POL 3115 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Washington Consensus, Corporatism, Dependency Theory
27 Jan 2014
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Document Summary
Questions and issues relating to what to compare, why we compare, and how to compare are the major concern of comparisons. We study politics in several different ways: first stage (descriptive): description - we describe it, second stage (analytic): ability to predict based on an explanation we seek to explain it and sometimes try to predict it. Historical evidence: aristotle was the first comparativist twenty-five hundred years ago. The greek plato and roman cicero also used a comparative approach. Montesquieu (french vs. british), machiavelli, adam smith, and karl marx (capitalism vs. marxism) In the nineteenth century: best early studies alexis de tocqueville (french- European vs. american) and james bryce (british vs. american) First 2 men to study public opinion as a modern concept. Without comparisons to make, the mind does not know how to proceed . Alexis de tocqueville, 1945 he compared more countries/political systems.
