COMPARATIVE

POLITICS
An Introduction

Comparative Politics

READING PACK FOR BS 5TH SEMESTER

Dr. Ayub Jan
Department of Political Science
University of Peshawar.
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
KEY READING:
COMPARATIVE POLITICS IN TRANSITION:
INTRODUCTION BY JOHN MC CORMICK…………1-16

ADDITIONAL READING
DOING COMPARATIVE POLITICS:GETTING INTO
COMPARATIVE POLITICS BY TIMOTHY C. LIM ... 17-44
Comparative Politics
in Transition
S I X T H E D I T I O N

John McCormick
Indiana University
Purdue University Indianapolis

Australia • Brazil • Japan • Korea • Mexico • Singapore • Spain • United Kingdom • United States
 Comparative Politics in Transition,
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 Introduction
Without comparisons to make, the mind does not know
how to proceed.
—Alexis de Tocqueville, French author, 1830s

Thinking without comparison is unthinkable

—Gary Swanson, American sociologist, 19711

Comparison is the engine of knowledge.

—Mattei Dogan and Dominique Pelassy,
French political scientists, 19902

Comparison is one of the most fundamental of all human activities, lying at

the heart of almost every choice we make in our lives. Whether we are trying
to decide what to have for lunch, or which candidate to vote for in an elec-
tion, or which car to buy, or what career to pursue, we will almost always
have alternatives, and the most efficient way of making a good decision is to
compare among them. Comparison is something that we all do almost daily,
consciously or unconsciously.
No surprise, then, that comparison should be at the heart of research in
the social sciences. In order to better understand human behavior, we need to
look at different cases, examples, and situations in order to draw general con-
clusions about what drives people to act the way they do. Political scientists
can study government and political processes in isolation, but they can never
fully understand them, and can never be sure that they have considered all the
explanatory options, without establishing whether the objects of their study
are usual or unusual. Only by looking at institutions and processes across time
or across different societies can they build the context to be able to gain a better
understanding, and to draw up rules about political behavior. The tool they use
is comparative politics, or the systematic study of the institutions, character, comparative
and performance of government and the political process in different societ- politics The
systematic study of
ies. It is one of the major sub-fields of political science in the United States (the the differences and
others being American politics, international relations, political theory, public similarities among
policy, and public law) but it is arguably the most fundamental. political systems.

1
2 Introduction

WHY DO WE COMPARE?
There are many different reasons for comparing government and political
systems, the range of benefits changing according to the goals of individual
researchers.

• Comparison helps us describe political systems. The most basic purpose

of comparative study is to outline the features of political institutions,
processes, and actions. In its early years, comparative politics did little
more than describe, and it has only been with more recent generations of
researchers that there has been more interest in explanation—but mean-
ingful explanation is impossible unless we first tie down the “facts” about
politics and government. Comparison contributes by helping us decide
which of these facts are the most and least significant.
• Comparison gives us context. Studying the politics of the United States
gives us insight into how it works and how the relationship between peo-
ple and government plays out, but the final layer of understanding will
always be missing unless we compare our findings with studies of other
political systems. For example, we know that Americans are patriotic, but
unless we compare levels of patriotism across different countries we are
unlikely to see anything unusual in the American situation and are less
likely to understand its political implications. The high levels of patrio-
tism in this country help explain how Americans relate to government
and regard U.S. relations with other countries.
• Comparison gives us points of reference. We can study the exotic, the
foreign, and the unusual, but it will often make little sense unless we can
refer it back to something with which we are familiar. So we can study the
institutions of government in Britain or Russia or China, but they are often
different in their details from those in the United States, and we can make
better sense of them if we refer back to the institutions of government in
the United States and compare the ways in which executive, legislative,
and judicial functions are carried out.
• Comparison helps us draw up rules about politics. Just as no credible
zoologist would try to draw up rules about animal behavior without
studying and comparing different species, no credible political scientist
would try to draw up rules and theories about political behavior without
studying the structures and values of government in different societies.
Comparison can help us develop and test hypotheses and explanations of
the trends and underlying principles of politics and help us better under-
stand, explain, and predict political change.3
• Comparison helps us understand ourselves. “Knowledge of the self,” say
Dogan and Pelassy, “is gained through knowledge of others.”4 By study-
ing the ways in which other societies govern themselves, we can better
understand the character, origins, strengths, and weaknesses of our own
 Why Do We Compare? 3

