DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

BA POLITICAL SCIENCE
Second semester (2021/2022)

POLI 214: Introduction to Comparative Politics (3 CREDITS)

Lecture note 2: The Comparative Research Method

DR EMMANUEL YEBOAH-ASSIAMAH 1
 Introduction

Comparison is one of the oldest tools of political

science, found in the work of Aristotle.
Some have even argued that the scientific study of
politics is unavoidably comparative (Almond,
1966; Lasswell 1968),
and that ‘comparison is the methodological core
of the scientific study of politics’ (Powell et al.,
2014).
 Comparative research methods
• The methods available for the comparative study of
politics and government are many and varied.
The choice among them, argues Landman (2008: 24)
depends on a combination of the research question
being asked,
the time and resources available,
the method with which the researcher is most
comfortable,
and the epistemological preferences of the researcher;
that is,
how they believe that understanding is best acquired.
 Traditions in Comparative Politics
 In attempt to find out ‘how politics works or operates,
comparative politics entails 3 main traditions which help to
achieve the goal
 The first tradition is the Study of single countries
 The second tradition is Methodological and is concerned
with establishing rules and standards of comparative
analysis.
 This tradition addresses the question of how comparative
analysis should be carried out in order to enhance their
potential for the descriptive information, causal
explanations and associations between key variables, and
prediction
 3. the third tradition of CP is analytical and it combines
empirical substance and methods
 Concerned with identification and explanation of differences
and similarities between countries and their institutions,
actors, and processes through systematic comparison
 It can be based on ‘large-N’ or ‘small-N’ research designs (N
is the number of cases concerned)
 It can either be quantitative or qualitative or logical or
statistical techniques for testing hypothesis and causal
explanations
 What exactly does CP do in practice?
Contd from last week
CP involves the analysis of similarities and
differences between cases.
Are there differences? How large are they? And
how can we explain them?
To compare means that similarities and
differences are described. CP describes the world
and building on these descriptions establishes
classifications and typologies
Similarities and differences are explained.
i. Why did social revolutions occur in the newly independent
African countries in the early 1960s?
ii. Why did newly independent African countries attempt to
establish many SOEs? And outcomes

 CP aims at formulating predictions.

 If we know that proportional representation electoral
systems favour proliferation of parties in legislature, could
we logically predict?
 What exactly does CP compare?
Contd from last week
1.Non-national political systems (sub-national regional bodies such
as states in US and Nigeria; Lander in Germany, regions and
MMDAs in Ghana,
 Regions (Western Europe, North America, Latin America, Asian
Tigers, Sub-Saharan Africa)
 Supra-national organizations (European Union, African Union)
2. Types of political systems can be compared (eg a comparison
between democratic and authoritarian regimes in terms of eg
economic performance
3. Single elements of political systems rather than whole system
 From institutions to functions
 CP has gone through some trajectories
 CP before world war II was mainly concerned with the state
 Classical cases of CP has been on national political
systems and institutions and biased towards Western
Europe and North America
 Institutions were conceptualized in the narrow sense overlapping
with state powers (legislative, executive, judiciary).
 In the 1960s, there was a revolution which many scholars describe
as ‘Golden Age of comparative politics (see Dalton 1991).
 What triggered this revolution? Read Caramani (esp p. 5-6)
 CP before and after the behavioural
revolution
Dimension Before After
of analysis
Unit State Political system

Subject Regimes and their formal All actors in the process

matter institutions, leadership of decision-making
Cases Major democracies: US, Objective extension of
Britain, France, analysis of cases (decolonization)
democratic breakdown in and subjective extension
Germany and Italy, with spread of discipline
authoritarianism in Spain in various countries
and Latin America
Dimension Before After
of analysis
Indicators West-centric, Abstract concepts
or qualitative categories (functionalism), empirical
universals, quantitative
variables
variables
Method Narrative accounts and Machine-readable datasets
juxtapositions between and statistics, quasi-
cases experimental comparative
method
Data Constitutional and legal Survey and aggregate data
texts
 Types of comparative study
methods
typology Number focus strategy
of cases
Case study One Case Intensive study of a single instance with wider
significance
Qualitative A few Case Holistic comparison of two or more cases
(small-N) within their natural settings.
Quantitative Many Variabl Statistical assessments of the relationships
(large-N) e between variables involving large numbers of
cases.
Historical One or a Proces Traces the process leading to a known
few s outcome.
(small-N)
 Case study
 A research method involving the detailed study of a particular object
(a person, institution, country, phenomenon, etc.) as well the context
within which it exists.
 The case study method typically involves a single case, and thus
might not seem to be comparative at first glance,
 but a case is necessarily comparative because it needs to be an
example of something larger, against which it can then be juxtaposed.
 Single cases are not as widely used as they once were,
 but they have the advantage of depth, and other researchers can use
two or more single-country studies to explore broader similarities and
differences,
 and single cases can usefully be compared with an ideal type or a
typology
Often researchers will use their own country as a
representative example.
For instance, researchers may be interested in
the formation of coalition governments in
general,
but choose to study in detail how governments
form in their homeland.
The home country is the research site but the
hope is that the results will contribute to
broader understanding.
 Five types of case study
typology Definition Example
Prototypical Expected to become Sophisticated use of the internet
typical in US election campaigns

