Vertailun demokraattisesta kielestä

Authors

• Sakari Hänninen

Abstract

This article discusses the role of comparison in political research as it is related to the language. Citizens of a democracy are inclined to make comparisons. They also tend to Language of use their language abstractly. Alexis de Tocqueville draws this interesting conclusion in his study Comparison De la démocratie en Amérique. These propositions are the starting point for an examination of the development of comparative political research in the USA. An interpretation is given to explain how the comparative study proper became established only after the Second World War and how it differed from the earlier historical-comparative methods (for example »the correlational method»). This development is given as a background for formulating the conceptual dilemma of the theoretical explanation. This dilemma concerns an inverse relation between the scope of the content and extension of concepts. Various solutions to the dilemma are examined, in particular, through Max Weber’s methodological comments. Weber’s own alternative is sketched out at the end. It is interpreted to mean that the conceptual dilemma reproduces the real dilemma of representative democracies.