What is comparative politics?
subdiscipline of polsci (more and more overlap with IR), method rather than substance
focus on domestic politics/processes
- the study of (foreign) countries
- research method
- combination of substance and method
*what happens nationally more and more influences what happens internationally
Lijphart
brought focus on general theories/laws that we can develop by comparing countries, rather than just individually studying them
- most similar cases design = similar cases, investigates what makes them different
- most different cases design = different cases that are similar in one thing (e.g. Duverger’s law)
Duverger’s law
majority electoral system -> most likely 2-party system
e.g. UK (Labour and Conservatives)
international-domestic interplay
= Putnam’s 2-level game
dev. at the domestic level influences development at the international level, but also vice versa
(so: IR<->domestic)
- e.g. who wins election UK influences the EU (think of Brexit)
why compare?
4
- to gather knowledge about other countries (also gives you knowledge about own country: how it is different/similar)
- create classifications and develop typologies (e.g. democracy/autocracy, presidential/parliamentary)
- to formulate and test hypotheses and theories
*hypothesis book: presidential systems are more stable than parliamentary systems - to make predictions about future
e.g. New Zealand changed to a more proportional system, Duverger’s predicts multi-party system
electoral engineering
deliberate design and modification of electoral systems and processes to achieve specific political outcomes, mainly to try and create a perfect society
we use information from other cases, looking what could make a system more stable, democratic
“with specific rules, you can create a perfect society”
- popular in 3d wave democratization
- create a system in which diff groups have guarantee that they can have power, that they won’ be outvoted and threatened
e.g. South Africa: each’s powers and rights remain = successful case of electoral engineering
pitfalls of comparing
5
- requires a lot of background information (history of countries)
- historical institutionalism and path dependency -> things can be different in practice than in theory (e.g. president France on paper not that much power, irl he does) - different meaning of concepts in diff cultural and linguistic contexts
- selection bias (western world overstudied)
- ethnocentrims and stereotypes
- pure objectivity is unobtainable -> subjectivity bias -> discrimination in research (e.g. seeing some countries as backward) - assumptions of causality, correlation IS NOT causality
- e.g. Nigeria has presidentialism, but no stability = correlation (further back in time Nigeria had a parliamentary system)
- e.g. Duverger law, electoral systems put in place in systems that already have two dominant parties (they put the system in place that will ensure their power)
stereotype
over-generalized belief about a certain group of people, used as a mental shortcut
can encourage prejudice and discrimination
e.g. old European joke:
- Heaven is where the police are British, the chefs are Italian, the mechanics are German, the lovers are French, and it is all organized by the Swiss
- Hell is where the police are German, the chefs are British, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss, and it is all organized by the Italians
The state
= main unit of political organization in the world
= organizations that maintain a monopoly on violence over a territory (book)
- country = larger than the state, not just state structure, but also the people/culture etc.
- government is smaller than the state: ruling elite that is in place that sets the policies, that administers the state
Montevideo convention 1933 = features of the state:
- territory
- population
- sovereignty
- internal: monopoly on the use of force
- external: capacity to enter relations with other states
states - anomalies
- supranational organizations
- partially recognized states
- de facto states (Somaliland, TRNC)
- failed states (Somalia, South Sudan, Afghanistan)
- non-sov territories (Greenland, Puerto Rico)
nationalism and state formation
in European history: unifying force
- often not created out of thin air
- state makes nation (France) or nations make state (Germany)?
- national ethnicity side-by-side subnational ethnic identity (overlap) or identities (no overlap)
most countries are multiethnic
Nationalism and ethnicity = imagined communities (pure subjective feeling, not tangible)
- langauge, culture, religion etc.
- whether a group is a nation or ethnic group is contested, e.g. Serbian group within Yugoslavia seen as cultural group, but after breakup it started advocating to be seen as political group, a national group wanting a nation
- ethnic groups can always sway and claim national identity
Woodrow Wilson = national self-determination (WW1)
- freedom from occupation
- freedom from colonizers (not WW1, mostly after WW2)
benign vs exclusionary nationalism
benign nationalism = national identity is just one of the layers of identity that people can have + it is inclusive (driver of solidarity) + no exclusion of cosmopolitism (you can feel national and at the same time citizen of the world)
exclusionary nationalism = nativism, e.g. Nazi-Germany, Orban, Bodhi, Trump
irredentism
= goal to expand state territory to bring 1 ethnic group/nation in 1 nation-state
- Russia: Russian speaking communities in Ukraine and Georgia -> Putin claims they are part of Russia’s nation, that they “want” to be part of Russia again, Russia needs to spread to become a nation-state again
- Somalia: country flag has 5 starts, their nation is spread in 5 countries, want to be together in one nation-state
irredentism = aggressive, used by leaders to activate external aggression
political regimes - typologies
usually distinction democracy vs autocracy
Aristotle: 6 different stateforms, of which democracy is bad (not everyone has public interest at heart)
contemporary classifications:
- democratic regime
- authoritarian regime / dictatorship
- hybrid/illiberal regimes
- totalitarian regime
Democratic regime
= strong positive connotation
= rule by the people
strong elements of political equality
- direct (everyone votes) vs representative (pick politicians, gov.) democracy
- majoritarian democracy (majority decides) vs liberal democracy (majority decides, but not of it goes against the rights/protection of the minority)
liberal democracy = we need to check the majority with judiciary, executie etc.
