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Intro to Politics

Week 1 Lecture 2: What is democracy?
Week 2 Lecture 2: Democracy: a late arrival
Week 3 Lecture 2: Nation States
Week 4 Lecture 2: Civil Society
Week 11 Lecture 2: Failure in Northern Ireland
Week 16 Lecture 2: Waves of Democracy - Russia
Week 17 Lecture 2: India and Pakistan
Week 18 Lecture 2: Brazil
Week 19 Lecture 2: Democracy’s Critics
Week 20 Lecture 2: Juries, Referendums and E-democracies
Week 21 Lecture 2: Proportional Representation
Week 23 Lecture 1: Democracy: concentrating power or diffusing it?
Week 24 Lecture 1: The Theory of Checks and Balances
Week 25 Lecture 1: Constitutional and Popular Government
Week 30 Lecture 1: The Problem of Inclusion		 Week 2 Lecture 1: Regimes
Week 3 Lecture 1: Rise of Capitalism
Week 4 Lecture 1: Military
Week 5 Lecture 1: The Enlightenment
Week 6 Lecture 1: The British System
Week 7 Lecture 1: Democracy in the Netherlands
Week 9 Lecture 1: United States Political System
Week 10 Lecture 1: Democracy in Ancient Athens
Week 11 Lecture 1: Weimar Republic
Week 16 Lecture 1: Conditions for Democracy
Week 17 - Lecture 1: Democracy in Russia
Week 18 Lecture 1: Nigeria
Week 19 Lecture 1: Justifying Democracy
Week 20 Lecture 1: Participation and Democracy
Week 21 Lecture 1: Representation
Week 22: Majority Rule and its Problems
Week 23 Lecture 2: The Devolution of Power and its Implications
Week 24 Lecture 2: Simple and Unitary Government
Week 25 Lecture 2: Majority Rule & Individual Rights

Week 1, Lecture 2

Previously the country was run by a monarchy but now it is a democracy in the UK. Ancient Greeks though of democracy so it is a long-standing system.

Ambrogio Lorenzetti

Democracy is arguably the only legitimate system in politics around the world. Many systems which are not technically democratic usually claim to be so, in order to lend their system some relevance. To illustrate the importance of democracy, we can say that people have been debating and attempting it for the past 2500 years.

The fourteenth century Italian painter Ambrogio Lorenzetti painted frescos of the good and bad effects of government on the walls of the ‘sale dei nova’ in Sienna, the city hall. One side of the hall had a wall that showed good government pictures and on the other is of bad government. The pictures show the distinctions between good government and bad government, and also the differences in effect each one has. Here is a great distinction in politics - that between process and substance. A person can pose two questions; 1) what is the form of the government; it’s procedures for decision making? 2) what do these operational procedures result in? There are connections between these two things, but they are still very distinct. He painted the affects of good government. People were happy and had well tended farms. The pictures illustrated the feeling of security. He also shows the people in the town and the countryside. He showed bad government. There is a tyrant. He draws people that embody pride, glory and self-centeredness. In the countryside, the farms are burning down with lots of soldiers nearby. Nothing grows here either. The towns are also in disarray.
There is a distinction between process and procedure for the outcome. Lorenzetti assumed having the good/right government would lead to good harvests and rich cities. A good theoretical government might fail because of the way in which the theories are executed.

Bad countryside Fig 1: Bad countryside

He painted the affects of good government. People were happy and had well tended farms. The pictures illustrated the feeling of security. He also shows the people in the town and the countryside.

Good countryside Fig 2: Good countryside

Good town Fig 3: Good town

There is a distinction between process and procedure for the outcome. Lorenzetti assumed having the good/right government would lead to good harvests and rich cities. A good theoretical government might fail because of the way in which the theories are executed.

For example:
If I gave a person the rules of football, even if they were all to follow it, it would not say how the match was played or the outcome.
A political system should not be used to rig the end result and to improve their own political position. It can be said about the Liberal Democrats and proportional representation. They would of course be all for it because they see this as the main way of them gaining seats. They are currently unlikely to gain a large number with the constituency system used at the moment.

Democracy and bring well governed are two different issues.

There is a distinction between good government and democracy. The two ideas can function separate from each other. There four classes of government:

  1. Well governed democracy
  2. Badly governed democracy
  3. Well governed autocracy
  4. Badly governed autocracy

What is Democracy?

A set of arrangements that gives the great majority of people in a country the opportunity form time to time to decide, in the conditions of freedom and political equality, who their rulers shall be. But this throws up many questions in itself. What is the great majority? How often is time to time? What is the definition of a ‘country’? Define freedom and equality? Should it just be the rulers we choose? Who are the people? Frequency of the elections? Is every 20 years still a democracy? Does good government lead to democracy? Does democracy lead to good government?

Indications of good government:

Thomas Hobbes - when people live without a strong government, people are in war. It is not necessarily fighting. No industry or culture will happen without a good government. There is fear of violent death and Man lives on their own and are frightened.

At the end of WWI (1918), £1 = 183 DM. In 1923, £1 = 18,000,000,000,000 DM
High inflation causes problems with prices rising madly.

Week 2, Lecture 1

Political regime - any government arrangement that survives a period of time even when leaders change, e.g. monarchy. Some are good and some are bad.

Greek:

ARKHEIA - government KRATIA - power
Monarchy – government by one Aristocracy – rule by the best.
Diarchy – government by a couple Autocracy – rule by one with total control
Oligarchy – government by a few. Theocracy – rule by God or in His name.
Polyarchy – government by many Plutocracy – rule by the wealthy.
Democracy - governed for all Gerontocracy – rule by the old.
  Kleptocracy - governed by thieves

There are two types of political regimes – those of consent and those of coercion. A regime can be defined as a system of governmental arrangements that last through time regardless of any changes in leadership. It often has negative pejorative connotations.

Coercive regimes Consensual regimes
Use extreme force and violence as a way of making people follow rules through a fear of the consequences of breaking them. Also use force to a much lesser extent, but they mainly depend on their own effectiveness. Generally quite legitimate.
As can be seen in sub-Saharan Africa and North Korea. As can be seen in Western Europe and North America.

However, a large number of regimes are mixed, and some are even disputed within the country itself. For example, China’s leaders claim they run a consensual regime, but the people would argue that this is not the case. Coercive regimes are typically unstable as they are either overthrown or they attempt over time to transform into regimes of consent. So why don’t they last? They are expensive to run as they need large armies, secret police and other instruments of force. There is no orderly mechanism for the transfer of power either. They also build up a lot of resentment over time form the people they control. Regimes ruled by force will always have to give way to superior forces – if the people themselves managed to obtain enough weapons and become more powerful than the government, there is always the possibility they could overthrow them.
Many current political terms come form the Greek words arkheia and kratia, meaning government and rule respectively.

Force - All governments require a degree of force, to make people pay their taxes etc. E.g. a police force.
Effectiveness - Any system of government will be undermined to some degree if it isn’t effective, if there is an uncontrollable crime wave, say.
Legitimacy – For a political regime to be considered legitimate it must be in accord with the prevailing ideas at the time about the proper source of political authority. This source will vary form time to time and place to place. A legitimate political regime is any system that matches what the people think is appropriate of what is a regime. Ideas are accepted and likely to be stable. Russia today - less power and brutality now than before. It is better economically and expectations from life have fallen. It’s not very effective. Critics say it is democratic but others say it isn’t very legitimate.

The five most common regimes in history have been:

Week 2, Lecture 2

Democracy - a late arrival

Throughout history, theocracies and hereditary monarchies have traditionally been the norm. To us, democracy seems a natural way to run things, but conventionally hierarchy has been the accepted order of government. So why was there no democracy for such a huge period of history? What made the shift to today where democracy is almost the norm? Democracy is a very recent government system.

Dahl - doesn’t see democracy as a natural order in society.

499 BC Only Greece is democratic
399 BC Only Greece is democratic still
299 BC Greece has lost its democracy
No democracy until 1299
1299 AD Start of democracy in Italian cities but only for a few leading men. Max. 15%
1399 AD Democracy gone
No democracy until 1799
1799 AD Democracy starts in the east coast of America in the colonies
1849 AD France, UK and more of America
1899 AD US, Canada, UK, Norway, Sweden, Italy, France, conservatively in New Zealand and Australia
1949 AD North America, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, most of Europe exc. Spain and Greece
1997 AD Europe, US, South Africa, India, USSR, Australia, New Zealand, roughly in South America

Why so little for so long? Why so much democracy now? It is a paradigm shift. Dahl said democracy is “historically usual”. Take a person before 1750 and they are similar anywhere in the world:

1380 - Peasants Revolt . People didn’t try to replace the existing political circle.

Levellers - first people to devolve the idea that people should govern themselves or chose their own leaders.

There were democracies that appeared and went and they were short-lived, apart from in Athens. The places were small cities and not countries. There is no tradition of democracy or knew about democratic cities like Athens.

Only 2-3% of people would not have lived like this in pre-democratic times.
Mostly, there was very little confrontation between ordinary people and the local power-holders, as it was accepted that there was a rightful hierarchy. When the people did revolt and rise up against the local authorities, it nearly always failed. They would have had no organisation, power or strength. The very idea that people could influence politics, let alone take it over, was completely unheard of and ludicrous.

Proto-democracies; With the exception of Athens, all democratic experiments did not survive more than a few decades. All of them were tightly geographically restrained, and mostly disappeared without leaving any traces on history.

Positive liberty and negative liberty:
Positive - liberty has been asserted to be freedom to do things that are worth doing, share in one’s government.
Negative - being informed about something bad and given the choice. Liberty id the absence of constraint

Week 3, Lecture 1

Before democracy, hierarchy was a legitimate system as most people regarded it as normal and even inevitable. Democracy was seen as strange and irrational. For example, in a hierarchy, it is difficult to hand power over, as people are unwilling to give it up, unless they die. In democracy, the power is easily transferred just because people vote, which is very odd. The second strange idea is that of a loyal opposition. Their behaviour is quite rude and strange – they can insult the leaders and attempt to get them out, and they are paid for it! There was a paradigm shift to democracy. In the past, power changed when the leaders died or were killed such as the monarchy. We legitimise oppositions to power for example in Parliament. To try to change the power and beliefs was considered to be treason.

The Rise of Capitalism

Democracy was one of the consequences of the Industrial Revolution with its massive growth in population. This table shows the millions of people in each of these countries.

In millions

1700

1800

1910

UK

9

17

42

France

19

28

40

“Germany”

N/A

25

65

Hapsburg Empire

8

28

38

The population rose as people lived longer as there was more food and it was better quality. There was better sanitation and more peace. This led to a growing population. Eventually a dense population arose and people used to live in the countryside. In the Industrial Revolution, people moved to towns. Rural way of life became an urban way of life. Communication improved when people moved to the towns. Political ideas could flourish, e.g. Marx lived in London. There is a German saying, “Stadtluft macht frei” - City air makes you free. Without modern transport, getting rural people together was a lot easier in cities. Organisation is easier for new ideas to develop. Before, people weren’t in organisations and communities but the new people mix with work colleagues and they socialised more. This is the first time in the Industrial Revolution where it put an emphasis on being able to read and write. The consequences of this was if the rulers wanted good economies and win wars, they would have to educate their people so primary schools were founded. Once people can read and write, the people are then able to discuss books and ideas. This leads to the founding of lending libraries. With more people reading, the popular press is established (late 19th century). Being able to read allows the people to read anti-Christian books and literature that criticises the order in society. At the same time, transportation was improving, e.g. bicycles, trains and eventually cars. It gave the people a better idea of their environment and meet people from other cultures. Democracy eventually became possible.

Democratic societies have capitalist systems:

All democratic countries today are capitalist. The two things are clearly linked. In a capitalist system, the majority of production and distribution is in private hands and the economy is in the hands of the market, not the state.

