HUMAN, SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE TRIPOS (HSPS)
PART IIA 2015-2016
Pol 4: Comparative Politics
Course organiser
Christopher Bickerton (cb799@cam.ac.uk)
Department of Politics & International Studies
7 West Road
Lecturers
(General Lectures)
Christopher Bickerton (cb799@cam.ac.uk)
Pieter van Houten (pjv24@cam.ac.uk)
(Modules)
Glen Rangwala (gr10009@cam.ac.uk)
Harald Wydra (hbw23@cam.ac.uk)
Pieter Van Houten (pjv24@cam.ac.uk)
Ian Cooper (ic312@cam.ac.uk)
Tomas Larsson (thl33@cam.ac.uk)
Venue and times for General Lectures in Michaelmas
(TBC)
Contents
1. Aims and objectives of the course
2. Brief Description of the Paper
3. Modes of teaching
4. Modes of assessment
5. Background Reading
6. Lecture List
7. Supervisions: questions and readings
8. Modules
9. Examination
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1. Aims and objectives of the course
This is a broadly focused paper aiming to give students an understanding of the key actors
and dynamics that make up contemporary politics. The paper pursues this goal from a
comparative perspective, meaning that it selects examples from across the world in order to
determine how universal certain political phenomena are, what common causes they may
share, and how different trajectories of political development are possible and why they
occur. The paper also aims to give students a basic grasp of the comparative method, of its
role in political science research, and of the usefulness of comparison in understanding our
political environment. The paper aims to provide students with the conceptual tools needed to
think about politics from a comparative perspective. It also aims to provide enough empirical
knowledge for them to appreciate the diversity of political life and to match generalized
insights about the nature of political behaviour with sophisticated empirical examples that
illustrate variation and complexity.
2. Brief description of the course
Comparative politics uses the method of comparison as a way of exploring political
dynamics. The course is divided into two parts: a lecture series plus accompanying
supervisions; a course of modules consisting of 4 to 6 lectures each, plus two supervisions for
each module. This course focuses on three key concepts: states, regimes and interests. Each
of the three themes covered by the lectures will take up one of these concepts in detail.
Assessment will be in the form of an end of year written exam.
Lecture Series
The first theme on state formation will: explore the origins of state formation and theories of
state formation developed by comparative historical sociologists; compare and assess the
strength of various theoretical explanations for the emergence of modern states; compare the
different trajectories of state formation taken by European states and explain the variation in
state traditions amongst contemporary European states; look at state transformation outside of
Europe, particularly at China, post-colonial states and post-communist states in Eastern
Europe; explore contemporary processes of state-building, focusing in particular on
international state-building i.e. the building of state institutions by outside powers.
The second theme on regimes will: study of the origins of different political regimes,
focusing in particular on the origins of democracy and authoritarianism; explore
comparatively the phenomenon of democratization, looking at differences across time and
space; look at the presence of hybridity within political regimes, e.g. the phenomenon of
‘illiberal democracies’; identify variation within the constitutional arrangements of
democratic states, contrasting parliamentary and presidential political systems and federal
and unitary systems.
The third theme on modes of interest representation will: study in detail political parties as a
crucial actor representing interests in political life today; identify the origins of parties and
detail their transformation over time, from factions through to mass parties up to present-day
‘catch-all’ and ‘cartel parties’; look at the role of parties in contemporary politics and at the
reasons for the high rates of disapproval and declining memberships that parties face in many
parts of the world; an exploration of how interests are represented outside of parliamentary
politics, focusing on interest groups, private actors and non-governmental organizations;
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theories and models of interest representation, focusing in particular on pluralism and
corporatism.
Modules
The second part of the course consists of five modules, with students being required to
choose two out of the five. These modules focus on specific countries with the aim of giving
students an introduction to comparative political analysis. Whilst involving some
geographical focus, the modules are organized around some key themes of comparative
politics, such as state formation, nation-building and nationalism, the role of the military in
politics and the rise of populism.
3. Modes of teaching
The first part of the paper consists of 16 lectures. Students are expected to attend every
lecture and they will be given three supervisions in Michaelmas term, each of which will
cover one of the three themes into which the lectures have been grouped. The second part of
the course consists of six modules, with students being required to choose two out of the six.
Students will receive supervisions for these modules in Lent term, in addition to the lectures
which they are expected to attend.
4. Mode of assessment
There will be a three hour unseen examination paper in the Easter term, in which students
will be required to answer three questions. The questions will be grouped into six sections.
The first section refers to the material covered in the lectures and students must answer one
question from this section. Students must answer two questions from two of the remaining
five sections.
5. Background reading
The following books are recommended as preparatory reading and as background reading
during the course. Some are of a general nature; others focus on specific themes of
comparative politics or in particular countries or regions. Some of the readings are academic
books, others are written for a broader audience. Students should follow their interest in
deciding what to read. Students may also wish to familiarize themselves with some of the
leading comparative politics journals, in order to get a flavour of comparative political
analysis. These include Comparative Political Studies, The Journal of Democracy and
Government and Opposition,
General
C. A. Bayly (2004) The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914 (Oxford: Blackwells)
F. Fukuyama (2012) The Origins of Political Order; From Prehuman Times to the French
Revolution (London: Profile)
--(2014) Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to
the Globalization of Democracy (London: Profile)
B. Guy Peters (2013) Strategies for Comparative Research in Political Science (Basingstoke:
Palgrave)
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R. Hague and M. Harrop (2013) Comparative Government and Politics, 9th Edition
(Basingstoke: Palgrave)
S. Huntington (1968) Political Order in Changing Societies (London: Yale University Press)
R. Lachmann (2010) States and Power (Cambridge: Polity)
M. Mann (1986, 1993, 2012) Sources of Social Power, 4 Volumes (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press) [all volumes available as ebooks]
Y. Papadopoulos (2013) Democracy in Crisis? Politics, Governance and Policy
(Basingstoke: Palgrave)
A. de Tocqueville (2004) Democracy in America, transl. by Arthur Goldhammer (New York:
Library of America) [available as ebook]
Europe
T. Bale (2013) European Politics: A Comparative Introduction (Palgrave: Basingstoke)
I. Berend (2010) Europe since 1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
C. Bickerton (2012) European Integration: From Nation-States to Member States (Oxford:
Oxford University Press) [available as ebook]
T. Judt (2005) Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945 (William Heinemann: London)
P. Mair (2014) Ruling the Void: The Hollowing-Out of Western Democracy (London: Verso)
H. Wydra (2007) Communism and the Emergence of Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press) [available as ebook]
J. Zielonka (2014) Is the EU Doomed? (Polity: Cambridge)
Middle East
A. Hourani (1983 [1962]) Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798-1939 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, new edition)
M. Lynch (2006) Voices of the New Arab Public: Iraq, al-Jazeera, and Middle East Politics
Today (New York: Columbia University Press)
R. Owen (2004) State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East
(London: Routledge, 3rd edition) [available as ebook]
K. Selvik and S. Stenslie (2011) Stability and Change in the Modern Middle East (London:
IB Tauris) [available as ebook]
J. Stacher (2012) Adaptable Autocrats: Regime Power in Egypt and Syria (Stanford: Stanford
University Press)
Africa
C. Clapham, (1996) Africa and the International System (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press). [available as ebook]
Cooper, F. (2002) Africa since 1940: the past of the present (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press).
Herbst, J. (2000) States and power in Africa: comparative lessons in authority and control
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press) [available as ebook]
R. Jackson (1996) Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) [available as ebook]
Nugent, P. (2004) Africa since independence: a comparative history (Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan).
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N. Van Walle (2001) African Economies and the Politics of Permanent Crisis, 1979-1999
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
China
M. Blecher (2009) China against the Tides: Restructuring through revolution, radicalism and
reform (London: Bloomsbury)
R. Mitter (2008) Modern China: a very short introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
[available as ebook]
J. D. Spence (1999) The Search for Modern China (New York: W. W. Norton & Co)
Yongnian Zheng (ed.) (2012) Contemporary China: A History since 1978 (Oxford: WileyBlackwell)
India
F. Frankel et al (2002) Transforming India: Social and Political Dynamics of Democracy
(Oxford: Oxford University Press)
Z. Hasan (2004) Parties and Party Politics in India (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
S. Khilnani (1999) The Idea of India (London: Hamish Hamilton)
A. Kohli (2012) Poverty Amid Plenty in the New India (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press)
South-East Asia (general)
J. Bertrand (2013) Political change in Southeast Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press)
R. A Dayley & C. D Neher (2013) Southeast Asia in the new international era, 6th edition
(Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press)
D. Slater (2010) Ordering power: Contentious politics and authoritarian Leviathans in
Southeast Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).[available as ebook]
W. Case (2002) Politics in Southeast Asia: Democracy or less (London: Routledge)
T. Vu (2014) Paths to Development in Asia: South Korea, Vietnam, China and Indonesia
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) [available as ebook]
United States
L. Greenhouse (2012) The US Supreme Court: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford
University Press) [available as ebook]
C. O. Jones (2007) The American Presidency: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford
University Press) [available as ebook]
D.A. Ritchie (2010) The US Congress: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University
Press) [available as ebook]
Anthony J. Nownes (2013) Interest Groups in American Politics: Pressure and Power
(Routledge, 2013)
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M. Brewer and J. Stonecash (2009) Dynamics of American Political Parties (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press)
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6. The Lecture list
1. Introduction
2. The comparative method
Theme 1: States: origins and contemporary dynamics
3. State formation (theory, classical examples, Western Europe)
4. State formation (non-European)
5. International State-building
Theme 2: Regimes: origins and contemporary dynamics
6. Origins of democracy and authoritarianism
7. Democratization (I)
8. Democratization (II)
9. Authoritarian/hybrid regimes
10. Constitutional features of democracy
Theme 3: Modes of interest representation
11. Parties (origins and European experiences)
12. Parties (contemporary trends)
13. Economic interests
14. NGOs and civil society
15. Theories of interest representation
16. Conclusion
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7. Supervisions: questions and readings
Students will be given three supervisions over the course of the lecture series. They will
receive two further supervisions for each module they choose. Students will receive in total
for the whole course seven supervisions. For the supervisions that are related to the lectures,
and which will be the basis for one section of the final written exam, each supervisor has a
choice of three questions for each of the three themes of the course: ‘States: origins and
contemporary dynamics’, ‘Regimes: origins and contemporary dynamics’ and ‘Modes of
interest representation’.
The questions belonging to each of these themes are set out below, along with a
recommended set of readings. Core readings are starred (**). Supervisors are expected to
direct students in the selection of cases with which to answer questions and are free to
suggest extra readings.
Theme 1: States: origins and contemporary dynamics
Description of theme:
This theme is focused on the development of the modern state. The lectures cover topics such
as the origins of the European state system, the relations between states and competing
political units such as city states, city leagues and empires, the explanations given for the
variety between European state trajectories (absolutist, constitutional, patrimonial etc.), the
issue of state formation outside of Europe, the relationship between European states and
global empires, the nature and specificity of non-European and post-colonial states, and the
dynamics of state-building in the 21st century, focusing in particular on the practice of
international state-building, its dynamics and an evaluation of its effectiveness.
Supervision essay questions plus required readings listed below each question:
1. Is ‘elite politics’ more important than ‘war-making’ as an explanation for the
formation of the modern state. Answer with reference to at least two examples.
** R. Lachman, States and Power (Cambridge: Polity) Chapters 1 and 2
** C. Tilly (1990) Coercion, capital and European States: A.D. 990-1990 (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell) Chapters 1, 2, and 3
**T. Vu (2010) ‘Studying the state through state formation’, World Politics, 62:1, pp148-75
M. A. Centeno (1997) ‘Blood and Debt: War and Taxation in Nineteenth-Century Latin
America’, American Journal of Sociology 102:6, pp. 1565-1605.
M. C. Desch (1996) ‘War and Strong States, Peace and Weak States?’ International
Organization 50:2, pp. 237-268.
T. Gongora, (1997) ‘War Making and State Power in the Contemporary Middle East’,
International Journal of Middle East Studies 29:3, pp. 323-340.
J. Herbst, (1990) ‘War and the State in Africa’, International Security 14:4, pp. 117-139.
M. Mann, Sources of Social Power, Vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
Chapters 12-15 [available as ebook]
G. Sorensen (2001) ‘War and State Making: Why Doesn’t It Work in the Third World?’,
Security Dialogue 32, pp. 341-352.
B. D. Taylor and Roxana Botea (2008) ‘Tilly Tally: War-making and State-Making in the
Contemporary Third World’, International Studies Review 10, 1, pp. 27-56.
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2. How ‘European’ is the phenomenon of the nation-state?
**C.A. Bayly (2004) The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914 (Oxford: Blackwells)
Chapter 7
**F. Fukuyama (2012) The Origins of Political Order; From Prehuman Times to the French
Revolution (London: Profile)
Chapters 1, 5, 6, and 7
**E. Hobsbawm (1992) Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) [available as ebook] Chapter 1
J. Herbst (2014) States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press) [ebook of 2000 first edition available]
R. Jackson (1996) Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) [available as ebook] Chapters 1,2 and 3
3. Can states be built from the outside, through international intervention? Answer with
reference to at least two different cases of international state-building.
** T. Sisk (2014) Statebuilding (Cambridge: Polity) [short introductory text, worth reading
all of it]
** D. Chandler and T. Sisk (eds.) (2013) Routledge Handbook of International Statebuilding
(London: Routledge) [available as ebook; large selection of chapters on all aspects
of international statebuilding]
**P. Cunliffe (2013) Legions of Peace: UN Peacekeepers from the Global South (London:
Hurst) Chapters 2 and 3
P. Ashdown (2007) Swords and Ploughshares: Bringing Peace to the 21st Century (London:
Orion)
R. Caplan (2004) ‘International Authority and State-building: The Case of BosniaHerzegovina’, Global Governance, 10:1, pp53-65
D. Chandler (2006) Empire in Denial: The Politics of State-building (London: Pluto Press)
S. Chesterman (2005) You, the People: the United Nations, transitional administration and
state-building (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
J. Chopra (2002) ‘Building state failure in East Timor’, Development and Change, 33:5,
pp.979-1000
F. Fukuyama (2004) ‘The imperative of state-building’, Journal of Democracy, 15:2, pp.1731
F. Fukuyama (2004) State-building: governance and world order in the 21st century (London:
Profile)
F. Martin and G. Knaus (2003) ‘Travails of the European Raj’, Journal of Democracy, 14:3,
pp.60-74
O. Richmond (2014) Failed Statebuilding: Intervention and the Dynamics of Peace
Formation (Yale, CT: Yale University Press) Introduction
R. Paris (2004) At War’s End: Building Peace After Civil Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press)
Further reading on theme 1:
R. H. Jackson and C. G. Rosberg (1982) “Why Africa’s Weak States Persist: The Empirical
and the Juridical in Statehood.” World Politics 35:1, pp. 1-24.
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L. Anderson (1987) ‘The State in the Middle East and North Africa’, Comparative Politics
20:1, pp. 1-18.
C. G. Thies (2009) ‘National Design and State Building in Sub-Saharan Africa’, World
Politics 61:4, pp. 623-669.
V. I. Ganev (2005) ‘Post-Communism as an Episode of State Building: A Reversed Tillyan
Perspective’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies 38, pp. 425-445.
A. Grzymala-Busse and P. Jones-Luong (2002) ‘Reconceptualizing the State: Lessons from
Post-Communism’, Politics and Society 30:4, pp. 529-554.
R. Bean (1973) ‘War and the Birth of the Nation State’, Journal of Economic History 33:1,
pp. 203-221.
G. M. Easter (2008) ‘The Russian State in the Time of Putin’, Post-Soviet Affairs 24:3, pp.
199-230.
S. Gunn, D. Grummit and H. Cools (2008) ‘War and the State in Early Modern Europe:
Widening the Debate’, War in History 15:4, pp. 371-388.
R. Hague and M. Harrop (2013) Comparative Government and Politics, 9th Edition
(Basingstoke: Palgrave), Chapter 2
D. Helling (2010) ‘Tillyan Footprints beyond Europe: War-Making and State-Making in the
Case of Somaliland’, St Anthony’s International Review 6: 1, pp. 103-123.
M. Kroenig and J. Stowsky (2006) ‘War Makes the State, But Not As It Pleases: Homeland
Security and American Anti-Statism’, Security Studies 15:2, pp. 225-270.
H. Spruyt (2002) ‘The Origins, Development, and Possible Decline of the Modern State’,
Annual Review of Political Science 5, pp. 127-149.
C. G. Thies (2005) ‘War, Rivalry and State Building in Latin America’, American Journal of
Political Science 43:3, pp. 451-465.
C. Tilly (1989) ‘Cities and States in Europe, 1000-1800’, Theory and Society 18:5, pp. 563584.
Theme 2: Regimes: origins and contemporary dynamics
Description of theme:
This theme is focused on political regimes and emphasizes the diversity of political outcomes
that are possible alongside processes of societal modernization and the rise of capitalist and
command economies. The theme looks at the explanations given for why some states develop
in the direction of liberal parliamentary democracy whilst others do not, on the process of
democratization and its geographical spread across the globe, the resilience of authoritarian
regimes in many parts of the world, the rise of hybrid regimes that blur the lines between
democracy and authoritarianism, and the specific constitutional features of democratic
regimes. Emphasis is given to the institutional diversity within democracies, evident in the
contrast between parliamentary and presidential forms of government.
Supervision essay questions plus required readings listed below each question:
1. What explains the emergence of democracy? Discuss with reference to one or more
specific cases.
**C. Tilly (2007) Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) [available as ebook] Chapters 1, 2 and 7.
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**V. Bunce (2000) ‘Comparative Democratization: Big and Bounded Generalizations’,
Comparative Political Studies 33:6/7, pp. 703-734.
**A. Przeworski and F. Limongi (1997) ‘Modernization: Theories and Facts’, World
Politics 49:2, pp. 155-183.
**T. Carothers (2007) ‘How Democracies Emerge: The “Sequencing” Fallacy’, Journal of
Democracy 18:1, pp. 12-27.
Readings for possible examples:
V. Bunce (2003), ‘Rethinking Recent Democratization: Lessons from the Postcommunist
Experience’, World Politics 55, pp. 167-92
B. Moore Jr. (1966) Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the
Making of the Modern World (Boston: Beacon) Chapters 1 and 2.
T. Ertman (2010) ‘The Great Reform Act of 1832 and British Democratization’, Comparative
Political Studies 43:8/9, pp. 1000-1022.
S. E. Hanson (2010) ‘The Founding of the French Third Republic’, Comparative Political
Studies 43:8/9, pp. 1023-1058.
