Traditional Approaches to Comparative Politics

The traditional approaches are the older ways of studying comparative politics. They were used from the time of the Greeks until about the Second World War. They include the philosophical, historical, legal and institutional approaches. All of them study the state, its constitution and its main organs. They depend on texts, laws, history and moral reasoning. They do not measure how people actually behave.

After 1945, many scholars started what is called the behavioural revolution. They criticised the older ways of study and offered new ones. For this reason, we cannot understand modern comparative politics without knowing the traditional approaches.

This topic has two parts for a student. First, the traditional approaches must be understood on their own terms. We must know their types, their writers and their merits. Second, they must be compared with the modern approaches that followed. UG answers usually ask for the features and limits. PG and NET papers ask for the types and the authors. OPSC and UPSC answers ask for a critical view. This note explains each approach in turn. It gives the definitions that students must quote. It ends with a critical assessment and the Indian context.

1. Meaning and definitions

The word “approach” needs a clear meaning first. An approach is not a theory. It is a way of looking at a subject. It tells us which questions to ask and which facts to use. Vernon Van Dyke said that an approach is a set of rules for choosing problems and data.

The traditional approach is the set of choices that was common before the behavioural revolution. It takes the state and its formal institutions as the main subject. It studies them through law, history and philosophy. It deals mainly with a few Western countries. Its main tasks are to describe and to judge. The name “traditional” was given mostly by its critics. We should use it only as a convenient label.

Writer	Idea	How it is usually put
Vernon Van Dyke	An approach is a set of criteria for choosing problems and data	A way of selecting the questions and evidence of a study, not a theory in itself
Roy C. Macridis	Traditional comparative government was configurative, parochial, formal and static	It described the institutions of a few countries one by one without a common framework
Harry Eckstein	The older work was configurative-idiographic: it studied each country as a unique whole	Interested in the particular configuration of a country, not in general laws
Gabriel Almond	The older field was confined to the formal institutions of Western states	The new approach widened the range to the whole political system and its functions
David Easton	The older study was historical, philosophical and legal, with little theory	Often called “traditional political science”, set against the behavioural approach
Herman Finer	Government is the study of the institutions and processes by which a state is ruled	The classical institutional position: the study of constitutions and governmental machinery

Definitions by scholars

Vernon Van Dyke (Political Science: A Philosophical Analysis, 1960). An approach is a set of criteria for choosing the problems or questions to study and the data to use. It tells us what the writer chooses to look at. The traditional approach is known by its choices. These are the state, the constitution, the law, history and values.

Roy C. Macridis (The Study of Comparative Government, 1955). Macridis did not give a one-line definition. He described the traditional approach by its faults. He said it was mainly descriptive, parochial, formal and static. He said it was comparative only in name. It placed studies of single countries side by side, but it did not ask common questions. This description is the one most often given in examinations.

Harry Eckstein (“A Perspective on Comparative Politics, Past and Present”, 1963). Eckstein called the older study “configurative”. It described each political system as a whole, with its own particular pattern. It did not try to test general propositions. His term is now part of the standard vocabulary.

Gabriel Almond (with James Coleman, The Politics of the Developing Areas, 1960). Almond said that the older study dealt mainly with the formal institutions of a few Western countries. It had no framework that could cover the new states. For this reason he proposed the functional approach.

David Easton (“The Current Meaning of Behavioralism”, 1962; A Framework for Political Analysis, 1965). Easton said that the older political science was mainly historical, philosophical and descriptive. It collected many facts but had little theory. He contrasted it with the behavioural stress on regularities and testable statements.

Note for the student. These definitions are given as textbooks usually report them. The titles and the main ideas are well known. The exact words differ between editions, and some are paraphrases. In the examination, write the name, the work and the main idea. Use quotation marks only for a phrase of which you are sure.

What the definitions share. They agree on three things. The subject is the state and its formal organs. The manner is description, law, history and moral judgement. The reach is a few Western countries. The critics add what was missing. There was no common set of concepts, no clear theory and no testing of general statements. A student who remembers these points can rebuild any definition.

2. Characteristics of the traditional approaches

1. The state and its formal institutions are the central subject. Traditional writers took government to be the core of politics. They studied constitutions, legislatures, executives, courts and civil services. They thought these were the visible organs through which the state acts. So they believed that knowing the organs meant knowing politics. For example, a chapter on Britain would explain how the Cabinet is formed and what the Prime Minister may do. It would say little about the parties and interests behind the Cabinet.

2. They are mainly descriptive. The aim was to give an accurate account of how governments are organised. Facts are necessary, because no theory can be tested without them. But the older writers seldom went beyond the facts. Bryce’s The American Commonwealth is a good example. It describes the American system in great detail. It does not state propositions that can be tested.

3. They are configurative or idiographic. Eckstein used these words for the older work. It treated each country as a unique whole and tried to describe it fully. It did not look for general laws. As a result, comparison was weak. A book on France and a book on Germany used different headings and few cross-references. A student could learn much about the Weimar constitution. But he would not learn how it differed from the French Third Republic on any common point.

4. They are normative and evaluative. Much of the writing was about what ought to be. Plato and Aristotle asked which constitution is best. Liberal writers praised the English and American systems. The writers thought that political study should guide citizens and rulers. The difficulty is that facts and values were mixed. The evidence could be shaped to suit the writer’s preference.

