POS 233
Urban Politics
Professor Ronald
Schmidt 126
Bedford St.
Spring 2005 780-4581
Office Hours: Tuesday
2:30-5 or by appointment
Email:
rschmidt@usm.maine.edu
The city is a common form of political association that we share with the ancients. Many of the issues that command political attention at the state and federal level originated in cities, and the city has been the site of some of America’s most important struggles for political justice as well as centers of intellectual and cultural life. The American city is supposed to be a democratic polity, governed by its citizens and used to achieve ends ranging from physical security to justice and exemplary self-rule. Our course will be centered around the pursuit of questions pertaining to the urban democratic ideal: Who governs cities? (Are there multiple elites? Are cities democratic bodies? Are any groups of people consistently barred from governing?); Can cities serve as exemplars of democratic rule?; and What is the future of the American city?
Students will be assigned one midterm and a 15-20 page research paper on a topic in urban politics that has a larger general significance. (Topics must be cleared with the professor.) We will be evaluating the readings and contemporary political topics from the perspective of these questions, and students will be required to participate in class discussion of the readings and the topics they raise as well as the findings of their research. Students should be at work on their research papers before the midterm, and a paragraph research paper proposal is due in class on March 15.
Grades will be determined as follows:
Midterm – March 8: 40%
Research Paper (15-20 pages) – May 9: 50%
Class Participation: 10%
The assigned reading is below, and will be available at the bookstore.
Who Governs?, Robert Dahl (Yale University Press)
Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, William Riordan (Signet)
The Power Broker, Robert Caro (Random House)
Politics in Black and White, Raphael Sonenshein (Princeton University Press)
City of Quartz, Mike Davis (Vintage Books)
POS 233 course packet
POS 233
Assignments
Course Introduction
January 18
The Exemplary City: Democracy and Order
January 20:
“Pericles’ Funeral Oration,” Thucydides (from The Peloponnesian
War); packet
January 25:
“Order, Hierarchy, and Culture,” Lawrence Levine (from Highbrow/
Lowbrow); packet
January 27:
“New York Revisited,” Henry James (from The American Scene);
packet
February 1:
Who Governs?, Robert Dahl; Introduction, Books 2, 3
February 3:
Who Governs?, Books 4-6
Political Machines
February 8:
Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, William Riordan
Gangs of New York (2002; dir. Martin Scorcese)
6:30 PM
February 10:
“Rainbow’s End: Machines, Immigrants, and the Working Class,” Steven Erie (from Rainbow’s End: Irish-Americans and the dilemmas of Urban Machine Politics 1840-1985); packet
The Progressive
Response and its Consequences
February 15:
The
Power Broker, Robert Caro, Chapter 1; Parts II-IV
February 17:
Glickman Library: The Research Paper
February 22, 24:
Winter Vacation
March 1:
Caro, Parts V-VII
Chinatown (1973; dir. Roman Polanski)
7:00 PM
March 3:
The Secret Boss of California, Arthur Samish, excerpts; packet
“The
Rebirth of Our Cities,” Lyndon Johnson; packet
Midterm
March 8
Community Power: Race
and Policing
March 10:
Protest is Not Enough, Browning, Marshall and Tabb, Introduction and Chapter 1; packet
March 15:
“Community and Citizenship,” Carol Hardy-Fanta (from Latina Politics,
Latino Politics); packet
Research Paper Proposal Due
March 17:
No
class
March 22:
Politics in Black and White: Race and Power in Los Angeles, Raphael Sonenshein; Parts 1, 2
March 24:
Politics in Black and White, Parts 3, 4
March 29, 31
Spring Break
April 5:
Lecture: Police and the Media
No assigned reading
Recommended reading: This is the City, Ronald J. Schmidt, Jr.
April 7:
“The Los Angeles ‘Race Riot’ and Contemporary U.S. Politics,” Michael
Omi and Howard Winant; Reader
“Look, a Negro!,” Robert Gooding-Williams; Reader
The New Exemplary City: Space and Suburbanization
April 12:
“Close Quarters” and “The Joiners,” Alan Ehrenhalt; Reader
April 14:
“The Suburban Home Companion: Television and the Neighborhood
Ideal in Postwar America,” Lynn Spigel; Reader
April 19:
“The New Enclosures: Racism in the Normalized Community,” Thomas L.
Dumm; Reader
Politics of Place, Dolores Hayden, Chapter 1; Reader
April 21:
City of Quartz, Mike Davis; Chapter 1
April 26
Dystopia
April 28:
City of Quartz, Mike Davis; Chapters 2-4
Blade Runner (1981; dir. Ridley Scott)
7:00 PM
May 3:
City of Quartz, Chapters 5-7
May 5
Should you need services or accommodations due to a disability to fully participate in the class, please speak with me or contact the office of Academic Support for Students with Disabilities, LB 242.