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Proseminar on Inequality and Social Policy -- Fall 201 6 – V 3, 7/31/16 1

Proseminar on Inequality and Social Policy I: Fall 2016

Listed as Government 2340a in FAS, and as Social and Urban Policy (SUP) 921 in HKSMeets Wednesdays, 2-4 pm; Taubman 301, HKS

First meeting: Wednesday, September 7, 2 pm, Taubman 301Website: https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/5303

Instructors: Jennifer Hochschild Devah PagerOffice: CGIS Knafel 156 420 William James HallPhone: 617-496-0181 617-496-0824Email: [email protected] [email protected] hours: Monday 2-5 p.m. Email for an appointment

Assistant: Natalyia KhrustalovaOffice: xxx Phone: 617-495-XXXX Email: XXXX.harvard.edu

The Proseminar on Inequality and Social Policy is a required three-semester sequence for second and third year doctoral students in Government and Social Policy, Sociology and Social Policy, and the Multidisciplinary Program on Inequality and Social Policy. The second semester will also meet on Wednesdays from 2 to 4pm. The third semester (Fall 2017) will meet on Mondays from 2 to 4 pm. The times for the third semester cannot be changed, so keep it free when you plan your other obligations in the Fall of 2017.

Our first class will meet on Wednesday, Sept 7. This will be a regular class with readings and a memo about the readings. Details are below.

All participants need permission from one of the instructors to take the proseminar. Permission is automatic for those required to take the course, but you must nonetheless bring the required forms to the first meeting and get them signed.

Substantive objectives:

1. To become familiar with key policy choices that have affected or could affect various dimensions of inequality in rich democracies;

2. To examine what we know and investigate what we might be able to learn about the political, economic, social, psychological, and cultural causes and consequences of economic inequality.

3. To help you develop a more interdisciplinary view of the world, and to understand the relative strengths and weaknesses of a variety of methodological approaches to research

4. To help you select and develop a topic for a publishable research paper on a policy-related question about inequality. A “policy-related question” means any question

mailto:XXXX.harvard.edu

mailto:[email protected]


with demonstrable implications for some actual or proposed government policy. A “research paper” assembles evidence that is not readily available somewhere else.

Class format: We will normally devote the first half hour to a faculty-led discussion of how the assigned readings fit into a larger scholarly context – that is, situating them in the larger set of debates, ideas, and perspectives that animate this particular corner of the study of inequality and social policy. Roughly the next hour will be devoted to discussion of the readings and student memos, with a focus on the strengths, weaknesses, and lessons to be drawn from that material. Two students will co-lead this part of each class. Finally, the relevant faculty member will close the session by setting the scene for the next week’s discussion. He or she will suggest why the questions to be addressed the following week are important, what related literature you might want to be aware of, and how this week’s topic and arguments relate to next week’s.

Memos: You are expected to write eight memos of no more than 500 words each about the readings over the course of the semester. The first memo will be for the first class and is due Monday, September 5, by 11 p.m. The next three memos can be for any of the next five classes (Sept 14 through Oct 12). The last four memos can be for any of the last six classes (Oct 19 through Dec 7). All memos after the first will be due by 11 p.m. on the Monday before the Wednesday class to which they pertain. Since the main purpose of the memos is to improve the quality of class discussion, late memos will not count.

You are expected to read and be ready to engage with one another’s memos. Please email your first memo to the entire class. A tentative class list is included in the email to which this syllabus is attached so once the course website is up and running on Canvas, you will be able to post your remaining memos there.

Discussion leaders: Two students will lead the discussion during the middle hour of each of the twelve classes during the fall. Sixteen students have been admitted to the class, so eight of you will lead two classes and eight of you will lead one. We will use a plausibly random system to select discussion leaders.

Discussion leaders should jointly prepare a short (< one page) outline of issues raised in the readings and memos that deserve particular attention. Outlines should be selective, even cursory, not exhaustive. Please plan to discuss your outline with the instructor (by email or in person, per instructor’s request) on the Tuesday before class to discuss your outline, leaving enough time afterwards to modify it as appropriate. Please bring 18 copies of the outline to class. We also encourage discussion leaders to bring a snack for the class (<$10). Keep receipts; the professors will reimburse you in class and recover the money from HKS.

