Comparative Politics Course Research Articles

From Global to Local: Service-Learning in a Comparative Politics Course

Students enrolled in introductory general education courses in Political Science are often uninterested in and unfamiliar with the subject matter and do not see its relevance to their lives. Hoping to overcome these obstacles, I implemented service-learning into my introductory Comparative Politics course. In order to do this, I partnered with local nonprofits and government agencies working on topics relevant to the course content. Students then selected one of these partners to work with throughout the semester. The goal was for them to not only see how the course subject matter might apply in their own lives but specifically how the global issues we learn about in our course apply in our local area. Students were surveyed at the beginning and end of the semester and wrote multiple reflection papers regarding their experiences. They generally reported high levels of satisfaction with the service-learning approach as well as understanding of the importance of civic and community engagement.

Enhancing comparative politics education in the Asia-Pacific region: A study on the effectiveness of Chinese checkers game for strategy and negotiation learning

Background This research conducted an extensive exploration in 2021 and 2022 to investigate the implications of integrating Chinese checkers into Comparative Politics courses across the Asia-Pacific region. The primary aim was to enhance students’ strategic thinking and negotiation skills and determine if active engagement with Chinese checkers could significantly improve academic performance. Methods The study employed paired-samples t-tests and independent-samples t-tests to evaluate the impact of Chinese checkers. It involved assessing the academic performance and strategic thinking abilities of students who engaged with the game. The study encompassed a thorough design, participant selection, and procedures related to the intervention, including various outcome measures. Results The investigation revealed notable improvements in academic performance, especially in strategic thinking, among students who actively participated in Chinese checkers gameplay. This research also substantiated the enhanced strategic thinking abilities of students who integrated Chinese checkers into their curriculum, contributing to the corpus of knowledge on innovative pedagogical practices. Conclusions The findings of this study are relevant to educators, students, and policymakers, emphasizing the educational value of unconventional teaching methods like Chinese checkers. In light of the increasing importance of the Asia-Pacific region in global politics, this research underscores the significance of nurturing strategic thinking skills among undergraduate students. The study contributes to the cultivation of critical thinking and strategic acumen within higher education, potentially benefiting society by fostering superior academic performance and the development of strategic thinking abilities.

Rethinking comparative politics in the context of debates about decolonising higher education

In recent years, interest in the topic of the decolonisation of higher education curricula has intensified. A key aspect of attempts to decolonise higher education is the decolonisation of university curricula. This paper explores the question of curricular decolonisation in relation to comparative politics. The paper begins with an overview of debates on curricular decolonisation, proceeding to a discussion of the specific challenges that arise when trying to decolonise comparative politics. I then discuss some changes introduced to a first-year comparative politics course I teach to South African students, detailing my attempts to change the course in the light of debates on decolonising the curriculum. The paper concludes with reflections on some of the shortcomings of the intervention discussed, especially in terms of the persistence of Eurocentric orientations among some of my students and the difficulty in fostering sustained interactive learning.

Teaching Political Science using Design Thinking: Insights from “Contemporary African Politics” and “Elections around the World”

This paper describes a relatively new active learning approach—Design Thinking—and its adoption in two comparative politics courses. I draw on my experience using Design Thinking in political science courses to offer instructors another pedagogical tool in the active learning toolkit. I outline the rationale for adopting a Design Thinking approach and offer concrete examples of everyday design challenges and semester-long design projects for political science instructors interested in both low- and high-intensity options to replace or supplement sage-on-the-stage techniques and other active learning approaches. The article concludes with a discussion of potential benefits as well as barriers to implementation and what resources institutions of higher learning could provide to support Design Thinking courses.

Engaging with research methods in comparative politics courses: practicing skills, questioning data, reflecting on positionality

This article reflects on a pedagogic experiment of engaging with research methods in the teaching of an undergraduate course on “Contemporary Russian Politics” at Newcastle University (UK). We argue that the incorporation of an explicit and systematic discussion and practice of research methods in a Comparative Politics course is important for three interconnected reasons. First, by introducing students to different aspects of the political system and processes of a state or a region, Comparative Politics courses provide a perfect structure for discussing and practicing a variety of research methods. Second, Comparative Politics courses allow us to work with different kinds of data and support our students to become more critically aware data-users. Finally, they provide us with ample opportunity to reflect on identity construction and positionality: how do we interpret the Other—whether it is a state or a region, how do different data and research methods shape our understanding and knowledge of the Other, and how are our understandings of Self linked to our interpretations of the Other?