Democracy

Capitalism

 

Yes

No

Yes

No

Democracy and capitalism - mostly everyone - EU, UK
No democracy and capitalism - Saudi Arabia, Hitler’s Germany
No democracy and no capitalism - pre-modern times
Democracy and no capitalism - There has never been a country that is democratic and not capitalist.

Why?

Week 3, Lecture 2

A sovereign state is a delimited geographical territory whose government is generally acknowledged to have a right to exercise authority over its citizens and to act independently of other sovereign states.

A nation is any group of people who think of themselves as a nation and who identify themselves with that nation.

Nation state fits with capitalism. A “nation” is any group of people who think of themselves as a nation and identify with their nation, e.g. the French identify with France.

A “nation state” is a territorially defined regime whose boundaries comprise all or most of one, and only one nation.

A “political community” is any group of people whether or not a nation, who willingly live together in the state, e.g. Scots living in the UK.

There was a belief that without a nation state, you cannot have a democracy. The idea of a nation is a recent idea. They are not really natural but we think they are and are mere social constructs.

Throughout time, there have been layers of identity and they have developed over time. There used to only be a local identity where rulers at the top ruled over whatever they could. They wanted as much power as possible.

How were nations invented?

The notion of the nation is a relatively new one which has only really come about in the last 150 years. Before 1750 there weren’t really any nations, but just the local community and the dynasty. Rulers were not discriminatory in who they wished to conquer, leading to large groups of much unrelated local authorities under the rule of one dynasty. Most ordinary people did not identify themselves with a country, let alone speak a national language. There were people who had an interest in creating nations. Ambitious monarchies might try to take over other areas to improve their strength and increase their territories. The monarchs joined together (in Italy for example) to become stronger. It was awkward to run a multi-national empire, e.g. not all soldiers able to speak the same language. They could be installed with a national spirit in order to fight. They gave themselves a title, e.g. British, to bring people together. People grouped together and Nationalists in the nation tried to bring people together to give them common ideals.

The rise of the nation roughly corresponds with that of democracy. The concept of the sovereign state is a very concrete one, which exists in law. The concept of a nation is much less obvious and more internal. The two do not always go hand in hand, for example the UK is a sovereign state but not a nation, and Scotland is a nation but not a sovereign state.

Nation-state and democracy did not rise together.

If you want democracies, then there is no point basing them on nation-states, as there will be people with different identities. People can be persuaded by security to join it though.

Where does the nation come from and how did it develop to become the natural elementary institution we think of it today? It was in the interests of some to develop this idea. Here were a few of the motives in nation building:

A political community is any group of people who, whether they regard themselves as a nation or not, are willing to live together politically.

Political community is essential to democracy, but they do not always have to be democracies, e.g. Zimbabwe. Neither a sense of nation, nor that of political community will guarantee the growth of democracy without other factors.

Week 4, Lecture 1

If a stable democracy is established, argument on what constitutes the political community in a democracy is necessary but not a sufficient condition.

How can a military want to be involved in government?

Recently as 40 years, Spain and Portugal had a military dictatorship. The British emphasise legitimacy and effectiveness, but pay less attention to force in our democratic government. Perhaps this is foolish, as and person or group with sufficient force can potentially seize power. So what is the relationship between democracy and force?

We take it for granted that our armed forces will not seize other nations. Some regimes use their armies to try to gain more land and power, such as Cromwell, Franco, and Papadopoulos. Latin America has very few stable democratic regimes; most are military-backed dictatorships, as it is in sub-Saharan Africa, e.g. Nigeria.

Armies have great firepower and they can force themselves onto the government. The army in society is usually the most organised group and are hierarchically structured. It is clear as all orders come from the top. The key is discipline. Armies depersonalise the troops. They are at an advantage against any civilian struggles. Armies are very loyal to the other troops and the country compared to the general public. This makes it easy for them to intervene into politics.

They may want to intervene because:

Military regimes do not tend to be short lived. They are not the norm. Armies are not very good at providing all the admin for a country, economic policies and health and education. The army’s government are thought usually to be illegitimate. Most of the time the civilians do not see the army government as legitimate and nor do the army. Most armies accept civilian control.

There are three inhibitory factors that stop armies from trying to seize power.

Armies should accept the doctrine of civilian authority which presides over them. This requires that they must to accept the constitution of their country, and the authority of whichever individual people who emerge under that set of rules as leaders.

What are the implications for future and historical democracy?

The military has a tremendous potential to influence civilian and political affairs, but if democracy runs smoothly, their intervention will not go beyond what is necessary.

Week 4, Lecture 2

Civil society, civic community and social capital will be used interchangeably.

Robert D Putnom wrote "Making Democracy Work" and "Bowling Alone". In the 1970's, Putman and some of his colleagues carried out a social experiment whereby they gave 15 different Italian regions identical constitutions and governmental institutions. In 1970s, the central Italians government introduced a governmental reform - deregulation. There were new regional governments created and they had identical constitutions and great powers. By the early 1990s, they were spending 10% of the GDP of Italy. The regions were based on historic regions and they still differ. The north is rich and the south is poor. Houses are different in quality. This country gave the political scientists an opportunity to study the system. Putnom et al came up with ways of testing the systems in the regional governments. Some regional governments used their powers a lot and others not much. They wrote identical letters of complaints to the different regional offices to test efficiency. They found where government office phone were answered quickly and well, the government operated well. They had their budgets sorted well. Where the regional governments were doing badly, the civilians knew about it. They then measured the performance of each of these regional government, to tell if it was good or bad government, using a set of measures, including:

The measures of performance were highly correlated with public opinion. There was a very wide range of variation in styles and public satisfaction, but why?

The top four regions: Emilia-Romagna, Umbria, Toscano, Piemonte
The bottom three regions: Sicilia, Calabria, Campagna

Conclusions: badly performing governments were poor. Good ones were rich as they could train their people well and have more resources. There was a program set up to give the south more resources. They had power to spend more money. The south found it hard to spend the money. Putnom looked for factors to explain what caused a region to have a good economy and be rich. They looked at social coercion, education, etc and found no connection with them being a cause of a rich government. They noticed that the rich had a communist party in the regions as they are known for good government. The conclusion was that “civic community” caused the divide. One reason for the variation was the economic position of each region. All of the top four areas were in the richer North and all of the bottom three were in the much poorer South. These disparities of wealth mean that some areas had better resources and were perhaps better able to manage their money but thought it was too simple. Putman and his colleagues thought that there must have been an x-factor which determined whether the government was seen to be good or not. They discussed a lot of areas but dismissed them all, including how settled the region was, whether there was a large population turnover, and at what level the education was.

Eventually they decided that the x-factor was Civic Community but what is it?

They then decided to try to investigate and measure this civic community. They used a wide variety of indicators such as newspaper readership, turnout in referendums, number of voluntary organisations etc. These indicators were also found to be highly correlated to one another.

There were two lists - one based on good government and one based on civic community, and it was found that the lists were linked - the higher the level of social capital, the higher the level of governmental effectiveness. Although civic community doesn’t guarantee stable democratic order, not having it almost certainly means democracy will not flourish. This is because social capital gives people practice at running things themselves, it means people become used to equality and social cohesion, and it leads to large numbers of independent organisations which could possibly lead to opposing the government.

In a civic community, people have:

Putnom wanted to measure civic community - a standard of government performance. He looked at the number of people reading newspapers in different regions. In poor areas, only 35% of people read newspapers. There are lots of referendums in Italy and in poor areas the turnout is lower. This civic community can help to predict government performance. Putnom found that some regions have lots of civic community. In these regions, leaders are quite honest. At the other end, governments are hierarchical, unlike the good governments. People want to go into government for personal reasons – not for the people. The people felt exploited.

The question arrives: Where does civic community come from?

It comes from the historical regions' social make-up from as early as the 12th century. In the good regions, people work together (religion and trade) in the 12th century. In the south, the people were not poor but were artistic. Social relations were hierarchical with the kings, clergy, (feudal system). It was called the "patron-client relations". The king looked after the people if they paid the taxes. People do not look after each other unlike in the north.

Implications

Some high level civic community is a necessary thing for democracy. If people are able to forget about their difference, divisions are less likely to occur. For a dictatorship to continue, civic community was prevented. Only licensed clubs existed in Communist USSR, except for the underground ones.

In "Bowling Alone", Putnom is concerned that civic community is declining. People now go ten pins bowling alone with their families instead of joining the clubs in America. Lots of alleys have had a reduced profit because of this.

Week 5, Lecture 1

There was a revolution of ideas in ancient Greece and in the 18th century (The Enlightenment). The 18th century affected far more people and we are still living in its aftermath. Some great enlightenment thinkers:
British: Hume, Smith, Burke, Locke
French: Montesquieu, Condorcet, Voltaire, Rousseau
German: Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, Kant
American: Franklin, Jefferson, Madison

Such ideas became outdated such as a government wanting to legalise and monopolise the slave trade. Suppose a civilised government began a state censorship plan of all books and pamphlets? Suppose the government required all agents of authority within the country had to conform to the state religion, and if they did not they would be burned at the stake? People nowadays would be shocked and outraged by any of these things, but pre-enlightenment all of these practices were widely found in the so called civilised world. In the Enlightenment, values were challenged.

4th July 1776 - The Declaration of Independence was a radical idea. Thomas Jefferson drafted it. The beliefs were that “all men are equal”, life, liberty and happiness and “decent respect of the opinions of men”. Power comes from the consent of the people and not the monarchy.

These ideas were new:

  1. Reason (Kant) - it was a preferred guide to making choices. It is the next stage on from instinct. People made their own choices. Natural sciences were their guides and God was seen as a deistic god. The enlightenment thinkers were anti-superstition and hostile to the idea that people are controlled by emotion, as they thought that we are separated from animals by our sense of reason. There was a belief in the new ‘natural science’ as proposed by Sir Francis Bacon, Galileo and Sir Isaac Newton. This pushed God into the background. Most enlightenment thinkers did believe in some kind of God but only as a creator, not as interfering in peoples lives.
  2. Toleration and moderation - people started doubting each other and there was debate and this leads to open-mindedness. They did not believe in the fundamental religion of the state.
  3. Liberty - Galileo was arrested for going against the Roman Catholic Church a 100 years before the Enlightenment. Liberty is necessary for the search for truth, to read, think, public and speak out. Humans by their nature had a right to be free according to Locke.
  4. “Dethronement” of authority - This is getting rid of the unquestioned authority (Pope and the king). People wanted to know why their leaders are doing something.
  5. Human Equality - This is not equality of possessions, wealth and talents. This is equality in law. This is the ability to transgress out of your social status and could be done by acquiring a new one. Some aristocratic titles are scraped. People then thought equality should extend to slaves and women. Class is not assigned but rather it is earned.
  6. Rights - Before the 18th century, people thought rights were given to you by governors. By the end of the 18th century, rights were seen as unalienable (natural).
  7. Consent of the government - The “divine right of kings” was challenged. Governments should have the consent of the people (Locke). Governments should not be there to hand out rights but rather to protect them.
  8. Public opinion - people should listen to the public opinion in governments. It is important that the jury is impartial.
  9. Power should be limited and diffused - there should be no more absolutism. The government should not have the right to take away liberties, life, etc. people observed in the 18th century that the king could waste money that came in from taxation. There are issues of the law making - how laws are executed and the justice system should not be in the hands of a king. There should be different parts of the government constraining other parts to check on one another (checks and balances). This is to ensure that it keeps the parts fair.

These ideas radically changed people’s way of thought.

Week 5, Lecture 2 - Prosperity and Equality

Seymour Martin Lipset

Prosperity and equality are necessary, but not sufficient conditions for democracy. The first person who researched this area was Seymour Martin Lipset. He published a document on it in the 1950’s, which involved him making two lists of countries, one ranked in order of economic development, and the other of democracy. The two lists correlated significantly. His study has been replicated many times, but the answer has always come out the same way. Lipset wanted to measure economic prosperity/development. He looked at where the country had been stable for a while and any political organisation opposed to the democracy. He looked at the number of cars, radios etc. rich countries tended to be democratic.

