Comparative Government Unit 1 Review

• Comparative politics: the study and comparison of domestic politics across countries

• International relations: concentrates with relations between countries (foreign policy, war, trade, foreign aid)

• Institutions: organizations or activities that are valued for their own sake (important in defining/shaping what is possible and probable in political life)

• Politics is the competition for public power, and power is the ability to influence others or impose one’s will on them

• Comparative method: comparing cases and drawing conclusions

(There’s a big section about correlation/causation and inference making, but it’s pretty clear what it is if you have a basic understanding of statistics)

• Multicasualty: a single variable (such as a country’s electoral system) is unlikely  to explain the variation in gun control laws. In the real world, there are no single, easy answers to political problems

Defining the State

• State: an organization that maintains a monopoly of violence over a territory

  • One of the most important elements of a state is sovereignty, or having the ability to carry out actions and policy within a territory independent of external actors and internal rivals

  • A state thus is...

    • A m onopoly of force over a given territory

    • A set of political institutions that generate and carry out policy

    • Typically highly institutionalized

    • Sovereign

    • Characterized by institutions such as an army, a police force, taxation, a judiciary, and a social welfare system

• A regime is a bit different than a state. It focuses on the fundamental rule and norms of politics. This is...

  • Consisted of norms and rules regarding individual freedom and collective equality, the locus of power, and the use of that power

  • Institutionalized, but can be changed by dramatic social events (like revolutions)

  • Categorized at the most basic level as either democratic or authoritarian

  • Often embodied in a constitution.

• A government is the leadership that runs the state, which includes...

  • The leadership/elite in charge of running the state

  • Weakly institutionalized

  • Limited by the existing regime

  • Often composed of elected individuals (president/prime minister) or unelected officials (monarch)

• A country is taken as shorthand for the combined political entities above (state, regime, government) as well as the people living under that political system

The Origins of Political Organization

• Consensus → Democratic rule

  • Individuals band together to protect themselves and create common rules; leadership chosen from among people. Security through cooperation.

• Coercion → Authoritarian rule

  • Individuals are brought together by a ruler, who imposes authority and monopolizes power. Security through domination.

Comparing State Power

• Legitimacy: a value whereby something or someone is recognized and accepted as right and proper.

  • Traditional legitimacy rests on the idea that something or someone is valid because it always has been. It is built on the historical identity of the people, and embodies historical myths by using rituals and ceremonies.

  • Charismatic legitimacy is almost the opposite of traditional legitimacy. This is based on the power of ideas and beliefs of the person in charge. It often dies down once the leader is no longer in charge.

  • Rational-legal legitimacy is not based on history/rituals or who presents the ideas. Instead it focuses on a system of laws/procedures that are presumed to be rational and neutral.

• Federalism:  powers such as taxation, lawmaking, and security are devolved to regional bodies (like states within a country). These powers are defined in the national constitution and cannot easily be eliminated by a federal government. (Ex. United States states, Lander in Germany, and provinces in Canada).

• Asymmetric federalism: divides power unequally between regional bodies. Instead of giving equal powers to each state, some states get more powers than others (ex. Spain, Russia, India)

• Unitary government: political powers are concentrated at the federal level, and local authority is limited (ex. China, Japan, France).

• A general trend in the last few decades is devolution, or where more power is given to the states instead of with the federal government. This puts the political power closer to the people.

• Strong states are able to fulfill basic tasks (make/enforce rules and rights, collect taxes, and manage the economy). Weak states are unable to execute these tasks (which causes state officials in these states to fall to corruption and theft to execute policy).

  • When the structures of a state become so weak that they break down, the country is called a fragile, or at its worst, a failed state.

• Capacity is the ability of a state to wield power in order to carry out the basic tasks of providing security and reconciling freedom and equality.

• Autonomy is the ability of the state to wield its power independently of the public or international actors.

