PSC 5433
American Constitutional Development
University of Oklahoma
Fall 2011
Prof. Justin Wert
Thursdays, 6:30-9:20
Kauffman 330
Overview
This graduate seminar examines the development of the American constitutional regime from the
founding to the present through the perspectives of two distinct yet related literatures in political
science and the subfield of public law: American Political Development (APD) and regime
theory. We will approach our study chronologically through readings and Supreme Court cases
that detail unique changes to the American polity, with specific attention directed to the
judiciary.
Requirements
This is a graduate seminar. You must read ALL of the assigned material and come prepared to
each seminar to discuss the assigned readings. Your final grade will be determined as follows:
Research paper: 60%
Participation: 20%
Weekly reaction papers: 20%
Required Texts
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Robert G. McCloskey, The American Supreme Court. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780226556826
Gerard N. Magliocca, Andrew Jackson and the Constitution: The Rise and Fall of
Generational Regimes. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2011. ISBN:
0700617868
Mark A. Graber, Dred Scott and the Problem of Constitutional Evil. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2008. ISBN: 0521728576
Eric Foner, A Short History of Reconstruction. New York: Harper, 1990. ISBN:
0060964316.
Thomas M. Keck, The Most Activist Supreme Court in History. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2004. ISBN: 0226428850
Karen Orren and Stephen Skowronek, The Search for American Political Development.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. ISBN: 0521547644
Keith Whittington, Political Foundations of Judicial Supremacy. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780691141022
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Howard Gillman, Mark A. Graber, and Keith E. Whittington, American
Constitutionalism (GGW), available here:
http://www.princeton.edu/~kewhitt/GGW_6_11/
Reasonable Accommodation
Any student in this course who has a disability that may prevent him or her from fully
demonstrating his or her abilities should contact me personally as soon as possible so we can
discuss accommodations necessary to ensure full participation and facilitate your educational
opportunities.
Class Schedule
Week 1
8/25
Introduction & Overview: No readings (yet)
Week 2: 9/1
No Class APSA
Week 3: 9/8
APD, or, What do We Mean by American Political Development?
Required:
 Karen Orren and Stephen Skowronek, The Search for American Political Development
 John Gerring, “APD from a Methodological Point of View,” Studies in American
Political Development, 17 (Spring 2003), 82-102
Week 4: 9/15
Regime Theory
Required:
 McCloskey, TASC, Ch. 1
 Robert Dahl, “Decision-Making in a Democracy: The Supreme Court as a National
Policy-Maker,” 50 Emory Law Journal 563, 2001 [1957]
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Rogers M. Smith, “Political Jurisprudence, the ‘New Institutionalism,’ and the Future of
Public Law,” American Political Science Review, 82: 89-108 (1988)
Cornell Clayton & David A. May, “A Political Regimes Approach to the Analysis of
Legal Decisions,” Polity, Vol. 32, no. 2, (1999)
Thomas M. Keck, “Party, Policy, or Duty: Why Does the Supreme Court Invalidate
Federal Statutes?” American Political Science Review, 101: 321-338 (2007)
Thomas M. Keck, “Party Politics or Judicial Independence? The Regime Politics
Literature Hits the Law Schools,” Law & Social Inquiry, 32: 511-544 (2007)
Recommended
 Richard Funston, “The Supreme Court and Critical Elections,” American Political
Science Review 69: 795-811 (1975)
 John Gates, “The American Supreme Court and Electoral Realignment,” Social Science
History 8:3: 267-290 (1984)
 Mitch Pickerill and Cornell Clayton, "The Rehnquist Court and the Political Dynamics of
Federalism," Perspectives on Politics 2:2 (June 2004): 233-48
Week 5: 9/22
The Founding & The Bill of Rights
 GGW, Ch. 3
 Akhil Amar, America’s Constitution: A Biography, Ch. 1 (D2L)
 Rogers M. Smith: Civic Ideals: Conflicting Visions of Citizenship in U.S. History, Ch. 5
(D2L)
 Akhil Amar, America’s Constitution: A Biography, Ch. 9 (D2L)
Week 6: 9/29
Judicial Review and the Marshall Court
 Marbury v. Madison
 GGW, Ch. 4
 McCloskey, TASC, Ch. 2
 Mark Graber, "Federalist or Friend of Adams: The Marshall Court and Party Politics,"
Studies in American Political Development 12 (1998): 229-66
 Mark Graber, “Establishing Judicial Review: Marbury and the Judicial Act of 1789,"
Tulsa Law Review 38 (Summer 2003): 609
 Michael Klarman, "How Great Were the 'Great' Marshall Court Decisions?" Virginia
Law Review 87 (October 2001):1111-1184
 Jack Knight & Lee Epstein, "On the Struggle for Judicial Supremacy," Law and Society
Review 30 (1996): 87-130.
