Sartori’s Challenge

Abstract

Sartori’s strictures on conceptual stretching may have distracted the comparative discipline’s attention from a deeper second theme in his work, the shift from top-down, variable-centered analysis to bottom-up ( ab imis) political analysis based on individual persons’ decision making and their concrete interactions, a kind of model that has only recently become practical with computer assistance, and which is peculiarly appropriate for a comparative research that seeks to combine case studies and scientific inference. A classic ethnography by Clifford Geertz, based on thick description, is respectfully re-evaluated to show that a bottom-up ontology can provide insights into enduring questions of political science that may elude conventional variable-centered methods. Bottom-up models may add an important dimension to comparative research, bridging old divisions between ethnography, case studies, processes, and mechanisms on one hand, and formalized scientific models on the other.