Describes a college course which will help students develop an appreciation of the systematic study of politics. Students learn to scientifically explore political behavior and events and develop knowledge of elementary research design principles and problems in preparation for a subsequent elective course in political science research methods.…

Presents method for determining basic party voting strength by analyzing voting units at the county level. The method considers the lowest Democratic or Republican vote ever cast in a contest, the number of voters who have switched support from time-to-time, and secondary voters (who only occasionally support their party). (Author/KC)

Identifies problems involving teaching American government on the college level to students from other nations. Recommends a modified comparative, cross-cultural approach and shares experiences gained from pilot testing such an approach. (Author/DB)

Provides a biographical sketch of Reinhold Niebuhr. Focuses upon an examination of the essential ideas of the mature Niebuhr. Makes the point that his ideas transcend political labels, and discusses the political legacy of this influential thinker. Calls for social theorists to apply his insights to the contemporary situation. (KO)

Surveys Thucydidean scholarship attempting to determine how the "Tragedy of Athens" should be interpreted. Highlights views of Thucydides as dramatic poet and as scientific historian, comparing his work to that of Aristotle and Plato. Concludes that Thucydides was a political theorist and that his narrative of the Peloponnesian War is…

Politics without history has no roots; history without politics bears no fruits. If one inquires into the content of the relation between politics and history, then one discovers it is defined by symbiotic dependence. Those who are trained in history also take into account the political dimensions of history, and those educated in political…

This year's crop of "Emerging Scholars"--The Class of 2008--includes a math biologist who was only the second woman to receive the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship in math; a geneticist who recently became one of 20 winners of the National Science Foundation's Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers; and an extensively published…

This forum reconstructs a roundtable discussion about the academic responsibilities of International Relations professors with respect to their undergraduate students. Specifically, participants discuss the proper pedagogical role of professors' personal political beliefs and the best ways to encourage undergraduate students to engage political…

In recent years one of the most significant changes in UK Universities has been the increased use of virtual learning environments (VLE) as a method of supporting learning and teaching. This has in part been influenced by research which suggests that student learning experiences can be enhanced by the judicious use of new technologies and partly…

Structured classroom debates (SCDs), whereby teams of students debate a question prepared outside of class, help advance two goals many political science instructors struggle to achieve with their students: classroom participation beyond the "usual suspects" present in every classroom and critical thinking and analysis of political issues. This…

In the paper we attempt to address principal issues of political history as part of the political science curriculum today, ranging from "what to teach" to "how to teach." Assuming the necessity in contemporary information society of selecting information rather than only accessing it, we propose approaches, such as topics networking, to create…

This handbook encompasses a range of disciplines that underlie the field of peace education and provides the rationales for the ways it is actually carried out. The discipline is a composite of contributions from a variety of disciplines ranging from social psychology to philosophy and from communication to political science. That is, peace…

Theorists on human rights can be divided into two camps: those who believe that rights are asserted by and ascribed to groups, and those who believe that rights may be properly predicated to individuals only. Of late, the latter group has gained dominance. This paper, by presenting a rhetorical analysis of individualism in regard to rights,…

Five abstracting and indexing services covering the field of political science were examined in order to ascertain if a causal relationship exists between how they are structured and how effective they are in producing citations on a given topic. Using the topics of communism, democracy, elections, and revolution, two hypotheses were formulated…

Most institutional approaches to the understanding of government and politics describe all the variables of a particular case. The systems model, however, attempts greater generality in its consideration of four variables: the system, the environment, response, and feedback. Examples of the model's applicability to recent political events are…