UNIT 1 COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS - NATURE, SCOPE AND UTILITY" Structure 1.0. Objectives 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Comparative Study of Politics: Nature and Scope 1.2.1 Comparisons: Identification of Relationships 1.2.2. Comparative Politics and Comparative Government 1.3 Comparative Polities: A Historical Overview 1.3.1 The Origins of Comparative Study of Polities, 1.32. The Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries 1.3.3. The Second World War and After 1.3.4 The 1970s and Challenges to Developmentalism 1.3.5 The 1980s: The Return of State 1.3.6 The Late Twentieth Century: Globalisation and Emerging Trends/Possibilities 1.4 Comparative Study of Polities: Utility 1.4.1 Comparing for Theoretical Formulation 1.4.2. Comparisons for Scientific Rigour 1.4.3 Comparisons Leading to Explanations in Relationships 15° Letus Sum Up 1.6 Key Words 1.7 References 1.8 Answers to Check Your Progress Exercises 1.0 OBJECTIVES ‘We often compare ourselves with others knowingly or unknowingly; what others think, what they do or how they live and so on. Comparing with others and comparing things around enable us a deeper understanding of our own conduct vis-d-vis those of others. Such a process of comparison shapes a large part of who we are. Such a process of comparison takes place at the collective level too. Within the field of Political Science, we do engage in the activity of comparing different political systems, institutions, process, activities, ete. across countries, “Prof. Ujiwal Kumar Singh, Dept. of Political Science, University of Delhi, Adopted feom EPS -09: Comparative Government and Politi.Introduction This introductory unit is designed to enable us to be theoretically and methodologically informed about comparative study of politics. In this unit we shall focus on the major aspects—nature, scope and utility—of comparative study of politics. After going through this unit, you should be able to ‘+ Explain the meaning and scope comparative study of politics; ‘* Define and describe major concepts of comparative study of politics; + Explain the purpose of the comparative study of politics; ‘© Explain the significance and relevance of the comparative study of politics; ‘© Describe the historical background of the comparative study of polities; and ‘© Identify and explain key concepts used in the comparative study of polities 1.1_INTRODUCTIO! Comparative study of politics is about comparing political phenomena. The primary goal of comparative polities is to encompass the major political similarities and differences between countries around the world, The emphasis is on how different societies cope with various problems by making comparisons with others. Although ‘comparative methods’ and ‘methods of comparisons” are widely used in other disciplines as well e.g., Psychology, Sociology, Economics etc., it is the substance of comparative politics—i.e., its subject matter, vocabulary, perspective, and concepts—which gives comparative politics its distinctiveness both as a ‘method’ and as a sub-field of the study of ‘comparative politics The nature and scope of comparative politics has been determined historically by changes in the (a) subject matter (b) vocabulary and (e) political perspective. To understand where, why and how these changes took place we have to look at what, is the focus of study at a particular historical period, what are the tools, languages or concepts being used for the study and what is the vantage point, perspective and purpose of enquiry. Thus in the sections which follow, we shall look at the manner in which comparative politics has evolved, the continuities and discontinuities which have informed this evolution, the ways in which this evolution has been determined in and by the specific historical contexts and socio-economic and political forces, and how in the context of late twentieth century viz, globalisation, radical changes have been brought about in the manner in which the field of comparative polities has so far been envisaged. 1.2) COMPARATIVE STUDY OF POLITICS: NATURE AND SCOPE As we saw, the comparative method is commonly used in other disciplines as well and that what distinguishes comparative politics from other disciplines which also use comparative methods is its specific subject matter, language and perspective. In that case, one may well ask the question, is there at all a distinct, field of comparative political analysis or is it a sub-discipline subsumed within the larger discipline of Political Science. The three aspects of subject matter,language, vocabulary, and perspective, we must remember, are inadequate in establishing the distinctiveness of comparative politics within the broad discipline of Political Science, largely because comparative politics shares the subject matter and concerns of Political Science, i.e. democracy, constitutions, political parties, social movements etc. Within the discipline of Political Science thus the specificity of comparative political analysis is marked out by its conscious use of the comparative method to answer questions which might be of general interest to political scientists, 1.2.1 Comparisons: Identification of Relationships This stress on the comparative method as defining the character and scope of comparative political analysis has been maintained by some scholars in order to dispel frequent misconceptions about comparative politics as involving the study of ‘foreign countries’, Under such an understanding, if you were studying a country other than your own, (e.g, an American studying the politics of Brazil or an Indian studying that of Sti Lanka) you would be called a comparativist. More often than not, this misconception implies merely the gathering of information about individual countries with little or at the most implicit comparison involved. The distinctiveness of comparative politics, most comparativists would argue, lies in a conscious and systematic