Office: Room 1723 HW
Office Hours: M, 1:15-3:00 and by appointment
Phone: 772-5507
e-mail: apolsky@hunter.cuny.edu
http://urban.hunter.cuny.edu/~apolsky/
 

Course Description
 

Citizens and political actors in the United States are connected to each other through a variety of institutions. Among the most important of these "linkage institutions" are political parties and interest groups. These play a role as a bridge between, on one side, the mass public, active citizens, and assorted "policy seekers" and, on the other, office-seeking and office-holding politicians, by communicating information and mobilizing social resources in political competition. Parties and groups also help organize office holders to make governance possible in the fragmented American political system.

Important as political parties and interest groups may be, however, it is not obvious why they arose and why they have persisted. According to one influential school of thought within political science, building and maintaining political organizations is a costly form of "collective action," with uncertain benefits for those who undertake such work. We shall examine why political actors have decided to invest their effort and resources in creating, sustaining, and reforming parties and groups. Political parties and interest groups have also changed over time. Many analysts speak of the decline of parties and the increasing importance of interest groups, but others note that American politics since the 1970s has become more sharply partisan. We shall explore the relationship between the two types of linkage institutions and cast a critical eye on the claims that groups have superseded parties in importance. The focus of the course, then, is on political parties and interest groups as political organizations and as instruments of governance.
 

Course Objectives
 

This course has both a substantive focus and developmental goals. The syllabus is designed to introduce students to challenging analytical perspectives on parties and interest groups that can illuminate broad historical patterns and contemporary trends. In substantive terms, students at the end of the term will know a good deal more about why parties and interest groups form, their role in the American political system, how and why they have changed over time, and the relationship between parties and groups. At the same time, this course aims to improve your critical thinking skills, understood here to mean your capacity to grasp abstract concepts and theories, to appreciate how such concepts and theories can be translated into concrete empirical claims, and to come to grips with the difficulty of using evidence to evaluate the validity of empirical claims. You will be pressed to "interrogate" evidence - to ask questions about whether it is conclusive or indeterminate, to reconcile conflicting evidence that seems to support different theories (or no theory), and to consider why particular authors select certain evidence and omit other material. Finally, the written assignments and exams are designed to improve different writing skills, including your ability to summarize the main points of an argument succinctly, to explain theories clearly, to use language precisely and demonstrate command of political science terminology, and to make an argument in which you state a thesis and support it through the use of evidence.
 

Accessability
 

In compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Hunter College is committed to ensuring educational parity and accommodations for all students with documented disabilities and/or medical conditions. It is recommended that all students with documented disabilities (Emotional, Medical, Physical and/ or Learning) consult the Office of AccessABILITY located in Room E1124 to secure necessary academic accommodations. For further information and assistance please call (212- 772- 4857)/TTY (212- 650- 3230).
 

Statement on Academic Integrity
 

Hunter College is strongly committed to the principle that students should do their own work, give proper credit for information gained from any source, and acknowledge any help received in completing assignments. I will pursue any suspected violations on written assignments (including non-graded ones) through the college's formal mechanism for adjudicating such cases and seek the most severe penalties permitted under college policy. Students may be asked to submit their papers to a plagiarism detection service.
 

Course Requirements
 

1) Complete assigned reading before class meetings (see attached schedule) and prepare ten two-page reading summaries over the course of the semester. The summaries must be submitted at the start of class; they may not be transmitted via e-mail or fax. If you miss a class, even for a valid reason, you may not submit a summary late. To make sure you do not fall behind, you should submit at least five summaries before the spring recess. Failure to submit ten summaries will result in a reduction of your class participation grade (see below under grading). If I find a summary inadequate (usually because it is too vague or based only on the first few pages of the reading), I will reject it and you will need to do another one. Where more than one reading is assigned for a class, I may specify in advance which one(s) to summarize. You may submit only one summary per class. A summary may not exceed two pages.
 

2) Attend class regularly and on time. No student shall be permitted to enter the classroom late; I will treat such lateness as an unexcused absence. Students who miss three or more classes without a valid, documented reason shall be penalized. (See below under grading.)
 

3) Participate in class discussion. Your participation grade will also reflect your active contribution to class meetings.
 

4) Complete all written assignments. Written work for the course consists of two essay exams and one research paper of 10-12 pages. The first exam will follow the first unit of the course; the second exam will be a final and may be either an in-class exam or a take-home due at the scheduled time of the final exam. (I will determine the format at a later date.) Details on the paper assignment will follow. Students will be given the opportunity to revise the paper. Instructions on paper rewrites will be distributed later in the semester. Note that no written work may be submitted via e-mail or by fax.
 

