POLS 229 Reading

Chapter: The Making and Breaking of Governments -Michael Laver

--differences between Head of State, Presidents, Prime Ministers (6-7)

• Head of State– either a traditional monarch or a president of the republic, is the “first citizen” sitting above the three branches of government

• President–  the roles of chief executive and head of state are combined in a single office 

• The Prime Minister– in a parliamentary system (Chancellor in Germany and Austria) is the chief executive of the country, presiding over, as well as hiring and firing, a cabinet of senior politicians who between them head the executive branch.

--how chief executives get to power in presidential vs. parliamentary governments (9-10)

• Presidential Gov–  countries where people choose their chief executive in direct elections. This means the chief executive, typically a president, is responsible to the people, not to any other elected body. Directly elected presidents almost always serve for a fixed term. Removing them from office mid-term typically involves an onerous impeachment process, for what in the United States are called “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Almost invariably, therefore, the only realistic way to replace a sitting elected president is at the next presidential election.

• Parliamentary Gov– the democratically elected legislature, often called the parliament, both chooses and can dismiss the chief executive. There is no popular election for this position. A general election serves two distinct purposes. The first is direct: to elect a new legislature whose job is to legislate, to pass new laws and amend old ones. The second purpose is indirect, but much more important: to elect a set of legislators who then go on to choose a chief executive, the prime minister, and a government. For this reason, we can think of a fusion of powers between legislature and executive in parliamentary democracies.

--“motion of no confidence” (10)

• In a parliamentary system, a crucial procedural device means that the executive is responsible to — serves at the pleasure of — the elected lower house of the legislature, which has the power to dismiss the government at any time. This device is the legislative motion of no confidence in the executive. 

• It is a motion and corresponding vote in an assembly (usually a legislative body) as to whether an officer (typically an executive) is deemed fit to continue to occupy their office.

--“formateur” (16)

• A formateur (French for "someone who forms, who constitutes") is a politician who is appointed to lead the formation of a coalition government, after either a general election or the collapse of a previous government.

• Once triggered, the precise government formation process differs from country to

country. In some countries, the constitution specifies this very precisely. In Greece, for example, Article 37 of the constitution mandates that the leader of the largest party after an election has three days to form a government. In the language of political science this person is the designated formateur in the government formation process.

--office-seeking vs policy-seeking politicians (18-19)

• Office-seeking politicians–  assumed to be only interested in enjoying the spoils/benefits of office 

• Policy-seeking politicians– are interested only in influencing public policy in line with their private policy preferences. 

• Most politicians likely fall between these two extremes, being interested in both the perks of office and government policy. This typically involves a trade-off, for example giving up a pet project as the price of getting into office.

--minimum winning coalition (21)

• Basically the fewest number of parties you need to maintain a legislative majority in a parliamentary system.

• Winning in the sense that its members control a legislative majority. 

• It is minimal in the sense that every member of the coalition is needed to control that majority. There is no surplus member whose votes do not make the difference between winning and losing a majority vote in the legislature to support the government.

--“proportionality norm” (32)

• Made for allocating cabinet positions between the different government parties

• The norm is that each government party gets a share of seats in the cabinet in proportion to its share of the total legislative seats controlled by all government parties.

Chapter Media and Political Communication-Christian Vaccari

--what does political communication focus on (4)

Political communication studies how politicians, the media, and citizens interact with one another to pursue their goals, how these processes bestow power and influence on different groups and actors, and how these processes strengthen or weaken democracy.

--major sources of news info (5-6)

Television, the internet, and social media, mostly accessed via m mobile devices rather than computers

--4 types of journalistic cultures (8-9)

1. Monitors: journalists see themselves as independent from politics and responsible for keeping the public informed. Journalists can control which stories they want to cover without revealing their views. Typically, political influences have less of a standing on the media compared to journalists as they are the mediators, not role players in the political field. Found in nations and areas with free media (North America, Australia, Western Europe, and Japan) 

2. Advocates: News coverage is covered based on the ideas and what journalists and media outlets advocate for. Thus, these outlets are less of an independent source and journalists have low levels of trust in the government, many times because countries transitioned to democracy. 

