Week 1 (01/24 - 01/30)
Meetings: Monday (01/25)This week's readings: Nature abhors a vacuum of order
In Class- Henry Farrell. “Dark Leviathan: The Silk Road might have started as a libertarian experiment, but it was doomed to end as a fiefdom run by pirate kings.” Aeon. 20 February, 2015.
- David Skarbek on Prison Gangs and the Social Order of the Underworld. EconTalk podcast. March 2015. (If you prefer, you can read the article below)
- Olson, Mancur. 1993. "Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development." American Political Science Review 87(3): 567-576.
Further reading:- Skarbek, David. "Governance and prison gangs." American Political Science Review 105.04 (2011): 702-716.
- Introduction and Chapter 1 of Gambetta, D. (1996). The Sicilian Mafia: the business of private protection. Harvard University Press. (Dropbox)
- Chapter 2 of David J. Samuels (2012). Comparative Politics. Pearson Higher Education. (Dropbox)
- Barry Weingast on the Violence Trap. August 2013. EconTalk.
- Ostrom, Elinor. "Collective Action and the Evolution of Social Norms." The Journal of Economic Perspectives 14.3 (2000): 137-158.
Wikipedia essentials
In Class- Overview of the course
- Why and how Wikipedia will be used in the course
- Walk through the anatomy of Wikipedia with a few examples
- Peacekeeping
- Check out usage statistics
- Review content
- State-building
- Lengthy but flagged for need of clean-up and experts
- There are huge topic areas not covered: influential historical accounts, major theories, examples
- Possibly could benefit from linking to and developing key sub-articles, and better listing and organizing these links
- The Better Angels of Our Nature
- Fairly lengthy book review with moderate amount on talk page
- Note part of abooks project, where it is labeled Start class, so in need of more development
- The Civilizing Process
- Relatively little coverage, despite being a longtime influential book and backbone of the Peter Singer book
- Peacekeeping
- Options:
- Re-organizing and adding to a major page like State-building or Rebellion
- Creating/adding key articles that feed into these big topics and linking to them (such as theories of rebellion, or the academic literature on peacekeeping)
- Adding or improving a book summary and integrating it into relevant topic articles
- The class could even work collaboratively on different pieces of a larger concept, such as State-building
Handout: Editing WikipediaIn-class discussion (every week)
Assignment- This "assignment" covers my expectations for every week of the course until the end.
- Every week you'll be expected to arrive to class have read the assigned book or articles.
- You should read these readings "critically", meaning you think about the research question, the hypothesis, whether the evidence or argument is convincing and complete, strengths, weaknesses, and why the idea is important. You may want to take notes and make summaries.
- You may also want to look at whether and how the material is covered in Wikipedia.
- Every week, at least half to three quarters of the class time will be spent discussing these articles: the ideas in them, strengths and weaknesses, and how they further our learning goals in the course. I as your instructor will lead the discussion and pose questions, but you should also feel free to pose questions or topics for discussion.
- Your critical discussion and contributions, including demonstration that you read and understood the readings, will be approximately a third of your course grade.
Practicing the basics
Assignment -Due: 2016-02-01
- Create an account and join this course page.
- Complete the introductory training modules. During this training, you will make edits in a sandbox and learn the basic rules of Wikipedia.
- Create a User page.
- To practice editing and communicating on Wikipedia, introduce yourself to another student on their user talk page.
- Explore topics related to your topic area to get a feel for how Wikipedia is organized. What areas seem to be missing? As you explore, make a mental note of articles that seem like good candidates for improvement.
Week 2 (01/31 - 02/06)
Meetings: Monday (02/01)This week's readings: Violence
In Class- Amos Sawyer (2004). "Violent conflicts and governance challenges in West Africa:
the case of the Mano River basin area." The Journal of Modern African Studies 42(03). - James Fearon (1995). “Rationalist Explanations for War,” International Organization 49(3), p379-414.
- Tilly, Charles (1985). “War making and state making as organized crime,” in Bringing the State Back In, eds P.B. Evans, D. Rueschemeyer, & T. Skocpol. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
- Robert Kaplan. "The Coming Anarchy," The Atlantic, February 1994.
Further reading- Blattman, Christopher, and Edward Miguel. "Civil War." Journal of Economic Literature 48.1 (2010): 3-57.
- de la Sierra, Raúl Sánchez. 2015. “On the Origin of States: Stationary Bandits and Taxation in Eastern Congo.” Working paper.
- Collier, Paul, and Anke Hoeffler. "Greed and grievance in civil war." Oxford economic papers 56.4 (2004): 563-595.
