° PS360 - Parties and Voting Behavior Syllabus
° OIS sites: Drop Box; Forum; Gradebook

PS360 Essay 1 - Fall 2009
Professor Renka

Essay is worth 100 points.  Write on one of these topics.  The essay should be a paper of approximately 3 to 4 normal, honest pages in length.  Be sure to properly cite all source material, including regular class readings.  If you quote from something I wrote on the Forum, that's fine, but be sure to cite which Forum item it is (with author, title of Forum article, and date of its posting).  It's A-OK to use the assigned reading as sources on all papers and assignments; in fact, I actively encourage it.  Same for anything I have written on our Forum.

Due date:  by Wednesday, September 30, at the PS360 Drop Box.

1.  The U.S. is a strict two-party duopoly.  In terms of Duverger's law, explain why this is so.  Then via Riker's corollary, show that the strict U.S. duopoly differs from the SMDP countries such as Great Britain and Canada, and explain that in Riker's terms.

2. The median voter theorem says power-seeking candidates of the two major parties will converge on the ideal position of the median voter in one-dimensional ideological space.  But in recent American general elections, ideological divergence is commonplace.  First, explain why convergence is the standard expectation via the median voter theorem.  Second, cite what candidates actually do in the context of recent and contemporary American national elections (for president, or for seats in the Congress).  What reasons are given by Morton for any divergence that occurs?

3.  Primary elections can be closed, open, or (at the extreme) blanket.  What are the important differences among these with respect to candidate selection for the general election?  What is the ideological effect of having a closed primary in California as opposed to a blanket primary?  And finally, why do both Republican and Democratic state parties often spurn the blanket primary?

Russell Renka
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