Readings in Comparative Politics is divided into six sections?States and Regimes, Governing the Economy, the Democratic Challenge, Politics of Collective Identity, Political Institutions and Public Policies, and Political Challenges and Changing Agendas?that correspond to the four main themes found in Kesselman's Introduction to Comparative Politics survey text.
The selected readings are drawn from a variety of published, unpublished, and electronic sources. They tend to be general and theoretical in nature and were carefully selected to provide a good sample of the wide range of popular and scholarly views relevant to the major topics presented in introductory courses.
- The readings provide an extended opportunity to consider the four main themes used in the textbook: A World of States, Governing the Economy, the Democratic Challenge, and the Politics of Collective Identity.
- Excerpts are culled from a variety of sources including scholarly articles from journals and books, op-ed and newspaper articles, and statements by interest groups and NGOs in the U.S. and other countries, including published sources and material disseminated by the Internet.
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.
Joel Krieger is the Norma Wilentz Hess Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College. He is author of Reagan, Thatcher, and the Politics of Decline (Oxford University Press, 1986), British Politics in the Global Age (Oxford University Press, 1999). He is the editor-in-chief of The Oxford Companion to Comparative Politics (Oxford University Press, 2013).