What were some main ideas of the article?
- examine the boundaries between democracy and authoritarianism
- soft manipulation tactics are authoritarian controls
- cover the conceptual ambiguity
- extend concept of authoritarianism to include government contestability
ROBERT DAHL ROB DAHL
Explain robert dahls conception of a democracy as a polyarchy
- elected government must face a degree of political contestation generated by other polticial/social forces during tenure
- this is on top of the inclusive public participation
Define low contestability
- A single political force stays in power for a long time without any serious challenge by other political forces
- no foreseeable prospect of losing power due to weak oppositions
What does the procedural definition of democracy lack?
Dahl
- contestability
- the low levels of contestability are seen as legitmate outcomes insofar that public participation is open and citizens dont face obstacles in participating
basically saying that if public participation is open to citizens contestability really isnt an important factor to consider
What does dahls polyarchy say about low levels of contestability
it is then an inclusive hegemony
* distinct political system that is open but has low levels of contestability
* puts the “democracy” in question of whether it is actually a democracy or not
*
Why is it important to define a democracy from authoritarianism?
- dictators can mimic democracies through elections and other political parties
- leaders who get high popularity votes will credit that to populations and not systemic flaws (basically they deserve it, when in reality they have no challenge)
**the use of soft manipulation and co-optation tactics*
What is conceptual stretching?
covering these boundaries of non democracy too far in order to cover this type of regime
What does conceptualizing democracy in procedural terms fail to do?
- fails to capture how soft tactics serve as informal restrictions to effective political competition in OPEN political systems
Name some important aspects to Dahls Conception of Democracy?
- contestability with REAL opponents (strong oppositions and autonomous civil societies)
- pluralist view of politics
- higher threshold for democracies
- certain DEGREE of political competiveness
- no limits on public contestation
What also improves inclusiveness of political system and degree of contestability?
the exercise of political rights and civil liberities
Qualifications of a dominant position
- length of tenure
- size of parliamentary majorities
- impact of policies on national agenda
- size of minority parties
- length in office
Inconclusive area
no systematic use of typical authoritarian tools but incumbents electoral defeat does not seem very likely in future
they not losing any time soon
What is an inclusive hegemonic view on dominant parties/weak parties
dominant - increased party effectiveness
weak - incapacity to create a eqaully appealing agenda
What does Robert Dahl say about reconfirmed political leaders?
- the voting was conducted in a way that used co-optation and socioeconomic pressures that targeted the opposition and civic society organizations
define a pred-dominant party system
- major party consistently winning with majority voters
- other parties exist and are legal/legitmate competitors (even if not effective)
- power is not ruled out, and there is space for dissent
hegemony system
- other parties are able to operate as long as they do not have a chance at winning
What does the limitating the degree of government contestability rely on?
- soft manipulation tactics (state propaganda, excessive rent distribution, pork-barrel politics)
- socioeconomic pressures that influence political behavior rather than formal restrictions
*Socioeconomic sanctions on dissenting political behavior on a scale that adjust citizens decisions because of fear of systemic violent repression
What is the procedural view on how political empowerment is attainable?
- through participation in decision making process by citizens in democracy the development of human capacities creates a competitive political system
- civic participation = high level of political competitiveness
pluralist lens of democratic politics
- rights equally distributed generate a free arena for collective expression of conflicting views in politics
- collective action and shifiting alliances
- encouragement of opposing views and alternation of parties
limited contestability wouldnt be normal if there were prescence of conflicting claims
3 important components in citizen defense against political domination
- preserving organziational pluralism (vertial power relations between individuals/state power and horizontal power relations between citizens and groups)
- provides neutral arena for diverse social groups to compete over pol
procedural view leaves this outside of their conceptual lens
