This week we’ll be discussing types of states – democracies and non-democracies.  We don’t have Litmus Paper or yardsticks for democracy- we don’t even have one single definition of what democracy is, or one single way to measure it- instead, we have lots!   Despite the conflict over defining and measuring democracy, there is pretty wide consensus on needing participation and contestation, as well as some limits on government power, but the exact forms vary widely from democracy to democracy, as we will discuss.  Spoiler alert for next week: sub-types of non-democracies vary even more widely, though we will discuss commonalities that can be found across democracies and non-democracies in class on Tuesday.  Think about your case study countries- are they democracies or non-democracies?  On what evidence are you basing your decision?  (Hint: you can find handy evidence to support your claim at Freedom House, Varieties of Democracy, Democracy Matrix, Polity, and other datasets- each project measures in its own way, so make sure you read the methodology section to find out how they make their determinations).

I apologize again for having to miss class last week- it could not be helped, and I appreciate your grace. We’ll discuss a little of the executive institutions in class this week (fortunately, we already started that discussion in week 4, as many systems have fused executive and legislative branches (do you remember what they are called?). We’ll also be doing some work in class together this week, so make sure you are ready to go at 1:15 on Tuesday! For the rest of the week, remember to keep going (or get started) on your blogging, and check out the Weekly Work for Week 6 (and any other weeks you need to catch up on). Please note that your midterm exam (online, open-book, you can take it as many times as you like) will be open at the end of next week (October 25-27), so please block out some time now in your schedule (and set an alarm on your phone) so you remember to take it!