PLSC 103 Exam #2

Purpose of a Political Party

A political party is an organized attempt to get control of the government.

Nonpartisan system

No official political parties

Single-party system

Only one political party is legally allowed to hold power

One-party dominant system

Multiple parties may legally operate, but in which only one particular party has a realistic chance of gaining power

Two-party system

Only two major political parties have a realistic chance of holding power

Multiparty system

One where more than two parties have a realistic chance of holding poer

Political Parties Structure the Political World

a.        Political parties help to structure the political world for both political elites and the masses

                                                                                             i.         For the elites, political parties provide some kind of order to the policymaking process. Constantly changing and evolving

                                                                                          ii.         Political parties also structure the political world for voters

1.        Information shortcuts

2.        Party identification

Parties recruit and socialize the political elite

a.        Being selected as a party’s candidate is often a necessary condition for a successful run for office.

b.        Cabinet positions are frequently restricted to senior members of a political party.

c.        Gaining access to political power requires being accepted by a party, and usually being a leading figure in it.

d.        The role played by parties in recruiting and socializing the political elite is more important in parliamentary democracies than in presidential ones.

e.        Presidential regimes that allow for primaries.

                                                                                             i.         Primaries can allow candidates with little political or party experience to win elections.

Parties Mobilize the Masses

a.        Political parties are key tools for mobilizing the masses

b.        This is particularly important at election time, when ordinary citizens must be encouraged to vote

c.        They have a strong incentive to get people to the polls-they want to win elections

Parties provide a link between the rulers and the ruled

a.        Democratic governments are supposed to reflect the preferences of their citizens

b.        Political parties are also the main means by which democracies can be induced to be responsive

c.        Political parties can also help officials exert control over other political actors and citizens

                                                                                             i.         Whips get everyone in the party to vote on the same lines

Primordial view

§  Treats parties as the natural representatives of people who share common interests

§  Interests in a society are a given and have a natural social demand for representation. It’s a bottom-up view

Instrumental view

§  Treats parties as teams of office seekers and focuses on the role played by political elites and entrepreneurs

§  We live in a world where political opportunists identify interests and get people to adopt them.

Election Integrity

·      What? Does the conduct of the elections meet international standards and global norms concerning good elections?

·      Such norms and standards are usually set out in treaties, conventions, and guidelines issued by international and regional organizations.

·      Violations of electoral integrity are referred to as electoral malpractice. (ballot stuffing, intimidation, etc.)

·      Electoral malpractice also exists in established democracies, where it often has to do with political interference in how district boundaries are drawn, problems with voter registration, technical failures, and so on

·      Perception of Electoral Integrity (PEI) scores elections 0-100

Meaning of Elections

Democracies are sometimes classified in terms of the electoral system that they employ. An electoral system is a set of laws that regulates electoral competition between candidates or parties, or both.

Importance of Elections

o   Elections provide the primary means by which citizens select their representatives

o   The legitimacy of a democratic government comes from the fact that it was chosen through an electoral process

o   Elections give citizens chances for influence

o   There has been a lot more voting since the Third Wave of Democracy (1974-)

o   But not all elections are fair, democratic, or just

Proportional Electoral Systems

·      The goal of proportional representation systems is to produce a proportional outcome

·      Some argue that preference voting systems, such as the alternative vote, are superior

·      Strengths

o   To maintain stability in ethnically and religiously divided societies where the stakes are high. “Winner take all” system could create instability

·      Weaknesses

o   Reproduce bitter societal divisions without creating incentives for cooperation and accommodation

o   Tend to produce coalition governments that do not have clear mandates. This makes them unstable

o   Give too much power to small, extremist groups

o   Elected representative more responsible to their parties than district

Majority-Runoff Two-Round System (Majoritarian)

§  First Round:

·      It is a system in which voters cast a single candidate-centered vote in a single-member district

·      Any candidate who obtains an absolute majority of the votes in the first round is elected

·      If no candidate wins an absolute majority, the top two vote winners go on to compete in a runoff election one or two weeks later

§  Second Round:

·      Whoever wins the most votes in this runoff election-necessarily an absolute majority as there are only two candidates-is elected

·      It is the most common method for electing presidents around the world

Alternative Vote (Majoritarian)

The winning candidate must obtain a majority of the votes

It is a candidate-centered preference voting system used in single-member districts where voters rank order the candidates

Voters have to place numbers next to the names

Single Nontransferable Vote (Majoritarian)

It is essentially the same as an SMDP electoral system except that it works in multimember districts instead of single-member districts

Each party competing in a district purs up a list of candidates, and individuals vote for one

The candidates that win the most votes are elected

Used in Afghanistan

Single-member District Plurality System

It is the simplest and most commonly used majoritarian system in the world

Voters cast a single candidate-centered vote in single-member districts

The candidate with the most votes, even if she doesn’t have a majority of the votes, is elected from the district

List Proportional (PR) Systems

These systems present voters with lists of candidates. There are many variations on these systems, but two of the most common are:

Closed Party Lists: Voters choose a party, but the party chooses which candidate will represent them after the election

Open Party Lists: There is a list of candidates for each party, and you can choose the one you want most

Government

Everyday: Government refers to almost all elements involved in governing at national, state, and local levels and whether these be led by elected officials or bureaucrats

Technical: “Government” refers to that small group (35-50) actors who lead the state, that is, the president, the prime minister, cabinet members, and heads of departments.

