Lecture 1: What is democracy?

Question 1

Concepts that distinguish democracy as a unique system for organising relations between rulers and the ruled are

Answer 1

1. Regime/system of governance
2. The presence of rulers
3. The public realm
4. Citizens
5. Competition
6. Fairly conducted and honestly counted elections
7. Majority rule
8. Cooperation
9. Civil society
10. Representatives
11. Review procedures

Question 2

A regime/system of governance is

Answer 2

1. A group of patterns that determines the access methods to the principal public offices. It must be institutionalised to work properly, preferably through a written body of laws with a constitution.
2. The characteristics of the actors admitted to or excluded from such access.
3. The strategies that actors may use to gain access.
4. The rules that are followed in the making of publicly binding decisions.

Question 3

The presence of rulers and democracy

Answer 3

1. Democracies depend on the presence of rulers
2. What distinguishes democratic rulers from non-democratic ones are the norms that condition how they come to power and the practices that hold them accountable for their actions.

Question 4

Public realm and democracy

Answer 4

1. The public realm contains the making of collective norms and choices that are binding on society and backed by state coercion.
2. How the public realm looks can vary across democracies and depends on preexisting conditions (public vs private, state vs society, legitimate coercion vs voluntary exchange, collective needs vs individuals preferences)

Question 5

Citizens and democracy

Answer 5

1. Only democracies have citizens
2. There used to be restrictions on citizenship, now the criteria for inclusion are pretty standard.
3. All native-born adults are eligible for citizenship.

Question 6

Competition and democracy

Answer 6

1. Competition has different modes, and there are different boundaries of competition.
2. This contributes to distinguishing one subtype of democracy from the other.

Question 7

Fairly conducted and honestly counted elections and democracy

Answer 7

1. Can be seen as the same as democracy.
2. Some even consider just the existence of elections as a sufficient condition for democracy. This fallacy is called electoralism.

Question 8

How can citizens influence public policy between elections

Answer 8

Through:
1. Interest associations
2. Social movements
3. Locality groupings
4. Clientelistic arrangements

Question 9

Majority rule and democracy

Answer 9

1. Problems can arise when the majority makes decisions that harm some minority.
2. Successful democracies have the central principle of majority rule.
3. Can be in the form of constitutional provisions
4. Most common and effective way is the existence of interest associations and social movements

Question 10

Cooperation and democracy

Answer 10

1. Actors have to voluntarily make collective decisions binding on the polity.
2. They have to cooperate to compete.
3. This can be through parties, associations and movements to select candidates, articulate preferences, petition authorities and influence policies.

Question 11

Civil society and democracy

Answer 11

1. Civil society can restrain the arbitrary actions of rulers and contribute to forming better citizens who are aware of the preferences of others and more self-confident in their actions.
2. It provides a layer of governance between the individual and the state and is capable of resolving conflicts and controlling the behaviour of members without public coercion.

Question 12

Representatives and democracy

Answer 12

1. Representatives are professional politicians whose career is oriented around the desire to fill key offices.
2. In a democracy, it is about how they are chosen and held accountable for their actions.

Question 13

Review procedures

Answer 13

The rules and arrangements needed to make democracy last

Question 14

The procedural minimal conditions to make a democracy exist are:

Answer 14

1. Control over government decisions about policy is constitutionally awarded in elected officials.
2. Elected officials are chosen in frequent and fairly conducted elections in which coercion is comparatively uncommon.
3. Practically all adults have the right to vote.
4. Practically all adults have the right to run for elective offices in the government.
5. Citizens have a right to express themselves on political matters without the danger of severe punishment.
6. Citizens have a right to seek alternative sources of information. These have to exist and are protected by law.
7. Citizens have a right to form independent associations/organisations, including independent political parties and interest groups.
8. Popularly elected officials must be able to exercise their constitutional powers without being subjected to overriding opposition from unelected officials.
9. The polity must be self-governing. It must be able to act independently of constraints imposed by some overarching political system.

