Spotlights
Focus
1.1 Hobbes’s case for government
1.2 Two options for classifying political systems
2.1 How many states are there?
3.1 How many democracies are there?
3.2 Full democracies vs. flawed democracies
4.1 Hybrid vs. authoritarian regimes
5.1 Empirical versus normative approaches
5.2 The interpretive approach: mass killings and genocide
6.2 Path dependence, critical junctures, and the Greek financial crisis
7.2 Models of judicial decision-making
8.1 Does the size of legislatures matter?
8.2 The pros and cons of term limits
9.2 Heads of state in parliamentary systems 155
10.1 The pros and cons of outsourcing government work
10.2 Keeping bureaucrats accountable
11.1 The motives behind creating federations
12.1 Elazar’s three types of political culture 202
13.1 The consumer as political participant
13.2 The problem of the uninformed citizen
14.1 Comparing media structures
14.2 Online interaction and the Arab Spring
15.1 The rise of niche parties
15.2 The pros and cons of public funding for political parties
16.1 Who should be allowed to vote?
16.2 Electoral messages and mandates
17.2 The pros and cons of compulsory voting
18.1 Pluralism undermined: the cases of the United States and Japan
Figures
1.2 Aristotle’s classification of governments
3.3 Huntington’s waves of democratization
3.4 The expansion of the British electorate
4.1 The world’s ten least and most corrupt states
5.1 Theoretical approaches to comparative politics
5.2 The formal institutions of government
5.3 Understanding political institutions
6.1 Political science research methods
6.3 Population and the size of legislature
7.1 The elements of constitutions
7.2 Ten facts about constitutions
7.3 Comparing constitutional amendments
7.4 Comparing judicial appointments
8.1 The functions of legislatures
8.2 Stages in the making of a law
8.3 A selection of lower chambers
8.4 Comparing levels of legislative representation
8.5 Selecting the upper chamber
9.1 Types of parliamentary government
9.2 Governments in Western Europe,1945–99
10.1 Weber’s model of bureaucracy
10.2 Comparing the size of bureaucracies
10.3 Comparing the size of central government
10.4 Government departments in selected countries
10.5 The structure of a government department
10.6 Women in the labour force
11.1 Multilevel governance in the European Union
11.2 Dispersing power in unitary systems
12.1 Trust in federal government: United States
12.2 Trust in national government: European Union
13.1 Political participation in liberal democracies
13.3 Political participation in developing countries
13.4 A patronage network linking centre and periphery
14.1 The evolution of mass media
14.3 The transmission model of political communication
14.4 Mechanisms of media impact
14.5 Media structures in liberal democracies
15.1 Five roles of political parties
15.3 Who selects candidates for legislative elections?
16.1 The Canadian federal election, 2011
17.1 Partisan dealignment in Germany
17.2 Partisan dealignment in Sweden
17.3 Causes of partisan dealignment
17.4 Key factors explaining voter choice
17.5 Turnout at legislative elections
17.6 Comparing levels of electoral volatility
18.2 Iron triangles: the case of the United States
18.3 Channels of interest group influence
18.4 Falling trade union membership
18.5 Demonstrations against the Iraq War, 2003
19.1 Stages in the policy process
19.2 The diffusion of innovation
Tables
1.1 Lukes’s three dimensions of power
1.2 Contrasting themes of left and right
1.3 Comparative political ratings
2.3 Ten criticisms of the state
3.1 Features of modern democracy
4.1 Features of authoritarian rule
4.2 Leaders overthrown in theArab Spring, 2011
4.3 Forms of authoritarian rule
4.4 The five last communist party states
4.5 Recent examples of military rule
6.1 Comparing qualitative and quantitative approaches
6.2 Some challenges of comparison
6.3 The KOF Globalization Index
7.1 Comparing supreme courts and constitutional courts
7.2 The ten countries with the lowest scores on human rights
9.3 Selecting the head of state in parliamentary democracies
9.4 Semi-presidential executives
10.1 Divisions within the US Department of Health and Human Services
10.2 The world’s top ten countries for e-government
11.1 Sub-national government in unitary states
11.3 Comparing Canadian, German, and Indian federations
11.4 Comparing the United States and the European Union
11.5 The strengths and weaknesses of federalism
11.6 The structures of local government
12.1 Huntington’s structure of states and civilizations
13.1 Forms of political participation
13.2 Some (in)famous assassinations
13.3 Women executives (selected)
14.2 The internet and the Arab Spring
15.1 Europe’s major party families
15.2 Selecting party leaders in liberal democracies
15.3 Europe’s declining party membership
16.1 Comparing legislative electoral systems
16.2 The German federal election, 2013
16.3 The French presidential election,2002
16.4 Comparing presidential elections
17.1 The economy and voter choice
17.2 A recipe for higher voter turnout
18.1 Comparing protective and promotional interest groups
18.2 Comparing social movements, parties, and interest groups
18.3 Examples of social movements
18.4 Social organizations in China
19.1 Three models of policy-making
19.2 Policy instruments: the example of tobacco
19.3 Manipulating policy outcomes
19.4 Mechanisms for policy convergence
Maps