Introduction to Comparative Politics Final

Democracy

Demokratia is a Greek word meaning “rule by the demos.” (common people) democracies are “regimes in which governmental offices are filled as a consequence of contested elections”

Autocracy/Dictatorship

4 rules for a country to be classified as a democracy: Dictatorship if any one of the 4 don’t hold

• The chief executive is elected.

• The legislature is elected.

• There is more than one party competing in the elections.

• An alternation in power under identical electoral rules has taken place.

• unless the incumbent ruler has demonstrated that he is willing to give up power after losing an election, then we have no way of truly knowing whether the country is a dictatorship or a democracy

No bourgeoisie no democracy

bourgeoisie and working class are necessary conditions for a democracy . Various groups, whether the bourgeoisie, workers, or just the amorphous “civil society,” rise against the dictatorial regime, and it falls as economy develops

No working class no democracy

Economic inequality should be bad for democracy only in countries where the economic elites have immobile assets and therefore lack credible exit threats. In countries where they have mobile assets, the elites should be willing to accept democracy safe in the knowledge that the poor will have incentives to curb their demands for redistribution

Operationalization

the process by which abstract theoretical concepts are translated into concrete and observable measures or indicator

• Democracy is an abstract theoretical concept

• Our goal is to disaggregate 

Contestation

Contestation is captures the extent to which citizens are free to organize themselves into competing blocs in order to press for the policies and outcomes they desire (parties, free speech)

Inclusion

• Inclusion is who gets to participate in the democratic process (white, property owners, etc, are exclusive)

Ex. Soviet Union had high inclusion but low contestation (one party)

Continuous measure

A continuous measure can take on any intermediate value within a given range (for example, (“height in centimeters”).

Dichotomous measure

A dichotomous measure has only two discrete categories or values (for example, “tall” or “short”).

Polity IV

• The Democracy and Autocracy scores for each country both range from 0 to 10.

• Democracy Score - Autocracy Score = Polity Score

• Based on 

(a) the competitiveness of executive recruitment

(b) the openness of executive recruitment, 

(c) the constraints that exist on the executive, 

(d) the regulation of political participation, and 

(e) the competitiveness of political participation

(both contestation and inclusion of Dahl)

Freedom House

• based on two dimensions that capture a country’s level of political rights and civil rights.

• A country’s overall Freedom House score is simply the average of its scores on the political rights and civil rights dimensions

Survival Story (Przeworski)

According to the survival story, increasing income promotes the survival of democracy but does not affect whether a country becomes democratic in the first place

• the decision to choose democracy or dictatorship depends on the types of outcomes that citizens expect democracy or dictatorship to produce for them

Przeworski: Poor people are more likely to take the dictatorship gamble as they have nothing to lose. Rich people are not, as they have everything to lose. 

Therefore, democracy is more likely to survive in a rich country than in a poor country.

Credible Commitment Problem

occurs when (a) an actor who makes a promise today may have an incentive to renege on that promise in the future and (b) power is in the hands of the actor who makes the promise and not in the hands of those expected to benefit from the promise. sovereign debt creates the credible commitment problem-

Although the king would like to credibly commit, or promise, to pay back the money he borrows from the gentry, he cannot do this because there is nothing that the gentry can do to force the king to pay the debt back once the money has been borrowed. Knowing that they cannot force the king to pay the debt back, the lenders are unwilling to lend the king any money in the first place

Solution: more power to parliament over king

Foreign Aid

Foreign aid is aid—in the form of money, food, technical assistance, military weapons, and the like—that people in one country give to another. This aid can come from national governments,

intergovernmental organizations, or private donations

• By freeing governments from the need to raise taxes and providing them with access to “slack resources” that can be strategically used to reward supporters and co-opt opposition groups, foreign aid increases the autonomy of recipient governments from the demands of their citizens

• Therefore, reduces the citizenry’s demand for democratic reforms in essentially the same way as income from natural resources (unearned income)

• foreign aid will be effective at promoting democratic reform only when the donor country has no strategic interests in the “dependent” recipient country

Culture and Democracy/Religion and Democracy

Huntington Says

• Western ideas of democracy often have little resonance in Islamic, Confucian, Japanese, Hindu, Buddhism, and Orthodox cultures so they are less likely to be compatible with democracy. 

