polsic

Students are required to write and submit an essay at the end of the semester. 

· The essay should be 5-7 pages, double-spaced, with 12-point Times New Roman font and 1-inch margins. It is due by 11:59pm on  12/18/2022. You have the freedom to choose the research question you want to ask. You should apply the comparative methods you learn in this course and conduct a research on a topic covered in this course. The essay can be either a case study of any country that fits your research question, or a comparative study of any two to three countries that you want to compare. 

· If you choose a case study, a case study serves the purpose of better understanding a theoretical concept or research question. The first step is to find your own question. You should then choose the relevant country/case to study according to your question. For instance, if you are interested in democratization and want to understand how and why countries become democratic, you should choose a country that has experienced democratization and study its process of regime change. If you are interested in military coup, you should choose a country that has experienced a military coup to understand why and how military coups happen. The essay should not be a broad general introduction of a country. A case study is  NOT a country profile.

· If you choose to compare countries, you also need to find your own research question first, then pick the relevant two to three countries to compare. You will choose similar countries or different countries to compare, and you will explicitly apply comparative research methods. For instance, if you want to study Arab Spring, and understand why it succeeded in one country but not another, then you will pick two countries that went through Arab Spring and in one of them the movement succeeded and the other one failed.  

· We will cover a broad range of concepts and theories in comparative politics, your essay should apply these concepts, theories and comparative method. The essay should have a clear focus: try to better understand a theoretical concept or question through studying a relevant country or comparing two to three countries. You are expected to present clear and coherent arguments and your own perspectives on the question. 

· The essay should be submitted to Blackboard. Late essays will be penalized 1 point (out of 15) for each day of being late. Make sure you provide the proper citation whenever you refer to other’s work (The citation style you should use is Chicago style author year citation with references at the end  https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html).