Political Science
Political science is best defined in comparison to political philosophy: one attempts to understand politics from first principles, reasoned outward, in a coherent and consistent theory; the other attempts to understand politics from observations and theories of what explains the variance therein. This page addresses the latter.
Public Choice and Social Choice Theory
Political Economy
International Relations
Comparative Politics
- resources for Comparative Politics on this wiki:
listings of states and city-states
listings of empires (including de facto empires)
Reading Notes
Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, William L. Riordon, 1905
England in the Age of the American Revolution, Lewis Namier, 1931
The Twenty Years' Crisis: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations, E. H. Carr, 1939
An Economic Theory of Democracy, Anthony Downs, 1957
Countering Guerilla Attack, Walt W. Rostow, 1961
Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City, Robert Dahl, 1961
The Calculus of Consent, James M. Buchanon and Gordon Tullock, 1962
The Theory of Political Coalitions, William H. Riker, 1962
Political entrepreneurship and patterns of democratic instability in plural societies, Alvin Rabushka, Kenneth A. Shepsle, 1971
Politics in plural societies, Alvin Rabushka, Kenneth A. Shepsle, 1972
Congressmen in Committees, Richard F. Fenno, Jr., 1973
Congress: The Electoral Connection, David R. Mayhew, 1974
Autocracy, Gordon Tullock, 1987
Hard and Soft Law in International Governance, Kenneth Abbott and Duncan Snidal, 2000
International Human Rights Law and Practice in Latin America, Ellen Lutz and Kathryn Sikkink, 2000
Eighteenth-Century British Premiers: Walpole to the Younger Pitt, Dick Leonard, 2010
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, 2012
The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, John J. Mearsheimer, 2014 (2nd ed.)
The Limits of Party: Congress and Lawmaking in a Polarized Era, James M. Curry and Frances E. Lee, 2020
City Diplomacy: From City-States to Global Cities, Raffaele Marchetti, 2021
Epistemic superimposition: the war in Ukraine and the poverty of expertise in international relations theory, Jan Dutkiewicz and Jan Smolenski, 2023
To help end war in Ukraine, the Quad should back India to engage Russia, Adarsh Badri, 2023
Is It the Message or the Messenger? Examining Movement in Immigration Beliefs, Hassan Afrouzi, Carolina Arteaga, and Emily Weisburst, 2024
Has the Outbidding on Trade Protectionism Finally Ended?, Daniel W. Drezner, 2024
Economic Sanctions as a Foreign Policy Tool, Michael Klein and Daniel W. Drezner, 2024
A Case for Congress: Shared Power for a Divided Society, Frances E. Lee, 2024
The Nobel for Econsplaining, Brendan Greeley, 2024