PSC 615 ‑‑
American National Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Institutions
Spring 2007
Instructor: Steve Borrelli
306 ten Hoor,
(205) 348‑3802,
348‑5980 (main office),
Mailing
Address:
Mailbox: Room 346A
ten Hoor, open 7 AM - 4:30 PM weekdays
E‑Mail
Address for Questions, Comments, Notification of Absences, etc. sborrell@bama.ua.edu
(If sending me
papers online, please use the WebCT e-mail function)
Website for
Handouts and Syllabi: bama.ua.edu/~sborrell
OFFICE HOURS: Mondays and Tuesdays 2-4, and by appointment
COURSE
DESCRIPTION:
An overview of classic and contemporary original
empirical research on the US Congress, the US Presidency, and the US Supreme
Court. Emphasis will be on learning not just the
substantive findings of this research, but who produced it, the theoretical
frameworks underlying it, the process by which it is is
produced, and (hopefully) how it all fits together.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
Students
will
a.) Gain a basic familiarity with and
understanding of the major current issues, authors, and findings in the study
of Congress, the Presidency, and the Supreme Court, with some attention to the
politics of the executive branch;
b.) Learn how to evaluate critically research
done by other authors, pointing out strengths and weaknesses in logic,
definition of concepts and variables, research design and methodology, and/or
interpretation of evidence;
c.) Learn how to answer questions similar to
those that will appear on comprehensive exams in the area of American politics,
which will involve associating researchers with their work, and linking
research done by different authors at different points in time.
d.) Through the term paper exercise, gain expertise
either at translating recent research findings into teachable material for
undergraduates, or
at building on current research to propose a plausible new project of one’s
own.
BOOKS TO PURCHASE.
1
Congress
Reconsidered (8th Edition):
if ordering online, MAKE SURE you have the CURRENT edition---each
version is radically different
Edited by Larry Dodd and Bruce Oppenheimer
Publisher: Congressional Quarterly Books (2005).
2. Presidential Power (Power, Conflict, and
Democracy: American Politics into the 21st Century)
by Robert Y. Shapiro (Editor), Martha Joynt Kumar (Editor),
Publisher:
3. The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model
Revisited
by Jeffrey Segal and Harold Spaeth.
Publisher:
ARTICLES TO
DOWNLOAD
The
bulk of the reading for this course will be articles from peer-reviewed
academic journals. All of these
journals are available in electronic form through the University Library
website (www.lib.ua.edu, click “Electronic
Journals” and search by the journal title).
Note
that the Shapiro et al and Dodd and Oppenheimer books are anthologies,
containing relatively self-contained research articles by different
authors. In class, on papers, and in the
exams, you will refer to and cite each chapter by its own author(s), rather
than by the book’s editor(s).
ASSIGNMENTS
A.) WEEKLY ARTICLE SUMMARIES (collectively, worth
20% of final grade)
Each week, during
class, each student will turn in summaries of at least three different articles
(or book chapters) from that week’s reading. Each group of three summaries will be assigned
a single grade by the instructor and returned the following week. Each
article should receive at least a page and a half’s (double-spaced) worth of
coverage, making each week’s total submission about 4 ½ -5 pages long. The
summaries should highlight the basic questions addressed by each article or
chapter, the conclusions drawn, and the type of evidence or analysis used.to reach those conclusions. Students are strongly encouraged to put these
summaries in their own words, avoiding lots of direct quotes of long, complex
sentences from the articles themselves. Collections
of summaries that try to relate each article or chapter to the others will be
much loved by the instructor. Other than
providing fodder for your grade for this course, the primary purpose of these summaries will be to serve as study
materials for the final exam and for MA and/or PHD comprehensive exams.
Students
will be allowed to miss or skip one week’s worth of these summaries, but except
in extraordinary cases no makeups or late submissions
will be allowed on these. If a student
does not miss or skip any week, his or her lowest weekly grade will be dropped
in the computation of this 20% of the final grade.
B.) DISCUSSION LEADERSHIP (worth 20% of final grade).
Each student
will choose a week in the semester in which he or she will serve as primary
discussion leader. The discussion leader
will
a.) summarize the
important points of ALL of that weeks’ readings, but will do so in a lively,
interactive style; discussion leaders
who simply read verbatim from a prepared text will be penalized. Discussion leaders should expect that their
fellow students have read all of the week’s readings and should not see their
role as spoon-feeding information to those who did not read. Discussion leaders will be expected to manage
their time well and focus on the most important aspects of each
reading, neither getting bogged down in trivial details nor avoiding
issues simply because they are complicated or difficult.
b.) ask his or her fellow students discussion
questions designed to encourage student participation; while the discussion leader can try to
relate the readings to current political events, the discussion will remain
focused on the theories, methodologies, and implications of the research
itself, and the class will not be allowed to degenerate into a political talk-show-style
debate.
c.) try very hard to relate the readings to each
other, to previous week’s readings, and/or to relevant topics covered in other
PSC graduate classes
d.) identify and propose new questions for
possible future research, alternative ways of addressing existing questions and/or
ways to resolve conflicts or ambiguities in the literature..
