PART 1. THE COMPASS OF THE COMPARATIVIST

1. Comparing to Escape from Ethnocentrism

2. Comparing to Find Sodological Rules

3. Operational Concepts

4. Theoretical Frameworks

5. Functional Equivalences

PART 2. THE INTERNATIONALIZATION Of ANALYTICAL CATEGORIES

6. Social Classes: Different in Each Continent

7. Cultural Pluralism: Vertical Societies

8. Political Culture: From Nation to Nation

9. Political Socialization: From Generation to Generation

10. Political Clientelism: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon

11. Consocional Democracy: An Elitist Model for Fragmented Societies 12. Political Crises: Historical Events or Stages of Development

PART 3. THE CHOICE OF COUNTRIES

13. On the Need to Segment Before Comparing

14. The Case Study in Comparative Perspective

15. The Binary Analysis

16. Comparing Similar Countries

17. Comparing Contrasting Countries

18. The Conceptual Homogenization of a Heterogeneous Field

PART 4. HOW TO STRUCTURE THE RESULTS OF THE COMPARISON

19. The Dichotomy as Clarification

20. Cross-National Typologies of Social Actors

21 Typologies of Political Regimes

22. The Dynamics of Models

23. From Comparison to Synthesis

24. From Comparison to Prediction

THE COMPASS OF THE COMPARATIVIST

To COMPARE is a natural way of thinking. Nothing is more natural than to Study people, ideas, or institutions in relation to other people, ideas, or institutions. We gain knowledge through reference. Scientific comparison is not of a different nature, although the intellectual level is higher. We compare to evaluate more objectively our situation as individuals, a community, or a nation.

A sociologist who compares discovers the pitfall of ethnocentrism, and by the same token may find a way to overcome it. But the coroparativist does not seek a better understanding only of his or her own environment. By enlarging the field of observation, the compararivist searches for rules and tries to bring to light the general causes of social phenomena. Today there are about one hundred fifty independent nations in the world, each one presenting characteristics that can be viewed from different perspectives and combined in multiple configurations. In this kaleidescope appear hundreds of questions that invite all lands of analyses descriptive or theoretical, limited or ambitious. This challenge to human intelligence provides the social sciences with the possibility of becoming real "sciences." Cogilo, ergo sum, proclaimed Rent Descartes; paraphrasing him, we can say, "I think, consequently I am comparing."

International comparison requires an articulated conceptual framework. Social scientists who analyze only one country may proceed step by step, without structured hypotheses, building analytical categories as they go. Comparativisits have no such freedom. They cannot advance without tools. Confronted with a variety of contexts, they are obliged to rely on abstractions, to master concepts general enough to cope with the diversity of the cases under consideration. When concentrating on a single country, a single culture, a single system, one may possibly grope. Comparativists, on the contrary, need a compass that will allow them to pass from one context to another, to select in each country the differences or similarities that can be integrated into their general scheme.

Every researcher~decants reality. But such a decanting is a necessity for the comparativist, who must have a theoretical orientation from the start with the understanding that it is precisely the purpose of the research to permit a refinement, a remodeling of the initial scheme. Even in the absence of a well-structured theoretical framework, the specialist on one country is not in danger of getting lost. But the comparativist may well go astray, and efforts to garner information may cruelly prove to have been in vain.

Perhaps there is no basic difference between the approach of the specialist and the approach of the comparativist. But there is an essential difference of degree. What is here latent is there bright; so much so that methodological and conceptual problems raised by international comparison appear to be specific.