The Political Engagement Activity

Although the emphasis of the task is on active engagement rather than primarily on research, it is expected that students make use of the key concepts, theories and ideas they are learning in the classroom and undertake further reading to inform their planning and actions, and their discussion of the political issue raised in their activities. In brief, the task aims at active and reflective engagement. The engagement activity work culminates in a 2,000-word written report.

When selecting their engagements, it is central that students are able to identify a clear political issue that the engagement allows them to explore and that they develop an interest in this issue. The political issue should be authentically embedded in the engagement, and students’ role in the engagement should be such that they truly learn about this political issue through what they do.

Students should choose an engagement that helps them gain an experiential perspective on a political issue that they are genuinely interested in. Often, this is likely to happen if

• the engagement allows students to experience the dynamics of real world politics and do so in a participatory way;

• the political issue focused upon affects a community or a society that the student has some stake and experiences in;

• the engagement involves contact with others who are also interested in, or have a stake in, the political issue.

Revisit: What is a political issue from our introductory lessons to ensure your political issue is indeed political.

You must state your political issue as a question, like the examples below, followed by a statement of your specific case study.

What are the impacts of “voluntarism” on the local and national development of Tanzania?

Engagement case study: The impact of voluntarism on Mbokomu School, Arusha, Tanzania

The role of research in the engagement activity is to complement what students learn through their engagement, including their own evolving beliefs and perspectives. A helpful way of thinking about research is to ask: in addition to the experiential learning students gain and on which they critically reflect, what else do they need to know and understand to be able to write a good, evaluative analysis of their selected political issue?

Often, background information on actors, organizations, events etc is required for understanding the context in which the engagement takes place. Some additional reading to establish links between their activities, chosen political issue and the key concepts, theories and ideas studied in the core units of the course is called for. Also, the perspectives students gain through their engagement are partial and limited. Research is needed to establish which other perspectives on the political issue and the organization(s) with which students have been engaging are possible, and what the strengths and limitations of various perspectives are.

Students are required to write a maximum 2,000-word written report in which they explain what they learned about their chosen political issue through their engagement, and analyse and evaluate the issue, supported by additional complementary research. The requirements of the task are the same at both SL and HL. The maximum mark for the written report is 20 marks and it is assessed using assessment criteria.

Your write-up should follow this structure:

Title Page - 12 point, sans serif font in bold, double spaced, starting about 1/3 of the way down the page

You should have 4-5 lines as follows:

1. "Global Politics Political Engagement Activity"

2. Clearly state your political issue phrased as a question

3. If you have not specified the location and/or institution/organization you are researching as part of your PI, the third line of your engagement activity should read: "Case Study: then the name of the location and/or institution/organization you are researching"

4. The second last line should read: "Key Concept: state the key concept that is central to your PEA here"

5. The last line should read: "Word Count: __________"; ensure this is not over 2000.

6. Make sure you have added page numbers in the top right of your report.

Introduction to the Political Issue:

• Is your political issue clearly identified and specific enough for a 2000-word report?

• Very briefly introduce the reader to the topic; use a citation as you provide any facts in your introduction. Students often start with some statement of fact but rarely back it up with a citation. This gets you off on the wrong foot with the moderator and is already having a negative impact on the "justification" part of criterion C. Again, the introduction is meant to be very brief.

• Clearly state and bold the question you will be answering as part of the report and the two perspectives you'll be exploring. Note that there is nothing wrong with making small changes to the wording of your question after receiving feedback. However, be sure to change it both here and on your title page.

• Explicitly state the key concepts and prescribed content from the course that you will be exploring as part of your report - "this report will look specifically at..."

• This may also be a good place to define a key term. For example if you are assessing the effectiveness of an organization, what would effective look like? How would we know that they have been effective? If you looking at how democratic something is, you need to define or explain what might qualify as "democratic". You might also do this at the beginning of your analysis.

Statement of Personal Interest:

• Is the personal interest explained (beyond ‘I have always been interested’ or ‘this sparked my interest’)?

• Clearly and explicitly state in 3-4 sentences (no more) why you are personally interested in this political issue. Explain specifically why it resonates with you and why it is important to you to study this. It is meant to be a very personal connection to the PI so be sure to draw a clear connection between your general interest and the PI in particular.

Introduction to the Engagement:

• Explicitly but briefly state what the engagement was, do not describe the research you have done in this section. Only discuss what you did for your engagement and briefly state how you arranged/the logistics surrounding the engagement.

• Explain how the engagement activity itself was conducted. How did you prepare for the engagement, what did you experience during the engagement. This is all critical to meet the "what the candidate actually did" part of the criterion. Specifically explain, though very briefly, how the engagement was conducted. For example, if your engagement was an interview, was it a phone call, a video conference, in person? What, generally, was discussed?

• Anyone, or any organisation, can be a political actor but their role as an actor in the political issue needs to be clearly identified and they should be able to offer insight into answering your political issue. Explain why you chose them? Why were they likely to provide you insight into your political issue?

• Explicitly state the perspectives on the PI that the engagement enabled and clearly explain why you chose the engagement you did. For example, "I interviewed X because she is the head of a local NGO and, because of her experience in heading an organization responsible for assisting the homeless, was able to offer insight into the effectiveness of NGOs in addressing homelessness in Hong Kong."

• Explain clearly one big, general takeaway from each engagement. You'll get into the details as part of the analysis but it is important as part of introducing your engagement that you highlight your key lessons learned.

• Finally, in one sentence explain that the details or dialogue and specific "lessons learned" (use this phrase) will be described in further detail as part of your analysis of the PI.

All of the material above should constitute no more than 500-600 words of your report

Analysis and Synthesis (1400-1500 words):

Basically, this section is a short essay where you use your engagement and research to analyse the question you asked from two perspectives. Very similar to a Paper 2 in this regard.