Reasons

  1. Economic development encourages urbanisation, which then encourages democracy.
  2. Economic development causes the emergence of a large assertive middle class.
  3. It also results in a large working class.
  4. Education standards rise which leads to literacy and higher education.
  5. Economic development leads to actual material prosperity and wealth.

Prosperity

There is a relationship between economic prosperity and democracy as we shall soon see.

Economic development goes with:

Prosperity gives a majority of people a stake in society and gives them something to lose, leading to the working classes then becoming concerned for their own possessions. When the people have a stake in the system, they feel a part of the system. It may cause a community of view with others form other classes, bringing people together. Shared values between the middle class and working class bring them together and a greater willingness to work together. Material prosperity leads to the middle classes having more to lose and so being more prepared to make sacrifices but greater wealth in the working class leads to more wealth in the middle class. This leads to the moderation of the demands of the workers, and the willingness of those in power to allow them more and whereby the middle classes are happier to share with the working classes  E.g. 40% income tax on the better off. The middle class become less threatened by the working class and allow them to “come into the house of power” where democracy can be accepted. In the 19th century, people started to share power as the ruling class felt more able to have joint values. A gradual amalgamation of the working classes into prosperity breeds their cooperation with the middle classes, allowing power to be passed down and shared. This pre-empts democracy.

The people broke down the door to access the power.

It does not always work out this way

Prosperity does not necessarily mean the working class are rich such as in Latin America. This shows that material prosperity is conducive to democracy, inequality is not. Inequality creates a massive social difference between the two groups. The attitudes of those above the social divide can become superior; the upper strata begin to think of themselves as a higher caste, and may start to look down on the lower strata, making a huge psychological distance.  This makes those in power extremely reluctant to share it with the lower classes. The problem relates to the wealthy middle class not having shared values with the working class. Urbanisation becomes shantytowns were there is little education, a clean environment and little opportunities. In this case, the gap between the middle class and the working class widened because of greed. This is because there is a sense of distance as they do not encounter each other and when they do, the working class is subordinate. The middle classes see the people at the bottom as inhuman and do not deserve any rights to power. The middle class and upper classes do not share their power, as they are scared they will lose their control so they do not let the people take any interest politically in their country. They fear they will lose their possessions. The poor have very little sense of their country. They know how the rich live and resent it. They have very little to lose. They set up radical trade unions in order to break down the door to enter into the house of power. The more the working class knock on the door, the more the middle class barricade the door to keep them out. This was how the French Revolution appeared.

The second scenario has been the much more common one throughout history. It isn’t enough for an area to be economically developed; there must also be equality, not just of wealth, but a moral equality. People on both sides of the divide must be able to accept and respect each other. Everyone needs to feel that they are occupying the same community.

Alexis de Tocqueville (US) - He knew that democracy was coming in the US. (Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration).

Week 6, Lecture 1 - Different Forms of Democracy - the British System

Traditional British Democracy: the practice

British constitution has changed a lot on the last 5-10 years but for our purposes we will be discussing the traditional British system - before changes such as devolution, incorporation of ECHR, electoral system changes in some areas etc.

It was a very stable system with little change. The system is legitimate and through its legitimacy and stability, it is considered old. Strange features:

E.g. Perth, Scotland - June 2001 - election votes.

Lib Dems

- 12.8%

Labour

- 25.5%

Conservative

- 29.6%

SNP

- 29.7% - this won

This is no a majority government!

Parliament plays very little democratically. Almost al government legislation id government started. For example, fox hunting – a majority of people in the House of Commons do not want it, there has been nothing done to for the government’s own reasons.

Committees are whipped and are not run well - no experts, only government representatives and no research.
Select Committees - run well but have no power.

There are very strict rules of senior ministers to stop conflict of interests. The ordinary ministers can be paid lobbyists of Saddam Hussein as long as they register this.

This is government centred and ministers operate mostly independent of the people. The civil servants have only obligation to the government of the day. Until recently there was an Official Secrets Act were by we have no access to all of the governmental information. The act still remains. Our political culture allows strong government. We do not have a written constitution. There are no bodies that are autonomous. E.g. US states. There is nothing to stop the government getting rid of local government.

Week 6, Lecture 2

L.S Amery - Democracy is by consent according to Amery

Our representative government is very open to criticism. Perhaps it ought to be more sensitive to the views of the people through the use of referenda? Maybe we need a written constitution? Perhaps we need a proportionally representative system? Maybe we need more checks and balances? Today we will try to make sense of our system despite these oddities - perhaps it does have some virtues. British system used to be considered the best in the world. Only Tories still want it not to change. Most politicians are negative now about the system. In the 1950s, the system was envied by other countries and held up as an example of an effective system. There has been a massive opinion shift and people are less sure.

Since 1066 our government has always been sovereign and central. It has always been there and there has always been a monarchy. William the Conqueror made a strong government in order to weaken the powers of the barons. Some kings were corrupt, useless etc; and even if he and his government weren’t these things some people would always feel that their interests weren’t the same as the governments. This is an accepted idea, and government goes on, but the idea that government is unrestrained and can do whatever it wants is not accepted. This led to the emergence of a British parliament in the 14th century. It was invented as a check on the king and government. With a system of representative government, the people elect the governors to protect them, but they also need protection from the government running amok.

Coriolanus (Shakespeare) - He tired to be the governor of Rome and the people did not like him.
Edmund Burke - people are the natural centre of government. The same people should not control and exercise power.
James Mill - the people have the government to run the country on condition that it is checked.

British system has 4 virtues: moderate, stable, accountable and good government. It provides for stable govt. having 2 main parties and with our way of voting, it makes it stable. It gives the party a chance to govern.

Only 5 times when there was any instability and it didn’t last long: 1950-51, 1964-66, 1976-79 and mid 90s?

Between 1948-1994:

 

Govt

PMs

Italy

48

19

GB

11

10

There has been on extreme political party in the UK that has governed.

In the British system, it is easy to find out who or what is to blame when things go wrong. Elections give people the opportunity to judge how well the current government is working.

Herman Finer - it is clear in the British system what the line of the authority is.

Governments pay a lot of attention to what the people want. If governments have to take responsibility for their mistakes, they will behave more.

David Held calls this “protective democracy” or accountable democracy.

Four grounds on which the British system has been defended:

  1. Provides for stable government, as there are not too many changes in leaders. Compare Britain to Italy during the period 1948 - 1994
    Britain: 11 governments and 10 prime ministers
    Italy: 48 governments and 19 prime ministers
  2. Produces moderate government. As the majority of people don’t have very extreme views, so the parties have moved towards the centre. This has led to Britain having been astonishingly free form extreme parties and leaders.
  3. Governments have generally been considered effective and ‘good’. As they are normally allowed to just get on with things without having to look over their shoulders
  4. The British system provides for accountable government. Although the power of the people is limited, they can remove the government in very extreme circumstances, and in order to do this the people must know who is to blame.

Week 7, Lecture 1 - Ways of Democracy in the Netherlands

Netherlands has been a democracy for a long time and its way of it implementing democracy is very different to the UK. In the Netherlands, there is a greater degree of democracy than in Britain, and there is also a greater level of satisfaction in terms of political performance than Britain. In the Netherlands there are no referenda. There a direct vote for the PM, but the electorate don’t vote for individual MP’s but for the party instead. This is a PR system and is highly proportional as they need large numbers of votes in order to see a shift. Each house in the Dutch parliament resembles the other. Interestingly, no party in the Dutch parliament has ever won an absolute majority, which leads to coalition government.

Voting is similar to the UK. There are four more serious parties and people vote by party. The Dutch system is proportional and their Parliaments don’t tend to change much. No party has ever got a majority seats (over 40%) and all governments are coalitions. A general election takes place and some parties get together in advance in some systems but not in the Netherlands as the Queen appoints an “informateur” who has a job to put together a coalition government. The informateur helps discussions of putting parties together. The policies are agreed and which party will look after which government ministry and which individual will do it. Typically the government lasts a long while. Recently the party, "Pim Fortuyn” had their leader assonated. The Dutch see this as normal for a government to take a long time to form. It has taken 6 months for a new government to be sorted. The Christian Democrats (slightly right wing) are the biggest party. In the last government, the coalition fell apart. Voters do not chose the government. The 2nd chamber is similar to the UK where ideas are debated. The Dutch judicial system is independent. The system is centralised and local government is similar to the UK.

The Dutch government has a very long life:

  1. It works, as the Dutch people accept, from the decisions of the party leaders.
  2. It works very slowly; it takes about 120 days to form a government, during which the incumbent government governs.
  3. One political party (the Christian Democrats) are always involved in government.
  4. Although the voters elect politicians, they do not really elect the government they end up with. Winning the election does not necessarily equate to winning the government.

This leads to the government not really being an important collective player. There is little room for governmental investigation. The second chamber of the parliament is also very weak and is highly dominated by party discipline.

How it is different

The UK has a culture of winner take all – being the masters. The Dutch have the opposite. There should not be any winners and there should not be any losers. The Dutch are faced with a difficult situation with lots of views. They can postpone the decisions if they can’t make them. They depoliticise the issues. They form a committee to research the topic and make it apolitical.

The Dutch agree with proportionality. (Andewieg - Irwin Corporation - a book)

Mayors are proportional too and given out by the government. The Dutch share out jobs and decisions making to the government. Consultation is central and interest groups are involved. Dutch policy does not change very much and this system listens to all views.

United Kingdom The Netherlands
Absence of autonomous power in local government leads to no local power. Written constitution prohibits parliament from dominating; though provincial parliaments are entirely a creature of the national government.
The focus is on strong government, and everything depends on winning. There is a focus on strength but despite of the week parliament, it’s possible to avoid brutalism.
The British attitude is to do things immediately – we must take action! No party dominates so there is a prevention of polarising issues. If there is a problem, they postpone taking a decision and take their time.
The Brits are keen to politicise issues, and there are always big policy differences between the parties. They try to depoliticise issues. If there is a big difference then a committee will be formed using experts, making technical decisions.
There is no proportionality between the different parties Large level of proportionality, to share power, money, broadcasting time etc.

In Dutch politics there is a tremendous emphasis on deliberation, meaning that policies, when implemented, seldom changes. There is an attempt to choose maximum consensus and to be inclusive so than the majority of people isn’t left out.

Week 8, lecture 2

In Britain the political system is highly centralised, with a high concentration of power. On the face of it, with a majoritarian government based on a minority of votes, you’d expect the governors to ignore the opposition and do whatever they want. The opposition need to be a serious alternative to the government in order to make them accountable. But here, this doesn’t happen. Why? There are a few common understandings between British politicians:
Agreement on the rightful political community.
Absence of deep divisions; “agreement on fundamentals”.
Self-restraint and mutual trust among political classes.
(At least) two electable parties

The Netherlands

The Netherlands appears to be a highly unified political community. They meet the first criterion in that they agree on the political community and who should be able to vote, but there is a presence of deep divisions. There have been two lines of cleavage – those of class and those of religion.

‘Pillars’ are largely mutually-exclusive subcultures. Catholics are delivered in catholic hospitals by catholic midwives, are taught in catholic schools and universities, and join catholic trade unions when they start work. They watch catholic TV channels and read catholic newspapers. The Protestants are the same. The segmentation of Dutch society into these homogenised groups is called ‘Pillarisation’.

