Comparative studies in general

There are a great many books and articles on comparative studies, and the way the term 'comparative' is used among academics varies considerably. Moreover, the meaning of 'comparative' is fairly ambiguous. For instance, Vedung argues that 'comparison seems to denote an extremely general human activity and that it makes it very difficult to give the term a more specific connotation which would be particularly fruitful in a methodological perspective' (1976:201). Furthermore, comparative study sometimes means the study of other countries. For instance, in Britain, the study of American politics is classified as part of comparative politics, and in the United States, the study of British politics then becomes comparative (Rose, 1991:446). Hereafter, the term 'comparative studies' will be used to denote 'comparative method'.

Secondly, there are a few direct comparative studies (i.e. with comparative methods) between Japan and Britain despite the fact that these two countries share many similarities. However, as we shall see later, there are some works on comparative governments or policies which include both Japanese and British chapters, as well as comparison on specific topics such as education or industrial relations. It is therefore worthwhile discussing the relevance of the comparative method to this research and whether it can be applied in practice.

There are several advantages in comparative studies. For instance, knowing a country in depth is only possible by contrasting it with others; unless we are aware of what happens elsewhere, we are unable to claim what is unique to the country under study. Comparison gives us the potential for prediction. It enables us to draw some lessons from other countries' experiences. Comparative studies can 'look beyond the single case, the formal institution, and beyond the countries of Western Europe’ (Verba, 1967). In the case of Britain and Japan, the merit of comparison is considerable, since these two countries have had experience of learning from each other through history. Therefore, the contrast should be significant. In addition, comparative studies allow us to test general hypotheses. Although by comparing only a few countries, the generality of the hypothesis may be low, comparison improves our classifications of political processes (Hague, Harrop and Breslin, 1992; Sartori. 1994).

Nonetheless, there are some problems with comparative studies. Firstly, comparative studies do not necessarily undertake 'comparative methods'. Comparative study indicates 'the how but does not specify the what of the analysis' (Lijphart, 1971:682).

Lijphart even states that comparative method is a basic and simple approach and that the methodology of comparative political analysis does not exist. Secondly, there seem to be two kinds of approach for comparative method. One is exploring similarities and differences throughout the analysis, and to stress the in-depth description and understanding of various nations taken at a particular period of time' (inductive). The other is to explore the 'same phenomenon', subject to the similarities and differences which are given (words by Kohli at symposium in World Politics,

1995:48).

An example of the former can be found in Bendix (1978:15):

'Comparative analysis should sharpen our understanding of the contexts in which more detailed causal inferences can be drawn. Without a knowledge of contexts, causal inference may pretend to a level of generality to which it is not entitled. On the other hand, comparative studies should not attempt to replace causal analysis, because they can only deal with a few cases and cannot easily isolate the variables (as casual analysis must)' (quoted in Axtmann, 1993:69).

Bendix investigates the same or at least similar questions in very different contexts and thus allows for divergent answers, in order to preserve a sense of historical particularity while comparing different countries (ibid.,). This approach stresses contextualisation. The problem of this approach is that it tends to deny the feasibility

of generalizing, since it places greater emphasis on uniqueness while stressing the specific context. In particular, when the cross-national comparison is conducted, this contextual approach leans towards a description of each country’s specific situation rather than offering general concepts across national borders (Mayer, Burnett and Ogden, 1993:2).

The latter approach is to 'transform the field into one with scientific respectability, stress the effort at generalizing across national and cultural boundaries as defining what comparative politics has to contribute to political science...in order to develop cross-nationally a valid explanation of political phenomena' (ibid., p.2) An example of this approach can be found in what Przeworski says (symposium at World

Politics, 1995:17). He tries to 'emulate experiments by finding 'matches', between

cases that are 'comparable'. For instance, Przeworski suggests that to 'find cases that are as similar as possible, in as many aspects as possible and then find a crucial difference that can explain what one wants to explain' or find most different cases and do the same. This is much more quantitative, as contrasted with experimental or case studies and statistical methods (Lijphart, 1971).

The problem with this type of comparative method is that there are 'many variables', and only ‘small numbers' of cases to compare (ibid.). Within political science, we cannot control all of the variables as we can do in natural science. Furthermore, the 'same' phenomenon can have different meanings in different countries. This makes it

difficult to compare like with like. Moreover, problems of bias and political values arise when looking at politics in contrasting countries (Hague, Harrop and Breslin, 1992). These are related to the selection of countries for testing initial questions, and more substantially, problems in defining what is similar or different. For instance, as Sugimoto and Mouer (1995) note, there is always a danger that culture may be easily used for both an 'explanatory factor as well as issues to be explained'.

Problems of non-comparability are well-defined in Sartori(1994). They are:

-parochialism, which 'ignore the categories established by general theories and/or comparative frameworks of analysis’,

-misclassification, when classifications are not 'orderings derived from a single criterion’,

-degreeism, which ‘the abuse of the maxim that differences in kind are best conceived as differences of degree, and that dichotomous treatments are invariably best replaced by continuous ones’,

-conceptual stretching, or definition without a clear standard (ibid., pp. 19-21).

Additionally, there are two different kinds of comparison: simultaneous, varying in places at the same time and historical, varying in period/time. In their attempt to integrate two different types of comparative approaches, Mayer, Burnett, and Ogden (1993:8) propose organising the country studies into common topics and to use some common concepts in order to facilitate comparison, although they rather

favour the conceptualising approach. This common topic with a common concept for different countries is accepted by other authors, such as Harrop ed.(1992) on power and policy or Roskin (1995) on 'what people quarrel about' in different countries, which is his definition of politics. He considers three factors, namely, 'the impact of the past', 'key institutions' and 'political attitudes'. He then analyses 'patterns of interaction' and finally 'what people quarrel about'.

The approach taken in this study will be closer to that of Bendix, since the number of countries relevant to the study is limited to two. In this case, it will take a more flexible and contextual approach instead of scientific, quantitative approach, but at the same time, the study will be aware of 'common topics with common concepts' being the principle.