5. They are legal and formal in method. The main sources were constitutions, statutes and court decisions. A political structure was understood through its legal powers. Wheare, for example, studied federations by the division of powers in the constitution. This method is precise about rules. But it assumes that the law shows how things really work. That is often not true.

6. They are historical. Institutions were explained by tracing their origin and growth. Examples are the growth of the English Parliament and the American presidency. The reason is simple. Present arrangements are the result of past conflicts and compromises. History gives depth. It also warns us that institutions are not timeless. But a narrative of events does not by itself test a cause.

7. They are philosophical and speculative. One part of the tradition reasoned from first principles about the state. It asked about rights and the duty to obey. The social contract theories of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau are examples. They gave us the ideas of sovereignty, consent, representation and the rule of law. The weakness is that such arguments persuade but cannot be proved.

8. They are parochial. Most comparison dealt with Britain, France, Germany and the United States. The Soviet Union was added later. Asia, Africa and Latin America were hardly studied, except as colonies. So the evidence was narrow. The Western state was taken as the standard. This became a serious problem after the end of empire.

9. They are static. The writers looked at constitutions and settled arrangements. They said little about change, development or breakdown. Constitutional democracies collapsed in the 1920s and 1930s. New states appeared after 1945. The older framework could not explain these events. It could describe a constitution, but it could not say why it failed or survived.

10. They are monographic and lack a common framework. The usual product was a book on one country. Or it was a volume with one chapter for each country. There were no shared concepts to compare them. Macridis made this his main criticism. Real comparison needs the same questions to be asked of every case.

11. They are mostly non-theoretical. The older writers gave many classifications. Examples are monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, unitary and federal, and parliamentary and presidential. But they gave few theories that could be tested. The classifications are still used. The explanations behind them were seldom systematic.

12. They depend on documents and on the scholar’s judgement. The evidence came from texts, records, travel and observation. The wide reading of the author was the main instrument. The best works, such as Bryce’s, are very rich. But other scholars could not easily check the conclusions.

13. They are individual in style. The work was done by single scholars who wrote large books. It was not done by teams collecting data. It was believed that political knowledge came from experience and thought. So there was little use of surveys or data banks. The behavioural revolution changed this.

3. Background and the traditional approaches at a glance

The traditional approaches did not begin at one time. They grew from different traditions. Later, the critics grouped them under one name. The philosophical strand goes back to the Greeks. Plato and Aristotle asked what a good state is. The social contract writers developed this strand further. The historical strand began with the eighteenth-century interest in laws and peoples, as in Montesquieu. It grew with nineteenth-century historical scholarship, as in Maine, Freeman and Tocqueville. The legal strand came with written constitutions and the doctrine of sovereignty, as in Austin and Dicey. The institutional strand grew when universities began to teach comparative government. Bagehot, Wilson, Lowell, Bryce, Finer and Friedrich belong to it. These strands were not rival schools. They were complementary habits. One writer could use several of them. Bryce, for example, combined history, law and observation.

There are clear reasons for the long dominance of these approaches. Governments were visible and well documented. Constitutions gave an easy frame for description. The countries studied were stable, so formal institutions seemed to explain their politics. The universities that taught the subject drew on law, history and philosophy, and these gave the methods. Only the strains of the interwar years and the end of empire showed their limits. The diagram below shows the main strands. It also shows the kind of question each one asks.

The five strands differ in the question they ask and the evidence they use, but all of them centre on the state and its formal organs, which is the feature that the behavioural critics attacked.

4. The philosophical approach

The philosophical approach is the oldest strand. It studies the state by reasoning about its purpose and its justification. It also asks what form the state ought to take. Its questions are these. Why should people obey the state? What is justice? What is the best constitution? What rights does a citizen have?

Meaning and method. This approach reasons from general principles. It also reasons from ideas about human nature. Then it draws conclusions about the proper form of government. Its method is mostly deductive and reflective. Aristotle’s Politics combined reflection with a study of many constitutions. Hobbes’s Leviathan (1651) began with a picture of life in a state of nature. From this it argued for a strong sovereign.

Main contributors. Plato, in the Republic, described an ideal state ruled by philosopher-kings. He also described how regimes decline. Aristotle classified constitutions and favoured a mixed constitution. Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau built the social contract tradition. Hobbes wanted an absolute sovereign. Locke, in Two Treatises of Government (1689), wanted limited government based on consent and natural rights. Rousseau, in The Social Contract (1762), stressed the general will. Hegel, in the Philosophy of Right (1821), saw the state as the realisation of ethical freedom. Kant, Burke, Bentham and J. S. Mill added liberal, conservative and utilitarian views. In India, Kautilya reflected on the state, and so did Gandhi, Tagore and Ambedkar later.

Contribution to comparative politics. This approach gave the subject its basic concepts. These are sovereignty, consent, representation, liberty, equality, justice, legitimacy and the rule of law. It also gave the first types of regimes. It taught the habit of judging institutions by standards. A student who compares the protection of rights in the Indian and American constitutions uses these concepts.

Merits. It gives depth of ideas and clear ends. It reminds us that politics is about values and not only about techniques. It gives a rational basis for judging a government. It is still the source of ideas in constitutional debates. The Preamble of the Indian Constitution is an example. It speaks of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity.

Limitations. Its conclusions rest on ideas about human nature that cannot be tested. Thinkers with different starting points reach opposite conclusions. Hobbes and Rousseau are an example. The approach deals with what ought to be, not with what is. So it may move away from the working of real governments. The behaviouralists attacked it for this reason. They wanted to separate facts from values.

