College 1 - What is democracy? - 26-01-2021
- What is democracy?
- Trends in democracy and authoritarianism
- Democratic reversal
- The comparative methods
- Logistics course
Democratization in Political Science curriculum
- Macro-political science
- Core comparative politics
- Apply concepts and theories to the empirical world (cases)
Literature:
- Democratization - Haerpfer, Bernhagen, et al.
- Articles
What to pay attention to when reading?
- Time
- Ideology/political background
- Place
- Diversity
Democracy:
Rule by the people: The best example we have is Athenian democracy. The problem here is that
the Athenians only let men vote, you’d have to be a citizen. If you didn’t have property, was a
slave, or a woman you couldn’t vote. This is why the logistics worked, because there were not
many people left who could actually vote. Talking to each other and have all these peoples
opinions heard is also very di cult.
We made the shift to an indirect democracy. A representative democracy. Nowadays this would
be organized in parliamentary democracies or presidential democracies.
Democracy is also: Liberty, freedom, rights, free press, able to criticize the government, fair
elections, equality, solidarity, social bene ts.
Democracy means di erent things to di erent people. Yet, globally two dimensions appear to be
most important.
- Rule of law/liberalism
- ZIE PPT
Trends: How have democracies have developed over the years.
There is a steady rise in the number of democracies over the last century.
There are some problems: in 1866 only people from ages 30 and up could vote, only men could
vote, men who were illiterate, people who were slaves. Only 10% of people could vote. Today we
wouldn’t classify these countries as a democracy.
Samuel Hunt spoke of three waves of democratization. After each wave we see a reverse wave, a
couple of countries fall back into authoritarian countries.
The rst wave is until the start of the First World War: 1918. These are the countries known as the
older democracies. These countries took a lot of time to become democratic, some countries did
this in a hundred years. This puts the Arab spring for instance in perspective, why it takes so long
to put up a democracy.
The rst reverse wave is after the First World War. During this time we saw the rise of fascism.
Most eastern European countries slide back during this period and Spain and Italy for instance.
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, The second wave of democratization is after the second world war there are new countries being
started, the number of countries shoots up because of decolonization, this is a really short time
period. In the second phase of democracy there are a lot of new countries and many of these
become democracies. This is why in this period the curve is at.
The second reverse wave: Many African countries become democratic but nd it di cult to
remain democratic and slip back into autocracy. During this time the soviet union rises, a lot of
countries become autocratic.
The second wave was very fast, democracy was very di cult, these regimes had t achieve a lot at
the same time, for instance Tanzania chose to be autocratic, to build up their country, become a
uni ed Tanzania after colonization, and later worry about democracy.
The third wave of democratization is before and during the collapse of the Soviet Union. It started
in 1974: Portugal becomes democratic, Spain: 1975, Franco dies, appoints the king as his
successor, the king did a lot to make Spain democratic, Greece followed later. Then the Soviet
Union collapsed.
Spain and Portugal are very connected to Latin-America, these countries wanted to follow.
The last country in Europe to become democratic is Switzerland. Switzerland had a very direct
democracy. Women voting had to be rati ed with a referendum, and men just didn’t vote in favor
of the women.
After the third wave of democratization, democratic countries are in the majority.
After the cold war ends election fraud becomes an art. These authoritarian regimes are not used
to democracy, they tamper with the elections.
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, We have hybrid regimes. Where we have elections, but we know on forehand who are going to
win. They hold election, there is opposition, this way they are democratic, but they are not
because journalists get thrown in jail, you cannot oppose the government, elections are being
tampered with.
Nowadays we see a lot of countries sliding back into authoritarianism.
College 2 - Measuring Democracy - 28-01-2021
Recap college 1
The democracies are in the majority, now we are going backwards again. The reverse wave is very
small, so what is all the fuss about, it doesn’t seem like a huge decline:
- Not many autocracies are moving toward democracies.
- The wave of reversal is not over yet, it could be that we are just at the start of the process, right
now were are at 50-50. Autocracies could b win the majority again.
- Many countries that seem as democracies slowly move toward autocracies, judiciary is not
independent anymore, the citizens have less freedoms, etc. Democratic erosion seems to hit
the oldest democracies, the older democracies are getting smug. They think they are immune
to a decline in democracy: The UK, Australia, the US, India. If it can happen in the US, who is to
say it can’t happen here.
The comparative method & comparative politics
Why compare?
Comparing di erent “cases”, such as countries, institutions, social
movements gives us causal leverage
- Why are some countries democratic and others not?
- Why are some countries poor and others rich?
- Why do some countries have ethnic con ict and others don’t?
- Why are there only two major political parties in Australia and the United States and almost 10
in the Netherlands and Sweden?
- Why did social movements in Greece and Spain form political parties and not in the United
States?
Comparing helps us to explain or understand these questions: We can better understand what is
going on in democratic countries, how they handle certain issues. Comparing helps us explain
and understanding why countries are democratic and others not. Make sure the countries you
compare are actually comparable, don’t compare apples and oranges. You can compare
democracies and autocracies, but that would be comparing apples and oranges, it is better to
compare democracies and ask why one country is more democratic than the other
Many methods, but there are two main ones:
Most similar systems design: Comparing cases that are similar but have di erent outcomes:
- Why is Haiti very poor and Dominican Republic relatively wealthier?
- Why did ethnic con ict burst out in Serbia and less in Slovenia? Why did Tunisia become a
democracy and not Egypt after the Arab spring?
Haiti and Dominican Republic have many similarities, they have the same climate, history of
colonialism etc. What you need to do is look at the thinks they are di erent in. The same goes for
Egypt and Tunisia.
Most di erent systems design: Comparing cases that are di erent but have similar outcomes:
- Why are right-wing populists popular both in the United States and the Netherlands?
- Why are both Sweden and India stable democracies?
Systems that are very di erent but have the same outcome, what is the same thing these
countries have in common which can explain this.
When comparing democracy
You can look at the causes: History, interest, culture, the economy etc.
You can look at the objects: Regimes, institutions, groups, citizens
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, You can look at the e ects: Peace, prosperity, liberty
States and political regimes
States
States are: “an entity that successfully claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of force
within a speci ed territory” (Weber, 1918).
Ideally, states:
- 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, territory + institutions, relatively stable over time
Political regimes
Regimes are: “the rules governing the distribution of power and the relationships between the
agents of power” (Lindberg 2006: 6).
So, patterns / relationships of power, relatively stable but less stable than states
What I the di erence between states and regimes?
Governments are: “the leadership that runs the state” (O’Neill 2015: 36)
So, actors, change more often, depending on type of regime
The state is what one rules, regimes are how one rules, and government is the group of
individuals who rule.” (Lindberg 2006: 6)
Classifying political regimes
Colonies and protectorates are not independent. For instance The Queen of England still signs of
on all bills passed in Australia. Palestine is a protectorate, Kosovo is still under command of the
UN High Representative. Many datasets exclude these countries.
Failed states are also often excluded. A failed state is a political body that has disintegrated to a
point where basic conditions and responsibilities of a sovereign government no longer function
properly. It is not clear who is governing at all. Libya, Somalia are really hard to code.
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