use of comparisons to study two or more countries with the purpose of identifying, and eventually explaining differences or similarities between them with respect to the particular phenomena being analysed. For a long time comparative politics appeared merely to look for similarities and differences, and directed this towards classifying, dichotomising or polarising political phenomena. Comparative political analysis is however, not simply about identifying similarities and differences, The purpose of using comparisons, it is felt by several scholars, is going beyond identifying similarities and differences or the compare and contrast approach, to ultimately study political phenomena in a larger framework of relationships. This, it is felt, would help deepen our understanding and broaden the levels of answering and explaining political phenomena (Mohanty, 1975), 1.2.2 Comparative Politics and Comparative Government The often-encountered notion that comparative politics involves a study of governments arises, asserts Ronald Chilcote, from conceptual confusion. Unlike comparative government whose field is limited to comparative study of governments, comparative politics is concemed with the study of all forms of political activity, governmental as well as non-governmental. The field of comparative politics has an ‘all encompassing’ nature and comparative politics specialists tend to view it as the study of everything political. Any lesser conception of comparative polities would obscure the criteria for the selection and exclusion of what may be studied under this field. (Chileote, 1994:4) It may, however, be pointed out that for long comparative polities concemed itself with the study of governments and regime types and confined itself to studying westem countries. The process of decolonisation especially in the wake ‘of the Second World War, generated interest in the study of ‘new nations’. The Comparative Analysis - Nature, Scope and UtilityIntroduction 10 increase in numbers and diversity of units/cases that could be brought into the gamut of comparison was accompanied also by the urge to formulate abstract universal models, which could explain political phenomena and processes in all the units. At around this time, along with the increase and diversification of cases to be studied there was also an expansion in the sphere of politics so as to allow the examination of politics as a total system, including not merely the state and its institutions but also individuals, social groupings, political parties, interest groups, social movements ete. Certain aspects of institutions and political process were especially in focus for what was seen as their usefulness in explaining political processes, e.g, political socialisation, patterns of political culture, techniques of interest articulation and interest aggregation, styles of political recruitment, extent of political efficacy and political apathy, ruling elites ete, These systemic studies were often built around the concer with nation-building ie., providing a politico-cultural identity to a population, state-building ic., providing institutional structure and processes for polities and modemisation icc, to initiate a process of change along the western path of development, The presence of divergent ideological poles in world politics (Western capitalism and Soviet socialism), the rejection of western imperialism by the newly liberated countries, the concern of these countries with maintaining their distinct identity (very well reflected in the rise of the non-aligned movement) and the sympathy among most countries with a socialist path of development, gradually led to the irrelevance of most modemisation models for purposes of global/large level comparisons. Whereas the fifties and sixties were the period where attempts to explain political reality were made through the construction of large-scale models, the seventies saw the assertion of Third World-ism and the rolling back of these models. Then in the eighties we saw constriction in the level of comparison to narrow or smaller units. With globalisation, however, the imperatives for large level comparisons increased and the field of comparisons has diversified with the proliferation of non-state, non-governmental actors and the increased interconnections between nations with economic linkages and information technology revolution, Check Your Progress 1 Note: i) Use the space given below for your answers. ii) Check your progress with the model answer given at the end of the unit. 1) How is comparative government different from comparative politics?1.3. COMPARATIVE POLITICS: A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW The nature and scope of comparative politics has varied according to the changes which have occurred historically in its subject matter. The subject matter of ‘comparative politics has been determined both by the geographical space (i.e. countries, regions) which has constituted its field as well as the dominant ideas concerning social reality and change which shaped the approaches to comparative studies (capitalist, socialist, mixed and indigenous). Likewise, at different historical junctures, the thrust or the primary concer of the studies kept changing. 