THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
American Politics
The American politics qualifying examination is an eight hour, one day, open note test. Students are asked to write no more than 30 pages, double-spaced and typically write about 25 pages on average. Students answer questions from three sections and, within each section, they typically will be able to choose among two or three possible questions.
Traditionally, the sections are divided along the following topic lines:
- Public opinion/electoral behavior/political participation/rational choice theories;
- Congress/presidency/bureaucracy/courts;
- Urban politics/social movements/interest groups/race, ethnicity, and gender politics/American political development.
The American politics faculty has devised a set list of 100 classic readings from books and articles in the field. This list is included below. These readings are the very minimal needed for preparing for the exam. In studying for the exam, students are also expected to be familiar with current research trends as evident in new books and in articles from the top journals (American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics) from the past 10 years. We highly recommend that students use the three volumes of Political Science: the State of the Discipline Series from the American Political Science Association. We also recommend that students interested in taking the exam take the survey course in American politics and consult with each member of the American politics faculty.
Finally, and most importantly, the exam is designed to force students to think beyond the debates in the subfield and apply the arguments they have learned to substantive issues within American politics. Students will be expected to answer the particular question posed before them. Examinations that give stock answers to general concerns in the field rather than addressing the particular issues posed in the questions will not be passed.
Brehm, John, and Scott Gates. 1997. Working, Shirking, and Sabotage: Bureaucratic Response to a Democratic Public. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Carpenter, Daniel P. 2001. The Forging of Bureaucratic Autonomy: Reputations, Networks, and Policy Innovation in Executive Agencies, 1862-1928. Princeton University Press.
Gailmard, Sean, and John W. Patty. 2013. Learning while Governing: Expertise and
Accountability in the Executive Branch. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Gordon, Sanford C. 2011. “Politicizing Agency Spending Authority: Lessons from a Bush-era
Scandal.” American Political Science Review 105: 717-734.
Huber, John D., and Charles R. Shipan. 2002. Deliberate Discretion: The Institutional
Foundations of Bureaucratic Autonomy. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Lewis, David.2008. The Politics of Presidential Appointments. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Lipsky, Michael. 1980. Street Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services. New York: Russell Sage.
McCubbis, Mathew D., and Thomas Schwartz. 1984. “Congressional Oversight Overlooked: Police Patrols versus Fire Alarms.” American Journal of Political Science 28: 165-179.
Moe, Terry. 1989. “The Politics of Bureaucratic Structure.” In John E. Chubb and Paul E.
Peterson, eds., Can the Government Govern?, pages 267-329.
Potter, Rachel. 2019. Bending the Rules: Procedural Politicking in the Bureaucracy. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Skowronek, Stephen. 1983. Building a New American State: The Expansion of National
Administrative Capacities, 1877-1920. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Bickel, Alexander. 1963. The Least Dangerous Branch: The Supreme Court at the Bar of
Politics. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Cameron, Charles, and Jonathan P. Kastellec. 2016. “Are Supreme Court Nominations a Movethe-Median Game?” American Political Science Review 110(4): 778-797.
Clark, Tom S. 2010. The Limits of Judicial Independence. New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Dahl, Robert. 1957. “Decision-Making in a Democracy: The Supreme Court as a National
Policy-Maker.” Journal of Public Law 6: 279-295.
Epp, Charles R. 1998. The Rights Revolution: Lawyers, Activists, and Supreme Courts in
Comparative Perspective. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Graber, Mark. 1993. “The Nonmajoritarian Difficulty: Legislative Deference to the Judiciary.”
Studies in American Political Development 7(1): 35-73.
Harris, Allison and Maya Sen. 2019. “Bias and Judging.” Annual Review of Political Science 22: 241-59.
Huber, Gregory, and Sanford C. Gordon. 2004. “Accountability and Coercion: Is Justice Blind When it Runs for Office?” American Journal of Political Science 48(2): 247-263.
Kagan, Robert. 2001. Adversarial Legalism: The American Way of Law. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.
Lauderdale, Benjamin, and Tom Clark. 2012. “The Supreme Court’s Many Median Justices.”
American Political Science Review 106(4): 847-866
Martin, Andrew and Kevin Quinn. 2002. “Dynamic Ideal Point Estimation via Markov Chain
Monte Carlo for the U.S. Supreme Court, 1953–1999.” Political Analysis 10(2): 134-153.
