Politics Flashcards
Juan Linz’s four warning signs for potential authoritarians…
(1) Do they reject the “rules of the democratic game”?
(2) Do they deny the legitimacy of opponents?
(3) Do they encourage or refuse to condemn violence?
(4) Do they have a readiness to curtail civil liberties and the media?
Levitsky and Ziblatt: democracies can die in two ways…
(1) From a coup
(2) From being dismantled from the inside (like Hitler)
Levitsky and Ziblatt: democracies are upheld by two crucial norms:
(1) Parties accept each other as legitimate rivals
(2) Parties don’t play “hardball” and take full advantage of being in power to change the rules in their favour
Levitsky and Ziblatt: democracy is underpinned by two norms…
(1) Parties treat each other as legitimate rivals
(2) Parties don’t play so hard that they change the rules in their favour when they have power
Timothy Garton Ash’s four categories of reason in favour of free speech:
STGD
(Self, Truth, Government, Diversity)
Timothy Garton Ash: Three reasons why we should focus more on norms than laws when it comes to free speech
Interconnectivity, ineffectiveness, and dignity
(1) In an interconnected world, national regs achieve less
(2) Law is powerless to influence the mass of human communication
(3) Overregulating us treats us like children
Two functions of the state distinguished by Corey Brettschneider:
Coercive and expressive functions
Timothy Garton Ash: law and norms are like…
Ice and water (not like fire and water)
Gary Stevenson: three reasons for the increase in inequality:
(1) Tax cuts overall for the rich
(2) Increased integration of Western economies with more unequal places like China and India
(3) The mishandling of crises like 2008 and Covid so as to transfer money to the rich
Andrew Hurrell on norms:
The relationship between agreement and foundations will always be indeterminate: Do we agree because it’s right, or is it right because we agree?
Herman and Chomsky (1988) - The “Propaganda Model”: five filters
(1) Media ownership is concentrated
(2) Advertising
(3) Reliance on gov’t / “official” information sources
(4) Flak
(5) Anticommunism as state religion
For Walter Russell Mead, what are the four schools of though in American foreign policy which have been in tension throughout US history?
Hamiltonian: promoting trade and business opportunities
Jeffersonian: cynicism about big schemes or foreign adventures
Jacksonianism: populist desire for military strength
Wilsonian: idealism
Arend Lijphart: there are two dimensions on which democracies can be measured. What are they?
- Executive-parties dimension
- Federal-unitary dimension
Arend Lijphart: What are the five variables for measuring democracies in the executive-parties dimension?
Executive-parties dimension:
1. Single-party executive v coalitions
2. Executive dominance over legislature
3. Two-party v multiparty systems
4. Disproportional v multiparty systems
5. Uncoordinated interest groups v social pact negotiations
Arend Lijphart: What are the five variables in the unitary-federal dimension for measuring democracies?
Federal-unitary dimension:
1. Unitary v federal gov’t
2. Unicameral v bicameral legislature
3. Flexible/unwritten v rigid/written constitutions
4. Presence of strong-JR by courts
5. Central banks’ independence
Arend Lijphart: in what two ways are consensus-based democracies argued to be better than majoritarian democracies?
- They are more effective at gov’t and policy-making
- They produce a kinder, gentler quality of democracy
In Samuel Huntington (1991) The Third Wave, what waves and reverse waves of democratisation did he identify?
First wave (1828-1926): US, Britain, France and others in W. Europe - inspired by American and French Revolutions
First reverse wave (1920s/30s): Germany, Italy, Poland, Greece, Spain all fall to authoritarianism
Second wave (1943-1962): German and Italian democracy restored post-WWII, while decolonialism leads to new democracies in India and Africa
Second reverse wave (1950s/60s): Military coups and authoritarian regimes in Latin America, Africa and Asia
Third wave (1974-1990): Democratisation in Portugal, Spain and Greece as well as Argentina, Brazil, Chile and latterly in Eastern Europe (although that could be a Fourth Wave)
