1

Comparative Government
and Politics : Meaning, Scope,
Evolution and Problems
Comparative Government ·and Politics is one of the main
branches of the study of politics:· It is as old as Political Science itself.
Aristotle for the frrst time employed·the comparative ·method when he
studied 158 -Constitutions in an, effort to ·determine how the social and
economic environment affected political institutions arid·politics. ·Since
then this approach has been used by·, ri1any· scholars to ·develop an
understanding of how different institutional mechanisms work within
their contexts and to develop general theories and suggestions· about
goven1.mce.

Meaning and Scope

·Tue · -general meaning of ·· comparing -is to etarhirte
• !

simultaneously "Similarities and differenc·es -·or -two or 'more ·objects,

situations, phenomenon, etc. In ·scientific terms/ it is comparing and
quantifying similarities and 'aifferenc'es· betwe·en· objects~·of~thcf·'same
category, so as to distinguish between 'the universai' and the specific; the
recurrent ·and the accidental. In this sense in ·Political -Scienc·e, :the
esse'rlce of comparative government and politics is to compare th~ ·ways
in which different societies cope with various problems, the role of the
political structures involved being of particular interest. I ..
Iri its limited sense the term Comparative Go~ernment has also
been use~ for the study of any fype of political phenomenon ih a society,
area or state outside the one in which the student or the scholar lives.
This meaning is not acceptable to most scholars of comparative politics.
At the most this can be called as' area studies: . The function of
comparative study is to relate polit'ical_ phenomena ·found in diverse
settings by identifying and explaining uniformities and differences. In
other words, Comparative Politics as a discipline may'be described as the
study of the similarities and differences in the macro-political institutions
 2 Comparative Government and Politics

of the countries of the world, including the attempt to account for the
patterns of country variations. 2 In this sense comparative politics, as
R.C. Macridis suggests, can be referred to as one of the techniques of
inquiry by which one can understand or answer questions about patterns
of human relationships that involves' to a significant extent, power, rule,
authority, etc. According to Prof~R3lph .Braibanti, "the ultimate aim of
comparative political analysis stated briefly is, : From the experiences of
separate political systems ·in different • stages of development and in
different cultures, hypothesis of a political process of presumptive
universal validity may be verified. and from this theories of politics may
emerge." In this sense, logically comparisons across space can be
mad:e between local :govemme~t units .pr regions pr (ederal state~ within
a country and cross-time comparison of th~ past .a nd present can ,be
undertaken within a ~ation~ 3 Yet .in e:v~ry&,y·use-the term Comparative
Politi~ . .refe,rs to ,comparative, ~tudie~ of different .countries. , It is
~asically an attempt .to interpret states, how.they persist and .how they
perform. .

