Reilly analyzes the design of electoral systems for divided societies, examining various divided societies which utilize "vote-pooling" electoral systems--including Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland and Fiji. He shows that political institutions which encourage the development of broad-based, aggregative political parties and where campaigning politicians have incentives to attract votes from a range of ethnic groups can, under certain conditions, encourage a moderate, accommodatory political competition and thus influence the trajectory of democratization in transitional states. This is a challenge to orthodox approaches to democracy and conflict management.

Major land reform programs have reallocated property in more than one-third of the world's countries in the last century and impacted over one billion people. But only rarely have these programs granted beneficiaries complete property rights. Why is this the case, and what are the consequences? This book draws on wide-ranging original data and charts new conceptual terrain to reveal the political origins of the property rights gap. It shows that land reform programs are most often implemented by authoritarian governments who deliberately withhold property rights from beneficiaries. In so doing, governments generate coercive leverage over rural populations and exert social control. This is politically advantageous to ruling governments but it has negative development consequences: it slows economic growth, productivity, and urbanization and it exacerbates inequality. The book also examines the conditions under which subsequent governments close property rights gaps, usually as a result of democratization or foreign pressure.

Using decades of public opinion data from the US, UK, Australia, Germany and Canada, and distinguishing between three concepts - issue ownership, performance and generalised competence - Green and Jennings show how political parties come to gain or lose 'ownership' of issues, how they are judged on their performance in government across policy issues and how they develop a reputation for competence (or incompetence) over a period in office. Their analysis tracks the major events causing people to re-evaluate party reputations and the costs of governing which cause electorates to punish parties in power. They reveal why, when and how these movements in public opinion matter to elections. The implications are important for long-standing debates about performance and partisanship, and reveal that public opinion about party and governing competence is, to a great extent, the product of major shocks and predictable dynamics.

Nations at War provides an explanation of war in international politics grounded on data-based, empirical research. The book classifies and synthesizes the research findings of over 500 quantitative analyses of war at the analytic level of the state, dyad, region, and international system. Because wars follow from political decisions, two basic decision-making models - the rational and the non-rational - are examined in relation to the explanatory framework of the volume. In addition, case analyses of two wars - the Iran/Iraq War (1980), and World War I (1914) - are provided as demonstrations of scientifically-based explanations of historical events. The primary structural factors responsible for the onset and seriousness of war are identified and the explanations are developed according to the scientific model of 'covering laws'. The conclusion presents a discussion of the potential for probabilistic conditional predictions of conflict within the context of war and peace studies.

The third edition of the best-selling The Fundamentals of Political Science Research provides an introduction to the scientific study of politics. It offers the basic tools necessary for readers to become both critical consumers and beginning producers of scientific research on politics. The authors present an integrated approach to research design and empirical analyses whereby researchers can develop and test causal theories. They use examples from political science research that students will find interesting and inspiring, and that will help them understand key concepts. The book makes technical material accessible to students who might otherwise be intimidated by mathematical examples. This revised third edition features new 'Your Turn' boxes meant to engage students. The edition also has new sections added throughout the book to enhance the content's clarity and breadth of coverage.

Why do some authoritarian regimes topple during financial crises, while others steer through financial crises relatively unscathed? In this book, Thomas B. Pepinsky uses the experiences of Indonesia and Malaysia and the analytical tools of open economy macroeconomics to answer this question. Focusing on the economic interests of authoritarian regimes' supporters, Pepinsky shows that differences in cross-border asset specificity produce dramatically different outcomes in regimes facing financial crises. When asset specificity divides supporters, as in Indonesia, they desire mutually incompatible adjustment policies, yielding incoherent adjustment policy followed by regime collapse. When coalitions are not divided by asset specificity, as in Malaysia, regimes adopt radical adjustment measures that enable them to survive financial crises. Combining rich qualitative evidence from Southeast Asia with cross-national time-series data and comparative case studies of Latin American autocracies, Pepinsky reveals the power of coalitions and capital mobility to explain how financial crises produce regime change.

