Constructivism and Comparative Politics

This work presents an approach to the study of comparative politics that builds on the assumption that political actors and institutions operate within constructed communities of meaning, which in turn interface with other such communities. About the Editor and Contributors; Acknowledgments; Part I: Theoretical Issues and Overview; 1. Constructivist Comparative Politics: Foundations and Framework; 2. Toward a Constructivist Comparative Politics; 3. Globalization, the Comparative Method, and Comparing Constructions; 4. The Socially Constructed Contexts of Comparative Politics*; Part II: Case Studies; 5. The Role of the State in Ethnic Conflict: A Constructivist Reassessment; 6. Transnational Flows, Legitimacy, and Syncretic Democracy in Benin; 7. Trading Culture: Identity and Culture Industry Trade Policy in the United States, Canada, and the European Union; 8. The West Is the Best: Occidentalism and Postwar German Reconstruction; Index