COURSE OUTLINE AND READING LIST FOR
POLI 706: ADVANCED COMPARATIVE
POLITICS
University of Ghana
Department of Political Science
Second Semester, 2019/2020 Academic Year
Tues. 11am-1pm; HOD’s Office/DLR
8
Lecturers: Dr. Maame A.A. Gyekye-Jandoh and
Prof. Kweku Ampiah
Office: HOD’s office, Political Science Dept.
Office Hours: Tues. 1-3pm and
Wed. 12-2pm and by appointment (Dr. Gyekye-Jandoh)
K.Ampiah@leeds.ac.uk
Course Title
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Advanced Comparative Politics
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Course Code
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POLI 706
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Purpose and Objectives
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Course Description and Objectives:
This course is an advanced study of comparative politics. It focuses
on major theoretical frameworks, concepts and approaches in the field. Key
concepts covered include the state, the developmental state, political
transitions, democratization, political economy, comparative regionalism and
globalization. Over the
last two decades and a half, African countries have undergone changes that
have been as profound as those that have affected countries in East Asia and
indeed Central and Eastern Europe. The most significant of these changes has
been the democratization processes in several African countries, many of
which have gone alongside economic and governance reforms. This course
therefore begins with methodologies of comparative politics and continues with
the application of theories to the study of contemporary regime types,
country cases and political phenomena. The course also demonstrates the use
of comparative analysis beyond the nation-state level to the supra-national
regional institutions - the emerging field in which comparative politics
increasingly interacts with international relations.
The
course is meant to (a) introduce students to the main questions and issues in
comparative politics; (b) to make them familiar with the best answers to
these questions available in the most recent publications on the topic; and
(c) to provide them with the tools to think critically about the answers.
The specific objectives of this
course include the following: (a) to be
acquainted with new issues in contemporary political science; (b) to be
acquainted with new methodological trends in comparative political science;
(c) to be able to analyze and to explain from comparative perspective the
dynamics of contemporary political development (with the use of some country
cases).
Students must revisit their knowledge about the
major concepts of comparative politics and the comparative method, as this is
required background knowledge for the course. The course will survey the following topics:
Weeks 1 & 2: Introduction to the Course and Approaches and
Methodologies in Comparative Politics
Weeks 3 & 4: Debates
in Comparative Politics; State and Society (State capacity and autonomy)
Weeks 5 & 6: Regime transitions in Africa (Democratization/Authoritarianism)
Weeks 7: The
Developmental State in Africa?: Some African countries in Comparative
Perspective
Week 8: Comparative regionalism:
supra-national politics – the European Union and African Union
Weeks 9 & 10: The Developmental State: Post-war Japan and the East Asian Countries;
The Developmental State – (Industrializing Modern Japan)
Week 11: Japanese
Exceptionalism?: Case study of the Political Transition in post-war Japan
(and China)
Week 12: Globalization and the
nation-state (a comparative analysis of Japan and China in Africa)
Week 13: Do Institutions Matter? Civil Society, Political
Parties, etc.; Revision
Course Requirements and Assignments: The
assessment for the course is based on the following:
Class Attendance
and Participation: 5%
The course is driven by research and discussion and its success
requires the active participation of students. Students should be prepared to
be called upon to present their understandings, questions and views
concerning the topic and the readings of the class/course. This includes
sharing, either in full or in part, their analytical papers in the class.
Both quantity and quality of contributions are taken into account.
Good quality active participation should reflect the student’s knowledge and
critical understanding of the readings, their enthusiasm for participating in
a seminar and their ability to engage in constructive discussion with other
students.
2 Analytical
Papers (6-8 pages each) and Presentations (22.5% each): 45%
Students are required to write two analytical papers during the
course, each of which should be 6-8 pages size 12 font and double-spaced.
Each paper and presentation is worth 22.5% of the final term mark; thus the
two papers are worth 45% of the final mark.
The choice
of weeks for which analytical papers are written is at the student’s
discretion, but we must have students presenting each week.
The
analytical papers are a critical reflection of your reading of the assigned
texts in advance of having discussed the texts; they can also be referred to
as short thought-pieces or reading responses or mini review-papers. The
analytical papers should not be summaries, but critical assessments of the
readings. Simply put, they should contain your reactions (thoughts, questions,
agreements, disagreements, etc.) to the readings. They are essentially a
collection of well thought-out reactions or analysis of the readings written
in an essay style.
Final Exam on all
topics covered: 50%
There
will be an in-class exam of critical essay writing on questions covering
topics examined in the course. The exact format will be given in the course
of the semester.
Course Expectations:
1. The
Course Outline lists both required reading and further reading. You will
be expected to have completed all the required readings for the week
before you attend class for that week. The reading loads are not
especially heavy but you should aim to read them carefully and reflectively.
Before approaching each reading think about what the key questions are for
the week and about how the questions from this week relate to what you know
from previous weeks. Then skim over the reading to get a sense of the themes
it covers, the countries, the periods, the methods and, before reading
further, jot down on a piece of paper what questions you hope the reading
will be able to answer for you: what do you hope to be able to learn from
reading the article? Next, read the introduction and conclusion. It is very
rare to find a piece of writing that you agree with entirely. So as you come
across issues that you disagree with or are not convinced by, write them down
and bring them along to class for discussion.
2. Students will be required to listen to BBC generally and Focus
on Africa every day, Monday-Friday http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/default.stm.
