Graduate Seminar in American Politics I: Political Behavior

Readings

Readings marked with an * can be swapped on a one-for-one basis between the required and optional lists.

WEEK	TOPICS
1: Introduction	Required Chapters 6-8, 10 in Campbell, Angus, Philip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller, and Donald E. Stokes. The American Voter. University of Chicago Press, 1980. Chapters 1, 2 in Achen, Christopher H., and Larry M. Bartels. Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government. Princeton University Press, 2016.
2: Micro Public Opinion: Ideology and Opinion Formation	Required Pages 206-261 in Apter, David Ernest, ed. Ideology and Discontent. New York: Free Press, 1964. Feldman, Stanley. “Values, Ideology, and the Structure of Political Attitudes.” In Huddy, Leonie, David O. Sears, and Jack S. Levy, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology. Oxford University Press, 2003. Chapters 1, 2 in Hochschild, Jennifer L. What’s Fair?: American Beliefs About Distributive Justice. Harvard University Press, 1986. Kinder, Donald R. “Belief Systems After Converse.” In MacKuen, Michael and George Rabinowitz, ed. Electoral Democracy. University of Michigan Press, 2003. Optional Heath, Anthony, Stephen Fisher, and Shawna Smith. “The Globalization of Public Opinion Research.” Annual Review of Political Science 8 (2005): 297-333.
3: Micro Public Opinion: Cognition, Information, and Knowledge	Required Downs, Anthony. An Economic Theory of Democracy. Harper and Row, 1957. Achen, Christopher H. “Mass Political Attitudes and the Survey Response.” American Political Science Review 69, no. 04 (1975): 1218-1231. Chapters 1-5, 7 in Zaller, John. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. Cambridge University Press, 1992. Chapters 1, 2 in Lodge, Milton, and Charles S. Taber. The Rationalizing Voter. Cambridge University Press, 2013. Introduction in Carpini, Michael X. Delli, and Scott Keeter. What Americans Know About Politics and Why It Matters. Yale University Press, 1997. Optional Chapter 4 in Carpini, Michael X. Delli, and Scott Keeter. What Americans Know About Politics and Why It Matters. Yale University Press, 1997. Berinsky, Adam J. “The Two Faces of Public Opinion.” American Journal of Political Science (1999): 1209-1230. Prior, Markus. “You’ve Either Got It or You Don’t? The Stability of Political Interest Over the Life Cycle.” The Journal of Politics 72, no. 3 (2010): 747-766. Kinder, Donald R. “Diversity and Complexity in American Public Opinion.” In Finifter, Ada, ed. Political Science: The State of the Discipline. APSA Press, 1983. Lupia, Arthur. “Shortcuts Versus Encyclopedias: Information and Voting Behavior in California Insurance Reform Elections.” American Political Science Review (1994): 63-76.
4: Micro Public Opinion: Groups, Self-Interest, and Symbolic Politics	Required Sears, David O., Richard R. Lau, Tom R. Tyler, and Harris M. Allen. “Self-Interest vs. Symbolic Politics in Policy Attitudes and Presidential Voting.” American Political Science Review 74, no. 03 (1980): 670-684. Chapters 1, 15, 24 in Key, Valdimer. Southern Politics in State and Nation." University of Tennessee Press, 1984. Erikson, Robert S., and Laura Stoker. “Caught in the Draft: The Effects of Vietnam Draft Lottery Status on Political Attitudes.” American Political Science Review 105, no. 02 (2011): 221-237. Chapter 1 in Sears, David O., Jim Sidanius, and Lawrence Bobo. Racialized Politics: The Debate About Racism in America. University of Chicago Press, 2000. Chapters 1, 6, 7 in Mendelberg, Tali. The Race Card: Campaign Strategy, Implicit Messages, and the Norm of Equality. Princeton University Press, 2001.* Chapters 1, 2, 6 in Tesler, Michael, and David O. Sears. Obama’s Race: The 2008 Election and the Dream of a Post-Racial America. University of Chicago Press, 2010.* Optional Habyarimana, James, Macartan Humphreys, Daniel N. Posner, and Jeremy M. Weinstein. “Why Does Ethnic Diversity Undermine Public Goods Provision?.” American Political Science Review 101, no. 04 (2007): 709-725.* Posner, Daniel N. “The Political Salience of Cultural Difference: Why Chewas and Tumbukas Are Allies in Zambia and Adversaries in Malawi.” American Political Science Review 98, no. 04 (2004): 529-545.* Hainmueller, Jens, and Dominik Hangartner. “Who Gets a Swiss Passport? A Natural Experiment in Immigrant Discrimination.” American Political Science Review 107, no. 01 (2013): 159-187. Hainmueller, Jens, and Michael J. Hiscox. “Attitudes Toward Highly Skilled and Low-Skilled Immigration: Evidence from a Survey Experiment.” American Political Science Review 104, no. 01 (2010): 61-84.
