COMPARATIVE

POLITICS

Silvia Rizkallal Melián

1º International Studies
G: 56

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 MAGISTRAL COMPARATIVE POLITICS, Martes, 10/9/2019

LECTURE 1: What is Comparative Politics?

Politics: human activity of making public and authoritative decisions. They are public
because they concern the whole of a society. They are authoritative because the
government that makes such decisions is invested with the authority and legitimacy to
make them binding and compulsory.

Politics is thus the activity of acquiring (and maintaining) the power of making such
decisions and of exercising this power. It is the conflict or competition for power and its
use.

Comparative politics: the main goal of this empirical discipline is to describe, explain
and predict political phenomena that are taking place across, within countries and
describe the differences and similarities between different political systems. Testing
validity of different hypothesis under explained.

- The study of phenomena in every country except the one in which the student resides

- The study of political phenomena through the comparative method

- The study of political phenomena that are predominantly within country (region)
relationships

Whereas international relations deals with interactions between political systems,

comparative politics deals with interactions within political systems.

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Comparative politics is based on testing validity of different hypothesis under different
conditions.
· Hypothesis: an assumption about reality that makes sense of the phenomena to be
explained.

It explains similarities and differences by formulating theories and hypothesis and

testing them. Finally it predicts change and stability in the political units of observations.
- Describe similarities and differences and build classifications and typologies. In
order to describe reality and establish classifications and typologies. (Ex: classify
types of electoral systems).

- Explain similarities and differences by formulating theories and hypotheses and it

uses empirical data to test them. It is through this method that causality can be
inferred, generalizations produced and theories developed and improved.

- Sometimes we use that knowledge to make predictions about change and stability
about the political units of observations. (Ex: if we know that PR electoral system
favour the proliferation of parties in the legislature, we could have predicted that
PR would lead to a more fragmented party system)

As a social science, comparative politics is not experimental. This means that we can’t
go to a laboratory. In social sciences we need to look at different cases (countries and
regions) with different levels to see if there is an association between those cases.

IMPORTANCE OF THE NAME: The “comparative” label was added to “politics” to

make a methodological point in a discipline that wasn’t aware of the importance of
comparison. This label is needed because if we forget the term “comparative”, the
discipline becomes a synonymous with the scientific study of politics. And in fact, all
the dimensions of the political system can be compared and all scientific analysis of
politics is comparative by definition.

• TAUTOLOGY: a statement that is always true in every possible interpretation.

That is true by definition.

2- party system: it’s a tautology.

• NON - OBSERVABLE: A statement of something that we cannot observe. Ex.

GOD

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What were the consequences of the behavioural revolution for Comparative Politics?

- An increase in the variety of political systems.

- Incorporation of the observance of non-formal institutions like parties, interest-
groups, public opinion, social movements, etc.
- Introduction of a new methodology based on more empirical data.
- A new language imported from systematic functionalism. Systematic functionalism
is a term created by T. Parsons that reflects the idea that a paradigm based on a
system can explain individual behaviour. The way to explain human behaviour
should be based on functions.

Comparative politics before and after the “behavioural revolution”.

Dimensions of analysis Before After

Unit State
Subject matter Regimes and their formal
institutions, leadership
Cases Major democracies: US,
Britain, France; analysis of
democratic breakdown in
Germany and Italy,
authoritarianism in Spain
Indicators / variables West-centric, qualitative
categories, typologies
Method Narrative accounts and
juxtapositions between
cases
Data Constitutional and legal
texts
Theory Normative: institutional
elitism and pluralism; no
elaborate
conceptualization
Political system
Expansion to all actors
involved in the process of
political decision making
Objective extension of
cases (decolonization) and
subjective extension with
development of discipline
in various countries:
“discovery” of small and
welfare democracies
New abstract concepts,
able to travel
(functionalism); empirical
universals and
quantitative variables
Development of machine-
readable data sets and
statistics; quasi-
experimental comparative
method
Individual survey data and
aggregate data
Empirical: structural
functionalism, systems
theory neo-
institutionalism, rational
choice theory

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 Magistral 17/9/19

LECTURE 2: Research Methods

Caramani Chapter 3

THE COMPARATIVE METHOD

Method: Body of knowledge that we call scientific may well be a product of science, but
it is not science itself.
Theory/Model: A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or
phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and
can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
Falsifiability: quality of being falsifiable, capable of being tested (“verified” or falsified).
Scientific statements can be proven wrong.
Quantitative/Qualitative research: study of a given subject, field or problem,
undertaken to discover facts or principles, relying or not on numerical measurements.
Data: series of observations, measurements, or facts, information…

Logic of inference: Inference is a process of deriving logical conclusion from premises

known or assumed to be true.
We establish causal relationships. Premises and outcomes. Causes and consequences.

Deductive reasoning

Theory ¦ we create an expectation about what we should observe in light of this

particular theory. Is what we observe consistent with the theory?

Inductive reasoning
Observations → we establish a pattern/model that can be used to explain the
observations.

Hypothetical reasoning
Prediction → we generate hypothesis from an anomalous or surprising observation.

The method of comparative politics: comparative politics does not rely on a specific

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method because of these reasons:
- Which research method is used depends on the research question. Some research
questions are better respond with qualitative analysis while some others are better
respond with quantitative analysis. As a consequence, we can find descriptive,
explanatory/positive and evaluative/normative questions.

- Moreover, depending on the balance between the number of cases and the number
of factures analysed research design can be more or less intensive o extensive. Cases
can be:
• Small-N studies: they examine small number of cases in depth. Deliberate
selection of cases. We can include here a single case study (a classical) or a two-
case study.
• Large-N studies: they look for patterns in a large number of cases. Random
selection of cases.

Decide how many cases we are going to have in our comparative politics research.
We could go from studies that includes only one case to few cases.

CASE STUDIES: the case study is an intensive study of a single unit for the purpose of
understanding a larger class of (similar) units. (John Garry)

GOALS OF A CASE STUDY:

2 main goals.

- Exploratory (theory-building).
- Confirmatory (thick account of underlying processes)

Be careful when you are selecting the case.

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 ADVANTAGES OF CASE STUDIES

- Quantitative approaches, through maximizing diverse cases, lose contextual

knowledge, rely upon statistical techniques sometimes unsuited to political science
data/research questions, and underestimate statistical uncertainty and error.

- Case studies are valuable because of within-case causal chains, process tracing, and
path-dependent relationships for generating theories, hypotheses, and concepts.

- They present a distinct approach not reduced to statistical methods

· Depth especially for understanding longitudinal processes.

· Generate further theoretical hypotheses for research.

· Post-hoc validation. «Post hoc ergo propter hoc» es una expresión latina que significa
«después de esto, eso; entonces, a consecuencia de esto, eso». A veces se acorta por
post hoc. Post hoc es también llamado correlación coincidente o causalidad falsa.
(FALACIA)

· Analyse deviant cases: the cases that are not fitting our main theory.

DISADVANTAGES OF CASE STUDIES (potential limits of case studies)

- Bias in selection and omitted variables.

- Selecting on the dependent variable.

Ex. Skocpol social revolutions in France, Russia and China.

- Too few cases reduces scientific testing.

Lack of capacity to make scientific inferences and estimate error.
Lack of degrees of freedom

· Limited generalizability and theory testing.

· Demands extensive fieldwork, language skills and immersion.

· Selection bias: the case that you are looking at is not well representative of the bigger
group of countries where you would like to do some kind of scientific statements.

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Sometimes people don’t realise that they are taking the wrong case. A case that is
maybe too easy to test your hypothesis, so, sometimes is a matter of an accident
because of the fact that sometimes it’s not that easy to find a case that is representative.

E.G: If you for example take a look at GDP growth and type of regime you could conclude
that autocracies are growing at higher rates compared to democracies. But this is
sometimes happening because autocracies are in poorer countries than democracies,
so, there is large room to improve.
43:00

SMALL-N COMPARISONS:

ADVANTAGES

- Combine both depth and breadth.

- Identify variations within the same regional area.
- Build middle-level theories.

Basically they are giving you, to some extent, the best of both worlds. The advantages
of case studies and the advantages of large-N comparisons. The depth of case studies
and the width stroke of the large-N comparisons. They are giving you the opportunity
of building middle-level theories.

Moreover, they are allowing you to identify variations within one region of the world.

DISADVANTAGES OF SMALL-N COMPARISONS

- Limited theoretical generalizations outside of cases/area/region.

E.G: If we are studying 5 countries in Europe we could say something about Europe
but we couldn’t say anything of Latin America, for example.
- Higher demand for contextual fieldwork and language skills.
- Can generate too many independent variables and too few nations.
E.G: We have to test fewer hypotheses than countries we have in our study.
- Choice of countries? How selected?

Many Nations: LARGE-N COMPARISONS

Large N, multiple countries worldwide for global perspective.

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 Types:

- Cross-sectional large-N comparisons: study that is looking at different countries but

always in the same year (across units at one point of time)

- Cross-sectional time-series (CSTS): A study that is looking at different countries at

different moments of time.
Country A, Time 1.
Country A, Time 2…

Data can be:

® Observational data. A classic example of observational data would be: I’m going to see
how many people have participated in elections in Europe between 1945 and 2019. I
will start with Spain and I will have 0 in 1945-1977, because we didn’t have democratic
elections. And since 1977 I will start counting or taking from the minister interior the
number or percentage of people that participated in the elections, and the same process
with the other countries.

® Experimental data. Running this type of analysis may be complicated, because it’s not
a matter of taking all the data that has been registered depending on the observe
behaviour of people, this could be observational data.

ADVANTAGES OF LARGE-N COMPARISONS

- Comprehensive generalizations/ external validity

- Identify outliers and deviant cases

- Build and test general theories

- Expansion in available of statistical datasets

- Develop scientific inference

DISADVANTAGES OF LARGE-N COMPARISONS

- Limited availability of data. With statistics

- It’s complicated to have cross-cultural measures
- Too abstract and far removed from context and processes, from real politics. With
statistics we are losing contextual information, we are losing what is happening in
reality.
- Lack of insights into “black-box” political processes.

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- Concept stretching.

1. CAUSES.

In the Comparative Method, we take advantage of similarities and differences among

the cases of study to make inferences out of observational data. The logic of the
comparative method is based on the analysis of necessary and sufficient conditions. A
cause is a necessary and/or a sufficient condition.

· Necessary condition: is a condition that you must observe in order to produce an

effect. A necessary condition is a circumstance in whose absence the event in question
cannot occur. (Y never happens unless X happens).

EX. Oxygen is a necessary condition for fire. Oxygen by itself doesn’t produce fire. Now
we are breathing oxygen and there is no fire here.

In order to have fire we need to have oxygen first.

· Sufficient condition: is a circumstance in whose presence the event in question must

occur. (Y always happens if X happens).

is something to create the effect but there could be other ways in which the thing or the
situation can happen.

EX. If it rains (cause) the grass gets wet (effect) but… there are many other reasons that
make the grass wet.

But it may not always be enough for the effect to actually occur, i.e., necessary condition
X does not always cause effect Y

2. COMPARATIVE METHOD- MILL

The systematic search for “necessary,” “sufficient,” and “necessary and sufficient”
conditions has come to be known as Mill’s Methods, or the comparative method.

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Mill proposed two main methods:

Method of Agreement (MDSD)

It consists of comparing cases in order to detect those relationships between X and Y

that remain similar notwithstanding the differences on the other features of the cases
compared. Hence, other variables may be different across the cases but for those
relationships that are considered to be causal. We have cases with identical values in
the dependent variable (Y) and we look for some factor or independent variable (X) that
is common to all the cases.
When the cases agree on the phenomenon to be explained

Suppose we want to learn about the causes of democracy

Suppose we go and look at three different democracies to see what we can learn

INFERENCES:

1) Ethnic homogeneity is not a necessary condition (Belgium)

2) Having a parliamentary system is not a necessary condition (United States)
3) Wealth is the only surviving potential necessary condition for democracy

The key to this type of design is to understand why very different units/cases have the
same outcome (Y variable). The search is then for a key explanatory variable common
to the cases that all appear very different from each other

WEAKNESSES OF MDSDS

- As with the most-similar method, we can’t use complicated variable codings, multiple
causal factors are hard or impossible to determine, and external validity is low
- Deterministic causality
- Case selection on the dependent variable – without variation on the
dependent variable determining causality is extremely difficult

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- This method is more useful for ruling out “necessary” causes than for determining
causality

Method of Difference (MSSD)

It focuses on comparing cases that differ with respect to either the dependent variable
or the independent variable but not differ across comparable cases with respect to the
other variables examined (ceteris paribus clause)

When the cases differ on the phenomenon to be explained

What is the causal relationship between wealth and democracy?

- Is wealth a necessary or sufficient condition for democracy?

- If we took a dictatorship and made it rich, would it become a democracy?
So: What type of observation would show that wealth is not a sufficient condition? We
would need to observe a wealthy country that is NOT a democracy. As a result, we need
to use the Method of Difference.

The Method of Difference requires that the phenomenon to be explained is present in

one case, but not the other.

INFERENCES:

1. Wealth is not a sufficient condition for democracy (Mexico), but it may be necessary
2. Ethnic homogeneity is neither necessary (Belgium) nor sufficient for democracy
(Mexico)
3. A parliamentary system is not necessary (United States) for democracy. It may be
sufficient (Belgium and the UK)

WEAKNESSES OF MSSDS

Main weakness of MSSD (difference) method: generalization. LOW external validity.

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- Heroic assumptions or the risk of overdetermination (more inferences than
observations)
- We generally treat the independent variables as something simple. The more
complicated the operationalization, the harder this method becomes.
- Deterministic causality.
- Multiple causal factors and causal complexity are hard or impossible to determine.
- The problem of absence of random assignment.

Mill’s comparative analysis is based on 4 assumptions that are rarely met:

¦ Causal factors are independent of each other (there are not interactions or
multiplicative effects).
¦ Causal factors are deterministic (either they have causal influence or they don’t).
Most social research is probabilistic rather than deterministic.
¦ There is only one true causal path and all the relevant causes are examined. This is
particularly damaging as we are never sure whether we have taken into account all the
relevant causes. This affects to inferences about necessary and sufficient conditions.
¦ We normally have more hypotheses (explanatory factors) than cases, so that the
explanation is over-determined.

Conclusions

• Can political scientists replicate the logical and aesthetic purity of the double blind
control group experiment?

Of course not! Real politics is too messy

But neither can astronomy nor, indeed, many aspects of biology

• Does that mean that all we can rely on are gurus who will interpret the political woigrld
for us?

Of course not! Just because we cannot do perfect science does not mean we should do
no science at all

• Which is why we need good comparative politics, building our theories carefully in a
way that tell us:

What to compare, and why, and what precisely to look for when we have analyzed the
information we have collected

• It is only by making careful and systematic comparisons that we can begin to get a real
sense of political cause and effect in the real world

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IMPORTANT POINTS:
- Methodology of comparative politics depends on the Research question
- Equivalence problem: how concepts travel
- Different theories: functionalism, rational choice, conductism...
- “Small N”, “Large N”, “single case-studies”.
- “Variable”: is a measure of something that have variations. It is not a
synonymous of “factor”.
I. Independent variable: is the variable that explains the dependent
variable.
II. Dependent variable: the variable that we want to explain.
III. Ex: more inequality (independent variable) affects quality of
Democracy (dependent variable).
IV. Ex2: left right- division (dependent) is representing migration issue
(independent). Why? Because unemployment, asylum seekers, rad
right parties... (independent variables because it affect migration
issue).

