This book provides a concise overview of the institutions of government in modern democracies, including constitutions, legislatures, heads of state and of government, variations of federalism, and electoral systems.

The Institutions of Liberal Democratic States presents four excerpted chapters from Politics: An Introduction to Democratic Government, second edition.

Politics is a comprehensive and comparative introduction to the essential components of democratic politics. It familiarizes students with enduring themes and issues that have arisen over the roughly 2,000-year history of political research and provides foundations for more advanced study in the discipline. The empirical focus is on the institutions and processes associated with presidential and parliamentary variants of liberal democracy.

Following an introduction to some of the central concepts in political analysis and the evolution of political research over the...