lecture 4

Question 1

defining democracy as having three features:

Answer 1

1. Regular free and fair elections of representatives on the basis of universal suffrage
2. responsibility of the state apparatus to the elected representatives
3. guarantees of freedom of expression and association

Question 2

Three power clusters of power sharing.

Answer 2

(1) the balance of class power as the most important aspect of the balance of power in civil society
(2) the nature of the state and state-society relations, or the balance of power between state and civil society
The state needs to be strong and autonomous enough to ensure the rule of law and avoid being the captive of the interests of dominant groups; the state’s authority to make binding decisions in a territory and the state’s monopoly of coercion must be settled
(3) transnational structures of power, or the international economy and system of states, as they shape the first two balances and constrain political decision-making

Question 3

What is the central thesis of lecture 4?

Answer 3

Capitalist development is related to democracy because it shifts the balance of class power, because it weakens the power of the landlord class and strengthens subordinate classes.

Question 4

reason for the connection of Economic development is causally related to the development of political democracy by?

Answer 4

that capitalist development transforms the class structure, enlarging the working and middle classes

Question 5

6 characters of sultanistic regimes

Answer 5

1, regime (patterns of power allocation) and state overlap or meld.

2, legal-rational norms are discarded or distorted, and no serious ideological project is pursued.

3, the leader builds a cult of personality around himself and, in a dynastic manner, often passes power to immediate family members.
4, leaders engage in constitutional hypocrisy, using plebiscitarian institutions to cloak dictatorship under a veneer of popular legitimacy.

5, the ruling clique cuts out support from beneath itself as it severs ties with political coalitions and civil society.

6, the regime disregards property rights, concentrating wealth in its own hands as corruption spreads through the highest levels of government.

Question 6

Differences between Totalitarian and Sultanisitc rulers

Answer 6

that are guided by a mobilizing ideology that seeks support both within and beyond the state’s borders.
Totalitarian rulers follow their ideological mission, while sultanistic leaders seek personal enrichment through the capricious abuse of power.
Finally, sultanistic regimes penetrate their societies “very unevenly” and thus do not achieve the deep control over domestic populations that archtypical totalitarian regimes (for example, Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia) approached

Question 7

Rentier theory

Answer 7

Mahdavy contended that countries drawing heavily upon external rents have less need for an extractive taxation system.

Question 8

Theory of dynastic monarchism

Answer 8

And argues that the monarchies that filled top government institutions with their family members successfully stabilized their systems. In dynastic monarchism the family “monopolizes the top posts in the regime”. By occupying not just the throne but also the major ministerial positions of government, the survival of individual nobles is not dependent on the rise of a particular prince to the throne

Question 9

Reinforced the cult of authority

Answer 9

regime built around “disciplinary-symbolic power,” rather than legitimacy or coercion

Question 10

Disciplinary-symbolic power

Answer 10

the method of gaining mass compliance by nurturing popular use of the regime’s own mythology and praise about the president, “habituating people to perform the gestures and pronounce the slogans constitutive of their obedience”. Thus, disciplinary-symbolic power made citizens practice in their daily lives the language and behavior that publicly reinforced the centralization of authority in Hafez al-Asad. Public glorification of the state’s leader, which Sultanistic Regimes treats as a characteristic of extreme personalism, takes center stage in Wedeen’s argument.

Question 11

Presidential democracy

Answer 11

• Popularly elected executive (president) AND legislature (separate mandate)
• Strict separation of powers (with checks and balances guaranteeing no part of government gets too powerful)
• Fixed terms: executive (president) can be impeached for misconduct (high crimes or misdemeanours)
• No parliamentary responsibility of executive
• Government power is limited by a constitution guaranteeing citizens’ rights

Question 12

Parliamentary democracy

Answer 12

• Prime minister is elected to be the head of government
• People elect a legislature which then elects the head of government, so no true separation of powers
• Leaders can be removed for unpopularity with a ‘’vote of no confidence’’
• Power of government is limited through a constitution, so citizens are guaranteed rights

 Parliamentary democracy dominates most systems in the world

Question 13

Constitutional monarchy

Answer 13

• Monarchy under parliamentary control
  o Head of state through hereditary lineage (parliamentary approval needed)
  o Shares power, or is merely a figurehead, with a prime minister
  o Power of monarch is limited by a constitution that gives citizens’ rights

o Power of monarch is limited by a constitution that gives citizens’ rights

 Head of government is always democratically elected in the presidential democracy, parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy
 There is a rule of law (constitution) which limits the power of the head of states. You hand power to the people every 4 years so they can vote democratically again

Question 14

Authoritarianism

Answer 14

• Arbitrariness: absence of accountability
  o Regime in which a single individual or a small elite rules without constitutional checks on their power. Citizens cannot hold rules accountable, no independent courts, no rule of law or effective free and fair elections.
  o Use of ideology (most encompassing in totalitarian regimes) to legitimize the rule

 You cannot outvote these people, you cannot out them by war either

Question 15

Absolute monarchy

Answer 15

• Personalistic authoritarianism (Cheibub and Linz)
  o Personal, monarchical rule: leader is a monarch (king or queen), political authority based on hereditary lineage (by birth), groomed by birth to lead
  o Legitimacy based on ‘tradition’: no limit to the monarch’s power, citizens have no rights, control through patrimonialism (proximity/alliance with ruler, clientelism), extensive use of force against opposition
   Head of state and government
  o Examples: France (until 1789), Russia (until 1917), Saudi Arabia and United Emirates today