authoritarian regimes
= negative connotations
= defined in terms of what they are not: democracies
types of authoritarian regimes:
- armed forces / military junta (e.g. Sudan, Myanmar)
- personal despotism / dictatorship (e.g. Cameroon, Russia, Venezuela)
- absolute monarchy (e.g. Qatar, Saudi-Arabia)
- one-party state (e.g. Cuba, China, Vietnam)
- theocracy (e.g. Iran, Vatican)
we’ll focus on personal rule (Russia) and one-party state (China)
hybrid/illiberal regimes
= in between cases = grey zone
many varieties: sometimes established things as in democracy that perform diffferently than in democracies
some countries appear to be progressing
- Russia becoming more and more authoritarian
- Brazil: becoming authoritarian but saved by Lula?
totalitarian regimes
= controls all aspects of life, not jut political
= system of control
- attempts to transform society on an ideological basis (re-socialization of citizens)
- participation encouraged/enforced: mass mobilization
- state controls all aspects of public and private life
- system of terror enforced by secret police
- single mass party, often led by a charismatic dictator
example e.g. communist regime in Albania
(article nationalism) definition nationalism + research into nationalism should be:
- cross-disciplinary
- cross-regional
- co-authored
nationalism = celebration of the nation + desire for political sovereignty exercised by a nation over a given territory
- general consensus = nationalism as product of modernity (industrialization, urbanization, print-capitalism, resistance to colonialism)
nationalism as:
- macropolitical force = nation-state dominance in contemporary politics (national narratives important for taxation, fairness and inclusivity, ideology and voting behavi, education systems, civil war dynamics, democracy)
- behavior = component of individual identity that can impact political behavior (biases, national pride)
- practice = distinction between elite and mass nationalism, elites not always in control of the narrative
emphasizes that village squares and public streets are important spaces for defining nationalism in their own right
“Nationalism is a conceptual lens through which political scientists can better understand the interactions of institutions, demographics, and individual behavior. At a time of heightened identity politics across the globe, more comparative, cross-disciplinary, cross-regional, and coauthored research has the potential to discern the mechanisms through which political identities become meaningful, facilitate cooperation, and evolve”
(article nationalism)
other disciplines on nationalism
- evolutionary biology = Darwinian natural selection -> transmission of culture -> group-oriented psychological makeup of human beings
- philosophy = distinction normative approach (is nationalism good) and descriptive approach (what is a nation)
*nationalism based on ethnic ties = not morally worthy
*nationalism based on set of ideas and institutions = morally worthy - history = needs to look out for normative biases + generalizations
- social psychology = “groupness”: social behavior is driven by individual characteristics + contingent nature of social institutions and group behavior (in-group bias necessary to create a positive identity)
nationalism = distinction between love for one’s own country (good nationalism) and discrimination against out-group members (bad nationalism)
(book) - legitimacy
= the extent to which the authority of the state is regarded as right and proper
- traditional legitimacy = state is obeyed bc it has a large history of being obeyed
- charismatic legitimacy = legitimacy based on a states’ identification with an important individual
- rational-legal legitimacy = legitimacy based on laws and procedures that become highly institutionalized
(book) unitary vs federal
- unitary state = state that concentrates most political power in the national capital, allocating little decision-making power to regions or localities
-> devolution = process by which central states hand down power to lower levels of gov - federal state = state that divides political power between the central state and regional or local authorities
(book) political regime
= norms and rules regarding individual freedoms and collective equality, the locus of power and the use of that power in the state
- the rules of the game governing the exercise of power, often described in constitutions
authoritarian = regime that limits the role of public in decision making and often denies citizens basic rights
democratic = regime with rules that emphasize large role for the public in governance
(book) democratic political institutions
executive = branch of gov that carries out the laws and policies of a given state
legislature = branch of gov. formally charged with making laws
judiciary = branch of gov concerned with dispending justice
- judicial review = mechanism by which a court can review laws and policies and overturn those that are seen as violating the constitution
- concrete review = allows high court to rule on constitutional issues only when relevant disputes are brought before it
-> e.g. US - abstract review = allows high court to rule on constitutional issues that don’t arise from legal cases
-> e.g. France