• Certain cultures are incompatible with democracy 

• Catholic will find it hard, islamic and confucianist cannot, violent conflict will be prevalent between muslims and non-muslims, especially western civilization

Samuel Huntington/Clash of Civilizations

Wrote The clash of civilizations 

• Conflicts in the world will be cultural rather than ideological or economic

• The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future 

First wave of democratization

The first “long” wave between 1828 and 1926 had its roots in the American and French Revolutions. Countries that transitioned to democracy during the first wave include Argentina, France, Great Britain, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Switzerland, and the United States

Second wave of democratization

The second “short” wave between 1943 and 1962 had its origins in World War II. Countries that became democratic during the second wave include Austria, Brazil, Costa Rica, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Uruguay, and West Germany

Third wave of democratization

The third wave started with the end of the Portuguese dictatorship in 1974 and, arguably, continues to this day. Numerous authoritarian regimes have been replaced by democratic forms of government in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and southern and eastern Europe since the mid-1970s

Bottom-up transition

A bottom-up democratic transition process is one in which the people rise up to overthrow an authoritarian regime in a popular revolution.

Top-down democratic transition

One in which the dictatorial ruling elite introduces liberalizing reforms that ultimately lead to a democratic transition 

External Imposition

A transition in which external forces impose democracy (West Germany, Afghanistan) 

• Some studies suggest that while intervention may promote democratic reform in the short run, it ultimately produces political instability 

Collective Action, free rider problem, Public good

Collective Action Theory

• Focuses on forms of mass action or “collective action” such as the protests in East Germany 

• Typically, collective action concerns the pursuit of “public goods” by groups of individuals

• A public good has two characteristics: 

Non-Excludable: If the good is provided, everyone gets to enjoy it. Nobody can be excluded from it. 

Non-rivalrous: If someone else consumes the good, there is still just as much for everyone else to consume. 

Collective Action Problem 

• there are compelling reasons to doubt whether individuals will take collective action to achieve their common interests. 

• The difficulty groups have in providing public goods that all members of the group desire is known as the free-rider problem

• You know that one person is unlikely to be the decisive factor in determining whether the protest is going to be successful.

Monarchic dictatorship

A monarchic dictatorship is an autocracy in which the executive comes to and maintains power based on family and kin networks. 

Rests on three things: 

• clear rules as to who the insiders and outsiders are

• rules or norms that indicate exactly how regime rents are to be shared among the various members of the royal family.

• monarchies tend to have institutions that allow members of the royal family to monitor the actions of the monarch and enforce the norms regarding the distribution of regime rents (royal courts or appointed legislatures)

Military dictatorship

Military dictatorships are often ruled by committee or junta 

• The size of the junta varies 

• Alliance with other powerful actors is the key to its success

• The biggest threat to stability is more military coups 

Civilian dictatorship

• civilian dictators do not have an immediate institutional base of support; instead they have to create one. 

• Do this with the help of regime parties or personality cults. 

• For this reason, some scholars distinguish between two subcategories of civilian dictatorships: (i) dominant-party dictatorships and personalist dictatorships

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”

• require that the dominant faction have sufficient resources to buy off potential rivals and convince minority factions that they are better off sticking with the regime party than siding with the opposition

personalist dictatorship

• A personalist dictatorship is one in which the leader, although often supported by a party or the military, retains personal control of policy decisions and the selection of regime personnel.

• although they are often supported by parties and militaries, these particular organizations have not become sufficiently developed or autonomous to prevent the leader from taking personal control of policy decisions and the selection of regime personnel

Electoral authoritarianism

• Electoral authoritarianism is where leaders hold elections and tolerate some pluralism, yet democratic norms are violated (suppress protests, co-opt opposition parties, divide the opposition, state-controlled media) 

• Hegemonic electoral authoritarian regime: where the leader’s party wins with overwhelming majorities 

• Competitive authoritarian regime: opposition parties win substantial minorities

• These are distinct from politically closed authoritarian regimes where no opposition party can run 

Selectorate Theory

• Assumes that political leaders are motivated by the desire to gain and maintain office 

• The Selectorate (S) is the set of people who can play a role in selecting the leader

• The Winning Coalition (W) includes those people whose support is necessary for the leader to stay in power. 

• To stay in power, leaders must keep members of their winning coalition happy. 

• Leaders can do this by distributing (a) public goods and/or (b) private goods

• Whoever makes the best offer and is able to obtain support of the winning coalition is selected as leader. 

The winning coalition

• In addition to the loyalty norm, the manner in which leaders distribute public and private goods depends on the size of the winning coalition

• As the size of the winning coalition increases, the share of the private goods going to each member declines, 

• When W is small, leaders will want to provide private goods rather than public goods 

• When W is large, leaders will want to provide public goods rather than private goods.

