INTRODUCTION

lecturer: Abdirahman Hassan Abdulle

bachelor: Public administration Master: leadership and governance
UNISO JKUATs
 What is comparative politics?

• it involves the study of the politics of different

countries, it involves drawing lessons from
what goes on separately within different
countries,
• Comparative politics involves the systematic
study and comparison of the world’s political
systems. It seeks to explain differences between
as well as similarities among countries.
 What is comparative politics?
• so you look at them individually and then you
compare them; why it happening in one
country and in another country but not in third.
For examples, We ask ourselves in
comparative politics the following questions;
 Common Questions

1. Why are there so many gun-related homicides in the United

States?

2. Why do so many peoples and countries around the world

remain mired in poverty and economic misery? Conversely,

how have some peoples and countries been able to become

“rich” and prosperous in only a generation or two?

3. Is the expansion of “democracy” inevitable? Will it

necessarily reach all countries over time?

 Common Questions
4. Why do people and groups resort to “terrorism” and other

forms of political violence? Is anyone capable of becoming a

terrorist, or are terrorists the product of a particular type of

society and culture?

5. How do social movements—such as the Civil Rights

Movement in the United States and prodemocracy

movements in the Ukraine, Burma (Myanmar), and Iran—

emerge, and why do some succeed while others fail.

 Common Questions
6. are certain judicial systems more just or more
effective than others? What explains higher
sentencing in some countries?
So, what does all this have to do with
comparative politics? The answer is fairly
simple: comparative politics, as a field of study,
provides us with a ready array of conceptual and
analytical tools that we can use to address and
answer a wide range of questions about the
social world.
 About this book
• This book is designed, in part, to help you
answer this question. Learning how to evaluate
specific arguments, however, is secondary to
the overarching goal of this book, which is to
enable you to better understand and explain
social, political, or economic processes,
events, and outcomes on your own.
• comparative politics provides a systematic,
coherent, and practical way to understand and
make better sense of the things that happen in
the world around us.
 About this book
• In a broader sense, moreover, comparative
politics is relevant to almost anyone, even those
not interested in “studying foreign countries.” A
“comparative politics approach” can be applied
to a huge variety of problems, from the mundane
to the sublime, in a wide variety of areas
• Comparative at work (comparative method)
• Intra-country case study
• Inter-country case study
• Inter-country statistical study.
 Why comparative politics?
• Why do we bother to study comparative politics
and government?
There are many good reasons but three of the most
important are:
(1)we cannot understand our own country without a
knowledge of others;
(2) we cannot understand other countries without a
knowledge of their background, institutions and
history; and
(3) we cannot arrive at valid generalizations about
government and politics without the comparative
method.
 Understanding our own country

• To understand our own country we must study other

countries as well. This may sound like a strange
statement, but it has some powerful logic to support it.
• We often take the political institutions, practices and
customs in our own country for granted, assuming that
they are somehow natural and inevitable. Only when we
start looking around at other countries do we understand
that our own ways of doing things are sometimes unique,
even odd or peculiar. It is said that fish will be the last
form of life on earth to realize the existence of water:
since they spend their whole life in water with no
experience of anything else, they have no reason even to
imagine that anything else exists.
 Understanding other countries

It is obvious that we cannot begin to understand the politics

of other countries unless we know something about their
history, culture and institutions. And this, in turn, is important
because what these countries do often affects us directly or
indirectly: they impose import duties on our goods, refuse to
sign trade agreements or agree to pollution controls, do not
contribute to international peacekeeping forces, threaten us
with military force, or are unhelpful in trying to solve
international economic problems. Why do they act this way?
Knowing their history, culture and institutions helps us to
understand and explain their actions and perhaps change the
situation for the better. Ignorance is a recipe for complication
and failure; knowledge can help us improve matters.
 Constructing valid generalizations

The purpose of science is to arrive at valid

generalizations about the world. Such
generalizations take the form of ‘if–then’
statements – if A then B, but if X then Y.
Aeroplane designers need to know that if their
planes exceed the speed of sound they will break
the sound barrier, affecting how the planes handle
and the stress on their structures. Doctors need to
know that if a certain drug is administered then a
patient’s disease is likely to be cured.
 Continue……

