American Political Parties
CMC Gov 123, Spring 2020
Tuesday and Thursday 11 AM - 12:15 PM Classroom:  Roberts North 104
J.J. Pitney -- Office: 232 Kravis, Telephone: 909/607-4224
Student Hours: Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday 1-2 PM, Friday 11 am - noon.
If these times are inconvenient, please make an appointment
 Email: jpitney@cmc.edu  Web: http://www1.cmc.edu/pages/faculty/JPitney/

General

In 1885, a political scientist named Woodrow Wilson wrote:  “Neither of the two principal parties is of one mind with itself.  Each tolerates all sorts of difference of creed and variety of aim within its own ranks ... They are like armies without officers, engaged on a campaign which has no great cause at its back.  Their names and traditions, not their hopes and policy, keep them together.”  Basic features of the American constitutional system -- federalism, bicameralism and the separation of powers -- tend to fragment and disperse the lines of party authority. Perhaps even more than in Wilson's time, American parties are not strict hierarchies but loose networks of ordinary voters, activists, and officeholders.  In this respect, it is important to examine several dimensions of American parties:

• Parties in the electorate (PIE);
• Party organization (PO);
• Partisan outside groups (POG);
• Party in government (PIG).

 In this course, we shall study all the multiple dimensions of American political parties and consider what they mean for democratic government.    We shall also discuss polarization, the division between parties along ideological, personal, and even cognitive lines. And we shall review how the party system has changed over time.

 Classes 

Class sessions will include lecture and discussion.  Finish each week's readings before class because our discussions will involve those readings.  We shall also talk about breaking news stories about party politics, so you must read a good daily news source such as Politico or Real Clear Politics.

 Blog

Our class blog is at http://cmc-gov123.blogspot.com/.  I shall post videos, graphs, news stories, and other material there.  We shall use some of this material in class, and you may review the rest at your convenience.   You will all receive invitations to post to the blog.  (Please let me know if you do not get such an invitation.)  I encourage you to use the blog in these ways:
 

• To post questions or comments about the readings before we discuss them in class;
• To follow up on class discussions with additional comments or questions.
• To post relevant news items or videos. 

Remember that that blog is on the open Internet.  Do not post anything that you would not an employer to see. If you want more confidentiality, post to the forum on the class Sakai page.

 Grades 

The following will make up your course grade:
 

• Three 4-page essays: 20% each
• One research paper: 25%
• Class participation, reading emails, blog: 15%

 Details

• The papers will develop your research and writing skills, and test your comprehension of class materials  In grading your papers, I will take account of the quality of your writing, applying the principles of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style. If you object to this approach, do not take this course, or anything else that I teach.  
• The research paper will enable you to delve into scholarly and primary sources.
• Class participation will hone your ability to think on your feet, as I shall call on students at random.  If you often miss class or fail to prepare, your grade will suffer.  I shall use the cold calls to judge how well you are keeping up with the material.  If you object to this approach, do not take this course.  I expect every student to post at least twice to the blog.  In April, you will each make a very brief oral presentation on a topic of your choice. 
• Before each week's Thursday class, email me your reactions to that week's readings.  In these emails, you may describe the overall theme of the readings, identify important information or concepts that you have learned, or raise questions or criticisms.  These emails should be short -- two or three sentences will be fine -- but they will provide me with a good sense of what you are getting out of the course readings.
• As a courtesy to your fellow students, please arrive on time, and refrain from eating in class.   
• Please do not use electronic devices (tablets, laptops, smartphones) in class without specific permission from me. Take notes the old-fashioned way, by hand, on paper.  Why?  Research suggests that it works better. 
• Check due dates for coursework. Do not plan on extensions.
• Plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty are not victimless offenses, because they hurt fellow students.  Please study our Statement of Academic Integrity, which reads in part:  "The faculty of Claremont McKenna College is firmly committed to upholding the highest standards of academic integrity. Each faculty member has the responsibility to report cases of academic dishonesty to the Academic Standards Committee."  
• This class welcomes viewpoint diversity. See: https://heterodoxacademy.org/teaching-heterodoxy-syllabus-language/  
• If you have any questions related to Disability Support Services at Claremont McKenna College, please get in touch with disabilityservices@cmc.edu.

• Matt Grossmann, Red State Blues: How the Conservative Revolution Stalled in the States (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019).
• Marjorie Randon Hershey, Party Politics in America, 17th ed.. (New York: Routledge, 2017).
• Frances E. Lee, Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016).
• Sam Rosenfeld, The Polarizers: Postwar Architects of Our Partisan Era (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018).

 
Schedule  The schedule is subject to change, with advance notice.  

Jan 21, 23:  Introduction

. “In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party, but in America, we are.” -- Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)

• Hershey, ch. 1-2. 

Jan 28, 30: Party Organization and Party History

"Look at your houses, your parents, your wives, and your children.  Are you prepared to see your dwellings in flames,  hoary hairs bathed in blood, female chastity violated, or children writhing on the pike and halberd?" -- Connecticut Courant, September 30, 1800, on what the election of Thomas Jefferson would bring.
 

• Hershey, ch. 3-5
• Rosenfeld, introduction and ch. 1-2 

FIRST 4-PAGE ESSAY ASSIGNED BY JAN 30, DUE IN SAKAI DROPBOX BY FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14.   READ STRUNK AND WHITE FIRST.

