摘要
While comparative politics is concerned with the domestic dynamics of political communities, global trends confront each community with colmnon pressures and challenges. Three basic trends are identified： first, the redefinition of political commtmities by globalization; second, the transformation of communication by electronic media ; and third, the transformation of policy issues by demographic changes. These trends set three broad and interrelated challenges for all political commumties： identity, governance, and sustainability. Each political community responds in its own way to these challenges ; and the task of comparative politics is to understand the distinctive responses to shared problems of adjustment. The study of comparative politics should proceed from a variety of national perspectives in order to globalize its own academic discourse.
