Introductory American Government Textbooks: An Anatomical Analysis

1974 ◽  
Vol 7 (03) ◽  
pp. 260-261
Author(s):  
William C. Adams
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
American Government ◽  
Anatomical Analysis ◽  
Academic Entrepreneurs ◽  
Preliminary Research ◽  
Introductory Textbooks

The Fall, 1973,PScontained a remarkable exchange. Stephen Stephens charged that Irish and Prothro'sPolitics of American Democracypanders to youthful radical chic proclivities, while the beseiged authors responded with dark hints that Stephens is a closet conservative. In this enlightened age, such an embarrassing, albeit stimulating and entertaining, foray is a kind of academic streaking. The time has come for this subject of textbooks to begin to be clothed with systematic empirical data.Introductory textbooks assume a new level of dramatically increased significance because, as shrewd academic entrepreneurs have observed, “teaching political science” is clearly a growth stock. What with more and more association panels devoted to “teaching,” a special APSA committee, and the new journalTeaching Political Science, we have a wonderful ironic new subject to employ as the discipline continues to pursue what continues to count—publishing. Will the forthcoming articles on intro texts meet the rigorous standards we demand in other fields of political science or will they be of the Stephens—Irish and Prothro variety? In hopes that the former rather than the latter will prevail, herein is offered preliminary research which seeks to put the matter in a proper punctilious perspective.

Political Values and Professional Values in Conflict: Irish and Prothro's The Politics of American Democracy

1973 ◽  
Vol 6 (04) ◽  
pp. 400-403
Author(s):  
Stephen V. Stephens
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Peace Movement ◽  
Professional Values ◽  
The Political ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
American Government ◽  
Considerable Effort ◽  
Political Values ◽  
Competitive Position ◽  
Science Community

It may be an unfortunate commentary on our achievements as “scientists”, but an American government textbook tends to be a rather topical document, and the ones that are good enough to justify the effort must be updated every several years, in order to maintain their competitive position. One of the best, I think, and surely one of the ones most highly recommended to me by other political scientists, was Marian Irish and James Prothro'sThe Politics of American Democracy(Prentice-Hall: 4th edn., 1968; 5th edn., 1971). I used the 1968 edition in classes several times, with such satisfaction that I ordered the new fifth edition in the summer of 1971, sight unseen. As the following comments indicate, I had reason to regret the decision. Since textbooks are rarely reviewed, and since Prentice-Hall reports that this edition will be current through 1975, I have reluctantly chosen this medium to bring some rather strange attributes of this book to the attention of the political science community.In common with many of the texts that have appeared in the last one or two years, the authors have gone to considerable effort to make their new edition more relevant to the great political disturbances we have just experienced and — to a lesser extent — are still experiencing: ghetto riots, the Vietnam peace movement, and women's liberation.

Rhetoric as the Foundation for Political Education

1983 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 4-5
Author(s):  
Peter Augustine Lawler
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
Political Education ◽  
College Level ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
General Requirement ◽  
American Government ◽  
Introductory Course ◽  
Technical Discipline ◽  
Almost All

The serious study of the best examples of American political rhetoric can be used as the foundation for the introductory course in American government. The laws of most of our states understand the purpose of political education to be the creation of good citizens. Even at the college level, it makes sense to justify political education in terms of citizenship rather than with the benefits associated with a diffuse introduction to the technical discipline of political science.Citizenship, after all, is a quality shared by almost all human beings in our democratic regime, while only a very few of us ever will specialize in political science. The most cogent way of justifying the general requirement of study of a subject is by showing its universal utility, especially in a democracy, where utility is often the measure of worth.

scholarly journals Cheryl A. Rubenberg 1946–2017

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 170-172
Author(s):  
Valerie J. Hoffman
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Associate Professor ◽  
American Government ◽  
Business Interests ◽  
Johns Hopkins University ◽  
Florida Atlantic University ◽  
International University ◽  
Florida International University ◽  
The University

Cheryl A. Rubenberg, independent analyst and former associate professor of political science at Florida International University, died on 16 June 2017 at age seventy-one. Born and raised in Pennsylvania, she earned her bachelor's in political science from Hunter College, her master's in international relations from Johns Hopkins University, and her Ph.D. in international relations from the University of Miami (1979). After a year at Florida Atlantic University, she joined the political science faculty at Florida International University. A student who took her class on American government wrote that Professor Rubenberg “changed my life forever” by exposing the business interests that motivate leaders of American government and media.

scholarly journals Why Do Students Enroll in Political Science Courses?

