Comparative politics aims to explain similarities and differences across political boundaries. Comparativists are interested in exploring patterns, regularities and processes among nations and states by researching everything from the causes of civil war to effective provision of public goods. Our comparativists encourage students to ask important questions about the political impact of social structures, institutions, and culture.

In our effort to expand our understanding of politics we advocate using all of the tools available to us, quantitative and qualitative. Most M.A. students develop expertise in particular countries or regions in the course of their work and then do area, cross-national and cross-regional studies. We embrace methodological pluralism, and we promote awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of different methodological approaches so that our students can evaluate and select the methods most suited to their research objectives.

The M.A. programs comparative politics faculty represents a range of methodological approaches and area specialties. Our faculty specializes on Latin America, China, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, India and Africa. Some of the current faculty research topics include: the development of political party systems, political and economic reforms, democratic governance, nationalism, political culture, immigration, democratization and attitudes toward democracy, civil-military relations, minority rights, the development of civil society, post-conflict institution building, revolutions, and nation- and state formation.

In addition to our faculty, the NYU’s regional centers and institutes are a vital source of interdisciplinary engagement for students who aim to obtain an in-depth knowledge of a given area. For a list of NYU Institutes and Centers click here.

For a list of faculty teaching in the area of comparative politics, click here.