Hague, Rod and Martin Harrop. "The Comparative Approach". In Comparative Government and Politics: An Introduction (6th ed.), edited by Rod Hague and Martin Harrop, 69-86. Basingstoke: Palgrave McMillan, 2004.

Hague, Rod and Martin Harrop. "The Comparative Approach". In Comparative Government and Politics: An Introduction (6th ed.), edited by Rod Hague and Martin Harrop, 69-86. Basingstoke: Palgrave McMillan, 2004.

• One of the major pitfalls of the comparative approach to politics is that it is assumed that states are self-contained environments, whereas in reality, states interact constantly and often mimic their behavior based on the policies pursued by other states (73). This idea was initially taken from a 1997 article by C. Tilly.
• Studies of comparative politics are often hurt by selection bias, as scholars overwhelmingly concentrated on wealthy, developed states in which academic prefer to reside and study. Even in larger surveys, data limitations mean that important aspects of small or poor countries remain understudied (73-74).
• Although not in common use today, Dr. David Easton developed a model in 1965, which intended to explain the relationship between society and government. It posited that public opinion was filtered through institutional gatekeepers, at which point it influenced authoritative decisions made by government (77-78).
• The advent of behaviouralist political science largely killed Dr. Easton's model, as most scholar rejected his institution framework for ignoring the role of agency and individual political action in shaping those political outcomes (78).
• A consistent weakness of the use of case studies in comparative politics is the tendency to apply specific historical lessons to other areas or times without appropriately demonstrating that the conditions merit such a conclusion (80).