The relevance of comparative politics

The issue of the relevance of political science in general, and then of course also the sub-discipline of comparative politics, has recently received increased attention both in the public debate as well as within the discipline itself. This chapter considers what comparative politics could be relev...

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Main Author: Rothstein, B
Format: Book section
Published: Oxford University Press 2017
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author Rothstein, B
author_facet Rothstein, B
author_sort Rothstein, B
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description The issue of the relevance of political science in general, and then of course also the sub-discipline of comparative politics, has recently received increased attention both in the public debate as well as within the discipline itself. This chapter considers what comparative politics could be relevant for, such as informing the public debate and giving policy advice. A central argument is that comparative politics has a huge but sometimes underdeveloped potential for being relevant for various aspects of human well-being. Empirical research shows that the manner in which a country’s political institutions are designed and the quality of the operations of these institutions have a strong impact on measures of population health as well as subjective well-being (aka ‘happiness’) and general social trust. One result is that democratization without increased state capacity and control of corruption is not likely to deliver increased human well-being.
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spelling oxford-uuid:9dac6396-6a45-449c-9368-cc0cd685208a2022-03-27T00:44:43ZThe relevance of comparative politicsBook sectionhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_3248uuid:9dac6396-6a45-449c-9368-cc0cd685208aSymplectic Elements at OxfordOxford University Press2017Rothstein, BThe issue of the relevance of political science in general, and then of course also the sub-discipline of comparative politics, has recently received increased attention both in the public debate as well as within the discipline itself. This chapter considers what comparative politics could be relevant for, such as informing the public debate and giving policy advice. A central argument is that comparative politics has a huge but sometimes underdeveloped potential for being relevant for various aspects of human well-being. Empirical research shows that the manner in which a country’s political institutions are designed and the quality of the operations of these institutions have a strong impact on measures of population health as well as subjective well-being (aka ‘happiness’) and general social trust. One result is that democratization without increased state capacity and control of corruption is not likely to deliver increased human well-being.
spellingShingle Rothstein, B
The relevance of comparative politics
title The relevance of comparative politics
title_full The relevance of comparative politics
title_fullStr The relevance of comparative politics
title_full_unstemmed The relevance of comparative politics
title_short The relevance of comparative politics
title_sort relevance of comparative politics
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