Democracy
Chapter Seven
Pearson Publishing 2011
• Fall of the Berlin Wall – November 9, 1989
• Part of a larger, worldwide democratic surge where
authoritarian states were replaced by democracies.
• Freedom House: In 2001, 121 out of the world’s 192
governments (63%) qualified as constitutionally democratic
systems with competitive, multiparty elections – the most
ever in history.
Democracy
Pearson Publishing 2011
• Term democracy derived from the Greek word demokratia,
from the roots demos (people) and kratos (rule).
• Rule by the people.
• Direct democracy: people participate directly in making laws that
govern them.
• Unworkable in large, complex societies.
• Modern democracy depends on having our interests and views
represented by others.
• Representative democracy
• Schumpeter’s realistic standard of democracy: virtually all
citizens are eligible to vote on who will represent them in free,
fair, and periodic elections.
• Still difficult to achieve.
Transitions to Democracy
Pearson Publishing 2011
• Huntington: transition from autocracy to democracy has
proceeded in three waves:
• First wave had its root in the American and French revolutions of the 18th
century; began to recede in the 1930s.
• Defeat of fascism in WWII inaugurated a second wave of
democratization.
• Germany, Austria, and Japan emerged from Allied occupation as
democracies, and many former European colonies adopted democratic
constitutions when they achieved independence.
• Began to recede in 1960s. Return to authoritarianism in many African
and Asian countries.
• Third wave appeared before the last receded. 1974, Portugal emerged
from dictatorship, followed by Greece and Spain. Then the wave moved
to Latin America (Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil); then
Asia (India and the Philippines, Korea, Turkey and Pakistan). Finally in
Europe: Berlin Wall fell – Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria,
Romania and finally the Soviet Union itself.
Transitions to Democracy
Pearson Publishing 2011
Figure 7.1
Pearson Publishing 2011
•
Mauritius: an island nation of
over one million located
off the southeast coast of
Africa.
Ethnically and religiously
diverse.
But no authoritarian
government.
Stable democracy since
gaining independence in
1968.
Why?
Scholars attribute this democratic success to a
“vibrant and healthy civil society that cuts across
ethnic cleavages.”
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•
•
•
•
•
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Many civic organizations which as as bridges across
religious and ethnic boundaries.
Checks and balances
No standing army
Judiciary is independent
Civil service is professional
Supermajorities are required to make constitutional
changes
All constitutionally recognized ethnic and religious
groups are guaranteed seats in parliament
Constitution provides for an office of Leader of
Opposition whom the president must consult on some
issues.
Caveats: Mauritius does have ethnic conflicts and
suffers from corruption, but its democratic record is
the best in Africa.
The Good Society In Depth:
Mauritius – A Democratic Enigma
Pearson Publishing 2011
• A range of cultural and sociological explanations – for examples,
countries with large Muslim populations are less likely to be
democratic, while those with higher levels of education are more
likely to be democratic.
• Economic explanations – argue that certain kinds of economic
development foster democratic government.
• Oil producing countries of Middle East; wealthy but not democratic – Why?
• Curse of oil – authoritarian rules use oil revenues to pacify public
• Other scholars argue that economic development causes democratic
stability, not democratization. More stable. Poor democracies more
likely to collapse into authoritarianism.
• Hard to isolate single factor that answers the question.
• Beyond domestic politics, we need to look to the international
environment as playing a role, too.
• Diffusion effect – countries surrounded by democracies find it in their
interest to copy their neighbors.
Transitions to Democracy:
Why have some countries succumbed to the appeal of
democracy while others have not?
Pearson Publishing 2011
Problem
Methods & Hypotheses
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Is it true that diversity poses an obstacle
to democracy?
Authoritarian leaders often claim that if
they did not rule with an iron first over
ethnically divided societies, they would
collapse in civil conflict.
Is this argument valid or does it simply
provide an excuse for authoritarian
leaders of diverse societies to deprive
people of their rights?
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Fish and Brooks use Freedom House
rankings in order to scale countries from
democratic to authoritarian (dependent
variable).
Independent variable:
fractionalization/degree of diversity
within each country.
Controlled for other variables that are
associated with democracy: economic
development, British colonial heritage,
(increase probability) predominance of
Islam and oil production (decrease
probability).
Comparative Political Analysis:
Does Diversity Undermine Democracy?
