POLITICAL SCIENCE 123: Political Organizations
E.E. Schattschneider wrote that
organization “is the mobilization of bias.” In politics, organization is essential for
the expression of grievances, the articulation of needs, and advocacy for pet
causes. In the United States,
citizens have pooled their resources in a variety of different ways to compel
public officials to respond to their needs.
For example, political parties were among the first vehicles for mass
political participation. Parties emerged
in the 1830s and connected the disparate communities that dotted the American
countryside to their state and national governments. Churches also provided citizens with
opportunities to organize outside of traditional political institutions. Religious leaders backed the abolition of
slavery, temperance and prohibition, civil rights, and peaceful resolution of
international conflicts. Other citizens
drew from common economic experiences, like farmers, manufacturers, and
workers. Sometimes they created new political
parties, other times they formed their own lobbying associations. In all, America has had a thriving spirit
of associationalism, which has profoundly affected
our political development. At least half
of the amendments to the Constitution since the Bill of Rights have their roots
in organized advocacy by groups of citizens.
At the state and local level, organized groups have been no less
important.
What questions do we need to ask about political
organizations? For starters we should
ask why they form. Are they natural,
inevitable phenomena? Or do some
organizations form more easily and maintain themselves longer than others? Second, we want to know how political
organizations change the way people are governed. Ultimately, we will want to know more about
the laws they help to pass or the institutions they help to create. Some, like Constitutional amendments, have
substantial ramifications. Others, like
local ordinances have effects that are more confined. But for most citizens, politics is local and
the effects of political organization are felt most profoundly at the local
level.
We will spend the bulk of this semester examining political
organizations that have been active at the subnational
level. Our readings will take us from
the industrial center of Milwaukee
to racially charged Birmingham,
to the coal mining regions of the Appalachians. We will consider how the different levels of
government interact with each other and how political organizations find
strength in different types of conflicts.
Ultimately, this class is about the resilience of American
democracy. It is about how citizens can
unite to bring the promises of the American creed to bear on the reality of
their lives.
Assignments
Your grade in this course will be based on how well you
complete the following assignments.
1) Six
short review essays 600-800 words each – 20%
2) Midterm
Exam – 20%
3) Final
Exam – 30%
4) Research
Paper on a state or local political organization, 10-12 pages – 20%
5) Class
attendance and participation – 10%
Rules and Regulations
Attendance and participation are mandatory. Exceptions will be granted only upon prior
written approval. I expect you to
complete course readings before class and be able to discuss their import. Cheating and plagiarism are violations of
university policy and will be dealt with severely. There is often a gray area when completing
academic work when it comes to attributing your ideas. Please err on the side of
over-attribution. If you have a
conversation with your friends that sparks an idea, make a note to that
effect. More importantly, if you get an
idea or information from a published source, you must acknowledge it. As a rule, you should refrain from quoting
directly unless you are quoting a person’s spoken words or a couple of
written words that precisely capture a particular meaning (for example, Stephen
Skowronek described nineteenth-century American
government as a “state of courts and parties”).
Note well that
when you are conducting research for a paper or an assignment, you should keep
in mind that you will need to cite what you refer to or draw from. Write down the page numbers from which you
get your information so you don’t have to go back later and look it up.
Schedule
Monday 8/29 - Introduction
Wednesday – No Class
Monday 9/5 – No Class
Wednesday 9/7 – David Thelen, The
New Citizenship: Origins of Progressivism in Wisconsin,
1885-1900
Monday 9/12 – Milwaukee
History
Wednesday 9/14
Monday 9/19 But for Birmingham:
The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle, p. 1-85
- Recommended:
Desmond King and Rogers Smith, “Racial Orders in
American Political Development” American Political Science Review
99(1) February 2005:
75-92
Wednesday 9/21, But for Birmingham, p. 85-152
- Recommended:
Clarence Stone, Regime Politics: Governing Atlanta, 1946-1988 (Kansas, 1989)
Monday 9/26 But for Birmingham, p.
153-216
- Recommended:
Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward, Poor People’s Movements (1977)
Wednesday 9/28 But for Birmingham, p.
217-340.
- Recommended:
Daniel Carter, From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: race in the
conservative counterrevolution, 1963-1994 (Baton Rouge: LSU Press,
1996)
Monday 10/3 Doug McAdam, Political
Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930-1970, p. 36-60, skim
p. 3-36, 60-65
- Recommended:
Robert Lieberman, “Ideas, Institutions, and Political Order:
Explaining Political Change” American Political Science Review
(December 2002), p. 697-712.
Wednesday 10/5 Political Process, p. 65-145
- Recommended:
Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow
and Charles Tilly, “Dynamics of
Contention” Social Movement Studies (April 2003), p. 99-102.
Monday 10/10 – Political Process, p. 146-234
- Recommended:
Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social
Movements and Contentious Politics (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1998).
Wednesday 10/12 – Midterm
- Recommended:
A good night’s sleep!
Monday 10/17 John Gaventa, Power
and Powerlessness: Quiescence & Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley – p. 3-25, skim p. 26-32.
- Recommended: Peter Bacharach and Morton Baratz, “The Two Faces of Power,” American Political Science Review,
56 (1962), 947-952
Wednesday 10/19 – Power
and Powerlessness, p. 33-44, skim p. 47-83.
- Recommended:
Taylor Dark, “Organized Labor and the Congressional
Democrats,” Political Science
Quarterly” (Spring 1996).
Monday 10/24 Power
and Powerlessness, p. 84-121.
- Recommended:
Paul Frymer, “Race, Labor, and the Twentieth Century American
State,” Politics and Society, December
2004, p. 475-509
Wednesday 10/26 – Power
and Powerlessness, p. 165-201, skim p. 252-261.
- Recommended:
Kim Voss, "Disposition Is Not Action: The Rise and Demise of the
Knights of Labor," Studies in American Political Development 6
(Fall 1992): 272-321.
Monday 10/31 Theda Skocpol, Diminished
Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life, p. 3-73
- Recommended:
Elisabeth Clemens, The People’s Lobby (Chicago, 1997)
Wednesday 11/2 – Diminished Democracy, p.
74-126
- Recommended:
Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumer’s Republic: The Politics of Consumption in Postwar America
(Knopf, 2003).
Monday 11/7 – Diminished Democracy, p. 127-220
- Recommended:
Elizabeth Theiss-Morse and John R. Hibbing,
“Citizenship and Civic Engagement” Annual Review of
Political Science (2005): 227-249.
Wednesday 11/9 – Diminished Democracy, p.
221-294
- Recommended:
Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, “Abandoning the Middle: The Bush Tax
Cuts and the Limits of Democratic Control” Perspectives on
Politics March 2005, p. 33-53
Monday 11/14 Robert Putnam, “Bowling Alone: America’s
Declining Social Capital” Journal of Democracy (1995); John Mark
Hansen, “The Political Economy of Group Membership” American
Political Science Review (1985)
- Recommended:
David Lowery and Virginia Gray, “A Neopluralist
Perspective on Research on Organized Interests” Political
Research Quarterly (2004).
Wednesday 11/16 Technology and the new politics of
organization, Readings TBA
Friday 11/18 – Papers Due
Monday 11/21 Technology and the new politics of
organization, Readings TBA
Wednesday 11/23 – No Class, Thanksgiving Holiday
Monday 11/28 – Paper Presentations
Wednesday 11/30 – Paper Presentations
Monday 12/5 – Paper Presentations
Wednesday 12/7 – Exam review, wrapup
Catholic Workers of America – Milwaukee
Milwaukee
Civil Rights Movement
Environmentalism in Wisconsin
Creating a clean city – public health in Milwaukee
Conservation in Wisconsin
Native Americans in Wisconsin
Milwaukee
Socialism
Prohibition movement and reaction in Milwaukee
Milwaukee
Anti-war/Peace movement
Milwaukee
labor movement
Women’s suffrage in Wisconsin
