Arguing Comparative Politics

This volume brings together new and classic articles by one of the leading scholars in comparative politics. The articles focus in particular on the nature of contemporary democracy and its prospects. The volume begins with a personal analysis of the intellectual, and often political, reasons why and how Stepan chose to engage in certain critical arguments over the last thirty years. The volume is then divided into three sections, each with a distinctive theme: state and society; constructing polities; and varieties of democracies. The introduction and articles ask whether, both for intellectual and political reasons, there are strong grounds for questioning both Rawls and Huntington on religion and democracy, Riker on federalism, and Gellner on multinationalism. The volume contains articles on civil society, political society, economic society, the military, and a usable state. The possibility of multiple and complementary political identities is argued for. The incentive systems and political practices of the three macro-constitutional frameworks for democratic government-- parliamentarianism, presidentialism, and semi-presidentialism-- are compared and contrasted.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Reflections on 'Problem Selection' in Comparative Politics I. The State and Society 1: The New Professionalism of Internal Warfare and Military Role Expansion 2: Liberal-Pluralist, Classic Marxist, and 'Organic Statist' Approaches to the State 3: State Power and the Strength of Civil Society in the Southern Cone of Latin America 4: Military Politics in Three Polity Arenas: Civil Society, Political Society, and the State II. Constructing and Deconstructing Polities: Contexts, Capacities and Identities 5: Paths Toward Redemocratization: Theoretical and Comparative Considerations 6: Political Crafting of Democratic Consolidation or Destruction: European and South American Comparisons (with Juan J. Linz) 7: On the Tasks of a Democratic Opposition 8: Democratic Opposition and Democratization Theory 9: Modern Multi-National Democracies: Transcending a Gellnerian Oxymoron 10: Political Identities and Electoral Sequences: Spain, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia (with Juan J. Linz) 11: The World s Religious Systems and Democracy: Crafting the Twin Tolerations III. The Meta-frameworks of Democratic Governance and Democratic States 12: Constitutional Frameworks and Democratic Consolidation: Parliamentarianism versus Presidentialism (with Cindy Skach) 13: The French Fifth Republic: A Model for Import? Reflections on Poland and Brazil (with Ezra N. Suleiman) 14: Toward Consolidated Democracies (with Juan J. Linz) 15: Toward a New Comparative Analysis of Democracy and Federalism: 'Demos Constraining' and 'Demos Enabling' Federations

About the Author :
Alfred Stepan is Wallace S. Sayre Professor of Government at Columbia University. In his career he has also been Gladstone Professor of Government at Oxford University, the first Rector of Central European University, and the Director of Graduate Studies in Political Science at Yale University. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the British Academy.

Review :
`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