State and Local Government

Catalog description

This upper division course focuses on understanding variation across America's federal system. How can we move from thinking about one American government, to 51 governments (all the states plus the national), or to the significantly larger number of local and municipal governments? What role do the states and localities play in shaping American democracy? In what ways are states hindering democracy or helping it flourish? In this course we will focus on three broad themes in the state politics literature: structural power, interest group activism, and individual political behavior. Throughout we will acknowledge that variation at the subnational level matters for engagement, equality, and the presence of a functioning democracy.