Political Causality and Comparative Politics.

A generation ago Alasdair MacIntyre asked, somewhat rhetorically, ?Is a Science of Comparative Politics Possible?? MacIntyre said no, largely because he was reacting to those political scientists who were working with a model of their discipline drawn largely from the physical sciences. Whether or not one agreed with his strict behavioralist vision of science, MacIntyre’s essay also raised questions of continuing relevance concerning the proper unit of analysis for comparative politics. This paper argues that students of comparative politics need to expand their scope beyond institutions and other hardy perennials to include comparisons of different modes and understandings of political causality. Using empirical examples drawn from the world of African football (soccer), it argues that there are three alternative understandings of political causality are present, and that these coexist in a variety of ways. These are: first, the contemporary scientific mode that most social science simply takes for granted and assumes, quite unthinkingly, to be universally applicable and valid in all circumstances; second, a largely spiritual and religious mode based on the interventions of a supreme deity or its archenemy; and third, a mode based on the active manipulation of supernatural forces that in much of Africa is usually called witchcraft or sorcery. The paper also argues that this plurality of alternative understandings of causality means that political science needs to end its monogamous relationship with the scientific mode so as to permit a more nuanced appreciation of how people actually understand and act within the political universes they create. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]