SC and State and Local Politics Research Paper Topic Assignments

List of students and whom they are interviewing:

 

Shauna Bashline, Shauna: Lexington County Sheriff Officer. He is on the Bomb squad and SWAT team, and a Lt. over the west division of Lexington County.; in charge of payroll in his division in Lexington County.

 

Richardson, Courtney: Anthony "Tony" Fallaw.  He is the Regional Production Engineer in the Columbia office/area employed by the state of SC.

 

 

For a list of Aiken County Offices, see: http://www.aikencountysc.gov/DspOfcList.cfm

For a list of City of Aiken Offices, see: http://www.aiken.net/index.php?page=departments

General Outline of Topics to be Covered in your Paper (Note--this may vary a bit whether you are talking about a department or office or elected position)

  1. General responsibilities of the office
  2. To whom do you report? How does your job/office/department fit in with the rest of city/county government?
  3. Job Description in the case of an individual
  4. Educational Requirements--skills needed
  5. What the person likes and dislikes about the position--what would you advise someone who was interested in a position in this office or to have a position like yours someday
  6. What is it that you are most proud of that you have been able to accomplish?
  7. What would you change if you could?
  8. What do citizens not know about your office (job)?
  9. What interest groups attempt to influence your office/department, and how do they attempt this?
  10. How is your office/department funded?
  11. How do you put together your annual budget?
  12. On what do you spend most of your annual budget?
  13. How does politics affect your office? Can you separate administration from political pressures and concerns? (this is especially relevant to elected positions)
  14. Greatest challenge or issue facing the office (you might get a few of these, but then you need to pursue one in detail,  e.g. how schools deal with NCLB or budget cuts (no doubt the #1 right now), how a mayor tries to bring in new business, or balance development interests against preservationist/smart growth interests, or dealing with overcrowded jails when people want you to be tough on crime but do not want to pay taxes, or recycling when there is no market for the things to be recycled, or hiring  and keeping the best people when salaries are low)

General Outline of Paper

Note: you will have three major sources for this paper: any websites for the office or position, including websites for similar positions in other states, the interview, and material from the text. You may also want to find any news stories about this person or office in the past year that might give you insights into challenges or problems. You do this by going through the library or newspaper archives. Another source that can be useful is stories in recent years in Governing Magazine, which has excellent articles about a variety of officials at the state and local level. Most of these stories focus on problems and innovative solutions that are being tried in other places around the nation. For specific positions, you might look at the professional sites for those in such positions, like the U.S. Conference of Mayors to learn more about challenges and approaches and professionalization of the position. When citing the interview, cite it by the person's last name in the text (name) and then in the sources as follows:

last name, first name. 2009. Personal interview with author on Month, day.

Here is a general outline to start from, but you should feel free to add and modify as needed.

I. Introduction--the purpose of this paper and what you will explore

II. Office or position

    A. Relation to other parts of local or state government

    B. Duties and responsibilities--both official and how they see them

    C. Qualifications--education, training, background

    D. Selection process

    E. Career patterns--long or short and factors that influence pattern

III. Funding and Budgeting

IV. Political pressures

    A. From other officials

    B. From citizens and organized groups

    C. Partisan pressures

    D. How they deal with these pressures

V. Issues and Challenges--here is where you bring in material from the text and other sources as well as what they say--you may have to do some follow-up questions after you see what is being done in other places

VI. Assessment/Evaluation--here is where you assess how this office/person operates in terms of being professional (memberships, associations, continued training, building and maintaining relationships with other parts of government) and being knowledgeable about what other similar offices are doing, and having realistic strategies in dealing with problems and issues