Place today. Normative political theory is now a separate branch of the discipline. Comparative politics also deals with values more openly after Easton’s post-behavioural call. A good answer should say that the philosophical approach is traditional in origin but not out of date.

5. The historical approach

The historical approach explains political institutions by tracing their origin, growth and change. Its basic idea is simple. The present cannot be understood without the past. Institutions are the result of earlier struggles, compromises and accidents.

Meaning and method. The student uses records and sources to follow how an institution came about. Examples are the growth of Parliament from the medieval council and the growth of American federalism from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution of 1787. The historical paths of different countries are then compared. This shows why they have developed differently.

Main contributors. Montesquieu, in The Spirit of the Laws (1748), linked forms of government to history, climate, customs and religion. Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America (1835 and 1840) and The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856). He compared America and France to explain the rise of democracy. Henry Maine, in Ancient Law (1861), said that societies move “from status to contract”. This is a famous statement from comparative legal history. E. A. Freeman, in Comparative Politics (1873), applied the comparative method to the history of institutions. James Bryce combined history with observation. Karl Marx gave a materialist view of history. He said that the economic base explains political forms. Later writers such as Barrington Moore and Theda Skocpol use the same historical method in a modern form.

Contribution to comparative politics. History taught the subject to look at long processes. These include the formation of states, the spread of the vote, the growth of bureaucracy and the origin of party systems. It showed that timing and sequence often explain differences between countries. In India, colonial rule, the freedom movement and the making of the Constitution are closely linked. They cannot be separated if we want to understand Indian democracy. Granville Austin’s The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation (1966) is a historical study of this kind.

Merits. It gives depth and a sense of change, which the purely legal approach lacks. It warns us against treating institutions as timeless or universal. It gives rich evidence for the study of causes. Many of the best works in the discipline are historical.

Limitations. A historical account may become a mere story of events. It may not test any cause. The writer’s beliefs may guide the choice of facts. This can produce a story of inevitable progress. History deals with unique sequences, so general statements are difficult. Records may also be incomplete. The behaviouralists complained that history gave understanding but no testable laws.

Place today. Historical institutionalism and comparative-historical analysis have revived the approach. They now use clear hypotheses. They study path dependence, critical turning points and sequences.

6. The legal (juridical) approach

The legal approach treats the state as a legal order. It studies politics through law. Its sources are constitutions, statutes and court decisions. It looks at the legal powers of institutions. Its basic idea is that the state is created and limited by law. So its structure and powers can be understood by analysing legal rules.

Meaning and method. The method is to interpret legal texts and decisions. Powers and relations are classified by their legal character. Take the question, “Who may dissolve the legislature, and when?” The student answers it by reading the constitution and the relevant cases. He does not study the motives of politicians.

Main contributors. John Austin, in The Province of Jurisprudence Determined (1832), defined sovereignty. For him it is the power of a determinate person or body that receives habitual obedience and obeys no one. This became the classic legal theory of the state. A. V. Dicey wrote Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (1885). He explained parliamentary sovereignty, the rule of law and constitutional conventions. Georg Jellinek, in Allgemeine Staatslehre (1900), treated the state as a legal person with territory, people and power. Hans Kelsen, in his Pure Theory of Law, described law as a hierarchy of norms, apart from politics and morals. K. C. Wheare, in Federal Government (1946), studied federations by the legal division of powers. In India, D. D. Basu and M. P. Jain have given detailed legal accounts of the Constitution. The Supreme Court’s basic structure cases, beginning with Kesavananda Bharati (1973), are central material for this approach.

Contribution to comparative politics. The approach gave exact categories for comparison. Examples are written and unwritten constitutions, rigid and flexible constitutions, and unitary and federal states. It also gave the doctrines of judicial review, separation of powers and the rule of law. Compare India with the United States. India has a strong Centre and emergency powers. In the United States the residual powers lie with the states. This comparison needs legal analysis.

Merits. It is clear and exact about rules and powers. It is necessary for understanding constitutions and judicial decisions. It supports the idea that government must be under law. A student of any constitution must know the legal position first.

Limitations. It treats the law as if it were the reality. But there is often a gap between legal rules and actual practice. A constitution may give great power to a head of state, who never uses it. It may promise rights that are not enforced. The approach ignores political forces such as parties, interests and social conditions. It cannot say why a constitution succeeds in one country and fails in another. It is also tied to the legal culture of each country, so comparison is hard. Macridis’s criticism of the “formal-legal” character of comparative government is aimed mainly at this approach.

Place today. Constitutional law is still a field of its own. Legal materials are central to the study of judicial politics. The new institutionalism took over the interest in rules. It added the study of incentives and behaviour.

7. The institutional (structural) approach

The institutional approach is the most typical form of the traditional study of comparative government. It takes the organs of government as its units. These are legislatures, executives, judiciaries, civil services, federal and local bodies, and electoral and party arrangements. It describes their structure, powers and relations.

Meaning and method. An institution is an established, formal structure with defined roles. The student asks how a body is formed, what it can do and how it is related to other bodies. He also asks how it differs from a similar body in another country. The method is descriptive and classificatory. It uses constitutional texts, official records, history and the writer’s own observation. For example, a study of the second chamber would compare the Rajya Sabha, the House of Lords and the United States Senate.

