Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Statistical analysis

The CIA World Factbook is a treasure trove of statistics that can be used in comparative politics case studies. You know that.

But, the lack of specified exercises analyzing statistical data was one of the main reasons course syllabi required revisions in the AP course audit.

Here is a set of data that could be used.

Present these numbers to your students and ask them if they can find correlations between these statistics and something political (the number of parties, the number of democratic elections, etc.) or a socio-economic characteristic of these countries.

Students should be able to explain either the correlation or the absence of one. The sophistication of the explanation will, of course depend upon their preparation and experience.

Labor Force by occupation (%)

China (2005 est.)
- agriculture: 45%
- industry: 24%
- services: 31%
Iran (2001 est.)
- agriculture: 30%
- industry: 25%
- services: 45%
Mexico (2003)
- agriculture: 18%
- industry: 24%
- services: 58%
Nigeria (1999 est.)
- agriculture: 70%
- industry: 10%
- services: 20%
Russia (2005 est.)
- agriculture: 10.8%
- industry: 29.1%
- services: 60.1%
United Kingdom (2006 est.)
- agriculture: 1.4%
- industry: 18.2%
- services: 80.4%
United States (2006)
- farming, forestry, and fishing 0.7%,
- manufacturing, extraction, transportation, and crafts 22.9%
- managerial, professional, and technical 34.9%
- sales and office 25%
- other services 16.5%
  
  note: figures exclude the unemployed