Lesson 3.
The evolution of Comparative Politics
Aims and Learning Outcomes
1. Recall the evolution of the comparative politics
2. Compare the Greek city states,
3. Discuss an examples of comparative politics
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The evolution of comparative politics Edward Freeman in one
of the first books in the field of comparative politics noted that
‘the establishment of Comparative Method of study has been the
greatest intellectual achievement of our time’ (Freeman 1896: 1).
Compares and evaluates alternative ideas of justice, legitimacy, and the common
good as they apply to the institutions and conduct of domestic and global life.
Plato focused on reason, and Aristotle focused on sense, experience and
evidence. In short, the key point of their debate was about the source of knowledge -
whether it comes from abstract reasoning or sense experience and observation of the
real world. Plato said reasoning, and Aristotle said observation.
However, the roots of comparative political analysis are
found in Ancient Greece as the first comparative studies begin
with Aristotle (384–322 B. C. E), who studied different
constitutions of Greek city-states.
Comparative politics means comparing the political systems of different states.
Comparative politics is as old as political theory. Aristotle is regarded as the father of
comparative politics. He studied 158 constitutions and gave the classification of
constitutions.
Athens was all about culture and smarts, while Sparta focused on being tough
warriors. These differences shaped Greek history. City-states fought, made alliances,
and competed in everything from war to art. But they also shared a common Greek
identity, language, and love for things like the Olympic Games.
Athens was the more intellectually-inclined city-state, and valued education,
democracy, and philosophy above all else. Conversely, Sparta was a military society
where size, strength, and fighting capabilities defined the worth of the individual. Each
of these city-states based their economy primarily on agriculture.
As Klaus von Beyme recently noted, Machiavelli in the pre-
modern era came closest to a modern social science approach.
Moreover, great social theorists made an invaluable impact on the
development of contemporary comparative politics.
Klaus von Beyme, a highly distinguished German political scientist, has been recognised
as a “Pioneer in the Study of Political Theory and Comparative Politics”. When he received the
highly esteemed Mattei Dogan Award during the XXII World Congress of Political Science in
Madrid on 12 July 2012, in his laudatio Rainer Eisfeld portrayed Klaus v. Beyme as a “Global
Scholar and Public Intellectual”. On the occasion of Klaus v. Beyme’s 80th birthday this book
offers a selection of his major previously published and new texts focusing on “Empirical
Political Theory”, “The Evolution of Comparative Politics, Revival of Normative Political Theory
in Empirical Research”, “Theodor W. Adorno - Political Theory as Theory of Aesthetics”,
“Historical Forerunners of Policy Studies”, “Political Institutions – Old and New”, “Representative
Democracy and the Populist Temptation”, “Political Advisors to Politicians”, and on “The
Concept of Political Class: A New Dimension of Research on Elites?”.
For instance, Machiavelli (1469–1527) sought to compare
and evaluate the merits of different forms of rule.
Using Machiavelli's diplomatic and government correspondence, his musings on
military commanders, and writings such as “The Prince,” Lynch argues that Machiavelli
was among the greatest of modern philosophers because he was the first modern
philosopher of war.
Moreover, scholars cite Machiavelli's influence in shaping the early modern
debates surrounding “reason of state”—the doctrine that the good of the state itself
takes precedence over all other considerations, whether morality or the good of citizens
He laid the foundation of modern political thought – Machiavelli is regarded as
the founder of modern political thought- 1) He is the first exponent of power-politics. 2)
He is the first who put the theory of nation states. 3) He was the first thinker who
separated religion from politics and justified secular state.
Machiavelli believes rulers should exercise honesty and keep their promises only
when it suits their purposes. Machiavelli ultimately argues that rulers should bend a
variety of common virtues to keep and/or expand their territory. Machiavelli also warns
rulers against hatred from their subjects,
Thomas Hobbes (1632–1704) developed the idea of a ‘social
contract’ and Karl Marx (1818–1883) developed the theory of
economic and political development and revolutionary change.
Hobbes and Locke offered different hypotheses about why people formed a
state. Hobbes argued that people formed a state out of pragmatic self-interest to protect
themselves from each other. Locke's theory of human nature, however, was far more
optimistic.
Hobbes believed that the social contract was designed to invest absolute power
in a ruler to govern the citizenry. Locke believed that the social contract meant investing
some power in the hands of the ruler, whose power would be used to protect his
citizens' human rights.
However, comparative politics was established as an
academic discipline only in the very late 19th and the beginning
of the 20th century. Still prior to the 1950s comparative politics
was mostly normative and descriptive or dominated by the so-
called traditional approach and being at the pre-modern phase of
its development.
In 1955 Roy Macridis launched a diatribe against traditional
comparative politics. He accused the discipline of being formal-
legalistic because of the studying of formal institutions over non-
formal political processes, descriptive rather than analytic, case
study-orientated rather than genuinely comparative, and
Eurocentric with its emphasis on Great Britain, France, Germany
and the Soviet Union.
‘Scientific’ comparative politics begins mainly with the rise of
behaviourism in social sciences. Behaviouralism in comparative
politics, as in other fields of political science, stood for two distinct
ideas. One concerned the proper subject matter of comparative
politics.
In this regard, behaviouralists reacted against a definition of
the field that restricted its scope to the formal institutions of
government and sought to include a range of informal procedures
and behaviours – related to interest groups, political parties, mass
communication, political culture, and political socialization – that
were seen as key 11 What is Comparative Politics? to the
functioning of the political system.
A second key idea was the need for a scientific approach to
theory and methods. Behaviouralists were opposed to what they
saw as vague, rarefied theory and atheoretical empirics, and
argued for systematic theory and empirical testing. The
behavioural era in comparative politics is sometimes described as
a modern period of its evolution
Post-modernism in comparative politics meant first of all
domination of new historical institutionalism in a style of Max
Weber and Emile Durkheim’s early system approach.
Moreover, economic theories and cultural approaches
appeared in comparative research as well.
Klaus von Beyme noted that ‘the evolution of comparative
politics was not a self-steering development, but one that proved
to be deeply influenced by political events’ (Beyme 2008: 35)
such as decolonization, transition to democracy and so on.
Gerardo L. Munck and Richard Snyder traced key
developments in the field of comparative politics during the
twentieth century in their book Passion, Craft and Method of
Comparative Politics. They selected 15 of the most influential
contributors to the field in second half of the 20th century
Howard J. Wiarda once noted that comparative politics is the
queen of the [political science] discipline. Indeed, if we were to
make an alternative list of the most important scholars from the
late 20th century until the beginning of the 21st century and
looking exclusively at the recipients of the Johan Skytte Prize in
political science since 1995 (this award is given to the scholars
who have made the most valuable contribution to political
science),
it is obvious that most awardees belonged to the field of
comparative politics. Moreover, the only recipient from political
science of the Nobel Prize is Elinor Ostrom, who might well be
identified with comparative politics. All this shows the huge
importance of comparative politics in the discipline of political
science
Recipients Of The Johan Skytte Prize In Political Science
1995 Robert A. Dahl CP and PT
1996 Juan J. Linz CP and PT
1997 Arend Lijphart CP
1998 Alexander L. George IR and CP
1999 Elinor Ostrom PT and CP
2000 Fritz W. Scharpf CP
2001 Brian Barry PT
2002 Sidney Verba CP
2003 Hanna Pitkin PT
2004 Jean Blondel CP
2005 Robert Keohane IR
2006 Robert Putnam CP and PT
2007 ThedaSkocpol CP and PT
2008 Rein Taagepera CP
2008 Philippe C. Schmitter CP
2010 Adam Przeworski
CP 2011 Ronald
Inglehart and Pippa Norris CP and PT
2012 Carole Pateman PT and
CP
CP = comparative politics; IR = international relations; PT =
political theory