Notes on the Study of Political Parties in the Third World

Abstract

The research on political parties in developing nations is difficult to aggregate and to place in a comparative context. The reasons are many. The body of work is at best modest in size as well as uneven in focus, theoretical conception and empirical execution. Often comparative or more generalizable indicators and conclusions must be extracted from studies intended to clarify social developments over broad periods of time or, alternatively, within carefully set historical boundaries (the colonial; the transition from the colonial period to independence; post-independence developments; political conditions under specific national leaders, as examples). The efforts are broad stroke, primarily descriptive and usually interwoven with historical accounts and explanations of the social, economic and cultural factors that condition the life of a country. The range appears to run from megatheories-or, more accurately, broadly generalized interpretative sets of categorizations and conclusions applied to a region or a collection of countries (the research itself is seldom theoretically focused), supported by interpretative essays and expert, professionalized observation and background knowledge-to case studies of differing degrees of elaborateness. There is little in between.