Importance of Comparative Politics

As has been mentioned above, Comparative appr(?~ch is almos~
as old as the -study of Politics is. , ~ince Aristotle, students of
Comparative Politics ha~e ~Jys~d -the .nat4re. and quality. of Po~itical
regimes, the behaviour of.rulers and their relationship with the ruled, -~e
m:anner..in ,which rules, ~e d,ete~e~ made and . e~ecuted, .the w~y. in
wlµch t9nflicts are decided or arbitrated, conditions of politica~ stability
and the causes of change, the factors affecting politjcal .de.cisions, and the
values held by political communities. 4 Fact is tha~ sinc~ .a9cient.- times
. men have marvelled at the div~rsity of poli~ical , sy,s tems and
governmental institutions. Scholars have struggl~d .t~ bring~s~m~'. ,degree
of order ~nd intelligent disc~iminati~n oµt of this bewildering variety:
And in t;his, study of compa~tive government and poJitics has helped a .
lot.
According to Gabriel A . .l\lmond .and G. Bingham P,owell, Jr.
the .stuqy of comparative pol~,!iFs s~!"'es in two ways. first it offers a
p~r~p~ctive . o~ , our . own i_nsti~tions. Examining politics ~n other
societies permits us to see a wider range of political alternatives. Thus
it illuminates. ~irtues, the shortcomings, · and the possibilities in
our owp P.Q_l1tical hfe. . Second, co_!!}p_?rative analysis helps to develop
 Meaning, Scope. Evolution And Problems
3
explanations and to test theories of the way in h. h ..
• . w tc pohttcal
work. Hence the logic and mtention of the com . processes
. . I . . . ·1
by po I1t1ca scientists are s1m1 ar to those used in parattve methods . used
• more exact science
such as astronomy and biology. The political scie t· . s,
. . I .. n ist cannot design
expenments to mampu ate political arrangements d b
· • . an o serve the
consequences. But 1t 1s possible to describe and e 1 • h .
· · of ev~nts found m
combinations · the politics
. . in differentxp am. t. e diverse
. . . .. · societies.
Anstotle, m his Pohtics, contrasted the econ · d .
. om1es an socral
structures of many Greek city-states in an effort to determ· h
. . . me ow the
social an4 econoffilc env1~o_nment affected political institutions and
policies. A modem poht1cal scientist, Robert Dahl, in his stud
Polyarchy, co~pares the economic characteristics, the cultures and th~
historical expene~ces of more than one hundre~ contemporary nations -in
an effort to discover ~e combinations Qf con~jtfons and _characteristics
that are associated with ~emoc~acy. Other theorists past and- ,present,
have_ compared monarchies with. democracies, ~onstitu_tional regimes.
with tyrannies, two party democracies with ~ulti party democracies.-and
the like, 93 they attempt to explain the difference_s between the processes
and achievements of political systems.. . _ _. _
Comparative analysis, then, accorqing Jo Almond :and Powell, .i~
a powerful and versatile tool. · It eajiances .our ~bility to,.describe ·and
understand the politics in any country - including ·our own - by offering
concepts and reference points from a broasfer persp~ctive. ·Uy;taking· tis .
out of the network of assumptiQns ~nd ·familiar-iarrangements within
which we u~ually operate, it ~elps e,~pand-- ·Q~r -awareness .. of the
possibilities of politics. The comparative approach!also stimulates us to ·
form genera~ theories of ,political relationships. -. ·It~encourages a111d
enables us, moreover, to test our poljtical the.oi_jes by confroqting-
tliem with the experience of many, institutions and. settings.5 . Scholars
have drawn very useful conclusions using tqe ,comparative techniques, in
many areas. For example the effect of different e~~wtoral systems 0n the
party system is fairly well underst90.d from wide ranging co_mpariso~s· ·
and prepjctive theoi:ies have been developed whi.ch work quite w,11 m ·.
relation~hip to membership . of coalitions . in · multi-party systems..
Simi~arly it is thro.u.gh the use of the comparative method ~hat we loc~te .
the recurrence of certain events and attempts to find solutions for thet?J.
With the emergence of new independent 11ations as a, result of
· decolonisation during last 50 years or so .t~e use and impq_rt.?nce of
 . ('ompamtive Govemmcnt and Politics
4
. l't' has become more significant. These new
comparative po 1 ics . bl . .
· t·ons are facing a number of common pro ems m theu
deve Iopmg na 1 , .
. n and sta·te building and development and transformation.
tasksof nat10 . . . .
The value uf comparative analysis ts that 1t enables
generalisations about politics to be ?~th dev~lo~ed _~nd tested. After
describing and explairting how particular mstttuttons an~ ·processes
operate, we can proteed from the specific information ~btamed ~o ~ose
questions of a middle range or general na~re _or to frame gene~ahsattons
about different kinds of political systems. We can ask questions as to
the extent and ways in which systems are democratic, their level of
political development, their degree of stability or effectiveness in making
'decisions or the manner in which polftical ideologies influence their
policy. Comparative study in a way gives political scientists a method
like used in natural sciences to ·conduct experiments. Because iri politics
precise experiments are , hardly possibl'e · less rigorous forms · of
, comparisons provide , the alternative. .' ··1n. ~ffect, the: world is the
laboratory that provides· a varkty of experience ·from which 'political
1

scientists can hope to build '~ better ·understanding . of tlie nature ·o,f
politics:, A broad world-wide . eiarriihation'
I of' 'political exp~rience
permits generalisations and the identification of'fendencies ·and perhaps
even:contihuities.6 As such studf·o(·c'ompafative"~gove~ent and
politics is useful to us in a number ofways. · ' .,_, ·,:::;- ···· ·

