York University
AP/POLS 4546 3.0
Politics, Society and
Democracy in the United States
Winter 2019
Instructor:
Prof. Rodney Loeppky
Office:
South
Ross 631
Class Location: ACW
304
Time:
Wednesday,
14:30
Office Hours:
Wednesday,
12:00-14:00
Course Description
This course is intended as a
senior seminar
on American politics and society.
The
material moves beyond a basic understanding of US political
institutions and
explores American political realities in a thematic manner. We will consider the
relevance of various
issues for the overall shape of US political culture, as well as
the
potentialities and limits of its political governance. Course content
is drawn from various
political and academic perspectives, and the aim is to push
students to
appreciate and engage the complexities of political governance
and citizenship
in the United States.
Course Requirements
The seminar is not intended
as a
lecture-based course. A
fourth year
seminar requires active participation by students, who help each
other to
embrace and learn course material through interaction. The successful
execution of the seminar will
be heavily reliant on students coming prepared and ready to
participate. ‘Participation’
needs to be understood in a
specific manner. Some
students find it
hard to intervene in discussion while others are very much at
ease. Be clear,
however: every student has something
to bring to the table, and students need to strive to intervene
and participate
in a respectful and productive manner. This
means that while it is nice to ‘make a point’ successfully, it
is far better to
have a productive interaction with your fellow student, drawing
out his/her
perspective in a fruitful manner.
The seminar will be broken
down each week
into two elements, the first half focusing on the academic
content of the
readings and a discussion by the class in common. The second half will
be composed of group
work and inter-group discussion, based on topical issues related
to the day’s
exploratory theme. The
participation
grade will be assessed on the basis of student activity in both
components of
the seminar, and there are no ‘alternative’ ways to earn points.
Grade breakdown:
Participation:
20%
Group presentations:
20%
(2 × 10%)
Term paper:
50%
(Due
Wednesday, November 6)
Final Exam:
10%
(Distributed,
Wednesday, November 27th)
·
Group
work: The instructor will
divide
the class into 5 groups. In
the second
half of each seminar, questions will be issued to each group,
with a specific
task to be approached from a particular perspective. Group work,
negotiation and full debate will
ensue. The goal is
to see, in a
practical manner, the degree to which particular political
issues can be reconciled
between opposing positions.
·
Group
presentations: Group
presentations
will run as part of the abovementioned group work, during the
full debate
portion. On two occasions, two groups will be responsible to
lead debate on
opposing sides. Other
class members may
certainly ‘chime in’, but the ‘presenting’ groups are expected
to take a
leading role. Group
coordination is
important here, and it is important that all presenting group
members play a
role in the debate. You
are operating as
a group, but you will be evaluated on an individual score out of
10. Each group will
be responsible to present
twice in the semester. As
should be
clear, these are simply a normal part of group work, and they
require no
out-of-class preparation.
·
Term
Paper: The term essay should be
10
pages, and it should be written on one of the weekly topics from
the syllabus. Each
weekly topic should be considered a
research domain, but it is the student’s responsibility
to craft a specific,
critical thesis and argument within this domain. Please note, if you
have written on one of
these topics in POLS 3540, do not repeat the same topic.
·
Final
Exam: This will be a take
home exam, and it will incorporate
themes from the course. You
will be
given a strict word and time limit, as well as a specific
format. It will be
returned by email by the
designated deadline.
Weekly Readings:
Week
1: Introduction to
course and group
organization.
Week
2: Ideological
Divides – the Right in
America
Vanessa
Williamson, Theda Skocpol, and
John Coggin, “The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican
Conservatism,” Perspectives
on Politics, Vol.9, No.1 (2011): 25-43.
Charlie
Post, “The Republicans Have Been
Trumped,” The Brooklyn
Rail, October
4, 2016.
GROUP
WORK READING: Paul Waldman, “Trump
will knuckle under to the NRA. And Republicans will pay the
price,” Washington Post,
6 August, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/08/06/trump-will-knuckle-under-nra-republicans-will-pay-price/
Week
3: Ideological
Divides – the Left in
America
Eli
Zaretsky, “Reconsidering
the American Left,” Socialist Register 2013 (London:
Merlin, 2013).
Alan
Abramowitz and Ruy
Teixeira, “The Decline of the White Working Class and the Rise
of a Mass
Upper-Middle Class,” Political Science Quarterly,
Vol.124, No.3 (2009):
391-421.
Michael Kazin,
“Whatever Happened to the American Left?” New
York Times, Sept 24, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/opinion/sunday/whatever-happened-to-the-american-left.html
GROUP WORK READING: Michael Grunwald, “Climate
Change Could Be a
Problem in 2020… for Democrats,” Politico,
3 September, 2019.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/09/03/climate-change-democratic-candidates-2020-227910
Week
4: America –
Secular State or
Theocracy?
Mark
Silk, “Defining Religious Pluralism
in America: A Regional Analysis,” Annals of the American
Academy of
Political and Social Science, No.612 (July 2007): 64-81.
Mark
A. Smith, “Religion, Divorce and the
Missing Culture War in America,” Political Science
Quarterly, Vol.125,
No.1 (2010): 57-85.
