National Security Studies at a Christian University

This essay approaches two interrelated topics. First, what does it mean to be part of the security studies field? Second, are there unique considerations for how faith-based institutions approach the field? Addressing these topics will help articulate some of the reasoning behind the coming expansion of our university’s curriculum with a new national security program.

Studying Politics with a Faith Perspective

You don’t have to choose between being a person of faith and a scholar. I see at least three ways that my faith in Christ and my appreciation of the academic discipline of political science have affected each other in positive ways.

Political Science Critics: Digging in the Wrong Place?

By now, most observers who care about political science have surely come across, and commented about, Nicholas Kristof’s column bemoaning the cloistered nature of political scientists. I won’t try to rehash what's already been done by Steve Saideman, MonkeyCage, and other notable scholars who are regularly engaging in public discourse. Instead, I’ll try to touch on a few things that haven’t received much attention in the debate.

In the original Indiana Jones movie, there comes a point where the heroes realize that the bad guys are “digging in the wrong place” for the Ark. They haven’t done their homework. I’m not saying Kristof is a bad guy (he’s not), but he is definitely digging in the wrong place.

Stuck in the Middle: Protests in Brazil and Turkey

Emerging markets, middle powers, whatever term you want to use to describe countries on the relative rise in terms of power, the bottom line is that two of the poster children for the new century are seeing some growing pains. Brazil and Turkey, along with other countries like Indonesia and the Philippines, are growing in terms of both their stock markets and their geopolitical significance. But, as recent events have shown, something is afoot in the middle powers.

Reflections on Israel: the tyranny of geography

Last summer I had the opportunity to travel to Israel as part of an academic fellowship from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. The purpose of the fellowship was to explore issues related to terrorism and counterterrorism in the region. It was an eye-opening experience that taught me a lot about how complicated the issues are facing Israelis and Palestinians in their attempts to carve out a peaceful solution to the legacy of conflict.

Looking back on my time in Israel, the major lesson that stands out to me relates to geography. Geography is a tyrant that threatens the peace process, shaping all the advice that one could provide when commenting on Middle East peace. Combined with the presence of constant spoilers in the form of extremist actors, I returned sobered on the prospects for lasting peace in Israel.

The U.S. Role in the Senkaku/Diaoyu Dispute

As part of our effort to highlight the work of Anderson students and alumni, the author has agreed to share the following piece from an assignment on American foreign policy. In this piece from last fall, recent graduate Ryan Daugherty argues for the U.S. to take a moderate stance towards the island dispute between China and Japan.

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The U.S. Role in the Senkaku/Diaoyu Dispute

Ryan Daugherty

The United States is in a very similar role that the United Kingdom was in over a hundred years ago. In this time, the UK saw its power overall falling and the rising powers of the United States and Germany. The UK went two different routes in how it accommodated the rise of new powers while it was still the overall dominant power. With the United States, the UK embraced and worked with the United States to behave as a world power should and the US over time took over many of the same roles that the United Kingdom had previously played. With Germany it was a different story. The UK and allies such as France tried to block and stymie the rise of Germany and this eventually led to the two World Wars. In a sense this is the role the United States is in now. While the United States is now an overall declining power but is losing relative power because of the rise of many other nations, it must find a way to accommodate the rise of many new powers to the world stage and China is the most important of those rising powers.

Guest Post: The Current State of Syria

As part of our effort to highlight the work of Anderson students and alumni, the authors have agreed to share the following piece from an assignment on American foreign policy. Despite being written last November, the piece holds up well due to the lack of a real global consensus on how to respond to the humanitarian crisis in Syria. Students Mackenzie Scholte and Ryan Busby propose in this essay a humanitarian coalition to respond to the growing refugee problem resulting from the Syrian civil war.

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The Current State of Syria

Mackenzie Scholte and Ryan Busby

The United States should support any peaceful intervention efforts made by the UN in Syria. It would be in the interest of all states to be part of a peaceful resolution to ensure the safety of the Syrian people. However, due to the failed efforts of Kofi Annan, it is imperative that the U.S. becomes a presence in Syria.

This is for the protection of the Syrian people in a post-haste effort to move the millions of refugees out of the country as safely as possible. Jordan has already registered over 85,000 refugees and Turkey more than 78,000. Lebanon and Iraq are all willing and able to take in refugees, as long as the necessary resources are available for such a mass movement of people.

