Government 317: Campaigns and Elections
Fall 2000
Tuesday and Thursday 2:55-4:10 (RF 132)
Professor: Walter R. Mebane, Jr.
Office: 121 McGraw Hall (255-3868); email wrm1@macht.arts.cornell.edu
Office hours: Tue 4:30-5:30, Wed 2-4 or other times by appointment.

due date description weight

September 21 first paper 25%

October 24 proposal for final paper 5%

December 4 final paper 35%

December 13 (3-5:30pm) final exam 35%

Reading Availability

Large portions of the following books are required reading, so you may wish to buy them. All should also (soon) be on reserve at Uris library.

Abramson, Paul R., John H. Aldrich, David W. Rohde. 1999. Change and Continuity in the 1996 and 1998 Elections. Washington DC: Congressional Quarterly.

Alesina, Alberto, and Howard Rosenthal. 1995. Partisan Politics, Divided Government, and the Economy. Cambridge UP.

Fiorina, Morris P. 1989. Congress: Keystone of the Washington Establishment. Second edition. New Haven: Yale UP.

Fiorina, Morris P. 1995. Divided Government. Second edition. Allyn and Bacon.

Davidson, Chandler, and Bernard Grofman, eds. 1994. Quiet Revolution in the South: The Impact of the Voting Rights Act, 1965-1990. Princeton UP.

Hinich, Melvin J., and Michael C. Munger. 1997. Analytical Politics. New York: Cambridge UP.

Jacobson, Gary C. 1997. The Politics of Congressional Elections. Fourth edition. New York: Addison-Wesley.

Miller, Warren E., and J. Merrill Shanks. 1996. The New American Voter. Cambridge: Harvard UP.

Verba, Sidney, Kay Lehman Schlozman, Henry E. Brady. 1995. Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. Harvard University Press.

Class meeting and reading schedule

Items with a bullet ( ) are required. Others are supplementary.

1. Money, Money, Money (Aug 24-Sep 12)
   • FECInfo. http://www.tray.com/fecinfo/
   • Thomas. http://thomas.loc.gov/
   • Consolidated Federal Funds Report. http://govinfo.kerr.orst.edu/cffr-stateis.html
   • Fiorina. Congress. Entire.

   Larry Makinson and Joshua Goldstein. bi-annual. Open Secrets: The Encyclopedia of Congressional Money and Politics. CQ. See also http://www.opensecrets.org/home/index.htm

   Project Vote Smart. http://www.vote-smart.org/.

   Congressional Directory. http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/cong016.html

   Library of Congress Online Catalog. http://lcweb.loc.gov/homepage/online.html

   History of Bills. http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/aaces200.html

   Special Interest Group Ratings http://lcweb.loc.gov/global/legislative/voting.html#ratings

   Federal Election Commission. http://www.fec.gov/

   Federal Procurement Database System Reports. http://fpds.gsa.gov/Fpds/cust_reports.htm and http://fpds.gsa.gov/Fpds/customer.htm

   Budget of the U.S. Government. http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/budget/index.html

   U.S. State and Local Gateway, Federal Funding. http://www.statelocal.gov/funding.html

   GPO Access, Other Databases. http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/db2.html

   Government Information Sharing Project. http://govinfo.kerr.orst.edu/

   Electoral College. http://www.nara.gov/fedreg/elctcoll/

   Official House Election Returns. http://www.clerkweb.house.gov/elections/elections.htm

   Election Returns (1998). http://www.nytimes.com/specials/election/1998/index.html

   Political Points. http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/polpoints.html

   Third Parties. http://www.leonardsdigest.com/pages/thirdpartywatch.html

   Elections U.S.A. http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6228/

   Voter.com. http://www.voter.com/

   C-SPAN Campaign 2000. http://www.c-span.org/campaign2000/

   Alexander, Herbert E. 1984. Financing Politics: Money, Elections, and Political Reform. Washington, DC: CQ.

   Alexander, Herbert E., and Anthony Corrado. 1995. Financing the 1992 Election. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe.

   Biersack, Robert, Paul S. Herrnson and Clyde Wilcox, eds. 1999. After the Revolution: PACs, Lobbies, and the Republican Congress. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

   Biersack, Robert, Paul S. Herrnson and Clyde Wilcox, es. 1994. Risky Business: PAC Decisionmaking in Congressional Elections. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

   R. Douglas Arnold. 1979. Congress and the Bureaucracy: A Theory of Influence. New Haven: Yale UP

   Douglas Arnold. 1990. Logic of Congressional Action. New Haven: Yale UP.

