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Unit 1: Nature and Scope of Comparative Politics

3. Emphasis on the Study of Developing Societies: What has added more to the significance of Notes
the study of comparative politics is the emphasis of more writers on the ‘politics of the
developing areas’. It has occurred as a result of the realisation that the subject of comparative
politics must include all governments along with their infra-structures that “exist in the
contemporary world and, where possible, references to governments throughout time.” The
study of comparative government is no longer a study of the selected European or American
governments; it is as much a study of developed western governments as those of the
developing political systems of the poor and backward countries of the Afro-Asian and Latin
American world.
However, what is of striking importance in this regard is that more and more attention is
being paid to the study of the politics of developing societies both for the reason of making
this a subject of universal study and for building theories and models so that the ‘system of
democracy’ prevailing in these countries could be saved from being subverted by the forces
opposed to it. As Wood says: “One could not help being aware of the fact that there existed
in the recent political experiences of dozens of countries a veritable laboratory in which to test
propositions about the way governmental systems behave under stress and the factors which
bring about changes in political forms. What was more, there were appearing on the scene or
waiting close by in the wings dozens more of the formerly colonial countries of Asia and
Africa, for which political institutions were being carved out with or without concern for the
well-catalogued experiences of their older brethren. Political scientists were worried about the
preservation of democracy as the dominant form of government in the world or simply about
the best way of assuring that the newly emerging fragile systems would have the best
opportunity for stable development. They found ample reason to build theory to help find
answers to the problems immediately at hand, because they found themselves woefully bereft
of a body of theory upon which to draw for adequate leverage over the question of how to
provide new nations with stable democracy.”
4. Focus on Inter-Disciplinary Approach: What has really enriched the field of comparative
politics and, at the same time, made it a ‘complex subject’ is the focus on inter-disciplinary
study. Writers have made more and more use of tools that they have borrowed from the
disciplines of sociology, psychology, economics, anthropology and even from natural sciences
like biology. For instance, systems analysis with its two derivatives in the form of structural-
functional and input-output approches owes its origin to the discipline of biology that has
been borrowed by the leading American political scientists like David Easton from sociologists
like Robert Merton and Talcott Parsons. The result is that comparative politics has come to
have much that makes it look like political sociology and political psychology. A study of new
topics like political development, political modernisation, political socialisation, political
acculturation, political change, political leadership and the like shows that now political
science has become the “application of sociological and psychological analysis to the study of
the behaviour of government and other political structures.” A modern political scientist
interested in the subject of political development “has learned that he cannot treat this topic
without looking for the conditions of social mobilisation; men cannot become citizens in
political sense without changing their values and personality orientations.” A well-known
writer in the field of comparative politics has thus pointed out that classical political theory
“is more a political sociology and psychology and a normative political theory than a theory
of political process. What goes on inside the black box of the political system and its
consequences are inferred from the ways in which the social structure is represented in it.” It
is certainly on account of the adoption of this interdisciplinary approach by the writers on
comparative politics that the subject of political science is said to have “undergone a revolution
of sorts.”
5. Value-Free Political Theory: Finally, the subject of political science has lost its normative
aspect and assumed empirical dimensions in the sphere of comparative politics. The result is
that value-free political theory has replaced value-laden political theory. The concern of the
students of comparative politics is not with the things as they ought to be in their ideal forms;

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