"The question of "country" or "concept" has long divided and, to some extent, confounded the teaching of introductory comparative politics: should we teach the course as a series of country studies highlighting the key similarities and differences among political institutions around the world, or should we focus on the important concepts in the discipline? Throughout thirty years of teaching introduction to comparative politics, this "either/or" proposition and the textbooks that reflect it have frustrated us. The country ...
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"The question of "country" or "concept" has long divided and, to some extent, confounded the teaching of introductory comparative politics: should we teach the course as a series of country studies highlighting the key similarities and differences among political institutions around the world, or should we focus on the important concepts in the discipline? Throughout thirty years of teaching introduction to comparative politics, this "either/or" proposition and the textbooks that reflect it have frustrated us. The country approach is far too descriptive, and it is not easy to tease major concepts out of country case studies in any sustained way. This makes it difficult for students to get to the intellectual "meat" of our discipline. A purely conceptual approach, on the other hand, leaves students with little concrete knowledge, even when they're given examples here and there. We want our students to know the difference between a president and a prime minister. We've found that it is impossible for them to assess theories in an empirical vacuum. Students need the context that studying actual country cases provides. This textbook tries to resolve the country-or-concept dilemma using what we call a hybrid approach. While the book is organized conceptually, each chapter introduces concepts and then examines these concepts with relevant case studies. For instance, chapter 10, on the political economy of wealthy countries, lays out the key concepts in political economy and major economic theories and inserts case studies where they best fit: of the U.S. laissez-faire model, the German social market economy, and the Japanese developmental state"--
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