Summary: Comparative Analysis Of Political Systems

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• 1 Lecture 1: Introduction: States, Nations & Regimes

• 1.1 What is Comparative Politics?

• How was Comparative Politics defined over the years?

  1) A sub-discipline of political science
  

  • But:  the label refers to methods used in research rather than substance
  • Overlaps with the area of inquiry of International Relations 

  2) The study of (foreign) countries
  

  • Origins in the US: the study of (foreign) countries, however there was little comparison and more description of different institutions. 

  3) A research method (Lijphart, 1971) 
  4) A combination of substance and method
  

  • Since 1990 a combination of the first two, substance and method; 

  5) More and more overlap with IR 
  
  

• What are the reasons to compare different countries?

  • 1) To gather knowledge about other countries: and by doing doing so gather knowledge about our own country
    
  • 2) To create classifications and develop typologies of different political systems, for an example = parliamentary vs presidential system
  • 3) To formulate and test hypotheses and theories
  • 4) To make predictions about the future

• What are different pitfalls of comparing?

  1) Requires a lot of background information
  

  • As an example = it's crucial to know Germany's history in order to analyse its system
    

  2) Different meaning of concepts in different cultural and linguistic contexts
  

  • As an example = the use of the term Liberal in Europe refers to the right-wing and in the US it refers more to the left-wing.
    

  3) Ethnocentrism and stereotypes: be aware of your bias and standpoint as they can encourage prejudice and discrimination
  4) Selection bias

• 1.2 States

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• What is the definition of "state", "country" and "government"?

  • State: "Main unit of political organisations in the world" 
  • Country: "includes the territory and the population"
  • Government: "leadership or elite that administers the state"

• What are the features of the state?

  • 1) Territory 
  • 2) Population 
  • 3) Sovereignty 
  • Internal sovereignty = monopoly of force 
  • External sovereignty = relations with other states, as an example being part of EU. 

• Can you name of the anomalies (afwijkingen) of the state?

  1) Vatican City = with only 800 people 
  2) Supranational organizations, like the EU. 
  3) Partially recognized states, like Taiwan that is only recongnized by 20-30 countries. 
  4) Facto states = lack of external recognition but have internal sovereignty 
  5) Failed states = have external recognition but lack of internal sovereignty 
  6) Non-sovereignty territory that still have links with other states

• What is, according to Anderson, a "nation"?

  • A nation is a "imagined community" with territorial claim. 
    
  • A nation is a social construct, with intersubjective facts: nations can be created: nation-building refers to transforming a state into a nation-state. 
  • A nations seeks self-determination: sovereignty 

• What was the birth of the nation-state ideal?

  • The French revolution: the birth of the nation-state ideal; each nation should have a state. 
    

• What are differents kinds of legitimacy?

  • Traditional 
    
  • Charismatic: magnetic appeal of a leader or a movement 
  • Rational-legal: system of laws and procedures that becomes highly institutionalized 

• 1.3 Regimes

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• What can you say about Aristotle's typology of regimes?

  • In his view regimes that are "ideal" govern in public interest and "perverted" regimes govern in private interest  
    
  • Each ideal form will eventually degenerate 
  • Democracy represents a regime where every individual seeks their own interest