Geo Political Crisis - focussing on Syria

College Core Objectives:  As noted on the syllabus, this course counts as an “Understanding Social Science” course under the “Integrations” section of the Magis Core. Three learning objectives from the core are addressed by this designation:

1. Students will recognize and describe defining elements of the scientific method for an existing study (2.I.3).
2. Students will identify the fundamental concepts, analytical methods, and unifying theories in at least one area of the social sciences (4D.I.2).
3. Students will participate in a direct experience of scientific inquiry in the social sciences (4D.I.3)

The primary text for the course (listed below) is a wonderful example of the application of the scientific method to explaining variation in democratic systems around the world (2.I.3). Thus as we study the international system, we will pause at times to reflect how we are doing that analysis. The purpose of doing this is to better equip you to carry on such reflection and analysis throughout your lives. The concepts, methods, and theories the text introduces and we in class discuss will demonstrate how political science is practiced (4D.I.2). You will also conduct an analysis of data relevant to international politics, thus participating in, “a direct experience of the scientific inquiry in the social sciences” (4D.I.3).

The Assignment:

As part of the study of World Politics, we have discussed Democratic peace theory, or the observation that democracies do not fight each other.  As part of the Liberal school of thought in international relations, this proposition has become one of the truism’s of political science.  You are asked to conduct an empirical exercise into this truism by examining five instances of conflict from 1946-2014.  First, you are asked to discuss the dyadic nature of DPT and its expectations while providing examples from historic (or current) conflicts.  Then, you are also asked to discuss the systemic nature of DPT and its expectations while providing examples from historic (or current) conflicts.

To complete this assignment, you will need to:

1.          Select five instances of conflict from the POLITY IV dataset.  A map that you can scroll is available here: http://www.systemicpeace.org/warlist/warlist.htm

2.          Identify the regime type for the state (or states) involved in the conflict, as made evident from the score each state received from POLITY IV for the year in which the conflict began.

a.           POLITY IV regime scores range from -10 (most authoritarian) to +10 (most democratic) and are available as an excel file in BLUELINE (POLITY IV brief. xls).  The excel file lists the name of the country (as well as a numeric code) and year.  You will want to make sure that you have identified the POLITY IV score (listed as “polity2” on the spreadsheet) for the year in which the conflict began.  (E.g. If you are looking at the 1950 conflict between China and Taiwan (or the 25^th line of the “Major Episodes of Political Violence, 1946-2014” table on the polity website listed above (http://www.systemicpeace.org/warlist/warlist.htm). You will need to identify China and Taiwan’s polity2 score for 1950 (which happens to be -8 and -8, respectively)

b.          POLITY scores are interpreted as follows: “The "Polity Score" captures this regime authority spectrum on a 21-pont scale ranging from -10 (hereditary monarchy) to +10 (consolidated democracy). The Polity scores can also be converted into regime categories in a suggested three part categorization of "autocracies" (-10 to -6), "anocracies" (-5 to +5 and three special values: -66, -77 and -88), and "democracies" (+6 to +10). The Polity scheme consists of six component measures that record key qualities of executive recruitment, constraints on executive authority and political competition. It also records changes in the institutionalized qualities of governing authority.” (http://www.systemicpeace.org/polityproject.html )

3.          Provide a very brief summary of the nature of the conflict you are examining, including key players and possible sources of strife that sparked the conflict.  Also indicate how many fatalities resulted from the conflict.

4.          Next, you must identify whether the examples are consistent with dyadic expectations of democratic peace theory.  (This means you should have some examples of interstate conflict with at least two states involved.)

5.          Finally, you must identify whether the examples are consistent with systemic expectations of democratic peace theory. (Hint: Kadera, Crescenzi, and Shannon are one such example of this strain of thought. This was also discussed in class, prior to spring break.)