POLS 110 Study Guide - Ethnic Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict, Proportional Representation
15 Apr 2014
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Document Summary
Comparative politics is a subfield of political science, it is used to understand political phenomena through a comparison across regions, countries, or even time periods. These comparisons help to reveal similarities and differences that allow us not only to understand the individual cases better but to also help build theories. Regular patterns of behaviour that give stability and predictability to social life. Informal - no clear written rules - include the family, social classes, or ethnic groups. This is because individuals internalize codes of behavior as a result of socialization as members of the group. Formal - codified rules and organization - include governments, political parties, bureaucracies, legislatures, constitutions and law courts. We tend to focus much more on formal institutions as they are the basis of political systems. It is also very important when discussing political institutions to understand the relationship between them and environmental forces - the political, social, and economic forces that surround them.
