From Within to Between Nations: Subnational Comparison across Borders

Long a staple in the toolkit of American politics, comparison among subnational territorial units has gained increasing currency in comparative politics. A growing portion of subnational research, especially in the monographic literature, employs comparisons of subnational territorial units within d...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Perspectives on politics 2019-03, Vol.17 (1), p.85-105
Main Author: Sellers, Jefferey M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Advocacy
Borders
Cities
Comparative analysis
Comparative politics
Comparative studies
Governance
Inference
Intellectuals
Leverage
Money
Ontology
Political power
Political science
Politics
Property
Qualitative research
Quantitative analysis
Research methodology
Transnationalism
Trends
Typology
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Summary:Long a staple in the toolkit of American politics, comparison among subnational territorial units has gained increasing currency in comparative politics. A growing portion of subnational research, especially in the monographic literature, employs comparisons of subnational territorial units within different countries. This approach to comparison, which I term transnational comparison, has the potential to build on and extend the advantages of subnational comparison. Despite the numerous added challenges it poses, transnational comparison offers a variety of ways to incorporate and leverage variations between countries as well as within them. Drawing on exemplary studies from the literature on subnational regimes and beyond, I outline a typology of successful transnational comparative strategies. The choice among these strategies depends on their distinctive properties, on the substantive questions asked, and on the stage of a research program. All have contributed to advancing the study of politics beyond nation-centered comparison.
ISSN:1537-5927
1541-0986
DOI:10.1017/S1537592718002104