Theory and Methodology of Comparative Politics
GOVT 740 (PhD)
Fall 2021, Fall 2022
This seminar introduces Ph.D. students to the central questions, theories, and methods in the field of comparative politics. After evaluating a variety of research methods used to study comparative politics, we will dedicate each week to a central question in the field. Why some countries are more democratic than others? What factors contribute to revolutions and civil wars? How do ideology and identity shape political behaviors? The course will train students to design research strategies for answering these questions, beginning from conceptualization and question formation, through the selection of diverse methods including statistics, historical methods, ethnography, and formal theory.
Assignments include a mock comparative exam and exercises in qualitative and quantitative analysis. Students should be prepared for a reading-intensive and writing-intensive course.
My PhD courses are open to MA and undergrad students by application only. To apply, please submit an essay of 1,000 words describing your interest in and preparation for the course. These essays must be received one week prior to the start of classes. Registration priority will be given to PhD students.
Social Movements and Nonviolent Resistance
GOVT 617 (MA)
Fall 2020, 2021, 2022
GOVT 317 (undergrad)
Spring 2021
Why do people revolt, and to what ends? Most of political science and public policy adopt a top-down view of politics. For the most part, we aim to understand institutions like parliaments and bureaucracies, to know how states are constituted through elections or coups, and rate how they function as implementers of policy. Studying mass movements, as Trotsky says, means studying those times when the people take control, when politics are (potentially) remade from the ground up.
The first half of the course is organized around a number of core theoretical questions. What are the conditions – political, economic, cultural – that give rise to resistance movements? How are mass movements organized and sustained, even under repressive conditions? When and why do movements adopt non-violent strategies? What factors determine whether a movement succeeds, whether it succumbs to repression, or whether it fades away over time? The second half of the course applies these theoretical insights to a handful of contemporary cases of mass mobilization. Cases will include American racial justice protests (past and present) and the Arab Spring in North Africa and Syria. Overcoming a tendency to think of U.S. politics as its own field of study, somehow apart from the rest of the world, we’ll ask instead about how American movement politics do and don’t resemble cases of mass mobilization in the contentious, often autocratic countries of the Middle East & North Africa. We’ll ask what studying other times and places of resistance can teach us about American politics today, and vice versa.
Assignments will include interactive reading response essays and a final research project on a topic of your selection. Students should be prepared to participate actively in seminar discussion.
Authoritarianism
GOVT 746 (PhD)
Spring 2021
This course studies authoritarian politics from a comparative perspective. As an object of study, “authoritarianism” is a moving target. Our course goals are threefold. First, we aim to understand how scholars since the mid-20th century have understood the “problem” of authoritarianism. What concepts and paradigms have been paramount? How have methodological approaches evolved? Has our mode of study shifted to meet the monumental changes in political forms and practices during this period?
Second, we aim to decompose “authoritarianism” from a totalizing concept towards a series of authoritarian practices in governance, persuasion, control, and survival. What does it mean to adopt an “authoritarian” approach to economic development, for example? How do authoritarians manage labor relations, police protests, organize elections, and maintain archives – to name just a few activities? How, when, and towards whom might democratic states adopt authoritarian practices – and to what ends?
Third, we are living through what many have called an “authoritarian moment,” in the U.S. and elsewhere around the globe. This isn’t a current events class, but as comparative political scientists, we strive to understand parallels and divergences over time and space. Which of our historical and comparative lenses on authoritarianism apply to our current experience? What analytic tools does this literature provide for politics and praxis today?
Our readings draw mainly from comparative political science but will also incorporate works from history and sociology.
Assignments will include reading response essays and a final research project on a topic of your selection.
My PhD courses are open to MA and undergrad students by application only. To apply, please submit an essay of 1,000 words describing your interest in and preparation for the course. These essays must be received one week prior to the start of classes. Registration priority will be given to PhD students.