Democracy and the State

Question 1

What does the concept of democratic consolidation do/ describes?

Answer 1

Concept used to separate systems in which elections are held but in which the democratic process is flawed from those that are democratic in the fullest sense

Also a concept that seeks to express the maturity or immaturity of democratic institutions and the likelihood of regress to authoritarianism

A concept that shows if democracy allready became the only game in town Prewortski

Question 2

Linz and Stepan 1996 wrote in the context of thier time an imprtant book about?

Answer 2

In…The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes, we wrote that “high priority for further work…should now be given…to the process of transition from authoritarian to democratic regimes, and…to the political dynamics of the consolidation of postauthoritarian democracies.”

Question 3

Linz and Stepan 1996 wrote a Characterisation of democracy: ‘Properly understood, democracy is more than a regime;” What is democracy than?

Answer 3

it is an interacting system

Question 4

What is Linz and Stepan 1996 ‘working definition’ of consolidated democracy?

Answer 4

Behaviorally, a democratic regime is consolidated when no significant national, social, economic, political, or institutional actors spend significant resources attempting to achieve their objectives by creating a nondemocratic regime or turning to violence or foreign intervention to secede from the state.

Attitudinally, a democratic regime is consolidated when a strong majority of public opinion holds the belief that democratic procedures and institutions are the most appropriate way to govern collective life in a society and when support for antisystem alternatives is quite small or more or less isolated from the pro-democratic forces.

Constitutionally, a democratic regime is consolidated when governmental and nongovernmental forces alike, throughout the territory of the state, become subjected to, and habituated to, the resolution of conflict within the specific laws, procedures, and institutions sanctioned by the new democratic process.

Question 5

What is consolidation for Linz and Stepan 1996?

Answer 5

‘A political situation in which…democracy has become “the only game in town”… In short, with consolidation, democracy becomes routinized and deeply internalized in social, institutional, and even psychological life, as well as in calculations for achieving success’ (p.5).

Question 6

What are according to Linz and Stepan 1996 ‘five other interconnected and mutually reinforcing conditions must also exist…for a democracy to be consolidated.’

Answer 6

In addition to a state ‘five other interconnected and mutually reinforcing conditions must also exist…for a democracy to be consolidated.’
1. conditions must exist for a free and lively civil society.
2. relatively autonomous and valued political society.
3. rule of law
4. state bureaucracy
5. institutionlized economic society.’

Question 7

What makes a modern consolidated democracy working, according to Linz and Stepan 1996?

Answer 7

‘A modern consolidated democracy can be conceived of as being composed of five major inter-relating arenas, each of which, to function properly, has its own primary organizing principle. Properly understood, democracy is more than a regime; it is an interacting system. No single arena in such a system can function properly without some support from one, or often all, of the other arenas.’ (pp.14-15)

Question 8

What are the five Major Arenas of a Modern Consolidated Democracy according to Linz and Stepan 1996?

Answer 8

1. Civil society - Freedom of association and communication
2. Political Society - Free and inclusive electoral contestation
3. State apparatus - rational-legel buraucratic norms
4. Rule of law - Constitutionalism
5. Economic society - Instizutionalized market

Question 9

What is Democratic Consolidation, or what should democratic consolidation should be again…according to Schelder 1998?

Answer 9

Written in 1998, criticises inflationary use of concept of ‘democratic consolidation’. Dem cons has come to mean everything and nothing, and we should return to the original – limited – meaning of the concept.

	‘Originally, the term "democratic consolidation" was meant to describe the challenge of making new 	democracies secure, of extending their life expectancy beyond the short term, of making them immune 	against the threat of authoritarian regression, of building dams against eventual "reverse waves." To this 	original mission of rendering democracy "the only game in town," countless other tasks have been added.’

