comp politics

What is the main difference between Comparative Politics and International Relations?

What is the main difference between Comparative Politics and International Relations?

• The main difference is the relations between countries, e.g. foreign policy, war, trade, international organizations, foreign aid, etc.

• CP studies and compares domestic politics across/inside countries (e.g., political parties, elections, legislatures, constitutions, revolutions, etc.)

Discuss two reasons why Comparative Politics may be useful outside Political Science. Do you agree with these reasons?

• Understanding what, how, and who makes political decisions, or influences them, is going to impact everyday life

• To identify the most relevant political institutions in my country and how the political system works

• To increase my knowledge of foreign political systems

• To have a better understanding of the time and place I live in

Discuss the contributions of two major historical comparativists.

• Aristotle: First thinker that separates the study of politics from philosophy, compares greek constitutions.

• Machiavelli: The first modern political scientist, compares different political systems and emphasizes the importance of empirical knowledge

Describe the evolution of comparative politics over time

• Pre-Modern: Speculative, normative, anecdotal. Hazy boundaries with philosophy, law, and history. Was country-centered, needed to develop classifications and typologies.

• Modern: separate discipline from sociology, politics follow their own logic because theory and practice are separated

  • Due to the behavioral revolution, research moves away from institutions and to individuals. Emphasizes an objective quantified approach to explain and predict political behavior.

  • CP in universities and international associations

  • CP moves from classifications to empirical analysis of politics and policies

  • Strong quantification

• Post Modern: skeptical about the existence of an absolute truth or objective reality post WW2

  • Questions social facts which are considered social constructs, constructivism originates

What is the difference between a theory and a hypothesis?

• Theory: It's a system of ideas to explain something based on general principles, independent of the thing being explained

• Hypothesis: Theory based statement about a relationship we expect to observe. We look for causal relationships between variables

 Explain two of the four hurdles to establishing causal relationships.

• Is there a credible causal mechanism that connects X to Y?

• Is there some confounding variable Z that is related to both X and Y and makes the observed association between X and Y spurious

Describe three “grand theories” in comparative politics.

• Structural functionalism focusing on the relationships between social institutions that make up society (gov, education) society is a number of interconnected parts that form a stable whole.

• Systems theory: emphasis on the structure of the public sector as an open system that has extensive inputs (supports and demands) and outputs (policies) due to the interaction with the environment

• Marxism: class conflict explains differences among political systems

What are the differences between rational choice institutionalism and historical

institutionalism?

• Rational choice institutionalism

  • Emerged with the study of congressional behavior in the US in 1970s. Specific to games by political actors.

  • Institutions are systems of rules and incentives created to reduce transaction costs. Actors have fixed prefs and use institutions to maximize their utility.

  • Limitation, oversimplifies human motivation and interaction

• Historical institutionalism

  • Addresses big questions, makes temporal arguments, analyzes the contexts and hypothesize about the combined effects of institutions and processes

  • Actors behave with mix of cultural normative logics plus rational behavior

  • Interested in construction maintainence and adaption of institutions = closer to history and philosophy

  • Key concept: path dependence: decisions we are faced with depend on past knowledge trajectory and decisions made. In other words, history matters for current decision making situations.

What is constructivist institutionalism?

• Proposes that the communication of ideas and meaning can provide a mechanism to achieve consensus on norms and values and thus create institutional change.

• Ideational change precedes institutional change

• What about the rationality of actors, actors are both strategic and socialized in a certain culture, so they can behave in different ways (not just material)

• Constructivist explanations gain explanatory leverage during crisis. The role of ideas becomes more pimportant (like women's suffrage)

• Critic: unclear about the role of material and ideational factors. Second, we want to understand and rpedict institutional change

Compare the “Method of Difference” to the “Method of Agreement.”

• Method of difference: similar on several features, but not on their IV or their DV

  • Ex: armingeon and beyeler: research, does politics explain welfare state spending? Cases selected: OECD Democracies. Assumption: countries have more in common than differences

  • Hypothesis: strength of left/right parties in govt. -> growth of public expenditures on welfare state. Findings: positive relation across space. Relationship tends to disappear over time

• MDSD: Case selection, dissimilar on many features

  • Ex: liphart, do individual political rights promote stable democracy. Cases selected: UN member states. Assumption: countries are different in most features

  • Hypothesis: protection of political rights -> democratic stability. Finding positive relationship.

also see

• Method of difference involves analyzing the relationship between variables that are different or similar to one another. Used in two or more countries for evaluating a specific variable across those countries, such as a political structure, institution, behavior, or policy.
  Method of agreement is a method of scientific induction. States that if two or more instances of a phenomenon under investigation have only a single circumstance in common the circumstances in which all the instances agree is the cause or effect of the phenomenon

 Your friend tells you that she wants to study biology to conduct lab experiments because they allow us to achieve results that have both internal and external validity. Is she right?

