Lecture 1: What is democracy?
Original meaning of democracy: rule by the people.
- E.g. Athenian democracy.
The problem with this kind of democracy was that the right to vote was not inclusive. Only the rich,
white elderly men could vote. So is it really rule by the people if many were excluded? However, is
decision making possible when you include everybody?
This is why we shifted from direct to indirect democracies. Indirect democracies have us delegate our
control to representatives who make decisions on our behalf.
- Nowadays, there are many sorts of democracies. Even within democracies there are
different variations.
When talked about democracy, we usually mean these three aspects:
- Liberty
o Freedom, rights, liberty
- Popular sovereignty
o Political process, elections, etc.
- Equality/solidarity
o Social benefits.
Older democracies are more about liberty. In newer democracies it is more abouts social benefits.
However, overall the differences are not really big.
When you look at this graph, you see that liberty remains
the most important aspect.
Democracy means different things to different people. Yet, globally, two dimensions appear to be
most important:
- Rule of law (liberalism)
- Rule by the people (economy)
However, the economic equality is actually a missing dimension. Is it okay to leave this out?
Trends in democracy and authoritarianism:
There is a steady rise of democratic regimes in the last two centuries. However, are the early
democracies still considered democracies with out new definitions?
- E.g. women and slaves could not vote.
With our conception of democracy today, we would say that they were not real democracies.
However, in the perspective of the earlier times they were considered democratic. It all depends on
the time period and definition.
There were three waves of democratization with each a reverse wave afterwards.
1. The first wave was from 1820 to World War I.
2. The second wave was from after the second World War to 1960
3. The third wave was from after the fall of the Soviet Union to now.
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,The first wave of democratization included only a few countries and it took a very long time. Most
countries took over a 100 years to become democracies. The road towards democracy was also very
gradual. People did not get to vote right away.
- The first thing which happened was that kings were no longer only under the control of God,
but also under the control of the law. The king had to answer to the parliament.
This parliament expanded over time and the king did not have absolute power anymore.
- Rule of law became very important!
Furthermore, the development of national states and national institutions played a big role. The state
started to fund schools and developed more adherence in the country. All these changes happened
before people got the right to vote, but they all contributed to the democratization of a country.
- New Zealand was the first country worldwide with suffrage for everyone. This was to lure
women into coming to New Zealand because there were way too many men.
- Switzerland was the last country with suffrage for everyone because they practiced direct
democracy which would become more difficult if everyone had a say.
After the first wave of democratization came the first reverse wave. This happened after WWI. There
was an economic repression and instability because of the return of injured soldiers. However, there
was also the idea that the people who fought in the trenches needed political power. There were
strikes and more people fought for suffrage. This caused for instability again.
The second wave of democratization included a lot of new countries due to decolonization. Most of
the newly independent states became democracies. Also, democracies who became fascist countries
in the was became democratic again (= redemocratization). So, the second wave of democratization
was fast and included mostly newly independent states and states which already were democratic
before the war.
The second wave of reverse democratization hit when the Cold War started. Autocratic countries
were no longer pressured into becoming a democracy. The West supported whoever wanted to be
supported. However, the newly democratized countries were still in development and sometimes
these new democracies chose stability in nation building over democracy. So, the reason for the
reverse wave was the Cold War and the short period of time of the second wave of democratization.
The third wave of democratization is still an ongoing process. It really started in 1974 with the fall of
the dictator of Portugal. This regime was very old but broke because the dictator refused to give up
his colonies which made Portugal very poor. The army did no longer support the dictator and made a
coup. Furthermore, Franco died of old age, the Spanish king moved Spain towards democracy which
made Greece and Latin America follow. The end of the Cold War also played an important role. Due
to the lack of support from the US or Russia, countries in Africa and Indonesia collapsed and became
democratic.
- Important: there were a lot of new countries because of external global changes.
However, not all countries who made the world believe were democratic were in fact democratic.
Old authoritarian regimes put up democratic facades because they had to become democratic due to
the external changes.
- It was the first time in history that there were more democracies than autocracies in the
world but when people found out that there were also many facades, they were not happy
with the democratic increase.
Are we in a third reverse wave right now? It could be that we are at the beginning of the reverse
wave. Furthermore, autocracies are in the majority again. However, the most important reason for
concern is the democratic erosion which seems to hit the oldest democracies we have. We thought
that the democracies from the first wave were immune to erosion. But there is also democratic
renewal.
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, Comparative methods: why do we compare at all?
- It gives us a better causal outcomes. Comparing cases makes it easier to understand causes.
However, you do have to compare similar cases.
There are many different ways of comparing. The two most important are:
1. Most similar system design = you select two cases that look similar, but have different
outcomes. You look at the differences for answers.
2. Most different systems design = comparing cases that are different but have similar
outcomes.
Lecture 2: measuring democracy.
States were originally about (1) territory and (2) control over that territory. However, states have
come to do all sorts of things such as:
- Guarantee a minimum level of security for citizens
- Implement policies and deliver basic public services
- Generate resources to maintain public services and state institutions
So nowadays, states are defined by territory and its institutions.
States are more stable overtime than regimes or governments.
- Regimes are the rules governing the distribution of power and the relationships between the
agents of power.
o They tend to be stable, but there are possibilities for change.
- Governments are the momentarily leaders that run the state.
o This is way more changeable. Also, the regime could stay in place while the leaders
can change.
Colonies could have democratic
governance, but not a final say. So, this is
hard to code as a political regime.
In failed states/war states it is not clear
who is governing at all. It is hard to classify
when the system is not clear itself.
So, how to classify democracies and
authoritarian regimes: electoral regimes
and non-electoral regimes.
However, elections are not the only element of democracies. So withing electoral regimes, there are
different types.
Defining democracy: minimalist versus expanded procedural definitions
- Both start from democracy as rule of the people.
Minimalist = the core of democracies are elections.
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