Sartori, Giovanni “Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics,” APSR, 64:4:1033-53.
Link to PDF
Reading list MT09 Week 1
And here is the rest of it.
(more)
Monday 5 October 2009
King (1998) The politics of social research: insitutionalising funding regimes in the UK and US
King, Desmond (1998) “The Politics of Social Research: Institutionalizing Public Funding Regimes in the US and Britain,” BJPS 28: 415-444.
Link to PDF
Printed in British Journal of Political Science
On reading list MT09 week 1
Hard copy? No (more)
Link to PDF
Printed in British Journal of Political Science
On reading list MT09 week 1
Hard copy? No (more)
Hardin (2002) Wither Political Science
Russell Hardin (2002). Whither Political Science?. PS: Political Science & Politics, 35 , pp 183-186
doi:10.1017/S1049096502000458
Link to journal article
Begins with a short discussion of the methodological disputes within the field. Acknowledges that comparative politics is a fragmented field with long running disagreements.
What has comparative politics accomplished that is useful?
Downsian theory of democracy put an end to the (hortatory) APSA sponsored debates "towards responsible two party govenment"
"we do not these days pretend to speak with one professional voice"
(more)
doi:10.1017/S1049096502000458
Link to journal article
Begins with a short discussion of the methodological disputes within the field. Acknowledges that comparative politics is a fragmented field with long running disagreements.
What has comparative politics accomplished that is useful?
Downsian theory of democracy put an end to the (hortatory) APSA sponsored debates "towards responsible two party govenment"
"we do not these days pretend to speak with one professional voice"
(more)
Monroe (2002) Shaking things up? Thoughts on the future of p.s.
Monroe, Kristen Renwick (2002), ‘Shaking Things Up? Thoughts about the future of political science’, PS Political Science and Politics 35 (2)
Link to journal article (more)
Link to journal article (more)
Munck and Snyder (2007) Passion, Craft and Method in Comparative Politics
Munck, Gerardo and Richard Snyder. Passion Craft and Method in Comparative Politics 2007
Reading List MT09 week 1 - pp.32-59
Hard copy? No - SSL JF130.MUN
Notes:
Refers to comparative politics throughout as a sub-field of political science
Further reading/references:
Ross (1991, 64-77 and Ch. 8) - on the relationship between political science and history in the period in the early years of the discipline (1903 founding of APSA)
Adcock (2003) - on the same topic
Somit and Tanenhaus (1967, 23-27 and 63-69) - only available at Magdalen 320.09 SOM
Almond (1996, 65-68) On the Chicago school and some of its key members (from the New Handbook of political science, Chapter 2
Parsons (1951) - Weberian-Parsonian concepts played a central role in structural-functionalism
Holt and Richardson (1970, 29-45) Account of other metatheories around during the behavioural revolution when structural-functionalism was at its height
Lipset (1959) widely read article on the link between economic development and democracy
Sartori (1969, 87-94) suggests that Lipset and Rokkan's (1967b) work on party formation was a landmark study that departed in key ways from the previous literature
The next generation began to reshape the field:
Lijphart (1968a) on consociationalism,
Schmitter (1971) on corporatism
Stepan (1971) on the military
O'Donnell (1973) on authoritarianism
Scott (1976) and Skocpol (1979) on revolution
See footnote on p. 50 for contributions to cross-country survey data
Fundamental differences in perspective between Sartori (1970 - concept misformation...) and Jackman (1985), who advocated quantitative research (debates in comp gov)
Collier (1991) critical assessment of the state of the literature on methodology
Notes
Chapter 2
(32)
Comp Pol emerged as a FIELD of political science in late 19th century in the US.
Influence of US academia declined in 2 decades post WW2
Research standards set in the US
(33)
Two main "revolutions" - behavioural revolution, drawing from sociology, and post cold war "Second scientific revolution" drawing from economics and focussing on methodology.
** "Fallen short of fulfilling the field's mission of producing a global science of politics - the lack of a general or unified theory of politics, and the failure to produce robust, broad empirical generalisations about world politics."
Constitution of political science as a discipline, 1880 - 1920. Traces its birth to the greek philosophers of antiquity, e.g. Plato (The Republic 360bc) and Aristotle politics (340bc).
(35)
Various institutional developments took place in the states that gave an organisational basis to the autnomisation of political science. The first graduate programme was Columbia University's school of political science founded by John Burgess in 1880 -> led to the expansion of PhDs trained as political scientists in the US. The discipline's professional association - APSA - founded in 1903.
