• The study of comparative politics is both significant and interesting because of the diverse approaches, methods, and techniques used to understand and explain political reality.
• Leading writers in the field hold divergent points of view and adopt different ways of studying politics, which leads to the use of various terms like approaches, methods, techniques, models, paradigms, and strategies, often seen as inter-related or synonymous.
• The existence and utilization of several approaches in the study of politics create a complex framework for analysis and understanding.
• Different approaches to studying politics have had periods of dominance, but their influence often wanes as new approaches emerge to take their place.
• The differences between various approaches are significant, and the debate among their proponents has been intense, with each group striving to prove the superiority of their chosen approach.

Meaning and Nature of ‘Approach’: Similarity and Distinction with Related Themes

• An approach is a way of looking at and explaining a phenomenon, which can range from a broad global perspective to a more focused study of local, regional, national, or international politics.
• Approaches involve the collection, selection of evidence, and the analysis of a hypothesis for academic purposes, and consist of criteria for selecting the problems or questions to consider and the data to include or exclude.
• Approaches and methods are closely inter-related. While an approach involves criteria for selecting problems and data, a method refers to the procedures for obtaining and utilizing that data.
• Methods may involve epistemological assumptions and operations for acquiring and processing data. Modern political science often borrows methods from other disciplines like economics, psychology, sociology, biology, and anthropology to address political study challenges.
• A method may also be referred to as a technique, but a technique is often more routine and mechanical, requiring less imaginative intelligence once mastered.
• An approach is distinguishable from a theory. While an approach determines the way of generalization, explanation, prediction, and prescription (all functions of a theory), it serves as the precursor to a theory.
• Theory is a more abstract or generalized statement summarizing the actions of variables, and it may be macro or micro in scale.
• Approach becomes a theory when it extends beyond simply selecting problems and data, leading to the formation of more generalizable principles.
• Paradigm is a framework of ideas that sets the context of analysis, combining philosophical assumptions and criteria of valid knowledge.
• Theory is a generalized statement summarizing the actions of dependent, independent, or intervening variables within specific conditions or parameters.
• Method organizes a theory for application to data and can be comparative, configurational, historical, simulative, or experimental.
• Technique links method to relevant data, representing various ways of observing and recording empirical information, such as sampling, opinion testing, interviewing, and regression analysis.
• Model is a simplified description of relationships, constructed from a paradigm, theory, method, or technique. Models may be typological, descriptive, formal, mechanical, organismic, or biological.
• Strategy is the way of applying one or more of the above methods and techniques to a research problem, requiring quality and integrity in combining theory, methods, and techniques systematically.
• Research Design is the operational plan for fieldwork or an experiment, converting strategy into a concrete plan for research.
• In comparative politics, many related themes like paradigm, method, model, and strategy are often used synonymously to present an empirical study of politics.
• The purpose of using a new methodology in politics is to adopt new techniques for acquiring knowledge, new criteria for judging the validity of knowledge, and new analytical tools to improve the precision and logical inference in political analysis.

Traditional Approaches: Emphasis on Value-Laden Study of Politics

• Approaches to the study of politics can be broadly classified into normative and empirical categories.
• Normative approaches are value-laden, emphasizing values, goals, and prescriptions in political analysis.
• Empirical approaches are value-neutral, focusing on facts, data, and objective analysis of political phenomena.
• The fact-value relationship is the basis for this classification, with traditional approaches prioritizing values and empirical approaches focusing on facts.
• The fact-value dichotomy determines the distinction between normative and empirical approaches.
• Traditional approaches have a historical-descriptive and prescriptive character, dominated by values and goals, focusing on how political systems should ideally function.
• Normative approaches stress how politics ought to be, aiming to set standards or ideals for political behavior and systems.

Philosophical Approach

• The oldest approach to the study of politics is the philosophical or ethical approach.
• This approach intertwines the study of state, government, and man as a political being with the pursuit of goals, morals, truths, or high principles.
• The philosophical approach assumes a speculative character, focusing on clarifying thought about the nature of the subject and about ends and means.
• The aim is to enhance linguistic clarity and reduce linguistic confusion by making conceptions of reality clear, consistent, coherent, and helpful.
• Thinkers following this approach seek to influence and guide thinking, ensuring that politics is made intelligible.
• Writers like Plato, More, Bacon, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Green, Bosanquet, Nettleship, Lindsay, and Leo Strauss elevate political study to a high level of abstraction and link it to higher norms of an ideal political system.
• Normativism dominates in this approach, contrasting with the empiricism found in classical works like those of Aristotle, Machiavelli, Bodin, Hobbes, Locke, and Montesquieu.
• These classical writers integrate political study with ethics, history, psychology, or law to present the picture of an ideal political community.
• The philosophical approach is criticized for being speculative and abstract, moving away from the world of reality.
• It is seen as hypothetical, especially with thinkers like Kant and Hegel who elevate the state to mystical heights, turning politics into a handmaid of ethics or metaphysics.
• Critics argue that the focus shifts from how things are to how they ought to be.
• Leo Strauss and Berlin defend the philosophical approach, asserting that values are an indispensable part of political philosophy and cannot be excluded from the study of politics.
• Strauss emphasizes that the goal of acquiring knowledge of the good life and the good society makes political philosophy emerge.