Harold D. Lasswell's Political World: Weak Tea for Hard Times

1981 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 471-497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard M. Merelman
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Science Courses ◽  
Political World ◽  
Terra Incognita ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
Hard Times ◽  
The Law ◽  
The 1950S

I first encountered the work of Harold Lasswell in the late 1950s, when I was a barely awake undergraduate at a university whose reputation for mediocrity was richly deserved. I opened Politics: Who Gets What, When, How to the first paragraph: ‘The study of politics is the study of influence and the influential. The science of politics states conditions; the philosophy of politics justifies preferences. This book, restricted to political analysis, declares no preferences. It states conditions.’ I had never heard of Lasswell, for my political science courses limited themselves to subjects like Congressional seniority and Cabinet responsibility in Britain. One course discussed the law of piracy, a subject I had trouble linking to international politics in the 1950s. Some enterprising instructors occasionally discussed the balance of power, and one even assigned David Truman. But Lasswell was terra incognita to me, as he no doubt was to most undergraduates in those years.

Write On! Strategies for the Overburdened Instructor

1989 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 15-16
Author(s):  
Eugene J. Cornacchia
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Political Science ◽  
The Political ◽  
Specific Question ◽  
Science Courses ◽  
Political World ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Course Material ◽  
Science Instructors ◽  
Prior Experiences

Many political science instructors often look for ways to increase the amount of writing in their courses without over-burdening either themselves or their students. The following practical suggestions, none particularly new or innovative, are nonetheless useful for including more writing in undergraduate political science courses. I have successfully used these assignments for several years and they are generally enthusiastically received by students.The underlying theory in my approach is that students are better able to cope with writing when the assignments are briefer and varied, though more frequent. Furthermore, it may be more productive to focus on what students are saying rather than on how they say it (MacAllister, 1982; Sommers, 1982). Adopting such an approach is not to advocate grammatical anarchy. Rather, it recognizes that good, grammatically correct, effective writing must be taught to college students in a manner that is sensitive to their prior experiences and capabilities.A journal is much like a diary (Fulwiler, 1987). In it, students record their thoughts, observations, and feelings about the political world or specific course material. Students may be asked to write about questions or problems they discover in their readings, current political events, or they may be asked to reflect on issues or questions raised in class. The instructor can pose a specific question, or students may be permitted to write about anything (political) they choose.

An Interdisciplinary Approach to Teaching International Law: Using the Tools of the Law School Classroom in Political Science

2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (01) ◽  
pp. 189-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana Zartner
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Judicial Politics ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
School Curriculum ◽  
Law School ◽  
International Studies ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Science Courses ◽  
The Law

ABSTRACTAs the world has grown more interconnected, many political science programs have added courses on international law, international organizations, the laws of war and peace, international human rights, and comparative judicial politics. While in many cases these are relatively new offerings within international studies, all of these subjects have long been part of the law school curriculum. There is, therefore, a long pedagogical history to be examined in terms of the techniques and content used in law schools to teach these courses. This paper examines a number of these techniques and discusses how they may be used in political science courses to enhance student learning opportunities.

Status of Women Contribution in Political Research World: A Case Study of the Journal Political Analysis

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sumeer Gul ◽  
Sangita Gupta ◽  
Sumaira Jan ◽  
Sabha Ali
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Research Productivity ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Political Research ◽  
Female Authors ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
Number Of Citations ◽  
Status Of Women

The study endeavors to highlight the contribution of women in the field of Political research globally. The study is based on the data gathered from journal, Political Analysis which comprises a list of articles published by authors for the period, 2004-2014. The proportion of the male and female authors listed in the publication was ascertained. There exists a colossal difference among male and female researchers in the field of Political Science research, which is evident from the fact that 88.30% of publications are being contributed by male authors while as just 11.70 % of publications are contributed by female authors. Furthermore, citation analysis reveals that highest number of citations is for the male contributions. In addition, the collaborative pattern indicates that largest share of the collaboration is between male-male authors. This evidently signifies that female researchers are still lagging behind in the field of Political Science research in terms of research productivity (publications)and thus, accordingly, need to excel in that particular field to overcome the gender difference. The study highlights status of women contribution in the Journal of Political Analysis from the period 2004-2014. The study provides a wider perspective of female research-contribution based on select parameters. However, the study can be further be enriched by taking into consideration various other criteria like what obstacles are faced by female researchers impeding their research, what are the effects of age and marital status on the research-productivity of female authors, etc.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Talbot C. Imlay
Keyword(s):  
International Politics ◽  
Socialist Party ◽  
Short Supply ◽  
Historical Scholarship ◽  
International Dimension ◽  
International Policies ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Post War

In examining the practice of socialist internationalism, this book has sought to combine three fields of historical scholarship (socialism, internationalism, and international politics) in the aim of contributing to each one. The contribution to the first area, socialism, is perhaps the most obvious. Contrary to numerous claims, socialist internationalism did not die in August 1914 but survived the outbreak of war and afterwards even flourished at times. Indeed, during the two post-war periods, European socialists worked closely together on a variety of pressing issues, endowing the policymaking of the British, French, and German parties with an important international dimension. This international dimension was never all-important: it rarely, if ever, trumped the domestic political and intra-party dimensions of policymaking. But its existence means that the international policies of any one socialist party cannot be fully understood in isolation from the policies of other parties. The practice of socialist internationalism was rarely easy: contention was present and sometimes rife. Equally pertinent, idealism could be in short supply. Often enough, European socialists instrumentalized internationalism for their own ends, whether it was Ramsay MacDonald with the Geneva Protocol during the 1920s or Guy Mollet, who hoped to discredit internal party critics of his Algerian policy during the 1950s. Nevertheless, the attempts to instrumentalize socialist internationalism underscore the latter’s significance. After all, such attempts would be inconceivable unless socialist internationalism meant something to European socialists....

