55 Cards in this Set
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State
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an entity that uses coercion threat of force to rule a given territory
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government
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is a set of people who run the state: they are the means through which state power is exercised
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regime
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a set of rules, norms, or institutions that determine how the government is constituted, organized and major decisions are made. ie Tunisia, Australia
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Democracy in Historical Perspective
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Until the middle of the nineteenth century, democracy was associated with an obsolete and ancient political system that was dangerous and unstable.
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Democracy in Historical Perspective
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Concern with relative merits of different forms of government goes back at least to Aristole and plato
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Demokratia
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"rule by the people" but without distinguishing who the people are.
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Demos actually referred to the "common people."
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people with little or no economic independence, no education, and no knowledge of politics.
These people were expected to pursue their own interests at the expense of the commonweal.
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plato
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did not see democracy as government by the people. Saw as gov by the poor and uneducated against rich and educated. Believed political decisions should be based on expertise and allowing people to rule in a democracy would lead to mob rule and class warfare.
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Aristotle
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disagreed with Plato to the extent that he believed there were conditions under which the will of the many could be equal or wiser than the will of the few.
But he did not necessarily think highly of democracy
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Aristotle's Typology
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one-monarchy-tyranny
Few - Aristocracy- Oligarchy
Many-Politeia-Democracy
Aristotle saw Democracy as class rule. Democracy was class rule by the worst class.
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Aristotle believed there were good forms of each gov. good= rulers governed in interest of the common good. What was the concern?
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That each of these good forms could be corrupted. Aristotle wanted to choose the system that had the least bad corrupt form of government. Some argue we are living in an international.
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how was democracy seen and what was it associated with?
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seen as dangerous not even associated with elections. Offices distributed by lot. Monarch was consistently preferred to democracy.
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Democracy was seen as
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Obsolete. It meant direct legislation by the people, not by representatives of the people. Even if you choose representatives you choose them to rep people. It could work in Athens not in modern world because it was a small city state so relatively small but US with 300mil people how cou…
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when did Democracy really enter west European political rhetoric?
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At the end of the 18th century. People had talked about representative government and popular sovereignty for some time, but not of democracy. Democracy became popular when Aristocracy and aristocrat came into common usage.
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Why did Democracy and Aristocracy come? What did it replace?
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They came to designate the main lines of cleavage in the age of Revolution.
The classical three-way distinction between the one, the few, and the many gradually became replaced by the two-way distinction between democracy and autocracy.
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how did it become common to refer to all non-democracies after WWI? Is the negative connotation how it was meant historically?
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as dictatorship
No it is contrary to its historical usage. should apply rather to tyranny despotism or autocracy.
In the ancient world dictatorship had a positive connotation.
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What was a dictator in 500BC-third century AD?
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an extraordinary Roman magistrate
Nominated only for the duration of the extraordinary task entrusted to him.
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what was Roman dictatorship like?
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Legitimating state of necessity
full powers of command
one person alone invested with command.
Short duration of office
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Quotes from machiavelli Rousseau.
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“Dictatorial authority aided, not damaged, the Roman republic.” (Machiavelli)
“In these rare and obvious cases public security is provided by a particular act entrusting the office to him who is most worthy.” (Rousseau)
Dictatorship has now obviously lost its positive connotation.
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It is clear that our understanding of democracy and dictatorship has changed over time. This is interesting.
BUT we are political scientists who are interested in how the world works, not philosophical debates.
We want to answer substantive questions like the following ones.
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Do democracies or dictatorship lead to higher levels of growth?
Do democracies or dictatorships increase life expectancy?
What factors increase the survival of democracies?
What factors increase the probability that a dictatorship will become a democracy?
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two views of democracy
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substantive view
Procedural or minimalist view
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Substantive view
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Classify political regimes in terms of their outcomes that they produce.
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Procedural or minimalist view
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classify poltical regimes in terms of their institutions or procedures
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who argued that we should use a procedural or minimalist view of democracy?
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Dahl
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Why did Dahl speak of Polyarchies
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he did not believe any large country in the world was ever fully democratized.
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Polyarchies
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based on two dimensions 1. Inclusion and 2. Contestation
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Inclusion
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who gets to participate in politics? Who gets to vote?
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Contestation
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extent to which citizens have organized themselves into competing blocs. Democratic competition. Political power so not really democracy
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Democracy -Dictatorship (DD) was built on what?
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Builds on Dahl’s (1971) notion of “contestation” and Schumpeter’s (1942) notion of competition.