Evolution and Development of Comiiarative P91itics·

· It has been mentioned :above that ·c'omparati~e' politics is one of
the oldest forms of the study of politics, tracing ·-its ' toots back to• I

Aristotle. However: during the course of history · this , method''has

w.itnessed·various developments both in 'tenns ·of scope and approaches
to the study. Aristotle is said tO' have employ~d the' comparative method
in his study of 158 Constitutions. He studied·'l 58 Constitutioris of Greek
city s~tes defined in broad terms ·as·the mode of life which incfoded not
only the political institutions of a community ·but ·distribution of wealth,
the religions myths and the education and the 'leisure of its citizens. ' On
th~ ba~is of his study he described the forms of governments . as
Kmgsh1p, T~ranny, Aristocracy, Oligarchy, Polity and Democracy. In a
~ay t~e ~rher co~parativists were concerned with the ·study of political
orga~1sattons ·a~d institutions of governments of as many countries ·as
possible on a smgle scale a?d by means of a uniform criteria. Thus the
Meaning. Scope. Evo/11tion And Problems 5

comparisons were confined to the superstructures of some governmental

structures and departments. In that context it was called. comparative
government.
Even during the modem period upto the early years of the
twentieth century the meaning and scope of comparative government
was primarily the study of foreign governments, based on the old idea of
philosophy that knowledge of the self is gained through knowledge of
others. Later, study of political processes and behaviour was also
included 1n it. But the analysis of constitutional institutions and
processes like political parties or electoral behaviour relied on
comparisons which had the advantage -of being limited in the socio
cultural sense. This, too, till the beginning of 1960s, was limited either
to .the west, to -the so-called authoritarian .regimes of Central and Eastern
Europe or in very rare cases to Latin America. Most of early
comparativists were English speaking, and a majority American. Not
s~risingly their early writings did not extend far beyond comparative
examinations of American and European '.pplities. · .Thus till the
beginning of twentieth century and to an extent, \!pto the p~riod of
Second World War the comparative approach was limited both in terms
of scope and space. Their limitations according to Roy_C. M.acridis and
Bernard Brown7 were following:. ,, , . . ,
1. It dealt primarily with a single• culture configuration, i.e., the
Western world.
2. Within this cultural configuration, comparative study dealt
mainly with representative democracies, until . recently treating
non democratic systems as aberrations from the. democratic
norms.
3. This approach prevented the student from · dealing
systematically not only with non-dP,mocratic. western political
systems, but also with colonial systems, other backw.ard areas,
and culturally distinct societies that super.ficially exhibit the
characteristics of the representative process. _
4. Research was founded on the study of isolated aspects of the
governmental process within specific countries, hence it wa.s
comparative in name only.
Another aspect is that the comparative study of. politics was
excessively formalistic in its approach to political institutions. Because
of this it had following limitations:
 Comparative Government
and p01;,.
l('3
6
. the formal institutions of goveillrn
It focused analysis on phisticated awareness of the i ;nt, to
1. . nt of a so . n,o""'
the detnme . ty and of their role m the fonnat· ··••al
ts of soc1e ion
arra_n~emen d the exercise of power. .• of
dec1s1ons a~ h informal arrangements, 1t proved t0
2. In neg .lectmg sue · · l determmants
'bl to the non pohtica · of po)" . be
relatively msenhs1 . e to the non political bases of governmlhcaJ
behaviour and ence enta1
instituti~ns. made in terms of the formal constituti
C0 mpanson was . . onaJ
3. systems that in parliaments, chief executiv
spects of western d . es,
a_ . . dministrative law an so non which are n
civil services, a 1y comparativot
st fruitful concepts ,or a tru
necessary the mo . · e
study. 1· . . h d
The comparative study of po _1t1cs, as sue was prepon er~ntly
. . ther than problem solvmg, e,<:planatory, or analytic in
descnpt1ve ra . • . h ·· .
. th d Even in the purely descnpnve _approac it was relatively
its me o . I hr l •·
. . .. t the methods of cultura ant opo ogy, 1n which
msens1ttve · o
uescnp
..1 • -
110ns a
re tirui·tfully made in terms of general concepts on
,integrating hypothesis.

