Week 7 Political Analysis Workshop: Fused or Separate on the Page

Introduction to Political Science Free sample edition

Part 1 — The Big Picture

This week you met the machinery of government: what legislatures and executives do, the split between head of state and head of government, and three designs told apart by one question, how would a failing government be removed? In this workshop you read the primary texts the way a political scientist does: Walter Bagehot's 1867 sentence on the fused design, and the U.S. Constitution's articles that set up the separate design on one page. Then you put the removal test to work on a case file of eight made-up constitutions, sorting each one by how its government falls rather than by what its leader is called. Finally, you map one commentator's argument, label each premise as empirical or normative, state the strongest objection fairly, and check a chatbot's version of the same analysis for misquotations, invented sources, misattributions, and a preference passed off as a fact.

Time budget: Plan for about 90 minutes.

Part 2 — The Task

Guiding question: What do Bagehot's sentence and the U.S. Constitution's vesting articles say about how the legislative and executive powers are arranged, and how do eight made-up constitutions sort when you ask how each government would fall?

Workshop data: a case file of eight made-up constitutions (illustrative)

Source: An illustrative case file constructed for this workshop: eight made-up countries, each with how its executive is chosen and how a failing government is removed, plus one commentator's argument about Galtria. No real country, person, or law is described in the case file. Bagehot's sentence is quoted from the Project Gutenberg edition of The English Constitution (1867), and the Constitution fragments from the National Archives transcription.

Rows: 8 rows of data, one per made-up constitution (Table 2 in Part 4 lists all 8 plus a tally row, with blank columns for your answers; Table 1, the close-reading table, has 4 rows)
Columns: case number; made-up country; how the executive is chosen; how a failing government is removed; removal test answer; design; offices
Argument premises: 4 premises in the commentator's argument about Galtria (Table 3)

Part 3 — Materials & Procedure

Tools and materials

Authoritative archives and data sources (the National Archives, the Avalon Project, Project Gutenberg, the Legal Information Institute, un.org, the House of Commons Library, Pew Research Center, Freedom House, V-Dem, the World Bank, Our World in Data) plus a spreadsheet for the seat-allocation and margin-of-error arithmetic, and one approved chatbot used as an analysis partner whose political-science slips the student catches
A document or notebook for your written answers

