Teaching U.S. Constitutional Design: The Case of the “Genovian Revolution”

Abstract

In the modern American politics classroom, ideological and partisan conflict have the capacity to interfere with a healthy classroom environment. This problem is increasingly apparent when students engage questions at the heart of U.S. Constitutional design. By asking students to inhabit fictional roles with preferences and attitudes that may differ from their own, classroom simulation activities present a potential solution to this issue. In the present study I introduce a two-week constitutional convention simulation that centers on the fictional Principality of Genovia. Working in groups, students assume roles within various segments of Genovian society who seek democratic representation following the sudden abdication of their autocratic prince. The simulation is designed to foreshadow key concepts in American government and politics. It does so in a way that allows for vociferous debate and conflict while sidestepping students’ preexisting ideologies and party attachments. It also provides a collaborative, active learning environment that fosters healthy classroom dynamics and encourages later collaboration. In a pre-post survey instrument, I test the effectiveness of the Genovian simulation in fostering key learning outcomes and enhancing the student experience vis-a-vis several other classroom modules, finding that the Genovian exercise is beneficial to students on several dimensions.

Keywords:

• Simulation
• constitutional design
• classroom activity
• role-play
• active learning

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Carolyn Forestiere, William Blake, Meghan Lynch, Victor Asal, the participants at the 2023 APSA Teaching and Learning Conference’s “Simulations and Games” track, and the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 “Genovia” is the fictional country in The Princess Diaries, a popular film series starring Anne Hathaway that debuted in 2001 (a sequel premiered in 2004). Student awareness of this fact (despite recent discussion of a third installment to be produced by Disney) has decreased linearly since the initial deployment of the simulation in 2015.

2 Invariably, students will reference American political controversies or U.S. politicians during the simulation, especially in ways that draw negative parallels to developments in Genovia. I often redirect these comments by striking a quizzical expression and asking, “America? What on earth is that?”.

3 A large literature outside of political science also takes up this subject (for seminal work see Cherryholmes 1966; Cruickshank and Telfer 1980).

4 It is at this stage that the question of free-riding is most evident. Later, in the voting and deliberation stages, all students participate in the voice vote, meaning that such considerations are less acute.

5 The sequential nature of the objectives in the Gameplay Objectives Sheet is a necessary abstraction for the simulation. It is certainly the case that real constitutional negotiations consider these questions in conjunction rather than in sequence. However, the former would render the simulation too unwieldy. As a result, I implore the students to react to each successive decision by updating their strategies.

6 By popcorn style, I refer to an open, organic process where students from all groups call out their proposals in quick succession while I collate them.

7 With the advent of AI-driven tools that assist students with take-home writing assignments, a reflective essay of this nature also has attractive properties. It is much harder for students to ask AI to complete an assignment that leverages their knowledge of the in-class events of the simulation.

8 Often students from the far-flung hinterland of Western Serflandia will protest, arguing that they deserve more representation at the convention to reflect their population size. I refer them to the realities of the U.S. convention, in which the arduous nature of travel and the difficulty of interstate communications caused some states to have an easier time sending a delegation to the convention than others.

9 As the literature on democratization helpfully reminds us, non-democracies do not like democratic neighbors (e.g., Brinks and Coppedge 2006).

10 One question at this stage of the simulation is whether students were reminded of the Civil War in the face of Delta’s desire for secession. The parallels are weak in this case—see evidence below that most students did not associate Delta’s strategy with that of the American South.

11 [Redacted for Review] IRB Approval #2022-1015, Sept. 20, 2022.

12 While a quasi-experimental design that evaluates student learning and perceptions across sections would perhaps yield better inferences, I find that the variation in the syllabus across sections required to carry out such a study would be too great to avoid the possibility that one course section is materially disadvantaged by virtue of their “control group” assignment.

13 As stated above, we cannot tell if students learned more in the simulation than they would have if they had been exposed to several days of in-class lectures. However, a cursory examination of students’ final exams shows strong knowledge of Constitutional design, partly assuaging such concerns.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ian G. Anson

Ian G. Anson is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Dr. Anson is a scholar of public opinion, political psychology, media and politics, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Dr. Anson holds a Ph.D. in political science and a M.S. in applied statistics from Indiana University.