Politics

Chapter 1
Lasswell: Politics is about who gets what, when and how. Politics is about the process of making and
contesting authoritative public decisions about the distribution of rights, responsibilities, wealth and
power.
Political choices determine how order is imposed in societies, which political institutions will be
created, and which policies are enacted, but also when to contest the established order.
Political Science is the study of politics. Political scientists search for explanations of political
behavior and events by breaking down the who get what, when, and how into specific and targeted
queries.
4 Subfields:
American Politics
Political Theory: Philosophical questions concerning the nature and purposes of politics.
International Relations: Politics between countries.
Comparative Politics: The systematic search for answers to political questions about how
people around the world make and contest authoritative public choices. In essence it compares
and contrasts why people around the world make similar decisions under different political
rules, or why they make different decisions under similar rules Examining politics in
different countries around the world, showing how politics works around the globe.
Conventional Wisdom: Widely held opinions about politics frequently fall flat when confronted with
comparative evidence. It is not immediately wrong.
A comparative approach to understanding politics around the world seeks to ask questions,
generate hypotheses, and test the hypotheses with the comparative method (comparing and contrasting
cases that share attributes or characteristics but differ on the outcome you are exploring). The goal is to
generate hypotheses that provide convincing answers to our questions about what politics is all about.
The foundations of comparative politics were established in ancient times and evolved through history
into the discipline we study today.
Aristotle might be the first comparative political scientist What sort of constitution best combines
political stability and good government? His students needed to check every country, just like we do
today.
Prior to the 1700: Study of politics rooted in moral and religious principles. This changed
during Europe's Enlightenment (Montesquieu, Lock, Rousseau), when new scientific
discoveries justified a logical and empirical approach to studying the natural and social world,
and chipped away the religious power.
1800: Industrial Revolution that caused massive socioeconomic change, particularly Western
Europe. Scholars such as Karl Marx considered the political impact of the shift from rural to
industrial urban societies Relationship between political and economic power.
Late 1800, Early 1900: Sources and consequences of Nationalism (blamed for igniting WWI)
and forms of political ideology such as Fascism (Regimes that started WWII) and
Communism (Revolutions in Russia and China, and bloody rebellions elsewhere). Scholars
researches why nationalism took a benign form in some countries but a virulent form in others,
and they also looked into why people found communism appealing and why some people found
fascism an inspiration.
1930: Many dictators to power, would Democracy even survive? Nowadays, non-democratic
political ideologies continue to challenge the stability of democracy all over the world.

 1960s and 70s: Emergence of many new nations in the wake of European decolonization
generated a host of new questions, particularly about what might foster economic development
and political stability in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Scholar taught poor nations were
doomed (EU is coming), but the rapid rise of the Asian Tigers invalidated such ideas and
pushed scholars to ask whether economic development was a function of political culture or
non-democratic political institutions.
1980s and 90s: Formerly non-democratic countries had adopted democracy. The Soviet Union
collapsed, ending the Cold War and generating optimism that the whole might become
democratic.
Recently, Political Scientists have focused increased attention on questions related to the
expanding role of women in politics, the growing influence of religion, and the impact of
globalization on domestic and international politics.
At its essence, comparative politics is an argument for the existence of patterns, whether similarities
or differences, across countries, and for undertaking a systematic effort to understand why different
outcomes occur in similar places, or similar outcomes occur in different places.
Questions in Comparative Politics are always inspired by real-world events. The worst sorts of
arguments in comparative politics are based on opinions rooted in stereotypes, in the belief that the past
predicts the future, or on generalizations drawn from specific facts.
South Korea became Democratic, and if this happened because of Korean Culture, North Korea
should have become democratic as well. But this is of course not true. Both countries share centuries of
language, culture, and history. If Korean people were inherently pro-democratic, and if political
outcomes followed from similar characteristics, then North Korea should also be democratic.
Comparativists shy away from building arguments based exclusively on the particulars of a single case.
Comparativists are interested in answering why we see particular political outcomes in some similar
places and times, but not in other comparable places and times and why we see those same outcomes
in different places.
To come up with convincing answers to these sorts of comparative politics questions, we first have
to formulate hypotheses, and then apply the comparative method.
Hypothesis: An argument that links cause to effect, and is reliable when it has been tested across more
than one case. Those who study comparative politics search for patterns of attributes and
outcomes across cases. The goal of the comparisons is to generate hypotheses that are causal and
testable.
Hypotheses posit causal relationships between attributes and outcomes. These hypotheses
should clearly articulate the relationship between cause and effect.
Hypotheses must be testable and must be falsifiable: Formulated to allow for the possibility that the
hypothesized relationship can be shown to be incorrect, through observation. This helps us narrow
down potential explanations for political outcomes.
When the hypotheses is falsified:
Modify the original hypothesis in a way that can also be tested against the facts (Ad hoc).
Replace it with an entirely new hypothesis
Some hypotheses are not falsifiable and these are to be avoided when building an argument in
comparative politics There is no plausible evidence that exists.
Comparative politics is about asking questions that put world event in comparative perspective,
and then by formulating causal hypotheses that can be falsified against the evidence.

Comparative Method: A way of examining patterns of facts or events to narrow down what is
important in terms of building a convincing comparative politics argument.
2 Approaches to the Comparative method:
1. Method of Agreement: Compares and contrasts cases with different attributes but shared
outcomes, seeking the one attribute these cases share in common to attribute causality.
Example: 4 countries all experience civil war. Several characteristics can cause it, the
characteristic all countries share is the one attribute you need.
However, the Method of Agreement is not the best way to build arguments:
Typically not the case that certain attributes always match up with certain outcomes.
Countries agree on the key attribute, but do not agree on the outcome.
It cannot rule out the possibility that other things may cause civil war.
2. Method of Difference: Compares and contrasts cases with the same attributes but different
outcomes, and determines causality by finding an attribute that is present when an outcome
occurs but that is absent in similar cases when the outcome does not occur. Thus, the method
works by comparing and contrasting the presence and absence of characteristics of our objects
of study. This method focus on the country that differed on the outcome relative to other cases
even though it agreed with other countries in terms of several other attributes it has.
Correlation: A measure of observed association between 2 variables (Civil War more likely in
Ethnically diverse countries). Correlations can be positive when one variable increases so does the
other or negative, meaning when one variable increases, the other variable decreases.
Causation is defined as a process or event that produces an observable effect. We can observe that
there is a correlation between ethnic diversity and civil war, but we cannot just conclude that
ethnic diversity causes civil war.
If we find a correlation between certain characteristics (ethnic diversity) and certain outcomes (war),
we still need to explain how these things are causally connected, something that may ultimately rely
more on logical argument than direct evidence.
Quantitative Research: Statistical data to assess relationships between attributes and outcomes,
analyzing those data using computers. Quantitative research emphasizes breadth over depth. This is
because the larger the sample of quantitative data one analyzes, the lower the likelihood that any
relationships you discover in the data are random, and the lower the likelihood the sample you have
gathered is biased.
Quantitative Research allows for precise assessment of the relationship between causes and effects.
However, doing research in breadth may sacrifice the depth of understanding of what is really
going on, politically.
Qualitative Research: Focuses on an in-depth understanding of the phenomena we're interested in
exploring. Qualitative Research necessarily considers fewer cases than does quantitative research.
Disadvantages:
1. Produces causal argument for only the cases being compared Generalizing.
2. Bogged down in relatively unimportant details and degenerate into description without
explanation.
3. Often difficult to judge the relative validity of a qualitative argument, because it is impossible to
check scholar's findings.

Reading Lecture 2
Niccolo Machiavelli: A Portrait
For Machiavelli, conversation was of great significance. He loved to talk with people, and question
people and books. However, conversation was also his favorite metaphor for the serious pursuits of
intellectual life.
Youth and Lost Years (1469-1498)
Niccolo Machiavelli was born in May, 1469, in an old Florentine family with a distinguished record of
political participation, but without the wealth and political status of the elite families (Ottimati). His
family valued learning a lot. His Father was a doctor of law (with low income), but he could provide
Nicollo with a solid humanist education. Bernardo had a large collection of important books
(expensive because of the new book-print) that influence Machiavelli at an early age.
Niccolo had learned Latin at an early age, and read all the important Greeks therefore in Latin
translations, like Plato and Aristotle.
1489-1498: Machiavelli was elected as head of Florence's second chancery, which administered the
city's relations with its subject territories.
Late fifteenth-century Florence was a thriving commercial and cultural center under the political
sway of the Medici. Lorenzo de Medici began his unofficial rule the year Machiavelli was born. Two
years after his death Charles VIII of France invaded Italy in 1494 and swept through the peninsula
so easily that Machiavelli later wrote in The Prince that he was allowed to conquer Italy with chalk.
Internal and external threats against the Medici converged when Lorenzos son Piero surrendered
Florentine territory and fortresses to the French, angering the Florentines and undermining the regime.
A revolt removed the Medici from power and sent them into exile in November 1494.
Friar Girolamo Savonarola: Excoriated both the Florentines, welcomed Charles VIII as a purifying
sword of God, and helped persuade the Florentines that moral reform would begin with the
establishment of a republican government built around the Great Council.
May 1498: Machiavelli was elected second chancellor and soon thereafter secretary to the foreign
policy magistracy of the Ten. His entry to the government may have been facilitated by association
with Savonarola's adversaries, he still complained about Savonarola because of the political divisions
he caused.
Government Career (1498-1512)
These fourteen years before were the valuable seed time for the judgments that season his later political
and historical writing.
A constant concern for correct interpretation of political situations and figures characterized
Machiavellis work as an envoy; the skillful, effective use of language that he acquired in this work
later shaped his habits of thought and expression
Machiavellis responsibilities as second chancellor involved the administration of Florences dominion
in Tuscany, but he soon became the Tens favorite envoy to foreign governments and princes. He
was never a full- fledged ambassador, a post reserved for members of elite families; his tasks were the
less glamorous but perhaps more crucial ones of gathering information, uncovering secrets, and
interpreting intentions.
1505-06: His idea of a Homegrown Militia that was necessary because of the unreliability of
mercenaries Persuaded Soderini to permit him to raise a militia from the dominion territories, to be
administered under a new magistracy, the Nine, whose secretary he became in January 1507.

External events dominated Machiavellis experience of politics and nourished his growing
theoretical interests.
When Machiavelli was not send on a mission to negotiate with Emperor Maximilian as a result of a
decision of the Ottimati (they saw Machiavelli as Soderini's lackey), he was furious. Eventually he
joined Vettori on the mission, but this made clear that Machiavelli had enemies among the Ottimati.
Another reason for their hostility toward him was the militia, which they feared might become an
instrument of personal power in Soderinis hands, but which Machiavelli continued to build for the war
to regain Pisa.
Friends of Machiavelli acknowledged him with his deeds, but some also showed that Machiavelli
had to be careful with what he was doing.
The republics days were numbered once Pope Julius organized the Holy League against France
in 1511, with a battle cry to free Italy from the barbarians. Soderini remained loyal to France,
and when the leagues forces drove the French from Italy in the summer of 1512, the angry pope let the
Spaniards invade Florentine territory in support of a Medici restoration. After they sacked the nearby
city of Prato, futilely defended by Machiavellis militia, Soderini was forced into exile. On September
1, Giuliano de Medici entered Florence in triumph and a pro-Medici party took over. In November
Machiavelli was relieved of his duties, confined to Florentine territory for a year, and barred from the
government palace. Mortified at his militias drubbing he scrawled the rueful words after all was
lost.
Contemplative Years (1513-1520)
Forced away from the political ferment in Florence, he led an outwardly dreary life on his farm
near San Casciano, ten miles south of the city. But his intellectual life, animated by the
correspondence with Francesco Vettori, became richer and more exciting.
First Machiavelli had to confront accusations, never proven and certainly false, of complicity in an
anti-Medici conspiracy early in 1513. He was tortured an held in prison for 22 days. Within a week
of his liberation, the correspondence with Vettori began. Machiavelli hoped that Vettori, now Florentine
ambassador to the papal court, might come to his aid. Machiavelli expressed a wish for employment by
the Medici, because, he could offer experience and competence. But Vettori could offer little tangible
help. However, things proved to be more valuable. With his letters he drew Machiavelli into dialogue
about politics, probing him with questions about current events and encouraging him to gather and
refine his thoughts and write about them. 2 central themes of The Prince emerged from the
correspondence.
Discourses on Livy and Art of War, written by Machiavelli around 1518. Both were inspired by
conversations in which he participated in the gardens of the Rucellai family, where humanists and
historians hosted by Cosimo Rucellai discussed politics and history. Indeed, the Rucellai gardens are
the setting for the dialogues in the Art of War, which suggests how grateful Machiavelli was for these
stimulating conversations after the years of enforced isolation.
The preface to book 2 of the Discourses conveys Machiavellis changing self-image: once an
adviser to princes, he now sees himself as a teacher to the young.