5: Macro Public Opinion and Representation	Chapters 1, 2, 8, 9 in Page, Benjamin I., and Robert Y. Shapiro. The Rational Public: Fifty Years of Trends in Americans’ Policy Preferences. University of Chicago Press, 1992. Pages 1-82 in Stimson, James A. Tides of Consent: How Public Opinion Shapes American Politics. Cambridge University Press, 2015. Stimson, James A., Michael B. MacKuen, and Robert S. Erikson. “Dynamic Representation.” American Political Science Review 89, no. 03 (1995): 543-565. Broockman, David E. “Approaches to Studying Policy Representation.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 41, no. 1 (2016): 181-215. Bartels, Larry M. “Uninformed Votes: Information Effects in Presidential Elections.” American Journal of Political Science (1996): 194-230. Optional Bafumi, Joseph, and Michael C. Herron. “Leapfrog Representation and Extremism: A Study of American Voters and Their Members in Congress.” American Political Science Review 104, no. 03 (2010): 519-542.
6: Party Identification	Required “Theories of Retrospective Voting.” Chapter 1 in Fiorina, Morris. Retrospective Voting in American National Elections. Yale University Press, 1981. Chapters 1-3, 5, 8 in Green, Donald P., Bradley Palmquist, and Eric Schickler. Partisan Hearts and Minds: Political Parties and the Social Identities of Voters. Yale University Press, 2004. Gerber, Alan S., and Gregory A. Huber. “Partisanship and Economic Behavior: Do Partisan Differences in Economic Forecasts Predict Real Economic Behavior?.” American Political Science Review 103, no. 03 (2009): 407-426.* Hetherington, Marc J. “Review Article: Putting Polarization in Perspective.” British Journal of Political Science 39, no. 02 (2009): 413-448.* Iyengar, Shanto, and Sean J. Westwood. “Fear and Loathing Across Party Lines: New Evidence on Group Polarization.” American Journal of Political Science 59, no. 3 (2015): 690-707. Bowler, Shaun, Stephen P. Nicholson, and Gary M. Segura. “Earthquakes and Aftershocks: Race, Direct Democracy, and Partisan Change.” American Journal of Political Science 50, no. 1 (2006): 146-159. Optional Carlson, Elizabeth. “Finding Partisanship Where We Least Expect it: Evidence of Partisan Bias in a New African Democracy.” Political Behavior 38, no. 1 (2016): 129-154.* Samuels, David, and Cesar Zucco. “The Power of Partisanship in Brazil: Evidence from Survey Experiments.” American Journal of Political Science 58, no. 1 (2014): 212-225.* Huber, John D., Georgia Kernell, and Eduardo L. Leoni. “Institutional Context, Cognitive Resources and Party Attachments Across Democracies.” Political Analysis 13, no. 4 (2005): 365-386.