Political Science: Seeing Like a Subversive Social Scientist

2021 ◽  
Vol 80 (2) ◽  
pp. 431-437
Author(s):  
Meredith L. Weiss
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Social Scientist ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Global Patterns ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
New Democracy

Much of the work of political science revolves around institutions—the structures through which politics happens. Leaders enter the frame, of course, but often as institutions in human form: presidents, premiers, populists, and mobilizers who serve to channel and direct who does what and what they do, much like an agency or law. We might trace this pseudo-structural, largely mechanical reading of human agency to political scientists of an earlier era: the behavioralists of the 1950s and 1960s. James C. Scott began his career as just such a scholar. For his dissertation-turned-book, Political Ideology in Malaysia: Reality and the Beliefs of an Elite, Scott surveyed a gaggle of Malaysian bureaucrats to examine, effectively, the extent to which their values and assumptions supported or subverted the new democracy they served. Although itself fairly prosaic, that work foreshadows the political grime and games that soon pulled Scott in more promising directions theoretically, whether scrutinizing Southeast Asia or global patterns: disentangling structure from norms, finding agency around the margins of class and state, and rethinking how power looks and functions.

Teaching Campaign Finance with Federal Election Commission Resources

1987 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 14-15
Author(s):  
Clyde Wilcox
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Campaign Finance ◽  
Public Office ◽  
Federal Election ◽  
Science Courses ◽  
Federal Election Commission ◽  
Campaigns And Elections ◽  
Student Projects ◽  
Election Commission

Many Political Science courses include sections on campaign finance activity. Courses on Congress and on the Presidency may include sections on the financing of elections for these offices, and courses on campaigns and elections will probably cover campaign finance. In addition, courses on interest groups and on parties may include sections that focus on the activities of these actors in financing campaigns for public office.The Federal Election Commission can provide an assortment of materials that may be useful in teaching about campaign finance. Some of these materials are most useful as sources of data for lecture preparation, while other offerings can be used as part of student projects or papers. In the sections below, these materials will be described, and some classroom uses will be suggested.

Political Science as Training for the Information Age

1990 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Christopher Daniel
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Information Age ◽  
Computer Work ◽  
Mixed Emotions ◽  
Science Courses ◽  
Work Style ◽  
Work Session ◽  
The Face ◽  
Communications Skills ◽  
Central Purpose

Computers inspire mixed emotions among political scientists. Love, hate, fascination, ennui, and frustration sometimes occur during the course of a single computer work session. Individuals come to terms with the beast in varying ways; obviously personal work style and level of computer dependency are each scholar's own business. However, expanded use of information technology in the disciplinary curriculum is a common concern deserving discussion. Like earlier debates between behavioralists and traditionalists, the current discussion raises questions about the discipline's central purpose. This essay reviews proposals to “computerize” political science curricula in light of contemporary theories about information and managerial work.Historically, political scientists' computer involvement has been limited, but it is now intensifying in response to educational, technological, and environmental influences. Political scientists have used computers as teaching tools since at least the early 1970s, when the APSA “SETUPs” began appearing, but as novelty items, diversions reflecting the devotion of idiosyncratic individuals. This publication has disseminated many such “experiments,” as have Social Science Computer Review and the National Collegiate Software Clearinghouse. Even as desktop machines began proliferating in the early 1980s, their use in the classroom was considered to be optional, something peripheral to the discipline which one could attempt if one had the inclination.This laissez-faire ambience may be ending in the face of societal transformations. In the classroom political scientists foster intellectual skills broadly useful to former students. A student may be an activist or an avid pre-lawyer, but his or her future professional development will be built on analytical, and communications skills honed in political science courses. This linkage between political science classrooms and the professional world could weaken if we do not adopt to societal change.

scholarly journals A power-critique of academic rankings: Beyond managers, institutions, and positivism

2021 ◽  
pp. 175774382098617
Author(s):  
John Welsh
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
Normative Discourse ◽  
Academic Rankings

The bulk of research on academic rankings is policy-oriented, preoccupied with ‘best practices’, and seems incapable of transcending the normative discourse of ‘governance’. To understand, engage, and properly critique the operation of power in academic rankings, the rankings discourse needs to escape the gravity of ‘police science’ and embrace a properly political science of ranking. More specifically, the article identifies three pillars of the extant research from which a departure would be critically fruitful – positivism, managerialism, institutionalism – and then goes on to outline three aspects of rankings that a critical political analysis should explore, integrate, and develop into future research from the discourses of critical theory – arkhè, dispositif, and dialectik.

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