Books in the Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics series

Clientelism and ethnic favoritism appear to go hand in hand in many diverse societies in the developing world. However, while some ethnic communities receive generous material rewards for their political support, others receive very modest payoffs. In this study the author examines this key, and often overlooked, component of clientelism.

Challenging the conventional perception that war zones are chaotic and anarchic, this study analyzes rebel institutions, social order and civilian-combatant relations in the Colombian civil war. The results of extensive fieldwork shed light on how war transforms communities, patterns of local governance, non-violent resistance, state building, and political order.

Why do institutional crises emerge, spread, and repeat in some Latin American countries, but not in others? This book shows that concentrating power in the executive branch not only fuels presidential crises under divided government, but also triggers broader constitutional crises that cascade on to the legislature and the judiciary.

Can meaningful representation arise in an authoritarian setting? Making Autocracy Work identifies the trade-offs associated with representation in authoritarian environments and then tests the theory with original data from China's National People's Congress (NPC), the country's highest formal political institution.

An analysis of violence against civilians during civil war. Balcells focuses on strategic motives in civil war in Spain and the Ivory Coast, in addition to the emotions that drive revenge. This is essential reading for students and researchers of politics, history, sociology, conflict processes, and conflict resolution.

The book explains why and when laws go unenforced in developing countries. It argues that the tolerance of street vending and squatting is a form of informal welfare provision and a more effective means to mobilize the poor than conventional state social policies.

Who Speaks for the Poor? offers a new account of cross-national differences in the political and partisan representation of low-income voters, focusing attention on the electoral geography of income and how it changed over time. Comparative analysis sheds light on the absence of a low-income people's party in the USA.

Drug wars have ravaged Latin America, from Pablo Escobar in Colombia and El Chapo in Mexico to the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. This book helps social scientists, area specialists, and policymakers understand why state crackdowns often backfire, and why deterrence-based approaches have been successful but hard to implement and sustain.

The first rigorous comparative study of movement-based parties, this book shows not only how movements form parties but also how movements contribute to shaping parties' internal politics and organizational models. Anria sheds new light on Latin America's three most innovative leftist parties: Bolivia's MAS, Brazil's PT, and Uruguay's FA.

For students and researchers in Latin American politics, with a focus on violence, post-civil war dynamics, state reform/capacity and illicit economies, this is the first comparative book to explain and analyze the striking and varied homicide rates in Latin America, alongside a systematic analysis of three post-civil war cases.

Examines a set of voter information campaigns worldwide to assess their effectiveness, and develops a new social science research model aimed at cumulative learning. It will appeal to academics and practitioners looking for innovative ways to conduct social science research that is rigorous, policy-relevant, and cumulative.

Examines a set of voter information campaigns worldwide to assess their effectiveness, and develops a new social science research model aimed at cumulative learning. It will appeal to academics and practitioners looking for innovative ways to conduct social science research that is rigorous, policy-relevant, and cumulative.

This book focuses on clientelism, the pattern of exchanges between politicians and votes as citizens promise to vote for a politician in order to receive benefits. While many scholars have explored the threats to clientelism, this book is the first exploration into why clientelism survives, and even thrives, in certain countries.

Why are some slums in India's cities able to demand development from the state while others fail? Drawing on two years of fieldwork, Auerbach explains this uneven success of slum residents. This book is aimed at researchers and students in comparative politics, political economy, development studies, urban studies, and South Asian studies.

This book offers the first comprehensive analysis of the wave of revolutionary terrorism in affluent countries, focusing on the development paths followed by countries during the interwar period. It will appeal to researchers and students interested in studying political violence, conflict, and terrorism.

The processes through which democratic representation succeeds or goes astray are illustrated through examples and statistical description in nineteen countries. This book is accessible to both scholars and advanced undergraduate students of democratic representation, comparative elections, and parliamentary government.

This book will interest scholars of China, authoritarian regimes, political control and repression, civil society, protest, and local governance. It shows how the Chinese state uses local civil society groups as hidden but effective tools of informal control to suppress dissent and implement far-reaching policies.

This book is for students of migration studies and public policy seeking to understand why governments adopt the immigration policies they do. Antje Ellermann provides critical insights into the dynamics of immigration politics in the United States, Canada, Germany, and Switzerland from the postwar era to the present.

This book explains the persistence of violent, unaccountable policing in Latin American democracies. It is for scholars, students, educators, policy makers, journalists, advocates, and ordinary citizens who are concerned with the relationship between police and communities, human rights, democracy, and police reform.

The causes of under-development are political, yet those who study development often fail to investigate the impact of politics. Drawing on field work, history and theory, this book probes the political roots of under-development.

This book is for scholars, students, journalists, and policy makers who study criminal violence, narco wars, transitions to democracy, corruption, and Mexican and Latin American politics. It analyzes the outbreak and intensification of Mexico's crime wars, revealing the political foundations of large-scale criminal violence in new democracies.

Ansell and Lindvall present the first comprehensive analysis of the origins of modern public services. Recounting conflicts among parties and religious groups over the political control of services, from prisons to schools and asylums, the book is for anyone interested in political science, public administration, history, and political sociology.

Focusing on Kenya since independence, Hassan shows how leaders politicize the management of state institutions to induce bureaucratic behavior that furthers their political goals. This nuanced analysis will interest political scientists and scholars studying African politics, state bureaucracy, and political violence.

How and why do armed rebellions start? This study offers a rare look into the incipient stages of rebellion, arguing that only rebel groups controlling local rumor networks survive and become viable challengers to governments. It is a valuable resource for both scholars and policymakers of political science.

Incomplete rural property rights are endemic throughout most of the developing world. This book explores the political origins of this lack of rights and how it negatively impacts rural autonomy and development outcomes such as economic growth, inequality, urbanization, education, and the links between political parties and voters.

Leading political scientists provide a new framework for understanding the interplay of politics and economics in the US, drawing on comparative and historical perspectives to identify distinctive features of the US landscape and how these have interacted with one another over time to create unique patterns of power and inequality.

Focusing on the distribution of risk within societies, this book presents a parsimonious theory of social policy emergence, divergence, and change. It is suitable for advanced undergraduate courses and graduate seminars in political economy, social policy, labor market politics, political behavior, political psychology, sociology, and class stratification.

Post-Communist Party Systems examines democratic party competition in four post-communist polities in the mid-1990s: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. The book demonstrates various developments within the four countries with regard to different voter appeal of parties, patterns of voter representation, and dispositions to join other parties in legislative or executive alliances.