Political Science 101

Introduction to Politics

Course Introduction

Welcome! In this course you will examine political questions from several vantage points. First, from the course textbook by Heywood you will study important political ideologies that have shaped the modern world, such as liberal capitalism, nationalism, socialism, and fascism. Second, several course readings, beginning with Heywood's first chapter on the nature of ideology, will discuss theories or logical arguments about politics. Finally, detailed historical and contemporary case studies are introduced in the later course readings.

The major assignments in this course are short essays on the assigned readings. As a result, this course will also provide you with a chance to acquire valuable writing skills. You will be evaluated primarily upon essays you write that interpret the historical material and theoretical arguments of the various authors.

This course is divided into eight lessons. Except for the last lesson (which is about preparing for the final examination), each has a reading assignment, online lesson commentary, a list of key terms, and a written assignment to be turned in once the other material is completed.

The online lesson commentaries tie the reading assignments into the overall direction of the course and introduce key related themes. For any unfamiliar key terms—the basic vocabulary of political science—check Heywood's glossary or online resources.

By the time you have finished all eight units of this course, you will be familiar with main themes you would encounter in more advanced political science courses. Even if you do not plan to continue on in political science, this course will leave you with the skills to personally assess many of the important problems, conflicts, and perennial questions our society faces today.

While some of the material in this course is challenging, thinking through basic questions of political life can also be stimulating and even fun. If you have a question about a key term or any other course-related question, your instructor will help you. For contact information, see the "About Your Instructor" page of your online course syllabus.

Course Objectives

Upon successfully completing this course, you will be able to

• describe major political ideologies and summarize their historical importance;
• describe how economic globalization and Western political expansion have affected different parts of the world;
• define key political terms; and.
• write and think critically and communicate effectively about political issues and problems.

Prerequisites

This course has no prerequisites.

Required Reading

Assigned readings cover the lesson topics and background material necessary for completing your written assignments and the final examination. Read carefully, and take notes in a course notebook designated for this purpose. Note that different authors in the course readings have very different points of view. This is one thing that makes political science an especially interesting subject: there is no one "right answer" to memorize, but rather a set of competing arguments that challenge you to think through your own position. The average amount of reading for this course is 170 pages per lesson. The actual amount will vary depending on the topic. If you plan ahead, you should have no trouble finishing the assigned material and the final exam in the normal period of an academic quarter (approximately eleven weeks).

Andrew Heywood's Political Ideologies: An Introduction is the starting point and primary textbook. Heywood lays out the basic theoretical principles of ten ideological traditions. After reading Heywood, you will be able to describe what distinguishes a "socialist" from a "communist," a "fascist" from a "nationalist," and so on. You will also be able to place each ideology in the context of history.

Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto, written in 1848, is probably the single most influential 40-page essay ever written. It is a remarkable intellectual achievement—whatever one thinks of Marx's political struggle to help overthrow the capitalist system. The Manifesto includes a highly readable thumbnail synopsis of Marx's theory on the development of modernity and capitalism and an intriguing though brief description of his vision of an entirely new kind of human society, communism. The Manifesto is also important as a document of its period. Written in the heyday of the early formation of modern political movements, the Manifesto clearly reflects the debates of its time about liberalism, feminism, conservatism, nationalism, and anarchism.

Samantha Power's study A Problem from Hell is on the politics of humanitarian response to genocides of the past century, including the Armenian genocide (1915), Nazi Holocaust (1938–45), Cambodian genocide under Pol Pot (1975–79), Kurdish genocide under Saddam Hussein (1987–88), Rwandan genocide (1994), and Serbian campaigns of aggression in Bosnia (1992–95) and Kosovo (1998–99). Power's discussion follows the individual stories of those who attempted to bring public attention to genocide and to put pressure on policy makers to react.

Howard French's A Continent for the Taking recalls his time in West Africa in the 1990s as a correspondent for the New York Times. It is a case study on the history and current political crisis of equatorial Africa. French took enormous personal risks to provide vivid personal eyewitness reports. He has a knack for expressing the startling diversity of Africa and for finding and bringing out remarkable insights from an amazing set of interviews.

