Department of Government and International Studies
Government 575: Comparative Research on Democratization
Spring 1999
Thursday, 3:30-6:00 p.m., DeBartolo 241
Office hours: Wednesdays 1-4 p.m.
in O'Shaughnessy 217
or by appointment in 206 Hesburgh Center
Michael Coppedge, Associate Professor
e-mail: coppedge.1@nd.edu
phone: 631-7036 (Kellogg)
631-4270 (O’Shaughnessy)
One of the central tasks in the study of politics has long been to explain the birth and survival of democracy. Over the years, scholars have offered dozens of hypotheses, focusing on culture, institutions, leadership, religion, ethnic cleavages, diffusion, dependency, social equality, economic development, or various combinations of several of the above. Clearly the problem has not been the difficulty of dreaming up explanations, but the difficulty of demonstrating which one or ones are correct. In their efforts to support some of the possible explanations, political scientists and sociologists have employed nearly every research method imaginable, and in recent years an escalation of methodological sophistication has taken some research on democratization to the cutting edge of comparative politics. A roughly chronological selection of this literature can therefore serve as a springboard for discussions about both practical questions of research design and methods, and the fascinating and timely theoretical question of what causes democracy--which are the twin topics of this course.
In addition to reading and discussing selected works on democratization, you are required to (1) carry out 5 small exercises to give you practice in critiquing research, generating theory, and testing hypotheses; and (2) perform original research culminating in a 15-25-page paper on some question of the determinants of democracy. I will offer in-class workshops on the data analysis techniques that you will need to do each exercise, and will also meet privately with anyone wishing an individualized tutorial on the technique. Grades will be based on 10 percent for each exercise, 20 percent for the first complete draft of your research paper, and 30 percent for the final draft. Please do not plan on taking an Incomplete for this course. It is almost always a bad idea, as you are not likely to have more time to devote to your paper later on, and late papers are rarely better than ones turned in on time. For this reason, I will deduct one sign (eg., A to A-) from the grade of any paper turned in over the summer, and two signs (eg., A to B+) for any paper turned in by the absolute deadline of exam week of the fall 1999 semester. Any paper not turned in by that date becomes an automatic F by Graduate School rules.
Four books have been ordered for purchase:
Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Transitions (Johns Hopkins UP, 1986). ISBN 0-8018-2682-9
Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation (Johns Hopkins UP, 1996). ISBN 0-8018-5158-0
Juan J. Linz, The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Crisis, Breakdown, and Reequilibration (Johns Hopkins, 1978). ISBN 0-8018-2009-X
Youssef Cohen, Radicals, Reformers, and Reactionaries: The Prisoner's Dilemma and the Collapse of Democracy in Latin America (Chicago, 1994). ISBN 0-226-11272-1
Because the class size is so small and copyright regulations are being enforced more tightly, there is no course packet. However, all of the required readings have been placed on reserve at Hesburgh Library. I also have a complete set of the readings that are not in contained in the above books and I would be happy to lend it to one person at a time for making individual photocopies.
Reading List
January 14: Common Sense
The logic of comparison, theorizing about complex processes, the “many variables, small n” problem.
No required reading.
Recommended: forum on King, Keohane, Verba’s Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research, American Political Science Review 89:2 (June 1995): 454-81; Philip E. Tetlock and Aaron Belkin, Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics (Princeton UP, 1996).
January 21: Checklists
Definitions of what we are explaining, role of conventional wisdom in theory-building.
*10% of grade: Bring to class a comprehensive checklist of all the possible factors that may “cause democracy.”
Dankwart Rustow, “Transitions to Democracy,” Comparative Politics 2 (1970): 337-63.
Robert Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (Yale UP, 1971), chapters 1 and 10.
Larry Diamond, Juan Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset, “Introduction: What Makes for a Democracy?” in Diamond, Linz, and Lipset, eds., Politics in Developing Countries, 2nd ed. (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1995), pp. 1-66.
Doh Chull Shin, “On the Third Wave of Democratization: A Synthesis and Evaluation of Recent Theory and Research,” World Politics 47 (October 1994): 135-70.
Giovanni Sartori, “How Far Can Free Government Travel?” Journal of Democracy 6:3 (July 1995): 101-111.
Larry Diamond, “Is the Third Wave Over?” Journal of Democracy 7:3 (July 1996): 20-37.
Recommended: Seymour Martin Lipset, “The Social Requisites of Democracy Revisited: 1993 Presidential Address,” American Sociological Review 59 (February 1994): 1-22; Robert A. Dahl, On Democracy (Yale UP, 1998); Samuel P. Huntington, “Democracy for the Long Haul,” Journal of Democracy 7:2 (April 1996): 3-13; Karen Remmer, “The Sustainability of Political Democracy: Lessons from South America,” Comparative Political Studies 29:6 (December 1996): 611-34.
