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Wednesday, April 30, 2025

Interest Groups II: Community Organizing

 For next Monday: http://www.robertbellah.com/articles_5.htm

Also on Monday, bring your devices to complete the Student Experience Survey

Review: Ballot measures: Dialysis example and SEIU

Tocqueville (Lawrence/Mayer ed., pp. 513, 518):

Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations. There are not only commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but others of a thousand different types- religious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute. Americans combine to give fêtes, found seminaries, build churches, distribute books, and send missionaries to the antipodes. Hospitals, prisons, and schools take shape in that way. Finally, if they want to proclaim a truth of propagate some feeling by the encouragement of a great example, they form an association. In every case, at the head of any new undertaking, where in France you would find the government or in England some territorial magnate, in the United States you are sure to find an association.
...
It often happens in democratic countries that many men who have the desire or directed toward that light, and those wandering spirits who had long sought each other the need to associate cannot do it, because all being very small and lost in the crowd, they do not see each other and do not know where to find each other. Up comes a newspaper that exposes to their view the sentiment or the idea that had been presented to each of them simultaneously but separately. All are immediately in the shadows finally meet each other and unite.

Nonprofits in the United States











  • One's concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one's personal interest in the issue (26). [Also see Madison: As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves.]
  • The judgment of the ethics of means is dependent upon the political position of those sitting in judgment (26)
    • "The Declaration of Independence, as a declaration of war, had to be what it was, a 100 percent statement of the justice of the cause of the colonists and a 100 percent denunciation of the role of the British government as evil and unjust" (28)
TACTICS
TIME IN JAIL" (156-158)

Monday, April 28, 2025

Interest Groups I

Crosstabs of the NYT Poll

For Wednesday:

  • Tocqueville 189-203, 513-524.
  •  Alinsky chapter (on Canvas). Don't worry: it's easy reading.
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DISCUSS NEXT WEEK?

In Federalist 10, Madison described the sources of faction

A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions... But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. 

Just about every group has an organization -- even this one

DO NOT REDUCE INFLUENCE TO CAMPAIGN MONEY



ALSO FOREIGN INTERESTS

Means of Influence

The Inside Game

VIDEO ON INTEREST GROUPS AND THE LOBBYING INDUSTRY

  • Includes only a fraction of total spending on efforts to influence government;
  • Does not include state and local spending;
  • Does not include campaign finance.

Lobbying activities
  • Talking to members and staff
  • Testimony
  • Writing
Court cases and amicus briefs

The outside game
More dubious stuff: Hunter Biden and Memecoin





Ballot measures: Dialysis example and SEIU

Wednesday, April 23, 2025

Parties II


For next time, Lowi, ch. 12

Party in Government (PIG)



Party Organization (PO)


 Political realism: How hacks, machines,big money, and back-room deals can strengthen American democracyBy Jonathan Rauch


Plunkitt, Tweed, and Machines

Transparency v. Compromise

Super PACs as "Shadow Machines"

Machines and Community Organizing (a week from today)



Monday, April 21, 2025

Parties I

For Wednesday:

Jonathan Rauch, "Political Realism: How Hacks, Machines, Big Money, and Back-Room Deals Can Strengthen American Democracy," Brookings, May 2015, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/political-realism-rauch2.pdf      

PIE/PO/PIG/POG

"Great Parties"

Tocqueville (175): “What I call great political parties are those more attached to principles than to consequences, to generalities rather than to particular cases, to ideas rather than to personalities... America has had great parties; now they no longer exist”


In a 1793 letter to Madison, Jefferson laid out the battle lines on France, but really describes the embryonic first party system:

The line is now drawing so clearly as to shew, on one side, 1. the fashionable circles of Phila., N. York, Boston and Charleston (natural aristocrats), 2. merchants trading on British capitals. 3. paper men, (all the old tories are found in some one of these three descriptions).
On the other side are 1. merchants trading on their own capitals. 2. Irish merchants, 3. tradesmen, mechanics, farmers and every other possible description of our citizens.

Party in the Electorate (PIE)


History









Historical party affiliation  (Party registration and






Party in Government (PIG)


Party Organization (PO)

Wednesday, April 16, 2025

Elections II

 For Monday:

  • Lowi, ch. 11.
  • Tocqueville, pp. 174-179.

Turnout: VAP and VEP

Direct Democracy (Lowi 326-327)

Districts (Lowi, 323)

Explaining Elections:  Geography and the Electoral College (more next week)

Explaining Elections:  Demographics
Explaining Elections:  Economics

Campaigns

Monday, April 14, 2025

Elections

Fourth assignment

Final Exam

For next time, 


Election Laws -- THE UNITED STATES RUNS ELECTIONS AT THE STATE AND LOCAL LEVEL.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A NATIONAL BALLOT. 

