Midterm Exam

Question 1

Rational Choice

Answer 1

• Emerges in 1980s, development from economics and study
  of American politics
• Individual is the unit of analysis
• Actors/Organizations have preferences/goals that seek to
  maximize
  • E.g. Parties, Voters, Elected Officials
• Less importance on “sociological factors” such as cultural
  traits and socio-economic than behavioralism
• Contextual factors, such as institutions, structural features of society, and political circumstances will affect the strategies they use to achieve their goals

Question 2

Rational Choice Pros

Answer 2

• Draw link between institutional structures of state and
  behavior of actors
  • e.g. re-election, convergence to center of political parties,
  government cater to special interests
• Examines the strategic interactions of actors – behavior
  and interdependence fundamental to politics
  • e.g Interaction in the legislature, between legislature and
  bureaucracy, party leaders military and pro-democracy
  movement
• Is explicit about actors, their preferences, and attributions
  of their preferences

Question 3

Rational Choice Cons

Answer 3

1) Assumes people motivated solely by material interests
-No limits on goals
- possible to construct rational choice explanation for irrational behaviour

2) People’s preferences are unchanging and stable
- objection: Only requires preference stable at time actors choose strategies - strategies they choose may change depending on changing in environment, but overall goal remains the same

3) Unrealistic about individuals’ level of information
and ability to make calculations
- More applicable to elites, during periods of stability and when rules and players of system established

4)Ahistorical and lack context
- History and context determine the domain within which a theory is useful.
- objection: Rational choice is not different – is sensitive to variation in institutions and other contextual characteristics

Question 4

Mill’s Comparative Method

Answer 4

• Can focus on similarities or differences
  • e.g. Skocpol Social Revolutions
• Necessary and Sufficient Conditions

Question 5

Necessary and Sufficient Conditions

Answer 5

• Necessary condition: if it is not present he event cannot occur
• Sufficient condition: a condition or set of conditions that will produce the event
• A necessary condition must be there but it alone does not provide sufficient cause for occurrence of an event (only sufficient condition can do that)
• e.g. something being a bulldog is sufficient to it being a dog being a dog is necessary to being a bulldog.
• Agreement: isolate a cause from complex event and two or more instances 0f event (effect) re compared. Commonality is identified as cause

Question 6

Mills method difference

Answer 6

• Comparing cases that differ in regard to
  outcome to be explained
• Reject potential conditions for the difference in outcomes by eliminating conditions that do vary in the same way as outcome
• If one, and only one condition that cannot be eliminated by this process, the condition must be the cause of the outcome

Question 7

Mills method cons

Answer 7

• To draw valid inferences requires:

1) Causal process be deterministic (necessary
sufficient) but the social world is probabilistic

2) Can be no interaction effects – causal factors
must be independent of each other

3) Assumes have identified all of the possible causes
as potential cause

4) Method assumes have identified all the relevant factors –to do this examine a lot of casual factors, which requires looking at many cases to isolate independent effect of each factor

5) Allows us to identify necessary and sufficient conditions, but under restrictive cirumstances

Question 8

Six I’s

Answer 8

1) Institutions
- rules of the games, both formal and informal. Can be IV and DV
- Major institutional variation, electoral system, legislative system, government structure, central executive.
- Better at explaining stability than change

2) Interests
- Whose preferences become policy/represented, not just material

3) Ideas
– Can be mass culture, political ideologies, and specific ideas about policy.
- Most common way is asking public how they think about politics
- Ideas can also be in form of ideologies and policies
- How do ideas become prominent, institutionalized, and
exert a casual influence on politics?

4) Individuals
- political elites, looking at personality, background – are bureaucracies characteristic of societies they administer, citizen behavior
- e.g. voting

5) International environment
- EU, globalization, diffusion

6) Interactions
- Actors/socio-structural features will have different environments will have different outcomes
- e.g. party strategy

Question 9

Historical Institutionalism

Answer 9

• Regarded much of rational choice as ahistorical and
  lacking context
• Institutions are not purely functional – their creation
  reflects power/interests/preferences of groups who
  created them and have distributional consequences -
  Critical junctures
• Timing/and sequencing of events is prominent
  • E.g. Democracy in England v Prussia
• Compared to RC working on more limited range of cases unified in space and time
• Path Dependency
  
  • Once a path is taken, gets “locked in” /“feedback effects” as actors adjust their strategies to accommodate the prevailing patterns
• Mechanisms of lock in: set up costs, learning
  costs, co-ordination costs, adaptive expectations
• Better at explaining institutional stability than
  change.
• How do we know final set of outcomes was really caused by choices at critical junctures. How do we know which is the critical juncture

Question 10

Webbers definition of a modern state

Answer 10

• A legal order which regulates relations between offices of the state, and between offices of the state and the people

-Laws passed by the state only valid if were passed according to certain procedures

