J. INGRAM
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Political Science 103, Section 1 (22468)
Class Hours: TuTh 1230-1345, AL-101
Office Hours: Tu 1400-1500, AH-4104
FALL 2013
Instructor: Dr. James Ingram
Office Number: 594-3776
Email: jwingram3@aol.com
INTRODUCTION TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS
COURSE OBJECTIVES
The object of this course, as stated in SDSU’s General Catalog, is to provide “analytical models
and techniques for examination of problems of decision making and control in various political
systems.” As the Catalog indicates, this course will place due “emphasis on patterns of political
action in various cultural contexts.”
This course is one of two Foundations courses that you will take in the area of Social and
Behavioral Sciences. “Upon completing this area of Foundations, you will be able to: 1)
explore and recognize basic terms, concepts, and domains of the social and behavioral sciences;
2) comprehend diverse theories and methods of the social and behavioral sciences; 3) identify
human behavioral patterns across space and time and discuss their interrelatedness and
distinctiveness; 4) enhance your understanding of the social world through the application of
conceptual frameworks from the social and behavioral sciences to first-hand engagement with
contemporary issues.”
COURSE OUTLINE
In order to meet the course objectives, the instructor will use a textbook and a packet of
important readings in comparative politics.
This course will attempt to provide a survey of the politics of several major nations. Of course, it
will be impossible within the context of a lecture to give every important dimension of the
governments of all twelve countries we shall cover. Therefore, the textbook will provide
comparable information about the various states that are covered, whereas lectures will focus on
key points about the politics of those countries. In general, lectures will also offer students a
theoretical toolbox for use in studying the politics and government of any nation-state. The three
major theoretical perspectives are rationality, structure and culture. These are the three
perspectives political science has developed in following the work of such theorists as de
Tocqueville, Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Bentham and Mill.
This is not an easy course. Political Science is the most difficult of sciences because its subject
is human behavior, which is more complex than ordinary phenomena in the physical world. The
successful student ultimately will understand that Aristotle was absolutely right in identifying
politics as the defining characteristic of humanity. The goal of comparative politics is to
understand why humans have developed so many different forms of political institutions when
our basic genetic makeup is nearly identical across all countries and cultures.
Students will need to read course materials on time, which means everyone is to have read them
before coming to class on the day they are listed on the schedule. That is why there are no
readings listed for the first class or for in-class examination days. For the 1st seminar, no
reading is due because the instructor could not inform students in advance of a reading
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FALL 2013
assignment. On the days allotted for the in-class midterms and final exam, there are no new
readings because students are being tested on those days. By reading the materials on time,
students will be able to integrate them with each other, the lectures, and the many bytes of
information gathered from daily life. Successful students will perceive course concepts as more
than the landscape by which one speeds on life's freeway.
STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES
Students will learn:
-The political systems of twelve countries, including their position on federal-unitary and
consensus-majoritarian dimensions; the executive, legislative, judicial and administrativebureaucratic structures, as well as informal political institutions such as political parties and
interest groups, constitutional contexts; the basic histories, political economy and current issues
in those twelve countries.
-How to apply the comparative method and understand the major theoretical perspectives in
comparative politics—rationality, structure and culture.
-About nation-states, the distinction between comparative politics and international relations, the
role of transnational institutions (such as the UN, EU and WTO).
-To use important comparative politics concepts, such as protest and revolution, ethnicity and
nations, political economy and the connection between national politics and economic
development, parliamentary vs. presidential systems, party systems and their connection to
electoral rules, Marxism and class politics, the role of constitutionalism and judicial review,
political stability and representational violence, the connections between politics, religion and
culture, and the paradoxical connection between localization and globalization in today’s world.
-To understand 1) State-Society Relations; 2) Social Revolutions; 3) Comparative Democracy; 4)
Democratization; 5) Patronage Politics and Reform; 6) Political Economy and Market-State
Connections; and 7) the Cultural Approach in countries around the rest of the world.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Your course grade will be based on 3 examinations, an essay and participation. Each of the
midterm examinations will consist of up to 100 multiple-choice questions, as well as some
questions to be answered as a take-home. Both the multiple-choice and written components of
your midterm exams will be drawn from a study guide posted several weeks in advance of your
exams. You must take examinations using an 882 type Scantron and a number 2 pencil.
Your take-home midterm examinations and course essay will be submitted to Turnitin on
Blackboard. Late submissions will be penalized severely.
The final examination will consist of up to 200 multiple-choice questions, half of which will be
comprehensive; the other half will cover only the last four countries we cover in the class.
I will hand out the topics for the essay several weeks before it is due. Please follow the
directions for the essay that will be included in the prompt. The instructor will attempt to assist
every student who needs help on the essay, but there are many students and only a finite number
of office hours. Please make sure to begin the essay as soon as you can; if many students wait
until the last minute to seek the instructor’s assistance, then access will be on a first come-first
served basis.
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FALL 2013
The essay must be submitted through Turnitin to ensure that students avoid academic dishonesty.