POLITICS CLASE REDUCIDA, Viernes, 20/9/19

VALID AND INVALID ARGUMENTS

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 Premises
• Major premise : if P, then Q. If country is wealthy, then it will be a democracy.
• Minor premise : P. The country is wealthy.
• Conclusion: Therefore, Q. Therefore, the country will be a democracy.

A s u f fi c i e n t
A necessary A necessary condition is a circumstance in whose absence the event in question cannot condition is a
condition
means that is occur (Y never happens unless X happens). A sufficient condition is a circumstance in consequence
condition: P—>
reciprocal, so
P <—> Q
whose presence the event in question must occur (Y always happens if X happens). Q and it cannot
be Q—> P

If a democracy is rich, then it will stay a democracy. Sufficient.

A country cannot maintain a democratic form of government unless it has a culture that
promotes civic participation. Necessary.
Countries have many parties only when they employ proportional electoral rules.
Necessary.
Countries have always few parties when they employ majoritarian electoral rules.
Sufficient.

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TESTING THEORIES

RESEARCH MAIN CHARACTERISTICS.

A. Goal is inference. Descriptive or explanatory inferences on the basis of empirical

information → facts are there, but we need to go beyond to something broader that is
not directly observed.
B. Procedures are public. Explicit, codified, and public methods. Reliability and
replicability.
C. Conclusions are uncertain.
D. Content is the method.

FINDING THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS

a) Research question should be important for the world

b) Contribution to an identifiable scholarly literature

a. Untested hypotheses.
b. Falsifying an accepted hypothesis.
c. Solving a controversy.
d. Designing new research.
e. Overlooked issues.
f. Applying theories of other field.
MODEL BUILDING

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It has frequently observed that students coming into a lecture hall tend to fill up the rear
of the hall first (Lave and March, 1975; Schelling, 1978). Here are two possible
explanations, or models, that predicts this kind of behaviour:
● Minimum Effort Theory: People try to minimize effort; having entered at the rear of
the hall, they sit there rather than walk to the front.
● Coolness Theory: General students norm say that it is not cool to be deeply involved
in schoolwork. Sitting in front would display interest in the class, whereas sitting in the
rear displays detachment.

It has frequently observed that democracies do not go to war with each other. This has
come to be known as the Democratic Peace:
● Make up two theories or models that would account for this observation.
● Generate predictions from the two models and identify from which model they were
derived.
● Find some critical situations that will distinguish between the two models, confirming
one and contradicting the other.

MAGISTRAL 3, Martes, 24/9/19

Method of Agreement
Method of Difference

- Method of Agreement.

DEMOCRACY W. ETH. PARL.

UK Y Y Y Y

BEL Y Y N Y

US Y Y Y N

MEX N Y Y N

Adding mexico to the table tell us that a country can be non-democratic even when it is
wealthy.

Spurious Correlation.
What is MSSD?

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MILL P+T

AGREE MDSD

DIFF MSSD

COUNTRY 1 AND COUNTRY 2

E= DEMOCRACY
A= PROPORTIONAL ELECTORAL SYSTEM
B= PARLAMENTARIST SYSTEM
C= WEALTH (this is not the same across countries)
D= ETHNIC HOMOGENIC

Dependent Variable: The phenomenon to be explained

(23mn)

US LIECHESTEIN
DEPENDENT VARIABLE DEMOCRACY DEMOCRACY
A SIZE LARGE SMALL
B CONT … …
C LANGUAGE ENG GERMAN
D SEA YES NO
Z WEALTHY? YES YES

You decide the method and then try to choose the countries that fit well with that
method.

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 Martes 1/10/19

LECTURE 4: DEMOCRACY AND DICTATORSHIP

Chapter 5 of the book

We have to distinguish between CONCEPTS and INDICATORS

Theories about the world are based on abstract concepts.

Concept: a mental representation of a phenomenon that is taking place around the

world. Ex. Parliamentary systems… etc

They cannot be observed, they exist only in our head.

We have to translate these theoretical abstract concepts into more concrete concepts.
This process is called operationalization. We use a particular measure to operationalize
a theoretical concept.

Measure: is a quantification of the thing we are interested in.

CONCEPT INDICATOR
Government by people for the people
Citizenship
Freedom
Suffrage Nº people that have the right to vote/ nº
people +18
Elections
No discrimination for voting

- CONCEPT OF DEMOCRACY

We live in a world that generally agrees on the importance and desirability of

democracy. However, it hasn’t always been like that. In the past, the word “democracy”
had a bad connotation. It was not associated with elections and it was viewed as an
obsolete invention. Nevertheless, over the years this bad concept of democracy has
changed.

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SUBSTANTIVE VS. PROCEDURAL

1- Substantive definition of democracy.

Deal with the goals and effectiveness (outcomes) of the regime. For example, if the goal
is to achieve economic equality, until it is not reached it won’t be democratic.
17:40mn
2- Procedural definition of democracy.

It does not measure the result of democracy. It focuses on how the regime is organized
and its processes/institutions. Democracy is acceptable because the rules that are used
are just, fair or impartial.

The democratic procedures are characterized by the principle of political equality.

Everyone has the same voting power to decide the electoral outcome, regardless of their
wealth, intelligence, ethnicity, gender… The principle of political equality is closely
associated with the majority principle: In majority decision, everyone has the same
influence over the final outcome. In qualified majority voting, those against the status
quo have some extra power.

Then, procedural democracy is characterized by voters choosing to elect representatives

in free elections. Procedural democracy assumes that the electoral process is at the core
of the authority placed in elected officials and ensures that all procedures of elections
are duly complied with (or at least appear so). The role of voting is present to ratify the
outcomes. Actually, in all modern democracies, the deliberate process and day-to-day
supervision over the government are well protected from the influence of the masses.
Indeed, a direct recourse to voters about specific policy issues is often referred to ad
plebiscitarianism.

- They are more common than substantive definitions.

- They can be maximalist or minimalist.

There are two subtypes of procedural definition of democracy.

² Maximalist. democracy= polyarchy (ROBERT DHAL) Dhal made a distinction

between full, ideal democracies and existing democracies. The latter are called
“polyarchy”. Literally, polyarchy means “multiple sources of power”, so, PLURALISM.

Taking into account the celebration of elections but also the provision of political rights
to the citizenry of a country.

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- Real-world cases.
-The provision of substantive goods is not required.
- But... elections are not enough

CONTESTATION AND INCLUSION (polyarchies)

Contestation: captures the extent to which citizens are free to organize

themselves into competing blocs in order to press for the policies and outcomes they
desire.

Inclusion: has to do with who gets to participate in the democratic process.

A POLIARCHY is going to be a system that is high in both dimensions. Is a political regime

with high levels of contestation and inclusion.

DAHL’S COCEPCTUAL LOGIC: Liberal Democracy

POLIAR

FIGURE 5.1 BOOK DAHL’S TWO DIMENSIONS OF DEMOCRACY: CONTESTATION AND

INCLUSION

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 ² Minimalist. (“thin”)

Democracy is going to be defined as a process: “the democracy is that institutional

arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to
decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote”.
- Competitive, free and fair elections.
- Voters determine government.

There is a lot of exclusion. Ex. Freedoms, rights..

What are the “competitive elections”?

Is better the word CONTESTED ELECTIONS

To sum up:

Maximalist / thick / Madisonian / liberal / constitutional: also entails the provision of

constitutional guarantees and controls on the exercise of executive power.

Minimalist / thin / populistic / popular / participatory: about elections and little more
than elections.

WHAT IS THE RELEVANCE OF ALL THIS?

In recent times there are political movements and ideologies that have define
democracy in different ways. For example, they have used a minimalist definition of
democracy.

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So… There has been a democratic recession in recent years in the world?
Probably yes, because there have been some political movements and political
ideologies that are, to some extent, concentrating only on this minimalist definition of
democracy necklacing all the kind of things that are more related to maximalist or
substantive.

POPULISM

An ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated two homogenous and

antagonistic groups, the “pure people” versus “the corrupt elite”, and which argues that
politics should be an expression of the volonté generale (general will) of the people”.

LIBERAL VS. ILLIBERAL DEMOCRACY.

* Since 1989, emergence of “illiberal democracy” = popular democracy and government

“by” the people though elections + increasing limits and restrictions on individual rights
and freedoms.

* Also known as electoral democracies (or delegative democracies)

Current Examples: Hungary, Poland…

* Most countries TEND TO BE LIBERAL AND DEMOCRATIC (pure……..), or NOT LIBERAL

AND NOT DEMOCRATIC (pure autocracy); the other combinations are relatively rare

Ziblatt and levitsky book how democracies die?

What is a competitive authoritarian regime (1h)

• Formal democratic institutions are widely viewed as the principal means of

obtaining and exercising political authority

• Incumbents violate those rules so often and to such an extent that the regime
fails to meet conventional minimum standards for democracy

• Competition is real but unfair

• For example, Mexico pre-2000, current Russia and Turkey, etc.

• Neither fully democratic and nor fully authoritarian: (diminished) form of

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authoritarianism (Juan Linz)
HISTORICAL AND NORMATIVE APPROACHES

We live in a world that generally agrees on the importance and desirability of

democracy. But… it hasn’t always been like that.

The ancient Greeks were some of the first to start thinking about the merits of different
forms of regime.
Demokratia is the Greek word meaning “rule by the demos”

Although the Greek word demos often gets translated as “the people”, it refers more
specifically to the “common people” – those people with little or no economic
independence who are politically uneducated.

Plato saw democracy as government by the poor and uneducated against the rich and
educated. He believed that political decisions should be based on expertise and that
allowing all people to rule would lead to mob rule and class warfare.
Aristotle saw democracy as the most dangerous of the corrupt forms of regime.
Democracy was not associated with elections. It was view as obsolete. Democracy
meant direct legislation and not representative government.

– Neo-institutionalism: Institutions as determinants of political outcomes

– Institutional engineering (associated with the “third wave”): Specially interested in
why some systems appear to perform “better” than others
– Scholarly research focused on the quality rather than the quantity of democracy

MEASUREMENTS OF DEMOCRACY

There are basically two ways of measuring democracy: It can be measured either
through discrete variables (a country democracy or a dictatorship, there are not
intermediate values) or continuous variables (there are various degrees between
democracy and dictatorship)

Discrete variables: a country is a democracy or a dictatorship, there are not intermediate

values. Some examples:

² DD MEASUREMENT

Democracy is considered a dichotomous variable (we are either in a democracy

or not, but there is not middle position). Democracy is a regime “in which
governmental offices are filled as a consequence of contested elections”. Then,
the definition given focuses on contestation, ignoring the participation.

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 We can understand that contestation occurs when there exists an opposition
that has some chance of winning office as a consequence of elections. Then, in
what concerns operationalization, a country is a democracy if:

- The chief executive is elected.

- The legislature is elected.
- There is more than one party competing in elections.
- There has been an alternation in power under identical electoral rules. This last
point is more controversial, however, we can justify it with: “Among the
observed democracies, there are some that hold elections only because the
opposition cannot win and some in which the opposition would not be allowed
to assume office if it won. Hence, holding elections is not sufficient to classify a
regime as democratic”. Hence, without alternation, elections are not sufficient
for democracy.

If these conditions do not hold, then the country is a dictatorship.

Contestation is very important for DD.

Contestation occurs when there is an opposition that has some chance of winning office
as a consequence of elections.
○ Ex ante uncertainty: outcome of election is not known before it takes place.
○ Ex post irreversibility: the winner of the electoral contest actually takes office.
○ Repeatability: elections occur at regular and known intervals.
■ Voters must have at least two alternatives to choose from.

The problem is that it is difficult to distinguish between regimes in which (a) incumbents
never lose power because they are popular and (b) incumbents hold elections only
because they know they will not lose them.

Some examples of the use of this method are Malaysia (which held free elections, the
incumbent won the first two elections, lost the third ones and closed the Parliament)
and Japan (where the Liberal Party won all elections until 1993 when the opposition
gained office. Only in 1993 Japan confirmed it was a democracy.

² BOIX ET AL MEASUREMENT (BOIZ-MILLER-ROSATO)

This is an alternative dichotomous variable of democracy. Here, when defining

the concept of democracy, participation is included in the operationalization.
According to this measurement, for a democracy to be valid it should accomplish

26
 contestation and participation requirements. Then, in what concerns
operationalization, a country is a democracy if:

- Contestation: the executive is directly or indirectly elected in popular elections and is

responsible either directly to voters or to legislature. The legislature is chosen in free
and fair elections.
-Participation: a majority of adult men has the right to vote.

Germany is an example of the use of this method.

Continuous variables: there are various degrees between democracy and dictatorship.

² POLITY IV

Studies 190 countries from 1800 to the present. Its measurement is based on five
attributes:

- Competitiveness of executive recruitment (contestation)

- Openness of executive recruitment (contestation
- Regulation of political participation (inclusiveness)
- Competitiveness of participation (inclusiveness)
- Executive constraints/decision rules (limited government). Executive constraint
is the main novelty: it associates democracy with limited government.

Basically this method consists on providing an annual evaluation of democracy and

autocracy (from 0 to 10). From these two measures it provides a POLITY SCORE, which
is the difference between the democracy measure and the autocracy measure:

Polity Score = Democracy Measure – Autocracy Measure

The Polity Score ranges from -10 to 10, with countries being classified the following way
depending on it:

· From -10 to -6: Dictatorship (autocracies).

· From -5 to +5: Mixed regimes or anocracies.
· From +6 to 10: Democracies.

27
² FREEDOM HOUSE

It has observed 194 countries from 1972 to the present with a substantive
approach, not a procedural one. It measures freedom in different ways, assuming
that greater freedom implies more democracy. Freedom has two broad
categories: political rights (E.G. Right to vote and compete for office) and civil
rights (E.G. Freedom of speech)

Each category is measured in a scale which ranges from 1 to 7, with democracy being
the average of the political and civil rights scales. Countries normally divided into three
groups:

· Free countries (1 - 2.5)

· Party free countries (2.5 - 5.5)
· Not free countries (5.5 - 7)

Comparing DD, Polity IV, and FH

• The three different measures of democracy and dictatorship are highly correlated
• This high degree of correlation across the 3 measures is largely driven by
uncontroversial cases
• Unfortunately, there is considerable disagreement among the measures when it
comes to classifying the mixed regimes

We can evaluate measures in different ways:

1) Conceptualization is the process of creating mental categories that capture the

meaning of objects, events or ideas.

– Its appropriateness will depend on the researcher ́s question (for example, FH and
democracy and economic inequality)
– It is easier to identify causes with minimalist measures (for example, FH and its 25
attributes)

2) Validity refers to the extent to which our measures correspond to the concepts
that they are intended to reflect:

– Attributes, Aggregation Issues and Measurement Level

– For example, in FH and Polity IV, is it appropriate to weight each of the attributes
equally?

28
 3) Reliability refers to the extent to which the measurement process repeatedly
and consistently produces the same score for a given case:

– The DD measure of regime type is highly reliable because it is based entirely on

“observables” (and not subjective judgments).

4) Replicability refers to the ability of third-party scholars to reproduce the process

through which a measure is created (coding rules and disaggregated data):

– DD and Polity IV provide much more detailed and clear coding rules for constructing
their measures of regime type than FH does.

