Area Studies and Comparative Area Studies - Crossroads Asia

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Area Studies and Comparative Area Studies: Opportunities and Challenges for the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies A Discussion Paper by Matthias Basedau and Patrick Köllner

October 2006

www.giga-hamburg.de

This paper was written as an internal discussion paper of the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, and first presented at a workshop at the GIGA on 3 May, 2006. However, since the reflections on the opportunities and challenges of area studies and comparative area studies may be of interest to a wider audience we decided to make it available on the GIGA Website: www.giga-hamburg.de. Comments are welcome. Copyright: Matthias Basedau and Patrick Köllner

Dr. Matthias Basedau is Research Fellow at GIGA Institute of African Affairs and Head of Research Programme 2 “Violence, Power and Security” at GIGA, Hamburg. Contact: [email protected] ⋅ Website: http://staff.giga-hamburg.de/basedau Dr. habil. Patrick Köllner is Senior Research Fellow at GIGA Institute of Asian Affairs and Head of Research Programme 1 “Legitimacy and Efficiency of Political Systems” at GIGA, Hamburg. Contact: [email protected] ⋅ Website: http://staff.giga-hamburg.de/koellner

GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies / Leibniz-Institut für Globale und Regionale Studien Neuer Jungfernstieg 21 20354 Hamburg Germany Email: [email protected] Website: www.giga-hamburg.de

Table of Contents

Overview ................................................................................................................................................4 1 Area Studies in a Challenging Environment................................................................................4 2 What are Area Studies and Comparative Area Studies?............................................................9 2.1 Area Studies ..............................................................................................................................9 2.2 Comparative Area Studies ....................................................................................................10 3 Area Studies and Comparative Area Studies: The Why and How .........................................13 4 Area Studies in Germany and the German Overseas Institute/GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies ...........................................................................................................17 5 Methodological Challenges for Comparative Area Studies.....................................................20 5.1 Concepts...................................................................................................................................21 5.2 Research Strategies .................................................................................................................22 5.3 Organising Inter-disciplinary Co-operation .......................................................................26 6 How Can GIGA Contribute to the Development of Area Studies and Comparative Area Studies? ..................................................................................................................................28 6.1 Summary..................................................................................................................................28 6.2 Recommendations ..................................................................................................................29 References.............................................................................................................................................31

Area Studies and Comparative Area Studies: Opportunities and Challenges for the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies

Overview In this paper we provide an introduction to recent debates on area studies and its less wellknown ‘cousin’ comparative area studies. We begin the paper by noting some of the developments and debates that have surrounded area studies since the end of the Cold War. In section 2 we highlight some contemporary understandings of area studies and present our own definition of comparative area studies. The general importance of both area studies and comparative area studies is spelled out in section 3 of the paper. In section 4 we touch upon the trajectories and current situation of area studies in Germany, devoting particular attention to the former German Overseas Institute and its successor, the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies. Section 5 focuses on some of the methodological challenges comparative area studies are facing. We conclude with a summary of the main points of this paper and with suggestions as to how the GIGA can best contribute to advancing area and comparative area studies in Germany and beyond.

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Area Studies in a Challenging Environment1

‘May you live in exciting times!’ This well-known Chinese curse has certainly afflicted area specialists since the early 1990s. During the past fifteen or so years we have witnessed exciting and challenging times indeed – both in terms of ‘real-world’ developments and in terms of academic debates. The disintegration of the Soviet empire and the fall of the Berlin Wall not only demanded new approaches in Soviet and Eastern European studies, it also opened up new research opportunities. The post-Soviet landscape with its fifteen independent states and the ‘new’ Central and Eastern Europe provided an exciting new observatory for social

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The opinions expressed in the following are those of the authors and as such do not necessarily represent those of the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies. A first version of the paper was presented at an in-house workshop in May 2006. The authors would like to thank participants, especially Andreas Mehler, Detlef Nolte, Anika Öttler and Günter Schucher for their useful comments. Bert Hoffmann provided critical input at various stages. The usual caveat applies.

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scientists interested in the processes, implications and consequences of political and economic transitions (cf. Bonnell and Breslauer 2003). The end of the Soviet Union did however not mean that the world was now on a firm trajectory towards liberal democracy as some observers were inclined to think. Instead, the third wave of democracy, which had also embraced nearly the whole of Latin America and large parts of sub-Saharan Africa, petered out in the course of the 1990s with many of the resulting regimes remaining halfway houses between democracy and authoritarianism (Carothers 2002; Levitsky and Way 2003; Croissant and Merkel 2004; Schedler 2006). Particularly but not solely in such ‘hybrid regimes’, the political (and economic) game continues to be shaped by informal institutions and their interplay with formal institutions (Helmke and Levitsky 2004, 2006; Köllner 2005). The 1990s also saw the emergence of new economic powerhouses in Asia and an ensuing gravitational shift eastward. China’s economic reforms, which had been initiated in the late 1970s, have transformed the maritime provinces of the ‘middle kingdom’ beyond recognition. China has become a major magnet for foreign direct investment. At the same time, the perception of a new ‘yellow peril’ is taking shape as increasing numbers of Westerners worry about jobs and energy deposits being gobbled up by an ‘insatiable’ China. Moreover, while neo-realists warn that China’s ascent and the ensuing geo-tectonic shifts in the region will not be peaceful, more domestically interested observers wonder how the country will be able to overcome the growing social strains (Internationale Politik 2005; Shambaugh 2006). And China is not the only rising star in the global economy: In 1996, the Republic of Korea became a member of the OECD, an event which symbolised its newly-reached status on the world stage (Frank and Pascha 1997). 10 years later, India is being lauded as the upand-coming economic giant (Foreign Affairs 2006; Internationale Politik 2006). Until the Southeast Asian financial and economic crisis dampened the enthusiasm in the latter part of the 1990s, Asia’s new self-confidence manifested itself in a prominent discourse on so-called Asian values. Whatever the intrinsic merit of this debate, the message was clear: The ‘West’ could no longer assume that its specific value-system – if there ever was such a thing – would provide the benchmark for the rest of the world (e.g. Mols and Derichs 1995). Moreover, the end of the Cold War did not mean the ‘end of history’ (Fukuyama 1992) in terms of security and peace. A global democratic peace has proven to be a mirage. The study of peace and war turned its focus to trouble-ridden areas in the South, particularly in subSaharan Africa and the Middle East, and to possible threats emerging from these regions. Africa south of the Sahara may represent the trend towards failed states and internal conflict, the latter often in a ‘conflict trap’ driven or fuelled by natural resources such as oil or diamonds (Collier et al. 2003; Le Billon 2001). The spread of weapons of mass destruction, particular nuclear proliferation in East and South Asia and the Middle East, keeps Western

