Comparative Politics- Its Past, Present, Future PDF

Comparative Politics – Its Past, Present, Future Core of the Comparison [Analytical Method] (PHILLIPE SCHMITTER) 1. Simple 2. Helps to explain why comparativists...

Comparative Politics – Its Past, Present, Future Core of the Comparison [Analytical Method] (PHILLIPE SCHMITTER) 1. Simple 2. Helps to explain why comparativists tend to be addicted to 2 things. Comparative Politics: a. Classification systems b. Latin expression, ceteris paribus 1. Powerful method of analysis (GOOGLE: “all other things being equal” 2. Useful source of information SCHMITTER: “all things being equal”) One Reason for Optimism: 1. First, it is necessary to identify what units have in 1. Globalization common by placing them in some generic category. 2. Shift from a perspective rooted exclusively in the [democratic as opposed to autocratic North and West to an increasing participation of regimes.] scholars from the South and East. 2. Category may be extended further into subtypes per genus et differentiam. (GOOGLE: Per genus et differentiam is a method of defining something by identifying its broader category (genus) and C.P. has a promising future, but to realize it: distinguishing features (differentia) [democracies 1. It will have to change some, but not all, of its with single dominant party systems, with presuppositions and practices. alternating two party systems, with alternating multiple party coalitional systems, and with hegemonic (non-alternating) multiparty systems.} C.P. is at a critical juncture due to the impact of 3. Once these factors have been controlled for, Latin transformations in the nature of real-existing politics. kicks in again: the assumption that units in the same category share the same characteristics, therefore “all things being equal” it must be Likely profit from opportunity thanks to its globalization as a something that they do not share. [ level of public sub-discipline of political science. spending.] o Latin does not control for all of the potential things that might be causing the variation in public spending, but it does help Should facilitate taking the necessary changes in eliminate some of them. presuppositions and practices- the shift in the recruitment of its practitioners from the North and West towards the East and South. Comparison’s practical objective- produce useful descriptive information about how politics is conducted in countries other than one’s own. [makers of public policy Comparison: and investors of private funds need specialized bits of 1. Analytical method information to make reasonable choices when dealing with 2. Best available method for advancing valid and ‘exotic’ actors and organization. They could not care less cumulative knowledge about politics. about the ‘scientific basis’ of the information, provided it is: 1. Accurate Scholars can claim that their discipline is scientific IF: 2. Reliable [since Aristotle] by identifying and labeling the generic relations of power and examining how they produce The aforementioned conditions usually come in the variable or invariable effects in otherwise different societies. form of: 1. Expressions 2. Perceptions  type, and public policy at national/sub-national levels. Cumulative and Valid Data for Analysis depend on: 1. Analogies and concepts rooted in generic categories, themselves embedded in specific Structural-functionalism- responded to challenge of theories. bringing Non-European and American polities into the purview of comparativists by: The closer the ‘analogies’ and ‘concepts’ to each other, the narrower will be the potential for comparison in time and 1. Seeking to identify universal tasks that all political space—until comparative politics becomes nothing more systems had to fulfill, regardless of differences in formal than a description of “other people’s politics and every institutions or informal behaviors. case has its unique explanation.” Aim: Incorporate non-European and American polities into comparative studies. 1. A Challenging (but Rewarding) Specialization o Threshold for entry into comparative Approaches- none is hegemonic at the present moment. politics is high. o Normally, expected to learn one foreign language. 2. A Shifting Center of Gravity o Spend long hours familiarizing yourself with someone else’s history and culture. One characteristic the approaches share: originated in o Spend considerable time away from home. the United States of America, borrowed from adjacent academic discipline. Prospective student interested in C.P.- Actors you study will be “historical” in 2 senses: 1. To look only at the dominant “fads and fashions” in 1. Their actions in the present will be affected by their American political science. memories of what happened in the past. 2. Trace their respective trajectories / intercepts. 