This paper examines two works in comparative politics — Michael McFaul's "Transitions from Postcommunism" (2005) and Peter Uvin's "Ethnicity and Power in Burundi and Rwanda" (1999) — and evaluates how each author uses cross-country comparison to explain distinct political outcomes. McFaul analyzes Serbia, Ukraine, and Georgia to identify the critical factors behind successful democratic transitions from authoritarianism. Uvin, by contrast, traces the historical roots of ethnic polarization in Rwanda and Burundi to explain diverging paths to mass violence. The paper compares their methodologies, assesses the strengths and weaknesses of each argument, and concludes that both scholars, despite studying opposite phenomena, share a common comparative approach aimed at informing future political understanding.
Comparative politics seeks to find the similarities and differences between countries in order to explain the causes and effects of political actions. In this way, even studies covering vastly different topics can have much in common. Peter Uvin, in his 1999 article "Ethnicity and Power in Burundi and Rwanda: Different Paths to Mass Violence," seeks an explanation for ethnic violence in Burundi and Rwanda and examines how both countries reached their level of violence resulting from political conflict. On an entirely different subject, Michael McFaul, in his 2005 article "Transitions from Postcommunism," looks for the common factors that lead to a transition from authoritarianism to democracy. In comparing post-communist regimes, he uses Serbia, Ukraine, and Georgia as case studies, taking into account how each overcame authoritarian leadership.
While studying different topics in entirely different spheres of world politics, Uvin and McFaul have much in common. Both seek, through comparing events in countries that share a similar resulting action, to find the underlying reasons for it. For Uvin, the final action is ethnic and political violence; for McFaul, it is the advent of democracy. Regardless of their specific focus, both scholars consider the fundamental "building blocks" of politics in making claims that reach beyond mere historical evaluation. McFaul and Uvin are each successful in comparing the political actions of different regimes and countries to develop a better understanding of the past, in the hopes of creating a better understanding of the future.
McFaul examines post-communist states but focuses primarily on three countries that have successfully moved from authoritarianism to democracy. By focusing on Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine, McFaul is able to account specifically for the reasons these three countries can be considered more successful in their democratic politics than other post-communist states that have struggled to find their footing after the fall of communism. In his own words, McFaul's study is "seeking to learn lessons from the democratic breakthrough" (McFaul 17). This means that by using countries that have become democratic, McFaul can not only explain the reasons for their success through comparison, but can also use those reasons to gain insight into the future — helping to identify other potential democratic states, or, perhaps more importantly, helping to encourage the transition to democracy in the many countries still struggling to achieve it.
Uvin also seeks to identify the reasons for a certain resulting action, his case of study being the ethnic polarization in Rwanda and Burundi that has led to seemingly endless violence. While he does not study what can be considered a positive outcome, as McFaul does, Uvin works to uncover the origins of conflict and to determine how far those origins have shaped the current political dilemma. If long-term historical origins are not an important factor in creating the climate of political violence, then Uvin wants to know what was. Most importantly, however, the central question he attempts to answer is how Rwanda and Burundi — two countries that both suffer from ethnic polarization — have reached their current state, and why they differ in the specific reasons for ethnic violence.
To answer their respective questions, both Uvin and McFaul seek a better understanding of the past. McFaul first separates the countries he wishes to evaluate — Ukraine, Serbia, and Georgia — as distinct cases from other transitions to democracy. According to McFaul, some distinguishing characteristics include the relatively peaceful nature of these transitions (McFaul 2). Yet these transitions were unpredicted by analysts, meaning there must have been underlying factors that were overlooked. His study of the changes in these countries therefore helps identify the reasons for a successful transition to democracy. To accomplish this, McFaul takes his case studies and finds the factors common to all of them. He details how each factor appeared in some form in every case study country, which allows him to separate essential factors from unessential ones. McFaul then takes it a step further, explaining how the important factors, while numerous, were integral to the democratic transition.
Much like McFaul, Uvin attempts to understand the present through evaluation of the past. In his case study of ethnic polarization in Rwanda and Burundi, Uvin traces the roots of ethnic conflict far back in history and progresses through both countries' histories up to the most recent period. Once he has gathered his qualitative data — essentially a political-historical overview of the two countries — he identifies the reasons for ethnic violence. In Rwanda, he determines that prejudice has been institutionalized and accepted (Uvin 12). In Burundi, it is fear; and in both countries, ethnic violence can be seen as a result of revenge (Uvin 12). Once the reasons for violence are specified, Uvin goes further and draws conclusions about the deeper causes behind those reasons. For example, why does fear persist in Burundi? By using comparison to understand and interpret the history of the two countries, he is able to better explain the causes of ethnic polarization. Taking a decidedly historical approach, Uvin seeks to identify the differences between two regimes, whereas McFaul seeks to find what made his case studies similar.
"Assesses evidence and weaknesses in McFaul's transition factors"
"Evaluates Uvin's historical evidence and argumentative gaps"
Uvin and McFaul make sound arguments using political comparison as the key to their studies. McFaul uses evidence from all aspects of political life in his case study countries — such as elections, population dynamics, and the role of the military — then compares them and finds the pattern linking them to one another. Once the pattern is identified, he illustrates how it can be understood in a much broader light, as a model through which democracy can become a reality in countries trapped in authoritarianism. Like McFaul, Uvin also examines countries through the lens of their political history. Using a more historically expansive approach, and accounting for a larger scope of Rwanda and Burundi's past, Uvin finds differences where mainly similarities would be expected.
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