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527): Typical Renaissance person; Poet, Diplomat. Soldier, Scolar.
1469: Born in the city-state of Florence, divided Italian peninsula.
Italy was weak, divided and in a permanent state of war: 5 city-states (Florence, Milan,
Naples, Venice, the Papal state) and three major outside powers: France, Spain and the Holy
Roman Empire.
1498: Head of the Florentine Chancery
1512: Dismissed, deprived, and totally removed
Machiavelli to Sant Andrea in Percussina, and writes The Prince (1513, 1532, small
booklet) and Discourses on Livy (1517, 1531, serious book). These books were only published
after his death.
1527: Death I love my city more than my own soul () My loyalty and honesty are proven by
my poverty
Why Machiavelli?
1. Reputation and influence are beyond comparison.
Il Principe (1513): Probably the most famous and influential treatise on statecraft. For
Machiavelli, nothing was more important than the State and the survival of the State.
Nothing is worse than a state collapse, and the Prince need to help the state to survive.
It was a book inspired by the devil.
The book was written during difficult and dangerous times, for Florence and for Machiavelli.
The Prince was a Mirror Book: Guideline book
Book was written based on practical political experience and the classics (Renaissance: renewed
influence of pre-Christianity Greece and Rome). It was written on sober reasoning and
empirical fact, not on noble or Utopian ideas.
2. Bridges pre-modern and modern political thinking. He was a living bridge between
medieval politics and politics in recent times.
Political Philosophy, Machiavelli is the father.
Politics and religion: politics as an autonomous realm of human action; demystification of
politics. Machiavelli understood that Politics and Religion should be divided (Separation of
powers Secular and Religious power).
Machiavelli also separated Politics from Ethics. The Prince needs to do whatever he can to
support the state. It is better for a leader to be feared than loved.
Nothing is more than power and the continuation of the state. For this, the Prince/Leader
needs to be ruthless.
3. Links political thinking with political practice. More than any other political philosopher
he links political thinking with political practice.
Politics and morality: good government is not necessarily virtuous government; in favor of
strong, effective = just government, whereby the moral nature of governance can only be
decided on the basis of what it is meant to achieve, and how it is achieved.
He was the first to introduce Military Draft.
It is not about the ruler; it is about the state.
Authoritarianism: A Ruler who is not held in check by laws is likely to make the same mistakes as an
unruly multitude.
Machiavelli is an advocate of strong state power, not an advocate of Authoritarianism.

Comparative Politics
Chapter 2
Pirates flourish off the coast of Somalia because a functioning central government has not controlled
the territory since 1991. It is a failed state, because it has no effective national legal authority, such as
the police and a legal system.
A state fails when the government cannot unite often conflicting individual interests and identities in
order to protect and satisfy the collective interest in peace and security.
State: Political-legal unit with sovereignty over a particular territory and the population that resides
within its borders.
Sovereignty: Ultimate responsibility for and legal authority over the conduct of internal affairs,
including a claim to a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force, within the territory defined
by its borders.
Failed State: Sovereignty over claimed territory has collapsed or was never effectively established.
Legitimacy of the State: Degree to which citizens willingly accept the state's sovereign authority to
use power as well as the state's effectiveness to shape its citizens lives.
Establishing political order is a collective action problem: A clash between individual and collective
interests. When members of a group need to participate in a collective activity (like taxes) problematic
issues often arise. From an individual's perception, cooperating is costly in terms of time and money,
thus often have the incentive to let everyone else do the hard work.
Collective Action Problem: Prisoner's Dilemma; The prisoners are in a dilemma, because they
cannot coordinate on their optimal collective interest, which is to both keep quiet, and they are not sure
if they get their optimal individual interest. Individual incentives often trump the collective good.
This Prisoner's Dilemma illustrates the tension between individual and collective interests.
In Politics, people want to advance their own interests, regardless of how doing so might affect
others' interests.
The Collective Action Problem illustrates that private preferences and public choices often conflict.
To solve this problem, Coercion can be used, or gaining consent (People forced to pay their taxes, or
they can willingly do so). However, only Coercion can ensure authoritative collective choices.
Hobbes: Recognized the clash between individual and collective interests Leviathan; the state is
the solution to this problem. The Leviathan (state) is the political-legal entity employed to resolve the
tension between our individual interests to do as we please and our collective desire for law and order.
The State needs to be powerful enough to keep individuals in line.
Hobbes was among the first to articulate a justification for political authority and legitimacy that did
not rest on the divine right of kings. His justification for strong central government differed from that
of previous thinkers because it required popular consent rather than divine right or coercion.
Human Society only flourishes if government provides all citizens with security of life and poverty.
State of nature: Imaginary time before human beings organized into government or states for the
collective good. In this State of nature the Might makes Right. Hobbes describes this Anarchistic life as
poor, nasty and short. Humans need a government to avoid this terrible fate.
Hobbes believed that self-interested individuals would consent to a social contract. Enforcing the
social contract means consenting to an authority that will keep everyone in line: The Leviathan. This
Leviathan can use Coercion, as long as it keeps the peace between people and sees the right to selfpreservation.

All governments coercively limit individual freedom to some degree. Hobbes want to distinguish
the Might from Right To distinguish coercive, illegitimate authority from consensual, legitimate
authority.
Politics always involve the threat of state violence against all citizens. Therefore, Hobbes notions such
as human rights depend on the brute power of the state because the threat of punishment keeps people
in line. Leviathan should use force only to uphold citizens freedom.
Hobbes: A strong central government could generate cooperative behavior that would end the
war of all against all, using the Leviathan to limit one's own freedoms.
Sovereignty: The 2 Characteristics of sovereignty are key to effective rule of the state.
Centralized decision making: some people control the state on behalf of its population.
The possibility of Coercion: Centralized decisions for the entire community may or may not
reflect everyone's individual interests. States can forces individuals to do something.
Monopoly on the legitimate use of force; All governments use force or the threat of force to
maintain order. States claim a monopoly on the legitimate use of force within their territory to the
extend that the laws permit it (authorization is given to institutions or individuals). Coercion is needed
to improve people's general welfare.
The state is an abstraction. In contrast, a Government is a concrete organization that has the authority
to act on behalf of the state, and the set of people who have the right to make decisions that affect
everyone in the state. (Government = Body State = Soul). In many states the head of state is
separated from the head of Government (Wim-Lex vs. Markie Rutte).
While the state is a political-legal abstraction, a nation is a form of political identity. It is a cultural
grouping of individuals who associate with each other based on collectively held political identity. This
identity can be based on shared cultural traits or a historical association with a particular territory.
Nations do not possess sovereignty and they do not claim a monopoly on the legitimate use of force.
Membership in a State is an objective legal fact as a result of your passport. In contrast,
Nationalism (the feeling of identification with a nation), is a subjective sentiment.
Society: a term of the diverse forms of voluntary collective action that people engage in outside the
realm of the state and its authoritative, coerced public choices. It consists of all formal and informal
organizations, social movements, and interest groups tat attempt to remain autonomous from state
control and articulate their own economic, cultural and political identities and interests.
When we speak of society, we mean the ways that people speak, assemble, associate, and reason
together on matters of public concern and act together to influence politics.
These organizations can be Churches in the US and groups varying from Boy Scouts to the
American Legion. All these organizations are not part of the state.
Potential tension always exists between state and society: One the one hand, the state can become
too strong, eliminating individual and group political, economic and cultural freedoms. On the other
hand, a strong society can serve as a monitor and restraint on the use of coercive authority.
If the state is too weak in the face of powerful societal interests, it may be unable to control a part of
the society Rebels and Criminal organizations. In such situations, these groups provide their own
version of law and order within the state's territory (Somalia).
1648: Founding of the Modern world system of States. European leaders signed the Treaty of
Westphalia. The treaty ended the 30 year war, which was both a religious conflict between Protestants
and Catholics, as well as a territorial dispute between rival leaders. The Treaty of Westphalia
established the principle that secular leaders held ultimate authority over a given territory.

The Modern State is associated with:

1. A decline in the legitimacy of traditional forms of political authority such as the rule of
charismatic authority figure and inherited leadership, and religious authority.
2. An increase in the central government's sovereignty over carefully delineated territory and a
decline of decentralized and overlapping forms of sovereignty such as traditional feudal
systems.
3. An increase in the organizational complexity of central-government institutions.
State formation that shaped ruler's political interest EARLY STATE FORMATION
Middle Ages: Kings in European territories pursued their own political interest as coercive, selfseeking entrepreneurs. It contained instruments of violence, they wanted to expand their territory and
make money. These Kings engaged in warfare, which is extremely expensive, for political primacy.
Early state formation was triggered by war preparation in combination with tax-extraction.
Warfare and taxation are necessary to establish and defend sovereignty over territory.
Military: Larger Armies and navies are extremely costly. Changes in military technology in the MA
gave rulers a powerful incentive to increase military spending. Increased military spending meant that
rulers needed to raise taxes, and both war preparations and taxation require centralization of power and
construction of the large bureaucracies that characterize modern states.
Economy: In addition to the growing need for tax revenue because of military spending, economic
changes beginning in the late MA also drove early state formation. An increase in agricultural
productivity improved the standards of living and made the population grow in Europe good for
armies. More money, thus tax, was needed and also new sources of revenue, done by expanding,
controlling and extracting sources from overseas empires. The growth of industry, trade, and commerce
coincided with the rise of cities around Europe, which meant the rise of a new class of urban merchants
and traders who pursued profit, political stability and security.
Good economic conditions increased tax larger military protect domestic security.
Cultural: These 2 improvements were accompanied by an monumental shift in collective and
individual beliefs and political identities, which also created an environment in which modern states
would emerge. Individual self-interest emerged instead of the feudal system as a result of the Protestant
Reformation and the Age of Enlightenment. These 2 events challenged the legitimacy of religious
authorities and the divine right to rule.
Natural Environment in Early State formation
Competition/Warfare between rivals have been present throughout history. Political competition by
itself cannot explain the rise of the Modern State in the 1600s. Therefore the focus on rising population
density in Medieval Europe. The size and density of the regional population is a strong predictor of
political centralization and institutional complexity. The key factor of rising population lies within
the natural environment: Increase in Food Production (more babies can eat, more adults, and thus
more babies). This increase in food production was mostly luck and good flat and temperate zones for
animals and crops.
The States that developed in Europe had military, economical and technological superiority over
the rest of the world, which explains their domination and colonization.

