American Political Development
Harvard/MIT | GOV2367/17.270 | Spring 2024 | Th 3:45–5:45
Last updated: March 15, 2024
Overview
This is a graduate course on the political development of the United States. It focuses on the political science subfield of American Political Development (APD), but it includes scholarship from other disciplines, especially history. The primary goal of this course is to prepare graduate students to teach APD courses and publish APD research. Undergraduates may enroll only with permission of the instructors.
Temporally, the course ranges from the colonial period through the 20th century. It covers work from various theoretical perspectives, with an emphasis on historical, sociological, and rational-choice institutionalism, as well as multiple methodological approaches. Recurring themes include race, gender, class, sectionalism, ideology, democracy, imperialism, political economy, and state capacity.
Although not officially cross-listed, this is a joint Harvard–MIT course. We will be following the Harvard term schedule, which begins two weeks earlier than MIT’s and has a different spring break. The first session (and, depending on relative enrollments, possibly all sessions) will be held at Harvard in Knafel 109. Any MIT sessions will be held in E53-485. We recognize that this schedule mismatch may create difficulties for some students. If this is the case for you, please let us know and we will try to work out a solution.
Contact
Instructor | Office | Office hours | |
---|---|---|---|
Dan Carpenter | dcarpenter@gov.harvard.edu | Knafel 154 | Tu 2:00–4:00 |
Devin Caughey | caughey@mit.edu | E53-463 | Th 11:00–12:00 |
Materials
All materials needed for the course (mainly PDFs of the readings) will be posted on the course websites:
Assignments
There are two assignment “tracks,” the first focused on mastering and synthesizing the material and the second geared towards producing original research:
- Track 1: Complete three essay-based take-home midterms (20% each) and a take-home final exam (30%).
- Track 2: Complete one midterm (20%) and a research paper (70%).
In addition, over the course of the term every student will be assigned one text to “defend” before the class (5%). The remaining 5% of your grade will depend on the quality of your participation in class discussions.
Schedule
Below is a detailed schedule for the term. Please try to read the texts in the order in which they are listed on the syllabus.
1. Thursday, January 25: Theoretical and Colonial Foundations
Topics
- culture
- rational-choice institutionalism
- historical institutionalism
- APD as a distinctive approach
- Slavery and democracy
- Legacies of colonial institutions
Required readings
- Swidler (1986)
- North (1991)
- Thelen (1999)
- Orren and Skowronek (2002)
- Morgan (1972)
- Einhorn (2006)
- Gailmard (2017)
Total: 165 pages
Additional resources
2. Thursday, February 1: The Constitution and the American Political Tradition
Topics
- Liberalism
- Republicanism
- Ascriptive hierarchy
- Cultural hegemony vs. multiplicity
- The role of ideology and ideas
- The Constitution and the Age of Federalism
Required readings
- Hartz (1955), 3–32 (chap. 1)
- Wood ([1969] 1998), 3–90 (chap. 1–2), 127–161 (chap. 4), and 430–564 (chap. 11–13)
- Smith (1997), 1–164 (Introduction and chap. 1–6)
Total: 452 pages
Additional resources
3. Thursday, February 8: Antebellum Democracy
Topics
- The emergence of partisan opposition
- Parties as endogenous institutions
- Parties as ideological coalitions
- The White Man’s Republic
- Non-electoral democratization
Required readings
- Freeman (1999)
- Aldrich (2011), 67–129 (chap. 3–4)
- Gerring (1997)
- Bateman (2018), 1–200 (chap. 1–4)
- D. Carpenter (2021), 1–52 (Introduction and chap. 1–2)
Total: 416 pages
Additional resources
4. Thursday, February 15: The Antebellum State
Topics
- Democracy and bureaucracy
- The “state of courts and parties”
- Urban machines
- The myth of the weak 19th-century state
- Coevolution of state and society
Required readings
- Shefter ([1978] 1994)
- Skowronek (1982), 3–35 (chap. 1–2)
- Bridges (1988)
- John (1997)
- Novak (2008)
- Balogh (2009), 1–150 (chap. 1–4)
- Obert (2018)
Total: 316 pages
Additional resources
5. Thursday, February 22: Territorial Expansion
Due this week: Midterm #1
Topics
- Native Americans and the Founding
- Facing east from Indian country
- Settler colonialism/republicanism
- The military in the early Republic
- Racism, state capacity, and territorial expansion
Required readings
- Blackhawk (2023), 149–249 (chap. 5–7)
- Katzneson (2002)
- Balogh (2009), 151–218 (chap. 5)
- Frymer (2017), 1–219 (chap. 1–5)
- D. Carpenter (2021), 87–116 (chap. 4)
Total: 447 pages
Additional resources
6. Thursday, February 29: Slavery, Secession, and Civil War
Topics
- Ideational conflict within the liberal tradition
- The political economy of sectional conflict
- The institutional underpinnings of antebellum political stability
- State-building in the Union and Confederacy
Required readings
- Greenstone (1986)
- R. F. Bensel (1990), 1–93 (chap. 1–2); 94–116, 181–198, and 233–278 (parts of chap. 3); and 238–302 (chap. 4).