Discussion leaders should keep initial comments to five minutes. Your main job is to ensure that discussion moves from one item to the next in a timely way. Substantively, class memos and discussions should engage with at least the following issues:

1. Important methodological questions about the validity of the empirical claims in the readings. Emphasize “important;” you should not aim to rehearse all the things that can


go wrong when analyzing evidence or that did in fact go wrong in a given reading. Focus on issues likely to bias a paper’s findings enough to alter its conclusions.

2. Explicit and implicit policy implications of the readings, and conditions under which they are likely or unlikely to hold. Ira Katznelson says that the most important, or perhaps the only important social science question is “under what conditions.” That seems a tad strong, but failure to predict when a policy implication is or is not likely to hold is one of the most common problems in policy research.

3. Assumptions of different disciplines regarding how the world works that deserve class discussion. Such differences can be illustrated both from the readings and from your classmates’ memos. The same sources can help us understand the insights and blind spots likely to emerge from each disciplinary perspective.

Sessions: In addition to the twelve regularly scheduled class sessions, we will also have two meetings during Reading Period, on Dec. 7 and 8 from 2 to 4:30. In these meetings you will each have 10 minutes to describe your proposed research paper, followed by 5 minutes for comments and discussion. Please put these two classes in your calendar now—noting that they run longer than a regular class and that the second meeting falls on a Thursday.

Grades: Fall semester grades will be based 35% on your paper proposal, 35% on your memos, 15% on your class participation, and 15% on your management of class discussion.

Readings: We will be reading several books, ranging from several chapters (too many pages to make electronically available) to the full book. They are available at the Coop or through Amazon (probably as used books, if you prefer). They are:

Albert Hirschman, 1970. Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States (Harvard University Press).

Sanford Levinson. 2008. Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (And How We the People Can Correct It) (Oxford University Press).

Michael Lipsky. 2010. Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Service (Russell Sage Foundation).

Jane Mansbridge. 1986. Why We Lost the ERA (University of Chicago Press).

David Mayhew, 2004. Congress: The Electoral Connection , 2nd ed. (Yale University Press),

Nolan McCarty, Keith Poole, and Howard Rosenthal, 2016. Polarized America, 2nd ed. (MIT Press).

Jeffrey Pressman and Aaron Wildavsky. 1984. Implementation: University of California Press.


Links to online full-text journal articles and some unpublished readings are on the “Pages” tab on the course Canvas page. Links that will work if you log in through Harvard are also on this reading list.

Research Papers: Plan to spend a significant amount of time this fall choosing a topic for your research paper, reviewing the relevant literature, identifying the evidence you plan to use, determining key methodological strategies, and obtaining permission either to use the evidence (if it already exists) or to collect the evidence (if access requires permission).

First semester deadlines:Oct. 4: Send both professors a one paragraph description of three possible paper topics. Make an appointment to meet with one of us before Oct. 12 to discuss your topics

Nov 8: Send both professors an indication of your preferred topic. Include a paragraph about each of the following:

1. Why is your question important and policy relevant?2. What work has already been done on the question you propose to address? 3. What can you add to current knowledge about the question?4. What evidence do you plan to use? If you plan to analyze existing evidence, you should

have figured out whether you can get access to it, whether it really contains the information you need, and whether it includes enough cases with the right characteristics to answer the question that interests you. If you plan to collect your own evidence, you should have begun to investigate whether you can get access to the site(s) where you want to work.

Dec 5: Send everyone in the seminar a two sentence description of your paper.

Dec 7 and 8: Student presentations, 2 to 4:30.

Dec 16: Submit an initial draft of your paper, with the following components: 1. short introduction (up to 1000 words) that specifies the question you propose to answer,

its relevance to public policy, its broader importance, and the evidence you will use to investigate it.

2. literature review (up to 2,500 words). The goal is not to show that you have read everything relevant to your topic but to describe what we know and what you suspect about the question you will try to answer. If your literature review turns up contradictory results, suggest possible explanations for these differences and say how you might test your conjectures, if you can. Don’t just report the existence of contradictory evidence and move on.

3. description of your data and methodological approach (up to 2,500 words). Provide as much detail as possible about your analytic approach and how it will answer your research question. Be sure to include discussion of challenges or uncertainties still to be addressed.

