Comparative Politics Midterm
Session 1
Four spaces of political science
August 16th 2024
Political theory
Ethical and foundational ideas that are left here
International Relations
Politics between countries and intercorporation
Terrioism
International relations can have an impact on domestic events
American politics
Elections
Political parties
US Media
Federalism
Power between states
The study of politics within the United States
International politics and its influence on American ideals
Comparative Politics
Study of politics within countries
American Politics influence comparative politics
Democratic backsliding and erosion
Global trends reflected in American politics
What is CP?
Comparative Politics: The study of politics within countries to try and understand political phenomena
Questions
Why are some countries democracies and other dictatorships
Transition from dictatorship to democracy
Why some countries experience civil war
Things of Note
Broad questions with the goal of understanding broad political phenomena that explains many different countries around the world → applying universal
Focus on cause and effect
Informs policy solutions → ex: you’re more likely to get civil war with areas with less government funded job opportunities - countries need to put their focuses there
CP is about trying to answer broad, causal questions by comparing one or more counties or cases
Example
Arab Springs protests (2011)
Sparked political revolution - toppling multi decade dictatorships causing them to fall
Outbreak of Syrian Civil war (opposition still in major power)
What were the causes of this event?
Economic differences between a higher class with major wealth vs. poor citizens
Oppressive government
Young citizenship who struggled to get jobs - resulting in further economic disparity
Democratic backsliding after Arab Springs
Case Study: Egypt - Democratic backsliding
Fall of a 20+ year dictatorship Feb. 2011
Military SCARF assume control → hold first democratic elections - Marsi elected 2012
Marsi - begins presenting Muslim agenda (goes against the secular nature the people wanted), attacks journalists and free speech, helping other muslim political leaders
Military comes back to take over resulting Sisi to be elected → all democratic achievements collapse
2019: Egypt passes law saying Sisi can stay in power until 2030 (removing all democratic actions)
Causes of Revolution Failure in Egypt
The Military
Deep State - the military controls 30% of the economy and controls almost everything behind the scenes
Put their own candidates in power
Islamist Party
Muslim brotherhood that came in unprepared to oversee the democratic changes
Economic downturn
Economic upheaval that resulted unsolved
Corruption
Compare and Contrast Egypt and Tunisia
Egypt → revolution failure, economic downturn, powerful military, islamic party - uncompromising
Tunisia → Revolution (initial) success, economic downturn, military weak, Islamic party - compromising
Therefore military occupation and role of Islamic party plays major role in the transition in democracy
How Islamic parties chose to run their counties influences the results → willing to compromise with secular ideas and people
Session 2
Comparative Politics & The Scientific Method
August 29th 2024
Scientific Method
Identify a question or puzzle
Why did democratic revolutions fall in some Arab Spring Countries but succeed in others?
Develop a theory
A proposed explanation for how cause lead to an effect
A cause = an independent variable (explanatory variable)
An effect = a dependent variable (outcome variable)
Ex: Powerful militaries cause democratic revolutions to fail IV: Powerful Military DV: Democratic revolutions (inductive theory)
Good theories → simplified explanation, develops the because, the mechanism, “a cause leads to an effect by/because”, Inductive or deductive
Inductive → observation of the world
Deductive → thoughtful “what would happen if…?” reasoning through first principles
State Testable Hypothesis
A statement derived from the theory, that can be tested
Theory Ex: Powerful militaries cause democratic revolutions ot fail because they try and prevent institutional change that jeopardizes their power
Hypotheses: Countries with powerful militaries
Have to falsifiable (able to disproved with evidence)
Tautology (true by definition cannot be falsifiable)
Test Hypothesis
Types of Data:
Qualitative: Interviews archival research, focus groups, news stories
Quantitative: Numerical measures of powerful military and democratic revolution across countries & over time
Evaluate Results
Does Data confirm your hypothesis or not
Pick cases that are outside where you got your theory from
You want to test cases that hold constant factors that might also contribute to the outcome
Method of difference:
To fine evidence for cause and effect → study the relationship between your treatment and outcome and holding all other factors that could impact outcome constant
Treatment group:
Session 3
Mill's Method of difference:
ID terms welcome module
Review
State, Governments, regimes
A state: An organized political community under one government
A government: A system or institutions by which a state is governed
A regime: The type of government that controls the state
Weak or Failed States
Lack of governmental control
Lack of territorial control
The Case of Somalia
1960 Independence
1969: Military coup brings Siad Barre to power → abolishes constitution, nationalizes the economy, goes to war with ethiopia
1991: Baree ousted by warlords Mohamed Farah Aideed and Ali Mahdi Mohamed
Unpopular from the people
State failure → Civil war, large civilian death and displacement
