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Summary 19/20 Comparative Political Institutions
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11/02/2020Introduction to comparative politics
INTRODUCTION
Politics= the human activity of making public authoritative decisions → government can make
decisions and impose them on the citizens
• = the exercise of the power of making such decisions → it’s about power → but power is
limited
• Big political questions:
o Which decisions are made? (policy)
o How are the decisions made? (procedures)
▪ Referendum= vote held not to elect a parliament, but to decide on some
specific issue
o Who makes or influences the decisions? (political actors)
• Political science wants to be explanatory, not just descriptive
• Subfields of political science:
o Political theory
▪ Normative questions
• E.g. “How can we improve democracy in the European Union?”
▪ Theoretical questions
o Comparative politics
▪ Empirical questions, value-neutral
▪ Interactions within political systems (not between nations)
o International politics
▪ Interactions between political systems
WHAT IS “COMPARATIVE POLITICS”?
Comparative politics introduces 3 traditions:
1. Country focus: (comparative) description of (aspects of systems) of countries
2. Methodological focus: establish rules and standards for comparative analysis
3. Analytical focus: combination of substance and method to describe/explain similarities and
differences between cases
First order vs second order political science
• First order= what is political reality
• Second order= how should we research political reality
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,What does comparative politics do in practice?
1. Describe similarities and differences
a. Classifications, typologies
b. E.g. Describe the electoral systems in Belgium and the UK
2. Explain similarities and differences
a. Test hypotheses
b. E.g. Why is voter turnout lower in the Netherlands than in Belgium?
3. Predict which factors might cause specific outcomes
a. Formulating predictions
b. E.g. What would happen if voting was no longer compulsory in Belgium?
• Aim: to explain
• Method: comparison
o As a social science, comparative politics is not experimental requires different cases
(= quasi-experimental setting) and systematic, explicit comparison
• Systematic, explicit comparison → e.g. “Democracy in America” by Alexis de Tocqueville
o Not implicit (comparison with absent case)
o Not normative
• Example: Blais & Dobrzynska
o RQ: When and where is turnout highest and lowest and why?
o Examined 324 democratic elections held in 91 countries (1972-1995)
o 3 blocks of variables that may affect turnout: socio-economic environment,
institutions and party systems
o Turnout highest: small, industrialised, densely populated, lower house elections
decisive, voting compulsory, few parties
THE SUBSTANCE OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS
What is compared?
• !! Seldom comparison of entire systems, rather components:
1. Structures
o National political systems
o Sub-national regional political systems (regions)
o Supra-national units (supranational or international organizations)
2. Actors: voters, parties, social movements, …
3. Processes: policymaking, government formation, candidate selection, party financing, …
→ Non-national political systems, types of political systems and single elements of the political
system are compared
→ Comparative politics= one of the three main subfields of political science, focusing on internal
political structures, actors and processes, and analysing them empirically by describing, explaining
and predicting their variety (similarities and differences) across political systems and over time
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,History of Comparative politics
Before WWII: mainly analysis of the state and its institutions
• 3 state powers: legislative, executive, judiciary
• Formal analysis of constitutional texts and legal documents → legalistic study
• Study of formal political institutions in West-Europe and North-America
• Idea of convergence towards Western models of political order
1950s-1960s: Behavioural revolution + new cases
• Shift away from institutions → politics in practice
• Broadening of geographical and historical scope
o Communism, dictatorship, post-colonialism
o Other types of democracies (consensus)
• Consequences
o Increased variety of political systems
o Role of non-formal institutions (parties, interest groups, media, …)
o New methodology (empirical data, large N, statistics, systematic data collection)
o A new “language” (“state” → “system”: systemic functionalism by David Easton)
▪ Why a new language? (systemic functionalism= theoretical paradigm based
on the functions of structures within a social or political system)
• Many of the concepts and categories used in traditional comparative
politics didn’t fit the new cases → “travelling problem”
• Search for more general and universal categories
o E.g. “state” → “political system” (David Easton)
• Almond and Verba: interviews about opinion on government and
political life → to determine a civic culture= based on
communication and persuasion, a culture of consensus and diversity,
a culture that permits change but moderates it
• David Easton wanted to explain the entirety of politics → a kind of
“theory of everything” → had little explanatory power, too general
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, From 1967: New institutionalism
• High level of abstraction of systemic approach leads to counter-reactions
→ back to institutions
1. Shift of substantial focus → now on states and their institutions
o Historical institutionalism= uses institutions to find sequences of social, political,
economic behaviour and change across time
▪ E.g. path dependency= what has occurred in the past persists because of
resistance to change
o Sociological/normative institutionalism= about how institutions can create norms
and ideas that have a specific meaning for actors
▪ Importance of cultural factors, e.g. gender politics
o Rational choice institutionalism= focuses on rational choice, the behaviour of actors
is only determined by maximising own interest
▪ E.g. principal-agent theory= the agent can make decisions and/or take
actions on behalf of, or that impact, the principal → Dilemma: agents are
motivated to act in their own interest, this could be contrary to the
principal’s interest →agency drift
2. Narrowing of geographical scope → importance of historical structures, cultural elements, …
o Mid-range theories → a regionally more restricted perspective
o Grounded theory
3. Change of methodology
o Case-oriented
o Back to small N
4. Theoretical turn to rational choice theory
o Imported from economics
o Focus on actors as rational and self-interested
o Reinforced the pre-eminence of institutions → institutions as constraining actors’
possibilities
THE METHOD OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS
Methods in comparative politics differ with respect to:
• Research design → the research method depends on the research question
o Intensive research design= small N, many variables
o Extensive research design= large N, few variables
• Dimensions
o Spatial comparison= cross-sectional/synchronic
o Functional comparison= cross-organizational
o Longitudinal comparison= cross-temporal/diachronic
• Unit of analysis: single actors, institutions, processes
• Focus on similarities or differences
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