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It has long been lamented that Americans do not comprehend conservative and liberal ideologies and the associated policy preferences for each perspective (and the reasoning behind the associations). This research seeks to contribute to the teaching of conservatism and liberalism by creating a heuristic outlining six general characteristics for each ideological persuasion. The heuristic is designed to have application across time and space. The article outlines a simple, widely applicable current events assignment designed to utilize the heuristic and reviews the results of implementation from two semesters. The results, although exploratory in nature, indicate that the heuristic and the according assignment can be useful pedagogical tools for providing a foundation for understanding these basic ideological categories. Moreover, the assignment provides the opportunity for students to develop their abilities at interpreting domestic politics within and across countries. (Contains 20 notes and 2 tables.)

Lyndon State College's (LSC) participation in the America's Future Initiative on the U.S. national debt, in association with Public Agenda, began with a grant application for funding to participate. After being awarded funding, as the sole political scientist, I was selected with approval by the administration to attend the September 11 to 13, 2008, opening conference in Washington, DC. Flying into Washington, DC, on September 11 surely was a sign of commitment. At the conference, participants were schooled on the initiative by George Mehaffy of the American Democracy Project, Andrew Yarrow of Public Agenda, the Concord Coalition's Diane Rogers, and Stuart Butler from the Heritage Foundation. As a political scientist, I was well-aware of much of what was presented, but to hear differing perspectives and review the data and presentation materials was an excellent experience.

The realist/liberal internationalist debate in international relations has been ongoing in the modern era dating back to Carr and existed in earlier eras in less explicit terms. This research contributes to the long-standing debate by examining Canadian foreign policy in the 1970s. Canada's behavior is often associated with liberal internationalism. Two sets of hypotheses based on realism and liberalism are developed to test if the standard appraisal of Canadian foreign policy is accurate. Drawing on the cases listed on the Canadian government's own "Historic Timeline," this research finds that although greater support exists for the notion that Canada acted along the lines of theoretical liberalism, realism can also help explain significant Canadian activities. In fact, Realism performs well in cases of high politics. These findings suggest that portraying Canadian foreign policy in broad and sweeping liberal terms may be a misrepresentation or simplification of the reality of this volatile decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The realist/liberal internationalist debate in international relations has been ongoing in the modern era dating back to Carr and existed in earlier eras in less explicit terms. This research contributes to the long-standing debate by examining Canadian foreign policy in the 1970s. Canada's behavior is often associated with liberal internationalism. Two sets of hypotheses based on realism and liberalism are developed to test if the standard appraisal of Canadian foreign policy is accurate. Drawing on the cases listed on the Canadian government's own "Historic Timeline," this research finds that although greater support exists for the notion that Canada acted along the lines of theoretical liberalism, realism can also help explain significant Canadian activities. In fact, Realism performs well in cases of high politics. These findings suggest that portraying Canadian foreign policy in broad and sweeping liberal terms may be a misrepresentation or simplification of the reality of this volatile decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The realist/liberal internationalist debate in international relations has been ongoing in the modern era dating back to Carr and existed in earlier eras in less explicit terms. This research contributes to the long-standing debate by examining Canadian foreign policy in the 1960s. Canada's behavior in this decade is often associated with Lester Pearson and liberal internationalism. Two sets of hypotheses based on realism and liberalism are developed to test if the standard appraisal of Canadian foreign policy is accurate. Drawing on the cases listed in Canada's World Historic Timeline, this research finds that although greater support exists for the notion that Canada acted along the lines of theoretical liberalism, realism can also help explain significant Canadian activities. In fact, realism performs well in cases of high politics. These findings suggest that portraying Canadian foreign policy in broad and sweeping liberal terms may be a misrepresentation or simplification of reality during that volatile decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of literature, drawing on comparative perspectives, argues that democracies vary to such an extent that they should not be treated as homogenously as they are by democratic peace theory. The article, therefore, returns to the monadic hypothesis to disaggregate the democratic peace. The Cold War period is examined based on the expectations that the foreign policy behaviors of democracies should have been constrained by systemic bipolarity in addition to domestic democratic governance. Using Lijphart's dichotomous typology of democracies, the evidence indicates that institutional variation can affect the foreign policy of democracies even during times of systemic constraint as majoritarianism is found to be linked with more conflict-prone foreign policies than consensualism. It is argued that consensual democracies have institutional and procedural structures that restrain adventuresome executives while the majoritarian pattern of executive power concentrations provides a greater opportunity for leaders who view the international environment in conflictual terms to pursue aggressive foreign policies. The evidence supports these expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]