Principles of Comparative Politics

By William Roberts Clark

Book Overview

Principles of Comparative Politics offers the most comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to comparative inquiry, research, and scholarship. In this thoroughly revised Third Edition, students now have an even better guide to cross-national comparison and why it matters. The new edition retains a 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.

Among other things, the updates to this edition include a thoroughly-revised chapter on dictatorships that incorporates a discussion of the two fundamental problems of authoritarian rule: authoritarian power-sharing and authoritarian control; a revised chapter on culture and democracy that includes a more extensive examination of cultural modernization theory and a new overview of survey methods for addressing sensitive topics; a new section on issues related to electoral integrity; an expanded assessment of different forms of representation; and a new intuitive take on statistical analyses that provides a clearer explanation of how to interpret regression results. Examples from the gender and politics literature have been incorporated into various chapters, the Problems sections at the end of each chapter have been expanded, a nd the empirical examples and data on various types of institutions have been updated. Online videos and tutorials are available to address some of the more methodological components discussed in the book. The authors have thoughtfully streamlined chapters to better focus attention on key topics.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1506318126
• ISBN13: 9781506318127
• Release Date: March 2017
• Publisher: CQ Press
• Length: 888 Pages
• Weight: 0.26 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.8" x 7.5" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Challenging, but you can always learn from it.

Every chapter I goes like this: "What I am so confused I dont have any clue whats going on." Then, rereading and looking from another perspective its "ok I understand 50%." And then put some critical thinking into it, it's "I now have a good understanding." Its a book with a strong learning curve but I learned a lot and it made me interested when I didn't expect I would.