So, we’re done with the international part of the course, and it’s time to have a look at the field of comparative politics.

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What is comparative politics?
As usual, we start with a definition of the term, and that is that CP is the study of politics within one or more countries — thus leaving the relationship between states to IP, as we have seen. Some claim that CP is the leading field of poltical science, as it is probably the broadest and largest. It covers every geographical areas of the globe, and a diverse range of topics, and it often responds to current urgent issues. However, as you may have understood already, it always considers what’s happening within the nation state. (Or just states, for that matter, seeing as nation states stricktly speaking is a particular kind of state.)

In the course whose lecture notes I’ll be posting in the next, we focused primarily on Europe and “The West”, while being presented to the essential toolbox of CP. This toolbox includes such things as classic consepts and definitions, ideologies and rationales, a broad spectre of regime types, institutions of governance, democracies and non-democracies. Finally, we’ll have a look at the EU.

Why do we compare?
We, as humans, compare compulsively. The French philosopher and political scientist Alexis de Toqueville once said that “without comparison, the mind does not know how to proceed”. This is connected to humans requireing explanations and evaluations in order to understand both ourselves and others. Comparisions are also useful if one wants to produce generalizable statements about the world — which is what political science is all about, really. This can in turn help us make better foreign and domestic policy, by finding out what works, what’s possible, what is best, and what could go wrong in any given case.

Alexis de Tocqueville’s approach.
In the preface to his “Democracy in America” (1848), de Tocqueville stated his purpose in examining the American political system and writing his book: “Let us not turn to America in order slavishly to copy the institutions she has copied for herself, but in order that we may better understand what suits us; let us look there for instruction rather than models; let us adopt the principles rather than the details of their laws. . .”

Older attempts at comparison.
However, Alexis wasn’t the first to conduct such a study. Aristotle (d. 321 BC) is actually considered to be the “father of comparative politics”, because of his “The Politics“. In this book he attempts to systematically examine the “constitutions” of various Greek city states in order to find the perfect government. (This approach displays the differences between his and Plato’s epistemology quite clearly; just compare this to the latter’s “The Republic”. Where Plato speculates, plays logic games, and outlines an ideal society, Aristotle instead examines constitutions already in existence, following his own famous statement “Observation shows us…”.) Seeing as none or few of the city states had a written constitution, Aristotle often had to find their governing institutions through his own observation, and thus he travelled widely, studying the system of governance in the cities he visited. He ended up categorising the constitutions he found into what today is famous as “Aristotle’s Typology“, in which he portrays democrasy rather similar to the way Plato had done — as a corrupted system of rule of many; mob rule, in other words. This gave democracy quite a bad rumour for over two milennia, prompting democrats through the ages to utilise the term “republic” instead, separating between the “order” of the Roman Republic and the corrupted demagogue-ridden Greek democracies. Aristotle’s “Politics” also included a thesis on revolution and regime change, which’ll be expanded upon later. For now it’ll suffice to say that Aristotle saw governments as going through a constant cycle of revolution, degeneration and new revolutions, in no particular order.

One later, yet still early, comparative “political scientist”, is the Frenchman Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755), whose “Spirit of the Laws” (1748) sets out to discover the national character of various state’s inhabitants, and then finind the governing system which best fits these natural characteristics. Although a modern writer might laugh at Montesquieu’s statements about e.g. democracy not fitting the Latin people, because of their temperamental nature, it is important to notice the main focus here, namely that each nation has a character, or a political culture, if you will, all of its own, and that this political culture might be uncompatible with the political system of a nation who has a different kind of political system. In other words, political systems must be made to fit the state in which it is to function; one cannot force a system upon a state in which it would not fit.

Aristotle and Montesquieu are thus representatives of what’s been called “the ancient tradition”, which seeks to examine peoples and their governments, in a way that is comprehensive, philosophical, normative and prescriptive, attempting to establish what the good society is.

Modern traditions: Institutionalism.
Institutionalism was a popular approach to CP i the end of the 19th century, lasting into the first half of the 20th century. It’s focus was the formal political institutions of huge, important states (such as the US and UK, France and Germany). Institutionalists examined the political structures of states, attempting to uncover who had power and why, and such things. It was a constituional and formal way of studying states, as well as a highly normative way, attempting to find the good government. It was comparative and holistic, but in a very case study oriented way, rarely conducting direct comparisons, prefering to merely place case studies next to each other, leaving the actual act of comparing to the readers. It was also a very historically grounded tradition, placing much focus on the historical basis of power structures and such. There was also a certain assumption of historical evolution or teleological development, in which human societies moved towards better and better methods of organisations. And, as stated above, the focus was on Western Europe and the big states.

