Week one

Basic Elements of Logic

• An argument is a set of logically connected statements, usually in the form of a set of premises and a conclusion

◦ A premise is a true statement that helps lead to a conclusion

◦ A conclusion is a claim which derives logically from the premises

When is an argument Valid?

• An argument is valid when accepting the premises compels us to accept its conclusion.

When is an argument Invalid?

• An argument is invalid when we accept the premises but reject the conclusion.

Week one Questions

Comparative political analysis relies excessively on whole countries as units of comparison, but generating satisfactory alternative variables to countries is extremely difficult.’

To what extent is comparative politics a field of study or a method?

Week two

What is the State?

• “compulsory political organization” controlling a territorial area in which “the administrative state successfully upholds the claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force in the enforcement of its order” (Weber 1978, i. 54).

• Weber (1978) also contends that the state has to have:

◦ rationalized-legal administration

◦ extractive capacity

◦ legitimate authority

Where did this organization come form in the first place?

• Functionalist Theories -Rousseau

◦ states emerge to solve collective action problems

◦ individuals need the state to protect themselves against war and poverty

◦ state is an infrastructure: coordinating, punishing defectors, and supplying some public goods

• Institutionalist Theories - Hobbes

◦ states emerge to protect against expropriation

◦ states define property rights that are crucial to economic growth or production (Levi, 1991)

◦ originally the state = bandits who ask for protection money

◦ the bandits evolve into the state

• Marxism

◦ economic agents invent and transform their surrounding world

◦ this led to the formation of institutions

◦ institutions are manipulated by classes and class factions (Levi, 1981)

Potential Questions

Is it possible to define states in a way that is geographically and temporally universal?

Which theory about the origin of the states do you find most persuasive and why?

Week three

Acemoglu and Robinson, 1996, Why Nations Fail?

• Extractive Economic Institutions

◦ insecure property rights

◦ lack of law and order

◦ entry barriers

• Extractive Political Institutions

◦ concentrating power in the hands of the few

◦ no checks and balances

• Inclusive Economic Institutions

◦ secure property rights

◦ law and order

◦ no entry barriers

• Inclusive Political Institutions

◦ broad political participation

◦ pluralism

◦ checks and balances

Mahmood Mamdani, 1996, Citizen and Subject

• How Africa developed in the postcolonial world?

• Limited Democratic Governance in some African countries has its roots in the colonial past

• urban areas were ruled directly by the colonizers citizens

• rural areas were not based on traditional authority structures - subjects

• The result after colonialism - bifurcated African states, with different models of rule for ‘citizens’ and for ‘subjects’:

◦ decentralized despotism in rural area

◦ more democratic rule in urban areas

• empirical cases: Uganda and South Africa

Missionary Roots and Democracy, Woodbery, 2012

• conversionary Protestants influenced the spread of democracy

• they were present in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania

• these introduced religious liberty, mass education, printing, newspapers, civil associations, and colonial reforms

Potential Questions

What effects did colonial occupation have on the trajectory of democracy in colonized countries?

Describe inclusive and extractive institutions. Do you agree with this framework of conceptualizing

colonialism?

Week four

Democracy

• is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (”direct democracy”) or to choose governing officials to do so (”representative democracy”).

• Characteristics of democracy often include:

◦ freedom of assembly

◦ freedom of speech

◦ protection of private property

◦ free and fair elections

◦ inclusiveness and equality

Definitions

• Robert Dahl proposes a minimalist definition of democracy

• and focuses on two dimensions:

◦ Contestation - whether citizens can organize themselves to push for policies and outcomes which they desire

◦ Inclusion - who gets to participate in the democratic process

• A regime with high contestation and inclusion is a polyarchy

Measures for Democracy

• Polity IV

• Freedom House

• The Democracy Index

Week five

Modernization Theory

• As countries develop economically: they are more likely to become democratic

• they are more likely to stay democratic

Representative Governments

• is more likely to emerge and survive when the rulers of a country depend on a segment of

• society consisting of a relatively large number of people holding liquid or mobile assets.

