Comparative Analysis of Political Institutions (USG2051)
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Samenvatting CAPI
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Comparative Analysis of Political Institutions (USG2051)
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Universiteit Utrecht (UU)
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Comparative Politics
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Lecture 1
Introduction
Week 47
18 November 2019
Example:
The PVV ended up with more seats then the front National even though they both won 13% of the votes. How
come?
- France: majority system:
If no candidate wins a majority of votes in the first round (in which all candidates compete), a second round
takes place, in which only certain candidates are permitted to participate:
Either: two best candidates
Or: all candidates that passed a certain threshold
- The Netherlands: direct
- Europe: proportionality
Goal: award to each group its ‘fair share’ of representation
X% of the votes = X% of the seats
è For the outcome of the elections, it matters which voting system you have.
1. Comparative politics:
What is commonly meant by comparative politics?
- Research on two or more countries
What could be studied comparatively within one country?
- Politics over time, different groups within countries.
- Differences between regions and groups
Why would you compare political phenomena cross-nationally?
It’s about understanding differences between countries. Satisfaction of citizens.
How easy do politics change in a country? What is the quality of governance?
1. Understand similarities and differences between countries: only through comparisons can we
understand our own oddities. We compare all the time.
2. Acquire knowledge about the link between the design of political institutions and ‘valued outcomes’
(e.g., human well-being, social trust and political trust, quality of government, etc.)
3. There is no lab, we need to compare (e.g. PVV/FN)
Also for validity of generalizations.
Holand: after the elections you still have to find your way as a politician.
France/Spain: either you get it or you don’t get it, because of the majority system.
Comparative politics: is one of the tree main disciplines in political science. The focus lies on internal political
structures, actors, and processes, and analysing them empirically by describing, explaining and predicting their
variety.
- Comparative is supposed to be always empirical -> something that has happened.
= similarities and differences.
- … does not analyse wars between nations but rather investigates which party is in government and
why it has decided in favour of military intervention.
1
,Differences between political science and public administration:
Political science Public administration
(politicologie) -> just about politics (bestuurskunde) -> is not only about politics
Looks more at the ‘why’ -> who gets the power? Bigger theme, way broader
It is also about non-governmental organizations. For
example, the NS.
More looking into the organizations.
How do they relate?
2. Structure of the course
Caramani introduction
….
A countries political system (institution and agencies) structures the way in which citizens preferences (inputs)
are translated into policy (outputs)
At the same time, policy (outputs) should be linked to the preferences of the citizens: incumbent governments
have to justify their actions)
Input (Support of the citizens, demands) -> Goes through the political system (decisions and actions of the
politicians) -> output
The political system according to Easton (1965)
Political system according Easton:
- A set of structures (institutions and agencies) -> hebben de functie gekregen om beslissingen te
maken…
- Whose decision-making function is to reach the collective.
- They have authority because they make the decisions (outputs)
- They receive support as well as demands (inputs)
See figure 1 page 8 Caramani
In democratic systems the input comes from the people.
In for example, North Korea; the input does not always come from the people.
Simplified model of representative democracy: a combination of two chains:
1. The ‘chain of responsiveness’ (=ontvankelijkheid -> open staan)
o Links the citizens’ preferences to the result of policy making
o Democratic responsiveness occurs when the democratic process induces the government to
form and implement policies that citizens want
2
, 2. The ‘chain of accountability’ (=verantwoording afleggen)
o Links public policies to the citizens’ preferences
o Incumbent governments should assume responsibility for their acts and enable voters to
respond with sanctions, if the policy output does not correspond to their preferences.
Chapter 1: the relevance of comparative politics
1. Comparative politics could be relevant for informing the elite
• Giving advice to parties on how to win election campaigns
• How politicians should best act to get enough support for their policies
2. Comparative politics could be relevant for informing the general public
• Why does country X have higher economic growth?
