The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics

Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbooks of Political Science is a ten-volume set of reference books offering authoritative and engaging critical overviews of the state of political science. Each volume focuses on a particular part of the discipline, with volumes on Public Policy, Political Theory, Political Economy, Contextual Political Analysis, Comparative Politics, International Relations, Law and Politics, Political Behavior, Political Institutions, and Political Methodology. The project as a whole is under the General Editorship of Robert E. Goodin, with each volume being edited by a distinguished international group of specialists in their respective fields. The books set out not just to report on the discipline, but to shape it. The series will be an indispensable point of reference for anyone working in political science and adjacent disciplines. The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics offers a critical survey of the field of empirical political science through the collection of a set of chapters written by forty-seven top scholars in the discipline of comparative politics. Part I includes chapters surveying the key research methodologies employed in comparative politics (the comparative method; the use of history; the practice and status of case-study research; the contributions of field research) and assessing the possibility of constructing a science of comparative politics. Parts II to IV examine the foundations of political order: the origins of states and the extent to which they relate to war and to economic development; the sources of compliance or political obligation among citizens; democratic transitions, the role of civic culture; authoritarianism; revolutions; civil wars and contentious politics. Parts V and VI explore the mobilization, representation and coordination of political demands. Part V considers why parties emerge, the forms they take and the ways in which voters choose parties. It then includes chapters on collective action, social movements and political participation. Part VI opens up with essays on the mechanisms through which political demands are aggregated and coordinated. This sets the agenda to the systematic exploration of the workings and effects of particular institutions: electoral systems, federalism, legislative-executive relationships, the judiciary and bureaucracy. Finally, Part VII is organized around the burgeoning literature on macropolitical economy of the last two decades.