Social Desirability Bias

• May have an incentive to conceal their true belief in surveys

• Unwilling to disagree with cultural norms

Preference Falsification

• Preference falsification means not revealing one’s true preferences in public. Although many people engage in preference falsification, there is probably a protest size at which they would be willing to publicly reveal their true preferences 

Liberalization

• A policy of liberalization entails a controlled opening of the political space and might include the formation of political parties, holding elections, writing a constitution, establishing a judiciary, opening a legislature, and so on.

• The goal of the liberalization process is not to bring democracy, but to incorporate various opposition groups into authoritarian institutions. 

When does democratic transition ends?

Soft-liners versus hard-liners

soft-liners may prefer to liberalize and broaden the social base of the dictatorship in an attempt to gain allies, strengthen their position in relation to the hard-liners, and manage opposition groups.

hard-liners tend to be satisfied with the political status quo

Arab Spring

 (ex. Of bottom up transition)

• Mass protests in Tunisia followed the self-immolation of a protestor in Dec. 2010

• 26 year old street vendor, Mohammed Bouazizi, set himself on fire on Dec. 17, 2010

• Despite the repression and hegemonic media control in Tunisia, YouTube and Al Jazzera played a major role in the Tunisian revolution 

• Protests spread to Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain 

Gorbachev and his role in the fall of the former Soviet Union

• Eventual collapse of communism, had much to do with the election of Gorbachev as leader of the Soviet Union in 1985

• Inheriting a Soviet Union in crisis, Gorbachev responded with two reform policies called GLASNOST and PERESTROIKA

Perestroika: A reform policy aimed at liberalizing and regenerating the Soviet economy  

Glasnost: A reform policy aimed at increasing political openness. 

• Aim: to save the Soviet Union 

• However, they just encouraged reformists and opposition groups in E. Europe

Protest participation in East Germany

• Protests on the streets of Leipzig and Berlin forced the Communist East German government to open up the Berlin Wall and allow free multiparty elections. 

• The end result was the emergence of a democratic East Germany and the eventual reunification of Germany in 1990.

Why do authoritarian leaders pursue liberalization?*

Presidential Democracy

Democracies in which the government does not depend on a legislative majority to exist are presidential.

Parliamentary Democracy

Democracies in which the government depends on a legislative majority to exist and in which the head of state is not popularly elected for a fixed term are parliamentary.

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 are semi-presidential.

Vote of Confidence

• A vote of confidence is initiated by the government; if the government does not obtain a legislative majority in this vote, it must resign 

Vote of NO confidence

• A vote of confidence is initiated by the government; if the government does not obtain a legislative majority in this vote, it must resign 

Principal-Agent (Delegation) Problem

A principal-agent, or delegation, problem refers to the difficulties that arise when a principal delegates authority to an agent who (a) potentially has different goals from the principal and (b) cannot be perfectly monitored.

Delegation

Delegation occurs when one person or group, called the principal, relies on another person or group, called an agent, to act on the principal’s behalf.

Principal/Agent

Within the cabinet, the prime minister (principal) then delegates policymaking power in particular areas to individual cabinet ministers (agents). This process of delegation continues, with cabinet ministers (principal) then delegating policymaking and policyimplementing power to civil servants or bureaucrats (agents) within their government departments

Prime minister

The government in a parliamentary democracy comprises a prime minister and the cabinet. The prime minister is the political chief executive and head of the government in a parliamentary democracy. 

President

The government in a presidential democracy comprises the president and the cabinet. 

• The president is the political chief executive and head of state. In a presidential democracy, the executive branch and the government are the same thing.

Minority government

A minority government is one in which the governmental parties do not together command a majority of legislative seats

• may be 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.

Policy-Seeking Politician

A policy-seeking politician only wants to shape policy

• can win their support only by giving them policy concessions.

• implement a coalition policy that lies somewhere between the ideal points of all your coalition partners. More seats = more concessions

Office-Seeking Politician

An office-seeking politician is interested in the intrinsic benefits of office; he wants as much office as possible. 

• have to get the support of other party leaders because your party controls only a minority of the legislative seats, offer them offices

• want to form a particular type of coalition government called a minimal winning coalition (MWC), one in which there are just enough parties (and no more) to control a legislative majority

Sincere Vote

A sincere vote is a vote for an individual’s most preferred option

Strategic Vote

A strategic, or sophisticated, vote is a vote in which an individual votes in favor of a less preferred option because she believes doing so will ultimately produce a more preferred outcome.

Coalition

an alliance for combined action, especially a temporary alliance of political parties forming a government or of states.

