| |
This systematic, user friendly, and refreshingly unusual introduction to comparative politics is designed to teach students how to think comparatively and theoretically about the world they live in.
The second edition retains the core features of the first, coherently integrating comparative method, theory, and issues, but provides updated material and additional cases throughout. The text now also includes study questions for each chapter.
The book is organized around a set of critical questions—why are poor countries poor? Why is East Asia relatively rich? What makes a democracy? What makes a terrorist? What makes a social movement?—each the topic of a full chapter. These issue chapters are based on the solid methodological and theoretical foundation laid out in the first part of the book. Graphics and definition boxes enhance the text.
Doing Comparative Politics will stimulate your students to critically engage with both the content and the methods of the field.
Contents: Introduction: What Is Comparative Politics? • What Is Comparative Politics? • Why Does Comparative Politics Focus on What Happens Inside Countries? • What Is Politics? • What Does It Mean to Compare? What Is a Comparativist? • Why Compare? • What Is Comparable? • What Are the Advantages of the Comparative Method? • By Way of a Conclusion: Method and Theory in Comparative Politics • Questions
Part 1: Doing Comparative Politics • Comparing to Learn, Learning to Compare: A Primer on Comparative Methods • Comparing and Critical Thinking • Strategies of Comparing • The Logic of Comparative Analysis • Concrete Strategies of Comparative Analysis • Conclusion • Questions • Thinking Theoretically in Comparative Politics • Why Study Theory? • Theory in Comparative Politics • Rationality: A Nontechnical Introduction • The Structural Tradition • The Cultural Tradition • A "Hybrid" Tradition: Institutionalism • Separation or Synthesis? • Conclusion: Bringing Everything Together • Questions
Part 2: The Questions • Why Are Poor Countries Poor? Explaining Economic Underdevelopment • Defining Poverty • Individual Choice, Collective Outcomes, and Poverty: A Rational Choice Perspective • Cultural Explanations of Poverty • Keeping the Poor Down? Structural Explanations of Poverty • Conclusion • Questions • Why Is East Asia Rich? Explaining Capitalist Growth and Industrialization in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China • Rationality, the Strong State, and Rapid Economic Growth in East Asia • Culture and Capitalist Development in East Asia • Global Capitalism and the Rise of East Asia • Explaining China’s Economic Rise • Conclusion • Questions • What Makes a Democracy? Explaining the Breakdown of Authoritarian Rule • Defining Democracy: A Never-Ending Debate? • Economic Development and Democracy: A Necessary Relationship? • Agents of Democratization: Rational Choice and Democratic Transition • Structure and Rationality: Competition or Synthesis? • A Missing Link? Culture and Democracy • Conclusion: Taking the Next Step • Questions • What Makes a Terrorist? Explaining "Violent Substate Activism" • What Is Terrorism? • The Logic of Terrorism: Terrorist Behavior as a Product of Strategic Choice • Culture, Religion, and Terrorism • Globalization and the Rise of Terrorism: A Structural View • Conclusion: The (Methodological) Dangers of Studying Terrorism • Questions • What Makes a Social Movement? Explaining the Rise and Success of Collective Mobilization, by Atsuko Sato • Defining Social Movements • Collective Action, Social Movements, and Rationality • Structural Accounts of Social Movements • Culture and Social Movement: Two Contrasting Approaches • Conclusion • Questions
Part 3: The Future of Comparative Politics • Globalization and the Study of Comparative Politics • What Is Globalization? A Reprise • Implications of Globalization in Comparative Politics • Assessing Globalization’s Impact on Comparative Politics: The Case of Immigrant Rights • Globalization and the Three Research Traditions • Rational Choice in a Global Context • Globalization and Culture • Globalization and Structural Approaches • Conclusion • Questions ISBN - 9788130920658
|
| |
Pages : 384
|