The five pillars:

Each one of these pillars is closely associated with a political party:
Catholic = KVP
Dutch Reformed = CHU
Re-reformed = ARP
Working class = PDVA
Middle Class = VVD

So with all these factions, how can they prevent civil war? The government realised they had two main questions to answer – a social question (should women be allowed to vote?) and a religious question (who should pay for specific religious education?). To deal with these issues, they decided they should send them off to commissions; groups of experts and members of each party. It took them 4 years to come up with an answer. So eventually they came up with a package of answers referred to as the ‘Pacification of 1917’, which involved:
1) Universal women’s suffrage.
2) A shift from FPTP to PR, to stop one party from constantly dominating politics.
3) All schools (religious and secular) to get state funding.

The Dutch coalition system should lead to stasis or paralysis, but it hasn’t. They operate under a system of Consociational democracy is where all sections of society are willing to work together and reach consensus. They are innovative and take their time over decisions, but their policies stick.

Week 9, lecture 1

  Great Britain Netherlands
Accountability Yes No
Accommodation No Yes
Deliberation Not really Yes
Participation No No

Deliberation is weighing in mind with careful consideration, discussing reasons for and against, unhurriedness. We need deliberation in a democracy in order to reach compromise. If you talk things through and listen to all viewpoints you’re more likely to reach a sensible, permanent decision. It works best when people are physically in the same room in private, so that the best, unbiased decisions can be made.

Participation is a good thing for two reasons – it is considered by some to be a natural right for everyone in a democracy to have the ability to take part; and also it is part of our character as humans to want to be involved.

The United States Political System

The constitution was specifically invented and designed; it didn’t just evolve. In the late 1770’s 13 of Britain’s colonies fought a war of independence to break free of the rule of the UK, and managed to form the US. For a short while they lived under the ‘Articles of Federation’ whereby all power laid with the states, but the system simply didn’t work. They found that they needed a much stronger federal government. In 1787 a group of political thinkers sat down to debate what to do. They all reached a unanimous decision on the constitution which had to be ratified by all of the states, and was in place by 1788.

Whereas the British system is founded on accountability and the Dutch system on both accommodation and deliberation, this system is founded on two incompatible principles – the ancient and the modern.

Ancient (1787) Modern (2003)
Legislature was congress, consisting of two institutions – the House of Representatives (2 year elections, members directly elected by voters in each district) and Senate (6 year rolling elections, members elected indirectly by state legislatures It has remained the same.
Since 1913, it has been directly elected.
Executive was the President, indirectly elected by Electoral College. One man held the whole of the sovereign executive power Electoral College members are now directly elected.
Judiciary was through the Supreme court and other federal courts, controlled by law and constitution It has remained the same
Separated institutions led to a system of checks and balances between the three which limited any single branch from having too much power, but it was more like ‘separate institutions sharing powers’. Bar the House of Representatives, all the institutions were kept as far away from the people as possible. Both the legislature and the executive have been brought closer to the people. ‘Direct primaries’ mean people participate in the choice of candidates, which is a very unique system. In many states there are large numbers of directly elected officials, as well as the use of referenda and initiatives.

Week 9, lecture 2 - The Conflict of Democratic Principles in America

This is between the ancient ‘republican’ ideologies and the modern ‘radically democratic’ ideas. Firstly we will look at the ancient principles, which were the ones that the constitution was written to represent in 1787.

They rejected aristocracies, nobility, monarchy and tyranny, and opted instead for a popular system of government. An important point of their ideology was the idea that the people were the only legitimate source of political authority, but it was contrasted by their fear of the people and viewed them as too ignorant to wield that power. Enlightened philosophers thought that people were perfectible but the writers of the constitution did not. As Hamilton said, the public are “evil, selfish, ambitious, vindictive and rapacious.” Collectively they thought of the people as a mob, which were common in those days.

The popular perception of democracies was as not protecting society or property properly, and at that time they were often short-lived. The framers tried to diffuse these suspicious perceptions by preventing factions (groups of interest) from ever gaining a disproportionate amount of power. They made the House of Representatives the only institution directly elected by the people. The Senate and the President were both set up to be elected through Electoral College.

The modern ‘radically democratic’ principles began to emerge in the mid nineteenth century. The elections gradually became more popular, and more and more voting opportunities arose at different political levels. The modern ideology placed a lot of emphasis on the importance of the concentration of power with the (very middle class) American people.

  UK Netherlands US old US modern
Accountability Yes No No Yes
Accommodation No Yes Yes No
Deliberation No Yes Yes No
Participation No No No Yes

Week 10, lecture 1 - Democracy in Ancient Athens

High Civilisation - quality of culture - science, philosophy, Greek tragedy, politics - democratika (rule by the people)

Polis – (self-governing community) or city state.
Not subject to foreign power
Degree of internal strike. few class wars, civil war; the latter is a characteristic in other cities such as Sparta.
People were comparatively well off
Small geographical state
Small population
All people are Athenian citizens to participate in politics. The exclusion of 3 classes reduced huge participation…1-women/children, 2-metics (those who live legally but don’t participate) and 3-slaves.

What form of democratic system?
no electorate, no representatives, no legislative, executive or judiciary (no government)

Athenian democracy is direct democracy although the people did not have a government
Every Athenian citizen was qualified to participate in every office and policy (administration of the city). There were no representatives as they filled the positions themselves.
No government apart form authority over mass citizens – no MPs, no PM.
Offices were filled by lots. Citizen participation was not limited so everyone had the opportunity to be chosen
All offices had one-year terms and could be occupied only once in a lifetime
Everybody had the duty to participate. All who held an office were paid for doing so.

What is the main institution?
assembly – a) not representative but represented Athenian citizens, b) meet very frequently – every week in an open air place (on the hill of Phyx), c) making important decisions and laws,
Council (of 500) – a) prepares the agenda of the assembly, b) not representative, chosen by lot, c) could serve for one year, only serve twice so a highly rotated body
jury courts – a) democratic judicial body, b) citizen jury, c) chosen by lot
Administration such as collecting taxes, diplomacy etc - a) filled by ordinary people, b) Chosen by lot so not professional.

Athenian citizens take part in not only choosing delegates but also making policy or running the country, this requires high civilisation

Week 10, lecture 2 - Swiss Democracy

  Athens CH (Helvetian Confederation)
Accountability Yes No
Accommodation No Yes
Deliberation Yes Yes
Participation Yes Yes

Athenian democracy has never been repeated, it lies outside of the rest of democratic history. Another outlying democracy is that found in Switzerland. Very few people know the Swiss system very well, as it’s not a great power in the world and the country itself only has around seven million people. They have invented two things – the Red Cross and their unique system of government.

The Swiss use a system of PR and have four main parties. The National Council is made up of 200 members representing different constituencies, and some members from it make up the Federal Council (the government). There is a tradition that all the four main parties will be on the Federal Council, meaning there is no opposition. There is no Swiss Prime Minister, but members of the Federal Council take turns to be presiding officer over the council.

The Swiss system places no emphasis at all on ‘strong leadership’, and is practically ‘leader-proof’. The electorate directly elect the Council of the States, which is made up of 23 councillors, each elected by one of the 23 cantons; irrespective of size. This means that the cantons hold a lot of power – nothing can happen unless the National Council and the Council of the States agree. It is a federal system which means that power is distributed with a relatively powerless centre. The cantons are sovereign from the central national government. Decisions are always taken at the lowest possible level - if not in the principalities then in the canton; if not there then finally to the national government.

As well as having decentralised institutions, the Swiss culture reinforces the system. People don’t think of themselves as Swiss but they identify with their canton. This is also shown through the massive differences in dialects and language.
In Switzerland there is a highly widespread use of initiatives and referenda, despite the fact that it is a representative democracy. Any piece of federal legislation can be challenged using an initiative. Direct popular involvement plays a large part in their democratic system. This system has power shared out in every aspect, and proportionality is also very important. Both positions and decisions are shared out.

So how did the system emerge? It came from a deeply divided country by language - 70% German, 20% French and 10% Italian. These linguistic differences deeply divide the country, but it is also divided on religious grounds - half catholic and half protestant. The geography of Switzerland divides the country too, as there are may high mountains and deep valleys, making communication traditionally difficult. These divisions will often lead to one of three options - splitting up along certain lines, fragmenting (each canton declaring itself independent), or civil war (of which there have been many all along religious lines). So what holds the country together?

The Swiss do have a sense of political community; if they split up they would lose their identity. Countries need to be able to defend themselves, meaning that they must be united to create a national defence. Switzerland wanted to trade freely and easily between the cantons so they needed a free market. The Swiss also have a common culture which goes beyond the lines of language or religion which came from a civil war in 1947.The Protestants won, but the way they dealt with their victory was to invite the Catholics to a constitutional convention to try to figure out a deal which consisted of a massive degree of decentralisation. The extensive use of referenda can be accounted for due to the way people lived before the emergence of large cities. People were used to the idea of face to face direct popular involvement, which led to the use of initiatives and referenda once the countries system evolved.

Week 11, lecture 1 - The Collapse of Democracy in the Weimar Republic

Between 1914 and 1918 the Weimar Republic was under a military dictatorship. On the 11th of November 1911, the German army signed the surrender to end World War I. In early 1919 the constituencies in Germany gathered to form a constitution which had to be legitimate in terms of the conditions laid don in the treaty of Versailles. From this point, a Republican government ruled Germany for 14 years, and eventually in 1933 Adolf Hitler became a Chancellor.

So what was wrong? Certain things that happened in Weimar were contingent, bad luck was not a fundamental cause.

Was Germany a democracy? Did it fulfil some of the necessary conditions for democracy:

  1. Capitalist economy. Germany did have a capitalist economy, but power was concentrated in the hands of firms which did not compete with each other but colluded with each other in cartels. The capitalist economy was very largely separated from society with the cartels being state created. The firms were in a very cosy situation. In other countries people believed in liberalism, but in Germany the capitalist class saw themselves as stuck to the state. Germany was an industrialist and deeply authoritarian society.
  2. Vibrant civil society. This existed, but was far from uniting Germany but dividing it.
    Agreement on the political community. This was a profound contention in Germany, especially because of Alsace Lorraine. There were a variety of desires among the German people which did not lead to certain agreement.
  3. Civilian control of force. The central state in Berlin did not control the police, but they were controlled by the right-wing provincial governments. German leaders believed that to live in a state with a semi-autonomous organisation was hostile to the republican Weimar.
  4. Degree of economic equality. This did not exist, and the rich people in power lived in fear of communist uprisings.
  5. Elite acceptance of Enlightenment values. The elites in Germany were not the children of the Enlightenment and instead believed in ideas of unity and oneness among the people, duty to be obedient to authority, and that reason should be kept in place, with the allowance of human desires.

Week 11, lecture 2 - Failure in Northern Ireland

For most Brits, Northern Ireland is considered a whole other country. We will discuss it here as if it is, as that is the way it has acted for most of its history. In the early Middle Ages Ireland was separate from Great Britain, yet from a very early stage the English became interested in Ireland for strategic military reasons. In the seventeenth century the English tried to subdue Ireland. Cromwell established English and Scottish colonies who were manly protestant (Ireland was catholic). In 1801 the whole of Ireland officially became part of Great Britain.

The Irish potato famine of the 1840s meant over a million Irish starved to death and 1.5 million immigrated to the US. In the nineteenth century the Irish mounted growing pressure for ‘home rule’, or devolution. It wasn’t until the 1920s that Ireland became an independent country, and it began calling itself Eire after the Second World War. However, in the 1920s the whole country wasn’t given home rule; but a divided Ireland. Ireland was quiet until the 1960s when the Catholics became restless. Initially they started with peaceful protest, but they grew more and more violent and it led to the formation of the IRA. These attacks led to violent protestant rebuttals. In 1973 Heath’s government suspended Northern Ireland’s sovereignty and imposed rule from Westminster for 20 years. This however, didn’t end the violence.

