The document is a comprehensive guide on Comparative Politics, a subfield of political science. It explores the definition, purpose, and evolution of comparative politics, focusing on key political actors, structures, processes, and systems. The document discusses essential political theories, meth...
COMPARATIVE POLITICS
What is it, where does it come from and why studying comparative politics?
Comparative politics is one of the three main subfields of political science (alongside political theory and
international relations) focusing on internal political structure, actors, processes and analyzing them
empirically by describing, explaining and predicting their variety (similarities and differences) across political
systems (also over time).
Actors are people, political leader, scientists, activist-broad of people that covers different function.
The focus is not only within institutions and institutional cages but also outside, where is shaped by social conditions, meaning
that parties like citizens also count.
Predict means building hypothesis with the help of a system.
What is politics?
Politics is the human activity of making:
• public decisions (citizenship, territory, area)
• authoritative decisions (exercise of power). The possibility to make BINDING decision, forcing individuals to
comply by coercive means.
>> Politics is the exercise of POWER: comparing politics also means comparing who exercises the power.
Chain of accountability*
Electorates hold representative accountable and select them; together they built a parliament and a government,
who’s judged in the next elections by electorates.
>> The way power is distributed is TOP-DOWN: in fact, the possibility to engage in an election is given to you by
going to the poll and voting.
We tendentially have bias to understand this mechanism* since we’ve been raised in a democratic system, but we
consider this the only way and most important way to exercise some kind of power in this kind of regime. In
general, the exercise of power is vertically structured.
Protest are BOTTOM-UP they usually create a nuisance to the government.
There are three main traditions of C.P.
• Single case studies > inception of the discipline (analyzing a specific government) a way to study a new
political phenomenon we don’t know anything about and don’t have any comparative term.
(i.e.: Tocqueville was one of the biggest theorists of western democracy and he did an in depth-research on USA democracy
because he didn’t have any comparing term. Furthermore, results are not generalizable because you can’t compare).
• Methodology oriented > establishing rules and standards to study political phenomena.
• Analytical tradition > combines methods and substance. From this point on starts the comparison by
underlining and understanding values, factors and properties.
Why do we search for similarities and compares?
Finding differences and similarities to find a GENERALIZABLE OUTCOME.
The way I conduct the research and theories can be applied in another situation, geographical areas and times
period and obtaining similar results.
(i.e.: Vaccine made for Italians cannot not work for Swedish too).
Whenever your results are not generalizable you messed something up with your methods.
We’re measuring human behavior so we cannot be sure there aren’t bias, since humans being are embedded in a
cultural environment, we can only try to minimize it. However, bias can be compared (i.e.: bias-election is the only way
to participate in a western democracy point of view).
What is the point in comparing?
For a better understanding in what approach to undertake.
(i.e. Meloni proposal of reform of putting a direct election of the PM to get a majoritarian voting system, trying to enhance the
quantity of voters, and gaining more power. She knows this by using comparative politics due to the approach Hungary took by
reforming the Constitution and centralization power would mean having more power since it’ll be in the hands of fewer
members).
The mantra of C.P.
• D > describe the situation
• E > explain the hypothesis about your arguments
• P > predict the outcome of your research question (what I expect)
How did C.P. developed
• Before the Second World War > narrow scope of the discipline the so-called “Old institutionalism”
· Focus on single cases (almost North America and Western Europe)
• Between the ‘30 and the ‘60 > The behavioural revolution., the so called “golden age” of C.P.
· Communist regimes
· Democratic regimes other than the Westminster type of majoritarian democracy
· Populism in Latin America
· Decolonization
· Patrimonialism in Africa
· Rise of the European Union (at least its inception)
• During the ’70 > fine with behavioural revolution but we need more generalizability coupled with the so-called
«travelling concepts» (Sartori 1970). Back to neo-institutionalism:
· Few cases
1
, · Narrow focus
· Narrow theories
• During the ’80 > the rational choice turn, which is the explanation of what
people behavior was.
· Inspired by the developments in economy.
· Individuals are rational and able to rank options according to their interest.
· Reinforce the role of institutions (rational choice institutionalism) constraining
the behavior of individuals.
Robert Dhal’s market theory of democracy, an analogy developed so you
choose what suits your needs best.
The systemic paradigm – David Easton 1965
Election (input) provides support and demands from a political system (black box where decisions are made) that
provides an outcome (output) that will create a certain reaction.
Input can be in some cases the dictator himself (North Korea) by inputting fear or believes.
Method evolves hand-in-hand with theory
• Small-N analyses > case oriented
• Core role of statistics > behavioral revolution
• Large-N analysis > rational choice
Why C.P?
