At a very general level, comparativists are interested in identifying the
similarities and differences among macrosocial units. This knowledge
provides the key to understanding, explaining and interpreting diverse
historical outcomes and processes and their significance for current
institutional arrangements. Cross-societal similarities and differences...
constitute the most significant feature of the social landscape, and,
consequently, these researchers have an unmistakable preference for
explanations that cite macrosocial phenomena... Most comparativists...
are interested in the cases themselves, their different historical
experiences in particular, not simply in relations between variables
characterizing broad categories of cases.