Comparative Politics

The Comparative Politics field provides a broad array of thematic and area-specific courses on governments and politics outside of the United States.

Faculty: Sarah Brooks, Mary Cooper, Richard Gunther, Marcus Kurtz, William Liddle, Anthony Mughan, Irfan Nooruddin, Philipp Rehm, Goldie Shabad, Jeremy Wallace, and Sara Watson. 

Foundations Courses:

• Basic Theories
• Methods and Approaches

Country and Regional Courses focus on Eastern, Southern and Northern Europe, Post-Soviet politics, South and Southeast Asia, China, Japan and Latin America

Thematic Courses:

• Comparative Legislatures
• Comparative Political Behavior
• Comparative Political Parties
• Democratic Transitions
• Comparative Political Economy
• Politics of the Developing World
• Political Elites and Leadership

Graduate students majoring in Comparative Politics are expected to take courses dealing with broad theoretical debates in the field, important methodological techniques, and empirical applications in geographic areas of their choice.

The Ohio State comparative politics faculty are the U.S. leaders of the Comparative National Elections Project (CNEP), which focuses on politicization, political communication, and social structure within the context of election campaigns using compatible research designs and common survey questions across two dozen nations.