Mrs. Brooks goes to Anderson

Congresswoman Brooks with Political Science majors

I have to admit I was impressed when Representative Susan W. Brooks (R-IN05) visited Anderson University's campus last Thursday. She gave a short speech and took questions from the students—mostly majors from the Political Science program. She also took a brief tour of campus, visiting the Saint John's Center for Clinical Excellence, the Star Trading Room, and the York Performance Hall. I appreciated the time I was able to spend with the Congresswoman and her staff. She is articulate, personable, and genuinely interested in AU and our students.

As much as I enjoyed the Congresswoman's visit, I was more impressed by the way our students took advantage of an opportunity for professional development. They attended even though it was the last week of classes and no extra credit was offered. They showed up in professional attire, a point not lost on the reporter from the Herald Bulletin who remarked on their being "suit-clad" (if you don't think professional attire is necessary on such occasions, read this). And they took advantage of the opportunity to network with the Congresswoman and her staff. In other words, our students recognized a unique opportunity for professional development and seized it.

I was also impressed by the way our students took advantage of the opportunity to work the constituent-representative link. Recent work by Kristina Miler shows that "constituents that more frequently contact their legislator are more likely to be identified by legislators as relevant to an issue." Matt Southworth, a lobbyist for the Friends Committee on National Legislation, made a similar point earlier in the year (nice catch, Adriane!). Our students came prepared with questions about current issues and issues that interest them (a few had even worked on multiple drafts of their questions). They asked about gun control, educational standards, and growing income inequality to name a few. And they were able to see a member of Congress engage those questions directly, to begin to develop the constituent-representative link with a new member of Congress, and to see that Congress has smart, personable people who genuinely care about the nation. That, perhaps, was the greatest lesson of all.

Guest Post: Language of Instruction in Tanzania: A Call for Bilingual Education

One of the goals of this blog is to highlight the work of our students and alumni in political science. You can expect to see several posts doing so in the near future. Kicking this off is the following essay from Anderson University alumnus Joshua Mlay, in which he shares some of his research on education policy in Tanzania.

Joshua is a graduate student in the Center for African Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research interests include language and literacy in Tanzania, and the privileging of colonial languages and culture at the expense of indigenous languages and culture.

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Language of Instruction in Tanzania: A Call for Bilingual Education

Josh Mlay

From the late 60’s to mid-80’s Tanzania was renowned for her strong ideals built upon the Ujamaa policy that emphasized Pan Africanism, self-reliance, and national unity. The Arusha Declaration (the blue print of the Ujamaa policy) unequivocally warned that reliance on foreign aid would undermine Tanzania’s ability to make independent policy decisions. Unfortunately, subsequent governments chose to ignore this warning. Today, Tanzania is one of the world's largest foreign aid recipients. Furthermore, foreign aid is the government's largest source of finance. The implications of Tanzania’s reliance on foreign aid are evident in the detrimental policy positions she has adopted. The use of English as the sole language of Instruction in Secondary and Tertiary education is one such example.

During the Ujamaa period (1967-1985), there were attempts to make Kiswahili the language of instruction in all levels of education. However, since then, the Tanzanian government in “collaboration” with the West has implemented English as the sole language of instruction in Secondary and Tertiary education. The implementation of English as the language of instruction has staggering implications for the future of Tanzania’s social, political, and economic growth. The purpose of this post is to problematize the lack of multiple languages of instruction in secondary schools in Tanzania, which hinders learning and contradicts the purposes of secondary education as determined by the language policy implemented by the Ministry of Education. I argue that there is a crucial need to critically asses the use of English as the language of instruction in Tanzanian schools and a need to develop and implement a bilingual educational policy.

Over 95 percent of Tanzanian’s speak Kiswahili and it serves as the country’s national language. Fewer than five percent of Tanzanian’s speak English at home. Despite this, English is used the language of instruction in Secondary and Tertiary education regardless of its limited use in other social and economic sectors. The use of English as the language of instruction in Secondary and Tertiary education is perhaps the most significant and detrimental consequence of Tanzanian government’s collusion with the West.

Highlights of the fall semester

It's a good time to reflect on the fall semester and what some of the major takeaways are as we head into the spring.

The podcast here explores this.