Sociological

Research Methodology
The Comparative Method

© Dr. Ramjit Kumar

B.A. PART- V
SOCIOLOGY (H)
 The Comparative Method
 Comparison is one of the basic instinctive process that is
commonly used in the study of human society and culture.
 The systematic usage of comparison and contrast as method of
enquiry was acceptable from the beginning in the domain of
sociology and social anthropology.
 However, meaning of the comparative method as a sociological
method used in empirical social research goes beyond the sense of
naturalistic process.
 Indeed, for Durkheim it is the comparative method that gave
sociology its distinctive character as a discipline against disciplines
like, history and philosophy.

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 The Comparative Method

Comparison provides a basis for making statements

about empirical regularities. The method entails a
certain, well defined rules and procedure.
As a research method, comparative method examine and
contrast social structures and processes across culture to
identify general patterns and aims to identifies causal
mechanisms and understand complexities of the reality.
In sociology the term comparative method is used for
the comparison of large macro-social units.
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 The Comparative Method

The comparative method refers to the method of

comparing different societies or groups within society to
show whether and why they are similar or different in
certain respects.
Thus, the comparative method is the process of
comparing situations, groups, cultures which are similar
and yet which differ in known ways.

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 The Comparative Method

 The early sociologists, Spencer, Durkheim and Weber were

advocate of the comparative method. They believed that society,
culture, religion, family, marriage, and so on deserve serious
intellectual attention.
 According to Evans-Pritchard comparison is one of the essential
procedures of all sciences.
 For Edmund Leach comparison is just like butterfly collection,
however Leach agreed that a substantial part of the insights of
sociology and social anthropology has come from systematic
comparisons.
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 The Comparative Method

In Britain, Radcliffe-Brown followed the French school of

thought, and in particular Durkheim. Brown drew
attention to the difference in aim and purpose between
nomothetic and ideographic enquiries, maintaining
that the comparative method in the proper sense was
central to the former and not the latter.
It should be keep in mind that in social anthropology,
there has been a considerable tension between the
comparative and the historical methods.
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 The Guideline of the Comparative Method

 The comparative method is designed to free the investigation from

the investigator's own biases and preconceptions. The comparative
method requires its practitioners to maintain a certain detachment
from their own society and culture. This may not required in the case
of the historical method.
 Once the techniques of observation perfected, it would not matter
who made the observation. However for this what is important are
(a) careful observation of facts. Ideas, beliefs and values have to be
treated as facts existing independently of the moral and political
preferences of the observer and (b). the classification of facts.
 Origin on the Comparative Method

As an intellectual pursuit, the comparative method

varies across the disciplines.
This method has emerged differently in different nation-
states. For example, in France, the appeal of the
comparative method has been emphasised by the stress
on the unity of all the sciences, natural and social,
whereas in Germany, one can find the division between
the Naturwissenschaften and the Geisteswissenschaften
as a source of method.
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 Durkheim on the comparative method

Durkheim's plan for the comparative study of societies

was ambitious. In his study of suicide (1951), he
compared different types of European societies.
By comparing official data of various societies Durkheim
argued he was able to identify variables that was evident
in one society and not in another society.
He put it in his book on method, comparisons can
include facts borrowed either from a single and unique
society or from several societies.
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 Durkheim on the Comparative Method
 Durkheim influenced many social researchers to take the
comparative method as a sociological step.
 Among them Radcliffe-Brown is the prominent one. Brown
took the lead in promoting the view that detailed empirical
studies of particular societies must be combined with
extensive and systematic comparisons.
 Radcliffe-Brown sought to extend Durkheim's sociological
theory of totemism by comparing and contrasting the
relationship between social structure and religious practice
among the Australian Aborigines (who had totemism) and
the Andaman Islanders (who did not have it).
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 Debate on the Comparative Method
 The pioneers in sociology and social anthropology were influenced by
the theory of evolution. In fact, it would be not wrong if one can say
that it was the search for the stages of evolution that largely shaped
the comparative method of Spencer and Morgan.
 However this created an impression that western societies are at the
highest stage of evolution and all other societies to go through the
transformation and follow them.
 This view may seem applicable for technology and economic
transformation. But the same view can not be applied in regard to
religion, family, marriage and other institutions.
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 Debate on the Comparative Method