Post-Second War Trends

From the period after second World· War, -there emerged two
developments. One was the new trends in -the study ·bf social sciences,
popularly known as behavioural revolution. .In this .there·was a desire,
particularly among American Political scientists, · that the study of
Politics should strive to become an exact, value free science. -It was an
attempt to make political science a really "science· like" discipline.
Behaviouralism, in comparative politics, opened up the study of what we
may call thl.! contextual factors within which political structures and
fonns develop and political roles flourish.
The central assumption of the behaviouralists was, in Eulau's
words, that "~h~ root is man". Institutions provide no mote than the
framewor~ withm which political actors play the political game. Hence,
the be_havioural approach represented a shift in the ·unit of political
ana Iys1s from institutions tO m
· d'1v1duals
· from structure to :process from
government to politics I dd . . , ' .
behav·· . · n a Ihon to change in the unit of analysis,
10ura11sts also emph • d . . .
quantitat·1ve rather than asise. . explanaition·
.
rather than descnption,
qua 1itative evidence and the similarities rather
Menning. Scope, Evolution And Problems 7

than the differences between politics and the other social sciences. In
essence, behaviouralism applied to the study of politics the systematic
and generalising approach which emerged in many of the social sciences
8
after the Second World War.
Thus, borrowing in great part from sociology and anthropology,
behaviouralism emphasised careful definitions of the empirical problems
to be investigated and the formulation of and testing of hypothesis. It
sharpened the tools of analysis by introducing new techniques - surveys,
interviewing, the compilation of aggregate data in an effort to provide
correlations between various socio economic and psychological factors
and political behaviour. 9 The claim was that behaviouralism made the
subject genuinely comparative and explanatory in__scope. However, in
due course there emerged significant limitations of behaviouralism.
These sha.ll be discussed later in this chapter.
The second significant development of the post war period was
_the emergence of a large number of new states as .a .result of the process
of decolonisation~ These new states variously described as Third World,
developing, or underdeveloped· states posed ·new . challenges .before
poljtical scientists. Therefo~e, efforts _began to , be made to frame
classifications and categories that could incl11;de the -new.er .nation states
within the scope of universal generalisati9ns. This was important for
two reasons. First, obviously, witlt the -end of colonialism political space-
could no longer be artificially confined to the. weste~ world. - Secondly,
the new international ~rder whi9h the ;great po,wers-, were trying,_ to.
establish .depended upon an .assµIllption .that. all the world's-societies
were converging towards a single ·model of modem industrial society,
which, whether capitalist or socialist, came t~ determine political
research strategies. Politic.al analysi&, th_ertfqre, had to b~come
developmentalist in order to take account of both the universality of the
western political model and the underdeveloped nature of different
models and practices. Thus comparison came_to involve showing their
divergence, th~ir backwardness or their _failure in relation to a -knQwn
type of established political order. Alongwith these, there also emerged
a need .to study and analys the problems and_issues relating to the
struggle for power at different levels.
It may be mentioned here that while accommodation of third
world countries in the study of comparative politics was prompted by the
 Compnrntive Govern,,, entand p .
8
. host of newly independent nations had . .
fact that by the 19~0,s ~ty it was a)S(j important that these Joined the
.
1nternat10. 'nal communt ' the cap1tahst
k ts for . , economies. . There"count...:
•11cs
'd d new mar e . . •Ore
prov• e . articularly the U.S.A were keen that th ' thc
capitalist countrtes, ~hould follow the example of the West in: new1y
independ~nt nalhdo:-ratic plumlist polities, reating
modern, hbera .he.,..Je· ""the above two deve . . I01>rttents
. . the post s
m
. As a w o . ._. . .. . . . econd
. 'od made corttparat1ve pohttcs a very stgmficant fi
World ~Wr ·.fpen · tudy. These at the same . time·
, . brou. . g.ht important
. deb ield
and ,met o s · . . . ates
. . _ d . pp·ro·-achts and tools used .for the studies. These deb
with re ar to a · .. . ates
are still on. ·

