Exam 4 study materials Flashcards
What is the primordialist view of nationalism
Primordialists have an evolutionary view of nations where historical communities that share a common ancestry are the basis for nationalism.
Stresses the primordial ties of ethnicity and language
Ethnic communities emerged out of prehistoric times and entered history as the basic units of human experience which means that:
»»Nations are natural and last through time
»»All periods of history will contain nations
What is the modernist view of nationalism
Emphasizes nationalism as a political strategy
Nations as a particular form of ethnic community that merges cultural identity with political demands
Historically recent phenomenon linking politics and culture
»»>The TERM “nationalism” coined in the late 19th century
»»>As an idea: principle of nationality in the 18th century (each nation had a right to its own state)
The “new politics” of nationalism originated in the French Revolution as an appeal to the people
The idea that people constitute the nation was the CENTRAL IDEA in the french revolution (unitary and centralizing characteristics)
The idea that “nation” is defined by language and territory
Nationalism is spread to the masses through education and the military
Centralization and cultural assimilation of minority elites
What is the “common doctrine of nationalism”
@global scale:
»»The world consists of a mosaic of nations
»»World order and harmony depend on expressing this mosaic in a system of free nation-states
@national level
»»Nations are the natural units of society
»»They have a cultural homogeneity based upon common ancestry and/or history
»»Every nation requires its own sovereign state for the true expression of its culture
»»All nations (not to be confused with states) have an inalienable right to a territory or homeland
@local level
»»Every individual must belong to a state
»»A person’s primary loyalty is to the nation
»»Only through the nation can a person find true freedom
Used as JUSTIFICATION for:
»»politically divided world
»»politics limited to internal to nation-states
»»local state is bypassed as experiences are transcended by higher and more remote ideals
Effects on SOCIAL RELATIONS:
»»forced other ideologies to adapt to or be crushed by nationalism
> > > > Nationalism split with liberalism in 1848
> > > > The internationalism of socialism was defeated at the outbreak of WWI in 1914
CRITIQUE of the common doctrine:
»»It is not useful as a framework for understanding nationalism
»»Nations are created (politically constructed) and reflect the politics in which they are made
Use of history by nationalism:
History produced by “rediscovery”
Every nationalism is based on particular-ism and each has it’s own character. Nations have national myths and distorted histories. Without cultural histories there can be no nation. HOBSBAWM -“getting history wrong is part of being a nation” National histories provide SPACE-TIME coordinates of the nation, its poetic places (its “place”, landscape, sacred sites and historical monuments), and creates a national mythology of a golden age of heroes.
REDISCOVERY:
»»When a new nation has had a formal political existence over a long period and creates a history for itself through a new and particular compilation of the facts
> > > > Creation of highly selective national histories of what is included and emphasized (which can change over time)
Use of history by nationalism:
History produced by “conjecture”
Every nationalism is based on particular-ism and each has it’s own character. Nations have national myths and distorted histories. Without cultural histories there can be no nation. HOBSBAWM -“getting history wrong is part of being a nation” National histories provide SPACE-TIME coordinates of the nation, its poetic places (its “place”, landscape, sacred sites and historical monuments), and creates a national mythology of a golden age of heroes.
CONJECTURE:
»>When a nation is less endowed with historical material
»»A history must be created by conjecture in a process of reconstruction
Use of history by nationalism:
History produced by “fabrication”
Every nationalism is based on particular-ism and each has it’s own character. Nations have national myths and distorted histories. Without cultural histories there can be no nation. HOBSBAWM -“getting history wrong is part of being a nation” National histories provide SPACE-TIME coordinates of the nation, its poetic places (its “place”, landscape, sacred sites and historical monuments), and creates a national mythology of a golden age of heroes.
FABRICATION:
»»In rare cases national history is just made-up. An example would be the tradition of the kilt in Scotland.
Standard typology of nationalism:
Discuss proto-nationalism
Original core states of western Europe (England, France, Portugal, Sweden, the Netherlands).
State preceded nation. State produced nation. Nation produced nationalism.
»»Nationalism as an ideology was not fully developed until later in the 19th century.
Standard typology of nationalism:
Discuss unification nationalism
Unification nationalism was the justification for uniting nations and creating nation-states.
Examples: Germany (1871) and Italy (1870)
They were the HEARTLAND of nationalist ideology - this is where the full development of the ideology of nationalism took place.
