COMPARATIVE POLITICS COMPREHENSIVE EXAMINATION

May 2004

Students taking this exam as a major have six hours to answer one question from Part I, one question from Part II, and two questions from Part III.  Students taking the exam as a minor have four and one-half hours to answer one question from Part I and either one question from Part II and one question from Part III or two questions from Part III.

All students will be evaluated according to the following criteria: 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. Barry R. Weingast contends, rational choice analysis “potentially provides the microfoundations for macro-political phenomena such as revolutions and critical elections ….  Until recently, macro-historical phenomena remained largely the domain of historical institutionalists.  Although applications of rational-choice theory are relatively new to these questions, its approach provides links with microbehavior, potentially affording a new methodology for comparison across cases.”  (in Katznelson and Milner, 2002 p. 661) Select at least one form of “macro-political phenomena” (e.g. revolutions, democratization, state formation, economic reform, critical elections, etc.) and compare and contrast the strengths and weaknesses of rational choice analysis with either comparative historical or cultural analysis.

B. Lisa Wedeen observes, “Political culture accounts, with their tendencies toward cultural essentialism have rightly come in for criticism by many political scientists.  Rejecting such views as either fundamentally tautological or empirically invalid, some critics have opted for one or another strictly ‘materialist’ approach, objecting to cultural variables in any form.” (APSR Dec. 2002, p.713) Is comparative political analysis better off sticking to materialist approaches?  If so, critically review recent approaches to political culture and explain their shortcomings.  If not, discuss the recent literature on cultural analysis and assess its contributions as well as its limitations.  

Part II Methodology

A. James Mahoney asserts, “Knowledge accumulation is not equivalent to knowledge generation.  Unless the new knowledge grows of preexisting knowledge, its addition to a research program does not signify accumulation.” (Mahoney and Rueschemeyer 2003  pp. 132-3) Discuss the importance of knowledge accumulation and explain how research should be conducted to promote it.

 

B. King, Keohane, and Verba (1994) contend that the logic of quantitative and qualitative analysis is essentially the same.  Explain their argument.  Critically assess it referring to at least three methodologically informed studies in comparative politics to support your views. 

 

Part III Applied Theory

A. In The Third Wave, Samuel P. Huntington argues that international factors are an important cause of the spread of democracy.  Other authors including Peter Evans, Guillermo O’Donnell, Adam Przeworski et al contend that globalization erodes the democratic responsiveness of the state in developing societies.  Discuss each argument.  Explain who is more persuasive.  Is it possible to reconcile the seemingly contradictory positions?

 

B. Hendrik Spruyt has observed, “By the beginning of the fourteenth century, a variety of new institutional forms had emerged for organizing political and economic life.  Sovereign territorial states, city-leagues, and city-states all tried to tap into the new sources of economic wealth, particularly long-distance trade.  Indeed, the city-based political organizations initially did very well.  In the long run, however, roughly by the middle of the seventeenth century, city-states and city-leagues had fallen by the wayside.” (1994, p. 527)  Critically evaluate explanations for the rise of the sovereign nation-state.

 

C. In his article, “Winners Take All: The Politics of Partial Reform in Postcommunist Transitions,” Joel S. Hellman criticizes the “J-curve” approach to economic reform and concludes, “Winners can do far more damage to the progress of economic reform than the losers.  As a result, the success of economic reform depends both on creating winners and on constraining them.  Paradoxically, the most effective means of constraining the winners in the postcommunist transitions has been to guarantee the political inclusion of the very constituency that most existing political economy seek to exclude: The short-term losers of reform.”  Explain Hellman’s argument and critically assess his advocacy of greater democracy to resolve the problems of partial reform in light of the experience of at least two post-communist or developing countries.

 

D. Analysts of political party systems following in the tradition established by Duverger contend that electoral rules fundamentally shape the nature of a party system.  Others analysts following the analytical tradition of Rokkan emphasize the importance of social cleavages.  Critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each of these analytic perspectives in explaining the development of democratic party systems.

 

E. Alexander Gerschenkron has declared, “A good deal of our thinking about industrialization of backward countries is dominated – consciously or unconsciously – by the grand Marxian generalization according to which it is the history of advanced or established industrial countries which traces out the road of development for the more backward countries…. But one should be award of accepting such a generalization too wholeheartedly.  For the half-truth that it contains is likely to conceal the existence of the other half – that is to say, in several very important respects the development of a backward country may, by the very virtue of its backwardness, tend to differ fundamentally from that of an advanced country.“ (Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective pp. 6-7)  Discuss Gerschenkron’s theory of late industrialization.  Evaluate its insights for contemporary times, and consider the consequences of globalization for late developers.