The Oxford Handbooks of Political Science is a ten-volume set of reference books offering authoritative and engaging critical overviews of the state of political science. Each volume focuses on a particular part of the discipline, with volumes on Public Policy, Political Theory, PoliticalEconomy, Contextual Political Analysis, Comparative Politics, International Relations, Law and Politics, Political Behavior, Political Institutions, and Political Methodology. The project as a whole is under the General Editorship of Robert E. Goodin, with each volume being edited by a distinguishedinternational group of specialists in their respective fields. The books set out not just to report on the discipline, but to shape it. The series will be an indispensable point of reference for anyone working in political science and adjacent disciplines. Long recognized as one of the main branches of political science, political theory has in recent years burgeoned in many different directions. Close textual analysis of historical texts sits alongside more analytical work on the nature and normative grounds of political values. Continental andpost-modern influences jostle with ones from economics, history, sociology, and the law. Feminist concerns with embodiment make us look at old problems in new ways, and challenges of new technologies open whole new vistas for political theory. This Handbook provides comprehensive and critical coverage of the lively and contested field of political theory, and will help set the agenda for the field for years to come. Forty-five chapters by distinguished political theorists look at the state of the field, where it has been in the recentpast, and where it is likely to go in future. They examine political theory's edges as well as its core, the globalizing context of the field, and the challenges presented by social, economic, and technological changes.

Carles Boix is Professor of Politics and Public Affairs at Princeton University. He has written the books Political Parties, Growth and Equality (1998) and Democracy and Redistribution (2003). Both books won the American Political Science Association Award for the best book on political economy. Boix has also published articles in leading journals such American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, International Organization, and World Politics.
Susan Stokes is John S. Saden Professor of Political Science and director of the Yale Program on Democracy. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the American Philosophical Society, and the Russell Sage Foundation.