Hello class, this is Professor Bryan Lee and I would like to welcome you to Political Science 1: Introduction to Government.
I wanted to start off by kind of telling you what this class is about.
Political Science 1 focuses mainly on American government & politics and Californian government & politics.
The main point of this class is to give you an introduction to American and Californian political processes and how the government works
so that you can get a better understanding of how
you can participate in the political system and how American government functions.
I also want to introduce some more advanced concepts about
certain phenomenon that you see in the American political system and also the ramifications of
American governmental institutions
So this semester will focus answering all of those different questions and exploring those different topics
It's a lot to cover but this really is an interesting topic
Now I do want to point out that this is an
online class and not an in-person class and not a face-to-face lecture class. So because of that
the burden is on you to make sure that you keep up with the material and that you
succeed in the class. I highly recommend that you
Keep up with all
the material and that you engage in independent study so that you
understand the material. and if you ever need any help with anything, I am free to help you put
Now I do recognize that many of you
might be political science students the your political science majors
However, I recognize that most of you probably aren't and that you are taking this class either for your own
Personal enrichment or because it's a general ed requirement. So for those of you who aren't as familiar with the field of political science
I want to give you a bit of an introduction to the field so that you understand
really what we're trying to do here and what you're going to be learning in this field
If you ever kind of get confused as to why  I'm teaching something or why you're learning something you could
Of reference back this and understand and understand how this relates to the field of Political Science
so political science at its core is really the study of power and how it's exercised and
This is an incredibly broad topic
This is an incredibly broad field. So one of the one of the ways that power is most commonly
exercised is through
a government
When you study political science
Courses, you're gonna study a lot about government. So how do things like government's function?
What types of government structures there are and how do they affect the way
power is exercised
Another key point to is how do governments interact with the people?
How does the government and rulers interact with the people they are in charge of
That is really big question that we see in political science
The other thing too, is that governments
don't only interact with their own people they offer they also interact with other governments and one of the issues that we
seek to answer.
What are the methods that governments use to interact with other governments and other actors?
They might deal with and
another one another key issue in political science is how do
Governments that interact with non-government
organizations. Things like organized crime groups or terrorist
Organizations or militia groups that governments interact with quite often
so
they're
You know growing in the 20th century. We've seen the rise of
non-government actors like yo terrorist organizations and
You know, this is really a new emerging issue in kind of a new issue in political science. How do governments
Respond to these types of organizations and lastly
Another key question too you is with the rise of non-government actors and organizations. How did they exercise power?
Again
Non-government organizations are relatively new phenomenon. The this is a new question that political scientists are grappling with right now
so, things we might studying political science, you know, you can see first this picture with
the US Capitol building
Some major thing we studying political science. You have got your governmental institutions and how that affects the way
how that affects the way that governments are
interacting with people in the government
here too in like the middle
You have top middle. We have picture the UN Security Council. So this is kind of this relates to
International relations and how states interact with each other. Here in the top, right
We have a picture of the IRA the Irish Republican Army. So this example of
how political scientists grapple with how do governments and interact with things like terrorist organizations or
or non-state actors
An emerging part to is how do
emerging field of study within political sciences how
Is how governments interact with social movements and what makes social movement succeed or fail?
