March CP Oral Exam

Question 1

How do elections regulate conflict?

Answer 1

There are three ways elections regulate conflict.

1. Elections select governments
   * elections punish bad governments and reward responsible rulers.
   * elections facilitate political accountability
2. Elections reflect the preferences of society
   * voting is a mechanism to express your preferences and engage in “conflict” with people by coming to a compromise based on everyone’s preferences
3. Elections determine the composition of the legislature who will decide on policy
   * people’s preferences are thus voiced through parliament - as opposed to policy being a problem for the elites.

I came across a study from the journal of politics that pointed out the quality of elections can impact conflict. For example, it found that flawed presidential elections increase the risk of conflict.

Question 2

Why are elections relevant?

Answer 2

There are two reasons elections are relevant

1. Elections are the only mechanism able to observe the distribution of preferences.
   * Elections allow us the citizenry to voice their preferences through the creation of a parliament who then make decisions.
   * this makes elections not only democratic, but an efficient way to poll the electorate on decision making.
2. Elections are an instrument to regulate conflict
   * elections show the distribution of support for each party based around a particular conflict
   * elections signal the outcome of a conflict and help show a resolution

In my opinion, elections are also important because they are a sign of a healthy democracy.
* As we explored last term, when people do not feel like their voice is heard, they often abstain from elections.

Question 3

Name three socio-economic factors which increase the probability of voting and explain why.

Answer 3

1. Income
   * This is in accordance with Resource Model theory, where people with more resources have a greater influence on politics and are thus more likely to engage.
   * As we saw last term, higher income can shift people’s values from Survival to Self Expressionism which might induce voting in the affluent
2. Age
   * this was found to be the most significant factor from our seminar reading.
   * Age has a curvilinear relationship with turnout (really old and really young vote less)
3. Education
   * your degree of education has a significant effect
   * this is potentially because people who are more educated are able to process the information needed for voting (such as foreign and fiscal policy) more easily.
   * also call back to resource model

Question 4

Explain the main characteristic of a perfectly proportional and a disproportional electoral system.

Answer 4

A perfectly proportional electoral system is on where a given share of the total vote is transformed into the same share of total seats, exactly.

A disproportional system is when there is a disconnect in this transition. Seats do not perfectly reflect votes.

No electoral system is perfect, they are all at least a little disproportional.
However, multi-member districts (MMD) fare better than single-member districts (SMDs).

We can for example compare the proportionality of an election in Germany or the Netherlands to the US.

Question 5

What are the components of an electoral system?

Answer 5

There are five major components of an electoral system

1. Assembly Size
   Size of the legislative assembly.
2. Electoral Districts.
   The number of districts in the electorate.
3. District Magnitude.
   This is closely related and refers to the number of seats allocated in each district - SMD or MMD.
   This is an especially important component because whether an electoral system is MMD or SMD has significant consequences its relative proportionality.
4. Electoral Formula
   What mathematical formula is used to convert votes to seats.
   This is closely related to magnitude once again, where SMD systems usually use a plurality formula, while MMD systems use a quote base or divisor base formula.
5. Electoral Tiers
   This refers to how many levels of elections there are to allocate seats ** There is usually only one electoral tier.

To understand how these five components work, we can apply them to a specific country, like Canada.
In Canada, we have 338 districts, with a district magnitude of 1 (one representative per district). Our assembly size should be about 100,000. Since Canada runs first past the post elections, we use a plurality election formula. We have one tier.

Question 6

What are the institutional characteristics of first-past-the-post electoral systems?

Answer 6

There are three main institutional characteristics that come to mind.
FPTP is an electoral system where people cast votes for one candidate, the candidate with the majority wins.

1. Assembly Size (number of districts is equal to assembly size)
2. District Magnitude of 1 (SMD)
   Therefore, a candidate can potentially win with a minority of votes, creating a manufactured majority.
3. Plurality Electoral Formulae

Geographical Dispersion
FPTP bonuses larger parties that have concentrated geographical support.
* easy to understand
* stable governments
* political accountability

For example, Canada uses FPTP and I often see how the Liberals and Conservatives amass power in certain provinces (geographical dispersion). I also feel like our system faces a trade off between proportionality and accountability.

Question 7

What are the institutional characteristics of proportional representation electoral systems?

Answer 7

Proportional representation are any type of electoral system where subgroups of the electorate are reflected proportionally.

There are 4 institutional characteristics that come to mind.
1. PR usually uses a closed-list voting ballot.
Here, votes are cast for a party and seats in the districts are divided based on the proportional vote share for each party.

