YouTube master
I mentioned before the rather nifty videos by C.G.P. Grey explaining the UK, England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Great Britain and
How Many Countries Are There?. The guy continues to produce little videos that might be helpful.
His video on the EU seems to concentrate on details and ignore generalizations (which I don't think is terribly helpful), but it sets the stage for some good discussion or writing.
His videos on voting are, IMHO, overly complex, but they do explain some alternatives to first past the post. However, I could not find an explanation of the simple proportional system used in the EU and other European countries.
Take a look. Use what seems helpful. Ignore the rest.
The Difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England Explained
How Many Countries Are There?
The European Union Explained
The (Secret) City of London, Part 1: History
The (Secret) City of London, Part 2: Government
The Problems with First Past the Post Voting Explained
The Alternative Vote Explained
Politics in the Animal Kingdom: Single Transferable Vote
What is STV? Single Transferable Vote Explained...
Extra: STV Election Walkthrough
Footnote * from STV: Proportional Systems vs STV
Footnote † from STV: Switch To STV
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
Just The Facts! is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
Labels: concepts, elections, nation state
Bad year for nation-states?
So, what does this "bad year" mean for comparative government and politics?
Hope springs: This has been a bad year for nation-states.
EVEN with the best will in the world… the outgoing year could not be regarded as one of the planet’s finest. Between war, disease and insurrection, the past 12 months have often seemed a gory relay for the apocalypse’s four horsemen…
In fact 2014 was a bad year for the very concept of countries, as well as for lots of individual nations. The pre-modern marauders of Islamic State (IS) rampaged between Iraq and Syria, and Russian forces dismembered Ukraine, as if borders were elastic lines rather than fixed frontiers. Boko Haram traduced the sovereignty of Nigeria while the Shabab convulsed the Horn of Africa. South Sudan, a brand new country born only three years ago, imploded in civil war.
But other territories have bravely resisted disintegration… The peshmerga of Iraqi Kurdistan—not yet a country but perhaps on its way to that status—repelled the jihadists of IS and may have saved Baghdad. In a different, democratic kind of confrontation, but in its way an equally vigorous one, the people of Scotland wisely voted not to end three centuries of union and stayed in the United Kingdom…
Disaster has been averted elsewhere, too. Senegal responded with alacrity to its Ebola outbreak (as indeed did Nigeria). Afghanistan remains one of the world’s bleakest places, but it looks a little less bleak after a peaceful handover of power: the Taliban are still slaughtering people, but politically they are a busted flush. Tiny Lebanon deserves a mention for absorbing hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees, plus the machinations of malignant outsiders, and continuing, just about, to function…
On our home turf of economics there have been some standout performances. Ireland and Iceland have both pulled clear of trouble, showing that democracies can, after all, implement painful decisions when they must. Unusually among euro-zone countries, Estonia has kept its nose clean. Narendra Modi’s victory in India may come to be seen as the moment the world’s biggest democracy began to realise its vast potential. We may find that out in 2015, too…
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
Looking for a guide through the textbook and the course?
What You Need to Know SIXTH edition is ready to help.
Labels: concepts, nation state
What is a country?
Heather Tafel, a professor at
Grand Valley State University in Allendale, MI,
posted a link to this really fine video introduction to the question, "What is a country?"
She asks, "Should I show this at the beginning of all my classes?"
I can't answer her question, but I think it would go very well with the introduction to comparative politics.
PS: Thanks, Heather Tafel.
How many countries are there?
How many countries are there? Easy: just grab a map and start counting, yes? No…
Go to the United Nations, find the room where the countries sit — each one with a little name tag — start counting and get an answer…
Teaching Comparative blog
entries are indexed.
The Second Edition of What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools is now available from the publisher
The Fifth Edition of What You Need to Know is also available from the publisher.
Labels: concepts, nation state, sovereignty
Nation state (1648-2030)
This ought to give your students something to discuss and write about. As a technicality, they ought to mentally insert "nation state" into the text wherever Parag Khanna writes "state" or "nation."
Parag Khanna is a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation.
The End of the Nation-State?
EVERY five years, the United States National Intelligence Council… publishes a report forecasting the long-term implications of global trends. Earlier this year it released its latest report, “Alternative Worlds,” which included scenarios for how the world would look a generation from now.
One scenario, “Nonstate World,” imagined a planet in which urbanization, technology and capital accumulation had brought about a landscape where governments had given up on real reforms and had subcontracted many responsibilities to outside parties, which then set up enclaves operating under their own laws…
[M]ost of us might not realize it, “nonstate world” describes much of how global society already operates. This isn’t to say that states have disappeared, or will. But they are becoming just one form of governance among many.
A quick scan across the world reveals that where growth and innovation have been most successful, a hybrid public-private, domestic-foreign nexus lies beneath the miracle. These aren’t states; they’re “para-states” — or, in one common parlance, “special economic zones.”…
In 1980, Shenzhen became China’s first; now they blanket China, which has become the world’s second largest economy.
The Arab world has more than 300 of them…
This complex layering of territorial, legal and commercial authority goes hand in hand with the second great political trend of the age: devolution.
In the face of rapid urbanization, every city, state or province wants to call its own shots. And they can, as nations depend on their largest cities more than the reverse…
Scotland and Wales in Britain, the Basque Country and Catalonia in Spain, British Columbia in Canada, Western Australia and just about every Indian state — all are places seeking maximum fiscal and policy autonomy from their national capitals.
Devolution is even happening in China. Cities have been given a long leash to develop innovative economic models, and Beijing depends on their growth…
The broader consequence of these phenomena is that we should think beyond clearly defined nations and “nation building” toward integrating a rapidly urbanizing world population directly into regional and international markets. That, rather than going through the mediating level of central governments, is the surest path to improving access to basic goods and services, reducing poverty, stimulating growth and raising the overall quality of life…
And yet more fragmentation and division, even new sovereign states, are a crucial step in a longer process toward building transnational stability among neighbors.
Teaching Comparative blog
entries are indexed.
The Second Edition of What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools is now available from the publisher
The Fifth Edition of What You Need to Know is also available from the publisher.
Labels: concepts, devolution, nation state, state
