Counter-Intuitive Approach to Comparative Political Theorising

After presenting various approaches to comparative political theorising (CPT), this chapter criticises some of them suggesting the replacement of Western practices and methods of inquiry with non-Western ones without justification. I then justify why I employ the normative paradigm called ‘the justificatory account’, which seeks to identify a possible point of consensus between two distinct and conflicting intellectual traditions. This approach is guided by principles such as transparency, sympathy and restraint.