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diplomats and think tanks busy. However, it is certainly 9/11 that has had the most crucial impact on both decision-makers and academics, possibly marking a new era in world history. The threat of a trans-national terrorism and the subsequent ‘war on terrorism’ may not be proof of the ‘clash of civilizations’ as suggested by Huntington (1996), but the search for causes of terrorism has clearly boosted interest on regions such as the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia. These and other new developments should have delivered many positive and stimulating impulses to area studies – and indeed they did. Yet, at the same time area studies drew criticism from a number of directions. First, in the post-Cold War context, debates got underway on the relevance of area studies in an increasingly globalised world. Globalisation, as epitomised by the spread of the Internet, would flatten differences between the regions of the world and would promote convergence and greater homogeneity in a number of are(n)as – or so its evangelists claimed. Rather than to concentrate on national or local specificities (which were bound to diminish in the face of globalisation), the focus should now be on global trends or on overarching theories and generalised analytical frameworks which could be fruitfully applied to whatever region of the world. Such claims have often been rebutted. For example, Drake and Hilbink (2003: 26) have argued that local and regional traditions and politics will shape reactions to the challenges of globalisation. While many different localities might be faced with similar problems, the answers to these problems will continue to differ. In order to understand the mutually constitutive relationship between the global and the local, their interaction has to be studied. The fluid concept of globalisation has to be grounded in area studies. Understanding the local impact of global processes requires familiarity with and sensitivity towards individual regions, hence area expertise. In other words, globalisation does not diminish but increases the need for area-based knowledge.2 Still, the idea that globalisation would push political, corporate, social and cultural practices and predilections towards some common point of convergence has proved to be a strong one. Critiques of area studies have also emanated from other directions. Notably cultural critiques were developed from the perspective of the humanities and, at times, postmodernism. For one, the ‘Orientalist’ critique, which first had emerged in the mid-1970s in the Middle Eastern studies community in the US (cf. Mitchell 2003: 13-14), had evolved into demands to re-conceptualise area studies in post-modern or ‘post-structural’ terms. The aim of this exercise was to overcome the prejudicial construction of the object of knowledge as it

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On a different level, Hall and Tarrow (1998) have pointed out that the neglect of the internal complexities of individual societies would cost the social sciences dear in terms of conceptual poverty and in terms of fewer exchanges with scholars from other regions.

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allegedly existed in the mind of the western, mostly white and male scholar. Deep-seated academic conceptions of ‘us’ and ‘them’, it was suggested, not only abetted continued realworld attempts at domination but shaped the way in which non-western regions and their inhabitants were supposed to be perceived and understood. Solutions proposed as a way out of late-colonialist and supremacist perceptions of given regions ranged from incorporating endogenous understandings and conceptions into research designs to taking onboard perspectives provided by either European social theorists (Althusser, Bourdieu, Foucault, Giddens, Gramsci, Habermas, Laclau, etc.) or South Asian and other ‘subalterns’ (Szanton 2003).3 Moreover, and related to the above-mentioned discussion about globalisation and its effects, it was argued that area studies had to move away from their privileged and convenient focus on nation states as global and concomitant regional and local trends led to a deterritorialisation of what used to be (or sometimes never were) stable geographical units. Besides, it was suggested that on a worldwide level a de-coupling of culture and geographical space had gotten underway. In view of such trends, it was recommended to pay more attention to trans-border phenomena such as diasporas and trans-national social spaces, regional trade, finance and social networks or the impact of global flows of culture, media and the like on local identity construction (cf. Katzenstein 2001; Eckert 2005; King 2005).4 A third major academic debate in the latter half of the 1990s concerned the relationship between the ‘scientific’ disciplines and the allegedly non-theoretical area studies. In the United States, comparative politics, the classical mainstay of social-science based area studies, (re-)emerged as the major arena in that respect.5 Comparative politics had always been a ‘broad-tent affair’. Various attempts to achieve coherence in this branch of the political science discipline – via a certain frame of analysis or methodology (structural functionalism, behaviouralism) or a certain object of study (the state, the political system) – had all foundered. The 1990s saw another such attempt, this time in the guise of an unifying theoretical framework which promised ‘methodological rigour’ and thus scientific respectability: rational-choice theory. Not few area specialists perceived attempts to mould comparative politics in one particular form as ‘imperialistic’. Empirical (and topical) relevance was sacrificed on the altar of theoretical coherence and comparative politics would be the poorer for it – or 3 4

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See also Drake and Hilbink (2003: 22-24). As a consequence of these debates there have been, notably in the United States, shifts in funding opportunities provided by important foundations. A well-known example has been the Ford Foundation’s initiative ‘Crossing Borders: Revitalizing Area Studies’ (Ford Foundation 1999). It should be noted that the debate on area studies vs. political science was not new. Indeed, there had been relevant discussions in earlier decades (see e.g. the volume edited by Pye 1975). What was new was the critical thrust provided by proponents of the rational-choice approach to explaining political phenomena (see below).

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so it was claimed by those feeling threatened by the more messianic ‘rat choicers’ (cf. Bates 1997; Katzenstein 2001). While the discussion about area studies and its relationship with the relevant discipline was probably most pronounced (and sometimes even venomous) within comparative politics, criticism was also levelled at area studies in other branches of the social sciences. As Szanton (2003: n.p.) has noted: Area Studies [were charged] with being merely ‘ideographic,’ primarily concerned with description, as opposed to the ‘nomothetic” or the theory building and generalizing character of the core social science disciplines. At its worst, this dismisses Area Studies as simply generating exotica, which, however intrinsically interesting, cannot add up to a convincing or more broadly useful theory or narrative. At best, this view sees Area Studies as a source of data and information, fodder for useful and more universal theories by scholars in the disciplines with broader visions, more sophisticated techniques, and greater intellectual skills. It is perhaps not too much to say that the events of 9/11 have, at least in the social sciences, taken some of the sting out of the critiques levelled against area studies. The terror attacks in the United States, the subsequent attacks in other parts of the world, the continuing problems involved in the external implantation of democracy in Iraq, and the phenomenon of militant Islam more generally have led not only to an increase in public demand for regional expertise that is historically and culturally grounded while at the same time focused on current affairs. 9/11 and its aftermath have also made clear even to the most hard-headed proponent of the ‘globalisation-makes-us-all-alike’ thesis that things are slightly more complicated. While area specialists surely welcome the acknowledgment that area-based studies have not simply become obsolete because we no longer live in a Cold War setting with ensuing global ideological competition, there is no reason for complacence. The debate about the future development of area studies, the links between the disciplines and area studies, the research methods that should be employed and the topics that should be addressed by area specialists is bound to continue. In the following section we highlight some contemporary understandings of area studies and present our own definition of comparative area studies. The general importance of both area studies and comparative area studies is spelled out in section 3 of the paper. In section 4 we touch upon the trajectories and current situation of area studies in Germany, devoting particular attention to the former German Overseas Institute and its successor, the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies. Section 5 focuses on some of the methodological challenges comparative area studies are facing. We conclude by summing up the main points of this paper and with suggestions as to how the GIGA can best contribute to advancing area and comparative area studies in Germany and beyond. While much of the paper deals with area studies and comparative area studies as a whole, part of the discussion cen-

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tres on research on political affairs in various world regions, i.e. the domain of area studies the authors are most familiar with.

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What are Area Studies and Comparative Area Studies?

2.1

Area Studies

In the preceding section we sketched some of the main criticism levelled at area studies in the 1990s. These debates, it has to be added, have not been of the same importance to all area specialists alike. Thus, for a scholar working on the language of some ethnic group in a specific part of the world, the discussions on the role of rational choice theory in comparative politics are fairly remote. On the other hand, a political scientist working on, say, the party system in some semi-industrialised country might not be too concerned with the ‘cultural turn’ or a ‘translational turn’ in some other part of area studies as s/he is too busy trying to keep up with the latest developments in the ‘institutional turn’ her/his own field of study is undergoing.6 The point is that ‘area studies’ is not a unified field of study. For starters, there are a dozen or more regional objects of study (contested as some of these may be).7 Some of them refer to broader (sub-)regions of the world and some of them refer to individual countries (and possibly the diaspora of people who trace their roots to this particular part of the world). In many cases but not always the regions or countries in question share a common language or at least a limited number of common languages. Thus there are Middle East studies, Latin American studies, African studies, Southeast Asian studies, Japanese, Chinese and Korean studies, Eastern European and Russian studies, and so on. Hall and Tarrow (1998) have distinguished three connotations of the term area studies among scholars: First, ‘a detailed description of a nation or region that does not explicitly seek to generalize beyond the specific case’, second ‘studies that build on a relatively deep and context-rich knowledge of a specific society or region to develop propositions of more general applicability’, and third ‘interdisciplinary teaching or research by clusters of schol-

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Admittedly we are painting with a rather broad brush here. The above is not to say that there no area specialists who are not very much aware of the academic discussions in other strands of area studies. Still, attempts to infuse one’s own field of study with elements of the debate in other, seemingly unrelated fields are rare. For a recent exception of this kind see Chabal’s and Daloz’ ‘manifest’ on how to understand the role of culture in political systems (Chabal and Daloz 2006). ‘Regions’ are here simply understood as ‘geographically bounded parts of the world that are commonly viewed as occupying the same large part of the world’ (Mainwaring and Pérez-Liñán 2004: 4), i.e. we not necessarily assume an overarching common cultural, social, political, economic fundament of distinct regions.

