COMPARATIVE POLITICAL BEHAVIOR

Paolo Bellucci

Bellucci@unimol.it

Lesson hours (alternate weeks): Monday 17.45-19.15; Tuesday 8.30-10.30

Course description

The aims of the course are: a) to introduce students to the main research paradigms in comparative political behaviour and b) to foster capacity to do original empirical research on the various issues of the discipline (political participation, voting, public opinion, etc., in a comparative perspective). While emphasis will be put on the individual as level of analysis, aggregate (i.e., systemic) analyses will also be considered.

Course requirements:

Active participation by students is expected and reading requirements are to be fulfilled before hand  (the reading list is kept short but all requirements have to be met). A 15-page research empirical paper, on a topic selected in accordance with the instructor, is due by the end of semester. Evaluation is based on class participation – including oral presentation of relevant literature (40%) - and paper (60%). Students should be (or become) familiar  with basic Spss procedures (table and correlation analysis).

Basic readings

Very useful reviews and thoughtful assessments of the literature are presented below. These have to be read before coming to the third  seminar (March, 19):

	Russell Dalton and Martin P. Wattenberg, The Not So Simple Act of Voting, in Ada W. Finifter (Ed.), Political Science. The State of The Discipline II, Washington, The American Political Science Association, 1993, 193-218
	Edward G. Carmines, Robert Huckfeld, Political Behavior: An Overview, in Robert E. Goodin and Hans-Dieter Klingemann (Eds.), A New Handbook of Political Science, New York, Oxford University Press, 1996, 223-254.

Course Outline (tentative schedule)

March 5-6       What is political behavior and comparative analysis?

Adam Przeworski, Henry Teune, The Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry, New York, John Wiley & Sons, Chapter 1 and 2 (17-46)

Gabriel A. Almond, Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture. Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations, Princenton University Press, 1963, (Sage Publications, 1989), Chapter 1 and 13.

March 19         What is the electorate like? Beliefs, interest, information

Russell Dalton, Citizen Politics in Western Democracies. Public Opinion and Political Parties in the United States, Great Britain, West Germany and France, Chatam House Publishers, 1988. Ch. 1 (The Nature of Mass Beliefs, 13-34)

March 20         Electoral participation and turnout

Ivor Crewe, Electoral Participation, in David Butler, Howard R. Penniman and Austin Ranney (Eds.), Democracy at the Polls. A Comparative Study of Competitive National Elections, Washington and London, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1981, 216-263.

Mark N Franklin, Electoral Participation, in Lawrence LeDuc, Richard Niemi, Pippa Norris (Eds.), Comparing Democracies. Elections and Voting in Global Perspective, Sage Publications, 1996, 216-235.

April 2             Models of voting 1: Sociological approaches (the European tradition and the US- Columbia School approach)

Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan, Cleavage Structures, Party Systems and Voter Alignments: An Introduction, in Seymour Martin Lipset, Stein Rokkan (Eds.), Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross national Perspectives, New York, The Free Press, 1967, pp.1-64

Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man. The social bases of politics. Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981 (orig. ed. 1960), Ch. 7 (Elections: The Expression of the Democratic Class Struggle), pp.230-278

Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, Hazel Gaudet, The People’s Choice. How the voter makes up his mind in a presidential campaign, New York, Columbia University Press, 1968 3d (orig. ed. 1944), Preface to the third edition (pp.V-XVII) Ch. 3 (Social differences between Republican and Democrats, pp.16-39), Ch. 15 (The political homogeneity   of social groups, pp137-149)

April 3             Models of voting 2: The Michigan revolution: the social-psychological model   (party identification)    

 August Campbell, Philip E. Converse, Warren Miller, Donald Stokes, The American Voter,  Chicago and London, The University of Chicago Press, 1960, Ch 7 (The development of party identification, pp146-167)

Ian Budge, Ivor Crewe, Dennis Farlie, Introduction. Party Identification and Beyond, in

Ian Budge, Ivor Crewe, Dennis Farlie (Eds.), Party Identification and Beyond, John Wiley and Sons, 1976, pp.3-20

Ronald Inglehart and Hans Klingemann, Party Identification, Ideological Preference and the Left-Right Dimensions among Western Mass Publics, in Ian Budge, Ivor Crewe, Dennis Farlie, Party Identification and Beyond, John Wiley and Sons, 1976, pp.277-284.

April 23           Models of voting 3: the decline of cleavage voting and of party identification. Towards the rational-reasoning voter (issues, leader, campaign)

Norman H. Nie, Sidney Verba, John R. Petrocik, The Changing American Voter, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1979^2nd  (Ch. 10, The rise of issue voting, 156-173)

Mark Franklin, The decline of cleavage politics, in Mark Franklin et al.(Eds), Electoral change. Responses to evolving social and attitudinal structures in western societies, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp. 383-405

Russel J. Dalton, Political Cleavages, Issues, and Electoral Change, in Lawrence LeDuc, Richard Niemi, Pippa Norris (Eds.), Comparing Democracies. Elections and Voting in Global Perspective, Sage Publications, 1996, 319-342

Samuel Popkin, The Reasoning Voter. Communication and Persuasion in Presidential Campaign, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1994^2nd (Ch. 1, The reasoning voter, 7-21)

April 24           Issue voting and economic voting

Helmut Norporth, The Economy, in Lawrence LeDuc, Richard Niemi, Pippa Norris (Eds.), Comparing Democracies. Elections and Voting in Global Perspective, Sage Publications, 1996, 299-318.

Michael S. Lewis-Beck, Economics and Election. The Major Western Democracies, Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan Press, 1988 (Ch. 3, Economic Voting: Theory and Measurement in the European Surveys, 33-51; Ch. 4. The European Voter: Economics, Cleavages, Ideology, 55-67).

May 7-8          Students’ presentations

Each student is asked to choose and present chapters from books listed:

Mark Franklin et al.(Eds), Electoral change. Responses to evolving social and attitudinal structures in western societies, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992

Hans-Dieter Klingemann and Dieter Fuchs (Eds.), Citizens and the State (Beliefs in Government Volume One), Oxford University Press, 1995

Pippa Norris (Ed.), Critical Citizens. Global Support for Democratic Government, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999

Helmut Norpoth, Michael S. Lewis-Beck and Jean-Dominique Lafay, Economics and Politics. The Calculus of Support, Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan Press, 1991

May 21-22      Papers presentations

Students will present the topic chosen for the course paper, the data to be analysed, the research design and methodology.