Midterm 2 Flashcards
Regime
- A formal/informal set of institutional
arrangements that determine who has power,
how those who are in power are chosen, and
who can hold them accountable.
POLITICAL PARTICIPATION
Activities with the intention to affect, directly or indirectly, government action.
Examples of political participation
❏ Voting in elections
❏ Participating in protests
❏ Signing petitions
❏ Contacting office holders
❏ Volunteering for political campaigns
Through participation in politics, citizens can:
❏ express their preferences about who should govern
❏ hold governing authorities accountable for their actions
❏ let their views and grievances known to fellow citizens and governing authorities
❏ put pressure on those in power
Individual-level factors of elections:
❏ Very minor differences between men and women
❏ Propensity to vote increases with age, education, and income
❏ Political efficacy, interest in politics, and perceptions of civic duty also positively affect turnout
❏ Partisanship is also a major determinant of voting
Contextual factors in elections
❏ Compulsory voting laws lead to higher turnout
❏ Legal procedures for voting (e.g., non-automatic voter registration) and in-person voting requirements depress turnout
❏ The closer the electoral context, the higher the turnout
❏ Turnout is higher in countries with proportional representation
Three main theoretical
approaches to explain electoral
participation
❏ Social-psychological
approach
❏ Rational choice framework
❏ Mobilization theories
SOCIAL-PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH
❏ Focuses on individuals’ psychological and attitudinal
traits
❏ Some people are more likely to participate because “they
want to”
❏ Socialization and experience in family, schooling, and work
-> higher levels of personal efficacy, interest in politics,
and sense of civic duty to vote
SOCIAL-PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH:
PREDICTIONS
❏ Education -> enhanced political interest and stronger
sense of civic duty to vote
❏ Higher socio-economic status -> high sense of personal
efficacy
❏ Middle-aged individuals more likely to take social and
economic responsibilities than the young -> more interest
in politics
❏ Partisan attachments develop largely through family
socialization
RATIONAL CHOICE FRAMEWORK
❏ Rational individuals will participate in elections when
benefits of doing so outweigh any costs associated with
voting
❏ Benefit of electoral participation: Contribution to one’s
preferred candidate/party winning over others and taking
office
❏ Material costs: Money and time spent for registration,
going to polls, following the campaigns
❏ Cognitive effort: Figuring out the views of the
candidates/parties and evaluating them
RATIONAL CHOICE FRAMEWORK:
PREDICTIONS
❏ Higher levels of education and income -> more resources to afford costs of participation
❏ Higher level of education -> easier to follow and make sense of campaigns
❏ Younger adults are more mobile -> more cumbersome procedures to register and vote
❏ In general, turnout tends to be higher when the efforts of voting are low and the perceived benefits high
POLITICAL MOBILIZATION
❏ Mobilization: the process by which candidates, parties,
activists, and groups induce other people to participate
❏ Door-to-door canvassing, mail solicitations, campaign ads,
personal requests by friends, neighbors, colleagues, etc
MOBILIZATION THEORIES
-Lowering the costs of voting:
-Increasing the (perceived) benefits of voting:
-Individuals who are easy to reach by candidates/parties -> more likely to be targets of mobilization efforts -> more likely to turn out to vote
-Individuals who are most likely to respond to mobilization efforts ->
more likely to be targets -> more likely to turn out to vote
PARADOX OF PARTICIPATION
R = p*B - c
R = Net rewards of voting for an individual
p = the probability of an individual’s vote being pivotal
(changing the outcome of the election)
c = the costs of associated with voting
SHORTCOMINGS OF PREVAILING THEORIESpoli participation
❏ Social-psychological approach is less useful to explain variation in participation within social groups or across
different elections
❏ Rational choice approach: Rising costs of participation should always be followed by decreased participation, but that’s not the case
❏ Mobilization efforts have relatively limited effects on
turnout
COSTLY ABSTENTION IN PROTEST
PARTICIPATION (4)
❏ positively related to how much they care about the
protests’ potential outcomes,
❏ positively related to the size of protests - only for people
who care about the protests’ goals
❏ Repression can also drive up the costs of abstention - only
for people who care about the protests’ goals
❏ Relationship between repression and protest is non-linear
can Digital technologies lower the costs of participation and increase costs of abstention?
yes
How do digital technologies increase protest turnout
❏ Easier to organize and coordinate protests
❏ Mobilizing bystanders to protests
WHERE DOES CIVIL SOCIETY COME
FROM?
- Modernization theory: civil society is a product of industrialization
- Cultural theory: civil society is a product of liberalism
- Institutional theories: civil society is the product of the political rules of the game (laws,
regulations)
CIVIL SOCIETY DEFINITION
Civil society is a realm of organized citizen activity that is autonomous (i.e. independent) of the state
- Anything from choirs to unions to charities
Why is civil society important?
