The activities associated with the governance of a country or area is called politics. The activities of government concerning the political relations between the countries are also included in politics.
Comparative science is a sub field of political science, characterized by an empirical approach based on comparative method. Comparative politics is not defined by the subject of its study, but rather by the method it applies to study political phenomena. Comparative politics may be referred to by other names, when applied to specific fields of study for example, comparative government i.e. the comparative study of forms of government, or comparative foreign policy.
The comparative method is, together with the experimental method, the statistical method and the case study approach, one of the four fundamental scientific methods that can be used to test the validity of general empirical propositions i.e. to establish empirical relationship between two or more variables, while all other variables are held constant. In general, the comparative method is used when neither the experimental nor the statistical method can be employed. On the one hand, experiments can only be conducted in political science. On the other hand statistical method implies the mathematical manipulation of quantitative data about a large number of cases while, sometimes political research must be conducted by analyzing the behavior of qualitative variables in a small number of cases. The case study approach cannot be considered a scientific method according to the above definition; however, it can be useful to gain knowledge about single cases, which can then be put to comparison according to the comparative method.
Several different strategies can be used in the comparative method. Some of these are as follows:
1. Mill’s method of difference: it consists in comparing very similar cases that only differ in dependent variable, on the assumption that this would make it easier to find those independent variables that explains the presence or absence of dependent variable.
2. Mill’s method of similarity: it consists in comparing very different cases, all of which however have in common the same dependent variable, so that any other circumstance that is present in all the cases can be regarded as independent variable.
Comparative politics asserts an ambitious scope of inquiry. No political phenomena is foreign to it, no level of analysis is irrelevant, and no time beyond its reach. Comparative politics follows the lead of the grand masters in their approach to substantive issues, to scope of inquiry, to the nature of theory building, and to the durable problems of social thoughts. As comparatives address politically significant matters, explore a range of political phenomena, explain general explanatory propositions based on systematic evidence from multiple cases and address big question, they move along a path first marked by the founders of social science.
Comparative politics is a distinct sub discipline of political science defined by both substantive and methodological criteria. Comparative politics is dominated today by rationalists, culturists and structuralists’ approaches. The rationalists, culturists and structuralists’ approaches research traditions set the agenda in contemporary comparative politics, just as they do in American politics, international politics and social science even more generally.