1.3.1 The Origins of Comparative Study of Politics ‘Comparative politics has a long intellectual pedigree, going back to Aristotle and continued by thinkers like Niccolo Machiavelli, John Locke, Max Weber ete, In its carliest incarnation, the comparative study of polities comes to us in the form of studies done by the Greek philosopher Aristotle. Aristotle studied the constitutions of 150 states and classified them into a typology of regimes. His classification was presented in terms of both descriptive and normative categories ice., he not only described and classified regimes and political systems in terms of their types e.g., democracy, aristocracy, monarchy etc., he also distinguished them on the basis of certain norms of good governance. On the basis of this, comparison, he divided regimes into good and bad - ideal and perverted. These Aristotelian categories were acknowledged and taken up by Romans such as Polybius (201-120 B.C.) and Cicero (106-43 B.C.) who considered them in formal and legalistic terms. Concern with comparative study of regime types reappeared in the 15th century with Machiavelli (1469- 1527) who compared different types of principalities (hereditary, new, mixed and ecclesiastie ones) and republics to arrive the most successfull ways to govern them. 1.3.2: The Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries The preoccupation with philosophical and speculative questions conceming the ‘good order’ or the ‘ideal state’ and the use, in the process, of abstract and normative vocabulary, persisted in comparative studies of the late nineteenth and carly twentieth century. This was a period when liberalism was the reigning ideology and European countries enjoyed overwhelming dominance in world politics. The rest of the world of Asia, Africa and Latin America were either European colonies or under their sphere of influence as ex-colonies. Comparative studies taken up during this period, for instance, James Bryce’s Modern Democracies (1921), Herman Finer’s Theory and Practice of Modern Governments (1932) and Carl J. Friedrich’s Constitutional Government and Democracy (1937), Roberto Michels’, Political Parties (1915) and Maurice Duverger’s Political Parties (1950), were largely concerned with a comparative study of institutions, the distribution of power, and the relationship between the different layers of government. These studies were ‘euro-centric’ i.e., confined to the study of institutions, governments and regime types in European countries Comparative Analysis - Nature, Scope and Utility WIntroduction 12 like Britain, France and Germany. It may thus be said that these studies were in fact not genuinely comparative in the sense that they excluded from their analysis a large number of countries. Any generalisation derived from a study confined to a few countries could not legitimately claim having validity for the rest of the world. It may be emphasised here that exclusion of the rest of the world was symptomatic of the dominance of Europe in world politics. All contemporary history had Europe at its centre, obliterating the rest of the world (colonised or liberated from colonisation) (a) as ‘people without histories’ or (b) whose histories were bound with and destined to follow the trajectories already followed by the advanced countries of the West. Thus, the above-mentioned works manifest their rootedness in the normative values of we which carried with it the baggage of racial and civilisational super assumed a prescriptive character for the colonies/former colonies. y, and 1.3.3 The Second World War and After In the nineteen thirties the political and economic situation of the world changed. The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917, brought into world, Socialism, as an ideology of the oppressed and, as a critical altemative to western liberalism and capitalism. With the end of the Second World War, a number of significant developments had taken place, including the declining of European (British) hegemony, the emergence and entrenchment of United States of America as the ‘new hegemon’ in world politics and economy, and the bifurcation of the world into two ideological camps viz. (western) capitalism and (eastern) socialism. The majority of the ‘rest of the world’ had, by the time the Second World War ended, liberated itself from European imperialism. For a period after decolonisation the notions of development, modernisation, nation-building, state-building ctc., evinced a degree of legitimacy and even popularity as ‘national slogans” among the political elite of the ‘new nations’. Ideologically, however, these ‘new nations’, were no longer compelled to tow the western capitalist path of development. While socialism had its share of sympathisers among the new ruling elite of the Asia, America and Latin America, quite a number of newly independent countries made a conscious decision to distance themselves from both the power blocs, remaining non-aligned to either, A number of them evolved theit own specific path of development akin to the socialist, as in the case of Ujjama in Tanzania, and the mixed-economy model in India which was a blend of capitalism and socialism. It may be worth remembering that the comparative study of governments till the1940s was predominantly the study of institutions, the legal-constitutional principles regulating them, and the manner in which they functioned in western (European) liberal-democracies. In the context of the above stated developments, powerful critique of the institutional approach emerged in the middle of [Link] critique had its roots in behaviouralism which had emerged as a new movement in the discipline of politics aiming to provide scientific rigour to the discipline and develop a science of politics. Known as the ‘behavioural movement’, it was concerned with developing an enquiry which was quantitative, based on survey techniques involving the examination of empirical facts separated from values, to provide value-neutral, non-prescriptive, objectiveobservations and explanations. The behaviouralists attempted to study social reality by secking answers to questions like ‘why people behave politically as they do, and why as a result, political processes and systems function as they do’. It is these ‘why” questions regarding differences in people's behaviours and theit implications for political processes and political systems, which changed the focus of comparative study from the legal-formal aspects of institutions. Thus in 1955 Roy Macridis criticised the existing comparative studies for privileging formal institutions over non-formal political processes, for being descriptive rather than analytical, and case-study oriented rather