1.

Definition of Comparative Politics and Political System

Politics….Caramanie
2. Scope/Subject Matter/Substance of Any collection of elements that interact in
CP...Caramanie some way with one another can be
3. Changing Nature (pre-and-post considered a system--a galaxy, a football
Behaviouralism)….Caramanie team, a legislature, a political party"(Robert
4. What does CP do... Caramanie Dahl, Modern Political Analysis).
5. Major Approaches
a. Traditional Easton elaborated his idea of politics and the
i. Philosophical/Norma concept of Political System in his The
tive- Political System' & Analysis of Political Life.
ii. Historical
iii. Structuralism Believing that Political life is generally in
iv. Legal-Constitutional a condition of disequilibrium, he defined
v. Institutionalism politics as the "authoritative allocation of
values'.
b. Modern
i. Systems Analysis The "allocation of values' is made because
ii. Structural there are corresponding 'demands from the
Functionalism society or 'environment': it becomes
iii. Political Culture 'authoritative' because it gets 'supports' from
iv. New the 'environment.
Institutionalism/Neo-In
stitutionalism the 'political system' receives 'inputs from
● Historical the 'environment' in the form of 'demands
● Sociological and 'supports'; it produces 'outputs' in the
● Rational form of 'policies and decisions'.
Choice
The 'outputs' flow back into the environment
v. Political Economy through a 'feedback mechanism, giving rise
vi. Political Sociology to fresh 'demands', etc.
vii. Others
● Political 4 Kinds of Demands
Development
● Allocation of good n services
● Political ● Regulation of behaviour, eg, control
Modernisation over markets
● Political participation, eg, right to vote
6. COMPARATIVE method and ● Communication and information, eg,
limitations policy

Systems Analysis Political system persists in crises. It can face

David Easton continued the tradition that
began with Charles Merriam, George Catlin,
Harold Laswell and others. That political
science should theorise about the political
system as a whole.
pressure.
It survives because it permits gradual
structural changes unless there is a
complete disintegration of the rule-making
mechanisms.
Conclusion
He encouraged shifting our particularistic
and disintegrated view of political institutions
and allowed us to study political processes
as political systems as a whole.
Easton rejected the concept of the state due
to variety of its meanings.
The concepts of power, authority,
decision-making and policy are important in
Easton's concept of political life as the
authoritative allocation of values for a
society.
Easton's works profoundly impacted both
comparative and international politics
theorised by Karl Deutsch, Morton Kaplan,
and Herbert Spiro.
Criticisms
Miller, Reading and Leslie despise Easton's
notion of equilibrium and persistence as
inapplicable to changing political realities. As
political scenario in several Asian, African &
other countries cannot be explained. Eg,
alternate transitions between democracy and
military regimes in Pakistan and Myanmar.
William Mitchell criticised Easton's concept
of politics as the allocation of values, as
misleading that the political system has a
single function of allocation only.
It has a certain ideological orientation. As
Eugene Miller says that Easton was
concerned with the imminent washing of
democratic liberalism.
● In the name of scientific and causal
theory, he presented a status
quo-oriented general theory of
political system
Systems analysis assumed stable
conditions, cohesion and equilibrium. Easton
refused to take cognizance of political
conflict, catastrophic change, class
antagonism and revolution.
System Theory however cannot explain
revolutionary changes.