Rosenberg, Gerald. 2008. The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change? Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Segal, Jeffrey, and Harold Spaeth. 2002. The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model Revisited. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Whittington, Keith. 2005. “Interpose Your Friendly Hand: Political Supports for the Exercise of Judicial Review by the United States Supreme Court.” American Political Science
Review 99: 583-596.
Ansolabehere, Stephen, James M. Snyder, Jr., and Charles Stewart III. 2001. “The Effects of
Party and Preferences on Congressional Roll Call Voting.” Legislative Studies Quarterly
26(4): 533-572.
Bloch Rubin, Ruth. 2017. Building the Bloc: Intraparty Organization in the U.S. Congress. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Cox, Gary W., and Mathew D. McCubbins. 2005. Setting the Agenda: Responsible Party
Government in the U.S. House of Representatives. New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Curry, James. 2015. Legislating in the Dark: Information and Power in the U.S. House of
Representatives. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Curry, James, and Frances Lee. 2020. The Limits of Party: Congress and Lawmaking in a
Polarized Era. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Fenno, Richard F. 1977. “House Members in Their Constituencies: An Exploration.” American
Political Science Review 71: 883-917.
Hall, Richard, and Alan V. Deardorff. 2006. “Lobbying as Legislative Subsidy.” American
Political Science Review 100: 69-84.
Krehbiel, Keith. 1993. “Where’s the Party?” British Journal of Political Science 23(3): 235-266.
Krehbiel, Keith. 1998. Pivotal Politics: A Theory of U.S. Lawmaking. University of Chicago
Press.
Lee, Frances. 2009. Beyond Ideology: Politics, Principles, and Partisanship in the U.S. Senate. University of Chicago Press.
Lee, Frances. 2016. Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Mayhew, David. 1974. Congress: The Electoral Connection. New Haven: Yale University Press.
McCubbins, Mathew D., and Thomas Schwartz. 1984. “Congressional Oversight Overlooked.” American Journal of Political Science 28(1): 165-179.
Shepsle, Kenneth, and Barry Weingast. 1987. “The Institutional Foundations of Committee
Power.” American Political Science Review 81: 85-104.
Berry, Christopher, Barry Burden, and William Howell. 2010. “The President and the Distribution of Federal Spending.” American Political Science Review 104(4):783-799.
Cameron, Charles. 2000. Veto Bargaining: Presidents and the Politics of Negative Power. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Canes-Wrone, Brandice. 2005. Who Leads Whom? Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Canes-Wrone, Brandice, William G. Howell, and David E. Lewis. 2008. “Toward a Broader Understanding of Presidential Power: A Reevaluation of the Two Presidencies Thesis.” Journal of Politics 70(1): 1-16.
Groseclose, Tim, and Nolan McCarty. 2001. “The Politics of Blame: Bargaining before an Audience.” American Journal of Political Science 45(1): 100-119.
Howell, William G. 2003. Power without Persuasion: The Politics of Direct Presidential Action. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Howell, William, Saul Jackman, and Jon Rogowski. 2013. The Wartime President: Presidential Power and the Nationalizing Politics of Threat. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kriner, Douglas L., and Andrew Reeves. 2015. “Presidential Particularism and Divide-the-Dollar Politics.” American Political Science Review 109(1): 155-171.
Moe, Terry M. 1985. “The Politicized Presidency.” In The New Directions in American Politics, ed. John E. Chubb and Paul E. Peterson. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
Neustadt, Richard. 1960. Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents. New York: Free Press.
Reeves, Andrew, and Jon C. Rogowski. 2022. No Blank Check: The Origins and Consequences of Public Antipathy toward Presidential Power. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wildavsky, Aaron. 1966. “The Two Presidencies.” Trans-action 4: 7-14.
Campbell, Andrea. 2003. How Policies Make Citizens: Senior Political Activism and the American Welfare State. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Frymer, Paul. 2017. Building an American Empire: The Era of Territorial and Political Expansion. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Katznelson, Ira. 2006. “When is Affirmative Action Fair? On Grievous Harms and Public Remedies.” Social Research 541-568.
Lieberman, Robert C. 1995. “Race, Institutions, and the Administration of Social Policy.” Social Science History 19(4): 511-542.
