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Government 97b

Government 97b. Act II Comparative Politics. Topics covered in grad field seminar on comparative politics. Methodology of comparison Modernization and political development Regimes and democratization Political participation and contentious politics

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Government 97b

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  1. Government 97b Act II Comparative Politics

  2. Topics covered in grad field seminar on comparative politics • Methodology of comparison • Modernization and political development • Regimes and democratization • Political participation and contentious politics • Parties, voters, and electoral alignments • Interest groups and intermediation • Civil society • Political culture • Political economy, in developing and industrial societies • The state, bureaucracy • Institutional design • The international context

  3. Our choice • Methodology of comparison • Modernization and political development • Regimes and democratization • Political participation and contentious politics • Parties, voters, and electoral alignments • Interest groups and intermediation • Civil society • Political culture • Political economy, in developing and industrial societies • The state, bureaucracy • Institutional comparisons • The international context Democracy and democratization

  4. Five-week plan • What is democracy and how does it work? – today • The effects of democracy – April 7 • Democratization, i.e., the causes of democracy – April 14 – James Robinson – reading and his lecture need to be reconciled • Democracy and culture – April 21 • The international dimension and democracy promotion – April 28

  5. Today’s lecture • Preliminary definitions of terms • How to define democratic regime – What is the essence of democracy? • Trends in democratic and non-democratic regimes – Where and when is democracy? • Thoughts on Dahl’s Who Governs?

  6. Some preliminary definitions • State: The organization having a monopoly on legitimate violence over a specific territory (Weber) • Political regime: The rules and norms that define the staffing of, and control over, the (principal) offices of the state • Form of government: Architecture of the institutions of the state – e.g., parliamentary vs. presidential, unitary vs. federal • Government: The set of individuals who hold state offices

  7. Definitions of democratic regime (democracy) • There are dozens of them in the literature. • Plus dozens more of “adjectival” or “hyphenated” democracies. • Dahl: • None explicitly in Who Governs? • Takes New Haven as self-evidently “democratic.” • Consistently emphasizes electoral mechanism. • More details, additional criteria and “elements,” in his other books.

  8. Tilly: More elaborate and does not hinge it on electoral mechanism. Emphasis is on consultation: “a regime is democratic to the degree that political relations between the state and its citizens feature broad, equal, protected, and mutually binding consultation.” Too elaborate and vague? And sidesteps key questions.

  9. Aristotle’s typology of regimes

  10. So what would a modern definition of democracy contain? • Rule by the many • But realized through political representatives . . . • Who are chosen through competitive popular election • Protection for minorities – otherwise, danger of majority dictatorship – raises question of which rights are essential – minority restraint is also important • Not either-or proposition – a continuum, not a category • So mixed or hybrid regimes are common • No one best form of government for democracy – multiple possibilities – form of government does have consequences • Beware fakes! • Salvage: Electoral democracy vs. Liberal democracy

  11. Some discussion points for section • Clarifying the definition • Linkages among the elements of democracy • Additive? • Functional/Causal? • Concentric circles? • What about the demos? • Do people always want democracy? • Do they ever prefer order to competition and uncertainty? • If not, why have there been so many non-democracies? • See readings for week of April 21

  12. Trend in Polity IV scores

  13. Trend in three-way classification

  14. Points to ponder in section about Dahl’s Who Governs? • Assess argument and evidence. • How “democratic” is a system of dispersed rather than cumulative inequalities? Do all issues count the same? • What about “non-issues” that may be suppressed by agenda control? • How well does Dahl’s model travel to other American communities, American national politics, and to American politics at other times? • How universal in other democracies?

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