Exemplary Created the category British Parliament

Deviant Exception to the rule India as a stable democracy in a

poor country.

Critical If it works here, it will Promoting democracy in

work anywhere Afghanistan
Representati Typical of the category Coalition government in Finland.

ve
 Deviant case
 The purpose of a deviant case study is to seek out the exceptional and the
untypical, rather than the norm: the few countries which remain
communist, or which are still governed by the military, or which seem to
be immune from democratizing trends.
 Deviant cases are often used to tidy up our understanding of exceptions
and anomalies.
 Why does India contradict the thesis that democracy presupposes
prosperity?
 Why did tiny Switzerland adopt a federal architecture when many
federations are found in large countries?
 Why has voter turnout stayed high in Denmark even as it has fallen
elsewhere (Elkit et al., 2005)?
 Deviant cases always attract interest and, by providing a contrast with the
norm, enhance our understanding of representative examples.
 But since the exceptional tends to the exotic, the danger is over-study.
Comparative politics should be more than a collection of curios.
 Critical case
 A critical case (also known as a ‘crucial case’) enables a proposition to
be tested in the circumstances least favourable to its validity.
 The logic is simple: if it is true here, then it is true everywhere.
 For instance, if we were to find that most Germans opposed further
European integration, we could anticipate that the same would hold true
in other EU countries such as Britain which have historically been more
suspicious of the European project.
 In this way, critical case studies can be highly efficient, providing
exceptional returns on the research investment; by studying just one
country, we can generalize to others.
 However, the pay-off comes with risk: a critical case design builds a
potential for generalization into a single investigation but involves a bet
that the relevant proposition will, in fact, be confirmed in the conditions
least favourable to its validity.
 Prototypical case
 a prototypical case is chosen not because it is representative but
because it is expected to become so.
 ‘In other words, their present is our future,
 Studying a pioneer can help us understand a phenomenon
which is growing in significance elsewhere.
 One famous early example of a prototypical case study was
Democracy in America, written by the French politician Alexis
de Tocqueville
 as a product of his travels in the United States in 1831 to 1832.
 He had been sent by the French government to study the
American prison system,
 but the book he wrote became a broader analysis of democracy
and
representative government, using the US as a case.
De Tocqueville regarded the United States as a
harbinger of democracy and therefore a guide to
Europe’s own future (1835, ch. 1).
More recent examples of prototypical cases would
be Tunisia as the first instance of the Arab Spring,
 Exemplary case
 Where the study of prototypical cases aims to reveal how similar
cases may evolve in the future, exemplary cases are the
archetypes that are considered to have generated the category of
which they are taken as representative.
 For instance, the parliamentary system was born in Britain,
 and thus a study of the features of the British Parliament will
give us insights into the manner in which legislatures and
executives work in all those countries using this system.
 In similar fashion, the US presidency does far more than
illustrate the presidential system of government:
 it is the model which influenced later political systems, notably
in Latin America.
 While an exemplar is often defined as a case to be emulated, in
research design the term refers more neutrally to an
 Qualitative study
 The qualitative method is what we usually associate with the
comparative method,
 and involves comparing anything from two to a dozen or more
cases (otherwise known as small-N, for the number of cases).
 The qualitative method is most often used in research that falls
between single-case and large-N studies,
 and concentrates on the intensive examination of two cases
 (a paired or binary comparison), three cases (a triangular
comparison), or more.
 Cases are usually selected to introduce variation into the
dependent variable, thus overcoming an inherent limit of the
single case study
 Features of qualitative study
The qualitative approach has the following features:
A limited number of cases are studied in depth.
It is descriptive rather than predictive.
An effort is made to understand the interaction of
multiple variables.