	We should return to the concept's original concern with democratic survival. We should restore its classical 	meaning, which is securing achieved levels of democratic rule against authoritarian regression. That 	means we should restrict its use to the two "negative" notions described above: avoiding democratic 	breakdown and avoiding democratic erosion. The term "democratic consolidation" should refer to 	expectations of regime continuity--and to nothing else. Accordingly, the concept of a "consolidated 	democracy" should describe a democratic regime that relevant observers expect to last well into the 	future--and nothing else. Why should one restrict the use of "democratic consolidation" in this particular 	way and not another? The main reason is that all other usages of democratic consolidation (completing, 	organizing, and deepening democracy) are problematic and can be replaced by superior alternative 	concepts.’

Question 10

What is competitive Authoritarianism according to Levitsky and Way 2020?

Answer 10

Observed phenomenon that many states have competitive elections but also authoritarian traits
Wanted to give them a label that denies designation as democracy
Both domestic (weak democratic institutions) and international factors (weak pressure by Western states) have contributed to survival of competitive authoritarianism

Question 11

Are new competitive authoritarian regims spreading, according to Levitsky and Way 2020?

Answer 11

‘In recent years… competitive authoritarianism has emerged in a handful of very different countries. In Hungary, the Philippines, Turkey, and Venezuela, democratic traditions and institutions were stronger than in cases of the kind described above. There existed reasonably independent judiciaries and the rule of law was more or less established. Economies were more developed, and there were robust private sectors, vibrant civil societies, and strong opposition parties. Moreover, these countries’ extensive ties to the West meant that their governments faced greater external scrutiny than those in most of sub-Saharan Africa and the former Soviet Union. In these new cases, then, tilting the playing field was considerably harder. Incumbents confronted independent judges, prestigious independent media outlets, and oppositions with the resources to effectively mobilize supporters both on the streets and at the ballot box.’
(p.59)

‘What is even more surprising than the assault on democratic institutions in Hungary and Poland is the evidence that these strategies may be diffusing to established Western democracies.’
(p.62)

Italy, Austria, US,

‘Competitive authoritarianism is not only thriving but inching westward. No democracy can be taken for granted.’
(p.63)

Question 12

What is a facade democracy according to Philip`s 1999?

Answer 12

‘…elections are held freely but the government does not fully control the state. The state – by which is meant principally the army, the police and the judiciary – does fairly much as it sees fit. This is normally known as limited democracy, but at the extreme its critics could regard it as “façade democracy”.’

‘Some political systems may appear superficially to be democratic without being democratic at all. In such cases, democracy is no more than a façade, and the real power is in the hands of a dominant party or the military or an individual dictator. It may be better to regard such systems as non-democracies and to analyse them as authoritarian systems. We do, however, need to be concerned with systems in which there is a genuine democratic element, but in which this is not strong enough for a country to be considered fully democratic.

Question 13

Limited and facade democrcaý are accordig to philip 1999?

Answer 13

Philip’s focus is on ‘who governs’?

Lim dem exists when elected gov’t does not (really) control state

Real power in hands of dominant party or military or individual dictator – pretense of democracy is a mere façade

Elected government is distrusted by (more) powerful actors, who render democratic election mere façade

Question 14

What is Ritters´s 2015 conception of a facade democracy?

Answer 14

…a type of hybrid regime that combines democratic discourse with authoritarian practice. The regime’s liberal self-portrayal is simply a charade intended to placate audiences in the West. It is important to emphasize that the intended target of this farce is not the patron state, but rather human rights groups and media outlets that have the power to highlight the hypocritical nature of democracy–autocracy relations and to relay it to the general public. Allegations of human rights violations or stolen elections are particularly troublesome for façade democracies since such revelations may potentially force the patron to withdraw its support, which, in turn, could result in regime abandonment by domestic elites.’ (p.63)

Question 15

What is Ritters´s 2015 conception of a facade democracy?

Answer 15

State presents itself as democratic but remains authoritarian

Target audience is primarily international

Iran, Egypt, Tunisia depended on Western support

Human rights is language for state legitimacy

Patron state often prioritises different things (economics, stability) – human rights discourse becomes a double charade
Even hypocritical window dressing is not nothing

Human rights talks has real effects as soon as genie is out of the bottle

Like an iron cage, it increasingly traps both states and creates a dynamic on its own

Enhances chances of nonviolent revolutions

But tells us little about democratic fate after revolution

Question 16

What is a biased state?

