The course has two main components of about equal weight: a methodological and an applied one. The first part addresses the specific nature of comparative politics, its history, types, units and levels of analysis. Then three particular methodological challenges are presented: the selection of cases, the operationalization of theoretical concepts into empirically measurable variables, and the problem of causality. In the second part, these methodological guidelines will be applied to the critically reading of the seminal research of Lijphart 'Patterns of Democracy. Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries' (2012), learning how he copes with the problems of case selection, operationalization and causality, and criticize some choice he makes.
By the end of the course, students should have acquired good knowledge of the comparative approach, both at the epistemological level (the type of specific explanation than it involves) and at the purely methodological level. They should be able to come up with a design for an empirical comparative analysis and critically evaluate the design of existing comparative politics research endeavors. They should understand to the principal comparative theories of a variety of political institutions, and their effects on government outputs and quality of democracy.
The contribution of this Teaching Unit to the development and command of the skills and learning outcomes of the programme(s) can be accessed at the end of this sheet, in the section entitled “Programmes/courses offering this Teaching Unit”.
Part I: Methodology: 1) the specific nature of comparative politics, its history, types, units and levels of analysis; 2) the selection of cases, 3) the operationalization of theoretical concepts into empirically measurable variables; 4) the problem of causality.
Part II: Critical reading of Lijphart 'Patterns of Democracy. Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries' (2012).
Passive knowledge of English. Rating: Written Exam format, multiple choice, 20 questions, 'open book' format. All power points and supplementary reading (book chapters from Landman, Issues and Methods in Comparative Politics, 2000; and Pennings, Keman & Kleinnijenhuis, Doing Research in Political Science, 1999) will be put on icampus/moodle (with exception of the book of Arend Lijphart, (2012) Patterns of Democracy. Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries, Yale University Press
