Comparative%20Political%20Theory

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Comparative Political Theory
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Benefits of the Comparative Method

• Can help us make sense of confusing global system
  better understanding of forces that bring
  political change, significance and impact of
  change
• Can help us understand ourselves better
  understanding of the character, origins,
  strengths weaknesses of our own system

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Benefits of the Comparative Method

• Can broaden our options how similar problems
  are approached by different governments perhaps
  offer ideas that might help improve the way we do
  things or avoid mistakes
• Can broaden our horizons avoid ethnocentrism
  appreciate variety

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Benefits of the Comparative Method

• Can help us draw up rules about politics the
  study of different political systems can help us
  develop and test explanations of the trends
  underlying principles of politics
• Can help us develop a more sophisticated
  understanding of politics in general

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Benefits of the Comparative Method

• including the nature of democracy and
  nondemocratic govt, the relationships between
  govt and people, other concepts processes
• Can help us understand the linkages between
  domestic international affairs

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Benefits of the Comparative Method

• Can assist explanations why are some
  countries stable democracies and not others? Why
  do many democracies have prime ministers instead
  of presidents?

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The Comparative Method

• Comparison is not about deciding which political
  system is best!!
• The purpose is to learn more about how and why
  political systems are different or the same and
  what effect the differences similarities have

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The Comparative Method

• NORMATIVE POLITICAL THEORY purpose is to get us
  to think coherently about the ultimate aims of
  politics to think through possible consequences
  of alternative courses of political action
• It often asks us to make value judgments

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The Comparative Method

• NORMATIVE POLITICAL THEORY
• What is the best form of government?
• What ought to be the main goals of political
  action?
• How do we define these goals in practical
  circumstances?

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The Comparative Method

• EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS centered on facts
• Seeks to discover, describe, and explain facts
  and factual relationships, to the extent that the
  facts are knowable
• Probes the what, the how, and the why of
  politics

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The Comparative Method

• EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS
• What is democracy and how does it work?
• How do people behave in politics?
• What is a military dictatorship?
• Why does it tend to occur in some countries but
  not in others?

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The Comparative Method

• EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS
• Tends to be a value-free political science
• Requires us to keep our investigations of
  political reality free from our own particular
  values and biases, no matter how well-intentioned
  our convictions are

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Key Concepts

• The State
• A broad concept that includes all the public
  institutions individuals that exercise power
• A monopoly of force over a specific geographic
  territory
• Sovereign

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Key Concepts

• The Nation
• A psychological concept
• Cultural, linguistic and other identities that
  can tie people together
• Can use the word ethnic here

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Key Concepts

• The Government
• Particular set of institutions people
  authorized by formal documents to pass laws,
  regulations, provide protection, etc.
• Exercises state power but rarely holds all the
  power
• Limited by the existing regime

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Key Concepts

• The Regime
• Sets of rules and institutions that control
  access to, and the exercise of, political power
• These endure from government to government or
  administration to administration (in American
  terms)
• Regime change occurs when these rules
  institutions have been replaced