This course will equip students with the most important tools, concepts and a survey of the methods in the area of comparative politics. Basic knowledge of central concepts is assumed. If you feel that you lack basic knowledge, you ought to catch up with some general reference or handbooks. A list of general readings is provided below.
The course is based on case studies, as well as large-n studies. It will illustrate advances in the conceptual frameworks underlying comparative analysis. It will then review all the different dimensions of comparative politics successively, starting with the central institutions of political systems: governments, legislatures and the judiciary. While not all political systems are democratic of course, all that we know of maintain some appearance of division of powers. We will also look at territorial structures and the relative importance of delegation. The second half of the course will focus on patterns of political participation and political actors. These are of course constrained by political structures and institutions, but they may also change those structures. In particular, we will focus on voters, parties, interest groups and social movements.
This course will attempt to cover the greatest possible variety of situations and geographic zones. It will not, however, aim at exhaustiveness. Fundamentally, we believe that the central concepts are useful to understand a great variety of situations, even if historical trajectories or cultural elements seem to make to particular episodes impossible to compare. Comparative politics assumes that comparison is always possible, as long as conceptual parameters are sufficiently specified. At times, we may look for most similar, crucial or most different cases or resort to large-n comparisons. Looking for differences or for similarities are research strategies that are part of the same endeavour to disentangle complex social and political processes. Case-study research and more quantitative approaches, not to speak about experimental protocols, complement each other. Students need to get acquainted with all of those strategies.
Emiliano GROSSMAN
Séminaire
English
Weekly readings, presentation, final paper
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Autumn 2023-2024
Oral Presentation, Oral Participation, Paper due for the last class session
Lecture (1 hour) and class discussions (1 hour)
Clark, W. R., Golder, M., & Golder, S. N. (2017). Principles of comparative politics. CQ Press