POLS2010 Comparative Politics

How POLS2010 is assessed

These four weights come from the Semester 2, 2026 class summary on the ANU Programs and Courses website and total 100%. The Course assessment information page on Canvas lists a different split: a 30% mid-semester exam, a 40% final exam and 30% of tutorial exercises chosen from six topics, with no separate participation mark. Both sources agree on the 40% final exam, so check Canvas for the current mid-semester and participation weights.

Current POLS2010 dates

Dates are as published in the Semester 2, 2026 class summary. Confirm exact deadlines and submission settings in the live LMS.

What POLS2010 covers

Twelve chapters follow the teaching weeks, from the comparative method and regime types through legislatures, federalism, cleavages, parties, bureaucracy and elections, to case studies of Indigenous peoples, Russia and the United Kingdom, and globalization.

Its opening questions are the ones comparativists have argued about for decades: why some countries democratise while others remain undemocratic, how institutions and actors change across social and cultural settings, and what different electoral systems do to representation and inclusion.

The Canvas welcome page narrows the focus to how the design of constitutions, legislatures and electoral systems shapes citizens’ behaviour and attitudes, mainly in democracies, with an eye on what sustains democratic stability and good governance, and on what Australia can learn from elsewhere.

The twelve teaching weeks move in three blocks.

The first four build the toolkit: the comparative method, democracies and autocracies, executive types, legislatures, constitutions and courts, and federalism with the European Union. The middle weeks follow the links between citizens and power through cleavages and ideology, parties and party systems, bureaucracies and public policy, and electoral systems and electoral change.

The final block applies everything to case studies: Indigenous peoples in four settler democracies, authoritarian rule and Russia, and the United Kingdom with Northern Ireland, before closing with globalization.

Most weeks pair the concepts with an empirical deep dive, such as measuring democratic backsliding, a cross-national regression on women in parliament, a meta-analysis of cash transfer programmes or leaked data on online propaganda.

That matters for assessment, because the exams and the tutorial essays reward a clear position backed by evidence and comparison, not description. This guide follows the same order, one chapter per week, with original practice written for the essay format of the two in-person exams.

Worked example · free

Reading the exit data: why dictators fear their allies

Key terms

Comparative method

A way of establishing relationships between variables by comparing a small number of carefully chosen cases.

Regimes of the World

V-Dem’s four-category classification of closed autocracy, electoral autocracy, electoral democracy and liberal democracy.

Majoritarian democracy

A pattern of democracy that concentrates power in the hands of the largest party, as in Britain and other Westminster systems.

Constitutional review

The power of courts to check whether laws conform to the constitution, organised on an American or a European model.

Federalism

A constitutional division of powers between central and regional governments that the centre cannot change on its own.

Shared rule

The authority a region exercises jointly with others over the country as a whole, as opposed to self-rule at home.

Freezing hypothesis

The claim that the party systems of the 1960s still reflected the social cleavages of the 1920s.

Effective number of parties

A measure of party-system fragmentation calculated as one divided by the sum of squared seat shares.

New Public Management

An approach to public administration that uses market methods and performance targets in place of rules.

Proportional representation

A family of electoral systems that allocates seats in proportion to votes, producing many partial winners.

Partisan dealignment

The long-term weakening of voters’ attachments to the major parties.

Electoral autocracy

A regime that holds multi-party elections which are not free and fair, as Russia does.

Consociation

A power-sharing arrangement for divided societies in which leaders of each community govern together, as in Northern Ireland.

POLS2010 FAQ

Questions students ask in each POLS2010 chapter

Why does comparative politics call itself a method?

Because the field is defined by how it studies politics, by comparing cases, rather than by a subject such as elections or courts. Lijphart describes the comparative method as one of the basic ways of establishing general empirical claims, alongside experiments, statistics and case studies, and the course builds every later week on that idea. Chapter 01 · Comparing Political Systems: Approaches and Methods

What is the difference between an electoral democracy and a liberal democracy?

