POLITICAL SCIENCE 681
American Political
Behavior
Office: 1653 POT Phone:
257-7033 (office), 608-4755 (cell)
Email:
mpeffl@uky.edu or mark.peffley@uky.edu
Description
This course is devoted to coverage of
mass political behavior. What this means, very generally, is that we will
explore literatures, controversies, and theories of the behavior of non-elite
political actors. “Behavior” in this seminar is interpreted quite broadly and
includes psychological attachments, affect, cognitions, perceptions, attitudes,
and beliefs, in addition to various forms of overt behavior such as voting and
political protest.
As in any course, there are far more
topics germane to the course that are excluded from coverage than are included
in the syllabus. While students of political behavior examine areas such as
childhood political socialization, political sociology, congressional
elections, political parties, interest groups, electoral realignment, campaign
technology and strategy, and more, we will address these concerns briefly if at
all. Instead, we will focus our attention on the properties and characteristics
of political citizens. And while several of the selections on the syllabus make
cross-national comparisons and a few others are based on data from outside the
U.S., our primary concern is with the American electorate.
Seminar
Organization and Requirements
Seminar grades will be based on several
considerations—class participation, a critical review, a research paper, and a
final examination.
Class Discussions. Approximately one fourth of your grade
will be based on your seminar participation.
Each seminar will center on a critical analysis of the assigned
readings. Most of our class time will
typically be spent in group discussion, although I will usually offer some
commentary on the week's readings (e.g., placing the readings in context of
previous research or research not represented on the syllabus, etc.). Also, at the beginning of each class I will
introduce the next week’s readings by briefly describing them, suggesting
issues for you to think about, etc.
For each
week's readings, you
should be prepared to discuss the following questions:
1.
In
your view, what are some of the major theoretical
perspectives that structure research in a given area, what are their major
strengths and weaknesses, and how do they compare with other perspectives
you’re familiar with (encountered in the course or elsewhere)?
2.
In
your view, what do you see as some of the major strengths and weaknesses of the
methods used to investigate the
subject? What methodologies, broadly
conceived (e.g., basic issues of design, measurement, etc.) do you feel are
most appropriate, given the subject of inquiry, and to what degree do you think
the substantive conclusions drawn are dependent on the particular methods
employed?
3.
What
are the major implications of the
findings for democratic theory and public policy? What relevance do the studies have for your interests?
4.
How
can this research be improved, in
your view? What theories, methods and
substantive foci deserve more attention in future research?
5.
How
could this material be presented most
effectively to undergraduates?
Research Paper.
Approximately one-fourth of your grade will be based on a research paper
(10-12 double-spaced pages) on a topic of your choice that will be due on the
last day of class. At a minimum, this
paper must include a critical literature review and an accompanying research
design. More ambitiously, you should think of this assignment as an opportunity
to craft a piece of original research that states and tests hypotheses.
Ultimately, this paper should lead to a conference paper or journal submission.
Students will also present a short synopsis of their research on the final day
of the seminar. A brief preliminary “proposal” for the research paper is due on
February 2nd. The topic should be discussed with, and approved by me
before you begin work on it. See Guidelines
for Research Design Paper. First-year students will produce a research
design while more advanced students will include some analysis.
Short
“Think” Pieces.
Approximately one-fourth of your grade will be based on 3-4 “think” pieces
about a week’s readings. The essays will be only 2-3 double-spaced pages. In these essays, you will be making an
argument about, not a mere summary or description of, the week's readings. For example, you might do one of the
following: juxtapose and comment on
alternative explanations or approaches to a substantive topic; criticize the
methods used and propose other strategies of research, criticize the
conceptualization or measurement of a particular key construct, analyze the
implications of a set of findings, suggest new questions or hypotheses for
research, develop similarities and contrasts with arguments or research found
in the readings of previous weeks. These
papers will be emailed to me no later than 12 noon Tuesday before our scheduled
Wednesday meeting. I will comment and
turn them back at the end of Wednesday's session. The essays will be incorporated into our
weekly discussions.
