Conclusion: A New Map for Old Territory

Abstract

More fundamental than any of the problems discussed so far — the concepts, strategies, theories, methods and justifications of comparative politics — is the question of its proper and logical boundaries. For certainly the courses offered at British universities, the texts on the bookshelves, the scope of the articles and reviews in various journals of comparative politics, reflect no agreement on what these boundaries should be.¹²⁵ And of course there are many good reasons for justifying any particular system of inclusion and exclusion. But since the results of this variety are the wide differences of definition of the field mentioned in the opening sections of this work, ranging from ‘the study of a selection of foreign governments’ to practically the whole field of political science other than political philosophy, it does seem that some delimitation of the field based on the internal properties of the discipline itself might be a useful exercise.