- Amos Sawyer (2004). "Violent conflicts and governance challenges in West Africa:
Editing basics
In Class- Understanding Wikipedia as a community, we'll discuss its expectations and etiquette.
- Basics of editing
- Anatomy of Wikipedia articles, what makes a good article, how to distinguish between good and bad articles
- Collaborating and engaging with the Wiki editing community
- Tips on finding the best articles to work on for class assignments
Copyedit an article
Assignment -Due: 2016-02-08
Plagiarism Start - Choose one article, identify ways in which you can improve and correct its language and grammar, and make the appropriate changes. You can also highlight statements in need of citation, or more reliable sourcing. Note: You do not need to alter the article's substantive content or add sources; we will be doing this in a couple of weeks. Just copyedit.
Exploring the topic area
Assignment -Due: 2016-02-08
- In a couple of weeks you'll need to formally suggest a term project to work on, so this is a chance to look around informally and get some guidance in class.
- Look around Wikipedia in the topic area of the course. Don't just look at main pages, but also at smaller and more specialized sub-pages and specialized articles. Are major academic theories or ideas weakly covered? Are there major books with no summary (or a poor one)? Do articles use and reference modern social science?
- In the next class, be prepared to talk about some of your observations about
Wikipedia articles in your topic area that are missing or could use
improvement. - This assignment is formally ungraded, but your contributions next week will be reflected in your broader class participation/discussion grade.
Everyone has a Wikipedia account
MilestoneAll students have Wikipedia user accounts and are listed on the course page.
Week 3 (02/07 - 02/13)
Meetings: Monday (02/08)This week's readings: The State
In Class- Pages 1-24 of Timothy Besley and Suresh Naidu (2015). “Chapter 21: Political Economy,” core-econ.org (Dropbox)
- Herbst, Jeffrey. "War and the State in Africa." International Security (1990): 117-139.
- Chapter 1 of Dipali Mukhopadhyay. 2014. Warlords, strongman governors, and the state in Afghanistan. Cambridge University Press. (Dropbox or the Kindle version of Chapter 1 is available on Amazon for free by clicking on “Send a free sample”)
- Chapter 10 (Conclusions) in James C. Scott. (1998). Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. (Dropbox)
Further reading:- Introduction to James C. Scott. (1998). Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. (Dropbox)
- Paul Seabright. 1999. “The Aestheticising Vice,” London Review of Books 21(11), p.26-27
- Pritchett, Lant, Michael Woolcock, and Matt Andrews. "Looking like a state: techniques of persistent failure in state capability for implementation." The Journal of Development Studies 49.1 (2013): 1-18.
- Chinese Legalism, BBC4 In Our Times podcast
- James A. Robinson (2002). "States and Power in Africa by Jeffrey I. Herbst: A Review Essay." Journal of Economic Literature 40(2): 510-519.
- Barry Weingast on Law. EconTalk. August 2014.
- Vu, Tuong. "Studying the state through state formation." World politics 62.01 (2010): 148-175.
- Spruyt, Hendrik. "The origins, development, and possible decline of the modern state." Annual Review of Political Science 5.1 (2002): 127-149.
Exploring the topic area
In Class- Be prepared to discuss in class some of your observations about Wikipedia articles in your topic area that are missing or could use improvement.
Handouts: Choosing an articleUsing sources
In Class- Be prepared to explain close paraphrasing, plagiarism, and copyright violations on Wikipedia.
Supplementary training: Sources and CitationsAdd to an article
Assignment- Choose a source (one of the short readings from this week, a previous week, a future week, or one that you know from another course).
- Choose a Wikipedia article related to the class, where an insight from this source is relevant. Ideally this is an article where the substantive point is not already made, and it is in need of content and sourcing.
- Add the new information to the Wikipedia article, backed up with a citation to your source. It could be as little as a sentence, though, as Wikipedia advises, feel free to "be bold".
Week 4 (02/14 - 02/20)
Meetings: Monday (02/15)This week's readings: Insitutions
In Class- Alex Tabarrok. "The Ferguson Kleptocracy," Marginal Revolution (blog post)
- North, Douglass Cecil. Transaction costs, institutions, and economic performance. San Francisco, CA: ICS Press, 1992.
- Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson. (2005). "Institutions as a fundamental cause of long-run growth." Handbook of Economic Growth 1: 385-472.
Further reading:- Douglass C. North, John J. Wallis & Barry R. Weingast (2009). Violence and the rise of open-access orders. Journal of Democracy, 20(1), 55-68.
