PSC13 Introduction to Comparative Politics
Instructor: Richard S. Conley, PhD Office hours: TBA Email: [email protected] Teaching Assistant: Li Shao
Course Description This course introduces students to the discipline of comparative politics, a subfield in political science. Students of comparative politics study politics in countries around the world. Our course will focus on several important themes in the subfield including the science and the art of comparative politics, ideology and culture, political development, democracy and democratization, and the political economy of development. The approach in the class will be global in three senses of the term: 1) it provides broad coverage with select cases in Europe, Asia, North and South America, the Middle East, and Africa, 2) it offers conceptual comprehensiveness, and 3) it promotes critical thinking.
Learning Objectives: The general objective of this course is to increase the students knowledge of political realities all aver the world. Students will learn the many ways governments operate and the various ways people behave in political life. By the end of the term students should be able to: accurately describe political life in select countries in all of the world’s geographic regions; show a familiarity with a wide range of substantive issues in comparative politics and be able to discuss them critically; demonstrate mastery of the main theoretical and analytical approaches to the study of comparative politics.
Required Text Mark Kesselmen, Joel Krieger, William Joseph (eds.). Introduction to Comparative Politics (6th Edition, 2012). Available as an Electronic Book. ISBN-10: 1111831823; ISBN-13: 978- 1111831820. Other texts will be available as electronic files
Course Hours The course has 26 class sessions in total. Each class session is 90 minutes in length. The course meets from Monday to Thursday, and two additional class sessions on the third Friday (July 20) and the sixth Friday (August 10).
Grading Policy Course grades are based on a midterm (40%) and a final examination (60%). These exams consist of questions requiring both short answers and longer essays. Attendance is required; participation in class discussion is expected, including leading class discussion on one or more journal articles during the semester.
Course Schedules Lectures and assigned readings are both complementary and supplementary; neither is a complete substitute for the other. Pages from the text should be read prior to the lecture for which they are assigned. We move through a lot of material quickly, so keep up.
Concepts and Critical Thinking
July 2 Introduction and Overview
July 3 Comparative Politics: What is it? Why Study it?
Kesselmen et al., Chapter 1 (Introducing Comparative Politics)
July 4 Critical Thinking about Politics: Analytical Techniques of Political Science
Arend Lijphart, “Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method.” American Political Science Review 65 (1971): 682-693.
Giovanni Sartori, “Comparing and Miscomparing.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 3 (1991): 243-257.
Douglas Dion, “Evidence and Inference in the Comparative Case Study.” Comparative Politics 30 (1998): 127-145.
Review Symposium: “The Qualitative-Quantitative Disputation: King, Keohane, and Verba,” contributions by Caporaso, Collier, Laitin, Rogowski, Tarrow and rejoinders, American Political Science Review 89:2 (1995): 454-481.
July 5 Power
Peter Bachrach and Morton S. Baratz, “Two Faces of Power,” American Political Science Review 56, (1962): 947-952.
Kathleen Thelen, “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics.” Annual Review of Political Science 2 (1999): 369-404.
Gretchen Helmke and Steven Levitsky, “Informal Institutions and Comparative Politics: A Research Agenda.” Perspectives on Politics 2 (2004): 725-40.
July 5 States and Nations
Stephen Krasner, “Approaches to the State: Alternative Conceptions and Historical Dynamics.” Comparative Politics 16 (1984): 223-246.
James March and Johan Olsen, “The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life.” American Political Science Review 78 (1984): 734-749.
J. P. Nettl, “The State as a Conceptual Variable.” World Politics 20 (1968): 559-592.
Paul Cammack, “Bringing the State Back In: A Polemic.” British Journal of Political Science 19 (1989): 261-290.
July 9 Democracy: What is it? How does it Work?
Jose Cheibub and Fernando Limongi, “Democratic Institutions and Regime Survival: Parliamentary and Presidential Democracies Reconsidered.” Annual Review of Political Science 5 (2002): 151-79.
Arend Lijphart, “Constitutional Design for Divided Societies.” Journal of Democracy 15 (2004): 96-109.
Arend Lijphart, “Democracies: Forms, Performance, and Constitutional Engineering.” European Journal of Political Research 25 (19940: 1-17.
July 10 Democracy: What does it Take? Ten Conditions
Seymour Martin Lipset, “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy.” American Political Science Review 53 (1959): 69-105.
Zehra F. Arat, “Democracy and Economic Development: Modernization Theory Revisited.” Comparative Politics 21 (1988): 21-36.
Robert Putnam, “What Makes Democracy Work?” National Civic Review 82 (1993): 102-107.
July 11 People and Politics: Participation in Democracies and Nondemocracies
Arend Lijphart, “Unequal Participation: Democracy's Unresolved Dilemma.” American Political Science Review 91 (1997): 1-14.