Formateur

A formateur is the person designated to form the government in a parliamentary regime. The formateur is often the PM designate

Informateur

An informateur examines politically feasible coalitions and nominates a formateur. When the head of state doesn’t participate in partisan politics. Usually monarchs, so they appoint an informateur instead. (one-step removed)

Ministerial Responsibility

Ministerial responsibility refers to the idea that cabinet ministers should bear ultimate responsibility for what happens in their ministry.

Minimal Winning Coalition

A minimal winning coalition (MWC) is one in which there are no parties that are not required to control a legislative majority

Least Minimal Winning Coalition

A least minimal winning coalition is the MWC with the lowest number of surplus seats.

Government

Majoritarian Electoral System

• A majoritarian electoral system is one in which the most votes win 

Proportional, or Proportional Representation (PR), Electoral System

• A proportional, or proportional representation, electoral system is a quota- or divisor based electoral system employed in multimember districts (multiple people elected to represent a district) 

Single-Member district plurality (SMDP) System

• One in which individuals cast a single vote for a candidate in a single member district. The candidate with the most votes wins. 

• A Single member district is when the district has one Representative (decided by electoral laws and constitution) 

  Criticisms: 

• A candidate can win without the majority of the vote

• Produces unrepresentative outcomes (not much minority representation) 

• Encourages strategic voting (vote for who you think has the best chance of winning out of who you like over who you want the most) 

Alternative Vote

• The alternative vote is a system of preferential voting

• Preferential voting involves voters ranking one or more candidates or parties in order of preference on the ballots 

• A candidate who received an absolute majority is elected

• If no candidate wins an absolute majority, then the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and her votes are reallocated based on second preference until one candidate has an absolute majority of the valid votes remaining.

Two-Round System (TRS)

• A two-round system (TRS) has the potential for two rounds of elections

• Candidates or parties are automatically elected in the first round if they obtain a specified level of votes, typically an absolute majority 

• If no candidate or party wins this level of votes, then a second round of elections takes place. 

Single Nontransferable Vote (SNTV)

only exception to single member district majoritarian votes

• The single nontransferable vote is a system in which voters cast a single candidate-centered vote in a multi-member district

• The candidates with the highest number of votes are elected. 

• Disadvantages: Weakens parties and encourages factionalization, encourages clientelistic behavior and the development of patronage systems, favors both incumbent and well-organized parties, few incentives to build broad-based coalitions 

List PR System

• In a List PR system, each party presents a list of candidates for a multi member district. 

• Parties receive seats in proportion to their overall share of the votes

• These seats are then shared among candidates on the list in various ways.

Electoral Formula: Quota and Divisor

Quotas and Divisors 

• All PR systems employ one or the other to determine how many seats each party wins. 

Quotas: The quota indicates the number of votes that guarantees the party a seat in the electoral district.

Divisors: A divisor, or highest average, system, divides the toal number of votes won by each party in a district by a series of numbers (divisors) to obtain quotients. District seats are then allocated according to which parties have the highest quotients. 

District Magnitude

• The district magnitude is the number of representatives elected in a district 

• The larger the district magnitude the greater the degree of proportionality. 

• Although all PR systems use multimember districts, the average size of if these districts can vary quite a lot

Electoral Threshold: Formal and Natural Threshold

• All proportional systems have a threshold that stipulates the min % of votes a party must get to win representation

• Either legally imposed (formal) or exists as a mathematical property of the system (natural threshold) 

Closed Party List

Open Party List

Closed Party List: order of candidates elected is determined by the party itself, voters are not able to express a preference for a particular candidate

• Electoral formula determines how many seats a party wins

Open Part List: Voters can indicate not just their preferred party but favorite candidate within the party 

The single transferable vote

The single transferable vote (STV) is a candidate-centered preferential voting system used in multimember districts. Candidates that surpass a specified quota of first-preference votes are immediately elected. In successive counts, votes from eliminated candidates and surplus votes from elected candidates are reallocated to the remaining candidates until all the seats are filled.

Single Nontransferable Vote

Single Nontransferable Vote is a system in which voters cast a single candidate-centered vote in a multimember district. The candidates with the highest number of votes are elected. 

• each party competing in a district puts up a list of candidates, and individuals vote for one of them. The candidates that win the most votes are elected.

Political Party

• A political party can be thought of as a group of people that includes those who hold office and those who help get and keep them there. 

• Serve 4 main purposes

1. They structure the political world 

2. They recruit and socialize the political elite

3. They mobilize the masses

4. They provide a link between the rulers and the ruled 

Party Systems

• Political scientists often categorize democracies in terms of the type of party system that they exhibit. 

• They typically distinguish between party systems based on the number of parties they possess. 

