Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T05:22:10.786Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

From Within to Between Nations: Subnational Comparison across Borders

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 February 2019

Jefferey M. Sellers Open the ORCID record for Jefferey M. Sellers [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Long a staple in the toolkit of American politics, comparison among subnational territorial units has gained increasing currency in comparative politics. A growing portion of subnational research, especially in the monographic literature, employs comparisons of subnational territorial units within different countries. This approach to comparison, which I term transnational comparison, has the potential to build on and extend the advantages of subnational comparison. Despite the numerous added challenges it poses, transnational comparison offers a variety of ways to incorporate and leverage variations between countries as well as within them. Drawing on exemplary studies from the literature on subnational regimes and beyond, I outline a typology of successful transnational comparative strategies. The choice among these strategies depends on their distinctive properties, on the substantive questions asked, and on the stage of a research program. All have contributed to advancing the study of politics beyond nation-centered comparison.

Type
Article
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , March 2019 , pp. 85 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

A list of permanent links to Supplementary Materials provided by the author precedes the References section.

*Data replication sets are available in Harvard Dataverse at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/V1OVVA

References

Abadie, Alberto and Imbens, Guido W.. 2006. “Large Sample Properties of Matching Estimators for Average Treatment Effects.” Econometrica 74(1): 235–67.10.1111/j.1468-0262.2006.00655.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abramson, Scott F. and Carter, David B.. 2016. “The Historical Origins of Territorial Disputes.” American Political Science Review 110(4): 675–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Albertus, Michael. 2015. Autocracy and Redistribution: The Politics of Land Reform. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781316227107CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Amin, Ash. 2004. “Regions Unbound: Towards a new Politics of Place.” Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 86(1): 33–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Jeffrey J. 1992. The Territorial Imperative: Pluralism, Corporatism, and Economic Crisis. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bailey, Rosemary A. 2008. Design of Comparative Experiments. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511611483CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baumgartner, Frank R. 2010. “Beyond the Tragedy of the Commons.” Perspectives on Politics 8(2): 575–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beer, Caroline and Mitchell, Neil J.. 2006. “Comparing Nations and States: Human Rights and Democracy in India.” Comparative Political Studies 39(8): 996–1018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bermeo, Nancy. 2010. “Beyond the Tragedy of the Commons.” Perspectives on Politics 8(2): 570–72.10.1017/S1537592710000332CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boone, Catherine. 2014. Property and Political Order in Africa: Land Rights and the Structure of Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Börzel, Tanja A. 2002. States and Regions in the European Union: Institutional Adaptation in Germany and Spain. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bracic, Ana 2016. “Reaching the Individual: EU Accession, NGOs, and Human Rights.” American Political Science Review 110(3): 530–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bubb, Ryan. 2013. “The Evolution of Property Rights: State Law or Informal Norms?” Journal of Law and Economics 56(3): 555–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caramani, Daniele. 2005. “The Formation of National Party Systems in Europe: A Comparative-Historical Analysis.” Scandinavian Political Studies 28(4): 295–322.10.1111/j.1467-9477.2005.00134.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Castells, M. 2011. The Power of Identity: The Information Age. London: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Corstange, Daniel. 2016. The Price of a Vote in the Middle East: Clientelism and Communal Politics in Lebanon and Yemen. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781316227169CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dalton, Russell J. and Anderson, Christopher. eds. 2011. Citizens, Context, and Choice: How Context Shapes Citizens' Electoral Choices. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dancygier, Rafaela M. 2010. Immigration and Conflict in Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diaz-Cayeros, Alberto. 2006. Federalism, Fiscal Authority, and Centralization in Latin America. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dogan, Mattei and Pelassy, Dominique. 1990. How to Compare Nations: Strategies in Comparative Politics. London: Chatham House.Google Scholar
Dunning, Thad. 2012. Natural Experiments in the Social Sciences: A Design-Based Approach. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139084444CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gervasoni, Carlos. 2010. “A Rentier Theory of Subnational Regimes: Fiscal Federalism, Democracy, and Authoritarianism in the Argentine Provinces.” World Politics 62(2): 302–40.10.1017/S0043887110000067CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, Edward L. 2013. Boundary Control: Subnational Authoritarianism in Federal Democracies. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Giraudy, Agustina. 2015. Democrats and Autocrats: Pathways of Subnational Undemocratic Regime Continuity within Democratic Countries. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giraudy, Agustina, Moncada, Eduardo, and Snyder, Richard, eds. N.d. “Subnational Research in Comparative Politics.” In Subnational Research in Comparative Politics, forthcoming,. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hall, Peter A. 2003. “Aligning Ontology and Methodology in Comparative Research.” In Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences, eds. Mahoney, James and Rueschemeyer, Dietrich. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Harbers, Imke and Ingram, Matthew C. 2017. “Geo-nested Analysis: Mixed-Methods Research with Spatially Dependent Data.” Political Analysis 25(3): 289–307.Google Scholar
Holland, Alisha C. 2016. “Forbearance.” American Political Science Review 110(2) :232–46.10.1017/S0003055416000083CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holland, Alisha C. 2017. Forbearance as Redistribution. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hooghe, Liesbet, Marks, Gary, and Schakel, Arjan H.. 2010. The Rise of Regional Authority: A Comparative Study of 42 Democracies. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horst, Cindy. 2009. “Expanding Sites: The Question of ‘Depth’ Explored.” In Multi-sited Ethnography: Theory, Praxis and Locality in Contemporary Research, ed. Falzon, Mark Anthony. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Iacus, Stefano M., King, Gary, and Porro, Giuseppe. 2012. “Causal Inference without Balance Checking Coarsened Exact Matching.” Political Analysis 20(1): 1–24.10.1093/pan/mpr013CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Imbens, Guido W. and Lemieux, Thomas. 2008. “Regression Discontinuity Designs: A Guide to Practice.” Journal of Econometrics 142(2): 615–35.Google Scholar
John, Peter. 2009. “Why Study Urban Politics?” In Theories of Urban Politics, eds. Davies, Jonathan S. and Imbroscio, David L.. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Kemmerling, Achim and Bodenstein, Thilo. 2006. “Partisan Politics in Regional Redistribution: Do Parties Affect the Distribution of EU Structural Funds across Regions?” European Union Politics 7(3): 373–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Key, V. O. Jr. 1949. Southern Politics in State and Nation. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
King, Gary. 2013. “Replication, Replication.” PS: Political Science & Politics 28(3): 444–52.Google Scholar
Kitschelt, Herbert. 1989. The Logics of Party Formation Ecological Politics in Belgium and West Germany. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Lankina, Tomila V. 2012. “Sisyphean Endeavor or Worthwhile Undertaking?” Comparative Democratization Section newsletter, American Political Science Association 10(1): 2–14.Google Scholar
Lankina, Tomila and Getachew, Lullit. 2006. “A Geographic Incremental Theory of Democratization: Territory, Aid, and Democracy in Postcommunist Regions.” World Politics 58(4): 536–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lankina, Tomila and Getachew, Lullit. 2012. “Mission or Empire, Word or Sword? The Human Capital Legacy in Postcolonial Democratic Development” American Journal of Political Science 56(2): 465–83.Google Scholar
Lieberman, Evan S. 2005. “Nested Analysis as a Mixed-Method Strategy for Comparative Research.” American Political Science Review 99(3): 435–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lieberman, Evan S. 2016. “Can the Biomedical Research Cycle be a Model for Political Science?” Perspectives on Politics 14(4): 1054–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lijphart, Arend. 2012. Patterns of Democracy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Linz, Juan J. and De Miguel, Amando. 1966. “Within-Nation Differences and Comparisons.” In Comparing Nations: The Use of Quantitative Data in Cross-National Research, eds. Merritt, Richard and Rokkan, Stein. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1950. Agrarian Socialism, The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation in Saskatchewan: A Study in Political Sociology. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lipset, Seymour Martin 1959. “Some Social Requisites of Democracy Economic Development and Political Legitimacy.” American Political Science Review 53(1): 69–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Locke, Richard M. 2013. The Promise and Limits of Private Power: Promoting Labor Standards in a Global Economy. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Locke, Richard M. and Thelen, Kathleen. 1995. “Apples and Oranges Revisited: Contextualized Comparisons and the Study of Comparative Labor Politics.” Politics and Society 23(3): 337–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacLean, Lauren M. 2010. Informal Institutions and Citizenship in Rural Africa: Risk and Reciprocity in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511730368CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marcus, George E. 1995. “Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography.” Annual Review of Anthropology 24: 95–117.10.1146/annurev.an.24.100195.000523CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mattingly, Daniel C. 2016. “Elite Capture: How Decentralization and Informal Institutions Weaken Property Rights in China.” World Politics 68(3): 383–412.10.1017/S0043887116000083CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mazzucato, Valentina. 2009. “Bridging Boundaries With a Transnational Research Approach: A Simultaneous Matched Sample Methodology.” In Multi-sited Ethnography: Theory, Praxis and Locality in Contemporary Research, ed. Falzon, Mark Anthony. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
McCauley, John F. and Posner, Daniel N.. 2014. “African Borders as Sources of Natural Experiments: Promise and Pitfalls.” Political Science Research and Methods 3(2): 409–18.10.1017/psrm.2014.37CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McMann, Kelly M. 2006. Economic Autonomy and Democracy: Hybrid Regimes in Russia and Kyrgyzstan. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511510281CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Munck, Gerardo L. and Snyder, Richard. 2007. “Debating the Direction of Comparative Politics: An Analysis of Leading Journals.” Comparative Political Studies. 40(1): 5–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Munro, Wlliam B. 1920. The Government of American Cities. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Murillo, Maria Victoria. 2009. Political Competition, Partisanship, and Policymaking in Latin American Public Utilities. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Naroll, Raoul. 1961. “Two Solutions to Galton’s Problem.” Philosophy of Science 28(1): 15–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Donnell, Guillermo. 1973. Bureaucratic Authoritarianism: Argentina 1966–1973 in Comparative Perspective. Berkeley, CA: Institute for International Studies.Google Scholar