So why did the democracy fail? The US sees the period of violence as a British failure. The main reason for the failure was due to the divisions within the country. These divisions weren’t about social class, race, culture, or the general ideology of a desire for democracy; but it is often seen as a religious division. There are around 1.5million people in Ireland – two thirds are protestant, one third catholic. Is it this straightforward? The two communities traditionally ignore each other and leave one another to their own devices. Although religion may be the source, the differences are probably more attributable to the differences in tradition or community – 1) Loyalist (British, protestant) 2) Nationalist (Irish, catholic). These two groups are very highly polarised. The two communities are often highly antagonistic towards one another; they are deeply suspicious of each other and even fear each other.

Unlike in the Netherlands, where despite differences, they all agreed they wanted to stay Dutch, in Ireland there is a fundamental dispute over the rightful political community, and no democratic procedure to decide who ‘the people’ are. If the Loyalists won a referendum, it would not be accepted as legitimate by the Nationalists.

When the British left the bulk of Ireland in the 20s, what Northern Ireland needed was some set of political institutions arranged around the idea of ‘living together’, as found in the Netherlands and Switzerland. What they in fact got was a majoritarian style English government. The only thing was that the Protestants always won, meaning the government was always run in a way to benefit the Loyalists.

Why was a majoritarian system imposed?
The Brits knew nothing but a majoritarian democracy, and other forms were not and are not widely studied.
Even if the British government in the 1920s had tried to persuade the two sides to work together, they wouldn’t have approved. The loyalists wouldn’t have wanted to share their power.
The two sides don’t really want to work together.

In 1998 there was the Good Friday Agreement, which tried to create a power-sharing ‘living together’ system. But both the Loyalist and the Nationalist elites are divided. And on the Loyalist side there hasn’t even been an agreement that power-sharing is a good idea.

Week 16, lecture 1

The argument so far.

Why did democracy emerge only in the last 200 years to become such a prevalent system? Why have some countries evolved into democracies but not others? There have been some resistances to democracy. Some people haven’t wanted them to emerge because:
People associated democracy with the Athenian model, and this system ended in disaster with its collapse.
People thought immediately of direct democracy as they had no experience of representative democracy. At that time, when people acted politically it usually involved mob violence, and so they didn’t want power in the hands of the people.
The French Revolution (1789) was a disaster for the spread of political ideas throughout Europe. It consisted of violence and terror leading to a military dictatorship. People saw it as a direct result of popular rule.
If you had power, then it was unlikely that you would share it with anyone who was likely to deprive you of any of it. Power-holders who were willing to share power had to be sure that they weren’t going to be expropriated.

Necessary conditions for democracy:
1) Capitalism of a pluralist kind
2) Material prosperity
3) Degree of ‘moral equality’
4) Agreement on political community, ‘the people’
5) Civilian control of the army
6) Vibrant civil society
7) Internalisation of Enlightenment values, especially by the political classes

These seven factors do not guarantee the emergence of a democracy, but they certainly play some part in inducing it. None singularly constitutes a sufficient condition for the emergence of a democratic system either. They are all collectively necessary, it will not flourish without one of them, but even if you fulfil them all democracy is not guaranteed.

Other Factors:
1) Existence of a confident, prosperous middle class, as most of the work done in a democratic system is carried out by the middle classes.
2) The prior existence of representative institutions, which may be the manifestation of dispersed power. It makes it relatively easy to extend the franchise if the institutions are well-established.
3) ‘Rule of law’. The acceptance that all members of a society are governed alike through the law – both the people and the rulers. This requires an independent judiciary and legal profession. Those making the law must also be subjected to it.
4) A lack of rival doctrines. Deeply held rival beliefs about what a regime should be does not induce democracy.

Week 16, lecture 2

Samuel P. Huntington suggested that there have been three waves of democracy throughout history. The first wave was between the 1820’s and 1920s and this was the period when a lot of democracies were established. This was followed by a period of recession with leaders like Hitler in Germany and Mussolini in Italy. The second wave was between 1945 and the 1960s. Many of the dictators of the end of the first wave were toppled and democracies were re-established in places like France and Austria, and democracies were set up in Japan, and India as it won independence, as well as in many Latin American and African countries. By the end of this wave, some had toppled from Latin America, Africa and Asia. The third wave was from the 1960s onwards when democracies became popular again and were restored to Latin America, Asia and some of Africa; and there was a global movement towards democracy.

What brought about the third wave? Obviously there were some country-specific factors, but the sheer size of the change shows us that it must have been affected by larger, more global changes.

  1. After 1945 there was a spread of the idea that democracy is the only legitimate form of government in the modern world. Even in non-democratic regimes attempted to legitimate themselves by claiming to be democratic as it became very difficult to argue against democracy.
  2. Since 1945, we have experienced the period of greatest material prosperity ever in history by a long way. This period has produced many large, confident middle classes who have pressed for more liberal democratic regimes and affected the internal politics of many countries.
  3. Many authoritarian regimes had claimed that their legitimacy came from their effectiveness, but this began to look ropier as time went on. Their economic statuses began to slip more and more compared to that of democratic countries. Military regimes began to do the one thing that they shouldn’t – lose wars. Because this happened they then had no claim of legitimacy.
  4. Pressure began to be exerted on many countries from outside. After the 70s, democratic countries like the USA and the EU began to compel those with dictatorial regimes to change. Also the World Bank began to consider a countries political status when deciding whether to loan money etc.
  5. There was a ‘democratisation effect’, where countries saw others incorporating democracy effectively and were inspired to copy them.
  6. The collapse of communism released Soviet dictatorship over much of central and Eastern Europe, meaning that those countries had the opportunity to become democratic, and many did.

Russia

From the end of the fifteenth century, when Ivan III reigned as tsar, until the end of the nineteenth century, Russia expanded from a small tract of land to occupying one sixth of the worlds land mass, and covered 11 different time zones. It contained people from all different religious denominations, but there was still a state religion – the Russian Orthodox Church. However, by ignoring Catholicism, the Russians missed out on having a Renaissance and this reinforced its intellectual isolation from the rest of the world.

Russia had always been ruled by one man - a Tsar. The Tsars were the “autocrats of all the Russians”, and it was thought that the Russian people owed all of their personal loyalty to them. Tsarism was always a highly centralised and very intrusive regime; the Tsar had traditionally controlled every aspect of life – the economy, he was the pope of the Russian church, and also the commander-in-chief of the army. In the late eighteenth century, Russia became a large industrial power, which led to the working class and the peasants becoming disaffected. The middle classes also became unhappy and eventually there was a revolution in 1905, and again in 1917 when the reign of the Tsars was finally ended. It was replaced by the Bolshevik regime, which also eventually fell.

So what were Russia’s problems?

  1. Russia had become a country before it became a people, so it was never really a nation by definition. Unlike colonialism, Russia just absorbed geographically convenient existing states. Consequently, no-one can really define who a ‘Russian’ is.
  2. From the fifteenth century until 1905 there was no representative legislative body in Russia at all. There was one set up in 1905, but it held very little power, and was replaced by another phoney institution. There were representative assemblies at a local level, but there were no elections to a national assembly until 13 years ago.
  3. The tsarist state and the communist state both ruled the country like armies and dictated peoples lives. Both wanted to ensure that their power wasn’t challenged, so they did this by oppressing anyone who may have confronted them. This meant that all civil society in Russia was crushed.

Week 17, lecture 1 - Prospects for democracy in Russia

Russia was led by Mikhail Gorbachev at the end of the 70s and early 80s, and there was a perceived movement towards ‘glasnost’ and ‘perestroika’, the practice of more open government, the wider dissemination of information, and reforming the political system. Boris Yeltsin emerged as a valid challenger to Gorbachev, and was eventually elected in 1991 in the first elections. Yeltsin was succeeded by Vladimir Putin in 2000. But is Russia really a well-functioning democracy, and what are its prospects for the future? There are five main elements that went to make up the era of political turbulence:

1) Russia has found it difficult to set up a stable party system. It doesn’t have individual parties or the system of party competition that we are used to in the UK. The parties themselves are highly fragmented and their structures are unstable; parties come and go very frequently. This has meant that Russian voters are very disillusioned, leading to low turnout at election times. This factor has also resulted in tremendous governmental instability; governments have come and gone, leading to increased policy instability.
2) Since the transition from communism, Russia has experienced high economic decline. Although it was declining during the communist regime, it has got even worse since then. In 1998, the Russian currency the Rouble collapsed. However, the people are not too badly off as there is a large thriving black market.
3) There has been a rapid increase in crime rates. Crime was much less of a problem under soviet rule as it was kept under control, but since then it has surged. Most are small crimes like robberies etc, but the Russian Mafia have become highly active. Also crime and corruption amongst the officials has begun to emerge.
4) Though still called Russia, by the early 90s the country had sacrificed much of its population and territory. Although the new Russia is more linguistically and ideologically homogenous, many people have been scattered outside of Russia. Also, many people classified as Russians would prefer not to, e.g. Chechnya. Russia has still not defined itself as a nation.
5) There has been a big loss of Russian identity, as it went from being a big player on the international stage to becoming a bit of a joke. With the massive crime rates, alcoholism, disease, and the economy, the country has shrunk from having a population of 285m to 148m. It is now a very lonely country with no real allies, which is disdained and not respected by the rest of the world. All this has happened in a very short period of time and therefore has left the country in shock.

How democratic is Russia? We can evaluate this by comparing it to the seven criteria for a flourishing democracy:
Capitalism - the economy has become very much more capitalist, and the market now works, but not as we are used to. The state still has quite an influence on the economy, but no longer directly controls it.
Material prosperity - the country is still poor by international standards. It is becoming richer, but this will take a long time.
Equality - there has always been a massive gap between the rich and poor; it was hidden by communism, but it has become more obvious now, with 1.5% of people holding 65% of the wealth. There is also little moral equality.
Political community - Russia remains a country who doesn’t embrace all of those outside who want to be Russian; and also doesn’t confront the problem of people inside the country who want to become independent.
Civilian control of the army - this is difficult to tell. Even though traditionally the people have always controlled the armed forces but we can’t be sure that this tradition has been perpetuated.
Civil society - this was quashed under communism, but those pressures are now off. However, organisations are still a bit patchy and therefore pose no serious threat to the government.
Enlightenment values - there are still lots of leaders who pay lip service to these values but don’t really truly believe in them.

So Russia is not an effective democracy at the moment. Elections will continue to be held and the press will continue to be free, and hopefully this will encourage the emergence of some of these missing factors. There will need to be some very big changes before it becomes a truly liberal democratic state. For now, the weight of Russian history still bears down on them.

Week 17, lecture 2 - India and Pakistan

Both India and Pakistan are predominantly rural countries, they are both very poor, and both highly diverse. They were both governed similarly until 1947 under the British Raj. Despite this, they have diverged substantially so they couldn’t be more different. First let’s look at India.

India houses a functioning political society, with free and fair elections, easy changeovers etc. However, it is an increasingly corrupt democracy, and amongst the ten most corrupt democracies in the world. The police forces are violent and brutal, and there has been a lot of violence and intimidation around election times. There is also still a great deal of tension between Hindus and Muslims: but despite all this, India is still considered a democracy.

In 1947 Indira Gandhi, the president of India, decided to impose a ‘state of emergency’ on the country, and used this as an opportunity to assume dictatorial rule. This resulted in the loss of the independent judiciary, the media was silenced, and opposition politicians were often imprisoned. To everyone’s great astonishment, she suddenly announced that the emergency was over, freed the political prisoners and allowed free and fair elections - which she lost and had to leave. This period had the strange effect of serving to strengthen Indian democracy as they realised that they didn’t like dictatorial rule. The Indian people realised that they valued their freedom.

In comparison, Pakistan’s history has not been so democratic. Although most of the nineties have seen free and fair elections, the rest of Pakistan’s past has mainly been ruled by either the army or small oligarchies, punctuated by small democratic episodes. Five years ago it looked like democracy was taking hold, but Pervaiz Musharraf (the then head of the army) prepared a coup against Nawas Sharif, the president, and won. Musharraf is now still running a bogus democracy; a thinly disguised military dictatorship. So why is India a democracy but not Pakistan, after they shared so much history and are so similar?