Question 11

Tilly’s explanation of the development of the modern state

Answer 11

• “State made War, and War made the State”
• Tilly draws attention to the role of warfare in creating the machinery of modern state-hood
• The elimination of internal rivals and capacity to extract
  resources is the process of state making
• Historically, competition among “wielders of coercion” for control over territory and resources led to the characteristics of European style state familiar to us, complete with a military, police force, tax bureaucracy and courts of law
• Successful war-making (defeating external enemies) also helped rulers use force to disarm domestic rivals (like lords with private armies). It allowed the concentration of coercive power in the hands of the ruler (state making)
• The need to compete with internal and external rivals creates a need for rulers to raise revenue to fight wars
• War making spurred the development of the state apparatus such as tax bureaucracies to extract taxes from society to finance the war effort (extraction)
• To further facilitate success in war-making, states promoted capital accumulation to ensure adequate resources would be available to the state. Courts of law one way to protect the property claims of subjects/citizens without allowing those citizens/subjects to use force directly (protection)

Question 12

State capacity

Answer 12

1) Rule of law
- To what extent are laws transparent, independently, predictably, and impartially enforced

2) State authority over territory
- Over what percentage of the territory does state have effective control

3) Bureaucratic and administrative capacity
- Highly trained and expert bureaucracy in which public officials are rigorous and independent in the exercise of their duties

4) Fiscal Capacity
- The ability to raise revenue to provide public goods

5) Particularistic or Public goods
-What types of expenditures in national budgets

6) Educational equality
-To what extent is high-quality education available to all, sufficient to allow them to exercise their basic rights as citizens

Question 13

Power of the state

Answer 13

• Two types of power:

1) Despotic Power – the range of activities elites are able to undertake without negotiating with civil society groups. Power of elites over civil society

2) Infrastructural Power- The ability of the state to
control and implement policy choices across the territory it claims to govern

• State penetration of social life requires:
  • Provided centrally organized services that are carried out through division of labor. This distribution improves the efficiency of the distribution
  • Ensure literacy of population so citizens understand legal responsibilities and have awareness of state power
  • Provide system of uniform weights, measures, and currency to facilitate the exchange of goods
  • Provide an effective system of communication and transportation

Question 14

Natural order/ limited Access vs Open access

Answer 14

1) Open access is characterized by: political and economic development, rich vibrant civil societies, and bigger decentralized governments. Widespread impersonal social relations- including secure property rights, equal treatment under law

2) Limited access: slow-growing economies vulnerable to shocks, politics without consent of governed. Social relationships organized along personal lines, privileges, and law enforced unequally

• How societies devise institutional structures to solve the problem of violence. Seek to explain political and economic development
• Natural order has been dominant form of social order in human history, while open access has emerged only with modernity
• Neo-patrimonial states

Question 15

Transition from Limited to Open access

Answer 15

• Transition occurs in two steps:

1) relations within the dominant coalition transform from personal to impersonal

2) those arrangements are extended to the larger population

• Elites concede power when they fear they will lose it and believe they will lose by concession than by revolution. Elites will find it in their interests to secure impersonal privileges through formal institutions, such as legislation, legal system, and extension of citizenship
• Conditions for transition:

1) Rule of law for elites
- Law applies equally to all elites and is enforced without bias. Decisions of judicial system binding on elites

2) Perpetually lived organization in public and private sphere
- Durability of institutional arraignments which is independent of the identity of individual members at any given time. This ensure state can credibly commit to agreements beyond the dominant current coalition

3) Consolidated Control of Military
-Severing close links between economic, political, and military in natural states. Separation between military and civilian authorities. The military cannot own significant assets, and selection of high military leaders must be under civilian control. Elites must be able to discipline the military through non-military means

Question 16

Substantive vs procedural democracy definition

Answer 16

1) Substantive view of democracy classifies political regimes in regards to the outcomes they produce

2) Procedural view of democracy classifies political regimes in regards to their institutions and procedures

• The research question matters. The substantive view of democracy runs into problems if the researcher wants to know how regime type influences particular
  outcomes.
• If we define democracy substantively in terms of inequality, we cannot examine the effect of regime type on inequality without engaging in circular reasoning.

Question 17

Dahls measure of democracy

Answer 17

-Dahl proposed a minimalist version of democracy

1) Contestation captures the extent to which citizens are free to organize themselves into
competing blocs
2) Inclusion who gets to participate in the democratic process

• Polyarchy is political regime with high levels of both contestation and inclusion

Question 18

PACL Measure of Democracy

Answer 18

• PACL Measure: A country is classified as a democracy only if all of the following conditions apply:

1)The chief executive is elected.
2) The legislature is elected.
3) There is more than one party competing in the elections.
4) An alternation in power under identical electoral rules has taken place.

• The PACL measure builds on Dahl’s insights in two ways.

1) Minimalist view of democracy
2) Emphasis on contestation.

• The main difference with Dahl is that thePACL measure treats regime type as a dichotomy.

Question 19

Polity IV measure of democracy

Answer 19

• Polity IV annual measure of democracy from 1800 to
  present
• A country’s polity score is based on five different attributes or dimensions:

1) Competitiveness of executive
recruitment
2)Openness of executive recruitment
3) Regulation of political participation
4) Competitiveness of political participation
5) Executive constraints

• Polity IV is minimalist. In addition to capturing Dahl’s
  notion of inclusion and contestation, it adds executive
  constraints.

Question 20

Freedom house measure of democracy

Answer 20

• Freedom House Measure Two categories:
  1) Political rights.
  2) Civil rights.
• Based on scores for political and civil rights, Freedom
  House classifies countries as Free, Partly Free, and Not
  Free.
• The amount of freedom on the political rights dimension is measured by 10 questions, each worth between 0 and 4 points. Three categories:

1) Electoral Process.
2) Political pluralism and participation.
3) Functioning of government.

