Week 13 — Design a Comparative Test: One Explanation, Two Made-Up Countries, One Index — Traditional alternative (no AI)

Introduction to Political Science Free sample edition

Traditional alternative (no AI), unpublished. In the course this is a separate assignment that ships unpublished beside the adaptive assignment: same objective, no AI. An instructor who prefers it publishes it and unpublishes or deletes the adaptive one, as the note at its top says.

Instructors: publish this instead of the adaptive version if you prefer, and unpublish or delete the adaptive one.

Assignment 12 of the term — design a comparison of two made-up countries that could test one explanation of democratization, read a governance index for what it measures and does not, and explain to a relative why a low score is not a verdict on a people.

This week you learned the comparative method's two designs, the problem of many variables and a small N, state capacity as a dimension separate from regime type, four competing explanations of democratization, and how to read Freedom in the World 2026 and V-Dem's Democracy Report 2026 with their edition and year. Week 5 sorted regimes into democracies and autocracies, and Week 12 kept a correlation apart from a cause; this assignment puts both to work. In this assignment you work two short counting problems, interpret each one, and explain an index score to someone who has never studied political science. This week's lecture tutorial, quiz, discussion, and Political Analysis Workshop practice the same ideas from other angles.

The task

You will design a small comparative study and read one real index. Every country you invent is illustrative: it is not a real country, and no real person or current officeholder belongs in it.

Work these two problems, showing how you got each count:

Your made-up comparison follows 2 countries and observes each one at 4 elections. How many observations does your comparison have?
Your made-up governance index scores 6 political-rights indicators and 9 civil-liberties indicators, each from 0 to 4. What is the top possible total score?

Beside each count, add the interpretation that makes it political science:

Problem 1, the comparison. Choose one of this week's four explanations of democratization (modernization, institutions, political culture, or the resource curse). Design a comparison of two made-up countries that could test it: name the design (most-similar or most-different), list at least three traits the countries share or differ on and the outcome you are comparing, and say what the comparison could show and what it could not. Explain how observing each country at several elections helps with the many-variables, small-N problem and why it still does not add countries. Place both countries on the two dimensions of state capacity and regime type. Then state the strongest case for one rival explanation as its defenders would put it, give your reply, and label at least one of your premises empirical and one normative.
Problem 2, the index. Say what your made-up index's top total means and why a total built from expert coding is still a judgment process. Then read one real, pinned score with the data scaffold: Botswana scored 75 in Freedom in the World 2026, covering 2025, rated Free, from 31 for political rights and 44 for civil liberties. Say what is measured, over whom and when, what the score shows, what it does not show, and whether it shows a correlation or a cause. Finish by explaining why Freedom House's "Free" and V-Dem's "liberal democracy" are never merged, even when their counts sit close.

Explain it to a non-expert

A relative reads a headline about a country with a low governance score and says, "That country's people must not care about freedom." Write a 3–5 sentence message to that relative that explains, in everyday words, what an index score measures, why it is never a verdict on a people, and names one limit of what a single score can tell you. Explain any technical term in everyday words. More than one good answer is possible.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a friend explaining a neighborhood's walkability score to someone choosing an apartment. Model answer: "The walkability score adds up how many shops, parks, and bus stops are within a short walk, using a published checklist. It tells you what is nearby on paper, not whether the people who live there like walking. It cannot tell you why the shops are there or whether the sidewalks feel safe at night, so visit before you decide."

Use that pattern for your message to the relative, with your own wording and evidence.

Show how you got each count. A reader should be able to reproduce both counts from the values above without guessing which values or steps you used.

After you finish, reread your work and revise at least one design choice, placement, index read, or explanation. Then add a short reflection (3–4 sentences) on one of two options of equal weight, your choice: (a) which design choice, placement, or index read you changed and why the new version is better; or (b) where your first draft read a correlation or a score as if it showed a cause, and how you caught it.

Deliverables

Submit a single design file containing:

the two counts, each with the values and the operation shown;
your comparison design (the explanation you chose, the named design with at least three traits and the outcome, what it could and could not show, why repeated elections help without adding countries, both countries placed on state capacity and regime type, the strongest rival explanation, and your reply, with premises labelled by kind);
your index read (what the top total means, the data-scaffold read of Botswana's pinned score, and why Free and liberal democracy are never merged);
your message to the relative; and
your revision note with the reflection option you chose.

Keep it to roughly two pages; accuracy and clear reasoning matter more than length.

Choose how you show it. Present your work as written text, or as a recorded audio or video explanation of about four minutes with a transcript, or as a labelled sketch of your two countries on the capacity grid with a short note. Every form is graded by the same scoring criteria. Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text.

How you'll be graded

The full analytic rubric is attached to this assignment in Canvas.

Academic integrity and AI use

This version is designed to be completed without AI: do the counts, the comparison design, the index read, and the writing yourself, without any AI tool. Cite index figures only from this week's pinned editions, exactly, and keep every example free of living politicians, current officeholders, and verdicts on any country's people. Submitting AI-generated work as your own, or copying another student's design, is an integrity violation under the course policy.

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