Senior Seminar in Political Science

The mission statement of the Department of Politics and International Relations says:

"The Department of Politics and International Relations seeks to induct students into the community of liberally educated individuals who are capable of understanding government and politics in terms of the theories, concepts, and tools of sophisticated political analysis which characterize the discipline of political science. The liberal-arts dimension of our mission stems from our belief that all people are embedded in a political environment which acts upon them in ways they must understand if they are to function effectively as active participants in a democratic society.
Our goal, therefore, is not to train professional political scientists, but rather to produce the liberally educated citizen who is fluent in the language of politics and political analysis and thereby has a foundation for both citizenship in a democratic society and successful training in a job, in a graduate school, or in a professional school. Such a person has the capacity to recognize and evaluate assumptions, implications, and causal relationships pertaining to government and politics and, by extension, to other realms of human experience."

In this seminar, we will attempt to draw together the multiple experiences you have had in a variety of political science (and other) classes and see how the concepts and ideas that we focus on in this discipline help us to understand the world around us. We will focus on two main ideas, power and democracy, and see how our political practices reflect the ideas and assumptions we have about those concepts and how the way we think about and implement these concepts, in turn, has an impact on the lives that we live.

Often, a senior capstone class will involve some kind of long research paper where a student shows off the research and analytical skills they have acquired. That will not be our focus here. Rather, given the mission of the department, our focus will be on the "real world" of politics and how sophisticated political analysis can help us better understand that world. We will, therefore, spend a lot of time writing about and discussing "current events" but not just by way of description. Rather we will analyze these events through the tools of sophisticated political analysis. In doing so, hopefully, we will come to a better understanding of both those tools and the world in which we are living.

If you want more information about the Department of Politics and International Relations, please see the department's home page.

 
Readings:
 
All students should subscribe to the New York Times. I will hand out forms on the first day of class. Please remember to bring the Monday or Wednesday (depending on the class day) Times to class each class period.

In addition, there are five books available for purchase at the bookstore. They are:

Birch, Anthony, Concepts & Theories of Modern Democracy (2nd Edition)
Goverde, Henri, et. al. eds. Power in Contemporary Politics
Heywood, Andrew, Key Concepts in Politics
Holmes, Stephen and Cass Sunstein, The Cost of Rights
Shapiro, Ian and Casiano Hacker-Cordon, eds., Democracy's Value
 
 

Requirements:
 
1. Preparation for and participation in class discussions. This is a seminar class. Discussion, not lecture, will be our main classroom activity. We will focus our discussions around issues in the news, using the assigned readings as "taking off points." Thus, you are expected to keep up with the readings. If you are not in class, I will assume you are not prepared. This will count for 20% of your grade.

2. Almost every Wednesday (twelve times in total), you will hand in what I am calling "concept papers." These papers will take some article from the New York Times of the previous week and describe how that article illuminates some concept from the book by Heywood, Concepts in Politics, and how understanding that concept illuminates the events described in the article. Some weeks you will be restricted to a certain set of concepts in the book, other times you will be free to choose from any concept he discusses. (See the syllabus for details on that aspect of the assignment). The papers will be short - I would expect one to two pages each. Each one will be worth 2% of your total grade, for a grand total of 24%.

Please note that on all of these assignments, and the assignments listed below, I expect the work you hand in to be your own. Plagerism or academic dishonesty will not be tolerated. If you have any questions about this, see me or consult the discussion of academic dishonesty, on the web site of the Department of Politics and International Relations.

3. You will also write three longer (4 to 8 page) more analytical papers which will discuss some aspects of the readings in relationship to current events. The first of these papers will deal with issues raised in the Goverde et al. book, the second with issues raised in the Birch book, and the third with issues raised in the Shapiro and Hacker-Cordon book. The specific assignments (or choice of assignments) will be handed out one to two weeks before the essays are due. Each of these essays will be worth 12% of your grade, for a total of 36%.

4. A final exam on December 21, worth 20% of the final grade. Half of the final will be a take home question on the Holmes and Sunstein book. The other half will be in-class essay questions.

Assignments:
 
August 27: Introduction.  No readings due.

August 29:  No class.  I need to get the honors orientation program underway.

September 3: No class. Labor Day.

September 5: Heywood, chapter 4;  Goverde et al., Introduction.
                       Concept paper #1 - draw on some concept from chapter 4.

September 10: Goverde et al., chapters 2,3.

September 12: Goverde et al., chapter 4; Heywood, chapter 2.
                         Concept paper #2 - draw on some concept from chapter 2.

September 17: Goverde et al., chapters 5,6.

September 19: Goverde et al., chapter 7, Heywood, chapter 3.
                         Concept paper #3 - draw on some concept from chapter 3.

September 24: Goverde et al., chapters 8, 9

September 26: Goverde et al., chapter 10, Heywood, chapter 5.
                         Concept paper #4 - draw on some concept from chapter 5.

October 1: No new reading.  Essay #1 due in class.

October 3: Birch, chapters 1,2.
                  Concept paper #5 - draw on some concept you have not written about previously from either chapter 3 or 5.

October 8: Birch, chapters 3, 4.

October 10: Birch, chapter 5; Heywood, chapter  6.
                    Concept paper #6 - draw on some concept from chapter 6.

October 15: No class.  Mid-semester break.

October 17: Birch, chapters 6, 8.
                    Concept paper #7 - draw on a second concept from chapter 6.

October 22: Birch, chapter 7.
October 24:  Congress to Campus program.  Meet with two former members of Congress.  Location to be announced.

October 29: Birch, chapters 9, 10.

October 31: Birch, chapters 11, 12; Heywood, chapter 7.
                     Concept paper #8 - draw on some concept from chapter 7.

November 5: Birch, chapters 13, 14.

November 7: Birch, chapter 15, 16.
                      Concept paper #9 - draw on a second concept from chapter 7.

November 12: No new reading.  Essay #2 due in class.

November 14: Shapiro and Hacker-Cordon, chapter 1
                        Concept paper #10 - draw on any concept you have not yet written about from the first seven chapters of Heywood.

November 19: Shapiro, chapters 2,3,4.

November 21: No class.  Thanksgiving.  Enjoy your turkey.

November 26: Shapiro, chapters 5,6.

November 28: Shapiro, chapters 7,8; Heywood, chapter 8.
                        Concept paper #11 - draw on some concept from chapter 8.

December 3: Shapiro, chapters 9, 10.  Essay #3 due in class.

December 5: Holmes and Sunstein, Introduction, Part I.
                       Concept paper #12 - draw on any concept you have not written about. December 10: Holmes and Sunstein, Parts II and III.

December 12: Holmes and Sunstein, Part IV, Conclusion

Final Exam - Friday, December 21, 7:30-9:20.  (I do not set the times for the final. Please do not ask me to change it except for some medical emergency).