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Comparative Politics

Comparative Politics

Political Science: Fields in Political Science: Comparative Politics

Introduction to Comparative Politics

Comparative politics involves study of the politics of different countries. Some political scientists, known as area specialists, study a single country or a culturally similar group of nations, such as the countries of Southeast Asia. Area specialists tend to be versed in the language, history, and culture of the country or group of countries they study. Other political scientists compare culturally dissimilar nations, and investigate the similarities and differences in the politics of these nations. Political scientists who undertake these comparisons are often motivated by the need to develop and test theories-for example, theories of why revolutions happen. This may lead them to discover commonalities between countries that are widely separated and appear very different. For example, political scientists have found many similarities between the transitions from authoritarian rule to democracy in Latin America and Eastern Europe in the 1980s and 1990s.” (1)

Politics in General

Originally, “politics” comes from Ancient Greece, i.e. “polis, the city-state”. Politics is therefore “what concerns the state”.

The New Collins Concise English Dictionary defines politics as:

  • the art and science of directing and administrating states and other political units;
  • any activity concerned with the acquisition of power.

So, politics is the activity through which people make, preserve and amend the general rules under they live. On the other hand, people recognize that in order to influence these rules or ensure that they are upheld, they must work with others. This is why politics is often portrayed as a process of conflict resolution. There are some other more specific definitions which can be broken into four categories:

  • politics as the art of government;
  • politics as public affairs;
  • politics as compromise;
  • politics as power.

What is it called where people only listen to things that they agree with

A study (Disagreement and the Avoidance of Political Discussion: Aggregate Relationships and Differences across Personality Traits, by Alan S. Gerber, Gregory A. Huber, David Doherty, and Conor M. Dowling) shows that most people tend to limit conversations about politics to those who agree with their views: “Using data from a nationally representative survey of registered voters conducted around the 2008 U.S. presidential election … [we find that] people discussed politics as frequently as (or more frequently than) other topics such as family, work, sports, and entertainment with frequent discussion partners. … The frequency with which a topic is discussed is strongly and positively associated with reported agreement on that topic among these same discussion partners, … because people avoid discussing politics when they anticipate disagreement.”

In her book “Hearing the Other Side: Deliberative versus Participatory Democracy” Diana C. Mutz reached the same conclusions, adding that this trend is especially pronounced among people who are most interested in politics and have the most strongly held political views.

As John Stuart Mill famously put it, a truth-seeker “who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion… Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them… [H]e must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.”

Jason Brennan, in his book “The Ethics of Voting” argues that voters have an obligation to become informed about the policy issues at stake in an election and should try hard to evaluate the information they learn in an unbiased way. This is because voting decisions affect not only the individual voter, but all of society. He also contends that voters should focus on policy issues, not just on the candidates’ “character.”

In a 2008 Slate article, we can read:

“This has nothing to do with ideology. Politics isn’t about ideology. It’s about joining a team, and we judge fairness as partisans. In 1951, Princeton and Dartmouth students watched a film of a football game and were asked to take note of foul play. Princeton stalwarts saw all the penalties that should have been called on the Dartmouth players. Dartmouth students were convinced the refs missed clips and offsides committed by the Princeton players.

We judge politics the same ways as team members, not truth-seekers. Last week the Washington Post reported on a slew of experiments showing that political misinformation feeds people’s pre-existing beliefs.”

Ilya Somin, professor at George Mason University – Antonin Scalia Law School, has similar views in a paper posted in 2006. Here’s a brief relevant excerpt from the article (pp. 260-61):

[T]he theory of rational ignorance does not predict that voters will choose not to acquire any information at all. Rather it predicts that they will acquire very little or no information for purposes of voting However, some voters will acquire information for other reasons….

A useful analogy is to sports fans. Fans who acquire extensive knowledge of their favorite teams and players do not do so because they can thereby influence the outcome of games. They do it because it increases the enjoyment they get from rooting for their favorite teams. But if many of the citizens who acquire significant amounts of political knowledge do so primarily for reasons other than becoming a better voter, it is possible that they will acquire the knowledge that is of little use for voting, or will fail to use the knowledge they do have in the right way.

