Even though ISA provided some much-needed group therapy, in the end we still need to grapple with and teach about #45. I was inspired by some ideas in syllabi 1, 2, and 3, but I also needed some background information and topics that are geared towards a non-American audience. On top of it, I left the theme of one session open for the students to decide on.
So below is roughly what my students are  in for at the University of Bremen.  Any ideas how to improve it?
Unit 1: Sources
- DEMAGOGUERY AND DEMOCRACY
Finley, M. (1962). Athenian Demagogues. Past & Present, (21), 3-24.
Further reading: The Federalist Papers, 9, 10;
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol. 1, Book 1, chap. 5 (1835).
- THE AMERICAN DREAM
Kasser, T., & Ryan, R. M. (1996). Further examining the American dream: Differential correlates of intrinsic and extrinsic goals. Personality and social psychology bulletin, 22(3), 280-287.
Manza, J., & Brooks, C. (2014) Prisoners of the American Dream? Americans’ Attitudes toward Taxes and Inequality in the New Gilded Age
Further reading: Davis, M. (1986). Prisoners of the American dream: Politics and economy in the history of the US working class. Verso.
- POPULISM
Mudde, C. (2004). The populist zeitgeist. Government and opposition, 39(4), 542-563
Canovan, M. (1999). Trust the people! Populism and the two faces of democracy. Political studies, 47(1), 2-16.
Further reading: Dornbusch, R., & Edwards, S. (1991). The macroeconomics of populism. In The macroeconomics of populism in Latin America (pp. 7-13). University of Chicago Press.
- AUTHORITARIANISM
Doty, R. M., Peterson, B. E., & Winter, D. G. (1991). Threat and authoritarianism in the United States, 1978–1987. Journal of personality and social psychology, 61(4), 629.
Lipset, S. M. (1955). The radical right: A problem for American democracy. The British Journal of Sociology, 6(2), 176-209.
Further reading: Adorno, T. W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D. J., & Sanford, R. N. (1950). The authoritarian personality.
Unit 2: Parts
- THE LANGUAGE
Lakoff, George (2016) Understanding Trump.
Kazin, M. (1998). The populist persuasion: An American history. Cornell University Press.
Further reading: Â
 Fairclough, N. (2000). New Labour, new language?. Psychology Press.
All the King’s Men (2006) film
- MASS MEDIA
Azari, J. R. (2016). “How the News Media Helped to Nominate Trump.” Political Communication 33(4): 677-680.
Baumgartner, J. C. and J. S. Morris (2016). The Serious Business of Late-Night Political Humor: Foreign Policy Issue Salience in the 2014 Midterm Elections. Communication and Midterm Elections, Springer: 131-142.
Further Reading:
Buckels, E. E., et al. (2014). “Trolls just want to have fun.” Personality and individual Differences 67: 97-102.
Del Vicario, M., et al. (2015). “Echo chambers in the age of misinformation.” arXiv preprint arXiv:1509.00189.
- THE BRAND
Caldwell, Wilber W..; American Narcissism: The Myth of National Superiority (Introduction and Chapter 3)
Christopher Lasch (1979). The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations
Further reading: Leo Braudy (1986) The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its History.
Optional: Businessman as a hero. Warren Buffet, Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
Unit 3: Themes
- GENDER
Ducat, Stephen (2016) The Wimp Factor: Gender Gaps, Holy Wars, and the Politics of Anxious Masculinity (Chapter 6)
Yuval-Davis, N. (1997). Women, citizenship and difference. Feminist review, 4-27.
Further reading: Sjoberg, L., & Gentry, C. E. (2007). Mothers, Monsters, Whores: women’s violence in global politics. Zed Books.
Sperling, V. (2015). Sex, Politics, and Putin: Political Legitimacy in Russia. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- RACE (thanks to Myron T. Strong for suggestions)
Rosino, M. L., & Hughey, M. W. (2016). Who’s invited to the (political) party: race and party politics in the USA. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 39(3), 325-332.