Joseph Nye's The Paradox of American Power is about America's national power and role in the world in the twenty-first century. Now that America is the world's most formidable economic power and faces no serious military rival, how should it conduct itself? The book is especially about the role of beliefs and attitudes in national power—both the beliefs of citizens and the beliefs and attitudes of other peoples. Nye explains how the "soft" power of national image and credibility matters tremendously alongside the "hard" power of military strength and economic influence.

About the Online Environment

Your online course offers several advantages to the traditional classroom, including the comprehensive Online Student Handbook, the ability to communicate electronically with students and with your instructor, and links to a rich array of online resources.

Online Student Handbook

This handbook answers questions about your online learning course, such as how to purchase your textbook, schedule an exam, obtain a transcript, and get technical help if you need it. The handbook also provides additional resources, such as how to order books or journals from the library and how to study for an online course.

Communication with Your Instructor and Student Peers

• Online Discussion Forums, designed by the University of Washington award winning Catalyst team, allow you to communicate with other currently enrolled students and with your instructor. We encourage you to use the discussion forum to exchange ideas, resources, and comments about your course work with other students in this course. This unstructured forum is monitored by your instructor.
• You can use e-mail to ask me a question or preferably post your question on the discussion forum. I will reply to all discussion forum questions on the forum, and to e-mail questions via e-mail.

Online Resources

As an online student, you have access to a wealth of Web resources compiled to provide fast, easy access to information that supports your online learning experience. Organized by subjects, Online Resources link you to sites with help for writing and research, study skills, language learning, and library reference materials. All links have been assessed for credibility and reliability, and they are regularly monitored to ensure their usability.

About the Lessons

Lesson One: Liberalism and Nationalism

Lesson One explains how to understand ideologies and why it is important to understand them, how variants of liberalism have developed over time, and how modern nationalism has been so successful at motivating masses of people.

Lesson Two: Ideologies of the Left: Anarchism and Socialism

Lesson Two summarizes the Marxian theory of history and political change. It discusses how European socialism developed on different paths, dividing between democratic socialism and Leninist (e.g., Russian) socialism. There is a short section on commonalities and differences between anarchism and socialism.

Lesson Three: Ideological Challenges to Liberal Capitalism

Lesson Three is about voices of opposition to liberal capitalism. Conservatism, feminism, "ecologism" (environmentalism), and religious fundamentalism—each of these represents a broad range of thought ranging from radicalism to accommodation.

Lesson Four: Fascism, Nazism, and Genocide

Lesson Four deals with fascist ideology and also America's humanitarian response to twentieth-century genocides.

Lesson Five: Politics against Genocide

Lesson Five presents the stories of individuals and groups who sought a humanitarian response to genocides and how American policy makers responded.

Lesson Six: Third World

Lesson Six discusses political experience under colonialism, movements for independence, and the unique political problems facing postcolonial nations.

Lesson Seven: Globalization and American Power

Lesson Seven looks at Joseph S. Nye's discussion of multilateralism and problems requiring international collective action.

Lesson Eight: Preparing for the Final Examination

Lesson Eight will help you get ready for the final examination.

About the Assignments

There are seven written assignments, essays of varying length from 1000 to 2400 words. In these essays you will engage challenging questions and, in the process, demonstrate that you have understood the reading assignments. The final exam will also include an essay. After successfully completing the course you will be confident writing a short essay about a political question, and you will be well prepared to express your ideas on occasion in future life, whether you are penning an op ed piece or continuing on in the field of political science.

Evaluation of Written Work

In this course you will have the opportunity to express your ideas on a variety of topics. For each assigned essay you should explain your point of view in an orderly fashion so that the readers can understand you, whether or not they agree with you. The essay is graded primarily on the degree of insight you bring to the question, not the length of your response. Your grasp of the material usually is amply revealed by directing your writing to thoroughly engage the assignment topic—there is typically no need for summarization of the course texts. Include a citation only where essential to illustrate your claim, and make it as short as possible.

