Comparative Politics: How Voting Rules Decide Who Governs
Presidents versus parliaments, federalism, electoral systems, dictatorships and welfare states: what comparing countries reveals about how politics really works.
Try 3 questions
1. A researcher compares two countries that are alike in nearly every way except the outcome being studied. What design is this?
- Most similar systems design
- A single deviant case study
- Most different systems design
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Answer: Most similar systems design
By holding most factors constant, the researcher can look for the few differences that might explain why the outcomes diverge.
2. Why is it risky to explain revolutions by studying only countries that had one?
- You can't see which factors also exist without revolution
- Revolutionary states usually hide their archives
- Revolutions are too rare to study in any way
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Answer: You can't see which factors also exist without revolution
Selecting cases on the outcome hides whether supposed causes, like poverty, are just as common in countries that never revolted.
3. What is the classic "small-N" problem in comparative politics?
- Too many possible causes for too few cases
- Too much data to process without computers
- Too few researchers speak the local languages
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Answer: Too many possible causes for too few cases
With only a handful of countries to compare, many rival explanations can fit the evidence equally well, making causes hard to pin down.
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