Teaching Political Science Research Articles

French Political Science: Institutional Structures in Teaching and Research

Previous research in this journal has analyzed publication trends in the top political science journals in France. An inventory of published articles in the Revue Francaise de Science Politique and Politix since 1970 has provided information on methodological preferences and sub-field coverage, thus allowing for meaningful comparisons with trends in American political science. This essay identifies the scholarly output of the teaching and research institutions of French political science and examines the methodological requirements of the graduate programs of political science departments in France. French Politics (2006) 4, 124-134. doi:10.1057/palgrave.fp.8200095

Rowman and Littlefield Award for Innovative Teaching in Political Science and Northeast Political Science Association Annual Meeting

The 2005 recipients of the Rowman & Littlefield Award for Innovative Teaching in Political Science are Barbara Allen and Greg Marfleet of Carleton College.The Northeastern Political Science Association (NPSA) held its annual meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in November 2005.

Creating Simulations for Political Science Education

ABSTRACT Simulations, particularly human-to-human interactions, offer social science students the opportunity to learn from firsthand experience, and can be an important and useful addition to an educator's teaching repertoire. However, it can be difficult for an instructor to know how to structure a simulation environment to meet specific educational goals. In this article, we suggest a pedagogical framework, focusing on the choice between educating students about process or content, for developing a social science simulation environment that promotes the desired learning objectives. We discuss time and technology limitations, and outline a number of structural considerations to help simulation designers as they develop their own simulations. Finally, we present a web-based tool to facilitate the creation of simulations (face-to-face or computer-mediated) based on the framework. We believe that the pedagogical structure and the virtual infrastructure will help those educators who would like to use simulations in their classrooms, but have not found any that suit their particular needs.

Don't Argue, Reflect! Reflections on Introducing Reflective Writing into Political Science Courses

In this article, I discuss an alternative way of conceptualizing and structuring essay assignments in political science courses. Generally, political science teachers have tried to encourage critical thinking about political issues by assigning essays that ask for argumentative writing. An argumentative essay format asks students to present several positions or concepts covered in a course, analyze them, and argue for their own position on the issues at hand. A better format, I suggest, is to ask students to engage in reflective writing. Reflective writing has four basic stages. First, students are asked to explain course materials. Next, they are challenged to reflect explicitly on how this material calls into question their preconceptions about the topic. Third, they analyze the conflicts, confusions, or questions that arise from engaging their preconceptions. And finally, they formulate plans to use the knowledge gained by the reflective process. In short, reflective writing invites students to search for the truth rather than develop rhetorical skills. My case for reflective writing is made here in the form of a reflective essay, so readers can take from this essay both a demonstration of the reflective process as well as an explanation. Thus, I will explore my pedagogical preconceptions and experiences with student writing, explain my initial understanding of reflective writing and my first attempt at using reflective writing in an introduction to American government course, and, finally, refine my pedagogy by analyzing the success of the assignment in light of a deeper reading of John Dewey and other theorists of reflective reasoning.

APSA 2005: The 101st Annual Meeting September 1–4

The 101st APSA Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., celebrated the start of a second century of scholarship and teaching in political science. Program Co-Chairs Susan Stokes of the University of Chicago, Jack Knight of Washington University, St. Louis, and James Johnson of the University of Rochester organized the meeting, working with a 53-person Program Committee named by APSA President Margaret Levi and also drawn from all of APSA's 34 organized sections. The 2005 conference drew 7,469 registered attendees and exhibitors who traveled from near and far to discuss the Meeting's featured topic, Mobilizing Democracy.

Lessons from the Collective Action Game

Political scientists commonly use their courses to emphasize the pervasive nature of collective action problems, whereby group interests are undermined by individual incentives to “defect” or “free ride.” In a graduate seminar a faculty member may have students read classics in this area, such as Mancur Olson's The Logic of Collective Action (1965). Graduate students are often expected to model a collective action problem as a prisoner's dilemma and be able to understand the implications in such areas as establishment of interest groups, voting turnout, budgeting, and military relationships among nations. Even in lower division undergraduate courses political science instructors may integrate concepts from collective action theory. This orientation is also evident in some textbooks. Thus in their introduction to American politics, Samuel Kernell and Gary C. Jacobson (2003) offer an extensive discussion of collective action problems and the role of government, and return repeatedly to this topic throughout their book. Similarly, a focus on collective action problems is at the heart of Walter Stone's introductory American politics text, Republic at Risk (1990).

