Suchergebnisse

Describes the Department of Political Science's assessment activities for academic year 2014-2015 ; The Political Science Department 2014-15 annual assessment report to the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences for the Office of Academic Assessment. The department applied results of past assessments and analysis ("closed the loop") to curriculum review and revision, as well as collected final writing assignments from ten upper-division classes for future assessment of program SLO #2 (Develop a Global Perspective). The EAS was used to collect student work, but response rates were "low" (33%) due to "technical difficulties many students experienced when trying to submit their papers" and the voluntary nature of the assignment. Program modifications and new course proposals were discussed to address identified student weakness in critical thinking and substantive knowledge in the Major, and preparations for future revision of both graduate and undergraduate program SLO's (to be continued in 2015-16) were begun.

A review & assessment of the development of theories of judicial behavior in the US. The study of judicial behavior has been relatively balkanized, with some advances in particular theroretical contexts, but relatively little success at integrating different approaches within a comprehensive theory. It is argued here that the predominant frameworks for analyzing judicial behavior -- attitude, fact-pattern, role, small-group, organization, & environmental theories -- are not incompatible & can be at least partially integrated. Three aspects of an integrated theory are pointed out: the basic unit of analysis is the individual decisionmaker; nonindividual level theories should be articulated to include propositions about the underlying microlevel processes; & comprehensive theory should be based on models that incorporate influences from various levels but ultimately focus on the individual. Such an approach reflects a movement from simplicity to complexity. 218 References. Modified HA.

The Post-War rise in importance of the individual in international political theory, as evidenced by the development of the international human rights regime, International Criminal Law and theories of global justice, has, paradoxically, been accompanied by an highly critical approach to the concept of human nature. Criticisms of human nature largely rest on the association of the concept of with social Darwinism, racism, sexism and eugenics, but, understood properly and at the right level of generality, the concept of human nature need not attract such undesirable, pseudo-scientific bedfellows. The modern science of evolutionary psychology is in the process of changing our understanding of the social implications of our genetic inheritance, and social and political theorists ought not to resist this change, and international relations scholars should not leave the field to realist scholars. Premature generalisations based on the findings of evolutionary psychology should certainly be resisted, but so should blanket rejections of the new knowledge. The task for international political theorists is to find a way of integrating the findings of the new human sciences into a humane understanding of the human animal.