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PLS 820
PLS 820: Proseminar in American Politics
Fall 2014
M/W: 10:20-11:40AM
Room: S. Kedzie Hall 104
Instructor: Prof. Corwin D. Smidt
Office: 320 S. Kedzie Hall
Email: [email protected] – I rarely check it over weekends.
Phone: 353-3292
Website: angel.msu.edu
Office Hours: Tuesday 10AM-Noon, or by appointment
Course Description
This course seeks to introduce students to the vast research literature in political science and its claims of
the nature of democratic governance within the United States of America. The objectives of this course are
twofold:
1. that you are introduced to prominent debates within many of the major subfields of American politics,
with an emphasis on debates specific to American politics.
2. that you develop the basic skills to become a critical consumer of American political science research
such that you can quickly synthesize and evaluate research on your own for future independent work.
This course will not present you with a reading list of “must reads” for your studies prior to comprehensive
examinations. It is assumed you can do that on your own (see below). Instead, the goal is to emphasize
the perspectives and skills that will make your own studies more beneficial. We seek to critically evaluate
research to identify what they and cannot tell us about American politics.
Seminar Format
Seminars will cover different subfields in American politics roughly each week. The selection of readings
for each week is neither meant to be exhaustive nor representative of all topics of interest within each subfield. Instead, the intent is to review work that speaks to a core or prominent debate specific to that subfield.
At the beginning of each week I will provide a very brief review of the main features of each subfield.
The rest of the seminar is devoted to critically evaluating each article and the contributions it makes. One
student will be assigned to lead the class in describing and evaluating each article. During this discussion,
other students (and professors) are expected to interject and provide additional thoughts, questions, or contrary evaluations at times.
There are other things that we will rarely do during class, but are still expected of you to do in conjunction
with this course:
• Before class, reviewing (Googling) features of American law and government that are discussed in
articles, but unfamiliar to you (e.g., What are amicus curiae briefs? What does the rules committee
do in Congress?).
• Checking out and reading sources the selected articles reference to familiarize yourself with other
aspects of the debate.
• Checking out relevant critical literature reviews in the Annual Review of Political Science or the Oxford
handbook series to broaden your exposure to each subfield more broadly.
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PLS 820
• Developing your own research ideas on how to extend, improve, or integrate other research work with
the perspectives and arguments covered in seminar. Discuss with classmates.
• (Optional) Discussing with your comrades why your professor lacks verstehen and/or upholds the
antiquated dominant paradigm.
Requirements and Grading
Your duties for this class will be comprised of the following components:
• Article Summaries (≈ 40%): For each article you are required to write an article summary that answers
the following questions:
1. What is the article’s contribution? What does it do? Answer in a single sentence
2. Identify the article’s dependent variable, key independent variable(s), and each null and alternative
hypothesis.
3. Briefly summarize the motivation and reasoning behind the article’s research question and hypothesis (the theory) and data selection (if relevant).
4. Briefly summarize the results (do they support the hypotheses?) as well as your evaluation of the
article (any comments/criticisms).
Each article summary should be no longer than one side of a single sheet of paper, with double-spaced
12-point font and one-inch margins. All summaries for a week’s assigned articles need to be printed out
on paper and handed in to me at the beginning of class on Monday. Article summaries are evaluated
for how accurate, concise, and informative they are.
• Leading and Participating in Class Discussion (≈ 30%): Class participation is a major element of
your grade. This grade will not be function of how often you talk or the percentage of time you
say something “wrong” or “right” in class. In contrast, this grade will reflect your ability to provide
reason and insight to the course material and contribute to class discussion. Personal ownership over
an original perspective is a plus, to the extent it adds to discussion. I prefer that you be boldly wrong
for the right reasons (i.e., solid argument) than meekly right for the wrong reasons (i.e., guessing).
• Final Paper (≈ 30%): More on this later. Either a research proposal or a critical literature review.
Grading in this class follows typical graduate school conventions. A 4.0 represents very good work, a 3.5
represents adequate completion of the course, a 3.0 indicates less than adequate performance, and a 2.5 or
lower indicates very poor performance.
Note: For your benefit, I do not favor giving out incompletes. I also do not accept late assignments.
