Table Of ContentSTUDIES IN COMPARATIVE POLITICS
The purpose of the collection 'Studies in Comparative Politics'
is to provide the students of politics with a series ofup-to-date,
short and accessible surveys of the progress of the discipline,
its changing theoretical approaches and its methodological
reappraisals.
The format of the individual volumes . is understandably
similar. All authors examine the subject by way of a critical
survey of the literature on the respective subject, thus providing
the reader with an up-to-date bibliographie raisonnee (either
separate or contained in the text). Each author then proposes
his own views on the future orientation. The style tries to
bridge the often lamented gap between the highly specialised
language of modern political science and the general reader.
It is hoped that the entire collection will be of help to the
students who try to acquaint themselves with the scholarly
perspectives of contemporary politics.
S. E. Finer
Ghita Ionescu
Already published
C. H. Donn: Political Development
GHqA IoNEScu: Comparative Communist Politics
DENNIS KAVANAGH: Political Culture
J.
LESLIE MACFARLANE: Political Disobedience
J.
W. M. MACKENZIE: The Study of Political Science Today
GEOFFREY K. RoBERTs: What is Comparative Politics?
WILLIAM WALLACE: Foreign Policy and the Political Process
RoGER WILLIAMS: Politics and Technology
LESLIE WoLF-PHILLIPs: Comparative Constitutions
Forthcoming titles
A. H. BROWN: Soviet Politics and Political Science
BERNARD CRICK: Elementary Types of Government
S. E. FINER: The Study of Interest Groups
STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE POLITICS
published in association with
GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION
a quarterly journal of comparative politics, published by
Government and Opposition Ltd, London School of Economics
and Political Science, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Professor Leonard Schapiro, Universiry rif London (Chairman)
Professor David Apter, Yale Universiry, New Haven, Conn.
Professor Bernard Crick, Universi!JI rif London
Professor Julius Gould, Universiry rif Nottingham
Professor James J oll, Universiry rif London
Dr Isabel de Madariaga, Universiry rif London
EDITOR
Professor Ghita Ionescu, Universiry of Manchester
ADVISORY BOARD
Professor S. E. Finer, Universiry rif Manchester (Chairman)
Professor Daniel Bell, Harvard Universiry, Cambridge, Mass.
Professor K. D. Bmcher, Bonn Universiry
Professor Robert A. Dahl, Yale Universiry, New Haven, Conn.
F. W. Deakin, St Antony's College, Oxford
Professor Jacques Freymond, Director rif the Institut des Etudes Internationales, Geneva
Professor Bertrand de Jouvenel, Paris
Professor Masao Maruyama, Universiry rif Tokyo
Professor John Meisel, Queen's Universiry, Kingston, Ontario
Asoka Mehta, former Minister of Planning, New Delhi
Professor A yo Ogunsheye, Universiry rif lbadan
Professor Giovanni Sartori, Universiry rif Florence
Professor G. H. N. Seton-Watson, Universiry rif London
Professor Edward Shils, Universiry rifChicago and King's College, Cambridge
Professor E. Tierno Galvl1n, late rif the Universiry rif Salamanca
What is Comparative Politics?
GEOFFREY K. ROBERTS
Lecturer in Politics, Department of Social Sciences and Economics
University of Technology, Loughborough
Macmillan Education
ISBN 978-0-333-13752-9 ISBN 978-1-349-01569-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-01569-6
© Government and Opposition 1972
Reprint of the original edition 1972
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission.
First published 1972 by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
London and Basingstoke
Associated companies in New York Toronto
Dublin Melbourne Johannesburg and Madras
SBN 333 13752 3
The paperback edition of this book is sold subject to the condition that it
shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or
otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of
binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a
similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent
purchaser.
CONTENTS
1 What is Comparative Politics? 7
2 The Development of Comparative Politics 11
3 The First Problem: Conceptualisation 19
4 The Second Problem: Strategies 27
5 The Third Problem: Theories 37
6 The Fourth Problem: Methods 51
7 The Uses of Comparative Politics 59
8 Conclusion: A New Map for Old Territory 63
References 69
Select Bibliography 77
1. WHAT IS COMPARATIVE POLITICS?
Comparative politics is everything-or it is nothing. Super
ficially, these appear to be the only logical positions that can
be maintained when considering the relationship of compara
tive politics to the various areas and divisions of the discipline
of political science. The now old-fashioned use of the title to
indicate either a small number of country studies loosely
linked by structural comparison ('Discuss the powers of
the President in France and in the U.S.A.'; 'Compare the U.S.
Senate and the House of Lords as second chambers'), or a
somewhat broader field of institutional comparison (electoral
systems, legislatures, oppositions, party systems), whatever
the pedagogic arguments of coherence or convenience, 1
possesses neither logical boundary nor scientific integrity. Yet
once that treacherous one step further is taken in the direction
of functional comparison, or, further still, consideration of the
'comparative method' itself and the distinctions between
comparative politics and, say, political theory, 2 political socio
logy or political analysis disappear completely.