• Did you provide insight into your actual experiences (beyond ‘I interviewed…’), reflecting on how you approached the engagement (preparing for the interview, reflecting on answers or non-verbal communication)?

• Were lessons learned shared and were these relevant for the political issue?

• Did you show insight into your engagement throughout the report?

• Ensure the key concept you have chosen and the prescribed piece of content is central to your analysis. Think of Global Politics being the centrepiece of your report upon which everything else is build around. It needs to be clear that this is a Global Politics report. For example, if it is an issue of nonviolence you are exploring, what is the research on nonviolence? Have you introduced the reader to Erica Chenoweth's work? Doing this is a crucial part of the top criteria bands. Ask yourself, "could a student who hadn't taken Global Politics have written the report I just wrote?" Global Politics concepts and theory can't be add-ons, they need to be central to your analysis. They also need to be explained. Don't just state that "this is an example of structural violence." What is structural violence exactly and how, specifically, does the issue you are discussing fall into the category of structural violence? Don't name drop.

• You MUST blend or synthesize academic research with your engagements. They need to be discussed together and, as always, entirely focused on the question you have asked. Most paragraphs should end with some analysis of the PI/question you have asked.

• Make sure it is clear when you are discussing material you gained from your engagement. "During my interview with..." or "During my engagement I learned/experienced..." It is easy for the reader to get lost in all of the names and organizations; while interviewees and organizations are not new or unfamiliar to you, they are to your reader. So, helpfully contextualize them for the reader throughout your report. Also, don't cite your interviews, speak directly about your interviewee/interview in the text of your report. This will ensure academic research and any interviews are not conflated.

• Incorporating 'theoretical perspectives' needs to be central to your discussion, that is why you have specifically indicated which key concept will be central to your analysis. However, do not name drop realism or liberalism unless they are specifically relevant to your topic (which they usually are not). We have discussed lots of theory and here are some examples:

  • perspectives on democracy

  • seven different perspectives on globalization

  • legitimacy theory

  • intervention (R2P) vs. sovereignty

  • Galtung's and types of violence

  • Ramsbotham and Woodhouse on conflict dynamics

  • Chenoweth and nonviolence

  • Brown's causes of internal conflict

  • Nye and types of power (only if you are discussing an IR issue)

  • Individual vs. group rights

• Do you have at least two perspectives? Make both clear and equally weighted. Token reference to a second perspective will not suffice. Subtitles help a lot with making clear to the reader that you have offered multiple perspectives and where you are drawing your conclusion. Ensure your subtitles specifically note the perspectives you are taking.

• Finally, provide a clear, short conclusion that summarizes the two perspectives and clearly states the position you took on the PI. Ensure your position is consistent with how you presented things in the analysis. Consistency in the conclusion is assessed.

• At the end of writing this section, consider the following questions. If your answer is "yes" to each of these you are well on your way to having written to solid PEA report:

  • Was the analysis of the political issue descriptive or analytical? Did you accept the information provided through the engagement (or additional sources) at face-value or did you approach it more critically?

  • Did you make explicit course connections, through the use of concepts, theories or other prescribed content?

  • Did you provide justification for the use of data, course concepts and theories?

  • If you stated, ‘from a realist perspective...’ or ‘this is an example of soft power’, did you show insight into your understanding of these course connections? Is it clear you have a full understanding of these theories/ideas?

  • Did you use additional sources throughout the report?

  • Did you show synthesis between engagement and additional academic sources throughout the second part of the report (the analysis and synthesis section)?

  • Were findings from the engagement cross-referenced with additional sources and vice versa?

  • Did you explore the political issue from different perspectives, either through the engagement or through additional academic sources (e.g. theoretical perspectives)?

  • Was the conclusion consistent with the findings in the report and was it focused on the original political issue?

Notes and Reminders:

• Any information, whether it is quoted or summarized, that is not from your interview MUST be cited using the correct MLA style formatting. This must be done as part of your draft, not only for the final copy as it gives me the opportunity to highlight any citations you may have missed. This includes a corresponding full reference in your Works Cited. As noted earlier, if the information is coming from an interview be very clear that the interview is the origin. There are two reasons for this. First, if you don't specify that the information is from an interviewee the moderator will want to know why the information wasn't cited properly. Secondly, it highlights the lessons you learned from your engagement that is part of criterion B & D (synthesis of research and the engagement). Remember parentheses are always located inside the period.

• Do not assume your examiner knows the context of the location you are referring to. For example, if you mentioned "Central" you'd need to explain that this is the primary location of big business in the city of Hong Kong.

• Make sure your report is double spaced with a 12 point, serif font and lots of subtitles to guide the reader along with what you are doing. However, do not use the A-D criteria as your subtitles.

If a student suggests engaging in a beach clean-up, what they do is largely apolitical; any political issues are likely to be artificially or remotely connected to the activity. However, if a student proposes to organize an awareness raising campaign for beach clean-ups, including actually cleaning up a beach, many political issues are authentically embedded in the engagement, such as comparison of the opportunities for and limitations of citizen activism versus governmental responsibility for such tasks. Furthermore, through selecting campaign means, discussing these with the local council, executing the campaign and organizing activities on the ground, the student learns about their selected political issue first hand.

Organizing an awareness raising campaign for beach clean-ups is likely to help the student gain an experiential perspective on the opportunities for and limitations of citizen activism versus governmental responsibility for such tasks and to be of genuine interest to the student because the engagement is a collective effort around a real problem in the student’s own locality.

The role of research in this engagement activity could be to compare the results of the student’s campaign with other similar clean-up campaigns, read up on what political factors might explain the success of citizenship activism in the culture and society in question, and study the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of citizen activism versus governmental measures in achieving collective goods like clean beaches.