Assignment

1
Assignment 1

• Prospects for Democracy in Saudi Arabia, Iran,
  and Pakistan
  
• (due Tuesday, July 12)

2
Main task

• Identify the main factors (independent variables)
  affecting the prospects for democracy in Saudi
  Arabia, Iran, and Pakistan
  
• Compare prospects for democracy (dependent
  variable) in the three cases
  

3
Step 1 fill a table where

• the rows are your independent variables
• the number of columns are Saudi Arabia, Iran,
  and Pakistan
  
• The independent variables must fulfill at least
  one (preferably two) conditions
  
• significant impact on the dependent variable
• (the independent variable takes different values
  across these cases)

4
Format
5
Specific tasks

• Justify the choice of each independent variable
• Then, for each independent variable, justify the
  score for each case
  
• A plus means that the variable has a positive
  impact on democracy (actual impact or at least
  potential)
  
• E.g., if you think that variable X has (or may
  have) a very positive impact in Saudi Arabia, a
  positive impact in Iran, a negligible impact in
  Pakistan, an example of scoring is (SA),
  (Iran), 0 (Pakistan)

6
Specific tasks (cont.)

• After you fill the table, justify the choice of
  variables, and the specific scores for each case,
  please give an overall assessment of the
  prospects for democracy in these cases are they
  equally good (or bad)? Does one case (or two)
  have better chances than the other(s)? Why?

7
Final point 1

• There is no right answer to this assignment (if
  there is one, Im not aware of it, so I
  definitely do not expect it from you)
  
• However, there is a right (and a wrong) way to
  answer
  
• At a minimum, I expect it to have an internal
  logical consistency, and to get the empirical
  facts right

8
Final point 2

• Speaking of which, you should use at least one
  outside source (a couple may be even better)
  
• Examples below (these are just examples, feel
  free to use these or something else, it does not
  matter, what matters is how well you address the
  question)
• Beware not all sources are equal!

9

• Freedom House (www.freedomhouse.org)
• Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org)
• BBC News (http//news.bbc.co.uk/)
• CNN (http//www.cnn.com/)
• Assignment is due in class, Tuesday, July 12
• Good luck!