UN and US become involved → met with major violence and resistance so they leave
State Failure
Famine → disruption of agriculture and food production (major repeated food crisis)
Territorial Insecurity → Somaliland declared independence from broad Somalia, Puntland declares independence, weak government in the capital
International Security threat → governed informally by Islamist group, active force of violence, targets in Kenya (who was trying to protect and support Somalia), Mall attacks, illegal piracy
Somalia Today
2012: gov established its first unelected parliament and president
2013: US recognizes Somali government
2016: First parliamentary elections since 1984
2017: Indirect elections for president
2021-2022: New indirect parliament and presidential elections
2024: plans to allow direct universal suffrage and transition to a presidential system
Indirect election: members of parliament chose who the president/leaders were going to be
Key part of a working gov: when the incumbent leader actually steps down
Definition of a state:
“A human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of the physical force within a given territory”
Monopoly on the use of force
Must have geographic boundaries and exercise control over those boundaries
Within a given territory the state is the only entity that can use physical force or the threat of physical force to maintain power
Legal force, military force, taxation, military draft
Taxation: penalization for not paying taxes (IRS arrests)
State exists when there is one entity that can exhibit force and power
Recognized by the international community as the legitimate entity and legitimately seen as the leader in charge
Sometimes other entities are considered the leaders making the government to loose their legitimacy over power
The Contractarian View of the State
State emerged as a form of mutually beneficial social contract between the people and the state.
Hobbs → what it would be like to live in a state of nature (world without government) → every man against every man
Everyone becomes vulnerable to be taking advantage of others → constant incentive towards evil
Answer: Nasty, brutish and short → there needs to be a common power
Deductive theory
State as Cooperation enforcer
States provide public goods
National defense
Regulatory systems
Well-fare
Education
Courts and justice systems
Roads
Rule of law
Public goods:
Non-excludable: people cannot be excluded from using it
Non-rival: One person’s use of it does diminish another person’s use
Free rider: Someone who uses the good/service without paying for the cost of the benefit
Weak v. Strong States
Strong States
Control over territory
Effective threat of force/coercion
Capacity to collect taxes
Capacity to provide needed goods and service
Weak States
Limited control over territory
Limited ability to use force
Limited capacity to collect taxes
Limited capacity to provide needed goods services
Early Modern Europe
Fighting over territory
Multiple feudal lords (instead of one distinct gov)
Darwinist military competition
Constant threat of being taken over resulted in strong desire to build internal capacities
Four types of capacity building: War-making, State-making, protection, extraction
War-making → neutralizing outside territory
State-making → neutralizing internally
Protection → standing military
Extraction → taxation
Two Views of the State
Contraction View (Hobbes)
People give up autonomy for security
Social Contract
States enforce cooperation among individuals (security, public goods)
Predatory View (Tilly)
Rulers want to extract resources from citizens to strengthen themselves
Racketeers
States are unintended byproduct of war
Quasi-Voluntary Compliance
Why states are not purely oppressive…
Popular resistance
Constant coercion is hard
Ruler have incentive to make concessions
These incentives result in a social contract
Quasi-Voluntary Compliance: When Citizens comply with the demands and laws of the stat in part voluntarily (e.g because they are getting something from the state in return) and in part because of the state’s coercive power)
Session 4
The Making of a Weak State
Focus question: If the contraction and predatory view both explain strong states, why are there so many weak states?
Lots of variation in State strength and capacity
Measures in The Fragile States Index
Confidence in state institutions
Presence of basic state functions
Uneven economic development
Internal security threats to a state
External intervention in a state
Fragmentation of state institutions along ethnic, social lines
Ability to handle refugees and migrants
Explanation 1: Jackson & Rosberg
Empirical states: States that meet Weber’s definition → exists in reality and meets the criteria
Weak states occur from international laws
International laws and shifting norms that create states that do not have the ability to develop as strong states like Western Europe (Europe v Africa)
Strong European states were born out of darwinism military tactics
European powers wrote the laws → resulting in that being written in international laws
European colonies begin independence movements
Weak states were born out of the imperialism that took place
Judicial States: (Jackson & Rosberg) States that do not meet Weber’s definition but were granted statehood not international law
Characteristics of Judicial States
Do nor project power to borders
Are weak internally, dominated bt personal ties not strong institutions
Weak externally
International conflict is more common than conflict between countries
Military invasions → but these weak v strong countries are not supposed to fight each other
Taxation → allows people to be able to take an active role in their gov.
