Comparative Historical Analysis

Format of the class:

To cover a wide range of material in half a semester, the readings have been divided into two groups. Each week students are expected to do the common readings and come prepared to discuss them. Over the six weeks, students are also expected to report orally on three of the optional readings listed on the syllabus. Written versions of those reports (up to five pages) are due the week after fall break (Nov. 3).

Graduate students in sociology take this course as a half-semester mini-seminar; their only written requirement is the three critiques.

Students from other departments can arrange for full-semester credit by meeting with the instructor during the second half of the semester and doing an additional paper (10 to 15 pages) due in January.

Where to find the readings:

= Firestone Reserve/Graduate Reading Room (paper).
= Electronic reserve/Blackboard course documents or xerox.
= World Wide Web (hyperlink from syllabus) or J-STOR.

September 16. Comparative Historical Analysis of Institutions

Common reading

Overviews (pick two of three):


James Mahoney and Dieter Rueschemeyer, eds., Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), Ch. 1 (3-27).
Paul Pierson and Theda Skocpol, “Historical Institutionalism in Contemporary Political Science,” in Helen Milner and Ira Katznelson, eds., Political Science: The State of the Discipline (New York: W. W. Norton, 2002), 693-721.
James Mahoney, “Path Dependence in Historical Sociology,” Theory and Society (2000) 29: 507-48.

Cases (pick one of two):


Theda Skocpol and Gretchen Ritter, "Gender and the Origins of Modern Social Policies in Britain and the United States," in David Englander, ed., Britain and America: Studies in Comparative History, 1760-1970 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 276-294.
Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996), Ch. 3: "Socialism and Unionism in the United States and Canada," 77-109.

September 23. Historical Development of Moral Norms and Behavior

Common reading
Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process, rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2000), v. 1, Parts I and II; v. 2, Part IV
• Option 1
  
  Elias, The Civilizing Process, v. 2, Parts I-III.
• Option 2
  
  Phillip Gorski, The Disciplinary Revolution: Calvinism and the Rise of the State in Modern Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).
• Option 3
  
  Stephen Mennell, The American Civilizing Process (New York: Wiley, 2007).

September 30. Comparative History of Slavery and Freedom

Common reading
Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), Introduction, Chs. 1-3, 12 (pp. 1-101, 334-342).
• Option 1
  
  Patterson, Slavery and Social Death, Chs. 4-7 (105-208)
• Option 2
  
  Patterson, Slavery and Social Death , Chs. 8-11 (209-333)
• Option 3
  
  Edmund Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom (New York: Norton, 1975).
• Option 4
  
  Philip D. Morgan, “The Poor: Slaves in Early America,” in David Eltis, Frank D. Lewis, and Kenneth L. Sokoloff, eds., Slavery in the Development of the Americas (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 288-323.

October 7. War, Revolution, and State-Building

Common reading
Jack A. Goldstone, “Comparative Historical Analysis and Knowledge Accumulation in the Study of Revolutions,” in Mahoney and Rueschemeyer, eds., Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences,41-90.
Thomas Ertman,"The Sinews of Power and European State-Building Theory," in Lawrence Stone, ed., An Imperial State at War: Britain from 1689-1815 (New York : Routledge, 1994), 33-51
• Option 1
  
  Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions (Cambridge University Press, 1979).
  
• Option 2
  
  Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1990 (Basil Blackwell, 1990).
• Option 3
  
  Jack Goldstone, Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991).
• Option 4
  
  Paul Starr, Freedom's Power (Basic Books, 2007), Chs. 1-2.
  

October 14. Origins and Development of Democracy

Common reading:

James Mahoney, “Knowledge Accumulation in Comparative Research: The Case of Democracy and Authoritarianism,” in Mahoney and Rueschemeyer, eds., Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences, 131-174.
Carles Boix, Democracy and Redistribution (Cambridge University Press, 2003), pages 1-11.
• Option 1
  
  Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966).
  
• Option 2
  
  Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Huber Stephens, and John D. Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
• Option 3
  
  Adam Przeworski, Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Material Well-Being in the World, 1950-1990 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), Chs. 1-3.
  
• Option 4 (a)
  
  Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1989).
  Option 4 (b): Paul Starr, The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications (New York: Basic Books, 2004), Chs. 1-3, 12.

October 21. Comparative Historical Analysis of the Welfare State

Common reading:

Paul Pierson, “Three Worlds of Welfare State Research,” Comparative Political Studies (2000), 33: 822-44.
• Option 1
  Harold Wilensky, The Welfare State and Equality (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1974).
• Option 2
  Jonas Pontusson, Inequality and Prosperity: Social Europe vs. Liberal America (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2005).
• Option 3
  Alberto Alessina and Edward Glaeser, Fighting Poverty in the U.S. and Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).
• Option 4
  Maurizio Ferrara, The Boundaries of Welfare: European Integration and the New Politics of Social Protection (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).