This involved a differentiation between PS and history. APSA was a splinter group from the American Historical Association (founded 1884). Political Scientists defined their subject matter in a way to create a separate identity from history.
Many of the founders had been trained in Germany in Staatswissenschaft (political science) and historically orientated Geisteswissenschaft (social sciences) - may explain why the "state" was central to early PS.
(Differences with history)
P.Scientists left the past as the preserve of historians and focus on the contemporary.
Eschew history's aspiration to address all potential factors that affect politics and instead focus on more delimited question of government and its formal instutions. - but also theory building, law-like generalisations etc.
(36)
(Differences with sociology)
Sociologists established a discipline that was a continuation of classical social theory of Comte, Toqueville, Spencer, Durkheim, Marx, Weber, Pareto, Mosca and Michels, and defined sociology as the mother discipline, the synthetic social science.
Economics and sociology defined themselves through theory driven choices - economics a reorientation of classical theory - sociology an extension of classical theory. PS differentiated itself through an empirically distinct subject matter and involved a rejection of European grand theorising and philosophies of history. Born out of history and a desire to distinguish itself; break from classical tradition.
(37)
The early discipline was bereft of theory. The formal-legal approach that was common was largely atheoretical - did not propose general and testable hypotheses. Narrow research agenda forcussing on formal institutions.
A US reaction to abstract or even metaphysical aspects of European philosophies of history - and had the positive effect of grounding the discussion in observables, empirical facts. Mainly based on case-studies and data was not subjected to rigorous testing. ("Descriptive" phase)
(41)
The behavioural revolution 1921-1966
Merriam's (1921) Manifesto for a new science of politics, a departure from the historical approach.
Series of national conferences on the science of politics - 1923, 1924 and 1925
The formation of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC)
Signalled the rise of the "Chicago school", an influential source of scholarship in the 1920s and 30s.
(42)
More be default than design, comparative politics was institutionally constituted as a field that covered what was not covered by American politics, i.e. the study of government and formal institutions outside the US.
The rise of the Nazis in Germany encouraged many scholars to emigrate, and they brought to the US a greater emphasis on normative political theory.
Eckstein (1963, 18-23) characterises the most influential books in CP over this period.
Behaviouralism didn't really spread to comparative politics until after WW2, due to the institutional insulation, Merriam's ideas didn't immediately reach comparative politics departments.
(43)
Behaviouralism stood for 2 distinct ideas.
1.Rejection of the restriction of scope to formal institutions
Included a range of informal procedures and behaviours
2.Sought to use a scientific approach to theory and methods
Systematic theory and empirical testing
Dahl (1961b, 766) - "a protest movement within political science"
Broadening the scope of enquiry beyond government instutitions led to the increased influence of sociology, and Parsonian (1951) theories of structural functionalism. Was influenced by anthopology and social psychology.
(44)
The state was, to some extent, ignored, hence behaviouralist research often let to reductionist accounts of politics in which the state was a black box with no autonomy/impact of its own.
Ingored the idea that the state can be an agent that influences the actors and institutions.
(45)
Limits of structural-functionalism
Still fell short of providing testable propositions and testing hypothesese
The literature did develop mid-range theories that were suited to empirical testing, e.g. Symour Lipset's (1960) Political Man. - included widely read APSR article on the link between economic development and democracy (Lipset 1959).
During the behavioural period, research spread outside the large European countries. Comparativists studied the US and thus broke down the arbitrary exclusion of US from CP.
Another methodological novelty was the inclusion of statistical research.
E.g. the pioneering survey-based study, The Civic Culture by Almond and Verba (1963)
(46)
The field had become more theoretically orientated and more methodologically sophisticated.
(47)
The Post-Behavioural Period, 1967-1988
Lipset and Rokkan's (1967b) "Cleavage Structures, Party Systems, Voter Alignments" marked a new intellectual agenda
See above "the next generation began to reshape the field"
Authors diverse in national origin and values they held
Prolific scholars of the era: Europe born: Linz, Sartori, Lijphart, Przeworski); Latin America born: O'Donnel - though this group had mainly studied at US institutions.
(48)
The most widely shared critique focussed on the behaviouralist's reductionism, i.e. the idea that politics can be reduced to, and explained in terms of, more fundamental social or economic underpinnings.
The alternative consisted of the re-vindication of politics as an autonomous practice and an emphasis on the importance of political determinants.