Completing the Research Article Writing Process in An Introductory Course

How well can students exposed to political science for the first time work through the research article writing process? Previous research has introduced selected research article writing skills to students in introductory courses, but has not studied whether students in such courses can complete the entire process of writing and revising a research article. I re-designed an Introduction to Comparative Politics course based on the research article writing process. I hypothesized that students would make major gains in article writing skills and develop a proficient ability to write each research article component. Using a pre- and post-test design along with rubrics for each part of the research article, I found support for my hypotheses. Students reported large increases in confidence and ability to handle research article writing tasks as a result of the course and demonstrated proficiency on more than two-thirds of rubric items. These results suggest that research article writing tasks are appropriate for students in introductory courses and that their presence can help effectively introduce students to the discipline. I also provide suggestions for ways to implement parts of this course design in traditional, large introductory course settings.

Explicit Content: Two Experiments on Bringing Writing Instruction into the Political Science Classroom

This paper reports findings from two studies of student writing performance carried out in undergraduate political science courses to test whether low-cost interventions could lead to improvements in writing outcomes. Students enrolled in an introductory comparative politics course (N = 180) and a sophomore-level survey course (N = 101) were randomly assigned to receive short instruction sessions in specific writing skills led by a faculty member or senior graduate student. In the first experiment, half the class received explicit instruction on writing (focusing on two specific skills from a comprehensive rubric that we subsequently coded their papers against) while the other half did not. In the second experiment, all students received general writing instruction, but the treatment group also received detailed instruction in the use of a writing-skills rubric that formed the basis for evaluating students’ performance on written assignments. In both cases, the post-treatment difference between groups was small but showed an improvement in the specific skills taught, while showing no change or slightly decreased performance in related skills that were not explicitly taught. We conclude that limited interventions of the sort we were able to engage in were not sufficient to bring about a meaningful improvement in student performance, but the preliminary evidence suggests that the use of rubrics as a pedagogical tool, combined with repeated small-scale interventions, may be effective if targeted and/or repeated across a course or curriculum.

Using Simulations in Linked Courses to Foster Student Understanding of Complex Political Institutions

Political institutions provide basic building blocks for understanding and comparing political systems. Yet, students often struggle to understand the implications of institutional choice, such as electoral system rules, especially when the formulas and calculations used to determine seat allocation can be multilevel and complex. This study brings together an upper level Political Parties and Interest Groups course with an introductory Comparative Politics course through two-types of interaction: discussion board and a face-to-face election simulation. We administer a pretest and posttest to gauge student learning as a result of the simulation. We hypothesize that, by bringing together two courses with different levels (upper division and lower division) and emphases in bases of knowledge, we are able to enhance the experience of the election simulation to stimulate higher degrees of learning across both courses.

Pop Culture in the Classroom: American Idol, Karl Marx, and Alexis de Tocqueville

AbstractThis article discusses the use of pop culture in the classroom as a means to teach foundational political science authors and concepts. I focus on my experience using American Idol as a point of reference to discuss Marx and Engel's The Communist Manifesto and Tocqueville's Democracy in America in undergraduate comparative politics courses. Students are asked to construct a written argument projecting Marx or Tocqueville's perceptions of American Idol, based on their readings. My experiences demonstrate that asking students to reflect on their own contemporary experience through the prism of these two works helps them in three ways: (1) to better understand the ideas of Marx and Tocqueville, as well as their differences; (2) to develop an appreciation for the continued relevance of works in the discipline's canon; and (3) to sharpen and develop critical thinking and analytical skills.

Learning Tolerance Revisited: A Quasi-ExperimentalReplication

This paper replicates an earlier project that tested the impact of comparative politics courses on students' levels of intercultural sensitivity. Using a standardized instrument, the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), I pre- and posttest students taking an on-campus East-Central European politics course taken in the fall semester and an off-campus course on the politics of the Czech Republic headquartered in Prague during the month of January. The first study, conducted during the 2003–2004 academic year, demonstrated that comparative politics courses have a positive significant impact on students' levels of intercultural sensitivity, that there is no difference between on- and off-campus courses in terms of these differences, and that students who take both courses experience higher rates of positive change than students taking only one of the two courses. The results of the replication, conducted during the 2005–2006 academic year, confirm the original findings that link strongly comparative politics and intercultural sensitivity.

