Demystifying Comparative Politics: Getting Your Students to Love Politics

Sage author and Political Science Professor Lisa Baglione, Ph.D., shares strategies for engaging today's diverse students in Introduction to Comparative Politics. Drawing from real-world examples, using sports analogies, incorporating film clips, and other scenarios, she is able to capture the interest of both majors and non-majors in her political science courses. 

Dr. Baglione also discusses the importance of ensuring students can see themselves in politics, explaining how gender, ethnicity, and other identities intersect with power structures. She notes that small changes like using inclusive language and real-world examples can make political science more accessible in the classroom without a complete overhaul. 

Transcript

Jennifer Haldeman, Product Marketing Manager for Political Science, Sage Publishing: 0:10

Welcome, everyone to our webcast with Lisa Baglione, demystifying comparative politics, getting your students to love politics. I'm Jennifer Haldeman, Product Marketing Manager for the political science list at SAGE Publishing and CQ Press. And I'll be moderating our discussion today, which is really meant to be a back and forth with Lisa about how she engages her students in her comparative politics courses. So I'm doubly excited to be talking with Lisa. today. She's recently authored a new introduction to comparative politics text with us at CQ Press called Understanding comparative politics, which we can share more about at the end of today's chat. So she has a wealth of experience in this area. And we're excited to let her be able to share some of her teaching tips with all of you today. So Lisa, I'll let you introduce yourself and your comparative politics experience with our audience.

Dr. Lisa Baglione, Sage Author and Professor of Political Science, St. Joseph's University: 1:05

Hi, everyone, I'm really pleased to be here with you. So I started teaching comparative politics at St. Joseph University in Philadelphia, way back in 1992. And it was a very different world that I think we would all appreciate that. So we had a lot of a lot of hope about what was happening in the world, the possibilities for democratization, the possibilities for continued, more equitable development, I actually have taught this course since '92, but had a hiatus for a while while I was the department chair. And then coming back in, after in 2014, after not teaching the course for about six years, I was looking at a very different world. But I was also looking at very different student body, at least the way the way I was perceiving things, because and it was not only driven by things going on in my university, but also by larger trends, some of them global. And then of course, some of them national.

Jennifer Haldeman, Product Marketing Manager for Political Science, Sage Publishing: 2:21

Talking today, you know, today's students, our world today, what do you feel are the biggest challenges you're seeing in teaching comparative politics?

Unknown: 2:31

Yes. So it is a little bit related to thinking about coming back in 2014, we started to realize that college students themselves were changing. We back in 1990, about 80% of college students who are white. Today, it's more like 52 and a half percent, for what? So there was an you could see this was coming, right. In addition, what was coming. So it was, in the second decade of the 2010s, a lot of colleges and universities were suffering from the implications of the financial crisis, the financial crisis hit in any of us who really badly.

Dr. Lisa Baglione, Sage Author and Professor of Political Science, St. Joseph's University: 3:19

And in addition, everyone was looking to say, Oh, my goodness, there's this going to be this demographic cliff, where we're going to be losing students. And this was particularly going to be a concern for political science, as an other humanities, humanities and social sciences, as what parents and students were thinking about as they approach college. So, so there were these various reasons that people like me, were thinking about finding ways to reach more students. And also, the discipline, the American Political Science Association, was recognizing it had been recognized since 1991, that we needed to do more to, to include women in gender. And interestingly, in the early 2010s, there was a second task force that talked about the need to reach out to people of different races and to think about different kinds of identity issues, because that's where our students are going to be. And in addition, more work was being done to stay who if our students are going to be more diverse. They want to see themselves reflected in what they are learning about. And so all of that brought me and then, actually, the work of many excellent political scientists working on gender and intersectionality. It brought me to say, oh, my goodness, I need to find ways to make my class more inclusive, not only because it'll be a better reflection of what That's really going on in politics, but also from the perspective of the pressure that my institution and my department was facing. It will also we hope to attract more students into the classes, and potentially into the major. And so all of these considerations came into play as I begin to rethink and redesign the course to try to maintain strong gender and identity throughout, as opposed to just saying, okay, here, we're going to talk about how many women are elected or how many women serve, or terrible horrors about the way women's rights are abused? No, the question is to consider women, LGBTQ ethnicity all as we try to wrap up and explain the political phenomenon in each country. And so that was the task. And that's why we call this an inclusive approach it so it tries to talk to a different group of students who are out there from when I started teaching, and so they could see themselves and what I'm talking about. And then to reflect the changes that are happening in different politics, or as identity phones become so much more of an issue around the world. No longer is, is everyone perceived to be thinking. And identity is important. So I try to use those factors. As I, as I put together my course. And as I wrote my book, so I think that will distinguish the pocket people, if people take a look, it'll give you place to to insert more. And even if you weren't considering doing it before, it's going to have that information and lots of data in there for you to pull from and to get students to, to take seriously the idea.

