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Comparative politics is a field and a method used in political science, characterized by an empirical approach based on the ''comparative method''. In other words, comparative politics is the study of the domestic politics, political institutions, and conflicts of countries. It often involves comparisons among countries and through time within single countries, emphasizing key patterns of similarity and difference. Arend Lijphart argues that comparative politics does not have a ''substantive'' focus in itself, but rather a ''methodological'' one: it focuses on "the ''how'' but does not specify the ''what'' of the analysis." In other words, comparative politics is not defined by the object of its study, but rather by the method it applies to study political phenomena. Peter Mair and Richard Rose advance a slightly different definition, arguing that comparative politics is defined by a combination of a ''substantive'' focus on the study of countries' political systems and a ''method'' of identifying and explaining similarities and differences between these countries using common concepts. Rose states that, on his definition: "The focus is explicitly or implicitly upon more than one country, thus following familiar political science usage in excluding within-nation comparison. Methodologically, comparison is distinguished by its use of concepts that are applicable in more than one country."〔 When applied to specific fields of study, comparative politics may be referred to by other names, such as for example comparative government (the comparative study of forms of government) or comparative foreign policy (comparing the foreign policies of different States in order to establish general empirical connections between the characteristics of the State and the characteristics of its foreign policy). Sometimes, especially in the United States, the term "comparative politics" is used to refer to "the politics of foreign countries." This usage of the term, however, is often considered incorrect.〔Hopkin, J. ((1995) ) "Comparative Methods", in Marsh, D. and G. Stoker (ed.) ''Theory and Methods in Political Science'', Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 249–250〕 "Comparative political science" as a general term for an area of study, as opposed to a methodology of study, can be seen as redundant. The political only shows as political when either an overt or tacit comparison is being made. A study of a single political entity, whether a society, subculture or period, would show the political as simple brute reality without comparison with another society, subculture, or period. The highest award in the discipline of Comparative Politics is the Karl Deutsch award, awarded by the International Political Science Association. So far, it has been given to Juan Linz (2003), Charles Tilly (2006), Giovanni Sartori (2009), and Alfred Stepan (2012). ==Methodology== The comparative method is – together with the experimental method, the statistical method and the case study approach – one of the four fundamental scientific methods which can be used to test the validity of theoretical propositions, often with the use of empirical data i.e. to establish relationships among two or more empirical variables or concepts while all other variables are held constant.〔Lijphart, A. (1971), cit., p. 683〕 In particular, the comparative method is generally used when neither the experimental nor the statistical method can be employed: on the one hand, experiments can only rarely be conducted in political science;〔Hopkin, J. ((1995) ), cit., p. 250〕 on the other hand the 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.〔It should be noted however that, as Lijphart points out in the article cited above, the experimental and statistical methods share the same logic as the comparative method: they all imply a comparison between cases which differ on the variable which is being studied, while remaining identical on all the other possible variables.〕 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.〔Lijphart, A. (1971), cit., p. 691〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「comparative politics」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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