system of government. Comparison can give us insight into how power is

distributed and limited, can give us a broader perspective of our place in
the world, can help us better understand our responses to different kinds
of problems, and can help us identify problems that we might not other-
wise have known existed.
• Comparison helps us understand others. We live in a global com-
munity made up of multiple different states and societies, whose
people have often different values and priorities. Many Americans
forget this, and have an unfortunate reputation for seeing the world
from a narrow perspective in which self-interest reigns supreme. By
studying the way other countries govern themselves and by trying to
understand their problems, perceptions, and priorities, we can build
a more balanced view of the rest of the world, avoiding prejudice and
ethnocentrism, and better appreciating the variety and complexity of
human society.
• Comparison broadens our options. Studying other political systems can
show us how similar problems are approached by different governments,
can help us identify problems and solutions, and can offer us ideas that
might help us improve the way we do things in our own country or avoid
the mistakes made by others. How do other countries manage their edu-
cation systems and distribute welfare? What methods have been used by
other countries to control air and water pollution? Why do voter turnout
figures vary from one country to another?
• Comparison helps us make sense of a confusing global system. Keeping
up with political change in one country is hard enough, but keeping up
with political developments around the world creates additional layers of
complexity, and obliges us to study multiple moving targets whose rela-
tionships with one another are always evolving. Comparison can help us
sort through the changes in the international system by helping us better
understand the causes and effects of change, and better understand its
impact on our lives.

Comparison is not necessarily about making judgments and deciding

which political system works best, or does a better job at keeping its people
content, safe, wealthy, healthy, and educated. On the contrary, many com-
parativists avoid taking a normative approach to their work (that is, look-
ing at how things ought to be), and instead prefer an empirical approach
in which they try to explain how things are by arguing a relationship
between two or more concepts. If a study of the French health care system
can help us understand why it is relatively efficient and professional and
provide us with pointers to features that other countries might want to
adopt, well and good. But a comparison of the way the health care systems
of France, Germany, Japan, and the United States are structured can also
provide us with more insight into the character and structure of govern-
ment in each country.
4 Introduction

WHAT DO WE COMPARE?
politics The process Politics is the process by which people decide—or have others decide for
by which people them—how to manage and share the resources of the society in which they
compete for power,
influence, and
live. Resources can in turn be defined as money, power, opportunity, land,
resources. minerals, education, health care, consumer goods, or any of the goods and
services that organized societies need in order to function. Although political
scientists compare every aspect of politics at every level from the interna-
tional to the local, the core organizing unit of comparison is the state, a legal
and physical entity that has four major qualities:

• It operates within a fixed territory marked by borders, and has the right to
control the movement of people, money, and goods across those borders.
• It has sovereignty over that territory and over its people and resources, mean-
ing that it has the authority to impose laws and taxes within that territory.
• It is legally and politically independent, and operates the system of govern-
ment that administers the territory.
• It has legitimacy, meaning that it is normally recognized both by its resi-
dents and by other states as having jurisdiction and authority within the
territory.

