger, Maurice. 1972.
"Factors
in a Two-Party and Multiparty System" - The Technical Factor
° "mechanism behind Duverger's law": Erik Moberg's
A Theory of Democratic Politics, 6.1 - The Number of Parties
Week 3 - September 6,8 Trends in voter mobilization
Note: Monday, September 4, is Labor Day. No classes are held.
° Text Chapter 3 - Trends in voter mobilization (why it's
become the dominant element in modern elections)
° Resources: the infamous Palm Beach County 2000
presidential election "butterfly ballot" (entered at Google for images) -
www2.indystar.com/library/factfiles/gov/politics/election2000/img/prezrace/butterfly_large.jpg
(to see the real ballot), and
www.infoimagination.org/ps/election_2000/images_2000/ballot_official.gif
(one cartoonist's take on the thing) and
www.rudypark.com/editorialcartoons/topics/elections/2000/001109florida.gif
(another take)
Week 4 - September 11-15
Candidates, Primaries, and Ideological Divergence
° Text Chapter 4 - Candidates, Primaries, and Ideological
Divergence
° Keith Poole of UCSD:
The Ideological Structure
of Congressional Voting, 1927-2000; and
Keith Poole's NOMINATE Roll
Call Data, 1st to 108th Congresses
° Poole (for review of spatial politics): Index:
Analyzing Congress Chapter 1 Figures, at
voteview.com/congress_2002_index_spatial_figures.htm, Figures 1.1 onward
Week 5 - September 18-22
Polarized on policy?
° Text Chapter 5 - Polarized over Policy or Voting on
Valence?
° Reading: Jacobson
Paper: The Bush Presidency and the American Electorate (in pdf) - on
polarization of the vote in 2000 election
Week 6 - September 25-29
Follow the money: How campaigns are financed **
**Monday, September 25 - Examination no. 1** - For Essay 1
(due W, October 4), use this link or the one at top of the syllabus
above the title.
Note: We have class on Wednesday, September 27.
I'll introduce Ch. 6. On Friday and Monday, I'm gone to Austin for my
daughter's wedding. I'll be back on Wednesday October 4.
°Text Chapter 6 - How Campaigns are financed
Week 7 - October 2-6
Follow the money: How Campaign Money affects voters
°Text Chapter 7 - How Campaign Money Affects Voters
Week 8 - October 9-11
The Mass Media
Note: October 12-13: Fall Break, no classes
°Text Chapter 8 - The Mass Media and Voters' Attention
Week 9 - October 16-20
Those we elect
°Text Chapter 9 - Controlling the Behavior of Elected
Officials
Week 10 - October 23-27
Public Opinion Polls **
° Text Chapter 10 - Measuring Public Opinion
**Friday, October 27 - Examination no. 2**
Week 11 - October 30 - November 3
Elections below the presidential level
° Text Chapter 11 - Congressional Elections
°
Psephos - Adam Carr's Election Archive - 2006 U.S. House Congressional Districts, by state
° the art of gerrymandering, racial and otherwise - Mark Monmonier,
Spotting Bushmanders
° Keith Poole of UCSD:
The Ideological Structure
of Congressional Voting, 1927-2000; and
Keith Poole's NOMINATE Roll
Call Data, 1st to 108th Congresses
° Renka, Russell D.,
Presidents and Congresses
Week 12 - November 6-10
Presidential primaries and front loading
Note: Tuesday, November 7, is midterm national Election Day. We'll do election forecasts on Monday the 6th and post-election
review on Wednesday the 8th.
°Text Chapter 12 - Presidential Primaries
Week 13 - November 13-17
Presidential Elections
°Text Chapter 13 - Presidential Elections
° Renka, Russell D., The Election of 2004
and table:
Presidential Elections through 2004
° Professor Renka's
Presidential Election Maps, by County
° website: Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S.
Presidential Elections and its
2004 Presidential Election Results,
including the 2004
county by county map
Week 14 - November 20
Will third parties ever break through?
Note: Thanksgiving Recess: No class is held on Wednesday through Friday, November
22-24.
°Text Chapter 14 - Minor Parties and Independent Candidates
(begin)
Week 15 - November 27 - December 1
Will third parties ever break through?
°Text Chapter 14 - Minor Parties and Independent Candidates
(conclude)
Week 16 - December 4-8
fairness and minority representation in America
°Text Chapter 15 - Minority Parties and Representation
°Text Chapter 16 - The Future and Analyzing Elections
Final Examination Week - December 11-14
The Final
Examination is Wednesday, 10:00 a.m., December 14.
This is "exam no. 3" rather than a comprehensive 16-week exam. It
covers the material dating from
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Copyright ©2006, Russell D. Renka
Friday, August 17, 2007 03:02:26 PM
Disclaimer
Carnahan Hall
Russell Renka
