POLS 319: Research Topic

An important part of what political scientists do is scholarly research for the purpose of contributing to the body of knowledge in the science of politics. Such scholarly research typically revolves around a research question.

Following is a list of some ongoing areas of research for political scientists studying the presidency, along with potential research questions. Select from among the research areas and conduct a review of the scholarly literature surrounding one research question (approved by me) in the selected area. Note that you are not restricted to the example research questions listed below. Report your review of the scholarly literature as an annotated bibliography.

1) The Rhetorical Presidency: Does “going public” affect public opinion about the president or the president’s policies? How does the presidential strategy of “going public” affect the president’s success in Congress? (not much has been done here).

2) The President and Public Opinion: What determines public approval of the president’s job performance? To what extent can presidents affect public opinion about specific policies?

3) The President and the Media: To what extent does the president successfully set the media’s agenda? To what extent does the media affect presidential behavior?

4) The President and Organized Interest Groups: To what extent do organized interest groups influence presidential behavior? (note: little has been done here).

5) The Presidential Selection Process: What determines presidential election outcomes?

6) The President as Chief Legislator: How does public approval of the president affect presidential success in Congress?

7) The President as Chief of the Executive Branch: To what extent does the president control the federal bureaucracy? How do presidential appointments affect administrative policymaking?

8) The President and the Courts: Do presidents successfully influence the political behavior of courts? If so, how?

9) The President as an Agenda Setter: Does the president successfully set the policy agenda for other institutions such as the Congress, Courts, and bureaucracy?

10) The President as a Policy Maker: What determines the success of presidents’ policy making agendas?

What is an annotated bibliography? It is a listing of all of the important scholarly studies in a research area (both journal articles and books), along with a brief written summary of each work. At the end of this assignment is an example of what entries in an annotated bibliography should look like. Note that you are expected to exhaustively review the literature in your selected area.

Your bibliography should begin with a clear statement of the research question encompassing all of your reported literature. Each subsequent bibliographic entry should be summarized for it’s relevance to the research question. For each entry you should include a statement of the research design (how the author addresses the research question), hypotheses, methods, data, research finding(s), and how the findings pertain to the overarching question. Note that in order to provide all of this information you will need to have read each bibliographic entry. Note also that I want a more in-depth analysis of each entry than an abstract can provide.

This is not an easy assignment, but will require much work and consideration on your part. Therefore, it is important that you demonstrate an entire semester’s effort in constructing and writing the annotated bibliography. The project is graded in stages, with the first draft due on November 9 and the final work due on the last class day. The entire project will count 30 percent of the final grade, with the first draft counting 10 percent and the final work counting 20 percent.

Sources: One recommended source of political science research is JSTOR.ORG, where you can search a wide variety of academic journals by author, title, or keyword. Note that JSTOR is limited in that the most recent work is not available. Therefore, you will need to use the library to obtain the most recent scholarly work. Other potential sources are INGENTA and other database guides which are available through the library.

One approach to getting started would be to look in the references listed at the end of recent work and work your way backward through time. Another approach would be to look at some older work and see who has cited it using the Web of Science Social Science Citation Index and work your way forward in time.

Grading: The grade will be based on the completeness and accuracy of the bibliography and annotations. A grade of A will reflect a thorough understanding of research in a particular area. A grade of B will reflect an above average understanding. A grade of C will reflect an average understanding. I will not be reluctant to assign a D or an F for an effort that clearly falls short of what is assigned.

I highly recommend that you get started on this project as soon as possible. Again, it is not an easy assignment for someone not used to thinking in scientific terms. So you will need to do a lot of work to do better than a C.

Annotated Bibliography Example

The research question evaluated in this annotated bibliography is “How do presidential efforts at administrative control affect the behavior of federal bureaucracies?”

Wood, B. Dan. 1988. Bureaucrats, Principals, and Responsiveness in Clean Air Enforcements. American Political Science Review. 82 (March): 215-234.

The research question addressed by this article is “How do public bureaucracies respond to presidential efforts at political control?” Specifically, it evaluates the manner and extent to which the Environmental Protection Agency responded to presidential tools of administrative control during the early 1980s. Using time series intervention analysis techniques for monthly data running from 1977 through 1985, the author hypothesizes that Environmental Protection Agency enforcement outputs responded in a systematic fashion to changes in political appointments and budgets during the Reagan administration. Consistent with the hypothesis, large budget cuts in October 1981 resulted in about a 50 percent reduction in EPA inspections and abatement actions. This reduced level of enforcement lasted until March 1983 when EPA administrator Ann Gorsuch Burford was forced to resign by Congress and was subsequently replaced by William Ruckelshaus. A substantial proportion of the budget was restored later the same year. The study shows that public bureaucracies are responsive to presidential efforts at control. Presidential control of the bureaucracy occurs through formal tools that enable every president to have an impact on bureaucratic activities. From the standpoint of political science theory, the study verifies one aspect of principal-agent models of political control of bureaucracy. Specifically, political principals do effectively alter agent behavior through the use of monitoring and sanction.

Wood, B. Dan and Richard W. Waterman. 1994. Bureaucratic Dynamics: The Role of Bureaucracy in a Democracy. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

The research question addressed by this book is “How do public bureaucracies respond to efforts at political control by the president, Congress, and, to a lesser extent, the courts?” The book begins with a discussion of past research on bureaucratic responsiveness. Then, it presents a theoretical framework that guides the research. Specifically, the authors use the principal-agent model in developing testable hypotheses. Hypotheses are tested using time series data from eight different bureaucracies over the period from the mid-1970s through the late 1980s. Focusing mainly on efforts at political control during the Reagan administration, the general findings are that bureaucracies respond to the president, Congress, and courts. However, the mechanisms of political control are varied. By far the most important tool of political control is political appointments. Appointees wield control by manipulating organizational incentives and direct supervision of subordinates. Budgets are also important, as are reorganization authority and oversight by Congress and the courts. The larger implication of the research is that bureaucracies are not the “massive, lumbering entities depicted in the lay literature. Rather, they are entities that are routinely molded and shaped by changing politics and political administration. The authors conclude with some recommendations for making bureaucracies even more responsive in the future.

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