Government 390K (#37565)

Clement M. Henry

Seminar meets Wednesdays, 6:30-9:30 p.m., Burdine 128

Burdine 422 Office hours: Tu 2-3:15, Th 9:45-10:45, or by appt E-Mail address: chenry@mail.utexas.edu

Comparative Study of Political Systems

This is the "core" seminar in Comparative Politics intended primarily for graduate students entering the comparative field. We will critically examine contemporary Weberian, Marxist, and post-structural approaches (including rational choice as well as the fuzzy post-modern stuff) to the comparative study of politics. We will move from strategies of comparative investigation to underlying theoretical approaches and then examine substantive contemporary issues in light of our methodological and theoretical preparations. While there is little overlap with the readings offered in political economy seminars, we will be interested in industry structures as well as formal political structures because some of the most interesting contemporary comparative political studies draw heavily upon Marxian and non-Marxian traditions of political economy. Contemporary political transitions can only be understood in the context of interdependence, and this interdependence has reached its fullest expression in global financial markets.

 Assignments

I want to prepare you for those eventual preliminary exams in comparative politics. So class participation is vital, and each of you is to present your take on the readings for the week and come up with your own position on them.

 1. Summaries (5% of your grade). Your first exercise, due Wed., Sept. 1, is to summarize three of the required readings in no more than one hundred words each. Two or three sentences can do it for each article/book. I will ask you to redo your summaries until you perfect your technique. Then you will be able to build your own database out of the comparative literature that you read here and in other courses.

2. Two class briefings (15%). Each of you will be expected to write 2 essays of no more than 800 words each as briefings on the readings for class discussion. On Sept 1 in class you will be expected to select two dates. The briefing should be made available to the class via email the day before, so that everyone has a chance to read it before class.

3. One 1500-word paper (15%) due Friday, Oct. 1outlining your theoretical position on one of the topics we have or will be discussing in the seminar - and this paper may lead you into:

4. One 2500-word paper (20%) due Friday, Nov. 12 that provides an approach to defending your argument - maybe via field work or data collection - in short, a research design.

5. Mock prelim (25%). Three hour in-class written examination, December 1, 2004.

6. Lots of class participation (20%). Can also, in addition to our conventional seminar setting, take the form of contributions to online discussions via email. 

Required/recommended books available for purchase:

Abel's Course Packet available at Abel's, 715 23rd St - University Towers parking (tel. 472-5353). N.B. You must show this syllabus to receive the packet.
 
 
Topics and Readings
 
N.B. All of the required core readings, except those in the course packet or those posted online, have been requested for overnight reserve at PCL. @ means the reading is included in your Abel's Packet. 

Aug. 25 Getting started: Overview.

Week 01 (Sept. 1) Methods: What and how do we compare? - Recent debates

@Adam Przeworksi and Henry Teune, The Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry (Malabar, FL: Krieger, 1982), pp. 3-57.
Giovanni Sartori, "Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics," APSR 64:4 (Dec. 1970), pp. 1033-1053.
David Collier and James Mahon, "Conceptual Stretching Revisited," APSR 87:4 (Dec. 1993), pp. 845-855.
Arendt Lijphart, "Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method," APSR 65:3 (Sept. 1971), pp. 682-693.
@Gary King, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research (Princeton UP, 1994), pp. 3-33
Review Symposium: The Qualitative-Quantitative Disputation: Gary King, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba's Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research
David Laitin, "Disciplining Social Science," pp. 454-456
James A. Caporaso, "Designing Social Inquiry; Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research, pp. 457-460.
David Collier, "Translating Methods for Qualitative Researcher: The Case of Selection Bias," pp. 461-466
Ronald Rogowski, "The Role of Theory and Anomaly in Social-Scientific Inference," pp. 467-470
@Gerardo Munck, Tools for Qualitative Reseach, in Henry Brady and David Collier, eds., Rethinking Social Inquiry (Lanham, MD: owman and Littlefield, forthcoming)
@Charles Ragin, Diversity-Oriented Research, Ch. 1 of Fuzzy-Set Social Science (University of Chicago Press, 2000), pp. 21-42.

 

Part I: Approaches

Week 02 (Sept. 8) Systems Theory and Culturalism

 @Gabriel Almond, Introduction: A Functional Approach to Comparative Politics. In idem & James Coleman, eds. The Politics of the Developing Areas (Princeton UP, 1960), pp. 3-64.
Mark Lichbach. Is Rational Choice Theory All of Social Science? (Univ. Michigan Press, 2003), ch.5.
@Max Weber. The Types of Legitimate Domination, in Economy & Society, ed. by Guenther Roth & Claus Wittich (Berkeley: U. California Pr., 1978), pp. 212-254.
David Elkins & R. Simeon. "A Cause in Search of its Effects, or: What Does Political Culture Explain?" Comparative Politics 11:2 (January 1979), pp. 127-145.
Pippa Norris, ed. Critical Citizens (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999), pp. 1-99, 169-272 [you don't need to read chs. 2-4 as carefully as the rest].
Robert D. Putnam with Robert Leonardi and Raffaella Y. Nanetti, Making democracy work : civic traditions in modern Italy, Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1993, pp. 3-16, 83-137, 152-171, skim rest.
 
