Political Science 853 R.A. Francisco

Spring 2009, Friday 204 Blake Hall

Comparative Social Politics

This course focuses on social politics. Therefore, it will not focus on institutions, political economy, or other more formal arenas of comparative politics. Instead we focus on the individual citizen and the interactions of citizens together and with state institutions. The scope of social politics is large. The seminar explores the theories of political culture, socialization, voting behavior, social movements, mobilization, protest and tactical adaptation. Since Political Science 850 is a prerequisite for this seminar, I will assume you already know about general comparative methodologies and theories.

Office Hours

Held in 313 Blake Hall (phone: 864-9023;e-mail: ronfran@ku.edu) on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 9:00-10:30 and 1:00-3:00 on Wednesdays. This syllabus and an extensive protest bibliography are on my web page: http://web.ku.edu/ronfran/.

Required texts:

Russell J. Dalton. Citizen Politics. New York: Chatham House, 2008.

Mark Lichbach, The Rebel’s Dilemma. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998.

In addition, a readings packet is required. See the required readings below.

Requirements

Aside from class attendance and reading the required readings, there is one important additional requirement: Write a research paper that, with revisions, might be presented at a political science conference. Papers may be on any of our topics. It should be a comparative politics paper, i.e., it should test a theory of social politics with some evidence from at least one country or region, but preferably be cross-national. I stand ready to assist students in all aspects of this requirement. As a guide, find research questions under each week’s topic we cover. A printed paper is due in my hands on Monday, May 11 at 4:00. Late papers lose one letter grade per day.

I have led a project domestic conflict coding events of 28 European countries for data between 1980 through 1995. These are daily or sub-daily interval data that may be used if you write a paper on protest or mobilization. The data are on my web site: http://web.ku.edu/ronfran/data/index.html/. There are also links to Burmese, Latin American and South Korean data coded in the same manner as the European data. In addition, you can find on the same website the Archimedean, U.S., Russian and Spanish civil wars coded.

Student accommodation: The staff of Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD), 135 Strong Hall, 785-864-2620 (v/tty), coordinates accommodations and services for KU courses. If you have a disability for which you may request an accommodation in KU classes and have not contacted them, please do so as soon as possible. Please also see me privately in regard to this seminar.

Topics and Readings

16 January: Political Culture and the Concept of Social Capital

Required:

Robert D. Putnam. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Chapter 6: Social Capital and Institutional Success” (packet).

Dalton, Chapters 1, 2, 11 & 12 and skim appendices A & B.

Recommended:

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. New York: Verso, 1991.

Avruch, Kevin. Culture and Conflict Resolution. Herndon, VA: U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 1998.

Baron, Stephen, John Field and Tom Schuller. Social Capital: Critical Perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Brehm, John and Wendy Rahn. “Individual Level Evidence for the Causes and Consequences of Social Capital.” American Journal of Political Science 41:3 (July 1977): 999-1023.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage, 1995.

Jackman, Robert W. Power without Force: The Political Capacity of Nation-States. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993.

Inglehart, Ronald. Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Societies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990.

Inglehart, Ronald and Pippa Norris. Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change around the World. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Jasper, James M. The Art of Moral Protest: Culture, Biography, and Creativity in Social Movements. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.

Migdal, Joel S. Strong States and Weak Societies. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988.

Stokes, Susan. Cultures in Conflict: Social Movements and the State in Peru. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.

Wedeen, Lisa. Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.

Research questions:

1. How important is social capital for institutional success?

2. What kinds of voluntary associations form social capital?

3. Do institutions create social capital?

4. What are the origins of social capital?

5. Is social capital necessary to sustain a democracy?

23 January: Political Socialization: Intergenerational Value Transmission

Required:

Ronald Inglehart, “The Silent Revolution in Europe: Intergenerational Change in Post-Industrial Societies.” American Political Science Review 65:4 (1971): 991-1017 (packet).

Darren Davis and Christian Davenport, “Assessing the Validity of the Postmateralism Index.” American Political Science Review 93:3 (September 1999): 649-664 (packet).

Dalton, Chapters 5 & 6.

Recommended:

Dawson, Richard E. and Kenneth Prewitt. Political Socialization. Boston: Little, Brown, 1969.

Deutsch, Karl W. The Nerves of Government. New York: The Free Press, 1963.

Inglehart, Ronald. The Silent Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977.

Inglehart, Ronald. Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990.

Inglehart, Ronald and Paul R. Abramson. “Measuring Postmaterialism.” American Political Science Review 93:3 (September 1999): 665-677.

