Poli Sci midterm 2

Modernization and Development

Author: Lerner

Modernization:transition from a agricultural society to a urbanized society

Development:

• a process by which the well-being/quality of life on individuals is improved

• how we measure it has important consequences

origins of development

• emerged in the 1940’s

• unprecedented prosperity(more money, gap of GDP per capita grew, gov becoming more responsive)

• the rise of responsive government

• cold war politics

Significance: modernization became a goal for many states when goverment began to prosper and become more responsive. it is a nuanced issue because modernization can lead to loss of tradition and environmental degredation.

Development as Freedom

Author: sen (lecture)

Sen claims dev should be measured based on peoples freedoms

• aim of dev is to maximize peoples capabilities such as political participation, economic oppurtunities, education, healthcare

Significance: this definition focuses on the health, education and economic activities of states to give a well rounded scope of development. high scores indicate that ctz have good oppurtunites to reach there full capabilities in life.

GDP per capita

Author: Easterly (lecture?)

standard measure of development

-value of goods and services produced by each citizen on average

-measures the means by which people may pursue wellbeing

how do we compare GDP per capita

• overtime?(real infational adjusted GDP)

• across space?(PPP adjusted = dif currencies)

problems

• ignores distribution of income in country

• ignores goods and services without a market

• not lifetime measure

• measures means not ends

Significance: how development is measure can have important consequences surronding the biases towards different countries. This model is imperfect because it ignores inequality of income, and ignores goods and services without a market, and it is not a lifetime measure.

Human Development Index (HDI)

Author:

weighed average of life expectancy, education and PPP GDP per capita

Significance:this definition focuses on the health, education and economic activities of states to give a well rounded scope of development. high scores indicate that ctz have good oppurtunites to reach there full capabilities in life.

Proximate vs. deep causes of growth

Author: lecture

proximate

• direct causes and factors of development

  • capital

  • technology

  • labor

deep

• background context for development

  • intitutions

  • culture

  • geography(false because of the reversal or fortunes

Significance: explanations as to why soem states are more developed than others and how some states develop quicker than others

The Solow Growth Model

Author: Easterly

growth is a function of Labor and Technology

• investment cannot explain long run growth because it has diminishing returns

• tech refers to ways labor and capital can be combined to produce output(eg. knowledge, inventions, orgs)

• growth in long run caused by improvements in technology

• improvements in tech caused by war and globalization

problems

• tech assumed to be exogenous(where does it come from?)

• implies convergence if tech is shared but this is not the case

Significance: explanation to what causes development in a country, and that one cannot simply invest in capital, but must focus on human capital(knowledge, education) and technology to develop.

Capital fundamentalism

Author:Easterly

Solow critiques the idea that only investing in capital will lead to development

Significance: this fails to recognize importance of technology’s influence on development

Diminishing returns to capital

Author: Easterly

as more units of capital(machines) are added to fixed amount of other factors(labor) the output of each new capital declines

Significance: proves why capital investment is not the only cause of developent and highlights solows idea that technology causes development in the long run. And to get better technology must invest in human capital.

Convergence (and its failure)

Author: Easterly

capital is invested in poor countries because that is where it has the highest returns, and these countries will “catch up” and the poor countries will become rich and there will be a convergence of economic wealth.

Significance: seeing as this is not the case, highlight how investment in capital is not the only aspect of development, and institutions and culture also effect economic prosperity.

The Harrod-Domar model

Author: lecture

-growth is increased by increasing capital(which is a factor of production)

what causes an increase in capital

• increased savings by sacrifices in consumption

• foreign aid

observable problems

• growth is related to capital accumulation(true in short-run not long-run)

• savings are necessary, but not sufficient for growth(dimiishign returns to capital)

• economic convergence

Significance: capital fundementalism is not proper explanation for growth, critiqued by solow

Institutions (North's definition)

Author:North and Weingast

-set of rules, compliance procedures and moral and ethical behavioral norms, designed to constrain the behavior of independents in the intererest of maximizing wealth

-intitutions regarding property rights etc. solve the credible commitement problem

Significance: good institutions lead to good policies and good growth, must solve cred com prob, intitutions involved with democratization

Inclusive vs. extractive institutions

Author: Lecture

inclusive

• caters to the interest of many

• secure private property

• unbiased legal systems

• encouragment in investment of new tech

• good for dev

exclusive

• redistributes the wealth of many to the few

• usually autocratic

• insecure property rights

• bad for dev

Significance: extractive intitutions set state up for failure, and inclusive ones allow for florishing economic growth.