In the case of India, it is very odd that it is a democracy, as it seems that it shouldn’t be one. There is no national language; in fact there are around 35 different distinct languages within the country, there is a high level of diversity within religion, high levels of poverty, and poor levels of education - many are illiterate. So this leads us to question how they have democracy without material prosperity or political, moral or economic equality. Perhaps these shouldn’t be on the list of conditions needed for democracy.

After the Second World War India already had a large middle class that had emerged during the British Raj as the Brits realised they couldn’t run the country without the help of some Indian people. They tried to build up a well-educated, gainfully employed middle class. During the Raj, the bulk of Indian political positions in the civil service were filled by Indians. They ran the country under a thin layer of British rulers. This was the legacy of British rule; they created parliamentary institution, appointed a viceroy, and had an elected assembly. Despite the franchise starting off so small, it was increased with pressure. Indian politicians got used to the idea of working together in political situations, and the Indian people got used to voting in elections. The people who became the leaders of India (including Jawaharlar Nehru, the first president) were strongly passionate in their beliefs in liberal democracy. When India finally gained independence there was already a state apparatus in place that easily could have been converted to an independent liberal democracy and was.

India is a nation of minorities, with members of each of the minorities are dispersed across the country. This means that no single minority has the power to rule the rest, bar by using overwhelming coercive force or the military, so perhaps democracy is the only option. Using the military is not a viable option as the Indian armed forces are relatively passive and have never gotten involved in politics. It is the army of the whole of India and doesn’t just represent a small cross section of the country, and the ethic of the army doesn’t include the idea of political intervention. Indian independence was organised by the politicians with no need for the armed forces to intervene.

So why has Pakistan turned out so differently? We can rule out the fact that it is a self-consciously Muslim country as irrelevant as it has been democratic at points but this has broken down for other reasons. So why?

1) Social structure – traditionally there has been a very large gap between rich and poor – most wealth was concentrated in the hands of very few ‘feudals’
2) The independence generation leaders were nearly all enlightenment thinkers. Some however retained their feudal, hierarchical views.
3) India was not a new state; it was founded on existing institutions. Pakistan didn’t have this; or a large organised civil service, organised army etc. In Pakistan the army often ganged up on the politicians.
4) India has effective natural frontiers – oceans and mountain ranges, so it was always very unlikely to lose a war. From the beginning, Pakistanis have felt differently, as they are much smaller, had an army put together from scratch, and the two countries were virtually at war from the beginning. The Pakistani army has always said that it should be involved in politics as they have had to defend the country so much.

Week 18, lecture 1 - Nigeria

Although we are looking at Nigeria, we can use it as an example of all of sub-Saharan Africa. Nigeria is a good example as it is the largest country in sub-Saharan Africa with a population of over 100million. It is an anglophile country, gaining independence from Britain in 1960. Since then it has been a highly politically unstable country, veering between civilian administrations and military dictatorships. Since 1999 there has been democratically elected President Olusegun Obasanjo, and despite allegations of election rigging it is widely accepted that he would have won anyway.

Nigeria has only been controlled by a civilian administration for about 12 of its 44 independent years, meaning that military dictatorships have been the norm. Most of these dictatorships have been extremely nasty and brutal, and the most recent one, the regime of Sani Abacha which ended in 1999, was the most cruel and brutal of all. Throughout its history, Nigeria has never enjoyed internal stability or security and has many ethnic, religious and tribal divisions. In the 80s Nigeria suffered a massive economic collapse, but before then it was the third most prosperous country in sub-Saharan Africa due to its oil stocks.

Why hasn’t democracy taken hold of Nigeria? We must also look at other parts of sub-Saharan Africa; where violence and corruption have been the norm. So why has it been so difficult for sub-Saharan Africa countries to do democracy well? We can rule out the suggestion that black people cannot run government as effectively as nonsense and clearly unrelated. We can also rule out the idea that African people do no want or value democracy. So why is it that stable democracy has not taken hold?

1) Sub-Saharan Africa on the whole is a very poor part of the world, where most people live at what we would consider the poverty level. This means there is no equality – the rich are very rich and the poor are unbelievably poor. Despite the prosperous period in the 80s, all the wealth generated was squandered.
2) Most sub-Saharan Africa countries have traditionally had no educated middle class and very little civil society. But to some extent, Nigeria is an exception as it has a small middle class and a few civil groups such as trade unions and pressure groups, but these have often been oppressed.
3) Something that is endemic in sub-Saharan Africa is the absence among the political classes of experience of running a country, and therefore most people have not internalised Enlightenment values, or the idea of democracy as the norm.
4) The present African countries’ borders came about purely from the colonial powers dividing up territory with no regard for any sense of nation or political community. So Nigeria is almost divided into three ‘zones’ as the three groups find it difficult to live together and would probably prefer not to.

Hausa, Kanuri, Fulani
Yoruba
Ibo

When sub-Saharan Africa countries gained independence their main ambitions were to become richer. Most had no business class and no natural resources to offer the rest of the world. Different countries went about it in fundamentally different ways - some adopted socialist values with centrally controlled economies and some adopted capitalist systems with a free market. However, in both cases the government was a central player in the game, and the people became very dependent on the skills, knowledge and aptitude of the state, and also on their honesty. The difficulty that these situations threw up was that the best way to make money was to become closer to the government, and that was what happened. However, both ‘skills’ and ‘honesty’ in most of sub-Saharan Africa were sadly lacking, and a lot of leaders were and are corrupt, only part of the government as it is a source of money. Those at the top have the ability to siphon off money for themselves; and while the rich got richer, the poor got poorer.
So what are the future prospects for Nigeria? We can look at them positively, although the situation is still very unstable and it is impossible to make a prediction.
1) Most Nigerians do want a democratic system to succeed.
2) The periods of military dictatorship have only served to alienate people through their brutality.
3) Obasanjo is a positive leader for Nigeria, despite being a former military dictator. After he retired from that position he went on to the honest normal profession of farmer, and when he re-emerged he won a free fair election. He has a political background and also a degree, seems to be trying to get rid of corruption, and also seems to want what’s best for the country.
With a degree of political stability there is some hope for the future of Nigeria.

Week 18, lecture 2 - Brazil

Brazil is the best country to look at as an example for Latin America, as it is almost 50% of the landmass of the continent, it is the 5th biggest country in the world, and has a very large population of around 200million people. It was part of the Portuguese empire, and achieved independence in 1822. The political history of Brazil quite resembles that of Nigeria, veering between periods of civilian rule and military dictatorship. Nowadays, the country is still quite corrupt, landowners still appear to hold some sort of power and intimidate people, and the police are quite brutal. Here is a short history of Brazil:
1930-45 – Army backed right-wing dictatorship.
1945-64 – Democratically elected left-wing government.
1964-85 – Military dictatorship.
1985-now – Democracy has been restored. Last year, Brazil acquired their first working class democratically elected president, Lula De Silva.

So why was democracy so easily gotten rid of in 1964? And why did it return in 1985? We will look at the answers to these questions in terms of the whole of Latin America. Not one Latin American country has had a stable democracy since gaining independence from their colonisers, but at the moment, most are fully-functioning democracies. For the last 200 years, there have been waves of democratisation and dictatorships across the whole of Latin America. But why?

1) There is a high level of political community in every Latin American country, including Brazil.
2) Unlike sub-Saharan Africa there has never been very large numbers getting used to living off the state, and has in fact usually been countervailing powers against the state such as the large landowners. This has inspired a tradition of resistance to government, and willingness to protest.
3) Latin Americans believe in rules and regulations, they are used to long legal formalities, and are mostly quite law-abiding kind of people.
4) From the beginning as each Latin American country became independent most acquired a constitution, most of which were quite liberal.

Latin America has always been a poor continent, and has always had very large inequalities of wealth. You can look at the structure of the traditional Latin America system in terms of this:

Traditionally, Latin American countries have been very hierarchical, resulting in a profound sense of political, economic and moral inequality across the continent. Social attitudes prevent the poor rising against the rich, and it would also logistically be very difficult to organise. The Latin American elite has lived the last 200 years not only contemptuous of the working class but also in fear of them potentially managing to rise up in protest against them. In 1959 there was a peasants’ revolt in Cuba which led to a communist regime that is still in place, and this served to make the point to the elites of other countries that it could happen.

This was part of the reason that democracy was overthrown in 1964, as people saw Cuba as an example, with a strong army and the backing of the elite and middle class. So why did the dictatorship step down 21 years later? They decided they wanted to give up their power for a number of reasons:
1) During enforced rule, the international community’s view of Brazil diminished, and they found themselves being compared to the dictatorships in tin-pot countries, which hurt their pride.
2) The army had been lucky as they were in power during an economic boom. But there was a world economic downturn, and the military were seen as partly responsible.
3) The threat from the political left began to recede; the revolution did not spread through Latin America as expected, so the elite felt that they could relax.
4) Developments were taking place within the army – soldiers were becoming democrats themselves as they were well-educated and well-travelled. Soldiers became embarrassed to be associated with the regime, as people were losing respect for them.
5) The army itself became politicised and factioned, leading to internal conflicts and opposition made their position shakier.
6) The middle class also became disaffected with the regime as they didn’t like Brazil’s image abroad and the world’s view of its human rights record.

In 1985 the Army realised it didn’t have support either from inside or outside and simply gave up, set up free, fair elections and retired. Brazil now has a radical left-wing populist government.

Week 19, lecture 1 - Justifying Democracy

There is a very important distinction between facts and values. With facts, you do not need to approve of them to know that they are right, but values deal with fundamental issues of approval and disapproval.

Factual Questions Value Questions
1 Why did democracy evolve in some societies but not others?
2 What forms do democracies take?
3 What is the likely future of democracy in ….?		 4 Is democracy a better form of government than the alternatives?
5 Should we encourage public participation in decision making?
6 Should we strive to bring about greater democracy?

Points to note:
There are different sorts of questions, and also different kinds of answers. Factual questions require bringing together relevant information, where value questions require examining structured arguments and often making a judgement.
There is no inevitability with value questions as it is a case of personal opinion, so long as there is sufficient personal choice to make a decision. Factual questions always bring up the same answers.
There is a relation between the two types of questions, although they are both distinct. There are some actions that have predictable results, and we can look at the probable results and assess their value.
The ‘big’ question is why democracy might be a better form of government than the alternatives. We must define the differences between good government and democracy. Good government is concerned with the purposes of government, whereas democracy is about the structure of government – about choosing the leaders. So the question is whether democracy brings with it good government.

This is the Instrumental Argument; that democracy leads to good government, and the alternatives, such as technocratic systems (like the EU) and oligarchies, lead to bad government. This is not necessarily a particularly sound argument as it is based on a rough historical correlation to which there are plenty of exceptions. Also, this correlation, regardless of whether it exists or not, does not qualify why it is that it exists.

There are however, three more specific, interlocking arguments put forward on behalf of democracy:

1) The Protective Argument. This states that rulers whose power is not close enough to the people must be limited to protect the citizens. This assumes that government itself is necessary for the protection of its people, but if governments have enough power to do this, then they are potentially able to use their power to exploit those citizens. So there is a need for the government to control itself, and a necessity of accountability – something that is achieved through democracy.
2) The Political Equality Argument. This takes the idea that all men are politically equal and therefore should all have a say in the running of the government. The counter argument to this claims that some people are more capable than others to run politics and make beneficial political decisions. This is a pessimistic view of the ignorance of the masses. The political equality argument uses direct democracy as its base.
3) The Fallibility Argument. This is similar to the last as it states that even if some people have more intelligence, access to more information, and a better ability to make decisions on complex political issues, then should they really be in charge? The most popular person is not necessarily the best person, and are the experts really that expert at all? Perhaps it is irrelevant who is in charge, just merely in which direction they are steering the political vessel. The bulk of this argument is based on popular democracy.