Late State Formation

Many late-forming states are among the world's weakest states. Somalia.
Many newer states cannot effectively police their own borders or monopolize the means of violence
within their territory. The same goes for Tax, which results in corruption and poor economic growth.
Additionally, newer states rarely provide adequate government services to their citizens.
Military: There was a totally different International military context during the post-1945 era than
during the Middle Ages. There were relatively fewer interstate wars after 1945. The number of civil
wars increased, but interstate wars only declined. The international military context in recent decades
did not contribute to state formation as it did in earlier eras. Leaders faces weaker incentives to
military spending, weaker incentives to increase tax, and thus less incentives to create a large
state.
Economy: Empires served the economic and political interests of the colonial power: Exploitation of
the labor and natural resources of the occupied territories. Colonial powers were uninterested in
developing legitimate institutions in their colonies. They just dominated the region for resources.
When colonized states eventually gained independence, they did so almost overnight as the empire of
foreign occupiers collapsed. These new countries had little time to engage in state-building practices
such as societal mobilization for warfare or administrative power for Tax. Consequently, the new states
were poor and the leaders had to work with the government institutions they had inherited.
For many late-forming states, the legacy of European colonialism was poverty and ineffective
and illegitimate government institutions.
Cultural: Any state, new or old, tends to be weaker if there is a weak connection between state and
nation. New-states mostly emerged after WWII and had no influence in their borders. Arbitrary lines
were drawn as borders, and these borders had thus nothing to do with geography or the distribution of
religious, ethnic or linguistic identity groups. Some groups did not want to live together, resulting in
problems.
The arbitrariness of many boundaries weakens late-forming states because citizens disagree
about the authority and legitimacy of the national government.
Natural Environment in Late state formation
Environmental factors do contribute to the relative weakness of late-forming states, because
consolidating state authority and legitimacy is more difficult in states with mountains or heavily
forested areas, or in jungle-covered regions. Territories like this are difficult to control for weak states
(borders smuggling etc. and road are expensive). However, natural environmental factors do not
fully determine state strength in late-forming states.
In weaker states, the rulers, the institutions of government and even the form of government lack both
authority and legitimacy. No matter who is in charge, citizens are less likely to obey the laws and pay
their taxes. In some new states, the central government is so weak that it must compete with other
groups for monopoly of violence. This can thus result in armed groups outside the control of state
security forces. State weakness often becomes a vicious circle, with weakness breeding more weakness.

Them and us: Why they are nationalists and we are not.
Reading Lecture 3
Since the late 1960s the United Kingdom has been under substantial pressure from nationalists
campaigning to secure independence, or substantial autonomy, for the peripheral territories of the
British state Wales and Scotland rise of Nationalist Movements.
A lot of comments came because of nationalism, however, those politicians who profess the most
dislike for nationalism are, in one sense, often the most enthusiastic nationalists, in that they work hard
to preserve and strengthen the British nation state.
Keating: Nationalism is a doctrine of self-determination; that much is agreed.
According to Smith: despite the various definitions, common themes are apparent, the most important
of which is over-riding concern with the nation.
Nationalism is An ideological movement for attaining and maintaining autonomy, unity and
identity for a population which some of its members deem to constitute an actual or potential
nation.
Cause and Origin of Nationalism
Primordialism: an idea of continuity that locates nationalist movements in an ancient, collective
identity. When nations claim to be communities of common ancestry, they are, from the primordialist
perspective, essentially correct.
Dominant Modernist School: Nations are essentially invented or imagined, and who believe that the
origins of nations can be located in the industrialization processes of the late 18th/early 19th century
(Anderson Imagined Communities...).
(Bad) Ethnic Nationalism: a national group claiming the right to self-determination by reference to
the homogeneous nature and history of the relevant population (Beyond the Moral pale).
(Good) Civic Nationalism: mobilize a population, sharing the same territory, which it recognizes as
being ethnically diverse, by emphasizing a shared interest in coming together to promote the common
wellbeing (Liberalism and Respectability)
Nationalism in the Media
Anderson's Imagined Communities: Emphasizes the role of publishing and print capitalism in the
creation of nation states, even those with apparently competing nationalisms such as Britain. Scots
could read English and had thus access to the imagined national community of Britain.
Other studies have been interested in the role of the media, and journalism in particular, in sustaining
nation states once they have been imagined and created. Michael Billigs banal nationalism concept
has been particularly important. A key point in this idea is the way journalists and others present the
nation state as a natural entity, divorced from nationalism. Billig goes on to demonstrate the use of a
deixis of homeland Words such as Our and We in both Journalism and Politics.
Nationalism and Discourse Analysis
The notion of a clean separation between neutral reporting and opinionated comment writing is
essentially discarded. Instead, analysis of western journalism practices has concentrated on class
struggle and on explaining how the selection of news stories and the language used in those stories
serves to maintain the dominant (capitalist) ideology.

Philo: has been critical on those who concentrate on the text while largely ignoring the production
process and how texts are interpreted by audiences. In so doing, he aims his fire in particular at critical
discourse analysis (CDA).
CDA: critical discourse analysts are interested in linguistic conventions deployed by news journalists.
In particular, because CDAs focus is on power structures in society, it is often used to identify the
way in which political rhetoric, newspaper articles and other forms of elite communication are used to
support dominant groups and marginalize others. This has prompted an interest in nationalism and
how nationalists succeed in (discursively) constructing a sense of sameness among those allowed
into the nation and a sense of difference and distance from those who are excluded.
The writer of the Article did a case study on 5 selected UK Newspapers: The Guardian, The Daily
Telegraph, The Times (All UK), The Herald and The Scotsman (Scottish papers).
Nationalists: Where are They?
In terms of the countries collocated with nationalists or where nationalists are clearly associated with a
particular country, there is a clear distinction between the three UK-wide national papers and the two
Scottish national titles. Almost all the articles that appeared in The Herald and The Scotsman which
referred to nationalists were about Scottish nationalists. For the UK-wide titles, although most
nationalists covered tend to be those seeking to secede from the UK, nationalists are also located
more widely (Rest of the world, not done by the Scottish newspapers).
Nationalists are largely confined Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia, in addition to the Non-English
parts of the UK.
Nationalists: Who are they?
In terms of the descriptions associated with nationalists again there is a distinction between the Scottish
and UK papers. As discussed earlier, because the Scottish papers carry so few foreign stories, almost
all the nationalists identified tend to be Scottish. Journalists in Scotland routinely use the
nationalists as a synonym for the SNP (Governing Party), and believe that readers recognize this to
be the case. The SNP does not believe nationalism to be a pejorative term for its primary goal
Scottish independence although the party objects strongly to being called, as it often is by its
opponents, separatists.
For the UK titles the study revealed that when judgmental descriptions are used (usually in non-UK
contexts) there is no clear, habitual use of the same word: Most common; extreme, hard-line and
right-wing/far-right. When collocated descriptors were used nationalists were therefore generally
associated with negative values.
Nationalists are described as having a variety of goals, confusingly sometimes in a non-national
context. This goals can be about Religion, Tribal, or Language interests.

Comparative Politics
Chapter 3
Egypt has never experienced democracy, and Mubarak had long argued that democracy would cause
political chaos. His dictatorship brought stability, but this came with significant costs for average
Egyptians, who had few legal options to express their views about politics.
By late 2011, Egypt faced the thorny task of maintaining political stability and creating a new political
system to effectively govern its diverse population. Democratic constitution: One that would
promote stability and respects individual rights and permits greater political representation.
Democracies embody limited government, which means that the state's power is relatively weak and
citizens are given wide latitude in terms of expressing their personal political interests and identities. In
contrast, non-Democratic governments have greater ability to manipulate, restrict, or prohibit citizens
from making political, economic, and social choices.
Democracy: Accountability through institutionalized participation and contestation. A political system
in which the rulers are accountable to the ruled.
What is democracy? Return to its origin Idea of rule by the people of Ancient Greek.
Definition of Democracy continues to evolve.
A country is deemed a democracy if it enacts three principles: Accountability, Participation, and
Contestation
Accountability: A political mechanism that offers citizens regular and realistic opportunities to remove
the rulers from office, through peaceful, legal means. A democratic government serves at the pleasure
of the citizens. In a democratic system the rulers are accountable to the ruled.
In a democracy, citizens elect the government, and at the next election they can remove the government
again.
Acountability includes voting incumbent politicians out of office, and it also can include
impeaching elected officials or firing bureaucrats who violate the law or who do not do their jobs well.
It offers the possibility of removing leaders peacefully while maintaining overall political
stability.
Participation: To guarantee accountability in a democracy, political participation must be
institutionalized, suffrage must be universal, and participation must be unforced. By institutionalized,
we mean that clear and consistent rules define membership in the electorate.
Electorate: A group of citizens eligible to participate in the election of government leaders.
Universal Suffrage: All adults citizens have the right to participate in the electoral process that selects
and removes government leaders. Acceptance of this has only evolved gradually.
Unforced: The government cannot require citizens to participate in politics in particular ways against
their will, such as voting against particular parties. A country can only be democratic if all adults are
treated as equals.
Contestation: Political Contestation for power must also be institutionalized and not manipulated or
controlled by the government. There must be real competition for power: Democracy requires that
the number of competitors for power must be greater than only 1, and the elections that are held should
actually make sense. In a non-Democracy, those who hold power fear contestation and attempt to limit
or suppress it.
Contestation in the United States is low. The country is a democracy, but political participation is
low, because if the candidate is not from the Republican or Democratic party, he/she has almost no
chance of winning.
Without both participation and contestation, a country is not a democracy.

Democracy is a form of government that offers citizens regular and realistic opportunities to
remove rulers from office, through institutionalized participation and contestation. To qualify as
a democracy, all adults must be eligible to participate in politics, and the government cannot
force citizens to vote in certain ways. Democracy also requires that the number of viable
competitors for control of government is greater than 1.
These 3 requirements judge if a country is a democracy:
Elected Government: All government officials must either be elected by the entire adult population or
in one sense or another accountable to all citizens. Without this sort of accountability a country cannot
be a democracy.
Civil Liberties: Holding elections does not make a country a democracy. True democracies must also
protect certain key individual and group rights.
Freedom of expression: not an absolute freedom Constitution gives people freedom of
speech, but does not provide people license to say whatever they want. This actually means that
the government cannot prohibit anyone from criticizing the government or impede anyone's
attempt to influence other opinions about the government.
Freedom of assembly: The right to form organizations that are independent of state control.
Freedom of press: The government cannot control the information conveyed to members of
society. To form their own political opinions, citizens must be able to access competing
viewpoints and different sources of information. All kinds of media should be available in
some form that is free from state control.
Fair and Frequent Elections: Fair elections mean that the government does not meddle in the election
process to favor certain candidates and discriminate against others. Elections' frequency how
frequent is enough? The length of politicians terms in office must strike a balance between limited and
effective government.
Democracy requires that citizens and politicians respect rules that guarantee elected government,
universal suffrage, civil liberties, and fair and frequent elections.
Freedom House (1941): assesses the quality of democracies in every country in the world. This
organization grades countries based on answers about political rights and civil liberties.
Every Democracy faces the challenge of balancing limited and effective government.
Concentrating power enhances a government's ability to get things done, which splitting it makes
coordinating and implementing policies more difficult.
Constitution; Set of key of laws and principles that structure and distribution of government authority
and individual rights by setting up the rules of the political game.
Madison's Dilemma: Politicians are self-interested and ambitious, and he drafted the US
constitution precisely to avoid a repeat of the situation that had cause the American revolution.
Democratic constitutions must minimize the potential for politicians self-interested hunger for
power to result in ineffective, corrupt, or even tyrannic government.
To find a balance between limited and effective government, Madison famously advocated
establishing political institutions that check and balance politicians ambitions against each other, so that
no one person or group could concentrate enough power to overwhelm individual freedoms.