Defining Democracy

• The word “democracy” is neither bad nor good, and can be perceived differently based on who you ask. For example, China sees themselves as a democracy because it has collective equality (their definition of democracy), but not individual freedom (our definition of democracy).

• That said, the overall definition of democracy is that it is political power exercised either directly or indirectly by the people through participation, competition, and liberty.

• Liberal democracy promotes participation, competition, and liberty. Social democracy emphasizes collective welfare (“communism”).

Origins of Democracy

• The Roman Empire laid out the concept of republicanism, which emphasized the separation of powers within a state and the representation of the public through elected officials.

• Overall:

  • Direct democracy: public participates directly in governance and policy making, typically found in smaller communities such as ancient Athens

  • Indirect democracy: public participates indirectly through elected representatives (This is the most common in this day and age)

Contemporary Democractization

• Modernization: as societies become more modern, they also become more democratic. This is due to higher education, a weakening of older traditional institutions, gender equality, and growth of the middle class.

• Culture: The further you travel from the West, the less democratic countries tend to be. A state’s long-standing culture can impact how willing they are to become democratic

• Society: civil society is life outside the state (environmental groups, churches, sports teams, etc). Places with highly established civil society tend to be more welcoming towards democratic ideals, since civil society provides the ideas and tools of political action and mobilization that fosters democracy.

• International relations: the roles of the executive can change based form country to country, which can also impact the ways in which a country becomes more/less democratic

  • The executive holds two roles. Head of state is the role that symbolizes/represents the people of the state (both nationally and international). The head of government deals with the everyday tasks of running the state (formulating, executing domestic policy).

• Legislature: makes and passes legislation (can vary in their political powers and construction)

  • Bicameral systems: legislatures that contain two houses (tend to be used by larger countries)

  • Unicameral systems: legislatures that contain one house (tend to be used by smaller countries)

Institutions of the Democratic State

• Executive: the governmental branch that carries out the laws and policies of a state

• Judiciaries can also vary greatly across liberal democracies. 

  • Most liberal democracies have some form of constitutional court that ensures legislation is constitutional. This form of judicial review is relatively new, but almost 90% countries have some form of it. 

  • Judicial review can take two forms. Concrete review is when courts consider the constitutionality of legislation only when a specific court case challenges it. Abstract review is when a constitutional court rules on legislation without a specific court case.

• Judiciaries and Judicial Review

  • Rule of law is the sovereignty of law over the people and elected officials, which constitutional power aims to protect.

  • Prime ministers can be removed relatively easily by parliaments, though a vote of no confidence, which in some countries, automatically triggers another election.  Prime ministers also have the right to call elections, which can be abused to benefit their party.

    • In parliamentary systems, legislatures/judiciaries have less power than the prime minister. 

Models of Democracy: Parliamentary, Presidential, and Semi-Presidential Systems

• Parliamentary systems: composed of prime ministers and their cabinets plus the legislature. The judiciary is more active, but can cause disputes between the president and legislature.

  • Political power and roles are divided between the head of government (prime minister) and the head of state (often a monarch, and mostly ceremonial than powerful).

• Semi-presidential systems: has both a president and a parliamentary system (PM and monarch).The president typically sets forth policy but expects the prime minister to actually carry out the law. The role of the judiciary varies in this system.

• Presidential systems: directly elected by the public for a fixed terma nd has control over the cabinet and legislative process

  • In parliamentary systems, PMs and their cabinets come from the legislature and need a majority of support to stay in office. In presidential systems, the president/legislature serve for fixed terms, and election dates can’t be altered easily.

  • This causes some changes in how the government runs.

    • 1. The president is able to draw on a body of popular support, greater than that of a prime minister or legislature

    • 2. The president serves as the national symbol and the overseer of policy

    • 3. President can choose a cabinet who are not in the legislature

    • 4. Balances of powers under a presidential system are greater

Parliamentary, Presidential, and Semi-Presidential Systems: Benefits and Drawbacks

• Political Parties: bring people/ideas together and establish the means by which the majority can rule. They create the means for the electorate and follow political elites to hold politicians accountable.

• Electoral systems: the rules and systems used to determine the results of an election

  • All democracies divide their populations geographically into constituencies (electoral districts) and allocate each area a certain number of legislative seats. Electoral boundaries can have a major effect in who gets elected, and this can change from country to country.

  • Votes are also counted and cast differently based on the country. There are two major methods: single member district (SMD) and proportional representation (PR) systems. 

    • A lot of former British colonies follow the SMD system, where an electoral area is divided into several districts. Each one elects one representative into the legislature. They follow the first past the post system, where the candidate who wins the most votes (even if not a majority) wins (this is the same idea as “winner-take-all”). 

      • People often don’t vote for smaller parties since they just don’t win as often. Voters are often more concerned in what a candidate has to do with their local policies rather than the candidate’s party affiliation.

    • PR relies on multimember districts (MMDs) where more than one legislative seat is contested in each district. The percentage of voters in a district determines how many seats the party will gain. (a party that gets 17% of the vote gets 17% of the seats). There are multiple candidates for each party (the people who get the most votes get the seats for their party).

      • Parties need to be diverse in this system, because they’re not necessarily looking to gain a broad audience of voters (like the SMD system). The parties also need to run more formally and properly, since they can also be kicked out of the party lists if they don’t.

  • Which is more representative?

    • PR supporters believe that it wastes fewer votes and allows for a greater range of interests to be expressed. 

    • SMD supporters believe that individuals can connect closer to their elected representatives, and parties can be created that express a larger majority.

  • Some countries draw from both the SMD and PR systems, called mixed electoral systems. Voters are given two votes (one for a candidate and one for a party), and each one goes in a SMD or PR system. Candidates in the SMDs are elected on the basis of plurality/majority, while election votes are allocated proportionally for PR candidates. 

Referendum and Initiative

• Referendum: voting directly on particular policy issues. Initiative is when the citizens themselves collect signatures against a national vote (more direct participation).

Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

• Civil rights: the promotion of equality

• Civil liberties: the promotion of freedom

• Both cover free speech and movement, right to religious belief, right for assembly, equal treatment under the law, and the right to a fair trial, plus others (basically all the rights given to people from the US constitution). These rights can vary depending on the country.

Why have some countries failed to establish democracy? (Using Zimbabwe as an example)

• Natural resources: cause lots of conflict between other countries 

  • ZImbabwe is rich in natural diamonds, but diamond-mining revenues often do not go to the state. They instead go to high-ranking members in the government, which causes corruption in the government and a lot of diamond funds also went towards blocking anti-government sentiment. In other words, Zimbabwe has fallen into a “resource trap” (natural resources instead weaken economic development and strengthen authoritarian rule).

• Relationships with the international community

  • Many countries are concerned about Zimbabwe’s transition into authoritarianism, but China is not. China has provided billions of dollars to Zimbabwe and has invested in various diamond-mining projects. 

Defining Nondemocratic Rule

• Democratic rules can be easily defined, but non-democratic rules can vary (some are more similar to democracies than to other nondemocratic rules). But the term authoritarianism defines this the best.

  • Non-democratic regimes are where a political regime is controlled by a small group of individuals who exercise power over the state without being constitutionally responsible to the public 

    • Public has little or no role in selecting leaders

    • Individual freedom is restricted

    • Nondemocratic regimes can be institutionalized and legitimate

• Totalitarianism is a form of nondemocratic rule with a highly centralized state, whose regime has a well-defined ideology and seeks to transform/fuse the institutions of state, society, and the economy (aims to totally transform most domestic institutions—a different form of non-democratic rule)

Origins and Sources of Nondemocratic Rule

• Modernization can sometimes lead to nondemocratic rule (which sounds counterintuitive). In some countries, modernization can be a disruptive/uneven process—this creates higher instability and greater movement towards making a change. 

