Comparative Research Designs in Comparative Politics - Essay Example

Comparative research designs in Comparative politics College: Introduction The political structure of many countries in the world today has undergone much metamorphosis to evolve into the current structures that are present today. Countries have been observed to move from political structures that embrace totalitariasm and even presdentialism to the concept of democracy (Hopkin, 2002 & Sartori, 1994). The kind of political system or structure that a particular government adopts depends on very many factors that are present in that particular nation. For instance, demographic, environmental and even cultural factors influence, to a large scale the system of governance of these nations. America’s political structure is democratic, but the structure of some other country, say Zimbabwe in Africa is not heavily keeled towards democracy. One can only term this political system employed in Zimbabwe and other African nations as being dictatorial ship. China operates on a communist policy. A country like Britain has a combination of both aristocratic as well as democratic systems. Following the above differentiation, a number of questions arise. For instance, how then are these systems of government determined? Why can’t all nations in the world adopt particular system of government? Who determines what system of government is suitable for a certain nation and unsuitable for the other? What is the criterion that is used in this concept? How are the different systems of government differentiated from each other? Why did some forms of systems succeed in a particular nation and failed in the other? This paper will answer these questions by taking a comparative analysis of different political setups and systems. This will be done through a review of a number of books, articles and journals that have illuminated on these concepts on a large scale. The paper will also divulge fully into the review of one of these articles to try and critically evaluate how successful comparative research design in politics is in the execution of the authors’ objectives, and consider how alternative research designs may have improved or worsened the study. Definition of terminologies Before engaging into the corpus of this argument, it s vital to ensure that all factors relating to this concepts are laid bare. Some terms that will be vastly used in this paper will be defined here beforehand for ease of flow of the ideas to be presented in this paper. These terms constitute the different forms of political systems that various countries in the world adopt in their political structures. They are Presdentialism, authoritarian and parliamentarian. Presdentialism form of political system is whereby an individual, referred to as an executive by Linz (1990, p.3) exacts full control of the government structure and composition of the government. The composition constitutes of the cabinet as well as the security forces, both armed and civilian forces. The president is elected directly by the people for a certain fixed term in the office and is fully cautioned against the perils of the parliamentary votes of confidence. The powers of this president are derived through the provisions of the constitution in the particular country. However, the powers are differentiated with the differentiation of the different nations in the world. Since each nation has different phenomena and structures that affect its build, the president is faced with diverse responsibilities of harmonizing all the different arms of the government in which he governs to allow for a continuum largely reliant on his authority. Most countries in the world employ this form of political system The next form of political setup and government, authoritarianism, as defined by Lula (2011, p. 7) is a form of government and social structure that is a characteristic of the submission to a certain system of authority and the full administration of this authority following a rule by a small fraction of individuals. This form of political system is characterized by a few individuals having positions of power that are highly centralized and exclusive. These individuals make the policies of their nations and ensure that they are executed towards the maximization of their own interests first before putting the interests of the nation. The common tools that these individuals in this political setup use are the political parties as well as mass organizations, working on the power of the majority to harness and implement their authority. Austria is one of the example nations in the world that had used this form of political system for a long time. Parliamentarianism is another concept that is rapidly taking shape and being adapted by many nations around the world. The United Kingdom is a perfect example of the nation utilizing this system of government. The parliamentarianism structure is comprised of a number of houses, the lower house and the upper, with is headed by a prime minister as the head of government and a celebratorial is not affected by the changes in other variables.the queen or king. Democracy is actually the opposite of authoritarianism. Though it’s not a form of government system in itself, democracy can be incorporated into the other forms of political systems. These forms are the presdentialism and parliamentary systems. These forms incorporate the aspect of democracy in their system of government. Democracy just implies the rule of law. The constitution and the governing laws of the country are highly recognized in this democratic system. The following discussion will offer a comparative analysis of different political systems through a comparative research design. Three modern classic texts on political systems and science will be analyzed to identify the examples they offer for these different political systems. The chosen classic texts are “Electoral Institutions, Cleavage Structures, and the Number of Parties by Neto, Octavio and Gary, Juan Linz’s “The Perils of Presdentialism" and “Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy” by Robert Putman. Comparative research design A comparative research design, as stipulated by Hopkin (2002), involves the comparison of two or more variables, whether in groups or in singular form. In comparative politics, the main aim is to study the political systems of different countries using commonly defined concepts. The similarities as well as the differences of these political systems and set ups are discussed and analyzed. The importance of comparative research design is that its allows the researcher to identify the different aspects and concepts that a particular system of government brings into the picture and try to identify which one is superior to the other. The superiority criterion that is used to gauge these different systems of government involves the observance to the rule of law, the adherence to the constitution as well as inclusion of all the aspects that this particular system brings to the table. In this comparative politics and research design paper, two