Teaching Comparative Politics: Finding the Red Threads

Abstract

Teaching political science in general should be interdisciplinary and global in scope since politics involves history, economics, sociology, etc. With comparative politics, this issue becomes more important as one starts to compare different nations, cultures, and histories. This paper will show how integrating many fields in the classroom is for the best, with a particular focus on how the use of technology and multimedia can help with this endeavor. Most students need a “red thread” to tie together the seemingly disparate topics that are covered in a comparative politics class. The use of multicultural and international multimedia (clips from television and films, documentaries, and web sites) is helpful in showing how events and politics in “faraway lands” do impact the students’ lives. This paper will start with a short literature review of the topic, then it will discuss general ways to engage students in comparative politics classes, and finally it will elaborate on specific approaches in the classroom using examples involving multimedia.