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ars grouped together in a program focused on a particular region of the world’.8 What counts as area studies in different countries can diverge: Usually the geographical area one inhibits is not counted in, while it might well be elsewhere. For example, North American studies might be perceived as part of area studies in some countries while, to the best of our knowledge, it would not in the United States or in Canada. Different kind of area studies can also differ in their dominant approaches and institutional frameworks. As Szanton (2003) rightly notes, ‘the individual Area Studies fields are neither internally homogeneous, nor are they similar to each other. Indeed examined up close, they are strikingly distinctive in their political, institutional, and intellectual histories, and in their relationships with the disciplines.’ Such important differences and institutional divisions within the various area studies help to organise and channel the respective academic debates and study programs. According to our own understanding, the distinct characteristic of area studies is above all their specific geographical focus. Regardless of their (multi- or inter-)disciplinary background, area studies can be used for testing, elaborating, criticising or developing local and universalistic concepts and theories on the basis of detailed observation of local phenomena (see also section 5 below). In this sense, intensive language study, in-depth field research conducted in local languages, and multi- or interdisciplinary cooperation or conversation are not per se essential characteristics of area studies but constitute assets of individual researchers or methods of choice – they are necessary only as far as the specific research topic requires it.

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Comparative Area Studies

While most area specialists focus on individual countries or parts of a given world region, every now and then individual scholars or groups of scholars also engage in comparative research projects. Where profound area knowledge of one or more areas is combined with methods to compare across nations or other empirical entities,9 we can speak of comparative

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See also Katzenstein (2001). Regardless of what academics might have in mind when they talk of area studies per se, many area specialists would probably agree with Szanton (2003) who suggests that ‘Area Studies’ is best understood as a cover term for a family of academic fields and activities joined by a common commitment to: (1) intensive language study; (2) in-depth field research in the local language(s); (3) close attention to local histories, viewpoints, materials, and interpretations; (4) testing, elaborating, critiquing, or developing grounded theory against detailed observation; and (5) multi-disciplinary conversations often crossing the boundaries of the social sciences and humanities.’ The suitability of applying abstract concepts of, for instance, Western origin to other contexts certainly also constitutes some sort of comparison. However, comparing an abstract entity and an empirical entity is not considered a comparison in the narrow sense.

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area studies.10 Although the term ‘comparative area studies’ is used by a number of academic institutions in the United States and in other parts of the world, there seems to be no established definition of the term. It may be fair to say that comparative area studies does not (yet) exist as a proper field of academic research, it is rather a ‘new kid on the block’. Basically we can think of three types of comparative area studies (see also table 1). First, there are intra-regional comparisons. Within the context of such research, aspects or phenomena of different geographical entities within a given region are compared, e.g. labour movements and their links to political regimes in Latin America (Collier and Collier 1991) or ‘informal politics’ in East Asia (Dittmer et al. 2000). Intra-regional comparison is probably the most well-known and most wide-spread type of comparative area studies. This is no coincidence and reflects, inter alia, the fact that research agendas and analytical concepts tend to be relatively homogenous when it comes to individual world regions. Moreover, area studies specialists working on a given region tend to be more familiar with each other and more willing to engage in collaborative projects. Table 1: Three Types of Comparative Area Studies Intra-regional comparison

Inter-regional comparison

Cross-regional comparison

Object of Comparison

Comparing entities within areas

Comparing different areas as analytical units/entities

Comparing entities from different areas

Example

Political parties in Southern Africa

Regional cooperation in Asia and Latin America

Resource-rich countries in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East

Inter-regional comparisons, a second type of comparative area studies, are still fairly seldom (cf. Mainwaring and Pérez-Liñán 2004: 7-8). The focus of such research is usually on broad or even transformational processes which affect different regions of the world. Classical examples of such processes include democratisation (O’Donnell, Schmitter and Whitehead 1986), industrialisation (Gereffi and Wyman 1990), or the rise of nationalism (Anderson 1983). The idea behind such projects is usually to identify regional patterns and to compare them to each other. If distinct regional patterns exist indeed, the question can become why and in what specific ways regions in different parts of the world react to similar stimuli. Alternatively, the research might zoom in on the linkages between more or less simultaneous processes taking place at different levels of analysis, such as globalisation and regionalisa10

For a recent overview of the broad array of methods used in comparative politics see Hall (2004).

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tion in more recent times. Indeed, since the 1990s we have witnessed a new wave of academic works on regionalisation and regionalism (see Breslin et al. 2002 for an overview). While some of this work has analysed the dynamics of such phenomena within a given region (e.g. Pempel 2005; Katzenstein and Shiraishi 2006), there have also been a number of comparatively oriented projects focussing on the similarities and differences within the overall regionalisation trend (e.g. Katzenstein 2005; Nabers and Ufen 2005). Another recent stream of research has looked into inter-regional differences in democratisation, e.g. in terms of timing and sequencing or relative ‘democracy averseness’. Such research has led to a greater understanding of which explanations of democratisation are truly universal and which are bounded by regional or historical demarcations (cf. Bunce 2000; Mainwaring and Pérez-Liñán 2004: 3-4). Findings about regional differences in democratisation in turn have led to more sophistication with regard to disentangling the factors behind such differences. As regions per se cannot cause the differences (Bunce 2000: 721), recent research has focussed on the specific mechanisms underlying the diffusion and dissemination of regime types to explain why regions can exhibit distinct patterns of democratisation (Stokes 2004; Mainwaring and Pérez-Liñán 2004: 30-34).11 Such research projects demonstrate how inter-regional comparison (often of a quantitative kind) can be usefully combined with region-specific research involving process-tracing and other methods. At third type of comparative area studies is cross-regional comparison. Cross-regional studies involve the comparison of analytical units across different regions, e.g. the role of the state in economic development in Korea, Brazil, India, and Nigeria (Kohli 2004). While comparative research projects involving cases from among the advanced industrial countries are by now fairly common – at least in comparative politics –, comparative research integrating the ‘non-western world’ still constitutes the exception to the rule. This is no coincidence as ‘cross-regional comparisons are inordinately expensive and difficult to do with accuracy. Where accurate observations depend on a deep contextual knowledge of the nations at hand, even acquisition of the requisite language skills can be a daunting task.’ (Hall and Tarrow 1998) In spite of such difficulties it is worthwhile to pursue cross-regional comparisons as they permit us to test the universal character of theories and concepts developed in work in the disciplines and in the area studies. Certainly there is no methodological reason for not using cases from more than just one region if the reason for case selection is similar-

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Stokes (2004: 7-18) differentiates between a) ‘spurious regional effects’, i.e. factors which operate in a given region but are confined to that region (e.g. European colonial rule), b) ‘regional vector of causes’, i.e. a combination of factors unique to a certain region, c) ‘proximity dependent regional effects’, and c) ‘regional dynamics (proper)’ on the basis of network externalities, common political jurisdictions, and regional patterns of communication and persuasion (which can result in a certain regional political subculture).