Dependent on foreign aid → do not rely on taxes (so they don’t have to tax their population allowing citizens to have a role in their government) they rely on foreign aid and natural resources
With the absence of taxation the cycle of allowing people to join have an active role in their gov does not exist
Explanation 2 Herbst: Territorial Boundaries were Irrelevant
Europe
Densely populated
Many urban centers
Low supplies of land → territory was valuable
Africa
Lower population density
Inhospitable climate → territory not valuable
Huge land mass w low population
Result
African leaders did not have the same incentives as European rules to control territory
They pursued a logic of governance and control over territory
States/Kingdoms existed in Africa with the same things we associate European states with in what is present day Republic of Congo
However European imperialism and slave trade resulted in these democracies to be undone by colonization
Why did some former colonies develop strong and effective states after independence while others did not?
Reaction to Covid-19
Does state capacity explain cross-national variation in covid deaths?
Were covid-realted deaths lower in countries with more state capacity?
Group Notes:
A major factor included political rhetoric & governmental trust → Countries may have strong democracies but they lack governmental trust
China → focus on community and public goods - which resulted in a better outcome in covid
Explaining Covid Mortality
State Capacity
Executive Capacity
State fragility → countries with high levels of state fragility have worse covid outcomes
Bureaucratic Capacity
Pandemic preparedness (previous exposure to epidemics) → countries that have already head pandemics should have higher bureaucratic capacity, willingness of these institutions to take action
Institutional Trust
Coercive capacities of governments (China has mass governmental control)
Political rhetoric (making the issue of covid political)
High levels of institutional trust = people are willing to voluntarily comply with pandemic restrictions
Other Explanations
Veto players
Centralized - decision making
Democratic institutions
Proportional representation
Media independence
Natural resource dependence
Electoral pressures
Populism
Ideology
Women leaders
Ethnic diversity
Interpersonal trust
Session 5
The effect of State capacity on covid morality
DV → Deaths IV → State Capacity
Alternative Explanations (Populism, democracy, women leaders etc.)
Interpreting results:
4 categories of state capacity: government effectiveness, state fragility, public sector corruption, institutional trust
Dashed line in middle → indicates the variable may have no effect
Black square the effect of government on covid mortality
On the right of the dashed line → increasing covid mortality
On the left of the dashed line → decreasing covid mortality
Black → controlling for alternative explanation gray → only looking at relationship for two variables without control
Confidence interval (the lines) we can be 95% confident that the true result is in that range
Main Results:
Government Effectiveness associated with few deaths (first two periods)
Institutional trust associated with fewer deaths (big effect across all four periods)
Prior Pandemic Exposure (Bureaucratic capacity) associated with fewer deaths
→ State Capacity matters!
→ strong correlation with interpersonal trust mattering
Regimes
What is Democracy? A state in which people have the freedom to participate in fair and free elections, are enticed to their own natural rights and citizens have an active role in their own government.
