The Repression Trap / Teaching guide
Teaching guide
Created by Yoav Duman / יואב דומן
A solo comparative-politics simulation about civil resistance, institutional cooperation, repression and the difference between a political offer and an implemented result.
What students do
Students advise a campaign council through five priorities, forecast before seeing consequences, revisit one move under a changed outside-backing package, and defend a final causal account. Participants, institutions and the government retain their own interests. The game does not make the player the controller of every actor.
- Distinguish public attention, movement endurance and enacted institutional noncooperation.
- Trace an actor, a dependency and a behavior rather than treating an index as a success score.
- Explain why repression can suppress coordination or produce different reactions across audiences.
- Separate promises, verified concessions, leadership turnover, a negotiating opening and democratization.
- Use a rival explanation, a discriminating observation and a transfer boundary.
Preparation and pacing
Designed for introductory comparative politics. No specialist vocabulary is required; definitions and evidence are supplied. A prior introduction to states, regimes and institutions can enrich the discussion. The complete route estimates 45-65 active minutes, around 55 centrally. A strict 50-minute class should allow a saved continuation before synthesis. Timing and learning effects require a human classroom pilot.
| Part | Planning allocation | Evidence to examine |
|---|---|---|
| Brief and institution map | About 6 minutes | Who relies on whose work or cooperation? |
| Five decisions | About 28 minutes | Forecasts, first explanations, consequences and revisions. |
| Changed-setting replay | About 6 minutes | Prediction, same prior state/action, changed backing package and scope limit. |
| Final explanation | About 10 minutes | Mechanism, cost, rival, implementation and transfer. |
| Export and discussion | About 5 minutes | Field report, lingering uncertainty and evidence requests. |
Assess the argument, not the ending
The field report begins with a learner-writing summary for grading, followed by the complete evidence, scripted feedback and preserved revisions. Minimum words and completion labels check the presence of responses; they do not grade quality, understanding or authorship.
| Suggested criterion | Weight |
|---|---|
| Accurate actor-dependency-behavior explanation | 30% |
| Specific, correctly characterized evidence from the simulation | 25% |
| Plausible rival and contextual constraints | 25% |
| Thoughtful revision and model critique | 20% |
Reward defensible disagreement with the model. An unsuccessful campaign can support an excellent analysis. Ask students to label a cited card as a fictional report or a scenario assumption. A model condition is not independent causal evidence.
Assignment settings and approved writing tools
Instructor studio can set the title, instructions, pivotal word floor, default setting and comparison requirement. It can allow paste for approved writing or accessibility workflows. The game’s local convenience code is explained in the downloadable full teaching notes. This setting is not secure authentication or a proctoring system. Assignment links and configured offline copies preserve settings.
Paste and text drops are blocked in response boxes by default; restore and instructor fields keep clipboard support. Typing/composition remains available. No clock, countdown, time lock or timing record is added. These controls do not verify original authorship.
Debrief prompts
- When did attention change without institutional behavior changing?
- Which particular actor withheld which form of cooperation?
- How could support limit a loss while the movement’s net endurance still fell?
- Who bore the cost of pressure, and who was partly insulated?
- What did the local comparison hold fixed, and which support package changed?
- Which promises were actually checked? What remains unknown about democracy?
Interpretive care and model limits
Lydora, its people, the events and numerical rules are fictional. Indices and cutoffs are authored rather than calibrated probabilities. The patron package includes both ruler support and protected payments to some firms; the replay cannot isolate those components separately. Public reach combines attention and relationships. New contact development is an explicit added scenario condition. Short-horizon security behavior and coalition consent are simplified.
Nonviolent methods can be disruptive and do not guarantee victory. Repression is the government’s responsibility. The scenario is a short domestic campaign, not a model of occupation. Scholarly inspiration is not endorsement by a named researcher. Software and AI-simulated reviews do not establish human learning gains.