Comparative politics

PROBLEM 1 Distortions between votes and power

Distortion

Situation in which an increase in votes for a candidate/party does not make it more likely to get into power.

• Any level can be impacted (national, regional, local)

• Can happen for both the legislature and the executive.

→ Why it matters?: When citizens sence their vote doesn’t make a difference they are angry.

Where does the distortion can come from?

Institutions and party strategies can interact → Reduce the votes-to-power link.

Example of distortion: AfD

Firewall strategy where all parties exclude AfD from negociations after the election → AfD excluded, which creates a distortion because they arrived second.

→ Can even be counterproductive because at the next election, anger about this process can backfire and even reinforce AfD. AND it also weakens the saying that the parties using the firewall are protecting the democracy (bc they ignore the result of the vote).

Where distortions arise?

• Legislatures

  • Electoral-system distortions (including gerrymandering)

  • Malapportionment

• Executives

  • Presidential systems

  • Parliamentary systems (coalition bargaining)

Proportional Representation (PR) vs Single Member District (SMD)

PR means that every vote has the same power (except if there is a threshold)

SMD means that the country is divided in many consituencies in which the First Past the Post (FPP) is used → So the candidate with the more vote wins

Legislatures: electoral-system distortions

• Electoral formula: PR or SMD (+drawing of the constituency in the SMD system → gerrymandering)

• District magnitude: Number of MPs per constituency (DEFINITION A CHECK DANS LE READING)

→ interact to distort the vote-to-power link.

Worse in SMD systems if there is a geographic concentration of votes for some parties.

Ex: Lib dem in 2019 UK elections got 11,6% nationawide but only 1,7% of the seats because they were second prefered candidates → So with SMD + FPP, they loose most districts even though at the national level they had more legitimacy.

Since SMD is very vulnerable with FPP, what is the risk?

Manipulation of district boundaries to change the electoral result. → Results in distortion between:

• Party preferences of the electorate in the country as a whole

• Seats awarded to parties in the legislatures.

In most countries, to avoid this, ‘France, Canada, Uk, australia), there is an independent commission or extra parliamenaary body that draws the districts.

Gerrymandering

Process of drawing districts for the purpose of granting an electoral advantage to a particular group. (Legally easier in the US)

How is gerrymandering possible in the US?

• Every 10 years → Census → Leads to a REAPPORTIONMENT of the number of MPs each state has → the state legislatures need to redraw the congressional map if the number is changed.

• Only 7 + 2 states have truly independent commissions

• Only TWO RULES:

  • Districts have to be contiguous and have roughly equal populations (US constitution)

  • Districts cannot be drawn purely on the grounds of privileging one racial group avoer another (“racial gerrymandering” → Equal protection in the US constitution, some Acts and various SCOTUS decisions)

Ex: Taxes redisticting for the 2026 midterms

Gerrymandering strategies

• Cracking: splitting supporters of the opposing paty across many districts so that they are a majority in a very few (or none) of them

• Packing: Concentrating supportes of the opposing party in very few districts (or even on district) sot hat many of their voters unnecessarily “waste” their votes.

→ Goal: DILUTION of the opposing party’s voting power.

Legislatures: Malapportionment

Seat shares across districts are not proportional to population shares.

→ Violates the “one person, one vote” principle

ATTENZIONE - Ne pas confondre gerrymandering and malapportionment

Malapportionment is about HOW MANY seats a district gets, not WHERE the lines are drawn.

Mechanisms of malapportionment

• Fixed seat minima

• Federal overrepresentation of subnational units

• Delayed reapportionment

RRI calculation

RRI = District shares of seat / This district share of the population

If RRI = 1, it is a good proportion

If RRI < 1, the population is underrepresented

If RRI > 1, the population is overrepresented.

Ex: Senate of the US → 2 senators, no matter how many ppl in the constituency.

Why malapportionment matters?

• It distorts the mapping from citizen prefences to legislative seats → then to policy

• Can advantage particular territories or party families or ideologies

Executives: Two types of distortions (depending on the politcal system)

• Presidential systems: SMD by definition (=The country is a single district), producing typical distortion (Worse in the US because the Electoral college combines SMD distortions with malapportionment).

• Parliamentary systems: Combine with PR, between election and government formation, there is typically PARTY BARGAINING, which can break the link between votes and power.

