Meaning And Methods Flashcards
What is comparative politics?
Comparative politics is the science of politics that seeks to obtain knowledge through comparing two or more countries, places or political events.
According to Aragon 1987, comparative knowledge holds the key to understand, explain and interpret
Mayer 1989 defines it as a field whose goal is the building of empirically, falsifiable, explanatory theory
What is the main aim of comparative politics?
To theorize about Politics
Why do we compare? What are the objectives for comparing?
- Contextual description
- Classification
- Hypothesis testing
- Prediction
What is contextual description?
It is the process of describing the political phenomenon and event of a particular country or group of countries.
What is the major goal of contextual description?
More knowledge about the nation studied, more knowledge about the researcher’s own political system, or both
What does classification entail?
Classification makes the world of politics less complex as it effectively provides the researcher with data containers into which empirical evidence is organized.
Classification of different concepts help the comparativist to group vast numbers of countries, political systems, events etc into distinct categories with Identifiable and shared characteristics.
What does hypothesis testing entail?
This allows for the elimination of rival explanations about particular events, actors, structures in an effort to build more general theories.
Once a phenomenon has been described and classified, the researcher moves on to test hypothesis derived from certain theories
What does prediction entail as an objective of comparison?
The comparison of countries and the generalizations gotten from these predictions allows for predictions about the likely outcome in other countries not included in the initial study given the presence of certain antecedents.
It is the final and most difficult objective of comparative politics.
It helps to make predictions about outcomes in other countries based on generalizations from the initial comparison or to make claims about future outcomes.
Prediction is usually in probabilistic terms
What do we compare?
Political systems
Countries
Institutions and structures
Units in the state
Voting behavior
Culture, processes and societies
How do we compare?
Through case studies
Statistical analysis
Focus comparison
What are the two basic types of theories in Pol science?
Normative and empirical theories
What is a normative theory?
Normative theory specifies how things in the society ought to be, given a desired set of outcomes and is also Philosophical in nature.
What are empirical theories?
Empirical theories seek to establish relationships between two or more concepts in an effort to explain the occurrence of observed political phenomena
What is a method?
Method is a means by which theory is derived and tested
