If you are reading this announcement, you've come to realize that you want to learn more about government and public policy than you learned from your previous education.  If you are in public service, or work in a regulated industry, your employers--and the elected officials to whom they are answerable--do what they do by reference to an understanding of American government, economics, public finance and the political philosophies and ideologies that have shaped American society.  The M.A. in Government at Yorktown University introduces you to information, history, and knowledge that overarch all the practical skills you bring to your employment.  It broadens your understanding of the political and economic context that shapes public policy in America today.

Are you ready for the challenge?  Degree candidates select twelve courses from four area concentrations:

Foundations of Democracy in America

The origins and meaning of the Constitution of the United States have never been more important, and more frequently the subject of public debate.  Courses offered in this area concentration will be of interest to attorneys, government executives, elected officials, journalists, and persons who would like to become knowledgeable about the critical legal issues of the day.

The transformation of the American nation from a federal republic to a nation-state with imperial obligations worldwide has not occurred without transforming our fundamental law.  What transformation has occurred; its implications for political life in the 21st century, and the relation of contemporary public policy to the Constitution, is the focus of this area concentration.

Political Theory

The Western tradition of philosophic discourse, the language by which we comprehend reality, our discernment that the examined life is preferable to a life of ignorance, and the importance of citizenship, are concerns that come from philosophic discoveries of the ancient Greek philosophers. Their knowledge defines our humanity, and when men, from any part of the world, reflect on what defines their humanity, they do so in Western terms, ideas and concepts.

The area concentration in Political Theory at Yorktown University is representative of a generational recovery of Classical political philosophy begun when European émigré scholars came to the United States during World War II seeking freedom from totalitarian regimes, and trained a new generation of American scholars. When society is destroyed, and lives threatened, scholars seek answers to very important questions: what is political community; justice, political obligation, revolution, and how should regimes be organized, if tyranny is to be avoided?

The study of Political Theory at Yorktown University introduces you to the recovery of Classical political theory, analysis of modern ideologies, and the clarification of language necessary to understand modern political thought, and explore fundamental questions concerning truth, immanent and transcendent reality, the meaning of existence, man's humanity and the sovereignty of God, and the difference between ideology and philosophy.

Political Economy

Friedrich Hayek's Road to Serfdom revealed a correlation between the political and economic realms:  one road leads to despotism, the other to freedom.  Yorktown University's concentration in Political Economy is founded on that insight and the choice of freedom first taken by those early Americans whose spirit is remembered as the "Spirit of '76."  There is a correlation between state power, the political freedom and liberties of citizens, and economic freedom.  If one is constrained, the other is limited, as a consequence.  Thus Economics is fundamental to the character of government, and to the relationship between free citizens and their government.  By changing economic rules, a free people that is ignorant of economics can easily transform elected governments into engines for the abuse of state power.

American Culture and the Life of the Citizen

Mankind does not live by bread, nor economics, alone.  We have become aware that our culture defines who we are.  And, if that culture becomes distorted, our character, too, changes-for the worse.  Under the influence of modern telecommunications, no society in the world is immune to the viruses common to modern life.  Radical change has become a mode of life, and, as the sociologist Emile Durkheim has taught us, radical change (good or bad) is destabilizing.  Periods of radical change affect everyone, as high divorce rates, high rates of abortions, acceptance of "recreational" drugs, attest.  Popular music, works of art, popular literature, Pop Science, Psychology, and the many New Age nostrums to which modern man clings, are responses to radical change, and signs of serious cultural disturbance.  A reasoned critique of modern culture, and a course for recovery, has been outlined by scholars of several generations, but no college or university-until now-offers an entire area concentration in a MA degree program in this subject.