Lauren Balasco – författare

Engaging Citizenship introduces students to the fundamentals of political science through the lens of citizenship, democracy, and civic engagement. This unique approach aims to help students understand the relevant of political science to their own lives and cultivate the knowledge, skills, values, and habits they need to engage in political life. The text is grounded in three key learning goals: 1) to explore the main subfields of political science, 2) to develop a broad understanding of the U.S. political system within a global context, and 3) to engage with the political process as educated and empowered citizens.The text is divided into four sections-Explaining Statehood, Organizing Political Life, Shaping Participatory Processes, and Challenging the State-to introduce students to the fundamental questions of political science, such as the reasons why citizens join states, the arguments supportive and critical of democracy, and the avenues citizens use to influence state actions. In each section, there are four chapters; each chapter represents one of the four subfields of political science (political theory, comparative politics, American politics, and international relations) and presents its respective theories, concepts, and issues in response to that section's theme. In this way, the text provides a rich and balanced introduction to all four subfields in conversation with one another.The text is accompanied by a series of online civic engagement activities, providing interactive opportunities for students to engage with the themes discussed in each section. In this way, Engaging Citizenship makes it easy for faculty who wish to create opportunities for hands-on learning about citizenship and civic engagement. These activities enable students to practice the skills of effective citizenship and to familiarize themselves with avenues for participation in their communities.

Winner of the Textbook & Academic Authors Association''s Most Promising New Textbook AwardEngaging Citizenship uses one key concept--citizenship--as a gateway to teach students about the subfields of political science. Students are introduced to the critical questions, concepts, and theories addressed by each subfield, framed through the lens of citizenship in a way that helps students build connections across all chapters. Covering all major subfields of political science, the book introduces students to the broad scope of the discipline and the different ways each subfield studies key questions of politics, democracy, and citizenship. In addition, the text emphasizes student-centered active learning pedagogy; civic engagement activities throughout the text allow students to cultivate the skills needed for democratic citizenship. Through this innovative approach, Engaging Citizenship conveys the importance and value of democratic engagement and highlights the relevance of politics to students'' lives.

This book is about the making of justice. Despite the growing scholarship on transitional and transformative justice, contested struggles for justice in times of political change fail to get the nuanced attention we think they deserve. It seeks to understand how the making of justice is a craft and how this process of craft making is itself a source of political change. The authors introduce a new and novel conceptual framework of justicecraft which sheds light upon political change by unpacking five key elements—the skills, knowledge, labor, affect, and materiality—involved in contested struggles for justice. Justicecraft illuminates the stories and struggles for justice, enabling a greater understanding of accompanying social, political, and cultural shifts in society which unfold during times of conflict. By framing justice as craft, the authors offer a more fluid understanding of how people are producing justice on the ground—and identify the means, the instruments, the language, and claims involved in the process. Each chapter applies the framework of justicecraft to diverse global case illustrations of struggles against past, present, and future injustices and wrongdoings and draws out the key elements embedded in these processes.