Learning and Teaching in Politics andInternational Studies
Democratising the Learning Process: The Useof Twitter in the Teaching of Politics andInternational Relations
Alasdair BlairDe Montfort University
Twitter has become an established feature of the contemporary landscape. It has been used by, among others,politicians, political parties, governments, international organisations, charities, think-tanks and individualsfrom academics to celebrities. Twitter has also been subject to a great deal of debate and analysis. This includesits impact on the relationship between government and citizens, a point that came to the fore in the 2011 ArabSpring when Twitter provided an important communication vehicle for popular uprising. However, less hasbeen written on the use and impact of Twitter as a method to support learning and teaching. This articleexamines the use of Twitter as a way of promoting student engagement, arguing that it offers the opportunityto democratise student learning.
Keywords: Twitter; student engagement; informal learning; community of learners
IntroductionTwitter is described on its website as a ‘real-time information network that connects you to thelatest stories, ideas, opinions and news about what you find interesting’ (Twitter, 2012).Launched in 2006, Twitter has rapidly gained prominence as a leading way of exchanginginformation in real-time format. Contributors respond to Twitter’s prompt of ‘What’s hap-pening?’ by posting messages of up to 140 characters that are known as ‘tweets’. As tweets arepublicly available it is easy for people to read each other’s tweets without the need forpermission to be given. Users of Twitter are assigned a homepage that acts as a microblogbecause all their tweets are linked into a single list. The constricted nature of tweets, whichcan include links to further information such as documents, photos and web pages, has beena key feature of Twitter’s appeal. This is because it provides a vehicle for information to beshared in a concise real-time context through platforms such as email and Short MessagingServices (SMS), which have themselves been greatly influenced by the mass spread of mobilephones throughout the world (Tett, 2012). In this context, whereas blogs and websites tendto require specific effort to access information, often restrict direct communication and haveweak ties between bloggers and readers, Twitter allows individuals to express their own viewsthrough ‘tweets’ and enables them to follow other ‘tweeters’ as well as to be followed. All ofthis ensures that Twitter is a far more interactive form of communication.
In examining the use of Twitter from an educational perspective, it is evident that mobiletechnologies have traditionally been viewed as distractions in the classroom setting. Yet
Twitter’s harnessing of Web 2.0 technology does offer a number of important learning andteaching benefits (Wright, 2010, pp. 259–260). These include providing students with impor-tant updates such as assignment deadlines, recommending books to read, noting websites tovisit and recapping key learning points. Within a scheduled teaching session Twitter providesan opportunity to enliven the learning experience by pulling more students into a classroomdiscussion than might otherwise be possible through traditional formats such as question andanswer sessions. The use of technology as an electronic word of mouth also provides aframework for quieter and less confident students to contribute to classroom discussions.Outside the classroom, Twitter can allow students to share ideas and engage in discussionswith their peers and thereby assist in cementing peer learning and peer feedback, which it hasbeen argued has a positive impact on student performance (Blair and McGinty [Shields],2012; Blair, McGinty [Shields] and Curtis, 2012). By facilitating collaborative learning, Twittercan assist in establishing more focused learning, teaching and research networks. Forexample, those interested in the study of European integration can follow the likes of theEuropean Commission (@EU_Commission), Council of Europe (@councilofEurope), Centrefor European Policy Studies (@CEPS_thinktank), European People’s Party (@EPPtweet) andthe Brussels Daily (@BrusselsDaily).
These interactions provide an opportunity to create a more dynamic social presence fortweeters as well as a stronger community of engagement as people with similar researchinterests follow related Twitter feeds. This can extend to the use of the hashtag symbol #before relevant words or phrases so that tweets can be categorised, thereby allowing peoplewith similar interests to post to and review all messages that are marked with the relevantkeyword. For teaching purposes, hashtags allow lecturers to create Twitter groups that can benamed after their particular course, such as #Politics101, thereby permitting all students andlecturers attached to that course to engage in a group discussion.
In examining the implications of using Twitter for teaching politics and international relationsthis article proceeds as follows. First, the article sets out the context of Twitter within onlinelearning and the challenges posed to teaching and learning in a ‘data-drenched world’(Thornton, 2012a). Second, it explores the opportunities offered by Twitter for establishing acommunity of learners. Third, it identifies strategies for using Twitter to reinvigorate studentengagement. Fourth, it examines the way in which Twitter assists students to engage in thepractice of politics and international relations. Fifth, it notes the potential that Twitter offersas a means of democratising the learning process in higher education. Sixth, it provides anoverview of the benefits and disadvantages of using Twitter.
