American Politics PO 101

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American Politics PO 101

• Social Contract?

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Books

• The Decline of Representative Democracy Alan
  Rosenthal
• Congressional Quarterly Books (1997)
• ISBN 0871879743
• The Prince N. Machiavelli
• The Leviathan T. Hobbes
• Amercian Government T. Lowi
• Uni. of Chicago Press (2002)
• ISBN 0226467716
• NY Times

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Class Topics

• Week 1 Political Culture
• Weeks 2-3 Social Contract
• Week 4 Systems Model
• Week 5 Executive Politics
• Week 6-7 The Prince
• Week 8-9 Legislature
• Weeks 10 Courts
• Weeks 11-12 Interest Group, The Press
• Week 13 Public Policy Final Exam

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Policies

• Plagiarism Dont! You might get asked to leave
  school I know Ill ask you to.
• Attend Do, but it is your choice
• Skip work Dont any assignment missing is a
  failing grade for the entire course

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Assignments

• 2/3 Midterm exam
• 2-12 Paper 3-5 pages on the Social Contract
• 3-22 Paper 2 3-5 Pages on the media
• 4-27 Paper 3
• Final In class -- Essay

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Grades

• Midterm 25 2/3
• Paper 3_at_15 ea monthly
• Participation 10
• Final 20 TBA

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Class Approach

• We all know bits and pieces of why Politics is in
  our life but as a nation we hold politics to be
  a barely necessary evil. In this class we will
  return to the works of the contract theorists and
  speak to the need for government, its core
  purpose and Machiavelli can help us understand
  the evolution from the pure to the practices of
  day to day politics,

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Your Instructor

• Kevin Snape, Ph.D.
• Harry Potter cracks are expected
• kfsnape_at_yahoo.com
• kesna_at_lubrizol.com
• 440-725-0554 (c)
• B30, office
• Office Hours M530-630, after class