Qualities of Democracy
Representative
Responsive
Inclusive
efficient/effective*
Transparent
Accountable
Conceptualization of Democracies
Conceptualization: the process of clarifying a concept with words or examples to arrive at a precise definition
Role of elections
Election: a formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office
Help people select ‘good’ politicians
→ agree with our policy views, take an active role, fulfill their duties
Disciplining ‘bad’ politicians
Elections exist because it force politicians to stay accountable in order to be reelected
Procedural definition (schumpeter): Emphasizes the institutions and procedures, a system of government in which positions of power are filled through a competitive struggle for the people’s vote
Democracy requires Dahl’s Polyarchy: The continuing responsiveness of the government ot the preferences of its citizens, considered as political equals Three necessary conditions for democracy
Formulate preferences → we don’t have to know but we have the freedom to develop our preferences
Signify their preferences → protest, writing letters, social media
Have preferences weighted equally →
Dahl’s 8 institutional guarantees: freedom to organize, freedom of expression, right to vote, right of leaders to compete for votes, alternative sources of info, eligibility for public office
Dahl’s two dimensions: public contestation & participation
Contestation: The extent to which individuals are free to organize themselves into competing blocks
Participation: Who gets to participate in the democratic process (inclusivity)
Key takeaways: 2 Important dimensions, these dimensions vary independently, pure democracies and pure non-democracies are ideal types, real world countries exist somewhere in between
Session 6
September 16th 2024
Defining Democracy Przeworski
Four Criteria: for high contestation
Chief executive must be elected (either directly or indirectly by citizens)
Legislature must be elected
There must be more than one party
There must be at least one alternation in power
Three Necessary conditions for Contestation
Ex ante uncertainty
there is some probability the members of ruling party will lose
Ex Poste irreversibility
the results of the elections cannot be reversed
Repeatability
Elections have to be held multiple times (cannot come in by democratic means and then change the rules)
Dahal: Democracy is a continuum (scale from non-democracy, Democracy)
Przeworski: Democracy is binary (non-democracy or democracy)
North Korea: Has a constitution however this is misleading since they have one political party with a totalitarian familial political party
Tactics:
Ideology
Cult of personality
Massive military/cultural events
Totalitarian Regimes v. Authoritarian Regime
Totalitarian regime: Uses ideology to motivate people and ensure control, limits social and political pluralism
Both: Uses coercion (threat of punishment) to ensure control
Authoritarian Regime: Limits political pluralism
Four Types of Authoritarian Regimes:
Monarchic Dictatorship
Autocracy where executive holds power bases on hereditary family networks
Military dictatorships
Effective head of gov is current or former armed forces
Single person or military groups (juntas)
Dominant Party Dictatorships
Civilian dictatorships government by a single political party controlling all insulation (china)
Personalistic Dictatorships
Built around a cult of personality & the worshiping of one leader
Session 7
September 19th 2024
Electoral Authoritarianism
Electoral authoritarianism: Leaders hold elections and tolerate some pluralism and interparty competition but also violate minimal democratic norms so they cannot be classified as democracies.
Two Types:
Hegemonic electoral regime: Incumbent holds elections but they win but such a large majority that no contestation
Competitive authoritarian regimes: Opposition parties win majority of seats and office but never win enough to take over the legislature (and remove the incumbent) → there is contestation but it does not remain competitive enough
Only 5 countries don’t have active elections
Many non-democratic countries hold elections
Elections are not sufficient criteria to consider a country a democracy
Maintaining control:
Keeping a winning coalition happy → dictators need it to stay in power
Hold controlled elections
Why hold controlled elections? → legitimacy, buy political support, co-opt opposition, safe venue for political discontent
Measuring Democracy/Dictatorship
A measure: Quantifies the concept that we are interested in, enable systematic comparison across countries or within countries over time
Conceptualization: The act of defining and specifying what we mean by a concept or a term
Measurementment: The assignment of numbers to concepts
Good measures are…
Valid → the measure correspond to the concept (has construct validity)
Reliable → the measure can produced consistently
Reliable not valid → able to reliably get data but not close to concept
Valid but not reliable → all over the place
Valid & Reliable → close to concept and proves what you are saying
Session 8
September 23 2024
Democratization in England
Monarch (Stuart monarchy) → engaged in constant warfare
High taxation to pay for warfare → revolution
Glorious revolution → Parliament asserts supremacy over the monarchy, first case of citizen control over monarchy
Democratization in England II
Industrial revolution → urbanization, political organization, income inequality, growing middle class
Major reforms → Reform act of 1832, 1867: second reform act 1948: universal adult suffrage
Emergence of a middle class
Consequences:
Gradual democratization:
Democracy → greater redistribution (public goods, populists policies)
Democracy → greater redistribution
Transfer of income, wealth, property from some individuals to others
Achieved through taxes and transfers
Modernization Theory
What: Economic development and modernization/industrialization cause countries to transition to democracy and remain democratic → inevitably going to happen in countries with major economic change
Why
Society becomes more complex
Urbanization and social mobilization
Growing political power
Middle class
Critiques
Eurocentric
Too general
Can't explain outliers like China, Saudi Arabia
Overlooks elite strategy
If Elites lose power by expanding the franchise, why would they ever do this?
