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Debating the Direction of Comparative Politics: An Analysis of Leading Journals
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hypotheses because of the limitations of qualitative methods (King, Keohane and Verba 1994). More recently, however, the basis for a more pluralistic view of methods has been gaining ground, as scholars emphasize that both qualitative and quantitative researchers alike face serious hurdles in making descriptive and causal inferences (Brady, Collier and Seawright 2004: 10-11), draw attention to the potential contributions of qualitative research to the task of hypotheses testing (Brady and Collier 2004), and propose a mixed method approach that combines, among other things, quantitative and qualitative components (Laitin 2002: 630-31, 2003).
These discussions and controversies constitute a debate about the direction of
comparative politics. Moreover, this debate is closely associated with the broader disciplinary debate, raised largely by the Perestroika insurgency, about the future of political science (Shapiro, Smith and Masoud 2004, Mansfield and Sisson 2004a, 2004b). What is at stake, indeed, is how we think about the goals—knowledge about what? what kind of knowledge? knowledge for what?—and means—how do we generate knowledge?—of a core field of political science. Thus, this is a debate that should be addressed responsibly, on the basis of explicit criteria and arguments, systematic information about what is actually going on in the field, and clear thinking about how best to proceed from where we stand today.
This article seeks to contribute to this important debate about the direction of
comparative politics through an analysis of articles in the three leading journals dedicated fully or largely to comparative politics—Comparative Political Studies, Comparative Politics and World Politics—over the 1989-2004 period.
1
This is, admittedly, a limited sample of the
universe of work on comparative politics published in the United States. It covers neither the main discipline-wide journals in political science nor area-specific journals. Moreover, it does not encompass books, which are a key medium for presenting work on comparative politics. The comparative politics research published in these other outlets could diverge systematically from the kind of material published in these three journals. Still, these three journals are widely seen as the leading ones in the field, and there are good reasons to believe that much of the best research gets published in them and that they thus offer a good sense of trends in the field.
2
The next section presents an overview of the scope, objectives and methods of research in
comparative politics.
3
The second section seeks to demystify commonly accepted depictions of
the old area studies and the new economics-inspired approaches. The third section attempts to
1
The data set codes 319 articles from three journals—Comparative Political Studies, Comparative Politics and
World Politics—on 29 variables. The articles were drawn from issues published in 1989, 1992, 1995, 1998, 2001 and 2004. In the case of World Politics, a journal that includes articles on international relations, the coders determined which articles belonged to the field of comparative politics. Book reviews, research notes, introductions to special issues, and articles on methodology were not included. The coding was carried out by the two authors of this paper. For most variables, each author was responsible for three non-consecutive years of each journal. In addition, Snyder coded all articles on the five variables related to the attributes of authors, as well as the variables Foreign_Language, and Funding. Munck coded all articles on the variables Unit_Observation and N_Observations.
2
In another work, Passion, Craft, and Method in Comparative Politics (Munck and Snyder forthcoming), we offer
in-depth interviews, with fifteen leading scholars of comparative politics, which address a broad range of issues related to the future of comparative politics, including those discussed in this paper. This article, with its focus on the articles produced by a larger number of scholars stands as a companion piece to Passion, Craft, and Method.
3
Throughout this text, references to work or research done in comparative politics refer, unless otherwise specified,
solely to the journal articles included in our data set and not to the broader set of journals articles, books and papers in comparative politics.
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2
hypotheses because of the limitations of qualitative methods (King, Keohane and Verba 1994).
More recently, however, the basis for a more pluralistic view of methods has been gaining
ground, as scholars emphasize that both qualitative and quantitative researchers alike face
serious hurdles in making descriptive and causal inferences (Brady, Collier and Seawright 2004:
10-11), draw attention to the potential contributions of qualitative research to the task of
hypotheses testing (Brady and Collier 2004), and propose a mixed method approach that
combines, among other things, quantitative and qualitative components (Laitin 2002: 630-31,
2003).
These discussions and controversies constitute a debate about the direction of
comparative politics. Moreover, this debate is closely associated with the broader disciplinary
debate, raised largely by the Perestroika insurgency, about the future of political science
(Shapiro, Smith and Masoud 2004, Mansfield and Sisson 2004a, 2004b). What is at stake,
indeed, is how we think about the goals—knowledge about what? what kind of knowledge?
knowledge for what?—and means—how do we generate knowledge?—of a core field of political
science. Thus, this is a debate that should be addressed responsibly, on the basis of explicit
criteria and arguments, systematic information about what is actually going on in the field, and
clear thinking about how best to proceed from where we stand today.
This article seeks to contribute to this important debate about the direction of
comparative politics through an analysis of articles in the three leading journals dedicated fully
or largely to comparative politics—Comparative Political Studies, Comparative Politics and
World Politics—over the 1989-2004 period.
1
This is, admittedly, a limited sample of the
universe of work on comparative politics published in the United States. It covers neither the
main discipline-wide journals in political science nor area-specific journals. Moreover, it does
not encompass books, which are a key medium for presenting work on comparative politics. The
comparative politics research published in these other outlets could diverge systematically from
the kind of material published in these three journals. Still, these three journals are widely seen
as the leading ones in the field, and there are good reasons to believe that much of the best
research gets published in them and that they thus offer a good sense of trends in the field.
2
The next section presents an overview of the scope, objectives and methods of research in
comparative politics.
3
The second section seeks to demystify commonly accepted depictions of
the old area studies and the new economics-inspired approaches. The third section attempts to
1
The data set codes 319 articles from three journals—Comparative Political Studies, Comparative Politics and
World Politics—on 29 variables. The articles were drawn from issues published in 1989, 1992, 1995, 1998, 2001
and 2004. In the case of World Politics, a journal that includes articles on international relations, the coders
determined which articles belonged to the field of comparative politics. Book reviews, research notes, introductions
to special issues, and articles on methodology were not included. The coding was carried out by the two authors of
this paper. For most variables, each author was responsible for three non-consecutive years of each journal. In
addition, Snyder coded all articles on the five variables related to the attributes of authors, as well as the variables
Foreign_Language, and Funding. Munck coded all articles on the variables Unit_Observation and N_Observations.
2
In another work, Passion, Craft, and Method in Comparative Politics (Munck and Snyder forthcoming), we offer
in-depth interviews, with fifteen leading scholars of comparative politics, which address a broad range of issues
related to the future of comparative politics, including those discussed in this paper. This article, with its focus on
the articles produced by a larger number of scholars stands as a companion piece to Passion, Craft, and Method.
3
Throughout this text, references to work or research done in comparative politics refer, unless otherwise specified,
solely to the journal articles included in our data set and not to the broader set of journals articles, books and papers
in comparative politics.
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