There  has  been  remarkable  progress  in  understanding  how
democracies  operate during  the  past  half‐century.  In this
seminar, we consider some key highlights of this scholarship.  Key
questions  and  themes  include  the  comparative  and  historical
diversity  of  political  economies;  the  nature  and  measurement
of  mass  opinion;  and linkages  between  voters,  political  parties
and  social  movements,  and  policy outputs.

Our  topical  focus  is  driven,  in  part,  by  the  2007  Social
Research  Practicum  and the  upcoming  collection  of
computer‐assisted  telephone  interviews  with  1,000  adult Americans
in  May/June.  Our  readings,  discussions,  and  the  required
paper  provide the  background  for  understanding  the  research
goals,  methods,  and  theoretical payoff  of  the  project.  For
first‐year  graduate  students  in  Sociology,  the  seminar paper
will  form  the  front‐end  of  the  M.A. thesis.

For  graduate  students  interested  in  political  sociology,  survey
research,  or comparative  politics,  this  seminar  provides  an
introduction  to  these  fields.  In  my lectures  and  in  our
discussions,  we  will  seek  to  balance  a  critical  consideration
of past  theory  and  research  with  a  further  eye  to  practical
matters  of  research  design, and  also  identifying  novel  or
refined  questions  for  a  new  generation  of  scholars. For  those
interested  in  delving  deeper  into  the  material  or  surveying
other  fields in political  sociology,  I  can  provide  additional
feedback/suggestions  in  the  course  of the  semester.