Main contributors. Walter Bagehot, in The English Constitution (1867), separated the dignified parts of the constitution from the efficient parts. He also compared the cabinet system with the American presidency. Woodrow Wilson, in Congressional Government (1885), described the American system as government by committees of Congress. His The State (1889) surveyed governments of many times and countries. A. Lawrence Lowell wrote Governments and Parties in Continental Europe (1896). W. B. Munro wrote The Governments of Europe (1925). Both were standard texts. James Bryce, in Modern Democracies (1921), compared several democracies. Herman Finer wrote Theory and Practice of Modern Government (1932). It is a large systematic account of the institutions of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Soviet Union and the United States. Carl J. Friedrich wrote Constitutional Government and Politics (1937) on constitutionalism and the division of powers. In India, Subhash Kashyap’s Our Parliament is a standard work in this style.

Contribution to comparative politics. The approach created the basic vocabulary of the subject. This includes the types of executive, legislature, judiciary and electoral system. It also gave a large store of reliable information on how governments are organised. It supplied the starting point for the modern comparison of institutions. When we call India a parliamentary federal republic with an independent judiciary, we use its categories.

Merits. The approach is concrete and clear. Institutions can be seen, described and compared. It deals with the machinery by which policy is made. So it is useful for reform and for constitutional design. It is also easy to teach and to examine. This explains its long use in universities.

Limitations. It assumes that formal structure decides behaviour. This is often wrong. The same institution works differently in different societies. The Westminster model works differently in Britain, India and Nigeria. The approach gives little weight to parties, pressure groups, social divisions and political culture. It describes better than it explains. It dealt with stable Western institutions, so it helped little in understanding unstable and non-Western regimes. Macridis and Almond made this their main criticism.

Place today. The approach came back as the new institutionalism. This keeps the interest in institutions. It adds theory about incentives, norms and historical path dependence. It also studies informal institutions as well as formal ones.

8. The observational, configurative-descriptive and normative orientations

Two general habits were shared by the traditional writers. Students are often asked about them. The first is the habit of describing each country as a whole. The second is the habit of judging governments by standards.

The observational and descriptive habit. Many traditional writers relied on observation. They visited countries, held interviews, read newspapers and debates, and lived long in a country. Tocqueville travelled in the United States in 1831. Bryce visited America many times. Diplomats and travellers also wrote on foreign governments. The result was books with rich detail. Bryce’s account of party machines and public opinion in America is an example. The idea behind the method is simple. An experienced and well-informed scholar can see what formal documents do not show. The weakness is that observation was not systematic. Two observers might see different things. No one could check how the conclusions were reached.

The configurative-idiographic habit. Eckstein used the term configurative-idiographic for the main older approach in his essay of 1963. “Configurative” means that each country was taken as a pattern of connected parts and described as a whole. “Idiographic” means that the aim was to describe the unique case, not to find general laws. An Eckstein-type account would not ask, “What causes coalition governments in many countries?” It would ask, “How does the Fourth Republic of France work?” The value of this habit is its detail and its respect for context. Its weakness is that general statements cannot be built up. The behaviouralists wanted a “nomothetic” aim, that is, the search for general laws. This contrast is a familiar examination point.

The area-studies pattern. After the Second World War, American universities set up area programmes. They studied the Soviet Union, East Asia, South Asia and the Middle East. These produced much detailed knowledge of countries. Much of it was still configurative. But it made the subject less narrow. It also gave the data on which later theories drew.

The normative orientation. Much traditional study was evaluative. Writers described institutions in order to judge them. Aristotle compared constitutions to find the best. Mill, in Considerations on Representative Government, recommended the representative form. Bryce praised democracy in some countries and warned of its dangers in others. The idea was that political science should educate citizens and improve government. The criticism is that judgement often came before evidence. Western liberal democracy was often taken as the end of political development. The behaviouralists tried to separate empirical statements from value judgements. Easton later said that values cannot be removed but should be stated openly.

Why these habits matter for the examination. An answer that mentions only legal and institutional methods misses two points that critics often raise. One is the idiographic character. The other is the mixture of fact and value. Naming Eckstein for the first and Easton or Dahl for the second makes the answer more complete.

9. Merits, criticisms and the behavioural response

Merits of the traditional approaches. First, they produced much reliable knowledge about constitutions, institutions and legal procedures. Later empirical work could not have been done without it. Second, they gave the subject its basic concepts and classifications. These include sovereignty, the rule of law, federation, separation of powers, cabinet and presidential government, and rigid and flexible constitutions. Third, they kept politics linked with values. Questions of justice and liberty were not lost. Fourth, they taught the use of history and law, which gives depth. Fifth, they are practical. Institutions are visible, and knowledge of them is needed for any reform of government. Sixth, some works of the tradition, such as those of Tocqueville and Bryce, are still read for their insight.

Criticisms (Macridis and others). Roy Macridis made the most important attack in The Study of Comparative Government (1955). His points are usually summarised as follows. First, the approach was non-comparative. It was a collection of country studies without a common framework. Second, it was parochial. It was limited to Western Europe and the United States. Third, it was static. It paid little attention to change. Fourth, it was monographic and descriptive. It dealt with facts and not with explanation. Fifth, it was formal. It gave more importance to legal institutions than to the actual political process. Other critics added that it was normative and ethnocentric, and that it lacked theory.

Almond and Coleman’s complaint. In the introduction to The Politics of the Developing Areas (1960), Almond said that the existing categories came from the study of European constitutions. They did not suit the new states. So a framework of functions that all political systems perform was needed.

