Routledge Comparative Politics: Continuity and Breakdown in the Contemporary World

Comparative Politics: Continuity and Breakdown in the Contemporary World is an exciting new core text for introduction to comparative politics courses, focusing on the dynamics of politics: modernization, revolution, coups and democratization. Unlike other texts, Comparative Politics integrates thematic and extensive country-specific material in each chapter, striking a unique balance between discussing a wide range of countries and civilizations in detail, whilst using shorter focused textboxes to clearly illustrate key thematic points. Key features and benefits include: explanations of core concepts such as state, nation, regime, legitimacy, modernization, globalization, revolution, and mass movements an introduction of key theoretical approaches such as institutionalism, structural functionalism, political culture, political economy, and game theory detailed coverage of democratization, advanced democracies, developing countries and communist and post-communist states a range of perspectives to present a nuanced view of the discipline and contemporary political developments case studies of individual countries including Germany, the United States, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Nigeria, Zaire/Congo, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Pakistan, India, Japan, Indonesia, Taiwan, and the People’s Republic of China country-focused textboxes giving a chronology of key developments, including the United Kingdom, France, Afghanistan, and Kosovo. Extensively illustrated throughout with maps, photographs, tables and explanatory boxes, Comparative Politics is an innovative core text, and essential reading for all students of Comparative Politics. Review 'Zagorski has written a book that is at once in-depth and accessible, thorough in its coverage of the topic and rich in the examples it employs. With meticulous care, the book begins by introducing the basic foundations of the discipline and then moves on to the phenomenon of political continuity and breakdown, modernization and revolution, dictatorship and democracy, patrimonialism and autocracy, and globalization and postmodernity, all the meanwhile grounding his analysis in a wide array of case studies. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the study of comparative politics.' - Mehran Kamrava, Georgetown University School of Foreign Serivice, Qatar 'This is a lively textbook that provides an engaging introduction for undergraduates to the field of comparative politics. By focusing on alternative theoretical approaches to the comparative study of political regimes, Zagorski makes a valuable addition to the pedagogical arsenal of modern political science.' - Richard Snyder, Brown University, USA About the Author Paul W. Zagorski is Professor of Political Science and Coordinator of the International Studies Program at Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas, USA.