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01.02.2022 Lecture 1 What is democracy?
- Rule of law
- Rule by the people
- Economic equality missing dimension?
- Why do we pay attention to definition of democracy? Trends in democracy and
authoritarian
Trends in democracy and authoritarian
- 1844-1018: gradual democratization (king ruled by parliament)
- After 1919 (WWI): the rise of fascism and economic recession
- After WWIII: decolonization -> new countries
- 1960:1974: Cold war
- Third wave: Revolution in Portugal, Spain… South Korea also?
- Fourth wave
- What is wrong with this graph? Definition of democracy has changed. Female
and black could vote only after certain year in some countries.
03.02.2021 Lecture 2
States and Political Regimes
- What are states?
- States are: “an entity that successfully claims a monopoly on the legitimate use
of force within a specified territory” (Weber, 1918)
Ideally, state:
Guarantee a minimum level of security for citizens
Implement policies and deliver basic public services
Generate resources to maintain public services and state institutions
So, territory + institutions, relatively stable over time
- What are political regimes?
- Regimes are: “the rules governing the distribution of power and the relationships
between the agents of power”
, So, patterns / relationships of power, relatively stable but less stable than
states
- What is the difference between states and regimes?
- Governments are: “the leadership that runs the state (O’Neill 2015: 36)
- “The state is what one rules, regimes are how one rules, and government is the
group of individuals who rule” (Lindberg 2006: 6)
Classifying political regimes
- First step: is it independent?
- Second step: who is in charge? (i.e., dictator?), who is really in power?, how
people get power, how do they make decisions?
- * It is difficult to classify political regimes
Regime definitions / conceptualizations
- Minimalist vs. expanded procedural definitions of democracy
- Starting from democracy as rule-of-the-people, i.e., popular decision-making
- Minimalist / procedural definitions of democracy:
Huntington (1991): democracy is “a political system in which the most
powerful collective decision makers are selected through fair, honest, and
periodic elections in which candidates freely compete for votes and in which
virtually all the adult population is eligible to vote” (Huntington 1991:7).
“Two-turnover test of democracy”, if elections resulted in peaceful
alternation of power, twice = rule of thumb to decide whether regimes
made transition to democracy.
Schumpeter (1975): the democratic method 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”
(Schumpeter 1975:242-269)
Przeworski et al. (1996): democracy is “a system in which parties lose
elections” (Przeworski et al. 1996: 50-51).
- They classify regimes by procedures.
- But democracy is more than just elections, so:
- ‘Expanded’ procedural definitions of democracy:
, Dahl (1989): Polyarchy consists of 7 elements:
Electoral:
1. Elected officials. Control over government decisions about policy is
constitutionally vested in elected officials.
2. Free and fair elections. Elected officials are chosen in frequent and fairly
conducted elections in which coercion is comparatively uncommon.
3. Inclusive suffrage
4. Right to run for office (for) practically all adults
Non-electoral:
5. Freedom of expression
6. Alternative information, (including that) alternative sources of
information exist and are protected by law.
7. Associational autonomy. “To achieve their various rights, including those
listed earlier, citizens also have a right to form relatively independent
associations or organizations, including independent political parties and
interest groups”
- ‘Expanded’ procedural definitions of democracy
Schmitter and Karl (1991) add that in “real existing democracies”
Absence reserved power domains (i.e., elected officials must be able to
rule)
Military for example, Iran, Egypt, Bosnia
Dutch monarchy? English queen?
State sovereignty (i.e., the state must be formally and de facto
independent)
O’Donnell (2004) adds: rule of law, all citizens including the incumbent are
subject to the rule of law. States out of focus
- Substantive definitions of democracy
Also include desirable outcomes, such as income equality
- Now increasingly: notion of “varieties of democracy” >> Version of expanded
procedural definitions
- “Varieties of democracy” (Coppedge et al, 2011) >> Version of expanded
procedural definitions
- But also, countries can be democratic in different ways, democracy consists of
many dimensions/elements that together form the overall democratic regime
- Regime definitions minimalist or expanded, procedural or substantive
- Regime definitions on the ‘ladder of abstraction’ (Sartori)
- Regime definitions either dichotomous or continuous
, Is democracy a matter of either / or? (minimalist)
To present
Or is democracy a matter of degree? (Expanded procedural & substantive)
You can monitor quality of democracy, you can track progress
Moving from concepts to measures
- Moving from concepts to measure requires making a ‘concept-tree’ (Munck and
Verkuilen 2002, Adcock and Collier 2001)
- Moving from more abstract to more specific properties
- If we take two dimensions as core of democracy: rule of law (broadly defined,
incl. civil liberties) & rule by the people
- We can identify continuum from closed autocracies to liberal democracies
(Schedler 2002)
- Actual thresholds subject to continuous debate: hence, ‘hybrid regimes’
Data quality
- Conceptualization, operationalization, data collection
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