Teaching
Current Courses
CITIZEN-ORIENTED GOVERNANCE IN CANADA (PA 8201)
This course examines the role that citizens play in the structures and processes of democracy in Canada vis-a-vis other polities. Given the growing interest in promoting civic participation, it pays special attention to significant innovations in democratic governance. If done well, such democratic innovations can enhance political capabilities, the legitimacy of and trust in government decision-making processes, and policy solutions for communities they purport to serve. These objectives can help promote, in turn, active citizenship and democratic governance in Canada.
VARIETIES OF DEMOCRACY (POG 432-011)
What is the idea of democracy? What factors explain its historical trajectory? Have existing democracies realized their promise? This course analyses the origins, development and ramifications of modern representative democracies in comparative historical perspective. The first part examines formative moments in the history democracy, from ancient Greece to the revolutions in America and France. The second part of the course analyzes the subsequent history of modern representative democracies vis-à-vis the politics of fascism, socialism and colonialism in western Europe as well as East and South Asia. The third part examines the successes and failures of various democratic regimes from the 1970s to the present, from the ‘third wave’ of democratization in Latin America and Eastern Europe, to the prospects of democracy in China and after the Arab Spring. Throughout the course, we analyze the specific ideas, political institutions and social conditions that distinguish various democratic regimes, while evaluating their ramifications for civil liberties, political rights, economic prosperity, social equality and cultural recognition.
COURTS AND CONSTITUTIONS (POG447)
What is a constitution? What are its relations to democracy, the rule of law and other constitutions? How are constitutions made, interpreted and amended? Why have some constitutions effectively structured the political lives of their countries and endured, while others have struggled to shape the dynamics of power, let alone survive? Does constitutionalism generally, and judicial review in particular, empower or constrain the prospects for democracy, equality and justice? Why have these practices varied across countries over time? This course explores these questions in comparative, historical and theoretical perspective.
INTRO TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS (POG 240)
This course introduces key concepts, questions and debates in the field of comparative politics. We examine a variety of actors, institutions and phenomena that shape political outcomes within countries around the world. Topics range from the variety of states, political regimes, electoral systems, interest groups and social movements to processes such as the spread of nationalism, regime change, economic development, civil war and social revolution.
Past Courses
-
This course provides a survey of qualitative methodology in social research. Its principal aims are twofold: to offer a critical introduction to several key debates in the field and an opportunity for you to practice the methods and tools we study. The first part of the course examines the aims, logics and modes of inquiry in the qualitative tradition. We evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of describing, interpreting and explaining the political world through intensive case studies and small-N comparisons vis-à-vis extensive statistical analyses that comprise the foundation of quantitative research. The second part of the course examines several core tasks in designing any research, and practical strategies for tackling them. Topics include the formation, measurement and elucidation of concepts; choosing, studying and generalizing cases; comparative research strategies; tracing causal processes over time; and counterfactual reasoning. The third part of the course examines, and gives you a chance to employ, particular methods to collect, analyze and evaluate qualitative data. We consider the ethics, politics and realities of doing fieldwork; conducting archival research, in-depth interviews and participant observation; and designing and carrying out surveys.
-
This seminar analyzes the political economy of the modern welfare state in comparative historical perspective. Several general questions inspire it. Why did the modern welfare state emerge in the twentieth century? What factors explain the variety of dynamics regarding capital accumulation and social protection across the world? What have been the consequences of these differences for patterns of human welfare, democratic politics and economic prosperity? The first part of the seminar examines the construction of modern welfare systems in Europe and the United States in light of Karl Polanyi's classic account, The Great Transformation, and their key differences. In part two, we survey the variety of social welfare regimes in the global south from the 1950s to the 1970s, ranging from the productivist welfare regimes of East Asia and state corporatist systems in Latin America to informal security arrangements of South Asia and Sub- Saharan Africa. Part three of the seminar analyzes the patterns, causes and ramifications of comparative welfare retrenchment since the 1980s in the wake of the Washington Consensus. In part four, we investigate diverse contemporary attempts to tame growing socioeconomic inequalities—ranging from rights-based legal activism and radical social movements to popular militant insurgencies—in America, India, China, South Africa and Brazil. The seminar concludes by assessing the possible futures of the modern welfare state and its alternatives.
