KC Johnson

Requirements:

• Exams (midterm and final): 50 percent
• Group oral presentation: 25 percent
• quizzes (3 lowest grades dropped): 15 percent
• Participation: 10 percent

My Contact Information:

• email: kcjohnson9@gmail.com
• cell: 207-329-8456
• skype: kcjohnson9
• office hours: by apptment (either phone or zoom)

Revised Schedule:

Week 1: (w/o 16 March): Rights-Related Liberalism

1. Lecture snippets posted 19 March
2. follow-up posted 22 March

• Donald Critchow and Cynthia Stachecki, “The Equal Rights Amendment Reconsidered: Politics, Policy, and Social Mobilization in a Democracy,” Journal of Policy History
• Amanda Ross Edwards, “Why Sport?,” Journal of Policy History

Week 2 (w/o 23 March): Rise of the Right & the 1980 Election

1. Lecture snippets posted 23 March
2. follow-up posted 27 March
3. discussion sections 26 and 27 March

• Daniel Williams, “The GOP’s Abortion Strategy: Why Pro-Choice Republicans Became Pro-Life in the 1970s,” Journal of Policy History (2011).
• Robert Freedman, “The Religious Right and the Carter Administration,” The Historical Journal
• Cary R. Covington, Kent Kroeger, Glenn Richardson and J. David Woodard, “Shaping a Candidate’s Image in the Press: Ronald Reagan and the 1980 Presidential Election,” Political Research Quarterly

Week 3 (w/o 30 March): Politics & Policy in the Reagan Years

1. Lecture snippets posted 30 March
2. follow-up posted 3 April
3. discussion sections 2 and 3 April

• Hugh Davis Graham “The Surprising Career of Federal Fair Housing Law,” Journal of Policy History
• Andrew Van Alstyne, “Media, Advertising, and the 1984 Election.”
• Jeffrey Engel, “A Better World . . . but Don’t Get Carried Away: The Foreign Policy of George H. W. Bush,” Diplomatic History (2010).

April 7-16: spring recess, transition day

Week 4 (w/o 20 April): The Clinton Emergence

1. Lecture snippets posted 20 April
2. follow-up posted 24 April
3. discussion sections 23 and 24 April

• Stephen Borrelli, “Finding the Third Way: Bill Clinton, the DLC, and the Democratic Platform of 1992,” Journal of Policy History
• WJ Rorabaugh, “Critical Perspectives: Did Prosperity Contribute to the South’s Abandonment of the Democratic Party?,” Journal of Policy History
• Norman Graebner, “The End of Liberalism,” Journal of Policy History

Week 5 (w/o 27 April): Impeachment, 2000, Bush

1. Lecture snippets posted 27 April
2. follow-up posted 1 May
3. discussion sections 30 April and 1 May

• Steve Brill, “Pressgate (6 parts),” Brill’s Content (1998).
• Benjamin Highton, “Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and the 1998 House Elections,” The Public Opinion Quarterly
• Melvyn Leffler, “9/11 and American Foreign Policy,” Diplomatic History 29 (2005), pp. 395-413.

Week 6 (w/o 4 May): The Obama Era

1. Lecture snippets posted 4 May
2. follow-up posted 8 May
3. discussion sections 7 and 8 May

• Heilemann and Halperin, Game Change (2nd excerpt)
• Kevin Donnelly and David Rochefort, “The Lessons of ‘Lesson Drawing’: How the Obama Administration Attempted to Learn from Failure of the Clinton Health Plan,” Journal of Policy History (2012).

Week 7 (w/o 11 May): Beyond Obama

1. Lecture snippets posted 11 May
2. follow-up posted 15 May
3. group presentations 12 and 14 May

readings TBA

TBA: Final exam (1:00-3:00); online