GOV 2550: Interpretations of American Politics
Fall 1985
Prof Amy Bridges (224 Lit)
Prof Doug Price (317 Lit)
Outline
Sept 23:
Introductory Session
Sept 30:
Republicanism, Liberalism, and American Environment
Oct 7:
Unplanned Emergence of Mass Political Parties (to 1860)
Oct 21:
The American Party System: Civil War to 1890's
Oct 28:
Populists, Partisans, and Radicals
Nov 4:
The Progressive Era
Nov 18:
The Ascent of the Center: State Building
Nov 25:
Empire
Dec 9:
Race
Dec 16:
Politics Without Parties
GOV 2550: Interpretations of American Politics
September 23:
Introductory Session: Course Organization, Requirements
September 30:
Republicanism, Liberalism, and American Environment
Required Readings
Clinton Rossiter, Seedtime of the Republic, Part III (which is reprinted in paper as
The Political Thought of the American Revolution.
Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America (1955), Parts 2 and 3.
Eric Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America (1976).
Recommended Readings
American Environment: Resources and No Feudalism:
David M. Potter, People of Plenty (compare L Thurow, Zero-Sum Soc.).
Frederick Jackson Turner, essay on “The Frontier in American History.”
Comparative Revolutions (or Societies):
Crane Brinton, The Anatomy of Revolution (older view . . .)
J. Franklin Jameson, American Rev Considered as a Social Movement
R.R. Palmer, The Age of Democratic Revolutions, vol. 1.
Louis Hartz, The Founding of New Societies (“fragment” theory)
David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution
Comparative Ideology (Similarities and Influences)
J.G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment
____________, Three British Revolutions, 1640, 1688, 1776 (1984).
Bernard Bailyn, The Origins of American Politics
____________, (ed.), Pamphlets of the American Revolution, 4 vols.
Caroline Robbins, The Eighteenth Century Commonweathman (the British side of
the Bailyn argument).
Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic
J.R. Pole, Political Representation in England and the Origins of the American
Republic
Daniel Boorstein, The Genius of American Politics (implicit view)
Garry Wills, Inventing America: The Declaration of Independence
_________, Explaining America: The Federalist (two more volumes coming)
David S. Lovejoy, Religious Enthusiasm in the New World: From Heresy to
Revolution (Harvard, 1985).
Modernization, Political Economy, and Cycle Theories:
Clinton Rossiter, The American Quest: 1790-1860.
William G. McLoughlin, Revivals, Awakening, and Reform: An Essay on Religion
and Social Change in America
Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System, vol II (1600-1750)
Samuel P. Huntington, American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony
S.M. Lipset, The First New Nation
October 7:
Unplanned Emergence of Mass Political Parties (to 1860)
Required Readings (any 3 of following 5):
Richard Hofstadter, The Idea of a Party System: Rise of Legitimate Opposition in
U.S., 1780-1840 (California 1969), chs. 1-5.
James Sterling Young, The Washington Community, 1800-1828 (Columbia 1968),
chs. 1-6.
Daniel Walker Howe, The Political Culture of the American Whigs (1979)
Richard McCormick, The Second American Party System (N Car, 1966)
Amy Bridges, A City in the Republic (Cambridge, 1984), chs 2, 4, 6.
Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, and Free Men
Recommended References (Revolution to Jackson)
Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition
Richard Buel, Securing the Revolution: Ideology in American Politics
William N. Chambers, Political Parties In a New Nation (Oxford, 1963)
Ralph Ketcham, Presidents Above Parties: First American Presidency, 1789-1829
(U N Car, 194)
Richard P. McCormick, The Presidential Game: The Origins of American
Presidential Politics (Oxford, 1982)
George Dangerfield, The Era of Good Feelings (1953)
Ernest R. May, The Making of the Monroe Doctrine (1975; actually, this is “the
making of the President in 1824")
Jonathan J. Pincus, Pressure Groups & Politics in Antebellum Tariffs
David Hackett Fisher, The Revolution of American Conservatism
Leonard D. White, The Federalists; and also The Jeffersonians
Michael Wallace, Changing Concepts of Party in the U.S.: New York, 18151829,” American Historical Review (Dec 1968): 453-91.
