Political Sources of Populism: YaleCourses Lecture 22

Question 1

In Britain, what is a classical example of anti-intellectual populism?

Answer 1

Michael Goves, high Chancellor, said in an interview that the British people were tired of experts.

Question 2

What are the four theoretically conceptualized tenets of populism in Britain

Answer 2

Anti-elitism

Conspiracy theories

Hostility to taxes and government

And Xenophobia

Question 3

What is a good question to ask when addressing populism?

Answer 3

How have varying democratic systems contributed to the promulgation and survival of populism?

Question 4

What is a way of looking at voter behavior which is more holistic rather than paradigmatic?

Answer 4

Learning that voters are not waiting for certain policy proposals, but are rather mobilized to support particular policies.

Question 5

What context should we take into account when researching these things?

Answer 5

We should take into account the aging population in many developed democarcies, the impact of globalization and slow growth, collapse of the corporatist consensus between business and labor in the post-war era.

Question 6

What do these modern issues contribute to the rise of populism?

Answer 6

Firstly, globalization has adversely affected middle class and lower class incomes, secondly the aging population in all developed countries put more pressure on fiscal states to put in more support for retired and ailing populations, and the collapse of the corporatist consensus has undermined relationships between capital owners and laborers, mostly caused by the overwhelming decline in organized labor.

Question 7

What are the two principal measures by which we generally understand a political party?

Answer 7

Whether a country’s political parties are strong/weak and whether it is mult or bi party system.

Question 8

What are paradigms of these different measures and their intersection?

Answer 8

Britain was a strong double party system before the 70s; the U.S is a weak double party system; western Europe has strong multiparty systems; and eastern europe has weak multiparty systems.

Question 9

What is a political party? How will we define them?

Answer 9

Parties promote partisan conceptions of what is good for the public interest.

Question 10

What is Duverger’s law?

Answer 10

Duverger’s law is a theory among political scientists which asserts that SMPs (Single member plurality systems, meaning a system in which all you need is the most votes in a district to win a seat) will tend to produce two-party systems.

Question 11

What is one of many ways in which Duverger’s law may not be as deterministic as it initially seems?

Answer 11

There may be a great amount of regional variation. Since Duverger’s model assumes municipal homogeneity among the median voters.

Question 12

What is a model of electioneering which produces more parties? How do you limit this?

Answer 12

Having the percentage of votes be directly correlated with the percentage of seats a part gets. One may limit this effect by puttina threshold which determines if the percentage grants seats or not.

Question 13

How would one make a two party system more like a multiparty system?

Answer 13

You could have multiple rounds which allows smaller parties to survive by extracting benefits from supporting the larger parties.

Question 14

What two countries have the most rapidly changing electoral systems?

Answer 14

Italy first and france second.

Question 15

Which is more representative?

Answer 15

Multiparty systems tend to be more representative in the electoral stage but the government formation stage is doubtful

Question 16

Why are two party systems in especially dire straits when it comes to good representation?

Answer 16

The two major parties must compete for the median voter

Question 17

An example of the chasing of the median voter?

Answer 17

Lyndon Johnson was going against Barry Goldwater and won because Barry Goldwater had went too far to the right and did not attract the median voter. (1960)

Question 18

What else is an example of having to maintain the median voter despite ideological riftts?

Answer 18

The National Health Service has been an impenetrable mainstay of the two party system in Britain. Even Margaret Thatcher could not repeal it in her massive overhaul of healthcare programs.

Question 19

What are median voter mainstays in the U.S?

Answer 19

FDR’s social security act and Lyndon Johnson’s healthcare protection for people over 65.

Question 20

What is the difference between the republicans idea of economic policy during a recession and those of democrats?

Answer 20

Democrats are much more keynsian and see a lack of demand as the adverse agent in recessions while republicans want more supply through tax cuts.

Question 21

What about FDR’s Wagner act?

Answer 21

Contentious but one of the most comprehensive and powerful union protection policy in U.S history. It was subsequently severely weakened by republicans in 1947. Think more recently of the Dodd-Frank Law, where the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau which protected consumers was savaged and weakened and completely dismantled by the Trump administration.

Question 22

What is an essential difference between the liability in two party and multiparty systems?

Answer 22

In two party systems, there is great liability and an internalization of costs while in multiparty systems there is an externalization of loss. In a multiparty system, when there is a coalition (which almost always happens), parties may externalize the costs onto others (the example of the labor party and big business party externalizing costs as high prices for consumers). In a two party system, because there is no coalition after an election, one must internalize the costs of all decisions made. What coalitions do is ration liability.

Question 23

What does the fragmenetation of multiparty systems do to the tactics of parties?

Answer 23

Unlike the calcuolatory cost and benefit process which occurs in multi party systems, multiparty systems do not demand such a bundling up of policy and issues. Rather, in multiparty systems, candidates can go full on with their ideology.

Question 24

How can one apply industrial arbitration to the analysis of political parties?

Answer 24

Two parties engage in what is known as last best offer arbitration, where rather than the arbitrator finding some fair balance between the two extremes, the arbitrator has to choose one side. This forces both sides to be much more moderate and to demand less, taking into account the costs of extremism.

Question 25

What is a strong party?

Answer 25

A unified, stable, centralized, organizationally complex, and long term party.

Question 26

What is a weak party?

Answer 26

Non-wholesale campaigning, not retail campaigning, meaning that everyone is in it for themselves to survive within their own district.