As a response to the situation described in my last post, I created an in-class exercise for my comparative politics course — this worksheet:
1. Write the main thesis of these articles by changing each article’s title into a declarative sentence containing “because,” “causes,” “is caused by,” etc.:
Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, “How Development Leads to Democracy: What We Know About Modernization,” Foreign Affairs 88, 2 (March/April 2009): 33-48.
Alfred Stepan, “Brazil’s Decentralized Federalism: Bringing Government Closer to the Citizens?” Daedalus 129, 2 (Spring 2000): 145-169.
Larry Diamond, “Why Are There No Arab Democracies?” Journal of Democracy 21, 1 (January 2010): 93-112.
Javier Corrales, “Authoritarian Survival: Why Maduro Hasn’t Fallen,” Journal of Democracy 31, 3 (July 2020): 39-53.
Scott Mainwaring, “The Crisis of Representation in the Andes,” Journal of Democracy 17, 3 (July 2006): 13-27.
2. Fill in the blank cells in the table below with information from Larry Diamond, “Why Are There No Arab Democracies?”:
3. Given the above, what causes the value of the dependent variable? How do you know this? Is this a Most Different Systems Design or a Most Similar Systems Design?
I gave students 10 minutes to work on these questions individually, followed by 10 minutes in breakout rooms with teammates to discuss their answers. Afterward, I reviewed the lesson by asking students to state what they wrote for each thesis or blank table cell. This occupied the remaining 30 minutes of class. While I don’t know what students thought of this exercise, it’s something I can use in the future either in the same way or as part of an exam.