3. Agents of Development: The media oftentimes collaborates with the State, but it can sometimes focus on empowering and educating citizens. Journalists see themselves as active participants in their culture, and act as agents of development by advocating for political and social change

4. Collaborative Partners: Journalists act as a medium between the State and the citizens. Sometimes, the media collaborates with the government in producing propaganda, and are heavily controlled by the government. Particularly in China, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, the media is held responsible for helping the government achieve unity with the people,

--what are public service media (PSM) (11-13)

• Broadcasters that are owned or closely regulated by the state, not major media companies. The most famous example is the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which was founded as a radio broadcaster in 1922 with the mission “to inform, educate, and entertain.” PSM receive some guaranteed funding from the State (either directly via the Treasury or indirectly via license fees that all citizens owning a TV must pay every year) and are thus less dependent on revenues from advertising and other sources, although many PSM rely on a mixture of public and commercial sources of income.

• PSM are also more heavily regulated, whether by law or service contracts that bind them to achieve goals of impartiality, inclusivity, and diversity in their programming.

•  Public service media tend to be stronger (in terms of the audiences they attract and the amount of funding they receive) in Western European countries such as Germany, Denmark, and the UK.

• Across most of Western Europe, PSM are widely popular and trusted, usually more so

than commercial media organizations. 

• Japan and Canada also have strong PSMs, modeled after the BBC. 

• In Latin America, public broadcasters are widespread but are often used as instruments of the governments of the day to advance their agendas instead of serving all citizens. 

--how do PSMs differ from “state media” (13-14)

1. Similar to PSM, state broadcasters are owned by the state; but unlike PSM, they mostly target foreign audiences and aim to promote their country’s, or their government's, image and worldwide outlook.

2. State media are instruments of public diplomacy, which entails states’ attempts to affect public opinion in other states to achieve foreign policy goals. The largest of these state broadcasters is the BBC World Service, which broadcasts news in 45 different languages from all continents and reaches nearly 300 million people per week globally.

--how do social media platforms and messaging apps differ (17-18)

Social media platforms:

• Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest mainly allow us to learn about and exchange information with a relatively broad and diverse group of users — including our friends, family and acquaintances as well as public figures, brands, companies, celebrities, news organizations, and, occasionally, politicians.

• Communication is public and can potentially reach wider audiences

Messaging Apps:

• Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Telegram, and WeChat allow us to maintain connections with closer networks of friends, family, co-workers, and people with whom we share specific interests (such as those with whom we play sports). 

• Communication is private and rarely reaches beyond its intended audience. Communications are often encrypted, meaning that companies can’t see the messages

--what is a “micro-targeting tool” (23)

Example: A/B testing: using social media ads to show many different versions of an ad to randomly selected subsets of their target groups and assess their effects based on how users respond (such as by clicking on a link, signing up to a list, donating money, and so forth). 

A/B testing is an example of a micro-targeting tool which:

1. Allows the targeting of users, meaning that specific messages are designed for and delivered to specific users

2. Micro-targeting is “micro” because it can differentiate among individuals, based on specific data on particular characteristics: including the issues in which they are interested, the kinds of news they tend to consume, their personality traits, and the political orientation of other people with whom they are connected. 

Chapter Regimes and Transitions—Monika Nalepa

--three criticisms of early definition of “democracy” (6)

1. First, it is pretty thin. Notice that of all functions performed by democracy, the one relevant to this definition is simply conceding after having lost an election. What about the provision of public goods, what about universal suffrage, what about contestation, and participation? All of these points figure prominently in “thicker” definitions of democracy; see for example political scientist Robert Dahl’s take on democracy which is discussed later in this section

2. Second, what if the incumbent is so popular or so good at his or her job that they keep getting reelected to office in fair elections and as a result never have a reason to leave office? Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has ruled in this way almost continuously for decades, from 1955 to this day.

3. Third, being willing to step down upon losing elections does not in itself ensure

accountability. We could imagine a system where every four years there is a coin toss and when it turns up tails, the incumbent steps down and is replaced with the opposition, whereas if it turns heads, she stays in office. In other words, nothing in this rule ensures that the ruler has the legitimacy to hold power.

--what are Dahl’s TWO criteria for democracy (7)

1. Contestation refers to who is allowed to compete for office. For instance, in some

single-party regimes, only candidates of the ruling party are allowed to compete in elections. In Iran, religious leaders vet candidates before they are allowed to participate in elections. 