Modern traditions: Post war comparative politics.
WWI and II had been rather big shocks to the world, giving rise to totalitarian governments and suchlike. It was also hard to consider one’s own native state the height of civilisation in light of the world wars. This was a predominant way of thinking in Europe, and seeing as the wars had also seen a massive immigration of European scholars to the US, US political scientists soon came to dominate the field. American political scientists were more data-oriented than e.g. German ones, and the decolonisation represented a massive increase in new avaliable data, with new states, new ares of study, and new questions. One of the most prominent reactions to the world wars was that the post war comparative politics study was alot more societal in orientation, making both society and context more important than before, and history, traditions and ways of thinking becamse more and more central. It was also more concerned with political and economic development, many places resulting in a kind of developmentalism or “theories of modernisation” (the reaction to which (world system theory) were dealt with quite thoroughly in the IP lecture on Radicalism). There was also a shift in focus, with new generations of political scientists looking beyond Europe and the West, to the “Third World”.
•Milestones:
–Roy Macridis: The Study of Comparative Government(1955)
–Gabriel A. Almond & James S. Coleman (eds) Politics of the Developing World(1960)
•Structural-functionalism (Almond, Powel, Strøm, Dalton [these are the guys who've written the main textbook for this course])
–G. Almond and the Committee on Comparative Politics of the US SSRC.

Modern traditions: Neoinstitutionalism — reactions to post war theories.
Yet another generation of political scientists, however, didn’t much like this. Some of these developed something they called “new institutionalism”, which looked at the proliferation of democracies, both in Europe and the rest of the world, emphasising the importance of the state. They also developed theories of dependence, in reaction to the theories of modernasation, claiming that countries didn’t develop in a vacuum, and that developing countries weren’t necessarily developing because of the “backwardness” of its people, but rather its growth was stunted by contact with the industrial West. (A much better explanation of this is given in the lecture notes to “Radicalism”, under the heading “World system theory”.) The “world systems” mentioned under Radical theories in IP is a part of this, as these theories shifts the focus from the individual states to the world economic system. There was also a recognition of the existence of many different kinds of democracy, causing political scientists to develop new methods of studying the field. An attempted solution to this was to combine studies of the society with studies of the state. Which in turn implied, amongst other things, a re-tinking of Europe in light of what was found when studying Third World countries, in a kind of mix of old and new. A broader notion of institution was also introduced, in which institutions were no longer thought of as mere formalities of governments, but also as a structural feature of society, both formal (legislature, bureaucracy) and informal (networks of people or organizations). Institutions was acknowledged as some set of shared values among a society’s members. Or, accoring to the Norwegian “Statsvitenskapelig leksikon”, “formal or informal structures that influences the behaviour of actors”. These values, or structures, transcends individuals, while at the same time affecting individual behaviour.

Comparing political systems: What is a political system?
Simply said, political systems are the ways in which political decisions are made. More wordy definition, the political system is said to be a set of institutions and agencies concerned with formulating and implementing the collective goals of a society or of groups within it. Governments or states are the policymaking parts of political systems.

Politics, on its side, is often defined as the authoritive distribution of good and anti-goods in a society. This is opposed to e.g. the market, in which no one decides who gets what. These decisions of distribution are often backed with both the legitimacy of governments, as well as their authority, and governments can back up their decisions by legitimate coercion, and obedience may be compelled. Meanwhile, communities must be strong enough to prevent violent solutions or attempts at influencing decisions makers, as politics are peaceful discussion, not shooting in the streets. Finally, governments must be allowed to enforce their decisions. If not, they are superfluous and irrelevant.

Politics: System level.
Politics have three levels — system, structure and function — which will be handled one by one, in the following section. We begin at the top, with the system level. Systems have two properties. The first is a set of interdependent parts which work together, the second boundaries towards the external environment. This is no different from other systems, be they mechanical (automobile) or ecological (eco-systems). If we look at Norway as a political system, the interdependent part are the Government, the Storting, and the High Court, as well as other institutions of various kinds, while the boundaries to the external environment naturally are the country’s borders. Links to the external environment are refered to as “input” and “output”, which in Norway’s case would be international pressure, the world economy, oil exports, CO2 omissions, refusal to join the EU, and other such things.

Politics: Structure level.
The place of structures is to to carry out the system’s many activities. Governments have specialized agencies, or structures, such as parliaments, bureaucracies, administrative agencies, and courts, which perform function. From country to country, similar structures can have different functions; all countries and political systems need to and do perform essentially same functions, but these aren’t necessarily called the same. Even though two entities (structures) may be called the same, they may not serve the same function, and vice versa. So we have to look at who does what, rather than what they’re called, thus, we apply the collective term structure to these things.

Politics: Functions.
The third and final level is the function level. Functions can be categorised into two types, process and system functions. A process function is an activity which is necessary for policy to be made and implemented in any political system. These include interest articulation and aggregation (prioritising between interests, e.g. through a political party), and the making (decision-making; the process of transforming ideal into practical policies), implementation and adjudication (execution of decisions) of policy.

System functions, on the other hand, has the maintainance of the system itself (or securing the system’s legitimacy), as their main objectives. This includes such things as influencing how political systems respond to the challenges of building community, fostering economic development, securing democracy, etc. The primary system functions are socialization, recruitment, and communication. All political systems must fullfill the same basic functions, lest they dissolve into anarchy or anomie, but different systems maintains these functions in different ways. One of the tasks of CP is to attempt to identify these.