than genuinely comparative (Macridis, 1955). Harry Eckstein points out that the changes in the nature and scope of comparative politics in this period show sensitivity to the changing world politics urging the need to reconceptualise the notion of politics and develop paradigms for large-scale comparisons (Eckstein, 1963). Rejecting the then traditional and almost exclusive emphasis on the western world and the conceptual language which had been developed with such limited comparisons in mind, Gabriel Almond and his colleagues of the American Social Scienc Research Council's Committee on Comparative Politics (founded in 1954) sought to develop a theory and a methodology which could encompass and compare political systems of all kinds—primitive or advanced, democratic or non-democratic, western or non-western, The broadening of concerns in a geographic or territorial sense was also accompanied by a broadening of the sense of politics itself, and in particular, by a rejection of what was then perceived as the traditional and narrowly defined ‘emphasis on the study of formal political institutions. The notion of politics was broadened by the emphasis on ‘realism’ or politics ‘in practice’ as distinguished from mere ‘legalism’. This included in its scope the functioning of less formally structured agencies, behaviours and processes e.g. political parties, interest groups, elections, voting behaviour, attitudes etc, With the deflection of attention from studies of formal institutions, there was simultancously a decline in the nntrality of the notion of the state itself, We had mentioned earlier that the emergence of a large number of countries on the world scene necessitated the development of frameworks which would facilitate comparisons on a large scale. This led to the emergence of inclusive and abstract notions like the political system. This notion of the ‘system’ replaced the notion of the state and enabled scholars to take into account the ‘extra-legal’, ‘social’ and ‘cultural’ institutions which were critical to the understanding of non-westem polities and had the added advantage of including in its scope ‘pre-state’/"non-state’ societies as well as roles and offices which were not seen as overtly connected with the state. Also, with the change of emphasis to actual practices and functions of institutions, the problems of research came to be defined not in terms of what legal powers these institutions had, but what they actually did, how they were related to one another, and what roles they played in the making and execution of public policy. This led to the emergence of structural-functionalism approach, in which certain functions were described as being necessary to all societies, and the execution and performance of these functions were then compared across a variety of different formal and informal structures. Comparative Analysis - Nature, Scope and Utility 13Introduction 14 While the universal frameworks of systems and structures-functions enabled western scholars to study a wide range of political systems, structures, and behaviours within a single paradigm, the appearance of ‘new nations’ provided to Western comparativists an opportunity to study what they perceived as economic and political change. Wiarda points out that it was in this period of the sixties that most contemporary scholars of comparative politics came of age. The ‘new nations’ became for most of these scholars [ironically] ‘living laboratories’ for the study of social and political change. Wiarda describes those ‘exciting times’ which offered unique opportunities to study political change, and saw the development of new methodologies and approaches to study them. It was during, this period that some of the most innovative and exciting theoretical and conceptual approaches were advanced in the field of comparative politics: study of political culture, political socialisation, developmentalism, dependency and interdependency, corporatism, bureaucratic-authoritarianism and later transitions to democracy ete. (Wiarda, 1998). This period saw the mushrooming of universalistic models like David Easton’s political system, Karl Deutsch’s social mobilisation and Edward Shil’s centre and periphery. The theories of modernisation by Apter, Rokkan, Eisenstadt and Ward and the theory of political development by Almond, Coleman, Pye and Verba also claimed universal relevance. These theories were claimed to be applicable across cultural and ideological boundaries and to explain political process everywhere. The development of comparative political analysis in this phase coincided with the international involvement of the United States through military alliances and foreign aid. Most study in this period was not only funded by research foundations, it was also geared to the goals of US foreign policy. The most symbolic of these were the ‘Project Camelot’ in Latin America and the ‘Himalayan Project’ in India. This period was heralded by the appearance of works like Apter’s study on Ghana. Published in 1960, Politics of Developing Areas by Almond and Coleman, sharply defined the character of the new “Comparative Politics Movement’, The publication of a new journal in the US entitled Comparative Politics in 1969 reflected the height of this trend (Mohanty, 1975). ‘Developmentalism’ was perhaps the dominant conceptual paradigm of this time. To a considerable extent, the interest in developmentalism emanated from US foreign policy interests in ‘developing’ countries, to counter the appeals of Marxism-Leninism and steer them towards a non-communist way to development (Wiarda, 1998). Post-Behaviouralism | Advocates of behavioural revolution who wanted to bring scientific rigor] in political science were disappointed that the discipline could not anticipate or study the social and political turmoil of the times: with its new environmental and feminist movements, its anti-war perspective, its civil rights concems etc. Their efforts to reconcile two forces: making political science more rigorous, and making it more relevant led to the post-behavioural movement. David Easton’s Presidential Address to the American Political Studies Associations in 1969 best captures this movement. Easton outlined the ‘credo of relevance’ with following seven key points which became the hallmark of post-behavioural movement.