The
discussion leader will prepare a written outline of his or her material,
including the major points he or she plans to cover and the questions they plan
to ask of the class. This text will be
distributed to all students and to the instructor.
The student’s
grade for their performance as discussion leader will be based 50% on the quality
of this written text, and 50% on the effectiveness of his or her facilitation
of class discussion as perceived by the instructor..
C.)
CLASS PARTICIPATION (as a NON-leader) (worth 20% of the
final grade)
The instructor will assign each student
a grade for the quality and quantity of his or her participation in each week’s
discussion. Students will automatically
get the highest possible participation grade for the week in which they serve
as leader. Students with unexcused absences will
automatically receive a “0” for that week’s participation grade.
D.)
MIDTERM EXAM (worth 20% of course grade) (to be held during
the first half of class period)
Wednesday, February 28th
E.) FINAL EXAM (worth 20%
of final grade) to
be held on Wednesday, May 9th, at 11:30 AM. h.
SCHEDULE OF TOPICS
AND
Introduction and
Selection of Leadership Assignments: -- January 10
"Classic"
Research on Congressional Elections – January 17
Cover, Albert. 1977. One Good Term Deserves Another. American Journal of Political Science,
21: 523-542.
Ferejohn, John.
1977. On the
Decline of Competition in Congressional Elections. American Political Science Review, 71 (March)
165-176.
Fiorina,
Morris. 1988. The Case of the Vanishing Marginals: The Bureaucracy Did It. American Political Science Review, 71 (March)
177-181
Johannes, John, and John MacAdams. 1981.
The Congressional Incumbency Effect:
Is it Casework, Policy Compatibility, or Something Else? American Journal of Political Science, 25
(August) 512-542.
Fiorina,
Morris. 1981. Some Problems in Studying the Effect of Resource
Allocation in Congressional Elections.
American Journal of Political Science, 25 (August) 543-567.
Jacobson, Gary. 1989. Strategic Politicians and the Dynamics of US
House Elections. American Political
Science Review, 83 (September) 773-793.
“Contemporary” Research
on Congressional Elections—January 24
Cox, Gary, and Jonathan Katz. 1996.
Why Did the Incumbency Advantage in US House Elections Grow? American Journal of Political Science, 40
(May) 478-497.
From the “Congress Reconsidered” book:
Bruce Oppenheimer, “Deep Red and Blue Congressional
Districts: The Causes and Consequences
of Declining Party Competitiveness”
Morris Fiorina, “Keystone
Reconsidered”
Abramowitz, Alan, Brad
Alexander, and Matthew Gunning. 2006.
“Incumbency, Redistricting, and the Decline of Competition in US House
Elections.” Journal of Politics, 68
(February): 75-88.
Canes-Wrone,
Brandice, David Brady, and John Cogan. 2002. Out of Step, Out of Office: Electoral Accountability and House Members’
Voting. American Political Science
Review, 96 (March): 127.
Jones, David, and Monika
McDermott. 2004. The Responsible Party Government Model in
House and Senate Elections. American
Journal of Political Science, 48 (January) 1-12
Congressional
Procedures, Partisanship, and Leadership---January 31
Cooper, Joseph, and David Brady. 1981.
Institutional Conflict and Leadership Style: The House from Cannon to
Rayburn. American Political Science
Review, 75 (June) 411-425.
Binder, Sara. 1996. The Partisan Basis of Procedural Choice: Allocating Parliamentary Rights in the House,
1789‑1990. American Political
Science Review, 90: 8‑ 20.
Binder, Sara, and Steven Smith. 1998.
Political Goals and Procedural Choice in the Senate.
Krehbiel, Keith. 1993. Where’s the Party? British Journal of Political Science,
23:235-66.
*** Sinclair, Barbara.
2002. Do Parties Matter? In David Brady and Mathew McCubbins, eds, Party, Process, and Political
Change in Congress.
Article available on my website
From the “Congress Reconsidered” book:
Steven Smith and Gerald Gamm, “The Dynamics of Party Government in
Congress”
Eric Schickler and Kathryn Pearson, “The
House Leadership in an Era of Partisan Warfare”
C. Lawrence Evans and Daniel Lipinski, “Obstruction and Leadership
in the
Joshua Gordon, “The Disintegration of the House Appropriations
Committee”
Congressional Committees
& Interest Group Influence in Congress---February 7
Krehbiel, Keith. 1990. Are Congressional Committees Composed of
Preference Outliers? American Political
Science Review, 84 (March):149-163.