PARTY BARGAINING is the less straightforward → we focus on it as of nowin the Martin and Vanberg reading.

Normative premise for evaluating executive distortions

• Better electoral performanc should (weakly) increase a party’s likelihood of entering government

• Weaker electoral performance should (weakly) decrease a party’s likelyhood of entering govermnent.

EN GROS: Does electoral performance systematically shape government formation in multiparty parliamentary systems?

What could be the distortion in “Executives: Parliamentary systems”

Coalition bargaining happens BETWEEN the electoral outcomes and the government formation → Can lead to a situation where strong parties are don’t govern because the rest of the parties ally to form a coalition.

2 channels affecting the Vote-to-power in “Executives: Parliamentary systems”

• Structural channel: Votes → seats → New bargaining environemnt (new feasible coalitions, pivotality, median status)

• Perceptual channel: Gains and losses are public “verdicts” that shape how parties see themselves and each other.

2 channels affecting the Vote-to-power in “Executives: Parliamentary systems”: Structural channel

Unreliable channel alone → BEcause the Seats → Power is NON-MONOTONIC

PROBLEM 2 - Institutions are failing citizens: When democracies erode form within: fragility, pahtways, and resistance → BACKSLIDING

Democratic backsliding

Incremental erosion of democratic norms and institutions.

Determining a democracy VS no longer a democracy → Not easy, many criteria can be used. Since you start from a democracy, you use the channels of democracy so it needs a lot of qualitative analysis.

• Universe of case (time & geography)

• Which data/indicattor (v-dem liberal democracy index

• Democracy thershold: waht counts as a democracy to begin with?

• Decline threshold: How much drop =”backsliding”?

• When do episodes start/end

• What about recovery afterward

• Do we exclude extraordinary things (coups)

Why is backsliding worth studying?

• Endogenous phenomenon → It comes from the politicians elected.

  • Old worry was: will ne democracies consolidate?

    New worry is now: will establish democracies erode?

    Ex: Poland, Hungary, US…

• Global concern (affects both new and old democracies

Winner's’ dilemma (Rield et al.)

Will election winners resist the temptation to tiult the field and lock in power?

(before it was the losers’ dilemma)

How to resist backsliding

Sources: Proportional rules, strong veto players, independent courts, vibrant civil society

Strategies: Broad opposition coalitions, depolarizing narratives, early coordinated action.

Pathways of backsliding

4th step is that the resilience and recovery (but it happens rarely lol)

They are not mutually exclusive, several

Executive agrandizement

Elected leaders use formally democratic procedures (legislative majorities, constitutitonal amendments, referneda) to centralize power and weaken checks and balances.

≠ coup: Changes are incremental, legalistics, and framed as majoritarian democracy (not an open break with the constitution)

Ex:

• Poland: PiS alters judicial appointment rules, sidelining constitutional checks by legislation

• India: Hindu nationalist appeals delegitimize critics whole power centralizes

• Venezuela: Chavez uses referenda to expend presidential power

Common tactics of executive agrandizzement

• Identify activation (often ethnonationalist): delegitimize courtsn media, oppoistion as “anti-national” or captured by hostile elites

  • Ex: India (Hindu nationalism), Poland (courts cast as post-communist holdovers), Serbia

• Plebiscitary override: Appeal directly to “the people” via referenda to by pass or discipline other institutionss

  • Ex: Venezuela (Chavez), Ecuador

Consequences of executive aggrandizement

• checks are hollowed out while institutions remain on paper

• Incumbent advantage entrenched; opposition access narrowed

• Democratics procedures retaines- but repurposed to reduce accountability

Courts, parliaments, elections still work on paper → but for the incumbent. → that’s why it’s hard to call it “the end of democracy”

Elite collusion

Incumbents entrench power by co-opting other eleites (business owners, media owners, civil society figures, rival politicians) into a pro-incumbent coalition.

Ex:

Hungary (Fidesz gather oligarchs who own media and capture EU funds),

TUrkey (AKP takes over newspapers through rich people pro-AKP buyuing via state-brokered sales),

Russia (oligarchs can thrive economically onyl if they stay politically loyal)

Difference between agrandizement and collusion

Collusion is about concentrating power via BARGAINS and ALLIANCES among elites.

