CPO 2001
Spring 2003
Introduction to Comparative Politics.

Study Guides








Links of Interest
 
 
 

The Methodological Foundation

 From the first week of classes.

1.    Why compare?
2.    How is comparative politics scientific? What characterizes science?
3.    Can we extensively rely on the experimental method to make the field of comparative politics progress?
4.    What are the main reasons for developing systematic comparisons?
5.    Is the political world less or more complex than the natural world? How does this affect the development of scientific research in the field of comparative politics?
6.    What is a unit of analysis?
7.    What is a variable? Which main types of variables can we recognize? What differentiates them?
8.    What is an indicator, and how is it related to the valor of the variable?
 
 
 

Collier, David, and Steven Levitsky: “Democracy with Adjectives: Conceptual Innovation in Comparative Research.”

1.    According to the authors What new challenges presented the “third wave” of democratization to students of comparative politics?
2.    How do scholars respond to the challenge? What are the strategies they use? How are these strategies contradictory? What results from them?
3.    What is a procedural definition of democracy, and how does it help to standardize the treatment of the subject, according to the authors?
4.    Why do the authors focus on the analysis of qualitative categories employed in the study of democratization?
5.    What is the purpose the authors pursue in writing this article?
6.    Briefly describe Sartori’s strategies for conceptual innovation. What other strategies do the authors identify? Characterize them, and evaluate the authors’ contribution.
7.    The authors agree with philosopher W. B. Gallie on democracy being an “essentially contested concept.” Why is that? Do you agree or disagree? Why?
 
 

Lane, Ruth, The Art of Comparative Politics, Ch.1

1.    What makes reality different from an ordered chess game, according to the author?
2.    Lane argues that comparative politics is both “a world” and “a discipline.” What does she characterize them?
3.    The author’s approach to the development of comparative politics is both interpretative and historical. According to her, what are the advantages of such an approach?
4.    How does Lane describe the process of development of the discipline? Does she consider it exceptional?
5.    What makes a study comparative?
6.    Can theory “create” reality? What’s Lane position in this respect?
7.    Which major periods does Lane recognize to the development of comparative politics? What characterizes each of them?
 
 

Lane, Ruth, The Art of Comparative Politics, Ch. 2

1. What is “the behavioral revolution”? What characterizes it? What did all behavioralists have in common?
2. David Easton said that “the results of 2500 years of political science were disappointing”? What did scholars engaged with behavioralism criticize to “traditional” political science?
3. What are “hard facts” when it comes to the world or politics? What is the value of looking for them?
4. Was the behavioralist movement homogeneous? What differences can you identify within the movement? Briefly describe the main approaches we subsume under the label “behavioralism.”
5. Why is Almond’s and Verba’s The Civic Culture still important today? Why did the authors emphasize on the study of political culture? How did they define both political culture and “civic culture”?
6. What assumptions did Almond and Verba start with? How did they carry out their research? Why surveys? Summarize their findings. Did the results confirm their hypotheses? Evaluate their approach looking for both strengths and weaknesses.
7. What is “social capital,” and why is it important for democracy, according to Robert Putnam? Summarize Putnam’s “Bowling Together.” How does his analysis resemble Almond and Verba’s? Compare.
8. Why does Lane include Anthony Down’s work within behavioralism? Why is his approach called “rational choice”?
9. When Downs wrote his book, his approach did not look “scientific” to many. Yet, through time rational choice has become one of the dominant paradigms in political science. What assumptions do rational choice scholars depart from? What methods do they use?
10. Within behavioralism, Lane also includes other authors-all influenced by theories and methods coming from fields such as sociology and anthropology. Among them, she mentions Robert Dahl’s work Who Governs?, Lipset’s Political Man, and David Easton’s structural functionalism. Briefly summarize each approach, and explain why they are also included under the label “behavioralism.”
 

Downs, Anthony, “An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy.”