Week 03 (September 15): Marxism, Neo-Marxism, etc.
 
@Martin Carnoy, The State and Political Theory (Stanford UP, 1984), pp. 44-127, 172-207, 246-61.
Erik Olin Wright, ed., Introduction and Chapter 1, Approaches to Class Analysis (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
@Göran Therborn, "Into the 21st Century: The New Parameters of Global Politics," New Left Review # 10 (July-August 2001), pp. 87-110.
Timothy Mitchell, "The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and their Critics," APSR 85:1 (March 1991), 77-96.
 
Week 04 (September 22): Institutionalism and Neo-Statism
 
@Max Weber, Political and Hierarchical Organizations, in Economy & Society, ed. by Guenther Roth & Claus Wittich (Berkeley: U. California Pr., 1978), pp. 53-56.
James March & Johan Olsen, "The New Institutionalism," APSR 78:3 (Sept.1984), pp. 734-749.
@Theda Skocpol, Bringing the State Back In, in Peter Evans et al., eds. Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge UP, 1985), pp. 3-37.
@Charles Tilly, War Making and State Making as Organized Crime, in Evans et al., pp. 169-191.
@Alexander Gerschenkron, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective (Harvard UP, 1962), ch. 1: pp. 5-30.
Peter Hall, "Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State," Comparative Politics 25:3 (April 1993), pp. 275-296.
Peter Hall and Rosemary Taylor, Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms, Political Studies 44:5 (December 1996), pp. 936-957.
Paul Pierson, "Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics," APSR 94:2 (June 2000), pp. 251-267.
Mark Lichbach. Is Rational Choice Theory All of Social Science? (Univ. Michigan Press, 2003), ch.6.
 
Questions for 5 pp. paper distributed at the end of class
 
 
Week 05 (Sept. 29): Rational Choice I
 
@George Tsebelis, Nested Games (Berkeley: U. California Pr., 1990), ch.2: pp. 18-48.
@Mancur Olson, The Rise and Decline of Nations (New Haven: Yale UP, 1982), pp. 17-74.
@Richard Thaler, The Winner's Curse (Princeton UP, 1992), pp. 6-20.
@Robert H.Bates, Essays on the Political Economy of Rural Africa (Univ of California Press, 1987), pp. 107-147, 164-171.
Colin Leys, Rational Choice or Hobson's Choice? in The Rise and Fall of Development Theory (Indiana University Press, 1996), pp. 80-103.
 
5 pp. paper is due on Friday, October 1, at 10:00 a.m., in my mailbox in 536 Burdine.
  
Week 06 (October 6): Rational Choice II
 
@ Kenneth Shepsle, "Studying Institutions: Some Lessons from the Rational Choice Approach," Journal of Theoretical Politics 1:2 (April 1989), pp. 131-47.
George Tsebelis, "Decision Making in Political Systems: Veto Players..." British Journal of Political Science 25:3 (July 1995), pp. 289-325.
@ Donald Green and Ian Shapiro, Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory (Yale UP, 1994), ch.3, pp. 33-46.
Mark Lichbach. Is Rational Choice Theory All of Social Science? (Univ. Michigan Press, 2003), chs. 3-4.
Robert Bates, Rui de Figueiredo, and Barry Weingast, "The Politics of Interpretation: Rationality, Culture, and Transition," Politics and Society 26:4 (December 1998), pp. 603-642.
@ Robert Bates et al. Introduction, Analytic Narratives (Princeton UP, 1998), pp. 3-22.
John Waterbury, Exposed to Innumerable Delusions: Public Enterprises and State Power in Egypt, India, Mexico, and Turkey, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp. 1-30.
  
Part II ISSUES
 
Week 07 (October 13): Political Economy & Development: First World
 
Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Huber Stephens, and John Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), read pp. 1-78 carefully and pp. 79-154 "fast," and skim the rest.
Geoffrey Garrett, Partisan Politics in the Global Economy (Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 1-25, 125-158, skim rest.
Ronald Rogowski, "Political Cleavages and Changing Exposure to Trade," The American Political Science Review, Vol. 81, No. 4. (Dec., 1987), pp. 1121-1137.
 
Week 08 (October 20): Political Economy & Development: Third World
 
@ Daniel Lerner, The Passing of Traditional Society (New York, London: Free Press, Collier-Macmillan, 1958), ch.2, pp. 43-75.
Samuel Huntington, "Political Development and Political Decay," World Politics 17:3 (April 1965), pp. 386-430.
Colin Leys, Underdevelopment and Dependency: Critical Notes, and Sam Huntington and the End of Classical Modernization Theory, in The Rise and Fall of Development Theory (Indiana University Press, 1996), pp. 45-79
@ Osvaldo Sunkel, "Big Business and 'Dependencia,'" Foreign Affairs (1972), pp. 517-531.
Please review Alexander Gerschenkron's chapter from week 4.
@ Barbara Geddes, Challenging the Conventional Wisdom, in Larry Diamond & Marc Plattner, eds. Economic Reform and Democracy (Johns Hopkins UP, 1995), pp. 59-73.
@ Stephan Haggard and Robert Kaufman, Democratic Transitions and Economic Reform, in The Political Economy of Democratic Transition (Princeton UP, 1995), pp. 151-182.
@ Susan Stokes, Public Opinion of Market Reforms, in Stokes, ed. Public Support for Market Reforms in New Democracies (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001), pp. 1-32.
Kurt Weyland, "The Political Fate of Market Reform in Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe," International Studies Quarterly 42 (!998), pp. 645-674.
  