Meaning is allowed to emerge from the objects of study.
Observation is the main means of data collection.
Phenomena are studied within their natural setting
 Quantitative
 Where the qualitative method takes an intensive approach to
understanding political phenomena,
 using small-N cases in their natural setting, the quantitative
method takes a narrower approach based on a large number of
cases, more variables, and statistical analysis.
 It typically tries to quantify data and to generalize the results
to a larger population, and generates information through
experiments and survey research.
 It is also heavily statistical
 Qualitative: Qualitative research is expressed in words.
 It is used to understand concepts, thoughts or experiences.
This type of research enables you to gather in-depth insights
on topics that are not well understood.
 Quantitative: Quantitative research is expressed in
numbers and graphs. It is used to test or confirm theories
and assumptions. This type of research can be used to
establish generalizable facts about a topic. Eg Surveys,
experimental research,
 Qualitative vs Quantitative method
Dimension Qualitative Quantitative
Goal To understand underlying reasons and To quantify data and generalize
motivations in the setting of a results from a sample to the
phenomenon population of interest
Method Exploratory or ‘bottom-up’; hypotheses Confirmatory or ‘top-down’;
and hypotheses and theory tested
theory generated from data with data
View of human Contextual, personal and unpredictable Regular and predictable
thought and
behaviour
Sample size Small large
Core principles Interpretive, exploratory Scientific, conclusive
Types of Open-ended, narrative, non-numerical, Statistical, numerical
information words, images, themes
Information Interviews, focus groups, case studies, Experiments, audits, survey
observation research, rating scales
 Approaches in case selection: Most Similar
System
 The selection of cases is important, and there are two core strategies
involved (Przeworski and Teune, 1970).
 The most common – known as the most similar system (MSS)
design – involves selecting those cases which are as similar as
possible except in regard to the object of study (the dependent
variable).
 The underlying logic is that ‘the more similar the units being
compared, the more possible it should be to isolate the factors
responsible for differences between them’ (Lipset, 1990:xiii).
 If the states being studied are similar in, say, their history, culture,
and government institutions, it should be possible to rule out such
common factors as explanations for the particular difference being
studied
 Most-Different-System (MDS)
 The most different system (MDS) design follows the opposite track.
 Here, we seek to test a relationship between two factors by discovering whether it can be
observed in a range of countries with contrasting histories, cultures, and so on.
 If so, our confidence that the relationship is real, and not due to the dependence of both
factors on an unmeasured third variable, will increase (Peters, 1998).
 A well-known example of this approach is the historical analysis by Theda Skocpol
(1979) of revolutions in France, Russia, and China.
 These three cases had quite different political economic and social systems, so she set out
to ask what they had in common that would produce a similar political outcome.
 She concluded that regimes which were internationally weak and domestically ineffective
became vulnerable to insurrection when well-organized agitators succeeded in exploiting
peasant frustration with an old order to which the landed aristocracy offered only limited
support.
 Another example is provided by Rothstein (2002), who examined the evolution of social
and political trust in two contrasting democracies, Sweden and the United States,
assuming that any trends shared between these two countries should also be observable in
other democracies.
 Challenges of comparison
Too few cases, The problem of having more explanatory factors
too many for a given outcome than there are cases available
variables to study. Counterfactuals
Selection bias The cases selected for study are often an
unrepresentative sample, limiting the significance of
the findings. The selection may be influenced in
particular by survivorship, value, or confirmation bias.
Understanding The ‘same’ phenomenon can mean different things in
meaning different countries, creating difficulties in comparing
like with like.
Globalization States cannot be regarded as entirely independent of
each other, thus reducing the effective number of cases
available for testing theories.
 Key terms used in comparative research method

