 Okay, I think we can begin. Good afternoon, good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome you all to Political Science 303, Comparative Politics of Advanced Industrialized Countries. My name is Tolga Belikbashi, and I'll be with you throughout this term. Let me briefly introduce myself to you guys before I continue with the material that I've prepared for this morning. I studied economics at the Middle East Technical University, which is right next door to Belkent. Then I did a master's in economics, so I continued with economics. Then I thought, okay, where does power lie? Power, politics, those concepts have always been intrigued by these concepts. Then the question of who gets what, when, and how. Although these questions were always subsumed under my undergraduate degree courses in economics, I thought, hmm, let me look for these questions, and in fact, answers to these questions elsewhere. So I did my PhD in sociology. And there I learned more about where does politics lie, where does power lie, how does politics play out? Then I came back to Turkey. I started working at Belkent in 2009, around this time of the year. And I've been here since then, and I've been quite happy with Belkent students. And I've been, from my first year, I've been teaching political science 303, compared to politics of advanced industrialized countries. I see this course as more of a mature course, and I enjoy doing it. I've been enjoying doing it with my previous students, and I really hope that you guys will enjoy doing it with me. So, what does this course entail? This course is on advanced industrialized countries. Political Science 304 will be covering the developing world. So in this course, we'll be focusing on advanced democracies. What about these democracies? How do we understand politics? How do we compare politics in these democracies? We'll do it in five parts. In part one, we'll look at historical legacy. What does history tell us about contemporary politics? What lessons can we draw from historical milestones in these countries? How did the state tradition emerge and evolve in these countries? So that's roughly part one, after a short introduction. Then in part two, we'll be dealing with political economy. Political economy of economic and social policies. How did these countries develop in time economically? What kinds of models, what kinds of policy styles have they developed? And what kinds of policy making traditions emerge in these cases? After having surveyed political economy of these countries, we then started off with, we will start off with governance and policy making. And here we'll focus on the executive and the relationship of the executive with the other branches of governments, i.e. the legislative branch and the judicial branch. So we'll look at the interactions between the executive and its relationship with the other branches. And here we'll focus on what kind of an executive do we have in this country? What kind of a political system we have in this country? Are we talking about a presidential system? Are we talking about a parliamentary system? Are we talking about a semi-presidential system? And who gets what, when and how? How do these questions get resolved in these processes? In the fourth section, we'll look at representation and participation for each country, for each case study we shall be focusing on. And here we'll be dealing with, we'll start with political parties, party systems, electoral systems, electoral regimes, whether we have a multi-party system, whether we have a two-party system or a predominant party system, not this term, but in the next term. In addition to political parties, what are other institutions of representation, interest representation, voice articulation? What are interest groups like? What are social movements like? What are contemporary social movements like? So basically representation and participation, political participation. And finally, we'll look at, we'll survey contemporary issues what do we, what really capture? What kinds of issues really capture contemporary papers? What are the issues that surface in the political, economic, social, cultural agendas of these very interesting cases? So in these, in this part, we focus on some topical issues, some thematic areas, depending on the case we shall be covering. So basically advanced industrialized countries, their politics, their economies, the relationships between their political systems and also their markets. The course in fact comes in two parts. In the first part, we'll do an introduction. So that happens right before everything I just discussed. In the first part, we'll do a conceptual introduction to comparative politics, the scope of comparative politics, which I hope to cover in the next hour. And then we'll be focusing on three other, or two other main concepts. First, we'll deal with democracy. I'm sorry, first we'll deal with the modern state. How did the modern state evolve? Where did it originate from? How did it originate from? Or how did it originate? How did it get developed across time or over time? Where did it start? After this conceptual introduction to the modern state, the emergence and evolution of the modern state, we'll talk about democracy. First, a conceptual introduction to democracy, different types of democracy. But before different types of models of democracy, we'll discuss at a little bit of length, a little bit of detail, what democracy is, what democracy is not, with the help of Schmitor and Karl's classic article that appeared in the early 1990s. So compared to politics, a quick introduction, then comes the modern state, then democracy, procedural aspects, the rules of the game, when democracy becomes the only game in town, to paraphrase Juan Linz, and then followed by types or models