The function of policies has substansive impacts on the society, the economy and the culture of a political system. This is occurs through regulation of behaviour, extractions of resources, distribution of benefits and services, and the creation of feedback, which helps policy makers tune their new policies to the wishes and needs of the people.

How do we compare?
We have now examined why we compare, as well aswhat we compare. Now the times has come to take a quick look at how we compare. Comparing political systems is a strategy to help us compare similar things. Its ambition is to find a common framework and set of categories to be used in political analysis. There is also something called the comparative method, but that will be the subject of the next lecture.

[Ok, I have some problems grasping the relevance of this section, compared to the first one and the following one, but I suspect that the lecturer suddenly found herself in something of a lack of time, and so skipped a bunch of slides, some of which she seemingly worked into the next lectures, but some of which she just said "fuck 'em" to, and left for us to read on our own. These so there might be some overlap here with the next lecture, but if that's the case, it only means that we get to read it one extra time, right? And that's neat-o, especially for me, seeing as I couldn't be compelled into reading this stuff by Breschau of fucking Livonia himself. :P]

Globalization.
By globalization we simply mean the process of increasing interconnectedness between societies such that events in one part of the world more and more have effects on peoples and societies far away. A globalized world is one in which political, economic, cultural, and social events become more and more interconnected, and also one in which they have more impact.

Is CP still relevant?
That is, does focusing on “nation-states” (using nation-states as units of analysis) still make sense, especially in light of the above definition of globalisation? Is there IP becoming more and more important at the expense of CP, because of the internationalisation of politics? This is an empirical question. So let’s see what various scientists think of it, based on their empirical findings.

A group of so-called hyperglobalists answers no, becausethere’s no longen any real distinctions between national and international politics. Boundaries are gone, international organisations and commitments tie the hands of national governments, and the role of the state is thus diminished. States (and thus often the people?) lose power and control, and other actors challenge them. There’s also a homogenisation of culture going on, from which a global culture will arise. Hyperglobalists also claim that time and space are collapsing, something which isn’t quite as dramatic as it sounds; it merely implies that time and distances shrink in the face of modern transportation and communication.

On the other hand, you have globalisation sceptics, who answer yes, because many boundaries do still have meaning, as we live in states, and nationalism never quite seems to go away. States are also still quite important, as their histories have differed, and that matters, even if globalisation should happen to take place. Also, the process of homogenisation is at best uneven, and forces of homogenization provoke reaction, in which nationality regains importance.

Is CP Still Interesting compared to IP/R?
The essential distinction between CP and IP/R is the one between events happening within states and those events happening among states. It is essential to understand the possibility that these are connected, and it is allowable to choose a focus that prioritizes one of these, or their interaction, based on what questions you are asking and what do you feel makes most sense.

In light of this, here are some questions to have in mind as we proceed: [according to the lecturer, that is :P]
•Can Iraq become a stable, democratic state?
•Is democracy finished? –Is the age of democracy at an end?

Some important concepts.
There are several important concepts in CP, many of which we’ve already utilised without giving an adequate definition of them. Perhaps the most central is “state” –- a political community formed by a single government in combination with a stable population and a fairly fixed territory. Or, sometimes, a state is a set of governing institutions within a sovereign territory. next, there’s “nation” -– a people centered on a defined territory that seeks political expression of its shared identity, usually through statehood. This is, contrary to what many believe, an imagined community. Nations are not given by nature, they are created more or less consciously by people, and can thus be altered. Of course, the fact that they’re imagined is far from the same as they being irrelevant; they make up part of the way people think, and thus they aquire great importance. Finally, at least for now, there’s the “nation-state”. Nation-states are similar to states, but they have an added emphasis on national cohesion.

The State System.
The current state system dates back to the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, which ended the 30 Years’ War. During this war, states invaded each other in order to meddle in each other’s internal affairs, causing much bloodshed. Naturally, this was decisive for internal and external development of the state, as the concept of sovereignty became the most important concept in relationships between states. States may not always have respected each other’s sovereignty, but there has been relatively few enormous cases of violations of sovereignty after 1648.

Important concepts, II.
In the above paragraph, we established that sovereignty is one hell of an important concept. The Frenchman Jean Bodin (1529-96) was one of the first to define this concept, and he did it by stating that sovereignty is the ultimate source of authority in society. Internal, this means the right to make and enforce laws, while the external side of it implies recognition from other states. This is one of the cornerstones of international law.

Furthermore, we have the concept of government — the institutions which are responsible for making collective decisions for a society. Governance is related to this, being a process of making collective decisions (or governing), a task in which government may not play a leading, or even any, role. It is often used in IP/IR but also CP, on occasions.

Next, there’s power. The classic definition of power is that A has power over B to the extent that A can make B do something B otherwise would not have done. Power is in other words relative, and it can exist in different kinds and have different sources, such as relations, structure, material, symbolic, or ideological. Achievement of goals without actual use of force is also a measure of power.

Finally, there’s the concept of legitimacy. When a government is legitimate, it is a prevailing belief in society that those in power are rightfully governing, and that rules are proper and just in principle – something which implies acceptance of the rulers.

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Phew, that’s quite a mouthful. Tired now. :|