Introduction to Comparative Politics - What is Comparative Politics?

[Music] [Applause] [Music] politics and the name itself is a loaded term for a number of reasons to comparative politics is both a methodology as well as a subfield in political science as a subfield comparative politics determinately news is traditionally used to study comparative political regimes around the world thank Britain Germany France Canada Japan Iceland Norway Sweden Denmark comitia North Korea you know emails it's a nice euphemistic word that effectively means the study of international government or at least top government's in the international world work like domestic government not foreign relations but comparative politics is also methodology so even if you're not a fan of how the world outside of the u.s. of America works it's still useful to use because the comparative method something that we're going to be talking about next week is universal regardless of whether you're looking at whether you're comparing let's say political processes of Germany and Great Britain or you're comparing let's say campaign strategies of Democrat and the Republican Party whether you are looking at the way in which delegates happen to be screwed up in Republican primaries and how they tend to be already prematurely allotted out to be Clinton for the Democrats hey one of the joke so it's both a methodology as well as a stone so in that regard comparative politics can really focus on anything in political science doesn't necessarily have to be the study of national governments so what exactly can we look at me besides the study of other governments we give it a few ideas we look at let's say the nature the function as well as the objective goals of political parties why one political party choose to support these measures and how does that face up with another political party that looks at the same measures but in a different light one way you know you can't really judge how throwing examples and just random example ever you can't really judge how the Republican Party functions really as clear as you can unless you look at the same Democrats or vice versa or if you want to go beyond specific political parties let's look at political ideology let's look at the role of the proverbial left and right hey what do right-wing movements espouse what do less weight movements ASAPS and even within right at left we can look at the difference between a political party that refers to itself as liberal and one that refers to itself as left and I don't think that this was any clearer than this in this past election between the liberal positions of Hillary Clinton and the less elite positions of Bernie Sanders and what also makes it interesting to point out is that Hillary Clinton would probably not have had as rough the time as she did if Bernie Sanders was not as popular and has organized in the democratic elections it was devilry versus Lincoln jay-z and marbled valleys what a minute came and nobody would have said in many cases new kind of note the strengths and weaknesses of both camp of both candidates by putting the two of them together and on the opposite side people look at the Republicans Hey as much as people like to diffuse the mystical we throw all of them into the same crowd of radical right-wing nuts right there are Republicans s but when you put them up with certain people who are somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan well then you can definitely tell who are the moderates and gore the hardliners John McKinney is still it Lisa Messick Lee Lord moderates or policy wise he wants to go too warm across the zone max hey and then you look at the domestic politics of other Republican senators and congressmen like Marco Rubio Ted Cruz or what is now in cases definitely more moderate okay like here's the here's the moderate gear see it's like that political center okay you're like John McCain and here's my father okay and we really wouldn't be able to see how far to the right by puppet he was that we didn't have something like Don King or we didn't have someone like you know I don't know who else is that what else is still in the moderate Republican what is a great difficulty but a surprising new derivative is moving towards a moderate center Oh Hey and then there's Donald Trump the Mad King Targaryen where is he gonna fit into all this cuz Donald Trump's is somewhat of a wild card de seton you gotta give him credit Donald Trump isn't anything an equal-opportunity whatever he won't offend everyone okay left right let's end up down this net government David and we really wouldn't be able to note these things if we didn't have other variables in the equation Hey so comparative politics beyond the simply looking at okay this country business and this country does that which I try not to do in this class and that's just going to be way too bored I try to give a story I try to give like okay what's the point I want to stuff hey so even within countries we can look at the different positions of political parties we can look at the different positions of electoral candidates and this is where it really gets interesting most are getting metaphysical the different degrees of freedom and democracy in the world after the first lesson that I'm going to give you guys the first lesson is this thing there may be a majority of democracies in the world today but now the democracies noticing that some countries are more democratic than us which country do you think probably most democratic country most democratic country New Zealand not that I would put New Zealand up there as one of the most democratic hey there prime ministers insist on being called by their first names hey New Zealand sure not France France has this weird relationship with democracy sometimes they go almost anarchic and then other times they go Nyoka system sprains one of the most democratic well we can certainly say that France is one of the founders of modern parliamentary locks is it important to think it's more democratic transitions other newzealand before friends what things do you think are unbelievably democratic something it's in the Navy that's a nice blanket statements in fact almost all of them - it's true have issues that we can only bring them happen and