Schedule
I hope to have all readings available for you on the course’s angel site. If not, most of the journal articles are found on JSTOR or alternative library databases. For those readings not available, electronic copies
are available on the class website. Summaries are not required for readings marked with an asterisk.
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PLS 820
Date
Subject
Aug 27
Introduction
Sep 1
No Class (Labor Day)
Sep 3
Political Science and American Democracy: What’s the point?
• * (skim) Wilson, Woodrow.
1885.
“Introductory” from Congressional Government
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35861/35861-h/35861-h.htm. Cross-reference: The Telling
Tale of the Twenty-Seventh Amendment
• * Cohen, Patricia. Oct. 19, 2009. “Field Study: Just How Relevant is Political Science?” New
York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/books/20poli.html
• Ansolabehere, Stephen, Alan Gerber, and Jim Snyder. 2002. “Equal Votes, Equal Money:
Court-ordered Redistricting and Public Expenditures in the American States.” American
Political Science Review 96(4): 767-777.
• Bartels, Larry M. 2006. “What’s the Matter with What’s the Matter with Kansas? ” Quarterly
Journal of Political Science 1(1): 201-226.
Sep 8, 10
Political Participation and American Civic Culture: is America becoming less civic?
• Brady, Henry, Sidney Verba, and Kay Lehman Schlozman. 1995. “Beyond SES: A Resource
Model of Political Participation.” American Political Science Review 89(2): 271-294.
• Crowley, Jocelyn Elise, and Theda Skocpol. 2001. “The Rush to Organize: Explaining Associational Formation in the United States, 1860s-1920s.” American Journal of Political Science
45(4): 813-829.
• Gerber, Alan S., Donald P. Green, and Christopher W. Larimer. 2008. “Social Pressure and
Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment.” American Political Science
Review 102(1): 33-48.
• Prior, Markus. 2005. “News vs. Entertainment: How Increasing Media Choice Widens Gaps
in Political Knowledge and Turnout.” American Journal of Political Science 49(3): 577-592.
• Walker, Edward T., John D. McCarthy, and Frank Baumgartner. 2011. “Replacing Members
with Managers? Mutualism among Membership and Nonmembership Advocacy Organizations
in the United States.” American Journal of Sociology 116(4): 1284-1337.
• Weaver, Vesla and Amy E. Lerman. 2010. “Political Consequences of the Carceral State.”
American Political Science Review 104(4): 817-833.
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Sep 15, 17
PLS 820
Public Opinion: How stable are the political preferences of the mass public?
• Chong, Dennis and James N. Druckman. 2007. “Framing Public Opinion in Competitive
Democracies.” American Political Science Review 101(4): 637-655.
• Converse, Philip E. 2006 (1964). “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics” reprinted in
Critical Review 18(1-3): 1-74.
• Druckman, James N., Jordan Fein, and Thomas J. Leeper. 2012. “A Source of Bias in Public
Opinion Stability.” American Political Science Review 106(2): 430-454.
• Feldman, Stanley, and John Zaller. 1992. “The Political Culture of Ambivalence: Ideological
Responses to the Welfare State.” American Journal of Political Science 36(1): 268-307.
• Lodge, Milton, Marco R. Steenbergen, and Shawn Brau. 1995. “The Responsive Voter: Campaign Information and the Dynamics of Candidate Evaluation.” American Political Science
Review 89(2): 309-326.
• *Zaller, John. 1998. “Monica Lewinsky’s Contribution to Political Science.” PS: Political
Science & Politics. 31(2): 182-189.
• Zaller, John, and Stanley Feldman. 1992. “A Simple Theory of the Survey Response: Answering Questions versus Revealing Preferences.” American Journal of Political Science 36(3):
579-616.
Sep 22, 24
Ethnicity and Identity Politics: What contexts make race more or less divisive?
• Branton, Regina P., and Bradford S. Jones. 2005. “Reexamining Racial Attitudes: The Conditional Relationship Between Diversity and Socioeconomic Environment.” American Journal
of Political Science 49(2): 359-372.
• Gay, Claudine. 2006. “Seeing Difference: The Effect of Economic Disparity on Black Attitudes
toward Latinos.” American Journal of Political Science 50(4): 982-997.