_____________, “Early Republic’s Political Culture, 1789-1840,” APSR (June
1974)
Recommended References (Jackson to 1860)
Richard McCormick, The Second American Party System (basic item)
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Jackson
Lee Benson, The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy: New York as a Test Case
(1961)
Marvin Meyers, The Jacksonian Persuasion
Bray Hammond, Banks and Politics in America, 1789-1860
Ronald P. Formisano, The Birth of Mass Political Parties: Mich
Eugene D. Genovese, The World the Slaveholders Made (1971)
James R. Sharp, The Jacksonians and the Banks (state-level, 1837 --)
Malcolm Rohrbough, The Land Office Business (public lands, 1789-1830s)
Peter Temin, The Jacksonian Economy
Carter Goodrich, Government Promotion of American Canals and Railroads,
1800-1890 (Columbia, 1960).
Louis Hartz, Economic Policy and Democratic Thought: Pennsylvania
Nathan Miller, The Enterprise of a Free People: Erie Canal
George R. Taylor, The Transportation Revolution, 1815-1860
Robert Remini, Andrew Jackson, 3 Vols.
Clinton Rossiter, The American Quest: 1790-1860
October 21:
The American Party System: Civil War to 1890's
Required Reading:
Sigmund Neumann (ed.), Modern Political Parties, chapter by E.E.
Schattschneider on U.S. and “system of 1896" (xerox supplied)
Austin Ranney, The Doctrine of Responsible Political Parties (1951, academic
and intellectual response to strong parties)
J. Morgan Kousser, The Shaping of Southern Politics (Yale, 1974), selected
chapters on creation of one-party system in South.
Recommended References:
Paul Kleppner et al., The Evolution of American Electoral Systems (Greenwood
Press), chs 4 and 5.
George Marcus, Grand Old Party (Oxford, 1971; note last chapter)
Morton Keller, Affairs of State (Harvard Press)
Richard Jensen, The Winning of the Mid-West (1971; enthno-cultural)
Samuel McSeveney, The Politics of Depression, 1893-1896 (Oxford, 1972)
Robert Kelley, The Transatlantic Persuasion: The Liberal-Democratic Mind in
the Age of Gladstone (Knopf, 1969 — Hartzian style . . . )
W. Dean Burnham, Critical Elections and the Mainsprings of American Politics
(Norton, 1970).
Henry Adams, Democracy (fictional view by a shrewd observer)
James Bryce, The American Commonwealth, 2 large volumes (British view)
William Appleman Williams, The Roots of the Modern American Empire (was
U.S. in Vietnam because wheat farmers sought exports?)
Richard Franklin Bensel, Sectionalism and American Political Development,
1880-1980 (Wisconsin, 1984 — fascinating new book)
Lawrence Goodwyn, Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment (1974).
Steven J. Rosenstone, Third Parties in America (Princeton, 1984)
Philip E. Converse, “Of Time and Partisan Stability,” Comparative Political
Studies (July 1969); also in G. Di Palma, Mass Politics in Industrial
Societies (1972)
C. Van Woodward, Origins of the New South, 1877-1913 (LSU Press)
Keith I. Polakoff, The Politics of Inertia: 1876
Ari Hoogenboom, Outlawing the Spoils: Civil Service Reform, 1865-1883
Wilfred E. Binkley, American Political Parties: Their Natural History
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., (ed.), History of U.S. Political Parties, 4 Vols.
Paul Kleppner, The Third Election System, 1853-1892
October 28:
Populists, Partisans, and Radicals
Required Reading:
Jack P. Greene, Grassroots Socialism (LSU, 1978)
Lawrence Goodwyn, Democratic Promise (Oxford, 1978)
W. Sombart, Why is There no Socialism in the United States (M.E. Sharpe,
1976/1906)
James Weinstein, The Decline of Socialism in America (Vintage, 1969)
Recommended References:
Amy Bridges, “Becoming American: The Working Classes in the United States
Before the Civil War” (typescript on reserve)
Michael Paul Rogin, The Intellectuals and McCarthy: The Radical Specter (MIT,
1967).
Mel Piehl, Breaking Bread: The Catholic Worker and the Origin of Catholic
Radicalism in America (Temple, 1982)
Aileen S. Kraditor, The Radical Persuasion, 1890-1917 (LSU, 1981)
John Laslett and S.M. Lipset, Failure of a Dream? (Anchor, 1974).