of democracy. Then all of this conceptual introduction will be focusing on each and every of these five cases. We'll start with Britain, then we'll continue with France, followed by Germany, then US, followed by Japan. Normally I cover Japan as the last case. I'll try to cover the US case first, I mean as the fourth case, and then I'll conclude with the case of Japan because of the timing of the US elections. So when you guys will be thinking, reflecting on the US elections in November, we'll start talking about the US case, instead of talking about the Japanese case. My aim here in this class, ladies and gentlemen, is to make you think about first conceptual tools, what are the different concepts that we need to learn on comparative politics of advanced industrialized countries? What is governance like? What is participation like? What are the electoral systems like? Party systems like? What are the certain regime characteristics of these political economies? Policy styles, administrative traditions, policy making traditions, economic policy making processes, dynamics, actors, social institutions, social movements, interest associations, and all of these. So basic concepts, so what are these concepts? I'd really like you to think about these concepts, reflect on these concepts. And then once we cover these concepts, a little bit of empirical information about each case. We have about two weeks to cover each case. That means about six hours, so six meetings. It's a little bit of time, but we'll try to cover most of the basics altogether. So I hope to have a little bit of discussion time with you guys to go over these empirics. And here, once we discuss these, I really want all of you or each of you to be able to make your informed and discriminating judgments on the current topics, current issues, contemporary themes we discuss in this course. So I want you by the end of this course to make your own intelligent, educated judgments about what's out there in day-to-day politics and contemporary discussions. So having talked about the objectives in this course, let me briefly go through our contracts, course organization-wise. The course will rest on a set of readings at the center of which lies our textbook, which is a very successful textbook, widely used in North America and elsewhere, which is titled An Introduction to Comparative Politics, Political Challenges and Changing Agendas by Kesselman and Krieger and Joseph. We've got the 2014 or the edition that was available in 2014. I'm sure it is being updated as we speak. So next year we'll probably be using a newer edition. In addition to the textbook, we'll be also reading a selection of articles. And here, and this is reserved for the first part, the main part one, where we'll be focusing on first the states, the modern states, early modern states or early states and modern states. This will be followed by, as I said, democracy as in terms of procedures, which would be followed by types of models of democracy. And here we'll be relying on three articles or three pieces, all of which are seminal pieces. The first piece is by Henrik Spurit, a Dutch-American political scientist who writes on the modern states, the historical origins and evolution of modern states. This will be followed by Philip Schmitter-Terrelin, Karl's seminal article that appeared in the early 1990s on what democracy is and is not. And then finally we'll be talking about island life parts piece, a Dutch political scientist piece on models of democracy, consensual and majoritarian systems. So in addition to these journal articles, I really would like to invite you to go over the papers, daily papers, I would like to emphasize please have a look at financial times. I really also would recommend The Economist, which really reviews what happens in the past week, every Thursday. So in addition to the class material, the textbook and the journal articles, please have a look at these daily newspapers, which I hope will familiarize yourselves with day-to-day topics, thematic issues, contemporary issues that we discuss in these countries. The readings will be complimented by lectures. In the first couple of weeks I'll try to do, I'll try to cover a lot of material, but when we come to the cases, I'd like to rely on you more and more after we break the ice. So the first couple of weeks I'll do most of the talking. I acknowledge that, I'm not too happy with it, but that seems to be the case. I've been doing this course at Beacons for the past six, seven years. So my experience shows me that it's mostly, in the first couple of weeks, I do most of the talking. So I will, I really hope to rely on you guys as we crack open in time. And then as a third element of the course, we'll be focusing on an audio-visual material, mostly a documentary, to cover, to address some topical issue, some contemporary political theme that we discuss in these countries. And we'll have in-class assignments on these. In terms of course requirements, participation, I value participation. If we, as a class, learn your name or we get used to hearing your voice in class, that means you're participating actively and effectively. That means you're going to have your 10% from there. Second, we'll have in-class assignments to be written in-class based on the audio-visual material that we'll be sharing with you. These are going to be short assignments which will take about 20 to 30 minutes to write. We do them in-class. We either show you an audio-visual material or we ask you to view remotely this particular material. And I'd like to learn what you make of this material in the in-class assignment. Then comes your quiz which will appear at the end of part one. The quiz will be, you know, fifth will count 15% for your final grade. It'll be a standard sit-down written exam type quiz. You'll get some, you'll get to have some choice depending on our pace. We'll see how it goes. Then we'll come the midterm exam and the final exam. The midterm exam will count 30% towards your grade and the final exam which will be announced, the date of which will be announced by directors or the dean's office toward the end of the term will count about 35% of your grade. So that's basically our contract. That's basically the course requirements in this class. Let me do a quick tour of the course plan again. Part one, key concepts in comparative politics. What's the scope of comparative politics like? The modern state, conceptions of democracy and also types of democracy. And in part two, we'll delve into case studies. And here, it's basically, we'll cover state tradition in historical perspective which will be followed by political economy of economic and social policies where we'll look at the interaction of states and markets in each case, governance and policy making, representation and participation and we will end each case with contemporary issues or current challenges facing these countries. Now, what do we mean by comparative politics? This is going to be your first course at weekends in the political science department, political science and public administration department on comparative politics. I'm sure most of you are familiar with these concepts but let me just briefly discuss with you what we mean as comparativists by comparative politics. What's the scope of comparative politics like? The subject matter of comparative politics is basically the domestic politics, political economies, societies of all countries as we shall be talking about. Comparativists or comparative political scientists focus generally focus on big substantive questions such as what are the consequences of this type of electoral system in country A? Could we conceive of different outcomes in country B of a very similar electoral system? What is interest representation and participation like? What are the political opportunity structures like in this particular country? How do they compare with the political opportunity structures in the other country? Or what is inequality? Or how does inequality feel like for an average citizen in this country? What are the sources of inequality in this country? Is it race? Is it ethnicity? Is it language? Is it functional interests? Is it whether you have access to means to resources or whether you don't? How do inequalities surface? Are they regional? Are they mostly ethnic? Are they class-based? All of these questions will be those that we try to answer as big substantive questions in comparative politics. In addition to these questions, we sometimes see comparative politics as world politics. Munk and Snyder, two comparativists, reviewed the world of comparative politics recently, a few years ago, about eight, nine years ago, and they argue that comparative politics is a study of politics and political power around the world. So there, they talk about comparative politics as what really exists in different countries, in different regions, in, across the world, all around the world. Let me now get help from Munk and Snyder once again from their article on the substantive scope of comparative research. There, I'd like to emphasize certain themes. They surveyed leading articles in comparative politics, and they categorized, they typologized, they put into types in terms of the main subject matter in these important articles appearing in these powerful journals, and they arrive at, after their classification, they arrive at overarching subject matters. And they, you know, in a way try to, you know, look at, you know, the comparative advantages of these journals, but also, they try to divide, they try to divide these thematic areas in terms of subject matter into, you know, into different topics. When we look at this, this slide, we see that more than half of all the articles that appear in these prestigious journals talk about democratic and state institutions, which was represented by over 50, 51%. And here, we see elections voting electoral rules, political parties, democratic institutions, including different branches of government, federalism and decentralization, you know, the integrity of the political systems, the judiciary, bureaucracy, military and police, and policymaking in general. So they find that about 50% of all these articles are talking about democratic and state institutions. So that really tells us that this is the heart of comparative politics. Just following this by a small margin, by about 10 percentage points, comes economic and extra national processes. Economic policy and reform, which includes the welfare state, the developmental system, includes the welfare state, the developmental state, writings on neoliberalism and varieties of capitalism, which really amounts to a more than quarter of the entire literature, contemporary literature on comparative politics that appear in these leading journals. Then comes economic development, globalization, supranational integration and supranational processes. So these make about 40%, over 40% of all the articles that appear in these journals. And let me warn you that these will not add to 100 because of the overlaps. Then comes as the third subject matter area or overarching subject matter, social actors. And here they tell us that comparativist you comparativists focus on social movements in civil society, which includes writings on social capital, strikes and protests. That we also focus on interest groups, which includes studies on business and labor. We also focus on citizen attitudes in political culture, religion and also clientelism as a means of co-optation. So social actors, societal actors make up about one third of all articles that appear in these journals. Then comes political regimes, which are also quite popular. They make up, they appear in more than a quarter of all these writings. Brides of political regimes, democratization and democratic breakdown. So what kinds of regimes are we talking about? Different types, different models, processes of democratization, democratic stability and democratic breakdown. And finally, which counts as about 18% of all these articles are on political order. And here we talk about state formation, state collapse, wars, revolutions, nationalism, civil wars and violence and ethnicity and ethnic conflict. So basically when we look at this once again, democracy, democratic institutions, state institutions, a big chunk of what's out there, economic processes, extra national processes which includes economic policy or economic policymaking, globalization and other issues. Then comes social actors, social movements, interest associations, interest groups, citizens, political culture. Then comes political regimes, different types of regimes, democracy, democratic stability, democratic breakdown which is followed by order, states, revolutions, nationalism, civil war and others. So they tell us, they reveal that these are the overarching subject matters in terms of the scope of comparative politics that we really focus on. All of us are thinking about these areas mostly. From here, I think we can start discussing the modern state. But before that, let me briefly do a refresher with you on what we mean by states. States are so central to our lives. They're also central as a concept, as an organizing concept in understanding the comparative politics of advanced industrialized as well as developing countries. States in empirical reality have been the building block of the international system for centuries. So we've been discussing especially during the past two, three decades whether the state is still relevant or the extent to which state as an organizational structure or a system of organizing society is still relevant to understanding domestic politics when we compare these systems. But we, I think in mainstream political science, we've, or comparative politics, we've come to the conclusion that state is not dead. We are still in or surviving the era of states. There are many difficulties in characterizing what states are. We can characterize states in historical variation, different types of states in history. Diverse functions, from simple functions, evolving towards a very diverse set of functions. So the functions of the state which get reflected in different policies have been proliferating ever since the states were invented as an organizational system or organizational structure. States come in diverse sizes from Andorra, from small states, micro states to large states such as Russia, the Russian Federation. So size really varies, geography really varies. And states, yes, although we talk about the state in comparative politics, we take it as a central building block of the international system. We also are aware that states are not the only actors in the international system. States are, or side by side states or with states, there are also other political actors. There are big corporations. There are non-state actors which really possess power and therefore they really affect our day-to-day politics. States also differ with respect to their level of recognition. Some states are fully recognized in the international community, in the eyes of the international community in terms of international public law. Some other states are not fully recognized such as the case of the Turkish Republican Jordan Cyprus or we can also talk about the case of Palestine, whether we have a Palestinian state, whether we can conceptualize modern day Israel as a two state system or one single state. So whether or the extent to which states get recognized in the international system is also a source, a variation, or a reflection of their variation. States also form through different means. Some states form out of secession, such as the ex-Yugoslav states or the ex-USSR states, the former USSR Soviet states. Some states merge and become other states and their history is replete with examples. And in characterizing the state, we also refer to other concepts such as country, nation, political system, nation, state, empire. So states really come in different forms, different sizes, different shapes, and they entail different elements. And in this course, we shall be talking about these elements. Key concepts, I'm sure you guys are aware of these key concepts, but let me, I thought, let me briefly touch upon these so that we have a level playing field for us all to discuss these matters. State is an organization for the purposes of this course. That issues and enforces binding rules for people in a given territory. And here we can talk about three elements. Territory is basically the geographical area that a state considers to be its own. And this has always been contested in the history of the modern state and pre-modern state. We also talk about people because the state enforces binding rules for its own people given its territory. People, basically persons living together with a developed form of common consciousness and a form of common identity. And sovereignty is also another concept that features in these discussions. It's basically, or it can be basically defined as the highest power that gives state complete freedom of action within its sovereignty. We can discuss two phases of sovereignty. One is internal sovereignty. So a state may enjoy sovereignty vis-a-vis its own people, domestic actors, and we can talk about external sovereignty. A state enjoys external sovereignty in the eyes of other actors outside the state, in the, for example, in the international system. Let