• Hajnal, Zoltan L. 2001. “White Residents, Black Incumbents, and a Declining Racial Divide.”
American Political Science Review 95(3): 603-617.
• Hopkins, Daniel J. 2010. “Politicized Places: Explaining Where and When Immigrants Provoke Local Opposition.” American Political Science Review 104(1): 40-60.
• Oliver, J. Eric, and Tali Mendelberg. 2000. “Reconsidering the Environmental Determinants
of White Racial Attitudes.” American Journal of Political Science 44: 574-589.
• Oliver, J. Eric, and Janelle Wong. 2003. “Intergroup Prejudice in Multiethnic Settings.”
American Journal of Political Science 47(4): 567-582
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PLS 820
Sep 29, Oct 1
Partisanship: Blind loyalty, or something more?
• Box-Steffensmeier, Janet M., and Renee M. Smith. 1996. “The Dynamics of Aggregate Partisanship.” American Political Science Review 90(3): 567-580.
• Gerber, Alan S., Gregory A. Huber, and Ebonya Washington. 2010. “Party Affiliation, Partisanship, and Political Beliefs: A Field Experiment.” American Political Science Review
104(4): 720-744.
• Green, Donald, Bradley Palmquist, and Eric Schickler. 1998. “Macropartisanship: A Replication and Critique.” American Political Science Review 92(4): 883-899.
• Hetherington, Marc J. 2001. “Resurgent Mass Partisanship: The Role of Elite Polarization.”
American Political Science Review 95(3): 619-631.
• Layman, Geoffrey C., and Thomas M. Carsey. 2006. “Changing Sides or Changing Minds?
Party Identification and Policy Preferences in the American Electorate.” American Journal of
Political Science 50(2): 464-477.
• MacKuen, Michael B., Robert S. Erikson, and James A. Stimson. 1989. “Macropartisanship.”
American Political Science Review 83(4): 1125-1142.
Oct 6, 8
Voting and Elections: How much and in what what way do campaigns matter?
• Beck, Paul Allen, Russell J. Dalton, Steven Greene, and Robert Huckfeldt. 2002. “The
Social Calculus of Voting: Interpersonal, Media, and Organizational Influences on Presidential
Choices.” American Political Science Review 96(1): 57-73.
• Carson, Jamie L., Erik J. Engstrom, and Jason M. Roberts. “Candidate Quality, the Personal
Vote, and the Incumbency Advantage in Congress.” American Political Science Review 101(2):
289-301.
• Gerber, Alan. 1998. “Estimating the Effect of Campaign Spending on Senate Election Outcomes Using Instrumental Variables” American Political Science Review 92(2): 401-411.
• Gerber, Alan S., James S. Gimpel, Donald P. Green, and Daron R. Shaw. 2011. “How
Large and Long-lasting are the Persuasive Effects of Televised Campaign Ads? Results from
a Randomized Field Experiment.” American Political Science Review 105(1): 135-150.
• Hillygus, D. Sunshine, and Simon Jackman. 2003. “Voter Decision Making in Election 2000:
Campaign Effects, Partisan Activation, and the Clinton Legacy.” American Journal of Political
Science 47(4): 583-596.
• Huber, Gregory A., and Kevin Arceneaux. 2007. “Identifying the Persuasive Effects of Presidential Advertising.” American Journal of Political Science 51(4): 957-977.
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Oct 13, 15
PLS 820
Representation: How (well) does it work?
• Bartels, Larry M. 1991. “Constituency Opinion and Congressional Policy Making: The Reagan
Defense Buildup.” American Political Science Review 85(2): 457-474.
• Bafumi, Joseph, and Michael C. Herron. 2010. “Leapfrog Representation and Extremism:
A Study of American Voters and Their Members in Congress.” American Political Science
Review 104(3): 519-542
• Butler, Daniel M., and David E. Brookman. 2011. “Do Politicians Racially Discriminate
Against Constituents? A Field Experiment on State Legislators.” American Journal of Political Science 55(3): 463-477.
• Gilens, Martin. 2005. “Inequality and Democratic Responsiveness.” Public Opinion Quarterly
69(5): 778-796.
• McCarty, Nolan, Keith T. Poole, and Howard Rosenthal. 2009. “Does Gerrymandering Cause
Polarization” American Journal of Political Science 53(3): 666-680.
• Stimson, James A., Michael B. MacKuen, and Robert S. Erikson. 1995. “Dynamic Representation.” American Political Science Review 89(3): 543-565.
Oct 20, 22
Organized Interests: Do they peddle influence?
• Austen-Smith, David, and John R. Wright. 1994. “Counteractive Lobbying.” American
Journal of Political Science 38(1): 25-44.
• Gordon, Sanford C., and Catherine Hafer. 2005. “Flexing Muscle: Corporate Political Expenditures as Signals to the Bureaucracy.” American Political Science Review 99(2): 245-261.
• *Hall, Richard L., and Alan V. Deardorff. 2006. “Lobbying as Legislative Subsidy.” American
Political Science Review 100(1): 69-84.
• Hall, Richard L., and Frank W. Wayman. 1990. “Buying Time: Moneyed Interests and the
Mobilization of Bias in Congressional Committees.” American Political Science Review 84(3):
797-820.
• Hojnacki, Marie, and David C. Kimball. 1998. “Organized Interests and the Decision of Whom
to Lobby in Congress.” American Political Science Review 92(4): 775-790.
• Kelleher Richter, Brian, Krislert Samphantharak, and Jeffrey F. Timmons. 2009. “Lobbying
and Taxes” American Journal of Political Science 53(4): 893-909.
• Wawro, Gregory. 2001. “A Panel Probit Analysis of Campaign Contributions and Roll-call
Votes.” American Journal of Political Science 45(3): 563-579.
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Oct 27, 29
PLS 820
Legislative Politics: Do parties matter?
• Carroll, Royce, and Henry A. Kim. 2010. “Party Government and the Cohesive Power of
Public Plunder.” American Journal of Political Science 54(1): 34-44.
• *Clinton, Joshua, Simon Jackman, and Douglas Rivers. 2004. “The Statistical Analysis of
Roll Call Data.” American Political Science Review 98(2): 355-370.
• Krehbiel, Keith. 1993. “Where’s the Party?” British Journal of Political Science 23(2):
235-266.
• Lebo, Matthew J., Adam J. McGlynn, and Gregory Koger. 2007. “Strategic Party Government: Party Influence in Congress, 1789-2000.” American Journal of Political Science 51(3):
464-481.
• Patty, John W. 2008. “Equilibrium Party Government” American Journal of Political Science
52(3): 636-655.
• Schickler, Eric. 2000. “Institutional Change in the House of Representatives, 1867-1998: A
Test of Partisan and Ideological Power Balance Models.” American Political Science Review
94(2): 269-288.
• Wright, Gerald C., and Brian F. Schaffner. 2002. “The Influence of Party: Evidence from the
State Legislatures.” American Political Science Review 96:367379.
Nov 3, 5
Judicial Politics: Are Supreme Court justices constrained by law?
• Bailey, Michael A., and Forrest Maltzman. 2008. “Does Legal Doctrine Matter? Unpacking
Law and Policy Preferences on the U.S. Supreme Court.” American Political Science Review
102(3): 369-384.
• Bartels, Brandon L. 2009. “The Constraining Capacity of Legal Doctrine on the U.S. Supreme
Court.” American Political Science Review 103(3): 474-495.
• Black, Ryan C., and Ryan J. Owens. 2009. “Agenda Setting in the Supreme Court: The
Collision of Policy and Jurisprudence.” Journal of Politics 71(3): 1062-1075.
• Richards, Mark J., and Herbert M. Kritzer. 2002. “Jurisprudential Regimes in Supreme Court
Decision Making.” American Political Science Review 96(2): 305-320.
• Segal, Jeffrey A., and Harold J. Spaeth. 1996. “The Influence of Stare Decisis on the Votes
of United States Supreme Court Justices.” American Journal of Political Science 40(4): 9711003.
• Spriggs, James F., II, and Thomas G. Hansford. 2001. “Explaining the Overruling of U.S.
Supreme Court Precedent.” Journal of Politics 63(4): 1091-1111.
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Nov 10, 12
PLS 820
The Presidency: Do presidents lead or do they follow?