1. What problems does Downs address? According to him, why have economic theorists failed to explain the government? How does he define the government instead?
2. What is a democracy, according to Downs? Do you find his concept of democracy satisfactory? Why?
3. Following Downs’ insights, define rationality.
4. What central hypothesis does Downs advance in the article? What kind of view of politics does his article promote?
5. What problems do you think Downs contributes to explain?
6. Evaluate his approach, considering both strengths and weaknesses.
 
 

Behavioralism

Behavioralism
 
 
 
 

Lane, Ch. 3: “Political Development, Its Rise, Decline, and Transformation.”

1. Lane opens the chapter with this words: “In comparative politics, as in many things, necessity has been the mother of invention, and political events have been a primary stimulus in the development of new theoretic approaches, concepts, and research concerns.” How did world political events influence the emergence of the paradigm of political development? Why “development”?
2. What is “modernization”? Why was it seen as good, and how was it related to democracy, at least in theory?
3. How were progress and development represented in most theories in the fifties and the beginning of the sixties? Do you see those ideas are still dominant?
4. What is a “developing nation,” and how did the concept originate? What are the main theoretical assumptions behind this concept?
5. How representative of developmentalism is Rostow's approach? How does Lane characterize him? Resorting to both Lane's chapter and Rostow's article, briefly summarize his main assumptions and theses on development.
6. How does Samuel Huntington explain modernization? What does he privilege, political or economic factors? Which alternative "roads" to development does he identify? How does he characterize the United States in relation to both economic and political modernity? Resorting to both Lane's chapter and Huntington's article, summarize the main points of his approach to development.
7. According to Lane, how does Barrington Moore contribute to the understanding of the problem of development? How does he use class analysis? Which "routes" to development does he identify?
8. How does Lane evaluate the efficacy of developmentalism to explain concrete cases? Was the approach successful in explaining (and contributing to achieve) the development of "new nations"? What did not these frameworks take into account?
9. How does Lane evaluate the contribution of the dependency theory to the understanding of (under)development?
 

Dependency Theory
 

F.H. Cardoso and E. Faletto: "Capitalist Development and the State: Bases and Alternatives."

1. What is dependency, and how does it question the developmentalist approach?
2. Briefly characterize the concepts of center and periphery.
3. What sectors are allied and become integrated within the dependent polity? Which sectors are excluded from it?


Transfer interrupted!

ons [dependency], the state and the nation have become separated”—argue Cardoso and Faletto. Why?
5. What kinds of political institutions does capitalist development foster in the center, and what kinds are developed in the periphery? Think of the examples they offer. Why is that?
6. Is there any way out of dependency, according to Cardoso and Faletto? Why does the State necessarily become the target of the political struggle?
 

Wallerstein, Immanuel, “A World-System Perspective on the Social Sciences.”

1. What do the “hidden consensuses” in our discipline impede us to see, according to Wallerstein? How does he refer to “behaviorism” and the “developmentalist approach”?
2. Why is the choice of units of analysis decisive, in Wallerstein’s view? What kind of units of analysis have been privileged so far in political science? Which ones does he propose us to privilege?
3. Once we shift towards a world-system perspective, what can we see?
4. Is there any necessary direction in the development of history, according to Wallerstein?
5. How does Wallerstein define “mode of production”? Which ones does he identify?
6. “Our empirical knowledge is largely limited to larger divisions of labour which I shall term world-systems,” says the author. How does he characterize “world-systems”?  Describe both “world-empire” and “world-economy,” identifying their similarities and differences.
7. Why did the “world-economy” survive only in Western Europe since the sixteenth century?
8. How is our “world-economy” politically organized, and how is that different from the political organization of former “world-empires”?
9. “What is crippling about a developmentalist perspective is the fact that these large-scale historical processes are not even discussable, if one uses the politico-cultural entity (the ‘state’) as the unit of analysis.” (p. 352). Imagine how a “developmentalist” scholar would address this criticism.
 

Theories of Development (table)

The "Return" of the State
 
 

Lane, Ch. 4: “Comparative Politics Reconsiders the State.”