7: Social Influence and Context	Required “Social Process.” Chapter 6 in Berelson, Bernard, Paul F. Lazarsfeld, and William N. McPhee. Voting: A Study of Opinion Formation in a Presidential Campaign. University of Chicago Press, 1954. Mutz, Diana C. “Impersonal Influence: Effects of Representations of Public Opinion on Political Attitudes.” Political Behavior 14, no. 2 (1992): 89-122.* Huckfeldt, Robert, and John Sprague. “Networks in Context: The Social Flow of Political Information.” American Political Science Review 81, no. 04 (1987): 1197-1216. Hopkins, Daniel J. “Politicized Places: Explaining Where and When Immigrants Provoke Local Opposition.” American Political Science Review 104, no. 01 (2010): 40-60. Nickerson, David W. “Is Voting Contagious? Evidence from Two Field Experiments.” American Political Science Review 102, no. 01 (2008): 49-57.* Enos, Ryan D. “Causal Effect of Intergroup Contact on Exclusionary Attitudes.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, no. 10 (2014): 3699-3704. Optional Ichino, Nahomi, and Noah L. Nathan. “Crossing the Line: Local Ethnic Geography and Voting in Ghana.” American Political Science Review 107, no. 02 (2013): 344-361.* Getmansky, Anna, and Thomas Zeitzoff. “Terrorism and Voting: The Effect of Rocket Threat on Voting in Israeli Elections.” American Political Science Review 108, no. 03 (2014): 588-604.* Kasara, Kimuli. “Separate and Suspicious: Local Social and Political Context and Ethnic Tolerance in Kenya.” The Journal of Politics 75, no. 4 (October 2013): 921-936. Acharya, Avidit, Matthew Blackwell, and Maya Sen. “The Political Legacy of American Slavery.” The Journal of Politics 78, no. 3 (July 2016): 621-641. Druckman, James N. and Kjersten R. Nelson. “Framing and Deliberation: How Citizens’ Conversations Limit Elite Influence.” American Journal of Political Science 47, no. 4 (October 2003): 729-745. Anderson, Christopher J. and Aida Paskeviciute. “How Ethnic and Linguistic Heterogeneity Influence the Prospects for Civil Society: A Comparative Study of Citizenship Behavior.” The Journal of Politics 68, no. 4 (November 2006): 783-802. Sapiro, Virginia. “Not Your Parents’ Political Socialization: Introduction for a New Generation.” Annual Review of Political Science 7, no. 1 (June 2004): 1-23.
8: Political Communication and Media	Required Iyengar, Shanto, Donald R. Kinder, and Mark D. Peters. “Experimental Demonstrations of the ‘Not-So-Minimal’ Consequences of Television News Programs.” American Political Science Review 76, no. 4 (December 1982): 848-858. Lenz, Gabriel S. “Learning and Opinion Change, Not Priming: Reconsidering the Priming Hypothesis.” American Journal of Political Science 53, no. 4 (October 2009): 821-837. Berinsky, Adam J. and Donald R. Kinder. “Making Sense of Issues Through Media Frames: Understanding the Kosovo Crisis.” The Journal of Politics 68, no. 3 (August 2006): 640-656.* Ladd, Johnathan McDonald, and Gabriel S. Lenz. “Exploiting a Rare Communication Shift to Document Persuasive Power of the News Media.” American Journal of Political Science 53, no. 2 (April 2009): 394-410.* Bergan, Daniel, Alan S. Gerber and Dean Karlan “Does the Media Matter? A Field Experiment Measuring the Effect of Newspapers on Voting Behavior and Political Opinions.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 1, no. 2 (April 2009): 35-52. “Partisan Polarization in the High-Choice Media Environment.” Chapter 7 in Prior, Markus. Post-Broadcast Democracy: How Media Choice Increases Inequality in Political Involvement and Polarizes Elections. Cambridge University Press: 2007. Optional Boas, Taylor C. and F. Daniel Hidalgo. “Controlling the Airwaves: Incumbency Advantage and Community Radio in Brazil.” American Journal of Political Science 55, no. 4 (October 2011): 869-885.* Enikolopov, Ruben, Maria Petrova and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya. “Media and Political Persuasion: Evidence from Russia.” American Economic Review 101, no. 7 (December 2011): 3253-85.* Paluck, Elizabeth Levy. “Reducing Intergroup Prejudice and Conflict Using the Media: A Field Experiment in Rwanda.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 96, no. 3 (March 2009): 574-587. “The News Media and the Racialization of Poverty,” “Media Distortions: Causes and Consequences.” Chapters 5, 6 in Gilens, Martin. Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy. University of Chicago Press (2000). Druckman, James N. “The Implications of Framing Effects for Citizen Competence.” Political Behavior 23, no. 3 (September 2001): 225-256. Chong, Dennis and James N. Druckman. “Framing Theory.” Annual Review of Political Science 10, no. 1 (June 2007): 103-126.