Magistral, Martes, 8/10/19

LECTURE 5A: THE ECONOMIC DETERMINANTS OF

DEMOCRACY AND DICTATORSHIP

DEMOCRATIZATION

Democratization: is the transition to a more democratic political regime. It also refers to

substantive political changes moving in a democratic direction. It may be the transition
from an authoritarian regime to a full democracy, a transition from an authoritarian
political system to a semi-democracy or transition from a semi-authoritarian political
system to a democratic political system. The outcome may be consolidated or
democratization may face frequent reversals. The process of democratization can either
be a discrete or continuous:

- Discrete approach: it involves regime change as a discrete event. For instance,

democratization as a transition from authoritarianism to a democracy.
- Continuous approach: regimes can also change towards democracy gradually.

CLASSIC MODERNIZATION THEORY

Modernization theory is used to explain the process of modernization within societies.

Modernization refers to a model of a progressive transition from a “pre-modern” or
“traditional” society to a “modern” one.

29
One important factor that usually brings about modernization is economic
development. On one hand, it follows the following path: industrialization, urbanization,
higher educational levels, spread of communications technologies and, ultimately,
democracy. Moreover, as countries develop, social structure becomes complex, labor
processes begin to require active cooperation of employees, and new groups emerge
and organize. As a result, the system can no longer be effectively run by command:
society is too complex, technological change endows the direct producers with some
autonomy and private information, civil society emerges, and dictatorial forms of
control lose their effectiveness.

Modernization theory is represented by the work of the scholar Seymour M. Lipset and
his book “Political Man The social bases of politics”. Although modernization theory was
originally developed by economists, it was later taken up by political scientists

Most economic explanations for democracy can be linked to a paradigm called

modernization theory.

Modernization theory argues that all societies pass through the same historical stages
of economic development.

Classic modernization theory predicts that as countries develop economically, they are:
1. More likely to become democratic
2. More likely to remain democratic

Modernization theory was basically establishing a positive correlation between the

modernization economic development and the likelihood that has a country of being a
democracy.

The data are consistent with two different stories linking income and democracy:

1. Classic modernization theory (Lipset): predicts that democracy is more likely to

emerge and survive as countries develop and become richer.

2. The survival story (Adam Przeworski): predicts that democracy is more likely to
survive as countries develop and become richer, but it is not more likely to
emerge. He argued that increased income helps democracies survive but does
not help countries become democratic in the first place. Democracy´s is more
likely to survive as countries develop and become richer, but it is not more likely
to emerge. He basically says that democracy emergent could be considered as
something random. Economic development guarantees (explains) the survival of
democracy, but not its appearance.

30
MECHANISIMS

Why might increase income help democratic survival?

Suppose you are a rich person living in a democracy
• Autocracy is a big gamble
Suppose you are a poor person living in a democracy
• Autocracy is less of a gamble

This classification is based on the effect that GDP per capita has on democracies, but is
there anything else in modernization theory that also affects the emergence of a
democracy? Well, of course, several researchers have proposed elements such as
education, media proliferation and information and presence of famines, whose
incidence is inversely related with democracy.
Is there anything else in modernization theory apart from GDP that has an effect on
democracy?

· It is found that for the period 1870.200, the more important determinant is education.
Is not the level of education but how much money it is invested on it.
· It was found for the period 1972-2006. The mass media also plays an important part
(especially TV). The level of proliferation of media became more important than GDPpc.
· Famines only happen in dictatorships, not in democracies.

There is another interpretation of the modernization theory made by Tatu Vanhanen.

MODERNIZATION THEORY ACCORDING TO TATU VANHANEN: his main hypothesis is

that democracy emerges in countries in which social power is fragmented and there is
more equal distribution of resources. When resources are more equally distributed,

31
political power is more fragmented and democracy becomes more likely.
In short, when political power is more fragmented, the likelihood of the country
becoming a democracy is higher. That is the case of Switzerland and the USA. But, in
order to identify whether this method is valid or not, we must be able to measure
political power. So, if we compare two countries with the same level of economic
development but with a different score in the Index of Power Resources, the one with
the highest score is the most likely to become a democracy.

This is possible tanks to 6 indicators that form the Index of Power Resources:

● Urban population (the higher it is, the more diversified the economy)
● Non-agricultural population (the higher it is, the more diversified the occupational
structure)
● University students (the higher the number, the more equal the distribution of
intellectual power resources)
● Literates
● Family farms (the higher it is, the more equal the distribution of land)
● Decentralization of non-agricultural economic resources (control of the public
sector, share of foreign-owned, big private enterprises)

INEQUALITIES AND SOCIAL CLASSES

Barrington Moore (1996) said once: “no bourgeoisie, no democracy”. He argued that
democracies emerge when the middle class (the bourgeoisie) is strong enough to
overcome past feudal structures. Not with standing, his theory has been strongly
criticized in latter works. This approach has become old-fashioned and it has been
substituted by the inequality approach:

The central thesis is that democracy emerges

when the bourgeoisie is strong enough as to
overcome the remaining structures of feudalism.
In this political economy approach, we can find
lots of authors with different opinions. Among
them, Carles Boix, who claims that economic (land
or income) inequality makes democracy less likely.

On the contrary, Acemoglu and Robinson explain

that the relationship between democracy and
inequality is an inverted-U (concave relationship).
That is translated into: in highly equal countries,
there is no pressure for democratization.

32
In highly unequal countries, the elite (for fear of excessive redistribution) resists
democratization and then, democratization is more likely for intermediate levels of
inequality. Nonetheless, the empirical record does not support either Box or Acemoglu
and Robinson.

We can also find the contributions of Ben Ansell & David L. Samuels. An elite-
Competition approach:
They key concept of their study is the claim that democracy is not about the fear of
expropriation of the rich, is about the protection of property that an old elite needs from
arbitrary power (of the old elite). The new elite is the one that emerge as a consequence
of industrialization process (bourgeoisie, urban elite) and the old elite is attached to
rural tradition (rural elite).

First we have to make a distinction between land inequality (related with the relative
position of rural elite. When there is high land inequality it means that rural elite is very
powerful) and income inequality (related with the relative position of urban elite. High
income inequality means that urban elite is very powerful). Democracy comes when
rising economic groups (new elite) compete for sharing political power with entrenched
elites (old elites).

Under what conditions democracy is more likely to emerge?

When income inequality is very low and land inequality is very high democracy is less
likely, because land inequality tell us that rural elite is very powerful, while urban elite
is not powerful, so obviously the old elite would win and there wouldn’t be enough
pressure for old elites to democratize.
If income inequality is high and land inequality is low, democracy is more likely to
emerge, because we have a not strong bourgeoisie that is not able to resist to the
movements of democratization.
With this new focus we are able to explain situations in where countries with high rates
of income inequality democratization is possible in contrast with other approaches.

33
MODERNIZATION VS. SURVIVAL

MODERNIZATION THEORY

DEMOCRACY AUTOCRACY
POOR YES YES
RICH NO NO

SURVIVAL STORY

DEMOCRACY AUTOCRACY
POOR YES NO
RICH NO NO

34
But we should examine the effect of increased income on transitions to democracy and
transitions to dictatorship separately

NATURAL RESOURCES

The main author on the topic is Michael Ross. The principal argument of his theory is
that countries whose exports depend mainly on oil and minerals are less likely to
become democratic. This is known as the theory of the “rentier state”. If a state has
natural resources which produce high revenues, the state has the means to repress the
population in case they demand a democracy. In addition, taxes are lower in oil-rich
countries. Consequently, the people are happy and do not usually rebel. Yet, if they do
rebel, they will be repressed.
“No taxation if there is not political representation” † “No political representation if
there is not taxation”

35
 Why Does Oil Hinder Democracy?

According to the natural resources curse, countries that depend on revenue from
natural resources, such as oil, diamonds, and minerals, will find it difficult to
democratize. They are also more prone to corruption, poor governance, and civil war.

2 Types of Explanations:

– Demand-side
– Supply-side

1. Demand-side Explanations

They emphasize how resource revenues reduce both the citizens' demand for
democratic reform and government responsiveness to that demand
Resource revenues mean that taxes are low and governments are autonomous from
citizen demands

2. Supply-side Explanations

They focus on how resource revenues enable dictators to resist pressure to democratize
and help them to consolidate their hold on power
Resource revenues can be distributed as patronage to preempt or coopt opposition
groups, or used to repress them
Familiarity with the previous discussion on foreign aid

Aid optimists think that foreign aid can spur democratization efforts

Aid pessimists think that foreign aid has a negative effect on democratization reforms

Foreign aid can hurt democratization efforts

By freeing governments from the need to raise taxes and providing them with access to
‘slack resources’ that can be strategically used to reward supporters and coopt
opposition groups, foreign aid increases the autonomy of recipient governments from
the demands of their citizens

Foreign aid can help democratization efforts, but only if:

1. the recipient country is dependent on foreign aid
2. the aid donor wants to promote democratic reform
3. the aid donor can credibly threaten to withdraw the aid if its demands for reform are
not met

36
Any democratic reforms that do occur are likely to be limited in scope

MECHANISMS:
2 variants of Modernization Theory

1. The importance of credible exit threats

Representative government 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
The key to this story is that the state must depend on a group of people with credible
exit threats → RESOURCES/OIL CURSE

What role for globalization?

“No bourgeois, no democracy”

A variant of modernization theory states that it is not income per se that encourages
democratization, but rather the changes in the socioeconomic structure that accompany
wealth in the modernization process

According to modernization theory, all societies move through a series of stages

Specifically, we see a shift from a focus on agriculture to a focus on manufacturing and

services

Some scholars have argued that these changes in early modern Europe played a crucial
role in the creation of representative government in England. Why?

Structural changes in the economy produced a shift in economic power away from
traditional agricultural elites who controlled easily observable assets to a rising class of
wool producers, merchants, and financial intermediaries who controlled assets that
were more difficult to observe
The key point is that the state can tax or predate on only those assets that they can
observe (or count)

The increased ability of the gentry to hide their assets from state predation changed the
balance of power between modernizing social groups and the traditional seats of power
such as the Crown

37
The Crown now had to negotiate with the new economic elites in order to extract
revenue

In return for paying their taxes, the economic elites demanded limits to state predation
This resulted in the supremacy of Parliament over the Crown

But why a stronger parliament?

A credible commitment problem or a time-inconsistency problem occurs when (i) an

actor who makes a promise today may have an incentive to renege on that promise in
the future and (ii) power is in the hands of the actor who makes the promise and not in
the hands of those expected to benefit from the promise
The establishment of a strong parliament is designed to solve the credible commitment
problem by keeping power in the hands of the recipient of the promise

The English monarchy in early modern Europe accepted limits on its predatory behavior
because it depended on elites with credible exit threats (mobile assets)
The French monarchy in early modern Europe did not accept limits on its predatory
behavior because it depended on elites who did not have credible exit threats (fixed
assets)

Back to mechanism…

But what is a second causal mechanism linking economic development and democracy?
Does economic inequality influence the democratization process? And how?

2. The role of economic inequality

(Carles Boix)

It is commonly argued that economic inequality undermines democracy

The possibility that the poor would expropriate the rich through the ballot box makes
democracy appear quite costly to elites
As a result, they often step in to block attempts at democratization with right-wing
coups.

Theoretical background: Median Voter Theorem and Meltzer & Richard’s (1981) Model

38
· MEDIAN VOTER THEOREM:

This theory is an attempt to explain why politicians of both ends rend to the center. The
MVT states that “a majority rule voting system will select the outcome most preferred
by the median voter. Politicians take political positions as far as possible near the center
in order to appeal to as many potential voters as possible. You have however to assume
that:

- Voters preferences are single-peaked: all voters have a single point along a policy
position preference curve at which they would receive the highest utility.
- Voter preferences are one-dimensional: they can put in a linear graphic.
- There are 2 candidates or parties competing for voters.

However, the empirical support for this line of reasoning is not always very strong.
Alternatively, it could be the case (as we have seen) that economic elites do not need to
worry that the poor will expropriate them if they have credible exit threats.

What inequality?
Economic inequality should only be bad for democratization in those countries where
the economic elites do not have credible exit threats.
Recent evidence shows that land inequality is bad for democracy but that income
inequality is not.

CULTURE

One may wonder if there certain cultural beliefs, attitudes, habits, levels of
interpersonal trust which lead to democracy. Which are the potential causal
relationships? There are some examples:

39
In their book “The Civic Culture”, Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba described culture as
the way individuals think and feel about the political system, including whether
individuals believe they can influence political decisions, whether they feel positive
towards the political system, whether they believe citizens are trustworthy and whether
they prefer gradual or revolutionary societal change.
Civic culture can be studied though surveys.

´ Inglehart studied 25 industrialized countries and found that those with levels of life
satisfaction, interpersonal trust and low support for revolutionary change were more
stable democracies.

However, we need to determine how the causal relationship works. One way to
overcome the problems of the causal direction is to study how the past affects
democracies. The main hypothesis is that countries which were colonized by Great
Britain were more likely to become democratic when they gained independence that
those who were colonized by countries such as Spain, Portugal, France or the
Netherlands. This is mainly because Great Britain transmitted democratic values to the
inhabitants of the colonies. However, there is no evidence in favour of this hypothesis if
statistical controls are introduced (economic development, population size and others).

´ Max Weber presented another theory. He claimed that there was a connection
between the protestant values (savings, accumulation of wealth for investment, work
ethic, entrepreneurship, rational pursuit of economic gain) and the development of
capitalism. However, Weber’s thesis has been hardly criticized as it could be the case,
for example, that Protestantism was later linked to both capitalism and democracy.

´ The study of Robert D. Woodberry showed that the work of protestant missionaries
was more determinant for democracy than economic development. Protestants must
read the bible, so they encouraged people to learn how to read, contrary to what
Christian missionaries did (as they did not have the need to read the bible).
Notwithstanding, there is no consensus on the accuracy of his research.

NOThus, what is the LINK BETWEEN RELIGION AND DEMOCRACY?

Catholicism: In the 1960’s and 1970’s, it was argued that Catholicism and democracy
were not compatible and there were two main arguments.
Firstly, Catholicism’s emphasis on the existence of only one church and one truth is
incompatible with democracy’s need to accept different and competing ideologies as
legitimate.

40
Moreover, hierarchy in the Catholic church and distinction between clergy and laity is a
problem for the acceptance of more socially and politically egalitarian institutions such
as democracy. Nevertheless, in the 1970’s and the 1980’s, Catholic countries in both
Europe and Latin America became democratic.

Islam: It is argued that is the most incompatible religion with democracy. In fact, there
is mixed evidence about it. In the individual level (surveys) there is no evidence on the
fact that Muslim people are against democracy. The Arab countries (north Africa and
middle east) are where there is a majority of Muslim population. However, once you
consider the level of development, it is found that Muslim majorities are not
determinant for having a democracy.

Hence, the problem with theories on religion is that most religions have some doctrinal
elements that make them both compatible and incompatible with democracy.

25MIN

Dict. Democracy

Poor x xo

Rich

Modernization vs. Survival (V)

53:50mn

MECHANISMS:
2VARIANTS OF MODERNIZATION THEORY

1) The importance of credible exit threats.

2) The role of economic inequality

People to collect the taxes

WAR TAXES
Taxable things

Variant 2 of Modernization Theory

Where is more likely to have a democratization process

Equal dictatorship xd

41
 15/10/19

LECTURE 5B: THE CULTURAL DETERMINANTS OF

DEMOCRACY AND DICTATORSHIP

I. POLITICAL CULTURE

The Theories.

Cultural arguments generally fall into two categories:

1. Primordialist arguments treat culture as something that is objective and

inherited – something that has been fixed since “primordial” times.
2. Constructivist arguments treat culture as something that is constructed or
invented rather than inherited.