The world has not always been divided into states, and there is no agree-
ment even on when the state system emerged. The outlines of states began to
appear in Europe in the Middle Ages, but the modern system is usually dated
from the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which ended two European wars, made
several adjustments to European borders, and gave new definition to the
idea of sovereignty. Since then the state has been the standard by which we
have decided most questions of jurisdiction and political authority, although
the modern state system is a relatively new development: when the United
States was created there were barely 20 states in the world, and only 45 more
had been created by the outbreak of World War II in 1939. Today there are
192 member states of the United Nations.
We are almost all citizens of one state or another, as we are reminded when
we produce a passport or a visa to travel from one state to another. States are
often aligned with nations, or communities distinguished from each other by
a common history, culture, and language. This alignment produces nation-
states. But because the boundaries of nations and states rarely coincide, we
are left in most cases with multinational states: territories inhabited by two
or more national groups coming together under a common system of law
and government. National divisions within states have been the root cause
Westphalian of many of the most serious political problems, leading to internal conflict
system The modern and—in the worst cases—to civil war and secession.
state system that many
believe emerged out
Critics of the Westphalian system argue that it is in decline,5 for a vari-
of the 1648 Peace of ety of reasons: states have been unable to guarantee peace for their citizens;
Westphalia. globalization has created complex webs of political and economic ties that
 What Do We Compare? 5

© Osamy Hond/AP Photos

The headquarters of the United Nations in New York City. Its state members are the basic unit of study in comparative politics,
although not all sovereign states are members of the UN, and the definition of a “state” is open to debate.

have weakened the independence of states; mass tourism and complex new
patterns of migration have broken down the psychological borders among
states; and internally divided states have become weaker as minorities have
demanded greater self-determination and even independence. But, at least
for now, the state remains our basic unit of comparison, and the core respon-
sibility of states—and thus the essence of what we study in comparative poli-
tics—is the delivery of political goods. These can be defined as those human
needs whose fulfillment makes government valuable and useful,6 the core
responsibilities, obligations and duties of government, or the functions and
purposes for which governments exist.7
There are different opinions about just how much government should pro-
vide, and how much citizens should provide for themselves; Scandinavians,
for example, expect more from their governments than do Americans, and are
6 Introduction

prepared to pay in the form of higher taxes. But what ultimately distinguishes
strong and successful states from weak and unsuccessful states is the perfor-
mance of government in providing those goods that are generally regarded as
the natural rights of the citizens of a state. These include the following:

• National and personal security. The core purpose of a state is to protect

its borders from external threats, to protect its citizens from crime and
from threats to personal property, and to help its citizens resolve their
differences in a peaceful, equitable, and consistent manner, typically
through an enforceable and effective system of rules and laws.
• Political freedom. States should uphold and protect the rights of individu-
als relative to each other and to the state, promote equality of opportunity
for all individuals (regardless of race, gender, age, religion, or any other of
the differences that mark most societies), and protect those who are least
able to protect themselves (such as children, the elderly, and the disabled).
• Political participation. States should ensure that their citizens can participate
in the political process on a basis of freedom and equality, guaranteeing their
personal safety, their freedom of expression, and their freedom of choice.
• Economic freedom. States should support and protect a system of laws
and institutions that allow their citizens to pursue a livelihood, to prosper
by selling their labor and skills for wages, to enjoy the fruits of their labor,
and to be sure that access to wealth and other resources is equitable. His-
tory has shown repeatedly that democracy and the free market go hand in
hand, and that there can be no success in one without success in the other.
• Working infrastructure. States should ensure that all their citizens have
access to health care, education, energy supplies, transport networks,
communication systems, consumer protection, a secure banking system,
and effective environmental quality management.

Different states and leaders have different ideas about how best to deliver
political goods. So while liberal democracies believe in an open and competi-
tive system underpinned by the rule of law and by restricting government to
guaranteeing the delivery of basic services, communist systems felt that the best
option was for political goods to be controlled and delivered by the state. The
record on the delivery of these goods varies; liberal democracies have done best
because they are the most stable, the most efficient, and most durable of states,
but less developed states have a weaker record, and in the case of marginal states
the delivery of political goods has sometimes almost completely collapsed.