   Fenno, Richard R. Jr. 1978. Home Style: House Members in Their Districts. Boston: Little, Brown.

   Mayhew, David R. 1974. Congress: The Electoral Connection. New Haven: Yale UP.

   Stein, Robert M. and Bickers, Kenneth N. 1995. Perpetuating the Pork Barrel: Policy Subsystems and American Democracy. New York: Cambridge UP.

   Tufte, Edward R. 1978. Political Control of the Economy. Princeton: Princeton UP.

   Nordhaus, William D. 1989. ``Alternative Approaches to the Political Business Cycle (with discussion).'' Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2:1-68.

   Gurian, Paul-Henri. 1987. ``Resource Allocation Strategies in Presidential Nomination Campaigns.'' American Journal of Political Science 31:802-821.

2. Spatial Theory and Manipulability of Elections (Sep 14-21)
   • Hinich and Munger. Chapters 1-4.

   Cox, Gary. 1996. Making Votes Count: Strategic Coordination in the World's Electoral System. New York: Cambridge UP.

   Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Row. Chapters 7 and 8.

   Hinich, Melvin J., and Michael C. Munger. 1994. Ideology and the Theory of Politicial Choice. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

   Aldrich, John H. 1980. Before the Convention: Strategies and Choices in Presidential Nomination Campaigns. Chicago: U of Chicago.

   Bartels, Larry. Presidential Primaries and the Dynamics of Public Choice. Princeton: Princeton UP.

   White, Theodore H. 1961 [1965, 1969, 1973]. The Making of the President, 1960 [1964, 1968, 1972]. New York: Atheneum.

   McGinniss, Joe. 1970. The Selling of the President, 1968. New York: Pocket Books.

   Witcover, Jules. 1977. Marathon: The Pursuit of the Presidency, 1972-1976. New York: Viking Press.

   Lindblom, Charles E. 1977. Politics and Markets: The World's Political-Economic Systems. New York: Basic Books.

   Lupia, Arthur, and Mathew D. McCubbins. 1998. The Democratic Dilemma: Can Citizens Learn What They Need to Know? New York: Cambridge UP.

   Zaller, John. 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. New York: Cambridge UP.

   Brams, Steven. 1978. The Presidential Election Game. New Haven: Yale UP.

3. Parties and Divided Government (Sep 26-Oct 5)
   • Alesina and Rosenthal. Chaps 1-3.
   • Fiorina. Divided Government. Entire.
   • Hinich and Munger. Chapters 8-9.

   Aldrich, John H. 1995. Why Parties?: The Origin and Transformation of Political Parties in America. Chicago: U of Chicago P.

   Duverger, Maurice. 1959. Political Parties. New York: Wiley.

   Lijphart, Arend. 1990. ``The Political Consequences of Election Laws, 1945-85.'' American Political Science Review, 84:481-496.

   Riker, William H. 1982. ``The Two-Party System and Duverger's Law: An Essay on the History of Political Science.'' American Political Science Review 76:753-766.

   Rosenstone, Steven J., Roy Behr and Edward Lazarus. 1996. Third Parties in America: Citizen Response to Major Party Failure. Expanded Revised ed. Princeton University Press.

   Shepsle, Kenneth A. 1991. Models of Multiparty Electoral Competition. New York: Harwood Academic.

   Sundquist, James L. 1973. Dynamics of the Party System: Alignment and Realignment of Political Parties in the United States. Washington, DC: Brookings.

4. Electoral Participation (Oct 12-19)
   • Abramson, Aldrich and Rohde. Chapter 4.
   • Hinich and Munger. Chapter 7.
   • Verba, Schlozman and Brady. Chapters 9-15.
   • Davidson and Grofman. Introduction, Chapters 1, 10-13.

   Burnham, Walter Dean. 1982. ``The Appearance and Disappearance of the American Voter.'' Chapter 4 in The Current Crisis in American Politics. Oxford: Oxford UP.

   Cameron, Charles, David Epstein, and O'Halloran, Sharyn. 1996. ``Do Majority-Minority Districts Maximize Substantive Black Representation in Congress?'' American Political Science Review 90:794-812.

   Lublin, David. 1997. The Paradox of Representation: Racial Gerrymandering and Minority Interests in Congress. Princeton: Princeton UP.

