Friday, 6 September 2013

Week 7: Returning to the Totalitarian Nightmare of POLS209 After your Relaxing Break

Hi all,

I hope you had a relaxing break, and are ready to struggle for liberty in the remaining weeks of the totalitarian regime that is POLS209.

The class opens the seventh week of the term having only lost a few points during benevolent authoritarianism week. By my count, there were only 4 censorship violations, and the people whose turn it was to do EBPs managed to cover all the required and recommended readings. Impressive! So now you stand at 65 points.

The censorship list has not changed. It still contains the words “Western” (and related words), “legitimacy” (and related words), “stability” (and related words), and “brainwashing” (and related words). Mention of George Orwell's “1984” will also be penalized.

This week you should take a look at the different schemes for classification proposed by the various tutorial groups. Though an election was supposed to happen by 9 September, I think it would be best to postpone it until the 13th.

There are six proposals:
Read, discuss, and prepare to vote! A voting link will be available later.

This week we will continue to discuss the question of whether benevolent dictatorships exist, which merges into the question of whether dictatorships are “more appropriate” in some cultures. What would it mean to say that non-democratic government is “better” for some cultures than others? What would it mean to say that dictatorship is “more appropriate” in some cultures than others? Is it the case that dictatorship “works” in some countries and democracy doesn't? Why or why not? All the readings this week touch on various aspects of these questions, including long-running debates on whether “Asian Values” mean that democracy is not good for Asian countries, and whether Islamic countries are not prepared for democracy due to their cultural values.

It is again the turn of people whose IDs end in 4 and 5 to do the explanatory blog posts/reading reviews. (If your second EBP is due in a later week but you prefer to do it this week, let me know. There are lots of different readings this week, and you can help ensure that all are covered!).Remember you can do an EBP on any of the required or recommended readings, but the group that is doing the EBPs should try to cover all readings. You can also choose a reading that was recommended but was not discussed in previous weeks.

According to my trusty spreadsheet, the following people must post their explanatory blog posts on Tuesday before the lecture (ids ending in 4):

First nameLast name
RebekahF
SimonF
MarkJ
SethK
CampbellS

And the following people must submit their explanatory blog posts on Thursday before the lecture (ids ending in 5):

First nameLast name
GabrielB
AlexanderJ
RubyM
TonyN
GeorginaQ
EmilyW

The essential readings are:
  • Przeworski, Adam. 1998. “Culture and Democracy.” In World Culture Report: Culture, Creativity, and Markets, 125-146. UNESCO. (On Blackboard). A skeptical look; basically argues that culture does not seem to matter for whether democracy survives or not.
  • Welzel, Christian, and Ronald Inglehart. 2005. “Liberalism, postmaterialism, and the growth of freedom.” International Review of Sociology no. 15 (1):81-108. (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03906700500038579). A defense of the thesis that culture matters for the survival of democracy.
  • Inglehart, Ronald. 2003. “How Solid Is Mass Support for Democracy: And How Can We Measure It?” PS: Political Science and Politics no. 36 (1):51-57. (http://www.jstor.org/stable/3649345, also on Blackboard). A very short piece that looks at the data from the World Values Survey on what people around the world say about democracy. The World Values Survey is online, and you can create your own tables and graphs; see here.
  • Fish, M. Steven. 2002. “Islam and Authoritarianism.” World Politics no. 55 (1):4-37. (http://www.jstor.org/stable/25054208, also on Blackboard). A controversial piece that argues that Islamic countries have been prone to authoritarianism due to their gender norms.
  • Tessler, M., A. Jamal, and M. Robbins. 2012. “New Findings on Arabs and Democracy.” Journal of Democracy no. 23 (4):89-103. (http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_democracy/v023/23.4.tessler.html). A look at public opinion on democracy in the Arab world right before the Arab Uprisings. Uses the Arab barometer data, which is available here.
Recommended:
For further reading, see also articles under http://www.citeulike.org/group/13886/tag/asian_values_debate

Best,

Xavier
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