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Summary of the material from Caramani, the lectures and learning groups for the course Comparative Analysis of Political institutions
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Comparative Analysis of Political Institutions – summaryLectures, seminar groups and literature
Week 47 – introduction
The political system according to David Easton (1995): politics is about “authorative
allocation of values”. He made a model to tell wat politics is about. It is about who
gets what, when and how; but also, about priorities for immaterial values.
- (other definition) Politics is about activity of making public (about people) and
authorative (binding and legitimate) decisions. It is the conflict of competition
for power, and its use.
(Political) institutions: formal and informal rules and norms that shape and constrain
(political) behavior. We focus on institutions. Institutions are the rule of the game.
Comparative politics focusses on internal political structures, actors, and processes,
and analyzing them empirically by describing, explaining and predicting their variety
across political systems.
,Week 48 – Variety in democracies
There are many definitions of democracy, influenced by the view of who made it.
- In ancient Greece it meant: ‘citizens directly involved in decision-making and
public officials selected by lot, rotation or election’.
- Aristoteles was concerned that if you would involve the many (the poor
and the uneducated), they would strive for their own will. He was in
favor of the politeia (=a combination of democracy and aristocracy).
- Aristoteles had a substantive view of democracy. He focused on the
degree a regime serves the public good, but also focused on the
outcome.
- Robbert Dahl defined it by the institutions and procedures. He focused on
contestation (= are citizens free to mobilize people and compete for public
office) and inclusion (= are all citizens allowed to participate).
- This is a procedural view, that is minimalistic.
- Cheibub et al. defined democracies as ‘regimes in which governmental offices
are filled as a consequence of contested elections.’
There are different ways to measure democracy, different measures lead to different
results for the same countries. The indicators a measure uses changes the results.
- Dahl made a continuous scale, were contestation and inclusion lead to a
measure of democracy.
- This is minimalistic (=doesn’t focus on outcome)
- Cheibub at al. made the DD – measure, which has indicators for a democratic
system. This is dichotomous (= either one or another; a country is democratic
or a dictatorship). To be a democracy all 4 must be succeeded:
1. The chief executive is elected;
2. Legislature is elected;
3. There is more than one party competing in the elections;
4. An alternation in power under identical electoral rules has taken place.
- This is minimalistic. It ignores the dimension of inclusion.
- Polity IV looks at 5 indicators. Classified on a score from -10 to 10
(continuous).
1. The competitiveness of executive recruitment.
2. The openness of executive recruitment.
3. The constraints that exist on the executive.
4. The regulation of political participation.
5. The competitiveness of political participation.
- This is minimalistic. It adds constraints on the executive.
- Freedom House. This measured two dimensions (continuous).
1. A country’s level of civil rights
2. A country’s level of political rights
- This is substantive.
There are challenges to measure democracy:
- If it is objective: does it sufficiently capture the state of political system?
, - If it is subjective: does every expert assign the same value to every indicator.
- Which aspects of democracy are indicated? And can they be simply added up
or subtracted?
- What is threshold to call political systems (un)democratic.
The basic hypothesis of the democratic peace theory: democracies do not wage
ware against each other. People in democracies are used to figure out conflicts by
talking/negotiating. Instead of fighting.
There are different types of democracies:
Parliamentary Presidential Semi-presidential
Head of is indirectly elected directly elected by a indirectly elected; the
government popular election prime minister
Head of different person Same person as head The president, choses
state than head of of government. the prime minister
government
Period in Elections can take fixed term President: fixed term,
office place sooner than but he can dissolve
scheduled parliament
Executive Yes No (can’t vote Government: yes
politically someone out because President: no
accountable they don’t support
to legislature
ideas)
Varieties Cabinet, prime Weak or strong Unified or divided
ministerial of president/assembly; government and weak
ministerial unified or divided or strong president.
government; prime government and
minister can be minority of majority
directly elected; government
minority or
(surplus) majority
government; single
party or coalition
governing.
- Majoritarian democracy: concentration power in hands of the majority. This is
optimal for homogeneous societies. Tends to result in more decisive and rapid
policy changes. Can lead to the marginalization of minority interests.
- Consensus democracy: power divided and shared, to protect minorities and
involve many, inducing decision-making by consensus. This is optimal for
divided societies. Strives for compromise and cooperation among different
political factions. Tends to be more protective of minority rights and interests.
Factors for democracy:
- Economic development long-term developments facilitate the emergence of
modern democracies.
- The nature of the democratic institutions presidential democracies face a
greater risk of breakdown then parliamentary ones for example.
- Actors and agency
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