Aim of the session: Reflect on the achievements and promise of comparative political science, in the light of earlier seminar discussions.
Discussion topics:
(a) Was Barbara Geddes’s (1991) unflattering portrayal of comparative politics (as a field of transient fads rather than cumulative progress) a defensible view in 1991? To the extent that Geddes’s argument was correct, did the picture improve by the time her book of the same name (Paradigms and Sand Castles) was published in 2003?
(b) Is it plausible to look back upon the 1950s and 1960s as a ‘golden age of comparative politics’,
followed by an age of decline and mediocrity? Or is it a case of ‘doing better and feeling worse’?
(c) Robert Bates argues that ‘rare is the [political science] department wherein the area specialists fail to constitute a center of resistance to new trends in the discipline.’ Does area studies hinder the development of comparative politics as a science, or does it act to raise the empirical quality of comparative politics?
Readings:
(a) Some general reflections on the state of the art in comparative politics and its claimed progress or decline
· *Geddes, Barbara (2003), ‘Paradigms and Sand Castles: Theory Building and Research Design in Comparative Politics
· Bates, Robert (1996), ‘Letter from the President: Area Studies and the Discipline,’ APSA-CP 7,
no. 1 (Winter), available http://www.nd.edu/~apsacp/
· Brown, Archie (2005), ‘Comparative Politics: A View from Britain,’ APSA-CP 16, no. 1 (Winter),
available http://www.nd.edu/~apsacp/
· Bates, Robert (1997), ‘Area studies and the discipline: a useful controversy?’ PS: Political
Science & Politics, 30 no. 2 (June).
· Johnson, Chalmers (1997), ‘Preconception vs. observation, or the contributions of rational choice theory and area studies to contemporary political science,’ PS: Political Science & Politics 30, no. 2 (June).
· Harry Eckstein (1962), ‘A Perspective on Comparative Politics, Past and Present,’ Comparative
Politics: A Reader, Free Press, pp. 3-32.
· Dalton, Russell J (1991), ‘Comparative Politics of the Industrial Democracies: From the Golden
Age to Island-hopping’ (pp.15-43) (both in William Crotty ed. Political Science: Looking to the
Future, Vol 2: Comparative Politics, Policy and International Relations
· King, Desmond (1998), ‘The Politics of Social Research: Institutionalizing Public Funding
Regimes in the US and Britain,’ BJPS 28: 415-444.
· Chilcote, Ronald (1981), Theories of Comparative Politics, especially chapters 1 and 3 and
Appendix 1.1 ‘Notes on a Comparative Terminology’.
· Macridis, Roy (1968), ‘Comparative Politics and the Study of Government’ Comparative
Politics 1: 79-80 (and see other articles in that issue)
· Bates, Robert (1997), ‘Comparative Politics and Rational Choice: A Review Essay’ APSR 91 (3):
699-704
· Almond, Gabriel (1988), ‘Separate Tables’ PS: Political Science and Politics 21 (Fall 1988):
828-41 OR Almond, Gabriel (1989), A Divided Discipline (contrast what Almond said twenty
years or so earlier in his 1966 ‘Political Theory and Political Science’ APSR 60)
· Zuckerman (1999), ‘Reforming Explanatory Standards and Advancing Theory in Comparative
Politics’, in Lichbach and Zuckerman (eds), Comparative Politics
· Hardin, Renwick Monroe, Jervis, Rudolph, Smiley and Smith (2002), ‘Shaking Things Up?
Thoughts about the future of political science’, Political Science and Politics 35 (2)
· Howard J. Wiarda (ed.) (1991), New Directions in Comparative Politics, Boulder, Col.: Westview
Press, 2nd. edn.
· Ronald Rogowski, (1993), ‘Comparative Politics,’ in Ada W. Finifter (ed.), Political Science: The
State of the Discipline II, Washington, D.C.: The American Political Science Association.
· Philippe Schmitter (1993), ‘Comparative Politics,’ pp. 171-77, in Joel Krieger (ed.), The Oxford
Companion to the Politics of the World, New York: Oxford University Press.
· Peter Mair (1996), ‘Comparative Politics: An Overview,’ pp. 309-35, in Robert Goodin and Hans- Dieter Klingemann (eds.), The New Handbook of Political Science, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
· Laitin, David D. (2002), ‘Comparative Politics: The State of the Subdisicipline,’ pp. 630-659 in Ira Katznelson and Helen V. Milner (eds.), Political Science: State of the Discipline, New York: W.W. Norton & Washington, DC: American Political Science Association.
(b) A small sample of literature from the 1950s and 1960s (mostly encountered earlier in the course: review earlier sessions for older putative ‘classics’ as well)
· Almond, Gabriel A and Verba, Sidney (1963), The Civic Culture
· Lipset, Seymour S (1959), Political Man
· Almond, Gabriel and Coleman, James eds (1960), The Politics of Developing Areas
· Lipset, Seymour M and Rokkan, Stein eds (1967), Party Systems and Voter Alignments ch 1.
· Moore, Barrington (1962), Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
· Almond, Gabriel A and Verba, Sidney (1963), The Civic Culture
· Lipset, Seymour S (1959), Political Man
· Almond, Gabriel and Coleman, James eds (1960), The Politics of Developing Areas
· Lipset, Seymour M and Rokkan, Stein eds (1967), Party Systems and Voter Alignments ch 1.
· Moore, Barrington (1962), Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
