Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method

The most common examples of comparison in politics are the works of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato and Aristotle. They examined different polises and identified a number of political systems characterizing the type of political rule exercised in each polis. However, the main task that they were trying to achieve is not to identify the types of government but instead to identify the best form of government, therefore their work mostly contains normative evaluations. This pattern existed throughout human history that it went even beyond the realm of reality into the realm of the abstract boundaries, instances can be given from political literature such as Thomas More’s ‘Utopia’, Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ and also George Orwell’s ‘1984’, and also from academic literature such as Samuel Huntington’s ‘Clash of Civilizations’ and Fukuyama’s End of History. All these works present different forms of governing most of them in a polemical way in favour for a specific type of government, like Huntington’s favour of western democracies over other types of government. These works do present a kind of comparative perspective in their essence, but their normative evaluation undermine this comparative analysis. Comparative politics on the other hand is different. Comparativists, as Kopstein and Lichbach (2005) argue, “tend to suspend their normative evaluation of the world in favour of describing the poltical world and explaining why it is the way it is” (p. 2). Identifying Comparative Politics scientists in this way indicates a shift or difference between what the above stated works were trying to seek from what comparative political scientists are trying to achieve. Identifying these political scientists also draws a distinction on the work they do in the field of political science, as March (2009) questions “Is political theory ever not comparative?” (p. 536) trying to draw the attention to what makes comparative politics distinct from political science.

The term comparative politics can be defined in most textbooks as “the study of political phenomena that are predominantly ‘within countries’” (Clarck, Golder, & Golder, 2009) or, “[it’s] a subfield [Within political science] that compares the struggle for power across countries” (brackets added, O'Neil, 2010) or, “comparative politics is concerned with the comparative study and analysis of political systems” (Pennington, 2009). These definitions, as simple as they are raise a lot of questions; chief among them is, how to differentiate CP from other subfields of politics? For example, what differentiates CP from International Relations (IR)?

This question is usually present in most textbooks on the subject in order to differentiate CP from IR in order to indicate the difference between the two subfields of political science. Lim (2010) provides a definition of CP that helps distinguish it from other fields, as he states that CP “involves a method of study and a subject of study” (p. 3), where the task is to understand political phenomenon within the boundaries of states through comparative method. From this definition, Lim reaches three conclusions: first, CP is concerned with the internal dynamics of states; second, CP is concerned with political phenomena; and third, CP is characterized by a comparativist method of analysis (Lim, 2010, p. 3). Such conclusions are also shared among many Comparativists, Jahn (2010) states that “’Comparative Politics’ does not refer to a certain subject matter but rather to a particular procedure, i.e. comparison.” (pp. 17-18) this ‘particular procedure’ is known as the comparative method which constitutes the main characteristic of the study of Comparative Politics that differentiates its from ‘comparison’ (2010, p. 22).

The comparative method is a systematic comparison based on “inter-subjective criteria in order to measure the acquisition of knowledge” (Jahn, 2010, p. 22). These criteria are essential for many reasons. First the research samples which are to be compared must have something in common and this requires an already defined criteria. Second these criteria are essential as to make valid claims about causality. These criteria Jahn (2010) argues are usually pre-defined by hypotheses and theories (p. 27). An argument promoted also by Liden (2013) who argues in his paper that methodological and empirical approaches are dependent on theories. Liden argues that the purpose of the research and the questions derived from it are the main elements that influence the methodological choices therefore, with deductive and inductive reasoning in mind they all concern the use of theory (Liden, 2013, p. 214).

However, these criteria have been under criticism which is also part of the criticism on theories. The debate in comparative studies, between Nomothetic; which assumes that general principles exist which can be determined, and Idiographic; which assumes that everything is unique, approaches have a long history (Haas, 1962). Of special notice here is that the comparative method is not the only scientific method, there’re also other methods such as experimental and statistical methods (Collier, 1993, p. 106), the difference between them also relates to the above different research approaches, while the experimental and statistical methods are idiographic, Jahn argues that the core of comparative politics lies in the nomothetic approach (Jahn, 2010, p. 21), of course with some reservations that it is not necessarily the case (Jahn, 2010, p. 22; & Liden, 2013, p. 214).  A solution to this problem is the combination of both micro and macro data collection and analysing, Liden (2013) argues that “with this approach the establishment of both covariations and causal mechanisms can be addressed and external and internal validity reached” (2013, p. 223).

A good illustration of the discussion made above is the recent dissertation on the Somalian Crisis published on E-International Relations (Gimeno, 2017). In her dissertation Gimeno provides a constructivist explanation as an alternative to the state failure theory in order to explain the crisis in Somalia, the interesting part of the dissertation is that it serves as an example to what was discussed above on the importance of the purpose of the research and questions raised. It presents an example of the different outcomes that inductive and deductive approaches can create. Though this being said does not necessarily mean that any of both approaches is inappropriate. This paper argues that the state failure theory follows an inductive reasoning based on a realist and neoliberal understanding of politics and a Weberian understanding of state building “Although definitions of “state failure” vary throughout the literature, they all share a common feature: they rely on realist and neoliberal understandings and are built in opposition to the idea of ‘successful states’” (Gimeno, 2017). This inductive approach makes the theory of state failure unable to appreciate the social constructions and lacks appreciation to historical specificities and complexities (Gimeno, 2017).