* Substance must dominate over technique. What is studied matters more than how it is studied. To claim simply to study empirically polities as it exists lends itself to a conservative outlook as it tends to focus on what is rather than what might be. Too much sophistication in method obscures the brutal reality of much of politics and prevents political science from addressing pressing human needs. Science cannot be neutral: what you choose to study is driven by value judgements, and how that work is used should be steered by values. The role of intellectuals is to promote the ‘humane values of| civilization’. To know is to bear the responsibility to act; scientists have a special obligation to put their knowledge to work. This commitment to engage should be institutionalized and expressed through associations of scholars and universities. They cannot stand aside: politicization of the professions is inescapable as well as desirable. 1.3.4 The 1970s and Challenges to Developmentalism Towards the 1970s, developmentalism came to be criticised for favouring abstract models, which flattened out differences among _ specific political/sociaV/cultural systems, in order to study them within a single universalistic framework. These criticisms emphasised the ‘ethnocentrism’ of these models and focused on the Third World in order to work out a theory of underdevelopment. They stressed the need to concentrate on solutions to the backwardness of developing countries. Two main challenges to developmentalism which arose in the early 1970s and gained widespread attention were (a) dependency and (b) corporatism. Dependency theory criticised the dominant model of developmentalism for ignoring domestic class factors and (b) international market and power factors in development. It was particularly critical of US foreign policy and multinational corporations and suggested, contrary to what was held true in developmentalism that the development of the already-industrialised nations and that of the developing ones could not go together. Instead, dependency theory argued, that the development of the West had come on the shoulders and at the cost of the non-West. The idea that the diffusion of capitalism promotes underdevelopment and not development in many parts of the world was embodied in Andre Gundre Frank’s Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (1967), Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972) and Malcolm Caldwell’s The Wealth of Some Nations (1979). Marxist critics of the dependency theory, however, pointed out that the nature of exploitation through surplus extraction should not be seen simply on national lines but, as part of a more complex pattern of alliances between the metropolitan bourgeoisie of the core/centre and the indigenous Comparative Analysis - Nature, Scope and Utility 15Introduction 16 bourgeoisie of the periphery/satellite as they operated in a world-wide capitalist system. The corporatist approach criticised developmentalism for its Euro- American ethnocentrism and indicated that there were alternative organic, corporatist, often authoritarian ways to organise the state and state-society relations. (Chilcote, 1994: 16) 1.3.5 The 1980s: The Return of the State During the late 1970s and early 1980s, still reflecting the backlash against developmentalism, a number of theories and subject matters emerged into the field of comparative politics, These included bureaueratic-authoritarianism, indigenous concepts of change, transitions to democracy, the politics of structural adjustment, neoliberalism and privatisation. While some scholars saw these developments as undermining and breaking the unity of the field which was being dominated by developmentalism, others saw them as adding healthy diversity, providing altemative approaches and covering new subject areas. Almond, who had argued in the late 1950s that the notion of the state should be replaced by the political system, which was adaptable to scientific inquiry, and Easton, who undertook to construct the parameters and concepts of a political system, continued to argue well into the 1980s on the importance of political ‘stem as the core of political study. The state, however, received its share of attention in the sixties and seventies in the works of bureaucratic- authoritarianism in Latin America, especially in Argentina in the works of Guillermo O*Donnell eg, Economic Modernisation and Bureaucratic Authoritarianism (1973). Ralph Miliband’s The State in Capitalist Society (1969) had also kept the interest alive. With Nicos Poulantzas’s State, Power, Socialism (1978), and political sociologists Peter Evans, Theda Skocpol, and others Bringing the State Back In (1985), focus was sought to be restored onto the state, 1.3.6 The Late Twentieth century: Globalisation and Emerging Trends Scaling down of systems: Much of the development of comparative political analysis in the period 1960s to 1980s can be seen as an ever widening range of countries being included as cases, with more variables being added to the models such as policy, ideology, governing experience, and so on. With the 1980s, however, there has been a move away from general theory to emphasis on the relevance of context. In part, this tendency reflects the renewed influence of historical inquiry in the social sciences, and especially the emergence of a “historical sociology’ which tries to understand phenomena in the very broad or ‘holistic’ context within which they occur (Theda Skocpol and M. Somers, 1980). There has been a shying away from models to a more in-depth understanding of particular countries and cases