political science book summary part 1, Appunti di Storia Politica

Scarica political science book summary part 1 e più Appunti in PDF di Storia Politica solo su Docsity! CHAPTER 1: KEY CONCEPTS KEY CONCEPTS: AN OVERVIEW GOVERNMENT AND GOVERNANCE POLITICS POWER THE STATE, AUTHORITY, AND LEGITIMACY IDEOLOGY COMPARATIVE POLITICS CLASSIFYING POLITICAL SYSTEMS DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: • WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT? • WHAT IS POLITICS? WHERE DOES IT BEGIN AND END? • WHO HAS POWER, WHO DOES NOT, AND HOW DO WE KNOW? • DOES IT NECESSARILY FOLLOW THAT TO BE A DEMOCRACY IS TO BE LEGITIMATE, AND TO BE LEGITIMATE IS TO BE A DEMOCRACY? • ARE THE IDEOLOGICAL DISTINCTIONS IN MODERN POLITICAL SYSTEM AS IMPORTANT AND AS CLEAR AS THEY ONCE WERE? • WHAT ARE THE STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF THE DEMOCRACY INDEX AND FREEDOM IN THE WORLD SCHEMES AS MEANS OF CLASSIFYING POLITICAL SYSTEMS? KEY CONCEPTS: authority – comparative politics – concept – conception – governance - government – gross national income – ideology – legitimacy – political economy – political system – politics – power – social science – Three Worlds system – typology. DEFINITIONS: Concept: a term, idea, or category. Conception: the manner in which something is understood or interpreted. Social science: the study of human society and of the structured interactions among people within society. Distinct from the natural sciences, such as physics and biology. Government: the institutions and offices through which societies are governed. Also used to describe the group of people who govern, a specific administration, the form of the system of rule, and the nature and direction of the administration of a community. Political system: the interactions and organizations (including but not restricted to government) through which a society reaches and successfully enforces collective decisions, interchangeably used with the term regime, but latter tends to have negative connotations. Governance: the process by which decisions, laws, and policies are made, with or without the input of formal institutions. Politics: the process by which people negotiate and compete in the process of making and executing shared or collective decisions. Power: the capacity to bring about intended effects. The term is often used as a synonym for influence, but is also used more narrowly to refer to more forceful modes of influence: notably, getting one’s way by threats. Authority: the right to rule. Authority creates its own power, so long as people accept that the person in authority has the right to make decisions. Legitimacy: the state or quality of being legitimate. A legitimate system of government is one based on authority, and those subjects to its rule recognize its rights to make decisions. Ideology: a system of connected beliefs, a shared view of the world, or a blueprint for how politics, economics and society should be structured. Comparative politics: the systematic study of governments and politics in different countries, designed to better understand them by drawing out their contrasts and similarities. Typology: a system of classification by which states, institutions, processes, political cultures, and so on are divided into groups or types with common sets of attributes. Three World system: a political typology that divided the world along ideological lines, with states labelled according to the side they took in the Cold War. Political economy: the relationship between political activity and economic performance. General national income: the total domestic and foreign output by residents of a country in a given year. INTRODUCTION: Most of the political terms which concern us are embedded in ordinary language; government, politics, power and authority are all familiar terms. But this does not mean that they are easily defined, or that political scientists are agreed on how best to understand or apply them. Key arguments: • The academic study of politics requires few technical terms, but it is useful to identify both a one- sentence definition (concepts) and any issues surrounding the term (conceptions). • The concept of governance is increasingly used in political writing, emphasizing the activity rather than the institutions of governing, offering a distinct focus that builds on, rather than supplanting, the more familiar notion of government. • A precise notion of politics is difficult, because the term has multiple nuances. But it is clearly a collective activity, leading to decisions affecting an entire group. • Power is central to politics. But here, again, conceptions are important. If we see persuasion and manipulation as forms of power, the range of the political expands considerably. • Ideology has lost its original meaning as the science of ideas, but it remains useful as a way of packaging different views about the role of government and the goals of public policy. • Typologies are important as a means of imposing order in the variety of the world’s political system, and helping us develop explanation rules. Unfortunately, no typology has yet won general support. 1.1 KEY CONCEPT: AN OVERVIEW In working to understand political terms, we can distinguish between concepts and conceptions. A concept is an idea, term or category such as democracy or power, that is best approached with a definition restricted to its inherent characteristics. A good definition of democracy as a concept, in this narrow but important sense, should be clear and concise. For its part, a conception builds on a concept by describing the understandings, perspectives or interpretations of a concept. We might, for instance, conceive of democracy as self-government or as majority rule. Conceptions build on definitions by moving to a fuller discussion and consideration of alternative positions. The terms governments and politics are routinely used interchangeably, but are not necessarily applied correctly, and terms such as power come in several different forms. We also need to be clear about the definition of the state, and how it relates to authority, legitimacy, and ideology. What all these concepts have in common is that the precise definition of their meanings is routinely contested. Comparison is at the heart of research in the social sciences. In order to better understand human behavior, we need to examine different cases, examples, and situations in order to draw general conclusions about what drives people to act the way they do. We can study governments of its own. In the case of advertising who is to say that the desire for material goods is a false need? In any case, does not the third face of power take us too far from the explicit debates and decisions which are the heart of politics? 1.5 THE STATE, AUTHORITY, AND LEGITIMACY The world is divided into nearly 200 states, each containing a population living within a defined territory, and enjoying recognition by its residents and by other states of its right to rule that territory. The state provides the legal or formal mandate for the work of governments, allowing them to utilize the authority inherent in the state. The state is also intimately related to two concepts that lie at the heart of our understanding of government and politics: authority and legitimacy. Authority is a broader concept than power and in some ways more fundamental to comparative politics. Where power is the capacity to act, authority is the acknowledged right to do so. It exists when subordinates accept the capacity of superiors to give legitimate orders, so that while an army general may exercise power over enemy soldiers, his authority is restricted to his own forces. Max Weber suggested that, in a relationship of authority; the ruled implement the commands as if they had adopted it spontaneously, for its own sake. Authority is a more efficient form of control than brute power. Weber distinguished three ways of validating political power: by tradition (the accepted way of doing things), by charisma (intense commitment to the leader and his message) and by appeal to legal-rational norms (based on the rule-governed powers of an office, rather than a person). Legitimacy builds on, but is broader than, authority. The word legitimacy comes from the Latin ‘legitimare’, meaning ‘to declare lawful’, legitimacy is much more than mere legality. Where legality is a technical matter, referring to whether a rule was made correctly by following regular procedures, legitimacy is a more political concept. It refers to whether people accept the authority of the political system, without this acceptance, the very existence of a state is in question. 1.6 IDEOLOGY Political action is motivated by the ideas people hold about it. One way to approach the role of ideas is via the notion of ideology, a term which was coined by the French philosopher Antoine Destutt de Tracy (1790s) to describe the science of ideas. An ideology is today understood as any system of thought expressing a view on: human nature – the proper organization of, and relationship between, state and society – the individual’s position within this prescribed order. The era of explicit ideology ended in the twentieth century with the defeat of fascism in 1945 and the collapse of communism at the end of the 1980s. To describe any perspective, position, or priority as an ideology is to extend the term in a manner that bears little relation to its original interpretation as a coherent, secular system of ideas. Even though the age of ideology may have passed, we still tend to talk about ideologies, placing them on a spectrum between left and right. Although the terms left and right have travelled well throughout the democratic world, enabling us to compare parties and programs across countries and time, the specific issues over which these tendencies compete have varied, and the terms are better seen as labels for containers of ideas, rather than as well-defined ideas in themselves. 1.7 COMPARATIVE POLITICS The core goal of comparative politics is to understand how political institutions and processes operate by examining their workings across a range of countries. Comparison has many purposes, but two of them are worth elaboration: broadening our understanding of the political world, and predicting political outcomes. 1.7.1 Broadening understanding Through comparison we can pin down the key features of political institutions, processes and action, and better appreciate the dynamics and character of political systems. How could we otherwise know is the object of our study was unusual or usual, efficient or inefficient, the best option available or significantly lacking in some way? When we talk of understanding it is not only the need to comprehend other political systems, but also to understand our own. We can follow domestic politics closely and think we have a good grasp on how it works, but we cannot fully understand it without comparing it with other systems. Comparison also has the practical benefit of allowing us to learn about places with which we are unfamiliar. Understanding politics in other system not only helps us interpret the news, but also helps with practical political relationships. This assumption reflects ignorance of the consensual political style found in many European democracies. 