• A country’s score out of 40 is converted to a 7-point scale.
• The amount of freedom on the civil rights dimension
  is measured by 15 questions, each worth between 0
  and 4 points. Four categories:

1) Freedom of expression and belief.
2) Associational and organizational rights.
3) Rule of law.
4) Personal autonomy and individual rights.

• A country’s score out of 60 is converted to a 7-point scale.
• A country’s overall Freedom House score is the average of its political and civil rights scores.
• Freedom House captures Dahl’s notion of inclusion
  and contestation. The big difference is that it employs
  a substantive view of democracy.

Question 21

Modernization theory

Answer 21

• Most economic explanations for democratization
  can be linked to a paradigm called modernization theory
• Modernization theory argues that all societies pass through the same stages of economic development
• Long-term economic development leads to better living standards, greater urbanization, higher levels of literacy, the emergence of middle class, the greater role of industrial activities vis a vis traditional agriculture
  more likely to become democratic and more likely to
  remain democratic
• Casual mechanism not always clear
• Increasing education leads to values of tolerance, norms of democratic values, oppose extremism and conflict
• Growing middle class which had increased autonomy from ruling elites, and shift to industrialization made it more difficult for ruling class to tax assets – in exchange for paying taxes, emerging financial class demanded democratic reforms e.g. stronger parliament

Question 22

Packeted transitions

Answer 22

• O’Donnell and Schmitter (1983): 4 key actors:

1) soft liners and hardliners in authoritarian regime
2)moderates and radicals and moderates among challengers

• Transitions result from the strategic interaction of these groups. Democratic transitions most likely when soft-liners and moderates enter to pacts to navigate transition from dictatorship to democracy. Reduces uncertainty
• Democracy-seeking pacts seeks to
  (1) limit the agenda of policy choice
  (2) share proportionately in distribution of benefits, and (3) restrict the participation of outsiders in decision making
• Criticisms: Democracy by undemocratic means, conservative bias e.g. Moncola accord, Spain
• Transaction most likely when distribution of power is relatively equal
• McFaul (2002): Transitions in post-communist world that produced the most consolidated, successful democratic transitions were those that were “revolutionary.
• Countries that moved furthest on economic transformations dealt with contentious issues and included masses were the most successful pacts
• McFaul: Most important condition for successful pact imbalance of power in favor of pro-democratic forces. Role of masses key. Confrontation and non-co-operation of masses promoted democratic change

Question 23

Tipping point model

Answer 23

• Participation becomes the model that needs to be
  explained
• Tipping models provide an explanation for the mass
  protests that occurred in Eastern Europe in 1989.
• An individual must choose whether to publicly support or oppose the dictatorship. She has a private and a public
  preference regarding the dictatorship.
• Preference falsification: Because it is dangerous to reveal your opposition to a dictatorship, individuals who oppose the regime often falsify their preferences in public.

Question 24

Revolutionary threshold

Answer 24

• There is often a protest size at which individuals are willing to publicly reveal their true preferences. As protests become larger, it becomes harder for dictatorships to monitor and punish each individual. A revolutionary threshold is the size of protest at which an individual is willing to participate.
• Individuals naturally have different thresholds. Some people with low thresholds are happy to oppose the government irrespective of what others do. Some people with higher thresholds will protest only if lots of others do. Some people with very high thresholds actually support the regime and are extremely unwilling to protest.
• The change in revolutionary thresholds may lead to a revolution in one setting but to a small, abortive, and ultimately unsuccessful protest in another.
• Economic recessions and deprivation may cause private preferences and revolutionary thresholds to move against the regime without actually causing a revolution.
• Structural factors are not sufficient to produce revolutions, although they can make revolutions more likely by shifting the distribution of revolutionary thresholds.
• e.g.: Structural changes in the 1980s lowered the revolutionary thresholds of East Europeans
• Preference falsification means that a society’s distribution of revolutionary thresholds is never known to outsiders or even the individuals in that society. Thus, a society can come to the brink of a revolution without anyone knowing.
• Our inability to observe private preferences and revolutionary thresholds conceals potential revolutionary cascades and makes revolutions impossible to predict.
• The successful introduction of pro-democracy reforms in one country reduced revolutionary thresholds elsewhere. This led to a revolutionary cascade across countries rather than across individuals within countries. “Poland – 10 years, Hungary – 10 months, East Germany – 10 weeks, Czechoslovakia – 10 days.

Question 25

Collective action theory

Answer 25

- Collective Action refers to the pursuit of some objective by group of individuals. Typically the objective is some form of public good - A public good is non-excludable and non- rivalrous - e.g. Democracy is public good - irrational paricipation: - Your individual effort is unlikely to make a difference to whether pro-democracy movement successful - Costs of participation include time, expense, possibly loss of life

Question 26

Authoritarian rule problem

Answer 26

- There are two fundamental problems of authoritarian rule: 1)The problem of authoritarian power-sharing 2) The problem of authoritarian control - The problem of authoritarian power-sharing focuses on intra-elite conflict. The latter focuses on controlling the masses - When a dictator first comes to power, there is an agreement on how to share rents among the members of his support coalition. But there is no independent third- party actor to enforce this ‘power-sharing’ agreement. - the dictator always has an incentive to alter the power- sharing agreement to his benefit.

