POL 310

 

Political Parties and Interest Groups

Welcome to POL  310!!

 

 

 

 POL 310 is a course designed to explore the nature of interest articulation in America and the world!  Interest articulation is the process through which individuals and groups make demands upon the political system.   These demands can be anything from the simple "fix the potholes in my street" variety to demands for fundamental reform of health care, social security, or taxes!  Generally, there are a number of actors, institutions and processes which are considered to be involved in interest articulation.  The actors include interest groups and political parties.  The institutions include all levels of government and government organizations.  The processes include elections, representation/ lawmaking, administration/ implementation and evaluation.  In this course, we will have to explore all of these phenomena to fully understand the nature of interest articulation!  There is a lot to explore!

Since this is an upper-level course, the assumption is made that students have a basic understanding of political systems and a basic understanding of the approaches which political scientists employ to study phenomena.  Students who aren't political science majors should not feel intimidated by taking this course.  They should however, be willing to "catch up" by asking questions and seeking additional readings if some concepts/ ideas are unfamiliar.
 

We explore interest articulation in this course through the three basic approaches to thinking that are common in the social sciences:

                                            1) thinking theoretically;

                                            2) thinking empirically;  and

                                            3) thinking comparatively.
 

We do this by exploring classic works and modern analyses, looking at empirical research (and perhaps doing some of our own) and making comparisons with other countries.

You will discover that there are five "great concepts" generally employed by political  scientists to explore political phenomena.  You need to be familiar with these terms and their implications for political analysis.  The terms are:

power
organization
culture
system
comparison
 

A note on how we learn in this course:

This course employs the The Learning Village model of interactive learning.  The course demands active students committed to learning about the subject matter.  This course IS NOT a passive experience where students "absorb material and parrot it back on exams".  You will be forced to be an aggressive, active learner.  You will (hopefully) learn from me, but you will also have to learn on your own and learn from each other. These are both skills you will need to have when you go to graduate/law school and when you go out into the "real" world.  There will be group projects that you must participate in.  THEY ARE NOT OPTIONAL BUT REQUIRED.  If you are not comfortable with learning on your own and/or learning from your peers, you should not be in this class! You will also find it difficult to operate in the "real" world where information is expanding with such rapidity that you will have to learn on your own and learn from others!

Rapid, interactive learning means utilizing the information technology available to you at the University of Dayton.  You must also access the course webpage before each class  for information/ assignments, web connections, etc.

One of the first things you should do is access the syllabus on the course webpage and READ IT !!