The course is meant to prepare the students to deal with the most important theoretical and substantive issues affecting the nature, functioning and transformation of the political systems of the developing world. It will be focused on the analysis of the most relevant regime-types: authoritarian, military, theocratic, and democratic, and of major political processes such as political development and social modernization, state-building and state failures, political transitions and democratic consolidations. It will draw from a wide range of cross-national and cross-regional cases. Class time will be divided between lectures and discussion. Each topic will be introduced by the instructor. The readings constitute the background for each lecture, but we will build upon them and go well beyond. Occasionally, timely articles on especially significant events will be analyzed in depth. Hopefully, fertile discussions will follow on the assumption that all students have done their reading. The course will end with a take-home exam.