2. Therefore, there must be MMD.
3. Therefore also, proportional election formulae are used (Quota or Divisional base)
   Quota - the total number of seats to be allocated is divided by a fixed number. Each party or group that surpasses the quota is entitled to one seat. If a party receives more votes than necessary for one seat, the surplus votes are transferred proportionally to other candidates or parties.
   Divisional - votes obtained is divided by a series of divisors. Basically, seats are allocated based on these divisors starting with the largest quotient until all the seats are allocated.
4. Legal electoral thresholds (min. number of votes to be represented)
5. There is one election tier.

Generally, this electoral system tends to increase the representation of the actual vote share, but reduces accountability and cabinet stability.

A great example is Sweden, with only a few districts but a lot of seats - most seats are allocated based on this PR closed-list system.

Question 8

According to Duverger, what are the mechanical and psychological effects?

Answer 8

The mechanical and psychological effects are the results of the way in which an electoral system transforms votes to seats.

The mechanical effect refers to how parties are punished/rewarded based on the electoral system.
* The mechanical effect basically refers to the mechanics of the election on proportionality for large and small parties.
* The mechanical effect demonstrates that a PR system with MMD will tend to punish small parties less than a FPTP with SMD would.

The psychological effect refers to the type of strategic voting that comes out of the mechanical effect.
* This effect is more present in SMD systems. People are more inclined to vote strategically in these systems because small parties are much less likely going to be represented in government - so people are inclined to vote for large parties they know will win.

I’ve personally seen this play out in Canada a lot. Because we use a FPTP with SMD system, a lot of people employ strategic voting (don’t vote for the preferred party, NDP or Green) over the Liberals, don’t want to indirectly vote for the Conservatives.

Question 9

Why is there a trade-off between political representation and political accountability?

Answer 9

Basically, political scientists have generally found that you cannot have both in an electoral system.

Political representation is properly achieved through PR electoral systems, however, they loose out on political accountability because it often leads to fractured coalition governments that must placate various parties to push policy through. A great example of this is Germany.

Accountability is best achieved through majoritarian systems. This is because you have one major party in power that can be blamed for bad policy or the direction of the country. However, this system is notoriously disproportional because people’s ideal preferences do not translate to a representative parliament (this is because large parties are rewarded, and small parties like Green parties are squeezed out). For example, Canada.

However, there does seem to be a middle ground with one unique electoral system. This is a PR electoral system with small (low-mag.) MMD districts. Low-mag districts only have a few seats in each district, I think the ideal is 4-6.
Low-mag PR systems tend to foster inclusiveness and increase representation, since there are more parties that can be represented in government. However, it avoids most of the accountability issues because large and middle parties are included in parliament, but small parties are still squeezed out - so there is more cohesion. I believe a good example of this is Austria.

Question 10

According to Gallagher, Laver and Mair, what is a political cleavage?

Answer 10

Political cleavage refers to some sort fo dividing issue between citizens in a society that creates polarization between groups of people or political parties.
Importantly, for GLM, a cleavage needs to have some organization element through which their demands can be channelled (like trade unions).

GLM identified three elements of political cleavages.
1. Social division - this is the overarching idea of what a cleavage is.
* there is some institutional or social characteristics that divides people (like Catholics and Protestants)

2. Collective identity - within the social cleavage, people on either side must identify strongly with the group they are a part of. Often through income level, ethnicity, so on.
3. Moral divisions - oftentimes there is a moral divisiveness between the two groups. This is common with cultural cleavages like gay marriage, or immigration. This is not necessarily found in all political cleavages.

Question 11

Explain the traditional political cleavages identified by Lipset and Rokkan.

Answer 11

Lipset and Rokkan identified two major conflicts that led to 4 traditional political cleavages.

Firstly, when nation states first emerged, there is always going to be internal territorial and ethnic conflicts. These disputes translate to two cleavages
1. Center-periphery
*this refers to tensions between a central authority and a regional or ethnic group that wants independence.
For example, Scottish Independence Party

2. Church-state
   *when nation states emerged, tensions between two central bodies of authority faced disputes over their relative power and authority.
   For example, power struggles between the church authority and state authority still exists today in religious countries.

Secondly, disputes following the industrial revolution led to two other political cleavages.
3. Rural-urban
*tensions between the old agricultural sector and the growing industrial sector

4. Capital-labor
   *tensions between those who were benefiting from the industrial revolution (winners, big business) and those who were losing (the workers)

Importantly, these traditional cleavages are no longer central to the disputes we see today.
*these cleavages were frozen in time, but now we see them defrosting.
*cleavages are now more focused on cultural differences, rather than economic. Somewhat because we are all richer than we once were.
*one big political cleavage nowadays is inclusion:demarcation (immigration).

Question 12

What are veto players? Give some examples and explain why they are veto players

Answer 12

A veto player is a political actor whose agreement is necessary to change the status quo.

Changes to the status quo refer to changes to policy or the political system itself.

Veto players can be an individual (speaker of the house), a collective (parliament), or an institution (like federalism)

Veto players can also be distinguished into institutional or partisan players
* institutional - those whose presence is regulated by the constitution
Like constitutional review, like federalism
*partisan - those whose presence is a result of how the political game is played. More cyclical.
*the president or prime minister

Veto players are largely tied with the institutions of the political system
*constitution formation
*federalism vs unitary systems
*uni- and bicameralism
these all determine the veto players.

Veto players are important because when we study policy stability, the rate of policy change, etc. - we primarily need to study veto player theory.

Question 13

In veto player theory, what is the winset of the status quo?

Answer 13

This is the set of policy alternatives that all veto players prefer or are indifferent to - in contrast to the status quo.

The winset refers to the policy space in which change is possible.

When thinking about the winset, assume all veto players have an indifference curve with policy alternatives they would support. The space where all of these indifference curves intersect is called the winset.

The winset is important because the size of the winset can tell us a lot about veto player theory and the potential for change.
*a small winset indicates that potential policy shifts are minimal (grand change will not occur), but because of that, political stability is high (and vice versa)
*a small winset may also indicate strong ideological differences between veto players.

For example, when if we consider the US and think about the House and the Senate as representing different veto players
*when both are red, winset is large
*when one is red and one is blue, winset is small

Question 14

Explain the main differences between the legislative supremacy constitution and the higher law constitution models.

Answer 14

These are two different types of constitutions - as they can be written in difference ways.

A legislative supremacy constitution works how it sounds - the legislative body has supremacy. This is because there is no bill of rights, there is no constitutional review, and it is not entrenched.
* A lack of constitutional review means there is no constitutional court or procedure specifically designed to apply the constitution to legislation and shoot down policy that contradicts the constitution. * One that is not entrenched means it can be modified by a simple majority in parliament.

A typical example would be the UK - which does not have a codified constitution with any specific review process. And it can be amended by any ordinary act of Parliament.

Legislative supremacy constitutions were dominant first. Higher law constitutions then became dominant after WWII as a way to adopt institutional safeguarding to protect against fascism.

Higher law constitutions have a bill of rights, they have a constitutional review (like a constitutional court), and they are entrenched.
* This means it can only be amended by a specific process stipulated by the constitution.

A typical example is the US
- constitutional court is the Supreme Court.

Question 15

What is a constitutional review?

Answer 15

This is the main mechanism of the constitution used to protect invalidation or abuse of the constitution.

This is the process by which a constitutionally designated authority has the power to invalidate legislation, administrative decisions, judicial rulings, etc. that violate the constitution.

This is typically exercised by judges in constitutional courts.
When the constitutional review is exercised by ordinary judges the process is called judicial review.

The constitutional review has three distinct characteristics
1. Scope:
*abstract scope will review legislation in the absence of a concrete case
* concrete scope will only review when there is a case

2. Timing
   *a priori takes place before a law is formed
   * a posteriori happens only after a law has been enacted
3. Jurisdiction
   *decentralized review is more than one court
   *centralized review is one distinct constitutional court

The best example of different constitutional reviews can come from comparing the US and the UK/European models
*Just use the next question on top of this

Question 16

What are the differences between the European and the American models of constitutional review?

Answer 16

Use details from above

American model is concrete, a posteriori, and decentralized
US - fits all criteria (explain each step by step)
Japan - fits most of the criteria

European model is abstract (though sometimes concrete), can be either a priori or a posteriori, but always centralized.
UK - abstract, a priori, centralized.

Question 17

Suppose that you observe a country that is bicameral and federal and a second country that is unicameral and unitary. In which country would you expect policy to be more stable? Why?

Answer 17

When we think about which country would be more politically stable, we are trying to determine the number of players and the size of the winset.

A bicameral and federal system is a country that designates power to the states/territories, with two legislative chambers.

Unicameral and unitary country has a central government with supreme control, and one chamber of parliament.

1. You can expect there to be significantly more veto players in the first country than the second. This would lead to a smaller winset, which means greater political stability.
2. Generally, federal systems are considered to be more politically stable, because you are bringing the government closer to the people, bolstering accountability.
3. Similarly, bicameral systems are more likely to lead to political gridlock, but also ensure the extreme policy that is far from the SQ would never be enacted - checks and balances - more stability.

For example, we can compare a federalist bicameral system like Germany to a unicameral unitary country like Greece.
Admittedly, there is a lot else going on in these two countries.

