In 2005, with two of my students, I started a literacy program in a red-light district in Guatemala City. In 2007, we became a nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of the rights of sex workers in Guatemala (i.e., Women for Justice, Education, and Awareness, known in Spanish as MuJER). Today, MuJER provides literacy classes and accelerated elementary school, vocational training, antiviolence programs, and grassroots organizing. We have worked with hundreds of women, both at our Community Empowerment Center and “door-to-door” in red-light districts. Using the experience of MuJER, this article provides recommendations for professors interested in working with students to create a nonprofit in the developing world: select students whose skill sets are different than your own; start by creating a program (not by formally establishing a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization); and recognize that the nonprofit’s long-term sustainability requires commitment to grant writing for years to come.

Set in 1978, the year Edward Said published Orientalism, Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children depicts “magic children” born in the first hour of August 15, 1947, “within the frontiers of the infant sovereign state of India” (1981, 226, 224). Through some “freak of biology” or “preternatural power,” the children receive “miraculous” abilities, including such superhero staples as flight, time-travel, and “a boy who could increase or reduce his size at will” (224, 227, 228). For his mind-reading narrator, Rushdie evokes the Shadow's 1930s radio slogan: “the ability to look into the hearts and minds of men” (229). The American Shadow, like so many of his descendants and predecessors, gained his powers from the mythical Orient, but the fantastical abilities that Rushdie awards the first citizens born in independent India mark the end of colonial exploitation and the transfer of real-world political power from colonizers to the formerly colonized.

Given the extraordinarily competitive academic job market in the United States, this article explores a relatively new prospect for American-trained political science PhD graduates: teaching at a foreign institution. The article proceeds in two parts. First, it discusses various benefits and challenges associated with working abroad. Second, it provides practical guidance for candidates considering the international job market.

In June 2013, explosive claims and illicit revelations of domestic and global American intelligence surveillance operations, hacking, and collaboration with US Internet and information technology behemoths rocked the world. Simultaneously, the mysterious emergence in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) of runaway American intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden at the heart of the intrigue shoved the small enclave to the fore of global geopolitics. Claiming to rely on Hong Kong's respect for the rule of law and tradition of dissent to shield him against American retaliation and extradition, the dubious protagonist's statements ingratiated himself to local political groups who petitioned Hong Kong and central Chinese governments not to send him back to the United States. During “Defend Snowden” demonstrations at the US consulate in Hong Kong involving hundreds of supporters, placards bearing the image of US President Barack Obama parodied, mocked, and ridiculed the leader of the free world using iconic adaptations of Captain America, George Orwell's “Big Brother,” and Shepard Fairey's Obama “Hope” visuals. Instead of an icon of “American freedom and ideology” (Serwer 2008) and an “idealized American nation” (Dittmer 2005, 627) Captain America, American president Barack Obama, and the United States of America were symbolically transformed into a signified Orwellian caped crusader threatening the world.

Indigenous politics and history are central to and, indeed, intertwined with the history and politics of many if not most contemporary nations, yet the topics of indigenous politics and settler colonialism are rarely taught in undergraduate political science programs. This article outlines the pedagogical utility of an undergraduate course focused on indigenous history and politics, approached through a comparative race politics framework. The course on which this article is based compares state power and indigenous rights in the United States, Australia, and Latin America in historical context, but many variations are possible. The article first reviews the context for developing the course, the challenges related to teaching the subject, and my primary teaching objectives. It then outlines three pedagogical strategies applicable in other course frameworks and discusses positive learning outcomes I have observed as I refine this teaching area.

Nine secondary teachers who were taught to use one model of deliberation, Structured Academic Controversy (SAC) (Johnson and Johnson 1979), were matched with nine teachers in their schools who taught similar grade levels and subjects. Teachers in the Deliberation Classes engaged students in three deliberations across six months. Deliberations focused on current public issues, such as whether violent juvenile offenders should be tried as adults. Five of the nine classroom pairs were analyzed using both pre- and post-questionnaires. There were no statistically significant differences in the pre- and post-questionnaire responses of students in the Deliberation Classes (n = 244) and Comparison Classes (n = 249) in terms of self-reported issue knowledge. Variance in student opinion in the Deliberation Classes showed a significant decrease. Students in the Deliberation Classes (n = 297) demonstrated greater perspective-taking abilities than students in the Comparison Classes (n = 238). Within classes, diversity of opinion regarding issues was evident.

