Comparing Politics around the Globe

Catalog description

This course examines the variety of ways that people seek and wield power around the world. Through cross national comparison and individual country analysis, the course considers different forms of democratic and authoritarian regimes, sources of stability and change in different regime types, and the relationship between cultural, economic, and social factors and political processes. Students are introduced to the central questions in comparative politics, including What is the state and where did it come from? What is democracy? Why are some countries democracies whereas others are dictatorships? Does the kind of regime a country has affect the prosperity and well-being of its citizens? Why are ethnic groups politicized in some countries but not in others? Why do some countries have many parties whereas some have only a few? How do governments form, and what determines the type of government that takes office? What are the material and normative implications associated with different types of government? The course examines competing answers to questions such as these and evaluates the explanations for their logical consistency and empirical accuracy. Students learn to compare political phenomena across disparate contexts and how to use such comparisons to test claims about the political world. In doing so, they learn about the similarities and differences among countries and a range of approaches to analyzing the political world. The course supports honors students in their progress toward independent research by focusing on what political scientists studying Comparative Politics do, the types of questions they ask, and the methods they employ to answer those questions, including game theory and statistical analysis. Engagement with scholarly literature prepares students to draw on existing research to frame their own research questions about Comparative Politics.