Standard typology of nationalism:
Discuss separation nationalism
Disintegration of existing sovereign states
Examples: Ottoman (1878), Austro-Hungarian (1918) and Russian Empires (1917) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Revival in the 1970s and 80s in western Europe.
Scotland, Wales, the Basque country, Catalonia, Corsica, Quebec and Wallonia were not successful at creating nation-states for themselves but they did get political concessions within the framework of their existing states.
SOURCES of separation nationlism:
»»Political - opposition to centralization of the nation state
»»Cultural - opposition to assimilation and secularization
»»Economic - either subsidizes the rest of the country (Spain) or economic underdevelopment
Cultural regionalism
In Europe: mainly defensive, traditionalist, catholic and conservative
Spread from W.Europe to E.Europe in the 1980s
Successful in E.Europe in the 1990s & 2000s
Examples: Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, the Baltic States, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Kosovo etc
Standard typology of nationalism:
Discuss liberation nationalism
Most common form of nationalism
> > > > Associated with the breakup of European overseas empires (decolonization).
> > > > National liberation movements: LIBERAL nationalist movements include 1) U.S. independence 2)Latin American revolutions (1800s) and SOCIALIST nationalist movements were typical for the 20th century in the periphery
> > > > Liberation nationalism based on European settler groups
> > > > Liberation nationalism based on indigenous peoples
Standard typology of nationalism:
Discuss renewal nationalism
Non-European countries with long histories that never became European colonies
Emulated the proto-nationalism of the core often using a politics similar to unification nationalism (calls for new nationalism to return to a former greatness)
Examples in the 20th century include: Japan, China, Iran, Turkey, Russia, Mexico and Israel
20th century nationalism:
Discuss revolutionary nationalism
The idea that people can choose which nations (state) they wish to belong to
20th century nationalism:
Discuss national self determination
Type of nationalism that forces people into the nation as defined BY THE PEOPLE.
Required participation of the population in a direct vote to determine state boundaries based on what state the people want to belong to, the majority wins and all are forced to belong to that state because the boundary is drawn based on the results of the vote
Used in Europe after WWI and between 1848 and 1870
20th century nationalism:
Discuss national determinism
State forces people into the nation as defined BY THE STATE - -nations are created
People have no say in the matter
State decides (usually) based on territory they live in and language of the people
dominated the boundary drawing at Paris in 1919
20th century nationalism:
Discuss banal nationalism
Belief that nationalism is part of everyday life in all societies
nation and nation state are natural and are taken for granted necessities that organize our live and frame our outlooks:
»>American Examples: flags and other national symbols with commonplace functions
»>Daily reminders in the media that we are part of a particular nation
»>Division of news into national and international (home/foreign)
»>Other ways nation-ness is part of our lives: passports, Olympics, World cup etc
The nation state provides nationals with their fundamental space-time identities
Nation-States:
List Mikesell’s classification
Part-nation-state
single-nation-state
single-nation-state with one ethnic group
non-nation-states
Nation-States:
Discuss “part-nation-states”
Areas where an ethnic group (nation) is dispersed across multiple states
Most common in Asia
Arab nation - 17 nation states
Nation-States:
Discuss “single-nation-states”
A single ethnic group dominates ONLY ONE STATE and where their presence is more than 95% of the total population.
Examples: Iceland, Japan, Somalia
Nation-States:
Discuss “single nation states with one ethnic group”
A single ethnic group dominates A state by less than 95% but MORE THAN 60% of the total population:
Examples: USA, Britain, Sri Lanka, Nicaragua, Zimbabwe
Nation-States:
Discuss “non-nation-states”
A state where no single ethnic group is more than 60% of the population:
»»INTERMEDIATE- a single ethnic group is 40 to60% of the total population
EXAMPLE: The Philippines, Sudan
> > > > Bi-NATION - Two ethnic groups account for greater than 65% of the states population
EXAMPLE: Africa (most common) but also Belgium, Peru & Fiji
> > > > MULTI NATION-states with a high degree of ethnic fragmentation.
