Regarding Politics : Essays on Political Theory, Stability, and Change

After World War II political science, especially comparative politics, was transformed by a "scientific revolution." Harry Eckstein, an influential spokesman in the revolution's forefront, went on to make a great variety of contributions in subsequent decades. These eleven essays, written over thirty years, cover the major issues in comparative politics, from civil war to "civic inclusion"—that is, "the tendency over time to include in politics, in workplace decision-making, in education, and in other institutional realms, people previously excluded from participation." Eckstein also deals with political science as a field: how it relates to political practice, how it developed in the prewar period, and how it emerged from the first postwar reshaping.

In this first collection of his work, Eckstein reflects on the issues and events—his personal experiences as a refugee from Nazi Germany and as an observer of European politics and cultures—that underlie and unify his thinking. Regarding Politics presents in one powerful volume the career of one of the leading comparative political scientists of our times.