Elites have two options:
Repress: No democratization of democratization by revolution
Concede: Gradual democratization (w/o revolution)
Benefit: an advantage or profit gained from achieving or obtaining something
Cost: the effort loss or sacrifice necessary to achieve or obtain something
Option 1: Repress
When benefits- costs of repression > the benefits minutes costs of democratization
Option 3: Democratize
When the benefits - cost of democratization > the benefits minus costs of repression
Main takeaways
Economic modernization → pressure for democratization
Need also to consider the role of elites → democracy is often a decision by elites
Elites can choose repression or democratization
Democratization is not inevitable
Elites weigh the costs/benefits of democratization v repression
We need to identity the factors that affect these costs and benefits
Session 9
September 26 2024
Modernization theory:
Industrialization → many social changes
Social changes → pressure for democratization (franchise expansion)
Critique: Democratization is not inevitable. Elites choose repression or democratization - what drives that choice?
Democratization in South Africa
1948 Apartheid officially introduced
1970s economy boomed and south africa became relatively rich (no democracy)
1994: First democratic elections won by Nelson Mandela and the ANC
Under apartheid Black south africans were put in ten small tribes
Denied right to vote
Extremely poor
White africans only made up 20% but owned most land and had the most rights and social welfare
Repression of Black south africans → not allowed to form unions, live in white areas, not allowed to make political parties (violently suppressed)
1960s declared the ANC illegal
Lots of funding to south african police force to uphold repression
Apartheid ends in 1990s
Asmogo and Robinson
Early years: 1940s-1970s
Net benefits of repression > democratization
High inequality
White elites worried about land redistribution → worried about democratization would mean they would have to redistribute land
Wealth was land dependent → didn’t want to give that up
Blacks not well organized
Later Years (1980s-1990s)
Net benefits of repression < democratization
Assets of white minority more mobile due to modernization and globalization → black people began working in factories over agriculture
Not clear how much wealth they had
Able to protect assets more because their wealth was now mobile and overseas rather than land dependent
Needed access to black labor → needed Black labor therefore they need them to be less oppressed so they would come to work
International sanctions
Black south africans increasing strong politics
The Resource Curse
Originally believed that resource wealth could face track economic modernization
But growing awareness of the resource curse
Resource Curse: when an abundance of natural resource (gas, oil, minerals) has an adverse economic, social, and political effects
Effects/outcomes
Slow economic growth
Survival/persistence of authoritarian regimes
Weak accountability in democracies
Corruption
under -provision of public goods
Civil war
Oil rich countries → less likely to transition to democratization and more likely to remain authoritarian regimes
Oil substitutes for taxation
Government is focused on extraction of oil over economic growth
Oil is not mobile so wealth is tied to areas/countries so there is now motivation to democratize or build wealth
Three qualities of Oil
Scale
Massive amounts of revenue flowing directly to central government
Secrecy
Amounts are easy for the central government to hide; hard for citizens to know
Lack of transparency → hidden contracts with international oil companies and domestic oil companies
Private deals between companies → not really know by the citizens
Source
Oil revenue replaces tax revenue altering the fiscal foundation of the state → no pressure to try and make citizens to pay taxes in result gov don’t have a responsibility to their people
Theory
Oil causes authoritarianism because… four main mechanisms
Scale → spending effect
huge revenues for government that leaders use to buy political support
They give people things they want in turn for political support
Secrecy → information effect
Oil revenues go directly to the government; often in secrecy
Citizens do not know how much the government is getting and how much is going to citizens → might think 1 million is going to public goods but in actuality there is 20 million going elsewhere
Lack of information undermines accountability and facilitates corruption
Scale & Secrecy → repression effect
Leaders can divert revenue to pay for repression
Source → taxation effect
If people are not paying taxes than government has no responsibility for supporting the issues of the people and improving democracy
Oil subsidies for tax revenue
Without taxation revenue, no fiscal social contract
Citizens are less engage; leaders face less accountability
Culture & Democracy
Connection between countries that are majority muslim have high oil profits with low democracy
Culture
The social behavior, norms, beliefs, customs, values, arts, laws of a group
World cultures/religions/belief systems
Political Culture
The shared values and normative judgements held by a politician regarding its political system
Two Views on Culture
The primordialist view:
Culture is inherited, innate and fixed → unable to be changed and does not change due to outside pressures
Culture precedes politics and shapes political behavior
Some cultures are not conducive to democracy
The Constructivist view:
Culture is constructed, not inherited → does not believe culture is fixed
Cultures change in response to economic, political, social change
Culture is not an impenetrable barrier to democracy
Islam & Democracy
