The Logical Structures of Comparison: Its Forms, Styles, Problems, and the Role of History in Social and Political Research


Abstract


All political sciences share the same logic and methods as the empirical social sciences and therefore produce perceptive knowledge. Empirical knowledge is based on a specific kind of observation driven by a set of theoretically developed concepts related to clearly observable social phenomena. Not all the concepts, however, are readily amenable to observational terms. We usually need to proceed to their operationalization. The formulation and the operational definition of the empirical concepts does not exhaust the analytic process. It is also necessary to observe how the phenomenon occurs in the reality, proceeding to classification or typological constructions and, sometimes, to the production of multi-dimensional models. Only after this process will the formulation of hypotheses be possible. They will later be verified through the use of methods of empirical control. The most frequently used activity in political sociology is comparison, which is the main method of any social science according to most scholars. Comparison can be carried out both among a certain number of cases or within a single case by comparing it in its historical development. The temporal dimension becomes crucial when one wishes to produce historically rooted generalizations and theories, therefore confined to a spatial and temporal dimension. Before proceeding with the comparison we must make sure that the cases selected are actually comparable and that they possess at least one property in common. The objective of this paper is therefore to describe forms and styles of comparison within the logic of social and political sciences

DOI Code: 10.1285/i20356609v7i3p576

Keywords: Comparison; Research logic; Social and Political Research; Empirical Concepts; Historical Sociology

References


Aberle D.F., A.K. Cohen, A.K. Davis, M.J. Levy Jr., F. Sutton (1972), “The Functional Prerequisites of a Society”, in Comparative Politics: Notes and Readings, Homewood, Illinois: The Dorsey Press.

Almond G.A., J.S. Coleman (1960, eds.), The Politics of the Developing Areas, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Anderson B.W. (1967), “On the Comparability of Meaningful Stimuli in Cross-Cultural Research”, Sociometry, 30(2): 124-136.

Bartolini S. (1991), “Tempo e ricerca comparata”, in Sartori G., L. Morlino (eds.), Com-parazione e metodo comparato, Bologna: Il Mulino, pp. 165-209.

Beckerman W. (1966), International Comparisons of Real Incomes, Paris: Organization for European Economic Cooperation.

Beckerman W., R. Bacon (1966), “International Comparisons of Incomes Levels: A Sug-gested New Measure”, The Economic Journal, 76(3): 519-536.

Bendix R. (1967), “Tradition and Modernity Reconsidered”, Comparative Studies in So-ciety and History, 9(3): 292-346, doi: 10.1017/S0010417500004527.

Bennett M.K. (1966), “International Disparities in Consumption Levels”, The American Economic Review, 46(3): 452-461.

Boudon R. (1984), Les methods en sociologie, Paris: Harmattan.

Bruschi A. (1999), Metodologia delle scienze sociali, Milano: Bruno Mondadori.

Caciagli M. (1988), “Quante Italie? Persistenza e trasformazione delle culture politiche sub-nazionali”, Polis, 1(2): 429-457.

Cannavò L. (1984), “Definizioni operative, concettualizzazione e logica della ricerca”, Sociologia e ricerca sociale, 13: 99-140.

Carr E.H. (1963), What is History?, New York: Knopf.

Clarke J.J. (1970), “On the Unity and Diversity of Cultures”, American Anthropologist, 72(3): 545-554.

de Nardis (2011a), “Historical Comparison and Political Contention. The Sociological Analysis of Collective Action and Political Praxis in Antonio Gramsci and Charles Til-ly”, Center for the Study of Politics and Society - WP Series, vol.1, issue 2, pp. 57-100.

de Nardis F. (2011b), Sociologia comparata. Appunti sulle strutture logiche della ricerca sociopolitica, Milano: FrancoAngeli.

Dilthey W. (1991) [1893], Introduction to the Human Sciences, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Dutkheim E. (1964) [1893], The Division of Labor Society, Glencoe, IL: The Free Press.

Eckstein H. (1975), “Case Study and Theory in Political Science”, in Greenstein F.J., N.W. Polsby (eds.), Handbook of Political Science, vol. VII, Strategies of Inquiry, Reading: Addison-Wesley, pp. 79-137.

Eggan F.R. (1954), “Social Anthropology and Method of Controlled Comparison”, American Anthropologist, 56(5): 743-763.

Ervin S., R.T. Bower (1952), “Translation Problems in International Surveys”, Public Opinion Quarterly, 16: 595-604.

Eulau H. (1962), “Comparative Political Analysis: A Methodological Note”, Midwest Journal of Political Science, 6(4): 397-407, doi: 10.2307/2108772.

Fideli R. (1998), La comparazione, Milano: Franco Angeli.

Gadamer H.G.(1975) [1960], Truth and Method, New York: Blumsburry.

Gurr T.R. (1966), New Error – Compensated Measures for Comparing Nations, Prince-ton: Center for International Studies.

