Parafina, AcerJun G.
BAPS 2-1
BAPS 70A Introduction to Comparative Politics
Definition of Comparative Politics
The study and the comparison of one state’s
politics and governance to another
• focus on states, societies, ideologies,
political systems, countries, religion, time
periods, etc.
• both a method of study and a field of study
Popular Definitions
▪ John Blondel, “the study of patterns of national
governments in the contemporary world.”
▪ M.G Smith, “Comparative Politics is the study
of the forms of political organizations, their
properties, correlations, variations and modes
of change.”
▪ E.A Freeman, “Comparative Politics is
comparative analysis of the various form of
govt. and diverse political institutions.”
Politics
Political activity consists of the efforts by which
the conditions of conflicts are created and
resolved in a way pertaining to the interest of
people as far as possible who play in their part in
struggle for power.
• It is an activity directed towards the
success or failure of a political party,
candidate for partisan political office, or
partisan political group. They imply an
active role in political life.
Political process is an extension of political
activity.
• It refers to how groups and individuals use
power and authority to achieve goals.
Political Power is the ability to influence the
behavior of people and valued resources to
influence the policies, functions, and culture of a
society. Such methods include military power.
As a method
involves analyzing the relationship between
variables that are different or like one another.
Although comparative politics often makes
comparisons across countries, it can also conduct
comparative analysis within one country, looking at
different governments or political phenomena
through time.
As a field of study
For drawing attention to similarities and
differences
• Political institutions and regimes.
• Electoral behavior and procedures
• Identity, ideology, and culture
• Public policy
• Political economy
• Political violence
• Social movements and organizations
• And protest and revolution
Nature of Comparative Politics
Comparative politics = comparative governments
Is comparative government the same as
comparative politics?
▪ Stress upon the study of political institutions of
various countries.
▪ Focus on the study of major constitutions of the
world.
▪ Emphasis upon the study of powers and
functions of various political institutions working
in different countries.
▪ Formal study of the organization and powers
▪ To devise a theory of ideal political institutions
has been the objective.
Comparative Politics
▪ These researchers then adopt.
▪ Comprehensiveness
▪ Realism
▪ Precision; and
▪ Scientific study of the processes of politics as
their new goal.
▪ Their efforts came to be labelled as
comparative politics.
Features of Comparative Politics
▪ Analytical and empirical research
▪ Objective study of politics
▪ Study of the infrastructure of politics
▪ Interdisciplinary focus
▪ Studies political processes in both developed
and developing countries.
The study of comparative politics is termed as
‘comparative government’.
✓ An attempt to ascertain the best of
political institutions.
Traditional Comparative Politics
▪ Features, advantages, demerits,
similarities, dissimilarities
 ▪ Traditional scientists follow narrow and
normative approach.
Traditional Approaches
• Broadly predominant until the occurrence of the
Second World War.
• Principally concerned with the study of the
organization of the state and principles.
• Stress various norms such as ‘ought to be’,
‘should be’, rather than ‘what is.
Modern Comparative Politics
• Political researchers made great attempts to
develop a new science of ‘comparative politics.’
• Espoused comprehensiveness, realism,
precision, and use of scientific methods as
the new goals for the study of comparative
politics.
• Follow empirical analytical process oriented
and adopt a scientific methodology.
What is an ideal state?
Characteristics of Traditional Approaches
• Traditional approaches are mostly normative
and stress the values of politics.
• Prominence is on the study of different formal
political structure.
• Made a very little attempt to relate theory and
research.
• Studies in Political Science and related fields
can never be scientific.
Types of Traditional Approaches
1. Philosophical Approach
▪ Oldest approach to studying politics.
▪ “Is the study or science of truths or
principles underlying all knowledge and
being.”
▪ Tries to explore the truth of political
incidents or events.
▪ Uses reason to explore the truth.
▪ Tries to establish standards of good, right
and just.
▪ It is mainly an ethical and normative study
of politics, hence is concerned with what
‘should be’ or ‘ought to be’.
▪ Thought about thought.
Philosophers
Philosopher 1 Epicurus Philosopher 2
Aristotle
Other Philosophers
▪ John Locke on his Second Treatise
- Natural law, social contract, religious
toleration & the right to revolution
- Considered to be the founder of modern
liberal thought.
▪ Thomas Hobbes & Niccolò Machiavelli wrote
to support royal absolutism.
▪ Niccolò Machiavelli
- His name has been synonymous for
cunning tyrants.
- Pessimistic view of human nature and
assumes that all men are evil.
- The Prince is an extended analysis of how
to acquire and maintain political power.
▪ Thomas Hobbes
- His main concern is the problem of social
and political order.
- Social Contract - this theory also views the
institution of political authority as the result
of a contract or covenant among the
members of the community. It was asserted
that the political compact came into being
as men realized the need for some sort of
organization to bring order to prevailing
chaos by putting up some sort of
government.
✓ people live together in society in
accordance with an agreement that
establishes moral and political rules
of behavior.
✓ Article 2 Section 1
✓ Most Popular and widest theory
✓ Everyone except the person or group
who will wield sovereign power lays
down their “right to all things.”
✓ In every moral and political matter,
the decisive question for Hobbes is
always: who is to judge?
- Why these obligations and why are they
obligatory?
- Humans are needy and vulnerable.
Criticism of Philosophical Approach
• Critics argued that idealism is good but isn’t
practical.
• The philosophical intellectuals of the earlier
periods were impractical philosophers. They
had no intention to promulgate ideas which can
change society.
2. Historical Approach
▪ Political theory can be only understood
when the historical factors are taken into
consideration.
