Graduate Courses
I offer several courses on my substantive interests and two research methods courses, one on research design and one on qualitative methodology. At the graduate level I offer substantive classes on Comparative Politics, Peasant Politics, and Latin American Politics. An updated syllabus for each of these courses is available in the main office of the Political Science Department: Anderson 234. The courses I offer regularly are as follows:
- Research Design/The Conduct of Inquiry (POS 6736)
Spring 2016 syllabus
Spring 2014 syllabusThis is an introduction to research methods, both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods. It includes an introduction to in-depth interviewing, participant observation, focus groups, survey research, archival research, and online data sources. I have taught this course each fall since 1998, excepting 2005. This course is required of all incoming doctoral students in the Political Science Department at the University of Florida.
→ Click to read moreThis class is required of all incoming doctoral students. It is an introduction to research design that familiarizes students with a variety of research techniques and data collection methods. It includes both quantitative and qualitative data collection. Students conduct fieldwork and collect data as part of the class requirements. The reading load is light. All students are required to do some survey research. Most will also engage in qualitative data collection or participant observation. Data collection methods include survey research, in-depth interviews, focus groups, and archival research.
This course has been recognized in the profession of political science as an example of how to teach research methods in a manner that encourages methodological pluralism. A description of the course and its pedagogical goals can be found in my chapter in Kristen Renwick Monroe, Perestroika: The Raucous Rebellion in Political Science, Yale University Press, 2005.
This class will be offered by me in the Spring semester, 2012.
The following books were required reading the last time I offered this class in the Fall of 2009.
- Gary King, Robert Keohane, Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry
- Robert Putnam, Making Democracy Work
- H. Russell Bernard, Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches
- Kristen Monroe, ed, Perestroika
- Kristen Monroe, The Hand of Compassion
- Charles Tilly, Popular Contention in Great Britain: 1758-1834
- Marc Howard Ross, The Culture of Conflict
- Jonathan Moses and T. Knutson, Ways of Knowing
- Andrea Press and Elisabeth Cole, Speaking of Abortion
The following articles are required reading for Fall 2009. (N=3)
Clifford Geertz, “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight,” Daedalus, Winter, 1972, reprinted in Clifford Geertz, ed., Myth, Symbol and Culture
Katherine Bischoping and Howard Schuman, “Pens and Polls in Nicaragua: An Analysis of the 1990 Pre-election Surveys,” American Journal of Political Science, Vol 36, 1992
Leslie Anderson, “Neutrality and Bias in the 1990 Nicaraguan Preelection Polls: A Comment on Bischoping and Schuman, American Journal of Political Science, Vol 38, 1994
- Introduction to Comparative Politics (CPO 6091)
Taught 1995, 1996, and every other fall until recently, required of all doctoral students in Political Science who major or minor in Comparative Politics. This course introduces students to the literature in the field of Comparative Politics.
→ Click to read moreThis class is an introduction to the field of comparative politics at the doctoral level. It is recommended for all doctoral students with a major or minor in comparative politics. The purpose of this course is to give students a broad understanding of the field of comparative politics and to introduce them to the current debates and research concerns in the field. The course also covers the major literature on comparative politics and introduces students to some of the newest and best recent literature in comparative politics. A second goal of this course is to help students prepare for the comprehensive exam in comparative politics at the major or minor level. The reading load is heavy for this course and the exam is a smaller version of the comprehensive exam. The course is intellectually demanding and students normally make it one of their top priorities in the semester they take the course.
Readings
The reading load for this course is heavy and is updated every time the course is offered in order to keep the list current with the field of comparative politics. For the fall of 2012, the book list is as follows. These books can be purchased locally or online.
The following books, or parts of books, are required reading.
- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
- Karl Marx, The Portable Karl Marx
- Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
- Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
- Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies
- Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions
- Robert Dahl, Polyarchy
- Robert Putnam, Making Democracy Work
- Leslie Anderson, Social Capital in Developing Democracies
- Amaney Jamal, Barriers to Democracy
- Morris Fiorina, Retrospective Voting (some chapters only)
- Paul Sniderman, Reasoning and Choice (some chapters only)
- V.O. Key, The Responsible Electorate
- Leslie Anderson and Lawrence Dodd, Learning Democracy
- Ronald Inglehart, The Silent Revolution
- Valerie Bunce, Subversive Institutions
- Peter Swenson, Capitalists Against Markets
- Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action
- Albert Hirschman, Shifting Involvements
- James Scott, The Moral Economy of the Peasant
- Kristen Monroe, The Heart of Altruism
- Anthony Marx, Making Race and Nation
- Nancy Bermeo, Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times
- Qualitative Research Methodology (POS 6707)
This course is part of the course roster for the Methodology field and fulfills requirements for the Methodology major or minor for doctoral students in Political Science. I first taught this course in the spring of 2002 and have taught it every other year from then on. This course covers the use of focus groups, content analysis, discourse analysis, archival research and participant observation all in greater depth than covered in the Conduct of Inquiry course (# 1 above)
→ Click to read moreThis class introduces students to qualitative research methodologies. The purpose of the course is the help students understand the value and utility of qualitative methods. These methods have multiple advantages: They allow scholars to be exploratory in their research, conducting research where none has been done before. Qualitative methods may also be more sensitive methods or more unobtrusive. The course covers all of these various advantages to qualitative methods. Additionally, the readings cover ways that qualitative data can be analyzed systematically.
The methods learned in this course include participant observation, discourse analysis, content analysis, archival research, focus groups, in-depth interviewing, and the study of culture. Students do one group project – a focus group project – together. They also do one individual project using one of the qualitative methods studied in this course.
The work load for this class is heavier than for the Conduct of Inquiry course described above. The work load stretches across assigned readings and assigned research projects. The books and articles are a combination of works on methodology and works that exemplify one of the methods studied in the course.
Please note: there are a large number of computer programs that can be used to analyze qualitative data. This class will not cover those programs. The course is about data collection, not about data analysis.
For this class students are required to read the following books and articles:
Books
Catherine Lutz and Abu-Lughod, Language and the Politics of Emotion
Jane Edwards and Martin D. Lampert, Talking Data: Transcription and Coding in Discourse Analysis
H. Russell Bernard, Handbook of Methods in Cultural Anthropology
David W. Stewart and Prem N. Shamdasani, Focus Groups: Theory and Practice
David L. Morgan, Focus Groups as Qualitative Research
Richard A. Krueger, Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research
Herbert J. Rubin and Irene S. Rubin, Qualitative Interviewing – The Art of Hearing Data
Uwe Flick, An Introduction to Qualitative Research
Grant McCracken, The Long Interview
Victor Klemperer, The Language of the Third Reich: LTI: Lingui Tertii Imperii: A Philologist’s Notebook
Kristen Renwick Monroe, The Heart of Altruism
Daniel Levine, Popular Voices in Latin American Catholicism
Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, In the Realm of the Diamond Queen: Marginality in an Out of the Way Place
James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts
Stephen C. Craig, The Malevolent Leaders: Popular Discontent in America
E. Digby Baltzell, Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia: Two Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Class Authority and Leadership
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Death Without WeepingArticles
John F. Padgett and Christopher K. Ansell, “Robust Action and the Rise of the Medici, 1400-1434,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol 98, 1993
- Democracy and Its Competitors
This course is an advanced elective seminar for doctoral students and fulfills requirements for the major and minor in Comparative Politics. The course is considered a “thematic” course, as opposed to a regional-specific course, and covers several regions of the world. These include the United States, Western Europe, Latin America and Africa.
→ Click to read moreThis doctoral seminar is an effort to understand how democracy can bring about its own demise. It is also a effort to understand how and why democracy can live with deeply undemocratic institutions such as apartheid, racism in the United States South and clientelism. We begin by studying several of the foundations of democracy such as the creation of the Constitution, political parties, the presence or absence of democratic social capital and popular contention. We continue with a study of how anti-democratic forces can undermine democracy from within or how democracy can co-exist with authoritarianism. The course is a study of how democracy and authoritarianism can coexist. This is not a course about democratization.
The following books are required reading.
