New Directions in Comparative Politics, Third Edition by Howard Wiarda

Author:Howard Wiarda [Wiarda, Howard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367007362
Google: 9rgZyAEACAAJ
Goodreads: 52711250
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-04-18T00:00:00+00:00

2. The Fallacy of Parallels and Actuals

When we allow the social sciences to prevail upon our approaches to development studies, in an unqualified manner, we also find that they bring into our problem-solving effort a predisposition that what has worked in the western countries will also work in the non-western. Such a predisposition implies that the problems of development are common, regardless of where they occur. Here we commit what I have called in my published works the fallacy of parallels and actuals. Only up to a point can you zero in on social problems of different non-western societies with your prior experience and theoretical models drawn from already developed western countries. After that you need to find out how different are the non-western countries from those that you have known in the west. The point is that social and political problems, despite their common manifestations such as poverty or lack of participation, may have certain common as well as specific features. But what hinders the identification of the specific features is the cognitive exercise of finding parallels and staying with them. The exercise of finding parallels often brings an unfamiliar problem within our familiar contexts. Nothing wrong with that if only we do it as an initial exercise and then go in search of the actuals of the situation. Here we can parody the advice given by the mathematical philosopher A. N. Whitehead: seek simplicity and then distrust it. Similarly we can start with parallels and then distrust them to reach the actuals.

In the social sciences, with the exception of anthropology, we often do not pay much attention to the "actualities" of situations where development efforts are specifically needed. In fact, in social science theorizations, there is even a practice of remaining silent on the discovery of unconforming peculiarities. When they cannot be suppressed we tend to give them a respectable name of "exceptionalism," or say that when those societies evolved enough they would be similar to western ones.

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