Syllabus

American National Government
(790:215)

 
 
 

Instructor:       Dr. Richard A. Harris

Office:             401 Cooper St./ Room 107

Phone:             225-6082/ Ex. 24

Office Hrs:      M-W-F 10:00 AM- 11:00 AM

E Mail:         raharris@camden.rutgers.edu

        This course is an introduction to American politics at the national level. As the title indicates, the workings of the government will be the primary focus. Nevertheless, we will explore more than the mere structure of government. While knowledge of how the legislature, the executive, and the courts operate is essential, our real concerns are how these institutions connect with the people, what kinds of policies they generate, and how just they are. In the words of Harold Lasswell, we will be interested in the most fundamental political questions of who wins, who loses, and why.

        Our approach will be to examine government and politics from a historical/developmental perspective. As a practical matter this means tracing the evolution of political institutions and arrangements from the founding to the present. We will consider the changes that have occurred, their causes, and their consequences. How, for example, have the development of television coverage, the rise of political action committees (PACs), and reforms of presidential elections affected our lives? In addition to such questions of the institutional roles and relations, we will look at the affects of political development on core values such as liberty, democracy, individuals and, and civic duty.

        The course is organized around our assessment of political development. We begin with a consideration of government and politics as originally conceived by the founders. This portion of the course of focuses on the writing and ratification of the Constitution, including the philosophical foundations been informed of the founders of deliberations and origins.

        The next section of the course examines each of the three branches of government from their inception to the present. Special attention will be paid in this section of the bureaucracy with some argue constitutes a fourth branch of government that has profoundly altered each of the others.

        The third section of the course it deals with "nongovernmental" institutions, those not formally defined in the Constitution, but which nonetheless play key roles in the political life of the nation. These include political parties, interest groups, and the media. In this part of the course, we will examine not only these institutions in their own right, but also how they relate to the formal governmental institutions.

        Finally, we turn our attention to the policy process and consider how these institutions interact with the Constitutions and our core values to generate the laws, regulations, and court decisions that allocate resources and define our society. We will pay special attention to two areas of domestic affairs, economic policy and civil rights policy.