January 28: Comparative History and Path Dependence
Necessary and sufficient conditions, structural explanations, causal mechanisms, small n, large T, “cheating.”
Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Basic Books, 1966), pp. 413-32: "The Democratic Route to Modern Society."
Theda Skocpol, “A Critical Review of Barrington Moore’s Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy,” Politics and Society (Fall 1973): 1-34.
Terry Lynn Karl, "Dilemmas of Democratization in Latin America," Comparative Politics 23:1 (October 1990): 1-21.
Dietrich Rueschemeyer, John D. Stephens, and Evelyne Huber Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democracy (Chicago, 1992), chapter 3, pp. 40-78.
Brian Downing, “Medieval Origins of Constitutional Government,” in his The Military Revolution and Political Change (Princeton UP, 1992), pp. 18-55.
Recommended: Karl de Schweinitz, Industrialization and democracy; economic necessities and political possibilities (Free Press of Glencoe, 1964);; Nancy Bermeo, “Democracy and the Lessons of Dictatorship,” Comparative Politics 24:3 (April 1992): 273-91l; Ruth Berins Collier and David Collier, Shaping the Political Arena; Beverly Crawford and Arend Lijphart, “Explaining Political and Economic Change in Post-Communist Eastern Europe: Old Legacies, New Institutions, Hegemonic Norms, and International Pressures,” Comparative Political Studies 28:2 (July 1995): 171-99; Thomas Ertman, Birth of the Leviathan : Building States and Regimes in Medieval and Early ModernEurope (CambridgeUP,1997).
February 4: More Ambitious Projects
Relationships among causes; levels of analysis.
**10% of grade: Hand in 3 one-paragraph puzzles with potential to become seminar paper topics.
Samuel Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman: U Oklahoma P, 1991), pp. 31-108.
Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation (Johns Hopkins UP, 1996), chapters 1-4. ISBN 0-8018-5158-0
February 11: Inductive Elite Theories
Structure and agency; process; in-class discussion of research designs for seminar papers.
Juan J. Linz, The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Crisis, Breakdown, and Reequilibration (Johns Hopkins, 1978). 130 pp. ISBN 0-8018-2009-X
Guillermo O’Donnell and Phillippe Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Transitions (Johns Hopkins UP, 1986). 71 pp. ISBN 0-8018-2682-9
Recommended: your choice of case studies from these collections.
February 18: Deductive Elite Theories
What is theory? deductive vs. inductive approaches, cumulation, “lying,” thorough testing.
Barbara Geddes, "Paradigms and Sandcastles: Research Design in Comparative Politics,” APSA-CP Newsletter 8:1 (Winter 1997): 18-21.
Adam Przeworski, Democracy and the Market (Cambridge UP, 1991), chapter 2, "Transitions to Democracy," pp. 51-99.
Youssef Cohen, Radicals, Reformers, and Reactionaries: The Prisoner's Dilemma and the Collapse of Democracy in Latin America (Chicago, 1994), pp. 1-75. ISBN 0-226-11272-1
Barry R. Weingast, “The Political Foundations of Democracy and the Rule of Law,” American Political Science Review 91: 2 (June 1997): 245-63.
Recommended: Gretchen Caspar and Michelle M. Taylor, Negotiating Democracy: Transitions from Authoritarian Rule (U Pittsburgh P, 1996).
February 25: Culture and Cleavages
What is culture? static causes, inertia, case selection, vicious/virtuous cycles; share data on democracy and religion.
Robert Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton, 1993), chap. 5, pp. 121-62.
Robert W. Jackman and Ross A. Miller, “A Renaissance of Political Culture?” American Journal of Political Science 40:3 (August 1996): 632-59.
Samuel Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations,” Foreign Affairs 72:3 (Summer 1993): 22-49.
Powell, Contemporary Democracies, pp. 154-74.
Donald L. Horowitz, "Democracy in Divided Societies," Journal of Democracy 4:4 (October 1993): 18-38.
Ashutosh Varshney, "Postmodernism, Civic Engagement, and Ethnic Conflict: A Passage to India," Comparative Politics 30:1 (October 1997): 1-20.