Structural Functionalism
Like Easton, Gabriel Almond considered the
political system more important than process
because the system implied totality,
interactions among units within the totality
and stability in these interactions ("changing
equilibrium").
His concept of political system replaced the
state and its legal apparatus.
That Structure replaced institution.
Representation:
These input functions constitute the
ingredients of the system. Spiro called this a
process of "policy flow" whilst Easton
interpreted them demands and support for
action.
Role took the place of office and function
was substituted for power.
Gabriel Almond and J. S. Coleman
(Politics of Developing Areas) identify 4
features of political system :
i) All political systems have structures.
ii) The same political functions are performed
by different structures in all political systems.
iii) All political structures are multifunctional.
iv) All Political systems are mixed (traditional
and modern) in the cultural sense.
Political socialisation takes place through the
family, school, party etc.
There is recruitment of people from different
social groups into political parties, civil
service etc.
Interest articulation is the expression of
political interests and demands for action.
Interest aggregation is the combining of
those interests and demands which are
articulated by interest groups and political
parties. Political communication helps all
these input functions to generate output
functions of rule-making, rule-application,
and rule-adjudication.
He asserted political systems have evolved
through stages of development
They may be represented as modern and
traditional, developed and underdeveloped,
industrial and agrarian.
Structures thus become more differentiated
as political systems reach higher stages of
growth.
Criticisms
Conservative Ideology
C. W. Mills , Barrington Moore, and
Andrew Hacker also criticised its
conservative bias.
Spiro considered Almond's work
ethnocentric and Lijphart considered its
emphasis on stability as reflecting
Anglo-American liberal, capitalist norms.
Charles Powell accuses it of "American
cultural mythology". His interest group
approach was based on "classless view of a
society.
● Almond's structural functionalism is
"establishmentarian, non-operational,
formally inadequate....the pluralistic
neutralism of
structural-functionalism.....renders it
useless as a theory."
POLITICAL ECONOMY
Robert Gilpin in Global Political Economy
define “global political economy” as the
interaction of the market and such powerful
actors as states, multinational firms,and
international organizations.
● The territorial state continues to be
the primary actor in both domestic
and international economic affairs, I
do not contend that the state is the
only important actor. Other significant
players include the World Bank, the
International Monetary Fund (IMF),
and the Commission of the European
Union.
● though, as Richard Rosecrance
correctly argues, the “trading state”
has become a much more prominent
feature of international affairs
● As the British economist Ralph
Hawtrey demonstrated in his
important Economic Aspects of
Sovereignty (1952), the relationship
of economic affairs and national
security.
The international political and security
system provides the essential framework
within which the international economy
functions; domestic and international
economies generate the wealth that is the
foundation of the international political
system.
Then, over time, the economic base of the
international political system shifts according
to “the law of uneven growth”; the resulting
transformation of the international balance of
power causes states to redefine their
national interests and foreign policies.
Such political changes frequently undermine
the stability of the international economic/
political system and can even lead to
international conflict.

