Module POL3274 for 2021/2
- Overview
- Aims and Learning Outcomes
- Module Content
- Indicative Reading List
- Assessment
Undergraduate Module Descriptor
POL3274: Money, Lobbying, and Policymaking
This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.
Module Aims
This module is intended to improve both (1) your understanding about politics and the forces that result in implemented public policies, and (2) your ability to critically evaluate research, news reports, and advocacy efforts. The aim is to enable you to assess for yourself the effects of pressure group money on politics and policymaking, having portrayed lobbyists and legislators in simulations, and analysed real data on the topic.
On successfully completing the programme you will be able to: | |
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Module-Specific Skills | 1. critically assess the influence of lobbyists' direct and indirect expenditures on US policymaking; 2. demonstrate understanding of the role pressure groups and lobbyists play in policymaking, particularly in the US; |
Discipline-Specific Skills | 3. use simple statistical methods to analyse data and model political behaviour; 4. critically evaluate political science research according to its assumptions, methods, and conclusions; |
Personal and Key Skills | 5. increase confidence in approaching professional colleagues with ideas and suggesting collaborations; 6. improve writing skills through multiple iterations, peer review, and practice writing in the role of a professional, rather than a student; and 7. demonstrate an ability to be persuasive. |
Module Content
Syllabus Plan
Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics: the purpose of interest groups, what lobbying is and how it is done, laws that regulate lobbying and money in the US and other countries, current research on lobbying and policymaking, case studies of lobbying and policymaking, and related topics.
Assignments include strategic memos, a research note (a short essay of your original research), a bit of data analysis using a statistics package, and an in-class simulations of lobbying and policymaking.
Learning and Teaching
This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
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22 | 128 | 0 |
...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:
Category | Hours of study time | Description |
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Scheduled learning and teaching activities | 22 | 11 x 2 hour seminars |
Guided independent study | 44 | Preparing for seminars: Reading and research |
Guided independent study | 84 | Completing assessment tasks: Reading, research and writing |
Online Resources
This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).
Indicative Reading List
This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.
- Baumgartner and Leech, Basic Interests
- Baumgartner, Berry, Hojnacki, Kimball, and Leech, Lobbying and Policy Change
- Berry and Wilcox, The Interest Group Society
- E. E. Schattschneider, The Semisovereign People: A Realist's View of Democracy in America
- Frank J. Sorauf, Inside Campaign Finance
- Larry Sabato, PAC Power
- Panagopoulos and Schank, All Roads Lead to Congress
- Robert M. Alexander, The Classics of Interest Group Behavior
- Wolpe and Levine, Lobbying Congress
- Amy McKay, “Buying Policy? The Effects of Lobbyists’ Resources on their Policy Success.” Political Research Quarterly Austen-Smith and Wright, “Counteractive Lobbying.” American Political Science Review
- Chin, Bond, and Geva. “A foot in the door: An experimental study of PAC and constituency effects on access.” Journal of Politics
- David Lowery. “Why Do Organized Interests Lobby? A Multi-Goal, Multi-Context Theory of Lobbying.” Polity
- Denzau and Munger, “How Unorganized Interests Get Represented.” American Political Science Review
- Hall and Wayman, “Buying Time: Moneyed Interests and the Mobilization of Bias in Congressional Committees.” American Political Science Review
- Jennifer Nicoll Victor, “Strategic Lobbying.” American Politics Research