Information overload and online learningOne of the most profound changes that have taken place in higher education over the last twodecades has been the way that students and academics access and use information throughonline media. The click of a computer mouse – and increasingly the click of a smartphone –brings access to a virtual avalanche of information. This in turn creates real challenges in beingable to make judgements as to the value of the material that we are presented with. It is asituation that has led one academic to coin the term ‘information obesity’ (Whitworth, 2009).Critically, this not only refers to an abundance of information, but also to the fact that muchof the information is of a low quality and that students have difficulty in distinguishing thegood from the bad. This is a particularly acute challenge for the social sciences where a wholearray of websites have emerged that offer a veritable banquet of choices to explain the
predicaments we face in contemporary society. The disciplines of politics and internationalrelations are particularly exposed to these challenges, in that students can be led down blindalleys and drawn into cul-de-sacs where they are regularly presented with irrelevant andmisleading information that they often take at face value (Thornton, 2010). More signifi-cantly, the combination of a tendency towards clicker-happy Internet surfing and the avail-ability of bite-sized information learning means that students are often found wanting whenit comes to skills of critical engagement and reflection. Concern over this state of affairs hasled some academics to argue that information literacy offers a degree of salvation as studentsdevelop the relevant skills to make them critical appraisers of the value of the information towhich they are exposed (Thornton, 2012a).
Despite the value of such an approach, and even if – and it is a big if – all students developedthe information literacy skills that the likes of Stephen Thornton advocate, this leaves thewider issue of how academics engage students in learning that is increasingly taking placebeyond the traditional classroom format (Craig, 2012). The initial response for many aca-demics was to seek to harness the capabilities of new technologies through the use of virtuallearning environments (VLEs) such as Blackboard, WebCt and Moodle. In the area of politicsand international relations this in turn spurred a number of studies that promoted VLEs as ameans of enhancing traditional learning techniques, such as through an emphasis on activeand collaborative learning (Blair, Bromage and Curtis, 2007; Collins, Slocock and Hughes,2006; Lee, 2003).
These technologies have value in sharing information such as course documents, permittingassessment such as online quizzes, and promoting discussion outside the formal classroom. Ina recent study, Fiona Buckley (2011) notes the positive impact of online discussion forums inBlackboard on student engagement and performance. Despite the value of such approaches,they nonetheless fail to model the informal discussions that take place on a day-to-day basis.In Buckley’s study (2011, p. 405), some 53 per cent of students took part in the discussionforums, of which 24 per cent actively participated while 76 per cent preferred to ‘lurk’, whichmeant that they read material but refused to comment. This in itself goes against the view thatonline learning is supposed to allow students to engage in freer discussion because of theabsence of classroom formalities. Yet the likes of VLEs do themselves have their own normsand procedures. This includes the fact that students and staff have to log in formally to accessinformation and engage in discussion. In their examination of the suitability of a VLE to teachpolitical concepts and reasoning, Chik Collins, Brian Slocock and Lucy Hughes (2006, p. 209)point out that their findings show that ‘for this type of learning the intellectual and socialdynamic provided by face-to-face learning plays a key role, which is not easy to recreate inutilising the VLE’. As Joanna Dunlap and Patrick Lowenthal have noted (2009, p. 129), ‘whattends to be missing is the just-in-time, and sometimes playful, interactions that happen beforeand after class, during a break, and when students and faculty bump into each other betweenclass meetings’.
One of the issues here is that VLEs require forced rather than natural interaction. Moreover,the difficulties that can be experienced by getting students to engage with discussion in classdo not disappear in the VLE environment. If anything, the challenge is all the greater. Onlineworking requires among other factors the learning of new skills on the part of staff with regardto e-moderation. Students too need to learn new approaches with regard to engagement, withthe image of the ‘Google generation’ being ‘digital natives’ often overstating their confidence
in using such technologies to enhance their learning (Craig, 2010, p. 9). In his assessment ofthe challenges of e-learning, Dave Middleton (2010, p. 7) notes that:
[e]ncouraging students to speak can be incredibly difficult, and in some cases, impossible.This is compounded in an online environment by the fact that it is not always possible tosee who you are trying to talk to, and from the lecturer’s point of view, who is notcontributing but is ‘listening’. Moreover, if you put a group of people in a room, socialconvention dictates that if one of them asks a question somebody will answer. No suchconvention exists online. To be the first to post on a discussion board can be an incrediblyintimidating experience.