EXAMPLE: Also most common in Africa because of superimposed boundaries (Nigeria especially) but also India & Malaysia
Minority nationalism:
List sources of minority nationalism
Political
Cultural
Economic
Minority nationalism:
Discuss political sources of Minority nationalism
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Minority nationalism:
Discuss cultural sources of Minority nationalism:
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Minority nationalism:
Discuss economic sources of Minority nationalism:
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Minority nationalism:
What strategies of minority nationalism have been used in Western Europe
violence against the state & it’s agents
non-violent resistance
political opposition parties
Minority nationalism:
violence against the states and it’s agents
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Minority nationalism:
non-violent resistance
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Minority nationalism:
Political opposition
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Modern theories of nationalism:
List Marxist theories of nationalism
MARXIST - traditional Marxist approach
NAIRN- nationalism and uneven development
ANDERSON- Imagined Communities
FLINT & TAYLOR -world system approach
Nationalism as resistance
Feminist
Fourth world perspective
Modern theories of nationalism:
Discuss the traditional Marxist approach
Modern theories of nationalism are critical perspectives that distanced themselves from the ideological doctrine of nationalism (nationalists theory of nationalism).
MARXIST:
Nationalism treated as being characteristic of a particular phase of capitalism- specifically the rise of the bourgeoisie in Europe in the 19th century. Once the bourgeoisie had consolidated its hold on the state the need for new national-isms would lessen.
CRITIQUE: Unable to explain new national-isms in Europe in the second half of the 20th century
Modern theories of nationalism:
Nationalism from ABOVE -Emphasizes the role of the bourgeoisie in nationalist movements
Discuss Nairn’s view of nationalism and uneven development
Modern theories of nationalism are critical perspectives that distanced themselves from the ideological doctrine of nationalism (nationalists theory of nationalism).
NAIRN:
Nationalism and uneven development (1977).
Nationalism is a compensatory reaction to uneven economic development (modernization).
> > > Survival strategy of bourgeoisie in European semi-periphery to prevent further peripheralization - serves to close ranks in order to compete and catch up to the core
Unification nationalism in Germany and Italy
Spread of nationalism following uneven development, from Germany and Italy to Eastern Europe (separation nationalism) and outside Europe (liberation nationalism).
Diffusion of nationalist ideology within societies in Europe according to Nairn:
»>PHASE A - small intelligentsia initially reacting to the French Revolution
»>PHASE B - diffusion through the middle classes between 1815 and 1848
»>PHASE C- diffusion through the lower classes in the second half of the 19th century
»>OUTCOME: modern popular nationalism
CRITIQUE: Euro-centrism bias
Modern theories of nationalism:
Nationalism from ABOVE -Emphasizes the role of the bourgeoisie in nationalist movements
Discuss Anderson’s view of imagined communities
Modern theories of nationalism are critical perspectives that distanced themselves from the ideological doctrine of nationalism (nationalists theory of nationalism).
ANDERSON:
With the development of capitalism nation had replaced religion as the cultural system within which people could find identity
»>two reason for imagined communities becoming integrated by nationalist ideology instead of religious ideology:
1) development of PRINT TECHNOLOGY
and
2) the existence of DIFFERENT LANGUAGES in Europe.
Formation of separate language based print markets created a feeling of community in time and space
THREE PHASES and TYPES of nationalism:
- CREOLE-1770-1830 in America
- POPULAR-1870-1920 in Europe
- OFFICIAL -1920 to present
Modern theories of nationalism:
Discuss Flint & Taylor’s view of nationalism viewed through the world systems approach
Modern theories of nationalism are critical perspectives that distanced themselves from the ideological doctrine of nationalism (nationalists theory of nationalism).
Concentration of power centered on the state as nation-state in the past 100 years (nation and state have coalesced in a pooling of power potentials that has come to dominate our contemporary world).
Both state and nation have a relation to a particular segment of space, a place.
»>State is a sovereign territory
»>Nationalism is a territorial ideology
»>All other institutions do not have a relation to a particular segment of space, a place.
Thus states as nation-states have become our imaginary communities which define the space-time dimensions of the imagined community to which we all belong and provides it’s citizens with their fundamental space-time identities.
Modern theories of nationalism - Nationalism from BELOW:
Discuss nationalism as resistance
Modern theories of nationalism are critical perspectives that distanced themselves from the ideological doctrine of nationalism (nationalists theory of nationalism).