The fundamental problem of political economy

Author: Weingast(lecture)

-a gov strong enough to protect the property rights and enforce contracts is also strong enough to confiscate the wealth of its citizens

-while behavior of individuals may be regulated by the state, who regulates the state

Significance: this is why institutions are necessary for a succsesful economy and a government that can promote growth. Solved by credible commitment

Credible commitment

Author: North and Weingast

-a mechanism that makes the promises of rulers credible

-results in people more willing to pay taxes

-interest rates go down

-gov funds wars with this money and also invests it

Significance: allows for growth in the economy, ctz can trust that their loans will be payed back

The Glorious Revolution

Author: North and Weingast

- in britain, interest rates were high because the monarchs lived above there means(often went to war)(couldn’t pay back loans)

civil → monarch executed→ deposed→ new monarch enthroned

-the GR of 1688

• parliamentory supremacy(english bill of rights)

• constrained executive(end of royal perogative powers)

• politically independent judiciary(cant be imporsoned without cause(habeus corpus))

Significance: powerful demonstratiokn of how institutions are essential for growth.

Path dependence

Author: Lecture

-once institutions are set up, they are very difficult to change

-the future path is let upon launch

Significance: setting up inclusive institutions are important

Colonial origins of development

Author: Lecture
-starting in 1600’s, Europeans emigrated to certain areas(americas)

-where disease burden was low(low temp zones, highlands, semi-tropics), set up inclusive institutions

-where desiease burden was high(tropics), set up extractive institutions

-these institutions persisted, explains modern day

why institutional change is difficult

1. power begets power,, economic and political institutions reinforce one oanother

2. losers block reform

3. partial reform is subject to the see-saw effect

Significance: example of path dependency, important to set up inclusive intitutions, shows extractive institutions are bad for develepmental growth

The reversal of fortune

Author:

states which used to be rich now poor shows geography not good deep cause of development

Significance: proves that geography is not good deep cause of development because the geography doesn’t change but the economy does.

Social trust

Author: lecture

-every interaction requires some trust

-low trust results in economic opportunities not being taken advantage of

Significance: social trust is essential for all economic transitions, as well as investment and the integration/liberilization of markets, better social trust is good for development

The Protestant work ethic

Author: lecture

-in north Europe is hard work and accumulation of wealth is celebrated

-resulted in economic growth in North Europe

Significance:possible explanation as to why north Europe was able to grow well, also shows how culutre is a deep cause of development

The ultimatum game

Author: Lecture

-2 players, 1 player gets $10 and chooses how much to give to the other player, the other player accepts or declines the offer

-nash equilibrium(perfect answer)=only give 1 cent

-most common: give $5

-20% reject offer(if rejected neither of them get it)

-some latin countries closer to nash equilibrium

- if you have a more integrated market(free market), you will have more trust and therefore give more money to player 2.

Significance: shows that culture effects behavior, and therefore culture is also a deep cause of development

Imagined Communities

Author: Anderson

core argument

• nation is imagined political community

• all communiites larger than villages are imagined

Significance: nationionalism as a real, yet socially construced identity, very contructavist(identity is not fixed), explains how a nation is created and defined

Print capitalism

Author: Anderson

key mechanism in creating an imagined national community

• convergence of capitilsm and print technology

• allows for unified feild of communcation below latin and above spoken vernaculars

• vernacular printed created standardized languages

• readers of same vernacular could imagine themselves as a community of fellow-readers

Significance: the key mechanism in which the imagined community is formed, which creates a sense of nationalism which is good for industrial society, and need a mobile work force for a succsesful economy.

The invention of tradition

Author: hobsbown(lecture)

• nation traditions that seem antient are really modern fabrication

• created for illusion of antiquity

Significance: traditions strengthen nationalism(constructavist), which is necessary for a succsesful economy

Gellner's theory of nationalism

Author: gellner(lecture)

central argument

• nationalism is a consquence of industrialization

• agrarian societies tolerate cultural diversity, industrial societies require cultural homogenity

Agrarian Societies and cultural heterogeneity

• elites and peasants live in seperate cultural worlds

• peasants tied to land and are illiterate, and culturaly divers

• elites=literalcy, classical lang

industrial societies and cultural homogeneity

• industrialization transforms the economy, mobile labor, complex communicating

• workers must be literate, numerate

• requires shared high culture

• mass education

Significance: one of the theories on how nationalism is created which is neccesary for a sucssesful economy. Opposes andersons theory, a more modern theory of nationalism that expands upon anderson.

The Grocer and the Cheif

Author: Lerner

-tells story of development:a town with a grocer(progressive) and a cheif(traditional, old authority). Their lives are changed when the town develops and modeornizes and becomes connected to the outside world

Significance: development benifits most people, but there are still losses involved.