1.    What factors led comparativists to pay special attention to the study of the State? How did the dependency theory approach contribute to this shift?
2.    The book Bringing the State Back In led this movement towards focusing on the role of the State and processes of state building to explain politics in a comparative perspective. Historical studies and structural analysis (with either Weberian or Marxist roots) characterize the approach. In what senses is the State recognized relevance?
3.    How is the State “autonomous”? What is autonomy, as used by these authors?
4.    How is this perspective different from Behavioralism? (p. 79-80, 86-87)
5.    What forms of conceiving “state strength” were available? How did authors such as Skocpol, Evans, or Rueschemeyer contribute to its understanding ? (p.81-86)
6.    Lane critically assesses the contributions of the movement centered on the study of the State. On the one hand, it would contribute to highlight the importance of institutional arrangements in the explanation of politics. On the other hand, “the movement had nowhere to go once its original statement had been made.” (89) Why?
7.    How does the work of Guillermo O’Donnell on the “bureaucratic-authoritarian state” contribute to the understanding of the role of the State, according to Lane?
8.    The approach highlights the contribution of relatively autonomous bureaucratic structures to politics. Lane and Ersson contribute to explain how they emerge historically, and argue “the specific cleavages in a society determine the patterns of conflict.” According to this view, “political cleavages,” or the terms in which conflict is expressed in society (class, race, ethnicity, religion) structure political identities and party systems. How much do these structures actually determine politics? Think of different examples that are for or against this structural perspectives.
 

Guillermo O’Donnell, “Reflections on the Patterns of Change in the Bureaucratic-Authoritarian State.”

1.    How does O’Donnell define the “Bureaucratic-Authoritarian” state (BA)? In what circumstances did this form of state develop? Why?
2.    When does and when does not capitalism foster democracy?
3.    According to O’Donnell, what are the links between this form of authoritarianism and capitalism?
4.    “The BA is a system of exclusion of the popular sector,” says O’Donnell, that expresses an alliance between the social classes linked to the international capital and the State bureaucracy. Why are “the popular sectors” excluded, and how?
5.    Where in the world did the BA develop, either completely or partially, according to O’Donnell? What did all of these areas/countries have in common?
6.    What are the similarities and the differences between the BA and fascism? (p. 30-31)
 

Juan Linz & Alfred Stepan, “Toward Consolidated Democracies.”

1.    What minimal pre-conditions are required to start speaking about democratic consolidation?
2.    The authors consider a democratic regime “consolidated” when democracy has become “the only game in town.” What do they mean by this?
3.    What features do “consolidated democracies” exhibit, or what conditions must be present for a democratic regime to be considered consolidated? Briefly describe each of them.
4.    “Rightly understood, democracy is more than a regime; it is an interacting system. No single arena in such a system can function properly without some support from another arena, or often from all of the remaining arenas.” (p.22)
5.    Ethnic conflict and people’s disappointment with the consequences of economic reforms are two main obstacles new democracies face all around the world. According to the authors, are they possible to overcome? How?

More about Institutions

Lane Ch. 5 “State and Society and the New Institutionalism.”

1.    How did studies on the State foster the emergence of institutionalism?
2.    How does Lane define “analytic institutionalism”?
3.    What do peasants have to do with the growth of institutionalism in comparative politics? What does James Scott mean by “the moral economy of the peasant”?
4.    How does Samuel Popkin respond to Scott?
5.    Compare Scott and Popkin’s understanding of rationality to Downs’.
6.    How did discussions on peasant’s rationality develop into more general debates on (State) institutions?
7.    What is the importance of March and Olsen’s work on institutions for the development of the approach?
8.    How do historical and rational choice institutionalisms differ?
9.    Lane proposes the existence of an “institutional model” (p.121). How consistent do you find such a model?
 

From the State to Institutions
 

Hernando De Soto, “Dead Capital and the Poor.”

