Comparison: (Webster) the act or process of comparing as an examination of two or more items to establish similarities and dissimilarities.

Compare: (Webster) to examine the character or qualities of especially in order to discover resemblences or differences; compare implies an aim of showing relative values or excellences by bringing out characteristic qualities whether similar or divergent.


"Perhaps no area is so central to the discipline of political science as the field of comparative politics. We trace our origins back to Aristotle, whose study of politics involved the comparison of Greek city-states to examine variations in political structures and the political process. Throughout the evolution of political science as a descriptive and then an analytical method, comparison frequently has been a central part of theses endeavors. A reliance on the comparative approach can be traced to the nature of our inquiry as social scientists. A social scientist who wishes to study causal relationship must explore variation. Depending on one's research question, cross-national comparisons often provide the only source of this variation. Even when we are interested in only a single nation, cross-national research allows us to determine what is unique and distinctive about political processes in the nation. Social scientists are also drawn to the comparative approach because of our interest in developing general theories of politics. If human behavior and organizational behavior are governed by general laws, then the comparative approach provides a vehicle for assessing whether such general patterns of behavior exist. Even if our general theories do not function in the same manner across nations, we learn a great deal. Science frequently progresses by finding exceptions to general theory, which necessitate further theoretical work. The same applies to social science".

Russell J. Dalton in "Comparative Politics of the Industrial Democracies: From the Golden Age to Island Hopping" in William Crotty (ed.) Comparative Politics, Policy, and International Relations.