Bryan
T. McGraw, American Grace: How
Religion Divides and Unites Us (Review), The Journal of
Politics,
Vol. 74, No. 4 (2012): 44-7.
Jean
Bethke Elshtain, American Grace:
How Religion Divides and Unites Us (Review), Perspectives
on Politics, Vol.10,
No.1 (2012): 107-10.
GROUP WORK READING: Clyde Haberman, “Religion and
Right-Wing
Politics: How Evangelicals Reshaped Elections” New York Times, 28 October, 2018 .
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/28/us/religion-politics-evangelicals.html
Week
5: Racial Divides
and Politics in
America
Lawrence
D. Bobo and Camille Z. Charles,
“Race in the American Mind: From the Moynihan Report to the
Obama Candidacy,” Annals
of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,
No.621 (Jan 2009):
243-59.
Joel
Olson, “Whiteness and the
Polarization of American Politics,” Political Research
Quarterly, Volume
61 Number 4 (2008): 704-18.
Week
6: America: a Land
of Immigration?
Rhys
H. Williams, “Immigration and
National Identity in Obama’s America: The Expansion of
Culture-War Politics,” Canadian
Review of American Studies, Vol. 42, no. 3 (2012): 322-46.
Eric
Leon McDaniel, Irfan Nooruddin and
Allyson Faith Shortle, “Divine Boundaries: How Religion Shapes
Citizens’
Attitudes Toward Immigrants,” American Politics Research,
Vol. 39, No.1
(2011) 205–233.
GROUP
WORK READING: Alan Gomez, “Undocumented
immigrants on edge as new Trump immigration policy calls for
more deportations,”
USA Today, 13 August
2019.
Week
7: The Politics of
Fear and Security
Mitat Çelikpala
and Duygu Öztürk, “The Only Thing We Have to Fear: Post-9/11
Institutionalization
of In-security,” International Relations, Vol.8 (2012):
49-65.
Hakimeh
Saghaye-Biria, “American Muslims
as radicals? A critical discourse analysis of the US
congressional hearing on
‘The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community
and That
Community’s Response’,” Discourse & Society, Vol.23,
No.5(2012)
508–24.
GROUP WORK READING: Kate Tummarello, “Debunking the
Patriot Act as
it Turns 15,” Electronic
Frontier
Foundation, October 26, 2016.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/10/debunking-patriot-act-it-turns-15
Week
8: The Military,
Militarization &
America’s ‘Complexes’
Rebecca
U. Thorpe, “The Role of Economic
Reliance in Defense Procurement Contracting,” American
Politics Research,
Vol.38, No.4 (2010) 636–75.
James
Fallows, “The Military Industrial
Complex,” Foreign Policy, Vol.133 (Nov/Dec 2002): 133-6.
Week
9: Corporate
America – What Does it
Mean for Politics?
Richard
Marens, “Generous in victory?
American managerial autonomy, labour relations and the invention
of Corporate
Social Responsibility,” Socio-Economic Review, Vol.10
(2012): 59–84.
John
Godard, “The Exceptional Decline of
the American Labour Movement,” Industrial and Labor
Relations Review,
Vol. 63, No. 1 (2009): 82-108.
Week
10: Finance in
America
David
Coates, “Separating Sense from
Nonsense in the US Debate on the Financial Meltdown,” Political
Studies
Review, Vol.8 (2010): 15–26.
Doug
Henwood, “Before and After the Crisis: Wall Street Lives On,” Socialist
Register
2011 (London: Merlin, 2011).
Leonard
Seabrooke, “What Do I Get? The
Everyday Politics of Expectations and the Subprime Crisis,” New
Political
Economy, Vol. 15, No. 1 (2010): 52-70.
GROUP WORK READING: Laurence Kotlikoff,
“Dodd-Frank’s Terrible Excuse for Financial Reform Lives On,” Forbes, 11 June 2018.
www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2018/06/11/dodd-franks-terrible-excuse-for-financial-reform-sadly-lives-on/#4231bea8315d
Week
11: Financing
Fiscal America – Social
Policy in a Neoliberal Era
James
Crotty, “The great austerity war:
what caused the US deficit crisis and who should pay to fix it?”
Cambridge
Journal of Economics, Vol.36 (2012): 79–104.
John
Geyman, “Crisis in US Health Care:
Corporate Power Still Blocks Reform,” International
Journal of Health Services 48, No.1 (2017): 5-27.
GROUP
WORK READING: ,
“Americans like Obamacare.
They just
don’t know it yet,” NBC News online, January 7, 2017.
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/americans-obamacare-they-just-don-t-know-it-n704736
Week
12: The American
City– A Politics of
Urban ‘Decay’ and ‘Revival’
David Harvey, “The Urban of Financial Crisis:
Re-claiming the City
for Anti-capitalist Struggle,” Socialist Register 2012 (London:
Merlin,
2012).
Jennifer
Hochschild, “Race and Cities:
New Circumstances Imply New Ideas,” Perspectives on
Politics, Vol. 10,
No. 3 (2012): 647-58.