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

"Kopstein and Lichbach have assembled a compelling introduction to comparative politics for courses taught from the perspective of political development. Invited to examine six well-chosen and familiar cases (Britain and France as early, Germany and Japan as middle, and Russia and China as late developers), the contributors analyze the emergence of interests, the shifting range of social identities, and the interaction of both in shaping a particular institutional trajectory. Each section concludes with a synthesis by the co-editors comparing the trajectories of the preceding cases. An innovation is the extension of the analysis presented for the first six cases to 'experimental developers': Mexico, India, Iran, and South Africa. Throughout the volume the prose is lively and accessible, and each contributor provides a sufficient historical background on the country at hand to put every student in the picture regardless of prior preparation." Richard Anderson, UCLA

Why are the countries of the world governed so differently? How did this diversity of political orders come about? Will liberal capitalism retain its appeal and spread further around the globe in the 21st century, or will new and hostile challengers come on the scene? These are the questions that guide this new introductory text to comparative politics. Cast through the lens of ten theoretically informed and historically grounded country studies, it illustrates and explains how the three major concepts of comparative political analysis - interests, identities, and institutions - shape the politics of nations. A novel feature of this textbook is its explicit discussion of the international challenges to each country's chosen path of development. These challenges frequently alter domestic interests and identities, and force countries to find new institutional solutions to the problems of modern politics. Written in a style free of heavy handed jargon and organized in a way that speaks to contemporary comparativists' concerns, this textbook provides students with the conceptual tools and historical background they need to understand the politics of today's complex world.