Comparative articles by category (many of the articles are via Pippa Norris’ DPI-415 at Harvard KSG)

Research Methods

Nathaniel Beck and Jonathan N. Katz (1995). What to Do (and Not to Do) with Time-Series Cross-Section Data 89 (September): 634–47

L. S. Shapley and Martin Shubik (1954). A Method for Evaluating the Distribution of Power in a Committee System 48 (September): 787–92

Consensus v. majoritarian constitutions
Rod Alence. 2004. 'Political institutions and developmental governance in sub-Saharan Africa.' J. of Modern African Studies. 42(2): 163-187.
Attila Agh. 2001. 'Early consolidation and performance crisis: The majoritarian-consensus democracy debate in Hungary.' West European Politics 24(3): 89-112

Liam Anderson. 2001. 'The implications of institutional design for macroeconomic performance.' Comparative Political Studies 34(4)
Klaus Armigeon. 2002. 'The effects of negotiation democracy.' European Journal of Political Research. 41: 81-105.
Donald Horowitz. 'Explaining the Northern Ireland Agreement: The sources of an unlikely constitutional settlement.' British Journal of Political Science 32
Andre Kaiser et al. 2002. 'The democratic quality of institutional regimes: a conceptual framework.' Political Studies. 50: 313-331.
Hans Keman and Paul Pennings. 1995. 'Managing political and social conflicts in democracies: Do consensus and corporatism matter?'  British Journal of Political Science 25(2)
Arendt Lijphart. 2004. 'Constitutional design for divided societies.' Journal of Democracy 15
Manfred G. Schmidt. 2002. 'Political performance and types of democracy: Findings from comparative studies.' EJPR 41: 147-163. 

Federalism and decentralization
Nancy Bermeo. 2002. 'A new look at Federalism: The import of institutions.' Journal of Democracy 13(2): 96-110.
Henry Hale. 2004. 'Divided we stand: Institutional sources of ethnofederal state survival and collapse.' World Politics 56: 165-93.
John Gerring and Strom Thacker. 2004. 'Political institutions and corruption: The role of unitarism and parliamentarism.' BJPolS. 34: 295-330.
Aaron Schneider. 2003. 'Decentralization: Conceptualization and Measurement.' Studies in Comparative International Development 38(3): 32-56.
Jonathan Rodden. 2004. 'Comparative federalism and decentralization: On meaning and measurement.' Comparative Politics 481-500.


Electoral systems
Donald Horowitz. 2003. 'Electoral systems: A primer for decision-makers.' Journal of Democracy. 14(4)

IDEA 2005. Handbook of Electoral System Design
Shaheen Mozaffar, James R. Scarritt and Glen Galaich. 2003. 'Electoral institutions, ethnopolitical cleavages and party systems in Africa's emerging democracies.' APSR 97(3):379-390.  

Executives: presidentialism v. parliamentarism
Jose Cheibub. 'Systems of Government: Presidentialism or Parliamentarism: Which one is best?'
Paul Pennings. 2003. 'Beyond dichotomous explanations: Explaining constitutional control of the executive with fuzzy sets.' EJPR 42.  
Ethnicity, ethnic representation, and ethnic conflict
Alberto Alesina et al. 2003. 'Fractionalization.' Journal of Economic Growth 8: 155-194.
Susan Banducci et al. 2004. 'Minority representation, empowerment and participation.' The Journal of Politics 66(2): 534-556.
Monty Marshall and Tedd Gurr. 2003. 'Peace and conflict 2003.' CIDCM
Frank Cohen. 1997. 'Proportional versus majoritarian ethnic conflict management in democracies.' Comparative Political Studies 30(5)
William Easterly and Ross Levine. 1997. 'Africa's Growth Tragedy: Policies and ethnic divisions.' Quarterly Journal of Economics. 112(4)
William Easterly. 2001. 'Can institutions resolve ethnic conflict?' Economic Development and Cultural Change. 41(4)
M. Steven Fish and Robin S. Brooks. 2004. 'Does diversity hurt democracy?' Journal of Democracy 15(1): 154-166.
Jonathan Fox. 2001. 'Two civilizations and ethnic conflict: Islam and the West.' Journal of Peace Research 38(4)
Jonathan Fox. 2003. 'State failure and the Clash of Civilizations: An examination of the magnitude and extent of domestic civilizational conflict from 1950 to 1996.' Australian Journal of Political Science 38(2): 195-213
Bruce Gilley. 2004. 'Against the concept of ethnic conflict.' Third World Quarterly 25(6): 1155-1166.
Daniel N. Posner. 2004. 'Measuring ethnic fractionalization in Africa.' AJPS 4894): 849-863.  
Women's representation
Karen Bird. 2003. 'The political representation of women and ethnic minorities.' AMID paper
Ester Duflo. 2004. 'Why political reservations?' Journal of the European Economic Association, Vol. 3, No. 2/3, Papers and Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Congress of the European Economic Association (Apr. - May, 2005), pp. 668-678
Mona Lena Krook. 2003. 'Not all quotas are created equal.' ECPR paper
UNDP. 2000.  Women's political participation and good governance.


Civic Society
Jan Dehley and Kenneth Newton. 2003. 'Who trusts? The origins of social trust in seven societies.' European Societies. 5(2)

Arthur H. Miller. (1974). Political Issues and Trust in Government: 1964–1970. 68 (September): 951–72

Reading lists

Georgetown Grad School Comparative Reading List
American University Grad School Comparative Reading List

University of Virginia Grad School Comparative Reading List