Balancing theory with application and featuring an exciting full-color design and an engaging, student-friendly writing style, COMPARATIVE POLITICS uses a unique theme--Domestic Responses to Global Challenges--to introduce key concepts and examine the growing interdependence of strong and weak states. COMPARATIVE POLITICS takes an in-depth look at eleven countries and the European Union, framed within broader discussions in the part-opening chapters on Industrialized Democracies, Communist Regimes, and Less Developed Countries. Four additional countries are available as online chapters or in a custom print solution: Brazil, Canada, Japan, and South Africa. The introduction establishes a comparative structure based on five themes: conflict, democratization, economic liberalization, globalization, and challenges, which are then explored for each country. The countries discussed are categorized by economic development, helping students hone their skills of comparison, synthesis, and interpretation by studying countries of similar economic status. With this uniquely effective text, students will gain an understanding of important political trends and concepts, an exposure to politics in a number of countries, and a desire to dig more deeply into the fascinating field of comparative politics.