Click here for the syllabus
Click here for the weekly reading / paper assignments: week 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14
Readings are below [Note: I'll keep several weeks ahead on these readings and by the end of the semester all will be there.]
Week 1, Jan 11. Introductions and discussion, no readings.
Jan 18, no class, happy MLK's birthday!
Week 2, Jan 25. Classics and basic background.
1. Bachrach, Peter and Morton Baratz. 1962. The
Two Faces of Power. American Political Science Review 56: 947-52.
2. Downs, Anthony. 1972. Up
and Down with Ecology: The Issue Attention Cycle. Public Interest
28: 38-50.
3. Cobb, Roger W., Jeannie Keith-Ross, and Marc Howard Ross. 1976. Agenda
Building as a Comparative Political Process. American Political Science
Review 70: 126-38.
4. Walker, Jack L., Jr. 1977. Setting the
Agenda in the U.S. Senate: A Theory of Problem Selection. British Journal
of Political Science 7: 423-45.
5. Baumgartner, Frank R. 2001. Political
Agendas. In Niel J. Smelser and Paul B. Baltes, eds. International Encyclopedia
of Social and Behavioral Sciences: Political Science. New York: Elsevier
Science and Oxford: Pergamon, pp. 288-90.
Week 3, Feb 1. Kingdon, Ambiguity, and Multiple Streams Models
1. Kingdon, John W. 1995. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies.
2d. ed. New York: HarperCollins. (earlier 1984 edition also ok)
2. Cohen, Michael, James G. March, and Johan P. Olsen. 1972. A
Garbage Can Theory of Organizational Choice. Administrative Science Quarterly
17: 1-25.
Week 4, Feb 8. Punctuated Equilibrium
Note special guest Bryan Jones, class to be rescheduled for Thursday afternoon or Friday to accommodate his travel and APRG talk on Friday Feb 12
1. Baumgartner, Frank R., and Bryan D. Jones. 2009 [1993]. Agendas and Instability
in American Politics. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
2. Eldredge, Niles, and Stephen J. Gould. 1985 [1972]. Punctuated
Equilibria: An Alternative to Phyletic Gradualism. In Niles Eldredge, Time
Frames: The Evolution of Punctuated Equilibrium. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, Appendix, pp. 193-223. [Originally published in Thomas J.
M. Schopf, ed., Models in Paleobiology. San Francisco: Freeman, Cooper,
pp. 82-115]
Review articles that you might find useful:
3. True, James L., Bryan D. Jones, and Frank R. Baumgartner. 2006.
Punctuated Equilibrium Theory: Explaining Stability and Change in American Policymaking.
In Paul Sabatier, ed., Theories of the Policy Process 2nd ed. Boulder:
Westview Press. Forthcoming.
4. Robinson, Scott E. 2006. Punctuated
Equilibrium Models in Organizational Decision Making. In Handbook on
Human Decision-Making. Ed. Goktug Morcol. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, pp.
133-149.
Week 5, Feb 15. Developing a Model of Choice
Note: One-page memo due describing your term paper topic in conceptual terms and a general idea of the empirical / theoretical approach.
1. Jones, Bryan D. 2001. Politics and the Architecture of Choice. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
2. Simon, Herbert A. 1985. Human Nature
in Politics: The Dialogue of Psychology with Political Science. American
Political Science Review 79: 293-304.
Week 6, Feb 22. Threshold Models, Increasing Returns, Positive Feedback
1. Granovetter, Mark. 1978. Threshold
Models of Collective Behavior. American Journal of Sociology 83:
1420-43.
2. David, Paul A. 1985. Clio and the Economics
of QWERTY. American Economic Review 75: 332-37.
3. Arthur, W. Brian. 1989. Competing Technologies,
Increasing Returns, and Lock-in by Historical Events. Economic Journal
99 (394): 116-131.
4. Bikhchandani, Sushil, David Hirshleifer, and Ivo Welch. 1992. A
Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change as Informational Cascades.
Journal of Political Economy 100: 992-1026.
5. Lohmann, Susanne. 1994. The Dynamics
of Informational Cascades: The Monday Demonstrations in Leipzig, East Germany,
1989-1991. World Politics 47: 42-101.
6. Pierson, Paul. 2000. Path Dependence,
Increasing Returns, and the Study of Politics. American Political Science
Review 94: 251-67.
Week 7, Mar 1. Power Laws
1. Barabasi, Albert-Laszlo. 2005. Linked. New York: Penguin.
2. Merton, Robert K. 1968. The Matthew
Effect in Science. Science 159: 56-63.
Applications: Read at least one of the following, focusing on the empirical findings:
3. Mandelbrot, Benoit B. 1967. The
Variation of Some Other Speculative Prices. Journal of Business 40,
4 (October): 393-413.
4. Adler, Moshe. 1985. Stardom
and Talent. American Economic Review 75, 1 (March): 208-212.
5. Chung, Kee H., and Raymond A. K. Cox. 1994. A
Stochastic Model of Superstardom: An Application of the Yule Distribution.
