I. The Sources of Public Authority and Political Power .................5-15%

A. The nature and sources of governments’ legitimacy (social compacts, constitutionalism, ideologies, and

other claims to political legitimacy)

B. Historical evolution of national political traditions

C. Political culture and socialization: transmission of political values

II. Society and Politics ...........................................................................5-15%

A. Bases of social cleavages (class, ethnicity, language, religion, etc.)

B. Depth and persistence of such cleavages and the permeability of social boundaries

C. Political consequences of social cleavages

D. Translation of social cleavage into political conflict

E. Institutional expression of social cleavages (party systems and political elites)

III. Citizen and State ............................................................................... 5-15%

A. Beliefs that citizens hold about their government and its leaders

B. Processes by which citizens learn about politics

C. The ways in which citizens vote and otherwise participate in political life

D. The variety of factors that influence citizens to differ from one another in terms of their political beliefs and behaviors

IV. Political Framework....................................................................... 35-45%

A. Types of regimes (communist, authoritarian, democratic, corporatist, etc.) and their constitutional frameworks

1. Political and economic integration

2. Relationship to domestic politics and laws

3. International organizations and their impact on economic development

B. The scope of government activity (social and economic policy, planning, and control)

C. The institutions of national government (legislatures, executives, bureaucracies, courts, and electoral laws and systems)

1. The major formal and informal institutional arrangements and powers

2. Relations among these institutions

3. Relations to sub-national political units

D. Political parties and interest groups

1. Their functions, organization, and development

2. The range of interests that are or are not represented

3. Links to institutions of government and effects on political process

E. Relations between institutions of national government and supranational organizations

1. Political and economic integration

2. Relationship to domestic politics and laws

3. International organizations and their impact on economic development

F. Political elites

1. Leadership

2. Recruitment

3. Succession

V. Political Change ...............................................................................15-25%

A. The internal and external sources of political change (e.g., industrialization, urbanization, economic crisis,

international economy, foreign invasions, diffusion of new ideas and ideologies)

B. The nature of political change

1. Regime continuity and change (revolutionary and evolutionary, violent and nonviolent change of regime)

2. The changing basis of regime legitimacy

3. The changing scope of governmental activity

C. Nationalism

1. Nature of national identity and nationalism

2. Impact on parties and domestic politics

3. Relation to supranational movements

D. The consequences of political change (e.g., redistribution of land, change in ownership of

means of production, circulation of elites, changing nature of citizen participation, changing party systems,

the acquisition and/or loss of citizen rights)

VI. Introduction to Comparative Politics ............................................5-10%

A. Purpose and methods of comparison

B. Classifying governments and politics

C. Problems in cross-cultural analysis