- Rodrik, Dani. "When Ideas Trump Interests: Preferences, Worldviews, and Policy Innovations." The Journal of Economic Perspectives 28.1 (2014): 189-208.
- Glaeser, Edward L., et al. "Do institutions cause growth?" Journal of Economic Growth 9.3 (2004): 271-303.
- Dell, Melissa, Nathan Lane, and Pablo Querubin. "State Capacity, Local Governance, and Economic Development in Vietnam." (2015).
- Akee, Randall, Miriam Jorgensen, and Uwe Sunde. "Critical junctures and economic development–Evidence from the adoption of constitutions among American Indian Nations." Journal of Comparative Economics 43.4 (2015): 844-861.
- Abhijit Banerjee and Lakshmi Iyer, "History, Institutions and Economic Performance: the Legacy of Colonial Land Tenure Systems in India." American Economic Review 95, no. 4 (September 2005): 1190-1213.
Choosing your article
Assignment -Due: 2016-02-22
- Research and list 3–5 articles on your Wikipedia user page that you will consider working on as your main project. Look at the talk page for existing topics for a sense of who else is working on it and what they're doing. Describe your choices to your instructor for feedback.
- If you are writing a senior essay or a term paper for another class, do not choose the same topic. Feel free to choose a close or complementary topic, but not an identical one.
Week 5 (02/21 - 02/27)
Meetings: Monday (02/22)This week's readings: Geographic origins of poltical and economic development
In Class- Diamond, Jared (1998). "The evolution of guns and germs." Chapter 3 of Evolution: Society, science, and the universe, edited by A. C. Fabian. (Dropbox)
- Engerman, Stanley L, and Kenneth L Sokoloff. 2005. “Institutional and Non-Institutional Explanations of Economic Differences.” In Handbook of New Institutional Economics, edited by C Menard and M.M. Shirley, 639–65. Amsterdam: Springer.
- Nugent, Jeffrey B., and James A. Robinson. "Are factor endowments fate?." Revista de Historia Economica 28.1 (2010): 45. (Skip the math)
Further reading:- Mellinger, Andrew D., Jeffrey D. Sachs, and John L. Gallup (1999). “Climate, Water
Navigability, and Economic Development” - Marcella Alsan (2012). “The Effect of the Tse Tse Fly on African Development,” unpublished working paper.
- Nunn, Nathan, and Diego Puga. 2010. “Ruggedness: The Blessing of Bad Geography in Africa.” Review of Economics and Statistics 94 (1): 20–36.
Discuss the article topics
In Class- Discuss the topics students will be working on, and determine strategies for researching and writing about them.
Supplementary training: Sandboxes and Mainspace
Finalize your topic and start researching
Assignment -Due: 2016-02-29
- Select an article to work on, removing the rest from your user page. Add your topic on the course page. Remember this should not be the identical topic as one of your other term papers or senior essay.
- Spend some time looking around Wikipedia for articles related to your topic, whether they are broader or have parallels. How is the information organized? How should your article fit in? Are you sure you are editing in the right place, or addressing the topic in the right way?
- Compile a bibliography of relevant, reliable sources and post it to the talk page of the article you are working on. Begin reading the sources. Make sure to check in on the talk page (or watchlist) to see if anyone has advice on your bibliography.
Week 6 (02/28 - 03/05)
Meetings: Monday (02/29)This week's readings: Theories of institutional development
In Class- Douglass C. North, John J. Wallis & Barry R. Weingast (2009). Violence and the rise of open-access orders. Journal of Democracy, 20(1), 55-68.
- Sections 5 to 10: Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson. (2005). "Institutions as a fundamental cause of long-run growth." Handbook of Economic Growth 1: 385-472.
- (Pages 1-6 only) Mahoney, James. 2001. “Path-Dependent Explanations of Regime Change: Central America in Comparative Perspective.” Studies in Comparative International Development 36 (1): 111–41.
Further reading:- Pierson, Paul. "Increasing returns, path dependence, and the study of politics." American Political Science Review (2000): 251-267.
Wikipedia culture and etiquette
In Class- Talk about Wikipedia culture and etiquette, and (optionally) revisit the concept of sandboxes and how to use them.
- Q&A session with instructor about interacting on Wikipedia and getting started with writing.
Drafting starter articles
Assignment -Due: 2016-03-07
Sandboxes and Mainspace Start - If you are starting a new article, write a 3–4 paragraph summary version of your article—with citations—in your Wikipedia sandbox. If you are improving an existing article, create a detailed outline reflecting your proposed changes, and post this for community feedback, along with a brief description of your plans, on the article’s talk page. Make sure to check back on the talk page often and engage with any responses.