We also have to remind ourselves that a great deal of the development work that staff haveundertaken on VLEs is, with the exclusion of blended and distance learning programmes,supplementary to teaching delivery and assessment practices which continue to be classroombased. An early survey on the use of VLEs in the teaching of politics found that staff used themto post the likes of module handbooks, handouts and guides for further reading rather thanthe use of assessments (Blair, Bromage and Curtis, 2007). Although recent initiatives haveseen a greater focus on the use of blogs and online journals, there is little to indicate that thiswork relates to assessment. Thus, given that students are often instrumental in their approachto learning and teaching, a key challenge is getting them to engage in online activities asstudies have emphasised that students are often unwilling to engage in additional tasks suchas online discussion when they do not have credit attached to them (Buckley, 2011). In theirstudy on the use of podcasts, Jason Ralph, Naomi Head and Simon Lightfoot (2010, p. 22)found that the majority of students showed unwillingness to engage in the extra workinvolved in producing podcasts when no marks were attached to the effort. As the authorsnote, this ‘tended to put some students off fully engaging with the project, particularly thosefinal year students who tend to look at this part of their degree rather instrumentally’. In asimilar vein, research on the use of blogs as a method of online journaling for placementstudents found that ‘students exhibited minimal commitment to blogging when it did notcount toward the assessment of their modules’ (Curtis et al., 2009, p. 11).
Given the above points, it is evident that academics face a number of challenges in being ableto engage effectively with students in a digital world: first, being able to replicate the informalexchanges that take place on a day-to-day basis; second, being able to reach all learners,including those who ‘lurk’ and hide on the sidelines; third, being able to engage with studentsin a time-sensitive manner; fourth, being able to engage and direct students to appropriateresources; and fifth, recognising that students routinely undertake a cost–benefit analysisof the effort that they expend. For each of these challenges, Twitter offers a number ofadvantages.
Creating a community of learnersWhereas most universities are in their infancy in utilising Web 2.0 technology, the majorityof students have sought to replicate the more informal nature of information sharing throughtechnology applications to support friendships and learning. Because Twitter limits informa-tion exchanges to 140 characters or less, it promotes brevity and facilitates easier and quickercommunication between staff and students. This is particularly important because as noted byDunlap and Lowenthal (2009) it has a positive impact in creating a stronger community oflearners and this is a point that is reflected elsewhere in the literature. Noeline Wright (2010,p. 262) noted that her seven-week experiment of using Twitter to aid student self-reflection
during a teaching practicum where teacher education students were sent to a variety ofsecondary schools across New Zealand had a positive impact on the student learning expe-rience. She was able to report that ‘[t]he focus group discussion revealed that supportive postswere highly valued, reducing participants’ feelings of isolation and emotional overload.Brevity made reading all tweets easy. They found reassurance in each other’s highs and lows’.In their study on the use of Twitter, Reynol Junco, Greg Heiberger and Eric Loken (2011,p. 129) similarly note that it ‘helped increase students’ sense of connection with faculty andthe institution’. This notion of connection has been emphasised in broader studies on the useof Twitter. Nigel Jackson and Darren Lilleker (2011, p. 98) concluded in their study of its useamong British MPs that politicians ‘appear to have formed a cross-party Twitter communitythat shares exchanges, ranging from the trivial to comments on the future of parliament andthe role of digital and Web 2.0 technology’. Such findings are significant because theyreinforce the evidence that students’ use of Web 2.0 technologies tend to be more dependenton their enjoyment than their usefulness (Saeed and Sinnappan, 2011). The upshot of this isthat students are less likely to participate in online activities just for the sake of doing so.
Concerns over levels of student engagement have been highlighted in a number of academicstudies where focus has been attached to getting students to engage more critically in theirlearning. Given the fact that students appear to target their learning on an instrumental basis,with the implication of disengaging from certain activities, research suggests that Twitterencourages students to engage in deeper learning within classroom activities as well asengaging more with online material. In reflecting on his use of Twitter to teach electoral politicsat the University of Manchester, Andrew Russell (2012, pp. 9–10) has commented that:
The experiment of using Twitter to augment my teaching on elections and voters in 2010was a tremendous success. ... In the classroom, the students responded well. I found themdebating electoral issues on Twitter between themselves in a way that a decade of dedicatedcourse messageboards and mailing lists on virtual learning environments had singularlyfailed to deliver. In short, students who eschewed the formal, bespoke and protectedrepository for debate on the course openly embraced the more informal public space onTwitter.