Jennifer Haldeman, Product Marketing Manager for Political Science, Sage Publishing: 6:57

Yes, so talk to me a little bit. You talked about the diversity of your student population, talk to me a little bit about where they're at their geography, background, the misinformation, the COVID, that they've kind of come up in, what is your student population dealing with these days?

Dr. Lisa Baglione, Sage Author and Professor of Political Science, St. Joseph's University: 7:15

Yes, I should have got us here. I'm sure any of my faculty colleagues out there who are listening, know how different these students are from ones that you experienced before COVID. And, of course, it's not just COVID in the loss of interpersonal skills that come from that, and the loss, in many ways, academic background in practice, and I've seen and seen students with more difficulty reading in ritual information. But in addition, we all know, I think that high schools and middle schools haven't been teaching geography. So especially for comparative politics, that is a huge, it's a, it's a huge deficit. And we can't just pretend it's not important because we're talking about places in the world. And, and it really matters for them to have an appreciation of not only where, but cool, and a little bit of the kinds of people in back row. So we have to address head on some of the skills, difficulties that these students have some of the lack of background that they had, that maybe students didn't have 30 years ago, in addition to the idea that they are a different kind of student Oh, and of course, it's the social media age. So we all know that students want more video in fast paced interactions, and also that their attention spans have diminished. And so we have to find ways to keep them engaged in in class, and I think to more of our students, more of my students want me to know that, I think this is the post COVID environment of needing to be seen needing that human interaction, and they might not realize it, but they respond so much better when I do provide them that human attention. So in terms of this, my approach white see in the book, what I do in the classroom, I have to engage them, I believe, with geography, with concepts, their, their, their understanding of the world and a basic vocabulary, the things that I would have thought were common knowledge there, it's just not there. So I have to work on, on on on concepts and using those concepts with them and providing them with information. nation and in the ability to analyze, I'm going to set up the course, both inadequately as well as with geography and data, and then getting into case studies, which which provide the themes, the geography, as well as other information. And in addition, I like to grab the, with an interesting question that has to be answered about the contemporary politics. In a few taste studies that I do that helps to make students who especially aren't political science majors, realize, oh, this is why I might need to clear about Russia or China or Mexico, or this is what's interesting, maybe I've heard a little bit about some things going on in these places. But I can, the professor and approach can bring it home bring the relevance and the importance and demystify by talking about key issues. So, for instance, in Russia, I think right now, very important for students to understand just how it is that Putin is still there. And, and what kind of the system this is, oh, my goodness, they get so confused about the fact that this is still highly authoritarian. But it isn't communist anymore, right, because they have it, it's interesting, because they even, you know, they're way too young to have grown up to know what Soviet Union was. But somehow, there's that they cannot understand that door can be this kind of brutal authoritarianism, that isn't communist. And similarly, China presents another really interesting questioning for them, because it has been named in a communist China communist party of China. And it's an incredibly successful economic system. Also brutal, but incredibly successful in that it also confuses that because they've often thought, oh, capitalism means democracy, but not the case. Right. And so those are, those are really interesting ways to hook people in, especially non majors. And I get a lot of non majors and I would do again, a lot of faculty who are teaching big classes are teaching with distribution requirements in mind. So we have to give our majors what they need to go on, and be excellent students of political science. But we don't want to leave behind our non majors. And if your institution is anything like mine, we're always trying to grab people to take more political science classes, in try to get them to think about taking an additional one, becoming a minor, becoming a major. So I'm often marketing as I'm trying to find ways to reach students. And part of my marketing too, is knowing that this might be my only shot at these kids. And when I look at the world right now, I get very nervous about the what is happening, not only in this country, but around the world, in terms of the fate of democracy, in terms of conditions in which people, all people are living in. So I want to give my students a bit of civics education, because we also know that's gone by the wayside. And so to see that this is my opportunity to make sure they need my class, understanding not just the things they've learned in, in social studies in ninth grade, but give them that complexity of understanding what democracy is, why inclusion, so central to creating healthy, democratic, economically successful in their systems. And I think they come out from the class with having that appreciation. And that makes me hopeful. I always say to them, my real hope is for all of you that you go on and you pay attention to good new, good sources, and we can talk a little bit more about that.

