readings in comparative politics - nation-states included

8/3/2019 Readings in Comparative Politics - Nation-States Included

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17.588. Field Seminar in Comparative Politics Fall 2010

Ben Ross Schneider

[email protected]

The first part of this course provides an introduction to foundational works in comparative

analysis. Readings and discussion cover both classic works by authors such as Tocqueville,

Weber, Moore, Huntington, and Olson, as well enduring themes in comparative politics such as

classes and social groups, institutions, state building, nationalism, democratization, and collective

action. The course is structured to give students in depth familiarity with each authors work,

focusing especially on those parts of the work most relevant to lasting debates in comparative

politics. Classic works are paired with illustrative recent publications that draw inspiration from,

elaborate on, or contradict, the foundational work. The last weeks of the course concentrate onsome core contemporary debates in comparative politics and comparative political economy

including regimes, democratization, distributional politics, and varieties of capitalism.

Weekly discussions and short lectures are designed to facilitate comparisons across

authors and approaches and to help situate each body of work in recent theoretical discussions in

the field of comparative politics.

Course requirements: active participation in seminar discussions, including occasional

service as discussion leader (30 percent); three 4-page analytical reviews of the weekly reading

(30 percent); and a final exam (40 percent). The weekly reviews and discussion questions are due

Sunday afternoon before the seminar and should be posted by 5 pm to Stellar.

Readings marked with an * will be available on Stellar. Students should arrange to buy or

borrow copies of the required books.

Required books

Zunz, Olivier and Alan Kahan, eds. 2002. The Tocqueville Reader. Oxford: Blackwell.

H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, eds. 1958. From Max Weber. New York: Oxford University

Press.

Moore, Barrington. 1966. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Boston: Beacon

Press.

Tilly, Charles. 1992. Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1992. Cambridge:

Blackwell.

Huntington, Samuel. 1968. Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven: Yale University

Press.


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Olson, Mancur. 1982. The Rise and Decline of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of

Nationalism. London: Verso.

Dahl, Robert. 1971. Polyarchy. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Week 1 (13 September). Introduction and Organization

Week 2 (20 September). Early Foundations: Tocqueville

Zunz and Kahan. The Tocqueville Reader. Introduction (pp. 1-37); chapter 3, volume I ofDemocracy in America (pp. 64-135); chapter 6, volume II ofDemocracy in America (pp.

161-212); chapter 11, volume I ofThe Old Regime and the Revolution (277-316).

*Putnam, Robert. 1993. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton:

Princeton University Press. Chapter 6, Social Capital and Institutional Success, pp. 163-

86.

Recommended:

Edwards, Bob, and Michael Foley. 2001. Civil Society and Social Capital. InBeyondTocqueville, ed. Bob Edwards, Michael Foley, and Mario Diani. Hanover, NH: University

Press of New England.

Carlos Forment. 2003. Democracy in Latin America, 1760-1900: Civic Selfhood and Public

Life. University of Chicago.

Levy, Jonah. 1999. Tocquevilles Revenge: State, Society, and Economy in Contemporary

France. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Week 3 (27 September). Early Foundations: Weber

Gerth and Mills. From Max Weber. Chapters I-IV, VII-X, XII.

*Rueschemeyer, Dietrich and Peter Evans. 1985. The State and Economic Transformation. In

Evans, Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol. Bringing the State Back In. New York:

Cambridge University Press, pp. 44-77.

Recommended:

17.588 Field Seminar in Comparative Politics - 2 -


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Weber, Max. 1958. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York: Charles

Scribners Sons.

Swedberg, Richard. Max Weber and the Idea of Economic Sociology. Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press.

Harrison, Lawrence. 1985. Underdevelopment is a State of Mind: The Latin American Case.

Lanham, MD: University Press of America.

Week 4 (4 October). Classes and Democracy

Moore. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Especially Chapters 1, 3, 5, and 7-9.

Gregory Luebbert. 1987. "Social Foundations of Political Order in Interwar Europe." World

Politics, Vol. 39, No. 4. (Jul., 1987), pp. 449-478.

Recommended

Munck, Gerardo and Richard Snyder. 2007. Passion, craft, and method in comparative politics.

Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007. Includes interviews with Moore, Dahl,

Linz, Huntington, and Przeworski.

Skocpol, Theda. 1979. States and Social Revolutions A Comparative Analysis of France,

Russia, and China. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Rueschemeyer, Dietrich, Evelyne Huber Stephens, and John Stephens. 1992. Capitalist

Development and Democracy. Cambridge: Polity.

