Comparative Politics of Developing Nations

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Comparative Politics of Developing Nations

• Week 2 (October 10)

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Today

• Shameless advertising (Pol. Paradoxes)
• Policies (participation contributions)
• Exams (optional midterm?)
• Feedback (last week)
• Pictures
• Colonialism (Isbister vs. Clapham)
• Contributions (technical comments)
• Sources (research)

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Highly recommended

• Ted Talks http//www.ted.com/talks
• iTunes Education, http//www.apple.com/education/i
  tunesu/

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Political Paradoxes

• Does a larger number of parties increase turnout?
• Do shark attacks affect the incumbents share of
  the vote in presidential elections?
• Are women more likely than men to vote for the
  left?
• Is education negatively correlated with vote for
  the left?

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Policies

• Very liberal attendance and participation
  policies
• Participation grade the highest of the two
  (weekly contributions or participation
  discussion board)
• Discussion board (examples) good books, web
  sites, movies, documentaries

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Midterm

• Room 4 cannot accommodate 60 persons
• Optional midterm? (to be confirmed, final
  decision in a week or so)
• If midterm is optional, (a) you will have to sign
  up in advance in order to take it (I must know
  of students in advance), or
• (b) We will split into two groups, 530-730 and
  730-930

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Feedback

• Best books (selection)
• Weber, Protestant Ethic
• Sartori, Homo Videns
• Sartori, Parties Party Systems
• Huntington, Clash of Civilizations
• Daniel Seiler, Les parties politiques
• Amartya Sen, Development As Freedom

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Worst books

• (selection)
• Sartori, Homo Videns
• Sartori, Parties Party Systems
• Huntington, Clash of Civilizations
• Daniel Seiler, Les parties politiques
• Federalist Papers

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Miscellaneous

• You will get your exams back (midterms) with
  grade breakdown
• Same with the final grade e.g., (midterm 34)
  (final 37) (weekly 8) (participation 8) 87
  9 (final grade)
• Exam(s) relax! Prepare well all the questions,
  and youll be fine

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I. Colonialism (Clapham Isbister readings)

• Colonialism
• End economic
• Means technology
• Sequence of colonization a function of richness
  weakness/access
• Americas rich and easy to control
• Asia rich, harder to control
• Africa no obvious wealth, hard access

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Sequence of colonization consequences
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(No Transcript)
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Nationalism Africa vs. Middle East

• Africa divisions (ethnic, religious)
• Middle East unifying effect of ethnicity (Pan
  Arabism) and religion (Islam)

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Colonial government

• Creation of new boundaries
• Creation of a new political order and
  administration
• ? Colonial administration authoritarian and
  centralized
• ? Post-colonial administration
• rulers inherit the sense of superiority of
  the colonial power
• ruled continue to view the state as an alien
  imposition

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Rule Direct (French) vs. Indirect (British)

• What are the consequences for post-colonial
  governments?
• Prediction? British vs. French ex-colonies which
  ones are more democratic?
• Generally speaking, British ex-colonies are more
  democratic than non-British ex-colonies (e.g.,
  French)
• See Huntington

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Colonialism Clapham vs. Isbister

• What was the main reason behind colonial
  expansion?
• ?
• The culture/legacy of colonialism
• Language
• Religion

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Next week

• Economist. The real digital divide
• Fukuyama, The Imperative of State Building
• Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, Corruption Diagnosis and
  Treatment
• Sachs, The Development Challenge

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Last years Nobel peace prize

• Grameen Bank
• Who? Muhammad Yunus
• Where? the village of Jobra, Bangladesh (1976)
• A loan of 27 to a group of 43 families
• Results
• US 5.72 billion disbursed
• 6.61 million borrowers 97 percent women
• over 250,000 telephone ladies
• Beggars As Members (over 81,000)

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Weekly contributions

• Rather than starting three or four topics and
  finish none, focus on one topic and finish it
• E.g., one paragraph stating that British
  colonialism was different than the French
• So what? Would expect next paragraph to
  take/discuss this idea further

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Features of a good paper?

• (a) Well written
• (b1) Logically coherent
• (b2) Empirical evidence
• Six Evil Geniuses - lessons?
• McCubbins piece lessons?

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Topics

• Human Rights (EU ? UN)
• Group identification
• (Cuba)
• (Somalia Ethiopia)
• (Israel Ethiopia)
• Soft law

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Resources on Human Rights

• Human Rights Watch, http//www.hrw.org/
• Amnesty International, http//www.amnesty.org/.

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General (papers/research)

• American Political Science Association
• http//64.112.226.77/one/apsa/apsa07/index.php