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State formation, parties and democracy. Studies in comparative European politics (2011)

State formation, parties and democracy. Studies in comparative European politics

(2011)–Hans Daalder–rechtenstatus Auteursrechtelijk beschermd

Vorige Volgende

chapter thirteen | looking back: the development of the study of comparative politics

‘Comparative politics’ existed long before it became a recognized subfield of the modern discipline of political science. A century or so ago, a knowledge of the variety of political systems formed part of the normal education of literati in different disciplines, such as law and philosophy, history and letters. There were classic writers on problems of modern government in different countries such as Mill, Bagehot, Bluntschli, Radbruch, Redslob, Duguit or Bryce. Their treatises contained many comparisons, over time as well between different societies. One might go back further in history. Political theory abounds with comparative discourse on both contrasts and commonalities in political life, as even a superficial survey of the writings of Aristotle and Polybius, of Dante and Machiavelli, of Bodin and Locke, of Montesquieu and De Tocqueville, not to speak of the authors of The Federalist Papers, immediately shows. Man has speculated comparatively on problems of government and society in both prescriptive and descriptive terms since times immemorial. If we nevertheless insist that modern comparative politics is somehow different, this is for three not unrelated reasons: first, modern comparative politics deals consciously with a political world which has changed drastically from the universe known to the great writers of the past; second, it has become the special terrain of a recognized subfield of contemporary political Science; and third, as such it participates in both paradigmatic shifts and the new research developments and techniques of the discipline of political science.

The academic tradition

Several characteristics marked the understanding of government in Europe and the United States as it developed at the beginning of the twentieth century.1. First, there was a strong normative overtone in discussions on government and democratic rule. Normative approaches were traditionally strong in fields like law, philosophy or theology in which problems of government were discussed at the time. Different ideological traditions, whether Conservative, Catholic or Protestant, Liberal, Radical or Socialist, inevitably had their impact on political discourse. So had more specific traditions of political theory which nourished debates on crucial themes like sovereignty, community, authority, liberty, constitutionalism, rule of law and so forth.

Second, discussions of government often reflected particular conceptions of history. In the hands of some, this might lead to the elaboration of ‘historical laws’, often couched in terms of different ‘stages’ through which societies would develop. ‘Diachronic’ comparisons thus came naturally. Models of social change often showed a clear evolutionary or even teleological bias.

Third, there was generally a strong emphasis on political institutions, which

were thought to be not only the results of past political strife, but also factors which could control present and future political developments.

Fourth, ‘comparative’ politics generally assumed specific country perspectives. Thus, in Britain ‘cross-channel’ dialogues easily developed into a contrast between (stable) British ‘cabinet government’ and (unstable) French ‘gouvernement d'assemblée’ (or for that matter British ‘rule of law’ versus French ‘droit administratif’). Trans-Atlantic debates resulted in the conflicting typologies of ‘parliamentary’ versus a ‘presidential’ system of democratic government. Perennial debates in France on the merits, or lack of merit, of the French revolution strongly coloured political discussions on problems of constitutionalism and popular sovereignty. Debates in what was to become Germany had a powerful impact on the analysis of state and nation, of the exercise of power, of ‘organicist’ versus ‘liberal’ modes of social and economic development, and of the comparative role of bureaucracies - subjects which were to become the concerns of future social science also outside German borders. Comparisons of European countries with the United States underscored the early nature of American democracy and stressed the importance of voluntary groups in a free society, but the United States could also be held up as a negative yardstick for alleged abuses, for its spoils system, the role of lobbies or a yellow press, or more generally the dangers of ‘mass society’.

Typically, smaller European countries tended to be neglected in the reasoning of learned men outside the borders of the particular country itself. Linguistic frontiers may partly explain this. But probably more important was the assumption, typical of nineteenth and early twentieth century power politics, that small countries hardly mattered. At best they might be of little more than folkloristic interest, at worst they were seen as no more than transient players in a world in which the larger countries determined history.

