GOVT30 – Fourth Discussion Paper Topics

Write a paper of no more than three pages (double-spaced) to address and answer one of the following two questions. The paper should be transmitted to your TF on May 22 (5PM) along with your final exam paper. Be sure to hand in grammatically clean papers and to consider arguments against the position you take.

1. Has the power of the Court extended beyond the limits intended by the Framers of the Constitution? In your argument, make reference to the arguments of the Federalist and at least one Supreme Court decision since 1950 which is excerpted in Shafritz and Weinberg.

2. Using the Ivo H. Daalder essay in Kernell and Smith as your empirical base for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), assess whether the Department of Homeland Security fits the general portraits of James Q. Wilson and Terry Moe. (You can pick selected features of their theories on which to focus. You need not discuss every aspect of their theories.) What about the DHS do the Wilson and Moe theories explain? What do they miss?