Essential Mathematics for Political and Social Research addresses an educational deficiency in the social and behavioral sciences. This 2006 book was the first of its kind to specifically address the comprehensive introduction to the mathematical principles needed by modern social scientists. The material introduces basic mathematical principles necessary to do analytical work in the social sciences, starting from first principles, but without unnecessary complexity. The core purpose is to present fundamental notions in standard notation and standard language with a clear, unified framework throughout. Through examples and exercises, this book is intended to not only motivate specific mathematical principles and practices, but also introduce the way that social science researchers use these tools. The intended emphasis is on conceptual understanding of key principles and their subsequent application.

Review
"...this book answers the question of our age and provides an eminently worthy target to shoot at." Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs
"Bunce's story is a complicated one, but that, in fact, is part of the message of her book: that parsimony in explaining macrolevel historical change may come at the cost of cutting out precisely those variables that need attention...The real value of her account is its concretizin exactly what the much-discussed "communist legacies" really are." World Politics 53
"The arguments presented in the book bear upon a larger circle of issues in the study of comparative transitions from socialism." Slavic and East European Journal
Review
"...this book answers the question of our age and provides an eminently worthy target to shoot at." Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs
"Bunce's story is a complicated one, but that, in fact, is part of the message of her book: that parsimony in explaining macrolevel historical change may come at the cost of cutting out precisely those variables that need attention...The real value of her account is its concretizin exactly what the much-discussed "communist legacies" really are." World Politics 53
"The arguments presented in the book bear upon a larger circle of issues in the study of comparative transitions from socialism." Slavic and East European Journal --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Although much of the world still lives today, as always, under dictatorship, the behaviour of these regimes and of their leaders often appears irrational and mysterious. In The Political Economy of Dictatorship, Ronald Wintrobe uses rational choice theory to model dictatorships: their strategies for accumulating power, the constraints on their behavior, and why they are often more popular than is commonly accepted. The book explores both the politics and the economics of dictatorships, and the interaction between them. The questions addressed include: What determines the repressiveness of a regime? Can political authoritarianism be 'good' for the economy? After the fall, who should be held responsible for crimes against human rights? The book contains many applications, including chapters on Nazi Germany, Soviet Communism, South Africa under apartheid, the ancient Roman Empire and Pinochet's Chile. It also provides a guide to the policies which should be followed by the democracies towards dictatorships.

Although much of the world still lives today, as always, under dictatorship, the behaviour of these regimes and of their leaders often appears irrational and mysterious. In The Political Economy of Dictatorship, Ronald Wintrobe uses rational choice theory to model dictatorships: their strategies for accumulating power, the constraints on their behavior, and why they are often more popular than is commonly accepted. The book explores both the politics and the economics of dictatorships, and the interaction between them. The questions addressed include: What determines the repressiveness of a regime? Can political authoritarianism be 'good' for the economy? After the fall, who should be held responsible for crimes against human rights? The book contains many applications, including chapters on Nazi Germany, Soviet Communism, South Africa under apartheid, the ancient Roman Empire and Pinochet's Chile. It also provides a guide to the policies which should be followed by the democracies towards dictatorships.

This ambitious book looks 'behind the model' to reveal how economists use formal models to generate insights into the economy. Drawing on recent work in the philosophy of science and economic methodology, the book presents a novel framework for understanding the logic of economic modeling. It also reveals the ways in which economic models can mislead rather than illuminate. Importantly, the book goes beyond purely negative critique, proposing a concrete program of methodological reform to better equip economists to detect potential mismatches between their models and the targets of their inquiry. Ranging across economics, philosophy, and social science methods, and drawing on a variety of examples, including the recent financial crisis, Behind the Model will be of interest to anyone who has wondered how economics works - and why it sometimes fails so spectacularly.

Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and other set-theoretic methods distinguish themselves from other approaches to the study of social phenomena by using sets and the search for set relations. In virtually all social science fields, statements about social phenomena can be framed in terms of set relations, and using set-theoretic methods to investigate these statements is therefore highly valuable. This book guides readers through the basic principles of set theory and then on to the applied practices of QCA. It provides a thorough understanding of basic and advanced issues in set-theoretic methods together with tricks of the trade, software handling and exercises. Most arguments are introduced using examples from existing research. The use of QCA is increasing rapidly and the application of set-theory is both fruitful and still widely misunderstood in current empirical comparative social research. This book provides the comprehensive guide to these methods for researchers across the social sciences.

Field research - leaving one's home institution in order to acquire data, information or insights that significantly inform one's research - remains indispensable, even in a digitally networked era. This book, the first of its kind in political science, reconsiders the design and execution of field research and explores its role in producing knowledge. First, it offers an empirical overview of fieldwork in the discipline based on a large-scale survey and extensive interviews. Good fieldwork takes diverse forms yet follows a set of common practices and principles. Second, the book demonstrates the analytic benefits of fieldwork, showing how it contributes to our understanding of politics. Finally, it provides intellectual and practical guidance, with chapters on preparing for field research, operating in the field and making analytic progress while collecting data, and on data collection techniques including archival research, interviewing, ethnography and participant observation, surveys, and field experiments.

- Winner of the 2016 Best Book of the Year Award, International Studies Association
- Winner of the 2015 Yale H. Ferguson Award, International Studies Association
- Honorable mention, 2015 Chadwick F. Alger Prize, International Studies Association
- Honorable mention, 2014 Book of the Year, Afan Arguments
This book suggests a new explanation for why international peace interventions often fail to reach their full potential. Based on several years of ethnographic research in conflict zones around the world, it demonstrates that everyday elements - such as the expatriates' social habits and usual approaches to understanding their areas of operation - strongly influence peacebuilding effectiveness. Individuals from all over the world and all walks of life share numerous practices, habits, and narratives when they serve as interveners in conflict zones. These common attitudes and actions enable foreign peacebuilders to function in the field, but they also result in unintended consequences that thwart international efforts. Certain expatriates follow alternative modes of thinking and acting, often with notable results, but they remain in the minority. Through an in-depth analysis of the interveners' everyday life and work, this book proposes innovative ways to better help host populations build a sustainable peace.

In this comprehensive study of the early development of the Soviet propaganda system, Peter Kenez describes how the Bolshevik Party went about reaching the Russian people. Throughout this book, Kenez is more concerned with the experience of the Soviet people than with high-level politics. The book is both a major contribution to our understanding of the genius of the Soviet state, and of the nature of propaganda in the modern world.

This book examines some fifty countries to ascertain how the chambers of bicameral legislatures interact when they produce legislation. An understanding of this interaction is essential because otherwise legislative behaviour in each chamber may be unintelligible or incorrectly interpreted. The book employs cooperative game theoretic models to establish that bicameral legislatures, when compared with unicameral legislatures, increase the stability of the status quo and reduce intercameral differences to one privileged dimension of conflict. Non-cooperative game theoretic models are used to investigate the significance of a series of insitutional devices used to resolve intercameral conflict where a bill is introduced, which chamber has the final word, how many times a bill can shuttle between chambers, and whether conference committees are called. Empirical evidence, mainly from the French Republic, is used to evaluate the arguments.

A revolutionary new textbook introducing masters and doctoral students to the major research approaches and methodologies in the social sciences. Written by an outstanding set of scholars, and derived from successful course teaching, this volume will empower students to choose their own approach to research, to justify this approach, and to situate it within the discipline. It addresses questions of ontology, epistemology and philosophy of social science, and proceeds to issues of methodology and research design essential for producing a good research proposal. It also introduces researchers to the main issues of debate and contention in the methodology of social sciences, identifying commonalities, historic continuities and genuine differences.