Cardiff, United Kingdom

Comparative Politics, Policy and Governance

Language: English Studies in English
Subject area: social
Kind of studies: full-time studies, part-time studies
University website: www.cardiff.ac.uk
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Comparative
In linguistics, the comparative is a syntactic construction that serves to express a comparison between two (or more) entities or groups of entities in quality, or degree. See comparison (grammar) for an overview of comparison, as well as positive and superlative degrees of comparison.
Comparative Politics
Comparative politics is a field in political science, characterized by an empirical approach based on the comparative method. In other words, comparative politics is the study of the domestic politics, political institutions, and conflicts of countries. It often involves comparisons among countries and through time within single countries, emphasizing key patterns of similarity and difference. Arend Lijphart argues that comparative politics does not have a substantive focus in itself, but rather a methodological one: it focuses on "the how but does not specify the what of the analysis." In other words, comparative politics is not defined by the object of its study, but rather by the method it applies to study political phenomena. Peter Mair and Richard Rose advance a slightly different definition, arguing that comparative politics is defined by a combination of a substantive focus on the study of countries' political systems and a method of identifying and explaining similarities and differences between these countries using common concepts. Rose states that, on his definition: "The focus is explicitly or implicitly upon more than one country, thus following familiar political science usage in excluding within-nation comparison. Methodologically, comparison is distinguished by its use of concepts that are applicable in more than one country."
Governance
Governance is all of the processes of governing, whether undertaken by a government, a market or a network, over a social system (family, tribe, formal or informal organization, a territory or across territories) and whether through the laws, norms, power or language of an organized society. It relates to "the processes of interaction and decision-making among the actors involved in a collective problem that lead to the creation, reinforcement, or reproduction of social norms and institutions." In lay terms, it could be described as the political processes that exist in between formal institutions.
Policy
A policy is a deliberate system of principles to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent, and is implemented as a procedure or protocol. Policies are generally adopted by a governance body within an organization. Policies can assist in both subjective and objective decision making. Policies to assist in subjective decision making usually assist senior management with decisions that must be based on the relative merits of a number of factors, and as a result are often hard to test objectively, e.g. work-life balance policy. In contrast policies to assist in objective decision making are usually operational in nature and can be objectively tested, e.g. password policy.
Politics
Politics (from Greek: πολιτικά, translit. Politiká, meaning "affairs of the cities") is the process of making decisions that apply to members of a group.
Politics
Here the two great interests IMPERIUM ET LIBERTAS, res olim insociabiles (saith Tacitus), began to incounter each other.
Sir Winston Churchill (1620–1688) Divi Britannici, p. 849. (1675).
Politics
Who is the dark horse he has in his stable?
William Makepeace Thackeray, Adventures of Philip.
Policy
Don't throw a monkey-wrench into the machinery.
Philander Chase Johnson, Everybody's Magazine (May 1920), p. 36.
New membrane-electrodes assemblies with less platinum content can slash the costs of automotive fuel cells (FCs). An EU-funded project is developing a new electrode concept without compromising on FC efficiency and durability.
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