GV337week 89

1
GV-337-week 8-9

• Revolutions and Independence movements
• Political systems emerging in developing
  countries
• Authoritarian states
• Role of Military (juntas)
• Transitional (week 9)
• Democratic (week 9)

2
The Role of Revolutions in Developing Countries

• Revolutions and emerging regimes
• Differences between revolutions and wars of
  independency (decolonization)
• Models of Mexican and Russian Revolutions
• Who are the leaders and the participants?
• Political systems emerging from revolutions
• Limited upward mobility-reduction of income
  inequality
• Authoritarian regimes/corruption (2nd-3rd
  generation)

3
The Role of the State in Post-colonial countries

• M. Weber vs. K. Marx Is the state an autonomous
  institution?
• Levels of state development
• Bureaucratic overdevelopment
• Strong state development predatory or
  developmental?
• Bureaucratic-Authoritarian states

4
Political Parties

• Distinctive social organizations, principal
  objective is to place their leaders into the
  offices of government
• providing nominees for government offices
• (interest aggregation)
• Promoting a specific political agenda (interest
  articulation)
• Political socialization
• Political and Institutional stability
• Typology of party organizations
• Number of parties in a political system
• One-party
• Authoritarian political systems
• Two-party (US and GBR)single member districts
• Multiparty systemsproportional representation
• Organizational structures
• "protoparties personal cliques or factions
• Cadre parties elite parties
• Mass parties
• Dictatorial parties exclusive membership, based
  on ideology
• Political Parties in developing countries
• Religious and ethnic interests

5
The Role of the Military

• Military Intervention (coups/junta)
• Types of coups
• Guardian
• Veto
• Anticipatory
• Reforming
• Why does the army get involved?
• Social and cultural factors
• Foreign influence
• Economic arguments
• Organizational and Institutional structures

6
Defining Democracy

• Components of democracy
• I. Competition
• Power/office determined by elections
• Different parties/groups allowed to compete
• First aspect of democracy to develop
  historically
• II. Participation
• Restrictions on political participation/ability
  to compete in elections?
• Universal suffrage now gold standard
• Many competitive systems historically narrow
• Voting rights often tied to property, women
  excluded
• Dahl stages of democracy
• Gradual expansion of suffrage in Europe helped
  consolidate democracy and assuage skeptical
  elites
• New democratizers must get social groups to
  accept both competition and broad participation
  at the same time

7
Defining democracy

• III. Civil rights/liberties
• Human rights and political freedoms
• Human rights abuses may not be effectively
  protected
• Limitations on freedom of expression/organization
• E.g., McCarthyism and persecution of communists
• E.g., death squads/paramilitary groups in
  Colombia
• IV. Rule of law?
• Control over bureaucracy/implementation
• Effectiveness of legal institutions
• Transparency, corruption, accountability
• E.g., large variations in quality of governance
  among Indian states, Kerala best governed,
  corruption very widespread in Bihar province

8
Measurements of democracy

• Polity index (Jaggers and Gurr)
• Focus on characteristics of political
  institutions
• Primarily measures of competitiveness, little
  emphasis on participation
• Freedom House
• Focus on protection of rights and civil liberties
• More emphasis on evaluations of how countries
  measure up to ideals of democracy

9
Trends in Democracy (based on Polity)
10
Polity Indicators