Past and Present of Comparative Politics — Comprehensive Study Notes (Munck, 2006)

Abstract

  • Focus of the paper: past and present of comparative politics (CP) in the US; organized around three core issues: the definition of CP’s subject matter, the role of theory, and the use of methods.
  • Identifies distinct historical periods in CP and evaluates the field’s current state.
  • Examines linkages between CP and other political science subfields and the broader social sciences; briefly considers political events and scholars’ values.
  • Argues CP evolution is punctuated by two revolutions:
    • Behavioral revolution (immediate post–World War II to mid-1960s): inspired by sociology; emphasis on theory and empirics; broader, more empirical, less formal-legal focus.
    • Second scientific revolution (late Cold War to present): inspired by economics; heavier emphasis on formal theory and quantitative methods; strong focus on methodological rigor.
  • Both revolutions originated in American politics; changes justified in the name of science, but their ideas and emphases diverged.
  • Despite vast knowledge produced, CP remains internally divided, hampering progress.
  • Emphasizes the need to recognize CP’s humanistic roots and its scientific aspirations, noting the importance of both dimensions for the field’s future.

I. The Constitution of Political Science as a Discipline, 1880–1920

  • CP emerged as a distinct field in the United States in the late 19th century; its evolution was largely driven by U.S. universities.
  • The US’s influence on the discipline’s standard of research remained dominant, even as its global influence declined from the post–World War II peak.
  • Institutional foundations helped autonomize political science: growth in independent political science departments, creation of graduate programs (Columbia University’s School of Political Science, founded 1880, first in the field), and the American Political Science Association (APSA), founded in 1903.
  • These developments helped separate political science from history, although many early departments were joint politics-history entities.
  • The impulse to define CP’s subject matter drew on zwei impulses: (a) German Staatswissenschaft and historical approaches (which emphasized the state) and (b) a desire to delimit politics from broader history, aligning CP with contemporary government and formal political institutions.
  • A key maxim guiding early CP subject matter: “History is past Politics and Politics present History.” This promoted a focus on current/present politics rather than all historical factors.
  • Early CP shared a formal-legal, institution-centered approach, which was largely atheoretical and descriptive rather than theory-driven.
  • Table 1 (Classical Social Theory, 1776–1923) highlights major European thinkers who shaped classical social theory and their key works, illustrating the European intellectual heritage CP differentiated itself from. Note: The table lists major works by country and author (Britain, France, Germany, Italy) and US figures such as The Federalist Papers; a typographical oddity appears: The Wealth of Nations is listed with a date “1996,” which is likely a misprint in the source; standard dating is 1776.
    • Britain: Adam Smith — The Wealth of Nations; David Ricardo — On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817); John Stuart Mill — The Principles of Political Economy (1848); Considerations on Representative Government (1861).
    • France: Auguste Comte — Course in Positive Philosophy (1830–42); Alexis de Tocqueville — Democracy in America (1835), The Old Regime and the French Revolution (1856).
    • France (cont.): Herbert Spencer — The Principles of Sociology (1876–96);
    • Durkheim — The Division of Labor in Society (1893); Rules of the Sociological Method (1895).
    • Germany: Karl Marx — The Communist Manifesto (1848); The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852); Max Weber — The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905); Economy and Society (1914); General Economic History (1923).
    • Italy: Pareto — The Mind and Society (1915–19); Mosca — The Ruling Class (1923); Michels — Political Parties (1915).
    • US context: The Federalist Papers and the broader early American political thought anchored CP’s American origins; many early American scholars studied and trained in Europe.
  • Implications of the early period:
    • CP’s birth had a deep entanglement with history and state-centric analyses; the US helped carve out a distinct empirical field by emphasizing government and formal institutions and avoiding a blanket European grand theory approach.
    • The US also established an institutional basis (departments, graduate programs, APSA) that would shape CP’s early trajectory and standards of research.
  • The period’s trajectory laid foundations for what CP would become: a discipline formed through institutional autonomy, a delimitation from history, and an emphasis on the formal political order, with a strong American imprint on research practices and norms.

II. The Behavioral Revolution, 1921–66

  • Turning point: 1921 Merriam manifesto: The Present State of the Study of Politics, advocating a new science of politics and signaling a broader reform of the field.
  • 1923–25: National Conferences on the Science of Politics; SSRC (Social Science Research Council) created; Chicago School emerges as a leading locus of CP scholarship.
  • Postwar expansion: The behavioral revolution spreads beyond American politics; SSRC’s Committee on Political Behavior (1945) helps institutionalize behavioralism; Northwestern conference (1952); Almond chaired SSRC’s Committee on Comparative Politics (1954–63).
  • Core ideas of behavioralism in CP:
    • Broaden CP’s subject matter beyond formal government institutions to include informal procedures and behaviors (interest groups, political parties, mass media, political culture, socialization).
    • Emphasize a scientific approach to theory and methods; critique vague, atheoretical empirics; insist on systematic theory and empirical testing.
    • Strong influence from sociology and social psychology; Weberian-Parsonian concepts underpin structural functionalism (the dominant metatheory); anthropology and sociology influence CP’s literature on culture, socialization, and institutions.
  • Key consequences for CP:
    • Expansion of CP’s empirical and theoretical scope: inclusion of societal actors, state-society relations, and a broader set of variables.
    • Reconnection with other social sciences; CP becomes more interdisciplinary and globally oriented.
    • Heightened focus on theory development and empirical testing; push toward attempting general explanations rather than merely cataloging cases.
  • Primary shortcomings of behavioralism:
    • Tendency to treat the state as a black box; politics reduced to social actors’ functions or contestation over economic interests, with limited attention to how state structures shape outcomes.
    • Metatheory (structural functionalism) had crucial weaknesses: many works offered general claims but few testable propositions or rigorous empirical tests.
    • Mid-range theories existed (e.g., Lipset’s link between economic development and democracy) but lacked integration into a cohesive framework tying different parts of politics together.
  • Methodological changes during this period:
    • Case studies and small-N comparisons remain central, but there is a broadening to include a wider set of countries (beyond big European countries) and attention to the Third World, Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
    • Introduction of quantitative methods: early cross-national statistics; major data projects (e.g., Yale Political Data Program); cross-national surveys (e.g., The Civic Culture, 1963); efforts to build large-N datasets on institutions and macro variables.
    • Global empirical scope expands; CP becomes more internationally engaged and comparable across nations.
  • Overall assessment of this period:
    • CP gains theoretical orientation and methodological sophistication; but internal divisions persist and CP’s identity becomes more pluralistic.
    • CP’s relationship to Europe strengthens; US CP begins to export a model of comparative politics to the global arena.