Political economists try to understand
domestic macroeconomic policy often study
the influence of political institutions such as
legislatures, executives, and judiciaries and
the implementation of public policy by
administrative agencies.
The influence of political and societal actors
such as interest groups, political parties,
churches, elections, and the media and
ideologies like democracy, fascism, or
communism is also evaluated.
Comparative analysis also considers the
extent to which international political and
economic conditions increasingly distorted in
the line between domestic and foreign
policies in different countries
Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and John Stuart
Mill called themselves political economists.
Mill’s Principles of Political Economy was
the fundamental text of the discipline through
19th century
These early theorists did not conceive of the
economic and political worlds as separate.
Two trends divided the political from the
economic analysis.
First, the 1970s decade saw the collapse of
the Bretton Woods monetary order, two oil
price shocks, and stagflation—all highlighting
the fact that economic and political matters
are intertwined.
Over the past 50 years, political economy
has become increasingly prominent in both
economics and political science, in three
ways:
● It analyzes how political forces affect
the economy.
○ Voters and interest groups
have a powerful impact on
virtually every possible
economic policy.
○ Political economists strive to
identify the relevant groups
and their interests, and how
political institutions affect their
impact on policy.
● It assesses how the economy affects
politics.
○ Macroeconomic trends can
boost or ruin an incumbent’s
chances.
○ At the more microeconomic
level, features of the
economic organization or
activities of particular firms or
industries can have an impact
on the nature and direction of
their political activity.
● It uses the tools of economics to
study politics. Politicians can be
thought of as analogous to firms, with
voters as consumers, or governments
as monopoly providers of goods and
services to constituent customers
JEFFRY FRIEDEN….politics and economics
are intricately
and irretrievably interwoven—politics affects
the economy and the economy affects
politics
OLD & NEW POLITICAL ECONOMY
opposed forms of political economy are
experienced. They are called the ‘old political
economy’ and the ‘new political economy’.
LIBERAL PERSPECTIVE
Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Paul
Samuelson, J.M Keynes, etc. are often
regarded as leading exponents of the liberal
perspective of the political economy
approach.
The different views of how much the state
should interfere have led to the development
of the different strands of Economic
Liberalism—--Classical Laissez Faire,
Keynesianism and Neo-liberalism.
Classical Laissez Faire : Adam Smith
became a major proponent of the theory. The
rationale of the doctrine is that if everyone is
left to their own economic devices instead of
being controlled by the state, then the result
would be a harmonious and more equal
society of ever-increasing prosperity.
Keynesianism - Keynesian concept is
based on the idea that the market may not
work according to the belief of efficiency and
mutual gain and lead to instances of market
failure.
J.M. Keynes therefore argued that the
market economy was a great benefit to
people but it also entailed potential evils of
'risk, uncertainty and ignorance."
Neo-liberalism
since the late 1980s globalization,
privatization and liberalization has brought
back the classical laissez faire doctrine in the
form of neoliberalism.
It describes the political economy approach
from the perspective of the market to
economic as well as social policy, which is
based on neo classical theories of
economics.
It stresses on the efficiency of private
enterprise and the need to liberalize trade
through open markets, in order to maximize
the role of the private sector and determine
the political and economic priorities of the
state.
The economy is a sphere of cooperation for
mutual benefit among the states as well as
individuals. Thus, the economy should be
based on free trade.
MARXIST PERSPECTIVE
Marx in Critique of Political Economy,
considered that when one has to examine a
given country from the
standpoint of political economy, it has to
begin with that country’s population, division
of its population into classes, export and
import, annual production and consumption,
prices, etc
Political economy was always considered by
Marx as a bourgeois science—as a
representation of the capitalist reality.
Political economy cannot be the same for all
countries and for all historical epochs; it is
essentially a historical science.
Engels in his Anti-Duhring asserts political
economy deals with the class differences
and state’s role in facilitating the
accumulation for the dominant class
(capitalists).
States are driven by the ruling class and are
not autonomous but instruments of class
exploitation (Miliband)......the same story
behind why the history of all hitherto existing
societies has been that of class struggle.
Views of Luxembourg, Lenin, Krautsky,
Wallerstein, Frank
NEW POLITICAL ECONOMY
neoclassical institutionalism, the
public-choice school, and what is
sometimes called the “new political
economy.”
neo-classical economics stresses laissez
faire with society having no classes.
It contains various shades and colours, such
as public choice, collective choice, social
choice or rational choice theories.

