American Politics
Fall 2012
Tuesdays, 13:30-15:00
Instructor: Eszter Simon
Instructor’s email: eszter_simon@yahoo.com
Office hours: Tuesday before or after class
Course Description:
Regardless of the current economic and financial problems or American pull-out from Afghanistan
and Iraq, the United States is still the global hegemon. In order to better understand American policy
choices, it is essential to understand American political and social dynamics. This course does exactly
this. It serves as an introduction to the (federal) government and politics of the United States. It traces
the roots and the origins of American political institutions and discusses their present state. It
combines classic readings, textbook chapters, and audio-visual material. American politics will be
understood broadly in this course, including its cultural, sociological, historical, and ideological
dimensions. The course discusses American politics by highlighting controversial issues, debates and
variation in interpretation.
The course will be conducted in seminar format and in English.
Learning outcomes:
By the end of this course students should be able to:
* understand the complexities of the American political system
* improve their ability to work in a team
* successfully represent their (constituents’) interest
Textbooks:
Schmidt, Steffen W., Mack C. Shelley and Barbara Bardes. 2010. American Government and Politics
Today. 6th, Brief Edition. Wadsworth Publishing. ISBN # 978-0495797135
Students can expect a few shorter readings from other sources.
Readings will be uploaded to the course website (ask or email your instructor for the password) and
placed to the dropbox folder we are going to use during the class to share material.
Course website:
http://www.personal.ceu.hu/students/04/Eszter_Simon/ampol.html
It is important for you to check the site (and the dropbox folder) regularly for announcements about
the class. I will upload guidelines, assignments, and exercises to the website, so if you missed the
class (not being present is not an excuse for failing to submit or complete exercises), check the
website for any tasks for the next class. In addition, I will also communicate with you regularly
through email, so make it a habit to check your mailbox.
The inability to access the readings is not a legible excuse for not reading. If there is any problem with
accessing the readings, notify the instructor immediately at the email address listed above.
1
Note on Academic Honesty
Plagiarism and cheating are considered unacceptable academic practices. Plagiarism is
understood as any usage of text of other author(s) – identical or paraphrased borrowing of an idea –
without proper referencing. This includes copying or borrowing from other students or handing in
work prepared by someone else than the student. For word by word references, please use quotation
marks as well as references. For referencing consult the APSA style manual:
http://www.ipsonet.org/data/files/APSAStyleManual2006.pdf. The fact that you employ someone
else's argument will not affect your grade negatively as long as you provide references. However, the
instructor will make every effort to screen out cases of plagiarism. Any student caught on plagiarism
will see their exercise receive a zero for a grade. If the same student will be caught on plagiarism a
second time, the student will fail the course.
Electronic Devices:
Every student has the right to participate in classes undistracted by other students’ use of electronic
devices such as cellular phones, PDAs, MP3 players, laptop computers, and so on. To ensure that
electronics do not distract the class and facilitate – rather than impede learning, their use in this
class is restricted to taking class notes. Cell phones must be muted or turned off during the class.
For inappropriate uses of computers and other electronic devices, you will receive a warning and
then I reserve the right confiscate the device until the end of the class (you will get the device back
when the class is over).
Grading Policy:
This is a pass pass/fail course.
Course requirements:
In order to pass this course the students will have to satisfy the following requirements.
 Regular class attendance:
Students may only miss two classes during the semester.
For any additional classes missed, students must present a valid proof of the reason (doctor’s note in
case of illness, obituary in case of death of a family member, etc.) in order to pass the course. If a
valid proof is presented, the quizzes will be averaged on the basis of the number of quizzes actually
written (minus the worst two – see details below).
Missing a class does not exempt students from submitting exercises in a timely manner.
 Active participation in class:
Students are expected to actively participate in class by asking and answering questions, offering
comments on the readings, related issues in general and from their portfolios.
 Weekly Quizzes and Assignments:
There is a substantial amount of reading for this course. Students are expected to finish readings prior
to each class and bring a copy of the readings with them to class. To make sure that each student
prepares regularly, some classes (see the exact list in the table below) will start with a short 5-10minute quiz on the required readings for the given week. Quiz questions will be general, not requiring
deep understanding of readings. For other classes students will prepare by filling in a take-home
assignment ‘paper’. These may contain more complex questions.
Quizzes and assignments will consist of five short questions each worth 20 points (∑ 100). If a
student fails to attend a class, his/her quiz/assignment grade will earn him/her 0 points (assignment
2
scores only count if students appear in the classroom). However, the results of the worst two
quizzes/assignments will be automatically dropped when calculating the final grade.
 Speechwriting exercise
During the course students will work in smaller groups on a larger assignment together. This task will
involve writing and recording an inauguration speech, which we will watch and vote in at week 7. The
videos will be uploaded to the Center’s website. Detailed descriptions for the exercises making up this
task will be published on the course website in due course. Students will use dropbox (dropbox.com)
for this assignment. Therefore, they will have to sign up and accept the email invitation of the
instructor to get access to the dropbox folder (however, the software needs not be downloaded, the
folder can be accessed online). If you have joined the course late, email the instructor for access. Each
team member has to contribute to this exercise. Teams can issue a consensual warning to a noncontributing team member, and the instructor may exclude students from groups.
In order to pass the course, students need to reach an average score of 50% on each of the following
grade components: quizzes/assignments, speechwriting, active participation in class.
Date
Topic
Course
Introduction
Elections
1
September 25
2
October 2
3
October 9
Parties, and
ideologies
4
October 16
Political
Liberties
Reading
Tasks due by
Monday noon
Quiz or
Assignment?
-
-
-
Chapter 8
Chapter 7, 154-168
Chapter 1 (from “Political
Ideologies” on)
-
assignment
Ideology paper
quiz
Chapter 4
Speech ideas
quiz
First draft of
speech
quiz
Wilson & DiIulio, chapter 2,
17-27 (until “The
Constitution and
Democracy”);
Declaration of Independence
http://www.archives.gov/exhi
bits/charters/declaration_tran
script.html (you may ignore
the list of complaints)
Wilson & DiIulio, chapter 2,
27-31, 34-40; Federalist 10
5
October 23
Constitution 1
6
October 30
Constitution 2
7
November 6
Election party
-
8
9
10
11
November 13
November 20
November 27
December 4
Chapter 10
Chapter 9
Chapter 12
Chapter 14
12
December 11
Presidency
Congress
Judiciary
Foreign policy
Short movie
(TBA) and
discussion
Course
evaluation,
Signing of grade
books
13
December 19
Final draft of
speech
Video recording
of speech;
Party-costume
quiz
assignment
assignment
assignment
assignment
-
3