• Wealth and the growth of the elites can also have an impact on nondemocratic rule. Some are unwilling to share their power when they might lose economic opportunities

  • Resource trap: natural resources (which are a source of wealth) act as a barrier to modernization and democracy

• Authoritarian systems are characterized by the lack of civil society (because those in power take steps to absorb/monitor/destroy independent action not allowed by the state)

  • Populism: the idea that elites and established institutions do not represent the will of the people, and that the people can establish a new order

• Relationships with other countries can contribute to nondemocratic rule (especially through occupation).

• Culture can also influence democracy (some believe that western=modern, which isn’t true)

  • One common argument is that democracy is a product of historical experiences in europe (Christianity, emphasis on individualism/secularism, development of the nation-state, modern ideologies, industrialization, etc.)

  • Some also argue that Islam views political and religious power as the same. Democracy is basically the antithesis of this view.

Nondemocratic Regimes and Political Control

• Coercion and Surveillance: Coercion is defined as compelling individuals by threatening their lives/livelihoods (through violence). Surveillance allows the government to prevent opposition from organizing and also adds uncertainty among the population.

• Corporatism: a method by which nondemocratic regimes attempt to solidify their control over the public by creating a limited amount of organizations to represent the interests of the public and restricting those not created by the state (this replaces churches, labor union, student groups, and neighborhood communities).

• Clientelism: the state co-opts members of the public by providing specific benefits to a person in return for public support

  • This focuses on individual patronage instead of organizations that serve a large group of people.

• Rent seeking: political leaders use parts of the state to get income for their supporters (giving them preferred access to public goods that would typically be distributed in a nonpolitical matter).

  • In a worst-case scenario, the regime can fall into a kleptocracy (“rule by theft”)

• Personality cults are promotions of a leader not just as a political figure, but one who embodies the strength of the nation and possesses far more wisdom than the average individual.

  • Media and culture are tainted to project this view of a leader.

Models of Nondemocratic Rule

• Personal and Monarchial Rule

  • The state and society are subjects of the ruler. Ideology is weak, since rulers justify their control by stating they are embodiments of the people.

  • Patrimonialism: a patrimonial leader trades benefits for political support. However this is not done among individuals in society, but only to those in a small group of regime supporters.

• Military Rule

  • The military sometimes has to intervene in politics especially when governments are suffering with legitimacy and stability.

  • Bureaucratic authoritarianism: a regime in which the state bureaucracy and the military share a belief that they can work together and solve all the problems in the country. As a result, they believe public participation is ineffective and eliminate it.

• One-Party Rule

  • They are often broken down into smaller units that operate at the neighborhood level to report back to the party as a whole (this taps into the “surveillence” idea mentioned earlier)

  • Members of the party are also granted privileges that are otherwise denied to the majority of the public. But as a result, they directly benefit from the regime and are therefore willing to defend it (so they support parties for personal benefits, not for their actual policies)

  • The party also serves as a mechanism of mobilization: they deliver propaganda, uses party members to harass others against the regime, and makes it seem like they are well-liked by the public

• Theocracy

  • This is deeply rooted in a religious ideology. Fundamentalism is a greater-growing ideal (that religion and politics should be fused together). But people also believe that merging these two ideas would make democratic institutions less powerful than the will of God. Though a lot of these theocratic states follow Islam, lots of other countries follow this as well (Buddhist Myanmar, Hindu India, Jewish Israel).

• Illiberal Regimes

  • Illiberal regimes: in between democratic and nondemocratic regimes

    • Rule of law is weak (even if it is in place). Therefore, all democratic institutions that are based on rule of law are weak as well.

    • Executive branch holds a greater amount of power than the legislative/judicial branches

    • Political parties may exist on paper, but parties and groups are restricted and harassed. Government monopolizes over print/electronic media.