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368.
Environmental Politics
December 2009
Dr. Craig W. Allin, Instructor
Greg Cotton, Consulting Librarian
Laura Farmer & Shawn Doyle, Writing Consultants
Jessica Johanningmeier, Quantitative Consultant |
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SEPTEMBER 2, 2009
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COURSE DESCRIPTION
Web Syllabus: With its interactive
links, hypertext seems the ideal medium for course syllabi.
With a click, you can be at a site to which a paper
syllabus could only refer. You can use it all on line
and print whatever you want. Portions of this syllabus
or its attachments make use of the portable document
format (PDF). PDF files generally print better than
HTML files. They offer exact visual replicas of printed
pages comparable to printout from a color copier. They
allow you to print selected pages, and they don't depend
on your having any particular world processor. PDF is
the dominant file type used for delivering facsimiles
of paper documents, like court opinions and legislative
reports, over the Internet. To read PDF files on your
personal computer you need the Adobe Acrobat Reader,
which you can download
without charge from the publisher. This software is
already loaded on most college-owned computers.
Feedback: Whether or not you are
asked to complete a standardized course evaluation,
I am interested in your comments and suggestions for
improving the course, the readings, the assignments
and this course description. Feel free to send comments
as you think of them. E-mail: callin@cornellcollege.edu.
Instructor: Craig W. Allin,
Room 307, South Hall. Telephone: Office, (895-) 4278; Cell, 431-1100. E-mail callin@cornellcollege.edu. Appointments may be scheduled with faculty secretary
Cheryl Dake (895-) 4283, cdake@cornellcollege.edu.
Office Hours: If I'm not
in class with you, you can probably find me in my office.
Feel free to make an appointment or just show up. To help
you find me,the most current version of my schedule is available
for your electronic inspection over the campus network if
you are using Microsoft Outlook [not Outlook Express or Outlook Web Access].
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On the File menu, point to Open, and then click Other
User's Folder.
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In the Open Other User's Folder box, click Name and
select Craig Allin from the list.
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In the Folder box, select Calendar from the pull-down
menu.
Core Texts: The following books
are available for purchase at the Cornell College Bookstore.
Each is assigned in its entirety.
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Walter A. Rosenbaum.
Environmental Politics and Policy. 7th
Edition. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2008.
Norman J. Vig and Michael
E. Kraft, eds. Environmental Policy: New Directions
for the Twenty-First Century. 7th Edition.
Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2009. |
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Supplementary Texts: The following
books are also available for purchase in the bookstore. The
class will be divided into panels, and each panel will be responsible
for reporting on one book. Do not purchase any of these
books until you have your panel assignment. These books range from total gloom and doom to "don't worry, be happy" and approach environmental politics from historical, political and economic perspectives. They are selected because they are recent, provocative, relatively short, and relatively inexpensive. We will assign these books early in the course, so you may want to think about your preferences before the class starts. To find our more about each of the supplementary texts, just click on the book's cover below.
Internet Resources: The Home
Page for the Politics Department contains a wealth of valuable
information including programs and requirements of the Department
of Politics; information about Politics Courses; and research links
for politics, government, and law. There are also free Internet
News Services that can be very helpful if you have your own
computer connected either to the Cornell Network or to an Internet
Service Provider. For this course I recommend the Environmental
News Network at http://www.enn.com/
. You can subscribe for free delivery of environmental news
daily by e-mail. ENN also maintains searchable archives.
COURSE OUTLINE
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Introductory Case Study -- The Politics
of Planetary Health: video on the science and politics of global
warming. This quick start should serve to get us in the mood
for environmental politics and remind us that the stakes are
rather high.
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Introduction to Environmental Politics
-- Using Rosenbaum as our guide, we will explore the
history and structure of environmental politics in the United
States. This is a standard text for courses in environmental
politics and policy. We will read it over a four-day period.
You will not be able to absorb all it has to offer in that short
span of time, but you will get a broad foundation on which to
build. Completing this book quickly will introduce you to the
wide variety of topics that fall within the environmental politics
rubric and introduce a large number of policy issues that you
might want to explore in your individual project.
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Excursions in Environmental Policy -- Craig
will lead an exploration of the politics and policy of wilderness
management on federal lands. Panels of students will present
and evaluate the arguments made by authors of our supplementary
texts. This portion of the course will allow us to learn from
each other and to hear from authors representing a variety of
approaches to a variety of issues. During this period you have
no formal reading assignments. If you are wise, you will take
advantage of this time to put major energy into your policy
paper and/or read ahead in the Vig & Kraft book.
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Issues of Environmental Policy -- Following
Vig & Kraft, we will explore a variety of issues
in environmental policy for the new millennium. This anthology
is often used in graduate as well as undergraduate courses in
environmental policy, and these somewhat more sophisticated
articles will provide an opportunity to refine our understanding
of the policy process and some of the issues raised by it.
