While there is considerable variation among college publishers with respect to the type of projects they are willing to consider, the process by which such projects are evaluated is remarkably similar from house to house. Invariably, that process involves the use of “outside” reviewers to whom proposals being given serious consideration are sent for evaluation. Thus, unlike trade publishers, who rely heavily on their own instincts when considering projects for publication, college textbook publishers seldom publish materials that have not first been reviewed, and by and large approved, by a group of potential adopters.

There are two major types of reviews commissioned by textbook publishers: developmental reviews and acquisitions reviews. The former are commissioned after a manuscript has been contracted for publication but before it has actually been published. Developmental reviews are intended to help an author (and publisher) “develop” a manuscript deemed sufficiently promising to warrant publication.

In an article entitled “Teaching the Congress and Legislative Process Courses,” L. Sandy Maisel found by examining the syllabi of such courses that about half of them involved legislative case study assignments. He suggested that further exploration of these assignments would be appropriate. Since students are so commonly required to do case studies of bills in legislative courses, a description of this type of assignment and discussion of how to implement it would be useful. In this paper, I will cover my use of this type of assignment in a course on the legislative process. In describing this legislative case study requirement, sections on background information, the case study assignment, and student reaction to the assignment, together with a brief conclusion, will be presented.

A developmental review is a request for advice from experts and potential adopters of the book. Basically, we ask the reviewer to help us evaluate and shape the manuscript by telling us honestly and directly what's good about it and what's not so good.

We commission three kinds of reviews.

We occasionally ask well known scholars to serve as expert advisors, providing bibliographies, abstracts of articles, and outlines. They read draft chapters and then reread them. The point of their efforts is to help a nonexpert author gain expertise. Remuneration is generous by publishing standards: about $500 per chapter. The expert advisor can expect to have his or her name associated with the book when it's published. This kind of reviewing is relatively rare in political science.

In another kind of expert review, we ask specialists to prepare outlines and provide bibliographies and do one careful reading. The fee is usually $250 per chapter.

Every social institution is affected by the way in which its internal processes are publicized. For example, the survival of the family as a social institution depends to a great extent on its privacy. It is almost impossible to imagine what forces in society might be released if all conflict in the private domain were thrown open for public exploitation.

When E. E. Schattschneider wrote the above passage in 1960, (in The Semisovereign People, p. 17), he could not know that the women's movement was about to resurface not only in the United States but around the world, and that one of its aims would be exactly to expose the “conflict in the private domain” of the family. The ideology of “the family,” the power relations in families—these and other “family“-related or other “personal” matters would be questioned in the 1960s, 1970s, and beyond.

The first half of my Introduction to Political Science course deals with normative theory, in particular the theories underlying the American method of organizing a polity. I agree with C.B. MacPherson that Locke's Second Treatise provided the “title deeds” of the liberal state and is a crucial part of American thinking on politics, the individual, and the state. Madison's Federalist #10 is an extension of Locke into the practical matters of organizing a new constitution. This essay describes the classroom use of games, lecture and discussion to introduce students to these theorists.

The course begins with Madison, mainly because students can understand and apply the concepts of the entire argument much more quickly. The successful use of games and exercises in the classroom requires an immediate start to student participation, an active expectation of student roles in the course. Two hours of class time is sufficient to discuss and review Madison's argument. Time is spent on its implications for the role of the individual, the state, and the dynamics of politics.

In teaching political science courses in American government, public policy, and public administration, students have considerable difficulty in conceptualizing the complexity of the two essential values of democratic capitalism.

Those values are equality, espousing the values of democracy, and efficiency, depicting the rationale of capitalism.

The purpose of this brief essay is to conceptualize more clearly the setting of the infrastructure of public and private relations in the United States. These clusters of power and influence will enable students to comprehend more easily the dynamics of political economy in the United States.

Why don't political science teachers teach their students about many of the important policy issues that political systems face today? Why is it uncommon in undergraduate political science classes to find discussions of the population explosion and famine in the Third World, and of acid rain and toxic wastes in the First and Second worlds? Why aren't our students knowledgeable about the arguments for and against nuclear power and acquainted with the problems the world faces as it moves from a reliance on oil to a reliance on renewable fuels? And why do we often ignore such awesome issues as those connected with the greenhouse effect and nuclear war? I believe that the answer to these questions is that political science teachers often don't know how to deal with these subjects in a respected, scholarly way — in a manner that will prevent the class from just becoming a forum for the discussion of current events. I believe also that we have a concept — development — which can serve as the necessary tool we need to allow us to approach these issues in a responsible manner.