of these systems of government will be illuminated upon. These two are the presdentialism as well as to the parliamentarism. The strengths as well as weaknesses of comparative research design will be analysed in this paper using the three texts that have been priory introduced here. Methods of comparative research design There are a number of comparative designs that will be analyzed here. These methods are most similar systems comparative designs as well as most different systems comparative designs. Most similar systems comparative design The most similar systems comparative design involves the comparison of similar cases which have a difference in only the dependent variable but an assumption is to be made here. The assumption is that those independent variables in this similarity concept explain wholly the absence of the dependent variable. In other words, two concepts which are very similar in all their characteristics will only differ in one of the dependent variables but will have similar independent variables. This independent variable is used to anticipate why there is either an absence or a presence of a certain dependent variable. In comparative politics, this design can be applied predominantly to compare the presdentarianism and parliamentarianism systems of government. According to Linz (1990, p. 52) A parliamentary system and regime is a regime that allows only the democratic legitimate institution recognized is the parliament. The parliament forms the authoritarian body and the authority of the government is wholly dependent on the confidence of this parliament. The members of this parliament are the ones who fully moderate the activities in the country. Policies with which the government and the nation is run upon are made by these members of the parliament. The other form of government, the presidential systems have an executive who has a considerable powers vested upon him by the constitution. The powers that are vested upon this executive involve the full control of the cabinet composition, having the power to hire and even fire these cabinet members. The president is elected to the parliament by the electorate and the other elected members have no confidence vote power over the president. By use of comparative research design, two independent variables can be observed here. In both cases, there could be a presidential figure who is an executive that governs these two different systems of governance. In the parliamentary system, the president is also in this system. The same case applies to the presdentarianism system. However, there is a slight difference revolving the capacities of the two presidential forms in the two different regimes of government. In the parliamentarism form of system, much power lies in the parliament. The members of the different houses have the final say towards a certain matter or policies that govern the nation. For example, the members of the houses of the parliaments and the different houses come up with a particular bill, floor it in a parliament and debate on it. They then vote for or against this bill and once they have voted it in, they pass it over to the president for assent (Linz, 1990). The president in this system acts as a celebratorial figure. His job is mainly to make decisions that are fast and that affect the nation. He or she is also the spokesman of the nation and he acts as the image of this nation. The comparative research design is applied here to bring the similarities between these two forms of government. The president is the figure that brings out the major similarity here. In the other form, the presidential system of government is seen to exhibit very different forms compared to the parliament form of system. The executive in this position has all the powers vested upon him or her. He or she is a very powerful figure in the political arena. The power of this executive is the major deviation between the two forms of political systems. Comparative research successfully brings out this feature at an instance. Through this approach, it is possible to see, at a glance that the president in the executive system of government has so much power as compared to the other president under the parliamentary system of government. The use of comparative research between these two forms of government also brings out the differences. It can be seen that comparative design is one of the best tools for bringing out the similarities between two variables especially in comparative politics world. Further research into the two forms brings about another hidden concept. This is the concept of democracy. Democracy is a situation where by the rule of law, Robert (1993) assents, is respected and applied by all the various players in the different forms of governments. The major constraint of this comparative similar research design is there could be a very large number of variables making it almost impossible or extremely difficult for the application of this design system. Lijphart (1971) states that comparative research designs is difficult when the systems of government, or the various forms of political structures are much differentiated because the more the variables are, the more difficult it becomes to analyze. According to Seawright and John (2008), it might become very difficult, using this most similar systems design to identify the common similarity between two different forms of political setups especially if these setups have a number of similarities in their designs. The two forms of government under parliamentary system and the presidential system have different degrees of democratic applicability. This introduces us to the next system of design under the comparative research designs; the most different systems designs. In the differentiation format, the most different systems designs are utilized to bring about a comparison of different forms of political systems. These political systems vary vastly in different scenarios but have common dependent variables. The scenario that does not change is referred to as the independent variable. When using this method in comparative politics, quantitative as well as qualitative designs are employed (Mahoney & Goertz, 2006). The researchers take a look at the different and changing interactions between different political systems in different countries and then analyze the quantitative as well as the qualitative collected data. They then compare these results between these different political systems and the actual deviation recorded (George, Alexander and Andrew, 2005). Using an example of the two forms of political systems that we have put under scrutiny here, it can be established through most different systems design that in the presidential system, the president has fully power and unquestionable control over the cabinet and other members of his legislation. This is however not the case for the parliamentary system of the government. In this format, the parliament, or legislative body exhibits control over the president and they have more power over the president. Other differences also arise in this