Conclusion

Abstract

Chapter 1 of this book set out two sets of aims and objectives that it was hoped would be achieved by the study. They were:

• First, to draw on a wider literature than is generally found in single-country studies in order to shed new light on political phenomena and suggest new nuances or even explanations to students of German politics and country specialists more generally.

• Second, to allow students of the comparative method to apply some of the key concepts, models and approaches in comparative politics to the rich context of a single country study.

It was also hoped that in pursuing these two goals the study would also serve to problematise the trade-off in such a study between depth and breadth, micro- and macro-level explanation, rich description and abstraction, inductive and deductive reasoning, and so on.