American Political Development

September 27 APD basics

Peter Hall and Rosemary Taylor, “Political Science and the Three

Institutionalisms” in Political Studies (1996) XLIV, 936-57 Reader

*Scott James and Brian Lawson, “The Political

Economy of Voting Rights Enforcement in the Gilded Age:

Electoral College Competition, Partisan Commitment, and the

Federal Election Law”, APSR 93 #1:115-131

*Gerardo Munck, “Canons of Research Design in Qualitative

Analysis” Studies in Comparative International Development

Volume 33 #3 (1988) 18-45

October 4 Stateness

R. R. John, Spreading the News, The American Postal System

from Franklin to Morse

Theda Skocpol, “Bringing the State Back In: Strategies of Analysis

in Current Research” in Peter B. Evans et. al, Bringing the State

Back in Reader

Stephen Skowronek, “National Railroad Regulation and the

Problem of State-Building: Interests and Institutions in Late

Nineteenth-Century America” Politics & Society 10 #3 (1981)

225-250 Reader

October 11 Post Office controversy:

A. Carpenter vs. Weber

*Daniel Carpenter, “State Building through Reputation Building:

Coalitions of Esteem and Program Innovation in the National Postal

System, 1883-1913” Studies in American Political Developm’t 14 #2

Max Weber, “Bureaucracy” in Hans Gerth and C. W. Mills, eds., From

Max Weber, pp.196-244 Reader

B. Carpenter vs. Kernell

*Samuel Kernell, “Rural Free Delivery as a Critical Test of Alternative

Models of American Political Development” SAPD 15 #1

*Daniel Carpenter, “The Political Foundations of Bureaucratic

Autonomy: a Response to Kernell”, ibid.

* Articles marked with an asterisk may be downloaded directly from SSH

October 18 On Timing and Sequence

Amy Bridges, A City in the Republic, Antebellum New York and the

Origins of Machine Politics

*Dietrich Reuschmeyer and John D. Stephens, “Comparing Historical

Sequences – A Powerful Tool for Causal Analysis” Comparative Social Research 16 (1997) 55-72

October 25 The Organizational Life of Parties

Theodore Lowi, “Parties, Politics, and Constitution in the United States”, pp. 238-276 in Wiliam Nisbet Chambers and Walter Dean

Burnham. The American Party Systems Reader

Clifton Yearly, The Money Machines, Chapters 4, 5 Reader

Robert Marcus, Grand Old Party, Chapters 1, 9 Reader

November 1 Path Dependence, Race

Robert Lieberman, Shifting the Color Line

*Paul A. David, “Clio and the Economics of QWERTY: The

Necessity of History” in American Economic Review 75 #2 1985:332-337

*James Mahoney, “Path Dependence in Historical Sociology” Theory and

Society 19: 507-548, 2000

November 8 Political Economies

Richard Bensel, The Political Economy of American Industrialization,

77-1900 Preface, Chapters 4-7 (excerpts of these chapters TBA)

Fred Block, “Economic Instability and Military Strength: The Paradoxes of

the 1950 Rearmament Decision” Politics & Society 10 #1 (1980) 35-56 Reader

David Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, Appendix, pp. 309-320 Reader

Elizabeth Sanders, Roots of Reform, Farmers, Workers, and the American

State,1877-1917 Introduction, Chapters 3,4 Reserve

November 15 Karen Orren and Stephen Skowronek, The Search for American

Political Development

November 22, 29 Why is social provision in the US so different?

Kathleen Thelen, “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics”

and additional readings TBA

Students in Political Science 254 will write a research paper on a topic to be approved by Professor Bridges

John, Lieberman, Bensel, and Orren/Skowronek are available at the UC Bookstore. Articles marked by an asterisk may be downloaded from Roger or Melvyl. All other readings are either on Reserve in Geisel library or in the course reader, available at Soft Reserves.