 Feb 4, 6: Party History from the Bosses to the Reformers

"The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!"  -- Chicago protest crowd, 1968

• Rosenfeld, ch. 3-5. 

Feb 11, 13:  Party History into the 21st Century
 

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned . . ."
            -- William Butler Yeats

• Rosenfeld, ch. 6-8 and conclusion.

Feb 18, 20: Campaign Finance and Outside Groups

"We are under no illusion that BCRA will be the last congressional statement on the matter. Money, like water, will always find an outlet." --  Justices Stevens and O'Connor in McConnell v. FEC

• Hershey, ch. 12.
• Karl Evers-Hillstrom, “ More Money, Less Transparency: A Decade Under Citizens United.” Center for Responsive Politics, January 14, 2020, https://www.opensecrets.org/news/reports/a-decade-under-citizens-united.
• Kenneth Vogel, Big Money (New York: Public Affairs, 2014), ch 4.  On Sakai.
• Joshua Green, Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency (New York: Penguin, 2016), ch. 6-7. On Sakai. 

Feb 25, 27: Party in the Electorate 

Selina: Come on, let's go somewhere. Let's meet the public.
Mike: You want to normalize it?
Selina: Yes, exactly. I want to meet some regular normals. Where we gonna find them?
Mike: Photo op with the normals and the normalistas.          
            --Veep, season 1, episode 2.

• Hershey, ch. 6-8.
• Matt Grossmann and David A. Hopkins, “Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats: The Asymmetry of American Party Politics,” Perspectives on Politics 13 (March 2015):  119-139,  http://matthewg.org/ideologicalrepublicans.pdf

 
SECOND 4-PAGE ESSAY ASSIGNED FEB 27, DUE IN SAKAI DROPBOX BY MAR 13. 

 Mar 3, 5:  Nominations and Elections I

Joe Cantwell: I don't understand you.
William Russell: I know you don't. Because you have no sense of responsibility toward anybody or anything. And that is a tragedy in a man, and it is a disaster in a president. -- Cliff Robertson and Henry Fonda in The Best Man

• Hershey, ch. 9-10
• J. Andrew Sinclair, Ian O'Grady, et al., Crashing the Party: Advocacy Coalitions and the Nonpartisan Primary, Journal of Public Policy, (2017), 1-32.   https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-public-policy/article/crashing-the-party-advocacy-coalitions-and-the-nonpartisan-primary/D043DA0C1E91C11A33384CA02A3AB3EA/core-reader.   And on Sakai.

 Mar 10, 12:  Nominations and Elections II

 "To divide their county into small districts, and to appoint in each a subcommittee, whose duty it shall be to make a perfect list of all the voters in their respective districts, and to ascertain with certainty for whom they will vote. If they meet with men who are doubtful as to the man they will support, such voters should be designated in separate lines, with the name of the man they will probably support."  -- Abraham Lincoln, Whig circular, 1840

• Hershey, ch. 11.
• David A. Hopkins, "The Suburbanization of the Democratic Party," paper presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, August 29, 2019, http://tinyurl.com/y3sez4nn

 Mar 17, 19: Spring Break

 Mar 24, 26:  Party in Congress I

"On ordinary legislative matters, most members of Congress don’t think anymore. They just follow whatever they’re told by their leadership."  -- Rep. Justin Amash (I-MI)

• Lee, ch. 1-4

Mar 31, Apr 2:  Party in Congress II

"This is a Washington, D.C. kind of lie. It's when the other person knows you're lying, and also knows you know he knows." - Henry Fonda in Advise & Consent
 

• Lee, ch. 5-9 

Apr 7, 9: Oral Presentations

RESEARCH PAPER DUE IN SAKAI DROPBOX BY FRIDAY APRIL 10

 
Apr 14, 16:  Party in the States I 

"So, I am to receive thirty percent for finance, for legal protection and political influence. Is that what you're telling me? I said that I would see you because I had heard that you were a serious man, to be treated with respect. But I must say no to you and let me give you my reasons. It's true I have a lot of friends in politics, but they wouldn't be so friendly if they knew my business was drugs instead of gambling which they consider a harmless vice." -- Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) in The Godfather  

• Hershey, ch. 13-14.
• Grossmann, ch. 1-2 

THIRD 4-PAGE ESSAY ASSIGNED APR 17, DUE IN SAKAI DROPBOX BY MAY 6

 Apr 21, 23:  Party in the States II

“Democrats are...the party that says government can make you richer, smarter, taller and get the chickweed out of your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then they get elected and prove it.” -- P.J. O’Rourke
 

• Grossmann, ch. 3-6
  

April 28, 30:  Appraisal and Reform I
 

“We're like a Third World country when it comes to some of our election practices.” – Donna Brazile
 

• Hershey, ch. 15
• Lee Drutman, "The Case for Proportional Voting," National Affairs, Winter 2018, https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-case-for-proportional-voting.
• Elaine Kamarck, “The Urgent Need for Peer Review in the Presidential Nominating Process,” Brookings, October 29, 2019, https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/bigideas/the-urgent-need-for-peer-review-in-the-presidential-nominating-process/
• Other readings TBD by consultation with class.

 May 5: Appraisal and Reform II
 

“We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.” – C.S. Lewis

• Hershey, ch. 16.
  
  

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