ABSTRACT
As Durkheim (1938: 139) noted in 1895, “Comparative sociology is not a particular branch of sociology; it is sociology itself, in so far as it ceases to be purely descriptive and aspires to account for facts”. And this, of course, applies to the social sciences as a whole. Increasingly, social scientists are realizing not only the utility but also the necessity of comparative research (Bollen et al. 1993; Bamyeh 1993; Hillsman 2005; Kohn 1987; National Research Council 2001). Genov (1991) has observed that “contemporary sociology stands and falls with its own internationalization…. The internationalization of sociology is the unfinished agenda of the sociological classics. It is the task of contemporary and future sociologists.” Likewise for political science, Brady (2000) has noted that cross-national research has “produced theoretical insight about political participation, the role of values in economic growth and political action, and many other topics”. Similarly, in economics, a cross-national approach has become an imperative as globalization has changed labor markets and social networks in fundamental ways (Freeman 2006, 2007; Bardhan and Kroll 2003).