- Begin working with classmates and other editors to polish your short starter article and fix any major issues.
- Continue research in preparation for expanding your article.
Week 7 (03/06 - 03/12)
Meetings: Monday (03/07)This week's readings: Background for your article
In ClassYou should start reading several articles or other sources relevant to your toipic. Feel free to speak to me about suggestions. We will spend the class looking at your starter articles, spending about 5-10 minutes on each person's article with the rest of the class.Students have started editing
MilestoneAll students have started editing articles or drafts on Wikipedia.
Building articles
In ClassReading over the break
AssignmentWe will be discussing two big books after the break, by Migdal and Pinker. This will mean an unusual amount of reading. But they are really, really good books. Migdal is one of my favorite books in all of political science. Pinker is one of the most widely-read and influential books on violence written this century.
Week 9 (03/20 - 03/26)
Meetings: Monday (03/21)This week's readings: Strong societies
In Class- Chapter 1 of Scott, J. C. (2009). The art of not being governed: An anarchist history of upland Southeast Asia, Yale University Press (Dropbox)
- Putnam, Robert D. "What makes democracy work?" National Civic Review 82.2 (1993):
101-107. - Clark, William Roberts, Matt Golder, and Sona N. Golder. "Power and politics: insights from an exit, voice, and loyalty game." Unpublished manuscript, University of Michigan and Pennsylvania State University (2013).
Further reading:- Preface (p. ix-xxvi) in James C. Scott. (2012). Two Cheers for Anarchism. (Dropbox)
- Introduction (p.1-8) and Chapter 10 (Conclusions) in James C. Scott. (1998). Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. (Dropbox)
- Paul Seabright. 1999. “The Aestheticising Vice,” London Review of Books 21(11), p.26-27
- Ursula Le Guin, The Dispossessed.
- Ostrom, Elinor. "Collective Action and the Evolution of Social Norms." The Journal of Economic Perspectives 14.3 (2000): 137-158.
- Fukuyama, Francis. "Social capital, civil society and development." Third world quarterly 22.1 (2001): 7-20.
- “Paul Robinson on Cooperation, Punishment and the Criminal Justice System,” EconTalk Episode with Russ Robert, August 31, 2015.
- De Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy in America.
- Welzel, Christian, and Ronald Inglehart. "The role of ordinary people in democratization." Journal of Democracy 19.1 (2008): 126-140.
- Leeson, Peter T. "Pirates, prisoners, and preliterates: anarchic context and the private enforcement of law." European Journal of Law and Economics 37.3 (2014):
365-379.
Moving articles to mainspace
In Class- We'll discuss moving your article out of your sandboxes and into Wikipedia's main space.
- A general reminder: Don't panic if your contribution disappears, and don't try to force it back in.
- Check to see if there is an explanation of the edit on the article's talk page. If not, (politely) ask why it was removed.
- Contact your instructor or Wikipedia Content Expert and let them know.
Handout: Moving out of your Sandbox
Moving articles to mainspace
Assignment -Due: 2016-03-28
- Move your sandbox articles into main space.
- If you are expanding an existing article, copy your edit into the article. If you are making many small edits, save after each edit before you make the next one. Do NOT paste over the entire existing article, or large sections of the existing article.
- If you are creating a new article, do NOT copy and paste your text, or there will be no record of your work history. Follow the instructions in the "Moving out of your sandbox" handout.
- If you are expanding an existing article, copy your edit into the article. If you are making many small edits, save after each edit before you make the next one. Do NOT paste over the entire existing article, or large sections of the existing article.
- Begin expanding your article into a comprehensive treatment of the topic.
- Move your sandbox articles into main space.
Move your article proposals to the talk page
Assignment -Due: 2016-03-21
- Before the break you provided article summaries to me in your sandboxes, and I gave you feedback
- Based on that feedback, add your planned changes to the Talk page as soon as possible, to see if there is feedback from other Wikipedians.
- Make sure you use the appropriate formatting, sign your suggestions, use the : for replies, etc.
- It seems like the style of talk pages is not to add one big heading with all your proposed changes, but rather to break it up by theme or major type of proposal. You will probably add many headings with comments, each related to a different aspect or part of the article.
- If you are collaborating with someone else in the class, you will often be adding to the same subsections on the talk page, rather than creating duplicate ones. You can reply to one another and put some of your discussion.