1. How does De Soto evaluate the economic reforms carried out in developing countries during the 1990s? What problems do they create?
2. What is crucial factor to explain the persistence of poverty and inequality in the Third World, according to De Soto?
3. What does De Sot mean by "property rights"? How are property rights an institution?
4.How did property rights develop in the West, and how did they develop in the rest of the world?
5. What is "dead capital"? What is the problem with "dead capital," and how can we turning it into "live capital," according to De Soto? Think of examples.
6. How do we know whether property is formal or informal? What is the importance of formalization?
7. How can formalization help people to overcome poverty?
8. What are De Soto's main assumptions? Do you agree or disagree with him?
 
 

Cases
 

Cases and Methods.

1.    Many units of analysis (i.e. countries), just a few, or single case studies? Summarize the advantages and disadvantages of each strategy.
2.    How can we know which approach is best suited in each case?
3.    In the study of a few units of analysis, what do we mean respectively by “Most Similar System Design” and “Most Different System Design” in comparative politics? How do they differ?
 
 

Theodoulou, Stella, Policy and Politics in Six Nations.

1.    What is Theodoulou’s purpose with writing this book?
2.    Why compare countries along policy issues? How is comparative policy analysis relevant in a context of globalization?
3.    Which approaches to the comparative study of policy does Theodoulou identify? How can you relate them to the main perspectives in comparative politics—as developed by Ruth Lane?
4.    What criteria did Theodoulou use in selecting the countries under study? Why include Brazil in the sample? Do you agree with her choice of countries? Why?
 
 

Brazil

Brazil.

1.    What are the main distinctive characteristics of the Brazilian society, in terms of the economy, the population, the social structure, and cultural traditions? In what aspects is Brazil similar to the U.S., and how are they different?
2.    The process of political modernization in Brazil took place relatively smoothly and peacefully. However, Brazil is also known for the existence of death squads and extremely high violence rates. So, is Brazil a violent or a peaceful country? Discuss.
3.    “Autogolpe” seems to be a Latin American tradition of strong executive powers cheating on the rules of democracy. Recently Fujimori in Perú, and previously Getulio Vargas in Brazil helped to develop this authoritarian concept. What is an “autogolpe,” and why they occurred in Latin America? Could this phenomenon develop in a democracy such as the U.S.? Why?
4.    The Bureaucratic Authoritarian type of state theorized by Guillermo O’Donnell developed first in Brazil. What internal and external circumstances led to the military coup in 1964 and account for the spread of BA in the 60s and the 70s? Are we still living under those conditions? Why?
5.    What were some of the main concerns about the future of the new democracy in the 1980s? How did the 1988 Constitution address them? How has it worked so far?
6.    How are the basic Republican institutions organized in Brazill? What do we mean when saying that Brazil is a presidentialist regime? How is power distributed between the executive power, the legislature, and the judiciary?
7.    How would you characterize the Brazilian party system? Why?
8.    How is power distributed between the federal and the local levels of government? Which regions are the most powerful? Why?
9.    Fernando Henrique Cardoso was one of the leading The New York Times figures of the dependency theory. Years later, as the President of Brazil, his understanding of power and development seem to have changed. How can we account for that change? Did Brazil succeed in overcoming dependency, dependency does not matter, or it does not exist?
10.    How does the article in The New York Times evaluate the achievements of Cardoso’s government, and how is Lula depicted? What challenges does the Brazilian society face?

Germany

Germany.