me also remind you Weber's definition here. Classic definition of the state. Weber defines late 19th century political economists, economic sociologists, political sociologists. Weber defines the state as an agency or a set of agencies that monopolizes legitimate use of physical force, legitimate use of coercion over its people. So if you wanna remember one single definition of the state, I really invite you to remember Weber's definition here. An agency or a set of agencies that monopolizes legitimate use of coercion over its people. When we look at the historical evolution of the state, let's start talking about the pre-modern state. What do pre-modern states look like? In the earlier periods, we see the emergence of large agrarian empires. Where did these large agrarian empires emerge? These large agrarian empires emerged in Mesopotamia, in Egypt, parts of the Hellenistic Empire. And these large agrarian empires were able to serve certain functions. These states in a way, these pre-modern states were able to keep records, were able to issue orders, were able to organize large-scale forces for let's say irrigation works, and also for war-making. They were also exercised legal authority more or less within their own limits, within their own territories. And here in Northwestern Europe, and it's adjacent areas, we see the emergence of the feudal state, which really premises upon personal ties of obedience and loyalty. I'm sure you guys are familiar with the feudal mode of production. You will remember from your previous courses what feudalism means. In a nutshell, when I refer to, when we refer to feudalism, as you shall be reading about in the origins and the historical evolution of the modern state, in Henrik Spuritz article, feudalism is a system of social networks, and it's a system of bundles of rights. It defines a system of bundles of rights. Here at the top we have the king, and below this king we have warriors, military officers, and below these military officers we have a pyramid of other lords, and below these lords are the serfs. So in this system, we have relationships which are systematized based on a social order, which is quite structured, so which is quite stratified, which is clearly stratified. And here we have systems of obligations, systems of loyalties of actors against one another. And here let me show you what I mean by these bundles of rights. Here we have the king, the primus interparis, as you shall remember from your previous courses, and a military knight, a knight where the king blesses the knight, where the king declares that you are my protege, I will protect you, and the warrior says I will protect you in return. So this is a representation of Charlemagne and Roland, a Frankish military officer, a Frankish military knight, who lived in the eighth century. So a medieval period, feudal lord in a way, and the king is really throwing a lesser king here, and he declares him a knight. Here is the plan of a medieval manor. We have the landlord, the military knight living here, the vassal. Here is his house, here is the church. And here we have common pasture and planting areas, plantation areas, some of which are left to fallow. And here the serfs till the land, and when they till the land, they submit some of their, let's say bushels of wheat to the landlord, and in return the landlord will protect them against invasion and conquest. So here, so we have a bundle of rights and duties and obligations and responsibilities between the serfs and their protector, the landlord here, who happens to be a lord or a knight who is loyal to the king, and the king is loyal to the lord. So this is what we mean by bundles of rights and responsibilities and systems of social networks. And here in time, we see the transition within the pre-modern area, the transition from personalistic rule to formal authority. And Spirit says, he really describes this period of pre-modern statehood that early modern states ran wide, yes, they ran wide. These were large states, but they weren't steep. They didn't have the penetrative ability that modern states have in the current, in the modern period. Now we can talk about the modern state, what are its main features. Modern states rest on sovereign territorial rule. By the modern state here, let me talk to you about absolute states that started to emerge in the 14th and 15th centuries, depending on where you are. Absolute states had two main features that they were characterized by territories, so they were territorial, their boundaries were clearly, well, more or less clearly demarcated against one another, and that they were characterized by strong bureaucracies. Let me go back to this territory business. In the feudal times, we had different areas of power which may have had intersection sets. So Lord A and Lord B may be adjacent to one another, but their land, some of their land was contested. And we had a Lord C, which was right next to the land, or who had land right next to Lord A and Lord B, but within this land, another Lord, Lord D, probably a lesser Lord, D, claiming some sovereignty within this land. So as you can see, that this is a very messy picture. As time passed, what happened was, after rounds of war making, B, or B's frontiers, boundaries of his land get more clearly demarcated against that of A, and D gets out of C's land, meaning that we have harder borders as time passes. So with the onset of the absolute estate, we have more clearly demarcated territorial borders. And we also had strong bureaucracies, and bureaucracies were of two types. One is, you know, one part of bureaucracy is the war making, military bureaucracy. And the other part of bureaucracy was tax collecting, bureaucracy. So absolute states, early modern states, were states catrised by territories, clearly marked