Comparative Legislative Politics

Tuesday 14:00-17:00

140-102

Prof. JeongHun Han

gurus72@gmail.com

<Course Description>

This course studies how individual legislators and legislative parties make their decisions. Specifically, we compare legislative decision-making processes and outcomes in various institutional settings including U.S. Congress, the European Parliament, the British House of Commons and the Korean National Assembly. This field of legislative politics is very important for democratic development in terms that various legislative activities are related to translate public preferences into public policy.

The main themes we address in this course include the followings: legislators' behavioral motivation and their electoral concern; legislative parties' discipline and coalition behavior; features of internal organization of various legislatures; the relationships between the executive and the legislature; and strategic and structural factors related to the institutional changes in legislatures.

<Course Requirement>

This course will be based on students' active participation on extensive discussion and all students have to lead more than one class discussion. The student leader for each class needs to prepare an analytic essay about 4 or 5 pages, which is based on the format below and frames the class discussion. The essay has to be posted on the class website by 09:00 the day before the class. All other students should read the essay and post at least one discussion questions by 20:00 the day before the class. One of the students who is not leading the day's discussion will become the counterpart to the discussion leader and make comments on the essay. The class discussion will be based on these two students' analysis. There is no class exam, and only a relatively short final paper around 10 pages is required. The final paper should be a more extensive review or suggestions for a future research of the topic we discussed in class.

The essay should address the following questions.

1. What are the research questions that the author addresses and how much interesting or useful questions they are.

2. What are the hypotheses, Are they falsifiable?

3. A review of the data and methodology

4. Findings of the work. Are they interesting, surprising, or counterintuitive?

5. Is the work applicable to other cases or countries?

<Grade>

1. General participation 30%

2. Essays and class leadership 30%

3. Critical outlines 10%

4. Final paper 30%

<Books and other Reading>

1. Mayhew, David. 1974. Congress: The Electoral Connection.

2. Cox and McCunnins. 1993. Legislative Leviathan.

<Schedule>

The detailed schedule below is not definitely determined yet. The topics and reading lists might change.

1. Mar. 08: Introduction

2. Mar. 15: Legislators' Interests: Reelection Careers, and other Goals.

1) Mayhew, David. 1974. Ch 1.

2) Aldrich and Rohde. 2002. The Logic of Conditional Party Government: Revising the Electoral Connection. In Dodd and Oppenheimer. Congress Reconsidered.

3) Bllock, C. 1972. House Careerists: Changing Patterns of Longevity and Attrition. APSR.

4) Groseclose, T., and K. Krehbiel. 1994. Golden Parachutes, Rubber Checks and Strategic Retirements from the 102nd House. AJPS.

3. Mar. 22: Constituency Service

1) Fenno, R. 1978. Home Style: House Members in their Districts. Chs 1,2,7

4. Mar. 29: Agenda Power and Legislative Rules

1) Cox. 2000. On the Effects of Legislative Rules. LSQ 25

5. April 05: Party Unity and the Concept of Legislative Parties

1) Cox and McCubbins. 1993. Legislative Leviathan. Ch 4 and Ch 5

2) Aldrich. Why Parties.

3) Krehbiel, Keith. 1993. Where's the Party. BJPS 23

4) Weisberg, H. 1979. Evaluating Theories of Congressional Roll-Call Behavior. AJPS

5) MacKeun, M. R. Ericson, and J. Stimson. 1989. Macropartisanship. APSR.

6. April 12: Party Voting: Comparative Theory and Cases

1) Hix. 2004. Electoral Institutions and Legislative Behavior: Explaining Voting Defection in the European Parliament. World Politics

2) Bowler, Farrell and Katz. Party Discipline and Parliamentary Government. chs 1-2.

8. April 26:  Voting Patterns in the United States

1) Kingdon, J. Congressmens' Voting Decisions chs.1-3

2) Shepsle, K. and B. Weingast. 1981. Structure-Induced Equilibrium and Legislative Choice. Public Choice.

3) Brandice Canes-Wrone, David W. Brady, and John F. Cogan. 2002. Out of Step, Out of Office: Electoral Accountability and House Members' Voting. APSR. 96(1)

9. May 03: Party Discipline in the European Parliamentary Systems

1) Bowler, Farrell, and Katz. 1999. chs 1, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10

7. April 19: Party Discipline in Korean National Assembly

1) Several selected articles

10. May 10: Evolution of Institutions

1) Aldrich. Why parties chs 1-2

2) Polsby, N. 1968. The Institutionalization of the U.S. House Representatives. APSR

3) Shugart, Matthew Soberg. 1998. The Inverse Relationship between party strength and executive strength: A theory of politicians' constitutional choices. BJPS.

11. May 17: Evolution of the European Parliament

1) Kreppel, Armie. 2002. The European Parliament and Supranational Party System. chs 1,2,4.

12. May 24: Evolution of the British Legislature

1) Cox, Gary W. 1987. The Efficient Secret: The Cabinet and the Development of Political Parties in Victorian England.

13. May 31: Comparative Perspectives on Electing Legislators.

1) Loewenberg, Squire, and Kiewiet. 2002. Part I, II, III.

14. June 07: Party Structures in Legislatures and Legislative Rules and Procedures.

1) Loewenberg, Squire, and Kiewiet. 2002. Part IV, V.

15. June 14: Comparisons of Institutional Change and Assessments of Comparative Legislative Research.

1) Loewenberg, Squire, and Kiewiet. 2002. Part VI, VII