It is a cocktail of the Marxist concept of the
state without its class analysis, and with the
Liptonian theory of urban bias blended with
neoclassical economics.
it provides a powerful theoretical justification
for the structural adjustment package of the
World Bank/Washington Consensus of the
late 1970s and the entire 1980s (Dasgupta,
1997).
Further, the new political economy supports
the neoliberal orthodoxy of rolling back of the
state, in the name of the ‘development’, as it
is necessary ‘to get the prices right’, whereas
there is necessity for the state to interfere in
the reduction of poverty and of rising
inequalities (Byres, 1995).
the state (politics) is used for the enrichment
of the new upcoming class (capitalists), for
economic ends; and there was an ample
proof from the history of Great Britain, other
Western European countries and the USA.
The global economy and the rules governing
it, they believe, should be guided by the
policy prescriptions of neoclassical,
economic logic and the relative efficiencies of
national economies should determine the
distribution of economic activities and wealth
(and, of course, of power) around the world.
Critics of globalization, on the other hand,
challenge this emphasis on the importance
of free trade and open markets.
Political Economy Approaches
1. The classical and utilitarian approach
represented by Adam Smith, David Ricardo,
Bentham.
2. Marxist approach represented by Marx,
Engels, Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, Krautsky et
al
3. Neo Marxist school
Dependency school represented by AG
Frank, Sameer Amin
4. Welfare economics represented by
Keynes, Gailbraith, Amartya, Sen, Jean
Dreze.
5. Neo Liberal School represented by
Hayek, Nozick, Jagdish Bhagwati, Arvind
Pangariya.
6. Public Choice school - James Buchanan
Political economy approach has also been
used widely in context of the study of India
by scholars like Pranab Bardhan, Atul
Kohli, Rudolph and Rudolph, Francine
Frankel, Gunnar Myrdal.
They have analyzed land reforms, green
revolution, neo liberal economic policies etc.
Criticisms
it is just focused on analyzing the economic
policies. Hence, it is to be used in
combination with other approaches.
The advantage of political economy is that it
is a qualitative as well as a quantitative
approach.
It is analytical as well as descriptive.
It is empirical as well as prescriptive.
POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY
Political sociology is the study of power and
the relationship between societies, states,
and political conflict.
Its macrofocus lies on questions about
nation-states, political institutions and their
development, and the sources of social and
political change (especially those involving
large-scale social movements).
● Here, researchers have asked “big”
questions about how and why
political institutions take the form that
 they do, and how and when they
undergo significant change.
● The micro orientation, by contrast,
examines how social identities and
groups influence individual political
behavior, such as voting, attitudes,
and political participation.
While both the macro- and micro-areas of
political sociology overlap with political
science, the distinctive focus of political
sociologists is less on the internal workings
or mechanics of the political system and
more on the underlying social forces that
shape the political system.
Political sociology can trace its origins to
the works of Alexis de Tocqueville, Karl
Marx, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber,
among others, but it only emerged as a
separate subfield within sociology after World
War II.
Many of the landmark works of the 1950s
and 1960s centered on microquestions about
the impact of class, religion, race/ethnicity, or
education on individual and group-based
political behavior.
Beginning in the 1970s, political sociologists
increasingly turned toward macrotopics, such
as understanding the sources and
consequences of revolutions, the role of
political institutions in shaping political
outcomes, and large-scale
comparative-historical studies of state
development.
Today both micro- and macroscholarship can
be found in political sociology
S.M. Lipset defines political sociology as
“the study of the interrelationalship between
society and polity, between social structures
and political institutions”.
R.Bendix, “Political Sociology starts with the
societyand examines how it affects the
state”.
Philip Althoff define political sociology as
“being a subject area which examines the
link between social structures and political
structures and between social behaviour and
political behaviour”.
Giovanni Sartori defines “Political Sociology
as an interdisciplinary hybrid”.
Robert E. Dowse and John A. Hughes define
political sociology “as the study
of political behaviour within a sociological
perspective framework
the scope of political sociology in two
different manners.
Greer and Orleans, “Political Sociology
isconcerned with structure of the state; the
nature and conditions of legitimacy;
the nature of the monopoly of force and its
use by the state and the nature of
the subunits and their relation with the state.
Andrew Effrat another thinker
believed that political sociology is concerned
with the causes, patterns and
consequences of the distribution and
process of power and authority ‘in all
social systems’.
