I start a course on Politics and Policy by asking 100 or so students from several dozen countries to say what comes to mind when they hear the word “science.” Terms mentioned are objectivity, truth-seeking, hypothesis testing, experiments, data, logic, and the like. I write them on the blackboard. I then ask what comes to mind to mind when they hear the word “politics.” Here they mention power, manipulation, ambition, conflict, partisanship, spin, ideology, and, less often, vision and purpose. This list is put on the blackboard. Then, with two word lists before us, I comment that because they have just joined a school of public policy they must have a view of what goes into thinking up, arguing about, designing, and implementing policy. After a bit of discussion it gradually it sinks in. Policy is the meeting ground of science and politics. It is where the two word-lists on the blackboard come together and thrash it out, neither side ever quite vanishing the other.

Educators often use role-playing exercises that involve problem based learning in their courses to improve their students' critical and analytical skills, introduce them to new ways of thinking, increase interaction with their fellow students, and to enhance student interest in course lessons and materials (Greening 1998; Albanese 1993; Hensley 1993).A popular role playing simulation is moot court (Deardoff and Aliotta 2003; Guiliuzza 1991). Moot courts are academic simulations of appellate advocacy that educate students about the law and the judicial process. Students, acting as lawyers or judges, “try” a case before an appellate court.2 In addition to acting as lawyers or judges, students are assigned to serve as “law clerks, reporters, or amicus brief writers” (Knerr and Sommerman 2001, 4). Moot court is an extremely fluid pedagogical tool which can be used for more than learning about the law or the judicial process. It has been used in a variety of disciplines including political science, media, history, journalism, sociology, art, economics, business, and the life sciences to educate students about a variety of subjects such as history, journalistic rights, anti-trust laws, or professional ethics (Carlson and Skaggs 2000; Dhooge 1999; Bentley 1996).

This paper describes misconceptions about the physical sciences that are widely held by college students and that pose notable hurdles for appreciating the social sciences as legitimate scientific enterprises. My purpose here is pedagogical, too. In particular, I respond to the persuasive, specific argument in prior scholarship that students must overcome various negative or unconstructive stereotypes about the physical sciences to achieve scientific literacy.

Political science, as we currently understand the label, was born, in Western Europe, in the early Fifties. One may say that it was “reborn”; but that would be inaccurate, for in the nineteenth century and until World War Two the label indicated a captive discipline largely dominated by juridical or historical approaches (as in the case, e.g., of Gaetano Mosca). So political science had a new start and became a field of inquiry in its own right about half a century ago. I was, at the time, one of its founders (with Stein Rokkan, Juan Linz, Mattei Dogan, Hans Daalder, Erik Allardt, S. N. Eisenstadt, and others. See: Comparative European Politics: The Story of a Profession, edited by H. Daalder, 1997). I am thus one of the witnesses of what the “young turks” of the time had in mind, of how we conceived and promoted political science. I am now an “ancient sage” and it now pleases me to reflect, some fifty years later, on where political science has gone and on whether it has taken the right course, the course that I had wished for and expected. Thus to ask today, in the middle of Mitteleuropa, where political science has been heading is also to ask whether the new beginnings of the discipline in Eastern Europe should or should not follow the path entered by our “big brother,” I mean, by American-type political science. I too have been somewhat swallowed by our big brother (to be sure, a benevolent and well meaning one) in the sense that I have been teaching in the United States for some thirty years. Let me add that I have largely benefited from my American exposure. Yet I have always resisted and still resist the American influence. And I take this occasion to say why I am unhappy about the American molding of present day political science.

Political science remains an emergent discipline; but research within it has congealed around a set of well-defined programs that has engaged an international community of scholars. Here I will identify three of these programs in order to show the continued intellectual vibrancy of the discipline. First, in normative theory, political scientists are working out the implications of John Rawls' A Theory of Justice in a program that has reinvigorated liberalism to make it speak to core political issues of our time. Second, in a program once embedded bureaucratically in “American Politics,” political scientists are working out the implications of Duncan Black's median voter theorem in an expanded set of democratic countries with different institutional details to address the core political issues of representation and accountability. Third, relying on extensive cross-sectional time-series data previously unavailable, on computer programs not imaginable a generation ago, and on theoretical developments in econometrics, political scientists are fulfilling a dream of the founders of the behavioral revolution (Stein Rokkan, S. M. Lipset, and Karl Deutsch) by addressing systematically the sources of democracy and political order. To be sure, there are other political science research programs, for example, in international relations, in comparative political economy, and in political psychology, that could well have been elucidated in this essay. My goal here, in addressing Professor Sartori's jeremiad, is not to show the scope of the field, but rather its quality, its internationalism, and its real-world relevance. This is best done with a few select examples.

I recently began a classroom discussion on U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East by asking a question concerning the likely actions of the administration toward Iraq. I was immediately greeted with this response from most of the class: “Do you mean in the simulation or in real-life?” This response only amplifies the reactions of other students—“der Deutsche Weg” was constantly advocated by the student representing Germany, the student representing Argentina sought the commitment of “funds” from U.S. officials before and after every class, and most students claimed that the Iraqi representative had been co-opted by his role and called him “Saddam.”

In his reflections on “Where is Political Science Going?,” professor Sartori brightly points out some present flaws in the discipline: too much empiricism and too little applied research. At attacking “American-type” political science, however, I think he chooses a mistaken enemy. I will hold, in contrast, that the main source of the mentioned flaws is the weakness of political theory.

There has been a great deal of discussion in PS: Political Science & Politics concerning the development, use, and evaluation of distance education courses delivered via the Internet (Young 1998; Botsch and Botsch 2001; Pollock and Wilson 2002). While the literature in this new area of teaching instruction varies in terms of its focus and recommendations, one common assumption is that the delivery of the distance education course is accomplished while the faculty member is on campus. For example, Young (1998) does an excellent job of describing how university resources can be utilized in the gradual process of incorporating technology to develop a “cyberclass.” The analysis of Botsch and Botsch (2001) concerning outcomes in online and traditional courses was based on online courses offered during the regular semester as part of the normal teaching load.

In March, 2004, I received a U.S. Speaker and Specialist grant from the Department of State to travel to Africa and present several lectures on civil liberties and the rule of law. During my two weeks in Eritrea, I visited with undergraduate and law students at the University of Asmara. The impetus for the visit was the result of a new initiative by the Department of State entitled “Rights of the People”; the following essay highlights aspects of this initiative and also explains my experiences teaching civil liberties in Africa.

In the days following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Osama bin Laden quickly became America's leading enemy. But as the Bush administration prepared its case for war against Iraq in the first half of 2002, officials began to avoid mentioning Osama bin Laden's name in public. At the same time, administration officials increasingly linked Saddam Hussein with the threat of terrorism in an effort to build public support for war. By the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks it appeared that this public relations effort had produced results beyond all expectations: several polls released around the time of the anniversary revealed that majorities of Americans believed Saddam Hussein was personally responsible for 9/11.