UNIT 1 Comparative politics is about comparing political phenomena.

The subject matter of comparative politics has been determined both by the geographical space (i.e. countries, regions) which has constituted its field as well as the dominant ideas concerning social reality and change (capitalist, socialist, mixed and indigenous) The Origins of Comparative Study of Politics: Greek philosopher Aristotle studied the constitutions of 150 states and classified them into a typology of regime. His classification was presented in terms of both descriptive and normative categories e.g., democracy, aristocracy, monarchy etc. He also distinguished them on the basis of certain norms of good governance divided regimes into good and bad - ideal and perverted. These Aristotelian categories were acknowledged and taken up by Romans such as Polybius and Cicero. Concern with comparative study of regime types reappeared ' in the 15th century with Machiavelli. Concern with comparative study of regime types reappeared ' in the 15th century with Machiavelli (1469- 1527). The Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries The preoccupation with philosophical and speculative questions concerning the 'good order' or the 'ideal state' and the use, in the process, of abstract and normative vocabulary, persisted in comparative studies of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries signified the period when liberalism was the reigning ideology and European countries enjoyed dominance in world politics. The 'rest of the world' of Asia, Africa and Latin America were either European colonies or under their sphere of influence as ex-colonies These studies were eurocentric i.e, confined to the study of institutions, governments and regime types in European countries like Britain, France and Germany. Any generalisation derived from a study confined to a few countries could not legitimately claim having validity for the rest of the world. It may be emphasised here that exclusion of the rest of the world was symptomatic of the dominance of Europe in world politics - a dominance - which however, was on the wane( diminish), and shifting gradually to North America. All contemporary History had Europe at its centre, obliterating( eliminating) the rest of the world (colonised or liberated from colonisation) (a) as 'people without histories' or (b) whose histories were bound with and destined to follow the trajectories of the advanced countries of the West .baggage of racial and civilisational superiority, and assumed a prescriptive character for the colonies/former colonies. The Second World War and After

In the nineteen thirties the political and economic situation of the world changed. The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917,brought into world politics, Socialism, as an ideology of the oppressed and, as a critical alternative to western liberalism and capitalism. With the end of the second World War: significant development-the waning of European (British) hegemony, the emergence and entrenchment of United States of America as the new hegemon in world politics and economy, and the bifurcation of the world into two ideological camps viz. (western) capitalism and (eastern) socialism. The majority of the 'rest of the world' had, by the time the second World War ended, liberated itself from European imperialism.For a period after decolonisation 'new nations', were no longer compelled to tow the western capitalist path of development. While socialism had its share of sympathisers among the new ruling elite of the Asia, America and Latin America, quite a number of newly independent countries made a conscious decision to distance themselves from both the power blocs, remaining non-aligned to either.A number of them evolved their own specific path of development akin to the socialist, as in the case of Ujama in Tanzania, and the mixed-economy model in India which was a blend of both capitalism and socialism. The 1970s and Challenges to Developmentalism: They stressed the need to concentrate on solutions to the backwardness of developing countries. Two main challenges to developmentalism which arose in the early 1970s and gained widespread attention were (a) dependency and (b) corporatism. The 1980s: The Return of the State bureaucratic-authoritarianism, indigenous concepts of change, transitions to democracy, the politics of structural adjustment, 'neoliberalism and privatisation. The Late Twentieth century: Globalisation and Emerging Trends/ Possibilities -Civil Society and Democratisation Approach With Machiavelli (The Prince) in the sixteenth century and Montesquieu (The Spirit of Laws) in the middle of the eighteenth century, the emphasis on empirical details and facts about existing state of affairs came to be established. Tocqueville, in many ways, was the forbearer of the study of 'theory and practice' of governments, national movement may be taken to mean any struggle intended to better the lot of the people by codtructive. work in different spheres of national life. But practically speaking, in the colonized countries, a national movement was understood only to be,a strukl; for achieving the freedom of the people from foreign domination, and therehe was essentially ' a political phenomenon. National movements, therefore, were mainlytanti- . imperialistic or anti-forkign.and their main object was to secure se~f-~o~eqnknt or full independcnw of the colonie

