V4 Flashcards
Democracy: Definition
Samuels: a political system in which the rulers are accountable to the ruled
Lincoln: Government of the people, by the people, and for the people
Democracy: Three Principles
Accountability
Participation
Contestation
Democracy: Requirements
Elected government
Civil liberties
Fair and frequent elections
Procedural v Substantive Definitions of Democracy
Procedural:does the political process follow democratic principles?
Substantive: does the outcome of the political process satisfy norms such as equality, fairness and inclusion?
Democracy: Schumpeter
Minimalist procedural definition(Schumpeter): based on elections
– Ex ante uncertainty
– Ex post Irreversibility
– Repeatability (Cheibub, Gandhi, Vreeland 2010)
Democracy Dahl
Dimensions:
Public contestation
inclusiveness
with
competitive oligarchies
polyarchies (ideal)
closed hegemonies
inclusive hegemonies
Milestones in Developments of Democracy
Dahl:
Incorporation: right to vote granted to large parts of the citizenry
Representation: right to form parties – led to a shift to PR systems in
many countries
Organized opposition: right to “throw the rascals out” – vote against the government
Vanhanen’s Polyarchy Dataset
- Close to Dahl’s two‐dimensional concept
- Contestation C:100–(vote share of largest party)
- Participation P: voters’ percentage of total population
- Final index D = (C*P)/100
- Replicability and Reliability: high
- Validity: problematic
– Two‐party systems receive low C scores
The Polity IV Project
- Core dimensions of the index – Competitiveness of political participation
– Regulation of political participation
– Competitiveness of executive recruitment
– Openness of executive recruitment
– Constraints on the chief executive
* Additive scale
– 10 autocracy to +10 democracy
- Qualitative scores for the sub‐components: high validity * Replicability and reliability problematic * Scores suggest equidistance between categories
Freedom House Index
- 192 countries and 18 territories, since 1972
- Indicator measures “global freedom”, not necessarily democracy
- Two dimensions (not Dahl’s!):
– Political rights
– Civil liberties - Assessment based on actual situation
- Scores from 0 (bad) to 4 (good) on 10 political rights indicators and 15 civil liberties indicators
- Focus on freedom and civil rights, not participation and contestation: validity?
- Limited replicability: coding decisions not transparent
- Overlapsbetweendimensions
- Change in definitions/codings over time, limited comparability with earlier versions
Varieties of Democracy (V‐Dem)
- 250+ states and territories, since 1900 [1789]
- 470 unique democracy indicators
- over 3,700 country experts
- Separate indices of five varieties of democracy: electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian.
- Aggregation via IRT model
- Transparency about coding decisions and aggregation methods: high replicability
- Democracy measures consist of many subcomponents: validity
- Scores can change over time: reliability?
- Some indicators are hard to measure: validity?
Madison’s Dilemma
- Balance between limited and effective government
- Four principles of constitutional design:
– Unitary vs federal system
– Separation or fusion of powers
– Judicial review vs. parliamentary supremacy
– Majoritarian or proportional electoral system
Vertical Division of Power
- Unitary state: Central government has exclusive and final authority over entire territory
– Examples: France, Israel - Federal state: Multiple governments have overlapping
authority over certain pieces of territory
– Examples: US, Germany, India
Why Federalism?
- Large territories * Manage ethnic/religious diversity
- Potential problems:
– Less effective
– Need to divide up responsibilities
Presidential Systems
- Executive and legislative branches enjoy – Separation of origin: each branch directly elected by the voters
– Separation of survival: both serve fixed terms in office
- President appoints a cabinet (“secretaries” or “ministers”)
- Neither can dismiss the other * Example: US, Latin America
