Department of Politics

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Classroom: South 302.

Schedule: Class generally meets both morning and afternoon, but the schedule is irregular. For a detailed schedule of meetings and reading assignments, see Course Calendar & Assignments.

Books: The following are available for purchase in the bookstore. You'll need all three immediately.

• Core Text: Thomas E. Patterson, We the People: A Concise Introduction to American Politics, 5th edition (McGraw-Hill, 2004)

• Readings: Robert E. DiClerico & Allan S. Hammock, Points of View: Readings in American Government and Politics, 9th edition (McGraw-Hill, 2004)

• Simulations: Gump & Woodworth: Atlantis (Nelson-Hall, 1987).

Internet Resources: The Home Page for the Politics Department is at http://www.cornellcollege.edu/politics. It contains a wealth of valuable information including programs and requirements of the Department of Politics; information about Politics Courses including course syllabi like this one; information about graduate schools and careers, and research links for politics, government, and law.

Synopsis: This course offers a survey of the theory and practice of contemporary government and politics in the United States. It may be taken profitably as a first course in political science or following Politics 111. It is a prerequisite for most advanced courses in American Politics including: Campaigns & Elections; Congress & the Presidency; Environmental Politics; Wilderness Politics; Urban Politics; Race, Sex & the Constitution; and Constitutional Law.

This course emphasizes the practical consequences of established institutions and procedures for policy outcomes. Who wins, and who loses? To whom is the American government responsive? Its objective is to provide each student with a sophisticated understanding of why the system produces the kinds of policies that it does.

A variety of materials will be used to achieve this general objective.

• Our core text emphasizes the political culture, fragmentation of authority, competing interests, individual rights, and separation of economic and political spheres that characterize American government. It also contains some readings.
• Our reader is based on the debate model, pairing essays representing different points of view on important issues of American politics today.
• American mass media provide a third important source of information for this course. Each student should make daily contact with the world of American politics. Most Americans get most of their political information from television, but this is the least efficient way to get the news. Reading remains the most efficient way to learn. Reading on line combines your most sophisticated data processing capacity with the world's most sophisticated communications technology. Why not use the best tools available? You can read hundreds of newspapers including the New York Times and the Washington Post. There are also free Internet News Services such as "Google News."

Each of these information sources should provide a foundation for discussion and debate. Reading materials will be supplemented by a series of simulations and occasional videos. Taken together, these materials will provide a variety of ways to learn as well as competing viewpoints regarding what should be learned in an introductory American politics course.

See Course Calendar & Assignments for daily topics.

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COURSE REQUIREMENTS

• READING AND CLASS PARTICIPATION: Class attendance is important. I appreciate your letting me know when you will not be there. You should complete all reading assignments prior to the class period for which they are listed in the syllabus. In addition, you should follow news relevant to the course in the daily media. You should come to class each day prepared to share information and insights and raise questions based upon your formal and informal reading assignments. You can expect to get out of most classes about what you put into them. To give you an incentive to contribute to this one, a portion of the course grade will be determined by my assessment of your preparation and your contribution to the course.
• EXAMINATIONS & QUIZZES: There will be no final examination. There will be four quizzes designed to test your mastery of the assigned reading. Consult the Course Calendar & Assignments for quiz dates.
• POLICY PAPER: The research and writing component of Politics 262 is a policy paper described in excruciating detail under the heading Public Policy Paper Assignment below.
• ROLE-PLAYING SIMULATIONS: Simulations provide an opportunity for participants to learn about politics by participating in political decision-making without screwing up the real world. This course includes role-playing simulations in a variety of political settings. Consult the Course Calendar & Assignments for simulation dates.

GRADING SYNOPSIS
Classroom Contribution	10%
Four Quizzes	40%
Policy Paper	30%
Policy Paper Rewrite	10%
Six Role-playing Simulations	10%
Total	100%
Extra Credit [see below]	2.5%

Extra Credit Opportunity #1: Of course, this is a class devoted to politics, but it is also a class devoted to critical reading, cogent writing, and analytical thinking -- invaluable skills for living and for working in every field of endeavor. One way to improve your writing as you read is to become more conscious of the writing of others. With that in mind, I will provide you the opportunity to earn extra credit in my continuing contest:

Extra Credit Opportunity #2: To encourage thoughtful participation in the polity, 25 extra-credit points will be awarded for each "letter to the editor" written by you about a question of public policy and published this term in an off-campus newspaper or magazine. Submit appropropriate evidence.

The maximum number of extra-credit points that may be applied to your course grade is 50.

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PUBLIC POLICY PAPER ASSIGNMENT

"He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that."
--John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859), chapter 2

OBJECTIVES: This assignment has three major objectives. The first is to increase your familiarity with an issue of public policy importance and the arguments that surround that issue. The second is to increase your familiarity with relevant sources of information like professional journals and government documents. The third is to help you improve an important intellectual skill: writing a clear and convincing argument supported by reliable evidence. This is a complex and difficult assignment, and I would like each of you to do it well. To that end, I have broken the assignment down into pieces and provided explicit instructions about how you can maximize your success. Please read all the information that follows, and do your best to master this task one step at a time. I have tried to answer the most obvious questions here in writing, but obviously I have not answered all the possible questions. Please feel free to ask me for help along the way.