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ity in the dependent or independent variables we are interested in (Mainwaring and PérezLiñán 2004: 8). If we want to know whether a certain concept really ‘travels‘ or whether a theory just holds for a certain region, we have to engage in cross-regional comparison. We will say more about the benefits of comparative area studies in the following section.

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Area Studies and Comparative Area Studies: The Why and How

Area studies and comparative area studies do not constitute ends in themselves. They must serve a purpose. This is not to deny that area study research can and indeed should be pursued for the sake of wanting to learn more about the particular object of analysis. In our understanding, the accumulation of knowledge about actors, structures and processes, political, economic, social and cultural phenomena and manifestations in various parts of the globe constitutes a legitimate and fruitful scientific enterprise. In particular, proper descriptions infused by in-depth knowledge of local specifics can not only advance our understanding of particular cases but also provide the basis for explanations beyond the case in point.12 Indeed, such descriptions – which tend to be undervalued by social scientists whose understanding of science is restricted to the accumulation of theory – are vital stepping stones for deriving at concepts that can travel and for developing comprehensive theoretical and analytical frameworks (see also section 5 below). Moreover, the description of phenomena in other contexts does not only serve the better understanding of the former but also helps the understanding of one’s ‘own’ context. As Sartori argues (1994: 16), ‘he who knows only one country only knows none’. In more general terms it can be suggested that the world would be a poorer place if only utility-oriented research was permitted or supported. Nevertheless we would like to argue that social-science based area studies and comparative studies should aim at more than ‘l’art pour l’art’. To begin with, we consider it vital that area studies and comparative area studies engage closely with the relevant disciplines. They should do so a) in order to advance the knowledge base of these disciplines and b) to benefit from the analytical advances of the disciplines.13 After all, both social-science based area studies and the social sciences as a 12

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By ‘proper descriptions’ we do not refer to matter-of-fact descriptions such as ‘X did that and that then and then’ but, echoing Gerring (2006), to descriptive statements (or ‘inferences’ if you like) that are aimed at characterizing or classifying, that present overviews of temporally-ordered series of events (chronologies) or even periodisations of phenomena, that are of an associative kind or that try to synthesise empirical findings into some kind of generalisation. Or as Szanton (2003) has put it: ‘Area Studies needs these disciplines for the concepts and methods they can contribute to understanding and translating another society or culture.’

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whole are (or should be) based on a common understanding of the ‘scientific mission’ which, following Karl Popper, consists of finding satisfactory explanations for whatever needs to be explained. Of course, the rationale of the area studies can no longer be – as used to be the case in the United States after World War II – to complement the social sciences so that in conjunction the two would lead to some kind of universal social science (cf. Mitchell 2003: 8, 23-24). The increasing fragmentation of both the social sciences and the area studies have made the achievement of such an aim illusionary. As long as the social sciences tried, with respect to their own thematic ‘areas’ (the state, the society, the economy etc.), to develop theories that would cover the globe, area studies could hope to play some integrating role. Now that a number of scholars have restricted their quest for scientific credentials to emphasising their respective methodological rigour, formerly existing links with area studies have tended to weaken (cf. ibid.: 16-20).14 In some cases there have even been attempts to widen the chasm between the disciplines and the area studies in order to demonstrate the allegedly higher scientific status of the former.15 Still, some of the original ideas on the relationship between the disciplines and area studies have not lost their attraction. Productive tensions between the two continue to exist. Thus, both area studies and comparative area studies can help to ‘cleanse social theory of its provincialism’ (Mitchell 2003: 8). In other words, area studies and comparative area studies can be used to challenge or better: to revise and refine theoretical propositions based on empirical facts and normative ideas derived from European and North American experience. Challenging established wisdom is one thing, generating scientific knowledge by means of developing general propositions another. Needless to say that scholars interested in generalisations have to pay attention to area-specific information if they want to understand the scope of these generalisations.16 Thus it can be the case that some generalisations only hold at a fairly high degree of abstractness or within certain geographical and other bounded contexts. On the other hand, comparative area studies can also play an important role in terms of expanding the knowledge base of the social sciences. As Huber (2003: 1) notes, cross-regional comparisons can help

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Judging for example from the broad canvass of approaches presented at recent APSA conferences, Mitchell is however misguided in stating that whole disciplines tend in this direction (the exception perhaps being economics). For an empirically informed discussion of publication trends in comparative politics, the main political science field in which area studies are embedded, see Munck and Snyder (2006). See the above discussion on the controversy within comparative politics in the United States. Most generalisations hold only within delimited contexts. This is even true for many areas in the natural sciences. See Eidlin (2006) for a more in-depth discussion on this point.

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1. to increase confidence in the usefulness of existing concepts and theories if similar processes can be found in widely different contexts, 2. to modify concepts and better specify theories with regard to contextual variables, and 3. to highlight the existence of different paths to the same outcome and thus the need to develop new theory. It should be added that area studies can also introduce new ideas into the disciplines as witnessed by the ‘academic career’ of concepts and theorems such as ‘developmental state’, ‘critical junctures’ or ‘remittances’. By means of the analysis of the causes and effects of pertinent phenomena across many regions, comparative area studies can play an important role in terms of generating generalisations applicable to broader settings and in terms of generating the kind of middle-range theory that is context-sensitive but yet manages to capture important causal effects.17 While local, national, and regional trajectories and outcomes with respect to a certain phenomenon may differ, the underlying mechanisms and processes can still be similar. Comparative area studies, if conducted systematically, can help to uncover these mechanisms and processes. The utility of area studies and comparative area studies is however not limited to the ivory tower. Area specialists can provide decision-makers in Germany, Europe and elsewhere with indispensable contextual knowledge needed for foreign-policy formulation and implementation as well as for development cooperation.18 The challenges of applied sciences – to make practical recommendations readily available – are not necessarily at the expense of scientific excellence. Undoubtedly, the strong desire of decision-makers for blueprints tempts scientists to deliver wide-ranging recommendations which are not grounded in the state of the art. Yet, it is methodological and theoretical rigour that creates the basis required for fully understanding the causes and effects of social, political or economic phenomena in areas ‘Westerners’ are commonly not familiar with. Practical recommendations without such a basis run the risk of coming close to charlatanism. In short, area and comparative area studies serve a number of purposes and their merits are hardly restricted to ‘learning about the other’. Possibly far from being exhaustive, table 2

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Following Merton (1968), we define middle-range theories as ‘theories that lie between the minor but necessary working hypotheses that evolve in abundance during day-to-day research and the all-inclusive systematic efforts to develop a unified theory that will explain all the observed uniformities of social behaviour, social organization and social change’. For a recent discussion of the relevance of comparative politics (and thus implicitly comparative area studies) for public life see APSA-CP (2003). The requirements for academics wanting to influence the policy-making process are discussed in some detail in Asia Policy (2006).

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indicates that area studies help fulfil four functions: description, conceptualisation and theory-building as well as developing practical recommendations for policy makers. While it is probably fair to say that a good deal of the work undertaken in area studies is aimed at ‘understanding’ the object of research, comparative area studies usually is aimed at ‘explaining’.19 As soon as the scholar is looking for generalisations, it may be comparative area studies rather than area studies that are called for. Table 2: Functions of Area and Comparative Area Studies

19

Description

Concepts

Theory

Practical recommendations for decision-makers

Learning more about ‘other’ areas

Testing whether concepts can ‘travel’ to areas/countries

Challenging causal claims derived from other regions

Providing descriptive information on pertinent issues in specific areas

Learning more about the area of origin and/or interest by way of comparing

Refining/adjusting concepts

Refining causal claims by adding contextual conditions

Providing descriptive information on general prevalence of phenomena across areas

Identifying general commonalities and differences across areas

Developing new concepts

Developing new causal claims (e.g. by identifying alternative paths to a given outcome)

Providing theory on causal relationships for designing policies toward areas

This basic difference reflects the strong hermeneutical tradition in the strands of area studies that are informed by the humanities and the emphasis on causal inferences in much of the social science based area studies. For a concise discussion of these two basic approaches (with special application to international studies) see Hollis and Smith (1990).