Federal laws

Districts (Lowi, 323)

Fourth Assignment

Choose one:

1.  Pick a democratic country with which you are familiar, either through study or firsthand experience.  How does that country's party system differ from that of the United States?  Consider demographics, ideology, electoral process, and governmental structure.

2. Pick any elected official (e.g., federal or state lawmaker, mayor, supervisor) who serves the area from which you come.  (President and vice president do not count.)  If you are an international student, just pick one who interests you.  How did that person get that office?  Consider the official's characteristics and support base, as well as the makeup of the constituency.  If that constituency strongly favors one party or the other, consider how the official became the party's choice.  Again, pay attention to the local electoral process.


Instructions:

  • Document your claims. Do not write from the top of your head. 
  • Essays should be double-spaced and no more than three pages long. I will not read past the third page.
  • Essays should be in the form of Word documents.  Do not submit pdfs, or Google docs.
  • Cite your sources with endnotes in Chicago/Turabian style. Endnote pages do not count against the page limit.
  • Do not use ChatGPT or any other generative AI. Misrepresenting AI-generated content as your own work is plagiarism.  It will result in a referral to the Academic Standards Committee.  
  • Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you.
  • Turn in essays to  Canvas by 11:59 PM,  Monday, April 28:  note the extra time. (If you have trouble with Canvas, simply email your essay to me as an attached Word file.) I reserve the right to dock essays a gradepoint for one day’s lateness, a full letter grade after that.

Friday, April 11, 2025

Studying for the Final Exam

The final exam for this course will take place in our regular classroom on Tuesday, May 13 from 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM.  It will have three parts.  

Part I: Identifications (4 points each)  In two or three sentences each, briefly identify the meaning and significance of 12 out of 14 names or terms.  These items will come from the "key terms" list at the end of each Lowi chapter, the topics of other assigned readings, and items we discussed in class.  Also see the blog and your own class notes.  (If you have not been taking notes, you should start.)

Part II. Short essays. Answer three of four. Each answer should take about half a page. (6 points each).  These questions will involve key passages from Tocqueville, the Federalist, and other course readings, as well as topics we discussed in class.  Again, the blog and class notes will be an important source.

Part III.  Longer essays. Answer two of three essay questions (17 points each). Each answer should take about 2-3 large bluebook pages or 3-4 small bluebook pages.  Here you should show that you can discuss some of the broader themes of the course.

Bonus questions.  For one point each, identify relatively obscure names from current events or the readings. 

For examples, see the "air midterm" that I posted earlier.  I shall also post a practice final toward the end of the semester.

Wednesday, April 9, 2025

Mass Media

For Monday, Lowi, ch. 10.

Who are journalists?

The decline of newspapers

IF YOU ARE PLANNING ON A JOB AS A JOURNALIST, SOME ITEMS TO CONSIDER:

From Pew:





Main sources for news (see Lowi 299)


Trust in media 




Giving airtime to conspiracy theory:  Rep. Luna and the Oswald film

Pink slime sites:  right and left


Monday, April 7, 2025

Navarro FT article

Peter Navarro managed to get an opinion piece on the Trump tariffs published in the FT (surprising enough in itself). Navarro's rhetoric isn't really new, but the 900+ comments are worth sticking around for  the FT comments are unrelenting (even more so than usual).

Public Opinion

Post papers to Canvas 

This week, I will put up a guide to studying for the final.

For Wednesday, https://libguides.sandiego.edu/fakenews 

What is public opinion?

Attitudes: "evaluative" and "affective" orientations:  approve/disapprove and like/dislike

Knowledge (Lowi 288-289):  Most people, most of the time, know very little about politics.

Sources of public opinion (Lowi 277)

Self-interest

Madison, Federalist 10: "As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self­love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves."

Socialization

Family and Identity:  direct and indirect influence

Ideology (Lowi 279-280)







Measuring Public Opinion


Wednesday, April 2, 2025

The Law, Continued

For Monday: Lowi, ch. 9.

Election in Wisconsin

The Court System



Edwards v Aguillard


Decision and opinions

Edwards v. Aguillard oral argument (start around 26:00)

From Topkis's comments -- an example of the value of slow reading:

Now, this bill was of course drafted by a theologian, or somebody versed in apologetics.
There's an amusing bit of evidence on that subject in the very language of the bill.
The bill keeps using... the Act keeps using the term "evidences" in the plural.
We lawyers never speak of "evidences" in the plural. We speak of "evidence", the singular.
And I got nagged by it, and I looked it up the other day.
And of course the only dictionary reference to "evidences" is to Christian apologetics: the evidences for Christianity. This is a matter of theological disputation.
Tocqueville (p. 267): "Nothing could be more obscure and out of reach of the common man than a law founded on precedent…. A French lawyer is just a man of learning, but an English or an American one is somewhat like the Egyptian priests, being, as they were, the only interpreters of an occult science."

Debate over court makeup

Judicial activism (Lowi 2665-268)

KBJ




Blue Slips and Senatorial Courtesy (Lowis 247-248)