The behavioural response. The dissatisfaction led to the behavioural revolution. Robert Dahl wrote an article in 1961 with the title “The Behavioral Approach in Political Science: Epitaph for a Monument to a Successful Protest”. He described the movement as a protest against the institutional-descriptive tradition. The protest had largely succeeded. The behaviouralists made four demands. Political science should study the actual behaviour of individuals and groups. It should use scientific methods of observation and measurement. It should state generalisations that can be verified. It should separate empirical research from value judgements. David Easton stated the “intellectual foundations” of the movement in 1962.

The defence of the tradition. Not all scholars agreed. Bernard Crick, in The American Science of Politics (1959), argued that the new science neglected the ethical and practical nature of politics. Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin defended the philosophical tradition. Sheldon Wolin said that behaviouralism was a conservative method that accepted existing arrangements. Easton himself admitted in 1969 that the new science had moved too far from urgent social problems.

A fair assessment. The criticism was partly right and partly overdrawn. Many traditional works, such as those of Bryce and Finer, contained wide comparison. They also paid attention to parties and public opinion. The new approaches borrowed their concepts. The behavioural revolution did achieve something real. It demanded explicit theory, a common framework and the testing of evidence. But for a time it lost the older concern for institutions, history and values. These came back in the later phases of the subject.

10. Traditional versus modern approaches, and their place today

Basis	Traditional approaches	Modern (behavioural and later) approaches
Main subject	The state and its formal institutions	The whole political system, including behaviour, groups, culture and processes
Focus	Structure, law and history	Function, behaviour, process and outcomes
Method	Legal, historical, philosophical, descriptive	Empirical, statistical, survey-based, formal models, mixed methods
Aim	Describe and evaluate	Explain, generalise and sometimes predict
Relation to values	Mixes fact and value; often normative	Seeks to separate fact and value (later admits value questions)
Coverage	A few Western countries	All countries, including the developing world
Concepts	Formal categories (state, constitution, sovereignty, federation)	Analytical concepts (system, structure, function, culture, development)
Nature of comparison	Country studies set side by side	Systematic comparison on common variables
View of change	Static; gives little account of change	Dynamic; attends to development, change and breakdown
Key writers	Bryce, Finer, Friedrich, Wheare, Dicey	Almond, Easton, Verba, Huntington, Lijphart

How the two relate. The table shows a contrast. In practice the line between them is not sharp. The modern approaches grew out of dissatisfaction with the traditional ones. Yet they use many traditional concepts, such as federalism, presidentialism and judicial review. They also depend on the facts that the older scholars collected. In an answer, it is useful to say that the modern approaches widened and added to the traditional ones. They did not simply replace them.

Persistence of the traditional approaches. Several developments show that the older habits did not die. The new institutionalism of the 1980s brought institutions back. Its writers include March and Olsen, and Hall and Taylor. They added theory about how rules shape behaviour. Constitutional and legal study continues in work on judicial review and constitutional design. Historical institutionalism and comparative-historical analysis revived the historical method. Skocpol, Pierson and Mahoney are among their writers. Normative political theory continues the philosophical tradition. Rawls and Sen are examples. A candidate who notes these continuities usually gets credit for a mature answer.

Indian relevance. The traditional approaches are very important for the study of India. The Constitution is a central document. Legal, historical and institutional methods are the ones most used in Indian books on the Constitution and Parliament. The framers of the Constitution themselves made comparisons. They took the parliamentary system from Britain. They took fundamental rights and judicial review from the United States. They took the Directive Principles from Ireland. The federal scheme with a strong Centre was influenced by Canada. The emergency provisions were influenced by the Weimar constitution of Germany. Granville Austin’s study of the making of the Constitution is historical. D. D. Basu’s commentary and the basic structure cases are legal. At the same time, Indian politics shows the limits of a purely formal approach. We cannot understand the working of the Constitution without the party system, caste and regional politics. The Emergency of 1975-77 shows the gap between the formal federal design and actual practice. So an Indian student needs both the traditional tools and the later ones.

11. Importance and limitations of the traditional approaches

Importance

They laid the foundation of the subject. All later work in comparative politics rests on facts and categories first collected by the traditional writers. Structural-functionalism and rational choice both depend on them. Without the surveys of Bryce and Finer, there would be no comparative knowledge of institutions to explain. A student who ignores the traditional approaches loses the ground on which the rest stands.

They supplied the basic concepts and types. Sovereignty, federation, separation of powers and the rule of law are traditional concepts. So are cabinet and presidential government, and the types of constitutions and executives. These are used every day in the study of governments. The description of the Indian Constitution as a parliamentary federal republic is one example.

They give precision about rules and powers. The legal and institutional approaches tell us who may do what under the law. This knowledge is needed for practical work on government. Drafting a law or arguing a constitutional case are examples. Behavioural study cannot replace it.

They provide historical depth. The historical approach traces the origin of institutions. It explains why they have their present form. For example, the Indian Constitution owes much to the Government of India Act, 1935 and to the experience of the freedom movement. This protects us from comparison that ignores history.

They keep values in view. The philosophical and normative tradition keeps politics linked with justice, liberty and legitimacy. So comparison is not reduced to mere technique. The post-behavioural movement was a return to this concern.

They are the source of the comparative method itself. Mill’s methods, Bryce’s comparative surveys and Freeman’s comparative history came from this tradition. Later discussions by Lijphart and Sartori continue it.