   Palfrey, Thomas R., and Howard Rosenthal. 1985. ``Voter Participation and Strategic Uncertainty.'' American Political Science Review 79:62-79.

   Piven, Frances Fox, and Richard A. Cloward. 1988. Why Americans Don't Vote. New York: Pantheon Books.

   Powell, G. Bingham Jr. 1986. American voter turnout in comparative perspective. American Political Science Review, 80:17-43.

   Riker, William H., and Peter C. Ordeshook. 1973. Introduction to Positive Political Theory. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.

   Rosenstone, Steven J., and John Mark Hansen. 1993. Mobilization, Participation, and Democracy in America . New York: Macmillan.

   Verba, Sidney, and Norman H. Nie. 1972. Participation in America: Political Democracy and Social Equality. New York: Harper and Row.

   Wolfinger, Raymond E., and Steven J. Rosenstone. 1980. Who Votes? New Haven: Yale UP.

5. Partisanship, Ideology and Presidential Voting (Oct 24-Nov 2)
   • Abramson, Aldrich and Rohde 1998. Chapters 6-8.
   • Miller and Shanks. Chapters 6, 7, 11-15.

   Abramson, Paul R., John H. Aldrich, David W. Rohde. 1993 [1983, 1987, 1991]. Change and Continuity in the 1992 [1980, 1984, 1988] Elections. Rev. ed. Washington DC: CQ.

   Berelson, Bernard R., et al. 1954. Voting: A Study of Opinion Formation in a Presidential Campaign. Chicago: U of Chicago.

   Campbell, Angus, Philip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller and Donald E. Stokes. 1960. The American Voter. New York: Wiley.

   Enelow, James M., and Melvin J. Hinich. 1984. The Spatial Theory of Voting: An Introduction. New York: Cambridge UP.

   Enelow, James M., and Melvin J. Hinich, eds. 1990. Advances in the Spatial Theory of Voting. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.

   Fiorina, Morris P. 1981. Retrospective Voting in American National Elections. New Haven: Yale UP.

   Kelley, Stanley Jr. 1983. Interpreting Elections. Princeton: Princeton UP.

   Kiewiet, D. Roderick. 1983. Macroeconomics and Micropolitics: The Electoral Effects of Economic Issues. Chicago: U of Chicago.

   Kramer, Gerald H. 1983. ``The Ecological Fallacy Revisited: Aggregate versus Individual-Level Findings on Economics and Elections, and Sociotropic Voting.'' American Political Science Review, 77:92-111.

   Nie, Norman H., Sidney Verba and John R. Petrocik. 1979. The Changing American Voter. 2d ed. Cambridge: Harvard UP.

   Wattenberg, Martin P. 1996. The Decline of American Political Parties, 1952-1994. Cambridge: Harvard UP.

6. Congressional Elections (Nov 7-16)
   • Abramson, Aldrich and Rohde 1998. Chapters 9-11.
   • Jacobson. The Politics of Congressional Elections. Entire.

   Bruce Cain, John Ferejohn and Morris Fiorina. 1987. The Personal Vote: Constituency Service and Electoral Independence. Harvard UP.

   Erikson, Robert S. 1990. ``Economic Conditions and the Congressional Vote: A Review of the Macrolevel Evidence.'' American Journal of Political Science 34:373-399.

   Jacobson, Gary C. 1990. The Electoral Origins of Divided Government: Competition in U.S.\ House Elections, 1946-1988. Boulder: Westview.

   Jacobson, Gary C. 1980. Money in Congressional Elections. New Haven: Yale UP.

   Jacobson, Gary C. 1989. ``Strategic Politicians and the Dynamics of U.S. House Elections, 1946-86.'' American Political Science Review 83:773-793.

   Abramowitz, Alan. 1992. Senate Elections. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan.

7. Coordination, Moderation and Institutional Balancing (Nov 21-30)
   • Alesina and Rosenthal. Chapters 4-6.
   • Erikson, Robert S. 1988. ``The Puzzle of Midterm Loss.'' Journal of Politics 50:1012-1029.

   Alesina, Alberto, Nouriel Roubini and Gerald D. Cohen. 1997. Political Cycles and the Macroeconomy. Cambridge: MIT Press. Chapters 1-3.

   Campbell, James E. 1991. ``The Presidential Surge and its Midterm Decline in Congressional Elections, 1868-1988.'' Journal of Politics 53 (May): 477-487.

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