Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture, and Structure

By Mark Irving Lichbach

Book Overview

Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture, and Structure is a completely revised second edition of the volume that guided thousands of scholars through the intellectual demands and gratifications of comparative political science. 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: Joel Migdal examines the state; Mark Blyth adds culturalist themes to work on political economy; Etel Solingen locates the international context of comparative politics; Doug McAdam, Charles Tilly, and Sidney Tarrow address contentious politics; Robert Huckfeldt explores multi-level analyses; Christopher Anderson describes nested voters; Jonathan Rodden examines endogenous institutions; Isabela Mares studies welfare states, and Kanchan Chandra proposes a causal account of ethnic politics. The volume offers a rigorous and exciting assessment of the past decade of scholarship in comparative politics.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521712343
• ISBN13: 9780521712347
• Release Date: February 2009
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 520 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Cornerstone of the discipline

This is a great piece of work. The essays are short and concise. If you plan on taking graduate exams, START with this book to find out how to carve up the discipline. Read this book about 1 week before your exam, you won't be sorry. This is also a book with theory applications. The chapters on structures and rational choice are particularly strong in that vein. This is also a book you will want to own so you can mark it up.