Political Science 452

Political Science 452 POLITICAL PARTIES: MONEY, VOTES & POWER Wilfrid Laurier University Winter 2017 Instructor: Dr. Brian Tanguay Seminar Time: Th 4:00-6:50pm Classroom: DAWB 3-105 Email: btanguay@wlu.ca Office Hours: W 3:00-4:30pm Office: DAWB 4-160 COURSE DESCRIPTION This seminar examines the different ways in which political parties seek to finance themselves and conduct election campaigns in order to win votes and gain political power. The main focus of the course readings will be on the Canadian party system, but illustrations of key concepts and practices will also be drawn from other Anglo-American democracies and a number of European countries. Topics to be examined may include campaign finance legislation (both federal and provincial), parties use of social media (blogging, Facebook and Twitter), political communications during specific election campaigns, the dynamics of leadership races, and third-party spending. Students will undertake an applied project, or write a more traditional research essay, in one of these areas. COURSE LEARNING OBJECTIVES By the end of the course students should: have become familiar with the political science literature on parties as campaign organizations, as well as the fields of political communication and political marketing be able to distinguish among the differing legislative and regulatory regimes governing campaign finance and third-party spending at the federal and provincial levels in Canada be able to formulate policy proposals for levelling the playing field for parties and interest organizations during election campaigns be able to recognize the various ways in which the political communication, political marketing and campaign finance strategies of Canada s political parties either contribute to a healthy democratic polity or exacerbate the so-called democratic deficit have improved their ability to work in a group, as well as individually 1

have improved their presentation and public speaking skills have improved their reading comprehension and writing skills TEXTS Tom Flanagan. 2014. Winning Power. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen s University Press. Alain-G. Gagnon and A. Brian Tanguay, eds. 2017. Canadian Parties in Transition, 4 th ed. Toronto: UTP Higher Education Division. [CPT4 in Course Readings] Dennis W. Johnson. 2016. Campaigning in the Twenty-First Century: Activism, Big Data, and Dark Money, 2 nd ed. New York and London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. The following texts, available as e-books through Primo, will be very useful supplementary sources, and should come in handy for your term projects: Alex Marland, Thierry Giasson and Jennifer Lees-Marshment, eds. 2012. Political Marketing in Canada. Vancouver BC: UBC Press. [MGL-M in Course Readings] Lisa Young and Harold J. Jansen, eds. 2011. Money, Politics, and Democracy: Canada s Party Finance Reforms. Vancouver BC: UBC Press. COURSE EVALUATION Component Due Date Percentage Weight Reading Response #1 January 25 15% Reading Response #2 February 17 15% Seminar Leadership various 10% Attendance/Participation various 20% Final Project Proposal Defence March 23, 30 15% Final Project Paper Submission April 14 25% A. Critical Reading Responses (2 @ 15% each) Two reading responses, roughly 1500 words each, are due in the course dropbox no later than midnight on the following dates: Wednesday, January 25 and Friday, February 17. The first of these responses should centre around three separate items: Tom Flanagan s book, Winning Power, Dennis Johnson s book, Campaigning in the Twenty-First Century, and the film, Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story (which will be screened in class on January 12). What do the books and the film tell us about contemporary political parties and the quest for votes and power? Do the authors raise legitimate questions about the role of modern election campaigning in reinforcing or undermining democracy in Canada and the United States? The second response may focus on any theme in the syllabus money in politics (campaign finance), political blogging, the use of Twitter, the role of television advertising in election campaigns, leadership, etc. etc. I expect you to pull together six scholarly sources on the subject, no more than half of which may be listed in the syllabus. You MAY use these reading responses to explore the topic for your term project, as a kind of literature review. Late papers will be penalized 3% per day, including weekends. Any paper more than 1 week late will receive a grade of 0. 2

