Comparative government: France and Balerus
The research paper, also called the country study, will be a research report on two states that you have chosen, Details of the categories to address in the paper are provided below. Students should follow the country study format provided.
Instructions
The Research Project Assignment
You are to prepare a country study of two states that you chose at the beginning of the term. These states must be from different categories (liberal democracies, post-communist and communist states, new democracies, less developed states, Islamic states, or marginal states). You will need to examine several factors, all of which can be found in the CIA World Factbook located at http://www.cia.gov. There are additional mega sites that offer information on individual states, such as the University of Texas Latin American Network Information Center (LANIC) at http://lanic.utexas.edu and Columbia University’s Comparative Studies Portal at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/lehman/guides/compol.html#Country.
Be warned; there is to be no cutting and pasting of Internet information in this paper. You are to go through the list of factors provided, carefully selecting the items from the World Factbook or other data sources, typing them individually and citing your sources accordingly.
Your research paper should be no more than 4-6 pages in length (double spaced), with approximately 10 outside sources. (See ”About Sources for the Research Paper” below.)
After you have examined and noted the specific geographic, demographic, political, economic, etc., factors listed below, you will need to do some research on what you believe to be the two states’ most compelling issue in two areas: politics and economics. Lastly, you will be asked to provide a recommendation on how to solve each of the issues you present. How do the governments of each state help or hinder progress toward a solution?
How to Organize Your Paper
Country 1 FRANCE
Issue 1 (politics): statement of the issue, background, factors bearing on the problem, possible solutions, your recommendation for solving this issue, and rationale for your decision
Issue 2 (economics): statement of the issue, background, factors bearing on the problem, possible solutions, your recommendation for solving this issue, and rationale for your decision
Country 2 BALERUS
Issue 1 (politics): statement of the issue, background, factors bearing on the problem, possible solutions, your recommendation for solving this issue, and rationale for your decision
Issue 2 (economics): statement of the issue, background, factors bearing on the problem, possible solutions, your recommendation for solving this issue, and rationale for your decision
Analysis
How are the issues in each of your two countries different? How are they the same?
Are these differences impacted by the type of government existing in each country?
What can you say about the government’s ability to solve these problems?
Are there any other countries you have studied that might serve as a model for the problems of Country 1 or Country 2?
What general recommendations would you have for Country 1 FRANCE ? For Country 2 BALERUS?
Paper length: 8-10 pages total, double-spaced (except if you are listing data in a table, then single spaced)
Sections 1 and 2 for each country should be in paragraph form, using the executive summary format (statement of the issue, background, factors bearing on the problem, possible solutions, your recommendations, and your rationale).
For the analysis section, compose three well-written paragraphs; one for Country 1, one for Country 2, and a concluding comparative paragraph. In the concluding paragraph, try using the word although at the beginning of your thesis statement to show how these countries (and problems) differ.
About Sources for the Research Paper
Students should use sources that are peer-reviewed, which means that other scholars have reviewed and approved the findings prior to publication. There is no end of erroneous information on the Internet, so be careful in choosing your sources. Generally, anything with a .com suffix should not be used.
No Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a peer-reviewed source, and it often contains misleading or erroneous information.
Sources should be from academic sites (.edu), including journals, working papers (.gov), and books/textbooks.
Commercial Internet sites should be used sparingly and for data only (for example, the RAND Institute), as some sites have an inherent bias.
In composing and supporting arguments (main points) for the paper, at least three sources should be from peer-reviewed journals from the UMUC library electronic database (such as Academic Search Complete or JSTOR). Peer-reviewed means that other scholars have reviewed the work and approved its findings.
About Citations and Style within the Research Paper
Research papers should be written using an APA style guide. The UMUC Writing Center site within the electronic library is a good source for citation help. (See http://www.umgc.edu/library/citationguides.shtml.)
It is expected that all papers for this course will be error-free, with grammar and usage style appropriate for university-level work. Points will be deducted if the professor must stumble over mistakes in reading your work.
Footnotes and endnotes are acceptable to add additional information only (things you might find interesting and want to share with the reader, but do not necessarily fit directly into the text of the paper).
Do not place a source within a footnote or endnote. The source should be given as a parenthetical citation at the end of the sentence where the information appears.