M. Bernhard (2001) ‘Democratization in Germany: A Reappraisal’, Comparative Politics 33,
pp. 379-400.
T. Ertman (1998) ‘Democracy and Dictatorship in Interwar Europe Revisited’, World Politics
50, pp. 475-505.
K. Weyland (2010) ‘The Diffusion of Regime Contention in European democratization,
1830-1940’, Comparative Political Studies 43, pp. 1148-1176.
Sheri Berman (2007) ‘How Democracies Emerge: Lessons from Europe’, Journal of
Democracy 18:1, pp. 28-41.
O. Encarnacion (2005) ‘Do Political Pacts Freeze Democracy? Spanish and South American
Lessons’, West European Politics 28:1, pp. 182-203.
T. L. Karl (1990) ‘Dilemmas of Democratization in Latin America’, Comparative Politics
23:1, pp. 1-21.
K. Remmer (1996) ‘The sustainability of political democracy: Lessons from South America’,
Comparative Political Studies 29, pp. 611-634.
J. Mahoney (2001) ‘Path-Dependent Explanations of Regime Change: Central America in
Comparative Perspective’, Studies in Comparative International Development 36:1,
pp. 111-141.
J. Grugel (2007) ‘Latin America after the Third Wave’, Government and Opposition 42:2, pp.
242-257.
F. Hagopian (1990) ‘Democracy by Undemocratic Means? Elites, Political Pacts and Regime
Transition in Brazil’, Comparative Political Studies 23:2, pp. 147-170.
J.L. Klesner (1998) ‘An electoral route to Democracy? Mexico’s Transition in Comparative
Perspective’, Comparative Politics 30:4, pp.477-97.
G. O’Donnell (1993) ‘On the State, Democratization, and some Conceptual Problems: A
Latin American View with Glances at Some Post-Communist Countries’, World
Development 21:8, pp. 1355-1369.
G. Munck and C. Skalnik Leff (1997) ‘Modes of Transition and Democratization: South
America and Eastern Europe in Comparative Perspective’, Comparative Politics 29:3,
pp. 343-362.
M. McFaul (2002) ‘The Fourth Wave of Democracy and Dictatorship: Noncooperative
Transitions in the Postcommunist World’, World Politics 54, pp. 212-244.
H. Hale (2011) ‘Formal Constitutions in Informal Politics: Institutions and Democratization
in Post-Soviet Eurasia’, World Politics 63, 4 (2011).
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J. Kopstein and J. Wittenberg (2010) ‘Between Dictatorship and Democracy: Rethinking
National Minority Inclusion and Regime Type in Interwar Eastern Europe’,
Comparative Political Studies 43:8/9, pp. 1089-1118.
R. Sakwa (2011) ‘The Future of Russian Democracy’, Government and Opposition 46:4,
pp.517-537.
Y. Chu (1998) ‘Labor and Democratization in South Korea and Taiwan’, Journal of
Contemporary Asia 28:2, pp.185-202.
T.J. Cheng and E.M. Kim (1994) ‘Making Democracy: Generalizing from the South Korean
Experiences’, in E. Friedman (ed), The Politics of Democratization (: Boulder, CA:
Westview Press).
S. Rigger (2004) ‘Taiwan’s Best-Case Democratization’, Orbis 48:2, pp.285-92
A. Varshney (1998) ‘Why democracy survives’, Journal of Democracy 9:3 pp36-56 [On
India]
J. Sidel (2008) ‘Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy Revisited: Colonial State and
Chinese Immigrant in the Making of Modern Southeast Asia’, Comparative Politics
40:2, pp127-148.
A. Acharya (1999) ‘Southeast Asia’s Democratic Moment’, Asian Survey 39:3 pp. 418-432.
D. Slater (2009) ‘Revolutions, Crackdowns, and Quiescence: Communal Elites and
Democratic Mobilization in Southeast Asia’, American Journal of Sociology 115,
pp.203-254.
K. O’Brien and R. Han (2009) ‘Path to Democracy? Assessing Village Elections in China’,
Journal of Contemporary China, 18:60, pp. 359-378.
J. Zhang (2007) ‘Marketization, Class Structure and Democracy in China’, Democratization
14:3, pp.425-45.
A. J. Nathan (2012) ‘Confucius and the Ballot Box: Why “Asian Values” Do not Stymie
Democracy’, Foreign Affairs 91.
R. Joseph (1997) ‘Democratization in Africa since 1989: Comparative and Theoretical
Perspectives’, Comparative Politics 29, pp. 363-382.
R. Sandbrook (1996) ‘Transition without Consolidation: Democratization in Six African
Cases’, Third World Quarterly 17:1, pp.69-88.
L. Villalon (2010) ‘From Argument to Negotiation: Consulting Democracy in African
Muslim Contexts’, Comparative Politics 42:4, pp.375-393.
D. Branch and N. Cheeseman (2008) ‘Democratization, Sequencing, and State Failure in
Africa: Lessons from Kenya’, African Affairs 108: 430, pp. 1-26.
D. Berg-Schlosser (2008) ‘Determinants of Democratic Successes and Failures in Africa’,
European Journal of Political Research 47, pp. 269-306.
G. Lynch and G. Crawford (2011) ‘Democratization in Africa 1990-2010: An Assessment’,
Democratization 18:2, pp.275-310
B.U. Nwosu (2012) ‘Tracks of the Third Wave: Democracy Theory, Democratisation and the
Dilemma of Political Succession in Africa’, Review of African Political Economy
39:131, pp.11-25
M. Bratton and N. Van De Walle (1997) Democratic Experiments in Africa: Regime
Transitions in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
V. Nasr (2005) ‘The Rise of “Muslim Democracy”’, Journal of Democracy 16:2, pp. 13-27.
L. Berger (2011) ‘The Missing Link? US Policy and the International Dimensions of Failed
Democratic Transitions in the Arab World’, Political Studies 59:1, pp.38-55.
J. J. Linz and A. Stepan (1996) Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation
(Washington: Johns Hopkins University Press). [Includes case studies from several
regions]
D. Ziblatt (2006) ‘How did Europe democratize?’ World Politics 58, pp. 311-338.
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Further reading:
J. Grugel and M. L. Bishop (2014) Democratization: A Critical Introduction (Basingstoke:
Palgrave) 2nd Edition.
S. M. Lipset (1959) ‘Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and
Political Legitimacy’, American Political Science Review 53:1, pp.69-105.
D. Rustow (1970) ‘Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model’, Comparative
Politics 2:3, pp337-363.
M. Olson (1993) ‘Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development’, American Political Science
Review 87:3, pp567-576.
D. Brinks and M. Coppedge (2006) ‘Diffusion is No Illusion: Neighbour Emulation in the
Third Wave of Democracy’, Comparative Political Studies 39:4, pp. 463-489.
B. Geddes (1999) ‘What Do We Know about Democratization after Twenty Years?’, Annual
Review of Political Science 2:1, pp115-44.
C. Boix (2011) ‘Democracy, Development and the International System’, American Political
Science Review 105, pp. 809-828.
G. O’Donnell and P. C. Schmitter (1986) Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative
Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Washington: Johns Hopkins University
Press).
T. Carothers (2002) ‘The End of the Transition Paradigm’, Journal of Democracy 13:1 pp. 521.
P. Burnell (2013) ‘Promoting Democracy’, Government and Opposition, 48:2, pp. 265-287.
L. Whitehead (2011) ‘Enlivening the Concept of Democratization: The Biological Metaphor’,
Perspectives on Politics 9:2, pp. 291-299.
2. Why are some authoritarian regimes more resilient than others?
**J. Gandhi (2008) Political Institutions under Dictatorship (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press) [available as e-book] Chapter 1.
**J. Gerschewski (2013) ‘The Three Pillars of Stability: Legitimation, Repression, and Cooptation in Autocratic Regimes’, Democratization 20:1, pp. 13-38.
**M. L. Ross, ‘Does Oil Hinder Democracy?’, World Politics 53, 3 (2001), pp. 325-361.
**S. Levitsky and Lucan A. Way, ‘Elections without Democracy: The Rise of Competitive
Authoritarianism’, Journal of Democracy 13:2, pp. 51-65.
Readings for possible examples and other useful studies:
L. Anderson (1991) ‘Absolutism and the Resilience of Monarchy in the Middle East’,
Political Science Quarterly 106:1, pp. 1-15.
E. Bellin (2004) ‘The Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Exceptionalism in
Comparative Perspective’, Comparative Politics 36:2, pp. 139-157.
E. Bellin (2012) ‘Reconsidering the Robustness of Authoritarianism: Lessons of the Arab
Spring’, Comparative Politics 44:2, pp. 127-149.
S. J. King (2007) ‘Sustaining Authoritarianism in the Middle East and North Africa’,
Political Science Quarterly 122, pp. 433-460.
J. Brownlee (2011) ‘Executive Elections in the Arab World: When and How Do They
Matter?’, Comparative Political Studies 44:7, pp.807-828.
13
G. Tezcür (2012) ‘Democracy Promotion, Authoritarian Resiliency, and Political Unrest in
Iran’, Democratization 19:1, pp.120-140.
Y.-T. Chang, Y. Zhu and P. Chong-Min, ‘Authoritarian Nostalgia in Asia’, Journal of
Democracy 18:3, pp.66-80.
A. Nathan (2003) ‘Authoritarian Resilience’, Journal of Democracy 14:3, pp6-17.
M. Pei (2012) ‘Is CCP Rule Fragile or Resilient?’, Journal of Democracy 23:1, pp.27-41 [On
China]
R. MacKinnon (2012) ‘China’s “Networked Authoritarianism”’, Journal of Democracy 22:2,
pp. 32-46.
J. Sidel (2008) ‘Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy Revisited: Colonial State and
Chinese Immigrant in the Making of Modern Southeast Asia’, Comparative Politics
40:2, pp. 127-148.
D. Slater (2003) ‘Iron Cage in an Iron Fist: Authoritarian Institutions and the Personalization
of Power in Malaysia’, Comparative Politics 36:1, pp81-101.
D. Slater (2012) ‘Strong-State Democratization in Malaysia and Singapore’, Journal of
Democracy 23:2, pp. 19-33.
S. Ortmann (2011) ‘Singapore: Authoritarian, but Newly Competitive’, Journal of
Democracy 22:4, pp.153-64
M. Mietzner (2012) ‘Indonesia’s Democratic Stagnation: Anti-reformist Elites and Resilient
Civil Society’, Democratization 19:2, pp.209-229
M. McFaul (2002) ‘The Fourth Wave of Democracy and Dictatorship: Noncooperative
Transitions in the Postcommunist World’, World Politics 54, pp. 212-244.
L. Shevtsova (2004) ‘The Limits of Bureaucratic Authoritarianism’, Journal of Democracy
15:3, pp.67-77
P. Roeder (1994) ‘Varieties of post-Soviet Authoritarian Regimes’, Post-Soviet Affairs 10,
pp. 61-101.
L. Way (2005) ‘Authoritarian State Building and Regime Competitiveness in the Fourth
Wave’, World Politics 57:2, pp365-381.
H. Hale (2005) ‘Regime Cycles: Democracy, Autocracy, and Revolution in Post-Soviet
Eurasia’, World Politics 58, pp. 133-165.
T. Ertman (1998) ‘Democracy and Dictatorship in Interwar Europe Revisited’, World Politics
50, pp. 475-505.
M. Bratton and N. Van de Walle (1994) ‘Neopatrimonial Regimes and Political Transitions
in Africa’, World Politics 46:4, pp.453-89.
K. L. Remmer, ‘Neopatrimonialism: The Politics of Military Rule in Chile, 1973-1987’,
Comparative Politics 21:2, pp.149-70
J. Corrales and M. Penfold (2007) ‘Venezuela: Crowding out the Opposition’, Journal of
Democracy 18:2, pp.99-113.
S. Barracca, ‘Military Coups in the Post-Cold War Era: Pakistan, Ecuador and Venezuela’,
Third World Quarterly 28:1, pp137-54.
J. Brownlee (2007) Authoritarianism in an Age of Democratization (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press). [On Egypt, Iran, Malaysia & Philippines]
J. Gandhi (2008) Political Institutions under Dictatorship (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press) [available as e-book] Chapter 2 [On Kuwait, Morocco, Ecuador]
B. Smith (2005) ‘Life of the Party: The Origins of Regime Breakdown and Persistence under
Single-Party Rule’, World Politics 57, pp. 421-451.
T. Ambrosio (2010) ‘Constructing a Framework for Authoritarian Diffusion: Concepts,
Dynamics, and Future Research’, International Studies Perspectives 11, pp. 375-392.
14
B. Magaloni (2010) ‘The Game of Electoral Fraud and the Ousting of Authoritarian Rule’,
American Journal of Political Science 54:3, pp.751-765
J. Gandhi and E. Lust-Okar (2009) ‘Elections under Authoritarianism’, Annual Review of
Political Science 12, pp. 403-422.
B. Magaloni (2008) ‘Credible Power-Sharing and the Longevity of Authoritarian Rule’,
Comparative Political Studies 20:10, pp.715-741.
B. Magaloni and R. Kricheli (2010) ‘Political Order and One-Party Rule’, Annual Review of
Political Science 13, pp.123-43
L. Gilbert and P. Mohseni (2011) ‘Beyond Authoritarianism: The Conceptualization of
Hybrid Regimes’, Studies in Comparative International Development 46:3, pp.27097.
M. Boogaards (2009) ‘How to Classify Hybrid Regimes? Defective Democracy and Electoral
Authoritarianism’, Democratization 16:2, pp.399-423.
Further reading:
P. Brooker (2014) Non-Democratic Regimes (Basingstoke: Palgrave) 3rd ed.
B. Moore, Jr. (1966) Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Boston: Beacon Press).
S. P. Huntington (1968) Political Order in Changing Societies (Yale: Yale University Press).
S. Levitsky and L. Way (2010) Competitive authoritarianism: hybrid regimes after the Cold
War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
D. Slater (2010) Ordering power: contentious politics and authoritarian leviathans in
Southeast Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
N. Ezrow and E. Frantz (2011) Dictators and Dictatorships: Understanding Authoritarian
Regimes and Their Leaders (London: Continuum).
3. How important is regime type (parliamentary, presidential or semi-presidential) for
the democratic performance of a country?
**M. S. Shugart (2006) ‘Comparative Executive-Legislative Relations’, in Rhodes, Binder
and Rockman (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions (Oxford: Oxford
University Press), pp. 344-365. [available online]
**A. Lijphart (1992) ‘Introduction’, in Lijphart (ed), Parliamentary versus Presidential
Government (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 1-27.
**R. Elgie (2005) ‘From Linz to Tsebelis: Three Waves of Presidential/Parliamentary
Studies?’, Democratization 12:1, pp.106-122.
**J. A. Cheibub and F. Limongi (2002) ‘Democratic Institutions and Regime Survival:
Parliamentary and Presidential Democracies Reconsidered’, Annual Review of
Political Science 5, pp. 151-179.
**R. Elgie (2011) Semi-Presidentialism: Sub-Types and Democratic Performance (Oxford:
Oxford University Press) Chapter 1.
Readings for possible examples:
A. Stepan and C. Skach (1993) ‘Constitutional Frameworks and Democratic Consolidation:
Parliamentarism versus Presidentialism’, World Politics 46:1, pp. 1-22.
J. Gerring, S. C. Thacker and C. Moreno (2009) ‘Are Parliamentary Systems Better?’,
Comparative Political Studies 42:3, pp. 327-359.
15
W. Riggs (1997) ‘Presidentialism versus Parliamentarism: Implications for
Representativeness and Legitimacy’, International Political Science Review 18:3, pp.
253-278.
T. Hiroi and S. Omori (2009) ‘Perils of Presidentialism? Political Systems and the Stability of
Democracy’, Democratization 16:3, pp.485-507.
J. Cheibub (2002) ‘Minority Governments, Deadlock Situations and the Survival of
Presidential Democracies’, Comparative Political Studies 35, pp. 284-312.
A. Siaroff (2003) ‘Comparative Presidencies: The Inadequacy of the Presidential, SemiPresidential and Parliamentary Distinction’, European Journal of Political Research
42:3, pp. 287-312.
U. G. Theuerkauf (2013) ‘Presidentialism and the risk of ethnic violence’, Ethnopolitics 12:1,
pp.72-81 (and responses to this article in the same journal issue).
D. Stockemer (2014) ‘Regime Type and Good Governance in Low and High Income States:
What is the Empirical Link?’, Democratization 21:1, pp.118-136.
A. King (1976) ‘Modes of Executive-Legislative Relations: Great Britain, France, and West
Germany’, Legislative Studies Quarterly 1:1, pp11-34.
F. W. Riggs (1988) ‘The Survival of Presidentialism in America: Para-Constitutional
Practices’, International Political Science Review 9:4, pp. 247-278.
O. A. Neto (2006) ‘The Presidential Calculus: Executive Policy-Making and Cabinet
Formation in the Americas’, Comparative Political Studies 39:4, pp. 415-440.
S. Mainwaring (1990) ‘Presidentialism in Latin America’, Latin American Research Review
25:1, pp. 157-179.
K. Hochstetler and D. Samuels (20100) ‘Crisis and Rapid Re-equilibration: The
Consequences of Presidential Challenge and Failure in Latin America’, Comparative
Politics 43:2, pp. 127-145.
S. Mainwaring and M. Shugart (1977) (Eds.), Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin
America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). [Includes several case studies]
S. Morgenstern and B. Nacif (Eds.), Legislative Politics in Latin America (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press). [Has chapters on specific cases, and a useful concluding
chapter by Cox & Morgenstern]
G. M. Easter (1997) ‘Preference for Presidentialism: Postcommunist Regime Change in
Russia and the NIS’, World Politics 49:2, pp. 184-211.
O. Protsyk (2003)‘Troubled Semi-Presidentialism: Stability of the Constitutional System and
Cabinet in Ukraine’, Europe-Asia Studies 55:7, pp. 1077-1095.
F. Fukuyama, B. Dressel and B. Chang (2005) ‘Facing the Perils of Presidentialism?’,
Journal of Democracy 16:2, pp. 102-116. [On Southeast Asia]
N. Van de Walle (2003) ‘Presidentialism and Clientelism in Africa’s Emerging Party
System’, Journal of Modern African Studies 41:2, pp. 297-321.
R. Elgie (1999) (Ed.) Semi-Presidentialism in Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
[available as e-book]
R. Elgie, S. Moestrup and Y. Wu (2011) (Eds.), Semi-Presidentialism and Democracy
(Basingstoke: Palgrave). [Gives global overview of cases of semi-presidentialism].