Mahoney, James. 2010. Colonialism and Postcolonial Development: Spanish America in

Comparative Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press.

No class 11 October, Columbus Day

Week 5 (18 October). State Formation and State Building

Tilly. Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1992.

*Centeno, Miguel Angel. 2002. Chapter 1, The Latin American Puzzle, inBlood and Debt:

War and the Nation-State in Latin America. University Park: Pennsylvania State University

Press.



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Recommended:

Tilly, Charles. 1975. Reflections on the History of European State-Making. In Tilly, ed., The

Formation of National States in Western Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Anderson, Perry. Lineages of the Absolutist State.

Ertman, Thomas. 1997. Birth of the Leviathan: Building States and Regimes in Medieval and

Early Modern Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Herbst, Jeffrey. 2000. States and Power in Africa. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Week 6 (25 October). Institutions and Political Order

Huntington,Political Order in Changing Societies. Especially chapters 1, 2, 4, and 7.

*Zakaria, Fareed. 2004. The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad.

New York: Norton. Introduction and Conclusion, pp. 13-28, 239-56

Recommended

Remmer, Karen. 1997. Theoretical Decay and Theoretical Development: The Resurgence of

Institutional Analysis. World Politics 50 (October) pp. 34-61.

Domnguez, Jorge. 2001. Samuel Huntington and the Latin American State. In MiguelCenteno and Fernando Lopez-Alves, eds., The Other Mirror. Princeton: Princeton

University Press.

Week 7 (1 November). Collective Action, Interest Groups, and Coalitions

Olson, The Rise and Decline of Nations. Especially Chapters 1-4.

Schamis, Hector. 1999. Distributional Coalitions and the Politics of Economic Reform in Latin

America. World Politics 51(2): 236-68.

Recommended

Olson, Mancur. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Frieden, Jeffry. 1991.Debt, Development, and Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Shafer, D. Michael. 1994. Winners and Losers: How Sectors Shape the Developmental Prospects

of States. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.



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Etchemendy, Sebastian. Forthcoming 2011. Models of Economic Liberalization: Regime, Power

and Compensation in Ibero-America. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Schamis, Hector. 2002.Re-Forming the State: The Politics of Privatization in Latin Americaand Europe. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Week 8 (8 November). Nationalism and Identities

Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of

Nationalism. London: Verso.

Varshney, Ashutosh, Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict, and RationalityPerspectives on Politics,

1(1), 2003, pp. 85-99.

Recommended

Stathis N. Kalyvas. The Ontology of Political Violence: Action and Identity in Civil Wars.

Perspectives on Politics (2003), 1: 475-494.

Fearon, James, and David Laitin, Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War.American Political

Science Review. 97(1), 2003, pp. 75-90.

Gellner, Ernest. 1983. Nations and Nationalism.

Stathis N. Kalyvas. 2006. The Logic of Violence in Civil War. New York: Cambridge University

Press.

Beissinger, Mark,Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2002).

Week 9 (15 November). Political Regimes and Regime Change

*Linz, Juan. Totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2000. Chapters

1, and parts of 2 and 4 (pp. 49-100, 159-216, 245-263)

*Cheibub, Jose Antonio,Presidentialism, Parliamentarism, and Democracy. (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2007), chs. 1-2, and 4 (pp. 1-48, 68-115).

Recommended

Przeworski, Adam,Democracy and the Market(Cambridge, 1991)



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Linz, Juan. 1964. An Authoritarian Regime: Spain. In Erik Allardt and Yrjo Littunen, eds.,

Cleavages, Ideologies and Party Systems. Helsinki: Academic Bookstore, pp. 291-341.

Cheibub, Jose Antonio, and Fernando Limongi, Democratic Institutions and Regime Survival:Parliamentary and Presidential Democracies Reconsidered,Annual Review of Political

Science 5 (2002): 151-79.

Gandhi, Jennifer. Political Institutions under Dictatorship. New York: Cambridge University

Press, 2008.

Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way. 2010. Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After

the Cold War. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Linz, Juan. 1990. The Perils of Presidentialism. Journal of Democracy, Volume 1, Number 1,

Winter, pp. 51-69

Week 10 (22 November). Democracy and Democratization

Dahl, Robert. 1971. Polyarchy. New Haven: Yale University Press. Especially chapters 1, 3-6,

and 10.

*Acemoglu, Daron, and James Robinson. 2006. Economic Origins of Dictatorship and

Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press. Chapter 2 (pp. 15-47)

*Boix, Carles. 2003. Democracy and Redistribution. New York: Cambridge. Introduction, pp.

