Comparative Analysis of Economic and Political Cleavages in South Africa and Zimbabwe
Introduction
Comparative politics is concerned with examining the characteristics or qualities of two different political entities to discover resemblances or differences. These entities can be general in nature, for example, the comparison of two countries, or more specific in nature, comparing two different systems of government. But, whether general or specific in nature, comparative politics tries to determine what caused the governments to form in the way that they did.
One way to do this is to look for the cleavages that affected each of the countries in question. A cleavage is a split that occurs within a culture and can cause conflict Cleavages can be in the form of :
Economic divisions between two or more groups based on financial considerations.
Ethnic divisions between two or more groups based on cultural beliefs.
Political divisions between two or more parties involving conflicting ideologies.
Racial divisions between two or more races.
Regional divisions between two or more groups based on geographical concerns.
Religious divisions between two or more religious groups with differing beliefs.
This paper intends to demonstrate that the comparative method may be used to better understand the socioeconomic and political cleavages within two specific countries, and that this study may lead to a clearer understanding of the issues within the chosen countries that are causing those divisions. The countries that will be examined in this brief study of cleavages are Zimbabwe and the Republic of South Africa.
It is hoped that by examining specific socioeconomic cleavages of the two countries in th...
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...izer. Mbeki should do something similar. The health of a country ultimately resides in the well-being of its citizens.
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...ited States of America has a presidential system, the United Kingdom has a parliament system, and Russia has a semipresidential system. For the presidential system, as mentioned before, the main feature is the establishment of the separation of powers. In the Parliamentary system, legislative and executive powers are fused together; same people-same institution. The conflict of lack of clarity among the prime minister and president in the semipresidential system has in occasions created opportunities for more judicial scope (O’Neil, 2007). The United States of America, the United Kingdom, and Russia have systems that make their political aspects different. However the similarities make it easier to understand the institutions and their duties. This analysis in using compare and contrast is necessary in being able to understand political structures among the nations.
Dr. Noah Zerbe is a professor and chair of the department of politics at Humboldt State University in California and someone who has spent time in both South Africa and Zimbabwe. Dr. Zerbe goes in depth into the factors that surrounded the 2002 famine in Africa, where 14 million Africans were on the brink of starvation. The Malawi president, just a season before the famine, sold off all of Mal...
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In today's society we let our lives be led by a certain force that we believe in very strongly. Yet, a common debate that still rages today is whether we, as a species, have free will or if some divine source, some call it fate, controls our destiny. In the play, Oedipus the King, that special force is also used and is known and defined as fate. This played an important role in the lives of the characters just as it plays one in our daily lives.
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Comparative politics is an important aspect of political science in that instead of studying how this country functions, it studies why other countries around the world are the way they are. There must be some medium for finding the differences and similarities between one county and another in order discover what can effect such aspects as economic strength, military strength, and the structure of the regime in power. One reason to compare countries is to help ourselves by allowing us to learn about other countries while escaping the ethnocentric fallacy many of us have. The Unites States may have a good government but is not necessarily a perfect government; certain countries may have aspects of their own government that we could learn from and perhaps improve upon our own system. Another reason to compare countries is to understand how countries evolve, discover patterns, and why they evolve in the way they do. Another very important reason to study comparative politics is to better understand how certain regimes work for purposes of international relations and foreign policy. In order to create policy regarding other countries and in order to give aid to these countries we must know how these countries function so that we can work with the countries instead of blindly trying to change them in a way that we seem fit. This is especially important in the modern age with the evolution of a global cooperation between many countries and the fact that the United States has become the watchdog, big brother, and teacher for many of the less developed countries of the world.