What is Comparative Government? Institutions, policies, politics or process?

Before comparing, classify Types of government types of regime types of political behaviour political culture political economy do we have adequate taxonomies and paradigms for all these?

LIBERAL totalitarian authoritarian democratic

Types of government Democracy [several types] Military [several types] One party Hereditary monarchies Dictatorships Supranational

But are these categories meaningful any more? Almost every state claims to be a democracy of some sort There are very few military coups now. Easier ways to manipulate election results Iraq, Syria, Egypt almost the last one-party states Outside Saudi Arabia and the Gulf most monarchies now constitutional Even dictators need to appear legitimate

So are geography and culture more significant variables? West European Democracies Post-Communist states States affected by Islam: Middle East and Asian sub-categories Latin American states Sub-Saharan Africa USA, Canada, Oz, NZ Japan and associates [ASEAN] Asian giants: China, India, Indonesia

Are governments relevant in the 21 st century? The era of the global market demands minimal intervention Multinational companies take the important decisions Transnational institutions like the World Bank, OECD, GATT set the parameters G7/8/n sets priorities If govts. Cant even veto, why are they there?

Traditional categories for comparison Legislature Executive Judiciary Parties and party systems Pressure groups Electoral systems media

The problem is… Legislatures don’t make law Executives taking over legislative function Judiciary unfashionable for polsci Parties becoming less structured Pressure groups defend interests. Campaigning a sign of weakness Elections marketing events Media about entertainment, not discussion

So, studying formal structures tells us little This is a politics degree, not a government degree [changed 1966] What, in this context, is politics? Easton: “the authoritative allocation of values” Values here in both the ideological and economic senses Another way of saying “who gets what, when and how”…but “why” is also of interest

Politics Institutions Decision-making Debate Accountability and scrutiny Implementation Prioritisation subsidiarity

Processes Socialisation: how you get political attitudes Recruitment: how people take on political roles Policy-making Public opinion: how it forms and how [and when] it is consulted Voting behaviour Coalition-building

“New” Comparative Government Roy Macridis: stop describing: analyse, and produce models New journal, Comparative Politics [see issue 1] Behaviouralism trendy in 60s This is why the reading lists all contain books and articles from the 60s Most typologies created then

Easton’s input-output model inputs outputs Feedback loop demands support conversion

Almond’s Structural- Functionalism Political socialisation and recruitment interest articulation interest aggregation political communication rule making rule execution rule ajudication

The 60s had great models but no data Almond and easton difficult to implement, because of shortage of data Return to case study approach Academics basically lazy: whatever is easiest to publish. Also fashion driven for the same reason Social Sciences as Sorcery