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4

17

Area Studies in Germany and the German Overseas Institute/GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies

As this paper is not about detailing the development of area studies20 or about teaching area studies at the university level in Germany and elsewhere,21 we can be fairly brief here. As in a number of other European countries, notably Great Britain, France, and the Netherlands, area studies developed in Germany against the backdrop of the country’s colonial ambitions and broader commercial interests. World War I put end to Germany’s colonial ambitions in the more narrow sense but, luckily, not to area studies – which, it must be added, had also come to focus on regions and countries that had fascinated German thinkers for generations (China and India being prime examples in this respect). Most of the research undertaken by first-generation area scholars was of a textual kind and much concerned with cultural aspects of the regions covered. This strong philological orientation dominated long after the founding of the two Germanys after World War II. (After all much of the social sciences became institutionalised only in the second half of the 20th century) Painting with a fairly broad brush, it can be stated that area-related research on social, political, and economic affairs started to flourish in the latter half of the 1960s when a number of new chairs and departments were set up at various universities. An early addition to the area-studies infrastructure in Germany after World War II was the Hamburg-based Institute of Asian Affairs which got founded in 1956 to serve as a basis for entertaining contacts into the region (in particular with regards to China with which no formal diplomatic relations existed at the time) and for commissioning individual studies.22 With the subsequent (though hardly steady) increase in academic posts at the Institute of Asian Affairs and the establishment of related area-studies institutes in Hamburg – the 20

21

22

For a brief overview of the development of area studies in Germany see Eckert (2005: 43-46), Puhle (2005) and Wissenschaftsrat (2006: 9-12). Schütte (2004) has provided a detailed history of Asian studies in Germany. For a broader discussion of the development of Asian studies in Europe until the 1990s see Cartier (1998). A lively debate on the current state of African studies in Germany has recently taken place in the journal Afrika Spectrum (see www.giga-hamburg.de/content/ forumregional/forschungsdebatte.html). The development of area studies in the United States is discussed in the volume edited by Szanton (2003b). See therein especially the overview chapter by Szanton (2003a) and the chapter by Mitchell (2003) which includes a stimulating discussion of the general development of area studies in the US. In a now somewhat dated volume, Yamaguchi (1991) has discussed the aims, methods and topics of area studies in Japan. For a broad overview of the current state of area studies in various locations see also the conference report by Braig and Hentschke (2005). See DAAD (2005) for the proceedings of a conference on teaching area studies at German universities. Similar questions were discussed with respect to the situation in the United Kingdom at the conference ‘The Future of Interdisciplinary Area Studies in the UK’, University of Oxford, St Antony’s College, 6-7 December 2005. On the origins of the Institute of Asian Affairs see Schütte (2006: 15-27).

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German Institute for Middle East Studies (founded in 1960), the Institute for Ibero-American Studies (1962), and the Institute of African Affairs (1963) –region ‘watching’ became slowly institutionalised. In 1964, the German Overseas Institute was founded to serve as an umbrella for these four area-studies institutes plus an additional institute, the German Institute for Comparative Overseas Studies, with its focus on ‘north-south’ and ‘south-south’ relations. In view of the existing area studies units at the University of Hamburg and the trading interests of the city (Hamburg being the largest port city in Germany), it was no coincidence that Hamburg became the location of choice. It is telling that regionally oriented business associations based in Hamburg played a vital role in bringing the institutes into existence.23 With the core founding of the area studies institutes in Hamburg coming from the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Economic Ministry of the city state of Hamburg, it was perhaps not surprising that much of the work undertaken at the institutes focused on individual countries as most informational and analytic demand was country-specific. It should also be noted, however, that the institutional setup and the operating procedures of the individual area studies have always slightly varied as a consequence of the different sizes of the institutes and the diverging trajectories of Asian, African, Latin American, and Middle East studies in Germany.24 For example, while researchers at the Institute of Asian Affairs increasingly concentrated on individual countries (or even particular aspects of these countries such as political, economic, and social affairs), individual researchers at the Institute for Ibero-American Studies and the Institute for African Affairs tended to look beyond the borders of individual countries – the fact that a limited number of languages were used in these areas (mainly English and French in Africa, Spanish and Portuguese in Latin America) was certainly conducive to such a broader focus. Thus, while intra-regional comparisons were more common in these two institutes than in the Institute of Asian Affairs (the German Institute for Middle East Studies falling somewhere in between), the overall picture was clearly one of compartmentalisation. Sure enough, regional expertise was brought together in the context of joint conferences (most notably in the context of the regular Außenwirtschaftstagungen (foreign business conferences) and umbrella publications such as the journal Nord-Süd aktuell (contemporary North-South relations) and the Jahrbuch Dritte

23

24

Though a number of German think tanks engage in the study of various world regions, notably the Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) in Bonn and the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) in Berlin, ‘comparative area studies’ as a distinct academic field does not exist in Germany – which further strengthens our claim that CAS is a sort of academic ‘newcomer’ (see section 2.2) . Not to mention the different traditions and approaches of research on developing countries per se and their impact on the work the Institute for Comparative Overseas Studies.

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Welt (third-world yearbook), but otherwise there was not much interaction between the individual institutes until the latter part of the 1990s. What did change, however, in the course of time was the composition of the research staff at the institutes. While in earlier times, a substantial number of researchers had a background in philological training and also preferred a hermeneutic approach to their subject matter, the 1980s and particularly the 1990s saw a visible rise in the number of researchers who had been trained in a given discipline (most notably political science). This also was no coincidence as opportunities to study specific regions in conjunction with a discipline had become more common at German universities over time. In the latter half of the 1990s, researchers from the individual institutes then came together to engage under such labels as ‘globalisation and governance’ and ‘informal politics’ in truly comparative ventures. At the beginning of the new millennium, finally, comparative research has become firmly institutionalised within the framework of overarching research programmes and the working groups and projects connected to them. To mark these changes in a symbolic manner, in 2006 the German Overseas Institute changed its name to GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies. What had been for the most part of its existence a loose umbrella organisation covering five individual institutes, is currently being transformed into one coherent think tank. While country-specific research continues at the GIGA (and will do so in the future), comparative projects now provide for much of the thrust propelling its work. Indeed, the institute has come a long way since its origins as an extra-mural academic institution for observing and analysing political, social, and social development in the non-European world. We will address the future direction of the GIGA in section 6 of this paper. First, however, we want to briefly come back to the more general development of area studies in Germany. In Germany, but arguably also elsewhere, three distinct strands can be discerned in area studies, namely (1) a classical or philological strand which focuses on the specifics of the language, literature, arts, and (pre-modern) history of a given region, (2) a social science strand which includes political science plus some branches of economics, sociology, and human geography,25 and (3) a culture studies strand which brings together some of the region-oriented work in sociology, ethnology, anthropology, the humanities, and newer inter-

25

As mentioned above, area specialists in political science tend to be concentrated in comparative politics. Development economics tends to be the last ‘refuge’ of area specialists within economics. In sociology, area specialists tend to be thinly-spread over a range of subfields, most notably area specialists can be found in development sociology.

