I did a quick exercise with my intro IR class yesterday that reinforced a lesson on the meaning of politics and its distributive implications, showed them how decision rules matter, and served as a jumping off point for a discussion about Mueller’s arguments about the overblown nature of the terrorist threat. The exercise is very simple, and only takes about five-ten minutes.
I split students into groups of four and gave them one of the following two prompts:
Prompt One
The magic genie of Governlandia is willing to grant you one wish! Good for you. Unfortunately, this wish is somewhat restricted—there’s no wishing for more wishes, for one. In fact, the only thing she’s willing to let you wish for is to permanently cure a single ailment for the world. Here are the ailments you are allowed to cure:
Terrorism (ends all terrorist attacks permanently)
Cancer (people can still get cancer, but there is a complete and effective cure)
Bumper Cars (deaths by auto accident become a thing of the past—impacts cause no damage)
Global Warming (the temperature will be regulated to prevent largescale climate change)
Nuclear Weapons (all weapons will be permanently disabled, including new ones built)
Bring one extinct animal back to life (T-Rex, dodo’s, wooly mammouths, whatever)
Prompt 2
The magic genie of Governlandia has granted you one wish—a gift of 100 BILLION dollars. Good for you. Unfortunatley, this gift is somewhat restricted—you can only spend it on a handful of things, none of them for your own selfish gain. Scientists estimate that investing the entire $100 billion in any one area will completely solve that problem; anything less, and the problem will continue. However, you may distribute the money however you see fit.
Eradicate Terrorism
Universal, unlimited health care
Make Roads Completely Safe
Stop Global Warming
Destroy all Nuclear Weapons
Preserve all Existing Species from Extinction
Groups did not know that there were two different prompts. When they had made their decision, they posted them on the board, and we discussed why they came to the conclusion they did.
I used this to note a few things. First, no one gave any attention to the animal rights issues, which led to a discussion about the value of human v. animal life and how some issues can be seen as ‘luxury’ issues. Second, the method of decision making mattered: groups that were allowed to divy up money did so, but had a less intense discussion than those that had to choose only one policy area. All the groups prioritized health care issues, and we discussed the criteria they use to evaluate the use of funds. This led us to revisit the definition of politics as ‘who gets what, when, and how’ and segued into a discussion of Mueller’s work on whether or not terrorism is a threat and how people react to it.
Basically this was a neat little 5 minute activity that took no time at all to whip up and explain, but generated numerous discussion points for the remainder of the class. If you try it out, let me know how it goes!