Industrialized Democracies

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Industrialized Democracies

• An overview

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Political system

• Inputs
• types support demands
• channels interest groups and parties
• Decision making
• institutions leaders of the state
• Outputs
• public policy

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Political system inputs

• interest articulation
• voting, participation in elections
• informal group, social movement
• personal interest contact
• protest activity
• interest groups
• channels of political access

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Political system inputs

• interest aggregation
• political demands of individuals and groups are
  combined into policy programs
• personal interest aggregation
• patron-client network
• central person or group
• provides benefits to supporters
• in exchange for their loyalty

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Institutional interest aggregation

• associational groups
• e.g. aggregation of labor and business interests
• institutional groups
• e.g. bureaucracy and military
• political parties are the primary structures of
  interest aggregation
• competitive vs. authoritarian party systems

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Competitive party system

• political parties can freely form
• primarily try to build electoral support
• citizen support is prerequisite for controlling
  government
• the closeness of electoral victory or even the
  number of political parties are not essential
• e.g. the Indian or African National Congress

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Competitive party system

• 3 stages of interest aggregation in a competitive
  party system
• within individual parties
• candidates and policy proposals
• through electoral competition
• through bargaining and coalition building in the
  legislature or executive

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Electoral rules

• single-member district plurality rule
• first past the post
• e.g. Britain, U.S., and many other countries once
  influenced by Britain
• the Median Voter Theorem
• proportional representation
• e.g. many countries in continental Europe

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Duvergers Law

• Plurality single-member district election rules
  tend to create two-party systems in the
  legislature
• Proportional representation electoral systems
  generate multiple party systems in the legislature

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Three Types of Polities

• Industrialized democracies
• North America, European Union, Japan, and Oceania
• Current and former communist regimes
• East Europe, East Asia, and Cuba
• The Third World
• Latin America, Asia, and Africa

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Three Types of Polities
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Democracy conceptual issues

• Greek words rule by the people
• Who are the people?
• Gender, race, and age
• How to rule?
• Direct versus representative democracy
• Almost every government claims to be a democracy

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Criteria of democracy

• Institutional arrangements?
• Individual freedom?
• Economic equality?
• ...
• Necessary condition but
• Not sufficient condition

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Criteria of democracy

• Democracies guarantee basic individual freedoms
  and rights
• Democracies rely on the rule of law
• Democratic governments are chosen through
  regular, free, and fair elections
• different electoral systems
• single-member district first-past-the-post
  system
• proportional representation system

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Criteria of democracy

• Two uncertain and controversial criteria
• civil society and civic culture
• legitimacy (the right to rule)
• distinction between administration and democracy
• capitalism and affluence
• Historical development of democracy

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Origins of the Democratic State

• In Europe (and North America) the way democracy
  developed was largely a result of the way
  countries handled four great transformations over
  the last 500 years
• The creation of the nation and state itself
• The role of religion in society and government
• The development of pressures for democracy
• The industrial revolution

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Waves of Democratization

• A group of transitions from nondemocratic to
  democratic regimes that occur within a specified
  period of time and that significantly outnumber
  transitions in the opposite direction during that
  period

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The First Two Waves

• A long and slow wave from 1828 to 1926
• A reverse wave of democratic breakdown from 1922
  to 1942
• A wave of democratization after World War II from
  1943 to 1964
• A reverse wave of democratic breakdown from 1961
  to 1975

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The Third Wave

• Started in Portugal and Spain in mid-1970s
• Spread to South America from late 1970s to early
  1980s
• Reached Asia in late 1980s
• Surge of transitions in East Europe at end of
  1980s
• South Africa 1990

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The Third Wave
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Political parties in democracies

• Traditional left-right political spectrum
• left end communist parties
• left social democratic parties
• right Christian democratic parties
• right conservative parties

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