HOW DO WE COMPARE?
In spite of the many benefits of comparative politics, the field has suffered
an identity crisis over the years, with so many competing approaches that
some political scientists wonder if it can actually be called a field at all.8
 How Do We Compare? 7

Comparativists have different views about the challenges facing their field
and about the best way of realizing its potential,9 the most fundamental dis-
agreement relating to the best level of analysis: some study a single country
using comparative techniques; others study a small number of states using a
limited number of variables; some are area specialists (studying states in just
one part of the world, like Europe or Asia); some are institutional or process
specialists (studying legislatures or voting, for example); and some are the-
matic specialists, studying a particular problem or phenomenon affecting a
select group of states, such as welfare in wealthy countries, the causes of civil
war, or the reasons behind the collapse of weak or failing states.
But whatever approach they take, at the heart of their work is the compar-
ative method, by which different cases are systematically studied in order to
test hypotheses, build theories, and develop concepts. The method is usually
taken to mean the study of a few carefully selected countries using a middle
level of analysis (rather than the more intensive analysis possible with a few
countries, or the more abstract analysis necessary with many countries),10 but
there is no reason why it cannot take different forms according to the number
of cases being studied.
One of the oldest tools of political science, the comparative method was
used as early as the fourth century b.c. by the Greek philosopher Aristotle,
who compared political systems in order to develop theories about which
worked best. Some have argued that the comparative method is indistinguish-
able from the scientific method, that the scientific study of politics is unavoid-
ably comparative,11 and that “comparison is the methodological core of the
scientific study of politics.”12 The political scientist Arend Lijphart makes a
distinction between four different approaches to political research:13

• The experimental method, which uses experimental and control groups to

isolate the effects of different stimuli. But while it has the potential for pro-
viding strong conclusions, social scientists—unlike physical scientists—can
rarely carry out experiments in controlled conditions in order to examine
the results, or hope to replicate those results in follow-up experiments.
• The statistical method, which uses empirically observed data to tease out
relationships among variables. Statistics deal with hard numbers rather than
more subjective criteria, but it is often difficult to gather large enough data
sets to make the statistical method useful for comparison. Also, statistics are
not always helpful in explaining political phenomena, and social scientists
are divided over the merits of statistical (or quantitative) analysis.
• The case study method, which focuses on individual cases rather than
on large samples. Cases can be helpful in allowing in-depth study of par-
ticular situations, but in isolation they offer limited possibilities for testing
hypotheses and theories.
• The comparative method, which typically focused on drawing conclusions
from the study of a small number of samples, offering limited possibilities
for testing hypotheses. But it does allow systematic comparison, and its
handicaps can be addressed by increasing the number of cases, focusing on
comparable cases, or reducing the number of variables being studied.14
8 Introduction
CLOSE-UP VIEW
THE CHANGING FACE OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS
Although its heritage can be
traced back to the ancient
Greeks, the birth of modern
comparative politics as a
distinct field in political
science in the United States is
usually dated to the late 19th
century.15 American scholars
initially took a narrow view
of the world; comparative
politics was seen as the study
of “foreign” political systems,
and most studies focused
on Western Europe, with the
Soviet Union and Japan added
later. The study of U.S. politics,
meanwhile, was regarded as
a separate field. (And even
today there are a few die-
hard comparativists who
argue that case studies of the
United States have no place in
textbooks like this one.)
After World War II,
attitudes changed. U.S.
foreign policy interests
broadened, and with the
emergence of the cold war,
academics and policymakers
became more interested in
the countries lining up with
the Soviet Union, and in those
Latin American, Asian, and
African countries that were
potential allies and enemies
in the confrontation between
the two superpowers.16 The
end of the colonial era also
saw an explosion in the
number of sovereign states,
from just over 70 in 1945
to more than 130 in 1970.
As well as a new interest in
emerging states, there was
also a change in the approach
taken by comparative political
scientists, whose work was
often criticized for being too
parochial, too descriptive,
too lacking in theory, and not
particularly comparative.17
As part of the behavioral
movement, comparativists
became interested in
studying processes as well
as institutions, in explaining
as well as describing, and
in taking a more scientific
approach to the development
of theory and methods.
While most of the famous
names of comparative politics
in the United States until this
time had been Americans—
including Charles Merriam,
Gabriel Almond, Seymour
Martin Lipset, and Samuel
Huntington—new influence
was asserted by academics
from Europe, including
Giovanni Sartori, Philippe
Schmitter, and Arend Lijphart.
There was also more transfer
of ideas between the study
of American and comparative
politics, and a broader view
of the world was encouraged
by the break up of the Soviet
Union, the end of the cold
war, the emergence of the
European Union, and the
growing stability, wealth and
influence of countries such
as Brazil, China, India, Mexico,
and South Africa.
Comparative politics today
is a much broader and more
eclectic field of study than
ever before, where many
new concepts and ideas are
being allowed to shake up
old assumptions, but in which
cold war thinking still has
more influence on scholarship
than it deserves. Particularly
in the United States, the field
is being slow to catch up
with the changing realities
of politics around the world,
including the declining role
of the state, the rise of new
economic powers, the impact
of new technology and
globalization, and the impact
of failed and failing states.
It may be time for another
revolution in thinking.
 Developing a Typology 9