It runs for 40 minutes and will keep students well up to date with what is
going on in the continent. While there will be no test or other way of
checking whether students will do this, the content of Focus on Africa will
be treated as background knowledge for class discussions. There is no excuse
not to be able to keep up with the news: Regular news sources available on-
line include but are not limited to:
.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/default.stm
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http://allafrica.com/
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http://www.africanews.org
Some
Core Texts
Daniele Caramani (2008) Comparative
Politics New York: Oxford University Press
Clark, W., Matt Golder, Sona N.
Golder (2009) Principles of Comparative Politics Washington:
CQ Press
Carles Boix and Susan Stokes
(2007) The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics Oxford
University Press
Donatella Della Porta and Michael
Keating (2008; 2010) Approaches and Methodologies in the Social
Science: A Pluralist Perspective Cambridge University Press
O’Neil,
Patrick. (2007). Essentials of Comparative Politics. Second edition. New
York: W.W. Norton and Company.
O’Neil,
Patrick, Fields, Karl and Don Share (2006). Cases in Comparative Politics.
Second edition. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.
Kegley,
Charles W. and Raymond A. Gregory. (2007). The Global Future: A Brief
Introduction to World Politics. Second edition. Thomson Wadsworth.
Brown,
Bernard E. (2000). Comparative Politics: Notes and Readings. Ninth edition.
Harcourt College Publishers.
Mayer,
Lawrence C., Burnett, John H. and Suzanne Ogden. (1996). Comparative
Politics: Nations and Theories in a Changing World. New Jersey:
Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Kesselman,
Mark, Krieger, Joel, and William A. Joseph. (1996). Comparative Politics at
the Crossroads. Lexington, Massachusetts: D.C. Heath and Company.
Chari, S.
& Corbridge, S. (Eds.) (2008) The Development Reader.
Desai V. & Potter, R.B. (Eds.) (2002) The Companion to Development
Studies
Hoogvelt, A. (2001) Globalization and the Postcolonial World: the New
Political Economy of Development, London: Palgrave.
Readings for Weeks
9, 10, 11 & 12
Beasley, W. G., The Rise of Modern Japan:
Japanese Imperialism, 1894-1945.
Jansen, Marius B ed. Changing Japanese Attitudes Toward Modernization,
pp. 7-97; Wray, H and Hilary C. eds. Japan Examined: Perspectives on
Modern Japanese History, Chps. 1-2.
Lincicome, Mark. E., Principles, Praxis
and the Politics of Education Reform in Meiji Japan, Honolulu: University
of Hawai’I Press, 1995.
Nish, Ian
ed., The Iwakura Mission in America and
Europe: A New Assessment 1998
Chang, Ha-Joon, Globalization, Economic
Development and the Role of the State, 2003.
Macpherson, W. J. The Economic Development of Japan 1868-1941,
1967. pp. 24-44.
Morris-Suzuki, T, The
Technological Transformation of Japan, 1994. pp. 105-42.
Gordon, A., Post-war
Japan as History, 1993. Chapter 1 and 3,
Schaller, M., The
American Occupation of Japan, 1985.
Sisson, D. C. S, ‘The Pacifist Clause of the
Japanese Occupation’, International
Affairs, vol. 37, no. 1, 1961
Stockwin, Arthur and Kweku
Ampiah, ‘Revising and Reinterpreting the 1947 Constitution’, in Stockwin and
Ampiah, Rethinking Japan: The Politics
of Contested Nationalism, 2017. pp. 117-138
Chang, Ha-Joon, The East Asian Development
Experience, 2006.
Johnson, Chalmers, MITI and the
Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925-1975, 1982
Samuels, Richard, The Business of the Japanese State: Energy Markets
in Comparative and Historical Perspective, 1987.
Rix, Alan, 1993, Japan’s Foreign Aid Challenge: Policy Reform and Aid Leadership,
1993.
Ampiah, Kweku, ‘Japanese aid to
Tanzania: an assessment of the political marketing of Japan in Africa’, in
Kweku Ampiah, pp. 171-195.
Sato, Makoto, 2010,
‘An Historical Analysis of Japan’s Aid Policy in Africa’, in Lehman H. P.,
eds., 2010. Japan and Africa:
Globalization and Foreign Aid in the 21st Century. Routledge: London.
Stein, H., Japanese
aid to Africa: Patterns, motivation and the role of structural adjustment, Journal of Development Studies, 35(2),
1998. pp. 27 – 53.
French, Howard, 2014, China’s
Second Continent: How a Million Migrants are Building a New Empire in Africa,
2014.
Liu, Haifang, ‘China-Africa Relations through the Prism of Culture –
The Dynamics of China’s Cultural Diplomacy with Africa’, China aktuell,
3, 2008
Lumumba-Kasongo, Tukumbi,
“China-Africa Relations : A Neo-Imperialism or a Neo-Colonialism”, African and Asian Studies, Vol. 10,
Issue 2-3, 2011.
Some Key Journals
Comparative
Political Studies
Comparative
Politics
World
Politics
African
and Asian Studies
American
Journal of Political Science
American
Political Science Review
Journal
of Democracy
Politics
and Society
Comparative
European Politics
European
Journal of Political Science
European
Journal of Political Review
Third World Quarterly
World Development
Review of African Political Economy
Journal of Modern African Studies
Some Useful Websites
Oneworld (http://www.oneworld.org/panos/) (information on global issues with a developing
country perspective)
Magazines, Newspapers and Databases
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