Essentials of Comparative Politics - Chapter 1: Introduction PDF

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notes summarizing chapter 1 of essentials of comparative politics...

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• comparative politics - the study and comparison of domestic policies across countries • international relations - a field in politics that concentrates on relations between countries, such as, foreign policy, war, • politics - struggle in any group for power that will give one or more persons the ability to make decisions for the larger group • power - the ability to influence others or impose one's will on them • politics is the competition for power, and power is the ability to extend one's will • comparative politics compares the pursuit of power across countries • if it is unclear how or why democracy is being promoted, it becomes difficult or dangerous • important to separate ideals from our concepts and methods • comparative method - the means by which social scientists make comparisons across cases • by comparing countries, conclusions and generalizations can be drawn that could be valid in other cases • inductive reasoning - research that works from case studies in order to generate hypothesis ◦ uses evidence to form a hypothesis ◦ while a study of one country can generate a hypothesis, it doesn't provide enough evidence to test them ◦ foundation to build greater theories • deductive reasoning - research that works from a hypothesis that is then tested against data ◦ starts with hypothesis and then seeks evidence • inductive and deductive reasoning helps to better understand and predict political outcomes • too many variables and diversity in variables makes studies difficult • multicausality - when variables are interconnected and interact together to produce particular outcomes • limits to gathering information and access to cases • area studies - a regional focus when studying political science, rather than studying parts of the world where similar variables are clustered • selection bias - a focus on effects rather than causes, which can lead to inaccurate conclusions about correlation or causation • endogeneity - the issue that cause and effect are not often clear, in that variables may be both cause and effect in relationship to each other • even if cause and effect are found, its not always clear which is which • Aristotle compared the constitution of 158 Greek City States • Machiavelli did a comparative approach to politics ◦ analyze political system around and before him, trying to make generalizations that could be applied to statesmen to avoid their predecessors' mistakes ◦ considered the first modern political scientist ◦ politics could be developed as a logical, rigorous, and predictable science • Thomas Hobbes and John Locke advocated political systems on the basis of empirical observation and analysis • Rousseau and Montesquieu's studies of the separation of power and civil liberties • Karl Marx and Max Weber's analyses of the nature of political and economic organization and power • modernization theory - a theory asserting that as societies developed, they would take on a set of common characteristics, including democracy and capitalism ◦ set of hypotheses about how countries develop • behavioral revolution - a movement within political science in the 1950s and 1960s to develop general theories about individual political behavior that could be applied across all countries ◦ set of methods with which to approach politics • democracy is an institution • no single uniform set of institutions holds power over people all over the world • formal institutions - institutions usually based on officially sanctioned rules that are relatively clear • informal institutions - institutions with unwritten or unofficial rules • difficult to change or eliminate institutions • people have difficulty accepting that institutions have outlived their value

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institutions generate norms and values, allowing for certain kinds of political activity and not others institutions affect how politics function core debate: the struggle between freedom and equality struggle between individual freedom and collective equality and in how these ideals are to be reconciled freedom - the ability of an individual to act independently, with out fear or restriction or punishment by the state or other individuals or groups of society ◦ connotes autonomy ◦ free speech, free assembly, freedom of religion and other civil liberties equality - a shared material standard of individuals within community, society, or country freedom and equality shape politics, power, and debates over justice inequality may increase as individual freedom trumps the desire for greater collective equality personal freedom may imply a smaller role for the state and limits on its powers to do things focus on equality mar erode freedom when economic and political powers are concentrated in one place, they may threaten individual freedom since people control fewer private resources freedom and equality can assert each other material security can help secure certain political rights freedom and equality may change as the material world and our values change politics is driven by the ideal of reconciling individual freedom and collective equality...