Sample Essay On What Is Comparative Politics?

As a field of study, comparative politics provides analytical tools required to respond to multiple questions in the social and political world. It makes us aware and gives us a better understanding of the things that are happening around us. It is a field that focuses on explaining internal dynamics and political phenomena happening within a society, state or a country. It is, therefore, different from international relations, which is a field of study that concern largely with external relations. In this case, the comparative analysis deals with internal dynamics of a country while the International Relations deals with external political dynamics. In a broad sense, comparative politics is a very relevant field of study to everyone, and it helps us to solve many problems affecting us. For instance, comparative politics tactic is best suited to address cases of gun violence which creates fear among the citizen of any given country or state.
The study of comparative politics has gradually changed with time. Prior to WWII, the United States scholars only limited their research to few countries such as France, Germany, and Britain, which seem important before their eyes. They ignored issues of democratization and development of the economy. Today, those issues are considered to be of great importance in the study of comparative politics. The need to examine the political system of other countries and see what the United States could borrow from them started after the end of World War II. Before then, the political scientists of United States tend to ignore the rest of the world with the mind that they had nothing or little to learn from them. However, the World War II triggered the need of knowing more about others and this made U.S. policymakers to realize the importance of having specialized people who can understand particular languages, cultures, and political systems in other countries.
The specialists help to establish a strong military power that led to the development of the economy as people as people had no fear of making investments. The field of comparative study also helps us to understand the political systems such as communism in Russia and Fascism in Germany. In comparative politics, you will learn that the policymakers and the scholar in the United States wanted to know how these political systems were different from the democratic system that was used in United States.
In Russia, communism enhanced unity among people only because resources would be shared on the basis of one’s need or according to his ability. From that time, communism has exclusively been identified as a form of economic and political organization that was developed in a soviet union. On the other hand, Fascism was a system of ruling where the leader had the total powers over his subjects. For instance, in Germany, Hitler used this type of ruling and people were not allowed to disagree with him. All in all, Hitler helped Germans to restore back what was taken away from them during World War I. Comparative politics studies explains how fascist rule emerged and thrived to the extent of posing a threat to the West.