4 Key constitutional rules work to concentrate or disperse political power:

Unitary Versus Federal Constitutions
Unitary State: The constitution grants the central government exclusive and final authority over
policymaking across the entire national territory. The central government has veto power over
subnational governments' decisions. Local government thus have no autonomous authority to make
policy.
Minority groups might fear loss of their group's autonomy, and thus this type of governing works
best in relatively homogeneous societies.
Federal State: The constitution grants 2 or more governments overlapping political authority over the
same group of people and same piece of territory. The constitution must grant governments at the local,
state, or provincial level exclusive control over at least 1 policy area. In federal systems, the central
government cannot veto policy decisions that fall under subnational governments' control.
Can be very effective in a huge territory, thus not only established for effective government.
Reasons to empower subnational government include citizens' preferences for limited government, or
a concern over protecting the rights of ethnic or linguistic minority identity groups that live
predominantly in certain regions.
Executive-Legislative Relations
The relationship between the executive and legislative branches of government shapes the distribution
of power. These branches are divided into Presidential, Parliamentary, or semi-presidential hybrid
Presidentialism: The executive and legislative branches enjoy both separation of origin and
survival.
Separation of Origin: the voters directly elect the members of the legislature and cast a
separate ballot directly electing the chief executive, the president.
Separation of Survival: Members of both the executive and legislative branches serve for fixed
terms in office. Both branches survive until the end of the term because neither the executive
nor the legislative branch can fire the other before the next scheduled election (except for
something like impeachment).
Parliamentarism: In a parliamentary system we see neither separation of origin nor
survival. Voters directly elect members of the legislature called the parliament. Those
legislators then elect the Prime Minister (chief executive). There is no separation of origin,
because one branch (executive) of government originates from within the other (legislature).
In parliamentary systems, citizens have only an indirect voice in selecting the executive.
Besides this, there is no separation of survival, because neither the executive nor the legislative
branches enjoy a fixed term. Pleasure of the parliamentary majority: loses majority support,
a no-confidence vote van be called which terminates the prime minister's appointment.
Semi-presidential Hybrid: Combines features of both presidentialism and parliamentarism. It
is a constitutional format in which the president and parliament enjoy separation of origin
(voters elect both the president as the members of legislature), but only the president enjoys
separation of survival.
The executive power is shared between the president and the prime minister.
Differences in terms of separation of origin and survival define the distinction between
presidentialism, parliamentarism, and semi-presidential hybrid constitutional formats.

Power under Presidentialism

In a presidential system, voters delegate control over government to 2 separate sets of politicians: a
president (day to day) and a majority in the legislature (may or may not come from the presidents
party). There is tremendous power for the autonomous president, and as a result of the separation of
survival, he cannot be fired by a legislative majority.
Presidential systems counterbalance president's autonomous power by separating the executive and
legislative branches. Separation of origins means that presidents and legislative majorities possess
independent bases of authority and legitimacy. And because of the separation of survival, both the
president and the legislature can survive in office without the assent of the other.
Effective government across branches tends to follow when the president and the party not only control
a legislative majority, but when they agree on policy proposals. When there is not a legislative majority,
there can be a divided government: The president comes from one party but a different party
controls the legislative branch (Happens often in the US).
Power under Parliamentarism
This system has no checks and balances. The population give members of parliament the authority
to form the executive branch of government. This means that the majority that controls parliament
concentrates political power in its hands. The PM lacks both separations, but if he does everything well
nothing will happen.
Although parliamentary constitutions afford no formal separation of executive and legislative powers,
they can and often do disperse power within the legislature. This occurs when no single party holds a
legislative majority. In this situation, parties must form a coalition government, a situation in which
multiple parties formally agree to divvy up positions in the cabinet and nominate a prime minister, who
usually comes from the biggest party. Now, the PM must negotiate with other parties to get things done.
Electoral system: The political rules that translate citizens' votes into legislative seats and/or control of
a directly elected executive.
Plurality Rule: The candidate who receives the largest share of the votes in the electoral district wins
the seat, even if that share is less than a majority of 50 percent +1 of the votes. This is done for example
in the House of Representatives in the US. Because only 1 seat is at stake in each electoral district in
such elections, plurality rule tends to generate distortions between the percentage of votes received and
the percentage of seat received Best-performing parties tend to better than its vote percentage
suggests.
In general, the plurality system tends to discriminate against smaller parties.
Majority Rule: Candidates obtain an actual majority of 50 percent +1 of the votes in an electoral
district to win. When no candidate obtains 50 percent of the votes, there will be a second round of
election that pit the top 2 vote-getters from the first round against each other. For this voting there is
also 1 seat at stake.
Majority rule also tend to reward larger parties and penalize the smaller parties.
Proportional Representation: An electoral system that distributes seats proportionally to the vote
each party receives. For this type, there must be at least more than 1 seat at stake in an electoral
district. If there are now 10 seats at stake, and the biggest party gets 50% of the votes, this party
obtains 5 seats, and the rest will be divided over the other parties. PR tends to disperse political
power somewhat more.

Mixed Electoral Rules: Combine a plurality or majority electoral rule to elect some members of the
national legislature with a PR electoral rule to elect the remainder. This tends to disperse political
power, but not so much as PR.
At each parliamentary election, voters cast 2 votes: one for a candidate using the plurality rule in
their home electoral district, and a second for a party's entire list of candidates in a PR election.
Plurality and Majority-rule electoral systems focus on promoting effective government by tending to
give one political party majority control over representative institutions. PR and Mixed Electoral
systems focus on limiting government power by giving smaller parties relatively greater ability to win
some legislative seats.
In an ethnically, religiously, or linguistic homogeneous country, an electoral system that promotes
majoritian representational outcomes may work best because there is less worry that minority interests
will be sacrificed in the name of effective government. In more diverse countries, forms of PR may
offer a better prescription for overall democratic performances because minorities have more to fear
from majority dominance.
Duvergers Law is a Dead Parrot
All elections (indeed all competitions) have a horse race element in which most attention from the
media, elites and voters themselves tends to focus on the top two contenders, as much in proportional
representations contests as in British-style voting systems. Yet the most famous law in political
science, coined Maurice Duverger in the early 1950s, holds that the operations of first-past-the-post
voting system with single-member districts directly and strongly tends to cause two party politics.
Political systems should all be two-party polities in this perspective, if not at the aggregate national
level, at least at the level of contests in each local constituency.
Duverger claimed that his effect operated in two ways.
Politicians know that a party can only ever win a seat by coming top in a local election district
by winning the largest pile of votes (a plurality).
Voters know that only the top two parties are contenders, so why waste their only vote on
supporting an also-ran party that is going to come in at a lower place? The pressure to make a
difference pushes voters instead to back the top two and leave the rest to wither on the vine.
USA
This logic still works in the USA. For the House of Representatives, Duvergers prediction is
completely borne out. All the seats are piled along the bottom axis, often with zero support for third
parties in two-party only contests. Virtually all the 450 available seats in the House of Representatives
lie in one of the zones of the Democrats or Republicans.
But the fact that one country appears to offer strong support to Duvergers Law is not in itself very
helpful, since the USA has many other features that might conduce to the same effect including a
Presidential system, the absence of socialism, a political plutocracy, an absence of much limits on
campaign spending and political advertising, etc.
Great Britain
So the question that needs answering is whether this same pattern occurs at the local district level in all
plurality rule voting systems, as Duverger deemed it would?
There is clearly still some two-party focusing going on in British elections, as there is any election. But
in addition, of course, the upper part of the overall triangle here is thickly populated with seats where
the Liberal Democrats, Scottish Nationalists and Welsh Nationalists have come first and won the
constituency (shown as brown dots). So in every respect, this is a very different chart from that of the
USA.

The idea that parties or voters are behaving in the same way is deeply unlikely. The factors leading
to perfect two party politics in the USA cannot be general to all plurality rule systems they must
instead be specific to the American political context. Incidentally perfect two-party systems like this are
now found almost nowhere outside the USA, except for a few small Caribbean nations. In particular,
all the major Westminster system countries have shown strong trends towards multi-partism.

Comparative Politics
Chapter 4
Kim Il-Sung proclaimed the country of North Korea as independent state in 1948, and ruled the
country with an iron fist. The absolute control rested on his command of the military and on his
leadership of the North Korean Communist Party.
He developed a Cult Of Personality of himself, a kind of hero image.
North Korea is an example of a totalitarian regime: A type of non-democratic government that
attempts to shape the interests and identities of its citizens through the use of ideology, coercive
mobilization and severe repression. The leaders keep as much news from the outside world secret for
their population.
Still of the states today have a non-democratic form of government, mostly in the Middle East,
Africa and Asia.
In non-democratic regimes, individuals and groups in society are subject to the hierarchical authority
of the state. Citizens are referred to as 'subjects' to highlight the fact that in non-democratic regimes
individuals and groups lack the opportunity to hold rulers accountable as they can in a democratic
regime They are subject to the regime's authority.
Key facets non-democratic regimes:
1. The way in which the government attempt to use the institutions of the state to enforce
hierarchical control over its citizens
2. The nature of leadership selection and deselection.
There is no electorate of adult citizens or the electorate has no real role in choosing national
leaders. There is a Selectorate of a small national population exists that chooses and removes
the leader or leaders.
There is a relationship of Reciprocal Accountability: The selectorate chooses and removes the
leadership, but the leadership also selects and removes the members of the selectorate (no political
authority for both).
In most non-democratic countries, membership in the selectorate is often determine by political
favoritism or membership in a particular family or religious group.
Totalitarian Regime: The government attempts to shape the interests and identities of its citizens by
articulating a coherent ideology, employing extensive efforts to coercively mobilize support for the
regime, and imposing tight restriction on both social and political pluralism.
Authoritarian Regime: Using coercion to limit political pluralism in order to remain in power, but
relative to a totalitarian regime, an authoritarian regime permits some social pluralism and there is no
ideology and coercive mobilization.
These 2 types of Regimes can be distinguished by 3 characters:
1. Use of Ideology
2. The extent of coercive mobilization
3. The Degree of social and political pluralism permitted

Ideology: Set of political beliefs or ideas that structures and gives meaning to our political interests and
that motivates people to act politically n particular ways.
In Totalitarian regimes, leaders believe that their interests include implementing their ideology and
spreading its influence both at home and abroad. These ideologies resemble cults. In the Soviet
Regime, the government socialized the children to support the government and its communist ideology
through special education. Leaders of totalitarian regimes devote so much energy to indoctrination
because they may believe in their own propaganda, but also because doing so advances their political
interest in retaining power.
Authoritarian governments spend less time focusing on a official ideology, they spend more time on
devoting their resources to maintain order.
Coercive Mobilization
Authoritarian differ from Totalitarian regimes in terms of the extent to which rulers use their power to
coercively mobilize support for the regime. Authoritarian regimes do not engage in much coercive
mobilization in support of the regime; typically, they are more interested in demobilizing society and
discouraging people from becoming politically engaged.
Totalitarian regimes engage in extensive coercive mobilization, by focusing people to labor toward
the regime's goals or to publicly demonstrate their support for the regime. This ideology is spread
through a political party which wants to control all aspects of society. All citizens must become
members of this party and pledge complete obedience to the regime's ideology and party leaders.
Degree of Social and Political Pluralism
Totalitarian regimes couple the use of ideology and coercive mobilization with a strenuous effort to
minimize the degree of social and political pluralism. Totalitarian regimes tolerate no social and
political pluralism. In totalitarian society, the central government subordinates all facets of social,
economic and political power. They control every aspect of citizens' private lives (like their hair and
clothes North Korea!). In a totalitarian regime, every facet of human existence can become a public
matter, and thus subject to government control (family life, friendships, work, leisure time).
Tools Totalitarian regimes use to implement such monopoly:
Official Regime Party: Not merely a tool of coercive mobilization; it also centralizes control
over the state as well as society. Members of the party can infiltrate anywhere to control it.
Threat of Violence: Totalitarian regimes use violence to control both political and social
pluralism. They typically create special police forces that have the authority to invade every
aspect of individual's personal and social life.
Authoritarian regimes tolerate some degree of social freedoms (sport clubs, religious groups),
however they limit political pluralism.
George Orwell's Big Brother is Watching You: Totalitarian idea The government tolerates
absolutely no opposition, has eyes and ears everywhere, and is willing and able to whisk you away if
you behave in a politically inappropriate manner.
Communism: Under capitalist economic systems, the wealthy exploit the workers and the poor.
Communists believe that efforts should be made to redistribute economic wealth as much as
possible, and that a single political party should direct the government and control the state (China,
Cold War).
Fascism: Totalitarian ideology based on racist principles that glorified militarism, violence,
nationalism, and the state over individual interests and identities, usually led by a charismatic
individual political leader (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy)

Communism
Communism served as the guiding principles behind the Russian and Chinese revolutions, and
communist regimes' political and economic opposition to democracies and capitalism served as the
basis for international conflict during the Cold War.
Communism was not conceived as a totalitarian ideology. It was guided by ideological principles
laid by Marx and Engels.
Key Idea: In capitalist/free-market systems, the wealthy exploit the workers and the poor.
According to Marx and Engels, the poor should work towards establishing a society in which
economic hierarchies no longer existed, and in which everyone participated in political and economic
decision making. Economic redistribution from the rich to the poor.
The capitalist system should be replaced, with a system that eliminates private property altogether.
Average citizens are incapable of constructive political engagement and argued that a communist
revolution requires a select elite to lead a tightly controlled, and highly disciplined political party.
These leaders need to have powers over all the institutions and use coercion to completely transform
society according to communist ideology.
Whilst Marx defined Communist Ideology to be advocated equally, in practice (Lenin and Stalin),
members of the Communist Party became a privileged class.
Fascism
Fascist regimes emerged early in the 20th century in Italy, Germany, and Spain.
Main principles that unity fascist Ideology:
Fascism drew intellectual inspiration from popular 19th century racist theories of Social
Darwinism: Certain races are inherently superior to others and that the superior races would
inevitable conquer the weaker ones.
Nazi Germany did this with the Aryans ranked at he top, this was an Anti-Semitic idea,
believing Jews to be the most parasitic of all races (Genocide of the Holocaust).
Fascism emphasizes an extreme form of nationalism which glorifies the nation's mythical,
warlike history. Mussolini linked his regime to the Roman Empire. Fascism emphasizes
importance of the national community and the state over individual interests and identities.
Fascism glorifies charismatic, personalistic leaders who supposedly embody the national will.
Because fascism emphasizes the subjection of individual political interests and identities to the
movement, it justifies repressive non-democratic forms of government in which individual and
minority rights are of little concern.
Fascism justifies the use of violence to achieve the nation's goals, reflecting its racist and
nationalist Social-Darwinist roots.
Like all totalitarian ideologies, both Communism and Fascism devalue individual rights, regard
democracy as weak and ineffective, and rationalize an all powerful state. Yet, it is important not to
equate communism and fascism.
Communism downplays nationalism and emphasizes commonalities between workers across nations,
while fascism stresses the importance of the national community. Communism also rejects private
property and capitalism, while fascism does not.

Comparing Institutions of Non-Democratic Regimes

A crucial distinction is whether a regime is Totalitarian or Authoritarian. The difference between
these 2 types focuses on the nature of the relationship between the state and society. Leaders are not
accountable for the electorate, but they may be accountable to the selectorate.
Distinguish types of non-democratic regimes by 4 characteristics:
Size of the electorate
Criteria for admission of the selectorate
Rules or selection of leadership
Rules governing the use of power.
Monarchies: Non-democratic systems in which rulers assume power via birthright and are removed
power when they die. Pre-Modern Europe, Kings and Queens were accountable only to God and had
absolute power (final authority over the law).
In theory there is no selectorate in Absolute Monarchies, but in practice the selectorate in monarchies
consists of members of the royal family as well as powerful political groups.
Some absolute monarchies survive in contemporary states (Brunei, UAE), but constitutional
monarchies are more common. In a constitutional monarchy, a constitution sets formal limits on the
monarch's powers.
Single-Party Regimes: A single political party dominates all government institutions and restricts
political competition to maintain itself in power. The selectorate is typically very limited to the highestranking members of that party.
In all single-party regimes, control over and transfer of political power takes place entirely within the
top ranks of the ruling party. Reciprocal accountability is more clearly visible than in monarchies.
People's Republic of China is a great example: Leadership of the Communist Party can dismiss
any official.
Military Regimes: Non-democratic regime in which the selectorate is typically limited to the highest
ranks of the military officer corps. This group selects and removes the leader or junta of leaders.
There is an institutionalized relationship between leader and selectorate, rules for advancement are
fairly clear. (but informal politics cant be excluded). The advantages are the overwhelming firepower
and institutionalized structure of command and control => Power-hunger, incapable civilians, top-down
command and control is favorable political order, armed forces identify as selfless and needing to help
the country.
Oligarchies: Non-democratic regime in which the selectorate consists of a small social, economic, or
political elite, which selects a leader to represent their interests. Criteria for membership are often
informal, in an oligarchy, as are the group's rules for selecting the leader. The ruling elite may be
powerful economic actors who appoint a ruler who mainly serves their interests.
Influential people profit from personal and family connections, gives them informal control.
Theocracy: Non-democratic regimes in which leaders who claim divine guidance hold the authority to
rule. The relationship between the selectorate and the ruler under theocracy will depend on which
religion guides the theocratic rulers.
Embodies elements of totalitarianism: ideology, coercive mobilization (encourage/ spread/ deepen
faith), uneasy relationship with religious and pol minorities
Example: Vatican City, Iran

Personalistic Regimes: System built around the glorification and empowerment of a single individual.
Lack of institutionalization: Arbitrary intervention in individuals lives, whimsical policy decisions,
weak institutions, dominated by informal dynamic
Informal succession based on personal connections or leaders whim
Patronage and corruption, no institutionalized power base.

1.

2.

3.

4.
5.

Transition Paradigm Text

Lecture 7
Automatic assumption of democracy promoters during the peak years of the third wave that
any country moving away from dictatorship was "in transition to democracy" has often been
inaccurate and misleading. Some of these countries have hardly democratized at all, and
they only adopted some signs of democratizing. The countries have some elements of
democracy, but should be understood as alternative directions, not way stations to liberal
democracy. The continued use of the transition paradigm constitutes a dangerous habit of
trying to impose a simplistic and often incorrect conceptual order on an empirical tableau of
considerable complexity.
The assumed sequence of stage of democratization is defied by the records of experience
Taiwan, South Korea did not go through the paradigmatic process of democratic
breakthrough followed rapidly by national elections and a new democratic institutional
framework. Their political evolutions were defined by an almost opposite phenomenon-extremely gradual, incremental processes of liberalization with an organized political opposition
(not softliners in the regime) pushing for change across successive elections and finally
winning. And in the countries it also appeared to be democratic breakthroughs. The process to
democracies are chaotic processes of change that go backwards and sideways as much as
forward, and do not so in a regular manner.
The notion that achieving regular, genuine elections will not only confer democratic
legitimacy on new governments but continuously deepen political participation and democratic
accountability has often come up short. Political participation beyond voting remains shallow
and governmental accountability is weak. There remains a divide between the elites and the
citizens (wealth problems) that cannot be solved by elections.
Relative economic wealth, as well as past experience with political pluralism contributes to the
chances for democratic success. it is evident that the specific institutional legacies from
predecessor regimes strongly affect the outcomes of attempted transitions.
State-building has been a much larger and more problematic issue than originally envisaged in
the transition paradigm. Countries in the former SU and Yugoslavia have to build national
state institutions where none existed before. In countries with extremely weak states, the
democracy building efforts funded by donors usually neglected the issue of state-building.

Transitional Countries Not appropriate to assume that:

Most of the countries are actually in transitions to democracy.
Countries moving away from authoritarianis tend to follow a 3 part process of democratization
consisting of opening, breakthrough, and consolidation.
Genuine elections will not only give governments democratic legitimacy, but foster longer term
deepening democratic participation and accountability.
State-building is a secondary challenge to democracy-building and largely compatible with it.
Giving the paradigm is a major break. It means that democracy promoters should approach their
work with some very different assumptions.
The seemingly continual surprise and disappointment that Western political analysts express over the
very frequent falling short of democracy in "transitional countries" should be replaced with
realistic expectations about the likely patterns of political life in these countries.

A whole generation of democracy aid is based on the transition paradigm, above all the typical
emphasis on an institutional "checklist" as a basis for creating programs, and the creation of nearly
standard portfolios of aid projects consisting of the same diffuse set of efforts all over--some judicial
reform, parliamentary strengthening, civil society assistance, media work, political party development,
civic education, and electoral programs. Much of the democracy aid based on this paradigm is
exhausted. Where the paradigm fits well--in the small number of clearly successful transitions--the aid
is not much needed. Where democracy aid is needed most, in many of the gray-zone countries, the
paradigm fits poorly.

Chapter 6
Political Identity: The way that individuals categorize themselves and others, and how they understand
the power relationships of domination and oppression that exist between groups.
Claiming to identify with a particular group does not necessarily imply that you will engage
politically on behalf of that group. Politicization of identity varies in intensity. Identity becomes
politicized when large numbers of people mobilize to advance interests of or defend threats to their
identity group. However, even in diverse countries, people live mostly in peace.
Identity involves both our own perceptions of how we fit in, and others' perceptions of how we fit
in. Its importance lies not simply with recognizing that you fit into this or that group, but in recognizing
the political significance of your membership in or exclusion from certain social groups. Sharing group
membership gives people the sense how they fit into society, as well as sharing political interests and
views. A sense of shared identity can thus facilitate collective action, because it shapes what
individuals want governments to do.
Weber: Identity is primarily non-economic in origin Identity is based on race, religion ethnicity,
language, territory etc. Marx focuses more on the economical aspects.
Marx: Economic Identity
Karl Marx: Wrote the Communist Manifesto with Engels in 1848, they believed in the start of a
workers' revolution across Western Europe. This Manifesto had a huge impact on the intellectual
and political history of the world.
Marx had such a huge impact because he was one of the first to emphasize the way economic
interests can shape political identity. An individual's political identity is rooted in his or her economic
position in society (Top, Middle, Bottom).
Communist Manifesto: Consequences of the Industrial Revolution, which radically transformed the
economies of Western Europe. At first, a small group of elite landowners existed, and a large number of
landless peasants. Now, the Bourgeoisie (wealthy capitalists, economic class) and the Proletariat (wage
laborers who work in factories, economic class).
Marx: Industrialization would result in landowners wold grow weaker, whilst the Bourgeoisie would
grow more strong with the proletariat. As a result, the political battle would be between the
Proletariat and the Bourgeoisie.
Industrialization not only increased the number of people in the proletariat, it also created a new
form of political identity among that group: Class-consciousness: Individual's self-awareness of the
political implications of being a member of a particular economic class. Economic status is the
source of political identity, and he believed that industrialization would wipe out other forms of
political identity, such as religion and ethnicity, because all workers had the same class-consciousness.
Self-awareness that they are members of an economic group that the bourgeoisie exploits.
Self-awareness that their class has particular economic interests.
Marx argued that the workers' collective identity would help them to advance their interests
against the bourgeoisie's political influence (like better wages and working environment).
Marx was wrong: Industrialization and Capitalism have not wiped out noneconomic forms of identity,
because 2 workers in a factory can easily have different political views. However, money indeed plays
a role in political choices.

