Understanding Political Concepts

Inpolitical science discourse we are confronted with many important concepts likeauthority, democracy, and power, all of them being used differently indifferent contexts, and referring to contending theories in which they havetheir particular meanings.

Thereis no way around such puzzling diversity. Students of political science simplyhave to accept this challenge. Yet, the diversity of political science conceptscan be used as a powerful resource for learning, through intellectualtechniques for stirring personal creativity.

ThisMOOC teaches conceptual thinking and elementary theory-building throughHyperpolitics, an interactive dictionary for understanding and working with themost central concepts in political science. Its aim is to provide students withfresh critical insights about key political concepts, offering a methodology bywhich users can unpack and recontruct them on their own. Its companionopen-access website serves as a powerful tool for students' practice in forgingtheir own vocabulary, while learning how to make professional use ofauthoritative PS internet resources. Throughout its 10 lessons, this MOOCcomprises lecture sections, based on visualizations of the arguments presented;reading assignments; and practical exercises.