9: Political Participation and Voter Turnout	Required Chapters 1, 2, 6 in Hansen, John Mark and Steven J. Rosenstone. Mobilization, Participation, and Democracy in America. Pearson (2002). Brady, Henry E., Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Sidney Verba. “Beyond SES: A Resource Model of Political Participation.” American Political Science Review 89, no. 2 (June 1995): 271-294. Putnam, Robert D. “Tuning In, Tuning Out: The Strange Disappearance of Social Capital in America.” PS: Political Science & Politics 28, no. 4 (December 1995): 664-683. Gerber, Alan S., Donald P. Green, Christopher W. Larimer. “Social Pressure and Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment.” American Political Science Review 102, no. 1 (February 2008): 33-48. Fraga, Luis R., John A. Garcia, Rodney E. Hero, Michael Jones-Correa, Valerie Martinez-Ebers, and Gary M. Segura. “Su Casa Es Nuestra Casa: Latino Politics Research and the Development of American Political Science.” American Political Science Review 100, no. 4 (November 2006): 515-521. McDonald, Michael P. and Samuel L. Popkin. “The Myth of the Vanishing Voter.” American Political Science Review 95, no. 4 (December 2001): 963-974.* Optional Kasara, Kimuli, and Pavithra Suryanarayan. “When Do the Rich Vote Less Than the Poor and Why? Explaining Turnout Inequality Across the World.” American Journal of Political Science 59, no. 3 (July 2015): 613-627.* Enos, Ryan D., Anthony Fowler and Lynn Vavreck. “Increasing Inequality: The Effect of GOTV Mobilization on the Composition of the Electorate.” The Journal of Politics 76, no. 1 (January 2014): 273-288. Bedolla, Lisa Garcia, and Melissa R. Michelson. Mobilizing Inclusion: Transforming the Electorate Through Get-Out-the-Vote Campaigns. Yale University Press, 2012. Gerber, Alan S., and Donald P. Green. “The Effects of Canvassing, Telephone Calls, and Direct Mail on Voter Turnout: A Field Experiment.” American Political Science Review 94, no. 03 (2000): 653-663. Ansolabehere, Stephen, and Eitan Hersh. “Validation: What Big Data Reveal About Survey Misreporting and the Real Electorate.” Political Analysis 20, no. 4 (2012): 437-459. Blais, André. “What Affects Voter Turnout?” Annual Review of Political Science 9, no. 1 (2006): 111-125.
10: Voting Behavior I: Political Campaigns	Required Bartels, Larry M. “Candidate Choice and the Dynamics of the Presidential Nominating Process.” American Journal of Political Science 31, no. 1 (February 1987). Gelman, Andrew, and Gary King. “Why Are American Presidential Election Campaign Polls So Variable When Votes Are So Predictable?” British Journal of Political Science 23, no. 04 (1993): 409-451. Huber, Gregory A., and Kevin Arceneaux. “Identifying the Persuasive Effects of Presidential Advertising.” American Journal of Political Science 51, no. 4 (2007): 957-977. Gerber, Alan S., James G. Gimpel, Donald P. Green, and Daron R. Shaw. “How Large and Long-Lasting Are the Persuasive Effects of Televised Campaign Ads? Results from a Randomized Field Experiment.” American Political Science Review 105, no. 01 (2011): 135-150. Jacobson, Gary C. “How Do Campaigns Matter?” Annual Review of Political Science 18 (2015): 31-47. Optional Gelman, Andrew, Sharad Goel, Douglas Rivers, and David Rothschild. “The Mythical Swing Voter.” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 11, no. 1 (2016): 103-130. Scarrow, Susan E. “Political Finance in Comparative Perspective.” Annual Review of Political Science 10 (2007): 193-210. Vavreck, Lynn. The Message Matters: The Economy and Presidential Campaigns. Princeton University Press, 2009.
