1 Introduction to American democracy
Dahl, How Democratic is the American Constitution? (2001), chs.1- 2; Frum, “America Must Become a Democracy,”The Atlantic, Feb. 15, 2021.
2 Constitutional history
Krutz, American Government, ch. 2
3 Federalism
Krutz, ch. 3; Madison, Federalists 10 and 5
4 Legislative Branch
Krutz, ch. 11; listen to “The Argument” podcast, Should We Put the Filibuster Out of Its Misery?, New York Times, 2021; Lessig, Republic Lost (2016); Ornstein "How the Republicans Broke Congress", New York Times, Dec. 2, 2017.
5-6 Executive Branch
Krutz, ch. 12; Dahl ch. 4 and Bouie, “The Electoral College is the Biggest Threat to our Democracy,” New York Times, Feb. 28, 2019; Gellman, The Election That Could Break America (Atlantic, Nov. 2020).
7 Midterm review and examination
8-9 Judicial Branch
Krutz, ch. 13; Hamilton, Federalist 78; Supreme Court, Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
10-11 Race and American Government
Rothstein, The Color of Law (2014); Krutz, ch. 5; watch Eyes on the Prize, ep. 13; Ta-Nahisi Coates, The Case for Reparations, the Atlantic, June 2014; watch the brief (17 min) documentary, Segregated by Design; U.S. Supreme Court, Shelby County v. Holder (2013); Horwitz, pp. 74-88; Brennan Center, The Redistricting Landscape, 2021-22.
12-13 Civil Liberties: guns, speech, religion, reproductive freedom
Listen to Radiolab podcast, "What Up, Holmes?" (skip to 7min); Liptak, First Amendment, 'Patron Saint' of Protesters is Embraced by Corporations , New York Times, March 23, 2015; U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Employment Division v. Smith (1990), Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo (2020); Fulton v. City of Philadelphia (2021); Horwitz, pp. 106-111 and NPR, Supreme Court's New Supermajority: What it Means for Roe v. Wade (2021)
14 State governments
Elazar, American Federalism: A View from the States, ch. 5; John Paul Stevens, "The Other Constitutions," New York Review of Books, Dec. 16, 2018; Brownstein, Red and Blue America Aren't Experiencing the Same Pandemic, the Atlantic, March 20, 2020
15. The future of American democracy
Dahl, chs. 6-7; Putnam & Skocpol, “Middle America Reboots Democracy,” Democracy, Feb. 20, 2018 and listen to this discussion with Stacie Abrams, on Feldman, Deep Background, Jan. 13, 2021.