Ways of working

primary-text-analysis
read-the-data
argument-map-and-steel-man

Procedure

Open Project Gutenberg's page for The English Constitution by Walter Bagehot (eBook 4351) in your browser, choose Read online now, and use your browser's find command to search for the words efficient secret. Copy the sentence beside the printed version in Table 1 and compare them letter for letter. Tool: Authoritative archives and data sources (the National Archives, the Avalon Project, Project Gutenberg, the Legal Information Institute, un.org, the House of Commons Library, Pew Research Center, Freedom House, V-Dem, the World Bank, Our World in Data) plus a spreadsheet for the seat-allocation and margin-of-error arithmetic, and one approved chatbot used as an analysis partner whose political-science slips the student catches. Check: Your copied sentence matches Table 1 exactly, including the words close union and nearly complete fusion.
Open the National Archives page titled The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription. Use your browser's find command to search for legislative Powers, executive Power, and high Crimes, and check the three Constitution rows of Table 1 against the transcript. Tool: Authoritative archives and data sources (the National Archives, the Avalon Project, Project Gutenberg, the Legal Information Institute, un.org, the House of Commons Library, Pew Research Center, Freedom House, V-Dem, the World Bank, Our World in Data) plus a spreadsheet for the seat-allocation and margin-of-error arithmetic, and one approved chatbot used as an analysis partner whose political-science slips the student catches. Check: All three Constitution fragments in Table 1 match the transcript, capital letters included.
Complete the sourcing columns of Table 1: who wrote or adopted each text and when, what kind of text it is, and whether it describes a fused or a separate design. Tool: Authoritative archives and data sources (the National Archives, the Avalon Project, Project Gutenberg, the Legal Information Institute, un.org, the House of Commons Library, Pew Research Center, Freedom House, V-Dem, the World Bank, Our World in Data) plus a spreadsheet for the seat-allocation and margin-of-error arithmetic, and one approved chatbot used as an analysis partner whose political-science slips the student catches. Check: Table 1 has every blank filled, and each row names fused or separate.
Read the eight cases in Table 2. For each, write the removal test answer (no confidence, impeachment, or both), then the design (parliamentary, presidential, or semi-presidential), then whether its head of state and head of government are one office or two. Tool: Authoritative archives and data sources (the National Archives, the Avalon Project, Project Gutenberg, the Legal Information Institute, un.org, the House of Commons Library, Pew Research Center, Freedom House, V-Dem, the World Bank, Our World in Data) plus a spreadsheet for the seat-allocation and margin-of-error arithmetic, and one approved chatbot used as an analysis partner whose political-science slips the student catches. Check: Every case has a removal test answer, a design, and an office count, and no design is decided by the title of an office alone.
Open a blank spreadsheet. In row 1 type the headers Case, Country, and Design in columns A, B, and C. In rows 2 to 9 copy each case number and country from Table 2, then type your design for each case in column C. In E2 to E4 type parliamentary, presidential, and semi-presidential. In F2 type =COUNTIF($C$2:$C$9,E2) and copy it down to F4. In F5 type =SUM(F2:F4). Tool: Authoritative archives and data sources (the National Archives, the Avalon Project, Project Gutenberg, the Legal Information Institute, un.org, the House of Commons Library, Pew Research Center, Freedom House, V-Dem, the World Bank, Our World in Data) plus a spreadsheet for the seat-allocation and margin-of-error arithmetic, and one approved chatbot used as an analysis partner whose political-science slips the student catches. Check: F5 shows 8, one for each case in the file, and F2 to F4 match your hand tally in Table 2.
Read the commentator's argument in Table 3. In the Kind column, label each of the four premises empirical or normative. Then name one assumption the argument needs, state the strongest objection as its own defenders would put it, and write a two-sentence reply. Tool: Authoritative archives and data sources (the National Archives, the Avalon Project, Project Gutenberg, the Legal Information Institute, un.org, the House of Commons Library, Pew Research Center, Freedom House, V-Dem, the World Bank, Our World in Data) plus a spreadsheet for the seat-allocation and margin-of-error arithmetic, and one approved chatbot used as an analysis partner whose political-science slips the student catches. Check: Table 3 has no blank cells, and the objection is written in a form its defenders would accept as fair.
Paste your completed tables into one approved chatbot, then paste the prompt from Part 6 below them. Record each of its answers in Table 4 and check every one against the sources and your own tables. Tool: Authoritative archives and data sources (the National Archives, the Avalon Project, Project Gutenberg, the Legal Information Institute, un.org, the House of Commons Library, Pew Research Center, Freedom House, V-Dem, the World Bank, Our World in Data) plus a spreadsheet for the seat-allocation and margin-of-error arithmetic, and one approved chatbot used as an analysis partner whose political-science slips the student catches. Check: Table 4 has one row for each of the chatbot's answers, with each marked as checked against a source.

Fallback route

When to use it: Use this route if no spreadsheet is available or the Project Gutenberg or National Archives page cannot be reached.

Work the same steps by hand. Table 1 already prints Bagehot's sentence and the three Constitution fragments exactly as the pinned editions give them, so complete the sourcing columns from them. Tally the designs by making a mark beside parliamentary, presidential, or semi-presidential for each of the eight cases, count the empirical and normative labels in Table 3 by hand, and write each count so it can be checked. Complete every table, answer every analysis question, do the critique step, and submit the same items for equal credit.

This route earns the same credit as the primary route.

Part 4 — The Scaffold

Table 1 holds the primary texts you are analyzing; source each one and read it closely before you use it on any case.

Student scaffold table 1
Text	What the source shows	Who wrote or adopted it, and when	What kind of text it is (a description of how a system works, or a rule that sets one up)	Fused or separate
Bagehot, The English Constitution, "The Cabinet"	The efficient secret of the English Constitution may be described as the close union, the nearly complete fusion, of the executive and legislative powers.
U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 1	All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States
U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 1	The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.
U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 4 (removal)	on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors

Table 2 is the case file of eight made-up constitutions; apply the removal test to each before you name its design.

Student scaffold table 2
Case	Made-up country (illustrative)	How the executive is chosen	How a failing government is removed
1	Astor	The assembly elects a prime minister; a hereditary monarch opens the assembly each year.	The cabinet falls if a majority of the assembly passes a vote of no confidence.
2	Brevia	Voters elect a president for a fixed five-year term, separately from the assembly.	Only by impeachment and conviction for treason or bribery.
3	Calder	Voters elect a president who leads defense; the president appoints a prime minister.	The prime minister's cabinet falls to a no-confidence vote; the president serves a fixed term.
4	Dunmore	The assembly elects a ceremonial president and, separately, a prime minister who runs the cabinet.	The prime minister's cabinet falls to a no-confidence vote.
5	Elvaro	Voters elect a president who both speaks for the country and runs the cabinet, for a fixed four-year term.	Only by impeachment for serious crimes.
6	Fennick	The assembly elects a chancellor; a ceremonial president signs the laws.	The assembly can remove the chancellor only by electing a successor in the same vote.
7	Galtria	Voters elect a president who leads foreign policy; the president appoints a prime minister from the assembly's largest camp, which this year opposes the president.	The prime minister's cabinet falls to a no-confidence vote; the president serves a fixed term.
8	Harwick	A two-chamber assembly; two parties that together hold a majority agreed on a shared program and share the cabinet; a hereditary grand duke is head of state.	The cabinet falls if a majority of the assembly passes a vote of no confidence.
Tally	Count of each design from your spreadsheet

Table 3 maps one commentator's argument about Galtria so you can label every premise by its kind and test it fairly.