Jennifer Haldeman, Product Marketing Manager for Political Science, Sage Publishing: 14:39

And talk to me a little bit more about your non majors and in your experience early on in the semester. How do you feel like you can capture their interest? How do you kind of pull them in and get them excited without overwhelming them too quickly?

Dr. Lisa Baglione, Sage Author and Professor of Political Science, St. Joseph's University: 14:57

Yeah, again, I try to to use concepts and then geography data, and I, I established the geography data first regionally, so they have a chance of staying where we are in this world, I also tend to use a lot of sports analogies, which I think throws some of them. I mean, the course is gender and identity centric, and they have a stereotype that somebody who looks like me isn't really going to understand or want to talk about, especially tools, sports, professional team sports, and so I try to use those sporting analogy a lot, to get them to understand that the rules of the game and the nature of the culture of the game will really affect outcomes. And, and those rules are different in the cultures can different in a place like, like Europe, or in the post Soviet region, or in Latin America. But, but once we understand those rules, whether they be at the formal level, or in or model, we can really see and understand how things work. I also love telling them, Look, the rules can be there. And then they can be more. I love to use Jackie Robinson, when he integrates Major League Baseball, supposed to be subjected to this thing roll, but the culture that surrounds it, he has to deal with so much abuse. And so the rules don't really apply to him. And he has to go above and beyond to be excellent. And so we would use that example, to talk about, well, what is it like for, for instance, women or people from religious or ethnic minority? Or in other in various parts of the world? How did they get their fair share that work? They don't, right? Or how do they at least get a time to play. So those are things I do, in addition, film clips, that will highlight important events. I was talking about revolution last week. And at first I wanted to say, well, you won't remember the, the uprisings in 2011. And then I realized, you know, it didn't come out of my vault, thankfully. But I realized, Oh, my goodness, my first year students in 2011, worse that than each. So they're not going to remember that I had a film clip, because we were talking about color versus great revolutions. And I was able to show them a film clip of the end of the Soviet Union is able to really highlight also, okay, here coup, you could see how the coup is happening. And you've seen revolution, which is building and then the fall. And so it was a nice five minute clip from Thank you RFP RL that they found. And I could really hammer home, though differences to them.

Jennifer Haldeman, Product Marketing Manager for Political Science, Sage Publishing: 18:22

And how do you get across key concepts and the fundamentals of important political systems when teaching intro to comparative?

Dr. Lisa Baglione, Sage Author and Professor of Political Science, St. Joseph's University: 18:32

Yeah, again, I think there, I try to use the rules of the games slash sports analogy, and then try to see who are the players and where are they playing and emphasizing that sometimes it's not the formal level that matters. So we can understand that some systems might have constitutions that are rules that are established formally. But really, what's going on? And what's really important is, is be informed. So again, we can look at Putin and how he controls Russia. We can also look at she's interesting that it's important that he holds these positions within the party within the state, but that there are informal ways of asserting control. Mexico today, very interesting in how parties have broken down. Lopez Obrador is has recreated a kind of a movement or a larger than a party system that is trying to permeate Mexican politics. And so trying to get students to see who's playing it Isn't our citizens really important? Or not? They might have elections. But is that where the big decisions are being made? Or are the decisions made outside? Because really, what's important is who gets chosen to run? Or whether there's even any competition? Or how the how state in political leadership are controlling the media. So it allows us to think about the complexity of the power that is.

