Convergence and Divergence: American Exceptionalism in Comparative Perspective

• In Event: Poster Session: Politics and History & International History and Politics
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Politics and History

Abstract

Political scientists have long recognized the need to bridge the gap between the traditionally separated subfields of American and comparative politics. Yet, few procedures have been developed for taking on such a task. This article reviews two scholarly traditions concerned with situating the U.S. in a comparative perspective: comparative political economy (in comparative politics) and American political development (in American politics). I argue that despite operating in different subfields, these two strands of literature work from a similar mode of inquiry, a logic of convergence. Based on the notion that wealthy democracies are on a path leading toward political and economic convergence, this logic highlights American exceptionality. Instead, I introduce an underexploited logic, one of divergence based on the notion that the U.S. shared a similar baseline with other countries in variables of interest and experienced a posterior bifurcation. I argue that the combination of these two logics constitutes a strategy that allows researchers to zoom on the commonalities and differences between the U.S. and other countries over time, shedding new light on the American sociopolitical trajectory and identifying dimensions of variation that would be invisible otherwise, providing a new framework of reference to situate American exceptionalism in comparative perspective.

Author

• Julieta Casas, Stanford University