SELECTED TOPICS IN COMPARATIVE POLITICS: The State in Comparative Politics

This course offers an in-depth assessment of the state as it is studied in contemporary scholarship in the field of comparative politics. Drawing on scholarship in comparative politics and allied disciplines, we will ask what the state is (considering various conceptions), seek to account for its emergence, and explore relationships between states and societies. We will also explore scholarship about state weakness and state failure, and explanations for variation in the strength and stability of states. Readings range from theoretical social science to cross-national analyses and studies of a variety of specific cases from across the world, and from classics in the field to recent published and unpublished papers. Though we will touch on Marxist and Foucauldian perspectives on the state, our investigation will be centered in what might be described in broad terms as a Weberian perspective.