POLI 130 Final Exam - authors + their ideas/works (pt. 1)

Yuen Yuen Ang

"How Resilient is the CCP?"

SUMMARY: Chinese Communist Party survives through repression, propaganda, and patronage, however, China's future is uncertain, fragile, and reversible. As of now, the CCP is alive and thriving.

Ashley Anderson, Brownlee, and Clark

"Autocracy: A Substantive Approach"

SUMMARY: Substantive Autocracy: rule by political exclusion. ex) Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Soviet Union under Stalin, China under Mao Zedong, or Germany under Hitler.

Samuel Huntington

"Democracy's Third Wave"

SUMMARY: Third Wave in 1970s and 1980s. Factors: legitimacy problems, economic growth expanded to middle class, Catholic Church shifted to oppose authoritarianism, changes in policies of external factors, and snowballing/demonstration effects.

Levitsky + Way

"Elections Without Democracy: The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism"

SUMMARY: After Cold War, regimes either remained hybrids or moved towards authoritarianism. "Competitive Authoritarianism": diminished form of authoritarianism. Four Arenas of Democratic Contestation:

1. The electoral arena

2. The legislative arena

3. The judicial arena

4. The media

Karl + Schmitter

"What Democracy Is… And Is Not"

SUMMARY:

• Democracy: a system of governance in which rulers are held accountable for their actions in the public realm by citizens, acting indirectly through the competition and cooperation of their elected representatives

• Democracies aren't necessarily the "best" regime type

• Robert Dahl's procedural minimum conditions:

1. Elected officials control government decisions

2. Frequent and fair elections

3. Practically all adults have the right to vote

4. Practically all adults have the right to run for office

5. Citizens have the right to express themselves without fear of danger

6. Alternative sources of information exist and are available to the public

7. Citizens have the right to form independent organizations

*8. Elected officials are able to exercise their power without being overridden by unelected officials

*9. The polity must be self-governing

Przeworski + Limongi

"Modernization: Theories and Facts"

SUMMARY: The relationship between levels of development and democracy is strong because (1) democracies are more likely to emerge as countries develop economically (genetic theory; endogenous) and (2) Democracies may be established independently of economic development, but may be more likely to survive in developed countries (survival theory; exogenous)

Werner Baer

"Industrialization in Latin America: Successes and Failures"

SUMMARY:

• ISI was supposed to make Latin America more self-sufficient (high economic growth in 1950s)

• ISI never transitioned to EOI (wasn't sustainable)

• Industry now plays a major role in economies of Latin American countries

• Problems:

1. Employment: couldn't create enough jobs

2. Income Distribution: very concentrated (no real middle class)

3. Regional Concentration: most industrialization in concentrated areas (inequity)

4. Multinationals: profit remittances + technology

5. The Role of the State: growth of state financial institutions

Samuel Valenzuela + Arturo Valenzuela

"Modernization and Dependency: Alternative Perspectives in the Study of Latin American Underdevelopment"

SUMMARY:

• modernization perspective: it's essential to consider the cultural characteristics of "new" nations in determining their potential for development

• In Latin America, traditional attitudes have proven to be obstacles to economic development

• dependency perspective: underdevelopment is mainly caused by the peripheral position of affected countries in the world economy

• In Latin America, many countries depend too heavily on core countries like the United States

Michael J. Seth

"South Korea's Economic Development, 1948-1996"

SUMMARY:

• After the Korean War, South Korea was heavily reliant on American aid

• In 1961, General Park Chung-hee started to prioritize ending the reliance on US aid + began to industrialize

• Became mostly self-reliant in early 1970s

• In the 1980s, big businesses (chaebols) began to work with the state to industrialize even more

• In the 1990s, the economy continued to be dominated by huge conglomerates and political influence

Sachs, Mellinger, and Gallup

"The Geography of Poverty and Wealth"

SUMMARY:

• Adam Smith hypothesized that the physical geography of a region can affect its economic development

• tropical climate zones face higher rates of infectious disease and lower agricultural productivity

• desert zones are poor because they can't trade by sea

• The greatest majority of poor countries lie in the geographical tropics

• Regions far from sea tend to be considerably poorer

Acemoglu + Robinson

"Why Nations Fail"

SUMMARY:

• inclusive economic institutions: allow and encourage participation in economic activities

• pave the way for engines of prosperity (technology and education)

• extractive economic institutions: designed to extract incomes and wealth from one subset of society to benefit another subset

• inclusive political institutions: distribution of power is more broad and subject to constraints (pluralistic)

• extractive political institutions: distribution of power is narrow and unconstrained (absolutionist)

• nations fail when they have extractive economic institutions supported by extractive political institutions

Francis Fukuyama

"The Imperative of State-Building"

SUMMARY:

• state-building: the creation of new governmental institutions and the strengthening of existing ones

• scope: refers to the different functions and goals taken on by governments

• strength: the ability of states to plan and execute policies and to enforce laws cleanly and transparently

• institutions are the critical variable in development

Jeffrey Herbst

"War and the State in Africa"

SUMMARY:

• war is an important cause of state formation that is missing in Africa

• effects of war in Europe: (1) Taxation (2) Nationalism - two things that African states do not have

• absence of interstate war in the modern era

• there is very little evidence that African countries will be able to find peaceful ways to strengthen the state and develop national identities

David Samuels

"Comparative Politics"

SUMMARY:

• We study comparative politics because we want to answer hard questions

• politics: the process of making and contesting authoritative public decisions about the distribution of rights, responsibilities, wealth, and power

• the comparative method: comparing and contrasting cases that share attributes or characteristics, but differ on the outcome/have diverse attributes