Comparative Historical Analysis in Political Theory

The discipline of comparative political theory (CPT) rose within the Anglo-Saxon context in the 1990s; rejecting the existing epistemological hegemony, it aims to integrate non-western theories and thought in political theory. Following a brief overview of CPT, this paper intends to report that CPT in nigh existent in the scholarship of political theory available in Portuguese. The overall scarcity of CPT in Portuguese scholarship texts epitomizes not only the lack of response to comprehensive, globalized or cosmopolitan canons of political theory, as referred in anglophone literature, but also a failure in providing space and representation for authors, texts, ideas and concepts beyond the canons. Among the areas of interests of CPT, political theorizations endogenous of Africa are the least considered ones. In the Portuguese literature of political theory, sub-Saharan and Luso-African political thought and theory are underrepresented.

Kreuzer offers guidance to scholars looking to comparative historical analysis (CHA) for the tools to analyze macro-historical questions. Like history, CHA uses the past to formulate research questions, describe social transformations, and generate inductive insights. Like social science, CHA compares those patterns to explicate generalizable and testable theories. It operates in two different worlds—one constantly changing and full of cultural particularities and another static and full of orderly uniformities. CHA draws attention to the ontological constructions of these worlds; how scholars background historical and geographic particularities to create a social reality orderly enough for theorizing, while others foreground those particularities to re-complexify it to generate new inductive insights. CHA engages in ontological triage, dialogue between exploration and confirmation, and conversation in how to translate test results into genuine answers. This book is supplemented by online materials including introductory videos, diagnostic quizzes, advanced exercises, and annotated bibliographies.

Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences. Edited by James Mahoney and Dietrich Rueschemeyer. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 468p. $70.00 cloth, $25.00 paper. Occasionally, when you have really talented graduate students, you are looking for a book that would challenge them to think deeply about their research. This is such a book. James Mahoney and Dietrich Rueschemeyer have put together an excellent volume that takes up some of the most challenging problems regarding questions about research design, how to think about causality in the social sciences, and how to connect questions about ontology to research methods.

Comparative political theory has grown into a recognized discipline in its own right in the last two decades. Yet little has been done to explore how political theory engages with the actual social, legal, and political reality of a particular polity. East Asians are complexly conditioned by traditional Confucian norms and habits, despite significant social, economic, and political changes in their contemporary lives. This volume seeks to address this important issue by developing a specifically Confucian political and legal theory. The volume focuses on South Korea, whose traditional society was and remains the most Confucianized among pre-modern East Asian countries. It offers an interesting case for thinking about Confucian democracy and constitutionalism because its liberal-democratic institutions are compatible with and profoundly influenced by the Confucian habit of the heart. The book wrestles with the practical meaning of liberal rights under the Korean Confucian societal culture and illuminates a way in which traditional Confucianism can be transformed through legal and political processes into a new Confucianism relevant to democratic practices in contemporary Korea.

Досліджено способи та форми систематизації результатів порівняльного історико-правового аналізу. Окреслено основні висновки, що можуть бути отримані у ході зіставлення історико-правових об’єктів. Охарактеризовано багатомірність організації та подання інформації в ході проведення компаративного дослідження. Проаналізовано значення типологізації на стадії упорядкування результатів порівняльної роботи та її співвідношення з класифікацією. Зроблено висновки про нові способи узагальнення даних, отриманих у процесі здійснення порівняльного історико-правового дослідження.