Week 19, lecture 2 - Democracy’s Critics

The ideal of equality: No one’s life is intrinsically more valuable than anyone else’s.
This is historically an unusual view as most societies have traditionally been hierarchically organised, and monarchies, slavery, caste systems and gender inequalities have shown this.
Equality is an enlightenment value, although not only an enlightenment value as it has been seen elsewhere.
The implication is that respect for people involves sharing of political power but this does not mean that everyone is equally competent. Not everyone is capable of exercising power competently.

Guardianship: Plato’s argument is that the administration of the state should be run by experts, or guardians. J.S. Mill pointed out that one person could not be expected to be specialised in all areas of governing. We can look at this idea in terms of facts and values; a person who is an expert in facts may not share the values of the majority of the population. Also, the range of knowledge that we expect from leaders is so wide that it’s implausible to suppose that even the most benign, well-intentioned man would never be an expert in all the areas. So why not have a system of technocrats, experts in specific areas?
Features of technocratic government:

Technocracy, the arguments: Many policy problems are overly complex and require someone skilled and technical to weigh up the arguments from all sides. Using policy instruments intelligently can take great skill and often requires a lot of background information. Even seemingly simple problems can turn out to be more difficult to deal with than it may seem.

Problems with technocracy: The experts can have sectional interests just like everyone else. Also, because policy problems are so complex they involve lots of types of knowledge and the experts don’t always agree themselves. Another problem with technocracy is that the relevant intelligence is a practical intelligence. It’s one thing to understand a problem, but quite another to take a reasonable, well-informed decision on it. There are no experts in values.

Liberal and Constitutional values: Liberal values place a high worth on personal freedom, where constitutional values follow the rules of active government and approve of governmental interference. Societies are pluralistic with no agreement on what is good and bad, and liberals use this to argue that government should withdraw as far as possible from everyday life. But who gets to decide about the appropriate scope of governmental reach? Liberals think it should be the people who take this decision. In some cases, personal freedom may depend on governmental action itself.

The ‘false promise’ argument: There are strong organisational constraints on what can be decided democratically. Democratic practices do not often live up to democratic values. To tell citizens they have control is to foster an illusion. But power can be made accountable, even if it cannot be equally shared. In any case, competition for power is important. The solution to this discrepancy may be to reform the practice itself. It is only an illusion if there is no attempt constantly to be examining democratic performance.

Week 20, lecture 1 - Participation and Democracy

Often the idea of increased popular participation is cited as bettering democracy, but often the idea of it is passed of as being unfeasible in today’s large, complicated societies, no matter how desirable. There are two main polar arguments, that for total popular democracy, and that of the elitist conception of democracy where there is a clear division of labour between those making the decisions and those who elect them.

Ways of increasing participation: Larger proportion of the population could take advantage of existing opportunities such as elections.
Increased use of established participatory devices such as referenda.
Use of new institutional mechanisms such as citizens’ juries or citizens’ councils, deliberative polls, and electronic and information technology.
Decentralisation of power and decision making.
All of these are practicable, so the argument for feasibility is perhaps unfounded.

Three arguments for Participation:
1) The problem of gaining consent. Most policy making is not black and white, most decisions are taken in the grey. But where should lines be drawn? If citizens participate they give their consent. Also some decisions are so emotionally motivated that they need to be decided by the public in order to have any legitimacy.
2) The problem of ensuring responsiveness. Dahl defined democracy as responsiveness to the preferences of the population, and participation preserves this. Also the agendas for decision making should be too – can attain these using participatory devices like initiatives.
3) Rectifying an imbalance of political influence. Some groups are more likely to be powerful than others and have a disproportionate amount of power. Popular participation can offset this imbalance.

Three intrinsic arguments for participation:

  1. The educative value of political participation;
    1. Participation encourages wider sympathies and understanding.
    2. It makes people aware of how complex problems can be.
    3. t encourages the development of an ‘active’ character.
  2. The principle of political equality;
    1. Democracy means that every citizen gets the same rights, including those of making decisions.
    2. Participation is sometimes necessary for people to defend their rights and interests.
  3. The ideal of self-government;
    1. "The British people are free only once very five years.” – Rousseau.
    2. People have to face up to their responsibilities.

Instrumental problems of participation: The search for legitimacy may be a sham, decisions may be predetermined. Responsiveness to what? To the mildly expressed preferences of the majority or the intensely felt wishes of the minority? We cannot be sure how much rebalancing in effect really takes place.

Intrinsic problems of participation: Educational benefits may be there, but how extensive are they. Equality may not be served in the way people think. Participation gives people voices, but some are more articulate than others. Differences in political competency. The ideal of self-government was always a bit of an idealisation.

Moreover, participation is time intensive and takes away time from other valuable activities and reduces the tie to conduct business. Also, who is to say that the citizens want popular participation?

Week 20, lecture 2 - Juries, Referendums and E-democracies

Citizens’ Juries and Citizens Councils: Get a small sample of the population together to discuss a particular issue (juries) or a particular policy area (councils), they are usually representative. For the purpose of finding what an informed group of citizens would think. Examples include: NICE citizen council, citizen juries for health care and local government, technology evaluation.

Deliberative Polls: Get a large representative sample of the population together, usually around 350 people, to discuss a particular issue. The group must be large enough to be statistically significant. For the purpose of finding what an informed group of citizens would think. Examples include: Australian monarchy, crime policy in the UK, health care policy, bioethics issues, and European integration. Opinions are sampled before and after and often shift massively; usually more liberal.

Claimed advantages for these methods: Better than standard opinion polls as they overcome ‘rational ignorance’. People who participate feel empowered to understand more complicated issues. Participants express ‘sensible’ decisions. Decision makers have to explain their points of view. Experts have to confront non-expert values. Builds on the idea of jury service; rights and responsibilities. There may be more general ‘spill-over’ benefits; people may get more involved in politics or their communities.

Some problems with these methods: Only a small proportion of the population benefit – not very democratic. The process has no authority to make decisions as no accountability. Decision makers may ignore answers. They are expensive for the benefits received. Hence, they may be useful for some important decisions where it is important to obtain the public’s views; but it is hard to see it working regularly.

Referendums:
Direct vote by citizens on matters of public policy.
The government calls the vote and writes the question.
Citizens’ initiatives are similar but a group of citizens call the vote and write the question.
Citizens’ recalls are also in a similar vein, when citizens recall office holders.

Claimed advantages of referendums:
Real example of government by consent.
May be the only way of settling a controversial issue.
Makes decision makers more responsive to the preferences of citizens.

Problems with referendums: If the government writes the question the wording can be manipulated. There is the problem of citizen competence (back to Plato again).

E-democracy is the use of electronic technologies such as the internet and TV to facilitate the processes of democracy.

Applications of e-democracy:
Electronic voting.
Opinion sampling.
Facilitating citizens’ movements.
Broadcasting debates, citizens’ juries etc.
Information dissemination.
Making models and projections available for cross-checking.

Claimed advantages of e-democracy:
Promotes accountability, transparency and openness.
Creates conditions for a mass participatory society.
Improves the quality of public deliberation.

Problems with e-democracy:
Data rich and information poor?
Unequal ability to use IT.
TV encodes news values instead of democratic values.
Different ways of expressing the same old thing.
May undermine the representative system.

Summary:
How attractive is the idea of the ‘active citizen’?
How far do we want to lose the political advantages of the division of labour?
What are the implications for political equality?

Week 21, lecture 1 - Representation: Forms and Functions

Political representation is inevitable in societies as large as we live in today. But political representatives are often unrepresentative of those that they are supposed to represent in different ways.

Three Meanings of Political Unrepresentativeness: Political representatives do not match the social characteristics of their constituents; they are often white, middle class, middle aged males.
Political representatives do not share the views of their constituents.
Political representatives do not advance the interests of their constituents.

Why do these things matter? It is because political representatives hold positions of great authority, and how representative they are of those who have elected them has implications in decision making and policy matters.

Three Aspects of Representation:

  1. Mirror or Statistical Representation.
  2. The Representation of Opinion and Interests.
  3. The Freedom or Discretion of the Representative.

The Athenian system of rotating lots was a clear expression of the value of political equality. When representative governments came to replace this in practice and theory at the end of the eighteenth century, political theorists began to think of the system in a representative way; that it was just as democratic as the mass-participatory system, if not more. However, there were still those who argued that any representative body should be a microcosm of the community, like a cross section. Even proponents of the representative system have always argued that all voices should be heard, but practice hasn’t always lived up to this. How can this be achieved? We could choose parliament by choosing representatives by lot; this would create a randomly selected cross section containing the full range of social characteristics. Then the members of government would be more similar to the population and would hopefully represent a large range of views.

Advantages of Mirror Representation: It would give ordinary people the experience of government. You would get a more forceful advocacy of minority views. Political presence would symbolise a move away from exclusion; seeing members of one’s own social group in a position of power encourages participation. It would open up the political agenda.

Disadvantages of Mirror Representation: The practical problems would be serious, like taking people out of their jobs etc. How long would representatives remain representative? The symbolism would only be partial. It would lack the legitimacy of accountability. The modern standard view is that representatives should lay out their views and explain them in order to gain power, but randomly selected people do not have this obligation.

The Representation of Opinion and Interests: Politics is complex and opinion needs to be organised. To represent an opinion is more than to hold an opinion. The implication is that political parties play an important role in democracy.

The Freedom of Representatives: Two Concepts: Each representative seeks to enact what his or her constituents want. Each representative seeks to balance out a range of interests and opinion, leading to a high level of discretion. No political system can function at either end of the scale and are nearly always in the middle.

Comparison of Two Concepts of Representation: NON-BURKEAN: MPs represent opinions. Minority views are represented. Government is formed through bargaining among representatives. BURKEAN MPs: exercise their own judgement, usually in the context of political parties. Views are aggregated into broad groups. Governments are chosen in elections.

Week 21, lecture 2 - Proportional Representation

Definition - The general principle of proportional representation is that seats in parliament should correspond to the way in which votes are cast.

Relation of Seats to Votes: Netherlands 1998:
Relation of Seats to Votes: Netherlands 1998:

Party Votes (%) Seats (%)
Labour 29.0 30.0
Liberals 24.7 25.3
Christian Democrats 18.4 19.3
D’66 9.0 9.3
Green Left 7.3 7.3
Others 11.6 8.7

Relation of Seats to Votes: UK 1997:

Party Votes (%) Seats (%)
Conservative 30.7 25.0
Labour 43.2 63.6
Liberal Democrats 16.8 7.0

Main Effects of the Simple Plurality Rule: The simple plurality rule (‘first-past-the-post’) reduces the number of parties. The simple plurality rule skews representation in the legislature to the largest party. The simple plurality rule favours geographically concentrated parties over dispersed ones.

Claimed Advantages of the Westminster System: It clarifies choice and so secures accountability. It provides for stable government. It reinforces ‘strong’ government.

Claimed Disadvantages of the Westminster System: It deprives minorities of a share in government. Governments do not rest on the support of a majority of the electorate. It does not guarantee strong and stable government. It assumes that party competition is bipolar. There can be substantial shifts in parliamentary majorities as a result of small shifts in the popular vote. It is said to be ‘unfair’.

Claimed Advantages of Proportional Representation: It enables a wide range of opinions to be represented. It prevents ‘majority tyranny’. It encourages broad statistical representation. It prevents swings and roundabouts in policy.

Claimed Disadvantages of Proportional Representation: No accountability. The people cannot choose a government. The stability of governments in threatened. The strength of government is undermined. PR gives pivotal power to sometimes small minorities. PR strengthens parties and weakens voters.

Two Points in Conclusion: Single examples are important, but not decisive. The choice of an electoral system, and therefore the form of representation, is always a trade-off.

