Democracy and Autocracy
edX
Learn which forms of government can best guarantee a free, fair, and just life by exploringhow democracy and autocracy emerge, evolve, andimpact our lives.
More resources on Comparative Politics
v-dem.net
V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy) provides a large, expert-coded dataset of democracy and governance indicators across countries and years, with multi-dimensional measures of political rights, civil liberties, and governance. The site offers downloadable data, visualizations, country profiles, methodological documentation, and API access for research and teaching.
Comparative Constitutions Project
Research project coding the characteristics of every national constitution written since 1789, with downloadable datasets and the Constitute search tool. Users can compare provisions across 200-plus countries and trace how constitutional design has changed over time.
Essentials of Comparative Politics
Patrick O'Neil's undergraduate textbook builds the comparative method: states, regimes, political economy, democracy and authoritarianism, with country cases. After it you can compare how different political systems distribute power and why institutions produce different outcomes.
Political Geography
Coursera course: Comparative Political Systems
Moral Foundations of Politics
Yale political scientist Ian Shapiro's lecture course on Enlightenment, utilitarian, Marxist, and social-contract answers to what makes a government legitimate. Students finish able to apply each tradition to contested questions about rights, distribution, and democracy.
freedomhouse.org
Freedom House is a nonpartisan nonprofit that monitors democracy and human rights worldwide. The site offers country-by-country political rights and civil liberties assessments, annual rankings (Freedom in the World), and research on democracy, press freedom, and internet freedom.