Principles of Comparative Politics

William Roberts Clark, Matt Golder, Sona Nadenichek Golder

SAGE, Mar 23, 2012 - Political Science - 826 pages

The groundbreaking first edition of Principles of Comparative Politics offered the most comprehensive and up-to-date view of the rich world of comparative inquiry, research, and scholarship. Now, this thoroughly revised second edition offers students an even better guide to cross-national comparison and why it matters. The new edition retains its focus on the enduring questions with which scholars grapple, the issues about which consensus has started to emerge, and the tools comparativists use to get at the complex problems in the field. Improving organization and integrating the latest scholarship, important changes include: -- A new "Varieties of Dictatorship" chapter,as well as clearer headings signaling coverage of authoritarian regimes elsewhere in the text; -- A delegation, or principal-agent, framework is introduced as -- A unifying framework for analyzing different types of democracy in the Parliamentary, Presidential, and Semi-Presidential Democracies chapter. -- A slightly modified classification scheme is also used for identifying these democracies. -- A significant reorganizations of the "What is Science?" chapter so that there is greater emphasis on the scientific method and less focus on the ins and outs of Mill's methods; -- An expanded program of maps to allow students to visualize the geographic distribution of various key institutions around the world; -- New problems that help students to work through the theoretical, conceptual, and methodological material that is presented; -- Timely analysis of developments in the Middle East as part of the Economic Determinants of Democracy and Dictatorship, Varieties of Dictatorships, and "Democratic Transitions" chapters; -- Updates for current events, including coverage of late Bush and Obam-- A er-- A policies, conflict in Somalia, NATO intervention in Libya, and more. The book's outstanding pedagogy includes chapter opener overviews, bolded key terms and -- A marginal glossary, more than 250 tables and figures, numerous photos and maps, end of chapter problem sets, and new works cited and country-specific bibliographies. Publisher's note.

Contents

• WHAT IS COMPARATIVE POLITICS?: 1
• Introduction: 19
• TABLES: 29
• The Exit Voice and Loyalty Game: 50
• DEMOCRACY OR DICTATORSHIP?: 87
• CONCEPTUALIZATION: 143
• 2a PACLs Dichotomous Conceptualization of Regime Type: 155
• THE ECONOMIC DETERMINANTS OF DEMOCRACY: 171
• CULTURAL DETERMINANTS OF DEMOCRACY AND DICTATORSHIP: 213
• DEMOCRATIC TRANSITIONS: 265
• DOES IT MAKE A DIFFERENCE?: 325
• VARIETIES OF DEMOCRACY AND DICTATORSHIP: 349
• 12: 351
• Problems with Group Decision Making: 413
• Elections and Electoral Systems: 535
• Social Cleavages and Party Systems: 603
• Institutional Veto Players: 673
• VARIETIES OF DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL OUTCOMES: 741
• 18: 754
• 19: 769
• 25: 775
• 31: 784
• 43: 801
• 3: 811
• References: 35
• Photo Credits: 1

About the author

William Roberts Clark is associate professor of political science at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Capitalism, Not Globalism, and his articles have appeared in American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, Political Analysis, and European Union Politics, among other journals. He has been teaching at a wide variety of public and private schools (William Paterson College, Rutgers University, Georgia Tech, Princeton, New York University, and the University of Michigan) for over a decade. Matt Golder was previously assistant professor of political science at Florida State University. He is the author of articles which have appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Electoral Studies, and Political Analysis among other journals. He has taught classes on comparative politics, advanced industrialized democracies, quantitative methods, and European politics at the University of Iowa, Florida State University, and the University of Essex. Sona Nadenichek Golder was previously assistant professor of political science at Florida State University. She is the author of The Logic of Pre-Electoral Coalition Formation, and has published articles in the British Journal of Political Science, Electoral Studies, and European Union Politics. She teaches courses on European politics, democracies and dictatorships, comparative institutions, game theory, and comparative politics at Florida State University and was a Mentor-in-Residence for the 2007 Empirical Implications of Theoretical Models Summer Program at UCLA.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Principles of Comparative Politics
• Authors: William Roberts Clark, Matt Golder, Sona Nadenichek Golder
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: SAGE, 2012
• ISBN: 1608716791, 9781608716791
• Length: 826 pages
• Subjects: Political Science / Comparative Politics; Political Science / General; Political Science / History & Theory; Political Science / Political Ideologies / Democracy; Political Science / Reference