American Politics Electives

Examination of politics through the lens of gender hierarchy. Emphasis on how constrictions of masculinity and femininity shape and are shaped by interacting economic, political and ideological practices.

Political structure and processes of the Mexican-American community, with emphasis on history, schooling, political behavior, and class; future trends; bibliography.

Political problems of the poor; analysis of systematic poverty in the U.S. and theories of causation; selected policy problems: education, housing, job training, enforcement of anti-discrimination statutes; future of "power" movements.

In a democracy, the public's role centers on elections.  In this course we will examine four main topics.  First, we will attempt to answer the question of 'Who Votes?' by examining patterns in political participation.  Second, we will look at the choices of these voters in selecting between the Democratic and Republican candidates.  Third, we will see how voting behavior varies across election settings:  presidential elections, congressional elections, and primary elections.  Finally, we will take an in-depth look at partisanship, the core attitude that influences participation and voters' choices, and how this attitude has changed over time.

The role of citizens as voters will be explored.  Core questions answered in the course will be what leads people to participate in elections and what influences their decisions to vote for specific candidates.

This course will introduce students to political psychology, with an emphasis on how psychology may be used to understand mass political behavior, political movements, race and intergroup conflict, and attitude change.

Structure, function, and processes of the "third branch" of the American government.

Analysis of constitutional, legal, historical and political consequences of U.S. immigration and refugee policy. Recent trends. Foreign and domestic policy effects of migration.

Description and analysis of the executive branch of government: how federal agencies capture policy-making; why bureaucracy develops; the rules of bureaucratic culture; who controls the administrative branch.

Historical, cross-cultural, and geographical assessment of strategies societies have deployed to govern science and technology; effects of particular strategies in terms of impacts (both positive and negative) of science and technology on people, their lives, and the environment.