Assessment that Matters: Integrating the “Chore” of Department-Based Assessment with Real Improvements in Political Science Education

ABSTRACT Assessment requirements often raise great concerns among departments and faculty: fear of loss of autonomy, distraction from primary departmental goals, and the creation of alien and artificial external standards. This article demonstrates how one political science department directly responded to their own unique circumstances in assessing their current program in order to effect improvement. We suggest that assessment does not have to be a long and arduous process but can be relatively painless for the department and produce numerous benefits that go beyond the actual planning and engaging in assessment. This case study identifies ways to turn assessment from an external chore to an internal quest for information that provides answers to important departmental questions. It also identifies the ongoing nature of assessment and the way the lessons learned influences future decision making. By demonstrating how the department interpreted the collected data and evaluated its own performance, this case study reveals the frequently private process of assessment in a concrete fashion. With adaptation to the culture and norms of specific departments, this model and rationale can easily be modified for implementation at other institutions.

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.

The mythology of fourth-generation warfare: A response to Hammes1

One of the most elemental pieces in political science education is learning to categorize. The subject of study is fit into paradigms, waves, civilizations, generations, or something that gives cer...

In Memoriam - Conrad Joyner

Conrad Joyner, an astute observer, gifted teacher, and effective practitioner of the art of politics, passed away February 8, 2005, in Tucson, Arizona. Born October 21, 1931, he graduated from Earlham College in 1953 and received his Ph.D. from the University of Florida in 1957. He taught political science at West Virginia University and the University of Southwestern Louisiana before arriving at the University of Arizona in 1961 for what would turn out to be a long and colorful career. He retired from the University of Arizona in 1992.

2005 APSA Teaching and Learning Conference Track Summaries: Track Eight: Technology

Recognizing the central role that technology now plays in political science education, organizers dedicated Track Eight of the 2005 Teaching and Learning Conference to an in-depth exploration of how technology impacts pedagogy and learning. During the three-day workshop, 30 track participants from throughout the discipline shared a wide range of experiences and ideas about how instructional technologies might help improve student learning and engagement. Track discussions ranged widely, covering the use of technology in diverse settings ranging from small seminars and discussion groups to large introductory lectures and distance learning courses. Along the way, presenters highlighted a number of normative concerns raised by technology use in teaching as well as a range of practical challenges often faced by faculty using technology in the field.

New Feminist Approaches to Social Science Methodologies: An Introduction

New Feminist Approaches to Social Science Methodologies: An Introduction

Is political science producing technically competent barbarians?

In a speech to the German Bundestag in 1998, the well-known Holocaust scholar Yehuda Bauer stressed the role of intellectual elites and especially university professors in making the Holocaust possible. To this, he added the question: ‘If we have indeed learnt anything, it is whether we do not still keep producing technically competent barbarians in our universities’. This article is a reflection on the implications of this question for present-day teaching and research in political science.

A Theme of Equality in Campaigns and Elections

Elections are the chief mechanisms of popular consent and political accountability in democracy. As recent history attests: “elections in the democratic context can have significant implications for the makeup of a nation's ruling circle and the character of its policies” (Ginsberg 1982, viii). While American elections are undeniably consequential, they fail on the democratic standard of equality. The American electorate is class biased—and more so than in other advanced democracies. Research for more than 50 years has shown that large numbers of Americans don't vote and that voters and nonvoters are drawn from different income and educational strata (Leighley and Nagler 1992). The burning issue of American elections is how to make the electorate more representative of the population as a whole. Courses on American elections, however, devote little time to turn-out and still less on how to mobilize non-voters. Instead, the lion's share of the typical syllabus is devoted to the presidential campaign process. The emphasis on “hoopla” (Patterson 1980) cannot help but feed student conceptualization of politics as a game, rather than an essential social enterprise. If our goal as teachers of political science is to bring students into the world of constructive democratic citizenship, then we must discuss with our students what is at stake in American elections.

A Reply to “Myths About the Physical Sciences and Their Implications for Teaching Political Science”

Well, let us admit, we all suffer from at least a mild case of “social sciences inferiority complex.” So it seems does Kim Quaile Hill in his spirited defense of the “less exact” part of academe. He finds his students' skepticism about (maybe even disdain for) political science troubling and frustrating. He is unhappy with students questioning the validity and certainty of social sciences. He fights back. However, his solution to the problem is not only ill-conceived, but it has the potential of harming his (our?) own cause. Instead of dealing with students' skepticism of the scientific character of social sciences, he blames that skepticism on students' misperceptions and misconceptions about physical sciences. Still, initially his argument sounds convincing when the misconceptions are framed in terms of scientific illiteracy, pseudo-science, and superstition. The first impression is—of course, how one can appreciate social sciences without a good understanding of science in the more traditional hard-sciences sense. Yet, we quickly discover that is not the author's point. It is the opposite. It is not so much about distrusting physical sciences, but rather about trusting it too much. With so much faith in physical sciences, social sciences are perceived as soft, inaccurate, and uncertain.