The grade you earn on your essays will be based on the following basic scheme in which five points are emphasized. The first two points concern the essay's thesis—its clarity, creativity, challenge, and vigor of engagement with the topic. The second two points concern its organization. The final point concerns whether the essay is created with care. A paper that has a strong thesis, solid organization, and evidence of careful effort ranks in the 4.0 range. Papers with a good thesis and poor organization fall into the 3.0 range, as do those with good organization but a weak thesis. Papers with poor thesis and poor organization fall into the 2.0 range and below. Careful writing effort often necessitates repeated revision and re-editing of an essay draft. Rewrites often clarify the thesis and organization of a paper, so they can improve a grade all the way across. A paper hastily written or carelessly edited often surrenders a full grade point.

Thesis and Outline

Present a clear thesis statement early in your essay, typically in the first paragraph. This tells the reader exactly what the point of your argument is. If you are unsure how to succinctly state your thesis, you might pen your very first sentence according to the formula "In this paper I will argue that…" You will find that if you use that phrase to highlight your thesis statement, it will be almost impossible not to make an argument. It is often useful to include a few "road map" comments in your introductory paragraph—sketching what you will argue and indicating the directions your discussion will take. If your essay presents no clear thesis and no road map to indicate where the discussion is going then the reader can be in for a confusing experience.

Take seriously any arguments that disagree with your thesis. This means avoiding statements like "Marx's theory is flawed because he's a commie fool," or "Only greedy idiots could believe in liberal capitalism." Avoid straw man strategies—stick with the important issues even though they defy simple explanation. Try to write in such a way that even your most bitter opponent will acknowledge that you've got a good point. You may cite the reading assignments where appropriate to illustrate your claim, but be brief and do not substitute long quotations for your own creative prose.

Organization

Each paragraph of your essay should develop one central point. This means that you must expand paragraphs that are only one sentence long so that your point is developed. On the other hand, you must trim paragraphs that are over a page in length so that you do not wander away from your main argument. All paragraphs of your essay should connect in a single, logical flow linked to your main thesis. This means that you must outline your essay. How are you going to prove your main point? How will you address the opposing argument? Which texts will you cite in your essay, and why? An essay that is logically organized will be much more persuasive than one that is not. You may find it easier to outline your essay in advance of writing it, or you may find it easier to create a formal outline after you have written a preliminary rough draft—personal preferences vary. In any case, getting your essay organization in outline form at some point in the essay-writing process is crucial.

Writers frequently cannot perceive their entire objective until after a rewrite or two. Typically you may discover new dimensions of your argument as you write. Plan on rewriting to reflect important changes. When your essay is finished be sure to review and confirm that you developed your thesis and road map. Make revisions if your discussion proceeded in a new direction!

Style

Use proper grammar, punctuation, spelling, footnote or endnote form, page numbering, and so on. If you have not already done so, you may want to purchase Strunk and White's Elements of Style. This is a short handbook on the basic rules of essay writing that will answer such questions as how to use semicolons, where to put those commas, and what the difference is between "its" and "it's."

Study Tips

Don't let the next lesson slide once one lesson is completed. The material in this course links together in a logical flow (just like a good essay!), and you will be at a disadvantage if you let weeks elapse between the completion of assignments.

Keep a file of your essays from each lesson—this will prove invaluable in studying for the final!

It is your responsibility to create and safely store an electronic and hard copy of your essay before you send it off. If there is a problem with the mail, you will need to resubmit it.

Submission Instructions

Please submit your assignments per the instructions in the "About Your Instructor" page on your online course syllabus.

Final Exam

The final exam will include four sections. First, there will be a list of major dates in the history of modern politics, taken from the chronologies in each lesson, which you are to put in chronological order. Second, there will be a list of key terms, again taken from the lessons, which you will be asked to identify briefly. Third, there will be a set of short answer questions requiring approximately one paragraph. Fourth, there will be an essay question similar to the topics you have written about in each lesson assignment. The essay will be graded according to the same criteria as the written assignments from each lesson. If you have kept up with the work in the course all along, you will be well prepared for the final exam.

Grading

This course uses the university's standard grading system.

Your final grade will be an average of all the graded work of the course, weighted as follows:

Essays 1-7	10 percent each (for a total of 70%)
Final Exam (proctored)	30 percent

You must complete all assignments satisfactorily in order to earn credit for the course.

About the Course Developer

Doug Baker is a specialist in statistical computing. He has been teaching Political Science 101 and other courses since 1994. He completed graduate course work on American and Comparative Politics.

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