Comparative Politics: Interests, Identities, and Institutions in a Changing Global Order

by JeffreyKopstein (Editor), Mark Lichbach (Editor)

• Used

  Paperback
  2008

  $4.53

  Now in its third edition, this unique textbook remains a favourite for introductory undergraduate courses in comparative politics. It features twelve theoretically and historically grounded country studies that show how the three major concepts of comparative analysis - interests, identities, and institutions - shape the politics of nations and regions. Written in a style free of heavy-handed jargon and organized to address the concerns of contemporary comparativists, this textbook provides students with the conceptual tools and historical background they need to understand the politics of our complex world. This third edition introduces completely new chapters on the European Union, France, and Nigeria.

• New

  Paperback
  2009

  $28.95

  Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture, and Structure is a revised second edition of the volume that guided students and scholars through the intellectual demands of comparative politics. Retaining a focus on the field's research schools, it now pays parallel attention to the pragmatics of causal research. Mark Lichbach begins with a review of discovery, explanation and evidence and Alan Zuckerman argues for explanations with social mechanisms. Ira Katznelson, writing on structuralist analyses, Margaret Levi on rational choice theory, and Marc Ross on culturalist analyses, assess developments in the field's research schools. Subsequent chapters explore the relationship among the paradigms and current research: the state, culturalist themes and political economy, the international context of comparative politics, contentious politics, multi-level analyses, nested voters, endogenous institutions, welfare states, and ethnic politics. The volume offers a rigorous and exciting assessment of the past decade of scholarship in comparative politics.