Jennifer Haldeman, Product Marketing Manager for Political Science, Sage Publishing: 20:34

Yeah, and I know, you gave some good examples of how you carry the theme of inclusivity, through your teaching and activities, you know, giving some maybe lesser known examples to a traditional student, like Russia and China, but getting more into women and Mexico and things like that. But how do you, you know, take that theme of inclusivity? throughout your course?

Dr. Lisa Baglione, Sage Author and Professor of Political Science, St. Joseph's University: 20:58

Yeah, it's everywhere. There's always a discussion on to what extent are women and people of other identities in power? Where are they in the society, in the economy in politics, we take very seriously that many countries today, engage in what I would call pink washing, you know, this idea of trying to appear because it's now more expected that women will be involved in politics. So let them be in a pretty sizable percentage of elected two bodies. But then we say, well, really do those bodies have power, you know, are the women that wanted power. So a place like Rwanda has, you know, 60 plus percent of its of its legislature are women, but they don't have the power, we want to make sure that students understand the difference between doing states and political parties taking steps that give meaningful power to women, and states that are just doing it for show. In addition, of course, empowerment is not only determined by whether one to be elected or not. And in fact, again, there are great models, from feminist authors about how it is that multiple factors come to play into whether women make it into positions of power. And I really use this this concept of the political recruitment model, which includes the way that institutions and social structures and socio economic factors and global trends really affect who gets to be in power. And in addition, as we can I try to incorporate ethnicity, and race and religion, which will the the extent to which those things matter depends on where you are in the world. And then when I have data to talk about how intersections are when you combine more than one of those, it affects who has power. And in a place like Mexico right now, where we're going to have presidential elections coming up in early June. It's so interesting that you have two women, candidates in the from the leading groups running for president, but people we're not still not sure what that means for, for the empowerment of all we know, this is what's really important. And I guess, bring us back to our thinking about students in the classroom, students in the classroom, they don't really just want to hear about leads, because so many of them are not themselves, they're not motivated to really learn and care about politics. They want to know about people like me, what's it like for regular people? And, and so the fact that you have, you know, women elected to be prime minister or president or whatever, that doesn't necessarily say that women are empowered. And so as we look at a place like Mexico, and what's happening over the last six years, you've sold huge improvements in the numbers of women serving in elected office. But then the question is what's really happening to regular? And what do we know? Oh, my gosh, we see that violence against women is has been very common. And you know, in much of the world well, we we do we look at violence against women all over the world, in and unfortunately, this phenomenon called femicide, which is the targeting of women because they are women. It is it persist, everyone. So those are things and again, people at the intersection stuff are more in class It's certainly an issue. So I think that that makes people stop and think. And it also helps to break down their stereotypes, that there's only this one way. I mean, that's one of the things I'm trying to do break down the stereotypes that have been, you know, put in their heads from the way they were taught as, as children, to what they see in the media, how people talk about things in our own society, with assumptions about Trump, everything is wonderful in the United States, and in Europe, potentially, not so great everywhere else. But that contrast, in the commonalities, I think, come through.

Jennifer Haldeman, Product Marketing Manager for Political Science, Sage Publishing: 25:45

Talk to me a little bit about, you know, it's great having the inclusive approach. And to some people, it might seem like, oh, that's just an overhaul to what the way that I'm teaching, now I would have to change everything. But talk about how you know, you, you're still covering the basics, but still kind of just adding this language and just some small changes outside of completely changing textbooks and whatever that a professor could make in their course, to just make it a little bit more inclusive every day?

Dr. Lisa Baglione, Sage Author and Professor of Political Science, St. Joseph's University: 26:19