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Is democracy a Regime?
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yes it is a regime in which governmental offices are filled as a consequence of contested elections.
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Democracy-Dictatorship A country is a democracy if:
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if political competition is really important
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if these conditions do not hold then under DD it is a dictatorship.
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1. The chief executive is elected
2. the legislature is elected.
3. there is more than one party competing elections.- need options to call it a real election.
4. There has been an alternation in power under identical election rules.
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A country is either a
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dictatorship or a democracy
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Contestation is very important of DD. it occurs when there is an?
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opposition that has some chance of winning office as a consequence of elections.
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What are examples of contestation under DD?
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1. ante uncertainty
2. Post irreversibility
3. repeatability
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under DD how many alternatives must their be to chose from?
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Two, states where voters only have a single party list are excluded (i.e. syria, Turkmenistan and Vietnam) other wise not a real choice.
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Ante uncertainty under DD
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outcome of election is not known before it takes place. If you were in North Korea could you predict the outcome of the election with 100% certainty yes. These are not real elections
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Ex post irreversibility DD
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the winner of the electoral contest actually takes office.- military coo???
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repeatability under DD
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elections occur at regular and known intervals.- There is a cycle of election every 4 or 5 years otherwise a dictator may come and delay the elections for an unseeable future.
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DD builds on Dahl in two ways.
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Purely procedural or minimalist view of democracy.
Focuses on Dahl’s notion of contestation.
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What is the main difference between DD and Dahl?
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DD treats regime type as a dichotomy (democracy or dictatorship) rather than as a continuum (more or less democratic).
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Polity IV- a dynamic measure
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Empirical scope is 190 countries from 1800 to the present.
Provides an annual evaluation of democracy and autocracy.
Democracy Measure 0-10. a full democracy is going to be positive 10.
Autocracy Measure 0-10.
From these two measures it provides a Polity Score.
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From which two measures provides a Polity Score?
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Democracy and Autocracy
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from democracy measure and autocracy measure how is polity score calculated?
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Polity Score = Democracy Measure–Autocracy Measure.
Ranges from –10 to 10.
Polity: +6 -- + 10 : Democracies
Polity: -5 -- +5 : Mixed regime
Polity: -6 -- -10 : Dictatorships
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What is Polity IV measured on?
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1. Competitiveness of executive recruitment
2. Openness of executive recruitment – all need to be able to vote example Iran religious clergy restrain who can vote,
3.Executive constraints/decision rules – the guardsman should be accountable to the legislature
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4.Regulation of p…
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in Polity IV how much is each attribute worth?
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each attribute worth a different number of points.
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Freedom house
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rate countries the level of freedom they might have. Many use this as a measure of democracy main approach is to classify freedom into political rights and civil rights.
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what is the empirical scope of Freedom house?
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194 countries 14 territories from 1927 to the present.
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is freedom house rate explicitly a measure of democracy?
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No it is an annual evaluation of the state of global freedom.
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Freedom has two broad categories
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political rights(right to vote and compete for office, and so on)
and civil rights(freedom of speech and son on) and is based on Universal Declaration of Human rights.
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What does Freedom house base it scores on and how do they classify countries?
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political and civil rights. and Free, Partly Free, and not Free.
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Freedom house uses surveys and ranks the questions and assigns scores and values based on the response they get. They combine the info and classify countries. The higher the score the less free you are.
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Political rights and civil rights scales-
Take the average of these two 7-point scales and determine if a country is free (1-2.5), partly free (3-5.5) , or not free (5.5-7).
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Political rights
Civil Rights
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country is awarded 0-4 points for each of 10 questions.
take these points and place on a 1-7 scale
country is awarded 0-4 points for each of 15 questions put these points on a 1-7 scale.
Take the average of these two 7-point scales and determine if a country is free (1-2.5), partly f…
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Freedom house types of poltical rights questions
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1.Is the head of state elected in free and fair elections?
2.Is there pervasive corruption?
3.Is the government accountable between elections? is it open and transparent?
4.Do people have the right to organize?
5.Is there a competitive opposition?
6.Do minorities have reasonable auto…
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Freedom house types of civil rights questions
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1.Is the media free and independent?
2.Are there free religious organizations?
3.Is there an independent judiciary?
4.Is there equal treatment under the law?
5.Are there free trade unions?
6.Is there equality of opportunity?
7.Do citizens have the right to own property?
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POLSC 135: Notes