POSC 3901: Authoritarian Politics

Fall 2012

Slot 4, MWF 11-11:50; SN-2025

D. Close

SN-2044; 864-8174;

Office hours: M: 12-1; W: 3:30-4:30; F: 12-2; or by appointment

Course webpage: http://www.mun.ca/~dclose/index.html

Freedom House publishes a yearly report, Freedom in the World, which estimates how many people live in countries where people do not have political freedom. The 2012 report put that number at 2.45 billion, or 35 percent of the world’s population. Although the method Freedom House uses to classify a country as “not free” is not precisely the same as how political science arrives at its definition of an authoritarian system, it is close enough to serve as a surrogate. Beyond those almost 2.5 billion, there are another 1.5 billion, 22 percent of the world’s people, living under partly free conditions. Thus, only 43 percent are found in democracies.

This finding is reinforced by the Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2011 Democracy Index. Among the 167 countries they rate, only 25 are full democracies, while 53 are flawed democracies. Of the remaining 89, 37 are hybrid regimes, a term we will discuss at some length, and 52 are unalloyed authoritarians.

It is important to investigate non-democratic politics for reasons beyond their pervasiveness. Although the last quarter of the twentieth century saw a third wave of democracy, the first decade of the twenty-first is witnessing the emergence of new forms of authoritarian and semi-authoritarian rule. Democracy is not yet the default option, as political figures have never stopped searching for ways to avoid the constraints that constitutional democratic government places on them. Accordingly, any reasonably thorough understanding of politics must include an appreciation of how non-democratic and anti-democratic politics work. Fortunately, political science has been giving increasing attention to non-democratic states over the last 15 years and developing new analytical insights.

Administrative Details

Texts

Brooker, Paul, Non-Democratic Regimes.

Gandhi, Jennifer, Political Institutions under Dictatorship.

Levitsky, Steven, and Lucan Way, Competitive Authoritarianism.

Vargas Llosa, Mario, The Feast of the Goat.

Winters, Jeffrey, Oligarchy.

(You may find the Gandhi used, possibly Vargas Llosa, too. Check online bookstores for prices. Most have free shipping for orders over $25.)

Assignments: Details below______

Presentation dates vary 10%

Proposal 5 October 10%

Review 26 October 15%

Paper 23 November 40%

Final Exam period 25%

Assignment details

Presentation. On page 7 of this syllabus you will find a list of political figures usually classed as authoritarians. You will give a 5-minute presentation explaining why the individual you selected merits being called an authoritarian.

You will use PowerPoint, but may only have one (1) slide with text and that slide can have only nine (9) lines and seven (7) points on it. You may, however, have as many slides as you want with photos, maps, cartoons, etc. Finally, you may not read a prepared text; rather you will use only the points on your slide. You must follow these guidelines to get a passing grade on the assignment.

Presentations will begin September 12. If you miss your presentation and do not have a valid (attested to by an appropriate authority) and legitimate (illness, bereavement, unanticipated changes to part-time job hours) excuse you receive a zero for the assignment. I will give examples of these on September 7 and 10.

Written assignments. Please submit an electronic copy of your written assignments. If you also want to so turn in a hard copy you may, but it is not required.

Review. You will write review of The Feast of the Goat, 600 to 900-words long, that has two traits. First, it will stress what Vargas Llosa’s novel, based on a real dictator’s life, tells us about personal rule. Second, it will be aimed at the general reader of a sophisticated newspaper. That means you have to explain what personal rule is and why it is important and do so as part of the review.

Proposal. Every student will present a proposal for the term paper that he or she wishes to prepare. IF A PROPOSAL IS NOT SUBMITTED AND ACCEPTED I SHALL NOT READ YOUR TERM PAPER. The proposal shall have the following basic form. The proposal will generally run to four or five pages.

1. Identify the topic. This means more than just giving a title. You need to explain why the topic is important to the study of authoritarian politics and what there is about the topic that especially interests you. This should not take more than a couple of paragraphs. You are not indissolubly bound to this topic and refinements are expected. However, major changes of focus will require a new proposal.

