Differentiate between formal, informal, and political institutions.
Describe the meaning and scope of area studies.
Trace the origin and scope of cross-national studies.
Identify the best application of subnational studies.
Introduction
Comparative politics involves looking inside countries, regions, institutions, or other entities and then comparing across them. But how do comparativists know what to compare? Comparativists often compare countries, but can they compare any two countries? What if those countries systematically differ? Do they ever want to compare countries that are systematically different? What best practices do comparativists follow when choosing cases? As we will discuss in Chapter 2, case selection is a foundational aspect of research design in comparative politics. However, before delving into the details of case selection, we first need to understand three broad approaches to comparative analysis: area studies, cross-national studies, and subnational studies. After defining key terms related to institutions that transcend the approaches, we will discuss each approach.
Institutions
No matter the approach to comparative analysis, comparativists often study institutions. Institutions are the beliefs, norms, and organizations that structure social and political life. They encompass the rules, norms, and values of a society. As March and Olsen (2006, p. 3) define, institutions are “a relatively enduring collection of rules and organization practices, embedded in structures of meaning and resources that are relatively invariant in the face of turnover of individuals and relatively resistant to the idiosyncratic preferences and expectations of individuals and outside circumstances.” Peters (2019, p. 23) adds that institutions “transcend individuals to involve groups of individuals in some sort of patterned interactions that are predictable.”
Institutions are therefore prediictable, stable, and affect individual behavior, yet they come in many shapes and sizes. There are formal institutions, which are based on a clear set of rules that have been formalized, often with the authority to enforce the rules through punitive measures. Examples include universities, sports leagues, and corporations. Formal institutions often (though not always) have physical tangibility, such as through a building or a location (e.g., a university campus).
There are also informal institutions, which are based on an unwritten set of rules that have not necessarily been formalized. Informal institutions are based on conventions on how one should behave, and there is no authority that monitors the behavior. An example of an informal institution is the societal expectation for waiting in line. While expectations for waiting in line will vary by location (e.g., in a school cafeteria, the line order will be first-come, first-serve; in an emergency room, the line order will depend on the severity of medical need), people are generally expected to self-regulate.
Finally, there are political institutions, which can be formal or informal. Political institutions are “structures that lend the polity its integrity” (Orren & Skowronek, 1995, p. 298). These are the spaces in which the majority of politics and political decisions take place. Formal political institutions include written constitutions, legislatures, judiciaries, executives, militaries, and police forces. Informal political institutions, as one example, include expectations during negotiations. During the lawmaking process, lawmakers may logroll, or exchange reciprocal promises of voting support for legislation. Without logrolling, the number of laws passed would likely decrease substantially. Other examples of informal political institutions include norms surrounding levels of corruption, political ideology, and political culture.
The study of formal, informal, and political institutions occurs in each of the three broad approaches to comparative analysis: area studies, cross-national studies, and subnational studies.
Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Political institutions can be either formal or informal. A Trump supporter, pictured on the left, represents informal political institutions through political culture. The Supreme Court, pictured on the left, is a formal institution. (Sources (from left to right): Trump Supporter, by Johnny Silvercloud is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0;The Supreme Court, by Joe Ravi is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0,Trump Supporter)
Area Studies
The first approach to comparative analysis is through area studies, in which scholarship is organized geographically. The field of area studies has its roots in the age of empires when European powers expanded their borders beyond the continent of Europe. As imperial forces, such as the British and the French, occupied more territory, the ‘enlightened’ Europeans attempted to understand the ‘exotic’ peoples and the indigenous languages, cultures, and social norms of the regions they conquered. Eurocentrism was the norm, with invaders filling their home museums with items stolen or ‘bought’ from other civilizations.
World War II transformed area studies from a colonial enterprise into a geopolitical imperative. In the United States, military campaigns in Europe, Asia-Pacific, and North Africa required deep understanding of terrain from area specialists. The Cold War further solidified the need for area studies. The conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union included proxy wars across many continents, pushing the U.S. military to rely on the university system for expertise. Universities established various centers, programs, and initiatives, such as the Center for Latin American Studies at Stanford University, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, and the Asian Studies Initiative at Boston University. The 1958 National Defense Act, moreover, provided funding for training in critical languages, and entities such as the Ford Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the American Council of Learned Societies contributed to the area-specific efforts.
Despite the controversial origins of this approach to research, area studies are important interdisciplinary segments of contemporary university curricula. Area studies can include disciplines such as anthropology, economics, geography, history, linguistics, literature, political science, religious studies, and sociology. Within the broad approach of area studies, there are also numerous (and sometimes contentiously-defined) fields corresponding to geographical areas. Table \(\PageIndex{1}\) provides select examples.