John Laslett, Labor and the Left, 1881-1924 (Basic, 1970)
Philip Sheldon Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States, Vol 1
Chapters 21-25 (the Knights of Labor) (International Publishers, 1947)
Martin Shefter, “Trade Unions and Political Machines: The Organization and
Disorganization of the American Working Class in the Late Nineteen
Century (Typescript on reserve)
Steven J. Ross, Workers on the Edge: Work, Leisure and Politics in
Industrializing Cincinnati, 1788-1890.
November 4:
The Progressive Era
Required Reading:
Samuel P. Hays, The Response to Industrialism (Chicago, 1957).
Robert Wiebe, The Search for Order (Hill and Wang, 1967)
William G. McLoughlin, Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform (Chicago, 1978),
Chapter 5.
Recommended References
Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform (Vintage, 1955)
James Weinstein, The Corporate Ideal in the Liberal State (Beacon, 1968)
Magali Sarfatti Larsen, The Rise of Professionalism (California, 1977)
Richard Hofstadter, The Progressive Historians, Part III, Chapter 12 (Chicago,
1968)
Michael Rogin and John Shover, Political Change in California (Greenwood,
1970)
Martin Shefter, “Regional Receptivity to Reform: the Legacy of the Progressive
Era,” Political Science Quarterly vol 98, no. 3 (Fall 1983) pp. 459-483.
Harold Platt, “City-Building and Progressive Reform: The Modernization of the
Urban Polity, Houston, 1892-1903" in Michael H. Ebner and Eugene M.
Tobin, editors, The Age of Urban Reform: New Perspectives on the
Progressive Era (Kennikat, 1970)
Alfred Chandler, The Visible Hand
November 18:
The Ascent of the Center: State Building
Required Readings:
Stephen Skowronek, Building a New American State (Cambridge, 1984)
or
Gabriel Kolko, The Triumph of Conservatism, 1900-1916 (1963)
Recommended References:
William E. Nelson, The Roots of American Bureaucracy, 1830-1900
Thomas K. McGraw, Prophets of Regulation (Harvard, 1984: Charles Francis
Adams, L. Brandeis, J. Landis, and A. Kahn.
Larry G. Gerber, The Limits of Liberalism (J Daniels, H Stimson, B Baruch, D
Richberg, and F Frankfurter)
Robert D. Cuff, The War Industries Board: World War I (1973)
Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State
Samuel H. Beer, “The Adoption of General Revenue Sharing: A Case Study in
Public Sector Politics,” Public Policy (Spring 1976)
Alfred D. Chandler, The Visible Hand: Rise of Managerial Capitalism
Saul Engelbourg, Power and Morality: American Business Ethics, 1840-1914
(Greenwood, 1980)
James Weinstein, The Corporate Ideal in the Liberal State, 1900-1918
John Morton Blum, The Republican Roosevelt (Harvard, 2nd ed)
Milton Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest: TR and Wilson (Harvard)
Marc Karson, American Labor Unions and Politics, 1900-1918
Graham Adams, Jr., Age of Industrial Violence, 1910-1915: The U.S. Commission
on Industrial Relations (Columbia, 1966)
R. Jeffrey Lustig, Corporate Liberalism, 1890-1920
Martin J. Schiesl, The Politics of Efficiency: Municipal Administration and
Reform in America, 1880-1920
November 25:
Empire
Required Readings:
The Republic Re-founded:
Fred L. Block, The Origins of International Economic Disorder (Berkeley, 1977)
Part I
__________, “Economic Instability and Military Strength: The Paradoxes of the
1950 Rearmament Decision,” pp. 35-58 in Politics & Society Vol. 10, No. 1.
Political Scientists Pleased and Displeased
C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite (Oxford, 1956)
James Kurth, “Why We Buy the Weapons We Do” Foreign Policy No. 11,
Summer 1973, pp. 33-56
Campbell, Converse, Miller and Stokes, The American Voter (Wiley & Sons 1964)
Chapter 17
Robert D. Hess and Judith V. Torney, The Development of Political Attitudes in
Children (Anchor 1968) Chapter 3.