Aggrandizement: power concentrates wia FORMAL RULE CHANGES driven by the executive.

Tactics for elite collusion

• Patronage & corruption: contrcts, jobs, resources, exchanged for loyalty

• Legal takeovers: regulation, licensing, state brokered slaes to capture media/CSOs

• Threats & intimidation: Selective prosecutions, tax audits, investigations

Consequence of elite collusion

• Media, business, civil soceity lose independent; oversign becomes performative

• Opposition co-opted for marginalized; contestation narrows

• An oligarchic cartel concrols policy and access behind intact institutions.

Self-coup (autogolpe)

Democratically elected leader dimanstles or disables existing institutions to conslidate power. It is rapid, and visible (not incremental) because channels of contestation (parliament, courts, electoral bodies) are bypasses/closed outright.

→ SUDDEN RUPTURE (rules are swept aside in one stroke).

It is an OPEN dismantling (the two others keep fake institutitons for la facade)

Ex:

• Peru: Fujimori dissolves congress and the courts to rule by decree

• Tunisia: President Saied suspends parliament and rewrites consitution.

Self-coup: Tactics

• Declare state of emergency; rule by decree

• Suspend or dissolve the legislature and/or courts

• Cancel, suspend or rig elections

• impose a new consituttion ending checks & terms limit

Self-coup: consequences

• Immediate collapse of horizontal accountability

• Opposition sidelined in one decisive move

• Rapid transition toward authoritarian rule

Svolik’s argument

Backsliding comes from citizens because they accept undermocratic behavior if it comes from their party (bc of polarization).

How do voters’ respond to norm violation

3 mechanisms:

• backlash

• vote switching

• disengagement

→

• Citizens weight policy/partisan closeness against the cost of a democratic violation

• The more polarized (the more you love your side) the narrower the “vote-switching” zone (fewer are willing to cross over

Natural experiment of istambul (→ READING FICHE)

Magic ingredient allowing for abcksliding

Polarization → 3 pathways through hcih polarization acts

-       Executive aggrandizement: Voters forgive institutional capture if their side wins

-       Elite collusion: partisan loyalty blunts outrage over corruption and patronage

-       Self-coup: polarization discourages the broad, cross-party coalition needed to defend deocracy.

Sources of democratic resilience (Capacity to withstand, adapt, recover, from shocks without losing democratic quality).

• Highly proportional electoral systems (many veto points)

• Federalism and indepdendent state/local governments

• RUles that protect judicial independence

• Vibrant opposition parties, independen tmedia, active civil society.

• A legacy of pasy reversals of authoritarian to draw on.

Strategies of resistance (and coordination trap)

Choices facing the opposition and pro-democrayc civil soceity

• Institutional (courts, elections) vs extra sinsitution (protest, boycott)

• compete separately vs. build a broad multiparty coalition?

• Highlight the democracy cleavage vs run on performance

• Use polarizing vs depolarizing appeals

Timing problem

Backsliding is incremental, so opposition often recognizes the thrat too late, after 10 years) → making resistence not successful.

Takeaway backsliding

• Backsliding today is incremental, legal and endogenous → the winners’ dilemma not the losers’

• It runs on “ pathways (aggrandizement, collusion, self-coup) that blend in practice

• Elites supply the tactics; polarized publics supply the permission (Svolik)

• Yet outcomes are not predetermined: institutions and politicla agency creates sites of contestation that can hold or recover (South korea, modova, malawi)

→ wealth is not a firewall. Insituttions and coordinated, early resistance are.

PROBLEM 3 - Institutions are failing citizens: Populism, technocracy and institutional trust

Basis of democracy

Trust in institutions and representation through parties and elections.

Visions criticizing these bases of democracy

• Populism

• Technocracy

→ RIVAL VISIONS

Populism

Legitimacy comes from the UNMEDIATED WILL of the people.

Technocracy

Legitimacy from reason, expertise, competence.

Commonalities between populism and democracy

• Anti-pluralism → Both think that there is a single “common good” and thus reject standing opposition → Rejecting party democracy. (Party democracy sees legitimate disagreement, whereas populism and technocracy think there is a single good answer.)

