Winter 1999
POL 8660
Graduate Seminar in Comparative Politics:
Political Institutions
Th 1:30 - 4:30
Professor David J. Samuels
Office: Social Sciences Tower 1466
Email:dsamuels@polisci.umn.edu
Office Hours: MWF 11:30 - 12:30 and by appointment

Objectives: This seminar is designed to introduce students to the literature on political institutions and prepare students for comparative research on political institutions.

Format: Each week will introduce a new theme in the comparative study of political institutions. For each theme, the syllabus provides a list of discussion topics for general class discussion that may also be helpful for your readings. These topics are by no means an exhaustive or definitive agenda for our seminar discussions; students are encouraged to incorporate their own interests into literature reviews and seminar discussion.

Weekly Topics:

  1. Introduction: thinking about institutions and institutional design

  2. Types of constitutional systems

  3. Presidential systems

  4. Parliamentary systems

  5. Legislatures

  6. Electoral systems

  7. Party systems

  8. Party organizations

  9. Federalism and consociationalism

  10. Judiciaries and judicial review

Assignments: All students taking the seminar for credit must do the assigned readings, write 3 papers, and participate in seminar discussions. Students will prepare two critical analyses (literature reviews) of approximately 750-1000 words of part of one week's readings; students shall sign up for their two choices of topics during the first seminar meeting. Students preparing literature reviews should be prepared to briefly present (approximately 15 minutes) their analysis in class. To accommodate seminar discussion, literature review papers will be due no later than 24 hours in advance of seminar meeting time. Students shall make copies for each seminar participant, and the paper author should also place one copy in the instructor's mailbox. The critical analyses should be designed to raise both general questions for seminar discussion and specific questions about each reading. Seminar enrollment may require students to prepare more than two critical analyses. If this is the case, only two analyses shall be graded (students shall choose which two).

The third paper will be a research design of approximately 2500 words. This paper will be due during the last seminar session. A research design is a project that you would complete if you had the time and resources. You will not be expected to actually complete the research for this project. The instructor will pass out a "Research Design" handout to guide your preparation; each student will be required to meet individually with the instructor to discuss research possibilities.

Grades: grading will be based on course assignments in the following way: literature reviews 25% each, research design 40%, and discussion and general participation 10%. Extensions, incompletes, etc., will be given out in accordance with department policy (that is, they will be actively discouraged!!!)

Readings: A number of books containing course readings have been ordered through the University Bookstore. Copies of other readings will be put in a designated bin in the graduate student lounge in the Department of Political Science. The books ordered through the bookstore are as follows:

Cox, Gary W. 1997. Making Votes Count. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kitschelt, Herbert. 1994. The Transformation of European Social Democracy. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Lijphart, Arend. Democracies. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1984.

Powell, G. Bingham. 1982. Contemporary Democracies: Participation, Stability, and Violence. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Ramseyer, J. Mark, and Frances M. Rosenbluth. 1993. Japan's Political Marketplace. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Shugart, Matthew S., and John M. Carey, Presidents and Assemblies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Tsebelis, George. 1990. Nested Games. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Readings for each week are arranged in a (semi-) logical order, and students should attempt to read them in the order listed.

SEMINAR TOPICS AND READINGS

WEEK ONE: INTRODUCTION: INSTITUTIONS AND INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS

Topics for discussion:

  1. What is a political institution?

  2. Why do political institutions exist?

  3. How central is the study of institutions to comparative politics?

  4. What is the "new institutionalism" and how "new" is it really?

  5. What are some differences and similarities between various "new institutionalists?"

  6. What value do "institutionalist" approaches add to political research, and when?

  7. Where does an institutional approach fall short?

  8. Can an institutional approach offer a solution to the agent-structure (or micromotives vs. macrostructures) problem?

  9. When does endogeneity become a problem for institutional approaches? What can we do about it?

Readings:

Caporaso, James A., and David P. Levine. 1992. Theories of Political Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, chapter 6.

Tsebelis, George. 1990. Nested Games: Rational Choice in Comparative Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press, chapter 2.

Steinmo, Sven, Kathleen Thelen, and Frank Longstreth (eds.). 1992. Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, chapter 1.

March, James G., and Johan P. Olsen. 1984. "The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life." American Political Science Review 78(3): 734-749.

Eggertsson, Thráinn. 1990. Economic Behavior and Institutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, chapter 3, "Explaining the Rules."