• Baum, Matthew A., and Samuel Kernell. 1999. “Has Cable Ended the Golden Age of Presidential Television?” American Political Science Review 93(2): 99-114.
• Canes-Wrone, Brandice, William G. Howell, and David E. Lewis. 2008. “Toward a Broader
Understanding of Presidential Power: A Reevaluation of the Two Presidencies Thesis.” Journal
of Politics 70(1):1-16.
• Canes-Wrone, Brandice. 2001. “The President’s Legislative Influence from Public Appeals.”
American Journal of Political Science 45(2): 313-329.
• Edwards, George C., and B. Dan Wood. 1999. “Who Influences Whom? The President,
Congress, and the Media.” American Political Science Review 93(2): 327-344.
• Groseclose, Tim, and Nolan McCarty. 2001. “The Politics of Blame: Bargaining Before an
Audience.” American Journal of Political Science 45(1): 100-119.
• Wood, B. Dan. 2009. “Presidential Saber Rattling and the Economy.” American Journal of
Political Science 53(3): 695-709.
Nov 17, 19
The Bureaucracy: Who controls the bureaucracy?
• Balla, Steven J. 1998. “Administrative Procedures and Political Control of the Bureaucracy.”
American Political Science Review 92(3): 663-673.
• Balla, Steven J., and John R. Wright. 2001. “Interest Groups, Advisory Committees, and
Congressional Control of the Bureaucracy.” American Journal of Political Science 45(4): 799812.
• Carpenter, Daniel P. 2002. “Groups, the Media, Agency Waiting Costs, and FDA Drug
Approval.” American Journal of Political Science 46(3): 490-505.
• Howell, William G., and David E. Lewis. 2002. “Agencies by Presidential Design.” Journal
of Politics 64(4): 1095-1114.
• Huber, John D., Charles R. Shipan, and Madelaine Pfahler. 2001. “Legislatures and Statutory
Control of Bureaucracy.” American Journal of Political Science 45(2): 330-345.
• * (skim) McCubbins, Mathew D., Roger G. Noll, and Barry R. Weingast. 1987. “Administrative Procedures as Instruments of Political Control.” Journal of Law, Economics, &
Organization 3(2): 243-277.
• Shipan, Charles R. 2004. “Regulatory Regimes, Agency Actions, and the Conditional Nature
of Congressional Influence.” American Political Science Review 98(3): 467-480.
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Nov 24, 26
PLS 820
State & Local Politics and Policy: Does federalism improve or worsen government provision of social
welfare?
• Bailey, Michael A., and Mark Carl Rom. 2004. “A Wider Race? Interstate Competition across
Health and Welfare Programs.” Journal of Politics 66(2): 326-347.
• Berry, William, and Brady Baybeck. 2005. “Using Geographic Information Systems to Study
Interstate Competition.” American Political Science Review 99(4): 505-519.
• Gerber, Elizabeth and Daniel J. Hopkins. 2011. “When Mayors Matter: Estimating the
Impact of Mayoral Partisanship on City Policy.” American Journal of Political Science 55(2):
326-339.
• Makse, Todd and Craig Volden. 2011. “The Role of Policy Attributes in the Diffusion of
Innovations.” Journal of Politics 73(1): 108-124.
• Pacheco, Julianna. 2012. “The Social Contagion Model: Exploring the Role of Public Opinion
on the Diffusion of Antismoking Legislation across the American States.” Journal of Politics
74(1): 187-202.
• Shipan, Charles R., and Craig Volden. 2008. “The Mechanisms of Policy Diffusion.” American
Journal of Political Science. 52(4): 840-857.
Dec 1, 3
Students’ Choice! TBD
A Couple Last Things
Academic Misconduct
Academic misconduct will not be tolerated. Specifically, claiming ownership of ideas and or work that is not
your own is considered cheating or plagiarism. It is an insult to me, your peers, and yourself; it is not to be
tolerated. Instances of cheating will be handled according the school’s policy on integrity of scholarship and
grades.
Electronic Submissions
As a general rule, students should always submit their work in paper form. If, under special circumstances,
you are submitting a document electronically, then you need to submit it in an archival format. This means
no modifiable Word/Text documents (.doc, .txt, .rtf) and instead formats where content is fixed (.pdf, .ps).