Various approaches to Comparative Politics

• Definition: It is a sub discipline of pol science that focuses on the study of countries' political systems , Governments, institutions and constitutions across the world
• As old as pol philosophy , Aristotle is father as he compared 158 constitution and gave theory of constitutions. It was then used by Machiavelli, Tocqueville ( compared USA and France) , Montesquieu in his spirit of laws.

• Factors for its emergence-
1. Behaviouralism after ww2 —> David Easton—-> wanted to make pol sci as pure science
2. Rise of authoritarianism in the form of fascism,Nazism and communism that political theories were not able to explain.
3. Post world war new post colonial states emerged where the there was a consider Difference between text and context.
4. Since these were prismatic societies, Their politics was too complex to be analysed through traditional normative methods

• Traditional CP- before WW2

1. Legal-institutional approach- Study of Western countries and their constitution but since their culture is same(liberal) they only differ in govt and not politics (culture, society, economy)
1. main focus of the study:
1. law and constitution
2. Institutions
3. Historical study of govt and the state
2. Criticism of institutional/traditional approach:
1. Ethnocentric approach by taking western liberal democracies as the paradigm
2. 
   Roy Macridis described it as non comparative,parochial,static and mono-graphic. He held that traditional method studies comparative government rather than comparative politics.
3. Politics of developing country could not be explained by traditional approach. Hence new approaches like systems approach,SF approach,Pol Science approach, etc developed.
2. Historical approach
3. Philosophical approach
4. Features of traditional approach:
1. Normative
2. Speculative
3. Static
5. Conclusion of traditional approach:
1. Provided a base for modern methods to develop
2. Still relevant for study of developed countries
3. CP cannot ignore institutional approach and it has re emerged in the form of Neo-institutional-ism.

• Behavioural movements- now all given below are behavioral approaches i.e. scientific.

• 
  Systems approach given by David Easton

1. Politics is assumed to be a system 
2. Easton Replaced the term state with political system because it is not just  an institutional entity but a system inclusive of all elements that affect a state and are affected by it.
3. For traditionalists State is a decision making authority . For Easton System is an entity for authoritative allocation of values
4. 
5. Here the feedback acts as “system maintenance.”
6. Criticism-
1. By traditionalists
1. No significant improvement, just cosmetic change
2. Unnecessary costly terminologies
2. Marxists-It is not value neutral. treating this model universal as in communist countries no demand side but only decisions , ethnocentric attitude , belief that western model is perfect . It is an ideological war by APSA against socialist countries.
3. In addition as system approach shows that political system converts inputs into outputs, therefore, it nowhere explains the phenomena of protests. Thus, it tried to give an impression that there’s no contradiction in western countries. Hence, from Marxists point of view, this approach is hardly scientific & value- neutral, rather it is ‘status-quoits.”

• Structural functional approach: primarily developed for developing nations-
• Influence- David Easton
• Limitations of Easton's model-
1. Too general
2. Static
3. Does not do differentiation
4. Acc to almond and Powell ,Every structure has to perform some essential functions w/o which it cannot exist. However structures performing those functions may vary. 
• Inspired from anthropologists like-
1. Malinowski
   
2. Radcliff brown
• Given by almond and Powell in their book- Comparative politics : A developmental approach
1. Gabriel almond
   
2. Bingham Powell
   
3. 
4. Is an improvement over Easton's model  as it is more detailed take some micro view and more dynamic . It assumes that different political systems are at different stages of development and though functions are going to be similar structures will vary
5. Marxists criticize it as ideologically inclined . It too focuses on system survival and stability. 

• Political development model( how the developing countries Should develop.
• Focusing on Three things: equality among-st people, capacity to deliver and differentiation i.e. (functional specialization) .
• by these parameters China is underdeveloped as these are features of liberal democracies .
• By Lucian Pye
  
• Used by Gunner Myrdal to call India a soft state and by f w Riggs to give concept of development trap ( all three dimensions of development are not growing at same pace ,ie political participation is increasing but at the same time capacity of state is decreasing )and Huntington to give concept of development decay( state's capacity cannot match people's aspirations)

• Political modernization approach-
• (said rather than development go for modernization. Three parameters of modernization- science, secularism, capitalist mode of production) . Hence China is modern.
• Don't force democracy on China.
• Hence countries can adopt different route to modernization .
• Smarter way of imposing westernization.
• Acc to Huntington once countries adopt this They automatically move towards democracy.

1. Samuel p Huntington
2. Edward Shills
   

• Political culture approach: book by them: Civic culture
• Logic- since culture is a long-term phenomena it provides a basis to compare political systems.
• Political culture refers to set of norms values and orientations of the people towards the political system that shapes their political behaviour

1. Gabriel almond
2. Sidney Verba 
   
3. Gave 4 prominent types of models
1. Parochial political culture- People are least interested in the political system
2. Subject political culture – in some countries people may impact at the output level but not have much impact at the input level that is they might not be taken into consideration while formulating policies but do matter in terms of implementation of the policies example- poor
3. Participant political culture – when people play an active role at both levels that is input as well as output
4. Civic culture – say this is the best because too much participant culture maybe a threat to democracy as it can lead to mobocracy
4. Stable democracy- participant(impact at both)+subject( impact at output but not at input) +parochial(no fucks at input and output levels)
1. 