- V.O. Key, Southern Politics in State and Nation
- Michael Coppedge, Strong Parties and Lame Ducks
- Theda Skocpol, Diminished Democracy
- Ashtosh Varshney, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Moslims in India
- Thornton Anderson, Creating the Constitution
- Edward Gibson, Boundary Control: Subnational Authoritarianism in Federal Democracies
- Robert Price, The Apartheid State in Crisis
- Steven Hahn, A Nation Under Our Feet
- James Griffin, Black Like Me
- Edward Jones, The Known World
- Norbert Frei, Adenauer’s Germany and the Nazi Past
- Stanley Payne, Fascism in Spain
- Peter Fritzsche, Germans Into Nazis
- Edith Hann, The Nazi Officer’s Wife
- Susan Eckstein, The Poverty of Revolution (on Mexico)
- Javier Auyero, Poor People’s Politics (on Argentina)
- Leslie Anderson, Democratization by Institutions: Argentina’s Transition Years in Comparative Perspective
- Leslie Anderson, Social Capital in Developing Democracies: Nicaragua and Argentina Compared
- Omar Encarnation, Democracy Without Justice in Spain: The Politics of Forgetting
- Peasant Politics and Society
This course is also an advanced elective seminar for doctoral students and fulfills requirements for the major and minor in comparative Politics. This course is also considered a “thematic” course, as opposed to a regional-specific course, and covers several regions of the world. These include Latin America, Africa, and Asia, including south and southeast Asia as well as China.
→ Click to read moreThis class is an advanced electoral seminar on the politics of the poor. It is an interdisciplinary introduction to the peasantry and the class composition is usually drawn from several departments, including political science, anthropology, and the Masters Program in Latin American Studies at the University of Florida. The class studies peasant culture and politics, with a specific focus on revolution, organized non-violent action, right-wing activism, and non-collective, individual action. This class is currently being offered (Spring, 2009).
The following books are required reading in the class this semester:
E.P. Thompson, “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd,” (2-part article, Past and Present, 1971)
Eric Wolf, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century
A.V. Chayanov, A Theory of Peasant Economy
James Scott, The Moral Economy of the Peasant
Samuel Popkin, The Rational Peasant
Leslie Anderson, The Political Ecology of the Modern Peasant
Robert Paxton, French Peasant Fascism: Henry Dorgere’s Greenshirts adn the Crisis of French Agriculture, 1929-1939
John Farquharson, The Plough and the Swastika
Christopher Boyer, Becoming Campesinos
Victor Magagna, Communities of Grain
John Gaventa, Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in An Appalachian Village
Billie Jean Isbell, To Defend Ourselves: Ecology and Ritual in An Andean Village
Conrad Kottack, Assault on Paradise: Social Change in a Brazilian Village
Beatriz Manz, Paradise in Ashes: A Guatemalan Journey of Courage, Terror and Hope
Jean Hatzfeld, Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak
Adam Ashforth, Witchcraft, Violence and Democracy in South Africa
- Area Studies Courses
- Latin American Politics (CPO 6307/LAS 6938)
- West European Politics (CPO 6107/EUS 6930)
Undergraduate Courses
Upper Division Courses (for Juniors/Seniors)
At the upper division level (juniors/seniors) I offer classes on Latin American politics and a course on Fascism and right-wing populism.
- Latin American Politics (CPO 3303)
This is an overview course covering several different countries and considering the political situation in each.
→ Click to read moreThis class will be offered in the fall of 2012. A tentative syllabus exists and you can access it through the link above. In the fall of 2012 the course will spend two weeks covering general topics in Latin America and then scrutinize more closely four countries: Mexico, Argentina, Nicaragua and Venezuela. This is a good course to take if you are interested in taking Problems in Latin American Politics CPO 4306/LAS 4935, also CPO 4935 (listed next).
The tentative syllabus attached above has approximate dates but not exact dates. The precise dates for the exams and the small group sessions will come later as I finalize the syllabus. The books listed here might change slightly but I intend to use most of them. I may also add several articles to the required reading list. The syllabus as it currently stands, last updated December, 2011, gives you a good idea of what to expect with the course.
Please note: this class is also open to graduate students at the Masters and doctoral levels. In addition to completing the work on the syllabus, graduate students will also be required to write a research paper on a topic of interest to you. You can get graduate credit for this class by signing up for an independent study with me. If you are interested in this option, please contact me. Undergraduate students are not required to write a paper for this class.
