Jobs And Interview

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It provides an opportunity for close scrutiny of a foreign political system from within rather that from a distance.

It provides exposure to different perspectives on how government institutions should function, on the relationship between individual liberties and civil liberties in nations with different economic systems and different social priorities, on issues of international law and international politics, such as the importance of the United Nations as an institution and the ramifications of questions of trade and collective security, and on the virtues and defects of differing systems of representation and election in making democracy effective.

The study of American government from the vantage point of a foreign nation offers a fresh outlook on American institutions and policies, and an appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of the American political system as perceived by outsiders. Americans, Alexis de Tocqueville remarked, tend to assume that the institutions familiar to them must represent the necessary foundations of civilization.

Programs of study abroad in political science should be structured to maximize these advantages of the comparative perspective.