COMPARATIVE POLITICSPDF电子书下载

Introduction: micro foundations of comparative politics 1

Politics as a series of principal-agent games 4

Politics as principal-agent contracting 6

Institutional mechanism: rule of law 11

Political agents and incentives 12

Political agents: outputs and outcomes 25

Rules and preferences 21

Conclusion 30

PARTⅠ States: stability and performance 33

1 The states of the world 35

Introduction 35

Weber's concept of the state 36

The identification of present states 40

States as institutional probabilities 43

State longevity and regime stability 49

Institutional foundations of states 54

Regimes 58

Regime longevity and constitutionalchanges 64

State stability and political unrest 68

Conclusion 70

2 Rule of law 75

Introduction 75

Performance analysis 76

Rule of law measure 76

The public sector 83

Social outcomes 89

Conclusion 95

PARTⅡ Conditions that support rule of law 97

3 Environmental factors 99

Introduction 99

Size and climate 99

Social structure 103

Religion 108

Family values: individualism versus collectivism 112

Economic conditions 114

Relevance of social, cultural and economic conditions 123

Conclusion 125

4 Impact of political institutions 126

Introduction 126

Institutions, principals and agents 126

Participation 127

Adversarial, concurrent and consociational democracy 129

Federations and confederations 132

Presidentialism 135

Parliamentarianism and bicameralism 137

Authoritarian institutions 138

Institutional consolidation or decay 144

Judicial institutions 147

Relevance of institutions 149

Conclusion 150

5 Changing principal-agent institutions 152

Introduction 152

Introducing the market economy 152

Third World state transformation 158

Political stability 161

Conclusion 166

6 Party system instability and volatility from the principal-agent perspective 169

Introduction 169

Party system stability and democratic stability 170

Volatility and the vitality of democracy 173

The data 174

Net volatility 176

Party system frationalisation 179

Volatility and /rationalisation 181

A regression model of volatility 183

Conclusion 184

Appendix 6.1 185

PARTⅢ Towards an evolutionary regime theory 189

7 Regime fitness: on the survival of polities 191

Introduction 191

Polity forms, fitness and evolutionary mechanisms 192

Capacity 194

Efficacy and legitimacy of a political regime 197

Conclusion 198

8 The concept of a polity: from the city-state to the empire 201

Introduction 201

The Greek heritage 202

Emergence of the Hellenistic empires and Pax Romana 208

Conclusion 210

9 The ancient empires: Oriental despotism or the patrimonial state 212

Introduction 212

Wittfogel 213

Weber 214

The Aztecs 216

The Mayas 217

The Incas 218

West African empires 219

China 222

Mughal India 226

Conclusion 221

10 Feudalism: political, economical and modern 230

Introduction 230

Occidental and Oriental feudalism 230

Political feudalism 232

Economic feudalism: manorial ism 233

An ideal-type feudal polity? 234

Modern feudalism: the war lords 236

Conclusion 231

11 The nation-state and colonial empires 238

Introduction 238

West European nation-states 238

Birth of the nation-state 242

Colonial empires 241 African colonialism 255 Towards an American empire? 258 The post colonial state 260 Conclusion 263

12 Regionalisation of the state 264

Introduction 264

Basic modes of regional organisation 265

The regional forum 266

Regional facilities 268

EconomicsⅠ: FT As and customs unions 269

EconomicsⅡ: monetary unions 271

Economics Ⅲ: the common market 272

The regional regimes: will they replace the state? 274

Conclusion 277

Conclusion: evolutionary advantage of ruleof law regimes 278

Can stable authoritarian regimes survive? 279

Politics as principal-agent contracting 281

Conclusion 287

Bibliography 289

Index 307