Midterm 1 Concepts PLSC 1413

PLSC 1413 01 (FA26): Comparative Politics: States, Regimes, and Conflict: 25% of Grade

What makes a scientific argument in comparative politics valid? To test our theoretical claims…

It must be testable and falsifiable (able to be proven wrong) unlike a tautology, which is true by definition. Researchers develop a theory, derive hypotheses, test them using observations, and evaluate the results. Researchers must also define key concepts, identify the relevant unit of analysis, and consider alternative explanations when comparing political outcomes.

… must translate a concept into a measure/indicator (operationalization)

We can evaluate measures in different ways.

• Conceptualization.

• Validity. (correct attributes? measurements levels? aggregation issues?)

• Reliability.

• Replicability.

The research question matters.

Identifying causes matters for policy recommendations. (easier with thinner measures, but sidelines inequality)

Mex Weber State Definition

The state “is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.”

• de facto

• dichotomous: has legitimacy or not

• in reality, continuum of state effectiveness (also not just political challenges, economic and criminal challenges)

What are a regime, a nation, and a nation-state?

• Regime: institutional arrangement determining who holds political power, how they are chosen, and how they are held accountable.

• Nation: A group of people sharing a common identity (e.g., language, religion, ethnicity, or history).

• Nation-state: A state where one nation predominates and its identity is closely connected to the state’s boundaries and institutions.

States and the provision of public goods

States can enable the production of public goods.

Public goods are some of the most important goods in the life of a human community.

Public goods are characterized by two traits:

1) They are non-rivalrous. Your consumption does not diminish the good.

2) They are non-excludable. Once provided, all can consume.

Eg. national defense, infrastructure

Variability on willingness to providing public goods

• Individual costs of providing public goods vary (hardly challenging vs quite costly)

• Individuals evaluate the value of public goods differently (some value public goods significantly vs others do not)

  • some groups in society have options, others don’t (E.g. private schools, healthcare)

Two problems with providing public goods that the state can help with

• Free-riding

• Coordination

Free-Riding as a Public Goods Challenge

• one may not value the public good, so not willing to pay; have an incentive to free ride

• when others free-ride, costs may increase for those still willing

Some individuals can enjoy the benefits of public goods without contributing to their provision.

The consequence of a sufficient number of people not contributing is the failure to provide a public good.

• in large communities, hard to enforce no free-riding

In what ways do states attempt to solve free-riding problems?

Contractarian View of the State

State of Nature Definition

The state of nature is the term used to describe situations in which there is no state.

• Hobbes, Leviathan (1651): The state of nature is a “war of everyone against every man” in which life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” - lived through violent war

• people should give up natural rights for security and civil rights (locke values natural rights more)

State of Nature: Prisoner's Dilemma and Nash Equilibrium

Individuals in the state of nature face a dilemma. (prisoner's dilemma)

• Everyone would be better if they could all agree not to take advantage of each other: Individual rationality leads to an outcome that is inferior in the sense that both players agree that some alternative outcome is better.

• But if free-riding were to happen, it would be better to be the free-rider.

(something structural about the state of nature that makes it difficult for citizens to behave themselves).

• results in sub-optimal Nash Equilibrium (where each player is playing their best response to their opponent’s strategy, and neither has a unilateral incentive to deviate)

• A dominant-strategy (dominant = a best reply to all of the other player’s strategies) Nash equilibrium occurs when both players have a dominant strategy.

Civil Society

Civil society is a system in which individuals exchange taxes and obedience to state authority for protection, law enforcement, (public goods) and civil rights.

e.g. state acting as a policeman in exchange for taxes that the citizens pay

Hobbes’ solution to the state of nature was to create a sovereign with sufficient force that people would stand in awe.

Individuals should transfer power to the sovereign in exchange for protection.

Individuals would give up their natural rights in return for civil rights. (w/ social contract)

• Natural rights are universal and exist in the state of nature.

• Civil rights do not exist in the state of nature but are instead created by states through laws.

responsibilities vs benefits for citizens

Social contract

An implicit agreement among individuals in the state of nature to create and empower the state. In doing so, it outlines the rights and responsibilities of the state and the citizen in regard to each other.

natural rights → civil rights

Social contract theorists:

• have differed over the extent to which individuals should delegate authority to the state

• view the state as a third-party enforcer that can dole out punishments to individuals who engage in socially destructive behavior that violates the social contract.

