Unit convenor and teaching staff |
Unit convenor and teaching staff
Unit Convenor, Lecturer and tutor
Lloyd Cox
Contact via Email
Hearing Hub South, Level 2, W 63
Tuesday 10-12
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Credit points |
Credit points
3
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Prerequisites |
Prerequisites
39cp or (6cp in HIST or MHIS or POL units at 200 level including 3cp in POL)
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Corequisites |
Corequisites
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Co-badged status |
Co-badged status
co-badged with POIX 101
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Unit description |
Unit description
US politics is today, as in much of its past, dominated by money and the power that money can buy. US cultural life is also preoccupied with money, in ways that profoundly affect the distribution of political power. Proceeding from these premises, this unit explores the relationship between money, culture and power in contemporary US politics. Topics covered include campaign financing, interest groups and the media; the impact of social inequalities of class, race, gender and sexual preference on US politics; the role of religion and political parties in the formulation of dominant political ideas; and the politics surrounding the global financial crisis and its aftermath.
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Information about important academic dates including deadlines for withdrawing from units are available at https://www.mq.edu.au/study/calendar-of-dates
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
Late Submissions
Late Submission Penalty: “Unless a Special Consideration request has been submitted and approved, (a) a penalty for lateness will apply – two (2) marks out of 100 will be deducted per day for assignments submitted after the due date – and (b) no assignment will be accepted more than seven (7) days (incl. weekends) after the original submission deadline. No late submissions will be accepted for timed assessments – e.g. quizzes, online tests.”
Name | Weighting | Hurdle | Due |
---|---|---|---|
Assessment One | 20% | Yes | Monday 26/3/2018 |
Assessment Two | 40% | Yes | Monday 7/5/2018 |
Assessment Three | 10% | Yes | All year |
Assessment four | 30% | Yes | Monday 11/6/2018 |
Due: Monday 26/3/2018
Weighting: 20%
This is a hurdle assessment task (see assessment policy for more information on hurdle assessment tasks)
This piece of assessment will involve writing a short essay of 1000 words. The topic will be put on ilearn in week one of the unit. Essays should be submitted on Turnitin. Late submissions will only be accepted with an extension (see late submissions policy below).
Due: Monday 7/5/2018
Weighting: 40%
This is a hurdle assessment task (see assessment policy for more information on hurdle assessment tasks)
This is a 2000 word essay +/- 10%, with topics drawn from across the unit. To give students plenty of time to think about and prepare their essays, the list of topics will be handed out in week two of the unit. Extensions will only be granted under the most exceptional of circumstances, and will be subject to the Arts Faculty's late submissions policy. Students should submit their essays through turnitin.
Due: All year
Weighting: 10%
This is a hurdle assessment task (see assessment policy for more information on hurdle assessment tasks)
These marks are for participation on the ilearn discussion board. Students should regularly contribute their thoughts on the weekly topics, and engage with the writing of their fellow students. 200-300 word contributions would be appropriate, but I don't mind if you write more or less on particular weeks. Students who do not contribute in 3 or more weeks will receive a 0 for this piece of assessment.
Due: Monday 11/6/2018
Weighting: 30%
This is a hurdle assessment task (see assessment policy for more information on hurdle assessment tasks)
The final take home test will be put on ilearn at midday on the Friday of the final week of semester. Students will be required to write three short essays of around 800 words. Please submit via Turnitin within iLearn by midnight on the following Monday. The answers should be in one file, labelled with your family name.
Welcome to United States Politics: Money, Culture, Power. US politics is today, as in much of its past, dominated by money and the power that money can buy. US cultural life is also preoccupied with money, in ways that profoundly affect the distribution of political power. Proceeding from these premises, this unit explores the relationship between money, culture and power in contemporary US politics, paying particular attention to the 2016 Presidential election and its subsequent repercussions. Topics covered include campaign financing, interest groups and the media; the impact of social inequalities of class, race, gender and sexual preference on US politics; the role of religion and political parties in the formulation of dominant political ideas; and the politics surrounding the global financial crisis and its aftermath. These topics will be covered in one two hour lecture, and a weekly one hour tutorial, which all students must attend. Although recordings of each lecture will be available on ilearn, students are strongly encouraged to attend lectures in person. It has been my experience that students who do not attend the lectures often also neglect to listen to the recordings. So please come along, ask questions in the lectures and tutorials, and make friends with your fellow students.