P. Schleiter and E. Morgan-Jones (2010) ‘Who’s in Charge? Presidents, Assemblies and the
Political Control of Semi-Presidential Cabinets’, Comparative Political Studies 43:11,
pp. 1415-1441.
P. Schleiter and E. Morgan-Jones (2009) ‘Party Government in Europe? Parliamentary and
Semi-Presidential Democracies Compared’, European Journal of Political Research
48:5, pp. 665-693.
F.
Further reading:
16
J. J. Linz (1990) ‘The Perils of Presidentialism’, Journal of Democracy 1:1, pp. 51-69.
M. Shugart and J. Carey (1992) Presidents and Assemblies: Constitutional Design and
Electoral Dynamics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
G. Sartori (1997) Comparative Constitutional Engineering, 2nd ed. (Basingstoke: Palgrave)
Chapters 5 and 6.
A. Lijphart (1999) Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in ThirtySix Countries (Yale: Yale University Press) Chapter 7.
G. Tsebelis (1995) ‘Decision-Making in Political Systems: Veto Players in Presidentialism,
Parliamentarism, Multicameralism and Multipartyism’, British Journal of Political
Science 25:3, pp. 389-325.
R. Elgie (2011) Semi-Presidentialism: Sub-Types and Democratic Performance (Oxford
University Press).
Theme 3: Modes of interest representation
Description of theme:
This theme looks at the actors in the political process and the interests represented at various
stages of decision-making. It focuses on the key actors in politics: political parties, economic
interests, NGOs and civil-society actors. It also focuses on the different ways in which the
representation of interests can become institutionalized: via pluralist or corporatist modes of
interest representation. The theme is historically very broad, starting with the origins of
interest representation in the form of estates, professional guilds and other characteristic
features of early modern political life. It looks at the role of factions as precursors to modern
political parties, and the emergence of mass parties in the late 19th century. The theme also
concerns itself with European and non-European dynamics. This theme also considers
contemporary forms of representation, such as new populist parties, and inquiries into the
widespread scepticism many people feel concerning the ability of political actors to represent
individual citizens.
Supervision essay questions plus required readings listed below each question:
1. What role do political parties play in the working of representative government and
how well do they perform this role today?
**T. Ball (2003) (Ed.) Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay: The Federalist
with Letters of “Brutus” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) Federalist 10
[On factions] [available as ebook]
**I. Van Biezen (ed) (2014) On parties, party systems and democracy: selected writings of
Peter Mair (Colchester: ECPR Press) Chapters 22-25
**R. Katz and P. Mair (1995) ‘Changing Models of Party Organization and Party
Democracy’, Party Politics, 1:1, pp. 5-28
**B. Manin (1997) The Principles of Representative Government (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press) Chapter 6 [available as ebook]
**M. Lipset and S. Rokkan (1990) ‘Cleavage Structures, Party Systems, and Voter
Alignments’ in P. Mair (ed) The West European Party System (Oxford: Oxford
University Press)
**E. E. Schattschneider (1942) Party Government (New York: Rinehart) Chapter 1
17
T. Bale (2011) The Conservative Party: From Thatcher to Cameron (Cambridge: Polity)
R. Dalton, D. M. Farrell and I. McAllister (2011) Political Parties and Democratic Linkages:
How Parties Organize Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press) Introduction
R. Dalton and M. Wattenberg (2000) Parties Without Partisans: Political Parties in
Advanced Industrial Democracies (Oxford: Oxford University Press) [available as
ebook]
M. Flinders, A. Gamble, C. Hay and M. Kenny (Eds.) (2009) The Oxford Handbook of
British Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press) Chapters 16 and 24
R. Hofstadter (1969) The Idea of a Party System: The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the
United States (London: University of California Press)
R. Katz and W. Crotty (2006) Handbook of Party Politics (London: Sage) Chapter 4
R. Katz and P. Mair (1996) ‘Cadre, Catch-all or Cartel? A Rejoinder’, Party Politics, 2:4,
pp525-34
S. N. Kalyvas (1996) The Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press)
R. Koole (1996) ‘Cadre, Catch-All or Cartel? : A Comment on the Notion of the Cartel
Party’, Party Politics, 2:4, pp507-523
J. Lapalombara and M. Wiener (1966) Political Parties and Political Development
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press) Chapter 1
P. Mair and I. van Biezen (2001) ‘Party Membership in Twenty European Democracies:
1980-2000’, Party Politics, 7:1, pp.5-21
P. Mair (1997) Party System Change: Approaches and Interpretations (Oxford: Oxford
University Press) [available as ebook]
P. Mair (2014) Ruling the Void: The Hollowing Out of Western Democracy (London: Verso)
Chapters 1, 2 and 3
P. Webb (2005) ‘Political Parties and Democracy: The Ambiguous Crisis’, Democratization,
12:5, pp633-650
P. Webb, D. M. Farrell and I. Holliday (2002) Political Parties in Advanced Industrial
Democracies (Oxford: Oxford University Press) [available as ebook]
2. How politically significant are NGOs and civil society?
**S. Lang (2012) NGOs, Civil Society, and the Public Sphere (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press), Chapters 1-3. [available as e-book]
**M. Foley and R. Edwards (1998) ‘Beyond Tocqueville: Civil Society and Social Capital in
Comparative Perspective’, American Behavioral Scientist 42:1, pp. 5-20.
**R. W. Jackman and R. A. Miller (1998) ‘Social Capital and Politics’, Annual Review of
Political Science 1, pp. 47-73.
K. Martens (2002) “Mission Impossible?” Defining Non-Governmental Organizations’,
Voluntas 13:3, pp. 271-285.
G. Baker (1999) ‘The Taming of the Idea of Civil Society’, Democratization 6:3, pp. 1-29.
L. Diamond (1994) ‘Towards Democratic Consolidation’, Journal of Democracy 5:3, pp.4-17
O. Encarnacion (2006) ‘Civil Society Reconsidered’, Comparative Politics 38:3, pp357-76
M. W. Foley and R. Edwards, ‘The Paradox of Civil Society’, Journal of Democracy 7:3, pp.
38-52.
18
C. Mercer (2002) ‘NGOs, Civil Society and Democratization: A Critical Review of the
Literature’, Progress in Development Studies 2:1, pp. 5-22.
M. Bernhard and E. Karakoc, ‘Civil Society and the Legacies of Dictatorship’, World
Politics, 59:4, pp. 539-67
M. Levi (1996) ‘Social and Unsocial Capital’, Politics and Society 24, pp. 45-56.
J. Staples, ‘What Future for the NGO Sector?’ Dissent 25 (2008), pp. 15-18.
S. Tarrow (2011) Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics, 3rd ed.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) [or earlier ed.].
S. Lang (2012) NGOs, Civil Society, and the Public Sphere (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press), Chapters 4-7. [available as e-book]
R. Putnam (Ed.) (2002), Democracies in Flux: The Evolution of Social Capital in
Contemporary Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press) [available as e-book]. [Case
studies on Great Britain, US, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Australia, Japan]
P. Hall (1999) ‘Social Capital in Britain’, British Journal of Political Science 29, pp. 417461.
A. Appleton (2005) “Associational Life in Contemporary France,” in Alistair Cole et al
(Eds.), Development in French Politics 3 (Basingstoke: Palgrave).
R. Putnam (1993) Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press).
S. Berman (1997) ‘Civil Society and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic’, World Politics
49, pp. 401-429.
H. P. Kitschelt (1986) ‘Political Opportunity Structures and Political Protest: Anti-Nuclear
Movements in Four Democracies’, British Journal of Political Science, 16, pp. 57-85.
R. Putnam (1995) ‘Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital’, Journal of
Democracy 6:1, pp.65-78.
P. McDonough, D. C. Shin and J. A. Moises (1998) ‘Democratization and Participation:
Comparing Spain, Korea and Brazil’, Journal of Politics 60:4, pp. 919-953.
M. M. Howard (2002), ‘The Weakness of Postcommunist Civil Society’, Journal of
Democracy 13:1, pp.157-69.
M. M. Howard (2003) The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
C. Marsh (2000) ‘Social Capital and Democracy in Russia’, Communist and Post-Communist
Studies 33, pp. 183-199.
S. L. Henderson (2002) ‘Selling Civil Society: Western Aid and the Nongovernmental
Organization Sector in Russia’, Comparative Political Studies 35:2, pp.139-167.
P. Jones-Luong and E. Weinthal (1999) ‘The NGO Paradox: Democratic Goals and NonDemocratic Outcomes in Kazakhstan’, Europe-Asia Studies 51:7, pp. 1267-1284.
G. Guo (2007) ‘Organizational Involvement and Political Participation in China’,
Comparative Political Studies 40, pp. 457-482.
T. Hildebrandt (2013) Social Organizations and the Authoritarian State in China
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) [available as e-book]
S. Sen (1999) ‘Some Aspects of State-NGO Relationships in India in the Post-Independence
Era’, Development and Change 30, pp. 327-355.
A. Varshney (2001) ‘Ethnic Conflict and Civil Society: India and Beyond’, World Politics
53, pp. 362-398.
E. E. Hedman (2001) ‘Contesting State and Civil Society: Southeast Asian Trajectories’,
Modern Asian Studies 35:4, pp. 921-951.
Q. Ma (2006) Non-Governmental Organizations in Contemporary China: Paving the Way to
a Civil Society (London: Routledge).
E. Gyimak-Boadi (1996) ‘Civil Society in Africa’, Journal of Democracy 7:2, pp. 118-132.
19
A. Carl Levan (2011) ‘Questioning Tocqueville in Africa: Continuity and Change in Civil
Society during Nigeria’s Democratization’, Democratization 18:1, pp. 135-159.
M. Pinkney (2009) NGOs, Africa and the Global Order (Basingstoke: Palgrave).
J. Townsend, G. Porter and E. Mawdsley (2004) ‘Creating Spaces of Resistance:
Development NGOs and Their Clients in Ghana, India and Mexico’, Antipode 36:5,
pp. 871-899.
A. Brysk (2000), ‘Democratizing Civil Society in Latin America’, Journal of Democracy
11:3, pp. 151-165.
S. E. Alvarez (2009) ‘Beyond NGO-ization? Reflections from Latin America’, Development
52:2, pp. 175-184.
B. Cannon and M. Hume (2012) ‘Central America, Civil Society and the “Pink Tide”:
Democratization or De-democratization’, Democratization 19:6, pp.1-26.
M. Edwards (Ed.) (2011) The Oxford Handbook of Civil Society (Oxford: Oxford University
Press) [especially Part 3 and Chapter 30]. [Available online]
C. Offe (1987) ‘Challenging the boundaries of institutional politics: social movements since
the 1960s’, in C. Maier (Ed) Changing Boundaries of the Political: Essays on the
evolving balance between state and society, public and private in Europe (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press).
J.E. Curtis, Douglas E. Baer and Edward G. Grabb, ‘Nations of Joiners: Explaining
Voluntary Association Membership in Democratic Societies’, American Sociological
Review 66, 6 (2001), pp. 783-805.
E. Schofer and M. Fourcade-Gourinchas, ‘The Structural Contexts of Civic Engagement:
Voluntary Association Membership in Comparative Perspective’, American
Sociological Review 66 (2001), pp. 806-828.
The State of Civil Society, 2013: http://socs.civicus.org
J. Hall (ed), Civil Society: Theory, History and Comparison (Polity Press, 1995).
S. Feldman, ‘NGOs and Civil Society: Unstated Contradictions’, Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science 554 (1997), pp. 46-65.
W. Grant, Pressure Groups and British Politics (Macmillan, 2000).
M. Keck and K. Sikking, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International
Politics (Cornell University Press, 1998).
3.
How important are economic actors in shaping political decision-making?
**C. Crouch, ‘The Snakes and Ladders of Twenty-First Century Trade Unionism’, Oxford
Review of Economic Policy 16, 1 (2000), pp. 70-83.
**G.K. Wilson, ‘Corporate Political Strategies’, British Journal of Political Science 20, 2
(1990), pp. 281-288.
**R. Youngs, ‘Democracy and the Multinationals’, Democratization 11, 1 (2004), pp. 127147.
**O. Molina and M. Rhodes, ‘Corporatism: The Past, Present and Future of a Concept’,
Annual Review of Political Science 5 (2002), pp. 305-331.
C. Mahoney and F. Baumgartner, ‘Converging Perspectives on Interest-Group Research in
Europe and America’, West European Politics 31 (2008), pp. 1253-1273.
J. Beyers, R. Eising and W. Maloney, ‘Researching Interest Group Politics in Europe and
Elsewhere’, West European Politics 31 (2008), pp. 1103-1128.
J. Visser, ‘The Rise and Fall of Industrial Unionism’, Transfer: European Review of Labour
and Research 18, 2 (2012), pp. 129-141.
20
S. Scheuer, ‘Union Membership Variation in Europe: A Ten-Country Comparative Analysis’,
European Journal of Industrial Relations 17, 1 (2011), pp. 57-73.
P.H. Kristensen and R.S. Rocha, ‘New Roles for the Trade Unions: Five Lines of Action for
Carving Out a New Governance Regime’, Politics and Society 40, 3 (2012), pp. 453479.
L. Baccaro, K. Hamann and L. Turner, ‘The Politics of Labour Movement Revitalization:
The Need for a Revitalized Perspective’, European Journal of Industrial Relations 9,
1 (2003), pp. 119-133.
D.G. Blanchflower, ‘International Patterns of Union Membership’, British Journal of
Industrial Relations 45, 1 (2007), pp. 1-28 (esp. first couple of sections).
R. Gumbrell-McCormick and R. Hyman, Trade Unions in Western Europe: Hard Times,
Hard Choices (Oxford University Press, 2013).
D. Clawson and M.A. Clawson, ‘What Has Happened to the US Labor Movement? Union
Decline and Renewal’, Annual Review of Sociology 25 (1999), pp. 95-119.
M.V. Murillo, ‘From Populism to Neoliberalism: Labor Unions and Market Reforms in Latin
America’, World Politics 52 (2000), pp. 135-174.
S. Etchemendy and R. Berins Collier, ‘Down but Not Out: Union Resurgence and Segmented
Neocorporatism in Argentina (2003-2007)’, Politics and Society 35, 3 (2007), pp.
363-401.
E. Webster and S. Buhlungu, ‘Between Marginalization and Revitalization? The State of
Trade Unionism in South Africa’, Review of African Political Economy 31, 100
(2004), pp. 229-245.
S. Luce, Labor Movements: Global Perspectives (Polity Press, 2014).
D. Coen, W. Grant and G. Wilson, The Oxford Handbook of Business and Government
(Oxford University Press, 2010), esp. Chapters 1, 6, 8 and 10; Part III (which has
chapters on business representation in the US, Europe, Latin America, Japan and
China); and Chapters 16 and 22.
M.A. Smith, ‘The Mobilization and Influence of Business Interests’, in L.S. Maisel et al
(eds), The Oxford Handbook of American Political Parties and Interest Groups
(Oxford University Press, 2010) [available online].
D.M. Hart, ‘Business Is Not an Interest Group: On the Study of Companies in American
National Politics’, Annual Review of Political Science 7 (2004), pp. 47-69.
K.M. Goldstein, Interest Groups, Lobbying, and Participation in America (Cambridge
University Press, 1999) [available as e-book].
D. Vogel, ‘The Power of Business in America: A Re-Appraisal’, British Journal of Political
Science 13, 1 (1983), pp. 19-43.
W. Grant, ‘Large Firms and Public Policy in Britain’, Journal of Public Policy 4, 1 (1984),
pp. 1-17.
A. Sampson, Who Runs this Place? The Anatomy of Britain in the 21st Century (Murray,
2004)
S. Avdagic and C. Crouch, ‘Organized Economic Interests: Diversity and Change in an
Enlarged Europe’, in Paul M. Heywood et al, Developments in European Politics
(Palgrave, 2006).
C. Mahoney, ‘Lobbying success in the United States and the European Union’, Journal of
Public Policy 27, 1 (2007), pp. 35-56.
A. Rasmussen, B.J. Carroll and D. Lowery, ‘Representatives of the Public? Public Opinion
and Interest Group Activity’, European Journal of Political Research 53, 2 (2014),
pp. 250-268 (on interest groups in the EU).
E. Grossman, ‘Bringing Politics Back in: Rethinking the Role of Economic Interest Groups in
European Integration’, Journal of European Public Policy 11, 4 (2004), pp. 637-654.
21
C. Woll, ‘Lobbying in the European Union: From Sui Generis to a Comparative Perspective’,
Journal of European Public Policy 13, 3 (2006), pp. 456-469.
P. Bouwen, ‘Corporate Lobbying in the European Union: The Logic of Access’, Journal of
European Public Policy 9, 3 (2002), pp. 365-90.
D. Coen, ‘The European Business Interest and the Nation State: Large-Firm Lobbying in the
European Union and Member States’, Journal of Public Policy 18 (1998), pp. 75-100.
A. Binderkrantz, ‘Interest Group Strategies: Navigating between Privileged Access and
Strategies of Pressure’, Political Studies 53, 4 (2005), pp. 694-715. (Uses case of
Denmark)
F. Traxler, ‘The Long Term Development of Organized Business and its Implications for
Corporatism’, European Journal of Political Research 49 (2010), pp. 151-173.
V. Yadav, ‘Business Lobbies and Policymaking in Developing Countries: The Contrasting
Cases of India and China’, Journal of Public Affairs 8 (2008), pp. 67-82.
S. Weymouth, ‘Firm Lobbying and Influence in Developing Countries: A Multilevel
Approach’, Business and Politics 14, 4 (2012), pp. 1-26.
T. Fairfield, ‘Business Power and Tax Reform: Taxing Profits and Income in Chile and
Argentina’, Latin American Politics and Society 52, 2 (2010), pp. 37-71.
E. Silva, ‘State-Business Relations in Latin America’, in L. Whitehead (ed), Emerging
Market Democracies (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002).
S. Maxfield and B.R. Schneider (eds), Business and the State in Developing Countries
(Cornell University Press, 1997).
B.R. Schneider, Business Politics and the State in Twentieth Century Latin America
(Cambridge University Press, 2004).
T. Khanna and Y. Yafeh, ‘Business Groups in Emerging Markets: Paragons or Parasites?’,
Journal of Economic Literature 45 (2007), pp. 331-372 (esp. section 4.1).
P. Egan, ‘Hard Bargains: The Impact of Multinational Corporations on Economic Reform in
Latin America’, Latin American Politics and Society 52, 1 (2010), pp. 1-32.
L. Armijo (ed.), Financial Globalisation and Democracy in Emerging Markets (Macmillan,
1999)
A. Walter, ‘Do They Really Rule the World’, New Political Economy 3, 2 (1998), pp. 288292 (on large, multinational corporations).