Before you start to write, read Jane Mansbridge, “A Few Simple Rules of Style for Graduate Students” (attached to this syllabus). More research paper guidelines are on the last two pages of the syllabus.

Second semester deadlines:


Jan 23, 2017: Classes resume. By the end of that week, submit an update of what you have accomplished since December to your paper advisor. For quantitative papers this means a description of the sample and variables plus descriptive statistics. For qualitative papers it means having done a few interviews or archival searches etc., and describing initial insights about processes or patterns.

Jan 27: Submit suggestions to Pamela Metz (cc. to faculty in proseminar) about possible speakers for the Monday Inequality Lunch Seminar (that person is also likely to be the commentator on your research paper in the third [fall 2017] semester of the proseminar).

May 4: Final draft of research paper is due if you want to receive the Masters degree at Commencement. This is a hard deadline. Even if you do not want to receive a degree in June, your paper is due unless your advisor gives you a written extension.

Summer 2017: Reserve a substantial part of the summer for working on your research paper. Your paper advisor can extend the deadline as late as July 15. Half of your second semester grade will be based on the paper draft you submit at this time.

If you are taking the third semester of the proseminar in the fall of 2017, you must send your paper to both the outside commentator and to the other members of the proseminar at least two weeks before your presentation date. A few papers may therefore need to be distributed as early as August 15. Because your seminar presentation date is also the date on which your commentator will speak in the Monday seminar, it cannot be changed. To ensure ample time to revise your paper, advisors will aim to return drafts submitted on time by August 1. Advisors who have other commitments between July 15 and August 1 may set an earlier submission deadline.

Third Semester (Fall 2017): The third semester will focus on revising your second semester paper for submission to a scholarly journal. You will make a presentation of no more than 20 minutes to the class on the date that the seminar speaker/commentator is at Harvard. Your presentation will be followed by 20 minutes of comments from the outside speaker and 20 minutes of open discussion.

You are expected to attend your classmates’ presentations in the proseminar and to provide written comments on their papers prior to their presentations. These written comments are a prerequisite for receiving credit for the seminar, which in turn is a prerequisite both for collecting your Inequality and Social Policy Fellowship and receiving a Social Policy degree if you are in a joint program.

The second hour of each seminar will focus on the outside speaker’s paper. You will be expected to comment on an outside speaker’s paper at some point during the third semester, but not for the speaker who comments on your own paper.

Readings

Wed. Sept. 7: Rising Inequality

Piketty, Thomas and Emmanuel Saez. 2014. “Inequality in the Long Run.” Science, May 23, 344(6186): 838-843.

Autor, David. 2014. “Skills, Education and the Rise of Earnings Inequality among the ‘Other 99 Percent’” Science, May 23, 344(6186), 843-851.

Keiester, Lisa. 2014. The One Percent. Annual Review of Sociology. 40:347-367.

Jencks, Christopher. 2002. “Does Inequality Matter?” Daedalus 131(1):49-65.

Grusky, David, and Manwai C. Ku. 2008. “Gloom, Doom, and Inequality,” pages 2-29 in Social Stratification: Class, Race, and Gender in Sociological Perspective (3rd edition), edited by David Grusky, in collaboration with Manwai C. Ku and Szonja Szelenyi. Philadelphia, PA: Westview Press.

Wed. Sept. 14: Family Inequality

Lareau, Annette. 2002. “Invisible Inequality: Social Class and Childrearing in Black Families and White Families.” American Sociological Review 67(5):747-776.

McLanahan, Sara, and Christine Percheski. 2008. “Family Structure and the Reproduction of Inequalities.” Annual Review of Sociology 34:257-276.

Western, Bruce, Christine Percheski, and Deirdre Bloome. 2008. “Inequality among American Families with Children, 1975 to 2005.” American Sociological Review 73(6):903-920.

Edin, Kathryn, and Maria Kefalas. 2005. “Unmarried with Children.” Contexts 4(2):16-22.

Brady, David. 2012. “Targeting, Universalism, and Single-Mother Poverty: A Multilevel Analysis Across 18 Affluent Democracies.” Demography 49:719-746.

For further reading (optional):

Edin, Kathryn, and Maria Kefalas. 2005. Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Budig, Michelle, and Paula England. 2001. “The Wage Penalty for Motherhood.” American Sociological Review 66:204–25.

Akerloff, George A., Janet L. Yellen, and Michael L. Katz. 1996. “An Analysis of Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing in the United States.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 111(2):277-317.

Wed. Sept. 21: Educational Inequality

Reardon, Sean. 2011. “The Widening Academic-Achievement Gap between the Rich and the Poor,” pp. 91-116 in Whither Opportunity: Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children’s Life Chances, edited by Richard Murnane and Greg Duncan, New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Heckman, James. 2006. “Skill Formation and the Economics of Investing in Disadvantaged Children.” Science 312 (June 30):1900-1902.

Curto, Vilsa E., Roland Fryer, and Meghan L. Howard. 2011. “It May Not Take a Village: Increasing Achievement among the Poor,” pp. 483-506 in Whither Opportunity: Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children’s Life Chances, edited by Richard Murnane and Greg Duncan, New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Alon, Sigal, and Marta Tienda. 2007. “Diversity, Opportunity, and the Shifting Meritocracy in Higher Education.” American Sociological Review 72(4):487-511.

Correll, Shelley. 2004. “Constraints into Preferences: Gender, Status and Emerging Career Aspirations.” American Sociological Review 69(1):93-113.


Alexander, Karl, Doris Entwisle, and Linda Olson. 2007. “Lasting Consequences of the Summer Learning Gap.” American Sociological Review 72(2):167-180.

Farkas, George, Robert Grobe, Daniel Sheehan, and Yuan Shuan. 1990. “Cultural Resources and School Success: Gender, Ethnicity, and Poverty Groups within an Urban School District.” American Sociological Review 55(1):127-142.

DiPrete, Thomas, and Jennifer Jennings. 2012. “Social and Behavioral Skills and the Gender Gap in Early Educational Achievement.” Social Science Research 41(1):1-15.

Wed. Sept. 28: Neighborhood Inequality

Wilson, William Julius. 1987. The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Read pages 20-62.

Sharkey, Patrick. 2010. “The Acute Effect of Local Homicides on Children’s Cognitive Performance. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 107(26):11733-11738.

Chetty, Raj, Nathaniel Hendren, and Lawrence Katz. 2016. “The Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children: New Evidence from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment.” American Economic Review 106(4):855-902.

Sampson, Robert J. 2008. “Moving to Inequality: Neighborhood Effects and Experiments Meet Social Structure.” American Journal of Sociology 114(1):189-231.

Desmond, Matt. 2012. “Eviction and the Reproduction of Urban Poverty.” American Journal of Sociology 118(1):88-133.


Sampson, Robert J., Stephen Raudenbush, and Felton Earls. 1997. “Neighborhoods and Violent Crime: A Multilevel Study of Collective Efficacy.” Science 277 (August 15):918-924.

Burdick-Will, Julia, et al. 2011. “Converging Evidence for Neighborhood Effects on Children’s Test Scores,” pp. 255-276 in Whither Opportunity: Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children’s Life Chances, edited by Richard Murnane and Greg Duncan, New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Tuesday, Oct. 4: Email both Pager and Hochschild a one-paragraph description of three possible paper topics. Make an appointment to meet with one of us before Wednesday, Oct. 12 to discuss these topics.

Wed. Oct. 5: Labor Market Inequality

Morris, Martina, and Bruce Western. 1999. “Inequality in Earnings at the Close of the Twentieth Century.” Annual Review of Sociology 25:623-657.

DiPrete, Thomas, Gregory M. Eirich, Matthew Pittinsky. 2010. “Compensation Benchmarking, Leapfrogs, and the Surge in Executive Pay.” American Journal of Sociology 115(6):1671-1712.

Western, Bruce and Jake Rosenfeld. 2011. “Unions, Norms, and the Rise in U.S. Wage Inequality.” American Sociological Review 4:513-537.

Pager, Devah, Bart Bonikowski, and Bruce Western. 2009. “Discrimination in a Low-Wage Labor Market: A Field Experiment.” American Sociological Review 74(5):777-799.

