Chapter 1: Seeking New Lands, Seeing with New Eyes

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

6. 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

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

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

12. Chapter 2:The Industrialized Democracies

14. 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

15. 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?

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

19. 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

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

21. 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

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

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

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

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

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

33. 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