• Internal: the research procedure demonstrates a true cause and effect relationship

• External validity: The extent to which the results of a study can be generalized across populations times and settings

  • No because to have a true cause and effect relationship, there has to be a clear connection between the experiemental factors. But external validity exists without as much control since its more dependent on random sampling and generalizations

 Illustrate with one example how case studies can contribute to our understanding of politics.

• The nazi seizure of power

  • Exploratory research for unique, complex, and rare phenomena. Comprehensive understanding of political phenomena. Also in depth and detailed info about specific case

Explain three patterns of state formation.

• Through absolutist monarchy: obtained power by building up armies and bureaucracies that only responded to monarchs (France, Prussia)

• Through monarchy facing judges and representative bodies (legislatures) that became independent powers (England Sweden)

• State formation thorugh ocnquest and unificaiton (germany, italy)

Why does Anderson (1983) describe the nation as an “imagined community”?

• Even members of the smallest national will never know most of their membors

• imagined as a community because the nation is always conceived of as a horizontal comradeship

• imagined as limited because even largest nation has finite boundaries beyond which lie other nations

• imagined as soverign, concept was born when enlightenment and reovlution were destroying the legitimacy of absolutist monarchies

Discuss two challenges that the welfare state will likely face in the near future.

• Automation

  • Robots stealing jobs

    • up to 800 million by 2030

    • 2ill a universal basic income be a solution

• Immigration

  • Immigrants and refugees can change the labor market and the support for the welfare state

Compare the “social democratic” welfare state to the “liberal” welfare state.

• Social democratic: usually scandinavian, allocates 30% of GDP to government social expenditure.

  • High levels of decommodification, of goods and services. They are made available as a right, outside of market exchange

  • Generous univeralist benefits

  • Strong cross class solidarity

• Liberal:

  • Usually anglophone, US, canada,

    • Devotes nearly 20% of GDP to government social expenditure

    • Low levels of decommodification of goods and services

    • Low level benefits

    • Pref for private forms of social provisions (health insurance, pensions)

    • Concern to reinforce markets (use of tax exemptions, time limited unemployment benefits)

Discuss two benefits of the Finnish welfare state model and one challenge that it faces.

• Guranteed Minimum Income

• Low poverty rate

• Universal healthcare

  • Sickness allowance

  • Maternity and child health visits

  • Education

• Challenge:

  • High tax rates, and decentralization leads to disparities in quality of care

Explain three typologies of democratic systems.

• Majoritarian: will of the majority prevails over the few. Political institutions concentrate power. Expressed in unitary states, unicameralism, two parties, etc.. Risks a tyranny of the majority. Many countries are in this category

• Consensus: as many people as possible govern. Political institutions disperse power across independent bodies. Usually entails several parties, a federal constitution , PR etc. ex: belgium, austria, switzerland

• Liberal: emphasizes limits on government and identifies with the rule of law and the perservation of individual liberties the rule by the majority does not result in the loss of individual liberties.

Describe the three waves of democracy.

• First wave: 1850 - 1922, Mussolini rose to power in Italy. Suffrage in 29 democracies. From 12 by 1942

• Second wave: 1945 - 1962: 36 democracies. Number dropped to 30 in the mid - 1970s

• Third 1974: started with portugal, added most of latin america since 1978, Asia pacific countries in the 80s, eastern europe and sub saharan countries since 1989.

What is the difference between democratic transition and political liberalization?

• Democratic transition: change from an authoritarian regime to a democracy. At a minimum there needs to be free and fair elections.

• Liberalization: an authoritarian govt. makes reforms that leads to an opening in the system (eg. Releasing political prisoners, increasing press freedoms, election of some lesser offices.)

• democratic breakdown, democracy to authoritarian regime

• democratic consolidation: broad support for democracy: 1) elites and most of the population obeythe laws (law abidingness) 2) political elites respect each other’s right to compete 3) most of the population (70-75) endorses democracy

Discuss three types of democratic transitions.

• Dictated by those in power

  • hungarian communists

• Formal negotiations between regime leaders and the political opposition

  • south africa

• Authoritarian collapse

  • leaders abdicate power due to a war (argentina), massive protests (arab spring) or massive protests and withdrawal of external support (east germany, communist regimes)

Describe the historical evolution of authoritarian regimes.

