Democracies%20and%20Authoritarian%20Regimes

1
Democracies and Authoritarian Regimes

• Oct 20

2
Lecture Overview

• Third Wave of Democratization
• Defining Democracy
• Achieving Democracy
• The Sequence of Democratic Development?
• Contemporary Democracy
• Forms of Authoritarian Rule

3
Third Wave of Democratization
4
Freedom House

• Freedom House is a non-government organization
  that receives the majority of its funding from
  the US government.
• This raises questions its independence, and the
  extent to which it is influenced by American
  foreign policy.
• Critics argue that it is, in fact, an arm of the
  American foreign policy regime.
• It publishes Freedom in the World an annual
  assessment of political and civil rights of
  countries around the world.
• http//www.freedomhouse.org

5
Defining Democracy
6
What is democracy?

7
What is democracy?

• Procedural questions
• Substantive questions

8
Democracy defined

• Adam Przeworski Democracy is a system in which
  parties lose elections

9
Democracy defined

• Joseph Schumpeter the democratic method is that
  institutional arrangement for arriving at
  political decisions in which individuals acquire
  the power to decide by means of a competitive
  struggle for the peoples vote

10
Democracy defined

• Seymour Martin Lipset First, competition exists
  for government positions, and fair elections for
  public office occur at regular intervals without
  the use of force and without excluding any social
  group. Second, citizens participate in selecting
  their leaders and forming policies. And, third,
  civil and political liberties exist to ensure the
  integrity of political competition and
  participation

11
Potential forms of democracy Other spheres of
democracy?

• direct democracy?
• participatory democracy?
• social democracy?
• industrial democracy?
• workplace democracy?
• economic democracy?

12
Achieving Democracy
13
Göran Therborn, 1977. The Rule of Capital and
the Rise of Democracy. New Left Review.
May/June. No. 103. (journal available online via
library catalogue)
14
(No Transcript)
15
Therborn (1977)
16

• Chapter 5 Democracies
• Developing democracy (1/5)

• According to Dahl (1966) there were three
  milestones in the development
• of democracies
• Incorporation
• Representation
• Organized opposition

17

• Chapter 5 Democracies
• Developing democracy (2/5)

• (1) Incorporation
• Before the first wave of democratization
  several restrictions to the right of vote
  existed Census voting (wealth), capacity voting
  (education), race, gender, age.
• Gradual extension of voting-rights during the
  first wave in the 19th century
• 1848 Universal male suffrage introduced in
  Germany, France and Switzerland
• 1893 Universal female suffrage introduced in New
  Zealand
• Since then no further extension, except the
  lowering of the age threshold. Still widespread
  voting restrictions to foreign residents .

18

• Chapter 5 Democracies
• Developing democracy (3/5)

• (2) Representation
• The right to organize parties and to have them
  represented in parliament.
• One indicator Shift from majoritarian voting to
  proportional voting (first time introduced in
  Finland 1907).
• Fear of established parties from
  mass-mobilization by the new parties.

19

• Chapter 5 Democracies
• Developing democracy (4/5)

• (3) Organized opposition
• The right of the opposition to vote against the
  government.
• One indicator First acceptance of socialist
  parties into government (first time in Australia
  in 1904).
• The capacity of parliaments to effect full
  executive turnover varies significantly between
  liberal democracies.
• The net shift of votes from government to
  opposition (incumbency volatility) doubled from
  the 1960s to the 1990s.

20

• Chapter 5 Democracies
• Developing democracy (5/5)

• (3) Organized Opposition (continued)
• The older and more established democracies
  reached these milestones one by one, and over a
  long period of time.
• The newer democracies have reached these
  milestones more or less simultaneously.

21
The Sequence of Democratic Development
22
Sequencing Political Development

• First, there should be a national identity
  producing national unity
• Second, there follows the establishment and
  institutionalization over time of state
  structures which are legitimate and effective
• Third, various elite groups then engage in
  competition with each other, usually by forming
  rudimentary political parties

23
Sequencing Political Development

• Fourth, if not already existing (as in
  republics), there is the establishment of
  responsible government, by which monarchs and
  nobles give up their political power to elected
  governments
• Fifth and finally, there is a slow expansion of
  voting rights until there is universal suffrage
• Siaroff, Alan. 2005. Comparing Political Regimes.
  Peterborough Broadview Press.

24
Contemporary Democracy
25

• Chapter 5 Democracies
• Audience democracy? (1/1)

• Despite the success of democracies, there is
  evidence that their
• foundations are becoming less robust
• Declining levels of participation and growing
  indifference to politics
• Decreasing confidence in politics
• As a result, decision making is more and more
  depoliticized
• Down to citizens (referenda)
• Up to non-political agencies (e.g. international
  organizations)
• This replacement of representative features of
  democracy has been
• labelled audience democracy (Manin 1997).

26
The golden straightjacket

• "Once your country puts the Golden
  Straightjacket on, its political choices get
  reduced to Pepsi or Coke to slight nuances of
  taste, slight nuances of policy, slight
  alterations in design... but never any major
  deviation from the core golden rules. - Thomas
  Friedman

27
Forms of Authoritarian Rule