“Students agree that by taking this course all required papers may be subject to submission for
textual similarity review to Turnitin for the detection of plagiarism. All submitted papers will be
included as source documents in the Turnitin reference database solely for the purpose of
detecting plagiarism of such papers. You may submit your papers in such a way that no
identifying information about you is included. Another option is that you may request, in
writing, that your papers not be submitted to Turnitin. However, if you choose this option you
will be required to provide documentation to substantiate that the papers are your original work
and do not include any plagiarized material.”
There is no extra credit for this class. I do require that you observe proper classroom etiquette.
If you are going to surf the net on your computer, sit in the back row of class. There are to be no
private conversations during class time. I only ask that if you must leave a class before a lecture
is over, you do it quietly and unobtrusively so that you do not disturb the learning of your fellow
students. There will be no extra credit assignments to substitute for poorly done or missed
coursework, so don’t ask.
You are permitted to study with others to prepare for exams, and you may talk with other
students about your essay assignment, but your exams and essay are not a collective
performance. Group work during the exams and submission of substantially identical essays
may serve as evidence of academic dishonesty and will be grounds for immediate failure, and
appropriate disciplinary action by SDSU administrators. As per university policy, I do want to
make it clear that it is NOT acceptable to turn in work that you have drafted in a previous or
concurrent class to satisfy your essay requirements for this class. For the purpose of this course,
that is academic dishonesty.
COURSE GRADE CALCULATION
Students will take two midterm examinations and a final exam, and will also do a course essay
and engage in course participation. Each of these will be worth 20% of your course grade. This
syllabus establishes the dates for the midterms and the final exam, as well as for the course
essay. Participation will occur in the form of quizzes taken throughout the class. These
requirements are not negotiable. If you can't make the deadlines, don't take the class. All
exceptions are by definition discriminatory, making the course unfair for your fellow students.
Late work will be penalized severely, unless students provide an excuse that I find acceptable.
COURSE DEADLINES AND PERCENTAGES
COMPONENT
First Midterm—MCs
First Midterm—written
Second Midterm—MCs
Second Midterm—written
Course Essay
Final Exam—comprehensive
Final Exam—last 4 countries
Course Grade
DATE
October 3
October 10
November 5
November 12
December 12
December 12
December 12
N/A
PORTION OF COURSE
10%
10%
10%
10%
20%
20%%
20%
100%
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COURSE APPROACH—COMPARATIVE POSTMODERN GLOBALIZATION
The approach adopted in this course should be a bit clearer in light of a passage from Ludwig
Wittgenstein's Culture and Value: "If this stone won't budge at present and is wedged in, move
some of the other stones round it first.-- All we want to do is straighten you up on the track if
your coach is crooked on the rails. Driving it afterwards is something we shall leave to you."
This course begins from the premise that comparative politics is analogous to Brownian motion.
Brownian motion is how scientists determine the mass and velocity of subatomic particles; the
scientist must bounce these particles against one another in order to verify their existence and
properties. In much the same way, a political scientist can only understand politics in different
countries by comparing them to each other.
Comparativists seek to test theories about the way politics works. Each theory that a scientist
would want to test requires comparisons, and no one theory seems to explain every important
aspect of politics. The point of this course is not to indoctrinate the student in any particular
theoretical tradition, but to show the parameters in which each operates. Within particular
boundaries, the cultural, structural and choice-theoretic perspectives all offer some insight. None
independently captures all of reality without the others.
If quantum mechanics has taught us that the seemingly solid nature of our world is an illusion,
and that both we and it are assemblies of particles in motion, then we should not be surprised that
understanding the interactions between humans is infinitely more difficult. When you go up
another level of analysis beyond the interactions between individuals to try to understand the
organizations that we humans have constructed, complexity increases exponentially. This
problematization of what seems to be obvious is the essence of our postmodern existence. When
added to the fact that this world has become smaller because of globalizing technologies such as
transportation and communication, this postmodernization makes potentially for an even more
bewildering experience.
We live in a world that is ineffably paradoxical. Economics is becoming more international,
while politics within nation-states is becoming more parochial. Primordial loyalties to ethnicity,
race and religion have increased at the same time as the world has become more cosmopolitan.
After the end of the Second World War, social scientists foresaw a world in which nationality
and every other identity would be rendered increasingly unimportant by the process of
internationalization. Yet we live in a world in which suicide bombers kill themselves and their
victims over loyalty to their own understanding of their religion or other intensely personal
affiliation. In Shakespeare’s immortal farce, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Theseus says,
“How shall we find the concord of this discord?” (Act V, Scene I). That is the very question that
comparativists try to answer in their examinations of the world today.
This course should train you to be a comparativist. Unlike typical journalists, pundits and
politicians, comparativists think critically about their assumptions as to how the world works.
They do not mindlessly repeat jingoist slogans which are the intellectual equivalents of saying,
“We’re number one!” They ask what number 1 would look like so as to avoid the number 2!
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FALL 2013
COURSE READINGS (REQUIRED)
1. Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, Introduction to Comparative Politics, 6th Edition, Cengage
Learning, 2013.
