Samuel Popkin, University of California – San Diego, (undergraduate) Voting, Campaigning, and Elections (Fall 2011) Political Science 100DA
Professor Samuel Popkin (Spopkin@ucsd.edu)
Voting, Campaigning, and Elections
T—TH 3:30—4:50
Center 109
Office Hours: SSH room 396, Thurs. 12:00 – 2:00PM
TA: Vlad Kogan, Vkogan@ucsd.edu SSB 350
Course Outline and Reading Assignments
The grade for this course is based on take-home mid-term and final exams. Each exam will
consist of two three-page papers. The paper topics will be chosen to assess your ability to
integrate and synthesize the readings and lectures into a lucid, clearly stated argument backed by
the readings.
Maintaining Academic Integrity: Students agree that by taking this course all required papers will
be subject to submission for textual similarity review to Turnitin.com for the detection of plagiarism.
All submitted papers will be included as source documents in the Turnitin.com reference database
solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of such papers. Use of the Turnitin.com service is
subject to the terms of use agreement posted on the Turnitin.com site.
Reading Assignments. All articles assigned are available in advance of the lecture as downloads
at http://polisci2.ucsd.edu/ps100da The first assignments are already posted. Each lecture will cover the
readings assigned for that day. The questions following each day’s readings have been chosen to
help you integrate the readings with the lectures.
Both the midterm and final exams will require you to be familiar with the Republican primary and
candidates, as well as 2012 presidential election. The midterm exam questions will require you to
develop a strategy for one of the major Republican contenders and the final exam will require you
to develop a strategy for the race between President Obama the Republican nominee. You do not
need detailed knowledge of all the issues but you should follow the races in a newspaper like The
New York Times, Washington Post or Wall Street Journal online or in a magazine like The
Economist.
Reading Assignments [The rest of the reading assignments will be posted on the web site the second week of
October.]
Week “Zero” September 22 Popkin, Samuel The Reasoning Voter, Prologue, Chapter 1.
[Sociological, psychological and economic contributions to voting theory.
How is choosing a candidate different from choosing a PC or buying Jeans?
What, if anything, was different in 2008 from prior elections?]
Week One September 27 Popkin, Samuel The Reasoning Voter, Chapter 2; Hamilton, James News
That Sells: Media Competition and News Content;
[When will people spend time gathering information about politics and government?
Where are people spending their leisure time and why does it matter?]
September 29: NO CLASS
Week Two October 4 Popkin, Samuel “Changing Media and Changing Political Organization: Delegation,
Representation and News” Wolf, Gary "How the Internet Invented Howard Dean."
[How do changes in media affect what voters learn, and how do politicians react to
these changes?
Is the internet as important a change in politics as were printing presses, the
telegraph, radio, or television? ]
October 6 Popkin, Samuel The Reasoning Voter, Chapter 3; Williamson, Vanessa, Theda
Skocpol and John Coggin, "The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican
Conservatism"; . Lizza, Ryan “Romney’s Dilemma.”
[What are the most important information shortcuts voters use about political parties
and candidates? (Be sure to read the material on party images carefully)
Why is the Tea Party so influential if it is unpopular?]]
Week Three October 11 Hadden, Jeffrey, Televangelism: Power and Politics on God's Frontier, pp. 46-53 and 112121; The Christian Century, 1956 editorial: “Drive On for Catholic Vice-President”;
[When, and for whom, do endorsements matter? When are religious media
important in elections? How did JFK overcome anti-Catholic prejudice? How was
JFK’s problem different from Obama’s? What strategy would work better for a
Mormon or Gay candidate to overcome prejudice? ]
October 13 Brader, Ted “Striking a Responsive Chord: How Political Ads Motivate and Persuade Voters
by Appealing to Emotions”, Brader, Ted, “What Triggers Public Opposition to
Immigration? Anxiety, Group Cues, and Immigration Threat”
[How do positive and negative ads differ in their effects on mobilization, information
and partisanship?]
Week Four October 18 Popkin, Samuel The Reasoning Voter, Chapter 4; Fiske, Susan Universal dimensions of
social cognition: warmth and competence
[Why do candidate biographies get so much coverage and attention? How do we
incorporate information and assemble narratives about candidates and government? ]
October 20 Sheehan, Susan “Ain’t No Middle Class”; Sheehan, “Kid, Twelve.”
Hand out Midterm Exams
[Your final exam will have a compulsory question in which you devise a strategy to
get the votes of these two families in a presidential primary.]
Week Five October 25 Hand in Midterm Exams
View Important Video
October 27 Baum, Matthew and Samuel Kernell, Has Cable Ended the Golden Age of Presidential
Television?
Baum, Matthew, “Soft News and Foreign Policy: How Expanding the Audience
Changes the Policies”;
[Does a president have less of an advantage over the opposition today than before
the spread of cable television? How and when can foreign policy matter if voters are
so ignorant about the world?]
Week Six November 1 Popkin, Samuel The Reasoning Voter, Chapter 5.
[What do campaigns do and when does it matter?]
November 3 Popkin, Samuel The Reasoning Voter, Chapter 11.
Lizza, Ryan “Battle Plans: How Obama Won”
[What do campaigns do and when does it matter?]
Week Seven November 8 Kam, Cindy D and Donald R. Kinder “Terror and Ethnocentrism: Foundations of American
Support for the War on Terrorism;” Glenn, David “On Death and Voting”; [How do
terrorism and fear change perceptions of leaders? ]
November 10 Huber, Gregory and Lapinski, John “The “Race Card” Revisited” Bidinotto, Robert “Getting
Away with Murder”;;” [Willie Horton and the 1988 presidential election. When does
‘Race baiting gain votes? When do parties try to make an issue a “taboo topic”?.]
Week Eight November 15 November 17 Neurath, Paul “Sixty years Since Marienthal
[What types of economic conditions matter to which kinds of voters? Why was there
so little radicalism during the depression?]
Week Nine November 22 Gladwell, Malcolm “The Spin Myth;” Davison, W. Phillips “The Third Person Effect in
Communication;”
[ How much ‘spin’ is there and whom do we think is getting spun?]
November 24 Thanksgiving (NO CLASS) Week Ten November 29 FINAL HANDED OUT
Issenberg, Sasha “Nudge The Vote,” Gerber, Alan and Todd Rogers “Descriptive Social
Norms and Motivation to Vote”, Gerber, Alan et al “Social Pressure and Voter
Turnout,” Popkin, Samuel and Michael McDonald “The Myth of the Vanishing Voter”
[What can a campaign do to increase turnout among supporters?]
(Exams Due 3 PM December 5