Chapter 1: Seeking New Lands, Seeing with New Eyes

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Chapter 1Seeking New Lands, Seeing with New Eyes
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Dangers and Opportunities in a Shrinking World

• Events taking place around the world affect us
  all.
• Globalization popular term used to describe how
  international economic, social, cultural, and
  technological forces are affecting events inside
  individual countries.
• We live in a time of crisis.
• A critical turning point.
• The world is changing significantly and quickly.

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Leaders in Transition

• Tony Blair, United Kingdom
• Vladimir Putin, Russia
• Mohammad Khatami, Iran

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The State One Focus Among Many

• Power the ability to get people or groups to do
  what they otherwise would not do.
• Politics the process through which a community,
  state, or organization organizes and governs
  itself. Not exclusively about power.
• What is the State?
• Government the formal part of the state
  particular set of institutions and people
  authorized by formal documents (such as a
  constitution) to pass laws, issue regulations,
  control the police, etc.
• State all individuals and institutions that
  make public policy and exercise power, whether
  they are in the government or not.
• Regime the institutions and practices that
  endure from government to government, such as the
  constitutional order in a democracy.
• Nation primarily a psychological term to
  describe attachment or identity rather than a
  geopolitical unit such as the state.
• Types of States
• Industrialized democracies
• Current former Communist Regimes
• The Third World
• Strong and Weak States
• Strong states one with the capacity and
  political will to make and implement effective
  public policy.
• Weak states one without this capacity.

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Comparative Politics

• What are the key similarities and differences
  among states?
• How can we explain those patterns?
• Comparative analysis

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Three Templates

• The Political System
• Systems Theory
• Inputs the supports for and demands on the
  system (political culture, politics, and
  lobbying).
• Decision making the leadership in action, using
  the structure of the state.
• Outputs public policy regulating behavior,
  distributing resources or serving as symbols (an
  output might be inaction)
• Feedback
• Reactions to policy
• Results of policy
• Reporting on policy and decision-making
• Feedback as another input to the system
• The Environment
• Historical forces that limit or enable state
  power
• The assets and liabilities of society, the
  economy, and geography
• Global forces impinging on the state

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Three Templates, cont.

• Historical and Conceptual Factors
• Imperialism
• State and Nation Building
• Economic Globalization and the end of the Cold
  War
• The international political economy
• State, Society, and Globalization
• State and society exist in an inverse
  relationship for the power of one to increase,
  that of the other must be reduced

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Five Themes

• Conflict
• Democratization
• Capitalism
• Globalization
• Challenges of the Twenty-First Century

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Using the book

• Each country chapter follows a format
• An introductory anecdote to raise questions about
  the peculiarities of the nation
• A profile of the nation and society
• A section on the stakes of politics (what is to
  be gained and lost)
• A description of the state
• A summary of public policy issues
• A summary of historical background
• A description and analysis of political culture
• An analysis of political participation
• A conclusion with some speculation about the
  future