Studying Comparative Politics - Essay Example

Politics is an omnipresent thing, which has an effect in every aspect of human lives. This effect is visible and being felt from time immemorial. With the passage of time, along with the evolution of man, the Politics also got evolved. And, in the process of evolution, various forms of Politics then got formed. And, these forms of Politics and its associated form of governance are having their presence in every country of this world. These presences have lead to the formation of a new field in Political Science termed as Comparative Politics. And, this paper will discuss the evolution of comparative politics since the 1950s, including the major historical periods, the dominant approaches, their historical origins and major characteristics, and possible directions for the future. Comparative Politics Our world since its origination has been a ‘hotbed’ of activity. Activity in the sense, the central component of this world, we humans have been showing activeness both mentally and physically, which have transformed our globe from a primitive one to an advanced one. Advancement, which is visible in all spheres of our life, as well as in the ‘sphere’, we live. And, that advancement is also seen in one of the important activities of the ‘sphere’, the activity of politics. That is, before the establishment of towns and cities, the concentration of people were in villages, where they lived a way of life, governed by local politics. With the advancement, humans spread out to new territories. And in course of time that territories became cities, states and eventually countries. Along with this evolution of humans and territories, the political setup, which ruled a village, also evolved and new political setups came into being, to rule cities, provinces or states and countries. These political setups got evolved or constituted according to an area’s culture, history, needs of the people etc. So, there may be a vast difference in the way, politics is conducted in one land, when compared with another one. And this activity of comparing, in course of time, also evolved into a specialized field termed as comparative politics. Comparative politics, branch of Political science, studies the worlds different political systems by comparing as well as contrasting, the inbuilt aspects of each country’s political system. The field of Political science is a vast one, and from the beginning of the 20th century, the growth of comparative perspectives in Political science is seen in all the all areas of the discipline. The issues, subject matters, views etc of Political science, which were treated as isolated cases before, were studied under a comparative approach now. And, with the field of politics being a universal thing with imprints everywhere, when one talks about comparative politics as part of political science, whole lot of things comes into the picture. “The whole globe constitutes comparative politics research laboratory” (Wiarda 1991) Historical periods Comparative politics as an important field of study in Political science evolved in a constructive direction mainly in 1950’s. That is, due to the various factors that prevailed in that period, comparative politics got a great boost. The situation post World War II, especially Nazis extermination policies against a particular race led to the immigration of great number of intellectuals from the European countries into United States of America. And many of these individuals, who held prominent position in their home country’s academic institutions, brought a wide knowledge of information about their country’s governance. And, when they occupied posts in American universities, it leads to the emergence of comparative politics, the comparisons that is mostly done between their home country’s politics and the American politics. Comparative politics in USA or any other countries could not pass from the germinating stage to a full grown stage because of the inability of the academic scholars to leave their country’s shores and study other country’s political system in person. But, with this restriction removed in the form of World War II and importantly due to the development of transportation and communication, comparative politics exploded in 1950’s, with the tremendous contribution from the top comparativists Friedrich, Loewenstein, Franz Neumann, and Hannah Arendt. Along with this, is the conceptualization of a new comparative politics theory propounded by the great minds of that time. “Comparative politics theory, as articulated by such leading scholars as Gabriel Almond, David Apter, Karl Deutsch, Harry Eckstein, Samuel Huntington, Seymour Martin Lipset, Lucian Pye, Myron Weiner, and others, seemed to provide some of the most interesting, innovative, and sophisticated new concepts and ideas in political science” (Wiarda 1991). It was during this period only; the field of comparative politics got extended to greater number of countries. That is, in the initial stages or in the formative stages, the fields of comparative politics were restricted only to few European countries. “The major texts in the field were once limited to the "Big Four": Great Britain, France, Germany, and the Soviet Union.” (Verba 1991) But, the period following World War II led to the emergence of new countries with their own indigenous form of government. That is, many countries got independence from the imperialist powers and in the process most of the countries, shed away the imperialist’s form of government and formed their own government. So, this phenomenon of countries embracing new form of government en masse in the period of 1950’s led to the development of comparative politics in all new perspectives. ”This expansion has of course been fueled by the quantum expansion in the number of new nations since the 1950s and by their emergence as important actors upon the world stage” (Verba 1991). The field of comparative politics evolved a bit in the 1960’s with the addition of new concepts. That is, survey forms of researches were followed for the first time when comparing the governmental setups of two countries or regions or states etc. And, this form of research gave new inputs as well as impetus to the comparative politics. “Then the new comparative politics that developed in the 1960s incorporated a set of methods involving survey research, analyses of aggregate data, content analysis, systems analyses, and