Russia
Which term refers to Russian state engagement to manipulate and maintain control over many aspects of civil society?
Corporatism
Identify one political cleavage in Mexico.
-- North-south cleavage, with the north more industrialized and connected to trade networks in the U.S. and Canada, and the south more agricultural and relatively poor.
-- Ethnic cleavage between majority mestizo and indigenous populations,
Identify two major perpetrators or political violence in Nigeria.
-- Boko Haram: northeast "homegrown" Sunni Muslim terrorist group
-- Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB): Igbo separatist group in southeast, inheritor to much of the energy of the former Republic of Biafra separatist movement
-- Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN): Shia Muslim group formed following the Iranian revolution
-- Fulani herders in Nigeria's "middle belt", who have perpetrated widespread violence against Christian farmers competing for scarce land and water resources
Which of our unit countries faces the highest degree and widest range of political cleavages?
Describe the evolution, and purpose behind the evolution, of the electoral system for the Russian Duma in recent election cycles.
Formerly a wholly proportional system, in recent election cycles Russia has adopted a mixed system with both proportional and SMD representation. The broad purpose is to some level of superficial party competition, while maintaining the dominant position of the United Russia party.
Describe the nature of Mexico's party system during the period 1929-2000, and the key political actor of that era.
Mexico is best considered a dominant party system controlled by the PRI during 1929-2000. Only beginning in 2000 did Mexico experience some degree of democratic consolidation with competitive elections, alternating control of the presidency and legislature, and expanded state-level autonomy within its federal system.
Name one key policy held in common across Mexico, Russia, and Nigeria.
-- State control of the oil industry
-- Federal system of government
Russia
Describe the policies of glasnost and perestroika, and their influence on reform in the late-era Soviet Union.
Glasnost was a policy introduced by Michael Gorbachev that opened up the government and increased transparency and freedoms for people. It allowed people to criticize the government and weakened government control. Glasnost made perestroika possible. Perestroika was also introduced by Gorbachev to reform the economy by reducing government control and allowing people to own their own businesses. The reforms weren't very successful. When people could criticize the government and communism, the problems became more obvious, and people wanted independence and change. Both glasnost and perestroika contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Describe the electoral system for Mexico's lower house and its effect on the structure of political parties in Mexico.
Mexico's Chamber of Deputies is elected through a mixed system, with 300 representatives selected via single member district/first-past-the-post elections, and 200 selected via proportional elections. The inclusion of proportional representation within the electoral system encourages a multiparty system with consistently evolving coalition politics.
Describe the two most influential parties in Nigeria today.
-- All Progressives Congress (APC) -- Current ruling party with control of the presidency and legislature. The APC was founded in 2013 through consolidation of several opposition parties in an effort to unseat Goodluck Jonathan during the 2015 election. This was successful, and the APC has since controlled the Nigerian presidency through the victories of Muhammad Buhari in 2015 and 2019, and Bola Tinubu in 2023. The APC has its strongest support in northeastern Nigeria and within the Muslim population, but attempts to portray itself as a "big tent" party with conservative social priorities and progressive economic policies.
-- People's Democratic Party (PDP) -- The PDP controlled the Nigerian presidency from the inception of the Fourth Republic in 1999 until the 2015 election, and has been the primary opposition party since 2015. It is traditionally supported by most Christians, although many Christians shifted support to the Labor Party in the 2023 election cycle.
Define rentier state. Which of the three countries in this unit are properly considered rentier states?
Rentier states typically earn a large portion of national revenues (and budgets) from the state-controlled sale of natural resources, most typically energy resources.
Nigeria is a clear yes. Russia is a borderline case (I would say no) as it derives major revenues from oil and gas but also has an industrialized and diversified broader economy. Mexico is not a rentier state despite having state-run oil company and very large oil reserves.
Describe an example of ongoing ethnic tensions within Russia.
The primary source of ethnic tensions in today's Russia remains conflict with minority Chechen and Dagestani Muslims in the North Caucasus region. This conflict has existed for decades but was most recently fueled in part by a major ISIS terrorist attack on Moscow's city hall in 2024.
-- Pace and nature of economic liberalization, balancing between shock therapy and gradualism across diverse sectors of the economy, incorporating principles of privatization and marketization in a formerly communist system, and managing IMF oversight of the process
-- Managing the political influence of the security services, which under the KGB/USSR had enormous domestic political and economic power.
