ABSTRACT
Comparative politics has known a number of approaches, from the so-called traditional framework (classical institutionalism) over functionalism and systems analysis and the dependency approach to rational choice and neoinstitutionalism or new institutionalism (Almond et al., 2003; Newton and van Deth, 2005). The principal-agent framework for analysing how one group of actors – the principal – contracts with another set of actors – the agents – to get things done, has received increasing attention in economics and business administration (Laffont, 2003). The time has come to explore what this model offers when interpreting politics, either in micro studies such as elections or in macro studies such as with comparative politics. Polities are social systems that certain actors operate for specific purposes. Political systems are supported by certain groups of people and sometimes opposed by other groups. Polities give rise to benefits and costs for the human beings involved, which can best be stated in terms of the principal-agent model.