Constructivism on the other hand, as a post-positivist theory does not rely on already given theoretical views in order to explain a phenomenon, instead it focuses on variables and factors that are essential to understand the phenomenon treating it as unique and does not aspire to create general assumptions that might fail in one instance and work in another. Instead, Gimeno argues that “constructivism focuses on the intersubjective meanings and the social nature of identity, state interaction, norms, culture, knowledge and history. Post-positivist theories like Constructivism stress the dual character of the social and material world.” (Gimeno, 2017). By perceiving the world as being constructed and not given, Constructivism treats every state according to how a given country constructs its identity. In fulfilling this task in regards to Somalia, Gimeno examined three different factors, namely the Nomadic lifestyle, the concept of Greater Somalia and the Clans, Gimeno argues that the lifestyle of the people is not compatible with the idea of a centralized state hence making the idea of state borders irrelevant to many Somalis.

Furthermore, Constructivism gives attention to historical events that have impact on shaping the identities in the society of a given country, in regards to Somalia, Constructivism draws attention to the colonial period Gimeno argues that “colonial rule entailed forms of racial ideology. The partitioning of the Somali people and the subsequent regional rivalry transformed Somali ethnicity into a fixed political identity. The imposition of hierarchical structures “froze previously fluid identities and built inequalities of power along ethnic lines into the heart of the social order” (Gimeno, 2017).

Another constructivist case is the Congo wars, similar to Gimeno’s work, Clark (2011) points to the argument of state failure as being insufficient, but nonetheless, has always existed in understanding African politics “All of the recent writers on the Congo crises have continued to acknowledge that the virtual collapse of the Zairian state as of 1996 as a critical part of the story of the Congo wars” (p. 150). Clark points out to the lack of appreciation for historical specificities and complexities as Gimeno did in her dissertation, arguing that “Realist approaches in particular ignore the significance of non-state actors and the “problematic nature of statehood” in Africa” (2011, p. 155) a pattern that always exists in the positivist approach. Instead, Clark turns to Constructivism in order to explain the reasons behind the Congo wars. Clark imploys Nicholas Onuf's constructivist framework (2011, p. 155), which focuses on the concepts of agents, structures, rules and social practices. In identifying the agents Clark focuses on the agents that were active and which had continutity over a period of time and concludes that African regimes are the more suitable in this case. The identities of these regimes are mostly defined by the indiviudal rulers who preside over their regimes. (Clark, 2011, p. 156). However, these identities were usually weak due to various identities that exist in the African states, and as a result the rules lacked legitimacy and sought to fight wars instead of going to elections in order not to lose their privileges and power.

In conclusion, this paper attempted to draw attention to the complexity of the methodological and theoretical approaches that exist in comparative political studies, particularly of concern to the comparative method. This attention is not in order to point to a failure in comparative politics, specially that such problems with methodology and theory are not solely present in comparative politics but an existing problem throughout social sciences, instead, it is meant to show the flexibility and velocity in comparative studies.

The examples of both the Somali and the Congo crisis provide interesting insights on world politics. Unlike the examples in the introduction which do not contribute in any way to understand world politics but only tell us about the views of their authors, on the other hand these two examples draw attention to the importance of identity in conflict situations, unlike state failure theory which at best provides a rigged analysis with complex and little effort to solve conflicts, constructivism on the other hand by pointing to essential factors in the emergence of conflicts allow for developing conflict resolutions in order to bring peace.

References

Clarck, W. R., Golder, M., & Golder, S. N. (2009). Principles of Comparative Politics. Washington: CQ Press.

Clark, J. F. (2011). A Constructivist Account of the Congo Wars. African Security, 4(3), 147-170.

Collier, D. (1993). The Comparative Method. In A. W. Finifter, Political Science: The State of the Discipline II (pp. 105-119). Washington D.C.: American Political Science Association.

Gimeno, C. M. (2017, August 17). A Constructivist Approach to Analysing Somalia’s State Failure. Retrieved from E-IR: http://www.e-ir.info/2017/08/17/a-constructivist-approach-to-analysing-somalias-state-failure/

Haas, M. (1962). Comparative Analysis. Western Political Quarterly, 294-303.

Jahn, D. (2010). What is Comparative Politics? Standpoints and Debates in Germany and The United States. Zeitschrift für vergleichende Politikwissenschaft(4), 17-34.

Kopstein, J., & Lichbach, M. (2005). What is Comparative Politics. In J. Kopstein, & M. Lichbach, Comparative Politics: Interests, Identities, and Institutions in a changing global order (2 ed., pp. 1-15). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Liden, G. (2013). What About Theory? The consequences on a widened perspective of social theory. Qual Quant, 47, 213-225.

Lim, T. (2010). Doing Comparative Politics: An Introduction to Approaches and Issues. Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

March, A. F. (2009). What Is Comparative Politics. The Review of Politics, 71, 531-565.

Pennington, M. (2009). Theory, Institutions and Comparative Politics. In J. Bara, & M. Pennington, Comparative Politics (pp. 13-40). London: Sage Publications.