(49)
The centrality given to distinctly political questions implied a redefinition of the subject matter of comparative politics
the study of political behaviour and interest groups was not ignored but tackled from the perspective of the state. As Skocpol (1985) put it, there was an attempt to "bring the state back in" - [as an autonomous actor]
The new literature also brought back the formal institutions that had been abandoned
Led to a refocussing on the state, state-society relations and political institutions
Theorising also changed - more focus on building mid-range theories
Continuing use of statistics, mainly small-N studies or case studies. A quantitative literature started to develop in areas such as electoral behaviour, public opinion and democracy.
(51)
Methadological schism started to take root.
the (relatively) low standing of quantitative research was due to deficiencies in the literature - comparativists often had reservations about the theoretical underpinnings of quantitative research (and) the quantitative literature did not speak to some of the most pressing or theoretically relevant issues of the time (e.g. see Johnson 2003 for a discussion).
(52)
The second scientific revolution, 1989-Present
Push to make the field more scientific, helped by the APSA section on comparative politics.
Response to the fragmentation of the field due to increased prominence of Area Studies
Proposed metatheories drew heavily on economics as opposed to sociology
Game theoretic rational choice theory, and rational choice institutionalism - a related but distinct metatheory that introduced (in a highly consequential move) institutions as constraints.
See cg approaches post on rational choice theory
Rational choice theory can be seen as a unifying theory, which can integrate theories about action in different domains, because it is not held to apply to any specific domain
Emphasis on logical rigour in theorising
After 1989 work gradually became more formalised
Political events such as the wave of democratisation made questions and methods standard in the field of American politics more global in application/more relevant to CP students
(55)
The infrastructure for quantitative research was strengthened, leading to an increase in the amount and standards of quantitative work. (Huge increase in the availability of survey data)
The post 1989 period has lacked anything so dominant as structural functionalism or modernism in the behaviouralist period - it is a time of pluralism.
Rational choice theorists began to include institutions in their analysis - as debate centred on rational choice institutionalism and historical institutionalism - it became hard to detect what was distinctive about these metatheories.
A common issue: institutions are both contraints and endogenous to the political process.
These metatheories don't separate a general theory of action from a general theory of politics.
(56)
David Collier reinvigorated the debate on methodology with his 1991 article. Revival of interest in qualitative methodology was associated with efforts to build bridges amond different methodologies.
(57)
The possibility of a unifying "tri-partite" methodology involving statistical analysis, formalisation and narrative, suggested by Laitin (2002).
Top of page 57, exposition of the new debates about methodologies. Can we move towards a discipline?
The new scientific revolution did not bring about a major shift in the focus of empirical research.
(58)
Unification? A focus on a distinctively political subject matter has become largely the norm, mid-range theorising on a range of important questions has grown steadily, and the methods used in the field have become increasingly sophisticated.
Comparativists have largely abandoned the aspiration of the system-builders who sought to elaborate an explicit metatheory of politics in the 1950s and 1960s
Key challenge is the development of a general/unified theory of politics, which itegrates both mid-range theories of various substantive issues, and theories of statics and dynamics.
There remain empirical shortcomings. Comparatives still lack good measures for many of the concepts used in their theories. Comparativists still rarely use methods that would subject their hypotheses to rigorous testing.
(more)
Reading List MT09 week 1 - pp.32-59
Hard copy? No - SSL JF130.MUN
Notes:
Refers to comparative politics throughout as a sub-field of political science
Further reading/references:
Ross (1991, 64-77 and Ch. 8) - on the relationship between political science and history in the period in the early years of the discipline (1903 founding of APSA)
Adcock (2003) - on the same topic
Somit and Tanenhaus (1967, 23-27 and 63-69) - only available at Magdalen 320.09 SOM
Almond (1996, 65-68) On the Chicago school and some of its key members (from the New Handbook of political science, Chapter 2
Parsons (1951) - Weberian-Parsonian concepts played a central role in structural-functionalism
Holt and Richardson (1970, 29-45) Account of other metatheories around during the behavioural revolution when structural-functionalism was at its height
Lipset (1959) widely read article on the link between economic development and democracy
Sartori (1969, 87-94) suggests that Lipset and Rokkan's (1967b) work on party formation was a landmark study that departed in key ways from the previous literature
The next generation began to reshape the field:
Lijphart (1968a) on consociationalism,
Schmitter (1971) on corporatism
Stepan (1971) on the military
O'Donnell (1973) on authoritarianism
Scott (1976) and Skocpol (1979) on revolution
See footnote on p. 50 for contributions to cross-country survey data
Fundamental differences in perspective between Sartori (1970 - concept misformation...) and Jackman (1985), who advocated quantitative research (debates in comp gov)
Collier (1991) critical assessment of the state of the literature on methodology
Notes
Chapter 2
(32)
Comp Pol emerged as a FIELD of political science in late 19th century in the US.
