Compare or Perish: A Handbook for Strengthening the Field of Policy Analysis

Abstract

‘Compare or Perish’, said the political scientist De Beus at a social science conference in 1992 reflecting on the poor state of comparison in political science at that time. The importance of comparison in areas such as political science and public administration has been advocated by many authors as the “very essence of the scientific method” (, p. 878; ; ; ; ; ). Almost three decades after De Beus’ statement, we can say that the field of comparison in [...]