Country Study: Pakistan, an Islamic State vs India, a New Democracy

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 may want to suggest countries that would make suitable pairings 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 8-10 pages in length (double spaced), with approximately 10 outside sources. (See “About Sources for the Research Paper” below.) 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? Paper length: 8-10 pages total, double-spaced (except if you are listing data in a table, then single spaced) 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 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. Students should use about five citations per page.