D. Detomasi, ‘The Multinational Corporation as a Political Actor’, Journal of Business Ethics
(March 2014).
P.C. Schmitter, ‘Still the Century of Corporatism?’, Review of Politics 36, 1 (1974), pp. 85131.
G.A. Almond, ‘Corporatism, Pluralism, and Professional Memory’, World Politics 35, 2
(1983), pp. 245-260.
F. Traxler, ‘The Metamorphoses of Corporatism: From Classical to Lean Patterns’, European
Journal of Political Research 43 (2004), pp. 571-598
W. Streeck and P.C. Schmitter, ‘From National Corporatism to Transnational Pluralism:
Organized Interests in the Single European Market’, Politics and Society 19, 2 (1991),
pp. 133-152.
E.H. Allern and T. Bale, ‘Political Parties and Interest Groups: Disentangling Complex
Relations’, Party Politics 18, 1 (2012), pp. 7-25.
L. Baccaro and M. Simoni, ‘Policy Concertation in Europe: Understanding Government
Choice’, Comparative Political Studies 41, 10 (2008), pp. 1323-1348.
A. Hassel, ‘Policies and Politics in Social Pacts in Europe’, European Journal of Industrial
Relations 15, 1 (2009), pp. 7-26.
22
D. Bohle and B. Greskovits, ‘Neoliberalism, Embedded Neoliberalism and Neocorporatism:
Towards Transnational Capitalism in Central-Eastern Europe’, West European
Politics 30, 3 (2007).
U. Becker, ‘An Example of Competitive Corporatism? The Dutch Political Economy 1983–
2004 in Critical Examination’, Journal of European Public Policy 12, 6 (2005), pp.
1078-1102.
P.D. Culpepper and A. Regan, ‘Why Don’t Governments Need Trade Unions Anymore? The
Death of Social Pacts in Ireland and Italy’, Socio-Economic Review (forthcoming;
already available online).
J.A. Caporaso and D.P. Levine, Theories of Political Economy (Cambridge University Press,
1992), Chapter 3 (on Marxian theories)
P.J. Katzenstein, Small States in the World Economy: Industrial Policy in Europe (Cornell
University Press, 1985). (On corporatist systems in Western Europe)
S. Berger (ed), Organized Interests in Western Europe: Pluralism, Corporatism, and the
Transformation of Politics (Cambridge University Press, 1981).
C.E. Lindblom, Politics and Markets: The World’s Political-Economic Systems (Basic
Books, 1977).
23
8. Modules
The second part of this course is organized in the form of modules. Each module combines a
country focus with a wider theme or themes of comparative politics which were covered in
different ways in the general lecture series. Most, but not all, modules involve a two-country
comparison. Module A is on Egypt and Saudi Arabia, covers themes such as stability and
change in authoritarian regimes, and provides students with an opportunity to explore their
interest in Middle Eastern politics. Module B is on Russia and Poland, covers the theme of
democratization and the role of historical legacies in shaping institutional change, and is
tailored towards students interested in Eastern European politics. Module C is on the rise of
European populist parties and their place within the wider transformations of European party
systems. Module D is on South Africa and Zimbabwe and covers themes such as party
formation and democratization. Module E is on Indonesia and Burma and explores the theme
of the military in politics and the origins behind a specific form of authoritarianism, military
dictatorship.
24
A. The Middle East: Egypt and Saudi Arabia compared
The course
Over the past sixty years, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have each been, in different ways and at
different times, the core state in the Middle East. Egypt has taken on, sometimes by consent
and sometimes to the chagrin of others, the role of political and cultural leadership in the
Arab world. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has been the dominant economic force in the region,
with its ability to utilise its oil wealth to ensure that all states in the region have to coordinate
closely with it. Both states in their own ways exemplify the politics of the Middle East today.
They also have been remarkably different as polities and societies. Egypt has long presented
itself as the face of ‘modernisation’, with political systems harking at different times to
socialism, nationalism, liberalisation, and democratisation. Saudi Arabia meanwhile has been
a highly conservative society, with many areas of public and political life dominated by a
sprawling ruling family that has been deeply resistant to what it portrays as the ideological
fads that have swept the rest of the world.
The lecture series will compare two countries that between them have shared a region, and
which are near-neighbours, but which remain palpably distinct in their political institutions
and political culture. Students can expect to come away from this course with a good grasp of
the modern history of these two countries, and to understand their political systems, which in
Egypt’s case have been in rapid change since 2011.
They should also be able to draw comparisons. What explains the long experience of
authoritarianism that has dominated both countries’ modern histories, and it is the same type
of authoritarianism? Does religion play a similar role in garnering political legitimacy? To
what extent do they face the same economic and social challenges? What explains the
different paths that the two countries followed in 2011, with the type of popular movement
that developed rapidly in Egypt to overthrow Hosni Mubarak’s government seemingly absent
in Saudi Arabia?
In the reading lists below, [C] means that the item is available on CamTools, [e] indicates that
it is available through the library portal as an ebook, and [OL] means that it is available in an
on-line journal or directly via the provided link. Please do notify the lecturer if you notice
that links are down or have changed.
Essay questions
 To what extent has religion been a dominant feature in the politics of government and
opposition in Egypt and Saudi Arabia?

How do people’s economics interests and grievances affect political participation in
Egypt and Saudi Arabia?
Lectures and reading lists
Lecture 1: The formation of States
It is very much worthwhile to start this course by developing a general sense of the historical
evolution and politics of the Middle East. Owen is probably the best way in for a newcomer
25
to the region, developing both a historical account and themes for analysis. In addition to this
text, a general historical sense of the two core countries that are being examined in this option
– Egypt and Saudi Arabia – is crucial. On Saudi Arabia, Al-Rasheed’s account is ideal for
this purpose. Niblock is an alternative, but is less detailed. Kostiner traces Saudi history in
terms of relations between tribes and a centralising state apparatus. Oddly enough, there is no
comparable high-quality history of modern Egypt; many general histories of the Middle East
as a whole give a considerable degree of centrality to the place of Egypt in that history, and it
is perhaps best to approach Egypt through relevant sections of Gelvin (chapters 5, 9-10, 12
and 15) and (maybe preferably) Cleveland & Bunton (the relevant sections of chapters 4-6,
11, 15-16 and 18), before moving on to literature from the second lecture about Egypt.
* Roger Owen, State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East (London:
Routledge, 3rd edition, 2004) [e]
William Cleveland and Martin Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East (Westview
Press, 4th edition, 2009) – earlier editions, with Cleveland as the sole author, are
also fine
Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (London: Faber & Faber, 1991)
James Gelvin, The Modern Middle East: A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005)
* Madawi Al-Rasheed, A History of Saudi Arabia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2nd edition, 2010) [e]
Tim Niblock, Saudi Arabia: Power, Legitimacy and Survival (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006)
Joseph Kostiner, ‘Transforming dualities: tribe and state formation in Saudi Arabia’, in Philip
Khoury and Joseph Kostiner, eds, Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East
(Berkeley CA: University of California Press, 1990) [C]
Lecture 2: Authoritarianism and its challengers
Middle East scholarship developed a range of ways of explaining the persistence of
authoritarianism in the region before the Arab Uprisings of 2011. It is important to
understand the general approach to the region in this respect and the specific arguments about
Egypt and Saudi Arabia; Schlumberger provides the best starting point, with chapter 2
(Heydemann) setting out general arguments, chapters 4 (Albrecht), 8 (Pioppi) and 11
(Richter) on Egypt, and chapter 15 (Aarts) a provocative short coda on Saudi Arabia. The
Posusney/Angrist is similar: chapters 1 (Posusney) and 2 (Bellin) are useful ways in to the
topic, chapter 9 (Langohr) is particularly good on Egypt, and chapter 8 (Herb) briefly on
Saudi Arabia.
On Saudi Arabia, the most useful texts here are two contrasting articles: the first by
Glosmeyer, the second by Al-Rasheed & Al-Rasheed (and/or see the first chapter of the
author’s more recent Contesting the Saudi State, listed with lecture 6, for a more recent
account of the ideology of ‘defensive conservatism’); also see the texts with lecture 4. On
Egypt, Kassem is fairly introductory. Perhaps most useful are two perhaps contrasting texts:
Stacher, which is a comparison with Syria, but is focused enough on Egypt, especially in
chapter 3 on elite cooption; and Cook – especially chapter 4 – which explores the role of the
military specifically. Springborg is good, but dated.
The challengers come out most explicitly in the form of the Arab Spring / Arab Uprisings of
2011, but have a deeper history. It’s important to explore the historical distinctiveness of the
movements that, in Egypt, led to the removal of the Mubarak regime in 2011, and the
26
(re)assertion of military-backed rule in 2013. A good place to start is the Gerges collection,
with chapters 3, 7 and 11 useful on Egypt, and 16 on Saudi Arabia; out of these Chalcraft’s
chapter 7 is perhaps the most distinctive. On Egypt, Abdelrahman draws out the long term
nature of the popular struggle in the country: see especially chapters 2 and 5, but the full text
is useful. Bellin and Barani are also useful general accounts. The final chapter in Cook and
the article by Martini and Taylor are useful contrasting perspectives on how significant the
overthrow of Mubarakwas for Egypt’s political system. Stein is useful on the problems of
consolidation. On Saudi Arabia, Kamrava, Clary / Karlin, Lacroix and the introduction to
Haykel et al. give quite different reviews of the potential effects (or the absence of them) of
the Arab Spring. See also the texts listed with lecture 5 on the role of sectarianism within a
counter-revolutionary strategy.
For both countries, it is important to keep track of contemporary developments. A useful
source is Middle East Report, and pieces from July and Winter 2013 and on Egypt are listed
as examples. The apparent generational change in Saudi leadership in 2015 has at time of
compilation not yet found its way in to the academic literature, but it is valuable to
understand this and consider to what extent it will alter the dynamics of Saudi politics.
* Oliver Schlumberger, ed., Debating Arab Authoritarianism: Dynamics and Durability in
Nondemocratic Regimes (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007) [chapter 4
on C].
Marsha Pripstein Posusney and Michele Penner Angrist, eds., Authoritarianism in the Middle
East: Regimes and Resistance (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2005) [Chapter 9 on C]
Maye Kassem, Egyptian Politics: The Dynamics of Authoritarian Rule (Boulder, CO: Lynne
Rienner, 2004) [Chapter 3 on C]
* Madawi Al-Rasheed and Loulouwa Al-Rasheed, ‘The politics of encapsulation: Saudi
policy towards tribal and religious opposition’, Middle Eastern Studies, 32 (1), 1996,
96–120. [OL]
Iris Glosemeyer, ‘Checks, balances and transformation in the Saudi political system’, in Paul
Aarts and Gerd Nonneman, eds., Saudi Arabia in the Balance (London: Hurst & Co.,
2005), pp.214-233 [C]
Joshua Stacher, Adaptable Autocrats: Regime Power in Egypt and Syria (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 2012) [Chapter 3 on C]
Steven Cook, Ruling But Not Governing: The Military and Political Development in Egypt,
Algeria, and Turkey (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2007) [Chapter 4
on C]
Robert Springborg, Mubarak’s Egypt: Fragmentation of the Political Order (Boulder, CO:
Lynne Rienner, 1989).
* Fawaz Gerges, ed., The New Middle East: Protest and Revolution in the Arab World
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014) [Chapter 3 on C]
* Maha Abdelrahman, Egypt’s Long Revolution: Protest Movements and Uprisings (London:
Routledge, 2014) [e]
Eva Bellin, ‘Reconsidering the robustness of authoritarianism in the Middle East: lessons
from the Arab spring’, Comparative Politics, vol. 44/2 (January 2012), pp. 127-149
Zoltan Barani, ‘Comparing the Arab revolts: the role of the military’, Journal of Democracy,
vol. 22/4 (October 2011), pp.28-39, via: http://tinyurl.com/pol4vi
Steven Cook, The Struggle for Egypt: From Nasser to Tahrir Square (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2011) [e]
Jeff Martini and Julie Taylor, ‘Commanding democracy in Egypt’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 90/5
(Sept/Oct 2011), via: http://tinyurl.com/pol4ii
27
Ewan Stein, ‘Revolution or coup? Egypt's fraught transition’, Survival: Global Politics and
Strategy, vol. 54/4 (August 2012), pp. 45-66 [OL].
* Bernard Haykel, Thomas Hegghammer, and Stéphane Lacroix, eds., Saudi Arabia in
Transition: Insights on Social, Political, Economic and Religious Change
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), Introduction.
Mehran Kamrava, ‘The Arab spring and the Saudi-led counterrevolution’, Orbis, vol. 56/1
(2012), pp.96-104, via: http://tinyurl.com/pol4vii
Christopher Clary and Mara E. Karlin, ‘Saudi Arabia's reform gamble’, Survival, vol. 53/5
(Sept 2011), pp.15-20, via: http://tinyurl.com/pol4iii
Stéphane Lacroix, ‘Is Saudi Arabia immune?’, Journal of Democracy, vol. 22/4 (October
2011), pp.48-59, via: http://tinyurl.com/pol4v
Middle East Research & Information Project, Middle East Report – ‘Egypt in Year 3’ (July
2013) and Editorial (Winter 2013), at:
http://www.merip.org/mero/mero071013
http://www.merip.org/mer/mer269/editors
Lecture 3: Religion and the state
In both countries, religion has had a significant role in shaping political discourse. The main
focus of much of the literature on Saudi Arabia is on the form of Islam adopted in that
country, which is usually referred to by outsiders and critics as ‘Wahhabism’. Piscatori, a
short schematic article, is old but still probably the best place to start. Steinberg gives a
historical account of the religious elite, but Al-Rasheed’s History (lecture 1) is more
thorough. See also the chapter from Yamani (lecture 6), on the younger generation’s views on
the role of Islam in public life. Delong-Bas provides a critical reassessment of the extent to
which what is now often referred to Wahhabism is really a product of the eighteenth-century
thought of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, arguing instead that it is a modern invention.
Literature on Egypt tends to look to the parties that were in opposition prior to 2011 that
made particular appeal to their Islamic credentials, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood:
here, El-Ghobashy is probably the best starting point, with Wickham and Bayat subsequently.
Al-Awadi is an updated text from 2004, but contains a new final chapter and postscript on
more recent developments. Wickham’s text is best to read in full; the chapter copied to
CamTools is on the development of Islamist networks, but other chapters are also directly
useful, including the postscript, which takes the account up to the 2000s.
It is also important to look to the way in which governments of Egypt since the 1970s have
all made strong claims to religious authenticity, and also how much of the opposition within
Saudi Arabia has tried to outflank the monarchy through claims to being true upholders of the
country’s religious inheritance. On Egypt, see especially Ismail chapter 3, which concerns the
differences and similarities of ‘official Islam’ from the religious discourse of oppositional
movements. See also al-Awadi chapter 2 and Bayat. On Saudi Arabia, see Lacroix on the
Sahwa movement (or chapter 9 by the same author in the Haykel et al, listed with lecture 3);
Jones is a short, and less historically informed, alternative.
* James P. Piscatori, ‘The roles of Islam in Saudi Arabia’s political development’, in John L.
Esposito (ed.), Islam and Development: Religion and Sociopolitical Change
(Syracuse University Press, 1980), pp. 123–38. [C]
28
Guido Steinberg, ‘The Wahhabi ulama and the Saudi state: 1745 to the present’, in Paul Aarts
and Gerd Nonneman, eds., Saudi Arabia in the Balance (London: Hurst & Co.,
2005), pp.11-34.
Natana Delong-Bas, Wahhabi Islam: from Revival and Reform to Global Jihad (London: I.B.
Tauris, 2007) [chapter 6 on C]
* Stéphane Lacroix, Awakening Islam: The Politics of Religious Dissent in Contemporary
Saudi Arabia (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2011) [chapter 1 on C].
Toby Jones, ‘Religious revivalism and its challenge to the Saudi regime’, in Mohammed
Ayoob and Hasan Kosebalaban, eds, Religion and Politics in Saudi Arabia (Boulder,
CO: Lynne Rienner, 2009), pp.109-120 [C].
* Carrie Wickham, Mobilizing Islam: Religion, Activism, and Political Change in Egypt
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2003) [chapter 7 on C]
* Salwa Ismail, Rethinking Islamist Politics: Culture, the State and Islamism (London: IB
Tauris, 2006) [chapter 3 on C]
* Asef Bayat, Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), chapter 5 [C].
Hesham Al-Awadi, The Muslim Brothers in Pursuit of Legitimacy: Power and Political Islam
in Egypt under Mubarak (London: IB Tauris, 2014)
Sheri Berman, ‘Islamism, revolution, and civil society’, Perspectives on Politics, vol. 1/2
(June 2003), pp. 257-272 [OL]
Mona El-Ghobashy, ‘The metamorphosis of the Egyptian Muslim Brothers’, International
Journal of Middle East Studies 37(2005), pp.373-395 [OL].
Lecture 4: Development and disjuncture
Discussions of the politics of Saudi Arabia revolve around its ‘rentier’ character: Okrulik and
Chaudhry are both comparative accounts that include Saudi Arabia, and are generally within
the rentier paradigm. Hertog provides a well-researched critique: chapters 1 and 8 are
particularly worth reading. See also Foley, for lecture 6.
Analysis of Egypt tends to take a quite different focus of analysis: it is centrally concerned
with the programmes of economic reform or liberalisation continually announced by
Egyptian governments, their economic and political effects, and the reasons for their repeated
stalling. Although making an advanced argument, Kienle is perhaps the best one to read first:
the final chapter brings together the overall evaluation, but the earlier material in the book
provides the necessary substance. Approaching from a different angle, El-Mahdi analyses the
breakdown of the corporatist model in Egypt; note that this article was written before the
2011 uprising. Sullivan and Zaki may prompt a useful comparison. Posusney is a bit dated,
but its focus on how economic liberalisation changed relations between the state and labour
unions is still relevant. Roy and Shehata are partly technical in nature, but both contain
provocative political arguments.
* Gwenn Okruhlik, ‘Rentier wealth, unruly law, and the rise of opposition: the political
economy of oil states’, Comparative Politics, 31(3), 1999, 295–315. [OL]
Kiren Aziz Chaudhry, ‘Economic liberalization and the lineages of the rentier state’,
Comparative Politics, 27(1), 1994, pp.1–25. [OL]
* Steffen Hertog, Princes, Brokers, and Bureaucrats: Oil and State in Saudi Arabia (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 2010)
* Eberhard Kienle, A Grand Delusion: Democracy and Economic Reform in Egypt (I.B.
