Comparative politics: Different perspectives

Comparative Politics is a study in the direction of expanding horizon of Political Science. It is a study of Political realities by means of new techniques and approaches. Itis not a study of government, but governments with the taking of decisions in all levels. Formally, comparative study has been part of what is called the study of Foreign governments, in which the governmental structures and the formal organisations of state constitutions were treated in a discipline, historical or legalistic, manner, Primary emphasis has been placed on written documents like constitution and legal principles for the allocation of Political Power.

Comparative politics as discipline has vital importance because a great deal of experimentation is now going on with new techniques, new definitions, new research tools. The main reason for the intellectual development, perhaps, because of the wide spread feeling of disappointment and dissatisfaction with the traditional descriptive approach to the subject. In the traditional view point, the term comparative politics, refers to a subject matter, a field of specialty within the academic study of politics (that, is, political science), and a method of an approach to the study of politics. The subject matter of comparative politics is the domestic politics of countries or peoples. (Mark Kesselman,Joel Krieger) Comparative Politics is the study of political systems ,not as isolated cases but through generalisation and comparisons

(G.A.Almond ,G.B Powell).

R.K Roberts classified the historical development of the subject in to three phases Unsophisticated, Sophisticated, and increasingly Sophisticated. In the first phase includes the contribution made by Aristotle, Machiavelli, Bryce and Weber to the study of politic. These writers simply utilised the comparative method for the primary purpose of the better understanding the working of political organisations. In the second phase some important writers like Samuel. H. Beer, M. Hass, Bernard Ulam and Roy. C Macrids made their contribution to the development of comparative politics. They used various strategies of comparison such as area studies, Configurative approach, Institutional comparison, a problem-based orientation, and with various methodological problems. In the third phase the contribution of David Easton, Gabriel Almond, James Coleman, Karl Deutsch, G. B Powell, Robert A. Dahl may be included in this phase. These writers made use of interrelated set of concepts for the sake of presenting their contribution on the basis of comparative analysis. They used some specialized vocabulary in their own ways. David Easton used inputs, out puts, demand, feedback; Almond offers a set of input output function; Karl Deutsch used a cybernetic language etc.

In new comparative politics, in the 1970s and 1980s, comparative politics became defined largely by ideological and methodological debates. Left and Right accused each other of bias and distortions while advocates of qualitative and quantitative methods argued over how to structure and use research. Yet even as these debates raged among scholars, new global debates taking shape that would shake the foundations of comparative politics once again. The first major development was rapid industrialization in Asia. The second major event was the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. A third and related development was what has come to be known as the “third wave, of democracy (Patric O Neil)