Question 16

Theocracy

Answer 16

• Religious authoritarianism
  o Leader is either oligarchy or autocracy of ruling priests, political power is fused with religious authority
  o Foundation of regime is religious authority/scripture texts (strict/divine religious commands)
  o Citizens have no rights that conflict with religious doctrine
  o Examples: Iran today, the Vatican today, Afghanistan under Taliban rule

Question 17

(Military) dictatorship

Answer 17

• Leader acquires power through force, coup d’état
• Few legal constraints on power, absence of rule of law, no legally-organized opposition
• Bureaucratic authoritarianism: co-operation of business and state elites
• Police state, violent repression of opposition to regime, control of armed forces
• Involves constraint indoctrination through propaganda to erase any potential for dissent
• Legitimation is other internal or external ‘enemy’ that needs to be defeated
• Examples: Franco (Spain) Pinochet (Chile), Castro (Cuba), Syria, Saddam (Iran), Chad, Mali, Myanmar

Question 18

Personal dictatorship

Answer 18

• Sultanistic rule
  o Family, clan-based rule.
  o Lack of ideology
  o Arbitrariness in legal and economic decisions: no routinized governmental procedure or merit-based bureaucracy
  o Mafia structure: indirect control over economy (oligarchs), formally ‘free market’ but rife with corruption
  o Legitimation through elections (electoral dictatorship)

Question 19

(Neo-) Sultanism

Answer 19

1. Regime and state overlap/meld
   o State, secret services, army etc. are in control of this kind of clique
   o No separation of state and power holders on top of it
2. Legal-rational norms distorted
   o You cannot go to court for justice, leaders decide what justice is
3. Personal cult around leader
   o Leaders are always celebrated (ex.: North-Korea)
4. Using plebiscites to legitimize rule
   o Sometimes hold referenda/elections but they are not democratic; no open debate or media
   o You can only vote for the same leader or you can risk a lot of problems
5. Disconnected from civil society
   o If you don’t have an independent civil society (come together to create counterbalance against the state) then there is no connection with society
   o The organizations that do exist are controlled by state
6. Disregard property rights and wealth concentration through corruption
   o Inequality is high, property is used as reward and punishment system in order to remain control
7. Weak control over population compared to totalitarian regimes
   o It is not a strong totalitarian because they let the economy go so the economy can bloom and then the leaders can distract this from society

 Remaining power through family lineage on a permanent base, but at the same time kind of seeks legitimacy through elections
 Limits peoples sovereignty and freedom of speech
 Example: Ottoman Empire, contemporary Turkey

Question 20

Totalitarian regimes

Answer 20

• The state (single party) controls every aspect of public and private life
• The ruler has TOTAL control/power + encompassing ideology
• Continuous efforts to mobilize mass support for the state through rallies and propaganda
• State-controlled media, restricting free speech, controlling the economy, creating a personality cult, and use of terror tactics and violence on mass scale to intimidate opposition
• Centralized control over the economy, press social spheres
• Mobilize people in favour or the regime
  o Sultanism does not do this because then you teach people how to mobilize!

Question 21

Political participation in both democracies and authoritarian regimes are caused by:

Answer 21

An authoritarian regime creates so much pressure at one point is that people become deprived, people then rebel

Question 22

Extremism and political polarization work against democracy

Answer 22

• Role of education mitigating extremism
• Role of industrialization and urbanization in opening up for different influences and increasing tolerance and broadmindedness
• Modern society and cross-cutting cleavages
• Role of economic inequality and poverty for social conflict and reciprocal antagonism working class and upper class
• Crucial role for the middle class in a modern society: a moderating influence that works in favour of democracy

Question 23

• Three power clusters relevant for the chances of democracy

Answer 23

o Balance of class power
o State-society relations
o Transnational power structures

Question 24

Contradiction of capitalism

Answer 24

Capitalist development is related to democracy because it shifts the balance of class power, because it weakens the power of the landlord class and strengthens subordinate classes. The working and the middle classes – unlike other subordinate classes in history – gain an unprecedented capacity of self-organization due to such developments as urbanization, factory production, and new forms of communication and transportation

Question 25

Pro-democratic class-coalition: lower and middle class

Answer 25

Balance of class power as the most important aspect of the balance of power in civil society

Question 26

Strength civil society

Answer 26

Nature of the state and state-society relations, or the balance of power between state and civil society
 there needs to be free organizations wherein in people can freely state their interests
 you need to avoid that middle class is co-opted in fascist regimes, they need to blossom

Civil society: the public sphere distinguished from the state, the economy and the web of family and kin relations. It comprises all social groups, associations and institutions that are not strictly production-related, nor governmental or familial in character.
- Since the major power resource of the many is collective organization, their chance to organize in associations, unions and parties gains critical significance

Question 27

2. Power-balance: state-civil society
   Repressive state dominates civil society

Answer 27

Middle class in private sectors (bazaar, shopkeepers, small company owners) and public sector employees and employees of security institutions.
Latter groups are among most educated and influential, but have experienced decline in living standards due to scaling back government spending (also in education). These middle classes lost many of incentives and privileges they used to enjoy.

Question 28

Strong and repressive state

Answer 28

Weak political articulation in societal interests
 how does the elite know what to do if they are not getting signals from society? This can lead to very bad policies

Question 29

3. Role of economic and geopolitical dependence
   Transnational power structures

Answer 29

Transnational structures of power, or the international economy and system of states, as they shape the first two balances and constrain political decision-making