Question 18

Suppose that you observe two countries with constitutional review and a federal structure. In the first country there is close ideological convergence between institutions but in the second one all institutions are quite ideologically polarized. In which country would you expect is policy change more likely to be observed? Why?

Answer 18

The best way to determine the degree of policy change would be to consider the indifference curves and winset in each situation.

To clarify, both a federal structure and constitutional review act as veto players.

When a country has close ideological convergence, you can assume their winset to be large because the indifference curves of the central government, territories, so forth are in close agreement - leading to a larger winset where there are many agreeable policy outcomes outside of the status quo.

When a country is ideologically polarized in a federal country, you likely have disagreements among the priorities of different territories and a constitutional review that is biased or otherwise has to manage polarization.
There is very little overlap in preferences, leading to a small winset. Few changes outside of the status quo can be made.

We can think of two contrasting examples: Canada and the US
* both federalist countries with constitutional reviews

Canada - fair amount of ideological convergence, even if it is not perfectly cohesive and parties bicker, I feel like there is a notable winset where changes can be made outside of the status quo. The constitutional review acts as a “small” insignificant veto player.

US - extreme divide between territories, the constitutional review is extremely involved and a large veto player. On average, little change is possible from outside - lots of gridlock.

Question 19

How can you characterize whether a country is federal or not?

Answer 19

This depends on how you define a federal country - if you’d opt for a de jure or de facto approach.

A de jure approach characterizes federalist countries based on their constitution. There are three conditions
*Geopolitical division - constitution divides country into specific units that cannot be abolished by the government
*independence - regional and central government have different sources of authority
*direct governance - regional and central have particular policy domains

Otherwise, you can characterize federalist countries through a de facto approach. Which just looks at the degree of decentralization exhibited in the country.
*is there a regional government?
* is there fiscal decentralization?

Canada - de jure
India - potentially de facto

Beyond this, think about veto players! Are the regional governments veto players?

Question 20

What is the difference between federalism de jure, or in structure, a federalism de facto, or in practice?

Answer 20

Federalism in structure refers to a system of government where power is constitutionally divided between a central authority and territories.
You can easily identify if a country has de jure federalism by just looking at the constitution.
*Geopolitical division - constitution divides country into specific units that cannot be abolished by the government
*independence - regional and central government have different sources of authority
*direct governance - regional and central have particular policy domains

Example - US, Canada

Federalism in practice refers to decentralized countries that seem to follow a federal system without a constitution that fully establishes this.
*regional governments with fiscal decentralization

Example - Spain

Question 21

Could congruence and symmetry be related in federalism? Explain your answer.

Answer 21

Yes, definitely.
Congruence refers to a federalist system in which territories share demographic characteristics, homogenous across states.
Symmetry refers to federalist systems where all territories share the same amount of power.

In a federalist system that is congruent, like in Germany for example, it would make sense to distribute power equally.
Similarly, in countries where there is incongruence, it is typically important to establish an asymmetric system that would help to protect minority groups.
For example, in Canada we have incongruence in our federalist system - as Quebec is culturally and linguistically different than the rest of the territories. Thus, the government established an asymmetric system that would allow Quebec to govern themselves with more sovereignty than the other states - in an effort to preserve their language and culture - to protect a minority group.

Question 22

What are the structural conditions that define federalism according to a de jure approach?

Answer 22

There are three key structural conditions

1. Geopolitical division - country divided into specific units protected by the constitution
   (India does not have this)
2. Independence - the territorial and central government have independent sources of authority, often realized through separate elections
3. Direct Governance - handle different policy domains

The US upholds all of these conditions, de facto federalist countries like India do not.

Question 23

Discuss one example of a situation where a unitary country chooses to adopt a different political arrangement based on territorial reasons.

Answer 23

This essentially references devolution - the process in which a unitary country grants some powers to sub-national units to maintain authority.
One example of this is in the UK, when Tony Blair in 1997 proposed referendums for the creation of regional parliaments in Scotland and Wales.
This was to quell conflicts in these regions where there was rising resentment towards thte Britihs parliament, and calls for full independance.

Question 24

Explain the logic of decentralization using the idea of fiscal decentralization.

Answer 24

Decentralized countries, or de facto federalist countries, loosely follow a federalist system without the constitutional framework defending it.

This grants some authority to regional governments, to govern themselves (to make the government more responsive and efficient) without granting supreme power to territories.

Therefore, the central government can instead engage in fiscal decentralization if different territories are able to obtain funding to maintain their institution.
* taxes or money from central gov.

