Week 5 — Readings & Resources

Your primary reading is Chapter 5 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 11 items (5 readings and 6 videos). Allow 99–116 minutes for everything. Each group points back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more depth, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (19–23 min total)

• Forms of Government Explained: Democracy, Authoritarianism, and More — CFR Education
• Authoritarianism vs Totalitarianism — Mr Herman's Learning Station
• The Regimes of the World data: how do researchers measure democracy? — Our World in Data

① Who casts the vote?

Chapter 5, Section “Ask two questions: direct or representative?” · Session 1, Segment 1, “Direct and representative democracy” · Remember: direct and representative are two mechanisms, and a referendum is a direct tool inside a representative system.

• Forms of Government Explained: Democracy, Authoritarianism, and More — CFR Education — a short animated overview of direct and representative democracy, authoritarian rule, the space in between, and democratic backsliding; use it while working through the Week-5 module overview. (video, 5 min) (captions: creator)
• Referendums — ACE Electoral Knowledge Network — an elections reference that explains how a referendum differs from an ordinary election, the main types, and the arguments for and against putting questions directly to voters. (reading, 7–10 min)

② How do you measure a regime, and how do regimes change?

Chapter 5, Section “Track change: the third wave and backsliding” · Session 2, Segment 5, “The third wave and backsliding” · Remember: a regime label rests on a published method, and a wave is a way of organizing the historical record, not a law that predicts the next case.

• The Regimes of the World data: how do researchers measure democracy? — Our World in Data — a data explainer on the four-category regime classification, closed autocracy, electoral autocracy, electoral democracy, and liberal democracy, with its strengths and shortcomings; read the definitions section closely and skim the technical parts. (reading, 12–16 min)
• Three waves of democratization — Carolyn Coberly — a three-minute lecture clip that walks through Huntington's waves of democratization; listen for the reminder that waves organize history rather than predict it. (video, 3 min) (captions: automatic)

③ How far does the state reach?

Chapter 5, Section “Sort by scope: authoritarian versus totalitarian” · Session 1, Segment 3, “Authoritarian and totalitarian rule” · Remember: authoritarian rule controls politics and leaves much of private life alone, while totalitarian rule tries to remake all of society.

• Authoritarianism vs Totalitarianism — Mr Herman's Learning Station — a two-minute explainer of the scope difference between the two kinds of rule; pause at the end and say which of this week's invented regimes fits each side. (video, 2 min) (captions: automatic)
• Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism: Core Concepts Explained — Political Vantage — a longer walk through the book the chapter names as the classic reference, including why Arendt saw totalitarianism as a new form of rule rather than a harsher tyranny. (video, 12 min) (captions: automatic)
• Hannah Arendt: Arendt's Concept of Totalitarianism — online Encyclopedia of Philosophy (reference entry) — one section of a scholarly reference entry summarizing Arendt's account of totalitarianism; read that section and stop. This builds on Week 3's distinction that totalitarianism is a regime type, not an economic ideology. (reading, 5–8 min)

④ Who really said it?

Chapter 5, Section “Read two defenses: Pericles and Churchill” · Session 2, Segment 6, “Pericles and Churchill” · Remember: read a famous line in its source, check the translation or the record, and notice when a speaker says the words are repeated.

• Democracy Is the Worst Form of Government Except For All Others Which Have Been Tried — Quote Investigator — a quotation researcher traces the famous line back before the 1947 Commons speech and explains why the words "it has been said" matter. (reading, 6–8 min)
• Pericles' Funeral Oration — TheatreofPhil — a lecture on the speech as a picture of how Athenians wanted their democracy to be seen; it reads from a different translation than this course quotes, so compare its wording with the chapter's two pinned lines. (video, 21 min) (captions: automatic)
• Funeral Oration of Pericles, from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides — Short Stories Cafe — an audio reading of the whole speech in the older public-domain translation this course quotes; listen for the line about the many and the few. (video, 21 min) (captions: automatic)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

• History of the Peloponnesian War, Book II (Crawley translation) — The Internet Classics Archive — the free online text of Book II that this course quotes; use your browser's find command to search for the words favours the many and read the paragraph around them, then stop unless you want more. (reading, 5–10 min)

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell your instructor and use the reference above in the meantime.

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