April 1, 2003
The Practical Face of Comparative Politics
Just days before President
George W. Bush issued an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq or
face a war with US and allied forces, students in Michael Sodaro’s
“Democracy and Democratization in Comparative Perspective”
class were hosting a mock debate about the British Parliament’s
pledge to support the use of force in the troubled Middle Eastern nation.
According to Sodaro, professor of political science and international
affairs, it’s a dialogue that never fully took place in the United
States.
The mock debate was a condensed transcript from the actual British parliamentary
discussion and a means of bringing to life the concepts and principles
discussed in Sodaro’s comparative politics course. Having taught
this class each fall and spring since 1978, Sodaro sought ways to keep
things lively. What he settled on four years ago was a series of debates
or oral reports expressing the points of views of different political
systems on issues of the day.
“I try to keep it fresh by relating the class to the events of
the day,” says Sodaro. “Because the class deals with the whole
world, I can illustrate my conceptual points with what’s going
on.”
Sodaro added the more practical bent, inserting modern dialogue and
mock debates. In the past semester his classes have discussed such hot
topics as Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan and India, and North and South Korea.
The course also focuses on the political systems in Great Britain, France,
Germany, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria, South Africa, Russia,
and China.
The class features two mock debates — the British debate, which
is scripted, and an Israeli debate. In the second half of the semester,
weekly discussion sections covering a different country or region, allow
students to select a country and an issue that they want to make a presentation
on. It’s not really a debate, rather it’s a presentation by
a couple of students of a memo on a real-world, real-time policy issue.
Students select the country and the issue, and the presentations are
followed by general discussion of broader issues. Students are required
to make one presentation each during the course of the semester, followed
by a one-to-two page policy memo based on their roles in the project.
The memo summarizes the debate, then states their position in the role
of a particular political party.
“One point of the exercise shows how the debate is going in other
countries,” says Columbian College freshman Tim Kaldas. “In
the United States politicians are less adamant in their positions. The
British politicians are more certain in their opinions. These people
stand a little stronger. People are afraid of being characterized as
being on one side or the other. I wish US politics was more firm.”
Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu
