INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS COMPARATIVE POLITICS?

“CP is one of the three main subfields of political science (CP, political theory, interna-
tional relations), and its main goal is empirical: describe, explain and predict similarities

and differences across political systems” (Caramani). Politics is the human activity of

making public and authoritative decisions. It is the activity making decisions and of the

exercise of power. Whom decides what (and how) is important for the life of societies.

Whereas political theory deals with normative and theorical questions (about equality,

democracy…), comparative politics deals with empirical questions analyzing political

phenomena as they appear in the “real world”. CP does not ignore external influences

on internal structures, but its ultimate concern is power configuration within systems.

Three definitions of comparative politics:

1. The study of political phenomena in every country except the one in which the stu-

dent resides.

2. The study of political phenomena through the comparative method. We try to un-

derstand political behavior through the explicit comparison of important national-

level attributes. In other words, we compare domestic political behavior from a

cross-national perspective.
3. The study of political phenomena that are predominantly within country (region)

relationships (elections, party systems, legislatures); as opposed to international pol-

itics, which studies political phenomena that occur mostly between countries (inter-

national organizations, conflict), although the line is often blurred (e.g. revolutions).

Types of Comparative Politics (Caramani):

CP includes three different traditions: study of single countries; methodological and is

analytical, combining substance (the study of countries or regions, and their political

systems, actors and processes) and method (identifying and explaining differences and

similarities between cases following established rules and standards of comparative

analysis and using concepts that are applicable in more than one case).

What does CP do in practice?

As a social science, C.P. is not experimental. The goals of C.P.: Describe and compare

differences and similarities between political systems and their features. Explain these

differences. Predict which factors may cause similarities or different effects.

Theories:

• Substantial focus: Institutionalism theory

The shift of substantial focus consists of a return to the primacy of the state and its main

institutions.

In the new institutionalism theory institutions are the most important actors rather than

formalities, with autonomy and part of real politics. Institutions are determining the op-

portunity structures and the limits within which individuals formulate preferences.
• Grounded theory: Systematic functionalism

The grounded theory or middle range is a systematic methodology in the social sciences

involving the construction of theories through methodical gathering and analysis of

data. Systematic functionalist did not forget institutions; simply they were absorbed into

the more abstract notions of role, structure and function.

• Case-oriented analysis

This type of analysis focusses not only on the “rediscovery” of the state and its institu-

tions, but also on a methodological change. From a methodological point of view the
counter-reaction to large-scale comparisons based on universal concepts came from the

development of methods based on few cases.

This new comparative method provides the tool for analyzing rigorously phenomena of

which only few instances occur historically.

• Rational choice theory

At the end of the 1980´s another turns took place in comparative politics strengthening

further the place of institutions. It was the turn given by the increasing influence of ra-

tional choice theory in comparative politics.

The rational choice turn does not revolve around a redefinition of the political, for it

applies a more general theory of action- bases on a number of assumptions-that applies

equally well to all types of human behavior, be it in the economic world, in the political

system, in the media sphere, or elsewhere.

This theory of action is based on the idea that actors (individuals but also organization

such as political parties) are rational and self-interested. They can order alternative op-

tions from most to least preferred and then, through their choice, seek the maximization
of their preference (utility).

Key points

• Comparative politics is not limited to the comparison of national political systems

but includes other units such as sub-national and supra-national regions, interna-

tional organizations, single political actors, processes and policies.

• With the widening of the number of cases the need for more general concepts that

could travel beyond Western countries led to a focus in functions rather than insti-
tutions. In the last two decades a reaction against overly abstract and general analy-

sis led back to grounded theories limited in space and time.

• As for the behavioral revolutions, also rational choice aims at a general and unified

theory of politics applicable in all times and places.

• CP includes as a subject matter all features of political systems and has turned its

attention increasingly toward the interaction between them, approaching interna-

tional relations.

• Important works in comparative politics

Aristotle: “Ta Politika”; Machiavelli: “Il principe”; Montesquieu: “On the spirit of the

Laws”; Easton: “The political system: an inquiry into the state of political science”.

• Karl Popper

The modus tolens is his central method of disconfirming, or falsifying, scientific hypothe-

ses. Scientists start with a current scientific theory and use the methods of deductive

reasoning to derive conclusions, of which some are "predictions". Starting with a "the-

ory" and deducing "predictions" can be stated in the form of a premise: If the theory is

true, then the prediction is true.

Popper shows that we can only certainly show that a prediction is false. If the scientist

tests a prediction and finds that it is not true, he uses modus tolens to conclude that the
theory cannot be true: If the theory is true, then the prediction is true. The prediction is

not true. Therefore, the theory is not true.

For Popper, a theory consists of a set of statements. Some of these statements are de-
pendent upon other ones, and some are independent of other ones. The statements can

be classified according to "levels"; one statement is at a lower level if it can be derived

from statements at a higher level:

Hypothesis

Universal statement

Dependent statement

Basic statement

• Methods
C.P. employs statistical techniques when research designs include many cases and quantita-

tive indicators (variable-oriented, large N studies) or comparative methods when research

designs include few cases and qualitative indicators (case-oriented, small N studies). Case

studies, too, can be carried out in a comparative perspective.

The dimensions of comparison are multiple: spatial, temporal, and functional.

The purpose of comparative politics is descriptive, explanatory, and predictor. To this

end research designs can aim either at selecting similar cases and explain their different

outcomes (MSSD) or at selecting different cases and explain similar outcomes (MDSD).

C.P. uses aggregate, individual and text data.

Hence, what we are involved in when we conduct “comparative research” is testing gen-

eral hypotheses under different conditions. The scientific method involves bold con-

jectures and rigorous attempts at refutation: Risky guesses, propositions, hypotheses

empirically falsifiable and testable through observational or experimental data.

3 main goals: Description, explanation, prediction

Previous decisions: Units: within country, countries, regions, supra-national. One/few

cases or large N?
 LESSON 2: RESEARCH METHODS IN CP

Preliminaries
The comparative method is what is going to provide value to our research. The value of

a scientific inference about the world depends on the method. This method must allow

a valid inference to be drawn, regardless of who does the work. The value of what we

are going to learn is not about who they are but the way they conducted the research.

Comparative methods (B and C are different because of the type of analysis).

• A) Case Studies (Gerring 2004)

The case study is “an intensive study of a single unit for the purpose of understanding

a larger class of (similar) units”. Try to understand the larger group where we are going
to apply the knowledge when we are studying a specific country. E.g., Historical devel-

opment of the Turkish state, case-study of the 2018 Brazilian election, survey of Iraqi

public opinion. Goals:

1. Exploratory (theory-building): observing one case and try to build a theory.

2. Confirmatory (thick account of underlying processes): Sometimes we have

conducted a big research with lot of data and information and as a final state

we want to provide some kind of evidence of our theory. To do this we are

going to run a confirmatory case study.

Potential Advantages of Case Studies (Brady and Collier 2004)

• Provide deeper contextual knowledge of what is really happening. They generate fur-

ther theoretical hypotheses for research. Not only use statistical methods. Post-hoc vali-

dation and they analyze deviant cases.

• Case studies are valuable because of within-case causal chains, process tracing, and

path-dependent relationships for generating theories, hypotheses, and concepts.

Potential Limits of Case Studies (King et al. 1994)

• Possible bias in selection and omitted variables, selecting on the dependent variable.

Too few cases reduce scientific testing. Limited generalizability and theory testing. De-

mands great fieldwork, language skills and immersion.

• B) Few nations comparison e.g. Europe

Advantages

• Combine both depth and breadth (compare the best of both world)

• Builds middle-level theories

• Identify variations within the same regional area

Disadvantages

• Limited theoretical generalizations outside of cases/area/region. Combination of

things that were already for case studies but now are a problem for a larger extent. We

cannot do very big statements. Generalization.

• Can generate too many independent variables and too few nations.

• Higher demands for contextual fieldwork and language skills

• Choice of countries? How are they selected?

• C) Large N Comparisons

Large N, multiple countries worldwide for global perspective. Types:

• Cross-sectional study: compare different population groups at a single point in time.

Doing research on different countries but in a single point in time.

• Cross-sectional time-series: larger comparison that combines different countries with

different moment in time.

Data can be observational or experimental.

Advantages
• Comprehensive generalizations/external validity. Build and test general theories.

• Develop scientific inference.

• Expansion in availability of statistical datasets: technological improvement.

• Identify outliers and deviant cases (cases that do not follow the general pattern) in

order to analyze them through a case study.

Disadvantages

• Lack of insights into ‘black-box’ political processes

• Too abstract and far removed from context and processes

• Limited availability of data (we do not have access to all the data)

• Valid cross-cultural measures? Concept stretching (you need to come up with single

definitions. e.g. not the same left-wing ideologies in the different countries).
1. Causes

A cause is a necessary and/or a sufficient condition:

NECESSARY CONDITIONS: you cannot see the effect without having the condition.
SUFFICIENT CONDITIONS: other alternative conditions could produce the effect.

Necessary Conditions

One can infer X (cause) from the presence of Y (effect). However, oxygen is necessary for

fire but does not have to produce only fire.

Sufficient Conditions

A sufficient cause always has that effect, but there might be other causes leading to the

same effect (several sufficient conditions).

2. Comparative Method - Mill

The systematic search for “necessary,” “sufficient,” and “necessary and sufficient” con-

ditions has come to be known as Mill’s Methods, or the comparative method.

Mill proposed two main methods:

• Method of Agreement - the cases agree on the phenomenon to be explained. Compar-

ison of cases in which our outcome of interests is the same.

• Method of Difference - the cases differ on the phenomenon to be explained. Method

of comparing cases that are not sharing our same outcome of interest.

(Przerworski transformed the method of agreement in the Most Different System Design
and the Method of Difference in the Most Similar System design.)

3A. What is a MSSD?

• Intersystem similarities (control variables) and intersystem differences (explanatory

variables) are the focus. The number of common characteristics sought is maximal and

the number of not shared characteristics is minimal.

• Comparisons over time. Comparisons across nations. Comparisons over areas. Coun-

terfactuals

• Variation in the dependent variable. Comparing two countries that are exactly the

same except of the dependent variable and the main independent variable. The variation

in the dependent variable must be explained by the variation in the key dependent var-

iable.

Weaknesses of MSSDs
Heroic assumptions or the risk of overdetermination (more inferences than observa-

tions). We generally treat the independent variables as something simple. Dichotomous

variables (yes/no, for instance). The more complicated the operationalization, the harder
this method becomes. Deterministic causality. Multiple causal factors and causal com-

plexity are hard or impossible to determine. Limited applicability and low external va-

lidity (it’s impossible to find two countries in the world that are so similar, it is better to

go national or even municipal). The problem of absence of random assignment.

3B. What is a MDSD?

The key to this type of design is to understand why very different units/ cases have the

same outcome (Y variable). The search is then for a key explanatory variable common to

the cases that all appear very different from each other. Initial assumption: Systemic fac-
tors do not play any role in explaining the observed behavior.

• Difference of cases means we control for many alternative explanations

• We have to identify those independent variables, observed within systems, that

are equal across systems, possible explanatory factors.

• Systemic differences need not be taken into consideration if:

• The subgroups of the population do not differ with regard to the DV

• The relationship between an independent and the dependent variable is the same

within the subgroups of the population.

Everything is different except the main IV and the dependent variable.

Weakness of MDSDs

• As with the most-similar method, we can’t use complicated variable coding, multiple

causal factors are impossible to determine, and external validity is low

• Deterministic causality

• Case selection on the dependent variable

• This method is more useful for ruling out “necessary” causes than for

determining causality

4. Counterfactuals/Experiments

Counterfactual: What you would need to see. We are observing something similar in

other country that would help us to understand what would have happened if... (some-

thing that actually didn’t happened).

EXPERIMENTS

• We use a “double blind” control group research design. A large subject population is

split randomly into two halves. One half is given the “treatment” the other half a pla-
cebo. Nobody except the designers knows which is which

• Treatment and control groups are, identical in every respect except the treatment –

though we never know this for sure, given unobserved variation between subjects

• Following treatment, we observe if treated subjects are different in the predicted way

from those in the control group

• If the difference is significant, we draw the statistics and, from this, logical inference

that the treatment “causes” this difference as it is the only difference between groups

METHODS
A. Laboratory Experiment in Politics

• Randomly split a group of subjects into three and run an experiment. Give everyone a

choice; there is a narrow majority for one color in each group, but this may not be known.

Players win $20 if their color is elected, nothing otherwise, regardless of whether or not

they voted. There is a series of elections, in which voting costs $5. Group A is told noth-

ing more. Group B is told the race is marginal. Group C is told there is a solid majority

for one color. We predict that Group B has the highest turnout, Group C the lowest

• The issue concerns (external) validity, given the artificial nature of the laboratory set-
ting, compared to voting in real elections.

B. Field Experiments

• The aim was to investigate whether “clientelistic” appeals by electoral candidates

(“here’s what I will do for you”) are more effective than “public goods” appeals (“here’s

what I will do for your country”).

• Non-marginal (for ethical reasons) electoral districts were randomly assigned to two

groups, those where candidates would make clientelistic appeals and those where they

would make public goods appeals. The results showed that candidates making clien-

telistic appeals did better, especially incumbents.

C. “Quasi” Experiments in Politics or Natural experiments

• It is typically very difficult to do pure experiments on politics... for understandable

ethical reasons. The best we can normally hope for are quasi-experiments, e.g.:
• Division of a region into two parts – e.g., Canada & US, E & W Germany or introduc-

tion of a new law, with effects assessed before and after

• Even these “experiments” are quite rare, un-designed, and products of pure happen-
stance e.g., how to estimate the impact of different electoral laws? Observe what happens

when electoral law is changed... assuming nothing else changed but the electoral law

• However the law was changed not at random but for a reason, which may well be a

hidden cause of what we observe

• This is the problem of endogeneity, which we always face with quasi-experiments.

Back to the “Most similar” comparisons: We try to approximate the classical control

group design by comparing political systems that are similar in all important respects,

except the one we are investigating. Our ideal would be, for example, to clone the USA
to create two USAs, one in which we changed the electoral system to PR and one in

which we kept it the same. Failing this we look for two countries as close as possible to

being clones of each other or historically (e.g., E. & W. Germany) though they will always

in practice differ in important ways ...so we always have the “hidden variable” problem.

“Small-N” comparisons and causal inference

The classical control group design investigates the effect of a single “treatment” variable

– “on” for treatment group, “off” for control. The trouble with most real political systems

is that many important things are changing at the same time. We try to deal with this by
looking at groups of similar countries – the more key things are changing, the more

countries we need

• Perhaps two countries changed their electoral system in the same way, but one had

lots of regional variation in party support and one did not. So, we would now like at

least four countries: election change on and off; regional variation on and off.

• Add another important variable and we need more countries again – we run out of

countries if many things are changing. And all this still depends on the assumption other

important factors are equal, there is always a potential hidden variable problem

Theories and causal inference

How do we decide which things to hold equal, and which things might have an impact

on what we are trying to explain? We need a well-specified theory of how electoral sys-

tems operate. This theory involves a logical model of the world identifying key factors
that are expected to affect the working of, for example, electoral systems – that is the job

of a theory. A good theory tells us:

• What affects what – thus what to measure and why

• What factors are assumed to have no effect

• Thus, what to look for when we analyze the information, we collect ... “holding a, b &

c constant, we expect increases in x to be associated with increases in y”

• Good statistical techniques then allow us to estimate how sharply y varies with y,

holding a, b and c constant

The theory also has assumptions restricting the set of countries to which it applies.

Most theoretical predictions are made ceteris paribus ...but all things are never equal in

the real world and we can never completely reassure assure ourselves we have not
missed a crucial causal factor ... that vexing missing variable problem again

5. Mixed Methods

• Logic of inference is same for qualitative and quantitative approaches, but styles of

analysis are different

• Qualitative research uses thick description of a small number of cases, particular

events, decision, institutions, location, regime, nation.

• Quantitative research uses numerical measurement, abstracting from particular to test-

able generalizations, systematic patterns, emphasizes replicability and regularities in

classes/categories

• Yet both use same logic– designed to make descriptive or explanatory inferences about

unobserved phenomenon on the basis of empirical information about the world.

Conclusions

Political science cannot replicate the logical and aesthetic purity of the doubled blind

control group but, nor doing perfect science does not mean that we should do not do

science at all. It is only by making careful and systematic comparisons that we can begin

to get a real sense of political cause and effect in the real world (choose carefully what to

compare, and why, and what precisely to look for when we have analyzed the infor-

mation we have collected).

 LESSON 3: CONCEPTUALIZING AND MEASURING

DEMOCRACIES AND DICTATORSHIPS

1. Concepts and Indicators.

● Concepts → mental representation of something, hypothesis. Theoretical concepts can-

not be observed; they exist only in our heads.

● Indicator → quantification of the thing we are interested in.

● Operationalization→ translate concepts into indicators (it is fundamental) we use a

particular measure to operationalize a theoretical concept.

● State: entity that uses coercion and the threat of force to rule in a given territory.
● Government: set of people who run the state or have the authority to act on behalf of the

state at a particular point in time.

● Regime: set of rules, norms or institutions that determine how the Government is consti-

tuted, how it is organized and how major decisions are made.

2. Definitions of democracy.

The central notion underlying our contemporary concept of democracy is that the 'peo-

ple' rather than some subset of the people should rule. We can classify democracies ac-
cording to different criteria:

● Substantive vs. Procedural

-- Substantive definitions of democracy classify political regimes in regard to the outcomes

that they produce and not just the institutions that they have. It deals with the goals and

effectiveness of the regime: a system is a democracy when it earns those goals.

*First problem: for some researchers (such as Dahl) it is not appropriate because in the

definition of democracy you are including the answer to the question.

-- Procedural definitions of democracy: focus on how the regime is organized and its pro-

cesses/institutions. They are more common than substantive definitions. They can be

maximalist or minimalist.

+ Maximalist/thick/Madisonian/liberal/constitutional (Dahl): identifies two important

dimensions for measuring the political regimes, contestation and inclusion.

 - Contestation: captures the extent to which citizens are free to organize them-

selves into competing blocs in order to press for the policies and outcomes they

desire. Aspects of contestation include the freedom to form political parties, free-
dom of speech and assembly and the extent to which leaders are chosen in free

and fair elections.

- Inclusion: it has to do with who gets to participate in the democratic process.

Political regimes in which barriers to the naturalization of immigrants are low

and all adult citizens are permitted to vote will rank high in regard to inclusion.

Also examines the fairness of election.

Dahl defined as polyarchy the political regimes with high levels of contestation and in-

clusion. He prefers the term polyarchy because he considers that any large country ex-
hibited, or could exhibit, sufficient levels of contestation or inclusion to rightfully be

considered a true democracy.

+Minimalist: concept developed by Joseph Schumpeter (Capitalism, Socialism and De-

mocracy (1943)). It defines democracy as a procedure: "The democratic method is that

institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire

the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people's vote". It is based

on two dimensions:

– (i) Competitive, free and fair elections

– (ii) Voters determine government

However minimalist definition of democracy has some disadvantages as it excludes sev-

eral things (e.g., freedoms, rights, etc.). Also called thin/populistic/popular/participatory

The relevance of defining what it is actually a democracy is to know how to identify

populism:

- Populism: ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two

homogeneous and antagonist groups, “the pure people” v. “the corrupt elite”

and argues that politics should be an expression of the general will of the people.

3. LIBERAL vs. ILLIBERAL DEMOCRACY

• Since 1989, emergence of “illiberal democracy” = popular democracy and government

“by” the people + limits and restrictions on individual rights and freedoms
• Also known as electoral democracies (or delegative democracies) e.g. Hungary.

• Most countries tend to be liberal and democratic (I.E., a full democracy), or not liberal

and not democratic (I.E., a pure autocracy); the other combinations are relatively rare
A. Illiberal Democracy as a Hybrid (Grey Zone): populism as Illiberal democracy

(Trump, Le Pen).

B. More Hybrids (Grey Zone): Competitive Authoritarianism

• Formal democratic institutions are widely viewed as the principal means of obtaining

and exercising political authority

• Incumbents violate those rules so often and to such an extent that the regime fails to

meet conventional minimum standards for democracy

• Competition is real but unfair. For example, Mexico pre-2000, current Russia, Turkey.
• Neither fully democratic and nor fully authoritarian: (diminished) form of authoritar-

ianism (Juan Linz). More on measurement later on

4. Historical and normative approaches to democracy

We live in a world that generally agrees on the importance and desirability of democ-

racy

But it hasn’t always been like that The ancient Greeks were some of the first to start

thinking about the merits of different forms of regime

What was Democracy in Ancient Greece?

Demokratia is the Greek word meaning ‘rule by the demos’. Although the Greek word

demos often gets translated as ‘the people,’ it refers more specifically to the ‘common

people’ – those people with little or no economic independence who are politically un-

educated Many believed that the demos would pursue their own interests at the expense

of the commonweal.

Plato did not see democracy as government by the people Instead, he saw it as govern-

ment by the poor and uneducated against the rich and educated. Plato believed that

political decisions should be based on expertise and that allowing all people to rule

would lead to mob rule and class warfare.

Aristotle saw democracy as the most dangerous of the corrupt forms of regime:

• Democracy was class rule by the worst class

(Democracy was not associated with elections).

• Until the 18th century, democracy was seen as a regime in which offices were

distributed by lot.

Democracy was viewed as obsolete

• Democracy meant direct legislation, not representative government Monarchy was

consistently preferred to democracy by political thinkers. Things began to change in the

Age of Revolution (1775-1848) People had

talked about representative government, not

democracy But ‘democracy’ and ‘aristoc-

racy’ came to designate the main lines of

cleavage in the Age of Revolution The classi-

cal 3-way distinction between the one, the

few, and the many was gradually replaced

by the 2-way distinction between democracy

and autocracy.

Nowadays
Having constituted fewer than one in four of world regimes in the 1950s and 1960s, de-

mocracies now count for almost 3 in 4.

5. Comparing democracies.
 1. The Democracy - Dictatorship (DD) Measure.

● Cheibub, Gandhi and Vreeland (2010) provide an annual measure of democracy and
dictatorship for 202 countries from 1946 (or independence) to 2008

● Democracies are “regimes in which governmental offices are filled as a consequence

of contested elections”

This simple conceptualization of democracy has two primary components (i) govern-

mental offices and (ii) contestation. For a regime to be considered democratic, it must be

that both the chief executive office and the legislature are elected. Contestation requires

that there exists an opposition that has some chance of winning office as a consequence
of elections. Specifically, it contains the following three elements:

(a) ex ante uncertainty: the outcome of the election is unknown before it happens.

(b) ex post irreversibility: the winner of the election actually takes office

(c) repeatability: election must occur at regular and know intervals.

A country is classified as a democracy if all of the following conditions apply:

1. The chief executive is elected

2. The legislature is elected

3. There is more than one party competing in the elections

4. An alternation in power under identical electoral rules has taken place

The DD measure builds on Dahl´s insights in three respects, based on a purely proce-

dural view of democracy as the classification rules make no mention of the substantive

outcomes produced by different political regimes and it is focused on Dahl´s notion of

contestation. But it’s dichotomous the result can only be 1= democracy; 2= dictatorship.

The main difference between Dahl and DD authors is the result: on DD case it is discrete

and in Dahl’s case is continuous. DD authors assume that there is a qualitative difference

between democracies and dictatorship whereas Dahl treats regimes types as a contin-

uum with strong dictatorships at one end and strong democracies at the other.

2. Polity IV
It provides an annual measure of democracy and autocracy for 167 countries from 1800

to 2015. The Democracy and Autocracy scores for each country both range from 0 to 10.

The polity score is the result of: democracy score - autocracy score. So, it ranges from -
10 (“ideal” autocracy) to +10 (ideal democracy). In practice, there are three categories:

- Democracies: from +6 to +10

- Anocracies or mixed regimes: from -5 to +5

- Autocracies: from -6 to -10

Polity IV is based on five different attributes or dimensions that captures Dahl’s notion

of both contestation and inclusion and adds an additional dimension: the democratic

Governments must be limited governments.

- The competitiveness of executive recruitment.

- The openness of executive recruitment.

- The constraints that exist on the executive.

- The regulation of political participation.

- The competitiveness of political participation.

3. Freedom House.

Freedom House is an independent, nongovernmental organization that has provided an

annual measure of “global freedom” for countries around the world since 1972. It bases

its results on two dimensions:

– Political rights, covering three primary categories:

(i) the electoral process,

(ii) political pluralism and participation

(iii) the functioning of government.

– Civil rights:

(i) freedom of expression and belief

(ii) associational and organizational rights rule of law

(iii) personal autonomy and individual rights.

For example: Is the media free and independent?

In stark contrast to the procedural point of view of democracy adopted by Polity IV and

DD measure, Freedom House uses a substantial point of view.

6. Evaluating measures of Democracy and Dictatorship.

 • The three different measures of democracy and dictatorship are highly correlated

• This high degree of correlation across the 3 measures is driven by uncontroversial cases.

• Unfortunately, there is considerable disagreement among the measures when it comes to

classifying the mixed regimes.

We can evaluate measures in different ways:

1. Conceptualization: is the process of creating mental categories that capture the mean-

ing of objects, events, or ideas:

- Its appropriateness will depend on the researcher´s question (for example, FH

and democracy and economic inequality).

- It is easier to identify causes with minimalist measures (for example, FH and its

25 attributes).
2. Validity: refers to the extent to which our measures correspond to the concepts that

they are intended to reflect:

- Attributes, Aggregation Issues and Measurement Level

3. Reliability: refers to the extent to which the measurement process repeatedly and

consistently produces the same score for a given case:

- The DD measure of regime type is highly reliable because it is based entirely on

“observables” (and not subjective judgments).

4. Replicability: refers to the ability of third-party scholars to reproduce the process

through which a measure is created (coding rules and disaggregated data):

- DD and Polity IV provide much more detailed and clear coding rules for con-

structing their measures of regime type than FH does.

 LESSON 4a: THE ECONOMIC DETERMINANTS

OF DEMOCRACY AND DICTATORSHIP

MODERNIZATION THEORY

Most economic explanations for democracy can be linked to a paradigm called modern-

ization theory. Modernization theory argues that all societies pass through the same

historical stages of economic development. Countries are more likely to become demo-

cratic and to remain democratic as they develop economically. Democracy is more likely
to emerge and survive in high-income countries.

Developed by economists, it was later taken up by political scientist (Seymour Martin

Lipset). Modernization theorists in political science claim that as society moves from be-

ing immature or “traditional” to being mature or “modern, it need to change to a more

appropriate type of government.

As a consequence of this economic transformation: POLITICAL TRASFORMATION.

Passage from autocracies to democracies is the main political consequence of the mod-

ernization. (From large agriculture to small agriculture, from small industry to large in-

dustry, from small service to large service, from dictatorship to democracy).

Political implications of modernization theory:

• More likely to become democratic: Democracies were going to emerge

• More likely to remain democratic: Democratic survival (as countries become

wealthier, is more likely that democracy survives).

Positive correlation between the development of economic situation and the survival of

democracies. The theory was no specific enough. Two different stories linking income

and democracy appeared:

1. Classic modernization theory predicts that democracy is more likely to emerge

and survive as countries develop and become richer

2. Survival story: Predict that democracy is more likely to survive as countries de-

velop and become richer, it is not more likely to emerge. No link between eco-
nomical income and development of democracies. Classic modernization theory

lacks a strong causal mechanism linking national income with democracy.

According to Przerworski democratic emergence is some kind of God throwing the dices

on the table. Is a random process. Democratic survival is something you can explain

regards the income; the higher the income the higher the possibility of survival of the
democracy. The process by which countries become democratic may be unknowable,

but if actors find themselves in a democracy at any given point of time, then the level of

income will influence whether they stay in a democracy.

Both theories predict that the probability of transition to dictatorship decreases as in-

come increases (solid lines in both panels slope down). Although modernization theory

predicts that a transition

to democracy increases

with income (dotted line

slopes up), the survival

story predicts that the

probability of a transi-

tion to democracy is un-

affected by increasing in-

come (dotted line is flat).

WHY MIGHT INCREASED INCOME HELP DEMOCRATIC SURVIVAL?

“As a country develops, it social structure becomes complex, new groups emerge and

organize, labor processes require the active cooperation of employees, and, as a result,

the system can no longer be effectively run by command. The society is too complex,

technological change endows the direct producers with autonomy and private infor-

mation, civil society emerges, and dictatorial form of control lose their effectiveness. Var-

ious groups, whether the bourgeoisie, workers, or just the amorphous “civil society”,

rise against the dictatorial regime, and it falls”. – Przerworski

According to Przerworski, dictatorships might be sustainable in immature societies, but

this is no longer the case in mature societies once they develop economically. If you are

a rich person living in a democracy, you want democracy to survive. In an autocracy

you could be lucky and be friend of the dictator keeping the money, or you could be

enemy of the dictator and lose all your money. Instead, if you are a poor person is not
that risky to change to autocracy. It might give you the opportunity to become richer.

The like hood of a democracy becoming an autocracy is higher in a poor country rather

than in a rich one. The decision to choose democracy or dictatorship depends on the
types of outcomes that citizens expect democracy or dictatorship to produce for them.

Democracy: citizens can expect at least a moderate level of consumption. Some minimal

standard of living is guaranteed because resources are distributed relatively broadly.

Dictatorship: System in which they might win or lose everything. Citizens are likely to

do extremely well if they are part of the dictator’s circle but extremely poorly if they are

not. Being part of the dictator’s circle is very difficult.

Nearly all the rich countries are democratic, but the poor countries continue to alternate

between democratic and dictatorial episodes.

HOW DOES FOREIGN AID INFLUENCE THE DEMOCRATIZATION PROCESS?

• Modernization. Invest in:

• Poor democracies. Want to decrease the likelihood of changing to dictatorship.

• Poor dictatorship. Increases the likelihood to change to democracy.

If you believe in modernization, then you have to invest in poor democracies and poor

autocracies.

• Survival.
• Poor democracies. You want them to become rich democracies because they are

more likely to remain as such.

According to the survival story you have to invest in poor democracies to become rich

democracies.
The two implications that allow us to distinguish between modernization theory and the

survival story concern:

a) the frequency of regime transitions in general.

This equation tells us that the probability of a regime transition given a particular level

of income is equal to the total number of transitions at that income level divided by the

number of cases (or country years) that could have transitioned at that income level.

As you can see from the figure, there is no strong relationship between income and the

probability of a regime transition. It does not appear that the probability of a regime
transition decreases linearly with income as the survival story predicts. In contrast, an

increase in the probability of a regime transition when even of income are low is con-

sistent with modernization theory. A decrease in the probability of a regime transition

at high level of income is also consistent with the modernization theory.

According to the data the modernization theory is more correct. Income has relatively

little effect on the probability of a regime transition.

b) the effect of increased income on the probability of democratic transition in partic-

ular.

We now need to examine the effect of increased income or transitions to democracy and

transitions to dictatorship separately.

2 types of transitions:
 1. Autocracy to democracy

2. Democracy to autocracy

The probability of transitioning to democracy is calculated

And the probability of transitioning to dictatorship = but putting number of transitions

to dictatorship instead of number of transition to democracy.

The numbers in the figure indicate how many times more likely it is for a country to

transition one way or another. The grey “2x” indicates that a country is twice as likely
to transition to dictatorship as transition to democracy when its GDP per capita is $ 4000.

The kind of transition a country experiences is a function of income. As predicted by

both the survival story and modernization theory, the probability of transitioning to dic-

tatorship declines as income increases. The downward-sloping dotted line indicates that
high levels of income encourages democratic survival.

In direct contradiction to the survival story but entirely consistent with modernization

theory, the probability of democratic transition increases with income. Eg. The probabil-

ity of becoming democratic is six times larger than the probability of becoming dicta-

torial when GDP per capita is greater than 6000$

To sum up; after analyzing the data we can conclude that:

How do natural resources influence the democratization process? Do natural resources

help dictators stay in power? And why?

1. State Independence
2. Inequalities

3. Cultural ideologies: religion (ISLAM)

How we can explain how natural resources level and democracy are correlated?

Negatively correlated. Less natural resources higher level of democracies, more natural

resources lower level of democracies.

According to the POLITICAL RESOURCES CURSE, developed by Michael Ross, coun-

tries that depend on revenue from natural resources such as oil, diamonds and minerals,

are unlikely to democratize. They are also more prone to corruption, poor governance

and civil war. Natural resources are naturally substances that are usually considered

valuable, such as oil, diamonds, and minerals.

WHY?

Two types of explanations:

1. Demand side explanation: they emphasize how resource revenues reduce both
the citizens’ demand for democratic reform and government responsiveness to

that demand. (Resources revenues mean that taxes are low and governments are

autonomous from citizen demands). Governments with access to natural re-

sources do not need to raise revenue by taxing their citizenry- they can simply

dig it out the ground. Stream of unearned income so they can afford to keep taxes

low. The rulers can invest the money that comes from natural resource in:

• Military. Repression. Punishment if they reveal and fight for democracy.

• Propaganda.
• Public services. This can explain why poor countries don’t need welfare system.

• Fiscal policies. Less taxes.

• Clientelism

2. Supply side explanations: They

focus on how resources revenues enable

dictators to resist pressure to democra-

tize and help them to consolidate their

hold on power. Resources revenues can

be distributed as patronage to pre-empt

or co-opt opposition groups or used to

repress them. For example, oil-funded

leaders like those in the Middle East are

able to placate opposition groups “by of-

fering new handouts, lowering taxes, or

both- and this usually works”.

The political resource curse is about the emergence of democracy, not the survival of

democracy. It does not say that having an abundance of natural resources is necessarily

bad for democratization. What matters is the extents to which the government depends

of natural resources for its revenue. It is a country’s dependence on natural resources

revenue that affects its regime type, not simply whether there is an abundance of natural

resources.

AID OPTIMISTS: Think that foreign aid can support democratization efforts only if:

• The recipient depend on foreign aid.

• The aid donor wants to promote democratization

• The aid donor can credibly threaten to withdraw the aid if its demands are not

met.

AID PESSIMISTS: Think that foreign aid has a negative effect on democratization re-

forms. Foreign aid increases the autonomy of recipient government from the demands

of their citizen by freeing them from the need to raise taxes and providing them with
access to “slack resources” that can be strategically used to reward supporters and coopt

opposition groups.

Any democratic reforms that do occur are likely to be limited in scope.

Historical explanation

Sometimes natural resources decreasing democracy has been argued with a historic sit-

uation (Salvador Allende). In Chile they have Cupper, Allende as part of communism

was controlling cupper. If you are the owner of copper mines and you are seeing how
they are nationalizing the mines you cannot do anything (LACK OF MOBILITY OF

ASSESS). Owners of natural resources have no exit option, cannot go anywhere else if

something goes wrong in the country.

VARIANTS OF MODERNIZATION THEORY

1. IMPORTANCE ON CREDIBLE EXIT THREATS: Representative government

is more likely to emerge and survive when the rulers of a country depend on a

segment of society consisting of a relatively large number of people holding liq-

uid or mobile assets. The key to this story is that the state must depend on a

group of people with credible exit threats (resources/oil curse) (Barrington

Moore: “No bourgeois, no democracy).

WHY TYPE OF ECONOMY MINDS FOR THE DEMOCRATIZATION? (historically)

The English Monarchy in early modern Europe accepted limits on its predatory behavior
because it depended on elites with credible exit threats (mobile assets).

The French monarchy in early modern Europe did not accept limits on its predatory

behavior because it depended on elites who did not have credible exit threats (fixed as-

sets).

England was democratized a century before France. Why? England was becoming and

industrial country before any other country. Is there a link between industrialization and

democratization?

Two monarchies; main occupation of kings on those days was fighting wars. In order to
have a war you need an army, to pay an army you need money. To obtain the money

you need taxes. In order to collect taxes, you need bureaucracy and information on

wealth and income. Is going to be easier to collect this information on taxable goods in a

country like France because it was much easier to know how much money people had

as he only needed to know how much land people were owning.

In an industrial society like England was much easier to hide how much money citizens

were making.

What is the relationship between possibility of hiding the money you are making and

the process of democratization?

The King of England need the help of the people to know how much money they are

making, for the France King is much easier to know how much money they are making.

How is the King of England going to collect the information in order to know how much

money they are making? How can we explain democratization in the presence of indus-

trialization?

Democracy is the only way in which the citizens are going to tell him how much money

they are making as a kind of exchange of “services”. The King is giving political rights,

citizens are giving information of how much money they are making.
A variant of modernization theory states that it is not income per se that encourages

democratization, but rather the changes in the socioeconomic structure that accompany

wealth in the modernization process. According to the modernization theory, all socie-
ties move through a series of stages. Specifically, we see a shift from a focus on agricul-

tural to a focus on manufacturing and services. Some scholars have argued that these

changes in early modern Europe played a crucial role in the creation of representative

government in England.

Structural changes in the economy produced a shift in economic power away from tra-

ditional agricultural elites who controlled easily observable assets to a rising class of

wool producers, merchants, and financial intermediaries who controlled assets that were

more difficult to observe.

KEY POINT: The state can tax or predate on only assets that they can observe (or count)

The increased ability of the gentry to hide their assets from state predation changed the

balance of power between modernizing social groups and the traditional seats of power

such as the Crown. The Crown now had to negotiate with the new economic elites in

order to extract revenue. In return for paying their taxes, the economic elites demanded

limits to state predation. This resulted in the supremacy of Parliament over the Crown.

A credible commitment problem or a time-inconsistency problem occurs when:

1. an actor who makes a promise today may have an incentive to renege on that

promise in the future and

2. power is in the hands of the actor who makes the promise and not in the hands

of those expected to benefit from the promise

The establishment of a strong parliament is designed to solve the credible commitment

problem by keeping power in the hands of the recipient of the promise.

2) THE ROLE OF ECONOMIC INEQUALITY: It is commonly argued that economic

inequality undermines democracy. The possibility that the poor would expropriate the

rich through the ballot box makes democracy appear quite costly to elites. As a result,

they often step into block attempts at democratization with right-wing coups.
MEDIAN VOTER THEOREMA

Let’s imagine we have two countries that are autocracies. 9 citizens each.

DICTATORSHIP A (unequal) DICTATORSHIP B (equal)

100 45

50 40

25 35

15 30

10 25

6 20

3 15

1 10

0 5

Numbers are the amount of coins each citizen has.

In which countries is likely to happen a democratization process? In an equal or unequal

country? In a country like A very poor people have all the incentives to want to change

the political regime. An historical example of this is French Revolution.

Imagine that country A becomes a democracy and country B becomes a democracy as

well. When you have democracy, you choose the rules by elections. Let’s imagine you

have only 2 parties. Electoral system that is the majoritarian rule system. The economic

situation of the voters is the element that explain behavior of the people. One party for

the rich people, one party for the poor people. The voter who is going to be decisive is

the voter in the middle (MEDIAN VOTER). In an election with two parties and majority
rule the decisive decision is going to be taken by the voter in the middle.

In an unequal country he is going to vote for the party of the poor, interested on redis-

tribution, wants to take advantage of this redistribution.

In country B the person in the middle is uncertain of what he is going to do. The median

voter is indifferent between voting for one party or another.

From this comparison of systems, we learn that in unequal countries the persons on the

top are very interested to block the election. They know that the median voter is going

to vote to the poor voter. That’s why they are blocking democratization process. Under
democracy the median voter is going to vote for redistribution, and they are going to

lose their position.

Example: South America

However, the empirical support for this line of reasoning is not always very strong. Al-

ternatively, it could be the case that economic elites do not need to worry that the poor

will expropriate them if they have credible exit threats.

Economic inequality should only be bad for democratization in those countries where

the economic elites do not have credible exit threats. Recent evidence shows that land

inequality is bad for democracy, but that income inequality is not.

THE ROLE OF ECONOMIC INEQUALITY

It is commonly argued that economic inequality undermines democracy.

Poor would expropriate the rich through the ballot box makes democracy appear quite

costly to elites.

No strong empirical support for his line of reasoning.

• Economic elites who have credible exit threats do not need to worry about the poor

expropriating them.

• Land inequality is bad for democracy. Land = fixed asset.

• Income inequality is not. Income = easily mobilize asset.

Elements of voting behavior.

• Number of parties.

• Majority vote.

Economic situation explains voting behavior.

Medium voter is the one who has the capability to decide. Rich will vote for the rich.

Poor will do the same. Land inequality is what explain what countries democratized. If

rich people can take their assets away, then they will not block the process of democra-

tization as much.

SO, WHAT IS BETTER FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH? BEING AN AUTOCRACY OR

BEING A DEMOCRACY?

Autocracies grow at faster rates than democracies (e.g. China) but this is probably ex-

plained by the fact that democracies are wealthier than dictatorships.

 LESSON 4b: THE CULTURAL DETERMINANTS

OF DEMOCRACY AND DICTATORSHIP

I. POLITICAL CULTURE

Cultural differences drive significant elements of political and economic life. The claim

that culture plays any role with respect to democracy has important implications for

those wishing to spread democracy to the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

The Theories. Cultural arguments generally fall into two categories:

• 1. Primordialist arguments treat culture as objective and inherited – something

fixed since ‘primordial’ times. For example, there are primordial cultural attach-

ments, like bloodlines, language, race, religion…For every person, some attach-
ments seem to flow more from natural affinity rather than from social interaction.

Culture isn’t affected by political interaction, but is given ideological guidelines for col-

lective actions, so democracy may not be compatible with all cultures.

• 2. Constructivist arguments treat culture as constructed or invented. Culture has

a causal effect and a democratic culture is required for democracy. Culture is

malleable by social, economic and political actors, so it is not a fixed and impen-

etrable barrier to democratization, even though some cultures are more likely

than others to democratize because they change faster.

The Answers: classical cultural arguments (Mill and Montesquieu)

The notion that political regimes such as democracy and dictatorship are more suited to

some cultures than others is not new. Montesquieu was the first person to write in great

detail about the importance of culture to political institutions. He claimed that monarchy

was more suited to European States, despotism to the Orient, and democracy to the an-

cient world. Only by chance can political institutions be exported to other countries.

Mill argues that those who believe in civilized governments have to live under authori-

tarianism if they do not have the characteristics to support a better system (mental or

moral habits like the willingness to cooperate with the law). However, people learn to

do new things so, in the end, there is not a particular cultural trait necessary for democ-

racy (culture is malleable; people can learn to live with democracy).

These arguments are incorporated in the cultural modernization theory.

Preliminaries

Cultural modernization theory argues that socioeconomic development does not di-

rectly cause democracy; instead, economic development produces certain cultural

changes which produce democratic reform. The claims made by Montesquieu and Mills

illustrate potential problems that characterize some cultural arguments to this day:

• What exactly is it about culture that matters for democracy (what is the causal rela-

tionship between cultural, economic and political factors)? à it could be religion, cus-

toms, morals, manners, marital institutions… Some non-cultural things also affect de-

mocracy: climate, quality of the soil, economy…As these arguments are very vague, they

become non-falsifiable and non-scientific.

• Does culture cause political institutions and economic development or in the opposite
direction? If it causes democracy, is it a necessary or a sufficient condition? Does it affect

the emergence, the survival of democracy, or both?

• Does democracy require a civic culture? What is it?

Political Culture

• Political culture refers to all human activities that relate to a group´s or society´s pre-

vailing political beliefs, norms, and values: – Beliefs are understood as what people think

is factually right or wrong – Norms are behavioural guidelines that are socially sanc-

tioned – Values mean what people think is morally good and bad. It captures how indi-
viduals think and feel about the political system.

a) Political Objects

1. Specific roles of structures 2. Incumbents of roles

3. Particular public policies, decisions or enforcement of decisions Political/input process

vs. Administrative/output process

b) How to Study Political Culture?

• A scientific approach to studying political culture requires the reliance on systematic

evidence based on representative data

• It was believed that by conducting a survey and analysing the responses, one could

identify the political culture of a nation.

• Comparative politics researchers often confront problems when conducting surveys

→ Public Opinion Courses

• Political culture is determined by how individuals feel about the political system:

– Do individuals think they can influence political decisions?

– Do individuals feel positive towards the political system?

– Do individuals believe other citizens are trustworthy?

– Do individuals prefer gradual or revolutionary social change?

c) 3 Types of Political Culture

1. Parochial → Traditional system of African tribes

2. Subject → Centralized authoritarian systems

3. Participant/CIVIC → Democracy (High levels of competence and allegiance)

Consequences for DEMOCRATIC stability/instability

*Civic or participant Culture

Only a civic culture can provide the psychological basis of democratization and, without

it, prospects of democratic survival are slim. The civic culture is the only type of culture

(parochial: tribes; subject: authoritarianism) compatible with democracy.

A civic culture is conceptualized as a shared cluster of attitudes that are thought to pro-

mote democracy and democratic performance, which includes a high level of interper-

sonal trust, a preference for gradual societal change, a high level of support for the ex-

isting political system, and high levels of life satisfaction. A civic culture is thought to be

conducive to the emergence and survival of democracy.

*There has been considerable debate about the exact causal relationship between culture,

economic development, and democracy:

Values Story (Cultural Modernization Theory)

– Economic development produces cultural change that leads to democratization

Institutional Story

– Economic development leads to democratization, which leads to cultural change

• Traditional values – Religion, traditional family roles, and deference to authority –

National pride and rejection of divorce, euthanasia, suicide, and abortion

• Secular-rational values – Less traditional values. Cosmopolitan and more support for

divorce, euthanasia, suicide, and abortion

• Survival values – Emphasis on physical and economic security – Ethnocentric world

view and low levels of interpersonal trust and tolerance

• Self-expression values – Emphasis on gender, racial, and sexual equality; environmen-

tal protection; tolerance of diversity; civic activism; and life satisfaction – High levels of

interpersonal trust and desire for a greater say in political and economic decisions.

Economic development produces predictable cultural changes that help the democrati-

zation process. The industrialization phase sees countries move away from traditional

values to secular-rational values. The post-industrialization phase sees countries move

away from survival values to self-expression values

Conclusions

• Both the political economy and the political culture approach argue that moderniza-

tion works in favour of democracy, but their claims contradict each other

• The political economy approach (TOP-DOWN) argues that modernization favours de-

mocracy because it makes democracy more acceptable in the eyes of the elites

• The political culture approach (BOTTOM-UP) argues that modernization favours de-

mocracy because it confronts elites with more capable and ambitious mass publics

The Civic Culture (Almond and Verba, 1963)

Almond and Verba conducted a study in order to identify the psychological attributes

of a culture that sustains democracy:

• Research design → Comparison of: – two old democracies (UK and US) – two then-

young democracies (Italy and Germany) – a developing nation (Mexico)

They concluded that US and UK were not only the most stable democracies in their sam-

ple, but also de countries that most closely ressembled the idea of civic culture.

• Data: Surveys • Theory → two concepts:

1. Civic Competence (=cognition)

• Citizens must be capable of evaluating what governing parties have done & what the

opposition parties propose as alternatives to make reasonable choices in an election

• The description of modern mass publics as insufficiently competent has been frequent.
• Invoking the theory of informational shortcuts, scholars argue that the demands for

voter competence are more modest than critics of insufficient voter sophistication.

• What is important for people to make reasonable choices is to have ready access to
reliable cues concerning for example whom group interest supports a given proposal.

• Another phenomenon that weakens the criticism of incompetent citizens in post-in-

dustrial societies is what came to be known as “cognitive mobilization” People´s factual

political knowledge might not have significantly increased in post-industrial societies,

but their skills in acquiring information and processing have certainly grown through

cognitive mobilization (the increasing educational levels in post-industrial societies

bring about changes between people’s education and their participatory behaviour)

2. Civic Allegiance
• More recently a new twist on this theme has been developed by the work on “losers´

consent” (expectation of the loser of an election to concede defeat).

• A democracy is thought to be more stable not only when diffuse support is high on

average but more specifically when the gap in diffuse support between the winning and

the losing camps of the electorate remains small.

The ideal democratic citizen is usually seen as a person who takes part in elections and

other forms of participation that are necessary to make representation work

II. SURVEYS AND COMPARATIVE RESEARCH

Almond and Verba encouraged the use of surveys in Civic Culture, to examine the rela-

tionship between culture and democracy. The most commonly used survey today is the

World Values Survey. E.g. DEMOCRATIC LEGITIMACY “Democracy may have prob-

lems, but it’s better than any other form of government. Could you please tell me if you

strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree?”

Many people believe that mass support for a particular system of government, and mass

confidence in specific institutions provides political systems with the legitimacy they

need to operate effectively: when a low level of public support is reported in questions

like this one, it is often seen as a harbinger of democratic instability.

PROBLEMS FACED WHEN USING SURVEYS

 1) When addressing sensitive topics respondents may lie (because of social pres-

sure, potential legal sanctions and fear of retaliation) or not participate.

2) Respondents not always comprehend questions in the same way.

SOLUTIONS (Blair describes 4 methods for addressing sensitive topics)

1) Survey administration: adopt practices that build trust with respondents.

2) Randomized response techniques: introduction of a randomizing device to pre-

serve the confidentiality of the response

3) Use of list experiments: mixing sensitive and non-sensitive items to protect the

individual’s responses confidentiality.

4) Use of endorsement experiments: mixing attitudes toward a sensitive political

actor with attitudes toward one or more policies.

III. THE DEBATE ON PRESIDENTIALISM

Parliamentary: electorate – legislature – executive (PM & cabinet).

Presidentialism: electorate – legislature = executive (president)

Democratic survival is higher on parliamentary and there are less coups.

The paradox of presidentialism: “Presidential constitutions paradoxically incorporate

contradictory principles and assumptions. On the one hand, such systems set out to cre-

ate a strong, stable executive with enough plebiscitarian legitimization to stand fast

against the array of particular interests represented in the legislature. On the other hand,
presidential constitutions also reflect suspicion of the personalization of power.”

Linz’s four main arguments:

1. The “winner-takes-all argument”: parliamentary regimes are based on power-sharing

arrangements and coalition-making, but in presidential elections the loser does not get

anything. This generates polarization and conflict

2. The “personality argument”: the president has “the conviction of possessing inde-

pendent authority and a popular mandate, so this conviction is likely to imbue him with

a sense of power and mission, even if the plurality that elected him is a slender one”

3. The “dual legitimacy argument”: there is no way to solve conflicts between the exec-

utive and the legislature

4. The “instability argument”: parliamentarism has mechanisms for coping with political

crisis, presidentialism is a rigid system.

• Cheibub’s alternative explanation:

– presidentialism tends to rise in countries where the military play a political active role

– presidential democracies tend to fall because they are more likely to be adopted in
difficult circumstances (when the military are politically strong)

• Mainwaring’s alternative explanation:

– what makes presidential democracies unstable is the presence of multiple parties

– when there are few parties, presidential countries are stable

– legislative fragmentation causes legislative deadlock and democratic instability

– in parliamentary regimes, legislative deadlock can be solved with early elections

 LESSON 5: WRAP–UP ON TYPES OF REGIME

1. TRANSITIONS TO DEMOCRACY
Nowadays democratic transitions are more common than transitions to dictatorships.

A bottom- up transition is one in which the people rise up to overthrow an autocratic

regime in a popular revolution.

A top-down transition is one in which the dictatorial ruling elite introduces liberalizing

reforms that ultimately lead to a democratic transition.

BOTTOM-UP TRANSITIONS

One of the most dramatic bottom-up democratic transitions was in East Germany in

November 1989 when protests on the street of Leipzig and Berlin forced the Communist
East German government to open up berlin wall and allow free multiparty elections.

This caused ultimately the reunification of Germany in 1990.

Until 1989, communist regimes were stable. There had been few major uprisings in East-

ern Europe during the postwar period. Except for the revolts in E.G. in 1953, in Poland

and Hungary in 1956, in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and in Poland again in 1981, the com-

munist regimes remained unchallenged for 40 years or more. The revolts that did oc-

curred were put down by the soviet military which discouraged many people to publicly

oppose to the government. East Germany was the most stable. The East German police,
known for short as the Stasi, had the ability to monitor and control the lives of ordinary

citizens. In 1989 there were 85000 full time Stasi officers and more than 100.000 inform-

ers. With a population slightly less than 17 million, the figures revealed that there was

one Stasi per 90 east ger4man citizens.

The collapse of communism was related to Gorbachev’s position of general secretary of

the communist party (March 11, 1989). He inherited a Soviet Union in crisis in which the

economy started to stagnate by the mid-1980s, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in

1979 was taking up resources. The 1986 Chernobyl disaster revealed the dysfunctional

nature of a rigid and secretive Soviet state. In response to the crisis, Gorbachev intro-

duced 2 reform policies, Perestroika: a policy that intended to liberalize and regenerate

the Soviet economy and Glasnot: a policy designed to increase political openness and

encourage freedom of expression.

These reforms encouraged reformists and opposition groups in other countries of East-

ern Europe. Following a big wave of strikes, the polish government convened a confer-

ence in August 1988 known as the Roundtable Talks, with the main opposition group
Solidarity, to help reach a compromise on how to deal with the growing economic and

political problems. The result was the legalization of the independent trade union- Sol-

idarity- and nationwide elections in 1989, which produced the first non-Communist

prime minister in 40 years. In Hungary it took place the Triangular Table Talks, which

resulted in easing censorship and legalizing an independent trade union. Further re-

forms were introduced, for example, the communist party renamed itself Socialist party

and the Hungarian People republic was renamed to Republic of Hungary, and multi-

party elections were planned for 1990.

However, in China the Chinese communist party used military violence to disperse

thousands of protesters in Tiananmen Square in June 1989 clearly showing that some

Communist regimes were willing to use force to retain power. The East German leader

Erich Honecker was one of the most vocal supporters of the Chinese forceful response.

The situation in East Germany started to change when Hungary decided to open its bor-

der with Austria in August 1989 breaching the iron curtain for the first time. In Septem-

ber 1989 13.000 East Germans fled to the west across Hungary’s open border. Others

tried to reach the west b staging sit-ins at Western German embassies in other eastern
European capitals such as Prague. In response to these refugees the Eastern German

government eventually provided special trains to carry them to the West. Before doing

so East German officers took away their passports and claimed that they were expelling

“irresponsible antisocial traitors and criminals”.

A fledging opposition known as Neues Forum (New Forum) surfaced in East Germany

demanding a reform. The protesters refused simply leaving becoming a real threat to the

East German government. The number of protesters started to grow; by October 1989

more than 250.000 people were regularly taking part in pro-democracy demonstrations.

The protesters famously chanted “Wir sind das Volk” (we are the people).

On October 7 1989 the East German government celebrated the 40th anniversary of the

founding of East Germany, were Michael Gorbachev came. To the embarrassment of the

East German government, or the politburo, the crowd at the parades began chanting for
Gorbachev for help. In defiance of Gorbachev’s advice “Life will punish latecomers”-

Referencing the necessity for reform- Honecker reacted within days of Gorbachev’s de-

parture by signing the Schiessbefehl (order to shoot) for a Chinese solution to protests.
East Germany was on the verge of a civil war. The East German politburo rebelled and

replaced Honecker with the more moderate Egon Krenz.

Few reforms were made, however, Gorbachev in his visit to Finland, announced that

soviets would no longer intervene militarily in Eastern Europe to prop up communist

governments. On November 4th more than one million East Germans took the streets of

East Berlin. To ward off protests, The East German government agreed to remove all

restrictions on travel to the West. Despite the brief attempts to create non-socialist East

Germany, elections on March 18 1990 demonstrated that a majority wanted reunifica-

tion with the West. Reunification took place on October 3rd 1990 when the areas of the

former German Democratic Republic were incorporated in the Federal Republic of Ger-

many.

After the fall of the Berlin wall mass protests forced the overthrow of the Communist

government in Czechoslovakia in what became known as the Velvet Revolution be-

cause of its lack of violence. A few weeks after, in December 1989, crowds played an

important role in removing communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu from power in Ro-

mania. Other examples include the EDSA Revolution, or the People Power revolution
which massive demonstrations of up to 3 million people remove Ferdinand Marcos

from power in Philippines in 1986, or the June’s Resistance which saw mass protests

for South Korea’s General Roh Tar Woo to allow direct presidential elections in mid-

1987. Finally a last example is Carnation Revolution in Portugal (1974) “revolución de

los claveles”.

Questions about the bottom-up transitions:

a. How can we explain this bottom-up transitions?

b. Why are revolutions so rare and hard to predict?

c. Why do dictatorships seem so fragile after the revolution but so stable before-

hand?

2 theories try to answer these questions:

A. Collective Action Theory:

Focuses on forms of mass action, or “collective action”. It refers to the pursuit of some

form of public good. A public good (for example, lighthouse, fire station, national park,

democracy) is nonexcludable and nonrivalrous:

• Non-excludability: you cannot prevent those in the group who did not contrib-

ute to its supply from consuming it.

• Nonrivalry: means that there is just as much public good for people to enjoy no

matter how many people consume it.

Ex. Clean air, is nonexcludable in the sense that you cannot stop people from breathing

it and it is nonrivalrous in the sense that one person’s consumption of it does not dimin-

ish the amount of clean air that others can consume.

Public goods seem quite desirable. You might expect that groups of individuals with
common interests would act collectively to achieve those interests. Although this might

seem reasonable, a famous economist Mancur Olson has shown that there are quite

compelling reasons to doubt that whether individuals will actually contribute to the pro-

vision of Public goods or take collective action to achieve common interests. The diffi-

culty that groups of individuals have in providing public goods that all members of the

group desire is known as the collective action, or free-rider problem. This explains why

protests were so rare in Eastern Europe prior 1989 and why Communist regimes in that

part of the world seemed stable for so long, in fact, it provides an explanation why public
displays are rare in dictatorships in general. In this case, the public good is the Democ-

racy: E.g. pro-Democracy Protest, do I participate or Not?

To understand this logic imagine a group made of N individuals. Now imagine that k

individuals (where K≤N) in the group must contribute to participate for the public good

provided, being in this case democracy and being K the number of pro-democracy pro-

testers. If democracy is achieved, everyone receives a benefit B (where B>0) irrespective

of whether people participated or not in the pro-democratic rally. If you participate in

the rally, you pay a cost C (where C>0). The provision of public good should provide

more benefits than individual costs of participating in a protest. Your decision will de-

pend on your conjecture or expectation about what other members of the group will do.

1stScenario (fewer 2ndscenario(exactly K- 3rdscenario (k or

thank-1 participate) 1 participate) more participate)

 PARTICIPAT- -C B-C (possible option)* B-C

ING

NOT PAR- 0 (best option) 0 (possible option) B-0 (best option)

TICIPATING

K= people you need to have a successful revolution (=100) C= costs of being a revolu-

tionary B= democracy. It is assumed that underlined letters indicate the payoffs associ-

ated with the actors best response, it is assumed B-C>0 *An incentive is needed in order

to encourage people to participate in the revolution.

It makes no sense to participate in a protest if you expect that fewer than K-1 others will

participate (sc1). This is because your individual participation will not make the protest

successful. It also makes no sense to participate if you conjecture that at least K others

will participate (sc3) because you might as well stay at home and free ride on the suc-
cessful participation of others without paying any costs. It makes sense to participate if

you expect exactly K-1 others will participate (sc2). In this scenario your participation is

decisive because it turns an unsuccessful protest into a successful one; you get a payoff

of B-C and by not participating you condemn the protest to failure and your payoff is 0.

Given that B-C>0 it is rational for you to participate.

There are only two types of equilibrium: either no one participates or exactly K individ-

uals do. If no one participates then, no one individually would like to deviate by partic-

ipating because he or she will pay the cost of participating. If k individuals were partic-

ipating, no one would deviate by staying at home because if the rally fails no other mem-

bers of the group would like to participate. To any sort of collective action o achieve K

individuals must believe that they are likely to participate. Two factors are crucial for

determining the likely success of collective action: (a) the difference between K and N,

and (b) the size of N. imagine K=N, the participation of all in the group is crucial for the

success of the protest. As a result there is no incentive for any member of the group to

free ride by staying at home.

Suppose that K<N. in this situation group members know that a successful rally can take

place without everyone’s participation, being an incentive to free ride. The point is when

the number of individuals required for success is significantly low compared to the ben-

efit from the success; it is likely that the protest will not succeed. Counter intuitively, this
means that group leaders interested in some form of collective action will be more suc-

cessful if they tell their members that success depends on the participation of nearly all

of their members rather than jut a few of them. The size of N matters because it influ-
ences the likelihood that you will think of yourself as critical to the form of collective

action under consideration. The size of N also matters because it influences the ability of

the group to monitor and punish free riders.

Small groups may be more effective than larger ones because of the small groups in-

creased ability to solve the free rider problem. The incentives to free ride in East Ger-

many were large because the number of people who would benefit from democracy (N)

17 million (the entire population) was huge and because the number of protesters nec-

essary to bring democracy (k)- which were several hundreds- was relatively small in
comparison. Also, the costs of participating were largely prohibitive as well. The violent

and deadly outcome of the Berlin uprising in 1953 was a stark reminder to potential

protesters of the dangers that they faced if they publicly opposed the government. There-

fore, the lack of opposition in East Germany did not necessarily meant a sign of wide-

spread support to communism, it may simply have been the collective action problem

made it difficult for the opposition to organize itself in a coherent force.

This model help us to explain ov4erall why revolutions are so rare and why dictatorships

seem to appear stable.

Tipping Models:

Tipping model could explain why during 1989-1990 mass protest eventually brought

down communism to its knees. Tipping (threshold) models provide an explanation for

the mass protests that occurred in Eastern Europe in 1989. “Long” intellectual history

(e.g., Grannovetter in the 1970s).

As in the other model, we start with an individual who must decide whether to publicly

oppose or support a dictatorship. His private preference is his true attitude toward dic-

tatorship and his public preference is the attitude toward the dictatorship that reveals to

the outside world. Therefore, due to the dangers that come from revealing publicly one’s

truth, individuals falsify their true preferences instead of opposing the dictatorship in

public, they support it. Application to democratic transitions: An individual must

choose whether to publicly support or oppose the dictatorship. He/she has a private and
a public preference regarding the dictatorship. The consequence of preference falsifica-

tion( means not revealing one’s truth preferences in public because it is dangerous to

reveal your opposition to a dictatorship) is that individuals do not know the true level
of opposition in a dictatorship because thye all seem to support it publicly.

However there is probably some protest size at which they would be willing to publicly

reveal their true preferences. An opponent of the regime might not wish to participate

in pro-democracy rally that comprises a few hundred people but may be willing to par-

ticipate in one that comprises tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands people. The

revolutionary threshold would be the sixe of the protest at which an individual is will-

ing to participate. As the size of the protest grows, it is harder for the state to punish

individuals for participating. The costs of participation decline in rough proportion to

the number of protesters.

People who are happy brave and happy to oppose to dictatorial rule irrespective of

whether others do are known for being political dissidents and often include academics,

writers or religious figures.

People thresholds are likely to depend on many different factors, an example of the con-

cept makes it clearer to understand. Below there is an example of a ten-person society

labeled A.

Society A= (0, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10).

The number in brackets indicate the revolutionary threshold of each one in society A.

the first individual is willing to protest on his own. The second and third individuals

have a revolutionary threshold of 2 meaning that they need two other people to be pro-

testing before they are willing to join in. the tenth individual has a revolutionary thresh-

old of 10 . given that there are only ten people in this society, this means that the 10th

individual will never participate because there can never be ten people already protest-

ing without his participation. In this society only 1 person will participate because the

individual with 0 threshold will protest, but no one else will. However it is unlikely that

a one-person protest would be successful. Now consider a slightly different society, A’:

Society A’= (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10).

The difference is that the second revolutionary threshold has dropped from 2 to 1. The

second individual is willing ot join the 1st one , now that there 2 protesting, individual
number 3 is willing to join too, and so on, until there is 9 person protest going on. This

is known as a revolutionary cascade, this happens when 1 person triggers the participa-

tion of another, which triggers the participation of another and son on.
Some believe that revolutions and protests are caused by structural factors such as rela-

tive deprivation, grievances or oppression (Gurr 1970). As the tipping model suggests,

economic recession may cause the regime in some society C to become deeply unpopu-

lar:

C=(0,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,10)

Despite this, structural factors such as an economic recession are not suffiecient in and

of themselves to produce revolutions. All we can say is that structural factors can make

revolutions more likely by reducing individual thresholds; they do not make r4evolu-
tions inevitable.

It is important to remember at this point that preference falsification means that a soci-

ety’s distribution of revolutionary thresholds is never known to the individuals of that

society, meaning that individuals only know their own . in consequence a society can

come to the brink of revolution without anyone’s ever knowing it. In effect, people may

be ready to participate in a full-scale revolt as long as one more persona goes out to the

protest. If that one extra person does not protested, however, then no revolution occurs.

This makes impossible to predict when a revolution will occur. This is why we talk about
“predictability of unpredictability” of revolutions (Kuran 1989). Nor the Arab spring in

2011, not he fall of East Europe in 1989 were predicted. That does not mean that r4evo-

lutions ar4e irrational, they are actually the contrary, there are consistent with calculated

purposeful human action.

The event of Gorbachev introducing glasnost and perestroika reduced the perceived risk

of challenging the status quo, thereby reducing people’s thresholds. The poor economic

performance reduced the revolutionary threshold of many eastern Europeans. Gorba-

chev’s statement in which the Soviet Union would not intervene militarily to help sus-

tain communism was a trigger. Once pro-democratic reforms were introduced in one

Eastern European country, they started to have demonstration effects in other ones. The

result was a democratic cascade: Prague 1989, Poland 10 years, Hungary 10 months, E.

Germany 10 weeks, Czechoslovakia 10 days. Why did the collapse of communism seem
so inevitable in hindsight? Historians who interviewed individuals across Eastern Eu-

rope report that there was a huge pent-up pool of opposition to Communist rule that

was bound to break at some point.

TOP DOWN TRANSITIONS

A top-down transition is one in which the dictatorial ruling elite introduces liberalizing

reforms that ultimately lead to a democratic transition

A policy of liberalization entails a controlled opening of the political space and might

include the formation of political parties, holding elections, writing a constitution, estab-

lishing a judiciary, opening a legislature, and so on.

Some transitions result from a policy of liberalization on the part of authoritarian elites

themselves. This policy of liberalization is often designed to stabilize a dictatorship but

sometimes unknowingly leads to democracy. Examples:

• The period of liberalization and opening introduced in Brasil between 1982 and

1985 as general Ernesto Geisel and Joao Figueiredo tried to strengthen their po-

sition in relation to hard liners like General Sylkvio Frota. This led to an implicit

pact between soft liners, the regime party, the military and the opposition nam-

ing the opposition leader president in 1985.

• Chile similarly experienced a period of liberalization before returning to the

democratic fold in 1988. The transition to democracy began in 1980 with the in-
troduction of a new constitution that contained provisions for the transfer of

power from the military government of Augusto Pinochet to a civilian govern-

ment within eight years. Chile’s slow democratization process was tightly or-

chestrated culminating in defeat for Pinochet in a plebiscite on his leadership in

October 1988 and the reintroduction of presidential elections later that year.

• Poland’s transition to democracy was another case in which democracy was pre-

ceded by a period of liberalization introduced by authoritarian elites.

AUTOCRACIES

*Stable autocracies:
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

Until the 19th century most of the world´s states were ruled by autocratic regimes which

were mostly hereditary monarchies.

During the 19th century an important new sort of autocratic regime emerged, namely
dictatorship by an organization or its leader, but only in the form of rule by a military

organization or a military leader.

In the first half of the 20th century the emergence of communist and fascist regimes

meant that there was now a political-party form of this dictatorship, with rule by a party
organization or a party leader. In the third quarter of the 20th century the majority of

the world´s state came to be ruled by dictatorships. The final quarter of the 20th century

saw a global wave of democratization that threatened dictatorships and other autocratic

regimes with extinction, probably because of a contagion effect.

AUTOCRACIES. STARTING POINT

- A coup d’état by a military organization or its leader (example: Pinochet) is his-

torically the oldest way of setting up a modern form of autocratic regimes: there

are several types of coup.

- Revolution (Lenin)

- Democratic president that switches to an autocratic regime (Hitler)

-
 Absolute mon- Personal dictators/ Military rule One-party Theoc-

archies strong-man rulers states racies

Dynasties, ren- Populist election, Collective, open or Collective

tier states (oil), military coups, pres- disguised, sustained Iran’s

colonial legacy idential executives or intermittent Council

Persistence? of

Saudi Arabia, Suharto in Indone- Burma, Thailand China Guard-

UAE, Oman, sia, Pinochet in ians

Qatar, Brunei Chile, Kim Il Sung in

N Korea

Caramani’s Types of Autocratic Regimes

AUTOCRATIC REGIMES: three-way classification: monarchy, military, civilian

One common way to distinguish between dictatorships is in terms of their “support co-

alitions” (on which dictators need to rely to stay in power), what indicates that there are

three main types of dictatorship: monarchic dictatorship (effective HoG bears the title of

king and has a hereditary successor/predecessor), military dictatorship (HoG is a current

or past member of the armed forces) and civilian dictatorship (HoG isn’t a c/p m…).

- A monarchic dictatorship is an autocracy in which the executive comes to and

maintains power on the basis of family and kin networks.

- A military dictatorship is an autocracy in which the executive relies on the armed

forces to come to and stay in power.

- All other autocracies are civilian dictatorships. These forms of dictatorships have

always been the most common.

There are more civilian than military dictatorships and more military than monarchy.

Who rules?

Personal rule Organizational rule

- Ruling monarch - Military: types depend on form of

- “Soldier” rule

- President - One-party: they vary according to

- Religious leader ideology

MONARCHIC DICTATORSHIPS

Dictatorial monarchs rely on their family and kin network to come to power and stay in
power. They are a particularly stable form of authoritarian regime, as they suffer from

less violence and political instability, have more stable property rights and experience

faster economic growth.

They are so stable because they have developed a political culture where a leader’s

promise to distribute rents to his support coalition is particularly credible:

- Monarchies tend to depend on family structures reinforced through intermar-

riage (who have a secure and privileged position).

- Monarchies tend to have rules or norms that indicate exactly how regime rents
are to be shared among the various members of the royal family.

- Monarchies tend to have institutions that allow member of the royal family to

monitor the actions of the norm.

Examples: Swaziland, Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia.

MILITARY DICTATORSHIPS

In most cases, military leaders rule as part of a “junta” or committee, often portraying

themselves as ‘guardians of the national interest’.

Actually, the most pressing threat to the stability of this type of authoritarian regime

tends to come from within the military itself. They tend to have short durations and are

more likely to end with negotiations as opposed to violence (leaving behind competitive

and democratic forms of govern) than other types of authoritarian regime.

CIVILIAN DICTATORSHIPS

Unlike monarchic and military dictatorships, which can rely on family and kin networks

or the strength of the armed forces to stay in power, civilian dictators do not have an
immediate institutional base of support; instead they have to create one.

Many civilian dictators do this with the help of regime parties (Dominant-Party Dicta-

torships) or personality cults (Personalist Dictatorships).

- DOMINANT-PARTY DICTATORSHIPS

A dominant-party dictatorship is one in which a single party dominates access to polit-

ical office and control over policy, though other parties may exist and compete in elec-

tions. After authoritarian monarchies, dominant-party dictatorships are the longest-

lived dictatorships.
Example: Communist countries.

- PERSONALIST DICTATORSHIPS

A personalist dictatorship is one in which the leader, although often supported by a

party or the military, retains personal control of policy decisions and the selection of

regime personnel. These dictatorships are often characterized by a weak or nonexistent

press, strong secret police, and an arbitrary use of state violence that keeps the popula-

tion living in constant fear.

Many of these dictators cultivate elaborate personality cults in an attempt to maintain

the loyalty of their support coalition and the citizenry more generally:

- Altering the beliefs of the citizenry by a process of indoctrination

- Eliminating alternative sources of information

- Generating support and loyalty

However, the dictator’s dilemma occurs when he relies on repression to stay in power,

but this repression creates incentives for everyone to falsify their preferences so that the

dictator never knows his true level of societal support.

Example: Kim Il-sung, “eternal president”, (North Korea), Muammar al-Qaddafi (Libya)

As with dominant-party systems, the stability of personalist dictatorships rests on them

having enough economic resources to keep their support coalitions satisfied. As a result,

economic crisis can have a destabilizing effect on both types of dictatorship.

 Autocracies: how do they rule?

Totalitarianism (rarer) Authoritarianism (more frequent)

Totalitarianism seeks total control Authoritarianism is much less extreme

Type of policies: left-wing vs. right-wing

THE TWO FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS OF AUTHORITARIAN RULE

Threats to dictatorial rule can come either from within the authoritarian elite or from the

masses:

PROBLEM OF AUTHORITARIAN POWER-SHARING (intra-elite conflict)

The dictator always has an incentive to alter the power-sharing agreement he has with

the support coalition to his benefit:

- In this account, personalist dictatorships arise when the support coalition re-

peatedly fails to act in response to a series of power grabs by the dictator

- In contrast, in order to have a contested dictatorship (a stable autocratic power-

sharing agreement):

1. We need to solve Informational Problems: support coalition needs to receive

credible information about the dictator’s actions. Political institutions can

help solve the monitoring problem at the heart of intra-regime conflict.

2. The support coalition also needs the ability to credibly punish the dictator if

he reneges on the agreement

PROBLEM OF AUTOCRATIC CONTROL

Dictators also face threats from the masses over which they rule. They have two distinct

strategies for solving this problem: repression and cooptation.

- REPRESSION

It is a double-edged sword, as on the one hand, can keep the masses under control. But

on the other hand, the dictator must relay on other actors, typically the military, to do

the actual repressing (empowering in this way the military to act against the dictator).

How this trade-off is ultimately resolved is likely to depend on the nature of societal

opposition:
 Ø If dictators are faced with ongoing large-scale, organized and armed opposition,

they will have to relay the military to stay in power (the military will demand

policy concessions, large budgets, and autonomy)-> Military tutelage

Ø If dictators are faced with small-scale intermittent protests, they prefer to rely on

internal security forces, such us the police, giving limited resources to the mili-

tary-> Civilian control

*In cases where the military conducts a coup, it is a sign that the military is not strong,

as if it were so, it would have so much power that it wouldn’t need to do it.

- COOPTATION

Rather than repress the masses, the dictator can try to coopt them.

Dictators often create institutions such as parties and legislatures to coopt opposition
groups: One solution to credible commitment problems is to create political institutions,

such as legislatures, that enable opposition groups to maintain some influence over the

dictator into the future, when the protesters have left the streets.
 LESSON 6: HORIZONTAL SEPARATION OF POWERS

PRESIDENTIALISM AND SEMI–PRESIDENTIALISM

1. DIVISION OF POWERS

As Montesquieu said, tyranny in power is avoided by separating the functions of the

government between:

● Legislative: makes the laws

● Executive: executes the laws

● Judicial: applies the laws.

In a traditional view, each function must be exerted by a separate agency, without inter-

ference from the others, and with different personnel in each agency.
By the principle of horizontal division of powers, it is guaranteed that one power does

not invade the others. This principle consists in a system of checks and balances that

limits the ability of incumbents to abuse their power because each power is invigilating

the others. With checks and balances:

● There is no danger of tyranny or encroachment

● No need for external enforcement

● The system is in equilibrium because each branch of government is controlled by

the others.
2. CLASSIFYING DEMOCRACIES

In order to classify democracies as parliamentary, presidential or semi-presidential we

have to ask 2 basic questions:

IS THE GOVERNMENT RESPONSIBLE TO THE ELECTED LEGISLATURE?

Legislative responsibility means that a legislative majority has the constitutional power

to remove the government from office without cause. In democracies with legislative

responsibility, the mechanism that the legislature can initiate in order to remove a gov-

ernment is called the vote of no confidence. This involves a vote in the legislature on

whether the government should remain in office.

● In a presidential system, the government is not responsible to the elected legisla-

ture and thus, there cannot be a vote of no confidence.

 ● In a parliamentary system and a semi-presidential system, the government is re-

sponsible to the elected legislature, the legislature can remove the government

by a vote of no confidence.
A variant of the vote of no confidence is the constructive vote of no confidence. This

requires that those who oppose the government also indicate who should replace the

government if the incumbent loses. The reason to adopt this variant is that it reduces

government instability.

Some countries also have what is known as vote of confidence, unlike votes of no con-

fidence, these are initiated by governments mainly to see if they are still supported by

the members of the legislature.

In conclusion, legislatures in democracies with legislative responsibility can remove the

governments by passing a vote of no confidence or by defeating a government-initiated

vote of confidence. Therefore, we can see that:

● Presidential democracies are defined by the absence of legislative responsibility.

They cannot remove the government without cause (they can only remove the mem-

bers of the government for incapacitation or criminal behaviour).

● Parliamentary and semi-presidential democracies have both legislative responsibil-

ity and therefore, vote of no confidence. To determine whether a democracy with

legislative responsibility is parliamentary or semi-presidential, we ask:

IS THE HEAD OF STATE POPULARLY ELECTED FOR A FIXED TERM?

● A head of state is popularly elected if elected through a process where voters either:

(i) cast a ballot directly for a candidate.

(ii) they cast ballots to elect an electoral college, whose sole purpose is to

elect the head of state.

● To serve a fixed term means that the head of state serves for a fixed period of time

before she needs to be reappointed and cannot be removed in the meantime.

a) In a parliamentary democracy, the Head of State is not popularly elected for

a fixed term.

b) In a presidential democracy, the HoS is popularly elected for a fixed term.

Some democracies allow for the possibility of removing the head of state before his or

her term is up but only through the procedure of impeachment of incapacitation. These

are the semi-presidential democracies.

TO SUM UP…

As we have seen, the three basic types of democracy can be classified like this:

(i) Presidential democracy: Democracies in which the government does

not depend on a legislative majority to exist are presidential.

(ii) Parliamentary democracy: Democracies in which the government de-

pends on a legislative majority to exist and in which the head of state is

not popularly elected for a fixed term.

(iii) Semi-presidential democracy: Democracies in which the government

depends on a legislative majority to exist and in which the head of state

is popularly elected for a fixed term are semi-presidential.

● Types of head of states:

In a democracy, the head of state is either a monarch or a president:

(i) Presidents can exist in presidential, semi-presidential, and parliamen-

tary democracies. Presidential and semi-presidential democracies can

only have presidents because by construction they are republics.

(ii) Monarchs only exist in parliamentary democracies - they do not serve

fixed terms and they are not directly elected.

PRESIDENTIAL DEMOCRACIES

The government in a presidential democracy comprises the president and the cabinet:

1. The president is the political chief executive and the head of government; he is also

the head of state.

2. The cabinet is composed of ministers whose job is to be in the cabinet and head the

various government departments.

In a presidential democracy, the executive branch and the government are the same.

a) Government Formation Process

The government formation process is different in presidential democracies than in par-

liamentary democracies. In a parliamentary democracy the winner of the elections can

be left out the government, however, in a presidential democracy:

 ● The government cannot be dismissed by a legislative majority.

● The president is always the formateur and her party is always in the government.

● Legislature cannot fight the government, so the president is totally free in form-
ing the government.

● The reversion point -what happens when a minority formateur fails to form a

coalition- simply results in the president’s party ruling alone.

If there is no agreement in the formation of government, there can be a government in

which the President’s party is the government’s party. This is known as a minority gov-

ernment. Minority governments are more frequent in presidential democracies:

● A minority government that enjoys the implicit support of a legislative majority

can exist in both presidential and parliamentary democracies.

● A minority government that does not have the implicit support of a legislative

majority can exist only in presidential democracies. (E.g. Trump in USA). This

involves a situation of divided government: one party controls the presidency,

but this party does not control the Congress.

The fact that presidents can appoint whomever they like to the cabinet and form minor-

ity governments does not actually imply that they would rarely form coalition govern-

ments to reach a legislative majority. Therefore, given the possibility of a minority gov-

ernment, what are the reasons for the president in wanting to have a legislative majority?
The main reason is that they want to pass laws (policies). In a purely office seeking

world, presidents would not form coalition governments because they would not care

about policy. However, in reality political actors are likely to care to some extent about

policy (or to act as they do so) and as the government needs a majority coalition in the

legislature in order to pass laws, they would be willing to form coalition governments.

There is no way in which you are going to pass laws without having a legislative major-

ity such as a coalition government.

The incentives that a president has to form coalition governments mainly depend on the

strength that decrees passed by the president have. First off, all presidents have the abil-

ity to pass decrees: a presidential order that has the force of law, although to a different

extent: the scope and strength of these decrees vary from country to country:
 ● In some countries like the USA, the president cannot enact new legislature by

passing decrees, only regulate laws already enacted by the legislature.

● In other countries presidents can issue decree-laws (immediately become laws).

This differentiation shows that presidents with a weak decree power and whose party

does not control a majority of the legislative seats will need support from other parties

if they are to achieve any of their policy goals. Therefore, these presidents will have an

incentive to form coalition governments. This is the reason why, in some presidential

democracies, presidents would want to form coalition governments.

b) The composition of presidential cabinets

The composition of presidential cabinets differs systematically from parliamentary cab-

inets. Presidents in presidential systems appoint cabinets that contain a higher propor-
tion of nonpartisan ministers. They also allocate cabinet portfolios in a less proportional

way than prime ministers.

This different composition of cabinets basically reflects the different extent to which for-

mateurs must negotiate with political parties.

● In parliamentary democracies, PMs almost always appoint partisan ministers

(individuals from political parties in the legislature) and tend to have more cab-

inet proportionality as they want to build a legislative majority to stay in power.

● In presidential democracies, as presidents do not depend on having a legislative

majority to stay in office, they do not have to negotiate with political parties to

the same extent as prime ministers in parliamentary democracies. Therefore, they

are freer to vary the partisan nature and the proportionality of their cabinets.

However, some presidential cabinets look more like parliamentary ones than others.

Also considering the decree power, there are differences in the extent to which they ap-

point nonpartisan ministers and the proportionality of their cabinet portfolio allocation.

Presidents with low decree power, whose parties in the legislature are quite small and

whose parties exhibit low levels of party discipline appoint cabinets that look more like

those found in parliamentary democracies (more partisan ministers and more propor-

tional allocation of cabinet portfolios).

c) Policy-making process
SEMI- PRESIDENTIAL DEMOCRACIES

A semi-presidential democracy is one where (1) the government depends on the legisla-

ture to stay in power and (2) the head of state is popularly elected for a fixed term.
In a semi-presidential democracy, the executive branch comprises the president and the

government:

● The government in a semi-presidential democracy comprises a prime minister

and the cabinet

● The prime minister is the political chief executive and the president is the HoS

We must differentiate however 2 different types of semi-presidential democracies:

premier-president systems and president-parliamentary systems.

In both of them the government, which comprises a prime minister and a cabinet
is responsible to the legislature.

The distinction between them comes with respect to whether the government is

also responsible to the head of state (president) or not.

In a premier-presidential system, the presidential head of state has no power to remove

the government (no presidential responsibility). The head of state or president is not

part of the executive, only the prime minister and the cabinet, so the prime minister is

actually the one who has the most power. In this sense, this type of semi-presidential

system is very similar to a parliamentary system with the difference that the head of

state in a premier-presidential system is popularly elected for a fixed term, unlike in

parliamentary democracies. Thus, the focus will be on president-parliamentary systems.

In a president-parliamentary system the head of state has the power to remove from

government. Therefore, in these systems, apart from the legislative responsibility, there
is also a presidential responsibility to remove the government.
In a president-parliamentary system the executive is formed by the government and

the president. It is important to bear in mind that although the president takes part in

the executive, she is not part of the government and thus are named separately. In this
system, president and prime minister are involved in the administration of the state and

usually, the president has more influence on foreign policies whereas the prime minis-

ter has more influence on domestic policies.

As presidents in president-parliamentary are popularly elected for a fixed term, there

could be the possibility that the president and the prime minister can come from differ-

ent political parties. This situation is called cohabitation. During cohabitation, the pres-

ident’s party is in the legislative opposition rather than the cabinet, meaning that:

● The president’s party does not control a majority in the legislature.

● The president’s party is not represented in the cabinet.

Why would a president appoint the prime minister from an opposing political party?

Because the government (prime minister and cabinet) must enjoy the support

of a legislative majority to remain in office. Thus, if the president’s party does not

control a majority of legislative seats, she may need to appoint a prime minister

from a different political party who does control a legislative majority.

This situation could seem very similar to a divided government situation in the context

of presidential democracies (a party controls the presidency but does no control the leg-
islature). However, it is not the same and cohabitation is effectively impossible in a pres-

idential democracy because a president in a presidential system is free to appoint whom-

ever she likes to the cabinet and the government is not responsible to the legislature.

▪ Periods of cohabitation are an effective system of checks and balances

▪ However, cohabitation can also be characterized by “bitter and violent” conflict

when the political actors involved share starkly different ideologies and goals.

E.g. Ukraine leading to protests in the country and an armed conflict.

In a situation of cohabitation, the president can try to come up with a cabinet that is

politically aligned with him/her by dissolving the assembly so that in new elections, a

legislative majority of the president’s party is elected so the president can appoint a

prime minister from the same political party and therefore, the executive branch formed

by the president and the government would comprise only one political party.
 LESSON 7: MAKING AND BREAKING

G O V E R N M E N T: P A R L I A M E N T A R I S M

1. Government in a Parliamentary Democracy comprises:

● The prime minister: it is the political chief executive and head of the government

(but not head of state)

● The cabinet: it is composed of ministers whose job is to be in the cabinet and

head the various government departments.

Executive branch = Government → only in parliamentary democracies.

2. Characteristics of government formation process in Parliamentary democra-

cies:
● Reversion point1: When the failure of a minority prime minister to obtain

an implicit legislative majority happens, the result would be an early elec-

tion, a new round of bargaining, or a caretaker2 government.

● Voters do NOT elect governments DIRECTLY. Instead, voters elect rep-

resentatives, who then bargain over who should go into government

● Government must control an implicit legislative majority in order to

come to power and remain in office.

3. Ministers in general
● Ministerial responsibility: it refers to the constitutional doctrine by which cabinet

ministers must bear ultimate responsibility for what happens in their ministry

● Collective cabinet responsibility: it refers to the doctrine by which ministers must

publicly support collective cabinet decisions or resign

1Reversion point is what happens when a minority formateur fails to form a coalition.
2A caretaker government occurs when an election is called or when an incumbent government
either resigns or is defeated in anon-constructive vote of no confidence. It remains in office until
the next government formation process is completed. And in most countries, there is a strong
norm that caretaker governments will not make important policy changes.
 4. How do governments form?

a) The Role of the Head of the State: The head of state presides over the govern-
ment formation process. However, the extent to which the head of state is ac-

tively involved in the actual bargaining varies from country to country. Depend-

ing on the type of role the Head of the State has, we can find:

● “Free-style” bargaining countries: the head of state is limited to simply

swearing in the government proposed by party elites. Example: New Zea-

land.

● Countries where head of state chooses a particular politician (a for-

mateur), to initiate the government formation process. Example: Spain.

The formateur: despite the discretion of most heads of state, the first formateur is usually

the leader of the largest legislative party. Once the formateur is chosen, she has to put a

cabinet together that is acceptable to a legislative majority. Since it is rare in a parliamen-

tary democracy for a single party to control a legislative majority, the formateur must

begin bargaining with other parties.

● Countries where the head of state is restricted to appointing an infor-

mateur. An informateur examines politically feasible coalitions and nom-

inates a formateur. These countries are often constitutional monarchies.

Examples: Belgium and Netherlands.

 b) The investiture vote: a formal vote in the legislature to determine whether a pro-

posed government can take office.

Once a cabinet has been proposed, the support of a legislative majority may or may not
have to be demonstrated by a formal investiture vote.

● If the investiture vote fails, then the government formation pro-

cess starts again (with a likely scenario of repeated elections)

● If the investiture vote succeeds (or there is no investiture vote),

then the head of state appoints the cabinet to office → The gov-

ernment is then free to rule until it is defeated in a vote of confi-

dence/no confidence or a new election is necessary.

Table 12.7 indicates, there is a considerable cross-national variation in the length of time

that it takes to form a government following an election. It takes, on average, about a

month (29.9 days) for a government to form after an election in Western Europe.
5. Distinction between positive and negative parliamentarism

● Positive parliamentarism: new government must win a vote of investi-

ture by a majority (relative or absolute) in the parliament. That is, it is

required that the parliament supports the new government. Example:

Spain.

● Negative parliamentarism: there is no vote in the parliament before a

new government assumes power. Instead, the ultimate power of the

 parliament rests with its ability to unseat an incumbent government. Ex-

ample: Portugal.

6. Politicians motivations
● Office-seeking politicians: they are interested in the intrinsic benefits of office;

they want as much office as possible. A formateur can get other parties to join

the government only by giving them office.

- First implication → you will not want more parties in government than

is strictly necessary to obtain a legislative majority. A minimal winning

coalition (MWC) is one in which there are no parties that are not required

to control a legislative majority.

- Second implication → is that you will choose the smallest minimal win-
ning coalition. A least minimal winning coalition (or minimum) is the

MWC with the lowest number of surplus seats.

Gamson's Law states that cabinet portfolios will be distributed among government par-

ties in strict proportion to the number of seats that each party contributes to the govern-

ment's legislative seat total.

● Policy-seeking politicians: they only want to shape policy; so, office is a means

to obtain policy goals. In a policy-seeking world, a formateur can get other par-

ties to join the government only by giving them policy concessions. It is likely
that a formateur will have to give more policy concessions to large parties than

small parties.

- First implication → you will want to form coalitions with parties that are

located close to you in the policy space (connected coalition3).

- Second implication → you will choose the connected least minimal win-

ning coalition.

Example of the least connected minimal winning coalition:

1. CDU/CSU + SPD (160 surplus seats): because it is not least.

2. CDU/CSU + FDP (20 surplus seats) → LEAST CONNECTED WINNING COALITION

3. CDU/CSU + Greens (16 surplus seats): because it is not connected.

3A connected coalition is one in which the member parties are located directly next to each
other in the policy space
However, even if politicians were purely office seekers or purely policy seekers, it is

believed that the reality of political competition would force them to act as if they cared

about both policy and office.

Strong empirical evidence shows that a formateur gives large parties more office than the small

parties

There is a strong positive relationship between the share of seats that a party contrib-

utes to a government’s legislative seat total and the share of portfolios that it controls.

7. Types of governments (numerical criteria):

a) Single-party majority government comprises a single party that controls a ma-

jority of the legislative seats.

b) Single-party minority government comprises a single party that does not com-
mand a majority of the legislative seats.

c) Coalition minority government comprises multiple governmental parties that

do not together command a majority of the legislative seats. A minority govern-

ment (in parliamentary democracies) must always have an implicit majority in

the legislature. Characteristics:

- In some countries, we know who makes up the implicit majority because

parties publicly state that they will support the government in any no

confidence vote. Example: “Confidence and Supply” Agreements in New

Zealand.

- In other countries, the government does not rely on specific ‘support’

parties, but instead builds legislative majorities on an ad hoc basis. Exam-

ple: Spain.

- They are not anti-democratic: they have the support of a legislative ma-

jority like all parliamentary governments

- They occur quite frequently and are not always short-lived: they are

quite common in some countries: Denmark (82%), Sweden (81%), Nor-

way (65%). They last about 539 days on average in Western Europe

d) Coalition majority governments:

 - A minimal winning coalition (MWC) is one in which there are no parties

that are not required to control a legislative majority. MWCs are the most

frequent form of government but this will probably change in the future.
- A surplus (oversized) majority government comprises more parties than

are strictly necessary to control a majority of the legislative seats.

Why do surplus majority governments happen?

● They may occur in times of crisis such as during or after a war → the

belief is that only by bringing together parties from across ideological

spectrum and giving them a reason to be invested in the existing political

system, it is possible to resolve whatever crisis is afflicting the country.

● They may form because a surplus majority is required to change the con-
stitution.

● There are strategic reasons for forming surplus majority governments

(for example, in bicameral systems).

For example: if a minimal winning coalition takes office, any party in the cabinet, no

matter how small, can bring the government down simply by resigning. To prevent this

scenario from occurring, larger parties in the coalition may decide to form surplus ma-

jority coalitions so that the government is not automatically brought down if a single

party decides to resign.

