COMPREHENSIVE EXAM IN COMPARATIVE POLITICS AND HUMAN SECURITY
Spring 2015
In addition to the readings below, students are advised to revise the methodological readings on
the P210 (Research Design and Methods) syllabus. In addition to the subsections below, the
students are expected to suggest an optional subsection, such as “Gender and Politics,”
“Political Psychology,” or “Religion and Politics.” The subsection suggested by the student
needs to be approved by the faculty member who is giving the exam. All the other subsections are
required reading. Keep in mind that this reading list is meant to provide a general background
in the main research areas of comparative politics as well as to serve as a guideline for further
research in these specific areas. Thus students are encouraged to do further reading especially
in the subfields that directly relate to their dissertation topics. Below is a list of political science
journals that are useful in this respect.
World Politics
Comparative Political Studies
Comparative Politics
American Political Science Review
American Journal of Political Science
Perspectives on Politics
International Organization
Journal of Peace Research
State formation and nationalism
1. Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and
Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. 1991. Chapters 1-4.
2. Anderson, Perry. Lineages of the Absolutist State. London: Verso, 1989. (pp.1543, pp.195-221, Conclusion.)
3. Ertman, Thomas. 2005. “Building States – Inherently a Long-Term Process? An
Argument from Comparative History.” In Lange, Mathew and Rueschemeyer, Dietrich,
eds. States and Development: Historical Antecedents of Stagnation and Advance. New
York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 165-182.
4. Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. Malden: Blackwell Pub., 2005.
5. Hendrik Spruyt. 1994. The Sovereign State and Its Competitors. Princeton:
Princeton University Press. (Chapters 1-2).
6. Herbst, Jeffrey. 2000. States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and
Control. Princeton: Princeton University Press. pp. 46-52; 97-137.
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7. Jackson, R. and C. Rosberg. 1982. “Why Africa's Weak States Persist.” In World
Politics. 1-24.
8. Michael Hechter, Containing Nationalism (Oxford University Press, 2001), Chapters 1-4.
9. Laitin, David, Identity in Formation : the Russian-Speaking Populations in the
Near Abroad. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998. Pp.85-158.
10. Mamdani, Mahmood. 1996. Citizen and Subject – Contemporary Africa and the Legacy
of Late Colonialism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 37-61.
11. Migdal, Joel S. 1988. Strong States and Weak Societies: State-Society Relations and State
Capabilities in the Third World. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
12. William H. McNeil. 1982. The Pursuit of Power. Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press. Chapters 1 and 3.
13. Douglas North. 1981. Structure and Change in Economic History. New York: Norton.
Chapters 1-6. (skim: Chapters 11, 12, 13)
14. Mancur Olson. 2000. Power and Prosperity. New York: Basic Books. Chapters 1
and 2.
15. Pierson, Paul. 2003. “Big, Slow-Moving, and…Invisible: Macrosocial Processes in the
Study of Comparative Politics.” In James Mahoney and Dietrich Rueschemeyer, eds.
Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, pp. 177-207.
16. Rueschemeyer, Dietrich. 2005. “Building States – Inherently a Long-Term Process? An
Argument from Theory.” In Lange, Mathew and Rueschemeyer, Dietrich, eds. States and
Development: Historical Antecedents of Stagnation and Advance. New York, NY:
Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 143-164.
17. David Stasavage. When Distance Mattered: Geographic Scale and the Development of
European Representative Assemblies" American Political Science Review, 2010.
18. David Stasavage and Kenneth Scheve. Democracy, War, and Wealth: Evidence of Two
Centuries of Inheritance Taxation. American Political Science Review, 2012.
19. Thelen, Kathleen. 2003. “How Institutions Evolve: Insights from Comparative Historical
Analysis.” In James Mahoney and Dietrich Rueschemeyer, eds. Comparative Historical
Analysis in the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 208-240.
20. Charles Tilly, Coercion, capital, and European states (Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell,
1992), 67-127.
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21. Weber, Eugen. 1977. Peasants into Frenchmen. The Modernization of Rural
France, 1870-1914. Stanford University Press (Chapters 4,6,7).
22. Wimmer, Andreas. 2012. Waves of War: Nationalism, State Formation, and
Ethnic Exclusion in the Modern World (Cambridge Studies in Comparative
Politics). (Introduction)
23. Young, Crawford. 1998. “Country Report: The African Colonial State Revisited”
Governance: An International Journal of Policy and Administration 11, No. 1: 101-120.
24. Daniel Ziblatt. 2006. Structuring the State: The Formation of Italy and Germany
and the Puzzle of Federalism. Princeton University Press. Chapters 1, 2, 5, 6.
Political Institutions
Regime Type and Regime Change
25. Acemoglu, Daron and James Robinson. 2006. Economic Origins of Democracy.
Cambridge University Press.
26. Boix, Carles, and Susan Stokes. 2003. “Endogenous Democratization.” World Politics 55
(July): 517-549.
27. Boix, Carles. 2003. Democracy and Redistribution. Cambridge University Press.
Chapters 1-3.
28. Collier, Ruth. Paths Toward Democracy: The Working Class and Elites in
Western Europe and South America. Cambridge: Cambridge Studies in
Comparative Politics, 1999.