PUBLIC POLICY IMPLICATIONS

The Answers

The notion that political regimes such as democracy and dictatorship are more suited to
some cultures than others is not new (Montesquieu, Stuart Mill…)

But Mill ALSO thought that culture was malleable

Preliminaries

Cultural modernization theory argues that socioeconomic development does not

directly cause democracy; instead, economic development produces certain cultural
changes, such as the emergence of a civic culture, and it is these cultural changes that
ultimately produce democratic reform.

PROBLEMS:
-Does democracy require a civic culture?
- What is a civic culture?
- What exactly is it about culture that matters (what is the CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP
between cultural, economic and political factors)?

You cannot say that one country has higher political culture than other

42
Political culture refers to all human activities that relate to a group’s or society’s
prevailing political beliefs, norms and values:

- Beliefs are understood here as what people think is factually right or wrong.
- Norms are behavioural guidelines that are socially sanctioned.
- Values mean what people think is morally good and bad.

· ORIENTATIONS: Cognitive, affective and evaluational → thinking and feeling

· “particular distribution of patterns of orientation toward political objects among the

members of a nation” (Almond and Verba)

POLITICAL OBJECTS

1. Specific roles of structures.

2. Incumbents of roles.
3. Particular public policies, decisions or enforcement of decision.

How to study Political Culture?

A scientific approach to studying political culture requires the reliance on systematic

evidence based on representative data.

Main source of this: SURVEYS.

Comparative politics researchers often confront problems when conducting surveys →

Public Opinion Courses

For example… DEMOCRATIC LEGITIMACY

“Democracy may have problems, but it’s better than any other form of government.
Could you please tell me if you strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree?”

1. Civic Competence (competence refers to COGNITION)

CIVIC COMPETENCE: the level of political knowledge or sophistication that you have in
one particular country. A country is going to be more civic competent, or the people in
this country, if this country or people are having higher levels of political knowledge.

· Citizens must be capable of evaluating what the governing parties have done and what
the opposition parties are proposing as alternatives in order to make reasonable choices

43
in an election.
· The description of modern mass publics as insufficiently competent
has been frequent.
· Invoking the theory of informational shortcuts, scholars argue that the demands for
voter competence are more modest than the critics of insufficient voter sophistication
suggest.
· What is important for people to make reasonable choices is to have ready access to
reliable heuristic cues concerning for example whom group interest supports a given
proposal.

Another phenomenon that weakens the criticism of incompetent citizens in post-

industrial societies is what came to be known as “cognitive mobilization” (Inglehart
1977)
People´s factual political knowledge might not have significantly increased in post-
industrial societies, but their skills in acquiring information and processing it have
certainly grown through cognitive mobilization

CIVIC ALLEGIANCE: says that is not a matter of knowledge, is not a matter of

competence, is not a matter of cognition. Is a matter of affection. Instead of being
concerned about knowing or not knowing, you are concerned about healing and not
healing.

· As much as Almond & Verba emphasized civic competence, they also emphasized the
importance of civic allegiance

· In contrast to competence, allegiance is an affective mode of orientation

· They introduced the term “congruence”, arguing that in order to be stable political
institutions must be in accordance with people´s legitimacy beliefs

• The emphasis on allegiance was strongly inspired by Easton´s (1965) concept of

political support
• Democracy can cope with low levels of “specific” support for concrete policies and
particular actors but it cannot cope with the absence of “diffuse” support for its basic
norms, principles, and institutions

• More recently a new twist on this theme has been developed by Anderson and
Tverdova´s (2003) work on “losers´ consent”

44
• A democracy is thought to be more stable not only when diffuse support is high on
average but more specifically when the gap in diffuse support between the winning and
the losing camps of the electorate remains small

Loser’s content

The ideal democratic citizen is usually seen as a person who takes part in elections and
other forms of elite-mandating participation that are necessary to make representation
work

TYPES OF POLTICAL CULTURE

1. Parochial → Traditional system of African tribes

2. Subject → Centralized authoritarian systems

3. Participant/CIVIC → Democracy (High levels of competence and allegiance)

45
Congruence/incongruence between political culture and structure

Consequences for DEMOCRATIC stability/instability

Civic culture

A civic culture is conceptualized as a shared cluster of attitudes that includes things like
a high level of interpersonal trust, a preference for gradual societal change, a high level
of support for the existing political system, and high levels of life satisfaction (Social
Capital?)

A civic culture is thought to be conducive to the emergence and survival of democracy

There has been considerable debate about the exact causal relationship between
culture, economic development, and democracy Values Story (Cultural Modernization
Theory)
– Economic development produces cultural change that leads to democratization
Institutional Story
– Economic development leads to democratization, which, in turn, leads to cultural
change

• Traditional values

– Religion, traditional family roles, and deference to authority

– National pride and rejection of divorce, euthanasia, suicide, and abortion

• Secular-rational values

– Less emphasis on religion, traditional family roles, and deference to authority

– Cosmopolitan and more support for divorce, euthanasia, suicide, and abortion

• Survival values

– Emphasis on physical and economic security

46
– Ethnocentric world view and low levels of interpersonal trust and tolerance

• Self-expression values

– Emphasis on gender, racial, and sexual equality; environmental protection; tolerance

of diversity; civic activism; and life satisfaction
– High levels of interpersonal trust and desire for a greater say in how political and
economic decisions are made

· Economic development produces predictable cultural changes that help the

democratization process
· The industrialization phase sees countries move away from traditional values to
secular-rational values
· The post-industrialization phase sees countries move away from survival values to self-
expression values

CONCLUSIONS

• Both the political economy and the political culture approach argue that
modernization works in favour of democracy, but their claims contradict each other

• The political economy approach (TOP-DOWN) argues that modernization favours

democracy because it makes democracy more acceptable in the eyes of the elites

• The political culture approach (BOTTOM-UP) argues that modernization favours

democracy because it confronts elites with more capable and ambitious mass publics

SAMUEL HUNTINGTON “THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS”(1993)

Conflicts in the world will be cultural rather than ideological or economic.

The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.
Civilizations: Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin
American, African

“Western ideas of individualism, liberalism, constitutionalism, human rights, equality,

liberty, the rule of law, democracy, free markets, the separation of church and state,
often have little resonance in Islamic, Confucian, Japanese, Hindu, Buddhist, or
Orthodox cultures.”

47
The Western belief in the universality of the West values and its insistence on imposing
those values through democratization efforts will only antagonize other civilizations and
lead to conflict

NO Certain religions are incompatible with democracy:

– Islamic and Confucianist countries cannot sustain democracy
– Catholic countries will find it hard to sustain democracy
– Violent conflict will be particularly prevalent between Muslims and non-Muslims

Arguments like this have a long history (and a high popularity nowadays)

Nearly all religions have doctrinal elements that make them seem both compatible and
incompatible with democracy

Thus, it becomes an empirical question as to whether certain religions pose difficulties

for the emergence and survival of democracy

Considerable evidence that the stance of different religions towards political institutions
often depends less on religious doctrine and more on the interests of religious leaders
at the time

The empirical reality is that all religions have historically been compatible with a wide
range of political institutions

EMERGENCE OF DEMOCRACY

• Increased income makes democratic transitions more likely

• Increased economic growth makes democratic transitions less likely
• Catholic countries are more likely to become democratic
• Having a Protestant or Muslim majority has no effect on democratic transitions
• Ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity have no effect on democratic transitions

48
THE DEBATE ON PRESIDENTIALISM

49
The PARADOX OF PRESIDENTIALISM:

“Presidential constitutions paradoxically incorporate contradictory principles and

assumptions. On the one hand, such systems set out to create a strong, stable executive
with enough plebiscitarian legitimization to stand fast against the array of particular
interests represented in the legislature. On the other hand, presidential constitutions
also reflect profound suspicion of the personalization of power.”

Linz’s four main arguments of “The Perils of Presidentialism”:

1. The “winner-takes-all argument”: parliamentary regimes are based on power-
sharing arrangements and coalition-making, but in presidential elections the
loser does not get anything. This generates polarization and conflict

2. The “personality argument”: because the president has “the conviction of

possessing independent authority and a popular mandate, this conviction is
likely to imbue him a president with a sense of power and mission, even if the
plurality that elected him is a slender one”

3. The “dual legitimacy argument”: there is no way to solve conflicts between the
executive and the legislature

4. The “instability argument”: parliamentarism has mechanisms for coping with

political crisis, presidentialism is a rigid system (fixed terms) that may provoke a
regime crisis

• Cheibub’s alternative explanation:

– presidentialism tends to rise in countries in which the military play a political active
role
– presidential democracies tend to fall because they are more likely to be adopted in
difficult circumstances (when the military are politically strong)

• Mainwaring’s alternative explanation:

– what makes presidential democracies unstable is the presence of multiple parties
– when there are few parties, presidential countries are stable
– legislative fragmentation causes legislative deadlock which causes democratic
instability
– in parliamentary regimes, legislative deadlock can be solved with early elections

22/10/19

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 LECTURE 6: WRAP-UP ON TYPES OF REGIME
Ch. 8&10

CHAPTER 8 PRINCIPLES OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS + PP

A bottom-up process is one in which the people rise up to overthrow an authoritarian

regime in a popular revolution.

E.G: lot of examples that have been taking place in the last 20aprx years. Velvet
revolution in Czechoslovakia 1989.

A top-down process is one in which the dictatorial ruling elite introduces liberalizing
reforms that ultimately lead to a democratic transition.

Collective action theory throws light on why popular revolutions are so rare and why
authoritarian regimes frequently appear incredibly stable. The prevalence of preference
falsification under dictatorships helps to explain the puzzle as to why revolutions nearly
always come as a surprise yet appear so inevitable in hindsight.

Tipping models provide further insight into why revolutions are so unpredictable and
why even small changes in people’s preferences can sometimes rapidly transform
previously subservient individuals into revolutionary protesters.

Authoritarian elites occasionally introduce liberalization policies. The goal of these

policies is the stabilization of dictatorial rule in the form of a broadened dictatorship
rather than a full democratic transition. Important role that information, beliefs, and
uncertainty play in democratic transitions.

Questions:

- How can we explain these bottom-up transitions? (A/B)

(They are difficult to explain because they are risky)
- Why are these revolutions so rare (A) hard to predict (B)?
- Why do dictatorships seem so fragile after the revolution but so stable beforehand?
(B)

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 A- COLLECTIVE ACTION THEORY

Examples of collective action are revolutions, interest group activities, strikes, elections,
some events organized by fraternities and sororities…

Collective action it is probably one of the most important theories that we have in
political science. It refers to the pursuit of some objective by groups of individuals.
Typically, the objective is some form of public good.

A public good is nonexcludable and nonrivalrous. Nonexcludability means that you

cannot exclude people from enjoying the public good, and nonrivalry means that there
is just as much public good for people to enjoy no matter how many people consume it.

For example, clean air is nonexcludable in the sense that you cannot stop people from
breathing it, and it is nonrivalrous in the sense that one person’s consumption of it does
not diminish the amount of clean air that others can consume.

The collective action, or free-rider, problem refers to the fact that individual members
of a group often have little incentive to contribute to the provision of a public good that
will benefit all members of the group.

Larger groups will find it harder to overcome collective action problems

Collective theory provides an explanation for the apparent stability of communism in

Eastern Europe and for why public demonstrations in dictatorships are so rare.

EXAMPLE: imagine a group of N individuals. If K people contribute or participate, then

the good is provided. The value of the public good to each individual is B and the cost
of contributing or participating is C.

Two factors in particular are crucial determining the likely success of the collective
action:

52
 1. The difference between K and N
If K=N, then there is no incentive to free-ride
If K < N, then there is an incentive to free-ride

The larger the difference between K and N, the greater the incentive to free-
ride.

Collective action is more likely to be successful when the difference between K and N
is small.

2. The size of N

- The size of N inuences the likelihood that you will think of yourself as critical
to the collective action
- The larger the group, the harder it is to monitor, identify, and punish free-
riders

Larger groups will find it harder to overcome collective action problems.

This leads to the counter-intuitive results that smaller groups may be more powerful
than larger groups.

B- TIPPING MODELS

Although collective action theory helps to explain why revolutions are so rare and why
dictatorships often appear quite stable, it cannot explain the mass protests that
eventually brought communism to its knees in 1989-1990. (provide an explanation for
the mass protests that occurred in Eastern Europe in 1989)

You have to reach the tipping point, what is this? The situation or point n which you
have more people with lower threshold than people that people that are actually
mobilized.

Participation now becomes the puzzle that needs to be explained.

The individual has a private preference and a revealed public preference. His private
preference is his true attitude toward the dictatorship, and his public preference is the
attitude toward the dictatorship that he reveals to the outside world. The dangers that
come from publicly revealing one’s opposition to a dictatorship often mean that
individuals who oppose the regime falsify their true preferences; instead of opposing
the dictatorship in public, they support it.

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Preference falsification means not revealing one’s true preferences in public due to it is
dangerous to reveal your opposition to a dictatorship.

A revolutionary threshold is the size of protest at which an individual is willing to

participate.

• Individuals naturally have different thresholds:

– Some people with low thresholds are happy to oppose the government irrespective of
what others do
– Some people with higher thresholds will protest only if lots of others do
– Some people with very high thresholds actually support the regime and are extremely
unwilling to protest

The distribution of revolutionary thresholds is crucial in determining whether a

revolution occurs or not:
Society A = {0,2,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,10}
Only one person protest and no revolutionary cascade
Society B = {0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,10}
Nine people protest and revolutionary cascade

A revolutionary cascade is when one person’s participation triggers the participation of

another, which triggers the participation of another, and so on.

The same change in revolutionary thresholds may lead to a revolution in one setting but
to a small, abortive, and ultimately unsuccessful protest in another.
Economic recessions and deprivation may cause private preferences and revolutionary
thresholds to move against the regime without actually causing a revolution.
Structural factors are not sufficient to produce revolutions, although they can make
revolutions more likely by shifting the distribution of revolutionary thresholds.

Preference falsification means that a society’s distribution of revolutionary thresholds is

never known to outsiders or even the individuals in that society. Thus, a society can
come to the brink of a revolution without anyone knowing.

Our inability to observe private preferences and revolutionary thresholds conceals

potential revolutionary cascades and makes revolutions impossible to predict.

Timur Kuran: “predictability of unpredictability”

Structural changes in the 1980s lowered the revolutionary thresholds of East Europeans:
– Appointment of Gorbachev

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– Poor economic performance in Eastern Europe
–Statement that the Soviet Union would not intervene militarily in the domestic politics
of Eastern Europe

Demonstration effects and revolutionary diffusion:

– The successful introduction of pro-democracy reforms in one country reduced
revolutionary thresholds elsewhere
– This led to a revolutionary cascade across countries rather than across individuals
within countries

Why did the collapse of communism seem so inevitable in hindsight?

Historians who interviewed individuals across Eastern Europe report that there was a
huge pent-up pool of opposition to Communist rule that was bound to break at some
point.

But preference falsification works both ways!

As a revolutionary cascade starts to snowball, supporters of the Communist regime may

feel obliged to join the pro-democracy protests. Just as pro-democracy supporters falsify
their preferences under dictatorship to avoid punishment, pro-dictatorship supporters
falsify their preferences under democracy. Revolutions will always appear inevitable in
hindsight.

TOP-DOWN TRANSITIONS TO DEMOCRACY

Some transitions to democracy do not occur through a bottom-up process as occurred

in East Germany. Instead, they result primarily from a policy of liberalization on the part
of authoritarian elites themselves. This policy of liberalization is often designed to
stabilize a dictatorship but sometimes inadvertently leads to democracy. Periods of
liberalization have preceded numerous transitions to democracy throughout history.