<p>While there have been repeated exhortations that the study of political behaviour be accorded greater status in social psychological research, such calls have gone relatively unheeded. This thesis is intended to address to some small extent this problem. Specifically, an argument is presented to address the flaws of a little-heralded theory of political behaviour, symbolic politics theory (Sears, 1993), by re-articulating that theory within a broader theory of social behaviour, social representations theory (Moscovici, 1973; 1988). At its heart symbolic politics contends that political behaviour is based on the evocation of 'symbolic predispositions' in response to symbolic content of political objects. Following Verkuyten (1985) political symbols and symbolic predispositions are re-interpreted from the perspective of social representations theory. The result is a shift in emphasis onto the role of values, discourse, and social interaction in political preference and opinion. These concepts are investigated using data derived from a four-phase panel survey of the Wellington, New Zealand, electorates, as well as transcripts of parliamentary debates, and a laboratory experiment to provide support for the re-articulation of symbolic politics within this framework. The first two studies present qualitative and quantitative analyses of open-ended questions designed to probe the subjective meanings of ideological labels, and the concepts, ideas, and values associated with the major political parties of the time. The results indicate that the boundaries of group membership are defined by differences in representational content between groups, as well as within-group consensus. The second set of studies investigate the role of social values in political perception and preference. Firstly, political parties were differentiated by the frequency of rhetorical use by their members of the two values of freedom and equality, consistent with the predictions of Rokeach (1973). Secondly, survey respondents used a value-attribution instrument to indicate the values which they perceived parties to oppose or endorse. Again, the values associated with these parties were shown to be predictive of preference. Thirdly, respondents completed the Schwartz (1992) values inventory, which was used to produce a value profile of supporters of different parties' supporters. Weak support was found for Rokeach's (1973) two-value model of politics, with the parties differentiable on two discriminant functions defined by self-reliance values and equality values. The final study in this section presents the results of a laboratory manipulation in which groups of participants viewed different party political advertisements before rating the major parties for favourability and value attributions. This study indicates that exposure to political media may influence the values parties are seen to represent, and that this may impact positively or negatively on perceptions of the favourability of those parties. The final empirical chapter utilises a social network measure to investigate the role, if any, that one's interpersonal environment may play in political preference and representations. A clear relationship was found between the political composition of the environment and primary respondent preference and ideological self-identification. These findings are interpreted as supporting the social representational theory of symbolic politics. Qualifications and limitations of a representational theory of symbolic politics are discussed, as are the implications for such a conceptualisation of political and social behaviour.</p>

Since the reinstatement of political science as an academic discipline in 1980, the Chinese political science scholarship has as much studied China-related issues as adopted from the West a large number of scholarly findings, research methodology, and theories including the modernization theory in the 1980s, the democratic transition theory from the 1990s onwards, and the governance theory in the twenty-first century. Through the academic dialogue between China and the West, the political science research community in China has, by the same token, formulated its own theories on democracy and governance that are derived from China’s experiences. Furthermore, along with the unprecedented transformations throughout the whole society, Chinese political science has equally undergone major changes, of which a case in point can be the calling in this article for a political science research using "China as a method" (For this notion of "China as a Method", although it comes from Yuzo Mizoguchi, a Japanese scholar on China studies, it is also a product of the mutual learning across civilizations and also benefits from the inspiration of "taking the reform as the methodology". The so-called "China as the methodology" not only focuses on "China as the center", basing one’s research on China, answering questions about China, and putting forward China-based propositions; it also means that the ontology, epistemology, and methodological knowledge generated by “China as the center” or “China as a method” can become a theoretical orientation and methodological framework for Chinese political research in the world.). The best way to understand China is to study its political history, as Chinese history is mainly a political one, demonstrating a high degree of historical continuity. For this very reason, we have proposed a historical political science as a method for studying China—an approach that is different from historical sociology. The historical political science is, indeed, not Chinese-centered or -focused, where a comparative historical analysis will be ushered in as well.

Abstract: Our symposium on Asian/American political thought (AAPT) is both the first of its kind and long overdue. In this introduction to it, the symposium's editors ask how AAPT relates to the field of political theory more generally. We answer first by situating AAPT within a broader constellation of concerns that shares various points with comparative political theory, decolonial political theory, Black political thought, and Latinx political thought. We furthermore discuss the relatively distinctive concerns of AAPT that have emerged in the course of its development and in the convening of this symposium. Our symposium consists in articles that draw from various intellectual traditions and political orientations to address several clusters of concerns: (a) how AAPT compares and creolizes "Eastern" and "Western" political thought; (b) how AAPT has and continues to think about nationality alongside revolution; and (c) how AAPT grapples with differences and contradictions internal to "Asian/America."