Kalev, Alexandra, Frank Dobbin, and Erin Kelly. 2006. “Best Practices or Best Guesses? Assessing the Efficacy of Corporate Affirmative Action and Diversity Policies.” American Sociological Review 71(4):589-617.


Portes, Alejandro, and Min Zhou. 1993. “The New Second Generation: Segmented Assimilation and its Variants.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 530 (November):74-96.

Bebchuk, Lucian, and Jesse M. Fried. 2003. “Executive Compensation as an Agency Problem.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 17(3):71-92.

Lee, David. 1999. “Wage Inequality in the United States during the 1980s: Rising Dispersion or Falling Minimum Wage?” Quarterly Journal of Economics 114(3):977-1023.

Goldin, Claudia, and Lawrence Katz. 2010. The Race between Education and Technology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Read pages 287-353).

Wed. Oct. 12: The Criminal Justice SystemWestern, Bruce, and Katherine Beckett. 1999. “How Unregulated is the U.S. Labor

Market? The Penal System as a Labor Market Institution.” American Journal of Sociology 104(4):1030-1060.

Uggen, Christopher, and Jeff Manza. 2002. “Democratic Contraction? Political Consequences of Felon Disenfranchisement in the United States.” American Sociological Review 67(6):777-803.

Goffman, Alice. 2009. “On the Run: Wanted Men in a Philadelphia Ghetto.” American Sociological Review 74(3):339-357.

Harris, Alexes, Heather Evans, and Katherine Beckett. 2010. “Drawing Blood from Stones: Legal Debt and Social Inequality in the Contemporary United States.” American Journal of Sociology 115(6):1753-1799.

Wildeman, Christopher. “Paternal Incarceration and Children’s Physically Aggressive Behaviors: Evidence from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study.” Social Forces 89(1):285-309.


National Research Council (U.S.). 2014. The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Oct. 19: Why is income inequality especially high in the US? (Hochschild)

Party politics1. Lane Kenworthy and Jonas Pontusson. 2005. "Rising Inequality and the Politics of

Redistribution in Affluent Countries." Perspectives on Politics 3(3): 449-471.http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3689018.pdf

Racial divisions2. Ira Katznelson. 2014. Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time, chaps. 4,

5

3. Alberto Alesina and Edward Glaeser. 2006. Fighting Poverty in the US and Europe (Oxford University Press), chap. 6 http://id.lib.harvard.edu/aleph/009380517/catalog

Market ideology4. Gøsta Esping-Andersen. 1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. (Princeton

University Press), chaps. 1 (pp. 21-33), 2 (pp. 47-54), and 3 (pp. 69-77).

5. Stefan Svallfors. 1997. “Worlds of Welfare and Attitudes to Redistribution: A Comparison of Eight Western Nations.” European Sociological Review 13 (3): 283-304.

Oct 26: Public or private provision of social goodsThe canonical statement

1. Albert Hirschman, 1970. Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States. All, except appendiceshttp://id.lib.harvard.edu/aleph/000405554/catalog

How the public-private intersection work in the US2. Jacob Hacker. 2002. The Divided Welfare State (Cambridge University Press), chap.

1.

The logic of privatization3. Terry Moe. 2001. Schools, Vouchers, and the American Public (Brookings Institution

Press), chaps. 5, 8. http://id.lib.harvard.edu/aleph/008616375/catalog CHECK

Nov 2: Electoral Incentives and Other Policy-making DynamicsCanonical statements

1. Anthony Downs. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy (Harper & Row), chaps. 2, 4, 7, 8.

2. David Mayhew. 2004. Congress: The Electoral Connection , 2nd ed., chap. 1.

3. John Kingdon. 2010. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (Pearson), chaps. 6, 8.

Macro models of public opinion’s impact4. James Stimson, Michael MacKuen, and Robert Erikson. 1995. “Dynamic

Representation,” American Political Science Review 89 (3): 543-565.http://www.jstor.org.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/stable/2082973

Partisan polarization?5. Craig Volden and Alan Wiseman. 2016. “Entrepreneurial Politics, Policy Gridlock,

and Legislative Effectiveness,” in Jeffery Jenkins and Eric Patashnik, eds. Congress and Policy Making in the 21st Century (Cambridge University Press): 21-47

Tuesday, Nov 8: Email both Pager and Hochschild your preferred paper topic

Nov. 9: Economic Inequality, Politics, and Public Policy Participation

1. Henry Brady, Sidney Verba, and Kay Schlozman. 1995. “Beyond SES: A Resource Model of Political Participation” American Political Science Review 89 (2): 271-294.

http://www.jstor.org.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/stable/pdf/2082425.pdf

2. Nolan McCarty, Keith Poole, and Howard Rosenthal. 2016. Polarized America, 2nd ed. (MIT Press), chaps. 4, 6.

Unequal Impact?3. Larry Bartels. 2008. Unequal Democracy: The Politics of the New Gilded Age.

