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Comparative Politics and Government

Notes and analyzed. In this respect, anthropology can be said to provide “almost a laboratory for the
quasi–experimental approach to social phenomena.” Political science lacks this advantage, but
can approximate it by focusing attention on the key variables in comparative studies.
A final comment is in order about the relationship of comparative politics as a substantive field
and comparison as a method. The two are clearly not coterminous. In comparative politics,
other methods can often also be employed, and the comparative method is also applicable in
other fields and disciplines. A particularly in-structive example is James N. Rosenau’s study of
the relative influence of individual variables (personal policy beliefs and “personalizing
tendencies”) and role variables (party role and committee role) on the behavior of United
States senators during two similar periods: the “Acheson era,” 1949–1952, and the “Dulles
era,” 1953–1956. Rosenau argues that these two eras were characterized by a generally similar
international environment and that the two secretaries of state conducted similar foreign policies
and also resembled each other in personal qualities. He terms the method that he uses in his
analysis the method of “quantitative historical comparison.” One of its basic characteristics is
the testing of hypotheses by comparing two eras (cases) that are “essentially comparable . . . in
all respects except for the . . . variables being examined.” The method is called “quantitative”
because the variables are operationally defined in quantitative terms, and “historical” because
the two cases compared are historical eras. The method is, therefore, a special form of the
comparative method. It illustrates one of very many ways in which an imaginative investigator
can devise fruitful applications of the comparative method.
The Comparative Method and the Case Study Method
The discussion of the comparative method is not complete without a consideration of the case
study method. The statistical method can be applied to many cases, the comparative method to
relatively few (but at least two) cases, and the case study method to one case. But the case study
method can and should be closely connected with the comparative method (and sometimes also
with the statistical method); certain types of case studies can even be considered implicit parts of
the comparative method.
The great advantage of the case study is that by focusing on a single case, that case can be
intensively examined even when the research resources at the investigator’s disposal are relatively
limited. The scientific status of the case study method is somewhat ambiguous, however, because
science is a generalizing activity. A single case can constitute neither the basis for a valid
generalization nor the ground for disproving an established generalization.
Indirectly, however, case studies can make an important contribution to the establishment of
general propositions and thus to theory-building in political science. Six types of case studies may
be distinguished. These are ideal types, and any particular study of a single case may fit more than
one of the following categories:
1. Atheoretical case studies;
2. Interpretative case studies;
3. Hypothesis-generating case studies;
4. Theory-confirming case studies;
5. Theory-infirming case studies;
6. Deviant case studies.
Cases may be selected for analysis because of an interest in the case per se or because of an interest
in theory-building. The first two types of cases belong to the former category. Atheoretical case
studies are the traditional single-country or single-case analyses. They are entirely descriptive and
move in a theoretical vacuum: they are neither guided by established or hypothesized
generalizations nor motivated by a desire to formulate general hypotheses. Therefore, the direct
theoretical value of these case studies is nil, but this does not mean that they are altogether useless.
As LaPalombara emphasizes, the development of comparative politics is hampered by an appalling
lack of information about almost all of the world’s political systems. Purely descriptive case
studies do have great utility as basic data-gathering operations, and can thus contribute indirectly

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