HIST6100 - American Democracy

Democracy in America

In this graduate seminar, we will examine the development of formal structures of democratic participation in the United States from the founding of the nation into the contemporary moment. By formal structures of democratic participation, we mean those institutions where citizens, non-citizens, and state meet: elections, party systems, the courts and criminal justice system, but also evolving ideas and practices of constitutionalism, regulation and the administrative state, public policy, and “common people’s” political practices separate from the ballot box. We also mean to think about institutions and practices that exist alongside and within formal structures of democracy, such as associations, conventions, churches, and print culture. The course covers a long chronology in order to expose students to both stark continuities and crucial ruptures across time. We pay close attention to local, state, and national arenas and sovereignties; to contingent moments of democratic reform and rupture; to conflict and contestation over democratic citizenship and the electorate; tools of democratic politics; and to debates among historical actors, democratic theorists, and historians.