With an accessible, descriptive approach and an easy-to-use, three-part structure within each chapter—political development, process and institutions, and policy—this is a flexible text that is about 25% less expensive than similar texts.

Instead of focusing on one perspective to the exclusion of others, Introduction to Comparative Government exposes students to multiple approaches. For example, Chapter 1 proposes a number of alternative classifications of political systems and a general context that allows the systems to be compared in different ways. Instructors and students can choose the comparative approach that they think is most helpful for understanding the whole or parts of political systems. In addition to offering a flexible and inclusive theoretical approach, Introduction to Comparative Government offers nine country study chapters and two region study chapters, each written by a specialist in that area. Each country study chapter has been thoroughly updated, and a new chapter on the Middle East (Ch. 9) has been added to help students better understand the tragedy of September 11, 2001 and its aftermath.