Weber: Cultural Identity

Weber: People have identities based on multiple factors: Attachment to a geographic region, ethnic
identities, religious or national identities, or combinations of these. These are noneconomic forms of
identity and can serve as powerful engines of political mobilization.
Weber insisted that most forms of political identity are not rooted in economic interests. People from
different economic classes could have the same political identity, because particular ideas could
belong to rich as well as poor classes. Besides, money cannot buy membership in certain identity
groups. Mobilization along noneconomic lines would be easier than mobilization of economic classes,
because noneconomic groups share both cultural orientations and lived experiences such as community
history and traditions.
According to Weber, Mobilization would occur along noneconomic status group lines, one ethnic
versus another ethnic group.
Political Cleavage (Weber): A deep and lasting salient source of political conflict based on identity
that pits one group against another or several others. The UK for example has the Labor party, who
support the working-class, and the Conservative party, who support the wealthier people.
Understanding why political cleavages emerge around the world.
Politicization of identity: Primordialism: Assumes political identities are innate and largely
unchanging. The actual meaning of primordial is that something is ancient but fundamental for
understanding contemporary reality.
In Political Science: Primordialism suggests that political identity is something you are either born
with or that emerges unconsciously during childhood, given your family and community context. This
view implies that you do not choose your identity, nor can you change it.
Primordialism emphasizes on the Kinship bonds: A connection to others formed by blood, marriage,
or family relations as the fundamental building block of collective political identity. The bond that
shapes kinship bonds need not literally be based on biology, because they can also be based on cultural
and historical connections.
Primordialism suggests that identity becomes politicized as a result of deep emotional and/or
psychological attachments individuals feel toward members of a broader community. Political
identity is thus rooted in shared historical experience, and collective mobilization occurs when groups
perceive a threat to the continued practice of their collective identity.
Huntington and Global Conflict
Clash of Civilizations (1993): Political implications of the Cold War. The collapse of the SU
effectively ended ideological conflict between capitalist democracies and communist
dictatorships. The conflict in the post-Cold War era would continue, only that it would be cultural and
based on forms of political identity besides ideology.
Civilizations are the broadest cultural identities that exist, and they are defined by language, history,
customs, religion etc, and also be individuals' subjective self-identification as members of one
civilizations and not another. This shows the primordial view, because they belong to a civilization.
Huntington viewed religion as a particularly problematic source of civilizational conflict, because
issues of faith are not subject to negotiation.
Huntington's argument is primordialist, because he insists that cultural characteristics will drive
future conflicts but also because he assumes that individuals are born with one set of characteristics or
another, that such characteristics are immutable, and groups with different characteristics will clash.
Huntington sees one of these Clashes of Civilizations post-9/11 with the Global War on terror. The
conflict between Islamic and Non-Islamic civilizations would intensify after the Cold War, and people
thing that his assumptions were accurate.

Critics
Huntington's argument that politicized identities are inane has inspired strong critiques. His
argument can be seen as simple-minded and politically incorrect stereotype of Islam.
For Huntington's theory, we should see evidence that civilizations actually exist and act. However,
civilizations do not really exist. For example, the Muslim world is divided into many states,
ethnicities, languages, and competing visions of what Islam requires and prohibits. No single unifying
identity mobilizes all Muslims everywhere, and no identity speaks for all Muslims.
Besides, there exist a lot of clashes that do not fit the logic of Huntington's argument, such as
International Warfare between states of the same civilization, and civil wars within states.
Evaluation Huntington
His argument falls short of answering the question of why identity becomes politicized:
1. Primordialism cannot explain the emergence of Collective Identity. Many forms of identity
are not that old, and thus not timeless (such as Nationalism). Therefore, some identities only
emerged relatively recently.
2. Primordialism cannot account for change in the meaning of different forms of identity, no
matter how old. The political significance of ethnicity, religion, gender, are not timeless. The
potential to mobilize a form of identity is not constant over time, even though a primordialist
account implies that is.
3. Primordialism also ignores the possibility that individuals can and do choose their own
identity. Individuals can adopt new and different forms of identity later on, and not only the
identity forms of early life.
Politicizing Identity: Constructivism
Constructivism: Assumes that individuals have some choice over their political identities, but that
such choice is constrained by the social context. This thus means that forms, meaning, and political
salience of different forms of identity can change. It focuses on the societal as well as on the
individual level.
Identity and Individual Choice
Constructivism does not suggest that individuals are completely free to choose their identity.
Obviously, biology constrains racial or ethic identity choice. Biological aspects also play a role
whether we want to identify as a member of a particular group or not.
Despite these constraints, individuals can and do choose to try out different identities, especially those
that do not depend on visible attributes, such as religion. National Identity; When individuals
migrate form 1 country to another, they may retain some attachment to their homeland, but they may
also adopt visible elements of their adopted home, and they may also develop a powerful emotional
connection to their new country. People can chose to identity with 1 racial group in a certain context,
and have another identity in a different group.
The fact that people look a certain way means that they all attach political significance to their
appearance. Because people can at least partly pick and choose aspects of their identity and can
attribute political importance to their identity in different ways, constructivism asks us to consider what
interests individuals might have in attaching political salience to a particular form of identity.
Identity and the Social Context
Individual choices only take on meaning as a result of the historical evolution if the political context,
which shapes, enables, and/or constrains individual's identity choices. Social context aspects:
Long-term social, economic, or technological change can politicize identity. For example,
Rapid economic development can also dramatically alter how people perceive the proper roles
for men and women inside and outside the home, thereby changing the gender identities.
Long-term change in the social context shapes how individuals conceive of themselves and
their community which influences the politicization of identity as a whole.

 Identity can become politicized because someone or some group had an interest in that
outcome. Constructivism suggests that identity can be politicized as a result of competition for
political power. Leaders often attempt to articulate an appealing image of their community
and its goals. This thus highlights how efforts to acquire and hold onto power can politicize
different forms of political identity.
Efforts can involve coercion, but it is not necessary to politicize identity. Politicians can also
gain or hold onto power by using evocative languages, images, and cultural symbols to
generate a sense of community and legitimize the use of power. This is done to mobilize
groups, defend their group's interests and compete with other groups to highlight, reinvigorate,
or attach new meaning to different forms of identity. Besides, some government attempt to
restrict the expression of certain forms of identity.
Constructivism does not presuppose that people instinctively attach political significance to another
person's physical or other visible attributes. Instead, it suggests that the evolving political and social
context shapes the way people classify others into this or that group and shapes the political
significance people attach to such group differences.
To make nationalism a meaningful form of political identity, people must be encouraged to think
they have much in common with those outside their immediate community. This can be done through
promoting mass literacy for example, because this permits communication among a multitude of
strangers and means that many more citizens can understand and pass on a single, unified version of a
society's history. This nationalist identity is easily established through primary and secondary
education. Nationalism requires creating an emotional or psychological bond between large
communities of strangers, something not easily learned by observing and imitating people in one's
immediate surroundings.
In school, children since the 1800s acquire a sense of patriotism by learning the significance of
important national dates and symbols as well as keys aspects of the national culture such as prideful
songs and stories Homogenize national populations by deemphasizing local/regional identities.
The rise of nationalism as a form of political identity can be traced at least partly to changes in
the way governments educated and socialized youth.
Literacy, mass education, and centralized control over education helps explain the relative
strength or weakness of nationalism across countries. Mass education helped weaken local identities
and construct nationalist ones by giving authority and legitimacy to nationally trained bureaucrats and
teachers.

Chapter 7
What is the relationship between Religious identity and democracy?
Certain religious identities may be more or less compatible with certain institutions of government.
Religion also impacts the forms of collective political mobilization we observe in different
countries, both peaceful and violent.
Long-term economic development can alter the political significance of religious identity in any
particular country, and whether such cultural change can support democratization.
Democracy poses a difficult problem for any religious tradition. This is because democracy requires
majority rule and recognizes that the interests or preferences of the majority can change over time.
People with strong religious beliefs see their principles as timeless, unchanging and morally
binding, regardless of what everybody else might believe.
When religious people believe that a policy or law violates their moral principles, they frequently get
involved in social movement or interest groups to press for political change. However, sometimes, a
group of people finds a policy so offensive to their religion that they reject the principle of majority
rule and seek to overthrow the democratic system as a whole.
Every religion has liberals and conservatives. Democracy needs a certain degree of liberality: Not
just freedom of expression, but a live and let live attitude. This means that there is a tolerance for a
variety of beliefs that extremists in some religions are not willing to accept.
Is there a relationship between a country's predominant religion and democracy?
Most democracies are in areas where Christianity dominates. However, still non-Christian
democracies exist (Japan, Israel). Moreover, some Christian countries remain non- or only
partially democratic, like Russia.
Nearly all predominantly Muslim countries are non-democracies. Most of these countries
seen as Partly Free or Not Free by the Freedom House democracy rankings. This thus shows
that Islam and democracy are necessarily incompatible.
Christianity and Democracy
As a matter of historical fact, democracy did originate in Western Europe, a region powerfully
shaped by Christianity. Many see that this connection is not coincidental, whilst Modern democracy
took root under the Protestant version of Christianity as opposed to the Catholic or Orthodox versions.
Protestantism and Democracy
Scholars have long perceived a connection between Protestantism and democracy, and the more
Protestants a country has, the more likely the Freedom House is to rate that country as Free.
Protestant Reformation: 16th century division within Christianity that resulted in the formation of
various Protestant Christian religious sects, which split of from Catholicism. This Protestantism
differed from Catholicism in fundamental ways that have important implications for the relationship
between religion and politics.
Protestant: Reject the idea that a priest must mediate between an individual and God. Individuals can
have a direct personal relationship with God Agree with the Separation of Church and State, they
believe that no religious or civil authority should coerce an individual to think or pray a certain
way. Besides this, Religious Pluralism is accepted in Protestantism. In Catholic countries like
Spain, the Church historically exerted a powerful influence over both state and society, which slowed
the emergence of democracy.
We can characterize the emergence and spread of Protestantism as one of voluntary religious
organizations formed outside of centralized control.

The key elements of Protestantism, along with Protestant efforts to prevent government meddling
in religious affairs, opened the door for the spread of the concept of separation of Church and
State.
However, being a Protestant does not automatically make one a friend of liberty. There is thus no
necessary primordial connections between Protestantism and democracy, although a general affinity
between Protestantism and key democratic principles does not exist.
Democratization tends to follow modernization, when the expansion of educational opportunities
and the breakdown of traditional social hierarchies encourage the spread of democratic values. Given
the differences between older and some newer Protestant Congregations, the recent spread of
Protestantism might not support democracy as it did in the earlier centuries.
A historical association between the spread of Protestantism in Western Europe and the spread of ideas
that tend to support democracy thus exist. However, it is not clear that such a connection exists between
Protestantism and support for pro-democratic ideas in the contemporary world.
Catholicism and Democracy
Most transitions to democracy happened in Catholist countries. The strong relationship between
Catholicism and recent democratization does not mean Catholicism and democracy are primordially
related .Instead, global politics events shape and construct this relation.
The good relation between Catholicism and Democracy is special, because up through the mid-20th
century, Catholicism and Democracy did not mix well. The Catholic church long opposed democracy
on principle, that state needed to promote Catholicism as the one true faith and to restrict the
spread of alternative forms of religious belief. Besides, the Catholic church opposed ideas such as
freedom of expression and freedom of speech.
American Revolution: Freedom of Religion and separation of Church and State.
French Revolution: violent outbursts against the Catholic Church authority.
1800s: Anti-church movements swept throughout Europe.
The Catholic church still did not moderate its position and remained the conservative attitude, so they
did not agree on Freedom of religion, and the separation of Church and State.
1965: Second Vatican Council: The reformulation of longstanding Church doctrines. This changed
the attitude towards democracy, and political, social, and religious challenges of modernity were
faced. After the meeting, the Pope stated that religious liberty was a fundamental God-given human
right and that states should not interfere with an individual's search for religious truth.
Modernization of Catholic religious doctrine and practice. This resulted in political reforms in
non-democratic states, often to promote freedom of worship for Catholics.
Because of the Second Vatican Council, we take in for granted that Catholicism favors democracy, but
this connection is shown not to be Primordial.
There is thus no necessary and natural association between Christianity and Democracy. Instead,
Dramatic economic, social, and political changes in certain countries transformed Christian religious
doctrine, in different historical eras.

