Theories of Comparative Political Economy

Theories of Comparative Political Economy builds on the proposition that the study of politics and economics has evolved into political economy in a number of significant ways, and that the new issues and ideas that became prominent in the 1980s and 1990s will carry on into the new millennium. The book is organized around six chapters. In the first chapter Chilcote examines significant comparative historical themes, various schools of thinking, divergent theories, and relevant monographic literature and sensitive case studies in comparative political economy. In subsequent chapters Chilcote explores the question of transitions from feudalism to capitalism and capitalism to socialism, theories of class, theories of the state, theories of imperialism, and capitalist and socialist development. In the final chapter Chilcote discusses democracy from the perspective of political economy, describing its representative, indirect, and bourgeois participatory forms. This book is a sequel to Chilcote's Theories of Comparative Politics (1981), which was substantially revised and published in a second edition in 1994.

Ronald H. Chilcote is professor of political science and economics at the University of California, Riverside. He is founder and managing editor of Latin American Perspectives and author and editor of numerous books and articles, including Theories of Development and Underdevelopment.