Comparative Politics

This collection reassesses rational choice theory, culturalist analysis, and structuralist approaches to comparative politics.

This study brings together leading political scientists to examine rational choice theory, culturalist analysis, and structuralist approaches to political science. The contributors apply the various schools of comparative politics to the study of electoral politics, social movements and revolutions, political economy, and the state.This book reassesses the research schools in comparative politics, assessing knowledge, advancing theory, and in the end seeking to direct research in the coming years. It begins by examining the three research schools that guide comparative politics; rational choice theory, culturalist analysis, and structuralist approaches. The first set of contributors offer briefs for each of the schools, presenting core principles, variations within each approach, and fresh combinations. A second set of authors applies the research schools to established fields of scholarship. The concluding section contains essays by the editors, returning the focus to the theme of advanced theory in comparative politics.