Week 2: Democracy and Factors of Democratization

Minimalist democracy (electoral, procedural)

focus on the procedure of elections - free, fair and competitive multi-party elections at regular intervals for determining the head of government and the

legislative branch

Maximalist democracy (liberal, substantive)

• rights and civil liberties

• strong rule of law

• an independent judiciary

• effective checks and balances on the executive power

How to Define Democracy?

Free Fair elections and peaceful transition of power. We should not know about the outcome we need to be uncertain. There needs to be competition.

Rule of the majority, or more precisely, constantly changing

coalitions of the majority

Why won't there be a tyranny of the majority?

• The ruling majority today should not violate the rights of

minorities, because tomorrow it may be in the minority

• The minority today will have incentives to participate in

competition (e.g., elections, lobbying), because tomorrow it may

become the majority

Modernization and democracy

• “The more well-to-do a nation, the greater the chances that

it will sustain democracy” (Lipset 1959, Some Social

Requisites of Democracy, p. 75).

• Democracy is more common in rich countries than in poor

countries

• Transitions to dictatorship become less likely as wealth

increases

• The importance of the middle class as a necessary condition:

“No bourgeoisie, no democracy" (Moore 1966).

• Empirical studies in disagreement: is there really a causal

relationship between development and democracy?

Survival Story

• Does development bring about democracy?

• Does development sustain already established

democracies?

• Wealth increases survival of democracy, but does not affect

emergence of democracy (Przeworski et al. 2000)

• Under democracy the wealthy are afraid to be left out of a

small wealthy circle under dictatorship ->support democracy

• Under democracy the poor are already poor and have nothing

to lose ->will gamble for autocracy

Modernization Theory and Survival Story

Democracy emergence or survival?

• Empirical evidence shows that countries are more likely to

emerge and survive as they become wealthier

• BUT WHY?

Critique

• Linear (what about Middle East? Weimar

Republic? India?)

• Correlation is not causation!

• Fail to differentiate between transition to

democracy and survival of democracy

• Fail to take into account other explanations

• Fail to take into account elite choices

The resource curse and democracy

• Explains many exceptions to Modernization Theory

• Focuses on the relationship between natural resource wealth

(such as oil, gas, minerals) and political regime type.

• Rentier state theory: Leaders controlling large natural

resource wealth can operate autonomously from societal

interests and are more likely to be autocratic.

1. Rent availability: Authoritarian leaders with readily

available resource revenue can use it for both repression

and cooptation.

2. Taxation: Since leaders are not dependent on tax money

from citizens, they can deny representation and ignore

political demands.

3. Class structure: Natural resources usually prevent

economic diversification and the formation of a large

middle class who can demand democratization.

4. Exit options: Since natural resources are not mobile, if

leaders give up power they will not be able to take these

assets with them.

Culture and democracy

• The idea that democracy is a culture emerging from

historical, religious, and philosophical foundations.

• Two general hypotheses:

1. Democracy is more common in some cultures (for

example, western cultures) – which support democratic

values such as individual liberty, freedom of expression,

equality – than in others (for example, Islam,

Confucianism).

2. Economic development does not directly cause

democracy, but rather economic development leads to

cultural change and the emergence of a civic culture,

which in turn leads to democracy.

• Is every culture conducive to democracy?

Culture as a Barrier to Democracy

- God’s word cannot be disputed -> Catholicism incompatible with democracy

- Protestantism is more receptive to democracy than Islam, due to “the in hospital nature of Islamic culture and society to Western liberal concepts.”

- also argued that Confucianism contradicts with the main tenants of democracy,

since it emphasizes “group over the individual, authority over liberty, and responsibilities over rights”.

Religious explanations: critique

• Religion is evolving

• Religion is subject to different interpretations

• Each religion has democratic elements

Confucian

• Authority

• Common values

• Meritocracy

• Education

• Tolerance

• Limited government

• Protest culture

Islam

• Political violence

• Conflation of religion and law (who enforces law then)

• Gender inequality

• Shura (consultation): even the messenger of Allah should consult with its people in earthly matters

Protestantism: causal paths?

• Protestantism -> economic development ->

Bourgeois-> democracy (M. Weber)

OR?

• Protestantism -> mass education (missioners) ->

democracy (Woodberry, 2004)

OR

• Protestantism was chosen by the most active

and successful?

• Self-selection bias!

