Political Persuasion and Presidential Leadership

Instructor:  Stuart Hill, Department of Political Science, College of Letters and Science

Description:Political scientists were surprised to discover that efforts by politicians to persuade voters to support them in an upcoming election or to back them once in office had little impact on their political future.   The evidence revealed instead that partisanship and the state of the economy determined political support.  Political rhetoric was nearly inconsequential.  In the last ten years new evidence reveals that political persuasion makes a difference, perhaps a substantial one.  This course will examine how politicians seek to convince large numbers of citizens to help them win high office and once elected expand their power to shape political events and public policy.  We will focus on understanding the use of political persuasion by individuals who either campaign to be president of the United States or seek to govern effectively in that role.  Key speeches and political debates from the last twenty years will be used to illustrate each specific proposition we consider.

Format:The class will meet for two hours each week.  Students will be given selected readings to prepare for each class (average of two to three articles or book chapters per week). The instructor will lecture for part of the first two or three classes to review major propositions about political persuasion. Video clips of speeches (inaugural address, state of union speeches, policy speeches, etc.) and campaign debates from the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections will be presented to illustrate major points and stimulate class discussion.  Students will be responsible to read the assigned articles and come prepared to discuss and apply them to the video clips they will see in class.  Students will also select a major speech from a presidential campaign or term in office during the last 50 years.  Using course concepts they will evaluate how effectively politicians sought to persuade U.S. citizens to back their candidacy to be president or support a specific policy initiative once they were in that high office.  The minimum length of the paper will be six pages. Grading:Students’ class participation and analytic papers will each count 40% of the grade and their class presentations of their research will make up the remaining 20%.