№ 4 - 2001
Ilyin M.V.
Comparative Political Science: Scientific Comparison in Political Knowledge System

The author, Dr. Sc. (Politics), singles out types and levels of mental assimilation of politics, analyzes the nature and character of comparisons in this sphere, discusses the possibilities of political comparative studies, their role in the system of scientific knowledge about politics. Two tendencies in the development of this discipline are characterized: actively-constructive (generating) and reactively-descriptive (taxonomic). Furthermore, the main stages of the formation of comparative political science are curtly described, beginning with later decades of the 19th century, and its present condition is outlined on the methodological plane. M.V.Ilyin points out three tendencies proper, in his opinion, to the process of methodological transformation of comparative political science nowadays: the radical (including post-modern) one; the historically-comparative one (it is reviving); the one of renovation (turning to new conceptual approaches). The author, in conclusion, stresses his agreement with S.Verba’s opinion that comparative political science will retain heterogeneity of its styles and of its theories.