You will enhance your prospects of doing well in this unit by:
Lecture Outlines and Required Reading (Please note, I have not included all readings here, nor all bibliographical details. Additional readings will be added as we proceed, which will be put on the ilearn site, and you can find all bibliographical details there)
Week One: Introduction: Money, Culture, Power and US Exceptionalism
An enduring feature of American political life is the belief in US exceptionalism – the idea that the United Stated is a unique polity that embodies liberty and democracy in a way that is or should be a beacon for the rest of the world. In this week, we explore the origins of American exceptionalism, and discuss the ways in which it relates to the organizing themes of this unit - money, culture, power.
Readings: No required reading for this week
Week Two: The American Constitution, Federalism and Privilege
The American Constitution is frequently held up as a hallowed document and one of the keys to American success over the past two centuries. Yet on closer examination it is clear that the Constitution still reflects its 18th century origins in advancing the interests of a very narrow strata of colonial society. In this lecture we examine both the history of the American Constitution and discuss some of its key clauses, with a particular focus on federalism. Students should have closely read the US Constitution before this class.
Readings:
Stephen M. Griffin (2017) Trump, Trust and the Future of the Constitutional Order
Robert Dahl (2001) How Democratic is the American Constitutions?
Week Three: Two Parties, One Culture?
The American two Party system emerged in the nineteenth century, and endures to this day, though in a very different form. We here discuss the emergence of both the Democratic and the Republican Parties, and look both at the ways that they have changed and the ways that their key constituencies have changed. We will be particularly interested in the regularly expressed notion that, despite their differences, both parties ultimately represent the interests of corporate America. We end by exploring what the 2016 US Presidential election result has meant for both Republicans and Democrats.
Readings: Matthew C. MacWilliams (2017) Who Decides When the Party Doesn't? Authoritarian Voters and the Rise of Trump
Alan Ware (2016) Donald Trump's Hyjacking of the Republican Party in Historical Perspective
Timothy Shenk (2017) The Next Democratic Party
Week Four: Money, Elections and Interest Groups
This week the lecture will only be for one hour, as we will be having the in class test for internal students in the first hour. This lecture seeks to systematically demystify the US electoral system. As well as outlining the mechanics of electoral processes for Congress and for the Presidency, we will discuss the key issues confronting the American electoral system today. In particular, we will focus on the vexed question of money in US politics and electoral funding. Can elections and political office be bought?
Readings:
Thomas Stratmann (2017) Campaign Finance: A Review and an Assessment of the State of the Literature
Adam R. Brown (2013) Does Money Buy Votes?
Week Five: Congress and Lobbying
The US congress is composed of the House of Representatives and the US Senate. Their respective roles, rights and obligations are outlined in the US Constitution, though in practices these have shifted over time. We discuss these changes, and also examine the extremely important role of lobbying in shaping final legislative outcomes. Finally, we begin exploring the vexed issue of the relationship between Congress and the President, using contemporary examples from the Trump Presidency to illustrate some of the key issues.
Reading:
Frank Baumgartner et al. (2014) Money, Priorities and Stalemate: How Lobbying Affects Public Policy.
Week Six: Political Emotions in the Age of Post truth Politics
In the first of two lectures, we begin exploring the ways in which human emotions are collectivized and deployed for political purposes. We will be paying particular attention to the ways that emotions like fear, anger, humiliation, hate and love are used instrumentally by politicians to mobilize supporters, as Trump so successfully did in the Republican primaries and the subsequent Presidential election.
Reading: TBA
Week Seven: Political Emotions, Media and Celebrity in the Age of Trump
This week we examine the changing role of the US media in US politics. The emphasis will be on the broader relationship between political and social media, money and the cult of celebrity that seems to now pervade so many aspects of US cultural and political life. We examine the deeper structural and cultural forces that shape these developments.
Reading: TBA
Week Eight: The Imperial Presidency?
The office of President stands at the apex of executive power in US government. Over time, the powers of the Presidency have been significantly enhanced and extended such that scholars frequently refer to the existence of an “imperial Presidency.” In this lecture we focus on the nature and effects of this development, consider the Presidencies of Bush and Obama, and discuss the possibilities of an imperial Presidency and creeping fascism under Trump.
Reading:
Donald R. Wolfensberger (2002) The Return of the Imperial Presidency?
Jane Caplan (2017) What the History of Fascism can tell us about Donald Trump's Rise
Henry Giroux (2016) Donald Trump and Neo-Fascism in America.