2. Give a short account of what the existing literature says about your topic. How have other people analyzed it? What have they said about it? How much material bears directly on your topic? How much material have you found that treats it collaterally? I do not expect this to be exhaustive but I do want you to have considered a minimum of ten (10) sources, not including your texts, and to have an idea of what resources are available. This will probably run to one or two pages

3. Give an estimate of the scope of your paper. Again, this is coming too early on for you to have a precise focus. However, you can start thinking about what you might zero in on and what you might exclude. For example, if you wanted to write about military dictatorships you could think in terms of a general overview, or describe how they come to power or how they govern, or you select a single military dictatorship to illustrate the general traits. The objective of this section is to get you to think about the various ways you can focus your study. You should be able to do this in about a page.

4. What sources do you plan to use? This will go beyond your literature review. You may want to use information gathered from the press and non-academic journals (magazines, including online editions), as well as from academic journals and books. This is to get you to search out some potential sources before you get too deeply into your work. You should be able to do this in no more than a page.

5. Present a schematic outline that shows how you plan to structure your paper. You are not bound to follow this outline but it is important that you give some thought to how best to lay out your argument. I recognize that this is preliminary and expect that some reorganization will take place.

6. Include a bibliography of at least 10 sources. Please note which of these seem particularly useful.

Term paper. The paper itself is conventional. It should be from 3500- to 4000-words long, anywhere from 12 to 15 pages. You must use regular academic format. That means proper citation, which currently means CPSA, in-text references and a list of references at the end of the paper. There is a style guide at the end of this syllabus.

Topics. The list below offers some broad questions that would be useful for papers. You will have to narrow these down to get a suitable term paper topic, though.

· Analyze one of the varieties of authoritarian regimes: personal, party, religious or military dictatorships; hybrid or semi-authoritarian regimes; absolute monarchies.

· Analyze one authoritarian ruler or regime in detail to find out how s/he/it worked. How much did it rely on coercion? Cooptation? What instruments or institutions figured most prominently? Who had influence in or on the political system?

· How do current hybrid regimes differ from earlier semi-authoritarians? Venezuela and Mexico make a good pair and there are others; e.g., Singapore in 1980 and now.

· How do hybrids differ from constitutional democracies? Venezuela and Bolivia could be used for case studies.

· Is authoritarian government different now, globally, than it was 40 years ago? How? Why?

· Are all military regimes the same?

· Investigate one of the several forms of personal rule: absolute monarchy; Latin American caudillismo; African Big Men; military dictators; other tyrants.

· Compare two authoritarian states, one with a personal ruler and one ruled by an institution, e.g., the military.

· Look at party dictatorships where the party dominate and those where an individual uses the party as an instrument.

· Do authoritarian regimes founded on religion govern differently than their secular counterparts? Be careful not to get swamped by the minutiae of moral decrees.

· What does the collapse of democratic government tell us about authoritarianism? Honduras and Mali are examples.

· How do authoritarians handle the question of leadership succession?

· Are hegemonic party regimes (Mexico under the PRI, Mozambique, Botswana) always at least semi-authoritarian?

· What does the outcome of the Arab Spring suggest about the ability of authoritarians to resist challenges?

Lates. Unexcused late papers receive a three-point daily penalty. Only valid and legitimate excuses will be accepted. For an excuse to valid it must be accompanied by a note from an appropriate authority. Legitimate excuses include illness, bereavement, and unanticipated changes in work schedules. Having another paper due on or exam scheduled for the same date is not normally acceptable.

Final. The final examination has two parts, sit-down and take-home. The sit-down part of the final will ask you to identify and give the significance of key concepts presented throughout the course. Answers to these questions should not run beyond two or three paragraphs. However, the final also has a take-home portion: a 600- to 900-word essay comparing the EIU, Democracy Index, with FH, Freedom in the World. The essay is due the day of the final.

As with the review of Vargas Llosa, this essay will be aimed at the general reader of a sophisticated newspaper. Thus it must put the two reports into context, describe what they do, and evaluate them by noting their strengths and weaknesses. This is another exercise in professional writing. We shall discuss the mechanics of this in class; but you have to explain what the two reports do, what a reader can expect from them, and why it would be worth someone’s time to read them.

Outline

[R]: on reserve