Tauris Publishers, 2001) [e]
29
* Rabab El-Mahdi, ‘Labour protests in Egypt: causes and meanings’, Review of African
Political Economy, Volume 38, Issue 129, 2011
Marsha Posusney, Labor and the State in Egypt: Workers, Unions and Economic
Restructuring (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997) [chapter 5 on C]
Denis J. Sullivan, ‘The political economy of reform in Egypt’, International Journal of
Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 22 (1990), pp.317-334. [OL]
Mokhlis Y. Zaki, ‘IMF-supported stabilization programs and their critics: evidence from the
recent experience of Egypt’, World Development 29/ 11 (2001), pp.1867-1883 [OL]
Delwin A. Roy, 'Egyptian emigrant labour: domestic consequences', Middle Eastern Studies,
vol. 27/4 (1991), pp.551-82 [OL]
Samer Shehata, ‘In the Basha’s house: the organizational culture of Egyptian public-sector
enterprise’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 37/1 (2003), pp.103–32.
[OL]
Lecture 5: The State and its minorities
Both countries have substantial religious minorities whose claims to a distinctive identity
have been the subject of extensive political debates. Many within these minorities have been
at the forefront of attempts to transform the character of the state, and the government’s
response has been varied and revealing.
On Shi’a political movements in Saudi Arabia, see the relevant sections from chapter 4 of
Louer on the uneasy compromises made with the rulers. A more critical account, in the
aftermath of the Arab uprisings, comes from Al-Rasheed. Matthiesen’s book is a detailed
historical account of the politics of the Shi’a community: see especially chapter 3 (for the
1979 uprising) and chapters 6-7 for developments over the past decade. If it’s unavailable,
then Jones provides an alternative to the earlier period, and the article by Matthiesen is an
earlier account on the recent protests.
On relations between the Egyptian government and the Coptic population, see especially
Iskander. The shorter pieces by Tadros and Sedra are particularly on the Copts during and
after the 2011 revolution.
Laurence Louer, Shiism and Politics in the Middle East (London: Hurst, 2012)
* Madawi Al-Rasheed, ‘Sectarianism as counter-revolution: Saudi responses to the Arab
Spring’, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, vol. 11/3 (December 2011), pp. 513526, via: http://tinyurl.com/pol4iv
Toby Matthiesen, The Other Saudis: Shiism, Dissent and Sectarianism (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2014)
Toby Matthiesen, ‘A “Saudi Spring?” The Shi‘a protest movement in the Eastern Province
2011-12’, Middle East Journal, vol. 66/4 (August 2012), pp. 629-659 [OL].
Toby Jones, ‘Rebellion on the Saudi periphery: modernity, marginalization and the Shi‘a
uprising of 1979’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 38/2 (2006),
pp.213–33 [OL].
Libby Iskander, Sectarian Conflict in Egypt: Coptic Media, Identity and Representation
(Abingdon: Routledge, 2012) [chapter 8 on C]
Mariz Tadros, ‘Sectarianism and its discontents in post-Mubarak Egypt’, Middle East Report
(2011), vol. 259 [OL]
Paul Sedra, ‘Reconstituting the Coptic community amidst revolution’, Middle East Report
(2012), vol. 265 [OL]
30
Lecture 6: Gender and the politics of change
The lecture course finishes with a series of reflections on the extent to which we can project
the future of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Its particular focus is on the extent to which women’s
movements reflect and propel a new and empowered set of transformative actors into the
politics of these two countries. Al-Rasheed’s 2013 book is a very readable overview of the
various changing roles of women in Saudi Arabia. The earlier book and Yamani’s volume
both look at generational change. On Egypt, a useful focus is the active but limited role of
women’s movements: see especially al-Ali’s article and the article by Langohr in
Posusney/Angrist (with lecture 2). Morsy’s piece is useful on post-2011 events though its
closing section has been overtaken by events. Beinin looks at the social effects of economic
change in Egypt. Foley and Lynch look at different types of regional change that can be
applied to both countries.
* Madawi Al-Rasheed, A Most Masculine State: Gender, Politics, and Religion in Saudi
Arabia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013)
Madawi Al-Rasheed, Contesting the Saudi State: Islamic Voices from a New Generation
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) [e]
Mai Yamani, Changed Identities: The Challenge of the New Generation in Saudi Arabia
(London: RIIA, 2000) [chapter 6 on C].
Nadje al-Ali, ‘Gender and civil society in the Middle East’, International Feminist Journal of
Politics, vol.5/2 (2003), pp.216-232.
Maya Morsy, ‘Egyptian women and the 25th of January Revolution: presence and absence’,
Journal of North African Studies, vol. 19/2 (2014), pp.211-229
Joel Beinin, ‘Political Islam and the new global economy: the political economy of an
Egyptian social movement’, CR: The New Centennial Review, 5/1 (2005), pp.111–
39. [OL]
Sean Foley, The Arab Gulf States: Beyond Oil and Islam (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2010)
[chapter 3 on C]
Marc Lynch, Voices of the New Arab Public: Iraq, al-Jazeera, and Middle East Politics
Today (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006) [chapter 2 on C]
31
B. Russia and Poland Compared (Dr Harald Wydra)
Introduction
This course introduces students into central selected themes of Russian and Polish politics. It
uses historical, political, and sociological methods in order to understand the making,
functioning, and problems of structures of power, ideology, and culture. This course will
point to numerous family resemblances related to similar patterns of social development and
state tradition but also highlight fundamental differences mainly related to formations of
state, religious orientations, commitments to democracy, or modes of extrication from
communism. The lectures start by a conceptual introduction that is attuned to historicalcultural particularities before addressing selected case studies and, eventually, discussing
comparative elements.
Essential reading:
Brown, Archie (2001) Contemporary Russian Politics. A Reader. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Davies, Norman. God's Playground: A History of Poland (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1982).
Sakwa, Richard (2008) Russian Politics and Society. 4th edition. London: Routledge.
Schoepflin, George (1993) Politics in Eastern Europe 1945-1992. Oxford: Blackwell.
Urban, Michael (2010) Cultures of Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wydra, Harald (2007) Communism and the Emergence of Democracy. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Lecture 1: State traditions and state formation
Kharkhordin, Oleg (2005) Main Concepts in Russian Politics, chapter 1
Koyama, Satoshi. 2008. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as a Political Space: Its Unity
and Complexity. Acta Slavica Iaponica 15:137-152. (on camtools)
Sakwa, Richard (2007) Russian Politics and Society, part III.
Schoepflin, George (1993) Politics in Eastern Europe. Oxford: Blackwell.
Szuecs, Jeno, ‘Three Historical Regions of Europe’, in John Keane (ed.) Civil Society and the
State. London: Verso, 291-332.
Lecture 2: Nationalism and Nation-Building
Beissinger, Mark (2002) Nationalism and Nationalist Mobilisation. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, chapter 8.
Brock, Peter (1994) ‘Polish Nationalism’, in Peter Sugar and Ivo Lederer (eds) Nationalism
in Eastern Europe. Third printing. Seattle and London: University of Washington
Press, 310-72.
Brown, Archie (2002) Contemporary Russian Politics. A Reader , Section 8 Russian
Statehood and the National Question, 343-66.
Brubaker, Rogers (1996) Nationalism Reframed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
chapters 2 and 4.
32
Richard Sakwa (2007) Russian Politics and Society, part III.
Tolz, Vera ‘Forging the Nation: National Identity and Nation Building in Post-Communist
Russia, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol.50, No.6, 993-1022 (camtools)
Zubrzycki, Genevieve (2006) The Crosses of Auschwitz: Nationalism and Religion in Post Communist Poland. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Lecture 3: Leadership and Ideological Traditions
Casanova, José (1994) ‘Poland: From Church of the Nation to Civil Society’ in Public
Religions in the Modern World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 92-113.
Curry, Jane, ‘Poland: The Politics of God’s Playground’, in Wolchik, Sharon L. and Curry,
Jane (2008) (eds) Central and East European Politics: From Communism to
Democracy. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield), 165-89.
Jasiewiczy, Krzysztof (1997) Walesa’s Legacy to the Presidency’, in Taras, Ray (ed.)
Postcommunist Presidents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 130-167.
Sakwa, Richard (2007) Putin. Russia’s Choice. London and New York: Routledge.
Wydra, Harald (2001) Continuities in Poland’s Permanent Transition, chapters 2-4.
Brown, Archie (1996) The Gorbachev Factor. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lecture 4: Communism: Revolution and Resistance
Ash, Timothy G. (1991) The Polish Revolution: Solidarity. London: Granta Books.
Bunce, Valerie (1999) Subversive Institutions: The Design and the Destruction of Socialism
and the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kotkin, Stephen (2001) Armageddon Averted. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kubik, Jan (1994) The Power of Symbols Against the Symbols of Power. Rise of Solidarity
and the Fall of State Socialism in Poland. Penn State University Press.
Rothschild, Joseph (1993) Return to Diversity. A Political History of East Central Europe
Since World War II. 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Service, Robert (2007) Comrades. A History of Communism. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Wydra, Harald (2008) ‘Revolution and Democracy: The European Experience’, in Foran,
John/ Lane, David/Zivkovic, Andreja, Revolution in the Making of the Modern
World. London and New York: Routledge, 27-44.
Wydra, Harald, Communism and the Emergence of Democracy, chapters 3 and 5.
Lecture 5: Post-Communism: The Rebirth of Politics and its Challenges
Holmes, Leslie (1997) Postcommunism. Durham: Duke University Press.
Zarycki, Tomasz, ‘Politics in the Periphery: Political Cleavages in Poland Interpreted in Their
Historical and International Context’, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 52, No. 5 (Jul.,
2000), pp. 851-873 (camtools).
Sanford, George (2002) Democratic Government in Poland: Constitutional Politics Since
1989. London: Palgrave Macmillan, chaps 1, 3, 4.
Michta, Andrew (1997) ‘Democratic Consolidation in Poland after 1989’, in Dawisha, Karen
and Parrot, Bruce (eds) The Consolidation of Democracy in East-Central Europe.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 66-108.
33
Urban, Michael et al. (1997) The Rebirth of Politics in Russia. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, chapter 1.
Jerzy Szacki (1995) Liberalism after Communism. Budapest: Central European University
Press.
Weigle, Marcia (2000) Russia’s Liberal Project. State-Society Relations in the Transition
from Communism. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 382-459.
Wydra, Harald (2007) Communism and the Emergence of Democracy. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, chapter 8-9.
Lecture 6: Authoritarian Legacies and Paths to Democracy
Dryzek, John and Holmes, Leslie (2002) Post-Communist Democratisation. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, Chapters 1, 6, 14, 16.
Fish, Steven (2003) ‘Conclusion: Democracy and Russian Politics’, Barany and Moser (eds)
Russian Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 215-51.
Kubik, Jan (2003) Cultural Legacies of State Socialism: History Making and CulturalPolitical Entrepreneurship in Postcommunist Poland and Russia, in Ekiert, G. and
Hanson, S. (2003) Capitalism and democracy in Central and eastern Europe.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
Michael Bernhard, ‘Civil Society and Democratic Transition in East Central Europe’,
Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 108, No. 2. (Summer, 1993), pp. 307-326.
Richard Sakwa (2007) Russian Politics and Society, part VI.
Sakwa, Richard (2004) Putin. Russia’s Choice. London and New York: Routledge.
Wydra, Harald (2008), ‘Democratisation as Meaning-Formation – Insights fom the
Communist Experience’, International Political Anthropology Vol. 1, No. 1, 113-32.
(on camtools)
First Supervision essay:
Is there an Eastern European model of nationalism?
Readings:
Brubaker, Rogers (1996) Nationalism Reframed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
23-54.
Casanova, José (1994) ‘Poland: From Church of the Nation to Civil Society’ in Public
Religions in the Modern World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 92113.Davies, Norman (2005) God's Playground: A History of Poland, Vol. 2 (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 3-59 and 367-98.
Hosking, Geoffrey (1997) Russia. People and Empire. London: Fontana, Introduction and 341.
Sakwa, Richard (2008) Russian Politics and Society. 3rd edition. London: Routledge, 201223 and 254-75.
Schoepflin, George (1993) Politics in Eastern Europe. Oxford: Blackwell, 5-37.
Sugar, Peter and Ivo Lederer (eds) Nationalism in Eastern Europe. Seattle and London:
University of Washington Press, 3-54.
Tolz, Vera ‘Forging the Nation: National Identity and Nation Building in Post-Communist
Russia, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol.50, No.6, 993-1022 (camtools)
34
Zubrzycki, Genevieve (2006) The Crosses of Auschwitz: Nationalism and Religion in Post Communist Poland. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 34-97.
Second Supervision Essay:
How did communist legacies influence democratisation processes in Eastern Europe?
Readings:
Dryzek, John and Holmes, Leslie (2002) Post-Communist Democratisation. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, Chapters 1, 6, 14, 16.
Fish, Steven (2003) ‘Conclusion: Democracy and Russian Politics’, Barany and Moser (eds)
Russian Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 215-51.
Kubik, Jan (2003) Cultural Legacies of State Socialism: History Making and CulturalPolitical Entrepreneurship in Postcommunist Poland and Russia, in Ekiert, G. and
Hanson, S. (2003) Capitalism and democracy in Central and eastern Europe.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 317-51.
Kotkin, Stephen (2002) Armageddon Averted. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 58-112.
Michta, Andrew (1997) ‘Democratic Consolidation in Poland after 1989’, in Dawisha, Karen
and Parrot, Bruce (eds) The Consolidation of Democracy in East-Central Europe.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 66-108.
Sakwa, Richard (2007) Russian Politics and Society, 424-75.
Urban, Michael (1997) The Rebirth of Politics in Russia. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, chapter 1.
Wydra, Harald (2008) ‘The Power of Second Reality : Communist Myths and
Representations of Democracy’, in Woell, Alexander and Wydra, Harald (eds)
Democracy and Myth in Russia and Eastern Europe. London: Routledge, 60-76.
Wydra, Harald (2008), ‘Democratisation as Meaning-Formation – Insights fom the
Communist Experience’, International Political Anthropology Vol. 1, No. 1, 113-32.
(on camtools)
Further supervision essay questions:
Do transition processes weaken or strengthen state power?
How has nationalism shaped state traditions in Eastern Europe?
Was authoritarian rule in Eastern Europe dependent on national particularities?
Can legacies of the past explain the evolution of post-communist democracies?
35
C. Western Europe: Populism and the crisis of political parties (Dr Pieter Van
Houten)
Introduction
Political parties are at the heart of politics in Western Europe. Their role as key political
actors has a long history, but has been particularly prominent since the end of World War II.
Although there is some interesting variation in their specific roles across countries, political
parties have been the ‘glue’ that connect the various aspects of politics and the political
system. They mobilize voters, presenting them with programs that highlight and synthesize
various issues based on over-arching political visions or ideologies, and structure the
functioning of parliaments and governments. The most important and powerful parties have
been social-democratic, conservative, Christian-democratic and liberal parties. (Not
surprisingly, the exact shape of the party system and the presence and strength of these ‘party
families’ vary from country to country.)
Not all is well for these traditional (or mainstream) parties, however. Talk about a ‘crisis’ of
these parties has been around for at least two decades, but has become particularly strong in
recent years. The vote shares of these parties in elections have gone down in most countries,
opinion surveys unambiguously show that public trust and confidence in political parties has
consistently decreased (although it is now difficult to see how these indicators could get any
lower than they already are), and – partly fuelled by technological developments – citizens
appear to increasingly turn to forms of political participation and engagement that do not
involve political parties.
A variety of new political parties have emerged. This started with the Green parties in the
1980s, but the most prominent new parties in recent years have been populist parties (mostly,
but not exclusively, of a right-wing nature). Example of prominent populist parties include
the Front National in France, the FPÖ in Austria, Geert Wilders’ party in the Netherlands,
UKIP in Great Britain, and the Linke (Left Party) in Germany. The ‘populist’ aspect of these
parties refers to their claim to be to be different from traditional, mainstream parties, and their
aversion to and rejection of existing political elites and ‘politics as usual’. These parties tap
into, and arguably further fuel, the popular distrust of political parties, and are the clearest
manifestation of the apparent ‘crisis of political parties’. On the other hand, however,
mainstream parties continue to be crucial actors in the politics of Western European states,
and have been trying to respond and adapt to the challenges posed by populist parties and the
public distrust of parties. Whether political parties can regain some of their legitimacy, or
how their political roles will evolve be if they cannot, are among the key questions for the
immediate future of Western European politics.
This module introduces students to the populist challenge to and alleged crisis of political
parties in Western Europe, and the responses of mainstream parties to this challenge. It will
draw on examples from a variety of Western European countries. It addresses an important
topic in comparative politics (following on from lectures 11 and 12 of the Michaelmas
module) and will demonstrate how a comparative approach can help us address questions
about this topic.
Background reading on recent European political history
36
Students doing this module are strongly encouraged to do some background reading on the
post-World War II political history of Western Europe. This will greatly help them
understand the central role of political parties, the context in which populist parties have
emerged and developed, and the challenges that these parties pose for mainstream parties. It
will make it easier to understand the empirical references and examples covered in the
readings for the supervisions. And, not unimportantly, this background reading should be
enjoyable and relatively ‘light’ (compared to the supervision reading in most papers) for
anyone interested in European politics!
Recommended background readings (choosing one, or at most two, of these is fine):
Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945 (London: Pimlico, 2005). [Brilliant
history of post-war Europe, but long and occasionally slightly dense.]
William I. Hitchcock, The Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History of a Divided
Continent 1945-2002 (London: Profile, 2003). [Good and very readable overview of
the main events, developments and political actors.]
Ivan T. Berend, Europe since 1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
[Concise and readable account of the main developments in European politics since
1980.]
Derek W. Urwin, A Political History of Western Europe since 1945, 5th ed. (London:
Longman, 1997). [Solid and useful overview of political developments in Western
Europe until the 1990s.]
Students may also find it interesting – although this is not essential for the module – to follow
current developments in Western European politics. In addition to daily British newspapers,
good sources are The Economist (www.economist.com), and Financial Times (www.ft.com).
Lectures
There are four lectures for this module. It is strongly recommended that students attend these
lectures. They will introduce the main themes of the module and discuss some examples of
populist parties and how certain mainstream parties have reacted to them. This will serve as
guidance for the readings for the supervisions.
Lecture schedule:
1.
2.
3.
4.
The role of political parties in Western Europe
The populist challenge
The (attempted) responses of mainstream parties
Further examples and the future of political parties in Western Europe
Supervisions
There will be two supervisions for this module. The two supervision questions and reading
lists are indicated below. Students are expected to use examples in their essays, and it would
be good if these examples come from more than one country.