With this in mind, Twitter’s ability to provide a platform for quick and responsive exchangesof information and to create group discussions crucially provides a different dimension totraditional online learning environments. This also extends into the classroom where Twitteroffers the opportunity for students to engage with tutors by asking questions, followingdebates and raising points in a manner that goes further than interactive audience responsesystems which focus on adapting rather than revolutionising teaching content(Gormley-Heenan and McCartan, 2009). Usage of Twitter therefore takes into considerationthe warning posed by Annabel Kiernan (2012, pp. 188–189) that ‘[w]e need to ensure thatthe continuous move to e-learning modes does not simply further fragment the learningexperience, deliver a less collective learning environment, or add credence to the practice bystudents of becoming instrumental consumers’.
Consequently, one of the most persuasive arguments in favour of the use of Twitter is that thejust-in-time nature of its interactions enables tweets to be sent as a thought occurs. This permitsstudents to engage with each other in an interactive manner inside and outside the classroomand in a way that is different from the deathly silence that often befalls VLE discussion boards.As a result, Twitter has the potential to assist in creating a community of learners by mirroringface-to-face discussions. Reflecting on her experience of using Twitter, Wright (2010, p. 263)
observed that ‘Twitter chronologically logged participants’ reflective thinking during a schoolpracticum, reduced isolation and supported a sense of community’. Twitter therefore hasparticular benefits in strengthening student-to-student and staff-to-student ties, which is ofsignificance for subjects such as politics and international relations where the balance of thecurriculum is tilted towards independent learning. The potential value that Twitter can add toenhancing student feedback is not an insignificant factor given the fact that feedback is the areathat students have rated as their greatest concern in the National Student Survey (Blair andMcGinty [Shields], 2012; Blair, McGinty [Shields] and Curtis, 2012; Blair et al., 2013). AsRussell (2012, p. 5) has commented, ‘[o]ne of the strengths of Twitter is ... that it is particularlyeffective as a word-of-mouth transmission process from peer-to-peer’.
Strategies for engagementIn examining the implications of using Twitter to create a stronger community of learning, itis apparent that it has particular benefits in terms of connecting with those students who tendto sit on the sidelines of class participation, whether that be in discussion within the classroomor in a VLE. Of the various strategies that can be used for engaging students through the useof Twitter, some of the most notable include:
• Establish a course profile and use hashtags. This helps to keep the tweets in an organisedmanner.
• Collate classroom views and provide instant feedback. This can be achieved by setting asidetime in class for students to tweet updates on their learning which can lead to further pointsof clarification.
• Create a bulletin board. Update students with relevant information such as assignmentdeadlines, seminar topics and further reading.
• Reinforce learning activities. Use Twitter to set seminar tasks, such as presentation topics.• Share knowledge and understanding. Get students to tweet something that they have
learned that week.• Find resources. Get students to share books, journals and online materials.• Share links to websites. Links to websites can be shortened through the use of services such
as tinyurl (http://tinyurl.com/).• Foster peer support mechanisms and extend classroom discussion. The use of Twitter inside
classroom-based activity can help to foster peer support outside class as students continuediscussions beyond timetabled sessions. This can assist in breaking down barriers betweenstudents as they see each other as being part of a learning community and are thereforemore willing to support each other.
• Recap classroom content. Tutors can provide a recap at the end of each class to reinforce keylearning points.
• Establish flexible office hours. Use Twitter to provide quick responses and clarifications onstudent concerns.
• Engage with professional communities and find interesting figures to follow. Instead ofgetting students just to read relevant subject material, get them to follow and post responsesto the likes of politicians (@BarackObama), government (@foreignoffice) and think-tanks(@ChathamHouse). By finding out who follows the likes of @BrookingsInst and who itfollows it is possible to get an understanding of networks in the contemporary world.
• Map trends. Get students to map views through the likes of maptimize so as to find outwhat people are discussing.
Engaging in the practice of politicsNot only does Twitter provide the opportunity to create a more engaged learning environmentbetween staff and students, it also offers a framework whereby students can actively engagein the world of politics by following (and being followed) by, among others, politicians,interest groups and government departments. This notion of students as producers of knowl-edge is greatly assisted by the fact that Twitter is a different technological platform to theclosed world of VLEs. This is because it offers students a far more engaging learning environ-ment through their connection with practitioners (Curtis, 2010). As has been noted else-where, one notable distinction of Twitter is that these ties are often of an asymmetrical nature.In this context, if A follows B then B does not have to follow A (Takhteyev, Gruzd andWellman, 2012, p. 74). The opportunities to engage in Twitter are in this context virtuallyendless, although care has to be taken with regard to the bias of tweets.