Question 27

Types of dictatorships

Answer 27

- Authoritarian regimes are regimes that have no turnover in power of executive - Many different types of dictatorship. A three-way classification 1) A monarchic dictatorship is an autocracy in which the executive comes to power and maintains power on the basis of family and kin networks. - Regimes are not considered monarchies if the monarch’s role is largely ceremonial 2) A military dictatorship is an autocracy in which the leader and high levels are members of the military and the executive relies on the armed forces to come to and stay in power. 3) All other autocracies are civilian dictatorships Two sub categories of civilian dictatorship: 1) A dominant-party dictatorship is one in which a single party dominates access to political office and control over policy. - Although other parties may exist and compete in elections, true political power rests with the dominant party 2) A personalistic dictatorship is one in which the leader, although often supported by a party or military, retains personal control of policy decisions and the selection of regime personnel. - Personalist dictatorships differ from other dictatorships in that access to key political posts and state benefits depend much more on the discretion of the leader. - Little restraint on leaders, deliberately weakens military so will pose little threat - legislature and judiciary weakened. - The elite corps is usually made up of friends or family members of the dictator

Question 28

Selectorate theory

Answer 28

- All leaders are motivated by the desire to gain and maintain office. If all leaders have the same goals, why do we get variance in outcomes? - some environments encourage leaders to behave in ways that benefit society, whereas other environments encourage them to behave in way that benefit only themselves and a few others. - The key factor is how the leader is selected. - Selectorate theory characterizes all governments by their location in a two-dimensional institutional space (de Mesquita et al., 2003) 1) The selectorate (S) is the set of people who can play a role in selecting the leader. -“Selecting” a leader does not have to be done by voting - e.g. in monarchy is usually only members of the royal family. In military junta, members of armed forces. - In other dictatorships, it can be large, such as adult citizens with right to vote (Even though election is rigged) - Selectorate can be large or small in dictatorships, is always large in democracies - 2) The winning coalition (W) includes those people whose support is necessary for the leader to stay in power. - In democracies, W is always quite large. If only two candidates or parties is majority of electorate. W in dictatorship is always quite small e.g. small group of colonels who control armed forces. - The disenfranchised are those residents who do not have a legal right to participate in choosing the government.

Question 29

Regime type and economic outcomes

Answer 29

1) Property rights story - Democracy -> Rule of Law ->Stable Property Rights -> Investment-> Economic Growth - The empirical support for the property rights story is weak. - Democracies tend to represent a wider portion of society than dictatorships. -e.g. Suppose that dictatorships tend to make tax policy to benefit the rich and that democracies tend to make tax policy to benefit the poor. 2) Consumption vs. investment story - A democratic transition will lead to higher taxes and a redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. Given the high taxes in democracies, the rich are less likely to invest, and so economic growth will slow. - The poor cannot afford to direct their assets away from immediate consumption. (They need to eat and pay their rent today) Since workers get to vote in democracies, they encourage government policy to redistribute assets away from investment towards consumption. 3) Dictatorial autonomy story - If dictators are future-oriented, they can force people to save, thereby launching economic growth.

Question 30

PR system

Answer 30

- The rationale behind PR systems is to produce a proportional translation of votes into seats. Proportional representation (PR) electoral systems come in two main types: 1) List proportional representation systems (List PR). - Widepsread throughout Europe. - Worldwide 62 out of 191 countries use this - In a list PR system, each party presents a list of candidates to voters in each multimember district. - Parties receive seats in proportion to their overall share of the votes. - These seats are then allocated among the candidates on their list in various ways. - 2 Types of List PR systems: 1) Open: - Voters can indicate not just their preferred party, but also their favored candidate within that party. 2) Closed: - Voters can only select the party to support, and each party decides the ranking of their candidates on the list. - The rank order of candidates on the party list determines who is elected to the parliament. - Often lists are regional, as in Czech Republic where 200 total members are elected from eight regional lists. 2) Single transferable vote (STV) - Country is divided into multimember constituencies that each have four or five representatives. - Voters rank their preferences among candidates. The total number of votes is counted, and then the number of seats divides this vote total in the constituency to produce a quota. - To be elected, candidates must reach a minimum quota. - When the first preferences are counted, if no candidates reach the quota, then the candidate with the least votes is eliminated and her votes are redistributed according to second preference. - The process continues until all seats are filled.

Question 31

PR system differences

Answer 31

1) The precise formula for allocating seats to parties 2) The district magnitude - All PR systems employ either quotas or divisors to allocate seats to parties. A quota is essentially the ‘price’ in terms of votes that a party must ‘pay’ to guarantee themselves a seat in a particular electoral district. - The key factor influencing the proportionality of an electoral system is the district magnitude. District magnitude refers to the number of representatives elected in a district. The larger the district magnitude, the greater the degree of proportionality. - There is considerable variation in the district magnitude across countries. E.g Chile has 2 and Ukraine has 450 3) The use of electoral thresholds - All proportional electoral systems have an electoral threshold. An electoral threshold is the minimum level of support a party needs to obtain representation. - A natural threshold is a mathematical by-product of the electoral system. A formal threshold is explicitly written into the electoral law. - Electoral system proportionality is low when the electoral threshold is high. - Electoral thresholds can have negative side-effects. -e.g. In Turkey 2002, so many parties failed to surpass the 10% threshold that fully 46% of all votes were wasted. 4) The type of party list employed