III. The Post-Behavioral Period, 1967–88

  • End of the behavioral era (mid-1960s): the movement’s dominance wanes by 1966, though it continues in part after.
  • Emergence of a new scholarly generation and agendas:
    • Lipset and Rokkan’s 1967 article “Cleavage Structures, Party Systems, and Voter Alignments” marks the onset of new analytical trajectories.
    • Contributions from a diverse cohort born in the 1910s and 1920s and including some who were trained under behavioralists (e.g., Lipset, Huntington, Sartori).
    • New topics and concerns emerge: consociationalism (Lijphart 1968), corporatism (Schmitter 1971), the military (Stepan 1971), authoritarianism (O’Donnell 1973), revolutions (Scott 1976; Skocpol 1979).
    • The era also witnesses diverse national and political values among authors (including non-Western voices); the shadow of fascism and WWII continues to influence thinking, but the post–Cold War era brings new questions about democracy, development, and political order.
  • The state returns as a central causal actor: The new literature emphasizes state-society relations and the state’s autonomy in political processes (Theda Skocpol’s “bring the state back in” macro-perspective).
  • The re-emergence of formal political institutions and state-centered analyses complements renewed attention to political behavior and interest groups, now examined through the lens of state action and outcomes.
  • Theorizing in this period shifts away from a single dominant metatheory toward mid-range theorizing and a proliferation of theories about state formation, revolutions, authoritarianism, transitions, and different democratic models.
  • Methodological landscape during this period:
    • Continued prominence of case studies and small-N research; growth of cross-national quantitative work, though not as centralized as in the earlier period.
    • Quantitative research expands, but remains less central to CP than in Americanist political science; early cross-national data sets continue to be updated, and within-country quantitative analyses grow.
    • Tension between qualitative and quantitative methods persists; CP begins to actively seek bridges between methodologies (e.g., analytical narrative approaches, triangulation).
  • Critical assessment:
    • The literature becomes more pluralistic and fertile, with a marked shift away from grand metatheories toward a “multiplicity of islands of theory.”
    • The new literature advances concepts and theories that make political processes more concrete and historically grounded, such as state formation and regimes, democracy and its breakdown, and new forms of political ordering.
    • However, there is concern that, despite richer theory, CP still struggles with a lack of integration across mid-range theories and a robust, unified general theory.
  • Methodological development and debates:
    • Quantitative methods continue to evolve, but cross-national quantitative CP fell behind American political science in methodological sophistication during the early 1970s, partially due to data limitations and theoretical disagreements.
    • A bifurcation emerges between qualitative (case-focused, interpretive, narrative-informed) and quantitative (statistical, data-driven) strands, with limited cross-talk.
  • CP’s growth and Europe-US links:
    • The United States reconnects with European CP scholars; CP becomes a global enterprise with more voices from the Third World and regional scholarship.

