Session 5: October 8

The Future of Democracy

Readings: 

• Diamond chapter 13 (291-313), chapter 14 (314-344) and chapter 15 (345-369)
•  Choose ONE of Diamond’s chapters 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12

Assignment: Write a double-spaced English essay addressing one of the following prompts. The essay should be at least 2 pages in length; it may be up to 5 pages in length:

• Describe a research project you could do in Taiwan or elsewhere that would test a proposition about democratization or democratic decline that was covered in this course. Identify your dependent and independent variables, explain how you would measure them, and offer at least one hypothesis.
• Describe an action you could take to promote democratization, oppose democratic decline, or undermine democracy in a particular country. Your action must be informed by the studies we read for this course. You should identify the country you are writing about and refer to its specific conditions to explain why your action will work. You also should explicitly link your action to at least one of the studies we have read: What does the study (or studies) say about democratization or democratic decline, and how does your action make use of that insight to achieve its goals?