(Princeton University Press and Russell Sage Foundation), chaps. 2, 9.http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:NLIB_273056

4. Alexander Branham, Stuart Soroka, and Christopher Wlezien. 2016. “When Do the Rich Win?” Political Science Quarterly , August

How Do Governments Respond?5. Richard L. Hall and Frank Wayman. 1990. "Buying Time: Moneyed Interests and the

Mobilization of Bias in Congressional Committees." American Political Science Review, 84(3): 797-820. http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1962767.pdf

6. Katherine Levine Einstein and Vladimir Kogan. 2016. “Pushing the City Limits: Policy Responsiveness in Municipal Government.” Urban Affairs Review 52 (1): 3-32.

Nov. 16: Implementation and FeedbacksCanonical statements

1. Jeffrey Pressman and Aaron Wildavsky. 1984. Implementation (University of California Press), chaps. 5, 6.

2. Michael Lipsky. 2010. Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Service (Russell Sage Foundation), chaps. 2, 5, 7, 9.http://id.lib.harvard.edu/aleph/013828727/catalog

Policy feedbacks3. Pierson, Paul. 1993. “When Effect Becomes Cause: Policy Feedback and Political

Change.” World Politics 45(4): 595-628.http://www.jstor.org.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/stable/2950710

4. Erik Patashnik and Julian Zelizer. 2013. “The Struggle to Remake Politics: Liberal Reform and the Limits of Policy Feedback in the Contemporary American State.” Perspectives on Politics 11(4): 1071-1087.

5. David Dagan and Steven Teles. 2014. “Locked In? Conservative Reform and the Future of Mass Incarceration,” Annals, AAPSS. No. 651 (January): 266-276.

Nov 23: Thanksgiving break (no class)

Nov. 30: Non-electoral Politics Social movements

1. Michael Biggs and Kenneth Andrews. 2015. “Protest Campaigns and Movement Success.” American Sociological Review 80 (2): 416-443.

Protest and riots2. Omar Wasow. 2015. “Nonviolence, Violence and Voting: Effects of the 1960s Black

Protests on White Attitudes and Voting Behavior,” Princeton University, working paper, May 4.http://www.omarwasow.com/Protests_on_Voting.pdf

Advocacy3. Jane Mansbridge. 1986. Why We Lost the ERA (University of Chicago Press),

chaps. 10- 11.

Courts as policy-makers4. Michael Blauberger. 2104. “National Responses to European Court Jurisprudence,”

West European Politics 37 (3): 457-474.

The American Constitutional Structure5. Sanford Levinson. 2012. Our Undemocratic Constitution, Intro & chaps. 2, 3, 5

Monday, Dec 5: Send everyone in the seminar a two sentence description of your paper

Dec. 7 and 8, 2 to 4:30: Presentation of paper proposalsWe need to have 8 presentations on each day. Allowing for transition and setup time, that gives us 15 minutes for presentation and discussion of each paper. We will enforce a 10 minute time limit for presentations , leaving 5 minutes for discussion.

As soon as possible after December 8, Professors Pager, Hochschild, and Deming will divide responsibility for advising the papers, so that you have a single advisor from mid-December 2016 through summer 2017. If you have preferences, let us know.

Dec. 16: Revised paper proposals are due, including literature review, descriptive discussion of your evidence, and proposed methods. You should also have gotten approval to either use or collect the evidence you need. If you do not have approval, spend part of the winter break getting it and tell your advisor at the end of the break about your progress.

Research Paper Guidelines:You can submit this paper in another class, but you must tell your advisor that you are doing this. You can also write your paper jointly with another student in this class, but not with another student in another class. Again, you need to inform your advisor.

