POLI 359 Lecture Notes - Lecture 40: John Stuart Mill, Comparative Politics, Modernization Theory
Document Summary
International relations between states: not mutually exclusive. How do we live together without killing each other . How is power exercised politically : the differences between us" and them" are increasingly blurred and non-existent (globalization) Two key concepts: states why are some strong and others weak, regimes why are some countries democratic and others autocratic. What is politics? (contested: struggle for power, conflicts over who gets what, us vs. Them: use of power to make ethical choices, authoritative public decisions; etc. Kant"s 3 questions: what do we know (and how do we know it), what should we do, what can we hope for? (may go beyond what we know and what we can do) Comparative politics is a subfield of political science. Formal surveys (quantitative) or deep hanging out (qualitative) . Comparative politics is also a method: experimental, non-experimental (observational, large n: statistical, intermediate: comparative, n = 1: case study.