Question 32

PR Pros

Answer 32

- Proponents of proportional electoral systems suggest they facilitate deliberative and collaborative governance, reduce the barriers to minority parties, maximize voter turnout and ensure parliament mirrors the social and ethnic diversity in society 1) Facilitate deliberative and collaborative governance: - Responsibility is not concentrated in hands of single party government. -Governance should be dispersed as widely as possible among elected representatives who deliberate, bargain and achieve compromise. - Multiple parties in parliament ensures plural interests are hear heard 2) Reduce Barriers to Minor Parties: - By facilitating the election of more minor parties, PR system also broadens electoral choice, providing voters with wider range of alternatives. 3) Ensure Parliamentary Diversity: - By reserving a certain position on party lists for regional, ethnic, linguistic, or religious minorities, or women, PR system increase the diversity of representation. - This can improve the range of voices and experiences bought to policy discussion. - PR systems are thought to increase the opportunity of ethno-political minority parties to get seats in legislatures because they reduce the electoral barrier smaller parties face

Question 33

PR Cons

Answer 33

1) Generate indecisive electoral results 2) Weak, ineffective, unstable governing coalition 3) Characterized by policy stalemate, legislative gridlock 4)Legitimation of extremist parties on the far-right and left

Question 34

Majoritarian system

Answer 34

- Worldwide 91 out of 191 countries use majoritarian formulae in national elections to the lower house of parliament - A majoritarian electoral system is one in which the candidates or parties that receive the most votes wins. - Aim of majoritarian electoral system is to create a natural or manufactured majority, that is, to produce an effective one-party government with a working parliamentary majority while simultaneously penalizing minor parties, especially those with spatially dispersed votes. - The design aims to concentrate legislative power in the hands of single party government, not to generate parliamentary representation of all minority views 1) A single-member district plurality system (SMDP) - is one in which individuals cast a single vote for a candidate in a single-member district. The candidate with the most votes wins. - Used in 54 countries worldwide, including Canada, US, UK, India, and many Commonwealth states 2) Second Ballot Elections (also known as runoff elections) - are used in two dozen countries worldwide for elections to the lower house. - Any candidate obtaining an absolute majority of votes (50% or more) in the first round is declared elected. - If no candidate reaches a majority in this stage of the process, a second-round of elections is held between the two candidates with the highest share of the vote. - Used for elections in France and eleven ex-French colonies 3) The single nontransferable vote (SNTV) -is a system in which voters cast a single candidate- centered vote in a multimember district. - Multiple candidates from the same party compete with each other for support within each district. - Those candidates with the highest number of votes ( a simple plurality) are elected. - Under these rules, parties need to consider how many candidates to nominate strategically in each district, and to make sure how many candidates to nominate strategically in each district. - Used in Japan from 1948-93. 4) Alternative Vote (AV) - Whereas SMDP and SNTV are ‘plurality’ majoritarian electoral systems, the alternative vote is an ‘absolute majority’ majoritarian system. - The alternative vote (AV) is a candidate-centered preference voting system used in single-member districts where voters rank order the candidates. - If a candidate wins an absolute majority of first-preference votes, she is immediately elected. - If no candidate wins an absolute majority, then the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated, and her votes are reallocated among the remaining candidates based on the designated second preferences. - This process is repeated until one candidate has obtained an absolute majority of the votes cast (full preferential system) or an absolute majority of the valid votes remaining (optional preferential system

Question 35

Majoritarian system pros

Answer 35

1) Transparency - Advocates of majoritarian electoral systems believe that democratic systems should promote government accountability, transparency, and responsiveness through the generation of single-party executives and vigorous parliamentary opposition. 2) Democratic Accountability: - Single party in government is accountable for its legislative record and policy performance. If evidence of incompetence the electorate punishes the incumbent by voting in opposition. - More difficult in PR where coalition government makes it more difficult to assign blame or praise. 3) votes and outcome: - Party with largest share of seats forms government, so there is a direct link between votes cases and outcome for government. - In PR it is coalition building after result which determines allocation of cabinet portfolios 4) Strong Voter-Member Accountability: - The link between citizens and their members of parliament elected in geographically based single-member districts makes elected representatives directly responsive to constituency concerns. - Members have a stronger incentive to provide constituency services. - Increase autonomy from central party leadership 5) Governability: - Tend to produce single-party governments and less fragmentation in parliament. Single party in cabinet is empowered to implement its program and has the support of a parliamentary majority

Question 36

Majoritarian system cons

Answer 36

1) Zero Sum game: - One party can be returned to power repeatedly over successive elections, and the opposition has limited powers of checks and balances. - Where communities are deeply divided along ethnic lines, one party being permanently excluded can be recipe for disaster 2) Unfair to minor parties. - Geographical concentration of vote is key 3) Vote-Seat Disproportionality: - Produces a “winner’s bonus” exaggerating the bonus and the proportion of seats won by the party in first place compared with their proportion of votes.

Question 37

Scarcity hypothesis

Answer 37

The theory of intergenerational value change is based on two hypotheses : scarcity hypothesis and socialization hypothesis 1) Scarcity Hypothesis - Virtually everyone wants freedom and autonomy, but people’s priorities reflect their socio-economic conditions, placing the highest subjective value on the most pressing needs. - Material sustenance and physical security are the first requirements for survival. - Thus, under conditions of scarcity, people give top priority to materialistic goals, whereas under conditions of prosperity they become more likely to emphasize post materialistic goals.

