POLS 0200 Chapter 5: Democracy

Regime

A set of rules, norms, protocols embedded either in formal institutions or informal institutional practices that determine

1. Methods of access to principal public offices

2. Strategies actors can use to gain access to offices

3. Rules than govern making of publicly binding decisions

Extra: Republic vs nonrepublic?

A republic is a form of regime where the state is ruled by representatives of the citizenry and where the head of state isn’t a hereditary monarch.

Can have a democratic republic (US) or dictatorial republic (China)

UK is a democracy, but NOT a republic

Early democracy and demerits

Ancient Greeks saw democracy as rule by the common people with little education and economic independence - pursuing own interests at expense of common good

Aristotle classified democracy as most corrupt form of government - saw aristocracy and monarchy as good —> class rule by least qualified and most self-interested

Democracy and elections in the past

Until the 18th century, democracy was seen as a regime in which offices were distributed by lot (or lottery), not elections

Democracy meant direct participation and legislation, not representative government

Democracy’s suffrage was not even close to being universal; for example, only 5% of the adult UK population was eligible to vote

Democracy was therefore associated with the (futile) attempt to reach consensus

Precursors and transitions to democracy in history

• Moves away from absolutism had previously been motivated by the need to displace bad rulers

The Glorious Revolution in Britain (1688)

• Replaced an unpopular king (James II)

• Gave parliament more power over the monarchy

  The French Revolution (1789)

• Deposed the king

• Local participatory experiments

• Conflict between aristocracy and the people

  The American Revolution (1776) • First nationalist revolution

• Expelled the colonizers (and thereby the King)

Differences between early and modern democracy

Similarity: Rulers forced to seek consent of the people in order to govern

Early: Filling of offices by lottery, not by electing representative government

Modern: Regular holding of competitive elections to elect representative government and leaders

Concept

Mental category or construct that intends to capture the meaning of objects, events, or ideas —> can be abstract and does not physically exist in the world

Operationalization

The process by which we translate a concept into a concrete measure or indicator we can observe

Schmitter and Karl’s definition of modern political democracy

System of governance in which rulers are held accountable for their actions in the public realm by citizens, acting indirectly through the competition and cooperation of their elected representatives

Questions: How to hold accountable? Should all citizens participate?

Minimalist vs substantive view of democracy (basic)

Substantive (OUTCOMES)

• Classifies political regimes with regards to outcomes produced

Minimalist (PROCEDURES)

• Classifies political regimes with regards to procedures and institutions

Dahl’s minimalist/proceduralist view of democracy - all!

2 dimensions:

Contestation: Extent to which citizens can organize themselves into competing blocs to press for policies and outcomes they desire (freedom to form political parties, freedom of speech and assembly)

Inclusion: Extent to which different people are allowed to participate in the democratic process (all adult citizens can vote, barriers to naturalization of immigrants are low)

Two dimensions of democracy graph

• Democracy is a system where representatives of the people are chosen in competitive elections (contestation) with universal suffrage (inclusion)

• Polyarchy is the ideal type and may not exist in real-life

• USA is the closest to the best with high levels of contestation and inclusion

• Soviet Union has high levels of inclusion (everyone can vote), but low levels of contestation (one political party)

Substantive view (detail)

Not only free and fair elections (procedure) —> we need the outcome

Social, political and economic rights should be included in definition for fair and equal participation:

• Protection for human rights and civil liberties

• Egalitarianism: Are all citizens empowered?

• Deliberation: How are decisions reached?

• Judicial independence: Do judges make impartial decisions?

Dahl supports minimalist, why?

Dahl argued that if scholars used normatively derived or substantive definitions of “ideal democracy”—that “true” democracies should rule in certain ways and produce certain outcomes such as economic justice or government accountability—they may find it difficult to find real-world examples of such regimes. For example, ask yourself how many regimes in the world actually produce economic justice. Moreover, if “bad” policy outcomes are produced through a democratic process, on what grounds can we claim that this isn’t democracy?

Measures of democracy (x3)

1. Democracy-Dictatorship (DD) —> Minimalist, binary

2. Polity IV Measure —> Minimalist, continuous

3. Freedom House Measure —> Substantive/maximalist, continuous

Democracy dictatorship measure

Democracy is a regime in which governmental offices are filled as a consequence of contested elections

Only classified (1) if all 4 criteria apply:

1. Chief executive is elected —> UK and Germany fall into definition as they are elected by the winning party

2. Legislature is elected —>  an example of a regime without a legislature could be the Vatican - Pope has overarching control

3. More than one party in elections —> even in dictatorships, some semblance of party contestation is allowed, e.g. in North Korea there is another party, but the ruling party wins by 99.9% of the vote

4. Alternation of power under identical electoral rules has occurred —> after the chief executive loses in election, they have to willingly step down and give their power to the winning party

   (e.g. Kenya —> but other countries which have multiparty elections but always have the same party winning are therefore classified as dictatorships, such as Botswana, which was ruled by same party for almost 60 years until 2024)

If fail —> Dictatorship (0).

Prefers to classify as a dictatorship and be safe rather than as a democracy

Can have scale of being more/less democratic/dictatorial, but not like Dahl who has more dictatorial —> more democratic

Debate between maximalist and minimalist democracy view

Focusing on the institutions that create, e.g. a free and fair election

• US → from the minimalist perspective, a strong democracy as very inclusive and open to contestation

• US is thought of as one of the best democracies in the world, but from a maximalist perspective, it is not → around half the population disagrees with the current administration and policies, therefore it would not be a democracy as classified by the maximalist definition

• Therefore, the minimalist definition could be sufficient → maybe having free and fair elections is already sufficient in defining a strong democracy, as inevitably, a democracy does not create the optimal outcome for all people due to its very nature in allowing people to reach a consensus and express their opinions 

• There is a validity in measuring how satisfied citizens are with the procedures of an election 

Another good example: Kenya! Elected very democratically, but problem is many youth are dissatisfied - protests

Pros and cons of democracy debate

Democracy cons:

• Inefficient - slow at making decisions compared to a dictatorship, where a singular voice makes decisions compared to having to collect a consensus and go through long administrative processes

Democracy pros:

• Inefficiency and slowness of democracy may be deliberate - making the process slower to collect consensus, allowing for debate and opposition between the House and the Senate, encouraging actors to make deliberate decisions

Polity IV measure

Measures of democracy and autocracy on continuous scale

• Democracy and autocracy score (0-10)

• Polity score = demo-auto, higher = more democratic

Criteria:

1. Competitiveness of executive recruitment

2. Openness of executive recruitment

3. Regulation of political participation.

4. Competitiveness of political participation

5. Executive constraints

Freedom House measure

Measures democracy and autocracy on a continuous scale based on two category scores - political and civil rights

• Political rights: Electoral process, political pluralism and participation, functioning of government

• Civil rights: Freedom of expression and belief, associational and organizational rights, rule of law, personal autonomy and individual rights 
  

  Like Dahl: Also continuous scale, free, partly free (mixed), not free etc

Singapore is classified as partly free and more of dictatorship as governing party has been in power for a long time 

Compare the three measures of democracy/dictatorship

Continuous measure can show changes in the political climate → not full blown changes, but slight political shifts

e.g. Kenya in 2000 —> DD says it is a dictatorship (0), while Polity IV says it is hybrid (-2)