Political Science 4520H
Electoral Behavior (Honors)
Spring 2013
Baldwin Hall 101B
Tuesday, Thursday 11:00 am-12:15 pm
Dr. Matt Childers
E-mail: machilde@uga.edu
Office Hours: 12:30pm-1:30 Tuesday and Thursday
Office: Baldwin Hall 303A
Office Phone: (706) 542-2974
This honors course is designed to introduce students to the study of voting
behavior in the American context. Students will be exposed to various political science
theories relating to topics such as voter turnout, the relationship between partisanship
and voting behavior, and the effects of campaigns as they relate to citizen information. In
addition, students will be required to critically evaluate, discuss, and apply these theories
in both written and oral contexts. Students may be evaluated using a variety of devices,
including exams, research papers, and class discussions and/or presentations.
Course Readings/Texts
• There are no required texts for the course. We will be reading a selection of
journal articles and chapters from important texts in political science (some of
the “classics” and some more recent influential work.)
• I will post most of the readings to the course website on ELC (elc.uga.edu).
Please keep in mind that assigned readings or the course schedule may be
altered at the discretion of the instructor.
General Expectations
I expect all students to behave professionally in this class. You are expected to attend
class regularly, to show up on time, and be prepared to participate in discussions. You
are responsible for all material in the readings and lectures, even if you are unable to
attend class. It is your responsibility to remain aware of specific deadlines or dates
posted on the syllabus and to be sure that assignments are completed on time.
Course Requirements and Grading
Your grade in this course will be based on the following components:
1. Attendance and Participation (20%)
2. Short Writing Assignment (20%)
3. Midterm Exam, February 26th (30%)
4. Final Exam Paper, due between 12-3pm, Thursday, May 2nd (30%)
In terms of final grades in light of the +/- grading system, an A will be given to anyone
receiving 93 or more points, an A- to those receiving 90-92 points, a B+ to those
receiving 87-89 points, a B to those receiving 83-86 points, a B- to those receiving 80-82
points, a C+ to those receiving 77-79 points, a C to those receiving 73-76 points, a Cto those receiving 70-72 points, a D to those receiving 60 to 69 points, and an F to
anyone receiving fewer than 60 points in the course.
Attendance/Participation
Your grade in this area will be based on class attendance and the quality of your
classroom participation. You are allowed one unexcused absence without penalty. After
one absence, your attendance grade will be penalized unless you have a legitimate
excuse for missing class. Since this is an upper division honors seminar, each student will be
expected to present the assigned material on multiple occasions during the semester after the
third or fourth week. The number of times you are required to lead a discussion will
depend on the number of students enrolled, so we will work this out shortly after the
first week. This will also count towards your participation grade. A more specific rubric
for participation will be discussed at a later time during the first couple of weeks of the
semester.
In general, students are expected to actively participate through asking questions and
answering inquiries raised in class even on days they are not responsible for leading class
discussion. Keep in mind that this class is a collaborative enterprise. For the seminar to
be a useful learning experience, you must come to class and be prepared to participate
in discussions.
In sum, this means that you will not do well in this course unless you participate in the
class.
Short Writing Assignment
Each student will be required to submit a short writing assignment on two of the days
that you are responsible for leading class discussion. This assignment should critically
analyze the assigned readings. It should be 3 pages in length in a typed, double-spaced
format with one-inch margins. Be sure to spell check and read over your paper before
submitting it for a grade (spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. count!).
Final Exam Paper/Research Paper
Honors students will be required to write a research paper during the assigned final
exam time on Thursday, May 2nd, between 12-3pm. Submit the paper to me in my office,
Baldwin 303a. This assignment will analyze an important political outcome or
phenomenon via the concepts discussed in this course and the readings that you have
been assigned. It will require you to do some independent research as well. I will
distribute this assignment at some point during the semester, but be assured that you
will have at least half of the semester to complete the assignment. These papers should
be approximately 12-15 pages in length in a typed, double-spaced format with one-inch
margins. Your final grade will be penalized if there are grammatical or spelling errors in the
completed paper and for tardiness. Late papers will be penalized 5% on the first day and an
additional 10% each subsequent day (including weekend days).
Midterm Exam
There will be a midterm exam on Tuesday, February 26th. It will be closed book and will
include both short answer and essay questions. You are required to bring and use a blue
book for this exam. They can be found in the UGA or any off campus bookstore.
Incompletes and Make-Up Policy
A final grade of “Incomplete” will only be given in this course under exceptional
circumstances and is solely at the discretion of the instructor. If an incomplete is given,
it is the student’s responsibility to complete the necessary requirements as early in the
following semester as possible. Legitimate excuses for absence from an exam (e.g., a
university-sanctioned activity, religious holiday, medical emergency, or illness) must be
accepted prior to the exam when feasible to allow a make-up to be scheduled. As a
rule, late assignments will not be accepted unless approval is obtained in advance from
the instructor.
Miscellaneous
No “extra credit” will be assigned under any circumstances. Final grades may only be
changed in the event of a clerical error (e.g., points summed incorrectly). Keep in mind that
information pertaining to course grades cannot be discussed over the telephone or via
email. The course syllabus is a general plan for the course; deviations announced to the
class by the instructor may be necessary.
Instructor Availability
If you would like to speak with me outside of class, feel free to stop by my office during
scheduled office hours.
Special Needs and Academic Honesty
Students with special needs that require accommodation should notify me and the
Office for Disability Services as soon as possible so the appropriate arrangements can be
made. All information as well as documentation is considered confidential. All academic
work must meet the standards contained in “A Culture of Honesty.” Students are
responsible for informing themselves about those standards before performing any
academic work. The link to more detailed information about academic honesty can be
found at: http://www.uga.edu/honesty/ahpd/culture_honesty.htm.
