International Relations and International Organization Political Science
Summaries - Readings Week 4
1. Powell: Comparative Politics Today - Chapter 1 and 2 Book chapter 2
2. Moody: Mapping Power: Information Systems, Agenda-Setting and Policy Design Online article 8
,International Relations and International Organization Political Science
1. Powell: Comparative Politics Today - Chapter 1 and 2
Chapter 1: Governance in the era of globalization
Politics refers to activities associated with the control of public decisions among a given people and
in a given territory, where this control may be backed up by authoritative means. Politics involves the
crafting of these authoritative decisions - who gets to make them and for what purposes. The
approach Powell uses to study the political process is based on two principles:
1. ‘Who knows one country knows no one country’. In order to understand any one nation and its
government, we need to compare it to others to see what is truly distinctive or similar. The nature of
good science is comparison.
2. To compare political systems and their governments, we need a conceptual framework that
facilitates comparison of what are seemingly quite different elements. It is all about models, models
and models: please also see the second reading.
Building communities
One of the first challenges a new state faces is to build a national community. Most states do not
have a homogenous population. Building a common identity and a sense of community is important
because conflicts over national, ethnic or religious identities can be causes of political turmoil. It is
difficult to advance socially, economically, or politically if the citizens of a region do not share some
common bond and a commonly accepted set of goals. The challenge of community building is most
prominent in the developing world, where current political structures are relatively young.
Building a common sense of community is often described as part of a process of nation building. The
term nation refers to a group of people with a common identity. That common identity may be built
upon a common language, history, race, or culture. Some states are multinational - consisting of a
multitude of different nations. Challenges in building a common community are inter alia:
1. Ethnicity: ethnic groups are typically defined by common physical traits, languages, cultures, or
history. Like nationality, ethnicity need not have any objective basis in genetics, culture, or history.
-> in many developing countries, former colonial powers established boundaries cutting across ethnic
lines, e.g. the Kashmir conflict between India and Pakistan and the Tutsi-Hutu conflict in Rwanda.
-> the migration across state boundaries is another source of ethnic differentiation.
2. Language: language can be a source of identity that may overlap with ethnicity. There are 5,000
different languages, of which most are spoken by relatively small tribal groups in the developing
world. Linguistic division can create particularly thorny political problems, e.g. Canada and Belgium
3. Religious differences: states also vary in their religious characteristics. Whereas Israel, the Irish
Republic and Pakistan see religion as a basis of national identity, Iran is a theocratic regime and many
other societies are secular. Religion typically guides the social and political behaviour of its
supporters. Religious fundamentalism has emerged in some form in all major faiths, often in
reaction to social modernization. Too often, religious fundamentalists employ violence to assert their
position; these acts of terrorism are intended to frighten and weaken the will.
Economic development
Economic and social development are important state goals, because peoples find it important. The
success of governments - both democratic and autocratic - is often measured in economic terms.
Other states, as Bhutan, do not focus exclusively on GDP but on GNH: Gross National Happiness.
Over the past decades, economic growth has transformed living conditions more than in any similar
period in the past. The UN Development Program (UNDP) combines measures of economic well-
being, life expectancy and educational achievement into its Human Development Index, HDI.
The process of economic development typically follows a common course in which the
transformation of the structure of the labour force from agrarian to industrial and then to an
advanced industrial economy is a very important element. Most advanced industrial countries have
agricultural employment of less than 10 percent of the labour force.
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, International Relations and International Organization Political Science
Problems of economic development
- While economic development can be a partial solution to many of a country’s needs, it can also
create new challenges. Health, income, and opportunity are rarely evenly distributed within nations.
The unequal distribution of resources and opportunities can stimulate political conflict. Generally
speaking, economic development improves the equality of income, at least past a certain stage, e.g.
Germany/France have more egalitarian income distributions than middle- or low-income countries.
- Another correlate of development is population growth: as health care improves, living standards
increase, life expectancies lengthen and populations grow. This rapid growth can also pose new
policy challenges. However, as an economy develops, changing conditions tend to reduce fertility.
- Economic growth can have other social costs, e.g. environmental costs of industrial development
and a consumer society. With increasing industrialization and urbanization in the developing world,
many of these environmental problems could worsen. At the same time, these problems are more
acute in less develop countries.
-> thus, economic development generally improves the living conditions of the public, but in the
process, it produces new policy problems that government must address
Fostering democracy, human rights and civil liberties
Another major force transforming contemporary political systems is the democratization process. A
democracy is a political system in which citizens enjoy a number of basic civil and political rights, and
in which their most important political leaders are elected in free and fair elections and are
accountable. Democracy is primarily achieved through a process of citizen representation.
In contrast, authoritarian political systems lack one or several of democracy’s defining features.
Authoritarian states can take several forms: oligarchies (“rule by the few”) or totalitarian systems.
However, as societies become more complex, richer and more technologically advanced, the
probability of public involvement and democratization increases (note: what about China?).
The first round of democratization occurred in the first half of the twentieth century; the second
began in 1974 involving Southern Europe, East Asia, Latin America and some African states. The most
dramatic changes followed later, in Central and Eastern Europe. As a consequence of these three
democratization waves, democracy has become a common goal of the global community. The
process of democratization is broadly linked to the social modernization of nations: economic
development, changing (political) values and culture - which increases demands for a more
participatory system. Affluence increases the likelihood that a nation will have a more democratic
political system, but this is not a perfect relationship.
Globalization
Globalization is affecting both socioeconomic and political development - but disagreement exists
about whether consequences are positive. Most discussions focus on the economic aspect:
- Some stress the positive economic effects of globalization: it lowers the prices of many products;
there is access to new goods, which expands choices; there is more foreign direct investment.
- Other experts point to the negative effects: outsourcing and loss of jobs, resulting in
unemployment; downward pressures on salaries.
While most discussions of globalization focus on its economic aspects, it has important social and
political effects as well:
- it promotes the diffusion of international norms as societies interact and become interdependent
- it appears to benefit social and economic statuses of women, who gain rights and responsibilities
coming from a participation in international commerce and social norms of the international system
Globalization has mixed effects, but in general, it has positive effects on the global economy and the
spread of human rights, and those countries that shield themselves from fair trade generally suffer.
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