PSCI 2210 : COMPARATIVE POLITICS Bachelor of Political Science, KIRKHS, IIUM

1. SEMESTER 1, 2015/2015
WEEK 5
SR. ROHANA ABDUL HAMID
COMPARATIVE POLITICS PSCI 2210
“Advantages and disadvantages in
comparison”

2. Advantages of comparison :
1. To find out about places that we know least
about
- We need to understand foreign governments as
it helps us
with political relationships. This is true as the world
become
more interdependent.
-In depth understanding is the goal for comparative
analysis.
- British ministers have poor track record when
negotiate with
European partners. Why ? Because House of
Commons, they

3. …
 American students puzzle at how British
parliamentary system ( or parliamentary system)
can produce stable government when the PM can
be removed (easily/ at the mercy) of a vote of
confidence in House of Commons (Lower House).
 We discover our own ethnocentrism and the
means to overcome it through comparison.

4. 2. Improve our classifications of
politics
 Group institutions
 Political systems – parliamentary and
presidential system
 WHY ?
 We are able to search for factors which incline
to one form than the other .Example : Why does
Malaysia practice parliamentary system ? Why
not presidential system?
 OR when we classify executives into
presidential and parliamentary system, we can
look at which type is more stable and effective.

5. 3. Formulate and test hypotheses
about politics
It enables us to formulate and test hypotheses
about politics.
Thus, we develop scrutinize and develop questions
such as :
a) Do first past the post system electoral systems
always produce a two-party system?
b) Do rich countries always produce democratic
political system ?
H1 (a) : The first past the post systems / plurality
electoral systems tend to produce two-party
system or two-plus party system.

6. ….
 Example :
 H2 : National wealth (IV) promotes democracy
(DV)
- We observe, the world’s successful and enduring
democracies are among the richest countries
such as USA, Canada, GB, and Germany. Poor
countries such as Vietnam, Egypt and Cuba are
not democracies / authoritarian.
- Note : We need to collect and examine the
evidence by relying on the gross national income
statistics (GNI) [total income of a country to
determine the wealth in the country. For instance,
higher level of wealth = rich country; and vice
versa].

7. …
 However, in hypothesis testing, we find evidence
that contradict the hypothesis when a few of
 A) democracies are not wealthy/ poor (India,
Brazil, Philippines)
 B) non-democracies are wealthy/ rich (Singapore,
Brunei, Saudi Arabia)
 Thus, this evidence shows that national wealth is
not a guarantee of democracy. It also
demonstrates that the hypothesized relationship
is not universally valid.

8. 4. Generalisation, once validated
have potential for prediction
 It gives us the opportunity to learn lessons across
countries.
 Thus, if we find that democracy is able to survive
in a heterogonous country such as Malaysia and
Netherland, we can introduce the common form
of democratic system in an unstable
heterogeneous country. The form of democracy is
known as consociational democracy.
# Democratic theorists : Fragmented societies that
are divided by ethnic, religious or class are
unstable for steady democratic governance.
Thus, multiethnic countries are not likely to
achieve democracy. But, the evidence for
homogeneity hypothesis is mixed [ refer to

9. ….
 Consociational form of democracy :
Elite accommodation in a heterogeneous
society. In this form of democracy, the
elites overcome their differences and
reach effective compromises,
sometimes in secret, for the good of the
general population.

10. ….
OR
 Authoritarian leaders may use China as a model
to find out or how ( country ) to reduce the control
over the economy while retaining the political
power. China allows private enterprise but never
relinquish its control to private sector – powerful
companies have substantial government
ownership. China – state capitalism
 GDP growth in China = 10% per year
 Seven of the top 100 international brands were
Chinese (2010). Only one of the seven, Baidu
(search engine company) , was not a state-
backed corporation.

11. Difficulties of comparison
 1. Knowledge requirements
 2. Same phenomenon, different meanings
 3. Interdependence
 4. Selection bias
 5. Too many variables, too few countries

12. 1. Knowledge requirement
 The idea that knowledge requirement
increase directly with the number of
cases is a misunderstanding . This is
because, for a few students, in order to
carry comparative study, one is required
to hire an expert on a single countries.
But this is not correct.

13. …
 Why?
This is because, the focus should be
on comparison . Example : If you are
required to discuss the general trend of
proportional representation of electoral
system worldwide, you are not
required to know in- depth knowledge
of the electoral systems in each
country worldwide OR those who
debate the merits of presidential and
parliamentary government cannot read

14. ….
every country where these forms of
government have been tried.
In CP: knowing what needs to be known,
and being able to find out and not to
know what there is to know.

