Lecture Notes on Democracy and its Alternatives in Comparative Politics
POL 2: Intro to Comparative Politics
Lecture Title: Democracy and its Alternatives
Instructor: Lauren Young, UC Davis
Lecture Objectives
By the end of this lecture, you should be able to:
Define the concept of democracy.
Explain how political scientists evaluate measures of concepts.
Discuss pros and cons of common ways that democracy is operationalized.
Describe historical waves of democratization and reverse waves.
Map Source: https://brilliantmaps.com/xkcd/
Foundational Definitions
Government: A set of people who run the state; they are the means through which state power is exercised.
Regime: A set of rules, norms, or institutions that determine how the government is constituted and organized, and how decisions are made.
Institutions: Defined as "humanly devised constraints that structure political, economic and social interaction." They consist of both informal constraints (sanctions, taboos, customs, traditions, and codes of conduct) and formal rules (constitutions, laws, property rights) (North 1991).
Types of Regimes: Democracy and dictatorship are types of regimes; they differ in the rules, norms, and institutions for government selection.
Understanding Democracy
Global Perspectives on Democracy
How do people around the world view democracy?
The World Values Survey (WVS) has conducted interviews since 1981, inquiring about essential characteristics of democracy as viewed by citizens.
Reflection Questions for Students
Consider the experience of answering questions about democracy characteristics:
What was surprising?
What was confusing?
Did you feel like there was a right answer?
Early Concepts of Democracy
Examples and Historical Context
Demokratia: The Greek term meaning "rule by the demos" (common people).
Early Democracy: Participants governed jointly with councils that were independent from rulers. Examples: Huron and Iroquois in Eastern North America, Tlaxcala in Mesoamerica.
Shift to modern democracy occurred post-American and French revolutions.
Quote by Montesquieu (1752): "Suffrage by lot is natural to democracy; as that by choice is to aristocracy."
Contemporary Concepts of Democracy
Robert Dahl's Contribution (1971)
Procedural Definition of Democracy: Defines democracy based on institutions and procedures rather than outcomes.
Two Key Dimensions:
Inclusion: Who gets to participate in politics?
Contestation: To what extent are citizens free to organize competing political blocs?
Dichotomous vs. Continuous Measures of Democracy
Dichotomous Measure: A state is either democratic or not (e.g., alive vs. dead). Not half-democratic. Almavrez et al.
Continuous Measure: Democracy can have varying degrees (e.g., range of heights).
Critique: Dichotomization lumps together countries with different degrees of democracy (Bollen & Jackman 1989).
Measuring Democracy
Conceptual Understanding
Concept: A mental category that captures meaning of objects, events, or ideas.
Measure: A quantification of the concept.
Operationalization: The process of translating abstract concepts into observable measures.
Importance of proper measures established through examples from political dialogues.
Three Major Measures of Democracy: 1. Democracy-Dictatorship (DD), 2. Freedom House, 3. Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem).
Measure 1: Democracy-Dictatorship (DD)
Dichotomous Procedural Measure: Focuses on contestation with minimal attention to inclusion.
Key Features:
Ex ante uncertainty: Uncertainty about electoral outcomes before the election.
Ex post irreversibility: Elected officials take office post-elections.
Repeatability: Elections must occur at regular intervals.
Tough cases: Challenges arise when one party consistently wins electoral contests, leading to a nuanced understanding of competitiveness.
Measure 2: Freedom House
Evaluates various aspects of democratic governance, including:
Political Rights (total of 0-40 points)
Civil Liberties (total of 0-60 points)
Categorization as electoral democracies based on specific criteria (e.g., Electoral Process subcategory score of at least 7).
Measure 3: Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem)
Inclusive of Multiple Dimensions: Does not solely focus on electoral measures but includes liberal democracy characteristics.
Disaggregation: Translates principles of democracy into hundreds of questions. Key metrics include electoral competition and civil liberties.
Evaluating Measures of Democracy
Key Criteria for Evaluation
Conceptualization: Developing mental categories to understand democracy.
Validity: The extent that measures reflect intended concepts. Important considerations include defining attributes and aggregation issues.
Reliability: Ability to consistently produce similar scores when measured repeatedly.
Replicability: Ensures that other researchers can reproduce the process of measurement to validate findings.
Examples to Illustrate Evaluation Criteria
Example 1: New measure using undisclosed algorithms raises concerns regarding replicability and validity.
Example 2: Discrepancies in recreating Freedom House ratings illustrate potential validity and reliability issues.
Example 3: Inconsistent results from students coding democracies vs. autocracies impacts reliability of the results.
Summary of Measures
All measures are justified within specific contexts: procedural vs. substantive, dichotomous vs. continuous.
Procedural measures are favored for many research questions due to analytical precision, while substantive measures can produce tautologies.
Majority focus will be on V-Dem in the course for its procedural, continuous, and disaggregated strengths.
Historical Waves of Democratization
Global Trends in Democracy
First Wave (1828–1926) and first reverse wave (1922–1942)
Notable examples include UK, USA, France, and Germany in the first wave.
Second Wave (1943–1962) and reverse wave (1958–1975)
Countries such as countries include Botswana, Brazil, and India.
Third Wave (1974+) and its developments.
A continuous increase in democracies noted until recent decades.
Statistical Overview of Democratic and Non-Democratic States
Yearly analysis indicating the number of democratic states has fluctuated, shown in detailed tables:
Data Points from 1922-2022: A comprehensive count of democratic states compared to non-democratic states.
Prof Young’s calculated percentages reveal trends illustrating historical patterns of democratization.
Democratic Decline and Current Trends
Discussion on the current trends indicating possible democratic backsliding or erosion as reported by Freedom House.
Examination of subjective vs objective indicators for measuring democracy.
Encouragement of ongoing discourse on the state of democracy globally, referencing sources and foundational readings.
Suggested Readings
Coppedge et al. (2011 & 2017), Dahl (1972), and other authors related to institutional frameworks in democratic studies.