‘Comparative politics’ then went generally not much beyond speculation and the study of ‘foreign government’. Other states were generally seen as entities all on their own, or at most as possible yardsticks against which to measure developments in one's own society, and then often as negative yardsticks at that.

The political shocks of the twentieth century and the erosion of institutional certainties

All this was to change drastically in the wake of three fundamental twentieth century shocks: the breakdown of democracy in Weimar Germany, the rise of totalitarian systems and the turn towards authoritarianism of most of the new states which were established following the demise of European colonialism.

The formally legal ‘Machtübernahme’ in Weimar Germany in 1933 shattered democratic hopes and self-confidence. The Weimar constitution had been heralded as the perfect model of democratic constitutionalism. Its fall destroyed the trust in political institutions as sufficient guarantees of democratic rule. Admittedly, some theoreticians attempted to retain ‘institutionalist’ explanations, singling out ‘faulty’ institutions such as proportional representation,2. the presence of a directly elected President next to a ‘normal’ but thereby weakened Kanzier, or the absence of judicial review, as major factors in the destruction of democratic rule. But

generally, institutionalist analyses stood discredited. A growing awareness of the patent discrepancy between the promises of the Soviet constitution of 1936 and the realities of naked power relations in the USSR reinforced this tendency, as did events in Italy since 1922 and in France in 1940.

The rise of totalitarian political systems massively changed the perceptions of politics. Their development, in some countries and not in others, raised new problems of comparative enquiry. Earlier beliefs about the ‘natural’ development of democracy foundered. ‘Autocracy’ had been a time-honoured category of political analysis, and ‘absolutism’ had been the natural counterpoint of constitutionalism and later of democracy. But totalitarianism seemed to represent an entirely new political phenomenon. Problems of power and leadership, of propaganda and mass publics, of repressive one-party systems and police rule, came to dominate political discussion. Sociological and psychological explanations seemed to offer better insights into the realities of totalitarian rule than did traditional political theory or institutional analysis.

The post-1945 world was soon to see also the rise of many new states from what had been colonial dependencies. Such states had generally been equipped with democratic constitutional arrangements, which in most cases proved ineffective to stem developments of authoritarian regimes, whether in the hands of traditional elites, military or bureaucratic governors, or revolutionary party leaders. Such developments further undermined a belief in institutional approaches, and called for alternative modes of analysis.

One effect of the great political shocks of the twentieth century was a massive migration of scholars, notably to the United States of America, but to a lesser extent also the United Kingdom. One needs only list prominent names such as Karl W. Deutsch, Henry W. Ehrmann, Otto Kirchheimer, Paul Lazarsfeld, Karl Loewenstein, Hans Morgenthau, Franz Neumann, Sigmund Neumann, and Joseph Schumpeter, to make clear the importance of this factor for new developments in the study of politics. That field was also to attract the progeny of European refugees who, as a typical ‘second generation’, turned to the analysis of comparative and international politics in great numbers. Exiles from Hitler were followed by migrants from Communist repression, and later still by a growing number of Third World scholars who opted to stay in the First World. A desire for the systematic study of comparative politics came naturally in such circumstances. It heightened concern with the realities of political power, both within and between states. It made for a characteristically ambivalent attitude about democracy: if anything the belief in democratic values became stronger, but expectations about its chances turned toward pessimism.

The academy and the changing political universe

If migrant scholars looked back naturally on developments in continents they had left, the world was changing, and so was the role of the United States in what was rapidly becoming global politics for policy-makers and students of politics alike. Although Europe remained a key area, other parts of the world, including notably the evolving Communist bloc, Japan and a rapidly growing number of new states,

became matters of urgent political and intellectual concern. So did Latin America, long regarded as a backyard of a Monroe doctrine America. Comparative politics saw the number of its possible units of analysis grow beyond recognition. At the same time problems of political stability and legitimacy, of social and economic development, of competing political regimes and ideologies assumed an entirely new importance.