Answer 16

Opposite of ‘neutral state’: State behaves
“organisationally” as well as institutionally
People in top positions - politicians, military, police,
economic technocracy, judiciary – do not necessarily
(have to) respect formal procedures
They can act more or less as they wish and
may prefer one party or one political outcome
Bias often in favour of incumbents
Football analogy – who interprets rules of the game?

Question 17

How does a biased state gets born?

Answer 17

Some countries have ‘democratized’ by holding competitive elections without adopting any serious culture of law enforcement. What has happened in some cases is that aspirants for state power have gained real political advantages from acting illegally. As long as this continues to happen, the prospects for subjecting the politically powerful to any plausible form of legal accountability is (to say the least) dubious.’ (p.74)

Question 18

What are 3 explanations for a biased state?

Answer 18

Illiberal Democracy (Zakaria)

Globalisation theories

State structure theories

For Philip, III (state structure theory) is most convincing but ‘has to be explained rather than assumed‘

Question 19

What are 2 hypotheses for state biase?

Answer 19

‘Electoral dem is likely to work well when there already exists a rule of law, good information and an expectation of public accountability. However where a culture of law-breaking already exists… forces of electoral contestation may well maintain it in place’ (p.79)

‘It is difficult, though not impossible, for dems to replace inherited patterns of state bias with effective systems of legal accountability. Marketoriented reform, on its own, is insufficient. Democratization, on its own, is insufficient… Where state-bias is not corrected, electorates may well end up unintentionally offering perverse inducements to law-breakers, to their own long-term disadvantage’ (p.79)

Question 20

Examples of State bias…

Answer 20

Continuation of state bias in Mexico: enabled presidency and PRI to limit the consequences of political change. While the presidency and the party leadership have priorities which differ to some extent, they very much need each other…The Mexican state has been biased toward PRI and its project of globalization in NAFTA (p.82)

Patterns of state bias in Peru: elites and people supported an efficient and successful state rather than risk voting for political liberals. Risk aversion, at both elite and popular level plausible partial explanation for persistence of state bias (p.86)

The Rejection of Punto Fijo Politics in Venezuela: polarisation and conflict lead to state bias (p.90)

Question 21

Whats the definition of Illiberal democracy from Zakaria 1997?

Answer 21

Def of illiberal democracy: ‘Democratically elected regimes, often ones that have been reelected or reaffirmed through referenda, are routinely ignoring constitutional limits on their power and depriving their citizens of basic rights and freedoms’ (p.22).

Question 22

Does Zakaria 1997 think that liberalism and democracy are linked?

Answer 22

‘Today the two strands of liberal democracy, interwoven in the Western political fabric, are coming apart in the rest of the world. Democracy is flourishing; constitutional liberalism is not’ (p.23).

Illiberal democracy is a growth industry. Seven years ago only 22 percent of democratizing countries could have been so categorized; five years ago that figure had risen to 35 percent. And to date few illiberal democracies have matured into liberal democracies; if anything, they are moving toward heightened illiberalism. Far from being a temporary or transitional stage, it appears that many countries are settling into a form of government that mixes a substantial degree of democracy with a substantial degree of illiberalism. Just as nations across the world have become comfortable with many variations of capitalism, they could well adopt and sustain varied forms of democracy. Western liberal democracy might prove to be not the final destination on the democratic road, but just one of many possible exits.
(p.24)

Question 23

Who coined the term Illiberal Democracy?

Answer 23

Zakaria
D. Bell et al, Towards Illiberal Democracy

Question 24

What is Kis definition of an illiberal democracy?

Answer 24

‘A regime that counts as illiberal democracy is a democracy in the sense that the government is elected and reelected. And it counts as illiberal in that the constitutional checks and balances are too weak to enforce their constraints on the government, allowing for a practice of depriving citizens of their liberal rights…
In an illiberal democracy, genuine opposition parties exist. They set up their candidates independently, rather than just nominating potential candidates for the slot assigned to them on a unique electoral list. The electoral system is far from being perfectly competitive, but there is some degree of competition: the victory of the ruling party is not secured independently of the vote. The system is democratic, since the rulers are authorized to govern by regular elections. But it is illiberal, because the government fails to respect the liberal rights of the authorizers.’
(p.181)

Question 25

What is in Kis opinion The Puzzle of Illiberal Democracy?

