Presidential Politics and Communication 4219-RS271

This graduate course (drawing primarily from the academic disciplines of Political Science and Communication) will examine public communication strategies of recent U.S. presidents, paying particular attention to the administrations of Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Presidential efforts to set and frame the political agenda through both direct public communication and via the mass media are some of the most important tools of presidential governance. This course will look at White House communication strategies relating to defining U.S. domestic and foreign policies, as well as shaping public perceptions regarding the president's own character and policy performance. Accordingly, students will read (and view) a variety of scholarly and popular press sources – book chapters, articles, and media reports in various formats. The course will contain a high level of direct student engagement with the material, including class presentations of readings and extensive discussion of course articles and news content.

Written Evaluation & Oral Presentation Assignment

At some point over the course of the semester, you will each be required to turn in a written evaluation of roughly four pages (double-spaced) summarizing and evaluating a chapter relevant to a given week’s theme.

The selections on which students will present are from the required readings listed in the syllabus. About half the written assignment (roughly two pages) will be a summary of the main points of the chapter or article. You should concentrate on the most important findings; you cannot cover everything of importance in a few pages.

The other half of the assignment (roughly two pages) will be your critique of the material. You are to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the argument(s) presented. You may draw on other readings from the course to support your analysis if you wish, but this is not part of the assignment. Do not use outside reading for this assignment, this is not a research paper.

Any necessary citations should be in Chicago/Turabian style.

When referring to chapters in edited volumes refer to the author or authors of the chapter, not the editor of the volume.

Papers are due in hard copy (doubled-spaced with a single staple and no cover page) at the start of class on the day listed. During your presentation, you will summarize (no more than five minutes) your paper on the readings, including your analysis of those readings. The presentations usually will take place at the start of class.

Because this course focuses on ongoing political developments, it may be necessary to delay some presentations in rare instances. In such cases, the papers will remain due on the day listed, but the presentations may be postponed to the next class period.

For edited volumes, you should start the citation with the author of the chapter and the title of the chapter before you provide the details on the book itself.

For example:
Quirk, Paul J. “Presidential Competence.” In The Presidency and the Political System, Michael Nelson, ed. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: CQ Press/Sage, 2021.

Research Paper Assignments

Paper Proposal Due: Start of Class, Week 4

Annotated Bibliography Due: Start of Class, Week 7

Complete Paper Due: Start of Class, Week 11

Revised Final Paper: Start of class, Week 14

The primary writing assignment in this course is the research paper. The paper's suggested length is roughly 15 pages. As always, the paper should be thoughtful and well-written. It should demonstrate research and analysis well beyond the materials assigned in class and should be properly documented with footnotes or endnotes and a bibliography (the Turabian/Chicago style will be required for this assignment). You should start thinking about and working on this project right away. Please feel free to come by my office, email, or connect via Zoom during office hours to discuss your projects as you proceed.

Early tasks:

Paper Proposal

The first part of the research project involves the submission of a topic description so that I can approve your topics and make some suggestions early on concerning materials and areas that might be worth considering as you proceed. The topic description should describe the paper in general terms; do not consider it as anything approaching a first draft. The outline should be no more than a page or two. As part of the paper proposal, you are required to submit (in proper citation format) a list of eight scholarly sources you plan to use in your paper. The more information you provide, the more I will be able to advise you on what other angles and sources to consider.

Topics are not limited to the issues that have been or will be covered in class. One place to start looking for areas of interest outside the assigned readings are the references of some of the readings you found most interesting. You might also look ahead to readings yet to come in the course for topic ideas.

Annotated Bibliography

An annotated bibliography, the second assignment related to your term paper, involves the list of sources you plan to use, with two or three sentences about the relevant/important findings found in those books, articles, and other sources you intend to use. For this assignment you will be expected to provide citations and this one-paragraph summary for at least 12 sources.

COURSE SCHEDULE

Week 1: The Constitutional Presidency
U.S. Constitution, Article Two. URL: https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/preamble/
The Federalist, Numbers 51 and 68. URL: https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers/full-text
Nelson, Chapters 1-2

Week 2: Presidential Power
Neustadt, Richard. 1990. Presidential Power. New York: Free Press. Chapters 1-3. [online]
Nelson, Chapters 3, 4

Week 3: Presidents as Communicators-in-Chief, Part 1
Kernell, Samuel. 2006. Going Public: New Strategies of Presidential Leadership. Washington: CQ Press. (4th edition), Chapter 1 [online].
Dickerson, John. 2018. “The Hardest Job in the World.” The Atlantic, May 2018. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/05/a-broken-office/556883/
Nelson, Chapter 17

WEEK 4 -- PAPER PROPOSAL DUE (at start of class)

Week 4: Presidents as Communicators-in-Chief, Part 2
Entman, Robert. 2004. Projections of Power. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Chapters 1, 5 [online]
Glazier, Rebecca A., and Amber E. Boydstun. 2012. “The President, the Press, and the War: A Tale of Two Framing Agendas.” Political Communication 29(4):428-446. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2012.721870
Nelson, Chapter 19

