This course is an introduction to the comparative study of laws and institutions. Accordingly, it is organized in different teaching blocks. Readings therefore present theoretical articulations and practical applications of the main methodological approaches relied upon by comparative scholars. Participants will become acquainted with the "mechanics", as well as the broader implications, of the various ways of comparing: functionalism, structuralism, culturalism, postmodern neo-culturalism and critical comparison, and comparative law and economics. Participants will be asked to reflect over the common law-civil law dichotomy and its implications for the debate over economic globalization including projects of harmonization, such as the World Bank's "Legal Origins" study; the circulation of legal rules and institutions and the export of constitutional models in Eastern Europe and Iraq; the ambiguous relation between US and European cultures.