Answer 25

Tries to show that the ‘mainstream conception of democracy’, which rests on a particular understanding of liberal democracy, makes it too easy for people like Orban to wear the label as a badge of honour.
By reconceptualising liberal democracy, he wants to steal the thunder of these people by denying them even the label of democracy.

Question 26

Why is a illiberal democracy no democracy at all according to Kis?

Answer 26

Procedurally democratic decisions that violate individual rights have no democratic legitimacy
If 1) is right, then no such thing as illiberal democracy can exist. ‘This “unfortunate term” must go’.

Question 27

What does Delegative Democracy coined by Guillermo O’Donnell 1994 mean?

Answer 27

System run on basis of extreme personalism

People vote for president on basis that they choose a pure leader figure who will solve country’s problems

Lack of separation of power and strong role for executive

‘Delegative democracies rest on the premise that whoever wins election to the presidency is thereby entitled to govern as he or she sees fit, constrained only by the hard facts of existing power relations and by a constitutionally limited term of office. The president is taken to be the embodiment of the nation and the main custodian and definer of its interests. The policies of his government need bear no resemblance to the promises of his campaign–has not the president been authorized to govern as he (or she) thinks best?’ (pp.59-60)

Question 28

Delegative democracy and representative democracy, what is their relationship?

Answer 28

‘Delegative democracy is not alien to the democratic tradition. It is more democratic, but less liberal, than representative democracy. DD is strongly majoritarian. It consists in constituting, through clean elections, a majority that empowers someone to become, for a given number of years, the embodiment and interpreter of the high interests of the nation.’ (p.60)

Tricky relationship with representative democracy: Representation necessarily entails delegation, but in DD forms of horizontal responsibility (checks and balances) is extremely weak or absent (pp.61-62)

Question 29

What 4 terms does Schendler, 1998 use to categorize regimes?

Answer 29

1. Authoritarian
2. Electoral democracy (diminished, semi- type)
3. Liberal democracy (real
4. Advanced democracy
   (Fulfilling Dahl’s criteria —civil and political rights plus fair, competitive and inclusive elections —, ideal)

Question 30

What 4 types of transitions does Schendler mention (1998)?

Answer 30

Negative notions (concerned with democratic stability and avoiding regression)

• Quick death —> authoritarian regression (from electoral/liberal democracies to autocracy)
• Slow death —>from liberal to electoral democracy

Positive notions (Democratic advances and trying to progress towards liberal/advanced democracy)

• Democratic deepening —> from electoral/liberal to advanced democracies (increasing democratic quality)
• Democratic completing —> from electoral democracy to liberal democracy

Question 31

What is democratic breakdown and consolidation (Schedler, 1998)?

Answer 31

Democratic breakdown:
Keeping democracy alive, with preventing its sudden death || Dramatic, sudden and visible relapse to authoritarian rule

• To avoid breakdwon
  ‘Eliminating, neutralizing, or converting disloyal players represents the primary task of democratic-breakdown prevention’

Democratic consolidation:
‘Consolidating democracy means reducing the probability of its breakdown to the point where they can feel reasonably confident that democracy will persist in the near (and not-so-near) future’

• Positive notion —> ‘Reaching the goal of democratic continuity, maintenance, entrenchment, survival, permanence, endurance, persistence, resilience, viability, sustainability, or irreversibility. ‘
• ‘By contrast, negative formulations invoke the necessity of moving beyond democratic fragility, instability, uncertainty, vulnerability, reversibility, or the threat of breakdown’

Question 32

What is democratic erosion and completing democracy (Schedler, 1998)?

Answer 32

Democratic erosion:
‘Gradual corrosion leading to fuzzy semi-democracy, to a hybrid regime somewhere between liberal democracy and dictatorship.’

