1. Introduction to Comparative Politics

2. Issues to be discussed Why do we study politics
(what is politics and why is it important to study it)
How do we study politics (methods of studying comparative politics)
Normative approach
Empirical approach: experimental, statistic, comparative, case studies
The nature of comparative political analysis
Most similar and most different system designs
what we study: public policy, political behav., governmental struc.
Nation states
The political system
Analytic system: super-system, system, subsystem
Political culture
System, process, policy cultures
Globalization
Economic globalization

3. What do you associate with the term politics?

4. Why do we study politics
Lets first understand what is politics
Aristotle: Politics is the interaction between individuals and groups in a society
Interactions that involve power and authority
Hobbes: Power refers to the general capacity to attain goals in a society
Lasswell: Politics is about “who gets what, when, and how?” (share of resources)

5. How do politics impact your daily lives?

6. Why do we study politics
To understand for example, why
A given election is won by one party, but not the other one
To learn about issues, such as
Justice
How policies are made
comparative politics along with the other social disciplines tries to help us understand the complex world around us

7. How do we study politics
Lets first understand the difference between comparative politics and area studies Area Studies  Politics in a single area, f.e., Germany Comparative Politics  compares different cases, such as Germany, Turkey, and Japan (in terms of politics) The goal in comparing is to find similarities and differences between political systems, institutions, behaviors, or cultures in different countries

8. How do we study Politics
Normative Approach
Philosophies or “shoulds”
Empirical Approach
Measurements and observations

9. How do we study politics (Normative vs. empirical)
Normative Explanations seeks to answer f.e.,
What is justice
What is a just society
How do we decide what is just and what is not
Does the concept of justice ever change so
Should there be free education, etc.
Empirical explanations tries to answer f.e.,
What is…
Do all people have access to free education in a society (quantifiable)
Do all judges feel the same way about a particular law (quantifiable)
What is the relationship between the voting behaviors and SES (quantifiable)

10. How do we study politics: Empirical approach (4 methods)
Experimental Method
Manipulates one variable in order to observe its impact over another variable.
For example, the medical studies and experiments on patients
Case study method
Intensive study of individual cases, such as individuals, interest groups, institutional groups, regional groups
Comparative method
More than one case is compared.
For example, voting behavior in Germany, Turkey, and Japan
Statistical method
Quantitative data is used, public opinion polls, survey research etc.

11. How is case study different than area study?

12. How do we study politics
Comparative method can be carried out in two ways (Przeworski and Teune)
Most similar system design
Highly similar nations with different policy outcomes (Canada vs. Australia)
there must be a difference between them that causes the difference in policy outcome.
Most different system design
Highly different nations with some similar political outcome (England vs. Saudi Arabia)
then some aspects of these nations must be similar.

13. The nature of comp. political analysis
What do we study?
Public policy
Deals with what governments do,
For example, agricultural, fishery, or fiscal policies
Political behavior
If we understand why people behave the way they behave, then it will be easier to understand the political system within which they operate
Voting behavior, political leader, etc.
Governmental structure
Deals with the governmental institutions, such as legislatures, courts, militaries, executives, and political parties

14. The nature of comp. political analysis
These are all about Nation-states, so what is nation-state
Nations: a group of people with the shared characteristics
States: political entity, created by people, has accepted boundaries.
States’ borders might change
Can we have nations without states?

15. The nature of comp. political analysis
two crucial features of nation-states
Sovereignty:
having the right to make the final decision regarding policy
Legitimacy:
citizens of that state have loyalty to it
lack of loyalty  rebellions, civil wars, and revolutions (give an example)
the other states diplomatically recognize the state, and agree that it has the right to exist
lack of recognition  wars and conflicts (give an example)

16. The Nature of comp. political analysis
Three common mistakes political scientists do
Political Ethnocentrism (Example, US Democracy export to Iraq)
Individualistic fallacy (individual level analysis)
When you meet a South-African with PhD, it would be wrong to assume that South-Africans are more educated than the Americans in general based on this observation.
Ecological-Fallacy (Aggregate level analysis)
As a result of a survey if you find that Americans are more educated than South-Africans in general,
But, it would be wrong to assume that Americans are more educated than every individual South-Africans.
Ex: American vs. East German legislatures in terms of passing laws

17. The Political-System Analytic Systems
Refers to groups of objects that are connected with one another in an analytic way.
What connects different parts of the American governmental system is the power that is provided by the constitution for each of the institutions making up the government.

18. The political system Easton’s political system theory :
Demands and support (input)  IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII (political machine)  authoritative decisions and actions (output)

19. Political culture Three dimensions of political culture System culture
attitudes towards nation, regime, and authorities
as well as values related to national identity, regime change, etc.
Process culture: the role of individuals in the political arena
Policy dimension: attitudes towards the outcomes of the political system (policies)

20. Globalization
Increasingly economic activity in the world takes place between people living in different countries.
Nations, individuals, firms, and institutions are interconnected more than ever.
Capital moves around the world as if there is no nation-state;
People easily go and invest in another nation-state.
Therefore, issues such as international trade, foreign direct investment, environmental policy, and human rights are more relevant in daily life.

21. Globalization The position of the world bank is that
Globalization is not knew
Globalization does not effect all nations in the same way, or same extend
Globalization in economic sense is different than globalization in other senses.
Some problems related to globalization:
Difficulty for the governments in planning and controlling national economies.
Multinational companies and job drains.
What are some factors accelerating globalization?

22. Institutional approach
Institutions survive longer than individuals It is easier to generalize by observing institutions It is easier to find observable and measurable data on institutions. Thus, the text book uses an institutional approach.