IV. The Second Scientific Revolution, 1989–Present

  • A new push to make CP more scientific re-emerges with the APSA section on Comparative Politics, established in 1989 to counter fragmentation from area studies and to reassert a scientific core.
  • Core features of the 1989–present movement (three-pronged scientific program):
    • Rational choice theory (economics-based metatheory) as a central framework; formal theory and modeling become prominent; institutions as constraints and endogenous factors gain traction via institutionalism (rational choice institutionalism, historical institutionalism).
    • Quantitative methods and empirical testing: a renewed push for rigorous measurement, large-N and within-country analyses, new data sets, and cross-national time series; broader availability of data (demographic, institutional, economic, and attitudinal data).
    • Formal theorizing and logical rigor: emphasis on formal models and analytical clarity; formal theory complements and challenges qualitative explanations; clear articulation of assumptions and testable implications.
  • Distinctions from the behavioral revolution:
    • The second revolution does not redefine CP’s subject matter; instead, it reframes how to explain political behavior and outcomes within a broader, more formalized theoretical framework.
    • It relies more heavily on economics-inspired metatheories (game theory, rational choice) and on the formalization of theories, rather than a wholesale redefinition of CP’s core questions.
  • The rise of quantitative and formal approaches:
    • Data revolution: cross-national time-series data, economic and political indicators (e.g., governance, democracy, institutions), and expansion of survey data (World Values Survey, barometers).
    • Datasets highlighted include Penn World Tables (Summers & Heston 1991) and the World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators (Taylor & Hudson 1972; Taylor & Jodice 1983); Freedom House indices (started 1973); Polity (1978).
    • Within-country analyses and cross-national statistical work become more common; economists’ contributions (Persson & Tabellini; Bates; Przeworski; others) bridge CP with political economy and development questions.
  • The revival of qualitative methodology and methodological synthesis:
    • David Collier’s critical appraisal of qualitative methods (1991, 1993) helps reframe qualitative research and argues for rigorous qualitative standards.
    • King, Keohane, and Verba (1994) design social inquiry and the push for transparent, reproducible research with clear inference procedures.
    • Brady and Collier (2004); George and Bennett (2005) advocate for bridging strategies between qualitative and quantitative work; analytical narratives and a tripartite methodology (statistics, formalization, narrative) are promoted by Laitin (2002, 2003).
    • The qualitative revival is reinforced by an institutionalization of qualitative methods through training initiatives and new professional sections (e.g., APSA Section on Qualitative Methods, 2003).
  • The role of rational choice and the challenge of endogeneity:
    • Rational choice theory becomes a major, sometimes controversial, core metatheory; debates center on whether rational choice offers a unified theory of action across domains or remains primarily a general theory of choice under constraints.
    • The integration of institutions into rational choice (institutionalism) highlights endogeneity: institutions themselves are often endogenous to political processes; this complicates the task of linking theory to empirical regularities.
    • Despite debates, rational choice has spurred sharper proposals and stimulated theoretical debates that have clarified core issues rather than delivering a single synthesis.
  • The economics-CP relationship and empirical convergence:
    • The integration of economics into CP accelerates, with economists contributing to debates on the state, citizenship, democratization, and development; CP scholars incorporate economic reasoning while maintaining attention to political processes and institutions.
    • Some critics worry about “economic imperialism,” but cross-fertilization is productive: economists reuse CP insights on institutions; CP scholars use economic data and theory to reexamine classic questions (e.g., state vs. market, development, and governance).
  • Persistent tensions and outcomes:
    • The field remains pluralistic: no single metatheory dominates; ongoing debates about methods and theory reflect a healthy, albeit contested, intellectual landscape.
    • A central tension concerns how to integrate statics (what parameters are given) with dynamics (how those parameters change over time).
    • The Perestroika movement (circa 2000) signals discipline-wide debates about the direction and social science’s epistemology; a counter-movement questions the dominance of rational choice and statistical methods.
  • Summary of methodological evolution:
    • The second revolution intensified methodological diversity, combining formal modeling, quantitative analysis, and qualitative/analytical narrative methods.
    • The field gradually moved toward a more integrated research program that values multiple methods and multiple theories, while confronting ongoing challenges around measures, generalization, and endogeneity.
  • Overall impact on CP:
    • The CP field has become more scientific and globally interconnected, with richer data and more refined theories, but it also faces the challenge of producing robust, broad empirical generalizations and a unifying theory of politics.

V. Conclusion: Toward a Global Science of Politics

  • The CP field has made substantial progress: metatheories cycle in and out; CP’s relationship with other disciplines and with sister social sciences has evolved.
  • Despite progress, two core shortcomings persist:
    • The absence of a single, comprehensive general theory of politics that integrates mid-range theories across substantive domains and links statics with dynamics.
    • The lack of robust empirical generalizations across world politics due to limited measures, inconsistent data, and insufficient cross-national theory testing.
  • Two fundamental points for future advancement:
    • The study of politics is inseparably linked to normative concerns; without explicit attention to values, research stakes and rationales can be obscured.
    • Researchers must couple normative interests with appropriate scientific methods to address normative questions rigorously.
  • The field’s future hinges on balancing CP’s humanistic roots with its scientific aspirations, and on overcoming paralyzing divisions by blending substance and method, politics and science.
  • Overall assessment: CP has become a diverse, globally relevant field that has produced a vast knowledge base; the path forward requires integrating theory with robust empirical testing, improving measures, and fostering cross-method collaboration to realize a global science of politics.

