What are the political effects of an adversarial(majoritarian) democracy in the United States?

Reviewed articles MUST be drawn from:

•    Scholarly journals available through JSTOR (accessed through UST webpage) and/or Project Muse available from a campus computer at http://muse.jhu.edu/
•    Most recent hard copy articles of those stored electronically are permissible.
•    Reviewed articles must be at least 10 pages in length.

Paper Format

I)    Section 1:  1-2 page introduction to the topic
A.    What is the topic to be covered?
B.    Why have you decided to write about this topic?
C.    What preconceptions/knowledge do you already have about this topic and what do you hope to learn?

II)    Section 2: Review and write annotated bibliographies for 5 journal articles published in a peer-reviewed from the approved sources.  Each annotated bibliography should be about one, double-spaced page.

Each annotated bibliography should cover one author at a time and largely be written in your own words.

A) Author’s driving research question and hypotheses.
B) Author’s basic theoretical reasoning for the relationship.
C) Author’s definition of variables and how each is measured.
D) Author’s methodology and data.
E) Author’s primary findings.

III)    Section 3: Provide a synthesis and critique of the five reviewed articles.  This should identify areas of consensus and debate drawn from the reviewed articles in order to provide summary points about the “state of the literature.”  This section should be approximately 3 pages in length.

1)    Are scholars asking essentially the same question or not?  Discuss.
2)    Are scholars defining key concepts the same way or are their large differences?
3)    Does everyone use the same kinds of data and measures?  Discuss.
4)    Does everyone use a different method or not?  Discuss.
5)    Does everyone come up with similar or different findings?  Discuss.

IV)      Section 4: Provide a 2 page conclusion in which you:
A)  Summarize the paper and arrive at a conclusion about the state of the literature
B)  Summarize what you learned about the topic from your review

In a summary section to the bibliography, please identify the degree to which there is debate and/or consensus within the five essays reviewed.  In a nutshell, does everyone seem to pretty much be on the same page or are they all working from different perspectives?