POSC 3315
W12.1
Studying Latin American politics
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Context
◦ Who’s in, who’s out
Should we include the excluded?
 Why don’t we?
 Is LA a region?
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Historically?
Economically?
Politically?
Culturally?
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Why does this matter?
◦ What does it let us do?
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Why Latin America is western.
◦ Who says it isn’t?
◦ Why say it is?
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Latin America and the Third World
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What is the TW?
What are its common features?
What are its points of divergence?
How useful is the concept?
How to study LA
Two approaches; not antithetical
 Comparative Politics
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Systematic
Problem-driven or theory-driven
Tries to transcend borders
Aims to build theory – midrange or grand
Deductive + inductive
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Area studies
◦ Define by geography, cultural similarity,
historical ties
◦ Thick description
◦ Inductive + deductive
◦ Limited generalization
◦ Detailed knowledge of culture, language,
history
Why together?
Need to think of logic of comparison and
basic comparative politics research
approaches.
 Some need lots of detail; e.g., case studies,
binary studies and small-N studies
 Others, large-N studies, do not
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◦ But let us look at region-wide (20 country)
questions.
Most comparative politics =single case,
binary ,or small-N studies
 Single case
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◦ How can this be comparative? Why do this?
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Binary studies: two cases
◦ Most Similar Systems (MSS)
◦ Least Similar/Most Dissimilar Systems
(LSS/MDS)
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What’s the difference?
◦ MSS: similar on most points; diverge on one
 May not be able specify cause of difference’ may be
multiple and interacting
 Work well with within-case comparisons
◦ MDS: similar on one; diverge on most
 How do different systems  same/similar result?
 Multiple, interacting causes here too
◦ Either can be binary or small-N
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In case studies, binary comparisons and
small-N studies
◦ Select cases very carefully
 Case study: a case of what? What principle is
examined?
 Binary and small-n: look for hard cases, ones that
look unlikely to prove your point.
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Large-N: above are qualitative, these are
qualitative
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Large N works for some things, e.g., correlates of
democracy, but not others, e.g., policies for rapid
economic development
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In Latin American area studies a large-N study might cover all 20
states
Case studies, binary and small-N studies well adapted to
focusing on a specific area
Large-N studies let us take in all/most/many of the
countries