Empirical Evidence

• Religion fails to explain democracy

• There are/were democratic countries with a Muslim majority e.g.,

Albania, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Senegal and Turkey

• Correlation changes over time (Catholic countries are democratic)

• Civic culture has more explanatory power

Culture as a Sustainer of Democracy

• Almond and Verba (1963) - Civic Culture

1. A belief that individuals can influence political decisions

2. High support for the existing political system

3. High levels of interpersonal trust

4. Preference for gradual societal change.

Inglehart-Welzel cultural map

• Traditional values emphasize the importance of religion, parent-child ties,

deference to authority and traditional family values. People who embrace

these values also reject divorce, abortion, euthanasia and suicide. These

societies have high levels of national pride and a nationalistic outlook.

• Secular-rational values have the opposite preferences to the traditional

values. These societies place less emphasis on religion, traditional family

values and authority. Divorce, abortion, euthanasia and suicide are seen as

relatively acceptable. (Suicide is not necessarily more common.)

• Survival values place emphasis on economic and physical security. It is

linked with a relatively ethnocentric outlook and low levels of trust and

tolerance.

• Self-expression values give high priority to environmental protection,

growing tolerance of foreigners, gays and lesbians and gender equality, and

rising demands for participation in decision-making in economic and

political life.

Social capital

• Robert Putnam, 1993 «Making Democracy

Work»

• Social capital –> social trust (measured as

participation in social organizations) ->

«good/efficient governance»

• 1970 – 15 regional governments in Italy

• Northern regions – high level of social capital,

Southern - low

Bowling alone?

• «Between 1980 and 1993 the total number of

bowlers in America increased by 10 percent,

while league bowling decreased by 40 percent.»

Critique of Cultural Modernization

• “Modernization leads to and sustains democracy

but only because it changes cultural values and

beliefs, not because of the rise in wealth per se.”

• Deterministic

• Fails to offer a specific mechanism how exactly a

society goes from being authoritarian to being

democratic

• Linear (modernization is not Westernization)

Strategic bargain and democracy

• Democracy as a solution to a credible commitment

problem.

• Credible commitment problem - when one promises smth,

but there is no way to check whether she will keep the

promise

• The latter arises when:

✓An actor who makes a promise today may have an incentive to

renege on that promise in the future

✓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. Clark et al. (2012, p.187)

Modernization -> from agriculture to wool production ->

mobile assets (you can’t hide fields, but you can hide

sheep!) -> production owners can escape taxes

• The Crown needs to borrow resources (e.g., taxes) from

gentry (e.g., to fund wars)

• The Crown fails to credibly commit to pay back (how do we

know?)

• Gentry demands stronger parliament vis-à-vis the Crown

that will make sure the Crown keeps its promises -> birth of

democracy

• When authoritarian elites have to bargain:

1.High level of wealth inequality -> people demand wealth

redistribution

• But! Elites will fight to retain autocracy if demands from the

masses are too high– e.g., Argentina

2.When they fear revolution

• But! Timing of the bargain (Tunisia)

3.When the cost of repression is too high

(Acemoglu and Robinson, 2006)

Critique of Strategic Bargaining

• Too much emphasis on economic inequality – what about

cultural factors?

• Strategic bargaining might help democratize, but in order to

sustain democracy in the long run other factors might be

important (post-modernist values; Russia in 1990s and 2000s)

• Interesting theory by D. Treisman – “Democracy by mistake”

(Gorbachev’s reforms; Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu)

• Democratize does not mean being democracy forever – third

wave of authocratization; democratic backsliding...

Type of Colonialism

• The famous argument by Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson

(AJR)

• European settlers created very different institutions in their

colonies that explain subsequent economic development

• Countries with tropical diseases (Europeans were not immune to

them -> death) -> Europeans colonized them, did not settle there

and created extractive autocratic institutions - > poor

development

• Congo, Nigeria, Brazil, Mexico

• Countries without diseases -> Europeans settled there

themselves and copied democratic institutions from home

• United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand

Democracy by Mistake

• Studied 201 democratization cases, 1800-2015

• About 65% of leaders led their country to democracy by trying

to avoid it

• Gorbachev?

• Were they rational?

How Democracies Die

• Gradually, not overnight (Levitsky and Ziblatt, 2018)

• Democracy is undermined by democratically elected leaders

(elections)

• Erdogan, Orban, Chavez? Trump?

• 1973-1985 – 45% - executive takeovers, 23% - military coups

• Since 2000s – 80% - executive takeovers

• Why?

• Polarization of society? (Many works by Svolik; Arbatli and

Rosenberg, 2020)