Final
Examination. Approximately one-fourth of your
grade will be based on a final exam. If class participation
is adequate during the semester—i.e., if most students contribute to an
informed discussion of the material – the final may be waived. In
that case, the other three components of the class (participation, research
paper and critical review) will each comprise a third of the final grade. Note:
the last time I taught the class, students took a final.
Required
Readings
The following books have been ordered
for this class and will be available at the university bookstores. Please note
that only selected chapters of some of these books are required reading.
·
Larry
Bartels. 2008. Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded
Age. Princeton University Press.
·
Richard
Lau and David Redlawsk. 2007. How Voters Decide: Information Processing
During Election Campaigns. Cambridge University Press.
·
Diana Mutz. 2006. Hearing the Other
Side: Deliberative versus Participatory Democracy. Cambridge.
·
Marcus Prior. 2007. Post-Broadcast
Democracy: How Media Choice Increases Inequality in Political
Involvement and Polarizes Elections. Cambridge
University Press.
·
Marc
Hetherington and Jonathan Weiler. 2009. Authoritarianism
and Polarization in America. Cambridge.
·
Adam
Berinsky. 2009. In Time of War:
Understanding American Public Opinion from World War II to Iraq, Chicago.
·
Mark
Peffley and Jon Hurwitz. 2010. Justice in America: The Separate Worlds of
Blacks and Whites, Cambridge.
These
books will be on 24-hour reserve at the Young Library in the next few weeks.
In addition, a number of journal
articles and manuscripts are required reading, some of which I will make
available in class and others will be available on-line, either linked on the
syllabus or through the library web-page. If you are using a computer
off-campus, be sure you have Adobe Reader installed.
Some
book chapters will be placed in a box labeled “Peffley” in the computer room on
the 16th floor of Patterson Office Tower about a week before our
class. Please, write your name, the checkout time and a phone number or email
address where you can be reached. Please, no hording before class.
Topical
Reading List
The tentative
reading list follows. It will definitely will be
revised from week to week. For several topics, Additional Readings are listed that are not
required. You may find some of the additional readings useful for your
research paper or if you take prelims in American politics; or you might want
to substitute one of the additional readings for the required readings if you
find it more relevant to your research interests.
I. Introductory Meeting:
1.
Donald Kinder. “Attitude and Action
in the Realm of Politics.” In Daniel T. Gilbert, Susan T. Fiske and Gardner Lindzey, (eds.), The Handbook of Social
Psychology, 4th ed., pp. 778-867. Skim for broad trends and
topics in the study of political behavior. We’ll refer to the summaries of
various topics in later weeks. (See the
copy in the computer lab on the 16th floor of POT)
2.
Spencer Piston. How
Explicit Racial Prejudice Hurt Obama in the 2008 Election. Political Behavior. December, 2010.
3.
Vesla Weaver. “The Electoral
Consequences of Skin Color: The “Hidden” Side of Race in Politics.” Political Behavior. Forthcoming.
II. Approaches and
Methods: How Can
Public Opinion Be Measured and Studied?
Experiments:
Opinion Research:
Additional Readings:
III. Personality, Biology &
Politics
Personality
Biology:
Additional Readings:
IV.
Democratic Theory and Mass Political Sophistication: Challenges to Democratic
Citizenship
1.
Review
Kinder, “Attitude and Action in the Realm of Politics,” Challenges to Democratic
Citizenship.
2.
Skim:
Philip Converse. 1964. The
nature of belief systems in mass publics. In Ideology and Discontent, ed. David Apter.
(Summarized in Kinder’s chapter, but a classic, “brussel sprouts” reading in this area.)
3.
John
Zaller and Stanley Feldman. 1992. "A Simple Theory of the Survey Response:
Answering Questions or Revealing Preferences?" American Journal of Political Science, 36(3): 579-616. (Focus on
the theory and the Summary & Discussion; skim the analysis [pp. 587-606]).