where more qualitative and contextualised data can be assessed and where account can be taken of specific institutional circumstances or particular political cultures, Hence we see a new emphasis on more culturally specific studies (e.g., English speaking countries, Islamic countries), and nationally specific countries (e.g. England, India), and even institutionally specific countries (¢.g,, India under a specific regime). While emphasis on ‘grand systems’ and model building diminished, the stress onspecific contexts and cultures have meant that the scale of comparisons was brought down. Comparisons at the level of ‘smaller systems’ or regions, however, remained e.g. the Islamic world, Latin American countries, Sub- Saharan Africa, South Asia ete. Civil Society and Democratisation Approach (es): The disintegration of Soviet nion brought into currency the notion of the ‘end of history’. In his article “The End of History?” (1989), which was developed later into the book The End of History and the Last Man (1992), Francis Fukuyama argued that the history of ideas had ended with the recognition and triumph of liberal democracy as the “final form of human government’. The ‘end of history’ thesis invoked to stress the predominance of western liberal democracy, is in a way reminiscent of the ‘end of ideology’ debate of the 1950s which emerged at the height of the Cold ‘War and in the context of the decline of communism in the West. Western liberal scholars proposed that the economic advancement made in the industrialised societies of the west had resolved political problems, e.g., issues of freedom and state power, workers’ rights etc, which are assumed to accompany industrialisation. The U.S. sociologist, Daniel Bell in particular, pointed in his work The End of Ideology?: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the 1950s, (1960), that in the light of this development there was an ideological consensus, or the suspension of a need for ideological differences over issues of political practice. In the early nineties, the idea of the ‘end of history’ was coupled with another phenomenon of the eighties, “globalisation”. Globalisation refers to a set, of conditions, scientific, technological, economic and political, which have linked together the world in a manner so that occurrences in one part of the world are bound to affect or be affected by what is happening in another part. It may be pointed out that in this global world the focal point or the centre around which events move world-wide is still western capitalism. In the context of the so-called ‘triumph of capitalism, the approaches to the study of civil society and democratisation that have gained currency give importance to civil society defined in terms of protection of individual rights to enter the modern capitalist, world There is, however, another significant trend in the approach which seeks to place questions of civil society and democratisation as its primary focus. If there are on ‘one hand studies conforming to the contemporary interest of western capitalism secking to develop market democracy, there are also a number of studies which take into account the resurgence of peoples ‘movements seeking autonomy, right to indigenous culture, movements of tribes, dalits, lower castes, and the women’s movement and the environment movement. These movements reveal a terrain of contestation where the interests of capital are in conflict with people’s rights and represent the language of change and liberation in an era of global capital. Thus, concerns with issues of identity, environment, ethnicity, gender, race, etc. have provided a new dimension to comparative political analysis. Information collection and diffusion: A significant aspect and determinant of globalisation has been the unprecedented developments in the field of information and communication technology viz., the Intemet and World Wide Web. This has made the production, collection and analysis of data easier and Comparative Analysis - Nature, Scope and Utility 7Introduction 18 also assured their faster and wider diffusion, worldwide, These developments have not only enhanced the availability of data, but also made possible the emergence of new issues and themes which extend beyond the confines of the nation-state. These new themes in turn form an important/influential aspect of the political environment of the contemporary globalised world. The global network of social movement organisations, the global network of activists is one such significant aspect. The diffusion of ideas of democratisation is an important outcome of such networking. The Zapastista rebellion in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas used the Internet and the global media to communicate their struggle for rights, social justice and democracy. The concern with issues regarding the promotion and protection of human rights which is dependent on. the collection and dissemination of information has similarly become pertinent in the contemporary world. Check Your Progress 2 Note: i) Use the space given below for your answers. ii) Check your progress with the model answer given at the end of the unit 1) Is it possible to say that comparative politics refers only to a method of studying governments? 2) The nature, field and scope of comparative polities had evolved in response to the changing socio-political concerns over different historical periods. Comment. 1.4 COMPARATIVE STUDY OF POLITIC: UTILITY The question of utility of comparative politics is concerned with its usefulness and relevance for enhancing our understanding of political reality. It secks to know how comparative study helps us understand this reality. First and foremost,‘we must bear in mind that political behaviour is common to all human beings and manifests itself in diverse ways and under diverse social and institutional set ups all over the world. It may be said that an understanding of these related and at the same time different political behaviours and pattems is an integral part of our understanding of politics itself. A sound and comprehensive understanding would commonly take the form of comparisons. 