They are useful for constitutional design and reform. Debates on electoral systems, second chambers, judicial appointments and federal arrangements use traditional knowledge of how institutions are built. The Indian Constituent Assembly and the drafters of South Africa’s constitution used comparative institutional knowledge.

They are the base of administrative and constitutional law. The study of administrative law, constitutional law and the machinery of government depends on legal and institutional methods. So the approach has practical value beyond political science.

They train students in careful reading and argument. Work in the traditional style needs close reading of texts, a command of history and clear writing. These skills are useful for competitive examinations.

They provide material for examinations. Questions on Macridis’s critique, the features of the traditional approach and its types appear at every level, from UG to UGC NET. So a command of the topic has direct value for candidates.

They remain alive in modern forms. The new institutionalism, historical institutionalism, judicial politics and normative theory all descend from them. Knowing the traditional approaches helps us to recognise old ideas in new words.

Limitations

Too much stress on formal structure. These approaches took constitutions and organisations as the reality of politics. But formal rules often differ from actual practice. A constitution may give a President wide powers that are never used. It may promise rights that are not enforced. So the approaches can give a wrong picture of how power is used.

Neglect of informal factors. Parties, pressure groups, social movements, elites, political culture, the army and the media had little place in traditional accounts. Yet these often decide how institutions work. The Weimar breakdown is a standard example. Party politics and economic crisis mattered more there than the clauses of the constitution.

Descriptive and weak in explanation. The approaches told the reader what exists. They seldom tested why it exists. Macridis and Eckstein pointed out that a series of accounts of single countries is not an explanation. The subject lacked theories that could be checked against evidence.

No common framework for comparison. The books had no shared concepts and no shared questions. So they were comparative in name only. A reader could not easily draw conclusions across countries. Each country was described in its own terms.

Narrow and ethnocentric. The cases were nearly all Western. Western liberal democracy was taken as the standard. After decolonisation the categories did not fit Asia and Africa. Other societies were called “deviant” or “underdeveloped”. This showed a bias.

Static outlook. The approaches described settled arrangements. They gave little account of change, development, revolution or breakdown. For example, they could not explain why parliamentary constitutions collapsed in many new states.

Mixing of facts and values. The normative orientation let preferences shape the choice and reading of evidence. Conclusions were sometimes a matter of belief. This weakened the claim to objectivity.

Dependence on the scholar’s judgement. Knowledge came from reading and experience. So results depended on the wisdom of the author. Other scholars could not easily verify or repeat them. Disagreements could not be settled by evidence.

Difficulty of general statements. The stress on unique cases and history made it hard to establish general propositions. The aim of a science of politics is to find such propositions.

Legalism. The legal approach assumes that rules are followed. It assumes that law reflects the real distribution of power. It reduces politics to legal categories. This ignores discretion, conflict and non-compliance.

Limited use for the contemporary world. The approaches give little help on issues like populism, identity conflicts and the effects of globalisation. These need behavioural, economic and cross-national data.

Illustrations

Illustration	What it shows
Bryce’s Modern Democracies	The strength of wide knowledge and the weakness of unsystematic comparison
Dicey and the rule of law	A legal concept of lasting use, though based on a particular British context
Failure of the Weimar constitution	Why formal analysis alone could not explain democratic breakdown
Wheare’s study of federation	Precision of legal classification and its limits when federations work differently in practice
Almond and Coleman (1960)	A response to the inadequacy of old categories for new states
New institutionalism	The return of institutional analysis with theory
The Emergency in India (1975–77)	The gap between constitutional form and political practice

12. Use in examinations

What examiners expect

Level	Expectation	How to answer
UG (BA Political Science)	Meaning, features, the main types, limitations	Short definitions, clear headings, 2 or 3 names for each type
PG (MA)	Detailed account of each approach, Macridis’s critique, comparison with modern approaches	Argued essay with scholars, works and evaluation
OPSC (Odisha civil services)	Overview, merits and demerits, relevance to India	Balanced answer with an Indian example and a conclusion
UPSC (optional and GS)	Critical assessment, persistence of the approaches, Indian illustrations	Analytical, structured, with a clear judgment
UGC NET	Authors, works, terms (configurative, idiographic), who criticised whom	Accurate facts and correct matching

Practice questions

1. What is meant by the traditional approach to comparative politics? Explain its main features.
2. Describe the philosophical, historical, legal and institutional approaches with their main contributors.
3. Examine Macridis’s critique of the traditional approach to comparative government.
4. Distinguish between the traditional and the behavioural approaches to comparative politics.
5. “The traditional approach is dead, but its spirit lives on.” Discuss.
6. Assess the merits and limitations of the legal-institutional approach.
7. How far are the traditional approaches useful in understanding the Indian political system?

Answer outline for question 1

Introduction. Give the meaning of an approach (Van Dyke). Give the meaning of the traditional approach as described by Macridis and Eckstein. State that it dominated the subject until about the Second World War.

Body.

• Subject and method: the state and formal institutions; legal, historical, philosophical and descriptive methods.
• Features: descriptive, configurative or idiographic, normative, formal and legal, parochial, static, monographic, non-theoretical.
• Types: philosophical (Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes), historical (Montesquieu, Tocqueville, Bryce), legal (Austin, Dicey, Wheare), institutional (Bagehot, Finer, Friedrich).
• Merits and limitations: factual base, concepts and classification; neglect of informal politics, lack of theory, Western bias.