• Inform the elite (grey eminences)
• Inform the wild public (every people on earth)
• Contribute to human well-being (in democracy it’s by improving its quality)
How to improve human well-being
• Institutional turn > institutions are the rules of the game. We need diffusion of power because if the power is
centralized there’s no democracy anymore, and this is avoided by splitting the power in the hands of more men.
· Are developing countries not receiving enough clean water due to the lack of it or due to the lack of technical installations?
· Inefficiency of judicial and administrative institutions mixed with high level of corruption in the procurement process results
in the extremely low-quality of the infrastructure being put in place. (Rothstein 2011)
· Consequence: the quality of governance and the role played by institutions do matter.
Institutions and the many facets of democracy
Democracy and democratization as the core point of comparative political research agenda.
Democracy is the union of electoral and legislative systems, government structure, central executive, judicial
review, local governments, referendums, etc... There are more than 1024 possible combinations plus unpredictable
number of veto points.
The veto problem
• Having too many veto points might result in low quality of government (what happens with too few veto points?).
• Organization of the INPUT side might affect the quality of the OUTPUT side and consequent decrease of human
well-being.
• Attention not only formal institutions might affect the output side but also informal one.
There has to be balance between a working balancing system and the veto points we have: if we have too many
veto points the system will take more time in the exercising its work, therefore reforming a constitution will more
difficult; but with too less veto points the system will be more efficient but will also have a lower democratic and a
higher risk in becoming a dictatorship.
The study of complexity
Complexity is how institutions, ideas, actors interact with each other to provide GOVERNANCE, which is a way in
which a certain element is governed, for the society (i.e.: the institutional combinations to achieve democracy) >>
COMPARISON.
Ideas are useful whenever we have a change. These ideas are later translated in an ideology, which shapes the
way we see problems or issues that are usually orientated by our ideological background. We must develop
approaches that are useful and generalizable across them to study complexity.
To understand how democracy and different political system differ from each other you have to compare them
through POLITICAL THEORIES (a way in which I expect things to be and tell us what to expect from the
input/output).
The core divide between approaches
POSITIVISM CONSTRUCTIVISM
Basic assumption Neat distinction between FACTS and Facts and value are bounded
(something you take for granted) VALUES. together. Facts are socially
Facts can be objective, certain and embedded and socially
analyzed, while values are constructed.
subjective.
(i.e. abortion politics based on facts but
can conflict with the value of the moral
2
, sphere)
Social phenomena are observable
in the same way by different
researchers (more generally by The researcher cannot stand
observers). outside of the observed
(i.e. if I take 3 different researchers, with phenomena. She has her cultural
Observation of social 3 different backgrounds, beliefs and
phenomena understanding of it.
moral and task them with
(i.e. being guided by political ideology,
understanding how people vote in
religion, biases that are present in a
election, according to this approach
society, etc.).
they will have the same results. Thus,
this cannot happen because the cultural
background is different).
QUANTITATIVE methods are
variable oriented (hypothesis QUALITATIVE research focused on
testing and theory formation). dimensions (i.e. analysis of script and
Type of used method (i.e. do you trust the government? Likert discourses, you used a more
scale is a rating scale used to measure interpretative approach).
opinions, attitudes, or behaviors: from 1
to 0, where 1 is yes and 0 is no).
What is shown in this comparative table was later not only a theoretical division, in fact in the Western world after
the economic boom people started pushing for more rights.
A MIXED METHOD APPROACH mixes the quantitative and qualitative method giving more stability to your results.
Regression analysis is statical model can help you understand the relation between independent variable (all the
variables that can determine a certain result) and dependent variable (how women vote in election). With 10 cases
you don’t have enough data to conduct a complete analysis, since you do not have the and therefore you can’t run
a regression analysis with 10 cases because it isn’t reliable, since you need to have enough cases to
mathematically run the model and you would end up without the whole picture making the research conducted too
subjective and therefore the result not generalizable (i.e.: conceptually speaking you can’t run a survey about electoral
preferences in Italy having only 10 respondents doesn’t make the surveys representative and not generalizable).
If I get 5 different results where is scientific dignity?
Why do we need theory? Which theory?
Theories ate sources of question for researchers. (i.e.: does it make sense to compare the size of cabinets between states
per se?). Core distinction:
• Ground theories: trying to explain everything (at least the new phenomena). The drawback is that this kind of
method is too general and without meaningful PREDICTION reached. In Easton’s 1965 system theory he
described the system as a literal black box, but these theories are useful to the understanding of a
phenomenon’s structure (i.e.: I can understand how the input and output works).
• Mid-range theories start from empirical phenomena, abstract from them and create general statements that
can be verified by data, which is called GENERALIZABILITY of findings (i.e.: I need mid-range theories to understand
how different countries produce laws regarding abortion) . Boudon, Raymond (1991). "What Middle-Range Theories Are".
Contemporary Sociology. 20 (4): 519–522.
These two different types of theories complement each other; but whatever approach you use it should
justify the selected method!
