Plain-language explanation.
Comparative politics systematically compares political systems across countries to explain variation in institutions, regimes, and outcomes. Democratic theory examines what democracy is, what makes it valuable, and how it can be protected against backsliding and populism.
Core concepts and standard treatment.
Core comparative politics covers methodology (comparative method — most similar systems design MSSD — most different systems MDSD — Mill's methods — agreement and difference; small-N vs large-N comparisons — King, Keohane, Verba — Designing Social Inquiry; process tracing — causal mechanism — within-case analysis; qualitative comparative analysis — QCA — Boolean and fuzzy-set — Ragin — necessary and sufficient conditions; natural experiments in comparative politics — regression discontinuity — IV methods — Dunning), regime types (Dahl — polyarchy — eight institutional guarantees; Linz — breakdown of democratic regimes — sultanistic regimes; Przeworski — Democracy and the Market — conditional on economic development; Huntington — waves of democratisation — third wave 1974-; hybrid regimes — competitive authoritarianism — Levitsky and Way — elections but unfair playing field; electoral authoritarianism — Schedler; Polity IV; V-Dem; Freedom House), and institutional design (Lijphart — Patterns of Democracy — majoritarian vs consensus — Westminster vs consociational; Shugart and Carey — presidents and assemblies — constitutional design; veto players — Tsebelis — policy stability as function of number of veto players and preferences; presidentialism vs parliamentarism — Linz — perils of presidentialism; bicameralism — strong vs weak upper chamber; federalism and democracy — Riker).
Deeper theory, debates and edge cases.
Advanced comparative politics covers populism and democratic backsliding (Mudde and Kaltwasser — populism as thin ideology — people vs corrupt elite — inclusion vs exclusion of out-groups; Laclau — populist reason; Norris and Inglehart — cultural backlash thesis — Authoritarian Reflex — Brexit, Trump, Rassemblement National as cultural backlash; Levitsky and Ziblatt — How Democracies Die — backsliding via legal means — guardrails of democracy — mutual toleration and forbearance; Bermeo — democratic backsliding typology — executive aggrandisement most common mode; V-Dem Electoral Democracy Index; Hungary and Poland case studies), welfare states and varieties of capitalism (Esping-Andersen — Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism — liberal, conservative-corporatist, social-democratic; Hall and Soskice — LMEs vs CMEs — institutional complementarities; Iversen and Soskice — redistribution and institutions — insider politics; retrenchment politics — Pierson — blame avoidance; transformative social policy — Korea, Taiwan developmental welfare; post-communist welfare state transformation — Deacon), and state capacity and governance (Evans, Rueschemeyer, Skocpol — Bringing the State Back In; Evans — embedded autonomy — developmental state; state capacity indices — World Bank WGI — Government Effectiveness indicator; Fragile States Index — Fund for Peace; PISA as measure of state capacity in education — Schleicher; bureaucratic quality and economic development — Rauch and Evans meritocratic bureaucracy; anti-corruption — TI Corruption Perceptions Index — CPI — GRECO — CoE evaluation mechanism).
How it is applied in practice.
At the comparative politics professor and democracy support practitioner level, practitioners contribute to Comparative Political Studies and World Politics; lead comparative research (V-Dem Institute — Gothenburg; IDEA International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance; Polity Project — University of Maryland; Political Risk Services Group — ICRG; OECD Better Life Index comparative governance); advise on democracy support (NDI National Democratic Institute; IRI International Republican Institute; Westminster Foundation for Democracy — programme countries; Freedom House Nations in Transit — post-communist democracies; NED National Endowment for Democracy; Chatham House democracy programme); contribute to EU democracy support (EEAS enlargement — Western Balkans — EU accession chapters — Chapter 23 Judiciary and Fundamental Rights — Chapter 24 Justice, Freedom and Security; Venice Commission — constitutional advisory body; SIGMA — Support for Improvement in Governance and Management); and develop comparative public administration (COCOPS survey — European Public Administration; EUPACK — European Public Administration Country Knowledge; OECD Regulatory Governance; Singapore Civil Service College — governance benchmarking; PWC Government and Public Services — cross-country comparison).