Tentative Course Schedule*
Week Date
Topic
1
1/8
Introduction/Syllabus
1
1/10
2
1/15
2
1/17
3
1/22
3
1/24
4
1/29
4
1/31
5
2/5
5
2/7
6
2/12
Democratic Competence: Factual Knowledge
• Delli Carpini & Keeter, What Americans Know About Politics,
Chs 2-3
• Pew Center for the People & Press, “What Americans
Know: 1989-2007”
• Romano, “How Dumb Are We?” (Short Newsweek piece)
Democratic Competence: Consequences
• Bartels, “Homer Gets a Tax Cut”
• Lupia, “Were Bush Supporters Simply Ignorant?”
Attitudes/Beliefs
• Converse, “Nature of Mass Beliefs”
• Schwarz, “Social Cognition”
Quality of Public Opinion
• Zaller, Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion, pp. 6-40
• Lupia, “How Elitism Undermines the Study of Voter
Competence”
Democratic Competence: Information Processing
• Popkin, Reasoning Voter, Ch. 2
• Lodge, McGraw, and Stroh, "An Impression-­‐Driven Model of Candidate Evaluation."
Party Identification I: Psychological Approach
• American Voter, Chs. 2, 6-7
Party Identification II: Sociological Approaches
• Voting, Chs. 6-7: 89-149
• Partisan Hearts and Minds, Chs 2 and 4
Party Identification III: Rational Choice and Cognitive Approaches
• Downs, Economic Theory of Democracy, Chs. 3, 7
• Popkin, Reasoning Voter, Ch. 3
Polarization I
• Abramowitz and Saunders: “Exploring the Bases of
Partisanship in the American Electorate: Social Identity Vs.
Ideology."
• Iyengar et al, “Affect, Not Ideology: A Social Identity
Perspective on Polarization”
Polarization II
• Taber and Lodge: “Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation
of Political Beliefs”
• Levendusky and Pope: “Red States vs. Blue States: Going
6
2/14
7
2/19
7
2/21
8
8
2/26
2/28
9
3/5
9
3/7
10
3/19
10
3/21
11
3/26
11
3/28
12
4/2
Beyond the Mean”
Retrospective Voting
• Campbell, Dettrey, and Lin, “Conditional Theory of
Retrospective Voting”
• Healy and Malhotra, “Random Events, Economic Losses,
and Retrospective Voting: Implications for Democratic
Competence”
Issues: Economy vs. Culture, Values
• Graede and Armstrong, “Predicting elections from the
most important issue: A test of the take-the-best heuristic”
• Evens and Pickup: “Reversing the Causal Arrow”
• Bartels, “What’s the Matter with What’s the Matter with
Kansas?”
Attribution and Evaluating Candidates
• Fiske, Cuddy, and Glick: “Universal Dimensions of Social
Cognition”
• Popkin, Reasoning Voter Ch. 4
Midterm Exam
Media:
• Prior, “News vs. Entertainment”
• Baum and Jamison: “The Oprah Effect”
Media
• Hayes, “Has Television Personalized Voting Behavior?”
• Gentzkow and Shapiro: “What Drives Media Slant?”
Political Engagement
• Zukin, Keeter, et al, A New Engagement?...Ch. 3
• Putnam, Tuning In, Tuning Out
• McDonald and Popkin, “Myth of the Vanishing Voter”
3/11-3/15 Spring Break No Classes
Social Networks and Political Engagement
• Bond et al “61 million person Facebook Experiment”
• Siegel, “Social Networks and Collective Action”
• Klofstadt, Sokhey, and McClurg, “Disagreeing about
Disagreement: How Conflict in Social Networks Affects
Political Behavior”
Campaign Strategies: Negative Campaigning and it’s Effects
• Thielmann and Wilhite, “Campaign Tactics and the Decision
to Attack”
• Krupnikov, “When Does Negativity Demoiblize?”
Candidates and Campaign Strategies: Incumbents
• IPopkin, The Candidate, Chs. 5-6
Candidates and Campaign Strategies: Challengers
• Popkin, The Candidate, Chs. 3-4
Political Coalitions and their Effects of Voting Behavior: The Tea
Party
• Williamson, Skocpol, and Coggins, “The Tea Party and the
Remaking of Republican Conservatism”
• “The Tea Party Movement and the Geography of Collective
Action
12
4/4
Political Coalitions and their Effects of Voting Behavior: The Rising
New Electorate?
• Abramowitz, “Transformation and polarization: The 2008
presidential election and the new American electorate”
• Jacobson, “The 2008 Presidential and Congressional
Elections: Anti-Bush Referendum and Prospects for the
Democratic Majority”
13
4/9
Congressional Elections
• Cox and Katz, “Why Did The Incumbency Advantage
Grow?”
• Druckman, Kiffer, and Parkin, “Communications in U.S.
Congressional Elections”
13
4/11
No Class: Midwest Political Science Conference
14
4/16
Direct Democracy: Ballot Propositions and Turnout
• Tolbert and Smith, “The Educative Effects of the Citizen
Initiative”
• Childers and Binder, “Engaged by Initiative?”
14
4/18
Direct Democracy: Ballot Propositions and Their Political Effects
• Smith and Tolbert, “Direct Democracy, Public Opinion, and
Candidate Choice”
• Donovan, Tolbert, and Smith, “Priming the Presidential
Vote”
15
4/23
Film: The War Room
15
4/25
Film: The War Room
Final Exam Paper Due, Thursday May 2, 12-3pm in Baldwin 303a
*The professor reserves the right to tweak this as we go along.