Violence → violence is extremism and does not reflect mainstream Islam, other religions are also associated with violence
Lack of separation between church and state → some islamic doctrine could be the basis of democratization, does not cover all aspects of modern legal systems, some western democracies also lack separation
Mistreatment of women → not Islam per se but an interpretation - major variation between muslim countries and the treatment of women
Session 10
September 30th 2024
Disentangling oil and Islam in Iran
Critical Juncture 1
US backed coup against Mossadegh (1951-1953)
Wanted to nationalism oil companies because he saw more money going to other countries and more of the revenue going internal
US and Britain overthrow him in order to stop him from nationalizing Iran and supporting secular democracy
Massodeah supported secular democracy and democracy in Islam
Coup installed Shah Pahlavi (1953-1979)
Critical Juncture 2
Iranian revolution in 1979
Motivated by anger against Sha and the US
Revolutions took on Islamic form
Motivated by grievances over mismanagement of economy due to oil
Authoritarianism in Iran today
Theocracy by one extreme leader
Revolutionary guard maintains regime control
Religious ideology is the basis of state legitimacy but also a tool for oppression
Suppression of dissent → in the name of religion and the upholding of moral values in order to stop and opposition from existing
Electoral manipulation
Economic control and patronage (oil)
Oil is used to pay of political elites and oppositions → funding from oil becomes the thing that is used to maintain political power
Political Culture
Political culture: a set of specially political orientations → attitudes towards the political system and its part and attitudes towards the role of the self in the system
Civic Culture (the best political culture for democracy):
Influencing political decisions
People have to feel like they can influence change within their institutions
Supporting the existing system
Trust for the existing political system - people would not prefer to live in an alternative political system
Prefer gradual non-violent, non revolutionary change
Do not support revolutionary violent overthrow → through legal means
Interpersonal trust
We trust our government and civics environment and community → trust that everyone in our community share values for a culture of democracy over individual beliefs
Two Hypothesis
1: Having a strong civic culture makes a country more likely to transition to democracy
2: Having a strong civic culture makes a country more likely to support democracy
Challenge: What is causing what?
Reverse causality
Culture → democracy
Spurious association: When two (or more) factors appear to be related but this relationship is actually due to a completely different (overlooked) factor that is driving both
D: Economic development → culture → democracy
F: economic development → democracy → culture
Example: culture or something impacted democracy but another factor could be economy
Possible causal pathways
Possible economic change produces cultural change or vice versa
Cultural Modernization Theory: Socio Economic development produces cultural changes that produce democratic reform
Session 11
October 3 2024
Making Democracy Work in Italy
1970s new regional government introduced
In the North - institutions were effective, responsive and representative → were not necessarily democratic but effective and accountable
South → institutions were corrupt and bad
Why are the same institutions different in different countries?
Italy Case
Northern Italy
there is civic culture
High levels of social capital
Shared that promote trust cooperation, reciprocity and civic engagement
Shared horizontal networks
Southern Culture
Amoral familism → the inability of the community to act together for the common good
Focus is on the immediate family
Little will or ability to act in the broader communal good
Has to argue that culture came first
In medieval Italy, the north was governed by communal republic towns → engagement in the collective and participation in government
In the south it was governed by a dictatorial monarchy → rule of one monarch, hierarchical and dictatorial government - created a culture of mistrust (in gov and others) and hierarchy
Addressing Spurious associations
Economic factors → Both north and south have poor regions
Institutional design → same institutions were put in place everywhere
Religion → Italy is a majority catholic
Civic Culture:
North: vibrant civic community
South: amoral familism
Using Surveys to Measure Culture
World Value Survey → fielded with waves every few years, same survey in every country
77 countries with over 129,000 response
Modules on: Social Capital
China has strong civic culture → disproves theory
Look at trend → may be moving towards a democracy despite not being a democracy
US civic culture →
Challenges with Surveys
Preference falsification: A person hides how they truly feel
Ex: Expressing support for a dictator that a person privately hates
People who live in authoritarian regimes might hate their regime but would not openly say that in fear of repercussion → can give a false impression of support
Social desirability bias: When a person does not answer truthfully on a survey but instead responds in a way that conforms to a socially acceptable to desirable behavior
Ex: voter turnout, criminal behavior, support for Trump (Pew)
People may change their responses depending on who or how their being interviewed
Pew: concern that public data would underestimate trump support because it is considered less socially acceptable
Phone may potentially be more sensitive because they have to a real person side w Trump
Results: Pretty similar little significant change