Samenvatting Comparitive political institutions

Comparative political institutions
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Introduction to comparative politics
Definition of comparative politics
What is comparative politics?

- Systematic study of domestic politics
o Because you compare systems and its features
o “focusing on internal political structures, actors, and processes, and
analysing them empirically by describing, explaining, and predicting their
variety (similarities and differences) across political systems (and over
time)”
 Comparative politics = very empirical discipline
- We can only understand our political context if we can put it in perspective
o Ex. You come from a specific country, you’re familiar with your political
system and you go somewhere else and that country could have the
same presidential political system as you or a total different one or that
the same type of parties still do have differences
o Drawing out differences and similarities within and across countries
 Ex. Similarities within: federal systems (with sub-state entities you
can compare)
- Introduction to main concepts, theories, and topics in comparative politics
o Coverage of topics not exhaustive, cf. Other specific courses
- Discussion of topics, amongst which
o Democracies, autocracies, legislatures, executives, judiciaries, electoral
systems, parties, party systems, public administration, sub-state
governments,...




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,Field of comparative politics and its evolution
Where to situate comparative politics?




- Comparative politics is about empirical issues and they affect interactions with,
consequences of political systems on them
- International relations looks at interactions between political systems, they look
at the INTERnational
- Political theory deals with normative and theoretical questions
o Normative political theory
o Theoretical questions: level of abstraction that makes us come up with
general conclusions
 Ex. Democracies don’t go to war against each other

Traditions in comparative politics

- Comparative politics includes three traditions:
o Country focus; (comparative) description of (aspects of systems) of
countries
 = the typical classic one
 Useful if you want to know a lot about the political systems in a
particular country but does not teach you very much if you’re
interested in understanding why certain aspects of a political
system are present within a country or how they do work because
for that you do need a comparative dimension
o Methodological focus: establish rules and standards for comparative
analysis; develop conceptual, logical and methodological approaches


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, o Analytical focus: combination of substance and method (country focus
and methodological focus): describe / explain similarities and differences
between (but also within) countries
- Aim is to explain, comparison is the method!
o Comparison requires a systematic & explicit approach
o Contrary to political theory considered not to be normative

Practice of comparative politics

- Describe similarities and differences
o Ex. Between different party systems

classifications, typologies

o Similarities and differences of for instance two- and multi-party systems
- Explain similarities and differences

formulate / test hypotheses

o Focus on electoral systems: FPTP (first past the post) systems lead to
two-party dominance
o Then again you get new hypotheses to test = the cyclical aspect in
comparative politics
- Make predictions = theory building

formulate expectations (of interventions/ with respect to change)

o Move to FPTP system will result in two-party system (or, at least, loss of
smaller parties)

Evolution of comparative politics

- Sociology is an important basis for political science
- Also law is very important to political sciences
o Die Staatslehre = the study of the state
 Very descriptive
 Strong legal component
 Focused on classic traditional institutions of the state (legislature,
executive, tradition)
o Comparative politics definitely comes from there
o Montesquieu trias politica
- Initial scope limited: focus on
o Western Europe, North America (because the rest of the world was
colonized)
o Formal state institutions (= 3 state powers)
o Legal documents and texts

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, - Around / after WWII new cases & behavioural revolution: focus on
o Breakdown of democracies (Spain, Portugal,...) , rise of populism in Latin
America, socialism in Eastern Europe, decolonization
o Processes within institutions (electoral behaviour, citizen participation)
o Empirical behaviour

Consequences

- Recognition of greater variety of political systems
- More emphasis on role of agencies other than formal state institutions: parties,
interest groups, civil society, voters,...
- New methodology & methods: empirical observations, large N, shift from cases
to variables, statistics,...
o Many of them stemming from sociological traditions
o Shift from cases to variables: if you have a broader range of cases it
means that they are not by definition the same with perspect to
everything
- New level of abstraction & terminology: systemic functionalism (Easton’s
blackbox, Deutsch
o Cf. Term political system!  way more abstract term then for example the
term ‘democracy’




Reaction to high (excessive?) level of abstraction

- Narrowing of geographic scope:
o From universal theories back to middle-range theories
- Shift in substantial focus & terminology:
o New institutionalism: states and their (in)formal institutions
 1980’s theories



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