Department of Political Science
Public Opinion
PSC 319/519
Spring 2016
Class Meetings: MC 308 M-W-F 12:25-1:15 PM
Office Hours: M-W 2-3 PM and by Appt
.
Dr. Joel Lieske
Office: RT 1742
Phone: (216) 687-4547
Email: j.lieske@csuohio.edu
This course is designed as a broad introduction to American public opinion and politics. Major
topics include: democratic theory, opinion polls, the nature and distribution of public opinion,
political belief systems, political culture, the learning of political attitudes, group opinions, the
print and broadcast media, elections and voting behavior, elite opinions, and the making of
public policy.
In addition, we will examine how social, economic, and cultural changes are transforming
political and social attitudes in the United States, and assess their implications for democratic
self-government, the party system, and the quality of American democracy. In particular, we will
focus on what is behind two opposite but complementary trends in American politics. The first
is making American voters more cognitively mobilized and politically dealigned. The second is
also making them more polarized and sorted along ideological and partisan lines.
The major objectives of this course are to provide: (1) a broad knowledge of American public
opinion and how it impacts our political processes, governmental institutions, and public
policies; (2) a rigorous understanding of the assumptions and evidence that undergird different
theoretical interpretations of public opinion and voting behavior; (3) a critical appreciation of the
research methodologies employed by pollsters; and (4) the opportunity to conduct independent
research.
Course Responsibilities
The required readings have been organized by class meeting on the Spring calendar schedule.
The readings for each topic should be completed prior to their discussion in class. Daily class
attendance is expected, and class participation is encouraged.
Written assignments will consist of two midterm examination, a research proposal, a research
report, and a final examination. Guidelines for the research proposal and report can be found at
the end of the syllabus. A final requirement is to submit a PowerPoint slide show and present an
oral report that summarizes the results of the research report.
Grades
The two midterm examinations will each count 20 percent of the final grade. The research
proposal will count five percent. The research paper will count 20 percent. The PowerPoint
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presentation will be worth another five percent. The final exam will count 20 percent. And class
attendance will count a final ten percent. All of your grades will be posted on Blackboard Learn.
To access them, use your CSU ID and password. If you have any problems navigating
Blackboard, please contact the eLearning Center (X3960).
Your final grade will be determined by where you fall on the following grade distribution:
A
AB+
B
BC+
C
CD
F
94+
90-93
85-89
80-84
75-79
70-74
65-69
60-64
50-59
<50
Exceptional and sustained class participation can raise your final grade by as much as one letter.
University grading policies require instructors to attach minuses and pluses in the A to C range.
After that, only whole letter grades are recorded.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism can be defined as the improper citation of reference materials. You can use an
author's words verbatim as long as you put them in quotation marks and attribute the source of
your information. If you paraphrase an author's ideas, you only need to cite the source. But if
you lift entire passages or sentences from a source without giving due credit, you may be guilty
of plagiarism. To help you guard against this common pitfall, I have established a class account
with www.turnitin.com. At the end of this syllabus is an attachment that explains the procedures
you need to follow in submitting your work electronically. The class number is "11512568".
The class password is "Diogenes". In addition to the hard copy of your term paper that I receive,
you are required to submit an electronic copy to this web site. Since you have been granted
access to the originality reports, you can see the percentage of all words that have been drawn
from other sources as well as a breakdown of the percentage that is drawn from each source.
This information should help you to insure the integrity of your written work. It should also act
as an incentive to keep the amount of quoted remarks to a bare minimum. You should keep
running these checks until you turn in your completed type-written paper.
Fulfilling the University’s WAC Requirements
The CSU Undergraduate Catalog states: “Students must demonstrate satisfactory performance
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(C or better) in the writing required to receive a C in the course and satisfactorily complete that
portion of the WAC requirement.” This means that you must attain a C average in the
writing assignments to receive a C in the course and WAC credit.
During the semester, you will be graded on five writing assignments–two midterm examinations,
a research proposal, a term paper, and a final examination. Your grade for each assignment will
be based not only on the substance and content of your work but also on the quality of your
analysis and writing. With the exception of the final examination, I will try to provide written
comments and feedback on each assignment, generally no more than one week after the due date.
Required Texts
There are two required texts:
Robert Erikson and Kent Tedin, American Public Opinion, 9th ed. New York: Taylor and
Francis, 2015 (E&T)
Alan Abramowitz, The Polarized Public? New York: Pearson, 2013 (Abramowitz)
They may be purchased at the University Bookstore. Other reading assignments will be placed
on Blackboard Lean and library course reserve. The reserve password is 7672.
COURSE OUTLINE
Date
Topic
Assigned Readings
January 20 & 22
Introductions and Overview of the Course
January 25 & 27
Public Opinion in Democratic Societies
E&T, Ch. 1.
January 29 & February 1
&3
Polling: The Scientific Assessment of
Public Opinion and the Pitfalls
Of Analyzing Poll Data
E&T, Ch. 2.
Ronald Busch and Joel Lieske, “Does Time of Voting Affect Exit Poll Results?” Public Opinion
Quarterly 49 (Spring 1985): 94-104. (Electronic Course Reserve)
Joel Lieske, “Inadvertent Empirical Theory: A Critique of the J-Curve Theory and the Black
Urban Riots,” Political Methodology Vol. 6, No. 1 (February, 1979), 29-62. (Electronic Course
Reserve and Blackboard Learn)
February 5 & 8
Microlevel Opinion: The Psychology of
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E&T, Ch. 3.
