scholarly journals Class Analysis and the Dialectics of Modernization in the Middle East

1972 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 417-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
James A. Bill
Keyword(s):  
Functional Analysis ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Large Degree ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Class Analysis ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
To Receive

Class analysis stands as one of the ancient and classic theoretical approaches to the study of politics and society. Stratification by class has been traditionally utilized by scholars and statesmen to explain patterns of political conflict and processes of social change. In modern American political science, however, this approach has yet to receive the attention and application that have marked traditional formal-legal and contemporary structural-functional analysis. The sharp reaction that developed against the former took the immediate shape of the group and elite approaches which to a large degree continue to displace or disguise class analysis.

(Not) Getting Religion: Has Political Science Lost Sight of Islam?

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sultan Tepe ◽  
Betul Demirkaya
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Annual Meeting ◽  
North Africa ◽  
American Political Science Association ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
Middle East Studies ◽  
Science Association

AbstractIn this analysis, we expand the debate on the place of religion in political science by using the predictions of Wald and Wilcox as our starting point. Following in their footsteps, we ask how political scientists have studied Islam since 2002 and identify the studies on Islam and Muslims at the flagship conference of the discipline, the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. We evaluate not only the quantity but also the approaches employed by these studies. In order to gauge the balancing of roles (or lack thereof) between the discipline and area studies, we also take a closer look at the Middle East Studies Association, the largest association focused on the Middle East, North Africa and the Islamic world and its annual meetings during the same period. Our findings suggest that, unless carefully addressed, the prevailing patterns are likely to result in a crippling knowledge gap among political scientists.

Scientific Knowledge, Liberalism, and Empire: American Political Science in the Modern Middle East

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Wedeen
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Constitutive Relationship ◽  
The Us ◽  
Value Neutrality ◽  
American Political Science

This chapter examines how political science's complicities with the US empire would jibe with the two aspects of political science that are currently defining the discipline—the convergence, or perhaps more historically accurate, the continuing coalescence in new forms, of science and liberalism. It fleshes out those links while considering how scholarly convictions, combined with the realities of US foreign policy, have structured the terms in which the Middle East is studied today. The first section explores the discipline's seemingly contradictory commitments to value-neutrality and liberal values. The second section foregrounds the constitutive relationship between science, liberalism, and empire in the making of modern Middle Eastern politics as an area of academic inquiry.

DO COMPARATIVE AND REGIONAL STUDIES OF NATIONALISM INTERSECT?

2005 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 587-612 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moshe Behar
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Political Science ◽  
American Political Science Association ◽  
Regional Studies ◽  
Regional Research ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
Middle East Studies ◽  
Science Association

The question behind this article evolved from two separate observations. While the expansion of comparative and cross-regional research has been actively promoted by leading scholars of the Middle East (and was later encouraged by such bodies as the Middle East Studies Association and this journal), so has the incorporation of scholarly insights from area studies been urged by leading political scientists as a prerequisite for revitalizing all of the discipline's subfields and institutionally endorsed by the American Political Science Association. Viewed as interrelated, these observations prompted the question framing this text: if the aims of many Middle East scholars and institutions are compatible with the aims of many political scientists and their association, why have they remained largely parallel, as suggested by scholars within both fields?

An Experimental Approach to the Introductory Political Science Course

1982 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 9-11
Author(s):  
William McClure ◽  
Michael Stohl
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Experimental Approach ◽  
Expert Knowledge ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
Introductory Course ◽  
Teacher’S Role ◽  
Teacher's Role ◽  
Receiver Model ◽  
To Receive

The conventional introductory course rests upon the pedagogical assumption that the teacher's function is to transmit information (or knowledge) and that the student's function is to receive it. According to this transmitter-receiver model of the educational process, teaching begins with a “knower” who “transmits” what he knows to a “learner.” In higher education, certain euphemisms are employed to soften and furnish a color of legitimacy to this model: the teacher is a “scholar,” and “authority,” in his field; he possesses an “expert knowledge” which the student has come to school to “learn“; the student is the “learner.” The teacher's role, accordingly, is the active one of transmitting information and the student's role, accordingly, is the passive one of receiving and recording (or memorizing) this information.

Report on a Survey of the Membership of the American Political Science Association

1974 ◽  
Vol 7 (04) ◽  
pp. 382-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Mann
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Executive Director ◽  
Response Rate ◽  
American Political Science Association ◽  
Full Time ◽  
National Office ◽  
Final Questionnaire ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
Number Of Individuals ◽  
Science Association

In conjunction with a discussion of the FY 1974–75 Budget at its April, 1974, meeting, the Council of the American Political Science Association instructed the Executive Director to survey the membership of the Association as to their attitudes toward the usefulness ofPSin form and content. In order to take full advantage of the resources needed to conduct this survey, the National Office conceived a broader study of membership attitudes toward Association activities. The final questionnaire was approved by the Council.On June 7, 1974, the questionnaire was mailed to 1,000 individuals selected randomly from the membership files of the Association. A second mailing was sent to those who had not responded on July 9. A total of 530 completed questionnaires were received for a response rate of 53 percent.The demographic characteristics of the membership, as reflected in the sample, are portrayed in Table 1.The small number of students in the sample is surprising, given the fact that a third of all Association members pay student dues. This discrepancy cannot be attributed to differential response rates; a check of our numbering system confirms the fact that “student” members returned their questionnaires at the same rate as “annual” members. Clearly, a substantial number of individuals paying student dues are employed full-time.

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