this is actually a very good question to ask as a way of figuring out how democratic country is what's the most important issue in the next upcoming election like what's the real major issue now sort of america's concern is always the same thing you know portion and gay rights and weed legalization what's the biggest issue in a country like Norway today how can we better utilize renewable energy right what about normally the biggest problem for one of Norway's biggest problems aren't to dominate uses it's not an onion piece one of Norway's biggest problems today is that they are running out of garbage to recycle for renewable energy but let that sink in that's a crisis as far as normal in size okay it's bad enough that we still you know pisum own separate paper plastic in place in this country in a country like Finland it was just passed actually not so long ago in Finland it is a constitutional right in the Constitution books they constitutional right for all citizens of Finland to have access to high-speed Internet access that have high-speed broadband internet that comes a new school record in your Verizon is slowing up your constitutional rights are being violated so again the point yeah let's do one more what do you think again give me a sense of like a real super goober democracy yes way back hungry hungry oh not so much anymore Hungary is easily saying we're going to get who we're gonna get it's fair share in the second Cataclysm Hungary may have been a model democracy about 20 years ago it is increasingly slipping if it has not slipped already into what its current enlightened despot Victor hormone refers to as a liberal democracy is the country democratic yes what there's actually a very good point you raised under is Democratic United States Democrat Romania is democratic and if you really want to push the envelope Russia is Democrat thank you run thank you however is it fair enough to say that some countries made procedurally be democratic but at its suitability they are not absolutely so that also raises a whole bunch of questions which we would look into this place about why some countries are the more democratic than others that's really the thing that I like why why are the Scandinavian come on ridiculous readmissions hey why is New Zealand's so ridiculously cute why does Canada get away with stuff that America does cancer so my point is that why why are some countries really more democratic than others it's a rhetorical question right now but that's something that we're going to be looking at throughout most of the semester the other thing we're going to look at the second half of place because I don't want to just bore you with the nice squeaky clean goody two-shoes mock receipts we're also going to be looking at the real interesting comes because more careless because let's be honest the end of the day you know you can watch Star Wars to your heart's content that you're gonna be kind of like the Empire in out there efficient there how many of you also have a newsletter wrote one the same question about authoritarian regimes we asked that box is it fair enough to say that there are different variations of authoritarianism around the world are there some countries that are more for Terry than others what do you think is possibly the most authoritarian country in the world today why don't we all just save together as a group so they will know the answer North Korea's long as the Kim family rules this piece of territory North Korea or as I love you refer to it as best Korea will be the default answer okay I have that I have a thing for North Korea it's just so ridiculously totalitarian it's so ridiculously out there like you know I should be doing work I should be grading papers it's one o'clock in the morning and I'm watching documentaries of North Korea on YouTube and I'm just like this is grotesquely unnerving but I didn't go there yeah nobody put a goat breast on a call in come again yes there are cars of gum one about right that photo wouldn't have been what Korea mod and you're just driving down these these things grand bull by the way my cue the streets of yoga out there come on dudes no cars reason thank you look at this piece of young yang and give juxtapose over 27 or Route one I'll try to tell me on any day thanks miss miss this great road that just cold and you see these these these vaguely shaped buildings in the background and like five days later they finally come to do is that this road does not curve at all but Korea is this weird here dump so yes it's kind of like that's like your state answer one o'clock that's something that is just unbelievably screwed up North Korea get their people but is they also take to say that there are companies that are authoritarian unequal for charity they just what I like to call half-ass their democracy okay that tons of oaks do great Turkey Albania Nigeria Venezuela even Cuba but up until recently I have to change my have to change my shake of that Cuba something something wanting that to happen to you but a couple of months ago what happened thank you Catherine hardly died after seven thousand years in this country Castro finally smokes his last cigar and most of the great Kabana in the sky Jimmy very interesting be very clear you didn't see what happens to Cuba but let's go this way which country do you think what country rather be stuck North Korea or Cuba yeah okay okay that's squeeze so with that in mind there are different variations of the four carries so the second lesson for this place we're only on the third slide the second lesson of this class is that novel authoritarian states are the same you can have different variations of democracy you have different variations of authoritarianism to the point where I would even go so far as to use the word warning term not democracies because there are some Authority reinstates and actually practice democracy procedural the box of Turkey is a procedural democratic state and yet their own enlightened despot protection everyone who is consolidating more power than he should ever be given is making it increasingly difficult to refer to Turkey it's not an authoritarian state as long as there are elections complete how many countries in the world today have like zero not even like the father