Narrative Thinking and Experiential Knowledge: The Example of Ronald Sukenick

Post-humanist discourses, by undermining the disinterested subject as the basis for conceptual knowledge, have brought narrative to the forefront of political thinking. Indicative of the revaluing of narrative thinking is the increasing prominence of the work of Hannah Arendt, for whom storytelling is the primary task of political theory and the source of political concepts.1 For Arendt, though, rather traditional notions of narrative still prevail. As Robert C. Pirro shows in his Hannah Arendt and the Politics of Tragedy, the structure of Greek tragedy informs Arendt's narrative strategies and perhaps her political thinking as a whole in fundamental ways. However, Eric B. Gorham, in The Theater of Politics: Hannah Arendt, Political Science and Higher Education, suggests that Arendt's notion of political freedom might be at least as well served through the appropriation of other, more innovative modes of storytelling. Noting that Arendt's assumption of the validity of traditionally plotted narratives relies upon her claim that the creation of the work of art involves the concealment of

The 100th APSA Annual Meeting

The 100th APSA Annual Meeting in Chicago marked a momentous century of scholarship and teaching in political science. Program Co-Chairs Atul Kohli of Princeton University and Anne Norton of the University of Pennsylvania organized the meeting, working with a 53-person Program Committee named by President Susanne Hoeber Rudolph and also drawn from all of APSA's 35 organized sections. The 2004 conference drew 6,345 registered attendees and exhibitors who traveled from near and far to discuss the meeting's featured topic, Global Inequalities.

Yang Wei

Yang Wei, professor of political science at the Shih Hsin University, president of the Vanguard Institute for Policy Studies, Taipei, Taiwan, and president of the Sino-American Cultural and Economic Association of the Republic of China, passed away on March 3, 2004, after a valiant battle with cancer. A political scientist of international standing, Dr. Wei's career encompassed many different fields that included professorships in political science teaching and research, along with presidencies of academic and professional associations, and service in the Republic of China (ROC) cabinet and parliament.

Myths About the Physical Sciences and Their Implications for Teaching Political Science

This paper describes misconceptions about the physical sciences that are widely held by college students and that pose notable hurdles for appreciating the social sciences as legitimate scientific enterprises. My purpose here is pedagogical, too. In particular, I respond to the persuasive, specific argument in prior scholarship that students must overcome various negative or unconstructive stereotypes about the physical sciences to achieve scientific literacy.

The Greening of Political Science: Growth Pains and New Directions

Over the past decade, interdisciplinary programs such as gender studies, global studies, and environmental studies have proliferated quickly across the American academy. One study showed that the number of environmental studies programs at four-year colleges and universities doubled between 1990 and 1995, and more are still being added. Political science departments frequently find themselves at the center of these new programs, and courses in environmental politics are often in high demand among students. The complexity and persistence of environmental problems is finally forcing the academy to recognize the importance of interdisciplinary research and teaching. Consider the case of global warming. It is impossible to discuss this issue intelligently from the perspective of any single discipline. Political scientists might illuminate certain facets of the debate, such as how national and international political structures create few incentives for policymakers to aggressively address the issue. But however important such insights might be, they are far too narrow to even begin to encompass the complexity of the climate change issue, which requires literacy in the discourses of other disciplines, including environmental economics, atmospheric research, and environmental ethics. After decades of suspicion in the academy about the intellectual rigor of interdisciplinary approaches, the persistence of complex environmental problems, and simply the rapidly growing cohort of scholars engaged in environmental research and teaching, is driving increasing acceptance of such approaches.Philip Brick received the APSA's Pi Sigma Alpha Award for Outstanding Teaching in Political Science in 2000, and in 2004 he was named Outstanding Environmental Educator by the Environmental Education Association of Washington. His environmental field program is described at www.whitman.edu/semester_west, and he can be contacted at brick@whitman.edu. The author thanks Jennifer Hochschild at Perspectives on Politics and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this essay. He also thanks the research assistants at Perspectives on Politics and Whitman College student Kalin Schmoldt for gathering syllabi for this review.