Why Comparative Area Studies Needs Area Studies - and Vice Versa

Event Abstract

In two volumes published by Oxford University Press – Comparative Area Studies: Methodological Rationales and Cross-Regional Applications (2018) and Advancing Comparative Area Studies: Analytical Heterogeneity and Organizational Challenges (2025) – my colleagues and I seek to illuminate the distinctive features and potential value of “comparative area studies” (CAS) in an intellectual environment increasingly preoccupied with “big data” at the expense of contextual knowledge about sites, countries, and regions. CAS embraces the pursuit of in-depth, immersive knowledge associated with area studies but also encourages contextualized comparisons across areas to illuminate surprising parallels and contrasts across time and space. The goal is not to infer elegant causal models or general theories, but to generate middle-range propositions about complex phenomena that may elude researchers working with aggregate data or selecting cases solely for hypothesis-testing. At the same time, in the present intellectual and political climate in many places around the world, it is more important than ever to magnify the relevance and impact of area-based scholarship, which can be achieved through directing at least some of our resources to cross-area collaborations, conversations, and comparisons. The 2025 volume seeks to expand the scope of CAS to include a wider range of qualitative research and considering how our institutional architecture can be adapted to simultaneously support multiple area studies communities and facilitate fruitful, impactful research that is of relevance to more than one region. Such an effort has become all the more urgent amid growing fiscal and political pressures that threaten to undermine area studies and double-down on data science.

About the Speaker

Rudra (Rudy) Sil is Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania where he is also the School of Arts & Sciences’ Director of the Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business. His scholarly interests encompass Russian politics and foreign policy, Asian studies, labor politics, international development, qualitative methodology, and the philosophy of social science. Sil has previously authored, coauthored, or coedited eight books. These include Beyond Paradigms: Analytic Eclecticism in the Study of World Politics (2010 - coauthored with Peter Katzenstein) and, most recently, Advancing Comparative Area Studies: Analytical Heterogeneity and Organizational Challenges (2025 – coedited with Ariel Ahram and Patrick Köllner). His sole-authored monograph, Managing ‘Modernity’: Work, Community and Authority in Late-Industrializing Japan and Russia (2002), exemplifies the sort of contextualized comparison associated with “Comparative Area Studies.” He is also author or coauthor of more than three dozen papers, including refereed articles have appeared in such journals as Perspectives on Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Economy and Society, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Theoretical Politics, Post-Soviet Affairs, and Studies in Comparative International Development. The paper in Comparative Political Studies received the Dorothy Day Award for Outstanding Labor Scholarship. Sil, who was born in India and went to schools on three continents, holds a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.