Yeah, of course, I mean, to me, I have to make sure they understand the way the politics and the major elements of that the politics of that system. And that's where the my big concepts are all things that anyone who's been teaching a standard course, would be very familiar with. So when when we're on the democracy chapter, it's, you know, making sure they understand what liberal democracy is, and making sure they understand what capitalism is, when we move to communism, post-communism, its revolutions, communism, and CO moves and in party structures, and but within the, then we see how gender intersections might lay out in terms of the conditions that exist. So it's important, I would say, to then look and see, well, who has power, and I think those elements will be there, and come through, and make it a little bit more interesting to students to look and say, Well, gee, who lets me UK today? Why did the UK pursue Brexit, and look at how the Brexit vote breaks down, they love look, my students get a lot out of them, and scratch their head, looking at Brexit vote, breakdown, with respect to age. So I think that the focus on the concept and the key issue in every country doesn't change. I am so committed to thinking about what is democracy? What is What are the multiple forms of authoritarianism out there, why, and how the state of various various natures maintain legitimacy. All of those are central. But in addition, we then a little bit and if you want to, you can pull some of the data that I collected to make it easy for you. That's what was a wonderful thing, finding, you know, great sources, like the World Economic Forum's gender gap, like using, using information from the World Value Survey, I'm really interested in how audits towards the LGBTQ have changed. And in parts of the world in some place, not so much. But I think you will find in your own institutions, most of them, Oh, my goodness, I'm at a Jesuit Catholic institution. And what I have to in, in the attitudes, and the composition of my classroom has changed remarkably. And so if I don't talk about LGBTQ, my students will be wondering, where are they? And many places, it's where am I in this picture? So again, let's do interesting. And meet them where they are, and still tell the political story, the big political story because again, if we go back to our guiding organization, the American Political Science Association 1991 tells us we're not doing what we should be doing with gender. And, and then in 2011, we get a new report that just we aren't doing what we need to do with race, ethnicity, class, we're failing. And another reason this is a concern is is that other social sciences, particularly, sociology particularly, especially psychology are doing so much better. And again, remember the change in our demography of who is coming to coach. Okay, a lot more women, and then a lot more people of color. A lot of people are identifying as LGBTQ. And so these are folks in my institution, we need to grab, we are worried about the viability, to be honest, you know, especially international relations, interdisciplinary studies, but also political science, we're always looking to find more people to come to our classes, and to give those who come a reason to study and to feel like, wow, I learned something that was valuable.

Jennifer Haldeman, Product Marketing Manager for Political Science, Sage Publishing: 30:52

I love that. So writing a textbook is a huge undertaking. You know, you've talked a lot about how in your course you were able to kind of integrate this intersectionality. But why what spoke to you to really motivate you to write a textbook around this kind of premise of inclusivity?

Dr. Lisa Baglione, Sage Author and Professor of Political Science, St. Joseph's University: 31:12

Well, I have another little textbook with CQ stage. And my editor at the time, we were finishing the writing textbook, in fact, like it was off to copy editing, I forget. And he turned to me and said, You should write a textbook, you know, one in the subfield. And he said, What have you been working on? What do you think I said, Well, I actually don't even use a textbook anymore. I've used I think I've used every one of them that's out there. And they're all good, in a way. But none of them did what I wanted to do. So I said, I do have some, I have something that would be gender and intersectional. I mean, it's just kind of in my head and on my syllabus. And it's through conversation. And I started working with some of my junior colleagues, and I got involved in some pedagogy work. And so all of this came through to be able to put together a prospectus that said, okay, yeah, I really do have. So all of my nasty notes and crazy things out course, I was not able to turn it around, like in in two years, but there was a lot to do. And this is where to coming from a small institution without graduate students. But I did it in I think, you know, anybody can use this book, to the OR, and my approach to the way that would work for them. Because, again, the central political issues I see in political science. You know, what is democracy? What is authoritarianism? How is capitalism linked to democracy? What is colonialism? Why, and How does globalization affect so many aspects? But anytime we answer those questions, we cannot ignore identity. And that's what they like, like, a little bit. I love that.

Jennifer Haldeman, Product Marketing Manager for Political Science, Sage Publishing: 33:13

I think that's a great ending point, I want to thank you so much for taking the time for talking about your approach to engaging your students. Just talking about gender and intersectionality in your course and how that's kind of where the students of today are and what they're wanting to hear. And then hearing about your book, I think it's, it's a really great approach. And we've gotten a lot of great feedback. For anybody that's watching. We'll put up some more information about where they can find out more about your textbook. But thank you again, so much for taking the time and we look forward to hearing from everybody listening.

Dr. Lisa Baglione, Sage Author and Professor of Political Science, St. Joseph's University: 33:57

Yes, thank you and I, I'm happy to hear from anybody, email me, you can find me and I'm happy to share any tips if you would like them. So thanks so much. I really appreciate it.