Purpose of course: This course studies the link between social structures and politics in developing countries with reference to conflict and institutional building. Previous research into politics and sociology in developing countries assumed the preponderance of ethnic, sectarian, and minority factors but paid little attention to their relative importance as well as their interactions with other factors. The concept of cleavage that encompasses differences based on ethnicity, religion, sect, class, language, and region enables us to discuss various social divisions and their importance in relative terms. This course tries to help to analyze the following questions relevant to countries in developing areas: 1) along which cleavages, various social forces compete over the government or voice their opposition, 2) which social forces are able to control or penetrate the state apparatus or excluded from it and why, and 3) how cleavage structures affect the processes of conflict and peace-building. Discussion in class will draw on empirical studies across countries.

Class & Date		Topic	Text
1	12-Apr	Overview
2	19-Apr	Paradigm, theory, and research design	Lipset and Rokkan 1967, 1-26.
3	26-Apr	Conceptualization and operationalization	Bartolini and Mair 1990; Lijphart 1977.
4	10-May	Socioeconomic determinants of political systems	Moore 1966; Skocpol 1979.
5	17-May	Cleavages and party systems	Lipset and Rokkan 1967, 26-64; Linz and Montero 1999; Gunther 2005.
6	24-May	The freezing hypothesis revisited: developing democracies	Geddes 2003; Randall 1999.
7	31-May	Discontinuities of cleavage structures in Eastern Europe	Kitschelt 1995; Cotta 1994.
8	7-Jun	Catch-all parties in developing democracies	Ozbudun 1987; Dix 1989; Pempel 1990a; Pempel 1990b.
9	14-Jun	Ethnic politics in Africa	Mozaffar et al. 2003; Posner 2004 ; Posner forthcoming.
10	21-Jun	The manipulation of cleavages	Laitin 1985; Posner 2003; Chhibber 1999.
11	28-Jun	Cleavages and conflict 1	Vanhanen 1999; Reynal-Querol 2002; Fearon and Laitin 2003.
12	5-Jul	Cleavages and conflict 2	Gurr 1993; Diskin et al. 2005.
13	12-Jul	Cleavages and peace building	Saideman et al. 2002; Tir 2005.
14	19-Jul	Paper presentation