Attack of the Clones: A Pragmatic Guide to Maintaining a Research Agenda

For many faculty members, particularly those at research institutions, presenting a paper more than once at a conference has long been taboo. Peers evaluating tenure requirements or merit rankings may credit a second presentation less, or not at all. On the other hand, norms in the discipline vary dramatically across institution types. We argue that at universities with considerable teaching loads and substantial service expectations, duplicate research presentations can be an effective way to maintain an active research agenda, absent other institutional incentives to do so. We currently teach international relations and comparative politics courses at an institution where the incentives to research remain modest, and the incentives to teach and spend a considerable amount of time in service related activities are substantial. Our comments are particularly geared toward this environment. We begin by defining what we mean by duplicate research presentations. Next, we outline how the incentive structure at a teaching institution creates different priorities, allowing different norms to develop. We then examine how duplicate research presentations can be an effective tool for overcoming traps common to untenured faculty. We end with an unabashed defense of the increasingly common practice of duplicate research presentations, particularly at teaching and service oriented universities.

Factors in Information Literacy Education

Information literacy has long been discussed in the field of library science but is only recently becoming applied in specific academic disciplines. This article assesses student learning of information literacy skills analyzing data collected from three semesters of the Introduction to Comparative Politics course. Variables such as major discipline, gender, class year, and grades on several performance indicators are used to identify key patterns in successful information literacy learning among students. Questions that drive this research include: How do major disciplines approach information literacy differently. Is information literacy discipline specific? Does gender affect information literacy aptitude? Do upper-division students still need information literacy education? Which students are most deficient in their pretest knowledge of information literacy? What types of exercises are effective in teaching information literacy? Through analysis of our data, we address these questions and isolate the most significant factors in student learning of information literacy skills. Our data suggest that information literacy knowledge is content sensitive. Not only is information literacy significantly associated with several performance indicators, information literacy appears to be discipline specific.

What Can Students Learn from the Spanish Case in Comparative Politics Courses?

What can undergraduate students of comparative politics learn from studying Spain? Clearly, many professors do not see any good reasons to integrate Spain in introductory courses on comparative politics or European politics. Spain is often considered as a country on the periphery of western Europe—geographically, economically, and politically—and thus not worth spending time discussing in introductory courses on comparative politics or even western European politics. Given the time constraints of short semesters, instructors have to make choices about which topics and countries to cover when choosing European case studies for their syllabus, and often settle for a mix of the “classic” cases such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, and “newer” cases, such as new democracies in eastern and central Europe. Spain fits neither the established, advanced industrialized democracies category nor is it of much obvious interest for studying the latest developments in EU expansion. Spain re-democratized in the latter half of the 1970s and is currently celebrating 30 years of electoral democracy. The country joined the EU, then the European Communities, in 1986, together with Portugal and Greece. Thus, the newness of Spanish democracy and its EU membership has long since passed as a point of interest for college instruction, giving way to the new democracies in central and eastern Europe and the more recent waves of EU expansion. At the same time, Spanish democracy is too young to present a classic case of advanced industrialized democracies. In short, Spain does not appear to have much inherent appeal for undergraduate comparative politics courses. I gratefully acknowledge research assistance from Wendy Whitman in collecting information on textbooks and syllabi.

Weighing the Research Paper Option: The Difference that Information Literacy Skills Can Make

Requiring a short research paper in introductory political science courses can prove challenging for instructors, in part because of the diversity of student grade levels and majors in such courses. This is particularly the case with Introduction to Comparative Politics, as, at most universities, this course is not only required for the political science major, but often also fulfills multicultural requirements and can be used to complete lower division social science requirements. In deciding whether to include a research paper assignment in this course, one must weigh the benefit of catching majors early in order to begin building strong research skills, as well as the benefit of immersing students in key issues affecting the larger world, against the challenge of underdeveloped writing and research skills among the typical student in such a course. Another factor to consider is the grading load of reading large numbers of papers, given that most introductory courses have high enrollments. When choosing to require a research paper under these circumstances, then, one must also commit to working with students to hone their research and writing skills. In a collaborative, mutually beneficial partnership, college and library faculty can work together to identify ways to integrate information literacy concepts into course content and to design effective learning assignments addressing these important skills. This approach was undertaken by the authors, who revised a significant portion of the Introduction to Comparative Politics course at the University of West Florida to integrate information literacy activities in support of a semester-long, content-based research and writing assignment. This article explores using information literacy exercises as a tool to produce higher quality research papers in lower division political science courses.

