This book has many special features to help you work your way through the chapters efficiently and effectively and to understand them. This section shows you what these features are and how they help you work through the material in each chapter. Each chapter contains:

• An introduction with a brief account of the topics it covers, so that you know what to expect. For example, chapter 2 includes:

• Why study states?

• The modern state and democracy

• The rise of democratic states

• Redistribution and welfare states

• theories of states and society

• Each chapter ends with a summary of its main findings and what we have learned from using the comparative approach to government and politics. For example, chapter 2 concludes with:

■ What have we learned?

• This chapter has dealt with the difficulties of characterising and defining states, and with the historical development of modern states, especially democratic ones.

• Democracy is a variable not a constant. Accepted ideas about what democracy is, and how it operates, are changing as standards rise.

■ The lessons of comparison

• Although states across the globe, from the strongest to the weakest, are increasingly confronted with other powerful organisations, especially international business (MNCs), non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and international agencies, they are still the most important political actors in the world.

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