Comparative Political Systems

Abstract

W A f HAT I PROPOSE to do in this brief paper is to suggest how the application of certain sociological and anthropological concepts may facilitate systematic comparison among the major types of political systems operative in the world today. At the risk of saying the obvious, I am not suggesting to my colleagues in the field of comparative government that social theory is a conceptual cure-all for the ailments of the discipline. There are many ways of laboring in the vineyard of the Lord, and I am quite prepared to concede that there are more musical forms of psalmody than sociological jargon. I suppose the test of the sociological approach that is discussed here is whether or not it enables us to solve certain persistent problems in the field more effectively than we now are able to solve them. Our expectations of the field of comparative government have changed in at least two ways in the last decades. In the first place as American interests have broadened to include literally the whole world, our course offerings have expanded to include the many areas outside of Western Europe Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. Secondly, as our international interests have expanded and become more urgent, our requirements in knowledge have become more exacting. We can no longer view political crises in France with detached curiousity or view countries such as IndoChina and Indonesia as interesting political pathologies. We are led to extend our discipline and intensify it simultaneously. It would simply be untrue to say that the discipline of comparative government has not begun to meet both of these challenges. As rapidly as it has been possible to train the personnel, new areas have been opened up to teaching and research; and there has been substantial encouragement to those who have been tempted to explore new aspects of the political process both here and abroad and to employ new methods in such research. It is precisely because