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How Islam Came to Germany

The history of Islam in Germany goes back as far as the 8th century. From the reign of Charlemagne, to Goethe’s literature, to the Turkish guest workers who arrived in the 1950s and 60s and made a home here, the Muslim religion has been a part of German culture for hundreds of years.

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Three Articles on Poverty in Germany

An eighth of all Germans live in poverty, and another eighth might be on the way — at least according to a report on poverty and wealth approved by the government this week. But German commentators and politicians of all stripes are finding different ways to spin the figures.

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Vietnam Four Options Assignment

A couple of notes before you get started:

  • Read the instructions carefully.
  • Make time to do this assignment well. Read everything and think about what you are reading.
  • You will have been provided with the necessary background information in a class lecture. You may access this lecture on the website should you so desire.
  • Page numbers below refer to those on the PDF file (as opposed to the numbers on the document itself).

The assignment:

  1. Carefully take the survey on page 133.
  2. Compare and contrast the two cartoons on page 38. In the process, examine the statement that each is making.
  3. Study each of the four options presented. For EACH of the four options:
    1. In a succinct paragraph summarize the option using 2-3 relevant quotes to support your summary.
    2. Summarize the statement of the accompanying cartoon in 1-2 sentences.
    3. Briefly list 2-3 strengths AND 2-3 weaknesses of this option.
  4. Typed Essay. You are an advisor to LBJ. Using your knowledge of the four options presented, write a strongly-worded one-page letter to LBJ explaining precisely what you feel he should advocate in the current state of affairs. Use evidence from the documents. Choose your words wisely.
  5. Be prepared to take a clear stand in an extensive class debate.

Four Options Readings. Dive in and Enjoy

Why Parties and Elections in Authoritarian Regimes?

Although parties and elections are thought of as defining features of democracy, most authoritarian governments also rely on political parties and hold elections.Theories of democratic politics see elections as the means by which citizens hold politicians accountable for the quality of governance.Citizens may have insufficient information to monitor politicians closely and, in any event, must choose on infrequent occasions among packages of policy promises (parties) that may not reflect their own views or interests very well, but they can at a minimum oust incompetent, unsuccessful, or simply unpopular leaders in routine low-cost ways.Citizens in authoritarian regimes only rarely have this option.Authoritarian elections do not choose government leaders or the set of policies that the government will follow.Generally speaking, citizens cannot throw the bums out.Changes in leadership and policy choices are decided upon by elite actors such as military officers and high-level party officials, not citizens.Nevertheless, a substantial majority of authoritarian governments holds elections, devotes substantial resources to its support party, and spends heavily on pre-election political campaigns.

These observations raise several questions. If party formation is not motivated by the need to compete effectively in order to win elections, as standard democratic theories of parties claim, why are they created and maintainedIf elections do not choose leaders and, indirectly, policies, what function do they perform?

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Since I cannot rightfully ask you to read all 30 pages of this analysis, your task is to read the first five pages, carefully skim the rest and analyze the tables at the end. Then you must type a one page essay, single-spaced essay which responds to Geddes’ research question (in bold above). Bring your essay to class.

Inverted Totalitarianism: A New Way of Understanding How the U.S. Is Controlled

Wolin writes, “Our thesis is this: it is possible for a form of totalitarianism, different from the classical one, to evolve from a putatively ‘strong democracy’ instead of a ‘failed’ one.” His understanding of democracy is classical but also populist, anti-elitist and only slightly represented in the Constitution of the United States. “Democracy,” he writes, “is about the conditions that make it possible for ordinary people to better their lives by becoming political beings and by making power responsive to their hopes and needs.” It depends on the existence of a demos — “a politically engaged and empowered citizenry, one that voted, deliberated, and occupied all branches of public office.” Wolin argues that to the extent the United States on occasion came close to genuine democracy, it was because its citizens struggled against and momentarily defeated the elitism that was written into the Constitution.

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Opposing Perspectives: The Impact of the Collapse of the USSR on the Global Balance of Power

The Breakup of the USSR Makes the US the Leader of the World (Elliot Abrams)

The Breakup of the USSR Signals the End of US World Leadership (Zoltan Grossman)

Write a 1-2 page, single-spaced position paper which adheres to the following:

I. Short Intro with a Thesis (specific, complex and refutable)
II.  Summarize the ideas of the author with whom you do NOT concur and explain why his ideas are disagreeable (clearly demonstrate that you have read and understood this author’s ideas). Do not feel compelled to disagree with this author entirely as there surely is some truth to his argument.
III.  Summarize the ideas of the author with whom you DO concur and explain how his ideas are superior to the other author (clearly demonstrate that you have read and understood this author’s ideas).
IV. Conclude by restating your thesis and exploring the significance thereof.
Please bear in mind that your goal is to illustrate that you have read BOTH documents and that you have thought about them. Be prepared for a healthy debate in class.