passing we're gonna actually be honest double elections over okay there's one easy people insert look yeah actually there are elections available in the count you know if you want the dear leader to remain present lifespan you go look at hundred percent oh yes give back to you have elections local elections again it was pretty preordained you could vote for you have three candies one this one economist for you the other candidate is for the Communist Party and the third candidate if you want it enough change is it on this one so it's you know it's 50 shades of communist for the most part is are there elections yes are they free and fair not really there are like burning the elections in China at the local level same thing comics parties Thomas party or watching the comics are so you know we want that authoritarianism we also have to understand now the authoritarian states are populated by little Hitler's with funny hats and crazy mustaches and silly accents many cases authoritarian States not democracies are pretty stable and they have quite the endurance factor I think they can survive for years if not decades right now a lot of your routines popularity rating is and it has never dipped below 60% does that ridiculous a music he's not popularity ratings the likes of which democratically elected leaders would kill to guess Obama leaves office with a 60% approval rating the mind you can also apply the comparative Beckman look what we're getting after this but in many cases you know he's charming he's this he's that you know he said all the right thing lot of air pollutant is have 60% of all rain or higher for most of it is 15 plus years control I think there's also there could be Somalia although Somalia has at any given moment for governance fighting for power at the same time five to be company fielding army Eritrea I believe one of the stands in Central Asia and Saudi Arabia as well but there are local elections to Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia is also one of the most repressive countries in the world so it's a small handful another things you really have you're really hard-pressed to get by in this day and age running a country to have elections in if you throw out elections is to give them people some kind of safety valve hey you have to be somehow defer to some kind of procedural democracy so you know comparative politics as I said is a lot of stuff even if you're not all that big on international stuff which I hope by the end of semester you will believe it or not this class is still valuable so what are we going to be exactly okay we're going to be looking at a lot of things this semester most of these things I've already covered we're going to be looking at international political systems we've got 600 cases after we you know give adequate time the theories of democracy as well as mountain boxes the first half the class we are going to be looking at different degrees of democracy and it's not enough to something say that some countries are more democratic than others we also have to look at the country and note that these institutions its resources its leadership as well as the decisions that these leaders have made over the past 20 or so years have influenced the type of democracy back in the 1930s the United States had probably the largest most organized and most vital unions of any developed country in the world there's one of the reasons why they don't celebrate May Day this country celebrate Labor Day and why we feared the Red Scare of modern worker's unions in this country so much that we did not want to give them an excuse to celebrate May 1st which became the communist holiday we've created a whole different holiday of its own called Labor Day the first Monday of September it's perfect it's all the way at the end of the summer and if you know American culture no one gives a damn about the working man for Labor Day Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer and like most American holidays that take place in the summer we don't know why we celebrate it but we know that we barbecues drink beer and be nervous and you can stay forty percent on tires thank you about American culture one talk about American political economy give us anything that you hold dear dear privatize that - okay we will also be looking at why a liberal political regimes was still around today now but back in the early 90s was I had a very sad - about this most of you were not even around in the early nineties but it was a great time we won the Cold War plus the air came to the end of rocky five or four 31 where we think we're rocky need the right or vine or gap there's a close variation on to the engine bottom floor and everybody's a pom economy is on yay everybody's going to become democracy ever doesn't like merica yeah right and 20 years later whoo we still got a whole bunch of countries that are screwed up in fact some countries that were democratic aren't losing their democratic accountability and I'm not even talking about Hungary okay you're talking about the one that we're currently living in right now and that requires us to examine the relationship between cultural attitudes political behavior and economic development political culture political institutions and politically top will be the black better work the Holy Trinity for examining both democracies and Dominus what does this class do officially exactly as I just say all of us and I might we'll be on unofficial be doing this class explains a couple of things number one democracy as a theory is all nice and good and how many of you have taken into the politics already okay Aristotle Plato whatever Machiavelli that's that Bolton apply that to the real worlds and democracy tends to get a lot of bruises batters cuts and scrapes in many cases a lot of people are totally happy voting for governments and people that will curtail certain rights and freedoms in the name of national security been happening for decades now so unofficially this class kind of shows us what happens in the real world where Theory meets reality and reality kind of takes over and reality is the understanding that the most insane person in the room dictates the Loess and we've got a lot of insane people that are running countries these days and