• Political sociology approach deals with interface of politics with society (SM Lipset- The Political Man)
• Aristotle- father of political  sociology . His theory of revolution in which he says rising inequalities, disequilibrium among classes as a factor of revolution is an example of political sociology approach
• other notable scholars include- Alexis de Tocqueville,Karl Marx,Emile Durkheim and Max Weber
• Since in developing countries there is a difference between text of the constitution and context of the society, this is the most relevant approach to study politics of prismatic societies.
• It assumes that political institutions largely reflect underlying social forces and that the study of politics should begin with society and culture
• 
  Huntington: religion and culture has always been the long term trend shaping politics. People can change their ideologies but not their identities.
• In the age of end of history, political parties do not differ on socio-economic issues, they rely on identity as a tool for political mobilization.
• Karl Marx ,said without understanding basic structure of society we cant understand the nature of politics hence Marxism is the hegemonic school
• Machiavelli- where society is virtuous go for republic, where corrupt go for monarchy
• Study of C Wrightmills on usa(influence of power elites), Robert Dahl where he gave concept of polyarchy are also examples of political sociology
• Andre Beteille, Y Yadav , Cristophe Jafferlot, Atul kohli — have studied effects of caste,religion and ethnicity in Indian politics
• Gave inferiority complex to political science
• 
  Relevance: by Maurice Du-verger
1. Ends isolated study of politics and locates it in broad spectrum of social phenomena
2. Emphasis on essential unity of social sciences
3. Broadened the understanding of political phenomena
4. Opened new frontiers of research
5. Highlights that politics doesn't take place only in govt institutions
• Criticism:
1. Makes politics too much dependent on socio-cultural factors which may not be very relevant even for the study of developing societies. Because there are examples where instead of society shaping the state, The state has shaped the society for example in the leadership of Nehru state led modernization and development programme started in India, values like secularism imbibed in the society that had recently witnessed partition on religious grounds.
2. Society is a complex interaction of various actors and it is difficult to compare societies as unlike institutions and constitutions, it is not definite
3. Sartori: we have to establish autonomy of politics. We cannot ignore how politics shapes society.
4. 
   Theda skocpol - bring back the state, that is the study of state as the core subject of political science, led to development of neo institutionalism
5. Neoinstitutionalism-originated in the works of march and Olsen in their book reinventing govt - actors don't completely shape the institution but are also shaped by it and restricted by its rules

• Political economy-compare political systems based on economic policies of the states. Example how industrial policy, agrarian policy like land reforms, green Revolution affect countries politics

1. Adam smith-book-wealth of nations-( defines political economy as science of statesman) he is also the father of pol economy, Malthus, Ricardo-lasissez faire. Criticized by Marx and hence an alternative school emerged. Scholars like samirn amin, I. Wallenstein of dependency school that talk of development of underdevelopment in developing countries.
2. Plays a very imp role in highlighting weakness of mainstream political theories. Keeps a check on blatant capitalism that is leading to increase in income inequality as pointed out by Neo Marxists by Thomas piketty.
3. Led to development of welfare model of political economy and enriched studies on poverty, its causes and elimination like the HDi, MDPI ,etc.
4. Milan Vaishnav- good economics leads to good politics
5. In times of glob, neo liberal pers based on Washington consensus is emerging.
6. Neo liberal school criticized by Rawls , Dwiorkin, sen : welfare. Model to avoid social unrest and equitable distribution of economic wealth in the society.
7. Hayek, Nozick- neoliberal is quantitative as well as prescriptive, can give development strategies of state
8. In the present age of globalization this approach has gained salience.
9. In ancient India the tradition of political economy is visible in the work of Kautyilya Arthashastra- most important role of king is to ensure material well being of his people. Thus India has much older tradition of political economy than the west.
10. Helps us in understanding phenomenon of poverty and provide solutions. 
11. Amartya sen in his book “an uncertain glory” compares the economic growth of the India and other south Asian nations.
12. Limitations
1. Focuses too much on economics(economic reduction ism) and only one approach is not sufficient as politics is too complex
2. Employees quantitative techniques which require specialized knowledge
3. Since it involves data collection it needs more resources for research
13. Conclusion- Importance of political economy approach can be judged by the fact that the famous book why Nations fail points out poor economic institutions as one of the key reasons of a nation’s failure.

• Conclusion for any answer on CP
• Since the developing nations are prismatic societies (FW Riggs), their politics is too complex to be analysed from any single approach .