Comparative Politics Theoretical and Methodological Challenges

This volume breaks new ground in addressing a number of critical issues confronting contemporary comparative politics, including the increasing interdependence of countries in the era of enhanced globalization, different levels of political authority and structures of governance, the search for elegant parsimonious explanation and the possibilities for a real accumulation of knowledge. The contributions all problematize comparative politics in ways that have not been done before and add remarkable insight for scholars in the field. This is highly recommended.' - Todd Landman, University of Nottingham, UK and author of Issues and Methods in Comparative Politics (Routledge 2000, 2003, 2008, 2016) 'The challenges that comparative politics faces have, in most cases, been discussed as fragmented and separate treatments. Rarely are they presented systematically and in an encompassing manner, as in the present volume, which covers a variety of subdisciplines. The editors and contributors should be complimented for offering methodologists and empirical comparativists a structured and integrated volume in which the various challenges are not only discussed in depth, but also linked together, rather than in isolation.' - Daniele Caramani, University of Zurich, Switzerland What are the conceptual and methodological challenges facing comparative politics today? This informative book discusses four main challenges that create stress for disciplinary reproduction and advancement, while providing potential solutions. In seven chapters, the contributors cover the most pressing issues: the dissolution of the nation-state as the main objective of inquiry; the increasing complexity of concepts and methods; the capacity to accumulate knowledge; and the tensions between parsimonious and contextually rich explanations. Scholars and students of comparative politics, international relations and political science will be interested in the up-to-date overview of pertinent conceptual problems, as well as the possible ways forward. Practitioners and decision-makers will find the real-world examples provided in this book useful to their work. Contributors: D. Braun, O.Giraud, D. Jahn, D. Kuebler, M. Maggetti, S. Stephan