Post Behavioural Era · revolution m

The behavioural . pohttcal
.. .
science, no doubt had
many beneficial ,effects. It rejected ·exd~~ive realisation on ~ormative
speculations, and judgement about pob~ca! phenomena without the
~nefit of careful measurements. · It brought m c?mparattve method the
need to subject the postulates to.a critical examination, demanding clarity
of ,definition and terms. But behaviouralism went wrong in making
political science a pure empiricist science. On the one hand its efforts
were ,to-build grand theories and on the other extreme to study what may
well be,calted political trivia. Because of,too ~much -stress on science,
value free .politics and its failure to study the pressing social artd political
issues empirical political science began to attract criticism.
- From 1970s there , started ·a ·revival of interest in -normative
issues. 'There was a realisation of"the need to qualify·and·re·consider .
1

quest for a science of politics in the ·full sense of the ·term. . Politics is a
p11oblem solving mechanism; our study must deal with it arid' not with the
laws surrounding behaviour. The ultimate goal of the ·natural science
has ,been .to control nature. The higher the level of generalisation that
subsu~e~ a number of measurable· ·relationships, · the higher the
potenhahty of control. It is the other way around with politics. The
stuclY of _politics explicitly diverse knowledge from 1 action and
und~rsta0dmg from control. The laws·· that we constantly seek will 10
tell
us l~~le about our political problems and ·what to do about them. In
0
addition to this
. real·isa t·ion, with
· the passmg·
• away ·of'the ·shadows f
second· world
. war, re-emergence of 'Europe, and cns1s
•· · ;•1n.· the\"id·..eo1ogies
of socia1ism and Marx·ism brought about a new flu1d1ty • • m · po 1·1t1ca
· 1
Meaning, Scope, Evolittion and Problems
9

ideologi_es: There had emerged new social movements both in liberal

and sociahst states as well as in developing nations. Thus came a new
resurgence in Political Science popularly known as post-behaviouralism.
Post-behaviouralism did not reject the scientific tools or
empirical methods began during the behavioural era. What it did was
that it brought to light that substance must precede technique. It is
1

more important to be relevant and meaningful for contemporary urgent

problems than to be sophisticated in the tools of investigation. Study
should not be based exclusivel~• ')n facts. It should also accord place for
values. Political understanding cannot escape the history of tradition.
Knowledge is a part of the tradition and the process of understanding
aspects of the world contributes to our self-understanding. Theory is
concerned with both abstract theoretical questions and particular political
i~sues. In this _context the contemporary Po~itical Science, according to
David Held 'is involved in four distinct tasks: Firstly, it is philosophical
i.e. it is ··concerned with the normative and ~onceptual framework;
secondly, it is empirical i.e., it is concerned with the problem of
understanding and explanation of the concepts, thirdly, it is historical
i.e., it is concerned with the examination of the key concepts of political
theory in historical context, and finally, it is strategic, i.e., it is concerned
with an assessment of the feasibility of moving from we are to where we
might likely to be.

The Contemporary Scene .

