Colgate University

First-Year Course Offerings — Fall 2021

FSEM 195   America as a Democracy
Credits1
RestrictionsNo 2024 2023 2022 Instr perm req during Drop/Add
Pre-Requisites
Co-Requisites
Core Area Global Engagements
Area of InquirySocial Relations,Inst.& Agents
Liberal Arts Practices

Faculty Profile for Professor Rosenfeld

Americans have long celebrated their country’s political heritage as a pioneer in democratic politics, with the oldest written constitution still in use. Yet politics in the contemporary United States seems riven by particularly intense conflict, and American governance is frequently described as dysfunctional, even broken. What connects the constitutional system and democratic culture that so many Americans revere with the discord and gridlock that so many Americans lament? And what might a more systematic, historically informed understanding of the American political process tell us about the prospects and pathways for improving it?

In our analysis of American democracy, emphasis is placed on how the U.S. government fits within the multicultural world of the 21st century. To this end, students compare America's democracy with other forms of democratic government across the globe. Students also consider how the growing diversity of the American population may impact the future of American politics. Students who successfully complete this seminar receive credit for POSC 150 and satisfy one half of the social relations, institutions, and agents area of inquiry requirement.

Sam Rosenfeld is an associate professor of political science whose research focuses on political parties and American political history. He is the author of The Polarizers: Postwar Architects of Our Partisan Era (2018).