Research questions:

1. What factors influence an individual’s attitudes and preferences? What difference does context make?

2. Do new media such as the internet affect individual preferences?

30 January: Voting Behavior: Who votes, and who votes for whom?

Required:

Adam Przeworski. “Constraints and Choices: Electoral Participation in Historical Perspective.” Comparative Political Studies 42:1 (January 2009): 4-30 (packet)

Dalton, Chapters 7, 8, 9 & 10.

Recommended:

Campbell, Angus, Phillip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller and Donald E. Stokes. The American Voter. New York: John Wiley, 1960.

Lewis-Beck, Michael. Economics and Elections. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988.

Lewis-Back, Michael and Martin Paldam, eds. Economics and Elections, special issue of Electoral Studies 19 (2000).

Lipset, Seymour Martin. Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981.

Rose, Richard. Electoral Behavior: A Comparative Handbook. New York: The Free Press, 1974.

Wolfinger, Raymond E. and Stephen J. Rosenstone. Who Votes? New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1980.

Research questions:

1. Is there sociotropic voting in newly transitioned countries?

2. Do other theories of voting work in such countries?

6 February: Theories of Mobilization I: Crane Brinton (Revolution) and Ted Robert Gurr (Relative Deprivation)

Required:

Dalton, Chapters 3 & 4.

Lichbach, Chapter 1.

Recommended:

Russell J. Dalton and Manfred Kuechler, eds. Challenging the Social Order: New Social and Political Movements in Western Democracies. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Gurr, Ted Robert. Why Men Rebel. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970.

Gurr, Ted Robert. Minorities at Risk: A Global View of Ethnopolitical Conflicts. Herndon, VA: U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 1993.

Discussion questions:

1. Why did theories of protest develop so late? Brinton was an historian.

2. Lichbach says Gurr’s relative deprivation research program is better than any other save Mancur Olson’s. Is this true, or is it loyalty to a dissertation director?

13 February: Theories of Mobilization II: Charles Tilly’s Resource Mobilization theory &Theda Skocpol’s State Structure

Required:

Charles Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution. New York: McGraw Hill, 1978. Chapter 3, “Interests, Organization and Mobilization” (packet).

Alexander J. Motyl. “Concepts and Skocpol: Ambiguity and Vagueness in the Study of Revolution.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 4:1 (January 1992) 93-112 (packet).

Recommended:

Bleiker, Roland. Popular Dissent, Human Agency and Global Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

James DeNardo, Power in Numbers. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985.

Freeman, Jo and Victoria Johnson, eds. Waves of Protest: Social Movements since the Sixties. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999.

Gaventa, John. Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in a Appalachian Valley. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980.

McAdam, Doug, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly. Dynamics of Contention. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Moore, Barrington. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Boston: Beacon Press, 1966.

Rasler, Karen. “Concessions, Repression, and Political Protest in the Iranian Revolution.” American Sociological Review 61 (September 1996): 132-152.

Rule, James B. Theories of Civil Violence. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.

Skocpol, Theda. States and Social Revolutions. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979.

Tarrow, Sidney. Power in Movement. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Tilly, Charles. From Mobilization to Revolution. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978.

Tilly, Charles. The Politics of Collective Violence. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Research questions:

1. Why is the Cuban revolution not a social revolution for Skocpol? Are there other such possible social revolutions she rejected?

2. Can one usefully combine Tilly’s leadership concept and Lichbach’s dissident entrepreneur?

20 February: Theories of Mobilization III: Mark Lichbach and the Rebel’s Dilemma; the 5% Rule

Required:

Lichbach, Chapters 2, 3, 4, & 5.

Recommended:

Alinsky, Saul. Rules for Radicals. New York: Random House, 1971.

Coleman, James S. Foundations of Social Theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990.

Chong, Dennis. Collective Action and the Civil Rights Movement. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.

Friedman, Jeffrey. The Rational Choice Controversy: Economic Models of Politics Reconsidered. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996.

Gamson, William. The Strategy of Social Protest. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1990.

Golden, Miriam A. Heroic Defeats: The Politics of Job Loss. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Hardin, Russell. One for All: The Logic of Group Conflict. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.

Kuran, Timur. Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995.

Lichbach, Mark. The Cooperator’s Dilemma. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996.

Schelling, Thomas C. The Strategy of Conflict. New York: Oxford University Press, 1960.

Schuessler, Alexander A. A Logic of Expressive Choice. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.

Scott, James C. The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1976.

Scott, James C. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985.

Research questions:

1. Why is 10,000 the critical number of mobilization for winning a public good or eluding repression?

2. What is the relationship between protest and repression?

3. How do individuals assess risks when considering social conflict?

4. What affects the ebb and flow of inter-ethnic cooperation and conflict?

27 February: Leadership

Required:

Lichbach, Chapters 6 & 8

Each student should select a dissident leader and find a short biography or encyclopedia article and be able to talk about the leader in our discussion.