Nothing can be done at a regional level without fiscal decentralization

Canada - provinces collect their own taxes
Italy - taxes only collected at the central government
* the south is thus underfunded, treated more poorly by the central gov.

Question 25

Explain the differences between the coming-together and holding-together approaches to federalism? Use two countries to answer your question.

Answer 25

These refer to how federalism came about, where their histories help to explain some of their key institutional characteristics

Coming together federalism is a result of bottom-up bargaining in which previously sovereign polities volunteer to give up their central power to pool together resources and improve their collective security or achieve economic goals
* Australia, US, Switzerland
* US history

Holding together federalism is the result of a top-down process in which the central government of a polity chooses to decentralize its power to subnational governments to diffuse secessionist pressures
* typical in countries with ethnic cleavages leading to asymmetric or incongruence federalism
* India, Spain, Belgium

Question 26

What is malapportionment and how it represents a challenge for political representation in bicameral systems?

Answer 26

Malapportionment refers to a system in which the votes of some people matter more than the votes of others

For example, if one single member district has 10,000 voters and another has 100,000 voters and they each have one representative, that is malappportionment

In bicameral systems the lower chamber is typically makes a clear attempt at proper representation.
The upper chamber is then used to give extra political weight to minorities, leaning into malapportionment (which can lead to pushback from the majority, for example in the US)

This demonstrates how bicameral systems fuel malapportionment
this does not necessarily mean it is bad, as it often protects against tyranny from the majority

Question 27

Compare methods of selection in unicameral and bicameral systems

Answer 27

So in unicameral systems, the process is extremely straight forward because the lower chamber is typically selected directly by the people.
For example, in Turkey (unicameral) a simple PR electoral system is used
These elections are periodic and competitive

In bicameral systems, the lower chamber typically uses the same system
The upper chamber (intended to protect minorities) uses a different election system (4 options)
1. direct elections (US)
2. indirect elections (nomination process) (India)
3. Appointment (by monarchs or governments) (Germany)
4. Selection through heir (somewhat used in the UK)

Question 28

Suppose that you have two countries: Country A is unitary and have constitutional review. Country B is federal, bicameral and also have constitutional review. Where is policy more likely to remain stable? Answer your question using veto players theory.

Answer 28

A constitutional review refers to a process by which a constitutionally designated authority has the power to eliminate legislation or government actions in the name of the constitution.

In a unitary country, we can expect to see a strong centralized government capable of decision making.
France is unitary with a constitutional review. I read the wiki page and I did not see much actively from the constitution over the past 20 or so years.

In a federal system, we might expect more gridlock between the central authority and territories - more veto players. I would also expect the supreme court to be more involved in these systems, they may be called on by various veto players more often to regulate decision making and they might act as a level-headed player when working with many partisan veto players in a federalist system.
Canada is an example

You would expect policy to be more stable in a federalist country where there are more veto players, smaller indifference curve, and more actively involved supreme court.

Question 29

What makes a democracy consensual?

Answer 29

Majoritarian - the majority determines who should govern
Consensual - as many people as possible should rule

Consensual democracies seek to share and disperse power. (4)

1. Policies will aim to incorporate related, but different preferences
   * multi party system
2. Institutions are cooperative and inclusive
   * coalition government
   * weak agenda setter
3. Federalist and bicameral typically
   * lots of veto players
4. (extension) consensual models outperform majoritarian
   * reduce conflict, esp. in multi ethnic countries
   *smaller gap of satisfaction between winners and losers - reduces polarization
   * increases representation without much hurt to accountability

ex- Germany, Switzerland

Question 30

What makes a democracy majoritarian?

Answer 30

Majoritarian - the majority determines who should govern
Consensual - as many people as possible should rule

(5)
1. Policies that implement decisions of the majority, more exclusionary of the minority
*two-party system

2. maximizes clarity and accountability
3. more likely to be unicameral and unitary
   * concentration of executive power
4. absolute political winners and absolute losers
   *large gap in satisfaction
5. (extension) it seems to be debatable about the extent to which it promotes accountability instead of representation - Liphart

ex - UK (westminister model)

Question 31

Explain the idea of democracy as an equilibrium.

Answer 31

We know that in democracy there are always winners and losers.

Democracy is in equilibrium when the losers accept the winners decisions
* the winners do not seek to eliminate the losers
*the losers do not challenge the outcome

• this is an inter-temporal relationship, losers and winners are temporary
• utility of the winners is maximized
• there is stability which can foster democracy

What is interesting about this concept is that it makes me think about how stable a democracy is when comparing consensual and majoritarian systems
*satisfaction gap is significantly stronger in majoritarian systems

• there may still be stability, but could it be weaker in majoritarian countries ?