This course is designed to serve the following purposes: (1) To teach students to think about political systems in comparative terms; (2) to enable students to develop a more sophisticated understanding of their own political system vis-à-vis the others; (3) to help students to comprehend the political developments, institutions, and processes that occur in political systems other than their own; and (4) to analyze how major human concerns with freedom, social justice, human rights, democracy, etc., take shape and influence the emergence and structure of political institutions, processes, and practices in different polities.

Comparative politics studies political institutions, values, belief, and attitudes that comprise political culture, political processes and affairs of different political regimes, the development of the political self, and political behavior of individuals, groups, organizations, and the state in our world. Comparative politics focuses on such questions as the development and sustenance of state, different types of authoritarian, totalitarian, and democratic regimes states possess, and the characteristics of authority, legitimacy, and obedience to political rule across different regimes. Comparative politics also focuses on political economy of change, governance, power struggles of interest groups that deeply influence the distribution wealth and resources, and the politics of policy-making are also examined by students of comparative politics.