• Before 19th century, most states were monarchies and authoritarian

• Military and revolutionary seizures of power tried to replace those regimes

• Early 19th century, military dictatorships emerge

• Mid 19th century: personal dictatorships become more common, in presidential systems

• Early 20th century, totalistrian regimes emerge with fascism and communism

  • Key elemnts: one party dictatorships, cult of personality, elaborated ideology, aim of having total control over citizens

  • Totalitarianism is a radical and strange modality of dictatorship, ex: ww2 japan

  • After ussr collapsed, post totalitarisnsm and competitive authoritariansm increased

Adolf Hitler was a far-right dictator, while Fidel Castro was a far-left one. What commonalities did their leadership styles share?

• They shared commonalities in their leadership styles regarding their speeches, which were highly charismatic, energized, to the people, frequent, and showed clear investment in the cause. They also used a moment of weakness in the country to try and uplift it.

 Describe three types of democratic breakdowns.

• Military coup overthrows a democratic govt.

  • (yemen, uganda, thailand)

• A self coup in presidential systems: a president unlawfullly assumes extraordinary powers after dissolving the legislature and suspending/replacing the constitution

  • Peru 1992, Guatemala 1993

• An antidemocratic party wins an election and then turns the country into a dictatorship

  • (semi-presidential germany 1933)

Explain how important communist parties are in communist systems.

• One-party state leads society, and it demands that it cannot be challenged

• They conduct recruitment to control society, usually rhrough nomenklatura, like influential posts in the bureuacrcy

  • Positions in gov, media, military, etc.

• state passes and implements laws, interprets and applies laws, and defends the country

• parties have 4 main bodies

  • congress, largest body, thousands, met once every 5 years or so. elects central committee, formally decides direction of the party and country, not really independent

  • central committee: composed of few hundreds, usually met twice a year, for 1-2 days.discussed specific issues and elected real centers of power

  • secretariat: prepares agenda and provide info to the politburo. first or general secreatary is the most powerful individual (head of state or gov, etc.)

  • politburo (10-25 membrs) meets every week, made most important decisions

  • state legislatures, ministiries, local councils, the courts

How does the legitimacy of authority vary across military dictatorships, theocratic regimes, and post-totalitarian regimes?

• Military

  • Comes from claims of acting in the national interest

• Theocratic

  • Comes from religious position and the authority to interpret the scripture

• Post totalitarian

  • Legitimacy weakened by de-ideologization

How do the constraints on authority of competitive authoritarian regimes contrast to those under sultanism?

• Authoritarian

  • Partially constrained by the constitution, the courts, the law, the legislature, the bureaucracy, the media, and sociopolitical pluralism

• Sultanism

  • Unclear constraints, highly personalistic, unpredictable.

 Explain the following sentence: “Regimes may have specific effects on growth, but the average difference between them may be insignificant because different effects cancel one another.”

• Przeworski found that autocracies employ more labor while democracies make better use of physical captial

• Wacziarg found a positive effect on democracy on human capital formation but a negative one on the formaition of physical capital

• its thought that democracy hinders growth bc of pressures for immediate consumption, which reduces investment

• nondemocracies grow more bc they are institutionally insulated from such pressures, they enjoy state autonomy

• main argument against authoritarian rules is they have no interest in maximizing total output

• regimes make little if any difference, or even that democracies grow faster

According to Acemoglu and Robinson (2013), why do nations fail?

• Richer countries have inclusive political and economic institutions while poorer have extractive ones

• Inclusive = many people influence political decision making, therefore more democracies. Extractive means elite can exploit others, thus extracting wealth from majority.

• Inclusive encourages investments, property rights are enforced, therefore better allocation of resources and creative destruction

• State is key to centralize political power and enforce inclusive institutions

• geography, culture, climate, religion, not relevant (koreas)

• ALSO

  • extractive econ: lack of law and order, insecure property rights, entry barries and regulations, therefore prevent funcitoning of markets and creates non level playing field

  • inclusive econ: most ppl partipcate,makes best use of talents, demands secure privarte property, unbiased system of law, provisions of public services

Why might selection bias problems exist when comparing the economic performance of democracies and nondemocracies?

• Authoritarian regimes may perform better, because when they do not perform well they die (endogeneity problem)

• Authoritarian regimes are more common in poorer countries, so they have room to grow (selection bias)

Why is Somalia a failed state, and how does this status affect its population?

a failed state is a state that is so weak that it’s political structures collapse, leading to anarchy and violence

• shortage of key commodities like gasoline, clean water, groceries.

• severe lack of medical and humanitarian assistance

• vulnerability to recruitment and kidnappings by local terorists

• rampant poverty and extensive black markets

  • life expectancy of 56 years

  • 2.1 million displaced people

  • large portions of country require humanitarian assistance

  • only 34% of somalis with access to clean water and sanitation services