Poli Sci Midterm 2 (ID q's)

Grocer and The Chief

Author: Lerner

Description: tells the story of development: an isolated town with a grocer (progressive, new), and a chief (traditional, old authority). Their lives are changed when the town develops, modernizes, and becomes connected to the outside world

Significance: dev benefits most, but not good for all and in all. Loss of traditional society, ideological shift, environmental deg

Modernization and Development

Author: (Lerner?? Sen??)

Description:

• Modernization: the transition from a traditional agricultural society into a more industrial, concentrated, urbanized one

• Development: the improvement of quality of life, often achieved through modernization (which increases certain measures of dev such as GDP/capita). Sen viewed it as maximizing people’s capabilities through freedom and opportunity.

Significance: became a goal that societies pushed for around the 1940’s as some countries began to prosper and governments became increasingly democratic and responsive. A massive divergence in development occurred (some states are much more developed than others). Has pros and cons (environmental deg, loss of tradition → Lerner), not good in all scenarios

Development as Freedom

Author: Sen (lecture)

Description:

• viewing development as maximizing people’s capabilities and freedoms → focus on the ends, not the means

• freedom has intrinsic and instrumental value

Significance: the UN used this definition of development to inspire a measure of development called the HDI, measuring health, education and economic activity. → high scores in these metrics indicate that citizens have good opportunities to reach theif full capabilities in life

GDP/capita

Author: lec??

Description: gross domestic product per person; measure the average value of the goods and services produced by each person in a country in one year. (means, not ends)

Significance: a measure of development (measures economic activity) (ex part of HDI), though has imperfections such as not accounting for inequality and ignoring transactions from informal markets (ex: tipping) → doesn’t account for things like happiness, education, lifespan, etc → Easterly & solow

Human Development Index (HDI)

Author: lec??

Description: measure of development used by the UN, measures economic activity (GDP/capita), health (life expectancy/infant mortality), and education (years of schooling)

Significance: inspired by Sen’s idea that dev should allow people to reach their capabilities

Proximate vs. deep causes of growth

Author: lec

Description:

• Proximate: direct causes/factors

  • capital

  • technology

  • labor

• Deep: background context -

  • institutions

  • culture

  • geography (FALSE)

Significance: explanations as to why some states are more developed than others and how to develop more. Relates to many authors: Easterly……..

The Solow Growth Model

Author: Easterly

Description: Long term growth requires not only investment but TECHNOLOGY. Investment has diminishing returns because it only improve one ingredient in production (capital). Technology makes labor more productive as well, allowing for long term dev.

• G = f (A, L, K)

Significance:

• explains how to reach long-term, not just short term dev

• must invest in HUMAN CAPITAL (skills, education) in order to improve technology. → issue: since technology should be available to all, doesn’t explain divergence

Capital fundamentalism

Author: Easterly

Description: the idea that development/growth comes from investment (inserting more money into the economy)

Significance: idea for development, fails to recognize importance of technology in long run (diminishing returns) → critiqued by Easterly

Diminishing returns to capital

Author: Easterly?

Description: investment into capital (ex: machines) has diminishing returns on growth of the economy because capital is only one factor of production (ignores labor). For this reason, investment isn’t the key to long term growth.

Significance: important to Solow’s model, important for choosing how a country should spend its resources in order to develop → human capital

Convergence (and its failure)

Author: Easterly?????

Description: the idea that as the world develops, all countries will converge to a similar level of development. This is not the case, as many industrialized countries have exploded with growth while much of the Global South has lagged behind. → massive inequality over the globe

• capital should be invested where it has the best returns (poor countries), which should lead to the poor countries getting rich (ACCORDING TO HARROD-DOMAR)

Significance: many models of development predict convergence (ex, Harrod-Dommar, solow’s model), but it’s not the reality…… other, deep causes of growth like institutions also play a role

The Harrod-Domar model

Author: lec

Description: the idea that economic growth is caused by an increase in capital, AKA investment. High levels of investment requires sacrificing consumption, aka saving more money because savings can be put towards investment. (correlation between gdp/capita and capital)

• G = f(K)

Significance: Capital fundamentalism, explanation for growth, critiqued by solow/easterly

Institutions (North's definition)

Author: North & Weingast

Description:

• rules, procedures, norms, etc that constrain the executive/gov in the interest of maximizing wealth→ can be formal (laws, constitutions) or informal (norms)

• constraining institutions like property rights, parliaments and separate judiciary solve the credible commitment prob → people can trust the gov, more willing to pay taxes, more willing to invest, all good for dev

Significance: good institutions lead to good policies and good growth → must solve credible commitment prob → goes hand in hand with democracy

Inclusive vs. extractive institutions

Author:

Description:

• Inclusive: benefits the majority (property rights) → GOOD FOR DEV

• Extractive: redistributes/extracts wealth from pop (slavery, high taxes) → BAD FOR DEV