1-18.

*Tilly, Charles. 2007. Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press. Chapters 1, 4, and

5 (pp. 1-24, 80-132)

Recommended

ODonnell, Guillermo, Philippe Schmitter and Laurence Whitehead, eds. 1986. Transitions from

Authoritarian Rule. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Haggard, Stephan, and Robert R. Kaufman, The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).

Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan. 1996. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation:

Southern Europe, South America, and post-communist Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

University Press.

Przeworski, Adam and Fernando Limongi, "Modernization: Theories and Facts," World Politics

49 (January 1997).



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Collier, Ruth,Pathways to Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Huntington, Samuel P., The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century

(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.

Boix, Carles, and Susan Stokes, Endogenous Democratization, World Politics 55 (July 2003):

517-549.

Week 11 (29 November). Bringing Business back in: Varieties of Capitalism

*Hall, Peter, and David Soskice. 2001. An Introduction to Varieties of Capitalism. In Varieties

of Capitalism, ed. Hall and Soskice. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 1-68.

*Hanck, Bob, Martin Rhodes, and Mark Thatcher. 2007. Introduction: Beyond Varieties of

Capitalism. InBeyond Varieties of Capitalism, ed. Hanck, Rhodes, and Thatcher. Oxford:

Oxford University Press.

Cusack, Thomas, Torben Iversen, and David Soskice. 2007. Economic Interests and the Origins

of Electoral Systems.American Political Science Review 101(3, August): 373-91.

Nlke, Andreas, and Arjan Vliegenthart. 2009. Enlarging the Varieties of Capitalism: The

Emergence of Dependent Market Economies in East Central Europe. World Politics 61(4,

October): 670-702.

Recommended

Hall, Peter, and Daniel Gingerich. 2009. Varieties of Capitalism and Institutional

Complementarities in the Political Economy: An Empirical Analysis. British Journal of

Political Science, v. 39, 3, July, pp 449-482.

Boyer, Robert. 2005. How and Why Capitalisms Differ.Economy and Society 34(4): 50957.

Amable, Bruno. 2000. Institutional Complementarity and Diversity of Social Systems of

Innovation and Production.Review of International Political Economy 7(4, Winter): 645-

87.

Schneider, Ben Ross. Comparing Capitalisms: Latin America in Comparative Perspective. In

Javier Santiso and Jeff Dayton-Johnson, eds.,Latin American Political Economy. Oxford:

Oxford University Press, forthcoming.

Crouch, Colin. 2005. Capitalist Diversity and Change: Recombinant Governance and

Institutional Entrepreneurs. Oxford: Oxford University Press.



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Week 12 (6 December). Inequality and Distributional Politics

*Esping-Anderson, Gsta. 2007. The three worlds of welfare capitalism. In The Welfare

State Reader, edited by Christopher Pierson and Francis Castles. Polity.

Iversen, Torben, and John Stephens. 2008. Partisan Politics, the Welfare State, and Three

Worlds of Human Capital Formation. Comparative Political Studies.

*Haggard, Stephan, and Robert Kaufman. 2008.Development, Democracy, and Welfare States:

Latin America, East Asia, and Eastern Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Introduction, pp. 1-26.

Iversen, Torben, and David Soskice. 2009. Distribution and Redistribution: The Shadow of theNineteenth Century. World Politics 61(3, July): 438-86.

Recommended

Estevez-Abe, Margarita, Torben Iversen, and David Soskice. 2001. Social Protection and the

Formation of Skills: A Reinterpretation of the Welfare State. In Varieties of Capitalism.

Rueda, David. 2005. Insider-Outsider Politics in Industrialized Democracies: The Challenge to

Social Democratic Parties.American Political Science Review 99(1, February): 61-74.

Rudra, Nita. 2008. Globalization and the race to the bottom in developing countries :who

really gets hurt? New York : Cambridge University Press.

Nita Rudra. 2002. Globalization and the Decline of the Welfare State in Less-Developed

Countries. International Organization, 56:2:411-445

Esping-Andersen, Gsta. 1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press.

Schneider, Ben Ross, and David Soskice. 2009. Inequality in Developed Countries and Latin

America: Coordinated, Liberal, and Hierarchical Systems.Economy and Society 38(1,February): 17-52.

Kurtz, M. and S. Brooks (2008). Embedding Neoliberal Reform in Latin America, World

Politics 60 (2): 231-80.


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