Political parties and interest groups, to many people, are like
warts on the body politic.  The founders generally held this
unappealing view as well.  The long-standing criticism is that these
groups invent conflicts and cause gridlock that can paralyze
government.

But if these criticisms are legitimate, then why is it that the
writers of the Constitution in fact created political parties within
a decade of founding the republic, and why do most Americans still
consider themselves to be either Democrats or Republicans?  Even
though split-ticket voting has been common in elections for decades,
why is it that the national party organizations are better-funded
and more active in campaigns than they have been for most of our
history?  And when nations such as Russia, Poland, and Romania have
thrown off their previous rulers and taken steps toward becoming
democracies, why have these nations so quickly produced political
parties of their own?

Additionally, we'll explore how people become partisans.  Do
people's issue preferences cause them to belong to a party or does
their party identification affect their issue preferences?   Above
all, we'll consider the question do parties and interest groups
matter?

Together, then, our task to understand what parties and interest
groups are capable of doing as intermediaries between citizens and
the government, and what they actually do in real life.  We'll
examine theories of party politics, party identification, third
parties, political action committees, campaign finance, and the
relationships between parties and interest groups.

There will be a substantial amount of reading in this course.  I
very much hope the class will have a "seminar feel" with lots of
discussion centered on your critical consideration of the reading.
We'll also watch the occasional documentary and have some fun with
examples from The West Wing and The Daily Show.  There will also be
two exams consisting of a combination of multiple choice and essay
questions, two short writing assignments, and one lenghtier writing
assignment.