Introduction to Comparative Politics: Political Challenges and Changing Agendas

Introduction to Comparative Politics offers accessible material for an introductory comparative politics course. Edited by a highly respected team of scholars, each of the text's twelve country studies is written by an expert in the field.

Four innovative themes, each with a specific focus, form the framework of the text: The World of States, Governing the Economy, The Democratic Idea, and The Politics of Collective Identities.

• A classification system focuses on levels of democracy, including established, transitional, and non-democracies.
• A chapter on the United States follows the same lines of comparison as those on other countries.
• Every chapter includes four to six sidebars, which focus on different subjects, including leaders, citizen action, institutional intricacies, current challenges, and global connections.

Mark Kesselman is senior editor of the International Political Science Review and professor emeritus of political science at Columbia University. His research focuses on the political economy of French and European politics. His publications include The Ambiguous Consensus (1967), The French Workers Movement (1984), The Politics of Globalization: A Reader (2012), and The Politics of Power (2013). His articles have appeared in The American Political Science Review, World Politics, and Comparative Politics.