In recent decades, area studies have been transformed from mostly descriptive ethnographic and historical accounts to theory-oriented and analytical approaches. They retain some of their depth and ...cultural specificity, but have been widened in a comparative sense to come up with some broader social scientific explanations. This has been enhanced by more recent systematic comparative methods such as “Qualitative Comparative Analysis” (QCA) and related procedures, which are particularly suitable for medium-N studies of specific regions at the macro-level and cross-area analyses in contrast to more common statistical approaches. This paper discusses the epistemological background of this approach as well as recent methodological developments. As an illustration, it provides an example of an ongoing large international “cross-area” research project concerned with successful democratic transformations in different world regions and more recent threats to democratic stability and some of their underlying causes. Here, in particular, the relationships between level of socio-economic development and liberal democracy (the “Lipset hypothesis”) and the effects of “good governance” in terms of the World Bank indicators on democratic stability are investigated. This is done on the basis of selected “cross-area” cases with the help of both crisp-set and fuzzy-set QCA. In this way, both the utility of this approach for “medium-range theorizing” in the social sciences and possible practical-political applications are demonstrated.
Comprising three volumes of contributions from expert authors from around the world, The SAGE Handbook of Political Science aims to frame, assess and synthesize research in the field, helping to ...define and identify its current and future developments.
Approaching the subject from a focussed international and pluralist perspective, this book provides advanced-level treatment of all the core areas to give postgraduate students a wide-ranging and ...dynamic introduction.
. This article, first, identifies democratic, authoritarian and ‘praetorian’ political system types in Africa on the basis of major current indicators. It then systematically tests a broad variety ...of hypotheses concerning the historical, social‐structural, socio‐economic, political and institutional determinants and performance characteristics of these system types. A macro‐quantitative synopsis attempts to identify the most ‘parsimonious’ overall constellations of factors in this regard. This is supplemented by a macro‐qualitative analysis of major ‘conjunctural’ conditions identifying the main groups of cases and their determining factors in a ‘contradiction‐free’ manner. The conclusions point to the decisive importance of ‘governance’ aspects in the future.
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In the social sciences we often employ complex multi-dimensional concepts such as development, democracy or marketplace. In the past decades, these have become increasingly operationalized and ...documented in huge international databases such as those of the United Nations, the World Bank, and a host of other public or academic institutions. Serious problems arise when these data are taken at face value, as for example GDP per capita, without considering its specific context and meaning, or when multi-dimensional concepts are aggregated into single indices by such simple statistical procedures as arithmetic means. The validity of such concepts is then seriously put into question by misleading measurement or oversimplifying aggregation. The increasing use of set-theoretical methods, as in fuzzy-set QCA, now provides an important alternative by calibrating data more carefully and by aggregation procedures which allow to take necessary conditions of a multi-dimensional concept into account. This is the focus of this paper, which employs two examples of a broad, political-practical, relevance.
在社会科学领域, 我们经常使用复杂的多维概念, 如发展, 民主或市场. 过去几十年中, 这些概念在庞大的国际数据库中获得日益广泛地采用和记录, 例如联合国, 世界银行和大量其他公共或学术机构的数据库. 当以其表面意思使用这些数据 (比如人均 GDP) 而不考虑具体背景和意义或者将多维概念通过像算术方法一样的简单统计过程聚合为单一指数时, 会产生一些严重的问题. 而此类概念的验证由于误导性度量或过于简单化的聚合而造成严重问题. 现在, 集合论方法获得日益广泛地采用 (例如在模糊集合 QCA中) , 它通过更谨慎地校准数据和聚合过程提供了一种重要的替代方式, 这种方式考虑到了多维概念的必要条件. 这是本论文的重点, 本文采用了具有广泛性, 政治意义, 关联性的两个例子.
Comments on Christian Welzel, Ronald Inglehart, & Hans-Dieter Klingemann's "The Theory of Human Development: A Cross-Cultural Analysis" (2003). After asserting that Welzel et al's theory of human ...development conforms to J. S. Coleman's (1990) & H. Esser's (1993) respective frameworks of sociological explanation, problems with Welzel et al's use of T. Vanhanen's (1997) Index of Power Resources as comparable longitudinal data for their cross-cultural analysis of human development are identified. It is contended that such difficulties prevent Welzel et al's theory from functioning as a proper account of either human development or democracy. Although Welzel et al's theory suggests that impoverished & uneducated people tend to be antidemocratic, the September 11 (2001) terrorist attacks against the US are cited to counter this contention. Several recommendations for improving Welzel et al's theory of human development are offered, eg, determining whether democracy is actually a component of human development by analyzing transitional democracies during the late 1980s & early 1990s. 1 Figure, 28 References. J. W. Parker
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The People's Republic of China (PRC), the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong, the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the Republic of Singapore represent different types of political regimes and ...provide a fascinating contrast concerning their performance with regard to the global conflict between liberal democracies and autocracies. This paper examines briefly their common historical backgrounds and provides a detailed analysis of common ‘Asian’ cultural features and popular support for democracy on the micro-level. It then systematically assesses their performance concerning liberal democracy and quality, governance scores, and socio-economic development. Finally, the reactions to the Covid-19 pandemic are documented showing again specific regime characteristics. We use most recent V-Dem, World Bank, United Nations Development Programme, World Values Surveys and similar data. The conclusions point to possible international consequences and the crucial position of Taiwan.
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Capitalism and democracy have transformed the world, but not in a harmonious way. This article provides a broad overview of the major driving forces of democracy, its relationship with ongoing ...socioeconomic developments and some of the countervailing factors. It points to the inherently conflictive nature of democratic procedures and decision-making, but also emphasizes the potentially universal implications of basic democratic values. Against this background, the future prospects of democracy and possible alternatives in the age of globalization are assessed. All this is based, as far as space permits, on the huge body of available theoretical and empirical literature, but also on the author’s long-term preoccupation with this topic and some of his personal views and experiences.
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Zusammenfassung
Regionalstudien („area studies“) haben in den letzten beiden Jahrzehnten wichtige Umorientierungen erfahren. Von eher deskriptiven Ansätzen im Kontext des Kalten Krieges haben sie ...sich zu theoriegeleiteten und methodenbewussten Vorgehensweisen entwickelt. Hierzu haben auch neuere vergleichende Methoden („Qualitative Comparative Analysis“, QCA und verwandte Ansätze), die besonders für Untersuchungen mit kleineren Fallzahlen geeignet sind, beigetragen. Dieser Essay schildert Hintergründe und neuere Ansätze dieser Entwicklungen und gibt zwei Beispiele von regionenübergreifenden „cross area studies“ und einer Mehrebenenanalyse.
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