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POLI 322-0x: Topics: Political Behavior (xxxxx) (4 Cr.) Assistant Professor Jeremy M. Teigen (Room E204) Email: jteigen@ramapo.edu Phone: 201.684. School of American and International Studies Lecture: Spring 2006, 3:30-4:45pm, G439 Mahwah Campus Office Hours: Mon & Thurs 11:30am-12:30pm or by appointment.
Pre-requisites: POLI 223, American Gov’t ; Co-requisites : None.
Course Description: This course studies psephology: how political actors within the electorate behave within democratic contexts and elections, focusing upon political attitudes, political participation, and voting behavior, as well as related topics including socialization, political psychology, and analyzing polling data.
Course Objectives: There are three principle objectives of this course. First, I want to introduce the field of mass political behavior to students and enable them to consume, understand, and explain the major contributions to our understanding of citizens’ political attitudes, political participation, and voting behavior using the US case as the principle example. Second and related, students will leave the course with knowledge of homo politicus : what political stimuli face members of the electorate, how they process political information, and how it manifests as political behavior. Third is the hands-on goal: students will gain the ability to analyze survey data on their own to observe, measure, and interpret basic findings from selected data in multiple contexts. Within this third objective is the sub-goal that students learn to integrate normative conclusions.
Required Texts:
- Flanigan, William H. and Nancy H. Zingale. 2006. Political Behavior of the American Electorate , 11/ed. Washington DC: CQ Press. ISBN: 1-933116-67-6. (AKA: “F&Z”) (see cqpress.com or bookstore). Needed by 2/13!
- Fiorina, Morris P. 2006. Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America, 2/ed. New York: Pearson. ISBN: 0-321-36606-9 (see Amazon.com or ablongman.com) Needed by 2/16!
- Readings on the Potter Library’s eReserve system.
- Readings on JSTOR and Lexis-Nexis, to be printed from any computer laboratory.
Course Requirements:
- Students need to be competent users of computers and email with reliable ramapo.edu addresses, who also know well how to access the “My Ramapo/Luminis” site. Students should check their Luminis-fed email daily for college and course announcements.
- Students need to be voracious readers. If you are the type that only sometimes completes a week’s readings on time, this class is not appropriate and I suggest a different section. Your workload for this class is 7-9 hours per week outside of class time.
- Students need to participate in class discussions. While I technically must “lecture” some of the material, much of the course is an open-ended discussion where difficult issues arise and hard answers are elusive. Not only is part of your grade dependent on class attendance and participation, there is a strong, non-spurious correlation between those that participate actively in class and those that do well on examinations.
- Students need to attend class. There are random spot-check quizzes (≈4-5) during the semester that cannot be made up (though the lowest quiz grade will be dropped to allow for life’s inherent randomness). College is not cheap, so show up.
- Students need to take two tests (Due 3/9 and 5/15). The midterm consists of a closed-book in-class portion and a take-home portion. The in-class section includes some short answer questions whereby students need to succinctly provide a definition and the significance of the term to the course, as well as a short essay giving the students an opportunity to provide a cogent answer to a germane question. Because I am not interested in reading poorly composed short answers and essays (or surprising students on the subjective section of the exams), I will disclose the possible short answer terms and essay questions in advance to provide students the opportunity to prepare well. Missing exams is a bad idea—make up exams will be undisclosed essay questions. Without a reasonable excuse, I must assess a 10% per business day penalty on missed exams. The final exam is entirely take-home and requires some lab work.
- Students will complete two polished lab reports that analyze contemporary trends in political attitudes and behavior using recent polling data in the computer lab. The final exam will require some lab work as well.
- Grading Policy. I blind-grade the exams in order to provide as fair a grading mechanism as possible. The scale 60-61 D-, 62-69 D, 69-70 D+, 70-71 C-, 72-79 C, 79-80 C+, etc. I do not allocate grades on a curve. Incompletes are undesirable, and will only be given for nonacademic reasons. Your grade is made up of a weighted mean: o Attendance Quiz Average (without lowest score): 10% o Class participation: 15% o Midterm examination 25% o Final examination 30% o Lab Reports 20%
- Students need to respect the other students in the course. Volatile topics will often arise in class and opinions will differ, but the tone and tenor of class shall always remain cordial and civil. I seek to provide an intellectual environment where students can feel free to express their views without ideological or partisan oppression from me or other students.
