IVP LECTURES
W1: Comparative Politics
EXAM: multiple choice. Time limits on the questions, probably 45 seconds.
What is comparative politics
Subfield:
Subfield of political science. You have to take comparative politics because it is one of the subfields of
political science. Political science is the mother discipline, and political theory, comparative politics
and international relations are subfields.
Political science: the social scientific study of political activity and behaviour.
Political theory: studies the philosophical foundations of politics: what is a good policy? Moral and
ethics. Asking what should be and not necessary and what is/what is exactly going on? Empirical:
what should be?
International relations: studies politics among states and non-state actors on the international stage:
how do states interact with each other?
Comparative politics: the systematic study of domestic politics across different cases: how do political
systems function? Mostly about nation states, but this is not always the case. It is about states,
regions, cities. The question is how political systems function in the area you study. Normative: what
is?
Method:
The method is in the name: comparative. So comparison is an important element in comparative
politics. There are multiple research design for comparison.
If you want to compare multiple cases, than the first step will be to put the different cases in boxes.
So you make two or more groups. When the groups are made you collect your data. At last you make
a claim. You cannot see this claim in reality. The claim is based on observations.
1. Putting cases in boxes
2. Contain data
3. Compare them
4. Draw conclusion
Variables vs units of analysis.
Unit of analysis examples: countries, cities, leaders, etc.
A dependent variable is what you want to explain.
An independent variable is the factor that you think causes the factor.
,Why do we compare?
Arend Lijphart: important because he is the most famous political scientist from Leiden University.
Lijphart (1917): ‘how do we establish a causal connection between two variables?’
Experimental control: we design an experiment such that we can observe what happens if we vary
one variable while holding all others constant. for social science is this a bit complicated. We work
with observations and not everything can be manipulated.
Statistical control: we mathematically estimate the effect of a change in a variable given the
variation in other control variables. Statistics. This is less precise, because you never know if you have
all the comparable variables in your model.
Comparative control: we carefully select cases in order to eliminate potential alternative
explanations. Case selection is an important tool in comparative politics.
Comparative methods
Qualitative methods:
1. Single case studies: Lijphart: single case studies are comparative by implications in five
different ways. TEXTBOOK for the five ways. A theory is a claim that is true for all cases. So a
single case study ends with a claim. This claim should be true for all cases.
a. most similar systems design: select cases which are as similar as possible, but differ
in terms of the outcome. Similar means in theoretical dimensions which are
important for the outcome. Look for differences among these similar cases. If all
cases differ in one factor this is your independent variable.
b. Most dissimilar systems design: select cases which are as dissimilar as possible, but
all have the outcome of interest. Look for similarities among these different cases. If
all cases have one factor in common, this is your independent variable. So the
opposite off similar system design.
Quantitative methods: Statistics. Collecting a lot of data. Fucking annoying crap.
Problemen bij vergelijking:
1. Too many variables, too small N
2. Selection bias
3. Survivorship bias
4. Confirmation bias
5. Value bias
THEORY
Theories are general statements that describe and explain the causes or effects of classes of
phenomena. Theories don’t look at single events.
Role:
1. Filters which highlights elements of reality are important and which are not?
, 2. Helping to supports explanatory reasoning: what are plausible explanations for the turn out
from some event?
3. Enables prediction: what is likely to happen next? These predictions are probabilistic.
Basic notions:
A B , A (independent) leads to B (dependent)
Hypothesis: the claim that A causes B.
A and B are both variables. They can take on different values.
Different theoretical approaches
A theoretical approach is kind of a family of hypothesis and arguments. Family of arguments.
Types and examples
1. Institutionalism: US elections as example. From an institutional perspective we look at the
structures of how the elections work. Voters cast their vote in their state. The state counts
the votes and send them to one point, etc. because you have the context, this gives voters an
incentive to vote in a particular way. You don’t need to vote in a democratic state, if you are
democratic, it wouldn’t matter if one person doesn’t vote. Looking at institutions.
2. Rational choice: developed in economics. People are benefit maximisers. They compare the
options and choose the option that best maximise their needs. Economic voting: the way in
which voters make their decisions to vote for is just looking to their economic situation and
choose which party is the best for their own economic situations. Looking at individuals.
3. Structuralism: history, looking at groups. Marxism is an important structuralist group. Class
voting: you belong to a group, dominated voting manner in Europe. It doesn’t matter wat the
concrete policy deposal is from a party. People are recognizing themselves in some social
groups and vote for the party that belong to that group. People get socialized into these
different families. It is not about what the individual want, it is structure based.
4. Cultural: also structure based. It is about values in society. Mainly in anthropology. To what
extend is politics based on culture values and moral. Culture wars: cultural factors. Voters
don’t expect to profit from voting, they expect to profit from the way of this is American life,
this is how we suppose to live depending on the history. Not material, it is about the correct
interpretation of the past. What is the identity of the American project. It illustrate culture
approaches.
5. Interpretivism: close to cultural approaches, but emphasizes the ideas that individuals have.
It is about ideas that structure behaviour. How people have voted first in the elections and
then stormed the capital. These ideas push people to behave a certain way.
These approaches can be complementary. They can overlap. It is not clear when one stops and
where other begins. This are the main families, but there are many more.
, W1: the State
Central concept for political scientists. Sometimes we take states for granted.
Why government?
Why is there government in the first place?
Thomas Hobbes: ‘the state of nature is war of all against all, since everybody strives to fulfil their
needs by all means possible’. ‘life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’. In order to escape this
war, everybody agrees to submit common authority’. the state of nature is a state without
authority, this is a war because people want to fulfil their own needs. It leads to conflict. The people
who are strong enough take everything from people that are weak. People will submit to a common
authority to prevent a situation in which war is possible.
POLITICS
- Power, conflict, conflict of interest, distribution or allocation, representation (democracy),
what ‘we’ should do (this looks like politics is about a community, but this doesn’t have to be
always the case. This has to be the case with nations. We always think states are organised as
nation states).
Laswell: ‘Politics is about who gets what, when and how?’ distribution
Easton: ‘politics is the authoritative allocation of values in a society’ distribution and allocation.
Easton added the word ‘authoritative’, you can be forced to pay taxes for example.
Textbook: ‘the process by which people negotiate and compete in the process of making and
executing shared or collective decisions’ to complicated! In substance it is more or less the same.
Situation where are different interest and somehow there must be made a decisions about who wins.
How do you solve this fundamental problem? by force, by compromise….
POWER
Politics has as background condition coercion. If you don’t obey the rules/laws you can be coerced to
apply.
Weber: ‘power is the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to
carry out his will despite resistance, regardless of the basis upon which this probability rests’
power is always about relations, there are always at least two parties or persons. Next to that is
there the dimensions of authority. Power can be about coercion and force. War can be a mean of
politics. But power can also be nonviolent. Authority is a different source of power.
Authority is rightful rule. Domination accepted as legitimate by the ruled. Power is accepted by those
on which the power is laid down.
Weber: three different types of authority:
1. Traditional: authority parents have over their children. One average parents are allowed to
tell their children what to do. There is a source that legitimises the power of parents over
their children.
