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Com (Subject) / 1 (Lesson)
- Why is comparative politics important? (4) -the only discipline with its own methodology -only discipline with a methodological rather than a substantive title -more than one methodology of comparative politics -thinking without comparison is unthinkable
- Country-comparisons are useful for? (4) -Pure descriptions -Making classifications -hypothesis testing/theory building -prediction
- Examples for hypothesis testing (5) - Luebbert (1991) compares countries to uncover the class origins of regime types in inter-war europe -Rueschemayer et al. (1992) compare historical experiences of the advanced industrial countries with those of the developing world to uncover the relationship between capitalist development and democracy. -Foweraker and Landman (1997) compare authoritarian cases of Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Spain to illustrate the relationship between citizen rights and social movements. -Hawkins (2002) uses the single case of Chile to examine how international mobilization condemning human rights abuses led "rule-oriented" factions of the Pinochet regime to push for a democratic transition. -Inglehart and Welzel (2005) compare cross-national survey and other data to assess the complex relationship between and among processes of modernization (or postmodernization), changing value systems and democracy.
- How do we make inferences? (3) -single case study -large N (many countries) -small N (few countries)
- How do I choose between the ways of making inferences? (2) -depends on topic -different questions require different methods
- Many countries/cases study (5) -focus on few explanatory factors to can travel to many countries -reductionist (overlooks many details and processes) -far from reality (abstract theorization) -generalizable -parsimonious
- One country/case -very detailed -very close to reality -grounded in context -less generalizable
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