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Unit 2: Comparative Method and Politics

As applied to the field of comparative politics, the comparative method has three essential Notes
characteristics:
1. Definition of Conceptual Units: The units which we compare in the field of comparative
politics are conceptual units in the sense that they are the objects of the definitions to which the
real phenomena we are comparing, more or less conform. The business of a student of
comparative politics does not end with the making of similarities and differences between two
governmental systems; he has to deal with the macro units, i.e., the entire political systems
which perform functions for large and complex societies. It is needed that, apart from looking
at the three formal structures of a political organisation like legislature, executive and judiciary,
he should also study the role of legislators, behaviour of the voters, operational form of the
political parties and pressure groups etc. In other words, a student of comparative politics is
concerned with the ‘units of lesser scope’ that constitute the infrastructure of a political system.
It is a different thing that, while making a definition of the political system, he may take some
and ignore other aspects as per his area of concern. As such in the field of comparative politics,
one should feel concerned with the conceptual units and proceed ahead in the direction of
making comparisons on the basis of definitions that he has made. Thus, a writer on comparative
politics studies the ‘units of lesser scope’ as elements within the context of a national political
system’ and that he “is interested in them only in so far as they help him to characterise the
system as a whole.”
2. Classifications: Taxonomy occupies a very important place in the field of comparative
government and politics on account of this fact that it facilitates the making of broad general
judgements as to the characteristics of a very-complex phenomenon. The work of theory-
building and testing conclusions becomes easier when a student of comparative politics draws
tables and charts to categorise different political systems on the basis of division of powers
(between federal and unitary systems), or relationship between the executive and legislative
departments (between parliamentary and presidential systems), or liberties of the people
(between democratic and totalitarian systems), etc. What is especially noticeable at this stage is
that a student of comparative government and politics widens his scope of study so as to make
typological illustrations on the basis of the ‘units of lesser scope’ that helps him in presenting
a better and more plausible explanation of the varieties of political phenomena. Realising that
the problem of presenting a classification of modern political systems is to establish categories
that ‘are neither so numerous as to make comparisons impossible, nor so few as to make
contrasts impossible.” Finer, in his own way, says: “What differentiate one system of government
from another are: (a) how far the mass of the public are involved in or excluded from this
governing process – this is the participation-exclusion dimension; (b) how far the mass of the
public obey their rules out of commitment or how far out of fear – what may be called the
coercion-persuasion dimension; and (c) how far the arrangements are designed to cause the
rulers to reflect the actual and current values of the mass of the public or how far they may
disregard these for the sake of continuity and future values – what may be called the order -
representativeness dimension.”
3. Hypothesis Formulation and Testing: The work of making comparisons should be done in a
way that hypotheses are formulated and then tested so that the requirement of verifiability and
applicability is fulfilled. By taking political system as the basic unit of his study, a student of
comparative politics is necessarily concerned with the question as to how political systems
operate. What determines the degree of support which the system will receive and extract from
the populace, whether in the form of voting, tax paying or personal service in times of crisis?
What determines the degree of institutional stability within the system? What determines the
capacity of the system to produce effective leadership to meet the needs of all times? An
answer to such important questions has to be sought and offered by a serious student of this
subject in a way that the general theory and tested generalisations are brought together into a
‘self-contained, internally consistent, but empirically sound body of knowledge.’

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