• These punishments would be structured in such a way that ‘steal’ is no longer a dominant strategy for individuals in society.

  • introduces new costs to be subtracted from the cardinal payoffs of destructive behavior to make cooperating more favorable

When is civil society preferred to the state of nature?

1. The punishment imposed by the state is sufficiently large that individuals prefer to refrain rather than steal.

and

2. The tax charged by the state for acting as the policeman is not so large that individuals prefer the state of nature to civil society.

(large p low t)

Coordination probelms

Even with no free-riding, public goods present challenges.

Many public goods depend on the coordination of beliefs among individuals.

In large populations, it is not obvious that this coordination will happen.

Solutions to pure coordination problems

Shared beliefs: “Conventions”, “norms” or a “social equilibrium” are manifestations of shared beliefs.

• (e.g. driving on same side of road)

• (Note, however, that shared beliefs might not be welfare enhancing for everyone! e.g. women not working)

Coordination traps

• Multiple equilibria

• One equilibrium is more desirable than another (Players want to coordinate, but disagree on preferred outcome.)

• Players can become “trapped” in an undesirable equilibrium

• How? Reinforcing expectations

How states can help with coordination

Policy interventions

Leadership (helps, but may be insufficient because mutual expectations are harder to establish)

Informal economy

• when states struggles to persuade individuals to join the social contract

• instead economic activity operates outside the benefits and protections of the state

In many countries, a variety of governance structures can coexists. (e.g. Lagos-Shelby Grossman)

Informal employment

refers to working arrangements that are (in practice or by law) not subject to benefits and protections of the state:

• E.g. national labour legislation, income taxation, or entitlement to social protection or other employment guarantees; for example, advance notice of dismissal, severance pay, or paid annual or sick leave (ILO).

What explains the emergence of the modern state?

Charles Tilly: “War makes the state . . . States make war.”

mechanism: high population density → conflict over land → war (survival by conquering and investing in war machine, impetus to build-up institutions to fund the state) → state formation

state making = the elimination of internal rivals and the development of the capacity to extract resources

Constraints on Predation

 To make war, power-holders need capital. They get it first by conquest, selling assets, or expropriating capital owners.

• Then, they establish regular access to capital owners who can supply credit.

• Regular taxation comes next.

• Power holders have an interest in promoting capitalism (sometimes those investments benefited their own enterprises directly).

• Capital owners develop an interest in funding the state (when their profits > tribute).

• “quasi-voluntary compliance” is established.

By regulating their predatory instincts, rulers could increase their net extractive capacity

Quasi-voluntary compliance

situation in which the subject feels she is getting something in return for the tax dollars the state is extracting.

Variation of state capacity within Europe

• IV: + effort devoted to extraction, state making, protection, and, especially, war making (-) the commercialization of the economy and the extent of the resource base

• DV: sheer size of government

• states developed different levels of capacity depending on how they obtained the resources needed for warfare.

  • e.g. Portugal’s reliance on wealth from overseas conquest and trade could reduce rulers’ need to build strong domestic taxation systems

Procedural View of Democracy

classifies political regimes in regard to their institutions and procedures

Substantive view of democracy

classifies political regimes in regard to the outcomes that they produce

Minimalist view of democracy (Przeworski)

Adam Przeworski: Rulers are elected and turnover in power is peaceful. (procedural)

Thin definition problems

• One attribute matters (turnover), but what about others (for example, universal suffrage)?

• What about cases where the incumbent is very popular and keeps getting reelected?

• Turnover does not guarantee accountability.

“Thin” definitions of democracy concentrate on:

• The public sphere

• Political participation (mostly electoral turnout)

• Political Parties

• The right to vote and be voted

sidelines inequality (Waylen), Extension of the suffrage, however, does not imply political quality (Anne Phillips 2022)

Polyarchy

political regime with high levels of both contestation and inclusion (Robert Dahl).

DIFFERENCES: Three Democracy and Dictatorship Measures

1. Democracy-Dictatorship (DD) Measure (contested elections - procedural)

2. Polity Project (inclusion and contestation (Dahl) + executive constraints (Anne Meng) - procedural)

3. Freedom House Measure (political (Dahl) + civil rights - substantive)

Democracy-Dictatorship Measure

Democracies are regimes in which governmental offices are filled as a consequence of contested elections.

