This course provides a review of the basic framework and foundational concepts of politics, exploring key questions in contemporary comparative politics. The course will focus on several questions that have long been central to the study of comparative governments: (1) why democracy emerges and survives in some countries but not in others; (2) how political stability affects economic development; (3) how political institutions (constitutional, electoral, administrative, and party systems) vary across countries and why these variations matter; and (4) how contentious politics often turn violent and take the forms of civil war.