the Indian national moveincnt fpr frecdom against the British differed in its ways and means from that of thg movement for 'freedom of the Indonesians against the Dutch or of tllc Ihdo-Chinese against the!French; and of China qgainst - . . the domination of Western powers. On the cntirc castern frontier of the Western world, in the great swvccp from Morocco through tlie Middle East and South Asia to South-east Asia. people wcrc rising to rid themselves of imperial domination. That is why the end of World War 1 was regarded as the signal for the effective beginning of the great upsurge of nationalist movements that reached its fruition after the end of Second World War in 1945. In Moroaco Abdel-Krim challenged the Spanish and the French; in Egypt Sad Zaghlul Pasha led the nationalists against the British; and in Syria-there was rebellion to throw off the French Mandatory rule. Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan saw the rise of revolutionary lcaders who attempted the forceddraft modernization of their countries in dictatorial guise. In the colonial sphere the principal focus of attention was inevitably India which wvas thc grcatcst prize aniong the world's colonies. The demands of the Indian nationalists. coming increasingly under Gandhi's spell, went far beyond what the British wvere prepared to grant, and the Congress widened its base to become a mass movement capable of virtually paralyzing the governnient. The nascent spirit of nationalism was apparent in India in 1857 and later it was fostered by political associations, such as the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha (1870), and the Indian Association (1878), which encouraged the infiltration of western ideas and were the forerunners of the Indian National Congress and the national movement. The First World War gave a great spur to the national movements. It was fought, in part at least, to vindicate the principle of nationality. President Wilson of the U.S. had declared in connection with the war aims that national aspirations were to be respected, and that self-determination was to be an imperative principle of action in World War I, President Wilson had declared the principle of self-determination, during World War 11, President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill issued a declaration of princ~ples known a the Atlantic Charter in 1941. One of the principles in the Charter had declared people's right of self- govenunent by persistent protest (everywhere), by "passive resistance" (India), by revolution (Algeria), through civil war (China) and colonial war (Vietnam), over fifty African and Asian peoples, led in most cases by charismatic individuals, did win their independence after 1945. When the United Nations was set up in 1945, it had only 51 (original) members. Of these, India was not then a sovereign stat Besides, 1 two members viz. Ukraine and Bylo-Russia were Union Republics of the erstwhile Soviet Union. Today, at the dawn of 21st century there are 189 sovereign countries who are members of the United Natio

ns. Most (not all) of i them were colonies of one Imperial Power or the other in 1945 . . . A systematic study of the classification of constitutions was undertaken by Aristotle though Herodotus and Plato before him had also tried to classify the regimes. Herodotus divided the states into three categories : Monarchy, Aristocracy and Democracy. Plato in his book Republic ~nentions about five types of states, namely, Ideocracy, Timocracy, Oligarchy, Democracy and Tyranny. two bases of quality (i.e. whether the regime is good or bad) and quantity (i.e. the number of persons), Aristotle provided six " types of Constitutions : three good - Monarchy, Aristocracy and Polity respectively in the hands of one, few and many, a~id three bad - Tyranny, Oligarchy and Democracy respectively in tlie hands of one, few and many types of Constitutions : three good - Monarchy, Aristocracy and Polity respectively in the hands of one, few and many, a~id three bad - Tyranny, Oligarchy and Democracy respectively in tlie hands of one, few and many According to Aristotle, monarchy is the rule of one person with supreme virtue as its guiding principle; its perverted form is tyranny that represents force, deceit, selfishness and like. Aristocracy was described as rule of few representing the mixture of virtue and wealth and its perverted form as oligarchy wliich represented greed for wealth. Finally, there is the polity as the rule of many representing martial and medium virtues, power resting with tlie middle class people only, whose perverted form is democracy that represents tlie principle of equality without discrimination with power vested in tlie liands of numerous poor. A prominent feature of Aristotle's classification and political analysis is tliat no form of state remains static for ever. All the states pass through a cycle of revolutions. Every for111 degenerates over a period of time giving place to a new one.

French philosopher Montesquieu in the eighteenth century produced one of the most favoured scheme of classifying governments : Republican, Monarchical and Despotic. Rousseau, a few years later, classified the forms of goverllrnelit into three - Autocratic, Aristocratic and Democratic - but lie held that there was only one form of state, namely, Republic. Karit saw tliree kinds of states correspo~idi~~g to Rousseau's three forms of government but only two forms of government - Republican and Despotic. In our own time, a modern German writer, Bluntsclili attempted to extend Aristotle's tripe division by adding to it a fourth type of state wliicll he called Ideocracy or Theocracy in wliich the supreme ruler is conceived to be God or some superhuman spirit or idea.

MODERN CLASSIFICATION With the rise of sovereign nation-state, evolution of liberal-constitutio~~al- democratic state, formation of American federation during eigliteenth and nineteenth ce~~turies, etc. the old classification of political regimes lost its relevance. The new modes of classification which emerged were based upon the nature of constitution, concentration or distributio~i of power within tlie state, relation of the executive with tlie legislature, nature and extent of civil liberties, degree of public participation or the role of ideology. However, the totality of power of all the states is the same. In other words, every state is a sovereign state; the only manner in which states can be classified is according to the structural peculiarities of the governmental organisation. Jellenick, a German writer classified political regimes Governments r--l Hereditary Elective Democratic Aristocratic Oligarchical Absolute Limited ~rrect lndirect Leacock Edward Shils in his book Political Developtt~e~~t in New States presented a five- fold classification of modern political systems: i) Political democracy as in Britain and USA, ii) Tutelary democracy states which are not democratic but try to copy the ways of political democracy, iii) Modernising oligarchy - states where the power is in tlie hands of a few civilians who rule with the help of armed forces or vice-versa, iv) Totalitarian oligarcliy of either Communist or Fascist type, and v) Traditional Oligarcliy - states wliicli are ruled by dynastic rulers and are associated with traditional religious beliefs. S.E. Finer evolved certain new basis for his mode of classification. According to him, in all the political systems, the essence is that a few rule over the many i.e. those who formulate policies and implement them are very few. In this context, he talks about three types of political systems : i) Liberal-democratic such as the liberal-capitalist states of Europe and America, ii) Totalitarian system such as prevalent in the communist states, iii) Autocracies and oligarchies, i.e. the political systems in which tlie political activity of the military is persistent. Tliese are the systems which are neither liberal democratic nor totalitarian. Tliese are prevalent in the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America where the military is the decisive factor and is an independent political factor, often a decisive factor. The UN Declaratio~i of Human Riglits and the subseque~it cove~ia~its on lii~nia~i rights (1966) recognised tliat individuals liave rights and obligatio~is over and above those set dow~i in tlieir ow11 judicial and ad~iii~iistrative system. The tern1 'human riglits' refer to tlie concept tliat every member of tlie liu~na~i race lias a set of basic claims si~iiply by virtue of his Iiumanness.

Tliey are said to be I universal rather tlia~i national and are different from legal riglits According to Macfarlane, human riglits are those 'moral rights wliicli are owned to each inan arid woman solely by reason of being a lli~~iia~i being'. In early centuries, these riglits were commonly spoken of as 'natural riglits' or tlie 'rights of man'. Tlie theory of natural riglits had emerged in the seventeenth century in the writings of Grotins, Hobbes, Locke etc. which attributed natural riglits to 'natural law', which provided tliat 'no one ought to liar111 another in liis life, health, liberty or possessions'. lie theory got its classical espressio~i in tlie writings of John Locke in liis book The Two TI-ecrtr'es otl G'ovc.t.t~tttc.n/. Locke termed tlie riglits to 'life. liberty and estate' as natural riglits. He fi~rtlier stated tliat the whole idea of establisliing a state was to better protect these riglits and if a govertilnelit violates tliese riglits, tlie people can revolt against it tlie American Declaration of Independence in 1776 enunciated as 'self evident truths tliat all Inell are created equal and they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable riglits tliat among them are life, liberty and tlie pursuit of liappi~iess French Declaration of tlie Rights of Man and tlie Citizen 1789.iiiade similar claims in relation to the 'natural iniprescriptable and iiialie~lable rights that it enumerated. 11 short, all tliese declaratioris enipliasised upon tlie riglits of man as man and not as a citizen 11 short, all tliese declaratioris enipliasised upon tlie riglits of man as man and not as a citizen Demand for Human Rights After World War I1 Two social movements were, however, i~nportant a~itecede~its to current human rights regime Britain in tlie 18th century Anti-Slavery Society an NGO that still exists to figlit modern foniis of slavery Red Cross movement, which originated during tlie Crimean War in tlie revulsion of a Swiss businessman, Henri Bunant, to tlie immeasurable suffering of wounded soldiers. between the World War I and II Economic arid social riglits began to receive i~iternational recognition witli tlie founding of tlie lnter~iational Labour Organisation (ILO) in 1919 and assistance to refugees was first organised under international auspices in 1921 with tlie appointme ith tlie appointment of a League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. in respolise to tlie horrors of tlie Nazi Holocaust tliat NGOs began pressurising States to lay tlie conceptual and legal foundations for international human riglits law.

It was NGOs tliat were largely responsible for inserting human riglits into tlie Preanible and six different Articles of UN Charter. It was NGOs tliat convi~iced tlie governments tliat Iiu~iian riglits sliould become one of tlie central pillars of tlie United Nations System. Hitler regime 'crime against liu~nanit Tlie Nureniberg Trials tribunal lay down for tlie first time in liistory tliat 'when international rules that protect basic liurnanitarian values are in conflict with state laws, every individual must transgress tlie state law Tlie legal framework of Nuremberg Trials cliallenged tlie principle of riiilitary discipline and subverted tlie ~iatio~ial sovereignty.