how to introduce the course political behavior

What is political behavior?

political scientists to understand individual political action or what is often called “political behavior.”1 This stands in contrast to approaches that focus on comparing political systems, or modeling the dynamics of international relations, or analyzing philosophical and normative arguments and texts. In this course, we focus on the dominant analytical approach in …

What can we learn from past theories of political change?

Description. Political Science 210, "Political Behavior," is one of four gateway courses into the study of political science at Reed College. The course is targeted at first and second year students, although more advanced students are welcome. Pol210 exposes you to the major approaches used by political scientists to understand individual ...

What do we know about public knowledge and interest in politics?

This course offers an introduction to political behaviour and political theory. The class on Political Theory surveys political thinkers from Plato to Habermas, looking at their ideas about the politics, morality, rights and duties, and the place of religion in political life. ... apply core concepts and basic models in political behavior in ...

How do we study politics?

Apr 06, 2022 · Political Behavior. The term "mass political behavior" is very broadly defined to include not only tangible forms of behavior (such as voting and participation), but also topics such as public opinion, mass communications, political psychology, and more. Unlike other courses in either American or comparative politics, courses in mass behavior focus less on political …

What is the concept of political behavior?

Theories of political behavior, as an aspect of political science, attempt to quantify and explain the influences that define a person's political views, ideology, and levels of political participation. Political behavior is the subset of human behavior that involves politics and power.

What is political introduction?

An Introduction to Politics is a concise narrative that depicts the intersection of politics and policy and discusses the inevitable trade-offs to demonstrate why politics matter in students' daily lives.

What is political behavior in the workplace?

Pete Sosnowski, head of HR and co-founder at resume-building site Zety, defined political behavior in a workplace as engaging in behind-the-scenes maneuvers to achieve a personal goal within the organization.

What factors determine political behavior?

There are many factors that affect political participation. Education, gender, age and family are some of them. The family factor is an important factor that the individual has been in since he was born.

How do you write an introduction for a political essay?

How to write an A Level Politics essaySay what you are going to say (in your introduction write, 'this essay will argue that [xyz]').Say what you said you were going to say (the body of your essay should be consistent with what you outlined in the introduction).More items...•Aug 5, 2021

How do you write an introduction to political science?

Introduction: Begin the paper by identifying your research question. Then explain why your question is important. Offer your thesis – a quick version of your answer to the research question (one or two sentences).

Why is it important to understand political behavior in organizations?

In many instances, the survival of the organization depends on the success of a department or coalition of departments challenging a traditional but outdated policy or objective. That is why an understanding of organizational politics, as well as power, is so essential for managers.

How do organizations manage political behavior?

How to Manage Organizational PoliticsGet the lay of the land. Do you know if your employees feel like they have to engage in some political jockeying in order to get ahead — or at least not fall behind? ... Keep close tabs on undercurrents. ... Step in when necessary. ... Don't play favorites. ... Be a good role model.Sep 22, 2020

How is politics valued in the workplace?

It involves the use of power and social networking within a workplace to achieve changes that benefit the organization or individuals within it. "Organizational politics are self-serving behaviors" that "employees use to increase the probability of obtaining positive outcomes in organizations".

Who introduced political culture?

American political scientist Lucian Pye defined political culture as the composite of basic values, feelings, and knowledge that underlie the political process. Hence, the building blocks of political culture are the beliefs, opinions, and emotions of the citizens toward their form of government.

How do we acquire political beliefs?

Agents of socialization, sometimes referred to as institutions, work together to influence and shape people's political and economic norms and values. Such institutions include, but are not limited to: families, media, peers, schools, religions, work and legal systems.

What are political beliefs?

'Political belief' refers to a belief or view that has some bearing on issues dealt with by government. 'Political affiliation' includes belonging to or identifying with a particular political party, supporting a particular candidate or in some way identifying with a political cause.

What is political behavior?

In other words, from this definition it is clear that political behavior is activity that is initiated for the purpose of overcoming opposition or resistance. In the absence of opposition, there is no need for political activity.

What are the conditions of political behavior?

These are shown in (Figure), along with possible resulting behaviors. The conditions include the following: 1 Ambiguous goals. When the goals of a department or organization are ambiguous, more room is available for politics. As a result, members may pursue personal gain under the guise of pursuing organizational goals. 2 Limited resources. Politics surfaces when resources are scarce and allocation decisions must be made. If resources were ample, there would be no need to use politics to claim one’s “share.” 3 Changing technology and environment. In general, political behavior is increased when the nature of the internal technology is nonroutine and when the external environment is dynamic and complex. Under these conditions, ambiguity and uncertainty are increased, thereby triggering political behavior by groups interested in pursuing certain courses of action. 4 Nonprogrammed decisions. A distinction is made between programmed and nonprogrammed decisions. When decisions are not programmed, conditions surrounding the decision problem and the decision process are usually more ambiguous, which leaves room for political maneuvering. Programmed decisions, on the other hand, are typically specified in such detail that little room for maneuvering exists. Hence, we are likely to see more political behavior on major questions, such as long-range strategic planning decisions. 5 Organizational change. Periods of organizational change also present opportunities for political rather than rational behavior. Efforts to restructure a particular department, open a new division, introduce a new product line, and so forth, are invitations to all to join the political process as different factions and coalitions fight over territory.