Anirudh Krishna, “Enhancing Political Participation in Democracies: What is the Role of Social Capital?” Comparative Political Studies 35 (2002): 437-60.
Steven Finkel, “Civic Education and the Mobilization of Political Participation in Developing Democracies.” Journal of Politics 64 (2002): 994-1024.
July 12 The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Kesselmen et al., Chapter 2 (Britain)
July 16 France
Kesselmen et al., Chapter 3 (France)
Ideology and Culture; Interest Groups and Social Mobilization
July 17 Niles M. Hansen, “The Protestant Ethic as a General Precondition for Economic Development.” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 29 (1963): 462-474.
Marx and Engels, “Manifesto of the Communist Party.”
Francis Fukayama, “The End of History”? National Interest (1989).
July 18 Samuel Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations.” Foreign Affairs 72 (1992): 22-49.
Ronald Inglehart and Scott C. Flanagan, “Value Change in Industrial Societies.” American Political Science Review 81 (1987): 1289-1319.
Thomas H. Sander and Robert D. Putnam, “Still Bowling Alone? The Post-9/11 Split.” Journal of Democracy 21 (2010): 9-16.
July 19 Skocpol, “Social Revolutions and Mass Military Mobilization.” World Politics 40 (1988): 147-68.
Ted Gurr, “A Causal Model of Civil Strife: A Comparative Analysis Using New Indices.” American Political Science Review 62 (1968): 1104-1124.
July 20 Midterm exam
July 23 Rationality and Decision-Making: The Power of Institutions
Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science (1968).
Margaret Levi, “A model, a method, and a map: Rational choice in comparative and historical analysis.” In Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture, and Structure.
July 24 Juan Linz, “The Perils of Presidentialism.” Journal of Democracy 1 (Winter 1990): 51-69.
Arend Lijphart, “Consociational Democracy.” World Politics 21 (1969): 207-25.
Brian Barry, “The Consociational Model and Its Dangers.” European Journal of Political Research 3 (1975): 393-411.
George Tsebelis, “Decision Making in Political Systems: Veto Players in Presidentialism, Parliamentarism, Multicameralism and Multipartyism.” British Journal of Political Science 25 (1995): 289-325.
July 25 Rein Taagepera, “Why Electoral Systems Matter for Democratization.” Democratization 5 (1998): 68-91.
William Riker, “The Number of Political Parties: A Reexamination of Duverger's Law.” Comparative Politics 9 (1976): 93-106.
Pippa Norris, “Choosing Electoral Systems: Proportional, Majoritarian, and Mixed Systems,” International Political Science Review, Vol. 18 (1997): 297-312.
Richard W. Soudriette and Andrew Ellis, “Electoral Systems Today: A Global Snapshot,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 17, No. 2 (2006): 78-88.
Benjamin Reilly, “Electoral Systems for Divided Societies,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2002): 156-170.
July 26 Modernization Theory, Dependency Theory, The Political Economy of Development
Thomas Shannon: World Systems Systems Theory (excerpt).
July 30 South Africa and Nigeria
Kesselmen et al., Chapter 11 (South Africa) & Chapter 12 (Nigeria).
July 31 Brazil and India
Kesselmen et al., Chapter 6 (India) & Chapter 9 (Brazil).
August 1 The Middle East & China
Kesselmen et al., Chapter 13 (Iran) and Chapter 14 (China).
August 2 The Middle East
Moore and Springborg: The Middle East (excerpt)
August 6 Islam and Democracy
Asma Afsruddin, “The ‘Islamic State’: Genealogy, Facts, and Myths.” Journal of Church and State 48 (2006): 153-73.
Fareed Zakaria, “Islam, Democracy, and Constitutional Liberalism.” Political Science Quarterly 119 ( 2004): 1-20.
August 7 Islam and Democracy
Mark Tessler, “Islam and Democracy in the Middle East: The Impact of Religious Orientations on Attitudes toward Democracy in Four Arab Countries.” Comparative Politics 34 (2002): 337-354.
Manus Midlarsky, “Democracy and Islam: Implications for Civilizational Conflict and the Democratic Peace.” International Studies Quarterly 42 (1998): 485-511.
August 8 Politics in the United States
Kesselmen et al., Chapter 7 (United States).
August 9 Politics in the United States
Theda Skocpol, “The Tocqueville Problem: Civic Engagement in American Democracy.” Social Science History 21 (1997): 455-479.
Andrew Rudalevige, “The Decline and Resurgence and Decline (and Resurgence?) of Congress: Charting a New Imperial Presidency.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 36 (2006): 506-24.
August 10 Review
Academic Honesty Academic integrity is an essential value of any intellectual community, and the University regards academic dishonesty in any form as a serious offense against the academic community in general and against this University in particular. I expect students to be fully aware of the University’s policies regarding academic integrity. Ignorance of academic policies is not considered a defense against substantiated charges of plagiarism or other academic dishonesty, including cheating and falsification of data.