Introduction to Comparative Politics

(4 Credits)

This course introduces students to the study of comparative politics and the study of domestic political institutions around the world. The course emphasizes the use of theory and evidence to generate and test hypotheses about both the causes and the consequences of the observed variation in domestic political institutions. For example, the course investigates the factors that lead some countries to democratize, and others to institute authoritarian governments, as well as the consequences of those institutional choices for policy outcomes. The course also looks at the variations in institutional arrangements within both democratic and non-democratic governments.