Chapter 8

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SAGE Journals User Guide

Gandhi, J. & Przeworski, A. (November 2007). Authoritarian Institutions and the Survival of Autocrats. Comparative Political Studies 40(11). 1279-3101.

• Based on the evidence the authors present, explain how authoritarian rulers stay in power.
   
• What methods do the authors use to arrive at their findings?

Durant, T.C. & Weintraub, M. (January 2014). An Institutional Remedy for Ethnic Patronage Politics. Journal of Theoretical Politics 26(1). 59-78.

• What problem do the authors propose to solve with their new electoral mechanism? Describe the mechanism and its intended effect.
   
• How do they test their proposal?
   
• What conclusions do they reach?

Reuter, O.J. & Remington, T. F. (April 2009). Dominant Party Regimes and the Commitment Problem: The Case of United Russia. Comparative Political Studies 42(4). 501-526.

• What is the authors’ main argument and how is it situated in relationship to existing scholarship?
   
• How do they conceptualize the idea of a “dominant party”? What are its main features? What important problems does it pose to the political system?
   
• What do the authors say the example of Russia tells us about dominant parties?

Stockmann, D. & Gallagher, M. E. (April 2011). Remote Control: How the Media Sustain Authoritarian Rule in China. Comparative Political Studies 44(4). 436-467.

• To what major research question are the authors responding, and how do they characterize their contribution?
   
• Summarize the authors’ findings about how the Chinese media handle news about labor issues and describe what they say are the political implications.