1.4.1 Comparing for Theoretical Formulation While comparisons form an implicit part of all our reasoning and thinking, most comparativists would argue that a comparative study of politics seeks to make comparisons consciously to arrive at conclusions which can be generalised i.e, held true for a number of cases. To be able to make such generalisations with a degree of confidence, it is not sufficient to just collect information about countries. The stress in comparative political analysis is on theory-building and theory-testing with the countries acting as units or cases. A lot of emphasis is therefore laid, and energies spent, on developing rules and standards about how comparative research should be carried out. A comparative study ensures that all generalisations are based on the observation of more than one phenomenon or observation of relationship between several phenomena. The broader the observed universe, the greater is the confidence in statements about relationship and sounder the theories. 1.4.2. Comparisons for Scientific Rigour As will be explained in the next unit, the comparative method gives these theories scientific basis and rigor. Social scientists who emphasise scientific precision, validity and reliability, see comparisons as indispensable in the social sciences because they offer the unique opportunity of ‘control’ in the study of social phenomena. (Sartori, 1994). 1.4.3 Comparisons Leading to Explanations in Relationships For a long time, comparative politics appeared merely to look for similarities and differences, and directed this towards classifying, dichotomising or polarising, political phenomena. Comparative political analysis is however, not simply about identifying similarities and differences. The purpose of using comparisons, it is felt by several scholars, is going beyond ‘identifying similarities and differences” or the ‘compare and contrast approach’ as it is called, to ultimately study political phenomena in a larger framework of relationships. This, it is felt, would help deepen our understanding and broaden the levels of answering and explaining, political phenomena. In other words, the most significant purpose of comparative politics is not simply to be sceptical of others but to question our own system and beliefs in the light of new evidence and arguments. Check Your Progress 3 Note: i) Use the space given below for your answers. ii) Check your progress with the model answer given at the end of the unit. Comparative Analysis - Nature, Scope and Utility 19Introduction 20 1) What according to you is the usefulness of a comparative study of politics? 2) What are the features that determine the nature and scope of comparative politics? 3) Trace the development of Comparative Politics in the twentieth century bringing out (a) the specificities of the period before and after the Second World War; (b) developmentalism and its critique; (c) late twentieth century developments. 1.5 LET US SUM UP The nature and scope of comparative study of politics is related to its subject matter, its field of study, the vantage point from which the study is carried out and the purposes towards which the study is directed. These have, however, not been static and have changed over time. While the earliest studies concemed themselves with observing and classifying governments and _ regimes, comparative politics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was concerned with studying the formal legal structures of institutions in western countries. Towards the end of the Second World War a number of ‘new nations’ emerged on the world scene having liberated themselves from colonial domination, The dominance of liberalism was challenged by the emergence of communism and the powerful presence of Soviet Union on the world scene. The concem among comparativists changed at this juncture to studying the diversity of political behaviours and processes which were thrown up, however, within a single overarching framework. This led to the use of ‘systems’ and ‘structures- functions’ frameworks to study political phenomena, These frameworks were used by western scholars particularly those in the United States to study phenomena like developmentalism, modernisation etc. While the political elite of the newly independent countries found concepts like development, nation- building and state building attractive, in many cases they evolved their own ideological stances and chose to remain non-aligned to either ideological blocs. In the late 1980s focus on studying politics comparatively within an overarching framework of ‘system’ declined and regional systemic studies assumed significance. The focus on state in these studies marked a resurgence of the study of power structures within civil society and its political forms, which hadsuffered a set-back with the arrival of systems and structures-functions into comparative politics. The petcring out of Sovict Union in the same period, provoked western scholars to proclaim the ‘end of history’, marking the triumph of liberalism and capitalism. Globalisation of capital, a significant feature of the late nineteen eighties, which continues and makes itself manifest in technological, economic and information linkages among the countries of the world, has also tended to influence comparativists into adopting universalistic, homogenising expressions like ‘transitions to democracy’, the ‘global market” and ‘civil society’. Such expressions would have us believe that there do not in fact remain differences, uncertainties and contests which need to be explained in a comparative perspective. There is, however, another way to look at the phenomena and a number of scholars see the resurgence of civil society in terms of challenges to global capitalism which comes from popular movements and trade union activism throughout the world. 