-- Managing the risk of corruption and the political influence of oligarchs during the process of privatizing enormous state-owned assets
Compare the nature of civil society in Mexico during the 20th century and today.
During the semi-authoritarian era of the 20th century, Mexican civil society is best described as corporatist with a large degree of PRI influence across media, NGO, religious, labor, and other facets of civil society.
Today, Mexico still suffers a great deal of corruption and cartel-driven violence, but encourages the gradual development of a pluralist, competitive civil society.
Describe two ways in which Nigerian political institutions attempt to manage internecine conflict across ethnic, religious, and regionally diverse interests?
-- Federal character principle, in which the constitution requires the president to appoint ministers from each state of Nigeria
-- Presidential election rules requiring an overall plurality nationwide, and at least 25 percent of votes in two-thirds of states
-- Informal "zoning" practice in which presidential candidates for major parties alternate between north and south, which generally corresponds to Muslim and Christian, and mix the presidential ticket between Muslim and Christian candidates (the APC broke this standard with its 2023 ticket with two Muslim candidates)
Describe the nature of military government in Nigeria over the past century.
Beginning with the Nigerian civil war sparked by the separatist Republic of Biafra in the late 1960s, the Nigerian military has played a very large role in domestic politics, with frequent coups d'etat and military governments comprising approximately 75% of the 1960-1999 period. For much of this period, the military was considered the only Nigerian institution with the competence and authority to maintain order and manage the country's intense ethnic and religious divisions. (Both Christians and Muslims held power under military governments, and the Nigerian military should not be seen as predominantly favoring either religious faction.) Since the emergence of the Fourth Republic in 1999, Nigeria has successfully transitioned power democratically between multiple parties and the military has not intervened in Nigerian politics.
Describe the nature of Russia's relationship with other former USSR republics.
Very complicated and hugely varied!
Ukraine is naturally the most hostile today.
Relations with Baltic states are extremely tense, as the Baltic states have large Russian ethnic minorities and are members of NATO. Many of the principles inherent to Russian war justifications in Ukraine would seem to apply (almost) similarly to the Baltic states.
Belarus and several of the central Asian republics maintain much closer ties of security cooperation and economic interdependence. It is not realistic that Russia has the power to restore any version of the former Soviet Union, but it clearly seeks a sphere of influence in the former Soviet Union republics.
Describe the nature of patrimonialism and its impact in Nigeria.
Patrimonialism is a varient of clientilism whereby a ruler depends on a collection of supporters within the state, who gain direct benefits in return for enforcing the ruler's will.
In Nigeria, patrimonialism fuels corruption and dissatisfaction with democracy. Patrimonialism leads to a sprawling bureaucracy, and is tied closely to the state-run oil industry. While several formal and informal mechanisms attempt to share power across Nigeria's various ethnic, regional, and religious interests, most people believe that corruption is endemic regardless of who is in power.
How did the death of Umaru Yar'Adua in 2010 challenge the fragile Nigerian political system at the time?
At the time of the death of Yar'Adua (a PDP northern Muslim), his Christian vice president Goodluck Jonathan assumed the presidency. Many assumed that Jonathan would act as a passive caretaker for the remainder of that term, and then allow another PDP northern Muslim to run for president in the 2011 election to maintain the "zoning" mechanism which rotates the presidency between northern and southern candidates. Jonathan's decision to pursue his own agenda and run for election in 2011 (successfully) overturned the fragile zoning system which attempted to manage ethnic and religious tension in the political system. As Jonathan made it clear he would run for reelection in 2015, a number of opposition parties consolidated to form the APC and defeated Jonathan.
What was NAFTA, and what was its impact on the Mexican economy and society?
NAFTA refers to the North America Free Trade Agreement, signed between Mexico, the U.S., and Canada in 1994. The agreement removed the vast majority of tariffs and non-tariff barriers to trade between the three states, and was subsequently updated and replaced by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) in 2020.
The impact in Mexico was a surge in foreign direct investment and expansion of export opportunities to the U.S. and Canada. The vast majority of Mexico's exports are within North America, including major sectors in auto parts manufacturing and agriculture. The agreement drove overall economic growth, but likely exacerbated income inequality and regional inequality as northern Mexico gained most of the economic benefits of industrialization and expanded trade.
Broadly, Mexico's large and relatively inexpensive labor force is seen as a useful complement to the U.S. and Canada's service-driven economies, particularly as many American corporation seek to move manufacturing operations out of China.