The State of Comparative Politics in South Africa

This article provides an overview and assessment of Comparative Politics in South Africa. In mapping the state of the sub-discipline, attention is paid to its prevalence in the curricula of universities, the extent to which comparison of political phenomena in more than one country features in completed master's dissertations and doctoral theses in the period 1950-2011 and whether South African comparativists publish in their Political Studies journal Politikon, which has been in existence for 40 years. The scope and direction of Comparative Politics and its methods have shifted dramatically over the years and so has the South African political landscape since the early 1990s. The manner in which these changes have affected the teaching and research interest of scholars, the curricula and the substantive focus of master's and doctoral studies is of particular interest here.