Comparative Politics - Group 2

The aim of the course is to make students familiar with some important issues and approaches in comparative politics by presenting research problems and enterprises. The course will start in discussing issues in social science and political science research in focusing on research in comparative politics. It covers issues related to political regimes and institutions, just as in social change and political transformation, structural vs agency-oriented explanations, democracies and non-democracies in comparative view.

By the end of the semester, each student will be expected to write research proposal on a selected topic. The selection of the topic will be up to the student, but decision should be made a month before the end of the course so that each will have adequate time to both read and “digest” the issue and its literature. In the proposal, students should address the following: What is the problem, issue, puzzle, event, outcome, process, trend, controversy that you intend to explain, and why do you choose it? What are your assumptions? How do you conceptualize your selected issue and how do you come up with the way of looking at it? What is the unit (are the units) included in your analysis and why they were selected? We will discuss approaches that are either focus on actors or structures in political transformation, just as on political regimes (democracy, hybrid regime, autocracy), and political institutions (political parties and party-systems).