Now that we’ve explored what states are, this week, we’ll start to dig into the specific institutions found within states. If you’re familiar with US government, you’ve probably have heard about the three branches- legislative, executive, and judicial- this is common in presidential systems. But you may be surprised to learn that several countries combine two of those branches- parliamentary systems have a fused legislative and executive branch. To make things even more confusing, there’s a handful of countries that do a hybrid of both- semi-presidential systems. And since we’re getting into the confusing stuff, it’s important to remember that pretty much every country has some kind of legislature (even the non-democratic states!), and every country has an executive. This week, we’ll look at legislatures, while next week we’ll be looking at executives and bureacracies. We’ll compare how different legislatures are structured, what they do, and how members get elected (or otherwise come into the job, as again, many non-democratic countries have legislatures!), and begin to answer a little bit of the question of why some countries have many political parties, while others just have two (or one).

It does get confusing, so make sure you have done at least a little reading before our Tuesday class. We’ve had a small uptake on the blog (where you can now learn about several cases, courtesy of your classmates). If you’re still behind on you blogging, you need to get going. If you have questions or I can be of assistance, please come see me in office hours on Tuesday from 3-4pm, or email me to make an appointment at a time that works for you.