On June 26, 2012, Marvel's The Avengers became the third movie in history to earn $600 million dollars at the box office. The film was well received by fans and critics alike and it stood at the apex of a series of superhero movies released in the last decade. The mass appeal of the superhero, as evidenced by this success, has never seemed more powerful than in the years since September 11, a day that floored the likes of Captain America, who wept amidst the rubble with Spider-Man. “Some things are beyond words. Beyond comprehension. Beyond forgiveness” (Straczynski, Romita, and Hanna 2001, 2–3). In this atmosphere of uncertainty, comic book writers struggle to deal with the realization that, when America needed its heroes the most, they could only stand among the wreckage of the smoldering twin towers with the rest of us and ask “why?”

This study conducted experiments using clickers and Twitter in international relations courses to evaluate the effectiveness of audience-response tools on students’ experiences and their performance. The study used both within-group and between-group experimental designs and evaluated the results primarily through inferential descriptive statistical methods. The results show that clickers outperformed Twitter, students enjoy using clickers in class, and the use of these tools had little impact on grade performance.

The use and efficacy of problem-based learning (PBL) exercises during single class periods, especially in political science courses, have largely been unstudied. This article explores the ability of a PBL exercise to provide better learning outcomes than a standard lecture-discussion presentation on a particular topic in an introductory political science course. The author finds that the PBL approach, as a one-time pedagogical exercise, is not more effective at producing learning. In exploring the data, however, the author finds that differences in course structure and methods of learning assessment can have a larger impact on learning outcomes than specific teaching techniques.

Since our earliest days as a profession, regularities of politics have been described in terms of laws of political behavior (Bryce 1909), but not without controversy. Reviewing a century of efforts to identify laws of politics yields numerous offerings, including Duverger's (1954) and Michels' (1915) well-known contributions. Following the structure embodied in Newton's Laws of Motion, I propose three general laws of politics and government in America: (1) political objects in motion tend to stay in motion, (2) the relationship between a candidate and his or her political force is the product of campaign funding and personal likability or appeal to the press, and (3) for every political action, there is an equal and opposite reaction (i.e., “Craig Leonard Brians Law of Unintended Political Consequences”). Each law is illustrated and discussed using examples drawn from US politics. Finally, I note several potential research limitations of these proposed laws, as well as their possible utility in teaching introductory political science courses.

Internship placements located away from capital cities and metropolitan areas may lack opportunities for involvement in high-profile issues but they can uphold standards of “high-impact educational practice” (Kuh 2008). This study of 59 political science interns at the Mississippi University for Women demonstrates that high-impact outcomes may be generated in small-city placements that include administrative tasks if students are encouraged to reflect on their experiences and recommend improvements. Students not only extract information from their experiences for academic assignments, they also appraise the effectiveness of the work unit in attaining its goals and they formulate means by which it may improve procedures and outcomes. The scale of operations in small-city environments broadens the options for this type of analysis: exposure to a wide scope of decision processes and results is preferred to a focus on a specialized task.

The authors of this article advocate a new curriculum that can be applied to American government, introduction to political science, and state and local government courses. For the past half-century, high school and college general-education requirements have deemphasized civics, government, and political science. In response to the corresponding decrease in the nation’s civic health, this proposal is based on three principles. First, teaching citizenship is different than teaching civics. Second, citizenship is taught most effectively by engagement in the “real world,” with students completing projects that take them step by step through the policy-change process. Finally, the education and preparation of future high school government teachers needs to change to encourage them to teach their students the rights, responsibilities, and competencies of active citizenship.

Political satire has become increasingly prominent in recent years, leading some political science instructors to use satire in their courses. Yet, recent work suggests that political satire may encourage cynicism and decrease political efficacy. In this article, the author develops and tests an approach to teaching effectively with satire. Frequent use, source diversity, and critical evaluation engage students while allaying satire’s potential detrimental effects. The author evaluates this pedagogical approach through a classroom experiment using both in-person and online classes (student N = 163). Qualitative and quantitative data offer suggestive evidence that refutes the warning that satire fundamentally depresses political efficacy and indicates that students enjoy satire and endorse its use. By deliberately using diverse satirical sources, instructors can maximize the benefits of satire while minimizing potential drawbacks. For interested instructors, the author’s website contains a searchable catalog of satirical articles, video clips, and cartoons that can be used to teach specific political science concepts.

Which factors shorten or lengthen the survival of a scandal involving a chief executive? Using new data tracking scandals involving presidents and governors from 1972 to 2011, I chart the duration of each political, personal, and financial scandal faced by an elected official, their staff, or nominees. I specifically examine institutional, political, and economic factors to investigate what factors quicken a “negative” end to a scandal. National chief executives and their staff are more likely to survive a scandal when they have more partisans in the legislature but are less likely when there is greater political opposition, however there is no comparative effect at the state level. Positive economic growth and public approval have no effect on survival of a scandal at either the national or state levels. These findings clarify how the political environment shapes the duration of executive scandal.