(On the findings, see Ansolabehere et al. 2008. APSR, below)
4.
Stephen
Ansolabehere et al. 2008 APSR. The Strength of Issues: Using Multiple Measures to Gauge
Preference Stability, Ideological Constraint, and Issue Voting. 215-232.
5.
James
Kuklinski, et al. 2000. “Misinformation and the
Currency of Democratic Citizenship.” Journal
of Politics, 62: 790-816. (It’s not just a lack of information that’s
worrisome.)
Additional Readings:
o
John L. Sullivan, Amy Fried and Mary
G. Dietz. 1992. Patriotism, Politics, and the Presidential Election of 1988.
American Journal of Political Science, 36(1): 200-234.
1.
Review
Kinder, “Attitude and Action in the Realm of Politics,” relevant sections.
2.
*Marc
Hetherington & Jonathan Weiler. Authoritarianism and Polarization in
America. Cambridge University Press.
3.
Lavine, Howard, Diana Burgess, Mark Snyder,
John Transue, John L. Sullivan, Beth Haney, and Stephen H. Wagner. 1999.
“Threat, Authoritarianism, and Voting: An Investigation of Personality and
Persuasion.” Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin 25:337-347.
4.
Lavine, Howard, Lodge, Milton, Polichak, J., and Charles Taber. 2002. Explicating the
Black Box through Experimentation: Studies of Authoritarianism and Threat. Political Analysis, 10, 342-360.
Discussion Questions
VI. Models of Decision Making and
Information Processing in Political Psychology (2 weeks)
Decision
Making and Information Processing
Motivated
Reasoning
2.
Charles Taber and Milton Lodge.
2006. Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs. American Journal of Political Science,
Vol. 50, No. 3, July 2006, Pp. 755–769.
3.
Sung-youn
Kim, Charles S Taber, Milton Lodge. 2010. PB. “A Computational Model of the
Citizen as Motivated Reasoner: Modeling the Dynamics
of the 2000 Presidential Election.”
4.
Brendan Nyhan & Jason Reifler.
2010. PB. When Corrections Fail: The persistence of political misperceptions.
32:303–330.
5.
Dan Kahan et al. Journal of Risk Research. Cultural
Cognition of Scientific Consensus.
6.
Brian Gaines, et al. Interpreting
Iraq: Partisanship and the Meaning of Facts. Journal of Politics 69, 4 (November 2007): 957-974.
Additional
Readings:
Discussion Questions
VII. Groups & Political Behavior
3.
Keith
Payne, et al. Implicit
and explicit prejudice in the 2008 American presidential election. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
4.
Kuklinski and Cobb. 1998. “When
White Southerners Converse About Race”. In Perception and Prejudice: Race and Politics in the United States,
eds. Jon Hurwitz and Mark Peffley. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Additional
Readings:
o
Pettigrew
et al. 2007. WHO OPPOSES IMMIGRATION? Comparing German with North American
Findings. Du Bois Review, 4:1 (2007) 19–39.
o
Stanley Feldman & Leonie Huddy.
Racial Resentment and White Opposition to Race‐Conscious
Programs: Principles or Prejudice? American
Journal of Political Science, Volume 49, Issue 1, pages 168–183, January
2005.
o
Daniel J. Hopkins. 2010. BJPS. National Debates, Local Responses: The
Origins of Local Concern about Immigration in the U.K. and the U.S.
o
Jon
Hurwitz & Mark Peffley. 1997. Public Perceptions of Race and Crime: The
Role of Racial Stereotypes. American
Journal of Political Science, Vol. 41, No. 2. (Apr., 1997), pp. 375-401.
o
James L. Gibson. Do Strong Group
Identities Fuel Intolerance? Evidence From the South
African Case. Political Psychology, 27(5): 665–705, October 2006.
o
James
L. Gibson and Amanda Gouws. 2000. Social identities and
political intolerance: Linkages within the South African mass public. AJPS,
44(2): 278-292.