A country is classified as a democracy only if all of the following conditions apply:

1. The chief executive is elected.

2. The legislature is elected.

3. There is more than one party competing in the elections.

4. An alternation in power under identical electoral rules has taken place.

• builds on Prezworski

• dichotomous: democracy or not

Polity Project

Polity provides annual measures of democracy and autocracy.

• Democracy score, 0-10.

• Autocracy score, 0-10.

Polity provides an annual polity score.

• Polity Score = Democracy Score→ Autocracy Score.

• Polity Score ranges from -10 to 10.

A country’s polity score is based on five different attributes or dimensions.

1. Competitiveness of executive recruitment.

2. Openness of executive recruitment.

3. Regulation of political participation.

4. Competitiveness of political participation.

5. Executive constraints.

Polity is procedural and captures Dahl’s notion of inclusion and contestation.

Polity may be slow to pick up change because it focuses on institutions and procedures

Is it appropriate to think that moving from a 1 to a 2 on one dimension is equivalent to moving from a 3 to a 4 on another?

Freedom House Measure

Two categories:

1. Political rights.

2. Civil rights.

Based on scores for political and civil rights, Freedom House classifies countries as Free, Partly Free, and Not Free.

he amount of freedom on the political rights dimension is measured by 10 questions, each worth between 0 and 4 points.

Three categories:

1. Electoral Process.

2. Political pluralism and participation.

3. Functioning of government.

A country’s score out of 40 is converted to a 7-point scale.

The amount of freedom on the civil rights dimension is measured by 15 questions, each worth between 0 and 4 points.

Four categories:

1. Freedom of expression and belief.

2. Associational and organizational rights.

3. Rule of law.

4. Personal autonomy and individual rights.

A country’s score out of 60 is converted to a 7-point scale.

A country’s overall Freedom House score is the average of its political and civil rights scores.

Freedom House captures Dahl’s notion of inclusion and contestation.

The big difference is that it employs a substantive view of democracy

Attributes towards backsliding

Is it appropriate to weight the civil and political rights dimensions equally?

scope conditions

specific circumstances or boundaries under which a theoretical proposition or hypothesis is expected to apply and hold true

• theories that are universally true and may not be verifiable

Example: Tilly’s theory that war builds state capacity has the scope condition that states must rely on their own resources to fund warfare, rather than relying on foreign protection.

preference falsificaiton

• individuals falsify public positions

• e.g. people don’t want to truly reveal how they feel about an autocrat (Timur Kuran - revolutionary cascade)

Comparison of Democracy Definitions

Thin ≠ Procedural

Thick ≠ Substantive

Measurement levels

• Nominal: Puts observations into separate categories (e.g., gender).

• Ordinal: Ranks observations in order (e.g., low, medium, high).

• Interval: Measures how much more or less one observation has than another (e.g., temperature)

Reliability

the extent to which the measurement process repeatedly and consistently produces the same score for a given case.

• indicates observable > subjective judgements

Replicability

the ability of third-party scholars to reproduce the process through which a measure is created

Commitment Problem

a situation in which people cannot achieve their goals because of an inability to make credible threats or promises.

Younger democracies

Younger democracies are different. Their initial conditions are challenging:

• Poverty,

• Inequality,

• Economic dependence on small range of commodities,

• High levels of social fragmentation.

Leaders of young democracies may have difficulty making credible promises to a broad range of constituents; it takes times to develop democratic institutions, often face weak institutions . Efforts to build trust may lead to clientelism and political business cycles.

The political and economic performance of young democracies is more volatile. (dependent on circumstance, international system)

Kapstein and Converse

institutionalization of an authoritarian regime

the rules and procedures that govern the distribution of power and resources within the ruling coalition

• often variation, sometimes appears democratic

How does an institution credibly constrain a dictator?

A dictator can adopt institutions that “in paper” tie their own hands, but they could get rid of these institutions.

At the heart of the institutionalization in autocracies there is a commitment problem.

Institutions that shift the distribution of power between leaders and elites are more credible, but term limits alone cannot prevent leaders from accumulating power.

commitment problem

a situation in which people cannot achieve their goals because of an inability to make credible threats or promises.