1.7.2 Predicting political outcomes Comparison permits generalizations which have some potential for prediction. Hence a careful study of, say, campaigning and public opinion will help us better understand the possible outcome of elections. If the explanation of a phenomenon is sound, and all the relevant factors have been reviewed and considered, then it follows that our explanations should allow us to predict with at least a high degree of accuracy, if not with absolute certainty. In politics, predicting is an art rather than a science, and a fallible one at that. Even so, the potential for prediction provides a starting point for drawing lessons across countries. Rather than resorting to ideology or complete guesswork, we can use comparison to consider “what would happen if...?” questions. There are some who argue that political science generally has done a poor job of helping us predict, while others argue that is should not – or cannot – be in the business of predicting to begin with. To be fair, however, comparative politics is still very much a discipline in the process of development. 1.8 CLASSIFYING POLITICAL SYSTEMS Although the many states of the world have systems of government with many core elements in common – an executive, a legislature, courts, a constitution, parties, and interest groups – the manner in which these elements work and relate to one another is often different. The results are also different (democratic, authoritarian), to complicate matters these systems of governance and their related policies and priorities are moving targets: they evolve and change, and often at a rapid pace. A typology is a system of classification that divides states into groups or clusters with common features. The ideal typology is one that is simple, neat, consistent, logical, and as real and useful to the casual observer as it is to journalists, political leaders, or political scientists. Such an ideal has proved hard to achieve, the result is that there is no universally agreed system of political classification. The first such system devised – and one of the earliest examples of comparative politics at work – was Aristotle’s classification of the 158 city-states of ancient Greece. These communities were small settlements showing much variety in their forms of rule, such diversity provided an ideal laboratory for Aristotle to consider which type of political system what he looked for in a government: stability and effectiveness. He based his scheme on two dimensions: the first was the number of people involved in the task of governing, this dimension captured the breadth of participation in a political system; the second dimension, more difficult to apply was whether rulers governed in the common interest (the genuine form) or in their own interest (the perverted form). The significance of this second aspect was that a political system would be more stable and effective when its rulers governed in the long-term interests of the community. A more recent example that was current through much of the Cold War (late 1940s – early 1990s) was the Three Worlds system. It was less a formal classificatory template developed by political scientists than a response to geopolitical realities, dividing the world into three groups of countries based on ideological goals and political alliances: • First World: wealthy, democratic industrialized states, most of which were partners in the Western alliance against communism. • Second World: communist system, including most of those states ranged against the Western alliance. • Third World: poorer, less democratic, and less developed states, some of which took sides in the Cold War, but some of which did not. The system was simple and evocative, providing neat labels that could be slipped with ease into media headlines and everyday conversations: even today the term Third World conjures up powerful images on poverty, underdevelopment, corruption, and political instability. The end of the Cold War meant the end of this particular typology. The relationship between politics and economics in particular is so intimate that there is an entire field of study – political economy – devoted to its examination. This involves looking not just at the structure and wealth of economies, but also at the influences on economic performance: goof government is more likely to produce a successful economy, and bad government less so. The core measure is economic output. There are various ways of measuring this, the most popular today being gross national income (GNI). This is the sum of the value of the domestic and foreign economic output of the residents of a country in a given year, and is usually converted to US dollars to allow comparison. Although the accuracy of the data varies by country, and the conversion to dollars raises additional questions about the appropriate exchange rate, such measures are routinely used by governments and international organizations in measuring economic size. For a more revealing comparison, we use per capita GNI, which gives us a better idea of the relative economic development of different states. We must not forget the importance of gauging the performance of political system by looking at their relative performance in terms of providing their citizens with a good quality of life, as measured by the provision of basic needs. They would include adequate nutrition, education, and health care, and in this regard the most often-used comparative measure of social conditions is offered through the Human Development Index maintained by the UN Development Program. Using a combination of life expectancy, adult literacy, educational enrolment, and per capita GNI, it rates human development for most of the states in the world as either very high, high, medium, or low. that all modern states are larger and more stable than every traditional political system. The development of the modern state can be compared to the invention of the alphabet. It only happened once but once it had occurred it changed nature of human existence for ever. This modern idea of the state emerged in Europe between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, with the use of the word state as a political term coming into common use towards the end of this period. The number of states grew slowly: there were only 19 in 1800, and barely 30 more had been established by 1900. At a global level, the real expansion of the state system began after the Second World War, as decolonization saw end of European empires. States today have a quite different and more complex relationship, their interactions inevitably influence domestic political and economic calculations, questions about their true independence are raised with increased frequency and we now see a debate under way about their future: are states becoming weaker, are they as strong as they ever were, or are they simply transforming in the wake of new demands and pressures? Whatever the answer, the state remains the basis for understanding government and politics all over the world. There are sub-national units of government, to be sure, and some see the growth of governance at the global level, but almost everyone is a citizen of one state or another, and when we think of government we also think of states. 2.2 WHAT IS A STATE? The usual benchmark for understanding the state is the classic definition offered by the German sociologist Max Weber, who described it as a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory. But there is more to the state than physical force, and it needs to be understood more practically in its modern context, where it is best defined as a legal and political entity with population, legitimacy, territory, and sovereignty. But there are numerous parcels of territory around the world that lack one or more of these qualities, and thus cannot be considered states for the purposes of analysis. How does a state differ from a government? In essence, the state defines the political community of which government is the managing agent. By successfully claiming a monopoly of authorized force, the state creates a mandate for rule which the government then puts into effect. Much of the theoretical justification for that state is provided by the idea of sovereignty, as developed by the sixteenth-century French philosopher Jean Bodin, sovereignty refers to the unfettered and undivided power to make laws. In a similar vein, the eighteenth-century English jurist William Blackstone argued that there us and must be in every state a supreme, irresistible, absolute, and controlled authority, in which the right of sovereignty resides. The word sovereign originally leant one seated above, by definition that body is the state. Sovereignty originally developed in Europe to justify the attempt by monarchs to consolidate control over kingdoms in which authority had previously been shared with the feudal aristocracy and the Catholic Church. Inherent to the notion of state is the idea of the citizen. Just as the development of the state overrode the power of the aristocracy and the Church, so the concept of citizen implies full and equal membership of the political community defined by the state. The title of citizen was adopted by the French revolutionaries of 1789 to pronounce the symbolic reality of equality; the titles of aristocratic distinction were expunged. To be a citizen is to possess both rights and duties. 2.3 EMERGENCE OF THE STATE SYSTEM The birth of the modern state is often tied to a single event: the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. This brought an end to both the Thirty Years War in the Holy Roman Empire, and the Eighty Years War between Spain and the Dutch Republic. It made several adjustments to European state borders, gave new definition to the idea of sovereignty, and helped make national secular authority superior to religious edicts from Rome, giving rise to what is often known as the Westphalian system. The French philosopher Jean Bodin argued that, within a society, a single sovereign authority should be responsible for five major functions: legislation, war and peace, public appointments, judicial appeals, and the currency. But the sovereign still needed to be subject to limits and controls, and here the English philosopher John Locke played a vital role. Citizens possess natural rights to life, liberty and property and that these rights must be protected by rulers governing through law. Citizens agree to obey the laws of the land, even if only by tacit means such as accepting the protection which law provides. These ideas of sovereignty and consent were reflected, in contrasting ways, in the two most momentous affirmations of modernity: the American and French revolutions. In America, the colonists established their independence from Britain and went on to fashion a new republic. The declaration of independence 1776 boldly declared that governments derive their just authority from the consent of the governed, while the US constitution 1787 begins, We, the people of the United States. The French revolutionaries regarded a centralized, unitary state as the sovereign expression of a national community populated by citizens with equal rights, they favored universal suffrage and a government empowered to make decisions for the good of society as a whole. 