 Sanford Levinson, "Why I Do Not Teach Marbury (Except to Eastern Europeans) and
Why You Shouldn't Either." Wake Forest Law Review 38 (Summer 2003): 553.
Week 7
10/6
Slavery and Jacksonian America
 Dred Scott v. Sanford
 GGW, Ch. 5
 McCloskey, TASC, Ch. 3
 Gerard N. Magliocca, Andrew Jackson and the Constitution: The Rise and Fall of
Generational Regimes
 Mark A. Graber, Dred Scott and the Problem of Constitutional Evil
Recommended:
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Robert Cover, Justice Accused: Antislavery and the Judicial Process
Harold M. Hyman and William M. Wiecek, Equal Justice Under Law: Constitutional
Development, 1835-1875
Stephen Skowronek, The Politics Presidents Make, chapter 5
William M. Wiecek, The Sources of Anti-Slavery Constitutionalism in America, 17601848
Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy
Week 8
10/13
The Civil War and Reconstruction
 McCloskey, TASC, Ch.5 (Civil War sections)
 GGW, Ch. 6
 Ex parte Merryman
 Ex parte Milligan
 The Slaughterhouse Cases
 Eric Foner, A Short History of Reconstruction
Recommended:
 Pamela Brandwein, Reconstructing Reconstruction
 Earl M. Maltz, Civil Rights, The Constitution, and Congress, 1863-1869
 William E. Nelson, The Fourteenth Amendment: From Political Principle to Judicial
Doctrine
 Stephen Skowronek, The Politics Presidents Make, chapter 6
Week 9
10/20
The Gilded Age and Lochner
 Lochner v. New York
 McCloskey, TASC, Ch. 5
 GGW, Ch. 7
 Howard Gillman, "More on the Fuller Court's Jurisprudence: Reexamining the Scope of
Federal Power Over Commerce and Manufacturing in Nineteenth-Century Constitutional
Law," Political Research Quarterly 49 (June 1996): 415-37
 Howard Gillman, "How Political Parties Can Use the Courts to Advance Their Agendas:
Federal Courts in the United States, 1875-1891," American Political Science Review 96:3
(September 2002): 511-24
Recommended:
 Daniel Carpenter, The Forging of Bureaucratic Autonomy
 William Forbath, Law and the Shaping of the American Labor Movement
 Michael Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights, chapter 1
 George Lovell, Legislative Deferrals
 Nell Irvin Painter, Standing at Armageddon: United States, 1877-1919
 David Rabban, Free Speech in its Forgotten Years, chapters 1-4
Week 10
10/27
The Progressive Era
 McCloskey, TASC, Ch. 6
 Howard Gillman, "Preferred Freedoms: The Progressive Expansion of State Power and
the Rise of Modern Civil Liberties Jurisprudence." Political Research Quarterly 47
(September 1994): 623-53
 Michael Klarman, “The Plessy Era,” Supreme Court Review 1998: 303.