Pearson Publishing 2011
Results
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Fish and Brooks found that contrary to prevailing wisdom,
diversity of fractionalization did not hinder democracy.
Holding constant other factors that might affect their results,
they found that fractionalization or diversity had little
impact on the prospects for democracy.
Question: How is it possible for democracy to survive ethnic
conflicts when it gives free rein to their expression? How
can democracies contain centrifugal forces that threaten to
tear them apart?
Comparative Political Analysis:
Does Diversity Undermine Democracy?
Pearson Publishing 2011
• The different models of democracy can be arrayed
along a continuum of presidential and parliamentary
forms, with all sorts of hybrids in between.
• U.S. is an example of a presidential system. Here the
executive and legislative branches are separated from
each other.
• Sovereignty is shared between the legislature and the president,
creating checks and balances between them.
• Presidents are directly elected by the people.
• Presidents serve for fixed terms in office.
• Presidents do not owe their jobs to the legislature.
Presidential & Parliamentary Democracy
Pearson Publishing 2011
• In parliamentary democracies only the legislature is
directly elected by the voters.
• The government, which is composed of the prime minister
and his or her Cabinet, is an elected committee of the
legislature. They are not separate branches, but are fused
together, with the former empowering the latter.
• The leader of the government is the prime minister, who is
indirectly elected by the legislature. The prime minister will
govern so long as he or she maintains a majority of votes in
the legislature. Removed when a majority of the legislature
no longer supports them.
• Relationship between executive and legislature is different
in a parliamentary system.
Presidential & Parliamentary Democracy
Pearson Publishing 2011
• Most new democracies created in the third wave
chose to take a presidential, rather than a
parliamentary form.
• Was this a right choice?
• Presidential systems = gridlock when there is disagreement
between the two branches.
• Also criticized for being unrepresentative
• Election results are divisible while executive power is not.
• But they may offer more in terms of accountability.
• Voters may also more easily target their vote in support of
or opposition to a particular chief executive.
Presidential & Parliamentary Democracy
Pearson Publishing 2011
Single member districts
Multi-member districts
• Only one legislator is
elected from each district.
• U.S. example
• Losing candidate returns to
prior line of work.
• No benefit for second place
finishers. Only one winner.
• Sweden: number of legislators
from each district depends
upon the district size.
• Israel and Netherlands: entire
country is one multi-member
electoral district.
• Winner is selected from list of
candidates that parties submit
to voters to get seated. Runner
–up wins, too, and so on down
the line, depending on the
number of seats accorded to
the district.
Electoral Rules & Party Systems
Pearson Publishing 2011
• Electoral systems also differ in the
way votes are allocated: translation
from votes for candidates and parties
to seats.
• Plurality rules – U.K., U.S., and Canada
• Majority rules - France – double-ballot
elections; presidential candidates must
receive a majority of votes to prevail.
• Run-off between top two vote getters.
• Proportional representation – (PR)
• Once parties attain a certain threshold of
votes, they are awarded seats in the
legislature based on the percentage of
votes they receive.
Electoral Rules and Party
Systems
Pearson Publishing 2011
Example of Proportional
Representation:
Netherlands: ten parties
competed in the 2006
parliamentary election.
Outcome:
Christian Democratic Appeal
won 27 % of the vote and
received 27% of the seats.
Labour won 21% of the vote
and won 21% of seats.
All the way down to the
smallest party, Reformed
Political Party, which
received 1 % of the vote and
received 1% of the seats.
• Electoral rules matter greatly because how voters are counted matters as
much as how many votes candidates receive.
•
2000 U.S. presidential election
• Political actors started thinking strategically about electoral rules as more
and more people were given the franchise, including working-class voters.
• Groups and parties wanted rules to work to their advantage.
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Proportional representation works to the advantage of ethnic and regional
minorities.
Most powerful supporters of PR were elites because they were more afraid that
working-class mobilization would propel socialist parties to victory. Plurality and
majority rules in single member districts could be dominated by larger numbers of
the working classes.
Elites believed that proportional representation would blunt the power of the
socialist parties, requiring them to share power in order to govern.
• Electoral rules are not neutral; can give advantage to one party over another.
• That is why parties sometimes try to change the rules, but electoral systems
rarely change.
Electoral Rules & Party Systems
Pearson Publishing 2011
• Electoral rules shape party systems (recurring patterns of
party behavior resulting from political competition).
• SMD with plurality rules create a bias towards two-party
systems.
