1. Concepts in Comparative Politics States

2. What is a state?  An institution that monopolizes legal authority within a given territory  Weber: States have a “monopoly on violence”  Where does the state enter your life?  States as Image and Practice  Image: coherent, unified, above society  Practice: made up of diverse people & agencies; linked to society in various ways

3. What are the 3 main attributes of a state?  Sovereignty  What is it?  Who violates it?  Legitimacy  How is it earned and maintained? (Weber)  Autonomy  Real or imagined?  Who impinges on state autonomy? (Marx)

4. What are the 5 main institutional parts of the state?  Executive branch  A “government” in CP usually refers ONLY to the head of the govt & the cabinet  Legislative branch  Judicial branch  Bureaucracy  Military

5. Key concepts: Early contributions from Karl Marx & Max Weber

6. Karl Marx 1818-1883 Marx, 1882. Marx, an early picture.

7. Max Weber 1864-1920

8. Karl Marx – key ideas  history as a class-based struggle (“materialist” conception of history)  state as a “captive” of an economic elite (downplaying of the state)  national interests & identities becoming subsumed to global market forces  transformation of society: economics organizes society rather than the other way around

9. Max Weber – key contributions  Definitions of states  “Ideal type” categorizations of different types of states  Why people obey states  founder of modern sociology: developed methodology for studying societies so they could be compared to each other  Emphasized need for conceptual frameworks and categories rather than simple description  multi-causality: ideas and culture help shape economics and history.  Politics is not all about economics!