Macías-Rojas, Patrisia. 2016. From Deportation to Prison: The Politics of Immigration Enforcement in Post-Civil Rights America. NYU Press.
Mickey, Robert. 2016. Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America’s Deep South, 1944-1972. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Michener, Jamila. 2018. Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, and Unequal Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Skocpol, Theda. 1995. Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Soss, Joe. 1999. “Lessons of Welfare: Policy Design, Political Learning, and Political Action.” American Political Science Review 93(2): 363–80.
Vallely, Richard. 2004. The Two Reconstructions: The Struggle for Black Enfranchisement. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Weaver, Vesla M. 2007. “Frontlash: Race and the Development of Punitive Crime Policy.” Studies in American Political Development 21(2): 230 – 265.
Weaver, Vesla M., and Amy E. Lerman. 2014. Arresting Citizenship: The Democratic Consequences of American Crime Control. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ansolabehere, Stephen, Alan Gerber, and Jim Snyder. 2002. “Equal Votes, Equal Money: Court- Ordered Redistricting and Expenditures in the American States.” American Political Science Review 96(4): 767-777.
Ansolabehere, Stephen, Jim Snyder, and Charles Stewart. 2001. “Candidate Positioning in US House Elections.” American Journal of Political Science Review 45(1): 136-159.
Bafumi, Joseph, and Michael Herron. 2010. “Leapfrog Representation and Extremism: A Study of American Voters and Their Members in Congress.” American Political Science Review 104(3): 519-542.
Bobo, Lawrence, and Franklin D. Gilliam, Jr. 1990. “Race, Sociopolitical Participation, and Black Empowerment.” American Political Science Review 84: 377-393.
Cameron, Charles, David Epstein, Sharyn O'Halloran. 1996. “Do Majority-Minority Districts Maximize Substantive Black Representation in Congress?” American Political Science Review 90(4): 794-812.
Canes-Wrone, Brandice, David Brady, and John Cogan. 2002. “Out of Step, Out of Office: Electoral Accountability and House Members’ Voting.” American Political Science Review 96: 127-140.
Cascio, Elizabeth U., and Ebonya Washington. 2013. “Valuing the Vote: The Redistribution of Voting Rights and State Funds following the Voting Rights Act of 1965.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 129(1): 379-433.
Gay, Claudine. 2001. “The Effect of Black Congressional Representation on Political Participation.” American Political Science Review 95(3): 589–602.
MacKuen, Michael, and Robert Erikson, and James Stimson. 2002. The Macro Polity. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Mansbridge, Jane. 2003. “Rethinking Representation.” American Political Science Review 97(4): 515-528.
Rhodes, Jesse H., and Brian F. Schaffner. 2017. “Testing Models of Unequal Representation: Democratic Populists and Republican Oligarchs?” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 12(2): 185-204
Soroka, Stuart N., and Christopher Wlezien. 2009. Degrees of Democracy: Politics, Public Opinion, and Policy. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Strömberg, David. 2004. “Radio’s Impact on Public Spending.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 119(1): 189-221.
Abrajano, Marisa, and Zoltan L. Hajnal. 2015. White Backlash: Immigration, Race, and American Politics. Princeton University Press.
Albertson, Bethany and Gadarian, Shana. 2015. Anxious Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press. Chapters 1, 3, 4.
Alvarez, R. Michael, and John Brehm. 2002. Hard Choices, Easy Answers: Values, Information, and American Public Opinion. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Campbell, Angus, Phillip Converse, Warren Miller, and Donald Stokes. 1960. The American Voter. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Converse, Philip. 1964. “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics.” In Ideology and Discontent, ed. David Apter. New York: Free Press of Glencoe.
Druckman, James N., Erik Peterson, and Rune Slothuus. 2013. “How Elite Partisan Polarization Affects Public Opinion Formation.” American Political Science Review 107: 57-79.
Feldman, Stanley. 1988. “Structure and Consistency in Public Opinion: The Role of Core Beliefs and Values.” American Journal of Political Science 32: 416-440.
Hopkins, Daniel J. 2010. “Politicized Places: Explaining Where and When Immigrants Provoke Opposition.” American Political Science Review 104: 40-60.
Lenz, Gabriel S. 2009. “Learning and Opinion Change, Not Priming: Reconsidering the Priming Hypothesis.” American Journal of Political Science 53: 821-837.