Question 38

Socialization hypothesis

Answer 38

2) Socialization Hypothesis - Relationship between material scarcity and value priorities is not one of immediate adjustment. - A substantial time lag is involved because to a large extent one’s basic values reflect the conditions that prevailed during one’s pre-adult years. - They change mainly through generational replacement. - Moreover, the older generation tends to transmit their values to their children; this cultural heritage is not easily dispelled, but if it is inconsistent with one’s first-hand experience, it can generally erode

Question 39

Post materialism

Answer 39

- Post-materialists are more concerned about quality of life, the environment, democracy, and human rights. - Materialists care mainly about economic growth and security. - Post-materialism is measured by asking survey respondents to rank the following possible goals in order of priority for their country. 1. Maintaining order in the nation 2. Giving the people more say in important government decisions 3. Fighting rising prices 4. Protecting freedom of speech - If you prefer items 2 and 4 to items 1 and 3 then you are post- materialist. - Inglehart (1977) hypothesized that throughout advanced industrial societies, people’s values, and priorities were shifting from “materialist” goals, which emphasize economic and physical security, towards “postmaterialist” goals, which emphasize self-expression and the quality of life - This cultural shift has been measured annually since 1970 in surveys carried out in many Western Societies. A massive body of evidence demonstrates that an intergenerational shift has been taking place in the predicted direction

Question 40

Testing post material hypothesis

Answer 40

Scarcity Hypothesis: - Compare national levels of post-material values to the socio-economic conditions of each nation. - The affluence of advanced industrial societies should increase the support for post- material goals. - Is clear relationship between affluence (GDP per capita) and distribution of material/ post-material values. - Post-materialisms are generally more common in nations that had relatively high levels of living standards of the average adult Socialization Hypothesis: - Older generation in most Western democracies should have been socialized for greater concern with material goals - Economic growth, economic and military security, as they suffered through the Depression of the 1930s and endured two world wars. - Conversely, younger generations in Europe and N. American grew up in period of unprecedented affluence. - Different age groups should retain the mark of their formative generational experiences - Many of the cultural differences between nations boil to two major dimensions: - Traditional v Secular and survival v self expression 1) Traditional values - emphasize the importance of religion, parent-child ties, deference to authority and traditional family values. - People who embrace these values also reject divorce, abortion, euthanasia and suicide. These societies have high levels of national pride and a nationalistic outlook. 2) Secular-rational values have the opposite preferences to the traditional values. These societies place less emphasis on religion, traditional family values and authority. Divorce, abortion, euthanasia and suicide are seen as relatively acceptable. 1) Survival values - place emphasis on economic and physical security. - It is linked with a relatively ethnocentric outlook and low levels of trust and tolerance. 2) Self-expression values give high priority to environmental protection, growing tolerance of foreigners, gays and lesbians and gender equality, and rising demands for participation in decision-making in economic and political life.

Question 41

Post materialsim implications

Answer 41

1) Workplace: - Demands for flexible work environment, less hierarchal, greater worker participation, and greater opportunity to innovate 2) Social Relations: - Less deference to authority. Questioning of political leaders, parents, and other institutions 3) Moral Standards: Materialists are more likely to hold traditional restrictive attitudes towards religious and moral issues, such as extramarital sex, abortion, and homosexuality 4) Issue Agenda: - Postmaterialists champion new set of political issues- environmental quality, sustainable energy, gender equality, and multiculturalism- that the political establishment often overlooked 5) Participation: - Value change also affects political participation. - Postmaterialist more likely than materialists to be interested in politics, and say that politics is important to their lives. - But may not vote at high levels because believe established parties have not embraced post material issues. - Postmaterialists are skeptical of hierarchal procedures and organizations, such as elections and political parties. 6) Rise of New Social Movements, - e.g. Peace movement, environmentalists, anti-trade. - Growth of ‘post-materialist’ parties, - With the diminution of the working class, adaptation of left-wing parties to represent postmaterialists (new-left)

Question 42

Post material critiques

Answer 42

- Regarding the nature of Post-materialism, Looking at US, NL and W.Germany, Brooks and Manza (1994) found no evidence that people can be classified as either post-materialist or materialist, as Inglehart claimed, rather they have mixed values, some more materialist some more post-materialist. - Both the theory and measure confuse issue dimensions with issue salience. Theoretically, caring less about (i.e. salience of) one issue does not necessarily mean you should take a particular position on another issue. - But there is a logic to the idea that those who are less concerned about personal material gains will be more concerned about human rights. - So, post-materialism—materialism is really an issue dimension and its relative salience compared with economic left—right is a separate question, perhaps to be assessed with analysis of predictive power. - The so-called post-materialist issues are non- materialist liberal values and some materialist values are primarily authoritarian (e.g. Flanagan 1987, de Graaf and Evans 1996). - Post-materialism and self-expression measures might be primarily measuring liberalism/authoritarianism, and we see similar cohort replacement effects for these values - Rising Liberalism from affluence or education? deGraaf and Evans (1996) argued post-materialism due to rising education not formative affluence - Kalmijn and Kraaykamp (2007) argue that class divisions on attitudes is stable but education divides on attitudes wider in more affluent societies. - Stubager (2008) and Surridge (2016) argue education makes people more liberal by socialization - Role of Parties and Polarization e.g.Environmentalism