form of research. In the presidential format, the president I protected against the vote of confidence power of his cabinet or legislative members but in the parliamentary form of government, the president does not enjoy this kind of protection. Through the passing of a vote by a certain majority, the president can be removed from power and become replaced by another president. The rule of law, in other words democracy, as dictated by Morlino (1995) as being the concept that is widely sidetracked by the persons in power in a presidential system of government. The presidential figure and those close to him or her put the interests of their own selves before the interest of the nation. Corruption is in high levels in this form of political structure. In the parliamentary form of government, the rule of law is widely observed. There is much adherence to protocol and the rule of law is widely applied. The constitution, which is responsible for governing the behaviour of these legislators by providing them with a way or a forum to fall back upon or review. Every order of business in this system has to go in accordance with the stipulations of the constitution. The president in this structure does not have the power to change or pass a particular law without consulting the members of the legislative body. This in a way dilutes his powers considerably. The use and application of the comparative research designs in comparative politics is a tricky undertaking. This is mainly because many forms of government are a hybrid of two or even more forms of political setups. As an example, you could have a country that has made a transition from a dictatorial ship or authoritarianism form of government to become inclined towards the embracement of a democratic political system. In a scenario like this, you find that there are so many intertwining factors since the transition is a process that takes time and much effort. The use of comparative research designs may not exhaustively reflect into this comparison and setup if these factors intertwine. The best that this comparative design can do in such a scenario, and this forms one of the constraints associated with this method, is to identify the differences between the previous regime and the current regime after the occurrence of the transition. Then the variables that are flouted here are identified and isolated for analysis. Critical evaluation of how successful research systems design The successful application of the research systems designs will be analyzed through a text. In this text, the usage of this research systems design in the execution of the objectives of the author will be analyzed. Also, alternative designs will be explored to identify how they may have improved or worsened this study. The text that will be reviewed will be “The Perils of Presdentialism”, a journal of democracy written in 1990 by Juan Linz. Brief synopsis of this article Linz (1990) tries to open up the reader’s mind and eyes towards the perils of presdentialism. As defined earlier in this paper, presdentialism is a form of government where the executive, which has been elected by the people is in charge of the government and has full mandate to be a representative of their rights as recognized by the constitution. Linz (1990, p. 53) also offers the differences between the parliamentary form of government as practiced in the United States of America as well as other nations citing that the parliamentary system could be very unstable. For instance in cases of ethnic or racial stability, the parliamentary system of government is usually very unstable, slow and indecisive in the solution of these conflicts. According to Linz (1990, p.54), the executives occupying the seat of the president has a fixed term in office. This leads to a disjointment of the political system and process into periods lacking flow and continuity and leaves no room for necessary adjustments that could arise on demand. The flow of power starts with him and he is the person who makes the final decision on the policies that the country is supposed to adopt. He also argues that the legislators could somehow be in a position to claim legitimate democracy especially when they know how to present their parties offer the nation a clear, concise and open ideologies and alternatives to the political setups. In the same breath, Linz (1990) also points out to the problem and conflict of interest that could arise when and if the two tentacles of power, the legislative body and the president decided to each come up and articulate their ideologies to the people whom they represent. Since both are elected, by the voters in an independent election spanning into democracy, they would be in a dilemma to decide who was more suited to the representation of the interests of these people. In the instance that the incumbent president under this system falls sick or worse still, passes on, chaos might result. This makes the presidential rule very unpredictable and even unreliable. In the other form of government, the parliamentary system where there is a prime minister, it is easier to fully facilitate this ruling. This is because the passing on of the prime minister would not really affect the working of the government because he has no much power lying on him alone. Moreover, the prime minister can easily be removed from government, either by being sacked or through a vote of no confidence. In a presidential system, the rule of law and democracy is not really emphasized. They operate on the concept of the ‘winner take all’ (Linz, 1990, p. 56). The president as well as those close to him places the interests of the nation as being secondary. Their own self-interest occupies the primary slots in this system and this heightens the corruption grid. Linz (1990) gives an example of Spain, which has had a successful transition from the authoritarian rule to adopt a parliamentary system. The perils of a parliamentary system as pointed out by Linz here are many. From the Spain example given here, we learn that after the transition, it was pretty difficult for the leaders who sought office afterwards to become elected on a direct ticket. Instead, they had to seek nominations and form grand coalitions to enable them acquire the vast majority that was required to win these elections despite the popularity of the candidates on a singular level. Conclusion The usage of comparative research in comparative politics as has been observed here could be a tool that goes in either direction depending on how one utilizes it. If well utilized, a lot of information could become filtered and the objectives of the research met with much ease. If not well handled, the exact opposite would be the outcome and it would not be very desirable. In conclusion, it can be said that comparative research designs have become very common tools that are highly relied upon to collect information about two different concepts or systems and give a comparison between them by illuminating on the differences as well as the similarities. 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