2. Participation refers to the inclusiveness of the voting process, that is, how many people are allowed to vote? Even as late as the mid-1900s, many otherwise democratic countries failed on this second dimension. For instance, in Switzerland, women were not fully permitted to vote in national elections until 1971. 

--what is “polyarchy” (8)

• Polyarchy: ​​the form of government with the highest level of contestation and the highest

level of participation which is a combination of the Ancient Greek words for “many” and “power.” The etymology is hence similar to that of democracy, save for the latter representing rule of the “people.”

--types of “hegemonies” (9)

1. Inclusive hegemonies: Countries in the lower right corner allow for broad voting

but control tightly who is allowed to run for office. Most single-party regimes, such as the socialist republics of the Soviet Block in the second half of the 20th century, fit this description well, as only candidates put forward by the communist party could hold executive office. Currently, Putin’s Russia is a clear example of an inclusive hegemony: all Russian citizens can vote, but people like Navalny who pose a threat to Putin can be forbidden from running for office.

2. When inclusive hegemonies liberalize their restrictions on who is allowed to run for office, their move along the vertical axis of Figure 1 is referred to as “liberalization.” Fully liberalized inclusive hegemonies are polyarchies.

3. Finally, in the lower left corner are closed hegemonies, that is countries that are neither

inclusive nor contestable. There are very few such polities and, due to their exclusive and hard to contest nature, we know very little about them. We will talk about these kinds of states more in the next section. North Korea, however, clearly fits this description. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s grip on power is so tight and his regime so exclusive that out of fear of contestation, in 2013 he had his uncle, Jang Song-thaek assassinated. There are also many historical examples of closed hegemonies. Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany fits the definition.

--what are “anocracies” (10)

• Anocracies: mixed, or incoherent, authority regimes, between the two extremes of fully institutionalized autocracies and fully consolidated democracies. With these classifications in mind, the scores can then be translated into categories with "autocracies" ranging from -10 to -6, "anocracies” ranging from -5 to +5, and "democracies" ranging from +6 to +1

--what are the 5 VDem indexes of democracy (11)

1. The electoral democracy index addresses the question “To what extent is the idea of electoral democracy in its fullest sense achieved?” It takes a weighted average of answers to questions measuring freedom of association, freedom of expression, the integrity of elections, the eligibility criteria for elected officials, and the breadth of suffrage. 

2. The liberalism index addresses the question “To what extent is the ideal of liberal

democracy achieved?” It too is a weighted average of answers to more specific questions, but this time questions focus on constitutionally protected civil liberties, such as freedom of speech or freedom of the press, the power of the rule of law, judicial independence, and other checks and balances capable of limiting executive power.

3. The participation index addresses the question “To what extent is the ideal of

participatory democracy achieved?” and evaluates to what extent the democratic system allows citizens direct rule as opposed to delegating power to representatives. It focuses on citizens’ engagement with civil society as well as questions related to subnational elected bodies.

4. The deliberation index addresses the question “To what extent is the ideal of

deliberative democracy achieved” and uses questions that focus on whether democratic decisions are reached through a back-and-forth process between persons open to persuasion rather than by simply reflecting pre-existing preferences. 

5. The egalitarianism index addresses the question “To what extent is the ideal of

egalitarian democracy achieved” and focuses on the extent to which material, as well as informal inequalities, may inhibit citizens’ participation in democracy. For instance, if politicians are more responsive to citizens who are large campaign donors, this diminishes ​​​​​​​​​​the quality of democratic representation experienced by citizens who cannot afford to donate large sums of money.

