Comparative politics is a field in

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and ...

characterized either by the use of the ''

comparative method In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards t ...

'' or other empirical methods to explore politics both within and between countries. Substantively, this can include questions relating to

political institutions In political science, a political system means the type of political organization that can be recognized, observed or otherwise declared by a state. It defines the process for making official government decisions. It usually comprizes the gover ...

, political behavior, conflict, and the causes and consequences of

economic development In the economics study of the public sector, economic and social development is the process by which the economic well-being and quality of life of a nation, region, local community, or an individual are improved according to targeted goals and ...

. When applied to specific fields of study, comparative politics may be referred to by other names, such as comparative government (the comparative study of forms of

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government i ...

Definition

Comparative politics is the systematic study and comparison of the diverse political systems in the world. It is comparative in searching to explain why different political systems have similarities or differences and how developmental changes came to be between them. It is systematic in that it looks for trends, patterns, and regularities among these political systems. The research field takes into account political systems throughout the globe, focusing on themes such as

democratization Democratization, or democratisation, is the transition to a more democratic political regime, including substantive political changes moving in a democratic direction. It may be a hybrid regime in transition from an authoritarian regime to a full ...

globalization Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...

, and integration. New theories and approaches have been used in political science in the last 40 years thanks to comparative politics. Some of these focus on

political culture Political culture describes how culture impacts politics. Every political system is embedded in a particular political culture. Definition Gabriel Almond defines it as "the particular pattern of orientations toward political actions in whic ...

dependency theory Dependency theory is the notion that resources flow from a " periphery" of poor and underdeveloped states to a " core" of wealthy states, enriching the latter at the expense of the former. A central contention of dependency theory is that poor ...

, developmentalism,

corporatism Corporatism is a collectivist political ideology which advocates the organization of society by corporate groups, such as agricultural, labour, military, business, scientific, or guild associations, on the basis of their common interests. The ...

, indigenous theories of change, comparative political economy, state-society relations, and new institutionalism. Some examples of comparative politics are studying the differences between presidential and

parliamentary system A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democratic governance of a state (or subordinate entity) where the executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the support ("confidence") of th ...

democracies Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose go ...

and

dictatorship A dictatorship is a form of government which is characterized by a leader, or a group of leaders, which holds governmental powers with few to no limitations on them. The leader of a dictatorship is called a dictator. Politics in a dictatorship a ...

s, parliamentary systems in different countries, multi-party systems such as

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

and two-party systems such as the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. Comparative politics must be conducted at a specific point in time, usually the present. A researcher cannot compare systems from different periods of time; it must be static. While historically the discipline explored broad questions in political science through between-country comparisons, contemporary comparative political science primarily uses subnational comparisons. More recently, there has been a significant increase in the interest of subnational comparisons and the benefit it has on comparative politics. We would know far less about major credible issues within political science if it weren't for subnational research. Subnational research contributes important methodological, theoretical, and substantive ideas to the study of politics. Important developments often obscured by a national-level focus are easier to decipher through subnational research. An example could be regions inside countries where the presence of state institutions have been reduced in effect or value. The name comparative politics refers to the discipline's historical association with the

, described in detail

below Below may refer to: *Earth * Ground (disambiguation) *Soil *Floor * Bottom (disambiguation) *Less than *Temperatures below freezing *Hell or underworld People with the surname *Ernst von Below (1863–1955), German World War I general *Fred Below ...

. Arend Lijphart argues that comparative politics does not have a ''substantive'' focus in itself, but rather a ''methodological'' one: it focuses on "the ''how'' but does not specify the ''what'' of the analysis."

Peter Mair Peter Mair (3 March 1951 – 15 August 2011) was an Irish political scientist. He was professor of Comparative Politics at the European University Institute in Florence. Career Peter Mair was born in Rosses Point, County Sligo, Ireland, an ...

and

Richard Rose Richard Rose may refer to: * Richard Rose (mystic) (1917–2005), American mystic, esoteric philosopher, author, poet, and investigator of paranormal phenomena *Richard Rose (political scientist) (born 1933), American political scientist and profess ...