Influence of US academia declined in 2 decades post WW2
Research standards set in the US
(33)
Two main "revolutions" - behavioural revolution, drawing from sociology, and post cold war "Second scientific revolution" drawing from economics and focussing on methodology.
** "Fallen short of fulfilling the field's mission of producing a global science of politics - the lack of a general or unified theory of politics, and the failure to produce robust, broad empirical generalisations about world politics."
Constitution of political science as a discipline, 1880 - 1920. Traces its birth to the greek philosophers of antiquity, e.g. Plato (The Republic 360bc) and Aristotle politics (340bc).
(35)
Various institutional developments took place in the states that gave an organisational basis to the autnomisation of political science. The first graduate programme was Columbia University's school of political science founded by John Burgess in 1880 -> led to the expansion of PhDs trained as political scientists in the US. The discipline's professional association - APSA - founded in 1903.
This involved a differentiation between PS and history. APSA was a splinter group from the American Historical Association (founded 1884). Political Scientists defined their subject matter in a way to create a separate identity from history.
Many of the founders had been trained in Germany in Staatswissenschaft (political science) and historically orientated Geisteswissenschaft (social sciences) - may explain why the "state" was central to early PS.
(Differences with history)
P.Scientists left the past as the preserve of historians and focus on the contemporary.
Eschew history's aspiration to address all potential factors that affect politics and instead focus on more delimited question of government and its formal instutions. - but also theory building, law-like generalisations etc.
(36)
(Differences with sociology)
Sociologists established a discipline that was a continuation of classical social theory of Comte, Toqueville, Spencer, Durkheim, Marx, Weber, Pareto, Mosca and Michels, and defined sociology as the mother discipline, the synthetic social science.
Economics and sociology defined themselves through theory driven choices - economics a reorientation of classical theory - sociology an extension of classical theory. PS differentiated itself through an empirically distinct subject matter and involved a rejection of European grand theorising and philosophies of history. Born out of history and a desire to distinguish itself; break from classical tradition.
(37)
The early discipline was bereft of theory. The formal-legal approach that was common was largely atheoretical - did not propose general and testable hypotheses. Narrow research agenda forcussing on formal institutions.
A US reaction to abstract or even metaphysical aspects of European philosophies of history - and had the positive effect of grounding the discussion in observables, empirical facts. Mainly based on case-studies and data was not subjected to rigorous testing. ("Descriptive" phase)
(41)
The behavioural revolution 1921-1966
Merriam's (1921) Manifesto for a new science of politics, a departure from the historical approach.
Series of national conferences on the science of politics - 1923, 1924 and 1925
The formation of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC)
Signalled the rise of the "Chicago school", an influential source of scholarship in the 1920s and 30s.
(42)
More be default than design, comparative politics was institutionally constituted as a field that covered what was not covered by American politics, i.e. the study of government and formal institutions outside the US.
The rise of the Nazis in Germany encouraged many scholars to emigrate, and they brought to the US a greater emphasis on normative political theory.
Eckstein (1963, 18-23) characterises the most influential books in CP over this period.
Behaviouralism didn't really spread to comparative politics until after WW2, due to the institutional insulation, Merriam's ideas didn't immediately reach comparative politics departments.
(43)
Behaviouralism stood for 2 distinct ideas.
1.Rejection of the restriction of scope to formal institutions
Included a range of informal procedures and behaviours
2.Sought to use a scientific approach to theory and methods
Systematic theory and empirical testing
Dahl (1961b, 766) - "a protest movement within political science"
Broadening the scope of enquiry beyond government instutitions led to the increased influence of sociology, and Parsonian (1951) theories of structural functionalism. Was influenced by anthopology and social psychology.
(44)
The state was, to some extent, ignored, hence behaviouralist research often let to reductionist accounts of politics in which the state was a black box with no autonomy/impact of its own.
Ingored the idea that the state can be an agent that influences the actors and institutions.
(45)
Limits of structural-functionalism
Still fell short of providing testable propositions and testing hypothesese
The literature did develop mid-range theories that were suited to empirical testing, e.g. Symour Lipset's (1960) Political Man. - included widely read APSR article on the link between economic development and democracy (Lipset 1959).
During the behavioural period, research spread outside the large European countries. Comparativists studied the US and thus broke down the arbitrary exclusion of US from CP.
Another methodological novelty was the inclusion of statistical research.
E.g. the pioneering survey-based study, The Civic Culture by Almond and Verba (1963)
(46)
The field had become more theoretically orientated and more methodologically sophisticated.
(47)
The Post-Behavioural Period, 1967-1988
Lipset and Rokkan's (1967b) "Cleavage Structures, Party Systems, Voter Alignments" marked a new intellectual agenda
See above "the next generation began to reshape the field"
Authors diverse in national origin and values they held
Prolific scholars of the era: Europe born: Linz, Sartori, Lijphart, Przeworski); Latin America born: O'Donnel - though this group had mainly studied at US institutions.
(48)
The most widely shared critique focussed on the behaviouralist's reductionism, i.e. the idea that politics can be reduced to, and explained in terms of, more fundamental social or economic underpinnings.
The alternative consisted of the re-vindication of politics as an autonomous practice and an emphasis on the importance of political determinants.
(49)
The centrality given to distinctly political questions implied a redefinition of the subject matter of comparative politics
the study of political behaviour and interest groups was not ignored but tackled from the perspective of the state. As Skocpol (1985) put it, there was an attempt to "bring the state back in" - [as an autonomous actor]
The new literature also brought back the formal institutions that had been abandoned
Led to a refocussing on the state, state-society relations and political institutions
Theorising also changed - more focus on building mid-range theories
Continuing use of statistics, mainly small-N studies or case studies. A quantitative literature started to develop in areas such as electoral behaviour, public opinion and democracy.
(51)
Methadological schism started to take root.
the (relatively) low standing of quantitative research was due to deficiencies in the literature - comparativists often had reservations about the theoretical underpinnings of quantitative research (and) the quantitative literature did not speak to some of the most pressing or theoretically relevant issues of the time (e.g. see Johnson 2003 for a discussion).
(52)
The second scientific revolution, 1989-Present
Push to make the field more scientific, helped by the APSA section on comparative politics.
Response to the fragmentation of the field due to increased prominence of Area Studies
Proposed metatheories drew heavily on economics as opposed to sociology
Game theoretic rational choice theory, and rational choice institutionalism - a related but distinct metatheory that introduced (in a highly consequential move) institutions as constraints.
See cg approaches post on rational choice theory
Rational choice theory can be seen as a unifying theory, which can integrate theories about action in different domains, because it is not held to apply to any specific domain
Emphasis on logical rigour in theorising
After 1989 work gradually became more formalised
Political events such as the wave of democratisation made questions and methods standard in the field of American politics more global in application/more relevant to CP students
(55)
The infrastructure for quantitative research was strengthened, leading to an increase in the amount and standards of quantitative work. (Huge increase in the availability of survey data)
The post 1989 period has lacked anything so dominant as structural functionalism or modernism in the behaviouralist period - it is a time of pluralism.
Rational choice theorists began to include institutions in their analysis - as debate centred on rational choice institutionalism and historical institutionalism - it became hard to detect what was distinctive about these metatheories.
A common issue: institutions are both contraints and endogenous to the political process.
These metatheories don't separate a general theory of action from a general theory of politics.
(56)
David Collier reinvigorated the debate on methodology with his 1991 article. Revival of interest in qualitative methodology was associated with efforts to build bridges amond different methodologies.
(57)
The possibility of a unifying "tri-partite" methodology involving statistical analysis, formalisation and narrative, suggested by Laitin (2002).
Top of page 57, exposition of the new debates about methodologies. Can we move towards a discipline?
The new scientific revolution did not bring about a major shift in the focus of empirical research.
(58)
Unification? A focus on a distinctively political subject matter has become largely the norm, mid-range theorising on a range of important questions has grown steadily, and the methods used in the field have become increasingly sophisticated.
Comparativists have largely abandoned the aspiration of the system-builders who sought to elaborate an explicit metatheory of politics in the 1950s and 1960s
Key challenge is the development of a general/unified theory of politics, which itegrates both mid-range theories of various substantive issues, and theories of statics and dynamics.
There remain empirical shortcomings. Comparatives still lack good measures for many of the concepts used in their theories. Comparativists still rarely use methods that would subject their hypotheses to rigorous testing.
(more)
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