3.0

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This course uses the comparative method to look at the varieties of democracies that exist today. In the course, we will ask what is democracy, how do we measure it, and how does it vary across space and time? We will look at how democracy manifests in different constitutional forms e.g. parliamentary versus presidential. We will examine how different electoral and party systems influence variation in outcome within the set of democracies, and how social cleavages interact with, and are molded by, these systems. Further, we will use the answers to these questions to explore the issue of democratic consolidation and to ask why some countries become and stay democratic, while others do not. Case studies will be drawn from Europe, Latin America and Asia.