Comparative Politics Exam One (Modules 3-6)

Primordialist arguments about culture

Treat culture as something that is objective and inherited—something that has been fixed since “primordial” times (Huntington). Suggest democracy may not be compatible with some cultures.

Constructivist arguments about culture

Treat culture as something that is constructed or invented rather than inherited.

Political Culture

“The set of attitudes, beliefs, and feelings about politics current in a nation at any given time”

Parochial Culture

Suitable for traditional system of African tribes

Subject Culture

Suitable for centralized authoritarian systems in Soviet-dominated

Eastern Europe

Civic Culture

Suitable for democracy. Only culture compatible with democracy.

Depends on a cluster of attitudes:

• Whether individuals believe they can influence

political decisions

• Whether they feel positive toward the political

system

• Whether they believe citizens are trustworthy

• Whether they prefer gradual or revolutionary

societal change

High levels of traditional or survival values:

Tend to be dictatorships

High levels of secular-rational and self-expression values:

Tend to be democracies

Cultural Modernization Theory

Socioeconomic development does not directly cause democracy.

Economic development produces certain cultural changes, and it is these cultural changes that ultimately produce democratic reform.

Industrialization phase

Traditional → Secular-rational values

Post-industrialization phase

Survival → Self-expression values

Differential Item Functioning (DIF)

Measuring or inferring reality by comparing people’s attitudes or

perceptions across different regions, countries, or cultures can often be “extremely misleading” (Sen 2002).

• Example: democracy means different things to different people across the world.

How to address DIF?

• know your cases, combine with qualitative evidence

Sensitive topics

Are respondents answering truthfully?

Examples: Social desirability bias, Fear of retaliation

Methods for addressing sensitive topics with surveys

1. Adopt practices that build trust with respondents

2. Use of randomized response techniques

3. Use of list experiments

4. Use of endorsement experiments

Economic Games

How do people behave in structured situations?

• Isolate: fairness, cooperation, and punishment

• Benefits: People make decisions with real stakes, Replicable, Facilitate comparison

Homo economicus

Under strict rational-choice assumptions, the proposer should offer the smallest possible amount. The responder should accept anything greater than zero.

What Economic Games Show Us

Institutions & economic structure culture

• E.g., if individuals rely on others for their

livelihood, it builds cooperative norms

Maybe culture is important for democracy BUT ALSO democracy may be important for culture. Democracy is an institution, and we see evidence that institutions can shape culture.

Political Science Research

Use the scientific method to advance our understanding of political

phenomena

Peer Review

Ensures the science is sound. About quality control, credibility, and cumulative knowledge.

1. Submission

2. Editorial Screening (Desk review)

3. External Review

4. Decision

5. Revise and Resubmit

6. Replication

Reviewers evaluate: Contribution, casual identification, transparency and replicability, engagement with literature

Bottom-up democratic transition

People rise up to overthrow an authoritarian regime in a popular revolution

Top-down democratic transition

The dictatorial ruling elite introduces liberalizing reforms that ultimately lead to a democratic transition

• can occur only when there is uncertainty

• occur only because someone makes a mistake

Public Goods

Two characteristics

1. Nonexcludability: A good is nonexcludable if you can’t prevent those in the

group who didn’t contribute to its supply from consuming it.

2. Nonrivalry: A good is nonrivalrous if its consumption by one individual

doesn’t reduce the amount available for consumption by

other individuals in the group.

• Examples: Open-source software, Clean Air, Light House, Fire Station, National Parks, National Defence, Democracy

Free-Rider Problem

Individual members of a group often have little incentive to contribute to the provision of a public good that will benefit all members of the group

Collective Action Theory

Forms of collective action are less likely to be successful when the number of group members required for success (K) is significantly smaller than the number of people who would benefit from the success (N)

Preference Falsification

Since it can be dangerous to reveal your preferences: Individuals who oppose dictatorial rule often falsify their preferences in public.

Revolutionary Cascade

When one person’s participation triggers the participation of another, which triggers the participation of another.

Liberalization

A controlled opening of the political space. Goal is NOT democracy. It is an attempt to divide and control opposition groups and enhance the stability of dictatorial rule.

• EX: formation of political parties, holding elections, writing a constitution, establishing a judiciary, opening a legislature

Two typical conditions:

• The dictatorship faces pressure—e.g., economic or social unrest

• Soft-liners have come to power—Hardliners basically never want to liberalize

Monarchic dictatorship

The executive holds power based on family and kin networks. The royal family typically determines succession.

EX: Qatar and Saudi Arabia

Compared to other dictatorships: Suffer from less violence & political instability, Survive in office longer, More stable property rights, Faster economic growth

Military dictatorship

The executive relies on the armed forces to hold power. Ruled by committees or juntas. Size of the junta varies according to whether the ruler needs to build support to consolidate power.

• tend to have short durations, more likely to end with negotiations as opposed to violence

Civilian dictatorships

All other autocracies

Dominant-party dictatorship

One party dominates access to political office and control over policy, though other parties may exist and compete as minor players in elections

Personalist dictatorships

Dictators cultivate elaborate personality cults in an attempt to maintain loyalty of their support coalition and citizenry more generally

Electoral Authoritarian Regimes

Leaders hold elections and tolerate some pluralism, yet democratic norms are violated

• Hegemonic EAR: The leader's party wins with overwhelming majorities (e.g., Putin’s Russia?)

• Competitive EAR: opposition parties win substantial minorities (e.g., Orbán’s Hungary?)