(The rest of this chapter will be used for later exams)

Chapter Political Parties and Party Systems—Tim Haughton

--Types of parties (5-7)

• Elite parties– the very limited amount of people that had a say in politics,  performed the functions of political parties like the aggregation of interests and the development of policy programs, often claimed to be driven by national interest but had a very limited view about who constituted as “the nation” 

• Mass parties– differ from elite parties in terms of numbers: both the numbers of those involved in the parties and for whom the parties seek to speak, is linked to the representative function of political parties

• Catch-all parties–  parties that broadened their appeals and downplayed or deemphasized the party’s rhetoric that it is representing a particular section of society. Always done to appeal to a wider set of voters

• Electoral-professional parties– parties that have increased use of political professionals such as pollsters, media consultants and advertising gurus, uses expertise to achieve the goals

• Cartel parties– parties that were more focused on governing rather than representing, and where professional expertise (such as hired consultants) were privileged over political experience and activism. Key to the changes and some of the focus of cartel parties was money and employing the resources of the state to limit political competition and ensure their own electoral success

• Business firm party– a type of political party that is centered on a charismatic political entrepreneur, most often created by that person to further their own interests, modeled by Donald Trump, characterized by light organization, clear hierarchy, and dominance of the leader 

• Social movement parties–  grew out of movements in society often protesting against harsh economic conditions or the perceived unfairness of the remedies to economic problems.

--parties’ “three faces” (9)

• Party on the ground– members, party branches in communities, and so on

• Party in central office– the national headquarters

• Party in public office– i.e., in parliament or government

--three reasons people join parties (10)

•  Material motivations– membership might offer the chances of landing a (good) job

• Sense of solidarity– following their friends or others in their community

• “purposive” incentive–  i.e., a strong attachment to the party’s aims, objectives, and policies. This is often characteristic of the more active members who tend to be more radical

--two dimensions of party ideology (11-13)

• the left-right economic scale and a values scale contrasting conservative with liberal views of culture, morality, and the nation

• Political ideologies have two dimensions: (1) goals: how society should be organized; and (2) methods: the most appropriate way to achieve this goal.

--what do populist parties stand for (13)

• Populist parties often focus on appeals around anti-corruption, celebrity, the personal characteristics of their leader, and their “newness.”

•  Most populist parties believe that society can be divided into the pure people and the corrupt elite and that the populist party is representing the interests of the former. 

• “The people”

--types of party systems (16-17)

• Multi-party systems– several parties compete for office and influence over policy. Some of those parties will be major players in their country’s politics competing for the post of prime minister; others will be smaller parties battling for influence and for the chance to be part of the government. With so many parties competing, it is rare for a single party to win enough votes to govern alone. Rather, parties group together to form coalitions.

• Dominant party systems– In these dominant systems, one large party wins an absolute majority of seats for protracted periods of time 

• Party system institutionalization– characterized by a stable set of parties that interact in stable ways. Such party systems are predictable: Parties, voters, and other organized actors expect the patterns of interaction to continue prevailing into the future. The predictability and stability of the party system can help reinforce the stability of the democratic system and the development of public policy designed for the long-term. Weakly institutionalized systems “are the breeding grounds for populist outsiders” who have sometimes used their ascent to power to dismantle democratic institutions; examples include Alberto Fujimori in Peru, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, and Rafael Correa in Ecuador.

--path dependency (22)

• Path dependent processes suggest that at one point (what is usually labeled a critical juncture) decisions are made that set the process on a particular path with “self-reinforcing or positive feedback processes” that helps to lock-in developments making it hard to reverse or change direction.

•  Incumbents have significant advantages. Not only can incumbents play on their experience, links with key international actors, and tinker (or sometimes manipulate) the system in their favor, they also benefit from the state-centric nature of economies, and the resultant ability to disburse state contracts and positions to their allies and supporters.

--clientelism (25)

• Partisanship– the strong attachment voters have to particular parties linked to the party’s values and its stance on a range of issues

•  In some cases, the ties between voters and parties can be seen as more transactional or “clientelistic” in which favorable treatment and prioritization of particular groups are offered in return for continued support.

--challenger parties (26)

• Challenger parties are those parties that have not yet held the reins of power.

• Populist parties can be seen as a type of challenger parties

--electoral volatility (27)

• In order to capture the extent of change in electoral politics and by extension in

patterns of party politics political scientists have developed a number of measures. Electoral volatility is the most common.

• The degree of change in voting behavior between elections.

--anti-system parties (32)

• Many mainstream parties had become disconnected from wider society leading to a disengagement of citizens, which fuels support for anti-establishment and anti-system parties. 

•  Some of these parties may help remove corrupt and incompetent politicians from power, rouse the established parties out of their complacency, and re engage citizens. 

• But they may alternatively just provide vehicles for an ego trip, raise expectations that get dashed and may further erode faith in democracy.