Ostrom, Elinor. 1990. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pasotti, Eleonora. 2010. Political Branding in Cities: The Decline of Machine Politics in Bogotá, Naples, and Chicago. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pepinsky, Thomas B. 2017. “Regions of Exception.” Perspectives on Politics. 15(4): 1034–52.Google Scholar
Posner, Daniel N. 2004. “The Political Salience of Cultural Difference: Why Chewas and Tumbukas Are Allies in Zambia and Adversaries in Malawi.” American Political Science Review 98(4): 529–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, Robert, Leonardi, Robert, and Nanetti, Raffaella. 1993. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Reisinger, William M and Moraski, Bryon J. 2017. The Regional Roots of Russia’s Political Regime: Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ritter, Emily Hencken and Conrad, Courtenay R.. 2016. “Preventing and Responding to Dissent: The Observational Challenges of Explaining Strategic Repression.” American Political Science Review 110(1): 85–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodden, Jonathan. 2009. “Back to the Future: Endogenous Institutions and Comparative Politics.” In Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture, and Structure, eds. Lichbach, Mark and Zuckerman, Alan. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rodden, Jonathan and Wibbels, Erik. 2011. “Dual Accountability and the Nationalization of Party Competition: Evidence from Four Federations.” Party Politics 17(5): 629–653.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rubin, Donald B. 1973. “Matching to Remove Bias in Observational Studies.” Biometrics 29(1): 159–83.Google Scholar
Sellers, Jefferey M. 2002. Governing from Below: Urban Regions and the Global Economy. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511613395CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sellers, Jefferey M., Kübler, Daniel, Walks, Alan, and Walter-Rogg, Melanie, eds. 2013. The Political Ecology of the Metropolis: Metropolitan Sources of Electoral Behaviour in Eleven Countries. Colchester, UK: ECPR Press.Google Scholar
Sellers, Jefferey M. and Kwak, Sun-Young. 2011. “State and Society in Local Governance: Lessons from a Multilevel Comparison.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 35(3): 620–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheehan, James J. 2002. “Public Spheres, Public Mores, and Democracy: Hamburg and Stockholm, 1870–1914 (review).” Journal of Social History 36(2): 475–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sidel, John T. 2014. “Economic Foundations of Subnational Authoritarianism: Insights and Evidence from Qualitative and Quantitative Research.” Democratization 21(1): 161–84.Google Scholar
Skarbek, David. 2016. “Covenants without the Sword?Comparing Prison Self-Governance Globally” American Political Science Review 110(4): 845–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skocpol, Theda and Somers, Margaret. 1980. “The Uses of Comparative History in Macrosocial Inquiry.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 22(2): 174–97.10.1017/S0010417500009282CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slater, Dan and Ziblatt, Daniel. 2013. “The Enduring Indispensability of the Controlled Comparison.” Comparative Political Studies 46(10): 1301–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Michael P. and Bakker, Matt. 2008. Citizenship Across Borders: The Political Transnationalism of El Migrante. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Snyder, Richard. 2001. “Scaling Down: The Subnational Comparative Method.” Studies in Comparative International Development 36(1): 93–110.Google Scholar
Steenbergen, Marco R. and Jones, Bradford S.. 2002. “Modeling Multilevel Data Structures.” American Journal of Political Science 46(1) :218–37.10.2307/3088424CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stokes, Susan C., Dunning, Thad, Nazareno, Marcelo, and Brusco, Valeria. 2013. Brokers, Voters, and Clientelism: The Puzzle of Distributive Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Teune, Henry and Przeworski, Adam. 1970. The Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry. New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 1984. Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Trounstine, Jessica. 2009. “All Politics Is Local: The Reemergence of the Study of City Politics.” Perspectives on Politics 7(3): 611–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsai, Kellee S. 2016. “Cosmopolitan Capitalism: Local State-Society Relations in China and India.” Journal of Asian Studies 75(2): 335–61.10.1017/S0021911815002120CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weller, Nicholas and Barnes, John. 2014. Finding Pathways: Mixed-Method Research for Studying Causal Mechanisms. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wimmer, Andreas and Schiller, Nina Glick. 2002. “Methodological Nationalism and Beyond: Nation-State Building, Migration and the Social Sciences.” Global Networks 2(4): 301–34.Google Scholar
Yáñez, Clemente J. Navarro, Magnier, Annick, and Antonia Ramírez, M.. 2008. “Local Governance as Government–Business Cooperation in Western Democracies: Analysing Local and Intergovernmental Effects by Multi-Level Comparison.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 32(3): 531–47.Google Scholar
Zuberi, Dan. 2006. Differences That Matter: Social Policy and the Working Poor in the United States and Canada. Ithaca, NY: ILR/Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Sellers supplementary material

Sellers supplementary material 1

Download Sellers supplementary material(File)
File 14.6 KB
Supplementary material: Link

Sellers Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/V1OVVA
Link