2.4 THE EXPANSION OF STATES During the nineteenth century, the outlines of the state became more precise, especially in Europe. Borders slowly turned into barriers as maps marked out defined frontiers. Lawyers established that a country’s territory should extend into the sea as far as the reach of a cannonball and, later, above its land to the flying height of a hot-air balloon. Reflecting this new concern with boundaries, passports were introduced in Europe during the First World War. To travel across frontiers became a rite of passage, involving official permission expressed in an official stamp. Economically too, the second half of the nineteenth century saw the end of an era of relatively liberal trade. Stimulated by economic depressions, many European states introduced protectionist trade policies. internally, the functions performed by the state expanded to include education, doctors’ regulation, policing, and gathering statistics. For most of the twentieth century, western states bore deeper into their societies. The first and second world wars were examples of total war, fought between entire countries, rather than just between specialised armed forces. To equip massive forces with necessary tanks, planes and bombs demanded unparalleled mobilisation of citizens, economies and societies. The twentieth century was an era of the state because it was also an age of war. Peace in 1945 did not initially lead to a corresponding reduction in the role of the state. rather, western governments sought to apply their enhanced administrative skills to domestic needs. Throughout western Europe, the warfare state gave way to the welfare state, with rulers accepting direct responsibility for protecting their citizens from the scourges of illness, unemployment and old age. In this way, the European state led a post-war settlement - tired the Keynesian welfare state - which integrated full employment and public welfare with an economy in which the private sector continued to play a substantial part. Although the term post-colonial s usually confined to countries achieving independence in the aftermath of the second world war, settler societies such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the united states provide early examples of states formed from colonies. As a result, the political organisation of these countries remains strong and recognisably western. By contrast, non-settler colonies emerged into statehood in four waves spread over two centuries. The first wave occurred early in the nineteenth century, in the Spanish and Portuguese territories of Latin America. New constitutions were produced but they were neither democratic nor fully implemented. The second wave of state expansion emerged in Europe and the middle east around the end of the first world war with the final collapse of the Austro- Hungarian, Russian, and ottoman empires. The first of these dissolved into five separate states: Austria, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. With the exception of Turkey founded on the ruins of the ottoman empire, strong and stable states again failed to develop. The third and largest wave of state creation took place after 1945, with the retreat from empire by European states diminished by war. Asian countries were the first to achieve independence, but many other colonies in Africa and the Middle East followed suit. The fourth and final wave of state formation occurred in the final decade of the twentieth century, triggered by the collapse of communism. The dissolution of the communist block previously dominated by the Soviet Union led to independence for more and a dozen soviet satellites in eastern Europe. In addition, the Soviet Union itself - in effect, a Russian empire - dissolved into 15 successor states. The Baltic states gained economic and political stability from their proximity to, and now, membership of, the European Union. However, central Asian republics such as Uzbekistan revealed a mooed typical post- colonial syndrome: small size, ethnic division, a pre-industrial economy, and autocratic rule. In the successor states of the Soviet Union, these problems are again reinforced by the absence of pre-colonial experience as an independent state. 2.5 THE DIVERSITY OF STATES A review of the distribution of states by population, political authority, and income provides insights into divergent political realities. In particular, it confirms that the strong form of the European state is impossible to replicate in a significant number of small, dependent post-colonial states. 2.5.1 POPULATION At one end of the distribution, china’s population of 1.35 billion is greater than that of the 160 smallest countries in the world combined. At the other end, the population of most countries in the world is fewer than, 10 million, with one in five falling below one million. The smallest states - micro states - are mainly islands in the Caribbean, the pacific or off the African coast, along with five European states, including Vatican City. mostly, they possess limited capacity to shape their own destiny, and must seek protection from larger patrons. 2.5.2 POLITICAL AUTHORITY The challenge of defining a state is exemplified by the existence of several territories that fall short of all the required qualities. Some of these are what Jackson calls quasi-states, which he defines as states that won independence from a former colonial power but have since lost control over much of their territory. Somalia is a prime example. Other difficult cases are represented by what Pegg calls de facto sates, meaning that they control territory and provide governance, but are mainly unrecognised by the international community, key examples include ABKHAZIA, NAGORNO-KARABAKH, TRANSNISTRIA, SOMALILAND, AND THE TURKISH REPUBLIC OF NORTHERN CYPRUS. 2.5.3 INCOME The era in which states could be classified as rich or poor, developed or developing, has passed. Although economic inequalities between countries remain immense, a more nuances picture is now required, especially to capture the growth of emerging economies. The World Bank offered a useful classification, dividing states into four income groups. Introduced in 1988, this scheme sought to provide an economic indicator linked to measures of well-being such as poverty and infant mortality. The high- income category is still led by the developed economies of Europe, north America, Australasia, and parts of Asia. It is these countries which form the organisation for economic cooperation and development (OECD). I the upper-middle income category we find most of the fast-growing new economies; the economic dynamism and large population of the of these states has already sparked some rebalancing of world power way from the developed west. The category includes two of the BRIC countries. Lower-middle income countries are fund mainly in Africa and Asia. Although the have seen development, their levels of affluence and their global political weight remain limited compared to the upper-middle category. India has long been something of a puzzle: its economy is one ought the world’s largest, but it has suffered for many years from unmet potential, and the benefits of its economic development have not reached down to the poorest of its citizens. Sometimes down a the “fourth world”, the low-income countries consist mainly of African states, together with some Asian countries, such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Burma. In 2015, the number of countries in this group (34) was greater than the number belonging to the OECD. With average income of less than $2,000 per year, life for the vast majority of people in low-income countries remains challenging indeed. In studying international politics, it is possible to focus in the absolute size of an economy, or, alternatively, on national income per head. In comparative politics, though, we must recognise the domestic political impact of sharp inequality and mass poverty. CHAPTER 3: DEMOCRATIC RULE DEMOCRATIC RULE: AN OVERVIEW DIRECT DEMOCRACY REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY LIBERAL DEMOCRACY DEMOCRACY AND MODERNIZATION WAVES OF DEMOCRACY DEMOCRATIZATION DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: • IS DEMOCRACY – IN PRACTICE – TRULY GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE, OR HAVE OTHER VOICES COME TO BE HEARD MORE LOUDLY? • DOES THE INTERNET ALLOW THE RECREATION OF ATHENIAN-STYLE DIRECT DEMOCRACY IN TODAY’S STATES? • DO YOU AGREE WITH SCHUMPETER’S DOUBTS ABOUT THE POLITICAL CAPACITY OF ORDINARY VOTERS? DOES YOUR ANSWER AFFECT YOUR JUDGEMENT OF DEMOCRACY’S VALUE? • WHAT CONDITIONS ARE NEEDED IN ORDER FOR DEMOCRACY TO FLOURISH? • HOW CLOSE ARE WE TO THE END OF HISTORY? • WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE EVIDENCE THAT DEMOCRACY CAN RARELY BE SPREAD BY FORCE? KEY CONCEPTS: Checks and balances – civil liberties – democracy – democratization – direct democracy – echo chamber – e-democracy – end of history – liberal democracy – liberalism – limited government – modern – modernization – representative democracy – structural violence – waves of democratization. DEFINITIONS: Democracy: a political system in which government is based on a fair and open mandate from all qualified citizens of a state. Democratization: the process by which sates build the institutions and processes needed to become stable democracies. Direct democracy: a system of government in which all members of the community take part in making the decisions that affect that community. Echo chamber: the phenomenon by which ideas circulate inside a closed system, and users seek out only those sources of information that confirm or amplify their values. E-democracy: a form of democratic expression through which all those with interest in a problem or an issue can express themselves via the internet or social media. Representative democracy: a system of government in which members of a community elect people to represent their interests and to make decisions affecting the community. Liberal democracy: a form of indirect democracy in which the scope of democracy is limited by constitutional protection of individual rights. Limited government: placing limits on the powers and reach of government so as to entrench the rights of citizens. Liberalism: a belief in the supreme value of the individual, who is seen to have natural rights that exist independently of government, and who must therefore be protected from too much government. Civil liberties: the rights that citizens have relative to government, and that should not be restricted by government. Structural violence: a term use to describe the social economic