by Mark Kesselman, Joel Krieger, William A. Joseph, Ervand Abrahamian, Christopher S. Allen, Amrita Basu, Joan DeBardeleben, Louis DeSipio, Shigeko N. Fukai, Haruhiro Fukui, Merilee S. Grindle, Darren Kew, Atul Kohli, Peter Lewis, Alfred P. Montero
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Product Description
Written by a distinguished group of comparativists, this innovative and accessible introductory text surveys 12 key countries organized according to their level of political development: established democracies, transitional democracies, and non-democracies. The country studies illuminate four comparative themes in a global context: the world of states, examining the interaction of states within the international order; governing the economy, covering the role of the state in economic management; the democratic idea, discussing the pressure for more democracy and the challenges of democratization; and the politics of collective identities, studying the political impact of diverse attachments and sources of group identity. The theoretical framework developed in an expanded introduction provides a rich context for each country study, and clear prose makes the book accessible to students with little or no background in political science. Students will also benefit from the data sheet at the beginning of each chapter that includes basic demographic, socioeconomic, and political information, to aid in country comparisons. In addition, they can use the Geographic Setting sections in each chapter, as well as maps, tables, charts, photographs, and political cartoons to further their understanding of each country studied. - New! Updated content includes coverage of recent events such as the May 2005 general election in Britain and the referendum in France.
- New! Civil liberties, security, political conflict, political identities and military policy are considered in the context of a post-September 11 world.
- All 12 country studies, as well as five additional studies, are available in an online database. Instructors may choose from among these chapters (a minimum of 7) to create a customized text. Recent additions to the database include studies of East-Central Europe, South Africa, Indonesia, Turkey, and Cuba.
- Key terms appear as bold in the text and a glossary at the end defines key concepts in comparative politics. In addition, an appendix explains the Human Development Index.
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Average Customer Review:
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
a standard introduction to comparative politics, 2008-06-13
This is a standard introductory comparative politics textbook that provides a solid background on a variety of countries. It discusses historical context, economic development, political institutions, electoral issues, etc. I found the tone of the book to be clear and non-irritating. However, there is much to say about these countries and some things inevitably get ignored or treated inadequately. One example that struck me especially was the treatment of the concept of a developmental state. It gets discussed somewhat in the chapter about Brazil while the chapter on Japan - the ultimate developmental state if there ever was one - pretty much ignores the concept altogether. This leads me to think that this book, although it provides significant background and some insights, has to be supplemented with other materials.
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Political Science Required Reading, 2008-04-23
If you have to take this class like me, then you'll probably have to buy this book no matter what--even if it sucks, which it does'nt.
9 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
Iran is misclassified, 2005-08-20
The authors give an impressive critique of the political systems in several countries. The book has several parts. The first is the major democracies, with a chapter for each of the US, Britain, France, Germany, Japan and India. It is commendable that India is put into this group, as befits the world's largest democracy.
Another part describes the developing democracies, where the word developing is used in preference to imperfect, perhaps. But that's being too cynical. Anyhow, the countries covered are Russia, Brazil, Nigeria and Mexico.
The last part of the book is about the non-democracies. Iran is put into this category. But surely this is a misclassification. Iran has had several elections in 20 years, with competing political parties and changes of national government. The elections were with universal suffrage, with women having the vote, and a woman's vote is weighted the same as a man's. In the Middle East, this is no small thing. Certainly, the chapter on Iran describes many flaws in its government. But is it any worse than Nigeria? Others have said that in the Middle East, there are only two democracies, Israel and Iran.
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