2. Ingram Reader; available through purchase of electronic access code with KKJ, 2013.
3. Any readings that I post on Blackboard for you to use at no cost.
SCHEDULE OF LECTURES AND READING ASSIGNMENTS
Unit One—August 27, 29, September 3
Lectures: Intro to Course and coverage of Syllabus; Explanation of the Comparative Method.
Readings: KKJ, Chapter 1; Dahl reading in Ingram Reader available from Cengage; Cox &
Ingram essay (Blackboard).
Unit Two—September 5, 10
Lectures: The United Kingdom and its Political System; Application of the Comparative
Method: the Making of Britain’s “Efficient Secret.”
Readings: KKJ, Chapter 2; Partridge and Willems readings in Ingram Reader.
Unit Three—September 12, 17
Lectures: The French Semi-presidential System; The Paradox of Political Protest and State Strength.
Readings: KKJ, Chapter 3; Conley and Giry readings in Ingram Reader.
Unit Four—September 19, 24
Lectures: The Fragility of Democracy in Feudal Roots; The Marriage of Iron and Rye—
Bismarck’s Germany.
Readings: KKJ, Chapter 4; Mommsen and Grosskopf readings in Ingram Reader.
Unit Five—September 26, October 1
Lectures: The Advantages of Economic Backwardness and the Japanese Economic Miracle;
From Tokugawa to Meiji to MacArthur’s Japanese Constitution.
Readings: KKJ, Chapter 5; Carlson and Repeta readings in Ingram Reader.
Unit Six—October 3
FIRST MIDTERM EXAMINATION (IN-CLASS PORTION)
There will be a review session held outside of class; time and date TBA.
Please bring a Form 882 Scantron and #2 pencil to class.
Unit Seven—October 8, 10
Lectures: India, the World’s Largest Democracy;
Mahatma Gandhi’s Spinning Wheel and the Loss of Pakistan.
Readings: KKJ, Chapter 6; Feigenbaum and Amritsar readings in Ingram Reader.
THE TAKE-HOME PORTION OF THE FIRST MIDTERM EXAMINATION IS DUE
AT THE BEGINNING OF THE LECTURE ON OCTOBER 10!
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Unit Eight—October 15, 17
Lectures: Why no Socialism in the U.S.? The United States’ Other Peculiar Institution:
Judicial Review.
Readings: KKJ, Chapter 7; Putnam, Shugart and May&Root readings in Ingram Reader.
Unit Nine—October 22, 24
Lectures: Russia and the Former Soviet Union; The Rise of Democratic Capitalism in the
Second World.
Readings: KKJ, Chapter 11; Beer, Rosefielde and Akbarzadeh readings in Ingram Reader.
Unit Ten—October 29, 31
Lectures: Transitions to Democracy in the Third World: the Case of Brazil;
Economic Strategy in the Newly Industrializing Countries: ISI vs. ELG.
Readings: KKJ, Chapter 9; Stove and Cardoso readings in Ingram Reader.
Unit Eleven—November 5
SECOND MIDTERM EXAMINATION (IN-CLASS PORTION)
There will be a review session held outside of class; time and date TBA.
Please bring a Form 882 Scantron and #2 pencil to class.
Unit Twelve—November 7, 12
Lecture: The Mexican Political System in Comparative Perspective; Is Mexico a Failed State, or
the Most Successful One in Latin America?
Readings: KKJ, Chapter 10; Morris and Brimelow readings in Ingram Reader.
THE TAKE-HOME PORTION OF THE SECOND MIDTERM EXAMINATION IS DUE
AT THE BEGINNING OF THE LECTURE ON NOVEMBER 12!
Unit Thirteen—November 14, 19
Lectures: “Hegemony and Culture”: the Persistence of Ethnicity Among Nigeria’s Yorubas;
The Paradox of English Maintenance: Language Policy in Post-Colonial Africa.
Readings: KKJ, Chapter 8; Economist and Lumumba readings in Ingram Reader.
Unit Fourteen—November 21, 26
Lectures: From the Pahlavis to Khomeini: the Islamic Republic of Iran;
“Jihad vs. McWorld”: Reconciling Democracy with the Shari’a.
Readings: KKJ, Chapter 12; Tezcur and Ayoob readings in Ingram Reader.
Unit Fifteen—December 3, 5
Lectures: Capitalism without Democracy: The People’s Republic of China; From Master Kung
to Mao: the Continuity of Confucianism and Communism.
Readings: KKJ, Chapter 13; Ghai & Woodman, Economist and Tan & Zhao readings in Ingram
Reader.
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Unit Sixteen—December 10
Lectures: The Globalization-Localization Paradox; The Role of the European Union and Other
Trans- or Supra-national Institutions, such as the UN and WTO.
Readings: Barber essay on Jihad vs. McWorld (Blackboard).
Unit Seventeen—December 12
FINAL EXAMINATION
The Final will be held in our classroom on Thursday from 800-1000.
Please bring two (2) Form 882 Scantrons and a #2 pencil to the final exam.
THE ESSAY (OR THE OPTIONAL TAKE-HOME FINAL EXAM) IS DUE AT 11:59 PM
(JUST BEFORE MIDNIGHT) ON THE DATE OF THE FINAL EXAM, DECEMBER 12!