Representation and the Nature of Political Systems

Abstract

The study of comparative politics is currently invigorated by a world-wide perspective. There is now a lively concern with the politics of societies hitherto little regarded or left comfortably to specialists, and these societies often challenge familiar assumptions based on Western experience. Efforts to understand unfamiliar institutions or why formally similar political institutions perform differently in different societies inevitably forces attention outward from the political focus into wider reaches of each society.