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The article "Using Dating as an Analogy to Teach IR Theory" by Christopher L. Pallas and Charity Butcher has been awarded the 2017 EPS prize.
Christopher and Charity had noticed how instructors often struggled to teach complex IR theories to their students. With this in mind, they devised a dating-scenario analogy, challenging students to explain and theorise a fictional couple’s behaviour in a way that could be transferred to an IR analysis of state behaviour.
To begin with, students are invited to speculate why ‘Matt and Mindy’ ended their relationship. They then work in small groups to suggest various causes for the breakup, and write their answers on a whiteboard in unlabelled categories. Each group is then challenged to defend their answers, which they often do by postulating ideas about human nature or social interaction. These ideas are assigned by the instructor to one of four IR theory categories – realism, liberalism, neo-Marxism and constructivism – linking the students’ ideas about human nature with the assumptions of each theory. In working through the exercise, students gain an intuitive understanding of core international relations theories that facilitates their subsequent learning.
The Judges' Verdict
After reaching their decision, the judging panel commented,
'This is an innovative and novel way to encourage political science students to think about and engage with IR theory. We liked the presentation of the method in a 'recipe-style', so that people can actually apply it, and the discussion is still fulfilling high standards; and the experience of dating is (somewhat) universal, so that students from different gendered, social and ethnic backgrounds can relate to it'.
Accepting the Award
The £500 prize, generously funded by Palgrave, will be presented on Thursday 23 August at our General Conference in Hamburg where Dr. Pallas will accept
*info copied from European Consortium for Political Research newsletter
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