Political Science 260B: Political Participation
Spring 2001
Professor Carole Uhlaner; cuhlaner@uci.edu
SSPA 3125; 824-7329

This seminar deals with various approaches to understanding the participation of the mass public in politics, in both electoral (e.g. voting, campaigning) and non-electoral (e.g. contacting, group action, protest) activities. We consider various theoretical approaches for explaining differences in both the nature and the extent of the participation of mass publics in politics across countries and across different subsets of citizens. We also examine the results of empirical studies (mainly European and U.S., but with some substantial attention to other parts of the world). A comparative approach is critical for any understanding of political participation; this course is set within the joint contexts of comparative politics and political behavior. This quarter I have organized the course around several of the major studies of political participation so that seminar participants can get a clearer sense of the scholarly debates; as a consequence, however, we will visit some of the theoretical issues and empirical results several times.

Most of the required and recommended readings have been placed on reserve at the Main Library. I have requested that the articles and excerpts be entered into Electronic Reserves. In principal, you should be able to read and download them through Antpac, in addition to the usual hardcopy way at the library. The numbers in parentheses refer to the order of listing in the Antpac course reserve listing (i.e. the item number, not the folder number) if you access antpac via telnet.

Blais, André, To Vote or Not to Vote: The Merits and Limits of Rational Choice Theory, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000. (35)

Dietz, Henry, Urban Poverty, Political Participation, and the State: Lima 1970-1990, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998. (37)

Rosenstone, Steven J. and John Mark Hansen, Mobilization, Participation, and Democracy in America, New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1993. (14)

Shi, Tianjian, Political Participation in Beijing, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997. (23, 24)

Verba, Sidney, Norman H. Nie and Jae-On Kim, Participation and Political Equality: A Seven Nation Comparison, New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1978; reprint ed., Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1987. (Either the original or reprint edition are okay.) (19)

Verba, Sidney, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Henry E. Brady, Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1995. (38)

Seminar participants will be evaluated in part upon the quality and extent of their oral participation in the seminar. Students are expected to read the material before each class session and come prepared with several comments or questions.

Seminar members will also be required to prepare a computer exercise. The data set used for the Verba, Schlozman, and Brady study is available in the computer lab; students will be expected to explore the data (statistically) beyond the results reported in the text. The write-up should summarize your results and address how they differ from or complement those presented in the texts. Be sure to include the relevant output (either raw or converted into tables) with your write-up. The data will be available as an SPSS file. Those students who have an alternate data set they wish to examine instead may do so with the instructor’s permission. DUE: May 17.

The third requirement is preparation of a review (approximately 6 to 8 pages) of 2 or 3 published articles or presented papers on some aspect of political participation. Articles listed as required on the syllabus may not be used for this assignment. "Recommended" or "suggested" articles may be used. The review should include a critique of the articles’ substance and methodology and place them within the context of the course materials. DUE: May 24.

The fourth requirement is a paper that expands EITHER the computer exercise or the literature review. In the first case, the exercise will be expanded into a research paper: the student will pose a hypothesis and analyze data to test it. The paper will discuss the hypothesis, the test, and the conclusions. In the second case, the review will be expanded into a research design; given the literature, how would one go about doing further research on the topic? What information would need to be gathered, how would it be analyzed, what would constitute significant findings? (For either paper, a student may, if he or she prefers, start over instead of building on the short assignment.) DUE: June 11.

Note: APSR stands for American Political Science Review

AJPS stands for American Journal of Political Science

April 5 What is Participation? How and why study it? Modes of Participation.
(1) Comparative Epistemology.

Verba, Schlozman, and Brady, Chapter 1, 2, 3 Appendices A, C
Verba, Nie, and Kim, Preface, Chapter 1, 2, 3, Appendices A, B, C
Rosenstone and Hansen, Chapter 1
Shi, pages 21-30, chapter 4

April 12 Baseline Model of Participation; Effects of Institutional Forces;
(2) Demographics and Activity

Verba, Nie, and Kim, Chapters 4 through 12
Verba, Schlozman, and Brady, Chapters 6, 7, 8
Nie, Norman H., G. Bingham Powell, and Kenneth Prewitt, "Social Structure and Political Participation," APSR 63 (June and Sept. 1969):361-78; 808-831 (34)

April 19 Rational Actor Models; Why Mobilization is Necessary (3)

Blais, To Vote or Not to Vote
Verba, Schlozman, and Brady, Chapter 4
Rosenstone and Hansen, Chapter 2, pages 10-20
Uhlaner, Carole J., "Relational Goods and Participation," Public Choice 62 (1989):253-285 (30: incorrectly listed on reserve list as "rational goods")
Uhlaner, Carole J., "Rational Turnout: The Neglected Role of Groups," AJPS 33 (May 1989):390-422 (31)
Olson, Mancur, The Logic of Collective Action, Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1965 and 1971, pp. 53-65 (13)

April 26 Civic Voluntarism Model (4)

Verba, Schlozman, and Brady, Chapters 5 - 17, Appendices C, D, E, F
Verba, Nie, and Kim, Chapters 13, 14
Brady, Henry E., Sidney Verba, and Kay Lehman Schlozman, "Beyond SES: A Resource Model of Political Participation," APSR 89 (June 1995):271- 294. (3)
Brady, Henry E., Kay L. Schlozman, and Sidney Verba, "Prospecting for Participants: Rational Expectations and the Recruitment of Political Activists," APSR 93 (March 1999):153-168.