Gurr T.R. (1968), “A Casual Model of Civic Strife: A Comparative Analysis Using New Indices”, American Political Science Review, 62(4): 1104-1124, doi: 10.2307/1953907.

Gusfield J.R. (1972), “Tradition and Modernity: Misplaced Polarities in the Study of So-cial Change”, in Shepard J.M., Organizational Issues in Industrial Society, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, pp. 35-49.

Habermas J. (1988) [1967], On the Logic of Social Sciences, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Inglehart R. (1990), Culture Shift in Industrial Advanced Societies, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Kalleberg A.L. (1966), “The Logic of Comparison: A Methodological Note on the Com-parative Study of Political System”, World Politics, 19(1): 69-82, doi: 10.2307/2009843.

Kluckohn C. (1962), Culture and Behavior, Glencoe: The Free Press.

Lazarsfeld P.F. (1969), “Dai concetti agli indicatori empirici”, in Boudon R., P.F. Lazar-sfeld (eds.), L’analisi empirica delle scienze sociali, Bologna: Il Mulino, vol.1.

Lijphart A. (1971), “Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method”, American Po-litical Science Review, 65(3): 682-693, doi: 10.2307/1955513.

Lijphart A. (1975), “The Comparable-Case Strategy in Comparative Research”, Comparative Political Studies, 8(2): 158-177, doi:10.1177/001041407500800203.

Lipset S.M. (1968), “History and Sociology: Some Methodological Consi¬derations”, in Lipset S.M., R. Hofstadter (eds.), Sociology and History: Methods, New York: Basic Books, pp. 20-58.

Marradi A. (1982), “Introduzione all’edizioni italiana” di Smelser N.J., La comparazione nelle scienze sociali, Bologna: Il Mulino.

Marradi A. (1987), Concetti e metodi in scienza politica, Firenze: Giuntina.

Marx K. (1906) [1867], Capital. A Critique of Political Economy, New York: The Modern Library.

Mauss M. (1954), The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies, Glencoe: The Free Press.

Mitchell R.E. (1968), “Survey Materials Collected in the Developing Countries: Obsta-cles to Comparison”, in Rokkan S. (ed.), Comparative Research across Cultures and Nations, Paris-The Hague: Mouton, pp. 210-238.

Moore B. jr. (1978), Injustice: The Social Bases of Obedience and Revolt, White Plains: Sharpe.

Przeworski A., H. Teune (1966), “Equivalence in Cross-National Research”, Public Opinion Quarterly, 30(4): 551-568.

Pye L.W. (1958), “The Non-Western Political Process”, Journal of Politics, 20(3): 468-486, doi: 10.2307/2127224.

Ragin C.C. (1987), The Comparative Method: Moving Beyond Qualitative and Quantitative Strategies, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press.

Sartori G. (1970), “Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics”, The American Political Science Review, 64(4): 1033-1053, doi: 10.2307/1958356.

Sartori G. (1976), Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sartori G. (1980), La politica: logica e metodo in scienze sociali, Milano: Sugarco.

Sartori G. (1982), Teoria dei partiti e caso italiano, Milano: Sugarco.

Sartori G. (1984), “Guidelines for Concept Analysis”, in Sartori G. (ed.), Social Science Concepts. A systematic Analysis, London: Sage, pp. 15-85.

Scheuch E.K. (1968), “The Cross-Cultural Use of Sample Surveys: Problems of Comparabilities”, in Rokkan S. (ed.), Comparative Research across Cultures and Nations, Paris-The Hague: Mouton, pp. 176-209.

Schneider C.Q., and C. Wgermann (2012), Set-Theoretic Methods for the Social Scienc-es: A Guide to Qualitative Comparative Analysis, New York: Cambridge University Press.

Skocpol T. (1979), States and Social Revolutions. A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Smelser N.J. (1976), Comparative Methods in the Social Sciences, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

Stedman Jones G. (1976), “From Historical Sociology to Theoretical History”, British Journal of Sociology, 27: 295-305.

Tilly Ch. (1981), As Sociology Meets History, New York: The Academic Press.

Tilly Ch. (1984), Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons, New York: Russel Sage Foundation.

Tocqueville A. (2003) [1835-1840], Democracy in America, London: Penguin Books.

Verba S., N. Nie, J. Kim (1978), Participation and Political Equality. A Seven-Nation Comparison, Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Wilson E.C. (1958), “Problems of Survey Research in Modernizing Areas”, Public Opin-ion Quarterly, 22(3): 230-234.

Winch P. (1958), The Idea of Social Sciences, New York: Routledge.

Wright Mills C. (1959), The Sociological Imagination, New York: Oxford University Press.

Zelditch M. Jr. (1971), “Intelligible Comparisons”, in Vallier I. (ed.), Comparative Meth-ods in Sociology. Essays on Trends and Applications, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 267-308.


Full Text: PDF

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.
Bookmark and Share


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 3.0 Italia License.