Single-party system

One-party dominant system

Two-party system

Multiparty system

• A single-party system is when only one party is legally allowed to hold power. Authoritarian/Dictatorship rule. Ex. communist party in Soviet Union

• A one--party dominant system is one in which multiple may legally operate but only one has a realistic chance. Maybe a really strong leader, or maybe electoral institutions that rig it. 

• A two party system is one where two major parties both have a realistic chance of gaining power. (US)

• A multi party system is one where more than two parties have a realistic chance of gaining power. (UK)

Social Cleavages (Urban-rural cleavage, confessional cleavage, secular-clerical cleavage,
class cleavage, post-materialist cleavage, ethnic and linguistic cleavages)

• Dimensions of Political conflict: Individuals have a repertoire of overlapping attributes that makes them eligible in some identity category

• The Urban-Rural Cleavage: early modern Europe between feudal lords on the one hand and town dwellers

• The Confessional Cleavage: Conflict over religious differences emerged in European countries during the Protestant Reformation in the early sixteenth century.

• The Secular-Clerical Cleavage: The conflict “between the growing state, which sought to dominate, and the church, which tried to maintain its historic corporate rights,”

• The Class Cleavage: the class cleavage involves vertical conflicts within sectors between actors who derive their livelihood from the use of their labor and those who derive their livelihood from the use of their property or capital.

• The Post-Material Cleavage: Morally relevant values

  • Lipset and Rokkan’s freezing hypothesis states that Western European party systems became frozen following the extension of universal suffrage in most countries during the 1920s.

  Ethnic and Linguistic Cleavages

  • An ethnic group is one in which members possess some attributes, believed to be related to descent, which are shared more closely with fellow group members than with non group members.

Federal State

A federal state is one in which sovereignty is constitutionally split between at least two territorial levels so that independent governmental units at each level have final authority in at least one policy realm. 

Federalism

Scholars differ over when a country can be considered a federal country 

• Does the country have to be federal in structure (de jure)? 

• Does the country have to be federal in practice (de facto)? 

Devolution

• Occurs when a unitary state grants powers to subnational governments but retains the right to unilaterally recall or reshape those powers

Decentralization

• Decentralization refers to the extent to which actual policy making power lies with the central or regional governments in a country 

• Most political scientists see decentralization as a revenue issue; the greater the share of all tax revenues going to the central government, the less decentralized the state 

Federalism in an authoritarian regime

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is an example of a federal dictatorship. The UAE comprises seven emirates in the Middle East. The provisional constitution of the UAE, which only became permanent in 1996, established a federal form of government. Articles state that all powers that are not explicitly given to the federal authorities in the constitution belong to the individual emirates

Advantages of Federalism

• Creates a closer match between policy and citizen preferences

• Brings the government closer to the people and therefore increases government accountability 

• Creates incentive for good government performance due to competition among states for citizens and investments 

• Encourages policy experimentation 

• Creates a bulwark against tyranny by providing increased checks and balances. 

Disadvantages of Federalism

• Can lead to the unnecessary duplication of government and the inefficient overlapping of potentially contradictory policies 

• Exacerbates collective action problems in the formulation and implementation of policy 

• Competition between states can have deleterious consequences such as downward harmonization in which levels of regulation, welfare, adn trade barriers are continuously lowered 

• Competition between states can also lead to the amplification of pre existing inequalities, particularly if there’s asymmetric federalism 

• Facilities blame shifting and credit claiming, thereby lowering government accountability. 

Populism

Populism is an ideology that portrays society as divided into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, “the pure people” and “the corrupt elite”

Cult of Personality

the result of an effort which is made to create an idealized and heroic image of a glorious leader.

Explain Credible Commitment Problem

A credible commitment problem, or a time-inconsistency problem, occurs when (a) an actor who makes a promise today may have an incentive to renege on that promise in the future and (b) power is in the hands of the actor who makes the promise and not in the hands of those expected to benefit from the promise

Horizontal Inequalities

Form inequality -> group comparison-> grievances -> mobilization -> conflict 

Constructivist vs. Primordialist Debate on explaining ethnic violence

Primadorial:

View of ethnicity: natural, fixed, ancient 

Cause of Conflict: Deep-Seated, historical animosities 

Change over time: Stable and enduring 

Key mechanism: Innate differences = inevitable conflict 

Critique: Overly deterministic

Social Constructivism: 

View of ethnicity: created, fluid, changeable 

Cause of Conflict: political, social processes

Change over time: redefined, politicized 

Key mechanism: Identity construction = potential conflict or peace

Critique: Sometimes lacks clear causal pathways