Justice and Effectiveness

1. Justice and Effectiveness

2. For Consideration… • What things must the leaders and their people think about in considering what the state should do?

3. Justice • What is justice? • Do we base it on weight of contributions? • Contributions can be based on luck as much as virtue… • Doesn’t account for need… • Do we base it on need? • Very tricky… • It is all very difficult to assess • Substantive justice • Looks at the idea that people should receive what they need and deserve

4. Procedural Justice • Worries less about fairness or distribution and more about procedures by which decisions are reached • Whether government action is arbitrary • Capricious • Due process • Could have learned of existence and meaning of law before committing act • Entitle to know with why they are charged and the evidence against them • Judges must be disinterested, unbiased, and attentive • Some means of later reconsideration • Trial is invalid if rules violated

5. Procedural Justice • Whether special basic rights are violated • Right to survive • Right of free speech • Right to privacy • Not necessarily absolute • Whether special overriding social needs are present • To be just to most of the people, may mean being less just to others • Times of war • Ends justify the means • Is this right normally?

6. Effectiveness • An effective policy is one that gives the state and the people of the state the greatest benefits at the least cost • Tough to measure and compare • Unanticipated consequences • Any judgment must take into account all the costs and benefits…not just those intended

7. Effectiveness • Do we want to rely more on governmental authority or market mechanisms to carry out policies? • Under government authority, people get less say • Under market mechanisms, government leaves choice up to people to choose for themselves through exchange of goods and services • Can be an interplay of both… • Examples? When? Why?

8. Problems • Problems with Authority • Not good at getting things to people who need them most or will value them most (does not allocate optimally) • Lack of incentives to encourage authority-based policy to use resources as efficiently as they might need to be • Problems with Market • Unequal distribution • Not good with public goods • Do not take into account externalities • Social cost does not enter market calculations • Positive and negatives

9. Democracy and Autocracy

10. Regimes • General form of government of a state—includes constitution and rules of government • Typically continues beyond the term of officeholders • Democracy and autocracy

11. Democracy • Regime in which all fully qualified citizens vote at regular intervals to choose, from among alternative candidates, the people who will be in charge of setting the state’s policies • There is no pure democracy • On the other end, we have authoritarian democracy…thus, we have a range • Democratic bargain • Implicit agreement by conflicting groups to accept possibility that they will lose out in the making of policy • Of the 104 states that were independent as of 1960, only 29 have an uninterrupted record of electoral democratic government

12. The Waves of Democracy • Wave I • Wake of WWI • Germany and others in E. Europe…along with Latin America • Ultimately tended to fail…why? • Wave II • Wake of WWII • Reestablished in Germany and Italy…and other former European colonies in Third World • Wave III • Late 1970s thru mid-1990s • Southern Europe, Latin America, E. Europe, around the world

13. So Why Democracy During the Third Wave? • Fatigue of authoritarian regimes • International pressure • Citizen desire for security against arbitrary abuse • Citizen desire for economic development • Potential downfall: democracy opens up potential for regional nationalist pressures

14. What We Learn from the Third Wave • The importance of pacts • Try to assure smooth transition • Amnesty? Symbolic affirmation? Fund army? • Didn’t work in Eastern Europe as much…why? • Sudden changes • Figure 7.1 • Net rewards of coming out may tip suddenly • The danger of favoring democracy can decrease quickly • Economic crisis or not • Transition occurs differently depending on state of economy • Impacts the importance of pacts

15. Link Between Prosperity and Democracy • Average per capita income of $9,053 for democracies, $1,653 for non-democracies • Are democracies better at fostering economic growth? Or is it too tough to say? • Figure 7.2…once a state is a democracy, prosperity makes it more likely that it will remain a democracy • Link between democracy and freedom…what makes it tough? • Link between democracy and capitalism…what makes it tough?

16. Autocracy • Of the 104 states that were independent as of 1960, only 13 have an uninterrupted record of autocratic regimes • Examples • USSR • Pakistan • Saudi Arabia • Congo/Zaire

17. Military Government • Group of officers use troops to take over the government apparatus and run it themselves • Coup d’etat • Cluster around certain times • Institutionalized in some areas • Military controls more armed power than anyone else • Vary with political direction • No relationship with economic performance

18. Why Not More? • Legitimacy • How they take power • They have not been trained to be political leaders • Problem of succession • Shaky alliances

19. One-Party States • Government is based on and supports a political party…the only one allowed to exist • More stable and responsive than military • Embrace a reasonable range of social groups • Varied positions can develop into factions • Transition of leadership can occur • Most frequent form of autocratic government

20. Other Flavors • Monarchy • Power passes through descent in family • Relatively underdeveloped • Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait • Different than constitutional monarchies • Theocracy • Religious leaders derive power from positions in religion • Iran and Vatican City

21. Democracy v. Autocracy • Economic development • Average performance grew at about 4% • Range of possible outcomes was wildly greater than for democracies • More likely to have miracles or disasters with autocracy • Life expectancy • At each level of per capita income , those living in democracies can expect to live significantly longer than those in autocracies (as much as 5.6 years in most prosperous states)