This document contains comprehensive notes for all readings for the core module, Comparative Politics. For this class I scored an overall grade of 8.5 using these notes. Good luck studying!
very very detailed and thoughtful, (beware some readings were changed for following years, though only a few)
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Table of contents
Week 1 2
Lijphart: Comparative politics and the comparative method 2
Mair: Concepts and concept formation 5
Wilson and Knutsen: Geographical coverage in political science research 9
Week 2 16
Weber: Politics as a vocation 16
Tilly: War making and state making as organised crime 17
Nistotskaya: Getting to Sweden 22
Week 3 26
Marshall: Citizenship and social class 26
Moore: England and the contributions of violence to gradualism 30
Huntington: Political order and political decay 36
Week 4 44
Fukuyama: The imperative of state building 44
Wang: China’s state development in comparative historical perspective 48
Auerbach and Kruks-Wisner: The geography of citizenship practice: How the poor
engage the state in rural and urban India 52
Week 5 56
Bueno de Mesquita et al.: The logic of political survival 56
Week 6 61
Soifer: State power and the economic origins of democracy 61
Singh: Nationalism and the provision of public goods 64
Suryanarayan and White: Slavery, reconstruction and bureaucratic capacity in the
American South 67
Week 9 70
Bardi et al.: Responsive or responsible? The role of parties in twenty-first century politics
70
Manin et al.: Elections and representation 74
Schattschneider: The displacement of conflicts 77
Week 10 80
Foweraker and Landman: Constitutional design and democratic performance 80
Lijphart: Constitutional design for divided societies 83
Van der Meer and Kern: Consensualism, democratic satisfaction, political trust and the
winner-loser gap 86
Veenendaal and Demarest: How population size affects power-sharing: a comparison of
Nigeria and Suriname 88
Week 11 92
Raghabendra and Duflo: Women as policy makers: Evidence from a randomised policy
experiment in India 92
1
, Dingler et al.: Do parliaments underrepresent women’s policy preferences? Exploring
gender equality in policy congruence in 21 European democracies 98
Lijphart: Unequal participation: Democracy’s unresolved dilemma presidential address,
American Political Science Association, 1996 100
Schakel: Real but unequal representation in welfare state reform 104
Week 12 104
Brancati: Pocketbook protests: Explaining the emergence of pro-democracy protests
worldwide 104
Meyer: Protest and political opportunities 108
Norris et al.: Antistate rebels, conventional participants, or everyone? 111
Dalton et al.: The individual-institutional nexus of protest behaviour 115
Week 16 118
Aalberg et al.: Media systems and the political information environment: A cross-national
comparison 119
Margetts: Rethinking democracy with social media 122
Spaiser et al.: Communication power struggles on social media: A case study of the
2011-12 Russian protests 125
Scheufele and Tewksbury: Framing, agenda setting, and priming: The evolution of three
media effects 131
Week 1
Lijphart: Comparative politics and the comparative method
Comparative subfield is the only one carrying a methodological rather than substantive label;
indicating the how not the what of the analysis. But this is a basic approach and a
methodology of comparative politics does not really exist => A lot of unconscious thinkers
within the field (not guided by logic and methods of empirical science).
Comparative method is one of the basic methods of establishing general empirical
propositions (others: statistical, experimental).
The comparative method is a method; its one of the basic scientific methods but not the
scientific method; also not a method of measurement but a method of discovering empirical
relationship among variables (measuring variables is a logical prior step of finding
relationships among them); it is a general method not a specific/narrow technique (some will
call the comparative method an approach or strategy).
1. The experimental, statistical and comparative methods
=> All three aim at scientific explanation; two basic elements:
- Establishment of general empirical relationship between two variables;
2
, - while all other variables are controlled
=> Interrelated; ceteris paribus is necessary for generalisations.
The experimental method:
- Experimental and control group are compared; difference is attributed to stimulus
- There is an equivalence of the two groups other than the stimulus; however, control
is not perfect cause researcher can never know the extent of the equivalence
- Can only rarely be used in political science given ethical and practical impediments;
although it is ideal for scientific claims
The statistical method:
- Conceptual (mathematical) manipulation of observed data
- Control = partial correlations; i.e. looking at correlation between iv and dv within
age-groups; this control, however, does not work well when too many variables are
included (running out of cases)
- An approximation of the experimental method; not strictly controlled but has a logical
function of experiment in inquiry; cannot handle problem of control as well as the
experimental method
The comparative method:
- Resembles the statistical method in all respects except one; small-n => systematic
control through partial correlations are not possible; with intermediate number of
cases; researcher usually combines the comparative and statistical method
- Not the equivalent of the experiment but an imperfect substitute
- The conscious thinker must recognise the weaknesses and strengths of the method
2. The comparative method: weaknesses and strengths
Many variables, small number of cases:
- The latter is more particular to the comparative method and makes the former harder
to solve
If possible one should use the statistical or experimental method rather than the weaker
comparative method; however, because of limited scope/time/etc, the comparative analysis
allow for less superficial results; most frutiful approach: begin with comparative method for
hypothesis and test hypothesis using the statistical method on as large a sample as
possible.
A fallacy of the comparative method: assigning too much significance to negative findings;
one should not reject a hypothesis due to one deviant case; the aim is probabilistic findings
and not universal generalisations; deviant cases can weaken the hypothesis but cannot
invalidate it unless it turns up in larger numbers.
Ways to minimise the ‘many variables, small number of cases’ problem:
a. Increase the number of cases as much as possible:
- restating the variable to access more cases
- longitudinal extension; including as many historical cases as possible
=> Edward Freeman: comparative politics can lead to analogies between political
institutions of times and countries most remote from each other
3
, b. Reduce the property-space of the analysis:
- combining variables into a single one if increasing cases is not possible;
furthering cross-tabulations and control without increasing the number in the
sample
- reducing the number of classes into a dichotomy => increasing avg. number
of cases per cell; disadvantage is the loss of information, however
c. Focus the comparative analysis on ‘comparable’ cases
- Cases are similar in most variables (control) and dissimilar in one which the
researcher wants to relate to each other
- one reduces the amount of operative variables while the number of total
variables remains the same
- the number of cases will usually decrease
- John Stuart Mill:
- Method of difference: comparing instances in which a phenomenon
does occur with instances in which it doesn’t; all other variables are
kept constant
- Method of concomitant variables: observing measures of quantitative
variation of operative variables and how it relates to each other
- However, Mill says that the social world is one which you can not hold
constant in all variables save one and these methods should therefore
not be performed in the social sciences
- The area approach: areas have a cluster of characteristics in common (i.e.
Latin America) => Comparative method becomes fruitful to apply; however,
some say that mere geographic proximity does not necessarily furnish the
best basis for comparison; Lijphart says that while comparability is not
inherent in an area it is indeed more likely within an area
=> Area approach should be an aid to the comparative method and not an
end in itself
=> The approach should not be used indiscreetly but where there is the
possibility of establishing crucial controls
- Diachronic comparative analysis: the same place at different points in time =>
to enhance controllability
- Intra-nation for comparison should also serve better than inter-nation; more
constants within a nation; however, a combination of intra-nation and
inter-nation may also be fruitful
d. Focus the comparative analysis on key variables
- A general commitment to theoretical parsimony; omitting variables of only
marginal importance
- Scanning all variables of potential influence but not including all
Difference between comparative politics and the comparative method
- In comparative politics other methods can be applied
- The comparative method is also applicable in other fields
- there are many ways to devise the comparative method
3. The comparative method and the case study method
Comparative method: at least two cases
Case study: one case
4
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