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Lecture notes Introduction To Comparative Politics
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COMPARATIVE POLITICSLECTURE1
- Sub-field of political science
- Political theory deals with normative and theoretical questions
- IR deals with interactions between states, addresses empirical questions es. Hy country does have
war? →more than political theory
- Why does certain forms of political participation prevail?
- Comparative politics is focus on empirical questions, but level of analyses are political systems →
what distinguish comparative politics from IR
- Comparative politics: sub-field of political science, study political structures, actors, process within
political system and analysing them empirically exploring their similarities and differences across
political systems
- Implicitly compare the situations
- Elevate these intuit comparisons to a systematic comparison
- Explain some important political phenomena
WHY COMPARISON?
- Knowledge about other countries and political systems
- Learn about own countries
- Classification/typologies → compare 2 countries you realize how they differ, need to distinguish
classes of country → basis for explanatory
- Hypothesis testing→ propositions we need to confirm/refute by political observations
- Prediction→ some institutions change into account? Es. EU party systems are fragmented, would it
make sense to change electorate system to prevent fragmentation?
WHY CONCEPTS?
- Concepts: ideas or terms with clear definitional structure
1. Concepts give meaning to reality, they are tools through which we think, reason, argue and analyse
2. Use of concepts sets us apart from the world of practical politics
COMPARATIVE METHODS
- Rules and standards of comparative analysis
- Issue in comparative politics:
- 1. Comparative politics focuses on very different units of analysis es. Individual component of
political system rather than countries. Different levels of analysis es. Country, supranational, …
- 2. There is not one comparative method, variety of methods, distinction between these different
types is based on the number of cases that are included
- Lijphart (1971) → distinction between: case study method (intensive examination of one particular
case and context in which exists), comparative method (few number of cases), statistical method
(large N and statistical techniques), experimental method (not available in social sciences but rare
and growing phenomena in social sciences)
- Case study method
- 2 cases study important:
1. Deviant case study: identifies and examines an exception to what is generally expected from an
established theory es. Dutch political system in 1940, deeply divided society but in the same time
stable democracy. Es. China as a large country that is not a federation.
,2. Theory-testing cases-study: probing theory in a new empirical context to which it is supposed to
apply es. Power-sharing in South-Africa
Comparative method (small N)
- A systematic analysis of a small number of cases es. Book Small states in world markets (Why are
small EU countries economically more successful than other larger and economically more
powerful?)→ these countries adopt corporatist model of policymaking
- Problems:
- Too few cases, too many variables, increase N (MSSD)
- Selection on DV (MDSD)
- A research method using + cases, + variables, and attempting to explain political phenomena using
statistical analysis
- Statistical approach with graph that reveal:
- Correlation → a relationship between 2 or + variables or attributes, regression line→ the line that
best fit the scatter plot, summarizing the relationship between 2 variables, it allows to identify
outliers → larger difference between the predicted and the actual size
- the
value of quantitative comparison is that it can provide precise summaries of large amount of data
using standard techniques
- Correlation between 2 variables may arise simply bc both depend on a third, unmeasured factor →
in this case no relationship of cause and effect
- Problem in interpreting statistical result→ direction of causation remains to be established
- The results of quantitative research vary with quality and quantity of the data used and the design
of the models used
- Scholars in political sciences end up arguing about the construction of those models rather than
about the result they produce
, Statistical methods
- Comparative method based on a large N of cases, using statistical techniques to examine
relationship between variables
- Difference between stats method and comparative method – measure dependent and independent
by numerical indicators and draw conclusion from a statistical analysis
- No risk
CONCLUSION
- Comparative politics one of the most important sub-fields f political science
- Comparative method an important tool for studying politics
- Plurality of comparative method
LECTURE 2-DEMOCRACY AND NON-DEMOCRATIC REGIMES
- Across history and the world, democracy is NOT the norms. Here are some forms of autocratic rules
- Book by Lewizky and “how democracies die”
- There are alternatives, also demo alternatives to demo systems
- Example often experienced
- Democracies inn form but not is subset → most spoke about book
REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY
- Rulers are chosen in competitive, free, and fair elections
- 2 dimensions of democracy (Robert Dahl):
- 1. Contestation: refers to the extent to which citizens enjoy or have mitigate opportunities to
expresses and formulate their political preferences
- 2. Inclusiveness: percentage or share of the population entitled to participate in the political system,
in the elections conducted from the government
- You do not only need elections to make democracy a democracy, need more to make demo system
es. Freedom and rights
- A serious degree of inclusion of the population in the political process
- Es. SA during apartheid, system which was good in contestation but granted to divide by minorities
in the country, majority of population excluded, uncompleted democracy
- Hybrid regimes: best in inclusion es. Hungary but is not during week in contestation because rights
to express are attempted
- No real country is perfect in terms of contestation and inclusiveness
, - People rule indirectly, by electing their representative and holding them accountable during next
elections
- Can be organized in a variety of ways: presidential, Parliamentary, ...
- These democracies are not self-evident:
- 1. RD can be varying “quality” → liberal /full vs Electoral /flawed democracies
- Es. India classified as with electoral or flawed democracy
- Poverty of country informally exclude part of population from political approach, democracy is
lawed rather than full and liberal
- 2. RD has democratic alternatives
- Es. Athenian city direct democracy, representative democracy is much younger than this one
- Direct and deliberative democracy
- Direct: all citizens take part in making decision direct es. Voting in every issue
- Deliberative: voting is replaced by deliberation and consensus making in arriving to political
decisions
3. RD comes in waves
4. RD has non-demo alternatives
- Democratic alternative
- → compatible these both, direct and deliberative es. UK has citizens assembly (deliberate
democracy introduced in existing representative democracy)
NON DEMORATIC REGIMES
- Es. SU until cold war
- Es. Ghedaffi in Libya until 2011
- Rulers (political leaders):
- 1. Are selected in non-competitive process
- 2. Are not accountable to the citizens
- It matters for the people who live there, different be a citizen in Russia, NK, south Arabia. Very
different type of treatment for those who disagree to the regime, it matters to the citizens how
these regimes operate
- 3. Are not subjected to the rule of law and other constitutional constraints
- Different types of non-democratic regimes, there is a variation:
- Some people argue that it does matter for the successful transition of democratic what type of
democratic regime was at the starting point of democratic regime
- Liberalisation, transition, and consolidation→ distinct faces of demo, evidence that show type of
democracy has an influence of the changes that is complete
TOTALITALRIAN AND AUTHORITARIAN AND SULTANISTINC REGIMES
- Juan Linz made distinction between 3 types of regimes:
- Differences between regimes related to:
- Degree of pluralism: the extent to which society under that regime is allowed or not to be plural
- Type of mobilization: what means the regime uses to entail people to participate in the system
- Type of leadership: how do leaders cover and what authority they use for the process of
government
SULTANISTIC (NEO-PSTRIMONIAL) REGIMES
- Es. Turkmenistan, president between 1996 and 2006 who had declared himself the leader and
elected him for life as president
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