As we move farther into a condition of “post literacy” in our society (a condition where reading and writing have been displaced by television and video as the primary sources of mass entertainment and communication), the problem of students entering universities and even graduate programs with substandard communication skills is becoming more pronounced.

In addressing the problem, despite frequent references to the “art and science of public administration,” there seems to be far too little emphasis on communication skills. Most public administration schools concentrate on the behavioral and management sciences—while largely ignoring the equally important communication techniques upon which our students' competence and effectiveness will be assessed in their careers.

We aid and abet the problem by failing to recognize those skills, or lack of them, in our program guidelines. The National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration calls for specialized areas of study—management, program analysis, and policy analysis—that seem to assume a firm grounding in communication skills; but that assumption is so often incorrect.

The science of public administration can only take us as far as systematizing our search for information. Effective evaluation and interpretation of that information rests in the ability to use it persuasively. It is the normative evaluation of information, mostly absent from scientific inquiry, that is so important to effective public administration. And the normative interpretation of policy conclusions is largely contingent on persuasive ability, alacrity in the use of the art, not the science, of public administration.

The Soviets have complained that they know more about us than we know about them. While the veracity of this view is difficult to assess, the level of American ignorance about the USSR clearly is appalling. Many Americans do not know which side the Soviets fought on in World War II and are taken aback to discover that not all Soviet citizens are Russians. Those who engage in serious study of the Soviet Union disagree, sometimes vociferously, regarding the fundamental nature and future prospects of the USSR but an understanding of the terms of the debate should form a part of American education.

For those teachers seeking to address this need by developing new courses on the Soviet Union, the first obstacle involves resources: How do I find—and select—readings for my students? And where do I secure materials which will provide me with the background necessary to deliver lectures on topics like collectivization and socialist realism? With the current growth of interest in the USSR more high school and college instructors find themselves in the position of offering courses about the Soviet Union, while, at the same time, they seek to move from being relative novices to reasonably accomplished (and confident) teachers of Soviet politics and society.

Although every academic trained in Soviet area studies probably has his or her own recipe concerning “How to teach about the Soviet Union,” there are some fundamental approaches—and texts—which reflect a certain underlying consensus about what kinds of materials should be included in the student diet.

This paper summarizes the findings of a study of syllabi for the core course in comparative politics offered by a sample of political science departments in the United States with field offerings in comparative politics granting annually more than one Ph.D. These courses are given a variety of names. Some simply specify the subdiscipline, for example, Princeton's “Comparative Politics,” MIT's “Field Seminar in Comparative Politics” or Illinois' “Core Seminar in Comparative Politics.” Others specify the aspect or aspects of the subdiscipline given principal attention, for example, Stanford's “Major Theories in Comparative Politics,” Kentucky's “Comparative Politics: Theory and Method,” or Indiana University's “Seminar in Comparative Politics: Issues and Approaches.” Each is intended to provide graduate students with an understanding of the fundamental ideas of comparative politics. The purposes of the study were to assess the state of the subdiscipline and to facilitate the exchange of ideas among those involved in teaching such core courses. We recognize that a syllabus indicates only a part of what is taught and learned in any course. Nevertheless, syllabi fairly well reflect the topics and scholarly readings deemed most important by teachers in the field.

Scholars in the subdiscipline of comparative politics frequently have noted the lack of agreement among comparativists on frameworks, methodologies and subject matter. Macridis and Brown in the 1961 edition of their reader described the field as “in a state of flux” (3). During the 1960s and 1970s, the lack of agreement probably increased. Kaufman and Rosenau in 1977 described the field as then “in a state of ferment” (45).

Cold, irrefutable demographics clearly signal a traumatic intergenerational shift in political power. Statistics indicate that by the year 2020 political and economic clout will have drained from the middle-aged to the elderly, or more specifically, to the “young-old.” By the time the Baby Boom generation reaches retirement, its cohort could wield enough political and economic influence to alter political-campaign and corporate-marketing strategies, to tip the scales of the candidate selection process, and to dominate most decision-making centers. This process of power recognition and accumulation is now irreversible. The media, marketing departments, and campaign strategists are all struggling to redefine their target audience, to reassess the depth of political involvement, and to reshape their imagery to fit the new reality. Ironically, political science departments appear reluctant to restructure their course offerings so that this dramatic power transfer can be examined from a political perspective at the undergraduate level.

We make a statement by what we don't teach—by what we fail to discuss and to dissect. Realizing this, in 1987 Santa Clara University's Center of Education on Aging, in conjunction with the political science department, initiated a senior seminar with a strictly political slant on the aging dilemma. Participants chose to function as an exploratory team in the creation of a “political profile” of the aging in the Santa Clara area. Together with their individual research projects, this profile was to serve as the core of a pilot course—a model which subsequent classes and other colleges might draw upon in structuring their own format.