African Politics: Emily Back Jill Hemmersbach Catlin Hussey Laura Malone Alex Terpstra Kimberly Thies	Asia Politics: Kayla Giese Kevin Jaijairam Marcus Leland Amanda Lund Mai Takahashi
Central & Eastern Europe: Andrew Couche Jonathan Dennison Kory Melzer Matt Roeder Xinrui Shi	Latin America: Terrence Daniels Patrick Eddy Jules Mounda a Ziem Ronald Poppie Jennifer Springer Tim Schiebel
Middle East: Erik Hanson Ali Hard Andy Mikula Nick Ronge Kyle Rowe Rob Schneider

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AREA STUDY ASSIGNMENT GUIDELINES

PURPOSE & GOAL: The purpose of this assignment is to educate ourselves about the diversity of political experience around the world, and it gain competence in finding reliable information about non-western political circumstances. To this end, each student will be assigned to an “Area Study Region” – Africa, Asia, Central & Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. In addition, each student will choose one country within his/her Group’s region for further research into that country’s politics.

REQUIREMENTS:

1. Meetings with Instructor – I will meet with each Group at least twice to review the organization of your work.

2. A Rough Outline – List in outline forms the organization of your work by topic and subtopic; also list which members of the Group are doing what portions of the outline. I will review your rough outline with you and make suggestions.

3. Final Outline – A finalized outline is due the day your Group gives its Oral Report.

4. An Oral Report to the Class – This is a preliminary report of your research findings and conclusions. If you make a Power Point presentation, please give me a printed Handout beforehand.

5. A Written Report – This will be the formal presentation of your research findings. Please consult the “Guidelines on Style and Format” linked on McDougal’s Main Page.

CONTENT: This assignment is largely a descriptive task. The one normative question we will follow is “How democratic is the politics of this region/this country?” Otherwise, we will follow Shively’s five-point model of basic concepts of politics: Group, Choice/Elite, Conflict, Values, and Power. Presented below is a table that lays out some more focused topics within these five concepts (NB: Italics indicates a topic that fits into more than one concept):

MODEL	REGIONAL STUDY	COUNTRY STUDY
GROUP	*Geography & Demographics *Cultural Diversity w/in Region *Economics Interests/Activities	*Geography & Demographics *Cultural Diversity w/in Country *Economics Interests/Activities *Political System
CHOICE/ELITE	*Regional Inter-state Organizations *Corporate Interests *Trans-national regional communities	*Government Institutions *Political Organizations *Sub-national/Ethnic communities
CONFLICT	*Economics Interests/Activities *Intra-regional & Inter-regional	*Economics Interests/Activities *Ideological/Ethnic/Class/etc.
VALUES	*Economics Interests/Activities *Cultural Diversity w/in Region *Economic Development	*Economics Interests/Activities *Cultural Diversity w/in Country *Economic Development *Democratic Political Development

POWER:
Force	*Regional Inter-state Organizations	*Military/Paramilitary Capabilities
Resources	*Corporate Interests *Economics Interests/Activities	*Corporate Interests *Economics Interests/Activities
Authority	*Regional Inter-state Organizations	*Government Institutions
Persuasion/ Loyalty	---	*Political Organizations/Parties *Journalism

SCHEDULE:

AREA GROUP	MEETING WITH MCDOUGAL THURS., SEPT. 18	ORAL REPORT TO CLASS	WRITTEN REPORT DUE
ASIA	2:15 PM	Thurs., Oct. 2 – 2:15	Tuesday, October 14
EUROPE	2:30 PM	Thurs., Oct. 2 – 2:40
LATIN AMERICA	2:45 PM	Thurs., Oct. 2 – 3:05
AFRICA	3:00 PM	Tues., Oct. 7 – 2:15
MIDDLE EAST	3:15 PM	Tues., Oct. 7 – 2:40