Introduction

Political scientists have much to learn from Aristotle. In particular, if the field of comparative politics is to be saved from its current intellectual poverty, we will need to revive some ideas from Aristotle. A traditional conflict in political science is the dispute over the relative worth of theoretical generalization and regional, or field, specialization. Bridging the gap between the two has become a perennial problem. This tension surfaces within the field of comparative politics when one attempts to draw general inferences about obstacles to democratization from case studies of very different cultures. In this book, I will show that reviving Aristotelian regime analysis and rhetorical theory would be a good way out of the intellectual crisis facing comparative politics.