Question 15

Two operative principles that make democracy work

Answer 15

1. The principle that representatives agree that those who win greater electoral support or influence over policy will not use their power to ban the losers from taking office or influencing in the future. In exchange, the losers will respect the winners’ right to make binding decisions.
   Citizens must obey the decisions that come out of this, as long as they align with the collective preferences they express through fair and regular elections or negotiations.
2. All democracies have a degree of uncertainty about who will be elected and what policies they will pursue. However, this uncertainty is bounded. Not just any actor can get into the competition and raise any issue they want, and not just any policy can be adopted.

Question 16

How democracies differ

Answer 16

1. Consensus: All citizens may not agree on the goals of political action or on the role of the state.
2. Participation: All citizens may not take an active and equal part in politics, although it must legally be possible for them to do so.
3. Access: Rulers may not equally weigh the preferences of everyone before them, although citizenship implies that individuals and groups should have equal opportunity to express their preferences.
4. Responsiveness: Rulers may not always do what is preferred by the citizens. However, when they deviate from such a policy, they must be held accountable for their actions through regular and fair processes.
5. Majority rule: Positions may not be allocated or rules may not be decided solely based on the most votes, although this must be defended and approved.
6. Parliamentary sovereignty: The legislature may not be the only body that can make rules or even the one with final authority in deciding which laws are binding, although they also must be accountable for their actions.
7. Party government: Rulers may not be nominated, promoted, and disciplined in their activities by well-organized political parties.
8. Pluralism: The political process may not be based on a variety of overlapping, voluntaristic, and autonomous private groups.
9. Federalism: The territorial division of authority may not involve multiple levels and local autonomies.
10. Presidentialism: The chief executive officer may not be a single person and he or she may not be directly elected by the citizenry as a whole.
11. Checks and Balances: It is not necessary that the different branches of government be systematically pitted against one another.

Question 17

What democracy is not

Answer 17

1. Democracies are not necessarily more efficient economically than other forms of government.
2. Democracies are not necessarily more efficient administratively.
3. Democracies are not likely to appear more orderly, consensual, stable or governable than the autocracies they replace.
4. Democracies will not necessarily have more open economies than the autocracies they replace.

Question 18

Different dimensions in defining democracy

Answer 18

1. Rule of law/liberalism
2. Rule by the people/democracy

Question 19

First wave of democracy

Answer 19

1. 1820-1918
2. Old democracies, mainly western Europe and USA.
3. These took a long time to develop, and there were very few
4. Because of this, there is now the notion that it is unfair to expect African countries to develop a democracy in 20 years.
5. First wave was also very gradual: the invention of constitutional monarchy instead of unlimited power for the king, after the development of the first parliaments, which consisted of elites, after this states and state institutions developed → nation state, suffrage expanded.
6. Before the first world war, some eastern European countries dabble in democracy.

Question 20

First reverse wave

Answer 20

1. Due to the rise of fascism and communism
2. First and second world war

Question 21

Second wave of democracy

Answer 21

1. After end of WWII til 1960
2. Countries that were fascist become demcratic again
3. Also decolonisation, countries become independent
4. This is because a lot of colonies helped in the war, which triggered independence movements

Question 22

Second reverse wave of democracy

Answer 22

1. 1960-1989
2. Due to Cold War, USA and SU supported dictators in order for support.

Question 23

Third wave of democracy

Answer 23

1. Starts before end of Cold War, 1970.
2. Due to democratisation of southern European states.
3. Dictator Portugal leaving due to disagreement in the army about colony Angola, which shows the effect of decolonisation on the development of democracy.
4. Spain democratising after Franco, influenced democratisation in Latin America
5. After Cold War more democratisation due to the victory of the west, the world balance shifted and people see democracy as the solution.
6. In African countries there is a push for democracy from the west because of this.

Question 24

Hybrid regimes

Answer 24

1. When there are democratic institutions, but they are strongly influenced by the government
2. Mix of autocratic and democratic features

Question 25

What is problematic about the concept of democracy

Answer 25

We generalise, there’s always movement in both ways. There is democratic backsliding right now, but there are also democratic successes