Recommended: Douglas Dion, “Evidence and Inference in the Comparative Case Study,” Comparative Politics 30:2 (January 1998): 127-45; Edward Tufte and Robert A. Dahl, Size and Democracy (Stanford UP, 1973); Dana Ott, “State Size, Regime Type and Political Protest: Empirical Findings of the Analysis,” chapter 5 from 1995 Brown University dissertation and unpublished ms. Sidney Tarrow, “Making Social Science Work Across Space and Time: A Critical Reflection on Robert Putnam’s Making Democracy Work,” American Political Science Review 90:2 (June 1996): 389-97; Arend Lijphart, “The Puzzle of Indian Democracy: A Consociational Interpretation,” American Political Science Review 90:2 (June 1996): 258-68.
March 4: Institutions
Presidential vs. parliamentary democracies; party systems; federalism.
Workshop on cross-sectional, bivariate analysis, categorical data, cross-tabs, and correlation.
Juan Linz, “Presidential or Parliamentary Democracy: Does It Make a Difference?” in Linz and Valenzuela, eds., The Failure of Presidential Democracy (Johns Hopkins, 1994), pp. 3-87.
Scott Mainwaring, “Presidentialism, Multipartism, and Democracy: The Difficult Combination,” Comparative Political Studies 26 (July 1993): 198‑228.
Scott Mainwaring and Matthew Soberg Shugart, “Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin America: Rethinking the Terms of the Debate,” in Mainwaring and Shugart, Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin America (Cambridge UP, 1997), pp. 12-54.
Mark Gasiorowski and Timothy Power, “Institutional Design and Democratic Consolidation in the Third World,” Comparative Political Studies 30:2 (April 1997): 123-55.
Recommended: G. Bingham Powell, Jr., Contemporary Democracies: Participation, Stability, and Violence (Harvard, 1982), pp. 54-73; Alfred Stepan and Cindy Skach, “Constitutional Frameworks and Democratic Consolidation: Parliamentarism and Presidentialism,” World Politics 46 (October 1993): 1-22.
**Spring Break**
March 18: Modernization theories
cross-sectional vs. time-series analysis, thin concepts and theories, multicollinearity.
10% of grade: Produce a cross-tabulation or correlation of the relationship between an institution or culture or religion, on the one hand, and the measures of democracy used by Cutright, Bollen, Freedom House, Hadenius, or Coppedge and Reinicke. Prepare to present during this class.
Workshop on simple regression.
Daniel Lerner, The Passing of Traditional Society (Free Press, 1958), pp. 19-42.
Seymour Martin Lipset, “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy,” American Political Science Review 53 (March 1959): 69-105.
Phillips Cutright, “National Political Development: Measurement and Analysis,” American Sociological Review 28 (1963): 253-64.
Axel Hadenius, Democracy and Development, (Cambridge UP, 1992), pp. 77-111.
Recommended: Marvin E. Olsen, “Multivariate Analysis of National Political Development,” American Sociological Review 33 (1968): 699-712; Zehra Arat, “Democracy and Economic Development: Modernization Theory Revisited,” Comparative Politics 21 (1988): 21-36.
March 25: Level of economic development and equality
Cross-sectional, bivariate regression, association vs. causation, direction of causation, disconfirming alternative hypotheses, model selection.
Workshop on multiple regression and Boolean analysis.
R.W. Jackman, “On the Relation of Economic Development and Democratic Performance,” American Journal of Political Science 17 (1973): 611-21.
Gregory C. Brunk, Gregory A. Caldeira, and Michael S. Lewis-Beck, “Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy: An Empirical Inquiry,” European Journal of Political Research 15 (1987): 459-70.
Edward N. Muller, “Democracy, Economic Development, and Income Inequality,” American Sociological Review 53:2 (February 1988): 50-68.
Dietrich Rueschemeyer, “Different Methods, Contradictory Results? Research on Development and Democracy,” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 32:1-2 (1991): 9-38.
Larry Diamond, “Economic Development and Democracy Reconsidered,” in Gary Marks and Larry Diamond, eds., Reexamining Democracy (Newbury Park: SAGE, 1992), pp. 93-139.
Adam Przeworski and Fernando Limongi, “Modernization: Theories and Facts,” World Politics 49:2 (January 1997): 155-83.
Recommended: Manus Midlarsky, “The Origins of Democracy in Agrarian Society: Land Inequality and Political Rights,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 36:3 (September 1992): 454-77; Mitchell Seligson, “Democratization in Latin America: The Current Cycle,” in James M. Malloy and Mitchell A. Seligson, eds., Authoritarians and Democrats: Regime Transition in Latin America (Pittsburgh, 1987), pp. 3-12.
April 1: Multivariate hypotheses
Multivariate cross-sectional analysis, boolean analysis, nonlinear relationships.
Workshop on time series and structural equations.