• Both bypass “politics as usual”

• Both delegitimize representative institutions (as corrupt for populism, or incompetent from technocracy)

Same casualty as a consequence of technocracy and populism

Different diagnoses but the same victim → the MEDIATING institutions of party democracy AND the citizens’ trust in these institutions.

Triangular challenge

Representative democracy bridges inclusion (popular will) and competence (expertise). Populism keeps the will but drops mediation; technocracy keeps competence but drops the will. + both populism and technocry remove the pluarlist middle.

Technocratic citizen

Citizens can also have technocratic inclinement (=20% in greece and itlay)

3 pillars of attitude:

1. Expertise: Knowledge can identify the objectively “best” solution

2. elitism: The competent, not the many, should decide

3. Anti-politics: Party competition is divisive and self-serving.

Technocratic citizens attacking democracy

Anti-politics pillar → Directl attacks representative democracy because the technocratic thinks that parties

• Represent particular interests, not the common good

• Electoral cycles reward short-termism

• Over responsiveness to shifting moods; media driven pressure for instant reesults

• Deliberation, parliamentary proceduure, elections = slow, inefficient friction.

→ How is this possible: If there is an objective CORRECT policy → then opposittion is illegitimate because it cannot vote against the trust. PArty democracy’s premise that disgagreement is legitimate → Here, technocrats believe only one answer is possible.

Technopopulism

Fusion of populist appeal to the people with technocratic appeal to expertise.

consequnce: Blurs the lines of legitimacy, further hollowing party competition and accountability.

Ex:

• Emmanuel Macron (LREM): anti-establishment outsider and evidence-based, expert-led, “neither left nor right”.

• Five Star Movement (Italy): “Pure people vs corrupt elites” and digital-platform, technical-competence claims.

What is the consequence of both populism and technocratic

Domestic sytemic corrosion → Both logics erode trust in parties and representative institutions, normalize non-majoritrain alternatives (experts, strong leaders)

→ GRowing support for governance that is less pluralist and less contestable

→ RISK OF DEMOCRATIC BACKSLIDING: not bu coup but by hollowing out the mediating institutions citizens rely on.

Conclusions

Clear systematic threat on party democracy (Caramani 2017, Bertsou et al 2025)

• Both populism and technocracy reject its founding premise (legitimate disagreement, mediated by parties).

• Technocrats do that via anti-politics and populist do it via pure-people/corrupt elite frame

No clear systematic pattern for international organizations (van der Veer and Meibauer)

• Populists don’t reliably tear IOs down

• Technocrats don’t reliably prop them up

• IO (de)legitimation is issue-specific, reactive, and probably domestically strategic, not bound by ideological camps.

Normative implications

• neither vision supplises stable democratic legitimacy; both erode pluralism, contestation and compromise

• Rebuilding trust at home:

1. Transparent, accountable institutions

2. Expertise inside democratic input (not above it)

3. Reinvigorated, repsonsive party competition

• For IOs: if contestation is not ideologically fixed, their authority is more brittle, but also more reformable. Defense and attack are both up for graps.

PROBLEM 4 - Citizens are failing themselves: Voter knowledge deficits and consequences for responsiveness

What’s the requirement for citizens to be considered informed

• Know what they think are going to get

VS

• What they actually get

→ The comparison of the two is a prerequisite to any accountability and information.

Limitations to access information for citizens

• Cost of information gathering (increasing with complexity)

• Cognitive resources for processing and storing information.

→ voter behavior models assume voters have wealth of information at their disposal.

consequence of these barriers to information access?

resort to HEURISTICS when making choices

Heuristics

“Rule of thumb”/mental shortcut strategy that allows us to solve problems and make decisions quickly without sacrificing signficant resources.

Good heuristics is

• Fast and frugal

• Accurate.

→ All heuristics are not good: It can include some mistakes, stereotypes, prejudices.

LEft-right metaphor as heuristic (Fortunato, Stevenson and Vonnahme)

Left-right scale and labels can serve as a heuristic

(Fortunato, Stevenson and Vonnahme → studied this)

Political awareness

The extent to which an individual pays attention to current political events and understands what they have encounterered. (Zaller’s definition)I

Ideological awareness

Extent to which an individual pays attention to, and understands, the issue priorities and policy positions of the political parties that compete in elections and subsequently engage in legislative bargaining.