PLCP 490H: HONORS SEMINAR IN COMPARATIVE POLITICS (Fall 2005)

https://toolkit.itc.virginia.edu/cgi-local/tk/UVa_CLAS_2005_Fall_PLCP490H-1 (password: schoppa)
Tuesday 2:00-4:30 in Wilson 141B

 

Prof. Len Schoppa
Office: Cabell 148 (tel: 924-3211)
Hrs: MW 3:30 - 4:30 (or appt)
e-mail: schoppa@virginia.edu
 

As we gather this fall, the elected representatives of the Iraqi people are seeking to put finishing touches on a constitution that, they hope, will deliver political stability and economic prosperity.  Of course, various factions in the political struggle there are also hoping the rules will lock in power and economic benefits for them while depriving their rivals of the same.  Not surprisingly, the distributional struggle is getting in the way of the collective good most claim to be pursuing.  What we are seeing there, in a compressed period of time in the full glare of the international media spotlight, are some of the essential conflicts and challenges that have faced every society that has attempted to build stable and effective governmental institutions.  How best can the conflict over power be tamed so that it does not tear society apart?  Can the “right” institutions solve this challenge, or does a society need to meet certain cultural, social, or economic prerequisites to establish stable (or democratic) institutions?  Can certain governmental institutions deliver faster economic growth, or are states constrained there too by their cultural, social, and/or economic endowments?

These are among the big questions of comparative politics that have preoccupied scholars in this field and will be the focus of our discussions this term.  In order to explore the range of answers that have been offered, we will be covering quite an expanse of time and space, starting with the debate between Marx, Weber, and Rational Choice over how politics is constrained and shaped by social classes, government structures, ideas, and individual-level economic calculations.  As we will see, the contemporary debates in the field of comparative politics—whether the scholars are focused on developing countries or advanced industrialized nations—echo these themes.  

Seminar participants are required to read all assigned readings before class and are expected to come to class ready to discuss them (not just regurgitate what you read).  Students must write a total of ten five-page papers (out of the 12 middle weeks of the term, not counting the first or last when no papers will be required), delivering these to my office (148 Cabell) by 12 noon on the Monday before class.  Papers should offer a coherent argument built around a major theme of the assigned book(s) and/or essays.  They should be double-spaced in 12-point font, with one-inch margins.  The first paper (which is required of all students) is due on Monday, September 5.  All books that are assigned to be read in their entirety are available at the University Bookstore.  Readings marked with an * are available via the toolkit page for this class, password “schoppa”. 

I.                   Introduction (8/30) – no paper required

 

II.                Marx, Weber, and Rational Choice (9/6)

* Karl Marx, “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,” in The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd ed, Robert C. Tucker, ed. (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1978), pp. 66-125.

* Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation,” and “Class, Status, and Power,” in From Max Weber, H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, eds. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946): pp. 77-128, 180-195.

 

* Mancur Olson, The Rise and Decline of Nations (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), pp. 17-35.

III.             How Was Britain Able to Achieve Stability and Growth? (9/13)

Gregory Luebbert, Liberalism, Fascism, or Social Democracy: Social Classes and the Political Origins of Regimes in Interwar Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).

* Douglass North and Barry Weingast, “Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England,” in Alston, Eggertsson, and North, eds., Empirical Studies in Institutional Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 134-165.

I will be out of town on Tuesday, 9/20, so we will meet on Thursday.

IV.             Why Did Some Industrialized Nations Fail to Consolidate Democracy Until After World War II? (Thursday, 9/22)

Richard Samuels, Machiavelli’s Children: Leaders and Their Legacies in Italy and Japan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003).

* Giovanni Sartori, Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis (Chatham: Chatham House Publishers, 1976), pp. 131-216.

Additional Sources for Those Interested in Reading Further:

Robert Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971).

Barrington Moore, Jr. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966).

Gerard Alexander, The Sources of Democratic Consolidation (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002).

V.                Explaining Democratization Outcomes in the “Third Wave” (9/27)

* Adam Przeworski, Michael Alvarez, Jose Antonio Cheibub and Fernando Limongi, “What Makes Democracies Endure?” Journal of Democracy 7.1 (1996) 39-55.

* Scott Mainwaring, “Presidentialism, Multipartism, and Democracy: The Difficult Combination,” Comparative Political Studies 26:2 (July 1993), pp. 198-228.

Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Huber Stephens, John D. Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).

VI.             Explaining Economic Reform Outcomes (10/4)

Peter Evans, Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).

Additional Sources for Those Interested in Reading Further:

Adam Przeworski, Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

David Waldner, State Building and Late Development (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999).

VII.          The Consequences of Institutional Choice for Party Systems and Public Policy (10/11)

* William H. Riker, “The Two-Party System and Duverger’s Law: An Essay on the History of Political Science,” American Political Science Review 76 (1982), pp. 753-76.

* Jacob Hacker, “The Historical Logic of National Health Insurance: Structure and Sequence in the Development of British, Canadian, and U.S. Medical Policy,” Studies in American Political Development 12 (Spring 1998): 57-130

Paul Pierson, Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Social Analysis (Prjnceton: Princeton University Press, 2004), pp. 1-78.

VIII.       Explaining Institutional Choice and Institutional Change (10/18)

* Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan, “Cleavage Structures, Party Systems and Voter Alignments: An Introduction,” in Lipset and Rokkan, eds., Party Systems and Voter Alignments (New York: Free Press, 1967), pp. 1-64.

Kathleen Thelen, How Institutions Evolve: The Political Economy of Skills in Germany, Britain, the United States, and Japan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

IX.             Political Culture as a Determinant of How Democracies Work (10/25)

Robert D. Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).

Additional Sources for Those Interested in Reading Further:

Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963).

X.                Social Movements (11/1)

Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

* Susan Pharr, “Status Conflict: the Rebellion of the Tea Pourers,” in Ellis S. Krauss, Thomas P. Rohlen, and Patricia G. Steinhoff, eds., Conflict in Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984), pp. 214-240.

XI.             Shifts in Social Coalitions and Economic Policy Change (11/8)

* Gosta Esping-Andersen and Roger Friedland, "Class Coalitions in the Making of Western European Economics," in Esping-Andersen and Friedland, eds., Political Power and Social Theory, Vol. III (Greenwich, CT: Jai Press, 1982): 1-52.

* Ronald Rogowski, “Trade and the Variety of Democratic Institutions,” International Organization 41:2 (Spring 1987), pp. 203-223.

* Richard Clayton and Jonas Pontusson, “Welfare-State Retrenchment Revisited: Entitlement Cuts, Public Sector Restructuring, and Inegalitarian Trends in Advanced Capitalist Societies,” World Politics 51 (October 1998), pp. 67-98.

 

* Hector Schamis, “Distributional Coalitions and the Politics of Economic Reform in Latin America,” World Politics 51:2 (1999), pp. 236-268.

Additional Sources for Those Interested in Reading Further:

Gosta Esping-Andersen, Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism  (UK: Polity Press, 1990).

Robert Keohane and Helen Milner, eds., Internationalization and Domestic Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

XII.          Are Markets Superior to Politics? (11/15)

John E. Chubb and Terry M. Moe, Politics, Markets and America’s Schools (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1990).

XIII.       Or Do Markets Have Problems That Make “Good Politics” the Best Medicine? (11/29)

Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970).

* Leonard Schoppa, Race for the Exits: The Unraveling of Japan’s System of Social Protection (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, forthcoming), chapters 1 and 9.

XIV.       Concluding Session: Implications of What We’ve Learned for Iraq (12/6) – no paper required

Readings to be announced.