Comparative Politics: An Overview
Comparative Politics: An Introduction
Comparative politics is an evolutionary process that studies political systems and procedures across countries and time periods.
Aristotle is considered the 'ancestral father' of comparative politics due to his methods and questions.
A comparative study of different nations reveals surprising diversity.
Example: Comparing the US and Somalia highlights vast differences in economic status and historical experiences.
Somalia: Suffered from communist rule and civil war, hindering its development despite ancient civilization.
US: Emerged as a superpower after World War II, experiencing significant progress.
Comparative politics requires conscious comparisons of political experiences, institutions, behavior, and processes.
Need for Comparative Study
A pragmatic evaluation of a country's government and politics is enhanced by understanding other countries' systems.
Comparative study promotes objective and rational judgment and combats ethnocentrism.
Government structure and behavior are crucial study areas in political science.
Modern governments, especially in developing nations, significantly influence economic, social, and environmental conditions.
Political systems vary greatly; no two governments are identical.
Different societies need different governments to meet specific needs.
Political science courses include surveys of governmental and political systems (e.g., Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, US).
The decline of great powers and the rise of new nations impact inclusion and exclusion in comparative studies.
Comparative analysis is essential for students of political science.
Comparative government and politics can encompass most of political science.
Comparative government is a vital subsystem within political science.
Historical Context and Evolution
Aristotle compared political systems, developing explanatory theories.
He is regarded as the first scholar of comparative government.
For centuries, scholars comparatively investigated foreign cultures.
The transformation of comparative government studies occurred with increased tension between democratic and undemocratic systems.
The rise of the ‘Third World’ during the Cold War era.
The growing importance of informal politics.
The utility of data synthesis.
The changing nature and range of comparison.
The traditional approach decreased emphasis, leading to the ‘behavioral revolution.'
The 1950s and 1960s saw a drastic transformation in comparative government studies.
The field acquired new precision, firmness, and theoretical order.
Improvements in concepts and methods occurred.
Interdisciplinary emphasis on area studies and the growing significance of developing areas impacted the field.
Definitions of Comparative Politics
M. G. Smith: Comparative politics is the study of political organization forms, their properties, correlations, variations, and change modes.
Roy C. Macridis and Robert Ward: Comparative politics involves government structure, society, historical heritage, geographic and resource endowment, social and economic organizations, ideologies, value systems, political style, and party/leadership structures.
M. Curtis: Comparative politics focuses on regularities, similarities, and differences in political institutions and behavior.
E. A. Freeman: Comparative politics is the comparative analysis of government forms and political institutions.
These definitions form the basis for contemporary comparative government studies, which involve comparative analysis of institutional arrangements alongside empirical analysis of political behavior determinants.
Nature of Comparative Governments
Comparative politics analyzes and compares political systems across societies.
It considers political activity, political processes, and political power; it involves the resolution of conflict and struggle for power.
Politics involves the study of power and power relations in society, struggle for power, and conflict resolution using legitimate power.
Contemporary comparative politics involves analytical research that provides a clearer view of government activities; it deals with empirical study and takes into account values whose validity can be demonstrated scientifically.
It also analyzes individual, group, structure, system, and subsystem nature in relation to the environment.
It studies the dynamics of politics and its operation in the environment.
Evolved to include study of developing nations' political systems; modern scientists emphasize developing nations politics.
These features reject old norms and parochial nature, offering realistic study and comparison of politics worldwide.
Nature, Scope, and Approaches
Comparative government focuses on political systems, institutions, and functions, while comparative politics is broader, encompassing non-state politics.
David E. Apter: Political science concerns problems of ends, means of governing, activities of the ruled, and connections between society and government; its key concern is power sharing and its impact by growth and change.
The study of comparative politics is interesting because of the different approaches, methods, and techniques used in the realization of ‘political reality’.
Different approaches, methods, and techniques are used in political science.
Meanings of different themes used in contemporary political analysis:
Paradigm: A framework of ideas that establishes a general context of analysis.
Theory: Generalized statement summarizing the actions of a set of variables.
Method: Way of organizing a theory for application to data.
Technique: Links method to the relevant data.
Model: Simplified way of describing relationships.
Strategy: Applying combinations of the above to a research problem.
Research Design: Converts strategy into an operational plan for field work or experiment; final stage in research preparation.
Traditional Approach
The traditional approach emerged as a response to historicism in the 19th century and stresses historical examination of Western political institutions.
Traditionalists philosophized about democracy or made formal / legal studies of governmental institutions.
Analysis was configurative and each system was treated as a unique entity.
The approach was descriptive, incomplete and limited to forms of government and foreign political systems, rather than problem-solving, explanatory, or analytic.
Roy Macridis summarized major features of the traditional approach as non-comparative, descriptive, parochial, static and monographic.
Almond and Powell identified parochialism, configurative analysis, and formalism as major premises dominating criticism of the approach.
Harry Eckstein points out the influence of abstract theory, formal legal studies, and configuration studies.
Addressed mainly to Western political systems; stress was on single-culture configuration (representative democracies).
