Chapter 1

Politics is defined as the process by which human communities make collective decisions. Comparative politics is one of the subfields of political science, comparing power and decision making within and across national boundaries. Power has three different dimensions: it can be the ability to make a person do something, refrain from doing something, or the ability to influence how a person thinks. The study of comparative politics helps us understand political events and developments in different countries, generate lessons from one place to apply in another, and develop broad theories.

Five major areas of study within the field are political development, regime type and change, participation and representation, policymaking processes, and political economy. While political development deals with the question of how modern nations and states arise, the area of regime type and regime change analyzes the characteristics and transitions to and from democratic and authoritarian regimes. The subject of participation and representation seeks to explain why and how people engage in politics, and policymaking focuses on the process through which states adopt laws. Finally, political economy concerns itself with the relationship between political and economic phenomena.

Three important questions run through these areas and help structure this comparative politics text. First, What explains political behavior? Approaches to political behavior seek to understand such phenomena as who votes (and who doesn’t), who participates in rallies or protests (and who doesn’t), and who joins guerrilla factions (and who doesn’t). Scholars who analyze political behavior may focus on different factors. Some scholars concentrate on individual motivations such as rational choice or psychology, others emphasize culture and ideology, and still others consider socioeconomic and political institutions as the main driving forces of behavior.

Second, Who rules? This question focuses on understanding the dispersion of power in a society and government. The two primary approaches to analyzing this question are pluralist and elite theories. Pluralist theories assume that society is divided in to many different groups and that power is dispersed across these groups. No group has complete or permanent power. Elite theories, on the other hand, contend that all societies are ruled over by elites that have complete control over power.

Finally, The question of “Where and why?” gets to the heart of comparative politics. Through the comparison of more than one place or time, it is possible to build theory—generalized understandings and explanations—regarding political life. In order to develop theories, comparativists use research methods developed within the framework of the scientific method. Compared to the laboratory sciences, however, it is much more difficult for social scientists to approximate experimental conditions in their research. Therefore political scientists often use case studies, comparative methods, and quantitative statistical techniques in order to develop and test hypotheses and theories about power and decision-making processes.

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you should understand:

• The meaning of comparative politics, its purpose and the methods used to study comparative politics.
   
• The types of questions examined in comparative politics.
   
• Different theoretical approaches to explaining political behavior.
   
• Different theoretical approaches to explaining who rules.