Here again, a sports analogy may be helpful. Committed Red Sox fans who passionately root against the Yankees are unlikely to evaluate the evidence about these teams objectively. The authors of one recent history of the Red Sox and Yankees note that they chose not to write “a fair and balanced look at the Red Sox-Yankees ‘rivalry,’” because “neither author of this book wanted to represent the Yankees [sic] point of view. . . . Neither of us could bring ourselves to say enough complimentary things about [the Yankees] to fill the back of a matchbox, let alone half a book” (Nowlin and Prime 2004, 4). . . Similarly, Democratic partisans who hate George W. Bush, and Republicans who reflexively support him against all criticism, might well want to acquire information in order to augment the experience of cheering on their preferred political “team.” If this is indeed their goal, neither group is likely to evaluate Bush’s performance in office objectively or accurately.

This intuition is confirmed by studies showing that people tend to use new information to reinforce their preexisting views on political issues, while discounting evidence that runs counter to them . . . Although some scholars view such bias as potentially irrational behavior . . . , it is perfectly rational if the goal is not to get at the “truth” of a given issue in order to be a better voter, but to enjoy the psychic benefits of being a political “fan.”

Author: Salvador Trinxet

Resources

Notes and References

  1. Information about Comparative Politics in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia

Further Reading

  • Putting Two and Two Together: Middle School Students’ Morphological Problem-Solving Strategies For Unknown Words, Mark B. Pacheco, Amanda P. Goodwin
  • Political discussions with family and friends: exploring the impact of political distance, Klaus Levinsen, Carsten Yndigegn
  • Do Disagreeable Political Discussion Networks Undermine Attitude Strength?, Joshua Robison, Thomas J. Leeper, James N. Druckman
  • Seeking the Soul of Democracy: A Review of Recent Research into Citizens’ Political Talk Culture, Rüdiger Schmitt-Beck, Oana Lup

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14 responses to “Comparative Politics”

  1. international

    What is it called where people only listen to things that they agree with is a popular issue in this global encyclopedia of law, in relation to politics. There are, also, many comments on what is it called where people only listen to things that they agree with. Good.

    Reply
  2. international

    Daniel Haggard
    People can certainly signal via disagreement. But what would the signalling be? And what is the utility of it?

    In the case of non-intimate agreement – presumably the signalling aims to demonstrate a a desire for group cohesion. And this has a high degree of utility – since getting along has many advantages.

    If agreement in the non-intimate sphere signals a desire for group cohesion – and if signalling is still going on in the intimate sphere – presumably it’s parsimonious to assume that disagreement signals a desire for a lack of cohesion (or a willingness to be seen as separate from the group)? (This amounts to a kind of compositionality thesis for signalling).

    But what is the utility of this? I don’t see it.

    Reply
  3. international

    As a sub-question, when and under what circumstances do the minority of people who readily talk politics with those they disagree with regardless of family relationship do so? Also, how can one objectively measure emotional stability? I prefer to talk politics with people I disagree with. I find it hard to believe I’m all that unique within the general populace.

    Reply
  4. international

    Gulliver

    I certainly can’t speak for anyone else. But in real life, if I encounter someone who I find I agree with, I’ll scan through different topics until I find a point of disagreement and then focus on that. Online the scanning is just more literal. In either context, there’s no profit in powwowing about how much we all agree. The goal of conversation, online or offline, is to extract useful information. If I already have it, I don’t need to extract it.

    Reply
  5. international

    Nathan P.

    The argument that the parties represent differing philosophies is becoming increasingly untenable in light of the extreme policy continuity between George Bush and Barrack Obama. People who believe there is a difference between the parties in the US are either not paying attention, or are directly in favor of the establishment-as-is and need to admit that up front. They may want to change the way the government handles a single issue, but they don’t want to change the government as such. Only such a narrow vision can pick out the differences between the parties.

    Arguing that there’s any ‘striking conflict in goals and methods’ was more tenable a decade ago. It was wrong then too, but not glaringly wrong. The argument was comprehensible and well-supported. It was, in short, plausible. That isn’t true anymore. Perhaps once upon a time the argument wasn’t just plausible but was actually true. It is not hard for me to believe that the parties once served a purpose. Yet it is not controversial to say that only fanatical single-issue voters who are fully informed on their one issue can reliably pick out the differences now.

    There’s nothing wrong with being an avid single-issue voter. Even when you or I may disagree with them, we should concede that they are likely to have satisfied the requirement of being informed before they vote. Yet more balanced outlooks need not be “extremism” to realize that the parties constitute at most a grey and gray conflict. I suspect that most of the people who think seriously about the concept of voter ethics have such an outlook.