Why are corner offices considered desirable?

Corner offices are considered desirable because they have windows on two exterior walls, as opposed to a typical office with only one window or none at all. They are usually assigned to the head of the organization or division. The open office concept has been around for some time and has evolved as technology has reduced the need to have access to stored paper records of a fixed phone or office computer. Having no walls, no doors, and shared workspaces is designed to achieve increased communication and flow of ideas amongst employees, but there is concern that an open concept decreases employees’ job satisfaction and decreases privacy, which also affects productivity. (Attribution; Nic Bastian (Corner office) Loozerboy (Open Concept)/ flickr/ Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0))

What is the purpose of a power and other resources?

Involves those activities taken within an organization to acquire, develop, and use power and other resources to attain preferred outcomes in a situation in which there is uncertainty and disagreement over choices.

What is the difference between politics and power?

Power is a property of the system at rest ; politics is the study of power in action.

Is there bias in performance appraisals?

Unfortunately, many times there is no way around bringing some bias into a performance appraisal situation.

What is nonprogrammed decision?

Nonprogrammed decisions. A distinction is made between programmed and nonprogrammed decisions. When decisions are not programmed, conditions surrounding the decision problem and the decision process are usually more ambiguous, which leaves room for political maneuvering.

What is political behavior research?

One of the enduring research debates in political behavior involves basic questions about the public’s political abilities—their level of knowledge, understanding, and interest in political matters. For voters to make meaningful decisions, they must understand the options the polity faces.

What is political culture?

One of the most powerful social science concepts to emerge in political behavior research—and one central to the study of citizen attitudes and behavior— is the concept of political culture. Almond and Verba’s (1963) seminal study, The Civic Culture, contended that the institutions and patterns of action in a political system are closely linked to the political culture of the nation. The culture, in turn, is shaped by the historical, economic, and social conditions of a nation. Cultural studies are especially important in the study of democratization, as analysts try to identify the cultural requisites of democracy ( Almond and Verba 1963; Pye and Verba 1965; Fuchs 2007 ).

Why do we need an active citizenry in democracy?

Democracy, however, expects more active involvement than a nondemocratic order because democracy is designed to aggregate public preferences into binding collective decisions. Necessarily this requires an active citizenry, because it is through interest articulation, information, and deliberation that public preferences can be identified, shaped, and transformed into collective decisions that are considered legitimate. Autocratic regimes also engage the public in the political process, although this is primarily to indoctrinate the public to conform to decisions that elites have made. But even the control capacities of autocratic regimes are limited so that they have somehow to address what the citizenry wants and needs.

What is behavioral revolution?

The behavioral revolution transformed research on American politics and then European politics in the 1960s and early 1970s. In the last two decades, this methodology has broadened to ...

What is the third wave of democratization?

The third wave of democratization has reformed the political systems and the citizenry in the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. These new developments provide distinctive opportunities to test old theories, expand the boundaries of knowledge, and develop new theories.

What is the role of citizens in democracy?

One of the central roles of citizens in democracies and other political systems is to make decisions about political matters. In democracies, this involves decisions about which parties or candidates to support in an election, as well as decisions about which issue positions to hold, how to participate in politics, and so forth. In other political systems, the choices are different, but the task of making a choice remains. In an autocratic system, the choice might be between making an openly affirmative statement to a government declaration, remaining silent about it, or subtly even criticizing it. In any case, citizens make choices when political issues are brought to their attention, whether in an autocratic or a democratic system.

What are the most significant political events of the last half century?

We have recently experienced what are arguably the most significant political events of the last half-century: the collapse of the Soviet Empire and the global democratization wave of the 1990s. As advanced industrial societies are evolving into a new form of democratic politics, we are witnessing the initial development of democracy in a new set of nations. The democratization waves in Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa touch at the very core of many of our most basic questions about the nature of citizen politics and the working of the political process.

What is a free certificate in political science?

Free Certificate. This is a survey course, and it can be used if you are looking to take just one general overview course of political science or if you want to go on to more advanced study in any of the subfields of the discipline, such as American politics, comparative politics, international politics, or political theory.

What is Unit 6?