11: Voting Behavior II: Vote Choice and Political Accountability	Required Review Downs sections from Week 2 “Theories of Retrospective Voting.” Chapter 1 in Fiorina, Morris. Retrospective Voting in American National Elections. Yale University Press, 1981. Huber, Gregory A., Seth J. Hill, and Gabriel S. Lenz. “Sources of Bias in Retrospective Decision Making: Experimental Evidence on Voters’ Limitations in Controlling Incumbents.” American Political Science Review 106, no. 04 (2012): 720-741.* Chapters 5, 6 in Achen, Christopher H., and Larry M. Bartels. Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government. Princeton University Press, 2016. Optional Evans, Geoffrey, and Robert Andersen. “The Political Conditioning of Economic Perceptions.” Journal of Politics 68, no. 1 (2006): 194-207.* Lewis‐Beck, Michael S., Richard Nadeau, and Angelo Elias. “Economics, Party, and the Vote: Causality Issues and Panel Data.” American Journal of Political Science 52, no. 1 (2008): 84-95. Powell Jr, G. Bingham, and Guy D. Whitten. “A Cross-National Analysis of Economic Voting: Taking Account of the Political Context.” American Journal of Political Science (1993): 391-414. Powell Jr, G. Bingham. “Political Representation in Comparative Politics.” Annual Review of Political Science 7 (2004): 273-296. Bartels, Larry M. “Beyond the Running Tally: Partisan Bias in Political Perceptions.” Political Behavior 24, no. 2 (2002): 117-150.
12: Other Political Participation	Required Pages 1-48 in Verba, Sidney, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Henry E. Brady. Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. Harvard University Press, 1995. Karpowitz, Christopher F., Tali Mendelberg, and Lee Shaker. “Gender Inequality in Deliberative Participation.” American Political Science Review 106, no. 03 (2012): 533-547. Hill, Seth J., and Gregory A. Huber. “Representativeness and Motivations of the Contemporary Donorate: Results from Merged Survey and Administrative Records.” Political Behavior (2015): 1-27. Lerman, Amy E., and Vesla Weaver. “Staying Out of Sight? Concentrated Policing and Local Political Action.” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 651, no. 1 (2014): 202-219. Optional Chapters 1, 2 in McAdam, Doug, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly. Dynamics of Contention. Cambridge University Press: 2001. McAdam, Doug. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930-1970. University of Chicago Press, 2010. Gillion, Daniel Q. The Political Power of Protest: Minority Activism and Shifts in Public Policy. Cambridge University Press, 2013. Huff, Connor, and Dominika Kruszewska. “Banners, Barricades, and Bombs The Tactical Choices of Social Movements and Public Opinion.” Comparative Political Studies 49, no. 13 (2016): 1774-1808. Han, Hahrie. Moved to Action: Motivation, Participation, and Inequality in American Politics. Stanford University Press, 2009.
13: Political Inequality and Participation/Policy Feedback Effects	Required Gilens, Martin. “Inequality and Democratic Responsiveness.” Public Opinion Quarterly 69, no. 5 (2005): 778-796. Rigby, Elizabeth and Gerald C. Wright. “Whose Statehouse Democracy? Policy Responsiveness to Poor vs. Rich Constituents in Poor vs. Rich States.” Chapter 7 in Enns, Peter K., and Christopher Wlezien, eds. Who Gets Represented? Russell Sage Foundation, 2011. Chapters 1-5 in Campbell, Andrea Louise. How Policies Make Citizens: Senior Political Activism and the American Welfare State. Princeton University Press, 2003. Weaver, Vesla M., and Amy E. Lerman. “Political Consequences of the Carceral State.” American Political Science Review 104, no. 04 (2010): 817-833.