Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronald Pagan
Yeah comparative politics isn't generally used to compare presidential administrations.
Comparative politics is used as a socio-scientific method to evaluate the effects of different government institutions and ideologies relative to each other. In essence it's trying to create as best possible a lab study using cases of different government organizations to measure their effects.
Generally, comparative politics would have very little to do with measuring Obama vs. Bush unless there were significant systemic or idealogical changes. The latter may hold but an analysis would only be useful after the fact.
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I guess my opinion is that Obama cannot be measured well in a vaccuum. He's not the only person in the world, and his is not the only Administration the US has ever had. He needs to be seen in context and compared to previous Administrations to judge how effective he is. Without any kind of contextual comparison there is no way to judge him for better or worse. Whether or not Comparative Politics is the right vehicle to do this can be debated by you Poli-Sci types... my point is that without ANY kind of comparison, a determination of his effectiveness is useless.
I'm finding a lot of people say that 'you can't compare Obama to Bush', etc., but I'm not sure why not. Sure times are different... Bobby Orr played at a different time than Wayne Gretzky, but we compare the heck out of them as to who the greatest of all time is... I don't see a lot saying 'different times, no comparison'... people generally take a stab at it.