Table \(\PageIndex{1}\): Select Examples of Geographically-Defined Fields within Area Studies
Africa
Asia
Europe
Latin America
Middle East
African Studies
Asian Studies
European Studies
Amazonia Studies
Gulf Studies
Africana Studies
Asian-Pacific Studies
East European Studies
Caribbean Studies
Levantine Studies
East African Studies
East Asian Studies
Mediterranean Studies
Central American Studies
Maghrib Studies
Southern African Studies
South Asian Studies
Post-Soviet Studies
Latin American Studies
Middle Eastern Studies
West African Studies
Southeast Asian Studies
Southeast European Studies
Southern Cone Studies
Near Eastern Studies
Cross-National Studies
A second approach to comparative analysis is through cross-national studies, a type of research transcending national boundaries that is “explicitly comparative, that is, studies that utilize systematically comparable data from two or more nations” (Kohn, 1987, p. 714). In this sense, area studies may also be cross-national studies (within a defined geographical region), yet we distinguish cross-national studies from area studies as approaches to comparative analysis. Cross-national studies place much emphasis on appropriately measuring variables across cases to increase external validity, the extent to which a researcher can generalize their findings.
A good example of cross-national research is Arend Lijphart's (1999) book, Patterns of Democracy. In this seminal study, Lijphart examines 36 diverse democracies, comparing institutions ranging from electoral systems to the role of central banks to internal policy-making techniques. Another example is the cross-national analysis of the 38 countries making up the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental organization that facilitates dialogue on macroeconomic policies. OECD countries, which span multiple continents, have harmonized their economic indicators, allowing for easier comparisons. A final example of cross-national research is the Polity data series, which ranks countries from strongly democratic to strongly autocratic based on political regime characteristics. To summarize the commonalities among these examples, in comparative politics, cross-national studies often involve the comparisons of countries, or country institutions, across geographical regions and through quantitative analysis.
Due to the quantitative focus, one of the major critiques of cross-national studies relates to measurement. Can we properly measure variables and compare across large swaths of countries? Does consistent data exist across space and time? Do our measures have internal validity (that is, do they accurately reflect the concept we aim to measure)? Does our study have external validity (that is, is it generalizable)? These difficult questions have led some to reject cross-national research in comparative politics, but the attempt to systematize analyses across countries is important. Measurement is a problem that all social scientists face, and deliberations on how to appropriately measure concepts like democracy, capitalism, and election integrity are necessary to support shared understanding.
Subnational Studies
A third approach to comparative analysis is through subnational studies, research in which scholars compare subnational governments (any level of government lower than the national level). A researcher may compare subnational governments within one country (e.g., state, county, or city governments within the United States), or a researcher may compare subnational units across countries (e.g., provincial, regional, or municipal governments in multiple countries).
Across countries, subnational governments vary significantly in their level of sovereignty. Sovereignty is fundamental governmental power and authority in decision-making within a given territory. This fundamental power and authority means that a government has the power to coerce others to do things they may not want to do, such as paying taxes or not speeding on freeways. In some countries, sovereignty is shared between the national government and subnational governments. An example is the United States, in which power is shared between the national government in Washington, D.C. and the 50 state governments. Countries with this shared power structure have federal governments. Other countries do not share power in this manner. When the power is concentrated at the national level, a country has a unitary government. An example is France, where the majority of power lies in Paris in the hands of the president and parliament. When power is instead concentrated at a subnational level, a country has a confederal government. While few contemporary examples exist, Switzerland offers one; within Switzerland, there are 26 subnational governmental units called cantons, and each canton has its own constitution.
Subnational research traces its roots to the 1970s. At this time, there was a surge in the number of democracies worldwide and an increase in the empowerment of subnational governments through the process of decentralization (Snyder, 2001). This process is known as devolution. Devolution occurs when the central government in a country deliberately transfers power to a government at a lower level. Examples of devolution include the creation of parliaments in Scotland and Wales and the creation of the Catalan, Basque, and Galician autonomous regional governments in Spain.
To study questions of sovereignty and devolution, subnational research can take two approaches. The first approach is a within-nation comparison. In a within-nation comparison, a researcher studies the subnational governments or institutions within a single country. For example, a researcher within the subfield of American politics might analyze and compare all 50 states’ policies toward COVID-19. The second approach is a between-nationcomparison, in which a researcher compares subnational governments across different countries. As an example, a researcher studying postcolonial Africa may study contiguous subnational governments because tribal, ethnic, and religious group boundaries often overlap national borders.