Eggertsson, Thráinn. 1993. "The Economics of Institutions: Avoiding the Open-Field Syndrome and the Perils of Path Dependence." Acta Sociologica 36:223-237.

Moe, Terry M. 1990. "Political Institutions: The Neglected Side of the Story." Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization (6):213-53.

Shepsle, Kenneth A. 1989. "Studying Institutions: Some Lessons from the Rational Choice Approach." Journal of Theoretical Politics (1-2):131-147.

WEEK TWO: TYPES OF CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEMS

Topics for Discussion:

  1. Is democracy a matter of institutional design?

  2. Is institutional design associated with political stability? In what sense? If so, how, when, and at what cost should political stability be promoted?

  3. What are the main obstacles to 'efficient' government institutions?

  4. What is the link between "political theory" and the study of institutions?

  5. What would Aristotle, Polybius, Montesquieu, Madison, or other political philosophers have to say about "modern" debates about constitutional design?

Readings:

Riker, William H. 1982. Liberalism versus Populism. Prospect Heights: Waveland Press, chapter 1.

Lijphart, Arend. 1984. Democracies. New Haven: Yale University Press, chapters 1-3, 13.

Powell, G. Bingham. 1982. Contemporary Democracies: Participation, Stability, and Violence. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, chapters 1-2.

Shugart, Matthew S., and John M. Carey. 1992. Presidents and Assemblies: Constitutional Design and Electoral Dynamics New York: Cambridge University Press, chapter 1.

Lijphart, Arend. 1994. "Democracies: Forms, Performance, and Constitutional Engineering." European Journal of Political Research 25:1-17.

Powell, G. Bingham. 1989. "Constitutional Design and Citizen Electoral Control." Journal of Theoretical Politics 1:107-130.

Moe, Terry M., and Michael Caldwell. 1994. "The Institutional Foundations of Democratic Government: A Comparison of Presidential and Parliamentary Systems." Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 150/1:171-95, and attached comments by Gebhard Kirchgässner and Arthur Lupia.

Kiewiet, D. Rodreick, and Mathew D. McCubbins. 1991. The Logic of Delegation: Congressional Parties and the Appropriations Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, chapters 1-2.

WEEK THREE: PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEMS

Topics for Discussion:

  1. How can a government powerful enough to govern be effectively controlled?

  2. What does presidentialism do to Lijphart's model of democracy(ies)?

  3. Under what circumstances is presidentialism a viable constitutional design?

  4. Do the virtues of presidentialism hinge on something not intrinsic to presidentialism per se?

  5. What other variables (institutional or not) might enter into the "presidentialism vs. parliamentarism" debate?

Readings:

Lijphart, Democracies, chapters 5.

Shugart and Carey, Presidents and Assemblies, chapters 2-3, 5-9, 13.

Mainwaring, Scott. 1993. "Presidentialism, Multipartism, and Democracy: The Difficult Combination." Comparative Political Studies 26(2):198-228.

Linz, Juan 1993. "Presidential or Parliamentary Democracy: Does it Make a Difference?" in Juan Linz and Arturo Valenzuela, The Failure of Presidential Democracy: The Case of Latin America, chapter 1.

Mainwaring, Scott, and Matthew S. Shugart. 1997. "Juan Linz, Presidentialism, and Democracy: a Critical Apraisal." Comparative Politics 29(4):449-72.

Mainwaring, Scott, and Matthew S. Shugart. 1997. Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin America, introduction.

Morgenstern, Scott. 1998. "The Success of Presidentialism? Breaking Gridlock in Presidential Regimes." Unpublished paper.

WEEK FOUR: PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEMS

Topics for Discussion:

  1. How are citizens "represented" differently in parliamentary vs. presidential systems? What are the consequences of such differences?

  2. What institutional mechanisms distinguish parliamentary systems from presidential systems? What consequences do these differences have, in what areas, and why?

  3. Why do we care about the shape of parliamentary coalitions?

  4. Is parliamentary democracy a recipe for a weak legislature? Who "governs" under parliamentary systems: the prime minister, the cabinet, the bureaucracy, or the legislature?

Readings:

Lijphart, Democracies, chapter 6.

Powell, Contemporary Democracies, ch. 7.

Lijphart, Democracies, chapter 4.

Strøm, Kaare. 1984. "Minority Governments in Parliamentary Democracies." Comparative Political Studies 17(2):229-64.

Laver, Michael J., and Kenneth Shepsle. 1990. "Coalitions and Cabinet Government." American Political Science Review 84(3):873-90.

