MONEY IN AMERICAN POLITICS

Catalog description

This course surveys facts and scholarship about two types of money in American politics: money as a political resource and money as policy. As a political resource, money is critically important for candidates to win elections, for interest groups to exert influence on government, and for policy expertise from civil society to inform government policy. As policy itself, in history or in modern times money has lain at the heart of policy debates like the creation of a national bank, gold and silver as legal tender, and financial regulations, as well as perennial governmental processes like federal budgeting and appropriations and the selection of congressional party leaders. This course trains students to comprehend, analyze, critically evaluate, and build on key research on these topics. (Cross-listed with PSCI 8106 ).