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disciplinary study clusters such as gender studies, film and media studies, ethnic studies, etc. (cf. Eckert 2005: 46-47).26 To further complicate the picture, studies on individual world regions have evolved along diverging intellectual and institutional trajectories. As noted by the German Science Council (Wissenschaftsrat) in its recent recommendations on area studies at universities and other research institutions, we have in more recent times witnessed two somewhat contradictory tendencies. While, against the background of intensified globalisation and migration on an equally global scale, there is, on the one hand, an increasing interest in and demand for regional expertise, the existence of such expertise especially at the university level is, on the other hand, threatened by uncoordinated moves within individual German universities to ‘re-focus’ their academic programs in the context of the widespread introduction of B.A. and M.A. programmes. Coming up with institutionally and intellectually satisfactory solutions in the face of these two trends will keep German academia and its environment busy for the foreseeable future. While the notorious optimist will point to the fact that at least (or at last?) the manifold challenges facing area studies in Germany have been properly understood and are beginning to get tackled – the recent report of the Wissenschaftsrat provides a particular useful basis for further discussions and activities –, the outlook is far from clear. In the following we want to to highlight one particular aspect of the debate, viz. the general methodological challenges with which comparative area studies are confronted.

5

Methodological Challenges for Comparative Area Studies

Methodological excellence is a prerequisite for exploiting the full potential of area studies and comparative area studies. However, a comprehensive and exhaustive list of methodological challenges for area studies and comparative area studies in the more narrow sense is clearly beyond the scope of this paper. Hence, we will limit the following paragraphs to outline the main challenges typical of the three types of comparative area studies we have identified above, though many of them apply to the classical area studies as well. The most compelling challenges involve the use of concepts, the choice of adequate (comparative) research strategies and the question of how to organise inter-disciplinary co-

26

See also Wissenschaftsrat (2006: 9). While these three strands can intersect and interact with each other with respect to individual areas (e.g. under the roof of an area studies association), more often than not scholars within the various strands tend, for career reasons or because of intrinsic interest, to be more concerned with their colleagues and the ongoing work in the respective disciplines.

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operation. Especially in terms of concepts and research strategies, the different types of comparative area studies we have identified also face different challenges. Whereas intraregional comparison can make use of rather homogeneous context conditions, inter-regional comparison and cross-regional comparison are confronted with the problems associated with apparently highly heterogeneous surrounding conditions. Though the comparison of phenomena in heterogeneous context conditions is far from being impossible – as already argued, even the description of differences helps the scientific process –, comparison in this sense requires thoroughly drafted research designs.

5.1

Concepts

Clear-cut concepts of the phenomena under investigation are indispensable for any study – even a case study – but, as Dogan and Pelassy (1984; 1990) have argued, carefully designed concepts are of utmost importance for comparative studies. Concepts in comparative studies must be applicable to all cases, particularly when we embark on cross-regional comparison this is often at the expense of the precision of the concept. According to Sartori (1991, 1994) we have to climb the ladder of abstraction to capture all the phenomena we want to study. If we want to compare states (or their policies or whatever) we will quickly encounter the difficulty to include all the characteristics we know from the Weberian idea of a state (such as the monopoly on the use of force, an administrative structure that covers the whole territory, and so forth). The debate on failed and failing states reminds us that some of the entities presumed to be states might in fact be something else. A comparison can result in the precise description of differences (or shortcomings) but we cannot equate these failed states with ‘proper’ states, let’s say with respect to their tax-raising capability, falsely assuming that they belong to the class of states in the Weberian sense. We would need a wider, less inclusive concept of the state. To make matters worse, the design of concepts is fraught with pitfalls. Sartori has highlighted four conceptual ways of ‘miscomparing’ (Sartori 1991, 1994). Amongst these, parochialism and misclassification can often be found in area studies. Parochialism refers to concepts which are developed without consulting previous work on the issue in question. Concepts that are only apparently similar or different labels for identical phenomena, let alone partly overlapping concepts, render comparison difficult, at times impossible or even misleading. Consider the notion of ‘caudillismo’ or the ‘big man’ phenomenon. Both have been studied in different regional contexts (Latin America and Africa, the Middle East respectively) but they refer apparently to the prevalence of powerful individuals and how they manage to stay in power. Related overlapping concepts are ‘neopatrimonalism’ or ‘sultan-

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ism’, though they tend to involve much more than the relations between patrons and clients (cf. Erdmann and Engel 2006; Chehabi and Linz 1998). The cross-regional comparison of powerful individuals’ role would be highly fruitful but different labels have hindered such a study thus far. Parochialism can result in misclassification when the same label describes very different phenomena. Subsuming dominant parties (such as in Japan, Sweden or South Africa) and parties in one-party systems (such as in the People’s Republic of China, Cuba or Vietnam) under the label of one-party states will be highly misleading given that the former emerge from a competitive background whilst in the latter the regime outlaws any form of multi-partyism. Finally, conceptual problems are due to different notions of the concept among the citizens as well as social, economic and political actors in the different regions to be studied. Ongoing disputes and competing interpretations of key concepts in social sciences such as ‘democracy’, ‘social justice’, ‘development’, ‘globalisation’ or ‘security’ derive from their normative or affective connotation. Few will disagree on the label of the bottle as such, but how the wine should taste, can be highly controversial. A Middle East notion of democracy might require a rule of god’s will rather than free and fair elections (as a student in one of the authors’ classes claimed). Social justice can mean equality in terms of opportunities or outcomes (by the way, far from being the same), but traditional notions might justify the discrimination of women or the existence of ‘natural slaves’ (Aristotle). The comparison of differences in this regard is certainly fruitful or even necessary but if we do not want to give in to cultural relativism and find out about effects or causes we have to find common ground. Scholars can define their concepts unilaterally. Even if we do not object to a possibly ethno-centrist ‘export’ of concepts, if we want to conduct interviews, we must find out how people think about the phenomenon (or label) in question before jumping to conclusions on causes and effects. To summarise, concepts are key and there is no meaningful comparison, especially in comparative area studies, without a careful and sensitive drafting of concepts.

5.2

Research Strategies

The choice of research strategies is another crucial methodological aspect for comparative area studies. Heterogeneous or homogeneous context conditions have consequences for the choice and design of research strategies or, more precisely, comparative strategies. Especially, diverging contexts intensify a key problem in social sciences. Single causes rarely exist, if at all, in social science. Instead we have to deal with dynamic and complex causal mechanisms and we never know completely which variables influence the phenomenon

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under investigation. Even if we have established a relationship we can never be sure that other variables, not controlled for or poorly operationalised, would substantially modify our explanation or would be superior in explaining the phenomenon. Different research strategies have different potentials to tackle this problem. This depends on the number of cases and variables to be studied, their selection and the ‘realworld’ conditions which decide on the applicability of a research strategy. The latter aspect is maybe the most important for the choice of research strategies in comparative area studies. Experiments have a great potential to isolate crucial relationships because the scholar can systematically control the surrounding conditions and systematically alternate variables. However, cultures, states and economies cannot be taken to the laboratory, and, hence, experiments are hardly applicable in social sciences (Lijphart 1975). Single-case studies do not all face such a problem, but they necessarily fall short of providing the basis for generalisation, let alone cross-regional comparison. Thus, as a tool to promote comparative area studies they are widely inaccurate. At best, the case might be chosen due to exceptionalism (such as Botswana in terms of good governance in subSaharan Africa). They may constitute ‘deviant’, ‘hard’ or ‘special cases’ (see Eckstein 1975). For such a case selection, however, another comparative study or at least comparative perspective is a pre-condition. Two principal research strategies have traditionally been advised for ‘controlled’ comparisons across nations. A quantitative cross-country-analysis (‘large N’) and the more qualitative comparative method (‘small N’) (Nohlen 2004; Lijphart 1975). It is subject to debate whether a statistical or quantitative approach such as in classical cross-country analysis is one form of the comparative method (King et al. 1994; Liijphart 1975). Although a ‘largeN’ study involves comparison, the selection of cases and the use of data deviate from smallN studies. Quantitatively oriented scholars are keen to maximise the number of cases and to process the data statistically whereas the small-N comparativist chooses his/her few cases according to pertinent criteria and is free to use qualitative or quantitative data. The statistical approach is strong at generalising both in terms of description and correlations, and comparative area studies should not deny themselves of this tool right from the outset – though the classical cross-country analysis is certainly not a defining feature of comparative area studies. Moreover, a statistical approach is certainly a rough brush given that exceptions tend to be neglected once a significant relationship has been established. Exact mechanisms of causation are hardly to detect by statistical data alone. In addition, the need to process the data statistically requires exact and reliable data which frequently are not available – especially so in many non-European regions – and the use of proxies results in questionable validity of the whole research process (‘garbage in, garbage out’).

