Political Regimes in the Past and Present

Question 1

Political system or regime?

Answer 1

• Government: institutions involved in: maintaining public order, making and implementing collective decisions
• Political system: Government plus broader structures and processes of interaction within society
• But: Is the ‘system’ the right metaphor?
• Input → Processing → Output

Question 2

Better: government, regime, and state

Answer 2

• Government: Officials charged with routinely exercising power
• Regime: Fundamental rules and procedures determining who may exercise power and how
• State: Basic institutional context within which these rules apply

Within the context of the:

• Way the economy is organized
• Distribution of wealth and power in society
• Society’s ideology and culture

Question 3

Degrees of institutionalization

Answer 3

• State: More permanent institutions exercising public authority
• Change is exceptional
• System is based on the idea that the territorial state are here to stay and the international community should uphold the status quo
• Regime: Rules determining distribution of power within the state
• Who has the right to govern? = election winners, eldest sons of the family dynasty
• Change is unusual – By revolution, war
• Government: Officials holding power, based on election win, legitimate succession, coup d’état
• In a democracy, democratic changes are common

Question 4

Government or regime?

Answer 4

• Regime – Brings new rules and procedures (governments winning elections likely do not change the regime)
• Government – When the people ruling change

Question 5

Classical regime classification

Answer 5

Who rules? In whose interest?

Question 6

According to Aristotle, what regime is best?

Answer 6

• Mixed regime

- Polity plus aristocracy

Question 7

England 17th -19th centuries

Answer 7

Mixed regime, ruled by:

• One (monarchy)
• Few (House of lords)
• Many (House of Commons)

Question 8

Challenges to the classical approach

Answer 8

State formation raised issues of sovereignty:

• Need for leviathan
• Where does sovereignty reside?

Leash that leviathan?

• Locke: clear constitutional restrains
• Montesquieu: separation of powers

Question 9

Three worlds classification

Answer 9

Based on:

• Shifting understanding of ‘the west’
• Western economic and political advancement relative to ‘the east’
• 20th century – The west against: totalitarianism (nazism and communism), communism alone during the cold war

Question 10

First world

Answer 10

• Democratic
• Capitalist
• Developed, industrialized

Question 11

Second world

Answer 11

• One-party dictatorship
• Command economy
• State-led industrialization (second best)

Question 12

Third world

Answer 12

• Subordinated to Cold War logic
• Generally traditional dictatorships
• Varied and shifting economic systems
• Underdeveloped

Question 13

Recent challenges to the three worlds

Answer 13

• Economic: Development in the third world
• NICs (Newly industrializing countries)
• BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China)
• Rise of China
• Political: third wave of democracy since 1974, fourth wave as of 1989-91
• Strategic: collapse of the USSR (end of the second world), partial integration of china (but no new second world)

Question 14

The end of history (Francis Fukuyama)

Answer 14

• First world, only world?
• Bring forth a wave of liberalism, capitalism, democracy
• No, complex world (people will still fight for influence and control)

Question 15

A new framework? (Western polyarchies)

Answer 15

Robert Dahl:

• Rule of law
• Competition
• Increasing participation

Liberal individualism

Question 16

A new framework? (new democracies - complex and often incomplete transitions

Answer 16

• Weak state
• Ethnic tensions
• Economic problems
• Democracy under pressure

Question 17

A new framework? (East Asian acceptances)

Answer 17

• State-led development
• “Strong” government
• Social cohesion over liberal individualism
• China is an outlier
• Ruling Communist Party, separates from countries that have become democratic
• “Market Stalinism”, China still structuring its economy
• China is capitalist, but capitalist in a distinctly Chinese way
• Still more agrarianism

Question 18

A new framework? (islamic regimes)

Answer 18

• Import Islamic way of life to the political sphere
• Theocracy
• Can feature liberal and democratic elements

Question 19

A new framework? (military regimes)

Answer 19

• Access to power can depend on positions within the military
• Junta
• Military-backed dictatorship

Question 20

Defining authoritarianism

Answer 20

• Rule by a small group of individuals or a small organization
• Not accountable to the public – public has no role in selecting the leaders
• Restricts freedom, represses dissent

Question 21

Varieties of authoritarianism

Answer 21

• Monarchy
• Personal dictatorship
• Military rule
• One-party rule
• Theocratic rule

Question 22

Monarchy

Answer 22

• Family has a lock on succession
• Ruling – before liberal democracy
• Non-ruling – within many -liberal democracies
• Still ruling – mainly in the Arab world

Question 23

Personal dictatorship

Answer 23

• Direct personal relationship to ‘the people’

- From Julius Caesar to Napoleon Bonaparte to Juan Peron

Question 24

Military rule

Answer 24

• 19th century Latin America
• 20th century to Africa and Asia
• Often coup d’état against weak civilian rulers

Question 25

One-party rule

Answer 25

• Fascism, communism – modern regimes
• Totalitarianism – state power used to subordinate and transform society
• Extended to less ambitious post-colonial African states

Question 26

Theocratic rule

Answer 26

• Resurgent since the late 20th century

- Fusion of religious and political leadership