Voting and Political Participation in
HONR 201H
Fall 2005
Instructor:
Dr.
Office: 344 Bancroft
Phone #: ext. 4669 (323-4669 from off campus)
email: huffmons@winthrop.edu
Web Page: http://faculty.winthrop.edu/huffmons/
Office Hours: Wednesday
Description:
How does one measure the quality of a democracy? One of the hallmarks of a true democracy is regularly scheduled free and open elections. Does this quality alone measure the health of a democracy? What if not all citizens feel free to participate? What if not all citizens are all equally equipped to participate? What if some citizens don’t believe that their participation matters? And most important, what if these things are not equally true or false across all segments of society?
In this course we will examine the questions of who votes, why people vote (including the influence of individual characteristics and institutional constraints), why people vote the way they do, how individuals participate and civically engage in other ways, and what all of this means for the health of our democracy.
Goals:
You should exit this course not only being able to answer the above questions, but also having a context in which to place information regarding voting and participation that you may encounter in the future.
Text:
The following text is required. Additional readings will be given out during the semester.
Conway, Margaret M. 2000. Political Participation in the
Requirements:
|
Quizzes
Not Required* |
Quizzes
Required* |
||
|
Assignment |
Percent of Grade |
Assignment |
Percent of Grade |
|
Participation |
10% |
Participation |
10% |
|
Mid-term Exam |
30% |
Mid-term Exam |
25% |
|
Paper |
30% |
Paper |
25% |
|
Final Project |
30% |
Final Project |
25% |
|
|
|
Quizzes |
15% |
*If I get the sense that students are not doing the readings, I will institute quizzes, which will change the grading structure as noted. It will also waste our limited and valuable class time thus having a deleterious impact on the quality of the course as a whole.
Paper:
The paper will be 6-8 pages (double-spaced with 1 inch margins and 12 pt Times New Roman font, there will be no “headers,” you will use a title page [not counted toward total number of pages], bottom-center pagination, and an upper left-hand corner staple [no “paper covers”]…these are the basic “rules” of the paper; failure to follow any of these precepts will result in an automatic deduction of one full letter grade).
Topic: Paper topics must be approved by the professor and will address some issue related to Voting and Political Participation. Examples will be discussed in class.
Late Paper Rules: Papers are due at the beginning of class on the announced due date. Papers submitted electronically (in .doc, .wpd, or .pdf format only) within 30 minutes of the end of class on the due date (as determined by the time stamp on the email) will lose half of a letter grade. Papers submitted after this grace period are docked one letter grade plus an additional letter grade for every additional day late.
Final Project:
As we will see in class, “get out the vote” campaigns tend to be over-hyped and ineffective debacles. The only thing worse are the lessons in “how to lie with statistics” given by the spinmasters who attempt to explain why the campaign was a “success.”
You can do better.
Working in groups, you will design a “get out the vote” campaign. The campaign should be multi-faceted and
multimedia in nature. Each group will
present their campaign on
Class announcements will be made via the class listserv. If you have an active winthrop.edu email account, you should be automatically added to the listserv, otherwise you must add yourself to the listserv. You are EXPECTED to regularly check your email for class announcements!
This syllabus may be
revised throughout the semester.
Students with
Disabilities
Academic Misconduct
Academic misconduct will not be tolerated.
Academic misconduct includes but is not limited to providing or receiving assistance in a manner not authorized by the professor in the creation of work to be submitted for academic evaluation including papers, projects, and examinations; presenting, as one's own, the ideas or words of another for academic evaluation without proper acknowledgment; doing unauthorized academic work for which another person will receive credit or be evaluated; and presenting the same or substantially the same papers or projects in two or more courses without the explicit permission of the professors involved. In addition, academic misconduct involves attempting to influence one's academic evaluation by means other than academic achievement or merit. More explicit definitions of academic misconduct specific to certain academic disciplines may be promulgated by academic departments and schools.
I will prosecute cases of academic misconduct to the fullest extent of university policy, and that can mean expulsion from the university. Obviously, any student caught cheating or plagiarizing, in any manner, on an exam or assignment will receive a zero for that assignment in addition to academic prosecution.
Assigned
To keep it simple, we will progress through the assigned text in the order of chapters. I will make the outside readings available as they are needed.
Article on
Structure and Voting
http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/p60-229.pdf
http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/05poverty.shtml
http://www.civicyouth.org/PopUps/FactSheets/FS_04_gender_vote.pdf
“Protestin’ makes me feel good!” (apologies to Ray Parker, Jr.)