Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Introduces the concepts and tools needed to measure and analyze state formation, democracy, autocracy, development, and conflict worldwide, focusing on the Global South. Breadth-Humanities/Social Sciences.

COURSE DETAILS:

This course introduces students to some important concepts within comparative politics. We will address questions on colonial legacies, state formation, democracy and authoritarian forms of government, causes of development and underdevelopment of states, and different types of political conflict and violence worldwide. The focus of the course will be on the Global South, or developing countries, but we will also draw from research and studies comparing with developed countries.

The course will try to analyze questions, such as, “What are the effects of colonial institutions on levels of development end ethnic conflict in former colonized countries?” or “What are the causes of democracy and dictatorship?” or "What Causes Insurgencies or Terrorist Movements?" Others examine specific questions, like “What is there more ethnic riots in some parts of India than others?” or "What explains state failure in Afghanistan?" or “Why are there high levels of poverty in sub-Saharan Africa?”

We will learn about the comparative method of analysis, which compares across different countries to understand variation in outcomes of interest, and sometimes focus on studies based on certain cases. However the comparisons can also be between different parts of the same country, for example why is there a difference in voting pattern for the Liberal Party between Ontario and Quebec? Or why is it that there is more ethnic conflict in one part of Nigeria than another part?

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

REQUIRED READING NOTES: