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The Logic of Comparison: A Methodological Note on the Comparative Study of Political Systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Arthur L. Kalleberg
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Extract

During the last ten years the study of comparative politics has undergone a methodological revolution. Reacting against the static, formalistic, “country-by-country” approach of earlier students of foreign governments, numerous contemporary political scientists have endeavored to create a more dynamic, empirically interpreted, and truly comparative method of analysis. This group of political scientists makes three general assumptions concerning the new approach.

Type
Research Notes
Information
World Politics , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , October 1966 , pp. 69 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1966

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References

1 General surveys of the extensive literature which are not directly concerned with the logical issues discussed here but which document this revolution may be found in Neumann, Sigmund, “Comparative Politics: A Half-Century Appraisal,” Journal of Politics, xix (August 1957), 369-90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; , Neumann, “The Comparative Study of Politics,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 1 (January 1959), 105-12CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eckstein, Harry, “A Perspective on Comparative Politics, Past and Present,” in Eckstein, Harry and Apter, David E., eds., Comparative Politics: A Reader (New York 1963), 3–32Google Scholar; and in the perceptive, critical article by Wolf-Phillips, Leslie, “Metapolitics: Reflections on a ‘Methodological Revolution,”’ Political Studies, xii (October 1964), 362-69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 See Almond, Gabriel A., “Comparative Political Systems,” Journal of Politics, xviii (August 1956), 391CrossRefGoogle Scholar; , Almond, “Research in Comparative Politics: Plans of a New Council Committee,” Social Science Research Council, Items, viii (March 1954), 2Google Scholar; , Almond, Cole, Taylor, and Macridis, Roy C., “A Suggested Research Strategy in Western European Government and Politics,” American Political Science Review, XLIX (December 1955), 104Google Scholar; Jacobini, H. B., “The Study of Comparative Government,” Social Science, xxx (January 1955), 25Google Scholar; Heckscher, Gunnar, The Study of Comparative Government and Politics (London 1957), 48Google Scholar, 51; Oliver, Douglas and Miller, Walter B., “Suggestions for a More Systematic Method of Comparing Political Units,” American Anthropologist, LVH (February 1955), ii 8-19Google Scholar.

3 For the advocacy of cross-cultural generalization, see Almond, “Comparative Political Systems,” 391-92; Almond, “Research in Comparative Politics,” 2; , Almond, “A Comparative Study of Interest Groups and the Political Process,” American Political Science Review, LII (March 1958), 281Google Scholar; Neumann, “Comparative Politics: A Half-Century Appraisal,” 383, 384, 387; Oliver and Miller, 118-20; Rustow, Dankwart A., “New Horizons for Comparative Politics,” World Politics, ix (July 1957), 546Google Scholar; Sjoberg, Gideon, “The Comparative Method in the Social Sciences,” Philosophy of Science, xxii (April 1955), 107Google Scholar. This last article is valuable in its stress on the necessity of establishing operational procedures to relate abstract categories to empirical reality. Sjoberg emphasizes that both Kluckhohn and Parsons, fountainheads of the new approach, failed to do this and as a result their concepts have been subject to various interpretations. See also Macridis, Roy C., The Study of Comparative Government (New York 1955), 3Google Scholar; Almond, Cole, and Macridis, 1043; and esp. , Almond and Coleman, James S., The Politics of the Developing Areas (Princeton 1960), 3–64Google Scholar; and , Almond and Verba, Sidney, The Civic Culture (Princeton 1963), 43–76Google Scholar, in which a conceptual framework and some related methods of cross-cultural, systematic comparative inquiry are made explicit. A growing concern for the inclusion of developing systems is evidenced in Almond's “A Developmental Approach to Political Systems,” World Politics, xvii (January 1965), 183–214Google Scholar.

4 See Almond, “Comparative Political Systems,” 392; Almond and Coleman, 5-9; Easton, David, The Political System (New York 1953)Google Scholar; and , Easton, “An Approach to the Analysis of Political Systems,” World Politics, ix (April 1957), 384Google Scholar.

5 Bergmann, Gustav, Philosophy of Science (Madison 1957), 92Google Scholar, 94-95.

6 Newcomb, T. M., “Communicative Behavior,” in Young, Roland, ed., Approaches to the Study of Politics (Evanston 1959), 246Google Scholar.

7 See Almond, “Comparative Study of Interest Groups,” 270, 281; Almond and Coleman, esp. 7, 9-17; Apter, David, “A Comparative Method for the Study of Politics,” American Journal of Sociology, LXIV (November 1958), 221-37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 See Almond, “Comparative Study of Interest Groups,” 270; Apter, 221; Almond and Coleman, 3-64.

9 See Jacobini, “Study of Comparative Government,” 23-25; MacKenzie, W. J. M., “Pressure Groups: The Conceptual Framework,” Political Studies, iii (October 1955), 247-55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Neumann, “Comparative Politics: A Half-Century Appraisal”; Heckscher, Study of Comparative Government and Politics; Rustow; and Macridis, in which a full-scale critique of the traditional, formal approach is developed.

10 This usage follows Zetterberg, Hans L., On Theory and Verification in Sociology (New York 1954), 10Google Scholar.

11 Hempel, Carl G., Fundamentals of Concept Formation in Empirical Science (Chicago 1952), 51Google Scholar, italics added.

12 The seven broad classes of political systems which Almond has utilized in his writings since 1960 are an expansion of this earlier four-part classification. Furthermore, the underlying criteria of the earlier classification have never been explicitly rejected. Indeed, the earlier categories have been recognized by Almond as the basis or source of the later framework (“Political Systems and Political Change,” American Behavioral Scientist, vi [June 1963], 10Google Scholar, n. 7). Nevertheless, in actualitv the seven-class framework is more suited to support adequate comparative analysis. See footnote 16 below.

13 P. 54. It has been suggested, however, that in some cases a “nominalist typology” rather than a proper classificatory scheme might satisfy certain research needs. While in practice this may be adequate in the earliest stages of inquiry, logically it cannot serve as the basis of truly comparative analysis. Ultimately, an adequate scheme of classification must be developed. See Haas, Michael, “Comparative Analysis,” Western Political Quarterly, xv (June 1962), 297-98Google Scholar.

14 Hempel, 55.

15 This is in accord with Hempel's more general and complex analysis (p. 59).

16 This is true of the early system only, which we are using for illustrative purposes. Under the influence of functionalism, Almond has developed a framework actually, though not consciously, based on the assumption that political systems, to be compared, must have characteristics in common. See Almond and Coleman, 11-17. All political systems are assumed to have input functions, such as political socialization and recruitment, interest articulation, interest aggregation, and political communication, as well as output functions, such as rule-making, rule application, and rule adjudication. The functional categories are discussed more fully on pp. 26-58. A summary analysis by Coleman of the modal characteristics of, and range of variations among, the non-Western political systems treated in the book indicates clearly how comparison in terms of common dimensions might actually be carried out. Note particularly the way in which ordinal ranking is utilized for comparative purposes in the tables on pp. 541, 542, 563-67.

17 “Comparative Political Systems,” 403.

18 Hempel, 60.

19 Sheldon, W. H., The Varieties of Human Physique (New York and London 1940)Google Scholar and The Varieties of Temperament (New York and London 1942)Google Scholar.

20 Hempel, 62.

21 P. 113. For a discussion of some of the problems associated with sampling in comparative studies, see Haas, 298-301.

22 See Hempel, 61.

23 Ibid., 59-60, italics added.