Major Types of Democracies

Presidential, Semi-Presidential, and Parliamentary

Semi-Presidential Democracies

The government depends on the legislature to stay in power, but the head of state is popularly elected for a fixed term. The government is the prime minister and there cabinet

The president is not part of the government, but is part of the executive

The executive is the prime minister, the cabinet, and the president

Parliamentary Democracies

In a parliamentary democracy, the government depends solely on a legislative majority to exist. Legislative responsibility rules!

The government is the prime minister and the cabinet

The Prime Minister is the political chief executive/head of the government

Presidential Democracies

The government compromises the president (head of state-chief executive) and the cabinet

The president forms the government, regardless of how well there party did in the polls.

Some presidential cabinets will look more like parliamentary ones, depending on the power of the president. Weaker power means more parliamentary like

Religion and Democracy

Many scholars have argued that certain religions help or hinder democracy, but there are strong reasons to doubt that religious doctrine alone determines whether a society can become democratic. 

Huntington, Montesquieu, and Weber argued Islam could not work with democracy.

Stark said Christianity was good fro democracy

Lipset said that Christianity was not good for democrac

Cultural Modernization Theory

The idea that as societies become more economically developed, people’s values, beliefs, and cultures gradually change in ways that make democracy more likely. Economic development → higher education, urbanization, and rising living standards.

• These changes lead people to value things like individual rights, tolerance, and political participation.

• As these “modern” values spread, publics become more supportive of democratic institutions.

• So democracy emerges not just from wealth itself, but from the cultural shifts development creates

Bottom-up democratic transition

One in which the people rise up to overthrow an authoritarian regime in a popular revolution.

East Germany in 1989, the people took advantage of the reforms and had mass protests and movements, took down the Berlin wall and led to the reunification of Germany.

Top-down democratic transition

Democracy is introduced from above, driven mainly by the authoritarian elite rather than mass public pressure.

Top-down democratic transitions result form a split between soft-liners and hard-liners in an authoritarian regime

§  The hard-liners are usually satisfied with the political status quo

§  Soft-liners may prefer to liberalize and broaden the social base of the dictatorship in an attempt to gain allies and strengthen their own position

Free Rider Problem

Refers to the fact that individual members of a group often have little incentive to contribute to the group, but they benefit from it.

Tipping Points

One explanation for the mass protests that occurred in East Germany can be found in what political scientists call “tipping” or “threshold” models. Individuals have a private preference and a revealed public preference. The distribution of revolutionary thresholds in a society is crucial for determining whether a revolution occurs

Revolutionary Thresholds

The individual tipping points at which a person decides to join a protest, uprising, or revolution.

Cascading Revolutionary Actions

The chain reaction in which one person’s public act of dissent encourages others to join, eventually creating a mass uprising.

Our Understanding of Revolutions

·      Our inability to observe both private preferences and thresholds conceals potential revolutionary cascades and makes it impossible to predict when a revolution will occur

·      Revolutions will always come as a surprise

Typology of Authoritarian Regimes

Dictatorships are not all alike. There’s a wide variety of dictatorships, and ways to classify them. ·      Cheibub et al. (2010) provide one common typology of authoritarian regimes

o   Classifying dictatorships based on the characteristic of their “inner sanctums” or “supports coalitions”

o   “Dictator are nearly always deposed by fellow members of the regime” look to the inner sanctum

Monarchic Dictatorship

An autocracy in which the executive holds power on the basis of family and kin network. Suffer from less violence and political instability than other forms of dictatorship. 

Qatar and Kuwait

Military Dictatorships

Often ruled by a committee, or junta. The size of the junta varies, and the biggest threat to stability is more military coups, whether peaceful or violent. The biggest threat comes from within the military itself, and when a coup happens for the first time, it is likely to happen again. These dictatorships have short durations are less likely to end in violence than other regime types.

Civilian Dictatorships

Civilian dictators don’t have an immediate institutional base of support; instead they have to create one.

Dominant-party dictatorships have one party that dominate access to political office and policy, but other parties may exist.

Personalist dictatorships are when the leader retains personl control of policy decisions and the selection of personnel. These leaders develop personality cults in an attempt to maintain the loyalty of their support coalition and the citizenry. Personality cults are often viewed in the media as the creation of narcissistic and megalomaniacal dictators who wish to be flattered and deified.

Selectorate Theory

A country’s material well-being has less to do with whether it’s democratic or authoritarian and more to do with the size of its “winning coalition” and “selectorate”. Keep people in the winning coalition happy.

The basic assumption is that all political leaders are motivated by the desire to gain office. There’s always a challenger willing, at any moment, to replace the incumbent leader.

Oligarchy in Russia

Putin has taken control of the Oligarchy in Russia, and he uses them to get whatever he wants. they can be given powerful positions in government, but they do this only to make money, not influence policy. If they go against Putin they will be removed.