Lastly
you know these two topics are  the ones I'm most interested in but
how does
having governments use military force or violence to
to
achieve its objectives and another really interesting part too is how
gangsters or organized crime interact with governments. So these are all
Video very interesting topics that we grapple with within the field of political science. So you just kind of wanted to
When most people think of political science
They just think about governments but political science and incorporates
Far more than just basic government functions and includes all these things that are you know in my opinion are extremely interesting
So for Political Science 1 we are focused mainly on American government and
Californian government
Basically the quite the key question that were trying to answer in Political Science 1 is how does the American government
exercise power within
America in California, so we're gonna learn a lot about how the American government
Political system functions and also how California's government and political system operates
And we're also going to try to learn more about how government and politics affects your everyday life
government actions really do have a big action on your everyday life and
It's very important that you understand that and understand how the government affects you
also, since we do live in democracy
Something I'm hoping that you learned from this class is how you yourself can
engage and participate more in American democracy if you so choose and
lastly I
Think that what's really important in this class is regardless of anything like grades or
And stuff is that you use alert you you become a more informed
citizen and you come more educated about how them you know about
The world around you so these are the key objectives that we have in this class
Within Political Science, there's kind of a lot of different branches and I kind of separate these out
Into two different types, you know, there's two like overarching themes when we're classifying
branches of political science and the first overarching theme is how its power exercised
A lot of the classes I call it to the desert focus on this question
Things like American government you have this class focus on how with power exercised within the United States
There's comparative government
where we you know where we can just we can kind of compare the different governmental systems around the world and kind of try to
explain how
Different countries around the world exercise power and how those differences in the political institutions in each country
affects political outcomes
there's also international relations which
Is the study of how governments interact with each other and to an increasing extent how governments interact with
foreign nongovernmental organizations or groups
That's a really interesting field in my opinion
There's also at College of the Desert. We also teach a class on the American presidency
So, how does the American president exercise power and we also teach
some Global Studies classes at the college too and these relate to issues about how power is
Exercised around the world not only by governments but also by things like businesses or individuals, too
Those are pretty interesting topics too. Now on the other side. We have kind of more of a normative
study of power which kind of focuses on how should power be exercised
At College of the Desert things like political theory or political philosophy
goes over
topics like about how power should be exercised and what what governments ought to do and then there's also
the field of public policy which
focuses is on what policies should be enacted to
bring out the greatest good for
for a country
unfortunately at College of the Desert, we do not have any public policy classes because those are
advanced classes that you would be studying for a Bachelor's degree or
even a Master's degree
But if you are interested in public policy, I would highly recommend that you take classes in economics, writing, and statistics
Because those are skills that you use in the public policy sector
For those of you who are political science majors or are just interested in the topic
These are kind of some courses that are helpful for
you know people who want to pursue careers in political science, so
At College of the Desert we have classes in communications
economics, Global Studies,
Mass Communication and Media
Philosophy
most people don't really understand how that connects to Political Science, but philosophy classes do really help you learn how to
how to write and make extremely complex arguments
It really is important that if you want to work in policy you develop those skills
Statistics is something that's commonly used in public policy
that that's pretty obvious why you should study that and also research
Public policy and politics is fundamentally about research. So that's definitely skill. You need to develop if you want to either
you know if you want to either study this major or if you want to
advance within careers in political science
So for those of you who are studying political science
There's a long list of different types of careers that you can pursue in this field
So many people who study political science are going to become government officials. They might work at you a
non-profit sector or with some sort of political campaign
Many who study political science are also going to become attorneys so that that's a very lucrative route for you
Many who study political science also
go into business or
Finance or banking, for a lot of those careers you need to be knowledgeable about
about developments in politics
So people political science majors are oftentimes successful in business or finance and lastly
There's also a lot of lucrative careers in journalism and public relations
For people who you study this field there are you know, this isn't an exhaustive list
There are more careers within this field but
These are the most common careers of people in political science go into
so really to
succeed in this class
you definitely need to exercise discipline to make sure that you
You keep up with the class. Things like participating
keeping up the readings and your assignments and keeping up with the class are very important to succeed. I also encourage you to
Participate in class discussions and discussion forums that you could engage with your students and kind of you have like peer to peer learning
It's also important that you kind of figure out how you learn
I know many of you are new to college and not everyone learns the same way
Some people learn better by reading some people learn better by taking notes. Some people learn better by watching YouTube videos so really
try to find what works best for you and
follow that. I do provide material here to
Facilitate learning but there are other resources out there too that I would encourage you to look at if they help you learn
the material better.
I also think that it's important for you to develop
strong critical thinking, writing, and verbal argument skills
Regardless of what career you pursue in the future, those are incredibly valuable
Lastly I another thing too is
the whole point of coming to school is that you can learn and
In order to do that you have to be able to challenge the beliefs that you already have
If you're interacting with other students in this class
I highly recommend that you take other people's arguments seriously and kind of challenge your own beliefs so you
Can expand your own horizons and that's what the whole point of school is
another thing too is you should try to apply what you've learned outside of the classroom and
Lastly try to make friends college is more fun if you have friends