Methodology: The systematic analysis of the methods

used in a given field of enquiry.
Also used to describe the body of methods used in a
discipline, or the means used to reach a particular set of
conclusions
Unit of analysis: The object of study in comparative
politics.
Level of analysis: The level of study in comparative
politics, ranging from the political system level to the
individual level
Variable: A changeable feature, factor, quantity, or
 Hypothesis
 At the heart of research in almost every field of study is the formulation
and testing of a hypothesis.
 This is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon that can be supported
(confirmed) or refuted (falsified) through observation or
experimentation.
 Hypotheses should not be confused with theories, which are explanatory
frameworks from which hypotheses might flow, and which can in turn be
tested in order to support or refute theories (see Chapter 5).
 Examples of hypotheses include the following:
 Plurality electoral systems always produce a two-party system
(otherwise known as Duverger’s law – see Chapter 15).
 The wealthier a country, the more likely it is to sustain a stable
democracy.
 The violent end to a dictatorial regime is more likely to bring chaos than
democracy. Colonialism is the root cause of the problems of the world’s
poorest states.
 Variables
 We have also seen how variables play a key role in research, particularly in
comparison.
 The object is usually to explore the extent to which variables or factors co-vary
with one another, such that knowing a country’s score on one variable (for
instance, literacy) allows us to predict its score on another (for instance,
electoral turnout).
 In such analyses, one variable is dependent, in the sense that it is the one we
want to better understand, while the others are independent, in the sense that we
believe that they may explain or impact the dependent variable.
 For example:
 Higher participation in politics may be driven by factors such as greater wealth
and higher education.
 The incidence of military coups may be tied to poverty, social division, and the
past incidence of coups.
 An assertive foreign policy may be driven by a high sense of mission, the
power of the defence industry, fear of the foreign, or (as in the case of Putin’s
Russia) a desire to reassert lost influence.
 Key Terms in Comparative
Method contd
 Case: A case denotes the units of observation to be compared,
such as, countries.
 Variable: A variable is a concept that can be systematically
observed (and measured) in various situations (such as height,
weight, GDP, population or over time).
 It allows us to understand the similarities and differences
between observed phenomenon.
 Dependent variable: This is the analysis – what is to be
explained?
 What does the researcher seek to find out?
 Independent variable: These are explanatory factors that
help to seek answers to the issue a researcher attempts to
find (they are also called explanatory variables)

 Eg
 Democracy and economic performance??
 Demand and price of commodity??
Dependent and independent
variables
 Theory: A theory is a meaningful statement about the
relationship between two real-world phenomena: X, the
independent and y, the dependent variable.
 It is expected that a change in one variable will be related
to a change in the other.
 Theories are formulated to explain, predict, and
understand phenomena and, in many cases, to challenge
and extend existing knowledge within the limits of
critical bounding assumptions. Eg RCT, public choice
theory;
 From cases to variables
• Small ‘N
• Large ‘N’
• Return to small ‘N’: there has been a methodological
shift back to small N which stresses the intrinsic
advantages of the study of few cases.
• They argue that small-N comparisons allow for in-
depth analysis in which configurations or combinations
of factors are privileged in explanations.
• Cases are seen as wholes rather than being divided into
isolated variables
 Note
• CP employs statistical techniques when research designs
include many cases and quantitative indicators (variable-
oriented large-N studies), or ‘comparative methods’ when
research designs include few cases and qualitative
indicators (case-oriented small-N studies)
• The purpose of CP is descriptive, explanatory, and predictory.
• That regard, research designs aim either at selecting similar cases
and explaining their different outcomes (Most Similar System
Designs, the method of difference) or at selecting different
cases and explain their similar outcomes (Most Different
Systems Designs, Method of Agreement)
 Forms of comparative analysis
• Peters identified the following four types of
comparative analysis:
• Comparative organizational analysis:
Comparing variations across two or more
organizations
• Comparative sector analysis: Comparing
variations across two or more sectors (e.g.
public sector versus private sector)
• Comparative historical analysis: Comparing
variations across different time periods. Sometimes
called cross-time analysis.
• Comparative national analysis: Comparing
variations across two or more countries. Usually
also called cross-national analysis.
• Note: More than one type of comparative analysis may
be used in the same research study to strengthen the
robustness of the findings.
Comparative national analysis of ‘business climate’: six
African states
Comparative national and cross-time analysis
country 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015
Global CP Score Global
ranking ranking
New Zealand 1 87 87 89 90 1st 91
Denmark 1 87 90 1st 91
Singapore 4 85 85 84 84 7th 85
United States 23 69 71 75 74 18th 76
United Kingdom 12th 77 80 82 81 10th 81
Botswana 34 61 61 61 60 35th 63
Ghana 80 41 41 40 43 70th 47
Rwanda 51 53 56 55 54 50th 54
Namibia 56 52 53 51 52 53rd 53
Somalia 180 9 10 9 10 176th 8
 THE END
• END OF PRESENTATION

• THANK YOU

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