POL 422: Course Materials

Course Materials

• Syllabus (pdf)

• Olin Library (webpage)

Research Materials

• Research Paper Guidelines (pdf)

• Research Links Page (webpage)

Measuring Democracy (Freedom House vs. Critics)

• Puddington, Arch, "Freedom in Retreat: Is the Tide Turning? Findings of Freedom in the World 2008."

• And: "Freedom in the World: Methodology."

• Mainwaring, Scott, Daniel Brinks and Aníbal Pérez-Liñán, “Classifying Political Regimes in Latin America, 1945-1999,” Studies in Comparative International Development Vol. 36, No. 1, Spring 2001: 37-65.

• Munck, Gerardo and Jay Verkuilen, “Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy: Evaluating Alternative Indices,” Comparative Political Studies Vol. 35, No. 1, February 2002: 5-34.

The State of Democracy in Latin America (Parts 1 & 2)

• Munck, Gerardo, "Latin America: Old Problems, New Agendas," Democracy at Large, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2006: 10-13.

• United Nations Development Program, Democracy in Latin America: Towards a Citizens’ Democracy, New York, NY: UNDP, 2005): "Ideas and Contributions," Chapters 4-7, pp. 33-66, available here.

• Additional required reading: “Indicators on the Development of Democracy,” “Electoral Democracy Index” and “Technical Note on Electoral Democracy Index” pp. 13-17 and 23-33 in the Statistical Compendium, available (in zip format) here.

• Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), Economic and Social Progress in Latin America 1998-1999 Report: Facing Up to Inequality in Latin America (Washington, D.C.: IADB and Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999). Chapter 1, "Magnitude of Inequalities."

• IADB, Economic and Social Progress in Latin America 2000 Report: Development Beyond Economics (Washington, D.C.: IADB and Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000): Chapter 4, "Political Institutions, Accountability and Government Performance."  

• Altman, David and Aníbal Pérez-Liñán, "Assessing the Quality of Democracy: Freedom, Competitiveness, and Participation in 18 Latin American Countries," Democratization Vol. 9, No. 2, Summer 2002: 85-100. 

Theories of Democracy (Parts 1 & 2)

• McClintock, Cynthia and James H. Lebovic, “Correlates of Levels of Democracy in Latin America During the 1990s,” Latin American Politics and Society Vol. 48, No. 2, 2006: 29-59.

• Kapstein, Ethan B. and Nathan Converse, "Why Democracies Fail," Journal of Democracy, Vol. 19, No. 4, October 2008: 57-68.

• Fukuyama, Francis, "The Latin American Experience," Journal of Democracy, Vol. 19, No. 4, October 2008: 69-79.

• Levitsky and Way, “International Linkage and Democratization,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 16, No. 3, July 2005: 20-34.

Case Studies: El Salvador & Guatemala

• Pérez, Orlando J. “Democratic Legitimacy and Public Insecurity: The Impact of Crime Victimization on Support for Democracy in El Salvador and Guatemala,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 118, No. 4 (Winter 2003-04): 627-644.

• Godoy, Angelina Snodgrass “Lynchings and the Democratization of Terror in Postwar Guatemala: Implications for Human Rights,” Human Rights Quarterly Vol. 24, No. 3, August 2002: 640-661.

• Dodson, Michael and Donald Jackson “Horizontal Accountability in Transitional Democracies: The Human Rights Ombudsman in El Salvador and Guatemala,” Latin American Politics & Society, Vol. 46, No. 4, Winter 2004, pp. 1-27.