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Introduction Lecture:The book is about the long-term comparative study of politics. Comparative politics deals
with empirical questions, in contradiction to the other two main subfields in the political
science: political theory and international relations. Comparative politics focusses on the
power configurations within systems. An important noun in this study is sovereignty.
Comparative politics includes three traditions:
- Study of single countries. Case studies have a useful purpose, but only when they
are put in comparative perspective and generate hypotheses to be tested in analytical
case studies, such as implicit comparisons, the analysis of deviant cases and proving
grounds for new techniques.
- Methodological; concerned with establishing rules and standards of comparative
analysis. This tradition addresses the question of how comparative analyses should
be carried out in order to enhance their potential.
- Analytical; combination of empirical substance and method. This tradition is primarily
concerned with the identification and explanation of differences and similarities
between countries and their institutions, actors, and processes through systematic
comparison.
In practice, comparative politics has three functions: it describes, it explains and it predicts. It
compares either sub-national regional political systems or supranational units, types of
political systems, or single elements of those systems.
A county’s political system (institutions and agencies) structures the ways in which citizens’
preferences (inputs) are translated into policy (outputs). Easton created a two-directional
framework that is a schematic overview of this thought:
Easton’s framework can be translated into a simplified model of representative democracy.
This model consists of two chains:
1. Chain of responsiveness: a government has to implement policies that the voters
want. In other words, there is an implementation of preferences, which is made
possible by mobilizations and aggregation.
2. Chain of accountability: the policy has to be in line with and has to reflect the voters’
preferences.
In this course we will mainly focus on the first chain; the chain of responsiveness. We will see
that there are lots of factors and actors that influence the step from preference to policy.
,Introduction to comparative politics
1.1 Introduction
Comparative politics is one of the three main disciplines in political science (political theory
and international relations).
- Deals with internal political structures (institutions like parliament and executives),
individual and collective actors (voters, parties, social movements and interest
groups), and processes (policy-making, communication and socialization processes,
and political cultures).
- The main goal is to describe empirical: describe, explain, and predict similarities and
differences across political systems, be they countries, regions or supra-national
systems (EU).
o Can be done through the intensive analysis of a few cases or large-scale
extensive analyses of many cases.
Synchronic: based on data collected at only one time point and not
accounting for change over time.
Diachronic: including a temporal dimension.
- Uses both quantitative and qualitative data.
- The analysis of domestic politics is challenged by the growing geographical scope
and interdependence between countries through globalization.
o This brings comparative politics and international relations closer.
- Comparative politics is about how politics can change over time, beginning with the
transition to mass democracy in the nineteenth century.
Politics is the human activity of making public authoritative decisions.
- Political decisions can apply to everyone who is part of a given citizenship and/or
living in a specific territory (a state) and to every area (religion, environment,
economy, and so forth).
- Authoritative because the government that makes such decisions is invested with the
(more or less legitimate) power to make them binding.
o The possibility to sanction individuals who do not comply with them.
o Politics is the exercise of the power making such decisions.
But it is also the activity of acquiring (and maintaining) this power.
- It is both the conflict or competition for power, and its use.
Main questions surrounding politics:
1. “Which decisions are made?”
2. “How are decisions made?”
a. In democracies we, as citizens, are directly involved through elections or
referendums.
b. In other types of government, individuals are excluded (authoritarian regimes).
3. “Who makes or influences decisions?”
a. Configurations of power relationships can be very different, but all point to the
basic fact that political decisions are made by individuals or groups who
acquired that power against others through either peaceful/democratic or
violent means.
In sum
- Politics is the human activity of making public and authoritative decisions. It is the
activity of acquiring the power of making such decisions and of exercising this power.
It is the conflict or competition for power and its use.
- Who decides what, and how, is important for the life of societies.
, 1.2 What is comparative politics?
1.2.1 A science of politics
Comparative politics is one of the three main subfields in political science, together with
political theory and international relations.
- Whereas political theory deals with normative and theoretical question, comparative
politics deals with empirical questions.
o Even though political scientists are also concerned with normative questions,
the discipline as such is empirical and value-neutral.
- Whereas international relations deals with interactions between political systems,
comparative politics deals with interactions within political systems.
o As a subject matter, it is concerned with power relationships between
individuals, groups and organizations, classes and institutions within political
systems.
o Comparative politics does not ignore external influences on internal structures,
but its ultimate concern is power configurations within systems.
- Comparative politics is a discipline that deals with the very essence of politics where
sovereignty resides.
o The state: questions of power between groups, the institutional organization of
political systems, and authoritative decisions that affect the whole of a
community.
This is why for over centuries of political thought the state has been at the
very heart of political science.
1.2.2 Types of comparative politics
Comparative politics includes three traditions:
1. Study of single countries: mainly meant the study of political systems outside the
US, often in isolation from one another and involving little comparison.
2. Methodological and concerned with establishing rules and standards of comparative
analysis.
a. Addresses the question of how comparative analysis should be carried out in
order to enhance their potential for the descriptive cumulation of comparable
information, causal explanations and associations between key variables and
prediction.
b. Rigorous conceptual, logical, and statistical techniques of analysis, also
involving issues of measurement and case selection.
3. Analytical: combines empirical substance and method.
a. Its principal goal is explanatory.
b. Through comparisons, researchers test whether or not associations and
causal relationships between variables hold true empirically across a number of
cases.
c. It can use either qualitative or quantitative data, or logical or statistical
techniques, for testing the empirical validity of hypotheses.
i. Ultimately this tradition aims at explanation.
Comparative politics is a combination of:
- Substance: the study of political institutions, actors and processes
- Method: identifying and explaining differences and similarities following established
rules and standards of analysis.
Comparative politics aims to say something general about the world, i.e. formulate
generalizations beyond one or few cases.
What does comparative politics do in practice?
- Describe similarities and differences.
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