and politic oppression built into many societies. Checks and balances: an arrangement in which government institutions are given powers that counter- balance one another, obliging them to work together in order to govern and make decisions. Modern: a term used to characterize a state with an industrial or post-industrial economy, affluence, specialized occupations, social mobility, and an urban and educated population. Modernization: the process of acquiring the attributes of a modern society, or one reflecting contemporary ideas, institutions, and norms. Waves of democratization: a group of transitions from non-democratic to democratic regimes that occurs within a specifies period of time and that significantly outnumbers transitions in the opposite direction during that period. End of history: the idea that a political, economic or social system has developed to such an extent that it represents the culmination of the evolutionary process. INTRODUCTION: Democracy is both one of the easiest and one of the most difficult of concepts to understand. It is easy because democracies are abundant and familiar, democracy is also one of the most closely studied of all political concepts, the ease of that study made stronger by the openness of democracies and the availability of information regarding how they work. But our understanding of democracy is made more difficult by the extent to which he concept is misunderstood and issued, by the numerous and highly nuanced interpretations of what democracy means in practice, and b the many claim that are made go democracy that do not stand up to close examination. Key arguments: • About half the people in the world today live under democratic rule, even though there is still no universally agreed definition of democracy. Democracy is an ideal, not just a system of government. • Studying Athenian direct democracy offers a standard of self-rule against which today’s representative (indirect) democracies are often judged. • Representative democracy limits the people to electing a government, while liberal democracy goes a stage further by placing limits on government and protecting the rights of citizens. • The impact of modernization (notably, economic development) on democracy raises the question of whether liberal democracy is sensible short-term goal for low-income countries lacking democratic requisites. • Democracies emerged in three main waves that resulted in most people in the world living under democratic government, but democracies continue to face many problems, not least of which is a worrying decline in levels of trust in government. • A more recent approach to democracy, stimulated by recent transitions from authoritarian rule, is to study how the old order collapses and the transition takes place. 3.1 DEMOCRATIC RULE: AN OVERVIEW About half the people in the world today live under democratic rule. This hopeful development reflect the dramatic changed that have taken place in the world’s political landscape since the final quarter of the twentieth century. This is ironic, given that there is no fixed and agreed definition of democracy. At a minimum, it requires representative government, are elections, freedom of speech, the protection of individual rights and government by the people. But he precise meaning of this phenomena remains open to debate, and any democracies continue to witness elitism, limits on representation, barriers to equality, and the impingement of the rights of individuals and groups upon one another. The confusion is reflected in the lack of agreement on how many democracies there are in the world. But some states have stronger class to being democratic than others, and in practical terms we find democracy is its clearest and most stable form in barely three dozen states in North America, Europe, East Asia, and Australia. But there are many other states that are undergoing a process of democratization, there political institutions are processes are developing greater stability, where individual rights are built on firmer found tons, and where the voice of the people is heard more clearly. The core principle of democracy is self-rule; the word itself comes from the Greek demokratia, meaning rule by the people. In trying to understand democracy we should avoid the comforting assumption that it is self-evidently the best system of rule. It certainly has many advantages over dictatorship, and it can bring stability to historically divided societies provided the groups involved agree to share power through elections. 3.2 DIRECT DEMOCRACY The purest form of democracy is the type of direct democracy that was exemplified in the government of Athens in the fifth century BCE, and which continues to shape out assessments of modern liberal democracy. The Athenians believed that citizens were the primary agent for reaching collective decisions, and that direct popular involvement and open deliberate are educational in character, yielding confident, informed and committed citizens who were sensitive both to the public good and to the range of interests and opinions found even in small communities. Between 461 and 322 BCE, Athens was the leading polis in ancient Greece. All male citizens could attend meetings of the Athenian Ekklesia (people’s assembly), where they could address their peers, the assembly met around 40 times a year to settle issues put before it, including recurring issues of war and peace. Administrative functions were the responsibility of an executive council consisting of 500 citizens aged over 30, chosen by lot for a one-year period “all to rule over each and each in his turn over all”. Meanwhile, juries of several hundred people - again, selected randomly from a panel of volunteers - decided the lawsuits which citizens frequently brought against those considered to have acted against the true interests of the polis. The scope of Athenian democracy was wide, providing an enveloping framework within which citizens were expected to develop their true qualities. But there were flaws in the system: • Because citizenship was restricted to men whose parents were citizens, most adults - including women, slaves, and foreign residents - were excluded. • Turnout was a problem, with most citizens being absent from most assembly meetings even after the introduction of an attendance payment. • The system was time-consuming, expensive, and over-complex, especially for such all society. • The principle of self-government did not always lead to decisive and coherent policy. Indeed, the lack of a permanent bureaucracy eventually contributed to a period of ineffective governance, leading to the fall of the Athenian republic after defeat in war. Yet the Athenian democratic experiment prospered for more than a century. Despite this, direct democracy is hard to find in modern political systems. It exists most obviously in the form either o referendums and initiatives, or of decision-making at the community level. There has been some recent talk of the possibilities of electronic direct democracy, or e-democracy, through which hose with an opinion can express themselves using the internet. These are channels that are sometimes seen as a useful remedy to charges that representative government has become elitist, and there are several early indications of its possibilities: it provides for the instant availability of more political information, it allows political leaders to communicate more often and more directly with voters, and it has been credited with helping encourage people to turn out in support of political demonstrations of the kind had led to the overthrow of the Egyptian government in 2011 and the fall of the Ukrainian government in 2014. But there are several problems with e-democracy: • The opinions expressed online are not methodically collected and assessed as they would be in a true direct democracy. • May of those who express themselves via social media are either partisan or deliberately provocative. 3.6 WAVES OF DEMOCRACY When did democracies emerged? Just as each period of decolonisation deposited a particular type of state on the political shore, so too did each democratic wave differ in the character of the resulting democracies. 3.6.1 FIRST WAVE The earliest representative democracies emerged during the longest of these waves, between 1828 and 1926. During this first period, nearly 30 countries established at least minimally democratic national institutions. Political competition, traditionally operating within a privileged elite, gradually broadened as the right to vote extended to the wider population. Within 50 years if independence, in the United States, nearly all whit men had the vote, but women were not given the vote on the same terms as men until 1919, and the franchise for black Americans was not fully realised until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 3.6.2 SECOND WAVE Began with the Second World War and continued until the 1960s. As with the first wave, some of the new democracies created at this time did not consolidate, but established democracies did emerge after 1945 from the ashes of defeat dictatorships, not just in West Germany, but also in Austria, Japan and Italy. Political parties played a key role in the transition. First-generation democracies had emerged when parties were seen as a source of faction, rather than progress. But by the rule of the second wave, parties had emerged as the leading instrument of democracy in a mass electorate. In several cases, though, effective competition was reduced by the emergence of a single party which dominated government for a generation or more: Congress in India, the Christian Democrats in Italy, the Liberal Democrats in Japan, and Labour in Israel. Many second-wave democracies took a generation to mature into fully competitive party systems. 3.6.3 THIRD WAVE This was a product of the final quarter of the twentieth century. Its main and highly diverse elements were: • The ending of right-wing dictatorship in Greece, Portugal and Spain in the 1970s. • The retreat of the generals in much of Latin America in the 1980s. • The collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s. With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of any realistic alternative to democracy, the European Union and the United States also became more encouraging of democratic transitions while still, of course, keeping a close eye on their own shorter-term interests. 