Concluding Thoughts
The above discussion, combined with the full content of this book, highlights the continuing importance of comparative politics. Comparative politics as a field of study has a wide scope, capable of addressing issues of democracy and authoritarianism, state-controlled market systems versus free-market systems, economic and political inequalities, environmentalism and climate change, the origins and causes of political conflict, as well as the complex and fragile nature of political identities. Globalization has made the world a smaller place, where political, social and economic forces can affect everyone and everything on the planet. At the same time, the effects of globalization are experienced at ground level, where people work, go to school, and raise their families. They are felt where people live, which is in states. Likewise, fragmentation is fracturing the world we live in. The effects of fragmentation are also experienced at the global level, as it impacts the global order and the efficacy of international institutions.
The world feeling “smaller” is not inherently a bad thing. In some ways, the world became smaller because the advent of shared scientific practices in a number of critical fields has advanced knowledge and understanding across, within and between states. Cultivating understanding of why social, political and economic outcomes occur is a precondition for approaching solutions to complex global problems. Conversely, we also need to understand when social, political and economic outcomes do not go as planned. It is important to learn why certain processes have failed, and what these failures mean. The effects of failures, be it from globalization or from fragmentation, are understood through the lens of one’s states.
Comparative politics is unique in that it is the job of comparativists to make systematic and intentional comparisons on political phenomena, especially those issues that are critical to global and regional security and stability. The ability to drill-down to gather deep meaning in political phenomena is a strength of the comparative field, and one that provides fertile ground for new scholars and researchers to continue the traditions of the field with new and powerful areas of inquiry.