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Cases on Point -- Students will share the
results of their own individual research and analysis. These
presentations will allow each of us to learn from someone who
has developed relative expertise on an environmental issue of
her/his own choosing. Selected members of the class will evaluate each
presentation.
REQUIREMENTS
- Students are expected to attend all classes and to complete all assignments prior to class time on the day for which they are assigned. You should read carefully and be prepared to discuss all the assignments intelligently. You should also be on the look out for relevant news. As we meet, the nation's environmental policy seems seems to be gridlocked between a vigorously anti-environmental, lame-duck president and a Congress than no longer supports him. Breakthrough legilsation seems unlikely in the next 14 months, but the environmental work of the government continues in the EPA, the Interior Department, etc. One portion of the course grade will reflect the instructor's evaluation of your attendance, participation, and effort.
- Each student will participate in a panel report
during the second week of the course. See Group
Study & Report for details. Both the performance
of your group and your contribution to that performance will count for a portion of the course grade.
- There will be a comprehensive final examination
covering all the course's assigned reading and the panel reports.
- Each student will complete a major research project
on an approved topic. See Individual
Project Assignment for details. In celebration of Cornell's subscription to the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, individual projects that make use of ICPSR data will receive a grade boost--ranging from 5 percent for any use to 20 percent for sophisticated use--on the initial submission.
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GRADING
SYNOPSIS |
| Classroom Contribution |
10% |
| Panel Report |
20% |
| Final Examination |
20% |
| Policy Paper |
20% |
| Seminar Report |
20% |
| Policy Paper Rewrite |
10% |
| Total |
100% |
INDIVIDUAL
PROJECT ASSIGNMENT:
Policy Paper & Presentation
"He who knows only his own side of the case, knows
little of that."
--John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859)
Learning Objectives:
- To enhance your knowledge of a specific area of environmental
policy.
- To enhance the class's knowledge of a specific area of environmental
policy by means of your report.
- To improve your knowledge of research methods and materials
including government documents and specialized indexes.
- To improve your skills in persuasive writing including grammar,
punctuation, spelling, mechanics, usage, and documentation using
a recognized style sheet.
- To improve your writing through your responses to constructive
criticism.
- To improve your confidence and skill as a public speaker.
Assignment: Your job is to write
a policy paper of 2,500 to 4,000 words in length exclusive of abstract,
illustrations, notes, bibliography, appendices, etc. Your paper
must deal with a significant environmental policy question about
which you have not previously written a college level paper and
which is, or ought to be, on the agenda of American politics at
the national, state, or local level. If in doubt, consult.
Public Policy & Policy Papers:
A "policy" is regular practice or a clear course of action. (E.g.,
it is the policy of Cornell College to issue grades once a month.)
A "public policy" is any policy adopted by a government. (E.g.,
it is the policy of the United States to prohibit hunting in national
parks.) A "policy paper" is a concise document that recommends a
public policy and argues for the adoption of that policy. Your policy
paper--and the seminar report, which will be produced from the same
materials--will be developed through five stages. The deadlines
for each stage are listed on the Course
Calendar and Assignments page.
Stage I -- RESEARCH QUESTION & BIBLIOGRAPHY: Send an e-mail attachment (with a copy addressed to the consulting librarian for social sciences) describing your research question and providing a properly documented working bibliography for that topic.
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Selecting a research question requires that you identify a topic appropriate for inquiry and susceptible to a public policy recommendation.
- So what's a good topic?
- One that is consistent with assignment: Your paper must deal with a matter of public policy within the Constitutional power of some officer, agency or institution of the United States federal, state or local government.
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One that is interesting to you.
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One where you have no preconceived bias to blind you.
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One that is narrow enough to allow relatively thorough research.
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Exactly how narrow more art than science.
- If your topic is too broad, your research will be unfocused and superficial.
- If your topic is too narrow, you won’t find the information you need to proceed.
- You need to strike a balance based on preliminary exploration of your topic.
- In this wired world, it is probably easier to be too broad than too narrow.
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Here are some topics that are too broad:
- Endangered species
- Environmental protection
- National park policy
- Yellowstone National Park
- Federal wolf management
- Ranchers' rights
- Threats to livestock
- Economics of cattle ranching
- And here's one that has something to do with all of the topics above but is apropriately narrow:
- Whether the Yellowstone wolves should be protected when they leave the park.
- Notice that the formulation above is more than just a topic: it is a research question. Should they be protected or shouldn't they? Let's go examine the evidence and reach a conclusion. Doing the hard work of answering your policy question will result in the policy recommendation required in Stage II.
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Make sure your research question begins with the word whether and raises a specific issue.
