Theories of Comparative Politics
Research Paper Topic Proposal:
Country: Spain
With the country you have chosen, you will complete a research paper (“state of the nation”) assessing the following attributes of your chosen country:
| State Capacity | • Development |
| • Democratization | • Civil Society |
Key to your paper is to think critically about the issues at hand. Some important areas to address are:
- What is the status of the country in terms of state capacity, democratization, development, and civil society?
- What are the challenges for this country to progress in each of these areas?
- Is the country a consolidated democracy?
- What are some of the greatest challenges the state faces?
Instructions:
You will turn in a one-page single spaced proposal that provides a general outline of the paper, including a bibliography. In this proposal, an introductory paragraph to introduce the country you chose to write on and how you plan to proceed is necessary. Then, devote one paragraph each to discuss your approach to the 4 variables under study (state capacity, development, democracy, and civil society). Strong proposals might already identify at least one of greatest challenges facing the state I will be looking for a minimum of 10 academic sources for this paper. These are scholarly articles and books (you can use sources we have read in class but I also expect you to find your own materials as well).