Your principal writing assignment for this course is a 10-12 page research paper. Below you will find a list of topics for papers on political parties. A separate hand-out describes a research paper on interest groups. You may select either one for your paper. I am prepared to consider other research paper topics provided you describe your idea to me in writing before March 10th. In the near future I will distribute information on the criteria I use for grading.
 

The paper will be due on April 17th. I will accept a hard copy in class, but I prefer that you send me the paper as an e-mail attachment in Word. That will allow me to use the Word Reviewing function to comment on the paper. One-third of a letter grade will be deducted for each day late, unless you have a documented, valid excuse. Penalties begin on April 17th after class for those submitting a hard copy and on April 18th for e-mail attachments. Thus, a paper turned in to my mailbox (never leave a paper under my door!) on April 17th after class will be penalized one-third of a letter grade. If you submit a hard copy late, be sure to have the department secretary initial the date and time you left it so you do not accrue additional penalties. Also, as specified on the syllabus, if the paper is submitted late without an accepted excuse, you will lose the right to revise the paper to improve the grade.
 

General suggestions for writing a paper appear on my home page. The paper guidelines you will find there indicate many of the things I look for when grading a paper. See:

http://urban.hunter.cuny.edu/~apolsky/Paperguide.htm
 

Topics:
 

1. Partisan Regimes: Ideal versus Real. Partisan regime theory suggests that regime transitions rest upon certain elements, but that in practice these will be present to varying degrees. The elements include entrepreneurial leadership, a compelling narrative about the problems facing the nation that points toward a set of solutions, a crisis, and events that regime builders capitalize upon to validate the narrative. Select a regime change identified in the literature (1800, 1828/1832, 1860, 1896, 1932, 1980) and discuss the degree to which each of these elements was present in the period that brought the coalition into power. For this paper you may draw mostly on secondary sources, although primary materials would be useful to illustrate the themes in the regime narrative.
 

2. Party Activists, Then and Now. Political parties have always relied upon grassroots support to mobilize voters for a campaign. But a number of historical accounts suggest that the type of people who serve as the "foot soldiers" of the campaigns has changed over time. According to the standard view, party organizations during the heyday of mass parties relied on a network of dedicated party workers, many of whom might owe their jobs to the party (patronage). Today campaigns draw out citizen activists who are enthusiastic about particular candidates rather than the party and who do not expect to be rewarded materially for their participation. Contrast and compare party activists in the 19th century with party activists in the contemporary period (1960-present). To what extent are the conventional images of grassroots campaign supporters valid? How might those images be adjusted to make them more accurate?

When undertaking a "contrast and compare" exercise, it is useful to first discuss each of the elements separately and then draw out the similarities and differences. Thus, you might begin by describing party workers from the 19th century, including their sociological characteristics (age, social class, education, ethnicity). Was there a common type of party worker or were there significant variations by region of the country, urban or rural location, etc.? (Be wary of treating the big-city political machine as universal.) You might then examine citizen activists in our time. Again, consider their sociological characteristics. Do activists in both parties resemble each other? After you have described the party workers/activists in each era, you should compare them, exploring similarities and differences. This topic will draw primarily on secondary sources. For the 19th century, you should seek work by historians on party organization and activism. For the modern period, you may find newspaper and magazine stories useful, along with scholarship by political scientists.
 

3. Responding to Defeat. Losing parties might respond to election defeat in any of several ways. Losers may see defeat as accidental or due to immediate events and conclude that no fundamental change in party positions is needed. Or a defeated party may conclude that it is out-of-step with public opinion and so embrace some of the main themes of the winning side. However, some elements within the losing party coalition may resist attempts to shed party commitments. As a third possibility, a losing party may try to shift the axis of political competition to a new set of issues. Select a losing presidential campaign, describe the strategy taken by the losing party coalition in the subsequent presidential campaign, and explain the strategic choice the party made. Did the party seek to imitate the winners, remain faithful to its old positions, seek to shift the focus of political debate to new issues, nominate a candidate seen as "above partisan politics," or choose some other approach? Was there consensus within the party about what should be done? If not, examine the debate among different party factions.

This assignment will draw upon both primary and secondary sources. You will need to compare party platforms from successive campaigns, as well as major campaign speeches by presidential candidates. Historical accounts and presidential biographies may also be useful.
 

4. Cohesion of the Party-in-Government. Parties matter in part because they influence the actions of elected officials. But scholars also note that lawmakers from the same party may not vote together. Party cohesion has varied over time - sometimes party members stick together on many key votes, at other times they are no more likely to vote with fellow party members than with the opposition. Parties have various means at their disposal to encourage members to cooperate in achieving a party program. Sometimes these tools are sufficiently compelling that individual members may back the party program at the expense of their constituents' interest. Select two majority parties in Congress, one from before 1980 and one since then, and compare and contrast the means the party used to promote support for the party program.

For this assignment, you will first describe how each majority party tried to promote party unity and then compare and contrast the means at their disposal and the relative effectiveness of these means. Finally, you may wish to speculate on why each party chose particular instruments to encourage party cohesion.
 

Quotations and Citations
 

Please note that proper use of source materials is one of the four criteria used in the grading of paper assignment.
 

Quotations: Most of the paper should be in your own words. Please use direct quotations sparingly; quotations are best used to emphasize a key point or when a source has expressed an idea in especially vivid language. Direct quotations must not exceed fifteen lines of your paper. For instructions on how to integrate quotations into a paper correctly, please see the following: http://urban.hunter.cuny.edu/~apolsky/QUOTATIONS07.htm. 
 

Citation of materials: You must use proper citations for all information (not just direct quotations) gathered from sources, including course materials. The only information you do not need to cite is what is generally regarded as common knowledge. Please use the citation style of the political science journal Polity:

http://www.palgrave-journals.com/polity/author_instructions.html#Presentation-of-articles.
 

Rewrites
 

You will have the opportunity to rewrite the paper after you receive the grade and my comments. If you rewrite the paper, the grade on the new version will be averaged with the original grade to yield a single paper grade. Remember that the paper grade constitutes 40% of your grade for the course.