Week Nine: The Religious Right and the Politics of Faith
Despite the formal, constitutional separation between church and state in the US, religion plays a more important role in US politics than in any other comparable western state. We explore why this is and analyse how it is manifested. We pay particular attention to the influence that the Religious Right has exercised over the contemporary Republican Party, and ask how their values can be reconciled with a Trump Presidency.
Reading:
Kimberly Conger (2010) A Matter of Context: Christian Right Influence in US State Republican Parties
Angelina R. Wilson (2012) "Where Liberty Reigns and God is Supreme": The Christian Right and the Tea Party Movement
Week Ten: Race, Culture, Power
Race and ethnicity have been and remain tremendously important in US political life, as the repeated killing of and reaction to the police killings of young black men demonstrate. The legacies of racially based slavery continue to be felt in the US to this day, while successive waves of immigration have made the US one of the most ethnically diverse societies on earth. Taken together, this has shaped US politics in very important ways. We discuss this, paying particular attention to the growing importance of Latino voters in US political life.
Reading:
Hana E. Brown (2010) Racialized Conflict and Policy Spillover Effects: The Role of Race in the Contemporary U.S.
Reanne Frank (2010) Latino Immigrants and the US Racial Order: How and where do they Fit?
Week Eleven: Race, Politics and the Criminal Justice System
Since the early 1970s, the politics of law and order has become a pervasive US preoccupation. This has been manifested in spiraling rates of incarceration, and a militarization of US policing. The weight of this shift has fallen disproportionately on African Americans. This week we examine why.
Reading:
Loic Wacqant (2014) Class, Race and Hyperincarceration in Revanchist America
Lisa L. Miller (2010) The Invisible Black Victim: How American Federalism Perpetuates Racial Inequality in Criminal Justice
Week Twelve: Social Policy and Welfare
The United States has never had a developed welfare state in the way that Western Europe, Scandinavia, Australia and New Zealand have. The ideology of small government and individual self-reliance retain their overwhelming popular support, which therefore constitutes significant obstacles to the development of welfare initiatives by both federal and state governments. We here examine the politics of welfare in the United States, linking it back to themes covered in the previous week.
Reading: TBA
Week Thirteen: US Politics in the Wake of the GFC
The global financial crisis of 2008/09, whose effects continue to play themselves out today, represented something of a watershed in American economics and politics. It throws light on many problematic features of US capitalism, and the political institutions that help sustain it. We here use the GFC as a way to help understand some of these issues surrounding US political-economy, before tying the thread of the overall course together in our conclusion.
Reading: TBA
Students will also find the following resources useful.
Useful Journals
Useful Websites
Week |
Date |
Lecture |
Tutorial |
Assessment |
1 |
I March |
Money, Culture, Power and US Exceptionalism |
American exceptionalism, liberalism, capitalism, religion |
None |
2 |
8 March |
The American Constitution, Federalism and Privilege |
Republicanism, Federalism, Branches of Government, Separation of Church and State |
None |
3 |
15 March |
Two Parties, One Culture? |
Democratic and Republican Party, Changes under Trump |
None |
4 |
22 March |
Money, Elections and Interest Groups |
Democracy, electoral system and campaign financing |
In class test |
5 |
29 March |
Congress and Lobbying |
Congress as Legislator and Policy maker, divided government, Trump and Congress |
None |
6 |
5 April |
Political Emotion in the Age of Post-Truth Politics |
Emotions and Politics, post truth politics and fake news |
None |
7 |
12 April |
Political Emotions, Media and Celebrity in the Age of Trump |
Political emotions and celebrity, social media and politics |
None |
8 |
3 May |
The Imperial Presidency? |
The Executive and Congress, Trump and Creeping Fascism? |
Major Essay due, 7 May |
9 |
10 May |
The Religious Right and the Politics of Faith |
A Protestant Nation? The Religious Right and Power; Regulating public and private morality |
None |
10 |
17 May |
Race, Culture, Power |
Race and US History, growth of Latino power |
None |
11 |
24 May |
Race, Politics and the Criminal Justice System |
Police racial profiling, Mass incarceration, militarization of policing |
None |
12 |
31May |
Social Policy and Welfare |
The ideology of self-reliance and small government; the politics of social security; "welfare mothers" |
None |
13 |
7 June |
US Politics in the Wake of the GFC |
Global financial crisis; regulating Wall Street; the power of capital |
None |
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