THE STORY

Top-down transitions to democracy frequently result from a split between soft-liners

and hard-liners in an authoritarian regime. Typically, the dictatorship has come under
some sort of pressure, often having to do with declining economic conditions, and soft-
liners have come to prominence. Whereas hard-liners tend to be satisfied with the
political status quo, soft-liners may prefer to liberalize and broaden the social base of
the dictatorship in an attempt to gain allies, strengthen their position in relation to the
hard-liners, and manage opposition groups. The soft-liners have a choice to make.

55
Should they open up the political regime through a process of liberalization, or should,
or should they stick with the status quo?

The decision to liberalize is rarely taken in a vacuum. Instead, it often occurs after the
authoritarian elites have come under some form of pressure from opposition group in
society. In this sense, it is hard to entirely disentangle bottom-up and top-down
processes of democratization. As we noted at the beginning of the chapter, we believe
that both processes typically interact with each other in the real world.

A policy of liberalization entails a controlled opening of the political space and might
include the formation of political parties, holding elections, writing a constitution,
establishing a judiciary, opening a legislature, and so on. It is important to recognize that
the goal of any “opening” for the soft-liners is not to bring about democracy but to
incorporate various opposition groups into authoritarian institutions. The liberalization
process is typically an attempt by dictatorial elites to co-opt opposition groups or, at
least, to divide and control them. The intended goal is not a democracy, but what we
might call a “broadened dictatorship”.

The implication is that the liberalization process will eventually lead to a transition to
full democracy. It is this belief that often encourages some scholars to label these
regimes as “mixed”, “hybrid”, “partial democracies”, or “partly free”, as if they were
some halfway house between dictatorship and democracy. It appears that liberalization
and institutionalization can significantly enhance the stability of dictatorial rule.

Given the potential benefits of liberalization, we wonder why authoritarian elites do not
always push for it. The problem is that the soft-liners cannot guarantee that
liberalization will successfully produce a broadened dictatorship. As you might expect,
the liberalization process is inherently unstable. If the soft-liners do liberalize, the
democratic opposition has two options.

- On the one hand, it can accept the concessions offered by the authoritarian elites and
enter the institutions of a broadened dictatorship. In this case, the democratic
opposition essentially agrees to maintain the dictatorial rules of the game in return for
entrance into the formal political sphere. The soft-liners would obviously see this as a
success.

- On the other hand, however, the democratic opposition can take advantage of its new
freedoms to further organize and mobilize against the dictatorship. In many cases
around the world, this is precisely what happened.

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THE MODEL

The choice by the authoritarian elite to stick with the political status quo or to open up
the regime depends on how it thinks the democratic opposition will respond to
liberalization. The choice by the democratic opposition to enter a broadened
dictatorship or to continue mobilizing depends on how it thinks the dictatorship will
respond to ongoing mobilization.

1. The soft-liners move first and must decide whether to do nothing or open up the
regime. If the soft-liners do nothing, we are left with the political status quo.

2. If they decide to open up, then de democratic opposition groups must choose
whether to enter the authoritarian institutions or to continue organizing.

2.2 If they enter, the result is a broadened dictatorship.

2.3 If they organize, the soft-liners must decide whether to repress or democratize.

2.3.1 If they repress, there are two possible outcomes:

- If the repression is successful, there will be a narrow dictatorship in which
the hard-liners return to prominence.
- If the repression fails, there will be an insurgency.
(IT DEPENDS ON THE STRENGTH OF OPPOSITION GROUPS)

2.3.2 If soft-liners choose to democratize, the result is a democratic transition.

57
The ideal outcome for the opposition is a full transition to democracy. If this outcome is
not possible, however, then it prefers a broadened dictatorship in which it gets to enjoy
some concessions from the soft-liners.

LECTURE 7: DICTATORSHIPS

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

• Until the 19th century most of the world ́s states were ruled by autocratic regimes
which were mostly hereditary monarchies
• During the 19th century an important new sort of autocratic regime emerged, namely
dictatorship by an organization or its leader, but only in the form of rule by a military
organization or a military leader
• In the first half of the 20th century the emergence of communist and fascist regimes
meant that there was now a political-party form of this dictatorship, with rule by a party
organization or a party leader
• In the third quarter of the 20th century the majority of the world ́s state came to be
ruled by dictatorships
• The final quarter of the 20th century saw a global wave of democratization that
threatened dictatorships and other autocratic regimes with extinction: CONTAGION
EFFECT???

WHAT IS A DICTATORSHIP?

Dictatorships are regimes in which rulers acquire power by means other than fair,
democratic and competitive elections. Careful! Political regime
(democracy/dictatorship/mixed regime) is not the same as political system
(monarchy/republic).

The authoritarian power is naturally under treat because the most frequent way to keep
the power in this sort of regime is repression. There is always an incentive dor the
population to kick the leader out of office.

Ways to become a dictator:

● Coup d’état by a military organization or its leader (for example, Pinochet) is

historically the oldest way of setting up a modern from of autocratic regimes:
- There are several types of coup
- Distinguishing between them is usually important.
● Palace putsch (internal, bloodless coup)

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● Revolution
During the 50s and the 60s the world has experienced a lot of regime changes not only
from democracies to autocracies due to the decolonization process in the African and
Asian countries. The decrease is due to the fall of the Soviet Union and some other
European and Latin-American countries.

CARAMANI’S TYPE OF AUTOCRATIC REGIMES

• Absolute (ruling) monarchies:

- Dynasties, rentier states (oil), colonial legacy
- Persistence?
- Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Qatar, Brunei

• Personal dictators and strong-man rulers:

- Populist election, military coups, presidential executives
- Suharto in Indonesia, Pinochet in Chile, Kim Il Sung in N Korea
• Military rule:
- Collective, open or disguised, sustained or intermittent
- Burma, Thailand
• One-party states:
- Collective
- China
• Theocracies:
- Iran’s Council of Guardians

TRADITIONAL CLASSIFICATION

Dictatorships are very heterogeneous, a first approach to bring about categories is the
traditional typology in which depending on the coalition of government it has, it can be
classified in Monarchy, Civilian and Military.

A monarchic dictatorship is an autocracy in which the executive comes to and maintains

power on the basis of the family and kin networks. A military dictatorship is an autocracy

59
in which the executive relies on the armed forces to come to and stay in power. All other
autocracies are civilian dictatorships.

While the number of civilian and military

dictatorships in the world has changed
quite a bit over time, the same is not true
of monarchies. This suggests that
monarchies have been a particularly
stable form of dictatorial regime.

Monarchy

Dictatorial monarchs typically rely on their family and kin network to come to power
and stay in power. We say the regime is a monarchy if the allies are basically members
of a royal family, with no democratic procedures whatsoever. The royal family has a
crucial say at the time to decide who is going to be the dictator. It is not always that the
male son is to be the dictator, but maybe another member of the family.

We can see that royal dictatorships are the most stable type of authoritarian regimes,
this assumption lead us to ask why. There are a lot of possible explanations, but we can
always arrive to the same conclusion. This might be because of the succession problems,
the supply of the civilians, the difficulty of achieving a significative position because of
the hermetic system and also, the fact that there is no conflict of interest.

60
First of all, we must emphasize that while in the monarchies there is no succession
problems, it is more probable to find that in the military or civilian dictatorship. We
assume that is because in the monarchies when the king dies, every member knows
previously who is going to substitute him, because of the inheritance laws that are
defined in advance, before the king dies. However, when the ruler of a military or civilian
dictatorship dies, commonly there is uncertainty as a consequence of the abundance of
candidates that want to replace him, for changing the regime or for continuing in the
same way. Also, this uncertainty for not knowing who is going to be the next could cause
revolutions and a turbulent environment.

Another important fact that we should take in account is the supply of the citizens.
People can manifest a greater feeling of loyalty for a king with has its position because
of a hereditary charge, rather than for a dictator who has achieve the power by the
force, not for a legitimacy position.

Furthermore, taking in account the difficulty of getting into the system, we can say that
it is quite hermetic. As a consequence of that, if it is quite closed, it is also difficult to
unsettle.

In addition, there is also a significant point, which that there is no conflict of interests.
Let's explain that: inside the hierarchy of the royal family, their positions are determined
even before they were born, so they all know where they must be. Each member has
what belongs to him or her. Also, there are some powers which can control or limit the
power of the others, in order to make sure that the is no irregularities or abuse of power.

In general, monarchies tend to depend tightly knit family structures that are reinforced
through intermarriage. These rules allow insiders to know that their privileged position
in the regime is relatively secure.

Military

If the group that gives support is the military, it is a military dictatorship. Military leaders
rule as part of a “junta,” or committee. They presume themselves to be ‘guardians of
the national interest,’ saving the nation from the disaster wrought by corrupt and
myopic civilian politicians.

The persistence of an authoritarian leader’s type when the particular authoritarian

leader is removed is the reason why we can speak of not just dictatorial leaders, but
dictatorial regimes.

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Empirically, military dictatorships tend to have short durations and are more likely to
end with negotiations as opposed to violence than other types of authoritarian regime.
There is also some evidence that military dictatorships are more likely to leave behind
competitive and democratic forms of government than other types of dictatorship.

The military tends to value discipline and cohesiveness, autonomy from civilian
intervention, and military budgets large enough to attract recruits and buy weapons.

The value associated with giving up power is considerably lower for military
dictatorships than for other forms of dictatorship.

Civilian

It is the most common type of dictatorship across the world, and do not have an
immediate institutional base of support. This type of dictatorship can be further
classified in:
A dominant-party dictatorship is one in which a single party dominates access to political
office and control over policy, though other parties may exist and compete in elections.
The party is the most important body in the political life.

After authoritarian monarchies, dominant-party dictatorships are the longest-lived

dictatorships.

Personalist dictatorships: is one in which the leader, although often supported by a party
or the military, retains personal control of policy decisions and the selection of regime
personnel.

In contrast to the leaders in dominant-party dictatorships who use regime parties to

maintain their hold on power, some civilian dictators attempt to establish a more
personalist form of rule. “institutionally, what these personalist dictatorships have in
common is that although they are often supported by parties and militaries, these
particular organizations have not become sufficiently developed or autonomous to
prevent the leader from taking personal control of policy decisions and the selection of
regime personnel”.

Indeed, a personalist dictator often deliberately undermines these institutions so that

they cannot act as a power base for a potential rival. For example, it is typical for regime
personnel to be rotated frequently at the whim of the leader to prevent them from
building independent bases of support. These dictatorships are also often characterized
by a weak or nonexistent press, a strong secret police, and an arbitrary use of state
violence that keeps the population living in constant fear.

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The dictator’s dilemma, in personalistic dictatorships is that he relies on repression to
stay in power, but this repression creates incentives for everyone to falsify their
preferences so that the dictator never knows his true level of societal support.

To solve this problem he can limit repression and allow free debate, thereby learning his
true degree of support, but he runs the risk of being surprised by this lack of support.

This is where personality cults can be useful. The dictator wants a credible signal of your
support; merely staying silent and not saying anything negative won’t cut it. In order to
be credible, the signal has to be costly: you have to be willing to say that the dictator is
not merely OK, but a superhuman being, and you have to be willing to take some
concrete actions showing your undying love for the leader.

In effect, personality cults have three benefits from the perspective of the dictator, in
addition to stroking his ego. First, they make it hard for opposition groups to organize
and coordinate their actions. Second, they help the dictator gain a better handle on his
level of societal support. Third, they will, in fact, persuade some segments of society to
become “true Organization in a party believers” in the dictator.

AUTOCRACIES: HOW DO THEY RULE?

Totalitarianism (rarer) and authoritarianism (more frequent).

How they exercise control serves us to distinguish between them:

· Totalitarianism seeks total control
· Control under Authoritarianism is much less extreme

Type of policies: left-wing vs. right-wing

There are two fundamental problems of autocratic rule:

1. The problem of autocratic power-sharing (intra-elite conflict)

The dictator always has an incentive to alter the power- sharing agreement to his
benefit.
In this account, personalist dictatorships arise when the support coalition repeatedly
fails to act in response to a series of power grabs by the dictator.

In contrast, in order to have a contested dictatorship (a stable autocratic power-sharing

agreement):

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 1. We need to solve Informational Problems: Political institutions can help solve
the monitoring problem at the heart of intra-regime conflict.
2. The support coalition also needs the ability to credibly punish the dictator if
he reneges on the agreement.

To sum up, the role of institutions is…

- They will not constrain strong dictators

- They will constrain weak dictators
- If dictators have middling strength, they will improve the monitoring capacity of the
support coalition

2. The problem of autocratic control (conflict between the elite and the masses)

There are two distinct strategies to solve the problem of autocratic control:

A) Repression

Repression is a double-edged sword:

- Strengthening the military and police can help the dictator control the masses
- Strengthening the military and the police gives them leverage over the dictator

This trade-off depends on the level of societal opposition: from military tutelage to
civilian control

Is a military coup a sign that the military is strong?

B) Cooptation

Rather than repress the masses, the dictator can try to coopt them
Dictators often create institutions such as parties and legislatures to coopt opposition
groups
But why create institutions to coopt opposition groups rather than buy them off
directly?

Religious and ideological claims to legitimacy

“Democratic” claims to legitimacy: dictators also hold elections

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THE END OF DICTATORS

Dictators need to keep their support coalitions happy to stay in power

An implication of this is that dictators will be replaced by defecting members of their
support coalition
The persistence of an autocratic leader’s type when the particular autocratic leader is
removed is why we often talk of dictatorial regimes rather than just dictatorial leaders

(SUPUESTAMENTE NO) THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF POLITICAL

REGIMES

Does regime type make a difference to material well-being?

Do democracies produce higher economic growth?

1. Property rights story

• The empirical support for the property rights story is weak:

– Although rule of law is linked with economic growth, democracy is not associated with
rule of law

· Robert Barro writes that "the electoral rights index (democracy) has no predictive
content for the rule of law index" and, therefore, that encouraging democracy on the
grounds that it will lead to economic growth "sounds pleasant, but is simply false."

Why might democracies fail to protect property rights?

The Answer: MELTZER-RICHARD MODEL

• Everyone pays a portion of their income as a tax, “t”

• The government divides this tax revenue equally among all members of society
• Those with above-average income are net contributors who like low taxes
• Those with below-average income are net beneficiaries who like high taxes
• Democracies tend to represent a wider portion of society than dictatorships
• Suppose that dictatorships tend to make tax policy to benefit the rich and that
democracies tend to make tax policy to benefit the poor
• A democratic transition will lead to higher taxes and a redistribution of wealth
from the rich to the poor
• Given the high taxes in democracies, the rich are less likely to invest and so

65
economic growth will slow
POTENTIAL CRITICISM OF MELTZER-RICHARD MODEL

- Poor people are less likely to vote, and so the tax rate in a democracy may not be that
much higher than it would be in a dictatorship (Verba et al. 1995)

- The structural dependence of the state on capital suggests that capitalists have a veto
over state policies in that their failure to invest at adequate levels can create major
problems for state managers (Przeworski and Wallerstein 1988)

2. Consumption vs. investment story

• The poor cannot afford to direct their assets away from immediate consumption –
they need to eat and pay their rent today
• Since workers get to vote in democracies, they encourage government policy to
redistribute assets away from investment towards consumption
• If dictators are future-oriented, they can force people to save, thereby launching
economic growth

CRITICISMS OF THE CONSUMPTION VS. INVESTMENT STORY

- Do the poor really have a higher propensity to consume than the rich?
- Is economic growth primarily driven by capital investment?
- Why would dictators care about the future more than democratic leaders?

