Fundamentals of Political Science
Dr. Sujian Guo
Professor of Political Science
San Francisco State Unversity
Email: sguo@sfsu.edu
http://bss.sfsu.edu/sguo
The Third Wave
Founding Election
Major “Third Wave” Countries
(Not An Exhaustive List)
the mid 1970s —
1980
1980 – 1987
1988 – the 1990s
Portugal, Greece, Spain, Ecuador, India, Nigeria
Turkey, Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, Honduras,
Uruguay, Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala, South
Korea, the Philippines, Grenada, Sudan
Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia,
Romania, Bulgaria, Mongolia, the Soviet Union,
Albania, Yugoslavia, Taiwan, South Africa,
Zimbabwe, Zambia
What is Democracy?
Q: What conceptual and empirical elements
can serve as theoretical criteria against
which to measure to what extent political
systems are democratic and to compare
systems to determine whether a democratic
transition has occurred or whether a
political system has become more or less
democratic?
DEFINING DEMOCRACY
1.
A procedural or minimal conception. Among the first
group of scholars (such as Joseph Schumpeter, Robert A.
Dahl, Seymour Martin Lipset, and Juan Linz), the
Schumpeterian definition is a minimal conception of
democracy, which emphasizes the single most important
defining property of democracy – free election or
meaningful participation, that is, government authority is
derived from the free decision of an electorate. This is
sometimes referred to as “electoralism.” Under this
definition, the competition for leadership through free
elections is the distinctive feature of democracy.
DEFINING DEMOCRACY
2. A substantive or maximal conception. Some
other scholars tend to stress conceptual breadth,
which involves a larger number of defining
properties intrinsic to democracy. Under this
definition, the conception of democracy embraces
effective and responsible government, informed
and rational deliberation, honest and openness in
politics, economic equality, equal participation and
power, social justice, and various other civic
virtues.
DEFINING DEMOCRACY
3.
A middle-ground position. Still others, such as Terry
Lynn Karl, choose a middle ground for defining
democracy in order to avoid either an overly narrow or
overly broad definition, with the concept being defined
with reference to a small number of characteristics that
distinguish it from other political systems. The middleground definition usually includes (1) a set of procedures
and institutions that allow the contestation over power in
free and fair elections, (2) accountability of the ruler to
the ruled, (3) checks and balances in the exercise of
government, (4) the neutrality of the armed forces, and
(5) protection of civil and political liberty and rights of
every citizen.
DEFINING DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION
•
Democratic transition refers to a political
process of movement aimed at establishing a
democratic political system, initiated either from
above or below or a combination of both,
committed to democracy, tolerating opposition,
allowing bargaining and compromise among
different political forces for the resolution of
social conflicts, institutionalizing the pluralist
structures and procedures by which different
political forces are allowed to compete over the
power, and engaging in the fundamental
transformation of political structure.
DEFINING LIBRALIZATION
•
Liberalization is a controlled partial
opening of the political space, or only a
limited and controlled concession of
political and civil rights from above,
releasing political prisoners, opening up
some issues for public debate, loosening
censorship, and the like, but short of
choosing a government through free,
open, and competitive elections.
DEFINING DEMOCRATIC CONSOLIDATION
•
Democratic Consolidation is a discernible
process by which the democratic norms, rules,
and institutions constitute “the only game in
town,” the only legitimate framework for
seeking and exercising political power, and
through which democracy becomes standardized
and deeply internalized in institutional, social,
and cultural life. In consolidated democracy,
there may be intense conflicts, but no significant
political actors attempt to achieve their
objectives by illegal, unconstitutional, or
antidemocratic means.