Practise Of Politics Key Definitions

Question 1

Clark, Golder and Golder parliamentarianism and presidentialism

Answer 1

Is the government responsible to the elected legislature?
No - presidential
Yes - is the head of state popularly elected for a fixed term?
No - parliamentary
Yes - semi-presidential

Question 2

Samuels parliamentarianism, presidentialism, parliamentarianism difference

Answer 2

Executive and legislative are fused or separate

Question 3

Shugart 2008 Parliamentary democracy

Answer 3

In parliamentary democracies, executive authority, consisting of a prime minister and cabinet, arises out of the legislature. The executive is at all times subject to a vote of no confidence by a majority

Question 4

Shugart 2008 Presidentialism definition

Answer 4

In presidential systems the executive is headed by a popularly elected president who serves as the chief executive. The terms ode to the executive and legislature are fixed and not subject to mutual confidence. The president names and directs the cabinet

Question 5

Shugart 2008 semi-presidentialism definition

Answer 5

The president is popularly elected and has constitutional authority. There is also a prime minister and cabinet, subject to the confidence of the assembly

Question 6

Shugart and Carey 1992 premier-presidentialism

Answer 6

The PM and the cabinet are exclusively accountable to the parliamentary majority

Question 7

Shugart and Carey 1992 president-parliamentarianism

Answer 7

The PM and cabinet are dually accountable to the president and parliamentary majority

Question 8

Elgie three criteria which commonly differentiates presidentialism and parliamentarianism

Answer 8

1) the procedures electing political leaders
2) procedures for dismissing leaders
3) constitutional and political powers of leaders

Question 9

Elgie dispositional property definition

Answer 9

Indicate nothing per se about the powers of institutional and office holders, simply refer to the characteristics of the institutional framework within which any set of power relations occurs

Question 10

Elgie relational property definition

Answer 10

Descriptions or the actual power situation

Question 11

Chaisty Cheeseman and Power - presidents toolbox when constructing legislative coalitions

Answer 11

Agenda power, budgetary authority, cabinet management, partisan powers, informal institutions

Question 12

Schmitter and Karl 1991 Democracy definition

Answer 12

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

Question 13

Schmitter and Karl 1991 Electoralism definition

Answer 13

Some say that holding elections is enough even if specific parties or candidates are excluded or substantial proportions of the population cannot freely participate

Question 14

What Schmitter and Karl 1991 adds as conditions (2) to Robert Dahl’s 7

Answer 14

8) popularly elected officials must be able to exercise their constitutional powers without being subject to (informal) overriding opposition from unelected officials
9) the polity must be self-governing

Question 15

Schmitter and Karl 1991 how democracies differ (11)

Answer 15

1) consensus
2) participation
3) access (rulers don’t weigh preferences of all citizens equally)
4) responsiveness
5) majority rule (positions + policy may have other considerations)
6) parliamentary sovereignty
7) party government
8)pluralism
9) federalism
10) presidentialism
11) checks and balances

Question 16

Clark, Golder and Golder 2017, substantive view of democracy

Answer 16

Classifies political regimes in regard to outcomes they have not just their institutions

Question 17

Clark Golder and Golder 2017 minimalist/procedural view of democracy

Answer 17

Classifies political regimes only in regard to their institutions and procedures

Question 18

Dichotomous measure: Democracy-Dictatorship (DD) def of democracy + 4 criteria (Clark, Golder and Golder 2017)

Answer 18

Definition: regimes in which governmental offices (chief executive + legislature) are filled as a consequence of contested elections
1) chief executive is elected
2) legislature is elected
3) there is more than one party competing in the elections
4) alternation in power under identical electoral rules has taken place

Question 19

Continous measure: Polity IV dimensions of democracy (5) (Clark, Golder and Golder 2017)

Answer 19

Competitiveness of executive recruitment
Openness of executive recruitment
Constraints that exist on the executive
Regulation of political participation
Competitiveness of political participation

Question 20

Clark, Golder and Golder 2017 electoral authoritarianism

Answer 20

Leaders hold elections and tolerate some pluralism but at the same time violate minimal democratic norms so severely and systematically that it makes no sense to classify them as democracies
Types: hegemonic electoral authoritarianism, competitive authoritarian regime

Question 21

Bueno de Mesquita et al 2003: selectorate theory

Answer 21

Selectorate is the set of people who play a role in selecting the leader
The winning coalition is the set of people whose support is necessary for the leader to stay in power
Performance:
Good when W and W/S are both large (democracy)
Poor when W and W/S are both small (dominant party and personalistic dictatorship)
Mid when W is small but W/S is large (monarchies and military juntas)

