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First published July 1991

Comparing and Miscomparing

Giovanni SartoriView all authors and affiliations
Volume 3, Issue 3
https://doi.org/10.1177/0951692891003003001

Abstract

I seek to explain the disappointing performance of the field of comparative politics addressing the three basic questions: Why compare? What is comparable? and How? I also challenge the view that the methodology of comparison is pretty well known and established. Hosts of unsettled issues remain, while a growing cause of frustration and failure is the undetected proliferation of `cat-dogs' (or worse), that is, nonexistent aggregates which are bound to defy, on account of their non-comparable characteristics, any and all attempts at law-like generalizations. The bottom line is that the comparative endeavor suffers from loss of purpose.

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1. As Sigelman and Gadbois correctly put it, `comparison presupposes multiple objects of analysis... one compares something to or with something else' (1983: 281).
2. Indeed, comparative politics is the one field of political science that defines itself by `a methodological instead of substantive label' (Lijphart, 1971: 682). Similarly, in Holt and Turner (1970: 5): `the common-sense meaning of the term comparative... refers to a method of study and not to a body of substantive knowledge.'
3. Not often, as one can easily infer from a skimming of the bibliographies. Most single nation studies plainly and wholeheartedly ignore the comparative frameworks and literature that bear on their topics.
4. Note that even `explanation' appears too strong a requirement to Cantori. In his appraisal, `comparative politics is more inclined towards interpretation than explanation', the difference between the two being that explanation `seeks to demonstrate the validity of its conclusion', whereas interpretation `seeks to convince only by means of persuasion' (Cantori and Ziegler, 1988: 418).
5. It should be understood that the point bears on the normal science. In authors of the stature of Tocqueville, Durkheim or Max Weber, the comparative component of their work is part and parcel of the richness of their thinking. As all my examples indicate, I am not speaking to `grand schemes' but to the single generalizations (causal-like hypotheses) that authors would `normally' formulate in pursuing their subject matter.
6. I say `presumably' to account for the counterarguments of Frendreis (1983: 258), and especially of Ragin (1987: 15-16), who contends that `the comparative method is superior to the statistical method in several important respects'.
7. Lijphart and Smelser take a different view as to whether the experimental statistical and comparative methods are distinct methods (Lijphart), or simply different implementations of a same comparative logic (Smelser, 1976: 158). Since the methods in question are not equivalent, in my opinion their distinctiveness matters more than their similarity.
8. Of course, in some instances one may control both across a relatively small and a relatively large number of cases, that is, statistically. Let the hypothesis be: party cohesion is a direct function of the degree of inter-party competition (and, thus, the lesser the competition, the higher the degree of intra-party fractionism). Here comparative checking will help refine the hypothesis, so that a statistical control may subsequently become correctly applicable.
9. Entity stands here for whole systems, subsystemic `segments' (vigorously upheld by LaPalombara, 1970: 123ff.), processes or even, at the limit, for a single property or characteristic of a universe.
10. The point is made by Kalleberg (1966: 77-8) as follows: `Truly comparative concepts... can only be developed after classification has been completed. Classification is a matter of `either-or'; comparison is a matter of more or less'. I concur up until the last sentence; but why must comparisons be a matter of more-or-less? Possibly Kalleberg has in mind, here, intra-class (not inter-class) comparing.
11. To specify, the first group of countries are predominant party systems that belong to a competitive setting (Sartori, 1976: 192-201); Mexico is a hegemonic party polity that `licenses' a limited competition (230-8); and the third group is (was) one-party proper, in that it impedes competition and any other party (221-30).
12. While I quote from Smelser's more recent writing, one should also look into Smelser (1966 and 1967, passim).
13. Whether the most different systems design differs from the most similar one in that the former consists of multilevel analysis and must observe `behavior at a level lower than that of systems' (as its proponents hold, p. 34) is a differentiation open to question. The point remains that seeking contrast and seeking similarity are different approaches.
14. Both strategies are discussed and illustrated at some length in Sartori (1986: 48-50 and passim). Take the `rule' that says: `a plurality system will produce... a two-party system... under two conditions: first, when the party system is structured, and, second, if the electorate which is refractory to whatever pressure of the electoral system happens to be dispersed in below-plurality proportions throughout the constituencies' (1986: 59). Here the first condition enters a necessary condition, and the second one actually incorporates in the law the exceptions resulting from above-plurality or above quotient distributions of incoercible minorities.
15. My argument is confined to `rule disconfirmation'. Generally, and in principle, a theory T is falsified, and thus rejected, `if and only if another theory T1 has been proposed with the following characteristics: (1) T1 has excess empirical content over T... (2) T1 explains the previous success of T... and (3) some of the excess content of T1 is corroborated' (Lakatos, 1970: 116).
16. These are the labels employed by Eckstein (1975: 80ff.). Lijphart (1971: 691-3) also discusses the various uses and types of case studies. By combining the wordings of the two authors one can distinguish among the following five kinds of case study: (1) configurative-idiographic (Eckstein), (2) interpretative (Lijphart), (3) hypothesis-generating (Lijphart), (4) crucial (Eckstein), that is, theory-confirming or disconfirming (Lijphart), (5) deviant (Lijphart). An outstanding instance of the latter is Lipset et al.'s Union Democracy (1956), in which the International Typographical Union is systematically studied as a `deviation' from Michels' iron law of oligarchy.
17. Note that my distinction between case study and comparison does not imply in the least that the latter is a superior form of inquiry. If, as Eckstein (1975: 88) holds, `The quintessential end of theorizing is to arrive at statements of regularity', then the distinctive claim of the comparative method is not the discovery of `rulefulness' but its testing. There are many paths, not only the comparative one, that lead to discovery of law-like regularities.
18. This extreme view is drawn from Feyerabend (1975), whose epistemological stance is that (i) theory determines concepts, and that (ii) data themselves are a function of theory, so that data described in terms of theory A cannot be `compared' to data stated in terms of theory B. For a rebuttal, to which I subscribe, see Lane (1987).
19. Even so, it cannot be handled, I believe, by assuming as Przeworski and Teune (1970: 12) do that `most problems of uniqueness versus universality can be redefined as problems of measurement'.

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Published In

Volume 3, Issue 3
Pages: 243 - 257
Article first published: July 1991
Issue published: July 1991

Keywords

  1. comparative method
  2. conceptual stretching
  3. degreeism
  4. logic of comparison
  5. misclassification
  6. parochialism

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