Topic selection: The research paper can use quantitative data, qualitative data, or both, but regardless of its method, it should throw new light on some policy question. The proposal should be explicit about what policy question you hope your work will help answer. Topic selection is the most challenging part of paper-writing. Start thinking about possible topics soon! Identify several policy-relevant questions that you think could hold your attention for two years. Then determine empirical claims made in the debates surrounding these questions. For example:

What empirical assumptions lead people to think this is a problem that policy should address and could ameliorate?

What effects would proposed solutions be likely to have? What are political obstacles to adopting and implementing these solutions?

Next, do some more reading on each possible topic to see what has already been done, what questions have been answered convincingly, what questions have been addressed but not answered to your satisfaction, and what questions have not been studied at all. As you read, try to identify researchable questions in each area.

Discuss these questions with relevant faculty members and students; let us know if you would like suggestions about people to see. Don’t limit yourself to people in your department. Make an appointment to see one of us as well.

Rank your possible research questions using several criteria:

How interesting would this be to learn about?

Proseminar on Inequality and Social Policy I

Fall 2013 Reading List

Wed. Oct 21: Why is income inequality higher in the US and UK than in Scandinavia or Germany

Hints on how to read a quantitative paper

David Deming. 2010. “How to Read a Paper.” 2 pages. Photocopy.

a. Overview:

1. Anthony Atkinson. 2015. Inequality: What Can Be Done? Harvard University Press, pp 1-132, 237-239, plus references on pp315-335.

a. Constitutions

2. Alfred Stepan and Juan Linz. 2011. “Comparative Perspectives on Inequality and the Quality of Democracy in the United States.” Perspectives on Politics 9(4): 841-856. http://www.jstor.org.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/stable/pdf/41623697.pdf

b. Partisan politics

3. Jonas Pontusson, David Rueda, and Christopher Way. 2002. “Comparative Political Economy of Wage Distribution: The Role of Partisanship and Labor Market Institutions,” British Journal of Political Science 32(2): 281-308. http://users.ox.ac.uk/~polf0050/Rueda%20BJPS.pdf

4. Lane Kenworthy and Jonas Pontusson. 2005. "Rising Inequality and the Politics of Redistribution in Affluent Countries." Perspectives on Politics 3(3): 449-471. http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3689018.pdf

Recommended: Allan Meltzer and Scott Richard. 1981. “A Rational Theory of the Size of Government” Journal of Political Economy 89(5): 914-927. http://www.jstor.org.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/stable/pdf/1830813.pdf

How much would answering this question contribute to making the world a better place?

How likely is it that your research over the next two years can help answer this question?

Important topics are often neglected because no one can figure out how to investigate them fruitfully. If that turns out to be true of your first topic, turn to the next one on your list-- but don’t settle on a topic until you have done some reading, have a question that you think research can help answer, and have some idea what evidence you can gather to answer it. Avoiding premature closure will save you a lot of grief later.

Form and style for papers:

All papers should be submitted electronically. If your advisor also wants a paper copy, you should provide it as well. Papers should not exceed 12,000 words, excluding appendices. Please double space with 1.25 inch margins, so that readers have plenty of room to scribble comments on their paper copy, and remember to paginate.

Your paper should have an abstract that specifies its main point. Remember that potential readers do not have time to read most of what comes their way, even on a topic that interests them. They need to know what your paper will tell them ; if it is not something they really want to know, your paper will go in the recycle bin.

Once your electronic file is on the recipient’s computer, its file name needs to tell them what it contains. File names should include your last name, a short title, and the submission date (“Wolfers divorce 9-9-99”).

Excel charts and tables should be pasted into your manuscript, not sent as separate files. You should print a clean copy of your paper and look it over before submitting it, to be sure that this process has worked. You can also simplify subsequent revisions by not including the number of each table or figure in the Excel picture pasted into your Word file. Instead, type the heading with the current number of the table or chart in the Word document and then paste the picture below this heading.

Handing in a paper that you have not spell checked and revised for proper grammar creates the impression that you have not read it carefully – which reduces the incentive for your reader to read it carefully. Similarly, check charts and tables to be sure that your numbers look reasonable. Including means and standard deviations that defy common sense, for example, leaves the reader thinking that you don’t know or don’t care whether your empirical work is correct. That is the road to a job selling aluminum siding.

