1. Comparative Politics I. Introductory notes. Methodological notes
Luca Verzichelli / Alessandro Chiaramonte
Comparative Political Institutions
Academic year

2. About the course Student profile Expectations
Not necessarily a specialist of comparative politics, but a student curious about politics and interested to the empirical analysis
Perspective proactive student. Able to stimulate discussions on perspectives and evidence of comparative research,
as well as on the the main social science approaches
A perspective professional presenter
A comprehensive discussion of each problem at stake
A comprehensive review of the literature approached week by week
Comprehensive (but not long!) presentations
A professional “term paper” applying a (restricted) comparative analysis to a specific unit

3. A look to the syllabus
Attendance and participation as important criteria for evaluation
Selective syllabus: we focus on a limited number of topics (governmental institutions and parties) to have time to discuss it. Core readings are really “core” and compulsory!
Further stimuli about the “world of comparative politics” to be found in the syllabus (Caramani is particularly indicated to non expert students)
Advanced PhD course but still “introductory”: presentation style and command of methods and approaches are our main concern

4. Comparing political phenomena
Toqueville Democracy in America: example of (explicit) structural comparison among political systems: “Without comparisons to make, the mind does not know how to proceed”
Other recent examples …
Common Good
Partial / Private Good
Rule by one
Monarchy
Tyranny / Despotism rule of master over slaves
Rule by few
Aristocracy (rule by the best)
Oligarchy (rule by few) (wealthy)
Rule by many
Polity (ruled by different groups)
Democracy (rule by the people) (poor)

5. Comparative politics: method or discipline per se?
Classics works (Toqueville to Wilson) based on the “logic of comparison” (Mills) without a clear focus on the target of comparative exercise
Then, long story of consolidation of a (sub)discipline of PS based on (1) a statutory mission: providing a comprehensive explanation of political phenomena, (2) a scientific ambition: working on non-sperimental scientific environment, and keeping a specific and sophisticated method in order to test hypotheses concerning the variance among political systems.
Stepping stones after IIWW
- Easton (1956): political system as a unit of analysis
- Almond and Powell (1966): how to overcome the provincialism in applying the system theory basing our inference on comparisons at the level of analysis of political system
- Sartori (1970/1991): comparing instead of miscomparing (conceptual stretching, degreeism, misclassification, parochialism)
- Lijphart (1971): selection of case(s) to be studied
- Ragin (1994): Constructing social research. QCA and the approach of qualitative comparison

6. Lijparth 1971: how to minimize the “too many variable/small N problem”
Lijphart, A Comparative politics and the comparative method. American Political Science Review 65 (Sept):
Increase the number of cases as much as possible
Reduce the property-space of the analysis
Focus the comparative analysis on comparative cases
Focus the comparative analysis on the key variables

7. Sartori: typical miscomparisons
Conceptual stretching: A book titled Coalition politics in the US. Be carefull with the use of given expressions
Degreeism: who fixes the cut off points? As we are not able to see the difference between a cat and a dog, we speak of different degrees of cat-dogs
Misclassification, christians, Jewish, Muslim, … catholic
Parochialism, excessive reliance in country based inferences and ignorance on the overall phenomena

8. Some shared points
Comparison is a fundamental exercise for all human reflections (empirical and theoretical)
Comparison is the methodological core of scientific study of social sciences
compare the past and present
compare experiences from different nations
develop explanations
test theories in non experimental environments

9. Methods of comparative analysis
Strenght
Weakness
Experimental method
(few application)
(Few application)
Statistical method
Extensive information
Little interpretation
Case Study
In-depth knowledge
Generic comparison
Comparative method
Hypothesis testing
Limited application
Progressive identification between the idea of application of comparative method(s) and comparative politics …
… but this implies a dynamic of transformation of the “mission” of comparative politics (Fabbrini/Molutsi 2011)

10. We are all comparatists now (Lees 2006) Evidences from professional consolidation of PS
Most of top PS journal are truly comparative or “specialised” but open to comparative analyses
Books on single countries are now much less relevant
Therefore
Relative isolation of the single-country canon
Necessary innovative and careful use of case study design (Gerring)

11. Comparative politics theories the 3 neo-institutionalisms
Rational choice institutionalism
Historical institutionalism
Sociological institutionalism

12. Comparative politics theories the 3 neo-institutionalisms (Hall)
Historical institutionalism:
Background: response to group theory of politics and structural-functionalism. Institutions are formal or informal procedures, routines, norms and conventions embedded in the organizational structure of the polity or political economy.
Key dynamics: path dependency. Trend: sedimentation of similar collective institutions, based on shared values
Rational choice institutionalism
Same definition of institutions but emphasis on the role of strategic interactions and individual behaviours. Trend: diffusion of model of institutional settings based on dominant views (methodologic individualism).
Later, a second generation of “non institution-free” rational neo-institutionalism
Sociological institutionalism
Key variable: ‘social appropriateness’ of given institutional arrangements (but not others). Institutional arrangements thus vary depending on cultural and contextual variables.

13. Issues of current comparative politics
Regime changes and democratic development
Specific institutions
Actors: parties, movements, interest groups ..
Quality of democracy and constitutional comparative politics
Democratic representation and participatory democracy
Comparative policy analysis and politics of policy making