Comparative Politics is a broad and methodologically eclectic field. The common thread running through the research presented in our workshop is the search for broad theoretical propositions and fresh empirical insights through the comparative study of politics. What explians the levels of violence in civil wars? Why have some former communist systems evolved into democracies with substantial patronage and corruption, whereas other new democracies in the region are relatively clean? Why do poor people sometimes migrate internationally to countries that are just as poor as the countries the left?  If economic growth encourages democratization, is this because modern economies are wealthier or because they are more egalitarian? These are the sorts of questions raised by papers given at the workship. Some have used statistical techniques to cmpare a large number of countries, others, techniques of oral history and participant observation, and others, used comparisons of sub regional units within a single national territiory.