VI. Key Tables and Cross-References (Summary)

  • Table 1: Classical Social Theory, 1776–1923 (summarized above)
    • Britain: Smith, Ricardo, Mill; France: Comte, Tocqueville, Spencer, Durkheim; Germany: Marx, Weber; Italy: Pareto, Mosca, Michels; US context: early foundations and influence of European thinkers; the US contributed to shaping political science as a discipline via institutional innovations.
    • Note: The source shows a typographical inconsistency (The Wealth of Nations dated 1996); the historical date is 1776.
  • Table 2: The Origins and Evolution of Comparative Politics in the United States (Dimensions and Periods)
    • Period 1 (1880–1920): Constituting political science as a discipline; subject matter focused on government/formal institutions; metatheories: none; mid-range theories: none; methods: case studies and small-N; assessment: strengths/weaknesses of theory; relationships to other disciplines: reaction against/ borrowing; research context: Gilded Age, democratization, etc.
    • Period 2 (1921–66): The Behavioral Revolution; broadening to the political system; informal politics; political behavior; state-society relations; metatheories: structural functionalism; mid-range theories: e.g., politics of development and democracy; methods: case studies, small-N, early cross-national statistics; assessment: theory strengthened, empirics strengthened; relationships to other disciplines: strong borrowing from sociology; research context: postwar changes, democratization, globalization.
    • Period 3 (1967–88): The Post-Behavioral Period; state-centered focus; reintroduction of formal institutions; emphasis on state-society relations; methods: continued case studies; increased quantitative work but with split traditions; assessment: islands of theory; relationships to other disciplines: mixed borrowing; research context: civil rights, Cold War legacies, decolonization.
    • Period 4 (1989–present): The Second Scientific Revolution; rational choice, formal theory, and quantitative methods; data revolution (Penn World Tables, Freedom House, Polity, World Values Survey); qualitative methods revival (Collier, King, Keohane, Verba, Brady); bridging approaches (analytical narratives, tripartite methodology); debates about endogeneity and institutions; perestroika movement and pluralism; assessment: ongoing tension between theory and empirics but greater methodological synthesis.
  • Cross-cutting themes:
    • Relationship to other disciplines: economics and sociology’s influence; historical and political science’s tensions; cross-national vs. area studies; broader social sciences engagement.
    • Research context: political events shaping values and priorities; liberal democracy as a working consensus; debates over neoliberalism and globalization; democratization waves; globalization and market reforms; post–Cold War geopolitics.
    • Methods and data: transition from descriptive, formal-legal work to theoretically informed, empirical testing; rise of cross-national data sets; growth of within-country analyses; push for methodological triangulation and robust causal inference.
    • Normative considerations: the need to integrate normative concerns with empirical research; the role of values in shaping research questions and interpretations.
  • Notable theoretical terms to know for exam:
    • Metatheory: a framework connecting and integrating partial theories to form a general theory.
    • Mid-range theory: theories with narrower scope than grand theories, focusing on specific aspects of politics.
    • Rational choice theory: a general theory of action under constraints; emphasizes formal modeling and strategic reasoning; often used as a metatheory in the second revolution.
    • Institutionalism (rational choice institutionalism and historical institutionalism): views institutions as constraints on political actors, with endogenous institutional change.
    • Analytical narratives: a qualitative approach combining narrative detail with formal or inferred theoretical structure.
    • Endogeneity: the problem that institutions and political outcomes mutually shape each other, complicating causal inference.
    • EITM: Empirical Implications of Theoretical Models; training and research initiative to bridge theory and empirics.

VII. Final Takeaways for Exam Preparation

  • The CP field in the US evolved through four major phases, each defined by its dominant questions, theories, and methods, but the field always retained a core concern with political institutions, state-society relations, and the governance of political life.
  • Two revolutions shaped CP’s development: the behavioral revolution (emphasis on empiricism, theory-building, and wider subject matter) and the second scientific revolution (emphasis on economics-inspired metatheories, formal modeling, and advanced quantitative methods).
  • Despite progress, current CP faces challenges in achieving a unified theory of politics and robust cross-national generalizations; bridging the divide between qualitative and quantitative methods remains essential.
  • For exam readiness: be prepared to explain the historical phases, their driving ideas, their methodological shifts, and their key limitations; know the major figures and works associated with each period; understand Table 1 (Classical Social Theory) and Table 2 (Origins and Evolution of CP in the US) at a conceptual level; and be able to articulate the field’s current trajectory and the normative-scientific balance that Munck argues CP must maintain for the future.