ASPO 27A10 - Comparative Politics

This course provides an introduction to the study of comparative politics. We will provide a survey of some of the most important questions of the field: Why are some countries demo-cratic, while others are not? Does democracy make a difference in terms of well-being of its citizens? Do elections help identify the general will? Does presidentialism improve account-ability? Are constitutional courts necessary to uphold the constitution? Does democracy help fight economic inequality? Do social media increase political polarization? Etc. We will approach these questions in a scientific manner introducing students in the process to the main difficulties that researchers face when studying politics. Can we identify causal relationships in politics? What units of analysis need to be compared in order to be able to make meaningful inferences? Etc. In the process, students will learn that science is always about comparison, yet, understanding which comparisons are insightful and which are not, requires a lot of thinking....