The need to understand this new world could be met in a variety of ways. It underscored the importance of experts on single countries, notably those which became the object of particular policy concern. It increased the relevance of traditional area studies which it released from their (sometimes almost museum-like) preoccupation with the unique features of ‘other’ civilizations; in the process cultural anthropology became a more central field in contemporary social Science. At the same time, older beliefs about inevitable - and presumably static - differences gave way to concerns with political and social change - inter alia toward democracy - and beyond this: to discussions of the extent to which such changes could, and should, be engineered.

All this fitted in well with the traditional temper of American academics. The lure of ‘science’ had traditionally been strong and had expanded much beyond the ‘natural sciences’ into the social sciences and even the humanities. So had the assumption that ‘science’ could and should lead to practical policy results. There was a strong belief that the academic enterprise should centre on the elaboration of testable theories. At the same time, the idea of interdisciplinary study stood in high esteem. It was given a strong impetus within some of the great universities (the University of Chicago being a particularly important centre). Such interdisciplinarity was moreover reinforced by new agencies, including government research councils, the newly established (American) Social Science Research Council and a growing number of private foundations all becoming increasingly involved in sponsoring ‘relevant’ research. This in turn facilitated a massive expansion of graduate schools, and fostered collaborative research between senior and junior scholars, the latter being called upon to ‘test’ particular theories elaborated by the former through detailed empirical research. All this came to coincide with the development of new research tools, which helped to foster what was soon to become known as the ‘behavioural revolution’ (from which electoral and value studies have benefited). Next to library research and field work in a participatory setting, the survey became a powerful research tool.3. Governments also began to develop more and more important statistical data to monitor the effects of new policies. A rapidly growing number of international organizations, whether global (such as the United Nations and its specialized agencies, the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund), or regional (the OECD growing from the efforts of the Marshall Plan, and the European Communities being particularly important), came to collect statistical data on many countries. To the extent that they were presented in standardized form, this facilitated comparative inquiry. More and more efforts also went into the construction of time-series data, necessary for the study of developments over time. This massively increased amount of quantitative data (initially developed mainly in the context of economic and social policies and used

in particular by economists and experts in social policies) also found its way into data handbooks and data archives.4. The computer revolution was concurrently to facilitate the storage, analysis and access to such data. The efforts of individual scholars first, research sponsoring agencies later, made the pooling and preservation of research data (including the products of survey research for secondary analysis) increasingly common practice. All this occurred at a time of a massive expansion of academic enrolment, which increased facilities not only for graduate research, but also for publishing research findings. Both university presses and specialized commercial publishers massively expanded. Journals proliferated. So did professional associations and the number and specialization of workshops and panels at academic conferences.

If both the mass, and the sophistication, of such developments in social science were taking place initially mainly in the United States, they soon became an international reality. Early in the post-1945 period deliberate efforts were made to foster international comparative research. One powerful stimulus came from UNESCO, which established its own International Social Science Research Council, and which provided a powerful stimulus for the establishment of international professional bodies such as the International Political Science Association (IPSA) or the International Sociological Association (ISA). Many national governments expanded their research councils. The idea of international exchange and research co-operation found increasing favour, with the fellowship programmes of a number of American Foundations, the Fulbright programme, and to a lesser extent agencies like the British Council setting a pattern. In the process English became increasingly the lingua franca of modern social science.

The ‘new’ comparative politics

Against this general background of political change on the one hand, and a massive expansion of international and national policy-making and research on the other hand, ‘comparative politics’ developed rapidly. The shift in terminology from the older term of ‘comparative government’ to ‘comparative politics’ was symbolic for what was in fact, a conscious desire to move away from the traditional concern with political institutions towards a preoccupation with political and social developments generally, and within democratic systems in particular.

