Over its lifetime, 'political economy' has had different meanings. This handbook views political economy as a synthesis of the various strands of social science, treating it as the methodology of economics applied to the analysis of political behaviour and institutions.

Oxford Handbooks of Political Science are the essential guide to the state of political science today. With engaging contributions from 51 major international scholars, the Oxford Handbook of Political Theory provides the key point of reference for anyone working in political theory and beyond.

The study of political institutions is among the founding pillars of political science. With the rise of the 'new institutionalism', the study of institutions has returned to its place in the sun. This volume provides a comprehensive survey of where we are in the study of political institutions, covering both the traditional concerns of political science with constitutions, federalism and bureaucracy and more recent interest in theory and the constructed nature of institutions. The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions draws together a galaxy of distinguished contributors drawn from leading universities across the world. Authoritative reviews of the literature and assessments of future research directions will help to set the research agenda for the next decade.

Modernization theory : does economic development cause democratization? / Jose Antonio Cheibub and James Raymond Vreeland -- Dependency theory / James Mahoney and Diana Rodriguez-Franco -- Structuralism / Elliott Green -- Political development / Robert H. Bates -- The Washington Consensus and the new political economy of economic reform / Kevin Morrison -- Penury traps and prosperity tales : why some countries escape poverty while others do not / M. Steven Fish -- Culture, politics and development / Michael Woolcock -- Religion, politics and economic development : synergies and disconnects / Katherine Marshall -- Does inequality harm economic development and democracy? : accounting for missing values, noncomparable observations, and endogeneity / Christian Houle -- Ethnicity and development / Nic Cheeseman -- Civil conflict and development / Håvard Hegre -- The politics of the resource curse : a review / Michael L. Ross -- Taxation and development / Mick Moore -- How do governments build capabilities to do great things? : ten cases, two competing explanations, one large research agenda / Matt Andrews -- Leadership and the politics of development / Adrian Leftwich and Heather Lyne De Ver -- Colonialism and development in africa / Leander Heldring and James A. Robinson -- Investment and debt / Layna Mosley -- The role of the state in harnessing trade-and-investment for development purposes / Theodore H. Moran -- International financial institutions and market liberalization in the developing world / Stephen C. Nelson -- Foreign aid and democratization in developing countries / Danielle Resnick -- Organizing for prosperity : collective action, political parties, and the political economy of development / Philip Keefer -- Missing links in the institutional chain / Anirudh Krishna -- The comparative politics of service delivery in developing countries / Evan S. Lieberman -- Party systems and the politics of development / Allen Hicken -- Populism and political representation / Kenneth M. Roberts -- Africa's political economy in the contemporary era / Peter M. Lewis -- The politics of development in Latin America and East Asia / James W. McGuire -- Development and underdevelopment in the Middle East and North Africa / Melani Cammett -- Rethinking the institutional foundations of china's hypergrowth : official incentives, institutional constraints, and local developmentalism / Fubing Su, Ran Tao, and Dali L. Yang -- The politics of growth in South Korea : miracle, crisis, and the new market economy / Stephan Haggard and Myung-Koo Kang

Scholars working in or sympathetic to American political development (APD) share a commitment to accurately understanding the history of American politics - and thus they question stylized facts about America's political evolution. Like other approaches to American politics, APD prizes analytical rigor, data collection, the development and testing of theory, and the generation of provocative hypotheses. Much APD scholarship indeed overlaps with the American politics subfield and its many well developed literatures on specific institutions or processes (for example Congress, judicial politics, or party competition), specific policy domains (welfare policy, immigration), the foundations of (in)equality in American politics (the distribution of wealth and income, race, ethnicity, gender, class, and sexual and gender orientation), public law, and governance and representation. What distinguishes APD is careful, systematic thought about the ways that political processes, civic ideals, the political construction of social divisions, patterns of identity formation, the making and implementation of public policies, contestation over (and via) the Constitution, and other formal and informal institutions and processes evolve over time - and whether (and how) they alter, compromise, or sustain the American liberal democratic regime. APD scholars identify, in short, the histories that constitute American politics. They ask: what familiar or unfamiliar elements of the American past illuminate the present? Are contemporary phenomena that appear new or surprising prefigured in ways that an APD approach can bring to the fore? If a contemporary phenomenon is unprecedented then how might an accurate understanding of the evolution of American politics unlock its significance? Featuring contributions from leading academics in the field, The Oxford Handbook of American Political Development provides an authoritative and accessible analysis of the study of American political development.

Understanding Latin America's recent economic performance calls for a multidisciplinary analysis. This handbook looks at the interaction of economics and politics in the region and includes a number of contributions from top academic experts who have also served as key policy makers (a former president, ministers of finance, a central bank governor), reflecting upon the challenges of reform.

Scholars working in or sympathetic to American political development (APD) share a commitment to accurately understanding the history of American politics - and thus they question stylized facts about America's political evolution. Like other approaches to American politics, APD prizes analytical rigor, data collection, the development and testing of theory, and the generation of provocative hypotheses. Much APD scholarship indeed overlaps with the American politics subfield and its many well developed literatures on specific institutions or processes (for example Congress, judicial politics, or party competition), specific policy domains (welfare policy, immigration), the foundations of (in)equality in American politics (the distribution of wealth and income, race, ethnicity, gender, class, and sexual and gender orientation), public law, and governance and representation. What distinguishes APD is careful, systematic thought about the ways that political processes, civic ideals, the political construction of social divisions, patterns of identity formation, the making and implementation of public policies, contestation over (and via) the Constitution, and other formal and informal institutions and processes evolve over time - and whether (and how) they alter, compromise, or sustain the American liberal democratic regime. APD scholars identify, in short, the histories that constitute American politics. They ask: what familiar or unfamiliar elements of the American past illuminate the present? Are contemporary phenomena that appear new or surprising prefigured in ways that an APD approach can bring to the fore? If a contemporary phenomenon is unprecedented then how might an accurate understanding of the evolution of American politics unlock its significance? Featuring contributions from leading academics in the field, The Oxford Handbook of American Political Development provides an authoritative and accessible analysis of the study of American political development.