WHAT IS COMPARATIVE POLITICS? Why are we going to study politics but also history, and anthropology, and geography and economics? Why don’t most Americans already know the basics about the world’s most important countries? What is the difference between comparative politics and international relations? Should we have separate “fields” in most social science disciplines? Why is comparing worth our time? (How many of you are worried about earnings? Why?: Data next slide) Why don’t even scholars agree on the appropriate way to study other societies? Areas studies vs. the comparative method Qualitative vs. quantitative methods

http://acme. highpoint http://acme.highpoint.edu/~msetzler/ComPol/CPSreadingsbank/StatSnapShot2013CH.1pp.pdf

What are some of the key concepts for comparing countries? What are states? How are they different from nations, nation states, and “failed” states? Are there alternative ways of organizing the main unit of intl. politics? What are regimes? How are they different from governments or countries In what sense are states sovereign? What are political institutions? (I like my defn. better than your text pg. 5). Do they have to be formal structures? What is civil society? What is political culture?

WHY AND HOW DO WE COMPARATIVELY STUDY SOCIETIES? Is there such a thing as a science of comparative politics? Some key ideas: (1) categorization, (2) generalization (3) theory & hypothesis testing with evidence and (4) replication? What are “most-similar” comparisons? (e.g. looking at the advanced democracies or “presidential” systems)

What categories are the most useful for comparison? Geo-politics : The 1st, 2nd, and Third World Socio-economic development: e.g., the global South, NICS, tigers, the BRIC, under-developed, developing, advanced nations Geographical and cultural regions (e.g., Latin America or the west vs. the rest? Consolidated (durable and highly institutionalized) vs. transitional regimes (and very likely to change) Intl. relations: Great/regional powers vs everyone else. How strong is the US? Strong vs. weak states (i.e.: states vary by capacity, autonomy, and stability). Nature of by which power is legitimized: Traditional, charismatic, rational/legal How many people have power? One, few, many Three main political regime types: democratic, authoritarian, and totalitarian (basically consensus vs. coercion) Economic regime types: Free-market capitalism/ communism vs. a command economy/ socialism/state capitalism