Political institutions and human well-being:
Before 1990
- Well-being of population in county rested on non-political factors
After 1990 -> the institutional turn = more focus to the practices and not on the structural variables.
Douglass: explained ‘why countries were much more prosperous than others’ = the new institutionalism
Example:
1.2 billion people lacked access to enough clean water.
Relevant to comparative politics -> because not due to a lack of technical solutions. Main problem lies within
the judicial and administrative institutions.
Function of governments is one of the most important explanatory factors to understand why some countries
are more successful than others.
The many faces of democracy
We tend to speak about democracy as a single political institution, when in fact it is a system that is built on
multiple separate institutions.
NO either/or dimension -> a country is either a democracy or authoritarian.
The way in which a democratic political system is organized is often linked to its capability for producing
‘valued outcomes’ such as economic prosperity, political legitimacy and social justice.
Democracy and state capacity
Democracy does not generate human well-being
Corruption in the public sector has a negative effect on human well-being
Does democracy generate political legitimacy?
3
,Lecture 2
Varieties of democracy
week 48
What exactly is it that makes a democracy a democracy?
Article: democracy and dictatorship – Clark
Democracy and dictatorship in historical perspective
1. What is democracy?
History:
Aristoteles’ classification of regimes
Number of rulers For the good of all For the good of the rulers
(good form) (bad form)
One Monarchy Tyranny
Few Aristocracy Oligarchy
Many Polity Democracy
Like Plato, Aristoteles believed -> Democracy = dangerous
Mob or class rule: the poor and uneducated govern for themselves rather than the commonweal
Dahl’s view of democracy and dictatorship
Aristoteles: good v bad regimes
= substantive view of democracy based on the degree to which a regime serves the public good
Dahl: minimalist view of democracy
• It is the institution and procedures. Result doesn’t matter -> process is most important.
• Two dimensions:
1. Contestation: To what extent to which citizens are free to organize themselves into competing
blocs in order to press for the policies and outcomes they desire.
(Kan elke mening vertegenwoordigd worden in een partij. Heeft iedereen de vrijheid een partij op
te richten.)
Examples: Freedom to form parties, freedom of speech, free and fair elections.
2. Inclusion: is everybody able to participate? Who gets to participate in the democratic process.
Examples: place of births (e.g., newcomers in a country), ethnicity, gender (men & women),
property requirements.
The former Soviet Union is an example of a country that had high levels of inclusion because everyone was
allowed to vote and participate, but it had low levels of contestation because there was only one political
party.
China has low levels of both inclusion and contestation because there is only one party and there are no
elections
South Africa (apartheid) -> contestation was high because there were multiparty elections. Inclusion was low
because segments of the populations were not allowed to vote or participate.
Dahl used the word polyarchy to describe a political regime with high levels of both contestation and inclusion.
Box 5.1 State, regimes and governments
State: entity that uses coercion and the threat of force to rule in a given territory
Example: France
4
,Government: is the set of people who run the state or have the authority to act on behalf of the state at a
particular point in time
Example: United States -> Barack Obama
Regime: is the set of rules, norms or institutions that determine how the government is constituted, how it is
organized, and how major decisions are made. Regimes are generally classified as being either democractic or
dictatorial.
Democratic and dictatorial regimes come in different types:
Democracies: Dictatorships:
Whether they are run by the:
1. Presidential 1. Military
2. Parliamentary 2. Monarchy
3. Semi parliamentary 3. Civilians
Three measures of democracy and dictatorship
2. How to measure democracy?
Chapter 5 Caramani: How do we know if a country is democratic?
You need to define democracy.
We need an operational definition that is precise enough to classify specific countries as we observe them
during particular historical periods
Such a definition is crucially important when you want to establish…
- If an economy grows faster in democracies than in dictatorships
- If democracies invest more in health or education than authoritarian regimes
- If democratic countries are less likely to experience political violence
- Etc…
Which criteria would you use to assess whether a country is democratic? Why?