Some social scientists maintain that the study of society

and culture can not be incorporated into the methods of
natural sciences. This is why, they are skeptical about
the fruitfulness and suitability of the comparative
method in social sciences.
Apart from this, it was alleged that comparative method
was used by Western sociologists to reinforce their belief
in the superiority of their own society and culture.
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 Debate on the Comparative Method
 Today the comparative method has came to terms not only with diverse facts
but also with diverse perceptions of the same facts viewed from different
angles.
 Not only that there are many different societies being studied throughout the
world, but also they are being studied by a greater variety of persons from
many different angles.
 Today, there are more facts available, and more ways of looking at the available
facts. It is easy in the light of these developments to detect a clear Eurocentric
bias in even the most successful users of comparison and contrast, including
Durkheim and Weber. This bias may be detected in theories of evolution and
theories of development and underdevelopment.

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 The Usefulness of the Comparative Method

 The comparative method is a tool of investigation designed to

discover the general features of societies and cultures without
losing sight of the distinctive features of a society.
 For many, the comparative method has provided an analytical
framework for examining and explaining social and cultural
differences and specificity.
 The comparative method has served as a tool for developing
classifications of social phenomena and establishing the fact
whether the phenomena can be explained by the same causes.

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 Debate on the Comparative Method

The comparative method is counterpart in the social

sciences of the experimental method in the social
sciences.
Durkheim recognized that social facts can be observed
but can not be produced under experimental conditions.
On the contrary, we can only bring them together. What
is essential to the success of the comparartive method is
the careful observation and arrangement of facts.
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 Debate on the Comparative Method
 The comparative method is premised on the thinking that a
society had a life of its own that could be observed from
outside and described objectively.
 Different societies could be easily distinguished from each
other. They could be grouped together according to their
similarities and differences in the same way in which plants
and animals were grouped together by biologists.
 The comparative method could then be applied to arrive at
general conclusions about the structure and functioning of
societies, and to distinguish between the normal and the
pathological according to objective criteria.
 Weber on the Comparative Method
 Weber made wide and extensive comparisons among human
societies in different places at different times.
 His strategy was the use of comparison through the
construction of ideal types. This enabled him the selection
and use of facts to establish significant similarities and
differences.
 The comparative study of human societies must take into
account not only their morphology or external characteristics
but also the ideas and values.
 Weber on the Comparative Method

 According to Weber, the tasks of sociological enquiry is not only to

tell about causes and functions, but it is also concerned with
meaning- the subjective understanding of the component
individuals. In social sciences, one can accomplish something
which is never attainable in the natural sciences.
 Weber suggested that the method adopted by Durkheim and
Radcliffe-Brown lacked the focused reflection on the standpoint
from which observation, description and comparison are made.
 Weber on the Comparative Method
 Weber opined that it was not enough to examine any social
phenomena using statistics but one has to assess meaning and
significance, since subjective understanding is an important part
of sociological knowledge.
 According to Weber observation and description are bound to be
different in the social science against the natural sciences since the
investigator could not confine himself only to external realm.
 Weber had a different assessment of the possibilities of
sociological enquiry regarding avoidance of value-judgement,
ethical neutrality and objectivity. He acknowledged the legitimacy
of a variety of standpoints available.
 Weber on the comparative method

One of the principal tasks of comparative method is to

devise a method for treating subjective evaluations in an
objective way. It is akin to that of dealing with what is
called dealing 'norms in a descriptive sense' as against
'norms in a prescriptive sense'.
The problem becomes particularly acute when the values
characteristic of different societies are being compared
from different standpoints and with different
presuppositions.