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas B. Bunte
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Personal Development ◽  
American Government ◽  
Science Courses ◽  
Qualitative Evidence ◽  
The World ◽  
Current Events ◽  
The Way

ABSTRACTWhy do students enroll in political science courses? I conducted an experiment designed to test the appeal of three possible motivations: students might hope to develop valuable skills, look for a better grasp of current events, or expect a deeper understanding of how the world works and their place within it. The experiment involved visiting several sections of Introduction to American Government courses. In each section, I advertised a political science course offered in the following semester. However, I varied the way in which the course was described and subsequently tracked whether students enrolled in it. I find that highlighting opportunities to develop skills does not have a significant effect on enrollment. In contrast, emphasizing “how the world works” is most effective at increasing enrollment. Qualitative evidence suggests that students are attracted to this type of course because it offers the opportunity for personal development and growth.

Engaging the Unengaged: Using Visual Images to Enhance Students' “Poli Sci 101” Experience

2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (02) ◽  
pp. 385-391 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stacy Ulbig
Keyword(s):  
General Education ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Visual Images ◽  
American Government ◽  
Lecture Material ◽  
Science Instructors ◽  
General Education Courses ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Education Courses

As the nation witnesses a distinct decline in civic engagement among young adults, political science instructors across the nation face the formidable task of engaging students in lower-level, general education courses outside students' primary domain of interest. The research presented here seeks to understand if visually enhanced lecture material can effectively engage such students better than more traditional methods of classroom delivery. The project utilizes an experimental design involving two different sections of the same introductory American government course. By exposing the sections to different visual presentations, and controlling for a variety of potentially confounding factors, the impact that simple visual images have on student engagement both inside and outside the classroom are isolated. Findings suggest that the use of simple visual images can enhance students' impressions of the discipline of political science and boost their interest in and knowledge of politics and public affairs more generally.

Leo Strauss and American Democracy: A Response to Wood and Holmes

1991 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 187-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Lewis Schaefer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Political Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
American Mind ◽  
York Review ◽  
Judaic Studies

Although Leo Strauss spent the better part of his scholarly career in the United States, his name remained essentially unknown in this country during his lifetime outside the rather restricted academic circles of political science and Judaic studies. Only in recent years — owing, positively, to the best-selling status achieved by a book by one of his students, Allan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind; and negatively, to several critical reviews of his thought and influence in the semi-popular media —has Strauss's name been publicized to a somewhat wider audience. This article is a response to two of the critiques: Gordon Wood's relatively moderate “The Fundamentalists and the Constitution,” published in the New York Review of Books (18 February 1988), and Stephen Taylor Holmes's less restrained “Truths for Philosophers Alone?”, which appeared in the Times Literary Supplement (1–7 December 1989)

God, Woman, and Morality: The Democratic Family in the New Political Science of Alexis de Tocqueville

1995 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-30
Author(s):  
William Mathie
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Alexis De Tocqueville ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
American Women ◽  
The Family ◽  
The World ◽  
Role Of Women ◽  
New Political Science

Tocqueville says that the superiority of American women is the chief cause of the power and prosperity of American democracy. That superiority is the result of an education that treats women as capable of freedom, but the use of that freedom is to maintain the bonds that restrict women to the household. The present article examines the role of the family and women in the new political science Tocqueville thought necessary for the defence of democratic liberty. It is argued that as the primary influence of democracy upon the family for Tocqueville has been to eliminate the authority of fathers who were the “arbiters of mores” and thereby the defenders of liberty in aristocracy, so democratic liberty depends for him above all upon the new role of women as the makers of mores. Through the agency of women, otherwise fragile religion constitutes an effective limit to the authority of the majority, but what makes it possible for religion to operate through women is their exclusion from the world of commerce, and what maintains this exclusion is the strict conjugal morality that women themselves defend in America. How far the role of women as guardians of democratic liberty might be justified is shown to depend for Tocqueville upon arguments for it that are other than those commonly accepted by American men.

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