Doug Roscoe

faculty

Douglas Roscoe, PhD

Professor / Director of General Education

Political Science

Contact

508-999-8519

508-999-8819

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Liberal Arts 327

Education

2000Loyola University ChicagoPhD

Teaching

  • American politics

Teaching

Programs

Teaching

Courses

Students will learn how to be an informed consumer of information and make more informed decisions. Topics include distinguishing good arguments from bad ones, interpreting the likelihood of outcomes, understanding the psychology underlying cognitive bias and error, recognizing our own biases and blind spots, and understanding how statistics and illustrations are used to sway opinion. 

Investigation of important North American contributions to human civilization, from Jazz and the airplane, to nuclear weapons and Cheese Wiz, to individual rights, the written constitution and the democratic republic. Topics could include Coming Down with the Blues; building the car, or the plane, Hollywood and the Invention of mass cinema; from inalienable rights to human rights; the Long 1960s as Cultural Revolution. May be repeated with change of content.

Theory and practice of national government in Congress, the Presidency, and the Supreme Court, and the interaction of these institutions with interest groups, political parties, public opinion and the mass media.

A thorough study of the United States Congress and its power to make law. Elections, legislative leadership, congressional committees, inter-branch relations, and the dynamics of the legislative process are some of the sub-themes.

Special topics course in the field of American Politics. May be repeated with change of content.

Available topics seminar in the field of American politics. Repeatable with change in content.

Teaching

Online and Continuing Education Courses

The development and function of political parties and political interest groups in American politics. Strategies for lobbying and for creating interest groups also examined. Cross-listed as LST 332.

Research

Research interests

  • Political parties and interest groups
  • Elections and political behavior
  • Congress and the legislative process

Select publications

  • Douglas D. Roscoe and Shannon Jenkins (2016).
    Local Party Organizations in the 21st Century

Prof. Roscoe’s academic interests center upon American politics, with a focus on Congress, the president, interest groups, and political parties.  He is especially interested in the dynamics of the electoral process and how interest groups and parties shape lawmaking and public policy through electoral politics.  Prof. Roscoe is author of the book The Promise of Democratic Equality in the United States (Routledge Press) and co-author of the book Local Party Organizations in the 21st Century (SUNY Press).  His work has been published in a number of journals, including the Journal of Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Social Science Quarterly, and Publius.  Prof. Roscoe has been a co-investigator in a long-running study of local political parties, and he is currently the Director of General Education for UMass Dartmouth.  In 2011 Prof. Roscoe was a Fulbright Scholar at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, China.