National struggle as class struggle
BLAUT 1987
Three forms of this nationalism int he world today
1) original bourgeois variety but it is lessening in importance
2) Intensified bourgeois nationalism of large capitalist states
3) National liberation struggles of the periphery
National struggle as an anti-systemic movement WALLERSTEIN 1984
»>World systems analysis perspective
»>National struggle is part of the anti-systemic movements that originated in the ideas of the French Revolution and developed during the 19th century to challenge the system. The SOCIAL MOVEMENT grew to articulate the demands of exploited classes (especially in the urban proletariat). The NATIONAL MOVEMENT grew to articulate the demands of exploited peoples especially in the semi-periphery.
Both social and national movement aimed to control state structures.
These two movements were opposing one another before 1917 but this dichotomy became far less important after 1917 and they coalesced after 1945 when all liberation movements claimed to be both national and socialist.
Modern theories of nationalism:
Discuss nationalism from the feminist perspective
Modern theories of nationalism are critical perspectives that distanced themselves from the ideological doctrine of nationalism (nationalists theory of nationalism).
FEMINIST Perspective
Emphasizes the differential role of women in constructing nations and nationalism and the belief that:
»>women’s work should be to give birth to and raise subsequent generations of the nation
»>Men’s work is to defend the nation
The sexist nature of the Nation-state
The relative exclusion of women from the public sphere of government and business operations
Modern theories of nationalism:
Discuss nationalism according to the fourth world theory
Modern theories of nationalism are critical perspectives that distanced themselves from the ideological doctrine of nationalism (nationalists theory of nationalism).
> > > Early 1980s
Focus is on nations instead of states or regions
5k to 8k ancient but internationally unrecognized nations of the Fourth World occupied by 206 international states
demonstrates how all states attempt to erase histories and geographies of the peoples they occupy EXAMPLE: Rohingya in Myanmar
Theory of Fourth world environments
Electoral Geography:
Who was Andre Siegfried
(Luke i am your…) FATHER of electoral geography
Electoral Geography:
Discuss the effects of quantitative revolution on electoral geography
Geography of voting - Explaining the patterns of voting after an election or group of elections
Geographic influences on voting - Four aspects can be explained: voting on issues, voting for candidates, effects of campaigns and the neighborhood effect
Geography of representation - Influence the number of districts and their boundaries on the composition of the legislature independent of the actual total votes for candidates and/or parties
Electoral Geography:
Discuss the development of electoral geography
Goal: to link election results and long term voting patterns to geographic and socio economic factors to understand particular election results or voting behavior
To address the failure to link geographies of elections into a coherent body of knowledge
to address the focus on the electoral geography of the core while ignoring periphery and semi-periphery
State based elections need to be placed within the structure of the world economy
Attention needs to be given to the political geography of social movements (not only elections)
Quantitative electoral geography:
Discuss ROKKAN’s geography of voting (1970) - model of alternative alliances and opposition (PARTY CLEAVAGES)
2 processes of modernization in modern Europe:
»>1) NATIONAL revolution (emanating from france)
»>2)INDUSTRIAL revolution (emanating from britain)
Each produces two potential conflicts
»>national#1 subject versus dominant culture conflict
»>national#2 Church versus state conflict
»>industrial#1 agriculture versus industry conflict
»>industrial#2 capital versus labor conflict
Each conflict has the potential to produce a social cleavage within any one country
The particular mixtures of cleavages deriving from these conflicts are reflected in the variety of political party systems in Europe (the nation building group in each European state made alliances with oone side or other in these conflicts forcing the opposition to form a counter-alliance)
NOT APPLICABLE OUTSIDE OF EUROPE (euro-centric!)
(After 1900 the rise of the labor party produced a particular right center left cleavage represented by three political parties: Conservatives, Liberals, Labor
The pattern of electoral geography still reflects these historical cleavages)
Stresses the local context within which voting occurred to interpret the election results. Four basic processes that may lead to local influences on voting decisions: Candidate voting, issues voting, neighborhood effect and differential effects of election campaign in different areas.
Quantitative electoral geography:
List geographical influences in voting
friends & neighbors (candidate) effect
neighborhood effect
issues voting
differential effect of campaigns in different areas
Quantitative electoral geography:
Discuss “friends & neighbors effect” (Candidate effect)
A candidate receives additional votes from his or her home area.
Quantitative electoral geography:
Discuss “neighborhood effect”
The tendency of a person to vote in a certain direction based on the relational effects of the people living in the neighborhood - people tend to vote with the general trend of the neighborhood
Quantitative electoral geography:
Discuss issues voting
A particular topic in an election is of more importance to some areas than others.