Conclusion. The traditional approaches were criticised and supplemented by the behavioural approaches. But their concepts and concerns live on in the new institutionalism and in constitutional studies.

Sample answer, about two hundred words (question 4)

Introduction. The traditional approach was dominant until the 1940s. It studied the formal institutions of the state through legal, historical and philosophical methods. The behavioural approach arose in the 1950s. It studied actual political behaviour and tried to explain it scientifically.

Points of difference.

• Subject: traditional writers studied constitutions, legislatures, executives and courts; behaviouralists studied the whole political system, including parties, groups, attitudes and culture.
• Method: the traditional method was legal, historical and descriptive; the behavioural method used surveys, statistics and testable hypotheses.
• Aim: the first described and evaluated; the second explained and generalised, and tried to separate facts from values.
• Coverage: the first dealt mainly with the West, while the second extended to developing countries through concepts such as system, structure and function (Almond, Easton).

Conclusion. Macridis and Almond criticised the older approach as parochial, formal and static. But the contrast is one of emphasis. The behaviouralists used the concepts of their predecessors. The new institutionalism has since brought institutions back. So the two approaches are better seen as complementary.

Quick check

• Who criticised the traditional approach as “configurative-idiographic”? Harry Eckstein.
• Who wrote The Study of Comparative Government (1955)? Roy Macridis.
• Which jurist wrote Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (1885)? A. V. Dicey.
• Who wrote Ancient Law (1861) with the idea “from status to contract”? Henry Maine.
• Who wrote The English Constitution (1867)? Walter Bagehot.

Common mistakes

• Writing only a list of features with no examples or names.
• Treating the traditional approach as a single method and omitting its sub-types.
• Mixing up the legal approach (rules and sovereignty) with the institutional approach (organs and their working).
• Calling the traditional approach “useless” and leaving out its merits.
• Forgetting that the term “traditional” was applied by its critics.
• Not mentioning the revival of institutions in the new institutionalism.
• Giving no Indian example, or ending with no conclusion.

13. Critical analysis

Was the criticism fair? The behavioural criticism of the traditional approach was sharp. Later writers have asked whether it was fair. Many traditional works did compare. They discussed parties and public opinion, as Bryce did on American party machines and Bagehot on the working of the cabinet. They also paid attention to history. The label “formal, static and parochial” fits the average textbook better than the best scholars. A balanced view is that the critics described a real tendency. But they sometimes overstated it, partly to make room for their own programme.

Description is not a fault in itself. The charge that the older work was “only descriptive” overlooks one fact. Careful description is the basis of all explanation. A theory of coalition formation cannot be tested without accurate accounts of coalitions. The real difficulty was not description. It was that the writers stopped there, and that they had no shared concepts to make their descriptions comparable.

The question of values. The traditional approach is often blamed for mixing facts and values. But the later claim that science can be free of values has also been challenged, by Easton among others. A better position is that values should be stated openly and not hidden. This is partly the traditional insight.

Institutions have come back. The study of institutions revived in the 1980s. This shows that the neglect of the old subject matter was an overreaction. The new institutionalists did not return to the old method. They asked why institutions matter, how they change and how they guide behaviour. So the older focus was justified, and its method was corrected.

Western bias. The charge of ethnocentrism is well founded. But we should apply it with care. The behavioural and development theories that replaced the traditional approach had a similar bias. They also took the Western path as the model. So the problem was not special to one approach.

The Indian lesson. The traditional approaches are still necessary for India. The written Constitution, the courts and Parliament are central to politics. Constitutional debates are carried on in legal and historical terms. But Indian experience also shows the limits of a purely formal reading. The Emergency, coalition politics and the working of federalism in practice are examples. Both kinds of knowledge are needed.

Model concluding paragraph. In conclusion, the traditional approaches to comparative politics include the philosophical, historical, legal and institutional strands. They gave the subject its facts, its basic concepts and its concern with values. They were criticised by Macridis, Eckstein and Almond. The critics said they were descriptive, formal, parochial and static, and that they lacked a common theory. The behavioural revolution grew from this dissatisfaction. The criticism was largely right, but sometimes overdrawn. The later return of institutions, history and normative questions shows that the older concerns were never abandoned. So the traditional and the modern approaches are complementary. The first gives knowledge of structures and ideas. The second gives tools to explain how they work. For a student of Indian politics, a command of both is the best preparation.