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  6. international

    Is there any evidence for the claim that informed voters cast votes for candidates or policies that produce superior outcomes to the votes cast by uninformed voters, or is this just assumed? Recall William F. Buckley’s remark that he’d rather be governed by the first two thousand names in the phone book than by the faculty of Harvard University.

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  7. international

    Uninformed voters — this smacks of the massively uninformed dismissiveness toward people who cling to their guns and their religion. There is a vast difference between being ignorant of the many details of government operations, economics, foreign policy, future events, etc., as all of us are to a greater extent than we like to think, and being able to decide who or what party should, in one’s opinion and given one’s core values, run the government for a couple of years.

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  8. international

    It is made even more complicated by the fact that politicians are frequently dishonest and/or inconsistent (and have incentives to be this way), and by the fact that parties and candidates hold a grab bag of various positions. To make an informed vote a voter would have to not only understand by policies issues but also investigate the backgrounds of the various changing slates of candidates and determine how they are likely to vote on issues, including new issues that were never raised during the campaign. A voter could know as much or more about every policy issue as anyone yet still be unable to make an informed vote in an election.

    Reply
  9. international

    I think most people like to associate with like-minded people and hear their own views reinforced by others who express similar opinions partly because it reinforces their self-worth and self-esteem. “I know I am right and you agree.” It takes someone who enjoys argument and debate to seek out contrary views, and respond to them, which is why many of the good professors here like to post and solicit comments–they are used to civilized argument and like to encourage it.

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  10. international

    The first and most dangerous harm is that speech codes and ridiculous “free speech zones” make students far too comfortable with restrictions on their freedom of speech. In a recent case at the University of Cincinnati, for example, libertarian students were restricted to only 0.1 percent of campus when they wished to collect signatures for a ballot initiative, and were threatened with police action if they strayed outside those boundaries. Further, I argue that frankly creepy indoctrination programs like the one run out of the University of Delaware teach students that censorship of “wrong” opinions is what good and educated people should do. The combination of a lack of awareness of our basic rights and the belief that freedom of speech is an impediment to, rather than a necessary component of, social progress poses a long-term threat to our freedom.

    Reply
  11. international

    I agree that the use of easy tactics to avoid debate is common, but I do not regard it as a problem. There are times and places where debate, or debate on certain issues, is simply not appropriate.

    If I’m looking for a debate, I go to news media or blog sites which I feel address the desired topic in a fair manner (or allow readers to do so). But the other 90% of the time, when I’m going to the office, running errands, and so forth, I mostly don’t want to hear it — and if some pushy debater insists that I listen to him/her at those times, I reserve the right to shut him/her up with a real or metaphorical slap in the face, as hard as it takes.

    If a legal rule is needed, “who owns the forum” is good enough for me, so long as it’s possible for any group to get one at a reasonable cost. But lots of places simply aren’t, and shouldn’t become, forums at all.

    As far as the “deeper” issue that people are evading debate: Most people have already decided their views, and right or wrong, it will take substantial time and effort to make them change. And if modern technology has changed that at all, it’s made us all more stubborn by enabling even those with fringe views to find others like them and ignore everyone else. To me this is a good thing, but a side effect is that anywhere you go in public these days, you can easily become surrounded by crazies who won’t leave you alone. Thus, “keep quiet” rules for public spaces are becoming more and more necessary, and as long as they are content-neutral nobody should object to them.

    Reply
  12. international

    Lucia liljegren

    Obviously, one way people can avoid meaningful debate by simply remaining silent. Loki noted that people have a perfect right to do that. In fact, to some extent people need to do that to avoid wasting too much time.

    But I think one interesting phenomema is people expending their own time and energy to prevent others from expressing and defending contrary positions in public. These can be observed in blog comments– especially at blogs where some visitors might be motivated by the desire to inhibit the discussions occuring in comments.

    Suppose in a public forum, Party A introduces a subject takes a position and presents some argument for that position. Most visitors to that forum wish to discuss the issue raised and history suggests they might do so. Some of the more subtle , possibly sophisticated, ways party B might try to prevent the discussion by

    1) Changing subject by
    a) Asking questions that are irrelevant to the subject introduced by A and then repeatedly complaining that A doesn’t answer them. (Answering the questions might not prevent party B from complaining questions were not answered. )
    b) Simply going off in another direction or tangent. Party B might decree that their subject is exactly the one raised or decree or that it is more important that the one introduced by A and challenges A to engage this new subject. (Simon Phearson’s comment here is an example of this sort of thing. Note: He also posed questions to try to take people away from the main subject onto what might be considered a subsidiary detail. )

    2) Providing no counter argument to A’s position merely expressing “concern” that A expressing A’s position outloud might cause some more naive person somewhere “out there” to “misunderstand” or become “confused”.

