A Novel Approach to Politics; Introducing Political Science through Books, Movies, and Popular Culture

Are you tired of poor student evaluations of the textbook you adopted? Hate hearing their complaints about being assigned 30 pages of what they see as an arduous reading experience? What if we told you that a textbook could be funny and irreverent utilizing popular books, movies, music, and television shows to introduce political science concepts? This novel approach to explaining our need for government and the intrigue of politics is a reality. Van Belle and Mash do not compromise on the content you want and need, nor do they stint on real-world political examples throughout the book. The basics and the depth are all here. The added innovation?—to hook students through the popular culture they’re already plugged into. Simply put, you will never hear complaints that this is a typical or boring textbook. From references to 1984 and Lord of the Flies to mentions of The Matrix and A Clockwork Orange you’ll be surprised by how the core concepts of political science—institutions, ideology, economics, elections, culture, national politics, and international relations—are interwoven with a highly entertaining discussion of popular culture. “The theme of ideals clashing with reality makes fiction a useful tool for exploring the fundamentals of politics. In novels and films, it is both a common motive that drives the heroic characters and a frequent theme in the settings and contexts of interaction, the plots, and the story lines. In politics, the tension between the real and the ideal is prominent both in theory and in practice. Virtually all who engage in politics must balance the dreams they would like to accomplish if they could against the limitations imposed upon them by the real world.” This bold, new book can help you integrate films and fiction in to your course—should you choose to—making it easier to assign a novel or two, or have students watch a few films, reinforcing themes and concepts, or creating the basis for a writing assignment. But regardless, the tie-in to popular culture will resonate with your students and get them reading—effortlessly. The textbook stuff is here too—chapter summaries, bolded key terms, discussion questions, and annotated web resources. Plenty to arm students with mastery of the material and get them ready for the test. On institutions… “Federal systems work well in diverse countries, where variations in local conditions, economies, or cultures make it impractical or inefficient to try to impose a single system, or make it difficult to make decisions from a central location…. The Federation in Star Trek provides a perfect example. When Captain Kirk, and later his grandson or nephew or whatever Jean-Luc Picard was, puttered around the final frontier in the glorified intergalactic motor home they called the Enterprise, they talked a lot about the United Federation of Planets. … Within the bounds of the charter of the Federation, the individual planets ruled themselves.” On economics… “The battle between idealism and realism in the economics of life is very clearly depicted in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, a film based on Betty Smith's novel of the same name. While it is something of a disservice to the complexities of its plot, context, and character to focus only on the economic aspects, it is also clear that the contrast between the idealist and realist perspectives on the world is a critical part of this story. Set early in the twentieth century, the story centers on Francie Nolan, the child of a family beset by poverty and alcoholism, and much of its power derives from the vivid portrayal of the harsh realities of an economic system that does little to ease the pain of the struggling poor.” On the media… “The basic plot of Capricorn One is that one of the biggest moments in history was a complete fiction. The United States never actually landed on Mars and may not have landed on the moon. Instead, the whole NASA program was faked on a soundstage. In addition to the really nifty 1970s haircuts, it raises the question, could the moon landings have been faked? Is all that stuff in the textbooks and at Cape Canaveral just part of an elaborate hoax?… Political reality is a mediated reality. It comes to use through channels of information flow, primarily through the news media, and understanding how information is selected, sorted, and presented to you through the news media is critical for developing your understanding of politics and government.” On political culture… “There is no denying that culture is real and it has a significant influence on politics. It is almost certain that the Swedish economic model would never work in Australia. It does not take much research to see that a heavily socialist economic model just does not fit with the rugged-individualist ideal of Australian culture. Crocodile Dundee and Steve Irwin may both be caricatures of Australian culture, but caricatures always have to reflect a fair bit of truth in order to work. However, that very same example also makes it clear that we must be very careful in what we attribute to culture.”