-
What is a constitution? How are constitutions made? Why have some constitutions effectively structured the political lives of their respective countries and endured, while others have struggled to shape their dynamics of power, let alone survive? What roles do apex courts play in interpreting, amending and preserving distinct constitutional values? Does constitutionalism generally, and judicial review in particular, empower or constrain the prospects for democracy and justice? And why have these practices varied across countries over time? This course explores these questions in comparative, historical and theoretical perspective. The first part addresses basic conceptual questions: the origins, purposes and ramifications of courts, the rule of law and constitutionalism for politics. In part two of the course, we investigate how societies have variously established constitutions, and seek to interpret and amend them. Part three considers the foundations, legitimacy and consequences of courts reading, changing and reviewing constitutions and judging the constitutionality of legislation. Finally, in part four of the course we investigate where, how and why high judicial activism and popular constitutional mobilization have controversially inaugurated an era of new constitutionalism, especially regarding a positive socioeconomic conception of rights, and assess the ramifications of these recent trends.
-
This course examines the politics of inequality, particularly its socioeconomic dimension, in comparative interdisciplinary perspective. It addresses several fundamental questions: What is the significance of inequality? What are its causes and consequences? Why do disparities of power, wealth and status, and the relationship between these sources of stratification, vary across countries, regions and eras? What explains the varying relative tolerance of inequality in different societies? Finally, how have different societies sought to mitigate its ramifications historically and in recent years? In the first part of the course, we examine several intellectual approaches to the study of inequality. Part two surveys the rise, origins and variety of social welfare regimes in the advanced industrialized west and across the global South from the 1930s to the 1970s. In part three, we examine the causes, patterns and consequences of rising socioeconomic inequality from the 1980s to the present. Finally, part four analyses a range of contemporary political responses to these trends from state and society, ranging from Occupy Wall Street and Podemos in Spain to diverse rights campaigns and tribal Maoist insurgency in India, labour militancy and the campaign for a Basic Income Grant in South Africa, and participatory budgeting, Bolsa Familia and the Landless Workers Movement in Brazil.
-
The course explores the phenomenon of capitalism in the contemporary world order from a multidisciplinary perspective. Several aims inform its design. First, we begin by considering the nature of capitalism as a distinct economic system, comprehensive social formation and historic way of organizing nature. Second, we seek to grasp two crucial foundations of capitalism, property and labor, by examining their possible manifestations and presumed antitheses. Third, we analyze the sustainability of reproducing modern capitalism in light of several important contradictions since the 1970s: weakening aggregate demand, growing socioeconomic inequalities and mounting ecological crises. Finally, we end by course by exploring the theme of alternatives: proposals, reforms and trends to limit, reorganize or transcend the contradictions of capitalism. The course addresses these issues through a series of lectures and discussions that reflect diverse intellectual traditions and disciplinary perspectives. The course is organized into four interrelated modules: (1) Introduction to Capitalism (2) Property and Labor (3) Sustainability of Capitalism (4) Alternatives to Existing Capitalist Societies. Each module consists of three classes: two faculty lectures plus one group discussion.
-
This course investigates the intellectual history, political aspirations and developmental trajectories of the postcolonial world during the long twentieth century. The first part surveys the comparative impact of imperial rule and colonial exploitation upon the pattern and character of states, economies and societies in Latin America, Asia and Africa in the twentieth century. The second part of the course investigates the politics of the Third World after WWII, as it was then called, to enhance national sovereignty and collective self-determination. We analyze the patterns and ramifications of state formation, national integration and late industrial development pursued by its postcolonial elites, as well as their collective efforts to forge solidarity through the Non-Aligned Movement in the 1950s, Trilateral Conference in the 1960s to the New International Economic Order in the 1970s. The third part of the course examines shifting economic strategies and transitions to democracy in the developing world, as commentators increasingly called it, following the debt crises of the 1980s. Finally, the last part analyzes various efforts to resurrect the prospects of the so-called global South since the 1990s. Topics include the establishment of the South Commission and the World Social Forum, reconfiguration of parties and movements on the left and the right, and impact of the BRICS upon the balance of power, wealth and status in the evolving world order.
-
This course examines the origins, transformations and rise of India and China since the mid-twentieth century. The first part explores their distinctive visions of modernity. We analyze the legacies of imperialism vis-à-vis patterns of nationalism, state building, political rule, foreign policy, economic development and social change. The second part of the course explores the transformations of India and China over the last three decades. In particular, we analyze the causes and consequences of uneven capitalist development, greater political contestation, and urbanization, regionalization and globalization. The final part explores the rise of India and China and its ramifications for the balance of power, wealth and equality in the evolving global order.
-
This course examines the key concepts, theories and paradigms of development since 1945. It seeks to provide an intellectual history of the field, analyzing, comparing and assessing rival theoretical explanations, often against specific case studies in Asia, Sub- Saharan Africa and Latin America. The first section of the course examines classical developmental paradigms: modernization, planning and ‘late-late’ industrialization; relations of dependency in the world capitalist system; the neoclassical counter- revolution; governmentality, high modernism and post-development; and the role of gender in development. The second section explores the importance of state-society relations in development by examining the causes and consequences of successful developmental states; the role of decentralization and participation in social capital formation; and the challenges of ethnicity in post-colonial societies. The final section revisits the world historical conditions of development by analyzing the legacies of colonialism, burdens of geography and ramifications of globalization for the contemporary global South.