Richard G. Braungart claims that political
sociology is concerned
with
(a) Social origin of politics
(b) the structure of politics or the political
process
(c) the effects of politics on the surrounding
society and culture.
After Karl Marx, the most significant
contribution to political sociology
was made by the German sociologist Max
Weber.
He laid the foundations of political sociology
by his original and existing ideas regarding
types of authorities, the ideal type of
bureaucracy and the concepts of status and
party as supplements to that of class
discipline of political sociology was further
broadened with inputs from elite sociologist
like VilfredoPareto and Gaetano Mosca
through their works The Mind and the
Society and The Ruling Class, respectively.
They claim that the elite need not
necessarily have control over the economic
forces;
in fact, it is only because of the circulation or
movement of the elite that there was political
and economic change.
Later – many scholars emphasized on
political parties and their organization.
Studies were centred on the process of
elections, voting behaviour and electoral
statistics.
During the 1930’s political scientists also
examined the role of personality in politics.
The four main areas of research in Political
Sociology are:
1) The socio-political formation of modern
state.
2) How social inequality between different
groups i.e. caste, class, religion etc.
influences politics.
3) How public opinion, ideologies, political
parties, pressure groups, social movements
and trends outside formal political institutions
affect formal politics.
4) Power relationships within and between
social groups i.e. families, bureaucracy,
media etc.
The three major frameworks employed in
political sociology are
1) Pluralism
2) Elite or managerial theory and
3) Class analysis.
Pluralism sees politics as a contest among
different competing interest groups. Elite
theory focuses on the role of elites in
management of power. In modern times,
elites are leaders, those having strong
organisational (managerial) skill.
Weber/Theda Skocpol proposes this mode
of understanding.
Class analysis (Marxist) framework
emphasizes the role of capitalist class.
According to them propertied class influence
and operates politics.
Some of the prominent works and the
scholars who have used political sociology in
Indian context are:
1) Andre Beteille - who has studied the role
of caste;
2) Paul Brass-studied the role of religion;
3) Christophe Jaffrelot - studied role of RSS;
4) Yogendra Yadav -analysis India's electoral
behaviour.
What is the status of political sociology?
Political sociology has once attracted lot of
attention of political scholars but later on they
have realised that political sociology makes
politics too much dependent on society.
Further, the approach is also used by
sociologists.
Therefore there is a fear that political science
will lose its independent identity. It will get
submerged in the discipline of sociology.
Theda Skocpol calls for 'Bringing the state
back in'.
It means political science should not get
submerged in sociology.
 We have to give centrality to the study of the
state in the discipline.
It is true that society influence politics but it is
also true that politics also shape society. e.g,
under the leadership of Charismatic leaders
like Pandit Nehru, Indian society was being
transformed into a modern society.
Limitations of political sociology
approach
1. Political sociology suffers from the factor
of over-emphasis on society.
The society is emphasised so much so that
Theda Skocpol calls for bringing the state
back in'.
2. It undermines the role institutions play in
politics.
Structure of politics also influences the
power relations.
3. It ignores role economy play in politics.
This has led to the separate development of
political economy approach in comparative
politics.
4. It is also more analytical in nature.
Thus it lacks the utility in prescription to
resolve the crisis in governance. Since the
focus on society, this approach alone is not
sufficient and should be used with other
approaches like political economy and
institutional approach.
Political Development
Scholars have tried to define the term
political development in their own way.
Rostow and Pye hold that political
development aims at “national unity and
broadening of the base of political
participation”
Gabriel Almond regards political
development as “the acquisition of new
capability, in the sense of a specialized role,
structure and differentiated orientation which
together give a political system the range of
problems
Lucian Pye, “Political development is a
basic concept supporting the gradual
diffusion throughout all socities of what we
might call a world culture
Lucian W Pye’s views about Political
Development
important thinkers who have paid attention to
political development include Lucian Pye, G
Almond, WH Higgins, David Apter, Harold
Lasswell, Talcott Parsons, JP nettle and
several others
Lucian Pye is regarded as the leading light
He considered and treated political
development in terms of cultural diffusion
and adjusting old patterns of life to new
demands.
According to him, the first important step in
the direction of political development was the
evolution of nation state system and world
culture.
vague as well as a very comprehensive
term that involves within itself anything like
consolidation of the democratic system ,