Quantitative electoral geography:
Discuss differential effect of campaigns in different areas
Particular targeting as in presidential elections in the US when additional effort is put into key swing states and other states are ignored because of the assumption that they always vote a certain way
Quantitative electoral geography:
Discuss “geography of representation”
is an analysis of elections in plurality systems and proportional representation systems.
Quantitative electoral geography:
What is a plurality system of representation
A plurality system is a winner take all system where a candidate is elected to the legislature on the basis of obtaining the most votes in a district. Used in the USA.
Quantitative electoral geography:
What is a proportional system of representation
Used in the rest of the world. Parties receive seats in proportion to their share of popular votes - electoral districts are unimportant.
Quantitative electoral geography:
Discuss the differences between plurality and proportional systems
Plurality elections favor larger major parties with geographically extensive support. Proportional systems do not and tend to have many parties.
Strongly discriminates against small parties with geographically dispersed support (USA third parties have historically been short lived). Proportional systems do not and small parties may end up represented in parliament and may even be part of the coalition that is in power.
Often produce disparities between the total proportion of the popular votes received by a party and the size of the delegation it sends to a legislature. Proportional systems by definition do not have this problem.
Quantitative electoral geography:
Discuss “districting problem”
Different electoral district boundaries (population size and shape of the district) produce different election results in terms of legislative seats even if he underlying pattern of voting remains the same
Quantitative electoral geography:
Discuss Mal-apportionment
the inequality in the population size of districts
Quantitative electoral geography:
List types of gerrymandering- (drawing the boundaries of electoral districts in such a way that it favors one party or group over another)
excess vote technique wasted vote technique stacked type innocent bipartisan districting bipartisan gerrymandering
Quantitative electoral geography:
Discuss excess vote technique
Reapportionment of the 435 seats in the house of representatives after each census is mandated by the constitution and enforced by the courts.
EXCESS VOTE
Drawing the boundaries in such a way that one group is concentrated in the fewest possible districts which means they win overwhelmingly but their influence is not felt in other districts where they may have had a chance of winning
Quantitative electoral geography:
Discuss wasted vote technique
Reapportionment of the 435 seats in the house of representatives after each census is mandated by the constitution and enforced by the courts.
WASTED VOTE
The lines are drawn so as to break up a concentration of voters into a number of districts so that their votes are wasted through dispersion and they are unable to elect anyone.
Quantitative electoral geography:
Discuss stacked type
Reapportionment of the 435 seats in the house of representatives after each census is mandated by the constitution and enforced by the courts.
STACKED VOTES
drawing curious shaped boundaries circumscribing grotesque shapes to enclose pockets of strength of the group in power to avoid areas of weakness. (to capture as many of that groups votes as possible to give them representation where they otherwise may have had none)
Quantitative electoral geography:
Discuss innocent gerrymandering
Non partisan districting does not necessarily eliminate districting problems and tends to favor the majority party in the area being redistricted so it’s not neutral in effect
Quantitative electoral geography:
Discuss NON-partisan districting
A neutral drawing of boundaries.
A neutral body draws the boundaries not politicians
Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa do it this way
Quantitative electoral geography:
Discuss bipartisan districting/ gerrymandering
Parties agree between them on the district boundaries.
This is popular in the US
Bipartisan GERRYMANDERING - produces sets of “safe” districts for each party but means that the influence of voters on the elections is diminished and it takes the uncertainty out of elections
(THAT means that the only competitive election becomes the primaries so each candidate tries to prove they are a real >insert party name< . This leads to extreme stands on policy issues at home and an inability to accomplish anything in DC because of an unwillingness to compromise (compromise would allow their political primary opponents to claim that they are less than a real >insert party name
Quantitative electoral geography:
Discuss a systems model application to political geography
Input –>Throughput–>Output
> > Input-geography of voting and geographical influences in voting
> > Throughput - Geography of representation
> > Output - Geographical effects of elections (geographical effects of the resulting legislature)
> Electoral geography was preoccupied with the input
The massive neglect of the output was highlighted
Electoral geography was given a purpose and focus beyond the elections themselves
Quantitative electoral geography:
Discuss the critique of quantitative electoral geography
CRITIQUE:
»Three distinct areas of interest with little cross reference
»Not well integrated into the mainstream of political geography (an uncoordinated and isolated sub discipline of political geography)
Quantitative electoral geography:
Discuss the critique of the systems approach to electoral geography
It’s built on the classic liberal assumptions of the 20th century core states
»>a receptive government respond to an electorate that articulates its demands through its representatives
»>Oversimplifies the reality - unable to explain a complete mismatch between input and output when it occurs
Elections typical for the core countries but less for the periphery
»>other ways to produce changes in government (irregular executive transfers) which are typical for the periphery. A peripheral political process that is almost entirely missing from the core.