advance a slightly different definition, arguing that comparative politics is defined by a combination of a ''substantive'' focus on the study of countries' political systems and a ''method'' of identifying and explaining similarities and differences between these countries using common concepts. Sometimes, especially in the United States, the term "comparative politics" is used to refer to "the politics of foreign countries." This usage of the term is disputed. Comparative politics is significant because it helps people understand the nature and working of political frameworks around the world. There are many types of political systems worldwide according to the authentic, social, ethnic, racial, and social history. Indeed, even comparative constructions of political association shift starting with one country then onto the next. For instance,

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

and the United States are majority-rule nations; nonetheless, the U.S. has a liberal vote-based

presidential system A presidential system, or single executive system, is a form of government in which a head of government, typically with the title of president, leads an executive branch that is separate from the legislative branch in systems that use separatio ...

contrasted with the parliamentary system used in India. Even the political decision measure is more diverse in the United States when found in light of the Indian popular government. The United States has a president as their leader, while India has a

prime minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

. Relative legislative issues encourage us to comprehend these central contracts and how the two nations are altogether different regardless of being majority rule. This field of study is critical for the fields of international relations and conflict resolution. Near politics encourages international relations to clarify worldwide legislative issues and the present winning conditions worldwide. Although both are subfields of political science, comparative politics examines the causes of international strategy and the effect of worldwide approaches and frameworks on homegrown political conduct and working.

History of the field

Harry H. Eckstein Harry H. Eckstein (January 26, 1924 in Schotten, Germany – June 22, 1999) was an American political scientist. He was an influential scholar of comparative politics and political culture, as well as qualitative research methods. Early life and ...

traces the history of the field of comparative politics back to Aristotle, and sees a string of thinkers from Machiavelli and

Montesquieu Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (; ; 18 January 168910 February 1755), generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French judge, man of letters, historian, and political philosopher. He is the princi ...

, to

Gaetano Mosca Gaetano Mosca (; 1 April 1858 – 8 November 1941) was an Italian political scientist, journalist and public servant. He is credited with developing the elite theory and the doctrine of the political class and is one of the three members cons ...

and

Max Weber Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas p ...

Vilfredo Pareto Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto ( , , , ; born Wilfried Fritz Pareto; 15 July 1848 – 19 August 1923) was an Italians, Italian polymath (civil engineer, sociologist, economist, political scientist, and philosopher). He made several important ...

and Robert Michels, on to James Bryce - with his ''Modern Democracies'' (1921) - and

Carl Joachim Friedrich Carl Joachim Friedrich (; ; June 5, 1901 – September 19, 1984) was a German-American professor and political theorist. He taught alternately at Harvard and Heidelberg until his retirement in 1971. His writings on state and constitutional theory ...

- with his ''Constitutional Government and Democracy'' (1937) - contributing to its history.

Two traditions reaching back to Aristotle and Plato

Philippe C. Schmitter argues that the "family tree" of comparative politics has two main traditions: one, invented by Aristotle, that he calls "sociological constitutionalism"; a second, that he traced back to Plato, that he calls "legal constitutionalism"". Schmitter places various scholars under each tradition: * 1. ''Sociological constitutionalism'': Some classic scholars in this tradition are: "

Polybius Polybius (; grc-gre, Πολύβιος, ; ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , which covered the period of 264–146 BC and the Punic Wars in detail. Polybius is important for his analysis of the mixed ...

, Machiavelli,

Benjamin Constant Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque (; 25 October 1767 – 8 December 1830), or simply Benjamin Constant, was a Franco-Swiss political thinker, activist and writer on political theory and religion. A committed republican from 1795, he backed t ...

Alexis de Tocqueville Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville (; 29 July 180516 April 1859), colloquially known as Tocqueville (), was a French aristocrat, diplomat, political scientist, political philosopher and historian. He is best known for his wo ...

, Lorenz von Stein,

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

, Moisei Ostrogorski,

, Emile Durkheim, Robert Michels,

, and Herbert Tingsten." Schmitter argues that, in the twentieth century, this tradition was known by the label of "historical

political sociology Political sociology is an interdisciplinary field of study concerned with exploring how governance and society interact and influence one another at the micro to macro levels of analysis. Interested in the social causes and consequences of how ...

" and included scholars such as "

Stein Rokkan Stein Rokkan (July 4, 1921 – July 22, 1979) was a Norwegian political scientist and sociologist. He was the first professor of sociology at the University of Bergen and a principal founder of the discipline of comparative politics. He foun ...