Three famous examples:
1.The democracy-dictatorship (dd) measure:
Democracies are ‘regimes in which governmental offices are filled as a consequence of contested
elections.’
- Four criteria to classify a country as democratic:
1. The chief executive is elected
2. The legislature is elected
3. There is more than one party competing in the elections (contestation*)
4. An alternation in power under identical electoral rules has taken place. (the chief executive is
replaced through the electoral process by someone else)
è A country is classified as dictatorship if any of these four conditions do not hold.
*contestation requires that there exists an opposition.
And contestations entails the following three elements:
1. Ex ante: uncertainty: the outcome of the election is unknown before it happens
2. Ex post: irreversibility: the winner of the election actually takes office
3. Repeatability: elections that meet the first two criteria must occur at regular and known intervals.
What are the similarities and differences with Dahl’s conceptualization of democracy?
• Similarity: it is based on a purely procedural, or minimalist, view of democracy and dictatorship ->
because the classification rules make no mention of the substantive outcomes produced by different
political regimes.
• Differences: focuses strongly on Dahl’s notion of contestation and ignores dimension of inclusion;
dichotomous v continuous conceptualization.
5
,Dichotomous v continuous conceptualization:
The biggest difference between the DD measure and dahl’s classification scheme is that the DD measure treats
regime type as a dichotomy – countries are either a democracy or a dictatorship. Dahl treats regime type as a
continuum with strong dictatorships at one end and strong democracies at the other.
Continuous measures: Dichotomous measure:
Can take on any intermediate value within a given Has only two discrete categories or values.
range. Example: tall, short
Example: height in centimeters
More / less (interval) Either / or (binary)
Which other types of variables can you think of?
Examples nominal and ordinal variables:
Nominal:
- Party family
- Ethnicity
- The city you come from
- Gender
- Democracy as a dichotomy (DD)
Ordinal:
- Education level
- Satisfaction
- Rating
- Income group
6
, Examples of an interval variable?
- Days in power
- Democracy as a continuum
- (Polity IV and Freedom House)
2. Polity IV criteria
Democracies are classified according to a Polity Score from a minimum of -10 (as autocratic or dictatorial as
possible to a maximum of 10 (as democratic as possible)
A country’s polity score is based on five attributes:
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
Like Dahl: minimalist view of democracy
Dahl: inclusion
Dahl: contestation
In the map USA has a full democracy but it only has two parties. Can you call that a full democracy?
3. Freedom House
= an independent, nongovernmental organization that has, among other things, provided an annual measure of
‘global freedom’ for countries around the world.
Measures a country’s freedom based on two dimensions:
1. A county’s level of civil rights
o The amount of freedom on the civil rights dimension is measured by a series of 15 questions.
(Including: is the media free and independent? Is there equal treatment under the law? Is
there equality of opportunity? Are there free trade unions?)
2. A country’s level of political rights
o The amount of freedom on the political rights dimension is measured by a series of 10
questions.
(Including: is there an open, accountable and transparent government? Is there pervasive
corruption? Do minorities have reasonable autonomy?)
Contrary to Dahl: substantialist view of democracy
Welke criteria je gebruikt om democratie te meten, bepaalt in hoeverre een land democratisch is (als je
democratie en vrijheid meet, is een land misschien wel heel democratisch maar niet vrij)
Chapter 5: democracies
Box 5.1: four defining attributes of modern democracy
1. Free and fair elections: the legislature is elected by the people, while the head of the government can
be elected by the people or selected by the majority in parliament. Elections take place every few
years. Candidates are allowed to campaign and voters to participate without intimidation. Votes are
counted without fraud.
2. Universal participation: the adult population enjoys the rights to vote and to run for office without
exclusions based on for example, gender, education, income etc.
3. Civil liberties: Democratic governments do not commit systematic human rights violations against
their citizens.
4. Responsible government:
7
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