Democratic Backsliding

Nancy Bermeo: the state-led debilitation or elimination of any of the political institutions that sustain an existing democracy

• legitimize through democratic institutions

Democratic backsliding mechanisms

• Executive aggrandizement.

• Promissory coups. (replacing Classic/Executive coups with no intention to reinstate democracy)

• Longer-term strategic manipulation (replacing Blatant election-day vote fraud)

The current forms of manipulation are “strategic” in that international (and often domestic) observers are less likely to catch or criticize it

The erosion of democratic norms might play a huge role.

Executive aggrandizement

takes place without executive replacement and at a slower pace.

Elected executives weaken checks on executive power one by one, undertaking a series of institutional changes that hamper the power of opposition forces to challenge executive preferences.

Institutional change is either put to some sort of vote or legally decreed by a freely elected official.

The change can be framed as having resulted from a democratic mandate.

Promissory coups

Coup’s leaders frame the ouster of an elected government as a defense of democratic legality and make a public promise to hold elections and restore democracy as soon as possible.

Yet few promissory coups were followed quickly by competitive elections, and fewer still paved the way for improved democracies.

Half of all the post-coup elections that Western observers rated acceptable were won either by the actual coup perpetrators or their favored candidates.

• meaning gains in democracy often elusive because coup leaders or their allies can use their power to win elections and remain in control

Manipulating elections strategically

Actions aimed at tilting the electoral playing field in favor of incumbents, include:

• hampering media access,

• using government funds for incumbent campaigns,

• keeping opposition candidates off the ballot,

• hampering voter registration,

• packing electoral commissions,

• changing electoral rules to favor incumbents

But all done in such a way that the elections themselves do not appear fraudulent.

Two democratic norms that sustain the system of checks and balances: “soft guardrails” of democracy

1) Mutual toleration: parties see each other as legitimate rivals

2) Forbearance: politicians exercise restraint in deploying their institutional prerogatives (special powers)

Challenges to confronting backsliding

Changes in electoral laws might not trigger mass mobilizations.

NGOs and journalists can be framed as “special interest” groups, or tools of the old order.

Civic organizations (and promissory coups) can be framed as tools of foreign forces.

Foreign pressure will be seen as an affront to sovereignty.

Political parties might have to act against their interest to stop would-be autocrats.

Electoral accountability might not be the strongest line of defense:

• Graham and Svolik: Polarization might undermine electoral accountability

• Bartels: Ethnic antagonism might increase polarization, which might undermine electoral accountability.

• Bermeo: Changing voters’ preferences is a difficult and long-term project.

Three waves of democratization

1) First wave: late 19th/ early 20th century.

2) Second: most of Europe after WWII.

3) Third: Spain, Portugal, Greece, LA and post-communist Europe.

Third wave of democratization

Many transitions during the Third Wave were pacted: These transitions were peaceful, but outgoing autocrats negotiated immunity from trials and prosecutions in exchange.

e.g. pinochet in Chile (1988)

Amnesty: Commitment Problem

more information → eases commitment problem, opposition can credibly promise amnesty to autocrat

Why would the autocrat prefer a transition with amnesty to the status quo?

• there might see a generational split in the military: Younger officers might prefer democracy with amnesty to the status quo.

• or calculates if population disapproves and very costly to maintain power

pacted transitions for personalist dictatorships

very unlikely

Dictators remain in power until the bitter end, or until a third party makes the pact credible.

pacted transitions for party-based regimes

pacted transitions are possible when the regime has infiltrated the opposition

collective action

the pursuit of some objective/collective interest by groups of individuals. Typically, the objective is some form of public good.

factors influencing collective action

• size of the group: counter-intuitive, smaller groups may be more powerful than larger

  • one feels more obligation

  • the larger the group, harder to monitor, identify, and punish free-riders

revolutionary threshold

the size of protest at which an individual is willing to participate (Timur Kuran)

revolutionary cascade

when one person’s participation triggers the participation of another, which triggers the participation of another, and so on.

modernization theory

all societies pass through the same historical stages of economic and political development, and as countries develop economically, they are more likely to become democratic and remain democratic

agriculture → manufacturing → labor unions → popular representation

• influential, implies a linear trajectory towards democracy

A central implication is that we should see a strong relationship between economic development and democracy.

exogenous democratization

argues that democracy is established independently from economic development

• BUT, democracy is more likely to emerge and survive as countries develop and become richer (Prezworski)