Week 22, lectures 1 & 2 - Majority Rule and its Problems

Rule of unanimity: community does not act until all agree. This stops minorities and individuals from being discriminated against. It is used for small groups and international negotiations as nations do not trust one another; and small groups want consensus (sometimes).

Problems with the rule of unanimity: Privileges status quo and encourages stagnation. Can be slow and cumbersome. Some things that may need to be done are left undone. A small number can exploit the majority through the use of veto.

Majority Rule: The numerical majority decides. Everyone counts for one. None of the alternatives has special status. Responsive to changes of mind.

Advantages of majority rule: Not a conservative rule. Does not allow a small group to hold out against the majority with their veto. Not as slow. A majority is the smallest number that is not going to be overturned immediately without anyone changing their mind.

Disadvantages of majority rule: It enables the majority to exploit a minority. Can swing back and forth when people change their minds. It may produce inconsistencies where there are 3 possibilities instead of 2.

Three alternatives (going to dinner):

Person First Second Third
A Chinese Italian French
B Chinese Italian French
C Chinese Italian French
D French Chinese Italian
E French Chinese Italian
F French Chinese Italian
G Chinese French Italian
H Italian French Chinese
I Italian French Chinese

If you remove the 2 first choice Italians, you get a majority of 5 French to 4 Chinese, (from H and I’s second choices). Then you do French and Italian, to get 5 Italian to 4 French, from the people who chose Chinese first’s second choices. You continue until there is a definite answer. This is called Condorcet’s paradox.

Critique of majority rule: “Populism depends on a popular will discovered by voting (as a moral imperative). If voting does not reveal a will, there is then no moral imperative. If people speak in meaningless tongues they cannot utter the will that makes them free.” (Riker) Majority rule cannot guarantee a preference and a decision; some people say it’s rare. Normal forms of procedure keep any problems under control. But control of procedure can be abused. If there is no popular will then one cannot be found; you cannot invent it.

Week 23, lecture 1 - Democracy: concentrating power or diffusing it?

The fundamental question here is how should the tasks of government be assigned to different levels of government?

The tasks of government:

To provide the basic conditions of civilised life such as law and order; external defence; rule of law.
Correcting for market failure through either the provision of ‘merit goods’ such as health care, education and social insurance; and also through the provision of ‘public goods’ such as environmental protection and transport infrastructure.
Maintenance of cultural heritage.
Maintenance of conditions for democratic life.

What are the relevant levels? The simple two-tier model looks like this:

Adding complexity to the two-tier model:
Lower tier more complex than one sort of authority.
The growth of regional/provincial government.
The EU level.
The international level e.g. WTO.
Not only governments.

Multi level governance looks like this:

Complexities to be remembered:
Multi-level governance.
Not an ‘all or nothing’ affair.
The issue of how securely powers are diffused.
The nature of federal vs. unitary systems.

Perhaps we need to reformulate the question in light of this, to ask how tasks should be assigned in a system of multi-level governance so as best to accord with democratic values.

Two preliminary points: Size is not everything. History matters, but only so far. This may change in the future.

Forces making for change: The rise of the welfare state, in particular in the mid-twentieth century. Issues like environmental protection. Pressure for regional devolution. The rise of European integration, particularly since the mid-1980s.

Week 23, lecture 2 - The Devolution of Power and its Implications

Democratic values to consider in deciding whether devolution would be beneficial:

Participation: Many democratic theorists argue for decentralisation to encourage participation. This is primarily an argument of size, as the smaller the group, the higher the levels of efficacy. But is the assumption correct that people are more moved by local issues than ‘big’ issues? Also, increasing levels of governance reduces participation in each level.

Accountability: There are obvious ways in which decentralisation can increase accountability, such as making decision makers more accessible, making it easier to know what’s happening, and because representatives may share values with their constituents through regional cultural variations. But, if you multiply the levels, you make decision making opaque, so it is easier to pass the buck or take the credit for someone else’s work as certain decisions are imposed.

Citizenship: Citizenship involves political participation and the ability to know what is happening to the government, and can be either active or passive. But, public services may vary if there is local control, as has been shown with ‘post-code lotteries’. Decentralised units will vary, undermining the equality of citizenship.

Cultural differences: Religion, e.g. the Dutch Consociational arrangements. Language, e.g. Quebec or Catalonia.
Historical sense of ‘imagined community’, e.g. Bavaria or Scotland.
But, these should not be treated as ‘givens’ that are not amenable to political redefinition.

Non-tyranny: Central governments are too powerful for the good of citizens, and they run the risk of tyranny or imposition.
There can also be such things as local tyrannies due to less diverse interests making it easy to create a tyrannical coalition.

Functional capacity: Economic, military or other interdependence can be the context, leading to changing needs for control. The scale of effects can lead to spillovers and things can straddle boundaries. With regards to the scale of resources, the larger the better. There are problems of information gathering and target setting. Decentralisation allows for local issues to be thoroughly researched.

Some conclusions: The balance of argument will be different depending on the tasks. Issue characteristics will change over time. Multi level governance creates problems for democratic control as it scrambles up who the decisions makers are and should be. Multi level governance also creates opportunities for democratic participation.

Week 24, lecture 1 - The Theory of Checks and Balances

Features of Bicameralism:
Two bodies of similar powers, e.g. the House of Representatives and the Senate in the US.
The two bodies have a different electoral base.
Different parties may well control each body.
Party discipline is generally low.
Hence there are a lot of ‘veto points’ built into the system.
Both bodies have to relate to the executive, in this case, the President.

Separation of Powers: All the actors have to play a part in legislation (‘separate bodies sharing power’). Division of parties may be in Congress or between Congress and the President. The separation is enhanced by further bodies.

Rationale of the US system: The doctrine of limited government is achieved through a balance of different forces. The protection against tyranny is created through a system of checks and balances.

Evaluation: The intentions of the framers were to create a system of limited government, and it worked. One important criticism is that in protecting the citizens from government, you may not be protecting the government from special interests. Many access points make the system vulnerable. But, US citizens seem to like their divided government.

Week 24, lecture 2 - The theory of simple and unitary government

Diffused and concentrated systems:

Diffused Concentrated

  1. Bicameral legislature
  2. Executive and legislative power is divided
  3. Judiciary is independent
  4. Independent sub-national authorities ·5 Single chamber legislature
  5. Fusion of executive and legislative powers
  6. Parliament is sovereign
  7. Dependent sub-national authorities

Elements of the fusion of executive and legislature: Government is formed by a party with the majority in the legislature – parliament. Through party discipline the government dominates the legislature and expects to get its way. The committee system in parliament is weak. There is a strong incentive for backbenchers to become frontbenchers, reinforcing party discipline. There are very few independent sources of power to which government must yield.

Claimed advantages of fusion: The government needs power to implement the mandate given to it by the electorate. The government has a programme to implement as laid out in its manifesto. The government is directly connected to the electorate, as they were chosen by them through the elections. Hence, there should be nothing between the electorate and the government.

Claimed disadvantages: Can lead to the powerlessness of too much power. The programmatic element locks the electorate into a whole series of views, only some of which they may support.

Week 25, lecture 1 - Constitutional and Popular Government

Constitutional government Popular government

  1. Constitution is sovereign.
  2. Political power should be exercised in accordance with the constitution.
  3. The powers of government should be limited. ·4 The people or their representatives are sovereign.
  4. The opinion of the majority should be decisive.
  5. Democratic governments should be free to pursue collective goals.

The US constitution embodies ideas of liberal constitutionalism very well. We can look at the US constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights for examples of how the people are protected, such as the freedom of the press, right to a free trial etc.

Implications of Constitutional Restrictions:
They limit what governments can do.
They may prevent important or useful policies being implemented.
Though often thought f as protections for individuals, they can be thought of as protections for the people taken as a whole.
The meaning of key terms is not always clear, such as “cruel and unusual punishments”.
Their institutional effect is to give power to the Supreme Court, so some important political decisions are taken out of the political system and placed in the legal system.

A partial reconciliation?:
Some rights are required within a democracy in order to ensure the smooth running of that democracy.
Some rights are necessary to give minorities the right to turn themselves into majorities.
However, there are important rights, which if upheld, conflict with popular government.

Rights that conflict with popular government:
Rights that restrict forms of punishment, particularly capital punishment.
Rights to freedoms of conscience, such as rights to conscientious objection to fighting in a war.

Week 25, lecture 2 - Majority Rule and Individual Rights

There is definitely a conflict between liberal values and democratic values, and it is one of the most fundamental problems in politics, and one of the hardest to solve.

Three weak responses to the conflict: No ‘true’ democracy would pass legislation contrary to the rights of individuals. But his is a semantic argument about the definition of the word ‘democracy’. Rousseau’s answer that the majority always wills what is right, provided it is deciding in accordance with the ‘general will’. This is based on the idea of the sovereign and people being the same thing, and means that there is no majority tyranny as the minority is just mistaken. Constitutional rights should always ‘trump’ democratic opinion.

What’s wrong with Rousseau’s argument: He thinks the problem is how people resolve conflicts of interest, but some issues are not interest based but value based. So there’s no reason to suppose that individuals will give up their values, as certain things just aren’t a matter of convention. Rousseau relies on the idea that there are two vies in an argument but this is rarely true – politics is often not black and white. If there is not a majority, but a plurality of ideas, then who has the legitimacy to claim the majority?

The third argument: It can be argues that in some societies with obvious constitutional limits and a general agreement on this, then jurisdiction is often accepted. But this can lead to an entrenchment of certain rights and a bias toward some rights and away from others.

Four final thought on the problem: Democratic and liberal rights do not always go together, but there are no other forms of government in which they go together more. Rights violations in democracies are often associated with groups that have a weak voice in the democratic process. Some rights are necessary for democracies. In the end however, there may simply just be an unavoidable conflict.

Week 30, lecture 1 - The Problem of Inclusion

Definition of democracy:
“A set of arrangements that gives the great majority of the people in a country the opportunity to decided from time to time, in conditions of freedom and political equality, who their rulers will be.”
This definition relies on the presupposition that we can define who the ‘people in a country’ are. All other questions of politics rely on the assumption that this is already obvious.

Let us suppose that there is no problem demarking the boundaries of a country, that they are obvious. What are the criteria for deciding who within those borders is included in the political process? We can define inclusion generally as having the vote. We can see how much of an issue this is if we look at Athenian democracy which is often held up as a model of democracy, yet women, slaves and metics were denied any part in the political process. Is this really democracy, where such a large proportion of the people affected by politics have no say in it?

Historically excluded groups: Women, Slaves and propertyless labourers, Resident non-citizens (metics)

We talk about the right to vote, but other rights are also very important, such as the right to sit on a jury. In countries with deep divisions and hatred of certain groups it is important who is able to sit on a jury and decided who has acted criminally in certain cases. The right to vote carries implications for a person’s civil and political rights, as well as their status in society.

Some current categories of exclusion in the UK: Those below a certain age, serving prisoners, the mentally incompetent, those found guilty of electoral corruption, peers of the realm. Note that there are anomalies, like ex-pats.

Some categories you might exclude: Those above a certain age, those who do not use their vote, the illiterate, the innumerate, those employed by the state and those wholly dependent on state benefits.

Some conclusions:
All democracies use some kind of exclusion.
In some cases these exclusions have been very extensive.
The categories shift over time.
The historical tendency has been to reduce the number of people excluded from the right to participate.
All democracies will continue to exclude.
There is currently no rhyme or reason to the list of categories.

Some principles for inclusion:
Having an interest, as the best way to affect the system is to participate in it.
Commitment, e.g. through long term residence.
Competence, one reason children and the mentally incompetent do not have the vote.
Responsibility, which is why prisoners give up certain rights, as they ignored their responsibilities as a citizen by committing a crime.
To be symbolic of equality.


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