Calendar

The table below lists the topics discussed during this seminar.

WEEK # TOPICS
1

"[G]overnments differ in kind, as will be evident to anyone who considers the matter according to the method that has guided us so far. As in other departments of science, so in politics, the compound should always be disaggregated into the simplest elements, or essential parts, of the whole. We must therefore look at the elements of which the state is composed, in order to see how the different kinds of rule differ from one another and whether any scientific result can be attained about each one of them." (Aristotle, The Politics, Book 1, Part 1).

"So great is the force of laws, and of particular forms of government, and so little dependence have they of the humors and tempers of men, that consequences almost as general and certain may sometimes be deduced from them as any which mathematical sciences afford us." (David Hume, "That Politics May be Reduced to a Science," Essay III in Essays: Moral, Political and Literary).

Introduction

  • Introductions
  • Scheduling changes (if necessary)
  • Review of syllabus and vote on replacing weeks
  • Questions for class discussion
  • Preview of readings for next week
2

Social structure, classes, and political regimes

  • Lecture:
    • The classical sequence of regimes
    • The Marxist model
    • Class alliances and regime types
3 The role of culture in democracy and economic growth
4 Constitutional choices and governmental performance
5 Leadership
6 The state and state formation
7 Modernization and development
8 Political institutions and economic growth
9 Nationalism
10 Parties, party systems, and electoral behavior
11 Clientelism and patronage politics
12 Corruption and monitoring government
13 Emergence and persistence of popular self-government in Athens