Local organizations can contribute to social and economic development
Strong multi-ethnic associations can reduce/prevent ethnic conflict
Can promote democracy by providing organizational muscle behind democratic movements, which constrain or keep state office holders accountable and by fostering democratic values
Where does Civil society come from according to putnam
Putnam’s answer: strong civil society is a product of history, not of liberalism or of industrialization.
Tradition of civic community in Northern Italy since 12th century
History of authoritarian rule in Southern Italy wiped out all traces of civic community
Once on a path, continuity in a path-dependent way
CRITIQUES OF PUTNAM’S MODEL
- Sweeping path dependent claim
- He makes a bottom-up argument–state institutions are shaped by civil society. But what if it is the other way around?
- Is social capital and strong civil society always a good thing?
BERMAN ON DANGEROUS CIVIL
SOCIETY
In the absence of strong and responsive national government and political parties, strong civil society can facilitate anti democratic actions.
Illustrative example of Weimar Germany
Gender
is a socially constructed system that creates hierarchies associated with masculine and feminine characteristics.
Feminism
refers to a political project that aims to dismantle patriarchy and oppression in all forms
Patriarchy
is a sociopolitical and cultural system which privileges masculinities over femininities
Intersectionality
refers to the ways in which gender intersects with other forms of difference — race, class, ability, religion, caste, age, etc. — to create advantage or disadvantage in different social systems.
Quotas for women participation
-Legislated quotas
-Reserved Seats
-Voluntary Party Quotas
DESCRIPTIVE REPRESENTATION: EFFECTS
AND LEGACIES
- Communist states had a stated goal of equality between the sexes, but the meaning and implementation of that goal is not straightforward. Some research:
- Achievements: women in the labor force in all fields, not just feminine fields like elementary school teaching and nursing; state-provided child care; equality rhetoric
- Signs of persistence of the patriarchy: women rarely occupied leadership positions; double burden; rampant sexual harassment in the workplace and no measures against it.
- But some evidence that increasing descriptive representation has persistent effects…
CORRUPTION DEFINITION
Using public office for private gain
HOW CAN WE MEASURE CORRUPTION?
Perceptions, for e.g. Transparency International, de facto are used as proxies for incidence, despite the fine print.
THE PROBLEM WITH PERCEPTION INDICES
Self-constitutive (truth-by-repetition) and then perpetuate stereotypes
Overestimates corruption in poor economies, underestimates in rich economies
Corruption trap
Indices are purposefully conservative and don’t capture change well
Indices are fundamentally non-comparative, because experts assess their countries in isolation
Legacy/structural factors
that increase corruption:
- Any religion other than
Protestantism - Any legal system other than
common law - Low level of economic development
Institutional factors that increase corruption
- Presidentialism
- Low democratic competition
- Lack of free media to allow citizens
to monitor politicians - Federalism
ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF
CORRUPTION
Corruption lowers growth. It’s like a tax, so it reduces
incentives to invest.
Corruption affects composition of public expenditures. It
leads to more spending on construction and military
equipment, because those markets are oligopolistic and
because the market price is harder to determine for these
goods. Less spending on education and health
Inflated budgets, because politicians put in extra funds for
rents
POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF CORRUPTION
Mechanism: people in high corruption settings will
distrust institutions; this lowers regime legitimacy and
may increase political instability and/or undermine
democratic govt by strengthening populist/anti-dem
actors.
Administrative corruption prevents state from
implementing its laws, collecting taxes, implementing
policies. Corruption is a symptom of a weak state.
CORRUPTION CAN BE A SYMPTOM OF A
STRONG STATE
Mechanism: bureaucratic corruption can serve as a mechanism ofadmin control (hierarchy-reinforcing graft)
Informal contract between leaders and subordinates– subordinates implement leaders’ mandate (help their re-election, help them fight opposition) in exchange for leaders ignoring their corruption.