a number of other approaches” (Verba 1991). And it was during this period, that journey of educated youths hastened by the development of transportation took place, leading to further research in the field of comparative politics. That is, when the aged scholars had reservations to visit far off countries, the young blood of youth were always in line waiting to utilize the opportunity, which contributed immensely to the overall development of comparative politics. And in the period of 1960’s only, new interpretations of comparative politics were followed like integrating sociology to it. In every country, the role of society is an ever-lasting one, so its influence in the development of new forms of government is paramount. “More attention was paid to the societal input into political decisions, and the hybrid discipline of political sociology was born” (Verba 1991). Also, during this period comparative aspect of politics delved deep into various forms of governance. All these ministries and departments, which performed, specialized duties to the common citizens were compared. ”Instead of studying only the formal institutions of government, scholars have turned their attention to more informal agencies of government, the attitudes and perceptions of mass and elite publics, and non governmental institutions such as interest groups and political parties” (Verba 1991). The field of comparative politics changed in different directions after the period of 1960’s. That is, the new developments that took place in the political circles in the 1970’s worked as the catalyst for the change in different directions. Even though, many changes occurred, the one on which there was lot of focus is the developmentalism approach. And, when one focuses on the political events of that time, Vietnam War played a crucial role. That is, with American war on Vietnam evoking negative views and also criticisms, the form of governance carried out in Vietnam by the USA became a subject of discussion. And this lead to newer perspectives, but in the negative directions about the field of Comparative politics. “The 1960s was a high point, but the Vietnam War and a general undermining of numerous institutions during the 1970s cast a pall as well on the field of comparative politics” (Wiarda 1991). So, from the great heights, on which the comparative politics was stationed in1960s, it has been steady decline in 1970’s. Then, the field got its biggest boost in the decade of 1980’s. That is, when compared to the previous decades, the stabilization of the political regimes in various countries specifically in Africa and Asia, leads the academicians to concentrate on comparative politics. “The field revived and became healthy again in the 1980s, probably corresponding to the end of the overall malaise of the previous decade, but it failed to recover the full élan and centrality within the discipline that it enjoyed in the 1960s.” (Wiarda 1991) Dominant approaches With the evolution of Comparative politics, new approaches came into being in the latter half of the 20th century. Approaches, which got formed due to the political, social and economical situations that, prevailed at that point of time. So, the great thinkers influenced by the events like war, political regime changes, people’s revolution etc put forth their views in the form of new approaches. And these approaches gave lot of new insights into the field of comparative politics. The early approach that got enough attention is the approach that linked to functionalism. The functionalist approach had derivations from anthropology and sociology, and evolved into a new kind of approach, which concentrated on the social functions. That is, this approach clearly defined the social functions that various elements of the social system need to perform in regard to the entire system. And one of the pioneers of this type of approach is Talcott Parsons. That is, the work of Talcott Parsons lead a process in 1950’s, which enabled scholars from the western countries to not only concentrate on their developed countries but on the newly emergent nations. Not only Parson, many authors from Almond, Coleman etc did a remarkable job in correcting the inbuilt weaknesses of the existing approaches and in the process gave important studies to the functional approach. “It is thus no accident that the functionalist approach was strongly represented in the work of editors Almond and Coleman and that of the many contributors to The Politics of the Developing Areas” (Verba 1991). The field of Comparative politics had some inbuilt approaches in the form comparative approach. That is, the comparative approach formed one of the important cog in the vehicle of Political science and its application is found everywhere especially in studying the foreign policies. So, in 1950’s apart from the functionalist approach, the comparative approach got lot of scrutiny. In the field of comparative politics, comparative approach contributed some of the “most innovative research strategies and approaches, and the comparative approach pervaded other areas of the discipline--for example, there were new studies of comparative foreign policy” (Verba 1991). The American politics and the governmental setup, which remained isolated to this form of comparative politics got involved, giving new perspectives to the their form of governance and the way people lived. And the burgeoning Political science field got the biggest influence due to this emergence of the new comparative approach. “There were even some elevated, almost imperial claims that comparative politics was political science, that as everything is comparative, comparative politics as a field therefore embraced the entire discipline” (Verba 1991) And the important approach that constituted comparative politics and had a widespread influence is the behavioral approach. The approach, which stipulated and at the same time, expanded the behavioristic activities of the various governments. This behavioral approach in comparative politics had its origin in 1953, when a specialized committee was formed to integrate the two specialized branches of political science. That is, in the fall of 1953, a committee called Political Behavior Committee was set up by the Social Science Research Council in United States of America. Even though the committees duties expanded into different directions, the one which got most attention is the integration of