- Problems in Latin American Politics (CPO 4306/LAS 4935)
This is a thematic course on the process of democratization in the aftermath of gross human rights violations. It focuses upon Germany, Spain, Argentina, Chile, El Salvador and South Africa.
→ Click to read moreThis course addresses the development of democracy in Latin America and usually covers a smaller number of countries with greater depth. Students are asked to consider what factors enhance or inhibit the develop of democracy in the nations under study. They learn which democratizing nations are more likely to develop consolidated democracies and which are more problematic in their democratic development.
This class will be offered again in the spring of 2007. In that course we will concentrate on the study of social capital. Students intending to take this course should purchase a copy of the following three books: Alexis Tocqueville, Democracy in America, (abbreviated version), Carlos Forment, Democracy in Latin America, and Leslie Anderson/Lawrence Dodd, Learning Democracy. I will also be requiring a basic introductory book on Mexico and one on Peru. These last two books are not yet selected.
In this course we will consider how social capital and associational life has developed in the United States and compare this with Latin America, focussing specifically on Mexico, Peru, and Nicaragua. Students who take this course will be required to participate actively in the classroom life of the course. Each student will make an in-class presentation from some aspect of the readings. The course will also emphasize essay exams, an optional research paper, and extensive class discussion.
If you are looking for a highly intellectual, advanced undergraduate course on democratization and democratic development in Latin America, come join me this spring.
- West European Politics (CPO 3103)
This course covers Britain, France, Sweden and Spain. It examines the coming of democracy, the development of the welfare state attitudes toward the EU and policies to handle the coronavirus.
- Argentina and the Politics of Memory (CPO 4384)
This course considers how the recent past of authoritarianism and human rights continues to influence the modern democracy of today.
→ Click to read moreThis is a new course that has been created and will be offered in 2010. It is open to graduate students as well as to undergraduate students. If you are a grad student and would like to take the course, please contact me. The course considers Argentina’s recent movement from being a dictatorship to being an imperfect democracy where a regular electoral calendar exists but a single predominant party controls the presidency and Congress. Books for this course are as follows (updated 10/09):
- Nicolas Shumway, The Invention of Argentina
- J. Samuel Fitch, The Armed Forces and Democracy in Latin America
- Alison Brysk, The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina: Protest, Change and Democratization
- Carlos Nino, Radical Evil on Trial
- Javier Auyero, Routine Politics and Violence in Argentina: The Gray Zone of State Power
- Rebecca Bill Chavez, The Rule of Law in Nascent Democracies: Judicial Politics in Argentina
- Ariel Dorfman, Death and the Maiden
- Democracy in Dark Times (CPO 3044)
This course focuses on democratic breakdown and decline, comparing Nicaragua, Argentina, Germany, Spain and the United States.
- Fascism in Comparative Perspective
This is a cross-regional course focusing on Western Europe, Latin America, and the United States. It focuses on right-wing populism, popular support for authoritarian movements, and fascism. It considers various versions of fascism and movements within the “magnetic field” of fascism. The course covers Nazism in Germany, Mussolini’s fascism in Italy, Peronism in Argentina, and the KKK in the United States. Some years it may also cover Franco’s fascism in Spain and various fascist movements in France, including Dorgeres and the Croix de Feu.
- Modern Mexico (POS 4931)
This class is being offered in the fall of 2011. This is a specialized course on Mexico which concentrates primarily upon the twentieth century. We cover the advent of the Mexican revolution and the development of the authoritarian system which evolved out of the revolution. We then move on to study the new process of democratization currently underway in Mexico.
Students are required to read five scholarly articles and six books. The books used for this course are as follows (updated 9/08):
- Ramon Eduardo Ruiz, Triumphs and Tragedies: A History of the Mexican People
- Susan Eckstein, The Poverty of Revolution: The State and the Urban Poor in Mexico
- Beatriz Magaloni, Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and Its Demise in Mexico
- John Cross, Informal Politics: Street Vendors and the State in Mexico City
- Jorge Dominguez and James McCann, Democratizing Mexico: Public Opinion and Electoral Choices
- Jonathan Fox, Accountability Politics: Power and Voice in Rural Mexico
- Central America Then and Now
This course is currently under development. It will cover the countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua.
