Electoral Politics of the United States

Catalog description

The class is focused around teaching people the substantive knowledge and methodological background necessary to write a peer-reviewed research paper on American electoral politics. The class will focus on four broad topics. The first part of the class is on presidential primary elections. The second part of the class is on spatial models of voting. The third part of the class is on important modern research designs that are frequently used to study electoral politics. The fourth part of the course is on electoral rules. Most of the readings for the course will be chapters from academic books and journal articles, and will require students to consume research that contains a substantial amount of mathematics and statistics. A significant amount of reading will be assigned each week (i.e., a combination of two to three academic book chapters or journal articles). Assessment is based on class participation, two in-class presentations, a midterm analysis, and the development of the pre-analysis plan for a research project on American electoral politics.