From the above discussion it becomes clear that comparative
politics has been emerging is the most comprehensive and theoretical
branch of political science. It has developed in a striking fashion ~uring
the past war period. As Macridis and Brown point out familiarisation
has taken place in both horizontal and vertical terms. Horizon'tally, the
world has indeed become our universe. Eurocentric approach no longer
prevails. Vertically, it has gained depth. No other branch of Political
Science has made so much effort to relate the state to society and to seek
detenninants of political phenomena in the larger socio econom_ic matrix
as comparative politics has done. Especialiy important has been the
interest in modernisation and its socio economic dete1minants or
correlates. The dialogue has been refined. Institutions and their
perforn1ance are related to multiplicity of inputs like perceptions,
aspirations, outlooks, interests, claims, etc.
 Comparative Go ver ,,,e
11
JO Ill <IIJd
. . b. . Po1;,t
Much more attention 1s emg given to the c,
• a model designed to encompass all the regirn necessit},
constrUctmg b es Whi or
In the contemporary world. New pro lems are being raised c~ exist
. u· of new generations, the appearance of new nat· With the
asp1ra on5 tons a
. t f economic development. As a whole both for pract· nd the
1mpac o - . 1caJ a
mic reasons, the study of comparative government d s Well
as acade - e a maior branch of study wit. h sc hoIars working an Pol"ltics
.
has be com
0
. n detail
problems and theones. Cd

Problems and Limitations .

While the study of comparative governments and poJi . .
. . . I Th . tics is
very important, 1t also 1s qmte comp ex. ere are vanous proble .
. ts . . Ins lll
the course of ~tudymg govemmen m_ . a comparative perspective.
Particularly from the secpnd half of twentieth century when institutions
and processes of government have ~~come more compl~x the students of
·comparative government and poht1cs _have been facmg ~~nsiderable
difficulties. Important of these difficulties can be described as related to
(a) the practical problems of information-gathering, (b) range of
variables, and (c) the inter-connection between law and the pattern of
behaviour.
(a) Problem of information-gathering: Cross-national a~alysis has
become very difficult because sometimes we do not get the necessary
information we want. Some countries are open, others .are not.
Knowledge can be obtained easily in Western countries .:which have the
high standard of public information dissemination out in the totalitarian
countries it may not be possible to get the required information easily.
However, no country can be totally open or closed. Even the totalitarian
countries have to publish certain facts in order to achiev~ their goals. It
is difficult for them to conceal who belongs to the government.
Conversely, in Western democracies there can be relatively a large
number of fields where the access to infom1ation is limited or prohibited.
For instance, matters concerning defence, foreign affairs and national
s.ecurity may not be disclosed in '_public interest'.
Serious difficulties are further encountered in collecting data
due to the lack of standard and precise definition of various important
concepts and terms. For example, suppose a student wants to compare
the role of the legislatures in various countries:; he can do so only if he
Meaning, Scope, Evolution and Problems
II

knows what 'influence' these bodies still have on 'policy decisions'.

(It is often s'aid that the executives have increased their power in the
twentieth century.) The 'influence' on 'policy decisions' can be
compared only if we have precise definitions of these terms, but no such
definitions are readily available·. Again, it is easy to measure the
number of amendments passed by a chamber and consider whether the
government accepted or rejected these amendments, but it is not easy to
say whether the governments accepted them 'spontaneously',
'gracefully' or otherwise. 11
Further, it becomes difficult to collect the required information
because· of the 'unique' character of certain institutions. There is no
counterpart of British Prime Minister, German Chancellor or American
President. A student of cross-national studies of the Ghief Executives is
iri a fix. If he does not take into account these 'unique' offices his study
will not be -complete and if he wants to take these into account, his work
simply·becomes a succession of monographs on various chief executives.
It no longer remains a comparative study. -- ·
Besides extracting information from unwilling governments
accounting for the 'unique' elements, lack of precise definitions, there
can be methodological problems also. A student of comparative politics
will have to contend with such difficulties.
(b) Range of Variables: The range of va·riables which enter in~o the
a
definitions of a political system also makes it difficult to make . precise
analysis. The specific pattern of any political system is .shaped . by -~
number of factors ranging from "economic conditions to the climate,
from geographical characteristics to historical accidents". 12 The more
one moves towards comparative analysis, the more complete it becomes.,
Today the single variable explanations are almost wholly discarded. For
instance, simplified Marxist and neo-Marxist explanations are not
accepted universally since these have limited 'explanatory' value.
Instead of looking for one factor accounting for all the variations
between governments, modem writers have turned to multi-variable
approach, but the problem of method still remains. Some variables can
be measured easily with precision. Some socio-economic factors can be
related to political systems. For instance, it is possible to measure the
extent to which the growth of an urban working class in a given system
has affected the rise of socialist parties in Western Europe. Other
11 Compnrntive Go vernment nnd Politio

