Comparative political institutions
(15/20)
The exam consists of 2 parts. The first part consists of 40 MC questions (sometimes with multiple correct answers, the
question will notify when this is the case) and some questions you will have to complete a sentence with a word, the
2nd part will be 5 open questions about one of the mandatory books you have to read.
My grades this semester:
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Contents
Introduction............................................................................................................................................................................. 2
Ch.2: Approaches in comparative politics................................................................................................................................3
Ch. 3: Comparative research methods (Hans Keman)..............................................................................................................4
Ch 5: Democracies (Anibal Perez & Linan)...............................................................................................................................6
Non-democratic regimes......................................................................................................................................................7
Typology of legislatures.......................................................................................................................................................7
Elections and electoral laws.................................................................................................................................................8
Political parties: origin, function, types....................................................................................................................................9
Origin and transformation of political parties......................................................................................................................9
Extra info.............................................................................................................................................................................. 9
6: Parties and party systems in Europe..................................................................................................................................11
Analysing Democracy.............................................................................................................................................................12
Referenda and direct democracy.......................................................................................................................................13
Brexit as a case study:........................................................................................................................................................13
Populism............................................................................................................................................................................ 14
Intra-Party Democracy...........................................................................................................................................................14
What is intra-party democracy and why is it implemented?.............................................................................................14
Why is IPD important?.......................................................................................................................................................15
Candidate selection and IPD..............................................................................................................................................15
US primaries as an example of candidate selection...........................................................................................................16
Other examples of IPD.......................................................................................................................................................17
Recap goals for this lecture................................................................................................................................................17
Political participation and social movements in the contemporary world.............................................................................17
Origin and mobilisation of public opinion..........................................................................................................................17
Paradox of political participation:......................................................................................................................................18
Social movements..............................................................................................................................................................19
,Gender and Representation in Politics...................................................................................................................................21
The concept of representation...........................................................................................................................................21
How do women get in parliament?....................................................................................................................................21
How do women end up being elected?.............................................................................................................................22
The case of Rwanda...........................................................................................................................................................23
Nation state & state formation and federalism.....................................................................................................................23
Unitary vs federal states....................................................................................................................................................24
Introduction
Comparative political institutions has 3 parts: comparative (how), politics (field of research), institutions (see under)
Formal vs informal institutions
o Informal institutions are socially shared, unwritten, communicated rules that are enforced outside of official
channels. E.g. respect, loyalty,…
o Formal institutions are impersonal, written, contracted, precisely defined rules, laws and procedures and
organisations enforced by the government. E.g. constitutions, laws, codes, international treaties, .
Politics is the activity of making authoritative and public decisions (Aristoteles: De Politica). A decision becomes
authoritative when the individual or group that does the politics have power: the ability to make other people do
things they otherwise would not do. Power can be split up in 3 types (Max Weber): Traditional power (legitimation
comes from tradition, lineage or God e.g. Pope), charismatic power (power from personality; Martin Luther King
(moving millions of people from his speeches), Gandhi but also dictators: Napoleon, Hitler) and rational-legal power (power of
elected officials, supreme court, CEO chosen by a board of shareholders). However, the Aristotelean-Weberian
definition doesn’t quite hold anymore e.g. kicking the president off Twitter is a public matter but is a private act.
There are three components of political science (textbook):
o Political theory: value laden normative conception of reality (Havermas, Schmitt)
o International relations: A-normative study that looks at the diplomatic relationships between states. They do use
the same methodological tools as comparative politics.
o Comparative politics: A-normative study that describes and makes inferences about the political world aswell as
analysing what makes two political institutions similar or different. (Gilpin, Waltz, Mershaimer). Comparative
refers to the methodology.
Why is comparative politics needed, what is it for?:
o Making predictions (such as the iron law of oligarchy; without state intervention, every organisation ends up in
an oligarchy, the durverger laws, FPTP -first past the post- favours a two-party system e.g. UK&US, proportional
representation favours multi-partism).
o Describing and explaining actors, structures and processes (e.g. describe & explain electoral system in the UK)
The study of comparative politics analyses and compares components such as structures (regional to national to
supranational political systems) actors (parties, voters, social movements) and processes (government formation, party
finance regime, policymaking) rather than entire systems.
3 point-timeline of comparative politics:
o Before WWII and the behavioural revolution: analysis of states and institutions rather than individuals
(behavioural revolution) e.g. the separation of powers (legislative, executive, judiciary), analysis of legal
documents and constitutional texts etc. “Big data” was not yet available. Walter Lipmann (1899-1974): political
journalist with the argument that the public is irrational which make democracies flawed.
o 1950-1960’s Behavioural revolution: The behavioural revolution: statistics became the main point of reference
(large N), not institutions but agency of individuals and systems as a whole (systemic theory) i.e. all actors in
decision-making. The study of comparative politics shifts away from analysing and comparing states and legal
documents to a more scientific and normative approach (new methodology) such as systematic data collection.
Political scientists at the time often sinned on the ecological fallacy (a term from biology: making inferences
about the behavior of individuals / organisms based on aggregate data). Also a broadening of the geographical
scope (away from the west) in theories such as communism, dictatorships, other types of democracies and a
, larger emphasis on non-formal institutions such as political parties, lobby groups, media etc. Also a new language
meaning the invention of systemic theories such as the one by David Easton (1917-2014): a theory of everything.
o From 70’s to today a counter-reaction to the behavioural revolution with new institutionalism: Not only a focus
on agents anymore but also a renewed focus on institutions (e.g. historical institutionalism looks at change in
institutions over time: from here comes the well known concept path dependency, but also sociological
institutionalism: emphasises how institutions are influenced by cultural factors and rational choice
institutionalism to counter that: institutions are influenced by strategic rational interactions). No more relying on
universal theories, instead a narrowing of the geographic scope. The birth of mid range theories: neither pure
statistics nor universal explanations.
Ch.2: Approaches in comparative politics
Broadly, political theories can be categorised as positivist (relying on facts and data) or constructed (constructivism:
socially constructed).
Grand (universal) theories (e.g. Parsons) vs middle-range theories (already explained).
Five contemporary approaches used in comparative politics today or the five “I”’s:
o Institutions: new institutionalism: neither only statistics nor only universal theories.
o Interests:
Most political scientists still presuppose rational choice analysis i.e. Individuals are self-interested utility
maximizers. Eventhough we have behavioural economics disproving a lot of it.
Other interpretations: collectivist corporatism (is a form of collectivist government where different groups e.g.
agricultural, labour, business, scientific and guild associations have a fixed representation in government. Similar to
Saint Simon’s industrialism if you know that). It is derived from corpus = body.
Network theory: focus on how networks of actors influence political policy outcomes.
Consociationalism: political elites from different disjunct communities working together in case of severe
social division, as we have (or had) in Belgium. Concept of Dutch political scientist Arend Lijphart
“consociare” is Latin for “to bring together”.
o Ideas: Analysis of ideologies e.g. communism, fascism; overtaking of democracies, neoliberalism etc. policy ideas
(welfare state)
o Individuals: elite level (applicable to consociationalism) vs mass level.
o International environment: comparative politics has country focus, but they cannot exist without the
international environment e.g. anti-Russian behaviour in Western countries are influenced by the Russian
invasion of Ukraine. International environment is a big “I”.
Interaction of the five “I”s as 6th I. It fits because there is a strong research focus on processes.
There are exactly 100 democracies (50% of countries) in the
world. In the 60s-70s, there were only 30 democracies!
There definitely is no downward trend.
,Ch. 3: Comparative research methods (Hans Keman)
Aristotle saw Democracy (e.g. Athens) as a corrupt type of governance because democracy in Greek means loosely
translated: rule by many (or rather the people). He thought poor people would vote badly. Plato and Aristoteles were
fans of a very highly educated ‘philosopher king’ or a large group of highly educated representatives (a polity).
Aristoteles’ view was speculative and normative but also as a first comparative.
Development of early comparative political methods came for a large part from John Locke. A quote of his:
“comparison as a testing procedure” (contemporary of Francis Bacon, the inventor of the early scientific method) . Meanwhile
positivism started with Frenchman Auguste Comte.
After democracy (first modern constitutions, of course interpretable) was first established in 1776 in the US thinking
about democracy thrived. Tocqueville (1805–1859) with ‘Democracy in America’ as first case-study analysis or first
practicer of the comparative method. The first research of patterns in society as a whole can be attributed to
Durkheim with his books on suicide where he first started talking about ‘le fait social’(social facts). Weber with a first
universal or grand theory behind the starting point of capitalism: the protestant ethic.
Concepts translate real world phenomena into abstractions or terms. However, concepts are almost always socially
construed e.g. a translation of a term can have different meanings for any language.
Sartori’s rule on how to define concepts: it should minimize ambiguity (that is the concept does not have multiple
meanings) e.g. democracy and minimize vagueness (which means the meaning is not well defined) e.g. happiness. He
also developed the technique of abstraction laddering.
Minimal definition of democracy include:
o Universal male and female suffrage: North Korea has this, but it’s a sham since all representatives are approved
by the ruler.
o Free (everyong can run) and fair elections
o Have more than one political party
o Different sources of information available
John Stuart Mill developed the “Mill’s methods”. There are five methods of inductions by John Stuart Mill (we can
attach to analysing political systems, processes or actors):
o The method of agreement: given two instances, if two effects appear simultaneously under one circumstance,
then that circumstance is the cause or part of the cause of the effects. E.g. two communist revolutions, one in
Cuba, one in Vietnam: the common cause could be equal level of poverty. (always look at the outcome)
o The method of difference: in two instances where an effect occurs for one, and not occurs for the other given a
certain circumstancce, the circumstance is also the cause of the two effects. (different outcome as a result of a
certain circumstance)
o The joint method of agreement and difference. A combination of both methods. If two instances “agree” in
having a common circumstance and also agree in lacking with another, the first circumstance is positively
connected with the effect, while the second circumstance is negatively connected.
o The method of residues or method of elimination: subtracting anything that already had an effect by
constructing a link with antecedents.