There are some particular landmarks in the development of modern ‘comparative politics’. One of these was the Evanston seminar at Northwestern University in 1952 which brought together a group of then-younger scholars including Samuel Beer, George Blanksten, Richard Cox, Karl W. Deutsch, Harry Eckstein, Kenneth Thompson and Robert E. Ward under the chairmanship of Roy Macridis. In a statement, published in the American Political Science Review, they branded the existing study of comparative government as parochial in being mainly concerned with Europe only, as being merely descriptive instead of analytical, as overly concerned with institutions rather than processes, and as being insufficiently comparative, wedded above all to case method approaches.5. Some of the members of the Evanston group vigorously clashed with stalwart representatives of an older generation, including such luminaries as Carl J. Friedrich, Maurice

Duverger, Dolf Sternberger and William A. Robson during a colloquium of IPSA in Florence in 1954.6. Such older practitioners of comparative government were not readily persuaded by the new gospel. They were to note gleefully that the most irascible proponent of the new ‘comparative politics’, Roy Macridis, was soon to publish work on France and other countries along what seemed after all rather traditional lines. The continuing need to take account of specific country perspectives was also to become apparent in the work of other scholars of the group, who after all became editors and authors of influential textbooks organized on the basis of country studies, though covering again mainly the larger countries.7.

In the meantime, a group of scholars (including some members of the Evanston Seminar) was being formed who as a group would have a lasting influence on the development of comparative politics. Many of them were, or would be, active in what was soon to become known as ‘the Committee’ (i.e. the Committee on Comparative Politics of the American Social Science Research Council). In the second half of the 1950s, this Committee deliberately brought together a number of leading area experts. With Gabriel A. Almond as its highly influential chairman, it set itself to recasting the analysis of comparative politics along mainly structural- functionalist lines. As Almond explicitly stated in the influential volume edited by himself and James S. Coleman, The Politics of the Developing Areas (1960),8. the ambition was to find ‘a common framework and set of categories to be used in... area political analysis’; to this end Almond himself engaged in ‘experiments in the application of sociological and anthropological concepts in the comparison of political systems’, irrespective of time or area. This work was eventually to lead to the famous ‘crises of political development’ model, which sought to analyse political systems in terms of the character and sequence of six major processes: legitimacy, identity, penetration, integration, participation and distribution.9. One manner in which to validate such approaches was to bring together members of the Committee with experts on areas, particular institutions or social processes for a series of books on different aspects of political development, including Communications, bureaucracies, political culture, education, parties, and (belatedly) state-formation.10. Two works were intended to cap the approach: a book by Almond and Powell in 1966 offered mainly as a textbook, and a co-authored volume on Crises and Sequences in Political Development.11. Whereas the first seemed to proclaim certainty, the latter revealed considerable self-doubt and disagreement in the Committee. Clearly, its members did not see eye to eye on such fundamental matters as the existence or not of a linear development from tradition to modernity, and the possibility to engineer social change and democratization or not.

Of course, such debates were not restricted to members of the Committee. A great many scholars, in different disciplines, tried their hand at defining processes of political development and modernization.12. For all their diversity and disagreement, such writings had in common an attempt to understand processes of social change, conceived as in principle comparable over different areas and time-periods, and tackled with instruments from whatever social science discipline seemed appropriate. Such approaches also led to a reconsideration of past patterns of political and social change in nations already seen as fully or mainly modernized,

including the United States itself and Western Europe. Historians were asked to join in such efforts at comparative understanding.13.

The impact of these approaches on the discipline was substantial. All manner of Ph.D. candidates swarmed out to study processes of social and political modernization in countries all over the world. They did so with different interests and intent. Some became thoroughly intrigued with the persistent role of traditional structures and beliefs, making them eager novices in the ranks of area specialists and cultural anthropologists. Others concentrated rather on the other end of the presumed tradition modernity continuum, identifying largely with the search for ‘development’ by economists and experts on public administration. Yet others felt happier with the work of various international organizations which sought to monitor and stimulate social and economic developments with the aid of statistical indicators, regarding the universe of nations, or some particular sample of it, as a laboratory in which to test particular development models.14.

