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Government 317: Campaigns and Elections
Fall 1998
Tuesday and Thursday 1:25-2:40 (BR 219)
Professor: Walter R. Mebane, Jr.
Office: 121 McGraw Hall (255-3868); email wrm1@macht.arts.cornell.edu
Office hours: Tue 3-4, Wed 3-5 or other times by appointment.

Assignment Due Dates
due date description weight
October 8 midterm exam 25%
November 5 final paper proposal 5%
December 3 final paper 35%
December 18 (12-2:30pm) final exam 35%

Reading Availability

The following books have been ordered through the usual bookstores. Almost all the books are to be read in their entirety, or otherwise heavily used, so you probably want to buy them if you can. But the books should also (eventually) be on reserve at Uris library.

Abramson, Paul R., John H. Aldrich, David W. Rohde. 1998. Change and Continuity in the 1996 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.

Grofman, Bernard, and Chandler Davidson, 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. 1996. The Politics of Congressional Elections. Fourth edition. New York: HarperCollins.

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

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 ( tex2html_wrap_inline146 ) are required. Others are supplementary.

  1. Representation, Delegation, Information, Bias (Aug 27-Sept 3)

    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.

    Polsby, Nelson W., and Aaron Wildavsky. 1988. Presidential Elections: Contemporary Strategies of American Electoral Politics. Eighth edition. New York: Macmillan, The Free Press.

    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.

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

    Gurian, Paul-Henri. 1987. Resource allocation strategies in presidential nomination campaigns. American Journal of Political Science, 31:802-821.

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

  2. Voting Rights and Other Participation (Sept 8-Sept 17)

    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.

    Garrow, David J. 1978. Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. New Haven: Yale 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. An Introduction to Positive Political Theory. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.

    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.

  3. Spatial Theory and Manipulability of Elections (Sept 22-Sept 29)

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

    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.

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

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

  4. Parties and Divided Government (Oct 1-Oct 6)

    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.

    Mayhew, David R. 1986. Placing Parties in American Politics. Princeton: Princeton UP.

    Riker, William H. 1962. The Theory of Political Coalitions. New Haven: Yale UP.

    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, Behr and Lazarus. Third Parties in America.

    Schattschneider, E. E. 1942. Party Government. New York: Farrar and Rinehart.

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

  5. MIDTERM EXAM (Oct 8)
  6. Congressional Elections: Money versus Votes? (Oct 15-Oct 29)

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

    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. and Samuel Kernell. 1983. Strategy and Choice in Congressional Elections. Second edition. New Haven: Yale UP.

    Kramer, Gerald H. 1971. ``Short-term Fluctuations in U.S. Voting Behavior, 1896-1964.'' American Political Science Review, 65:131-143.

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

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

    Alexander, Herbert E., and Brian A. Haggerty. 1987. Financing the 1984 Election. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.

    Alexander, Herbert E., and Monica Bauer. 1991. Financing the 1988 Election. Boulder: Westview.

    Sabato, Larry. 1989. Paying for Elections: The Campaign Finance Thicket. New York: Priority Press Publications.

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

    Westlye, Mark Christopher. 1991. Senate Elections and Campaign Intensity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.

  7. Partisanship and Other Factors in Presidential Voting (Nov 3-Nov 12)

    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.

    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.

  8. Midterm Loss and Coordinating Voting (Nov 17-Nov 24)

  9. Elections and Economic Policy (Dec 1-Dec 3)

    Alt, James E., and K. Alec Chrystal. 1983. Political Economics. Berkeley: U of California.

    Hibbs, Douglas A. 1987. The American Political Economy: Macroeconomics and Electoral Politics. Cambridge: Harvard UP.

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

    Palmer, John L., and Isabel V. Sawhill, eds. 1984. The Reagan Record: An Assessment of America's Changing Domestic Priorities. Cambridge: Ballinger.

    Tobin, James, and Murray Weidenbaum. 1988. Two Revolutions in Economic Policy: The First Economic Reports of Presidents Kennedy and Reagan. Cambridge: The MIT Press.




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Next: About this document

Walter Mebane
Thu Sep 3 18:01:06 EDT 1998