Week 3 — Reading the Packages: A Short Ideology Report — Traditional alternative (no AI)

Instructors: publish this instead of the adaptive version if you prefer, and unpublish or delete the adaptive one.

Assignment 3 of the term — read two classic texts by what they value, fear, and argue, sort a fictional platform by family and by kind, place conservatism on the left–right line, and explain the two meanings of "liberal" to someone outside political science.

This week you learned what an ideology is, how liberalism's two wings and the socialist family's two branches differ, what the conservative case for gradual change holds, and how the left–right line can capture and flatten views. In Week 1 you learned to sort a claim by its kind, empirical or normative, not by its topic; in Week 2 you learned what makes a government legitimate and what a state is. In this assignment you work four short problems on this week's two classic texts and the illustrative six-statement sort, interpret each one, and explain a political label to someone who has never studied political science. This week's lecture tutorial, quiz, discussion, and Political Analysis Workshop practice the same ideas from other angles.

The task

You will use these materials, all from this week's chapter:

• Marx and Engels (1848), Manifesto of the Communist Party, Part I, in the Project Gutenberg edition, which opens: "The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles." (This edition prints "societies"; other editions print "society".)
• Burke (1790), Reflections on the Revolution in France, in the Project Gutenberg edition: "A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation." and society as "a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born". Burke supported the American colonists' cause.
• The Declaration of Independence, adopted in 1776, which you read in Week 1.
• The six-statement sort, an illustrative set of six statements from a town-hall forum in a made-up country, built for this course (not real data and not from any real party): Statement 1, limited government and free markets (classical liberalism, normative); Statement 2, public schooling and social insurance so people can use their rights (modern liberalism, normative); Statement 3, long-standing institutions changed slowly and tested (conservatism, normative); Statement 4, taxes on high incomes for a welfare state, won by elections (social democracy, normative); Statement 5, the group that owns the means of production has always ruled (the communist branch's empirical claim, empirical); Statement 6, a nation governing itself in its own state (nationalism, normative).

Work these four problems, showing your arithmetic:

1. Marx and Engels published the Manifesto of the Communist Party in 1848, and Burke published Reflections on the Revolution in France in 1790. How many years apart are the two works?
2. In the illustrative six-statement sort, 2 statements are liberal, 1 is conservative, 2 come from the socialist family, and 1 is nationalist. How many statements come from the liberal family and the socialist family combined?
3. In the illustrative six-statement sort, 1 of the 6 statements is empirical. How many of the statements are normative?
4. The Declaration of Independence was adopted in 1776, and Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France appeared in 1790. How many years after the Declaration did Reflections appear?

Beside each answer, add one brief interpretation. For problem 1, state what each excerpt values, fears, and argues in words a thoughtful adherent would accept, give neither a verdict, and label the Manifesto's opening sentence as empirical or normative with your reason. For problem 2, name the wing of liberalism in Statements 1 and 2 and explain why everyday American speech might call Statement 1 "conservative"; then name the branch of the socialist family in Statements 4 and 5 and say why totalitarianism belongs to neither branch. For problem 3, explain why Statement 4 is normative even though its topic is taxes, and why Statement 5 is empirical. For problem 4, explain what Burke's change fragment says about change, use his support for the colonists' cause to show why a one-line caricature of conservatism fails, and say where the single left–right line would usually place conservatism and one thing that placement flattens.

Explain it to a non-expert

Your cousin has never studied political science and is about to post: "Liberals want big government, period. Anyone who wants small government can't be a liberal." Write a 3–5 sentence reply that recommends a more accurate way to say it, explains in everyday words the two senses of "liberal" and the classical and modern wings, and names one limit, such as that political labels shift across countries and eras. Explain any technical term in everyday words. More than one accurate wording can be defensible.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a neighbor planning a flyer that reads "Patriots and nationalists are the same thing." Model answer: "I'd write 'Loving your country and claiming that your nation needs a state of its own are two different ideas.' Patriotism is attachment to your country, and many people with very different politics share it. Nationalism adds a claim about how political units should be drawn. One limit: people use both words loosely in everyday talk, so it helps to ask what a speaker means before labeling them."

Use that pattern for your reply to your cousin, with your own recommendation and evidence.

Show your arithmetic. A reader should be able to reproduce every number you report from the values above without guessing which values or steps you used.

Deliverables

Submit a single ideology report containing:

• the four answers, each with the arithmetic shown and a brief interpretation as the task describes;
• your reply to your cousin, recommending a more accurate wording, explaining the two senses of "liberal" and the two wings in everyday words, and naming one limit; and
• a one-line restatement of the values you used, so your results are reproducible.

Keep it to roughly one page. Accurate and fair-minded beats long.

Choose how you show it. Present your report as written text, or as a recorded audio or video explanation of about three minutes with a transcript, or as a labelled diagram that places the six statements by family and by kind with a short note. Every form is graded by the same scoring criteria. Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text.

How you'll be graded

The full analytic rubric is attached to this assignment in Canvas.

Academic integrity and AI use

This version is designed to be completed without AI: do the computations, the interpretations, and the writing yourself, without any AI tool. You may use a calculator or a spreadsheet for the arithmetic. Submitting AI-generated work as your own, or copying another student's work, is an integrity violation under the course policy.

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