Wednesday, September 20, 2006

PS321 Democratization Review Sheet for Midterm Exam #1

(NOTE: If you have questions about any of the material, make a post so that others can answer your question.)

Test Date: September 22, 2006

Format: At least 30 (and no more than 40) multiple-choice questions, worth 80% of the overall grade, and 4-5 short essay/identify worth 20%.

Material Covered:

1.) Articles by Acemoglu, et al., Ross (2 articles), Bueno de Mesquita, et al., Munck and Verkuilen, and Fearon and Laitin (note that all of these are posted on the class blog).

2.) Boix’s Democracy and Redistribution, Chapters 1-3.

3.) Lecture notes and all PS321 labeled posts to the class blog.

Review Materials—

Background Political Science Terms:

Theory

Hypothesis

Independent/Dependent variables

Operationalization

Measurement

Case studies

Quantitative methods

Correlation

Causation

Positive/Negative/No/Spurious relationships

Random selection

Sample bias

Endogeneity

Background Democratization/Democracy Terms:

Freedom House Scores

Polity Scores

Civil war

Issues related to measuring democracy

Selectorate

Winning Coalition

Private versus public goods

Institutional incentives for leaders wanting to remain in power

Democratization Issues:

Asset specificity

Effects of income on democratization

Income inequality and democratization

The role of uncertainty and income inequality in determining democratization (see Boix on this)

The “resource curse” – oil, diamonds, gas, etc…, and the likelihood of democracy/democratization

Effects of geography on democratization

Effects of contraband goods on democratization and civil wars

2 comments:

kristen said...

I might have missed this in class, but could someone explain to me the role of uncertainty and income inequality in determining democratization? I have read through CH3 in Boix's book and know all about income inequality and asset specificity, but i have not been able to find anything about "uncertainty"

doug gibler said...

As I wrote that on the review sheet, I thought it might be a bit unclear. Basically, I was referring to the inability of the poor to guage the strength of the wealthy in the model. The wealthy have incentives to manipulate the uncertainty over their strength in order to avoid revolts. Hope this helps.