The increasingly difficult art of comparative European politics

Abstract. Those writing textbooks on comparative European politics, or the cross–national study of European democracies, have a number of key choices to make. They must decide whether to cover Western Europe as well as Central and Eastern Europe; whether to focus on a limited number or a broad range of countries; whether to include the EU in the analysis or exclude it; whether to adopt a thematic or a country–by–country approach; whether to survey events or test a broader argument; and whether to focus on the politics of institutions and representation or to include more social and economic–oriented concerns as well. The evidence from the most recently published texts in this area is that different writers make different choices. Moreover, the context within which European politics now operates also suggests that their choices are becoming increasingly difficult ones to make.