B. Seminar Leadership (10%) Beginning in Week 3 (January 19), three or four students (depending on final enrolment) will be assigned for each class to present oral summaries (20-25 minutes) of particular readings. Students will be expected to summarize and critique one of the required readings in the syllabus as well as one suggested reading of their own on the subject matter, the bibliographical details of which they will provide to the seminar. Students are expected to be critical and not merely descriptive in their presentations, focusing on important theoretical, empirical and policy issues raised by the various authors. Students should outline the common themes in the readings and comment critically on the contribution they make to our understanding of a particular aspect of political party behaviour. Student presenters will be expected to generate class discussion, and will be graded on their ability to do so. C. Attendance/Participation (20%) This is a senior seminar and students are expected to attend all classes (barring medical or personal emergencies) and participate actively in discussions. I take attendance in this course very seriously. While I do recognize that a single absence for medical reasons or something similar might be unavoidable, I also think that missing two seminars is pushing it. And missing three (which equals 25% of the course) might put you in danger of earning a zero for this component of the overall grade. In addition to the mere fact of attending class, your grade for participation will be based on your ability to demonstrate familiarity with and understanding of the assigned readings. This means that the expression of general ideas or opinions will alone not be sufficient to produce a satisfactory grade for participation. Attempts to dominate class discussion hogging the limelight, so to speak will be viewed unfavourably, as will ad hominem attacks on others. D. Research Essay/Policy Proposal/Applied Project (15% + 25% = 40%) The major course requirement is a research paper or policy proposal of approximately 4000 words (roughly 12-15 pages, double-spaced, with 12-point font and 1" margins; please number your pages). Students may select a topic of their choice, in consultation with the instructor. These projects will be grouped into six broad subject areas: I. Recent election campaigns students can critique actual election or leadership campaigns, at either the federal or provincial level, of the recent past, or devise hypothetical campaign strategies in order to reverse the fortunes of existing parties or consolidate their grip on power. II. Modern campaign technologies the world of blogs, twitter, the Internet, etc. How do political parties use these new technologies? How should they be used? III. IV. Modern campaign finance for both political parties and interest organizations ( third parties ) Modern party leaders Justin Trudeau, Bernie Sanders (in this case a leadership aspirant), Trump, Jeremy Corbyn V. The contemporary populist backlash how do we explain it? VI. The role of outsiders in the electoral arena. I expect every student to meet with me at least once during regularly scheduled office hours to discuss his or her proposed essay topic, which should be selected no later than Week 8 (March 2). Each student will present a preliminary version of the paper (worth 15% of the final grade) including a thesis statement, brief review of the literature, and a working bibliography to the seminar during the final two weeks of classes (please be aware that these two classes may well run overtime; they should be treated as mini-conferences ). These proposals, which can be in the form of Powerpoint presentations or traditional essay format, should be made available to the seminar, via e-mail, at least two full days before the class in which they are to be defended (therefore no later than Tuesday morning). Everyone in the class should have read all of the proposals for a given week (there will be no more than five or six), so that they may offer helpful criticisms and suggestions for improving the final papers. 3

The final papers (worth 25%) will be due on April 14. Late papers will be penalized 3% per day, including weekends. Any paper more than a week late will receive a grade of zero. MY LEARNING SPACE This course will use My Learning Space (MyLS) to post lecture slides and supplementary materials relevant to the lectures and assignments. All written assignments (the reading responses and the term projects) must be submitted to the course dropbox. Please make sure you are signed up for My Learning Space. Please note that I prefer to receive assignments as either Word or Powerpoint (or Prezi) documents. If possible, do not upload PDFs to the dropbox. You must definitely avoid submitting documents in Pages, which (unfortunately) is a format not recognized by MyLS. If you are a devoted Mac user, you can save your Pages documents in RTF (rich text format) and submit them to the dropbox that way. CLASS SCHEDULE PLEASE NOTE: You will find below the breakdown of the weekly seminar topics. A complete list of the required readings for each class can be found in a separate document posted to MyLS, in the Syllabus & Related Stuff module. Week 1 (Jan. 5) Week 2 (Jan. 12) Week 3 (Jan. 19) Week 4 (Jan. 26) Week 5 (Feb. 2) Week 6 (Feb. 9) Week 7 (Feb. 16) Introduction to course; administrivia What are political parties? The evolution of Canada s party system Canada s main political parties origins and recent history Parties as campaign organizations An Overview The populist backlash Its implications for traditional party politics The old technologies of political communication newspapers, radio, television The new technologies of political communication blogging, social media, polling Reading Week (Feb. 23) No Class Week 8 (Mar. 2) Week 9 (Mar. 9) Week 10 (Mar. 16) Week 11 (Mar. 23) Week 12 (Mar. 30) Money and party politics Leaders and Leadership The role of outsiders in the electoral arena Student presentations Student presentations 4

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