week 6 inter Flashcards
1
Q
What are the three waves of democratization according to Samuel P Huntington?
A
- rise of nation states (mid 19th century-1920): nation states to mass democracies. end with Italian fascism
- decolonization (end ww2-1960): formation of many states, try to implement democratic rule
- democracy in latin america and Asia and fall of SU (1975-end 20th century): mass movements and oppositons
2
Q
What does Huntington say about the middle class?
A
democratization happens in established economic and industrialized countries with property owned middle class, who are
- middle between elite and working people
- demanding personal freedom and right to politically participate
- improving quality of workforce (better education, health)
- forming associations and voluntary organizations
- demanding stability and predictability
3
Q
what are the four phases of the breakdown and consolidation of systems for democratization (democratic transition)
A
- initial phase; opposition against old, undemocratic rule
- emerging phase; general elections
- advanced phase; other issues than liberty become important
- consolidation; institutionalization of new arrangements
4
Q
! what happens after the democratic transition? (2 options)
A
- embedded democracy: consolidated and stable system
- defective democracy: missing one of the features of democacy:
- full suffrage (limited democracy)
- full electoral contestation (controlled, restrictive democracy)
- civil liberties (illiberal democracy)
- effective government (due to army / church)
5
Q
what is the modernization theory on democratization?
A
- stresses interactions between social, economic and political factors, rather than primacy of economic development.
- economic and technological developments are closely linked and result in changes in all areas of society, leading to industrialization, urbanization etc.
- critics: european-based and too broad
6
Q
What are the cultural theories on democratization?
A
- Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba
- democracy can only survive when political institutions are matched with citizens’ expectations and political and social values.
- citizens are able to participate in politics and feel heard by government
- critics: absence of institutions in the equation
7
Q
What are the institutional theories on democratization?
A
- focus on institutions and structures that encourage certain ways of thinking and behaving
- citizens’ attitudes and behaviors result from possibilities, opportunities, and restrictions created by government’s institutions
8
Q
what are three broad types of states?
A
- conventional states: well-defined territory / developed sense of nationhood / sovereignty (France, Sweden)
- proto-states: no secure boundaries / no single ‘people’ /no single sovereign (Libya, Somalia)
- supra-national states: national borders become irrelevant / absolute national sovereignty still intact (EU)
9
Q
What developments challenge conventional states and their sovereign bodies?
A
- concentration of commercial powers: many large cooperations and rich individuals can be wealthier than some nation-states
- rise of international NGO’s
- globalization: terrorism, environmental issues, migration beyond scope of single state
- changing nature of conflicts: intra-state wars and terrorism
- importance of international organizations
10
Q
What does Susan Strange say in her book The Retreat of the State?
A
- political power has shifted upwards from weak states to stronger states. strong states hold power to influence developments outside of their own territory
- political power has shifted sideways from states to markets which has strengthened the power of MCN’s and IO’s. governance instead of government
- in some areas, political power has evaporated in the sense that state power has been exercised weakly or not at all
11
Q
! what can be features of democratic reform?
A
- constitutional reform; added social rights
- strengthening parliament; better monitor executives
- freedom of information and open government
- decentralization of power
- making bureaucrats more responsive and efficient
- improving citizen participation
- strengthening role of associations
- strengthening independence of mass media
- protecting and strengthening human rights
- social security
- elimination of corruption and patronage
12
Q
! what are 5 models of democracy?
A
- classical democracy
- many excluded
- direct participation - protective democracy
- increasingly inclusive
- based on consent
- representative focus on natural rights and limit government actions - developmental democracy
- based on political and economic equality
- direct participation
- applicable to all spheres of society - people’s democracy
- focus on social classes and goal of socio-economic equality
- elements of direct democracy through “soviets”
- applicable to all spheres of society - liberal democracy
- inclusive, based on political equality
- representative government
- competitive elections
- liberal in guaranteeing existence of autonomous political and economic (interest) groups: protection of individuals and minorities
13
Q
! what are three features added to definition of populism
A
- dismisses expert and elite knowledge, claiming that “truth is simple”, populist leaders appeal directly to the people
- appeal to identity politics in order to reassure the people from their communities to deal with uncertainties created by contemporary political events
- tends to relegate the rhetoric of compromises to a more marginal position, which makes it de facto anti-pluralist because it rejects the idea to find a middle ground among different positions/ideas
14
Q
! what is Zakaria’s definition of populism
A
- populism is more a threat to liberal constitutionalism than democracy
- populism is a wake-up call to elites who have ‘grown too cozy to their privileges’.
populist movements can ‘prevent liberal democracies from aggrandizing their liberal side and neglecting their democratic side’
15
Q
! what does Plattner say about populism?
A
- populism as an essential feature of democracy to maintain balance as counteracting part to radical pluralism
- ” a useful corrective to the prosperity of liberal democracy to move too far away from its foundations in popular sovereignty”
- “liberal democracy today owes much of its resilience to the ways in which its two leading sources of internal opposition - populism and radical pluralism- are inherently at odds with each other. both these tendencies are at work to different degrees in different democratic societies, but to some extent they wind up canceling each other out”
- radical pluralism: based on aggrandizement of democracy’s liberalism and anti-majoritarianism to the point that it undermines popular self-government and social cohesion leading to excessive individualism