Grading
 

In the calculation of your course grade, each of the exams and the class participation grade will be given equal weight (each is 20% of the final course grade), while the research paper will be counted double (40% of the final grade). For students who submit a paper rewrite, both the original and the rewrite will be given equal weight.

The class participation grade begins with the reading summaries. Students who complete the ten short summaries will have a base participation grade of B. This will decline by one-third of a letter grade if you submit fewer than ten summaries and by one full letter grade if you submit fewer than five and by two full letter grades if you submit fewer than two. In addition, for three or more undocumented absences, your participation grade will be reduced by one-third of a letter grade, increasing to a full letter grade off for six or more absences. You can improve your participation grade through regular, informed contributions to class discussions.

I expect you to complete written assignments on time. If you miss an exam, you will be permitted to take a make-up test only when you have a valid excuse supported by written documentation. Late papers, without a documented, valid excuse, will be penalized through grade deductions and loss of the right to revise the paper for a better grade. Incompletes will be granted only with a documented excuse and only for a limited time (usually no longer than the time you were incapacitated), the duration to be set at the time the incomplete is approved.

Note on credit/no credit grading: College rules specify that to be eligible for credit/no credit, students must complete all course requirements. In this course, students who wish to be graded on the credit/no credit system must take the first exam, submit the paper assignment on time, and attempt the final. Failure to do all these things will void a credit/no credit request, and a conventional letter grade will be entered instead.
 

Books
 

This course relies upon one book and a course pack of articles. The following title has been ordered for purchase at Shakespeare Books:

John H. Aldrich, Why Parties? The Origin and Transformation of Political Parties in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).

In addition, the course pack, produced by Campus Course Paks, Inc., is also available at Shakespeare and on line at www.ccpaks.com. One copy of the course pack will be on reserve in the library. I recommend that you not rely on the library copy.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Schedule of Class Assignments
 

The dates below are only approximate. As this schedule is subject to revision, students are responsible for keeping up with any announced changes, including changes in test dates. If you miss a class, e-mail me to confirm the next assignment. All readings, other than the chapters in the Aldrich book, will be found in the course pack.
 
 
 

January 28th. Introduction: The Problem of Collective Action.

Aldrich, Why Parties?, chap. 1.
 
 
 

Part One: Political Parties in Historical Perspective
 

January 31st and February 4th. American Political Parties in Historical Perspective.

Richard L. McCormick, "Political Parties in American History," chap. 4 in McCormick, The Party Period and Public Policy: American Politics from the Age of Jackson to the Progressive Era (New York, Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 143-96.

Joel H. Silbey, "Beyond Realignment and Realignment Theory: American Political Eras, 1789-1989" in Byron E. Shafer et al., The End of Realignment? Interpreting American Electoral Eras (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), pp. 3-23.

Andrew J. Polsky, "Partisan Regimes in American Politics," Working Draft, January 2008.
 

February 7th. The First National Political Parties.

Aldrich, Why Parties?, chap. 3.
 

February 11th and 14th. The Emergence of Mass Parties.

Aldrich, Why Parties?, chap. 4.

Joel H. Silbey, The American Political Nation, 1838-1893 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991), chaps. 2 and 3, pp. 46-71.
 

February 18th. President's Day. No Class.
 

February 21st. Replacing a Major Party: The Rise of the Republican Party.

Aldrich, Why Parties?, chap. 5.

William E. Gienapp,, The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852-1856 (New York: Oxford University, 1987), chap. 9 "Spring Breakthrough," pp. 273-303.
 

February 25th. Partisan Politics and Civil War

Andrew J. Polsky, "'Mr Lincoln's Army' Revisited: Partisanship, Institutional Position, and Union Army Command, 1861-1865," Studies in American Political Development 16 (2) (Fall 2002): 176-207.

Mark E. Neely, Jr., The Union Divided: Party Conflict in the Civil War North (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), chap. 7 "The Civil War and the Two-Party System: A Reconsideration," pp. 172-201.
 

February 28th and March 3rd. Partisan Regimes in the Mass Party Era.

Andrew J. Polsky, "The Political Economy of Partisan Regimes: Lessons from Two Republican Eras," Polity 35 (4) (July 2003): 595-612.

Howard Gillman, "How Political Parties Can Use the Courts to Advance Their Agendas: Federal Courts in the United States, 1875-1891," American Political Science Review[APSR] 96 (3) (September 2002): 511-24.
 

March 6th. Continuity and Change in Party Ideology.

John Gerring, "A Chapter in the History of American Party Ideology: The Nineteenth-Century Democratic Party (1828-1892)," Polity 26 (4) (Summer 1994): 729-68.
 