Both hold meaningful, free and fair multi-party elections. A liberal democracy adds the rule of law, protection of individual and minority rights, and an executive that is constrained by courts and the legislature. V-Dem uses its liberal component index to decide which countries reach the top category. Chapter 02 · Democracies, Autocracies and Types of Government

Why does the power to dismiss a government weaken a parliament?

A parliament that can hire and fire the executive must keep a government majority in place, so that majority usually supports the government’s programme. Its members lose policy autonomy, whereas a congress elected separately from a president can amend and block legislation without bringing down the executive. Chapter 03 · Legislatures, Constitutions and Judicial Power

What makes a country federal rather than unitary?

In a federation, powers are divided and constitutionally protected so the centre cannot change the territorial arrangement alone. In a unitary state the centre may devolve power, as Britain did to Scotland, but it can reclaim that power on its own authority. Chapter 04 · Federalism, Multilevel Governance and the EU

What are the four cleavages in Lipset and Rokkan?

Centre against periphery and state against church, which came out of the national revolutions, and urban against rural and owners against workers, which came out of the industrial revolution. Each country’s combination depended on critical junctures such as the Reformation and control of mass education. Chapter 05 · Cleavages and Ideology

How do you calculate the effective number of parties?

Convert each party’s seat share to a proportion, square it, add the squares, and divide one by the total. Two equal parties give 2.0, while a 70 to 30 split gives about 1.7, matching the intuition that the system is moving towards one-party dominance. Chapter 06 · Political Parties and Party Systems

What is the principal and agent problem in bureaucracy?

Elected politicians, the principals, must rely on bureaucrats, the agents, who have more expertise and act out of sight. Agents may shirk or depart from the principal’s wishes, so politicians use appointments, incentives and rules to secure both competence and loyalty. Chapter 07 · Bureaucracies and Public Policy

Does proportional representation cause multiparty systems?

Duverger argued that electoral rules shape the number of parties, but Colomer shows that parties also choose the rules, so PR often maintains a multiplicity that already existed. An essay should treat the relationship as running in both directions. Chapter 08 · Electoral Systems and Electoral Change

Why does the course compare Canada, Australia, the United States and New Zealand?

They share British colonial origins, common law and similar wealth, yet differ on treaties, dedicated representation and federal structure. That makes them a most similar systems design for testing whether institutions explain differences in Indigenous influence and wellbeing. Chapter 09 · Indigenous Peoples in Four Settler Democracies

How do most dictators lose power?

Through insiders. Of 303 leaders who left office by non-constitutional means between 1946 and 2008, 205 were removed by a coup or by regime insiders, compared with 32 removed by popular uprisings. That is why authoritarian politics is as much about managing allies as managing citizens. Chapter 10 · Authoritarian Regimes and Russia

Why did majority rule fail in Northern Ireland?

Because the Unionist party, backed by the Protestant majority, won each election and governed alone from 1921 to 1972, so the Catholic minority was continually excluded. Lijphart argues that in deeply divided societies majority rule turns into majority dictatorship, which fuelled protest and conflict in the late 1960s. Chapter 11 · The United Kingdom and Northern Ireland

Has public opinion turned against globalization?

Not much, according to Walter. Public preferences have changed little over the decades; what has changed is that sceptical attitudes have been politicised, globalization issues have become more salient, and sceptic parties and actors have gained political influence. Chapter 12 · Globalization, the Nation-State and the Backlash

How to study for the exam

Start by building a set of comparison cases you can use anywhere in the paper. For each of six to eight countries, such as Australia, Britain, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, Switzerland, Belgium and Russia, note its regime type, executive type, territorial structure, electoral system and party system, with one fact or number for each.

Then revise the course as a set of concepts that travel: majoritarian and consensus democracy, principals and agents, self-rule and shared rule, the three components of a cleavage, the effective number of parties and the two problems of authoritarian rule. For every concept, practise one paragraph that applies it to two of your cases.

Because both exams are essay papers written by hand, rehearse under time: one essay in sixty minutes for the mid-semester format, and three answers in two hours for the final, leaving time to plan each answer around a clear position, cases that vary and a closing judgement.

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