Golash-Boza, T. M. (2015). Race & racisms: A critical approach.
Further Reading:Â Fanon, F. (2008) [1952]. Black skin, white masks. Grove press.
David Jacobs and Daniel Tope (2008) Race, crime, and Republican strength: Minority politics in post civil rights era. Â Social Science Research, vol 37,issue 4,p 1116-1129
- CONSPIRACY
Richard Hofstadter (1966) The Paranoid Style in American Politics. Vintage
Michael Barkun (2003) Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America (Chapter 1&2)
Further reading: Eric Oliver, Thomas Wood (2014) Conspiracy Theories and the Paranoid Style(s) of Mass Opinion
- CONSERVATISM
Geoffrey Kabaservice (2011) Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party
Brown, J. A. (2016). Running on Fear: Immigration, Race and Crime Framings in Contemporary GOP Presidential Debate Discourse. Critical Criminology, 24(3), 315-331.
Further reading:Â Ann Coulter (2016) In Trump we trust. E Pluribus Awesome OR Adios America
- ISOLATIONISM
Fensterwald Jr, B. (1958). The anatomy of American” isolationism” and expansionism. Part I. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2(2), 111-139.
Braumoeller, B. F. (2010). The Myth of American Isolationism. Foreign Policy Analysis, 6(4), 349-371.
Further reading: Jonas, M. (1966). Isolationism in America, 1935-1941. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
- TBA!
- CONCLUSION: LET’S BUILD A TRUMP
I suppose you could add:
1. Jodi Dean: https://inthesetimes.com/article/18309/donald-trump-republican-president
— couple her short piece with chapters out of some of her critique of democratic theory
2. for conservative ideology, you can add some work Corey Robin:
https://www.amazon.com/Reactionary-Mind-Conservatism-Edmund-Burke/dp/0199959110/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
3. some work on transnational counter-TANs against gay rights:
https://www.amazon.com/Global-Politics-Cambridge-Studies-Contentious/dp/0521145449/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1490364237&sr=1-1&keywords=clifford+bob
4. for explaining Trump’s relation to the former (though the empirical work still needs to be done on this as far as I know), it would be good to talk about pink-washing:
thanks! that’s very helpful!
For the coda, on the public administration of resistance:
O’Leary, Rosemary. (2005). The Ethics of Dissent: Managing Guerrilla Government. Washington, DC: CQ Press.
On demagoguery:
Luthin, Reinhard H. (1951). Some Demagogues in American History. The American Historical Review, 57(1), 22-46.
Luthin, Reinhard H. (1954). American Demagogues: Twentieth Century. Boston: The Beacon Press.
great! thanks!
Not sure exactly where it fits, but:
Hochschild, Arlie Russell. 2016. Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. New York: The New Press.
could fit into the session on conservatism. Thanks!
For the gender section I would add some work that touches on the intersection of masculinity and security specifically, like:
Tickner– https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1528-3577.t01-1-00098/abstract
Cohn– https://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/Cohn.pdf
yes, that’s a good suggestion, thanks!
I’m a bit late to this, but here are a couples of suggestions:
On authoritarianism:
https://theauthoritarians.org/Downloads/TheAuthoritarians.pdf
This is an e-book version of Bob Altemeyer’s The Authoritarians. Not only is the price right, but the text is interesting to read, based on decades of research on authoritarianism, and pitched toward politics. You can also buy a paperback for $9.74.
On Trump:
https://inference-review.com/article/trump-and-the-trumpists
This is a great short essay by Wolfgang Streeck on what he calls “Trumpism”. It’s a précis of his controversial book Buying Time (you could assign that instead, but the students will probably actually read the essay). The main thing about the piece is how Streeck incorporates present discontents with classic social theory. It always pays off to get students to check their views with the old masters.
This paper on authoritarian populism and Trump may interest you .
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10357718.2016.1266463