March 10th. Race and Party Competition (1): The Mass Party Era

Paul Frymer, Uneasy Alliances: Race and Party Competition in America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), chap. 3 "National Party Competition and the Disenfranchisement of Black Voters in the South, 1866-1932," pp. 49-86.
 

March 17th. First Exam.
 
 
 

Part II: Political Parties in the Contemporary Era
 

March 13th. Citizen Activists and Interest Groups in Modern Party Politics.

Aldrich, Why Parties?, chap. 6.

Brett M. Clifton, "Romancing the GOP: Assessing the Strategies Used by the Christian Coalition to Influence the Republican Party," Party Politics 10 (5) (2004): 475-98.
 

March 17th. Reaching Voters in an Era of Turnout Decline.

Joseph Gershtenson, "Mobilization Strategies of the Democrats and Republicans, 1956-2000,"Political Research Quarterly 56 (3) (September 2003): 293-308.
 

March 20th. The New Face of Party Organization.

Aldrich, Why Parties?, chap. 8.
 

March 24th. No Class.
 

March 26th (Wednesday). Race and Party Competition (2): African-Americans as a Captured Group.

Paul Frymer, "Capture Inside the Democratic Party," chap. 4 in Uneasy Alliances: Race and Party Competition in America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), pp. 87-119.
 

March 27th. Summing Up: The Place of Parties in American Politics.

Aldrich, Why Parties?, chap. 9.

Part Three: Interest Groups in Historical and Contemporary Perspective
 

March 31st. Overview: Interest Groups Across Time.

Daniel Tichenor and Richard Harris, "Organized Interests and American Political Development,"Political Science Quarterly 117 (Winter 2002-03): 587-612.

April 3rd. The Modern American Political System: Interest Groups in the 20th Century

Elisabeth S. Clemens, The People's Lobby: Organizational Innovation and the Rise of Interest Group Politics in the United States, 1890-1925 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), chap. 5 "From Agrarian Protest to Business Politics," pp. 145-83.

Brian Balogh, "Mirrors of Desires: Interest Groups, Elections, and the Targeted Style in Twentieth-Century America," in Meg Jacobs, William J. Novak, and Julian E. Zelizer, eds., The Democratic Experiment: New Directions in American Political History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), pp. 222-49.
 

April 7th and 10th. The Interest Group "Explosion" in Contemporary Politics.

Jeffrey M. Berry, The Interest Group Society, 3rd ed. (New York: Longman, 1997), chap 2 "The Advocacy Explosion," pp. 17-43.

Theda Skocpol, Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003), chap. 4 "From Membership to Management," pp. 127-74.
 

April 14th. Why Join? Mobilization for Collective Action.

Paul E. Johnson, "Interest Group Recruiting: Finding Members and Keeping Them," in Allan J. Cigler and Burdett A. Loomis, Interest Group Politics, 5th ed.(Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1998), pp. 35-62.
 

April 17th. The Quintessential Interest Group: A Look Inside the National Rifle Association.

Kelly Patterson, "The Political Firepower of the National Rifle Association," in Allan J. Cigler and Burdett A. Loomis, Interest Group Politics, 5th ed.(Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1998), pp. 119-42.
 

April 21st and 24th. Spring Break. No Classes.
 

April 28th. The Business Firm as a Political Actor.

David M. Hart, "'Business' is Not an Interest Group: On the Study of Companies in American National Politics," Annual Review of Political Science 7 (2004): 47-69.
 
 
 

May 1st and 5th. Lobbying (1): The Lobbyists' View.

David Lowery, "Why Do Organized Interests Lobby? A Multi-Goal, Multi-Context Theory of Lobbying," Polity 39 (1) (January 2007): 29-54.

Beth L. Leech and Frank R. Baumgartner, "Lobbying Friends and Foes in Washington," Allan J. Cigler and Burdett A. Loomis, Interest Group Politics, 5th ed.(Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1998), pp. 217-33.

Rogan Kersh, "Corporate Lobbyists as Political Actors," in Alan J.Cigler and Burdett A Loomis, eds., Interest Group Politics, 6th ed. (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2002), pp. 225-48.

May 8th and 12th. Lobbying (2): The Politicians' Perspective.

Scott H. Ainsworth, "The Role of Legislators in the Determination of Interest Group Influence,"Legislative Studies Quarterly 22 (4) (November 1997): 517-33.

Ronald G. Shaiko, "Reverse Lobbying: Interest Group Mobilization from the White House and the Hill," Allan J. Cigler and Burdett A. Loomis, Interest Group Politics, 5th ed.(Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1998), pp. 255-82.
 

May 22nd. 11:30-1:30. Final Exam or Take-Home Due.