Mill’s methods only reveal evidence of probable causes, no real causation (quasi-experimental at best).
, In comparative politics the mainstream research method is one of quasi-experimental method at best. Between
medium-N (for comparative analysis) and large-N (statistical analysis, usually more than 50)!!
Rare small n qualitative cases exist. An example is Theda Skocpol's "States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative
Analysis of France, Russia, and China" which was a very popular big.
o The French revolution as a case as the “first social revolution” accompanied by a transformation of social and economic structures.
o The Russian revolution which she denotes as the “classical revolution”: she argues that it was driven by the working class and the
peasantry. Thanks to the existence of the strong socialist movement and a weak government was the Tsarist regime overthrown.
o The Chinese Revolution of 1949 which she denotes as a “late-developing” social revolution .
All of these had weak states and mobilized populations. She argues that the social structure is very important and what make revolutions
succeed. For these conclusions she used qualitative analysis (small-N but very in-depth cases). Typical of pre-behavioural revolution of
comparative politics, but yet sometimes still important even after the behavioural revolution.
In a datamatrix, the “cases” (e.g. countries) are the rows, and the variables are displayed by the columns.
To conclude causation you need atleast the following (and more: temporal precedence, non-spuriousness):
o Reliability: the information came from a trusted source
o Validity. Internal validity (are inferences correct for all cases under inspection) and external validity (can the
results of the study be applied to other settings and situations. It is different from generalizability.
o Generalizability. how well the sample represents the population.
, Ch 5: Democracies (Anibal Perez & Linan)
A regime is an either public formalised institution or informally recognized institution in a given territory. For this we
have an easy definition, for democracy we don’t. Schumpeter’s Minimalist definition of democracy (arrive to a
decision by making people decide through election), Bobbio’s mid-range (minimal democracy + horizontal
accountability i.e. checks and balances: division of powers), Amartye Sen’s maximal definition (minimal + horizontal
acc + many more; are many goals achieved). The prof still argues that the maximalist one is also bad because only a
few democracies can pass their test + it also is often normative because it evaluates it according to an ideology.
The maximal definition of democracy is a combination of minimalist (free & fair election, universal suffrage etc.) and
mid range (horizontal accountability) with more attributes such as participation, social justice, human rights, rule of
law, etc. However, both minimalist and maximalist definitions have problems.
o Minimalist problem: cannot recognize a sham democracy
o maximalist definition is far too strict (it would rule out the majority of countries in the world) and it is also normative
(e.g. about the way social justice should be carried out).
An elegant solution to solve the minimalist and maximalist definition problem is by Dahl (2001). Since the maximalist
definition is very strict, he proposed the concept polyarchy (“rule of many”) which refers to a democracy in the
making. Dahl’s polyarchy is based on two criteria and has 8 freedoms (freedom to form organisations, freedom of expression, right to
vote etc etc):
o Public contestation (contest = competition) which refers to the freedom and fairness of political competition.
o Inclusiveness refers to the extent to which all adult citizens have equal rights to participate in the political
process, such as voting and running for office.
Furthermore Dahl (1966) proposed three criteria for evaluation how well a government allows opposition:
o Incorporation: all groups and interest in society are recognized and included in the political process, none are excluded.
o Representation: all groups have a fair chance of influencing the government (elections, government polls etc)
o Organized opposition: there are other alternative groups that can lead society in case the government falters into autocracy or the like.
Morlino with essential structures of democracy based on empirical findings (maximalist definition):
o Rule of law: not even government is above the law. Laws are universal (everyone), stable, unambiguous, publicly
known and non-retroactive. It means by extension an independent judiciary.
o Electoral accountability: citizens can vote representatives in and out of office (also called vertical accountability).
For this you need information of who’s in charge, free and fair elections etc.
o inter-institutional accountability: legislative oversight on the executive with vote of no confidence, inquiry
committees etc etc. separation of powers = checks and balances.
o Responsiveness: policies reflect the preferences and demands of the people. This structure is the only one that
evaluates outcomes. A more responsive government usually nets a bigger satisfaction.
o Respect for human rights. Here we have to make a distinction between civil and social rights.
Civil rights protect individuals against unequal treatment (by anyone against anyone) on the basis of
personal characteristics such as skin color, gender, sexual preference, religion etc or downright oppression.
The right to vote is a civil right because of oppression. A democracy without certain civil rights is called an
illiberal democracy (e.g. Turkey because no real freedom of the press).
Social rights are rights that ensure access to basic social services such as health care, education, housing.
Social rights are more controversial because not every country has universal social healthcare, a lot of
countries have homelessness etc.
o Political competition (public contestation)
In an audience democracy, citizens are seen as passive consumers of political information rather than active
participants in the political debate (think the US, politics is a show that people consume). This is bad since traditional
parties disappear.
According to the Democracy Index, Belgium is a flawed democracy because of the low trust in traditional parties,
creating a wind for populist (anti-establishment) parties. There is a significant amount of polarisation between the
north and south of the country and Belgium has had long periods without government. There is also a lack of citizen
participation because of the federal structure.
