WEEK ONE

TOPIC: MEANING AND INTRODUCTION TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS

Comparative politics is the science of politics that seeks to obtain knowledge through

comparing two (2) or more countries or places or political events. Comparative politics seeks

to make generalizations about politics through comparison generalization is the utilization of

facts that are known to learn something about facts that we do not know; thus, the main

purpose of comparative politics is the development of theories about political life (Theories

are laws which provides systematic explanation of some area of knowledge or body of

observations and which may be used to predict events or prescribe conducts). The main

purpose of comparative politics is to theorize about politics i.e. theories of politics behaviour

about a particular aspect or aspects of political science in order to use these theories to predict

future behaviours. Theories are used basically to explain, to predict and to prescribe conducts

for future behaviour. Comparative politics is also the systematic study and comparison of the

world‟s politics system it seeks to explain differences as well as similarities between

countries, places and events around the global.

Comparative politics is a part of political science with its own peculiarities and it compares

things like elections, government, people of different countries etc. It also observes events

and uses more than one case to study political behaviour to have more generalized laws.

There are two types of theory in political science, namely;

A. Normative theories

B. Empirical theories

NORMATIVE THEORY: This specifies how things in society ought to be.

EMPIRICAL THEORY: Empirical theory seeks to establish causal relationships between two

or more concepts in order to explain observed political occurrences. This basically seeks to

find out how things are in the real world of politics.

Theories in political science, whether normative or empirical can further be classified into:

i. Deductive theory

ii. Inductive theory

DEDUCTIVE THEORY: deductive theories are theories that apply general reason in the

explanation of particular cases i.e. using everybody to explain one person.

INDUCTIVE THEORY: inductive theories use the facts of known individual cases to

explain general and unknown cases.

In all cases whether normative, empirical, deductive or inductive, comparison of evidence

from different countries or areas or events help us to confirm our generalizations and

theory.

Comparative politics helps us basically to come up with more dependable laws in politics,

it is also what political scientists have done to make political science more scientific.
WEEK TWO

TOPIC: SCOPE AND ACTORS OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS

SCOPE OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS: Comparison is at the root of all human

thoughts. Comparing our past with our present and with that of others has always deepened

our very knowledge. According to “LANDMAN” (2003), making comparisons is a natural

human activity as from the ancient times to the present, humans have sought to understand

and explain the similarities and differences they perceive between themselves and others.

Individuals and regions in all countries regularly compare their positions in the society to

those of others in specific terms. This means that the idea of comparison is natural as people

tends to compare at all times and even countries do the same, it gives us the idea of what

should have been. Comparative politics thus helps us to appreciate the possibilities of

politics. “Comparative political analysis helps us to develop explanations and test theories of

the ways in which political change occurs” (Landman 2003).

ACTORS IN COMPARATIVE POLITICS

Basically, the actors in comparative politics are

 States &

 Their political parties

These states cover the entire surface of the world; they are the subjects on which we conduct

comparative political study (almond, Powell and Mundt 1996). Some of these staes are old

while others are new, some are big, while others are small, some are rich while others are

poor. It is these differences and similarities within and among states that form the focus of

comparative politics.
It is thus possible to describe and explain the different process and institutions (and their

combinations) found in the politics of different states. In this wise, comparative politics can

be seen as an old discipline dating back to about 2000 years ago, when “ARISTOLE” in his

POLITICS compared the economies and social structures of several Greek city states roughly

about 28 in number. In order to determine their effect on the societies-political institutions

and politics some of these cities he compared are; Athens, Sparta, Penepolecia, Thebes,

Corinth, Argos, Olympics, Delphi, Sicyon, Mycenae, etc. Other has since conducted

comparative study of democracies and of democracies authoritarian regime, as well as of

party systems, political violence, and all areas of politics ever since Aristotle wrote his

politics.
WEEK THREE

TOPIC: BASIC CONCEPTS IN COMPARATIVE POLITICS

In undertaking comparative political studies, there are some terms that we must be conversant

with. This includes;

 Case study

 Units of analysis

 Levels of analysis

a. CASE STUDY: case study is the approach which focuses on the study of specific

countries or areas. Cases are then the countries that feature in a particular comparative

study.. It is the approach which focuses on the study of specific countries or areas or

events.

b. UNITS OF ANALYSIS: units of analysis are the objects on which data are collected in a

study such as; individuals, groups, area of a country, countries, systems ( political systems,

electoral systems ), social groups, political parties etc. each unit of analysis will consist of

variables relevant to a study.

