A Novel Approach to Politics

2. Auflage 2009
ISBN: 978-0-87289-999-5
Verlag: CQ Press

Buch, Englisch, 371 Seiten, Format (B × H): 172 mm x 27 mm, Gewicht: 719 g

Students often complain that textbooks are boring, especially the door-stoppers in use for most survey courses. But they've never had a textbook like this. Just ask adopters of the first edition who are thanking Novel Approach for some of their best student evaluations to date.

Van Belle and Mash deliver the core concepts and real-world political examples you expect from an introductory book, just in a way that your students will actually have fun reading and will retain after the exam. With enlightening, yet entertaining, references ranging from 1984 to The Dark Knight, students take away more from discussions of institutions, ideology, and economics because concepts are introduced using popular culture. Revisions to the second edition, in addition to a wealth of new and recent movies and books, include new features on major political theorists and expanded stand-alone institutional chapters on the legislature and the executive.

Never fear—the textbook stuff is here too—chapter summaries, bolded key terms, and discussion questions.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Van Belle, Douglas A.

Mash, Kenneth M.

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introducing the Ancient Debate: The Ideal versus the Real
The Dollhouse
Fiction as a Tool for Exploring Politics
Utopias in Fiction and Politics
Ideologies
What Is Politics?
What Is Political Science?
Why Government? Security, Anarchy, and Some Basic Group Dynamics
A Model for the Emergence of Cooperation: Bobsville
Collective Action
Security
Power
Anarchy
The Context of Hierarchy
Alliances
Groups and Group Identities
Governing Society: We Know Who You Are
Leadership Benefits
The Panopticon
Collective Action, Revolution, and the Use of Force
Legitimacy and Government Control
Government’s Role in the Economy: The Offer You Can’t Refuse
The Tragedy of the Commons
Karl Marx--Student of Capitalism?
Socialism
The Yin and Yang of Capitalism and Socialism
Structures and Institutions: Get off your #$*%&#g Ass and Build that #$*%&#g Bike
Structures or Institutions?
Human Nature and Political Institutions
The Reality of Political Institutions
Simgovernment
El Grande Loco Casa Blanca-The Executive (in Bad Spanish)
Oh Captain, My Captain
The Scorpion King on Grandpa’s Farm
Kings and Presidents
The Democratic Executive
The Confederacy of Dunces— The Legislative (Not in Bad Spanish)
A Dreary Discussion of Democratic Legislatures
Intermission
A Redundant Repetition of Our Theme
A Tired Attempt to Make it Interesting
A Dreary Bleakness in the Authoritarian Gloom
Brazil our Bureaucracy-Do we even need to Bother with the Jokes?
Bureaucracy, It Goes To Eleven
So What Is A Bureaucracy?
There Be Flaws in Yonder Bureaucracy, Obviously
Courts and Law: Politics behind the Gavel
Law and Politics
The Functions of Courts
Trial Courts and Appellate Courts
Legal Systems
Jurisprudence
Types of Law
Constitutional Courts
Not Quite Right, but Still Good: The Democratic Ideal in Modern Politics
Arrow’s Theorem
Democracy and the Liberal Ideal
An Economic Theory of Democracy
The Real versus the Ideal, Again
Media, Politics and Government: Talking Heads are Better than None
Reality and Beyond
The Whole China Charade
Your New Brain and the Creation of Reality
News Media and Politics
A Vast Conspiracy?
Understanding the Distortions Is the Key
International Politics: Apocalypse Now and Then
Causes of War
Back To Anarchy
World War I Was Unpleasant
Realism and War
Challenging the Realist Paradigm
Chapter 13 was Confiscated for Your Protection
Political Culture: Sex & Agriculture, Getting Rucked Explains it All
Political Culture
Applying Political Culture
The Lastest and Bestest Chapter

Über Autor(innen)

Van Belle, Douglas A.
Douglas A. Van Belle is a Senior Lecturer in Media Studies at Victoria University of Wellington. He is currently examining how science fiction as thought experiment shapes the conceptual space between science and society. Other areas of research include simulations of international politics, rational choice and revolutionary collective action, global media freedom, the social nature of science and SETI, Palaeontology and scientific progress in the Social Sciences, media’s influence on foreign aid bureaucracies, international information flows and the necessary conditions for the adoption of disaster risk reduction policies, the role of science fiction in society, and the use of science fiction to teach politics. His latest novel, A World Adrift, is set in the skies of Venus, 800 years after it was first colonized, and explores the human impact of the politics of extreme resource scarcity.

Mash, Kenneth M.
Spurred on by the blatant discrimination inherent in the statement "Trix are for Kids," at age 4 Ken Mash attempted to file a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the rabbit and other animals similarly situated. After three errors in one inning squashed his dreams of playing for the Mets, his overactive justice complex led him to pursue a career as a lawyer and politician. While earning his B.A. in political science he discovered what those jobs were really like. Thus, Ken's next degree was in mixology. Eighteen months later, his fiancée informed him that she was leaving town to do graduate work and that she would go either with him or without him. A couple of degrees later, he is currently a political science professor at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania, where he is co-director of the honors program and the pre-law advisor. He has delivered numerous papers and talks on American politics, constitutional law, and civil liberties, and he is very active in the faculty association. He currently resides in Nanticoke, PA, with his wife and four children where he is now content in knowing that his parents were mistaken when, as a child, they told him that he was wasting his time watching T.V. and movies.