• This is exactly the point put forward by Barrington Moore: No bourgeoisie, no democracy.

• Hobbes saw the creation of a state as the solution to the security dilemma between individuals in the state of nature.

• The assumption is that individuals only have to worry about each other, but not about the state predating them.

• States can limit their predatory behavior when:

◦ the state is dependent on citizens with credible exit threats

Resource Curse and Democratization

• Natural resources: can negatively influence democratization.

• This is the political resource curse:

◦ countries which depend on oil, diamonds, and minerals will find it difficult to democratize

◦ countries which depend on oil, diamonds, and minerals are more likely to feature corruption, poor governance, and civil war

Resource Curse and Democratization

• Demand-side explanations

◦ Resource revenues reduce the citizens’ demand for democratic reform and government responsiveness to that demand.

◦ Taxes are low, and governments are autonomous from citizen demands.

• Supply-side explanations

◦ Resource revenues enable dictators to resist pressure to democratize and help them consolidate their power.

◦ Resource revenues can be distributed as patronage to preempt or coopt opposition groups or used to repress them

Potential Questions for week 4 and 5

How do we define democracy, and how do we know it is a good definition?

Does growth cause democracy? Discuss.

Do “elite-driven” factors matter more for democratization?

Week six

Definitions of Autocracies

• What are autocracies?

◦ systems of government

◦ absolute power over a state is concentrated in the hands of one person, group, or party

◦ there are neither external legal restraints nor mechanisms of popular control

Authoritarian Regime Classification

• The typical way of classifying autocracies has been:

◦ Monarchical regime - autocracy in which the executive comes and maintains power based on kin networks

• Examples: Saudi Arabia, Oman, France under Louis XIV

◦ Military dictatorship- an executive who relies on armed forces to stay in power.

‣ Examples: Chile under Augusto Pinochet, Greece under the Greek junta (1967-1974)

◦ Civilian dictatorship- all the other types of regimes are civilian dictatorships.

‣ Personalist: e.g. Italy under Benito Mussolini, Romania under Nicolae Caeusescu

‣ Single-party regimes: e.g., modern China, Mexico (1921-2000), modern Singapore

• Subcategories of civilian dictatorships

◦ One-party dictatorship

‣ a single party dominates access to political office and control over policy

‣ other parties may exist and compete in elections.

◦ Personalist dictatorship

‣ a person dominates access to political office and control over policy

‣ it is often supported by a party or military

‣ retains personal control of policy decisions and the selection of regime personnel

Possible Questions

• What are the different ways to classify authoritarian regimes? Discuss

• Many authoritarian regimes have institutions that look democratic on paper but differ in practice. What explains that?

Week seven

What are political parties?

• can be thought of as a group of people, including those who hold office and those who help get and keep them there.

Role

• A political party can serve four distinct purposes:

◦ Represent the people (link the ruler to the ruled)

◦ Recruit and socialize the political elite

◦ Mobilize the masses

Classification of Systems based on Parties

• Single-party systems - one political party is legally allowed to hold power

• One-party dominant systems - multiple parties may legally operate in which only one party has a realistic chance of gaining power.

• Two-party dominant systems- two major political parties have a realistic chance of holding power

• Multiparty systems - more than two parties can hold power.

Electoral Institutions

• Social cleavages create the demand for political parties.

• Electoral institutions determine whether this latent demand for representation leads to the existence of new parties.

• Non-proportional or non-permissive electoral systems act as a brake on the tendency for social cleavages to be translated into new parties.

• Proportional electoral systems transfer votes into seats proportionally

• Disproportional electoral systems transfer votes into seats disproportionally: they will favor larger parties

Potential Questions

• How are parties formed, how do they link to particular groups in society, and how do they reflect social divisions in a given country?

• How do parties organize themselves to compete for power?