A political analysis of the formal comparative method: Historicizing the globalization and development debate

A large number of international institutions and policy makers advocate for the potential of globalization to deliver on the promises of development, and have reorganized development and poverty reduction strategies in a comprehensive way. This is reflected, for example, in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper and Millennium Development Goals (MDG) initiatives. These strategies are globally constituted, although they are to be implemented within national domains as national development strategies. From this perspective, globalization and development are conceptualized in ahistorical terms, while methodologically the approach remains corroborated by the formal comparative method. I argue that a critical re-evaluation of the formal comparative method is necessary not merely to rectify a methodological problem, but also to expose the politics of methodological choices. The formal comparative method is inextricably underpinned by temporal and spatial delineations that reproduce a particularly problematic analytical framework with significant political implications, not least because it obscures the globally constituted social dimensions of struggles for recognition and redistribution