The 5+1 Is of C.P.
1. Institutions
The origin of the discipline – OLD institutionalism – focus on constitutional structure and institutions created by
those constitutions. Institutional understanding predicts quality of governance.
• Political parties as institutions (Michaels 1915).
• Behavioural revolution > shift toward individualistic perspective.
• New-institutionalism > from individual perspective to connection between individuals and institutions:
· Normative institutionalism: rules shape institutions and institutions shape individuals.
· Historic institutionalism: role of ideas and persistence of institutions over time, even if dysfunctional.
· Rational choice institutionalism
· Empirical institutionalism: does differences in institutions make difference at all?
Studying institutions means study PERSISTENCY rather than change, the fact of continuing in an opinion or
course of action despite difficulty or opposition. Exceptions are the so-called “critical juncture” (Collier and Collier
1991).
(i.e.: Constitution-main institutions in democracy- there are a lot of mechanism to change it written in the constitution itself, a
constitutional change will take longer the process of changing an institution is slower than change in a society)
• Formal institutions (usually written) include:
· Constitutions
· Laws
· Policies
· Regulations enforced by authorities.
• Informal institutions (usually unwritten) shape thoughts and behaviour of a specific society and include:
3
, · Values
· Social norms
· Customs
· Traditions
2. Interests
• Interest that actors pursue through political actions; indeed politics “is about who gets what” (Lasswell 1936).
• Rational Choice arguments > individual behaviour is motivated by self-interest and collective behaviour is the
aggregation of individuals’ one through BARGAINING or CONFLICT.
· Corporativism: legitimates interest groups and their access to the decision-making system.
· Network of interests: same approach but mixes individual (groups) and collective (society) interests
bounded in a loosely defined way.
· Consociationalism: political elites representing (non-material interests like ethnicity or identity) coalesce
since they need to govern. Concept of CLEAVAGE in society (Putnam et al).
· Comparative political economy: government is one of the major economic actors crucial to reduce
inequalities (core point 2008 economic crisis).
The basic assumption of these studies is that interests are the basis of conflict, clashes of interest produce a
trade of opinion.
3. Ideas
There are amorphous concepts that might seem not closely connected to governmental choices, but are:
• Political culture > set of patterns toward political actions. Surveys are crucial to understand it and split it into
dimensions (i.e.: hierarchy vs equality, liberty vs coercion, trust vs distrust).
• Political ideology (i.e.: think about communism, fascism, Nazism or, more recently neoliberalism, conservatives ideologies
and approaches Are they dead? Are we sure?).
• Specific (policy) ideas > economic performance (From uncontrollable to Keynesian management to monetarism and so
on).
IDEAS do matter even though they might have subtle effects and might be difficultly observable.
4. Individuals
Substantial wrong assumption that individuals’ ideas and interests tend to converge:
• Study of political elite
· Psychological approach (pathology)
· Less phycological approach based on individuals’ actions (Barber’s study on presidential style: the future
performance of any presidential candidate can be predicted by looking at the factors that place him into a certain category.
These factors are his character, his world view and style, the power situation, and the climate of expectations.).
· Sociological approach (Putnam 1976): leaders’ sociological roots shape their actions.
• Do not forget about citizens:
· Voters.
· Participates into groups.
· Consumers of media.
5. International environment
• Can we describe, examine and compare countries in isolation?
• Influences from the international context vary across countries (i.e.: more economic autonomous countries vs less
economic autonomous)
• Case of the EU and the multilevel governance (regional + national + supranational) influenced also by the
international environment.
Core question arising: is a specific pattern observable at the national level the result of endogenous (within) or
exogenous (outside) forces? Both?
6. Interactions
• We can explain political phenomena relying on the 5 elements however it is crucial to understand that political
phenomena are complex and, as such, they are the result of interactions among such elements.
Social movement theory, we need to keep track of all the 5 I:
· Type of institutions (less formalized).
· Are composed by individuals.
· Reflect ideas/ideologies (i.e.: environmentalism).
· Reflect societal interests (even though differently from interest groups).
· Might experience international influence (i.e.: Fridays for future).
METHODS: the toolkit from theory to answers
“Compare is a common way of thinking. Nothing is more natural than to consider people, ideas or institutions in
relation to other people, ideas and institutions. We gain knowledge from reference” (Dogan and Pelassy 1990:3) >
implicit vs explicit comparison in comparative politics.
The “MAGIC TRIAD”: Research Question (R.Q) > Research Design (R.D) > Research Answer (R.A):
• R.Q > it’ what we ask. Starts from theory as a meaningful statement of relationship between a dependent
variable ( y ) and our independent variable(s) ( X ).
• R.D > substantially the method chosen that suits the research goal and enables to obtain R.A.
• R.A
· Authoritative (valid)
4
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