Islam and Democracy

Democracy only emerged in predominantly Christian Europe after considerable political, social,
economic and, especially, religious change. This undermines the primordial connection between
Christianity and Democracy.
Still, some people believe that there exists a primordial link between Islam and Non-democracy.
Muhammad, the God's Prophet, founded Islam almost 1400 years ago. Muhammad's revelations in
the Koran do not suggest separating religion and politics. Islam does not recognize the separation of
religion from the state.
But is the separation of Church and State a necessary condition for a democracy? Many
democratic constitutions contain no such provision. Some constitutions directly support particular
faiths, and this suggests that democracy and religion can be compatible.
If the separation of Church and State is not necessary for democracy to emerge, then
democracy is possible under any dominant religious identity, including the Islam.
It must be taken into account that Muslims disagree on how to interpret their religious texts. Islamic
practice involves attention to an elaborate set of laws known as Sharia. The Sharia govern individuals'
public and private lives. Multiple interpretations exist, some conservative and some liberal.
Consequently, there is an debate among Muslims around the world about whether Islamic
doctrine precludes democracy.
The Islamic doctrine is more fluid and diverse than many casual observers realize.
If the religious doctrine does not automatically mandate non-democracies in Muslim societies,
why the relative lack of democracy in the Islamic World?
The relative weakness of democracy to the subordination of Women in some Islamic countries.
Women in Muslim societies are often illiterate, do not hold government positions, which shows the
lower social value placed on girls and women.
This lifelong economic and/or cultural discrimination against girls and women can have profound
political consequences. Male social dominance can reflect deepseated cultural values of respect for
hierarchical authority, values that may support non-democracies. In this way, it is possible that
longstanding practices of gender discrimination may account for the predominance of nondemocracy in the Islamic world.
One cannot attribute the mistreatment of women to Islam itself, since women rights and opportunities
vary considerably across Muslim societies.
Modernization, Secularization, and Democracy
The fact that democracy is rare but not unknown in the Islamic world todays suggests that changes in
the economic, social, or geopolitical context could potentially bring about regime change.
Secularization: A gradual decline in the societal importance of religion.
Maybe we should not focus on whether any particular religion supports democracy or not, but whether
any intensely religious society could support a democratic regime.
Maybe we associate Christianity and Democracy because predominantly Christian countries were the
first to modernize and thus to experience a decline in religiosity.
The importance of religion has diminished over time across most wealthy democracies. Even
Americans are becoming more secular over time: Participation in organized religious activities more
than once a week decline significantly. Evidence thus points toward a decline in religiosity in wealthy
democracies, no matter how religiosity is measured.

Chapter 12
Lecture 9
There is a tension between Capitalism and Democracy. Capitalism tends to produce some degree of
economic equality The wealth gap between the rich and the poor, even though democracy
distributes political power equally by giving each person a vote.
The poor can vote for highly interventionist policies to redistribute the wealth to the poor people.
Most democracies do redistribute some wealth Welfare State: The role states play in protecting the
economic and social wellbeing of all its citizens through re-distributive taxing and spending programs.
The degree of intervention in the economy is measured as the relative size of the public sector
compared to the private sector.
Public Sector: Government delivery of goods and services, such as Social Security.
Private Sector: Economic activity undertaken outside the purview of the state, by individual and
private corporations.
Measuring the Size of the Welfare State
The countries that spend the most money on welfare are most of the times wealthy, democratic, have
strong states, meaning that they all could spend a great deal on welfare state redistributive programs if
they wanted. However, there is always variation on how much these states spend on social welfare
programs.
The US redistributes 16 cents of every dollar Americans earn, whilst Sweden redistributes almost
30 cents of every dollar on Social Welfare spending.
Comparing Health-Care Spending: Public Health Insurance Provisions
United States: 2/3 of the population has private health insurance. Medicare and Medicaid
provide health-care for the elderly. The US has no national government-run or governmentfunded health care system.
Germany and Sweden: These countries provide universal health care coverage with unlimited
benefits. Everyone is eligible for coverage, and they do not worry about losing their health
insurance if they lose or change their job. Taxes fund this system, low-wage workers pay less
than high-wage workers.
Comparing Childcare
United States:The US provides some assistance for Childcare through the Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families program, but only for the very poorest Families. However,
because it is temporary, this will expire in 2 years.
Germany and Sweden: These countries provide subsidies for families to pay for childcare and
other expenses of raising children. All parents are eligible to receive these benefits, regardless f
the parents' income.
Comparing Poverty Relief Programs
United States: The Supplemental Security Income programs target the individuals that earn
less than $6.000 a year.
Germany and Sweden: Poverty relief programs are universal and unconditional. This shows
that the welfare system of these countries are way more generous.
Comparing Labor Laws
United States: Does not provide a lot of insurance for the working-class, low wages, and lower
labor standards and job protection laws.
Germany and Sweden: lot of insurance for the working-class, paid sick leave (US Not).

Why Welfare States Exist

Elected leaders believe that providing for the well-being of all citizens will help them keep their jobs
(Obama).
Progressive Redistribution: Social welfare programs are this. Money is taken from the rich and
given to the poor (like Robin Hood).
Progressive Taxation: Individual's tax burden goes up when their income goes up as well. This type of
taxation is visible in all democracies in the world. People in wealthy democracies who make less
money typically pay less in taxes, as a proportion of their income, than do people who make more
money.
Regressive Taxation: Taxes that tend to benefit the relatively wealthy people more than relatively poor
people.
The principles of Democracy (political equality) frown on policies that promote economic
inequality. Democracy distributes power equally through universal suffrage, while historically,
capitalism tended to create economic inequalities.
Median income: The amount that divides income distribution into 2 equal groups, half of the country
above, and half of the country under the median. This can only be equal to the mean income if
everyone makes exactly the same amount of money.
Mean Income: The sum of everyone's income divided by the population of the country.
A country's median income is always lower than the mean income. This is because of the degree
of economic inequality.
In a democracy, economic inequality can have important political consequences. Most voters prefer
progressive taxation and redistributive policies, because more than 50 percent of the population
earns less than the median income. The not-so-wealthy majority can thus impose higher taxes on the
wealthier minority.
The existing rates of progressive taxation are lower than expected, given the levels of economic
inequality. Tax rates are progressive, but not as progressive as they should be. So why isn't there equal
wealth distribution?
1. The wealthy have the means to mobilize and lobby against redistributive policies, solving their
collective action problems more easily than the poor (Counter-mobilization of the rich).
2. Consequently of high taxation, rich people can choose not to invest or even save in their home
country and move their money elsewhere.
3. Less-established democracies: Wealthy people can pressure governments to violently repress
parties and movements that favor increased redistribution.
4. Individuals vote on what they are hoping to earn in the future, and thus not today.
5. Poor voters oppose redistribution because they believe one gets what one deserves.
The facts remains that taxing and spending is at least partially progressive in all democracies, and
the logic of majority rule helps explains why this is: Politicians what policies that appeal to everyone.

Social Insurance Provision

Insurance offers people a way to deal with the risk of potential financial losses in the future.
When you purchase insurance, you pay a monthly premium to transfer the cost of your potential future
losses onto an insurance company. Your premium is calculated via the probability of losses In the
future.
Governments provide social insurance: Forms of insurance that are available to all citizens,
regardless of their ability to pay (like Social Security, FDIC, unemployment insurance).
Social insurance provision is more important than private sector insurance. Although the US
government funds a wide array of social insurances through tax revenue, most other wealthy
democracies fund even broader forms of pension, health, and employment insurances.
Why do all democratic governments provide these kinds of insurance?
Political identity: Solidarity, perhaps citizens feel they share a common fate with others in their
country.
Avoiding Depopulation: A large population can mean an ability to field a big army and gain
recognition as a major player in the world. To encourage citizens to have more babies, it is an
idea to access the population to health care, education, and job training. Avoiding a dramatic
decline in population provides a second potential rationale for government insurance provision.
Market Failures: A market failure occurs when an economic market fails to supply a product
for which demand exists. Over an entire lifetime, no one can predict with absolute certainty
his or her degree of risk. The free market fails to provide insurance to cover these kinds of
risks of losing your job, because in order to cover its expected losses and still make a profit,
private sector insurance companies charge a higher premium on higher-risk people. As a result,
many high-risk individuals cannot find insurance at any price. This means that private
insurance companies have interests in identifying and excluding high-risk people in order to
convince low-risk people to purchase insurance.
In theory compulsory taxation to provide universal insurance programs generates public goods.
Thus, forcing everyone to contribute a little makes everyone in the end a lot better off.
The government has to provide social insurance to make society as a whole better off by
minimizing everyone's exposure to unforeseen risks.
Debating the Welfare State
Elected politicians have strong incentives to redistribute wealth and to solve market failures by
providing insurance. Doing so enhances their legitimacy as capable leaders, which in turn enhances
their chances of reelection.
Elected officials create and support welfare state programs by claiming that their efforts will
improve citizens' lives. However, politicians obviously have self-interest in doing this, and therefore
citizens all over the world cast a critical eye on such claims.
Health-care debate in US;
Proponents: Fewer sick, means more working, will strengthen society, provide less drain on
public coffers.
Opponents: Greater government interventions harms the public good by making the healthcare system less efficient and by increasing government spending, which may impede
investment in other economically productive activities.
Currently, the combined total of public and private sector spending on health-care in the US is
almost double the average for other wealthy democracies. Still, health-care outcomes in the US
are worse than in similar societies all over the world. This shows that Americans are not getting their
money's worth in a system dominated by the private sector.

Lecture 10
The Right to Rule: How States Win and Lose Legitimacy
Throughout history, political rulers have sought to plumb the depths of their moral support in
society. For some this is a vain quest for personal validation, whilst for others it has been a concern for
the stability of their regime How the commoners felt about them.
Communist Countries had the idea that they had a lot of legitimacy, until they suddenly all
collapsed between 1989 and 1991.
Legitimacy crisis: Perceived inability of established Western Democracies in the 60s and 70s to
overcome problems of alienation and economic slowdown. The term has been mostly used for
developing countries whose problems appear insurmountable to the outside eye.
Claims of illegitimacy may be used to justify invasions or other forms of intervention
Legitimacy: Postive attitudes towards their state in order to avoid difficult issues of proper
conceptualization. It is a complex concept.
Conceptualization
Max Weber: Established legitimacy as one of the most important factors in the evolution and survival
of political systems. Legitimacy was a citizen willingness to comply with a system of rule, out of
selfishness, expedience, or habit rather a considered belief in moral validity of that rule. Legitimacy
was thus the sense that the ruler was morally valid or rightful to rule.
What does rightful mean? Dictionary: In accordance with what is right, proper, or just, in
accordance with accepted standards of moral or legal behavior, justice etc. It is fair.
Rawls: Legitimacy as political power that was fully proper in accordance with given norms.
Easton: A belief of a common good has to be present amongst the citizens. In a society where such a
belief is absent, state legitimacy becomes a definitional impossibility. States in deeply divided or
culturally alienated societies are illegitimate is that legitimacy is impossible under such
circumstances. Citizens have to have some core notion of shared identity. Besides, the commongood basis also requires that citizens make a distinction between their own self-interest or morality and
the shared interests of the political community. Legitimacy requires that there be such a thing as a
widely common good that is no mere aggregate of individual interests, but something that transcends
those interests.
Common good includes a citizen's own fair share of the takings from social cooperation, but also the
reasonable demands of their fellow citizens, so it makes more sense to have a common good-based
interpretations than self-interest ones.
Legitimacy: Political support that is grounded in common good or shared moral evaluations. However,
there can also be forced compliance based on violent coercion to willing acceptance based on
legitimacy. In North Korea, the communist dictators have enjoyed the support of their people because
of the deadly consequences of dissent.
Legitimacy is rightful rule, where rightfullness entails meeting the shared moral standards of a
political community.
Subtypes of legitimacy Specification of Rightfulness
1. Legality: Shared rules of conduct. The state has acquired and exercises political power in a way
that accords with political community's laws, rules and customs. In modern societies, this is
often memorialized in written laws.
Moral value of legality lies in the fact that laws are predictable and general (apply to everyone).
The application of rules to everyone eliminates the arbitrary nature of political power.

