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.

Ruchir Sharma's "Breakout Nations"

As someone who teaches regularly on global economic interconnection, trying to find meaningful, book-length treatments of contemporary markets that are written for a broad audience is important to me. Even when there is a lot to be critiqued in a work, the efforts are valuable. Among the more popular examples of such a work is Fareed Zakaria’s Post-American World, which discussed the "rise of the rest" relative to the developed economies, and even made a brief cameo as a debate point in the 2012 presidential campaign.

I am pleased to report that Ruchir Sharma’s Breakout Nations is a worthy successor to Zakaria’s snapshot of the state of the global economy. Despite some notable flaws, Sharma’s work is ambitious and informed. It has much to critique precisely because it is so ambitious. Sharma’s major conclusions are spot on, though I still have unanswered questions.

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.