1. Why was Germany invaded by four different countries over the end of WWII? How did the country reach that situation, and how was it reorganized?
2. Following Theodoulou, summarize the phases of development of the divided Germany after WWII.
3. Students say that Germany is perhaps the society that most suffered as a consequence of the Cold War. Why?
4. Why did both Easteners and Westeners want reunification? What were their expectations?
5. Under what auspices did reunification take place? Why does Theodolou mention the existence of “imbalance”?
6. Why could Germans successfully stop surges of xenophobia and fascism in the 1990s and not in the 1930s? What is key difference? Which theoretical approach in comparative politics do you think accounts better to explain such a difference?
7.  What is the German Basic Law? How are the Germans’ concern with the rule of law remind Theodoulow of Americans’? What are the main differences?
8.  Germany is a parliamentary republic. What do we mean by that?
9.  How is the executive power organized in Germany, and how does it differ from a presidentialism?
10. What is distinctive about the German legislature? (chambers, number of seats, electoral system).
11. In theory a multi-party system, the Germans have actually developed a “two-plus” party system. What does this level stand for?
12. Why does Theodoulou say the German political institutions and their party system are oriented to produce consensus? Is that good or bad?
13. Theodolou characterizes German judges as “activists.” What does she mean by this? How is the judiciary organized in the country?
14. Is Germany federal or unitary? Explain.
15. How does the article in The Economist characterize the German society a decade after reunification? What are the main achievements they exhibit, and what the risks?
 

 The United Kingdom

The United Kingdom

1.  What main distinctive features do characterize the United Kingdom as a result of its history? (i.e. early unification, insularity, lack of a written constitution, etc.)
2.  Is the United Kingdom a state? Explain.
3.  What are the differences between referring to England, Great Britain, or the United Kingdom?
4.  So far, we have examined Federal political units. The UK is unitary instead. What is a unitary state, and how is the UK organized?
5.  The Westminster Parliament is the sovereign body in the UK. What does this mean, exactly?
6.  How did democracy develop in Great Britain, suddenly or gradually? What is the institutional legacy of such a process? Think of examples.
7.  Stella Theodoulou identifies four major phases of development of politics (and policies) in the UK since WWII. She calls them respectively “The Post-War Consensus,” “The Post-War Consensus Under Strain,” “The Ending of Consensus,” and “Post-Thatcherite Consensus Under New Labour.” Briefly characterize each period, looking for the main bases of consensus in different periods, the main goals in policy, and the results in terms of party alignment and reorganization.
8.  (Pay attention to the following questions looking towards our next discussions on policy issues)

a.  Characterize the British Welfare State and its links to Keynesian economics. What factors were behind the consolidation of the Welfare State, and what led to its dismantling?
b.  Did the Conservatives led by Thatcher really reduce the State apparatus and state spending?
9.  How are the judiciary, the executive, and the legislative powers organized in the U.K.?
a.  What are the roles performed by the Queen, the House of Commons, the House of Lords, the Prime Minister, and the Cabinet in government? How are they designated?
b.  Compare the role, attributions, and stability of the British Prime Minister with those of the American President. Who is more powerful? Why?
10.  How much of the votes do parties need to gain in order to form a majority in the UK? The case of the UK has led authors to talk about a “disproportional electoral system,” or “manufactured majorities.” Why? How is it possible that a party can obtain a majority of seats in Parliament without obtaining the majority of votes? Is this democratic? Why?
11.  How frequently elections for Parliament must be held? Who calls for elections?
12.  What is a “vote of confidence”?
13.  What is the “shadow cabinet”?
14.  Why do Cabinet members who do not agree with crucial issues have to resign? Why are consensus are secrecy highly valued in British politics? Is the same in the U.S.?
15.  How is the role of political parties central in the UK? Compare to parties in the U.S.
16.  As it was expected, the British SMD (Single Member District) electoral arrangements produced a two-party system (Conservatives and Labour). Yet, this seems to be evolving towards a multi-party system. Why?
 