Table 12.5 indicates that not only there is considerable variation in the length of time that

it takes to form governments but there are also large differences in the amount of time

that various governments stay in power. On average, governments lasted only 60 per-

cent of their permitted time in office.

8. When do elections take place?

● Political business cycles: the government actively manipulates the economy to

engineer a short-term economic high and then calls an election.

● Endogenous election timing: it is referred to the possibility of a government to

choose when it wants to hold elections.

- Political surfing: the government waits until the economic conditions are

right before calling an election. It does not actively manipulate the econ-

omy but waits until the economy, for whatever reason, is at a high point

before announcing the election.

- Signaling: the government is better informed about future economic per-

formance than the voter and so can time elections top occur prior to any

expected economic decline.

 LESSON 8: FEDERALISM AND BICAMERALISM

BACKGROUND

DEFINITIONS

The division between federal and decentralized states has become blurred:

– Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium (1993) = federal, but they differ a lot from

Canada and USA

– UK (devolved) & Spain decentralized (Spain federal?)

FEDERALISM: A federal state is one in which sovereignty is constitutionally split be-

tween at least two territorial levels so that independent governmental units at each level

have final authority in at least one policy realm. It is important to distinguish between

“federalism in structure” and “federalism in practice.”

HENCE, In spite huge variety of federal countries, there is a consensus in that:

-Federation implies an irrevocable entrenchment of some local or regional (state) gov-

ernment in the national (federal) making process with significant powers that are pro-

tected by the Constitution. There are guarantees that ensure that the basic federal divi-

sion of power will be preserved.

-In federal countries, shared sovereignty between a central authority and the units of the

federation
-Thus, separation of powers both in territorial and functional dimensions: units enjoy

rights and powers guaranteed by the federal Constitution

-Federalism as vertical separation of powers ≠ horizontal separation of powers among

classic bodies (aka, legislative, executive and judiciary)

TYPES OF COUNTRIES

Federal and decentralized (e.g. Australia, US)

Federal and centralized (e.g. Austria, Venezuela)

Semi-federal (Israel, Spain)

Unitary and decentralized (e.g. Denmark, Japan)

Unitary and centralized (e.g. France)

There exist weak regional governments in federal systems and strong regional govern-

ments in unitary countries (144 unitary states – 25 federal states)

REGIONAL AUTHORITY INDEX: The Regional Authority Index (RAI) is a measure

of the authority of regional governments in 81 democracies or quasi-democracies on an

annual basis over the period 1950-2010.

-Tendency to progressive decentralization.

1. FEDERALISM:

Problems operationalizing the concept: What it is to be a federal state?

• Whether a state is federal or unitary is ultimately a constitutional issue

• Whether a state is decentralized or not is about where policy is actually made

EXAMPLES OF TRUE FEDERAL COUNTRIES: USA, Germany, Argentina, Canada

COUNTRIES WITH SOME TRACES OF FEDERALISM: Spain, China, Russia, India…

Federal countries can be:

FEDERAL DE JURE (Structure) + FEDERAL DE FACTO (In practice)

1.1. FEDERALISM DE JURE (In Structure)

- Geopolitical division requires that the country be divided into mutually exclusive re-

gional governments that are recognized in the constitution and that cannot be unilater-

ally abolished by the national government.

- Independence requires that the regional and national governments must have inde-

pendent bases of authority. This is typically ensured by having them elected inde-

pendently of one another.

- Direct Governance requires that authority be shared between the regional governments

and the national government such that each citizen is governed by at least two authori-

ties. Each level of government must have the authority to act independently of the other
in at least one policy realm, and this authority must be protected by the constitution.

EXAMPLES: Regions (Belgium), States (Australia, USA…), Lander (Germany, Austria),

Cantons (Switzerland)

-2000: Only 10% of the countries.20% of the population.

-Usually huge countries or with a heterogeneous tradition.

-Federalism can be both congruent or incongruent and symmetric or asymmetric

-Congruent Federalism: Congruent federalism exists when the territorial units of a

federal state share a similar demographic (ethnic, cultural, linguistic, religious, and so

on) makeup. EXAMPLES: USA or Brazil.

-Incongruent federalism exists when the demographic makeup of the territorial

units differs among the units and the country as a whole. One of the purported ad-

vantages of incongruent federalism is that it can transform highly diverse and heteroge-

neous countries that have geographically concentrated social groups into a federation of

relatively homogeneous territorial units. EXAMPLES: Switzerland or Belgium.

-Symmetric federalism exists when the territorial units of a federal state possess
equal powers relative to the central government. EXAMPLES: USA.

-Asymmetric federalism exists when some territorial units of a federal state enjoy

more extensive powers than others relative to the central government. On the whole,

asymmetries in the division of power are designed to satisfy the different needs and

demands that arise from ethnic, linguistic, demographic, or cultural differences between

the separate sub-national units. EXAMPLES: Canada, Russia, Belgium…

HOW TO EXPLAIN THAT COUNTRIES THAT ARE PROGRESSIVELY MORE DE-

CENTRALIZED?

1. Bottom-up demand: – Reaction against perceived failures of the central state – E.g.

Post-communist Europe, Post-II WW Germany

2. Aspirations of nationalist movements: – E.g. Spain, Belgium, United Kingdom, Can-

ada, Indonesia, Nigeria, Russia

3. Post-war peace-building process: – E.g. Uganda, South Africa, Cambodia, Iraq, Bosnia

4. Role of international development agencies: – Part of the neo-liberal ‘Washington con-

sensus’ 12/4/2019 – E.g. World Bank Intervention

- Why Germany became federal in 1948? -Influence of the allies.

EXAMPLE: The case of Spain and the evolution of “Estado Autonómico”

Spain is heavily decentralized politically, but not federal, because of the definition.

FEDERALISM DE FACTO: DECENTRALIZATION.

-The degree to which actual policy making power lies with the national or regional gov-

ernments in both federal and unitary states determine the extent to which political sci-

entists view these states as centralized or decentralized.

-Determining the extent to which a state is centralized or decentralized can be difficult.

-Significant amounts of policy-making power can be devolved to regional gov-

ernments in unitary countries. (Navarra, Basque Country, Catalonia…)

-Oftentimes, the constitution of a federal country will delineate the specific policy

realms in which the central or regional governments can act. Although this is somewhat

informative, it is important to remember that having the authority to act in a policy realm

can be very different from having the practical ability to act in that area. regional gov-

ernments in a federal state may have a much weaker role in the policymaking process
than a reading of the state’s constitution might suggest, because they do not have the

financial wherewithal to implement their policy choices.

-CONCLUSION: The bottom line is that looking at a constitution, whether in a

federal or unitary country, can be misleading if one wants to know the extent to which

that country is centralized or decentralized in practice.

-In recognition of these difficulties, political scientists frequently use the percentage of

all tax revenue that is collected by the central government as a measure of state central-

ization. the scope of policy making activities at any one level of government will ulti-

mately depend on the share of tax revenues that it collects. The higher the share of all

tax revenues collected central government, the more centralized the state.

(the average degree of revenue centralization is lower in federal states (74.6 percent)
than in unitary ones (87.95 percent). Federalism and decentralization tend to go alto-

gether) (Nevertheless For example, some unitary states (China, Denmark, Finland, India,

Japan, Sweden are more decentralized than the average federal state. Indeed, China,
where the central government collects only 48.6 percent of the country’s tax revenue, is

the most decentralized state in the whole sample and that happens also vice-versa, see

the case of Belgium or South Africa)

FEDERALISM SUMMARY:

TOP RIGHT QUADRANT: federal both in structure and in practice.

BOTTOM LEFT QUADRANT: Unitary both in structure and in practice.

TOP LEFT QUADRANT: are unitary in structure but federal in practice.

BOTTOM RIGHT QUADRANT: are federal in structure but unitary in practice.

(EXTRA) DEVOLUTION VS FEDERALISM:

(Italy, Spain, India…) On the whole, the criterion that most of these unitary countries

failed to meet was that of geopolitical division. Recall that this criterion requires that a

country be divided into mutually exclusive regional governments that are constitution-

ally recognized and that cannot be unilaterally abolished by the national government.

Many of the aforementioned countries, like India, Spain, and the United Kingdom, have

transferred a considerable amount of power from the central government to regional

governments. In all of these countries, however, the central government retains the right

to unilaterally recall or reshape the powers given to the regional governments.

Ultimately, political power resides in the central government of these countries; regional

governments do not have a constitutional right to any of their powers.

1.3 WHY FEDERALISM?

-COMING TOGETHER FEDERALISM.

Coming-together federalism results from a bottom-up bargaining process in which pre-

viously sovereign polities come together and voluntarily agree to give up part of their

sovereignty in order to pool their resources in order to improve their collective security

and achieve other, typically economic, goals, such as a common currency and increased

trade. ex: USA.

-HOLDING TOGETHER FEDERALISM.

In contrast, holding-together federalism is the result of a top-down process in which the

central government of a polity chooses to decentralize its power to subnational govern-

ments. This process typically occurs in multiethnic states in which the central govern-

ment fears that the continued existence of the state is threatened by one or more territo-

rially based “ethnic” groups that wish to secede. These federations are incongruent be-

cause their whole reason for existing is to decentralize power to territorially based ethnic

groups; they tend to be asymmetric because they are trying to satisfy the different needs

and preferences of the various ethnic groups in the country. ex: Belgium.
-PROS:

-Decentralized forms of government are best for satisfying popular preferences in dem-

ocratic countries in which individuals hold heterogeneous preferences

-Another purported advantage of federalism is that it brings the “government” closer to

the people.

-Subnational governments in federal systems have a strong incentive to perform well in

office if citizens and investors have the ability to move from one region to another. This

competition is also at the heart of arguments suggesting that federalism enhances market

economies and produces higher economic growth.

-Ability to encourage policy experimentation and innovation. For example, subnational

governments in federal systems have the opportunity to experiment with, and evaluate,

different policies for tackling social, economic, and political problems.

-Federalism as a bulwark against tyranny. For instance, many of the Founding Fathers

in the United States believed that the interlocking arrangements of federalism reduced

the risk of tyranny because the subnational governments could, and would, check each
other.

-CONS.

-Critics claim that the different layers of federalism can lead to the unnecessary duplica-

tion of government and the inefficient overlapping of potentially contradictory policies.

-Critics also argue that federalism exacerbates collective action problems in the formu-

lation and implementation of economic and other politics, particularly in developing

countries.

-Because provincial politicians ultimately care about their own political success, they
face only weak incentives to make economic and other decisions in the interests of the

federal system as a whole.

-Regional governments also have incentives to spend beyond their means if there is an

expectation that the central government will come to their rescue and bail them out.

-Although supporters of federalism regularly point to the benefits that accrue from hav-

ing competition between different subnational governments, critics point to the possible

deleterious consequences that such competition can have. For example, in attempting to

attract investment and retain their citizens, competition between subnational govern-
ments may lead to “downward harmonization” or a “race to the bottom” in which levels

of regulation, welfare, taxes, and trade barriers are continuously lowered.

-Competition, particularly in asymmetric federations in which some regions enjoy more

power and discretion than others, may also lead to the amplification of preexisting ine-

qualities in population, wealth, and political power.

-Far from enhancing government accountability, as its supporters claim, critics argue

that federalism is just as likely to undermine it. By adding layers of government and

expanding areas of shared responsibility, federalism facilitates blame-shifting and credit

claiming.
 LESSON 9: ELECTORAL SYSTEMS

Why should we study electoral systems?

• Parties advocate changes in the electoral system.

• Elections are increasingly used to fill legislative and executive officed around the

world.

Firstly, in democracies, elections serve both a practical and a symbolic role. Democratic

elections provide the primary mechanism by which people’s consent is translated into

the authority rule.

The increase in the number if democratic elections since the 1970s is largely a conse-

quence of the third wave of democratization. Nevertheless, Elections do not only occur
in democracies. The increase frequency in which elections are taking place in dictator-

ships has led some scholars to talk about the rise of “electoral authoratiarism”. Elections

tend to serve a very different purpose in dictatorships than in democracies.

Electoral Integrity has to do with the conduct of elections at all stages of the electoral

cycle, including the prelection period, campaign, the polling day, and the election after-

math. The electoral Integrity Project is run by Pipa Norris. It is designed to look at three

questions: When do elections meet international standards of electoral integrity? What

happens when elections fail to do so? What can be done to mitigate these problems?
Electoral integrity matters because flawed elections can reduce trust in the political sys-

tem, fuel social instability, undermine recent democratic gains…

Electoral malpractice is these settings often has to do with political interference in how

district boundaries are drawn, problems with voter registration, technical failures, and

unfair campaign finance rules.

In the UK, electoral districts are hexagons in the map (1 member of the Parliament from

each hexagon – single member district); in Spain, electoral districts are the provinces.

As we have passed the 50´S all electoral systems are increasingly employed over time,

this is due to an increase in the number of democracies. The mixed electoral system was

used for decades in only one country in the world: Germany, but then in the 90´S a lot

of countries copied Germany.

Nowadays there has been a “progressive” reduction in the number of Majoritarian Sys-

tems and a huge increase in the number of Mixed Systems.

Electoral System: set of rules governing the conversion of votes into seats. They have an
impact on the country’s party system, type of government, representation, etc. Electoral

systems can be categorized along the type of electoral formula.

1. Majoritarian or non-PR systems: “winner takes all”, you are elected when you

receive a plurality or a majority.

2. PR systems: proportionality (everyone is being represented and the votes and the

seats are proportional – 40% of the votes means 40% of the seats).

3. Mixed: a combination of the other two.

From a majoritarian to a proportional electoral system the effect is a higher number of

parties.

There are a lot of electoral systems (sub-types) within each classification. Over time there

has been a progressive reduction in the number of majoritarian systems and a huge in-

crease in recent decades of mixed systems (copying Germany)

1. ELECTORAL SYSTEMS. TYPES.

a) Dimensions of variation.

• Horizontal: interparty dimension. Relationship between Party A and B. Questions:

How many seats is each party winning? What is the no. of parties are there in a
country? How electoral systems affect the translation of votes into seats for com-

peting political parties and how electoral systems affect the overall nature of the

party system. Main consequence: strategic or tactical vote.

• Vertical: intraparty dimension: this candidate or the other, man or woman, based

on personal characteristics or characteristics in the party?

b) Elements.

• Electoral formula (interparty): how votes are counted to allocate seats.

• District magnitude (interparty): number of seats per district.

• Legal threshold (interparty): minimum votes needed by a party to secure represen-

tation.

• Assembly size (interparty): total number of seats to be allocated.

 • Ballot structure (intraparty): how voters can express their choices (how much free-

dom the electoral system is giving to the voters). E.g. closed list.

v Electoral formula.
Mathematical method to translate votes into seats. Basic typology:

A. Majoritarian:

a. Plurality rule: winner has at least one more vote than any other candidate.

i. single-member district plurality (like the UK and former British colonies like
legislative USA and India), they vote a single candidate within SMDs (sin-

gle-member districts), majority is not needed. Consequences of FPTP (First

Past the Post): manufactured majority in seats is created: single-party gov-

ernments. The geographical dispersion of support is critical (you need to get

support in all of the districts). High threshold for non-spatially dispersed

small parties.

1. Advantages: its simplicity, only one candidate is elected, it tends

to produce high levels of constituency service and closed bones be-

tween constituents and their representatives.

2. Critics: it can lead to unrepresentative outcomes at the district and

national level. It tends to favor larger parties. It also encourages

strategical votes. Provokes underrepresentation of ethnic groups.

ii. bloc vote in the US Electoral College. Difference in districts: States (bigger).

They are multi-member districts (more than one member elected per dis-

trict). This is a plurality system because to win you need more votes than the

other candidates. What is at stake is different (it is not only one seat, but the

ones attributed to each state). PROBLEMS: spurious majorities (for exam-

ple, Hillary-Trump, where the winner in votes is not the winner in seats).

iii. Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV). It works as SMDP except from the

fact that they operate in multi member districts. They tend to produce more

proportional outcomes and greater representation for smaller parties and

minority ethnic groups. Critics: they tend to weaken political parties by cre-

ating incentives for intraparty fighting and fractionalization. As multiple

candidates represent a party there is competition among each other and

 consciousness of personal characteristics. There is voter confusion due to the

excessive number of candidates. This also difficulties the reach of legislative

coalitions. Moreover, candidates know the percentage of votes they need to

gain in order to get a seat, so this leads to patronage systems and clientelistic

votes. Some scholars affirm that SNTV encourages extremist parties to be

elected.

iv. Limited vote: e.g. Spanish Senate.

b. Majority rule: winner has obtained 50%+1 of the votes at least.

i. two-rounds majority system (France): everyone is running at the first round,

if the winner gets 50%+ he wins; if not, the first two candidates go to the

second round and the one with majority wins. Consequences are that it aims
to produce party coalitions on left and right and popular legitimacy of the

winner. Strengths: it lets the voter two have a second vote.

ii. The Alternative vote (AV) = instant runoff as in Australia: subsequent elim-

ination of the candidates with the lowest votes and reallocation of their votes

following voters’ list of preferences. In this system can happen that the can-

didate that won in the first round is not finally winning the elections. It is a

candidate-centered preference voting system used in single-member dis-

tricts where voters rank order candidates. A candidate who receives an ab-
solute majority is elected. If there is no majority, then the candidate with the

fewest votes is eliminated, and her votes reallocated until one candidate has

an absolute majority of the valid votes remaining. It has the main ad-

vantages and critics of the SMDP. Except from the problem that the SMDP

allow candidates to win who do not obtain majority support. This problem

is addressed by AV systems with the reallocation of the votes, nevertheless

this system has also been criticized.

All the examples explained above, except from block vote systems and SNTV, have just

one seat per district. They are Single Member Districts. One of the main problems of

SMD is the district formation: Gerrymandering district formation is the manipulation of

the size and disposition of districts in order to increase the probabilities of having the

beloved candidate elected. Districts adopted the form of a Salamander.

B. PR (divisors and quotas): theoretically there is a close correspondence between the

votes and the sites for each party. It is an electoral system in which a quota or divisor

based electoral system is employed in multimember districts. Proportional represen-

tation systems take place in multimember district. We can classify proportional sys-

tems attending to the electoral formula:

a. Divisor formula: D’Hont formula is the one we have in Spain.

b. Quota formulas: A quota is the price in terms of votes that a party must pay in

order to guarantee themselves a seat in a particular electoral district. E.g. Hare

quota, imperiali quota, droop quota...

The notion that PR systems are essential for stability and democratic rule in divided so-

cieties is widely, but not universally accepted. The main critics are that this system en-
courages the creation of Coalition Governments, the representation of extremist parties,

the weak link between constituents and their representatives.

C. Mixed (majoritarian and proportional): a system that has both systems in one. E.g.

Germany. A mixed electoral system is one in which voters elect representatives

through two different systems, one majoritarian and one proportional. Most mixed

systems employ multiple electoral tiers: An electoral tier is a level at which votes are

translated into seats. The lowest electoral tier is the district or constituency level.

Higher tiers are constituted by grouping together different lower-tier constituencies,

typically at the regional or national level. In a mixed system, it is often the case that

a majoritarian system is used in the lowest tier (district level) and a proportional

system is used in the upper tier (regional or national level) In most mixed systems,

individuals have two votes:

• One vote is for the representative at the district level (candidate vote)

• One vote is for the party list in the higher electoral tier (party vote)

a. Independent mixed electoral systems: in which majoritarian and proportional

components of the electoral system are implemented independently of each

other. They are less proportional.

b. Dependent mixed electoral system: in which the application of the proportional

formula is dependent on the distribution of seats or votes produced by the ma-

joritarian formula. They are more proportional.

ELECTORAL CONCEPTS:

District magnitude: The number of Members of Parliaments (MPs) elected from each

constituency. “The decisive factor”

• Basic typology: Single-member district (SMDs) / Multi-member district (and whole-

country) A whole country can be a district as in Netherlands.

Conclusion: The bigger the district, the more proportional the outcome and an increase

in the number of parties.

Legal threshold:

Threshold: Vote shares (or number of seats) that parties need to obtain in order to par-

ticipate in the allocation of seats. Main goal: to reduce the number of political parties and

fragmentation. It is also a way of facilitating stable governments.

Basic typology:

District level threshold, to prevent excessive fragmentation / National level threshold.

E.g. First national elections of Poland in which there was no threshold.

Assembly size:

Def.: total no. of seats to allocate. It is a function of the cubic root of the population size.

Ballot Structure:

Def.: element of electoral system that provides more or less freedom to the voters to

select the candidates. It also determines candidates’ incentives to cultivate a personal

vote. Basic typology:

-Close list systems: E.g. Spain, no freedom, the list is already elected by parties. Candi-

dates are not really important (they have fewer incentives to cult a personal vote).

-Flexible list systems: E.g. Netherlands. Lists are fixed by parties, nevertheless voters can

provoke the jump of some candidates.

-Open list system: E.g. Brazil. System in which there is no ranking, the ranking is the cre-

ation of the people, there is no a pre-established ranking.

-Single-transferable vote (in proportional systems): E.g. Ireland. Transferring votes until

the seats are allocated.

Effects of electoral system:

• We focus on the proportionality of votes: Reallocation from small parties to big

parties underrepresentation of small parties / overrepresentation of big parties.

-Red line: parties with more seats than votes. Green: parties with more votes than seats

• Main factors of proportionality:

1. Number of parties in the electorate

2. Geographical distribution of the vote

3. District magnitude

4. Legal thresholds

5. The electoral formula (e.g., D’Hondt is the least proportional among PR)

• We focus on Fragmentation of the Party System:

More or less political fragmentation depends on the chosen electoral system.

Duverger said: (1) “The plurality single-ballot rule tends to party dualism.”

(2) “The double-ballot system and proportional representation tend to multipartidism.”

Party systems

Criteria to classify political parties:

I. Fragmentation (number and size of the parties)

Focuses on main political parties.

Effective number of parties: is the indicator that we use to measure the number of parties

in a country. (CAE EN EL EXAMEN). THE HIGHER THE EFFECTIVE NUMBER=THE

HIGHER FRAGMENTATION.

-The number

-The size in term of votes or terms of seats

We distinguish between:

• Effective number of electoral parties: votes

• Effective number of parliamentary parties: seats

The maximum effective number of parties is that for which each party receives the same
percentage of votes.
Consequences of the number of parties: higher number of parties=higher unpredictabil-

ity.

II. Party competition dynamics (party system polarized or not polarized)

Strategies: centripetal competition (towards the center) or centrifugal competition (to-

wards the extremes).

How can we measure it?

-Electoral systems: centrifugal=proportional systems; centripetal=majoritarian systems.

-Dimension of political competition: economic policies, territorial tensions (Spain), social

policies.

Consequences of polarization: radical ideas collapse of Democracy (Santori argues that

this was the cause of the collapse of the Weimar Republic).// No polarization less inter-
est and satisfaction in politics lower voters participation.

Combine both criteria:

Caramani exposes a different criterion of classification:

• Dominant-party systems: it is currently in crisis, the only exception is South Af-

rica

• Two-party system: also in crisis, the only exception is USA.

• Bipolar systems: not 2 parties but 2 coalitions of parties.

• Multiparty systems: they can be polarized or moderate
How can we explain the number of parties in a Democracy?

2 Main determinants of political fragmentation:

• Cleavage Structure: division provoked by political divisions created by the so-

cial structure (social classes) due to historical transformations.

Four main types of cleavages with different types of parties as consequence.

Relationships between social cleavages:

• Overlapping or reinforcing=concordance between both cleavages.

• Cross-cutting. It is better in order to have less polarization due to the possibility

of having a better communication.

In Spain we are more proxime to reinforcing. Cleavages: center-periphery and otro que

ns.
No freezing hypothesis in Europe anymore. (Ecological crisis, migration crisis).

What can we do to avoid reinforcing cleavages? Institutional solutions about giving ac-

cess to power to the different groups in society.

• Electoral system:

Duverger’s first pass the pools systems (overrepresentation of some parties and un-

der representation of others) two party system //

Duverger’s not pass the pools multiparty system

Cleavages electoral systems (acts as a filter for cleavages to create political parties
New political parties.
LESSON 10: PARTY SYSTEMS AND SOCIAL CLEAVAGES

What are party systems?

“A party system is the system of interactions resulting from inter-party competition”

(Sartori, 1976)

“Party systems are sets of parties that compete and cooperate with the aim of increasing

their power in controlling government” (Caramani, 2012)

In democractic party systems there is always more than one party.

Criteria for classification

1. Fragmentation (or fractionalisation): This trait takes into consideration (a) the

number of parties competing in an election, and their success in obtaining votes

(and seats), and (b) the degree to which votes and seats are scattered across par-

ties.

In short, fragmentation addresses how many parties exist and how big they are. This

requires us to think about how we count political parties. The most appropriate way of

doing this is not to count every party that contests national elections. If you did this, the

number of parties in many countries would be extremely large and include “joke” par-

ties, such as the “Guns and Dope Party”—which advocates replacing one-third of Con-

gress with ostriches—in the United States. Therefore, the most appropriate way is the
effective number of parties (ENP): the number of hypothetical equal-size parties that would

have the same total effect on fractionalisation of the system as have the actual parties of

unequal size. It ranges from 1 to N, being N the number of political parties in the country.

The formula is as follows:

-where pi is the fractional share of vote or seats of the i-th party. By applying this for-

mula, we get the number N of effective parties.

If we do it with the share of votes, we obtain the Effective Number of Electoral Parties

(ENEP); whereas if we do it with the share of seats, we get the share of seats we get the

Effective Number of Parliamentary Parties (ENPP).

ENEP is always at least as big as ENPP.

It is also important to consider the consequences of fragmentation. We could highlight

that fragmentation brings:

-Increasing openness and greater opportunity windows.

-Higher likelihood of coalition/minority governments.

-Increasing complexity of domestic politics.

-Higher unpredictability of political outcomes.

2. Party Competition Dynamics. Polarization.

Parties tend to have different ideologies. Parties can compete or cooperate. When their

ideologies are very different, there is polarization.

The second criteria used to categorize party systems is party competition dynamics. Un-

like the first criteria, it does not focus on quantity of parties but on quality of party com-

petition.

Downs’ spatial model displays two premises:

1. Voters choose party ideologically closest to them.

2. They may consider to abstain if equidistant from two parties (indifferent) or too

far away from any party.

How do parties compete? Sartori classified competition as driven by: (a) centrifugal
forces, that is, tending toward the extremes; or (b) centripetal forces, that is, tending to-

ward the center.

Some factors affect this patterns of competition. For example, (a) the voter distribution:

if most voters are in the center parties won’t tend to the extremes; and (b) Electoral sys-

tem: centrifugal forces prevail in proportional and minoritarian systems, whereas cen-

tripetal prevail in majoritarian.

Types of polarization: Polarization can be uni-dimensional or bipolar (Greece, Ger-

many, Ireland Portugal) and two-dimensional or multipolar (Denmark, Finland, Neth-

erlands, Italy), if there is more than one ideology battlefront between parties. E.g.:
Consequences of polarization (Sartori): difficulty to form governments or coalition, col-

lapse of the democracy (Weimar Republic). However, if there was no polarization, there

would be a decrease in turnout, and therefore, a deficit of democratic legitimacy.

So, according to these two criteria, we could classify party systems by fragmentation and
polarization (Sartori, 1976) this way:

An alternative scheme of classification was put forth by Caramani (2012). According to

him, there are four democratic types of system:

1. DOMINANT-PARTY SYSTEMS: a party wins a lot of elections successively. This

system is today in crisis, with the exception of South Africa.

2. TWO-PARTY SYSTEMS: systems with only two parties. Also in crisis, but a good

example is the USA.

3. BIPOLAR SYSTEMS: systems that groups two coalitions of parties. Example:

France, Germany.

4. MULTIPARTY SYSTEMS: more than 2 effective parties. Most frequent system.

a. Moderate: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Switzerland, Netherlands.

b. Polarized: Weimar Republic.

There is ongoing debate on which system is preferable, since every system has pros and

cons:

Why do some countries have many parties and others few? Determinants of frag-
mentation.

1. Cleavage structure

Cleavages are political divisions created by social structures (religion, class, ethnia, mi-

gration background…). They are the main reason for which parties arise. Duverger: “the

more divisions there are, the greater the demand for political parties to form”. We dis-

tinguish four main types of cleavages:

• Center-periphery regionalist parties

• State-Church Religious parties (e.g. Christian-democratic)

• Owner-worker Socialist/communist parties

• Urban-rural Agrarian parties

Lipset and Rokkan believed that “party systems of the 1960’s in Western Europe reflect,

with few but significant exceptions, the cleavage structures of the 1920’s”. This is known

as the Freezing Hypothesis.

Relations between social cleavages:

• Reinforcing/overlapping/intersectional: when two cleavages tend to happen to-

gether in a group (e.g. being catholic and pro-Ireland or being protestant and

pro-England).
 • Cross-cutting (“transversales”): the cleavages don’t tend to come together (e.g.: I

can smoke, but not drink).

Arguably, cross-cutting clevages are better, because it means that the different parties
have some things in common that make coexistence between them easier.

A solution to strong social cleavages are consociational systems, in which different social

groups share power (Belgium, Norther Ireland).

2. Electoral system

Although Duverger believed that social divisions create the demand for political parties,

he argued that electoral institutions play an important role in determining whether this

latent demand for representation actually leads to the existence of new political parties.

Duverger’s law: Single-member district plurality systems encourage two-party systems.

Duverger’s hypothesis: Proportional representation electoral rules favor multiparty sys-

tems.

There are two reasons, the “mechanical” and “strategic” effects of electoral laws, for why

nonproportional electoral systems have this moderating effect on the appearance of new

parties.

• Mechanical effect: the way votes are translated into seats. When electoral sys-

tems are disproportional, the mechanical effect punishes small parties and re-

wards large parties.

• Strategic effect: refers to how the way in which votes are translated into seats

influences the “strategic” behavior of voters and political elites (e.g. Tactical vote,

strategic entry, etc).

However, in order for Duverger’s model to work, some auxiliary assumptions must be

satisfied. In particular, district magnitude (Spain vs. Sweden): the smaller the number of

representatives elected from an electoral district, the more disproportional party system,

and the smaller the effective number of parties.

1. and 2) It is the combination of both social cleavages and electoral institutions

that really provokes the creation of parties.

Social cleavages create the demand for political parties, but electoral institutions deter-

mine whether this latent demand for representation leads to the existence of new parties.
Specifically, non-proportional or non-permissive electoral systems act as a brake on the

tendency for social cleavages to be translated into new parties.

3. Time. Question to spark our thought How does time affect (if at all) the number

of parties in a system?
There is a consistent trend towards a greater number of parties across countries. How-

ever, it is difficult to come up with mechanisms that shed light on this subject.