Recommended:
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David E. Bernstein, Only One Place of Redress: African Americans, Labor Regulations,
and the Courts from Reconstruction to the New Deal
Justin Crowe, "The Forging of Judicial Autonomy," Journal of Politics 69 (Feb. 2007):
73-87
Mark Graber, Transforming Free Speech: The Ambiguous Legacy of Civil Libertarianism
William Ross, A Muted Fury
Week 11
11/3
The New Deal and the Court-Packing Plan
 McCloskey, TASC, Ch. 6 (cont.)
 GGW, Ch. 8
 Laura Kalman, "The Constitution, the Supreme Court, and the New Deal" (with
responses by William Leuchtenburg and G. Edward White)
 Kevin J. McMahon, “Constitutional Vision and Supreme Court Decisions: Reconsidering
Roosevelt on Race,” Studies in American Political Development, 14 2000: 20-50.
Recommended:
 Robert Cover, "The Origins of Judicial Activism in the Protection of Minorities," Yale
Law Journal 91 (June 1982): 1287-1316
 Barry Cushman, Rethinking the New Deal Court
 Barry Friedman, The Will of the People, "Acceptance" (chapter 7)
 Ken Kersch, Constructing Civil Liberties
 William Leuchtenburg, "The Origins of Franklin D. Roosevelt's 'Court-Packing' Plan,"
Supreme Court Review (1966) 347-400
 Julie Novkov, Constituting Workers, Protecting Women, "Gendered Rebalancing:
Minimum Wages and the Battle over Equality" (chapter 5)
 Lucas Powe, The Warren Court and American Politics, "The Supreme Court, 1935-1953"
(chapter 1)
 Stephen Skowronek, The Politics Presidents Make, chapter 7
Week 12
11/10
Brown v. Board and the Rise of Civil Rights & Civil Liberties
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Brown v. Board of Education
McCloskey, Ch. 7
Robert Cover, “The Origins of Judicial Activism in the Protection of Minorities,” Yale
Law Journal, 1982: 1287
Mary L. Dudziak, “Desegregation as a Cold War Imperative,”
Stanford Law Review 41 (November 1988): 61-120
Michael Klarman, “Brown, Racial Change, and the Civil Rights Movement,” Virginia
Law Review, Vol. 80, no. 7 (1994)
Michael Klarman, “Rethinking the Civil Liberties and Civil Liberties Revolution,”
Virginia Law Review 82: 1-68 (1996)
Gerald Rosenberg, The Hollow Hope, Chs.1-5
Week 13
11/17
The Republican Realignment
 GGW, Chs. 9-11
 US v. Lopez
 US v. Morrison
 McCloskey, TASC, Ch.9
 Thomas M. Keck, The Most Activist Supreme Court in History
 Jack M. Balkin and Sanford Levinson, “Understanding the Constitutional Revolution,”
Virginia Law Review 2001: 1045.
Recommended:
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Barry Friedman, The Will of the People, chapter 9-10
Mitch Pickerill and Cornell Clayton, "The Rehnquist Court and the Political Dynamics of
Federalism," Perspectives on Politics 2:2 (June 2004): 233-48
Andrew Rudalevige, The New Imperial Presidency (Michigan, 2005)
Reva B. Siegel, “Dead or Alive: Originalism as Popular Constitutionalism in Heller.”
Harvard Law Review 122 (November 2008): 191-245
Stephen Skowronek, The Politics Presidents Make, chapter 8
Stephen Skowronek, "The Conservative Insurgency and Presidential Power: A
Developmental Perspective on the Unitary Executive," Harvard Law Review 122: 2070
(2009)
Mark Tushnet, A Court Divided
Steven Teles, The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement
Week 14
11/24 No Class Thanksgiving
Week 15
12/1
Conclusion: APD, Regime Theory, and Constitutional Development
 Keith Whittington, Political Foundations of Judicial Supremacy
Week 16
12/8
Research Presentations