Regimes, Repression, & HR

Modernization

• Lerner

  • Transition from traditional to modern societies

    • Changes in wealth, industrialization, education, and urbanization

• Lipset

  • Relationship between economic development and democracy

  • Development encourages longer time perspectives among the growing middle class, and reduces the exposure of lower classes to radical ideologies

  • Development leads to the creation of intermediary institutions that act as sources of countervailing power

• Przeworski and Limongi

  • GDP per capita 1k-6k more likely to transition to democracy

  • Above 6k stable at either democracy or autocracy

  • Under 1k are unstable

  • Modernity = 4115 gdp per capita

  • Democracy is not a by product of economic development

  • Once democracy is established its most likely to survive in rich countries

Extractive colonialism

1. established primarily to exploit their abundant natural resources, like bolivia, brazil, DRC, gold coast/ghana and ivory coast

   1. Did not gaf about natives rights

Identity/ Political Identity

1. the ways that individuals categorize themselves and others, and how they understand the power relationships of domination and oppression that exist between groups

   1. It varies in intensity

   2. Gets more politicized when large group of ppl mobilize to advance or defend their interests

   3. Also how you and other perceive you fitting in

Ethnicity

a group of people who share an understand of a common heritage based on religion, language, territory, or family ties

Primordialism

an approach to understand identity that assumes that identities are something people are born with or that emerge through deep psychological processes in early childhood, given ones family and community context

Constructivism

an approach to understand identity that assumes that political identities are malleable, even if they often appear to be primordial, and suggests that we think of identity as an evolving political process rather than as a fixed set of identity categories

Political Violence

1. the use of force by states or nonstate actors to achieve political goals  

   1. Normally between states

Civil war

1. armed combat within boundaries of a sovereign state between parties that are subject to common authority at the start of hostilities  

   1. The state and society are at war with each other 

   2. Normally one of the parties in a civil war is the state  

   3. Within the boundaries of one country  

   4. Last at least a year, a least a thousand deaths 

   5. Best predictor is state weakness  

      1. Central gov to claim authority over the entire territory but its not strong enough to do its job 

         1. Allows for violence and lawlessness 

      2. Like with the countries that gained independence from europe colonization - bcs the colonial govs they set up were pretty bad and weak 

2. Causes are: Colonial Legacies(DRC and Syria), International factors, Spillover effect: when violence in one state spills over into neighboring states because the neighboring states are weak and cannot control their own borders, Poverty and Geography

Terrorism

1. threatened or actual use of violence for political purposes by non-state actors, directed particularly against civilian targets

   1. When non state actors target civilians for political purposes

   2. They believe that attacking civilians is more likely to achieve their goals

   3. Transnational in nature - find haves in weak states

   4. Terrorists rarely achieve their long term political goals

   5. Tends to impact democratic states more than non democratic states

Genocide

1. a coordinated plan seeking to eliminate all members of particular ethnic, religious, or national groups through mass murder

   1. Deliberately and systematically targets every man woman and child in a particular group

   2. Different from terrorism bcs systematic rather than random in targeting civilians for murder

   3. Ethnic divisions must exist during an ongoing civil war as well as an inability or unwillingness of the international community to step in

   4. Must also have coercive pressure from government leaders bcs it being deliberate, methodical and organized mass murder

   5. Normally ordered by a small group of leaders for a specific purpose, usually to get/maintain political power

Ethnic Cleansing

1. 1994 Commission of Experts on former Yugoslavia:

   1. A purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas in order to render an area ethnically homogenous.

      1. “Ethnic cleansing” is contrary to international law

Repression/ Authoritarian Repression

1. Repression is a tool employed by the political authorities to solve the problem of dictatorial control and to manage potential threats within their territorial jurisdiction (Davenport 2007; Geddes et al. 2018).

   1. Target: imposing a cost on the target as well as deterring specific activities and/or beliefs perceived to be challenging to government personnel, practices or institutions (Davenport 2007, p. 2)

Contentious politics

1. Cont. politics occurs when “changing political opportunities and constraints create

2. incentives to take action for actors who lack resources on their own” (Tarrow, 2011).

   1. When ordinary people join forces in confrontation with elites, authorities, and opponents, with

      1.  the support of more influential people

      2. changes in public mood and demand

   2.  When backed by well-structured social networks and galvanized by culturally resonant, action-oriented symbols, contentious politics leads to sustained interaction with opponents– to social movements (Tarrow, p. 6)

Social movement

1. organized, sustained, and collective efforts that make claims on behalf of members of a group; challenge the power of government authorities or other groups in civil society; contest the legitimacy of established ideas or practices; or advance new ideas or practices

   1. They make broad abstract appeals

   2. want concrete political change, but still kinda abstract

   3. They also tend to have relatively informal organizations

   4. Tend to be more about social change rather than governmental, change the way people think about