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Project 3: The Comparative Case Study (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). For example, you may choose to research France (a liberal democracy) and Guinea-Bissau (a marginal state), but you should not choose two states from the same category. Your instructor must approve your choice of countries for the study. 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 8-10 pages in length (double spaced), with (See ”About Sources for the Research Paper” below.)

Paper length: 8-10 pages total, double-spaced (except if you are listing data in a table, then single spaced).

The 8-10 page length is for the main body of the paper. The title page and the bibliography are extra. Do not quadruple space between paragraphs.

Where appropriate, you should compare the various factors of your two states to provide context. For example, in gross domestic product growth rates, a state”s per capita GDP may be $10,000 or less per year, but if its growth rate is 6 percent per year, what is that information telling you? At that point, you would check the other state”s GDP growth rate (or another that you think might be comparable) to see what is going on in your state.

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

There will be three sections for each country. Each section should have its own paragraph.

Country 1

General data: your listing of the numerical and brief textual facts, as provided on the attached list
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

General data: your listing of the numerical and brief textual facts, as provided on the attached list
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 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? For Country 2?
For Section 1 on the CIA World Factbook Data, this should be about one page for each country. You may combine data in sections, writing in paragraph style. You may also list the data in a tabular format, as long as it is well organized under the particular headings given. Try to match the data to the issues you are examining.

Sections 2 and 3 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

The paper must have approximately 10 outside sources. 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) or (.org), and books/textbooks.
Commercial Internet sites should be used sparingly and for data only, 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).
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.umuc.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 has to 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. For example, quoting text directly or paraphrasing a passage by McCormick:
Paraphrase

Example: McCormick argues that the United States can no longer depend on military power alone to obtain its national interests within the international community as there are many issues that have no straightforward military or political solution. (McCormick, 2010, 52)

Direct Quote

Example: McCormick argues that the United States can no longer depend on military power alone to obtain its national interests within the international community. ”Today the United States faces a new set of challenges, few of which have straightforward military or political solutions” (McCormick, 2010, 52).

A bibliography (also called the ”Works Cited” page or ”Sources”) should be used at the end of the paper to show all the sources that have been used within the paper. That means only sources that have an in-text citation should be listed. There may be sources that have been consulted, but if nothing has been quoted or paraphrased from them, do not place them in the bibliography. The sources within the text should match directly with the bibliography. Note: The entries in the bibliography should not be numbered, but instead should be listed in alphabetical order by author. If there is no aut