COMPARATIVE POLITICS COMPREHENSIVE EXAMINATION

August 2003

Students taking the comp as a major have six hours to answer one question form Part I, one question from Part II, and two questions from Part III.  Students taking the comp as a minor have four and one-half hours to answer one question form Part I and Either one question from Part II and one question form Part III OR two questions from Part III.

All students will be evaluated on: 1) the extent to which they address the issues raised by the questions; 2) the breadth and depth of their knowledge of the relevant literature; and 3) their ability for critical analysis of this literature.

Part I General Theory

 

A. In the concluding paragraph of The Protestant Ethic, Max Weber observes, “But it is, of course, not my aim to substitute for a one-sided materialistic an equally one-sided spiritualistic causal interpretation of culture and of history.  Each is equally possible, but each, if it does not serve as the preparation, but as the conclusion of an investigation, accomplishes equally little in the interest of historical truth.”  Assess the strengths and weaknesses of either ideational or structural causal explanations in light of the limits suggested by the other perspective.  Explain whether you agree with Weber’s observation.

 

B. Paul Pierson and Theda Skocpol (in Katznelson and Milner 2002, p. 698) contend, “To understand an interesting outcome or set of arrangements usually means to analyze processes over a substantial stretch of years, maybe even many decades or centuries.  Scholars working in this tradition have developed compelling methodological and theoretical justifications for historically grounded investigations, by which they mean investigations that look not just at the past but at processes over time.”   Discuss the concepts and analytic approaches that scholars in the field of comparative politics have developed in their effort to create a more systematic analysis of historical processes.  Evaluate their strengths and weaknesses.

 

Part II Methodology

 

A. Is it possible to make law-like generalizations in the social sciences?  If not, are we thrown back on mere description and narrative?”  Answer these questions and evaluate the methodological issues they imply.   

 

B. What is the "small-n" problem?  In light of your interpretation of this problem, discuss what role, if any, case studies have in the generation and testing of theories, and what procedures, if any, might be incorporated into case-study designs to resolve or ameliorate the small-n problem.

 

C. King, Keohane and Verba contend that there is a single logic of explanation common to all empirical social scientific research and that the logic is a statistical one.  Assess the merits of their claim.

 

Part III  Applied Theory

 

A. Many analysts have argued that civil society has generated patterns of mobilization against authoritarianism, and has constituted the prime arena for "asserting the autonomy of those who wanted to act as if they were free."  Define civil society and assess critically its democratizing and democratic potential. Engage in comparative analysis and illustrate your response with specific examples."

 

B. Explain why the bureaucratic nation-state became the dominant form of political organization in Europe.  Discuss how the dominance of this form of political organization has affected the process of state formation in non-European polities.

 

C. Do political parties compete to maximize their share of cabinet offices or to push public policy in the direction their voters favor, and what difference does this make for patterns of coalition formation?  Back up your argument with references to at least two countries.

 

D. Political scientists have devoted a great deal of effort to identifying the conditions that produce stable democracy, and one would hope this effort would provide useful guidance as the United States attempts to build democratic institutions in Iraq.  Summarize two theories that offer competing advice for the Bush Administration about whether building stable democracy in Iraq is possible and/or how to do it.  Then make a case for the theory you favor by citing at least two cases that support your argument.

 

E. Peter Evans has argued that “embedded autonomy” is an important cause of effective public policy in developing countries.  In contrast, Kurt Weyland, in The Politics of Market Reform in Fragile Democracies, contends that the most effective economic reformers are political outsiders who are not embedded in patronage relations and who are unencumbered by “prior option bias”.   Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these arguments in explaining the political economy of economic reforms.  Give examples from at least two countries to support your points.