Huber, John D., 1996. "The Vote of Confidence in Parliamentary Democracies." APSR 90(2):269-82.

Ramseyer, J. Mark, and Frances M. Rosenbluth. 1993. Japan's Political Marketplace. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, chapters 1, 6-7.

Cox, Gary W. 1987. The Efficient Secret. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, chapters 6-8.

WEEK FIVE: LEGISLATURES

Topics for Discussion:

  1. What are the most important internal structures of legislatures? Why do they emerge and persist?

  2. How useful are models developed for the U.S. in understanding and explaining legislatures in other countries?

  3. How does the party system relate to the internal structure of power in a legislature?

  4. What defines a 'strong' legislature? Why should we care if a legislature is 'strong' or 'weak'?

  5. What differences would we expect in legislative organization between presidential and parliamentary systems? If these differences "matter," how and why, and what does this imply for cross-national, cross-systemic legislative research?

Readings:

Cox, Gary W., and Mathew D. McCubbins. 1993. Legislative Leviathan: Party Government in the House. Berkeley: University of California Press. Introduction and chs. 4-5, 9-10.

Krehbiel, Keith. 1991. Information and Legislative Organization. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, chs. 1-3 and 7.

Stein, Robert M., and Kenneth N. Bickers. "Universalism and the Electoral Connection: A Test and Some Doubts;" Barry Weingast, "Reflections on Distributive Politics and Universalism;" and Bickers and Stein's "Response to Barry Weingast's Reflections." Political Research Quarterly 47(2):295-333.

Huber, John. 1992. "Restrictive Legislative Procedures in the United States and France." APSR 86(3): 675-87.

Morgenstern, Scott. 1998. "U.S. Models and Latin American Legislatures." Unpublished paper.

Morgenstern, Scott, and Gary Cox. 1998. "Conclusion." (read in conjunction with Morgenstern 1998). Unpublished paper.

Remington, Thomas F., and Steven S. Smith. 1998. "Theories of Legislative Institutions and the Organization of the Russian Duma. American Journal of Political Science 42(2):545-73.

Samuels, David J.. 1998. "Progressive Ambition and Pork-Barrel Politics in Brazil." Unpublished paper.

WEEK SIX: ELECTORAL SYSTEMS

Topics for Discussion:

  1. Can the manipulation of electoral laws change the 'quality' of democracy?

  2. Is two-party competition the democratic norm? If not, what difference does multipartism make for democratic government?

  3. How many parties is too many? Why?

  4. Can the methods for selecting and electing representatives affect policy outcomes?

  5. In electoral systems research, what is the role of the voter? How does the voter make decisions, what does the voter want?

Readings:

Lijphart, Democracies, chapter 9.

Powell, Contemporary Democracies, chapter 5.

Shugart and Carey, Presidents and Assemblies, chapters 10-11.

Cox, Gary W. 1997. Making Votes Count. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, chapters 1-4, 8-12, and 15.

Lijphart, Arend. 1994. Electoral Systems and Party Systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press, chapter 7.

Samuels, David, and Richard Snyder. 1998. "The Value of a Vote: Malapportionment in Comparative Perspective." Unpublished paper.

WEEK SEVEN: PARTY SYSTEMS

Topics for Discussion:

  1. Does representative democracy require interparty competition? How much? Why?

  2. Do political parties remain the primary channels of representation in democratic societies?

  3. Party system change: an elite or mass phenomenon, or some of both?

  4. How many parties is too many? Why?

  5. Is two-party competition the democratic norm? If not, what difference does multipartism make for democratic government?

Readings:

Lipset, Seymour Martin, and Stein Rokkan. 1967. Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives. New York: The Free Press, pages 1-64.

Lijphart, Democracies, chapter 7.

Sartori, Giovanni. 1976. Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Volume 1, chs. 5-6.

Laver, Michael J. 1989. "Party Competition and Party System Change." Journal of Theoretical Politics 1(3):301-324.

Mainwaring, Scott, and Timothy Scully, eds., 1995. Building Democratic Institutions: Party Systems in Latin America. Stanford: Stanford University Press., intro and conclusion.

Chhibber, Pradeep, and Mariano Torcal. 1997. "Elite Strategy, Social Cleavages, and Party Systems in a New Democracy: Spain." Comparative Political Studies 30(1):27-54.

Mainwaring, Scott. 1998. "Party Systems in the Third Wave." Journal of Democracy 9(3):67-81.

