The thesis of this article is simple: the primary function of political scientists is to nurture civic skills and political understanding within our students and those who read our literature. The principal component of both skill and understanding is the capacity to visualize and interpret events through several quite different metaphors. Sensitivity to alternate metaphors comes through liberal education, as traditionally defined. A capacity to recognize the limitations to any given metaphor depends, first, on puzzling life experiences, secondly, on a reservoir of alternate ways of viewing the world, and thirdly, on educational experiences that cultivate deep analytical thought and build self-confidence with thinking differently than other people do If it is true that a liberal education frees people to recognize perspective, predisposition, and prejudice, and if politics is indeed the art and science that must integrate into courses of action values about nature, humanity, society, and the Divine, then political scientists have an enormous stake in the general education curricula of our universities and colleges.

The Scene is unforgettable. Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator plays Adenoid Hynkel, a Fuhrer-figure, modeled comically after Adolf Hitler. Hynkel, alone in a large room, wanders over to a world-globe, picks it up, and begins to playfully bounce the world into the air, buoyantly kicking and tapping the world into the air like his little toy balloon. Suddenly, the balloon explodes.

The comical image is powerful. Here is Chaplin, the Little Tramp, holding Hitler up to ridicule, mocking his desires to do with the real world, what Hynkel does with the globe. Chaplin makes a forceful political statement through his comic talents. In this brief scene, Hitler's powerhungry drives are conveyed to the audience while Hitler is being ridiculed at the same time.

Teaching a large introductory course at the undergraduate level is always a challenge. Except in discussion sections, students seldom have the opportunity to be more than passive notetakers in a large lecture hall. One means of increasing student participation and interest in these courses is to simulate a decisionmaking situation, providing students the oppportunity to become involved directly in a hypothetical decisionmaking forum. This type of exercise can be expected to enhance student interest in the course, comprehension of course topics, and verbal skills. Unfortunately, this type of simulation has often been restricted to smaller classes, often graduate seminars. This, however, need not be the case: a simulation exercise can also be conducted in a large undergraduate course that has discussion sessions. This article describes how a simulation of on international crisis was used as an effective teaching device in an introductory course on American foreign policy.

When I first began teaching an Introduction to International Relations course, I quickly saw that my students needed something more than just reading about and listening to lectures on the clashes of perception which are at the heart of international politics. How better to do this than to have them participate in a simulation in which those clashes of perception would surface. Although one could choose one of any number of international organizations to simulate, the U.N. Security Council is probably the best due to its size and geographic balance. Having decided to use a simulation, I was immediately faced with crucial decisions as to how the simulation would be run especially in terms of the complexity of the rules used and the choice of nations to be represented.

The pedagogical value of experiential learning, or “learning-by-doing,“ has led to the widespread use of simulations and games in the social sciences and other disciplines. Despite some questions concerning the effective transmission of factual information through simulations and games, their value as heuristic devices in teaching is based on the experience gained by students in adopting strategies and making decisions in a group context, experiences so varied that they would be impossible to relate through conventional classroom techniques. The pressures and constraints of a simulated political environment challenge participants to (1) confront the limited availability of options and approaches for resolving problems; (2) develop a deeper understanding of the concepts, principles, and procedures involved; and (3) formulate and propose novel solutions that may not have otherwise occurred to them.

Throughout the world, attaining peace and prosperity are clearly at the top of the agenda of human concerns; consequently, they are the most central and salient issues of politics and government. In the late twentieth century, however, no country can achieve these goals through its own actions alone. For all countries in this era of interdependence gaining peace and prosperity each require collective efforts. Thus domestic policies cannot be considered in isolation from foreign policies, and domestic politics are inextricably linked with international and ultimately world politics. Even if one were interested only in events within one's own country these would have to be put in a larger context to be properly understood, but most individuals adhere to ethical beliefs that mandate that their concerns extend certainly beyond their own countries’ borders, if not to all of humanity.

The teaching of international politics within the United States has been buffeted about a great deal in the past decade, reflecting shifting trends in social science analysis, reflecting also some major rethinkings and “moments of truth” about America's role in the world.

The end of World War II had seen a widespread acceptance of Realpolitik analysis, as exemplified in the writings of Hans Morgenthau, generally responding to the unprecedented degree of United States participation in world affairs in the resistance to Hitler's Germany. This new realistic interpretation contrasted itself with an original, more idealistic, liberal position attributed to Americans in general for the earlier and more naive times before 1939, an idealism attributed in an extreme form to Woodrow Wilson in his approach to the outcome of World War I.

Contemporary world politics is a matter of life and death. Studying international relations means studying war — a traditionally tragic subject that has become existentially overwhelming today — and peace. Orthodox theories of international relations proclaim the inevitability of periodic warfare; modern science informs us of the likelihood that human civilization at our present standard would not survive an all-out nuclear exchange.

Since they are aware that the world is a dangerous place, it is not difficult to persuade eighteen-year-olds of the importance of studying world politics. The prospect of nuclear destruction can powerfully concentrate the mind. So can the possibility that America's ruling class would once again send young men to fight in jungles on behalf of ill-defined causes combining ideology with a peculiar version of Realpolitik.

The most compelling argument for including international relations within political science is that its focus and core principles are found in the dominant concerns of political science.

Until the late 1930's, approaches to the study of international relations were those of diplomatic history, international law or current events. History for a time had a monopoly on the study of international relations and the classic works of Harold Nicolson, Webster, Mowat and Butterfield were the centerpieces of the subject. Diplomatic history was a branch of historical studies and its rigor and systematic approach earned the admiration of university leaders.

International law completed with diplomatic history and added a new dimension of hope for change and reform.

This manual comes with a set of data concerning some economic, political, and social characteristics of the 51 cities in the Permanent Community Sample (PCS).1 In 1967, an initial survey of 12 key informants in each of the 51 cities was conducted by interviewers from the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at The University of Chicago. Subsequently, additional data have been added to the original data archive through the involvement of many researchers. Several mail questionnaires have been sent to policymakers, administrators, and informants in the PCS cities. Documents published in recent years by various federal agencies (for example, the U.S. Bureau of the Census) and by various organizations concerned with municipal affairs (for example, the International City Management Association) have yielded additional and current data concerning the PCS cities.