Significance: Extractive institutions set states up for failure → ex in South America, few European colonists moved there because of the high disease burden, so they set up extractive institutions leading to lower GDP/capita today

The fundamental problem of political economy

Author: Weingast - lec

Description: a state strong enough to protect property rights is also strong enough to seize property → solve by solving the credible commitment prob with institutions like parliaments

Significance: must solve the credible commitment prob in order to have good institutions that promote growth

Credible commitment

Author:

Description: the gov can’t credibly commit to paying back loans → solve with institutions like the parliament, constraints on the exec and an independent judiciary (glorious rev) : allows interest rates to go down and people are more willing to pay taxes because people can trust the gov

Significance: credible commitments are essential to growth & trust

The Glorious Revolution

Author: North & Weingast

Description: In Britain, interest rates were high because the monarchs lived above their means and often went to war, (couldn’t pay back loans) leading to forced loans, selling lands, selling monopolies, etc → bad for economy, solved by solving credible commitment prob (see last)

Significance: powerful demonstration of how good institutions are essential to growth

Path dependence

Author:

Description: once institutions are set up, they are very difficult to change (backlash?) → the future’s path is let upon launch

Significance: importance of setting up inclusive institutions, ex extractive institutions set up by colonialism are still around

Colonial origins of development

Author:

Description:

Significance: ex of path dependency, shows extractive institutions are worse for dev

The reversal of fortune

Author:

Description: regions that used to be poor in the past have switched and vice versa

Significance: shows why geography is not a good deep cause of development since the same regions have been both poor and rich

Social trust

Author: lec

Description: the level of trust a society has with one another → do they trust that each other will hold up a bargain?

Significance: social trust is essential for all economic transactions, as well as investment and the integration/liberalization of markets (or perhaps liberalization increases trust) → better social trust is good for dev

• cultural (deep) explanation for level of development

The Protestant work ethic

Author: weber (lec)

Description: the Protestant sect of Christianity values hard word and individualism → get closer to God with your own hard work → hard work is your worth as a person → culture thats good for innovation and development

Significance: possible explanation for why Northern Europe was able to grow so well

• cultural (deep) cause for level of development

The ultimatum game

Author: lec

Description: experiment tested throughout the world in which a person offers a chosen percentage of money, and a second person may accept or reject the offer (if rejected, neither get anything)

• rationally, the best offer is 1 cent, but no-one does that

• different results in dif cultures → people shared more money when their market is more integrated and when their economics require more cooperation → TRUST

Significance: shows that culture effects economics & / OR economic system influences culture → culture (TRUST) as a deep cause of dev

Imagined Communities

Author: Anderson

Description: a national identity is based on people constructing an imagined community → feeling connected to others in their nation despite not having met/interacted with most of them → mechanisms: print capitalism, news, “homogenous, empty time”

Significance: nationalism as a real, yet flexible and socially constructed identity → constructivism, explains how a nation is created

Print capitalism

Author: Anderson? or lec?

Description: using the printing press to print way more newspapers/books → led to the standardization of languages as well as the shared experience of reading the news paper every day → “empty, homogenous time”

Significance: the mechanism for the formation of imagined communities, nation-building, nationalism

The invention of tradition

Author: lec

Description: traditions that seem ancient actually tend to be relatively recently created

Significance: nationalist movements deliberately construct symbols, strengthening nationalism → constructivism

Gellner's theory of nationalism

Author: lec

Description: nationalism is a consequence of industrialization (or the other way)

• agrarian societies: since peasants and elites are separate and have distinct hierarchies, their cultures can be seperate → TOLERATES DIVERSITY

• industrial societies: requires a mobile workforce that can all communicate w/one another and beauracracy - state education can standardize education and communication → MASS EDUCATION → NATIONAL IDENTITY

Significance: industrialization and nationalism go hand in hand since industrialized societies need mobile labor, nationalism is important for dev, states purposely nation-build for this reason (ex France)

Primordialist vs. constructivist views of identity

Author:

Description: two types of views of identity (esp ethnic identity)

• primordialist: predetermine, ancient, bloodline, fixed

• constructivist: socially constructed, hard to change but slightly flexible, situationally activated, shaped by history

Significance:

• dif explanations of how to view identity and its relationship with politics

• lots of theorists like Anderson are constructivists, primordialism is outdated and contributes to myths like the “ancient-hatreds" explanation for ethnic violence

The colonial construction of ethnic categories

Author:

Description: colonial powers needed to make the populations they ruled over legible, so they would classify people into categories

• ex: Rwanda → split into Tutsis (pastorialists) and Hutus (cultivators) → used to be fluid professions, but became ethnicities that outlasted colonialism and led to the Rwandan genocide

Significance: constructivist view of ethnic identities, shows identity is shaped by history…

Ethnicity and resource competition

Author: Bates (lec)

Description: ethnicity is instrumentally useful for resource competition (getting goods from the state), for 3 reasons

• information networks

• monitoring

• enforcement

Significance: ethnicity has a rational use, shaped by history/political context (constructivist), answers when ethnicity is politically salient

Minimum winning coalitions

Author: Posner

Description: when an ethnicity makes up a large enough proportion of the population in the state that it can form a minimum winning coalition ……..

