Tuesday March 18 2014 12 51 PM Have institutionalized democracy Highest economic development and prosperity GDP at PPP over 8000 Not agriculture and industrial production Top 1 3 on HDI Share basic set of institutions which include Liberal democratic regimes Capitalist economic systems Advanced democracies Page 1 Liberties abortion prostitution hate speech Abortion permitted in canada restricted in korea Expression freer in US than in Germany Common Characteristics Thursday March 20 2014 12 02 PM Freedom and Equality Advanced Democracies Modern Secular Technological Bureaucratic Rational Materialistic More individual freedom vs collective equaliy Post Modern Integration a process in which states pool their sovereignty surrender some individual power in order to gain political economic or societal benefits devolution process by which powers and resources are transferred away from central state institutions and vested at lower level Supernational system System where sovereign powers are shared amoung the members and held by Eu institutions over the member states themselves Recent projects Monetary union Euro Membership expansion Euro skeptics Devolution reverses the historical development of the state Why this reversal Mistrust of state want more local control Means of devolution Transfer policymaking New political institutions Transfer funds and powers to tax US welfare reform in the 1990s Canada new province formed UK direct assemblies for Scotland Wales Northern Ireland in 1999 Postmodern values focus on quality of life postmaterialist issues Environment health leisure personal equality diversity Challenges to postmodern values Diversity idenity Assimilation Multiculturalism Immigration Xenophobia Advanced democracies Page 2 Xenophobia Post industrialism Economies NOT based on industry and manufacturing Based on Shift is very disruptive Future of Welfare State Expensive Solutions Example Japan Advanced democracies Page 3 Consequences of institutional choices Tuesday March 25 2014 12 00 PM Duverger s law Principle that asserts plurality rule election system favors 2 party system Statement of the relationship between a party system and electoral system PR system creates electoral conditions necessary to foster party development Plurality system marginalizes smaller parties resulting in 2 party system Electoral systems institutions are NOT neutral systems but systematically privelege some parties over the other Advanced democracies Page 4