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“And what should they know of England Who only England know?” Rudyard Kipling
Comparative politics aims to explain differences between as well as similarities among countries and utilizescomparison as a tool for social science research to understand broader trends in world politics. The course draws from both theoretical work and country and regional case studies that cover both advanced industrialized and developing world states.
Comparative politics is specifically interested in exploring patterns, processes, and regularities among political systems. Hence, it searches for trends, for changes in patterns; and it tries to develop and apply general propositions (or hypotheses) that describe and explain these trends.
The core question comparative politics ask is why politics is different across countries. Related to that comparative politics explores questions such as:
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What explains democratization?
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Are countries with prime ministers more stable than ones in which the president heads the executive branch?
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Why do some countries have extensive welfare states while others do not?
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Are multi-ethnic societies more or less prone to civil wars?
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Why are some countries poorer than the others?
Format
The course is divided into two broad sections (which may at times overlap):
Conceptual and Theoretical Study of Comparative Politics: The course aims to familiarize you with the concepts, ideas and ‘analytical tools’ necessary to understand the structures and process of different political systems. Therefore, you will learn about concepts such as power, state, democracy, power, nationalism, ideology and culture. You willalso be provided with ‘analytical tools’ that are needed to compare countries, across time and across different levels. Furthermore, you will be introduced to the dominant approaches in the field (institutional, rational choice and political culture approaches) and some crucial methodological questions about how we conduct studies in comparative politics, across time and across different governmental levels.
Examination and Analysis of Diverse Country Cases: The course exposes you specific country cases, which serve as illustrations of broader patterns of politics.In other words, we take a close look at specific countries, their history, political institutions, political culture, political processes and political outcomes. In conjunction, with the study of countries, you will be asked to develop, write and present your own comparative analysis of a political topic. This means you design a comparative study where you will raise a theoretical question and conduct an analysis for two (or more) countries.
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