Student scaffold table 3
Part of the argument	What the commentator says (illustrative)	Kind (empirical or normative)
Thesis	Galtria should switch to a presidential design.	Normative
Premise 1	This year Galtria's president and prime minister come from opposing camps.
Premise 2	The two offices disagreed publicly about the budget this year.
Premise 3	A country should have one leader whom voters can hold responsible.
Premise 4	Clear responsibility is worth giving up the power to replace a failing cabinet between elections.
One assumption the argument needs
Strongest objection, stated as its defenders would
Your reply

Table 4 is your critique log; it records what the chatbot said and what the sources or your tables show instead.

Student scaffold table 4
Chatbot answer	What it said	What the source or your tables show	Correction
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

Part 5 — Analysis Questions

Report how many of the eight cases are parliamentary, presidential, and semi-presidential, and show the spreadsheet formula or hand count you used. Then report how many of the eight countries have an office called president, and how many of those are parliamentary.
Look at the cases that have a president but are parliamentary. What in each case's removal rule decides its design, and what does that show about reading a design off an office's title?
Explain why Galtria is semi-presidential even though its president and prime minister come from opposing camps, and why Fennick is parliamentary even though its assembly must elect a successor to remove the chancellor. Use the words of Bagehot's sentence or the Constitution's articles where they help.
Using Table 3, name the premise that carries the argument's value judgment, name one assumption the argument needs, and state the strongest objection as its defenders would put it before you reply. Say which of Linz's worries (the rigid fixed term, dual democratic legitimacy, or winner-take-all stakes) or which reply (identifiability or checks) the objection or the argument draws on.
Name two limits of this analysis, such as that the case file is illustrative, that the removal test sorts designs without saying which works better, or that a constitution's text may not show how a system works in practice, and say how each limit affects what you can conclude.
Choose one and answer it in 3–4 sentences: (a) Which case in the file would you most like to see work in practice before judging its design, and what evidence would you want? (b) Which design in the file would you choose for a new country, and what is the strongest case against your choice?

Part 6 — AI-Critique Moment

Choose one equal-credit critique route. Route A: ask an approved AI tool to critique your completed work, then check its response against your own evidence. Route B is the no-AI equivalent printed below.

Approved tools: Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, Grok, Microsoft Copilot.

Prompt to paste:

I've pasted my completed workshop tables above. I am sorting eight made-up constitutions (illustrative cases, not real countries) into parliamentary, presidential, and semi-presidential designs. Please do seven things. First, quote Walter Bagehot's sentence about the efficient secret of the English Constitution exactly as he wrote it. Second, sort each of the eight cases and say why. Third, tell me whether Germany is a presidential system, since it has a president. Fourth, name a court case that decided whether a vote of no confidence counts as an impeachment. Fifth, tell me what percentage of presidential democracies have collapsed. Sixth, tell me who wrote "The Perils of Presidentialism" and who first called the fusion of powers an efficient secret. Seventh, say which design is better, and label each of the four premises in Table 3 as empirical or normative.

Test the response for these likely failures:

Chatbots often reword Bagehot from memory, for example writing that the efficient secret is "the separation of the executive and legislative powers" or dropping the words "the nearly complete fusion".
Chatbots often name a court case, with a confident-looking citation, said to have ruled on whether a no-confidence vote is a kind of impeachment.
Chatbots often supply a figure such as a percentage of presidential democracies that collapsed, or say "studies show" one design lasts longer, with no source.
Chatbots often credit the efficient-secret sentence to Madison, or credit Linz's argument to Bagehot.
Chatbots often declare that one design is better outright, presenting a preference as the result of the analysis.
Chatbots often call Germany presidential because it has a president, or call semi-presidential a 50/50 split of power.
Chatbots often label premise 3, that a country should have one leader whom voters can hold responsible, as empirical, or call the whole argument correct as if it were a fact.