Week 10 (03/27 - 04/02)
Meetings: Monday (03/28)This week's readings: The Case of Central America
In Class- Central American Crisis, Wikipedia
- Part I (up to end of Chapter 3) of Paige, Jeffery M. 1998. Coffee and Power: Revolution and the Rise of Democracy in Central America. Harvard University Press. (Buy on Amazon or find on library reserve)
- (Remainder of article) Mahoney, James. 2001. “Path-Dependent Explanations of Regime Change: Central America in Comparative Perspective.” Studies in Comparative International Development 36 (1): 111–41.
Further reading:- Review from Week 5: Nugent, Jeffrey B., and James A. Robinson. "Are factor endowments fate?." Revista de Historia Economica 28.1 (2010): 45. (Skip the math)
- Part 4 of Coffee and Power, especially Chapter 10
Week 11 (04/03 - 04/09)
Meetings: Monday (04/04)This week's readings: The origins of weak societies and weak states
In Class- Migdal, Joel S. Strong societies and weak states: state-society relations and state capabilities in the Third World. Princeton University Press, 1988 (Buy on Amazon)
- Migdal, Joel S. Strong societies and weak states: state-society relations and state capabilities in the Third World. Princeton University Press, 1988 (Buy on Amazon)
Choose articles to peer review
Assignment -Due: 2016-04-11
- I will assign you two classmates’ articles that you will peer review and copyedit. On the table at the bottom of this course page, add your username next to the articles you will peer review. (You don’t need to start reviewing yet.)
Week 12 (04/10 - 04/16)
Meetings: Monday (04/11)Complete first draft
Assignment -Due: 2016-04-18
- Expand your article into a complete first, rough draft.
- Your classmates will need this for peer review so be sure to complete it on time (the 18th)
NO CLASS THIS WEEK
In ClassI will be out of town and so you should use this week to read more deeply in your subject and complete your first draft.
Week 13 (04/17 - 04/23)
Meetings: Monday (04/18)Peer review and copyedit
Assignment -Due: 2016-04-25
Peer review Start - Peer review two of your classmates’ articles. Leave suggestions on the article talk pages.
- Copy-edit the two reviewed articles.
Supplementary training: Peer Review- Peer review two of your classmates’ articles. Leave suggestions on the article talk pages.
This week's readings: Strengthening states and society
In Class- Pritchett, Lant, Michael Woolcock, and Matt Andrews. "Looking like a state: techniques of persistent failure in state capability for implementation." The Journal of Development Studies 49.1 (2013): 1-18.
- Linz, Juan J. "State building and nation building." European Review 1.04 (1993): 355-369.
- Herbst, Jeffrey. "Migration, the politics of protest, and state consolidation in Africa." African Affairs (1990): 183-203.
Further reading- Rauch, James E., and Peter B. Evans. 2000. “Bureaucratic Structure and Bureaucratic Performance in Less Developed Countries.” Journal of Public Economics 75 (1): 49–71.
- Posen, Barry R. "Nationalism, the mass army, and military power." International Security (1993): 80-124.
- Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson. 2015. “Paths to Inclusive Political Institutions”
- Weber, Eugen. Peasants into Frenchmen: the modernization of rural France, 1870-1914. Stanford University Press, 1976.
- Weber, Max. From Max Weber: essays in sociology. Routledge, 2009.
- Robb, Graham. The discovery of France. Pan Macmillan, 2008.
Group suggestions
In Class
Week 14 (04/24 - 04/30)
Meetings: Monday (04/25)Peer reviews are complete
MilestoneEvery student has finished reviewing their assigned articles, making sure that every article has been reviewed.
This week's readings: TBD
In ClassDiscuss further article improvements
In Class- Continue discussing how the articles can be further improved. Come up with improvement goals for each article for next week.
- Think about what broader articles your article should speak to, and how they could connect
Address peer review suggestions
Assignment -Due: 2016-05-02
- Make edits to your article based on peers’ feedback. If you disagree with a suggestion, use talk pages to politely discuss and come to a consensus on your edit.
Week 15 (05/01 - 05/05)
Meetings: Monday (05/02)This week's readings: TBD
In ClassReflections on process
In Class- Before class, you should prepare some reflective notes on your experiences with Wikipedia, what you learned, what you would do differently in future, and how your ideas about online information has been shaped by the experience.
Final article
Assignment -Due: 2016-05-05
- Add final touches to your Wikipedia article.
- Are there lists, disambiguation entries, or major topic articles where your article should be included?
Handout: Polishing your articleAll article edits are complete
MilestoneBy the end of reading period (May 5) students have finished all their work on Wikipedia that will be considered for grading.