A combination of the case study and comparative methods is the one most
often used in political science, and in this textbook. Bringing the two together
reduces their individual problems, and combines the most viable of Lijphart’s
four alternatives. The result is a more integrated process of comparison.

DEVELOPING A TYPOLOGY
However they choose to approach the study of comparative politics, all
political scientists face the same core challenge of being sure that they have
taken an inclusive view, rather than trying to draw their conclusions from a
non-representative sample of states. The sheer number of states in the world
poses major difficulties. These states organize government and power in var-
ied ways, offering their citizens different channels to influence government,
pursuing contrasting economic philosophies, and reflecting remarkable social
and cultural variety. At the same time, they are all moving targets: they con-
stantly evolve and change, and often at a rapid pace. We only have to look
at the end of the cold war and the break-up and reordering of states that fol-
lowed for a recent example of political and economic change involving nearly
three dozen states.
To help us find our way through the maze, most comparativists use a
typology, or a system of classification that divides states into groups with
common features, allowing them to make broad assumptions about the states
in each group. They can then focus more closely on the common features
of the different groups by using case studies, which can help them develop
explanations and rules, and test theories of political phenomena.18 The ideal
typology is one that is simple, neat, consistent, logical, and as real and useful to
the casual observer as to journalists, political leaders, or professional political
scientists. Unfortunately, comparativists have been unable to find that Holy
Grail, mainly because they cannot agree on the criteria that should be taken
into account, or on how they should be weighed and ranked. They cannot
even agree on whether or not typologies are useful. And they are ultimately
frustrated by the constantly changing nature of politics and government: any
typology will inevitably have to change with the times, as will membership of
the classes or groups in the typology. Consider the following examples, each
of which was a product of the era in which they were developed:

• The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 b.c.) distinguished between

states ruled by one person, by a few people, and by many people, and
sub-divided each group into good and corrupt forms of rule.
• The 18th-century French philosopher Baron de Montesquieu distinguished
between republics, monarchies, and despotic systems.
• In the 1960s, the American political scientist Barrington Moore distin-
guished between democratic/parliamentary systems (such as the United
10 Introduction

States or Britain), fascist/authoritarian systems (such as Nazi Germany),

and communist systems (such as the old Soviet Union).19

Although useful in their time, these typologies would tell us little about
21st century political realities because the world is a more complex and varied
place than it was 2,300 years ago, 250 years ago, or even 40 years ago. More
contemporary typologies include the following:

• Almond and Powell’s structural-functional model, which sees govern-

ment as a system made up of structures (institutions) that perform certain
functions, and compares how they perform.20
• Weber’s study of sources of authority, including traditional (or hereditary)
authority, charismatic authority, and legal authority.21
• Finer’s division of states into liberal democracies, quasi-democracies, façade
democracies, totalitarian regimes, dynastic states, and military regimes.22
He later proposed a system dividing states into one of four types: a palace
polity (rule by one), a church polity (in which religion plays a key role), a
nobility polity (where a preeminent group or sector had influence), or a
forum polity (where authority was conferred on rulers from below).23
• Kopstein and Lichbach’s distinction among early developers (such as
Britain or France), middle developers (Germany, Japan), late developers
(Russia, China), and experimental developers (Mexico, India, Iran).24

In spite of all these proposals, comparative politics through much of the cold
war (late 1940s—late 1980s) was driven and influenced by the Three Worlds
system, which was based less on common political and economic realities than
on cold war assumptions about the structure of the international system. It
divided the world into three groups of countries:

• A First World of wealthy, democratic industrialized states, most of which

were active in the Western alliance against communism.
• A Second World of communist regimes, including most of those countries
ranged against the Western alliance.
• A Third World of poorer, less democratic, and less developed countries,
some of which took sides in the cold war, but some of which did not.

The typology had a curious history. It came out of the tiers monde, or the
“third force” of French political parties in the 1940s that supported neither the
government of the Fourth Republic nor the policies of Charles de Gaulle.25 In
1952, the French demographer Alfred Sauvy borrowed the concept to describe
a “third world” of countries that were choosing not to align themselves either
with the West or with the Soviet bloc during the cold war.26 The label stuck,
and by the late 1960s the emerging states of Africa, Asia, and Latin Amer-
ica were routinely being described as the Third World. Counting backward,
communist states were described as the Second World and industrialized
democracies as the First World.
 A Different Way of Seeing the World 11

The system was simple and neat and provided evocative labels that could
be slipped with ease into media headlines and everyday conversation: even
today the term Third World conjures up powerful images of poverty, underde-
velopment, corruption, and political instability. But it was always misleading.
The First World had the most internal logic because its members had (and
still have) the most in common. The Second World was more problematic
because communism was interpreted differently by its members, and was
never applied as anticipated by its most influential theorist, Karl Marx. As for
the Third World, it never had much internal consistency because its 135 mem-
bers had little in common: some were rich while others were poor; some were
democratic while others were dictatorships; some had civilian governments
while others had military governments; and some were industrialized while
others were agrarian. All that they ultimately had in common was that they
were not core protagonists in the cold war.

A DIFFERENT WAY OF SEEING

THE WORLD
By all rights, the fatal blows to the Three Worlds system should have been
struck by the end of the cold war, which not only saw many Second World
countries abandoning communism but also revealed many of the inconsis-
tencies in the idea of the Third World. In particular, the emergence of a group
of wealthy Asian and Latin American countries dispelled the popular image
of the huddled masses of the Third World. Recent research has shown that
there is a world of difference between successful and stable states such as
Singapore and Argentina and failed or failing states such as Haiti or Sudan.
And yet many political scientists doggedly continue to support the Three
Worlds typology, as any quick survey of introductory comparative politics
texts will reveal: some still overtly use the three-way division, others use
the system but have changed the labels, and yet others avoid using a typol-
ogy altogether but still use a selection of case studies that reflects the Three
Worlds view.
The Three Worlds also live on in the biases of much comparative political
research. The First World has always attracted more study, partly because most
political scientists come from the First World and partly because its features are
more consistent, making it easier to study. The authors of most comparative
politics textbooks usually devote as much as half their space to First World case
studies, despite the fact that First World countries account for just 16 percent of
the world’s population, whereas Third World countries account for 55 percent
of the population (or 76 percent if China is included). The result is that the study
of comparative politics is unbalanced, with less attention paid to poorer and
less successful states than their numbers and global significance merit. This is
reflected in the research for the cases used in this book: numerous studies have