COMPARATIVE GOVERNMENT

Comparative government is considered as one of the main subdivisions of the study of politics. It is the systematic study of the government of more than one country. The College Board has examined the government and politics of six different nations to get a clear idea about government and politics.

The college board has examined the political cultures, policy making, political institutions and politics of United States of Mexico, United Kingdom the Great Britain, Russian Federation, People’s Republic of China, Islamic Republic of Iran, and the Republic of Nigeria. It has chosen 55 multiple choice question and 8 “free response” questions. The test takers should complete the exam in 145 minutes taking 45 minutes for the multiple choice questions and 100 minutes for the free response section.

13,358 students from 996 schools were examined on the basis of Authority, Power, Sovereignty, Public Policy, Comparative Politics, Political Institutions, Citizens and the Society, Political and Economic Change.  Greater emphasis was given to citizen state relations, democratization, globalization, and political change.

The result were not depressing being 2.9 the mean score of the student out of 5. As a whole, the comparative government goes hand in hand with comparative politics.

Usually the comparative method is put into action when the experimental and the statistical method become defective. Experiments are not always possible in political science. The comparative government makes a comparative study of forms of government. Its main objective is the institute general empirical connections between the characteristics of the state and the characteristics of its foreign policy.

As wisely said comparative government and politics can expose one to the wide, diverse world of governments and political practices that the modern times uphold. It mainly urges us to go beyond the individual political systems taking into account the international forces that affect all people in the world.

The term government is itself perceived as an allusion to leadership and policy decision. Basically politics revolves around power. Who has the power? How power is gained, managed, and maintained are the milestones in the government.

Comparative government basically enables one to a meaningful comparison across different countries. There are several strategies in this Comparative method. There is Most Similar Systems Design which compares very similar cases assuming that this would make it easier to find those independent variables which can determine the presence or the absence of the dependent variable. There is another method named Most Different Systems Design which compares very different cases. This method has the same dependent variable, so that the cases with any other circumstance are regarded as the independent variable.

Questions:

• On what basis the College Board has examined the students of different schools?
• What is main purpose of comparative government?