Imply that democracy is not for everyone Chapter 7 Cultural Determinants of Democracy Arguments Primordialist arguments treat culture as objective and inherited Constructivist arguments treat culture constructed or invented Cultures are socially constructed Civic Culture Almond and Verba The Civic Culture 1965 A V believed that we can study culture by conducting surveys The answers to the survey Cultures are malleable and not fixed reflect the political culture studied the U S the U K Germany Italy and Mexico They found that the United States and UK had political cultures that most closely resembled the civic culture Concluded that a civic culture was necessary for democracy Culture how individuals think and feel about the political system Three types of Culture Parochial suitable for traditional system of African tribes Subject suitable for centralized authoritarian systems Participant suitable for democracy A civic culture is a shared cluster of attitudes that includes things like a preference for gradual societal change Evidence of Emergence of Democracy a high level of interpersonal trust life satisfaction support for the existing political system Increased wealth makes transitions to democracy more likely High economic growth makes transitions to democracy less likely Countries that are predominantly Catholic are more likely to become democracies Having a Protestant or Muslim majority has no effect on whether a country becomes Ethnic religious and cultural diversity do not appear to impede or aid the emergence of democratic or not democracy Survival of Democracy Increased wealth increases democratic survival High economic growth increases democratic survival Having a Muslim majority has no effect on democratic survival Having a Protestant majority increases democratic survival Having a Catholic majority decreases democratic survival Ethnic and cultural but not religious diversity decreases for democratic survival But Still haven t escaped the problem of temporality we are still considering a small slice of history Between 1950 and 2000 most Latin American countries majority Catholic experienced some period of non democratic rule and then transitioned back Experiments and Culture Ultimatum Game The Set up Players there is a proposer and a responder The proposer is given a divisible pie money Step 1 The proposer offers some of the pie to the responder Step 2 The responder knowing the offer and size of the pie has to accept or reject the The Procedure offer The Outcome If the responder accepts she gets to keep the offer and the proposer keeps the rest If the responder rejects then neither player receives anything If the players are self interested we would expect the proposer to offer where is close to zero and keep the rest 1 for himself We would expect the responder to accept this offer because 0 Dictator Game The Dictator Game is exactly the same as the Ultimatum Game except that the responder is not given an opportunity to accept or reject the offer The proposer dictator merely dictates the division Test of fairness as opposed to the ultimatum game If the players are self interested we would expect the proposer to offer zero and keep everything for himself Subjects play anonymously Would not know if they were playing with the same player twice No fear of reprisals or rewards later Stakes of the game denominated in money Chapter 8 Democratic Transitions A Bottom Up Transition The people overthrow an authoritarian regime in a revolution i Collective action theory focuses on forms of mass action or collective action such as the protests in East Germany Typically collective action concerns the pursuit of public goods by groups of individuals Forms of collective action protests strikes revolutions lobbying ii CAP Problem Free riding Certain incentives discourage individuals from using collective action to achieve their common interests Individuals have little incentive to contribute to the provision of a public good that will benefit all members of a group iii Equilibria Solving Equilibrium 1 No one participates No one will want to participate because they will pay the cost of participating but the one person rally will be a failure Equilibrium 2 Exactly K people participate If exactly K people participate all participants are critical to the rallies success while none of the non participants will want to participate because the rally is successful without them Chapter 10 Varieties of Dictatorship Three types of Dictatorships 1 Monarchy an autocracy that relies on kin and family network to come power and stay in power Royal family determines succession 2 Military dictatorships the executive relies on the armed forces to come and stay in power are often ruled by committee of Junta guardians of the national interest biggest threat to stability is more military coups 3 Civilian dictatorship relies on regime parties or personality cults to stay in power ex china and north Korea A dominant party dictatorship is where one party dominates office and control over policy though other parties may exist and compete in elections ex communist party PRI in Mexico A personalistic dictatorship is where the leader although often supported by a party military controls all policy decisions and selection of regime personnel weaken others to present challenges weak parties military press strong secret police arbitrary use of state violence that keeps population in fear personality cults help leaders hold on to power by citizen s beliefs Electoral authoritarianism is where leaders hold elections and tolerate some pluralism and interparty competition but also violate minimal democratic norms Variation in elections in dictatorships competition suffrage competitiveness electoral system Selectorate Theory characterizes all governments by their location in 2D institutional space the size of the selectorate and the size of the winning coalition Assumes that political leaders are motivated by the desire to gain and maintain office even if they have other goals political competition forces them to pursue and maintain office whether we observe that competition or not and someone always wants leader s position office seeking explains much of leaders behavior Leaders choose different kinds of outcome economic performance war and conflict provision of public goods corruption good economic performance does not necessarily result in longevity in power some environments encourage leaders to behave in way that
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