EDITORIALS & ARTICLES
Describe the changing nature of Comparative Politics. Briefly explain the Political Economy approach to the study of Comparative Politics. (UPSC CSE Mains 2018 - Political Science and International Relations, Paper 2)
- Comparative politics is the study and appraisal of domestic politics across countries. Comparative politics has a long and very eminent history dating back just before the origin of systematic political studies in ancient Greece and Rome. Even ancient people, compared their situations with those of other people with whom they came in contact. The ancient Greeks performed the earliest systematic comparisons of a more modern and secular.
- The discipline has witnessed a lot of changes throughout history. Until mid 18th century, the method of comparison was largely normative and philosophical. The outcome of studies was a blueprint and prescriptions for the future of the state.
- With the establishment of democracies in the west from the 18th century, the focus shifted to the study of constitutions and statutes (legal-institutional approach). It focused exclusively on western countries since the rest of the world was colonies and had no independent system.
- After the 2nd World War, many new countries (former colonies) were established. In these states, there was a difference between theory and practice, text and context. Social structure played a prominent role in these states and the study of the constitution was not sufficient. The legal institutional approach was found inadequate. This gave rise to many Modern comparative approaches. Political sociology and Political economy are prominent amongst them.
- The political economy approach emerged in the wake of decolonisation to understand and explain the relationship among nations and socio-political phenomena. At the basis of this approach was the assumption of a relationship between the domains of politics and economics. The modernisation, under development and dependency, world systems, articulation of the modes of production, class analysis, state-centred analysis and the neoliberal analysis are dominant among the various explanatory frameworks which have emerged in the last few decades. While, the analytical tools of all these frameworks have varied, almost all have ''development'' as their key problem. In the process of exploring this problem within a comparative perspective, they have, inevitably seen the world in terms of a hierarchised whole. They do, however, provide important insights into the intricacies of economic forces and the manner in a symbiosis of economy and polity works within and in connection with external forces.
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