For the Comparativists

[ThisGuyRiteHere]

Is it possible to concentrate in 2 different regions for instance you want to do studies on India Vs. Countries in Northern Africa?

Or do you have to pick one area and just do that.

[hubert1990]

You usually have a primary region and, if necessary, a secondary focus region. But this secondary region often relates closely to the primary region (ie Russia and China). Don't know how close relations are between India and N. Africa

[eponine997]

Depends on your topical focus and what you are comparing.  Better to select cases for your study based on good research design, rather than just two areas you think interesting.  

[wtncffts]

Depends on your topical focus and what you are comparing.  Better to select cases for your study based on good research design, rather than just two areas you think interesting.  

 

Well, that depends on how you see yourself as a scholar. It seems the OP wants to be an area specialist, so he's inherently going to be studying particular cases out of prior interest. Of course, that doesn't mean he's absolved of having to justify case selection, but the burden is more in terms of whether the particular phenomenon he's analysing is theoretically interesting in that case, either for case-specific or more general reasons (i.e., that there's a congruence b/w the case and the phenomenon that makes it worth studying in some fashion). Although I'm not an area specialist, I don't think it's illegitimate, and produces a lot of material from which large-N comparativists like me can draw.

 

I do agree, though, that India and North Africa as your two regional specializations is odd, certainly not a combination you see often.

[GopherGrad]

Different twist on the same answers:

 

Comparativists usually pick a group of regionally related cases based on the insight those cases offer to a particular puzzle. Say that a particular comparativist was interested broadly in religious or sectarian violence. She could choose to study North Africa and the Middle East because: 1) there is variation in the incidence of Islamic terrorist groups and the organizational behavior of those groups (etc, etc); 2) there are similar cultural and geographical influences between many of the cases that help set up control mechanisms; and 3) familiarity with these cases can be gleaned from developing similar skills (Arabic language) and knowledge (the theology of Islam and the history of the region).

 

From there, she might attempt to expand the universe of cases at her disposal in a couple of ways, both of which are fairly common and blendable:

 

First, she might co-author with an expert of another region or do a shallower dive into a variety of seemingly related cases outisde her area for the purpose of answering a particular question in a particular article or book.

 

Second, she might endeavour to select a new group of regionally related cases (that affords leverage on the same questions, but under very different contexts) and develop the language skills and historical/cultural knowledge necessary to compare them with the same breadth and depth as the first set. Imagine our hypothetical scholar of sectarian violence begins to study Hindi nationalism and Hindu-Muslim relations in India because her shallower knowledge of the case suggests she will learn something surprising and useful given her knowledge of N. African case.

 

The members of the case groups are determined in some part by the questions and methods employed in the study. For example, students of quant-driven comparative political economy think little of lumping all of Europe (or even all of the OECD) or sub-Saharan Africa together. By contrast, those that study social movements or nation-building choose narrower groups (say, the Islamic Maghreb or Scandanavian states) and work outward in expanding their qualitative case knowledge.

[ThisGuyRiteHere]

Well I am not saying that I want to do india and north africa. I am just saying, two areas you would not think of studying together..

[Cesare]

Well I am not saying that I want to do india and north africa. I am just saying, two areas you would not think of studying together..

 

Not a comparativist, but as someone who enjoys studying the global diffusion of international policies (this is an IR topic), you often have to compare completely different regions to figure out what is going on at the global level.

[wtncffts]

Well I am not saying that I want to do india and north africa. I am just saying, two areas you would not think of studying together..

 

You don't want to pick two area specializations just for the sake of being different, though. Either you're going to be case-oriented, in which you have a region or country of interest and your job is to look for theoretically interesting puzzles which illuminate certain features of that case or contribute to the broader comparative theoretical discussion, or you're starting with an interest in a generic phenomenon and looking for cases which help to test theory, generate hypotheses, trace causal processes, etc. While the distinction can get fuzzy in practice, at least in theory there's a difference in methods and logic of argument between the two.

[eponine997]

You don't want to pick two area specializations just for the sake of being different, though. Either you're going to be case-oriented, in which you have a region or country of interest and your job is to look for theoretically interesting puzzles which illuminate certain features of that case or contribute to the broader comparative theoretical discussion, or you're starting with an interest in a generic phenomenon and looking for cases which help to test theory, generate hypotheses, trace causal processes, etc. While the distinction can get fuzzy in practice, at least in theory there's a difference in methods and logic of argument between the two.

This.  Well said.