Quantitative electoral geography:
COULTER -Discuss the global model of liberal democracy
1975
Index to measure the degree of liberal democracy that measured: political competitiveness, political participation and public liberties
Attempts to explain liberal democracy by examining GDP per capita and posits that:
»>Different levels of liberal democracy across the world result from economic core and peripheral processes
»>The core has overall higher level of liberal democracy than the periphery
World systems interpretation of elections:
Discuss the development of liberal democracy
Occurred in the 19th century in response to 3 questions:
LIBERALS:CONSTITUTIONAL question-advocated the replacement of arbitrary power by constitutional checks and balances
DEMOCRATS:POLITICAL question -argued that the people as a whole should exercise power in the new federal constitutions
SOCIALISTS: SOCIAL question - asked who the new elected governments will deal with urban poverty
The result was the social democratic state
World systems interpretation of elections:
Discuss “liberal democratic state”
Pluralist elections
Universal suffrage
Political freedoms
World systems interpretation of elections:
Discuss social democratic state
Welfare state
Political consensus among all major parties that this welfare expenditure is both necessary and proper
Paid for through progressive taxation
World systems interpretation of elections:
Discuss liberal-social-democratic state
Emerged in the core during the fourth Kondratieff cycle
An alternative social progressive politics to communism during the emerging Cold War geopolitical world order
World systems interpretation of elections:
Discuss difference in elections between core/semi-periphery and periphery
Political benefits of liberal and social democracy can never be wholly transferred to the periphery.
The core has a stable geography of voting based on a viable politics of redistribution
Non-core areas have unstable geographies of voting because of no viable politics of redistribution - the basic mechanism for maintaining party loyalty is missing.
World systems interpretation of elections:
Liberal democracy in the core - what is “the great act of organization”
The main purpose of political parties is to gain power to take control of a state apparatus and the great act of organization is simplification of choices of possible combinations of policies down to just a few (often just two) options.
Political alternatives are reduced to the extreme limit of simplification by political parties
it serves the needs of accumulation of capital in the hands of the few and the need to legitimize this accumulation
Parties set the political agenda by organizing the politics of the state
World systems interpretation of elections:
Liberal democracy in the core what is “the great act of mobilization”
Parties appeal for political support and to mobilize the population behind their politics
parties bring the population into the political process in order to legitimize politics
The power of parties is that voters can vote for or against a candidate but they can’t change the party system
World systems interpretation of elections:
Discuss cadre parties
Party associated with the great acts of organization and mobilization.
Originally organized only in parliament where they represented different special interests within the dominant class and did not constitute modern political parties
Became proper parties only after they were forced to mobilize support in the country because of the suffrage extensions and competition from new parties
Their organization is merely to find supporters and power continues to reside at the center. they are not responsive
emphasis on external policies like trade
emphasized organization
World systems interpretation of elections:
Discuss mass parties
Mass parties were created outside parliament
a very different type of political party compared to cadre party
emphasized mobilization of voters and potential voters into their parties
emphasis on internal policies like welfare
the socialist parties populist parties and some christian parties were the most successful
World systems interpretation of elections:
Discuss the politics of power
Operates in every election
it is about winning elections to promote policies favoring particular interests in the pursuit of capital accumulation (all governing parties must promote accumulation of some form)
Geography of power in elections has been relatively neglected -lack of available data
World systems interpretation of elections:
Discuss the politics of support
Parties develop and nurture it in order to win elections
A party cannot govern until it wins an election
most of electoral geography has been concerned with the geography of support
World systems interpretation of elections:
List three types of electoral politics
Contradictory
Disconnected
Congruent
World systems interpretation of elections:
What are contradictory electoral politics
Based on relationship between politics of power and politics of support:
An inverse relationship (HOBSON’S PARADOX)
Parties do not pursue policies that reflect the interests of the people who support them
World systems interpretation of elections:
What are disconnected electoral politics
No relationship
Typical for proportional representation system of voting
The voting and the government formation are distinct processes with parties having to form a coalition government
World systems interpretation of elections:
What are congruent electoral politics
A positive relationship
Parties pursue policies that broadly reflect the intersets of the people who support them
Typical for the core during the post 1945 period
Right wing parties: >>>policies that favor the upper middle class and base their support on that group
Left wing parties:
»>Policies that favor the lower middle end of the spectrum and base their support on this group
World systems interpretation of elections:
Discuss elections beyond the core
Qualitatively different political processes from elections in liberal democracies including frequent violence with traumatic and dangerous events.