    3) Providing no counter argument to A’s position but expressing “disappointment” that A would spend time airing the position A holds.

    4) Suggesting “A” can’t criticize “C” unless they have spent enough time criticizing “D”. (Example: At one point in a discussion, a blogger criticized me for criticizing Stephan Lewandowsky because I haven’t spent enough time criticizing Monckton. )

    5) I see Popehat also includes arguing by ridicule as a method to avoid debate. (Arguing by ridicule frequently does not work in comments. It can also backfire almost anywhere. For example in this version, Michael Mann tries to suggest people who doubt his claim of winning a Nobel Peace Prize are equivalent to Birthers: https://twitter.com/Michael… . Mann’s tweet is being met with counter-ridicule. )

    Less sophisticated methods that visitors to fora might use to inhibit debate of a topic involve:
    1) Riddling any response with personal insults.
    2) Visiting repeatedly to decree that only experts are permitted to debate certain topics and/or that debate is only permitted in certain fora (e.g. scholarly journals. )
    3) Throwing around accusations of “Dunning-Krueger” to hide the fact that one can’t think of a good counter argument to a position.

    Methods that migth be available to administrators of oneline fora (or even the physical world) can include:
    1) Moderating people for holding contrary arguments so their arguments can only be presented with a time delay.
    2) Banning people for merely holding contrary positions.
    3) Using the ability to responded ‘inline” to fragment a visitors counter arguments and/or simply make sure the administrators rebuttal is always immediately available to readers while visitors counter arguments might be difficult to locate.

    (Of course, the banning/moderating functions of administrators are often required to deal with people who behave badly. But they can be used to avoid argument altoghether.)

    Those are the main methods I can think of for not only avoiding debate but derailing fruitful debates. Note that all of these differ from merely presenting bad counter arguments and they don’t involve someone merely budgeting time by avoiding fora they consider unimportant or uninteresting. These are examples of people specifically visiting a particular forum and acting to occupy the time and attention of visitors to that forum while not engaging the point introduced.

    Reply
  13. international

    Walter

    We don’t really debate as a society. We just keep repeating our positions at each other. Anyone wanting to have a focused, reasoned debate on a specific topic will find himself in the role of Diogenes, walking the earth with his lamp looking for one honest person to debate.

    Main dodges I come across most often: Attacking the debater, instead of probing the topic; Responding to a challenge by deflecting to a completely different
    topic (“Kids are obese!”…”Soda is bad for you!”…”But our founding fathers promised freedom! Why are you denying my freedom by questioning the right of me to buy soda?”); Ditto for making the debate personal – not attacking the debater, so much as claiming you’re fundamentally being persecuted by the question even being posed; Openly ridiculing even bringing up the point for debate in the first place – which is putting a pet position on an unassailable pedestal.

    And the most common one, deciding rather than honestly considering an opposing viewpoint, debating merits, and being open to modifying one’s own position… deciding that it isn’t important after all, just a waste of time,
    who cares anyway…. (a form of self-lobotomy caused by a fear of being thought to be “wrong”.)

    Biggest challenge I find, though – is to locate a person with enough knowledge of the facts at hand to have an actual debate on them. Responding with actual quotes and information usually stifles discussion with those afraid to be shown up as ignorant on a topic. (What *should* happen is people acknowledge the lack of information, and proceed to fact-find from the person asking the question, and then later, from other sources. “I don’t know” is a valid response, if followed up by seeking to gain that knowledge.)

    The universe is, at a minimum, relatively infinite. There is no way we’re going to have all the answers on all things, which means the universe fundamentally contains the ubiquitous element of the unexpected surprise.

    Reply
  14. international

    There were some civilian casualties the first few nights in places like Haret Hreik, but people quickly left the area to the Hezbollah fighters with their radios and motorbikes.” The day the Israelis begin fighting like Hizballah is the day the Israelis lose the very thing they are fighting for.

    Reply

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