Arguing Comparative Politics

Reviews / Votes

It is quite useful to find so much interesting material concentrated in a single volume. There are, however, two substantive issues on which Stephan breaks new ground and which promise substantial future edifices: 1) the impact of world religious systems upon democracy; and 2) the prospects for federalism as a solution to political order in multinational democracies. * Government and Opposition * One is constantly reminded when reading these chapters of how much richer comparative work can be when it is not just an abstract method of research but also possesses a component of human interaction built into the very processes of conceptualizing a problem and writing up the final results. * Government and Opposition * There is something for almost everyone who enjoys arguing about politics and wonders why human beings have invented so many ways of practising and justifying this activity. * Government and Opposition * The book is impressive in its empirical range. In what is a convincing argument for comparative politics, it covers virtually all corners of the world, from the established liberal democracies in the West to democratizing or consolidating democracies in Latin America and eastern Europe. In addition, Stepan's essays stand out for the bridges they construct between the empirical and theoretical debates. Whether focusing on political identities or institutions, or on the power of the state versus society, Stepan reveals an extraordinary capacity for selecting the problems relevant to contemporary democracies and arriving at agenda-setting findings ... an invaluable collection of essays. * Democratization * A striking demonstration of Alfred Stepan's remarkable combination of analytic range and his career-long commitment to extracting novel insights through interviews with key actors. Big questions, fruitful comparisons, and agenda-setting findings. * David Collier, University of California, Berkeley *