Intro to Comparative Politics

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Intro to Comparative Politics

• Sept. 22

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Lecture Overview

• Focus of comparative politics
• The science of political science?
• Quick history of comparative politics

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Focus of Comparative Politics

• What is the focus of comparative politics?

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Focus of Comparative Politics

• Internal Power Structures
• Comparative politics does not ignore external
  influences on internal structures, but its
  ultimate concern is power configurations within
  political systems (Caramani, 2008 3).

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Focus of Comparative Politics

• often simply means studying foreign countries
• the use of case studies
• area specialists
• It need not be explicitly comparative.
• The editor of our textbook doesnt endorse such
  an approach (Caramani, 2008 4).

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Focus of Comparative Politics

• A comparative study may focus on a small number
  of countries (two or more) or it may attempt to
  incorporate the analysis of a very large range of
  countries.
• Countries, in fact, need not be the unit of
  analysis, sub-national regional political units
  or supra-national units may be the focus.

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The science of political science?

• the intent of comparative politics is that of a
  rigorous scientific and empirical field of study
  description, explanation, and prediction
  (Caramani, 2008 20).
• Is political science a science?
• Do social sciences differ from natural sciences?
  How and why?

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The science of political science?

• Daniele Caramani suggests (2008 3) that,
  Whereas political theory deals with normative
  questions (about equality, democracy, justice,
  etc.), comparative politics deals with empirical
  questions.
• Even though comparative political scientists are
  of course concerned also by normative questions,
  the discipline as such is empirical and
  value-neutral

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The science of political science?

• Is it possible to create a value-free or
  neutral political science?
• Is it desirable to create a value-free or
  neutral political science?

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Origins of comparative politics

• Plato and Aristotle, while usually considered
  political theorists, were engaged in the process
  of comparing different political regimes
• aristocracy, oligarchy, democracy, tyranny

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Origins of comparative politics

• Modern comparative politics can be traced back to
  (among others)
• Machiavelli, The Prince, 1532.
• Montesquieu, On the Spirit of the Laws, 1748
• Alexis de Tocqueville, On Democracy in America,
  1835

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Formal-legal, institutional approach

• First half of the 20th century, the emerging
  discipline of political science focused on the
  formal-legal institutions of the state.

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Political Behaviour, Political Culture

• In the 1950s and 60s, attention turned toward the
  study of the political behaviour and political
  attitudes of the public.
• The behavioural revolution
• This was facilitated by developments in survey
  techniques and emerging computerization. This
  greatly increased the possibility for
  number-crunching among social scientists.

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The reaction against the behavioural revolution

• The new form of empirical political science still
  has its proponents today, but by the late 1960s
  it was under attack from a variety of directions
  and for a variety of reasons.

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The Politics of Political Science Methodology

• York University, 1969
• Fifty student radicals converged on a meeting of
  the Canadian Political Science Associationto
  denounce what they called the methodology of
  political science.
• Protesters walked into the Vanier College dining
  hall carrying balloons, flowers and signs
  denouncing David Eastons systems analysis
  theory.
• See http//imprint.uwaterloo.ca/pdfarchive/1969-7
  0_v10,n06_Chevron.pdf

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A Return to Institutions

• By the 1980s, various scholars were attempting to
  bring the state back in to the centre of their
  analysis.
• This form of institutionalism often portrays
  state actors as having a degree of autonomy and
  different state structures as influencing
  political outcomes.

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B. Guy Peters, chapter 2 (next week)

• The 5 Is
• Institutions,
• Interests,
• Ideas,
• Individuals,
• International environment
• a bonus, 6th - interactions