29. Geddes, Barbara. 1999. “What Do We Know About Democratization after Twenty
Years?” Annual Review of Political Science 2: 115-144.
30. Kuran, Timur. 1991. “Now Out of Never: The Element of Surprise in the East
European Revolution of 1989 (in Liberalization and Democratization in the Soviet
Union and Eastern Europe),” World Politics 44 (October): 7-48.
31. Lipset, Seymour Martin. “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic
Development and Political Legitimacy,” American Political Science Review,
53:1(March 1959) 69-105.
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32. Luebbert, Gregory M. 1991. Liberalism, Fascism, or Social Democracy: Social Classes
and the Political Origins of Regimes in Interwar Europe. New York : Oxford University
Press. (skim).
33. Moore, Barrington. 1966. The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Boston:
Beacon Press. (Scan for core argument – Preface, pp. xi-ix; and Chapters VII-IX, pp.
413-482).
34. Phillips, Anne. 1991. Engendering Democracy. Polity Press.
35. Przeworski, Adam. Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms
in Eastern Europe and Latin America. 1991. Chapters 1, 2 and 4.
36. Przeworski, Adam and Fernando Limongi. 1997. “Modernization: Theories and Facts,”
World Politics 49 (January):155-183.
37. Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolution. Cambridge University Press, 1979, pp. 342, 161-171.
38. Svolik, Milan. "Power-sharing and Leadership Dynamics in Authoritarian Regimes."
American Journal of Political Science 53.2 (2009): 477-494.
39. Lisa Wedeen. 1999. Ambiguities of Domination : Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols
In Contemporary Syria. University of Chicago Press.
40. Ronald Wintrobe. 1990. “The Tinpot and the Totalitarian: An Economic Theory
of Dictatorship,” American Political Science Review 84 (September): 849-872.
41. Dan Slater, Benjamin Smith and Gautam Nair, “Economic Origins of Democratic
Breakdown? The Redistributive Model and the Postcolonial State.” Perspectives on
Politics / Volume 12 / Issue 02 / June 2014, pp 353 – 374.
42. Barbara Geddes, Joseph Wright and Erica Frantz, “Autocratic Breakdown and
Regime Transitions: A New Data Set” Perspectives on Politics / Volume 12 /
Issue 02 / June 2014, pp 353 – 374.
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Political parties, electoral systems, voting
43. Carles Boix,” The Emergence of Parties and Party Systems,” in Oxford Handbook
of Comparative Politics, eds. Carles Boix and Susan Stokes (Oxford University
Press, 2007).
44. Chandra, Kanchan. Why Ethnic Parties Succeed: Patronage and Ethnic Head
Counts in India. (Cambridge University Press, 2004), 1-33.
45. Gary Cox. 1997. Making Votes Count. New York: Cambridge University Press,
Chapters 1-3.
46. Downs, Anthony (1957). An Economic Theory of Democracy. Chapters 1-3; 7-8.
47. Mala Htun. “Is Gender Like Ethnicity? The Political Representation of Identity
Groups.” Perspectives on Politics 2, 2004.
48. Stathis N Kalyvas, The Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe. (Cornell
University Press, 1996).
49. Lipset, Seymour Martin and Stein Rokkan, “Cleavage Structures, Party Systems,
and Voter Alignments”, in Mair, Peter. 1990. The West European party system.
Oxford [England] ; New York: Oxford University Press, Chapter 9: p.91-138.
50. Posner, Daniel. Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa. (Cambridge University
Press, 2005) pp. 130-149, 159-216.
51. Adam Przeworski and John Sprague. 1986. Paper Stones. A History of Electoral
Socialism. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 29-126.
52. Susan Stokes, “Political Clientelism,” in Oxford Handbook of Comparative
Politics, eds. Carles Boix and Susan Stokes (Oxford University Press, 2007).
53. Jason Wittenberg. Crucibles of Political Loyalty: Church Institutions and
Electoral Continuity in Hungary. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
1-53.
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Political Violence
54. Bates, Robert H. , 2008. When Things Fell Apart: State Failure in Late-Century Africa.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
55. Carles Boix, 2008, “Economic Roots and Civil Wars and Revolutions in the
Contemporary World,” World Politics 60 (3): 390-437.
56. L.E. Cederman et.al. (2011), “Horizontal Inequalities and Ethno-Nationalist Civil
War: A Global Comparison” American Political Science Review 105(3):478-95.
57. Collier, Paul. 2007. “Economic Causes of Civil Conflict and Their Implications
for Policy.” In Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall, eds.
Leashing the Dogs of War: Conflict Management in a Divided World.
Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, pp. 197-218.
58. Alex Downes, Targeting Civilians in War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
2008), Chapters 1, 2.
59. Fortna, Virginia Page. 2008. Does Peacekeeping Work? Shaping Belligerents’
Choices after Civil War. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
60. Gould, Roger V. 2003. Collision of Wills: How Ambiguity about Social Rank Breeds
Conflict. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Read Preface, Ch. 1, Ch. 4, and Ch. 5).
