DAT lecture notes and readings summary of all lectures

DAT lecture notes and summary of the readings

Lecture notes
Lecture 1
Introduction

Patterns of democracy
- Three waves
 WWI ending
 Decolonization
 Fall of communism
- Recent
- Mostly in western world

Why bother with democracy?
- Amartya Sen - Democracy as a universal value
 Most people see value (not everyone wants it)
 The value of democracy
o Intrinsic: on itself useful
o Instrumental: provides benefits (accountability)
o Constructive: understanding our wants and needs (positive
feedback)
 Against economic or cultural preconditions for democracy
 Substantive view
- Adam Przeworski – Why bother with elections?
 More minimalist  competitive elections “as a mechanism by
which we decide who will govern us and how.”
 When repeated, voters can express dissatisfaction with how they
are governed.
 More cautious about the benefits
 Procedural view on democracy  Doesn’t want to confuse
democracy with outcomes of democracy
- E.g. India
 Democracy continuing to function in midst of social cleavages
and large-scale violence  how?

Democracy as an independent variable (an outcome)
- Democracy as outcomes (DV) vs democracy as cause (IV)
- Independent variable: democracy  economic performance, climate
change, peace
- Democracy  growth
 The Lee Hypothesis
o Democratic leaders are more short-term oriented (because
of elections) and are responsible to large group of people

, o Autocratic leader that’s economic oriented is less short-
term oriented and responsible to smaller group of people
(better  Singapore)
 Democracies often more growth, but not a large difference
o Singapore lot of growth, but also countries like North Korea
o Less similarities among non-democratic countries
- Democracy  climate change
 Weak negative effect
- Democracy  peace
 Strongest evidence
 Higher number of democracies, less political violence
 Democracies are much less likely to experience severe violence
 Could be “baked into” definition


Lecture 2
What is democracy?

Democracy, then and new
- Etymology
 Democracy as rule by the people
- But who, what, how, when and where?
- Early theoretical treatments
 Plato, The Republic
o Government as realm of experts (ship of state)
o Democracy as mob rule
 Aristotle, The Politics
o Regime classification
 Number of rulers (one, few, many)
 Good and bad forms
 Seen as susceptible to class warfare, unstable and dangerous
 Same to Montesquieu, Locke, etc.
- Early experiments
 Athenian democracy
o Suffrage for free, adult males
o Free speech, political equality, direct participation
 Early ‘democracy’: council governance, village governance
 Very different
o Election by lot, and/or direct decision-making, limited in
processes and size
- Shift in mid-19th century
 French and American Revolutions
 Democracy as representative government
 Rapid expansion
 Ony white men with property
- Connection with liberalism (Parekh)
 Emphasis on individual
 Capitalism as democratization of economic system
- Resistance to expansion of democracy, including from liberals

,  Proportioneel kiessysteem omdat arbeiders grootste deel van de
samenleving zijn en bij majoritan system verliest elite macht

Conceptions of democracy
1. Substantive vs. Procedural conceptions
 Substantive or maximalist view
o Classifies regimes by the outcomes they produce
o However:
 Too many attributes  no empirical referents
 For some questions  limited analytical use
 Procedural or minimalist view
o Classifies regimes according to institutions and procedures
o However:
 Too few attributes  all cases become instances
 Procedural definitions more common
2. Electoral vs. liberal conceptions
 Electoral democracy (Dahl’s polyarchy)
o Contestation
 Classifies regimes by procedures of democratic
competition
 However: are competitive elections enough?
o Inclusion
 Classifies regimes based on who participates in the
democratic process
 However: inclusion  little variation?
 Liberal democracy
o Adds democracy as limited government
 Maintain a system of rights based on principle of
maximum liberty
 However: imports liberalism
 Electoral conception most common
3. Other conceptual debates
 Dichotomous vs. continuous
o Democracy as a qualitative difference
 Beyond electoral vs. liberal democracy
o Varieties of Democracy project
o Electoral, liberal, majoritarian, participatory, deliberative,
and egalitarian conceptions
 National vs. subnational regime type
o Examples:
 US states
 Indian states

From concepts to measurements:
building democracy indices 

, Measuring electoral democracy (V-Dem)
- Institutional and procedural prerequisites
I. Electoral democracy index
1. Elected officials
2. Free, fair and frequent elections
3. Freedom of expression (including press freedom)
4. Freedom of association
5. Inclusive citizenship
II. Liberal component index
1. Equality before the law and protection of civil liberties
2. Judicial constraints on the executive
3. Legislative constraints on the executive
- Liberal component index is subset of electoral democracy  not
every electoral democracy is a liberal democracy (Mexico, Poland,
Nigeria, Mongolia)

Debates on measurement
- Divergence in findings
 Most disagreement for “mixed” or hybrid regimes
- Objective vs. subjective measures
 E.g. dichotomous DD measures vs. multidimensional V-Dem index
 Disagreement on presence and extent of global democratic
backsliding  objective measures show less democratic
backsliding

“Democratizing” democracy
- Bikhu Parekh – The Cultural Particularity of Liberal
Democracy
 Liberal democracy
o Liberalism as the dominant element
o Constructs individual as central unit
o Democratic government as limited government
 Parekh’s critique of liberal democracy
o Universal aspirations of a culturally particular form
o Imposes liberal ideology on democracy
 Other critiques
o State formation radically different in postcolonial states
o Late-stage capitalism and current crisis of democracy
 Are other combinations of liberalism and democracy possible?
o Importance of community


Lecture 3
What is autocracy?

The most common form of governance throughout human history, until the
1990s