Discussion
Questions
VIII. The Impact of War and Terrorism
1.
Adam Berinsky. In Time of War: Understanding American Public Opinion from World War II
to Iraq.
2.
Leonie Huddy et al. 2005. Threat,
anxiety, and support of antiterrorism policies. American Journal of Political Science, Volume 49, Issue 3, pages
593–608, July 2005.
3.
CLAUDE BERREBI & ESTEBAN F. KLOR. Are Voters Sensitive to Terrorism? Direct Evidence from the
Israeli Electorate. American Political
Science Review Vol. 102, No. 3 August 2008.
4.
Cindy
D. Kam & Donald R. Kinder. Terror and
ethnocentrism: Foundations of American support for the War on Terrorism. Journal of Politics, 2007, 69: 320-338.
Additional Readings:
o
Adam
Berinsky & James Druckman. Public Opinion Research and Support for the Iraq
War. Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol.
71, No. 1, Spring 2007, pp. 126–141.
o
C. Gelpi,
J. Reifler. "Success Still
Matters: A Reply to Berinsky and Druckman." Public Opinion Quarterly
(Fall, 2007) .
o
Darren W. Davis
& Brian D. Silver.
Civil Liberties vs. Security: Public
Opinion in the Context of the Terrorist Attacks on America. American Journal of Political Science,
Vol. 48, No. 1, January 2004, Pp. 28–46.
o
Leonie Huddy & Nadia Khatib. American patriotism, national identity, and political
involvement. American Journal
of Political Science, Volume 51, Issue 1, pages 63–77, January 2007.
o
Jennifer
L. Merolla, Jennifer M. Ramos, Elizabeth J. Zechmeister. Crisis, charisma, and consequences: Evidence
from the 2004 US presidential election. Journal
of Politics, 69(1):30–42, February 2007.
o
Richard Herrmann, Philip Tetlock and Penny Visser. 1999.Mass Public Decisions to Go To War: A
Cognitive-Interactionist framework. American
Political Science Review.
o
Herrmann, Richard K., and Choi, Jong
Kun. 2007. From Prediction to Learning: Opening
Experts’ Minds to Unfolding History. International
Security, Volume 31, Number 4, Spring 2007, pp.
132-161.
Discussion Questions
1.
Marcus
Prior. 2007. Post-Broadcast Democracy:
How Media Choice Increases Inequality in Political Involvement and Polarizes
Elections. Cambridge University Press.
2.
Norman Nie et al.
“The World Wide Web and the U.S. Political News Market.” American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 54, No. 2, April 2010,
Pp. 428–439.
3.
*John
Zaller, new Ch 1 of “ Theory of Media
Politics”, and chs 2 to p.
160 of the rest of the book, “A Theory of Media
Politics: How the Interests of Voters, Journalists and Candidates Shape
Coverage of Presidential Campaigns.”
Discussion Questions
X.
Mass Media II: How Do Media Messages Influence Public Opinion?
1.
Shanto Iyengar. 2011. Laboratory Experiments in Political Science.
In James Druckman, et al. (Eds.), Cambridge
Handbook of Experimental Political Science. Cambridge, 2011, Ch. 6. (read first)
2.
Thomas
E. Nelson, Sarah M. Bryner and Dustin M. Carnahan.
Media and Politics. In James Druckman, et al. (Eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Political
Science. Cambridge, 2011, Ch. 14. (read last)
3.
Dennis Chong and James N. Druckman. Dynamic
Public Opinion: Communication Effects over Time. American Political Science Review, Vol. 104, No. 4 November 2010.
4.
Dennis
Chong and James N. Druckman. “Framing Theory.” Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci. 2007. 10:103–26. (Theoretically, framing and
priming are equivalent)
5.
Dennis Chong and James N. Druckman. 2007.
Framing Public Opinion in Competitive Democracies. American Political Science Review Vol. 101, No. 4 November 2007.
6.