VARIABLES: these are concepts that assume changing values over a given sets of units,

such as income level, party membership and identification, etc. the values of the variables for

each units can be expressed in numbers or verbally or visually/graphically. Variables can be

independent or dependent.

INDEPENDENT VARIABLE: independent variable is the causal variable (or explanatory

variable or the explicandum) which explains the dependents variable, i.e. independent

variable explains the dependent variable.

DEPENDENT VARIABLE: dependent variables is the outcome variable, i.e. the EFFECT

variable (endogenous variable or the explanandum) which the study is trying to explain. E.g.

in considering rigged elections, dependent variable as the rigged elections while the

explanation of why the election was rigged in the independent variable. Most political

phenomena however have more than one explanation, so it is possible to have more than one

independent variable for a given dependent variable. ( it is possible to have more than one

answer for a given.

c. LEVELS OF ANALYSIS: level of analysis in comparative politics refers to the

categories on which analysis is made. This is divided between MICRO and MACRO

levels.

i. MICRO LEVEL: this is the individual level and it examines the political activities

of individual level such as individual members of militant movements in the Niger

delta, for instance, or individual members in a political party.

ii. MACRO LEVEL: this is the system level and it examines the political activities

of groups, classes and power structures in a political system.

Level of analysis is related to level observation, the latter being the category at which data

are collected (przeworski and Teune 1970).

WEEK FIVE

TOPIC: OBJECTIVE OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS

There are four (4) major objectives for engaging in comparative political study, namely:-

 Description

 Classification

 Explanation

 Prediction

Description – comparative politics enables us to describe political phenomena and events in

a particular country or group of countries. The objective description allows us to know what

the countries being studied are like. Usually, the researches proceed from the known to the

unknown. This method means that countries or areas studied will normally include the

researchers own country and others foreign to them. It also means that established facts must

be the basis for our initial assumption. By engaging in detailed contextual description of

phenomena in the countries or areas under study, the researcher ultimately gains more

knowledge about his own country and also about the other countries studied.

Classification: This objective refers to the categorization of countries or areas according to

identifiable characteristics. Classification enables the researcher to discover CONTAINER

into which observed data are organized. Classification can be done in simple dichotomies or

in more complex typologies involving defined concept or themes. Countries are then grouped

on the basis of the qualities or characteristics that they share or that they do not share.

Explanation: The next objective of comparative politics is to explain what has been

described and classified. Explanation allows the cross checking of data and makes for rival

explanations to be ruled out. It further allows for hypothesis to be tested thereby making for
more complete theories of politics, e.g. the iron law of oligarchy which says that leadership

revolves around a few people i.e. the elite and the followers who are the many or the masses

etc. Explanation is important in comparative politics as you need to exactly explain what you

mean by the themes and typologies that you have used for easy clarification and

understanding.

Prediction: The last objective of comparative politics is prediction which enables us to make

claims about future political outcomes based on available data. These claims could be about

future political outcome. In the countries, or areas studied or they could be about political

outcome in other countries different from those studied. E.g. if Nigeria and Ghana are

corrupt, that means other West African countries are. Such predictions are “probabilistic

statements” about likely outcomes in the present or future, given the present of certain

conditional factors.
WEEK SIX

TOPIC: PROBLEMS OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS

Comparative studied in political science faces a number of challenges, these are namely:-

1. THE PROBLEM OF RESEARCH DESIGN:

This is the problem of choosing the variables to observe and the countries to study. This

creates the problem of an indeterminate research design, in which often, a comparativist

works with too many various and not enough countries i.e. too few countries or put in another

way too many generalizations and not enough observations. This problem is more associated

with single or few case studies where in more variables of explanation for a phenomenon is

identified than there are countries to be observed. If a study has too many possible

explanation of a phenomenon, and not enough countries to be observed, then arriving at the

correct explanation is problematic. Any solution to this problem must be based on the

principle that the number of variables must be less than the number of observed countries. In

this regard, a comparativist can raise the number of observations to allow for variation. This

can be done by adding more countries to the study or by comparing more sections of a

country being studied or still by comparing countries or sections of countries over a long

period of time. E.g. comparing elections in Nigeria from 1960-2010. This long period of time

is called “TIME SERIES ANALYSIS”.

