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POLSC 135: Notes
A monarchy |
relies on kin and family network to come to power and stay in power
lFor example, Qatar and Kuwait
l The royal family typically determines succession:
lThe peculiar case of Swaziland |
Military dictatorships |
-are often ruled by committee, or junta
The size of the junta varies, according to whether the ruler needs to build support to consolidate power
“Guardians of the national interest"?
For example, Guinea and Guatemala
The biggest threat to stability is more military coups |
civilian dictatorship |
lrelies on regime parties or personality cults to stay in power
lFor example, China and North Korea |
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classifying dictatorships
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Leader Succession in Three Types of Dictatorial Regime
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Country classification
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A dominant- party
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dictatorship is where one party dominates office and control over policy
Communist Party in Soviet Union
PRI in Mexico |
A personalistic dictatorship
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is where the leader controls all policy decisions and selection of regime personnel
Parties and the military are purposely weakened to prevent challenges to the regime
Weak press, strong secret police, arbitrary use of force
Cult of personality |
Personality cults
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lalter the beliefs of the citizenry
l But, why do citizens believe these ridiculous stories?
lPreference falsification means that the leader never knows the true level of societal support.
lPublic belief of outrageous stories represents credible signals of support
l Personality cults help the leader hold on to power |
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Typology of Dictatorship
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Electoral authoritarianism
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is where leaders hold elections and tolerate some pluralism, yet democratic norms are violated
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Hegemonic electoral authoritarian regime:
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where the leader's party wins with overwhelming majorities
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Competitive authoritarian regime
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opposition parties win substantial minorities
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These are distinct from politically closed authoritarian regimes,
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where no opposition party is granted legal space in the political arena
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alternative topology of dictatorships
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Criticisms of the alternative typology dictatorships:
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Subjective coding rules makes classification unreliable
lLimited use in some research questions
lFalsely combines two dimensions |
Elections in Dictatorships.
There is a great deal of variation in elections in dictatorships: |
Competition
Suffrage
Competitiveness
Electoral system
Dictators use elections in a number of ways to stabilize their rule |
Dictatorships & Regime Stability
We can determine how the type of regimes influences survival by examining inter-regime politics: |
Military dictatorships:
Last a shorter time
Are more likely to produce competitive elections
Dominant-party dictatorships will be quite stable
Personalistic dictatorships will also be sta |
Selectorate Theory
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Assumes that political leaders are motivated by the desire to gain and maintain office.- although most important goal and can’t be refuted may not be everything. Office itself may not be the main goal but it is an instrument. |
Political leaders may have other goals as well, but
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the competitive nature of politics forces them to at least behave as if they desire to gain and maintain office.
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A large proportion of a leader’s
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A large proportion of a leader’s systematic behavior can be understood from this perspective.
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It is important to remember that we always have political competition, whether we
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observe that competition or not–someone always wants your position.
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If all political leaders have the same (induced) goals, why do we get variance in outcomes?
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Why do some leaders produce good economic outcomes and some leaders bad outcomes?
Why do some leaders provide public goods, but others don’t?
Why do some leaders engage in kleptocracy or corruption, but others don’t?
Why do some leaders adopt policies that lead to peace and prosperity, but others adopt policies that lead to war and ruin? |
Given that all political leaders wish to gain power and keep it, you might think that they would all want to produce good economic performance.
However, |
good economic performance does not necessarily result in longevity in power.
The top twenty-five highest performing leaders from 1955-2002 lasted 6.0 years in office.
The top twenty-five longest lasting leaders in this period lasted 35.1 years. |
What explains the variation in the performance of political leaders?
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--Some environments in which leaders struggle to survive in office encourage them to behave in a way that benefits society, whereas other environments encourage them to behave in a way that benefits only themselves and a few others. Republic have to make everyone happy but in dictatorship not true. May be different who you need to keep happy to stay in power ie military other oligarchs in the country.
--The crucial element to this environment is how the leader is “Selected.” |
Selectorate theory
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characterizes all governments by their location in a two-dimensional institutional space. One dimension is the size of the selectorate, and the second dimension is the size of the winning coalition.
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The selectorate (S)
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is the set of people who can play a role in selecting the leader.
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The winning coalition (W) includes
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those people whose support is necessary for the leader to stay in power.
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Institutional environment in selectorate Theory
--- In a democracy all the residents are either directly or indirectly the selectorate. Maybe not 18 can’t vote but parents are going to look at you think about your future you’re going to be inlcuded in their voting decisions. |
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Many autocracies have rigged electoral systems and so S is very large but W is very small. Some autocracies do not use elections and so they have a small S and a small W–this is the same for monarchies. In monarchies the selectorate is the nobility and the winning coalition is a majority of the nobility. Most democracies have a large S and a large W. |
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To stay in power, leaders must keep members of their
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winning coalition happy.
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To stay in power, leaders must keep members of their winning coalition happy.
Leaders can do this by distributing (a) public goods and/or (b) private goods. |
Public goods can be consumed by everyone.
Private goods are consumed only by members of the winning coalition. |