Why are some countries democracies and others are not? Why are some countries rich and others poor? Why are some countries stable, while others spiral into violent conflict? This course engages students with major theories and foundational ideas from political science that seek to answer these big comparative questions. In doing so, the course introduces students to the field of comparative politics and to the practice of social scientific inquiry. The substantive focus of the course through the first week is on democracy. When do democracies fail? How do countries become democracies, and why do some get there but not others? And finally, how do dictatorships work? We consider cases from eighteenth-century France to the fall of authoritarianism in Latin America and Eastern Europe in just the past few decades. The second week surveys the remainder of the comparative politics literature across two big topics: economic development and conflict. Why are some countries rich and others poor? We examine economic successes like Singapore and South Korea as well as failures like Kenya and Venezuela. Why are some countries stable, while others experience violence and conflict? We compare political violence from medieval Europe to current-day Afghanistan and Pakistan. Through the lens of these three big topics—democracy, development, and conflict—students receive a broad lay of the land of the field of comparative politics. The course also focuses on three skills: reading, writing, and scientific inquiry. Students independently read published academic books and articles, while receiving in-class guidance on how to read the kind of professional scholarship they would be expected to consume in college. Students generate their own research designs on a social science question of interest and have an opportunity to present their designs to their peers in a simulated conference setting. Finally, students learn basic principles of scientific inquiry, with an emphasis on the comparative method and on the distinction between the social sciences, the humanities, and public policy.
Harvard Pre-College Program
1100 Massachusetts Avenue
3rd Floor
Cambridge, MA 02118