Ruritania is a constantly evolving interactive simulation utilized in the American Political System (POL 201) course for majors in the Department of Political Science at the University of Dayton. The simulation is a composite of various simulations and games developed by other social scientists** over the past 20+ years. Variations of this simulation have been utilized by Dr. David Ahern in various classes for over 15 years. With the advent of new technology, the simulation has
developed into the interactive simulation we have today. Ruritania owes part of its initial network existence to Brian A. Young,
also known as, The Prince of Ruritania. His "legendary" webmaking skills also include the Department of Political Science's award-winning POLIWEB site and the FIDEH Human Rights site.
The purpose of this simulation of the mythical country of Ruritania is to provide students in an introductory course on American government with a basis for comparison and critical thinking. We believe that students are better able to understand and critique processes, institutions, and actors when they have some basis for comparison. With no commonly known "other" for comparison, we decided to create the mythical country of Ruritania and to give it "life"--a history, an evolving party system, and contemporary problems. (The country and the events which take place during the simulation are purely the imagination of those running the simulation, dubbed by the first Ruritanians--"the Electoral Gods". Any resemblance between Ruritania and a real country is not only purely coincidental but actually quite frightening!!).
Almost all of the activities in this simulation take place outside of regular class time. Students must access the Ruritania webpage at least every other day (most access it multiple times a day as the simulation progresses) for information, messages, reading assignments, etc. During the course of the simulation they communicate with other members of their political party, read the country's leading newspaper--The Ruritania Times, follow the latest opinion polls, explore changes in the Ruritanian political spectrum (known as the distribution of preferences) and negotiate the formation of coalition governments over the network.
**This simulation is based upon the work of two people. The basis of the simulation (party names and party constraints) and the name Ruritania are from a simulation developed by Michael Jon Stoll in the 1970s. Over the years the simulation has been greatly modified utilizing ideas from Michael Laver's excellent book on political games entitled, Playing Politics. Ideas from two of the games ("Elections" and Coalitions") have been amalgamated into this version of Ruritania. We have attempted to "firewall" this webpage so that it is not accessible to those outside of the University of Dayton since this simulation is only for use by students in POL 201.
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