A few simple rules of style

Jane Mansbridge

1. Avoid all forms of the verb "to be" (is, are, were, etc.) and "exist." Also, avoid the passive voice.

2. Avoid using "and" to link two or more potential full sentences. Read through your sentence. If it could be two separate sentences, make it into two sentences by using a period. In some cases, use a semi-colon. (When you have two adjectives or nouns linked by "and," try to remove one.)

3. Never connect two full sentences with a comma. Break into two sentences or use a semi-colon.

4. Avoid using "it is interesting that," "interestingly," "it is clear that," "clearly," "it is obvious that," "obviously," "it is important to note that," and similar formulations. Use your writing to demonstrate that what you say is interesting, clear, obvious or important.

5. When you are talking about one thing, try to use the same wording to describe that thing throughout. This gives the reader a set of subtle (or not so subtle) reminders that you are talking about the same thing. Avoid "elegant variation."

For the same reason, when you are making comparisons, try to use directly parallel constructions. Say: "When the state tries to use force it fails, but when it tries to use persuasion it succeeds." Not "When the state tries to use force it fails, but when it attempts to utilize the processes of persuasion it is able to accomplish its goal."

When you have a parallel construction, keep parallel wording (e.g., "First, ...Second," not "First, ...Secondly." Or "Substantively, ...Figuratively," not "Substantively, ...In a figurative manner." Use the strict parallels to remind the reader that you are making a comparison.

7. Avoid "former" and "latter." Substitute one or two words that summarize the point.

8. Avoid hyperbole, that is, overstating your case. Watch out for words like "all," "always," and "never." Try not to reify or anthropomorphize concepts like "capital" and "the state" (Marx's own charming reifications notwithstanding). Do you mean "capitalists" or "state actors"? (I know this point is controversial, so use your judgment.)

9. Avoid the word "very." Cutting it almost always makes the meaning stronger.

10. Avoid rhetorical questions.

11. Avoid beginning sentences with an unspecified "this," as in "This caused much trouble." Provide a referent back to the previous sentence or paragraph, e.g. "This rejection caused much trouble."

12. Cut all words that don't contribute new meaning. Particularly avoid using two adjectives when one will do. Make sure every sentence contributes new meaning.

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Little points of grammar:

1. "Criteria," "data," "media," and "phenomena" are plural. They take plural verbs (e.g. "The criteria are..."). "Criterion," "datum," "medium" and "phenomenon" are singular.

2. Copyeditors in the U.S. these days like writers to use "that" when they are not introducing a parenthetical phrase ("The house that I used to love is still there."), and "which" when they are introducing such a phrase ("The house, which once glistened with new paint, has now fallen down."). An easy rule is: Always put "which" after a comma (or a comma before "which").

---------------------------------------------------------------Little points of typography:

1. Use a hyphen to connect words like "double-dipping," but a double hyphen with spaces on each side to indicate a parenthetical aside -- you know what I mean -- like the one I just made. It's better to use commas instead of the double hyphen whenever you can. It is also better to use commas instead of parentheses if you can.

2. Put embedded footnotes inside the period, as in (Mansbridge l986).

3. Three dots indicate an elipsis, that is, words removed from something you are quoting. If you remove words at the end of a sentence, you need four dots, three for the words you are omitting and one for the period. If you are reporting interviews, signify your respondent's pauses with double hyphens to distinguish pauses from omitted material.

4. Social scientists usually write "10 percent," using the numerical form of the number to facilitate easy comparison with other numbers, but write out the word "percent." In tables, "10%" is fine.

5. Indent and single space quotations of more than three lines.

6. Use square brackets [] for your own interjections in quotations.

7. Purists frown on putting a comma after “Yet” or “But” to begin a sentence. (In contrast, “However,” does take a comma at the beginning of a sentence). To see why, try reading sentences with one or the other first word aloud.

For more, read William Strunk and E.B. White's famous Elements of Style (New York: Macmillan [l935] l979), $5.95 at Amazon, 90 pages. Buy it and read it now.

hle 511: fall 1999 - harvard university web view420 william james hall. phone: 617-496 ... stuart...

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