political stability or orderly change,
nation-building and state-building, political
modernization, political change,
administrative and legal development,
political mobilization and participation and,
above
Pye, it has 3 characteristics:
Equality: It means mass participation or
involvement of the most of the people in the
political
affairs of the country without discrimination
 ● It also means that recruitment to
public office should reflect standards
of performance and not the ascriptive
considerations of a traditional social
system
Capacity. It refers to the capacity of a
political system by which it can convert
‘inputs’ into ‘outputs’ and the extend
Differentiation. It implies diffusion and
specialization of structures. The offices and
agencies tend to have their distinct and
limited functions and there is an equivalent of
division of labour within the realm of
government.
political development may be understood
easily if we take it as associated with the
development of a democratic system of the
Anglo-American model.
herefore, it suggests the establishment and
consolidation of the entire paraphernalia of
the democratic system as growing
participation of the people in the political
process of the country, rule of law,
independence of judiciary and press, free
and fair elections, political stability,
peaceful change and the like.
A move in the opposite direction marking
decline of the democratic system makes the
case of ‘political decay’.
A leading exponent of the idea of ‘political
decay’ like Samuel Huntington says:
“The level of institutionalization of any
political system can be defined by the
adaptability, complexity, autonomy and
coherence of its organizations and
procedures.
So also the level of institutionalization of any
particular organization or procedure can be
measured by its adaptability, complexity,
autonomy and coherence”.
Crisis in Political development
Political Development faces certain crisis,
which affect the whole process of political
development in one way or other.
Lucian Pye enlists the following crises
1. Identity Crisis: The people should identify
themselves with their political system.
They must recognize their national territory
as their ‘homeland’
2. Legitimacy crisis: By this we mean the
relationship between the nature of authority
and the responsibility of the government.
3. Penetration Crisis: It refers to the
problem of administration reaching down to
the society and effecting basic policies.
4. Participation Crisis: It occurs when there
is uncertainty over the appropriate rate of
expansion and when the influx of new
participation creates serious stains on the
existing institutions.
5. Integration Crisis: It deals with the extent
to which entire polity is organized as a
system of interacting relationship
6. Distribution Crisis: It refers to the issue
as to how governmental powers should be
used to influence the distribution of goods,
services and values throughout the society
Variables of Political Development and
Decay
Pye and Almond say about political
development.
They ignore its reverse side,which is called
political decay.
Samuel P Huntington removes this
deficiency of the liberal theory
of political development.
In simple terms, it means that if the
democratic system is developing
more and more in a country of the third
world, it is development: if the things are
moving in the opposite direction, it makes the
case of political decay
Political Modernisation
Modernisation is the current term for an old
process of social change whereby less
developed societies acquire the
characteristics common to more developed
societies.
According to JS Coleman, “Political
Modernisation refers to those political
structures which enhance capability,
effectiveness and efficiency in the
performance of the political system of a
society.”
It refers totality of change in political
structures and cultures. It also refers to the
process of transformation of pre- modern
traditional societies to post traditional
modern societies
Claude Welch takes it as “ the process
based upon the rational utilization of
resources and aimed at the establishment of
modern society.”
Huntington thus define it as ‘ a multi-faceted
process involving change in all areas of
human thought and activity’.
It refers to the change in political
culture and political institutions as a result of
the process of modernization- “that is every
thing like economic growth, increase of gross
national product and per capita income,
economic planning, greater industrialization,
accumulation of capital, increasing
urbanization and the reduction of the
proportion of those engaged in agriculture,
scientific advance, improved transport
Before world war II, different terms were
used like Europeanisation and
Westernisation to refer to the process of
social change. But in the post war era, it was
felt that these terms could not explain the full
implication of the process of social change
which spread swiftly and widely.
Hence a new term ‘modernization’ was
developed
Dimensions of Modernisation
covers much of the realms of politics,
economics, sociology and psychology.
As Huntington says it is a multi-faceted
process and, for this reason , political
modernisation is a concept having several
dimensions
● psychological level, change in the
norms, values, attitudes a
● Intellectual level…tremendous
expansion of man’s knowledge about