Kenneth Bollen and Robert Jackman, “Political Democracy and the Size Distribution of Income,” American Sociological Review 50 (1985): 438-57.
Dirk Berg-Schlosser and Gisèle De Meur, “Conditions of Democracy in Interwar Europe: A Boolean Test of Major Hypotheses,” Comparative Politics 26:3 (April 1994): 253-80.
Seymour Martin Lipset, Kyoung-Ryung Seong, and John Charles Torres, “A Comparative Analysis of the Social Requisites of Democracy,” International Social Science Journal 136 (May 1993): 155-75.
Michael Coppedge, “Modernization and Thresholds of Democracy: Evidence for a Common Path and Process,” in Manus Midlarsky, ed., Inequality, Democracy, and Economic Development (NY: Cambridge UP, 1996).
Recommended: Gisele De Meur and Dietrich Berg-Schlosser, “Conditions of Authoritarianism, Fascism, and Democracy in Interwar Europe: Systematic Matching and Contrasting Cases for ‘Small-N’ Analysis,” Comparative Political Studies 29:4 (August 1996): 423-68.
April 8: Diffusion and regional effects
Cross-unit/transnational causation, time-series analysis, the toy universe.
10% of grade: Report on relationships between an indicator of democracy and at least two independent variables using multiple regression or Boolean analysis.
Laurence Whitehead, “International Aspects of Democratization,” in Guillermo O’Donnell, Philippe Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead, eds., Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives (Johns Hopkins UP, 1986), pp. 3-46.
Kenneth Bollen, “World System Position, Dependency, and Democracy: The Cross-National Evidence,” American Sociological Review 48 (1983): 468-79.
Lev S. Gonick and Robert M. Rosh, “The Structural Constraints of the World-Economy on National Political Development,” Comparative Political Studies 21 (1988): 171-99.
Harvey Starr, “Democratic Dominoes: Diffusion Approaches to the Spread of Democracy in the International System,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 35:2 (June 1991): 356-381.
John O'Loughlin, Michael D. Ward, et al., "The Diffusion of Democracy, 1946‑1994," Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 88:4 (December 1998): 545-74. [The original is in color and is worth seeing.]
Recommended: John Markoff, Waves of Democracy: Social Movements and Political Change (SAGE, 1996); Laurence Whitehead, ed., The International Dimensions of Democratization: Europe and the Americas (Oxford UP, 1996).
April 15: Complex models
Approaching common sense, returning to the direction of causation, interactions; synthesis.
**You must give a complete, though not final, draft of your paper to your discussant today.
P. Cutright and J.A. Wiley, “Modernization and Political Representation: 1927-1966,” Studies in Comparative International Development 5 (1969): 23-44.
John F. Helliwell, “Empirical Linkages Between Democracy and Economic Growth,” British Journal of Political Science 24:2 (April 1994): 225-48.
Michael T. Hannan and Glenn R. Carroll, “Dynamics of Formal Political Structure: An Event-History Analysis,” American Sociological Review 46 (1981): 19-35.
Ross E. Burkhart and Michael Lewis-Beck, “Comparative Democracy: The Economic Development Thesis,” American Political Science Review 88:4 (December 1994): 903-910.
Edward N. Muller, “Economic Determinants of Democracy,” American Sociological Review 60:4 (December 1995): 966-82, and debate with Bollen and Jackman following on pp. 983-96.
John B. Londregan and Keith T. Poole, “Does High Income Promote Democracy?” World Politics 49:1 (October 1996): 1-30.
Adam Przeworski, Michael Alvarez, José Antonio Cheibub, and Fernando Limongi, “What Makes Democracies Endure?” Journal of Democracy 7:1 (January 1996): 39-55.
Mark J. Gasiorowski, "The structural determinants of democratic consolidation, Comparative Political Studies 31:6 (December 1998): 740-771.
Recommended: Mark J. Gasiorowski, “Economic Crisis and Political Regime Change: An Event-History Analysis,” American Political Science Review 89:4 (December 1995): 882-97; Michael Coppedge, “Thickening Thin Concepts and Theories: Combining Large N and Small in Comparative Politics,” Comparative Politics 32:4 (forthcoming July 1999). A lengthier version more focused on democratization can be found at <http://www.nd.edu:80/~mcoppedg/crd/cpmeth.htm>.
April 22: Presentations and Critiques
**10% of grade: You must present and critique the draft of a classmate’s paper.
**20% of grade: Your first complete draft of your seminar paper.
**30% of grade: The final version of your seminar paper, due on the date to be assigned for the final exam. (There is no final exam.)