POL 628: SEMINAR IN COMPARATIVE PARTIES AND ELECTIONS
The University of Mississippi
Spring 2008, Monday 13:30 - 16:00, 131 Deupree Hall
Instructor: Dr. Gang Guo * Office: 128 Deupree Hall * Telephone: (662) 915-5419 * e-mail: gg at olemiss dot edu
Office hours: by appointment
Course Overview
This graduate seminar covers a wide variety of topics associated with political parties, party systems, and elections.
It introduces students to a core selection of texts as well as some more recent developments on the comparative study of political parties and elections.
While the classic literature in this subfield focuses mainly upon the advanced industrial democracies in Western Europe, we shall also broaden our scope to investigate these topics in many different types of settings.
For example, with the transitions to democracy across the world numerous questions are beginning to be addressed for the first time in countries outside of Western Europe.
How do these new cases affect the generalizations built upon the European parties and elections?
There are many different theoretical and methodological topics that we will discuss during this semester.
In order to cover as many materials as possible, a division of labor is required.
All students will read a certain amount of material in common as indicated on the syllabus.
Besides, every week one student will prepare a 3-page annotated bibliography of additional readings on the topic for that week.
The annotated bibliography and a short 10 minutes presentation of it during class account for 20% of your course grade.
In addition, every week a 3-page paper is required from each student, except the one who prepares that week's annotated bibliography.
The paper should review and evaluate all (or almost all) of the week's readings, focusing on some of the key concepts, assumptions, major arguments, debates, methodology, measurement issues, substantive contributions, and/or empirical or theoretical implications.
The papers will constitute 30% of your final grade.
The paper and the annotated bibliography should be posted on the course blog by the Sunday afternoon before each class.
Seminar participation for all students will constitute 20% of the course grade.
Finally, there is a research design that will account for 30% of grade.
You should approach this research design as the "front half" of a journal article, including a literature review, theory, methodology, and discussion of data sources.
Ideally, your research design would make a contribution to the current debate in one of the many research programs in the comparative study of parties and elections.
On April 21, each student will present his or her research design in class so that comments, suggestions, or criticism can be given for the final revision.
The final research design paper is due at noon on Monday, May 5.
The following books are used in their entirety (or almost so) in this course:
- Lijphart, Arend. 1994. Electoral Systems and Party Systems. Oxford University Press.
- Mair, Peter. 1990. The West European Party System. Oxford University Press.
- Ware, Alan. 1996. Political Parties and Party Systems. Oxford University Press.
The rest of the readings are available either on this course website or at the University of Mississippi libraries website.
Course Schedule
| Month | Date | Topic | Required Readings | Bibliography by | BP Award
|
|---|
| January | 28 | Introduction | Ware 1996:1-13; Caramani & Hug 1998; Daalder 2002:39-57; Montero & Gunther 2002:1-35; Webb 2002:1-15; Reiter 2006
|
| February | 4 | Parties | Origin | Mair 1990:25-45; Aldrich 1995:28-64; Gunther & Diamond 2003 | Alyson | Ginger
|
| 11 | Ideology | Ware 1996:17-62,124-133; Bohrer et al. 2000; Imbeau et al. 2001; Kim & Fording 2003 | Bridget | Alyson
|
| 18 | Members | Mair 1990:37-60; Ware 1996:63-92,134-138; Muller & Katz 1997; Mair & Biezen 2001; Seyd & Whiteley 2004 | Ginger | Bridget
|
| 25 | Organizations | Ware 1996:93-123,139-143; Koole 1996; Katz & Mair 1996; Wolinetz 2002 | Daniel | Chris
|
| March | 3 | Party
Systems | Classification | Mair 1990:285-349; Ware 1996:147-183; Bogaards 2004 | Christopher | Alyson
|
| 17 | Differences | Ware 1996:184-212; Coppedge 1998; Kriesi 1998 | Alyson | Bridget
|
| 24 | (In-)Stability | Mair 1990:218-246; Ware 1996:213-244; Roberts & Wibbels 1999; Scotto et al. 2004 | Ginger | Alyson
|
| 31 | Emergence | Miller et al. 2000; Sitter 2002; Zielinski 2002; Mozaffar et al. 2003 | Christopher | Alyson
|
| April | 7 | Electoral
Systems | Classification | Lijphart 1994:10-56; Norris 2004:6-84 | Bridget | Chris
|
| 14 | Consequences | Lijphart 1994:57-138; Carey & Shugart 1995; Amorim Neto & Cox 1997 | Daniel | Ginger
|
| 21 | presentation of student research design |
|
| 28 | Changes | Taagepera & Shugart 1989:201-237; Lijphart 1994:139-152; Boix 1999; Benoit 2004 |
|
References
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- Amorim Neto, Octavio and Gary W. Cox. 1997. "Electoral Institutions, Cleavage Structures, and the Number of Parties." American Journal of Political Science, Volume 41, Issue 1, January, pp. 149-174.