Recommended References:
Howard K. Beale, Theodore Roosevelt and America’s Rise to World Power
Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State (Harvard 1957)
Bernard D. Nossiter, The Mythmakers (Beacon, 1964)
Benjamin F. Cooling, editor, War, Business, and American Society
Theodore Lowi, The End of Liberalism (W.W. Norton, 1969)
December 2:
Interest Groups and PAC’s
Required Readings:
David B. Truman, The Governmental Process, chs 1, 2, 12, and 16.
Kay Schlozman, “What Accent the Heavenly Chorus” Journal of Politics (Nov
1984)
Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action (Harvard 1965)
___________, The Rise and Decline of Nations (1982)
Recommended Readings:
Larry Sabato, PAC Power
Grant McConnell, Private Power and American Democracy (1966)
______________, The Decline of Agrarian Democracy
Theodore Lowi, The End of Liberalism (1969, 1979 2nd ed.)
Louis Galambos, Competition & Cooperation: Emergence of a National Trade
Association (1966 — the Cotton-Textile Institute)
Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago, 1956)
William A. Gamson, The Strategy of Protest (empirical study of “challenging
groups” in American history to 1940)
Jack L. Walker, “The Origins and Maintenance of Interest Groups in America,”
APSR (June 1983), 390-403
J. Berry, Lobbying for the People (Princeton, 1977)
J. David Greenstone, Labor in American Politics (1969)
Andrew McFarland, Public Interest Lobbies (AEI, 1976)
Norman Ornstein and S. Elder, Interest Groups, Lobbying and Policymaking (CQ,
1978).
Chester Barnard, The Functions of the Executive (1938 “classic” on organization
theory and incentives)
Allan J. Cigler and Burdett A. Loomis, Interest Group Politics (1983)
James Q. Wilson, Political Organizations
Terry M. Moe, The Organization of Interests (Chicago, 1980)
E. Pendleton Herring, Group Representation Before Congress (1929)
E.E. Schattschneider, The Semi-Sovereign People
Robert F. Himmelberg, The Origins of the National Recovery Administration: The
Trade Association Issue, 1921-1933 (Fordham Press, 1976)
Christiana Campbell, The Farm Bureau and the New Deal (1962)
December 9:
Race
Required Readings:
Review Kousser
Michael Paul Rogin, “Liberal Society and the Indian Question” Politics & Society
Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 269-312.
V.O. Key, Southern Politics (Vintage 1949) Chapters 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 13, 14
Joel Williamson, The Crucible of Race (Oxford, 1984) Chapter 12, Part IV.
Arnold R. Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto, Race & Housing in Chicago 19401960 (Cambridge 1983), Chapter 7.
Recommended References:
Horsman, Race and Manifest Destiny (Harvard, 1981)
William J. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race (Chicago, 1978)
Clayborne Carson, In Struggle, SNCC, and the Black Awakening of the 1960s
(Harvard, 1981)
Aldon Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement (Macmillan, 1985)
William H. Harris, Keeping the Faith: A. Phillip Randolph and the Brotherhood
of Sleeping Car Porters (University of Illinois, 1977)
Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery
December 16:
Politics Without Parties
Required Readings:
W. D. Burnham, “The 1984 Election and the Future of American Politics,” pp.
204-260 in Ellis Sandoz and Cecil V. Crabb, Jr., Election ‘84, Landslide
Without a Mandate? (New American Library, 1985)
_____________, Critical Elections and the Mainsprings of American Politics
(Norton, 1970) Chapter 6.
Thomas Ferguson and Joel Rogers, “The Reagan Victory: Corporate Coalitions in
the 1980 Campaign,” in Ferguson and Rogers, editors, The Hidden
Election (Pantheon, 1981) pp. 3-64.
James Q. Wilson, “Reagan and the Republican Revival,” Commentary October
1980, pp. 25-32
Review Sabato
Recommended References:
Lester Thurow, The Zero-Sum Society (Basic, 1980)
Kevin Phillips, The Emerging Republican Majority (Anchor, 1970)
Wm. McLoughlin, Revivals . . . , Chapter 6.
Herbert McClosky and John Zaller, The American Ethos: Public Attitudes Toward
Capitalism and Democracy (Harvard, 1984) Chapters 8, 9
Amy Bridges, “Republicans Come to Power, 1860 and 1980" (typescript on
reserve)