ASSIGNMENT: Your job is to write a public policy paper of 1,500 to 2,500 words exclusive of title page, abstract, illustrations, notes, bibliography, appendices, etc. Your paper must deal with a matter of public policy within the Constitutional power of some officer, agency or institution of the United States federal government. If in doubt, ask me.

PUBLIC POLICY & POLICY PAPERS: A "policy" is a clear course of action. (E.g., it is the policy of Cornell College to issue grades each term.) A "public policy" is a policy adopted by a government. (E.g., it is the policy of the United States to intervene militarily wherever America's national interests are threatened.) A "public policy paper" is a written document that (1) recommends a public policy and (2) argues for the adoption of that policy. Your public policy paper will be developed through four stages. Consult the Course Calendar & Assignments for deadlines associated with this project.

Stage I -- TOPIC & BIBLIOGRAPHY: Send an e-mail attachment addressed to Craig Allin and to Amanda Swygart-Hobaugh describing your research topic and providing a properly documented working bibliography for that topic.

• Selecting a topic requires only that you identify an area appropriate for inquiry and susceptible to a public policy recommendation. Check here if you have a complete failure of imagination.
• Your bibliography will continue to evolve throughout your research and writing, but the working bibliography you submit at this time should demonstrate that you have located and have access to information sufficient to complete your project successfully. In most cases your working bibliography should include some mix of scholarly books, articles in scholarly journals, and primary sources such as laws, court cases, census data or polling results. If the sources you can locate are primarily secondary and non-scholarly, i.e., journalistic, seek help in finding better sources or choose a new topic.
• Choose one of the approved style sheets and label your working bibliography to indicate which one you have chosen.
• This assignment is not graded, but failure to complete it in a timely fashion will negatively affect your class participation grade.

Stage II -- RECOMMENDATION & CONTENTIONS: Send an e-mail attachment stating your policy recommendation and setting forth an outline of the contentions you intend to make for it.

• Please note that articulating a good policy recommendation will require you to have already completed much of the research on your chosen topic. The policy recommendation is the paper's thesis. The outline of contentions previews your paper's anticipated structure.
• Selecting a topic requires only that you identify an area appropriate for inquiry and susceptible to a policy recommendation. Stating a policy recommendation takes you well beyond topic selection: you must determine, with some considerable degree of specificity, what policy ought to be adopted with respect to your topic. For example, "affirmative action" is a topic. "Congress should repeal all minority preferences in federal procurement law" is a policy recommendation. Your policy recommendation must be within the legal power of some officer, agency or institution of the United States federal government.
• This is the point at which trouble most often arises, so before you submit your policy recommendation and contentions, examine them carefully using the criteria set forth in Getting from Topic & Bibliography to Recommendation & Contentions.
• Before you organize your contentions into an outline, consult A Good Argument Is a Hierarchy of Contentions.
• This assignment is not graded, but failure to complete it in a timely fashion will negatively affect your class participation grade.

Stage III -- POLICY PAPER: Send an e-mail attachment presenting your recommendation and supporting arguments in a formal paper with appropriate manuscript format, proper citations, etc. Remember, you are being asked to take a position and make a case for it. A good policy paper consists of a clear policy recommendation supported by strong arguments supported by unimpeachable evidence. A good policy paper will be:

• Persuasive: You must state a conclusion and back that conclusion with reasoned argument. Your mission is to persuade the reader, and the better the argument, the higher the probability of success.
• Well Researched: Your arguments must be firmly rooted in careful research. You must have a command of the relevant facts. You must understand your own position, the positions of those with whom you disagree, and the relationship of the facts to each.
• Concise: A good policy papers is not always brief, but it must be concise. That means no padding and no B.S. The typical audience for a policy paper is a judge, a corporate executive, or a high government official. If your policy paper does not get to the point quickly and move the argument forward relentlessly, you are unlikely to get and hold the attention of your target audience. If you want to persuade a busy person, do not waste her time.
• Hierarchically Organized: It will organize the arguments to be made into the strongest possible hierarchy of contentions. Refer again to A Good Argument Is a Hierarchy of Contentions.
• Appropriately Documented: Documentation is important for both ethical and practical reasons. Ethically, documentation gives credit where credit is due. Practically, documentation enhances the credibility of your work by demonstrating its reliance on and relationship with credible sources of information. I expect you to use one of the approved styles of documentation and to follow it with care throughout your paper.
• Well Written: I will be looking for clear organization of the ideas and arguments; effective use of paragraphs, and subheadings if you like, to orient the reader; good transitions from one part of the text to the next; a conclusion that is both substantive and relevant; and sound grammar, punctuation, spelling and usage.
• Professionally Presented: I will also be looking for a paper that has all its component parts appropriately formated, in proper order, and in the form of a single e-mail attachment.

Consult POLICY PAPERS: How to Succeed for more detailed instructions.

For a sample of a real policy paper written by a real Cornell student that earned a grade of A, please click here.

Stage IV -- REWRITE: After receiving a written critique of your policy paper, you will rewrite and resubmit the paper as an e-mail attachment making as many improvements in substance and presentation as you can manage.

• The rewrite should be better than the original paper. After all, you will have had the benefit of expert editorial advice.
• As a practical matter, a conscientious effort to address the technical problems that have been identified in your paper will preserve your grade. More substantive improvements will enhance your grade.