Unit 6: International Politics. This unit traces the emergence of a world system of states from the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), which first standardized the conditions for peace among states, through the colonial period and into contemporary globalization.

What is the course on foreign policy?

The course combines three elements: a study of the history of American foreign relations; an analysis of the causes of American foreign policy such sa the international system, public opinion, and the media; and a discussion of the major policy issues in contemporary U.S. foreign policy, including terrorism, civil wars, and economic policy.

What is political communication?

This course is an introduction to the field of political communication and conceptual approaches to analyzing communication in various forms, including advertising, speech making, campaign debates, and candidates' and office-holders' uses of social media and efforts to frame news. The focus of this course is on the interplay in the U.S. between media and politics. The course includes a history of campaign practices from the 1952 presidential contest through the election of 2020.

What is a freshmen seminar?

Freshmen seminars are small, substantive courses taught by members of the faculty and open only to freshmen. These seminars offer an excellent opportunity to explore areas not represented in high school curricula and to establish relationships with faculty members around areas of mutual interest.

How many civil wars have there been?

This course explains ethnic conflict, focusing on its most violent form, civil war. There have been more than 170 civil wars and many more episodes of lower-level armed conflict around the world since 1945. Most of these conflicts have been fought along ethnic lines. Antipathies and competition between ethnic groups are a constant feature of human history. Across societies, there is evidence of in-group bias and out-group prejudice in human behavior. Some theorists argue that people are hard-wired to dislike, and even fight against, members of ethnic out-groups. But large-scale ethnic violence is relatively rare. Under what conditions does ethnic conflict become violent and when does that violence rise to the level of civil war? What interventions are effective in ending these wars and returning countries to peace? Is ethnic conflict rooted in economic factors, such as poverty, growth decline, commodity price shocks, or dependence on mineral wealth? Or is it due to political reasons, such as repression, authoritarianism, or political exclusion of minority groups? This course addresses these questions from an inter-disciplinary perspective, drawing on quantitative political science, history, social psychology, and behavioral economics. By the end of the course, students should be able to discuss these questions with reference to ongoing cases of civil war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria as well as historical cases such as Bosnia and Rwanda. Prerequisite: Introductory courses in Comparative Politics, International Relations, and Economics. At least one couse in Quantitative Methods will be helpful.

What are the challenges of gender equality?

This course tackles four theoretical and empirical challenges related to gender and political equality: the extension of citizenship rights and voting rights to women; the problem of women's persistent under-representation in politics; the nature of the gender gap in preferences across time and space; and the possibilities for substantive representation. We will focus about half the class on the US (contrasting the experiences of white and black women and men in politics) and the other half on other countries, detailing how different party systems, variation in electoral rules (like proportional representation), and institutional innovations such as gender quotas, enable or constrain gender equality in politics.

How many votes did the Democratic candidate win in the 1960s?

In 1960, a Democratic candidate won a very narrow Presidential victory with just 100,000 votes; in 2000, the Democratic candidate lost but received 500,000 more votes than his opponent. Still, contemporary scholars and journalists have made a variety of arguments about just how much the American political landscape changed in the intervening 40 years, often calling recent decades a transform ation. This course explores and critically evaluates those arguments. Key questions include: how, if at all, have Americans political attitudes and ideologie s changed? How have their connections to politics changed? What has this meant for the fortunes and strategies of the two parties? How have the parties base voters and swing voters changed? What changes in American society have advantaged some political messages and parties at the expense of others? Focusing primarily on mass-level politics, we consider a wide range of potential causes, including the role of race in American politics, suburbanization, economic transformations, the evolving constellation and structure of interest groups, declining social capital, the changing role of religion, immigration, and the actions of parties and political elites. For three weeks in the semester, we will take a break from considering broader trends to look at specific elections in some depth.

What is comparative politics?

This is a comparative politics course that examines patterns of political and socio-economic change across the developing post-colonial areas Asia, Africa and Latin America. The course is not as concerned with keeping up with current events as with analyzing the relationships between colonial legacies, the initial challenges of post-colonial political and socioeconomic development, and how these interact with contemporary problems and global trends. Although chiefly concerned with "political change" within countries, it will also devote substantial attention to economic, socio-cultural and international factors. The course is divided into three parts. The first examines the common and distinctive features of colonial rule in different regions as well as the varying challenges of political and economic development in diverse post-colonial settings. The second part focuses on elaborating on the themes developed in the first by looking more closely at the developmental experiences of Brazil, India, Algeria, Iran, Nigeria, and South Korea (with passing references to other countries as comparative referents). The third part focuses on trends and challenges that have emerged over the last two decades - including market reforms, democratization, and problems related to gender and the environment. The concluding lecture considers the implications of the distinctive perspectives offered above for revising some of the assumptions behind U.S. foreign policy and the organization of global institutions.