so the new norm is I forget what was her name the boss the boiler was the agent secretary something about you know you are new against guns in public schools if you said something to the effect of well I'm sure that there's a gun in some school why hoping because they forget attacked by a grizzly bear won't work what countries will win exam well the syllabus kind of gives an answer look we're going to be looking at three democracies in the first half is Great Britain Germany and India great word that serves as our template and it's quite possibly the most boring section on Walden no but thanks to fans of Great Britain but it really is the starboard Germany is our major competitive case between the first one and Germany is a great example because it serves as a comparative model needed in itself Germany had a democratic government before 1945 the Weimar Republic everybody knows what happened to the Baba Republic okay spoilers and a good site Walker becomes throne Vader hey come to power he was elected the bozo ran for office so you could say that by murdering the so democratic voted itself into oblivion post-war Germany was built on fee mistakes were built by fixing the mistakes of the vine our period and today is seen as not only one of the most robust democracies of Europe but is really the end of the yellow brick road for tens of thousands of not millions Middle Eastern refugees that are effectively entering Europe and wants desperately to find asylum in Germany Germany is not a long way in the last 100 years the last 100 years Germany is right world twice three times to become the European Union unveils damn that they are tenacious sons of [ __ ] at some point they are gonna get it right India India it is one of those cases where you kind of look at it scratch your head and say how the hell is that country democratic but damn it works don't don't don't disrupt it too much what god knows what may happen but it is democratic got a lot of problems but again if you were to put your money on which country's more democratic India or Pakistan which one India goes to Pakistan that the government in Islamabad doesn't control then we tailor to turn and you go on spring break when they come back we look at the non-democracies obviously funds and I keep telling myself that this is going to be the last time that I'm going to look at that as well and have to do the seven four years but we're still gonna look at that is when I love a country that was Democratic Party belief but is now actually getting into I wouldn't even say authoritarian I would say post-apocalyptic Mad Max under the completely next leadership shot is a successor Nicolas Maduro then we're going to look at Russia of course relentless Russia and equally important we're going to bask in the awesomeness of the most interesting man on the planet Vladimir Putin and how he is able to basically do whatever he does and according to a good number of people in this country Vladimir Putin single-handedly break the election and maybe Trump is box how that happens don't ask them to explain this one with their story and then finally China out of all of them China is quite possibly the one that can easily be called authoritarian and yet China is the one country where democracy or political pluralism has been significantly curtailed and yet the economy has been growing and it is one of the most important countries in the world one of their countries will we probably discuss in so many words those countries are going to Rio mentioned just by process of conversation cereal because well it's front and center and we are certainly going to be looking at Syria within the context of the week with Russia a Russia scored a decisive diplomatic victory a couple of weeks ago when in fact the Assad government in taking all of Aleppo and second largest city in Syria effectively bringing the back of the so-called Free Syrian Army which is basically a ragtag group of brothers that the United States pays and what's the difference between them and Isis Isis is the rebels that America doesn't pay in Egypt particularly in the second half that we look at hybrid regimes Egypt is a country that operates within that great area between full democracy and pull authoritarian North Korea this because we happen to go to Korea there's no way that they're not going to do really when the time is right you're great certainly in the section on Russia it is going to be very difficult to avoid talking about the recent developments in Ukraine over the past two to three years including Russia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and their support for the breakaway separatists in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk Spain but whatever talks about spending for Spain but spending actually functions as one of the model cases for a country that transition from authoritarianism to full-blown democracy in less than ten years most people don't really talk about that of Spain especially its elite organist associated discussions among various political movements and groups within the country provided a very peaceful and smooth transition away from the authoritarianism of Francisco Franco in the 1970s even though Spain today is a little bit more crippled by anomic down turns spain is much more democratically livable than the United States and I'll talk about those countries were democratic others money is out there that stains not a lot more things going for it and even the United States in Norway this way we've got a template for the worst the worst North Korea we've got a template for one of the best the best normally if a country like Norway's biggest problem is that they are running out of garbage to recycle for renewable energy damn they're doing some price hey they're doing some of those in fact another great question to ask whether you want to find out how democratic the country is is this new kamistan question how effective is their Green Party then if they if the answer is a great party green we can't afford a Green Party there's still has a problem if you ask how effective is their green run hungry are you for two terms it's great to be solar energy look even the roads the world like nice you know the Ducks are doing these things like the lanes and other little markers