Question 43

Social cleavages and party system

Answer 43

- Cleavages are divisions between social groups with conflicting interests. - Cleavages involve the perception of distinct identities, interests, and values among group members - Not all cleavages exist in all countries. Country specific cleavages are determined by social structures – structure of class relations, ethnic/religious diversity - Based on Extent to which elites politicize the cleavages - based on if cleavages are cross-cutting or reinforcing - Lipset and Rokkan (1967) distinguish two aspects of the transformation: 1) Industrial Revolution - refers to changes produced by industrialization and urbanization 2) National Revolution - refers to changes created by the formation of nation-states with centralized political authority

Question 44

Cleavages of European party system

Answer 44

1) Rural-Urban: - Division of food prices. - Agrarian favors protectionism and urban groups low tariffs. - Traditional values versus change 2) Workers-Employee Cleavage: - Between the industrial bourgeoisie who started the Industrial revolution and working class. - Capitalists favor free market, small state, and restriction of the franchise. - Workers demand state intervention and expansion of franchise. - Recently this division has been characterized “left-right” 3) Centre-Periphery Cleavage: - National elites tried to carry out state formnation- and nation building. - Collect taxes and impose unfirm culture through compulsory schooling and military conscription. - Faced resistance from peripheral populations 4) Liberal secular state - fought against role of church in public life, especially in education. - Wanted to end Church’s ability to levy taxes, confiscate property and cancel special privileges. - Move towards a separation of church and state

Question 45

Traditional cleavages

Answer 45

- Political Parties played a role in stabilizing and institutionalizing patterns of competition- developing organizational structures and ties to core supporters - Freezing Hypothesis: West European party systems became frozen following the extensions of universal suffrage in most countries in the 1920s. - So, party system of 1960s reflected earlier social conflicts - Since the 1970s, two other cleavages have emerged: 1) Post-Material 2) Globalization - Winners and losers of globalization. Trade and immigration

Question 46

New cleavages

Answer 46

1) Educational of higher education - greater support for post-material values, Green Parties 2) Mass migration and ethnic diversity - Support for center left parties 3) White workers with low formal educational qualifications. - Traditionally mobilized via social democratic parties, now increasingly radical right parties. - Dilemma for center-left and center-right parties 4) Aging Societies - Older voters more likely to be insulated from economic shocks, homeowners, less priority on issues such as environment, more conservative

Question 47

Explanation of number of parties

Answer 47

1) Duverger’s Theory - Social divisions are the primary driving force behind the formation of parties. - Electoral institutions influence how social divisions are translated into political parties. - Social cleavages matter. The more social cleavages there are and the more that these cleavages are cross-cutting, the greater the demand for distinctive representation and the greater the demand for political parties. 2) Electoral institutions matter. - Social cleavages create the demand for political parties. - But electoral institutions determine whether this latent demand for representation leads to the existence of new parties. - Specifically, non-proportional or non-permissive electoral systems act as a brake on the tendency for social cleavages to be translated into new parties. 3) The mechanical effect of electoral laws refers to the way votes are translated into seats. - When electoral systems are disproportional, the mechanical effect punishes small parties and rewards large parties. 4) Strategic effect of electoral laws. - The strategic effect of electoral laws refers to how the way in which votes are translated into seats influences the ‘strategic’ behavior of voters and political elites. 1. Strategic voting essentially means voting for your most preferred candidate or party that has a realistic chance of winning. 2. Strategic entry refers to the decision by political elites about whether to enter the political scene under the label of their most preferred party or under the label of their multi party system?

Question 48

Down’s / Spatial Model of Party Competition

Answer 48

- Parties compete for voters in the same way voters compete for shares of the market. Parties main motivation is vote maximization - Voters choose parties whose policies are closest to their preferences - Parties will seek the optimal location - Downs represents ideological space as one dimensional, left to right, with voters concentrated at the ideological centre - Leads to centripetal competition – convergence to the median voter. - Different incentives under PR systems - Factors that influence party shifts: change in voter preferences, past election results, moves by competitor parties

Question 49

Partisan dealignment

Answer 49

- Means voters are more likely to shift between elections - - Increased number of parties, more split ticket voting, decline in voter turnout Why declining? 1) Poor performance of political parties and scandals 2) Weaking of traditional cleavages 3) New Politics issues difficult for established parties to accommodate along with traditional politics issues 4) More educated population, higher expectations, skeptical of bureaucratic organizations 5) Other institutions have replaced parties - Among the traditional cleavages, class and religion exert less of an influence on vote choice 1) Class - for class difference between percentage of the working class voting for left and precent of middle class voting for left - historically this difference 40%, now barely double digits - Possible explanations: Embourgeoisement, proloeteriaization, social mobility, Leftist parties broadening electoral appeal 2) religion - Measuring this relationship more difficult than class - Catholics normally support parties on the Right and Protestant parties on the Left, but notable exceptions are present