▪ History defines about the past as well as
links it with the present events.
 ▪ Main attribute of historical approach is that
history as a written or recorded subject and
focuses on the past events.
▪ History communicates researchers how
government how government, political
parties and many other institutions worked,
their successes and failures.
▪ History has two faces:
1.) Documentation of facts
2.) Construal of facts and phenomena
Critics of Historical Approach
• The Implication is that adequate care should
be taken while evaluating evidence and facts
and such a caution is not always strictly
followed and, as a result, the historical facts
do not serve the purpose of those who use it.
3. Institutional Approach
▪ Institutions have been regarded as offices
and agencies arranged in a hierarchy, each
agency having certain functions and
powers.
▪ Concerned with the study of the formal
political structures like legislature,
executive, and judiciary.
It focused on:
✓ The rules of the political system
✓ The powers of the various
institutions
✓ The legislative bodies, and
✓ How the constitution worked.
Institutional Approach to Political Analysis
• Emphasizes on the formal structures and
agencies of government.
• Descriptive institutional approach
Critics of Institutional Approach
• Disregard of the informal aspects of politics,
such as, individual norms, social beliefs,
cultural values, groups attitudes, personality,
and the processes.
• It ignores the role of individuals who constitute
and operate the formal as well as informal
structures and substructures of a political
system.
• Another problem is that the meaning and the
range of an institutional system vary with the
view of the scholars.
4. Legal Approach
This approach considers the state as the
central organization for the creation and
enforcement of laws. In this approach, the
study of politics is mixed with legal processes
and institutions.
This approach treats the state primarily as an
organization for creation and enforcement of
law.
• Legal process
• Legal bodies or institutions
• Judiciary
• It stands on assumptions that law prescribes
action to be taken in given contingency and
forbids the same in certain other situations.
• It also emphasizes the fact that where the
citizens are law abiding, the knowledge of
the law offers an important basis for
predictions relating to political behavior of
people.
• Critic: Law includes only one aspect of
people’s life. It cannot cover entire behavior
of political actions.
Criticisms of Traditional Approaches
• The standpoint of the traditionalists is
limited within the institutions.
• Mainly descriptive
Modern Approaches to Comparative Politics
Characteristics of modern approaches:
• Draw conclusion from empirical data.
• Approaches go beyond the study of political
structures and its historical analysis.
• Modern approaches believe in
interdisciplinary study.
• Stress scientific methods of study and
attempt to draw scientific conclusions.
1. Political Economic Approach
The policy formulations of economic nature
and determination of the principles of planning
which has recently become a part of the
governmental activity are done by the government.
Economic Issues
• Fiscal policy
• Industrial policy
• Agricultural policy
• Labor policy
The impact of success and failure of the
economic policies depend upon the government.
Marx and Engels and the principle of class
struggle, increasing impoverishment, and
capitalism’s exploitations are based on economic
factors.
• Classes are formed based on economic
interest.
 • The idea of emancipation is associated with
economic terms.
• Marx’s theory of base (the state institution)
and superstructure (society) is a matter of
relationship between economics and
politics.
Example:
• North American Free Trade Agreement (1994)
created a free trade zone for Mexico, Canada,
and the United States, is the most important
feature in the U.S.-Mexico bilateral commercial
relationship.
• The European Union was created to promote
peace, its values, and the well-being of its
citizens. offer freedom, security, and justice
without internal borders, while also taking
appropriate measures at its external borders to
regulate asylum and immigration and prevent
and combat crime.
2. System Approach
• Ludwig Von Bertallanfy as the earliest
advocate of the general systems theory
• David Easton has been the first to apply this
theory to political analysis. This approach
signified that a political system operates
within the social environment.
• describes the relationship of political life
with other aspects of social life.
What other factors can influence in shaping the
political process?
Political System
Chosen to the term state or government
because it includes both formal informal political
instructions and processes those continue to exist
in a society.
Characteristics of Political System
• comprehensiveness
• interdependence
• existence of boundaries
3. Behavioral Approach
Behavioralism as a contemporary
approach to the study of political science.
• Concentrates is on the individual as voter,
leader, revolutionary, party member and the
influences of the group or the political
system on the individual’s political behavior.
Features of Behavioralism
1.) Regularities: Political behavior of
individuals may be similar.
2.) Verification: if phenomenon is not verified
then it will not be scientific.
3.) Techniques: stress on the use of those
research tools and methods which generate
valid, reliable, and comparative data.
4.) Quantification: After collecting data, the
researcher should measure and quantify
those data.
5.) Values: emphasized on separation of facts
from values.
6.) Systematization: theory and research
should go together.
7.) Pure Science: it should be verified by
evidence.
8.) Integration: it should not be detached from
various other social sciences such as
history, sociology, and economics.
Advantages of Behavioral Approach
• Attempts to make Comparative Politics as a
scientific method and brings it closer to the
day-to-day life of the individuals.
• Behavioralism has brought human behavior
into the arena of politics and makes the
theory more relevant to the study.
Criticism
1) Most of the political phenomena are
immeasurable.
2) It stresses behavioral effect at the cost of
institutional effect.
3) It emphasizes static rather than current
situations.
4) It is a value free research, as its debate
is not possible.
4. Structural Functional Approach
The society is a single inter-related system
where each part of the system has a definite and
distinct role to play.
• Gabriel Almond describes political
systems as a special system of interaction
that exists in all societies performing certain
functions.
Input Functions
Almond made these three-fold classifications of
governmental input functions:
• Political socialization and recruitment
• Interest articulation
• Interest aggression and political
communication
Output Functions
• Rulemaking
• Rule application
• Rule adjudication