Comparative Political Research
Course syllabus, Autumn 2000
Lecturers: Matthijs Bogaards (Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, CEU) and Gábor Tóka (Department of Political Science, CEU).
Classes: from 12:40 to 14:20 on Wednesday and Thursday.
Goals
This is a four-credit comparative politics course for MA students, which aims to explore the strengths and limitations of comparative empirical analyses. At the same time it also serves as an introduction to structuralist and institutionalist accounts of political processes, reviewing some important theoretical controversies and empirical generalizations regarding the sources and consequences of variations in democratic regime types.
Most topics will be introduced by a lecture, which will usually review the scholarly literature on the substantive issues covered by the week's readings. Then we are going to discuss the mandatory readings and the methodological issue on the agenda of that week in a seminar format. Normally, the discussions will be introduced by short student presentations on the theoretical logic and possible weaknesses of the argument developed by the readings. With a few exceptions all mandatory readings are typical examples of state of the art scholarly writings. We will use them to critically explore the methodological problems of comparative reasoning and research. A course packet is available from the secretariat of the Political Science department.
Requirements
It is essential that (A) you contribute to the seminar discussions about the mandatory readings every week. Otherwise, however, the central consideration in evaluating your contributions to the seminars will be quality, and not length or frequency. Your remarks are expected to reflect a thorough digesting of the mandatory readings and enable us to spot and assess their errors as well as normative and practical implications. As indicated above, you will also be expected to do (B) some seminar presentations. Third, you will have to (C) produce a short description of how you see the way each mandatory reading tries to make its case, preferably with some critical remarks or questions of yours added at the end. You will have to send these notes by e-mail to the TOKAG.STAFF (or TOKAG@CEU.HU) e-mail address before each Wednesday. The semester will end with (D) a closed-book in-class test, with the questions addressing the issues explored by the seminars, lectures and the readings. Twenty percent of your grade will depend on (A) and (B) each, and thirty percent on (C) and (D) each.
Readings and topics
Topic 1: The goals of political research. The rise (and decay) of legal-historical institutionalism, behaviouralism and new institutionalism in the study of government
Mandatory readings:
Ragin, Charles C. 1994. Constructing Social Research: The Unity and Diversity of Method. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, pp. 31-53.
Peters, Guy B. 1999. Institutional Theory in Political Science: The 'New Institutionalism'. London: Pinter, pp. 1-24.
Topic 2: Exploration of cross-national variance and correlation. Example: the boundaries of the political community
Mandatory reading:
Horowitz, Donald L. 1994. "Democracy in Divided Societies." in Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict, and Democracy, ed. by Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 35-55.
Safran, William 1997. "Citizenship and Nationality in Democratic Systems: Approaches to Defining and Acquiring Membership in the Political Community." International Political Science Review 18: 313-35.
Stepan, Alfred 1994. "When Democracy and the Nation-state Are Competing Logics: Reflections on Estonia." European Journal of Sociology 35: 127-41.
Topic 3: Case studies with comparative referents. Developing causal propositions. Example: the impact of devolution, federalism, and other power-sharing arrangements
Mandatory readings:
Lijphart, Arend 1989. "From the Politics of Accommodation to Adversarial Politics in the Netherlands: A Re-Assessment." West European Politics 12 (1): 139-53.
Suberu, Ropimi Timothy 1990. "Federalism and Instability in Nigeria." Plural Societies 19 (2): 145-61.
Deschouwer, Kris 1999. "From Consociation to Federation: How the Belgian Parties Won." in Party Elites in Divided Societies: Political Parties in Consociational Democracy, ed. by K. R. Luther and Kris Deschouwer. London: Routledge, pp. 74-107.
Topic 4: Definitions, classifications and typologies as heuristic devices. Example: regime types
Mandatory readings:
Jowitt, Kenneth 1979. "Scientific Socialist Regimes in Africa: Political Differentiation, Avoidance, and Unawareness." in Socialism in Sub-Saharan Africa: A New Assessment, ed. by Carl Rosberg. Berkeley, CA: Institute for International Studies.
Collier, David, and Steven Levitsky 1997. "Democracy with Adjectives: Conceptual Innovation in Comparative Research." World Politics 49: 430-51.
Schedler, Andreas 1998. "What is Democratic Consolidation?" Journal of Democracy 9 (2): 91-107.
Topic 5: Intervening variables, interaction effects, and contextually rich causal propositions. Example: executive-legislative relations, legislative organization, semi- and super-presidentialism
Mandatory reading:
Riggs, Fred W. 1994. "Conceptual Homogenization of a Heterogeneous Field: Presidentialism in Comparative Perspective." in Comparing Nations: Concepts, Strategies, Substance, ed. by Mattei Dogan and Ali Kazancigil. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 72-152.
Topic 6: The logic of quantitative analyses and the degree of freedom problem. Example: cultural explanations, regime performance and social capital
Mandatory reading:
Putnam, Robert D., with Roberto Leonardi and Raffaella Y. Nanetti 1993. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 63-120.
Topic 7: The place of qualitative analyses in comparative inquiries. Example: corporatism and neo-corporatism
Guest lecturer: Professor László Bruszt, Department of Political Science, CEU)
Mandatory readings:
Marks, Gary 1986. "Neo-Corporatism and Incomes Policy in Western Europe and North America." Comparative Politics 17: 253-77.
Schmitter, Phillipe C., and Jurgen R. Grote 1997. "The Corporatist Sisyphus: Past, Present and Future." European University Institute Working Paper Series 97/4. Florence: European University Institute.
Topic 8: The importance of specifying the micro-logic behind the relationship between macro-variables. Example: electoral and party systems
Mandatory readings:
Blais, André, and Louis Massicote 1996. "Electoral Systems." in Comparing Democracies: Elections and Voting in a Global Perspective, ed. by Lawrence LeDuc, Richard Niemi, and Pippa Norris. London: Sage, pp. 49-81.
Mainwaring, Scott 1998. "Party Systems in the Third Wave." Journal of Democracy 9 (3): 67-81.
Topic 9: Predictions and the prospects of institutional engineering. Example: electoral system choice
Mandatory readings:
Sartori, Giovanni 1969. "Political Development and Political Engineering." in Public Policy No. 17, ed. by John D. Montgomery and Alfred O. Hirschmann. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 261-98.
Taagepera, Rein 1998. "How Electoral Systems Matter for Democratization." Democratization 5 (3): 68-91.
Moser, Robert G. 1999. "Electoral Systems and the Number of Parties in Postcommunist States." World Politics 51: 359-84.
Topic 10: The merits of theoretically expected weak correlations. Example: the analysis of coalition and minority governments
Mandatory reading:
Strom, Kaare 1990. Minority Government and Majority Rule. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 38-81, 90-1.
Topic 11: The trouble with strong correlations. Example: transitions from communism to democracy
Mandatory reading:
Fish, M. Steven 1998. "Democratization's Requisities: The Postcommunist Experience." Post-Soviet Affairs 34: 212-47.
Topic 12: Qualitative, quantitative and comparative research
Mandatory reading:
Ragin, Charles C. 1987. The Comparative Method: Moving Beyond Qualitative and Quantitative Strategies. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp. 19-52, 69-84.