Recommended:

Frohlich, Norman, Joe A. Oppenheimer and Oran R. Young. Political Leadership and Collective Goods. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971.

Hechter, Michael. Principles of Group Solidarity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.

Wagner, Richard. “Pressure Groups and Political Entrepreneurs.” Papers on Non-Market Decision Making I (1966): 161-170.

Zimmerman, Ekhart. Political Violence, Crises, and Revolutions: Theories and Research. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman, 1983.

Research questions:

1. Has there ever been a dissident leader who was more poorly educated and from a lower class than the followers?

2. How important is the balance of charisma and resources/selective incentives for mobilization?

3. What sort of individual becomes a dissident entrepreneur? Can one model the factors and test them?

6 March: The Dynamic Relationship between Protest and Repression

Required:

Mark Lichbach. “Deterrence or Escalation? The Puzzle of Aggregate Studies of Repression and Dissent.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 31 (June, 1987): 266-297 (packet).

Ronald A. Francisco. “Coercion and Protest: An Empirical Test in Two Democratic States.” American Journal of Political Science 40:4 (November 1996): 1179-1204. (handout)

Recommended:

Cox, Gary W. “A Note on Crime and Punishment.” Public Choice 78 (1994): 115-124.

Francisco, Ronald A. “The Relationship between Coercion and Protest in Three Coercive States.” Journal of Conflict Resolution. 39:2 (June 1995): 263-282.

Khawaja, Marwan. “Repression and Popular Collective Action: Evidence from the West Bank.” Sociological Forum 8 (1993): 47-71.

May, Robert M. Stability and Complexity in Model Ecosystems. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973.

Tsebelis, George and John Sprague. “Coercion and Revolution: Variations on a Predator-Prey Model.” Mathematical and Computer Modelling 12 (1989): 547-559.

Research questions:

1. What alternative methods exist to simultaneous models to find the relationship between protest and repression?

2. Beyond acceleration, dampening, adaptation, backlash, and U-shaped hypotheses, are there other types of relationship that might be tested?

3. Space is the neglected variable in current studies. GIS statistics are available, but are still primitive. How might space be brought into the analysis in alternative ways?

13 March: Clandestine Mobilization, Protest and Backlash under Dictatorship

Required:

James DeNardo. Power in Numbers, Chapter 8, “Repression” (packet).

Federico Ferrara. “Why Regimes Create Disorder: Hobbes Dilemma during a Rangoon Summer.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 47:3 (June 2003): 302-325 (packet).

Ronald A. Francisco. “After the Massacre: Mobilization in the Wake of Harsh Repression.” (handout)

Recommended:

Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1973.

Bauer, Otto. The Illegal Party. Paris: Editions “La Lutte Socialiste”, 1939.

Eatwell, Roger. Fascism: A History. New York: Penguin, 1995.

Wintrobe, Ronald. The Political Economy of Dictatorship. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Research questions:

1. What would entice a dictator to resign and allow free elections?

2. How do dissident leaders under a dictatorship decide when there is a safe time to act?

3. What are the optimal tactics for protesting in a dictatorship or after harsh repression?

4. Has repression ever proved effective in the long run?

20 March: No class, spring break

27 March: Terror

Required:

Walter Laqueur, The New Terrorism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Introduction and “Terrorism and History” (packet)

Richard E. Rubenstein, Alchemists of Revolution. New York: Basic Books, 1987. “The Noncauses of Modern Terrorism” (packet)

Recommended:

Juergensmeyer, Mark. Terror in the Mind of God. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.

MacDonald, Eileen. Shoot the Women First. New York: Random House, 1991.

Stern, Jessica. The Ultimate Terrorists. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.

3 April: Convention, no class

10 April: Stability and Equilibrium in Social Conflict; Logical Completeness of Research Programs

Required:

Ronald A. Francisco. “Why are Collective Conflicts Stable?” in Christian Davenport, ed. Paths to State Repression. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000, pp. 149-172 (packet).

Lichbach, Chapters 9 &10.

Recommended (note: the Goldberg and Merkin volumes below require a high level of mathematics):

Francisco, Ronald A. Dynamics of Conflict. New York: Springer Verlag, 2009.

Goldberg, Samuel. Introduction to Difference Equations. New York: Dover, 1986.

Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970.

Lakatos, Imre and Alan Musgrave, eds. Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1970.

Merkin, David R. Introduction to the Theory of Stability. New York: Springer Verlag, 1997.

Research questions:

1. How can one explain the persistence of stability in all social conflicts save civil wars?

2. What are the implications of stability and equilibrium for participants of conflict?

3. What other research programs have logical completeness?

17 April: No class; time for research, analysis and writing

24 April: Research Presentations I

1 May: Research Presentations II

11 May: Research Paper due, 4:00