Mendelberg, Tali. 2001. The Race Card: Campaign Strategy, Implicit Messages, and the Norm of Equality. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Chapters 5, 7.
Oliver, J. Eric and Thomas Wood. 2018. Enchanted America: How Intuition and Reason Divide Our Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chapters 2, 6.
Walsh, Katherine Cramer. 2012. “Putting Inequality in its Place: Rural Consciousness and the Power of Perspective.” American Political Science Review 106(3): 517-532.
Wlezien, Christopher. 1995. “The Public as Thermostat: Dynamics of Preferences for Spending.” American Journal of Political Science 39(4): 981-1000.
Zaller, John. 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Alt, James, Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, and Shanna Rose. 2011. “Disentangling Accountability and Competence in Elections: Evidence from Term Limits.” Journal of Politics 73: 171- 186.
Ansolabehere, Stephen, John de Figueiredo, and James Snyder, Jr. 2003. “Why Is There So Little Money in Politics?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 17: 105-130.
Ansolabehere, Stephen, John Mark Hansen, Shigeo Hirano, and James M. Snyder, Jr. 2010. “More Democracy: The Direct Primary and Competition in U.S. Elections.” Studies in American Political Development 24: 190-205.
Anzia, Sarah F. 2011. “Election Timing and the Electoral Influence of Interest Groups.” Journal of Politics 73: 412-427.
De Benedictnis-Kessner, Justin, and Christopher Warshaw. 2020. “Accountability for the Local Economy at All Levels of Government in United States Elections.” American Political Science Review 114(3):660-676.
Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Row. Chapters 3, 7, and 8.
Fiorina, Morris. 1978. “Economic Retrospective Voting in American National Elections: A Micro-Level Analysis.” American Journal of Political Science 22: 426-443.
Gelman, Andrew, and Gary King. 1993. “Why Are American Presidential Election Campaign Polls So Variable When Votes are So Predictable?” British Journal of Political Science 23: 409-451.
Kinder, Donald R., and D. Roderick Kiewiet. 1981. “Sociotropic Politics: The American Case,” British Journal of Political Science 11: 129-161.
Kramer, Gerald H. 1971. “Short-Term Fluctuations in U.S. Voting Behavior, 1896-1964.” American Political Science Review 65(1): 131-143
Lupia, Arthur. 1994. “Shortcuts Versus Encyclopedias: Information and Voting Behavior in California Insurance Reform Elections.” American Political Science Review 88: 63-76.
Burch, Traci. 2013. Trading Democracy for Justice: Criminal Convictions and the Decline of Neighborhood Political Participation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Burns, Nancy, Kay Schlozman, and Sidney Verba. 1997. “The Public Consequences of Private Inequality: Family Life and Citizen Participation.” American Political Science Review 91: 373-389.
Clinton, Joshua, and Michael Sances. 2018. “The Politics of Policy: The Initial Mass Political Effects of Medicaid Expansion in the United States.” American Political Science Review 112: 167-185.
Gentzkow, Matthew. 2006. “Television and Voter Turnout.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 71(August): 931-72
Green, Donald, and Alan Gerber. 2000. “The Effects of Canvassing, Telephone Calls, and Direct Mail on Voter Turnout: A Field Experiment.” American Political Science Review 94: 653-663.
Han, Hahrie. 2009. Moved to Action: Motivation, Participation, and Inequality in American Politics. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Phoenix, Davin. 2020. The Anger Gap: How Race Shapes Emotion in Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press. Chapter 2.
Riker, William, and Peter Ordeshook. 1968. “A Theory of the Calculus of Voting.” American Political Science Review 62: 25-42.
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Bawn, Kathleen, Martin Cohen, David Karol, Seth Masket, Hans Noel, and John Zaller. 2012. “A Theory of Political Parties: Groups, Policy Demands and Nominations in American Politics.” Perspectives on Politics 10: 571‐591.
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Huddy, Leonie, Lilliana Mason, and Lene Aaroe. 2015. “Expressive Partisanship: Campaign Involvement, Political Emotion, and Partisan Identity.” American Political Science Review 109: 1-17.
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Barreto, Matt A. 2007. “¡Sí Se Puede! Latino Candidates and the Mobilization of Latino Voters.” American Political Science Review 101(3): 425-441.
Cohen, Cathy J. 1999. The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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