• Incremental transition rather than immediate, sudden
• Guillermo O’Donnel, 1992
  ‘A progressive diminuition of existing spaces for the exercise of civilian power and the effectiveness of the classic guarantees of liberal constitutionalism,” as a “slow and at times opaque” “process of successive authoritarian advances’
• Samuel P. Huntington, 1996
  ’The problem is not overthrow but erosion: the intermittent or gradual weakening of democracy by those elected to lead it’
• Possible ways of erosion
  
  1. Subverting the rule of law
  2. Rise of hegemonic parties
  3. Suffocated electoral competition
  4. Decay of electoral institutions
  5. Privileged access to state resources
  6. Exclusionary citizenship

Completing democracy:
‘A second transition from a democratic government to a democratic regime’
- Concerns
1. Formal authoritarian legacies need to be removed
2. Hegemonic party systems needs to be abolished
3. Transforming biased and selecting rule of law to universal political, civil and human rights (transforming from illiberal democracies; state reform and judicial reform)

Question 33

What is deepening democracy and organizing democracy (Schedler, 1998)?

Answer 33

Deepening democracy:
> ‘Deepening liberal democracy and pushing for advanced democracies’
>

• This is the least discussed idea
• Some (e.g. Latin American) countries possess ‘comparative disadvantages’ in virtually every field of democratic politics —> To whom is this ideal in reach?
• Reaching the Dahlian principles

Organizing democracy:
‘Consolidating democracy calls for more than institutionalizing democracy’s basic ground rules. It demands establishing democracy’s specific rules and organizations.’
- Organizing democracy is institution building
- Achieving modern-democratic infrastructure: ‘parties and party systems, legislative bodies, state bureaucracies, judicial systems, and systems of interest intermediation’
- ‘Organizing” democracy may bring us closer to the normative goals of preventing democratic regressions and effecting democratic advances’

Question 33

What is competetive authoritariansim according to Levitsky and Way, 2020?

Answer 33

Competitive authoritarianism:

‘the coexistence of meaningful democratic institutions and serious incumbent abuse yields electoral competition that is real but unfair’

Question 34

Why does competetive politics stil lexist according to Levitsky and Way, 2020?

Answer 34

‘To a striking degree, elections continue to be the only game in town.’
- Institutions of multiparty elections provide a ‘safety net’
- ‘Populist and ethnonationalist movements threaten liberal rights in many countries, but these challenges remain grounded in electoral politics’
- ‘Populism weakens liberal institutions, often pushing democracies into competitive authoritarianism, but it seldom does away with electoral competition. ‘

‘State and party weakness helps to account for the persistence of competitive authoritarianism—as opposed to full-blown dictatorship’
- Lack of resources and institutional capacity to eliminate opposition and maintain internal cohesion for consolidated hegemonic rule
- ‘Just as democracies are prone to serious problems of governance and governability when the state is weak, so too are autocracies.’
- ‘If the army, police, and other security units are ill equipped, underfunded, and undisciplined, they cannot be relied upon to put down even modest protests.’

Question 35

How does Fareed Zakaria distinguish liberalism and democracy (1997)?

Answer 35

According to Peter:
Democracy: procedural
Liberalism: substantive
‘Democracy is flourishing constitutional liberalism is not.’
————————————————

On democracy

• Huntington, 1991:
  ‘Elections, open, free and fair, are the essence of democracy, the inescapable sine qua non. Governments produced by elections may be inefficient, corrupt, short sighted, irresponsible, dominated by special interests, and incapable of adopting policies demanded by the public good. These qualities make such governments undesirable but they do not make them undemocratic.
  Democracy is one public virtue, not the only one, and the relation of democracy to other pubic virtues and vices can only be understood if democracy is clearly distinguished from the other characteristics of political systems’
• ‘But to go beyond this minimalist definition and label a country democratic only if it guarantees a comprehensive catalog of social, political, economic, and religious rights turns the word democracy into a badge of honor rather than a descriptive category.’
• ‘To have democracy mean, subjectively, “a good government” renders it analytically useless.’