3.6.4 FOURTH WAVE, OR A STALLING OF DEMOCRACY? Inspired by the end of the Cold War and the speed of the democratic transition in Eastern Europe, the political economist Francis Fukuyama was moved in 1989 to borrow from Hegel, Marx and others in declaring the end of history, or the final triumph of democracy. But many of today’s political conversations are not about the health or the spread of democracy but about the difficulties it faces even within those states we consider to be firmly liberal democratic. The more specific challenges that democracies face include the following: • Women have less political power and opportunity than men, do not earn as much as men for equal work, and are still prevented from rising to positions of political and corporate power as easily as men. • Racism and religious intolerance remain critical challenges, with minorities often existing on the margins of society, and denied equal access to jobs, loans, housing, or education. • There is a large and sometimes growing income gap between the rich and the poor, and levels of unemployment and poverty often remain disturbingly high. With both comes reduced political influence, and sometimes political radicalisation. Despite these concerns, democracy has been stable and lasting, and no country with a sustained history of liberal democracy has ever freely or deliberately opted for an alternative form of government. The broad goals of the liberal democratic model are widely shared, and while the practice of larval democracy is rarely cleaned or simple, as Churchill implied, the system still provides a uniquely stable and successful formula for achieving these important objectives. 3.7 DEMOCRATIZATION One of the most dramatic waves of political change of recent decades was the Arab Spring, a series of mass demonstrations, protests, riots, and civil wars that broke in Tunisia in late 2010, and quickly spread through much of the Arab world. Rulers were forced from power in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen, a civil war erupted in Syria, and there were mass protests or uprisings in Algeria, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, and other countries. It was widely hoped that this remarkable protest wave would bring lasting democratic change to North Africa and the Middle East, where many of the world’s surviving authoritarian states are concentrated. however, the momentum of change had largely faded by mid-2012, with the actions of many governments in the region creating new uncertainties. Libya, for example, was in many ways in a more desperate situation by 2015 than it had been before the Arab Spring, with instability and political violence bringing death, destruction, and economic disruption. A critical point confirmed by the experience of the Arab Spring was that a transition from an authoritarian regime did not entail an immediate or even medium-term transition to liberal democracy: alternative outcomes include the replacement of one authoritarian order with another, or the emergence of a failed state. It is extraordinarily hard to impose democracy by force. It was a key part of US foreign policy throughout the cold war to protect its allies from the threat of communist domination, and a goal since the end of the cold war to bring peace to the middle east thought the promotion of democracy. De Mesquita and Downs blame US, Britain and French policy, which they argue has been motivated less by a desire to establish democracy or reduce human suffering than to alter some aspect of the target state’s policy. Despite official claims, promoting democracy is rarely the most important goal. The chances of success are increased in cases where a multinational coalition takes action with the backing of the international community, but it assume that authoritarian regimes can be bullied or bombed into democracy is misguided, because democracy needs time to put down roots and to grow organically out of society, particularly in deeply divided states such as Afghanistan or Iraq. The first step in the process of successful democratisation, comes with the liberalisation of the authoritarian regime. Transitions are rarely initiated by mass demonstrations against a united dictatorship, rather, democracy is typically the outcome - intended or unintended - of recognition within part of the ruling group that change thus inevitable, or even desirable. So, for example, a military regime might lose a sense of purpose once the crises that propelled it into office is resolved. In the more liberal environment that emerges, opportunities increase to express public opposition, inducing a dynamic reform. During the transitions, the existing rulers will look for political opportunities in the new democratic order. In any event, the current elite will seek to protect its future by negotiating privileges, such as exemption from prosecution. The transition is substantially complete with the installation of the new arrangements, most visibly through a high turnout election which is seen as the peak moment of democratic optimism. The consolation of democracy only occurs when new institutions provide an accepted framework for political competition. While consolidation is a matter of attitudes, its achievement is measured through action and in particular by the peaceful transfer of power through elections. finally, the deepening of democracy refers to the continued progress of a new democracy towards full liberal democracy. so, the point of the term deepening is not so much to describe a universal stage in transitions as to acknowledge that the outcome of a transition, especially in less modern countries, may be a democracy which is both consolidated and superficial. Mexico has been government without a break since 1929 by the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party, which was able to maintain control in part because of its ability to incorporate key sectors of Mexican society, offering them rewards in return for their support. Nut a Mexicans became better educated, and with PRI unable to blame anyone else for the country’s growing economic problems in the 1990s, the pressures for democratic change began to grow. Mexico is today listed as a flawed democracy in the Democracy Index, and as a Partly Free by Freedom House. As with so many recent transitions, the Mexican case shows the importance of distinguishing between the collapse of an authoritarian system, on the one hand, and the consolidation or deepening of its more democratic successor, on the other. The collapse of communism has not brought democracy to Belarus, Kazakhstan, or Uzbekistan, and the long-term prognosis for Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen remains questionable. That there are different shades of authoritarianism is reflected in the distinct made in the Democracy Index between hybrid regimes and authoritarian regimes. 4.2 HYBRID REGIMES: The hybrid regimes described by the Democracy Index overlap with a category described by Levitsky and Way as competitive authoritarian regimes. They define these as states in which formal democratic institutions are widely viewed as the principal leans of obtaining and exercising political authority … but where incumbents violate those rules so often and to such an extent … that the regime fails to meet conventional minimum standards for democracy. In a hybrid regime, leaders or ruling parties are elected, but they use state resource and their influence over the media to determine the outcome of elections long before campaigns begin. Once elected, the government shows only a limited sense of constitutional restraint. In this kind of system, whoever wins the election is thereby entitled to govern as he or she sees fit, constrained only by the hard facts of existing power relations and by a constitutionally limited term of office. Singapore offers an example. While it has multiple political parties, a vibrant high- technology economy and one of the world’s highest standards of living, it is classified in the Democracy Index as a hybrid regime. This is mainly because the People’s Action Party has governed the island state since 1959, routinely winning more than 60% of the vote, maintaining an electoral system that allowed it to win 93% of legislative seats in 2011 with only a 60:14 % share of the vote, and directing investment to districts that vote for the party. Because the judiciary is under-resourced, it is unable to enforce the individual rights documented in the constitution. The form is particularly common in states that are poor, that suffer deep internal divisions, and that face real or constructed external threats. In these circumstances, a national father figure r dominant party can be presented as an engine of development and as a protector. Yet, we cannot wish these regimes out of existence by just describing them as transitional, some have provided a stable method of governing poor and unequal societies, particularly since the end of communism rendered blatant dictatorship less defensible. 4.3 AUTHORITARIAN REGIMES: Authoritarian regimes come in different forms, ranging from states where power rests with a ruling party or the military to systems revolving around a single individual, with the wielding of power rising and falling with the fortunes of the leader. Because there are no competitive elections to refresh the leadership, authoritarian leaders may continue in post until well past their sell-by dates, as with the ageing autocrats finally overthrown in the Arab revolts of 2011. The pattern in China, where top leaders on a ten-year cycle, is exceptional; it contributes to the party’s continued hold on power. A decline into despotism is an inherent danger of authoritarian regimes. In the case of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi came to power in 1969 as the result of a military coup, and claimed that it was his goal to unite the Arab world. He imposed his own ideology on Libya, and exercised total control over his government and the people. Even Gaddafi did not prove invulnerable. Inspired by the Arab Spring, an uprising against him in 2011 led to a brief civil war that resulted in his brutal death at the hands of rebels. Authoritarian rulers can thus be removed at any time, meaning that they must devote constant attention to shoring up their position. In this effort, they normally exploit three key control devices: the military, patronage, and the media. The Arab Spring generally moved further and faster I those countries where the regime lost the support of the organs of violence, or showed an unwillingness to use them. High spending on the army forces, often made possible by revenues from natural resources, is an investment that helps rulers buy off potential opposition, and provides the means for suppressing domestic dissent. The second device is an unofficial patronage network in which other holders of power are incorporated by providing them with resources which they distribute, in turn, to their own supporters. These patron-client pyramids extend throughout society, providing a web of allegiances which overrides the public-private divide. But there is a high price to pay: corruption erodes whatever public support the regime may possess, increasing potential instability. The third device is the control of media. Censorship is implemented by catch-all offences such as threatening the dignity and effectiveness of the state. Aggression and belligerence are often driven by fear and vulnerability, and this is also true of authoritarian rule. Communication is opaque, trust is lacking, government spending is misused, corruption is endemic, laws are ignored, economics and obedience come before private initiative, and foreign investors are cautious. Even so, authoritarian rule can sometimes generate rapid economic growth, China is the notable example: its economic growth between 1978 and 2009 far exceeded that of democratic India. Although a few non-democratic regimes initiate economic take-off, most do not. Democracies, by contrast, make more productive use of their inputs, a form of growth which can, in principle, continue indefinitely. 