, T.H. Marshall,

Reinhard Bendix Reinhard Bendix (February 25, 1916 – February 28, 1991) was a German-American sociologist. Life and career Born in Berlin, Germany, in 1916, he briefly belonged to Neu Beginnen and Hashomer Hatzair, groups that resisted the Nazis. In 19 ...

Otto Kirchheimer Otto Kirchheimer (; 11 November 1905, Heilbronn – 22 November 1965, Washington, D.C.) was a German jurist of Jewish ancestry and political scientist of the Frankfurt School whose work essentially covered the state and its constitution. Kirchhe ...

Seymour Martin Lipset Seymour Martin Lipset ( ; March 18, 1922 – December 31, 2006) was an American sociologist and political scientist (President of the American Political Science Association). His major work was in the fields of political sociology, trade union o ...

Juan Linz ''Juan'' is a given name, the Spanish and Manx versions of ''John''. It is very common in Spain and in other Spanish-speaking communities around the world and in the Philippines, and also (pronounced differently) in the Isle of Man. In Spanish, ...

, Hans Daalder, Mattei Dogan, S.N. Eisenstadt,

Harry Eckstein Harry H. Eckstein (January 26, 1924 in Schotten, Germany – June 22, 1999) was an American political scientist. He was an influential scholar of comparative politics and political culture, as well as qualitative research methods. Early life and ...

, and

Dankwart Rustow Dankwart Alexander Rustow (December 21, 1924 – August 3, 1996) was a professor of political science and sociology specializing in comparative politics. He is prominent for his research on democratization. In his seminal 1970 article 'Transitio ...

."Philippe C. Schmitter, "The Nature and Future of Comparative Politics." ''European Political Science Review'' 1,1 (2009): 33–61, p. 38. * 2. ''Legal constitutionalism'': Some classic scholars in this tradition are: " Léon Duguit, Georges Burdeau, James Bryce, A. Lawrence Lowell, and

Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...

." Schmitter argues that in the twentieth century this tradition was continued by: "

Maurice Duverger Maurice Duverger (5 June 1917 – 16 December 2014) was a French jurist, sociologist, political scientist and politician born in Angoulême, Charente. Starting his career as a jurist at the University of Bordeaux, Duverger became more and m ...

, Herman Finer,

Samuel Finer Samuel Edward Finer FBA (22 September 1915 – 9 June 1993) was a British political scientist and historian specializing in comparative politics, who was instrumental in advancing political studies as an academic subject in the United Kingdom ...

, Giovanni Sartori, Carl J. Friedrich,

Samuel Beer Samuel Hutchison Beer (July 28, 1911 – April 7, 2009) was an American political scientist who specialized in the government and politics of the United Kingdom. He was a longtime professor at Harvard University and served as president of the A ...

Jean Blondel Jean Blondel (26 October 1929 – 25 December 2022) was a French political scientist specialising in comparative politics. He was Emeritus Professor at the European University Institute in Florence, and visiting professor at the University of Sie ...

, F.A. Hermens, and

Klaus von Beyme Klaus Gustav Heinrich von Beyme (3 July 1934 – 6 December 2021) was a German political scientist who was Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg. Education Beyme ...

Periodization as a field of political science

Gerardo L. Munck offers the following periodization for the evolution of modern comparative politics, as a field of

- understood as an

academic discipline An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

- in the United States: * 1. The Constitution of Political Science as a Discipline, 1880–1920 * 2. The Behavioral Revolution, 1921–66 * 3. The Post-Behavioral Period, 1967–88 * 4. The Second Scientific Revolution 1989–2005

Contemporary patterns, 2000-present

Since the turn of the century, several trends in the field can be detected. * End of the pretense of rational choice theory to hegemonize the field * Lack of a unifying

metatheory A metatheory or meta-theory is a theory whose subject matter is theory itself, aiming to describe existing theory in a systematic way. In mathematics and mathematical logic, a metatheory is a mathematical theory about another mathematical theory. ...

* Greater attention to

causal inference Causal inference is the process of determining the independent, actual effect of a particular phenomenon that is a component of a larger system. The main difference between causal inference and inference of association is that causal inference ana ...

, and increased use of experimental methods. * Continued use of observation methods, including qualitative methods. * New concern with a "hegemony of methods" as theorizing is not given as much attention.