In 3–5 sentences, say what the chatbot got right, quote at least two sentences it got wrong, and correct each one with evidence from the pinned texts, your tables, or this week's definitions.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

No AI account is required for this workshop. This route assesses the same objectives, Objective 5 (analyze political institutions — legislatures, executives, and judiciaries — including the parliamentary, presidential, and semi-presidential designs, government formation and removal, judicial review and judicial independence, and the counter-majoritarian debate) and Objective 4 (compare regime types and constitutional structures — direct and representative, electoral and liberal democracy; authoritarian and totalitarian rule; democratization and backsliding; what constitutions do; the rule of law, separation of powers, and checks and balances), takes comparable effort of about the same 90 minutes, uses the same rubric, and earns the same credit. Instead of the chatbot, critique this flawed analysis, printed here in full: "Bagehot wrote that 'the efficient secret of the English Constitution is the separation of the executive and legislative powers,' so Astor and Harwick are separate designs. Madison coined the phrase efficient secret in 1867. A famous court ruling held that a vote of no confidence is a form of impeachment, so Dunmore's cabinet is impeached when it loses a vote. Studies show that 70 percent of presidential democracies collapse, which proves Brevia and Elvaro will fail. Dunmore and Fennick have presidents, so they are presidential. Galtria's president and prime minister split power 50/50, which is what semi-presidential means. Premise 3, that a country should have one leader voters can hold responsible, is a fact anyone can check, and so parliamentary government is plainly the better design." Mark every error you can find, quote at least two, and correct each one in 3–5 sentences with evidence from the pinned texts, your tables, or this week's definitions. Submit the marked-up analysis and your correction in place of the chatbot report and share link.

Part 7 — What to Submit

All four completed scaffold tables
Written answers to all six analysis questions
The chatbot critique report with its share link, or the equivalent route's marked-up flawed analysis

Deliverable:

A short Political Analysis Workshop report on one case file of made-up constitutions: four completed tables (Bagehot's sentence and the Constitution fragments sourced and close-read, the eight cases sorted with their removal test answers and tally, the commentator's argument mapped with every premise labelled, and a critique log), written answers to six analysis questions, and a critique of a chatbot's version of the same analysis, or, on the equivalent route, a marked-up correction of the printed flawed analysis. Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text. Choose how you show it: written answers, a recorded explanation with a transcript, or a labelled diagram of each design with short notes; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria.

Rubric

The rubric below shows how each submitted part is evaluated; bands are full, partial, or none.

Workshop evaluation criteria
Criterion	Full	Partial	None
Sourcing and close reading of the pinned texts	Bagehot's sentence and the three Constitution fragments are copied letter for letter, who wrote or adopted each and when is recorded, each text is sorted as a description or a rule, and each is marked fused or separate with a reason in the student's own words.	The texts are copied with a small slip, or the sourcing columns are incomplete, or fused and separate are marked without a reason.	The texts are missing, paraphrased as if quoted, or given words their authors did not write.
Applying the removal test to the case file	All eight cases have a removal test answer and a design that fits it, the office count is right, the cases with a president that are parliamentary are sorted by their removal rule, and the tally is computed from the case file with the method shown.	Most cases are sorted well, but one or two designs do not fit their removal rule, an office count is missing, or the tally is given without a method.	No designs are recorded, or designs are read off office titles throughout.
The argument map and the strongest objection	Every premise in Table 3 is labelled correctly; an assumption is named without being treated as a flaw; the strongest objection is stated fairly and tied to Linz's worries or the defenders' replies before a reply is given.	One premise is mislabelled, or the assumption is missing, or the objection is weakened or left untied to the debate before it is answered.	The premises are unlabelled, or no objection is stated.
Critique and correction	The chatbot critique report or the marked-up flawed analysis quotes at least two errors and corrects each with evidence from the pinned texts, the tables, or this week's definitions; both routes earn this band equally.	The chatbot critique report or the marked-up flawed analysis names an error but corrects it without evidence, or corrects only one; both routes earn this band equally.	No chatbot critique report or marked-up flawed analysis is submitted, or the output is pasted without any check; both routes are scored the same way.
Limits and reflection	Two real limits are named with their effect on the conclusion, and the chosen reflection option is answered with a reason.	One limit is named, or the reflection gives no reason.	No limit or reflection is given.

Quality Gate

Bagehot's sentence and the three Constitution fragments are copied letter for letter from the pinned editions, and no other words are put in Bagehot's mouth.
Every count in your tables comes from your own formula or hand count of the case file, never from memory or a chatbot.
Every design in Table 2 follows from the removal test, and no design is decided by the title of an office alone.
Every premise in Table 3 is labelled empirical or normative, and the objection is stated as its own defenders would put it.
No court case, statistic, study, or source is invented anywhere in the submission.
No design is declared better as if the removal test settled it; the analysis sorts designs and hands the verdict back to the reader.
The critique quotes the chatbot or the flawed analysis and corrects at least two errors with evidence.

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