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Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 August 2014
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This paper is a systematic analysis of the comparative method. Its emphasis is on both the limitations of the method and the ways in which, despite these limitations, it can be used to maximum advantage.
The comparative method is defined and analyzed in terms of its similarities and differences vis-à-vis the experimental and statistical methods. The principal difficulty facing the comparative method is that it must generalize on the basis of relatively few empirical cases. Four specific ways in which this difficulty may be resolved are discussed and illustrated: (1) increasing the number of cases as much as possible by means of longitudinal extension and a global range of analysis, (2) reducing the property space of the analysis, (3) focusing the comparative analysis on “comparable” cases (e.g., by means of area, diachronic, or intranation comparisons), and (4) focusing on the key variables.
It is argued that the case study method is closely related to the comparative method. Six types of case studies (the atheoretical, interpretative, hypothesis-generating, theory-confirming, theory-infirming, and deviant case analyses) are distinguished, and their theoretical value is analyzed.
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Footnotes
This article is a revised version of a paper presented to the Round Table Conference on Comparative Politics of the International Political Science Association, held in Turin, Italy, September 10–14, 1969. I am very grateful to David E. Apter, Donald T. Campbell, Robert A. Dahl, Giuseppe Di Palma, Harry Eckstein, Lewis J. Edinger, Samuel E. Finer, Galen A. Irwin, Jean Laponce, Juan J. Linz, Stefano Passigli, Austin Ranney, Stein Rokkan, Dankwart A. Rustow, and Kurt Sontheimer for their comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of the paper, which were very helpful in the preparation of the revision.
References
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18 In order to highlight the special problems arising from the availability of only a small number of cases, the comparative method is discussed as a distinct method. Of course, it can be argued with equal justice that the comparative and statistical methods should be regarded as two aspects of a single method. Many authors use the term “comparative method” in the broad sense of the method of multivariate empirical, but nonexperimental, analysis, i.e., including both the comparative and statistical methods as defined in this paper. This is how A. R. Radcliffe-Brown uses the term when he argues that “only the comparative method can give us general propositions.” ( Brown, , “The Comparative Method in Social Anthropology,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 81 [1951], p. 22.Google Scholar) Émile Durkheim also follows this usage when be declares that “comparative sociology is not a particular branch of sociology; it is sociology itself, in so far as it ceases to be purely descriptive and aspires to account for facts.” ( Durkheim, , The Rules of Sociological Method, translated by Solovay, Sarah A. and Mueller, John H., [8th ed., Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1938], p. 139.Google Scholar) See also the statements by Lasswell and Almond cited above. Rodney Needham combines the two terms, and speaks of “large-scale statistical comparison,” i.e., the statistical method. ( Needham, , “Notes on Comparative Method and Prescriptive Alliance,” Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 118 [1962], pp. 160–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar) On the other hand, E. E. Evans-Pritchard uses exactly the same terminology as used by Smelser and as adopted in this paper, when he makes a distinction between “small-scale comparative studies” and “large-scale statistical ones.” See his The Comparative Method in Social Anthropology (London: Athlone Press, 1963), p. 22 Google Scholar.
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24 He adds: “This is a very naive conception of social science propositions; if only perfect correlations should be permitted social science would not have come very far.” Galtung, Johan, Theory and Methods of Social Research (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1967), p. 505 Google Scholar. The functions of deviant case analysis will be discussed below.
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51 Lasswell, op. cit., p. 6.
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57 See also the proposed use of “multiple comparison groups,” as an approximation of the experimental method, by Glazer, Barney G. and Strauss, Anselm L., “Discovery of Substantive Theory: A Basic Strategy Underlying Qualitative Research,” American Behavioral Scientist, 8 (02, 1965), pp. 5–12 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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60 As Przeworski and Teune state: “The main role of a theory is to provide explanations of specific events. These explanations consist of inferring, with a high degree of probability, statements about particular events from general statements concerning classes of events” (p. 86).
61 Hudson, Michael C., “A Case of Political Underdevelopment,” Journal of Politics, 29 (11, 1967), pp. 821–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Beer, , “The Comparative Method and the Study of British Politics,” pp. 19–36 Google Scholar.
62 Naroll, , “Scientific Comparative Politics and International Relations,” p. 336 Google Scholar. An example of such a case study is my analysis of the determinants of Dutch colonialism in West Irian. In most cases, both objective (especially economic) and subjective factors can be discerned, but the case of West Irian is unique because of the complete absence of objective Dutch interests in the colony. See Lijphart, , The Trauma of Decolonization: The Dutch and West New Guinea (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966)Google Scholar.
63 See Kendall, Patricia L. and Wolf, Katherine M., “The Analysis of Deviant Cases in Communications Research,” in Lazarsfeld, and Stanton, Frank, eds., Communications Research: 1948–49 (New York: Harper, 1949), pp. 152–57Google Scholar; Sjoberg, op. cit., pp. 114–15; and Lijphart, , The Politics of Accommodation: Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chapter 10.
64 This process of refining generalizations through deviant case analysis is what Robert M. Marsh calls “specification.” See his article “The Bearing of Comparative Analysis on Sociological Theory,” Social Forces, 43 (12, 1964), pp. 191–96Google Scholar. Specification should therefore definitely not be regarded as “the garbage bin” of comparative research; see Kottak, Conrad Phillip, “Towards a Comparative Science of Society,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 12 (01, 1970), p. 102 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Gordon, Milton M., “Sociological Law and the Deviant Case,” Sociometry, 10 (08, 1947), pp. 250–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Köbben, André J. F., “The Logic of Cross-Cultural Analysis: Why Exceptions?”, in Rokkan, , ed., Comparative Research Across Cultures and Nations (Paris: Mouton, 1968), pp. 17–53 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
65 Eckstein, , Division and Cohesion in Democracy: A Study of Norway (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966), esp. pp. 60–77, 177–201 Google Scholar. Part of the critique which follows is included in my review of this book in the Journal of Modern History, 41 (03, 1969), pp. 83–87 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
66 Truman, David B., The Governmental Process: Political Interests and Public Opinion (New York: Knopf, 1951)Google Scholar.
67 In one respect, it is not altogether correct to call the Norwegian case study a theory-confirming study. Because the congruence theory has a rather narrow empirical basis, consisting chiefly of only two cases (Britain and Germany), it is a hypothesis rather than an established theory. The case study of Norway is, of course, not a hypothesis-generating study either. Perhaps it should be called a “hypothesis-strengthening” case study or, as Eckstein himself suggests, a “plausibility probe” (oral comment at the IPSA Round Table Conference in Turin, September 1969).
68 Eckstein, , A Theory of Stable Democracy, Research Monograph No. 10 (Princeton, N.J.: Center of International Studies, 1961)Google Scholar.
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