The first edition of Comparing Democracies proved a landmark text,
providing students with a thematic introduction to the global
study of elections and voting. In this major new edition the
world's leading international scholars have again produced an
indispensable guide and up-to-date review of the whole field.
Each of the chapters (the majority completely new)
provide a broad theoretical and comparative understanding of all
the key topics associated with the elections including electoral
and party systems, voter choice and turnout, campaign
communications, and the consequences for democracy. This
Third Edition will remain essential reading for students and
lecturers of elections and voting behavior, comparative
politics, parties, and democracy.
Elections have undergone radical
changes in recent decades, not only in the United States but
throughout the world. Electoral
systems have experienced major reform
in many countries including Italy, Israel, and Japan, and new
parties have changed the
face of competition in Germany,
France, and Belgium. The emerging democracies of Eastern Europe
and Latin America have
also established new party systems
with competitive elections. Integrating and synthesizing the
most recent research in the field
of elections, Comparing Democracies
3
offers selections from a team of renowned international scholars
writing on their areas of
specialty. Contributors provide a
cross-national study comparing elections in a number of
democracies and discussing key
topics associated with the study of
elections including electoral systems, media communications, and
political participation.
This prestigious volume is an invaluable addition to the
literature on elections and voting behavior, comparative
democracy, and
area studies. It will also serve as a
standard reference for graduate students in comparative
politics.
Reviews of the 1st edition
"Comparing Democracies is a
study of elections and voting and is a follow-up to Democracy at
the Polls (1981 AEI). It covers more themes (including interest
groups, political leaders and the economy) and more countries.
Many of the chapters are genuinely cross-national and at times
contributors make heroic efforts to be descriptive, comparative,
and analytic in the space of twenty pages. ...there is not a
weak chapter in the volume. The thirty-five closely types pages
of comparative data on election arrangements across fifty-three
states is a tour de force. There is no overview essay but this
is no loss because of the excellence of the chapters." Dennis
Kavanagh, Political Studies, September 1998.
"This is certainly a book that all
interested in elections will want to have to hand and for those
who teach the subject comparatively it is indispensible."
EPOP Newsletter, July 1997.
