COMPARING POLITICAL-SYSTEMS - ESTABLISHING SIMILARITIES AND DISSIMILARITIES

Comparative political analysis at the macro-level of political systems can reduce the inevitably high complexity of such comparisons by the systematic matching or contrasting of cases, depending on the particul ar problem. Such 'most similar systems' or 'most different systems' de signs, in Przeworski & Teune's terminology, thus constitute one of the major ways out of the usual 'small N - many variables' dilemma. This paper proposes a detailed and comprehensive method to establish such s imilarities and dissimilarities in a systematic and at all stages tran sparent way. The examples chosen refer to an analysis of the condition s of survival or breakdown of democratic systems in the inter-war peri od in Europe.