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Small-N comparisons avoid the rough brush since they are capable to embark on an indepth study of the cases under investigation. If cases are carefully selected they also have a great potential to isolate crucial relationships. Their main challenge remains, however, that it may prove difficult to identify a sample that meets such criteria. The theoretically most promising strategy is the so-called most-similar-systems strategy (Przeworksi and Teune 1970). It derives its logic from the method of difference27 developed by John Stuart Mill and comes close to a natural experiment. Cases are selected due to a large number of similarities and to pertinent differences as regards the variables between which a relationship is hypothesized. The similarities can be regarded an approximate ceteris paribus clause and can be excluded to explain the differences, thus we can be relatively sure that the link is caused by other variables. The results even offer potential for generalisation since we can claim that under the given circumstances we have observed a certain link between the variables under investigation. The main problem with the most-similarsystems-design, however, is to find suitable circumstances in the real world, let alone across different regions. The more variables we consider to be relevant, the more difficult it is to find cases that are sufficiently similar but differ in one or two aspects. Hence, at first glance, the most-similar-systems design seems ineligible for cross-regional studies and inter-regional studies. However, intra-area comparison may offer the opportunity to apply the most-similar-systems design (Nohlen 2004). Areas or regions are often defined as such because of a number of similarities they share. Thus, entities within such an area might be used to apply an approximate most-similar-systems design, or a strategy of ‘comparable cases’ as Lijphart puts it (1975), as long as they show differences with regard to our operative variables. Being part of an area, on the other hand, is by no means a proof of similarity in relevant context conditions (and this entails the question what an area is in the first place). Some of the commonalities might be of lesser importance for the research topic – for instance a common language and geographical proximity – and at closer inspection we will encounter many differences. Taken into account relevant similarities, it is well possible that we can identify approximately similar systems across different regions. Albeit these cases might be rare, if we know which variables are important for a given research topic we can try to search for countries that share many of these characteristics but differ as regards one crucial aspect. For instance, the regional powers of Brazil and South Africa share some pertinent commonalities with respect to their regional power resources and the communist states of Vietnam, Cuba and

27

One should not be confused by the apparently contradictory wording. The ‘difference’ in Mill’s term refers to the operative variables whilst Przeworski and Teune’s term refers to the similarity of the surrounding conditions.

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China have a lot in common as regards their political system. We are not suggesting that these cases are in fact most-similar systems, but the fact remains that it is possible to find such cases across regions. It is thus worthwhile to search for such cases. However, the most obvious research strategy for comparative area studies seems to be the most-different-systems design. It tries to tackle the problem adversely by choosing cases that have something special in common although the whole context is decisively different. If additional commonalities can be identified it is likely that these constitute the causes for the other common phenomenon of the cases. Assuming that our areas form such heterogeneous contexts we can search for specific commonalities. Some are already being researched at GIGA: Dominant parties have emerged in Africa and Asia; so-called ‘pariah’ states (Cuba, Myanmar, Syria, Iran, North Korea, and Zimbabwe) can be found in all regions, etc. Yet, this strategy is second best at isolating causal relationships because we never know whether those phenomena identified in our cases are not also present in other cases where the assumed effect is not present (Geddes 1990). Moreover, the problem of ‘equifinality’ further reduces the explanatory power of the approach: the very same phenomenon can have different causes. One-party dominance might be due to electoral fraud, a strong social base or a favourable set of institutions. A state can become a pariah state by intention or by default. Civil wars can be caused by greed but also by grievance. Economic growth can be the result of natural resource windfalls or well-designed policies. It is therefore indispensable to study additional control cases that might resemble one or more of the cases but do not show the specific trait in question. It is also useful to embark on a diachronic perspective, studying why in some cases one-party dominance ended or why the stigma attached to being named a pariah-state status was lifted. Generally speaking, comparative strategies should be adjusted to the requirements of the type of comparative area studies. An overview of the most obvious options is outlined in table 3. However, it is not so much the empirical situation but our imagination that marks the boundaries of opportunity. Generally, different research strategies should be considered and we can use more than just the large-N and small-N strategies which have discussed. For example, large-N studies can also be conducted with qualitative methodologies as suggested by Charles C. Ragin (‘fuzzy sets’, ‘QCA’; cf. Ragin 1994). The comparison of cases may fruitfully involve classical approaches such as process-tracing (George and Bennett 2005). And we should not ignore the lively debate on combining qualitative and quantitative methods (see e.g. Coppedge 2002; Brady and Collier 2004; Lieberman 2005; Creswell and Clark 2007). It has been said that for a hammer every problem is a nail (Watzlawick 1993). We should be able to use the whole tool box.

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Table 3: Research Strategies for Comparative Area Studies Intra-regional comparison

Inter-regional comparison

Cross-regional comparison

Surrounding conditions

Relatively homogeneous

Heterogeneous

Mostly heterogeneous

Availability of cases

Small to medium N

Small N

Large N

Small N

Comparative strategy of choice

Most-similarsystems design

Explorative comparison & Most-differentsystems design

Cross-countryanalysis

Most-differentsystems design*

5.3

Organising Inter-disciplinary Co-operation

While being, in a sense, an ‘ancient notion’ (Moran 2006: 73), inter-disciplinarity has become as fashionable as comparative perspectives within the scientific community.28 Given that many academic bodies (e.g. Wissenschaftsrat 2006: 9) and funding institutions favour interdisciplinary perspectives, simple economic incentives might motivate area specialists to embark on such strategies. Certainly, inter-disciplinarity has some intrinsic merits: Diverging perspectives and different methodologies can paint a more accurate picture of the phenomenon under investigation. Political science might focus on institutions at the national level, while sociologists might want to stress societal aspects. Social anthropology has much to offer with regard to studying cultural issues at the micro-level, while economic studies might investigate the material dimensions. Historians can provide a detailed diachronic perspective, and so on.29 Viewed from this vantage point, any theory must pass the test of all these perspectives and, notwithstanding interfaces, no discipline can claim to master all the relevant methodologies. However, inter-disciplinary co-operation faces many obstacles and it is no surprise that genuine inter-disciplinary perspectives are rare. As Moran (2006: 73) puts it, we are confronted with the ‘apparent paradox that interdisciplinarity is simultaneously hugely popular but unable to make serious headway’. According to Moran this is partly due to the fact that 28

29

A more recent term is trans-disciplinarity. It is not entirely clear to us in what regard this notion is different from inter-disciplinarity. It may be argued that inter-disciplinary means interaction of principally independent disciplines while trans-disciplinarity refers to the integration of these disciplines in one individual scholar. Multi-disciplinarity is less ambitious, which is possibly reflected by the term ‘multidisciplinary conversation’ (Szanton 2003). The authors apologise for the possible political-science bias in this argument.