Another solution is to work with a research design that includes similar countries such

that it would be easy to explain for different outcome e.g. working with West African

countries and they are similar with the history, geographical terrain, colonialism,

independence etc.
Yet a third solution will involve a research design of different countries i.e. countries that

are entirely different while focusing on the explanatory factors for similar outcomes e.g

Nigeria and Pakistan, Indian, Japan, Malaysia, or Ethiopia etc. a another example the

study of countries that have had revolution like, Germany, Russia, Cuba, China, Turkey,

etc you will surely find a similarity why they all had revolutions their countries.

There is another problem concerning research design, this is the problem of ecological

and individualistic data where an acceptable distinction is not made between individuals

level data and system or aggregate level data i.e. using data collected at one level to make

analysis on data collected at another level. Individual data refers to information collected

about individual people or units while system-level data consists of aggregate data for

testing units. The problem of ecological and individualist fallacy arises when

generalizations are arrived at about one level of analysis using data obtained from another

level. This problem can be avoided by adopting the „principle of direct measurement‟

(scheuch 1969:13) which provides that research questions at one level should use data at

that level and can only lead to generalisations about that level of analysis.
WEEK SEVEN

TOPIC: PROBLEMS OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS CONTINUED

2. PROBLEM OF CONCEPTUAL EQUIVALENCE

The next problem of comparative studies in political science is that of defining concepts

and specifying indicators in such a way as to allow for shared meanings and thus, valid

comparisons. In other words, how can the comparativist assign equivalent values to his

concepts across multiple contexts such that this concept means the same thing across

different countries and times? For comparison to have meaning, it is not enough that the

concepts are identical or even similar but they must be same exactly the same across all

the countries you are studying. In this regard, two major arguments have been made,

namely the Universalist and the Relativist positions.

The Universalists argue that concepts must have the same meaning everywhere, while the

Relativist argue that the meaning of concepts must be locally determined. A middle

position however has argued that comparativists while striving for general conceptual

definitions, should also try to modify these meanings according to contextual and cultural

specificities (Landman 2003). The solution to the problem of equivalence generally lies in

the comparativist carefully specifying his concepts, constructing models that

operationalize these concepts in the various contexts of his study, (while recognising

limitations) (Landman 2003:45). E.g. studying poverty in Nigeria and Benin if you are

using N 20,000 as benchmark for poverty in Nigeria it must be the equivalent of N

20,000 in the Benin currency so that somebody reading your work will easily understand

your work.
3. PROBLEM OF RESEARCH BIAS

Comparative politics faces two (2) problem of bias namely, Selection Bias and Value

Bias.

A. SELECTION BIAS: this is the problem of bias in selecting countries for study. Often,

comparative politics uses intentional selection instead of random selection of

respondents/countries for study. In other words, research bias in comparative studies in

political science refers to the non-random choice of countries or the deliberate selection

of respondents for study. This problem faces mainly those studies that compare few

countries or within a country. In this regard, this problem of „selection without reflection‟

creates further problems of generalizations. Often, countries are chosen because they

exhibit the attribute which the research wants to explain e.g. revolution, poverty, violence

etc. choosing as this based on the dependent variable, may lead to either an

overestimation of relationships that do not exist or an underestimations of relationships

that actually exists. Both mean that the analysis is arriving at false generalization. To

control this situation, countries exhibiting an attribute may be compared to offer that do

not exhibit that attribute.

There is also selection bias in qualitative comparative study this arises when a study relies on

HISTORICAL SOURCES that fit the particular theory being tested Historiography (study

of historical records) itself is dependent on the disposition of the historians themselves. Thus,

generalizations obtained based on historical account may be biased. This can however be

sowed of relying on multiple historical sources at a time so as to arrive at a “MEAN” account

of events.

There is a third form of selection bias, bias in time framing, arising from the time periods

used in the comparative study spanning a long period of time. This can manifest when a
particular time frame is used in a study but generalization are drawn covering a longer time

frame.

A final selection bias is spuriousness or the bias of “OMITTED VARIABLES”.

Spuriousness is an explanation in which some unidentified factors is responsible for an

outcome or phenomenon but which is attribute instead to an identified wrong factor. To avoid

this, the comparatives must look for identified only the variable that have identifiable

relationship to the phenomenon being studied.

The other problem of research bas in comparative politics is:

B. VALUE BIAS: This arises from the perspective of the researcher which often affects

analysis and interpretations. This can be resolved by the researcher admitting his

perspective and specifying in what ways this perspective have to come to the study.