Behavioral approach into comparative politics. That is, committee set under the leadership of David Truman and Pendleton Herring, asked one of the greatest thinkers in the field of comparative politics, Gabriel Almond to organize a new SSRC committee to work on bringing the behavioral approach to the study of comparative politics (Verba, Pye &Eulau 2002). As, we have already discussed, in the initial stages of 1950’s the study of comparative politics got restricted to just the western countries and the resources from the emergent and new countries were excluded. And so, along with this integration process, the work of this committee and Almond is to expand the range of comparative analysis to include the non-Western world, in particular, the new states just emerging from colonial rule. And, also to “singularise” all the findings related to comparative politics from the various specialized branches of political science like sociology, anthropology, and psychology. So, these three initiatives of bringing behaviorism into the field of comparative politics, then expanding the resources from new countries and finally integrating materials from other branches are the work done by the Political Behavior Committee, which led to the origin of behavioral approach. Along with this reasons, behaviorism had another source from history to originate. That is, the role of Second World War is crucial to the overall development of the behavioral approach and its integration with the comparative politics. “The Second World War also stimulated the development of the behavioral approach in the United States, for a great many American Political scientists temporarily vacated their ivory tower and came to grips…administrative realities” (Dahl 1961) And, when this behavioral approach came into public domain and into the hands of the scholars and academicians its interpretations had lot of usage in the comparative analysis, done as part of comparative politics. But, its usage in the initial period of 1950’s did not leave enough imprints in the history of the comparative politics. This is mainly due to the inability of the research scholars to interpret this behavioral approach in context of political science. “The range of “behavioral” scholars and research in this area is very great, though the researchers and the research may not always bear the professional label “Political Science”” (Dahl 1961). This fear or negative view about behavioral approach continued in the post-behavioral period as well. That is, whether this approach would compromise the integral aspects of Political science were voiced by some scholars. “For some among post-behavioralists, the fear of physical and political self-destruction has led to the abandonment of science al together. For them science is simply incapable of measuring up to contemporary needs” (Easton 1969). But, this post-behavioral approach cannot be viewed only in negative light; it can be viewed with a positive spin. That is, this fear should not be heightened and should be considered as a new challenge, which should be countered. That is, this fear about behavioral approach compromising the political science and thereby behavioral research should not be compounded with restrictions but should be treated as creations of the modern times. “By adopting this course, post-behavioralism need not be considered a threat to behavioral research but only an extension of it necessary for coping with the unusual problems of the present epoch ” (Easton 1969). So, behavorial approach had a nice influence. “Post-behavioralism stands, therefore, as the most recent contribution to out collective heritage. For that very reason, as an intellectual tendency it in not the threat and danger that some seem to fear. ” (Easton 1969). Possible directions for the future The nice influence of comparative politics, which is continuing now, can surely continue in the future. That is, in the current scenario, the field of comparative politics got a level playing ground with the governments of various countries, open to all type of discussion about their governance. With the omnipresent media everywhere, comparative politics got a great ally and it reflected in the researches that took place in the last decade. And, in the future with many approaches being established in the field of comparative politics, it will give raise to a rich collaboration of all the approaches giving a optimized approach. “Some of the most valuable work in the future may be cross-disciplinary within the subfields of political science” (Bruland and Horowitz 2003). Also, this collage of various approaches have some times given the feeling that identity of the approaches got dissolved without any individuality. So. the scholars are mostly concentrating on establishing approaches, which can maintain its identity, and it will surely continue in the future. “ Regardless of what happens, it seems clear that the explicit study of identity in comparative politics is increasing and is likely to continue increasing in the future” (Bruland and Horowitz 2003). Conclusion The studies of comparative politics can only go or skim information just on the top the knowledge treasure of Comparative politics, which goes to a deeper level. That is, the information about this subject of study is vast. And with the changing times, it keeps on mounting because Politics and governance of these times gives umpteen opportunities to compare and analyze, leading to the consolidation of the field of comparative politics. Reference Wiarda, Howard. (1991). Comparative Politics: Past and Present. Boulder: Westview Press. London. Verba, Sidney. (1991). Comparative Politics: Where Have We Been, Where Are We Going? Boulder: Westview Press. London. Dahl, Robert A. (1961). The Behavioral Approach in Political Science: Epitaph for a Monument to a Successful Protest,” American Political Science Review (APSR), Vol. 55, no. 4. pp. 763-772 Easton, David. (1969). The New Revolution in Political Science. APSR, vol. 63, no. 4. pp. 1051-1061 Bruland, Peter and Horowitz, Michael.(2003). Research Report on the Use of Identity Concepts in Comparative Politics. Retrieved March 26, 2007 from http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/misc/initiative/identity/publications/ ComparativeReport.pdf. Verba, Sidney. Lucianpye & Zuela, Andhein. (2003). Ganbriela Almond. Retrieved March 26, 2007 from http://books.nap.edu/html/biomems/galmond.pdf. Read More