Substantive areas of research

By some definitions, comparative politics can be traced back to

Greek philosophy Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC, marking the end of the Greek Dark Ages. Greek philosophy continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Greece and most Greek-inhabited lands were part of the Roman Empi ...

, as

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

Republic A republic () is a " state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th ...

and

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ...

's '' The Politics''. As a modern sub-discipline, comparative politics is constituted by research across a range of substantive areas, including the study of: * Politics of democratic states * Politics of

authoritarian Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic vot ...

states *

Public goods In economics, a public good (also referred to as a social good or collective good)Oakland, W. H. (1987). Theory of public goods. In Handbook of public economics (Vol. 2, pp. 485-535). Elsevier. is a good that is both non-excludable and non-riv ...

provision and distributive politics *

Political violence Political violence is violence which is perpetrated in order to achieve political goals. It can include violence which is used by a state against other states ( war), violence which is used by a state against civilians and non-state actors (for ...

* Political identity, including

ethnic An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established fo ...

and religious politics *

Democratization Democratization, or democratisation, is the transition to a more democratic political regime, including substantive political changes moving in a democratic direction. It may be a hybrid regime in transition from an authoritarian regime to a full ...

and

regime change Regime change is the partly forcible or coercive replacement of one government regime with another. Regime change may replace all or part of the state's most critical leadership system, administrative apparatus, or bureaucracy. Regime change may ...

* Elections and

electoral An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has oper ...

and party systems * Political economy of development *

Collective action Collective action refers to action taken together by a group of people whose goal is to enhance their condition and achieve a common objective. It is a term that has formulations and theories in many areas of the social sciences including psyc ...

* Voting behavior * Origins of the

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

* Comparative political

institution Institutions are humanly devised structures of rules and norms that shape and constrain individual behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions a ...

s * Methodologies for comparative political research While many researchers, research regimes, and research institutions are identified according to the above categories or foci, it is not uncommon to claim geographic or country specialization as the differentiating category. The division between comparative politics and international relations is artificial, as processes within nations shape international processes, and international processes shape processes within states. Some scholars have called for an integration of the fields. Comparative politics does not have similar "isms" as international relations scholarship.

Methodology

While the name of the subfield suggests one methodological approach ('' the comparative method''), political scientists in comparative politics use the same diversity of social scientific methods as scientists elsewhere in the field, including experiments, comparative historical analysis, case studies,

survey methodology Survey methodology is "the study of survey methods". As a field of applied statistics concentrating on human-research surveys, survey methodology studies the sampling of individual units from a population and associated techniques of survey da ...

, and ethnography. Researchers choose a methodological approach in comparative politics driven by two concerns: ontological orientation and the type of question or phenomenon of interest.

(Mill's) comparative method

* Most Similar Systems Design/ Mill's Method of Difference: This method consists in comparing very similar cases which only differ in the ''dependent variable'', on the assumption that this would make it easier to find those ''independent variables'' which explain the presence/absence of the dependent variable.Anckar, Carsten. "On the Applicability of the Most Similar Systems Design and the Most Different Systems Design in Comparative Research." International Journal of Social Research Methodology 11.5 (2008): 389–401. Informaworld. Web. 20 June 2011. * Most Different Systems Design/ Mill's Method of Similarity: This method consists in comparing very different cases, all of which however have in common the same ''dependent variable'', so that any other circumstance which is present in all the cases can be regarded as the ''independent variable''.

Subnational comparative analysis

Since the turn of the century, many students of comparative politics have compared units within a country. Relatedly, there has been a growing discussion of what Richard O. Snyder calls the "subnational comparative method."Richard Snyder, "Scaling Down: The Subnational Comparative Method," ''Studies in Comparative International Development,'' 36:1 (Spring 2001): 93-110; Agustina Giraudy, Eduardo Moncada, and Richard Snyder (eds.), ''Inside Countries: Subnational Research in Comparative Politics.'' New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019. :

References

External links

useful resources from Prof. David Levi-Faur's course at the University of Haifa.
Comparative Politics in Argentina & Latin America
Site dedicated to the development of comparative politics in Latin America. Paper Works, Articles and links to specialized web sites.
Comparative Politics Research Group
: An initiative by the University of Innsbruck containing useful resources and references to scientific publications. {{Authority control Subfields of political science Political science Politics