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Some Dilemmas in Comparative Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Sidney Verba
Sidney Verba
Affiliation:
Stanford University
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Extract

There has been a revolution in comparative politics. But as with X all revolutions, it is difficult to date its beginning, hard to chart its course, and now, when the revolution has become established, difficult to say what has been accomplished. The publication of Political Oppositions in Western Democracies, edited by Robert A. Dahl, provides a good occasion to reconsider the revolution and to review some of the problems that have emerged. It is a good occasion because the book is both a splendid comparative work and one that illustrates some of the dilemmas of comparative research.

Type
Review Articles
Information
World Politics , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , October 1967 , pp. 111 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1967

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References

1 The current work being done on the smaller European democracies under the direction of four of the authors of this book—Hans Daalder, Robert A. Dahl, Val R. Lorwin, and Stein Rokkan—will fill a major gap in our knowledge and continue the work of this volume.

2 Indeed, I understand that a further volume on oppositions in non-Western democracies, edited by Professor Dahl, will be forthcoming.

3 Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Maying of the Modern World (Boston 1966)Google Scholar.

4 One open question is whether this pattern of secondary political opposition is as significant in other countries as it seems to be in Norway. It is difficult to tell how much of the reference to it in Rokkan's essay derives from the greater significance of this phenomenon in Norway and how much derives from Rokkan's particular interest in the problem. It is, for instance, mentioned only in passing in Allen Potter's essay on Britain, but it may indeed be as significant a pattern of politics there.

5 The phrase “sociological federalism” was suggested by Professor Dahl.