PARADIGMS AND PRAGMATISM

Abstract

Students of comparative politics explain electoral behavior, political networks, political institutions, contentious politics, comparative political economies, welfare states, international-comparative linkages, and the state. Their interest in the pragmatic and causal analysis of these critical political questions defines the “messy center” of comparative politics. The first edition of this volume emphasized the field's research paradigms, placing rationality, culture, and structure in the subtitle. In the decade or so since the first edition was published, tension between these two perspectives on the field has persisted. Contrasts between research paradigms and pragmatic causal accounts provide the intellectual friction that drives much of our research. These alternative foci structure this edition's themes and problems.