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disciplines have been strengthened in recent decades and that inter-disciplinarity is promoted by disciplines in crisis and by dissidents in disciplinary hierarchies. Possibly more importantly, disciplines have developed different theoretical and methodological traditions as well as diverging foci of interest. It is therefore difficult to even agree on a common research topic, let alone common concepts. How to study a common phenomenon might prove even more difficult. Frequently, but not necessarily, inter-disciplinary co-operation fails because all scholars involved expect the other disciplines to take on their perspectives/methodologies and vice versa. Unsurprisingly, the attempt to enforce inter-disciplinary co-operation, even among social sciences as close as political science, sociology, and social anthropology, can result in incoherent multi-disciplinarity – some sort of Babylonic multidisciplinary conversation –, and the reinforcement of more a less already prevailing antiinter-disciplinary attitude and even prejudice toward the ‘other’ discipline(s).30 In order to overcome these obstacles three challenges need to be tackled. All disciplines and scholars involved have to develop a sense of open-mindedness and self-criticism. More exactly they should be aware of the merits of the other and the shortcomings of their very own discipline – in general or with respect to the research topic. It is by no means necessary that an individual academic turns into a trans-disciplinary scholar.31 As already argued, scholars can or should stay rooted in their discipline. But acknowledging the utility of interdisciplinarity is a prerequisite for inter-disciplinary cooperation. Otherwise scholars should refrain from participating in such projects. An institutionalised process of communication can help to reach this goal. Second, for the sake of feasibility, inter-disciplinary co-operation should be limited to a relatively small number of disciplines in a given project. A study of the political effects of natural resource wealth, for instance, can get started with a marriage of economics and political science. As the number of scientific traditions and cultures grow, problems multiply and not all topics necessarily require all perspectives. Once limited inter-disciplinarity has been successfully implemented other, hitherto excluded disciplines can join the project. Finally, the division of labour in such a joint research effort must be properly organised. An inter-disciplinary project should only be started after all researchers involved have agreed on a clear-cut research question and a common understanding of the key concepts. Only after an analysis of the disciplines’ assets and liabilities with respect to the particular research topic, it can be decided which discipline should work on which aspect of the pro-

30

31

This is particularly so with respect to methodologies. Many quantitatively oriented economists find it hard to acknowledge the merits of allegedly ‘unsystematic’ micro-studies by anthropologists, while the latter frequently display a pronounced anti-quantitative attitude. In a sense, disciplinarity is a precondition for inter-disciplinarity (Moran 2006: 73-83).

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ject. A promising strategy might be to use a multi-level framework of analysis. As already outlined, political science and economics can cover the macro and medium level while sociology and social anthropology focus on the micro level.

6

How Can GIGA Contribute to the Development of Area Studies and Comparative Area Studies?

6.1

Summary

After the end of the Cold War a number of events and developments have had a stimulating effect on area and comparative area studies. These include the end of the (as we know now: non-teleological) third wave of democratisation, the emergence of the economic power houses such as China and India, and new global threats, particularly the spread of weapons of mass destruction and trans-national terrorism. While there are many definitions with respect to area studies, we submit that the distinct characteristic of area studies is above all their specific geographical focus. Based on detailed observation of local phenomena, area studies can help to challenge, test, refine, and develop both local and universalistic concepts and theories – regardless of their (multi-, trans- or inter-)disciplinary background and the particular methods involved. Comparative area studies, a so far neglected ‘cousin’ of area studies, share the same traits but combine the in-depth knowledge of one or several areas with comparative methods. We have identified three different types of comparative area studies: (1) Intra-regional comparison which refers to comparative studies within areas; (2) inter-regional-comparison which puts whole areas as entities in comparative perspective; and (3) cross-regional comparison which selects empirical entities from different world areas. Area and comparative area studies are not ends in themselves but can greatly contribute to systematic description of phenomena in areas – in terms of learning more about both ‘other’ and ‘own’ regions – as well as testing and modifying concepts and universalistic theory. As a consequence, they provide a sound scientific basis for decision-makers. While area studies constituted the mainstay of the former German Overseas Institute, comparative area studies have more recently received the attention they deserve in the context of the restructuring and reorientation of the institute which has culminated in the founding of the new GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies. Area and particularly comparative area studies face a number of methodological challenges, the most compelling of which are the use of concepts, the choice of adequate research strategies and the organisation of inter-disciplinary cooperation. We have argued that

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we need a careful drafting of concepts, an open-mindedness vis-à-vis other disciplines, and – where it promises analytic value-added – a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods.

6.2

Recommendations

Because the GIGA cannot, on its own, overcome all the challenges facing and exploit all the potentials of area studies and comparative area studies, a selective approach is inevitable. Priorities must be set. We propose the following: 1. GIGA has to be aware that comparative area studies rather than area studies are its unique selling point. Therefore, major efforts should be undertaken to consolidate and to build on what already exists in terms of comparative area studies, particularly with regard to inter- and cross regional comparison. 2. GIGA can draw on the already existing and advanced in-house-expertise on Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East – including the vast networks the individual area institutes entertain with regard to their respective regions. The main challenge is to put this regional expertise in comparative perspective. 3. For this purpose GIGA must intensify its efforts to promote cross-regional comparisons. Preferentially, research topics should be selected on the basis of their crossregional relevance or at least their intra-regional comparative potential (see point 4 below). Research topics should fit within the three research programmes of ‘Legitimacy and Efficiency of Political Systems’, ‘Violence, Power and Security’, and ‘Transformation in the Process of Globalization’. 4. Both at the national and the international level, GIGA should aim at becoming a major player with regard to methodological questions in comparative area studies. GIGA should encourage multi-methodological approaches which, among other things, combine quantitative and qualitative methods. 5. GIGA should stimulate internal, national and international debate on comparative area studies, especially methodological aspects. Internal workshops, international roundtables, the fledgling Internet forum ‘Area Studies and Comparative Studies’,32 and possibly this paper should form part of an integrated strategy. The authors suggest that GIGA sets up a permanent study group on ‘comparative area studies’ which focuses on methodological and other pertinent issues.

32

See www.giga-hamburg.de/index.php?file=forumregional.html&folder=forumregional.

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6. GIGA should maintain and hone its region-specific expertise. Area studies are the mainstay of all the regionally oriented institutes which are part of GIGA. Thus, a clear focus on comparative area studies might be perceived a threat to the ‘traditional’ agenda (which holds also true for some of GIGA’s funding institutions). Certainly, an emphasis on comparative aspects will be partly at the expense of classical area expertise. However, if organised properly, a balance can be found and African, Asian, Middle East and Latin American expertise can be upheld or even enhanced. GIGA should focus on research topics that can draw on similar and relevant phenomena across regions (such as political parties, pariah states, resource-rich countries, regional powers) thus allowing the researchers to maintain and further deepen their expertise once the comparative framework has been established. The identification of differences and commonalities will put regional traits in perspective and thus enhance expertise. To complement GIGA’s own efforts, international academic networks should be set up with regard to select research topics such as the ones named above. 7. Research topics should stay close to ‘real-world’ problems; GIGA researchers should be able to communicate their results to non-scientists and provide a reliable basis for policy-making. 8. GIGA should establish firm links with disciplines such as political science, sociology, economics, and social anthropology in order to stay close to the present state of art. GIGA studies should aim at testing universalistic (but middle-range) theory and modifying it. 9. GIGA should embark on an inter-disciplinary approach, already inherent in the notion of area studies, which however should be limited to a relatively small number of social science disciplines, namely economics, political science, social anthropology, and sociology. The multi-level analysis proposed in GIGA’s research profile offers tremendous opportunities to assure an efficient division of labour and a multitude of perspectives. Inter-disciplinary co-operation should only be attempted if the researchers involved can agree on a common research question and share a common understanding of key concepts.

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