Question 22

Gilbert conceptualization axes

Answer 22

Competitiveness, civil liberties and tutelary interference

Question 23

Rogenhofer and Panievsky 2020: shared tactics of Erdogan, Modi and Netanyahu

Answer 23

Neoliberal clientelism: policies which combine commitments to neoliberalism with making disproportionate welfare services available to the “people” as defined by the populist leader at the expense of society as a whole
Weaponizing (ethno)religous divide
Attack on mass media

Question 24

Dahl 2005 institutions required for modern representative democracy

Answer 24

1) elected officials
2) free, fair and frequent elections
3) freedom of expression
4) access to alternative sources of information
5) associational autonomy
6) inclusive citizenship

Question 25

Magyar and Madlovics 2021 critique of hybridology

Answer 25

Presumption that the centre of a polity is a distinct political sphere (political processes are defined by political actors and formal institutions) - tutelary factors are seen as mere interference
Offe division of spheres of social action:
Political action - embedded in a state structure and framed within features such as the acquisition and use of legitimate authority, accountability…
Market action - contract-based pursuit of acquisitive interests within the framework of legal rules
Communal activities - sense of reciprocal obligation among persons who share significant markers of identity and cultural belonging
Separation of social activities is rudimentary —> informal and personal relations dominate organized usually in patronal networks
Ideal types: liberal democracy, communist dictatorship, patronal autocracy

Question 26

Boix, Miller, Rosato conceptual benefits of dichotomous measures (with minimal conditions where each has to be fulfilled)

Answer 26

1) concreteness and transparency in the class of democracies
2) reflects cumulative nature of political rights (continuous measures ignore the degree to which distinct political features reinforce one another in spreading political power

Question 27

Boix, Miller, Rosato empirical benefits of dichotomous measure

Answer 27

1) problems of inference: interpret moves from 0-0,5 on same scale as 0,5-1
2) little agreement on how different components ought to be combined into a single democracy measure

Question 28

Albertazzi and McDonnell populism definition

Answer 28

An ideology which pits a virtuous and homogenous people against a set of elites and dangerous others who together are depicted as depriving the sovereign people of their rights, values, prosperity, identity and voice

Question 29

Albertazzi and McDonnell four principles of populist ideology

Answer 29

1) the people are inherently good, divisions within them are false and manufactured
2) the people are sovereign
3) people’s culture and way of life are of paramount value
4) the leader and party/movement are one with the people

Question 30

Pasquino, ideological conditions which are conducive for populism

Answer 30

1) Ideologies are fluid
2) theme based rejection of politics (political culture attaches no prestige to politics BUT it is still important for the allocation of ressources)
3) anti-party sentiment (professional party politicians are wasteful corrupt and cause conflict
4) political culture with many associations and institutions between the people and the leader

Question 31

Pasquino, social conditions which makes populism more likely

Answer 31

1) political isolation and alienation of individuals (not part of organizations or associations)
2) people in need of emotional attachments, both of vertical and horizontal type
3) Kornhauser, 1959 mass society
4) high level of anxiety and collective malaise (transitional society)

Question 32

Mastropaolo (Schedler 1997) prominent variants of antipolitical discourse (3)

Answer 32

1) populist parties: official politics is ill intrinsically —> should be removed
2) collective movements: no anti-pluralist outlook, politics needs to be renewed by stimulating activism by citizens and civil society
3) partisan aspect of politics needs to be scaled down in favour of a greater role for markets, independent agencies and experts

Question 33

Mastropaolo, why is populsim successful? Potential causes

Answer 33

1) sociological causes: best indicator is education level but evidence from electoral analysis is unclear
2) unease within western democracies (immigration, growing crime rates, economic issues and corruption scandals)
3) inefficient elite response to: decline in electoral turnout, evolution in the technology of the mass party, reduced role of state in providing services

Question 34

Mastropaolo, transformation of parties

Answer 34

SQ: parties organize social life (trade unions, sporting clubs, youth associations)
1) formation of catch-all parties (welfare state smoothes cleavages, primary goal is winning elections which leads to widening potential basin of voters, promotion of leader images because media gives people information)
2) cartell parties: oligopolistic transformation of interparty competition

Question 35

Sobolewska and Ford - three new identity groups

Answer 35

1) conviction liberals: university graduates who value individual freedom, have little attachment to traditional majority identities and values, embrace diversity
2) necessity liberals: ethnic minorities, pro-diversity stances are not a matter of personal values but necessity
3) identity conservatives: shrinking group of voters who are white and leave school with no qualifications, used to be majority but now feel left behind

Question 36

Guy and Pierre 2020 populism typology

Answer 36

Electoral populism: democracy with locus in elites
Direct democracy: democracy with locus in people
Electoral authoritarianism: authoritarianism with locus in elites
Consultative authoritarianism: authoritarianism with locus in people

Question 37

Norris and Inglehart 2019 structural social changes that drive cultural evolution

Answer 37

1) education
2) urbanization
3) growing ethnic diveristy