4.4 FORMS OF AUTHORITARIAN RULE: It is important to note that the most common tool of authoritarian rule is not repression but co- option, and not just of rival elites but of whole segments of the population. 4.4.1 ABSOLUTE MONARCHY: While undemocratic, an absolute monarchy can provide a stable framework for the exercise of traditional authority, in which rulers show paternalistic concern for their subjects. Absolute monarchs are particularly important in the Middle East, their major oil and natural gas reserves giving several of them - such as Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar? Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates - considerable global influence. The titles taken by Arab monarchs reflect tribal or Islamic tradition, as in emir sheikh or sultan The leading members of the ruling dynasty, rather than a single monarch, often exercise authority. These countries are run by family businesses, rather than sole traders. While the king typically designates a crown prince as his preferred successor, custom requires that a clan council meets after the monarch’s death to confirm or change this appointment. In most Europe monarchies, by contrast, succession is based on inheritance by the first-born. In Oman, for example, the Al Bu Said dynasty has ruled since 1749, longer than the United States has existed as an independent country. Because the ruler is expected to take responsibility for his people, the right of ordinary people to petition on individual matters is well established. Saudi Arabia offers an example of an absolute monarchy. The country’s political style reflects the influence of King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud, who led the Saudi state from its inception in 1902 until his death in 1953. In true patrimonial style, Ibn Said ran his kingdom as a gigantic personal household, using marriage as a vital political tactic. Saudi Arabia’s sprawling royal family, led by an influential group of several hundred princes, still constitutes the government’s core. Political parties are still banned but some mechanisms of representation have emerged, adding an institutional veneer to a traditional regime. The Basic Law of 1992, an innovation in itself, introduced a Consultative council, with a non-princely and technocratic membership, to advise the King on issues of importance. 4.4.2 RULING PRESIDENTS: A president in an authoritarian system occupies a unique position, possessing a visibility which can be invested in an attempt to transfer personal authority to an executive post, typically t-by establishing a direct relationship through the media with the people. While several former Soviet republics became democracies, many did not, and one element these non-democratic successor regimes have shared since becoming independent in 1991 is a ruling president. In the case of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko has maintained a grip on power since winning office in 1994. While his western neighbours have been moving towards free-market democracy, Lukashenko maintains Soviet-era policies, including state ownership of key industries. He has been the target of US and EU sanctions for human rights violations, maintains close relations with Putin’s Russia, and has been described as Europe’s last dictator. One possibility inherent in a rung presidency is a cult of personality, through which the president comes to dominate the consciousness of the people. 4.4.3 RULING PARTIES: The twentieth century saw the birth, ossification, and disintegration of party-based dictatorships which monopolised public authority in the name of economic modernisation, social transformation, and national revival. While they are now relatively rare, they are still found in the last few remaining communist states, with some non-communist varieties. Communist parties. At the time of the collapse of the communist order in the late 1980s and early 1990s, 23 regimes claiming Marxist inspiration ruled more than 1.5 billion people: about one in three of the world’s population. Today there are just five communist states remaining (China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba), but most are undergoing the kind of fee- market economic change that might well lead to further political changes. From the beginning, Chinese communism possessed distinct national characteristics, so that while power is exerted through the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the party itself has been controlled by elite factions which have embraced nationalism. China faces numerous problems, including inequality between regions and between individuals, the inefficient allocation of capital an ageing population, poor social services, massive population movements into the cities, and severe environmental degradation. A combination of growth, propaganda, reform, and repression has forestalled mass public demands for democracy, and the nationalist narrative of China rising continues to resonate. China’s success in entering the world economy has established the world’s dependence on its goods, reducing international pressures for democratisation. Other ruling parties. Until the late 1980s, most African states (including Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi) were run on this basis, but almost all have now switched to competitive multi-party systems, such as those in Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, and Sudan. Often the party is the vehicle rather than the driver, with real authority resting with a dominant president, military ruler, or political elite. The supposed ruling party is an arena within which particular elite groups express and perpetuate their control. 4.4.4 MILITARY GOVERNMENT: Today we are more likely to speak of leaders who came to power in a military coup and then transformed themselves into civilian leaders, or of regimes in which the military influences civilian government from behind the scenes. Usually ushered in by a coup d’état, or an illegal seizure of power military rule typically involves the suspension of all other key political institutions except the bureaucracy, the courts and the police, and is based on the military principles of hierarchy and the absence of negotiation. In many African cases, military leaders have justified coups by arguing that the civilians are doing a poor job of governing, and claiming that power will he returned to the civilians once a new and more effective system of government is established. But then the new military leaders often decide to stay on indefinitely, or try to reinvent themselves as civilian politicians. Nigeria is a representative case, having spent nearly 30 years under military government since independence in 1960. Civilians were removed in a coup in 1983 amid charges that political parties were becoming too ethnically based, and, ironically, that the government was becoming more authoritarian. An exhaustive study by Powell and Then found that between 1950 and 2010 just over 450 coups were attempted in a total of 94 states, of which just under half were successful. About one-third occurred in Africa, another third took place in Latin America, with the balance divided between Asia and the Middle East. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union were more concerned with the global chessboard than with how their client countries governed themselves; hence ruling generals could survive through the political, economic, and military backing of a superpower sponsorship, with aid and technical assistance flowing to civilian regimes adopting democratic forms and offering at least some commitment to civil rights. 4.4.5 THEOCRACY: As with military rule, government by religious leaders is rare, but that does not mean that religion has ceased to be a factor in authoritarian governance. A religious society may be quite different from a clerical government, and even Muslim countries typically separate religious and civil leadership within the context of an overall commitment to Islam. At least since the end of Taliban rule in Afghanistan in 2001, Structuralism: an approach to the study of politics that emphasizes the relationship among groups and networks within larger systems. The interests and positions of these groups shape the averall configuration of power and provide the dynamic of political change. Rational choice: an approach to the study of politics based on the idea that political behavior reflects the choices made by individuals working to maximize their benefits and minimize their costs. Collective action problem: arises when rational behavior by individuals produces a negative overall outcome. The issue typically arises when people seek to free ride on the efforts of others in providing public goods. Interpretive approach: an approach in the study of politics based on the argument that politics is formed by the ideas we have about it. INTRODUCTION: A theoretical approach is a simplifying device or a conceptual filter that helps us decide what is important in terms of explaining political phenomena. In other words, it can help us sift through a body of facts, decide which are primary and which are secondary, enable us to organise and interpret the information, and develop complete arguments and explanations about the objects of our study. Key arguments: • Theoretical approaches are ways of studying politics, and help in identifying the right questions to ask and how to go about answering them. • The institutional perspective has done most to shape the development of politics as a discipline and remains an important tradition in comparative politics. • The behavioural approach focuses on networks, and looks at the past to help understand the present. In this way, it helps bridge politics and history. • The rational choice approach seeks to explain political outcomes by exploring interactions between political actors as ray pursue their particular interests and goals. • The interpretive approach, viewing politics as the ideas people construct about it in the curse of their interaction, offers a contrast to more mainstream approaches. 