POLS 4790H: Congressional Amending Process
Fall 2015
Class Meeting: Tuesday and Thursday 11:00am - 12:15pm, Leconte 322
Office Hours: Wednesday 9:00-11:00 or by appointment, Baldwin 409
Course Syllabus
Syllabus.
Course Description
This course is intended to provide students with a background in congressional process and procedure, social science research methods and data collection and management. A thorough understanding of the United States Congress requires not only a familiarity of its evolution and institutions, but a deep comprehension of the trade-offs inherent in policy-making. Throughout this course, we will evaluate existing theories of legislative evolution and policy-making. This will require students to learn data collection and analysis techniques utilized by social scientists. As such, students will work with the instructors in collecting data on the congressional amending process as well as complete several additional assignments.
Students in this course will join over 50 undergraduate and 10 graduate students in contributing to the University of Georgia Amending Project. More details about the project can be found both here and here.
Course Instructors
This course will be team taught by Professors Michael Lynch and Anthony Madonna. Questions about the course can be directed to either Professor Lynch or Professor Madonna.
Course Materials
Given the research focus of the course, students will need to have access to a wide variety of data, articles and files for the course. These materials will be stored on a Dropbox folder. All students will need to join the folder to access course materials.