Academic Integrity: On this subject consider me a zealot. Both I and the institution expect you to read and understand Ramapo College’s academic integrity policy, located in the College Catalog.* Members of the Ramapo College community are expected to be honest and forthright in their academic dealings. Violations of any of the four forms of academic dishonesty (cheating, plagiarism , misconduct, or fabrication) will summarily be conducted to the Vice President for Academic Affairs and a hearing will be scheduled, including uncited references. Expect me to press strongly for expulsion if the dishonesty is intentional. Students tend to cheat when they get in desperate situation—if you find yourself falling behind, come see me. I care about your honest progress in the course and I will be your strong ally unless intentional dishonesty occurs.
Contact Information and Office Hours: My office is room E204 and the phone number is 201-684-6286 and my email is jteigen@ramapo.edu. Email is the preferred form of contact and the more effective (I check voicemail sporadically but email devoutly). My office hours are there for you; please feel free to use them to ask follow-up questions or seek to disambiguate matters. Also, the
- (^) http://www.ramapo.edu/catalog_04_05/academicPrograms/gradingSystems/acadAcademicIntegrity.html
Thur 2/
Partisanship and Vote Choice What is party identity? Ideology? Where does it come from and why does it matter? Who liked Ike? Who likes W? And how much? What “cross- pressures” people to vote against party identity?
o Campbell et al. The American Voter , Ch 2: Theoretical Orientation” o Campbell et al. The American Voter , Ch. 3: “Perceptions of the Parties and Candidates.” ¾ F&Z, Ch. 3 & 6.
Mon 2/
Partisanship and Vote Choice Do we live in a Red state/Blue state country? What is Fiorina’s evidence for his conclusions?
¾ Fiorina, Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America. Prefaces & Ch. 1-5.
Thur 2/
Partisanship and Vote Choice What dynamics change our perceptions of party identification at the aggregate and individual level? What can cause PID to change?
¾ F&Z, Ch. 4 & 5.
Mon 2/ & Thur 3/
Lab Work : Exploring the correlates of partisanship and vote choice. Lab Report #1 introduced and turned in.
SPSS Statistical Primer (handout) ¾ F&Z, Appendix (p. 223-233)
Mon 3/ & Thur 3/
Lab work, Review, and Midterm Examination
Mon 3/
Media Effects on Voter Opinion What is priming and what are its possible effects? What are recent examples? Does negative campaigning work—in what ways?
¾ F&Z, ch. 7 ¾ Bring in a clipping from recent newspaper article exhibiting any partisan, ideological, or corporatist bias (not op-ed or editorial)
Thur 3/
Media Effects cont. o Valentino “Mass Media and Group Priming” JSTOR: Althaus, S. L. 2002. “American News Consumption During Times of National Crisis” PS: Political Science and Politics 35(3): 517-521. 3/20 & 3/
Spring break Sunscreen warning labels?
Mon 3/
Issue & Campaign Effects Many voters’ minds are made up early—can campaigns have much effect? What is the interaction between issues and parties?
¾ F&Z, Ch. 8
Thur 3/
Issue and Campaign Effects (^) JSTOR: Petrocik, J. R.1996. “Issue Ownership in Presidential Elections,” American Journal of Political Science 40(3): 825-850. JSTOR: Holbrook, T. 2002. “Did the Whistle-Stop Campaign Matter?” PS: Political Science and Politics 35(1): 59-66.
Mon4/ & Thur 4/
Socialization, Social Networks, and Social Choice How do non-elites around you affect attitudes and vote choice (which ones)? What is the political nature of social networks? What does social capital buy?
¾ F&Z, p. 108-188. o Putnam, “Bowling Alone” o Putnam, “Bowling Together”
Mon 4/
Political Participation What are instrumental and expressive benefits of voting? Is it rational to turnout in 2006? Election for class president? Why are turnout levels apparently declining in the US?
o Downs, Economic Theory of Democracy , Ch. 14: “Causes & Effects of Rational Abstention.” ¾ F&Z, Ch. 2.
Thur 4/
Political Participation
Read Wolfinger & Rosenstone if you want to study the US turnout question, or use the TBA article on another country’s turnout.
o Wolfinger & Rosenstone, Who Votes? , ch. 1: “Introduction o Wolfinger & Rosenstone, Who Votes? , ch. 2: “Sorting out the Effects of Socioeconomic Status.”
Mon 4/ & Mon 4/
Lab Work : Exploring the correlates of turnout and participation. Lab Report #2 introduced 4/17 and turned in 4/24. (Lab time on 4/20)
- SPSS Statistical Primer
- Lab Report worksheet
Thur 4/
Turnout Mobilization Who gets mobilized and why? Are mobilization efforts effective—when? What’s the difference between partisan and non-partisan mobilization efforts?
JSTOR: Gosnell, H. 1927. “An Experiment in the Stimulation of Voting” Amerian Political Science Review , 20(4): 869-
