May 12th 2015

Political Science 102Introduction to Comparative Politics

Today’s Schedule• Class Introductions

• Syllabus and Expectations

• Discussing the who, what, when where

• And “why?” of Comparative Politics

• Discussion of Assignments in More Depth

• How do we compare?

Who is Your Neighbour?• Get into groups of two or three

• Introduce yourself to your group members

• You will share with the class:• Your group members name• Their favourite discipline in high school?• What country they have never been to before, that they’d

like to visit and why?

Important Points on the Syllabus 1

• Course: Comparative Politics• Time: Tuesday and Thursday 12-2pm• Place: Rm 334

• Office Hours• Time: Mon and Wed 12-1:15

Tue and Thur 10-11:30• Place: Social Sciences Office Rm 530

Important Points on the Syllabi 2

• Weekly Readings:• 13 Weeks to cover 14 and a half chapters

• Assignments• Attendance/Group Assignments: 10% (done in class, each

week)• Group Presentation – State Profiles: 15% (Due: Wednesday

of Assigned Week)• Midterm: 20%: Tuesday June 23rd • Term Paper: 25%: Tuesday July 28th• Final Exam: 30% TBA

Important Points on the Syllabi 3

• Cheating and Plagiarism• Don’t do it• Plagiarism, in particular, is a significant issue that will be

reported

• A Respectful Classroom• If you are late, take your seat quietly – do not cause further

disruption or you will be asked to leave• Be respectful of your peers – their time, their learning and their

person

• One last note on this term re: accommodation due to conflicts with other courses

What is Comparative Politics?

Comparison in our Every Day Understandings of the World: Gender Equality

(UN)

Purchasing Power Parity(UN)

Human Development Index(UN)

Democracy(UN)

Freedom(Freedom House)

Economic Freedom(Wall Street Journal)

Press Freedom(Reporters W/O Borders)

Comparative Politics: The What

• What is comparative politics?

• Easiest answer is to understand comparison• What sorts of things can we compare?• Similarities and differences in:• Institutions• Policies• Outcomes of revolutions or democratization• Development or failure to develop

• Comparative politics was initially derived as the study of one state compared to the USA, though this is no longer the case

The What Continued• Has progressed beyond US-centric focus• Small-n and Large-n studies• Single case over time• Single case

• At its core, Comparative Politics is about exploring relationships

• What kind?

Cause and Effect

Exploring the how• Good research comes from good research

questions – in comparative politics, these questions typically start with asking “Why?”

Focusing on the Why?

• Why questions, when framed reasonably (ie without an obvious agenda), tend to require thoughtful responses• Where, what, when, who and to a lesser extent how

questions can often be answered with straightforward facts (that is to say, you can google them or otherwise find them quite easily)

• Key to a good comparative question is that it is open ended• That is to say, there are potentially several potential

answers (or hypotheses)• Sometimes there is more than one answer

On Concepts• In Groups or 3-4 consider and record the following

concepts:

• Democracy

• Justice

• Freedom

Consistency and Concepts• Concepts are important, help us understand the world

• To be meaningful, though, they need to be broadly understood• Consistent, coherent, clear, useful

• IMPORTANT HINT FOR YOUR ASSIGNMENTS:• One way to ensure that there’s a common understanding of a

concept, define it!

• In any discipline, but comparative politics in particular, identifying and using concepts that have been clearly stated in literature is the most effective approach

Facts and Evidence• What are facts?

• Evidence?

• “facts used in support of a position, or facts used in support of a hypothesis”

• Not a point of view or opinion.

• Your job on assignments in this course is to construct arguments using evidence

Identifying and Using Evidence

• Empiricism•The use of evidence to build arguments

• Good evidence must be:•Related to the issue at hand•Based on a single level of analysis

Where Do We Find that Evidence?

• Case Studies

• Case Studies can be:

• A state (country)• An event • A sub-national unit• An international unit• A city• A group• Time Periods

Important Concepts of Comparison

• Identifying variables• An element or factor that is liable to change or vary from

case to case

• Identifying outcomes (or effects)• Something produced or changed in any social or political

process

• Typically looking for an explanation of cause and effect• Independent variable (cause)• Dependent variable (effect)

Tools of Comparison: Most Similar Systems Design

• Most similar systems:

• Based on idea that two countries with lots of things in common (like climate, religion, wealth or other factors) should have broadly similar outcomes

• Despite this, that’s often not the case – this is where comparison comes into play: What’s the cause of different outcomes?• Togo and Ghana have broadly similar experiences, yet one has an authoritarian regime, while the other is a democracy

• Oddly, to use MSS, one needs to identify differences between states first

Lets try a case• Sweden• A wealthy state with a very strong welfare system

• If we want to do comparison using a most similar system, what is our first step?

• Second step?

Tools of Comparison: Most Different Systems Design

• Most different systems:

• Based on idea that two countries with nothing in common should have very different outcomes

• Despite this assumption, as above, it is often not the case. • For example, despite differences in religion, geography,

population, time in which it happened and the regime which was overthrown, but China and France experienced large social revolutions

• To use this system, one must identify the similarities first

Lets try another case• Norway has one of the world’s highest levels of

purchasing power parity

• What’s the first step if we want to do a most different systems comparison?

• Second step?

Further Types of Comparison• In comparative politics, there are usually

additional steps of comparison

• Comparative checking• Process of adding cases to see whether initial

observations continue to hold validity

• Examples:• Economic development and democracy

And Yet Another (and last!...for this class)

• Within-Case comparison• Further scrutiny of a case over a longer-time period• This can also be an approach to comparison – explaining

different outcomes within a state at different points in history

• Examples:• The Province of

Alberta