Inevitable reactions

For all its exhilaration the political development boom was to create its own reactions, in rather different ways. One reaction consisted in the development of counter-models of development which treated the prosperous West not as the prototype of a modern society which others were naturally to attain at some later stage, but as the root cause of an inequitable distribution of the world's goods. Marxist theories of (neo)imperialism held capitalist development responsible for the exploitation of the Third World, and regarded the so-called ‘independence’ of former colonies as a thin guise for what was in practice ‘neo-colonialism’. Notably from the background of Latin America, which had much older independent states than Africa and parts of Asia, developed the various brands of ‘dependency’ theory which emphasized the co-existence of traditional sectors of society and the economy with modern economic sectors which were in practice little more than the emporia of the advanced economies in the USA and Europe. Such models were given a more elaborate treatment in Wallerstein's World System approach, which became in many ways an academic industry of its own.

A second reaction came from those who had difficulty fitting Communist systems into the framework of general development theories. To many, such a problem did not seem particularly urgent: the comparative study of Communist societies was to a considerable extent a world unto itself, and many were happy to leave it at that. The idea of a possible convergence of systems in the West and the East seemed to most observers bereft of reality, perhaps a matter of speculation for economists, not for those who knew the patent differences in political life from direct physical experience or historical analogy. But developments of Communist states did yet enter the field of general comparative politics for at least two reasons. Communist models might and did serve as example and inspiration for Third World countries, notably in their Chinese and Cuban variety. And in a more theoretical vein, a debate arose on the issue to what degree totalitarian systems were themselves a product of modernity. This point had been strongly argued by Carl J. Friedrich, who saw in that characteristic the fundamental difference between older

systems of autocracy and royal absolutism and modern totalitarian systems,15. but was denied by scholars like Wittfogel who saw many common features between the systems described in his Oriental Despotism and systems of modern totalitarian rule.16. Nevertheless, whether seen as possible models of modernization, or as alternative expressions of modernity itself, the study of totalitarian systems remained on the whole outside the scope of general comparative politics writing. At least one reason for this was the tendency to equate political modernity with democracy, in systems already existing or as the natural end-product of political development.

A third reaction to the political development literature consisted in the allegation that it rode roughshod over the uniqueness of particular areas or countries. Such was the natural reaction of scholars nurtured in a tradition of ‘configurative’ studies, whether of a particular local culture, or a particular political system. Such scholars were not comfortable with what they regarded as overly general categories of analysis. They emphasized that the essence of political and social systems lay in the complicated interaction of many variables which could only be disentangled by destroying the uniqueness of the whole. And they tended to deny the possibility of real comparative study given the inability of scholars to really know more than one or two cases sufficiently well.17.

Rethinking Europe

For a time Europe became a somewhat ambiguous area in the development of the new comparative politics. The Third World seemed to attract most of the theorizing and field research, as did to a lesser and more specialist sense the development of Communist systems. Europe seemed possibly somewhat old-fashioned, a world of stable democracies about which all was known and where little happened. The very concept of Europe had become somewhat hazy, moreover. The erection of the Iron Curtain had lopped off a number of countries which had formerly formed a natural part of the European universe. If one saw Western Europe as for all practical purposes identical with ‘democratic Europe’, then certain European countries (including some members of NATO, like Greece, or Portugal, not to speak of Spain) presumably did not belong to it. If democracy were the defining characteristic, why then not study all modern democracies together, thus abandoning the very existence of ‘Europe’ as a distinct area, which was a conclusion drawn, for example, by Lijphart?18.

Whatever such qualms, ‘Europe’ was soon to figure prominently on the map of comparative politics again, through a variety of circumstances. The persistent concern about ‘totalitarianism’ naturally made for comparative enquiry into past events: what after all had caused the breakdown of democratic regimes in some countries, and not in others.19. When much later Greece, Spain and Portugal all returned to democratic rule, the reverse question arose: what were the causes for such transitions from authoritarian rule.20. The failure of imposed constitutional regimes in many former colonies raised the issue whether alternative models of democracy might have done better; where was one to find these but in Europe (the British dominions usually being regarded as mere offshoots of a British system)?

The general concern with development posed many questions for which the history of different European countries might provide possible answers, whatever the dangers of historical analogies. There was a rich literature on European countries, and access to sources was relatively easy. Europe contained, moreover, a variety of cases vital for comparative analysis with a generalizing intent, provided one really knew the specific cases that made up Europe, and went beyond the exclusive concentration on a few larger countries only.

Much of the history of the development of comparative politics writing in and on Europe can in fact be written in terms of a desire to take account of the political experience of particular countries.21. As a special sub-discipline, European comparative politics grew largely from the efforts of a new post-war generation of younger scholars who engaged in mass journeys to some extent to the United Kingdom, but particularly to the United States. They found there an exhilarating world of scholarship, with all manner of theoretical speculation and rich empirical research. This was in strong contrast with the paucity of ‘modern’ social science literature in their own country, and led naturally to a desire to emulate and replicate studies on America with comparable studies at home. At the same time, a confrontation with Anglo-Saxon scholarship also provoked a natural reaction against what were often felt to be too specifically ‘British’ or ‘American’ theories, typologies or models, and fostered a desire to develop alternative theories and typologies which were more in line with the understanding of one's own country. At a minimum, more countries should be brought onto the map of European comparative politics, which somewhat ironically required ‘translating’ their experience into Anglo-American concepts.

Thus, some of the most innovative comparative politics writing by European scholars betrays, on closer analysis, a strong influence of particular country perspectives. This had been irritatingly clear from what purported to be a general study of political parties by Maurice Duverger,22. which for all the help the author received in data collection from an early IPSA network of European political scientists, was shot through with French perspectives and prejudices. But one can also document the impact of Italian concerns in the much more sophisticated analyses of party systems by Giovanni Sartori.23. There is the disappointment of a left-socialist German emigré-scholar about post-war developments in Germany and Austria in the work of Otto Kirchheimer,24. just as Scandinavia provided the undoubted background of the development of a centre periphery model in the rich work of Stein Rokkan.25. An even clearer example is the deliberate development of the consociationalist model against the background of The Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Switzerland, to counter the massive impact of what seemed too easy an identification of Anglo-American models of government with democracy per se.26.

From the mosaic of such parallel studies a much more sophisticated picture emerged of the diversities of the European experience, which could be studied both in a diachronic and a synchronic manner, culminating in what is as yet the most satisfactory attempt at understanding the complexities of European political developments contained in Stein Rokkan's so-called ‘topological-typological’ map, or ‘macro-model’ of Europe.27.

Different research strategies for studying democracy

Taking developments in the study of ‘Europe’ as an example, the considerable variety of modes of comparative study becomes readily apparent. A seeming paradox is provided by the country monograph. To the extent that such a monograph is written to elucidate particular political experiences for a more general public, it may offer insights of comparative importance. This is much more true if the monograph seeks to prove, or disprove, specific theoretical propositions first developed with one or more other countries in mind. The most telling example, however, is the consciously theory-based analysis of a single country case.28. Moving to a somewhat higher level of abstraction are comparative analyses of two, or a few, particular countries.29. Most ‘comparativists’ must confess that their real knowledge of different countries tapers off quickly beyond a rather limited number of cases. One obvious way to overcome such limitations is collaborative research, in which, for any given research question, experts on different countries are asked to join in a common research effort. Most books on (European) democratic comparative politics consist of edited volumes of this kind. Such volumes bring much needed information on different countries together and testify to the fruits of cross-fertilization. But most of them suffer the natural defects of group enterprises. The choice of countries is often a function of the availability, or even the reliability, of individual country experts. Even the most rigorous attempt at editorial guidance rarely results in an even quality, let alone genuine comparability, of country chapters. Introductory and concluding chapters very often are of a rather ad hoc and impressionistic nature.30.

This strengthens the case for attempting individual syntheses after all. The difficulty of such an enterprise becomes readily apparent, however, if one seeks for post-war equivalents of the great comparative government treatises of the past.31. These are very hard to find, and encounter the obvious problem of an increased number of countries to be treated, with many more empirical research findings of potential relevance to be covered.32.

Rather than on analysis at the level of countries as a whole, work has tended to focus on particular institutions such as monarchy, heads of state, the formation of cabinets, parliaments, electoral systems, parties in general, particular party families, interest groups, bureaucratic structures, and so on.33. In studies focusing on particular institutions or groups, there is always real danger of analyses that are out of political and social context.

Alternatively, there is the massive growth of quantitative ‘cross-national studies’. As stated before, both the quantity and the quality of data have increased massively in the last decades, through the efforts of governments, international organizations, the gallant work of those who prepare ‘data handbooks’, and organize data archives.34. Such data invite cross-national studies, in a large number of fields. Thus one needs only to inspect the list of contents of journal articles in Electoral Studies, not to speak of important collaborative volumes ranging from that by Rose, to the one by Franklin and others,35. to see the richness of studies on electoral behaviour, and of elections.36. We have important studies on political par-

ticipation, influenced notably by the works of Verba and others, and of Barnes and Kaase;37. and on the impact of changing values, an area dominated by the highly debated analyses of Inglehart.38. The study of cabinet coalitions has offered a fertile testing-ground of formal theories.39. As we shall see presently, the data revolution has also had a great impact on the study of the development and problems of modern welfare states and public policy. Not all such cross-national studies are really comparative, however. Although they draw on data from many countries, they are often directed more to problems of general political sociology or psychology than to a systematic inspection of country variables. ‘Contextual’ knowledge is often neglected, and with it possibly the essence of comparative politics itself, which in the words of Sidney Verba presupposes that one tries to generalize - using that term loosely - about nations, or to generalize about subnational entities like bureaucracies, parties, armies and interests groups in ways that use national variation as part of the explanation.40. A lack of knowledge of the countries studied has made some such ‘cross-national’ analyses verge on what Stein Rokkan once dubbed mere ‘numerological nonsense’.

New approaches to the study of democratic politics

Developments in modern comparative politics, then, were largely the result of a greater knowledge of individual countries on the one hand, and of a true revolution in data collection and analysis techniques on the other. But at the same time, new political problems appeared on the political agenda, which resulted in something like a paradigmatic shift. If comparative politics had concentrated thus far mainly on problems of regime change, political institutions, and what in systems theory one calls ‘input’ structures, a new concern developed with problems of public policy and political ‘output’ . Various factors contributed to this development.

One cause was the ‘Left’ revolution in social science in the 1960s and 1970s, which faced the question why ‘capitalist’ systems endured, once-confident prophesies to the contrary notwithstanding. This led to a new concern with the role of the state which seemed somewhat forgotten in otherwise rival approaches of systems theory and economic determinism.41. A parallel debate arose on the extent to which political parties - notably Socialist ones42. - did affect government policies or not. A major element in the discussion became the degree to which states differed in their dependence on external economic forces, which could only be solved by comparative inquiry.43. Even when such studies related to European countries only, the obvious relevance of international economic structures and events brought scholars closer to those who had long been preoccupied with world economic realities (e.g. the proponents of a World Systems approach mentioned earlier).

A second major factor was the development of ‘neo-corporatism’. Originating to some extent from a transposition of an approach found useful in the study of Latin America, it won great acclaim in attempts to explain ‘Europe’, and possible differences within it.44. By emphasizing the close interaction between public and private actors, the neo-corporatist approach seemed successfully to bridge input and output structures, and to present a more realistic picture of power relations and policy-making than either those who had spoken uncritically of ‘the’ state,

or those who had embraced a naive ‘pluralism’, had been able to provide). Neo-corporatism became in Schmitter's words ‘something like a growth industry’. But the gap between ‘general’ theory and empirical validation remained substantial, to the detriment of the value of the approach as a tooi for general comparative analyses as distinct from the study of specific policy areas.

A third major contribution came from those who set out to analyse the development of the welfare state in comparative terms. On the one hand, this work fitted in well with the concerns of older development theorists: one should note the link between state expansion, economic policies and processes of political development which had characterized the work of German Kathedersozialisten and Nationaloekonomen; (re)distribution had been one of the paramount concerns of the Committee on Comparative Politics; and the leading empirical scholar in this field, Peter Flora saw his work as filling a gap in Rokkan's macro-model of democratic politics in Europe.45. On the other hand, comparative work on the welfare state was to encounter what was soon to become the major debate on its ‘fiscal crisis’, and on possible limits of state intervention more generally. The label ‘political economy’ was to cover a wide variety of concerns, ranging from rational choice paradigms based on individualist self-interest, to studies of specific policy areas, competing models of general economic and monetary and fiscal policy, and renewed debates on political legitimacy.

Great new challenges

But such challenges would seem to pale before the momentous changes taking place in what had been thought of as the Communist world, and the attendant shifts in contemporary international relations. In addition, the progress of European integration, however halting, is affecting the very basis of independent states as the unit of analysis on which so much of comparative politics has rested.

The long-standing assumption of a natural division of labour between the study of international relations engaged in analysing the interaction of states, and comparative politics concerned with the study of processes within states, always rested on somewhat dubious ground. It left unclear how scholars were to handle the formation of (new) states; it glossed over the great influence of domestic political processes on the making of foreign policies; it belittled what became known in the international relations literature as ‘transnational’ politics; and it postulated a degree of political independence for ‘sovereign’ states which never completely fitted the realities of an interdependent world (as advocates of a World System approach, dependency theorists and other political economy theorists had long maintained).

The division of the world into rival blocs had arguably permitted a certain separation of international relations and comparative politics. The assumption that existing states within a bloc remained distinct units of analysis seemed tenable in a world of relatively stable alliances (the necessary ceteris paribus qualification being as easily forgotten as it was given). The much more fluid international scene of today makes such an assumption rather more questionable.

At the same time, developments within the European Union increasingly un-

dermine the role of member states as independent units, even though international modes of decision-making remain juxtaposed to supranational ones. Powers of decision in vital matters are either shared or transferred to organs ‘beyond the nation-state’; while at the same time states also lose formal or effective powers to regional or local units. The ‘national’ power to control citizens, groups and enterprises becomes more dubious in a world of increased mobility and communication, affecting the status of individual ‘states’ as realistic units for comparative analysis.

But the greatest, if generally unexpected, challenge to comparative politics comes from events in Central and Eastern Europe. We mentioned earlier that the study of Communist states had become mainly the concern of a specialist group of scholars. Experts on Communism have largely lost their ‘subject’, although they have retained their knowledge of language and area. Scholars who were mainly concerned with the study of the development and the working of democracies, on the other hand, stand before an entirely new universe. Their concern had generally been with the comparative treatment of existing democratic states, which is a far cry from the making of new democracies in societies which have not known democratic rule for two political generations or more. For all the words spoken by pundits at symposia, in newspaper columns or journal articles, the extent to which proven knowledge exists is unclear.

The future of democracy presupposes at a minimum the creation of new institutions, but the brunt of comparative politics teaching since Weimar has tended to discount the independent effect of political institutions. Seemingly abstract debates on the merits of presidential, semi-presidential or parliamentary systems of government, on unicameral or bicameral legislatures, on electoral systems and their effect on the politicization of cleavages and the formation of party systems, on the proper role of judicial bodies, have become suddenly matters of crucial importance again. But they must function in areas with all the remnants of a totalitarian past, rival claims for political control and citizenship, possibly severe disagreements on the nature of the political unit itself - and all this amidst economic min and change. It is as if all major issues in the study of comparative politics are chaotically thrown together: the formation of states, the working of institutions, the rivalry of parties and groups, competing ideologies, the provision of state services and their limits, issues of economic interdependence, international power politics, and what not. Against this, one must ruefully acknowledge that basic political phenomena such as civil war, terror, ethnic conflict or the shattering effects of ideological strife have traditionally tended to fail in the interstices of the study of international relations, comparative politics and political theory, rather than forming their core.

Comparative politics, then, stands before its greatest challenge yet. Never before were so many fundamental questions raised at one and the same time about the development of democracy, democratic governance and related performances. In all honesty one should acknowledge that it provides few definite answers.


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