Lecture notes
Full notes, lectures 1 to 10
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- Kings College London (KCL)
Document containing detailed notes, with authors in red, of all lecture content (1 to 10) plus added information on each week's reading
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DEFINITIONS EXTRA• Welfare State: system to reduce people’s material inequality
• Identities: In democracies, identities can be predictors of what regime type people prefer
(religion, ethnicity… and other things like sexual orientation, gender, environmental care,
women’s rights)
TOOLS OF ANALYSIS: INTERESTS, IDENTITIES AND INSTITUTIONS
Comparative politics is divided into three schools of thought:
1. RATIONAL COMPARATIVISTS = MATERIAL INTEREST
Material interests are core because people support whatever regime serves their interests and
maximises their side chances. In this school of thought, they study how people with personal
material interests organise themselves to achieve power.
2. CULTURAL COMPARATIVISTS = IDENTITIES
There is no such thing as a objective interest of maximising material interests in society, as each
person has individual objectives and not everyone wishes to maximise their material lot. In this
school of thought, they study the dominant ideas, objectives and identities of the society.
3. STRUCTURAL COMPARATIVISTS = INSTITUTIONS
They defend that what really moves and determines how a country’s politics work aren’t material
interests of people or identities, but institutions, which are the authoritative rules and procedures
that structure how power flows and organise human behaviour.
PATHS OF DEVELOPMENT
1. Early Developers (GB and France)
- Creation of middle classes with social power
- Use this power to have a say in the government
- Results in quicker economic changes
- Stated with the industrial revolution in Great Britain
2. Middle Developers (Japan, Germany and Spain)
- Late start, they needed to catch up with the advancements of the early developers to satisfy
the material interests of their people
- Greater economic intervention to make the economic development happen in the quickest of
the ways
- Japan and Germany developed a fascist regime (stress on ethnic hierarchy and racial
hierarchy) as a result of the pressure, the weaker middle class and the strength of the traditional
social classes
3. Late developers (Russia and China)
- Economic development was so late that it required even more government intervention which
located the state and the government in a dominant position among society
- Really small and weak middle class with no power of influencing the government
- Working class was living in inhuman conditions
- In fact, because of the dominant authoritarian role given to the government, China and Russia
developed a communist regime
4. Experimental Developers (Mexico, India, Iran, South Africa, Nigeria and the European
Union)
- Mexico’s experiment was their independence form the US
- India’s experiment was the creation of a non-revolutionary democracy
- Iran’s experiment was to introduce an Islamic governance
- South Africa’s experiment was to have a multination democracy
- European Union’s experiment is to preserve peace exploiting their best qualities: independence
and sovereignty
,Lecture 2 : Does development lead to democracy? Does democracy lead to development?
Economic development leads to democracy: (Economic Development= wealth, human rights,
possibilities and encouragement of risk taking and ambition)
• YES:
- Seymour Martin Lipset: argued that there is a strong correlation between high levels of GDP
per capita and income per capita and the regime type and that higher education, better
information result in economic growth. Wealth in a country is a key contributor towards
democracy - modernisation theory
- Samuel P. Huntington: wrote third wave of democratisation in 1991 and he supported that
5 factors caused democratisation in at least 30 countries between 74 and 90 and one of
them was the great economic growth that happened during the 60s.
- C. Barrington Moore: scholar and professor at Harvard and he explained the rise of
democracy in the US, England and France. He focused on three different variables: 1. The
strength of bourgeoisie (No bourgeoisie no democracy) by stating that the middle class
was the big core of society that was key to the development of capitalism and trading and
democracy as a result of this 2. The mode of agricultural production and in the type of
workers that were in that sector (slaves, employees or lower class owners) 3. Peasant
revolutionary potential and the change of power from landlords to middle and lower classes
even to peasants, freeing them from the control of the upper classes.
For him, in countries like the US, France and England were the middle class was
powerful, capitalism and hence democracy was more likely to happen and remain, against
countries like Japan or Germany which had capitalism but were in a fascists regime
peasants were kept down by aristocracy, finally Russia or China there wasn’t a middle
class but there was a numerous and strong movement of revolutionary peasants
- Huntington and O’Donnel: they argued that YES economic development leads to democracy
but to an extent, because there is a level beyond which probability of democracy sustainability
decreases which is called the intermediate level because of the unstable modernisation.
- Przeworski, Alvarez, Cheibub, Limongi 1996: they basically argued that it is not true what
Huntington and O’Donnel said because there is no such level of income at which democracy
is weakened. Dictatorships are not more likely to generate economic growth that democracies
and that once democracy is established in a developed country, it will endure because 1. Less
income inequality and hence economic stability 2. Superior institutions are chosen which match
the democratic features.
• NO:
- Skocpol: Barrington Moore’s student who questioned those three variables and the link
between capitalism and democracy as well as the revolutionary power of peasants. Puts in a
chart different variables and realises that even when those variables are the same, the
outcome which is the type of regime of the country is different hence reliability of the
variables as definers of democracy is weakened. Also questioned the meaning of strong
vs weak bourgeoisie.
, - Gershchekron: first modernisation theorist he argued that how a country developed is
affected by WHEN that development started and divided countries intro three categories:
1.Early Developers which are countries like England and France 2. Late Developers like
Germany and Japan and 3. Late Late Developers like Russia. The latter needed to grow at a
much faster rate to catch up with the other countries and to do so they needed to gather
capital. England had a time advantage because it was the first in the 1840s and the
development was a matter of centuries whereas for the other countries it needed to be a
matter of decades.
- Kurth: Focused on the importance of production and the fact that the key factor is at what
stage of the product cycle you as a country produce the product in relation to other
countries producing the same. Again defender of time advantage linked to democracy rather
than economic development as a general rule.
- Dependency School: (Dos Santos, O’Donnell, and Frank) focused on the entry of Latin
America into the world economy and its role in the sport of raw materials as a main source
of economic activity. Needed to create an alliance between local capital, multinationals
and the state. Brazil and Argentina entered global economies but their democracies
collapsed in 64 and 66 respectively.
- Equality circle by Lindbloom: Focused on equality and the impact of inequality in the
countries on the success of democracy. Inequality between those who have power and the
workers.
- Rustow: only requirement for democratisation is national unity which is the case of INDIA
which he uses to prove wrong the link between economic growth and democracy as India is
a poor country. Correlation doesn’t imply causation. He says that what Lipset state as
crucial factors for democratisation (high income per capita, high GDP, education and
information and wealth) can contribute but aren’t the main cause.
- Larry Diamond ‘the case of the Arab Spring’: of the 16 Arab countries, 11 are rentier states:
getting rents upon extraction of oil and other natural resources. No taxes, hence no need to
feel represented maybe?
Democracy leads to economic development
- Przeworski and Limongi: three theories 1. Either way: democracy doesn’t necessarily promote
growth but can 2. Against Democracy says that dictators insulate state and democracy
undermines investment (but are dictatorships future looking?) 3. In favour of democracy says
that dictators are predators
- Jagdish N. Bhagwati: democracy is more likely to promote entrepreneurship, democracies
lead to peace between countries but democracy without markets doesn’t ensure growth.
DEMOCRACY plus INTERNATIONAL TRADE = ECONOMIC GROWTH
- Gerring, Bond, Barndt and Moreno: focus on how much democratic stock rather than the
level of democracy as in high or low because counties that have great experience are less
likely to reverse.
- Hristos Doucouliagos and Mehmet Ali Ulubasoglu: Democracy impacts different variables like
lower inflation, lower political instability and economic freedom and those lead to economic
growth. Hence democracy isn’t the direct causation but has a strong INDIRECT impact on
economic growth.
• Modernisation theory: (Lipset) The richer a nation is the greater its chances of developing and
sustaining democracy. (Przeworski) reassess the theory by saying that yes greater changes to
endure but doesn’t explain why it emerges.
, • PARLIAMENTARISM VS PRESIDENTIALISM: two different institutions and parl. more durable
than pres.
Presidentialism states that when the presidential candidate is defeated he will not be a
member but Parliamentarism states that he will become the leader of the opposition.
Democratic life under presidentialism less than 20 years vs 71 under parliamentarism.
Parliamentarist systems are more vulnerable during an economic crisis than
presidentialist systems who are less sensitive. However, presidentialism dies at higher
rates under any external conditions hence parliamentarism stands out in any situation.
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