Review of Economics and Statistics 76, 4 (November): 771-775.
6. Gabaix. Xavier. 1999. Zipf's Law and
the Growth of Cities. American Economic Review 89, 2 (May): 129-132.
7. Roberts, D. C., and D. L. Turcotte. 1998.
Fracticality and the Self-Organized Criticality of Wars. Fractals
6 (4): 351-357.
8. Farber, Daniel A. 2002.
Earthquakes and Tremors in Statutory Interpretation: An Empirical Study of the
Dynamics of Interpretation. Issues in Legal Scholarship. Berkeley,
CA: Berkeley Electronic Press.
Neat computer program to be familiar with:
9. http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/ (Netlogo), and in particular the application that allows you to model Barabasi's preferential attachment model of web linkages. Do this model yourself one click at a time, then let it run automatically for a few thousand iterations and see what the results look like. Feel free to play with the other simulation tools there as well. (http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/models/PreferentialAttachment) Or, if you are interested in the Roberts and Turcotte article above which refers to the "forest fire" model, try that one here: http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/models/Fire.
Week 8, Mar 15. Attention and the Distributional Approach
1. Jones, Bryan D., and Frank R. Baumgartner. 2005. The Politics of Attention: How Government Prioritizes Problems. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Week 9, Mar 22. Applications.
1. Repetto, Robert, ed. 2006. Punctuated Equilibrium Models and Environmental Policy. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Week 10, Mar 29. Heresthetics: Can People Control Agenda-Setting?
1. Riker, William H. 1986. The Art of Political Manipulation. New Haven:
Yale University Press.
2. Riker, William H. 1984. The Heresthetics
of Constitution-Making: The Presidency in 1787, with Comments on Determinism
and Rational Choice. American Political Science Review 78 (1): 1-16.
Week 11, Apr 5. Venue-Shopping: Can Actors Shop Freely?
1. Pralle, Sarah. 2006. Branching Out and Digging In: Environmental Advocacy
and Agenda Setting. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.
2. Guiraudon, Virginie. 2000. European
Integration and Migration Policy: Vertical Policy-Making as Venue Shopping.
Journal of Common Market Studies 38 (2): 251-71.
Week 12, Apr 12. Comparative Studies I
1. Soroka, Stuart. 2002. Agenda-Setting Dynamics in Canada. Vancouver:
University of British Columbia Press.
2. Green-Pedersen, Christoffer and Peter B. Mortensen. 2009. Who
Sets the Agenda and Who Responds to it in the Danish Parliament? A New Model
of Issue Competition and Agenda-Setting. European Journal of Political
Research forthcoming.
3. Green-Pedersen, Christoffer and Michelle Wolfe. 2010. The
Institutionalization of Attention in the US and Denmark: Multiple vs. Single
Venue Systems and the Case of the Environment. Governance forthcoming.
Week 13, Apr 19. Comparative Studies II
1. Jones, Bryan D., Frank R. Baumgartner, Christian Breunig, Christopher Wlezien,
Stuart Soroka, Martial Foucault, Abel François, Christoffer Green-Pedersen,
Peter John, Chris Koski, Peter B. Mortensen, Frédéric Varone,
and Stefaan Walgrave. 2009. A
General Empirical Law for Public Budgets: A Comparative Analysis. American
Journal of Political Science 53, 4 (October): 855-73.
2. Baumgartner, Frank R., Christian Breunig, Christoffer Green-Pedersen, Bryan
D. Jones, Peter B. Mortensen, Michiel Neytemans, and Stefaan Walgrave. 2009.
Punctuated
Equilibrium in Comparative Perspective. American Journal of Political
Science 53, 3 (July): 602-19.
3. Baumgartner, Frank R., Emiliano Grossman, and Sylvain Brouard. 2009. Agenda-setting
Dynamics in France: Revisiting the "Partisan Hypothesis." French
Politics, 7, 2: 57-95.
4. Baumgartner, Frank R., Martial Foucault, and Abel François. 2009.
Public
Budgeting in the French Fifth Republic: The End of La République des
partis? West European Politics 32, 2: 401-19.
5. John, Peter, and Will Jennings. 2010. Punctuations
and Turning Points in British Politics: The Policy Agenda of the Queen's Speech,
1940-2005. British Journal of Political Science forthcoming.
Week 14, Apr 26 (final class meeting). Social Protest Studies
1. McAdam, Doug, and Yang Su. 2002. The
War at Home: Antiwar Protests and Congressional Voting, 1965 to 1973.
American Sociological Review 67, 5 (October): 696-721.
2. King, BG, Bentele, KG and Soule, SA. 2007. Protest
and Policy Making: Explaining Fluctuation in Congressional Attention to Rights
Issues: 1960-1986. Social Forces 86:137-163.
3. Burstein, Paul, and April Linton. 2002. The
Impact of Political Parties, Interest Groups, and Social Movement Organizations
on Public Policy: Some Recent Evidence and Theoretical Concerns. Social
Forces 82, 2 (December): 381-408.