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

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.

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.