Comparative research is exploding with new methodological and theoretical approaches. In this book, scholars who are expert in each one of these methods provide the first comprehensive explanation and application of time-series, pooled, event history, and Boolean methods to substantive problems of the welfare state. Each section of the book focuses on a new method with a general introduction to the method and then two papers using the method to deal with analysis concerning welfare state problems in a political economy perspective. Scholars and graduate students concerned with methodology in...

This book discusses the future of the nation-state in a world of global markets. Unlike most studies asserting that global markets dominate national politics, this book argues that countries still possess considerable autonomy over policy choices. Furthermore, citizens' demands for government protection from market forces (economic insecurity) are rising, while countries with strong trade union movements that can restrain the wage demands of workers (corporatism) are attractive to investors. As a result, there is still a viable leftist alternative to the free market in the global economy.

Focusing on the strategic interaction among workers, employers, and the state, this book examines the temporal movement of postwar Italian strikes. Incorporating several theoretical approaches and based on many forms of empirical evidence (statistical, historical, ethnographic, and survey), The Puzzle of Strikes is unique in its broad concern with a variety of actors, theories, and forms of empirical evidence.

This book explains the contrasting strategies of social democratic parties and their electoral fortunes in the major European democracies in the 1970s and 1980s. Going beyond approaches that focus on the influence of class structures and political economic institutions, Herbert Kitschelt analyzes a party's competitive situation in the electoral arena, the constraints and opportunities of party organization, and ideological legacies to explain the strategic choices made by social democratic parties and their electoral results. Social democracy is far from being doomed to decline, but its...

This is a collection of scholarly essays on state, society and politics in the Third World, with cases drawn from Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America. The introductory chapter outlines the theoretical approach of the contributors and the concluding chapter summarizes the importance of their studies and the contribution of the volume to general theory in comparative politics. The book is relevant to the growing state theory literature in the social sciences and it puts forward a state-in-society approach to the study of political development.

This book argues that European economies were not deregulated in the 1980s. While old, politically-centralized institutions have lost importance, institutional arrangements continue to shape economic behavior of peripheral actors. The book's importance lies not just in showing that the prevailing deregulation view is wrong as far as continental European countries are concerned, but especially in outlining an alternative pattern of "micro-social" regulation of their economies.

This book presents empirical research on the nature and structure of political violence. While most studies of social movements focus on single-nation studies, Donatella della Porta uses a comparative research design to analyze movements in two countries--Italy and Germany--from the 1960s to the 1990s. Through extensive use of official documents and in-depth interviews, della Porta is able to explain the actors' construction of external political reality, and to build a theory on political violence that synthesizes the various interactions among political actors.

A comparative investigation of how unions and firms interact when economic circumstances demand substantial job loss. Using simple game theory to generate testable propositions about when these situations will result in industrial conflict, the work illustrates the theory in a range of situations between 1950 and 1985 in Japan, Italy, and Britain. Additionally, the author shows how the theory explains why strikes over job loss almost never occur in postwar unionized firms in the United States.

Between States is a two-part study compiled in one book. It is the first book to assess systematically the broad implications of interim governments in the establishment of democratic regimes and on the existence of states. Drawing on historical and contemporary democratization experiences, Shain and Linz, the principal authors, explore four ideal types of interim government: opposition-led provisional governments, power-sharing interim governments, incumbent-led caretaker governments, and international interim government by the United Nations. In the second part of this book, other...

Social movements such as environmentalism, feminism, nationalism, and the anti-immigration movement figure prominently in the modern world. Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements examines social movements in a comparative perspective, focusing on the role of ideology and beliefs, mechanisms of mobilization, and how politics shapes the development and outcomes of movements. It includes case studies of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the United States, Italy, the Netherlands, and West Germany.