Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture, and Structure (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics) - Hardcover

Lichbach, Mark Irving; Zuckerman, Alan S.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521583691 ISBN 13: 9780521583695

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1997

Synopsis

Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture, and Structure brings together leading political scientists to assess the research schools that direct scholarship in comparative politics. It examines rational choice theory, culturalist analysis, and structuralist approaches, by applying them to the study of electoral politics, social movements and revolutions, political economy and the state. The essays return analysis to basic questions concerning the development of theory and the nature of explanations. The contributors are established scholars and pioneers in the various subfields of comparative politics.

About this title

About the Author

Mark Irving Lichbach is Professor and Chair of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland. A theorist interested in social choice and a comparativist interested in globalization, Lichbach explores the connections between collective action theories and political conflict as well as the connections between collective choice theories and democratic institutions. He is the author or editor of many books, including the award-winning The Rebel's Dilemma, and of numerous articles that have appeared in scholarly journals in political science, economics, and sociology.

Review

"This volume offers a completely revised, updated and exciting version of the well-known volume published by Mark Lichbach and Alan Zuckerman a few years ago. Both editors have recruited a cast of outstanding scholars to offer a balanced and deep discussion of the main avenues of research in empirical political science. There is truly a lot to learn from this new Comparative Politics!"
-Carles Boix, Princeton University

"Assembling an impressive array of key players in contemporary theory and research of the various subfields of Comparative Politics (from institutionalism to political behavior and political economy), this book is a timely and highly welcome update of one of the best treatments of central issues of contemporary political science. Organized along the distinction between the rational choice paradigm with its emphasis on reasoned agency, the cultural paradigm, with its emphasis on rules, norms, and identities, and the structural paradigm which focuses on institutions, the book not only carves out the major positions that inform today's theoretical debate in Comparative Politics; it also evaluates their respective merits and problems, and identifies their complementarities. It is unique in that it highlights not only the big theoretical issues of the discipline, but also delves deeply into their epistemological and methodological implications and ramifications. Most remarkable is the understanding of politics as a multi-level phenomenon that guides many of the volume's chapters."
-Rudiger Schmitt-Beck, University of Manheim, Germany

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521583691
• ISBN 13: 9780521583695
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336