WEEK EIGHT: PARTIES AS ORGANIZATIONS

Topics for Discussion

  1. Why do all democracies have political parties of some kind?

  2. What do political parties do?

  3. Does representative democracy require intraparty democracy?

  4. Are mass political parties obsolete?

  5. Is there a case for 'American exceptionalism' in the study of political parties?

  6. What is the best methodological approach to studying political parties, and why? Do certain methods fail to answer certain questions? Why?

  7. Do party leaders inevitably face a series of 'damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't' trade-offs? How best can we explain party strategy: as a function of party system competition, constraints imposed by electoral and other institutions, internal party organization, or contextual factors present in the larger society (whether national or trans-national)?

Readings:

LaPalombara, Joseph, and Myron Weiner. 1966. "The Origin and Development of Political Parties." In LaPalombara and Weiner (eds.), Political Parties and Political Development. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Panebianco, Angelo. 1988. Political Parties: Organization and Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, chapters 1-2, 14.

Strøm, Kaare. 1990. "A Behavioral Theory of Competitive Political Parties." American Journal of Political Science 34(2):565-98.

Przeworski, Adam, and John Sprague. 1986. Paper Stones: A History of Electoral Socialism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, chapters 1-2.

Kitschelt, Herbert. 1994. The Transformation of European Social Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, chapters 5,7.

Epstein, Leon. 1980. Political Parties in Western Democracies. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, chapters 1-2, 13.

Aldrich, John. 1995. Why Parties? The Origin and Transformation of Party Politics in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, chapter 1-3, 9.

WEEK NINE: FEDERALISM AND CONSOCIATIONALISM

Topics for discussion:

  1. How 'democratic' is consociational theory?

  2. Are ethnonational cleavages the most profound divisions in contemporary democracies? Why or why not?

  3. Under what conditions can successful consociational and/or federal systems be designed? How do we define 'success'?

  4. Does federalism "matter?" If so, how? If not, why not?

Readings:

Lijphart, Arend. 1984. Democracies, chapter 10.

Lijphart, Arend. 1996. "The Puzzle of Indian Democracy: A Consociational Interpretation." American Political Science Review 90 (June):258-68.

Lustick, Ian S. 1997. "Lijphart, Lakatos, and Consociationalism." World Politics 50 (October), 88-117.

Tsebelis, George. 1990. Nested Games, chapter 6.

Riker, William. "Federalism." In Fred Greenstein and Nelson Polsby (eds.), Handbook of Political Science 5:93-172.

Riker, William. 1969. "Six Books in Search of a Subject or Does Federalism Exist and Does it Matter?" Comparative Politics October 1969, pp. 135-146.

Gibson, Edward, et al., 1998. "Reallocative Federalism: Overrepresentation and Public Spending in the Western Hemisphere." LASA paper, unpublished.

Parikh, Sunita, and Barry Weingast. 1997. "A Comparative Theory of Federalism: India." Virginia Law Review 83(7): 1593-1615.

Slider, Darrell. 1997. "Russia's Market-Distorting Federalism." Post-Soviet Geography and Economics 38(9):489-504.

Rodden, Jonathan. 1998. Strategy and Structure in Decentralized Fiscal Systems: A Comparative Theory of Hard Budget Constraints." APSA paper, unpublished.

WEEK TEN: JUDICIARIES AND JUDICIAL REVIEW

Topics for Discussion:

  1. How can a government powerful enough to govern be effectively controlled?

  2. What effect does the presence or absence of judicial review have on democratic governance and on democratic representation?

  3. How can we best understand the factors leading to judicial reform?

  4. Is judicial reform the answer for improving the 'rule of law' in new democracies?

  5. Law and politics: the research frontier for comparative politics?

Readings:

Lijphart, Democracies, chapters 11.

Stone, Alec. 1992. The Birth of Judicial Politics in France. New York: Oxford University Press, introduction and chapters 2-3, 5, 8 and 9.

Ramseyer and Rosenbluth, Japan's Political Marketplace, chapters 8-9.

Lutz, Donald S. 1994. "Towards a Theory of Constitutional Amendment." APSR 88(2).

Shapiro, Martin. 1988. Who Guards the Guardians? Judicial Control of Administration. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, chapters 1, 5-6.

Arantes, Rogério Bastos, and Fábio J.K. Nunes. 1998. "The Judicial System and Democracy in Brazil." LASA paper, 1998.

Finkel, Jodi. 1998. "Judicial Reform in Latin America: Market Economies, Self-Interested Politicians, and Judicial Independence." LASA paper, 1998.

 

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