In addition to providing an interactive learning environment for exchanging information,Twitter also provides an important contribution to improving levels of critical analysis amongstudents. This can range from examining the extent to which particular tweets are biased andcontain factually inaccurate information through to examining the way that Twitter is used.For example, academic studies have paid attention to the frequency of use and geographicalspread of Twitter networks (Takhteyev, Gruzd and Wellman, 2012), while others have focusedon the way that politicians use Twitter (Jackson and Lilleker, 2011). Jackson and Lillekernoted that ‘[t]here are a range of reasons behind [MPs] Twittering, from promoting constitu-ency surgery hours, through more specific service-orientated functions to being conduits ofparty or departmental information, or commencing gossip on the day-to-day events in theHouse of Commons or the life of the MP’. Their study also reflected that MPs hoped to be ableto influence the views of their followers ‘[b]y appearing as human beings with a sense ofhumour or everyday interests’ (Jackson and Lilleker, 2011, p. 101). Although this notion ofcommunicating to the public is not a new development, the method of delivery clearly is.
The utilisation of Twitter as a research tool is greatly assisted by a variety of functions thatinclude:
• #hashtag search. One of the most straightforward ways of narrowing down the focus of asearch is to use a hashtag in the Twitter search box. Although it is helpful to know particularhashtags, methods of searching can be relatively predictable, with #European Union and#United Nations likely to produce considerable sources of information;
• advanced search. By using the advanced search function in Twitter it is possible to refinesearches by adding in extra layers of information that include specific phrases and words,names of people, locations and hashtags;
• saved search. It is possible to save the searches that have been undertaken, which in turnmakes it possible to revisit the results at a later time;
• discover. The discover function on Twitter utilises a user’s connections to display stories thathave been shared and in so doing provides updates on new content that would not beevident in the normal Twitter feed;
• favourites. While Twitter can provide access to some very valuable information, such as alink to a useful article, such tweets can quickly get lost in a trail of information. To avoid thishappening, relevant tweets can be added to favourites which can be accessed at a later date.And by looking at the favourites of other people you are following it is possible to uneartha further rich source of information.
In examining these developments it is evident that social media such as Twitter have thepower to bring learning to life by moving student understanding of subject matter beyond thebounded nature of established points of view. As Heather Savigny (2002, p. 7) notes:
The internet challenges dominant views of media effects and its ability to set the agenda andframe the debate in tandem with political elites. It challenges, to some extent, the ability ofpolitical parties to control information dissemination, and becomes a channel throughwhich opinion may be formed, debated and expressed without elite control.
To this end the real-time evidence provided by the likes of Twitter gives students andacademics alike important raw data which aid understanding of politics and internationalrelations in a manner that is not replicated in other formats.
Democratising the learning processThrough actively engaging students in discussions on politics and international relations,Twitter can help to integrate the research and teaching dimensions of higher education. Sucha position views students less as consumers of knowledge and more as producers who areengaged in a co-operative venture with academics (McCulloch, 2009; Neary and Winn, 2009).The argument that students are engaged in a collaborative learning environment is wellestablished in the wider teaching and learning literature where a considerable focus has beenattached to the concept of inquiry-based learning in the development of undergraduateresearch (Healey and Jenkins, 2009; Seale, 2010). Initiatives to engage students in research-based learning have been greatly influenced by the work in the United States of the BoyerCommission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University (1998), which arguedthat there was a need to bridge the gap between academic research and the student experi-ence. A desire to engage students more directly in the research process has been the subjectof a number of studies relating to the study of politics and international relations in Britainover the last decade (Brew, 2006; Curtis and Blair, 2010b). One theme of this work has beeninitiatives for students to gain active and experiential learning through placements andcommunity engagement (Annette, 2009; Sherrington et al., 2008).