• Chemists need to know that if two substances are mixed then a third
substance may be produced that is useful to us.
• To arrive at these if–then statements, scientists carry out systematic
experiments in their laboratories, comparing what happens under different
circumstances.
• Political scientists also try to arrive at valid generalizations about the world
of government and politics by means of comparison, but unfortunately they
can rarely experiment.
• What political scientists can do, however, is compare things that happen
‘naturally’ in the real world. For example, different countries have different
voting systems and we can compare them to estimate their effects. We note
that countries with voting system A have a higher voting turnout than
countries using system B. However, we cannot immediately conclude that A
causes a higher voting turnout than B until we are sure that this effect is not
caused by factors other than voting systems. Perhaps system A countries
happen to be smaller, wealthier or better educated than system B countries
and it is size, wealth or education that influences voting turnout.
 The global challenges of comparative politics

• In this contemporary world, three dates are useful markers to define

the current era of world politics: 1989, 2001, and 2008. Each one can
focus our attention on a different element of the current world order.
Introduction to Comparative Politics studies how different countries
both shape and are shaped by the world order created by watershed
events such as those that occurred in 1989, 2001, and 2008. Each of
these events describes a particularly important moment—what we call
a critical juncture—that helps define key transitional moments.
• When did our current era begin? A frequently cited date is 1989, when
the Berlin Wall, that separated communist-controlled East Berlin from
West Berlin, was dismantled. More broadly, the Berlin Wall separated
the communist regime of the German Democratic Republic (GDR),
allied with the Soviet Union, from the Federal Republic of Germany, a
country that belonged to the rival alliance of the United States
• and other democratic countries.
 Continue…
• 1989 ushered in three important changes. First, it marked the end of a
bipolar world, in which two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United
States, vied to dominate global affairs. It marked the emergence of a
unipolar world dominated by what a French foreign minister dubbed a
“hyperpower”—the U.S. Second 1989 marked the triumph of one model of
political and economic development: liberal democracy. Third, 1989 was a
gateway to globalization.
• Yet we have been forced to rethink the meaning of globalization because
of what occurred on September 11, 2001, the second date framing the
current era. The attacks on that fateful day constituted a new challenge,
and produced a tragic and somber critical juncture following the brief post-
cold war period when the issues of political reform and improved economic
performance dominated the global agenda.
• The attacks have also led to a recasting of global alliances and the
development of new domestic and foreign policies to counter the threat of
Islamic radicalism. The 9/11 attacks triggered a rapid U.S. response, named
by President George W. Bush “the war on terror.”
Globalization and terrorism make the current era
complex and fraught with uncertainties. And those are
not the only challenges facing the world. 2008—the
third date that serves to define the context in which
countries included in Introduction to Comparative
Politics must navigate—points to yet another key
development in the world today. At first glance, no
note-worthy event occurred in 2008 that was
comparably important to 1989 and 2001. Yet 2008 was
a noteworthy year because of a cascade of economic
challenges.
These above mentioned events have made the
comparative politics more important than before and
more challenging.
 Course presentation

• This course consists of two parts;

a. the class study chapters which are eight chapters ;
b. students practice models, which are systematic analyses of politics in
twelve countries designed student to prepare in groups for more
understanding in practical analysis.
• The first part consists the following chapters;
1. introduction
– In this chapter, you are introduced the concept of comparative
politics, its emergence an how it evolved through years, factors
that stimulated its emergence, and its importance in political
systems.
2. Issues in politics
– Explains why governments exist and what functions they serves,
and how they create problems as well as solutions. And it
introduces the three great challenges that face most states in the
world today.
• Building a common identity and sense of community, fostering economic
and social development, and securing democracy, human rights, an civil
liberties.
• Chapter three;
• Sketches the concepts needed to compare and explain politics in very
different societies: political systems and their environment, structure and
function, policy performance and its consequences.
• chapter 4 through 7:
• Elaborate important political structures, functions an processes. They
discuss the causes an consequences of political cultures, interest
articulation, interest aggregation and policy making.
• Chapter 8:
• Explains policy outcomes, policy performance and policy evaluation
evaluations.
 Course evaluation

• The course will be evaluated as follows;

• Mid-term
• Class activities(Oral&quiz) 5 marks
• Assignment 5 marks
• Mid-term exam 30 Marks
• Total marks 40 marks
• Final exam
• Class activities(Oral&quiz) 5 marks
• Assignment 5 marks
• Mid-term exam 50 Marks
• Total marks 60 marks