When I enter my new school in Connecticut, Westminster school, I will take a course called "Comparative Government". I couldn't be more anxious to take it - social science and politics are what interests me the most. Actually, I was anxious enough to start looking at my future course material. I started reading the book "Essentials of comparative politics" by Patrick Ó Neil.
In the first chapter, the difficulties with studying the society with a scientific approach was described. The obstacles are many: First of all, countries are complex and diverse. Therefore, it is difficult to make comparisons between countries: you cannot control all factors. Second, the number of countries is limited. This can me compared with natural science: you can make as many experiments as you need, and you are able to affect all factors in order to find out what differences that might give different outcomes. It is also difficult for one individual to get a sufficient insight in many countries; lack of rights in the country or language skills prevent it.
Is studying comparative politics even worth the pain? With so many obstacles, will the scholars be able to present valid results from their comparisons and analyses? Yes, as long as we are aware of the obstacles, we need to study what happens around us. Even though the hypotheses and the conclusions are not 100 % correct, they contribute to
an understanding of how people or governments act, which in the long term will lead to a more peaceful world.
Therefore, we should not throw the comparative politics in the trashes, on the contrary, we should put it on a trophy shelf and continue studying it.