Comparative Politics and Political Theory. Essays Written in Honor of Charles Baskervill Robson

Ira Katznelson’s Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time is a big book, and it addresses a big theme: the historical significance of the New Deal, as a watershed moment in U.S. political history, as a form of “social democracy, American style” that allowed liberal democracy to prevail in competition with Soviet communism and fascism, and as the “origin” of key features of contemporary politics in the United States. The book is a contribution to the study of U.S. politics, but also to the study of comparative politics, international relations, political theory, and comparative history. We have thus invited a range of political science scholars to comment on the book as a work of general political science; as an account of the New Deal and its political legacies in the United States; as a contribution to the comparative analysis of social democracy and the welfare state; and as a way of integrating the study of domestic and foreign policy, and in particular the study of U.S. politics and international relations.

Ranking the World: Grading States as a Tool of Global Governance, edited by Alexander Cooley and Jack Snyder, assembles an impressive group of political scientists to critically discuss “the important analytical, normative, and policy issues associated with the contemporary practice of ‘grading states.’” The volume addresses a topic of importance to a wide range of political scientists in comparative politics, international relations, and political theory, and raises some fundamental questions about the role of political science at the nexus of theory and practice. We have thus invited a number of colleagues to discuss the volume and its broader implications for political science inquiry.

Ranking the World: Grading States as a Tool of Global Governance, edited by Alexander Cooley and Jack Snyder, assembles an impressive group of political scientists to critically discuss “the important analytical, normative, and policy issues associated with the contemporary practice of ‘grading states.’” The volume addresses a topic of importance to a wide range of political scientists in comparative politics, international relations, and political theory, and raises some fundamental questions about the role of political science at the nexus of theory and practice. We have thus invited a number of colleagues to discuss the volume and its broader implications for political science inquiry.

A common justification given for comparative political theory (and its cognate concepts) is that we will be morally and epistemically transformed by encounters with our "others." This is a fully warranted and admirable aim for expanded forms of ethical and political theory. However, it also raises some complex questions. First, who is the self being transformed? Do we understand the self in phenomenological, anthropological or ideological terms? Are we being transformed in reference to an existing repertoire of moral, political and epistemic commitments (say, liberal ones) or in reference to a universal self capable of critical reflection on all core value commitments? Second, who is our "other." How deep do we go in identifying core moral and epistemic commitments that are to be challenged by new encounters? More importantly, when we identify an "other" with whom we are in "conversation," are we by definition always just identifying values or commitments that we already have, for otherwise how would we be able to identifying what the "other" can teach us as being valuable or good? Is this the paradox of comparative political theory, or is there a deeper, genuinely transformative potential for learning and transformation?

Rational choice theory (RCT), an influential theory in the study of American politics and a well-established theory in the field of international relations, only gained sustained attention within comparative politics beginning in the early 1990s. This chapter presents a definition of RCT. It suggests that students of comparative politics should strive to assimilate the emphasis on actors and instrumental rationality that are a characteristic of RCT, but go beyond RCT and built a broader, encompassing theory of action. The chapter shows that the core theoretical principles of game theory are limited, both in terms of the domains where it is applicable and its explanatory power in the domains where it is applicable. Thus, in an effort to assess the strengths and weaknesses of game theory, it is best to focus on the essential underpinnings even of more advanced game theory: the three theoretical building blocks represented by the rules of the game, the expected utility model, and the concept of equilibrium.

Building on a Lakatosian approach that sees Social Science as an endeavour that confronts rival theories with systematic empirical observations, this article responds to probing questions that have been raised about the appropriate ways in which to conduct systematic process analysis and comparative enquiry. It explores varieties of process tracing, the role of interpretation in case studies, and the relationship between process tracing and comparative historical analysis.