Exam #3 Intro to Comparative Politics

Ordeshook & Shvetsova

Stable and integrated federal democracies are self-enforcing political institutions (do not depend on constitutions or wealth). The core problem is that federal relations are inherently unstable because regions and centralized authority compete for power/resources, so institutions are needed to link elites’ self-interest via cooperation across multiple levels of government. Institutions do this via:

• political parties - link regional to national politics because competition between parties incentivizes elites at all levels to coordinate support

• simultaneous elections

• lots of elected officials - voters will rely on party identification to make vote choice, creating party unity across levels of government

• weak executive power - executives will then rely on persuasion and party leadership

• strong legislatures to give representation at the national level

Example of unstable integration of federalism

Russia - After the 1990s, Russia did not have integrated parties, meaning there were regional and central parties. The elites controlled federal party lists, causing regions to distrust the elites. Due to this centralized party system and strong president, there was no self-enforcing cooperation and no stable integration

Rodden

Fiscal federalism creates a moral hazard problem! The problem is that subnational governments expect the national government to bail them out of their debts, which decreases fiscal discipline. However, if you centralize fiscal responsibility, then it would undermine the benefits of political decentralization, like accountability and autonomy. This is known as Hamilton’s Paradox. The solution is to create institutions that incentivize subnational governments to deal with their own debts. This can occur via:

• party system integration (parties linking all levels of government) allows the central government to enforce discipline. Fragmented, regional parties encourage bailouts because the central government must make alliances with them.

• fiscal transparency and monitoring can limit initial borrowing, reducing the need for bailouts

• restrict intergovernmental transfers which can blur the responsibility and increase bailouts

McClendon

Social esteem can significantly motivate political participation in contentious/risky movements. Esteem-based motivation is when people act politically to gain social approval (not just based on their interest/ideology). People are more likely to participate publicly in activism when they expect others to view their actions positively.

They ran an experiment where they sent emails to the members of a LGBT advocacy organization in New Jersey to invite them to a LGBT rally. There were three conditions: 1) Information only (control group) who only received information on the goals of the rally and when/where 2) Newsletter (treatment #1) that told people that if they went, their name will be put and celebrated in a monthly newsletter 3) FaceBook (treatment #2) that invited people to post pictures from the rally on their group Facebook page for people to “like”

They measured the amount of people who RSVPed and submitted a lottery ticket and surveyed people. They found that while the control group RSVPed at 3.53%, the Newsletter group RSVPed at 6.08%.

Thus, social movements can increase participation by making supportive actions visible and socially rewarded.

Chenoweth

Nonviolent resistance is still one of the most powerful & effective ways to achieve political and social change, but it has become less effective in recent years. From the 1900-2015, nonviolent protests have been twice as likely to succeed than violent ones due to mass participation, broad coalitions, and regime loyalty shifts as people defect from security forces/elites. From 2010-today, nonviolent protest has declined in success. Authoritarian regimes have learned to combat this through surveillance, disinformation, and targeted repression. Movements have become more fragmented with a lack of clear leadership and goals. Activism has become increasingly online, and although mobilization is easier, it has weaker organization and riskier exposure to state repression. Movements can address this by investing in long-term organization/leadership, forming international alliances, and combining protests with institutional engagement to maintain pressure.

Manekin & Mitts

The effectiveness of nonviolent resistance depends on the ethnic identity of the participants and how their actions are perceived by others. This paper challenges the traditional view that nonviolence is universally more effective than violence by considering the political/social context of identity. They argue that nonviolent protest is less effective when done by members of marginalized ethnic groups. This is because observers (majority group or international) do not judge protest tactics neutrally, but through a biased lens to see protestors as more threatening/violent.

Survey experiment - used two samples of countries with ethnic minorities:

1) US - minority = black people

2) Israel - minority = Ethiopian Jews and Israeli Arabs

They had participants read vignettes about the protests with photos, the identities of the protestors, and intensity of protest. They measured the outcome by asking participants how violent the protest was, recall the tactics used by the protestors (were they violent or nonviolent?), and the need for police action.

They found that participants perceived higher levels of violence and higher need for police action for minority protestors, even when given the same set of events but different protestor identities.

Example of nonviolent protest

East Europe - in 1989, mass demonstrations began with strikes in Poland. There were huge protests over the Berlin Wall which remained peaceful, and ultimately led to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Example of violent protest

Hong Kong - in 2019, China proposed a bill to destroy the 1 Country, 2 Systems framework by having Hong Kong criminals be tried in China. There were huge protests in Hong Kong, which were met with violence. These ultimately ended with the start of the pandemic.