15. 2. Same phenomenon, different
meanings
In CP, meaning of an action depends on
the conventions of the countries
concerned. This is because, CP needs
to understand how politics is viewed in
different countries.
 Example : Democratic countries do not
equate military coup as a fairly peaceful
mechanism for the circulation of elites.
This is because democratic coup reflect
undemocratic and instability in a country.

16. ….
 Religious Fundamentalist : West = terrorist,
negative. Muslim= Religious activists, positive
 What shall you call a group of people who
attacked WTC and Pentagon (11/9/ 2001) ?
martyrs or murderers?
 How do you define Israelis / Palestinians
nationalists ? Terrorists or freedom fighters?
 Hence, comparing the like is not always
straightforward process should adopt
interpretive approach
 Interpretive approach : ideas which political
actors themselves hold about the activity.

17. ….
 According to Patrick Chabal and Jean Pascal
Daloz, we must take into account culture when
comparing different societies – evaluate the role
of culture in political analysis. Their analysis
explains the political representation in Nigeria and
Sweden .
 According to the authors, in the study of
ostentation (display of wealth and luxury) for
political legitimacy ; Nigeria and Sweden are at
the opposite ends of a spectrum.

18. …
 Example :
Nigeria (-ve) Sweden (+ve)
-Display of wealth is a
sign of power,
flamboyance is the key
as it is a material proof of
the MPs’ ability to nourish
clientalist networks.
- Convert wealth into
political support and
prominence
-Lowest personal profile,
avoid luxury, display of
wealth
-Ordaniriness, image of
banality –”appear like every
other swedes” – -Prefers
casual wear – ruling out
exclusive elegance.

19. 3. Interdependence
 This is closely related to globalization. This is
because, countries learn, compete, invade each
other in the process of interaction. Specific
institution forms also reflect diffusion. For
instance, the presidential system in Latin America
was imported from the US; and ombudsman
(literal =grievance person) is copied from
Sweden.
 Example : Swedish ombudsman (to ensure the
authorities are carrying out their duties ; look
after citizens’ interests when dealings with
government) was established in 1809. The
institutions spreaded to other countries such as
Denmark(1955) and Norway (1962). Now there
are about 140 countries with ombudsman.

20. ….
 Therefore, countries cannot be treated as
independent entities.

21. 4. Selection bias
 1) Unrepresentative countries :
 In CP , we often choose countries that speak
the language; large and powerful. Why ? We
feel safe. Risk : end up cover few countries.
For instance, we do not study the presence of
democratic values in Vietnam, Mynmar in
South East Asia because we are not natives
speakers (do not speak their languages).
 Instead, we study developed countries, rich
countries, countries that uses English as the
medium of instruction.

22. …
 2) Unrepresentative selection of
variables:
The level of focus : financial and
economic data. Why? This is because
financial and economic variables may
receive more attention by government
and private agencies. Thus, in the study
of CP, we often see a large number of
research examines the relationship
between economic conditions and
popularity.

23. …
 3) Positive cases :
 When we select similar positive cases of
phenomenon only. Consequently, we are not
doing any comparison (even if we do, it is very
limited). This is because, in CP we should
consider variations
 How ? We select cases with similar dependent
variables. In the study of successful
democratization, we often select countries which
have democratized successfully. However, the
conditions of a successful democratization can
only be identified through a comparison with
failed transitions.

24. 5. Too many variables, too few
countries.
 Political comparison can never be as precise as
laboratory experiments. Therefore, with nearly
200 sovereign states , it is impossible to find a
country which is identical to another country in all
respects except for the factor ( electoral system)
whose effects we want to detect.
 Thus, we can’t test all the possible explanations
of a political difference between countries.
 Example : 1) Democracy survives in Netherland
and Malaysia through the arrangement of
consociational democracy. One the favourable
conditions conducive for consociational
democracy is about equal size of every segment
in heterogenous population.

25. …
 But what we find :
 Malaysia : Malay is overwhelmingly the majority in
Malaysia /non equal segment size
 Netherland : The size of each segment is about the
equal size
Therefore, which factor is conducive to consociational
democracy?
a) The size of each segment is about the equal size
b) The size of each segment is not equal size