The study was limited not only in range, but also in depth; only the isolated aspects of governmental process within the specific countries were analysed.
The study was more often monographic and comparative; formal in its approach towards political institutions.
The study was focused on governmental institutions and their legal models, rules and regulations, or political ideas and ideologies, rather than on performance, interaction and behaviour.
Paid no attention to the non-political determinants of political behaviour; institutional organs were only applicable for comparison.
The realities of political action and behaviour within institutional structures were not given any serious thought.
Mainly descriptive rather than analytical, explanatory or problem-solving in its method; emphasis on pure description in terms of a large number of facts.
Little attempt to develop a general theory by verification of hypothesis and compilation of significant data; it has been aptly pointed out that the empirical deficiency of traditional analysis was the adjoining drive for behaviourism.
The mood of discontent with subjectivism and formalism of the traditional approach to the study of government and politics was led by the logic of the situation to the process of reconstruction of the discipline.
Factors—changes in philosophy, social sciences, and technology—explain the behavioral innovation in political science.
Peter Merkl: The most momentous single factor for the current transformation of the study of comparative politics was the rising importance of the politics of developing areas.
Almond and Powell mentioned developments being chiefly responsible for the new situation:
The national emergence of a multitude of nations with a baffling variety of cultures.
The loss of dominance of the nations of the Atlantic community.
The changing balance of power.
The emergence of communism as a power factor.
Revolution in Comparative Politics
All these factors led to dynamic efforts in innovation and to an effort to create a new rational order.
Sidney Verba summed up the principles behind the ‘revolution’:
Look beyond description to more theoretically relevant problems.
Look beyond the formal institutions to political process and functions.
Look beyond the countries of Western Europe to the new nations.
Almond and Powell: Efforts were motivated by the search for comprehensive scope, realism, precision, and theoretical order.
Behavioral approach has been generally accepted and incorporated.
Institutional mode of analysis has been restored by the process mode.
Behaviorists study the behavior of people and groups rather than the structure, institutions, ideologies or events.
Process mode avoids the static quality of structural analysis and has particularly valuable dynamic dimensions.
The state was no more regarded as the central organizing concept; attention was now paid to the empirical investigation of relations among human beings.
Smaller, more manageable units like individuals and groups and their interaction became the center of study.
Institutions were redefined as systems of related individual behaviors.
A diverse tendency occurred toward building complicated models and using quantitative techniques.
New Approaches to Study
Discussion about the nature of behavioral political analysis.
General Systems Theory: Originated in natural sciences with the aim of amalgamating science and scientific analysis; the theory originated in movements aimed at amalgamation of science and scientific analysis.
Concept of systems, which Von Bertalanffy defines as a set of ‘elements standing in interaction.'
The use of the ‘systems’ approach to politics allows one to see the subject in a way that ‘each part of the political canvas does not stand alone but is related to other parts’.
David Easton: A political system is that ‘behavior or set of interactions through which authoritative allocations (or binding decisions) are made and implemented for society’.
A system is marked by separation and integration; the chief function of a political system is making authoritative decisions allotting advantages and disadvantages.
Constituents of every political system: the political community, the regime, and the political authorities.
The political community comprises all those persons bound together by a political division of labor.
The regime makes up the constitutional legal structures, political processes, institutional norms, and basic values.
The political authorities are those individuals who exercise power as agents of the state.
The general systems theory provides a broad structure for the examination of politics: both macro and micro-level analysis can be carried out.
It keeps us conscious of the broad implications of political acts and institutions and of the relation between events; provides a large-scale map of the political world.
In the general systems structure, fundamental concepts are divided into three categories:
Primarily explanatory (open/closed systems).
Controlling and maintaining systems (stability equilibrium).
Dynamics or change (adaptation, learning, growth).
The general systems theory gives us an excellent opportunity for fusing micro analytical studies with macro analytical ones.
Time and again, this theory facilitates the communication of insights and ways of looking at things from other disciplines; maximizes the flow of interchanges with disciplines that are far removed from political science in substantive terms.
Critiques: Failing to sufficiently provide for concepts such as political power.
Offshoots of the Systems Theory
The behaviorists adapted the essential framework and terminology of the general systems theory; it was adopted to fit the needs of political science and then continued to develop new techniques of political analysis.
One of the most important challenges in political science, to develop a broadly applicable theory of the political system, was made by David Easton.
His ‘input–output’ model stressed the behaviour of the political system, vis-à-vis its environment, in terms of analysing inputs (demands and support) and outputs (authoritative allocation of values or policy decisions and actions).
Another significant systematic approach is structural functionalism, which is one of the most widely known offshoots or derivatives of systems analysis and a matter of considerable controversy.
One important school of systematic theory stresses models of decision-making by entire political systems or parts thereof.
Another kind of systems theory uses the communications theory and models of communication systems; It is used to conceptualize the process of political integration among the several countries or ethnic communities that make a new system.
Input-Output Analysis
David Easton developed an original and unique systemic approach for purposes of political analysis that was not borrowed from other social sciences.
