Comparative Politics

Required textbook:

Mark Kesselman Joel Krieger, and William Joseph (gen. eds.), Introduction to Comparative Politics (Houghton-Mifflin, 2000).

In addition, all students are strongly urged to read the Washington Post or similar nationally-recognized newspaper to keep up with current events in foreign countries. First, it will help you understand the significance of the course material, and second, there will be a few current events questions on the quizzes and exams.

The map and table below cover all of the countries we will study in this course. By "political system" we are referring to the form of government (parliamentary, presidential, etc.) and to the form of state (monarchy vs. republic). There is NO need to memorize the numbers of legislative seats or terms of office in the various countries, but you should at least browse through the data long enough to get a rough idea about general patterns in terms of upper house vs. lower house, large countries vs. small countries, etc.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to decipher the color scheme on this map by making reference to the table below. Good luck!

NOTES:
@ "National leader" is the executive official with the most power, either head of government (as in Britain) or head of state (as in France).
x Countries with no senate have "unicameral" (single chamber) legislatures.
* Recent change (since Jan. 1, 2001).
Legislative representation (the column labeled "Repres.") is usually in terms of which subnational constituencies choose members for the upper house, or in terms of voting tabulation procedures for the lower house.
SMD: Single member district
PR: Proportional representation (nationwide unless otherwise indicated)
SNTV: Single non-transferable vote (Japan only)