L2: Democracy and Autocracy Flashcards
Views of democracy
- Procedure-based (minimal view)
- Outcome-based (maximal view)
Levels of Polyarchy
- Level of inclusion: Who among the governed get to participate in the political process, and how much?
- Level of contestation: How easy is it for those who get to participate to organize themselves into competing blocs, each of which has a viable chance of winning power?
Definition of Polyarchy (Dahl)
a form of government in which power is invested in multiple people.
Factors of Level of inclusion
- Low voting age requirements
- Lenient citizenship requirements
- No property requirements
- No restrictions on convicted felons
- No gender and minority group restrictions
- Few ballot access or registration restrictions
Factors of Level of contestation
- Freedom of speech
- Freedom of assembly
- Independent press
- Ability to form political parties
- Absence of (legal or illegal) opposition-suppressing practices or institutions (e.g., beating up opponents, gerrymandering)
Measures of Democracy and Autocracy
- Polity IV (minimalist approach)
- Freedom House (maximalist approach)
Polity IV components
- Regulation of chief executive recruitment
- Competitiveness of executive recruitment
- Openness of chief executive recruitment
- Executive constraints: Are chief executives constrained in their decision making by other institutional actors (military, party apparatus, judiciary, legislature)?
- Regulation of participation: Are there rules on when, whether, and how political preferences are expressed?
- Competitiveness of participation: May opposition compete for leadership positions?
Freedom House Components
1- Political rights
• Electoral process (free and fair?)
• Political pluralism and participation (freedom to form and join parties? viable opposition?)
• Functioning of government (transparency, corruption, accountability?)
2- Civil rights
• Freedom of expression and belief
• Associational and organizational rights
• Rule of law
• Personal autonomy and individual rights
Varieties of Autocracy
- Totalitarianism
- Authoritarianism
-Modern approach: classify autocratic regimes based on institutional design:
Based on executive selection
Based on competitiveness of elections
Characteristics of Totalitarianism
- No political pluralism
- No social and economic pluralism
- Elaborate ideology with “reachable utopia”’
- Extensive mobilization, mandatory organizations, hostile to private life
- Charismatic leadership with undefined limits and unpredictability
Characteristics of Authoritarianism
- Limited political pluralism
- Extensive social and economic pluralism
- “Distinctive mentality” but no elaborate ideology
- Not much mobilization
- Ill-defined leadership; co-optation, rather than elimination, of pre-existing elite
Autocracies based on executive selection
- Military dictatorships (C & S America in 1970s)
- Single-party dictatorships (Mexico before 2000, China 1949–present)
- Personalist dictatorships (Castro’s Cuba, Idi Amin in Uganda)
Autocracies based on competitiveness of elections
Democratic regimes:
• Executives and legislatures chosen through elections that are open, free, and fair (high contestation)
- Most adults have the right to vote (high inclusion)
- Extensive political rights and civil liberties
• No significant interference by non-elected officials (e.g., military, church)
Competitive authoritarian regimes:
- Lacking some or all of the traits above;
- Incumbent suppression of opposition through abuses of state power (jailing opposition)
- Biased media coverage
but incumbents also not so powerful that they can completely eliminate opposition
Differences in Performance:
Economic Argument for Democracy (Olson 1993)
- Lower taxation results in growth
- Rule of Law and stable property rights leading to growth (long-term view citizens)
Differences in Performance:
Economic Argument for Democracy (Olson 1993) story time
First, there is the state of nature: anarchy and roving banditry, where little is produced and later, stolen.
Then, ‘first blessing of the invisible hand’: replace anarchy by government, where the theft is the ruler. Stealing a little at a time through taxation, over a long period, they earn more. Citizens keep more surplus after theft, which they invest in production as they are aware of amount and timing of future tax/ theft.
However, ‘grasping hand’ issue: incentive to extract the maximum possible surplus from the whole society and to use it for his own purpose, thanks to his power monopoly.
The ruler won’t be completely predatory:
- Incentives to provide public goods (to increase production)
- to not set the tax rate so high that he discourages citizen incentives to produce
Autocrats have incentives to set tax rate at “revenue maximizing” rate — the point at which a higher rate would cause such a loss in productivity that the tax revenues for autocrat fall.
In democracies, citizen majority has incentive to set taxes at somewhat lower rate:
- Autocrats’ revenue = taxation
- Citizens’ revenue = taxation (as public goods) + reinvestment of their remaining post-tax earnings (which get larger as taxes get lower).