Students who have chosen to do this module will be contacted by the lecturer at the beginning
of Lent term with information about their supervisor and the supervision schedule.
37
Supervision 1
Essay question: Why are populist parties more successful in some Western European
countries than in others?
Basic readings
Paul Taggart, ‘New Populist Parties in Western Europe’, West European Politics 18, 1
(1995): 34-51.
Cas Mudde, ‘The Populist Zeitgeist’, Government and Opposition 39, 4 (2004): 542-563.
Paul Webb, ‘Political Parties, Representation and Politics in Contemporary Europe’, in Erik
Jones, Paul Heywood, Martin Rhodes and Ulrich Sedelmeier (eds), Developments in
European politics 2 (London: Palgrave, 2011).
Hanspeter Kriesi, ‘The Populist Challenge’, West European Politics 37, 4 (2014): 361-378.
Possible further reading and examples
Cas Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2007).
Matthijs Rooduin and Teun Pauwels, ‘Measuring Populism: Comparing Two Methods of
Content Analysis’, West European Politics 34 (2011): 1272-1283.
Cas Mudde, ‘Three Decades of Populist Radical Right Parties in Western Europe: So What?’,
European Journal of Political Research 52, 1 (2013): 1-19.
Cas Mudde, ‘Fighting the System? Populist Radical Right Parties and Party System Change’,
Party Politics 20, 3 (2014): 217-226.
Nicole Bolleyer, Joost van Spanje and Alex Wilson, ‘New Parties in Government: Party
Organisation and the Costs of Public Office’, West European Politics 35 (2012): 971998.
Cas Mudde, ‘Anti-System Politics’, in Paul Heywood, Erik Jones, Martin Rhodes and Ulrich
Sedelmeier (eds), Developments in European Politics (London: Palgrave, 2006).
‘The Politics of Anti-Party Sentiment’, special issue of European Journal of Political
Research 29, 3 (1996).
Piero Ignazi, Extreme Right Parties in Western Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2003).
Tjitske Akkerman and Sarah L. de Lange, ‘Radical Right Parties in Office: Incumbency
Records and the Cost of Governing,” Government and Opposition 47 (2012): 574596.
Stijn van Kessel, ‘A Matter of Supply and Demand: The Electoral Performance of Populist
Parties in Three European Countries’, Government and Opposition 48 (2013): 175199.
Dan Hough and Michael Koss, ‘Populism Personified or Reinvigorated Reformers: The
German Left Party in 2009 and Beyond’, German Politics and Society 27, 2 (2009):
76-91.
Huib Pellikaan, Sarah L. de Lange and Tom van der Meer, ‘Fortuyn’s Legacy: Party System
Change in the Netherlands’, Comparative European Politics 5 (2007): 282-302.
Sarah L. De Lange and David Art, ‘Fortuyn versus Wilders: An Agency-Based Approach to
Radical Right Party Building’, West European Politics 34, 6 (2011): 1229-1249.
Simon Otjes and Tom Louwerse, ‘Populists in Parliament: Comparing Left-Wing and RightWing Populism in the Netherlands’, Political Studies (forthcoming; available online).
38
Philip Lynch, Richard Whitaker and Gemma Loomes, ‘The UK Independence Party:
Understanding a Niche Party’s Strategy, Candidates and Supporters’, Parliamentary Affairs
(forthcoming; available online).
Paul Webb and Tim Bale, ‘Why Do Tories Defect to UKIP? Conservative Party Members
and the Temptations of the Populist Radical Right’, Political Studies (forthcoming;
available online).
Carlo Ruzza and Stefano Fella, ‘Populism and the Italian Right’, Acta Politica 46 (2011):
158-179.
Paul Ginsborg, Silvio Berlusconi: Television, Power and Patrimony (London: Verso, 2005).
‘The Five-Star Movement: A New Political Actor on the Web, in the Streets and on Stage’,
special issue of Contemporary Italian Politics 6, 1 (2014).
Kurt Richard Luther, ‘Of Goals and Own Goals: A Case Study of Right-Wing Populist Party
Strategy for and during Incumbency’, Party Politics 17 (2011): 453-470 (on Austria).
[More readings – recently published materials and more examples – to be added later.]
Supervision 2
Essay question: How can mainstream political parties in Western Europe respond to populist
challenges?
Basic readings
Peter Mair, ‘The Challenge to Party Government’, West European Politics, 31 (2008): 211234.
Russell J. Dalton, David M. Farrell and Ian McAllister, Political Parties and Democratic
Linkage: How Parties Organize Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011),
Chapter 9.
Peter Mair, Ruling the Void: The Hollowing-Out of Western Democracy (London: Verso,
2013), Chapter 3.
Possible examples and further reading
Peter Mair, Ruling the Void: The Hollowing-Out of Western Democracy (London: Verso,
2013), rest of book.
‘Party Adaptation and Change and the Crisis of Democracy’, special issue of Party Politics
20, 2 (2014).
‘Responsive and Responsible? The Role of Parties in Twenty-First Century Politics’, special
issue of West European Politics 37, 2 (2014), esp. articles by Bardi et al, Rose,
Keman and Goetz.
Russell J. Dalton, David M. Farrell and Ian McAllister, Political Parties and Democratic
Linkage: How Parties Organize Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011),
rest of book.
Mark Blyth and Richard S. Katz, ‘From Catch-All Politics to Cartelization: The Political
Economy of the Cartel Party’, West European Politics 28 (2005): 33-60.
Richard S. Katz and Peter Mair, ‘The Cartel Party Thesis: A Restatement’, Perspectives on
Politics 7, 4 (2009): 753-766.
Ingrid van Biezen and Peter Mair, ‘Political Parties’, in Paul Heywood, Erik Jones, Martin
Rhodes and Ulrich Sedelmeier (eds), Developments in European Politics
(Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2006).
39
Dalton and Wattenberg (eds), Parties without Partisans: Political Change in Advanced
Industrial Democracies (Oxford University Press, 2000) [available as e-book], esp.
Conclusion.
Ingrid van Biezen, Peter Mair and Thomas Poguntke, ‘Going, Going, … Gone: The Decline
of Party Membership in Contemporary Europe’, European Journal of Political
Research 51 (2012): 24-56.
Paul F. Whiteley, ‘Is the Party Over?: The Decline of Party Activism and Membership across
the Democratic World’, Party Politics 17 (2011): 21-44.
Bonnie M. Meguid, ‘Competition between Unequals: The Role of Mainstream Party Strategy
in Niche Party Success’, American Political Science Review 99 (2005): 347-359. [For
a more extensive version, see Bonnie M. Meguid, Party Competition between
Unequals: Strategies and Electoral Fortunes in Western Europe (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2008) (available as e-book).]
Tjitske Akkerman, ‘Comparing Radical Right Parties in Government: Immigration and
Integration Policies in Nine Countries (1996-2010)’, West European Politics 35
(2012): 511-529.
Matthijs Rooduin, Sarah L. de Lange and Wouter van der Brug, ‘A Populist Zeitgeist?
Programmatic Contagion by Populist Parties in Western Europe’, Party Politics 20, 4
(2014): 563-575.
Paul Webb, David Farrell, and Ian Holliday (eds), Political Parties in Advanced Industrial
Democracies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). (Has chapters on various
countries)
Klaus Detterbeck, ‘Party Cartel and Cartel Parties in Germany’, German Politics 17, 1
(2008): 27-40.
Thomas Poguntke, ‘Towards a New Party System: The Vanishing Hold of Catch-All Parties
in Germany’, Party Politics (forthcoming; available online).
Uwe Jun, ‘Volksparteien under Pressure: Challenges and Adaptation’, German Politics, 20, 1
(2011): 200-222.
‘Mapping the Transformation: The CDU in Flux’, special issue of German Politics 22, 1-2
(2013).
Hilmar L. Mjelde, ‘How and Why Parties Respond to Membership Decline: The Case of the
SPD and the CDU’, German Politics 22, 3 (2013): 253-269.
Florence Haegel, ‘Political Parties: The UMP and the Right’, and Frederic Sawicki, ‘Political
Parties: the Socialists and the Left’, in Alistair Cole, Sophie Meunier and Vincent
Tiberj (eds), Developments in French Politics 5 (London: Palgrave, 2013).
Liam Byrne, ‘Powered by Politics: Reforming Parties from the Inside’, Parliamentary
Affairs, 58, 3 (2005): 611-620. (A Labour MP’s views on how his party should reform
to meet various challenges.)
[More readings – recently published materials and more examples – to be added later.]
Further/background reading on political parties in Western Europe
Alan Ware, Political Parties and Party Systems (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).
Peter Mair (ed), The West European Party System (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).
40
South Africa and Zimbabwe
South Africa and Zimbabwe are amongst the most prominent states in Africa. Before 1994,
regional superpower South Africa was regarded—to use Nelson Mandela’s phrase—as the
‘skunk’ of the world; its hated system of apartheid (‘apartness’ in the Afrikaans language)
attracted global condemnation, sanctions, boycotts, and diplomatic isolation. This worldwide
movement was to some extent spearheaded by Zimbabwe, which emerged in 1980 from its
own struggle against racial oppression to become a leading player on the African political
stage.
Since 1994, however, these roles have to some extent been reversed. South Africa has
become a global symbol of reconciliation and forgiveness, a bastion of African democracy,
and a member (alongside Brazil, Russia, India and China) of the BRIC group of rising
powers. Zimbabwe by contrast has become a pariah, condemned throughout the Western
world for its stagflation, rigged elections, and violent seizure of white-owned land.
Zimbabwe’s response has been to project itself as the victim of, and a leading voice of global
opposition to, Western ‘imperialism’.
Despite their pretentions to regional leadership and their many political, economic and social
similarities, therefore, South Africa and Zimbabwe have moved in quite different directions
over the past twenty years. This module will provide students with an understanding of
political history, recent developments, and current controversies in these two neighbouring
states, alongside an opportunity to apply some of the comparative theories and concepts
developed elsewhere in the course.
A number of comparative questions and puzzles will be explored. How is state-building
undertaken in post-conflict environments? How do ruling elites respond to external pressure
for domestic political change? What lessons, if any, can South Africa draw from Zimbabwe’s
experience of democracy and dictatorship? And when does single-party dominance break
down?
Lecture 1: Racial segregation, armed conflict, and liberation
Perhaps surprisingly, given its geo-strategic importance during the Cold War period, there are
no heavyweight studies of regional politics in southern Africa. Nugent’s Africa since
independence contains a useful chapter on the liberation struggles in South Africa,
Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia and Mozambique, written in a concise and accessible way.
More detailed analysis must however be gleaned from the following works of national history
(an asterix indicates essential reading).
South Africa
*William Beinart, Twentieth century South Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
Anthony Butler, Democracy and apartheid: political theory, comparative politics and the
modern South African state (London: Macmillan, 1998).
Anthony Butler, Contemporary South Africa (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003)
[especially chapter 1].
41
Hermann Giliomee, The Afrikaners: biography of a people. 2nd edn. (London: Hurst, 2011).
*Dan o'Meara, Forty lost years: the apartheid state and the politics of the National Party,
1948- 1994 (Randburg: Ravan Press, 1996).
Martin J. Murray, Revolution deferred: the painful birth of post-apartheid South Africa
(London: Verso, 1994).
Allister Sparks, The mind of South Africa (London: Mandarin, 1991).
Leonard Thompson, A history of South Africa (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001).
Zimbabwe
*Richard Bourne, Catatrophe: what went wrong in Zimbabwe? (London: Zed Books, 2011).
*Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe and Legal Resources Foundation,
Breaking the silence, building true peace: a report on the disturbances in
Matabeleland and the Midlands, 1980 to 1988 (Harare: Catholic Commission for
Justice and Peace, 1997).
Peter Godwin and Ian Hancock, Rhodesians never die: the impact of war and political
change on White Rhodesia, c.1970–1980 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
Pierre du Toit, Statebuilding and democracy in southern Africa: Botswana, Zimbabwe and
South Africa (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 1995) [chapter 3].
Political Biographies
John Allen, Rabble rouser for peace: the authorised biography of Desmond Tutu (London:
Rider, 2006).
Stephen Chan, Robert Mugabe: life of power and violence (London: I.B. Tauris, 2002).
FW de Klerk, The last trek: a new beginning (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998).
*Nelson Mandela, Long walk to freedom (London: Abacus, 1995).
Elinor Sisulu, Walter and Albertina Sisulu: in our lifetime (London: Abacus, 2002).
2. Ethnicity, national reconciliation, and the post-liberation state
At liberation, South Africa and Zimbabwe both confronted the challenge of building a nationstate from the ashes of racial oppression. Their strategies for tackling this problem have
however differed. In South Africa, President Mandela championed a policy of national
reconciliation, ethnic identities were downplayed, traditional chiefs marginalised, and black
economic empowerment programmes pursued with caution. In Zimbabwe, by contrast,
struggle-era atrocities were ignored, a substantial section of the Ndebele ethnic minority was
massacred, traditional chiefs were empowered, and radical programmes of land redistribution
inaugurated. This lecture consequently asks why South Africa and Zimbabwe have differed
in their approach to nation-building.
South Africa
Audrey R. Chapman and Hugo van der Merwe, Truth and reconciliation in South Africa: did
the TRC deliver? (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2008).
Lyn S. Graybill, Truth and reconciliation in South Africa: miracle or model? Boulder: Lynne
Rienner, 2002.
Ineke van Kessel and Barbara Oomen, “One chief, one vote: the revival of traditional
42
authorities in post- apartheid South Africa”, African Affairs 96, 385 (1997): 561-586.
Jessica Piombo, “Political parties, social demographics and the decline of ethnic mobilisation
in South Africa, 1994-1999,” Party Politics 11, 4 (2005): 447-470.
Laurence Piper, “Nationalism without a nation: the rise and fall of Zulu nationalism in South
Africa’s transition to democracy, 1975-99,” Nations and Nationalism 8, 1 (2002):
73-94.
Deborah Posel and Graeme Simpson, Commissioning the past: understanding South Africa’s
Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University
Press, 2002).
John Sharp, “Ethnic group and nation: the apartheid vision in South Africa”, in Emile
Boonzaier and John Sharp, eds., South African keywords : the uses and abuses of
political concepts (Cape Town: David Philip, 1988).
*Truth and Reconciliation Commission. http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/
Charles Villa-Vicencio and Fanie du Toit, Truth and reconciliation in South Africa: 10 years
on (Claremont: David Philip, 2006).
Richard A. Wilson, The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: Legitimizing the
Post-Apartheid State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
Zimbabwe
T.K. Biaya, “Managing ethnic conflicts in Zimbabwe,” in Okwudiba Nnoli, ed., Ethnic
conflicts in Africa (Dakar: CODESRIA, 1998)
Jeffrey Herbst, State politics in Zimbabwe (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).
Liisa Laakso, “Regional voting and cabinet formation,” in Staffan Darnolf and Liisa Laakso,
eds., Twenty years of independence in Zimbabwe: from liberation to
authoritarianism (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2003).
Brian Raftopoulos, “Unreconciled differences: limits of reconciliation politics in Zimbabwe,”
in Brian Raftopoulos and Tyrone Savage, eds., Zimbabwe: injustice and political
reconciliation (Cape Town: Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, 2004).
Brian Raftopoulos, “Nation, race and history in Zimbabwean politics,” in Brian Raftopoulos
and Tyrone Savage, eds., Zimbabwe: injustice and political reconciliation (Cape
Town: Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, 2004).
Terence Ranger, “Missionaries, migrants and the Manyika: the invention of ethnicity in
Zimbabwe,” in Leroy Vail, ed., The creation of tribalism in southern Africa
(Berkeley: University of California, 1989).
Lloyd Sachikonye, “The nation-state project and conflict in Zimbabwe”, in Adebayo O
Olukoshi and Liisa Laakso (eds) Challenges to the nation-state in Africa (Uppsala:
Nordic Africa Institute, 1996).
Scott Taylor, “Race, class and neopatrimonialism in Zimbabwe,” in Richard Joseph, ed.,
State, conflict, and democracy in Africa (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1999).
3. Democracy and authoritarianism
Since 1994, South Africa has come to be regarded as a model African democracy, with
vibrant elections, freedom of speech, and a remarkably liberal constitution. Zimbabwe, by
contrast, has often been accused of sliding from democracy into electoral authoritarianism.
Such narratives raise a number of important questions. Has Zimbabwe ever been truly
democratic? Why does democracy seem to have taken root in South Africa and not in
Zimbabwe? And what are the prospects for democratic consolidation in both countries?
43
South Africa
William Beinart, Twentieth century South Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
Anthony Butler, “How democratic is the African National Congress?” Journal of Southern
African Politics 31, 4 (2005): 719-736.
Ian Cooper, “Zuma, Malema and the provinces: factional conflict within the African National
Congress” Transformation 87: 151-174.
*Steven Friedman, “An accidential advance? South Africa’s 2009 elections,” in Larry
Diamond and Marc F. Plattner, eds., Democratization in Africa: progress and
retreat (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2010).
Julie Hearn, “Aiding democracy? Donors and civil society in South Africa,” Third World
Quarterly 21, 5 (2000): 815-830.
Courtney Jung and Ian Schapiro, “South Africa's negotiated transition: democracy,
opposition and the new constitutional order,” Politics and Society 23, 5 (1995): 269308.
*Tracy Kuperus, “Building democracy: an examination of religious associations in South
Africa and Zimbabwe,” Journal of Modern African Studies, 37, 4 (1999): 643-668.
*Tom Lodge, “The ANC and the development of party politics in South Africa,” Journal of
Modern African Studies 42, 2 (2004): 189-219.
Tom Lodge, “The future of South Africa’s party system,” Journal of Democracy 17, 3
(2006): 152-166.
Michael MacDonald, Why race matters in South Africa (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press. 2006).
Roger Southall, “The state of democracy in South Africa”, Journal of Commonwealth and
Comparative Politics 38, 3 (2000): 147-170.
Roger Southall, “Zunami! The context of the 2009 election,” in Zunami! The 2009 South
African elections, edited by Roger Southall and John Daniel (Sunnyside and
Dunkeld: Jacana Media and Konrad Adenauer Foundation, 2009).
Roger Southall and Morris Szeftel, “Choosing ‘the freedom to be free’: the South African
elections of 1994,” in John Daniel, Roger Southall and Morris Szeftel, eds., Voting
for democracy: watershed elections in contemporary anglophone Africa (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 1999).
Zimbabwe
Peter Alexander, “Zimbabwean workers, the MDC and the 2000 election,” Review of African
Political Economy 27, 85 (2000): 385-406.
