1 / 33

Chapter 1: Seeking New Lands, Seeing with New Eyes

Chapter 1: Seeking New Lands, Seeing with New Eyes. What is comparative politics?. Content – focus on contentious issues All the news that fits we print – we need more sources than journalists Method – comparing alike and unalike things Science Find general explanations (theory)

marcelh
Download Presentation

Chapter 1: Seeking New Lands, Seeing with New Eyes

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Chapter 1:Seeking New Lands, Seeing with New Eyes

  2. What is comparative politics? • Content – focus on contentious issues • All the news that fits we print – we need more sources than journalists • Method – comparing alike and unalike things • Science • Find general explanations (theory) • Deductive work to falsify hypotheses

  3. The State: One Focus Among Many • What is the State? Institutions and individuals who exercise power • Government • State • Regime • Nation

  4. The State: One Focus Among Many • Types of States • Industrialized democracies • Current and former Communist regimes • Less developed countries

  5. The State: One Focus Among Many • Strong and Weak States • Other core concepts: system, democracy, capitalism, political culture, identity, political participation, public policy, imperialism, totalitarianism, cold war, globalization

  6. Three Templates • The Political System • Systems Theory: inputs, decision making, outputs, feedback, environment • Political Culture

  7. Three Templates • Historical and Contemporary Factors • State building • Imperialism • The Cold War • The international political economy • State, Society, and Globalization • A world in Crisis?

  8. Chapter 2:The Industrialized Democracies

  9. Four Elections • Common and Not So-Common Themes • Elections determine who governs • Elections are not about basic principles • Dissimilarities • Electoral systems – direct, indirect, proportional, plurality • Separation of powers and fusion of powers

  10. Thinking About Democracy • The Basics • Rights • Competitive elections • The Rule of Law • Civil Society and Civic Culture • Capitalism and Affluence • Which countries are democracies by those criteria?

  11. The Origins of the Democratic State • Evolution of democratic thought _ Magna Charta _ Chartered Towns _ Enlightenment Movement • Hobbes • Laissez-faire • Locke • Suffrage

  12. The Origins of the Democratic State • Building Democracies • the creation of the state itself • the role of religion in society and government • the development of pressures for democracy • the industrial revolution • complications of cleavages • Cold War as solidifier of strong democracies

  13. Political Culture and Participation • The Civic Culture? • legitimacy • drop in participation and trust • social capital • tolerance

  14. Political Culture and Participation • Political Parties and Elections • social democratic parties • liberal or radical parties • Christian democratic and secular conservative parties • Catch-all Parties – appeals to the center

  15. Political Culture and Participation • New Divisions • Gender • Post-industrial • Post-materialist • Realignment? • Interest Groups • Political Protest

  16. The Democratic State • Presidential and Parliamentary Systems • separation of powers • cabinet responsibility • coalition government

  17. The Democratic State • The Rest of the State • bureaucracy • judiciary

  18. Public Policy • The Interventionist State • basic health care • subsidized or free education at all levels • unemployment compensation • pensions and programs for seniors • Foreign Policy

  19. Feedback • greater access to information and opinion • assessment of information more important • competition between information and entertainment

  20. Conclusion: The Worst Form of Government Except for All the Others • balance between governors and governed • balance between political world and rest of society • balance between unbridled capitalism and the interests of those who do not benefit (much) from it • balance between personal freedom and the need to maintain order and forge coherent public policy

More Related