Goal – to understand why we use comparative analysis in political science, to understand the methods of comparison available and the methods we will use in this course.•Questions from homework?•What is “Politics”? What will we need to analyze to understand politics in general and in any particular case?Why compare? – What are the benefits to comparison according to Kesselman (textbook), McCormick (AR #11 p 66 - 68) and A and P (AR #9 p 31-32) Review 5 Substantive Topics from pdf P5-13–our method • Presentation – groups and country selection•Key Terms - differentiate between state, government, nation and regime•How will we compare in this course?

•Read AR #8 p 24-31 - Systems Theory, Structural-Functional, Historical, Typological

•Evaluate pros and cons of each method•Finish or reread AR #11 p 67-69 – how to compare? Why STs?

AP Comp Day 2 – 3 groups

Politics is the processes, actions and relationships between individuals and groups to make collective decisions. Usually these are focused on answering the questions: 1) Who gets what (of scarce resources), when, where and how? (another way of asking this is: what should gov’t do and how should it do it?) 2) How does “who” get decided?

Therefore, if the above is an acceptable answer to what is politics, then what conclusions can we draw about what needs to be studied in order to understand politics and comparative politics?

But politics are also the effects of the answers to these questions – Conflict arises over the answers to the above two questions and politics are also the management of these different, and resultant conflicts

Need to study among other things:

1. processes of making policies and putting them into effect.

2. actors involved in making and implementing policy

3. Sources and methods of information used to make policy

4. Environment (political, cultural, geographical, demographic, economic) in which policies are made

5. Methods and biases in policy-maker selection

6. Conflict and cooperation – methods, prevalence, role, actors

7. Systems and structures influencing and influenced by policy-making

Therefore – we will use the College Board’s Substantive Topic framework

Substantive Topics and AP Terminology

Sovereignty, Authority, Power,

Political Institutions

Citizens, Society & State

Political and economic Change

Public Policy

Identify the key questions that each of the above ST’s asks you to understand about each of the nation-state case studies.

Use the STs to analyze what you know of the US political system.

•Kesselman – to better understand how globalization-caused interdependence affects us

•To help prognosticate the direction countries and the world are going and then how best to address this future•Gain the analytical skills and tools to better understand ourselves and our domestic situation.•To develop understanding about politics in general

Why compare?

•McCormick – make sense of the world•understand ourselves•develop many more options to address similar problems•broaden our horizons about other people, cultures, values and methods to break down prejudice and misunderstandings to lessen potential for conflict (or promote cooperation)•develop rules about politics

•Almond & Powell – to better understand specific factors that have led to different aspects of political systems.

•Helps us develop solutions to public policy problems•Helps us to understand and address changes

Groups for Presentation 1 / Presentation 2

1. United Kingdom/ Mexico

2. Russian Federation/ Iran

3. People’s Republic of China/ Nigeria

Debates will be between these two grouped countriesYou will be a team of business development consultants tasked with determining in which of the two countries a business should develop a foreign subsidiary.

State – collection of all individuals, groups and institutions involved in making, implementing and adjudicating public policies.

Government – members of the “temporary” administration – generally the executive branch

Nation - group of people with common language, culture, identity and affinity to land,

Regime – the system of rules under which the political system operates

Political System – collection of institutions involved in the creation and implementation of public policy

System-environment approach- focus on general process and interaction between inputs, decision-making, outputs, feedback and the environment

Structural-functional approach – focus on the process within each step in the system - the who and how each of inputs, decisions and outputs

AND the evaluation of the effectiveness of the entire system in maintaining the regime and providing for the satisfaction of its people

Typology approach – focus on comparing the various types of gov’t from authoritarian to democratic. Here system theory is augmented by categorization to better evaluate the success of various types and their strengths and weaknesses relative to each other

Historical Approach – looking at the past to better understand where the political system will go in the future. Probably includes study of the political culture as it interacts with the political system

inputs Decision-making

outputs

Feedback

inputs Decision-making

outputs

Feedback

History and culture

articulationaggregation

Policy makingimplementation

Policy functions

System Functions

Foreign state

Legitimacy• A significant segment of the citizenry must believe that the

state acts with some moral authority. People believe that the state has the right to issue rules binding for people within their borders - Kesselman

• People believe that rules should be followed voluntarily because they are in the best interests of all citizens. – Palmer• People have the feeling that the regime’s rule is rightful and should be obeyed.- Roskin

Some key legitimizing factors – Transparency, free elections, compatibility of system with culture, open and free press, economic success, improved living standards, rule of law, access to quality public services, civil rights, responsiveness to inputs, civil society, accountability, political efficacy,