PART 1: PARTIES

Why Parties?

Review Questions:

· What are the most important features of the definition of political parties given in class?

· Why are Americans somewhat suspicious of parties?  Why did the nation's founders speak so clearly against parties (setting aside the fact that they were engaged in party conflict all along)?  How does Madison's view of faction in Federalist #10 illustrate their concerns?

· Despite suspicions, Americans still associate with parties.  Why?  More specifically, what are the reasons for parties in the electorate (e.g. linkage institutions, ideological screen, consensus forming, promotes civic virtue by providing opportunities for participation, increasing sense of efficacy, and building trust in institutions)?  In the government (permanent coalition, recruitment, stability by taming the extremes)?

· Who (or what) would stand to gain or lose in a situation of party decline?

Why these parties?  Why not one party or third parties?

Review Questions:

· Historical development of parties: How did opposing views of government (e.g. dispute over the role of the federal government in assumption, i.e., assuming state debts) and the need for greater organization (e.g. committees of correspondence, King Caucus) lead founders like Hamilton, Jefferson, and Madison to develop an early form of the party system?  How and why did this system begin to change with the election of Andrew Jackson, especially with respect to the role of caucuses in nominations and the introduction of the spoils system?  How do the concepts of realignment and critical election help us explain the change of party control at the outset of the Civil War or the Great Depression?  What role did party machines play in the "Golden Age" of parties?  What have been the general characteristics of party control of government since the New Deal, especially the phenomenon of divided government?

· Ideological and structural explanations for the two party system:  Do the two parties reflect serious ideological differences, and what are the effects of these differences, if any, on the voter? What other voter perceptions might account for the two party system (e.g. fear of the wasted vote)?  What structural/legal rules might account for the two party system, especially in the criteria used for determining who wins elections (e.g. majority, plurality, proportional) and the requirements for ballot access?  How about the media's influence?

· Importance of one-party and three party systems:  What does the decreasing control of single parties in certain areas of the U.S. say about the influence of parties in general?  Why do third parties develop, and what special tactics do they use?  In light of our discussion of two-party dominance, do third parties have any serious influence on American politics?  What role can they play, even in a system dominated by two parties?  Can they really act as spoilers?  Introduce new ideas?  Encourage responsible party government?

· Two party decline? Resurgence? Polarization? What is the evidence for decline of party influence over time (e.g. dealignment, lack of party unity in government)?  What are the forces of this decline (e.g., end of patronage through civil service requirements, demographic trends like suburbanization and education, the role of New Deal policies, etc.)?  Are parties more polarized today? If so, is that polarization mass-based or elite-based?

Do parties matter to voters?

Review Questions:

· What is party ID, and why do political scientists measure it the way they do (i.e., with a focus on self-identification)?  How is it acquired?  What social and ideological characteristics are associated with party ID?

· What role does party ID play in determining whether a voter turns out for an election?  What about how the voter actually votes?  What other factors are important to voter decision-making?

Do parties matter to candidates in election campaigns?

Review questions:

· What is the basic difference between a party's role in primary versus general elections?

· Why did the Progressives think the primary system would have a democratizing influence over the naming of party candidates?  What were they responding against?

· How do parties address each type of primary (open, closed, blanket, non-partisan)?  How do the types of primaries affect a party's influence in naming candidates for office?

· From a party's point of view, what are the key problems with primaries?  How might parties respond to the problems?

· What are some of the most important elements of presidential primaries/caucuses?  How do the major parties differ in how they run their respective presidential primaries/caucuses?  What is the role of the party convention in the presidential nomination?

· How do electoral rules (e.g. ballot format, election districts, electoral college, election calendars) affect party behavior in election campaigns?

· What does it mean to say that the parties are simultaneously decentralized and hierarchical, and what bearing does that structure have on campaigns?

· Who are the leaders of parties that are most relevant to campaigns (e.g. party committee chairs, leaders in the "Hill campaign committees, etc), and what do they do?  Why do they do it?

· What are some of the key elements of campaigns, and what role do parties play in them

What's all the fuss about campaign finance?

Review questions:

· What were the limits, if any, imposed by the FEC Act (and okayed by the Supreme Court in Buckley v. Valeo) on various sources of campaign money (e.g. individuals, candidates, parties, PACs, independent sources, the public)?  Why these limits and no others (for example, why limits on contributions but not expenditures)?  How did the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002 (BCFRA) change these restrictions, if at all?

· Why have political action committees (or "multicandidate" committees) grown in number over the last three decades?  What do you expect to happen to the size and influence of PACs in the wake of the BCFRA?

· What's the basic difference between soft and hard money?  Why does that difference matter, especially after BCFRA?  If one compares the two parties after BCFRA, which party is in a better position to raise money?

· What's the basic difference between express advocacy and issue advocacy? Why does that difference matter?  How did the BCFRA limit issue advocacy?