1.6 KEY WORDS Civil society 2 The term has contested meanings. By and large it is understood as a part of a country’s life that is neither the govemment nor the economy but, rather, the domain within which interest groups, political parties, and individuals interact in politically oriented ways. Control : Control in scientific research is an important procedure or mechanism of regulation and checking while conducting an experiment to provide a standard set-up or condition. Eurocentric : Refers to the bias (and distorted) view which emerge from the application of European idea, values, beliefs and theories, to other cultures and societies, Methodology the study of different methods of research, including the identification of research questions, the formulation of theories to explain certain events and political outcomes, and the development of research design, Neoliberalism : An advanced version of classical liberalism in which political economy focused on market individualism and minimal statism Normative : The prescription of values and standards of conduct, dealing with questions pertaining to ‘what should be’ rather than ‘what is” Theory : A theory is a set of systematically interrelated ideas, constructs or propositions intended to systematically explain a particular phenomenon, Comparative Analysis - Nature, Scope and Utility 21Introduction 22 events or behavior. In social science, theories provide explanations of social behaviours, events or phenomena. 1.7_REFERENCS Chilcote. H Ronald. (1994).’Part I: Introduction’. In Ronald H. Chileot Theories of Comparative Politics: The Search for a Paradigm Reconsidered. Boulder, Westview Press (Second Edition). Landman, Todd. (2000). Issues and Methods in Comparative Politics: An Introduction. London, Routledge. Lim, C Timothy. (2006). Doing Comparative Politics: An Introduction to Approaches and Issues. Boulder, Colorado, Lynne Rienner. Mair, Peter. (1996). “Comparative Politics: An Overview”, in R.E. Goodinand H. Klingemann (eds.), The New Handbook of Political Science. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Mohanty, Manoranjan. (2000). ‘Moving the Centre in the Study of Political Thought and Political Theory’, In ManoranjanMohanty, Contemporary Indian Political Theory. Samskriti, New Delhi , 1975 ‘Comparative Political Theory and Third World Sensitivity’ Teaching Politics, Nos.1&2. Sartori, Giovanni. (1994). “Compare, Why and How”. In MatteiDogan and Ali Kazancigil (eds.). Comparing Nations, Concepts, Strategies, Substance. Oxford, Blackwell. Theda Skocpol and M. Somers. (1980). “The Use of Comparative History in Macro social Inquiry”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol.22, Issue 2. Wiarda, J Roward. (1998). “Is Comparative Politics Dead? Rethinking the Field in the Post-Cold War Era”, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 19, no.5. 1.8 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS EXERCISES Check Your Progress 1 1) Comparative government is the study of different governments through methods of systematic comparison, Comparative polities, on the other hand, is the study of all aspects of politics, government as well as non- governmental. The scope of comparative government is confined to the study of government alone, but the field of comparative politics is all encompassing in nature which extends to almost every aspects of political life. Therefore, comparative polities is often describes as the study of everything ‘political’ which encompasses state, institutions, individuals, groups, political parties, interest groups, social movements etc.Check Your Progress 2 ) 2) No, it’s not merely a method of studying governments, it’s much broader. The scope of comparative politics encompasses a wide range of issues concerned with governance, policy formulations, political process, institutions, regimes, and so on. Itis the study of everything political, which involves all sorts of political phenomena—governmental as well as non- governmental. The subject matter, scheme and scope of comparative politics has been evolving through various historical epoch depending upon the changing socio-political context of the time. The evolution and development of comparative politics can be seen both in terms of geographical space as well as ideas and theories. Comparative politics has undergone significant developments throughout the different periods of history. Check your Progress 3 ) 2) 3) Comparative study of politics is useful in the study of political science for many reasons. Through comparison, one can identify and explain the difference and similarities between different political process, institutions and phenomena involving two or more political systems. It also helps us in deepening our understanding of different political process, institutions and phenomena involving two or more countries. In a broader sense, comparative politics forms a part of our reasoning and thinking about different political systems and help us in the building of theories, scientific analysis of various political issues, problems, or phenomena. The nature and scope of comparative study politics is determined by its specific subject matter, language, vocabulary, and the perspectives concern with the discipline of political science such as democracy, institutions, elections, constitutions, political parties, distribution of power ete. Comparative polities as a well-defined and systematic study emerged in the late nineteenth and carly twentieth century. But prior to WW Il, it was highly ‘Eurocentric’, i., confined to the study of European countries like, Britain, Germany, France etc. But with the emergence of newly independent states in the post-WW II period, scholars began to study political systems of other parts of the world, In the 1990s, globalisation led to a tremendous expansion in the scope and domain of comparative study of polities. Comparative Analysis - Nature, Scope and Utility 23