14. UGC NET: authors and books

Author	Work	Approach and key idea
Plato	The Republic	Philosophical: ideal state; decline of regimes
Aristotle	Politics	Philosophical and empirical: classification of constitutions
Thomas Hobbes	Leviathan (1651)	Philosophical: social contract and absolute sovereign
John Locke	Two Treatises of Government (1689)	Philosophical: consent, natural rights, limited government
Jean-Jacques Rousseau	The Social Contract (1762)	Philosophical: general will
G. W. F. Hegel	Philosophy of Right (1821)	Philosophical: the state as ethical life
Montesquieu	The Spirit of the Laws (1748)	Historical-comparative: laws, climate, separation of powers
Alexis de Tocqueville	Democracy in America (1835, 1840)	Historical-comparative: equality, associations
Henry Maine	Ancient Law (1861)	Historical: from status to contract
E. A. Freeman	Comparative Politics (1873)	Historical: comparative method applied to institutions
John Austin	The Province of Jurisprudence Determined (1832)	Legal: theory of sovereignty
A. V. Dicey	Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (1885)	Legal: rule of law, parliamentary sovereignty
Georg Jellinek	Allgemeine Staatslehre (1900)	Legal: the state as a legal person
Hans Kelsen	Pure Theory of Law	Legal: hierarchy of norms
K. C. Wheare	Federal Government (1946); Modern Constitutions (1951)	Legal-institutional: federation and constitutions
Walter Bagehot	The English Constitution (1867)	Institutional: dignified and efficient parts
Woodrow Wilson	Congressional Government (1885); The State (1889)	Institutional: committee government; survey of states
A. L. Lowell	Governments and Parties in Continental Europe (1896)	Institutional-descriptive
James Bryce	The American Commonwealth (1888); Modern Democracies (1921)	Historical, institutional and observational
Herman Finer	Theory and Practice of Modern Government (1932)	Institutional survey
Carl J. Friedrich	Constitutional Government and Politics (1937)	Institutional: constitutionalism
Roy C. Macridis	The Study of Comparative Government (1955)	Critique of the traditional approach
Harry Eckstein	“A Perspective on Comparative Politics, Past and Present” (1963)	Term “configurative-idiographic”
Robert Dahl	“The Behavioral Approach in Political Science” (1961)	The behavioural protest against the tradition
Bernard Crick	The American Science of Politics (1959)	Critique of behaviouralism from a traditional standpoint

Revision tip. Sort the table by approach: philosophical, historical, legal and institutional. Learn each group with one key idea. Then learn the three critics, Macridis, Eckstein and Almond, with their terms. For NET, practise matching works to authors, and authors to approaches, in both directions. Remember that Bryce, Wilson and Wheare appear under more than one head.

15. Takeaways, sources and further reading

Key takeaways

• The traditional approaches are the older ways of studying comparative government: philosophical, historical, legal and institutional, with observational and configurative habits.
• Their common features are a concern with the state and formal institutions, a descriptive and legal method, a normative tone, a focus on Western countries and a lack of common theory.
• Macridis called the older work non-comparative, parochial, static and monographic; Eckstein called it configurative-idiographic; Almond found it inadequate for the new states.
• Their merits are a factual base, basic concepts and classifications, historical depth and attention to values.
• The behavioural revolution grew from dissatisfaction with them, but the new institutionalism, historical institutionalism and normative theory show that their concerns survive.
• For India, the traditional approaches remain essential for the study of the Constitution, Parliament and the courts, though they must be supplemented to explain political practice.

Official and reliable sources

• Constitution of India, Legislative Department, legislative.gov.in
• Constituent Assembly Debates, Lok Sabha Secretariat, eparlib.nic.in
• Parliament of India (Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha), sansad.in
• Supreme Court of India, judgments and the basic-structure cases, sci.gov.in
• University Grants Commission and NTA: UGC NET Political Science syllabus, ugcnet.nta.ac.in
• Union Public Service Commission: syllabus for Political Science and International Relations, upsc.gov.in
• Odisha Public Service Commission, opsc.gov.in
• eGyanKosh (IGNOU study materials in political science), egyankosh.ac.in

Twenty books for further reading

1. Roy C. Macridis, The Study of Comparative Government.
2. Harry Eckstein and David Apter (eds.), Comparative Politics: A Reader.
3. James Bryce, Modern Democracies.
4. James Bryce, The American Commonwealth.
5. Herman Finer, Theory and Practice of Modern Government.
6. Carl J. Friedrich, Constitutional Government and Politics.
7. K. C. Wheare, Federal Government.
8. K. C. Wheare, Modern Constitutions.
9. A. V. Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution.
10. Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution.
11. Woodrow Wilson, Congressional Government.
12. Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws.
13. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America.
14. Henry Maine, Ancient Law.
15. Gabriel Almond and James Coleman (eds.), The Politics of the Developing Areas.
16. David Easton, A Framework for Political Analysis.
17. Rod Hague and Martin Harrop, Comparative Government and Politics: An Introduction.
18. Granville Austin, The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation.
19. D. D. Basu, Introduction to the Constitution of India.
20. J. C. Johari, Comparative Politics.

Editorial note

This note was prepared by the PoliPrepHub editorial team for students of UG, PG, OPSC, UPSC and UGC NET. It summarises standard views and is meant as a study aid. Readers who find an error or want to suggest an improvement may write to us through the contact page. Please also read our disclaimer.

Frequently asked questions

What is meant by the traditional approach to comparative politics? It is the older way of studying comparative government through the formal institutions of the state, using legal, historical, philosophical and descriptive methods, mostly in Western countries.

What are the types of traditional approach? The main types are the philosophical, historical, legal and institutional approaches, together with the observational and configurative habits of describing each country as a whole.

Who criticised the traditional approach? Roy Macridis, Harry Eckstein, Gabriel Almond and the behaviouralists, including David Easton and Robert Dahl, criticised it as formal, descriptive, parochial, static and lacking theory.

Is the traditional approach out of date? Not entirely. Its concerns live on in the new institutionalism, constitutional and judicial studies, historical institutionalism and normative political theory.

What is meant by configurative-idiographic? It is Eckstein’s description of the older work: configurative because it described each country as a whole, idiographic because it aimed at the unique case and not at general laws.

Why does the traditional approach matter in India? The Constitution, Parliament and the courts are central to Indian politics, and their study rests mainly on legal, historical and institutional methods.