Ch1 and Ch2 : intro to comparative politics

Question 1

What does comparative politics seek to explain and how?

Answer 1

• cause and effects to understand the world around us
• through how and why questions

Question 2

What are some good questions to ask in comparative politics?

Answer 2

• why do some social revolutions succeed and some fail?
• why are some countries democratic and some not?
• How do things work in borders compared to outside border?

Question 3

What time of questions should you focus on in comparative politics?

Answer 3

empirical arguments or the cause of things

even though we tend to stray towards normative

Question 4

What do concepts do for us?

Answer 4

they are the ideas we us to organize/categorize and enable us to measure/compare observations

Question 5

What makes a good concept?

Answer 5

• clear/coherent
• consistent
• useful (measure/identify variations/differences)

Question 6

What is the journey a concept takes?

Answer 6

Concept–>Conceptualization
–> operationalization

Question 7

What happens to “general concepts” in conceptualization?

Answer 7

the conceptualizations can be different/contradictory, and resonate differently with different people

Question 8

What is given to a concept to make it workable?

Answer 8

an operational definition
for example:
democracy (conceptualized in terms of elections)
a country can be measured as democratic if it hold free/fair/competitive/reoccuring elections etc

Question 9

empirical evidence

Answer 9

observations we can make by looking at the real world instead of abstract ideas

comparative politics relies heavily on facts and evidence (this!)

Question 10

what are some qualifications of evidence in comparative politics?

Answer 10

• how well evidence is used to back hypothesis
• how relevant it is
• evidence should be at same level of analysis (country to country etc)

Question 11

What is one of the main empirical approaches in CP?

Answer 11

the use of case studies anad comparisons between them

like a country to country, or certain events can be many things

Question 12

what do variables do?

Answer 12

enable comparison between cases, and they vary from one case to another

Question 13

What is unqiue about MSS (most-similar systems)?

Answer 13

they are similar in a variety of ways with an
expected similar outcome

difference in outcome can lead to political scientists to explain why?

Question 14

What does a good comparative study require?

Answer 14

• detailed explanantion of similar/different variables
• further examination with use of compartive checking/within-case comparison

Question 15

What do social scientists use to build arguments about the world?

Answer 15

theories
hypotheses
evidence

Question 16

difference between theories and hypotheses?

Answer 16

theories - general explanation for empirical phenomena
hypothesis - prediction about cause and effect to be tested measurably

Question 17

Normative Theory

Answer 17

questions of values, morals, ethics

Question 18

empirical theory

Answer 18

empirical questions, variables, cause and effect

Question 19

What is true about politics and their scientific conclusions?

Answer 19

cannot prove conclusions with aboslute certainty

Question 20

What represents an increase in our understanding?

Answer 20

rejecting theories

Question 21

What is an important fact about qualitative and quantitative evidence?

Answer 21

they are increasingly interdependent, and complement eachother in important ways

Question 22

What is an important feature of Qualitative evidence?

Answer 22

• important in providing context
• non mathematical

Question 23

What is an important feature of quantitative evidence?

Answer 23

• compare and contrast at a statistical level of analysis which is more advanced
• measure the degree of association between the statistics

Question 24

Normative arguments

Answer 24

“HOW THINGS SHOULD BE”

most research passions start from normative arguments, lead empirical

Question 25

Empirical arguments

Answer 25

does happen, could happen, will happen

Question 26

what is the small “n” problem?

Answer 26

• cannot do study on entire society
• some countries arent good to compare
• small numbers
• n = number

social science problem, for example fertility rates