On liberalism

• ‘Constitutional liberalism, on the other hand, is not about the procedures
  for selecting government, but rather government’s goals’
  
  • Liberal —> emphasize individual liberty
  • Constitutional —> rule of law
• ‘In almost all of its variants, constitutional liberalism argues that human beings have certain natural (or “inalienable”) rights and that governments must accept a basic law, limiting its own powers, that secures them.’

Constitutionalism

• ‘is a complicated
  system of checks and balances designed to prevent the accumulation of power and the abuse of office’

Absolute sovereingty

• ‘Constitutional liberalism is about the limitation of power, democracy about its accumulation and use.’
• ‘The tendency for a democratic government to believe it has absolute
  sovereignty (that is, power) can result in the centralization of authority, often by extraconstitutional means and with grim results.’
  
  • ‘usurpation [of power] that is both horizontal (from other branches of the national government) and vertical (from regional and local authorities as well as private businesses and other nongovernmental groups)’
  • Argentina: ‘Even a bona fide reformer like Carlos Menem has passed close to 300 presidential decrees in his eight years in office, about three times as many as all previous Argentinean presidents put together,
    going back to 1853’

Question 36

What is the problem with illiberal democracies according to Zakaria (1997)?

Answer 36

Illiberal democracy
- ‘If a democracy does not preserve liberty and law, that it is a democracy is a small consolation’
- ‘Illiberal democracies gain legitimacy, and thus strength, from the fact that they are reasonably democratic’
- ‘Democracy without constitutional liberalism is not simply inadequate, but dangerous, bringing with it the erosion of liberty, the abuse of power, ethnic divisions, and even war.’
- ‘Conversely, the greatest danger that illiberal democracy poses—other than to its own people—is that it will discredit liberal democracy itself, casting a shadow on democratic governance.’

Question 37

What is illiberal democracy according to Kiss János (2018)?

Answer 37

• ‘Some of the anti-system leaders, once brought to government by an electoral landslide, take recourse to juridical and extra-juridical violence to consolidate their regime’
• ‘These are cases in which political violence is sporadic, if it occurs at all;’
• ‘Opposition politicians are not killed or incarcerated’
• ‘Opposition parties are not prohibited, demonstrations are not disbanded by brutal police force, and critics of the government rarely, if ever, face criminal prosecution’
• ## ‘The grip of a hegemonic party and its leader on state and society is progressively tightening’
• ‘It condemns government not reined in by constitutional checks for its arbitrariness and its tendency to violate individual rights.’
• ‘It objects to the illiberalism of the regimes to which it is applied but it fails to contest their democratic credentials.’
• ‘So the concept, proposed with the aim of delegitimizing would-be autocrats, is easily appropriated by these same would-be autocrats for self-legitimation.’
• ‘Self-proclaimed “illiberal democrats” attack constitutional constraints on
  government’
• ‘Democracy, they insist, is compromised when unelected judges are allowed to overrule the decisions of the representatives of the people. What is commonly called liberal democracy is, according to them, a system where power is kidnapped by “liberal elites”’
• Illiberal democracy restores full power to the people. It is not just a legitimate version of democracy on a par with illiberal democracy—it stands for what democracy really is

Question 38

What is illiberal democracy according to Zakaria?

Answer 38

• ‘“[d]emocratically elected regimes, often ones that have been reelected […] through referenda, [that at the same time] are routinely ignoring constitutional limits on their power and depriving their citizens of their basic rights and freedoms’
• ‘a democracy in the sense that the government is elected and reelected. And it counts as illiberal in that the constitutional checks and balances are too weak to enforce their constraints on the government, allowing for a practice of depriving citizens of their liberal rights.’
• ‘the victory of the ruling party is not secured independently of the vote’

Question 39

What is a democracy and liberal democracy according to Kiss János ( 2018)?

Answer 39

• States claim rules —> people accept it—. legitimate regime
• Who makes the rules? —> The people to whom they are applied
• ‘In a democracy, whatever the people decides should be law, either in a referendum or by way of elected representatives, is law, and there is no law other than what is authored by the people’
  
  • Legislator —> either the people or a body of people’s elected representative
  • ‘Not all kinds of voting procedures count as legislative acts of the people.’ Criteria:1) Universal and equal adult ballot
    2) Citizens need to be able to take informed decisions3) Freedom to participate in public deliberation
    4) People elects representatives
    5) Elections must be competitive and periodic
    6) Election must be free and fair
    etc.
• ‘What a complete list of the relevant criteria consists of, and how the norms included in it are related to each other, has momentous implications for democratic theory’
• ‘It is sufficient to establish that if the procedure satisfies the relevant criteria, then the outcome commands democratic authority.’
  
