Introduction to Comparative Politics - PLS 140 at Virginia Western Community College
https://courses.vccs.edu./colleges/vwcc/courses/PLS140-IntroductiontoComparativePolitics
Effective: 2022-03-31
Course Description
Teach concepts and methods of comparative politics. Includes empirical analyses of domestic governmental, political, and societal institutions and norms of countries around the world. The assignments in the course require college-level reading fluency and coherent communication through written reports. This is a Passport and UCGS transfer course.
Lecture 3 hours. Total 3 hours per week.
3 credits
The course outline below was developed as part of a statewide standardization process.
General Course Purpose
Teach concepts and methods of comparative politics. Includes empirical analyses of domestic governmental, political, and societal institutions and norms of countries around the world.
Course Objectives
- Communication
- Identify important differences among nation states around the world.
- Critical Thinking
- Develop and test hypotheses based on the comparative method to better understand strengths and weaknesses of various components of different nation states.
- Civic Engagement
- Explain paths and possibilities for citizen involvement in political systems around the world.
- Specify institutions, customs, and rules that make civic engagement difficult or impossible in various countries.
- Statehood
- Appreciate the creation and development of the nation-state as the foundation of modern international order.
- Constitutions
- Understand the different foundational ideas, customs, and instruments of government that country governments and their people try to adhere to.
- Regimes
- Identify and discuss the differences between, and the advantages and disadvantages of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy.
- Formal Institutions
- Recognize the differences between presidential and parliamentary systems, and the roles that legislatures, executives, and judicial systems play in different governments.
- Informal Institutions
- Analyze the role that political culture and socialization, political parties, media, interest groups, elite, public opinion, and other groups play in the politics of countries.
- Nation State Case Studies
- Understand how a diverse array of nation states internalize and develop the above topics. Specific case studies allow students to see the role history and culture have played over time and have an impact on the present. The number of case studies to be determined by the professor.
Major Topics to be Included
- Statehood
- Constitutions
- Regimes
- Formal Institutions
- Informal Institutions
- Nation State Case Studies