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Readings summary Democracies, Autocracies and Transitions
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Summary of all the readings from DAT from 2024. I also uploaded a document with lecture notes.
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DAT readingsLecture 1: Introduction
Przeworski, Adam. 2018. Why Bother with Elections? Chapter 1.
- Elections are a competitive procedure for selecting individuals or groups to hold
public office
- Essential to democracy → choosing leaders and holding them accountable
- Positives
• Peaceful transition of power: avoids violence and instability
• Promote participation and engagement: more people interested in politics
• Legitimate government and its policies: it’s chosen by the people
• Ensures government is responsive to people’s needs: can be voted out of
office
- Negatives
• Elections are costly: money can be spend on education or healthcare
• Elections are inefficient: takes time and resources to organize
• Elections can be manipulated: bribery, intimidation, fraud
- Two kinds
• Majoritarian
o Easier to understand and administer
o Strong and stable governments
o Help concentrate power in hands of single party
o Can be unfair to minorities
o Can lead to polarization and political instability
• Proportional
o Fairer to minorities
o More representative
o Promote cooperation and compromise
o Can lead to weak and unstable governments
Sen, Amartya. 1999. “Democracy as a Universal Value.” Journal of Democracy. Vol
10, No. 3.
- Democracy originates in ancient Greece
- Idea of democracy as universal commitment is new → product of 20th century
- Democracy doesn’t work well everywhere
- Lee Hypothesis
• Nondemocratic systems better for economic development
• In some countries true (Korea, China, Singapore)
• But, no evidence that it’s generally true
- Famines and crisis
• In democracies it’s easier to prevent famines and also there is a serious
effort, because of elections and criticisms from opposition
• Financial crisis in nondemocratic countries because of lack of transparency
in business
, - Value of democracy
• Intrinsic value: political participation and freedoms (importance in human
life)
• Instrumental value: importance of political incentives in keeping governments
responsible and accountable (general political incentives)
• Constructive value: the formation of values and understanding of needs,
rights and duties
- Universal value
• No universal consent is required
• For it to be a universal value, people anywhere may have reason to see it’s
value
• Democracy has a protective roll (during famines and crisis)
• No evidence that poor people will reject democracy
• It has been claimed that Asians value discipline, not freedom, but there is no
evidence for this
Lecture 2: What is democracy?
Clark, William, Matt Golder, and Sona Golder. 2018. Principles of Comparative
Politics. Chapter 5.
- Historical perspectives
• Herodotus talks about different forms of regime
• Demokratia: rule of the (common/poor/uneducated) people
• Plato: The Republic
o Democracy bad, because leads to ochlocracy (mob rule)
o Trained statesman should guide ship of state
o Rule by the poor and uneducated against the rich and educated
o Short-lived: people quickly surrender power to tyrant
• Aristotle: Politeia
o Thought not highly of democracy, but could work
o Classification of regimes
o Good forms ruler rules for good of all and in bad forms for himself
o Good forms could be corrupted: politeia most easy, aristocracy most
difficult (like Plato)
o Democracy would result in class warfare (rich vs poor, like Marx)
• Democracy in ancient times
o No elections, but by lot
o In ancient times, elections in aristocracy
o Bodin, Hegel, Hobbes, Kant, Locke, Montesquieu and Vico preferred
monarchy, because monarchy had elections and democracy was
determined by lot
o This view holds until French and American Revolutions
o New distinction: democracy (many) vs autocracy/dictatorship (one or
few) → dichotomy
- Classifying democracies and dictatorships
, • Dahl’s view
o Against substantive view (classifies in regard to outcomes that
democracy produces): too idealist → no true democracy
o Minimalist/procedural view: classifies in regard to their institutions
and procedures
o Two dimensions: contestation (extent to which citizens are free to
organize themselves into competing political blocs to pressure for
desired outcomes) and inclusion (who gets to participate)
o Dahl calls regime with high levels of both a polyarchy (not democracy)
• Democracy-Dictatorship (DD) Measure (1946-2008)
o Democracy: regime with governmental office and contested elections
o Three elements of contestation: 1. Ex ante uncertainty (no certain
outcome before election), 2. Ex post irreversibility (winner takes
office), 3. Repeatability (occurs at known intervals)
o Operationalization: four conditions
▪ Chief executive is elected
▪ Legislature is elected
▪ More than one party
▪ Alternation in power under identical electoral rules has taken
place (ruler is willing to give up power if he loses election)
o Dichotomy: dictatorship if not all four
o Builds on Dahl: procedural view, focuses on contestation
o Difference: ignores inclusion (no big changes since 1946),
dichotomous measure (Dahl: continuous measure)
• Polity IV (1880-present)
o Democracy and autocracy score from 1 to 10
o Polity score = democracy score – autocracy score (from -10 to 10)
▪ 6 – 10: democracy
▪ -5 – 5 = mixed regime or anocracy
▪ -10 - -5 = autocracy
o Five dimensions
▪ Competitiveness of executive recruitment
▪ Openness of executive recruitment
▪ Constraints on executive
▪ Regulation of political participation
▪ Competitiveness of political participation
o Follows Dahl: inclusion and contestation, continuous scale
o New dimension to Dahl: constraints/limits on government
• Freedom House (1972-present)
o Measures global freedom, not democracy (but used by scholars)
o The more free, the more democratic a country
o Political rights
▪ Electoral process
▪ Political pluralism and participation
▪ Functioning of government
o Civil rights
▪ Freedom of expression and belief
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