Question 50

Columbia school model of voting

Answer 50

- “A person thinks politically as he is socially” - Strongest predictors of vote choice were socio-economic status, religion, and type of community - E.g. Catholic, Urban, and low socioeconomic status = Democratic Predisposition - Voting is a social process – knowing peoples’ social groups provides information about their networks - Social characteristics can indicate values, influences where they get their political cues and political information - E.g. Social class will influence where stand on issues unemployment, taxation, social services, government management of economy - Traditionally class and religion have been most important social groups for voting – declined in significance - Other social group differences: 1) Region 2) Gender Gap 3) Race/Ethnicity 4) New Politics/Post materialism – young, non -religious, middle class, better educated

Question 51

Columbia school model of voting Cons

Answer 51

1) Little room for politics - where are issues and candidates? 2) Unclear on causal mechanism/simply descriptive 3) Weak predictive accuracy 4) Too static

Question 52

Issue voting

Answer 52

- Dealignment means growing proportion of voters may place greater weight on issues - Early research skeptical of issue voting – assumed people interested in issues, have an opinion, and know party positions - More recent research more nuanced – “hard” vs. “easy issues” - Issue publics vary depending on type of issue - Half of American electorate belongs to two or more issue public - Cross nationally people are able to place themselves on left right scale, know where parties stand relative to each other, and vote for party on their side of the ideological divide

Question 53

Performance issue and economic voting

Answer 53

1) definition - Judgments about how effectively a government pursue widely accepted goals - E.g. strong economy, lower crime - Measured by asking voters what believe most important problem facing country is, and which party is most capable off solving it. Often look at if life has improved - Can be prospective or retrospective 2) allows us - Typically look at economic conditions – allows to punish/reward incumbents - Standard measure of economic voting – unemployment rate and economic vote share - Perceptions may be more important than objective conditions - Partisan of party in power will take more favorable view of economy 3) but - Is not always an easy calculus - Performance voting depends on ability to assign blame and credit – affected by institutional structure - Multiparty system makes more difficult who to turn to.

Question 54

Types of Citizen Politician Linkages

Answer 54

1) Programmatic Linkages - Parties offer policies they promise to pursue if elected. - Voters experience redistributive consequences of parties policies if they voted from them or not. - Policy benefits are not withheld if failed to support party , they are applied universally. - The criteria for distributing benefits is public 2) Clientelism - Party offers material benefits on the condition that the recipient returns the favor with a vote or other forms of political support. - The material rewards goods involved can include food, jobs, housing

Question 55

Information Demands for Clientelism

Answer 55

To pursue clientelist strategies, there are number of information demands parties face: - They must know which types of goods voters want, who can be persuaded to turn put and vote in exchange for material benefits, monitor who turned out and voted, be able to hold voters account for “defecting”. - Should they target swing or core voters Brokers: - To deal with these information demands they rely on “brokers” - These are neighborhood insiders who are employed by party officials to monitor voters behaviour - Brokers provide local knowledge that is required to ensure benefits are distributed conditional on voting behaviour - Brokers extract resources from party leaders, but there is information asymmetry

Question 56

Why Clientelism Persists in Developing Democracies

Answer 56

1) Modernization theory/Socio-Economic Development: - Poor citizens discount the future, and have more pressing, material needs. Affluent citizens d have longer casual chains and demand more expensive material rewards making clientelism more expensive. Clientelism should end with affluence, industrialization, post materialism - Enforcement easier in pre-industrial and rural societies - Relationship of clientelism to economic development may be curvilinear 2)State Formation & Democratization: - When professionalization of civil service precedes universal suffrage cannot use these jobs to attract voters - Electoral Laws 3) Political Economy: - Size of public sector, delegation of sociaorganization so organization affiliated with political parties

Question 57

Party Breakdowns

Answer 57

- Established parties suddenly becoming uncompetitive for national executive office - Social Cleavages and spatial models cannot explain this - Other explanations – corruption scandals, poor economic stewardship, changes in electoral systems, declining access to state resources - Party brands became blurred/diluted results decline in voter attachment Examples of pragmatic dealignment: - Latin America countries pursued policy of ISI (import substitution industrialization) in the 1950s to 1970

Question 58

Socio-psychological/ Michigan Model of Voting

Answer 58

- Voters’ evaluation of the candidates and voters’ issue attitudes - Both of these linked to antecedent factor: Emotional attachment to party - Describes voting in terms of funnel of casuality” - Series of casual chains that results in particular vote choice. Wide end of funnel more temporally distant to vote choice - Social divisions - e.g. race, ethnicity, religion, education, occupation and class, along with economic structure, shape party system. However, these are distant from voting decision of individual - These factors influence group identities, group loyalties and value orientations - The preceding three shape political attitudes. Individual voting decision determined primarily by three attitudes: 1) Party Attachment 2) Issue Opinions 3) Candidate Image - These attitudes are closest to voting decison and therefore have very strong and direct impact on the vote - Campaign and economic conditions also matter

Question 59

Funnel of causality

Answer 59

- Factors at wide end of funnel are temporally distant to vote choice, represent broad social conditions that structure political conflict, and are conditions of society and then groups - Factors at narrow end of funnel are more proximate to vote choice, more political factors and are considerations of individual voter

Question 60

Michigan model cons

Answer 60

1)Utility of relying on explanatory variable which is so close to vote choice 2) Need to know why identify with one party, why like one candidate more than other 3) Direction of casual arrow -Partisan identification could influence evaluation of candidates and issue attitudes, but also may be affected by those factors