At The Heart Of The Field Of Comparative Politics Lie A

Throughout the world there are many diverse political cultures. A political culture is the attitudes, beliefs or practices among a group of likeminded individuals. (Giardino pg. 27) There are different categories that embrace a political culture like an Individualistic, traditionalistic and moralistic. An individualistic culture is one that prefers less government involvement. The traditionalists’ culture maintains government as the social and economic hierarchy and does not like change. The moralistic culture favors public good and it revolves around social issues. In shaping a political culture demographics such as population size, growth, distribution and diversity are essential to determine how a state is in any of the three categories. Society is strongly affected by decisions of who, what and when does an individual receive any types of goods or services. Government is the structure, buildings and institutions that are held within politics.

For example, in order to win provincial elections in Alberta, a politician’s main focus are the big cities, Edmonton and Calgary, and perhaps a few smaller cities, but since the values and needs of Albertans, to a certain extent, tend to be similar throughout the province, the party running for office does not need to worry about pleasing everybody’s need. Also, both the Liberals and the Conservatives aim to grow the Canadian economy. Both the Conservatives and the Liberals aim to expand the economy through the creation of jobs, the investment in research and development and providing opportunities and training in trades. However, even though some of the ways by which both parties attempt to achieve the growth of the economy are similar, there are also some differences. For example, the conservatives aimed to give reduce the GST in order to allow citizens keep money in their pocket and to help them adjust to the rising costs of

Political science is known to be one of the most ignored sciences there are. Over the years, there has not been a demand for everyone to pay attention to politics because people always have their own opinion anyways. Ten Things Political Scientists Know that You Don’t was an article written by Hans Noel. His main objective to writing this was to inform readers of the reasons why politics is something that is important to understand. Many journalists and bloggers became more aware of politics and want to know more about what political scientists actually know. This article also wants to inform many people that political science is something that you can study over a period of time, which is the real reason to pay attention to elections. Hans Noel came up with 10 different things that political scientists know but American citizens do not.

Comparative politics is the empirical comparative study of political systems. It involves the classification and comparison of institutions - ‘a rule that has been institutionalised’ (Lane and Ersson, 1999: 23) - in order to determine the nature of political regimes. The study of comparative politics has come to be guided by three major research schools: rational choice theory, culturalist analysis and structuralist approaches; each of which spearhead a distinctive notion over what about institutions affects the nature of the political process. Rationalists are methodological individualists who assert that

When looking into the ideas of political theorists it is important to the use of political concepts that may play an important role in what the theorists are suggesting and also how they may affect the relationship between to state and the individuals living within a state. The concepts that will be looked at within this essay are: power, authority and also accountability.

The Funnel of Causality model describes voting behaviour in terms of socio-demographics, party identification, issues, and candidates. In this essay I will focus on issues because they can be compared between countries. An issue is essentially a problem that is perceived to be important, and there is an actor with “ownership” of the issue, meaning that there is someone who is thought to be “the best man for the job” so to speak. The economy isn’t an issue because you can’t have “ownership” over the economy. Issues are important because they explain a lot about voting behaviour.

In my life I have never had any political enforcement or strict religious influence. My parents were very lenient when it came too political preaching. I was taught to be a caring and respectful individual. My political understanding and beliefs have been molded from my early political memories and socialization experiences. As a young adult I have always strived to become knowledgeable about political ideals mainly because I was never really taught to believe in something specific. I eventually was drawn towards many different social and political perspectives, which is how I came to a logical conclusion of how I view the world politically

I will be taking viewpoints from both sides of each party and to identify whether they acted democratically in terms of how they promoted themselves to the public. Additionally, how public opinion is persuaded through political discourse will be theorized through the works of Habermas and Lipmaan.

However, it is important to consider the political climate of the time when passing judgement. The aim of this analysis is to explore

As the most widely adopted form of democratic government there are many strengths associated with a parliamentary government. The parliamentary system is often praised for the fast and efficient way in which it is able to pass legislation. The reason this is possible is because unlike a presidential system the legislative and executive power in a parliamentary system are merged together. Due to this fusion of power legislation does not have to undergo a lengthy process and therefore laws can be formulated and put into place much quicker(Bates, 1986: 114-5). Another advantage of a parliamentary system is that the majority of the power is not held by one individual head of state but rather is more evenly divided among a single party or coalition. One of the main benefits of this is that as there is more of a division of power a parliamentary government is less prone to authoritarianism than a presidential system. Juan Linz argues that a presidential system is more dangerous due to the fact that; “Winners and losers are sharply defined for the entire period of the presidential mandate”(Linz, 1990: 56), this sharp line between winners and losers increases tension between these two groups and allows the winner to isolate themselves from other political parties (Linz, 1990: 56). Due to this tension and isolation a presidential system is at a higher risk of turning into an authoritarian regime than a parliamentary system.

The purpose of this paper is intended to summarize my views on what has influenced my understanding of politics and government prior to taking this class, and how my understanding is now since completing this course.

Keeping this in mind, we must understand that this only tells half the story. In order to expand upon the ideas introduced in prior research, a quantitative element should be added. By doing this, we add a level of validity to the existing research while answering questions in the political science community that could be extremely valuable to

The Oxford Dictionary defines politics as the activities associated with the governance of a country or area, especially the debate between parties having power. Comparative politics is the interdisciplinary study of how power is organized across time and space. It connects the operation of power across multiple time and spatial scales and identifies the similarities and differences of how power operates across space and time.

A second comparison that one could make is that the types of governments also have

This paper will critically evaluate the methodology used in Robert Putnam’s Making Democracy Work. By relying on what the methodological arguments that were taught this semester, this paper will discuss and evaluate in detail the various methodological strategies employed by the author. For the ‘Theory’ theme, this paper will examine casual mechanisms (and methodological individualism) topic, closely referencing the course reading Social Mechanisms by Peter Hedstrom and Richard Swedbeg. Next, for the ‘Measurement and Data’ theme, this paper will specifically examine the measurement validity and reliability topic, and will closely reference “Measurement validity: A Shared Standard for qualitative and Quantitative Research” by Robert Adcock and David Colllier. Finally, for the ‘Testing Theory with Data Theory’, this paper will be examining the history as an explanation topic, closely referencing “The Study of Critical Junctures: Theory, Narrative and Counterfactuals in Historical Intuitionalism” by Giovanni Capoccia and Daniel Kelemen, as well as the relevant topic, Quantitative versus Qualitative Methods. The paper will start by summarizing the readings relevant to the topics of the themes, then delve into the pertinent methodology in Putnam’s book.