Comparative Politics

1. Introduction
- What is comparative politics?
- The substance of comparative politics
- The method of comparative politics
- Evolution of comparative politics

2.Economic development and political regimes
- Introduction
- The Problem
- The seminal study of Lipset: criticisms and new approaches
- Quantitative and qualitative comparisons
- Final remarks

3. Democratization
- Democracies and non-democracies
- Transitions to democracy
- Democratic Consolidation?
- The conditions for democracy
- Revisiting theories of democratization

4. Institutional design and democratic performance
- Introduction
- Debates on institutional design: government systems, party systems and electoral systems
- The quality of democracy

5. Comparative Welfare state
- Introduction
- Types of welfare regimes
- Transformations, crisis and reforms
- Challenges