-
This course is an advanced graduate seminar in comparative politics. It seeks to introduce students to the field through a critical survey of some of its leading concerns, scholarship and debates. It is designed to prepare Ph.D. candidates planning to take the qualifying field exam and write dissertations in comparative politics.
Comparative politics is an extraordinarily diverse field in terms of its problems, theories and methods. Substantively, its students seek to explain a range of significant real-world phenomena. These include the formation, autonomy and capacity of states; processes of modernization and democratic transition, consolidation and deepening; the origins, dynamics and impact of economic interests, social identities and political institutions; the causes, dynamics and consequences of social movements, contentious politics and social revolutions; the comparative political economy of advanced industrialization and late development; the nexus between domestic politics, international relations and forces of globalization – and many others. Theoretically, ‘comparativists’ have developed various analytical paradigms to study these phenomena, including structural, cultural and actor-oriented perspectives, including hybrid versions of these views. Methodologically, they use a variety of approaches (informed by quantitative, qualitative and mixed research designs) to study politics at different levels of analysis (from intensive case studies and comparative analyses of a few cases to sweeping large-N studies), which reflect pragmatic research considerations as well as distinct philosophies of explanation in the human sciences.
Hence a principal aim of this seminar is to provide students with a solid foundation in the field by analyzing, debating and assessing this intellectual diversity. In particular, we will examine the advantages, shortcomings and implications of studying particular questions from different conceptual, theoretical and methodological perspectives, which often generate divergent explanations. Given the scope, complexity and depth of the field, the seminar cannot fully engage the state of play regarding any particular issue; nor does it impart in-depth empirical knowledge of any region of the world. Both are crucial pre-requisites for serious political enquiry. However, by analyzing a range of phenomena through multiple perspectives, I hope to show you the richness of the field and help you acquire a command of its significant debates with the view to crafting your own research agenda.
-
This course offers a critical interdisciplinary survey of key concepts, theories and paradigms in the political economy of development since 1945. It seeks to provide an intellectual history of the field by analyzing the power and limitations of rival macro- theoretical explanations vis-à-vis specific case studies in Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. The first section of the course examines classical developmental paradigms: modernization, planning and late industrialization; dependency in the world system; the neoclassical counter-revolution; gender, feminism and development; ‘governmentality’, high modernism and post-development; and colonial legacies and post-colonial politics. The second explores various attempts to reconfigure the political economy of state-society relations by analyzing successful developmental states, the possibilities and limits of participation, decentralization and social capital formation, and the challenges of ethnic conflict and state failure. The final section expands the frame by examining the prospects of development amidst globalization in the contemporary global South.
-
As citizens, we recognize that an essential feature of political life is the exercise of judgment. We make judgments on a daily basis regarding what to do and how to achieve certain ends. We also assess the reasoning of others, both those who rule as well as those whose judgments will affect our interests. Indeed many of our daily conversations, and much of what we read, hear, and see in the media, concern the question of judgment.
Yet what is political judgment? How should we balance moral considerations, historical knowledge and the realities of power in making our political judgments? What distinguishes individuals who possess good political judgment? Under what conditions does it matter? Is good political judgment an inherent talent of the few or can it be acquired and developed by everyone? This course engages such questions by examining the theory and practice of judgment in politics. The first part examines, compares and assesses the writings of several key thinkers that focused on the distinctiveness, necessity and difficulty of judgment in politics: Thucydides, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Max Weber, Hannah Arendt and Isaiah Berlin. The second part of the course analyses a range of historical events by evaluating the political judgments of significant actors. Topics include the Russian revolution, creation of Israel and end of apartheid in South Africa; the invasion of Iraq after 9/11, attempts at nation building in Afghanistan and the causes of the 2008 financial crisis; and the demands of judgment according to intellectuals and politicians. In doing so, the course seeks to bridge the study of judgment in various intellectual traditions with its practice in real world politics.
-
This course examines the politics of modern South Asia, with a focus on India, through a theoretical, comparative and historical approach. We will analyze the legacies of imperial rule and anti-colonial movements on nationalist imaginaries and the formation of post-colonial states; the vicissitudes of state-led and market-oriented strategies of development; and struggles to establish, consolidate and expand democratic regimes, institutions and practices. The course assesses how these processes both transformed, and were shaped by, conflicts along lines of gender, caste, class, region, language and religion, as well as patterns of convergence and difference across the subcontinent.