Hall, Richard, and Bernard Grofman. 1990.
The Committee Assignment Process and the Conditional Nature of Committee
Bias. American Political Science Review,
84: 1149-1166.
Krehbiel, Keith, Kenneth Shepsle, and Barry Weingast. 1987.
Why are Congressional Committees Powerful? American Political Science Review,
81:929-948.
Baumgartner, Frank, Bryan Jones, and
Michael MacLeod. 2000. The Evolution of Legislative
Jurisdictions.
Groseclose, Tim, and Charles Stewart III. 1998.
The Value of Committee Seats in the House 1947-1991. American Journal of Political Science
42:453-474.
Hall, Richard, and Frank Wayman. 1990.
Buying Time: Moneyed Interest and
the Nature of Bias. American Political
Science Review, 84: 797-820.
Hojnacki, Marie, and David Kimball. 1998.
Organized Interests and the Decision of Whom to Lobby in Congress. American Political Science Review, 92"
775-790.
Congress and
Representation; Public
Opinion Toward Congress --- February 14
Miller, Warren, and Donald Stokes. 1963.
Constituency Influence in Congress.
American Political Science Review, 57 (March) 45-56.
Achen, Christopher. 1978.
Measuring Representation.
American Journal of Political Science, 22 (August) 475-510.
Fenno, Richard. 1977.
US House Members in their Constituencies: An Exploration. American Political Science Review, 71
(September) 883-917.
Oppenheimer, Bruce.
1996. The Representational
Experience: The Effect of State
Population on Senator-Constituency Linkages.
American Journal of Political Science, 40 (November) 1280-1299.
From the “Congress Reconsidered” book:
John Hibbing and Christopher Larimer, “What the American Public Wants
Congress to Be”
Kerry Haynie, “African Americans and the
New Politics of Inclusion”
Durr, Robert, John Gilmour, and Christina Wolbrecht. 1997.
Explaining Congressional Approval.
American Journal of Political Science, 41 (January): 175-207.
Studying the
Presidency: Theoretical Approaches February
21
From Shapiro et al.
book:
Edwards, "Neustadt's Power
Approach"
Gunnell,
"Richard Neustadt in the History of American
Political Science"
Lieberman, "Political Time and Policy Coalitions"
Neustadt,
"A Preachment from Retirement"
Jacobs and Shapiro, "Presidential Power, Institutions, and
Democracy"
Terry Moe and William Howell.
1999. “Unilateral Action and
Presidential Power: A Theory.” Presidential Studies
Quarterly, 29 (December) 850.
MIDTERM
EXAM February 28th!!
Presidential Approval; Presidential Selection; the White House Staff March 7
Brace, Paul, and Barbara Hinckley.
1991. The Structure of
Presidential Approval. Journal of
Politics, 53: 993‑1017.
Gronke, Paul, and Brian Newman. 2003.
“FDR to Clinton, Mueller to ?: A Field Essay on Presidential Approval.” Political Research Quarterly, 56 (December):
501-515.
Nicholson, Stephen, Gary Segura, and Nathan Woods.
2002. Presidential Approval and the
Mixed Blessing of Divided Government.
Norrander,
Barbara. 1996. Field Essay:
Presidential Nomination Politics in the Post-Reform Era. Political Research Quarterly, 49 (December)
875-915.
Norrander, Barbara. 2006.
The Attrition Game: Initial
Resources, Initial Contests and the Exit of Candidates During
the
From the Shapiro et al. book:
Rockman,
“Staffing and Organizing the Presidency”
Mayer and Weko,
“The Institutionalization of Power”
Link, “The Presidential
Kaleidoscope”
NO CLASS MARCH 14:
SPRING BREAK!!! 
Political Control of the
Bureaucracy March 21
Wood, B. Dan, and Richard Waterman. 1991.
The Dynamics of Political Control of the Bureaucracy. American Political Science Review, 85
(September) 801-828.
Hedge, David, and Michael Schiccitano. 1994.
Regulating in Space and Time: The
Case of Regulatory Federalism.
Rinquist,
Evan. 1995. Political Control and Policy Impact in the
EPA's Office of Water Quality. American
Journal of Political Science, 39:336-363.
Balla, Steven. 1998.
Administrative Procedures and Political Control of the Bureaucracy. American Political Science Review, 92:
663-673.
Howell, William, and David Lewis. 2002.
Agencies by Presidential Design.
Mete, Mihriye. 2002.
Bureaucratic Behavior in Strategic Environments: Politicians, Taxpayers,
and the IRS.
Executive-Legislative Relations, and the Politics of Gridlock March 28
Kiewiet, Rod, and Matt McCubbins. 1988.
Presidential Influence on Congressional Appropriations Decisions.
American Journal of Political Science, 32: 713-736.
