United States Politics: Money, Culture, Power - POL392
Welcome to United States Politics: Money, Culture, Power. US politics is today, as in much of its past, dominated by money and the power that money can buy. US cultural life is also preoccupied with money, in ways that profoundly affect the distribution of political power. Proceeding from these premises, this unit explores the relationship between money, culture and power in contemporary US politics, paying particular attention to last this year's Presidential election. Additional topics covered include campaign financing, interest groups and the media; the impact of social inequalities of class, race, gender and sexual preference on US politics; the role of religion and political parties in the formulation of dominant political ideas; and the politics surrounding the global financial crisis and its aftermath. These topics will be covered in two weekly one hour lectures, and a weekly one hour tutorial, which all students must attend. Although recordings of each lecture will be available on ilearn, students are strongly encouraged to attend lectures in person. It has been my experience that students who do not attend the lectures often also neglect to listen to the recordings. So please come along, ask questions in the lectures and tutorials, and make friends with your fellow students.
You will enhance your prospects of doing well in this unit by:
- attending all lectures and listening attentively
- attending all tutorials and making regular verbal contributions
- doing all the required reading and at least some of the supplementary reading (while also taking notes from these readings
- regularly reading US news and media sources
- Conscientiously preparing for each assessment task
Lecture Outlines and Required Reading (Please note, I have not included all readings here, nor all bibliographical details. Additional readings will be added as we proceed, which will be put on the ilearn site, and you can find all bibliographical details there)
Week One: Introduction: Money, Culture, Power and US Exceptionalism
An enduring feature of American political life is the belief in US exceptionalism – the idea that the United Stated is a unique polity that embodies liberty and democracy in a way that is or should be a beacon for the rest of the world. In this week, we explore the origins of American exceptionalism, and discuss the ways in which it relates to the organizing themes of this unit - money, culture, power.
Readings: No required reading for this week
Week Two: The American Constitution, Federalism and Privilege
The American Constitution is frequently held up as a hallowed document and one of the keys to American success over the past two centuries. Yet on closer examination it is clear that the Constitution still reflects its 18th century origins in advancing the interests of a very narrow strata of colonial society. In this lecture we examine both the history of the American Constitution and discuss some of its key clauses, with a particular focus on federalism. Students should have closely read the Constitution (a copy of which can be found in the back of their textbook) before this class.
Stephen M. Griffin (2017) Trump, Trust and the Future of the Constitutional Order
Robert Dahl (2001) How Democratic is the American Constitutions?
Week Three: Two Parties, One Culture?
The American two Party system emerged in the nineteenth century, and endures to this day, though in a very different form. We here discuss the emergence of both the Democratic and the Republican Parties, and look both at the ways that they have changed and the ways that their key constituencies have changed. We will be particularly interested in the regularly expressed notion that, despite their differences, both parties ultimately represent the interests of corporate America. We end by exploring what the 2016 US Presidential election result might mean for both Republicans and Democrats.
Readings: Matthew C. MacWilliams (2017) Who Decides When the Party Doesn't? Authoritarian Voters and the Rise of Trump
Alan Ware (2016) Donald Trump's Hyjacking of the Republican Party in Historical Perspective
Timothy Shenk (2017) The Next Democratic Party
Week Four: Money, Elections and Interest Groups
For outsiders, the nature of the US federal electoral system can be very confusing. This lecture seeks to systematically demystify the US electoral system. As well as outlining the mechanics of electoral processes for Congress and for the Presidency, we will discuss the key issues confronting the American electoral system today. In particular, we will focus on the vexed question of money in US politics and electoral funding. Can elections and political office be bought?
Thomas Stratmann (2017) Campaign Finance: A Review and an Assessment of the State of the Literature
Adam R. Brown (2013) Does Money Buy Votes?
Week Five: Congress and Lobbying
The US congress is composed of the House of Representatives and the US Senate. Their respective roles, rights and obligations are outlined in the US Constitution, though in practices these have shifted over time. We discuss these changes, and also examine the extremely important role of lobbying in shaping final legislative outcome. Finally, we begin exploring the vexed issue of the relationship between Congress and the President, using contemporary examples from the Trump Presidency to illustrate some of the key issues.
Frank Baumgartner et al. (2014) Money, Priorities and Stalemate: How Lobbying Affects Public Policy.