5.1 THEORETICAL APPROACHES: AN OVERVIEW: Theory is a key part of the exercise of achieving understanding in any field of knowledge. For comparative politics, it means developing and using principles and concepts that can be used to explain everything from the formation of states to questions of national identity the character of institutions, the process of democratisation, and the dynamics of political instability, political participation and public policy. Unfortunately, there are several complicating factors. First, the field of comparative politics is so broad that it includes numerous theoretical explanations, raging from the broad to the specific. second, comparative political theory has been criticised for focusing too much on ideas emerging from the Western tradition. third, comparative political theory suffers the standard problem faced by political theory more generally of being the victim of fad and fashion. Finally, the place of theory in the social sciences more generally is based on shaky foundations. The social sciences suffer greater uncertainties, with the result that they generate theories that are subject to stronger doubts, and that have a weaker track record in generating laws and predicting outcomes. By approaches we mean ways of understanding, or sets of attitudes, understandings and practices that define a certain way of doing political science. 5.2 THE CHANGING FACE OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS Although comparison lies at the heart of all research, the sub-field of comparative politics is relatively young, and so is its theoretical base. For European scholars, the differences among European states were not seen to be particularly profound or interesting, so it is perhaps unsurprising that the birth of modern comparative politics took place in the United States, where American scholars began to study foreign political systems as distinct from their own. The few scholars who studied other systems focused mainly on Western Europe, with the Soviet Union and Japan added later, and their comparisons were more often descriptive than analytical. Attitudes changed after the Second World War, when the foreign policy interests of the United States broadened, and the Cold War made American scholars and policy-makers more interested in understanding both their allies and their enemies. The end of the colonial era also saw a near-doubling in the number of sovereign states, from just over 70 in 1945 to more than 130 in 1970. There was also a change in the approach taken by comparative political scientists, whose past work had been often criticised for being too parochial, too descriptive, too lacking in theory, and not even particularly comparative. New influence was asserted by scholars with European background, there was also more transfer of ideas between the study of domestic and comparative politics, and new interests were added with the break-up of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War, the emergence of the European Union, and the growing importance of states such as Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa. Just as quickly, there was a reaction against the focus by behaviouralists on the scientific method and their attempts to develop a grand theory of comparative politics. The sub-field of comparative politics today is broader and more eclectic than ever before, with new concepts and ideas regularly shaking up old assumptions. But is has sometimes been slow to catch up with the evolving realities of government and politics around the world, including the changing role of the state, the rise of new economic powers, the impact of new technology and globalisation, the new political role of Islam, and the impact of failed and failing states. 5.3 THE INSTITUTIONAL APPROACH The study of institutions is a central purpose of political science in general, and of comparative politics in particular; hence the mantra often seen in studies of politics that institutions matter. Institutionalism provides the original foundation of the discipline and lies at the core of the discipline. What, then, is an institution? In politics, the term traditionally refers to the major organisations of national government, particularly those specified in the constitution such as the legislature, the judiciary, the executive, and, sometimes, political parties. Since they often possess legal identity, acquiring privileges and duties under law, these bodies are treated as literal actors in the political process. however, the concept of an institution is also used more broadly to include other organisations which may have a less secure constitutional basis, such as the bureaucracy and local government. Institutional analysis assumes that positions within organisations matter more than the people who occupy them, this axiom enables us to discuss roles rather than people. Institutional analysis can be static, based on examining the functioning of, and relationships between, institutions at a given moment. In a process of institutionalisation, they grow like coral reefs through slow accretion, in this way, many institutions thicken naturally over time, developing their internal procedures of the governing apparatus. In other words, the institution becomes a node in a network and, in so doing, entrenches its position. Institutions are particularly central to the functioning of liberal democracies, because they provide a settled framework for reaching decisions. In addition, they enable long-term commitments which are more credible than those of any single employee, thus building trust. Institutions also offer predictability, a shared institutional context eases the task of conducting business between strangers. In and beyond politics, institutions help to glue society together, extending the bounds of what would be possible for individuals acting alone. At the same time, an institutional approach, like all others, can become inward-looking, two particular problems. First, some institutions are explicitly created to resolve partial problems. Second, governing institutions rarely act independently of social forces, especially in poorer, less complex, authoritarian states. Even in liberal democracies, just as an institution can be created for specific purposes, so too can it survive by serving the interests of those in charge. For example, the arrangement in the United States by which electoral districts are designed by the dominant political parties in each state, allowing them to manipulate the outcome of elections in a process known as “gerrymandering”, is a distortion of democracy, but it suits the interests of the Republicans and the Democrats. 5.3.1 NEW INSTITUTIONALISM: 1950s - 1960s. The institutional approach was criticised for being too descriptive and for looking at the formal rules of government at the expense of politics in its many different forms, and fell out of favour. But then the 1980s saw new research on social and political structures and a new interest in the reform of institutions in developing countries. The institutional approach offers two main reasons for supposing that organisations shape behaviour. First, because institutions provide benefits and opportunities, they shape the interests of their staff. Second, sustained interaction among employees encourages the emergence go an institution culture, which can well the organisation into an effective operational unit. One strength of the institutional approach is this capacity to account for the origins of interests and cultures, rather than just taking them for granted. In short, institutions provide the rules of the game within which individuals pursue their objectives. 5.4 THE BEHAVIOURAL APPROACH The major problem faced by political science in its early decades was the doubt that it was a science at all. The aim was to use scientific methods to develop generalisations about political attitudes and behaviour by studying what people actually do, rather than studying constitutions, institutions, and organisational charts. Although the behavioural approach could target elites, it earned its spurs in the study of ordinary people. Survey analysis yielded useful generalisations about voting behaviour, political participation and public opinion. 5.5 THE STRUCTURAL APPROACH Structuralism is an approach to political analysis that focuses on relationships among parts rather than the parts themselves. In other words, it involves examining the networks, linkages, interdependencies, and interactions among the parts of some system. The central tenet here is that groups matter, in the sense that the structural approach focuses on powerful groups in society, such as the bureaucracy, political parties, social classes, churches, and the military. These groups possess and pursue their own interests, creating a stir of relationships which forms the structure underpinning or destabilising the institutional politics of parties and government. Each group within the structure works to sustain its political influence in a society which is always developing in response to economic change, ideological innovations, International framework which undergirds, and ultimately determines, actual politics, because human actions are shaped by this bigger structural environment. The best-known structural work in politics has adopted an explicitly historical style, seeking to understand how competition between powerful groups over time leads to specific outcomes such as revolution, democracy, or a multi-party system. The authors of such studies argue that politics is about struggle rather than equilibrium, and they favour comparative history, giving us another contrast with the non-historical generalisations favoured by behaviouralists and hr sometimes static descriptions of the institutionalises. The structural approach asks big questions and, by selecting answers from the past, it interrogates history without limiting itself to chronology. Even so, the structural approach, in the form of comparative history, has made a distinctive contribution to comparative politics. 