Imagine that you are a country desk analyst at the U.S. State Department.  You have been asked to explain and assess the current prospects for democratization efforts and the creation of a stable democratic regime in one of the countries below. 

Bangladesh, Iraq, Kenya, Kazakhstan, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Peru, Thailand 

Please write a five- to six-page research paper (approximately 1,700-1,800 words) in which you analyze the prospects for successful democratization and democratic consolidation in one of those countries.  

For this paper, you should draw on information from Dahl’s Polyarchy and the other articles we have read in the first weeks of the course (eg., Inglehart, Putnam, Bermeo, Berman, Kapstein and Converse, Glazer, Lipset, Houle), as well as 10-12 outside sources.  They should include articles and data from the following sources: 

The World Values Survey, Journal of Democracy, Freedom House, Polity Project, National Democratic Institute, International Republican Institute, the World Bank, OECD, OSCE, The European Commission, The Economist, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, the BBC, Pew Research Foundation, the United Nations, academic articles that you find on Project Muse, Academic Search Complete, Jstor and Lexis/Nexis, and other LBIS databases, and reports from think tanks such as the Brookings Institution, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Wilson Center, and the Council on Foreign Relations. 

The paper should include economic, political, and/or survey data. I expect all of you to consult the online analysis done by the World Values Survey Wave 7 data, if your country is included. I am posting directions on how to use the World Values Survey on the Moodle site. 

The more sources you consult, the better able you will be to provide a thorough analysis, even if you do not incorporate all of the sources into your paper.  I expect more than just a Google Search or a few newspaper articles. A good research paper requires more research than you will use in writing your paper. 

The paper should be a balanced analysis that evaluates both the factors that favor and the factors that present challenges to the establishment and maintenance of a stable democratic regime in the country and conclude with your assessment of the likelihood of democratization.  

The paper needs to be focused.  Please do not try to address all of the factors we have discussed in class.  Instead, choose two or three that you think are most important and relevant to your case.  Factors can include, among other things, economic inequality, economic development, education, religious or social cleavages in the society, attitudes of citizens, social and political trust, or the actions and attitudes of political leaders or the military, or foreign control.  Choose the factors that are the most important challenges and the most important positive factors in the county.  It is important that you explain how and why these factors are important to the democratization process and that you then provide empirical evidence about the country to support your argument. 

The paper must have an introduction with a thesis statement and a conclusion.  It must provide specific evidence from both the class texts and outside sources to substantiate your points. The paper should be double-spaced, in an easy-to-read 12-point font. Please number your pages.  Please include a title page with your name and country you are assessing and a word count. 

The paper must include a bibliography of all the articles/reports that you use, including the class readings. You must also footnote all information that you use or paraphrase including all statistics. (The bibliography and footnotes do not count toward the page limit). Please use the guide I have posted on the Moodle page as a guide to the use of citations.  Please proofread your paper since I deduct for errors. 

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