Lecture 2: WHAT TO COMPARE? HOW TO COMPARE? A. Why do we compare? B. What do we compare in comparative politics? C. How do we compare? D. Structure Versus Culture

A. Why do we compare? 1.A basic form of human thought— - we always make implicit and explicit comparisons. * deepens our understanding of our own system. * shows alternatives of how things can be done better illuminates strengths and weaknesses of our own system

2. Without comparison we cannot test our explanations. * we often make generalizations about the relationships among things we see; * by comparing those relationships in different systems we can test to see if the relationships we observe in one system actually hold true in another system.

Why Do We compare? II 3. Example: "In the U.S. rich people vote for the Republican Party, while poor people vote for the Democratic Party” generalization: suggests some relationship between wealth or income level and political attitudes and behaviour involves implicit comparison of behaviour and attitudes of rich and poor "the wealthier people are, the more they hold more conservative political attitudes and favour conservative parties." See Figure 2

Why do we compare? III * having made general observation, look at different countries to see if relationship holds there as well; if not, our explanation may be wrong or conditions in second country are different. We want then to understand what is different in the second country that stops relationship from holding true. what is the relationship in Hong Kong between wealth, political attitudes and voting behaviour?

B. What do we compare in comparative politics? 1. History of comparative politics: people originally compared governmental institutions and constitutions but "behavioural revolution" led to interest in: individual behaviour the process of politics within these political institutions, such as political parties, search for political patterns and relationships that can be tested through scientific method.

2. Independent, Intervening, and Dependent Variables * need to be very clear what we are trying to explain--dependent variable (depends on others for its outcome) * Examples could include country behaviour, groups, process (policy making), individual * initially a big emphasis on voting behaviour * independent variables- factors that explain the outcome we observe—why does it happen? * Examples?

C. How do we compare? We make comparisons through the Comparative Method 1. Scientific Method: * borrowed from scientific research, * control all inputs except one in two "test groups" and see if there is a different outcome. * If there is difference in outcome, assumed to result from this one input or variable.

Scientific Method, II very hard to do this with political systems, so we look for systems that are similar in many ways but have different outcomes find what is different about the systems that may explain the different outcomes. could also use quantitative data to measure impact on outcomes of different inputs.

2. Case Study Approach * choose two or three cases with differences and similarities * make generalization and see if there are differences among different cases. * example of decollectivization in Jiangsu Province, see Table 3.1 * "the higher the level of economic development, the less willing were farmers to divide up the land." * assumes a relationship between level of wealth and political/economic behaviour

3. Quantitative method clearly state generalization about the relationship between certain factors Example: the higher the level of economic development, the greater the likelihood of democratic development * how to measure democracy? * what are the indicators of economic development? * need to make concepts into measurable “variables” * collect information on a number of variables related to those factors for 100 or more cases * look for statistical relationships among the variables that support or challenge your assumption about the relationship among them. * use multivariate regression to see which factors explain most of the variation in your dependent variable, the level of democracy.

Quantitative Methods 4. Cross-national data collection Pick several countries, and collect data on specific issues in those countries, such as level of participation and level of education.