Significance: answers when ethnicity becomes politically salient

Cross-cutting vs. reinforcing cleavages

Author:

Description:

• Cross-cutting: identities are distributed, moderating conflict

• Reinforcing: multiple types of divisions in identity align (ethnicity, lang, wealth, etc.) → more likely to lead to conflict

Significance: reinforcing cleavages make conflict between groups more likely, cross-cutting cleavage can complicate the way people vote → poor people voting against redistribution

Religion as a unique identity

Author: Grzymala-Busse

Description: religion is a unique identity because of it’s international scope, supernatural consequences, demanding, resilient etc → unites more people together than anything else, determines the way people live their lives

• religion shapes politics as: an institution, identity, and mobilizing structure

Significance: why religion matters to politics…

The secularization hypothesis

Author: lec?? → critiqued by Grzymala-Busse

Description:

• idea that with development/modernization, religion will become a private matter and no longer be politically relevent/salient

• traditional life lost, rationalism/science/education rises, wealth rise (less reliance on religion), state takes over religious institutions

Significance: Confirmed in some places (Western Europe), but many regions don’t align.

Theories that explain exceptions:

• religious competition (political economy)

• religion/nation fusion (grzymala-busse)

The political economy model of religion (supply side)

Author:

Description: views religion as a market

• free market: increased competition/innovation, leading to higher levels of religiosity

• regulated market (state steps in and supports a religion): less competition/need for innovation, lower levels of religiosity

Significance: creates exceptions to the secularization hypothesis (ex US), shows that religion can still be a very important political entity/identity in developed states

Diversity and violence

Author: Wilkenson & (Lec: Collier & Hoeffler)

Description: diversity generally doesn’t lead to violence → violence is the exception. Forms of violence:

• Civil war: occur when grievances are accompanied by greed and opportunity

• Riots: politicians insight or prevent riots based on electoral incentives

  • provoke riots to polarize electorate and consolidate co-ethnic support

  • prevent riots if they depend on minority voters

Significance: identities are used instrumentally as a political tool for winning elections (riots) or getting resources (greed) → identity is socially constructed and activated when useful

Greed versus grievance in civil wars

Author: lec (collier and hoeffler)

Description: greed and opportunity lead to civil war, not grievance (grievances exist everywhere, but most places are peaceful)

• grievance: disagreements, exclusion, oppression between groups

• greed: ability for a group to get something out of war to make it profitable → ex oil

• opportunity: weak state capacity, political instability, etc… cracks in state strength that make winning possible

Significance: explains when differences in identity can lead to violence, rejects primordialist ideas ('“ancient hatreds”)

The electoral incentives for violence ??confused

Author: Wilkinson

Description: politicians insight or prevent violence in accordance to electoral incentives (ethnic riots don’t just randomly occur → they are planned strategically)

• use riots to polarize the electorate → activate ethnic divisions to consolidate co-ethnic support

• prevent riots when electoral coalition relies on minority voters

Significance: ethnic violence is caused by the political/electoral context, rejects primordialist “ancient hatreds”

Climate change and the tragedy of the commons

Author: Harrison & Sundstrom

Description: both domestically and internationally, everyone benefits from the commons (clean air, water, etc) and no-one wants to pay the cost of protecting it by passing climate policy (committing to greener energy, less pollution) → assymmetry of concentrated benefits but diffused cost of fossil fuels

• taking action is futile if other countries don’t

• international agreements aren’t enforced (anarchy)

• get only a small fraction of the benefits from protecting the environment, but bear the full costs of climate policy

Significance: this is the problem that a state should solve, but international anarchy makes it impossible. Shows why climate policy is so difficult to enact.

Concentrated losers versus diffuse winners

Author: Harrison & Sundstrom?

Description: climate policy has concentrated losers and diffused winners → concentrated losers can organize, lobby, protest and block policy much more easily

→ shifting as green energy firms grow in power

• concentrated losers: massive fossil fuel companies, workers in that sector, etc. → much more visible, has more power

• diffused winners: saving people in the future, (spread amongst generations, regions and populations)

Significance: the assymmetry between concentrated losses and diffused winners makes it very difficult to pass climate policy, and once passed, backlash often leads it to being repealed

Climate change and veto points

Author: Harrison & Sundstrom

Description: the more veto points there are in enacting climate policy (chokepoints in which people can veto or prevent the legislation from passing) the harder it is to enact → checks & balances can get in the way (ex USA) → however, parliaments that make things easy to pass also allow quick reversals

Significance: institutions effect how easy it is to enact climate policy → traditionally beneficial insts like checks and balances also slow things down