GOVT 2445 – American Politics and Foreign Policy
Ease: 8/10
Lecturer: 9/10
Interest: 9/10
Overall: 9/10
By far the most useful unit of study I’ve undertaken at my time at University so far. Conducted by Dennis Phillips (no link!! Sorry!!), a lecturer from Macquarie University visiting USyd, he is a former Texan who has been living in Australia since the 1970’s. More importantly though, as Dennis is actually American, his perspective is that which is perhaps more accurate and more whole than say, the opinion of an Australian who had gone to study American politics.
He is also not without bias, but Dennis freely acknowledges them and indeed, gives his background to explain why this may be the case. For example, whilst being against the Bush Administration and critical of the administrations foreign policy directives, he can also state that he understands the staunch, Southern Republican voter because his parents are of that stock.
The course is basically set in two parts: domestic American Politics and American Foreign Policy. The latter section is not as good, only because time constraints meant that we weren’t able to study it in as much depth as required for such a vast topic. The topic is also, very contentious and ever-increasing so a comprehensive coverage was always going to be difficult.
The first section though is really really good. It explains a lot about America, the psyche of Americans and how and why their political system works. By studying the foundations of American politics, we can learn a lot about the current situation, the current Administration and, to a lesser degree the effect that is has on the world.
Lectures were excellent (although again, the lectures for the Foreign Policy component were virtually word for word the same as the text), tutes were great and the readings were useful. Assessment wasn’t exactly easy but it was good it didn’t really tie in with what we were learning but it built upon it well.
I would thoroughly recommend this course to ALL government students