2. Justification: Shared norms of Conducts Arises as a result of the insufficiencies of legality.

Citizens may believe that states are following the rules but may have grave doubts about the
rules themselves. Justification is an independent check on rightfulness grounded in the shared
norms and values of a political community.
3. Consent: Positive actions that express a citizen's recognition of the state's right to rule and an
agreement to be bound by the decisions that result. Consent is important because citizens will
rarely have a chance to consider the legality or justification of everything that a state does.
When citizens vote in elections, sign up for military service, or pay taxes, they are acting in
ways that display an acceptance of the state's right to rule.
A state is legitimate if it holds and exercises political power with legality, justification and
consent.
What is meant by the State?
State: Basic institutional and ideological structures that maintain dominance over the use of coercive
force in a given territory. They cover the laws, organizations, norms, electoral and legislative systems
etc. The state ideological structures are less concrete. These are the symbols and ideals on which a state
is founded and run.
Tradition in political thought: Only a state whose institutions and ideologies are legitimate is a
state at all.
Weber: State is an organization that successfully claims legitimacy in a territory. However, it seems a
mistake to equate states with legitimate states, because many states have survived with minimal levels
of legitimacy.
Who are the relevant citizens?
The relevant subjects are the people themselves, rather than political philosophers. In a state-centered
world, the attention is still focused on those citizens who inhabit the territory of the concerned state.
However, some citizens are more important, the Political elites, or salient citizens. History, however,
teaches us that it is often uncertain who the political elites actually are. Therefore, the most relevant
subjects for a state legitimacy will be All Citizens.
Measurement
Political leaders find Legitimacy very important, and therefore gather a lot of data on this topic.
Leaders of democratic states, for example, are large consumers of public opinion survey data, whilst
China's communist party dispatches Investigation Groups to assess the levels of political support for
the regime.
What does count as evidence to measure legitimacy?
Attitudial indicators: How people perceive the state or the ruling regime. Those are direct
responses to the question of legitimacy itself. How satisfied are you with the political
system? How much confidence do you have? However, close attention must be payed with
different cultures, and also the fear of discomfiture.
Behavioral indicators: Good example is the Failed State Index of Foreign Policy magazine.
This index uses behavioral evidence to check for: Elite corruption, spread of crime, boycotted
elections etc.

1960s and 70s are shown in literature as the time of a Legitimacy Crisis in the West. Thereafter,
the claim of legitimacy crisis in Western Countries became virtually conventional wisdom, needing
only to be breezily asserted as part of an admirable critical stance rather than actually shown.
Survey of the 1970s: Steady worsening of attitudes against the institutions in the Western States.
However, the hight of the legitimacy crisis never actually totally worsened to the extreme.
Western states occupy 9 of the 10 places in the list of most legitimate countries in the world.
It is shown that countries of Postcommunist leaders are not doing that well (like Russia, Armenia,
Albania). However, also states that had been seen as illegitimate and failing such as Egypt and India are
actually in good shape.
Other Long-established democracies do actually bad, such as France and New Zealand.
Claims of legitimacy crisis in the West Main mistakes:
Failure to distinguish between various types of negative political attitudes and attitudes toward
the state. Often, citizens' disaffection with politics is interpreted as a sign of state illegitimacy,
but it may happily coexist with favorable attitudes toward the state.
Failure to think comparatively about legitimacy. There will always be people that are not happy
with the state, and thus see the state as illegitimate. Western states appear to have managed
these challenges better than other states, and result in being comparatively higher in overall
legitimacy.
Despite major social, cultural, and economic changes, West European democracies have maintained
high levels of political legitimacy, contrary to predictions of legitimacy crisis, ungovernability and
overload.

Lecture 11
The European Union and Representative Government
Governance beyond the state, such as the European Union. There is a movement of a pooling of
sovereignty among most European states that is expressed in their membership of the EU. Some
countries hope for smooth co-operation between countries within the EU, whilst other hope that the
Union is going down a road leading to a Federal Europe.
European Community: EC evolved from the 50s as an entity with political institutions, each with
defined powers and responsibilities.
European Union: Came into existence in November 1993, and was envisaged metaphorically as a
kind of building resting on 3 pillars: The EC, ,intergovernmental co-operation on foreign and security
policy, and co-operation on judical and home affairs. The EU was thus a totally new body.
Lisbon Treaty of 2009 eliminates this pillar structure and creates a single legal institution.
Development of the European Unity
After all the wars, European countries wanted hat such conflicts must never happen again on European
soil. The causes of WWII can be focused on rabid nationalism and the diktat iposed on the vanquished
Germany after the First World war. Therefore, after the end of WWII, the politicians of wartime Allies
looked for ways to integrate Germany into the post-war European Framework rather than ostracize it.
They wanted to promote co-operation between the European countries instead of rivalry.
A first step to working together was the signing of the Treaty of Paris in April 1951, wich established
the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). Many countries were invited to take part in this,
but only 6 applied (Germany, Italy, France and the Benelux). Some of the sovereignty of these
countries was ceded to a supranational body, which was why Britain did not join.
The ECSC worked very well for the 6 countries, and therefore they wanted to extend the range of
policy areas in which countries might agree to combine similar organizations. They developed a
creation of a single market, embracing all the countries. This supported Free Trade extremely, but
Britain did not participate, because they did not want to give sovereignty to a supranational body.
European Economic Community: Policy aims and guidelines concerning the establishment of a
common market and the creation of a common policy in areas such as agriculture and transportation.
Since 1958, the EU has grown immensely, with the joining of more than 27 countries (until this article
was written). The largest joining was in 2004, when 10 countries joined, of which 8 were postcommunist states, whose levels of wealth were well below the levels of the existing members. The EU
helped these post-communist countries with overcomming serious economic and security interests.
Enlargement has affected the nature of the EU considerably. At the beginning, all the countries
were geographically close to each other, had similar heights of wealth, and the French and German
language were enough for virtually all information transactins between the members of the political
elite. However, now more countries in Europe are part of the EU, making decisions is more complex.
In December 1991, the Treaty of Maastricht was signed, which established the European Union,
and also created the Euro, and formalized member state co-operation in the areas of foreign policy and
of justice and home affairs.
How the European Union Works
Lisbon Treaty: The functioning of the Union shall be founded on representative democracy. The
democracy model of the EU is the consensu model, because the power is diffused among a number of
institutions, with none being dominant. The EU has 5 institutions: Commission, European Parliament,
The Council of Ministers, the European Council, the Court of Justice.

The Commission
The Commission looks like the government of the European Union, however, in reality, it is more
of a hybrid between a government and a civil service, as the Council also has a governmental role.
The Commission is headed by a President, and consists of 1 member of all countries in the EU, each
with a specific policy jurisdiction. The Governments nominate a person as president, and they can
decide this by qualified majority voting, but the President is mostly chosen on the basis of unanimity.
The European Parliament can approve or reject this nominee, and when he is approved, the
government together with the president nominate the commissioners.
The President of the Commission is a significant actor, with the right to attend all meetings of the most
powerful body in the EU (Council).
The Commission has a 5 year term in office, and is based in Berlaymont building in the European
quarter in Brussels. Most of the commissioners are former politicians in their home countries. All those
politicians often have different party backgrounds, and they are also often chosen for different reasons
(who will achieve the most, who fits the best to what portfolio).
Once the commissioners have been nominated, the president decides which commissioners should
be given which portfolio. This is a key power, one that gives the president considerable leverage over
national governments when it comes to their choice of nominee. Some countries lobby for particular
portfolios, but this often does not work. Each commissioners appears before the European Parliament
committee to be questioned, and finally the Commission as a whole must receive a vote of approval
from the European Parliament before it can enter office.
Although commissioners are nominated on national lines, they are not in the Commission to
represent national interests. They should serve the overall interests of the EU (by oath), and the
Commission operates as a collective body, with commissioners sharing responsibility for every
decision. However, the Commissioners also know that they have to represent their countries interests,
because the government of the country has the control over his nomination.
Commissions powers:
1. Primary responsibility for initiating legislation, and it sends a steady stream of proposals and
recommendations into the EU policymaking process, although it usually tests the water first to
ensure that its proposals have a realistic chance of being accepted by the other institutions, most
likely the Council. Besides, the Commission is used to push matters forward that particular
nations have interests in.
2. Trying to ensure that others in the Union are behaving as they should. When the EU passes a
legislation, all the members should impose this legislation, and the Commission controls
this and keeps an eye on this. However, the Commission is grossly understaffed, and it is
unable to monitor Union-wide policy implementation in anything like a comprehensive fashion,
so it focuses on major breaches. When a country does not live up to the obligations, the
Commission can move to the Court of Justice.
European Parliament
Powers: Appointment and dismissal of the Commission, legislation, and the budget of the EU.
The Power of the EU Parliament in the appointment of the Commission has existed only since '93. The
endorsement of the Parliament is needed for the appointment of the next Commission president as well
as the approval of the whole Commission members. Besides, the Parliament can also dismiss a
Commission with a 2/3 majority vote.
The role in the Legislative process of the Parliament has been steadily increasing. Neither the
Council of Ministers nor the Parliament can overrule each other, and differences in legislative
proposals must be solved in a conciliation committee. If an agreement cannot be reached, the proposal
fails.

The European Parliament also has a significant role in deciding the EU's budget. The EP is
entitled to make some changes in certain areas of spending. If these changes satisfy, it is the president
of the Parliament who signs the budget into law. If the EP wants to make greater changes than it is
allowed, the EP will reject the total budget.
European Union: Intergovernmental or Supranational organization?
Intergovernmental organization: Governments of sovereign member states co-operate without giving
up the ultimate right to make their own decisions.
Supranational body: Ultimate power rests with the common institutions, and the national
governments have room to manouvre only within the framework of policy decided at the collective
level.
Seems like the EU is moving towards a Supranational organization.
The Council is intergovernmental, whereas the Commission and the Parliament are
supranational, and these have grown stronger.
If the European Council wants something to happen, it will almost certainly happen So it remains
an intergovernmental organization.
The implementation of legislation across Europe is far from uniform and perfect (Implementation
Deficit).
Transposition of Directives: Most of the EU laws are called directives (stipulate at the end to
be achieve and a time-frame for achieving it, but each state can decide how they do this
themselves).
Enforcement of Laws: Once the EU laws are in place, the European states can decide
themselves if they want to enforce these.
Future of the European Union
EU Enlargement
The enlargement process of the Eu is probably not yet over. The EU has expressed its willingness to
admit those states that have shown their commitment to democracy and the rule of law (Like Iceland).
However, there are also some problematic states, such as Albania and Turkey. The EU often already
has a major factor in these countries, for example with infrastructure.
The Only countries that are unlikely to join the European Union are Switzerland and Norway.
However, Switzerland remains a huge donor to the EU, it did not join the European Economic Area for
Free trade.
The most continuous case is Turkey, because of the problems of internal democracy rather than about
the problems of religious composition.
EU Integration
You would expect that the wider the range of countries and cultural traditions, the harder it will be to
create a shared identity. With languages this is visible, because there are 23 official languages in the
European Union. Language is often a badge of identity, and so the profusion of language imposes a
limit to the closeness of identity that can be expected to develop.
Ever since the ECSC, people have feared for European Integration, ending in the creation of a Federal
European State, similar in its political structure of the United States of America. However, with the
establishment in the Eurozone, this seems extremely illogical and undemocratic.
Often, the elites are far more enthusiasitc about European Integration than the general public.
Those with business and linguistic resources are thus far more enthusiastic.

Pay attention to the topic, find comparisons between the slides and the readings.
Gerrits: There is more than only the Textbook! The Additional Sources:
1. Make sure that you see the last name of the author on the exam, you know who said what!
2. Have some answer about the main message of the article: Particular criticism, historical
overview, present case study on something.
3. Afterwards, filling in the blanks, how does the author gives his message (time-frames,
conceptual framework, case studies).
Probably not too detailed questions! Focus on the second half, check the important concepts.
1500 words, 10% margin.
Everything has to be MLA: Bibliography formatting! All Book titles and journal titles should be
in italics, however titles of journals and chapters should not be in italics.
MLA is not only about referencing, also about formatting.
Owl Purdue! Whole description about the format of an essay!
Minimum of 5 academic sources, at least!
Monographs, Academic Sources, Documentaries, Biographies all can be used, but be careful!
Questions in the Student guidelines can be seen as an idea!
Research Essays, Argumentative Essays, Literature Essays
Integrate 2 literature titles in your essay Contextualization: Give yourself authority.
Introduction reference the articles thus: For example: Highlight that many scholar have focused on .
topic... name the scholars that have done this.... Other Example; Drawing on the work of Johnson (for
example) topic .