Suchergebnisse

"Students who enroll in an introductory course on comparative politics should be prepared to encounter some tough but fascinating questions: Why are some states democracies while others are not? Why does ethnicity seem to be at the heart of so much conflict in the world today?"--

"Cases in Comparative Politics is the best-selling case book for the course because it uses a consistent framework to illustrate major concepts in comparative politics. Featuring coverage of the 13 most-taught countries, Cases combines foundational knowledge with the most ruthlessly up-to-date coverage to foster easier comparison across countries"--

A review essay on books by (1) Robert H. Bates, Avner Greif, Margaret Levi, Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, & Barry R. Weingast, Analytic Narratives (Princeton, NJ: Princeton U Press, 1998); (2) Robert H. Bates, Open-Economy Politics: The Political Economy of the World Coffee Trade (Princeton, NJ: Princeton U Press, 1997); & (3) Lee J. Alston, Thrainn Eggertsson, & Douglass C. North (Eds), Empirical Studies in Institutional Change (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge U Press, 1996). Rational choice & formal theory have gained increasing prominence in comparative politics. Grounded in deductive logic, this analytic turn has often been perceived to be at odds with historical & case-oriented methodologies. The innovation of the three books under review lies in their claim that rigorous analytic techniques are in fact complementary to historical & case-oriented approaches. This review evaluates the strengths & weaknesses of this new approach & assesses its implications for the future of comparative politics. While this new approach falls short of the claims it makes regarding causal validity & generalizability, the authors of these books should be commended for their willingness to engage important criticisms of rational choice theory & their determination to comprehend significant historical episodes. 1 Table. Adapted from the source document.