Limitations of the comparative method
Limitations of the Comparative Method
| Source of difficulty | The problem |
|---|---|
| Selection bias | Cases chosen to fit the hypothesis; a researcher may pick systems to confirm a prior view |
| Controlling variables | Political systems are shaped by a multitude of variables; weights are hard to assign |
| Equivalence | The same concept means different things in different contexts — Sartori’s “conceptual stretching” |
| Historical / cultural specificity | Context-blind comparison yields inaccurate generalisation |
| Data availability | Reliable, comparable data is scarce for less-studied systems and non-state actors |
| Scientific method | Political behaviour is not purely rational; individuals and institutions follow no uniform rule |
Specific challenges: Todd Landman — steer between extreme universalism and extreme relativism; the ecological fallacy (individual behaviour inferred from aggregate culture); Neera Chandhoke — the loss of certainties troubles a comparative politics built on grand theory. Even so, the method has widened political science well beyond the Western state and driven theory-building.
Two Challenges — Eurocentrism and Globalisation
Eurocentrism
Sujata Patel: the claim that all knowledge originated in Europe, tied to European modernity — a linear view of time. Two pillars: evolutionism (the West as more advanced — survival of the fittest applied to cultures) and dualism (the West as the epicentre of knowledge; the non-West as backward — a “self vs other” binary). Consequence: colonialism justified as delivering modernity; James Mill‘s Hindu–Muslim–British periodisation of Indian history; European concepts like the nation-state imposed on the non-West. Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan: Eurocentrism cast liberalism, individualism and the market as universal and absolute.
Globalisation (Jeff Haynes)
Five far-reaching changes: many new states; waves of political change (decolonisation, the collapse of the USSR, new democratisation); transnational corporations as non-state actors; regional entities (the European Union); and a transnational civil society. Webber and Smith: “one of the most common descriptive labels of world politics in recent years has been that of transformation.” By the 1990s, Sorensen’s expansion and intensification of cross-border relations had redrawn the old categories of comparative politics.
What UPSC has asked
Ten years of PSIR Mains questions, each with the flow snapshot and the model answer.
Open the PYQ Finder →How this is taught
The same ground, taught in the order the subject holds together, with the answer written in class.
The first session of Foundation 2027 is published in full.
Six programmes across three levels.