Research Paper Prompt

Research Paper Prompt
Fall, 2010
Adjunct Instructor Frederick M. Hemker IV

Political science, as a social scientific discipline, uses facts to evaluate theories.  One theory, borrowed from David R. Mayhew’s Congress: The Electoral Connection, is that politicians are primarily self-interested seekers of re-election.  What this means is that that re-election seeking behavior is the most effective means of evaluating a politician’s past behavior and predicting their future behavior.  According to Mayhew, if you want to know why a politician votes the way she votes, takes the positions she takes, or makes the statements she makes, all you have to do is determine whether she thinks that doing so will help or harm her chances at re-election.

Your assignment is to do a case study, 10 to 15 pages in length, evaluating whether political behavior is in fact best explained by self-interested, vote-seeking behavior.  You may look at a single politician, multiple politicians, and/or single or multiple issues.

A case study is a kind of research project, so you are expected to use multiple sources.  Please cite your sources appropriately (I use the Chicago Manual of Style).  Plagiarism will result in an automatic failing grade.  Please see http://lib.lbcc.edu/handouts/writing.html for more information.