An engaging and accessible introduction to the subject, Comparative Politics: Integrating Theories, Methods, and Cases gives students the methodological tools they need to answer the "big questions" in the field. The authors introduce methods early in the text and integrate them throughout, in Thinking Comparatively features, to help students develop a systematic way of thinking about comparative politics. Offering a hybrid format, the text's unique structure offers the best of thematic and country-by-country approaches. Sixteen succinct thematic chapters—organized around the "big questions" in the field—are followed by a separate section at the end of the book offering full-length profiles and case studies for twelve countries. Examples of some of the "big picture questions discussed in the thematic chapters are, "Why do countries have different institutions and forms of government? Why do some social revolutions succeed and endure while others fail? Why are some societies subjected to terrorism and not others?" Each chapter integrates several standalone country case studies in Case in Context features; these features tie into the narrative, pose questions, and point students to the full case discussions in the country profiles section of the book.

While the typical Japanese male politician glides through his district in air-conditioned taxis, the typical female voter trundles along the side streets on a simple bicycle. In this ethnographic study of the politics of the average female citizen in Japan, Robin LeBlanc argues that this taxi-bicycle contrast reaches deeply into Japanese society. To study the relationship between gender and liberal democratic gender and liberal democratic citizenship, LeBlanc conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork in suburban Tokyo among housewives, volunteer groups, consumer co-operative movements, and the members of a committee to re-elect a female Diet member who used her own housewife status as the key to victory. LeBlanc argues that contrary to popular perception, Japanese housewives are ultimately not without a political world.

This beautifully written ethnography follows the lives of two very different Japanese men entering political life in two very different communities. One is the rural leader of a citizens' referendum movement, while the other hopes to succeed his father in a Tokyo ward assembly. Fast-paced and engrossing, "The Art of the Gut" puts the reader behind the scenes to hear speeches, attend campaign functions, and eavesdrop on late-night strategy sessions and one-on-one conversations. In her groundbreaking analysis, Robin M. Le Blanc explores the the two men's differing notions of what is expected of a "good" man and demonstrates how the fundamental desire to be good men constrains their political choices even as it encourages both to become ethical agents. The result is a vibrant and up-to-date picture of politics in Japan today that also addresses masculine gender expectations in a male-dominated political world, the connection between gendered identity and ethical being, and the process by which men who are neither dominant nor marginal to their communities assert themselves both with and against power.