WHAT IS COMPARATIVE POLITICS Why are we going

WHAT IS COMPARATIVE POLITICS? • Why are we going to study politics but also history, and anthropology, and geography and economics? • Dang, there’s a lot of details. Why don’t most Americans already know the basics about the world’s most important countries? Let’s find out… • In groups: Guess the value and rank the US, Iran, Russia, China, India, Mexico, and the UK for – Population – GDP per capita at PPP in US dollars – Corruption ranking in the world (out of 200 countries)

WHAT IS COMPARATIVE POLITICS? • What is the difference between comparative politics and international relations? Should we have separate “fields” for most disciplines? • Why is comparing with other worth our time? (How many of you are worried about earnings? Why? : Data next slide) • Seriously, how much can you really learn from studying 7 or so countries? • Why don’t even scholars agree on the appropriate way to study other societies? • Areas studies vs. the comparative method • Qualitative vs. quantitative methods • Rational choice vs. society specific

What are some of the key concepts for comparing countries? • What are states? How are they different from counties, nation states, and “failed” states? Are there alternative ways of organizing power in a society? • What are regimes? How are they different from governments? • In what sense are states sovereign? • What are political institutions? Do institutions have to be formal structures?

WHY AND HOW DO WE COMPARATIVELY STUDY SOCIETIES? • Is there such a thing as a science of comparative politics? What is a science (next point)? What do we miss when we are “scientific”? • Some key ideas about what makes some scientific and different than smart punditry: (1) categorization, (2) generalization (3) theory & hypothesis testing with empirical evidence and (4) replication? • What are “most-similar” comparisons? (e. g. looking at the advanced democracies or “presidential” systems). What are “most different” comparisons?

What categories are the most useful for comparison? • Geo-politics : The 1 st, 2 nd, and Third World • Socio-economic development: e. g. , the global South, NICS, tigers, the BRIC, under-developed, developing, advanced nations • Geographical and cultural regions (e. g. , Latin America or the west vs. the rest? • Consolidated (durable and highly institutionalized) vs. transitional regimes (and very likely to change) • Intl. relations: Great/regional powers vs everyone else. • How strong is the US? Strong vs. weak states (i. e. : states vary by capacity, autonomy, and stability). • Nature of by which power is legitimized: Traditional, charismatic, rational/legal • How many people have power? One, few, many • Three main political regime types: democratic, authoritarian, and totalitarian (basically consensus vs. coercion) • Economic regime types: Free-market capitalism/ communism vs. a command economy/ socialism/state capitalism