2. Their actions in the future will be altered by what 3. Could predict where comparative politics would be they have learned from the present. going for the next decade or more. If you accept the challenge of comparing politics- be Comparative Politics- a sub-discipline of political science, prepared to cope with controversy. practiced in the USA showing “the face of its future.” Behaviorialism- rage for a shorter while. More rapidly growing number of comparativists have been Focus: Conducting mass sample surveys to coming from countries that barely recognized the discipline explore common social bases of electoral a few decades ago. results. Purpose: Identify "bourgeois/materialist" vs. "post-bourgeois/post-materialist" value sets. Chinese saying [Mao Tse-Dung]: ‘‘Either the East Wind Goal: Search for a "civic culture" deemed prevails over the West Wind or the West Wind prevails over essential for stable democracy. the East Wind.’’ Aggregate Data Analysis Increasingly, in comparative politics neither the East nor the West Wind prevails and the same is true of the Emergence: Parallel to behavioralism. North and South ones. The Winds of Change have Focus: Quantitative analysis of indicators like become variable and more unpredictable. They no longer economic development, social structure, regime come overwhelmingly from a single direction (as Mao predicted), although it is not unimaginable that in a short time there will be more Chinese political scientists than (neo-liberalism) and methodological (mathematical American. Today, innovations in theories, concepts and modeling) orthodoxy upon which their research is based. methods can come from any direction. 1. Real challenge currently facing comparative politics 2. Third alternative 3. Based on individualist, rational choice Central Assumption of this Essay: assumptions. Future of C.P. should diverge to some degree from the 4. Diverge both methodologically and substantively trends and trajectories followed in recent years by many from the previous quantitative and qualitative ones. political scientists in the US. 5. Involve the acceptance of a much stronger set of limiting initial assumptions. exclusive reliance on the rational calculations of According to Schmitter: individual actors to provide ‘‘micro-foundations,’’ deductive presumptions about the nature of their 1. C.P. is presently “at the crossroads” interactions and reliance on either ‘‘stylized facts’’ 2. Direction that its ontological and epistemological or ‘‘mathematical proofs’’ to demonstrate the choices take in the near future will determine whether it correctness of initial assumptions and hypotheses will continue to be a major source of critical derived from them. innovation for the discipline as a whole, or dissolve itself into the bland and conformist ‘‘Americo-centric’’ mainstream of that discipline 4 A Common (But Still Diverse) Perspective Presently, most comparativists would call themselves: institutionalists. 3 An Improvement in Method and Design 1. They seem to agree upon “institutions matter” 2. They differ widely on what institutions are, how Much fewer students applying the comparative method they come about, why is it that they matter, and neglect to include in their dissertations: which ones matter more than others. (1) an explicit defense of the cases selected—their number 3. Some of them will even admit that other things also and analogous characteristics, matter: collective identities, citizen attitudes, cultural values, popular memories, external (2) a conscious effort to ensure sufficient degrees of pressures, economic dependencies, even freedom between independent and dependent variables, instinctive habits and informal practices—not (3) an awareness of the potential pitfalls involved in mention the old favorites of Machiavelli, “fortuna selecting the cases based on the latter, and virtu`—when it comes to explaining and, especially, to understanding political outcomes. (4) a greater sensitivity to the universe of relevant units and to the limits to generalizing about the external validity of findings. The safest thing one can say about future of comparative politics is: it should not and will not be the same as in the past. To use imaginative vocabulary of Charles Tilly, such research combines the advantages of “lumping” and “splitting” C.P. will continue to bear major responsibility for the objective description of processes and events in “other peoples’ countries” Formal modeling: Much of this stems from a strong desire on the part of American political scientists to imitate what they consider to be the “success” of the economics End of the cold war / collapse of the Soviet Empire- led profession in acquiring greater status within academe by to impressive increase in the sheer number of polities driving out of its ranks a wide range of dissident whose (allegedly autonomous) behavior has to be approaches and establishing a foundation of theoretical described.  Comparativists are differentiated from others who study only one polity/international system supposedly Globalization of Capitalism- produced increasingly because of: indirect / articulated systems of cross-border production, transport and distribution that are much more sensitive to Greater sensitivity to contextual factors that are so disturbances in the behavior of their most remote and deeply embedded that they are often taken for marginal components. granted Well equipped to identify and incorporate the trends that affect—admittedy, to differing The ubiquitous penetration of ICT- happenings anywhere degrees—virtually all the world’s polities. in the world are being immediately transmitted everywhere. 