· Strategically speaking, why was there such a fight over campaign finance reform in 2002?  Who were the major players in the fight?  What have been their tactics?

· What are the underlying values in the debate over campaign money?  What's the role of the 1st Amendment and the open marketplace of ideas?  The government's interest in corruption?  Equalizing the marketplace of ideas?

How do parties attempt to influence the president? 

Congress? Bureaucracy? Courts?

Review questions:

· How do parties organize Congress?  In particular, how does bicameralism affect organization ?

· What are the factors determining party discipline and cohesion in Congress?

· What are the major rivals to the influence of parties in Congress?

· How does the president exercise party leadership as a representative to the national constituency, on party organization, and through electoral politics (e.g. coattail effect)?

· What are the implications of divided government on presidential-legislative relations?

· What are the limits and partisan tools of presidential control of the bureaucracy?

· How do parties factor into the competing values of independence and accountability in the judiciary?  For example, how do parties influence the process of judicial selection at the federal and state levels?  Do modes of selection (e.g. executive appointment, nonpartisan elections, partisan election, legislative election, Missouri/merit plan) really matter to how much influence the parties have over selection?  Ultimately, do we see significant influences on judicial behavior? 

PART 2: INTEREST GROUPS

What explains the role of interest groups in the United States?

Review questions:

· What are the important differences between parties and interest groups (i.e., why are interest groups policy maximizers and policy specialists, while parties are vote maximizers and policy generalists)?

· Are there meaningful distinctions between different categories of interest groups -- economic interests, professional interests, "public interests", etc.?

· What does it mean to say that the U.S. has seen an "advocacy explosion" in recent decades?  What is the role of the rise of the middle class and postmaterialist values in this explosion?  The scope of government?  Technological innovation and increasing societal complexity?  The decline of parties?

· What is the basic definition and, more importantly, normative assumptions of pluralism?  Why do pluralism's critics object (elitism, hyperpluralism/interest group liberalism, professionalization)?  In the final analysis, what's at stake normatively in this debate (i.e., what does the debt tell us about how interest groups act and how they ought to act in American democracy)?

How do groups address the collection action problem? 

How do they maintain themselves over time?

Review questions:

· What are the assumptions of disturbance theory, and why have those assumptions been so thoroughly criticized?

· How do free riding, cost-benefit analysis, and political efficacy present obstacles to joining groups (that is, how do they create a "collection action problem")?

· How do organizations try to overcome these obstacles through selective benefits, coercion, and patronage?

· What groups have the greatest advantages and disadvantages as a result of the collective action problem?  Moreover, why does greater affluence correlate with interest group membership?

What strategies do groups use in election campaigns? 

What strategies do groups use to influence legislatures?  

Executives and the bureaucracy? The Courts?

Review questions:

· In general, what are some of the strategic calculations must make in their attempts to influence government (e.g. problem/issue definition, determining scope of conflict, "insider/outsider" techniques)?

· Groups and election campaigns: Why do interest groups get involved in candidate recruitment?  How do they get involved? What's at stake in the nominating conventions for interest groups?  How do they try to influence conventions? How do groups use PACs?

· Groups and lobbying: What does lobbying attempt to do?  Relatively speaking, do you think some forms of information (i.e., policy, political, and legal information) that lobbyists provide to more or less important to policy-making? Why is lobbying legislatures so important to groups?  What formal and informal tactics do they use? What's at stake in lobbying the executive branch?  In particular, what general role do groups play with respect to bureaucracy?  How do they perform that role? How and why does the executive attempt to accommodate groups? How does the political disadvantage thesis help explain the use of courts by some groups? How does it fail as an explanation?  What are the primary tactics of legal advocacy (e.g. sponsorship, amicus brief, extra-judicial tactics), and why would a group choose one tactic over another?

Exam Essay Question: Write an essay in response to the following questions. Use the space below and the attached page (or an extra sheet if more space is needed). 40 points; 27% of exam. Suggested time: 30-40 minutes

Representative democracies attempt to reflect popular will, but they cannot in themselves assure popular participation. Put another way, we expect government to represent the public interest – or at least our own interests – yet we don’t wish to expend much effort in the political process. Our lack of participation is understandable. After all, there is more to life than government. What’s more, politics can seem remote, hard to understand, and difficult to influence. Nevertheless, representation doesn’t work very well if those represented avoid communicating their values or goals to the government.

Parties and interest groups are both non-governmental organizations that seek to encourage greater representation, at least for their members. Write an essay comparing and contrasting the unique roles of political parties and interest groups in representing ordinary citizens to government. Focus on two questions:

(1) What are the basic similarities and differences between parties and interest groups in how they carry out a representative function?

(2) Do either parties or interest groups, taken as a whole, better accomplish the task of representing the citizenry? Why or why not? Of course, your answer will depend in part on your assumptions about what representation means, which you’ll want to address in the essay.