Pick one:
1. Choose a place you know well: your hometown, neighborhood, school district, county, or another community where you have spent substantial time. Describe what you have observed about its political character. Consider campaign signs, local controversies, political events, social divisions, voting habits, or the absence of visible political activity. Do not rely on stereotypes or general impressions.
Test your observations through outside research. Compare official election results from three elections over at least twelve years. Use at least two additional credible sources, such as census data, local news coverage, campaign materials, party platforms, or public-opinion surveys. Use Hershey’s account of party identification and party-system change to explain the pattern you find. Did demographic change, economic change, national issues, candidate appeal, or institutional rules drive the results? Identify one fact that challenges your preferred explanation. Conclude by deciding whether the community reflects a broader change in American party politics or follows its own unusual path. Explain what your personal knowledge helped you notice—and what the outside evidence forced you to reconsider. Acknowledge what one community cannot tell us about the nation.
2. Interview someone at least twenty years older than you about the first election in which that person voted and the most recent election in which that person voted. Ask what party the person favored in each election, which issues mattered most, what social groups shaped the choice, and whether any event changed the person’s allegiance. Use Hershey’s account of party identification and party-system change to analyze the interview. Did the person change, did the parties change, or did both change? Identify one issue or social division that shifted in importance between the two elections. Test the interviewee’s account through outside research. Consult at least two credible sources, including one primary or quantitative source, such as election returns, a party platform, a contemporary campaign advertisement, or public-opinion data. Do these sources confirm, complicate, or contradict the interviewee’s memory? Does the person’s political history reflect a broader change in the party system or an unusual individual journey? Present the strongest evidence against your conclusion. Explain what one person’s experience can and cannot tell us about party change.
3. Hershey describes American parties as networks that connect voters, organizations, officeholders, candidates, activists, and outside groups. Plunkitt portrays an older party system built on personal relationships, practical rewards, and neighborhood organization. Interview someone who has worked or volunteered in a campaign, party committee, elected office, political club, union, or advocacy group since 2020. You may draw on your own experience instead if you have participated in such an organization. Do not interview a classmate for this assignment. Explain how the person entered politics, what work the person performed, who set the organization’s goals, and what motivated participation. Identify which dimensions of the party—party in the electorate, party organization, party in government, or partisan outside groups—appear in the account. Which dimension exercised the most influence? Compare the account with Plunkitt’s description of party politics. Does the modern organization still rely on personal loyalty, practical favors, social ties, or material rewards? Identify one revealing similarity and one important difference. Then use Hershey and outside research to decide whether your case shows the decline, survival, or transformation of traditional party organization. Present the strongest competing interpretation of your evidence. Conclude by explaining whether your case reflects a broader pattern or an unusual situation.
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Instructions:
- Essays should be double-spaced and no more than four pages long. I will not read past the fourth page.
- Essays should be in the form of Word documents. Do not submit pdfs or Google docs.
- I strongly encourage relevant outside research, particularly when it provides historical context, evidence about an example, or support for a claim about how typical an experience is. Cite all outside sources. For privacy reasons, do not provide the full name or identifying information of any individual to whom you speak for this assignment.
- Cite outside sources with endnotes (not footnotes) in Chicago/Turabian style. Endnote pages do not count against the page limit.
- Misrepresenting AI-generated content as your own work is plagiarism. It could result in a referral to the Academic Standards Committee. You do not want to start your college career this way.
- Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you. Read Strunk & White and watch my writing lecture before writing this paper.
- Turn in essays to Canvas by 11:59 PM, Friday, October 2. (If you have trouble with Canvas, simply email it to me as an attached Word file.) I reserve the right to dock essays a grade point for one day’s lateness, a full letter grade after that.