Week 5: Presidential Administrations and Communication Challenges
Nelson: Chapter 5
Potter, Rachel Augustine. 2017. “Slow-Rolling, Fast-Tracking, and the Pace of Bureaucratic Decisions in Rulemaking.” Journal of Politics 79(3): 841-55.
Osnos, Evan. 2018. “Trump vs. the ‘Deep State.’” The New Yorker, May 21. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/05/21/trump-vs-the-deep-state

Week 6: Presidents and Congress: Dueling Communication Centers
Nelson: Chapters 12
Howell, William G., and Jon C. Pevehouse. 2005. “Presidents, Congress, and the Use of Force.” International Organization 59(1):209-232. doi:10.1017/S0020818305050034
Azari, Julia R, and Jennifer K. Smith. 2012. “Unwritten Rules: Informal Institutions in Established Democracies.” Perspectives on Politics 10(1): 37-55.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592711004890

WEEK 7 – ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE (at start of class)
Week 7: Presidents and the Judiciary
Nelson: 16
Eshbaugh-Soha, Matthew, and Paul M. Collins Jr. 2015. “Presidential Rhetoric and Supreme Court Decisions.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 45(4):633-52.
Anderson, Richard J., David Cottrell, and Charles R. Shipan. 2019. “The Power to Appoint: Presidential Nominations and Change on the Supreme Court.” Journal of Politics 81(3): 1057-68. https://doi.org/10.1086/703382

Week 8: Communicating Presidential Identity, Part 1
Farnsworth, Stephen J. 2018. Presidential Communication and Character: White House News Management from Clinton and Cable to Twitter and Trump. New York: Routledge. Chapter 1 [online]
Nelson: 6, 9

Week 9: Communicating Presidential Identity, Part 2
Farnsworth, Chapters 5,6 [online]
Goldgeier, James, and Elizabeth Saunders. “The Unconstrained Presidency: Checks and Balances Eroded Long Before Trump.” Foreign Affairs 97(5).
Dimock, Michael, and John Gramlich. 2021. “How America Changed During Donald Trump’s Presidency.” Pew Research Center, January 29, 2021. URL: https://www.pewresearch.org/2021/01/29/how-america-changed-during-donald-trumps-presidency/

Week 10: Public Opinion and the Presidency, Part 1
Glynn, Carroll J., et al. 2014. Public Opinion. New York: Routledge. Third Edition. Chapter 1 [online].
Baum, Matthew A., and Tim Groeling. 2010. “Reality Asserts Itself: Public Opinion on Iraq and the Elasticity of Reality.” International Organization 64(3): 443-79.
Canes-Wrone, Brandice, and Jason P. Kelly. 2013. “The Obama Presidency, Public Position-Taking, and Mass Opinion.” Polity 45(1): 85-104. https://doi.org/10.1057/pol.2012.27

WEEK 11 – COMPLETE PAPER DUE (at start of class)

Week 11: Public Opinion and the Presidency, Part 2
Donovan, Kathleen, Paul M. Kellstedt, Ellen M. Key, and Matthew J. Lebo. 2020. “Motivated Reasoning, Public Opinion, and Presidential Approval.” Political Behavior 42:1201-21. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-019-09539-8
Nyhan, Brendan. 2015. “Scandal Potential: How Political Context and News Congestion Affect the President's Vulnerability to Media Scandal.” British Journal of Political Science 45(2):435-466. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123413000458
Nelson: 10-11

Week 12: New Presidential Communication Venues
Osmundsen, Mathias, Alexander Bor, Peter Bjerregaard Vahlstrup, Anja Bechmann, and Michael Beng Petersen. 2021. “Partisan Polarization Is the Primary Psychological Motivation behind Political Fake News Sharing on Twitter.” American Political Science Review 115(3):999-1015. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055421000290

Week 13: Presidential Nominations: Candidate Communications
Nelson: 7
Cohen, Marty, David Karol, Hans Noel, and John Zaller. 2016. “Party Versus Faction in the Reformed Presidential Nominating System.” PS: Political Science and Politics 49(4): 701-708. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096516001682
Mason, Lilliana, Julie Wronski, and John V. Kane. 2021. “Activating Animus: The Uniquely Social Roots of Trump Support.” American Political Science Review 115(4):1508-1516. https:/doi.org/10.1017/S0003055421000563

WEEK 14 – REVISED COMPLETE PAPER DUE (at start of class)

Week 14: Presidential Elections: Candidate Communications
Nelson 8
Bankert, Alexa. 2020. “Negative and Positive Partisanship in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Elections.” Political Behavior 43(4):1467-1485.
Igielnik, Ruth, Scott Keeter, and Hannah Hartig (2021). “Behind Biden’s 2020 Victory.” Pew Research Center, June 30. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/06/30/behind-bidens-2020-victory/

Week 15: Summing Up: Presidential Communication and Accountability
Nelson: 18, 20
Graham, Matthew H., and Milan W. Svolik. 2020. “Democracy in America? Partisanship, Polarization, and the Robustness of Support for Democracy in the United States.” American Political Science Review 114(2):392-409. doi:10.1017/S0003055420000052
Lieberman, Robert C., Suzanne Mettler, Thomas B. Pepinsky, Kenneth M. Roberts, and Richard Valelly. 2018. “The Trump Presidency and American Democracy: A Historical and Comparative Analysis.” Perspectives on Politics 17(2):470-479. doi:10.1017/S1537592718003286