Opposing Perspectives on Reagan's Role in the Dissolution of the USSR

Reagan’s Presidency DID cause the collapse of the USSR (Edwin Meese III)

Reagan’s Presidency did NOT cause the collapse of the USSR (Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry)

Write a 1-2 page, single-spaced position paper which adheres to the following:

I. Short Intro with a Thesis (specific, complex and refutable)
II. Summarize the ideas of the author with whom you do NOT concur and explain why his ideas are disagreeable (clearly demonstrate that you have read and understood this author’s ideas). Do not feel compelled to disagree with this author entirely as there surely is some truth to his argument.
III. Summarize the ideas of the author with whom you DO concur and explain how his ideas are superior to the other author (clearly demonstrate that you have read and understood this author’s ideas).
IV. Conclude by restating your thesis and exploring the significance thereof.

Please bear in mind that your goal is to illustrate that you have read BOTH documents and that you have thought about them. Be prepared for a healthy debate in class.

Readings on the Functions and Dysfunctions of Political Parties

Richard Hofstadter (1916 – 1970) was an American historian and public intellectual. Hofstadter, the DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University, became the “iconic historian of postwar liberal consensus”, largely because of his emphasis on ideas and political culture rather than the day-to-day doings of politicians. Among his most important works is The American Political Tradition (1948). Below is Chapter One of this critically acclaimed work.

Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr.(1917 –  2007) was an American historian, social critic, and public intellectual. Much of Schlesinger’s work explored the history of 20th-century American liberalism. In particular, his work focused on leaders such as Harry Truman, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy. Schlesinger served as special assistant and “court historian” to President Kennedy from 1961 to 1963. He wrote a detailed account of the Kennedy Administration, from the 1960 presidential campaign to the president’s state funeral, titled A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House, which won the 1966 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.

Three Readings on the Functions and Dysfunctions of Political Parties

Response Sheet

"Korea" from Ambrose's "Rise to Globalism"

Read “Korea” from Ambrose’s “Rise to Globalism”

Here are the responses

Stephen Edward Ambrose (January 10, 1936 – October 13, 2002) was an American historian and biographer of U.S. Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Richard M. Nixon. He received his Ph.D. in 1960 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Ambrose served as a professor of history at several universities from 1960 until his retirement in 1995, having spent the bulk of his time at the University of New Orleans. Eisenhower chose Ambrose as his biographer.

Ambrose also wrote a highly regarded three-volume biography of Richard Nixon, also generally positive, but his Band of Brothers (1993) and D-Day (1994), about the lives and fates of individual soldiers in the World War II invasion, catapulted him out of the ranks of academic history and into mainstream American culture.

In 2002, Ambrose was found to have plagiarized several passages in his book The Wild Blue. Fred Barnes in The Weekly Standard reported that Ambrose had taken passages from Wings of Morning: The Story of the Last American Bomber Shot Down over Germany in World War II, by Thomas Childers. Ambrose  released an apology as a result. Ambrose had only footnoted sources and did not enclose in direct quotes significant passages taken from Childers’ book.

While Ambrose downplayed the incident, stating that only a few sentences in all of his numerous books were the work of other authors, Forbes’ investigation of his work found similar cases of plagiarism involving entire passages in at least six books and found a similar pattern of plagiarism going all the way back to his doctoral thesis.

He offered this defense to the New York Times:

“I tell stories. I don’t discuss my documents. I discuss the story. It almost gets to the point where, how much is the reader going to take? I am not writing a Ph.D. dissertation.”

“I wish I had put the quotation marks in, but I didn’t. I am not out there stealing other people’s writings. If I am writing up a passage and it is a story I want to tell and this story fits and a part of it is from other people’s writing, I just type it up that way and put it in a footnote. I just want to know where the hell it came from.”

A study by George Mason University, however, detailed how 7 of 12 major works of Ambrose had instances of plagiarism

[note: I plagiarized this from Wikipedia.]

Slate’s David Plotz goes on the attack, calling Ambrose a vampire. His point, so far as I see it, is irrefutable, “Ambrose’s assertion that he’s not a thief is ludicrous. One plagiarism is careless. Two is a pattern. Four, five, or more is pathology.” Plotz concludes that “The plagiarist is, in a minor way, the cop who frames innocents, the doctor who kills his patients. The plagiarist violates the essential rule of his trade. He steals the lifeblood of a colleague. A few paragraphs have made Stephen Ambrose a vampire.”

Dick Cheney's Song of America: Drafting a Plan for Global Dominance

“The Plan is for the United States to rule the world. The overt theme is unilateralism, but it is ultimately a story of domination. It calls for the United States to maintain its overwhelming military superiority and prevent new rivals from rising up to challenge it on the world stage. It calls for dominion over friends and enemies alike. It says not that the United States must be more powerful, or most powerful, but that it must be absolutely powerful.”

Dick Cheney’s Song of America: Drafting a Plan for Global Dominance

Response to Song of America

Socratic Dialogue Questions for class session in response to the reading

Primary Sources: Excerpts from Various Drafts of the DPG from NY Times (1992)

A List of US Military Involvements 1945-2005