  • ‘Whatever the content of the law, it deserves the obedience and support of each individual and the state has the right to enforce it against the disobedient, just because it has been adopted democratically.’
• ‘It is a virtue in a legal system that its laws are binding and can be rightfully
  enforced independently of their content’
• ‘The democratically made law has legitimate authority regardless
  of its content.’

Liberal democracy

• ‘It is a core claim of liberalism that individuals have rights and that those rights impose normative constraints on morally permissible decisions, whether taken by an individual, a group of private individuals, or by the public authorities of a state.’
  
  • ‘A decision system that allows for violating the rights of the individual is morally defective’
  • ‘The tyranny of the majority is still intolerable tyranny’ (quoting Tocqueville and Stuart Mill)
• ‘No matter how democratic the legislative procedure, its internal character leaves the outcome of the decisions underdetermined.’
  
  • ‘Not even the best democratic procedure can guarantee that
    the rights of individuals will not be violated or curbed, especially if the individuals in question are members of marginalized minorities’
  • ‘Democratic and liberal values are likely to clash.’
  • ‘Rights are not self-enforcing: they need institutional powers to identify and enforce them.’
• Summarized:

‘The mainstream conception insists that democratic government on its own is not enough. Liberal constitutionalism is also needed. Democracy is a regime type, while liberal democracy is one of its subtypes. There are two distinct sets of political institutions: democratic and liberal. Liberal democracy unites them in a single regime, it is both democratic and liberal. Illiberal democracy separates them; it is democratic but not liberal.’

• ‘A hybrid, a regime under the joint supervision of two separate and mutually independent principles: the democratic principle and the liberal principle’
• ‘The democratic principle regulates the procedures of succession in office and of legislation, and argues that the people has the right to enact—directly or indirectly—whatever law it wants to give to itself. The liberal principle imposes normative constraints on the legislative outcomes.’

Question 40

What is the dichotomy between liberal and illiberal democracy according to Kiss János (2018)?

Answer 40

• ‘“Illiberal democrats” advocate majority rule without any concessions, but an unrestrained pursuit of majority rule comes with a heavy moral cost, the cost of leaving liberal rights unprotected. Liberal democracy, on the other hand, achieves a compromise. It accommodates both liberal rights and majority rule to some degree.’
• Liberal democracy drawbacks:1) ‘Fails to appeal to anyone not already convinced about the superiority of liberal democracy over democracy without constitutional constraints.’2) ‘Liberal elitism’ —> ‘when it comes to the protection of individual rights, democratic decisions of the many can be overridden by the decisions of a few men and women without any popular mandate’3) ’it fails to secure enough room for protecting liberal rights against democratic decisions.’

Question 41

I argue, rather, that [liberal and illiberal] are rival conceptions of what the generic type “democracy” really is. If one of these is true, the other cannot be.’ (Kiss, 2018). Why?

Answer 41

• ‘Rule of the people’: Who are the people?
  
  • ‘The people is a collective agency’
  • ‘Members own their state together, as a people’
  • ‘As owners of the state, they have the right to decide together, as a people, how their state should make and enforce the law and what laws
    it should make and enforce’
• Illiberal reading of ‘people’
  
  • ‘In the illiberal reading, the people, as a collective entity, is an ultimate
    bearer of political value.’
  • ‘It has its own good, independent of and superior to the good of its members.’
  • ‘It has rights of its own that protect its interests even against the individual interests its members might have’
  • ‘This is what qualifies it to be the owner of the state, and to make decisions regarding the law.’
  • Two types of members of the ‘people’
    
    • ‘There are those whose personal views and lifestyles conform to the cultural identity of the people, and there are those with unconventional views
      and projects.
      