Week Six: Political Emotions in the Age of Post truth Politics
In the first of two lectures by an international visiting scholar, we begin exploring the ways in which human emotions are collectivized and deployed for political purposes. We will be paying particular attention to the ways that emotions like fear, anger, humiliation, hate and love are used instrumentally by politicians to mobilize supporters, as Trump so successfully did in the Republican primaries and the subsequent Presidential election.
Week Seven: Political Emotions, Media and Celebrity in the Age of Trump
This week's lecture will be shortened because of the test in the first hour. In the one hour that we do have, we examine the changing role of the US media in US politics. The emphasis will be on the broader relationship between political and social media, money and the cult of celebrity that seems to now pervade so many aspects of US cultural and political life. We examine the deeper structural and cultural forces that shape these developments.
Week Eight: The Imperial Presidency?
The office of President stands at the apex of executive power in US government. Over time, the powers of the Presidency have been significantly enhanced and extended such that scholars frequently refer to the existence of an “imperial Presidency.” In this lecture we focus on the nature and effects of this development, consider the Presidencies of Bush and Obama, and discuss the possibilities of an imperial Presidency and creeping fascism under Trump.
Donald R. Wolfensberger (2002) The Return of the Imperial Presidency?
Jane Caplan (2017) What the History of Fascism can tell us about Donald Trump's Rise
Henry Giroux (2016) Donald Trump and Neo-Fascism in America.
Week Nine: The Religious Right and the Politics of Faith
Despite the formal, consitutional separation between church and state in the US, religion plays a more important role in US politics than in any other comparable western state. We explore why this is and analyse how it is manifested. We pay particular attention to the influence that the Religious Right has exercised over the contemporary Republican Party, and ask how their values can be reconciled with a Trump Presidency.
Kimberly Conger (2010) A Matter of Context: Christian Right Influence in US State Republican Parties
Angelina R. Wilson (2012) "Where Liberty Reigns and God is Supreme": The Christian Right and the Tea Party Movement
Week Ten: Race, Culture, Power
Race and ethnicity have been and remain tremendously important in US political life, as the 2014 killing of and reaction to the police killing of a black teenager in Missouri poignantly demonstrate. The legacies of racially based slavery continue to be felt in the US to this day, while successive waves of immigration have made the US one of the most ethnically diverse societies on earth. Taken together, this has shaped US politics in very important ways. We discuss this, paying particular attention to the growing importance of Latino voters in US political life.
Hana E. Brown (2010) Racialized Conflict and Policy Spillover Effects: The Role of Race in the Contemporary U.S.
Reanne Frank (2010) Latino Immigrants and the US Racial Order: How and where do they Fit?
Week Eleven: Race, Politics and the Criminal Justice System
Since the early 1970s, the politics of law and order has become a pervasive US preoccupation. This has been manifested in spiraling rates of incarceration, and a militarization of US policing. The weight of this shift has fallen disproportionately on African Americans. This week we examine why.
Loic Wacqant (2014) Class, Race and Hyperincarceration in Revanchist America
Lisa L. Miller (2010) The Invisible Black Victim: How American Federalism Perpetuates Racial Inequality in Criminal Justice
Week Twelve: Social Policy and Welfare
The United States has never had a developed welfare state in the way that Western Europe, Scandinavia, Australia and New Zealand have. The ideology of small government and individual self-reliance retain their overwhelming popular support, which therefore constitutes significant obstacles to the development of welfare initiatives by both federal and state governments. We here examine the politics of welfare in the United States, linking it back to themes covered in the previous week.
Week Thirteen: US Politics in the Wake of the GFC
The global financial crisis of 2008/09, whose effects continue to play themselves out today, represented something of a watershed in American economics and politics. It throws light on many problematic features of US capitalism, and the political institutions that help sustain it. We here use the GFC as a way to help understand some of these issues surrounding US political-economy, before tying the thread of the overall course together in our conclusion.
Students will also find the following resources useful.
- Political Science Quarterly
- The Nation
- Presidential Studies Quarterly
- American Historical Review
- American Political Science Review
- American Journal of Political Science
- Diplomatic History
- Foreign Affairs
- Foreign Policy
- International Organization
- International Security
- International Studies Quarterly
- International Studies Review
- Journal of Cold War History
- Journal of Conflict Resolution
- Journal of Politics
- Security Studies
- The National Interest
- World Politics