Problem of Authoritarian Power-Sharing

Dictators rely on a support coalition.

The problem: There’s no independent third-party actor to enforce the agreement

The members of the support coalition know that the dictator always has the incentive to alter the power-sharing agreement to their

Problem of Authoritarian Control

Dictators also face threats from the masses over which they rule

Dictators have two distinct strategies for solving the problem of authoritarian control

1. They can repress the masses

2. They can co-opt them

Selectorate Theory

The key to a country’s material well being has less to do with whether its democratic/authoritarian and more to do with the size of its “selectorate” and “winning coalition.”

• Good governance happens when W is large and W/S is large (weak loyalty norm).

• Middling governance happens when W is small, but W/S is large(weak loyalty norm).

• Bad governance happens when W is small and W/S is small (strong loyalty norm).

Selectorate

People who have a legitimate say.

EX:

• Democracies: voters

• Military dictatorships: the military

• Monarchial dictatorships: royal family/nobility

• Dominant-Party Dictatorships: party

Winning Coalition

Members of the selectorate whose support is necessary for the leader to remain in power.

• In democracies, W is large.

• In a dictatorship, W is always quite small.

For example:

• Democracies: voters required to win the election

• Military dictatorships: majority of military officers

• Monarchial dictatorships: majority of nobility

• Dominant-Party Dictatorships: subset of the dominate party

Public Goods

Everyone benefits. EX: Spending on education, health care, etc.

Private Goods

Only members of the winning coalition benefit. EX: Business or export licenses, private jets, villas

Loyalty Norrms

Distribution of goods can stop members of the current winning

coalition from defecting. Individuals who defect risk losing

access to the private goods.

Small W/S = Loyalty

Peer-reviewed articles

Goal is to produce new, original research and contribute to our understanding of the world.

• Abstract: Overview of entire article'

• Intro: Introduces the research question & provides more detailed overview

• Literature Review: Background & established knowledge/introduce debates in the discipline

• Theory/Model/Argument: Authors new theory and associated hypothesis

• Research Design: Data, Cases, Methods

• Findings: Main results

• Conclusions

Government

The political chief executive and the ministers that head the various government departments

Legislative responsibility

A legislative majority has the constitutional power—a vote of no confidence—to remove a government from office without cause.

Vote of no confidence

Vote in the legislature initiated by the opposition to determine whether the government should remain in office

Presidential democracy

Democracies in which the government doesn’t depend on a legislative majority to exist

• government compromises the president and the cabinet

• president is the political chief executive and head of the state

• president is always the formateur, and president’s party must be included in the cabinet regardless of its legislative size

• presidents form majority cabinets when their party controls a majority of legislative seats

• ability to issue a decree

• if presidents care about policy, more likely to include other parties in their cabinets

Parliamentary democracy

Democracies in which the government depends on a legislative majority to exist and in which the head of state isn’t popularly elected for a fixed term

• government is compromised of the prime minister and their cabinet

• president is not part of the gov’t itself, but is part of the executive

• executive = government and the president

• president has power to remove the gov’t

• president and prime minister are involved in day-to-=day administration of the state

Semi-presidential democracy

Democracies in which the government depends on a legislative

majority to exist and in which the head of state is popularly elected for a fixed term

Ministerial responsibility

refers to the constitutional doctrine by which cabinet ministers must bear ultimate responsibility for what happens in their ministry.

Collective cabinet responsibility

Refers to the doctrine by which ministers must publicly

support collective cabinet decisions or resign

Government formation

New governments form under two circumstances:

1. Following elections: technical ending of the previous government

2. Following the resignation of the current government: discretionary ending of the previous government

Fixed term

The head of state serves for a fixed period of time before they need to be reappointed and can’t be removed from office in the meantime

Formateur

Politician whose job is to construct a government

Informateur

Someone who’s supposed to lack personal political ambition and whose job is to look at politically feasible coalitions and recommend people who would make good formateurs.

Caretaker goverrment

Remains in office until the next round of government formation is complete. They have generally no authority to make major policy initiatives.

Government Coalition Formation

Two requirements:

1 the formateur must be included in the coalition

2. the coalition needs the majority to sustain an investiture vote

Office seeking politicians

Politicians are interested in the intrinsic benefits of office

Policy seeking politicians

Politicians want to shape policy, even if they don’t hold office

Pure Office-Seeking World

A formateur can get other parties to join the government by giving them ministerial portfolios. Strong empirical evidence that you must give large parties more portfolios than small parties

Pure Policy-Seeking World

In a policy-seeking world, a formateur can get other parties to join the government only by giving them policy concessions. A formateur will likely have to give more policy concessions to attract large parties than to attract small parties.

Minority Governments

Governmental parties do not command a majority of legislative seats together.

• single-party minority governments or minority coalition governments.

A minority government can exist only as long as the opposition chooses not to bring it down. Many people used to view minority governments as undemocratic and as an anomaly. Only observe minority gov’t if policy matters.

Surplus Majority Governments

The cabinet includes more parties than are strictly necessary to control a legislative majority.

• may be common in times of crisis

• Larger parties in the coalition may decide to form surplus majority coalitions so that the government isn’t automatically brought down if a single party decides to resign

Cohabitation

A president from one political bloc and a prime minister from another

• occurs when the party of the president doesn’t control a majority in the legislature and is not represented in the cabinet.

• the president may need to appoint a prime minister from an opposition party when the president’s party or bloc does not control a legislative majority