Students will read approximately 6-8 books including:
- Beatriz Manz, Paradise in Ashes, A Guatemalan Journel of Courage, Terror and Hope
- Elizabeth Jean Woods, El Salvador
- Leslie Anderson and Lawrence Dodd, Learning Democracy: Citizen Engagement and Electoral Choice in Nicaragua, 1990-2001
- Carrie Manning, The Making of Democrats: Elections and Party Development in Postwar Bosnia, El Salvador, and Mozambique
- Leslie Anderson, Social Capital in Developing Democracies: Nicaragua and Argentina Compared
- European Dilemmas: Fascism Versus Social Democracy (POS 4931)
This course visits political ideologies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Western Europe. Emphasis is upon the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany and upon the popular attraction of that ideology to citizens. The problems that fascism promised to address (anomie, fear, loss of job security, fear of rapid economic change) were also problems that Marxism wanted to solve. However, both would destroy democracy and did.
- Qualitative Methods (POL 4931, POS 4931)
This is a new course which was offered for the first time in the spring semester, 2009. It is a class on qualitative research methods. Students will learn how to collect qualitative data. The course will not cover computer programs used for analyzing qualitative data. The data collection methods studied will include in-depth interviewing, participant observation and focus groups.
Books required for this course are as follows. They are also on reserve at Library West, 24-hour/overnight reserve.
- Uwe Flick, An Introduction to Qualitative Research, 2nd edition, New York, Sage
- Herbert Rubin and Irene Rubin, Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data, 3rd edition, New York, Sage
- John Gerring, Case Study Research: Principles and Practices, Cambridge University Press, 2007
- Kristen Renwick Monroe, The Hand of Compassion
- Leslie E. Anderson, The Political Ecology of the Modern Peasant: Calculation and Community, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994
- Andrea Press and Elizabeth Cole, Speaking of Abortion: Television and Authority in the Lives of Women, University of Chicago Press, 1999
- Anna Tsing, In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
In previous years the following two books have been required in this course. They are not required for Spring, 2012.
- Kristen Renwick Monroe, The Heart of Altruism: Perceptions of a Common Humanity, Princeton University Press, 1996
- E. Digby Baltzell, Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia
- Research Methods (POS 4734)
This class fulfills the research seminar requirements for undergraduate students who are writing an honors thesis. We will learn to use three methods of collecting qualitative data: in-depth interviews, participant observation and focus groups. The reading (7 books in all) is a combination of works on the research methods themselves and other books that exemplify the use of these methods. This is a chance to learn what doing research looks like and at least one undergraduate student got a summer job doing research based on having taken this course!
Lower Division Courses (for Freshmen/Sophomores)
- Comparative Politics (CPO 2001)
This course is a basic introduction to comparative politics and is required of all majors and minors in political science at the University of Florida. This is an introductory course that focuses upon the relationship between historical development and current political regimes. Countries that I cover in this class include Britain, France and Germany. The class will also cover one or more of the following: China, Russia, Argentina, Mexico, Spain, Nicaragua, South Africa.
If you are a freshman or sophomore deciding whether or not to take my section of CPO 2001 here are some things for you to think about. If you look elsewhere on this web page you will see that I have a research interest in the development of democracy and that I spend a lot of time working with doctoral students (students who are working on getting their PhD.). Both of these two emphases are reflected in my sections of CPO 2001.My sections of the course have two agendae:
- They will introduce you to the basics of politics in the nations we study and
- They will also help you understand how those nations became democracies or why they failed to be democracies.
My sections of CPO 2001 also reflect my frequent work with PhD students. Undergraduate students who have taken CPO 2001 with me tell me that they think my section of 2001 is a highly intellectual, very demanding, with difficult exams and with a scholarly focus because I am a professor who also works with a lot of doctoral students.
In addition to studying specific countries, we will examine broad theories about democratic development, including Robert Dahl’s Polyarchy and Anthony Downs’ A Theory of Economic Democracy.
If this is what you are looking for in a lower division class, then come and join me the next time I teach CPO 2001. You will be very welcome.