Introduction to comparative politics: political system performance in three worlds
- Chicago Nelson-Hall 1985
- 360 p.
First, there are aspects of comparative politics with which this book does not deal but which other introductory texts spend much space outlining. Twenty-five years ago most comparative texts went into great detail about institutional, constitutional, and other configurational differ- ences among the political systems considered most important (very often those of the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union). While some texts still use this traditional approach, it began to come under criti- cism in the 1950s for focusing too much on the formal institutions of govern- ment and too little on the deviations from constitutional provisions, the roles of semipublic and private groupings (parties, unions, citizen coalitions, busi- ness and professional associations), and in general the variety of informal ways in which governments are run or influenced. A good introduction to foreign governments (a more appropriate title for the institutional approach) would quickly have to amend its description of structural differences among the governments covered to note that the real stuff of politics does not necessarily follow prescribed lines.