In 1965, A System Analysis of Political Life engaged the interest of social scientists for providing an explanation of political phenomena in a new way.
Easton criticized the structural– functional approach, mainly on the grounds that it does not provide the concepts to deal sufficiently with all kinds of systems.
The empirical theory that Easton has pronounced is called the ‘general theory of politics’.
Easton rejects the idea of constructing different kinds of theories to deal with national politics and international politics: He is keen on building a ‘unified theory of politics’.
The fundamental concept is that of a political system as one of the subsystems of a society, which then operates within an environment.
Easton describes the political system as ‘that system of interactions in any society through which binding or authoritative allocations are made and implemented’.
A political system has certain features:
System: Regularly frequent pattern of relationships among actors.
System for society: Universally accepted and unquestioningly authoritative.
Political: Concerned with the satisfaction of needs of society that are beyond non-governmental capabilities.
Input–output analysis takes for granted that every political system is open and adaptive.
Another prominent feature of the political system is the nature of exchanges and transactions between the political system and its environment.
Inputs include demands and support; demands are statements of authoritative allocation that should or should not be made.
Support consists of actions, statements or attitudes favorable to a person, group, institution, goal or idea.
The outputs of a political system are authoritative decisions and actions of the political authorities for the distribution and division of values.
Easton’s formulation pivots on two core variables: strong underlying concern for systematic persistence; a sequence of concepts that Easton calls summary variables.
The central point in this analysis is concerned with the developments that may drive the essential variables of a political system beyond critical ranges, coupled with various regulatory responses to these developments.
According to Easton, sustained and extensive support toward all components of the political systems such as political community, regime and political authorities are crucial. It has a programmed goal towards which it tries to move, though at every stage it may have to face problems of stress and maintenance and go through regulatory processes.
Young describes this analysis as ‘undoubtedly the most inclusive systemic approach that has so far been constructed specifically for political analysis by a political scientist’.
The analysis suffers from some weaknesses- in term of concerns for systematic persistence, revolution processes, political interactions etc.
Structural Functional Analysis
The structural–functional analysis is one of the primary system derivatives in political science and a major framework for political research.
It has been adopted as a field of comparative politics by Gabriel Almond.
This mode of analysis is primarily concerned with the phenomena of system maintenance and regulation; the basic theoretical proposition is that in all social systems, certain basic functions have to be performed.
According to this approach, a political system is composed of several structures that are ‘patterns of action and resultant institutions’.
These institutions and patterns of action have certain functions that are defined as ‘objective consequences for the system’.
Dysfunction is the opposite of function, which means an action detrimental to the existence and growth of the system.
Merton has advanced an additional distinction between manifest and latent functions; manifest functions refer to those patterns of action, whose outcomes are intended and recognized by the participants.
Almond and Powell refer to the same phenomenon when they observe in a highly distinguished system, such as that of the United States, political functions may be performed by a large number of highly specialized structures and those political structures, in turn, have a propensity to be multifunctional.
Certain ‘conditions of survival,’ or certain functions, are vital for the maintenance and preservation of fundamental characteristics of a political system so that it stays recognizable over a length of time.
Gabriel Almond, in applying this analysis to political science, developed a list of political functional requisites and divided them into four input and three output functions.
The four input functions are:
Political socialization and recruitment.
Interest-articulation.
Interest-aggregation.
Political communication.
The three output functions are:
Rule-making.
Rule-application.
Rule-adjudication.
Almond’s classic statement of structural–functional analysis is found in the introduction to The Politics of the Developing Areas, edited by Almond and Coleman; he defines politics as the integrative and adaptive functions of a society, based on physical coercion.
According to him, there are political structures that perform the same functions in all systems; that all political structures are multifunctional; that each political culture is a mixture of the ‘traditional’ and the ‘modern’.
For Almond (in his later work), his framework 'did not permit us to explore development patterns, to explain how political systems change and why they change’.
The structural–functional approach has been adopted in the field of comparative government and politics because it claims to provide standard categories for markedly different political systems.
The criticism has nevertheless been made of its value orientations, its tautological premises, and its vague and non-operational conceptual units.
Decision-Making and Marxist Theories
Decision-making, in certain respects, is the least successful of all new approaches; politics is a process of allocating values through the making of decisions.
Marxist Methodology:
Marxism claim to scientific methodology in comparative politics; is based based on dialectical and historical materialism.
The Marxist frame is adapted to analyze different systems in terms of historical development of social structures and their relationships; it analyzes development, instability, and change.
Marxist analysis provides a general framework within which one can search for regularities about structures and apply them in limited situations.
Criticisms: It is impossible to explain all historical movements through economic lens.
Summary Points
Comparative politics depends on conscious comparisons.
Government structure and behavior make an exciting and challenging area of concern.
The terms ‘comparative politics’ and ‘comparative government’ are used loosely, with some point of difference between the two.
The revolution in comparative politics have led to an effort to create a new rational order.
Marxist’s framework can be adapted to analyze different systems in terms of historical development and their interrelationships.