Critical Thinking in Political Science: Evidence from the Introductory Comparative Politics Course

ABSTRACT Political Science programs have long seen part of their mission as the cultivation of “critical thinking” among their undergraduates. But what exactly does critical thinking mean in our Political Science courses? Can we foster critical thinking in our classes and, if so, how? This article, based on a yearlong systematic study of an introductory Comparative Politics course undertaken as part of a university-wide “Critical Thinking Project,” looks at these questions. In this article we consider how critical thinking can be defined, fostered and assessed in the introductory Comparative Politics course; the implications these may have for students' performance in other Political Science courses; and how students themselves view critical thinking. Our data suggests students define critical thinking broadly in accord with those definitions of teachers of Political Science, believe these skills were fostered in the introductory Comparative Politics course and are certain that they carry over into their academic experiences with upper-division Political Science courses and later life experiences more generally. Moreover, we argue here that the most important variable in fostering critical thinking skills in the introductory Comparative Politics course (and perhaps in all Political Science courses) is the development of students' ability to think as social scientists do and the opportunity to apply this thinking skill to concrete puzzles or problems from the real world of politics.

Learning Tolerance: The Impact of Comparative Politics Courses on Levels of Cultural Sensitivity

ABSTRACT In addition to exposing students to basic concepts, theories, and ideas, teachers of comparative politics often claim to foster and promote values of tolerance and cultural sensitivity through exposure to the histories, cultures, and societies of cases from around the world. This claim, however, has been largely speculative and unsupported by any empirical research to date. In order to evaluate this claim, I employ a quasi-experimental design to test for the effects of two separate courses on levels of student intercultural sensitivity. Both courses focused on East-Central European politics, but one was taught in a regular classroom setting and the other in the Czech Republic. My findings support the following arguments: 1) in general, comparative politics courses appear to have a positive and significant impact on the levels of student intercultural sensitivity; 2) the differences in the impact of an on-campus and an off-campus course on levels of cultural sensitivity is negligible; and 3) students who study a region prior to studying in the region demonstrate in the aggregate greater improvements in their level of intercultural sensitivity than students who studied abroad only.

Teaching and Learning Online: Assessing the Effect of Gender Context on Active Learning

ABSTRACT Advocates of computer-mediated instruction have pointed to the potential of online teaching for facilitating students’ active learning behavior. Small-group online discussion can have a role in meaningful student interaction. Yet, what is less known are the conditions under which students actually engage in interaction in online discussion groups rather than posting monologues. We refer to the literature that posits that gender is a variable affecting students' online discussion behavior. Existing literature suggests that the use of gender-specific language in online interactions is highly context-dependent. Of particular interest is the extent to which the manifestation of gender-typical rhetorical styles and student–student interaction are shaped by the gender composition of the online group. Our data, obtained from student postings to 50 discussion groups in three different upper-level comparative politics courses taught by two different instructors in multiple sections, permitted us to perform a content analysis of 1,908 messages containing 14,442 statements made by 453 students. In addition to suggesting overall differences and surprising similarities between male and female discussion styles, our preliminary findings point toward the productive effects of mixed-gender discussion groups.

Studying Democracy and Teaching Classics: What Is Happening in the Field of Comparative Politics?

n this essay, I assess how comparative politics is taught at the undergraduate and graduate levels and what our approach to teaching says about the state of the subfield. What do practitioners emphasize in a comparative politics course in light of the enormous global changes of the past decade? Which topics are included and which ignored? What should be included that is now missing, even at the cost of excluding something else? I found that many undergraduate syllabi take as their starting point the triumph of the third wave of democratization. Instructors use democracy and democratization as their organizing principle; this is reflected in the case studies covered in the courses. This choice comes at the cost of not studying countries or regions where democracy is underdeveloped or stunted. Many courses thus highlight a limited range of countries and conceptual themes while ignoring critical issues that dominate the headlines, such as the politics of nondemocracies and current U.S. national security preoccupations with rebuilding demolished states, containing Islamic fundamentalism, and disarming rogue states. In the not so distant past, national security concerns heavily influenced the structure and content of lower-level comparative politics courses, since instructors felt compelled to familiarize students with totalitarian, or Soviet-style, regimes. Perhaps our excitement with the spread of democratic ideals and institutions has obscured the fact that numerous parts of the world are still governed by autocracies. Graduate courses also emphasize institutional developments and democratic structures at the expense of new topics (such as ideas, culture, norms, and values), as well as older themes (such as welfare state policy, social and political mobilization, gender, the impact of international trade, and state capacity). Field seminars have become more narrowly focused than they used to be, aiming primarily to summarize the endeavors of earlier generations of scholars, assess knowledge, and advance theory related to state-society relations first laid out by the founders of the social sciences: Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Vilfredo Pareto, and Robert Michels.

Narrowing the Focus of Introductory Comparative Politics Courses

Narrowing the Focus of Introductory Comparative Politics Courses

Narrowing the Focus of Introductory Comparative Politics Courses

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