This first objective of comparative politics is the process of describing the political
phenomena and events of a particular country, or group of countries. Traditionally,
in political science, this objective of comparative politics was realized in countries
that were different to those of the researcher. Through often highly detailed description,
scholars sought to escape their own ethnocentrism by studying those countries
and cultures foreign to them (Dogan and Pelassy 1990: 5-13). The comparison to
the researcher's own country is either implicit or explicit, and the goal of contextual
description is either more knowledge about the nation studied, more knowledge
about one's own political system, or both. The comparative literature is replete with
examples of this kind of research, and it is often cited to represent 'old' comparative
politics as opposed to the 'new' comparative politics, which has aspirations beyond
mere description (Mayer 1989; Apter 1996). But the debate about what constitutes
old and new comparison often misses the important point that all systematic research
begins with good description. Thus description serves as an important component
to the research process and ought to precede the other three objectives of comparison.
Purely descriptive studies serve as the raw data for those comparative studies that
aspire to higher levels of explanation.
From the field,of Latin American politics, Macauley's (1967) Sandino Affair
is a fine example of contextual description. The book is an exhaustive account of
Agusto Sandino's guerrilla campaign to oust US marines from Nicaragua after a
presidential succession crisis. It details the specific events surrounding the succession
crisis, the role of US intervention, the way in which Sandino upheld his principles of
non-intervention through guerrilla attacks on US marines, and the eventual death
of Sandino at the hands of Anastasio Somoza. The study serves as an example of
what Almond (1996: 52) calls 'evidence without inference', where the author tells
the story of this remarkable political leader, but the story is not meant to make
any larger statements about the struggle against imperialism. Rather, the focus is on
the specific events that unfolded in Nicaragua, and the important roles played by the
various characters in the historical events.