Survey of Comparative Politics

Why do some countries develop authoritarian regimes, while others build democracies? Why do people protest only under some conditions? How do only some countries seem to thrive with a diverse, multiethnic society? These questions are among the most pressing within comparative politics yet we struggle to understand the underlying phenomena that yield the political behavior and institutions we observe across the globe. We will look at the methodological approaches comparative politics utilizes to answer these questions. As we do so, we will keep a critical stance as to what the field neglects or heralds as a concrete finding.