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Unit 1: Nature and Scope of Comparative Politics

affirmed by Chlicote in these words: “Comparative government usually refers to the study of Notes
institutions and functions of countries or nation-states in Europe with attention to the executives,
legislatures and judiciaries as well as such supplementary organisations as political parties and
pressure groups. Comparative politics, in contrast, studies a broader range of political activity
including the government and their institutions as well as other forms of organisations, not
directly related to national government for example, tribes, communities, associations and unions.”
From the above, it infers that me term ‘comparative politics’ should be preferred to the term
‘comparative government’, as the scope of the former is wider and more comprehensive to
include all the essential characteristics that we have disscussed above. One may, however, agree
with the observation of Blondel that the term ‘comparative government’ has two aspects—
horizontal and vertical—and this term may be identified with ‘comparative politics’ if both the
aspects are taken into account. Vertical comparison is a comparative study of the state vis-a-vis
other associations and groups that have their ‘political character’ and cast their impact upon the
functioning of a political system; horizontal comparison is a comparative study of the state vis-
a-vis other national governments. Blondel may be justified to some extent in saying that
comparative government becomes comparative politics when both the vertical and horizontal
aspects of comparisons are taken into account that lead to this definition: “Comparative
government can thus be defined in a preliminary fashion as the study of patterns of national
governments in the contemporary world.”

What do you mean by Civil Society?

Though one may, or may not, fully agree with the view of Blondel, it may, nevertheless, be added
that it is always safer to use the title ‘comparative politics’ in preference to ‘comparative
government’. Perhaps, it is for this reason that Edward Freeman makes an attempt to bring out
a distinction between the two in these words: “By comparative government I mean the comparative
study of political “institutions, of forms of government. And under the name of comparative
politics, I wish to point out and bring together many analogies which are to be seen between the
political institutions of times and countries most remote from one another... We are concerned
with the essential likeness of institutions and we must never allow incidental traits of unlikeness
to keep us from seeing essential likeness.” It may, however, be added with a word of caution that
comparative politics, though concerned with significant regularities, similarities and differences
in the sphere of political institutions and human behaviours, the work of comparison should
neither be done half-heartedly to ignore much that is really useful, nor should it be taken to the
extremes of over-simplification making the whole study vulgar and implausible. We should be
guided by the counsel of Roberts that any lesser conception of comparative politics “tends to lack
either clear identity or criteria of selection and exclusion.” We should also pay heed to the
warning of Eckstein and Apter that “too broad a conception of comparative politics would widen
it to encompass political science.”
Case of Developed and Developing Countries
Distinguished writers on the subject of comparative politics like Herman Finer, C.F. Strong, FA.
Ogg, Harold Zink, W.B. Munro etc. had confined their attention to the study of the developed or
industrialised countries of the West that came to be known as the ‘first world’. It is a different
matter that they included in their study the political system of the Soviet Union in view of some
of its peculiar features though they made derogatory reflections by regarding a communist
system as a piece of the ‘second world’. The trend saw a remarkable change after the second
World War when a number of new states emerged in the regions of Asia, Africa and Latin
America that came to be known as the ‘third world’. To a student of comparative government
and politics, the ‘third world’ has appeared as a vast area of investigation and empirical research.

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