International Crisis Group, Blood and soil: land, politics and conflict prevention in Zimbabwe
and South Africa (Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2004).
*Norma Kriger, “ZANU(PF) strategies in general elections, 1980-2000: discourse and
coercion’, African Affairs 104, 414 (2005): 1-34.
Liisa Laakso, “Why are elections not democratic in Africa? Comparisons between the recent
multi-party elections in Zimbabwe and Tanzania,” Nordic Journal of African Studies
6, 1 (1997): 18-34.
Liisa Laakso, “When elections are just a formality: rural-urban dynamics in the dominantparty system of Zimbabwe,” in Michael Cowan and Liisa Laakso, eds., Multi-party
44
elections in Africa (Oxford: James Currey, 2002).
*Adrienne LeBas, From protest to parties: party-building and democratization in Africa
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
Tandeka Nkiwane, T. “Opposition politics in Zimbabwe: the struggle within the struggle,” in
A. O. Olukoshi, ed., The politics of opposition in contemporary Africa (Uppsala:
Nordic Africa Institute, 1998).
Brian Raftopoulos, “Beyond the house of hunger: democratic struggle in Zimbabwe,” Review
of African Political Economy 54 (1992): 59-74.
Tor Skêalnes, The politics of economic reform in Zimbabwe: continuity and change in
development (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995) [especially chapter 9].
Siphamandla Zondi, “Zanu-PF and MDC power-sharing: Zimbabwe at a crossroads?” in Hani
Besada, ed., Zimbabwe: picking up the pieces (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan,
2011).
4. External influences on domestic politics: political influences
From the 1960s onwards, South Africa was at the epicentre of a global campaign against
racial oppression. Its sportspeople were banned from the Olympics, its products boycotted, its
oil supplies curtailed, and its businesses denied credit. These pressures played an important
role in driving change within domestic politics. By contrast, Zimbabwe’s pariah status
appears actually to have strengthened the regime in its efforts to retain power. This lecture
will therefore ask why external influences succeeded in promoting change in South Africa,
but have so far had only a limited impact in Zimbabwe.
South Africa
Guy Arnold, South Africa: crossing the Rubicon (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992).
James Barber, Mandela’s world: the international dimension of South Africa’s political
revolution, 1990-1999 (Oxford: James Currey, 2004).
William Beinart, Twentieth century South Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
David Black and John Nauright, Rugby and the South African nation: sport, culture, politics
and power in the old and new South Africa (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 1998).
*Neta Crawford and Audie Klotz, How sanctions work: lessons from South Africa
(Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999).
Lewis Gann and Peter Duignan, Hope for South Africa? (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press,
1991) [especially chapters 6 and 7].
Joseph Hanlon, Beggar your neighbours: apartheid power in southern Africa (London:
Catholic Institute for International Relations, 1986).
Haider Khan, The political economy of sanctions against apartheid (Boulder: Lynne Rienner,
1989).
Chris Landsberg, From tar baby to transition: four decades of US foreign policy towards
South Africa (Doorfontein: Centre for Policy Studies, 1995).
Dale T. McKinley, The ANC and the liberation struggle: a critical political biography
(London: Pluto Press, 1997) [especially chapter 5].
Francis Nesbitt, Race for sanctions: African Americans against apartheid, 1946-1994
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004).
Laurence Picard and Edmond Keller, “South African patterns of change and continuity,” in
45
Edmond Keller and Laurence Picard, eds., South Africa in southern Africa: domestic
change and international conflict (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1989).
*Price, R. M., The Apartheid State in Crisis. Political Transformation in South Africa 19751990 (Oxford, 1991) [especially chapter 7].
Richard Weisfelder, “SADCC as a counter-dependency strategy: how much collective
clout?” in Edmond Keller and Laurence Picard, eds., South Africa in southern
Africa: domestic change and international conflict (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1989).
Zimbabwe
Abiodun Alao, Mugabe and the politics of security in Zimbabwe (Montreal: McGill-Queens
University Press, 2012).
Chris Alden, A pariah in our midst: regional organisations and the problematic of Westerndesignated pariah regimes: the cases of SADC/Zimbabwe and ASEAN/Myanmar
(London: Development Studies Institute, 2010). [Available at:
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/28468/1/WP73.2.pdf]
Hani Besada, ed., Zimbabwe: picking up the pieces (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011)
[especially Part III].
Stephen Chan, Southern Africa: old treacheries and new deceits (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2012).
Pieter Esterhuysen, “Zimbabwe’s external relations,” in Michael Hough and Anton du
Plessis, eds., State failure: the case of Zimbabwe (Pretoria: Institute for Security
Studies, 2004).
Deon Geldenhuys, “The special relationship between South Africa and Zimbabwe,” in
Michael Hough and Anton du Plessis, eds., State failure: the case of Zimbabwe
(Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 2004).
International Crisis Group, Zimbabwe: the politics of national liberation and international
division (Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2002). [Available at:
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/Digital-Library/Publications/Detail/?ots591=0c54e3b3-1e9cbe1e-2c24-a6a8c7060233&lng=en&id=28732]
Ian Phimister, “South African diplomacy and crisis in Zimbabwe: liberation solidarity in the
twenty-first century,” in Brian Raftopoulos and Tyrone Savage, eds., Zimbabwe:
injustice and political reconciliation (Cape Town: Institute for Justice and
Reconciliation, 2004).
*Miriam Prys, “Regional hegemon or regional bystander: South Africa's Zimbabwe policy,
2000–2005,” Politikon, 36, 2 (2009): 193-218.
Richard Schwarz, Coming to terms: Zimbabwe in the international arena (London: IB
Taurus, 2001).
Ephrem Tadesse, Public participation, policy processes and violent conflict : responsive and
participatory governance in South Africa (Johannesburg : Centre for the Study of
Violence and Reconciliation, 2006) [especially chapter 4].
*Jeremy Youde, “Why look East? Zimbabwean foreign policy and China,” Africa Today, 53,
3 (2007): 3-19.
46
Module E: Burma/Myanmar and Indonesia (Dr Tomas Larsson)
Introduction
Historically, dictators have dominated the world’s political landscape. Indeed, until fairly
recently most countries were ruled by dictatorships of one kind or another. While the number
of democracies in the world has risen dramatically in the course of the past 40 years, thus
surpassing the number of dictatorships, authoritarianism remains resilient. Indeed, Freedom
House reported in its 2015 annual report that, “acceptance of democracy as the world’s
dominant form of government — and of an international system built on democratic ideals —
is under greater threat than at any point in the last 25 years.” The historical and contemporary
significance of authoritarian forms of government is not in doubt. Yet, authoritarian forms of
government are among the least-studied areas of political science. We know a great deal
more about how democracies work, than we do about dictatorships. This module seeks to
correct this imbalance by focusing attention on one particular form of authoritarian regime —
the military dictatorship. The focus on the military is motivated in part because it is the
source of one of the central dilemmas of modern statecraft: How to create a military that is
strong enough to assert the state’s monopoly on the legitimate use of force, while at the same
time preventing it from dominating the state and tyrannizing the population?
The module explores two central questions. Under what circumstances will militaries seize
political power? And once they have seized power, how do military regimes go about
consolidating and legitimating their monopoly on political power? It explores the answers to
these questions through a comparative investigation of military dictatorships in
Burma/Myanmar and Indonesia, with a particular focus on the Ne Win (1962-1988) and
Suharto (1966-1998) regimes.
The module also aims to provide students with an introduction to the political history of two
pivotal countries in Southeast Asia. Indonesia is the world’s fourth most populous country,
with the world’s largest Muslim population. The giant archipelagic state is of great strategic
significance, sitting as it does astride the world’s busiest shipping lanes. It is, today, also
widely considered the most democratic country in the region. Burma/Myanmar is attracting
great attention because dramatic political reforms have raised hopes of a democratic future
for the country’s long-repressed population, while the dark spectre of genocide
simultaneously stalks the land, with continuing persecution of non-Buddhist minorities such
as the Rohingya, Kachin, and so on. Burma/Myanmar is also the object of intense
geopolitical rivalries involving its giant Asian neighbours, China and India, and the United
States.
This module builds on two themes — state formation and regime formation — that students
will have encountered earlier in the paper, with lectures 4 and 9 in the Lecture Series being of
particular relevance.
Lecture schedule
1. Military rule: Theoretical and comparative perspectives
2. Introduction to the politics of Burma/Myanmar and Indonesia
3. The rise of the military as a political actor
4. How military regimes stay in power
47
Supervisions
There will be two supervisions for this module, on the questions indicated below, and
drawing on the following readings:
1. Why did militaries seize political power in Burma and Indonesia?
**Vincent Boudreau, Resisting dictatorship: Repression and protest in Southeast Asia
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 37-83 [ignore sections on the
Philippines].
**Mary P Callahan, Making enemies: War and state building in Burma (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2003), pp. 172-206.
**Harold Crouch, The army and politics in Indonesia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978
and 1988), pp. 24-42.
**Samuel E Finer, The man on horseback: The role of the military in politics (Brunswick:
Transaction Publishers, 2002), pp. 1-85.
*Muthiah Alagappa, “Investigating and explaining change: an analytical framework,” in
Muthiah Alagappa (ed.), Coercion and governance: The declining political role of
the military in Asia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), pp. 29-66.
*Benedict Anderson, “Old state, new society: Indonesia’s New Order in comparative
historical perspective,” Journal of Asian Studies 42:3 (1983): 477-496.
*John Roosa, Pretext for mass murder: The September 30th movement and Suharto's coup
d'état in Indonesia (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), pp. 3-33, 205225.
*Robert H Taylor, The state in Burma (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987), pp. 217300.
Harold Crouch, The army and politics in Indonesia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978
and 1988), pp. 43-220.
Natasha Ezrow and Erica Frantz, Dictators and dictatorships: Understanding authoritarian
regimes and their leaders (New York: Continuum, 2011), chapters 1-2, 5, 9.
Damien Kingsbury, The politics of Indonesia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, 2nd
edition), pp. 33-61.
Thant Myint-U, The river of lost footsteps: Histories of Burma (NewYork: Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, 2006), pp. 257-289.
Yoshihiro Nakanishi, Strong soldiers, failed revolution: The state and military in Burma,
1962-88 (Singapore: NUS Press, 2013), pp. 29-60.
Bradley R Simpson, Economists with guns: Authoritarian development and US-Indonesian
relations, 1960-1968 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008).
2. How did military regimes in Burma/Myanmar and Indonesia consolidate their grip on
political power?
**Jalal Alamgir, “Against the current: The survival of authoritarianism in Burma,” Pacific
Affairs 70:3 (1997): 333-350.
**Paul Brooker, Twentieth-century dictatorships: The ideological one-party state
(Houndmills: Macmillan, 1995), pp. 158-169, 181-196.
**Harold Crouch, “Patrimonialism and military rule in Indonesia,” World Politics 31:4
(1979): 571-587.
48
**Harold D Lasswell, “The garrison state,” American Journal of Sociology 46:4 (1941): 455468.
*Vincent Boudreau, Resisting dictatorship: Repression and protest in Southeast Asia
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 84-133, 190-237 [ignore
sections on the Philippines].
*Mary P Callahan, Making enemies: War and state building in Burma (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2003), pp. 1–20, 207-228.
*Barbara Geddes, Erica Frantz and Joseph G Wright, “Military rule,” Annual Review of
Political Science 17 (2014): 147-162.
*John Pemberton, “Notes on the 1982 general election in Solo,” Indonesia 41 (April 1986):
1-22.
Ardeth Maung Thawnghmung, Behind the teak curtain: Authoritarianism, agricultural
policies and political legitimacy in rural Burma/Myanmar (London: Kegan Paul,
2004).
Harold Crouch, The army and politics in Indonesia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988,
Revised edition), pp. 221-359.
Renaud Egretau and Larry Jagan, Soldiers and diplomacy in Burma: Understanding the
foreign relations of the Burmese praetorian state (Singapore: NUS Press, 2013), pp.
19-45.
Natasha Ezrow and Erica Frantz, Dictators and dictatorships: Understanding authoritarian
regimes and their leaders (New York: Continuum, 2011), chapters 3-4.
Christina Fink, Living silence: Burma under military rule (London: Zed Books, 2001).
Ariel Heryanto, State terrorism and political identity in Indonesia: Fatally belonging
(London: Routledge, 2006).
Damien Kingsbury, The politics of Indonesia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, 2nd
edition), pp. 62-247.
Emma Larkin, Finding George Orwell in Burma (London: Granta, 2004, 2011).
R. William Liddle, “Suharto’s Indonesia: Personal rule and political institutions,” Pacific
Affairs 58:1 (1985): 68-90.
Thant Myint-U, The river of lost footsteps: Histories of Burma (NewYork: Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, 2006), pp. 290-348.
Yoshihiro Nakanishi, Strong soldiers, failed revolution: The state and military in Burma,
1962-88 (Singapore: NUS Press, 2013), pp. 1-28, 61–316.
Donald Seekins, The disorder in order: Army state in Burma since 1962 (Bangkok: White
Lotus, 2002).
Robert H Taylor, The state in Burma (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987), pp. 1-12,
300-372.
49
9. Examination
Examination for this course will be in the form of a written exam taken in Easter Term. This
exam will last three hours and students will be expected to answer questions that cover
material from both the lectures and the modules. There will be no essay-based assessment for
this course. Students will receive guidance on the examination from supervisors and from the
course organiser. A copy of the examiners’ reports in previous years is given below. 20142015 was the first year of a new syllabus and examination method and so earlier examination
reports refer to a different system of assessment.
10. Examiners’ reports for Pol 4
Examiner’s report for 2014-2015
This was the first year of the new Pol 4 paper, where assessment was conducted entirely
through an end of year exam in Easter Term. The exam paper was divided up, with the first
section containing 9 questions each of which tested material covered in the Michaelmas term
lectures. The remaining sections were composed of 2 questions each and each section
corresponded to a module taught in Lent term. As students were asked to answer 1 question
from the first section and then 1 question from the two module-sections which they had taken
in Lent term, each student answered 3 questions in total.
112 students took this paper in total. The distribution of the marks was as follows: 8 students
were awarded a First; 94 students were awarded a 2.1 (49 students obtained an ‘upper’ 2.1
and 45 obtained a ‘lower’ 2.1); 9 students were awarded a 2.2; and 1 student obtained a
Third.
In section A, the spread of answers to individual questions is as follows: 17 students
answered Q1, 12 students answered Q2, 1 student answered Q3, 1 student answered Q4, 3
students answered Q5, 14 students answered Q6, 12 students answered Q7, 11 students
answered Q8, 41 students answered Q9. In other words, 66 out of 112 students answered a
question on the theme of state formation. 16 students answered a question on the theme of
modes of interest representation and 30 students answered a question from the theme on
democratization and regimes.
The spread across the sections devoted to individual modules corresponds to the numbers
taking those modules. 29 students answered Q10, 33 students answered Q11, 43 students
answered Q12, 7 students answered Q13, 12 students answered Q14, 17 students answered
Q15, 12 students answered Q16, 17 students answered Q17, 12 students answered Q18, 20
students answered Q19, 13 students answered Q20 and 9 students answered Q21.
Overall the best answers combined a critical analysis of literature/concepts with a direct
attempt at answering the question. Often, the literature itself was used as a way of structuring
the question e.g. with question 19 on sanctions or question 17 on mainstream responses to the
rise of populism, leaving little room for a critical treatment of the scholarly literature itself. In
instances where only one or two examples were used in any detail, there was no awareness
that this posed problems of generalizability and that single cases may not be representative of
a phenomenon as a whole.
50
The following remarks raise issues relevant to specific questions. Not all questions will be
discussed here, only those raising particular issues.
On Question 2, there was relatively little attention given to the meaning of institutional
differences, with many relying on the framework provided by Gerschewski without justifying
this in terms of the question itself.
Question 8 was specifically about the European context and yet many students discussed
Centeno’s work on Latin America and articles on state formation in South East Asia. The
comparison in this question should really have been intra-European rather than with other
regions. It is also important to add that the question was asking student to outline specifically
the role played by war in state formation in Europe. This could have been done by identifying
the distinctiveness of war in comparison to other dynamics of state formation, perhaps by
suggesting there was a temporal dimension (war plays an important role early on, less so
later, for instance). Alternatively, it could have been argued that war has played both a
formative and a destructive role in state formation. Instead, most students answered the
question by evaluating the validity of Tilly’s argument, which is not the same thing. The best
answers considered analytically and empirically the role of war but did not frame the issue as
Tilly versus competing explanations.
Question 9 was answered well overall though there was a tendency to use it simply as an
occasion for testing Charles Tilly’s thesis about “states make war and war makes states”.
Tilly’s argument may not export particularly well beyond the early modern European period
but there were many other ways of answering this particular question. Indeed, one might have
answered this question very well with no reference to Tilly at all. There was also a strong
tendency to assume that Tilly’s argument works perfectly for early modern Europe, with a
very undifferentiated account given of modern Europe’s development.
On questions 10 and 11, the comparison of Egypt and Saudi Arabia was commonly used but
not always to its fullest effect. Students rarely systematically compared the two cases and
even more rarely picked up interesting differences and similarities. Q10 was most obviously
pointing at the very least to the fact that authoritarianism in both Egypt and Saudi Arabia has
been resilient in spite of very great differences in the economic records of both regimes. And
yet few students framed their answers around this initial and arresting difference, to then
probe further as the essay develops. Q11 deserved more systematic consideration of the
specificity of religious discourse as opposed to other kinds of political discourse.
On question 12, the better answers took issue with the term ‘national interest’, pointing out
that how it is defined may determine one’s views on the balance of power between President
and Congress.
On question 15, most students answered the question entirely through a reference to history
(cultural legacy, Cold War legacy, history of dissidence) even though the question is referring
to why Eastern European states took divergent democratization paths since 1989. More recent
events such as economic crises in Russia or EU membership were not mentioned. For such a
question, the decision to focus purely on historical explanations deserved more justification.
On question 17, it would have been good to see more reflection on the meaning of ‘success’.
Does a successful response to populism by mainstream parties mean eliminating them from
the political system through the formation of an anti-populist cordon sanitaire? Or does
51
success mean an incorporation of the concerns of populist parties into mainstream political
life? Most answers tended only to describe rather mechanically the various response
strategies identified by Bale et al.
On question 20, there was a frequent discussion of ethnic violence in Indonesia at the time of
the Asian financial crisis (anti-Chinese violence in wake of economic collapse in Indonesia)
as if this was an argument about the ethnic conflicts stemming from democratization. Few
candidates properly differentiated between democratization and economic crises as sources of
ethnic violence.
