Comparative law is the study of differences and similarities between the law of different countries. More specifically, it involves the study of the different legal "systems" in existence in the world, including the common law, the civil law, socialist law, Canon law, Jewish Law, Islamic law, Hindu law, and Chinese law. It includes the description and analysis of foreign legal systems, even where no explicit comparison is undertaken. The importance of comparative law has increased enormously in the present age of internationalism, economic globalization, and democratization.
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and laws.
Comparative advantage in an economic model is the advantage over others in producing a particular good. A good can be produced at a lower relative opportunity cost or autarky price, i.e. at a lower relative marginal cost prior to trade. Comparative advantage describes the economic reality of the gains from trade for individuals, firms, or nations, which arise from differences in their factor endowments or technological progress.
Comparative religion is the branch of the study of religions with the systematic comparison of the doctrines and practices, themes and impacts of the world's religions. In general the comparative study of religion yields a deeper understanding of the fundamental philosophical concerns of religion such as ethics, metaphysics and the nature and forms of salvation. It also considers and compares the origins and similarities shared between the various religions of the world. Studying such material facilitates a broadened and more sophisticated understanding of human beliefs and practices regarding the sacred, numinous, spiritual and divine.
Comparative literature studies is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study of international relations but works with languages and artistic traditions, so as to understand cultures 'from the inside'". While most frequently practised with works of different languages, comparative literature may also be performed on works of the same language if the works originate from different nations or cultures in which that language is spoken.
Cross-cultural studies, sometimes called holocultural studies or comparative studies, is a specialization in anthropology and sister sciences such as sociology, psychology, economics, political science that uses field data from many societies through comparative research to examine the scope of human behavior and test hypotheses about human behavior and culture.
Arend d'Angremond Lijphart is a Dutch-American political scientist specializing in comparative politics, elections and voting systems, democratic institutions, and ethnicity and politics. He is Research Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego. He is influential for his work on consociational democracy and his contribution to the new Institutionalism in political science.
Comparative politics is a field in political science characterized either by the use of the comparative method or other empirical methods to explore politics both within and between countries. Substantively, this can include questions relating to political institutions, political behavior, conflict, and the causes and consequences of economic development. When applied to specific fields of study, comparative politics may be referred to by other names, such as comparative government.
Comparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics. Comparative mythology has served a variety of academic purposes. For example, scholars have used the relationships between different myths to trace the development of religions and cultures, to propose common origins for myths from different cultures, and to support various psychoanalytical theories.
The Museum of Comparative Zoology is a zoology museum located on the grounds of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is one of three natural-history research museums at Harvard, whose public face is the Harvard Museum of Natural History. Harvard MCZ's collections consist of some 21 million specimens, of which several thousand are on rotating display at the public museum. In July 2021, Gonzalo Giribet, Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology at Harvard and Curator of Invertebrate Zoology, was announced as the new director of the museum.
The Tulane Journal of International and Comparative Law was founded at Tulane University Law School, in New Orleans, Louisiana, as an outgrowth of that institution's historical tradition as a signpost in the academic world for international and comparative law. The Journal is dedicated to discussing and debating all facets of international law, from human rights to transnational commerce to the historical evolution of current global law. The Journal is one of the leading law reviews in international and comparative law and, in terms of citation, is in the top quarter of all journals in the nation.
The Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal is a law journal which publishes articles in the field of comparative and transnational labor and employment law.
Comparative physiology is a subdiscipline of physiology that studies and exploits the diversity of functional characteristics of various kinds of organisms. It is closely related to evolutionary physiology and environmental physiology. Many universities offer undergraduate courses that cover comparative aspects of animal physiology. According to Clifford Ladd Prosser, "Comparative Physiology is not so much a defined discipline as a viewpoint, a philosophy."
Historical sociology is an interdisciplinary field of research that combines sociological and historical methods to understand the past, how societies have developed over time, and the impact this has on the present. It emphasises a mutual line of inquiry of the past and present to understand how discrete historical events fit into wider societal progress and ongoing dilemmas through complementary comparative analysis.
The International & Comparative Law Quarterly is a law review published quarterly by the British Institute of International and Comparative Law. It was established in 1952 and covers comparative law as well as public and private international law, including human rights, war crimes, and genocide, World Trade Organization law and investment treaty arbitration, recent developments of international courts and tribunals, as well as comparative public and private law all over the world. In addition to longer articles, the journal publishes book reviews. The editor-in-chief is Alex Mills and the Managing Editor is Anna Riddell-Roberts.
The American Journal of Comparative Law (AJCL) is a quarterly, peer-reviewed law journal devoted to comparative and transnational legal studies—including, among other subjects, comparative law, comparative and transnational legal history and theory, private international law and conflict of laws, and the study of legal systems, cultures, and traditions other than those of the United States. In its long and rich history, the AJCL has published articles authored by scholars representing all continents, regions, and legal cultures of the world. It is published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Society of Comparative Law. As of 2014, it is co-hosted and administered by the Institute of Comparative Law and the Georgetown University Law Center. It has been hosted in the past by institutions such as University of California, Berkeley School of Law, Columbia Law School, and the University of Michigan Law School. The current Editors-in-Chief are Georgetown University Law Center’s Franz Werro, and McGill University's Helge Dedek.
Comparative Literature Studies (CLS) is an academic journal in the field of comparative literature. It publishes critical comparative essays on literature, cultural production, the relationship between aesthetics and political thought, and histories and philosophies of form across the world. Articles may also address the transregional and transhistorical circulation of genres and movements across different languages, time periods, and media. Each issue also includes book reviews of significant monographs and collections of scholarship in comparative literature.
Masahiko Aoki was a Japanese economist, Tomoye and Henri Takahashi Professor Emeritus of Japanese Studies in the Economics Department, and Senior Fellow of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. Aoki was known for his work in comparative institutional analysis, corporate governance, the theory of the firm, and comparative East Asian development.
Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East is a triannual peer-reviewed academic journal covering Comparative Studies on Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. It provides a "critical and comparative analyses of the histories, cultural productions, social and gender relations, politics, and economies" of these regions. It is published by the Duke University Press, and since 2012, edited at Columbia University.