Your bibliography will continue to evolve throughout your research and writing, but the working bibliography you submit at this time should demonstrate that you have located and have access to high-quality information relevant to your research question. In most cases your working bibliography should include some mix of scholarly books, articles in scholarly journals, and primary sources such as laws, court cases, census data or polling results. If the sources you can locate are primarily secondary and non-scholarly, i.e., journalistic, seek help in finding better sources or choose a new research question.
Stage II -- POLICY RECOMMENDATION & CONTENTIONS: Prepare a document stating your policy recommendation with precision and setting forth an outline of the contentions you intend to make for it. Print two copies and bring them to your individual paper conference on Monday.
- The policy recommendation is the paper's thesis. The outline of contentions previews your paper's anticipated structure.
- Please note that articulating a good policy recommendation requires that you have done the research required to answer your research question with some specificity. For example: "The wolves that have been introduced to Yellowstone National Park should have the full protection of the Endangered Species Act as they spread beyond the park's boundaries."
- Remember your policy recommendation must be within the legal power of some officer, agency or institution of national, state, or local government in the United States.
- This is the point at which trouble most often arises, so before you submit your policy recommendation and contentions, examine them carefully using the criteria set forth in Getting from Research Question & Bibliography to Policy Proposal & Contentions.
- Before you organize your contentions into an outline, consult A Good Argument Is a Hierarchy of Contentions.
- This assignment is not graded, but failure to complete it in a timely fashion will negatively affect your class participation grade.
Stage III -- POLICY PAPER: Send an e-mail attachment presenting your recommendation and supporting arguments in a formal paper with appropriate manuscript format, proper citations, etc. Remember, you are being asked to take a position and make a case for it. A good policy paper consists of a clear policy recommendation supported by strong arguments supported by unimpeachable evidence. A good policy paper will be:
- Persuasive: You must state a conclusion and back that conclusion with reasoned argument. Your mission is to persuade the reader, and the better the argument, the higher the probability of success.
- Well Researched: Your arguments must be firmly rooted in careful research. You must have a command of the relevant facts. You must understand your own position, the positions of those with whom you disagree, and the relationship of the facts to each.
- Concise: A good policy papers is not always brief, but it must be concise. That means no padding and no B.S. The typical audience for a policy paper is a judge, a corporate executive, or a high government official. If your policy paper does not get to the point quickly and move the argument forward relentlessly, you are unlikely to get and hold the attention of your target audience. If you want to persuade a busy person, do not waste her time. The assigned length of your paper is short in part to force you to be concise. If you don't have to struggle some to reduce your arguments and evidence to 2,000 words, you probably have not done the research you should have done.
- Hierarchically Organized: It will organize the arguments to be made into the strongest possible hierarchy of contentions. Refer again to A Good Argument Is a Hierarchy of Contentions.
- Appropriately Documented: Documentation is important for both ethical and practical reasons. Ethically, documentation gives credit where credit is due. Practically, documentation enhances the credibility of your work by demonstrating its reliance on and relationship with credible sources of information. I expect you to use one of the approved styles of documentation and to follow it with care throughout your paper.
- Well Written: I will be looking for clear organization of the ideas and arguments; effective use of paragraphs, and subheadings if you like, to orient the reader; good transitions from one part of the text to the next; a conclusion that is both substantive and relevant; and sound grammar, punctuation, spelling and usage.
- Professionally Presented: I will also be looking for a paper that has all its component parts appropriately formatted, in proper order, and in the form of a single e-mail attachment.
Consult POLICY PAPERS: How to Succeed for more detailed instructions.
For a sample of a real policy paper written by a real Cornell student that earned a grade of A, please click here.
Stage IV -- Policy Presentation:
Your research and recommendation will also be shared with the
class in the form of a seminar report. You will have 15 minutes
to make your presentation. You will not have sufficient time
to read your paper, nor would it be appropriate to do so. You
will want to rework your material, including text and illustrations
(if any), for the most effective possible oral presentation.
See POLICY
PRESENTATION: How to Succeed.
Selected classmates
will provide you with critiques of your oral presentation. So
will I.
Note: the Cornell College Student Symposium is an excellent
opportunity to showcase your best work to a larger and more
diverse audience. It also looks good on your resume. If you have made yourself proud on this assignment, consider submitting your project
for the symposium. You've already written the abstract and prepared
the oral presentation! Consult the Student
Symposium web site for deadlines and details.
Stage V -- Policy Paper Rewrite: After receiving
a written critique of your policy paper, you will rewrite and
resubmit the paper making as many improvements in substance
and presentation as you can manage. The rewrite should be better
than the original paper. After all, you will have had the benefit
of expert editorial advice. As a practical matter, a conscientious
effort to address the technical problems that have been identified
in your paper will preserve your grade. More substantive improvements
will enhance your grade.
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