territories, and strong bureaucracies. So here, when we talk about the emergence of the modern state, we really talk about sovereign, more clearly delineated, sovereign territorial rule, and strong bureaucracies. And strong bureaucracies are what I refer to as the military bureaucracy and the tax collecting bureaucracy. And within these areas, we see the emergence of more homogenous governance and formalized legal codes within these areas. So within these areas of sovereign rule, we see some kind of homogenization, formalization of governance, and codes. When we come to the more recent period, late 18th century, we see modern states having higher levels of penetrative ability based on Napoleonic code, based on democratic ideals, standardized weights, standardized measures, and standardized administrations. And of course, on top of these, modern states engineered public education. That also helped them homogenize what used to be subjects, now citizens, even further. And with universal conscription becoming the rule, we see the emergence of the nation state. So this is a process of nation building with the emerges, or after the emergence and consolidation of the modern state. Now I'd like to talk about, finally, state formation stages with the help of Steinrocken's framework. Steinrocken is a Norwegian political sociologist, political scientist. He had very influential writings in the 60s and 70s. And there he talks about four stages of state formation. State formation, he says, the first stage is the stage of penetration. So the state starts to penetrate into society after having consolidated its territories. So once territorial consolidation process is completed, the state builds institutions to control its own territory and to secure compliance of what used to be subjects increasingly citizens to its own. How did the state do this? The state built internal order or mechanisms or instruments of internal order. The state also delivered in a way external security. It starts to extract resources, not only extensively, but more intensively. It provides builds infrastructure and improves communication within its territories. And states, by the end of the penetration stage, do develop clearly divided or clearly demarcated territories. So they really have much more clear boundaries against one another. So that's stage number one. Stage number two is the nation building stage, which is all about standardization. So once we have clearly demarcated territories, once we build some infrastructure, once we develop certain policies, to basically make subjects obey themselves, we create a common identity and sense of allegiance among disparate populations. So this is the nation building stage, which is all about standardization. And here, states develop national myths, national anthems about their shared identities, about their shared experiences and their shared fate, shared destinies, not only historical destinies, but destinies of the future. So they really try to develop, they really try to design a future altogether, us developing an identity and allegiance to the state. And we, as the peoples in this country or in this state, can dream about a single future, a shared future. And the state also designs, invents, sometimes reinvents system symbols. So this is the phase, this is a stage in which the state invents or reinvents or sometimes imagines communities. And this is by saying this, I refer to Benedict Anderson's imagined, I mean seminal work on imagined communities. So this is the stage of standardization of imagination and juxtaposing this imagination, invention, reinvention, production, reproduction of standardization of people in a given state. The third stage is mass demolition. Once we have the state penetrating into society, once we complete that stage, and we also standardize what's within our borders, the state's borders, the state now starts to equalize what's out there. So beyond homogenization comes equalization, where we witness masses conquering the right to participate in governance or government. And this is the period also, or this is the phase, this is the stage in which we witness the expansion of universal suffrage. So this is the period of mass democracies. This is the period where the state or states, modern states engineer mechanisms, instruments to democratize the system. So this is the stage, once again, of equalization argues Rockin. And finally, the last stage in Rockin's framework is redistribution. This is, in a way, the latest stage in the process of state formation. Welfare states emerge in this period. We can talk about this in terms of periodization. We can talk about this by about the end of World War II, so second half of the 20th century, in which we see increasingly progressive taxation as an instrument of redistribution and state contributions helping the needy make a living. And the state itself's intervene into markets and plays the game of Robin Hood. So it redistributes away from the wealthy to the poor. The state redistributes resources and it provides some goodies, not only in kind, but also invents a set of services to address the needs of its citizens. And finally, the idea behind this redistribution, Rockin says, is the goal of strengthening economic solidarity or socioeconomic solidarity. So all of these, once again, these state formation stages really bring us from the early modern state era, from the era of penetration through standardization and equalization and we arrive at redistribution. So these are the basic concepts that I wanted to share with you before we begin to talk about democracies and also types of democracies, procedural aspects of democracy. And I hope that this, you found this introduction helpful in refreshing your memories and we shall continue with democracies next class. Thank you.