Welcome to the courses section. The purpose of this section is to provide
teaching materials for political science professors and graduate students. I have syllabi, examinations, samples of
written work and extensive lecture notes for each of the following courses:
Introduction to American Government, Scope and Methods of Political Science,
Legislative Process, Political Behavior, Political Parties, Public Opinion and
State Government. Additionally, I have
PowerPoint slides for each of the following courses: Introduction to American
Government, Scope and Methods of Political Science, Political Parties, State
Government, Introduction
to Public Administration, Organization Theory, Public Budgeting and Public
Policy Analysis. The PowerPoint slides
for all of these courses, except Scope and Methods of Political Science, are
available below. The slides for Scope
and Methods of Political Science are in the “Statistics for Political
Scientists” section of this website (see link below). Lecture outlines, syllabi and exams for the
Legislative Process, Political Behavior and Public Opinion are also available
below.
Concerning Introduction to American Government,
a great frustration I had for many years was that students simply didn’t know
much about comparative public policy (e.g., income inequality, tax rates and
health care in Europe versus the United States) or had much knowledge about the
relationship between the size of government and economic performance or the
relationship between the size of government and personal freedom. To provide such information I wrote the
equivalent of a textbook chapter addressing these, and related topics (e.g.,
the difference in the incentives for various policies/outcomes of the two major
political parties, why voters are not offered policies which more benefit
middle and low-income households, etc.), which I use in this course. Such information is crucial to discussing
America’s domestic policy options. If
you would like the current version, please click here. If you would like the PowerPoint slides for
this material please click here. If you would like the slides for all other
sections of Introduction to American Government please click here. If you would like slides I use to develop
student skills in Introduction to American Government please click here. If you would like the syllabus for
Introduction to American Government please click here. For Political Parties: if you would like the
PowerPoint slides click here; the
syllabus click here. I often use Larry Bartel’s Unequal
Democracy in this course. Since this
book has regression/probit
tables I developed materials to make this accessible to students with no prior
statistical knowledge. If you would like a
copy of this material click here.
For State Government: if you would like the PowerPoint slides click here; the syllabus click here; skills slides set #1 click here; skills
slides set #2 click here; skills
slides set #3 click here. If you would like a set of slides discussing
the state budgetary process please click here. If you are a political science professor and
would like the tests and teaching materials for these courses please contact me
(chris.dennis@csulb.edu).
For the Legislative Process: if you would like
the lecture outlines set #1 click here; set #2 click here; set #3 click here; the syllabus click here; the final exam click here. The syllabus for Legislative Process contains
material for students with no prior statistical knowledge to interpret the
regression/probit
results in Gary Jacobson’s The Politics of Congressional Elections. For Political Behavior: if you would like the
lecture outlines set #1 click here; set #2 click here; set #3 click here; the syllabus click here; the final exam click here. For Public Opinion if you would like the
lecture outlines set #1 click here; set #2 click here; set #3 click here; the syllabus click here; the final exam click here.
To access the PowerPoint slides for
Introduction to Public Administration (click here), Organization Theory (click here), Public Budgeting (click here) and Public Policy Analysis (click here). For an organization theory course the
organization theory slides for Introduction to Public Administration could be
very helpful. For a public budgeting
course the following could be very useful: (1) the outlines in set #3 of
political behavior; (2) the slides on the need for government in Introduction
to American Government; and (3) the budgeting slides for Introduction to Public
Administration. For a policy analysis
course the term paper and other materials at the “Policy Analysis for Political
Scientists” section of this website could be very helpful. The slides for Introduction to Public
Administration and Public Policy Analysis were prepared by Dr. R. Steven
Daniels of California State University at Bakersfield. Most of the Public Budgeting slides were
prepared by Dr. Nancy Shulock of California State University at Sacramento.
I have also prepared a directed readings course
in policy analysis for political science that explains in detail how to
undertake an actual policy analysis in most all sub-fields of political science
using internet sources. This material
assumes no prior knowledge. Such an
analysis can significantly enhance the job prospects of political science
students. For a fuller discussion and
link to this material click here.
I have also written a book entitled, Statistics for Political
Scientists (which covers in a very simply manner many advanced statistical
techniques and applies them to political science). If you would like a copy of this book, or any
of the materials I have for teaching undergraduate and graduate level
statistical methods please click
here. If
you would like a break from “academic” material you might enjoy seeing
beautiful ocean scenes. If so, go to the “Gallery” section (click here).