The Logic of American Politics
SAGE Journal Articles and Readings
Click on the following links – please note these will open in a new window
SAGE Journal Articles
This article discusses the research on women legislators in the United States and how that research has made significant progress toward understanding how women legislators affect public policies. The author contributes to the research by examining legislative variations and how they affect policy making.
Questions to Consider:
1. Do parties matter?
2. How can leadership help women increase their institutional power?
3. What challenges for future research were identified by the author?
Learning Objective(s): 12.3 Discuss the revival of partisanship over the last two decades and how modern parties are structured; 12.4 Assess modern parties’ influence and effectiveness as a vehicle for politicians and voters to act collectively within the established institutional framework
***
In this article, the author discusses the effects of celebrity support for political parties in the U.S. Using results from a pretest-posttest control group experiment, the author finds that celebrity political activity is more likely to influence citizens views of political parties than it is to affect either citizens’ vote choices or views of individual candidates.
Questions to Consider:
1. Do you believe celebrities matter? Are celebrity endorsements significant for candidates?
2. Identify the author’s hypotheses. What methodology is used to test these hypotheses?
3. How does meaning transfer theory affect party identification?
Learning Objective(s): 12.3 Discuss the revival of partisanship over the last two decades and how modern parties are structured; 12.4 Assess modern parties’ influence and effectiveness as a vehicle for politicians and voters to act collectively within the established institutional framework
***
This article discusses political parties and their use of platforms to make symbolic statements. In using data from the American Presidency Project and the American Reference Library the authors were able to conduct an analysis of part platforms as they relate to criminal justice issues.
Questions to Consider:
1. What are symbolic policies? Identify their functions.
2. How is symbolic language used by parties and their platforms?
3. How much influence can political parties have on issues such as crime?
Learning Objective(s): 12.1 Describe the origins of political parties and their basic features; 12.2 Summarize the development and the evolution of the party systems
***
CQ Researcher
McCutcheon, C. (October 2014). Future of the GOP. CQ Researcher 24(38). 889-912.
This article discusses the future of the Republican Party. Political observers say the GOP should be concerned about the longer term, developing policies that can entice greater numbers of women, minorities and young people. Nonpartisan scholars say Republicans must shed the identity they have acquired as the uncompromising and confrontational “party of no.” The 2016 contest for the White House is seen as critical in determining whether Republicans can assemble a diverse coalition beyond their traditional base of older whites.
Questions to Consider:
1. Do you believe the Republican Party will be able to assemble the diverse coalition that they need to win the 2016 election?
2. How will the rise of minorities hurt Republicans?
Learning Objective(s): 12.4 Assess modern parties’ influence and effectiveness as a vehicle for politicians and voters to act collectively within the established institutional framework