61. Horowitz, Donald L. 2000. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley: University of California
Press, pp. 3-92
62. Macartan Humphreys and Jeremy M. Weinstein (2008), “Who Fights? The
Determinants of Participation in Civil War.” American Journal of Political
Science, 52, 436–455.
63. Stathis Kalyvas, The logic of violence in civil war (Cambridge University Press,
2006). (Chapters 6-9).
64. Stathis Kalyvas & Laia Balcells, “International System and Technologies of
Rebellion: How the end of Cold War Shaped Internal Conflict,” American
Political Science Review 104 (2010).
65. Lake, David A. and Donald Rothchild. 1996. “Containing Fear: The Origins and
Management of Ethnic Conflict.” International Security 21 (Fall): 41-75.
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66. David Laitin and James Fearon, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,”
American Political Science Review 97(1) (Feb 2003): 75-90.
67. Mann, Michael. The Dark side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing.
(Cambridge University Press, 2005), key arguments (no need to read all cases).
68. Mansfield, Edward D. and Jack Snyder, "Democratic Transitions, Institutional Strength,
and War", International Organization 56 (2): 297–337 (2002),
69. Roger Petersen, Understanding ethnic violence: fear, hatred, and resentment in
twentieth century Eastern Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002,
Chapters 2-4.
70. Sambanis, Nicholas. “What is Civil War? Conceptual and Empirical Complexities
of an Operational Definition.” Journal of Conflict Resolution. 48(6) (2004): 814855.
71. Scott Straus, The order of genocide: race, power, and war in Rwanda (Ithaca :
Cornell University Press, 2006), Chapters 1, 3, 4.
72. Ashutosh Varshney, Ethnic conflict and civic life : Hindus and Muslims in India.
New Haven : Yale University Press, 2002, Chapters 1, 2, 5.
73. Jeremy Weinstein, Inside rebellion: the politics of insurgent violence. (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2007).
74. Wood, Elizabeth. Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador,
(Cambridge University Press, 2003), Chapters 1,2.
75. Steven Wilkinson, Votes and Violence: Electoral Competition and Ethnic Riots in
India, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004. Chapters 1-3.
76. Wood, Elisabeth J. (2009) ―Armed Groups and Sexual Violence: When Is Wartime
Rape Rare? Politics and Society, 37(1): 131-62.
Political Economy
77. Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson. “The Colonial
Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation.” The
American Economic Review, Vol. 91, No. 5 (Dec., 2001), pp. 1369-1401.
78. Acemoglu, Daron and James Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power,
Prosperity, and Poverty. Crown Business. Chapters 1-3.
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79. Amsden, A. H. 2003. The Rise of the "Rest": Challenges to the West from LateIndustrializing Economies. Oxford University Press.
80. Bates, R. H. 2005. Markets and States in Tropical Africa: The Political Basis of
Agricultural Policies. University of California Press. (skim)
81. Evans, P. 1995. Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press.
82. E. L. Jones. 1987. The European Miracle. Cambridge. Second edition.
Introduction and chapters 1-6.
83.
A
Albert O. Hirschman. 1981. “Exit, Voice, and the State,” Essays in Trespassing.
Economics to Politics and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
84. Gerschenkron, Alexander. 1962. Economic backwardness in historical
perspective, a book of essays. Cambridge, Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press. Pages 5-30.
85. North, D. C. 1981. Structure and Change in Economic History. New York: W.W. Norton
& Company.
86. Olson, M. 1982. The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and
Social Rigidities. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. (skim)
87. Ostrom, Elinor. 1990. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for
Collective Action. Cambridge; New York and Melbourne: Cambridge University
Press.
88. Ronald Rogowski. 1989. Commerce and Coalitions. How Trade Affects Domestic
Political Alignments. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
89. Rodrik, Dani. 1998. “Why Do Open Economies Have Bigger Governments?”
Journal of Political Economy 106: 997-1032.
90. Popkin, Samuel. The Rational Peasant: the Political Economy of Rural Society in
Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979.
91. Scott, J. C. 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press. (skim)
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92. Sen, A.K. 1983. Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation.
Oxford: Oxford University Press. (pp.1-9; 86-112)
Political Culture and Religion
93. Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba. The Civic Culture, Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1963, passim, but especially chapters 1, 5-6, 13 (paperback
edition).
94. Gill, Anthony, 2001. “Religion and Comparative Politics,” Annual Review of
Political Science, 4: 117-38.
95. Anna Grzymala-Busse. Why Comparative Politics Should Take Religion (More)
Seriously. Annual Review of Political Science. Vol. 15 (2012): 421-442.
96. Stathis N Kalyvas, The Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe. (Cornell
University Press, 1996).
97. Philpott, Dan. Explaining The Political Ambivalence Of Religion, American Political
Science Review, Vol. 101, No. 3 August 2007.
98. Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular: Politics and Religion
Worldwide (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
99. Putnam, Robert D. 1993. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
100.
Skocpol, Theda, Marshall Ganz, and Ziad Munson. 2000. “A Nation of
Organizers: The Institutional Origins of Civic Voluntarism in the United States,”
American Political Science Review 94, no. 3: pp. 527-546.
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