Japan

Japan

1. What are the salient characteristics of present Japan and the Japanese democracy?
2. Western institutions such as democracy and free markets thrive in Japan. In this respect, Japan stands in sharp contrast with other non-Western countries. Why? How can we account for the Japanese case?
3. What are the main differences between Western and Japanese culture, values, and religion/s? How does all this affect politics?
4. What lies behind the Japanese “miracle”?
5. What did Japan lose, and what did it gain by embracing capitalism and democracy?
6. How much is the “McArthur” Constitution an imposition of the U.S., and how much does it express the Japanese political culture? Why was the monarchy conserved?
7.  From foe to ally… What is special about the article 9 of the Japanese Constitution? Is the spirit of this article respected in present Japan? When did the U.S. argue for preserving that article? Does this position still prevail in the U.S.?
8.  Describe the main characteristics of the Japanese party system right after WWII, and its evolution until the present. How would you characterize the Japanese consensuses in terms of left and right across time? How should we account for variations?
9.  Describe how the executive power is organized in Japan, and compare the roles of both the prime minister and the emperor with the prime minister and the queen in the U.K. Identify similarities and differences.
10.  Compare the Japanese Diet with the German and the British parliamentary systems. Which one is more democratic? Which one would you recommend to be implemented in a new democracy? Why?
11.  What other cases does the organization of the judiciary in Japan remind you of? Why?
12.  Where else are bureaucratic careers prestigious as in Japan? Where are they not? How should we account for these differences?

Countries Database (from Theodoulou and other sources)
 

Or, try with this one:

Countries Database (from Theodoulou and other sources)
 

Sweden
 

Sweden

1. Why did the Welfare State reach such a paradigmatic level of development in Sweden? What (social, political) forces lie behind this style of development? What kind of consensus supported it?
2. What is the logic behind the Welfare State? Is it virtuous, vicious, or both? Mention some of its advantages and some of its disadvantages (for both labor and business-owners).
3. Is the Welfare State a politically progressive or conservative structure? Why?
4. How are the Swedish Social Democratic Party and the Welfare State related?
5. Why do you think unions and people’s level of unionization have been so important in the case of Sweden, while they seem to matter little in the U.S.?
6. How did such a style of development enter into a crisis? What alternatives do the Swedish have?
7. Summarize the Swedish experience in matter of immigration policies and the challenges they face today. How does their situation resemble the one existent in the U.S.?
8. Why are parliamentary regimes common in Europe, and not in the Americas?
9. Compare the Swedish parliament with the other ones we surveyed before, identifying similarities and differences. What is original in the case of Sweden?
10. What stands as different in the functioning of the executive power in Sweden? (i.e. the role of the monarch, the prime minister, the cabinet)
11. What is the Swedish ombudsman?
12. Compare the role of local government in Sweden with that played by local government in the U.S.
13. How is it possible that the same party wins elections for more than 40 years in a country that has a multi-party system such as Sweden?
 

The United States

The United States

1. According to Stella Theodoulou, there have been major institutional changes in the U.S. since 1945, which have not been accompanied by significant transformations in the country’s political culture. Why? Summarize her argument and assess it critically.
2. What has been the role of war in the construction of the American nation and the definition of the U.S. international leading role? How does this affect the nature of the polity?
3. Contradicting established assumptions about the paradigmatic nature of the American democracy, Rueschemeyer, Stephens, and Stephens argue the U.S. should be only considered a limited democracy till 1965, due to the existence of pervasive racial segregation. Is this argument correct?
4. Theodoulou also argues that until present day Americans debate themselves in pursuing contradictory goals for their government: on the one hand, there is a traditional understanding on the need of keeping a small government; on the other hand, there are high expectations about the performance of State offices. Furthermore, the New Deal stands as a paradigmatic moment in the building of the Welfare State in the West, in a country in which State intervention seems to be rejected. How should we account for this? (think of examples)
5. What are the main principles that organize the U.S. constitution. How have they strengthened democracy in this country, and why do you think they have instead failed elsewhere (for instance in Latin America?
6. Describe how the Executive power is organized in the U.S. Compare the U.S. president with European Presidents and Prime Ministers. Who is more powerful? Why?
7. How is Congress organized in the U.S.? What prerogatives it has, and which ones do Congressmen really exercise? Has Congress diminished or increased its lawmaking role over the years?
 

Social Welfare Policy

Welfare Policy Today
 
 
 
 

Health Care

Public Health
 

(Here you have the source Theodoulou mentions, the WHO webpage with indicators by country. I'll add these data to our database, but please take a look at the webpage)
World Health Organization Country Indicators
 
 

 Social Welfare and Health Policy table
 

  Education Policy