A CRITICAL SURVEY OF THE FIELD OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS A.V. Kuteleva Department of Political Science University of Alberta 10-16 Henry Marshall Tory Building, T6G 2H4 Edmonton, Canada The aim of this paper is to sketch an overview of Comparative Politics and discuss the major analytical and conceptual systems under which comparativists conduct their research. <...> Key words: Comparative Politics, development, South-North divide, poststructuralist turn in Comparative Politics. <...> The aim of this paper is to sketch an overview of Comparative Politics and discuss the major analytical and conceptual systems under which comparativists conduct their research. <...> Inasmuch as development of Comparative Politics is largely driven by research conducted by scholars associated with the US academia, the significant part of the paper is devoted to critical analysis of mainstream US-led scholarship. <...> The paper starts with a brief history of Comparative Politics as an independent subfield of political science. <...> Further, I describe and assess the predominant analytical perspectives of mainstream US-led Comparative Politics: systemic functional approach, rational choice approach, and the four new institutionalisms. <...> Drawing on Robert Cox’s ideas, I suggest that mainstream US-led Comparative Politics can be characterized in terms of problem-solving theorizing and discuss the comparative method and its implications for problem-solving theorizing. <...> Focusing on the concept of development and categories related to it, I outline essential challenges of problem-solving Comparative Politics and what it will take for scholars to address these challenges. <...> In the second part of the paper the discussion points to the poststructuralist turn in Comparative Politics. <...> I argue that diverse poststructuralist scholarship has much to offer Comparative Politics in terms of overcoming the major setbacks of the problemsolving theorizing by questioning the way certain problems are framed and how these framings may entrench existing power structures. <...> Inevitably, poststructuralist scholarship problematizes the role of comparison and generalizations: Do major analytical and conceptual systems of Comparative Politics travel well across diverse nations and cultures, across time, or across different individuals and social categories? <...> Mainstream USled Comparative Politics Over much of the 20th century, political science was “in many ways a peculiarly American discipline” [53. <...> In 1950, the American Political Science Association had amongst its ranks more <...>