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Comparative Politics and Government
Notes
8 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY
it is with what they are. There is hardly any place for the rules of history or ethics in the
subject of comparative politics as the entire field has been covered by the rules of sociology,
psychology and economics. There is thus hardly any place for a man like Leo Strauss in the
field of comparative politics who, while sticking to the traditions of Plato and Aristotle,
contends that political theory cannot eschew ‘values’ and thus a value-free political science is
impossible. It should, however, be made clear that the use of the term ‘values’ by Easton
(when he defines politics as ‘the authoritative allocation of values’) or of ‘value system’ by
Almond (when he identifies it with a system of ideas and beliefs) has an empirical, and not a
normative, connotation. We may say that the term value is used by the writers on comparative
politics in the sense of a ‘price’ or ‘worth’ that a thing gets after it is recognised by the policy-
makers. There is no value in a thing unless it is allocated by those who are in authority.
Political science, thus, becomes inter alia a study of the distribution by persons in authority of
things which are valued, or the attribution by such persons of value to things, or the deciding
by such persons of disputes relating to things which are valued.
In fact, the study of comparative politics in its latest form includes significant contributions of
those recent writers who have broadened the scope of this subject by taking into their areas of
study more and more countries of the world, particularly of the Afro-Asian and ‘Latin-
American regions better known as the’ world of developing areas’. These writers, in a way,
have paid their sincere heed to the counsel of Lord James Bryce who once said that ‘the time
seems to have arrived when the ‘actualities’ of government in its various forms should be
investigated.” The eminent writers on comparative politics have not only endorsed but also
improved upon the observation of James T. Shotwell that as “we pass from France to Italy,
Switzerland, Germany and USSR, there is no common thread, no criterion of why these
particular countries were selected and no examination of the factors that account for similarities
and diversities.”
Most of the states of the world are engaged in activities of their development in social,
economic and political spheres. Non-state institutions are also playing their role in this regard
that naturally strengthens the case of a civil society in ‘non-western’ countries. The result is
growing interaction between state and non-state actors that provides a kind of interesting
material to the study of comparative politics in present times, particularly after the
disintegration of the socialist world what Fukuyama calls the ‘end of history’. Thus, the study
of comparative politics has become widespread and highly diversified. Apter prefers to
rechristen it as ‘new comparative politics’. It has its emphasis on growth and development
and thus involves within itself the trends of decolonisation and democratisation having their
manifestation particularly in the ‘undeveloped’ or ‘under-developed’ parts of the world. Politics
“is no longer Euro-centred; it is more concerned with how to build democracy in countries in
which it is not indigenous.” Apter calls it ‘neo-institutionalism’ that “combines older
institutionalist concerns with developmentalism.”
“Politics is the struggle for power in any organisation, and comparative politics
is the study of this struggle around the world.”
Civil Society” is meant” a society in which people are involved in social and political interactions
free of state control or regulation. . . . . participation in associational or institutional groups
socialises individuals into the types of political skills and cooperative relations that are a part
of well functioning society. People learn how to organise, how express their interests, and
how to work with others to achieve common goals. They also learn the important lessons that
the political process itself is as important as the immediate results. Thus, a system of active
associational groups can lessen the development of anomie or non-associational activity.