Defection by subordinates made harder by the fact that graft is illegal. If they stray, they go to jail
Tasks of anti corruption institutions
Prevention: education campaigns, ethics training, incentives for institutions to curb corruption within their ranks, transparency reforms (e.g. Ukraine’s Prozorro)
Investigation: uncovering and exposing existing corrupt schemes
Law enforcement– specialized prosecution and specialized judiciary tasked with focusing on corruption cases, which are always complicated
Recovery of assets lost to corruption
Types of anticorruption campaigns
- Institutional anticorruption campaign
- Educational anticorruption campaign
- Judicial anticorruption campaign
Przeworksi democracy Minimalist
-uncertain and irreversible election outcome
-repeated elections
Maximalist definition of democracy Rueschemeyer
Socio-economic equality
Mid way definition of democracy Huntington
- Fair
- Honest
- Periodic
- Competitive
- Universal suffrage
- Freedom of assembly and freedom of speech
Polyarchy (Robert Dahl)
High participation and high contestation = Polyarchy
- Example USA
Other regimes according to Dahl
low contestation and high participation = inclusive hegemonies
- Russia, Belarus
High contestation, low participation = competitive oligarchies
- South Africa under Apartheid
Low contestation, low participation = closed hegemonies
- North Korea
Measuring Democracy
Polity Project
- 21 point scale from consolidated autocracy to consolidated democracy
Varieties of democracy Project
- expert survey
- 5 indices
Authoritarianism variations according to Geddes
Military: Pinochet in Chile
Personalist: Stalin’s Russia
Party Based: Soviet Bloc
Authoritarianism variations and their lifespan in low to high
- Military
- Personalist (lifespan of leader)
- Party Based
Democracy according to schmitter and karl
“Modern political democracy is a system of governance in which rulers are held accountable for their actions in the public realm by citizens, acting indirectly through the competition and cooperation of their elected representatives”
Pillars of democracy according to schmitter and karl
- Institutions and rules
- Norms
- Engaged citizens
- Competition, but also cooperation
Does authoritarianism have an ideology
NO
Totalitarianism
based on a transformative or regenerative ideology
Competitive authoritarianism
Constant but unsuccessful attempts to wipe out opposition, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly etc.
REGIME OUTCOME EXPECTATIONS AFTER COLLAPSE
OF COMMUNISM IN EUROPE/USSR: PRECONDITIONS
- Leninist legacy
- Economic preconditions
- Cultural “preconditions”
Leninist legacy precondition
predicts all post-Communist states would fail at democratization, because communist regime destroyed cleavages, which could produce competitive politics after collapse. Weaker version predicts failure in the harsher communist regimes where there were no alternative elites. So prediction would be no democracy anywhere in FSU
- Economic preconditions for USSR regime outcome
poorer, more rural republics would have a tougher time consolidating a democratic regime (prediction: failure in smaller, poorer states in Balkans, Caucasus, Central Asia, success in resource-richer or earlier industrializers Russia, Central Europe)
Cultural preconditions for USSR regime outcome
Russian empire had never experienced democracy. Islam and Orthodoxy also hinder democracy. Prediction that democracy thus possible only in the Baltics and Central Europe.
Assumptions of the dominant transition model
- teleological assumption
- stage sequencing (opening, breakthrough, consolidation)– what if a country is stuck in stage 1?
What if countries go back and forth b/n more and less openness? - focus on elections– they aren’t everything
- pre-existence of states ignored as a prerequisite
dominant transition model
All countries are transitioning to democracy, some will do it quicker, some slower, but they’re all
moving in that direction because that’s the direction of political development.
ARGUMENTS FOR DECOMMUNIZATION
- Cannot lay the foundations of a rule of law system without punishing those who perpetrated crimes
- Cannot consolidate a liberal democracy without barring the former communists from shaping the new regime
- Need to draw a “thick line” between past and present
- If previous collaboration with the regime is not revealed, office-holders will be corruptible, because they will be blackmailed by those who have proof of the collaboration.
ARGUMENTS AGAINST DECOMMUNIZATION
- Need to foster national unity and to move on in order to build new society
- Evidence is collected by Communist secret police, so it’s unreliable and innocent people may suffer
Lustration
– screening laws designed to prevent former communist functionaries and/or secret police collaborators from running for elected office, holding leadership positions in the civil service, working in the public sector, holding “positions of public trust”, etc.
Lustration laws vary significantly on three dimensions:
- Set of targeted individuals– more or less extensive in the number of people they affect (e.g. only those serving in parliament, judges, any public office, any civil service job, cultural figures, etc.)
- Set of past activities that are screened– collaboration, informing, working for secret police, high party office
- Severity of sanctions– e.g. you have to resign and cannot hold certain offices, forever, or for set periods vs. you’re simply outed publicly
Countries that were sufficiently lustrated
Czech Republic
Hungary
Countries that were insufficiently lustrated
Poland,
Romania,
Slovakia
Passive leverage (Vachudova):
the greater the attractiveness of the role model, the greater the desire to emulate
it. EU was attractive to post-Comm countries so countries emulated It and democratized
as a result.
COPENHAGEN CRITERIA
Formal requirements for accession to EU
Stable institutions that guarantee:
* Democracy
* Rule of law
* Human rights
* Minority rights
* Functioning market economy that can cope w
competitive pressure
Claim of EU conditionality;
Copenhagen criteria caused democratic consolidation. In Central Europe governing elites responded to EU conditionality by implementing Copenhagen criteria easily, but in Southeastern Europe, governing elites resisted and dragged their feet for a while.
SOME LIMITATIONS TO THE ACTIVE
LEVERAGE/CONDITIONALITY CLAIM
The strength of conditionality varies over time
By early-2000s, it became less realistic for the EU to renege on the entire enlargement process.
Conditionality decreases dramatically after accession
Evidence for conditionality claim
Slovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria
DNA
Romanian anti corruption org set up as a a facade but then went onto being succesful