Inability to develop a congruent politics because of mass poverty there are not enough resources to sustain a viable politics of redistribution in order to produce and sustain a liberal social democratic state.
This produces the politics of failure and instability in government
World systems interpretation of elections:
Discuss the theory of democratic consolidation
The belief that once countries develop democratic institutions, a robust civil society and a certain level of wealth their democracy is secure.
World systems interpretation of elections:
Discuss “signs of democratic de-consolidation in the core”
> > > Declining public support of democracy
Increasing public openness to nondemocratic forms of government like military rule
increasing support for anti-system parities and movements (political parties and other major players whose core message is that the current system is illegitimate)
Democratization and globalization:
Discuss the spread of democracy
1950 28% of countries were democratic
2008 60% of countries were democratic
There are two types of processes leading to democracy:
bottom up where the people demand it
and
top down where core governments impose conditions of multi-party democracy before dispensing economic aid
Democratization and globalization:
Discuss “A new geography of democratization”
Spread of elections is not the same as the spread of democracy.
Many elections that are held in poorer countries cannot be considered to be democracy and have led to an increase in political violence since 1960.
Democratization and globalization:
Discuss “strategies by established autocrats to manage elections to ensure victory”
> > > Lie to electors through the control of media
> > > Scapegoat a minority -establish a politics of hatred (us versus THEM) against the “OTHER” group/ minorities or foreigners
> > > Bribery - a key advantage of autocrats but unreliable
> > > Intimidation - risky since violence breeds violence
> > > Restrict the field -accuse key opponents of corruption thereby eliminating the strongest challengers
> > > Miscount the votes -reliable, unless internationals observers are present and effective
List the Five basic types of nationalism
Proto Unification Separation Liberation Renewal
What is Mazzini’s theory of Nations
Early 19th century belief that every nation was distinct and separate with no reason for conflict between them
Modern theories of nationalism:
What are the three phases and types of nationalism in Anderson’s imagined communities
- CREOLE-1770-1830 in America:
Resulted in the creation of new American states by national independence struggles. Did not lead to mass movements but served to promote the interests of the local born European settler groups (Creoles) against imperial rule. It was not based on language but on physical separation and it lead to the creation of new American States.
2.POPULAR-1870-1920 in Europe:
Languages became important in defining new communities -creating print languages. Pluralism was reduced by the development of the printing press in its creation of literary languages or print languages. Lead to the age of nationalism in the 19th century.
3.OFFICIAL -1920 to present:
The state attempts to exploit the popularity of nationalism to increase it’s own legitimacy and uses the system of national education to foster nationalist ideology. Forced language policies.
Why is nationalism necessary?
Politically necessary to anchor the multi-state system upon the principle of popular sovereignty
National myths provide social cohesion and the basis of political action
The nation is historically embedded by being the heir to pre-modern ethnic identity
World systems interpretation of elections
All electoral politics occurs within the overall political processes of the world economy - national elections are not insulated from the world economy.
Liberal democracy is concentrated in the core after 1945
»The geography of democracy is not a function of will or ability of particular states
»Their situation within the core-periphery hierarchy of the capitalist world economy is crucial
Cadre and mass parties merged after 1945 into a new form the representation party
More responsive than traditional cadre parties they make concerted appeals to the electorate beyond narrow party channels
Not mass parties because they are not primarily concerned with moblizing voters to accept a special political cause
provide the key step in synthesizing the needs of accumulation and legitimation
pragmatic and avoid ideology
EXAMPLES: Roosevelt’s new deal was the first, in Europe transition happened after WWII
