ABSTRACT
This chapter provides some of the advantages and limitations of the comparative approach, its traditional and contemporary applications in sociology, the kinds of conceptual and methodological issues involved in its use, and why it is so relevant to understanding intergroup relations. Inter-societal comparisons played an important role in sociology’s historical foundation and intellectual development, reflected in many of the early thinkers’ reactions to the perceived effects of industrialization on European feudal society. A number of them, for example, contrasted traditional and modern, industrial society with respect to their predominant beliefs, solidarity, motives, and stages of evolution, highlighting assumed differences between feudalism and capitalist settings. The comparative approach to intergroup relations permits the analyst to develop an awareness of the major factors defining dynamics at all levels of society within the setting of society’s shift from the more traditional to the modern industrial type.