3. Dictatorial autonomy story

• Dictators are not subject to as many pressures from special interests as democratic
leaders

• Because the dictator is autonomous, he does not need to spend money in an inefficient
way to satisfy different constituencies

• But why would a dictator promote economic growth?

- Dictators are not subject to as many pressures from special interests as

democratic leaders
- Because the dictator is autonomous, he will act in a predatory way and elites
will not invest

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TO SUM UP

In theory, dictatorships produce higher economic growth but…

The theoretical arguments are not entirely convincing
What does the empirical evidence say?

PRZEWORSKI ET AL. (2000)

· Eight results show that dictatorships grow faster

· Eight results show that democracies grow faster
· Five results show that regime type has no effect on economic growth

The data indicate that:

- Democracies generally perform quite well.

- Some dictatorships perform as well as democracies, but some perform much worse.
- Democracy seems to be sufficient, but not necessary, for success.

PREZEWORSKI ET AL.’S CONCLUSIONS

“There is no trade-off between democracy and development, not even in poor

countries”
“Much ado about nothing”

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 LECTURE 8: VETO PLAYERS- HORIZONTAL SEPARATION
OF POWERS: PRESIDENTIALISM VS. PARLIAMENTARISM
VS. SEMIPRESIDENTIALISM
CGG-Ch. 15 & Ch. 12

CHAPTER 15

Federal state: the one in which sovereignty is constitutionally split between at least two
territorial levels so that independent governmental units at each level have final
authority in at least one policy realm. It is important to distinguish between “federalism
in structure” and “federalism in practice”

Bicameral state: the one in which legislative deliberations occur in two distinct
assemblies. Although bicameral legislatures were originally designed to represent
different social classes, they are now more closely associated with the representation of
different territorial units.

Constitutionalism: the commitment of governments to be governed by a set of

authoritative rules and principles that are laid out in a constitution. Constitutionalism
requires a codified constitution, a bill of rights, and constitutional review.

Comparative scholars are increasingly recognizing that institutions such as federalism,

bicameralism, and constitutionalism are conceptually the same. In effect, all three of
these institutions act as checks and balances, thereby influencing how easy it is to
change the political status quo. This new approach to understanding political institutions
is called VETO PLAYER THEORY.

FEDERALISM

FEDERALISM IN STRUCTURE

To be classified as federal, a country must satisfy three structural criteria:

We can determine whether a country satisfies these criteria for federalism by looking at
its constitution.

1- Geopolitical division: requires that the country be divided into mutually

exclusive regional governments that are recognized in the constitution
and that cannot be unilaterally abolished by the national government

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 2- Independence: requires that the regional and national governments
must have independent bases of authority. This is typically ensured by
having them elected independently of one another.
3- Direct governance: requires that authority be shared between the
regional governments and the national government such that each
citizen is governed by at least two authorities. Each level of government
must have the authority to act independently of the other in at least one
policy realm, and this authority must be protected by the constitution.

Congruent federalism: exists when the territorial units of a federal state share a similar
demographic makeup with one another and the country as a whole.
Incongruent federalism: exists when the demographic makeup of territorial units differ
among the units and the country as a whole.

Symmetric federalism: exists when the territorial units of a federal state possess equal
powers relative to the central government.
Asymmetric federalism: exists when some territorial units enjoy more extensive powers
than to others relative to the central government.

Decentralization: refers to the extent to which actual policymaking power lies with the
central or regional governments in a country. Most political scientists see
decentralization as a revenue issue: the greater the share of all tax revenues going to
the central government, the less decentralized the state.

WHY FEDERALISM

Coming-together federalism: is the result of a bargaining process in which previously

sovereign polities voluntarily agree to pool their resources in order to improve their
collective security or achieve other economic goals.

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Holding-together federalism: is the result of a process in which the central government
chooses to decentralize its power to subnational governments in order to diffuse
secessionist pressures.

BICAMERALISM

An unicameral legislature is one in which legislative deliberation occurs in a single

assembly
A bicameral legislature is one in which legislative deliberation occurs in two distinct
assemblies

TYPES OF BICAMERALISM

Congruent bicameralism: occurs when the two legislative chambers have a similar
political composition.
Incongruent bicameralism: occurs when the two legislative chambers differ in their
political composition.

The level of congruence depends on how the membership of the two chambers is
selected and whom that membership is supposed to represent.

Systematic bicameralism: occurs when the two legislative chambers have equal or near
equal constitutional power.
Asymmetric bicameralism: occurs when
the two legislative chambers have
unequal constitutional powers.

COSNTITUTIONALISM

A constitution provides the formal source of state authority. In addition to establishing

the structure, procedures, powers, and duties of governmental institutions, more recent
constitutions also contain a list of guaranteed rights.

70
A codified constitution is one that is written in a single document.
An uncodified constitution is one that has several sources, which may be written or
unwritten.

VETO PLAYERS

Veto players theory: offers a way to think about political institutions in a consistent way
across countries. In effect, veto player theory conceptualizes the institutional structure
of a given country in terms of its configuration of veto players.

Veto player: individual (such as a president) or collective 8such as a legislative chamber)

actor whose agreement is necessary for a change in the political status quo. There are
two types of veto player:
- Institutional veto player: generated by a country’s constitution.
- Partisan veto player: generated by the way the political game is played.

The veto player theory is not restricted to democracies. In dictatorships, veto players
might include the military or particular religious leaders and so on. The key to applying
veto player theory is any given setting involves identifying which actors are in a position
to block changes to the political status quo. This will vary across countries, across time
and, potentially, across policy areas.

Veto player theory shows that the number of veto players in a country, as well as the
ideological distance between them, has important consequences for policy stability.
Specifically, veto player theory indicates that countries in which there are many veto
players with conflicting policy preferences are likely to be characterized by:

- Greater policy stability

- Smaller shifts in policy
- Less variation in the size of policy shifts
- Weaker agenda-setting powers

This, in turn, has important consequences for things like judicial and bureaucratic
activism, government stability, and regime stability.

EXAMPLE VETO PLAYER 869

Policy stability is viewed as a good thing by those who like the status quo but a bad thing
by those who do not. Policy stability can have important consequences for various
aspects of a political system (government stability, regime stability…)

71
Imagine that a government comes to power in a country with the promise to shake up
some policy area. Perhaps some crisis requires radical reform. If the configuration of
veto players in the country is such that the status quo cannot be changed or can be
altered only a little, the government will likely appear ineffective and immobilized.

If we are in a parliamentary democracy, political and social actors who want to resolve
the crisis will likely push for a vote of no confidence in the government. As a result, veto
player theory predicts a connection between policy stability and the likelihood of
government instability in parliamentary democracies.

If we are in a presidential democracy, there is no institutional mechanism, such as a vote

of no confidence, to remove an ineffective government from office. This may lead
political and social actors who want to resolve the crisis to look to extraconstitutional
means, such as a military coup, to replace the government. As a result, veto player
theory predicts that policy stability will increase the likelihood of regime instability and
regime instability.

Veto player theory suggests that policy stability leads to high levels of judicial and
bureaucratic activism, why?
In many situations, judges have the opportunity to make policy through their ability to
interpret statutes. Similarly, bureaucrats get to make policy by virtue of actually
implementing policy. If the members of the legislature do not like policies made by the
judges and bureaucrats they can write new legislation that will effectively overrule the
judiciary bureaucracy. When policy is stable because there are many legislative veto
players with dissimilar policy preferences, however, judges and bureaucrats get to
interpret and implement laws close to their own ideal points, safe in the knowledge that
the legislature will not be able to reach an agreement on overriding them. This suggests
that we should expect to see higher levels of judicial and bureaucratic activism in federal
and bicameral countries than in unitary and unicameral ones.

POWERPOINT 8B SLIDES

Do differences between systems of governments matter?

Obviously, they do.

Legislative Success Rates: governments in presidential system usually lack a

parliamentary majority to pass their legislative agenda.

These powers that are separated between what is executive and what is legislative

72
Presidential system is the most common system in Latin America.

Out of 100 laws sent by the government, how many laws are passed by the parliament?

Why governments of presidential systems are less successful?

DIVISION OF POWERS

Montesquieu, The Spirit of Law: power should be divided in executive, legislative and
judicial. By doing this, tyranny is avoided.

In the traditional view, each function must be exerted by a separated agency, without
interference from the others and with different personnel in each agency.

It is a theory of functional separation and specialization.

What was the problem with this theory? How to prevent that one power invades the
other?

We are having these three powers but we need to come up with a system that basically
guarantees that these powers are not going to invade the power of the other. There is
going to be a radical separation of powers and we don’t have these invasion of powers
between the different branches. Obviously this problem was a potential problem, it
could happen the legislature was going to invade the powers of the executive etc.

In order to avoid these kind of invasions we could have a fourth power that would be on
the other three and it would be kind of a superior branch that could control the behavior
of the other three.

The response in The Federalist Papers: They created a system of horizontal controls,
according to which each branch was going to control the other two branches. They
created a system of CHECKS AND BALANCES, a principle of horizontal accountability. A
principle according to which each of the branches (that re at the same level) are going
to control the other two branches.

What if, for example, the legislature tries to expand its power?
Who guards the guardians?
What body can control that the three powers stay within their limits?

Federalist papers: collection of documents that were published before the adoption of
the US constitution in which the founding fathers were writing the ideas of how the
future US constitutional system should look like.

James Madison, one of the founding fathers of the US constitutional system and that
became the fourth president of USA, was talking about this horizontal accountability
system, this system of checks and balances:

73
 “But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in
the same department consists in giving to those who administer each
department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist
encroachment of the others. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”

CHECK AND BALANCES

Checks and balances in the American Constitution:

- The president may veto decisions made by the congress. The president has to firm the
law. If he doesn’t firm, he just veto the law made by the congress.
- One branch of the legislature, the Senate, has control over the President regarding
executive appointments and treaty making.
- The President can appoint judges.
- The judiciary can check the legislative and he executive branches (judicial review).
- The Congress may impeach the President. This is very important. Procedure that we
have in presidential systems which consists in if the congress find that the president is a
criminal, they can impeach the president. It isn’t because of the fact that they don’t like
the president, it’s because the president has made a crime or something similar.
It is very complicated to impeach a president. So, in the US, there have not been a
successful impeachment yet.

With checks and balances:

- there is no danger of tyranny or encroachment
- no need of external enforcement
- the system is in equilibrium because each branch of government is controlled by the
others.

CHAPTER 12 PARLIAMENTARY, PRESIDENTIAL AND SEMI-PRESIDENTIAL DEMOCRACIES

Democracies can be parliamentary, presidential or semi-presidential. Whether a

democracy is one of these depends on the relationship between the government, the
legislature and, if there is one, the president.

The government formation process in parliamentary democracies can be quite

complicated and take a long time. Several different types of government can form:
single-party majority governments, minimal winning coalitions, minority governments,
surplus majority governments and so on. The type of government that forms depends
on many factors, including whether the political actors in a country are office-seeking or
policy seeking. Although some governments in parliamentary democracies last several
years, others last just a few days.

The government formation process in presidential democracies is different in many

ways from that in parliamentary democracies. Presidential democracies have more

74
minority governments but fewer coalition governments on average than parliamentary
ones. They also have more nonpartisan ministers and a lower proportionality in the
allocation of ministerial posts. Governments in presidential democracies look more like
those in parliamentary democracies if the president is weak.

The government formation process in semi-presidential democracies is relatively

understudied. There is evidence, however, that governments in semi-presidential
democracies share characteristics from governments in both parliamentary and
presidential democracies.

To a large extend, parliamentary, presidential and semi-presidential democracies can be

viewed as different systems of delegation.

Is the Government Responsible to the Elected Legislature?

Political (legislative) responsibility refers to a situation in which a legislative majority has

the constitutional power -a vote of no confidence- to remove a government from office
without cause

A vote of no confidence is initiated by the legislature; if the government does not obtain
a legislative majority in this vote, it must resign. A constructive vote of no confidence
must indicate who will replace the government If the incumbent loses a vote of no
confidence. (Spain: against Mariano Rajoy by Pedro Sánchez on 1/6/2018, Germany…).
A vote of confidence is initiated by the government; if the government does not obtain
a legislative majority in this vote, it must resign.

The main result of this vote for no confidence is an agreement.

Is the Head of State Popularly Elected for a Fixed Term?

To determine whether a democracy with legislative responsibility is parliamentary or

semi-presidential we need to know whether it has a popularly elected head of state who
serves a fixed term in office. If it does, then it is semi-presidential. If it doesn’t, then it is
parliamentary.
What does it mean to have popularly elected head off state who serves fixed term in
office? A head of state is popularly elected if she is elected though a process where
voters either:

- Cast ballots directly for the candidate they wish to elect

- Cast ballots to elect an assembly, sometimes called an electoral college, whose
sole role it is to elect the head of state.

75
To serve a fixed term means that the head of state serves for a fixed period of time
before she needs to be reappointed and cannot be removed in the meantime.

In presidential democracies, the head of the state = the head of government

Some democracies allow for the possibility of removing the head of state before his or
her term is up but only though the extraordinary and costly procedure of impeachment
or incapacitation.

TYPES OF HEADS OF STATE

In a democracy, the head of state is either a monarch or a president:

• Presidents can exist in presidential, semi- presidential, and parliamentary democracies
• Monarchs only exist in parliamentary democracies - they do not serve fixed terms and
they are not directly elected

Parliamentary systems can be monarchic

Presidential or semi-presidential cannot be monarchic

è Presidential democracy: the one in which the government does not depend on a
legislative majority to exist.

è Parliamentary democracy: is one in which the government depends on a legislative

majority to exist and the head of state is nor popularly elected for a fixed term.

è Semi-presidential democracy: the one in which the government depends on a

legislative majority to exist and the head of state is popularly elected for a fixed term.

PRESIDENTIALISM

The government in a presidential democracy comprises the president and the cabinet:
1. The president is the political chief executive and head of state

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2. The cabinet is composed of ministers whose job is to be in the cabinet and head the
various government departments
In a presidential democracy, the executive branch and the government are the same
thing

Government formation

The government formation process is different in presidential democracies than in

parliamentary democracies:
–The government cannot be dismissed by a legislative majority
– The president is always the formateur and her party is always in government
–The reversion point during negotiations is the president's party in power on its own

Minority Governments

Minority governments are more frequent in presidential democracies:

– A minority government that enjoys the implicit support of a legislative majority can
exist in both presidential and parliamentary democracies
– A minority government that does not have the implicit support of a legislative majority
can exist only in presidential democracies

Divided government

It occurs when the president’s party or coalition does not control more than 50% of the
seats in the Congress (in both chambers in case of bicameralism)

Coalition Governments

In a pure office-seeking world, you would not see coalition governments in presidential
democracies.
In a world in which the president cares about policy as well, you might see coalition
governments.
The extent to which a president is willing to form a coalition depends on his legislative
powers.

Cabinets

Some presidential cabinets look more like parliamentary ones than others.
1. Governments in presidential democracies have more nonpartisan ministers:
- A nonpartisan minister is someone who is not appointed on behalf of a
government party.
2. Presidents allocate cabinet portfolios in a less proportional way than prime
ministers.

77
In a presidential democracy there will be variations of the Gamson’s law, we could
predict that there will be higher cabinet share…

Table 12.9 of the book

The number of nonpartisan ministers has probably increased in parliamentary

democracies in recent times.

Some presidential cabinets look more like parliamentary ones than others.
Again, this has to do with the legislative powers of the president.

Presidents with relatively weak decree power, whose parties in the legislature are small,
and whose parties exhibit low levels of party discipline, are more likely to appoint
cabinets that look like those in parliamentary democracies.
Cabinets (IV)

Table 12.10 of the book

Destacar Costa Rica

78
 Policy-Making Process

SEMI-PRESIDENTIALISM

In a semi-presidential democracy, the executive branch comprises the president and the
government. The government in a semi-presidential democracy comprises a prime
minister and the cabinet. The prime minister is the political chief executive and the
president is the head of state

Types

There are two types of semi-presidential democracy:

1. In a premier-presidential system, the government is responsible to the

legislature but not the president. CLOSER TO PARLIAMENTARY. Example: France
2. In a president-parliamentary system, the government is responsible to the
legislature and the president. CLOSER TO PRESIDENTIAL. Example: Russia

Cohabitation

In a semi-presidential democracy, there is no guarantee that the president and the

prime minister will come from the same party

79
Cohabitation: a president from one political bloc and a prime minister from another -
occurs when the party of the president does not control a majority in the legislature and
is not represented in the cabinet.

Periods of cohabitation can be characterized as an effective system of checks and

balances.
However, cohabitation can also be characterized by “bitter and violent” conflict when
the political actors involved share starkly different ideologies and goals.

Why does Cohabitation (and Divided Government) emerge?

When there is no cohabitation it is the president of the Republic that is ruling the show.
When there is cohabitation foren(?) policy in the hands of the president, domestic policy
in the hands of prime minister.

The Question

How can the president try to come up with a cabinet that is politically aligned with
him/her?

– Dissolving the assembly (rare).

– Mitterrand did it twice in France during the 80s and succeeded, but Chirac did it once
in the 90s to reinforce his legislative majority and he lost it.
– No longer needed after 2002 constitutional reform.

9 SLIDES: MAKING AND BREAKING GOVERNMENTS – PARLIAMENTARISM

In parliamentary democracies is hard to know who is the president of the republic,

because the head of the state is basically powerless. So, when we talk about Germany,
Angela Merkel comes to our minds as the chancellor of Germany, but no one thinks
about Steinmeier, who is the president of Germany (Head of State)

DEFINITIONS

The government in a parliamentary democracy comprises a prime minister and the

cabinet.

The prime minister is the political chief executive and head of government (but not head
of state). Prime minister is the president del gobierno en España.

The cabinet is composed of ministers whose job it is to be in the cabinet and head the
various government departments.

80
In a parliamentary democracy, the executive branch and the governments are the same
thing.

Ministers in General

Ministerial responsibility refers to the constitutional doctrine by which cabinet ministers

must bear ultimate responsibility for what happens in their ministry.

Collective cabinet responsibility refers to the doctrine by which ministers must publicly
support collective cabinet decisions or resign.

How does a government look like in a Parliamentary Democracy?

Diversity on gender and ethnic. The size is quite big.

In Canada the queen is the Head of the State, but she is not very involved in the regular
business of the Canadians. It is a parliamentary democracy a bit strange.

Political cycle in parliamentary systems

12/11/19

In a parliamentary democracy, voters do NOT elect governments directly.

Instead, voters elect representatives, who then bargain who should go into government.

So, how do governments form?

THE ROLE OF THE HEAD OF STATE

The head of state presides over the government formation process but the extent to
which the head of state is actively involved in the actual bargaining varies from country
to country.

1- In some countries, the head of state is limited to simply swearing in the

government proposed by party elites. These countries are characterized by
“free-style” bargaining. Example: New Zealand.
2- In some countries, the head of state chooses a particular politician –a formateur-

81
to initiate the government formation process.
*THE FORMATEUR

A formateur is the person designated to form the government in a parliamentary

democracy, and is often the PM(prime minister) designate. Example: Spain.

Only Greece and Bulgaria (semi-presidential) explicitly state how the formateur must be
chosen.

Despite the discretion of most heads of state, the first formateur is usually the leader of
the largest legislative party. Once the formateur is chosen, she has to put a cabinet
together that is acceptable to a legislative majority.

Since it is rare in a parliamentary democracy for a single party to control a legislative

majority, the formateur must begin bargaining with other parties

THE ROLE OF THE HEAD OF STATE (II)

3- In some countries, the head of state is restricted to appointing an informateur

An informateur examines politically feasible coalitions and nominates a formateur.

These countries are often constitutional monarchies. Examples: Belgium and
Netherlands. REASONS FOR THAT?

THE INVESTITURE VOTE

Once a cabinet has been proposed, the support of a legislative majority may or may not
have to be demonstrated by a formal investiture vote.
Distinction between positive (e.g., Spain) and negative (e.g., Portugal [semi-
presidential]) parliamentarism.

An investiture vote is a formal vote in the legislature to determine whether a proposed

government can take office.

1. If the investiture vote fails, then the government formation process starts again (with
a likely scenario of repeated elections)
2. If the investiture vote succeeds (or there is no investiture vote), then the head of state
appoints the cabinet to office:
– The government is then free to rule until:
* it is defeated in a vote of confidence/no confidence or
* a new election is necessary

314 days between the 2015 General Election in Spain (20/12/2015) and the investiture
of M. Rajoy as PM again (29/10/2016): CARETAKER

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HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO FORM A GOVERNMENT?

- On average about 1
month
- But large heterogeneity,
indeed: it depends on
positive vs. negative
parliamentarism and
number of parties.

CARETAKER GOVERNMENTS (gov. en funciones)

A caretaker government occurs when an election is called or when an incumbent

government either resigns or is defeated in a non-constructive vote of no confidence:
– A caretaker government remains in office until the next government formation
process is completed
– In most countries, there is a strong norm that caretaker governments will not make
important policy changes

Example: Monti Technical Cabinet in Italy (2011-2013)

The leader of the CDU/CSU, Helmet Kohl,

was appointed the formateur because
he was in the best position to form a
government.

Let’s eliminate all potential governments

that do not include the CDU/CSU and
that do not control a legislative majority.

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 POLITICIANS’ MOTIVATIONS

1. An office-seeking politician is interested in the intrinsic benefits of office; he wants as

much office as possible
2. A policy-seeking politician only wants to shape policy; so, office is a means to obtain
policy goals

1- OFFICE-SEEKING

In an office-seeking world, a formateur can get other parties to join the government only
by giving them office. Strong empirical evidence shows that a formateur gives large
parties more office than small parties.

Who gets what?

Gamson's Law states that cabinet portfolios will be distributed among government
parties in strict proportion to the number of seats that each party contributes to the
government's legislative seat total.

Ex. Party A (80 seats) and Party B (40 seats) form a government (120 seats):
– Party A should receive 80/120 = 2/3 of the cabinet portfolios
– Party B should receive 40/120 = 1/3 of the cabinet portfolios

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IMPLICATIONS

An implication is that you will not want more parties in government than is strictly
necessary to obtain a legislative majority:

–A minimal winning coalition (MWC) is one in which there are no parties that are not
required to control a legislative majority

Three minimal winning coalitions:

1. CDU/CSU+SPD (160 surplus seats)
2. CDU/CSU+FDP (20 surplus seats)
3. CDU/CSU+Greens (16 surplus seats)

A second implication is that you will choose the smallest minimal winning coalition:

– A least minimal winning coalition (or minimum) is the MWC with the lowest number
of surplus seats

3. CDU/CSU + Greens (16 surplus seats)

2- POLICY-SEEKING

In a policy-seeking world, a formateur can get other parties to join the government only
by giving them policy concessions.
It is likely that a formateur will have to give more policy concessions to large parties than
small parties.

IMPLICATIONS

1. An implication is that you will want to form coalitions with parties that are
located close to you in the policy space:
– A connected coalition is one in which the member parties are located directly next to
each other in the policy space

2. A second implication is that you will choose the connected least minimal winning
coalition

85
In a policy-seeking world:

- You have to identify what is the ideological dimension that is relevant. Examples:
Greece (2015), Italy (2018)
- Moreover, are all ideological neighbors at the same distance?

(ver slides 47-49)

19/11/19

TYPES OF GOVERNMENT: Numerical Criteria

A single-party majority government comprises a single party that controls a majority of

the legislative seats. EXAMPLES?
A single-party minority government comprises a single party that does not command a
majority of the legislative seats. EXAMPLES?
A coalition minority government comprises multiple governmental parties that do not
together command a majority of the legislative seats. EXAMPLES?

COALITION MAJORITY GOVERNMENTS: (PSOE-PP)

- A minimal winning coalition (MWC) is one in which there are no parties that are not
required to control a legislative majority
- A surplus (oversized) majority government comprises more parties than are strictly
necessary to control a majority of the legislative seats. WHY DO THEY HAPPEN?

Riker was RIGHT after all: MWCs are the most frequent form of government but not for
that much.

· It has to be noted the importance of the number of parties.

· Spain and the UK are the only two countries without a coalition government.

AGAINST MWCS

A. Minority Governments

IN PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACIES a minority government is a government that must

have an implicit majority in the legislature:

– In some countries, we know who makes up the implicit majority because parties
publicly state that they will support the government in any no confidence vote. Example:
“Confidence and Supply” Agreements in New Zealand
– In other countries, the government does not rely on specific ‘support’ parties, but
instead builds legislative majorities on an ad hoc basis. Example: Spain

Minority governments are not anti-democratic:

86
– They have the support of a legislative majority like all parliamentary governments
Minority governments occur quite frequently and are not always short-lived:
– Minority governments are quite common in some countries: Denmark (82%), Sweden
(81%), Norway (65%)
– Minority governments last about 539 days on average in Western Europe

Minority governments are more likely when opposition influence is strong.

They are less likely when there is a formal investiture vote.
They are more likely when there is a “strong” party (i.e., when it faces a
BILATERAL/DIVIDED OPPOSITION)

Why so many minority governments? Borgen

B. Surplus majority governments (Oversized)

There are various reasons why a surplus majority government might form:
1. They may occur in times of crisis such as during or after a war
2. They may form because a surplus majority is required to change the constitution
3. There are strategic reasons for forming surplus majority governments (for example,
in bicameral systems)

87
 LECTURE 11: ELECTORAL SYSTEMS
Chapter 13 of the book: Elections and Electoral Systems

Elections are on of the defining characteristics of democracies and provide the primary
mechanism by which democratic governments obtain the authority to rule.
Although there is a great deal of variety in the types of electoral systems that are
employed around the world, most political scientists categorize them into three main
families based on the electoral formula that is used to translate votes into seats:
majoritarian, proportional and mixed.

Electoral system: is a set of laws that regulates electoral competition between

candidates or parties or both. An electoral formula: determines how votes are
translated into seats. The ballot structure: is how electoral choices are presented on
the ballot paper. District magnitude is the number of representatives elected in a
district.

Elections are increasingly used to fill legislative and executive offices around the world:
185 of the world’s 193 independent states now use direct elections to elect people to
their lower house of parliament.
Democracies are sometimes classified in terms of their electoral system: remember
Lijphart

UK ALTERNATIVE VOTE REFERENDUM, 2011

• There was a nationwide vote held on Thursday 5 May 2011 (the same date as
local elections in many areas) to choose the method of electing MPs at
subsequent general elections
• The referendum concerned whether to replace the present "first- past-the-post"
system with the "alternative vote" (AV) method
• The proposal to introduce AV was rejected by the electorate (68% vs. 32%)

ELECTORAL SYSTEMS:
THE INTUITION

• Electoral system: Set of rules governing the conversion of votes into seats
→ impact on a country’s party system, type of government, representation, etc.
• Electoral systems can be categorized along the type of electoral formula:
1. Majoritarian or non-PR systems→ ‘winner takes all’ is key! (you are
elected when you receive a plurality or a majority)

88
 2. PR systems→ ‘correspondence votes-seats’ is key!
3. Mixed→ a combination of the other two

A TYPOLOGY

Mixed “Majoritarian”
vs.
Mixed “Proportional”
ELECTORAL SYSTEMS MATTER

CLASSIFICATION OF ELECTORAL SYSTEMS

89
õ Majoritarian electoral systems: is one in which the candidates or parties that receive
the most votes win.

Single-Member District Plurality System (SMDP)

One of the most commonly used majoritarian electoral system in the world.
DEFINITION: is one in which individuals cast a single vote for a candidate in a single-
member district. The candidate with the most votes is elected.

Single Nontransferable Vote (SNTV)

Type of majoritarian electoral system.

DEFINITION: The single nontransferable vote (SNTV) is a system in which voters cast a
single candidate-centered vote in a multimember district. The candidates with the
highest number of votes are elected.

Alternative Vote (AV)

Whereas SMDP and SNTV are both “plurality” majoritarian systems, the alternative vote
is an “absolute majority” majoritarian system.
DEFINITION: is a candidate-centered preference voting system used in single-member
districts where voters rank order the candidates. A candidate who receives an absolute
majority is elected. If no candidate wins an absolute majority, then the candidate with
the fewest votes is eliminated, and her votes are reallocated until one candidate has an
absolute majority of the valid votes remaining.

Preference, or preferential, voting involves voters ranking one or more candidates or

parties in order of preference on the ballots.
Majority-Runoff Two-Round System

Another “absolute majority” majoritarian electoral system is the majority-runoff two-

round system.
DEFINITION: A two-round system (TRS) is an electoral system that has the potential for
two rounds of elections. The majority-runoff TRS is a system in which voters cast a single
candidate-centered vote in a single-member district. Any candidate who obtains an
absolute majority in the first round of elections is elected. If no one obtains an absolute
majority, then the top two vote winners go on to compete in a runoff election in the
second round.

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õ Proportional Electoral Systems: a proportional, or proportional representation (PR),
electoral system is a quota- or divisor- based electoral system employed in multimember
districts.

Quota defined as:

Vd: total number of valid votes in district d. Md: number of seats available in district d.
n: is the modifier of the quota. When n=0 the system employs the Hare quota. When
nç01, the system employs the Hagenbach-Bischoff quota…

In a list PR system, each party presents a list of candidates to voters in each

multimember district.

A divisor, or highest average, system divides the total number of votes won by each
party in a district by a series of numbers (divisors) to obtain quotients. District seats are
then allocated according to which parties have the highest quotients.

Apparentement is the provision in a list PR system fort wo or more separate parties to

reach an agreement that their votes will combined for the purposes of seat allocation.

õ Mixed electoral systems: is one in which voters elect through two different systems,
one majoritarian and one proportional.

An electoral tier is a level at which voters are translated into seats. The lowest tier is the
district or constituency level. Higher tiers are constituted by grouping together different
lower-tier constituencies, typically at the regional or national level.

Independent mixed electoral system is one in which the majoritarian and

proportional components of the electoral system are implemented
independently of one another.

Dependent mixed electoral system is one in which the application of the

proportional formula is dependent on the distribution of seats or votes produced
by the majoritarian formula.

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ELECTORAL SYSTEMS BY DECADE
“Progressive” reduction in the number of majoritarian systems. Huge increase in recent
decades of mixed systems.

Electoral integrity: refers to the extent to which the conduct of elections meets
international standards and global norms concerning “good” elections. These norms
and standards are usually set out in treaties, conventions, and guidelines issued by
international and regional organizations. Violations of electoral integrity are referred
to as electoral malpractice.

ELECTORAL SYSTEMS: DIMENSIONS OF VARIATION

1- Interparty dimension: How electoral systems affect the translation of votes into
seats for competing political parties, and how electoral systems affect the overall
nature of the party system
- Vote for big (majoritarian)
- Vote for small (proportional)

MAIN CONSEQUENCE: Strategic/tactical Vote

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 2- Intraparty dimension: Electoral rules also vary in the ways they affect the
internal organization of parties and the ways in which individual legislators (or
legislative candidates) relate to constituents
- Vote for a party (closed list voting)
- Vote for a candidate (nominal voting: all the other electoral systems)

MAIN CONSEQUENCE: Personal Vote

But, obviously, personal vote has some consequences too:
- Pork Barreling
-Vote Buying

ELECTORAL SYSTEMS: ELEMENTS

1- Electoral formula (interparty):

- how votes are counted to allocate seats
The mathematical method to translate votes into seats.
Basic typology:

A) Majoritarian (plurality [bloc vote] and majority [alternative vote])

B) PR (divisors and quotas)
C) Mixed (majoritarian and proportional)

A) MAJORITARIAN: SINGLE-MEMBER PLURALITY

• Also known as First Past the Post (FPTP)
• Individuals cast a single vote and the candidate with the most votes is elected,
majority not needed, within single-member districts (SMDs)
• In countries like Canada, India, UK and legislative USA (≈ 54)
• Any explanation of why these countries?

CONSEQUENCES

• Create “manufactured majority” in seats (US): Single-party governments

• Geographical dispersion of support is critical
• High “threshold” for non-spatially concentrated minor parties and ethnic groups
(“Spain”)

FPTP IN ACTION

PROBLEMS WITH PLURALITY SYSTEMS

Spurious Majorities: i.e., the winner is not the winner in “seats”
OTHER PLURALITY SYSTEMS

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•Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV):
• Japan 1948-1993, Jordan, Vanuatu, Afghanistan
• Small multimember districts
• Multiple candidates from same party
• Single vote cast & plurality vote required
Advantages and disadvantages?
• Limited vote (e.g., Spanish Senate)

TWO-ROUNDS MAJORITY

- If no candidate reaches the majority (50%+) in the first round, the least successful
candidates are eliminated and a second round takes place, within SMDs
- Usually, runoff/ballotage (two top candidates)
- Used in most presidential elections and some parliamentary elections such as Egypt,
Mali and Vietnam
- Example: 2002 French Presidential Elections, First Round

CONSEQUENCES OF TWO-ROUNDS MAJORITY

• Aims to produce party coalitions on left and right and popular legitimacy of the winner
• ‘Heart’ (1st round) and ‘head’ (2nd round) voting
Advantages and disadvantages?

A second example of a majority system: the alternative vote

· Rank order of candidates within SMDs (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc)

· Majority required (50%+) 1st round
· If no majority, the lowest placed candidate is eliminated and his votes are redistributed
to second preference. The process is repeated until one candidate gets the majority.
· Used in countries like Australian HoR, Fiji or Papua

PROBLEMS WITL ALL SMDs Systems

Gerrymandering vs. Malapportionment

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B) PR SYSTEMS

Seats are allocated proportionally to votes on the basis of a formula in multimember

districts. Used in countries such as Brazil, Ireland, the Netherlands or South Africa (= 62)

They vary in terms of list (open or closed), electoral formula (divisors or quotas), district
(national or regional) and threshold (present or not)

An example of a Divisor (Highest Average) Formula:

The D’Hondt (but also Ste-Laguë) Method

Total votes per party divided by divisors (e.g., 1,2,3…)

Seats allocated to highest quotient up to total seats available.

An example of a Quota (Largest Remainder) Formula:

The Hare (but also Droop) Method

A quota is essentially the “price” in terms of votes that a party must “pay” to guarantee
themselves a seat in a particular electoral district

What about the “remainder” seats?

Minimum quota (total votes/total
seats)

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C) MIXED SYSTEMS

A mixed electoral system is one in which voters elect representatives through two
different systems, one majoritarian and one proportional

In the end, some mixed systems lean towards majority (mixed-member majoritarian
(MMM) and some towards proportionality (mixed-member proportional) (MMP))

A MMP system is currently used in Germany and New Zealand

Most mixed systems employ multiple electoral tiers:

An electoral tier is a level at which votes are translated into seats

The lowest electoral tier is the district or constituency level. Higher tiers are constituted
by grouping together different lower-tier constituencies, typically at the regional or
national level

In a mixed system, it is often the case that a majoritarian system is used in the lowest
tier (district level) and a proportional system is used in the upper tier (regional or
national level)

In most mixed systems, individuals have two votes:

• One vote is for the representative at the district level (candidate vote)
• One vote is for the party list in the higher electoral tier (party vote)

2- District magnitude (interparty):

- the number of seats per district

· The number of Members of Parliaments (MPs) elected from each constituency.

· “The decisive factor” [Taagepera & Shugart 1989: 112]
· Basic typology:
- Single-member (SMDs)
- Multi-member (and whole-country)

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· The bigger the district, the more proportional the outcome

3- Legal threshold (interparty):

- the minimum votes needed by a party to secure legislative representation
· Vote shares (or number seats) that parties need to obtain in order to participate in the
allocation of seats
· Basic typology:
- National-level
- District-level

· Goals:
- Preventing excessive fragmentation
- Facilitating stable governments

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 4- Assembly size (interparty):
- the total number of seats to be allocated

· The “generally neglected variable”

· It is a function of the cubic root of the population size

5- Ballot structure (intraparty):

- how voters can express their choices

· The extent to which voters are able to decide which of their party’s candidates takes
the seats that they party wins: how much intra-party choice is there among candidates?

· It determines candidates incentives to cultivate a personal vote

· Basic typology:

- No choice (closed-list systems [party-ballots], SMDs [candidate-ballots])

- Voters can express their preference on the candidates (Preferential Lists PR
systems and Single Transferable Vote [preference-ballots])
- Dual-ballots (mixed regimes)

A PR closed-list system is currently used in Portugal

In a closed party list, the order of candidates elected is determined by the party
itself, and voters are not able to express a preference for a particular candidate.

A PR flexible-list system is currently used in the Netherlands

A PR open-list is currently used in Brazil

In an open list party list voters can indicate not just their preferred party
but also their favored candidate within that party.

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A PR open-list system with panachage (ability to vote for candidates from different party
lists) and cumulation (capacity to give more than one vote to a single candidate) is
currently used in Luxembourg.

In a free party list, voters have multiple votes that they can allocate either within a single
party list or across different party lists.

A single-transferable vote (STV) system is currently used in IRELAND

- Also in Ireland, Australian Senate, Malta

- Multimember constituencies (4/5 members)
- Priority voting (1,2,3…)
- Quota (PR) of 1st preferences for election (e.g.: 100000 voters/4 seats= 25000+1
- Redistribution in successive counts of votes from eliminated candidates and surplus
votes from elected candidates to the remaining candidates until all of seats are filled.

STV Example: District magnitude is 3, 20 voters, 5 candidates: Bruce, Shane, Sheila, Glen
and Ella. Droop quota: 20/83+1)+1= 6

EFFECTS OF ELECTORAL SYSTEMS

1- ON DEMOCRACY

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 2- ON PROPORTIONALITY

Like the Sheriff of Nottingham, electoral

systems are apt to steal from the poor and give
to the rich.

· Measurement: disproportionality indexes.

· Perfect proportionality means (%) of votes=
(%) of seats.

Determinants of Proportionality

- Number of parties in the electorate

- Geographical distribution of the vote
- District magnitude
- Legal thresholds
- The electoral formula (e.g. D’Hondt is the least proportional among PR)

3- ON FRAGMENTATION OF THE PARTY SYSTEM

· “The plurality single-ballot rule tends to party dualism”

· “The double-ballot system and proportional representation tend to multipartyisim”.
- Maurice Duverger.

To measure fragmentation: Effective Number of Parties.

Effective number of parliamentary parties (ENPP) by country

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 4- ON WOMEN REPRESENTATION

FINAL QUESTION

In considering debates about electoral systems, list the five most important normative
values that any electoral system should meet and give detailed reasons justifying your
choices.

NORMATIVE ISSUES (TRADE-OFFS)

[Link to our discussions on types of democracy]

Adversarial democracy

·Based on MAJORITARIAN ELECTIONS

Elections would promote...

• ACCOUNTABILITY: decisive elections, transparency of decision-making

• EFFECTIVENESS: single-party executives, responsible parties, unitary states

• SCRUTINY: effective opposition parties and vigorous parliamentary debate, and

• Yet dangers of elective dictatorship, permanent majorities, lack of checks, etc.

Consensus democracy

·Based on PR elections

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Elections would promote…

• CONSENSUS: decision-making, bargaining and compromise

• PLURALISM: multiple parliamentary parties, diversity in legislature

• DECENTRALIZATION: dispersed decision-making processes

• Yet dangers of ineffective governance, extreme multiparty fragmentation, lack of
accountability, etc.

CONCLUSIONS

- Therefore no single “best” system

- Depends upon priorities -choice of governability vs diversity
- Critical for many other democratic outcomes

LECTURE 12: PARTY SYSTEMS AND SOCIAL CLEAVAGES

Chp: 14

A political party is an organization that includes officials who hold office and people
who help get and keep them there. Parties held to structure the political world,
recruit and socialize the political elite, mobilize the masses, and provide a link
between rulers and the ruled.

1. PARTY SYSTEMS

DEFINITION

“A party system is the system of interactions resulting from inter-party competition”

“Party systems are sets of parties that compete and cooperate with the aim of increasing
their power in controlling government”.

For a democratic system, there need to be more than one party.

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TYPOLOGIES

• Most crude distinction: two-party systems versus multi-party systems

• But this is not a simple dichotomy; there is huge variation
• Before looking at explanations of those differences, let’s first establish criteria of
classification

CRITERIA

i. FRAGMENTATION (FRACTIONALIZATION)

· the number of parties competing in an election, and their success in obtaining votes
(and seats)
· the degree to which votes and seats are scattered across parties

• How many parties exist and how big are they?

- Idea of Significant Parties: Taking into consideration their blackmail and
coalition participation potential
- Effective Number of Parties (ENP): Counting the number of parties and weighting them
according to their electoral/parliamentary strength

Measurement

Markku Laakso and Rein Tagepeera, “The "Effective" Number of Parties: A Measure with
Application to West Europe”, Comparative Political Studies, 12:1 (1979: Apr.) p. 3

❑ “The effective number of parties is the number of hypothetical equal-size parties that
would have the same total effect on fractionalisation of the system as have the actual
parties of unequal size.”

Where pi is the fractional share of vote or seats of the i-th party. The summation is over
all n parties that obtain votes or seats
• It goes from 1 to N
• ENEP ≥ ENPP

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EXAMPLE: SPAIN 2004 & 2008

PS FRAGMENTATION IN SPAIN 2004: EFFECTIVE NUMBER OF ELECTORAL PARTIES

➢ We could obviously do the same with the percentages of seats:

Effective Number of Legislative Parties

HOW MANY PARTIES EXIST AND HOW BIG ARE THEY? Slides 11-12

2011 Spanish Elections – ENPP= 3.34

2010 UK Elections – ENPP= 2.57

Consequences

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 ii. PARTY COMPETITION DYNAMICS/POLARIZATION

• Moving from quantity of parties to quality of party competition

• Downsian spatial model:

- Voters choose party ideologically closest to them
- May consider to abstain if equidistant from two parties (indifferent) or too far away
from any parties

• Sartori’s classification:
- Centrifugal forces in proportional systems (potentially delegitimizing democracy, as in
Weimar Republic in Germany)
- Centripetal forces in majoritarian systems

Consequences

• It may undermine democratic legitimacy, if taken to the extreme, and eventually lead
to democratic collapse
• But it does, on average, increase interest in politics and turnout
• Anything else?

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COMPARATIVE MANIFESTO PROJECT (CMP)

Types: fragmentation and polarization (Sartori 1976)

(DEMOCRATIC) Types (Caramani 2012)

1. Dominant-party systems: Sweden (SAP), Norway (Labour), Ireland (FF), pre-1993 Italy
(DC), pre-1975 India (Congress) [Do they exist anymore?]
2. Two-party systems: UK (at least until 2010), US, Australia, pre-1993 Canada, Malta,
Portugal (?), Spain (?), Austria (??), Greece (???)
3. Bipolar systems (?): France, post-1993 Italy, Germany
4. Multiparty systems:
- moderate: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Netherlands, Switzerland.
- polarized: Weimar republic in Germany

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PROS AND CONS

Why do some countries have many parties and others have few?

2. Determinants of Party System Fragmentation

A. CLEAVAGE STRUCTURE:
• Social divisions are the primary driving force behind the formation of parties
• The more social cleavages there are and the more that these cleavages are cross-
cutting, the greater the demand for distinctive representation and the greater
the demand for political parties

SOCIAL CLEAVAGES
A specific type of conflict in democratic politics that is rooted in the social structural
transformations that have been triggered by large-scale processes such as nation
buildings or industrialization.

ELEMENTS
- Empirical - Normative - Organizational/Behavioural

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RELATIONS BETWEEN SOCIAL CLEAVAGES: CROSS-CUTITING OR REINFORCING

▪ X-cutting = High probability that two randomly chosen people are in the same group
on one cleavage but different groups on the other (vs. reinforcing/overlapping)
▪ The two tables in the next slide show two very different societies ... defined by different
interactions between the same two cleavages
▪ Some argue that:
-Societies in which key social cleavages cross-cut tend to be more stable ▪Societies in
which key social cleavages reinforce tend to be less stable

Conclusions of social cleavages

• Is any of these ideas help us explain what happened in the former Yugoslavia?
• Normatively, it is sometimes the case that “consociational” systems are put in place
to protect the interests of both sides of a very deep cleavage – e.g. in Belgium and
Northern Ireland:
-Requires official recognition of the cleavage, official “registration” of citizens as
being in one group or another, and an enshrining of the cleavage in question in
formal constitutional arrangements

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B. ELECTORAL SYSTEM:
• Electoral institutions influence how social divisions are translated into political
parties

MECHANISMS:
• Mechanical: Disproportionality & the Sheriff of Nottingham (votes → seats)
• Psychological: Strategic entry & Tactical vote (incentives)

Specifically, district magnitude (Spain vs. Sweden):

• The smaller the number of representatives elected from an electoral district, the more
disproportional party system, and the smaller the effective number of parties

The logic of political competition focuses voter and elite attention on some cleavages
and not others. Not all cultural and ethnic divisions become politicized by politicians

Social cleavages create the demand for political parties.

But electoral institutions determine whether this latent demand for representation
leads to the existence of new parties. Specifically, non-proportional or non-permissive
electoral systems act as a brake on the tendency for social cleavages to be translated
into new parties.

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C. TIME:

What is the impact if any of time on party systems?

Number of Parties over Time

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 iii. – Institutionalism – Nationalization

TYPES OF DEMOCRACY

Typologies and classifications are important to understand how democracies work

Developing typologies of democracy as whole systems has always proved very difficult
The increasing transnational diffusion of institutions and ideas tends to make models of
democracy less internally coherent and consistent.

Majoritarian vs. Consensus Democracies (Lijphart 1984)

• The most important attempt to develop a comprehensive typology is seen in Arend

Lijphart ́s distinction between majoritarian and consensus democracy
1. Majoritarian (Westminster) democracies were regarded as those in which a
winning party could exercise virtually limitless power within a political system
(UK)
2. In consensus democracies, power was more likely to be shared rather than
contested, minorities were formally included in decision-making processes, and
executive power was limited by other government branches
- Model for divided (plural) societies? e.g., Belgium, Switzerland, Lebanon, Cyprus

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