Comparing Nations - by Mattei Dogan & Ali Kazancigil (Paperback)

About the Book

The extraordinary political changes over the last few years make conventional approaches to comparative politics obsolete. In this book a distinguished group of theorists reconceptualize the field.

Book Synopsis

This highly original collection of essays, written by some of the world's best-known political scientists elucidates state-of-the-art methodological approaches to comparative politics.
Giovanni Sartori and Mattei Dogan examine the applicability and validity of statistical techniques in the field. Seymour Martin Lipset considers the effectiveness of binary comparisons while John D. Martz addresses similar questions in regard of multi-state comparisons in Latin America. John Forrest offers an `asynchronic comparison' of weak contemporary African States and similar in Medieval Europe. Ali Kazancigil looks at Turkey's `high stateness' as deviant, and Mattei Dogan concludes the volume with a consideration of the applicability of Weber's typology of legitimacy.

From the Back Cover

All Chapters within this book are explicitly comparative, the contributors deal with various methodological problems in comparative research; the pitfalls of miscomparing; the use and abuse of statistics; the conceptual homogenization of a heterogeneous perspective; the strategy of comparing similar countries; asynchronic comparisions; and the pendulum between theory and substance.

These methodological issues are illustrated by empirical studies of important subjects; the fragility of the presidential regimes; the Japanese exceptionalism; the comparability of Latin America countries; the pertinence of an asynchronic comparison between weak states in post-colonial Africa and Medieval Europe; the deviant case of high stateness in a Muslim country; the empirical testing of the concepts of legitimacy and trust; the limits to quantification; and the specificity of the comparative method.

All the contributors are outstanding comparativists, working at the forefront of the comparative field. The team includes Mattei Dogan, Joshua B. Forrest, Seymour Martin Lipset, Ali Kazancigil, John D. Martz, Fred W. Riggs and Giovanni Sartori.

Review Quotes

"The extraordinary political changes of the last few years, East and West, North and South, make obsolete virtually all the conventional approaches to comparative politics. In this book a distinguished group of theorists literally reconceptualize the field with remarkable originality, daring, and imagination. So successfully do they examine cases for comparison, history and the contemporary, similarities and differences, quantitative and qualitative strategies, that the volume is essential reading for anyone studying politics in today's world." David E. Apter, Yale University

About the Author

Mattei Dogan is Scientific Director at the National Centre of Scientific Research, Paris, and Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Ali Kazancigil is Director of the Division for the International Development of Social and Human Sciences, UNESCO, Paris, and Editor of International Social Science Journal.