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Unit 2: Comparative Method and Politics

geographically, one should also consider the possibilities of “longitudinal” (cross-historical) Notes
extension by including as many historical cases as possible.
It was the promise of discovering universal laws through global and longitudinal comparisons
that made Edward A. Freeman enthusiastically espouse the comparative method almost a
century ago. In his Comparative Politics, published in 1873, he called the comparative method
“the greatest intellectual achievement” of his time, and stated that it could lead to the formulation
of “analogies . . . between the political institutions of times and countries most remote from one
another.” Comparative politics could thus discover “a world in which times and tongues and
nations which before seemed parted poles asunder, now find each one its own place, its own
relation to every other.” The field of comparative politics has not yet achieved—and may never
achieve—the goals that Freeman set for it with such optimism. But his words can remind us of
the frequent utility of extending comparative analyses both geographically and historically.
(The value of this suggestion is somewhat diminished, of course, because of the serious lack of
information concerning most political systems; for historical cases in particular this problem is
often irremediable.)
2. Reduce the “property-space” of the analysis: If the sample of cases cannot be increased, it may be
possible to combine two or more variables that express an essentially similar underlying
characteristic into a single variable. Thus the number of cells in the matrix representing the
relationship is reduced, and the number of cases in each cell increased correspondingly. Factor
analysis can often be a useful technique to achieve this objective. Such a reduction of what
Lazarsfeld calls the “property-space” increases the possibilities of further cross-tabulation and
control without increasing the sample itself. It may also be advisable in certain instances to
reduce the number of classes into which the variables are divided (for instance, by simplifying
a set of several categories into a dichotomy), and thus to achieve the same objective of increasing
the average number of cases per cell. The latter procedure, however, has the disadvantage of
sacrificing a part of the information at the investigator’s disposal, and should not be used
lightly.
3. Focus the comparative analysis on “comparable” cases: In this context, “comparable” means: similar
in a large number of important characteristics (variables) which one wants to treat as constants,
but dissimilar as far as those variables are concerned which one wants to relate to each other.
If such comparable cases can be found, they offer particularly good opportunities for the
application of the comparative method because they allow the establishment of relationships
among a few variables while many other variables are controlled. As Ralph Braibanti states,
“the movement from hypothesis to theory is contingent upon analysis of the total range of
political systems,” but it is often more practical to accord priority to the focus on a limited
number of comparable cases and the discovery of partial generalizations.
Whereas the first two ways of strengthening the comparative method were mainly concerned
with the problem of “small N,” this third approach focuses on the problem of “many variables.”
While the total number of variables cannot be reduced, by using comparable cases in which
many variables are constant, one can reduce considerably the number of operative variables and
study their relationships under controlled conditions without the problem of running out of
cases. The focus on comparable cases differs from the first recommendation not only in its
preoccupation with the problem of “many variables” rather than with “small N,” but also in
the fact that as a by-product of the search for comparable cases, the number of cases subject to
analysis will usually be decreased. The two recommendations thus point in fundamentally
different directions, although both are compatible with the second (and also the fourth)
recommendation.
This form of the comparative method is what John Stuart Mill described as the “method of
difference” and as the “method of concomitant variations.” The method of difference consists
of “comparing instances in which [a] phenomenon does occur, with instances in other respects
similar in which it does not.” The method of concomitant variations is a more sophisticated
version of the method of difference: instead of observing merely the presence or absence of the
operative variables, it observes and measures the quantitative variations of the operative

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