AP Comparative Government & Politics: Curricular Requirements

• The teacher has read the most recent AP Government and Politics Course Description.
• The course provides instruction in each of the following six topics outlined in the Course Description:
  • Introduction to Comparative Politics
  • Sovereignty, Authority, and Power
  • Political Institutions
  • Citizens, Society, and the State
  • Political and Economic Change
  • Public Policy
• Six countries form the core of the course: China, Great Britain, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, and Russia. The course uses concrete examples from these six countries, including contemporary political changes, to illustrate the six major content areas of the course.
• The course teaches students to compare and contrast political institutions and processes across countries and to derive generalizations.
• The course introduces students to the analysis and interpretation of data relevant to comparative government and politics.
• The course requires students to write analytical and interpretive essays frequently.
• The course includes supplemental readings, including primary source materials and contemporary news analyses, that strengthen student understanding of the curriculum.

Resource Requirements

• The school ensures that each student has a copy of a college-level comparative government and politics textbook (supplemented when necessary to meet the curricular requirements) or other supplemental materials and primary sources, for individual use inside and outside of the classroom.
• The school ensures that each student has access to news sources and other information sources in order to understand contemporary political changes that may not be in the textbook.
• The school ensures that the teacher has copies of additional college-level comparative government and politics textbooks or other appropriate college-level books for their own consultation, including the most recent edition for one of these.