Assembling articles by one of the foremost scholars in comparative politics, this volume covers the important works and ideas in the field from the last thirty years, most notably the nature of contemporary democracy and its prospects. It begins with a personal analysis of the intellectual, and often political, reasons why and how Stepan chose to engage in certain critical arguments over the last thirty years. Dividing into three sections, the volume then explores state and society, constructing polities, and varieties of democracies. It contains articles on civil society, political society, economic society, and a usable state and compares and contrasts the incentive systems and political practices of parliamentarianism, presidentialism, and semi-presidentialism.