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Comparative Politics and Government

Notes than political institutions and state. They borrowed a number of ideas and concepts from other
social sciences and provided the political studies a new empirical orientation.
Before we proceed further to draw a distinction between comparative government and comparative
politics, it shall be desirable to define comparative politics. According to Freeman “Comparative
politics is comparative analysis of the various forms of government and diverse political
institutions.” Braibante says comparative politics is “identification and interpretation of factors
in the whole social order which appears to affect whatever political functions and their institutions
which have been identified and listed for comparison.”
Distinction between Comparative Government and Comparative Politics: Scholars have tended
to use the terms ‘comparative government’ and ‘comparative politics’ for each other without
realising the difference between the two. For example Prof. S. E. Finer does not consider the two
as different when he argues that “politics is neither the same thing as government nor is it
necessarily connected only with those great territorial associations which have a government and
which are known as ‘State’. For if we use government in the sense of ‘governance’ or the ‘activity
of governing’ we shall find that government exists at three levels (1) by for the vastest area of
human conduct and activity in society proceeds quite unregulated by the public authorities. It
forms a coherent set of patterns and regulates itself. (2) The second chief mode by which society
forms its own patterns and regulates itself is the process of so-called ‘socialisation’ of the individual,
with which is associated the concept of ‘social control’. Most societies in the modern world,
however, are equipped with governments.
However, Edward Freeman is conscious of the fact that these two terms are not identical and
tries to draw a distinction between them.

“By comparative government I mean the comparative study of political institutions
or 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 to keep us from seeing
essential likeness.”

The main differences between ‘comparative politics’ and ‘comparative government’ are as follows:
1. Firstly, while comparative government is concerned with the study of formal political
institutions like legislature, executive, judiciary and bureaucracy alone in comparative politics
the other factors which influence the working of the political institutions are taken into account.
In other words ‘comparative politics’ makes a study of the formal as well as informal political
institutions. This point has been summed up by a scholar thus: “The scope of comparative
politics is wider than that of comparative government despite search for making comparisons
which is central to the study of both. The concern of a student of comparative politics does not
end with the study of rule making, rule implementation and rule adjudicating organs of
various political systems or even with that study of some extra constitutional agencies (like
political and pressure groups) having their immediate connection, visible or invisible with the
departments of state activity. In addition to all this, he goes ahead to deal with...even those
subjects hitherto considered as falling within the range of Economics, Sociology and
Anthropology.”
2. Secondly, comparative government was chiefly confined to the study of the political institutions
of western democratic countries. On the other hand comparative politics concentrates on the
study of political institutions of all the countries of the world. It has laid special emphasis on
the study of political institutions of the states which have emerged in the twentieth century.
3. Thirdly, comparative government involves only descriptive study of the political institutions
and makes only formal study of the political institutions provided by the constitution. On the

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