Politics I: What is it?

A first pass at thinking politically rather than just having political opinions: you'll work through Heywood's framework to see how concepts like the state, legitimacy, ideology, and nationalism actually function as analytical tools rather than slogans. The semester runs on two quizzes, a midterm essay, and a final essay, so most of the work is reading Heywood chapter by chapter and learning to write arguments that distinguish, say, conservatism-as-disposition from conservatism-as-ideology. As the gateway course for the POLS major, it sets the vocabulary and habits of mind that every later course — comparative politics, IR, political theory — assumes you already have.