6 A Change in the Unit of Analysis? Comparativist pundits will be expected “to place them in context” for public consumption. Two Trends: (Sufficiently pervasive as to affect the basic design and conduct of comparative research) Comparison between ‘‘real-existing polities’’: 1. Increased complexity Best Available Research Method for analyzing 2. Increased interdependence. similarities and differences in behavior and for inferring the existence of patterns of regularity with regard to the “A polity may become more complex without increasing its causes and consequences of politics. interdependence upon other polities. Second best instrument. Polity may enter into increasingly interdependent relations with others while reducing its internal complexity through 5 A Need for Adaptation specialization” Comparative political analysis, if it is to remain significant, productive and innovative in the future: *Two trends tend to be related and, together, they produce:‘‘complex interdependence’’- Joseph Nye and Has to reflect the ‘‘real existing’’ environment from Robert Keohane which it should draw its observations and to which it should refer its findings. Complex interdependence & its Implications - Its assumptions and concepts will have to change According to Schmitter: to retain the same explanatory value. It is having an increasing influence not just on the Schmitter’s Contention: substance of politics, but also upon its form Change: “Would not such a transposition from the simplified world of - The units that we should be using for specifying conceptual clarity, stylized two-person games and our theories and collecting our data ‘stepwise’ causality risk producing findings that bare no relation to the complexity of the ‘‘real-existing’’ world of - The levels at which we should be analyzing these politics?” data “...if their concepts, assumptions and hypotheses fail to - Complexity: Undermines one of the key capture, not all (that would be impossible), but at least assumptions of most traditional comparative some of the core characteristics of their subject matter, political research = variables selected and comparativists will at best report only trivial or irrelevant observed with equivalent measures will tend to findings.” produce the same or similar effect(s) across the units being compared. “...address problems and provide answers to issues that are primarily internal to their own scholastic paradigm…” - Interdependence: Undermines the most important epistemological assumption in virtually all “...not likely to be the problems that citizens and rulers have comparative research = units selected for to cope with or the answers they expect comparative comparison are sufficiently independent of each political research to provide.” other with regard to the cause–effect relationship being examined  - Complex Interdependence: The ‘compound’ Globalization - a catch-all term for these developments condition makes it difficult to determine what constitutes an independent cause (and, hence, an independent effect) and whether the units involved Globalization has become the independent variable– the have an independent political capacity to choose ‘prime mover’-of contemporary political science. and implement (and, therefore, to act as agents connecting cause and effect). 1. Globalization narrows the potential range of policy responses, undermines the capacity of (no longer) In context: In the contemporary setting, due to differing sovereign national states to respond autonomously forms of complexity and degrees of interdependence, as to the demands of their citizenry and, thereby, well as the compound product of the two, it has become weakens the legitimacy of traditional political less and less possible to rely on the properties of intermediaries and state authorities sovereignty and nationality to identify equivalent units. No polity can realistically connect cause and effect and produce intended results without regard for the 2. Globalization widens the resources available to actions of others. non-state actors acting across national borders and Virtually all polities have persons and organizations shifts policy responsibility upward to trans-national within their borders that have identities, loyalties quasi state actors—both of which undermine and interests that overlap with persons and formal institutions and informal arrangements at organizations in other polities. the national level, and promote the development of Nor do polities at the same formal level of political transnational interests and the diffusion of status or aggregation will have the same capacity trans-national norms for agency…their capacity to act or react independently to any specific opportunity / Comparativists have occasionally given some thought to challenge can vary enormously the implications of these developments but have usually There still remains a great deal of differences that can only rejected the need to change their most deeply entrenched be explained by conditions within national polities, but strategy, namely, to rely almost exclusively