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Readings are below
Week 1. Aug 21, Introduction and overview
First class, Wed Aug 21
Part One: Theories of How People Think and How Policies are Framed
Week 2. Aug 26, 28 Causal stories and target populations
Monday: Stone, Deborah A. 1989. Causal Stories and the Formation of Policy Agendas. Political Science Quarterly 104, 2: 281–300.
Wednesday: Schneider, Anne, and Helen Ingram. 1993. Social Construction of Target Populations: Implications for Politics and Policy. American Political Science Review 87, 2: 334–47.
Additional readings following up on Schneider and Ingram:
Each of these books makes the case that a particular target population has been framed or constructed in a particular way, that policies then have been tailored to them with respect to the level of pity, respect, or disgust that they engender, and then that these constructions and how they are treated well or poorly by the government become self-reinforcing tendencies. Social security and the GI Bill made certain groups feel wonderfully efficacious, but welfare programs often make clients alienated from the government, just to take 3 examples from the readings below. Some of these books might be good starting points for your term papers.Campbell, Andrea L. 2005. How Policies Make Citizens: Senior Political Activism and the American Welfare State. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Crowley, Jocelyn Elise. 2003. The Politics of Child Support in America. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Crowley, Jocelyn Elise. 2008. Defiant Dads: Fathers’ Rights Activists in America. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Hancock, Ange-Marie. 2004. The Politics of Disgust: The Public Identity of the Welfare Queen. New York: New York University Press.
Mettler, Suzanne. 2005. Soldiers to Citizens: The G.I. Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation. New York: Oxford University Press.
Schrad, Mark Lawrence. 2010. The Political Power of Bad Ideas: Networks, Institutions, and the Global Prohibition Wave. New York: Oxford University Press.
Soss, Joe B. 2002. Unwanted Claims: The Politics of Participation in the U.S. Welfare System.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Soss, Joe B., Richard C. Fording and Sanford F. Schram. 2011. Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Week 3. Sep 4 How we differ when thinking of gains versus losses, misestimate risks
No class on Monday Sept 2, Happy Labor Day!
Wednesday:
***Note assignment due next Monday. Download this spreadsheet and follow the instructions at the bottom of the sheet. This assignment may take you about 2 hours to do. You need to email your completed spreadsheet to Amy, and ALSO bring to class a one-page document describing your results. Click here for a template that illustrates how to do that one-pager.***
Week 4. Sep 9, 11 Motivated reasoning, or why it is hard to make people change their mind
Monday: Lord, Charles G., Lee Ross, and Mark R. Lepper. 1979. Biased Assimilation and Attitude Polarization: The Effects of Prior Theories on Subsequently Considered Evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 37 (11): 2098-2109.
Wednesday: Kunda, Ziva. 1990. The Case for Motivated Reasoning. Psychological Bulletin 108(3): 480-98.
***Monday, Sept 9. First assignment due in class and by email, as per class web site.***
Part Two: Empirical Studies of How Policies are Framed
Week 5. Sep 16, 18. Two longitudinal studies
Monday: Rose, Max, and Frank R. Baumgartner. 2013. Framing the Poor: Media Coverage and US Poverty Policy, 1960–2008. Policy Studies Journal, forthcoming.
Wednesday: Schrad, Mark Lawrence. 2007. Constitutional Blemishes: Understanding American Alcohol Prohibition and Repeal as Policy Punctuation. Policy Studies Journal 35, 3: 437-464.
Week 6. Sep 23, 25. Two experimental studies
Monday: Gilliam, Franklin D., Jr., and Shanto Iyengar. 2000. Prime Suspects: The Influence of Local Television News on the Viewing Public. American Journal of Political Science 44, 3 (July): 560–573.
Wednesday: Nelson, Thomas E., Rosalee A. Clawson, and Zoe M. Oxley. 1997. Media Framing of a Civil Liberties Conflict and Its Effect on Tolerance. American Political Science Review 91, 3 (Sept.): 567–583.
Week 7. Sep 30, Oct 2 Can you reframe things at will? Maybe it depends if you are attractive.
Monday: Riker, William H. 1986. The Art of Political Manipulation. New Haven: Yale University Press, ch. 10, Warren Magnuson and Nerve Gas.
Wednesday: Druckman, James N. 2001. On the Limits of Framing Effects: Who Can Frame? Journal of Politics 63, 4 (November): 1041–66.
Chaiken, Shelly. 1979. Communicator Physical Attractiveness and Persuasion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 37, 8: 1387-97.
***Due on Monday: 2 pages (single spaced) including your term paper topic, your choice of design, 5 good citations, and the beginnings of your definition of the relevant frames surrounding the issue.***
Week 8. Oct 7, 9 Negative and positive frames are not equal.
Monday: Baumeister, Roy F., Ellen Bratslavsky, Catrin Finkenauer, and Kathleen D. Vohs. 2001. Bad Is Stronger Than Good. Review of General Psychology 5: 323-370.
Wednesday: No readings: Lab sessions on technical details of your research projects.
Part Three: Liberals, Conservatives, and Framing
Week 9. Oct 14, Do Liberals and Conservatives think differently?
Fall Break starts Oct 16 at 5, but we will work extra hard on Monday Oct 14
Monday: Graham, Jesse, Jonathan Haidt and Brian A. Nosek. 2009. Liberals and Conservatives Rely on Different Sets of Moral Foundations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 96(5):1029–1046.
Week 10. Oct 21, 23 Why is policy hostile to children even if children are positively framed?
***Monday Oct 21: Overview of your data collection and draft section explaining your keywords, frames, and data collection process due. 5 pages single spaced.***
Week 11. Oct 28, 30 More on children the consequences of framing
Week 12. Nov 4, 6. The Rise of the Federalist Society, part one.
Week 13. Nov 11, 13. Federalist Society, part two.
***Monday Nov 11: Full outline of your paper due. The more you have, the more we can give feedback on. Complete drafts are certainly welcome. Double-spaced.***
Week 14. Nov 18, 20. Presentations, and The “Right Talk” – Free market rhetoric in politics
Monday: Presentations, 10 students, 45 minutes; discussion of Smith, 30 minutes Smith, The Right Talk: (ch 1-2)
Wednesday: Presentations, 10 students, 45 minutes; discussion of Smith, 30 minutes (ch 3-4)
Week 15. Nov 25 Presentations, and continuation with “Right Talk”
Monday: Presentations, 10 students; Smith, ch 5-7 8-9
No class on Wed Nov 27, Happy Thanksgiving!
Week 16, Dec 2, 4 “Right Talk” and conclusions
Monday: Finish up with Smith, 8-9
Wednesday: Review, comments, discussion of framing and public policy.
Last day of class, Wed Dec 4
***Wednesday Dec 4, Term papers due.***
Final Exam: TBA, according to the official schedule from the registrar’s office.