      • Second type is discouraged from promoting their ideas by authorities
• Liberal reading of ‘the people’
  
  • ‘the people is a political com munity of equals, and the rule of the people is self-government by that community.’
  • ‘collective owner of the state and collective lawmaker not because it is an entity of superior political value and a possessor of supra-individual good, but because its individual members are each other’s equals’
  • ‘No citizen can be legitimately denied equal part-ownership in the state, having jurisdiction over the territory they inhabit.’
    
    • ‘It entails that the state and the law must treat each individual with equal respect and concern.’
  • ‘The majority does not make law in its own name. It makes law in the name of the people as a whole, and the law cannot be attributed to the people as a whole if the minority has sufficient reason for disowning the decision outcome’ —> majoritarian support should not be enough; complete support should prevail.
  • ‘It is a democratic deficit in a regime if its laws systematically disadvantage a minority group or if particular pieces of legislation involve setbacks to significant personal interests;’
• ‘It is possible for procedurally democratic political decisions to violate justified individual claims against interference or discrimination.’
  
  • ‘Such decisions have no democratic legitimacy: they cannot be attributed to the people as a whole.’
• ‘Collective decisions commanding democratic legitimacy do not conflict with liberal rights: their legitimacy presupposes that the rights of the individual are respected by the decision outcome.’

Question 42

Can illiberal democracies exist? (Kiss, 2018)

Answer 42

Does illiberal democracy exist?

• ‘The concept “democracy” stands for a political ideal. Its liberal conception provides an interpretation of that ideal. When it argues that an illiberal regime is not a democracy, what it points to is only that the regime in question does not qualify as a full realization of the democratic ideal. But no existing democracy qualifies as a full realization of the democratic ideal.’
  
  • ‘The full satisfaction of the democratic ideal cannot be a condition for a regime to count as an instance of the regime-type “democracy”’
  • Importance is not on being ‘fully’ democratic, but ‘sufficiently’
• ‘Interpreting the democratic ideal is not a way to decide whether illiberal democracies are possible in the real world’
• ‘I agree that a regime-type that is sufficiently democratic overall and counts as illiberal at the same time is conceivable. Is there any interesting empirical instance of such a type? I have my doubts about this.’
• Suppose liberal egalitarian democratic government
  
  • ‘Suppose that the independence of all of [the institutions] comes under simultaneous assault by a government in possession of a strong
    enough legislative majority.’
  • ‘The regime ends up being neither liberal nor democratic, for such an assault undermines not only the rights of the individual but also the integrity of the political process.’
    
    • ‘It does so indirectly, as some of the endangered rights are distinctly political.’
      
      • e.g. freedom of expression: violates individual rights AND fairness of voting process
    • ‘The dismantling of the institutional checks and balances directly undermines the integrity of the political process’
      
      • ‘Once they are put under effective governmental control, curbing political rights and the distortion of the political process can advance without encountering any institutional resistance.’

Question 43

What is a facade democracy and the iron cage of liberalism? ( Ritter, 2014)

Answer 43

“Façade democracy”:
A type of authoritarian regime that for instrumental reasons embraces Western political values and norms, such as democracy, human rights, and individual liberty

Iron cage of liberalism —> once you start liberalizing, you can’t go back

Question 43

What is state bias (“non-impartial state) (Philip, 1999)

Answer 43

• Tendency of states institutions to favour certain groups or individuals over others
• Undermines rule of law
• Erodes public trust in institutions
• Perpetuates illegality
• Culture of lawbreaking, corruption
• Not disciplined election
  
  • Peru, Mexico, Venezuela,

’ (..) electoral democracy is likely to work well when there already exists a rule of law, good information and an expectation of public accountability. However where a culture of law-breaking already exists, then the forces of electoral contestation may well maintain it in place.’

• ‘By far the most convincing explanation for the continuation of illegal forms of politics is a long-term history of state bias and illegality’
• ‘Economic reforms are less likely than reforms to the state to touch the real core of state power’ —> technocratic reforms are not enough’
• ‘One has the impression that designing state reform is rather like trying to open a combination lock without having the formula to hand’