One of the arguments in favour of experiential learning is that through spending time outsidethe traditional university learning environment, students have an opportunity to thinkdifferently and gain new perspectives. This also extends to students positioning themselvesless as the consumers of knowledge and more as co-producers of knowledge through col-laborative work with staff. This view of collaborative learning has been extended into theclassroom setting where there is an emerging literature that students can be used as consult-ants within classrooms. Alison Cook-Sather has, for instance, noted in her research intoclassroom consultants that students develop a stronger understanding of a community oflearning and gain ‘greater confidence, capacity and agency as learners’ (Cook-Sather, 2011,p. 49). To this end, one of the most powerful arguments in favour of viewing students asproducers of knowledge is that it has a positive impact on student engagement and leads tohigher academic performance. Apart from the positive impact on the learning process, such anapproach is likely to have an important knock-on effect on employability and studentconfidence (John and Creighton, 2011).
For Michael Fielding (2011), this process of engagement between students and staff is one of‘democratic fellowship’ and is part of a process of radical education that is centred on thestudent voice. In building upon this viewpoint, the argument of this article is that the use of
Twitter is part of this process of democratic fellowship. This is because it provides an oppor-tunity to transform students’ learning identities from being simply receivers of knowledge.For example, the ability of students to enter into a whole range of discussions on Twitter, frompolicymakers to academics, provides them with an ability to engage in previously concealedworlds of learning. In so doing, it provides a critical platform for bringing together the viewsof others which permits a greater sense of student control of their own learning through aprocess of democratisation. Students therefore have a new power in that they are not just anaudience in the classroom setting, but are producers of and contributors to knowledge. In thiscontext, students are able to report on events and disseminate information in a relatively easyway as they do not need much more than a smartphone to get their points across to anaudience that is not bounded by the traditional rubrics of the university environment. Theargument here, therefore, is that the experiences students are able to draw on from theseexchanges provide an important transformational effect in democratising the learning processbecause students have the ability to become active co-producers of learning as the barriersbetween expert and novice are reduced.
ConclusionFrom this brief overview it should be evident that Twitter is much more than a communica-tion tool for enhancing student engagement. That is not to say that its use is withoutdrawbacks. As with other new technologies there are questions regarding appropriateness ofuse (Thornton, 2012b). This extends to the fact that many universities have expressedconcern about the way in which the likes of Twitter and Facebook challenge their ownlearning communities, with the potential existing for inappropriate use, such as friendingbetween staff and students. Yet as with many other organisations, a great number of univer-sities have embraced both social networking sites, albeit in some instances with a degree ofcaution. This has included the issuing of instructions over the use of social media on the backof high-profile cases where individuals have been sacked in private and public organisationsover inappropriate usage.
Despite these words of caution, the utility of Twitter for the disciplines of politics andinternational relations cannot be ignored. For academics whose research is increasingly beingmeasured by ‘impact’, there is considerable value in using Twitter as a means of reaching aswide an audience as possible. This was a key message that emerged from one of the firstacademic-orientated guides on the use of Twitter which was published in 2011 by the LondonSchool of Economics (Mollett, Moran and Dunleavy, 2011). For students, it is of particularvalue in allowing them to experience the subject matter in a way that cannot be replicated ina classroom or textbook. To date, efforts to provide students with real-world understanding ofpolitics have principally focused on experiential learning through placement activities (Curtisand Blair, 2010a). Yet there are obvious limitations to this approach in terms of the extent towhich all students can be exposed to this learning and as such Twitter could provide animportant means of democratising this learning process. As Ernest Priego (2011) has com-mented, ‘[f]or higher education, social media is part of a process of democratisation. Its effectiveuse can lead to an ethical shift towards active efforts for engaging new audiences and wideningparticipation beyond the Ivory Tower’s walls. It all starts with the ear. Are you listening?’
About the AuthorAlasdair Blair is Jean Monnet Professor of International Relations and Head of the Department of Politics and PublicPolicy at De Montfort University. His research interests focus on British foreign policy, European integration and the
teaching of politics and international relations. From 2009 to 2012 he was principal investigator of a Higher EducationAcademy National Teaching Fellowship Project, ‘It’s Good to Talk: Dialogue, Feedback and Learning’, which focusedon assessment and feedback in politics and international relations: http://www.dmu.ac.uk/itsgoodtotalk. Recentpublications include The European Union (Oneworld, 2012). Forthcoming publications include Britain and the World:British Foreign Policy since 1945 (Longman, 2013). Alasdair Blair, Leicester Business School, The Gateway, De MontfortUniversity, Leicester LE1 9BH, UK. E-mail: [email protected]
AcknowledgementsI am extremely grateful for the helpful and constructive comments of the two referees, including the useful advice onthe title of the article, and for the assistance provided by the journal editors.
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