Diana
C. Mutz. 2007. “Effects of “In-Your-Face” Television Discourse on Perceptions
of a Legitimate Opposition." American
Political Science Review Vol. 101, No. 4 November 2007.
7. Jason Barabas & Jennifer Jerit.
2008. “Estimating the Causal Effects of Media Coverage on Policy-Specific
Knowledge.” American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 53, No. 1,
January 2009, Pp. 73–89.
8. James N. Druckman, James H. Kuklinski,
Lee Sigelman. “The Unmet Potential of Interdisciplinary Research: Political
Psychological Approaches to Voting and Public Opinion.” Political Behavior.
Additional Readings:
o
Shana
Kushner Gadarian and Richard R. Lau. Candidate
Advertisements. In James Druckman, et al. (Eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Political
Science. Cambridge, 2011, Ch. 15.
o
Richard
R. Lau, Lee Sigelman, Caroline Heldman, Paul Babbitt.
The
Effects of Negative Political Campaigns: A Meta-Analytic Reassessment. The American Political Science Review,
Vol. 93, No. 4 (Dec., 1999), pp. 851-875.
o
Gregory A. Huber and Kevin Arceneaux.
Identifying the Persuasive Effects of Presidential Advertising (pages 957–977).
American Journal of Political Science,
Vol. 51, No. 4, October 2007, Pp. 957–977.
o
Gabriel
S. Lenz & Chappell Lawson. “Looking the part: Television leads less
informed citizens to vote based on candidates’ appearance.”
o
Tim
Groeling & Matthew A. Baum. 2008. “Crossing the
Water’s Edge: Elite Rhetoric, Media Coverage, and the Rally-Round-the-Flag
Phenomenon.” Journal of Politics, Vol. 70, No. 4, October 2008, Pp. 1065–1085.
o
Brooks
& Geer_07_AJPS_Beyond Negativity_The Effects of
Incivility on the Electorate American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 51,
No. 1, January 2007, Pp. 1–16.
o
Natalie
Jomini Stroud. Media Use and Political
Predispositions: Revisiting the Concept of Selective Exposure. Political
Behavior.
o
Gabriel S. Lenz. “Learning and
Opinion Change, Not Priming: Reconsidering the Evidence for the Priming
Hypothesis.”
o
John Zaller. 1996. “The Myth of Massive Media
Impact Revived: New Support for a Discredited Idea.” In Political Persuasion
and Attitude Change, ed. Paul Sniderman and Richard A. Brody. p.17-78.
Discussion Questions
XI. Social Influence Models of Political
Behavior
Discussion Questions
XII. Macro Opinion: Does
Public Opinion Influence Public Policy?
Discussion Questions
Additional Readings:
o
Jacobs
and Shapiro, Politicians Don’t Pander.
XIII. Public Opinion
& the Politics of Inequality
Discussion Questions
XIV. Groups and Social Justice
1.
Mark
Peffley & Jon Hurwitz. Justice in
America: The Separate Realities of Blacks and Whites. Cambridge, 2010.
2.
Vesla
Weaver & Amy Lerner. Political Consequences of the Carceral
State. American Political Science Review
(2010), 104: 817-833.
XV. Voting Behavior
1.
Alan S. Gerber. 2011. Field Experiments in
Political Science. In James Druckman, et al. (Eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Political Science. Cambridge,
2011.
2.
Alan S. Gerber and Donald P. Green, “The Effects of Personal Canvassing,
Telephone Calls, and Direct Mail on Voter Turnout: A Field Experiment,” American
Political Science Review 94 (2000): 653-664. See also the Get Out the Vote! website: http://research.yale.edu/GOTV/
3.
Michael Tomz &
Robert Van Houweling. Candidate Positioning and Voter
Choice. American Political Science Review
Vol. 102, No. 3 August 2008.
4.
Powell, G. Bingham. 1986. “American Voting Turnout in
Comparative Perspective.” APSR 80: 17-43.
XVI. Presentation of
Research Papers
Final Exam