-
What is political judgment? What is the relationship between moral, political and historical judgment? What constitutes good political judgment? How can it be developed? Under what conditions does it matter? How should we seek to explain politics – the possibilities, limits and outcomes – in light of its importance? This course seeks to raise these fundamental questions. The first part examines the writings of several key thinkers in the history of Western political thought that focused on the distinctiveness, necessity and difficulty of judgment in politics. We examine, compare and assess the ideas of Thucydides and Aristotle, Machiavelli and Lenin, and Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin and John Dunn, both how they define political judgment and, where possible, how they analyze it in practice. The second part of the course focuses on empirical inquiries of political judgment in the tradition of comparative politics, development studies and international affairs. We consider attempts to explain different historical events through the political judgments of key social actors. Topics include the establishment of social democracy in western Europe; possibilities of modern Indian democracy; failures of high modernist planning in the twentieth century; functioning of local government in contemporary Denmark; and invasion of Iraq after September 11, 2001. In doing so, the course seeks to bridge the study of judgment in theory with its practice in real world politics in a manner that enriches our understanding of both domains.
-
This course examines the transformation of India from 1947 until the present. According to its constitutional founders, India emerged at independence as a “sovereign, democratic, federal, socialist, secular” republic. Its subsequent history has pursued, contested, and altered this original vision. What were the legacies of British imperial rule and Partition for India’s postcolonial state? To what extent has the country’s representative democracy secured political liberty, economic opportunity, and social equality for its most disadvantaged citizens? How have global economic liberalization, militant Hindu nationalism, and the rise of historically subaltern groups reinvented the idea of India? The course takes a critical historical approach that focuses on the interplay between state power and social and economic forces to address such questions.
-
What are nations, states and civil societies? Why are these political forms seen as representative of modernity? How did they emerge historically, and with what consequences, in different parts of the world? This course addresses these questions by providing a critical survey of the origins, development and prospects of the modern nation-state in comparative historical perspective. We examine its emergence in Europe and the Americas and subsequent transformations in Asia and Africa. We analyze how modern states sought to establish their sovereignty over territories, markets, and societies against other forms of rule; the ways in which various nationalisms tried to incorporate historically subordinate groups based on class, gender, language, ethnicity and region, and why these groups sometimes resisted such attempts; and the manner in which civil societies emerged as spaces of liberty, power and exclusion vis-à-vis the modern state. Understanding these developments will allow us to analyze the extent to which processes of globalization are reshaping the prospects of nation states in different regions of the world today.
-
This course examines the role of the state – its primacy, necessity and inadequacy – in the project of development since 1945. Topics include conceptions of development; the foundations of the post-WWII international economic order; planning and the exigencies of late-late industrialization; dependency in the world economy; neoclassical critiques of rent-seeking societies; the impact of high modernist ideology; poststructuralist accounts of depoliticization and governmentality; state failure; developmental states; the ‘good governance’ agenda; decentralization, participation and globalization. While the focus of the course is primarily analytical, it seeks to assess contending theoretical frameworks vis-à-vis specific cases in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia.
-
The principal aim of this course is to survey leading issues of post-1945 development from a state-in-society perspective. It provides a comparative analytic history of the major intellectual debates in the field from 1945 to the present. Themes include state-directed planning and the exigencies of late industrialization; dependency in the world economy and its presumed affinities with bureaucratic-authoritarian regimes; neoclassical critiques of rent-seeking activities and post-structural accounts of ‘governmentality’; varieties of state-in-society relations that govern the market and mobilize social capital; and present-day debates regarding political democratization, economic liberalization and globalization.
My reasons for taking such an approach are twofold. In part, it is so that you acquire a grasp of the contours of development theory and practice over this period by critically engaging with key texts, which represented significant intellectual positions and leading development strategies in various regions. Hence it is important to familiarize ourselves with these writings to know what happened in the past, and to understand contemporary development theories and practices. Apart from assessing contending arguments over particular issues, we will also examine their usefulness for understanding specific cases in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.
In part, it is also to encourage you to develop a critical understanding of the key concepts of development, state and society, and the ways in which theorists and practitioners use them. Hopefully you will gain a self-reflexive awareness of how disputes over conceptualization, and different understandings of the past, shape development policy-making in the world today.
Inevitably, given the complexity and range of issues that fall under its rubric, any course that tackles the subject of ‘state and society in the developing world’ is selective and partial. The topics chosen, readings assigned, and vantage taken here are subject to the same limitations. Moreover, there are many general issues – such as democratization, conflict and violence – and crucial perspectives – relating to gender, labor and the environment, for instance – integral to the study of development that we can address only tangentially. Hence you are strongly encouraged to take courses that engage with other themes and issues, in different regional contexts, in order to develop a more comprehensive understanding.