- Weingast (1998)
Total: 340 pages
Additional resources
7. Thursday, March 7: Reconstruction and Reaction
Topics
- The emergence of racial segregation after emancipation
- The political economy of Reconstruction
- The challenges of party-building and jurisprudence-building
- Institutional and cultural legacies of Reconstruction and “Redemption”
- Causal inference and APD
Required readings
- Woodward ([1955] 2002), 3–110 (Introduction and chap. 1–3)
- R. F. Bensel (1990), 366–415 (chap. 6)
- Valelly (2004), 1–148 (chap. 1–6)
- Acharya, Blackwell, and Sen (2016)
- Bateman and Schickler (2023)
- Schwarz (2023)
Total: 357 pages
Additional resources
Thursday, March 14: NO CLASS (Harvard Spring Break)
9. Thursday, March 28: Progressive Statebuilding
Topics
- The emergence of an administrative state
- The electoral logic of economic reform
- Bureaucratic autonomy
- Scientific expertise and state capacity
- Seeing like a state
- Policing morality
Required readings
- Skowronek (1982), 39–84 (intro. to Part II and chap. 3) and 165–211 (intro. to Part III and chap. 6)
- Sanders (1999), 173–177 (intro. to Part II)
- James (2000), 1–122 (chap. 1–2)
- D. P. Carpenter (2001), 1–143 (Introduction and chap. 1–4) and 353–367 (conclusion)
- Canaday (2009), 1–54 (Introduction and chap. 1)
Total: 432 pages
Additional resources
10. Thursday, April 4: The Welfare State
Topics
- The United States’ precocious social welfare regime
- Policy feedback and path dependence
- Capitalists’ role in building the welfare state
- Bifurcated development of pensions and health care
- The development of the welfare state from citizens’ point of view
Required readings
- Skocpol ([1992] 1995), 1–66 (Introduction and intro. to Part I), 102–159 (chap. 2 and intro. to Part II), 248–310 (chap. 5), 311–320 (intro. to Part III), 424–479 (chap. 8), and 525–541 (Conclusion)
- Swenson (1997)
- Hacker (2002), 1–66 (Part I), 71–84 (intro. to Part II) and 179–190 (intro. to Part III)
- Mettler and Milstein (2007)
Total: 434 pages
Additional resources
- Jacobs (2010)
11. Thursday, April 11: Southern Politics in State and Nation
Topics
- Authoritarian enclaves
- Disenfranchisement
- Southern influence on national politics
- Balancing aid and autonomy
- Diversity, competition, and representation in the one-party system
Required readings
- Mickey (2015), 3–63 (chap. 1–2)
- Keele, Cubbinson, and White (2021)
- Bateman, Katznelson, and Lapinski (2018), 3–72 (chap. 1–2), 102–157 (chap. 4), 219–263 (chap. 6), and 323–403 (chap. 8–9)
- Caughey (2018), 1–66 (chap. 1–3) and 106–171 (chap. 5–6)
Total: 452 pages
Additional resources
12. Thursday, April 18: Racial Realignment and the Second Reconstruction
Due this week: Midterm #3
Topics
- The long civil rights movement
- Reform as regime maintenance
- Partisan realignment on civil rights
- Civil rights and the submerged state
- Civil rights and the carceral state
Required readings
- Johnson (2010), 1–65 (Introduction and chap. 1–2) and 190–250 (chap. 8–9)
- Mickey (2015), 95–130 (chap. 4) and 259–280 (chap. 9)
- Schickler (2016), 1–26 (chap. 1), 45–97 (chap. 3–4), 150–175 (chap. 7), and 211–236 (chap. 9)
- V. M. Weaver (2007)
- Thurston (2015)
Total: 369 pages
Additional resources
13. Thursday, April 25: The New Deal Constitutional Revolution and its Aftermath
Topics
- Presidents, courts, and constitutional interpretation
- Collaboration between courts and other political actors
- The Lochner Era
- Gendered origins of the New Deal constitutional revolution
- The Warren Court
- The conservative legal movement
Required readings
- Whittington (2007), 1–81 (chap. 1–2)
- Gillman (1993), 1–18 (Introduction)
- Novkov (2001), 1–36 (chap. 1) and 183–240 (chap. 5)
- Kalman (2005)
- Tushnet (2005)
- Teles (2007)
- TerBeek (2021)
Total: 286 pages
Additional resources
14. Thursday, May 2: Cities, States, and Federalism
Topics
- Tricornered development of cities, states, and the federal government
- Rights as tools of state power
- Municipal reform
- White flight and racial backlash
- Rise of Black-run cities
- Legacies of Progressive reform
- Urban machines and national liberalism
Required readings
Total: 204 pages
Additional resources
- Bridges (1997a)
15. Thursday, May 9: Immigration and Empire
Topics
- Dynamics of immigration politics and policy
- The public–private character of US imperialism
Required readings
- Tichenor (2002), 1–45 (chap. 1–2), 87–113 (chap. 4), and 176–218 (chap. 7)
- Ngai (2004), 1–90 (Introduction and chap. 1–2)
- Moore (2011)
- Go (2011), 1–27 (Introduction) and 67–132 (chap. 2–3)
Total: 327 pages