You will be asked to follow American politics by reading a daily newspaper or a newspaper website. Comparisons are important . Far from being the model for the world, American government is in many respects quite different from most of the world's democracies. In nearly every section of the course we will consider these differences. It is important to understand them, particularly in evaluating the effectiveness of American political institutions.
Democracy is the central theme .
Because I love Alexis de Tocqueville, and think he has more to teach you about American politics than any of my contemporaries in political science, we will be reading extensively from his masterpiece, Democracy in America. If you take one thing from this course, I hope you will learn to appreciate this Dead White European Male, a French aristocrat who nonetheless wrote the book on American politics. This course is an introduction to the institutions and processes of American politics. Those students who have taken a good civics course in high school should have no trouble handling the material, but for those who have not had much experience with American politics, I have recommended a textbook that should help you with the fundamentals. The midterms will be composed of short essay questions and identifications, in which you will be asked to define and explain the significance of terms introduced in the readings and lectures.