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- Biezen, Ingrid van. 2003. Political Parties in New Democracies: Party Organization in Southern and East-Central Europe. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Birch, Sarah. 2004. Electoral Systems and Political Transformation in Post-Communist Europe. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Bogaards, Matthijs. 2004. "Counting Parties and Identifying Dominant Party Systems in Africa." European Journal of Political Research, Volume 43, Issue 2, March, pp. 173-197.
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- Boix, Carles. 1999. "Setting the Rules of the Game: The Choice of Electoral Systems in Advanced Democracies." American Political Science Review 93(3): 609-624.
- Bozoki, Andras and John T. Ishiyama. 2002. The Communist Successor Parties of Central and Eastern Europe. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
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- Carey, John M., and Matthew Soberg Shugart, eds. 1998. Executive Decree Authority: Calling Out the Tanks, or Filling Out the Forms? New York: Cambridge University Press. Introduction and Conclusion, and choose 2 country chapters.
- Carey, John M., and Matthew Soberg Shugart. 1995. "Incentives to Cultivate a Personal Vote: a Rank Ordering of Electoral Formulas." Electoral Studies 14:417-439.
- Coppedge, M. 1998. "The Dynamic Diversity of Latin American Party Systems." Party Politics, Volume 4, Number 4, pp. 547¨C568.
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- Dalton, Russell J. and Martin P. Wattenberg, eds. 2000. Parties Without Partisans: Political Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
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- Katz, Richard S. and Peter Mair. 1996. "Cadre, Catch-All or Cartel?: A Rejoinder." Party Politics, Volume 2, Issue 4, October, pp. 527-536.
- Katz, Richard S. and Peter Mair. 2002. "The Ascendancy of the Party in Public Office: Party Organizational Change in Twentieth-Century Democracies." Political Parties: Old Concepts and New Challenges, edited by Richard Gunther, Jose Ramon Montero, and Juan J. Linz. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
- Kim, Heemin and Richard C. Fording. 2003. "Voter Ideology in Western Democracies: An Update." European Journal of Political Research, Volume 42, Issue 1, pp. 95-105.
- Kirchheimer, Otto. 1966. "The Transformation of the Western European Party Systems." Political Parties and Political Development, edited by Joseph LaPalombara and Myron Weiner. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 177-200.
- Kitschelt, Herbert. 1988. "Left-Libertarian Parties." World Politics 40:194-234.
- Kitschelt, Herbert. 1997. The Radical Right in Western Europe. Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press. Read Chapters 1, 2 and several country cases.
- Kitschelt, Herbert. 1999. "European Social Democracy between Political Economy and Electoral Competition." Continuity and Change in Contemporary Capitalism, Herbert Kitschelt et. al., eds. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 317-345.
- Koole, Ruud. 1996. "Cadre, Catch-All or Cartel? A Comment on the Notion of the Cartel Party." Party Politics, Volume 2, Number 4, October, pp. 507-523.
- Kreuzer, Marcus. 1998. "Electoral Institutions, Political Organization, and Party Development: French and German Socialists and Mass Politics." Comparative Politics, Volume 30, Number 3, pp. 273-292.
- Kriesi H. 1998. "The Transformation of Cleavage Politics: The 1997 Stein Rokkan Lecture." European Journal of Political Research, Volume 33, Issue 2, March, pp. 165-185.
- Laver, Michael and Norman Schofield. 1990. Multiparty Government: The Politics of Coalition in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Lewis, Paul G. 2001. Political Parties in Post-Communist Eastern Europe. London; New York: Routledge.
- Lijphart, Arend. 1994. Electoral Systems and Party Systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Lipset, Seymour Martin and Stein Rokkan. 1967. "Cleavage Structures, Party Systems, and Voter Alignments: An Introduction." Party Systems and Voter Alignments, edited by Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan. New York: Free Press, pp. 1-64.
- Lucardie P. 2000. "Prophets, Purifiers and Prolocutors: Towards a Theory on the Emergence of New Parties." Party Politics, Volume 6, Issue 2, April, pp. 175-185.
- Mainwaring, Scott. 1998. "Party Systems in the Third Wave." Journal of Democracy, Volume 9, Issue 3, July, pp. 67-81.
- Mainwaring , Scott and Matthew Soberg Shugart, eds. 1997. Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin America, New York: Cambridge University Press. Introduction and Conclusion, and choose 2 country chapters.
- Mair, Peter, ed. 1990. The West European Party System. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Read Chapters 1, 3, 10, 20-24.
- Mair, Peter. 1998. Party System Change: Approaches and Interpretations. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.
- Mair, Peter and Ingrid Van Biezen. 2001. "Party Membership in Twenty European Democracies, 1980¨C2000." Party Politics 7:5-21.
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Online Resources