Examiner’s report 2013-2014
This was the third year in which this paper was examined using a combination of a long essay
and a two hour written exam. 71 students took this paper, though one student withdrew
leaving 70 as the final total. This will be the final year in which the paper will be examined in
this way, with the long essay to be replaced with a longer written exam next year.
The marks for the long essay, submitted in Lent term, were as follows. There were 8 Firsts,
22 high 2.1s, 28 low 2.1s, 11 2.2s and one fail. As with previous years, performance in the
long essays was relatively weak. A number of students did far better in the exam than in the
essay; some, though far fewer in number, performed better in the essay than in the final
exam.
As in the past, the best essays were excellent and combined detailed analysis of cases with a
broader conceptual framework or argument that held together well across the whole of the
essay. In the better essays, it is evident that students had planned their work and conducted as
extensive research as possible given the time constraints. They took full advantage of being
able to develop their arguments at length. Weaker essays tended to show little evidence of
planning or preparation, reading was limited and there was little by way of a conceptual
framework or argument. Choices of cases were not explained and weak essays tended
towards the descriptive.
The results of the Easter term exams were as follows. Out of the 70 students who sat the
exam, there were 28 Firsts, 31 high 2.1s, 8 low 2.1s, 2 2.2s and 1 fail. The exam answers as a
whole demonstrated a good grasp of the country cases discussed and of the overarching
themes used to compare different countries.
Answers to the exam questions were spread out in the following way: 16 students answered
one question from section A, 17 students answered one question from section B, 47 students
answered a question from section C, 25 students answered a question from section D, 26
students answered a question from section E and 9 students answered a question from section
F. Each student was asked to answer two questions, each one from a different section.
Within the sections, the breakdown was as follows.
For section A, 3 students answered question A1, 3 students answered question A2 and 10
students answered question A3. On question A3, some chose to focus on economic policy,
others on immigration and some on the approach to the EU. The answers were of a good
standard, though there was some tendency to reproduce stereotypical models of French or
German policy approaches. More attention was paid to policies than to policy approaches as
52
such, the latter often brought in only as an afterthought. Some answers dwelt too much on the
early post-war period, with little account of contemporary changes.
For section B, 7 students answered question B4, 2 students answered question B5 and 8
students answered question B6. Answers for this section were generally good but there was a
tendency to reproduce too literally the lecture material. As a result, some answers veered off
the question. Students should remember that they are expected to assimilate and analyse the
lecture material rather than reproduce it directly in the exam.
For section C, 23 students answered question C7, 19 students answered question C8 and 15
students answered question C9. On question C7, the most popular question on the exam, all
answers selected Saudi Arabia and Egypt as their comparative cases. Most answers focused
on how the stability in Saudi Arabia and the upheaval in Egypt indicate the differences
between these two countries. The better answers focused similarities and differences and
brought the two cases together in their analysis. Weaker answers focused simply on
differences, presenting stylized accounts of both countries. Weaker answers also tended to
provide potted histories of each country, independently of the question itself. The best
answers focused on the Arab spring and the nature of authoritarianism, using the case studies
to illustrate various points. On question C8, the strongest answers questioned whether the
term ‘tamed’ was appropriate for thinking about how religion and the state are connected to
one another in the Arab world. More typical responses compared Egypt and Saudi Arabia,
concluding that Saudi Arabia was successful in ‘taming’ religious movements whereas in
Egypt this had been less successful.
On section D, 16 students answered question D10 and 9 students answered question D11. For
D10, the best answers covered both the issue of what the intention of the Constitution was
vis-à-vis foreign policy and the developments outside of the Constitution that have made it
difficult for the executive to be controlled in this area. Weaker answers considered just the
role of the executive in the Constitution but with little focus on the foreign policy dimension
itself. On question D11, which was on public opinion and foreign policy in the US, very few
answers tackled the question directly. Most tended to focus entirely on the problem of public
opinion and its role in political decisions. Very little attention was directed to the specific
features of foreign policy and on possible differences between how public opinion and
domestic policy-making are related in general, and how they are specifically related in the
case of foreign policy decision-making. Answers, in short, lacked specificity.
On section E, 7 students answered question E12 and 19 students answered question E13.
Questions were generally good and demonstrated a detailed knowledge of the Congo and its
history. Some answers could have benefitted from being less descriptive and more analytical.
On section F, 7 students answered question F14 and 2 students answered question F15. The
answers to these questions were generally good, averaging out as the highest marks of the 5
sections.
Overall, and consistent with remarks from previous examiner’s reports, exam answers would
have benefitted from being more analytical and less descriptive, more oriented towards
developing a distinctive argument and less focused on reproducing lecture material, and in
some cases such as in section D answers needed to be more specifically directed at the topic.
The best answers contained extensive empirical detail, were analytically sophisticated, and
answered the question directly and succinctly.
53
Examiner’s Report for 2012-13
This was the second year this Comparative Politics paper ran in its current format, which
includes a mixed assessment process: a 5,000 word essay and a two-hour exam. This year the
paper was taken by 88 students in Part IIA and 5 students in Part IIB. The same assessment
procedures and marking standards were applied to both groups of students.
The marks for the 5,000 word essays, submitted in Lent term, were as follows: 13 students
received a mark in the first class range, 24 students received a high 2.1 (65-69), 24 students
received a low 2.1 (60-64), 27 students received 2.2s, 4 students received 3rds, and 2 students
received a Pass mark. These results are a bit weaker than last year, especially on the lower
end of the scale, where there were more 2.2 and 3rd marks than last year (and last year there
were no Pass marks).
As last year, the best essays, while applying quite different approaches, all found a good
balance between conceptual and descriptive material, and were sensible and convincing in the
number of cases and examples that were used. Moreover, they based their analysis on a
relatively wide variety of sources and considered different arguments and interpretations. It is
clear that many students again worked diligently on their essays and conducted a
considerable amount of research for them.
Essays which received lower marks suffered from many of the same problems as last year’s
weaker essays: poor writing and editing (which, if severe, limit an essay to at most a high 2.2.
mark), inconsistent referencing styles, too much reliance on quotations rather than the
candidate’s own words and arguments, and/or reliance on only a small number of arguments
(thus ignoring possible counter-arguments) and sources. It was also noticeable that several
essays strayed too far from the questions set and, thus, did not really provide answers to these
questions. Another common problem was that the relation between the general arguments in
an essay and the specific cases/examples was not sufficiently explained, or – in some cases –
that the empirical material was hardly introduced or set up at all.
Despite some excellent essays, as well as a considerable number of very competent essays, it
has to be said that the performance on these essays was overall rather disappointing. Looking
at their exam performance (in this paper as well as in other papers), many students taking this
paper should be able to do better on their essays than they did. One of the issues may be that
some students don’t take this part of the assessment seriously enough. However, given the
nature of the classing criteria, especially for Part IIA students, a low mark on the essay can
have a very significantly negative effect on the possibility of receiving a good overall class.
Students taking this paper in the future should be aware of this.
The Easter term exams produced better results than the essays. 16 students received a first
class mark, and 39 students received a mark in the 65-69 range. A further 23 students
received a mark in the 60-64 range, while 15 students received 2.2 marks. The large majority
of the students showed that they had developed good knowledge and understanding of the
cases and regions, although – as last year – sometimes this knowledge was not applied
directly enough to the specific question (rather than the broader topic) to warrant a first class
mark.
54
All questions received at least one answer. Most popular was the Middle East section, where
27 students answered q.7 on economic factors, 21 students answered q.8 on post-Arab Spring
religious tensions and only 7 students attempted q.9 on democratisation risks in the region.
As for the other two ‘regional’ modules, the section on Eastern Europe received 21 answers
(6 for q.4 on nationalism and ideological traditions, 9 for q.5 on the influence of communist
regimes on democratic transitions, and 6 for q.6 on models of democracy), while the section
on Western Europe received 23 answers (4 for q.1 on parties and party systems, 11 for q.2 on
political executives, and 8 for q.3 on policy approaches in France and Germany). The case
study on US elections received 31 answers (23 for q.10 on the 2008 election and 8 for q.11 on
the post-1968 Republican majority), while the case study on Congo received 32 answers (13
on q.12 on external influences on the Congolese state and 19 on q.13 whether Congo can be
considered a failed state). Finally, the case study on environmental policy in China received
14 answers, which were unevenly distributed (13 for q.14 on policy implementation problems
and 1 for q.15 on managing the environmental consequences of economic growth).
Compared to last year (when this problem was discussed at some length in the examiners’
report), there were not as many answers that failed to engage with the exact wording of the
question. Some such problems still occurred, for example, for q.3, where not all answers paid
enough attention to the word ‘still’ in the question, and for q.8, where some answers provided
a general account of the role of religion in the politics of Egypt and Saudi Arabia without
considering how the Arab Spring may have influenced the extent to which religious tensions
became more salient and openly expressed than before. A few answers to q.4 also did not
sufficiently address how ‘ideological traditions’ were interpreted and whether nationalism
can be seen as a phenomenon that is (at least analytically) separate from these traditions.
A more significant problem continued to be that many answers resort to just listing a list of
factors (e.g., on q.2, where some answers did not attempt to argue why some sources of
power can be seen as more important than others, and on q.14, where good answers went
beyond listing the problems to indicate what the underlying sources of these problems are) or
rely on a single – and sometimes simplistic – line of reasoning (e.g., in answers to q.8, where
some answers based their answer entirely on the role that religion had played in the
legitimacy strategies of the regimes in Egypt and Saudi Arabia without arguing why religion
remained important – or perhaps became even more important – after the Arab Spring).
Furthermore, there were again some essays that spent too much time on an introduction
and/or repetitive conclusion rather than use the time and space to further develop certain
arguments or examples.
It is clear that most students gained a good understanding of the details and complexities of
the regions and cases that they studied. The best essays managed to convey this through a
close focus on the actual question and a consideration of different arguments and points.
Many of the answers that obtained 2.1 marks provided solid accounts, but lacked some
analytical focus on specific arguments or examples. The weaker answers contained factual
mistakes, did not focus sufficiently on the questions, or only addressed a very limited set of
points.
Examiner’s Report for 2011-12
This was the first year of the new paper in Comparative Politics, and the first time that a
paper in Politics & International Relations had been examined through a mixed assessment
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process, compromising a long essay and an exam. It was taken by 84 students in Part IIA and
4 students in Part IIB. The same assessment process and marking standards were applied to
both groups of students.
The 5,000 word essays, submitted in Lent term, adopted a variety of approaches, and a broad
spectrum of abilities was apparent to the examiners. Most students had prepared their essays
thoroughly, drawing upon a wide range of sources, including (where appropriate) primary
materials such as official and archival documents, news reports and interview texts. It was
encouraging to see the enthusiasm and energy with which some essays were evidently
researched and written. A relatively small number of students however still treated this
component of the course in a similar way to normal supervision essays, looking at only a
small number of major academic works on the topic, and content simply to regurgitate their
main points. Such essays would normally gain no more than a mid-2.2. An associated
problem was that a few students relied exclusively upon one text or one author for an account
of a case study; all political events of any complexity are amenable to different
interpretations, and one cannot engage critically and effectively with a case unless one has
explored these differences.
In terms of substance, many of the best essays were able to both address major conceptual or
theoretical issues, and to argue in detail about specific cases. Almost all of the best essays
recognised and explained a broad theoretical framework within which to situate their
answers, and were able to develop arguments and counter-arguments within this framework.
The essay was then developed through an in-depth exploration of a relatively small number
of cases. A few essays tried to use too many cases (in some essays, there were attempts to use
five or more cases), which resulted in a degree of superficiality, and some care is needed in
ensuring that the number of cases chosen is appropriate for the question. It is difficult to
provide general guidance about the essays, as the type of the question and students’ own
preferences will sometimes lead towards different essay structures – there is no set formula
for writing long essays for this paper. Nevertheless, all the best essays for this paper managed
to find a balance between conceptual and descriptive material, and reviewed and evaluated
counter-arguments.
There were a number of common problems of format, style and presentation. The most
apparent problem was that a large number of students still do not have an appropriate system
for referencing and bibliographies. A short account of how to reference is included in the
paper guide, and a more detailed version is included in the Politics & International Relations
Handbook. Many students seem to have ignored this, and instead adopted their own
anachronistic system, or indeed no system at all, for referencing and bibliographies. It really
is important that by the time students are in their second years that they learn how to organise
their references in a recognised, systematic way.
Whilst some essays were immaculately written, a significant number of essays contained
persistent grammatical problems. It was difficult to tell whether this was down to carelessness
or ignorance. It was clear that quite a few students do not know how to use semi-colons,
deploying them where they should be using commas. If students think this is a problem, they
should talk to their directors of studies and/or tutors urgently, as most Colleges are able to
provide remedial help. Essays which contain repeated typos and grammatical mistakes cannot
achieve a mark higher than a 2.2, so it really is worthwhile to sort this out.
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The third common stylistic problem was that of quotation. Some students leaned too heavily
on extensive quotation from academic sources, with a few essays containing multiple
paragraph-length quotations. Two students copied text verbatim or near-verbatim from
sources, properly referenced but without quotation marks. This is considered plagiarism, and
both students were significantly penalised. In relation to both issues, it is important that
students learn to put arguments in their own words; there is no point in just reprinting what
someone else has written. The whole point of the essay, after all, is to encourage you to make
your own arguments in your own terms.
Essays that exceeded the word limit were penalised. In one case, a student was brought below
a class boundary for this essay, which resulted in an overall class lower than they would have
otherwise received.
Notwithstanding these problems, 14 students (all in Part IIA) obtained an average mark in the
first class range for their essays. 27 students obtained a high 2.1 (a mark of 65-69), and a 27 a
low 2.1 (60-64). 18 students received 2.2s, and 2 students received 3rds.
The Easter term exams produced slightly fewer 1sts than the essays but more high 2.1s. 12
students received a first class average, and 33 received marks in the 65-69 range. 27 received
low 2.1s, 14 received 2.2s, one student received a 3rd, and one student withdrew. The
majority of students demonstrated a good amount of detailed and relevant knowledge about
the regions and cases, although often this knowledge was not applied sharply enough to what
exactly the question was asking – hence the high number of 2.1s.
All questions on the exam paper drew at least five responses, except for q.5, on differences in
the forms of authoritarianism that were present in Eastern Europe, which did not tempt a
single student. The most popular question was q.8, on the religious discourse of opposition
movements in the Arab world, which had all of 42 students taking it. q.11, on whether the
2008 presidential elections were unwinnable for the Republicans, and q.12, on explanations
for the survival of the Congolese state, were the next most popular, each drawing 28
responses.
Perhaps the two most common problems found in the exam scripts were those of not thinking
quite carefully enough about what the terms of the question meant, and of not considering or
weighing up alternative explanations for the phenomenon that was being asked about. In the
first category, an example is q.4, which asked about the effect of nationalism on state
traditions in Eastern Europe. Only one of the eight students taking this question made a
serious attempt to unpack the notion of ‘state traditions’, and evaluate the extent to which
nationalism can be considered as something external to those traditions (it was no surprise
that this student received a high 1st class mark). Other students used the term as if it had a
clear and unambiguous meaning, but without stopping to review the different types of
activities (resilient institutions, enduring expectations, formalised rituals?) that could be
incorporated within this notion. As a result, it was never clear what exactly they were arguing
about, even by the end of the essay.
A similar problem attached to the notion of what made an election ‘unwinnable’ in q.11:
some students gave an extensive account of the reasons why the Republicans lost, and
concluded that made the election unwinnable for them. But this is to render the question
meaningless. Implicit in the question is some distinction between elections that are
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unwinnable and winnable elections that are still lost – and that needs to be worked through if
the question is to be answered successfully.
The second type of problem comes from those students who picked one explanatory mode
and simply pursued that unreflectively throughout the essay. This was most obviously so with
q.8, on religion and opposition in the Arab world. A large number of these essays staked the
claim at the start that governments in the Arab world have used religion heavily as a form of
legitimisation, and therefore opposition groups have to respond using a similar frame. Much
of the rest of these essays was then devoted to an account of how the Saudi and Egyptian
governments had instrumentalised religion. But this link doesn’t necessarily follow, at least in
any sort of straightforward way. A government’s adoption of a set of symbolic reference
points could just as straightforwardly lead to the discrediting of those symbols. Opposition
movements may deliberately adopt strategies of legitimisation that distinguish their approach
from those of a government. It would need to be explained why this has not happened, at
least to the extent it might have done, for the argument to work.
Most students who answered q.12, on the reasons for the survival of the Congolese state,
were able to distinguish different reasons, and were able to categorise those reasons (typically
bringing into their accounts the role of external interests, international assistance, the interests
of the Congolese elite and institutions, popular nationalism and everyday coping strategies).
Somewhat too often this just became a list, with a paragraph or two on each reason. The best
answers by contrast were able to weigh these accounts up against each other, for example by
working through a series of successive explanations but showing the limitations of each of
them alongside the explanation, and their intersections.
Few students need more encouragement to understand the regions and cases in depth; there
were only a small number of essays which demonstrated inadequate knowledge or made
serious factual mistakes. Focusing an essay on the question though remains a problem. It was
striking how many answers to the question on whether parliaments can control the executive
in Western Europe (q.3) gave general accounts of the constraints on executives, with
sometimes large sections of the essay unrelated to the role of parliaments. The question on
the convergence of policies between France and Germany (q.1) also led some students into
giving accounts of the long-standing differences of the policies of these two countries, with
barely a word said about convergence or divergence over time. q.13 on how Congo’s
historical legacy has shaped its political economy was answered by some students by giving a
simple narrative history of Congo’s economic structure. A little bit of careful thought and
planning would surely have been enough in each of these cases to make students realise that
they were in danger of wasting a lot of time on writing about matters that were not relevant
for answering the essay question.
The other great waste of time came from laborious introductions that provided overviews of
essays. The number of students who expended a large of proportion of their essays explaining
all the things that their essays would argue was disappointing, even distressing. One student
wrote the first half of each of the two essays explaining what would be argued, before going
on to repeat exactly the same material in the same order in the second half of each essay.
Exam essays are inevitably short; there is no point at all in telling the reader what they will be
reading within a page or two.
The most pleasing aspect of reviewing the exam scripts was in appreciating the extent to
which students had clearly developed quite extensive knowledge, and a sense of the key
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debates, about regions and countries which at the start of the year few of them had much
familiarity. Many essays brought in recent events, occurring after the latest academic
literature or the last supervisions, indicating that interests have been developed through the
course that persist beyond the lecture room. Even if it didn’t always come out in the essay, it
was apparent that most students taking this paper have read and thought a lot about the
complexities and uncertainties of the politics of these diverse regions of the world.
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