INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE POLITICS

International and Comparative Politics

International and Comparative Politics

Question 1: Discuss in some detail the methodology of International and Comparative Politics as applied to the study of Europe. What are the major approaches and the strengths and weaknesses of each for understanding European politics? Which approach do you favor and why? Identify key research agendas for the study of contemporary Europe, including those that apply to the “new” European states of southern and Eastern Europe.

This methodology reconsiders the state of study on relative political parties, which I characterize as the investigation of parties over nations. If your area is relative government, my aim should match you. If you are mainly involved in European party government, delight extends reading. I propose to illustrate that even scholars of European parties can advantage from a relative viewpoint on their research... Although it mentions to previous writings and to some single-country investigations, it does so only to make certain points. Fortunately, some significant works in other dialects have been converted into English, and--even more luckily for us mono-lingual Europeans--many foreign parties' scholars (thankfully most of the Scandinavians) compose and release in English. In detail, more than half the citations herein were in writing by European scholars and about half were initially released out-of-doors the Europe. Because of scholarly ethnocentricity, much of the relative party's publications get always the vigilance of European academics. Consider the outcome of Giles, Mizell, and Patterson (1989), who reviewed school in agencies with graduate programs about expert journals. About half of European political researchers were well renowned with Comparative Politics (55%) and Comparative Political Studies (46%), the premier U.S. periodicals in the relative field. Less than 7 per hundred, although, were well renowned with the European Journal of Political Research--a foremost source of items on relative political parties--or even with The British Journal of Political Science--another significant source. Presumably, even less knew about the International Political Science Review, Journal of Theoretical Politics, and West European Politics--all foreign publications and all often cited herein. LaPonce (1980) undertook an "import-export" investigation of citations in the European Political Science Review in evaluation with the authorized periodicals of the other four oldest political research associations (Canadian, Indian, French, and British). He discovered that all nationwide periodicals are ethnocentric, but the APSR was especially so. This carries McKay's declaration, "Rarely manage European scholars read, and thus seldom manage they cite, European journals" (1988, 1052).

I contend, although, that limiting aim to European parties restricts comprehending as well. It is the well renowned difficulty of missing the plantation for the trees. The best way to realize the peculiar environment of European parties (and they are peculiar) is to study them in a relative framework--which entails reading more works of foreign scholars who manage such analyses.

Question 2: Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of political parties in European politics, including their relationship to existing cleavages (divisions) and the broad “ideological distance” in most European political systems.

The advantages and disadvantages of political parties are to develop the political awareness in ...