• Voters do not like to “waste” their vote.
• Countries with multi-member districts selected by proportional
rules tend to have multi-party systems.
• More accurately reflect diversity of opinion within the country.
• But countries can become ungovernable with too much diversity of
opinion – no majority coalition.
• Impact on party discipline
• Greater in PR systems; more party loyalty
Electoral Rules & Party Systems
Pearson Publishing 2011
Pro-Authoritarian
Pro-Democratic
• Authoritarian regimes can
better invest society’s limited
resources where they will do
the most good.
• No influence of low-yield
projects for votes.
• Can ignore demands for money
for short term versus long
term.
• Create more consistent, stable,
orderly environment for longterm economic growth.
• Democracies enjoy the rule of
law that creates a predictable
environment.
• Benefit more from debate,
access to information, and
more responsiveness.
• Openness and adaptability; can
reverse policy mistakes more
quickly.
• Give their citizens more
freedom to be creative and
innovative.
Democracy, Authoritarianism, & Economic
Development: Which is better?
Pearson Publishing 2011
The actual
record for
both
democracies
and
dictatorships
is MIXED.
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Supporters of democracy celebrate
the prosperity of the West
compared to the collapse of
Communist one-party states.
Supporters of authoritarianism can
point to the superior growth of the
People’s Republic of China
compared to democratic India.
So neither has a clear effect.
But democratic systems do have
two advantages: greater range of
choices for women; better record
of steady economic performance
and avoiding calamitous outcomes.
Democracy, Authoritarianism, & Economic
Development: Which is better?
Pearson Publishing 2011
Physical Well-being
Informed-Decision Making
• When infant mortality rates are
compared across states ranked by their
score on a democratic versus
authoritarian scale, the results were
inconclusive.
• They found that democracies tend to
have the best average infant mortality
rates (12.53 per 1,000 live births),
while the most authoritarian states had
the second best (27.57), with semiauthoritarian states having the worst
(57.48), while semi-democracies came
in third (45.52).
• A similar analysis was conducted
using literacy rates and the same
ranking.
• The authors found the same results:
democracies ranked best (94.25),
followed by authoritarian regimes
(87.39), with semi-democracies
coming in third (76.44), with semiauthoritarian regimes coming in last
(66.68).
Democracy, Authoritarianism, & the Good Society:
How do they compare on capabilities?
Pearson Publishing 2011
Figure 7.2
Pearson Publishing 2011
Figure 7.3
Pearson Publishing 2011
Figure 7.4
Pearson Publishing 2011
Safety
Overall
• The most authoritarian states
had the best record when it
came to safety as measured by
average homicide rates (5.43
murders per 100k citizens).
• Democracies were close
behind with an average of 5.91
homicides.
• Semi-democracies had 15.28
homicides per 100K citizens,
while semi-authoritarian
systems had 12.04.
• Democratic states did better
overall, but semi-democratic
states did not perform on
average better than semiauthoritarian states.
• Democracy by itself does not
appear to improve people’s life
chances very much in terms of
making them safer, healthier,
or more literate.
• That says nothing as to
whether democracy should be
valued for other reasons.
Democracy, Authoritarianism, & the Good Society:
How do they compare on capabilities?
Pearson Publishing 2011
• More people than ever live under democratic rules.
• Rise of democracy attributed to domestic and external
forces.
• Democratization has proceeded in waves over time.
• It took two predominant forms: presidential and
parliamentary democracy.
• But the impact on capabilities has been that only at the
highest levels does democracy actually improve the
quality of people’s lives in terms of safety, subsistence,
and literacy.
Conclusion
Pearson Publishing 2011
• How would you define democracy? Should democracy be
judged simply by process without regard to results?
• Why has democracy been so elusive for developing
countries? Why have so many developing countries
adopted authoritarian political systems?
• What social conditions are conducive to democracy?
• Did many new emerging democracies make the right
choice in adopting presidential as opposed to
parliamentary democratic forms?
Critical Thinking Questions
Pearson Publishing 2011
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of different
electoral rules? Which set of electoral rules are most
compatible with democracy?
• If democracy is so beneficial, why didn’t it appear to
enhance people’s capabilities when the authors ran their
tests? While the most democratic countries did perform
better, more democracy did not correlate with higher
capabilities outside a select group of countries.
Critical Thinking Questions
Pearson Publishing 2011