PYQ Vault · Paper 2 · Comparative Politics
Examine the significance of the comparative method in political analysis. Discuss its limitations.
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Flow snapshot — how the answer moves
Intro routes
re method defines the sub-discipline, not its subject (Lijphart) → comparison = political science’s laboratory-substitute ez the mind cannot proceed without comparison (Tocqueville) → comparison-as-control is the discipline’s core method
Body flow
Body How | Sartori: comparison works as control, the surrogate for the experiment social science cannot run → it tests theoretical propositions → Durkheim: keeps analysis from staying purely descriptive → Landman: four functions (description → Classification → hypothesis-testing → prediction) → Bara: a conviction and
Counter-view
objectivity single-country study cannot claim
Conclusion routes
| the surrogate is imperfect because political life resists laboratory control → Eckstein: small N weakens rigour → Sartori: conceptual stretching + non- equivalence of concepts across contexts → selection bias, cultural /historical specificity, patchy data onclusion routes er! the flaws limit the method, they do not discredit it → corrective is care: operationalisation + guarded concepts → comparison stays indispensable ez Landman’s middle path — moderate universalism vs extreme relativism → used with awareness of its limits, comparison remains political analysis’s central tool
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