his environment and diffusion of this
knowledge throughout society
through increased literacy and mass
communication
● demographic level, it implies
improvements in the standard of
living and progress
● social level… to replace an
individual's loyalty to family and other
primary groups with that to voluntarily
organized secondary associations.
● Economic level, it involves the
growth of market
Indicators of modernisation
They are as follows
● Growth of urbanization,
● Increased per capita income,
● Rise in GNP,
● High rate of literacy
● Increased political participation
Characteristics of political Modernisation
In a politically modernized society ,the
people should think in terms of national and
not about region, religion or community etc
There should be political stability and
mobility in all walks of life
There should be trade unions and political
parties with national outlook.
Mass media should be accessible
Agents of modernisation include
leadership, political and other elites, Political
parties, global bodies etc.
LIMITATIONS OF COMPARATIVE METHOD
Comparative research methods
Paul Pennings and Hans Keman in Daniel
Caramanie ed. Comparative Politics 2020
although the comparative approach in
political science is considered to be
advantageous in linking theory to evidence,
enhancing it as a ‘scientific’ discipline, there
are a number of constraints
Too many different theories that fit the same
data.
● This means that collecting valid and
reliable data for the cases we have
selected to test theoretical relations
can turn out to be a daunting task.
we are forced to stretch our concepts so that
they can travel to other contexts and
increase the number of observations
across more cases.
However, this may create too large a
distance between the stretched concept and
the original theoretical concept (Sartori 1970,
1994).
If this problem occurs (and it often does), it
may well affect the internal and external
validity of the results.
reliability problems may arise as a
result of including (functional) equivalents
that are used to widen the case selection
An example is the concept of
the ‘federal state’. What defines a federation,
problem is to what extent a concept
transformed into an empirical indicator has
the same meaning across different settings
or cultures (Van Deth 1998b).
Finally, some caveats need to be taken into
account when interpreting the
comparative data available:
(i) Galton’s problem;
(ii) individual and ecological fallacies; and (iii)
overdetermination
(iv) Conceptual stretching
Conceptual stretching is the distortion that
occurs when a concept developed for one
set of cases is extended to additional cases
to which the features of the concept do not
apply in the same manner.
Sartori (1970) illustrated this problem by
means of the ‘ladder of generality’.
Intension will obviously reduce the
applicability of a concept in comparative
research across more cases
Sartori remarks that overstretching is
dangerous, and not all concepts can travel
all over the world and through all time
Some comparativists have suggested
another solution by means of ‘family
resemblance’ (Collier and Mahon 1993:
846–8).
In its simplest fashion, this method extends
the initial concept by adding features which
share some of the attributes of the original
concept.
Galton’s problem
Galton’s problem refers to the situation
where the observed differences and
similarities may well be caused by
exogenous factors that are common to all the
cases selected for comparison, such as
comparing fiscal policy-making across
states in Europe after the introduction of the
Economic and Monetary Union
(EMU) requirements, or the choice for a
Westminster Style of parliamentary
governance in former British colonies
ecological fallacy occurs when data
measured on an aggregated level (e.g. at the
country level) are used to make inferences
about individual- or group-level behaviour.
Conversely, individual fallacy is the result of
interpreting data measured at the individual
or group level as if they represent the ‘whole’
(e.g. using electoral surveys for party
behaviour or national attitudes
levels of government (i.e. supranational,
national, and subnational levels)
The comparative approach to politics
is therefore misdirected or fallacious
Gabriel Almond lamented the lack of
progress in political science at large (Almond
1990).
His main complaint concerned the lack of
constructive collaboration among the
practitioners.
new developments, like QCA, process
tracing, and the re-emergence of
comparative historical analysis, take place
and are welcome.

Over-determination and selection biases

that emanate from case selection

comparative methods have been criticized

for being a-theoretical, empiricist, and solely
country-oriented (Newton and van Deth
2016).

We may argue that the comparative

methods do not offer solutions to all and
sundry types of research problems, but help
to formulate them and find ways to arrive at
plausible answers

Several new approaches that are related to

the ‘spatial turn’ in comparative politics
can help to advance new insights.

One example is multilevel governance

(MLG), which criticizes methodological
nationalism and other forms of centrism (like
Europe or democracies) that often
characterize comparative politics

The MLG approach analyses how

decision-making competences are shared by
policy-relevant actors at different