May 3 Mobilization As the Central Force (5)

Rosenstone and Hansen
Gerber, Alan S. and Donald P. Green, "The Effects of Cancassing, Telephone Calls, and Direct Mail on Voter Turnout: A Field Experiment," APSR 94 (Sept. 2000): 653-663.
Huckfeldt, Robert, and John Sprague. "Political Parties and Electoral Mobilization: Political Structure, Social Structure, and the Party Canvas" APSR 86 (March 1992):70-86 (26)

The Impact of Institutions and Legal Context across Time and Across Nations

Powell, G. Bingham, "American Voter Turnout in Comparative Perspective," APSR 80 (March 1986):17-37 (1)
Jackman, Robert W., "Political Institutions and Voter Turnout in the Industrial Democracies" APSR 81 (June 1987):405-423 (22)
Wattenberg, Martin P., "Turnout Decline in the U.S. and Other Advanced Industrial Democracies," Research Monograph, Center for the Study of Democracy, UCI, Sept. 1998. (available at www.democ.uci.edu/democ)
Gray, Mark and Miki Caul, "Declining Voter Turnout in Advanced Industrial Democracies, 1950 to 1997: The Effects of Declining Group Mobilization," Comparative Political Studies 33 (Nov. 2000):1091-1122

May 10 Race, Ethnicity, Gender (6)

Bobo, L. and Frank Gilliam, "Race, Sociopolitical Participation and Black Empowerment," AJPS 84 (June 1990):377-393 (28)
Uhlaner, Bruce Cain, and Rod Kiewiet, "Political Participation of Ethnic Minorities," Political Behavior 11 (Sept. 1989):195-231 (25)
Tate, Katherine, "Black Political Participation in the 1984 and 1988 Presidential Elections," APSR 85 (Dec. 1991):1159-1176 (4)
Uhlaner, "Political Action and Preferences of African-Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans: Turning Numbers into Influence," in Immigration and Race: New Challenges for American Democracy, ed. Gerald David Jaynes, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000 (11: listed by book title)
Shaw, Daron, Rudolfo de la Garza, Jongho Lee, "Examining Latino Turnout in 1996: A Three State, Validated Survey Approach," AJPS 44 (April 2000):332-340. (8)
Cho, Wendy K. Tam, "Naturalization, Socialization, Participation: Immigrants and (Non-)Voting, Journal of Politics 61 (Nov. 1999):1140-1155.
Hritzuk, Natasha and David K. PArk, "The Questions of Latino Participation: From an SES to a Social Structural Explanation," Social Science Quarterly 81 (March 2000):151-166.
Leighley, Jan E. and Arnold Vedlitz, "Race, Ethnicity, and Political Participation: Competing Models and Contrasting Explanations," Journal of Politics 61 (Nov. 1999):1092-1114.

Putnam, Robert D., "Tuning In, Tuning Out: The Strange Disappearance of Social Capital in America," PS: Political Science and Politics (Dec. 1995):664-683 (36)
Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000, chapters 3 and 4.
Jan W. van Deth, ed., Private Groups and Public Life: Social Participation, Voluntary Associations and Political Involvement in Representative Democracies, New York: Routledge, 1997. (27: whole book) Chapters 1 (van Deth), 2 (Moyser and Parry), 9 (Joye and Laurent), 11 (Wessels), and 12 (Dekker, Koopmans and van den Broek)
Rahn, Wendy, John Brehm, and Neil Carlson, "National Elections as Institutions for Generating Social Capital," in Civic Engagement in American Democracy, eds. Theda Skocpol and Morris Fiorina, Washington: Brookings Institution Press and New York: Russell Sage, 1999. (16)

May 24 Protest; The Political Action Study (8)

Barnes, Samuel and Max Kaase, et al., Political Action: Mass Participation In Five Western Democracies, Beverly Hills: Sage, 1979, Chapters 1 - 6 (21)
Jennings, M. Kent and Jan W. van Deth,et. al., Continuities in Political Action, de Gruyter Studies on North America, vol. 5, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1990, Chapters 1 - 4, *10, 11, appendices (6)
Tarrow, Sidney, "Social Movements in Contentious Politics: A Review Article," APSR 90 (Dec. 1996):874 - 883 (33)
Dalton, Russell, Citizen Politics: Public Opinion and Political Parties in Advanced Industrial Democracies, Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House, 1996, Chapter 4 (5)

May 31 Participation in an Authoritarian Regime: China. Which Models Apply? (9)

Shi, Tianjian, "Voting and Nonvoting in China: Voting Behavior in Plebiscitary and Limited-Choice Elections," Journal of Politics 61 (Nov. 1999):1115-1139.
Chen, Jie, "Subjective Motivations for Mass Political Participation in Urban China," Social Science Quarterly 81 (June 2000):645-662.

June 7 Participation by the Urban Poor in a Less-Developed Nation: Which Models Apply? (10)
Dietz, whole book

Summary and Conclusions.

Leighley, Jan E., "Attitudes, Opportunities and Incentives: A Field Essay on Political Participation," Political Research Quarterly 48 (March 1995):181-209.(2)
Uhlaner, Carole Jean. "Participation, political," in International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, ed. Neil J. Smelser and Paul B. Bates, Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, forthcoming.

Copyright 2001, Professor Carole Uhlaner. The lectures given in this course are protected by copyright. Duplicating course material for any commercial purpose without the written permission of the lecturer is prohibited. This includes giving or selling material to commercial firms for further distribution.