CPO 3003: Comparative Politics


Course Information:

  • Click here for the FAU library
  • BBC World News
  • Pocket
  • Canvas
  • FAU Visual Apps
  • Student Opportunities
  • Country Constitution Assignment
  • Kerblakistan
  • Introduction to the Course
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  • PowerPoints Slides:

  • Introduction: How to Study Comparative Politics (PowerPoint slides)
  • State and Society (PowerPoint slides)
  • Unitary and Federal Arrangements (PowerPoint slides)
  • Democratization and Political Culture (PowerPoint slides)
  • Economic Development and Democracy (PowerPoint slides)
  • Variations of Presidentialism and Parliamentarism (PowerPoint slides)
  • Elections and Electoral Systems (PowerPoint slides)
  • Parties, Party Systems (PowerPoint slides)
  • Country Specific Information
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  • Introduction: How to Study Comparative Politics:

  • Development of the Political Science Discipline
  • American Political Science Association
  • American Political Science Association Sections
  • APSA conference home page
  • Views of the American politics subfield
  • APSA's description of the possible subfields in political science
  • APSR and the Vietnam War
  • British Political Science Association
  • Perestroika movement in political science
  • Russian, East European and Eurasian Center at UI
  • Sovereignty is a basic concept in of nation-states
  • Map
  • Break away states of the former Soviet Union
  • Map of African decolonization
  • The Tragedy of behavioral political science
  • Small example of the policy relevance of political science
  • Comparative Politics Methodology
  • Click here for a APSR article on case study research
  • Discussion of most similar and most similar research designs
  • Examples of most similar research design
  • Eurobarometer public opinion polling
  • Experimental research in political science
  • Here is a discussion of Easton's political system
  • Variables
  • Regression analysis
  • ANOVA
  • Religion and conflict
  • Revision of data
  • Operationalization of variables
  • Magaloni paper
  • Elgie paper
  • Discussion concerning rational choice theory
  • The Society for Political Methodology and the Political Methodology Section of the American Political Science Association
  • The ICPSR maintains the world's largest data archive
  • Constitutions
  • Google Constitute for constittions
  • Comparative Constitutions Project at Texas
  • List of constitutions
  • East European Constitutional Review is available online
  • The University of Richmond Law School provides a comprehensive list of constitutions throughout the world
  • The Public Law Initiative at Columbia Law School is a great site
  • Fun Stuff
  • How political science really operates
  • I want an A
  • Democracy in action
  • You have two cows
  • The IMF
  • Daily Show
  • Decline
  • World leaders
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  • Social Mobilization and the State:

  • Notions of the State and Society
  • Employment situation in Latin America
  • Discussion of corporatism
  • Corporatism in Scandinavia
  • Demographic data in Latin America
  • Here is a discussion of Easton's political system
  • Human and Minority Rights
  • Lebanese religious demographics and distribution of power
  • Map of ethnic groups 1 and 2 (courtesy of the University of Texas library)
  • Ethnicity as a characteristic of nation (map1, map2)
  • IGOs
  • Languages of India
  • Map of religions in Iraq
  • Amnesty International is one of the world's leading human rights NGOs
  • UNDP's Human Development Index (click here for all tables)
  • The number of female MPs is increasing
  • The OSCE deals with security and democratization issues in Europe
  • Constitutions
  • East European Constitutional Review is available online
  • The University of Richmond Law School provides a comprehensive list of constitutions throughout the world
  • Revolutions and Protest Movements
  • Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan
  • Burma's crackdown in 2007
  • Cartoons
  • Color revolutions
  • Georgia's Rose Revolution
  • Another view of the revolution
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  • Unitary and Federal Arrangements:

  • Lebanese religious demographics and distribution of power
  • Map of ethnic groups 1 and 2 (courtesy of the University of Texas library)
  • Ethnicity as a characteristic of nation (map1, map2)
  • IGOs
  • Languages of India
  • Map of religions in Iraq
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  • Economic Development and Democracy:

  • World Bank GDP measures
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  • Democratization and Political Culture:

  • Almond and Verba's classic work on Civic Culture, also click here
  • Coup data set
  • Here is a good, brief description of some problems associated with studying civic culture
  • Freedom House's country ratings measure the level of democracy
  • Procedural versus substantive democracy
  • Positive and negative rights
  • Illiberal democracy
  • Latinobarometro
  • Discussion of democratization after the third wave
  • Huntington's "two turnover test"
  • Transparency International monitors the level of societal corruption
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  • Variations of Presidentialism and Parliamentarism:

  • Overview
  • List of regimes by country
  • Female leaders include Indira Gandhi
  • Somalia's governmentless state
  • Inter-Parliamentary Union provides web servers of national parliaments and a database of electoral laws and election results
  • Unicameral and bicameral parliaments
  • Latin American parliaments
  • Latin American governments
  • Parliamentary resources by country
  • European Parliament has information on structure and members
  • Presidential Regimes
  • Breakdown of democracy in presidential regimes
  • Parliamentary Regimes
  • Vote of no confidence
  • Votes of no confidence
  • Constructive vote of no confidence
  • Dissolve parliament
  • Semi-Presidential Regimes
  • Here are some tables comparing premier-presidential regimes
  • List of post-communist premier-presidential regimes
  • List of semi-presidential regimes
  • Constitutions
  • East European Constitutional Review is available online
  • The University of Richmond Law School provides a comprehensive list of constitutions throughout the world
  • Return to the course menu
  • Elections and Electoral Systems:

  • General Information:
  • Click here for maps and types of electoral systems
  • List of different systems
  • Candidate registration in Illinois (election laws)
  • ACE has a good discussion of the two types of effects
  • Effective number of parties
  • Electoral thresholds
  • Compulsory voting
  • Ballot Design:
  • Click here for a list of ballot designs
  • German ballot
  • Polish ballot (categorical ballot for individual)
  • South African ballot (closed party list)
  • Danish ballot (open party list)
  • Irish ballot (STV)
  • Example of a modified Australian federal election ballot (AV)
  • District Magnitude:
  • Good explanation of district magnitude
  • Math behind of district magnitude
  • Allocation Rules:
  • Allocation rules (1 and 2)
  • List of PR allocation rules
  • Implication of electoral systems on female representation
  • Robert Loring has a useful page in which he explains his synthesis of STV and Condorcet rules
  • Data Bases:
  • The International Foundation for Electoral Systems has an extensive data base
  • The University of Essex has a project on transformation and electoral process in post-communist Europe
  • Here is a great site for parliamentary election results going back to 1945
  • The Lijphart elections archive
  • Fairvote has voter turnout statistics for many countries
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  • Parties and Party Systems:

  • Click here for a diagram of general cleavage structure (abridged by Kenneth Janda)
  • Development of catch-all parties
  • Big tent parties
  • Wolinetz's typology of parties
  • Gunther and Diamond typology of parties
  • Two-party vote
  • Click here for a recent APSA paper on the determination of the number of parties
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    Voting Behavior:

  • Here is comparative data on voter turnout
  • The Hotelling-Downsian model of median voter
  • Median voter theorem
  • Discussion of directional versus proximity models of voting
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  • Case Study of Russia:

    Maps:

  • Map of Russia under Peter the Great
  • Map of Russia today

    Interesting Facts:

  • Russia/US comparison
  • Interesting Russian facts

    News:

  • ITAR-TASS
  • Moscow Times
  • Pravda
  • Russiatoday(RT)
  • RIA Novosti
  • Interesting Russian facts

    Soviet-era Information:

  • Communism
  • Communist party leaders
  • Cult of personality
  • Khruschuchev "secret speech"
  • Lenin's "theory of imperialism"
  • Show trials and purges in the 1930s
  • Soviet era Mother's medals
  • Mother's medals today
  • Glasnost, demokratizatsyia and perestroika
  • Gorbachev and pizza
  • Photos of Yeltsin
  • President of Soviet Union
  • 1991 coup
  • Video from the coup
  • Republics of the former Soviet Union
  • Soviet-made cars (zaporozhet, tavria and other great photos)

    Russian Democracy and Political Culture:

  • Freedom House rankings
  • Khodorkovsky trial 2009
  • Litvinenko poisoning (photos and story)
  • Transparency International rankings

    Russian Parties:

  • Constitution of Russia
  • Communist Party of the Russian Federation
  • Fair Russia as an example of an "opposition" party
  • Parties and Russian presidential elections
  • State Duma after the 2007 elections
  • United Russia
  • Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal-Democratic Party
  • Yabloko Party and seat totals for parliament

    Russian Elections:

  • Constitution of Russia
  • Elections to the State Duma 1993
  • Elections to the State Duma 1995
  • Elections to the State Duma 1999
  • Elections to State Duma 2003
  • Elections to State Duma 2007
  • Presidential election results in 2008
  • State Duma
  • Table election results in the 1993 and 1995 Duma
  • Table election results of independent in SMDs
  • Table results effective number of parties

    Russian Presidency:

  • Constitution of Russia
  • Shelling of parliament 1993
  • Power to fire prime minister
  • Prime ministers of Russia
  • Presidential election results in 2008

    Case Study of Mexico:

    Maps:

  • Map of Mexico today

    Interesting Facts:

  • Interesting Mexican facts
  • Mexico's problems

    Economic Issues:

  • Carlos Slim, the world's second riches man
  • Pemex

    Mexican Parties:

  • List of Mexican political parties
  • Institutionalized Revolutionary Party (their web site)
  • Institutionalized Revolutionary Party (wiki)
  • National Action Party (their web site)
  • National Action Party (wiki)
  • Party of the Democratic Revolution (their web site)
  • Party of the Democratic Revolution (wiki)

    Mexican Elections:

  • Description of Mexican electoral system
  • Congressional election results
  • Presidential election results

    Mexican Presidency:

  • Constitution of Mexico
  • General information on the Mexican presidency
  • President Juarez
  • Presidential election results
  • Protests of 2006 presidential election

    Mexican Democracy and Political Culture:

  • Freedom House rankings
  • Transparency International rankings

    Country Specific Information:

    Australia:

  • Electoral system
  • MPs face breath tests
  • Belgium:

  • Electoral system
  • Election results
  • Geographic results of elections
  • Canada:

  • Parliament
  • Harper's snap election call
  • France:

  • French Fourth Republic
  • French cohabitation
  • French cohabitation
  • French legislative elections
  • Pros and Cons of French semi-presidentialism
  • French presidential elections
  • Germany:

  • A guide to German political parties in the run up to the 2005 elections.
  • German post-war governments
  • Use of constructive vote of no confidence
  • Constructive vote of no confidence
  • German election results
  • German ballot
  • German electoral system
  • Parliamentary factions in Germany
  • The CDU
  • Click here for the German CDU's home page
  • The Greens
  • The FDP
  • The SPD
  • Great Britain:

  • British election returns
  • Click here for a link to the British House of Commons
  • British Parliament live
  • Click here for information on the British House of Lords
  • Click here for the UK's Liberal Democrat home page
  • The party of Wales
  • List of prime ministers in Britain
  • Blair's lose of a whipped vote in parliament
  • Prime Minister's question hour
  • The House of Commons party list

    India:

  • Click here for information concerning the Indian electoral system
  • Indian parliament
  • Languages of India
  • Iraq:

  • Forming the new Iraq government
  • Independent High Electoral Commission
  • UN fact sheet on Iraq electoral system and procedures

    Israel:

  • Election of Israel's president
  • 2009 parliamentary election--article on electoral reform and results
  • The Knesset
  • Italy:

  • List of Italian governments
  • Development of an Italian mass party
  • Prodi loses confidence vote in January 2008
  • List of Italian parliamentary factions

    Kosovo:

  • Seats in the Assembly

    Lithuania:

  • Impeachment of the president

    Malaysia:

  • Prime minister dissolve's parliament

    Moldova:

  • 1996 presidential election result

    Netherlands:

  • The Dutch parliament
  • Dutch electoral system
  • Pakistan:

  • Description of the Pakistan electoral system
  • Poland:

  • Description of the Polish electoral system

    Romania:

  • Dispute between executives
  • Vote of no confidence in government (October 2009) with nomination of various individuals to post of premier (Johannis and Croitoru)
  • Constitutional Court's ruling
  • Referendum on impeachment
  • List of presidential election results
  • Video of the conflict
  • Recent press accounts of horrible fall of Prime Minister Boc (sorry Emil!)
  • Romanian electoral system
  • Another description of the system
  • Romania's confusing new electoral system
  • Positions of the executives

    Serbia:

  • Election results from the 2008 presidential race

    Sri Lanka:

  • Crisis between executives
  • Turkey:

  • Direct election of president

    Taiwan:

  • Taiwan's parliament, never a dull moment (here is the Korean parliament, not to be out done)

    Ukraine:

  • 2010 fight in the Rada
  • Fight in the Rada
  • Problems associated with semi-presidentialism in Ukraine
  • Photos of the effect of poisoning on the president
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