Week 09 (October 27): Revolution
 
Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions (Cambridge UP, 1979), read chs. 1 - 4 and Conclusion. Skim rest.
@ Jeff Goodwin and Theda Skocpol, Explaining Revolutions in the Contemporary Third World. Politics & Society 17:4 (December 1989), pp. 489-509.
S.A. Arjomand, "Iran's Revolution in Comparative Perspective" World Politics 38:2 (Jan. 1986), pp. 383-414
Jeffrey Berejikian, "Revolutionary Collective Action and the Agent-Structure Problem," APSR 86:3 (1992), pp. 647-657.
@ Tymowski, Andrzej, "Poland's Unwanted Social Revolution," East European Politics and Society 7:2 (Spring 1993), pp. 169-202.
 
 Questions for 10 pp. paper distributed on Oct. 27 at the end of class; if you prefer to do a research design instead, please consult with me during that week on a specific topic and make sure to follow the guidelines outlined in Przeworski and Salomon, "On the Art of Writing Proposals" [= last item of course pack]
 
 Week 10 (November 3): Authoritarianism, Democracy & Regime Transitions
 
@ Robert Dahl. Polyarchy (New Haven: Yale UP, 1971), pp. 1-16.
Guillermo O'Donnell & Philippe Schmitter. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore & London: Johns Hopkins UP, 1986), entire.
@ Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 3-15, 38-65.
Michael Bratton and Nicolas van de Walle, "Neopatrimonial Regimes and Political Transitions in Africa," World Politics 46:4 (July 1994), pp. 453-489.
Michael McFaul, "The Fourth Wave of Democracy and Dictatorship," World Politics 54:2 (January 2002), pp. 212-244.
Adam Przeworski and Fernando Limongi, "Modernization," World Politics 49:2 (January 1997), pp. 155-183.
Guillermo O'Donnell, "On the State, Democratization, and Some Conceptual Problems," World Development 21:8 (August 1993), pp. 1355-1369.
Thomas Carothers, "The End of the Transition Paradigm," Journal of Democracy 13:1 (Jan. 2002), pp. 5-21
Special Issue: Comparative Politics 36:2 (Jan 2004) - Enduring Authoritarianism: Lessons from the Middle East in Comparative Theory
 
Week 11 (November 10): Political Participation I: Political Parties and Elections
 
@ Seymour Martin Lipset & Stein Rokkan, Cleavage Structures, Party Systems, and Voter Alignments, in Party Systems and Voter Alignments (New York: Free Press/Macmillan, 1967), pp. 1-64.
@ Russell Dalton et al., eds., Electoral Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies (Princeton UP, 1984), chap. 15.
Gary Cox, Making Votes Count (Cambridge UP, 1997), read pp. 3-33, 69-98, 139-172, 181-221, 269-278, and skim the rest.
Herbert Kitschelt, "Linkages between Citizens and Politicians in Democratic Polities," Comparative Political Studies 33: 6/7 (August/September 2000), pp. 845-879.
 
10 pp. paper or research design is due on Friday, November 14, at 10:00 a.m., in my mailbox in 536 Burdine.
 
Week 12 (November 17): Political Participation II: Interest Groups and Social Movements
 
@ David Riesman. The Lonely Crowd (New Haven: Yale UP, 1950), pp. 242-255.
Philippe Schmitter, "Still the Century of Corporatism?" Review of Politics 36:1 (Jan. 1974), pp. 85-131.
Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement, 2nd ed.! (Cambridge UP, 1998), pp. 1-25, 71-210.
Richard Price, "Transnational Civil Society and Advocacy in World Politics," World Politics 55:4 (2003), pp. 579-606.
 
 Week 13 (November 24): Nationalism and Beyond
<we may discuss rescheduling this session due to Thanksgiving>
 
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, revised edition (London: Verso, 1991). Entire.
Jack Snyder and Karen Ballentine, "Nationalism and the Marketplace of Ideas," International Security 21:2 (Autumn 1996), pp. 5-40.
James Fearon and David Laitin, "Explaining Interethnic Cooperation," APSR 90:4 (December 1996), pp. 715-735.
Ashutosh Varshney, "Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict, and Civil Society: India and Beyond," World Politics 53:3 (April 2001), pp. 362-398.
Jonathan Laurence, Managing Transnational Islam in Western Europe: The Limits of Institutional and Postnational Approaches (2004 draft paper)
 
 Week 14 (December 1): Three-Hour Mock Prelim
 
Oct. 2, 2004
Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin.
Questions, Comments, and Suggestions to chenry@mail.utexas.edu
Copyright © 2004 University of Texas at Austin