Description: This stimulating and accessible introduction to comparative politics offers a fresh perspective on the fundamentals of political science. Its central theme is the enduring political significance of the modern state despite severe challenges to its sovereignty. There are three main sections to the book. The first traces the origins and meaning of the state and proceeds to explore its relationship to the practice of politics. The second examines how states are governed and compares patterns of governance found in the two major regime types in the world today, democracy and authoritarianism. The last section discusses several contemporary challenges - globalization, ethnic nationalism, terrorism, and organized crime - to state sovereignty. Designed to appeal to students and professors alike, this lively text engages readers as it traces states' struggles against the mutually reinforcing pressures of global economic and political interdependence, fragmented identities and secessionism, transnational criminal networks, and terrorism.
Brief description: Robert Hislope is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Union College, New York.
Review Quotes: "Comparativists hoping to teach undergraduates have oscillated between country-by-country approaches and abstract frameworks. [Hislope and Mughan] strike the perfect balance, joining accessibility with rigor....Five chapters cover the state is and how its operations vary across democratic and authoritarian governments. A quartet of chapters addresses the forces shearing at the twenty-first-century state: globalization, ethnic nationalism, terrorism, and organized crime.... Introduction to Comparative Politics will help students and educators understand politics across regime types....A world-class gateway to the field's most important findings and insights. I strongly recommend it." - Jason Brownlee, The University of Texas at Austin