factors cannot be measured so precisely. The French Revolution in

t 789 and other such historical developments can have a deep impact on a
given policy at a given moment but not on other policies. It is difficult
to measure the impact of these unique historical events adequately.
A student taking into account all the possible variables finds it
difficult to ascribe relative ·weights' to them. It is not possible to find
out whether the presence of a large Communist Party in France is due to
economic factors or to social variables or to cultural characteristics.
There are different schools of thought in this respect making it difficult
to combine variables of this kind. Some students prefer to concentrate
on one system only in order to understand it better; a few others bave
tried to bridge the gap between the socio economic explanation on one
hand and the cultural explanati<:ms on the other hand. Political scientists
have begun to analyse the simi_larities and differences ~etween the
various political cultures with the help of survey techniques. Now it has
become possible to compare the characteristics of Anglo-Saxon culture
with those of the French or any other: . One can DO\\'. isolate a number of
general political ~r civic attitudes and find out whethe~-the citizens of
other systems share these attitudes or not. Thus an attempt can be made
to introduce the ·unique' aspects in comparative model.
Often the study of the citizens' attitudes is not objective - rather
it is culture-bound. The cultural indicators are devised by the political
scientists who tend to be culture-bound themselves. Therefore, the
culture of the country concerned may not be found. The difficulty
accounts _for the limitations of various models used in comparative
analysis. One can only ~ope that the dilemma between general
comparative study and a detailed study of individual governments shall
at least be minimised, if not fully avoided.
(c) Inter-connection between Norms, Institutions and Behaviour:
The study of comparative government has bec~me complex because it is
concerned with nom1s and strnctures and the extent to which the nonns
and structures are .natural or imposed. The question can be put in other
words whether the practice conforms to the theory or whether the theory
corresponds to reality or not. Comparative analysis has to contend with
norms, institutions and behaviour but the relationship between these is
not simple. Some structures may be the product of certain types of
no~s ?ut these can be used in different ways. For example, the
leg1slat1ve assembly may be a channel of information for the executive
Meaning. Scope. Evolurion and Problems /3

or it may be a tool through which consensus among the members of a

community is maintained or it may be a part of the decision making
process.
"Two types of social processes play important role in this
context". First, institutions can be "imported" and are in fact
"imported" because structures are adopted in one country and are
imitated by other countries. British and American institutions in the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the Soviet one-party system, etc.,
have all been imitated by many countries in a distorted way and in
different fom1s. Therefore, it has become difficult to make an analysis
of the various countries with similar structures. Seco~d, deliberate
imposition of a form of government leads to tensions in a system. It
becomes very difficult to implement these deliberately imposed new
arrangements. Various political resources like repression, authority or
legitimacy, etc., are employed.
Comparative study of govemmen~ and politics, thus faces a
number of problems. But this does not tend to suggest that the study of
comparative government is impossible. With the emergence of new
approaches and methods of study new vistas have been opened and some
problems have been taken care of. More and more scholars are finding it
useful to study the problems facing both the world in general and
individual countries specifically. It has also been influenced by a variety
of other disciplines. If we are to develop a body of reliable knowledge in
the light of which predictions of trends and recommendations of policy
can be made then comparative study gives us vantage points which are
not only useful but are quite indispensable.