Canes-Wrone, Brandice. 2001.
The President’s Legislative Influence from Public Appeals. American Journal of Political Science, 45
(April): 313-329.
Canes-Wrone, Brandice,
and Scott de Marchi. 2002. Presidential Approval and Legislative
Success.
From
Shapiro et al. book:
Cameron,
"Bargaining and Presidential Power."
Epstein
and O'Halloran, "The Institutional Face of
Presidential Power"
From
the Dodd and Oppenheimer book:
Wolfensberger, “Congress and Policymaking in an Age of Terrorism”
Binder,
Sarah. 1999. The Dynamics of Legislative Gridlock,
1947-96. American Political Science
Review, 93 (September) 519-533.
The Supreme Court: Nominations and Confirimations---April
4
Segal, Jeffrey, Charles Cameron, and Albert
Cover. 1992. A Spatial Model of Roll Call Voting:
Senators, Constituents, Presidents, and Interest Groups in Supreme Court
Confirmations. American
Journal of Political Science, Vol. 36, No. 1. (Feb., 1992), pp. 96-121
Moraski, Bryon, and Charles Shipan. 1999.
The Politics of Supreme Court Nominations: A Theory of Institutional Constraints and
Choices. American Journal of Political Science, 43 (October): 1069-1095, .
Ogundele, Ayo, and Linda
Johnson, Timothy, and Jason Roberts. 2004.
Presidential Capital and the Supreme Court Confirmation Process.
Epstein, Lee, Rene Lindstatdt,
Jeffrey Segal, and
From the Dodd and Oppenheimer book:
Binder and Maltzmann, “Congress and the Politics
of Judicial Appointments”
The Supreme Court and
the Attitudinal Model---April 11
Spaeth and Segal book, entire.
Implications of the
Attitudinal Model for Sua Sponte
and Stare Decisis—April 18
McGuire, Kevin, and Barbara Palmer. 1995.
Issue Fluidity on the Supreme Court.
American Political Science Review, 89 (September): 691-702
Epstein, Lee, Jeffrey Segal, and Timothy
Johnson. 1996. The Claim of Issue Creation on the
McGurie, Kevin, and Barbara Palmer. 1996.
Issues, Agendas, and Decision Making on the Supreme Court. American Political Science Review, 90 (December),
853-865.
Segal, Jeffrey and Harold Spaeth. 1996.
The Influence of Stare Decisis on the Votes of
Brisbin,
Richard. 1996. Slaying the Dragon: Segal, Spaeth, and the Function of Law in Supreme Court Decisionmaking.
American Journal of Political Science 40:1004
Knight, Jack and Lee Epstein. 1996.
The Norm of Stare Decisis. AJPS 40:1018.
Brenner, Saul and Marc Stier. 1996.
Retesting Segal and Spaeth’s Stare Decisis Model. AJPS
40:1036.
The Supreme Court and
Public Opinion --- April 25
Marshall, Thomas.
1987. The Supreme Court as
Opinion Leader. American Politics
Quarterly, 15: 147-168.
Mishler, William, and Reginald Sheehan. 1996.
Public Opinion, the Attitudinal Model, and Supreme Court
Decision-Making: A Micro-Analytic
Perspective.
Fleming, Roy and B. Dan Wood. 1997.
The Public and the Supreme Court.
American Journal of Political Science, 41 (April): 468-498.
Johnson, Timothy, and Andrew Martin. 1998.
The Public's Conditional Response to Supreme Court Decisions. American Political Science Review, 92:
299-309.
Durr, Robert, Andrew Martin, and Christina Wolbrecht. 2000.
Ideological Divergence and Public Support for the Supreme Court. 44 (October),
768-776.
Hoekstra,
Valerie. 2000. The Supreme Court and Local Public
Opinion. American Political Science
Review, 94 (March): 89-100.
The Supreme Court’s
Inter-branch Relations --- May 2
Meernik,
James, and Joseph Ignagni. 1997.
Judicial Review and Coordinate Construction of the Constitution. American Journal of Political Science, 41: 447-467.
Begara,
Mario, Barak Richman, and Pablo Spiller. 2003.
Modeling Supreme Court Strategic Decision-Making: The Congressional
Constraint. Legislative Studies
Quarterly, 28 (May): 247-280.
King, Kimi Lynn, and James Meernik. 1999. The Supreme Court and the Powers of the
Executive: The Adjudication of Foreign
Policy. Political Research Quarterly,
52: 801-824.
Johnson,
Timothy. 2003. The Supreme Court, the Solicitor General, and
the Separation of Powers. American
Politics Research, 31 (4): 426-451.
Canes-Wrone, Brandice. 2003.
Bureaucratic Decisions and the Composition of the Lower Courts. American Journal of Political Science, 47
(April): 205.