Primordialist vs. constructivist views of identity

Author: lecture

primordialist

• idea that ethnic identity is pre-determined by bloodline/ancestry

• based on kinship

constructavist

• ethnic identity has some flexibility

• it is a social construct

• situationally activated

• categories are politically constructed

Significance: dif explanation of how to view identity and its relationship with politics. Theorists like anderson are contructavist, primodialosm is outdated and contributes to myths like the antient hatred explanation for ethnic violence

The colonial construction of ethnic categories

Author: lecture

the colonial state contructs ethnic identity

• they needed to classify groups

• led to mobilization of groups

• colonial states needed legible populations

• categories became basis for resource distribution

Significance: constructavist view, proves that ethnic identities are not always ancient, and identity can be shaped by history

Ethnicity and resource competition

Author: Bates(lecture)

-ethnicity becomes politically salient when it is instrumentally useful for organizing resource competition

why ethnicity?

1. information(ethnic networks provide info about who can be trusted)

2. monitoring(members can observe whether co-ethnics follow through)

3. enforcement(social sanctions within the group can punish free-riders)

key

• ethnic politics is about rational resource competition using most efficient organizational tool available

Significance: ethnicity is rationaly useful for distributive politics and it is historically shaped. this answers when ethnicity becomes politicly salient.

Minimum winning coalitions

Author: Posner

- ethnicities are politicaly salient when they represent a large enough proportion of the population that they are a strong force in democratic politics.

- they can be mobalized, and represent a candidate

- the candidates make sure that people feel ethnically divided so that they can win an entire ethnicity’s votes.;

Significance: when ethnicity becomes politically salient.

Cross-cutting vs. reinforcing cleavages

Author:

-not all societies are equally prone to ethnic tension

reinforcing cleavages

• when ethnic, religious, class, and regional diversions overlap, they intensify one another

cross-cutting cleavages

• when different social divisions cut across one another, they moderate conflict

• individuals have allies on one dimension and opponents on another (incentives for compromise)

Significance:

Religion as a unique identity

Author: Grzymala-Busse

-transnational scope

-demanding (all parts of life controlled)

-supernatural stakes(abandoning=eternal damnation)

-Resilient(hard to suppress religion)

Significance: why religion is such a strong actor in politics, and answers the question of why it matters and why it must be taken seriously

The secularization hypothesis

Author: Lecture(critiqued by Busse)

-the classic predictions as societies modernize/urbanize, religion will decline in public life

logic

• industrialization/urbanization displace traditional communities

• scientific rationalism replaces religious explanations

• rising education & wealth reduce spiritual reliance

• state takes over functions of church

when does secularization fail

1. religious competition

• how state regulates religious markets effects how popular they are

• if state claims one religion, church doesn’t have to work as hard

• if state does not claim one religion and competition exists then church must innovate

2. natural monopolies and religion-nation fusion

• when religion & national identity fuse, it sticks around(church is protector)

• when they don’t religion declines(church is oppresor)

Significance:

The political economy model of religion (supply side)

Author:

1.the origins of welfare states

• how state views poorness(misfortune vs. moral failing) effects how state treats the poor

2.why the poor vote against redistribution

• the more poor people attend church, it is more likely they will vote against redistribution because 1. substitution:religion provides psychic benifits that substitute for welfare state. 2. distraction religion creates second issue dimension that can be more important to voters.

3.democratic transitions:

• religious institutions play pivotal roles in supporting or oppsosing democratization

• supporting: in poland, cathlic church opposed auth regimes

• oppposing:cathlic hurch opposed liberal dem in 19th centur, fearing popular sovereignty would undermine its authority

• twin tolerations: demo requires state to tolerate religion and religion to tolerate state. If this doesn’t happen get 1. theocracy(religion led) or 2. state repression of religion

4.political party formation

• religious cleavages have generated durable party systems

Significance: answers the question of why religion is so important and how it can powerfully influence politics.

Diversity and violence

-ethnic and religious diversity is the norm, however large-scale violence along identity is rare

-most inter-ethnic/religious interactions are cooperative

Significance:proves that identity is socially constructes supportig the constructavist theories, and that identity is mobilized for political reasons.

Greed versus grievance in civil wars

civil war onset better predicted by opportunity & greed

grievance

• ethnic or religious grievances cannot explain civil war

• grievance is universal, civil war is rare

greed

• natural resources

opportunity

• geography

• political instability

Significance:

The electoral incentives for violence

-politicians may incite ethnic violence to polarize the electorate and consolidate co-ethnic

-able to win entire groups of voters easier

-violence is not spontaneous but strategically provoked or prevented by political elites on electoral incentives

prevented when

• governing coalitions depend on minority voters

• multi-party competition forces politicians to make every ethnic group happy

Significance:proves that ethnic identity is socially constructes supporting the constructavist theories, and that identity is mobilized for political reasons.

Climate change and the tragedy of the commons

Significance:

Concentrated losers versus diffuse winners

Significance:

Climate change and veto points

Significance: