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College-aantekeningen Governance and Politics of Social Problems jaar (S_GPSP)
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Duidelijke en nauwkeurige aantekeningen van GPSP, jaar 1, periode 2.
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THE GOVERNANCE AND POLITICS OF SOCIAL PROBLEMSLecture 1 — 26/10: Introduction Distinctive democracies, common challenges and problems
Many voters take the output; the performance and effectiveness into account
when they can vote. We will try to evaluate all the stages of how policy is
created.
The comparative approach shows the interconnectedness and
distinctiveness of European democracies. How do countries differ in Europe?
=> example of 2018 of refugees that the Aquarius brought to Italy that
refused them and Spain that accepted them due to their ‘government color.’
What can we expect each lecture?
- Lecture 2 —> Input of policy: Comparing political systems and how the
political space has transformed. The rules of the game; how do countries
elect their governments and the difference between Majoritarian and
consensus democracies = Leiphart.
- Lecture 3 —> Introduction to throughput: What is the interplay between governance, politics and the market?
- Lecture 4 —> How the interplay has created discontent that made the rise of populism possible. Also, what happened to the US elections
and how can we compare this to Europe?
- Lecture 5 —> How is voting in European democracies
- Lecture 6 —> Discontent on European integration, how this level is organized
- Lecture 7 —> How can citizens get involved in politics that goes beyond voting? => direct democracy and which forms this has.
- Lecture 8 —> Social movements => How do citizens attempt to influence public organs and show their discontent in the form of protests?
- Lecture 9 —> Output of policy: How do countries build up a system of taxation and how does a welfare state rise up from that?
- Lecture 10 —> The executive branch: How do you form legitimate and good policy?
- Lecture 11 —> Forming public policy (Fukuyama and Beckers) => who delivers and what is the role of discretion and the principle-agent
impasse?
- Lecture 12 —> What remains to be done and what is good governance in an improvising society.
What is liberal democracy? => Power of government is constrained by constitutional rules which are upheld by an independent judicial
system. This first criterium is to show the difference with authoritarian systems, in which they have no constraints. Half of worlds
democracies are located in Europe. The only non-democracy now is Belarus. However, in Europe, the democracy is under pressure due to
authoritarianism that is rising. This is important, because there is a strong correlation between peace/wealth and democracy. Democracies
are often wealthier (it’s interesting to discuss which way around this is), democracies are technologically more advanced, democracies have
more educated citizens and democracies are more urbanized.
However, there is a decreasing line by generations that think it is essential to live in a democracy. Probably, because they think it’s normal
and they don’t realize what democracy really means.
Why do extreme political movements win elections across Europe? => The post-war period had a relatively high level of consensus that the
war brought. We support a structure of free market, but with high taxation which with public things are financed. The critics see this as a
party cartel, that want to overthrow that.
Mudde says populism is not the cause of the democratic deficit, but it is a symptom. Many people distrust certain politicians and parties, but
they still support central idea of liberal democracy. But, André will try to show that people are more moderate and ambivalent than is
portrayed. But the populists frame the politicians, the scientists etc. as against the good people. Where is the populist support coming from?
There is a broad support, previously the lower middle class. Populism is a pushback against what is going on, not a conflict.
What is the logic of a democratic system? => Leiphart (1984) said there are two types and logics of democracies; majoritarian and
consensus. Consensus = power distribution, they can’t do everything on their own. Majoritarian = power concentration and checks on power.
The core difference between: in a presidential system, there is a separate mandate for the president (executive) and the parliament
(legislating). In the parliamentary system, people elect a parliament and from there the government arises. In France, there is a semi-
presidentialism.
Lecture 2 — 28/10: Comparing political systems: Electoral systems and the transformation of the
political space
Voting is making a link between the political/economic elites and the masses. => There needs to be a sort of a match between what the
majority wants and what the elites promises.
In the Ancient Greek democratic method, was used to determine by random which man would be sitting in jury of in public office. In modern
society, we have a model of representation where we create a semi-permanent elite that decides for us.
, There are four models of representation:
1. Trustees => Experts/The most clever among us have to make the decisions because they can do this best. That does not mean a form
of elitism, because they are smart enough to keep political stability.
2. Delegates => The representatives have to consult the electorate in what they should be voting for, even if this goes against the opinion
of the representative themselves.
3. Mandates => Political parties write a program where is written down what the representatives will try to accomplish when the voters
choose them.
4. Resemblance => You have to search for people that look like you and resemble you the most.
Holding elections ≠ democracy! => most authoritarian regimes hold elections, but they are not free and fair as they would have to be to be
called democratic.
Another criterium for democracy is that the power of the representative is limited by the Rule of Law: A set of constitutional/cultural rules
that prevent abuse of power. So, opposition that has the freedom to offer an alternative to the elite is crucial; but they have to be seen as
opponents and not as enemies!
Constitutions have multiple functions:
- guarantee economic and political freedoms of citizens
- restrict power
- limit the duration of power
- regulate orderly method of change of power
- guarantee regular, free, fair and competitive elections
- compel government to be accountable to the people
Costello and Robertson argue four major basic features to determine how an electoral system is regulated:
- How votes are counted to allocate seats => Electoral formula
- How many seats can you win per district => District magnitude
- How can voters express their choice => Ballot structure
- How many votes do you need to get in => Threshold
Types of electoral systems: QUESTION IN EXAM!
✓ Majoritarian => Making sure that there is a clear
winner; everybody can field as a candidate, the person
with the most votes is elected and will hold power. If you
have 30/40% of the votes, you win a plurality (not a
majority!). There is no minimum number of votes that
you have to have, which means that the majority of the
votes is wasted; disproportional. However, it is clear
who you have to send away when things go wrong
because it’s clear who is in charge. “The winner takes it
all.” This can be solved by a second round for example
in France; the top two go to the second round, if there is
no winner with more than 50%. Another manner to
prevent disproportionality is a
✓ Ranked-choice ballot; the alternative vote
system. Voters can put their candidates in order of
likeliness. When the candidate with the most first-choice votes has not reached a 50% yet, the lowest one is washed away and their
second-choice votes will be counted and added to the upper three candidates. This continues until one reaches a 50%.
✓ Proportional => The key is compromise and cooperation, because there is no winner identified, but they make sure that every party
gets the portion of seats that resembles the proportion of votes.
✓ Single Transferable Vote => When a constituency doesn’t send one
representative to parliament, but multiple. They can rank the candidates,
but the quota is clear from the start (when there are 5 seats, you need
20%). The amount of votes that the first one has that exceeds the quota, is
then added to the last one. If there is no winner, the last one gets eliminated
and their second-choices get their votes.
✓ List PR => Parties can put as many candidates on the list as they want and
voters can choose one candidate specifically. They can, if they reach the
kiesdeler, jump all the people in front of them.
✓ Mixed => People can vote on a party and a different candidate (from another
party if they like). In Germany, there is a system of proportional representation,
but you can also elect one specific member into parliament. You can split your
vote as well and people can show which party they would like to form a coalition
with.
Does a representative represent their constituency or the whole country?
=> Slovakia and the Netherlands do not count their country in districts, while the rest gives 4 to 20 seats per district.
=> But it creates a problem when a candidate only represents a certain area: Gerrymandering, like in the Fourth Illinios Congressional
District which is named Earmuffs.
Thresholds: How many votes do you minimally need to get seats in parliament? In the Netherlands, this automatically is 0,67 because there
is one huge district.
Leadership elections are increasingly important where members and sometimes non-members can vote
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