Suchergebnisse

Leadership, bargaining, and arms control -- Conflicting strategies and inconclusive discussions : Khrushchev, Eisenhower, and the test ban talks -- From deadlock to mutual compromise : Khrushchev, Kennedy, and the Limited Test Ban Treaty -- The search for unilateral advantage : impasse at the intermediate-range nuclear forces talks -- Concluding the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty : Gorbachev and new thinking break the deadlock -- Finishing start and achieving unilateral reductions : bargaining and leadership at the end of the Cold War -- Superpower arms control and joint decision making in international relations

In Security First, Amitai Etzioni insightfully diagnoses the problems with existing American foreign policy and prescribes creating security and valuing life as corrective guiding principles. Peacebuilding scholars would welcome Etzioni's focus, arguing that an efficacious state and a sense of nation help achieve his goals. In addition, developing respect for the dignity of all citizens in war-torn societies is an important ingredient to moving forward. Etzioni's stress on developing a "moral culture," which emerges from the dominant indigenous religion, is more problematic, however. Frequently, major religions have threatened the security and life chances of religious and other minorities, as well as of women and girls. Since using religion as a cornerstone undermines the idea of Security First and the Primacy of Life, the U.S. would be better served and more ethical advocating the inclusion of liberal principles in states' founding documents, even if those promises cannot be immediately realized.

Learning how to write a research paper is an important skill for political science majors, and faculty can also benefit when their students develop their research-paper-writing talents. Few departments, however, teach these skills explicitly, and many curricula seem to be based on the assumption that students will arrive at college with adequate basic writing skills. Several programs also suppose that a major will develop the ability to write a research paper through her experience with political science and other courses. These expectations are faulty, as most students are not "proficient" writers when they move to campus (McGrath 2004; NCWASC 2003, 16–7; Persky, Daane, and Jin 2003, 20–1), and writing a research paper in political science is a specific skill set that must be developed (Scholes 1998, 95; Russell 2002, 9–10). The approach I advocate here is to demystify the paper and the process for students by identifying and explaining the different parts of a typical paper—introduction, literature review, model and hypothesis, research design, analysis and assessment, and conclusion—and showing how the paper-writing process is broken into manageable tasks. While faculty know the components of research papers, most students have no idea what these sections should contain or what their titles mean. In addition, because revision and editing are essential general writing skills linked with the overall substantive learning process (NCWASC 2003, 1, 9; Maimon 2002, x), I suggest that students submit their papers in pieces, benefiting from feedback from faculty, peers, and themselves. In this essay, I unpack the parts of the paper and the writing process, providing suggestions for teaching about these segments and integrating research-paper-writing skills into the curriculum.