Opinion Holding
February 10 & 12
Macrolevel Opinion: The Flow of
Political Sentiment
E&T, Ch. 4.
February 15
President’s Day: No Class
February 17 & 19
Political Socialization and Political
Learning
E&T, Ch. 5.
February 22 & 24
Public Opinion and Democratic Stability
E&T, Ch. 6.
February 26
First Examination
February 29 & March 2
Group Differences in Political Opinions
E&T, Ch. 7.
Research Proposal Due
March 4 & 7
The News Media and Political Opinions
E&T, Ch. 8.
March 9 & 11
Elections as Instruments of Popular
Control
E&T, Ch. 9.
March 13-20
Spring Break
March 21 & 23
The Public and Its Elected Leaders
E&T, Ch. 10.
March 25 & 28
Public Opinion and the Performance of
Democracy
E&T, Ch. 11.
March 30
Second Examination
April 1
The Polarized Public
Abramowitz, Preface
& Ch. 1.
April 4
The Racial Divide
Abramowitz, Ch. 2.
April 6 & 11
The Ideological Divide
Abramowitz, Ch. 3.
April 8
No Class: Work on your paper
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April 13
The Cultural Divide
Abramowitz, Ch. 4.
April 15
The Geographic Divide
Abramowitz, Ch. 5.
April 18
The Polarized Public and the Rise of
the Tea Party Movement.
Abramowitz, Ch. 6
April 20
Polarization Continues: The 2012
Elections and Beyond
Abramowitz, Ch. 7.
April 22
The Changing American Voter and Party System
April 25
Racial Context and the Changing American Voter
April 27
Oral Reports
April 29
Oral Reports
May 2
Oral Reports
May 4
Oral Reports
May 6
Oral Reports
May 9
Final Exam 12:30-2:30 PM
*
*
*
GUIDELINES FOR RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Your proposal should include a statement of the problem, i.e. the problem or issue conflict that
you want to study, as well as a thesis or research hypothesis, an outline, a preliminary conclusion,
and at least 10-12 references. It should be about 2-3 pages long.
The outline should lay out and develop your thesis, supporting arguments, and supporting
evidence. The arguments and supporting evidence should follow one another in the order that you
want them to appear in your research paper. See, for example, my 1991 article in PS: Political
Science and Politics titled “Cultural Issues and Images in the 1988 Presidential Election: Why the
Democrats Lost–Again!” The outline should be written in complete sentences. This will allow
me to comment on the strength and logic of your arguments and evidence. It will also help you to
organize your material and construct well-developed arguments that do not fall apart at the end.
This outline will constitute the preliminary stage to writing the “text” of your term paper.
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The preliminary conclusion should bring the paper to closure by stating what you expect to find.
In the proposal, this can be done in one or two sentences. In the finished term paper, your
conclusion should review what you set out to study, the thesis and/or theoretical hypotheses you
examined, and the conclusions that can reasonably be drawn from the evidence and/or results.
GUIDELINES FOR RESEARCH PAPER
Your paper should be no longer than 6-8 double-spaced, typewritten pages including references
and footnotes. It should follow the conventions and protocols outlined in the Style Manual for
Political Science (http://www.ipsonet.org/data/files/APSAStyleManual2006.pdf).
Content
Your research report should focus on some aspect of American public opinion or voting behavior
and how it relates to an issue conflict in American politics. Your report may be a critical analysis
of some dispute in the public opinion literature, a secondary analysis of an archived data set (e.g.
American National Election Studies, General Social Surveys, or World Values Surveys) that tests
some hypothesis or theory about American public opinion or voting behavior, or even a
combination of the two. Most students choose to do a critical analysis because it is less risky and
can be brought to closure sooner.
For those of you who have taken PSC 251 (Introduction to Data Analysis) or its equivalent in
another department and want to develop your research skills, I would encourage you to write a
report that tests some theory or hypothesis about American public opinion or voting behavior.
But analyzing the exit poll data for a recent presidential election would also give you a chance to
develop and apply your statistical skills.
Organization
The report should be organized according to the following format.
1. A title page bearing the title and your name.
2. An executive summary or abstract, no longer than one page, which summarizes your paper.
3. The text or main body of the report.
4. Footnotes (digressionary information that was removed from the main body of the report).
5. References (by last name of author, in alphabetical order). Make sure these are complete and
follow the Style Manual for Political Science.
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6. Tables and figures only if needed, most often for a secondary analysis of some data set.
Suggestion
Get started on this project at once, and finish it as soon as possible. Do not procrastinate. Begin
now and remember to spend as much time writing your report as you do researching it. Good
luck.
Note to the committed political scientist: Since the University was a participating member of
the MicroCase Curriculum Plan, all of our students still have free and unlimited access to a
user-friendly computer software package and an archive of some 494 data sets including data on
172 countries with populations over 200,000, the 50 states, some 3000 counties, World Values
Surveys for some 72 countries, and last but not least, selected data files drawn from the National
Election Studies (NES) and General Social Surveys (GSS). The NES and GSS data are
particularly useful and timely for this course. With this package you can test your own theories
and hypotheses about American politics and voting behavior. To access this resource, bring a
blank CD to the Multimedia Center in the Main Library and burn your own copy. Although
possession of this resource is not a formal requirement of this course, please email me in
Blackboard once you have downloaded your own copy. Depending on our class discussions, we
may be drawing on these data from time to time to illustrate some of the points in the class reports
and readings.
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