5.6 THE RATIONAL CHOICE APPROACH Like behaviouralism, rational choice approaches are focused on people, but instead of examining actions they try to explain the calculations behind those actions. They argue that politics consists of strategic interaction between individuals, with all players seeking to maximise the achievement of their Most similar system: a research design based on using cases that are as similar as possible, in effect controlling for the similarities and isolating the causes of differences. Most different systems: a research design based on using cases that are as different as possible, in effect controlling for the differences and isolating the causes of similarities. Quantitative method: a research method involving variables rather than cases, and attempting to explain political phenomena using statistics. Correlation: a relationship between two or more variables or attributes. Regression line: the line of best fit in a scatterplot, summarizing the relationship between two variables. Outliers: the observations furthest away from the value predicted by the regression line. Counterfactual: a thought experiment speculating on possible outcomes if a particular factor had been absent from a process, or an absent factor had been present. Selection bias: arises when selected cases and variables are unrepresentative of the wider class from which they are drawn. Survivorship bias: a form of selection bias that crops up when we study only surviving examples of political types, overlooking past examples. Value bias: allowing assessments, the choice of facts, and conclusions to be impacted by the values of the researchers. Confirmation bias: the tendency to seek out or interpret information that confirms pre-existing beliefs and attitudes, and to ignore information that does not. Historical method: a research method based on studying cases from the past, often with a focus on their development through time. Analytic narrative: an attempt to integrate historical and political science research methods in seeking to explain a specific outcome. Process tracing: the study of the sequence of events linking a cause to an effect. Path dependence: the idea that the outcome of a process depends on earlier decisions that lead down a particular path. Critical juncture: a turning point which establishes interests, structures, or institutions persisting through time. Sequencing: the idea that the order of events, not merely their occurrence, affects the outcome. Slow-moving cause: an influence which changes slowly but, over a long period, dramatically. INTRODUCTION: The conceptual and theoretical aspects of comparative politics only begin to have meaning when we put comparison into practice, for which reason we turn to the practicalities of comparison: the kinds of questions that need to be asked, the methods that can be used, the options for designing a comparative research project, and the pitfalls to be avoided. Key arguments: • There is a wide range of options when it comes to conducting comparative political research. It is important to be aware of the potential of comparison as well as the alternatives and limitations. • Researchers have choices to make that include the unit of analysis, the level of analysis, and the variables to be studied. • The three main research methods are the case study, the qualitative approach to a small selection of cases, and the quantitative approach to large numbers of cases. • Comparative research will have different approaches and results according to whether it is empirical or normative in approach, or quantitative or qualitative. • When comparative projects seek to examine the relationship between two or more factors, it is worth considering the relative strengths of the most similar and most different system designs. • History is arguably under-used in comparative political research. Current cases can be compared with past examples and developments over time can be compared across countries. 6.1 COMPARING GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS: AN OVERVIEW The direction and outcome of scientific study both depend on how we undertake out research, and thus methodology is critical. The options begin with the unit of analysis, whether states, institutions, processes, movements, themes, policies, or individuals. A related decision concerns the level of analysis, which can be anything from the relations among and between states down through groups or social classes to politics at the level of the individual. Researchers are then faced with a number of additional choices: the case or cases they wish to study, the particular combination of such cases and the particular variable that interests them. Lijphart made a distinction between three different approaches to political and control groups: the experimental method uses experimental and control groups to isolate the effects of different stimuli, the statistical method uses empirically observed data to tease out relationships among variables, and the comparative method is exactly the same as the statistical method except that it focuses on drawing conclusions from the study of a small number of cases. Comparison is one of the oldest tools of political science, found in the work of Aristotle. 6.2 COMPARATIVE RESEARCH METHODS The choice among the methods available for the comparative study of politics and government depends on a combination of the research question being asked, the time and resources available, the method with which the researcher is most comfortable, and the epistemological preferences of the researcher; that is, how they believe that understanding is best acquired. At the heart of most comparisons is the case study method, which comes with many subsidiary choices. The key questions in choosing cases is that of how many there should be, in which regard there are three main options: • The case study method typically involves a single case, and thus might not seem to be comparative at first glance, but a case is necessarily comparative because it needs to be an example of something larger, against which it can then be juxtaposed. Single cases have the advantage of depth, and they can usefully be compared with an ideal type or typology. • The qualitative method is what we usually associate with the comparative method, and involves comparing anything from two to a dozen or more cases. It has the advantage of going beyond a single case while also remaining manageable, but many questions arise in regard to the number and the choice of cases. • The quantitative method tends to be more abstract, involves more cases, and is also better suited to statistical analysis. It will take more time and resources, is more likely to suffer from the variable quality and availability of data from multiple cases, the realists will offer more breadth than depth, and it might ultimately have to be checked against single case or small-N studies. 6.3 CASE STUDY METHOD The case study method is one of the most widely used strategies in research, being at the heart of political science and other studies. In usually involves an in-depth study of a single example, which might be an event, a policy, or a political institution or process, and an effort is made to use the case to illustrate a wider point applying to other cases. Yin points out that the case studies must be understood in terms of both their scope and their features. In terms of scope, they look in depth at a phenomenon within its actual context; case studies are different from experiments, for example, because the latter separate the phenomena to be studies from their context. In terms of features, case studies help address the phenomenon of too many variables and not enough cases, and are broad ranging in that they rely on multiple sources of evidence. A case study adds value by offering a detailed illustration of a theme of wider interest. By their nature, case studies are multi-method, using a wide range of techniques, including the following: • Reading the academic literature. • Examining primary and secondary sources. • Conducting interviews with participants and other observers in the unit. • Experiencing and visiting the unit. Unlike statistical analysis, which seeks to identify relationships between variables measured across a series of observations, case analysis aims to identify how a range of factors interact in the context of the example being studied. A collection of representative case studies can go on to provide the raw material for comparative generalisation by other scholars taking a wider approach. By contrast, a prototypical case is chosen not because it is representative but because it is expected to become so. In other words, their present is our furniture. One famous early example of a prototypical case study was Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville (1831-1832), sent by the French government to study the American prison system but the book he wrote became a broader analysis of democracy and representative government, using the US as a case - harbinger of democracy and therefore a guide to Europe’s own future. Where the study of prototypical cases aims to reveal how similar cases may evolve in the future, exemplary cases are the archetypes that are considered to have generated the category of which they are taken as representative. For instance, the parliamentary system was born in Britain, and this a study of the features of the British Parliament will give us insights into the manner in which legislatures and executives work in all those countries using this system. While an exemplar is often defined as a case to be emulated, in research design the term refers more neutrally to an influential example which illustrates the essential features of a phenomenon. An exemplary case is often, but need not be, prototypical. The purpose of a deviant case study is to seek out the exceptional and the untypical, rather than the norm: the few countries which remain communist, or which are still governed by the military, or which seem to be immune from democratising trends. Deviant cases are often used to tidy up our understanding of exceptions and anomalies. Finally, a critical case enables a proposition to be tested in the circumstances least favourable to its validity. The logo is simple: if it is true then it is true everywhere. For instance, if we were to find that most Germans opposed further European integration, we could anticipate that the same would have historically been more suspicious of the European project. In this way, critical case studies can be highly efficient, providing exceptional returns of the research investment; but studying just one country, we can generalise to others. In consequence, much comparative political analysis takes the form not of relating cases to abstract theory but rather of drawing analogies between the cases themselves. 6.4 QUALITATIVE METHOD Implementing a comparative design involves making either qualitative or quantitative comparisons, or a blend of the two. The qualitative method is most often used in research that falls between single-case and large-N studies, and concentrates on the intensive examination of two cases, three cases, or more. Cases are usually selected to introduce variation into the dependent variable, thus overcoming an inherent limit of the single case study. The qualitative approach has the following features: • A limited number of cases are studied in depth. • It is descriptive rather than predictive. • An effort is made to understand the interaction of multiple variables. • Meaning is allowed to emerge from the objects of study. • Observation is the main means of data collection. • Phenomena are studied within their natural setting. To illustrate the technique, consider the controversial conclusions of Jeremy Rifkin in his 2004 study The European Dream which compared and contrasted the priorities and values of Americans and Europeans. Rifkin was critical of the notion, arguing that is was centred more on personal material advancement than on concern with broader human welfare. He contrasted it with a European dream that emphasised quality of life over the accumulation of wealth. He concluded that the EU had been developing a new social and political model better suited to the needs of the globalising world of the new century, and that the European dream was - as a result - eclipsing the American dream. The selection of cases is important, and there are two core strategies involved. The most common - known as the most similar system MSS design - involves selecting those cases which are as similar as possible except in regard to the object of study. The underlying logic is that the more similar the units being compared, the more possible it should be to isolate