Discussion: Examples of Politics in Intergovernmental Relations

There are plenty of examples of politics in intergovernmental affairs in today’s news that illustrate the concepts we learned this week – much too many to cover in the module content pages. This assignment gives you a chance to share examples of these current events with your classmates.

Each group member should post ONE example of a current event that applies to any of the material covered this week in 4-6 sentences. Provide a brief overview of:

Discussion of how the event applies to the material.

A reference for the current event, either a news article, video, podcast, or journal article from a reputable source.

A reference to which chapter in the book or module content page that you think applies to the current event.

TWO comments on your classmate’s posts as to whether you agree or disagree with their assessment, and/or other ways the event is relevant to what we have learned in class (material from any week) (by 6/14).

Each person in the group should post their initial post with items 1-3 to the group page  the group should decide on ONE event to discuss, and expand that discussion to 8-10 sentences. It should still include items 1-3, and may possibly include any comments from part 4. This post that represents the group’s answer should be posted to Week 5 Discussion: Examples of Politics in Intergovernmental Relations CLASS Page by midnight 6/14. The individual posts to the group page are worth 2 points, the final group answer is worth 2 points (same amount of points for the group post will be assigned to everyone).

For example, some of the concepts we discussed this week include: laboratories of democracy, policy diffusion, public interest groups, the iron triangle, interstate cooperation, preemption, and politics in disaster response (among other things).

As always, remember to be respectful in your posts! While politics can be a sensitive topic, focusing on the concepts from the week and applying what you have learned does not need to be political. This is not a place to argue about who was right or who was wrong, but rather how politics affects these intergovernmental issues. And, one more reminder to collaborate early and often, there is a group member evaluation at the end of the semester worth 4 points of your grade: Group Member Evaluation.