How did this situation arise? As a preliminary to answering
this question, it is first necessary to distinguish four different
terms, which are often used loosely and interchangeably: com
parative government, comparative politics, comparative analysis, and
(the) comparative method. Academic usage rarely makes much
distinction between the first two. Mter British government
and the history of political thought, probably more students
study comparative government (or politics) than any other
subject. These courses, their texts and readers, professorial
titles, library classifications and bibliographies may use either
of these labels without any particular reason for the choice of
the one rather than the other. One could stipulate a distinction
in logic, that comparative government is more appropriate as a
study of states, their institutions and functions, with perhaps
also the most immediate supplementary groupings connected
with state activity - parties and pressure-groups: in other
words, what Professor Mackenzie has called 'statecraft' ;3 while
comparative politics is indicative of a wider focus, one that would
7
include comparative government and, as required, the study of
non-state politics-tribes, communities, private associations,
etc. In actuality, this distinction is not often made. Comparative
analysis is an important part of any scientific activity in any
field whatsoever, and therefore in political science is at the
centre of political explanation, explicitly or implicitly. The
comparative method is, as usually employed, a synonym for
comparative analysis, but is sometimes used as a term indicating
a contrast to the case method.
From this it can be seen that confusion and imprecision
have arisen because, whereas 'customary usage'4 of 'compara
tive politics' has been as a label for the study of foreign govern
ments, on the other hand 'the methodology of comparison
is not a self-contained separate subject, but part of the general
method of political science'. 5 In part, however, because they
'got in first', the study of the comparative method has been
taken up by those academics already in the field of comparative
politics, 'who in doing so, inadvertently expropriated the rest
of the discipline'. 6 Ergo, in so far as 'the search for comparisons
is central to the study of government'7 and 'comparison is the
basis for creativity and additivity in science',8 then comparative
politics is 'everything'.
But supposing one heeds the warning of Eckstein and Apter's
Preface, that too broad a conception of comparative politics
would widen it to encompass political science, 9 there is the
opposite problem that any lesser conception of comparative
politics tends to lack either clear identity or criteria of selection
and exclusion.
Just as, in the 1950s, teachers of comparative politics found
that there was no longer much logic in limiting their field to
'important Western polities' (and that anyway 'importance'
was an uncertain standard in a changing world) and so broad
ened the scope of such courses to include Scandinavian, East
European, Mrican, Latin American and Asian states, so also
they found that there was no logical criterion on which they
could rely for selection of what to compare: if legislatures, why
not parties?; if parties, why not leadership and recruitment?;
and if recruitment, why not socialisation? In this chain-like
fashion, it is no surprise to find claims that 'the study of
comparative politics is at the heart of contemporary political
science' .10 The wider the scope of the subject became in terms
ofstates, the less obvious or limited was the choice of structures
8
or institutions within those states that required comparison.
To limit the subject in advance to certain state institutions both
restricts the number and range of countries to be compared
(though this is possibly a negligible factor in an area studies
course), and seems to rule out ab initio certain types of explana
tion: for example, in country A the structure of the party
system might be an independent variable, affecting economic
and cultural patterns; in country B, it might be best regarded
as a dependent variable, strongly influenced by economic and
social elites. Yet a failure to allow for such differential ex
planations in comparison could result from a type of com
parative analysis where the focus is restricted in advance.
Yet this is not the whole story. It is the thesis of this survey
that, while the comparative method and comparative analysis
are inextricably part of political analysis generally, there is
none the less a legitimate, fairly logical and pedagogically
valid area of the discipline which deserves the label 'compara
tive politics', but that such an area is not to be defined, initially,
in terms of countries, institutions, structures, behaviour,
functions or problems.
In presenting the case for the autonomy· of comparative
politics, this work first traces the four phases of development
of comparative politics, in order to permit an appreciation of
how it reached on the one hand its contemporary richness,
and on the other its 'mood of disillusionment'.11 Four central
problems are then identified and discussed: the problems of
conceptualisation, strategies, models and theories, and methods.
Finally, factors relevant to teaching and research in comparative
politics, and its possible future development, will be considered,
in terms of what the subject ought to be, and how it should be
differentiated from other areas of the discipline.
9
2. THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPARATIVE
POLITICS
Just as political scientists generally, in seeking to understand
and explain aspects of contemporary politics, necessarily take
into account historical influences on the political culture of a
system, so an appreciation of the current 'state of the art' in
comparative politics involves an understanding of its historical
development. The more frustrated and dissatisfied workers in
the area of comparative politics are inhibited by this history
from redesigning the subject ab initio. Less revolutionary
'reformers' can perhaps use an appreciation of past trends to
realise more effectively the improvements and reorientations
which they propound.
Most historical surveys of the area of comparative politics
begin with Aristotle, and especially his classificatory schema
of types ot forms of state from which he derived a number of
basic propositions about political life. There then usually
follows a roll-call of other household gods of the historians
ofp olitical thought, noting how each used a form ofc omparative
analysis in seeking to illuminate, classify and explain political
phenomena. Indeed, in terms of their significance for political
science - rather than for history, ethics or philosophy-this
palaeo-empiricism was their most important contribution.
Machiavelli's discussion of leadership based on a range of
classical and contemporary examples; the authors of the
Federalist Papers, drawing on classical, colonial and European
experience in assessing the wisdom of the provisions of the
new American Constitution (a process reminiscent of some of
the special pleading in favour of British entry into the European
Economic Community in 1971); Montesquieu, de Tocqueville's
critique of Democracy in America, Lord Bryce, Ostrogorski,
Weber - these are some of the best known, though by no
means the only examples. They may be summarised as belong
ing to the 'What do they know of England?' school; in other
words, they compared for the primary purpose of better under
standing the workings of government in a Greek city-state, an
Italian fifteenth-century principality, a new American federa
tion, or British or American twentieth-century liberal demo-
11