on the highway Eric or going to take out the lamps we're gonna make them you're going to make the lanes glow in and of course how are they glowing they're taking an oil in through solar energy games maybe seriously okay so a lot of these that we're going to be looking at examples to help us along yes well turkey also slip into this discussion because yes we will talk about turn we will start I guess I took that out for the United States again we will certainly talk about sharpie and google talk about the United States simply just because it's the one that everybody knows okay so in the remaining five or so minutes let me have what things will be to say on the rebel side cuz I've already plugged it out what themes are we going to be discussing we're going to be looking at theoretical versus apply democracy series of democracy are great but when you know rubber hits the asphalt reality and there are a lot of exceptions compromises that take place matter of fact we have one special case done before the midterm and it actually is the United States or more specifically New York City they may have heard this little intuition and we look at what has been over the past few semesters something that students really really like the the leadership and legacy of Robert Moses by the end they're gonna love and hate and hate to look at what they Robert Moses was one of the most powerful people of New York City mid twentieth century you may have never heard about him because he worked behind the scenes one of the neat things about applying amok recei is that it's not enough to simply get people just believe in pretty much the smaller kind of guess stuff that works in the bureaucracy a lot of times the bureaucracy is non-democratic unaccountable and has access to money and power the likes of which no elected official would ever be able to use that's also how democracies work it's not the most epic it's interesting but it kind of takes away some of that luster roll of sin against decisions in focus of traditional forms of authority the differences between Civic over eternity versus exclusionary communitarians very nice convoluted way of saying who is included in our community what defines citizenship who is in and who is out and path-dependent historical basis something that i've talked about in greater detail in my unofficial sequel politics and culture my teaching style what you see is what you're going to get I'm happy to announce or sorry to let you know for the next 15 or so weeks hey not over all this stuff beforehand like I said I kind of teach and episodes at the same time I tried my best to keep you from looking at your smartphone although usually around this time it's acceptable because really wrap it up for us if you've got government ok so that's that's acceptable in watch if you take this place this is a final parting term well it is a 100 level requisite and if you are a college sign major got this one a ring for my iPod I try to make this one first but there's another major reason for those of you that are just starting how many of you are in fact question or softness then this class is a building class so 100 level course which means that it is going to be probably the most difficult class that you're going to take and I say that not because I'm a Satanist I say this because as a 100 level course you're being introduced to material that you previously had not been exposed to or these that's the expectation listen one of those high ranking seniors I waited in Samaria takes place but I like to look at it into following allegory especially for those of you that like to do little Warcraft or Cyril or you know Star Wars on the bubble you start up a new character brand spanking new level one you have no weapons you have shitty armor and all you're able to do is run around the town killing rats and maybe the forest killing back some boars you try to go up against the bigger enemies boom you're dead what this 100 level class does is advanced you from the level one noob to hopefully the level 5 better and what I hope to do is give you the educational materials and resources that are critical for you to go forward in the 200 and more so 300 level classes the biggest criticism that I get for this class in my evaluations you that comes one or two students we've never burned this the first day place so I will say this right here right now I'm going about it there's a lot of work having people say for a wonder little clips it should be doing that it didn't work the reasonable - and yeah you got a midterm of the hähnel at a paper for a 100 local class that's normal but I will tell you the work can be daunting if you don't keep up but this isn't Russ if you come Plus prepared you do the reads especially the journal reasons not the textbook read the theoretical stuff you can come to class having done it if you participate if you keep up I guarantee you I guarantee you after the midterm it's going to be a cakewalk because you're gonna have enough academic real estate go we into the midterm - then take the second half of class in second in that make sense that makes sense I remember this this works it's worthless course this works so do me this one thing first couple of weeks especially if this is one of the first place didn't take it it's going to be a little difficult it's going to be daunting if you come to class thing I did the reading I have absolutely no idea what the hell is being said that's on that's totally my job here is to clarify that Thomas wouldn't do the exact same thing in recitation and his experience and you know is certainly well qualified so work with us they attempt to do that stuff and I guarantee you you will enjoy this place even if it is 8 100 level don't do it you're gonna fall behind and you're gonna have a very tough time 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Channel: Michael Rossi Poli Sci

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Keywords: michael rossi, political science, comparative politics, international studies, rutgers university, comparative method, globalization, college course, academia, education, international, politics, democracy, online lecture

Id: Cn-q5RjZaa8

Length: 38min 17sec (2297 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 08 2019