upon the exorcising or ignoring the complex external context in which so-called ‘‘sovereign national state’’. these units are embedded would be equally foolish. They observe that most individuals still identify Schmitter’s Suggestion (for a new unit of analysis): - primarily with this unit and that national variables when entered into statistical regressions or “What is the method one should apply when comparing cross-tabulations continue to predict a significant units in such complex settings?” amount of variation in attitudes and behavior. Hence, if * ‘‘To Tell a Story’’ one is researching, say, the relation between gender and voting preferences, most of the subjects surveyed will differ - traditionally; a political historian—comparative or from national state to national state—and this will usually not—constructs a narrative that attempts to pull be greater than the variation between sub-units within together all the factors within a specified time respective national states. period that contributed to producing a specific outcome. - HOWEVER, such narratives are usually written in Schmitter’s Conclusion ‘‘ideographic’’ terms, i.e., those used by the actors or the authors themselves. - It has become less and less appropriate to rely on the properties of sovereignty, nationality = ‘‘To Tell a Story (Modified)’’ and stateness when identifying the relevant 7 A “Prime Mover”? units for theory, observation, and inference - Comparative Politics at the descriptive level will Previously concentrated among restricted elites living in a continue to dedicate most of its effort to formally few favored cities or regions. sovereign national states. - virtually no national state can afford to presume A “Firewall” - an extraordinary political effort to prevent the that it is politically sovereign, economically population anywhere within national borders. self-sufficient and culturally distinct.  - Comparativists have to give more thought to what process and examining its component parts constitutes a relevant and equivalent case once individually. Once you have accomplished this they have chosen a problem or puzzle to analyze satisfactorily, you then synthesize by putting them back and to do so before they select the number and together and announce your findings about the behavior of identity of the units they will compare the whole. - But what if the parts once decomposed change their function or identity and, even more seriously, Difficult Challenge what if the individual parts cannot be re-composed - The most difficult challenge will come from to form a convincing replica of the whole abandoning the presumption of ‘‘stateness.’’ the contribution of the parts is contingent upon their role in - Sovereignty - long been an abstract concept. an interdependent whole. (Everyone knew- only a convenient fiction, they also knew that almost all states had social groups Comparativists have long been aware of the so-called within them that did not share the same common “ecological fallacy” political identity) - To expunge it, or even to qualify it significantly - the potential for error when one infers from the would mean, literally, starting all over and creating behavior of the whole, the behavior of individuals a whole new language for talking about and within it. analyzing politics. The assiduous reader will have - example: in the Weimar Republic with a larger noted that I have already tried to do this by proportion of Protestants and farmers tended to frequently referring to ‘‘polity’ when the normal term vote more for the Nazi Party (NSDAP), there is no should have been ‘‘state.’’ proof that individual Protestants and farmers were - Before comparative politics can embrace more likely to have voted for that party. complex interdependence: the more ‘‘democratic’’ the values of sampled persons, the 1. admit to a much wider variety of types of more ‘‘democratic’’ their polity will be. decision-making units and 2. question whether those with the same Fuzzy “Ideal-typical” concepts are virtually indispensable formal status are necessarily equivalent in political science and, hence, capable of behaving in a In a world of steadily increasing ‘‘complex similar fashion. interdependence,’’ comparativists will have to rely more and more on such concepts, both to do the explaining and to specify what has to be explained. 8 A Focus on Patterns not Variables Contemporary comparative politics has tended to focus on variables. Complex interdependence requires that the researcher should attempt to understand the effect(s) of a set of variables (a ‘‘context’’ or ‘‘ideal-type’’ if you will) rather than those of a single variable. And, normally, the problem or puzzle one is working on has a multi-dimensional configuration as well. The idea is to capture the prior interactions and dependencies that form such a context and produce such an outcome. In other words, the strength of any one independent variable depends on its relation with others, just as the importance of any chosen dependent variable depends on how and where it fits within the system as a whole. In the classical ‘analytical’ tradition, you begin by decomposing a complicated problem, institution or