Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Valuable resource

Recently, in another blog I write, I confessed to reading two novels twice and not realizing either duplication until I was nearly finished reading. That experience made me think I might not have to buy any new books. I could get by just rereading the ones I have.

Last February, when I first came across Clouds, Clocks, and Sitting at Tables, I was amazed and admiring. (Look back at that February posting.)

After writing about it and bookmarking the blog, I started using a new computer for writing this blog. I forgot about Josip Dasovic's blog.

Then I rediscovered it last week. As I finished writing the posting below, I got an inkling that things sounded familiar. I searched the blog for Dasovic. Sure enough, I'd praised this resource before. It's worth another mention. Go look at it and look at its archives. You'll find somethings there that will help you teach.

Josip Dasovic teaches comparative politics and international relations at the University of Richmond. He writes a blog, "Clouds, Clocks and Sitting at Tables," to support his more formal teaching activities.

The blog frequently includes entries that you might find valuable and useful. The entries include tags that identify the relevant topics mentioned in the blog and (for comparative entries) the chapter in O'Neil's textbook that deals with those topics.

In addition to all that, you'll probably find many of the entries simply fascinating.

For instance, Is there a causal link between Natural Resources and Conflict?, which is tagged with the following items: "Africa, Civil War, Comparative Politics--PLSC240, Conflict, Data, Governance, Human Security, O'Neil-Chapter 4, Political Violence, authoritarianism."
The State and Democratization, which is tagged with the following items: "Comparative Politics--PLSC240, Conflict, Data, Democracy, Governance, O'Neil-Chapter 2, State (the), State-Legitimacy, Weber."
You'll also find this excellent introduction to proportional elections, John Cleese on Proportional Representation

The full 9 minute, 45 second clip (it's an advocacy piece):

The minute and a half short version:
Dasović also points us to King Arthur's discussion with the peasants about political legitimacy.

I blogged about this scene back in May of 2006. Here's another script of that scene if you'd like your students to analyze it.
In Totalitarianism and 1984, he asks he students "how many characteristics of a totalitarian regime" they can recognize is a couple clips from a film adaptation of George Orwell's 1984.

Part 1:

Part 2: