PROJECT

Contents v

Causes and Effects: Why Did States Emerge and Expand? 57 Political/Conflict Theories 58 Economic Theories 60 Cultural Theories 61 Diffusion Theories 62

Great Britain, the United Kingdom, or Neither? State and Nation in England and Scotland 65

C A S E S IN C O N T E X T

Mexico 56 France 59 United Kingdom 62 Nigeria 63

C H A P T E R 4

Political Economy 70 Concepts 72

Inequality 73 Employment and Inflation 75

Types 76 Markets and States in Modern Economies 76

Markets and Economic Performance 77 States and Economic Performance 79

Economic Functions of Modern States 82 States and Economic Management 82 Investments in Human Capital: Education and Health 83 Infrastructure and Other Public Goods 85 Welfare State Functions 85

Causes and Effects: W hy Do Welfare States Emerge? 86 Cultural Changes 87 Industrial Capitalism 87 Mobilization and Political Action 89 International Learning Effects 92

Welfare States in the Nordic Countries: What Can We Learn and How? 93

C A S E S IN C O N T E X T

United States 72 United Kingdom 77 Japan 84 Germany 87

C H A P T E R 5

Development 96 Concepts 98

Types 98 Poverty 98 Social Outcomes and Human Development 99 Gender Relations and Racial and Ethnic Identities 100

Satisfaction and Happiness 101 Cultural Development 102 Sustainability 103

Causes and Effects: Why Does Development Happen? 103 Institutions:The Market-State Debate, Revisited 104 Institutions: Beyond the Market-State Debate 106 Culture and Development 107

Civil Society, Social Capital, and Trust 107 Religion 109 Value Systems 109

Systems and Structures: Domestic and International 110 Domestic Economic Structures and Class Interests 111 International Economic Structures and Class Interests 111 Geography 112

Explaining the Development of North and South Korea 114

C A S E S IN C O N T E X T

India 99 Nigeria 101 China 105 Brazil 112

C H A P T E R 6

Democracy and Dem ocratization 119 Concepts 121

Democracy and Democratic Regimes 121 Procedural (Minimal) Definitions of Democracy 122 Substantive Definitions of Democracy 123

Regime Change and Democratization 124

Types 125 Types of Democracy 125

Representative Democracy 126 Direct Democracy 128

Types of Democratization 129 Democratic Transitions 129 Democratic Consolidation 129

Causes and Effects: What Causes Democratization? 131 Modernization 132 Culture and Democracy 134 The International System 135 Domestic Institutions 136 Agents and Actors: The Role of Individuals and Groups 137 Combining Arguments and Theories: Multiple Causes 139

l l ! l l ! i m i M U M I i m is American Democracy a Model? 141

C A S E S IN C O N T E X T

Brazil 130

■

Contents

China 131 India 133 United States 140

C H A P T E R 7

A uthoritarian Regimes and Democratic Breakdown 145 Concepts 147

Authoritarianism and Authoritarian Regimes 147 Transitions to Authoritarian Regimes 148

Types 148 Types of Authoritarianism 148

Totalitarian Regimes 148 Theocracies 149 Personalistic Dictatorships 149 Bureaucratic-Authoritarian Regimes 151 Hybrid and Semi-authoritarian Regimes 151

Types of Transition (or Nontransition) to Authoritarianism 152 Authoritarian Persistence 153 Democratic Breakdown 155 Transition to Hybrid or Semi-authoritarian Regime 157

Causes and Effects: What Causes Authoritarian Regimes to Emerge and Persist? 158 Historical Institutionalist Theories 159 Poverty and Inequality 160 State Weakness and Failure 162 Political Culture Theories of Authoritarian Persistence 163 Barriers to Collective Action 164 Special Causal Circumstances Surrounding Hybrid

and Semi-Authoritarian Regimes 166

Why Did Zimbabwe Become and Remain Authoritarian? 167

C A S E S IN C O N T E X T

Iran 150 Russia 153 Mexico 154 Germany 157 France 157

p a r t ill: Institutions of Government

C H A P T E R 8

Constitutions and Constitutional Design 171 Concepts 174

Constitutions 174 Constitutional Design 175

Types 176 Flexible and Rigid Constitutions 177 Separation of Powers: Judicial Review and Parliamentary

Sovereignty 178 Federalism and Unitarism 180

Federalism 180 Unitarism 182

Authoritarian and Democratic Constitutions 183

Causes and Effects: W hat Are the Effects of Federal Constitutions? 184 Are Federal Constitutions Good for Social Stability? 185 Are Federal Constitutions Good for Democratic Rights? 187 Are Federal Constitutions Good for the Economy? 188 Judicial Review and Democracy 190

What Explains the Similarities Between the Brazilian and South African Constitutions? 193

H B a iiB B iflm i United Kingdom 181 Iran 185 Nigeria 187 India 189 United States 192

C H A P T E R 9

Legislatures and Legislative Elections 198 Concepts 200

What Legislatures Are 200 What Legislatures Do 201

Types 202 Unicameral and Bicameral Legislatures 202 Electoral Systems 205

District Systems 205 Proportional Representation (PR) 208 Mixed or Hybrid 209

Executive-Legislative Relations 211

Causes and Effects: What Explains Patterns of Representation? 213 Patterns of Representation 213 Electoral Systems and Representation 215 Legislative Decision Making and Representation 218 Executive-Legislative Relations and Representation 220

Representation in New Zealand and Beyond 222

ES3Q2SE31 United Kingdom 206 Brazil 209 Japan 210 Germany 212 United States 217

Brief Contents

p a r t i : Comparative Political Analysis

1 The Comparative Approach: An Introduction 1

2 Theories, Hypotheses, and Evidence 23

p a r t II: The State, Development, Democracy, and Authoritarianism

3 The State 46

4 Political Economy 70

5 Development 96

6 Democracy and Democratization 119

7 Authoritarian Regimes and Democratic Breakdown 145

p a r t ill: Institutions of Government

8 Constitutions and Constitutional Design 171

9 Legislatures and Legislative Elections 198

10 Executives 226

11 Political Parties, Party Systems, and Interest Groups 252

p a r t IV: Politics, Society, and Culture

12 Revolutions and Contention 277

13 Nationalism and National Identity 304

14 Race, Ethnicity, and Gender 325

15 Ideology and Religion in Modern Politics 348

p a r t V : The Comparative-International Nexus

16 Comparative Politics and International Relations 372

p a r t v i : Country Profiles and Cases

Brazil 399

China 412

I I France 427

P B B Germany 441

^ 2 lndia 455 ] Iran (Islamic Republic of Iran) 468

| ♦ | Japan 482

a Mexico 496 n Nigeria 510 j j j j Russia (Russian Federation) 525

I H H United Kingdom 539

■ United States 553

Contents

Insights, xiii Preface xv Maps of the World xxvi

p a r t i : Comparative Political Analysis

C H A P T E R 1

The Comparative Approach: A n Introduction 1 Asking Why: Research Questions in Comparative

Politics 2 Major Questions in Comparative Politics 4 Empirical Arguments Versus Normative Arguments 6 Solving Intellectual Puzzles: A Contemporary Analogy 7

Concepts 9 Features of Good Concepts 9 Conceptualization 10 Operationalizing: From Concepts to Measures 11

Empirical Evidence 12 Facts and Evidence 12 Cases and Case Studies 13

The Comparative Method 14 Variables and Comparison 14 Most-Similar-Systems Design 15 Most-Different-Systems Design 18 Comparative Checking 18 Within-Case Comparison 20

Is the Study of Politics a Science? The Limits of the Comparative Method 20

C H A P T E R 2

Theories, Hypotheses, and Evidence 23 Introduction to Theories, Hypotheses, and Evidence 24

Theories 25 Flypotheses 25 How Theories Emerge and Are Used 27 Types of Evidence 29

L h

Hypothesis Testing 31 Correlation 31 Causation 33

Critiques: Using Theory and Evidence 39 Empirical Critiques: Using Deviant Cases 39 Theoretical Critiques: Improving Theories and Hypotheses 39

The Challenges of Measurement: Biases, Errors, and Validity 41

EU SM B B S* Qualities of Good Analysis and Argumentation 42 Step 1: Asking Good Questions: Why? 43 Step 2: Hypothesis Testing: Generating Good Hypotheses

and Testing Them Fairly 43 Step 3: Balancing Argumentation: Evidence, Originality,

and Meaningfulness 43

p a r t ii: The State, Development, Democracy, and Authoritarianism

C H A P T E R 3

The State 46 Concepts 48

The Modern State 48 State Capacity 49 Failed States 50 The State-Society Relationship 50

Types 52 Cha racteristics of Modern States 52

Bureaucracy 52 Impersonality 53 Sovereignty 54

Traditional Functions of States 55 Defense 55 Policing 55 Taxation 56 Order, Administration, and “Legibility" 57

■NSgggf

C H A P TE R 10

Executives 226 Concepts 228

Types 229 Executive Structures: Presidential and Parliamentary 230 Formal Powers 232 Partisan Powers 235 Coalitions 235 Informal Powers 240

Causes and Effects: What Explains Executive Stability? 240 Stable and Unstable Regimes: Presidentialism, Parliamentarism,

and Democracy 241 Stable and Unstable Executives: Styles of Presidential Rule 243 Stable and Unstable Executives: Patterns of Parliamentary

Rule 246

U i lllim i l M M H H m Beyond the American and British Models 247

C A S E S IN C O N T E X T

France 231 United States 231 Russia 234 China 236 Nigeria 241

C H A P T E R 11

Political Parties, Party Systems, and Interest Groups 252 Concepts 255

Political Parties 255 Party Systems 255 Interest Groups 256

Types 257 Political Parties: Elite, Mass, and Catch-All Parties 258 Party Systems: Dominant-Party, Two-Party, and Multiparty

Systems 259 Interest Groups: Pluralism and Corporatism 264

Causes and Effects: Why Do Party Systems Emerge, and What Effects Do They Have? 267 Party Systems and Representation 267

What Factors Shape Party Systems? 267 How Do Party Systems Shape Political Outcomes? 269

Interest Groups and Representation 272

Party Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa 275

C A S E S IN C O N T E X T

China 260 Japan 261

Contents vii

Germany 262 Russia 265 Mexico 267

p a r t i v : Politics, Society, and Culture

C H A P T E R 12

Revolutions and Contention 277 Concepts 279

What Is "Contention"? 279 Revolutionary and Non-Revolutionary Contention 279

Types 280 Social Movements 280 Revolutions 284 Insurgencies and Civil Wars 287 Terrorism 287 “Everyday Resistance" 289 Thinking About Contention: Summary 290

Causes and Effects: W hy Do Revolutions Happen? 291 Relative Deprivation 291 Resource Mobilization and Political Opportunities 292 Rational Choice 294 Culture or "Framing" Explanations 296

Q ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ Q ^ ^ T h e "Arab Spring" of 2011 298 C A S E S IN C O N T E X T

Brazil 282 France 285 Russia 292 China 293 Iran 297

C H A P T E R 13

Nationalism and National Identity 304 Concepts 306

Identity 306 Nationalism and the Nation 306

Types 307 Primordialist Approaches 307 Perennialist Approaches 308 Modernist Approaches 308 Types of Nationalism 311

Causes and Effects: W hat Causes Ethno-National Conflict? 313 Primordial Bonds 316 Cultural Boundaries 317

viii Contents

Material Interests 318 Rational Calculation 318 Social Psychology 320

Ending Ethnic and National Violence 321

United Kingdom 308 Mexico 309 Japan 310 Germany 312 Nigeria 316

C H A P T E R 14

Race, Ethnicity, and G ender 325 Concepts 327

Race and Ethnicity 327 Gender 328 Sexual Orientation 329

Types 329 Disentangling Race and Ethnicity 329 Discrimination Based on Race and Ethnicity 332 Gender Discrimination 333 Empowerment of Women and Minority Groups 334

Causes and Effects: What Factors Influence the Political Representation of Women and Minority Groups? 337 Social Movement Mobilization 337 Political Parties Based on Gender or Ethnicity 339 Institutions for Promoting Women's and Minority Group

Representation 341

WOmmwMEfr Indicators of Gender Empowerment 344

C A S E S IN C O N T E X T

Iran 334 Japan 335 Brazil 336 Mexico 340 India 341

C H A P T E R 15

Ideology and Religion in M odern Politics 348 Concepts 350

Modernity and Modernization 350 Ideology 351 Religion 351 Secularization, Religion, and Modern Politics 352 Religious Conflict 353

Types 354 Modern Ideologies 354

Liberalism 354 Fascism 355 Socialism 356

Modern Forms of Religion in Politics 357 Lay and Religious States 358 Denominationalism 359

Causes and Effects: W hy Do Religion and Ideology Remain Prevalent in Modern Politics? 360 Why (and How) Does Modernization Alter Religion's Role

in Politics? 360 Modernization Theory and Secularization 361 The ‘Religious Economies"Approach 362

Institutional Theories 363 Why Didn't Ideology (and History) End? 364

JBBBSMMESk Two Lefts in Latin America? 367 C A S E S IN C O N T E X T

United Kingdom 355 Russia 357 France 359 Iran 360 Nigeria 361

p a r t V : The Comparative-International Nexus

C H A P T E R 16

Comparative Politics and International Relations 372 Concepts 375

Issues 376 Globalization and Trade 376 International Institutions and Integration 380 Immigration 382 Environment and Sustainability 384 Transnational Networks 387 Nuclear Threats and Terrorism 388

Causes and Effects: What Are the Main Causes in International Relations? 390 Realism 390 Liberalism 393 Constructivism 394 Marxism 395

Contents ix

The EU and Levels of Analysis 395 C A S E S IN C O N T EX T

United States 381 France 383 Japan 387 Iran 389 India 389

• Qom

I R A N Esfahan »

• Dezful ® Y a z d

p a r t vi: Country Profiles and Cases

m Brazil 399 399

Introduction 399 Historical Development 401 Regime and Political Institutions 404 Political Culture 405 Political Economy 406

407 Does the Global Economy Help or Hurt Developing Nations?

(Chapter 5) 407 Democratic Consolidation in Brazil (Chapter 6) 408 Electoral Rules and Party (In)Discipline in Brazil's Legislature

(Chapter 9) 409 Brazil's Landless Movement (Chapter 12) 410 Gender and Political Representation in Brazil: Where Has

Progress Come From? (Chapter 14) 410

HI C hina 412 412

Introduction 412 Historical Development 414 Regime and Political Institutions 417 Political Culture 418 Political Economy 419

420 How Did China Become an Economic Power? (Chapter 5) 420 Is China Destined for Democracy? (Chapter 6) 421 Who Governs China? (Chapter 10) 423 The Chinese Party System (Chapter 11) 424 The Chinese Revolution (Chapter 12) 425

1 1 France 427 427

Introduction 427

C A S E S T U D IE S

C A S E S T U D IE S

Historical Development 429 Regime and Political Institutions 431 Political Culture 432 Political Economy 433

434 The State in France (Chapter 3) 434 Authoritarian Persistence in Nineteenth-Century France

(Chapter 7) 435 Electing the French President: What Do Runoffs Do? (Chapter 10) 436 The French Revolution (Chapter 12) 437 Religion and Secularism in France (Chapter 15) 438 Globalization and Culture in France (Chapter 16) 439

G erm any 441 2 ^ 441

Introduction 441 Historical Development 443 Regime and Political Institutions 446 Political Culture 447 Political Economy 448

u s m a m i 449 The German State: Unification and Welfare (Chapter 4) 449 Democracy and Authoritarianism in Germany (Chapter 7) 450 Institutional Design: Germany's Bundestag and Bundesrat

(Chapter 9) 451 Consensus-Based Politics in Germany (Chapter 11) 452 Ethnic Boundaries of the German Nation? (Chapter 13) 453

India 455 455

Introduction 455 Historical Development 457 Regime and Political Institutions 460 Political Culture 461 Political Economy 462

463 What Explain India's Recent Growth? (Chapter 5) 463 Democracy's Success in India: What Can We Learn from

a Deviant Case? (Chapter 6) 464 Federalism and Differences in Development in India (Chapter 8) 464 Ethnicity and Political Parties in India (Chapter 14) 465 India in the Twenty-First Century: Domestic Politics, Identity,

and Security (Chapter 16) 466

C 2 Iran (Islamic Republic o f Iran) 468 2 ^ 468

Introduction 468 Historical Development 470 Regime and Political Institutions 473

C A S E S T U D IE S

C A S E S T U D IE S

X Contents

Political Culture 474 Political Economy 474

B E E uE H E I 475 Democratic Features of Authoritarian Systems? The Case of

Iran (Chapter 7) 475 Constitutional Design: Theocracy in Iran (Chapter 8) 476 Iran's Islamic Revolution and "Green Revolution"? (Chapter 12) 478 Gender in Post-Revolutionary Iranian Politics (Chapter 14) 479 Religion and Politics in Iran (Chapter 15) 479 Iran and the Politics of Nuclear Proliferation (Chapter 16) 480

Japan 482 ^ 482

Introduction 482 Historical Development 484 Regime and Political Institutions 487 Political Culture 488 Political Economy 488

C A S E S T U D IE S 490 State-Led Development in Japan (Chapter 4) 490 The Hybrid Electoral System of the Japanese Diet

(Chapter 9) 491 How Did Japan's Dominant Party Win for So Long?

(Chapter 11) 491 Importing National Identity in Japan? (Chapter 13) 493 Gender Empowerment in Japan? (Chapter 14) 493 Resource Management in Japan (Chapter 16) 494

I I Mexico 496 496

Introduction 496 Historical Development 498 Regime and Political Institutions 501 Political Culture 502 Political Economy 503

E S 2 2 S 3 504 The Mexican State and Rule of Law (Chapter 3) 504 Mexico's "Perfect Dictatorship" and Its End (Chapter 7) 505 The PRI and Corporatism in Mexico (Chapter 11) 506 Industrialization, Modernity, and National Identity

in Mexico (Chapter 13) 507 Why Aren't There Major Ethnic Parties in Mexico?

(Chapter 14) 508

I I Nig­eria 510 510

Introduction 510 Historical Development 512

Regime and Political Institutions Political Culture 515 Political Economy 516

515

C A S E S T U D IE S 517 What Is a Weak State, and Can It Be Changed?

The Case of Nigeria (Chapter 3) 517 Why Are Natural Resources Sometimes a Curse?

The Nigerian Case (Chapter 5) 518 Federalism and the States in Nigeria: Holding Together

or Tearing Apart? (Chapter 8) 519 The Presidency in Nigeria: Powers and Limitations

(Chapter 10) 521 The Nigerian Civil War or Biafran War: Nationalism and Ethno-

National Conflict in a Post-Colonial Society (Chapter 13) 522 Religious Difference and Conflict in Nigeria: Disentangling

Ethnicity and Religion? (Chapter 15) 523

Russia (Russian Federation) 525 525

Introduction 525 Historical Development 527 Regime and Political Institutions 531 Political Culture 532 Political Economy 532

m m 533 Oligarchy, Democracy, and Authoritarianism in Russia

(Chapter 7) 533 Executives in Russia: Formal and Informal Powers

(Chapter 10) 534 Personalism and the Party System in Russia (Chapter 11) 535 The Russian Revolution (Chapter 12) 536 Communist Ideology in Practice— Russia and the Soviet Union

(Chapter 15) 537

IH H U nited Kingdom 539 539

Introduction 539 Historical Development 541 Regime and Political Institutions 544 Political Culture 545 Political Economy 545

I4M 4-W H.IIH 546 The State in the United Kingdom (Chapter 3) 546 Political Economy of Britain (Chapter 4) 547 No Constitution? No Supreme Court? Constitutionality in the

United Kingdom (Chapter 8) 548 The Mother of Parliaments: The United Kingdom and the

Westminster Model (Chapter 9) 549 National Identity in the United Kingdom (Chapter 13) 550 Liberal Ideology in the United Kingdom (Chapter 15) 552

Contents

United States 553 553

Introduction 553 Historical Development 555 Regime and Political Institutions 558 Political Culture 559 Political Economy 560

I 2 2 J2 I3I3 561 Did Free Markets Help the United States Get Rich? Will They in

the Future? (Chapter 4) 561 Is American Democracy in Trouble?

(Chapter 6) 562

Is Judicial Activism in the United States a Problem? (Chapter 8) 563

The United States Congress: Dysfunctional or Functioning by Design? (Chapter 9) 564

"The Most Powerful Person in the World”? Checks on American Presidents (Chapter 10) 566

The United States and the World: A Love-Hate Relationship? (Chapter 16) 567

Notes 569 Glossary 581 References and Further Reading 591 Credits 617 Index 618

r

Insights

C H A P TER 3

C H A P TER 4

C H A P T E R S

C H A P TER 6

C H A P TER 7

C H A PTER 8

Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States 60 Douglass North, John Wallis, and Barry Weingast, Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework

for Interpreting Recorded Human History 61 Philip Gorski, The Disciplinary Revolution: Calvinism and the Rise of the State in Early Modem Europe 62 Hendrik Spruyt, The Sovereign State and Its Competitors 64 John Meyer, John Boli, George M. Thomas, and Francisco Ramirez, World Society and the

Nation-State 65

Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom 79 Peter Evans, Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation 80 Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy 89 Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time 90 Gasta Esping-Andersen, Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism 91

Atul Kohli, State-Directed Development: Political Power and Industrialization in the Global Periphery 107 Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson, The Colonial Origins of Comparative

Development 108 Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity 109 Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System 113 Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies 114

Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics and Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy ’ 132

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America 135 Samuel Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century 137 Guillermo O'Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead, eds., Transitions from

Authoritarian Rule 139 Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human

Development Sequence 140

Barrington Moore, The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in theMaking of the Modem World 161

Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy 162 Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five

Nations 164 Timur Kuran, Now Out of Never: The Element of Surprise in the East European Revolution of 1989 165 Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way, Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War 166

William Riker, Federalism:Origin, Operation, Significance 186 Alfred Stepan, Federalism and Democracy: Beyond the U.S. Model 186 Wallace Oates, Fiscal Federalism 189 Jonathan Rodden and Erik Wibbels, Beyond the Fiction of Federalism: Economic Management in

Multi-Tiered Systems 190 Ran Hirschl, Toward Juristocracy: The Origins and Consequences of the New Constitutionalism 193

Insights

CH A P TE R 9

C H A P TER 10

CH A P TER 11

CH A P TER 12

CH A P TER 13

C H A P TER 14

C H A P TER 15

C H A P TE R 16

Scott Morgenstern and Benito Nacif, Legislative Politics in Latin America 213 Hannah Pitkin, The Concept of Representation 214 Gary Cox and Matthew McCubbins, Legislative Leviathan: Party Government in the House 219 Morris Fiorina, Divided Government 221 Michael Mezey, Comparative Legislatures 222

Juan Linz, The Perils ofPresidentialism and The Virtues of Parliamentarism 242 Scott Mainwaring and Matthew Shugart.duan Linz, Presidentialism, and Democracy: A Critical

Appraisal 243 Guillermo O'Donnell, DelegativeDemocracy 244 Kenneth Roberts, Neoliberalism and the Transformation of Populism in Latin America: the Peruvian

Case 245 Arend Lijphart, Consociational Democracy 247

Robert Dahl, Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City 266 Maurice Duverger, Les Partis Politiques [Political Parties] 268 Giovanni Sartori, Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis 269 Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy 271 Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups and The Rise

and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities 273 Mark Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks 289 Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, and Ted Gurr, Why Men Rebel 292 Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China 294 Marc Lichbach, The Rebel's Dilemma 296 John Foran, Taking Power: On the Origins of Third World Revolutions 298

Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism 309 Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity 310 David Laitin, Nations, States, and Violence 319 Donald L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict 320

Joane Nagel, American Indian Ethnic Renewal: Red Power and the Resurgence of Identity and Culture 338 Manuel Castells, The Power of Identity 338 Donna Lee Van Cott, From Movements to Parties in Latin America 340 Mala Htun, Is Gender Like Ethnicity? The Political Representation of Identity Groups 342 Mona Lena Krook, Quotas for Women in Politics: Gender and Candidate Selection Reform Worldwide 344

Jose Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World 358 Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide 361 Anthony Gill, The Political Origins of Religious Liberty 362 Ahmet Kuru, Secularism and State Policies Toward Religion: The United States, France, and Turkey 364 Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man 365 Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order 366 Shmuel N. Eisenstadt. Multiple Modernities 366

Garrett Hardin, The Tragedy of the Commons 386 Moises Naim, The Five Wars of Globalization 388 Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics 392 Michael Doyle, Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs 393 Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics 394

The field of comparative politics is changing, not only in how it’s studied but in how it’s taught. We set out to write this textbook because we saw the need for a new approach—one that is truly comparative, that goes beyond a litany of facts or abstract ideas. In the process, we had to rethink what a book for this course should look like. We started with a central aim: to get students to think like comparativists. Toward that end, we have integrated theories and methods with a range of country case applications to address the big questions in com­ parative politics today.

Many undergraduates take a course in comparative politics because they are broadly interested in world affairs. They want to understand issues such as democ­ racy and democratization, economic and social development, transnational social movements, and the relationship between world religions and conflict around the globe, just as we did as students (and still do!). This book focuses squarely on these big issues and offers a framework for understanding through comparison.

Our job is to teach students how to think critically, how to analyze the world around them. We want our students to do more than just memorize facts and theo­ ries. Ultimately, we want them to learn how to do comparative politics. This course is successful if students can use the comparative method to seek out their own an­ swers. We are successful as educators if we give them the analytical skills to do so.

What's New in This Edition? We have thoroughly updated this edition of Comparative Politics to reflect feed­ back we received from numerous readers, instructors, and students, not to men­ tion our own experiences of teaching with the book. We are truly grateful to those who have shared their perspectives with us.

Whereas the first edition covered the state, political economy, and develop­ ment across two chapters, the second edition expands this coverage into three:

• Chapter 3 now focuses on describing and defining the state, emphasizing its organizational form, its order-generating characteristics, and its linkages to both domestic and international conflict. This chapter retains a focus on explaining the rise of modern states in the “Thinking Comparatively” section and includes an expanded discussion of civil society and society- state relations.

• Chapter 4 is now devoted entirely to political economy, including considerable discussion of welfare states and efforts to explain variation in their form and extent.

• Chapter 5 picks up the thread from the political economy discussion and focuses on development issues.

In addition to these changes in several key chapters, we have made the follow­ ing revisions throughout the book:

• Streamlined the chapter on nationalism and national identity, and in the process highlighted its focus on intergroup conflict.

• Substantially revised several of the “Thinking Comparatively” features that close the chapters, showing how comparativists work with models as a crucial step in their method.

• Emphasized the case studies that readers found most useful, while elimi­ nating some that were less so.

• Updated the entire set of country materials and the broader text.

An Integrative Approach One of the distinctive features of this book is the way we have integrated theories, methods, and cases. Rather than focusing on either country information or themes

Democracy's Success in India: What Can We Learn from a Deviant Case?

India is a major anomaly for modernization theories of develop­ ment. In essence, the relationship between its political and eco­ nomic development has been the inverse of what modernization theory would predict. India is the world's second largest society and its largest democracy— consider, therefore, the share that Indian citizens hold in the world's broader democratic popula­ tion. This anomaly has potentially serious implications and makes the puzzle of Indian democratization all the more intriguing.

For more on the case of democratization in India, see the case study in Part VI, p. 464. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. What, if anything, does Indian anti-colonial resistance have to do with the country's democratization?

2. What, if anything, does Indian about the importance of and institutional design?

3. Can you think of a way to the face of the case of India?

suggest leadership,

theory in

Indian voters, 2012. India is the world's largest democracy.

Democracy's Success in India: What Can We Learn from a Deviant Case? CHAPTER 6, PAGE 133

How does modernization theory account for low-income democracies such as India? As discussed in chapter 6, modern­ ization theory predicts that economic de­ velopment will lead to democratization and democratic consolidation. Indeed, this relationship generally holds. More often than not, increasing economic de­ velopment increases the probability that any given society will have democratic

decide that this anomaly disproves or re­ futes modernization theory, and turn to some other theory of democratization. For example, we could turn to institu­ tional theories of democratization as an alternative. Perhaps something about the parliamentary form of government rather than presidential government contrib­ uted to India's rather successful democ­ racy (as is discussed in chapter 10); one

economic development fa c ilita te s democ­ ratization and democratic consolidation? Why would this be different? Because the theory would now say that it is u n lik e ly t h a t India could successfully democratize with­ out first achieving a higher level of eco­ nomic development, but not that it is im p o s s ib le . A more flexible theory of mod­ ernization might be compatible with in­ cluding insights from other theories. For

of comparative politics, we have combined these approaches while emphasizing application and analysis. By providing students with the tools to begin doing their own analyses, we hope to show them how exciting this kind of work can be. These tools include theories (presented in an accessible way), the basics of the comparative method, and manageable case materials for practice, all in the context of the big questions.

We thus take an integrative approach to the relationship between big themes and country case studies. This text is a hybrid containing sixteen thematic chapters plus linked materials for twelve countries of significant interest to comparativists. The country materials following the thematic chapters include both basic country information and a series of case studies dealing with spe­ cific thematic issues.

We link the country cases to the thematic chapters via short “call out” boxes— " C a s e s in C o n t e x t " — at relevant points in the chapters. For example, a “Case in Context” box in a discussion of theory in chapter 6, “Democracy and Democra­ tization,” points students to a full c a s e s t u d y on democratization in India, in­ cluded at the back of the text.

Another “Case in Context” box in chapter 6 invites students to consider whether democratization in China is inevitable. Other boxes in that chapter focus on issues of democracy and democratization in Brazil and the United States.

Using these short “linking” boxes has enabled us to integrate a complete set of case materials without interrupting the narrative flow of the chapters. The kind of reading we suggest with the structure of this text is similar to following hy­ perlinks in online text—something students do easily. This flexible design fea­ ture also caters to the diversity of teaching styles in today’s political science. Instructors can choose to have students follow these links to case studies as they go, using all or just some of them, or they can choose to teach thematic chapters and country materials separately.

The text integrates theories, methods, and cases in other ways as well. " I n s ig h t s " boxes make connections by briefly summarizing important scholarly works repre­ sentative of the major schools of thought.

INSIGH TS Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity bvlM>c,h<$0feld • '

Greenfeld argues that nationalism is fundamentally c u lt u r a l and needs to be understood as an imaginative response to social conditions. To understand nationalism's emergence and growth, we must understand why the idea spread that humanity is divided into distinct "peoples" who are "sovereign" and "equal." For Greenfeld, the key preconditions for the development of na­ tional identity are problems in s t r a tific a tio n system s through which societies hierarchically divide themselves, such as the class structure. Elite s ta tu s -in c o n s is te n c y — a condition present when the stratification system breaks down and elites are no longer sure of their status— leads some groups to seek to transform identity, and national identity often seems to such groups to

serve their interests well. Greenfeld hypothesis against a number of cases (includingî ^ ^ K . F rance, Russia, Germany, and Japan), finding pronounced status-inconsistency in each case in the key groups that are most central in redefining their societies as nations. At the same time, Greenfeld acknowl­ edges the importance of institutions like the state prior to na­ tional identity's emergence in helping to shape the type that develops in any given case. Scholars working with this theory also note that political institutions play an important role in spreading and preserving national identity.

Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.

W h y Did Z i m b a b w e B e c o m e a n d R e m a in A u t h o ri ta r ia n ?

Au th o rita ria n regim es com e in m any varieties, a n d th e y com e from m any d ifferent origins. W e have em phasized th a t th e re is no single th in g called “authoritarianism” th a t one theory can explain. Rather, authoritarian regimes have distin ct features an d exhibit m any different types o f transitions (and nontransi­ tions). Scholars have developed a n um ber o f explanatory m odels to account for these. Some o f th e m ain general factors in m ost cases, though, include (1) histori­ cal relationships betw een contending groups, (2) th e stren g th and form o f exist­ in g institutions, (3) a country’s level o f econom ic developm ent, (4) p o litic al-cu ltu ral tra d itio n s a n d te n d en cie s, a n d (5) th e strateg ic situ a tio n s a n d choices o f key actors. O f course, as w e have seen in o th e r ch a p te rs , it is n o t en o u g h to merely lis t such c o n trib u tin g factors; w e m u s t figure o u t ho w su ch factors in te ra c t an d w h ich are m ost im p o rtan t. W h a t do you th in k ? A n d how could we te st your ideas empirically?

A s we noted at the outset o f the chapter, m odern-day Zim babw e is an authori­ tarian regime th a t is characterized by many o f the features w e have discussed. I t is a “personalist” regime, the population o f which is subject to many o f the vagaries o f au­ thoritarianism. It is characterized by repression, a lack o f secure political rights, seem­ ingly arbitrary rule, and so on. N o t everyw here in A frica is like this, and Zim babw e itse lf has n o t always been like th is, so o u r research question m ig h t be “W h y is Z im babw e authoritarian? W h y did it becom e so, and w hy has it rem ained so?”

W e should expect theories o f au th orita rian rule to be able to account for an au th orita rian regim e like R o b ert M u g ab e’s Z im babw e. L o o king at th e various causal theories o f au thoritarianism w e can consider how each m ig h t propose an explanation for th e em ergence a n d /o r persistence o f th e regim e. I n th e section on

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i W i

KEY M E T H O D O L O G IC A L T O O L

Evidence and Empirical Critiques One reason that many theories con­ tinue to endure in different areas of comparative politics is that most of the major theories have some empiri­ cal support. This makes it challenging to determine which theory is the most accurate. In reality, most theo­ ries will not be accurate under all circumstances, but rather each will explain some outcomapiiacter than others. So how do yo i| making "laundry lists'! tier) and saying, "Every In preparing to make thee arguments, it is of course ifl for any particular question 1 how the empirical evidenc® with the theoretical predicw the specific hypotheses y o p offer. One very useful tool J evidence that allows you jb critique a particular argument.

In aiming to build arguments.

Each chapter after the introduction closes with a " T h i n k i n g C o m p a r a t i v e l y " feature, which focuses on a case or set of cases to illustrate how students can apply the theories discussed in the chapter.

In these features we highlight important methodological tools or strategies, such as the use of deviant cases and the most-similar-systems (MSS) design. We then model for students how to use these analytical tools in practice.

Organization The sixteen thematic chapters of this book are divided into five parts:

• Part I (chapters 1 and 2) focuses on basic methods in comparative politics, covering conceptualization, hypothesis testing, the formation of theories, and the use of evidence. The goal in these first two chapters is not to focus on the details of methodology, which can be taught in more specialized courses, but on the overarching logic of comparative inquiry.

• Part II (chapters 3 through 7) focuses on the state (chapter 3), political economy (chapter 4), development (chapter 5), democracy and democrati­ zation (chapter 6), and the various forms of authoritarian regimes (chapter 7).

• Part III (chapters 8 through 11) focuses on the analysis of political institu­ tions, giving students the tools to analyze institutional design in constitutional structures and judiciaries (chapter 8), legislatures and elections (chapter 9), executives (chapter 10), and political parties and interest groups (chapter 11).

• Part IV (chapters 12 through 15) focuses on issues that link comparative politics to political sociology, such as the study of revolution and other forms of contention (chapter 12), national identities and nationalism (chapter 13), race, gender, and ethnicity (chapter 14), and religion and ideology (chapter 15).

'

Preface xix

Part V consists of a single chapter, 16, which links comparative politics to international relations, emphasizing how global politics has produced new sets of problems that both comparativists and international relations scholars must analyze. As such, the book points to another kind of integration, pushing students to see connections between comparative politics and other courses in political science.

After chapter 2, the thematic chapters follow a common format. They are di­ vided into three main sections:

• Concepts: covers basic definitions and develops a working vocabulary. • Types: discusses useful typologies, such as the major types of dramatic social

change that interest political scientists. • Causes and Effects: walks students through the major theories that aim to

explain causes and effects, ending with the “Thinking Comparatively” feature to model analysis.

The final part of the book, Part VI, comprises country " p r o f i l e s " and in- depth " c a s e s t u d i e s . " We selected twelve countries after surveying more

Preface

than 150 instructors of comparative politics to see which they considered most crucial for inclusion. The cases are Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Iran, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This selection offers broad coverage of every major world region, dem­ ocratic and authoritarian polities, every major religious tradition, highly vary­ ing levels of economic and social development, and quite different institutional designs.

For each country, we first provide a “profile”: an introduction with a table of key features, a map, and pie charts of demographics; a timeline and historical overview; and brief descriptions of political institutions, political culture, and political economy.

Following each profile is a set of case studies (five or six for each country) that we reference in the thematic chapters as described earlier (via the " C a s e in C o n t e x t " boxes).

The case sets end with research prompts to help students get started as comparativists.

Flexibility in Instruction: Ways of Using This Text T he chapters are arranged in a logical order yet w ritten in such a way that instructors might easily rearrange them to custom-fit a course. Some in­ structors, for example, may wish to pair chapter 3 (on the state) with chapter 13 (on nationalism and national identity). Others might wish to assign chapter 15 (on religion and ideology) alongside chapters 6 and 7 (on demo­ cratic and authoritarian regimes). We have w ritten the book w ith the flexi­ bility to facilitate such pairings. Indeed, while we strongly suggest beginning w ith chapters 1 and 2, students will be able to follow the text even without reading them first.

Similarly, the book’s structure supports a range of options for using the coun­ try materials. Some instructors may wish to teach selected country materials at or near the beginning of a course. Some may wish to make reference to country materials as the course proceeds, assigning students to read them as they are clearly and visibly “called out” in the text. One approach could require all stu­ dents in a course to familiarize themselves with only a subset of the countries detailed here, rather than all twelve. Another might require each student to select three or four countries, following rules or categories of countries as laid out by the instructor.

The book also works with or without supplemental materials chosen by the instructor. The “Insights” boxes throughout the text provide indications of excel­ lent options for further readings. Many other choice readings are noted in the “References and Further Reading” section at the back of the text, organized by chapter. A companion book of classic and contemporary readings is available (see Packaging Options, p. xxii). In short, instructors can use this text alone or link it seamlessly to other readings.

Summary of Features We have built a number of useful features into the text, some of which we have already mentioned:

• " C a s e in C o n t e x t " boxes tie in to the narrative of the main chapters, pointing students to full case studies in the book’s final part.

• " i n s i g h t s " boxes illustrate causal theories by describing the work of key authors in the field, making this work accessible to introductory students.

• "T h in k in g C o m p a r a t i v e l y " sections at the end of every chapter (after chapter 1) model the application of theories and the testing of hypotheses. Each “Thinking Comparatively” section includes a " K e y M e t h o d o l o g i c a l To o ls " feature, which introduces key skills and strategies for doing compar­ ative political analysis and reinforces lessons learned in the first two chapters.

• "T h in k in g It T h r o u g h " questions close every chapter. These help students test their ability to apply comparative politics theories to cases.

• Every section of case studies offers a series of "R e s e a r c h P r o m p t s " that can be used to develop comparative projects and papers, applying what students have learned as they start to do comparative analysis.

• Every chapter ends with a " C h a p t e r S u m m a r y , " enabling students and instructors to review the main points at a glance.

• At the back of the text, we include " R e f e r e n c e s a n d Fu r th er R e a d i n g " by chapter that students can use to dig deeper into the issues raised or as they begin their own research.

• A runni ng g l o s s a r y in the margin of the text highlights the meaning of key terms as they appear and serves as a quick study reference.

Supplements Oxford University Press offers instructors and students a comprehensive ancil­ lary package for qualified adopters of Comparative Politics: Integrating Theories, Methods, and Cases.

Ancillary Resource Center The Ancillary Resource Center (ARC) at www.oup-arc.com is a convenient, instructor-focused single destination for resources to accompany this book. Accessed online through individual user accounts, the ARC provides instructors with up-to-date ancillaries while guaranteeing the security of grade-significant resources. In addition, it allows OUP to keep instructors informed when new content becomes available.

The ARC for Comparative Politics contains a variety of materials to aid in teaching:

• Instructor’s Resource Manual with Test Item File—The Instructor’s Resource Manual includes chapter objectives, detailed chapter outlines, lecture suggestions and activities, discussion questions, video resources,

and Web resources. The Test Item File includes more than eight hundred test questions selected and approved by the authors, including multiple- choice, short-answer, and essay questions.

• Computerized Test Bank—Using the test authoring and management tool Diploma, the computerized test bank that accompanies this text is designed for both novice and advanced users. Diploma enables instructors to create and edit questions, create randomized quizzes and tests with an easy-to-use drag-and-drop tool, publish quizzes and tests to online courses, and print quizzes and tests for paper-based assessments.

• PowerPoint-Based Slides—Each chapter’s slide set includes a succinct chapter outline and incorporates relevant chapter graphics.

• CN N Videos—Offering recent clips on timely topics, this collection includes fifteen films tied to the chapter topics. Each clip is approximately 5-10 minutes, providing a great way to launch your lectures.

Course Cartridges For qualified adopters, OUP will supply the teaching resources in a course car­ tridges designed to work with your preferred Online Learning Platform. Please contact your Oxford University Press sales representative at (800) 280-0280.

E-Book This text is also available as a CourseSmart eBook (978-0-19-027102-2) at www .coursesmart.com. CourseSmart’s eTextbooks can be read on any browser-enabled computer or mobile device and come with the ability to transfer individual chapters or the entire book offline. Furthermore, CourseSmart was the first to introduce free eTextbook apps for the Android and Apple devices for an even better reading experience.

Companion Website Comparative Politics is also accompanied by an extensive companion website at www.oup.com/us/dickovick. This open-access website includes a number of learning tools to help students study and review key concepts presented in the text. For each chapter, you will find learning objectives, key-concept summaries, quizzes, essay questions, web activities, and web links.

Packaging Options Adopters of Comparative Politics: Integrating Theories, Methods, and Cases can pack­ age A N Y Oxford University Press book with the text for a 20% savings off the total package price. See our many trade and scholarly offerings at www.oup.com, then contact your OUP sales representative at (800) 280-0280 to request a pack­ age ISBN. In addition, the following items can be packaged with the text for free:

• Oxford Pocket World Atlas, Sixth Edition—This full-color atlas is a handy reference for political science students. Please use package ISBN 978-0-19-046231-4.

xxii Preface

• Very Short Introduction Series—-These very brief texts offer succinct intro­ ductions to a variety of topics. Titles include Nationalism, Citizenship, Global Economic History, Fascism, and Democracy, to name just a few.

• The Student Research and Writing Guide fo r Political Science—This brief guide provides students with the information and tools necessary to conduct research and write a research paper. The guide explains how to get started writing a research paper, describes the parts of a research paper, and presents the citation formats found in academic writing. Please use package ISBN 978-0-19-046160-7 to order.

Acknowledgments We are very grateful to a number of individuals who have been helpful to us as we worked on this project. At Washington and Lee University, we thank our respective provosts, deans, and department chairs who have supported our work. This includes June Aprille, Bob Strong, Daniel Wubah, Larry Peppers, Rob Straughan, Hank Dobin, Suzanne Keen, M ark Rush, Lucas Morel, David Novack, and Krzysztof Jasiewicz. We are very grateful to the many friends and colleagues, both at Washington and Lee and elsewhere, who read and com­ mented on chapters or country profiles, including Francoise Fregnac-Clave, Rachel Beatty Riedl, Tim Lubin, Dan Kramer, Christian Jennings, Robin Leblanc, Ay§e Zarakol, Rich Bidlack, David Bello, Ken W hite, and Alessandra Del Conte Dickovick. We also thank Hardin Marion for his excellent close reading of the first edition and the comments he generously shared with us. We have many other colleagues and friends who have given us intellectual and moral support for which we are grateful. Numerous students have been extraor­ dinarily helpful as well. We are particularly grateful to Miranda Galvin and Ali Greenberg. Other students to whom we wish to express our appreciation in­ clude, but are not limited to, Samara Francisco, Morten Wendelbo, Maya Reimi Wendelbo, Linnea Bond, Natasha Lerner, Amy Dawson, Justine Griffin- Churchill, David Razum, John Twomey, Grant Russell, Lauren Howard, and Kate LeMasters. We are also thankful to students in numerous iterations of Politics 105 (Global Politics), many of whom offered insightful questions on a “prototype” of this text (in early years) and on the first edition (more recently), as well as students who read the book in Eastwood’s International Comparative Sociology course. We owe thanks to Washington and Lee for support for the work of some of the students mentioned previously through the Summer Re­ search Scholar Program, and our own work through the Lenfest Sabbatical Grant, and the Glenn Grant, Lenfest Grant, and Hess Scholars programs for summer research.

Our families have been characteristically supportive and gracious throughout the several years that we worked on this project. Their collective patience has been extraordinary. We owe eternal gratitude to our spouses, Maria Emilia Nava and Alessandra Del Conte Dickovick. We are also grateful to (and for) our won­ derful children: Gabriela Eastwood, Carolina Dickovick, Gabriela Dickovick, Samuel Eastwood, and Alexander Eastwood. We owe much gratitude to our parents and extended families as well, of course.

xxiv Preface

Diane Bulpett Northeastern University

Ivy Hamerly Baylor University

Katherine H. Keyser Drew University

Eric Langenbacher Georgetown University

We are grateful as well to the fine editorial staff at Oxford University Press. We particularly appreciate the excellent ideas and efforts of Jennifer Carpenter, Lauren Mine, and Thom Holmes. All of them improved this text substantially with their insights and hard work over several years. We have also benefited from the work of Jane Lee, Barbara Mathieu, David Bradley, Maegan Sherlock, and Brianna Provenzano, among others.

We owe gratitude as well to those who developed our passion for (and under­ standing of) comparative politics. W ith the standard caveat that any errors of fact or interpretation in this text are solely our own, we want to thank first our earliest teachers of comparative politics. Above, all, we wish to thank Kent Eaton and Liah Greenfeld. We also owe great thanks to Jeffrey Herbst, Deborah Yashar, Chuck Lindholm, Scott Palmer, John Stone, and Evan Lieberman, as well as Nancy Bermeo, Atul Kohli, Lynn White, and Claudio Veliz, among others.

Finally, we thank the external evaluators of this edition, who gave generously of their time and expertise:

Cheryl Van Den Handel Northeastern State University

Adryan Wallace University of Hartford.

Jeffrey Lewis Cleveland State University

Vanja Petricevic Florida Gulf Coast University

Laura Roselle Elon University

Hootan Shambayati Florida Gulf Coast University

We also thank the many reviewers of the first edition, whose insights helped shape the book:

Dauda Abubakar Ohio University

Despina Alexiadou University of Pittsburgh

Michelle Allendoerfer George Washington University

Jason Ross Arnold Virginia Commonwealth University

Andrew Appleton Washington State University

Tanya Bagashka University of Houston

Karolyn Benger Georgia Institute o f Technology

Anna Brigevich The University o f North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Joel R. Carbonell Kent State University at Stark

Ryan Carlin Georgia State University

Luis F. Clemente Ohio University

Howard Cody University of Maine

Jeffrey Conroy-Krutz Michigan State University

William Crowther The University o f North Carolina at Greensboro

Ian Down University o f Tennessee—Knoxville

Glen Duerr Cedarville University

M atthew Fails Oakland University

Ronald A. Francisco University of Kansas

Preface

Nathan W. Freeman University o f Georgia

Joseph J. Foy University of Wisconsin-Parkside

John D. Granger University of Central Florida

Ivy Hamerly Baylor University

Keisha Haywood Ramapo College of New Jersey

Tobias Hofmann National University of Singapore

Jennifer Horan The University of North Carolina at Wilmington

John Hulsey James Madison University

Eunsookjung Fairfield University

Peggy Kahn University of Michigan—Flint

Stephen Juan King Georgetown University

Natalie A. Kistner James Madison University

Lada V. Kochtcheeva North Carolina State University

Galiya Lahav Stonybrook University

Ricardo Rene Laremont Binghamton University

Jeffrey Lewis Cleveland State University

Rahsaan Maxwell University of Massachusetts Amherst

Mary M. McCarthy Drake University

Gregory J. Moore Eckerd College

Katarina Moyon Winthrop University

Anna Ohanyan Stonehill College

Sanghamitra Padhy Davidson College

Juris Pupcenoks Washington College

Dietmar Schirmer University of Florida

James Seroka Auburn University

Oxana Shevel Tufts University

Tracy H. Slagter University o f Wisconsin Oshkosh

Marcus Stadelmann University o f Texas at Tyler

Jeffrey K. Staton Emory University

Emmanuel Teitelbaum George Washington University

Anca Turcu University of Central Florida

Rollin F. Tusalem Arkansas State University

Meredith Weiss University at Albany-SUNY

Aubrey Westfall Virginia Wesleyan College

Jennifer J. W hite University of Georgia

Fiona Yap University of Kansas

Gamze Cavdar Yasar Colorado State University

Jiangnan Zhu University ofNevada-Reno

The field of comparative politics is always changing, and a book of this sort covers a huge array of research areas. As such, we anticipate a need to update this text in the future. We are very eager for suggestions, corrections, and other com­ ments that instructors or students might make. We have established an e-mail address specifically for these inquiries, and all comments will go to and be read by the authors. The address is c o m p a r a t i v e . p o l i t i c s @ o u p . c o m . So if you have any suggestions for future issues, or find any errors or omissions, please let us know. We hope you enjoy the book.

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CHAPTER 1

The Comparative Approach: An Introduction

• Germany's Angela Merkel and Russia's Vladimir Putin converse at the World Cup in Brazil, July 2014.

op quiz. Fill in the blank in the following sentence:

I n _____________________, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

IN THIS C H A P T E R

A skin g Why: Research Questions in Com parative Politics 2 Major Questions in Comparative Politics 4 Empirical Arguments Versus Normative

Arguments 6 Solving Intellectual Puzzles:

A Contemporary Analogy 7

Concepts 9 Features of Good Concepts 9 Conceptualization 10 Operationalizing: From Concepts

to Measures 11

Em pirical Evidence 12 Facts and Evidence 12 Cases and Case Studies 13

The Com parative Method 14 Variables and Comparison 14 Most-Similar-Systems Design 15 Most-Different-Systems Design 18 Comparative Checking 18 Within-Case Comparison 20

Is the Study of Politics a Science? The Limits of the Com parative Method 20

A large proportion of American students who have completed elementary school will be able to answer correctly: fourteen hundred ninety-two.

This recollection from childhood illustrates the ways we first begin to learn about societies and their histories. We learn important events and the dates, names, and places associated with them. We learn simple facts: that Columbus

set sail in 1492 and discovered the New World. For many of our formative years, this is what we think learning means in our courses on social studies, history, world affairs, or current events.

Scholarship is not defined, however, by knowledge of facts alone, and the learning we do as adults must be differ­ ent: It must be based on more than just description and recall. The task now, at the collegiate level, is to develop analytical skills. In this book, we examine the similarities and differ­ ences in politics within and between countries around the world, using comparisons and contrasts as our central tools. We cover more than just facts about the politics of China, or India, or France. W e analyze politics comparatively.

Asking Why: Research Questions in Comparative Politics To illustrate the type of learning this book promotes, we turn to another mnemonic device from primary school:

List the “Five W ’s” used to ask questions.

You may easily recall the answer (or be able to reconstruct it):

Who, What, Where, When, and Why. (And to this list we often add “How”.)

Now ask yourself about the relative merits of these “Five W ’s.” W hich of these questions are the most profound and lead us to learn the most? Are we likely to gain a deep understanding of the social and political world from questions of the general form “W ho did this?” or “Where did this happen?” or “W hen did this happen?” For the most part, these relatively simple questions lead us to answers

Asking Why: Research Questions in Comparative Politics 3

based on simple facts, such as prominent historical figures (Who), or places (Where), or dates (When). Consider how most of the “Five W ’s” are answered in the sentence In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. W ho is the subject? Columbus. Where did this event occur? The ocean blue. W hen did it happen? 1492. W hat did the subject do (or how did the event happen)? He sailed. W ithin one easily remembered rhyme, we have answers to a host of basic questions. And, of course, the same is true for more contemporary politics. For instance, saying, “In 2012, Franpois Hollande was elected president of France” also provides answers to who, where, what, and when questions.

Even if we don’t know certain facts, we can often find them easily in modern life, and we do not need rhymes, other mnemonics, or even reference books. Online search engines (e.g., Google) provide virtually free access to basic facts (though they can also provide access to inaccurate information). Smart phones, laptops, and other devices make basic information accessible almost anywhere. Try typing some basic questions using the “Five W ’s” into a search engine. W ho is the president of Brazil? Where (or what) is the capital of Estonia? W hen did Tanzania become a free and independent nation? For these questions, the correct and complete answer is available almost instantly. Some knowledge of basic facts is obviously important, but this is not the type of question that interests us in this text. We will not focus simply on descriptions of who did what and when, nor on where things happened.

Now try searching for “Why did Columbus sail the ocean blue?” or “Why did Tanzania gain independence from its colonizer?” or “Why was Fran5ois Hollande elected president of France?” Your search will probably lead to an essay full of reasoning and argumentation, as well as facts. O f course, the essay may or may not be reliable, and more comprehensive searching—using scholarly articles and book chapters—could provide you with other essays that offer contrary perspectives. These why questions lend themselves to richer discussions and debates than who/what/ when/where questions. We cannot answer many why questions in one or two sen­ tences. Answering why correctly requires more research, more reasoning, and more debate than the preliminary factual questions about who did what, where, and when.

We can debate the correct answer to why questions. You may think you have a simple answer to why Columbus set sail: He was an explorer by nature, intellectu­ ally curious and seeking adventure. But a classmate may offer an equally compel­ ling answer: The exploration westward across the Atlantic was promoted and financed by the Spanish crown (King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella), who were forced by geopolitical rivalries and strategic concerns to extend and expand their territories. W ho is correct? In your answer, you focus on Columbus himself, while your classmate makes reference to impersonal factors (such as geopolitical strategy) that push individuals toward certain actions. Both of you include facts in defending your answers, such as the relevant actors (who), the period in which this took place (when), and the country from which Columbus set sail (where). But the debate is not easily resolved, even with these basic facts. We can respectfully disagree on the primary cause of why something happened. We construct arguments by supplying evidence in a logical form in support of positions or claims, and the relative merit of our arguments depends on who has the better supporting evidence.

Generally, we do not debate at great length about when an explorer set sail, who he was, or where he left from and where he went.1 We either know these facts

argument The placement of evidence in logical form in support of a position or claim.

4 Chapter 1: The Comparative Approach: An Introduction

comparative politics The subfield of political science that aims to analyze multiple cases using the comparative method.

or don’t. Anyone who has watched Jeopardy! or played trivia games will notice that such games almost never ask why something happened. The answers would surely be too long and almost certainly too debatable. Basic factual knowledge may earn you points on a game board, but it alone cannot be the route to a deeper understanding of the social and political world.

Questions that begin with that little word— why— are often answered not with a simple fact; rather, the answers begin with another deceptively powerful word: because. Note that the root of the word because is cause. Why questions give rise to answers that talk about the causes of events, and they turn basic facts (who, what, where, when, and how) into evidence supporting a claim about cause and effect.2 This is the core pursuit of comparative politics: We seek to develop strong claims about cause and effect, testing various hypotheses (that is, possible answers to our questions) using factual evidence, and developing larger theories about why the world operates the way it does. Through most of this book, we will provide some basic information necessary to speak the language of comparative scholars, but our emphasis is on asking and trying to answer why questions.

We do not ignore factual information when we ask questions. Indeed, some knowledge of a particular case usually makes us interested in a topic and moti­ vates the questions we want to ask. We find some set of facts that does not fit with our intuition, and we pursue it further. We are intrigued by facts that pre­ sent us with puzzles. The number of such puzzles is virtually infinite, but certain major questions take center stage in comparative politics. Many are easy to ask but challenging to answer. As we note later, some may be phrased as how ques­ tions, but the logic behind them is the same: We seek to understand causes and effects to comprehend the world around us.

Few political phenomena are monocausal', or caused by just one thing. Often many factors combine to produce an outcome. Explaining something does not amount to simply naming one or another of these factors. Rather, we try to ex­ plain by identifying not just the necessary conditions to produce an effect, but those that are sufficient to produce it. For example, the fact that a given commu­ nity is divided into different groups might be a necessary factor of civil war. But since most such divided countries are not engaged in civil war most of the time, the condition of being divided is clearly not sufficient to produce this effect by itself, and thus probably cannot be said to be the main cause of war.3

Major Q uestions in Com parative Politics Comparative politics focuses on certain key questions that researchers have de­ bated for years. Some important questions that we examine in this book are listed in Table 1.1. All of these are about causes and effects and can be answered, at least partly, by comparing and contrasting the politics of different countries. Some such questions, like the last two in the table, may also imply research on relations between countries as well as politics within countries.

The questions in the table are very general, and we would likely begin research by asking a more specific version of such questions about one or two countries. Rather than “W hy do countries go to war?” we might ask, “W hy did France opt not to support the Iraq War in 2003?” This question is more specific but also open- ended enough to have many possible answers. In scientific terms, this question can

t a b l e i.i Prom inent Q uestions in Com parative Politics

Asking Why: Research Questions in Comparative Politics

Why are some countries democratic and others not?

Why are some countries rich and others not?

Why do countries have different institutions and forms of government?

Why do countries have different policies in a variety of areas?

Why do some social revolutions succeed and endure while others fail?

Why do some countries develop strong senses of statehood and nationhood and others not?

Why do countries go to war or establish peace?

Why are some societies subjected to terrorism and others not?

have several competing hypotheses we can test out using evidence, as we discuss later in this chapter and in the next. Possible answers may be based on France’s strategic interests and calculations, its position in global affairs, French attitudes or culture with respect to war, and/or other possibilities.

Contrast this question with a more leading one, such as “How did French defeat in World War II lead to France’s decision not to support the Iraq War?” In this version, the questioner presumes he/she knows the answer to why France decided not to support the war. The researcher is entering the research expecting to confirm one particular answer.

Given our own human biases, this researcher may well choose evidence selec­ tively, neglecting that which does not fit his/her assumptions and preconceptions. It is highly unlikely that someone asking this leading question will answer with “France’s defeat in World War II had no effect.” This type of question can there­ fore lead to a biased argument.

Forming questions with why is a good rule of thumb, but good questions may also begin with other words, such as how. The questions in Table 1.2 also lead to debates about cause and effect. The first question asks about “consequences,” which is just another way of asking about the effects of certain causes (in this case, the causes would be institutions). The question is also open-ended; that is, no hunch or expected answer is built into it, so the researcher can remain open to what the evidence reveals. The second question is just a bit more specific, identi­ fying a certain consequence and a certain institution, but it is also open-ended. As we get more specific, we must take care not to commit the error of building the answer into the question, or assume that what we are researching is the only answer. In this case, we would not want to assume that a presidential versus a parliamentary system of government is the main factor that shapes education policy.4 The next question asks “under what conditions” democracies form, which is just another way of asking about the causes of democracy, if we compare and contrast where and when and how it happens. So too does the final question ask about cause and effect, as shown by the verb affect. These are all valid research questions, even if they don’t begin with why.

open-ended question A ques­ tion that, in principle, is open to numerous possible answers.

6 Chapter 1: The Comparative Approach: An Introduction

empirical Drawn from observa­ tions of the world.

Students in Paris, France, protest the Iraq War in 200S. Why did France opt not to support the Iraq War?

t a b l e 1.2 A dditional Research Q uestions A bout Cause and Effect

What are the consequences of different kinds of institutions for policy?

What are the consequences of presidential versus parliamentary systems of government for education policy?

Under what conditions will democracies emerge and consolidate?

How do major social revolutions affect subsequent political developments in their respective countries?

Some questions that begin with why may be poor questions, or at least they may be ill suited to cause-and-effect research. Contrast the following two questions, where the how question is a more open-ended and better question than the why.

• Why did the United States foolishly invade Iraq in 2003 for no good reason? • How did the decision to initiate military action against Iraq come about?

It is perfectly legitimate to ask “why the United States invaded Iraq” as an open-ended social science question, but the tone of the why question here sug­ gests that it is focused more on the issue of right and wrong than on cause and effect. The key is keeping our minds open to the possibility that any of several hypotheses may have the power to explain what we want to explain.

Em pirical A rgum en ts Versus Norm ative Argum ents The issue of right and wrong relates to the issue of causal or empirical arguments versus normative arguments. In this text, we mainly address empirical arguments:

Asking Why: Research Questions in Comparative Politics 7

arguments that link cause and effect, uncovering answers to why the political world operates as it does. Normative arguments, by contrast, emphasize the way things should be. 1116 following pair of questions highlights the distinction:

• W hy are some countries democratic and others authoritarian? (causal/ empirical)

• Why is democracy preferable to authoritarianism? (normative)

Comparativists answer questions like the first more often than the second, though we care about the answers to both types of questions. We are not primar­ ily concerned in this book with resolving normative arguments about what is right and wrong. This is not because comparativists are indifferent to moral con­ cerns. To the contrary, most social scientists hold strong convictions, indeed probably stronger normative views about politics than the average citizen, given their choice of career. Comparativists would overwhelmingly express a prefer­ ence for democracy over authoritarianism if asked, though some might note the limitations of democracy and/or argue that authoritarian rule has sometimes led to economic growth. Yet, as comparativists, we do not usually spend our intellec­ tual energy coming up with new arguments for why democracy is morally super­ ior to authoritarianism. Rather, we spend this energy trying to solve the puzzle of why democracy and authoritarianism arise in the first place.

So the point of analyzing politics comparatively is not to come up with good arguments in favor of democracy, or grearer wealth, or peace. Rather, our job is to find what causes these things, and we can assume that a commitment to uncover­ ing the causes comes from some interest in the outcome. Comparativists are like doctors diagnosing social problems: Instead of explaining why it is better to be healthy, we focus on explaining how we can be healthy as a political society. Com­ parative political scientists often have an ethical or moral passion that drives re­ search, as we may wish to make government and society more effective, efficient, equitable, just, responsive, and accountable. Yet our principal role in that process is to describe what is and explain why, rather than proclaim what ought to be.

So lving Intellectual Puzzles: A C ontem porary A n a lo gy Social science is a process of problem solving. By way of analogy, we can glimpse the sort of intellectual puzzles we solve through the mirror of pop culture. Among the most successful TV shows in the world today (apart from reality shows) are those in which researchers, academics, and scientists are presented with a puzzle that they must solve, usually within a short period. Medical dramas, legal dramas, and crime dramas all fit this mold. The researchers may be doctors trying to diagnose a potentially fatal disease, detectives trying to solve a murder using forensic evidence, or attorneys trying to prosecute a case against a pre­ sumed perpetrator. Examples are legion: NCIS, The Mentalist, Sherlock (or the Sherlock Holmes adaptation Elementary), and the long-running CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, among others.

W hat these shows have in common is the basic approach to puzzle solving used by the experts. The protagonist will typically be presented with a puzzle early in the episode and will then begin gathering evidence and formulating hypotheses. Usually, some of these hypotheses will be inconsistent with the

normative Concerned with speci­ fying which sort of practice or institution is morally or ethically justified.

Chapter 1: The Comparative Approach: An Introduction

evidence, or new evidence will emerge that contradicts a hypothesis. In such shows, this development is deliberate, of course, in order to build suspense and mislead the viewer. We may find, for example, that the person we were supposed to think was the killer had an alibi and was somewhere else on the night of the murder. By the latter part of the show, the protagonist usually comes across some piece of evidence that pulls the case together and gives it a logical interpretation. The episode typically concludes when a hypothesis is confirmed, sometimes sig­ nified by a criminal’s confession or maybe by a medical treatment that succeeds.

Social scientists operate in a similar fashion to these puzzle-solving profes­ sionals, but comparativists face some additional constraints. (If we really want to solve our puzzles, we have to be even more clever than the people on TV.) The most obvious constraint is the lack of laboratories in comparative politics.5 Whereas physicians, forensicologists, and prosecutors often have recourse to physical evidence such as blood samples or DNA or cell phone records, social scientists rely on social facts and evidence of a more qualitative and historical nature. The evidence used by social scientists is often subject to interpretation. For example, one political scientist may deem Mexico a democratic success story since 2000, because an opposition party won a presidential election, and multiple parties now compete successfully for power. Another may argue that Mexico is not a democratic success story, because the country still suffers from high levels of social and economic inequality and from unequal political participation.6

Many academics and other professionals rely on evidence and logic and reason to make persuasive arguments, even in the absence of absolute proof. Returning to our pop culture analogy, the detective Sherlock Holmes often rules out many options by process of elimination, gathers evidence that is consistent with a cer­ tain interpretation of the facts, and builds a hypothesis. Sometimes, Sherlock will have a particular hypothesis that is shown to be wrong by some new bit of evidence. In those instances, he must generate a new hypothesis to solve the case. Typically, at the end of a detective story, proof comes with a confession that re­ veals the full story. In courtroom dramas, to use another example, there may not be “prooF’ that someone committed a crime, but the jury may be convinced “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the accused is guilty. Again, in some instances, there may eventually be a confession by the perpetrator that does lead to “proof,” once the hypothesis is backed by substantial evidence and the perpetrator is in­ formed of the strength of the prosecution’s case. Medical dramas are similar in that the doctors must diagnose complicated cases using the evidence available to them. The solution usually takes the form of a treatment that cures or saves the patient. In all of these cases, the common theme is the need to solve a puzzle using a combination of evidence, logical reasoning, and educated guesses.

Unfortunately for social scientists, the world never confesses its secrets like some TV criminal, and we cannot typically administer some pharmaceutical in controlled fashion to cure a body politic. The best social scientists can do is work with a standard that requires scholars to make the strongest and most persuasive case possible by using and interpreting the available evidence. Many social scien­ tists who use statistical methods—including sociologists, political scientists, and most economists—even formalize standards for what is a persuasive finding. Some use 95 percent certainty as a crucial benchmark in testing and trying to

Concepts 9

confirm hypotheses (however arbitrary that 95 percent threshold may be, and even this threshold only relates to their confidence that they can reject the “null hypothesis” that the factor in question has absolutely no eifect). Good scholarship seeks evidence, tests hypotheses, makes arguments, and contributes to theoretical debates. We address theories and hypotheses in greater detail in chapter 2. First, however, we turn to the ideas of concepts, variables, and causal relationships.

Concepts Social science works with concepts, abstract ideas that we usually attempt to define as we ask and answer our questions. Examples of concepts are numerous and include freedom, democracy (as well as liberal democracy, electoral democ­ racy, delegative democracy, and many other subtypes), justice, nationalism, con­ stitutionalism, federalism, identity, gender relations, special interests, and social movements, among many others. Working with concepts helps us think about the social world, which is too complex to analyze without them. We must be very careful in defining them, because bad concepts make for bad analysis.

Most concepts are categories. In some areas, such as physical and natural sci­ ence, certain categories are relatively clear.7 The elements of the periodic table are an example. Concepts like “helium” and “oxygen” describe things in the real world that have certain numbers of electrons and protons. Yet there are few such clear-cut categories in social and political life. Concepts like “democracy” and “revolution” do not define phenomena the same way that “hydrogen” refers to an atom composed of a single proton and a single electron. Social and political con­ cepts like democracy and revolution shade into each other by degree. Definitions do not capture exact boundaries between social and political phenomena in the real world, but we use them so that we can get a handle on that world. Reasonable concepts and categories help us make sense of all the events that take place.

Features of Good Concepts W hat makes a concept worthwhile? Good concepts have several features, including clarity, coherence, consistency, and usefulness. The concept of “democratization” when used correctly is an example of a concept that is worthwhile on all these counts.

First, concepts must be clear and coherent.8 Maybe you begin a research proj­ ect because you are troubled by differences in levels of democratization across different countries. At the beginning, you have a common-sense understanding of democratization. To do good comparative work, however, you must make the meaning of the term explicit and clear. W hat do you mean by democratization? W hat is it you are studying? You cannot say “democratization consists of all the positive things that happen when a society changes.” This is neither clear nor co­ herent. A clearer and more coherent statement would be “democratization is the process by which civil liberties and political rights are extended to all adult citi­ zens in a nation.” We begin with common-sense concerns about specific prob­ lems, but we need to define our key concepts precisely.

Second, concepts must be logically consistent, both internally and from one to another. For example, one cannot conceptualize democratization in terms of “expansion of liberty and equality” without addressing the likelihood that increasing

concept An idea comparativists use to think about the processes we study.

10 Chapter 1: The Comparative Approach: An Introduction

conceptualization The deliberate process through which we create and select social-scientific concepts.

Sartori's ladder of abstraction The idea that we can organize concepts on the basis of their specificity or generality.

liberty will likely lead to some degree of inequality. The issue here is whether our concept of democratization is internally consistent. Likewise, one cannot concep­ tualize democracy as being about a “set of institutional arrangements,” such as elections, while viewing democratization as being about a “sort of political cul­ ture or set of values and norms.” This is an issue of logical consistency between the concepts of democracy and democratization, which we presume are related, but which seem to point in different directions here.

Third, concepts should be useful. They must be specific enough that they allow you to draw distinctions in analyzing examples. The concept of democrati­ zation can be useful because we can meaningfully distinguish between countries that have democratized and those that have not. Our use of concepts is prag­ matic, because we identify concepts based on how they help us answer research questions.9 For comparative analysis, concepts must allow us to identify varia­ tions between places, which the concept of democratization does: It allows us to differentiate and examine the variations between places that have undergone the process and those that have not. To be useful, concepts must also allow us to measure variables, which we examine further later.

Conceptualization Using concepts may be creative, because social scientists need to develop their own in many cases. The process of making up and defining concepts is called conceptualization. It is often necessary to come up with new ideas and defini­ tions, though we must be self-conscious and thoughtful in how we conceptual­ ize. In comparative politics, a good practice is to look to how scholars have already conceptualized major ideas in books (including textbooks) and articles. We should not coin a new phrase just for the sake of it, and we do not want to end up with a thousand different definitions of a concept like “democracy” when there are already several good and accepted definitions available. Too much cre­ ation of concepts could generate confusion and make discussion more difficult. Nonetheless, no concept is perfect, and you may need to conceptualize in novel ways on your own, depending on your specific projects.10 Doing so can be part of an intellectual contribution, so long as your concepts are clear, consistent, and useful.11

Some concepts are very general, while others are very specific. To take “na­ tionalism” and “national identity” as an example, we might see the concept of collective identity (an individual’s sense of belonging to a group) as being quite general, though sometimes we ask questions that don’t require more specific concepts.12 Greater specificity comes with adding more attributes to the con­ cept, maybe by specifying that we are interested in those collective identities that are political. More specific still, one can divide political identities into more specific subtypes, for example, political identities that say that everybody in your country is like you and that they are all equal. Some questions require more general concepts, and others more specific concepts. This issue is sometimes referred to as “Sartori’s ladder of abstraction.”13 The ladder ranges from gen­ eral concepts at the top to very specific concepts at the bottom, and the rung one stands on depends on the specific questions being asked and the cases being examined.

Concepts 11

The Concept of Freedom

I n societies such as the United States, freedom is seen as a core lvalue. Virtually everyone is a supporter and defender of freedom, and popular images present the American nation as the "land of the free." Yet what it means to be free is not so clear, and the term has multiple, distinct, and perhaps even contradictory meanings.14 Some view freedom in "negative" terms: One is free to the extent that nobody impinges on his or her ability to act in accordance with his or her will. Others view freedom in "positive" terms: One is free to the extent that one can engage in particular sorts of acts or ways of life. Others may view freedom in mystical terms, suggesting that one is free to the extent that one experiences transcendence through service to others, through participation in collective action, or through spiritual contemplation. There are also Marxist-inspired interpretations of freedom holding that one is free to the extent that one is not alienated from others, from one's work, and from a sense of purpose or meaning. (And, last but not least, Janis Joplin sang that "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose")

All of these understandings take freedom to be a quality of an individual. Yet many also speak of the collective freedoms of groups. For instance, many societies, in seeking independence

from colonial powers, produce authoritarian regimes that do not promote individual freedoms. Often, the members of these soci­ eties nevertheless celebrate them as distinctively free. Note that all of these meanings of the term (and we could list many more) resonate with millions of people in the world today.15

Libyan women celebrate liberation from Qaddafi's rule. Tripoli, September 2011.

O perationalizing: From C oncepts to Measures Once we have a clear notion of a concept, we need to be able to measure it; that is, we need to operationalize our concept. To operationalize a concept is to make operationalization The process it workable, mainly by making it measurable. W hen a concept is operational— through which we make a concept or we have an operational definition—we can begin to explain what we are study- measurable, ing. We can start to explain cause and effect only when we have clarified what we are talking about and can measure it.

There may be many ways to operationalize a certain concept, as shown by the example of democratization in Table 1.3. All of these may be valid ways to

t a b l e 1 . 3 Possible Operational Definitions of D em ocratization

A case of democratization occurs when... • a country holds a free and fair multiparty election • two turnovers of government at the ballot box have occurred, in which the ruling party loses

an election and peacefully steps down from power • free and fair elections are held, and a constitutional law is in place guaranteeing the rights of

freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religion to all citizens • there is no verifiable suppression of political participation and expression • more than two-thirds of citizens in a survey express values that reject authoritarian rule

12 Chapter 1: The Comparative Approach: An Introduction

evidence A set of facts or obser­ vations used to support a proposi­ tion or hypothesis.

operationalize democratization, so long as the operational definition matches up with the concept. I f we conceptualize democratization in terms of elections, we should measure it in terms of elections (not, for example, by values people hold). As we begin to measure our concepts, we move more toward the “real,” or empir­ ical, world we observe.

Empirical Evidence Questions demand answers. Social scientists do not ask questions just to ask them, but to attempt to answer them. So how do social scientists answer their questions? In short, they couple empirical evidence with theory. In comparative politics, em­ pirical means those observations we can make from looking at the real world rather than using abstract theories or speculation. We look at how theory and evidence interact in chapter 2. For the moment, we only highlight the forms of evidence most often used in comparative politics, since this is necessary for understanding the method. A key is the distinction between facts and evidence.

Facts and Evidence Facts—understood here as simple statements about what is or is not the case— are abundant, but evidence is more precious. As noted previously, online sources such as Wikipedia and Google provide almost costless access to a massive set of facts (though a lot of information found online is inaccurate or incorrect). Evidence consists of facts used in support of a proposition or hypothesis. Notice something built into these definitions: evidence is indeed based on facts. So a point of view or an opinion, whether your own or someone else’s, is not evidence. The fact that someone else believes something does not mean there is evidence for it, even if that opinion has been published by a prominent scholar or public figure. Evi­ dence should be available for the reader to gather as well, and not be simply based on hearsay, though research sometimes requires anonymity of sources. Wherever possible, research should be replicable by someone else.

To use a simple example of varying qualities of evidence, say we ask two stu­ dents to make a simple claim about whether Saudi Arabia is a democracy and to back this claim with evidence. In the two examples in Table 1.4, the difference

t a b l e 1.4 Exam ples of Strong and W eak Use of Evidence

Student 1 Student 2

Claim: Saudi Arabia is not democratic. Claim: Saudi Arabia is not democratic.

Evidence: Saudi Arabia has not held free and Evidence: Saudi Arabia is an Islamic country fair elections for its national government. whose economy is based on exporting oil. It is Women do not have the same political and a long-time ally of the United States and is led social rights as men. by King Salman and a large royal family.

Claim: strong Claim: strong Facts: correct Facts: correct Evidence: strong Evidence: weak

Empirical Evidence 13

between the two students is not the correctness of the claim, which is the same. Nor is it the facts, which are true on both sides. Rather, the difference is in how well evidence is used to back the claim. Successful comparativists are known not for the correctness of their assertions but for the ways they empirically support their claims.

Strong evidence has several characteristics. Most obviously, it must be rele­ vant to the issue at hand. I f you are arguing about Saudi Arabia’s democracy, the fact that the country is Muslim, or an oil exporter, is not an indicator of democ­ racy. We may debate whether these factors help came democracy or a lack of democracy, but they are not measures of democracy itself the way free and fair elections and civil rights are.

The evidence should also be at the same level o f analysis as the claim you are making—that is, at the individual, organizational, or societal level, for example. We can ask good research questions at many levels of analysis: individuals, groups within a country, whole countries and societies, regions of the world, and the world as a whole. But we need to be careful that our evidence reflects our level of analysis. Countries are made up of individuals, but individuals are not countries, and there are important differences between individuals, groups, and societies at large. So if you are seeking evidence about gender attitudes in Saudi Arabia, it is insufficient to note what a certain small group of men in the capital city thinks, unless you can show that these men happen to be representative of the country at large. The same is true the other way around: I f you are talking about an individ­ ual or a small group, you cannot assume you know everything about them just because of what country they come from; this is essentially stereotyping. Ana­ lysts risk committing logical fallacies if they do not pay attention to levels of analysis.

Cases and Case Studies Cases are the basic units of analysis in comparative politics. In many instances, our cases are countries, usually for a certain period. We may seek, for example, to explain North Korea’s lack of democracy versus the (imperfect) progress of democracy in South Korea; the cases here are the two countries we are com­ paring, and perhaps our time frame will be the period after the Korean W ar of the 1950s.

A case is not always a country, however. To start with, we could consider other geographical units: We may be interested in the social history of the state of California or Texas, or in comparing the two. Or we may be interested in the state of Gujarat in India, or in the city of Caracas, Venezuela. We may be inter­ ested in contrasting the European Union with the African Union, or the “major­ ity Catholic nations of southern Europe” with the “majority Protestant nations of northern Europe.” In this instance, the case for study would still be a geographic area but not a nation-state.

Cases can also take other forms. They may be political groups, organizations, specific institutions, historical processes, eras, or even discrete events. The civil rights movement in the United States may be a case of a social movement. To do a comparison, one might examine the “civil rights movement of the 1960s” in juxtaposition to the “women’s suffrage movement of the early 1900s.” Or one

level of analysis The level (e.g., individual, organizational, societal) at which observations are made, or at which causa! processes operate.

case In comparative analysis, a - unit or example of a phenomenon to be studied.

14 Chapter 1: The Comparative Approach: An Introduction

variable An element or factor that is likely to change, or </ary, from case to case.

outcome Typically used as a sy­ nonym for "effect," something that is produced or changed in any social or political process.

dependent variable In hypothe­ sis testing, the dependent variable is the effect or outcome that we expect to be acted on (or have its value altered) by the independent variable.

independent variable In hypo­ thesis testing, an independent variable is one that we expect to "act on" or change the value of the dependent variable.

might examine the “presidency of John F. Kennedy” and the “presidency of Barack Obama” as two cases for comparison. The French Revolution may be a case of a social and political revolution, and so too may the “Revolutions of 1848” (which took place across many countries in Europe) be treated as a “single case” of social and political revolution. Finally, we may also look at comparisons over time within a single country. An example might be comparing “the politics of health care in 1960s America” with “the politics of health care in twenty-first-century America.” The key is delineating one’s case as a unit that can be usefully under­ stood as a cluster of events or attributes.

Comparative politics studies vary considerably in terms of how many cases they handle. Some studies focus on a single case.16 Most scholars feel that single cases can be illuminating but that they are not sufficient for testing all hypothe­ ses. At the other end of the spectrum, some studies deal with large-N compari­ sons, in which many cases are analyzed through statistical searches for common features (this is discussed further in chapter 13). In between these approaches, at the heart of traditional comparative politics, we find small-N comparisons of two or more cases.

The Comparative Method Comparative politics—unlike, say, the study of American government or inter­ national relations—is defined by its method. It reaches conclusions about cause and effect through structured and systematic comparing and contrasting of cases.

Variables and Com parison The causes and the outcomes we are trying to measure are called variables in the social sciences, because they vary from one case to another. For instance, if we were to argue that the African country of Ghana has a high level of democracy because it was colonized by the British, while the neighboring country of Togo has a low level of democracy because it was colonized by the French, then both the cause and the effect vary from one country to the other. The effect (or outcome) is the level of democracy, which is high in one case and low in the other. The cause we would be proposing is the colonizer, which is British in one case and French in the other.

We will typically be seeking to explain a certain outcome or result or conse­ quence. In the cause-and-effect story of X Y, our research will center on inves­ tigating the various possible causes (you might think of them as “X factors”) to explain “the Y.” Since outcomes depend upon the causes, a social science conven­ tion is to call the outcome the dependent variable, while the cause(s) is (are) called the independent variable(s). Many terms are used, but for our purposes, all of the expressions in each column in this table are nearly synonymous.

cause -> effect (or result or consequence)

independent variable -> dependent variable

explanatory variable -> outcome

X variable Y variable

The Comparative Method 15

The city of Nogales straddles the border between Mexico (left) and the United States, divided by a three-mile fence completed in 2011. Why do these neighboring countries have such striking differences?

If we compare or contrast two or more cases in order to make a causal argu­ ment, we will be looking for similarities and differences (also called variations) between the cases. Using just two countries for the moment (to keep it simple), we may look to explain why two countries have different outcomes, or we may look at variations in outcomes between two countries. We may ask why one country is wealthy but a neighboring country is poor. Or, conversely, we may ask why two very different countries had very similar outcomes, such as becoming democracies around the same time.

To address such questions, we can use two simple tools as points of departure: most-similar-systems analyses and most-different-systems analyses.17 These ap­ proaches use comparison for the same fundamental purpose: ruling out plausible explanations for certain phenomena. That is, quite similar or quite different cases are used as comparative checks to see what arguments cannot account for a cer­ tain outcome. Ruling out these other arguments allows the researcher to narrow down the research process, by focusing on the possible causes that remain, and testing evidence supporting these causes.

M ost-Similar-Systems Design The most-similar-systems (MSS) design is predicated on the logic that two cases (such as two countries) that are similar in a variety of ways would be ex­ pected to have very similar political outcomes. Thus, if two cases have variations in outcomes, we would look for the variations that can explain why the countries are dissimilar.

While Table 1.5 may make the analysis appear formal, people actually do this type of analysis informally all the time. Consider discussions you have with

variation Difference between cases in any given study of compa­ rative politics.

most-similar-systems (MSS) A research design in which we compare cases that are similar with respect to a number of factors but with distinct outcomes.

Chapter 1: The Comparative Approach: An Introduction

t a b l e 1 . 5 M ost-Similar-Systems Design REGIME TYPES IN AFRICA

Variable Case 1:Togo Case 2: Ghana

Similarities

Climate Hot Hot

Income Low Low

Ethnic Demography Heterogeneous Heterogeneous

Largest Religion Christian Christian

Other Religions Islam, Traditional Islam, Traditional

Outcome

Regime Type Authoritarian Democratic

Cause

Hypothesis: Colonizer France United Kingdom

others about things seemingly as simple as why we like certain movies. Virtually all feature films released in cinemas are of similar length, are filmed for large screens, use professional directors and producers, have a plot with a protagonist (often a big star), use carefully chosen music as a soundtrack, and elicit emotion from the audience (or at least are intended to). Yet we all have preferences for some films over others. Amid these significant similarities among all films, we can identify—through comparison—the certain factors that lead each of us to appreciate or dislike a film.

I f we can demystify the process of comparison by realizing that we use it sub­ consciously all the time, it is just a half-step to how this might be done in practice when analyzing political questions. Consider the presentation in Table 1.5 of two African countries, neither of which you are assumed to know a great deal about.

We are wondering why one country (Ghana) is a democracy and another (Togo) is not. The table notes several similarities between the two countries, making the variation in outcomes a true puzzle. If we were to hypothesize a cause, we might argue that the colonial legacies of the countries mattered: Togo was colonized by France (and previously Germany) and Ghana by Britain. As we look for the cause of variations in outcomes, we can essentially cross out the many variables on which the countries are similar, as they are unlikely to cause differences. For instance, the hot climate of Togo cannot explain why it is more authoritarian than Ghana, because Ghana is hot as well. Eliminating these simi­ larities as potential causes leaves us looking for other possible causes where the countries vary.

So “colonizer” might fit the bill, as Table 1.5 suggests. Does this mean we have proven that colonizer is the answer? Not at all. We would need to do several

The Comparative Method 17

People wait to vote in Accra, Ghana, in 2004, Despite many similarities with its neighbor Togo, Ghana is a democracy, while Togo is not. Why?

things to make this case, as we shall see going forward. First, we would consider alternative hypotheses. Instead of colonizer, we might just as easily have said that the economic performance of each country was the key factor that shaped regime type, or that the nature of the military command was the key cause, or that the ideology of the founding fathers of each country mattered most. Only by exam­ ining and weighing these various causes could we gain real insight into why one country is democratic and the other is not. Thus, our second caveat is that we would need to find plausible evidence and have a strong argument linking the cause to the outcome. We would want to explore the ways in which colonization affected politics in these African countries. We would assess the evidence to determine whether it had an impact, and we would make sure there is a plausible story that allows us to connect the dots between the cause and the effect.

One potential source of initial confusion is that MSS designs place a premium on identifying the differences between cases, not the similarities. You might think of it this way: I f two cases are most similar, what is remarkable about com­ paring them? W hat is remarkable is where most similar cases differ. Differences in outcomes between similar cases are noteworthy, and differences in possible causes are what will help us explain them. We invert this logic when using the other tool that serves as a basic point of departure in comparative politics: most- different-systems designs.

18 Chapter 1: The Comparative Approach: An Introduction

most-different-systems (MDS) A research design in which we compare cases that differ with respect to multiple factors but in which the outcome is the same.

comparative checking The pro­ cess of testing the conclusions from a set of comparisons against additional cases or evidence.

M ost-Different-Systems Design The most-different-systems (M DS) design uses a logic that mirrors that of the MSS. In this approach, the researcher identifies two cases that are different in nearly all aspects yet are similar on a particular outcome. This puzzle leads the researcher to develop hypotheses to explain the peculiar similarity. See Table 1.6, which presents an example of two major revolutions in world history, which hap­ pened in very different geographical and historical contexts.

Just as MSS designs place a priority on identifying differences between cases, MDS designs place a premium on identifying the similarities that can give us analytical leverage. Again, the name is revealing: In an MDS design, what vari­ ables are noteworthy and telling? Those that are not different. If France in 1789 and China in 1949 are so different, what accounts for both having major social revolu­ tions? In the interest of cultivating your habit of building comparisons, we leave it to you to insert your own hypotheses. Might both countries have had populations facing extreme deprivation at these times? Or perhaps in both countries new actors emerged at these moments in history to lead a revolution? We will not answer these questions here, but since several major variables differ between these “most different” cases, we may surmise that similarity in revolution will be attrib­ utable to one of the relatively scarce number of other similarities we can find.

Com parative C h e ckin g W hile the MSS and M DS designs are the foundation for initial comparisons, they do not complete our analysis. Analysts must constantly remain aware that one pair of cases does not “prove” a hypothesis to be true everywhere, any more than one case study can prove a hypothesis. Rather, we must constantly engage in comparative checking, or examining the conditions under which certain

t a b l e 1 . 6 M ost-Different-System s Design M A JO R SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS

Variables Case 1: France (1780s) Case 2: China (1940s)

Differences

Continent Europe Asia

Population (approx.) < 30 million > 500 million

Century Eighteenth Twentieth

Regime Monarchy Nationalist Party

Outcome(s)

Social Revolution Yes Yes

Cause

[Insert Your Hypothesis Here] ??? ???

The Comparative Method 19

arguments hold. This checking typically involves mixing MSS and M DS designs to test our hypotheses further and to give us a sense of how generalizable they are, or how applicable to a wide number of cases.

Return briefly to Table 1.5, the MSS table using Togo and Ghana as exam­ ples. That MSS analysis provided us with a glimpse of the possibility that colo­ nizer or colonial legacy may affect regime type. From that table, we might think we have found that being colonized by France leads to authoritarian rule, while the good fortune of being colonized by Britain leads to democracy. However, even just a bit of comparative checking beyond these two cases will reveal that the story is not so simple, as Table 1.7 shows.

This table illustrates that a simplistic explanation of African regime types based on colonizer is insufficient. Benin, which neighbors Togo, was colonized by the French and is now democratic, in counterpoint to our simplistic view from the MSS table (Table 1.5). The fact that a single case does not correspond to this theory’s prediction does not “prove” that colonizer is irrelevant to regime type, any more than our first MSS “proved” that colonizer is relevant to regime type. Rather, it shows that a more sophisticated examination of the causes of democ­ racy is needed. How might we proceed?

In looking for other possible causes, we have many strategies to pursue. We can look to a larger number of cases to see if other hypothesized arguments might still hold. We should also dig in to our original cases once again, to see if there are any variations or hypotheses that we may have overlooked. We can also revisit the scholarly literature— a strategy under-utilized by many beginning comparativists— digging in to see how scholars explain the outcome that interests us. We may find new hypotheses, or refine the hypothesis we have already worked with. In this case, perhaps we would find from the literature that colonialism has impacts on regimes,

t a b l e 1 . 7 Com parative Ch e ckin g

Variable Case 1:Togo Case 2: Ghana Case 3: Benin

Similarities

Climate Hot Hot Hot

Income Low Low Low

Ethnic Demography Heterogeneous Heterogeneous Heterogeneous

Largest Religion Christian Christian Christian

Other Religions Islam, Traditional Islam, Traditional Islam, Traditional

Outcome

Regime Type Authoritarian Democratic Democratic

Cause

generalizability The quality that a given theory, hypothesis, or finding has of being applicable to a wide number of cases.

Colonizer France UK France

20 Chapter 1: The Comparative Approach: An Introduction

within-case comparison The comparative analysis of variation that takes place over time or in distinct parts of a single case.

but that it takes shape over time differently in different cases; maybe colonialism is something that matters but needs to be understood in a more sophisticated fashion, and not as simply either “French” or “British.” Finally, we could use a strategy that links to the issue of how politics happens over time, called within- case comparison.

W ithin-Case Com parison Within-case comparison means looking more carefully within one’s own case(s) to examine the variations there. For instance, to use the Togo/Ghana example, we might find that there are certain pieces or moments within the Togo case where there was some democracy. Maybe people in certain cities or regions of the country gained more rights, while people in other cities or regions were left without.18 Or maybe Togo democratized (somewhat) at certain moments, such as the early 1990s, only to backslide to an authoritarian regime. Looking at dif­ ferent moments in time or in space may allow us to dig deeper into a case to better understand our evidence.

To use another example, consider why hopefulness about the future may have been relatively high in the United States in the 1990s but is lower today. Many variables are similar across these two periods: The basic governmental structure of the country and certainly the geography of the country are quite stable, for instance. In other words, a country at an earlier period (call it Time 1) is “most similar” to the same country at Time 2. Yet some things do change over time, and those variables are good candidates to explain changing outcomes. The economy may change, for instance, or the composition of the workforce, or international events, or the political mood. Many other examples can also illus­ trate the virtues of comparing periods within a country. The takeaway point is that comparison does not end with simple charts listing attributes of different countries, but instead is a way to delve systematically into the evidence case stud­ ies provide.

Is the Study of Politics a Science? The Limits of the Comparative Method We speak of political science even though in comparative politics, we rarely find a “proof ” of the kind found in geometry, for example. Some scholars view the common methods for the study of politics to be inherently scientific in nature. Some even think the study of politics is (and should be) a science that aims to uncover general laws about political and social life. Others think it is a science but one that shows probable relationships between variables, rather than showing general laws.19 Others outside the discipline (including some natural and phys­ ical scientists) may view the study of politics in a more skeptical fashion, arguing that the term science is more aspirational in nature: For them, politics is not yet a science, though it may aim to be. Still others may argue that politics is not a sci­ ence, and should not be. It may be more interpretive and may relate more to the humanities than to other sciences.

Is the Study of Politics a Science? The Limits of the Comparative Method

To be sure, for many questions, social scientists cannot use one of the major tools that drives knowledge in the natural and physical sciences: the controlled experiment. We cannot subject individual countries to precise conditions to examine the effects the way we can in a chemistry lab, although many social scientists do look for so-called “natural experiments,” in which real-world events mimic laboratory conditions in key ways.20 In general, truly definitive proof is hard to come by in the social sciences. The sorts of comparative designs we have discussed in this chapter comprise one way to make up for our inability to do experiments everywhere. W hen we observe countries that are quite similar in the MSS design, we are approximating the controlled experiment of the laboratory: We hold many variables constant, and vary one or two key variables to see if we can measure their impact.

Given the complexity of the world and the many factors that affect political life, hypotheses that are confirmed “beyond a reasonable doubt” are generally the best we can aim for. Physicists have described the “law of gravity,” but social scientists do not typically uncover fully analogous “laws” that appear to hold everywhere. We instead rely on theories that give more or less powerful explana­ tions about how the world operates. The strongest theories persist over long periods, even if they do not explain each and every possible case or circumstance. We elaborate on this point in the next chapter.

In this book, we take the approach that comparative politics can aspire to sci­ entific inference, even if it has certain limitations.21 Some argue that mathemat­ ical approaches focusing on many cases are the gold standard in political science, because with large numbers of cases, researchers are liberated from the idiosyn­ crasies and complexities of individual cases. In one version, political science could replace “proper names” with variables.22 We do not, however, presume that we must follow the models of quantitative research designs (which we will dis­ cuss further in chapter 2). There are many ways in which detailed studies of smaller numbers of cases can show us things obscured from view in quantitative studies of many cases. Qualitative analyses—such as deep historical probing of individual cases and detailed descriptions of social contexts— can be as scientific as white-coated lab work. Moreover, quantitative and qualitative methods com­ plement each other, a point that seems to be increasingly recognized in political science.

Comparative work may contribute to knowledge in many ways. These include conceptualization, refining the basic ideas and terms we use, and categorizing cases. Other contributions come from theoretical critiques, which can highlight inconsistencies of certain explanations, allowing researchers to develop a better theory. And, of course, many good critiques will also be empirical, pointing out cases that do not fit with favored explanations. Each of these forms of contribu­ tion is consistent with the scientific method, even if it does not always involve direct testing of hypotheses. In the next chapter, we explore how these aspects of the comparative approach help us build theories in comparative politics.

22 Chapter 1: The Comparative Approach: An Introduction

C h a p te r S u m m a ry Asking Why: Research Questions in Comparative Politics

For scholars of comparative politics, the key questions are about why something happens, or about cause and effect, even though we are often also interested in normative questions about right and wrong.

• Research in comparative politics addresses questions on such major issues as economic development, political re­ gimes and institutions, and a range of social outcomes.

Concepts • Concepts are the ideas we use to categorize the world and

enable us to measure and compare observations. • Good concepts are clear, coherent, consistent, and useful.

Social scientists often must do their own conceptualization, or develop their own concepts, and must operationalize their concepts to enable measurement.

Empirical Evidence Comparative politics relies heavily on facts and evidence to support arguments about cause and effect.

T h in k in g It T h r o u g h 1. Imagine you are going to do a project that tries to explain why

democracy has been relatively successful in the United States. What sort of conceptual work would you need to do before you could complete this study?

2. If you were to conceptualize democracy as a political system in which (1) certain individual rights are respected, (2) elections are periodically held, and (3) political transitions are peaceful, what would you have to do to operationalize this concept for the purposes of a comparative study?

3. What are the five most interesting why questions about com­ parative politics that you can think of? What are the main con­ cepts they imply?

• One of the main empirical approaches is the use of case studies and comparisons between cases.

The Comparative Method Variables are features that vary from one case to another and enable comparison between cases.

• Two approaches to comparison involve the most-similar- systems design and the most-different-systems design, both of which examine variations and similarities between cases to assist in testing hypotheses. Good comparative study requires more than just brief examination of similar and different variables: it often involves further examination through steps such as com­ parative checking and within-case comparison.

Is the Study of Politics a Science? The Limits of the Comparative Method

• While the study of politics aspires to scientific conclusions, it is rarely able to prove its conclusions with absolute certainty.

4. Take one of the questions you have formulated in response to question 3. Now think of how you could construct a most- different-systems (MDS) design to compare cases and answer your question.

5. Take one of the questions you have formulated in response to question 3. Now think of how you could construct a most- similar-systems (MSS) design to compare cases and answer your question.

amm W .

CHAPTER 2 f

Theories, Hypotheses, and Evidence

• A medical worker undergoes Ebola response training during the outbreak that began in 2014.

27

IN THIS C H A P T E R

Introduction to Theories, Hypotheses, and Evidence 24 Theories 25 Hypotheses 25 How Theories Emerge and Are Used Types of Evidence 29

H ypothesis Testing 31 Correlation 31 Causation 33

Critiques: Using Theory and Evidence Empirical Critiques: Confirming Cases

and Deviant Cases 39 Theoretical Critiques: Improving Theories

and Hypotheses 39

The Challenges o f Measurement: Biases, Errors, and Validity 41

THINKI NG C O M P A R A T IV E L Y

I n 2014, a deadly outbreak of the Ebola virus hit several countries in W est I Africa. Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone were especially hard hit. Medical professionals from around the world came to the region in an attempt to con­ tain the outbreak. Some villagers, however, did not welcome them, and in fact at least one youth group mobilized to fight off the doctors because they noticed something: soon after the doctors arrived, people in a village began to die. As The New York Times reported, some villagers reached a simple con­

clusion: the doctors bring death, and the way to stop Ebola was to stop the doctors.1

This kind of faulty logic almost certainly proved deadly to some. Examples like this show how important it is to have good theories that can help us understand— not misunder­ stand— how the world works. Such an example also shows how im portant it is to interpret evidence correctly. In this story, it is the case that the disease was claiming lives despite the doctors’ best efforts, not that the doctors were doing the killing. Villagers were confusing correlation— observing fac­ tors that accompany each other—with causation, or an argu­ ment that one thing causes another.

In this chapter, we discuss how theories work. We dis­ cuss how to form hypotheses, or educated guesses about what will happen under certain circumstances, and how to avoid certain pitfalls in testing those hypotheses. A ll this will pre­ pare you better for examining the issues of comparative poli­ tics that make up the rest of the book.

39

Qualities of Good Analysis and Argum entation 42 Step 1: Asking Good Questions: Why? 43 Step 2: Hypothesis Testing: Generating

Good Hypotheses and Testing Them Fairly 43

Step 3: Balancing Argumentation: Evidence, Originality, and Meaningfulness 43

24

Introduction to Theories, Hypotheses, and Evidence Social scientists look for convincing answers to important ques­ tions about why things happen: W hy are some countries demo­

cratic and others not, or why do revolutions occur, or why do some countries have two main political parties while others have many parties in their legislatures? The first step in comparative politics is asking good research questions about the causes and effects of political events. Chapter 1 gave us an approach—the comparative

Introduction to Theories, Hypotheses, and Evidence 25

method—to begin to answer those questions by comparing and contrasting cases, most often different countries or specific events in different countries. We may examine the political party systems of Germany and France, or the communist revolutions in Russia and China, for instance. To do so, we juxtapose the facts of the different cases to make an argument about the similarities and differences between them.

In this chapter, we talk about the tools we need to answer questions, with a focus on two elements that help us to formulate possible answers: theories and hypoth­ eses. We discuss what theories and hypotheses are, and how they differ from one another. We then discuss how evidence is used to test hypotheses and theories.

Theories Theories are general explanations of empirical phenomena, or explanations about how the world operates. A theory aims to explain more than just one or two cases or examples, and it is typically backed by a considerable number of sup­ porting facts as empirical evidence. An explanation or framework in the social sciences will rarely earn the right to be called a theory if we cannot find consider­ able support for its arguments in the real world.

This may not be the only way you hear the word theory used. There is also a more casual everyday usage to describe a hunch or idea. For instance, imagine a friend who says, “The Chicago Cubs are going to win the World Series this year, that’s my theory.” From a social scientific point of view, this is a prediction, not a theory. It may be a good or a bad prediction (probably the latter, knowing the Cubs), but it is speculative at best, a hopeful guess. Without some logical argumentation and backing in facts, it is not really a theory based on reason and evidence. If, on the other hand, the friend offers a detailed explanation that shows how the team with the strongest pitching routinely wins the World Series, and proceeds to detail how Chicago’s pitching is stronger than that of other teams (it’s probably not), then the friend is approaching a general theory about the relationship between two vari­ ables: pitching and championships. In this theory, pitching is the cause and win­ ning the championship is the consequence, also called the effect or the outcome.

In political science, there are two different types of theory, typically referred to as normative theory and empirical (also known as positive) theory. Normative theory deals with questions of values and moral beliefs. An example might be the question “W hat is the best kind of political system we could construct?” This is a matter of morals and ethics. Empirical theory, by contrast, deals with empirical questions. An example is “W hich factors are most likely to produce a preferred political system?” This is about the factors and variables that cause things to happen. In this book, we are mostly focused on empirical theories: we discuss theory as a general explanation of why things happen.

Hypotheses Hypotheses are specific proposed explanations for why an outcome occurs. To answer research questions, we may generate or formulate hypotheses that we think can explain a set of facts upon further research. Hypotheses are not expla­ nations already backed by lots of evidence. Instead, they are possible answers to a question, which we plan to test out by applying them to data, looking at specific

theory A general set of explana­ tory claims about some specifiable empirical range.

hypothesis A specific prediction, derived from a theory, that can be tested against empirical evidence.

26 Chapter 2: Theories, Hypotheses, and Evidence

deductive reasoning The process of moving from general claims or theories to specific observations or predictions about a phenomenon or set of cases.

deviant case (outlier) A case that does not fit the pattern predicted by a given theory.

Inductive reasoning The process of moving from specific observa­ tions to general claims.

cases to see if there is evidence to support the idea. Informally, you can think of them as hunches. If the hypothesis receives that support from the evidence, it may become a thesis in an argument.2

Developing hypotheses requires us to make imaginative leaps from unanswered questions to possible explanations. Hypotheses can be generated from existing theories in a deductive fashion: starting with general ideas and then testing whether they work on specific examples. For example, say we are asking about why an anti-colonial revolution happened in a certain African country in the 1950s. We may begin our research with a major theory that holds that social revolutions (such as the French Revolution, Russian Revolution, or Iranian Revolution) are caused by the social upheavals produced by modernization. We seek to apply this theory to the African country we are studying. Using the theory as our general model, we might hypothesize that the anti-colonial revolution in the African country was pro­ duced by a history of modernization. Another way to think of this sort of approach is to consider it an effort to test an observable implication of the starting theory.3

Not all hypotheses are deduced from general theories, of course. Some can also come from looking at a case that deviates from a particular theory. We can learn a great deal from so-called deviant cases, or “outliers,” that do not do as we might expect. For instance, in many international comparisons the United States is a deviant case. It has both higher income inequality and greater differ­ ences in life expectancy between racial groups (to name just two variables) than one might expect based on its level of economic development. By focusing on some characteristics that make the United States different from other cases, we might sometimes understand general relationships better. For example, perhaps it is not a country’s overall level of economic development that predicts the life expectancy of its people, but individual life chances. By this thinking, U.S. income inequality may help us to account for the fact that high development does not lead to high life expectancy for all U.S. groups.

We often formulate a hypothesis with some initial knowledge of the topic at hand, but we do not want to ask questions to which we presume we already know the answer. We do not normally aim to create a hypothesis from empirical data in an inductive way—moving from specific observations to general claims. That is, we don’t do the research, find the answer, then go back and propose our hypoth­ esis (although sometimes our analysis does suggest new hypotheses, and inductive approaches to theory generation do exist). Instead, we approach our hypothesis with an open mind toward what answers we may find. Our hypotheses may be supported or rejected by the research we do, so there is always the possibility that they are wrong. In fact, most hypotheses are wrong, and rarely if ever can we fully confirm or disprove a hypothesis with limited research.4 The goal is not to pick the correct hypothesis at the outset, but rather to learn something from the study we undertake. In fact, many social scientists believe that our knowledge advances more from refuting hypotheses than from defending or supporting them.

Hypotheses and theories inform one another. Theories help guide us in for­ mulating hypotheses, and confirming hypotheses may either support or under­ mine theories. In general, hypotheses are more tentative and speculative than theories. A specific hypothesis is generated for each research question and is put on the line to be tested in each case. W hile the evidence from testing a specific

Introduction to Theories, Hypotheses, and Evidence 27

hypothesis may support or oppose a particular theory, it usually is insufficient to reject or confirm a theory by itself. Generating a theory is a more elaborate, long­ term process than generating and testing a single hypothesis.

After testing hypotheses for a specific study, scholars will typically offer a thesis, a claim to argue on the basis of evidence from research. One can think of a thesis statement that usually appears near the beginning of a well-written scholarly paper. In comparative politics, a thesis is an argument supported by the research evidence that comes from testing a hypothesis. W hile a thesis has evi­ dence supporting it, that does not mean it is a full theory. Before achieving the status and prestige of being called a theory, an idea requires ample evidence to support it, typically based on research by many scholars. For the most part, stu­ dents of comparative politics test hypotheses, make specific claims in the form of theses, and are expected to use evidence to argue in support of their theses, taking account of existing theories. We are informed by theory and can contrib­ ute to debates by theorizing, but we rarely craft or destroy entire theories alone.

How Theories Em erge and Are Used Theories emerge and are used all the time to explain the world around us. Let us take a prominent theory from beyond comparative politics that has long featured prominently in social and political debate: the theory of evolution. First, we offer a very abridged version of the theory, followed by one specific hypothesis derived from the theory.

Theory (abridged): The origin and development of species are based on a process of natural selection, in which organisms with a genetic advantage in a given natural environment thrive and propagate their genes, whereas organisms at a genetic disadvantage will fall out of the gene pool over the long term.

Hypothesis (example): The theory of evolution accounts for humans’ walking on two legs. Human ancestors first began to walk on two legs in African savannahs where grasses grew tall; those walking on two legs had an advantage over similar four-legged mammals because they could better see and more easily flee predators.

In testing this hypothesis—that humans first walked upright in order to flee predators— a scholar will examine whether the evidence is consistent with such an explanation. The evidence uncovered may include fossils and archaeological evidence. As part of his or her work, the scholar may note that other prominent arguments are inconsistent with one or more substantial pieces of evidence, thereby making this hypothesis relatively more capable of explaining the ob­ served facts.

O f course, even if the scholar finds that the evidence is consistent with the hypothesis, a single study will not be the end of the story. Counter-arguments will emerge. Indeed, the existence and progress of the social sciences depends precisely on the common efforts of the scholarly community to question existing explanations and to provide alternative ones. In our example, some scholars who accept the evolutionary perspective may argue that humans first walked upright in order to conserve energy while foraging for food. Scholars who reject the

thesis A statement for which one argues on the basis of evidence.

28 Chapter 2: Theories, Hypotheses, and Evidence

theory may also contribute arguments to the debate, and even non-scientists may do so, as long as their arguments are tested empirically. We can pursue the scientific endeavor by further testing related hypoth­ eses to see how the theory changes as a result.

We narrow in on good explanations by finding increasing evidence that certain hypotheses are con­ sistent with the evidence while others are inconsistent with the evidence. We can rarely, if ever, confirm a hypothesis or prove it fully true; rather, we can find that a hypothesis is increasingly viable as we find more and more evidence to support it. Ideally, much like a courtroom lawyer that has the evidence on his or her side, we will make our case “beyond a reasonable doubt” as we defend our claim.

Theories have facts and evidence supporting them, but these are not proof that a theory is valid and cor­

rect in all circumstances. Often, a wrong theory will hold sway for a long period of time until it is supplanted by a stronger theory. For example, the earth was long believed to be situated at the center of the universe, and this appeared con­ sistent with many facts, such as the sun and moon rising and falling beyond the horizon each day. However, this theory eventually came into conflict with obser­ vations that suggested that the earth revolved around the sun. Both theories persisted for a time until it became clear that the heliocentric (sun-centered) theory best explained the structure of our solar system. Thus, competing theories may coexist, and there may simultaneously be facts and evidence that support a theory and other facts and evidence that contradict the theory. Theories may ul­ timately fail and be rejected, but ideally theories only “die” when replaced by new ones that better explain existing evidence.5

Theories in political science explain tendencies and help us understand many cases, but there are almost always exceptions to the rules. Nothing in political science works in all cases the way the laws of physics work everywhere on earth. For example, as you will read in chapter 6, there are several competing theories to explain why countries become democracies. There is considerable evidence that wealthier countries are likelier to be democratic than poor countries, but this does not mean every rich country will be a democracy and every low-income country will be under authoritarian rule. Rather, the theory of the link between wealth and democracy posits a tendency, much as eating healthy foods and not smoking will tend to increase one’s life expectancy. Not everyone who eats well and avoids smoking will live to old age, and not everyone who smokes and eats junk food will die young. Cause-and-effect relationships in the social sciences are general patterns, not absolute laws. As a result, building theory is an intensive process over an extended period of formulating and testing hypotheses, gather­ ing and examining evidence, and understanding and synthesizing debates. Theo­ ries are imperfect but can be improved over time.

Since theories compete with one another as the best explanations of social phenomena, it may be natural to think of scientists competing with one another

Introduction to Theories, Hypotheses, and Evidence 29

to come up with the best theory. This is true in part, but the social sciences are also a collective endeavor. In this sense, when a theory is rejected, it represents an advance of our understanding. Even critiques of one scientist’s effort by another scientist are part of the process of testing and contesting the best explanations.

Types of Evidence For most students being introduced to comparative politics, the dominant form of evidence will be qualitative, meaning it comes from accounts of historical or contemporary events. For instance, if I wish to test the hypothesis that the French Revolution of 1789 was caused by the emergence of a self-conscious middle class {bourgeoisie), then I may look to accounts of that class and its atti­ tudes and involvements in political life in the years leading up to 1789 in France, perhaps comparing it to other countries where a revolution did not take place. In this case, my data are not numbers and figures inserted into a spreadsheet, but rather the detailed accounts of historical record. I may test my hypothesis using the facts of who did what, when and where they did it, and how. Qualitative evi­ dence may come from many sources, such as written works like constitutions and laws, historical or journalistic accounts or reports, and interviews or surveys of people.

Social scientists use quantitative data such as statistics and figures to comple­ ment qualitative data as they aim to make inferences, or conclusions based on evidence, about cause and effect. Examples include measures of average incomes or average life expectancies across countries. Such quantitative comparisons may be undertaken using national statistics from government agencies, numerical data from surveys, or data collected by researcher observations. Various data sources may be used to compare and contrast outcomes in different countries. At a more advanced level, such descriptive statistics can be used to formulate and begin to test hypotheses about the causes and effects of differences between countries. Other quantitative research in comparative politics focuses on the construction of formal mathematical models of the strategic behavior of indi­ viduals and groups in political situations. Quantitative data differ from qualita­ tive data in their presentation, but both types are used to generate and test hypotheses. W hile the details of statistical methodologies and formal mathe­ matical modeling are beyond the scope of this book, we work from the premise that both qualitative and quantitative work may be used to categorize and explain differences across cases, but also they can be used to test hypotheses about the causes of those differences.6

In comparative politics, you will use historical accounts and data more often than you will make predictions about the future. This is because we have real evi­ dence only for things that have happened, and not for what might happen. O f course, the past may give us expectations about the future, which is why we hear that those who fail to learn about the past are doomed to repeat it. But in terms of concrete evidence, we cannot know what has yet to happen. For this reason, we work with existing cases to develop hypotheses and theories. For instance, we may hypothesize that China, which is not currently a democratic country, will move toward democracy as it grows wealthier. This hypothesis may come from observations about what has happened in other countries as they have grown

qualitative A form of analysis that aims to discern relationships be­ tween events or phenomena as described in narrative form, such as an account of a historical process.

quantitative Quantitative analysis aims for the mathematical discern­ ment of relationships between variables, typically involving a large number of cases or observations.

inference The process through which we aim to test observable implications (often about cause and effect) of any given theory; also refers to conclusions reached through this process.

30 Chapter 2: Theories, Hypotheses, and Evidence

The Qualitative-Quantitative Debate

The increasingly sophisticated use of statistics in social science has generated considerable debate about the best methods and types of data for research. Qualitative (non-mathematical) research often closely treats a few cases. Such approaches, as mentioned in chapter 1, are often called small-N studies, with N meaning the number of cases. Quantitative approaches often handle many cases, using mathematical techniques to measure the degree of association between a set of variables that cut across each case. Scholars who prefer quantitative work maintain that qualitative studies of one, two, or three cases are susceptible to reaching conclusions that only work for those selected cases and not a larger number of cases (some people call this the small-N problem). According to this perspective, qualitative argu­ ments may not “travel well." On the other hand, scholars who advocate strongly for qualitative work may argue that quantita­ tive research is unpersuasive because it neglects the context and

detail needed to make arguments meaningful. From this per­ spective, quantitative arguments that travel too far miss the real causes in a case as they unfold over time. Despite this debate, qualitative and quantitative research are increasingly interdepen­ dent in contemporary social science, and they complement each other in important ways. The perspective of this text is that ex­ treme views of one or another sort are ill-advised. In general, quantitative work has the potential to make strong empirical claims about large numbers of cases and general associations between variables, and some would argue that qualitative work has the ability to reveal causal mechanisms or processes at the case-specific level. It has been argued that a common logic un­ derpins any good social science work.7 While this position is con­ troversial, much of political science relies on formulating research questions and then using available data to test hypotheses about answers to these those questions.8

wealthier. Well-regarded theories may strongly suggest that China will democ­ ratize, and we may hypothesize and argue that it will do so, but to test the hy­ pothesis we will have to await future events. Evidence comes only from events that have happened.

Spring Festival travel rush in Shenzhen City, China, 2012. Will China move toward democracy as its middle class grows larger? We address this question in the discussion of democratization in chapter 6.

Hypothesis Testing

Hypothesis Testing The core of comparative politics is testing hypotheses about cause and effect be­ tween two or more variables. We defined variables in chapter 1 as some measure that can vary from one observation to the next. Examples range from a country’s average income or average life expectancy, to whether a revolution occurred in a given country, to the most prominent religion in a particular state, to the religion of a particular person.

In social science, cause-and-effect arguments are based on examining differ­ ent variables, and how those variables relate to one another and may depend on one another. I f country A is wealthy and country B is poor, what does country A have that country B does not that makes it so?9 An explanation will hinge upon identifying what variable might cause A to have become rich and B to remain poor. Our goal will be to identify what other variables go alongside wealth that are lacking in countries that are poor, in order to examine whether those vari­ ables made the difference. Our first key distinction here is between correlation and causation.

Correlation Correlation measures the association between two variables. W hen two vari­ ables correlate, they are related to one another (or, to separate the words, they “co-relate”). To use a simple example, the temperature in many places will cor­ relate with the month of the year: when it is February in the Northern Hemi­ sphere, the temperature will be relatively cold, whereas in July the temperature will be relatively hot. This does not mean it is impossible to have a hot day in February or a cold day in July, just that there is an association in general. There is thus a correlation between the variable “month of the year” and the variable “temperature.”

If two variables have a positive correlation, they tend to increase together. One increases as the other increases. An obvious example is the income of a person and the amount the person spends on luxury goods. People with low in­ comes cannot afford to spend money on luxury goods, while the wealthy may spend a large amount on luxury goods. These two variables are positively corre­ lated. A negative correlation is just the opposite, and means that as one variable tends to increase, the other tends to decrease. An example might be the number of cigarettes one smokes per day and one’s life expectancy.

Just as we can find a positive correlation between wealth and democracy, we can conversely find a negative correlation between another pair of variables: pov­ erty and democracy. Consider the number of people in a country living on an income below $2 per day (call this variable the absolute poverty rate) and the level of democracy. In this case, the rich countries have relatively low levels of poverty and high levels of democracy, while many countries in Africa have high levels of poverty and low levels of democracy. W hen we look at the nearly two hundred or so countries in the world today, these correlations are apparent, even though it should be noted that there are some countries that are rich but not democratic, and some that are low-income yet are democratic.

correlation A relationship between two variables in which they tend to move in either the same direction (positive correlation) or in opposite directions (negative correlation).

Correlation: Wealth and Democracy

Wealth and democracy of nations appear to be positively correlated. This correlation can be easily observed on a world map that shows which countries are wealthy and which are poor, set alongside a map that shows which countries are de­ mocracies and which are not. Europe, the United States, Australia,

Canada, Japan, and several other countries are highly democra­ tized and are quite wealthy. Many countries in Africa, on the other hand, have low incomes and low levels of democracy. Where "incomes" are high, "democracy" is high, and where "in­ comes" are low, "democracy" is likely to be low.

IR ELAN D G EO R G IA isrC' JA P A N

CHIN A

| NORTH KO REA SOUTH KOREA

i/IBODIA G U IN E A — _ BISSAU

SIER R A LEONE

It o g o BR A Z IL BURUNDI

NIGER

DEM % REP I

C O N G O ’ AU S T R A LIA

ZIM B A B W E

The Global D istru b u tio n o f W ealth A c o u n try 's G D P p e r ca p ita as p e rc e n ta g e o f w o rld average ($10,500), 2009:

I O v e r 400% -j H i 2 5 -5 0 % ■> f F irs t T ie r < x x x ?■ T h ird T ier

| 2 0 0 -4 0 0 % J mSm 1 -2 5 % J 1 1 | 1 0 0-20 0%

5 0 -1 0 0 %

D em ocracy in th e W orld 2015

| Free

H P a rtly Free

I N o t Free

32

Hypothesis Testing 33

Causation Causation exists when one variable causes another. This helps us answer the fun- causation The property that damental questions raised in chapter 1, such as “W hy are some countries democ- obtains when one thing can be racies?” Recall that why questions are often best answered with because answers, shown to cause another. As the word because implies, answering why involves explaining causes. W ithout causal arguments and theories, correlations are just patterns in search of an ex­ planation. W hen we have causation, we usually have correlation, but the opposite is not true. Failing to distinguish between correlation and causation can lead to a variety of problems, as we will show.

Does the correlation between wealth and democracy prove that getting rich causes democracy to happen? Not necessarily. It may be that this correlation points in the direction of a causal argument, such as wealth —> democracy. Or maybe the other way around: democracy —» wealth. On the other hand, it may be that the correlation exists, but there is no causal reason for it. It may be simply due to chance that rich countries happen to be democracies. Or there may be other factors that result in both wealth and democracy.

As it turns out, one of the central theories of comparative politics suggests that countries that grow wealthy are likely to become democratic for specific reasons we detail in chapter 6. The causal argument, beginning with the positive correlation between wealth and democracy, finds that historically, countries have developed a middle class as they have grown wealthier. This middle class, rather than the elite, ends up being a central force that pushes for more rights for all citi­ zens. In poor countries without a middle class, democracy is unlikely to succeed, but growing middle classes in countries that are growing rich have helped bring democracy with them. W hile the correlation here does have a causal explanation, notice that the correlation needed an argument and logic to bring the story to­ gether and to make the fact of the correlation into evidence that supports an argument.

We cannot assume that all correlations between two variables (call them X and Y) mean that X leads to Y. We will use various examples to illustrate possible relationships between variables. The first of those was the causal argument that X leads to Y (Figure 2.1).10

Causation: Legislative Elections and the Number of Political Parties in Legislatures

W hile almost no arguments in social science get "proven," the argument linking district-based electoral systems and political systems with few parties has substantial support. In countries like the United States, electing a single representative from each Congressional district means that small parties like the Green Party, Reform Party, and Libertarian Party end up with vir­ tually no members of Congress, even in years when they have 5 percent or more support from voters nationwide. This is clearly

because (note the use of because) such parties get a small per­ centage in many districts, which may result in winning no seats if Republicans and Democrats get higher percentages; by contrast, if the whole country voted in one big district, and Congressional seats were distributed in proportion with the vote received, these small parties would win more seats. In this sense, the struc­ ture of the elections is at least one of the causes of the two-party system.

Chapter 2: Theories, Hypotheses, and Evidence

Figure 2.1 Causal Relationship Between Correlated Variables (X and Y)

But there are many other possibilities. Figure 2.2 shows some possible rela­ tionships between variable X and variable Y that are not the simple causal rela­ tionship where X —> Y. I f we assumed X -» Y in each of these cases, we could run into a number of analytical problems.

We discuss each of these problems in order.

( 1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

Figure 2.2 Possible Problems with Causal Arguments About Correlated Variables (X and Y)

(1) Definitional problem s and falsifiability problem

X Y

The first problem is one that is rarely noted, because it apparently involves arguments that are “too correct.” In reality, one common problem is confusing cause-and-effect between two variables with two variables that are the same by definition. If X is measuring the same thing as Y, they will correlate perfectly. But this is not because X —» Y, but rather because X = Y.11 A common problem for comparativists is defining two variables that are so nearly the same that the causal argument is meaningless, or tautological. This definitional problem relates

Hypothesis Testing 35

to the problem of falsifiability, which is the idea that for an explanation to be meaningful, it must be contestable. To argue that something is true means some­ thing only if there is a chance it could at least possibly be incorrect and could be proved wrong. For instance, say we are asked why a baseball team won a game, and our “analysis” is that the winning team “just scored more runs” than the losing team, or “just got it done.” This argument is correct, in the narrow sense that it is not inaccurate, but it is also meaningless, precisely because it can never be otherwise: scoring more runs over the course of a game and winning the game are one and the same, by definition. By contrast, if we say that none of the world’s democratic countries will ever again succumb to dictatorship, then that argu­ ment is falsifiable because a contrary example is possible.

falsifiability The testability of a theory or hypothesis. A good hypothesis could be logically demonstrated to be false by evidence.

(2) Reverse causality problem

The reverse causality problem is rather simpler to understand. Our story at the beginning of the chapter held that villagers noted that contagious epidemics brought doctors into villages and people in the villages began to die, and they concluded that doctors were causing the illness, rather than the illness bringing the doctors to the village. In this case, two variables are correlated, but the causal argument linking the two may be the opposite of what we anticipate. Instead of

Definitions and Falsifiability: Dictators and Dictatorships

*r, %. * \

I n trying to explain why countries become dictatorships, we may often be drawn to the actions of certain key individuals. Say we argue that North Korea is a dictatorship because North Korean people have no practical rights under Kim Jong-un.The cause is Kim Jong-un's rule and the consequence is dictatorship, as de­ fined by a lack of political rights for citizens. We may then note that Kim Jong-un, like his father, Kim Jong-il, is a dictator who does not allow free and fair elections, tramples civil liberties, and rules with an iron fist.12 But if we say that these aspects of Kim Jong-il's rule are the causes of North Korea becoming a dictator­ ship, we are defining cause and effect the same way. We are char­ acterizing the rule of Kim Jong-il as a dictatorship more than we are giving a real cause for why dictatorial rule in North Korea came about. Arguing that individuals like Kim Jong-il cause dic­ tatorships may work as long as we are careful in our causal argu­ ment and separate it from our definition, but in this case our cause and our effect are the same.

Kim Jong-un, General Ri Yong Ho, and Kim Jong-il of North Korea in 2010. When Kim Jong-il died in 2011, his son Kim Jong-un took over the dictatorship. Why has this authoritarian regime persisted despite international isolation and poor economic performance?

36 Chapter 2: Theories, Hypotheses, and Evidence

Reverse Causality: Cancer Rates and Longevity

For much of the twentieth century, cancer rates were higher in countries with long life spans than they were in countries where the average life span was shorter. Given this correlation be­ tween the variables, one (wrong) conclusion might be that cancer causes people to live longer. This would, of course, have the causal relationship backward. Cancers are diseases that affect the

old more often than the young, so where people live longer they are likelier to suffer from cancer. Because many people in coun­ tries with short life spans (such as some African countries, unfortu­ nately) do not live to old ages, cancer is infrequent. Understanding "which way the causal arrow goes" is crucial: In this case the arrow goes longevity -» cancer, rather than cancer -> longevity.

X leading to Y, perhaps Y leads to X. Getting the “causal arrow” pointed in the right direction is essential, and reversing causality has the potential to lead to disastrous consequences.

(3) Endogeneity problem

The endogeneity problem is about circularity: It happens when two variables exhibit mutual or reciprocal effects. You may know of a simple expression such as “the chicken and the egg” problem, though endogeneity arises any time variables mutually affect one another. If X and Y correlate and seem to go together, we may be left trying to figure out whether X caused Y to happen or Y caused X to happen. Reasonable people may disagree about which direction the causal arrow goes.13 Endogeneity problems are common in the real world. W hen we talk of vicious circles (of, say, poverty and dictatorship) or virtuous circles (of, say, eco­ nomic growth and human development), we are describing a situation in which many important variables are endogenous. Indeed, endogeneity as such is not a problem but a feature of many social and political phenomena. It becomes a prob­ lem when we mistakenly claim one variable causes another when the two vari­ ables are, in fact, endogenously linked. Even so, social scientists don’t want simply to identify multiple variables as endogenous, but to understand more

Endogeneity: Education and Health

f ' hildren's health and children's education seem to correlate *— .positively: When one improves, so does the other. So, do im­ provements in education lead to better health, or do improve­ ments in health lead to better education? Both are plausible. Healthier students will be more likely to have good attendance at school and will be better able to thrive in their work there,

making improved health a cause of improved educational out­ comes. Conversely, better education may lead to more knowl­ edge about healthy practices, including nutrition and sanitation. So education may make for less frequent visits to the doctor. In this case, the two variables are endogenous.

endogeneity The name given to any circumstance in which two variables exhibit mutual or recipro­ cal effects.

Hypothesis Testing 37

precisely the ways endogenously linked variables interact over time. One of the leading strategies for resolving this dilemma in qualitative research is closely tracing the historical sequence. Where we have good information about when and where things happened, who did them, or how events unfolded, we may be able to determine whether X -> Y or Y —> X. I f we can identify clearly whether the chicken came before the egg (or vice-versa), we may be able to address this problem. This is not, however, always possible, as the box on education and health shows.

In addition, there are statistical strategies for dealing with this problem that we cannot explore here, but you could learn about them by taking a more ad­ vanced social science methods course.

(4) Intervening variable problem

z

Y

Intervening variables are another potential problem, though they are not always problematic. The situation here is that X leads to Y, but indirectly: The effect of X on Y is mediated through another variable, Z. This is not always a problem. An example is eating fatty foods and having a higher risk of heart disease. Eating lots of fatty foods leads to an accumulation of cholesterol in the arteries, which leads to higher risk of heart disease. Even though there are in­ tervening steps between the actual eating and the risk of heart disease, we can still say eating fatty foods causes higher risk of heart disease. As long as we can specify the argument and its steps, we do not have an intervening variable problem. The potential problem arises when we miss an intervening variable and this leads us to a wrong interpretation. The following example illustrates this problem.

Intervening Variables: Communism and Democratization

In 1989, many of the countries of central-eastern Europe became democracies as they left the communist bloc dominated by the former Soviet Union. An amateur analyst might be tempted to conclude that communism therefore caused democracy. The communist regimes must have encouraged the citizenry to demand their rights, and then they agreed to hold elections to fulfill those rights.This is nonsense. In reality, the democratization of the region came about as a reaction and response to years of

communist rule, generated by civil society and civic groups, and directed at the authoritarian regimes. Communism cannot meaningfully be said to have caused the democratization. Rather, intervening variables, such as citizens' long pent-up frustrations, combined with some particular trigger events, brought on the fall of communism. An interpretation of the democratic wave of 1989 as a consequence of communism would have the argument quite wrong if it lacked the key intervening variables.

(5) Omitted variable problem

38 Chapter 2: Theories, Hypotheses, and Evidence

We frequently miss or omit variables that should be in our analysis. We ob­ serve an empirical relationship between X and Y, and assume this means that one creates the other, when in fact both are attributable to a third factor, sometimes also called a confounding or “lurking” variable, because though it is there in the background we might not see it. If X and Y are positively correlated, it may not be that X —> Y or Y —> X at all. Instead, some factor Z may lead to both X and Y, thus giving rise to the correlation between them. That is, Z —> X and Z —» Y.

(6) Spurious correlation problem

Finally, there are many variables out there in the world, and some are bound to correlate with one another even in the absence of any causal relationship. Many problems that seem to be of this sort will actually be omitted variable problems upon further investigation, but there are examples of correlations where simply no meaningful causal relationship exists. Lucky superstitions are examples where two variables seem to correlate, but there is no plausible rela­ tionship between them. Perhaps your college’s sports team always seems to win when you put your lucky hat on for the game. This correlation may continue for some time, but there is no reasonable scientific explanation linking your hat- wearing tendencies to victory, and no reason to expect that you putting on your hat will lead your team to win the next game. Though the variables “hat wear­ ing” and “victory” may correlate, there is no causation. (Sorry. You can take off your hat now.)

Omitted Variables: Ice Cream Sales and Murders

There is a peculiar correlation between ice cream and murder rates, often cited in methodology textbooks.14 Let's say a study gives convincing evidence of a positive correlation be­ tween increases in ice cream sales and increases in murder rates. What's more, the analyst plausibly claims to have a causal argu­ ment. What could such a causal argument be? Does eating ice

cream lead people to murder? Unlikely. Murdering someone gives a craving for ice cream? Probably not. The answer is a miss­ ing variable: the temperature outside. This omitted variable af­ fects both ice cream sales and murder rates, both of which increase in the summertime. Failing to account for omitted vari­ ables can lead to dangerously flawed causal arguments.

Critiques'. Using Theories and Evidence 39

Spurious Correlation: Stock Markets and Butter Production in Bangladesh

A ccording to an accomplished statistician now at the Univer­sity of California, Berkeley, the variable most highly corre­ lated with the performance of American stock markets for several decades was not U.S. corporate profits, or rates of inflation or unemployment in the United States, but rather butter produc­ tion in Bangladesh.15 If this is true, surely it is so by coincidence. It is highly improbable that some factor happens to affect only

American stock prices and butter production in Bangladesh but not any of the other variables that might also be expected to link the two (such as the overall performance of the global econ­ omy). With the seemingly boundless number of variables we might observe in the world, some are bound to correlate even when there is no real relationship between them.

Critiques: Using Theories and Evidence Evidence can be used to support an argument, but it can also help us counter an argument, and this too is a meaningful contribution to advancing our under­ standing and knowledge. It is clear that we often want to use evidence to support our own arguments. Less obviously, however, evidence can be used to enhance a theory or an argument by providing a helpful critique of the conventional wisdom. Accordingly, empirical critiques have a prominent place in comparative politics, as do the theoretical critiques they enable.

Empirical Critiques: Using Deviant Cases In testing hypotheses, we often hope to find evidence that supports a particular theory. Specifically, we want to find cases that confirm or reaffirm our theory or support our hypothesis. But many interesting advances come from empirical evi­ dence that does not fit a theory well. Deviant cases—those that do not fit a theory or are exceptions or outliers— are very important in advancing social sci­ ence theory. These cases help us test out why a theory doesn’t work, and under­ stand what improvements need to be made to our knowledge. They allow us to make an empirical critique of a theory because they do not support it. Much like getting a bad result on a certain test can encourage us to do better where we fell short, so too a deviant case forces us to think about how to improve our arguments.

Theoretical Critiques: Im proving Theories and Hypotheses Theoretical critiques are new ideas that improve upon the logic or reasoning of existing theories. Theory and empirical evidence constantly interact, and where deviant cases help provide an empirical critique, these can help us improve our theories. They often provide the impetus for improvement of the theory. Empirical critiques allow us to advance social science by pointing out anomalies, inconsistencies, and deviations from a theory. Theoretical advances can also come from critiques of the theory itself, through reexaminations of the logic, assumptions, or arguments underpinning it. The following box gives an example of how a theoretical critique emerged from empirical evidence that didn’t fit a theory.

empirical critique An effort to point to important evidence that does not support a conventional version of any given theory.

theoretical critique An effort to show that a given theory has logical limitations.

40 Chapter 2: Theories, Hypotheses, and Evidence

Empirical Critique: Ghana and Modernization Theory (see chapter 6)

Ghana is a low-income West African country that defies ex­pectations by having a robust democracy. This presents an intriguing challenge to the theory of modernization, which we present further in chapter 6. Modernization theory holds that democracy can be expected as a consequence of economic de­ velopment, industrialization, education, and urbanization, all of which contribute to the emergence of a middle class.16 While

Ghana is advancing on some of these criteria, the country clearly is poor with a limited industrial base, low levels of education, and only some recent urbanization. Yet it is a rather successful de­ mocracy with free and fair elections and protections for citizens' rights and liberties. Ghana thus becomes a very interesting case to examine, precisely because it facilitates an empirical critique of a prominent theory about democratization.

O f course, theories can also receive theoretical critiques from other scholars who are not looking to refine and better them, but rather to offer an entirely dif­ ferent theoretical perspective. This is certainly the case with the dependency theory example, which has been challenged in many ways. For the comparative analyst’s purposes, theoretical critiques can be favorable amendments to a theory, or they can oppose a theory entirely.

Critiques help us craft better arguments and theories. First, they can improve scope conditions The conditions our understanding of scope conditions, or the conditions under which an argu- or range of cases for which an ment works. Identifying and examining cases that do not fit an argument is a argument works. good potential avenue for further research. Second, critiques based on empirical

evidence can help improve our concepts and lead to clearer understanding of what exactly we are studying. For instance, the tiny, oil-rich country of Equato­ rial Guinea has grown rapidly to become one of the wealthiest countries in Africa, but much of its wealth goes just to the dictator’s family. Studying this empirical example might give us more insight into what exactly a country’s “economic development” means. By identifying weaknesses in arguments and offering alternative explanations, critiques give us better understandings of why things happen.

Theoretical Critique: Dependency Theory in Latin America (see chapter 5)

From the 1940s to the 1960s, many leading scholars of Latin America argued that the continent suffered from economic dependency relative to the world's industrial powers. This "de­ pendency theory" suggested that poor Latin American countries essentially lost money, resources, and power to the wealthy and powerful countries of the world. The image was of exploitation of the poor countries on the world's periphery by the rich "core" countries. However, empirical evidence after World War II chal­ lenged this theory, as countries such as Brazil managed to grow, develop, and industrialize with some success. As a result, depen­ dency theory received a theoretical critique from other scholars.

including Peter Evans and Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Enzo Faletto. (Cardoso, incidentally, later became president of Brazil in the 1990s.) This next generation of dependency theorists charac­ terized the relationship between Latin America and the core countries as one of "dependent development," in which the con­ tinent could develop and grow, but still in a subordinate position that furthered its dependence on capital from the wealthy coun­ tries. This theoretical critique came from the recognition that the original dependency theory had a failing: It could not explain or account for growth or progress in Latin America.

The Challenges of Measurement: Biases, Errors, and Validity 41

The Challenges of Measurement: Biases, Errors, and Validity The challenges of garnering and wielding evidence are multifaceted. Beyond de­ termining how to gather evidence and which pieces to use, we must pay attention to measures and indicators (elements or features suggesting underlying factors). Without careful and thoughtful measurement, we may accidentally introduce biases and errors into an analysis. Bias is a preference for one idea or perspective over another, especially a preference that may result in unbalanced use of evi­ dence or in analytical error.

Bias aside, it is possible to simply make measurement errors, such as by typing the wrong number in a spreadsheet. This kind of error happens more often than you might expect and sometimes in consequential ways. As a well-known example, a spreadsheet data error in work by Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff produced erroneous results in highly influential research about government debt and economic growth (note that this error was discovered by a graduate student!).17 Less obvious might be how a measurement cannot fully reflect what it is trying to measure. Most college students have taken standardized tests such as the SAT or ACT, which attempt to measure overall competence in math and language. Scores for most students will fluctuate from one test to the next depending on the specific questions. Whatever their merits, the tests thus have a degree of measurement error in conveying competence.

A second measurement problem is measurement bias. One example of bias comes from respondents in a survey who are untruthful, whether consciously or subconsciously.18 Another would be if the questions we ask people are interpreted differently by different groups of respondents. Perhaps the most serious form of bias for beginning researchers is seeking to confirm one’s favored hypothesis. This can include a tendency to believe things are a certain way that we want to see them. Imagine that a gung-ho capitalist student wants to show that countries with free markets have performed better economically than countries that have more active government involvement in the economy. The eager student knows that the United States performed better than the U.S.S.R. in economic growth rates in the 1980s and uses these cases to “prove” the hypothesis that less government involvement in the economy is better for the economy. Subconsciously, the student may have chosen those cases because he knew what he would find, and that it would support his preference. But looking at the same question in other cases (say, Scandinavia or Canada vs. African countries) might show very different results. The point is not that the student is wrong—in fact, he may be correct—but that the student’s pre­ conceptions biased the research. We must ask research questions and test hypoth­ eses fairly, by ensuring the answer is not predetermined.

Even when researchers are careful not to bias their measures, we must con­ sider the problem of measurement validity—that is, whether a given measure effectively captures or represents what is being researched. Indicators that are valid accurately reflect our concept. Informally, validity means measuring what we claim we are measuring. In some cases, this is straightforward, and our mea­ sures may be perfectly valid. To measure the “total number of political parties represented in a legislature,” we may simply find a record of every member of the

indicator An element or feature that indicates the presence of an underlying factor.

bias A preference for one idea or perspective over another, espe­ cially a preference that may result in unbalanced use of evidence or in analytical error.

measurement error Either an episodic error, such as improperly recording data, or a systematic error, meaning that a measurement does not fully reflect what it is designed to measure.

measurement bias A measure is biased if it will not produce compa­ rable results for all observations.

measurement validity Whether a given measure effectively captures or represents what we are researching.

42 Chapter 2: Theories, Hypotheses, and Evidence

Measurement Validity Problems: Nationalism in Latin America

Complex concepts like those in comparative politics have real potential for problems of validity, and this is especially true of cultural phenomena that are less subject to precise mea­ surement. For example, Miguel Angel Centeno aimed to mea­ sure levels of nationalism in several nineteenth-century Latin American societies.19 For obvious reasons, nineteenth-century Latin Americans cannot be surveyed (and there are limitations to what surveys can reveal about identities in any case). Therefore, Centeno needed to select indicators of national sentiment. Among others, he chose the presence (or relative lack) of na­ tional monuments. Is the presence of national monuments a valid indicator of “nationalism" or "national sentiment”? To say yes, we must suppose there is a relationship between national

sentiment and the construction of national monuments. Is this assumption correct? If not, does this mean that we should disre­ gard such imperfect indicators? There is often a tension between measurement validity and our desire to have measures that are objective and precise. The construction of monuments is rela­ tively easy to measure, but it may not fully capture national senti­ ment; on the other hand, measuring national sentiment by more extensive accounts (say, from diaries and newspapers of the time) may give us greater validity, but the measure may be fuzz­ ier than the measure using monuments. We often must use ne­ cessarily imperfect indicators, but we must remember their limitations, and search for the best available measures.

legislature, note which party each member is from, then count the number of distinct parties to which legislators belong. On the other hand, consider the challenge of trying to measure overall health outcomes of a given country. Is life expectancy the right measure for this? Or infant mortality rates (the percent of infants that die before the age of two, e.g.)? Or rates of asthma, malaria, or HIV/ AIDS? In truth, each of these is a valid measure of something specific, but none precisely measures “overall health.”

Several guidelines can help here. We should strive for valid measurement to the greatest extent possible, but sometimes, when dealing with certain questions and sets of data, we will have to work with imperfect indicators of the concepts that interest us. We should explicitly state our reservations about our measures when we present our work. This allows others to make their own judgments. In addition, we should be mindful of how our measured variables relate to our con­ cepts and questions. In your own research, you should ask yourself the following two questions. First, can this actually be measured? Second, does this measure actually correspond to the concept we are trying to study?

T H IN K IN G CO M P A R A TIV ELY Qualities of Good Analysis and Argumentation

Comparative politics tests hypotheses and builds theories by using evidence and identifying causal relationships. Careful use of theory and evidence allows a researcher to give a hypothesis a good test. The results of that test and that research will lead to a thesis that can be well substantiated and compelling. Good argumentation will avoid, or at least address, the problems of causal infer­ ence and measurement shown in this chapter. We conclude the chapter with some guidance for high-quality analysis in comparative politics.

Qualities of Good Analysis and Argumentation 43

Good arguments are generally good answers to good questions. It is nearly im­ possible to have a good answer to a bad question. For this reason, we begin with asking good questions. Good questions have a number of characteristics, among them the following. First, good questions can be answered with evidence. The question of why human beings form political societies is not a bad question for political philosophers, but it is not an especially good question for comparative politics, because it is virtually impossible to answer using empirical evidence. Second, good questions are interesting. Questions can be interesting in several ways. They may produce knowledge that is relevant to making policies and laws, for example. But especially important is that they somehow contribute to existing theories. Related to this, they should elicit curiosity, both from a potential audi­ ence and from you, the analyst. Third, good questions can be answered, at least in a preliminary but meaningful fashion, given the time and resources at your disposal. Finally, good questions ask for causal explanations. They do not just ask for descriptive accounts of processes, but they push us to explain why some phe­ nomenon or phenomena has (or have) come to pass.

Step 1: Asking Good Questions: Why?

Step 2: Hypothesis Testing: Generating Good Hypotheses and Testing Them Fairly The second set of issues for beginning comparative political analysis is formulat­ ing an appropriate hypothesis and testing it with as little bias as possible. A hy­ pothesis should be based upon clearly defined variables and concepts. To explain why country X became a democracy, for example, we need a good definition for democracy and how we know country X is a democracy. A good hypothesis will typically be rooted in some existing theory from comparative politics. For ex­ ample, can modernization theory (see chapters 5 and 6) offer a hypothesis for why country X democratized? Good hypothesis testing often involves reading theories and arguments about cases other than the one we are interested in. Gen­ erating a hypothesis about democratization in country X may require us to read theories and arguments not just about country X itself, but also about other coun­ tries. Good hypothesis testing will not mean the researcher goes looking to prove her/his own pet argument, picking and choosing evidence to make the point. Once a hypothesis is formulated, it should receive a fair test from the researcher, who can and should use the available evidence to weigh the proposed argument and how well it works or does not.

Step 3: Balancing Argumentation: Evidence, Originality, and Meaningfulness A final key to good comparative analysis is making meaningful claims and avoid­ ing trivial arguments. If you are developing your own argument, you should offer your own distinct hypothesis and then your own original claim based upon your research. Self-evident and obvious arguments contribute much less to social sci­ ence than arguments that are memorable. Ideally, you would like those hearing your argument to think it is one “only this person would make in this way,” while also thinking you have defended your argument well. Another way to put this is to see that your argument produces new knowledge rather than reproducing old knowledge. You do not want to replicate, copy, or transcribe others’ ideas; you want to generate and defend your own.

44 Chapter 2: Theories, Hypotheses, and Evidence

Originality matters, but it must be balanced with a respect for existing know­ ledge. Originality does not mean developing ridiculous and goofy arguments or ignoring previous research. Serious evaluation of existing evidence is as important in formulating one’s argument as it is in testing the hypothesis. Good comparative analysis means more argumentation than pure description and more attention to evidence than pure opinion. It is neither an opinion piece nor a book report about a country. It represents a middle ground in which you have an argument where original claims and interpretations are backed with evidence. Basing your argu­ ment on significant reading and research will be the likeliest route to success. There is no substitute for this research work. Indeed, original research is original precisely because it contributes in helpful ways to an existing research tradition.

One challenge from extensive research is that there will frequently be multiple variables that can be shown to have some impact on a particular outcome. For instance, a country’s economic growth may be shown to depend upon the follow­ ing: geographic location, relationship to the dominant powers in the world econ­ omy, policies, leadership, culture, institutions, histories of colonialism, chance and luck, and many other variables. It is important, however, to do more than make a “laundry list” and simply say “all of these matter.” The challenge is to pri­ oritize the variables that have the most significant and substantive impact on the outcome. In the jargon, we call this being parsimonious, selecting the most im­ portant variables and giving them pride of place in the argument.

Doing all of this will enable a researcher to engage with the larger scholarly literature and the central debates in comparative politics. The strongest works of comparative politics—the major books and articles in the field— are the product of years of research work and refined thinking, but the basic process can be emu­ lated by those new to the field. The best student work comes from analyses that draw on diverse sources, including theoretical sources, to weigh the validity of different claims, show competent understanding of relevant literature, build on relevant concepts and theories, and highlight the individual’s unique synthesis and contribution. This asks a great deal, and it requires practice, but our guidance boils down to the suggestions in Table 2.1.

Comparative research requires considerable thought and planning, but it is also best learned by doing. This comes from reading in the field to see how scholars analyze politics, and by conducting one’s own research for papers, presentations,

t a b l e 2.1 G uidelines for Com parative Research

Guideline Step 1: A sk Good Questions Step 2: Test H ypotheses Step 3: Write Your Argum ent

Do the basics Ask open-ended why questions about cause and effect.

Define concepts and variables clearly.

Read and use the scholarly literature on your topic.

Be original and informed Ask questions you do not know the answer to before starting your research.

Use theories from scholarly books and articles to help form hypotheses.

Aim for meaningful, original claims, and avoid laundry lists of factors that just "matter."

T H IN K IN G 1 CO M P A R A TIV ELY J j

Consider the evidence Ask questions for which Be aware of your biases Use evidence and not opinion evidence is available to test a and work from the to make your claims, hypothesis. evidence, not assumptions.

Chapter Review 45

r T H IN K IN G ^CO M PA R A TIV ELY

exams, or other outputs. The remainder of the book will help provide you with this practice. In the next chapters, we turn to the major themes of comparative politics and use these to work on the process of formulating and generating questions, hypotheses, arguments, and theories. We provide some of the requisite knowledge of these topics, and examples of quality research, while pushing you to analyze comparative politics on your own.

C h a p te r S u m m a r y Introduction to Theories, Hypotheses, and Evidence

Social scientists use theories, hypotheses, and evidence to build arguments about how the world operates. Theories are general explanations of how empirical phenomena operate across a range of cases. They are typically backed by some evidence. Hypotheses are potential explanations of cause and effect for specific cases. They are designed to be tested using evidence and are often derived from theories.

Hypothesis Testing • The central practice in comparative politics is testing hy­

potheses about causal questions using empirical evidence. This involves measuring variables and seeing how variables correlate across cases.

• Variables that correlate with one another may have a causal relationship, but not necessarily.

• There are several fallacies and logical traps to avoid when making causal arguments about correlated variables, to include reverse causation, omitted variables, intervening variables, and spurious correlation.

Critiques: Using Theory and Evidence Political science can advance by developing critiques of existing theories and arguments. Critiques can be empiri­ cal, based on demonstrating cases that do not fit a theory, or can be more purely theoretical by using reason and logic to show problems with a theory.

The Challenge of Measurement: Errors, Biases, and Validity

Measurement is a leading challenge facing comparative political scientists. Comparativists aim to avoid measure­ ment errors and biases, and seek to ensure that measures are valid, or measure what they claim to measure.

Th in kin g Com paratively Good practices in comparative politics include asking causal "Why” questions, developing unbiased hypothesis tests, and making arguments that are original yet informed by an understanding of existing theories and findings.

T h in k in g It T h r o u g h 1. Considering the examples of problems with causal arguments

in Figures 2.1 and 2.2, come up with your own examples of omitted-variable problems in the real world.

2. Considering the theory of modernization, which holds (among other things) that wealth is likely to lead to democracy, what sorts of countries would you seek out if you wanted to test the theory on deviant cases? Think of some examples, or do some preliminary research online that will help you identify some.

3. What are some examples of measurement problems that you could foresee if you were to conduct a study of how a country's culture affects its wealth?

4. What beliefs do you have about politics that you think are rooted in a theory? For example, do you have beliefs about how politi­ cians tend to behave, the media's role in politics, or the likelihood that student activists can "change the world"? If so, consider what you think the theory is, and contemplate it in light of this chapter. What are the achievements and shortcomings of the theory?

5. Ask yourself what puzzles you about politics or social life in a certain country (perhaps including the United States). Now try to develop a hypothesis for a possible answer that would ex­ plain the puzzle. How could you develop a research plan that would allow you to gather evidence and test your hypothesis?

• Egyptian police and soldiers outside a voting center in 2011. The m ilitary and police shape the development and functioning of the state in critical ways.

I n the years just after World W ar II, many observers thought of the W estern European state system as fairly settled. It was in this region that the idea of

modern states had first developed. The consolidation of states’ power was high, even in cases like Germany and Italy, which unified only in the late nineteenth century. A nd despite the 1945 split of Germany into East and West, followed by its reunification several decades later, the European states on the whole seemed likely to persist into the distant future.

But at least two recent developments have called into ques­ tion the stability of the W estern European system of nation­ states. The first is the movement over the second h a lf of the twentieth century toward European integration, beginning with the European common market and culminating in the creation of the European Union (EU). Some have wondered whether a European “super-state” might form, and others have made arguments for and against this possibility.1 The second development is the notable presence of secessionist and sub­ state nationalist movements in the region, perhaps most nota­ bly in Catalonia (an area on the Mediterranean coast of Spain) and Scotland (which is part of the United Kingdom). In the fall of 2014 Scotland held a referendum on becoming indepen­ dent from the United Kingdom. The referendum failed, but some of its supporters are undaunted. Similarly, many in Cata­ lonia are hopeful of forming an independent state in the future. Could such developments gather steam? I f Catalonia or Scot­ land successfully forms a new state, will others in the region follow in its wake? To answer such questions, we must under­ stand the processes through which states have been formed and, before that, the characteristic features of modern states.

It is impossible to understand modern politics without un­ derstanding the state. It is states that are authoritarian or dem­ ocratic, and it is states that exhibit the institutional features such as executives and legislatures that we discuss later in this book. It is states that groups with national identities and other political identities aim to influence and control, and that social movements and revolutions aim to transform. States are key factors in economic development, and they shape the experiences of citizens, residents, and still other individuals. Finally, states

IN THI S C H A P T E R

Concepts 48 The Modern State 48 State Capacity 49 Failed States 50 The State-Society Relationship 50

Types 52 Characteristics of Modern States 52 Traditional Functions of States 55

Causes and Effects: Why Did States Em erge and Expand? 57 Political/Conflict Theories 58 Economic Theories 60 Cultural Theories 61 Diffusion Theories 62

T HI NKI NG C O M P A R A T I V E L Y

Great Britain, the United Kingdom , or Neither? State and Nation in England and Scotland 65

C A S E S IN C O N T E X T

Mexico Nigeria

France • United Kingdom

48 Chapter 3: The State

state The most important form of political organization in modern politics, which, in its ideal form, is characterized by centralized con­ trol of the use of force, bureaucratic organization, and the provision of a number of public goods.

are the central characters in the story of international politics: Even in this rapidly globalizing world in which non-state and transnational actors are in­ creasingly important, the state remains perhaps the most important and pow­ erful force.

But what is the state? W here do states come from, and what does this tell us about their character and likely future? W h at do states do? How do they differ from one another, and why are some strong and others weak or even failed states? These are the questions we begin to answer in this chapter and those that follow.

• * •

Concepts Analysts of comparative politics do not always agree completely on the defini­ tions of words such as state or development or democracy. Often, though, there is a sort of lowest common denominator, an agreed-on general idea about what a concept covers. W ith respect to the state— and here we focus on the modern state that evolved over the last several centuries2~this lowest common denominator is the classic definition posited almost a century ago by Max Weber: The state is the central political institution that exerts a “monopoly on the legitimate use of phys­ ical force within a given territory.”3 Note that by “legitimate” Weber means rec­ ognized by members of the society in question as generally justified. Political scientists do not themselves decide what is or is not “legitimate.”

W hat does Weber’s definition mean? Definitions work, in part, by telling us what something is not. W hat is a state not? Well, it is clear from this definition that a political arena with many distinct actors using legitimate force would not be a state. Consider a scenario of anarchy, for example, the famous “war of all against all.” I f a society has no central authority that can use force, then perhaps anyone can. In such a society, individuals need to either acquire the ability to use force themselves or make an arrangement with someone who can. I f they do not, they remain vulnerable to the threat that someone else could harm them, and without some higher authority, they have no one to turn to. Yet the diversity of political societies is not limited to the extremes of anarchic systems and modern states. Indeed, there are many intermediary types.

The M odem State We begin by comparing the modern state to another sort of political society that was not anarchic, but in which a nonstate order was present: European feudalism in the medieval era.4 In the feudal political order, hierarchical ties linked peasants, at the bottom, to kings, who at least nominally sat at the top (in tenuous balance with the church), with a nobility mediating between them. In the feudal order, however, kings were understood to be the greatest among nobles, and their rule over the population of their kingdoms was mostly indirect. There was little stan­ dardized taxation, there were few standing armies, and the king’s administration

Concepts 49

did not provide meaningful public services. Peasants in such a system were un­ likely to find recourse against local nobles by petitioning the king.5 Achieving such recourse was not impossible in principle, but the organizational capacity of the system typically made it unfeasible. Most people traveled very little, and the authority to which they were subjected was local, and often arbitrary. Law was present, but rule o f law, referring to a political system in which the law is consis­ tently applied equally to all, was not. No single, centralized authority could claim to control the legitimate use of force.6 Indeed, it was considered legitimate for a variety of actors to exert force, and not just because such authority had been del­ egated to them.7 The king’s authority was rivaled by both the authority of the church and the nobility.

Now think about the state you live in (and by this, of course, we mean your country). Imagine an incident of violence taking place within this state. Is that violence considered legitimate or illegitimate? This will depend on who is doing it and why. I f it is your neighbor, and he or she holds no official position, chances are the violence is illegitimate. W hat about a police officer subduing a violent suspect? W hat is critical here is that all of the use of force considered legitimate in a society ultimately traces its legitimacy back to the state. In other words, in a society with a state, violence is tremendously concentrated in the military and law enforcement agencies.8 This means that in well-functioning states, interper­ sonal violence is likely lower than in other systems: States with high capacity limit and control interpersonal violence, to the extent that citizens of well- functioning states are often able to ignore what little interpersonal violence is present. This does not mean, though, that states with high levels of capacity are nonviolent. Rather, they represent the greatest concentration of the capacity to exert force that the world has ever known.9

So far we have used a fairly minimal definition of the state. It is worth noting that there are other important features of modern states, which we discuss fur­ ther later in the chapter, including their bureaucratic type of organization, their impersonality, and above all the fact that they claim sovereignty. Moreover, states aim to do many things, and as time passes these actions of the state get in­ corporated into our idea of what a state is.

State C apacity State capacity is the measurement of a state’s ability to accomplish its goals.10 In general, today we would say that a state has high capacity when (1) it has established a monopoly on the use of force; (2) it has a properly functioning bureaucracy, with relatively low levels of corruption and irregularity, accomplishing tasks such as coordinating defense, maintaining infrastructure, and managing projects in education and public health; and (3) rule of law is maintained, producing a pre­ dictable and manageable environment for citizens as they go about their business. To do this it must successfully generate revenue, usually by taxing its population, a task more difficult than you might imagine.11

As we will see later, the goals that states have taken on have increased over time.12 Because the list of states’ necessary activities is a moving target, so is the definition of “state capacity”: A state that would have been considered to have high capacity in the late seventeenth century, such as the English or French state

rule of law A system that imposes regularized rules in a polity, with key criteria including equal rights, the regular enforcement of laws, and the relative independence of the judiciary.

modern state A concept used to distinguish states in the modern world from earlier forms of political centralization; it includes features such as extensive bureaucracy, centralization of violence, and impersonality.

state capacity The ability of the state to achieve its objectives, especially the abilities to control violence, effectively tax the popula­ tion, and maintain well-functioning institutions and the rule of law.

50 Chapter 3: The State

failed state A state that cannot or does not perform its expected functions.

of that time, would today be considered weak or to have low capacity. For ex­ ample, seventeenth-century France—unquestionably a strong state with high capacity in its historical context—did not provide (or aim to provide) public edu­ cation, but today this is considered a key function of states. A state that fails at doing so is now considered to have lower capacity than a state that succeeds.

Another way to think about this would be to see states as moving along a con­ tinuum of stateness.13 In other words, rather than thinking of state or non-state as a dichotomous (“yes” or “no”) variable, we could think of stateness as a quality of a given political order: State capacity, from this point of view, is the degree to which a political order has achieved stateness.

Failed States As with many other concepts, scholars do not always agree about how to precisely define and measure failed states, but, put simply, states fail when their capacity declines to a certain point. So a failed state is one that cannot or does not do what states are conventionally supposed to do. Perhaps the clearest example in recent years has been Somalia, where the state as such is just one actor among many. Rival groups, essentially large gangs, control their own territory and battle over it at the margins. Public service provision is minimal where it exists at all. We will examine failed states at greater length in the next chapter on political economy.

The S ta te -S o cie ty Relationship We have said that the state is fundamental to understanding modern politics. At the same time, it is important to remember that the state is part of society. It does not exist outside or above the society but is one among many organizations. “So­ ciety” can be thought of as the set of webs of ties that connect people to each other. In other words, it can be thought of as a space created by lots of different overlapping social networks. So society is composed of webs of friendships, pro­ fessional linkages, voluntary groups and religious organizations, media ties, and many other structured systems of relationships. In these patterns of overlapping networks, power is distributed. In modern societies, formally organized power is, as we have seen, concentrated in the state. But in most modern societies, despite the state’s concentration of formal power, there is a great deal of political activity that is not controlled by state actors. We need to be able to take this activity into account.

W hen political scientists speak of the state-society relationship, they imply that the modern state is partially autonomous and is situated in relationships with other actors, and that these relationships are important to study. Why? Be­ cause sets of relationships with other actors affect the state’s goals and constrain its policy options and, thus, its actions. These relationships also have implica­ tions for those other actors, and especially for participants in “civil society,” which we discuss further later in the chapter. W hen we say that the state is par­ tially autonomous we mean that it is not subject to the total control of other organizations. Instead, it tends to serve as a base to control those other organiza­ tions. For example, before the creation of modern states in Europe, the political institutions that preceded them (confusingly, also often called “states”) existed in dynamic tension with the Catholic Church. In essence, these organizations

Concepts 51

shared sovereignty in complicated and even contradictory ways. Modern states, though, tend to be more autonomous from religious organizations, as we explore more fully in chapter 15.

So the state is part of society more broadly, but in many modern societies it assumes a kind of directing role, coordinating key forms of collective action within it. In well-institutionalized states, non-state actors do not declare wars, for example, or otherwise usurp the state’s roles and functions. And when crises emerge, populations often turn to states, demanding that they address those crises and often holding them accountable if they do not. Societal actors can also attempt to remake aspects of the state itself. Democratic states institutionalize mechanisms that aim to allow for the regular and peaceful participation of the citizenry in coordinating state action. W hen this does not work, as we shall see in chapter 12, social movements, insurgencies, and even revolutions can emerge from society to constrain or transform the state and its activities. Many analysts believe, though, that revolutionary transformation is very rare in strong states, and in particular in strong democratic states.14

The quality, strength, and type of state are not the only important factors in this connection. Many scholars think that countries have different degrees and types of civil society with different organizations, networks of social actors, media, and customs and habits of organizing, talking, and meeting. Scholars do not all agree about how precisely to define civil society, but most use this term to mean some­ thing like a space relatively autonomous from state coercion within which people can deliberate and strategize about matters that have political implications. Orga­ nizationally, civil society can be thought of as housed in labor unions, in social clubs and other voluntary groups, in churches, mosques, and synagogues, and in many other such sites. From a networks perspective, we can see civil society as de­ pendent on the existence of dense and transitive ties that are not fully embedded in the arms of the state. In other words, civil society depends on the possibility of lots of us being able to know and communicate with each other, without those ex­ changes being predominantly coordinated (or limited) by state actors.

These civil society organizations and networks allow groups of citizens to analyze politics and make claims on the state.15 According to many scholars, strong civil society accompanies strong states with well-institutionalized democ­ racies, but it is more problematic for authoritarian states, which will often seek to co-opt or even eliminate citizen activities of this sort.16 This is intuitive: an au­ thoritarian state’s position is strengthened to the extent that potential rivals do not have the organizational capacity to challenge it. For this reason, many polit­ ical scientists believe that proponents of democratization would do well to invest in civil society: for example, by subsidizing a diverse array of organizations or by trying to help lay the infrastructure for dense and transitive networks to form. Moreover, this is not just a theory, but a policy that has been put in practice by many groups and organizations, including the (U.S.-government-funded) Na­ tional Endowment for Democracy, the World Bank, and the United States Agency for International Development.

Other scholars take a different view, seeing “strong societies” as potential ob­ stacles to the formation of strong states.17W hy might this be so? Think again for a moment about the key characteristics of modern states, described previously.

civil society A space in society outside of the organization of the state, in which citizens come together and organize themselves.

52 Chapter 3: The State

bureaucracy A form of organiza­ tion that, in its ideal form, has indi­ viduals operating and working under established, specified, and complex rules.

States concentrate power, enforce laws, and distribute resources. As such, the creation of modern states almost always produces considerable struggle, particu­ larly between state-builders and other actors who are relatively well off (in terms of power or other resources) in a pre-state or weak-state environment. Well- organized networks or clusters of actors in society can often resist state-building efforts by leveraging their power to avoid taxation, the full application of the rule of law, or the extension of rights and privileges to other groups. However, propo­ nents of the view that civil society leads to stronger, more democratic states would argue that these sorts of groups are not what they mean by “civil society.” This realization may lead us to develop our concept of civil society a bit further. Perhaps the concept applies only when there is a certain amount of openness. If isolated and exclusive organizations resist the state for the sake of their minority interests, perhaps that’s not “civil society,” which may be found only when par­ ticipation and public deliberation is broad based and egalitarian.

In general, we could say that strong, democratic states tend to be relatively autonomous from civil society but nevertheless responsive to citizens. Para­ doxically, many of the strongest states might be those that are self-limiting in a lot of key ways. Weak states are often simultaneously less autonomous and less responsive to the broader citizenry. Weak states do not necessarily refrain from intervening in economy and society: rather, they tend to intervene often but ir­ regularly and unpredictably. And strong states sometimes help societies solve problems of collective action, providing “public goods” that would be impossible for individuals in large-scale societies to produce on their own.18 Nonetheless, a debate continues about whether having a “strong society” that is influential and wields political power correlates with a “strong state” or a “weak state.”19

Types As noted earlier, states have many other characteristics besides exerting a mon­ opoly on the legitimate use of force. In the discussion that follows, we focus first on several key characteristics of states and next on state functions.

Characteristics of Modern States States are defined in part by characteristics such as a bureaucratic mode of orga­ nization, impersonality, and the claim of sovereignty. Here we discuss each of these in turn.

B ureaucracy W hen you read the word bureaucracy you might think of the Department of Motor Vehicles or maybe even one of the offices at the college or university where you are taking this course. There is a pretty good chance that the word does not conjure up images of efficiency, rationality, and precision, but rather of frustra­ tion, delay, and inefficiency. Yet social scientists think of at least some bureaucra­ cies as ideal—typically efficient and rational.

Organizations are bureaucratic when they have a rational, universally applic­ able system, administered on the basis of rules and by office holders.20 Bureau­ cracies are, in their ideal form, impersonal and transparent. In other words, in a

Types 53

well-functioning bureaucracy, those rules are available for all to see. Think about the Department of Motor Vehicles. There is a good chance that you, or at least people you know, have a driver’s license and had to pass through bureaucratic channels in order to acquire it. Your receipt of your license was probably not de­ pendent on, for example, who you are related to, the whims of your examiner, or the paying of a bribe. And you probably couldn’t just go to your friend the mayor and ask him or her to give you a license rather than dealing with the appropriate bureaucratic authority. Instead, there is a clearly stipulated set of rules governing who can and cannot receive licenses and also governing who can and cannot make judgments about who has satisfied the appropriate conditions. O f course, the individual who takes you out for your practice test has the ability to exercise a bit of personal judgment—perhaps you roll ever so slightly through a stop sign and he or she is feeling generous and lets it slide—but this personal judgment is sharply delimited: The examiner cannot declare that since you are so nice you get a special license that also allows you to fly a plane, for example.

Now, why would anyone want a bureaucratic system? Going to the Depart­ ment of Motor Vehicles is notoriously painful and frustrating, and working there is probably not much better. Ironically, our common perception that bureaucra­ cies are inefficient is partly a consequence of their working well. Granted, some­ times this perception is true— sometimes bureaucracies really are poorly run and inefficient—and even well-functioning bureaucracies will often lead to frustra­ tion. But the key issue is the ends or goals toward which bureaucracies are ori­ ented. W hen we say that bureaucracies are efficient, we mean that they are the most efficient way to organize collective action in pursuit o f common projects. Think of the military as an example. Wars are not conducted on the basis of the whims of individual troops but rather through their bureaucratically organized action. A well-functioning bureaucracy is like a system of levers linking a leader or group at the top of an organizational hierarchy to a large number of individual actors lower down (see Figure 3.1). Bureaucracies turn the people who hold offices into instruments for the realization of goals set higher up in the organization. I f this mode of organizing collective action still seems inefficient to you, imagine ad­ ministering a welfare program or a health care system, or waging a war, through non-bureaucratic channels.

Modern states are, pure and simple, much more bureaucratic than other, older, political organizations. This feature of modern states—combined with their un­ precedented abilities to extract resources (in the form of taxes) from the popula­ tions subjected to their control—helps explain their efficacy and power. Note that states with less functional bureaucracies necessarily have far lower state capacity.

Im p e rso n ality Modern states are also more impersonal than many other political organiza­ tions.21 This feature is related to their bureaucratic character but not reducible to it. W hen we say that they are impersonal, we mean that they are not closely iden­ tified with the personality of an individual.

You might find this a bit confusing. Don’t we pay an awful lot of attention to our presidents and prime ministers? And haven’t there been some societies with modern states in which cults of personality center on individual dictators, such as

impersonality A quality attribu­ ted by some scholars to modern states, which are presumed to be less likely to be identified with the personalities of their leaders.

54 Chapter 3: The State

citizenship A form of relationship between the state and individuals subject to its control, in which citizens have certain basic rights and are in some way represented in the state.

sovereignty The key way the authority of the modern state is conceptualized: states are under­ stood to be the ultimate authority within their specifically demarcated territories.

Figure 3.1 This is a simplified model of how a bureaucratic structure can achieve the coordination of complex tasks carried out by individual office-holders. Imagine that this organization's mission requires the coordinated performance of nine complex tasks. How difficult might it be to accomplish these tasks in the absence of bureaucratic organization?

Kim Jong-un of North Korea? Indeed, both of these things are true, and the im­ personal character of the modern state is a matter of degree. Think of the differ­ ence, though, between the type of legitimacy accorded a president of the United States and that accorded a king in a pre-modern kingdom. Imagine what would happen if the President of the United States, for example, were to declare that the Constitution is just a manifestation of his or her will, or that the country is his or her personal possession. The point is not that a modern state has never had such a leader but that such claims are rare and typically regarded as illegitimate.

This same impersonality is extended to the treatment of the general popula­ tion. The ideal-typical modern state treats members of the population as citizens, meaning that it regards them as essentially equal in terms of their political role and rights. Modem states tend to offer fewer special privileges to individuals based on who they are. O f course, there are still elite cliques in modern states, and the mere fact that these states formally treat citizens impersonally does not eradi­ cate preference or discrimination based on personal characteristics.

Sovereignty The third key dimension of modern states that we consider here is sovereignty. The concept of sovereignty has several overlapping meanings. The two most important, though, are (1) sovereignty as the control over some territory and (2) sovereignty as the source of legitimate authority.22 O f course, these two meanings are related, and they derive partly from the basic feature of the state—that it exerts a monopoly on the use of force.

As states developed, the relationship between political organizations and ter­ ritory changed in important ways. Before modern statehood, boundaries tended to be very permeable. For example, the Pyrenees M ountains (which separate

France and Spain) were once a kind of informal division, a shared space across which people easily moved back and forth, blurring the differences between sub­ jects of the French and Spanish kings. After the rise of modern states, however, the frontier was redefined as a formal boundary, and the population became fixed as citizens of either France or Spain.23 Today, the boundaries between state ter­ ritories are sharply delineated.

Related to this territorial distinction is the notion that the state holds ultimate authority within its territorial zone. States are sovereign not only because they can exercise constraining force but because they can act in other ways as well. They can tax, organize the citizenry, and produce a variety of public services. Territoriality is a key principle in doing so, and territorial disputes have been quite common in the history of the state system. Sometimes such disputes are settled by violence and other times by diplomacy. International recognition is typically a key feature of sovereignty. That is, it is difficult for a state to maintain claims about its sovereignty over a given territory if other states do not recognize its sovereignty.

This characteristic leads us to a further consideration of the question of what states do. As we have said, states have a tendency to acquire more roles and func­ tions over time, and so it is ultimately impossible to construct an exhaustive list of the state’s activities. But in the contemporary world we can observe a number of particularly important ones, several of which we discuss next.

Traditional Functions of States States provide defense against external threats, police internal threats, tax their citizens, and document and sort populations, in addition to managing the econ­ omy. (We discuss additional key functions of modern states in the domain of political economy in the next chapter.)

D efense A first key function of states is the coordination of military action, ostensibly, at least, to protect the citizenry against potential foreign threat. As we shall see later, this feature of states, like taxation, was a key component in their emer­ gence. Moreover, it is one of the most visible tasks of states. Modern states tend to have highly organized, bureaucratized, permanent military organizations. Flow, precisely, the military is positioned within the state varies. As we shall see in later chapters, in some instances military officials are key players in state deci­ sion making. In others, civilian control is well institutionalized.24 This is often very important, because if civilian control is not well institutionalized one often sees a higher incidence of coups d’etat, and the political instability generated by such events can have important short- and long-run effects. Even in societies with relatively well-established civilian control of the army, however, the mili­ tary remains a potentially important actor within most modern states.

Policing States do not just establish and maintain militaries for use in conducting foreign policy. They also establish organizations to police their societies internally. States that do this effectively have well-institutionalized rule of law and transparent

56 Chapter 3: The State

V 1 r a illlm a

The Mexican State and Ruie of Law PAGE 504

Mexico is a country that has had varying success in terms of state- building. In recent years, rule-of-iaw issues have been of special concern. The Mexican government has made an effort to crack down on organized crime, leading to high levels of violence. The causes of this violence, and the policies that might reduce it, are subject to much debate.

For more on rule of law in Mexico, see the case study in Part VI, pp. 504-505. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. Is Mexico really likely to become a failed state, as some have worried, or is this fear hyperbole? Why or why not?

2. Does the United States play a role in Mexico's recent dif­ ficulties in maintaining rule of law? If so, how?

judicial procedures.25 Again, this characteristic of states is related to the core aspect of their definition discussed previously: Policing is one of the key mecha­ nisms through which the monopoly on force is maintained. Sometimes this role is shared with the military. For example, a number of states use national guards to provide internal security. More generally, the organizational and administra­ tive arrangement of policing varies a lot, and how these functions are organized has much to do with how a country’s specific political institutions are structured, as we discuss in later chapters.

States also create and maintain systems of punishment linked to the police and judicial systems. Some states continue to use physically violent forms of pun­ ishment, such as the death penalty. States typically use incarceration as a key strategy, though they vary quite considerably in the frequency and extent of im­ prisonment. The United States, for example, incarcerates an astonishingly high percentage of its population, in relative terms.26 States also vary considerably in the quality of their prison systems. Some scholars have emphasized the centrality of systems of policing and incarceration in creating the modern state.27

T ax atio n To perform the basic functions just discussed (defense and policing) among other responsibilities, states need money. Taxation is thus among the key roles of states. The state’s very existence is dependent on taxation, and strong states tend to be those that tax their citizenry successfully and efficiently.28 The reason is perhaps obvious: In many societies, at least, the state is not mainly in the business of producing goods for sale on the market and therefore it is dependent on revenues generated by economic activity that takes place outside of the state.

Although funding their own activities is crucial for states, efficient taxation serves other purposes as well. States with high levels of capacity often encourage citizens to feel that they are contributors to the state’s collective projects via paying taxes. Without effective taxation, citizens may feel disconnected from the state, regarding it as an alien organizational force or seeing it simply as a dis­ tributor of resources. O f course, inefficient and arbitrary taxation—or taxation perceived to outweigh individual and collective benefits—can likewise generate alienation and opposition.

Causes and Effects: Why Did States Emerge and Expand?

The processes through which the earliest modern states established systems of effective taxation were arduous and often violent. A number of early social and political revolutions were, at least in part, responses to centralizing states’ efforts to extract more resources.29 Today, many societies in the developing world continue to experience taxation difficulties, and the situation is often a catch-22: Weak states have trouble taxing their citizenry, but they cannot become stronger until they do. These problems are sometimes exacerbated in developing states that are rich in natural resources. In such instances, leaders may avoid the political con­ flicts involved in trying to increase taxes, because they can instead rely on revenues from exports of those resources. This situation, sometimes called the “resource curse,” is seldom good for the long-term development of state or society.30

O rd e r, A d m in is tra tio n , a n d “L e g ib ility ” Modern states also carry out some less obvious ordering practices. Given the challenges of administering complex societies, most states gather considerable information about their territory and about their population. Both state and pri­ vate actors invest heavily in maps and in the demarcation of different types of territory. For example, public lands might be administered by the state, private lands regulated, and other forms of land ownership (e.g., communal land owner­ ship, in a number of historical and contemporary cases) transformed into one or the other. The use of private property is often subjected to considerable regula­ tion. Sales and purchases of lands, houses, and businesses are tracked, and zoning laws proscribe certain uses of each.

States also go to great expense to learn about their populations. Public ser­ vices are often contingent on government registration, and states often try to bestow services on some and withhold them from others (this includes access not just to the state’s resources but, in the case of migrant populations, to its terri­ tory). In the process, various statuses (e.g., citizen, legal resident, migrant, and so forth) are bestowed on different individuals. Population surveys and censuses enumerate residents, document their characteristics, and sometimes even catalog their beliefs and values. Scholars like James Scott have referred to this as the pro­ cess through which states render their populations “legible,” by which they mean knowable and, as such, amenable to centralized administration.31 Some scholars emphasize that these efforts to render populations “legible” sometimes lead to the creation and perpetuation of consequential social and political categories, for better and worse.32 On the one hand, being able to categorize and know about the populace may make it possible to deliver needed public services more effi­ ciently. On the other hand, the process of viewing society through certain cate­ gories (which Scott called “seeing like a state”) can lead to states micro-managing society in ways that are intrusive and counterproductive.

Causes and Effects: Why Did States Emerge and Expand? In this section we consider a core explanatory question about the rise of the modern state: W hy did states emerge in the first place and become the dominant form of political organization around the world? In other words, why do we live

58 Chapter 3: The State

state system The condition that many of the most important actors in international relations are states, which can be understood as syste- mically linked to one another.

in a world dominated by states? In 1500 there were few if any strong states, and none that had the capabilities of contemporary states. Today all large-scale so­ cieties try to have states, and therefore at least nominally do. This is perhaps the most important change in modern global politics, and is in need of causal explanation.

Several major theories of the modern state concentrate on trying to explain the rise of states as such, while others seek to explain the rise of the state system and its global diffusion from early modern Europe to the rest of the world. We begin with the first set of theories, which includes political/conflict theories, eco­ nomic theories, and cultural theories of the state.

Political/Conflict Theories Political or conflict theories of the state argue that the state’s rise was a conse­ quence of conflict. One set of such explanations, rooted in classical political theory, tries to explain the state as essentially a compromise between warring factions.33 These theories tend to be abstract, and they may be influenced by their close linkage to political theories that aim to justify the state. You may have heard of Thomas Hobbes’ idea that a strong state, manifested in “the sovereign,” is needed to keep internal conflict at bay.34 Some scholars see the state as having developed as a sort of predatory institution through which stronger actors as­ serted their dominance and extracted resources from others.35 Some, in turn, focus on predation as a case of state failure: In these cases what we need to ex­ plain in the rise of strong states is how predation is minimized or restrained.36

The Arrival o f Napoleon Bonaparte at Schloss Schdnbrunn, engraved by Aubertin, c. 1820. According to conflict theories of the state, under certain conditions war making can help states grow stronger. It encourages the state's ability to extract revenue, its ability to mobilize the population, and its capacity to exert the Weberian monopoly on legitimate force.

Causes and Effects: Why Did States Emerge and Expand? 59

__ S I CASE IN CONTEXT ' ' ■' ^ ■ . ' - A c ^ : «§

J The State in France p a g e 434 France was one of the earliest strong states in Europe and came to be the region's great power in the seventeenth century. Indeed, under the Bourbon kings in the seventeenth and eigh­ teenth centuries, it was the foremost example of royal absolut­ ism. As such, it figures prominently in many accounts of the state's rise. It is a central case in most of the major theories of the state's emergence discussed in this chapter.

For more on the French state, see the case study in Part VI, pp. 434-435. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. What would the bellicist theory say about French state formation?

2. What are some of the distinctive features of the state in France?

The authors of some of these theories of the state have tried to trace the actual historical development of the state as an organization. A much-cited version of this theory is the “bellicist theory of the state,” which holds that states are cre­ ated by war.37 The core idea is that for states to rise they have to figure out how to do three things. First, political administration must be at least partly centralized. In the first states that emerged in Europe, this meant that feudalism had to go. Second, extraction of revenues from the underlying population must be dramati­ cally enhanced. Administering a modern state costs lots of money, and until the state gets good at taxing its citizenry it cannot do very much. Third, the state must develop the ability to mobilize the population in collective endeavors.

According to proponents of the bellicist theory, warfare is particularly useful for all three tasks, particularly once innovations in military technology changed conflict so as to make large armies necessary.38 I f frequent foreign warfare takes place, states need to increase their revenue generation and to mobilize important elements of their populations in order to win. The threat posed by total warfare also presumably helps to convince otherwise unwilling individuals to make these sorts of sacrifices. In the process, such warfare undermines the power of non­ state actors like a military nobility. In medieval Europe, where knights were the main combatants, the upper nobility’s control of related resources ensured them great power. But military innovations like advanced archery and gunpowder “de­ mocratized” warfare in a certain sense, also rendering it far more costly, requir­ ing large-scale collective efforts and revenue extraction.39

Essentially, the bellicist theory argues that warfare forges strong states. One of the virtues of the theory is that it seems able to account for the particular his­ torical trajectory of Europe in the global comparative context. For many scholars, the fact that strong states developed first in Europe is a mystery, precisely because of the relative backwardness of Europe in preceding centuries when you compare it to great civilizations like China or the Islamic world.40 Indeed, these other civilizations had developed complex, bureaucratic, imperial structures that in many respects looked like modern states. But according to the bellicist theory, the very dominance of these organizations helps explain why strong modern states did not first develop in Asia or the Middle East: These large empires did not face frequent interstate “total wars” against their rivals, though they did face

bellicist theory Theory associa­ ted with scholars such as Charles Tilly, who argue that interstate wars were decisive in the creation of the modern state.

60 Chapter 3: The State

IN SIG H T S Coercion, Capital, and European States by Charles Tilly

Tilly is the most famous exemplar of the bellicist theory of the state, as epitomized by his phrase from an earlier book: "War made the state and the state made war.'41 He explains why modern states replaced previous structures, as well as why the form of this change differed across cases. Tilly finds that warfare is the critical driver of state-building because war demands extrac­ tion of resources from the population and complex administra­ tive systems. Modern state development took three forms. "Coercion-intensive" formation came in Russia, an agrarian soci­ ety with little commercial development and little concentrated capital, where the Czars used coercion to force their population to fund wars by producing agricultural surplus. "Capital-intensive"

state-building in the Netherlands and some Italian city-states came as monarchs borrowed funds from merchants and paid for mercenary armies. "Capitalized coercion" came in Britain and France and was based on capital accumulation in large towns like London and Paris, combined with large rural populations that could also be coerced to produce rents. According to Tilly, this last model produced the strongest modern states.42 Competi­ tion eventually produced modern states in all of these cases be­ cause states proved better at fighting wars than other forms of government.

Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1992. Oxford Blackwell, 1992.

plenty of conflicts. Europe’s backwardness—the fact that it was internally di­ vided with small, petty kingdoms endlessly fighting each other—meant that for several centuries the forming European states were essentially constantly at war. As a result, according to this theory, they developed into powerful war-fighting machines, and their rulers effectively established the ability to tax and mobilize the population, marginalizing their rivals in the process. Some proponents of this theory have even used it to try to explain relatively weak state structures elsewhere. For example, one has argued that the allegedly weak states of Latin America may be due to the fact that Latin American states almost never fight foreign wars.43 The theory has also been used to try to explain Africa’s relatively weak states.44

Econom ic Theories Economic theories of the state don’t ignore the role of geopolitical conflict, but their proponents think that economic modernization is the fundamental cause of the rise of modern states. Karl Marx was an influential proponent of this idea. For Marx, the modern state simply represents the interests of the bourgeoisie, the owners of capital.45 These capitalists create the state as an organization so that they can manipulate the circumstances that will maximize their profits, which ultimately, from this point of view, means exploiting labor. O f course the actual historical processes through which this happened, according to Marxist scholars, is more complex than this formulation suggests, and requires understanding the specific mechanisms through which these changes happen in given places at given moments in time.

Not all proponents of economic theories of the state have a Marxist or left- wing perspective, however. Others see states as products of elite coalitions re­ sponding to new economic circumstances. From this point of view, the best way to explain the rise of any given state is to trace the process through which elite

Causes and Effects: Why Did States Emerge and Expand?

coalitions were formed and maintained. A good example is the work of North, Wallis, and Weingast (see the “Insights” box on Violence and Social Orders).

Critics of economic theories of the state note that they often treat the state merely as a reflection of underlying interests rather than an autonomous actor.46 You might think about whether this criticism applies equally well to both Marxist and non-Marxist versions of this theory. And how might proponents of economic theories answer such criticisms?

Cultural Theories Some scholars argue that structural factors like geo-political conflict and eco­ nomic change are not enough to explain the rise of states. For these scholars, we must include cultural factors such as changing beliefs and values in the expla­ nation.47 Among the most persuasive reasons for including such factors is the notion that state-building involved a dramatic disciplining in the daily life of individuals.48 Could state-building really have been coerced from the center of society? Or, perhaps, did cultural changes increase people’s willingness to do things like accept state scrutiny, pay taxes, comply with regulations, face periodic conscription, and accept more extensive policing?

How could such “cultural factors” have played a role in the rise of states? One possibility is that nationalism and national identity (discussed further in chapter 13) may have contributed to the willingness to accept these impositions in emerging states.49 The core idea here is that national identity is closely bound to the state. I f I consider myself a member of a nation, I might see the state as the expression of that nation, and I might accept its legitimacy. Moreover, nationalists might have been able to justify projects of state expansion on the grounds of na­ tional interest or national pride. A second idea is that religion might have played a role in early modern state formation. In particular, some scholars have argued that the rise of Calvinism was key to the success of early modern European state- building (see the “Insights” box on Gorski’s Disciplinary Revolution).

Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework IN S IG H T S for Interpreting Recorded Human History

by Douglass North, Jo h n Wallis, an d Barry Weingast

North, Wallis, and Weingast aim to explain the emergence of what they call "open access orders" versus "natural states.” Open-access orders are relatively democratic, with a powerful state, a well-established rule of law, and other rule-governed, au­ tonomous organizations to which everyone in principle has access. 'Natural states" are still personalized, with a weak rule of law and less autonomous organizations. Prior to the develop­ ment of the modern state, "natural states" were the rule, as powerful landowners served their own material interests by forming and shifting alliances. Actors were constrained mainly

by their power positions vis-a-vis competitors and the mon­ arch. These authors argue that the rule of law and open access orders emerged when important coalitions had an interest in giving up their prerogatives in exchange for protection. Spe­ cifically, when elites judged that they would be better off with rights than with special privileges, open access orders were able to emerge.

Douglass North, John Wallis, and Barry Weingast, Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

62 Chapter 3: The State

IN S IG H T S The Disciplinary Revolution: Calvinism and the Rise of the State in Early Modern Europe by Philip Gorski

Gorski argues that states develop not just because elites create organizations, but also because populations become increas­ ingly willing to follow their commands.50 Gorski asks why anyone would be willing to accept the increasing discipline of life under a modern state.5' He answers that Calvinism— an influential and austere form of Protestant Christianity— paved the way in Europe. Calvinists created "disciplined" societies of hard work, chaste sexual relationships, and systematic relief for the poor, among other things. Moreover, because political conflict became linked

to religious conflict in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, early modern states often became partners in this endeavor. Not surprisingly, "disciplined" populations were easier to govern than populations with other cultural influences.52 Calvinists were not the only religious actors to emphasize these modes of discipline, but they set the standard.

Philip Gorski, The Disciplinary Revolution: Calvinism and the Rise of the State in Early Modern Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.

We should note that few analysts of comparative politics view cultural factors such as religion or nationalism as the sole explanation for the emergence of states. These factors may, however, be critical as they interact with the economic or pol­ itical processes discussed previously.

Indeed, all major theories of the state’s emergence focus on both political/ conflict and economic factors, and most ascribe at least some importance to cul­ ture. For example, even characteristic proponents of the bellicist theory note the importance of economic factors, and many proponents of economic theories of the state acknowledge that frequent warfare in early modern Europe played an impor­ tant role in state-building projects there. As you will see in later chapters, theoreti­ cal advances in comparative politics are often made not by replacing old theories with completely new ones, but by synthesizing existing theories, considering them against new evidence, and adding new dimensions or features to them.

diffusion The process through Diffusion Theories which a practice or idea spreads Not all theories of the state begin by trying to explain the rise of states in Western locally, nationally, and globally, Europe. Indeed, some theories are more interested in explaining diffusion, or

C A S E I N C O N T E X T

^ i r ^ The State in the United Kingdom PAGE 546

Some analysts see in early modern England one of the earliest strong states, and at least one major theorist sees the early for­ mation of a modern English state in the late medieval era.53 Others see in the United Kingdom a historically minimal state. Could both views be correct? If so, how could they both be cor­ rect? What circumstances might favor the juxtaposition of early state development with a relatively limited state?

For more on the state in the United Kingdom, see the case study in Part VI, pp. 546-547. As you read it, keep in mind the fol­ lowing questions:

1. What evidence is assembled by those who argue for strong early state-formation in the United Kingdom?

2. Was the United Kingdom ever a fully absolutist state? Why or why not?

Causes and Effects: Why Did States Emerge and Expand? 63

the global spread of the state as a form of organization. W hy and how, these the­ ories ask, did the state come to be the dominant way of doing politics everywhere? O f course, such theories are not incompatible with those that we have considered so far. Indeed, often they are based on implicit or even explicit answers to that prior question.

W hen a social or political form like the state appears to spread, there are at least three logical explanations. One is that its development is purely coincidental. Given the extent of the spread of the state, however, this seems unlikely. The second is that common underlying features present in all cases explain each indi­ vidual case. For example, maybe over the course of the twentieth century—when many modern states were created—we merely saw a repeat of the same processes that had been witnessed in early modern Europe, such as increasing interstate warfare. But the evidence does not seem to fully fit this picture. A third logical possibility is that the spread of the state had systemic qualities.54 In other words, there is some sort of international system through which it diffused globally. Here we will try to distinguish three basic models for how this might have happened. Note that these are not necessarily incompatible or mutually exclusive.

The first version of this theory has an affinity with the bellicist theory of the state’s emergence. Once states are formed as war-making machines, we might expect them to rapidly out-compete rivals because of their skill in making war. Proponents of this sort of theory would point to the extent to which state forms were bound up with colonialism: The European states, over just a couple of cen­ turies, extended political control over most of the world, bringing state forms of organization with them. Their military and technological capacity allowed them frequently to achieve relatively easy victories over civilizations that often judged them to be barbarians (not without justification, some would say).

Not all versions of this theory focus exclusively on the state’s military prowess, however. Instead, some variations note that the state can produce social and eco­ nomic gains that, in turn, reinforce it (see the “Insights” box on Spruyt’s Sovereign State and Its Competitors).

The second version of this theory has a still greater affinity with economic theories of the state. This version says that states spread to serve the interests of the international capitalist class. Building on the Marxian idea that the state

l l f f ' 3332 What Is a Weak State, and Can It Be Changed? The Case of Nigeria page s i?

One major state where boundaries were created by colonial powers is Nigeria, which is also perennially cited as a problematic or weak state. Some argue that state weakness in Nigeria is a con­ sequence of oil, others that it is a function of ethnic and religious differences. Finally, some think state weakness there and else­ where might be caused by the legacies of colonialism.

For more on the Nigerian state, see the case study in Part VI, pp. 517-518. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. Is colonialism responsible for Nigeria's relatively weak state?

2. What is the relationship between the state's strength, cor­ ruption, and economic development in Nigeria?

64 Chapter 3: The State

IN SIG H T S The Sovereign State and Its Competitors by Hendrik Spruyt

Spruyt focuses on the development of states in early modern Europe, but his theory is about the spread of the state as an organizational form, and the resulting emergence of the state system. The state had several rival types of organizations, including the feudal order, city-states, and leagues of merchant cities like Germany's "Hanseatic League," yet the modern state survived while these other forms essentially disappeared. Why? Spruyt argues the state rose up as a product of both economic changes and political conflict. States became formidable fighting machines, so their relative success might be partly explained through a kind of "survival of the fittest," but Spruyt says this is not a sufficient

explanation because other formations (such as city-states) were often as good at fighting wars. Rather, states did other things that helped them out-compete their rivals. In particular, states did things that were good for their long-term economic develop­ ment, such as standardizing currencies and measures and estab­ lishing clearer territorial boundaries. Spruyt also notes that states won out in part by "mutual empowerment," as they preferred to deal with other states and encouraged the emergence of one another's organizational and institutional forms.

Hendrik Spruyt,The Sovereign State and Its Competitors. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.

organization Institutionalized group such as a state, corporation, political party, social movement, or international body.

isomorphism In institutional theory, the quality that two or more organizations have by virtue of being structurally very similar.

world society theory A theory associated with scholars such as John Meyer, who argue that basic organizational features of the state system are cultural and have diff­ used globally.

represents capital’s interests, and Lenin’s idea that capitalism turned to imperial­ ism in order to protect itself from internal “contradictions,”55 proponents of this version argue that colonialism aimed to create new markets for European goods and also sources of raw materials and exploitable labor of certain kinds. From this point of view, colonial subjugation was one way to achieve capitalism’s desired ends, but not the only one: Indeed, ongoing neo-colonial exploitation can take place perfectly well via a division of core and peripheral states in the international system.56

Yet there is a third strategy in which some scholars try to explain the spread of the state, one which has more of an affinity with cultural theories of the state’s emergence. Here the notion is that organizational forms like the state are them­ selves cultural phenomena or ideas, and that ideas about how organizations should be structured play an important role in determining the organizational forms adopted by others. Organizations in a given field very often take on the same or at least a very similar structure, a phenomenon known as isomorphism.57 For example, it used to be that universities did not have specific registrar’s offices, financial aid offices, and so forth, just like political organizations once did not have professional, standing armies. W hen organizational forms spread, there seem to be two main sources of their spread: efficiency with respect to the orga­ nization’s chosen ends and fit with cultural models and expectations for how such organizations are supposed to be organized.58 In the first case, a university might develop a registrar’s office because increasing complexity requires an office to co­ ordinate classrooms, meeting times, and so forth. In the second case, anyone who starts a university already “knows” that a university is “supposed to” have such an office: A cognitive map or template for the organization already exists. According to world society theory (sometimes called “world polity theory”), the state is very much like this: It became an institutionalized part of modern politics and is therefore replicated culturally even when causes that might have been operative in its initial emergence are not present.59

Great Britain, the United Kingdom, or Neither? State and Nation in England and Scotland 65

IN S IG H TS World Society and the Nation-State by Jo h n Meyer, Jo h n Boli, George M. Thomas, and Francisco O. Ramirez &

John Meyer and his co-authors are proponents of a "world so­ciety" or “world polity” theory focused on "cultural" factors. The "world society" school treats the spread of such organiza­ tions as not entirely coercive, pointing out that people in many societies willingly and even eagerly adopt existing models of the state. The authors propose a thought experiment. They tell us to imagine a new island society discovered by the global commu­ nity. The society would, within just a couple of years of contact with the global order, likely define itself as a nation-state, estab­ lish a government, a currency, a taxation system, boundaries, provisions for its defense, and so forth. A thought experiment is not proof, but there is also empirical evidence in the overlap in structure between states and other national-level organizations

and institutions. Global organizational norms are spread through several channels, including international organizations like the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, as well as NGOs. Indeed, social science itself— including comparative politics— probably plays a role in these develop­ ments. When political scientists attempt to find ways to measure and combat corruption, for example, or even to define features of strong or successful states, they publicize their results and thus contribute to global organizational convergence when changes are implemented.

John Meyer, John Boli, George M. Thomas, and Francisco 0. Ramirez, "World Society and the Nation-State," 1997. American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 103, No. l,pp. 144-181.

Great Britain, the United Kingdom, or Neither? State and Nation in England and Scotland

Perhaps the simplest tool in comparative politics is the single case study (often a country, as noted in chapter 2). Through this type of examination, we can gather information to develop hypotheses that cut across other cases. Case analy­ sis can help us identify key mechanisms and define general relationships. Debates in comparative politics are seldom ended on the basis of a single case study, but this approach nonetheless has much to contribute. Here we will consider how looking at the single case of the United Kingdom (from England to Great Britain) might help us think about theories of state formation.

The island now known as Great Britain was long made up of distinct king­ doms (Map 3.1). For much of their political history, state-building projects were specific to these kingdoms. The most influential of these in political history has been England, which comprises a large share of the island’s territory (with Wales to the west and Scotland to the north).

A number of scholars have considered the English state-building project to be a paradigmatic case. To some extent, the nobility’s power to rule over the inhabi­ tants of the countryside was curbed as early as the 800s, but with the Magna Carta of 1215 the crown also took on some limitations. After Henry VIII in the sixteenth century, the state was independent of the Roman Catholic Church, having separated from Rome and created its own church with the monarch at its head. Over the course of the seventeenth century, despite— and perhaps because of—civil conflict, parliamentary power grew, and nationalism and national

T H IN K IN G CO M P A R A TIV ELY

K E Y M E TH O D O LO G IC A L TO O L

Thinking through Case Studies Political scientists use case studies for a variety of purposes. In later chapters we will formally specify hypotheses and methods for testing against them, but here we begin by using a basic case study to think about gen­ eral theories. In this example, we consider three of the major theories of state-building discussed in this chapter and ask what each would say about the development of the state (and nation) in the United Kingdom. Although all three theories seem capable of explaining the general outlines of this case, they are not necessarily equal. Political scientists concerned with these problems must come up with strategies to get lever­ age over the competing theories.

66 Chapter 3: The State

T H IN K IN G CO M PA RA TIV ELY

identity were stoked. By the close of the century, a truly “constitutional monar­ chy” was established. Slowly, England developed the characteristics of a full- fledged modern state: effective local administration developed60 into a centralized bureaucracy, which resulted in a standing army and the authority to collect taxes regularly after 1688.61 The country went through many fluctuations in royal power, but the rough balance of power between the crown and the parliament progres­ sively shifted toward the latter.

D u n b a r (to Scotland ^ c . 975)

S T R A T H C L Y D E BAMBURGH 10 th cen tu ry

S C A N D I N A V I A N S candinavian Y O R K

L ancashire (probably

p a rt o f York)

GWYNEDD

POWYS M E R C I A D A N E L A W

918

BRYCHEINIOG c. 920

GWEt Hwicce

L undenw ic •

0 miles

Y NY S MANAU

0 km 50

Map 3.1 (a) The land that became the United Kingdom, circa 900; (b) the United Kingdom today.

Great Britain, the United Kingdom, or Neither? State and Nation in England and Scotland 67

England’s political history merged into a single state with the other parts of the modern United Kingdom. At different stages, this took place in different ways. English kings conquered Wales and governed it from the thirteenth century. Dynastic ties often meant partially shared governance between England and Scotland. W ith the Act of Union (1707), Great Britain was born from a merger of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland. Thereafter (at least until our day), many state institutions were consolidated, and efforts undertaken—for a time seemingly quite successful—to create a “British” rather than “English” or “Scottish” national

T H IN K IN G C O M P A R A TIV ELY

68 Chapter 3: The State

identity.62 Interestingly, this does not mean that English or Scottish (or Welsh) identities disappeared. Rather, they co-existed with an overarching sense of Britishness. Meanwhile, over the course of centuries Ireland had been, in good measure, incorporated by force; even after the secession of the Republic of Ireland in 1922, Northern Ireland remained part of the “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”

We can find evidence in this case study for all of our major theories of state- building—bellicist, economic, and cultural. Let’s consider briefly how each of these might view this single case:

Bellicist: In the early modern period, like the rest of Europe, the British Isles were often involved in inter-state war. The imperatives of war and continental alliances meant that the state had to be prepared for conflict, which meant taxation and, as time went on, greater investment in the military.63 There is little doubt that this military preparation contributed to state-building.

Economic: At the same time, the giving up of privileges in exchange for the rule of law (as analyzed by North, Wallis, and Weingast) probably saw its earliest expression in England. And it was Britain that, according to in­ stitutional economists, first saw the emergence of sustained economic growth. Proponents of the economic state-building theory argue that these developments were probably linked. They see state growth as a con­ sequence of the extension of the rule of law, the protection of property, and the establishment of a well-functioning state.

Cultural: Both the culturalist theories focusing on Calvinism (Gorski) and nationalism (Greenfeld)64 also find ample evidence in the English/British case. Calvinism in a variety of forms was influential there, and according to some, this case is one of the earliest instances of modern nationalism.

W hat should we make of this evidence? It shows us several things. First, it shows us what a case study can and cannot do. Typically in comparative politics a case study cannot fully adjudicate between rival theories of general processes. In looking only at the United Kingdom, we will probably be unable to decide among the theories con­ sidered in this chapter. But this case also shows us that existing theories may be too simple. If all of the factors these theories emphasize are operative, we could use a new theory that addresses how those factors fit together. Thinking along these lines might help you create a better model of state- and nation-building in general.

Such questions are not just matters of historical interest. State- and nation- building might settle into equilibrium at various times, but they are not really static phenomena. Several decades ago many would have been skeptical that a strong Scottish independence movement would emerge, that a referendum would be held (as happened in September 2014, when 55 percent of Scots voted to remain part of the U.K.), and that there would be talk of a possible written con­ stitution for the United Kingdom as well as a distinct English Parliament. It re­ mains to be seen how these issues might be resolved, but there is no denying that both the state and the nation are in potential flux in the United Kingdom today. As you think about ongoing processes of nation- and state-building, consider whether the major comparative-historical theories discussed in this chapter have something to say to us about twenty-first-century politics.

Chapter Review 69

C h a p te r S u m m a r y Concepts

• The state is the most important form of political organiza­ tion in modern politics and is characterized in ideal form by control of the use offeree, bureaucratic organization, and the provision of public goods.

• The related ideas of the modern state, state capacity, and failed states are some of the core concepts in comparative politics.

Types • Major features of modern states include bureaucracy,

impersonality, and sovereignty. • States are coordinators of collective projects, such as

taxation, defense, and policing.

T h in k in g It T h r o u g h 1. In the "Causes and Effects" section of this chapter, we consid­

ered the causes of state formation. Since the map of the world is now covered with states, do you think these theories are of purely historical interest? Or do they still matter today? Think in particular of countries recently in the news— such as Afghani­ stan, Iraq, Somalia, or Syria— where commentators and policy­ makers still talk about a need for "state-building." Do theories of state formation have any relevance today in those countries?

2. Test the theories of state formation considered here against your knowledge of U.S. history. Which of the theories seems to explain the formation of the American state best, and why? What were the major steps in state formation in the American state, and how well can each theory address these stages?

3. Consider whether you think the presence of a strong civil soci­ ety will tend to make a state relatively strong or relatively weak, in the sense of the state being a powerful decision maker that affects lots of social and political activity. Do civil society and the

Causes and Effects • Theories about why modern states emerge focus on

political conflict, economics, culture, and processes of global diffusion.

Th inking Com paratively We considered some of the uses of the single “case study," noting that the case of the United Kingdom seems to offer some support for several of the major theories of state- building discussed in the chapter.

state compete and divide a fixed amount of power, or do they reinforce each other, each making the other more powerful? Think of a case study that might help you examine this question.

4. Return to the opening paragraphs of this chapter, which dis­ cussed the possibility of the formation of new states in contem­ porary Western Europe. After reading the chapter, what do you now think about the likelihood of this happening? Ground your answer in the theories of state formation you have learned.

5. Many people agree that our world is rapidly "globalizing." This globalization can be economic, can involve social norms, cus­ toms, and institutions, or it can involve organized force (e.g., in­ ternational organized crime, terrorist groups, and imperial powers). If the globalization of organized force gets carried very far, what implications, if any, might this have for the utility of the Weberian definition of the state? Would a radically (politically) globalized world be one in which new types of states were ob­ servable? Or would it be a world of weak states?

• Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras speaks to the Greek Parliam ent in 2015. The fiscal situation of the Greek state— and Greece's relationship with the broader European economy— has been the subject of heated debate and much anxiety in recent years.

The subject of this chapter is political economy, which can be loosely defined as the ways politics and economics interrelate and affect one an­ other.1 O ur emphasis is on politics and public institutions that affect the economy, though we will also note ways that economic change affects poli­ tics. In the next chapter, we consider the political economy of so-called de­ veloping countries specifically (especially those in Africa, Asia, and Latin America), while the emphasis in this chapter is on what are sometimes called the “advanced, industrialized countries.”

As a subject area, political economy has a rich heritage. You are probably reading this textbook for a course in a de­ partm ent called “political science,” or possibly “politics,” “gov­ ernment,” or “international affairs.” But two hundred years ago, the academic study of “political science” in its modern sense didn’t really exist. Prominent philosophers and thinkers who considered questions of political organization and public action had another name for their area of study: political econ­ omy. Implicit in this name was the idea that politics and eco­ nomics were deeply intertwined. To political thinkers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including Adam Smith and Karl M arx, what happened in the economy would affect politics in almost any country, and vice versa.

Later on, the disciplines of “politics” and “economics” became separate (along w ith sociology, among other fields), as the social sciences underwent a division of labor. Political scien­ tists focused especially on issues such as the state (see chapter 3), types of governing regimes (chapters 6 and 7), and government institutions (chapters 8 through 11). Yet the study of politics has remained deeply concerned with questions about society and the economy. M any chapters in this text address these inter­ twined issues. Chapters 12 through 15, for instance, examine questions related to social institutions, identification, organization, and action. In this chapter, we explore the enduring linkages between politics and economics. O ur par­ ticular emphasis here is on the political economy of so-called “advanced, indus­ trialized countries,” such as those in most of Europe, plus other economically powerful countries like Japan, Australia, Canada, and the United States.

political economy The interaction or interrelationship

between politics and the economy

in a given country or internatio­

nally, to include how politics affects

economies and how economies

affect politics.

IN THI S C H A P T E R

Concepts 72 Inequality 73 Employment and Inflation 75

Types 76 Markets and States in Modern

Economies 76 Economic Functions of Modern States 82

Causes and Effects: Why Do Welfare States Emerge? 86 Cultural Changes 87 Industrial Capitalism 87 Mobilization and Political Action 89 International Learning Effects 92

T HI NKI NG C O M P A R A T I V E L Y

Welfare States in the Nordic Countries 93

C A S E S IN C O N T E X T

Japan • Germ any United States

United Kingdom

71

72 Chapter 4: Political Economy

gross domestic product (GDP) The total value of goods and services produced in a given country or territory; per capita GDP is divided by the population.

gross national income (GNI) A measure of the total income of all of a country's citizens, whether living in their home country or abroad.

Concepts To better understand political economy, we should define several of the key mea­ sures and indicators that help characterize a country’s economy. Which statistics can tell us something about its overall level—that is, its sophistication and advance­ ment? Is it a large economy, is it wealthy on average, and how is wealth distributed? Apart from the level of a country’s economy, how is it performing? A country may be rich and successful, but its economy may be declining and performing poorly, just as a country may be relatively poor but performing well. (We examine this question of performance in low-income countries more in chapter 5.)

The most common ways of measuring a country’s economy involve the gross domestic product (GDP), or similar measures such as gross national income (GNI). Each of these provides a composite measure of a country’s total economy but measures it slightly differently. GDP is the total market value of all goods and ser­ vices produced within a country’s borders, usually in a year’s time. In other words, the gross domestic product is the total (or gross) amount of goods and services pro­ duced (i.e., the product) in a given country (hence, domestic) in a given year. GNI is the total income from all goods and services earned by a country’s producers, re­ gardless of where they operate. So a German company operating in India that earns profits would be counted in the GDP of India but in the GNI of Germany. We will refer to GDP as our most common basic measure of a country’s economic activity.

We often wish to compare the average wealth of individuals in different coun­ tries, not just the total wealth of each country. Economists therefore turn to per capita measurements of GDP, which represent average income per person. Rela­ tively wealthy countries (such as the United States, Japan, and many in Western Europe) may have annual GDP levels of $30,000 per capita or more, while the poorest countries have GDPs per capita of less than $500 per year, and “middle- income” countries are in the range of a few thousand dollars per year. One benefit of this approach is that it standardizes GDP across countries of different sizes,

CASE IN CONTEXT

Did Free Markets Help the United States Get Rich? Will They in the Future? PAGE 561

The idea of economic strength has been important for many years in the United States. The country has had an extremely powerful and dynamic economy for some time, but now there is consider­ able worry and handwringing about the future of American eco­ nomic performance. Income inequality has reached alarming heights, and a host of social indicators for some populations re­ semble those usually seen only in the "third world." The economy did not recover quickly from the recession induced by the financial crisis of 2008. Finally, the U.S. government faces serious long-term fiscal problems. Perhaps even the "most developed" countries are never fully developed and continue to face development hurdles.

For more on political economy in the United States, see the case study in Part VI, pp. 561-562. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. In what sense should we think of the United States as a "developed" society? What does this case reveal to us about the notion of "development"?

2. What specific development dangers are likely to emerge in post-industrial societies? Flow, in cases like this, might aspects of development itself prove potentially risky for later-stage development?

Concepts 73

dividing production by the population size. Otherwise it would be very difficult to compare the economic performance of large and small countries.

The overall GDP and GDP per capita measure the overall size and income level of an economy, and GDP growth from year to year is the simplest measure of economic performance. Very high GDP growth, such as in China over the last twenty years, is in the neighborhood of 7 percent to 10 percent. Such rates of growth are possible in low-income countries that are starting from a low economic base, where many people are not employed to their full potential. In advanced, industrialized countries, how­ ever, which tend to be wealthier, 5 percent growth would be very strong, and a growth rate of about 3 percent a year or lower is more typical. Some countries also have nega­ tive GDP growth rates. This happens in times of recession in advanced economies, and it has happened frequently in poorer countries, such as many in Africa.

GDP is a simple concept, but the value of a person’s income also depends on how much money can buy. That is, the cost of living matters. An income of 130,000 per year goes much further in a country where rent is $250 a month and a week’s groceries cost $50, than in a country where rent is $1,000 a month and a week’s groceries cost $200. Because prices are frequently lower in low-income countries, a dollar (or local currency) can go farther. The adjusted measure schol­ ars often use is income based on purchasing power parity (PPP). In many in­ stances, in countries where average incomes are very low (such as in Africa), a GDP/capita of about $400 may correspond to a GDP/capita at PPP of over $1,000. Conversely, in countries where prices are very high (such as Japan and Scandinavia), a GDP/capita may be reduced by adjusting for PPP; for instance, someone earning $50,000 in one of these countries may only be able to buy as much as an average person earning $40,000 in the United States (see Table 4.1).

The measurement of economic performance may extend beyond the economic indicators discussed previously. Measures also include a range of social outcomes including such factors as standards of living, quality of life, and cultural change. The section on “Types” outlines several important ways of measuring develop­ ment besides economic growth.

Inequality Measures of income such as GDP do not provide much information about how income is distributed among people. An average GDP per capita of $30,000 can result in a country where half the people earn $60,000 and half earn nothing, or it can happen in a country where everyone earns $30,000 exactly. The first coun­ try would obviously have a more unequal distribution of income, and would have half of its population in grave poverty. Measuring poverty and inequality is thus important to many who study development.

Inequality measures how income is distributed. Some societies have incomes that are distributed very equally across people, while other countries have in­ comes that vary dramatically between different people. Imagine two societies. In the first, the average income for someone in the richest 10 percent is $150,000, and the average income for someone in the bottom 10 percent is $12,000. In the second, the average income for someone in the top 10 percent is less (say, $75,000), and the average income for someone in the bottom 10 percent is higher (say, $16,000)- We might say the first country is more unequal because the ratio of the incomes between those at the top and those at the bottom is much larger.

purchasing power parity (PPP) An adjustment made to income

measures to account for differences

in cost of living.

inequality In the social sciences, the differential distribution of access to goods like power, status,

and material resources.

74 Chapter 4: Political Economy

t a b l e 4 . 1 Econom ic Measures Around the World

Country GDP/Capita {$) G DP Growth

(% ) Consum er

Inflation (%) Absolute

Poverty Rate* Gini Index**

Brazil 11,208 2.5 6.2 3.8 52.7

China 6,807 7.7 2.6 6.3 37.0

France 42,503 0.3 0.9 <2 31.7

Germany 46,269 0.1 1.5 <2 30.6

India 1,499 5.0 10.9 23.6 33.6

Iran 4,763 -5.8 39.3 <2 38.3

Japan 38,634 1.6 0.4 <2 32.1

Mexico 10,307 1.1 3.8 <2 48.1

Nigeria 3,006 5.4 8.5 62.0 43.0

Russia 14,612 1.3 6.8 <2 39.7

South Korea 25,977 3.0 1.3 <2 31.3

United Kingdom 41,788 1.7 2.6 <2 38.0

United States 53,042 2.2 1.5 <2 41.1

Sources: World Bank, World Development Report data 2015.

*Note: Poverty rate is measured as percent of the population living on less than $1.25/day (PPP) on average between 2002 and 2012.

** Note: Estimates for the Gini index are from 2013 or the most recent year available from the World Bank, with years available varying by country.

A poor neighborhood, or favela, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Notice the wealthier neighborhood off in the distance. Though Brazil has made some progress in recent years, it has often been held up as an example of high income inequality.

Concepts 75

To use specific examples, the United States has a more unequal distribution of income than the countries of Scandinavia. The most commonly used measure of inequality across an entire population is the Gini coefficient, which measures how much of a society’s wealth or income is held by which percentage of the population. The number ranges between 0 and 1, with 0 being absolute equality with everyone having the same amount of wealth or income, and 1 being a sce­ nario in which a single person owns all wealth.2 Rough Gini coefficients can be calculated using deciles or quintiles of the population (each tenth or fifth). There are quicker measures of inequality one can calculate as well. As noted previously, one may simply examine the incomes of the top 10 percent versus the bottom 10 percent of the income range, for example. Inequality is a pressing concern in many countries, from the United States to Brazil. Information about Gini coef­ ficients and other measures of inequality and economic performance of this sort can be easily found online. See, for example, the Human Development Reports provided by the United Nations.

Em ploym ent and Inflation Other economic measures relate to how people experience the economy on a daily basis. Employment and unemployment are especially important because of their impact on people’s well-being and on a country’s overall economic health. Employ­ ment can be measured by the total number of jobs created or lost, or as a percentage of the population with or without paid employment. Underemployment is another factor being tracked, signifying the degree to which members of the labor force are employed less than they wish to be (e.g., part-time instead of full-time) or are in jobs “below their skill level.” In many developing countries, analysts draw a dis­ tinction between formal and informal employment as well, and most consider formal employment preferable, because it tends to offer more benefits, rights, and support. In developed economies, far fewer people are informally employed (say, as unofficial and unlicensed street vendors) than in much of the developing world.

Inflation is a measure of how quickly prices are rising. Prices affect the cost of living, and people find it more difficult to plan for the future when they are uncer­ tain what prices will be in the future. Inflation can ruin people’s savings by making the amount they have saved worth less in terms of what it can buy. As a result, high levels of inflation have brought about the collapse of many regimes. In the worst cases, countries have slipped into hyperinflation, in which prices rise by as much as several thousand percent per year, or more. Conversely, deflation (or declining prices) is also a significant problem that arises in economic crises, as people stop buying to await lower prices in the future, and the values of homes and other assets decline. Finally, it is worth noting that inflation and employ­ ment, though distinct, are related in ways that you might find surprising. Indeed, central banks and other policymakers often face trade-offs when they try to keep both unemployment and inflation low. An emphasis on keeping inflation low at all costs is associated by many with higher levels of unemployment.

Fiscal measures—that is, measures of the government’s revenues and expenditures—of a country’s economic health, such as total indebtedness, may also be taken as indicators of a country’s economic well-being. In many circum­ stances, poor fiscal indicators will imply economic challenges in the future, as

Gini coefficient The most common measure of income inequality in any given population, usually expressed as a number between 0 and 1, with 0 being total equality and 1 being maximal inequality.

employment Ongoing, regular access to paid work.

unemployment The lack of ongoing, regular access to paid work.

underemployment When workers are employed less than they wish to be or below their skill level.

inflation Increase in the prices of goods and services.

hyperinflation Exceedingly high inflation, which dramatically erodes the value of money over time.

deflation Decline in the prices of goods and services, often associa­ ted with depressions or serious slowdowns in economic activity.

fiscal measures Measures of a government's revenues and/or expenditures.

Chapter 4: Political Economy

debts come due. By the same token, some argue that an excessive focus on fiscal balance sheets can hamper governments’ ability to engage in counter-cyclical spending, evening out the business cycle and avoiding recessions. Indeed, one of the great debates of political economy pits those who favor fiscal conservatism and “Keynesians,” who favor higher levels of government spending. This distinc­ tion often aligns with another that pits those who favor policies designed to reduce inflation with those who favor policies conducive to “full employment.” As you can see, thinking about the indicators of a healthy political economy leads directly to what is probably the field’s central debate, which concerns the role of the state in economic life.

Types In this section, we will think about the respective roles of the market and the state in modern economies. We first look at market-led and state-led economies as two main types, and we consider the intellectual arguments for why each might enhance economic performance. We then consider the types of state ac­ tivities in an economy.

Markets and States in Modern Econom ies Perhaps the most meaningful way to consider the different types of political economies around the world is to think about how the role of the state plays out differently across countries. We addressed the concept of the state in chapter 3, focusing on how it originated, and on the basic features of a functioning state, especially with respect to national defense and the administrative ordering of the polity. However, it is clear that modern states do far more in this day and age than simply exercise a “monopoly on the legitimate use of force in a given terri­ tory.” In the process of governing in the modern world, states act in ways that affect the political economy. States provide a range of public services and public goods, perhaps with a view toward creating opportunities for the citizenry and toward protecting the vulnerable. O f course, the role of the state in the economy is limited in most countries. In modern economies, private actors (from individu­ als to corporations) play an important role, and many economic decisions are made not by governments, but by these private actors.

Think about buying lunch from a sandwich shop. This is largely a private transaction. The government doesn’t set the price of the sandwich (in most countries), although it may levy a tax on the sale of the sandwich. Rather, the seller sets the price based on a couple of considerations. One is the cost of making the sandwich, which factors in not only the cost of the ingredients but also the shop’s rent and the sandwich maker’s pay, for example. Another con­ sideration is how much potential buyers might be willing to pay. In turn, the potential buyer has to decide whether a sandwich at a given price is worth it. (Maybe some days it is, and other days not.) In general terms, we might call this a “market” transaction, even if it doesn’t take place in an actual market­ place. We say this because the transaction is between two or more private actors, based on prices set by what a seller is willing to charge and a buyer is willing to pay.

Types 77

Many people studying political economy would argue that a “market-based” economy relying on private actors is more efficient and will perform better than a “state-led” economy. For example, imagine the government mandated that an egg salad sandwich must be made in a particular way. The sandwich business’s ability to meet buyers’ preferences would be reduced, potentially resulting in re­ duced sales of sandwiches. On the other hand, many observers would note the important roles states play in making economies work, and in promoting eco­ nomic performance. If the government guarantees the contract between the sandwich shop owner and the bank, or helps the owner access capital, this may help the business and, indirectly, the customers. The costs and benefits of such government (and private) actions undoubtedly accumulate across the set of ex­ changes. Political economists have different estimates of the aggregate results.

M a rk e ts a n d E co n o m ic P erfo rm ance A central debate in political economy, then, in recent years has been over which actors should take the lead in promoting national economic advancement: private markets or the state. W hich is more likely to foster development: governmental intervention in the economy, or freely functioning markets with no governmen­ tal intervention? O f course, a range of factors can condition how a country per­ forms economically, ranging from geography, to how political institutions are organized, to technological advancements, to the strategies of businesses, to a range of cultural factors that may vary from one place to another. However, the most significant debate in political economy has to do with the role of the market and the role of the state in guiding economic decision making. We consider the idea that a country with a market-led economy will perform well, and will follow that with a consideration of how an economy with significant state intervention might perform well.

A leading argument in political economy is that free markets are the basis for creating wealth. This argument has a long and fruitful history, famously

CASE IN CONTEXT

j Political Economy of Britain PAGE 547

The United Kingdom is one of the most interesting cases for the comparative analyst for several reasons. First, it was the first major industrializer and is considered to have been one of the first societies to establish a modern, growth-oriented economy. Second, it has developed over many centuries, moving from being a predominantly agrarian society to an industrial economy to a post-industrial one, so it allows us to ask long-term questions about such a sequence. Third, it was the country from which some of the leading theories of political economy we are consid­ ering here were first conceived and, to some extent, transformed into policy.

For more on development in the United Kingdom, see the case study in Part VI, pp. 547-548. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. Which major theories have been used in efforts to explain the economic development in the United Kingdom, and what are their strengths and limitations in relation to this case?

2. What does this case suggest about the relationship be­ tween the political economy of development and the social-scientific construction of theories of development?

78 Chapter 4: Political Economy

neoliberalism An ideological tendency that favors liberal

democracy and market-led

development.

privatization Transfer of control (of a business, industry, or service)

from public to private.

beginning with Adam Smith’s publication of The Wealth o f Nations in 1776. The free market perspective spawned the field of economics, whose modern school of market-oriented thought is nowadays often called n e o lib e r a lis m . Smith’s idea of the “invisible hand” offered the marvelous conclusion that through the individ­ ual efforts of people seeking only their own well-being, society as a whole is made better off. Society benefits not from generosity and kindness, but from the eco­ nomic efficiency and expansion that takes place when everyone pursues their own gain. This logic of market is expected to promote economic advancement within any given country, and it also extends to the world economy as a whole, with the idea that free trade between countries makes all countries better off.3

Advocates of free market economics are influential in policymaking today and argue that the “invisible hand” should operate largely unrestrained, without gov­ ernment interference. The proper role of government, in this logic, is largely to establish a rule of law that protects property rights and enforces contracts.4 Beyond this, the theory is that government should leave most economic activity to the market.5 This means that government should not be doing things such as creating and financing companies, running factories, or setting wages. Where government has been doing these things, the pro-market perspective holds that economic activity should undergo p r iv a t iz a tio n , or transfer of control from public to private. Such a pro-market perspective has informed policy recommen­ dations to developing countries for many years, as we discuss in chapter 5.

The argument in favor of markets is that markets promote economic well­ being, and also that states do not. Neoliberal economists commonly hold that government intervention in the economy results in inefficiencies and losses to so­ ciety as a whole. They argue that this is because only markets are able to coordinate

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The Australian Stock Exchange. "Markets" in large-scale industrial and post-industrial economies are often highly complex phenomena, difficult even for experts to understand.

complex information about values and goods that state planners simply cannot master.

“Public choice theory” supplements these arguments by characterizing public officials as self-interested actors who often get in the way of markets. Public officials may claim they promote the public good, but they are human beings, all with their own self-interests, their own agendas, and their own fail­ ings. Just because someone chooses to go into public service does not mean they will truly be willing to set aside their own needs for the good of the people. One founder of this school of thought called this view of public service “politics without romance.”6 To begin with, public officials are susceptible to bribery, influence peddling, and corruption. Even in the absence of outright corruption, public officials will typically focus first and foremost on their own incentives. Elected officials will look to the next election, and appointed bureaucrats will look to move up the career ladder. They all will try to maximize their own power and influence, often at the expense of the public they are nominally serv­ ing, and giving officials authoritative control over economic resources will lead to poor outcomes. Governments can be expected to “fail,” with damaging results.

Neoliberal approaches lead to a relatively clear set of policy recommendations, many of which center on “getting the state out” of the economy. They also have the powerful backing of many in the highly reputed field of economics. This contributes to the wide adoption of market-led approaches to development, in countries ranging from the United States to Poland to Chile.

States a n d E co n o m ic P erfo rm an ce As a central institution in public life, the state takes a very active role in eco­ nomic life in many countries. Whereas free market theorists expect this activity to lead to economic decline and poor performance, other scholars argue that state intervention can be instrumental in supporting good economic outcomes. Proponents of s ta te i n t e r v e n t i o n i s m hold that markets are unlikely to generate national wealth on their own. According to this argument, where states func­ tion well, they have an ability to coordinate the behavior of various economic actors, stimulate needed investment, and promote human capital and advanced

state interventionism An approach to economic management in which the state plays a central role, not just through enforcing contracts and property rights but through active interventions such as coordinating investment, supplying credit, and, in many instances, through the establishment and running of state-owned enterprises.

Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Fried-■■ re-;

Iilton Friedman was arguably the leading academic pro­ponent of free market economics in the twentieth century. Friedman was a Nobel Laureate based mainly at the University of Chicago. Friedman's prominence was reflected in his leadership of the "Chicago School" of economic thought, and in his influ­ ence on prominent public officials. Friedman argued that government intervention— other than in a few limited areas— generally had unintended negative consequences for economic

& growth. In the 1980s, the thinking of scholars such as Friedman influenced the policies of President Ronald Reagan in America and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Britain. A bit earlier, in the 1970s, a market-based economic strategy for a developing country was implemented by the dictatorial regime in Chile, whose economists had been trained at Chicago under Friedman and who came to be called the "Chicago Boys.” Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962.

80 Chapter 4: Political Economy

Econom ic Freedom (E xtent o f Free M arket)

Figure 4.1 Markets and Development: A Prediction from Neoliberalism

industrial production. Many state poli­ cies can promote successful industry. These policies may include various ways of protecting local businesses from for­ eign competition, especially in the early stages of development when a country is trying to build up its “infant industries.” They may also involve direct state invest­ ment in important industries (such as steel), or incentives or advantages pro­ vided to private businesses (such as low- interest loans to build factories). Governments may also actively intervene to make their currency cheaper and their exports thus more desirable to foreign

consumers; as any American who has bought inexpensive Chinese goods at W al-M art can attest, this policy has been used successfully by several countries at their early stages of development.

Advocacy for state interventionism in economic management grew in the twentieth century, with governments taking on much larger economic roles than they previously had. Around the mid- to late 1800s, European countries such as Germany and Italy unified and consolidated into nation-states. Some new gov­ ernment roles came in terms of social welfare provision. A landmark change was the establishment of social insurance programs (such as a state-supported old-age pension and disability insurance) in Germany under Chancellor Otto von Bis­ marck in the late 1800s (see “Case in Context” box). Soon thereafter, the world went through major events that led to increased central state power: countries mobilized militaries in the lead-up to the horrors of World War I (1914-1918),

IN SIG H TS Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation

: by Peter Evans

Evans looked at countries with very different states, many of which are developing countries. These included South Korea, Brazil, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo), as well as India. Considering the first three countries, Zaire supported the pessimistic view of state action offered by public choice theo­ rists: The state was staffed with self-interested actors, and indi­ vidual interests took precedence over public interests. On the other hand, South Korea (like Japan) had a state with very differ­ ent structures and personnel with different networks and work expectations. The South Korean state successfully collaborated with industry while still remaining independent of interest groups. They did so by supporting selected companies that met

targets for promoting industry and development. Brazil was "in between” these two cases, with a state that had some segments acting like South Korea's (such as the effective bureaucracies that promoted heavy industries) and some segments acting like those in Zaire. Evans attributes the performance of the three countries in industrialization— South Korea at the top and Zaire at the bottom, with Brazil in between— to these variations in the state. These issues of the role of the state in developing countries receive further treatment in the next chapter on the topic of development. Peter Evans, Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation. Princeton,

NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.

Types 81

and the subsequent Great Depression (mainly in the 1930s) gave rise to much more active state involvement in the economy. Pushes for more government in­ volvement in economic and social life ranged from Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in the United States (which included the establishment of the pension pro­ gram known as Social Security) to Adolf Hitler’s National Socialism (Nazism) in Germany. Each of these resulted in states that took on larger roles in societies and their economies, in very different ways that ranged from simply increased social services in liberal democracies to state-dominated overhauls of the econ­ omy in totalitarian systems.

As states took on more prominent roles in the economy, a major debate emerged about the best institutions to promote economic performance, with views reflect­ ing the pro-market and pro-state perspectives noted previously. To represent this debate, consider Table 4.2. As Table 4.2 shows, the statist argument is not simply the opposite of neoliberalism or market-led approaches. The neoliberal approach generally expects states to hinder economic performance where they intervene, but statism does not expect states to promote the economy in every possible way. Rather, success depends upon the quality of states and the decisions they make. Actions by states may promote or may hinder the economy, depending on whether the state is strong or weak and makes good or bad decisions. In the next chapter, we will see that this argument has continued application to developing countries when considering regions such as East Asia (note South Korea in Table 4.2) and much of Africa. In considering the evidence in Table 4.2, we put a question mark by the United States, and list it as possible evidence for both the pro-market and pro-state arguments. To see why, consider the “Cases in Context” box on the United States and its political economy; you may think of the United States as the paragon of market economics, but it is not clear that this was always so.

Social scientists increasingly recognize that both the market and the state can play important roles in promoting and facilitating economic performance.

t a b l e 4 . 2 The M arket-State Debate: An O verview Perspective Market State

Does policy matter? Yes Yes

What causes economic success? Free markets Strong states / Quality state interventions

What causes poor performance? Too much state involvement Weak or low-quality state / Poor state interventions

Testing the Theory: What countries provide good evidence?

United Kingdom United States?

South Korea United States?

Testing the Theory: Why has China been successful?(see chapter 5)

After 1979, opening up to the market has led to economic success.

Even after 1979, strong state remains active in managing economy.

Main Policy Recommendation Reduce the size of the state and its role in economy.

Build the capacity of the state to intervene well.

82 Chapter 4: Political Economy

public goods Goods or services, often provided by a government,

for use by all members of a society

and for which one person's use of

the good does not compromise

anyone else's use of the good.

Examples include national defense,

basic infrastructure, and a healthy

environment.

economic management States' efforts to shape the economic

performance of their societies,

especially in fiscal and monetary

policy.

Especially since the collapse of global communism at the end of the Cold War, most would argue that economies are best built on the principles of private prop­ erty and through the use of markets to set most prices and allocate many re­ sources. At the same time, there is also substantial agreement that states are needed to provide some p u b lic g o o d s —ranging from law and order to defense to public health and other investments in human capital and physical infrastructure— that may not be provided by the market. States are also presumed necessary to correct certain market failures and to protect the most vulnerable. They must provide a positive environment in which individuals and private enterprise will have incentives to invest in themselves and in their society over the long run. Despite some consensus, the market-state debate rages, renewed by changing events and challenges to existing interpretations and existing evidence. We might find some role for both markets and states, and some scholars attribute successful development to a proper balance between the two. This logic extends to contemporary developing countries, as discussed in the next chapter.

Econom ic Functions of Modern States Having explored the key conceptual distinction between market economies and statist economies (while acknowledging that most countries blend elements of both), we turn now to consider some specific roles states play in modern political economies: states commonly engage in economic management, invest in human capital, and build infrastructure. They also intervene in the economy to support those who might be vulnerable, such as the poor, or the elderly who may no longer be able to engage in as much economically productive work. This last cat­ egory of state action can be called the provision of a welfare state, as in ensuring a degree of social well-being.

S tates a n d E co n o m ic M a n a g e m e n t Citizens also typically hold their states responsible for e c o n o m ic m a n a g e m e n t. This does not mean that all modern states play the same economic role: Some states intervene greatly in the economy, holding ownership of firms in key eco­ nomic sectors, for example, while others intervene less. However, even the least interventionist states participate in considerable economic management. Typi­ cally poor economic performance on the part of a government leads to declining legitimacy. Sustained and extraordinarily poor economic performance can un­ dermine the state itself.

States endeavor to manage the economy in several main ways. As we men­ tioned, some take ownership of key industries. Additionally, all states regulate the economy, though the extent and form of regulation vary. They perform basic functions such as enforcing contracts. They establish and enforce rules about the banking system, helping structure the ways in which capital is accumulated and invested. States create rules that govern labor and its contractual relationships with employers, codifying rules about strikes, collective bargaining, and mini­ mal conditions, such as safety protections, work hours, and, in some cases, wages. States also often regulate commercial products: for example, a number of states regulate the nature of advertising claims, ban toxic products such as lead paint, and impose controls on pollution from factories.

• _ lTypes 83

Equally important, modern states carry out economic management through attempts to influence the business cycle. States try to engender economic growth and to avoid or at least mitigate periodic economic downturns. The two main tools states have in this connection are fiscal policy and monetary policy.

Fiscal policy essentially involves taxing and spending. States can attempt to produce economic growth during downturns by increasing their spending (or by cutting certain taxes), which essentially adds to existing demand in the economy. This practice is often called fiscal stimulus or counter-cyclical spending because it aims to counter the business cycle, evening out economic performance and producing steady growth over time. Also important to fiscal policy is the man­ agement of the state’s balance sheets: A certain amount of debt is normal, but excessive debt can produce crises that can threaten economic performance and the political viability of regimes holding power.

Monetary policy involves the government’s efforts to shape how much money is in circulation and the value of a state’s currency. Governments have a variety of specific tools that help manage how the prices of goods and services rise and fall. Some states will try to reduce the value of their currency in relation to other countries’ because this policy will favor their exports. Others will aim to estab­ lish and maintain a strong currency. Inflation (or rising prices) and deflation (or falling prices) are frequent worries, and while governments cannot completely control the rising and falling value of prices and currencies, modern states are typically considered responsible for this sort of economic management.

In v estm e n ts in H u m a n C apital: E d u c a tio n a n d H e a lth As mentioned previously, the modern state has periodically taken on new roles over the course of its history. One such role is coordinating the provision of

A public school classroom in Myanmar. States do not just make wars and police their territories, but also provide numerous public services like education.

fiscal policy Budget setting, which is dependent on generating

revenue followed by government

spending.

monetary policy States' efforts to shape the value of a society's cur­

rency, often through the use o f a

central bank in the case of a

modern state.

84 Chapter 4: Political Economy

education, public health, and other investments in human capital. O f course, education is in some societies provided partly by private organizations, but even in such instances the state is usually involved, through regulation and often through subsidies. Public education has really existed only over the last couple of centuries, and some states still have difficulty providing it.

Historical research shows that states initially endeavored to use public educa­ tion to help create citizens.7 This is still an important function of educational systems, which teach people about the rights and duties attached to their status as members of the society subject to the state’s authority. Above all, though, poli­ cymakers view education as a way for a state to enhance the long-run global economic competitiveness of its society. An educated workforce has more skills than an uneducated one, and as a result becomes more attractive to prospective employers. Higher education has expanded globally as states have developed and states often heavily subsidize higher education, both because they hope to edu­ cate their workforce and because they view institutions of higher education as sources of technological innovation that they hope will be economically beneficial.

The modern state is also held responsible for many aspects of public health, such as coordinating and regulating vaccination, overseeing food distribution and safety, and managing infectious diseases. Indeed, the expansion of state- managed public health, along with economic growth, has produced the lion’s share of global health advances in recent years, including rising life expectancies and declining rates of infant mortality. States in most advanced industrial or post-industrial societies often aim to take on for themselves the task of paying for health care services, or at least contributing to this effort. Many developing countries, too, have established public health care systems, though the quality and reach of these programs vary considerably. States have come to provide these services because important constituencies have demanded that they do so, bol­ stered by the expanding perception over several decades that this is simply part of what states do. At the same time, as with education, these initiatives can be viewed as the state’s investment in human capital. Healthier populations tend to be more productive as labor forces and to possess higher skills. Even something as simple as ensuring that children have a healthy diet can potentially produce long-term gains.

State-Led Development in Japan PAGE 490

Japan's modern state began to develop in the late nineteenth century and grew in the twentieth, alongside the country's rapid economic development. For this reason it is often cited as a rapid modernizer. This case also shows that states can play a key role in successful economic performance, as we discuss further in chapter 5.

For more on the state in Japan, see the case study in Part VI, p. 490. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. Flow, historically, has the Japanese state been involved in the economy?

2. Flow has this involvement changed in recent years?

Types 85

In fra s tru c tu re a n d O th e r P ub lic G o o d s States are also typically responsible for the establishment and maintenance of a variety of forms of infrastructure of common life. States license and regulate media infrastructure, controlling, for example, radio, television, phone, and Internet systems. States typically create and maintain civil engineering infra­ structure as well, particularly highways. They are also often involved in at least the regulation and often the administration of ports and airports, and many play a role in the establishment and maintenance of rail systems as well. These things matter a lot, and not just because of the convenience afforded private citizens by having functional highways, railways, and airports. Commerce depends on reli­ able and efficient transportation, and states that neglect investment in these areas often handicap their societies’ economic performance, and, therefore, ultimately their own strength.

As with all of these typical activities of states, there is considerable variation in the style and level of a state’s involvement. Some states centrally plan the con­ struction and maintenance of infrastructure and ensure that these activities remain 100 percent public (which means carried out and controlled by the state). Others aim to work via partnerships with private contractors: A state may allow a private firm to maintain a toll highway or a rail system, the firm generating its own revenues by charging consumers for services, or a state may indeed hire an outside firm to provide some such service. There are major philosophical differ­ ences about the degree to which services like education, transportation infra­ structure, health care delivery, and even prisons should be “public” or “private.” These concerns link to broader debates about the future of the welfare state men­ tioned earlier. Over the course of the twentieth century, the advanced industrial and post-industrial state came to be one that robustly served the roles we have discussed in this section, one that did so while aiming to reduce inequality, defend workers’ rights, and ensure a minimal standard of living, all while main­ taining a mixed capitalist economy.

welfare state A state that aims to provide a basic safety net for the

most vulnerable elements of its

population, often accomplished

through social insurance, public

health care plans, and poverty

relief.

W elfare State F u n c tio n s In the period after the Second World War, advanced industrial societies con­ verged, to some extent, on the idea that the state should serve certain broad economic and social functions, and they were to some extent followed in this, where possible, by developing-world states. The model that was constructed is often referred to as the w e lf a re s ta te , meaning that the state should have as a key task the maintenance of its population’s welfare. As we shall see in the “Causes and Effects” section in this chapter, scholars try to explain the development of the state’s expanding role in a variety of ways. Before exploring the reasons behind the emergence of the welfare state, we note what some of the basic func­ tions of welfare states are.

While welfare states do many different things, their key tasks include provid­ ing social insurance or pensions that protect the elderly and disabled, unemploy­ ment insurance that protects those who cannot find work, and health care for their citizens. They vary widely in their ambition in this respect, and in their ef­ ficacy. Some would argue that the United States has shown a more modest com­ mitment to the welfare state model, whereas the Scandinavian countries are

86 Chapter 4: Political Economy

often held up as exemplars of strong and successful commitment to welfare state goals. We would stress that all welfare states provide benefits to a range of citi­ zens and residents, not just the poor. In the United States, for example, societal members are eligible for Social Security and Medicare. Also key to most welfare states is the idea that citizens are entitled to certain basic social rights that go beyond narrow political freedoms. As you can see, welfare state functions were marked departures from modern states’ historical roles in the period of their early formation, which were more centered on war making and internal policing (though the state’s effort to manage the economy goes back a long way8).

W hile most advanced industrial and post-industrial societies have welfare states, this should not lead us to suppose that they are all the same. Indeed, they vary in terms of how they collect most of their taxes, how much tax they collect, and the extent and form of their social spending. Today some argue that the welfare state is in crisis. At least since the 1980s, it has been subjected to the critique that it is inefficient and not well suited to the competitive environment of today’s global economy. Indeed, many welfare states currently face fiscal dif­ ficulties, in part because of demographic trends. As “Baby Boomers” age, social insurance and health care provision will grow more costly. On the other hand, supporters of welfare states point out that these fiscal problems have often been exacerbated or even caused by tax cuts and other actions carried out by the wel­ fare state’s opponents. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the question of what will happen to the welfare state will be one of the most important issues in global politics in the coming years.

Causes and Effects: Why Do Welfare States Emerge? One of the leading questions raised in this chapter is “W hat explains economic performance?” with the role of the market and that of the state being important hypotheses to explain variations in outcomes across countries. This hypothesis shapes the debate in both advanced, industrial economies (the subject of this chapter) and lower-income, developing countries (the subject of the next chap­ ter). We address these hypotheses in the next chapter on development. As a result, we turn now to another important (and related) question about the politi­ cal economy in advanced, industrialized societies: Why are states as economically active as they are? In a sense, this section bridges the various discussions about the state and the economy, as seen in the key causal question in chapter 3 (Why did states emerge?) to the key causal question in chapter 5 (Why do economies per­ form as they have?). We ask here why states have gone from having been rela­ tively minimal economic actors in the nineteenth century to having larger roles as more robust “welfare states” in the world’s most advanced economies in the twenty-first century.

As we noted earlier, the modern welfare state began to develop in the nine­ teenth century, when a number of states, notably France and Germany, experi­ mented with “social insurance.”9 The major causal question we address here is why the economic functions of the state have changed over time. In particular, we consider the expansion of the state’s role in regulating or even providing for

Causes and Effects: Why Do Welfare States Emerge? 87

The German State: Unification and Welfare

Germany is a country of perennial interest to political scientists, among other reasons because it achieved political unification only in the late nineteenth century and shortly thereafter began to develop some limited welfare state functions. Its process of change was thus highly compressed. Whereas some other modern states existed as such for decades or even centuries before coming to take on welfare state functions, Germany did so only very briefly.

PAGE 449

For more on the German state, see the case study in Part VI, pp. 449-450. As you read it, keep in mind the following guestions:

1. What, if anything, is the relationship between Germany's later unification and its early partial welfare state development?

2. Why did the conservative Bismarck adopt welfare func­ tions for the German state?

the welfare of its citizens. In other words, why have states increasingly taken on tasks like providing health care, social insurance, and other social safety-net fea­ tures over the course of decades?

Note that this question should not imply that all movement is in one direction on this issue. Countries have often moved toward reducing the role of the state in providing social welfare services. Prominent examples include the United King­ dom under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s and the former Communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe after 1989. Nonetheless, a major research ques­ tion has been why states have generally gone from entities with limited economic functions to ones that have larger roles over time. To address this question, we look at several prominent theories about the emergence of welfare states.

Cultural C h anges Some scholars have argued that welfare states emerge because of changing values and norms.10 From tTis point of view, earlier states did not develop a social safety net because nobody really wanted them to. One can argue that this is because other institutions were regarded as more suitable to the provision of welfare: for example, religious organizations or workhouses before the late nineteenth cen­ tury. Another argument is that something in the post-Enlightenment world made people start to think that formerly intractable social problems could be solved and that the state should play a role in solving them.11 One classic theory of the welfare state focuses on changing ideas of citizenship in this connection, as argued most influentially by T. H. Marshall.

Industrial Capitalism Another important theory, though, has been that industrial capitalism creates welfare states. This makes sense, given that the welfare state is typically described as a state that responds to problems produced by capitalist development. Indus­ trial capitalism has, without doubt, led to massive economic growth, but it has also generated social and economic changes that have proved dislocating to many people and many societies. At a very fundamental level, capitalist societies (with their more advanced economies) have more complex divisions of labor in the

Chapter 4: Political Economy

economy. For example, a few centuries ago the vast majority of working people in the world were farmers, but today only a small fraction are in the most indus­ trialized nations. This economic change—however much opportunity and growth it brought—disrupted long-standing social institutions. Thus, in “tradi­ tional” agrarian societies, families played many roles in providing what we may think of today as government social services: support to the elderly, and some form of education to the young (with the latter often coming in the form of ex­ perience in farming practices or a trade learned from a family member or close associate). Meanwhile, religious institutions and norms about charity or alms­ giving would have been the primary means of providing protection to the unfor­ tunate in some places; self-organized mutual-aid associations and community institutions might have supported the indigent, rather than “the state.” In more complex economies, as the prospects for growth took off, things changed: more people went to factories or offices to work, families became more nuclear, and so on. In this process, institutions such as the family and the church lost some of their roles to a state that emerged as an important agent in managing the com­ plexity of the economy. In this general sense, capitalism and the attendant com­ plexity of modern society may itself account for the rise of the welfare state.

There are several very distinct theories about how capitalism leads to welfare states. Some are more Marxist and emphasize a critique of capitalism. Some of these theories see the welfare state as essentially reactionary. Marx thought that capitalism would inevitably undermine itself because it would produce larger groups of impoverished suffering workers who would eventually overthrow the state. However, some Marxists argue that welfare states involved the co-optation of workers by the state and the owners of capital, such that “immiseration” did not proceed as Marx had predicted. In general, the position most closely associated with Marx on these questions has been that the welfare state as such cannot, in the end, do away with exploitation, which can only happen with a revolution.12 At the same time, though, many self-described Marxists and others on the left have been strong proponents of expanding the welfare state on humanitarian grounds.

Scholars with a different ideological orientation have seen a very different causal relationship between capitalism and the welfare state. Those who lean more to the right have tended to view the welfare state not as a bulwark against socialist revolution, but as creeping socialism itself.13 From this point of view, in societies outside the orbit of the Soviet Union, proponents of socialism have needed to use the institutions of democratic society to achieve their aims. The welfare state is, from this point of view, the creation of social actors disaffected with capitalism and who would end capitalist development if they could.

Finally, another view holds that the welfare state is neither capitalism’s effort to save itself nor the work of its enemies, but rather a response to the social dis­ locations that industrialization generates. Perhaps it would be better to think of this position as a range of possible theories or views holding as follows: Industrial capitalism is indeed central to the development of the welfare state, but this is not a simple story either of capitalism’s co-optation of the poor or of the poor’s co­ optation of capitalism. Rather, some scholars argue that industrial capitalism more generally produced such dramatic changes that a new sense of order was needed.

Causes and Effects: Why Do Welfare States Emerge? 89

IN SIG H T S Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy by Joseph Schumpeter

Schumpeter, an iconoclastic economist, agreed with Marx that capitalism would inevitably undermine itself. However, he thought this would happen in a very different way than Marx had forecast. Schumpeter regarded the essence of capitalism as re­ siding in the entrepreneurial activity of capitalists. Progress is made because of the "creative destruction" that such activity unleashes as old modes of economic activity are replaced by productivity-enhancing new ones. However, according to Schumpeter, this could not last indefinitely because capitalism is so successful that it generates powerful social actors who are

interested in undermining it. Intellectuals in particular, he argued, would seek to reduce inequality of condition as a way of satisfy­ ing their envy of society's allegedly most productive members. From this point of view, the welfare state is a key mechanism through which non-capitalist actors could be expected to impose socialism on capitalist societies, through regulation, re­ distributive taxation, and related strategies.

Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. 3rd ed. New York: Harper, [1942] 1962.

Both of the views highlighted in the “Insights” boxes (Schumpeter’s and Polanyi’s, on the next page) have an affinity with an ideological position. Schumpeter’s view is essentially critical of the welfare state from the right. Its proponents would likely advocate shrinking or dismantling the welfare state in the interest of expanding entrepreneurial activity and the scope of the free market. Polanyi’s view is more supportive of the welfare state, regarding it as an institution that helps to make industrial capitalism manageable and livable. (Of course, it is also possible to offer a critique of the welfare state from the left, with many on the left supporting the expansion of welfare state functions and more redistribution, or arguing that the state does not do enough to help the less fortunate.) It is very important to recognize here that while different theories might have ideological implications (or policy implications), as comparative political analysts we should not let these implications drive our research. In other words, the fundamental causal question here is not “W hat should we do about the welfare state?” but “W hy did it emerge?” We may be motivated by policy outcomes or ideology, but we benefit from being able to distinguish these from our causal analysis.

M obilization and Political Action A number of scholars who are interested in the welfare state are critical of both sorts of theories mentioned so far (cultural changes and industrial capitalism). The first focuses on ideas in the creation of welfare states, the second on the impact of social structures. Where, one might ask, are the actors in these theo­ ries? Those searching for an alternative approach might focus on trying to iden­ tify the key actors in the creation of welfare states and seeing how they are interested. The main relevant ones to consider would, in the opinion of many scholars, be more concrete groups that claim to represent economic classes, such as labor unions and business groups, and the state itself.

In essence, this third theory sees the state as a product of negotiation and conflict among different interest groups.14 Imagine, for example, an industrial society with a minimal state. In this society, business leaders exert a strong influ­ ence on politics, using that influence to ensure that the state does not regulate

90 Chapter 4: Political Economy

IN SIG H TS The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time byKarlPolanyi

Polanyi argued that economic relationships are always “em­bedded” in society more generally. He meant, in essence, that people's economic behavior could not be fully understood with­ out understanding its social and cultural context. Economic be­ havior is never neutral but is always organized around ideas about the good life and what society ought to ultimately value. However, industrial capitalism aimed to "disembed” itself from ordinary social relations. Changing habits and tastes, rural-to-ur- ban migration, social mobility, the breakdown of old local and religious ties, as well as the loss of traditional methods of eco­ nomic self-support (and social support) accompanied the dizzy­ ing growth and potential improvement in living standards that industrial capitalism yielded.

Polanyi's supposition is essentially that human beings cannot live like this. That is, an economy that is truly "disembedded” from social relations is impossible. Industrial capitalism destroyed old social relations, but the tendency to establish social relations is resilient, and new ones would be rebuilt. A strong welfare state linked to liberal democracy was one such strategy. However, it was not the only one, and Polanyi also thought that the fascist movements of the twentieth century were efforts to reimpose a sense of community and embeddedness in the wake of the dis­ locations provoked by capitalism.

Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. 2nded. Boston: Beacon Press, [1994] 2001.

their management of labor. Imagine also that a strong labor movement develops. Further, some members of the labor movement are proponents of “seizing the means of production” (e.g., taking over factories) and destroying the position of business leaders, while others wish to expand their influence and pursue their interests within the context of the state itself. Finally, imagine that some political leaders, or perhaps a political party, declare themselves the representatives of labor. Think about the strategic position of the different actors we have identified in this simplified story. In narrow terms, the laborers want to expand their inter­ ests, seeking basic rights, higher pay, safer conditions, and perhaps monopolistic access to certain jobs. The business leaders wish to maintain their interests in the face of those demands. Political leaders wish to acquire office or stay in office.

To oversimplify a bit, we could say that laborers have two options: to push for radical social change or to compromise. Business owners face the same sort of choice: either compromise and accept a moderately redistributive and regulatory state (but one that is unlikely to dramatically impinge on their interests), or hold on in efforts to preserve a more minimal state. It is not hard to see how such a situation could present at least the possibility of a welfare state compromise.

One of the greatest advantages of this general theoretical approach is that it can potentially explain variation in types of welfare regimes.15 Not all wel­ fare states are the same. Scandinavian welfare states have been very robust and have retained high popularity with their citizens. Welfare states in France and Germany have been somewhat more modest, though they too have survived re­ trenchment (efforts to cut back the welfare state) fairly well. The United States stands out for having a relatively weak welfare state in comparative terms,16 with less generous transfers and a more individualistic orientation: Retrenchment has been relatively strong in the United States.17 Moreover, much of the state’s wel­ fare functioning targets the middle class and has been “submerged,” in the sense that its action is partly hidden from the view of the average citizen.18

Causes and Effects: Why Do Welfare States Emerge? 91

Experts on the welfare state in Japan discuss its structure and efficacy. Even as welfare states experience some difficulties in long­ standing industrial and post-industrial economies, some newly industrializing societies are building their own. Will they look to Japan and Europe as they do so or develop their own models?

IN SIG H T S Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism byGesta E s p iiy -ir d m e n

Esping-Andersen's modern classic is best known for two of its many features. First, it emphasizes “de-commodification” as the key goal of welfare states. This draws upon Polanyi's ideas discussed previously, and certain arguments of Karl Marx: Under capitalism the individual becomes "commodified"— because workers sell their labor for wages in the labor market— and this is thought to be de-humanizing. Esping-Andersen argues that wel­ fare regimes, through providing for basic human needs, push back against the commodification of persons.

Esping-Andersen's second contribution is to argue that three main types of welfare regimes developed in the twentieth cen­ tury: (1) liberal regimes in places like the United Kingdom and the United States, (2) corporatist regimes as developed in continen­ tal Europe, and (3) social democratic regimes as developed in Scandinavia. They vary in the extent to which they successfully resist the commodification of citizens, with social democratic re­ gimes being most successful. Further, he tries to explain why

these different regimes developed, and he focuses on “the nature of class mobilization" as well as “class-political coalition structures" and “the historical legacy of regime institutionaliza­ tion."'9 Early welfare state development, he argues, depends in part on the class position of farmers. In Scandinavia, small farm­ ers developed a coalition with urban workers. In mature welfare state development in the post-war period, the position of the middle class is key. In Scandinavia, the middle class emerged as part of the welfare state coalition. In some other societies, it was more ambivalent. Moreover, these processes are path depen­ dent. The type of welfare state created in Scandinavia not only owed its success to middle class support, but it was structured in such a way as to retain that support. Other welfare states might have been institutionally designed in ways that would later pro­ duce political weaknesses. Cetsta Esping-Andersen, Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1990.

92 Chapter 4: Political Economy

Any fully satisfactory theory of the emergence of the welfare state should be able to account for these sorts of variations. The theories just discussed can try, if they can show that the independent variables they are interested in vary in ways th^t match the pattern. For example, such a theory could potentially explain the varied paths of welfare states by talking about different forms of capitalism or different timing of industrialization. But actor-centered theories are poised to offer detailed accounts of variation in welfare state regimes. They can point to differences in, for example, (1) the relative power, size, and interests of actors such as labor and business interests; (2) different institutional features of the state that can facilitate or impede certain types of compromise; or (3) different organi­ zational methods for aggregating interests, such as parties or labor unions, with varying capacity to mobilize.

Another advantage of actor-centered theories is that they seem more capable of handling contingencies and exogenous shocks to political development. A critical juncture in the creation of European welfare states was the dual shock of the Great Depression and the Second World War. Think about how these events might have changed (1) the willingness of key groups, such as the middle class, to participate in a welfare-state-supporting coalition and (2) the ability of the welfare state, once created, to maintain such a coalition by maximizing mid­ dle-class interests. Note that structural factors from industrial capitalism are not missing from this account, and that ideas can be brought into such theories as well. For example, many analysts see Keynesian economics and its focus on gov­ ernment management of the business cycle as having an affinity with the welfare state. The rise of Keynesian policies in the post-Depression world also likely con­ tributed to the welfare state’s institutionalization.

International Learning Effects A final theory that should be considered may be especially useful for understand­ ing how and why welfare states have proliferated, expanded, and propagated across the world. We will not fully understand how welfare states emerged and took shape around the world if we think about countries operating in a vacuum. Rather, countries may alter their welfare states based on experiences they observe elsewhere, because other countries may provide examples of good practices or cautionary tales about what not to do. From the beginnings of the welfare state in the late 1800s, countries have looked to other countries’ experiences, some­ times emulating them, sometimes avoiding them, and sometimes adapting inter­ national experiences to local realities. At present, states in Asia are rapidly taking on many of the functions performed by welfare states in the world’s wealthiest regions such as Europe; in so doing, the Asian states are building in a matter of perhaps a decade what took “Western” countries many decades to build.20

This idea that countries “learn” from one another is not to imply that late- developing welfare states like those in Asia simply mimic what happened in Europe or other advanced, Western economies. First, countries may adapt the form and functioning of the welfare state to local realities. For instance, there is evidence that Japan’s welfare state gave a greater role to the family than was the case in Western Europe, and that Asian countries attempted to adapt the welfare state to respond to the decline in the size of families and households (given the

Welfare States in the Nordic Countries: What Can We Learn and How? 93

importance of these foundational social units in Asia, as elsewhere) during a period of rapid industrialization after World War II.21 Similarly, international “learning” can flow from successful experiments in lower-income developing countries; it is not simply a matter of the poor countries learning from the rich. A recent example is seen in the experiences with so-called conditional cash transfers in Latin America, which are cash payouts to citizens (often low-income citizens) that are conditional on the citizen undertaking certain actions. In Brazil, a pro­ gram known as Bolsa Familia provides cash to low-income Brazilians as long as they keep their children in school and up-to-date on vaccinations. Such policies have also flourished in Mexico, among other countries. In addition to some evi­ dence of poverty reduction, initial experiences with these programs have gener­ ated policy interest in other countries across Latin America, and in other regions of the world as well that have considered “learning” from existing programs.

As is the case with many theories, this one about international learning ef­ fects can be combined with other theories discussed in this chapter. For instance, the rapid emergence of welfare states in Asia in recent years may be linked to the rise of industrial capitalism in that region, or it may be a response to the mobili­ zation of important political actors in Asia, or changing notions of citizenship in that part of the world. The emphasis is not on one theory to the exclusion of others, but on understanding how each might contribute to our overall under­ standing of the emergence of the variety of welfare state programs observed around the world today.

Welfare States in the Nordic Countries: What Can We Learn and How?

For many social scientists, the goal of a research project is to test a hypothesis and, using evidence (often from case studies), to reach a conclusion. Ideally, that conclusion will help inform more general theories about the way the world works. However, not every good piece of research will result in a clean test of a hypothesis. In many instances, good research will delve into the particular expe­ rience of a case study, noting factors that seem relevant in understanding that case. This process may generate a hypothesis for future use, rather than be a full hypothesis test itself.

In formulating hypotheses about causation, it is important to keep your focus on the evidence from the cases you examine. As an example, let’s consider what we might learn from investigating Nordic countries such as Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. The welfare state is reasonably large and sophisticated in these countries. We will consider how to move from that basic empirical observation toward hypothesis generation, hypothesis testing, and theory building. Let’s say you read Esping-Andersen’s account (see the “Insights” box on Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism) and focus on Sweden. You learn that Sweden has a relatively robust welfare state of the “social democratic” variety; according to existing theory, this is due to the nature of class coalitions at certain key moments in the country’s history. Consider a few options for how one might develop a research project from this observation, and think about which add the most value.

TH IN K IN G CO M P A R A TIV ELY

K EY M E TH O D O LO G IC A L TO O L

Formulating Hypotheses Formulating a hypothesis is one of the most important steps in com­ parative analysis. Usually, analysts ' generate hypotheses deductively from a theory. This means teasing out specific and testable claims that logically follow from the theory and that can be judged in relation to empirical evidence. Sometimes, though, analysts proceed inductively. This means thinking about how a theory could potentially account for observable features of a case or set of cases. But the method of formulating a hypothesis is less important than the rigor of efforts to objectively test that hypothesis.

94 Chapter 4: Political Economy

T H IN K IN G CO M P A RA TIV ELY

Option 1: You discover that a different country Esping-Andersen didn’t consider (say, Finland) has a robust welfare state that seems consistent with the “Scandi­ navian” model. You consider the author’s argument (“class coalitions help explain welfare states”) and seek evidence to test the hypothesis about the role of class coalitions on this new case of Finland. Option 2: You study further on Sweden, reading the entirety of Esping-Andersen’s analysis. You follow the footnotes and bibliographic resources. Through this con­ siderable work, you discover ample confirming evidence for the author’s argument. You then declare that you have rigorously tested Esping-Andersen’s hypothesis using the Swedish case. Option 3: You discover that another country (say, Brazil) has a growing welfare state, but you notice that a major factor in its creation seems to be a desire to promote rapid economic growth. You treat this as a hypothesis that could be tested in Sweden (and other countries) to rival Esping-Andersen’s “class coalitions” hypothesis.

Does any of these options make more or less sense to you as a research agenda? Each may be a good learning exercise. Certainly option 1 sounds like a good op­ portunity to use a case study to test a hypothesis you have drawn from the aca­ demic literature. Now look at option 2 more carefully, and see what is limited about it. Are you really “testing the hypothesis”? It sounds as if you generated a hypothesis based on the case of Sweden, and then proceeded to test that hypoth­ esis using the case o f ... Sweden. You are really using the same evidence to repli­ cate the analysis that Esping-Andersen did. (To be sure, being able to “replicate” existing studies is important, but option 2 is quite different from rigorously test­ ing a hypothesis or examining a case afresh using new evidence.) To contribute toward building a theory of the causes of the welfare state, it might be more helpful to see if hypotheses generated from the Swedish case work in other cases (option 1). Conversely, you might see if hypotheses generated from other cases can help explain the Swedish case. This latter possibility leads us to option 3— a good and promising avenue for research. By looking at Brazil, you might discover a new factor that seemed to contribute to welfare state development in that coun­ try. This in turn might help in reexamining or rethinking the original Swedish case, which could help build a better theory of the welfare state overall.

Let’s look at option 3 a bit more. Ask yourself, Would it be fair to say you “tested the hypothesis” that the desire to promote economic growth leads to the growth of the welfare state, using Brazil as your case? Not really. This is the same logic behind what limits option 2: you can’t really say you are testing a hypothesis using the same evidence from which the hypothesis is generated. I f one case study leads you to a certain argument, that can generate a hypothesis for testing on future cases. That is different from a true hypothesis test, in which you make a prediction before knowing the empirical realities of the case.

We want to emphasize here that generating hypotheses can itself be a contri­ bution to the advancement of political science. That is, not every contribution in the discipline takes the form of a hypothesis test or theory building; it is some­ times useful to make empirical observations that generate hypotheses for future testing (perhaps helping us redefine our terms as well). One or more well-done case studies that generate hypotheses for future testing can represent an impor­ tant contribution and step forward.

Chapter Review 95

C h a p te r S u m m a r y Concepts

Key concepts and measures from political economy include gross domestic product (GDP), gross national income (GNI), inequality and the GINI coefficient, employment, unemploy­ ment, underemployment, inflation, deflation, hyperinflation, and fiscal measures.

Types • There are two major contrasting perspectives on how politi­

cal economy works: one that emphasizes the importance of free markets, and one that emphasizes the actions and powers of states in promoting economic growth. Many

. scholars argue that both markets and well-coordinated state action are the keys to political economic success.

T h in k in g It T h r o u g h 1. Consider the various political economy indicators offered in the

"Types" section of the chapter. Do you think some of these are more relevant than others? If you were “ranking" countries' po­ litical economies, which of these would take precedence for you in evaluating how countries are performing? Noting that GDP per capita and GDP growth are the most commonly used indi­ cators, are there any reasons to argue for an alternative indicator, on economic, political, or moral grounds?

2. One of the central debates in political economy and develop­ ment (as seen in the next chapter) is about the relative roles of the "market" and the "state" in promoting growth and economic performance. Which of those arguments is the more intuitive to you? What evidence supports that argument, and what evi­ dence have you seen that challenges it?

3. Test the theories of the establishment of welfare states against your knowledge of U.S. history. Which theory best explains the

States perform a number of key functions in the economy, including but not limited to economic management, investment in education and health, and welfare state provision.

Causes and Effects • Three main theories of the rise of welfare states emphasize (a)

cultural changes, (b) industrial capitalism, and (c) mobilization and political action.

Th inking Com paratively We considered the Nordic welfare state model in thinking about how to develop a research agenda.

development of the welfare state in the United States, and why? What, if any, are the special features of welfare state develop­ ment in the United States that need to be explained, and how well can each theory address these features?

4. Many argue that the welfare state is now in crisis. What would each of the theories of the welfare state's emergence suggest about the likelihood of the survival of welfare states?

5. Given that welfare state functions became common in ad­ vanced industrial societies in the middle of the twentieth cen­ tury, do you think that these functions ought to be incorporated into the concept of strong states? In other words, can a contem­ porary state be strong without performing welfare state func­ tions, or does failure to provide welfare benefits make a state relatively weak by definition?

CHAPTER 5

Development

0 The military border between North and South Korea. These two countries vary markedly in their political, economic, and social development. Why might this be so?

The countries of N orth and South Korea are separated by a “M ilitary Demarcation Line” that is heavily fortified and tense. Yet the peoples of these two states are separated by more than this: dramatic differences in health, life expectancy, infant mortality, levels of education, prospects for advancement, access to information, and the freedom to participate in politi­ cal life. N orth of the line, indicators of all these good things are very poor, and below them, astonishingly good. W h a t makes this comparison still more interesting is how recently this profound divergence occurred.

The comparison of North and South Korea is potentially instructive in its own right, but it is just one example of a general situation that interests scholars of comparative politics who focus on development: Some countries are incredibly rich and give their citizens high “capability” to achieve the ends they set for themselves,1 and others are poor, leaving their citizens with far fewer resources and opportunities. The hope of comparative political analysts is that we can help explain why, and that in doing so we will help citizens and policymakers maximize their own chances.

N orth and South Korea are clearly different on various indicators, ranging from economic growth to poverty levels to citizens’ opportunities. In this chapter, we examine the differ­ ing ways development can be understood. We begin by look­ ing at the concept of “development,” focusing on the most commonly used definition of the term, which is overall income. The subsequent section, “Types,” highlights the many other forms and definitions of development, including other eco­ nomic outcomes, more social indicators, and even measures of cultural values and ecological sustainability. The “Causes and Effects” section then explores the various theories that seek to explain why development happens. In the “Thinking Com ­ paratively” section at the end, we return to this example from the two Koreas to illustrate how we might use comparative case studies to test hypotheses for why development happens.

IN TH IS C H A P T E R

Concepts 97

Types 98 Poverty 98 Social Outcomes and Human

Development 99 Gender Relations and Racial and Ethnic

Identities 100 Satisfaction and Happiness 101 Cultural Development 102 Sustainability 103

Causes and Effects: Why Does Developm ent Happen? 103 Institutions: The Market-State Debate,

Revisited 104 Institutions: Beyond the Market-State

Debate 106 Culture and Development 107 Systems and Structures: International

and Domestic 110

T H IN K IN G C O M P A R A T I V E L Y

E x pla in in g the D evelopm ent of North and South Korea 114

C A S E S IN C O N T E X T

India Brazil • Nigeria • China

97

98 Chapter 5: Development

development A process by which a society changes or

advances, often measured in terms

of economic growth, but also

sometimes measured in terms of

quality of life, standard of living,

access to freedoms and

opportunities, or other indicators.

poverty The state of being poor, as measured by low income,

deprivation, lack of access to

resources, or limited economic opportunities.

poverty line A specified threshold below which individuals

or groups are judged to be in poverty.

Concepts Development is a complex concept, and there is heated disagreement about what counts as development and what does not. For example, would you say an oil-rich country such as Saudi Arabia is experiencing development if its economy is growing rapidly but nearly all of the benefits of that growth are going to a small number of elites? Would you say that a country is developing if people are not getting wealthier but are living longer, healthier lives? W hat about a country like China, where wealth is increasing for many people, and poverty is declining fast, but the environ­ ment is being damaged severely? The indicators of development outlined in this section range from narrow macroeconomic indicators, such as economic growth, to social indicators, such as cultural development, that are more difficult to measure. As you read them, consider which best captures for you the idea of development.

The first and most straightforward sort of development to consider is eco­ nomic growth, or increases in a country’s overall level of economic activity. Beyond growth of the overall economy, development may also be evaluated using other economic and social indicators, including income inequality, poverty levels, and the standard of living. We could even define development in political terms, saying a country is more developed when it becomes more democratic, though we will leave this topic to the next chapter.

The simplest indicator of a country’s economic development is how much the economy produces, or how much income its people earn. As noted in chapter 4, this can be measured using such indicators as gross domestic product (GDP) or gross national income (GNI). Here we will not discuss all of the various eco­ nomic indicators that could be used to evaluate development, since several were explored in the “Concepts” section of chapter 4. However, in the next section we consider some major ways that development has been evaluated in lower-income countries, beyond the economic indicators already examined. These include questions of poverty and inequality, such as whether people of different races and genders have comparable access to economic and social opportunities, and over­ all well-being. We consider social indicators (such as, health and education), and how or whether development can be compatible with environmental sustainabil­ ity and respect for distinct cultural values in an age of global interactions.

Types As noted previously, there are many ways of understanding and measuring develop­ ment beyond income per capita, and we examine some of these here. We still con­ sider some economic measures related to how income is distributed in a population. Yet we also look at other possible ways of understanding development. One is to focus on more social indicators, such as those based on health, education, and other measurements of quality of life or standard of living. Another is to think about whether a society treats different groups equally (such as men and women, or major­ ity and minority ethnic groups). Finally, we will consider the relationship between development and issues such as environmental sustainability and cultural autonomy.

Poverty Poverty is usually measured with respect to an established poverty line, a basic level of income needed to maintain a reasonable standard of living in a given

Types 99

CASE IN CONTEXT

What Explains India's Recent Growth? PAGE 463

India is a country that in recent years has achieved consistently strong growth but that nevertheless still has a large population suffering from extreme poverty. In many ways, India's develop­ ment story has been idiosyncratic, above all because the country became the world's biggest democracy decades before achiev­ ing strong growth. Ordinarily, as we discuss in chapter 6, the opposite is the case, and economic development precedes democratization.

For more on Indian development, see the case study in Part VI, p. 463. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. Why was India's performance so poor for so long, and why did it finally take off?

2. Was democracy bad for India's economic development? 3. What are the prospects for India's poor in the coming

years?

country. Traditionally, major international agencies such as the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme have used about one dollar or $1.25 per day (per person) as the absolute poverty threshold worldwide, though in recent years some have turned to a two-dollars-per-day threshold. There has also been an effort to expand the criteria for measuring poverty, taking into ac­ count additional indicators such as access to public services and public goods. Poverty may be understood as an income measure, but also as a measure of whether people have access to health care and education.2 The number of people facing absolute poverty is about one billion worldwide.3

Poverty lines may also be measured by individual countries, and each country may do so in different ways.4 In the United States, for example, the poverty line is defined for households and families of different sizes, and is recalculated on a regular basis to reflect the cost of living. The U.S. poverty line for 2015 is $11,770 for a single person under the age of 65.5 However, looking at only the poverty line does not indicate poverty depth, or how far someone is below the poverty line. It is simple just to count the number of people living below the line, but a person with income of $11,769 will be counted the same as someone with $8,000 or less, even though there is clearly a difference in how deeply someone is in poverty in the two cases.

absolute poverty A conception of poverty that involves setting a

certain line below which people

will be defined as poor, typically

understood in terms of the inability

to purchase a certain set of basic

goods or services.

Social Outcom es and Hum an D evelopm ent Several indicators of an individual’s overall well-being and standard of living are not based only on income and macroeconomic performance. They may be termed human capital because they represent the accumulated skills and investments people have made in their own capacities. Health is perhaps the most fundamen­ tal aspect of human capital. It can be measured by a number of instruments. One is life expectancy, or the age to which a given person may expect to live, depending on the circumstances into which they were born. Another is infant mortality, often measured as the percentage of children who do not survive to the age of one. Other health measures include: infection and morbidity rates for different diseases, and accessibility of health care and health insurance coverage. Education is a second major aspect of human capital. The most significant mea­ sures are literacy rates and school enrollment and completion. The quality of

life expectancy The average age until which members of a society

(or some group within society) live.

infant mortality A major public health indicator, which typically

measures the number of infants

per 1,000 born that do not survive

until the age of one year.

literacy rate The percentage of a population w ho can read.

100 Chapter 5: Development

Human Development Index (HDD A composite measure developed by the United Nations to provide a broad view of annual development and well-being around the world, based on income, life expectancy, and literacy and school enrollments.

education is important as well, as the standardized scores of youth on math and science tests are often compared across countries, for example.

Some analysts who want to define development broadly have aimed to capture the “standard of living.” These often use some of the indicators just discussed. One of the most commonly used measures of standard of living around the world is the United Nations’ annual Human Development Index (H DI). This brings together income with life expectancy and educational measures (literacy and school enrollments) in a single index to give a broad view of development and well-being.

Standards of living often go along with (or are positively correlated with) other indicators of development. Yet the evidence suggests that inequality actually in­ creases as income increases at certain stages of economic development, specifically in moving from low-income stages of development (where nearly everyone is poor) to middle-income stages (where a fraction of the population grows wealth­ ier and the remainder does not see much increase). Conversely, some societies (such as Cuba and the state of Kerala in India), have aimed to increase access to education and health without necessarily doing so via increasing the personal in­ comes of their citizens.6 There are many routes to improving standards of living and reducing poverty, but many countries remain behind. In many African coun­ tries, such as Nigeria, for example, standards of living and human development remain lower than in wealthier countries (see the “Case in Context” box).

Gender Relations and Racial and Ethnic Identities In recent years, scholars have begun to break down statistics by groups, and a leading example is gender. We now recognize that a society with large differences in life expectancies between men and women, for instance, may be seen as a less developed society than one where life chances are more equitable. We examine gender and politics in depth in a later chapter, but note here that gender matters for development in two major ways: It is both a means to development and one of the ends of development.7 In terms of ends, we might define development to say it occurs when economic and social opportunities are available to women and men alike. Regardless of how well a country’s economy does, that society might not be considered developed if its women are not allowed to own property, or hold jobs outside the home, or voice their opinions.8 In terms of means, gender also matters because empowering women in particular helps advance other aspects of develop­ ment. Well-known examples include the benefits of extending education and small business loans (sometimes as little as $25 or less) to women in low-income countries. These small changes often have the effect of increasing women’s in­ comes, which in turn typically results in households making more resources available for nutrition, family health care, and children’s education. Indeed, evi­ dence suggests that women, on average, are more likely than men to invest scarce resources in their families (and, thus, in human capital).

Major differences in development levels of other population groups may also be an indicator of development (see Table 5.1). I f certain racial or ethnic minori­ ties are systematically deprived of the opportunity to participate equally in the economy, we can argue that development is incomplete. This gap between iden­ tity groups may not always be captured by economic statistics like GDP,

Types 101

CASE IN CONTEXT

W hy Are Natural Resources Sometimes a Curse? The Nigerian Case PAGE 518

Nigeria has some of the largest oil deposits in the world. So it must be a rich country, right? Actually, Nigeria remains one of the poorest countries in the world. While the Nigerian economy is one of the most important in Africa, historically it has performed poorly. Perhaps surprisingly, this may be because of the oil. A number of scholars have argued that countries like Nigeria suffer from what is sometimes called the resource curse, as oil or other high-value commodities can potentially produce corruption, dis­ tort the formation and functioning of key institutions, crowd out investment in other areas, and affect a country's currency in negative ways.

For more on Nigerian economic development and the re­ source curse, see the case study in Part VI, pp. 518-519. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. How has oil helped, and how has it hurt, Nigerian development?

2. What policies might the Nigerian case suggest to the leaders of a country that has just discovered large oil deposits?

3. If oil. is so bad, why is Norway not poor like Nigeria? (Or does this indicate that other factors are involved?)

Natural gas burns as oil is welled in the Niger Delta region in Nigeria. Nigeria is a major oil producer, and yet its population remains among the world's poorest.

inequality, and poverty, and it may go beyond political rights as well. South Africa under the official racism of apartheid (1948-1994) was one example. Blacks certainly had lower incomes than whites, and no political rights to speak of, but they also suffered from separate and inferior systems of education, health care, and housing. Under apartheid, South Africa had higher average social indi­ cators than most other African countries, but its inequalities were especially shocking. Unfortunately, however, disparities in development based on discrimi­ nation on the basis of race, ethnicity, and gender are not only found in extreme cases like apartheid-era South Africa.

Satisfaction and H appiness For many people, development is really about each person’s satisfaction or happi­ ness in life. Understanding development in these terms recognizes that income is a means to an end, and not an end in itself. People usually seek higher incomes because it gives them access to other things they desire, or the opportunity to consume things they like, such as good food, or better housing, or access to higher education, or luxury items, or a vacation. The most fundamental concept in economics for measuring people’s ability to fulfill their preferences is not

102 Chapter 5: Development

t a b l e 5 . 1 Measures of Hum an Capital

Country Life Expectancy

(at Birth) (in years) Infant M ortality

(per 1,000 live births) Literacy Rate (%) Human Developm ent

Index (HDD Rank

Brazil 73.9 14 90.4 79

China 75.3 14 95.1 91

France 81.8 4 >99 20

Germany 80.7 4 >99 6

India 66.4 56 62.8 135

Iran 74.0 18 85.0 75

Japan 83.6 3 > 99 17

Mexico 77.5 16 93.5 71

Nigeria 52.5 124 51.1 152

Russia 68.0 10 >99 57

South Korea 81.5 4 >99 15

United Kingdom 80.5 5 >99 14

United States 78.9 7 > 99 5

Source: United Nations Human D evelopm ent Report 2014.

utility The value that people income, but utility. Utility gives a notion of the value people derive from con- derive from resources to which suming or having access to that which pleases them. I f I like Coca-Cola more they have access. than Pepsi Cola, I will “derive more utility” from drinking a Coca-Cola, while a

friend who prefers Pepsi to Coke “gets more utility” from a Pepsi. In short, we care about life satisfaction, quality of life, and happiness.

Happiness comes from more than just consuming goods and services. It may come from having free time, or social status, or strong ties to family and friends, or from living a spiritually fulfilling life. Social scientists face major challenges in trying to measure human happiness, but they continue to make efforts. In recent years, the mountainous nation of Bhutan (in the Himalayas) has made a splash internationally by publishing its own measures of “Gross National Happi­ ness.” Increasingly, more countries and more scholars are following suit, and even China, Canada, France, and the United Kingdom have recently begun to think about how to measure their peoples’ happiness.

Cultural Developm ent For many people around the world, development might mean retaining and deepening one’s own culture. In this view, economic modernization does not necessarily improve a society: If economic growth brings commercialization and cultural disintegration, some people(s) will wish to have none of it, and will

Causes and Effects: Why Does Development Happen? 103

prefer to define development as exercising the right to self-determination, living autonomously from the rest of the world, and enjoying the rich cultural tradi­ tions they hold dear. Perhaps an indigenous group will wish to protect its own language and folk traditions while avoiding the influences of Hollywood and “Western values.” For many people, “development” might not even be a positive word, but might instead signify a push by outsiders—intentional or unintentional— to undermine local practices.9 Increasingly, many researchers, sensitive to these concerns, argue that citizens of the countries we study should play a central role in defining development goals. The desire to protect traditional cultures is not limited to small and remote indigenous groups, but can also be seen in many modern nations wrestling with questions of growth and development, such as France (as seen in the case study on globalization in chapter 16).

environmental sustainability The quality that one or another practice has with being compatible with the long-term health of the environment.

Causes and Effects: Why Does Development Happen? To examine the causes of development, we focus mainly on GDP growth per capita, for two reasons. First, as noted earlier, these measures are the most com­ monly used in studies of development. Second, GD P growth per capita often goes hand-in-hand with several other indicators of development listed previously. In particular, countries that grow in terms of GD P per capita often also advance on other social indicators, with improved health, more education, higher levels of happiness, and reductions in poverty. O f course, this is not true in all cases, and rising GDP is not the only determinant of these other indicators, but it is true quite often. For this reason, and since it is more comprehensive than many of those other indicators, development scholars often use it when they’re seeking a single indicator. That said, there can be trade-offs between GDP growth and other indicators, such as inequality, as we have noted, and GDP/capita certainly does not capture every dimension of development. These strengths and limita­ tions of the measure should be kept in mind.

Sustainability Finally, environmental sustainability is an important aspect of development. W ith increasing attention to the issue of climate change, many development scholars are attempting to understand development as that which is sustainable. Sustainable development can be defined as development that conserves resources to respect the needs of future generations. Only by stewarding its resources ef­ fectively and not depleting them too rapidly will any society remain viable over the long run. In order to incorporate sustainability into development discussions, some scholars have even proposed replacing GDP with new measures that ac­ count for the use of resources. They note that cutting down a tree increases GDP, as does polluting, even though these activities may be “using up” a society’s natu­ ral endowments.10 We discuss the concept and the challenge of sustainability in the concluding chapter. Among the main political challenges in promoting sus­ tainable development are the difficulties of securing collective action between many countries when each country has incentives to “free ride” on the efforts of others.

104 Chapter 5: Development

market-led development An approach to economic management in which the state aims to control economic behavior as little as possible.

state-led development An approach to economic management in which the state plays a prominent role in coordinating the behavior of economic actors and intervening in the economy.

The central question here is why economies grow, diversify, and become more productive and successful. W hat allows countries to essentially liberate people from their small farming plots to work in cities, factories, law offices, research labs, banks, and hospitals? W hy have people and societies been able to accumu­ late capital that they can use to foster even more productive economic activity? The answers to these questions are debated extensively, and several theories have arisen to explain them. We group the focal points of these theories into four categories:

1. the role of the market and the state in promoting development, a topic we explored in the previous chapter in the context of “developed” countries;

2. institutions such as legal rules and social norms that shape the behavior of economic actors;

3. cultural values; and 4. the domestic and international structures that condition development, in­

cluding a country’s place in the international system.

Institutions: The M arket-State Debate, Revisited A leading institutional argument about the causes of development reflects a major debate in political economy, which we emphasized in chapter 4. The issue is the relative merits of market-led development versus state-led development. According to the pro-market argument, individual decisions of free and inde­ pendent economic agents will lead to a more efficient allocation of resources. As people try to maximize their own gains, the society as a whole becomes better off. Allowing the market to work freely leads to prosperity.

On the other side of the debate, advocates for state-led approaches argue that development requires an actor capable of coordinating disparate agents, planning for the long term, and supplying capital for big development pushes in low- income countries. The argument goes that the state is uniquely suited to per­ forming this task. This perspective was especially prominent immediately after World War II, when Europe was reconstructed and new states emerged from colonialism around the globe. Development scholars envisioned a “big push” in development in the world’s poorer countries, where massive state-led investment would generate a virtuous circle of self-sustaining growth.11

In subsequent years, East Asia was the most rapidly growing region in the world. Statist scholars argued that the success in that region was due to timely and constructive state involvement in the economy, not free markets. Begin­ ning with Japan immediately after World War II— and then extending to South Korea, Taiwan, and elsewhere into East and Southeast Asia—the “Asian Tigers” offered compelling evidence. In these cases, active involvement by well-organized and capable states helped direct investment to productive enter­ prises. Effective states helped propel these economies to growth rates that sometimes exceeded 8 percent to 10 percent per year. Similarly, statists might attribute China’s current growth to a state that maintains a steady hand in the economy.

State-led approaches to development were popular from the 1950s to the 1970s, but the arguments for market-led development returned to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s. For several decades after World War II, the state played a

Causes and Effects: Why Does Development Happen? 105

leading role in the economies of many developing countries, from Japan to India to Brazil to much of Africa. In some countries, this role was inspired or encour­ aged by the apparent economic, military, and technological success of the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s, and by the easy availability of loans in the 1970s. In the early 1980s, however, many Latin American countries in particular suf­ fered from economic crises driven by accumulated debts. Less than a decade later, communism collapsed in Central Europe and the Soviet Union broke apart (see the country profile on Russia). These events led to a sense in many advanced capitalist countries that communism and state planning as an economic model had been discredited.

At this time, many prominent institutions advocated for economic liberaliza­ tion in developing countries, or moves toward free-market economics. Major proponents of this approach included the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, based in Washington, D.C. These organizations arranged loans to many developing countries that faced economic difficulties. The loans were conditional upon those countries opening up to freer trade and flows of capital, and often to reductions in the role of the government in the economy. The 1980s and the 1990s were times when many developing countries moved toward more free-market systems, with the main questions being how far and how fast these changes would be made.

In more recent years, the debate has shifted once again for a couple of reasons. First, the turn toward free market economics led to critiques of how the free market performed. In many countries, reducing the role of the state in the economy was associated with the losses of formal jobs (or increases in unemployment and under­ employment), a rise in inequality, and even crises such as hyperinflation. Second, evidence began to accumulate that “state-led” or “state-directed” development had worked effectively in certain places, namely where the quality and professionalism

How Did China Become an Economic Power? PAGE 420

China's development has been dizzyingly rapid in the last thirty- five years. The country's economic performance was largely quite poor through most of the twentieth century, but after a series of reforms beginning in 1978 and 1979, the Chinese econ­ omy took off. The country is now often referred to as the "global factory," and it now rivals the United States for the title of the world's largest economy.

For more on Chinese development, see the case study in Part VI, pp. 420-421. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. What factors— political, institutional, and cultural— likely contributed to poor growth in China in the years when Mao Zedong held power?

2. Is China's recent success in development a simple story of the state getting out of the way and letting markets do their work, or is it more complicated?

3. How might we explain the emergence of the reforms that began in 1978 and 1979? In other words, why did China reform?

4. What sorts of challenges does the Chinese economy face in the medium-term future?

106 Chapter 5: Development

institution A regularized or patterned activity that shapes the behavior of individuals and groups, including formal organizations like the state or political parties, as well as more informal institutions such as norms and values.

new institutionalism The name given to the turn to institutional theory in the last several decades in economics, political science, and sociology.

institutionalism An approach to theorizing in comparative politics and related fields that places emphasis on the power of institutions to shape the behavior of individuals..

rational institutionalism An approach to theorizing in comparative politics and related fields that places emphasis on the power of institutions to shape the behavior of individuals, one which often focuses on implications of institutions for individuals' strategic choices.

of the state was high. Thus, a theory emerged that the quality of the state might matter more than the quantity of the state in determining how an economy devel­ ops. High levels of performance in several East Asian countries over several de­ cades— and by China in the 2000s and 2010s— showed that some of the strongest performing economies may exhibit relatively high levels of state involvement.

As noted in the previous chapter, the discussion about the role of markets and states is generally a matter of degree. Even most strong advocates of market-led development would prefer the existence of a state that is capable of ensuring a rule of law, enforcing contracts between private actors, and providing law and order. (For instance, almost no one would favor a situation of stateless “anarchy” as recently existed in Somalia.) And even strong advocates of state-led develop­ ment frequently acknowledge that free markets can be a very useful feature in part of the economy. (Most statists would not favor totalitarian state control of all economic activity, as might be most approximated in North Korea.)

Finally, as you consider this key debate, keep in mind that many scholars of development will have different outcomes in mind. Many may be focused on economic growth, while some may be focused on explaining the degree of pov­ erty reduction in a country. Others will look at inequality, still others at human opportunities more broadly, and yet others at the environmental sustainability or cultural appropriateness of “development.” Consider whether different measures of development might influence one’s evaluation of different development strategies— and if so, how.

Institutions: Beyond the M arket-State Debate Development takes place over long periods of time, and the state and the market are not the only things that make it happen. Other institutions also matter. By institutions, political scientists mean the many features of a society that shape peoples’ behavior and actions, as discussed in the previous chapter and later chapters. The new institutional framework focuses on a broader set of institutions.

To use an example, consider the institution of property rights. In societies where an individual’s right to private property is well established and secure, in­ dividuals are likely to behave in ways that promote development. On the other hand, if property rights are not secure, development may be hindered. Imagine you have a house and a few acres for growing crops. If the government can seize your house at any time, or if squatters can simply take over your land, then you will be unlikely to invest a lot of money in your house, or in making your land more productive. Were private property secure, on the other hand, you might be likelier to make those investments. And so too might your neighbors. This would lead to a society that is more economically secure. According to this argument, the institution of strong property rights would promote investment because it allows individuals to reap the rewards of their investments in the long run.12

The institution-based approach to comparative politics, or institutionalism, has several strains. Rational institutionalism holds that political and economic outcomes are functions of individuals’ responses to their institutional environ­ ments. Rational institutionalists emphasize economic logics, and many of these scholars would be found engaging the debate about states and markets

Causes and Effects: Why Does Development Happen? 107

IN S IG H T S State-Directed Development: Political Power and Industrialization in the Global Periphery by Atul Kohli

Atul Kohli works to overcome the "state-market divide" by ex­plaining successful economic development as a function of both the public sector and private capitalist enterprise. Kohli has argued for the importance of understanding state capacity (as de­ fined in the previous chapter) and the importance of constructive state intervention, and places the state prominently in the title of the book, but not to the exclusion of private actors. He uses the metaphor of a chariot pulled by two horses— the state and private

business— and notes that where these pull in the same direction, development occurs, but where the two horses pull in opposite directions, the chariot will not move (or may topple). Kohli uses the case of Korea to show success and Brazil as a moderate success, but highlights the African case of Nigeria as a failed economy where the state does not work to promote private enterprise.

Atul Kohli, State-Directed Developm ent: Political Power and Industrialization in the G lobal Periphery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

mentioned previously. Historical institutionalism also finds that institutions matter but traces these consequences through time, showing how historical changes shape future events. For historical institutionalists, the timing and se­ quencing of events matters, as do specific circumstances that may arise at “critical junctures” in time, when a country may take any number of different paths.13 The reason historical trajectories are so important is that changes are path dependent: The farther a society goes down a certain path, the less and less likely it is to di­ verge from that path. For example, if a country develops by privileging a number of state-linked businesses, it will be hard for the government to change this with­ out some sort of crisis. History is “sticky,” and cannot be easily reversed. Histori­ cal institutionalists also tend to focus on how institutions produce collective actors and organize interests, in contrast to the individualist tendency of rational institutionalism. Institutionalists argue that development is shaped by the insti­ tutions in place, by how institutions are created, and by how they evolve over the long run. The preceding example of property rights could be seen as involving both rational institutional and historical institutional approaches, and a major recent work provides another example.

Culture and D evelopm ent The approaches just discussed characterize institutional actors as the protago­ nists of development, yet there are other approaches to development that empha­ size deeper features of a society itself—features that reflect commonly held customs, norms, habits, and values. That is to say, for many trying to understand development, culture matters. Many scholars are interested in both culture and institutions as predictors of development, and the links between these factors are not always clear.

C ivil Society, Social C a p ital, a n d T ru s t A society where people can cooperate and work together is likelier to thrive than one filled with distrust and lacking organization. One of the earliest and most prominent modern proponents of this view was Alexis de Tocqueville, in his classic Democracy in America. Tocqueville attributed America’s economic vibrancy

historical institutionalism An approach to theorizing that places emphasis on the power of institu­ tions to shape the behavior of individuals, and how this operates overtime.

path dependent The name given to historical processes in which future developments are shaped or partially determined by events at previous stages in those processes.

108 Chapter 5: Development

civil society Public space or zone of social life, at least partially

autonomous from the state, in

which individuals are free to

engage in deliberation and social

movement activity, for example.

social capital Advantage that individuals or groups hold by virtue

of their social relationships.

trust The extent to which an individual has confidence in the

reliability or good conduct of

others.

in part to a variety of cultural characteristics (including hardy frontier mentali­ ties and inventiveness), reserving special mention for the degree to which Ameri­ cans constructed an active civic life, noting famously that “Americans of all ages, all stations of life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations.”14 Rich associational life—which may itself be a consequence of institutions—can generate the values and complex structures needed for a diversified economy.15

It is very difficult to imagine a modern economy without complex organiza­ tions, such as corporations or cooperatives, that either are relatively large or have rich linkages to many other organizations. Researchers find that civil society— the public space or zone of social life—links directly to economic outcomes (see, e.g., the “Insights” box on Fukuyama’s Trust). Societies with extensive social net­ works in political and economic life are said to have the virtue of high levels of social capital, advantages held by virtue of relationships.

Social capital can build on itself and help reinforce a society’s development. It is said to work in several ways. First, density of network ties, as already men­ tioned, may generate trust, or confidence in the reliability or good conduct of others. This is because shared ties help people build and maintain reputations, and in dense networks characterized by high transitivity (i.e., the people you know also know each other), people have a lot to lose from behaving in untrust­ worthy ways. It is also because in dense networks information tends to flow rapidly, which has many economic benefits. The notion of “bonding capital” is based on density of ties and the idea that deepening these ties has benefits for the economy. Another form of social capital is sometimes called “bridging capital,” which is the set of benefits that come from networks extending out to reach new people and places.16 Sometimes these benefits are beneficial for the group, such as when trade between previously disconnected subgroups becomes possible. Sometimes benefits accrue mainly to the relatively small number of people who are themselves the “bridges” and who can act and profit as “brokers” (of informa­ tion or contacts, for example).

IN SIG H TS The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development by Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson) and James A Robinson

This article traces differences in economic development around the world today to the varying historical paths of different world regions. Colonialism and geography played es­ pecially important roles, with the impacts playing out over more than a century. Colonizers such as Britain established dif­ ferent types of states in the different regions of the world. Where mass settlement was not possible (for reasons of geog­ raphy and endemic disease), colonizers set up states that worked primarily to extract resources with little investment. This happened in tropical Africa, for instance. Places that were easier to "settle,” such as America, ended up with stronger state

structures. Over time, these institutions evolved into colonial states and later into independent states in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. States that were originally designed to ex­ tract resources tend to continue that way today (with negative consequences), whereas countries actively settled by colonizers tended to develop into systems more capable of promoting development. The historical development of the state as an in­ stitution (from decades or centuries ago) still casts a long shadow over development today.

Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson, 'The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development,’ American Economic Review 91 (2001): 1369-1401

Causes and Effects: Why Does Development Happen? 109

R eligion Some argue that religious differences between groups and between nations may also explain differences in development.17 Theories of this kind gained promi­ nence early in the twentieth century and have remained part of the discourse about economic and social change ever since. In contemporary development studies, scholars have attempted to explain the relative success of different world regions on the basis of religious beliefs. For some time, scholars theorized that Confucian values hindered the economic performance of East Asian countries, relative to Europe and the United States. They posited that cultural expectations of obedience and respect for authority could limit the creativity and entrepre­ neurial spirit that capitalistic growth requires. Paradoxically, as East Asia has flourished in recent years, scholars have found advantages in Confucian values, emphasizing how a strong belief in order and authority, respect for the state, and respect for education may all facilitate growth.

Similarly, some scholars hypothesize that features of Muslim faith may have hindered development in the Arab world. For instance, the Quran restricts lend­ ing on interest, which may make large investments difficult (though it should be noted that many modern Islamic states have developed “Islamic bonds” and other financial instruments). Muslims show high rates of opposition to globalization, which may imply an unwillingness to participate in the global economy.18

Finally, the degree of religion may matter more than the type of religion. Religious institutions of many kinds can bind people together and may therefore increase trust and cooperation, which in turn can lead to positive political, social, and eco­ nomic outcomes. In any event, many arguments linking religion and development operate through intervening or mediating variables. That is, religious beliefs affect certain behaviors or institutions that in turn affect economics, perhaps with several steps in between. This was one of the original lines of thinking pioneered by Max Weber, a founder of modern sociology and political science, in his book The Protes­ tant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1958; first published, in German, in 1905.).

Value Systems Cultural factors that shape development may include values other than those as­ sociated with religious beliefs. Prominent candidates for values that favor devel­ opment are those that allow people to orient their behavior toward the future

IN S IG H T S Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity by Francis Fukuyama

The argument that civil society matters did not exist only for Tocqueville's nineteenth-century America. Francis Fukuyama argues that economic modernization in many countries around the world has been rooted in the cultivation of trust. Societies with high levels of trust have been able to move beyond the small, family-owned economic units that dominate low-income economies, creating major corporations that can take advantage

of their size to increase productivity. Insofar as a division of labor and specialization are central to economic expansion, the emer­ gence of such strong institutions in the high-trust societies ac­ celerates growth. Fukuyama thus traces economic development ultimately to a fundamentally cultural value.

Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity. New York: Free Press, 1996.

Chapter 5: Development

A group baptism among Evangelical Christians in El Salvador. Evangelical Christianity is prominent in Central America and a number of other countries, notably in many parts of the developing world. Scholars debate religion's relationship with economic development.

rather than toward the present, to engage in long-term planning rather than the day-to-day. The virtue of thrift, or a propensity to save, can matter here, as suc­ cessful societies are those in which people can defer gratification from today into the future, in the hopes of using savings to invest and build more wealth. Work ethic will also be important; this can link back to the religious values but find its roots elsewhere in a culture.

Individualism is also often considered important, as it may allow those who accumulate wealth to build with it, rather than feeling compelled to distribute it to friends, acquaintances, and hangers-on. According to these theories, notions of individual accountability and responsibility, rationality and pragmatism in some places contrast with the lack of such progress-promoting virtues in societies where people spend everything they earn, leaving little upon which to build.

System s and Structures: Dom estic and International Institutionalist approaches generally hold that development is determined largely by the actions and decisions of individuals, as shaped by institutions and the in­ centives and constraints they create. Culturalist approaches generally see people’s behavior in the economy as shaped and constrained by beliefs, values, norms, and habits. In the case of statist and neoliberal approaches, the domestic forces that matter are the extent and nature of states and their involvement in the economy. But there are other approaches as well. Some scholars—most notably Marxists— have traced economic outcomes to fundamental underlying structures in an economy, such as the basic form of economic production, and the system of social classes generated by these forms of production.

Causes and Effects: Why Does Development Happen? 111

D o m e stic E con o m ic S tru c tu re s a n d C lass In teres ts Several schools of development scholarship emphasize the impediments and traps confronting societies as they attempt to promote development. In this view, certain powerful groups may block development by seeking to perpetuate their own advantages at the expense of the populace at large. Even where the institu­ tions of democracy seem to be functioning well, interest groups or lobbies may demand special treatment from the government that prevents the reforms needed for economic growth. Scholars on both the right and the left of the political spectrum may adopt this view regarding the importance of domestic structures and vested interests. On the right, some scholars have argued that democracy itself can undermine capitalism, because in democracies special interests will often seek preferential treatment from the government.19 The most important scholar on the left was the intellectual founder of one of the twentieth century’s most important ideologies: Karl Marx.

In te rn a tio n a l E co n o m ic S tru c tu re s a n d C lass In teres ts Karl Marx’s ideas were made the official ideology in the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.), after that country was created out of the Russian Revolution of 1917. And while Marx’s ideology was eventually considered a recipe for “socialism in one country” by the dictator Joseph Stalin, some Marxist schools of thought also foresaw an internationalized crisis of capitalism. Many early Marxists hoped for a “perma­ nent revolution” around the world, and diagnosed the global inequalities that capitalism had engendered. (Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Russian Revolution and the U.S.S.R.’s first head of state, led the charge with a book entitled Imperi­ alism: The Highest Stage o f Capitalism)10 Over time, however, many Marxist ap­ proaches in social science shifted from emphasizing prospects for global socialist revolution to offering critiques of how politics operates within capitalist economies.

According to Marxian arguments, the structure of the international economy will place some powerful countries in the favorable position of capitalist accumu­ lation. Meanwhile other countries and world regions are subjected to serving the role of providing low-wage labor and resources, though a small number of elites residing in the low-income countries may be complicit with the interests of the rich countries. For example, a select number of rich Nigerian businesspeople and politicians may work with the international business community to ensure capitalist investment in Nigeria, which will result in profits for the international capitalists and their local “collaborators,” but the Nigerian people as a whole will not benefit.

Many scholars adopted such perspectives to account for underdevelopment in the “global south,” the “Third World,” or the “less developed countries.” In the views of many of these scholars, the international economy has been a zero-sum game, in which one person’s gain is another person’s loss: In order for some to be rich, others in the world must be poor.21 One of the leading concepts has been dependency, which holds that low-income countries will remain in a subordi­ nate economic position relative to wealthy countries, depending on markets in the rich world as a place to sell their low-value goods while importing high-value goods from those rich countries. In its earliest versions, dependency theory held

dependency A theory that argues that developing countries cannot simply embrace free trade because this will lead to ever-increasing wealth disparities between them and the advanced economies.

112 Chapter 5: Development

Does the Global Economy Help or Hurt Developing Nations like Brazil? PAGE 407

Brazil, after having an economic record that was mixed, at best, since independence, has now recorded dramatic growth for mul­ tiple years. Moreover, the country is making rapid progress in re­ lation to two of its traditional scourges: income inequality and poverty (though much work remains to be done). Surprisingly to some, these gains have been made under governments identi­ fied with the political left (others, of course, are not surprised by this). Brazil may be finally realizing its ambition to become a hemispheric power, and perhaps, ultimately, a global power, if it can sustain this performance.

For more on Brazilian development, see the case study in Part VI, p. 407. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. How might income inequality and economic underde­ velopment interact? In the Brazilian case, historically, does one cause the other, are they independent, or are they mutually reinforcing?

2. Why has the Brazilian economy taken off in recent years? Are the social programs of the Lula da Silva and Rousseff governments simply siphoning off economic surplus for other (humanitarian) ends, or can they be thought of as further investment in the Brazilian economy and its medium- to long-run prospects?

that low-income countries faced deteriorating terms of trade relative to the capi­ talist countries at the center of the world economy, which would make the goods from the dependent countries ever less valuable.22 The theory was revised when it became clear that some developing countries experienced “partial” development, moving from the world’s “periphery” to its “semi-periphery.” 23 The revised ver­ sion of dependency theory thus acknowledges that development is possible for low-income countries, but that their circumstances necessitate the state’s active involvement in the economy to promote industrialization.24 The early version of dependency theory that argues that developing countries will always be disad­ vantaged has been discarded, but this revised version of the theory continues to inform the debate about development today through its discussion of the state’s role.25

G eo g rap h y Another set of structural variables that may condition development is geography. The location that a country or region inhabits is largely unchangeable, and may shape economic opportunities. One major geographic factor is whether a country has access to the sea; landlocked countries rely more on relations with their neighbors if they want to trade with the rest of the globe, and the distances to global markets and logistical challenges associated with being landlocked might

f hinder growth.26 By a similar logic, development might be favored in areas with good natural harbors, or in countries that have oceans as barriers to would-be attackers. One might say then, that North America was rz\xtive\y favored by ge­ ography as it grew. More controversially, location in the tropics has long been posited as a hindrance to development.27 The logics here range from the plausible

Causes and Effects: Why Does Development Happen? 113

IN S IG H TS The Modern World System by Immanuel Wallerstein

Wallerstein developed a theory of international politics in which each place on the globe would fit into a certain role in the global economy. Known as world systems theory, this ap­ proach broke the world into categories of states: core, periphery, and semi-periphery. The core countries constitute the economic and technological center, accumulating the preponderance of profits from global production. The peripheral areas are those poor locations destined to supply basic inputs to the world

capitalist system, mainly raw materials (including minerals and foodstuffs) and cheap labor. Semi-peripheral areas— roughly the "middle-income" countries— would have their own particular structural role as well, perhaps "allowed" or "encouraged" to in­ dustrialize to a certain degree in order to keep the global system functioning.

Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System. Berkeley: University of California Press [1974] 2011.

to the blatantly racist; a recent plausible view is presented in the “Insights” box on the work of Jared Diamond. Geography’s impact on development may not be constant over time. In other words, geographic factors may prove advantageous or disadvantageous only when coupled with certain technologies or institutions.

W hen the World Values Survey, a massive, ongoing project being carried out by an international network of social scientists, polled over eighty thousand people in more than eighty countries about the most important issues they face, the topic of economic growth and development stood out above all others.28 A strong economy can lead to a better quality of life and greater satisfaction for most people, while a weak economy can severely restrict social improvements and make politics more divisive. Since people care so much about this issue, develop­ ment is not exclusively an academic concern. It matters to policymakers and ev­ eryday citizens as well. For instance, imagine you are the top economic official in a poor African country, and you want to know how best to raise people out of poverty in your country. Comparing South Korea to Brazil, you may examine why export-led growth (an economic strategy based on selling natural resources or products in foreign markets) seemed to work in South Korea, and import- substitution worked for a time in Brazil, and may ask under what conditions each can work.29 W hether a policymaker or a citizen, can you draw practical lessons for your country from development successes and failures?

The issue of development involves many substantial questions. W hy do some countries advance and grow while others do not? W hy do countries grow at some times and not others? W hy does poverty increase or decline? W hy does educa­ tion improve, or why do health outcomes decline? W hy is inequality on the rise in some places, and declining in others? These are only a subset of the questions that may be asked about the topic of economic and social development. Even if we consider mainly economic growth, as we did through much of this chapter, scholars debate fiercely about the strongest and most successful explanations. W ith the intent of developing your skills as a comparativist, we will not conclude by saying which answer is “correct.” Instead, we offer two observations.

First, there is likely some truth to each of the arguments we have presented about why development happens. Markets can help, states can help, institutions can matter, culture can matter, and international and domestic structures can

export-led growth A strategy for achieving economic growth dependent on sending natural resources or agricultural or industrial products for sale in fo­ reign markets.

114 Chapter 5: Development

IN S IG H T S Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diam ond

Jared Diamond sought to answer a question once posed to him by a friend from the poor nation of Papua New Guinea: Why do some people have more "cargo" (that is, "stuff”) than others? Dia­ mond found answers in nature and geography. In Africa, the poorest continent in the world today, people faced natural disad­ vantages from their environment. For instance, none of the large resident animals—zebras and rhinos, for example— could be do­ mesticated, which held back advances in farming and precluded the development of African cavalries. In Europe, by contrast, farm­ ing and militaries both advanced with the use of the horse, an

animal that could not survive in Africa due to endemic parasites. In Eurasia, people could also expand their populations along the continent's long east-west axis, which allowed migration and growth, while African peoples were prevented from migrating and expanding by the varying climates along the continent's north-south axis. Diamond argues that geographic and climatic forces led European peoples to develop the powerful societies that colonized and dominated the rest of the world.

Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997.

matter. It is possible and appropriate to combine elements of these different ap­ proaches—for example, noting that culture, geography, and the role of the state all affect development. The reason these theories have earned mention in the chapter is that they have been supported by some evidence in the real world. Second, as we noted in chapter 2, it is also important to make meaningful argu­ ments that do not simply say that “everything matters.” Rather, through close examination of empirical evidence in specific case studies, we can find for our­ selves what factors matter under what conditions, and h o w different factors might work together. For example, one might discover that both geography and culture partially shape economic institutions in a particular case, and that these institu­ tions, in turn, both directly and indirectly shape development.

Since development is a process that unfolds continuously over time, an espe­ cially useful comparison can be of the same country at different points in time. For example, why was the import-substitution model successful in Brazil for a time, and why did it seem to fail at a later point in time? Using the theories from this section, you can formulate hypotheses to explain such successes and failures.

T H IN K IN G CO M PA RA TIV ELY

K EY M ETH O D O LO G IC A L TO O L

Most-Similar-Systems (MSS) Design As noted in the first chapter, one way to set up a useful comparison is to choose two cases that are very similar on sev­ eral criteria yet different on a key out­ come. The comparison of the two

Explaining the Development of North and South Korea

At the beginning of this chapter we noted that the neighboring countries of North and South Korea have had radically different experiences with devel­ opment. South Korea went from being one of the poorest countries on earth in the late 1950s to one of the richest by the 1990s. It has seen its incomes skyrocket and its economy transform into an industrial powerhouse, while the population has gone from having a majority illiterate and in poverty to one in which less than five percent of people fit in those categories. North Korea, of course, started in roughly the same position as the south. Yet today, it remains extremely poor,

Explaining the Development of North and South Korea 115

as noted at the beginning of this chapter. It experiences periodic famines and frequently depends on foreign aid that its leadership extorts through creating international crises. As shown in the following table, if we use the 2009 esti­ mates, South Korea’s per capita GDP is almost sixteen times North Korea’s— an astonishing economic divergence. Explaining such differences over time between economically successful and unsuccessful countries is one of the classic questions in development studies. In fact, a major recent book in this area {Why Nations Fail, by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson) addresses this precise diver­ gence between the Koreas and others like it.

Country Per Capita GDP (CIA World Factbook) North Korea $1,800 (estimate as of 2011) South Korea $33,200 (estimate as of 2013)

Here we walk through how a comparative analyst might try to explain this difference. We would note right away that we don’t aim to offer a definitive “answer” to this question that focuses on one theory over another, though some might argue that this is a relatively straightforward comparison with an obvious answer, as we note a bit later. We want to emphasize that we use simple thought experiments here for the sake of simplicity; these are not full hypothesis tests using substantial amounts of evidence. As you read this section, focus on the logic of hypothesis testing, and the general strategy we use to apply theories to these real-world cases. Note that for more definitive results, we would need to consider much more evidence and carefully measure each of the variables we consider.

One reason this is an interesting comparison is that North and South Korea are very similar in terms of several variables we might expect to affect develop­ ment, including culture and geography, but these countries vary dramatically in terms of the dependent variable (development). Table 5.2 summarizes some simi­ larities and differences between the two cases, noting how much or how little variation there is on the key variables.

South Korea’s political and economic institutions are based much more than North Korea’s on capitalism and the use of domestic and global markets, as well as democracy in more recent decades. (In fact, for Acemoglu and Robinson, the comparison of the Koreas is a prime example of the importance of political insti­ tutions in shaping economic outcomes. You might see this as the “leading candi­ date” theory to explain the divergence, though we would emphasize the logic of considering different theoretical perspectives). In terms of external influences, the country followed a model established by Japan, in two ways. First, Korea was a Japanese colony before World W ar II, and Japanese colonialism brought eco­ nomic linkages to Japan and a powerful state, along with an emphasis on educat­ ing the workforce.30 Second, Japan’s economic success served as a model in terms of policy. South Korea’s state adopted a pro-business strategy that included some state intervention, but with strict rules: Companies receiving state support had to meet targets for production and exports, or they would be cut off.31 Thus, the South Korean case was interpreted by some as a constructive form of state inter­ vention, and by others as a country where the state did right by “emulating” the rules of the market.

T H IN K IN G CO M P A R A TIV ELY

K EY M E T H O D O LO G IC A L TO O L

(continued) Koreas and their differences in eco­ nomic development is an example. Choosing two countries that have much in common allows the analyst to isolate the variables that are likely to cause the different outcomes. In this case, geography and many as­ pects of culture are similar, which means these variables are unlikely to explain the major differences in out­ comes. Comparative political scien­ tists do not have laboratories to work with the way natural scientists do, so 'most similar" cases are as close as one can get to controlling for many variables the way one does in a labo­ ratory. In fact, some MSS designs come from what is called a 'natural experiment,' such as when a country is divided into smaller parts and analysts can observe the subsequent outcomes across the different parts of the country. Examples include com­ parisons of East and West Germany after the country was partitioned, or comparisons of India and Pakistan after the partition of British India. Another pair of countries with simi­ larities is the Dominican Republic and Haiti, which are located on two halves of the same island. Of course, in each of these instances, the two cases will have developed quite differently over time. Setting up MSS design is not. enough to definitively demonstrate which variables cause an outcome, as that requires exploring the evidence, but it can help rule out unlikely causes of variations in outcomes.

116 Chapter 5: Development

t a b l e 5 . 2 Possible Explanations for Variations in Developm ent SOUTH KOREA AND NORTH KOREA

Variable Case 1: South Korea Case 2: North Korea Extent of Variation

Independent Variables for Hypothesis Testing

Culture Korean heritage (with minority Christian population)

Korean heritage (with negligible Christian population)

Limited

Geography Korean peninsula Coal and mining resources

Korean peninsula Coal and mining resources

Limited

Economic and Political Institutions

Mixed state/market economy Capitalist orientation Influenced by Japan, United States Export-led growth for decades Use of markets Democracy (in recent years)

Command economy Communist rule Influenced by China, U.S.S.R. Inward-looking economy Almost no use of markets Autocracy for decades

Major

Dependent Variable

Development High development and growth Advanced economy

Low development and growth Poor economy, major poverty

Major

Even the East Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s and the global economic crisis that began in 2008 did little to dent South Korea’s long-term achievements. In fact, South Korea has served as a model for other Asian economies, much as Japan had served as a model for South Korea.32 Indeed, several features of China’s current economic approach appear to have drawn from South Korea’s experience in promoting export-led growth. This has had interesting implications for the different theories mentioned previously: The focus here is on political and eco­ nomic institutions, but there is also renewed interest in cultural theories of devel­ opment because development has spread so convincingly across East Asian countries in particular.

North Korea differs quite dramatically from South Korea in its political and economic institutions, while it shares a similar geography and a common cultural background from the period before the two countries were divided. The country was pulled into the Soviet orbit after the end of World War II, while South Korea was aligned with the United States. Eventually, a major conflict broke out, the Korean War, in which North was supported by China under Mao Zedong and South Korea was supported by the United States (with numerous American troops) and its allies. Eventually, the conflict was halted without satisfactory resolution for either side, and as a result we are left with the two countries, each of which claims to be the legitimate government of all of Korea. North Korea still employs a Soviet-style “planned economy.” This means that all key decisions about production and funding are made by the state, and to the extent that market forces govern exchange they do so only informally. In essence, the two countries vary not just in terms of their development histories, but also in terms of the nature and extent of their states’ involvement in the economy.

Explaining the Development of North and South Korea 117

How would each of our theories explain the relative economic fortunes of North and South Korea in recent decades? (See Table 5.3.) Notice that the insti­ tutional arguments are promising for the reasons noted previously. At the same time, while we note that the cultural arguments might not work at first glance, that does not mean “culture” is irrelevant. A scholar doing a deeper exploration of the two countries might find ways to show that political cultures changed over time between the two countries in ways that affected the economy as well. In short, both countries maybe culturally “Korean,” but that does not mean they are identical on that variable: the North Korean political culture is certainly different from the South Korean political culture after decades of separation and such dif­ ferent experiences.

As you can see here, our thought experiment does not definitively establish that one of these theories is right, but it demonstrates how we would initially proceed in applying these general theories of development to the basic outlines of these two cases. This helps us think about what types of arguments might work and which might not in explaining variations in outcomes by country.

t a b l e 5 . 3 H ypothesis Testing: North Korea and South Korea

Theory Hypothesis: What Explains Variation?

T h o u g h t Experim ent and H ypothesis Test Next Steps for Theory

Institutions (market institutions)

Different enforcement of property rights and contracts South: Strong enforcement North: Weak enforcement

Promising

Bring in additional cases and examine these cases further. Consider how to account for South Korea's practice of state-led development.

Institutions (states and state policy)

Different qualities of state and state policy South: High quality (with robust industrial policy) North: Low quality

Promising

Account for why North Korea has failed with statist strategy. Examine South Korea's mix of state involvement and market forces in state-led development.

Culture Different cultural backgrounds, including values, religion, and habits

Not promising (Despite some differences, countries have similar cultural backgrounds)

Adapt hypothesis to include values and habits along with other variables. Develop more complex hypothesis on how institutions change national economic cultures over time, for example.

The World-System

Different positions in "world system" South Korea: American and Japanese influence North Korea: Soviet and Chinese influence

Somewhat promising but incomplete (Positioning in the global system likely mattered by influencing institutions)

Adapt hypothesis to include world- system along with other variables. Develop more complex hypothesis that also draws on institutional theories, for example.

118 Chapter 5: Development

C h a p te r S u m m a r y C o n c e p t s

Development is a topic of pressing interest to billions of people around the world, and it can be measured in many different ways.

• The most common ways of measuring development are economic, most notably the level and growth of per capita GDP, but also the extent of poverty and economic inequality.

T y p e s Development can be measured by social indicators (such as health and education), standards of living, satisfaction and happiness, equity across societal groups, cultural change, and environmental sustainability. Cases from around the world show that many of the indica­ tors of development positively correlate with one another, but not always.

C a u s e s a n d E f f e c t s Using economic growth as an outcome, scholars have theorized about many important factors that lead to development. An important debate is about whether the economy should be led by the market or by the state. The current consensus is that both market and state play important roles in a modern economy. Institutions such as property rights play key roles in development and may link to the market and the state.

• Culture shapes development as well. It may be manifested in levels of trust and social capital, or in norms, ethics, and cultural tendencies that emerge in different places at different points in time. A final category of explanations for development can be found in "structural" or "systemic" factors, where the backdrop of the world economic and political order can either support or hinder economic advancement.

• There is surely some truth in each of these approaches, but these must be investigated with respect to specific cases.

T h in k in g It T h r o u g h 1. The "Causes and Effects" section of this chapter focused on

growth, but can you use at least one theory from that section to propose why some developing countries have more or less in­ equality (as defined in chapter 4) than others?

2. The so-called "BRIC" countries— Brazil, Russia, India, and China— all boomed at points in the 2000s. Does this correlation suggest they are all following similar development patterns? Does this timing provide evidence to support one theory about the causes of development more than others? Does it mean something "global" was causing growth, and not something specific to each country?

3. Many countries have more and less successful economic peri­ ods over time. Which of the theories in this chapter does this fluctuation support? Does it "disprove" any theory based on cul­ ture, because a country's culture is relatively "stable"? Does it

"prove" that development depends on things that change over time, like a government's policies?

4. Many prominent developing countries are (or have been) major exporters of oil. Why have the resource-rich countries not ben­ efited from consistent, rapid growth? To what extent are natural resources beneficial for development, and to what extent are they a "curse"?

5. Why do countries go through economic boom and bust cycles in their development? If countries are "most similar" (see chapter 2) to themselves, should economic performance be relatively consistent over time, unless there are major changes in policy (as was the case in China)?

CHAPTER 6

Democracy and Democratization

• Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's most famous democracy activist, approaches the lower house of parliament to begin her term as Leader of the Opposition in May 2012. Suu Kyi suffered many years of persecution and oppression, including nearly two decades of house arrest.

magine a country where less than half of the population can vote, half have very limited basic rights, and social roles are allocated on the basis of ethnic

or racial affiliation, so that members of some groups have virtually no rights and are the property of other people. Imagine still further that elections are periodically held but that to stand any chance of election one must be from the elite class, meaning (1) a wealthy landowner; (2) a wealthy businessman; or (3) a doctor, lawyer, clergyman, or other professional whose social net­

works intersect with those of wealthy landowners or busi­ nessmen. I f we told you that this situation were true of a given developing country, would you consider it fully demo­ cratic? Probably not, and yet the country we are describing is the United States of America in the years after its founding.

O ur point is most emphatically not to deny the democratic status of that society. It was, at the time, in spite of the condi­ tions we have just listed, one of the most democratic large-scale societies the world had ever known. Rather, our point is that deciding whether a given country is democratic is more compli­ cated than it appears at first glance. Democracy changes over time, meaning that its benchmarks and criteria are moving tar­ gets. Moreover, the line between more and less democratic re­ gimes is somewhat gray

Most people reading this chapter have lived only in demo­ cratic societies. Democracy is, for much of the Anglophone world, part of the backdrop of politics: It is simply assumed to be present (yet, as the preceding example demonstrates, this has not always been the case, and even today there are democratic deficits in this world). W here regimes are democratic, individu­ als and groups can freely contest their ideas and try to shape political life, with the winners of fair elections having greater opportunity to craft their preferred policies and laws through the democratic process. The losers typically accept the principle that in a democracy it is possible one will lose a political battle,

a debate, or an election; they continue to support the system or the regime, even if they oppose the particular government administration of the moment.

In much of the world, however, authoritarianism is the rule, and the very existence of democracy itself is a fundamental political issue. Only in recent

120

IN THIS C H A P T E R jj

Concepts 121 Democracy and Democratic Regimes 121 Regime Change and Democratization 124

Types 125 Types of Democracy 125 Types of Democratization 129

Causes and Effects: What Causes Dem ocratization? 131 Modernization 132 Culture and Democracy 134 The International System 135 Domestic Institutions 136 Agents and Actors: The Role of Individuals

and Groups 137 Combining Arguments and Theories:

Multiple Causes 139

TH INKING C O M P A R A T IV E L Y 1 Is American Dem ocracy a Model? 141

C A S E S IN C O N T E X T

China • Brazil • India • United States

Concepts 121

decades has the world reached the point where over half of its citizens live under democracy. Understanding whether a country is democratic is thus a prerequisite for further discussions about politics, whether we are interested in legislatures and executives, or the power of interest groups and political parties, or religious politics and gender politics. W h ile the precise definition o f democracy is debated— and many will disagree on which countries are democratic— most po­ litical scientists will concur that prominent countries such as China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, and Cuba are not democracies, and that many more coun­ tries, such as Russia, fall far short of full democratic practice, even if elections are held on schedule. W e discuss authoritarian regimes in the next chapter.

In this chapter, we begin by addressing the concepts of two major catego­ ries of regime type: democracy (or democratic regime) and democratization, the process through which authoritarian polities become (more) democratic. W e then discuss subtypes of democratic regimes, using a number of our case studies to exemplify them. Finally, we turn to political science debates about the causes of democratization and democratic consolidation. W hy do they happen where they do, in some places and not others? A nd why do they happen when they do, at some times and not others? We present several possible ex­ planations. We close with a critical examination of whether the United States should be treated by political scientists as a model for democracy elsewhere.

Concepts Democracy is one of the most fundamental concepts in politics, and given its importance, scholars have contested and reworked the concept and causes of de­ mocracy over the years.1 As with many constructive debates in political science (in contrast with the winner-and-loser, zero-sum dynamics of debates in elec­ toral politics and campaigns), contestation over the definition is not a disagree­ ment to be lamented, but rather an important part of the study of democracy.

D em ocracy and Dem ocratic Regim es Despite disagreement over exactly what democracy means, there is broad agree­ ment on two salient points. First, many political scientists would share an intui­ tive sense of which geographic units in the world are relatively more or less democratic. Second, even in the midst of some disagreement, political scientists commonly accept definitions of democracy that emphasize two main types of rights, which we discuss further a bit later in the chapter: political rights to par­ ticipate in electoral processes, and civil rights and related freedoms. The promi­ nent non-governmental organization Freedom House, which monitors democracy in countries around the world, explicitly builds both elements into its assessment (Map 6.1). Leading works in recent years emphasize the distinction between mere electoral democracy and a more genuine democracy that also includes civil

democracy A form of regime associated with "rule by the people" that signifies rights and liberties for citizens, including political rights to participate in elections and civil liberties such as freedom of speech.

political rights Rights of indivi­ duals to participate in political life, including the right to political speech, the right to vote, and the right to join political associations.

civil rights Rights of individuals to participate in civic life, including freedoms of assembly, speech, access to information, and equal access to institutions, among others.

FREEDOM IN THE WORLD 2015

122 Chapter 6: Democracy and Democratization

Map 6.1 Democracy in the world, 2015

regime A form or type of govern­ mental system, with an emphasis on institutions and rules.

democratic regime A regime with predominantly democratic Institutions, including basic civil rights and regular, free elections.

procedural definition of democracy A conception of democracy, contrasted with a subs­ tantive definition, that emphasizes the minimal standards, procedures, or rules that a country should have in place to govern political life.

rights protections. To define democracy, most scholars use what is called a pro­ cedural, or minimal, definition. This approach emphasizes the minimal stan­ dards that a country should have in place—procedures or rules that govern political life— as contrasted with a variety of substantive issues noted later.2

By using the term regime, political scientists are referring to a form or type of governmental system, with an emphasis on institutions and rules. The most sig­ nificant distinction is between democratic and authoritarian regimes. You can think of a democratic regime as one with democratic institutions and rules. Similarly, an authoritarian regime has authoritarian institutions, structures, or rules. The regime is conceptually distinct from any particular democratic govern­ ment. Thus, Iran has had an Islamic Republic as its regime since 1979 but has had several different governments under presidents such as Mohammad Khatami, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Hassan Rouhani. The United States has had its constitutional republic since 1788 but many different governments in its regime.

Note that one’s definition of “democratic regime” depends on one’s definition of “democracy.” For instance, some might classify Mexico or Nigeria as demo­ cratic regimes because they have relatively free and fair elections and protections for civil liberties. But others might consider these countries not to be fully demo­ cratic on the grounds that they fail to provide sufficient levels of security and opportunity for citizens.

P ro c e d u ral (M in im a l) D e fin itio n s o f D em o cracy Procedural definitions o f democracy say that what makes a country democratic is that it follows certain procedures, or rules and methods. Yet most leading procedural definitions of democracy view it as more than just elections every few years; they also include the civil rights and civil liberties that should be

Concepts 123

guaranteed to every citizen on an ongoing basis. Thus, even when political scien­ tists speak of minimal, or procedural, definitions of what democracy is, they mean more than elections. Consider the following lists of political rights and civil liberties, which many political scientists agree are central to democracy3: Political Rights:

• Elections are free and fair, and most individuals can vote. • Elections are regularly scheduled or held periodically. • Elections have multiple political parties, or some choice. • Elections are open to most any individual to run for office.

Civil Liberties: • Freedom of speech and expression • Freedom to access sources of information/freedom of the press • Freedom of assembly/to join interest groups and parties

Note that all of these are essentially measures of whether certain rules or pro­ cedures are followed. Also, note that the first four of these may be seen as directly related to electoral processes, and they presume that peaceful transfers of power do take place in accord with electoral decisions. The latter three are about politi­ cal action outside of the realm of electoral processes and center on the rights of the public not to be harassed by the state. Important civil liberties can be found in the U.S. Constitution’s first ten amendments.. Passed together in 1791, this Bill of Rights set an international standard for civil liberties.

To illustrate the importance of both categories of freedoms, consider a thought experiment in which a country has regular free and fair elections but allows no protest, controls the press, and represses free speech. This would be less a true de­ mocracy and more a competitive authoritarian or electoral authoritarian regime.4 Conversely, a system in which people have relative freedoms to voice their griev­ ances but no right to elect their government officials would also be non-democratic. Only by fulfilling the basic requirements on both counts will a country earn a repu­ tation for democracy.

Other criteria could conceivably be added. For instance, some leading scholars have proposed adding the following two additional criteria in determining whether a country is democratic:5

• Democracies are not overruled by an outside power (such as a colonizer). • Democracies must maintain a clear distinction between civilian and

military rule.

These two additional features further clarify the requirements for a democ­ racy, ruling out the likes of countries that look like democracies internally but that systematically overrule the will of the populace. These may include locations such as the so-called “independent” homelands under South Africa’s apartheid government before 1994.

S ubstantive D e fin itio n s o f D em o cracy While procedural definitions long dominated the debates about democracy in political science, recent years have seen an increasing turn to more substantive definitions o f democracy. This range of definitions examines the notion of dem­ ocratic depth and quality, suggesting that democracy is not just about certain

substantive definition of democracy A conception of de­ mocracy, contrasted with a proce­ dural definition, that views a polity's democratic status as de­ pendent on the satisfaction of certain substantive ends, such as the extension of broad rights or the reduction of income inequality.

124 Chapter 6: Democracy and Democratization

regime change Any major change of regime type, including democratization, democratic bre­ akdown, or certain types of autho­ ritarian persistence in which one type of authoritarian regime gives way to another.

regime type The form of a politi­ cal regime, such as democratic versus authoritarian, as well as subtypes, such as personalistic dictatorships or totalitarian regimes.

democratization The process of a regime becoming more democra­ tic, including both democratic transition and democratic consolidation.

democratic breakdown The process through which a democra­ tic regime partially or completely loses its democratic status.

rule-governed procedures being followed but rather about certain outcomes, in particular the coordination of a certain kind of collective action. Proponents of a substantive definition of democracy often argue that countries can always un­ dergo further democratization and that the question of democracy is not re­ stricted to whether countries meet a minimum threshold.

Elements of a substantive definition may include the following: • Participation, social inclusion, and civil society involvement • Equity/equality by gender, race, or other groups ■ Accountability (including lack of corruption) and institutional performance • Public knowledge and awareness • Poverty, inequality, and other economic outcomes

Obviously, these criteria rarely lend themselves to yes/no evaluations. Even the world’s most established democracies can always make progress toward greater democratic depth or quality. In the United States, for instance, the per­ centage of citizens who vote in Congressional elections ranges from about 40 percent in years without a presidential election to about 60 percent in years when a presidential election is held. This contrasts with much higher voter turn­ out in most of Europe, leading some to suggest that the United States falls short on certain substantive aspects of democracy. W ith respect to the economy, the American political and economic systems from the 1980s to the 2000s were characterized by higher levels of inequality than Europe (thus suggesting a sub­ stantive shortcoming in the American model relative to the European), but also generated lower levels of unemployment in most years (thus possibly suggesting a substantive advantage of the American model over the European).

Questions of substantive democracy lend themselves to some of the most intrigu­ ing research questions in comparative politics. In fact, as the number of democracies in the world has risen in the democratic wave since 1989,6 questions of substantive democracy have taken an increasingly important position in comparative politics relative to procedural democracy. O f course, studying procedural democracy and studying substantive democracy are not mutually exclusive, as a country’s reaching the procedural/minimal threshold may be related to improvements in the substantive elements just listed. For students interested in researching democracy, either or both of these definitions may be useful, but it is important to distinguish between them.

Regim e C h an g e and D em ocratization The history of democracy and authoritarianism is one of change from one regime type to another. Democratization is the process that leads from authoritarian­ ism to democracy, while changes in the opposite direction are commonly called democratic breakdown (and not “authoritarianization”)7. We discuss the latter in the next chapter.

Democratization may be seen as a process that a country completes once it transitions from authoritarianism to a basic minimum democratic threshold, or it may be a more indefinite, ongoing process that continues to consolidate even after a country has reached a basic level of political and civil freedoms. Democ­ ratization itself can thus be a rich and diverse area for study. Two additional concepts that are central in the literature on democratization highlight the dif­ ferent stages of the process: transition and consolidation.

Types 125

Transition is the movement from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one. This can happen through revolutionary means. For example, the Arab Spring up­ risings of 2011 might lead to successful democratization, and have clearly taken some steps in this direction, but in some respects this democratization seems to have stalled in a number of the effected countries. Transition can also happen through more gradual and negotiated means, such as the transition from the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship to Chilean democracy in 1990.

Consolidation refers to the process through which the new democratic order becomes institutionalized and therefore more likely to endure. For example, in the Chilean case, many thought the election and peaceful transfer of power from the very popular, left-leaning president Michelle Bachelet to the right-leaning Sebastian Pinera in 2010 and back again to Bachelet in 2014 was a sign of just how successfully consolidated Chilean democracy was after only two decades.

Types As noted earlier, not only are there varying ways to define both democracy and authoritarianism (as we shall see further in the next chapter), but democratic and authoritarian regimes come in a variety of forms, with major implications for life in political society. Here we discuss representative versus direct forms of democracy before moving on to consider major forms or elements of transition to democracy.

Types of D em ocracy Democracies— and ideas about democracy—come in multiple forms, with one of the most important contrasts being that between less direct (or representative)

Chilean presidents Michelle Bachelet and Sebastian Pinera at Pihera's inauguration in 2010. Many viewed this peaceful, democratic transition from a left-leaning to a rightist president and back again to Bachelet in 2014 as a sign of the consolidation of Chilean democracy.

transition The movement from an authoritarian regime to a democra­ tic one.

consolidation The process through which a new democratic order becomes institutionalized and therefore more likely to endure.

126 Chapter 6: Democracy and Democratization

constitutional republic A polity without a monarch in which the basic rules of politics are laid out in a constitution.

constitutional monarchy Apoli­ tical system in which a monarch such as a king, queen, or emperor plays a role as a head of state, but has powers limited by a constitution.

representative democracy A conception of democracy in which politicians and institutions are understood to represent the elec­ torate, who nevertheless can cons­ train their behavior through periodic elections and other forms of participation.

multiparty democracy A demo­ cracy in which at least two parties compete for power.

democracy and direct democracy. The heart of the difference lies in the degree and form of mediation between voters and the state.

R epresen tative D em o cracy Much of what we consider democracy is actually a representative form of govern­ ment that is either a constitutional republic or a constitutional monarchy. Democracy, in the original sense of the term, signified direct rule by the people, through mass assemblies or legislation by direct vote of the masses. Clearly, modern nation-states do not typically govern on this basis, but democracies in­ stead rely on elected representatives who vote for legislation on behalf of the populace as a whole. This form of government has come to be called representa­ tive democracy when it meets several criteria that show government is based on the people.

Foremost among the criteria for being considered a representative democracy is constitutionality, which guarantees rights to citizens. Constitutional rights limit the powers of government and also limit the power of the political majority, so that those who lose an election need not fear that their rights will be “alien­ ated” by the “tyranny of the majority.” The United States is a constitutional re­ public, while the United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy in which the monarch is little more than a national figurehead and elected officials do the business of governing. Both can be considered representative democracies. We will refer to representative democracies to identify these modern nation-states where the population elects representatives democratically and citizens are guar­ anteed constitutional rights. These regimes are thus characterized by the citi­ zenry having two broad categories of rights, both of which are necessary for a country to merit being called a democracy: political or electoral rights, and civil rights or civil liberties.

Political rights relate directly to electoral processes and include what is often considered the most fundamental of all democratic rights: the freedom to vote in free and fair elections. Also understood in the definition of political rights are various features that underpin and extend this simple consideration of electoral freedom. All citizens who have reached the age of majority (such as eighteen years) should have the right to vote; the franchise should not be restricted to one sex, one race, one ethnicity, or one religion. Elections should be held with some reasonable frequency (and not, say, every fifty years). Citizens should also have the right to present themselves as candidates for office and should be allowed to join different political parties in their running for office; they should not be re­ quired to join an official single party. Democracies may differ on many criteria, but all that are worthy of the name multiparty democracies will fulfill the preceding.

Civil rights or civil liberties are those that guarantee citizens the ability to participate in civic life outside of elections. They are coequal with political rights in determining whether a country is democratic. Some of the key civil rights are usefully summarized in the First Amendment to the United States Constitu­ tion: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging freedom of speech or of the press, or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the

government for the redress of grievances.” All elements here suggest the free­ dom of an individual’s conscience with respect to his/her own beliefs. Freedom of religion is noted first, in the so-called “Establishment Clause.” Freedom of speech follows and includes an individual’s right both to speak and to obtain information from multiple sources of information via access to an independent press. Freedom of conscience and speech is also linked to the freedom to assert one’s belief that government should change its laws or policies. Such assertions may take place through peaceful assemblies, such as rallies or protests, or public statements.

O f course, democracies differ in both political rights and civil liberties, and these rights are rarely absolutes. To take the case of the civil liberties surrounding free speech, the oft-cited example is that “freedom of speech does not give you the right to yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater.” More formally, we may consider that freedom of speech may be bounded by the need to protect others’ freedoms as well. Hence, even democracies that stand firmly on the principle of free speech will wrestle with questions of what sorts of speech may be illegal, including libel and slander, and hate speech or provocations to violence (such as calling for the assassination of a head of state). The principle of free speech does not stop debates about whether making campaign contributions should be a form of protected speech, or whether such contributions may be limited to prevent donors from buying undue political influence.

Similarly, other civil liberties have reasonable limits that are shaped by inter­ pretation of constitutions and the law. For instance, a democratic free press may not be allowed to report nuclear secrets that could compromise national security, and freedom of religion may not extend to allowing murderous cults to engage in human sacrifice. The right to bear arms, found in the United States Constitu­ tion’s Second Amendment, may be interpreted in various ways, including giving individuals the right to possess a range of firearms, but it clearly does not give private citizens the right to possess their own weapons of mass destruction.

Political rights are also shaped differently in different countries. Many of these variations simply reflect the number of possible ways of crafting democratic institutions. Elections may come at fixed intervals (maybe every five years, or every seven), or on a more flexible schedule. Exercising the vote may be manda­ tory or optional. Elected officials may switch parties freely when in office or they may be required to resign their seat if they change parties.

Some arrangements are touted as democratic but seem to call the process into question. For instance, many systems with questionable (or worse) democratic credentials have made the case that all political discourse can be contained within one single unifying national party, such as China’s Communist Party.8 W hile this clearly violates the principle of multiparty democracy, it nonetheless seems clear that some single-party countries are more democratic than others. An example that shows the complexity of the debate is the African nation of Uganda from the 1980s to the mid-2000s. There, a generally popular president maintained that the best system for governance in Africa was “no-party democ­ racy” because in too many African countries political parties tended to reflect and reinforce volatile ethnic divisions. This argument was plausible but dubious since the president sat atop the so-called “National Resistance Movement,”

128 Chapter 6: Democracy and Democratization

referendum specific issue.

Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni in a victory parade following his fifth reelection, in 2011. How democratic is Uganda?

which was not officially a party but represented the state. W ithout any political parties, the state itself (and its president) may wield control that looks rather anti-democratic.

In short, representative democracies include a range of debates about the spe­ cific nature and extent of civil liberties, and there are numerous ways to set up the political institutions of such systems. As it is often said, not all democracies follow the American model, or the British model, or any other. They do, how­ ever, share in common the basic features discussed in this section.

D ire c t D em ocracy The challenges of understanding democracy do not end with reaching the demo­ cratic threshold. As noted previously, many of the world’s most powerful democ­ racies today continue to deal with the challenges of deepening democratization. Among the controversial issues in these polities are some options that may be seen as taking democracy closer to the people yet sidestepping elected represen-

Apopularvoteona tatives. Referenda (or plebiscites)—in which specific issues are put to popular vote— are prominent here. These feature in individual countries in the European Union, as well as in American states, most notably California, with its possibili­ ties for citizens to place initiatives and propositions on the statewide ballot, and to recall elected officials.

Types 129

The increasing use of referenda, plebiscites, or ballot initiatives may be consid­ ered an increasing use of direct democracy. (At least the votes themselves are direct democracy, though there are questions and debates about which items should be placed before the people in these forms, and who should place them there.) While democracies may be increasingly using direct democratic initia­ tives, they are not a necessary feature of representative democracy.

Direct democracy can also take the form of citizen assemblies, community councils, and similar forms of association. Often, proponents of direct democ­ racy also favor representative democratic institutions, seeing these as comple­ mentary. Some people, though, see direct or “participatory” democracy as an alternative to representative forms.

Types of Dem ocratization In this section we discuss two different aspects or stages in the process of democ­ ratization. You can think of them as types of democratization, but only in a cer­ tain sense. A fully successful case of democratization will involve both democratic transition and then the consolidation of the emergent democracy.

D em o c ra tic T ra n sitio n s Democratic transitions are changes from one regime type (authoritarianism) to another (democratic rule). In some countries, these may be relatively rapid processes, taking only several days. By contrast, some countries go through long, slow transitions from authoritarian rule to democracy. Brazil in the 1980s and Mexico in the 1990s are examples of slower-motion transitions, in which it became increasingly clear over time that the authoritarian system was being replaced by a democratic regime. Tlie variation in the duration of transitions was expressed in a statement by historian Timothy Garton Ash. In the midst of the cascading transitions to democracy in Central Europe in 1989, he described the events by saying, “in Poland it took ten years, in Hungary it took ten months, in East Germany it took ten weeks, perhaps in Czechoslovakia it will take ten days.”9

Transitions are also diverse in their causes and impacts. Some are relatively controlled by the authoritarians who are on their way out of power, while others come from the collapse of the previous power structure. In Latin America in the 1980s, many countries (such as Brazil and Chile) had slow transitions to democ­ racy in which the military built in advantages for itself to ensure that its policies and preferences would influence democratic politics for some time. Other demo­ cratic transitions have happened in more revolutionary fashion in countries rang­ ing from the Philippines to the West African nation of Benin.

D em o c ra tic C o n so lid a tio n Democratic consolidation is typically a longer-term process than transition.10 It may be seen as the process by which democracy and its political and civil rights become normal or habitual for citizens. The term “consolidation” has been char­ acterized as happening when democracy is “the only game in town.”11 That is, a democracy may be seen as consolidated when there are no major political groups

direct democracy A conception of democracy that places great emphasis on direct citizen involve­ ment in politics, especially invol­ ving plebiscites and/or citizen assemblies.

democratic transition The pro­ cess through which a non-demo­ cratic regime becomes democratic.

democratic consolidation The process through which, after a transition from authoritarianism, a polity strengthens its democracy.

130 Chapter 6: Democracy and Democratization

advocating for a return to authoritarianism or for the overthrow of the demo­ cratic system. Related to this, consolidation may have happened when the popu­ lace as a whole has rejected the idea of authoritarianism and supports the democratic regime. Compared with these ideas or values, a more mechanical indicator of consolidation may be when a country has “turned over” its govern­ ment two or more times; that is, the people who used to govern lose an election and step aside, and then the people who replaced them eventually lose and step aside. W hen and where this happens, it is a good sign that democracy is accepted by all the major political actors and has become routine.

Consolidation is challenging even in leading democracies. Many countries that have made the transition to free and fair elections and civil liberties will face difficulties in guaranteeing these for the citizenry. Even the world’s longest- standing democracies, such as the United States, have not fulfilled all of the promises often associated with democracy. Consolidation is a long-term en­ deavor, because delivering full democratic rights to all citizens (and indeed de­ veloping a full notion of who is a citizen) is a historically complex process. To look at the American example, note that rights may be progressively ex­ tended to more groups (often beginning with relatively wealthy male property holders and slowly incorporating others) and not offered to everyone at once. It is also a process that can suffer setbacks as countries fail to consolidate or revert to authoritarian rule.

For those interested in the minimal, procedural definition of democracy, de­ mocratization may be most associated with transition, a process in which a for­ merly non-democratic (i.e., authoritarian) regime is liberalized and attains democratic credentials. On the other hand, consolidation may require consider­ ation of how robust a democracy becomes, as well as questions about whether a country will maintain its basic standards of political and civil rights over time. For those political scientists interested in understanding broad patterns of levels of democracy around the world, a transition above a certain threshold may be sufficient for the purposes of a given study, while those interested in understand­ ing a democracy’s quality and depth may necessarily be examining its process of consolidation.

CASE IN CONTEXT

Democratic Consolidation in Brazil PAGE 408

For years Brazil alternated between authoritarianism and transi­ tory attempts at democracy. In recent decades, though, its de­ mocracy has achieved noteworthy consolidation, and few now fear a return to Brazilian authoritarianism. Given that Brazil is one of the world's largest countries, and an increasingly influential one, this is a very positive development. But how did it happen? And what lessons does Brazil offer to other countries interested in democratic consolidation?

For more on this case, see the case study in Part VI, p. 408. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. How does Brazil's recent economic performance relate to its democratic consolidation?

2. How, and to what extent, has Brazilian democracy come to include poorer Brazilians?

Causes and Effects: What Causes Democratization? 131

Causes and Effects: What Causes Democratization? Uncovering what causes and sustains democracy is a central challenge facing political scientists. Here, we combine the debates about democracy and democ­ ratization to ask why democracy varies both across countries and over time. In other words, we consider both where democracy happens and when it occurs. Note that both of these considerations get at the underlying question of why regime types emerge, consolidate, and shift. W hile we cannot capture the entire debate, we highlight five prominent lines of theory:

1. modernization theory, which traces democracy to broad social changes, es­ pecially economic development and the changes that accompany it;12

2. cultural theories, which attribute democratization and democratic consoli­ dation to cultural variables that predispose some countries to democracy and prevent or hinder democracy in other places;13

3. systemic or structural theories, which situate countries in an international en­ vironment where major powers or global trends may condition whether democracy emerges or not;14

4. domestic institutional theories, which find that the advent and success of de­ mocracy depend on the forms of political institutions within a country (such as political parties and interest groups, or the ways branches of gov­ ernment are shaped);15 and

5. agency-based theories, which argue that individual actors, or small groups of actors, are the drivers of changes in regime types (whether democratic or authoritarian).16

We consider these five perspectives in turn. As noted in the previous chapters, different theoretical perspectives are not

entirely mutually exclusive, but they do offer different arguments about political behavior and what causes it. W hile good arguments may draw from multiple

Is China Destined for Democracy? PAGE 421

One of the most important questions in contemporary global politics is whether China will democratize in the coming years— and, if so, how. In certain respects, since reforms began there in the late 1970s after the death of Mao Zedong, we have seen some limited democratization at the local level. But China re­ mains an authoritarian state dominated by a single party, and virtually no political scientists would consider it democratic.

For more on authoritarianism and potential democratization in China, see the case study in Part VI, pp. 421-422. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. What would each of the theories from the previous chapter predict about the prospect of China's democratization?

2. What might major theories of authoritarian persistence discussed in this chapter say about this case?

3. Which of these predictions do you find most plausible, and why?

132 Chapter 6: Democracy and Democratization

modernization theory A theory that traces democracy to broad

social changes, especially econo­

mic development and the changes

that accompany it.

perspectives, it is important that comparative political scientists understand both what they are arguing and how they might be arguing against some other perspective. Fundamentally, arguments are based on efforts to test specific hypotheses—derived from theories— against empirical evidence.

M odernization Perhaps the most central debate in modern comparative study of democracy centers on elements of modernization theory. Advocates of a modernization approach examine the relationship between economic development and democratization. W ith respect to the causes of democratization, an extensive literature finds changes in economic structure to be a key to democratic change; in these analyses, economics drives much of politics. Modernization scholars argue that economic change drove democratization through the emergence of such factors as a middle class (or bourgeoisie) and a literate population. Urbanization over decades and cen­ turies was key in turning former lords and peasants into small businessmen who demanded greater political say without being either reactionary or revolutionary. More recently, the link between modernization and democratization finds new support (with modifications and revisions) for the idea that democracies become more stable and secure when they are relatively wealthy.

Conversely, poor countries that lack the stabilizing force of a robust middle class will tend toward authoritarianism. In the absence of the modernization process outlined previously, no democratic push can emerge. Societies divided between a small, wealthy elite and impoverished masses will be prone to

Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics and Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy by Seymour Martin Upset '

A s discussed in this chapter, one of the most consistent find­ings in comparative politics has been that economic devel­ opment often "goes with” democracy and democratization. In other words, having a highly developed economy increases the likelihood of stable democracy. Classical theorists drew attention to this connection, but the political sociologist Seymour Martin Upset was the first scholar to demonstrate the relationship with strong empirical evidence, showing that a range of development variables correlated with democracy.

Recall from chapter 2 that correlation is not the same as causation. The mere fact that there is a relationship between two variables does not mean that one necessarily causes the other. Maybe democracy causes economic development, after all.17 Modernization theory predicts that causality will move from economic development to the creation and consolidation

of democratic institutions. It does so by trying to specify causal mechanisms through which growth might be expected to promote democracy. Lipset pointed to numerous potential mechanisms, such as literacy and education, but his main idea was that economic development leads to the creation of a strong middle class, and that this middle class, in turn, pro­ motes democratization and democratic stability. If Lipset is right, proponents of democracy should be very attentive to social and economic factors like increasing income inequality, since a decline of the middle class might weaken democratic institutions. Seymour Martin Upset, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics. New York:

Doubleday and Co., 1960; and "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic

Development and Political Legitimacy." American Political Science Review 53, no. 1 (1959): 69-105.

Causes and Effects: What Causes Democratization? 133

reactionary, non-inclusive politics dominated by the former, or to revolutionary mobs where the latter can seize power. Neither group has an interest in leaving political power to the other. Only economically modernized societies, with their relatively moderate middle classes, can strike the balance between these extremes.

Modernization theory includes a variety of different approaches. According to some versions, the economic and social forces of modernization that shape de­ mocracy do not only occur at one point that triggers a democratic transition. Rather, economic development may also support the persistence of democracy, once democracy is established.

Modernization theory faces the challenge that there are exceptions it has trouble explaining. For example, India is the world’s largest democracy, and it remains quite poor. Moreover, it democratized well before its recent years of economic growth. Can modernization theory explain India’s democratic success? And how can modernization theory explain the fact that democratization often happens rapidly and in waves?

Different versions of this theory specify different hypothetical mechanisms linking economic development to democracy. Remember, what we mean by “causal mechanism” is the process through which something produces something else, according to a theory.18 Scholars can agree that two variables—like eco­ nomic development and democracy—are related without necessarily agreeing about how they are linked, as discussed in chapter 2. As we have seen, classic

k

CASE IN CONTEXT

b Democracy's Success in India: W hat Can W e Learn from a Deviant Case? PAGE 464

India is a major anomaly for modernization theories of develop­ ment. In essence, the relationship between its political and eco­ nomic development has been the inverse of what modernization theory would predict. India is the world's second largest society and its largest democracy— consider, therefore, the share that Indian citizens hold in the world's broader democratic popula­ tion. This anomaly has potentially serious implications and makes the puzzle of Indian democratization all the more intriguing.

For more on the case of democratization in India, see the case study in Part VI, p. 464. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. What, if anything, does Indian anti-colonial resistance have to do with the country's democratization?

2. What, if anything, does Indian democratization suggest about the importance of individual actors, leadership, and institutional design?

3. Can you think of a way to "save" modernization theory in the face of the case of India?

Indian voters, 2012. India is the world's largest democracy.

134 Chapter 6: Democracy and Democratization

versions of modernization theories of democracy point to the intervening vari­ able of a strong middle class.19 Some more recent versions of modernization theory suggest a different intervening variable: Economic development might produce democratic values such as the value of “self-expression.”20 We return to this issue later in the chapter.

Culture and D em ocracy Economic development is just one of many conceivable causes of democratiza­ tion. Other significant contributions have emphasized new factors, especially as the regional emphasis among democratization theorists has shifted from histori­ cal change in Western Europe to those in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Cul­ tural arguments may be able to provide substantial leverage on understanding political trajectories in different countries.21

One prominent cultural argument is the “Asian values” argument, as articu­ lated by certain non-democratic leaders in Asia who argued why Asia is not con­ ducive to democracy like the “West” is.22 According to this argument, Asian cultures value stability and harmonious social relations over individual rights, and are comfortable with respect for authority and deference to the state. Ac­ cordingly, democracy is not a priority but is secondary to ideas of order, hard work, and social progress. An additional caveat is in order here: A country’s “cul­ ture” may be defined in many different ways and by different individuals or groups. The assertion by a Malaysian or Singaporean prime minister (or anyone else, for that matter) about what his country’s culture is should not be taken as the definitive word on the subject. Indeed, political cultures may be deliberately shaped by states and governments— especially in non-democratic countries—for a number of purposes. Many Malaysians and Singaporeans may differ with the former prime ministers Lee Kuan-Yew or M ahathir Mohamed about their own societies’ compatibility with democracy. Not all culturalist arguments are so transparently self-serving for authoritarian leaders, however. Some scholars have tried to explain authoritarian persistence in Latin America as a function of al­ leged cultural tendencies toward “corporatism” and “authoritarian centralism.”23 Still others have argued that religion makes a difference in shaping the likeli­ hood that a country will be democratic.24

W hile arguments like these are significant, political scientists rarely demon­ strate that such-and-such a country or continent is not democratic because of some fixed cultural element that is static and unchanging, and sophisticated ap­ proaches to cultural explanation do not attempt to do so. To take Africa as an example, political scientists would rarely rest on an argument such as, “Africa is not very democratic, because its people don’t want it,” or “Africa has lots of au­ thoritarian rule because people belong to tribes.” Besides sounding judgmental (in ways that can border on racism, when some wrongly assume Africans are less capable of sophisticated political calculations), the conception of culture here is too thin. Cultural scholars recognize that values, norms, and customs are shaped and reshaped, defined and redefined over time. Culture is dynamic rather than static. W hile cultural differences among countries may help explain some conti­ nuities over the course of years, ideas and values are also constantly shifting. For instance, cultural arguments may note that Latin America was long deemed to

Causes and Effects: What Causes Democratization? 135

IN S IG H TS Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocquevilte I

Tocqueville's analysis of American democracy is complex and multi-faceted. Scholars influenced by his work, however, have often focused on one of its key aspects. He believed that the protection of liberal rights and the functioning of democratic institutions depended in good measure on mores or values and feelings embedded in the population. In other words, democ­ racy depends partially on “political culture." Above all, he was impressed by the degree of participation in democratic politics he witnessed in the United States: People got involved and seemed to enjoy their involvement.

Tocqueville didn't think of political culture as some unchang­ ing thing attached to a group. It wasn't that Americans were in­ trinsically disposed to democracy. Rather, these tendencies were shaped by social and institutional factors. For example, the pat­ tern of immigration and the nature of inheritance in the United States had led to relatively higher levels of pre-existing equality:

The country had no real hereditary nobility, for example. He also felt that American political institutions at the national level were largely well designed, singling out the country's administrative de-centralization. Perhaps more important, particularly in New England, local townships had established political institutions that depended upon participation. These institutions, Toc­ queville famously wrote, inculcated certain "habits of the heart" in those who participated in them, awakening a desire for deliberation.

The critical idea here, therefore, is not that some countries are culturally destined for democratization and others for authori­ tarianism, but that social and institutional conditions do influ­ ence political culture, which can then help constrain politics. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Harvey Mansfield and Debra

Winthrop. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002 (first published, in French, in

1835 and 1840).

have male-dominated polities, but may also note the increasing empowerment of women in many countries in Latin America that may have played a role in the processes of democratization there, as with the case of the Mothers of the Disap­ peared (Madres de [la] Plaza de Mayo) in Argentina.

The International System For any country, the prevailing tendencies in the international system are likely to affect the chance of democracy. To use just the twentieth century as an ex­ ample, it may seem sensible to suggest that the period between the two World Wars (including the Great Depression), the Cold War, and the post-Cold War era were three very different time periods with respect to the question of how widespread democracy would be. Looking at snapshots of the global situation at certain moments in time can convey the importance of the international environment.

During the Cold War, for example, the countries of Eastern and Central Europe (the so-called “Second World”) were obviously kept under authoritarian rule by the power of the Soviet Union. Less obviously, but just as truly, the poor­ est countries of the “Third World” also languished under dictatorships sponsored by both the Soviet Union and the United States. In a time period when the major international powers prioritized security and influence over democratic rights in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, military leaders found it relatively easy to retain power over civilians. To use a slightly earlier historical example, colonial rule was non-democratic. For many of the peoples of the world, the political and eco­ nomic system of the colonial era—when Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, and

136 Chapter 6: Democracy and Democratization

Holland dominated much of the globe—was one of non-democratic rule by dis­ tant powers.

As seen in the examples of post-war Japan and Germany, the international system can promote democracy as well as hinder it. After the collapse of com­ munism from 1989 to 1991, democratic ideas were transmitted and propagated around the world. Samuel Huntington’s work, for instance, includes an emphasis on the “learning” different countries could do from one another, with popula­ tions worldwide witnessing democratization in other countries and, in effect, concluding that “if they can do it, so can we.”25 The positive “demonstration ef­ fects” of watching neighboring countries change surely helped propel a wave of democratization that spread globally.

As with the other theories noted earlier, there is actually a variety of possible versions. There is no question that global patterns of democratization are real. The important question is what causes those patterns. One possible answer is to point to common conditions of the sort identified by other theories (e.g., perhaps waves of democratization are products of shared or global economic develop­ ment). Another is to focus on the structural features of the global system, as in the example of Soviet and U.S. influence during the Cold War noted previously. A third approach combines the international system and cultural perspectives, such as Huntington’s idea of democratic learning and “demonstration effects”26 or in the notion that certain prestigious ways of organizing politics diffuse globally and exert cultural influence because they are perceived by “world society” to be legitimate.27

Dom estic Institutions Whether a democracy is sustained or collapses, whether transitions to or from democracy happen, and how well a given democracy functions may depend on the institutions in a given society. To review the concept from earlier chapters, we mean by institutions those features of a political system that shape the behaviors of actors. These can include organizations and groups, rules and patterns, and norms and values. Some arguments about the effects of domestic institutions are best addressed in later chapters: Does federalism or unitarism work better to hold countries together (chapter 8);28 do parliamentary and presidential forms of gov­ ernment affect the likelihood of democracy (chapters 9 and 10);29 and so on. But the possible impacts on democracy are noteworthy here.

To use an example familiar to many students of American history, the first attempt at self-government in the American colonies was the loose confederation established by The Articles of Confederation of 1781, and it was a political failure that imperiled the security of the young post-Revolutionary nation. It was only with the passage of the Constitution (in 1787 and 1788) that the foundations of the new nation were secured, owing to a new institutional framework that gave greater power to the central government. The success of the latter charter (and the failure of the former) might be attributed not to major economic development or cultural change in a few short years in the 1780s, but rather to the more endur­ ing design of the formal and legal framework for the union—that is to say, to a more suitable institutional design.

Causes and Effects: What Causes Democratization? 137

IN S IG H T S The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth C e n t u r y ^ ^ b y S a m u e l H u n tin g to n . . . . . .

Huntington observes that democratization takes place in "waves," or historical periods in which lots of societies democratize and others in which societies tend more toward authoritarianism. He identifies three major waves of democrati­ zation: from 1828 to 1926, from 1943 to 1962, and from 1974 until the 1990s. Between these came “reverse waves" of increasing authoritarianism. Huntington's interest was in explaining the contemporary "third wave" of democratization. Huntington pointed to multiple factors, but drew particular attention to two types of external or systemic factors. One was the role of "exter­ nal actors" such as the European Union, the United States, and the Catholic Church under John Paul II in fomenting democrati­ zation. For example, the United States changed its policies in the late 1970s under Jimmy Carter, arguing that a respect for democracy and human rights needed to be emphasized along­ side national interests. In the early 1980s under Ronald Reagan, the National Endowment for Democracy was established, designed to assist global democratization.

Another factor was a process of "snowballing," in which de­ mocratizing regimes influenced one another through example. Successful democratization in one country shows that democra­ tization is possible elsewhere: It also provides models for how to achieve the transition. During a democratic wave, demonstration effects might even present pressure to democratize as authoritar­ ian forms come to seem less legitimate.

Perhaps the fundamental question to be asked of theories like Huntington's is how much factors like demonstration effects and international system pressures explain. Are they more, less, or equally important to factors internal to democratizing societ­ ies, like institutional reforms or economic development? And how can they explain the variation in patterns of democratiza­ tion across cases? Samuel Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth

Century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.

Dysfunctional political institutions can also undermine a regime, whether it is democratic or authoritarian. Chile’s longstanding democracy collapsed in 1973, for many reasons, at least some of which were electoral; in elections in 1970, electoral rules split the center and right parties, allowing leftists to obtain the presidency with the support of only about one-third of the country. This likely contributed to some middle-class support for the overthrow of the demo­ cratically elected regime by the military. The Weimar Republic in Germany be­ tween the two World Wars was hobbled by similar institutional issues in the electoral system, as well as by an unclear division of power between the President as head of state and the Chancellor as head of government. One might not at­ tribute Germany’s democratic collapse and the rise of Nazi rule to institutional factors alone, but these surely contributed to dissatisfaction with the democratic regime that undermined its support. So too can authoritarian regimes fail partly for lack of functional institutions, as when Mexico’s PRI finally lost power in 2000 after seventy-one years; again, the reasons were numerous, but institutional factors range from the fragmentation of the leading party, to the development of opposition at local and state levels, to increasingly competitive elections, to the increasing recognition of the government’s inability to provide services.

Agents and Actors: The Role of Individuals and G roups There is little doubt that many political outcomes are ultimately traceable to ac­ tions by major individual decision makers; that is, powerful individuals in

138 Chapter 6: Democracy and Democratization

positions of leadership. The question is whether these decisions are shaped and conditioned by other factors— such as economic development or institutions— or must be understood primarily in terms of individual choices.30 A prominent ex­ ample from recent years was from South Africa in the 1990s, where national hero Nelson Mandela had a prominent role in the process of democratization. Like other “Founding Fathers” in the United States and elsewhere, Mandela seemed “uniquely” capable of making difficult decisions and compromises, leaving open the question about what would have happened in his absence. In the South Afri­ can case, there were many other individuals—both prominent political figures and lesser-known negotiators—who also had significant individual roles. Can individuals and groups make democracy happen?

The emphasis on specific individuals and groups tends to be focused more on specific transitions in certain countries than on broad patterns of democracy around the world. Analytically, we might expect individuals and other actors to matter more when the question at hand is about specific changes at a certain historical moment. Looking broadly at the world map and trying to understand where democracies are found might naturally lead us to consider broad forces, such as geography and the large sweep of world history, or perhaps cultures. Looking more closely at a single country at its particular moment of democrati­ zation might push us in the direction of more “proper names.”31 Much as looking through a telescope gives a sense of large-scale natural and environmental forces and looking under a microscope gives a sense of the detailed actions of individual organisms, so too might looking “cross-nationally” give a sense of broad scope and looking “within a country at a given moment in time” give a sense of indi­ vidual action.

This approach is about more than just great individuals—the Mahatma Gandhis, George Washingtons, and Nelson Mandelas of history. Groups and coalitions matter. For instance, the transitions from the 1970s and 1980s (which included southern Europe, Latin America, and central-eastern Europe, as well as some countries elsewhere) highlighted the importance of divisions within au­ thoritarian leadership as a cause of democratization. In particular, some leading scholars (discussed further in the following “Insights” box on Transitions from Au­ thoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy) argued that democracy comes about when splits within an authoritarian regime lead to “softliners.”32 These softliners interact with pragmatists in the opposition to form a powerful coalition for moving toward democracy. This movement comes at the expense of hardliner authoritarians and to the disappointment of those “maximalists,” or radicals, in the pro-democracy movement who oppose any cooperation or negotiation with elements of the au­ thoritarian regime. The bottom line in Table 6.1 pushes democratization.

t a b l e 6 . 1 Actors in Dem ocratic Transition

Authoritarian Regime Pro-Dem ocratic Forces

Extreme Hardliners Maximalists/radicals

Moderate Softliners Minimalists/pragmatists

Causes and Effects: What Causes Democratization? 139

Important interest groups or pressure groups can exercise their collective power in ways that facilitate democratization or democratic breakdown. Trade or labor unions might call a strike and immobilize a country and its economy, help­ ing to bring down a regime. O r business groups or investors may boycott a regime, refusing to invest and ruining the economy to push politics to the breaking point. Powerful religious movements and representatives of the clergy might help to bring down a regime from their positions within their churches, mosques, or temples. And many other mobilized groups in civil society—from human rights campaigns, to ethnic solidarity movements, to university students (yes, you), to revolutionaries—have helped keep regimes in place and helped bring them down.

Co m bining A rgum en ts and Theories: M ultiple Causes It is not always necessary to pick one and only one of the preceding categories to explain why democratization succeeds or fails. Many scholars of democratization will acknowledge the importance of multiple causal factors. Arguments can rec­ ognize complex causality (or causal complexity): Most important outcomes, like democracy, will be the result of multiple factors.

To use just two of the aforementioned perspectives, for instance, cultural change and economic development can affect one another, and both can condi­ tion democracy. Or, as noted previously, Samuel Huntington documented a “wave” of democratization in the 1980s and highlighted five causes.33 In addition to economic modernization came the declining legitimacy o f authoritarian regimes, the role of the Catholic Church, and two external factors: demonstration effects (or the effect of watching your neighbors become democracies), and greater interna- tional support for democracy from the United States and other large powers.

The argument by Inglehart and Welzel discussed in the “Insights” box in­ corporates elements of more than one theory discussed in this chapter. But,

IN S IG H T S Transitions from Authoritarian Rule (4 vols.) by Guillemm O'Donnell, Philippe C fbm itter, and Laurence. Whitehead

Unlike the accounts produced by modernization theorists, Tran­sitions from Authoritarian Rule stresses the uncertainty of demo­ cratic transitions. According to these scholars, transitions are extremely complex and indeterminate, meaning that producing a general theory of transitions is a challenging if not impossible task. Nevertheless, they draw some important general conclusions. First, they judge international systemic factors to be important, but less important than the jostling of domestic actors. Second, they stress that the uncertainty in question is above all the uncertainty faced by those very domestic actors. In other words, they frame the ques­ tion from the perspective of actors within transitioning societies.

O'Donnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead, in their summary of the project's conclusions, note that governing coalitions in au­ thoritarian regimes tend to divide into two camps: "soft-liners" and “hardliners" (see Table 6.1). At the same time, one tends to

see a division in the opposition between "radicals" who want no compromise with the existing regime and "pragmatists" who are willing to work with the existing regime if they see the chance for a democratic transition. Successful transitions tend to involve collaboration between soft-liners in the authoritarian regime and pragmatists. Critical here is that these soft-liners need to feel as if they are able to initiate and partially control the process: In other words, they are unlikely to cooperate if they expect to be persecuted in the aftermath of a transition. Likewise, the dynam- ics internal to the opposition is important. Pragmatists must be able to ensure sufficient buy-in on the part of other opposition actors such that agreements can be honored. Guillermo O’Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead, eds.,

Transitions from Authoritarian Rule (4 vols.). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins

University Press, 1986.

140 Chapter 6: Democracy and Democratization

IN S IG H T S Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence by Ronald Inglehart and Christian Wetzel

Inglehart and Welzel use survey data to analyze the relationship between economic development, cultural tradition, and de­ mocratization in more than eighty countries.

The fundamental difference separating their work from earlier modernization theory is that they posit a distinct mecha­ nism. Recall that Lipset argued that economic development produced democracy fundamentally through creating a vibrant middle class. Inglehart and Welzel think of economic develop­ ment as shaping political institutions through culture, as re­ flected in the values and aspirations of individuals. They find that societies with low levels of development tend to have people who are focused on "survival values." For example, they may place a lot of stock in family authority, presumably because the social bonds of the family are critical to survival in the context of material scarcity. Societies with higher levels of development, however, show higher levels of "self-expression values," meaning

higher valuation of individual-level autonomy and freedom. According to the authors, any society achieving increasing eco­ nomic development is expected to see increasing “self-expression values." They find that religious and cultural traditions shape the timing and extent of this change, but that economic develop­ ment is the cause of the change.

So how do they get to democracy? They find that higher levels of self-expression values correlate with democratic institutions. They presume that the individual's culturally induced demand for greater autonomy is the source of political-institutional change. In other words, Inglehart and Welzel's model looks like this:

Economic development —> Cultural change —> Democratization

Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change, and

Democracy: The Human Development Sequence. Cambridge:Cambridge

University Press, 2005.

importantly, it does more than simply make a list of all the possible arguments and say they are all valid. It would not be very analytically powerful to say, “Democracy comes from a whole range of cultural values, economic moderniza­ tion, and a whole bunch of structures and institutions.” As suggested in chapter 2, this may be correct, but it is not much of an argument. One can take a stronger stand by showing how different theories and factors inform one another. Notice the steps in the chain of logic in the preceding sketch at the end of the Inglehart and Welzel “Insights” box. To use this example, showing that economic modern­ ization precedes changes to cultural values in a particular sequence is more powerful than simply listing both and saying, “They both matter.”

CASE IN CONTEXT

Is American Democracy in Trouble? PAGE 562

There is no doubting that the United States has been one of the most important and influential democracies in the world. Virtu­ ally all political scientists continue to regard it as a democracy even still. However, some scholars have expressed concerns about declining levels of public trust and civic association, along with increasing levels of income inequality.34

For more on the question of whether American democracy may be in trouble, see the case study in Part VI, pp. 562-563. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. What are the implications for this Issue of the major theo­ ries of democracy and democratization discussed in this chapter?

2. How does this question relate to procedural versus sub­ stantive definitions of democracy?

3. If, indeed, income inequality and declining trust (in insti­ tutions and in others) suggest that we have reason to be concerned, what could be done about it?

Is American Democracy a Model? 141

Is American Democracy a Model?

The central question in the study of democratization is why democratization happens or does not happen. This necessarily involves an understanding of the dates and time periods at which democratization may occur. As we noted at the beginning of this chapter, from an American perspective this may seem like a relatively straightforward proposition, but this is an illusion. Consider the fol­ lowing multiple-choice question:

In what year did the United States of America achieve democracy? a. 1776 b. 1787 c. 1791 d. 1863 e. 1920 f. 1965 g. None of the above

At first glance, the most obvious answer might appear to be A, the year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Similarly, one may argue that the signing of the Constitution in 1787 was the crucial moment, as this established a representative republic. The year 1791 witnessed the ratification of the Bill of Rights, a moment indispensable to democratization if democracy is understood to require civil liberties as well as political rights. Although the years at the founding were pivotal moments in American democracy, these are not the only possible correct answers to the question. The year 1863 saw President Abraham Lincoln issue the Emancipation Proclamation, a declaration recognizing that upon the end of the Civil War, America would end slavery, its most conspicuous and infamous source of “unfreedom.” The year 1920 may be an even less obvious date, but one whose consequences for democracy were direct and massive: It is the year in which women were first provided with constitutional guarantees of the right to vote. This dramatic extension of voting rights not only enshrined the principle of universal suffrage but also had the effect of increasing the electorate by a huge percentage. The year 1965 may seem, to most eyes, to be too recent to count as part of America’s democratization process, but it is the year of the pas­ sage of the Voting Rights Act, a culminating step in the American process of guaranteeing the vote to all of its adult citizens.

Yet one may also argue with some validity that “None of the above” is the best response to the question of when America achieved democracy. This would be true particularly for those who view the quality and depth of democracy in America as halting or subpar. Notice here that the criterion is not one that is easily reached through passage of a law guaranteeing the right to vote. Rather, it depends on the degree to which individuals exercise their rights and the degree to which each individual has an equal ability to influence the society’s political life. The differ­ ence here is significant, and most political scientists would agree that it makes sense to measure democracy both according to a basic threshold and relative to an ideal. Few political scientists disagree about the importance of the aforemen­ tioned procedural definition of democracy that takes into account basic political

T H IN K IN G CO M P A R A TIV ELY

K E Y M ETH O D O LO G IC A L TO O L

Within-Case Analysis Not all comparison in comparative politics is about comparing multiple, distinct cases. That is, sometimes we make comparisons and conduct analyses within cases. Typically, we do so for different reasons than when we compare cases. When we compare multiple cases, we are often trying to get "leverage" on some key variation.

Within-case analysis, in contrast, is often used for the purpose of trac­ ing causal processes.35 In the case at hand, we are interested in comparing different junctures in the process of democratization in the United States. This is useful precisely because com­ paring different aspects or stages of that process might reveal a more complex and realistic pattern of causality.

So, when would you use this? Ideally, within-case analysis is used in the context of broader, comparative analysis.36 A comparative politics researcher might use the within-case analysis we describe in this section as part of a broader comparative project that looks at long-run democratiza­ tion in the United States in compari­ son with other cases.

142 Chapter 6: Democracy and Democratization

T H IN K IN G CO M P A R A TIV ELY

rights to vote and the presence of fundamental civil rights. The question is whether this definition sufficiently covers all of the characteristics of a democ­ racy. By these criteria, the United States is clearly above an international demo­ cratic threshold, and has been at most of the historical moments discussed previously, today along with most of the other advanced, industrialized countries in the world (and a healthy number of lower-income countries).

On the other hand, democracy in the United States has been characterized by different scholars in less favorable light, according to other plausible criteria: low voter turnout, low levels of voter knowledge and interest, disproportionate influ­ ence of certain interest groups and lobbies, excessive polarization, and under­ representation of women and minorities in elected office, among other issues. You may deem some of these to be problematic, or all of them, or none. But for the purposes of our discussion, does this mean that democratization in the United States is incomplete? I f one adopts a minimalist or procedural definition of democracy, then by nearly all accounts the United States is a democracy. If one adopts a substantive definition, however, then the United States has shortcom­ ings, as do all other countries that meet the procedural definition of democracy.

The causes of transitions to democracy are numerous, and the United States is no exception. Analysts may find that one or more of the broad categories of explanation account best for democratization. In other words, there may be a need to disaggre­ gate the concept of democratization, which may be a name that we give to a se­ quence of distinct processes. It is not a foregone conclusion that the same factors that produced initial democratization in the United States are responsible for the end of slavery or the extension of suffrage. Just the same, we can attempt to explain differ­ ent aspects of stages of democratization via the theories we have considered in this chapter. Moreover, if different theories are more or less effective at explaining differ­ ent aspects or moments in U.S. democratization, this might tell us something useful about those theories for broader comparative purposes. For instance, understanding the extension of suffrage to women and the civil rights achievements of the 1960s (most notably the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965) may lead some in the direction of social actors and groups including the women’s suffrage movement (such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Seneca Falls Convention) and the leaders of the civil rights movement (such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Southern Baptist Convention, and the NAACP). Others may focus on the eco­ nomic and social factors at the time that drove the country toward change. Within- case findings about this can then be brought back to comparative analysis, as we can ask whether similar processes are also visible at similar junctures in other cases.

Table 6.2 demonstrates how our different theoretical approaches might be used to explain a variety of democratizing moments in American history. These are not definitive statements but are simply illustrative of how scholars in differ­ ent theoretical “schools” or “traditions” might approach the same question. We choose three different moments since America’s movement toward indepen­ dence: the American Revolution; the Emancipation Proclamation and the aboli­ tion of slavery; and the extension of civil and political rights to women and to blacks in the twentieth century. Notice the research question and the outcome at the top, and then consider the cells of the table as possible ways different scholars might address these questions and explain these outcomes.

Is American Democracy a Model? 143

t a b l e 6 . 2 Causal Interpretations of Am erican D em ocracy and Dem ocratization Across Tim e Periods

Eighteenth Century Nineteenth Century Twentieth Century

Dependent Variable

Independence and Constitution Emancipation/Abolition of Slavery

Universal Suffrage

Research Question Why did American colonists push for independence and establish a democratic republic?

Why did President Lincoln and Congress end slavery during/ after Civil War?

Why did unrepresented groups (women and African Americans) at last attain voting rights?

Modernization (Economic/Social Change)

Merchants and small businesses of colonial economy seek to establish independence from British Crown

Decline of slave-based economy and economic conflict between industrial North and agricultural South

Growing demand for labor necessitates greater political inclusion of excluded groups

Culture

Frontier culture and settler groups (Puritans, etc.) incompatible with distant monarchy; local institutions encourage democratic norms

Changing perceptions of African Americans among national elites; religious culture nurtures abolitionism

Declining tolerance for prejudice on the basis of sex or race

Structures/Systems (International)

French-British rivalry creates opportunity for colonists to succeed in battle against Crown

International trade and relations with great power Britain (including blockade and question of Britain recognizing Confederacy)

American power and "arsenal of democracy" necessitate full domestic inclusion for global leadership

Institutions (Domestic)

Fractured thirteen colonies attempt loose Articles of Confederation and learn need for stronger union under Constitution

Congressional and constitutional impasse between Southern “nullification" and states' rights advocates versus Northerners

Evolution of congressional majority in populous regions of country in favor of change

Agency/Actor "Founding Fathers" have formative role in Revolution and shaping new nation

Abolitionists drive political debate; extremist groups generate reaction

Women's suffrage movement and civil rights movement central to creating demand for change

Regarding our earlier point about why you might use within-case analysis, note that it is perfectly possible that the best explanation of the eighteenth- century sequence is derived from the theory that focuses on structures/the world system; that the nineteenth-century sequence is best explained by the theory that focuses on culture; and the twentieth-century sequence is best explained by modernization theory. Or some other such combination may be the strongest. The payolf here is that if we were to find this, it would bring nuance to our gen­ eral theory in a useful way, and we could bring this insight back to comparative analysis.

144 Chapter 6: Democracy and Democratization

C h a p te r S u m m a ry Concepts

• The word democracy has numerous meanings. • One major distinction is between procedural and substan­

tive definitions of democracy. Regime change can include both the development of de­ mocracy and also the breakdown of an existing democratic regime.

Types • Types of democracy include both representative and direct

forms. Democratization can be thought of in terms of both demo­ cratic transition and consolidation.

Causes and Effects Scholars have developed a number of theories to explain why democratization takes place when and where it does. Perhaps the most famous is modernization theory, which

T h in k in g It T h r o u g h 1. As we have noted in this chapter, India is somewhat unusual for

having achieved a robust democracy before achieving eco­ nomic modernization. What would modernization, cultural, structural, institutional, and actor-centered theories say about this case? Which of these theories do you think could make most sense of the Indian case? Why?

2. We have noted in this chapter that democracy can take a variety of forms, with one major distinction being between "represen­ tative" and "direct" democracy. But what is the relationship be­ tween these forms? Are they ultimately compatible? Do gains in one involve trade-offs in the other? Think about this question in relation to case examples.

3. In recent years there has been much discussion among politi­ cians and public intellectuals about whether democracy can be engineered or even imposed. Some think that if the appropriate conditions are established, democracy can flourish anywhere. Others think that societies need to come to democratization organically and on their own. What would each of the theories we have considered have to say about this question?

4. "American Exceptionalism" has long held that the United States is different from Europe in that it did not establish a robust

predicts that economic development increases the likeli­ hood of democratization.

• Another theory is that political culture shapes the possibili­ ties for democracy and democratization, and that some political cultures increase the possibility of the establish­ ment and persistence of authoritarian regimes as well.

• Systemic and structural theories say that democratization is more a function of factors operative at the level of the in­ ternational system than things happening within societies. They focus, among other things, on waves of democratiza­ tion and also of democratic breakdown. Some theories place more emphasis on contingency, agents, and institutional design.

Thinking Comparatively We looked at several key sequences in the history of de­ mocratization in the United States, and we introduced the concept of within-case analysis.

socialist tradition. More generally, we could say that, since Alexis de Tocqueville, some have viewed the United States as excep­ tional in its longstanding liberal democracy. Critics, of course, have argued that this democracy has been limited and indirect. Recently, we have seen two notable trends that bear on demo­ cratic practice in the United States: (a) increasing levels of income inequality; and (b) declining public trust in major institu­ tions. What, if any, are the implications of these trends for the future of American democracy? What would each of the major theories of democratization and democratic consolidation say about these issues?

5. Imagine that the leader ofa poor country with low levels of rule of law and dysfunctional political institutions asks you to help design a new democratic system for their polity. What would each of the theories considered in this chapter say about the possibility of your doing so? Now imagine that you were asked to help institutionally engineer increasing democratization in the United States. Ask the same question of this project. Are the implications the same? Different? Why?

IN TH IS C H A P T E R

Concepts 147 Authoritarianism and Authoritarian

Regimes 147 Transitions to Authoritarian Regimes 148

Types 148 Types of Authoritarianism 148 Types of Transition (or Nontransition) to

Authoritarianism 152

Causes and Effects: What Causes Authoritarian Regim es to Emerge and Persist? 158 Historical Institutionalist Theories 159 Poverty and Inequality 160 State Weakness and Failure 162 Political Culture Theories of Authoritarian

Persistence 163 Barriers to Collective Action 164 Special Causal Circumstances Surrounding

Hybrid and Semi-authoritarian Regimes 163

TH INKING C O M P A R A T IV E L Y

Why Did Zim babwe Become and Remain Authoritarian? 167

C A S E S IN C O N T E X T

Iran • Russia Germany

• Mexico • France

146

I n the 1960s, there was a country in Africa called Southern Rhodesia. It was I a British colony that asserted its independence and was ruled by a white minority descended from colonial settlers. This country granted few rights to the black African majority and concentrated economic and political power in white hands. By the 1970s a resistance movement emerged to overthrow the white regime, led by a charismatic rebel leader who vowed to bring democ­ racy to the black African majority. A fter a long struggle, this movement for

democracy finally overthrew the repressive white regime in 1979, and a negotiated settlement with the support of Britain gave rise to a freer society in 1980. The transition even set in motion some much-needed land reform that would reshape the terrible inequalities between poor blacks and rich white farmers, and the new president set to work.

The name of the charismatic liberation hero was Robert Mugabe, and he renamed the country Zimbabwe. After an initial burst of enthusiasm with Mugabe’s rule (as he invested in causes such as girls’ education, a policy and idea well ahead of its time in sub-Saharan Africa), however, things turned quickly. Beginning in the 1980s, his regime was responsible for massacres of opponents and innocent victims in the region known as Matabeleland. By the 2000s, he was presid­ ing over a brutal and repressive regime that encouraged so- called “war veterans” from the liberation war to occupy white-owned farms and frequently kill the owners and anyone loyal to them; the fact that many of these alleged “war veterans” were just teenagers, and thus born after the liberation war, was not lost on many observers. In the midst of the killing and disorder, Zimbabwe’s economy collapsed into hyperinflation, and the agriculturally rich country once known as “the bread basket of Africa” came instead to be known as the continent’s basket case. Mugabe is still in power as o f early 2015, more than thirty years later, and he presides over a regime that is deeply dependent on him as an individual. It was not obvious from the start that the story

would turn out this way, but Mugabe is now widely reviled— around the world and by many Zimbabweans— as one of the most abusive and despotic dictators in Africa.

Concepts 147

How does this happen? W hat gives rise to such brutal regimes, and what allows them to persist even as they preside over ruination? W hile the previous chapter sought to explain democracy and democratization, this chapter turns the question around to look at authoritarian regimes. These sorts o f regimes were for a long time the majority of all governments. They cast a specter over the entire twentieth century, and they still exist in many forms today.

® « •

Concepts In the previous chapter we looked at democratic regimes and transitions to de­ mocracy. In this chapter, we focus on two main concepts: authoritarianism (along with authoritarian regimes) and authoritarian transitions.

Authoritarianism and Authoritarian Regim es At first glance, authoritarianism might be viewed simply as the absence of de­ mocracy as outlined in chapter 6, but the concept is in fact much more nuanced and complex. It can be thought of as a characteristic of some ideologies (e.g., fascism and some varieties of socialism) or even as a behavioral tendency, as in so-called “authoritarian personalities.”1 In general, we characterize an ideology or behavioral tendency as authoritarian to the extent that it is favorable to hierar­ chy and to closed, concentrated processes of decision making.

Authoritarian regimes are those that exemplify, to one degree or another, this authoritarian ideal. While many of us have had the good fortune to grow up in democratic societies, we should recognize that in many places and times authori­ tarian regimes have been the norm. Indeed, if we were to take a historical view of political regimes, we would see that most different subtypes (e.g., oligarchies, em­ pires, monarchies, and sultanates) fall into the general authoritarian category.2

While we are interested in modern regimes here, there is still a lot of variation to explore. Modern authoritarian regimes vary in several respects. One is the extent to which the regime centers on an individual, as opposed to a ruling elite clique, junta, or bureaucracy. Personalistic regimes may invoke the names of his­ tory’s greatest villains: Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot in Cambodia, and even as far back as Caligula in the Roman Empire. O f course, these personalistic rulers relied on institutions such as political parties, militaries, or secret police to support their rule, but their rule was quite different from that of the nondescript generals and admirals who ruled Brazil or Argentina in the 1970s. Another distinction is the degree to which the regime expounds an overarching ideology, such as commu­ nism or fascism, as opposed to governing without attempting to socialize the citizenry in such ways. A third major difference is the extent to which and the way in which the regime constrains or violates human rights. Most theorists would recognize all authoritarian regimes in the contemporary world as violating some basic rights, such as the right to self-determination and basic political free­ doms. However, some authoritarian regimes are willing to leave individuals alone, in relative freedom, so long as they accept the regime’s authority and stay away from politics. Others aim to control almost every aspect of their citizens’

authoritarianism A form of government or regime that is non-democratic.

authoritarian regime A non-democratic regime.

148 Chapter 7: Authoritarian Regimes and Democratic Breakdown

democratic breakdown The transition from a democratic to a non-democratic regime.

authoritarian persistence The ongoing continuation of an authoritarian regime, such that democratic transition does not take place.

hybrid regime A class of regime that appears to be neither fully democratic nor fully authoritarian, such as electoral authoritarianism, delegative democracy, and illiberal democracy.

totalitarian regime A form of authoritarian regime that aims to control everything about the lives of its subject population, such as in the Soviet Union and Germany under the Nazis.

lives. The subtypes of authoritarian regimes described in the “Types” section express some of these distinctions.

Transitions to Authoritarian Regim es Regime change is not a one-way street from authoritarianism to democracy; on the contrary, democracies can break down and collapse, and authoritarian re­ gimes can persist and solidify their rule. Although the end of the twentieth cen­ tury witnessed a wave of democratization in Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa, more recent years have recalled that authoritarianism persists and even grows in some places.3 Reversion to authoritarianism in demo­ cratic countries has a long history, from the breakdown of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazi Germany in the 1930s to the many coups in Latin America and Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. Consolidation may stop or be reversed. Tran­ sition may fail, or a country may retransition from democracy back below the threshold to authoritarianism. Political scientists do not use the word authoritari- anization, but we do examine these processes of democratic breakdown and authoritarian persistence.4 We also need to consider the various paths to the establishment of hybrid regimes (which combine authoritarian and some demo­ cratic elements).5

Types As noted previously, authoritarian regimes vary in important ways. In this sec­ tion, we discuss the key subtypes of authoritarianism, as well as the variable forms that transitions to authoritarian regimes can take.

Types of Authoritarianism Some of the most important types of authoritarian regimes are totalitarian re­ gimes, theocracies, personalistic dictatorships, and bureaucratic-authoritarian regimes. We discuss each of these in more detail in this section.

T o ta lita ria n R egim es Totalitarian regimes represent the most notorious form of authoritarian rule, epitomized by the communist and fascist regimes of the twentieth century that sent millions of people to their deaths, especially in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, particularly during the years of Joseph Stalin’s leadership. Many would consider today’s North Korea to be another example of a totalitarian regime. Totalitarian regimes deny civil rights to citizens and do not hold free and fair elections, but their manipulations and machinations go far beyond those of many other authoritarian regimes.

Totalitarianism gets its name from the attempt to overhaul or control the to­ tality of a society, most notably through propagation of an official governing ideology to which all people are expected to conform.6 Totalitarian regimes will go to great lengths to preclude freedom of thought and conscience, often using secret police, spies, and informants to report on suspected dissidents; freedom of thought is antithetical to the ambitions of totalitarian leadership. There is usually one official governing party, often led by a dominant figure who is the subject of hero worship or a cult of personality. State control over the economy is common and prevents any economic actors from building up a power base that might be

Types 149

used to challenge the total domination the state has over public life. Many totalitarian regimes use prisons, work camps, and mass executions in an attempt to re-educate society and to eliminate supposedly undesirable elements, espe­ cially ethnic minorities. The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin and Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler are the most horrific examples, with each responsible for millions of deaths in the mid-twentieth century.7 To a large extent, the history of that century was the story of the struggle between liberal democratic regimes and totalitarian regimes.

Totalitarianism may be a modern phenomenon. There certainly are precedents for totalitarianism in historical societies, such as ancient Sparta. But for the most part, the relative weakness of pre-modern states precluded the possibility of true totalitarian regimes, despite efforts that look quite totalitarian, such as medieval European states’ efforts to censor literature and to enforce Christian orthodoxy by force.

Some analysts argue that the concept of totalitarianism was an artifact of the Cold War, or even a propaganda tool for the liberal-democratic West, used to demonize the Soviet Union and its allies.8 There is no doubt that totalitari­ anism was most associated with the atrocities committed by both the Nazis under Hitler and the Soviets. It is important as a concept, however, as it allows us to describe important variation between forms of authoritarianism that aim to control everything in the lives of their people and those that allow greater latitude. Contemporary Russia and Venezuela, for example, while not totali­ tarian states, as some of their critics contend, clearly exhibit a number of authoritarian features, while contemporary N orth Korea and even, to some extent, Cuba go much further in their restrictions on personal freedoms and might be labeled “totalitarian.” Finally, some scholars argue that totalitarian regimes are so distinctive in terms of the characteristics we have discussed here to deserve their own category, rather than to be thought of as a type of authoritarianism.9

T heocracies Some authoritarian regimes are closely linked to religions and religious institu­ tions. If religious leaders control an authoritarian state, or if a state imposes very strict religious restrictions and uses religion as its main mode of legitimation, we refer to it as a theocratic regime. In the pre-modern world, many if not most states were theocratic, and the monarchies of Western Europe, for example, had strong theocratic features. Today there are fewer theocratic regimes, but some stand out as particularly noteworthy, such as Saudi Arabia and Iran. Many states, though, continue to involve religion or to impose religious restrictions, a subject to which we return in chapter 15.

P erson alistic D ic tato rsh ip s Not all authoritarian regimes are totalitarian or theocratic. Indeed, many con­ temporary authoritarian regimes are not. Some simply allow little role for the population in political decision-making, but the state does not aim to control every aspect of their lives. Among more limited authoritarian regimes we find the classic forms of dictatorship that have been particularly common in modern political history. The terms personalistic dictatorship and the more antiquated

theocracy An authoritarian state controlled by religious leaders, or a state with very strict religious res­ trictions that uses religion as its main mode of legitimation.

personalistic dictatorship A form of authoritarianism in which the personality of the dictator is highlighted.

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CASE IN CONTEXT

Democratic Features of Authoritarian Systems? The Case of Iran PAGE 475

In 1979, Iran underwent a social revolution that brought a radical and religious government into power. Some regard this govern* ment as totalitarian, as it imposes strict controls on public expres­ sion, religion, and issues of "morality." Religious leaders at the top of the hierarchy have ultimate control, and thus we would be justified in considering it theocratic. Interestingly, though, in this context Iran still has some quasi-democratic features as well. Elections are still periodically held, and they are actually con­ tested, though not always fairly. In short, there is some debate within the Iranian state, but within a rather narrow band policed by religious authorities, and in a broader context that most would regard as highly authoritarian.

For more on authoritarianism and democracy in Iran, see the case study in Part VI, pp. 475-476. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. On what grounds does Iran claim to be democratic? What criteria do social scientists use in judging it not to be so despite some clearly democratic features?

2. What are the implications of Iran's totalitarian and theo­ cratic approach for the long-term viability of its regime? Does totalitarianism help the regime stay in power or create vulnerabilities?

“sultanism” refer to domination of a political system by a single individual.10 This individual concentrates power and governs as he (or she, but usually he) sees fit. Autocracy, despotism, dictatorship, or tyranny can be used to express similar ideas, though some of these terms can sometimes refer to domination by a clique of more than one leader. As distinct from totalitarian rule, the sultan/autocrat/ despot may not aim to establish an overarching ideology. In other cases, an ideol­ ogy may be promoted but does not come to be implemented to the extent that it would be in a totalitarian regime. As distinct from theocratic rule, while a per­ sonalistic dictator might support religion, repress religious minorities, and use religion as a tool of the state, it is the dictator—and not the religious system in question—that is the highest authority.

The justification for rule in personalistic dictatorships may be based on the assertion of the public interest, such as the ability to promote economic success, or the need to combat subversives. Sometimes, dictatorships of this sort are ex­ plicitly framed as temporary. On other occasions, they have been presented as likely “necessary” for a long time. The idea of “democratic Caesarism” has some­ times been used to justify them, the suggestion being that some societies on the path to democratization are not yet ready for democracy but, rather, need a strong leader to help them get ready, or even to maintain order over the longer term.11

Conveniently, though, such self-appointed leaders are often slow to judge the countries they rule to be actually ready. Some authoritarian rulers of this sort argue that democracy is not right for all countries, and some hold that a country needs a strong leader to keep people in line. There have been a number of person­ alistic dictators in Africa, among other regions of the world, and several of them are unfortunately memorable. They include the tyrants Mobutu Sese Seko of the former Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Jean-Bedel Bokassa of the Central African Republic (who declared himself emperor), and Idi Amin of Uganda.12

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B u re a u c ra tic -A u th o rita ria n R egim es Personalistic dictatorships and related forms of autocracy shade into a form of authoritarian regime that became very common in parts of the developing world in the mid- to late twentieth century: the bureaucratic-authoritarian regime. These regimes are usually focused less on a single individual than on personalistic dictatorships, instead relying on an organized bureaucracy (often, though not always, the military) to run the country.

Though less often associated with particular historical figures, such regimes are not necessarily less brutal than personalistic regimes. The Argentine military in the 1970s, for example, was infamous for torture and for methods of execution that included throwing dissenters out of helicopters into the Atlantic Ocean.13 Bureaucratic-authoritarian regimes in Asia and Latin America used a range of justifications for assuming rule, including the political impasses and economic failures of civilian regimes in their countries.14

Like most personalistic dictatorships, bureaucratic-authoritarian regimes tend to be less ideological than totalitarian regimes, or more pragmatic. They can be right-wing or left-wing, but the fundamental rationale they typically use in trying to garner legitimacy is the alleged need to establish order or economic progress. They tell their societies they can achieve full modernity only through a strong hand and technical administration. Yet these regimes, which were very common in the 1960s and 1970s, typically viewed their role not as displacing civilian regimes in order to call new elections, but as governing their countries for extended periods. In other words, bureaucratic-authoritarian regimes seldom view themselves as merely brief caretakers.

Some would consider the category of “party dictatorships” to overlap with that of bureaucratic-authoritarian regimes. Lor example, some would argue that the Mexican government during the period of the Partido Revolucionario Institu- cional’s (PRI) dominance shaded into bureaucratic authoritarianism (see discus­ sion in the “Case in Context” box titled “Mexico’s ‘Perfect Dictatorship’ and Its End”). Party dictatorships are distinguished from personalistic dictatorships most clearly by the fact that it is a party, rather than a single individual, that aims to hold onto power. In the contemporary world, China might be considered a good example of this.

H y b rid a n d S e m i-A u th o rita ria n R egim es Sometimes regimes are hard to classify as either democratic or authoritarian. Indeed, this seems to be a growing problem. This is especially true after the third wave of democratization (discussed in the previous chapter), which led to stronger democratic international norms with which regimes wish to appear compliant.15 Accordingly, regimes developed techniques and learned from one another about how to appear to comply with these norms while nevertheless remaining in power. Over the years, the range of variations among different types of regimes has led to a proliferation of names for regimes that fit somewhere in between full democracy and complete authoritarianism. Some scholars have urged caution about coming up with new names, noting that while there are many subtypes of democratic or authoritarian regimes, we want more than simply “democracy with adjectives.”16 Nonetheless, these terms have resonance and have become prominent.

bureaucratic-authoritarian regime A type of authoritarian regime, common in Latin America and elsewhere in the mid- to late twentieth century, that was associated with control of the state more by a group of elites (often military) than by a single individual leader.

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illiberal democracy A polity with some democratic features but in which political and civil rights are not all guaranteed or protected.

delegative democracy A hybrid form of regime that is democratic but involves the electorate "delegating” significant authority to a government.

electoral authoritarianism A name applied to situations in which authoritarian regimes nominally compete in elections.

competitive authoritarianism A form of government or regime that allows some political competition but not enough to qualify as fully democratic.

Daniel Ortega, president of Nicaragua, as he is sworn into the presidency for his third term, in 2012. Ortega's supporters claim that his policies aim to reduce inequalities and poverty, while his critics charge that his government is not fully democratic.

The notion of illiberal democracy emerges from the many experiences where countries have reasonably fair elections but then do little to hold elected leaders to account.17 W hile these countries are described as democracies, largely due to reasonably fair elections, they may share more in common with authoritarian regimes. Several regimes in Latin America have been character­ ized as delegative democracies,18 while the term electoral authoritarianism has been used to describe hybrid regimes elsewhere.19 More recently, some of these regimes have been labeled as competitive authoritarian, meaning that they do allow some political competition but not enough to qualify as fully democratic.20 Note that these terms are not perfect synonyms. A delegative democracy is considered at least partially democratic. Competitive authoritari­ anism blurs the line in this connection, the key idea being that the regime is not truly democratic but that it exerts control through elections that are at least nominally competitive. The incomplete nature of democracy in many hybrid regimes was described by the Peruvian scholar Hernando de Soto, who once discussed politics in his country in the 1980s and 1990s by saying, “every five years we elect a dictator.”21

Types of Transition (or Nontransition) to Authoritarianism As mentioned previously, many forms of regime change can end in authori­ tarianism. These include the replacement of one form of authoritarian regime with another, as well as democratic breakdown and transitions to hybrid re­ gimes. We discuss these here, but first we will take a look at authoritarian persistence.

Types 153

A u th o rita ria n P ersistence Authoritarian persistence is a pressing issue in light of the many non-democratic regimes in the world today that seem enduring, perhaps including China, Cuba, N orth Korea among others. In discussing democratic transition and consolidation in the previous chapter, we noted that these processes may not always be completed. Such a case may suggest partial democratization, but the flip side of the coin is the persistence (and therefore apparent “success”) of an authoritarian regime. At some level, this distinction may seem to be merely se­ mantic, but we must take care not to assume that all countries are destined to become democracies in the end.22 Indeed, questions about the persistence of authoritarianism become more interesting if an authoritarian regime persists despite predictions that it should not.

Authoritarian regimes have their own characteristics and attributes, which may contribute to their stability. For instance, the Chinese Communist Party— which was an economic failure for its first thirty years in power—has very successfully presided over that country’s decades of economic growth since it undertook reforms beginning in 1979. This economic success is undoubtedly part of why the authoritarian regime has endured and democratization has not gained steam after the brutal crackdown on protestors in Tiananmen Square in 1989. In short, to understand regime types and regime changes, we must recognize that they depend not only on the details of how a transition goes but also on the features of authoritarian regimes.

Moreover, it is worth noting that there are at least two main kinds of authori­ tarian persistence. The first is the persistence of a single authoritarian regime, as

■ I Oligarchy, Democracy, and Authoritarianism in Russia PAGE 533

For decades Russia was the center of the Soviet Union, which, like virtually every modern state, claimed to be democratic, though in this instance quite dubiously. Then, between 1989 and 1991, the Soviet Union fell apart, more quickly than almost anyone had anticipated, leading to the emergence of a hybrid regime under Boris Yeltsin. A period of economic and political instability fol­ lowed until Vladimir Putin, aided by an oil boom, began to impose political order. He did this, in part, by developing a hybrid of electoral politics with strong authoritarian features, consid­ ered a classic case of competitive authoritarianism.23 The state has been used to repress his opponents, and his 2012 re-election to the presidency has been denounced by many for its irregulari­ ties and has been the source of much popular protest. Putin could conceivably alternate between holding the presidency and governing indirectly through others in the coming years,

though his ability to hold onto power over the long term remains to be seen.

For more on Russia as a competitive authoritarian regime, see the case study in Part VI, pp. 533-534. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. If Russia is a competitive authoritarian regime rather than a democracy or a fully authoritarian regime, when did it become one? What does the case suggest about how we can distinguish hybrid from democratic and authoritarian regimes?

2. How much of Russia's authoritarian character is a function of the state's ability to make use of oil wealth? If there is a prolonged downturn in the market for oil, will the hybrid regime model be likely to continue to work indefinitely? Why or why not?

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suggested earlier. Often this persistence is accompanied by major internal changes to the regime. An example, again, is the rule of the Chinese Communist Party. Today’s Communist Party embraces very different policies and a different style of rule than it did, say, under Mao Zedong in the 1960s. Yet the same party and the same basic state have remained in place, and thus most political scientists would consider this a case of a single authoritarian regime’s persistence. In other words, the reforms of Deng Xiaoping and his successors, while radical, did not constitute an institutional break in regime type, but rather a slower transition that leaves the regime firmly in the authoritarian category.

Let’s consider a different sort of pattern: the substitution of one authoritarian regime for another. Whereas the first type of authoritarian persistence that we considered has no punctuated regime change, this type does. Some authoritarian regimes give way to other authoritarian regimes, often of very different types. One example is modern Iran. In 1979, millions of protestors backing the Islamic Revolution succeeded in overthrowing the longtime ruler, the Shah Reza Pahlavi, a U.S.-supported authoritarian leader (see extended discussion in the Country Profile and Case Studies for Iran in Part VI). The result was a very dif­ ferent type of regime: The Islamic Revolution was theocratic (i.e., led by religious clerics), conservative, and nationalistic, as opposed to the secular, modernizing, and pro-Western rule of the Shah. Yet both were authoritarian and both opposed liberal democracy. Indeed, what is particularly interesting about this case is the question of which of the two authoritarian Iranian regimes in question is less democratic, a subject Iran scholars debate. From Cuba to China to Ethiopia, there is a long history of regimes that change in style, type, or ideology, substi­ tuting one flavor of authoritarianism for another.

Authoritarian regimes use a number of techniques and strategies in their ef­ forts to persist. These are sometimes called strategies of “regime maintenance.” One such strategy is to produce economic benefits for citizens. This can take the form of efforts to produce growth (as in Singapore or, more recently, China) or in the form of patronage and clientelism, which involve the state using its own re­ sources to benefit supporters.24 Authoritarian regimes also often use repression.

— Mexico's "Perfect Dictatorship" and Its End PAGE 505

Mexico was once called "the perfect dictatorship." The PRI, the PRI politician to the presidency, but very few observers think this party that governed from 1929 to 2000, won every election in signaled a return to the old system. that period through a combination of inducements and repres- For more on Mexico's regimes, see the case study in Part VI, sion, and by incorporating most of the major political actors in pp. 505-506. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions: society, such as business and labor unions, into a standing rela- 1. What mechanisms and tactics did the PRI use to maintain tionship with the regime. In 2000, the PRI lost for the first time in its authority and control for so long? seventy-one years, and Mexico's regime changed. The story was 2. What explains the eventual decline of a party that was one of the most compelling regime changes of the late twenti- able to govern for so long? What variables or historical eth century. In 2012 Enrique Pena Nieto was elected, returning a changes contributed to democratization?

This can take the form of using police to stifle protest activities and, in its most egregious cases, the use of large-scale violence against civilians. Authoritarian regimes also typically try to limit the access of political opponents to resources like information, media, and public space. We return to some of these issues in chapter 12.

D em o c ra tic B reakd o w n The decline of democratic regimes may be the most iconic type of regime change leading to authoritarianism. Examples abound, such as the collapse of Germany’s Weimar Republic in the 1930s leading to the rise of the Nazis (see box on “De­ mocracy and Authoritarianism in Germany”) and the coup d ’etat against the Allende government in Chile in the 1970s that led to the Pinochet dictatorship. Democratic reversals and returns to authoritarian rule are also diverse in form, much like democratization and authoritarian persistence. Some countries may “authoritarianize” (that is, witness a democratic breakdown) in fits and starts, perhaps with partial losses of freedom and increasingly suspect elections inter­ spersed with moments of continued political participation by the citizenry. One could argue whether this applies to Russia under Vladimir Putin or Venezuela under Nicolas Maduro today. Other democratic breakdowns may be abrupt and dramatic, with a military force overthrowing a democratic regime in a coup, or an elected ruler declaring a state of emergency and martial law; examples are numerous in the history of the developing countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

As is the case with democratization, these democratic breakdowns may also reverse (in this case with a return to democracy), sometimes indefinitely and other times only temporarily, or stop somewhere in between democracy and au­ thoritarianism. One democratic breakdown that stopped, for instance, was in Ukraine in 2004, when hundreds of thousands of citizens took to the streets in the Orange Revolution to protest a fraudulent and manipulated election. W hile Ukraine was a flawed and partial democracy before the Orange Revolution, the movement undoubtedly prevented further movement in the direction of authori­ tarianism at that time. Sadly, weak institutions contributed to a renewed crisis in Ukraine in 2014, leading to violence, further weakened institutions, and the loss of some of the country’s territory to Russia.

Several patterns of democratic decay and collapse are worth special attention. First, democratic regimes sometimes collapse because voters elect authoritarians. This may sound surprising. W hy would people vote for an authoritarian when they have democracy? One reason is that they may not know they are voting for an authoritarian. A political candidate who promises law and order, economic development, and the end of corruption may give no indication that he or she intends to close the parliament and the court system and to declare martial law as means to this end. Another reason is that in some societies where democratic consolidation is incomplete, democracy may appear to have weaknesses as well as strengths, and voters might have different trade-offs to calculate than do citizens in well-institutionalized democracies. Consider a democracy that has produced painfully poor economic performance, and one in which corruption is rife and rule of law is only minimally established. Are you sure you would not be tempted

156 Chapter 7: Authoritarian Regimes and Democratic Breakdown

Orange Revolution Protestors in Ukraine in 2004.

to vote for an authoritarian who promised to end 80 percent annual inflation, extremely dangerous streets, and an obviously corrupt and thieving class of party leaders who drained the national treasury and deposited the funds in accounts in the Cayman Islands? Perhaps you would not (we believe that we would not), but you can probably understand why some people would.

Second, democratic regimes sometimes collapse because organized actors in society move against them. Organized labor can strike; middle-class individu­ als can demonstrate, marching, setting up barricades, or banging pots (a form of protest common in Latin America called the “cacerolazo”); businesses can withdraw capital; and, perhaps most dangerous, the state bureaucracy itself can refuse to comply with the orders of civilian leaders. This is most dangerous when the military, or segments of the military, lose faith in democracy or in the given democratic regime. W hen this happens, a coup d’etat becomes more likely. In the view of most analysts, coups d’etat are intrinsically anti-democratic when brought against democratic regimes. They can, however, issue in different sorts of outcomes, including democratizing effects. Indeed, coups against au­ thoritarian regimes sometimes happen, and sometimes for the sake of estab­ lishing democracy. Many coups, though, involve the military acting against a civilian (and often democratic) regime, and substituting an authoritarian regime in its place.

Third, as we discuss in greater detail in chapter 12, sometimes regime change takes the form of revolution. These revolutions can in some instances be democ­ ratizing, but in many other instances they actually lead to greater concentration of power under an authoritarian regime. The history of France in the nineteenth century, after the French Revolution, shows the ambiguities of such outcomes, as the country went through both democratizing and dictatorial periods.

Types 157

Democracy and Authoritarianism in Germany

Germany is a country that has seen a number of major regime changes over the course of its modern history. As such, it is a sort of laboratory for scholars interested in questions of democ­ racy, democratization, and democratic breakdown. It has seen failed democratic consolidation, emergent authoritarianism, the splitting of the country after military defeat, with parallel authori­ tarian (East Germany) and democratic (West Germany) polities and, finally, successful reunification with a well-consolidated democracy.

PAGE 450

For more on this case, see Part VI, pp. 450-451. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. Why did Germany see so many transitions in the twenti­ eth century?

2. Does the German case help us understand why transi­ tions happen more generally, or is it idiosyncratic?

3. These transitions occurred back and forth in the same country. What are this fact's implications for theories about why regime change happens?

T ra n sitio n to H y b rid o r S e m i-A u th o rita ria n R egim e Hybrid regimes can emerge out of either democratic or authoritarian regimes, as we discuss in further detail in the “Causes and Effects” section later in the chapter. Partial democratic breakdown can lead a formerly democratic polity to fall into semi-authoritarian status. A traditionally authoritarian regime can enter into the same hybrid status as a result of partial and limited democratization—or else super­ ficial efforts to appear compliant with international norms and expectations. Here we will sketch a fictitious but roughly representative example of each scenario. Polity A involves a transition from a more democratic regime to a hybrid regime, and Polity B involves a transition from a more authoritarian regime to a hybrid regime.

The citizens of Polity A achieved notable democratization several decades ago, against the odds. Similar countries in their region remained authoritarian or

Authoritarian Persistence in Nineteenth-Century France PAGE 435

We think of France as one of the world's leading democracies, and it is. However, for many decades, France dealt with a serious case of authoritarian persistence. Unlike the United Kingdom or the United States, which experienced gradual but steady democ­ ratization, France swung sharply between republican and impe­ rial forms of government in the nineteenth century. Even in the twentieth century, the Vichy government was authoritarian. Of course, it owed its position to the Nazis' quick military victory over France, followed by France's collaboration, and should not be thought of as having emerged organically from French political life. At the same time, it was not without its French supporters.

France is a good case for the analysis of authoritarian persis­ tence. Why, after all, did authoritarianism keep coming back in

spite of the strong republican tradition that developed after the revolution of 1789?

For more on this case, see the case study in Part VI, pp. 435- 436. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. Why did the French Revolution not lead to uninterrupted democracy?

2. What major features of nineteenth-century French society might have contributed to its cycles of authoritarianism?

3. What lessons, if any, does nineteenth-century France offer to democratizers of contemporary authoritarian states and to those undergoing slow processes of democratic consolidation?

158 Chapter 7: Authoritarian Regimes and Democratic Breakdown

reverted to authoritarianism in subsequent years, but Polity A remained demo­ cratic. O f course, there were problems. Ongoing poverty and inequality were major issues. Political parties became bureaucratic and prone more to elite cor­ ruption than to representing the populace. Those parties came to dominate po­ litical life: You could not access state resources or services without going through the parties. Then, a major regional crisis struck. The country’s debt expanded dramatically, and as a result it had to make major cuts in public spending. Polity A’s state could no longer do the kinds of things its citizens expected the state to do, such as (more or less) effectively policing, providing some minimal health care and food and housing assistance for the poorest, and managing the business cycle through effective government spending when times were tough. A political candidate came along promising to change all of that by throwing the corrupt elites out of office. Once elected, this leader began to argue that the very institu­ tions of representative democracy were part of the problem because they were inherently elitist, and that the existing legislature and judiciary were full of representatives of the old parties. The leader used this argument to justify the constitutionally questionable transformation of these institutions. Soon, the leg­ islature and judiciary were filled with loyalists of the new leader, as were the electoral authority and the military. Elections continued, but in many ways the deck was stacked against the regime’s opponents.

The citizens of Polity B lived for many decades under an authoritarian regime. That authoritarian regime collapsed, however, and savvy politicians rushed to fill the ensuing political vacuum. These political entrepreneurs quickly (maybe even recklessly) embarked on major political and economic reforms, ostensibly creating a brief and limited democracy. The result was that the publicly owned resources the state had amassed during its many decades of authoritarianism quickly fell into the private hands of a small, highly concentrated group. At the same time, living standards for the majority of the population fell dramatically, and social problems such as crime and drug addiction soared. W ithin a few years, a leader arose promising to restore the country’s glory and the people’s old standard of living, blaming the new elites for Polity B’s problems. This leader, like the leader in Polity A, continued to allow regular elections to be held but practiced intimida­ tion of the press, selective prosecution, and occasional fraud to remain in power.

Both Polity A and Polity B underwent transitions to hybrid or semi-authoritarian regime status. You may call them “Venezuela” and “Russia,” if you like, though with those two countries, there will be disagreement about whether they are hybrid or authoritarian regimes.25 The first started from a position of relatively robust de­ mocracy and the second from long-standing authoritarianism. These are only two of numerous possible patterns through which such regimes can emerge.

Causes and Effects: What Causes Authoritarian Regimes to Emerge and Persist? In this section we consider four major theories of the emergence of authoritarian regimes: those that focus on class coalitions at critical junctures, those that focus

on poverty and inequality, those that focus on weak states, and those that focus on political culture. We also discuss some special causal circumstances surround­ ing hybrid regimes.

Historical Institutionalist Theories As discussed in chapter 5, historical institutionalist theories look for critical junc­ tures in which institutional patterns become set.26 In explaining the emergence of authoritarian regimes, these theories look for junctures where either authoritarian institutions are formed or coalitions supportive of authoritarian rule are estab­ lished. W hy might these events happen at certain key moments in the develop­ ment of a polity? Well, first of all, there are in many societies at many times certain groups that would be better off without democratization, or believe that they would be. Such groups might include (1) representatives of organizations who receive special treatment under an existing authoritarian state—perhaps religious organizations or, in some circumstances, military actors; (2) economic actors who want to control the state to use it as a tool against those who wish to redistribute wealth or to expand economic rights; or (3) individuals or groups who fear that democratization will lead to the confiscation of their wealth or the reduction of their privileges—possibly wealthy economic actors such as landlords or business owners and/or nobles, depending on the circumstances. If elite actors have reason to fear democratization, they might try to form and maintain nondemocratic in­ stitutions and to assemble a coalition supportive of such institutions.

A historical institutionalist theory tries to explain how institutions get set in a particular pattern, and then explains subsequent development as a consequence of the institutional path that has been established. Such a theory would thus mainly try to explain why authoritarian institutions were established in the first place. It may further argue that the coalitions of actors supporting the institu­ tional arrangements must remain present to account for the persistence of those arrangements.27

Let’s imagine another fictitious society. It undergoes a transition from one type of authoritarian regime— an absolutist monarchy with an agrarian economy and an economy based on estates—to a more modern dictatorship. The following actors are present at the transition:

• the existing state, which is authoritarian to the extreme; • the representatives of the old nobility, who fear revolutionary change,

having read about those ghastly rebellions in France; • landowners, some of whom are noble and some not, who make their living

from collecting rents from peasants on their land; • a relatively small but increasingly powerful group of industrial

entrepreneurs; • a relatively small but growing group of industrial workers; • a large religious organization that has exerted a monopoly with the support

of the old state; and • a large mass of peasants.

The old state had bankrupted itself and then had begun imposing heavy taxes on the rents acquired by agricultural elites (including the dominant church,

Causes and Effects: What Causes Authoritarian Regimes to Emerge and Persist? 159

160 Chapter 7: Authoritarian Regimes and Democratic Breakdown

which owns a lot of land). It had also taxed its own exporters heavily, arguing that manufacturing should serve the interests of the crown by producing goods for sale only to the king’s subjects. It had cut all military spending. Under such circumstances, a coalition has formed among four elite groups: landowners, the military, the church, and the industrial entrepreneurs. While these groups’ inter­ ests are not identical, they all are being hurt by existing policy. If this coalition brings about regime transition, though, that regime might be authoritarian, be­ cause each of these groups wants to protect its existing privileges. Now let’s imagine further that this coalition successfully creates new institutions: We might expect those institutions to endure and for authoritarianism to persist until some new crisis emerges later in the country’s history. The importance of such coalitions is central to the classic argument by Barrington Moore about why au­ thoritarian and democratic regimes emerge (see the “Insights” box on The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy).

Some would argue that Moore’s argument is not really historical institution­ alist because he places so much emphasis on class relations (which, in terms of the state-society schema discussed in chapter 3, fall on the society side of the ledger) and democratic or authoritarian outcomes. A key question here is the extent to which the persistence of a given democratic or authoritarian regime is a consequence of (1) ongoing class coalitions or (2) institutional inertia. Moore, despite being criticized for not being sufficiently state-centric,28 seems to have assumed that once the conditions for democratic or authoritarian regimes are established they are largely set for the foreseeable future. Some other, rational- choice institutionalist accounts differ in this respect.

Poverty and Inequality If we accept modernization theory’s explanation of democratization—that eco­ nomic development causes societies to become more democratic—we would expect the obverse to be true as well. Economic collapse, increasing poverty, and increasing income inequality likely predict a turn toward authoritarianism, and ongoing economic stagnation and poverty likely predict authoritarian persistence.

This theory is intuitive. I f you are worried about where your next meal is going to come from, or how to access health care for your seriously ill children, you are probably less likely to devote your energy to demanding the right to vote, en­ gaging in political speech, protesting, reading political newspapers, and the like. As a result, all else being equal, we would expect pressures in poorer societies to link more directly to the satisfaction of basic economic and social needs than political liberties. This most emphatically does not mean that poorer people do not value political rights and liberties, as has sometimes been asserted, but rather that some needs will tend to strike us as more immediate than others, depending on our circumstances.29 International survey research that tracks political atti­ tudes supports this finding: As economic development increases, prioritization of political freedoms tends to increase, whereas in poorer societies, “survival values” score more highly.30 Again, people in poorer societies would, all else being equal, likely prefer democratic regimes in many instances, but they may be less likely to successfully press for democratization and/or the maintenance of democratic institutions.

Causes and Effects: What Causes Authoritarian Regimes to Emerge and Persist? 161

IN SIG H TS The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore &

Moore is essentially the intellectual grandfather of one vari­ety of contemporary historical institutionalism. He offers a modified Marxist account of why some societies ended up with liberal democratic, fascist, or communist/socialist regimes by the twentieth century, and he finds his answer in the class structures of the societies he studied as they made the passage to moder­ nity. While Moore's book is nuanced, the key variable he notes is the presence or absence of a "bourgeoisie" or "middle class." If a strong middle class was present when a society passed to politi­ cal modernity, it was likely to end up a liberal democracy.

Conversely, countries without a strong and large middle- class present during the passage to modernity were likely to result in coalitions averse to democracy. There are lots of ways that this can happen. An existing agrarian elite might join forces

with the small middle class to outcompete peasants, or the middle class might form an alliance with the peasants themselves, producing a revolution that tends toward authoritarianism. Moore argued that the first scenario tends to produce right-wing authori­ tarianism and the second, left-wing authoritarianism.

Think for a moment about the relationship between Moore's argument and that of S. M. Lipset discussed in the previous chap­ ter. Each is interested in the presence or absence of the middle class as a key determinant of whether a regime is likely to be democratic or authoritarian, yet there are important differences between their arguments. Can you identify them? Barrington Moore, The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and

Peasant in the Making of the Modern World. Boston: Beacon Press, 1966.

Economic factors of this sort might matter not just in how they affect citizens’ attitudes but also in how they shape the institutional environment. W hile his­ torical institutionalists argue that paths are set at critical junctures, determining long-run outcomes, rational-choice institutionalists are more interested in how institutions relate to the ongoing interests of groups and individuals in the polity. Further, rational-choice institutionalists look at how shifting configurations of interests and institutions change the bargaining positions of those groups and individuals.

Income inequality, in addition to absolute poverty, is another likely factor contributing to the establishment of authoritarian regimes. Societies with high levels of income inequality seem more likely to be authoritarian than those with low levels of income inequality. The relationship between these variables is com­ plex, however. One source of the association between authoritarianism and in­ equality may be that authoritarian regimes sometimes promote social and economic inequality in addition to obvious political inequality. In an authoritar­ ian regime, there is not open access to the state.31 Rather, some elites are privil­ eged, and other citizens are excluded from connections and decision-making power. This discrepancy is clearest in cases where dictators amass property for themselves and their associates, such as the infamous Somoza family, which held power in Nicaragua from 1936 to 1979 and came to hold an absurdly high per­ centage of Nicaraguan territory as its personal property.32 I f a large segment of the population has limited access to resources, we would expect that segment to be less involved in democratic participation or in pressing for democratization.

Income inequality may help favor authoritarianism in another way as well: It may engender envy and social division of the sort that potential authoritarian leaders can exploit. Many authoritarian regimes will present themselves as

162 Chapter 7: Authoritarian Regimes and Democratic Breakdown

IN S IG H T S Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy by Daron Acemoglu a n d Jam es Robinson &

Like the arguments discussed in the previous section, Acemo­glu and Robinson's account of the determinants of regime type is also “institutionalist," but it falls closer to the rational choice framework. To simplify the argument, Acemoglu and Robinson argue that political modernization exhibits one of sev­ eral main paths. The first is mostly unproblematic and steady democratization, like in the United Kingdom and the United States. The second is a see-saw pattern of alteration between authoritarianism and democracy, as in parts of Latin America. The third is authoritarian persistence based on shared prosperity and relatively good governance. The fourth is authoritarian per­ sistence based on repression.

Their game-theoretical approach views institutional arrange­ ments as products of different actors pursuing their interests. On one hand you have elites, who want to maintain their elite status, which means privileged access to power and other resources. Then you have the general population, which has an interest in

democratization. Elites hold power prior to democratization, and they can be expected to preserve as much of it as possible. So what determines the pattern of political modernization is the relative situation of elites and the general population. Elites can choose repression or can try to placate the general population in one of two ways: They can make "pro-citizen" concessions and try to run a polity that keeps the population rich and happy, or they can make the "credible commitment" of institutionalizing citizen control through democracy. Acemoglu and Robinson suggest that they will choose democracy only if they have to and if they expect that they can hold on to more resources through doing so than through choosing another path. However, if elites cannot implement pro-citizen policies, and if democracy is likely to lead to a dramatic decline in their privileges, they are likely to choose repression. Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, Economic Origins of Dictatorship and

Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

avengers of injustice. Populist leaders who tend toward authoritarianism can claim to represent disenfranchised poor people and can promise to redress visible inequalities. Interestingly, this seems to be a characteristic of both left- and right- wing populism.33

State W eakness and Failure Another theory focuses on state structures, arguing that weak or failing states are more likely to yield authoritarian politics.34 This may be related to economic the­ ories of authoritarianism. W hile some forms of authoritarianism go with strong states (e.g., totalitarian forms), many tend to be linked to weak states or to those shading toward state failure. Even the major totalitarian polities emerged from states that faced serious difficulties, such as late-Czarist Russia in the 1900s or Weimar Germany in the 1930s.

As noted in chapters 3 and 4, one of the key features of strong states is that they are well institutionalized. Well-institutionalized states tend to be less per­ sonalistic and more resistant to the efforts of private actors to co-opt them for their own gain. “Predatory states” or regimes, however, are those in which one group in society is able to capture the state and use it for the group’s own bene­ fit.35 In some of the worst cases, the boundary between the private property of the ruler’s family and that of the state is unclear, and ruling elites use the military instrumentally against their opponents within society.36 So we seem to have a kind of paradox. On one hand, well-institutionalized, strong states with high capacity may be less likely to fall into authoritarianism, but when they do, there is a higher chance that they will develop totalitarian forms of authoritarianism,

Causes and Effects: What Causes Authoritarian Regimes to Emerge and Persist? 163

which requires a strong state to begin with. Just the same, authoritarianism in weak states with predatory regimes can be very destructive as well.

O f course, state failure or state weakness can be an independent variable that causes authoritarianism, but it in turn is caused by something else. State failure or state weakness happens for a reason, as discussed in earlier chapters. It may be that low economic development leads to weak states, which in turn leaves a polity vulnerable to authoritarianism. If this is the case, low economic development can be thought to indirectly encourage authoritarianism through its impact on state weakness. In other words, causal sequences like the following simplified model are possible, with the arrows understood to represent probabilistic causality:

Low economic development —> Weak state —> Authoritarianism

An alternative theory might look like the following, also treating a weak state as a variable that intervenes between a more distanced cause and authoritarian politics:

Unstable class coalitions -» Weak/poorly institutionalized state —> Authoritarianism

This theoretical causal sequence rests on the assumption that strong states might be products of stable class coalitions. I f this is true, and if weak states breed au­ thoritarianism, then unstable class coalitions might be thought to indirectly raise the likelihood of authoritarian outcomes.

Political Culture Theories of Authoritarian Persistence Other theories of authoritarian regimes hold that the beliefs, norms, and values of a country’s citizens determine its regime type. The idea here is that people in societies that are culturally authoritarian are more likely to have and keep au­ thoritarian regimes. Theorists have identified different types of authoritarian cul­ tures, and some argue that certain countries or regions have inherently different values. Not surprisingly, as noted in chapter 6, authoritarian rulers are sometimes happy to support this type of argument, such as Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew, who claimed “Confucian values” were not compatible with “Western” democracy.

Which values are hypothesized to matter depends very much on the theory in question. Some scholars have argued that certain types of national identity might be more conducive to authoritarianism than others.37 Others have suggested that certain countries or cultural regions, like Latin America, have a generalized “centralist” disposition that increases the likelihood of accepting authoritarian regimes.38 Others have noted that some societies establish “traditions” of au­ thoritarianism, and that the weight of tradition predicts a higher probability of future authoritarianism.39 Still others have argued that what matters are not gen­ eral cultural dispositions of this sort but rather the variation, observed through extensive survey research, in attitudes toward civic participation.40

Even those who are skeptical of the claim that political culture strongly pre­ dicts authoritarianism will often be more receptive to the idea that political- cultural variables can, under certain circumstances, increase the likelihood that certain types of authoritarianism will develop. This idea might be clearest in the case of modern totalitarian regimes. It is very difficult to explain tho path taken

164 Chapter 7: Authoritarian Regimes and Democratic Breakdown

IN SIG H T S The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations by Gabriel Alm ond an d Sidney Verba

A lmond and Verba's book is as much a theory of democracy as authoritarianism, but here we will draw out its implications for the study of authoritarian regimes. Almond and Verba base their analysis on survey research that was carried out in five countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and Mexico. The research was conducted in 1959 and 1960, when Mexico was still an authoritarian system (with the PRI dictatorship) and when Germany and Italy had been liberated by the Allies from the Hitler and Mussolini governments in the relatively recent past.

Almond and Verba create a typology of political-cultural ori­ entations with three main categories: parochial cultures, subject cultures, and civic cultures of participation. Parochial cultures are characterized by populations that are largely distant from politics and try to stay out of the government's way, trusting it and other

actors outside of their local groups very little. Subject cultures have higher levels of investment and trust in the state than paro­ chial cultures, but they have lower levels of trust than participa­ tory cultures, and members of subject cultures are not optimistic about their chances to influence politics. Members of civic cul­ tures of participation, though, have high trust in government and other actors and also believe themselves to be very capable of shaping political decisions through participation.

Almond and Verba recognized that institutions also shape public attitudes, but their work suggested that public disposi­ tions and attitudes were important factors in determining whether a given regime would be democratic or authoritarian. Gabriel Alm ond and Sidney Verba, Th e C ivic Culture: Political Attitudes and

D em o cracy in Five Nations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963.

collective action Action undertaken by individuals and groups to pursue their ends in formally or informally coordinated ways, often in pursuit of some common or public good such as expanded civil rights or sustainable use of common resources.

by Soviet or Nazi totalitarianism without paying some attention to the ideas of Marxist and fascist thinkers and the ways in which these ideas influenced the thinking and strategic behavior of key actors in the establishment of those regimes.

Barriers to Collective Action Rational-choice and game-theoretical approaches constitute a major alternative to political culture theories in attempting to explain authoritarian persistence. Such approaches try to model the rational processes of decision-making in which citizens and politicians engage.41 They tend to presume that these actors know their own interests (or preferences) and have imperfect information about the likely behavior of others. According to these approaches, actors are unlikely to engage in c o lle c tiv e a c tio n unless it becomes rational for them to do so, meaning the chances of success seem high, their contribution seems important to the de­ sired outcome, and they are unlikely to face major costs for participating in such action.42 These approaches constitute alternatives to political cultural theories of authoritarian persistence because they assume that most people want more de­ mocratization (regardless of their culture), but that sometimes there are major barriers to democratic transition such that it would be irrational for any individ­ ual actor to take the necessary steps to provoke a transition.

Imagine a repressive authoritarian state. It severely restricts rights, grants decision-making authority to a small elite, authorizes a police agency to use vio­ lence and torture as key tools for stifling dissent, censors media heavily (includ­ ing social media), and reads e-mails and taps the phones of any potential democratic activists. Let us also assume that the regime’s repression has been

Causes and Effects: What Causes Authoritarian Regimes to Emerge and Persist? 165

successful to date and that there is no viable resistance at present. Now imagine that you really want to topple this regime and usher in a democratic replacement. Unfortunately, you are unlikely to be able to accomplish this change on your own. You are going to need lots of people to participate in collective action with you. Now let’s imagine the conversation you might have with your best friend as you try to convince him or her to help you in the struggle:

YOU: Eh, hey, what do you say we try to topple the authoritarian state?

FRIEND: ...Umm ...

YOU: Aren’t you tired of this repressive regime?

FRIEND: Um, aren’t they tapping the phones? Let’s talk about this later.

[Later, in a safe place, the conversation resumes:]

YOU: So I was saying, what if we...

FRIEND: Are you crazy? They’ll probably catch us, and if they do, who knows what they’ll do? Anyway, there’s no way it could work.

In essence, rational-choice theories of authoritarian persistence say that your friend is right in this scenario, and that authoritarian persistence will likely last until events change your friend’s calculations, along with the perceptions and calculations of many others.43 This could happen in a number of ways. For ex­ ample, imagine that the large foreign power that used to bankroll the repressive state’s security apparatus has made human rights the new centerpiece of its foreign policy, and has therefore cut off such aid. O r imagine that there is a change in leadership in the regime, and the new leaders reduce repression.

IN S IG H T S Now Out of Never: The Element of Surprise in the East European Revolution of 1989 by Timur Kuran

& Kuran tries to explain how rapid transitions from authoritarian rule could take place when previous data indicates support for the old regime. He is particularly interested in the revolutions that took place in 1989 in countries like Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany. His key insight is that under certain circum­ stances preference falsification may be quite common. If it is risky or socially unacceptable to publicly state your preference for more democracy, you are unlikely to do so. In such an environ­ ment, people are likely to overstate their support for authoritari­ anism. This preference falsification is costly: it is psychologically unpleasant to have to pretend to like things that you do not like. Some people most opposed to the regime are least willing to

falsify their preferences and are the first to make their voices known. If they do so without major repercussions, more people begin expressing their true preferences. A cascading pattern then develops as it becomes safer for more people to speak out against the regime.

Many authoritarian states seem to implicitly understand this, which is why so many of them devote such resources to control­ ling discourse and public gatherings. Barriers to the collective expression of preferences for democracy are barriers to mobiliza­ tion against authoritarian regimes. Timur Kuran,"Now Out o f Never: The Element o f Surprise in the East European

Revolution o f 1989." World Politics 44, No. 1 (Oct., 1991): 7-48.

166 Chapter 7: Authoritarian Regimes and Democratic Breakdown

Or that governance and the economy get so bad your friend feels that he or she has nothing left to lose. In such circumstances, collective action becomes possi­ ble, and authoritarian persistence is at risk.

These factors can interact with political culture. Part of the information that a rational actor takes into account is the likely behavior of his or her peers. This information is largely gleaned from their public expression of their beliefs and attitudes (the same things students of political culture are studying), and some­ times populations under authoritarian regimes might appear to be more support­ ive of the regime than they really are. We return to these themes in later chapters on political parties, social movements, and revolutions (chapters 11 and 12).

Special Causal Circum stances Su rrounding Hybrid and Sem i-Authoritarian Regim es As noted earlier, in contemporary politics we have witnessed an increase in the number of hybrid regimes, a pattern of political change that has given rise to a good deal of new and productive theorizing. To some extent, explanations for the emergence of hybrid regimes differ from those for the emergence of more trad­ itional forms of authoritarianism, though we would not want to exaggerate these differences.

Equally important, if we are interested in transitions from or persistence of hybrid or semi-authoritarian regimes, we need to be attentive to their special characteristics.

We should not draw the conclusion that the factors cited earlier to explain the rise of authoritarian regimes or authoritarian persistence are irrelevant to hybrid regimes, but we should note that a particularly important variety of hybrid re­ gimes—the competitive authoritarian regimes of recent decades—seem to show their own, historically specific, causal factors of importance.

IN SIG H TS Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War by Steven Levitsky a n d Lucan A. Way &

Levitsky and Way are interested in understanding the sorts of transitions that are likely to develop out of'competitive au­ thoritarian" regimes, a term that they have coined to label re­ gimes that do allow (often problematic) elections alongside other non-democratic features. As they note, competitive au­ thoritarian regimes should not be thought of as transitional: There is no reason to assume that competitive authoritarian re­ gimes will become democratic or more fully authoritarian. How­ ever, certain characteristics do predict the likelihood of transition from competitive authoritarianism to democracy or full-blown autocracy. First, lots of linkages to the West predict a move toward democratization. If there are not so many linkages

to the West, though, two main paths are possible. The first is ongoing authoritarianism in the context of a strong state. This path is most likely, the authors argue, when (a) the state is strong at the beginning of the process and (b) the party or other stron­ gest organizational vehicle in the competitive authoritarian en­ vironment (which is the core of the competitive authoritarian regime) has lots of "organizational power." The second path is authoritarian persistence with lots of instability and turnover, which is more likely in the context of a weaker and less stable state. Steven Levitsky a nd Lucan A. Way, Com petitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid

Regim es After the Cold War. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Why Did Zimbabwe Become and Remain Authoritarian? 167

Why Did Zimbabwe Become and Remain Authoritarian?

Authoritarian regimes come in many varieties, and they come from many different origins. We have emphasized that there is no single thing called “authoritarianism” that one theory can explain. Rather, authoritarian regimes have distinct features and exhibit many different types of transitions (and nontransi­ tions). Scholars have developed a number of explanatory models to account for these. Some of the main general factors in most cases, though, include (1) histori­ cal relationships between contending groups, (2) the strength and form of exist­ ing institutions, (3) a country’s level of economic development, (4) political-cultural traditions and tendencies, and (5) the strategic situations and choices of key actors. O f course, as we have seen in other chapters, it is not enough to merely list such contributing factors; we must figure out how such factors interact and which are most important. W hat do you think? And how could we test your ideas empirically?

As we noted at the outset of the chapter, modern-day Zimbabwe is an authori­ tarian regime that is characterized by many of the features we have discussed. It is a “personalist” regime, the population of which is subject to many of the vagaries of au­ thoritarianism. It is characterized by repression, a lack of secure political rights, seem­ ingly arbitrary rule, and so on. Not everywhere in Africa is like this, and Zimbabwe itself has not always been like this, so our research question might be “W hy is Zimbabwe authoritarian? W hy did it become so, and why has it remained so?”

We should expect theories of authoritarian rule to be able to account for an authoritarian regime like Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. Looking at the various causal theories of authoritarianism we can consider how each might propose an explanation for the emergence and/or persistence of the regime. In the section on “Causes and Effects” in this chapter, we have looked at several such theories. We list them in Table 7.1, along with what the theory might explain is the cause of

t a b l e 7 . 1 Authoritarianism in Zim babw e: Theories, Explanations, and Exam ples of Su p p o rtin g Evidence

Theory Theoretical Explanation Exam ple of S u p p o rtin g Evidence

Historical Institutionalist

Coalitions of powerful political actors emerge that favor elite domination.

Mugabe receives support of the military and key economic actors.

Poverty and Inequality Poorer citizens seek economic security and allow authoritarian rule.

Mugabe appeals to some poorer citizens as populist.

State Weakness Weak, poorly institutionalized, predatory state will be authoritarian.

Mugabe has engaged in predatory behavior and undermined institutions.

Political Culture Cultural values shape the type of authoritarian regime that emerges.

Mugabe has worked within bounds of top-down "tribalism."

Collective Action Disapproval of the regime is impeded by repression.

Mugabe regime creates large numbers of exiles.

TH IN K IN G CO M P A R A TIV ELY

KEY M ETH O D O LO G IC A L T O O LS

Evidence and Empirical Critiques One reason that many theories con­ tinue to endure in different areas of comparative politics is that most of the majortheories have some empiri­ cal support. This makes it challenging to determine which theory is the most accurate. In reality, most theo­ ries will not be accurate under all circumstances, but rather each will explain some outcomes better than others. So how do you avoid simply making "laundry lists" (as noted ear­ lier) and saying, 'Everything matters'? In preparing to make theoretical arguments, it is of course important for any particular question to examine how the empirical evidence lines up with the theoretical predictions and the specific hypotheses you might offer. One very useful tool can be evidence that allows you to critique a particular argument.

In aiming to build arguments, there is one very important miscon­ ception: that the only valuable type

168 Chapter 7: Authoritarian Regimes and Democratic Breakdown

Zimbabwe’s authoritarianism. We also list in the third column an example of evidence that we might find supports this theoretical proposition. Note that the examples of supporting evidence here are not proven but are simply plausible for this particular case.

Looking at the theoretical prediction and the examples of evidence to support

experienced in the study of comparative politics. Sometimes, at a certain stage in the development of research on a topic or question, we do not know which theory truly offers the best explanation for a given phenomenon, and multiple explana­ tions seem promising.

Does this mean we are stuck? Or that we should assume that all theories work equally well and that we should list them all as the answers to our research ques­ tion? No. On the contrary, it is common for many good research questions to have multiple possible answers. Indeed, it is often a sign of a good question that it can have many possible answers: It suggests that the question is open-ended, and not one with a foregone conclusion that is self-evident and therefore uninter­ esting. In the parlance of comparative politics from chapters 1 and 2, a good theory must be falsifiable, and the fact that multiple possible theories can address a question is often a sign that the question is well conceived. Furthermore, theo­ ries in comparative politics will not last if they get no empirical support, so we should not be surprised if more than one theory has evidence working for it. But the job of the comparativist is to analyze the relative merits of these different arguments and to find ways to adjudicate among them.

W hat can you do if several different theories each have some evidence going for them? O ur most important tool here is looking for evidence that works against one theory or another. This disconfirming evidence that allows you to critique one or more theories can sometimes help identify which theory stands strongest. In fact, evidence that works against one theory can be just as valuable as an extra bit of evidence that supports a theory. It may be more valuable, since the implica­ tions of truly disconfirming evidence are stronger than the implications of some evidence that is simply consistent with a theory.

W hat might be examples of disconfirming evidence for the theories in our Zimbabwe example? Table 7.2 has the same theories and theoretical explanations as Table 7.1, except this time we consider evidence that might show that Mugabe and Zimbabwe do not follow what the different theories predict. Notice that we can actually come up with at least plausible examples of disconfirming evidence as well for any of the theories we noted previously.

Here we see examples of how each theory could have some evidence against it, just as each theory had some evidence for it. Comparativists can use evidence both to support and to critique different theories as they try to identify which theory is

(continued) of evidence is that which supports a hypothesis or theory. In fact, some of the most valuable evidence is that which allows you to critique or chal­ lenge one particular argument. This is useful especially when you are trying to determine the strongest argument among many that have some sup­ porting evidence.

the theory, we may see a problem: We can find some plausible evidence to sup­ port all of these theories! We can go right down the column and come up with decent evidence. Robert Mugabe’s authoritarian regime has indeed received the support of some key coalition actors, and it has appealed to many of the poor in a populist fashion, and it is a poorly institutionalized predatory state, and it has represented itself as a quintessentially African unit resisting Western influence, and it has seen many hundreds of thousands of its opponents flee the country rather than risk repression. Indeed, this discussion illustrates something often

Why Did Zimbabwe Become and Remain Authoritarian? 169

strongest. We should be particularly attentive to evidence that would post a strong challenge to a theory. For example, in Table 7.2, the evidence presented for the “political culture” and “collective action” theories might suggest real weaknesses in their ability to explain Zimbabwe’s authoritarianism. We cannot say, for in­ stance, that traditional Zimbabwean political culture is the source of Mugabe’s authoritarianism if Zimbabwean political culture is not actually authoritarian. Likewise, we cannot say that the source of his authoritarianism is that dissidents cannot organize or speak if, in fact, dissent is widespread and organized.

On the other hand, some theories can be defended in the face of potentially challenging evidence, either because the evidence is being interpreted wrongly or the theory has been construed in a limited or wrong way. Imagine proponents of the historical institutionalist theory trying to make their argument. They might acknowledge the evidence that Mugabe has alienated many elite economic actors, and that this has negative implications for the argument attributed to historical institutionalism in the table: “Coalitions of powerful political actors emerge that favor elite domination.” They could point out, though, that commercial and farming elites are not the only important actors among whom coalitions could form, and that the Zimbabwean state under Mugabe has created a new coalition of powerful actors from the military and masses of unemployed men. Theories cannot proceed by being adapted to deal with each individual case, but if a theory has been misconstrued or its implications not fully built into tested hypotheses, seemingly disconfirming evidence might still be compatible with the theory.

Authoritarianism remains one of the most analytically and morally pressing questions in comparative politics today. As it has become clear that democracy was not simply going to predominate all over the world after the Cold War, scholars have reengaged with urgency on the question of authoritarian rule. The types and causes of authoritarianism are numerous and complex, but young scholars who develop the analytical skills of comparativists will be in a position to shed real light on these issues in the years to come.

t a b l e 7 . 2 Authoritarianism in Zim babw e: Theories, Explanations, and Exam ples of Contrary Evidence

Theory Theoretical Explanation Exam ple o f Contrary Evidence

Historical Institutionalist Coalitions of powerful political actors emerge that favor elite domination.

Mugabe's economic policy alienated key economic actors, including industry and commercial farmers.

Poverty and Inequality Poorer citizens seek economic security and allow authoritarian rule.

Mugabe is relatively unpopular among peasants and poor urban dwellers.

State Weakness Weak, poorly institutionalized, predatory state will be authoritarian.

Zimbabwe's state and Mugabe's party and military have exhibited considerable capacity in the past.

Political Culture Cultural values shape type of authoritarian regime that emerges.

Zimbabwe's deep cultural values have little to do with tribalism, but instead have deep emphasis on human rights.

Collective Action Disapproval of the regime is impeded by repression.

Zimbabwe's people have been relatively open to expressing dissatisfaction with the regime.

r TH IN K IN G .C O M P A R A T IV E LY

170 Chapter 7: Authoritarian Regimes and Democratic Breakdown

C h a p te r S u m m a r y Concepts

Authoritarianism refers to political systems that are hierar­ chically ordered and have relatively closed decision-making processes.

Types • There are many different types of authoritarian regimes,

including totalitarian regimes that attempt to control entire societies through ideology, personalist dictatorships cen­ tered around individual autocrats, and bureaucratic-author­ itarian regimes centered around groups such as the military.

• There are also many different possible transitions (or lack of transitions) between regime types other than democratiza­ tion: Authoritarian regimes can persist, they can give way to other authoritarian regimes, or they can turn into hybrid

T h in k in g It T h r o u g h 1. We have discussed in this chapter the distinction often drawn

by political scientists between democratic regimes and "hybrid" or ‘competitive authoritarian" regimes. Where, pre­ cisely, is the line between these sorts of regimes? Consider any two cases of democratic regimes and try to work out what combination of developments would lead you to reclassify them as "hybrid."

2 . We discussed a number of different theories of authoritarian­ ism. Note that the historical institutionalist theories, the eco­ nomic theories, and the political culture theories all aim to explain both the emergence and the persistence of authori­ tarian regimes. Can these theories explain the emergence and persistence of hybrid regimes equally well? If so, demon­ strate how. If not, what sorts of modifications might help them to do so?

regimes, while democracies too can break down and move toward authoritarianism or hybrid regimes.

Causes and Effects • There are many theories about the causes of authoritarian­

ism and its persistence, including theories based on: histori­ cal institutional factors; poverty and inequality; state weakness; political culture; and impediments to collective action.

Th inking Com paratively • Theories about the causes of authoritarianism (like theories

in other areas) may ail find some supporting evidence, and a useful strategy forjudging the power of theories for spe­ cific research questions is also to consider how evidence may disconfirm a theory.

3. Is authoritarianism simply the opposite of democracy? Is it best thought of as an absence of democratic freedoms and rights? Or is democracy best thought of as an absence of authoritarianism? Why?

4. Identify your preferred theory to account for the persistence of authoritarianism in Zimbabwe, Nazi Germany, or another country of your choosing. Consider yourself a theorist associated with this preferred theory. Now imagine you have been called in to consult with the U.S. State Department about the best way to deal with authoritarian regimes the U.S. deems dangerous, such as North Korea, Syria, or Iran. What would your theory imply as a policy recommendation for how to deal with authoritarian regimes?

5. Describe some of the incentives that would make an authoritar­ ian ruler seek to hang onto power, even when he or she senses the regime is unpopular and performing poorly.

CHAPTER 8

Constitutions and Constitutional Design

• Leaders of the transition from apartheid at the adoption of South Africa's democratic constitution, May 1,1996. From left to right in front row: F. W. de Klerk (president 1989-1994), Cyril Ramaphosa, Nelson Mandela (president 1994-1999), and Leon Wessels.

onsider the following passage:

IN THIS C H A P T E R

Concepts 174 Constitutions 174 Constitutional Design 175

Types 176 Flexible and Rigid Constitutions 177 Separation of Powers: Judicial Review and

Parliamentary Sovereignty 178 Federalism and Unitarism 180 Authoritarian and Democratic Constitutions

Causes and Effects: What Are the Effects of Federal Constitutions? 184 Are Federal Constitutions Good for

Social Stability? 185 Are Federal Constitutions Good for

Democratic Rights? 187 Are Federal Constitutions Good for the

Economy? 188 Judicial Review and Democracy 190

TH INK IN G C O M P A R A T IV E L Y

What Explains the S im ilarities Between the Brazilian and South African Constitutions? 193

C A S E S IN C O N T E X T

United Kingdom • Iran India • United States

We, the people o f South Africa, Recognise the injustices o f our past; Honour those who suffered fo r justice andfreedom in our land; Respect those who have worked to build and develop our country; and Believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity.

We therefore, through our freely elected representatives, adopt this Constitution as the supreme law o f the Republic so as to

Heal the divisions ofthe past and establish a society based on democratic values, socialjustice and fundamental human rights;

Lay the foundationsfor a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will o f the people and every citizen is equally protected by law;

Improve the quality o f life o f all citizens and free the potential o f each person; and

183 Build a united and democratic South Africa able to take its rightful place as a sovereign state in thefamily ofnations.

May God protect our people. Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika. Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso. God seen Suid-Afrika. God bless South Africa. M udzimu fhatutshedza Afurika. Hosi katekisa Afrika.

This passage is the preamble to the South African constitu­ tion passed in 1996, which established the foundational laws and was intended to form the basis for democracy in the country, after decades of racial discrimination and white-only rule known as apartheid. One of the functions of constitutions can be to ex­ press the values of a society, especially those relating to the unity and aspirations of the people. The South African charter was a

Nigeria . major step in creating a “New South Africa” based on equality and respect for the dignity of the country’s peoples (even if it

certainly did not solve all the country’s racial problems with the stroke of a pen). The preamble addresses this aspiration and notably concludes with an expression translated into six of the country’s major languages. These aspirations may vary from place to place: The lengthy introductions to China’s and Iran’s constitutions,

172

Constitutions and Constitutional Design 173

for example, document the history of the revolutionary movements that gave rise to the regimes currently in power. The United States too has a famous preamble in its Constitution of 1787: We the People o f the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, providefor the common de­ fence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings o f liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitutionfor the United States o f America.

The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, and most others like it, also does more than express the country’s ideals in writing. It is a very specific legal document that creates a design for the country’s formal political institu­ tions, including the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. It also ad­ dresses the division of power between a central government and the provinces (as they are called in South Africa, which are akin to the states in the U.S.). W ith regard to judiciaries in particular, the South African constitution estab­ lished a very important power of constitutional interpretation: judicial review. Judges were given the authority to rule which laws are consistent with the constitution and which are not. The South African judiciary even ruled on whether the Constitution itself was constitutional, evaluating the text, deter­ mining what was adequate and proper and what was not. It accepted much of the text submitted in 1994 but sent the Constitution back to its drafting body, the Constituent National Assembly, to clarify some issues and rewrite others.

In this chapter, we examine constitutions, the questions of whether and how they separate power between levels o f government, and whether they are interpreted by judiciaries. W e leave the discussion of the constitutional roles of legislatures and executives to the subsequent two chapters, where we treat those two branches of government individually. The issues related to consti­ tutions and constitutional interpretation matter because, in most modern so­ cieties, constitutions establish many of the formal organizational features of the state and thus are keys to understanding politics.

This chapter begins our examination of formal government institutions, which are the structures and organizations that shape political behavior. The most obvious among these are the branches of government, two of which we explore in depth in subsequent chapters (the legislative and executive branches1), and we also include political parties and interest groups that are a regular part of political life. Because the very foundation of political institutions is usually located in constitutions, we focus on these basic charters in this chapter and on the question of constitutional interpretation. How is political power divided among different governing institutions? W ho rules on whether a law is consti­ tutional? We take a close look at these issues and discuss both federalism and judiciaries, which are key elements of what constitutions say and what they do.

institution Social or political structure or set of practices, including government organizations, that shapes the behavior of individuals and groups.

174 Chapter 8: Constitutions and Constitutional Design

constitution Fundamental and supreme laws, usually written in a charter, that establish the basis of a political system and the basis for other laws.

constitutionalism The limitation of government through a constitution.

Concepts We look first at concepts and definitions, outlining what we mean by constitu­ tions, federalism and unitarism, and judiciaries. We then turn to types across different countries, to show how constitutions, constitutional design, and consti­ tutional interpretation may vary from place to place.

Constitutions Constitutions are the foundational charters and fundamental laws of most modern states. They elaborate the structure of government and express the founding prin­ ciples of the regime. They are usually written documents passed by some sort of constitutional convention or constituent assembly that brings together many of a country’s leading political figures to hammer out the rules, laws, and structures needed to establish the basis for political life. This may occur at the founding of a country, as in the case of the United States, or when a new political regime is estab­ lished, as has happened in France many times with the creation of new republics.

Constitutions have come to symbolize the social contracts that societies make to “constitute” themselves, in which “the people” confer authority to political actors in exchange for the establishment of order and a rule of law. The history of constitutions links closely to the idea of constitutionalism, or limited govern­ ment, and is thus part and parcel of the story of the evolution of modern gover­ nance, and especially the emergence of democracy itself.

As the basic founding laws of a society, constitutions are the set of rules and norms on which all other laws are based. In the United States, for instance, the

U .M U IU ;

French protestors against the constitution of 1958.

Concepts 175

Constitution is the ultimate point of political reference: Even the president, as head of state, must act in accordance with its principles. Military enlistees and new citizens swear an oath of allegiance not to the president or the Congress, but to uphold and defend the Constitution “against all enemies, foreign and domes­ tic.” In a real sense, the Constitution is the foundation of its entire political system. In other countries as well, constitutions provide the basis for political unity, defin­ ing who and what the state is. These sets of laws outline the basic structure of the state and its patterns of governance, noting which branches of government have which powers and which responsibilities. In many cases, constitutions recognize or grant the basic rights of a country’s citizens, though these rights are not always guaranteed in every case. Indeed, even highly authoritarian regimes often make use of constitutions, regardless of whether rights are infringed in practice.

In most cases, constitutions are written down in a single document that is subject to change by a process of amendment. They will not attempt to include the massive amount of statutes or laws that are needed to govern the society and establish its policies, but will rather outline how these laws and policies are to be established and who decides on whether they are legitimate. They are, in short, the law above all other law, and the basis for political life.

Constitutional Design Constitutional design refers to the features of the constitution that shape the powers of different political institutions. These features vary, though all constitu­ tions define the basic structure of government. Constitutional design is impor­ tant because it gives countries the chance to set up effective institutions. Consider the example of the United States briefly. The founding of the nation after the American Revolution was mainly the story of writing a constitution that would make one country out of many former colonies. Starting out, it was unclear whether the new nation would survive or would prove vulnerable to disintegra­ tion.2 The Constitution, which has lasted to this day, was designed to correct the deficiencies of the Articles of Confederation, a charter that had left the govern­ ment of the thirteen original colonies operating with little central government power. One of the central issues in the U.S. Constitution was thus dividing powers between the central government and the states. The early history of the American republic was largely about creating a constitution that would allow the country to come together as a political unit. Indeed, the country’s defining event of the following century, the American Civil War, was also about the relative constitutional powers of the states and the central government, specifically re­ garding the issue of slavery and whether states could nullify national laws.

This question of federalism, or the separation of powers among different levels of government in a country, is often central to constitutional design. Federalism is a political system in which multiple levels of government have some degree of autonomy in the same territory. Only in some countries do subnational govern­ ments (such as states, provinces, or regions) have constitutional protection or au­ thority and a guarantee of autonomy from the central government. These may be called federal systems. For instance, the fifty states in the United States or the nine provinces in South Africa have constitutional guarantees of their authority to govern and establish laws in their respective regions, even as the central

constitutional design Features of constitutions that shape the basic features of the political system, such as separation of powers and responsibilities between levels of government and branches of government.

federalism System of government with constitutional design of sepa­ ration of powers between central government and subnational governments.

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unitarism System of government in which central government is predominant and the powers of subnational governments are limited to those delegated by the center.

separation of powers The division of powers in a government system between branches of government or between levels of government.

judiciary The branch of govern­ ment responsible for the interpre­ tation of laws in courts.

judicial review System of constitutional interpretation in which judges rule on the constitutionality of laws passed by legislature and executive.

government also has the right to do so. As the American president (and political scientist) Woodrow Wilson put it, “The question of the relation of the states to the federal government is the cardinal question of our constitutional system.”

By contrast, the absence of federalism is unitary government or unitarism, in which the institutions and branches of the central government effectively wield political power. Most countries in the world are unitary. In these countries, local governments (such as towns, cities, or villages) will have some authority to shape local rules, but the laws made by these local governments are subject to central authority. As we shall see, federalism is not necessarily more or less democratic than unitarism, but its implications for how government works are numerous.

Constitutional design usually also involves establishing a separation of powers among distinct branches, each with its own responsibilities and duties. Constitutions frequently begin by establishing a legislative branch responsible for formulating and passing laws. This may be called a parliament, a congress, or an assembly, or may be given any number of other names, as we examine in the chapter on legislatures (chapter 8). The executive branch (chapter 9) is the other portion of the government that is usually elected, at least in democratic regimes, and the powers and functions of the executive branch are routinely outlined in a constitution as well. For both of these branches, constitutions will often outline the procedure by which representatives are chosen, in addition to the powers they hold and duties they must perform. Constitutions also often address the struc­ ture and power of the judicial branch as well as the structure of the administra­ tive apparatus.3 This delineates the separation of powers between the three “branches” of government: legislatures, executives, and judiciaries. We discuss legislatures and executives in full chapters (9 and 10, respectively), though these are also clearly elements of constitutional design.

Judiciaries are branches of government that have particular importance in how constitutions are interpreted. The principal duty of the judiciary is to preside over cases in courts. This implies the power to interpret the laws put into effect by the other branches of government, but the extent of the judiciary’s power to interpret (and even strike down) laws varies from one country to another. In some countries, judiciaries have considerable powers of constitutional interpreta­ tion, while in other countries, they do not rule on whether laws are constitu­ tional. The principal distinction is the strength of judicial review, which refers to the power of constitutional courts to determine the legality of laws.

These two features—the extent of federalism and the respective roles of the branches of government—are central to both constitutional design and consti­ tutional interpretation. For the remainder of this chapter, we discuss variations in constitutions themselves, as well as the different ways constitutions are de­ signed and interpreted. These variations are considerable, as we will see in the section that follows.

Types There are several ways countries differ in how their constitutions are designed and interpreted. In general, constitutions can be designed to be flexible and easily changed or rigid and difficult to change. A second issue is how the constitution

is interpreted, and specifically whether the judiciary has the power to interpret the constitution. A third element is the degree of federalism in a constitution. Finally, we note that both democratic and authoritarian regimes have constitu­ tions, and these may differ in some ways but may also look quite similar on paper.

Flexible and Rigid Constitutions One of the central distinctions among different types of constitutions is how easily they can be changed. Many constitutions are designed to be relatively difficult to change. Amending them may require supermajorities in each chamber of the legis­ lature (i.e., more than just a simple majority of votes) or approval by a number of the units of the federation—the states, provinces, or regions. Some constitutions, such as that of the United States, are even harder to change. An amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires a two-thirds vote in each of the two houses of Congress, fol­ lowed by approval of three-fourths of the states’ legislatures. It has been amended only twenty-seven times since its passage, and only seventeen times since 1791.

At the other end of the spectrum are highly flexible constitutions that are easy to change, at least nominally. The most obvious case is those that can be changed by a simple majority of the legislature. The Constitution of the United Kingdom is one of the most flexible, at least according to the law. This is because in the British system, the Parliament is sovereign: I f a majority of the legislature passes a law, that law is by definition constitutional.

This flexibility relates to another unique feature of the British constitution. Today, nearly all countries in the world have a single written document (which can be amended) that defines the parameters of the political system. The princi­ pal exception to the rule of written constitutional charters is the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom does not have a single constitutional text, but rather several documents are deemed to have constitutional significance as the country has developed its political system over the course of many centuries. The major con­ stitutional documents include the Magna Carta of 1215, but also a range of other laws of great significance and stature, such as the Bill of Rights of 1689, which emphasized certain limitations on the power of the monarchy, and the Acts of Settlement of 1701, which established patterns of succession to the throne. In this sense, it may be said that the United Kingdom has a “written” constitution, but one that relies on a range of written documents rather than a single one. W hat is considered constitutional in the United Kingdom is also determined by acts of Parliament and precedents in common law. This makes the constitution adaptable as laws and cultural practices change. New Zealand, a former British colony, similarly relies on a set of major acts of Parliament that established the constitutional basis for the country’s governance. This does not, however, mean that the United Kingdom has no constitution; in fact, it has one of the longest traditions of constitutional government in the world.

Apart from the United Kingdom’s constitution, which is based on many doc­ uments and traditions, and the U.S. Constitution, which is a brief framework with a handful of amendments over the years, there are many written constitu­ tions that differ in style and form. As societies have grown more complex, con­ stitutions in more recent years have often grown longer and more intricate as they attempt to balance a range of different interests, institutions, and ideas. The

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South African Constitution, mentioned at the top of the chapter, is an example. So too is the Brazilian Constitution of 1988, as noted in the concluding “Think­ ing Comparatively” section of this chapter.

Constitutions regularly recognize the rights of citizens or grant rights to the citizenry. In the case of the U.S. Constitution, many fundamental rights were actually passed as a set of amendments to the original document, known as the Bill of Rights. Since then, however, many contemporary constitutions (including the South African and Brazilian examples) have incorporated significant rights into the main text from the very beginning, which is likely one cause of constitu­ tions becoming much lengthier over time. That is, articles in the original consti­ tutional texts of many countries specify civil rights and civil liberties, political rights, and social rights (such as access to certain public services).

O f course, rights may be well protected or disrespected in practice, regardless of their inclusion in the document. For example, the Brazilian case is one where constitutional rights and protections have been promised, yet the government has been unable to deliver in some areas such as public services. In such cases, the constitutional guarantees may be more aspirational in nature, even in a dem­ ocratic country. We return later in the chapter to the question of constitutional protections in practice when we look at how constitutions may be somewhat different for authoritarian systems.

Separation of Powers: Jud icial Review and Parliam entary Sovereignty In many (but not all) countries, courts have the power to decide some constitu­ tional issues and rule on whether a law passed by the legislature is constitutional. I f constitutional courts find that the law is not consistent with the constitution or basic laws of a society, they may strike down the law. In these countries, constitu­ tional courts are usually separated from the civil and criminal court systems. In systems with separation of powers, this is the “check” that the judiciary has on the legislature. Constitutional courts are not the only type of courts. Local courts are for local disputes and for claims involving local laws, including arrangements over property (such as buying and selling houses), issues of marriage and divorce, traf­ fic violations, and some criminal offenses.4 Constitutional courts are reserved for major constitutional issues about whether a law passed by the government is valid.

The process by which national courts examine the constitutionality of law is called judicial review. Most constitutions provide for a process of judicial review in which constitutional courts have judges who rule on the constitutionality of law. Judicial review is the central political power of the judiciary, and it occurs when judges examine the constitutionality of a law passed by the legislature. In countries with judicial review, the constitution is seen as the supreme law of the land, and it is the role of the courts to verify that laws passed by the legislature are consistent with the constitution.

Judicial review generally operates with a high court or “supreme court” at the pinnacle of the judicial system that serves as the final arbiter of constitutional law. This may be built on top of a system that has “lower courts” in different states, provinces, or localities around the country.5 The high court is composed of a select number of established jurists or justices. (In the United States, there are

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nine justices on the Supreme Court, nominated by the president and approved by the Senate for life terms.) In systems with judicial review, the decisions of such courts are often final and can be overturned only by subsequent judicial decisions or by legislatures amending the constitution itself. This system of constitutional interpretation by judges is regularly a source of debate and disagreement in the United States and in other countries, as discussed in the “Causes and Effects” section later in the chapter.

The most prominent examples of countries without constitutional courts and judicial review are those where the constitutionality of law is determined by the parliament. In such cases, the judicial system is composed of courts that rule on the merits of specific cases in accordance with the laws that exist, without ques­ tioning the legitimacy of those laws. O f course, here too there may be some in­ terpretation of what the laws mean, but the court is not empowered to strike down or alter laws passed by the legislature. The United Kingdom is the most noteworthy example. In the United Kingdom there is no high court empowered to rule on most matters of law; the few minor exceptions relate to the question of how some powers have been decentralized to the regions of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and this has been true only since 2009.6

Constitutional interpretation in the United Kingdom generally follows the doctrine known as parliamentary sovereignty. This means that if the legislature—often called the Parliament—passes a law, that law is, by definition, constitutional. The legislating body is the highest political and legal authority in the land. In theory, the British Parliament could easily overturn long-standing parts of the British constitution at a moment’s notice.

parliamentary sovereignty System in which the constitutionality of laws passed by legislature and executive are not subject to constitutional interpretation by judiciary.

Delegates to Brazil's Constituent Assembly celebrate the passage of the country's constitution in 1988.

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W hy has this not happened? W hy has there not been massive zigzagging in terms of what the constitution means, from one election to the next, as new par­ ties take power and lose power? In reality, the British Parliament refrains from overturning the founding laws of the polity because it follows national norms, values, customs, and traditions. Much as American political parties would prob­ ably not envision getting rid of major elements of the Constitution, even if they had the supermajority they would need, so too the British system exhibits consti­ tutional stability from one elected government to the next. It may seem self- evident that demanding procedures have kept the U.S. Constitution from being amended more frequently, but the United Kingdom shows that procedure is not the only determinant of how and when constitutions change. Consensus in the society matters, as do tradition, habit, custom, and values.

Federalism and Unitarism The distinction between federal and unitary countries (and countries in between) is a fundamental difference in the way power is divided in a society. Federal countries have a system in which power is separated between the central govern­ ment and some subnational governments that are partly autonomous. In unitary systems, power is located at the center. In unitary states, the center may delegate certain powers to local, regional, state, or provincial governments, but it retains the constitutional or legal authority to reverse its decision at virtually any time.

F ed eralism The question of ruling large, complex territories is perennial, but the idea of fed­ eralism as a solution came more recently.7 The United States was an early leader in establishing federalism (along with Switzerland). Led by James Madison, con­ sidered the “Father of the Constitution” and a leading author of The Federalist Papers, the nation’s founders developed an intricate political compromise de­ signed to satisfy both the larger and smaller of the thirteen original colonies that came together to create the new nation. As the colonies became states in the union, the American system reserved considerable rights to those states that the central government (called the “federal government”) could not infringe on. They backed up these rights in the form of a Senate where each state was to have equal representation, regardless of population. This idea of compromise between central power and regional (or state or provincial) power came to appeal in a range of contexts. Other countries did not adopt the American system in its en­ tirety, but many saw virtue in the general approach to reconcile national and subnational interests.

Today, many federal countries around the world have intricate sets of interact­ ing institutions. Originally designed to unify diverse territories while preserving subnational autonomy, federal institutions now do more than simply offer a way to ensure that nations do not fall apart: They divide governing power and allow some laws and policies to vary from place to place within a country, even as some national laws (and the national constitution) take precedence everywhere inside the borders.8 Federalism is now seen by some as a strategy to ensure more than stability and protection, as it may also promote democratic inclusion, as well as capture the benefits of economic unity. For these reasons, many of the world’s

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No Constitution? No Supreme Court? Constitutionality in the United Kingdom PAGE 548

The United Kingdom has no single document that counts as its written constitution, and it also has no process of judicial review to interpret the constitution on most matters. It is the archetypal case of parliamentary sovereignty. The British constitution is thus one of the most flexible in the world. Yet there is considerable continuity in the system: The country has a long-standing set of traditions and values that seems to transmit the meaning of the constitution from one generation to the next. How does this system work, and what are its consequences?

See the case study on the United Kingdom in Section VI, pp. 548-549. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. In what ways does the doctrine of parliamentary sover­ eignty link together the various themes of this chapter: a flexible constitution, federalism versus unitarism, and ju­ dicial review?

2. Would this sort of constitution be feasible in a new coun­ try today, or is it feasible only in the relatively unique cir­ cumstances of Britain's history?

3. In what ways could one make a case that the U.K. system is more or less democratic than the U.S. system?

largest countries either are federal or have prominent features that resemble federalism.

Although only about twenty of the nearly two hundred total countries in the world are considered federal, these twenty countries account for a large portion of the world’s population. Many of the largest and most populous countries are federal, including the world’s four most populous countries after China: India, the United States, Indonesia, and Brazil. Other federal countries include Nigeria, which has the largest population of any African country, and Pakistan, Russia, Mexico, and Germany, which are some of the largest countries in their respective regions of the world. Using a relatively inclusive definition designed to capture virtually any country that might be considered federal, we have constructed Map 8.1.

There are debates about whether many of the countries shaded in Map 8.1 are reliably federal (such as Spain and Pakistan). Several institutional elements and historical features may suggest otherwise, and federal countries do not always respect real autonomy for subnational units. Conversely, other countries may have some federal features yet remain unitary states, as is the case with China, where provinces have gained economic and political autonomy relative to the central government in recent years. China shows that some countries can seek the benefits of decentralized government without necessarily establishing federalism.

Federal systems may be defined as those where subnational governments have constitutional guarantees of some power and autonomy in their own jurisdic­ tions, as well as constitutional protections from infringement on the part of the central government. In practical terms, virtually all federal countries share other characteristics: an upper legislative chamber defined in the constitution with ter­ ritorial representation for the states/provinces/regions that provides them with political protection, and full legislative and executive branches at the subnational

182 Chapter 8: Constitutions and Constitutional Design

CO N TIN EN T A FR IC A A SIA EU RO PE NO RTH AM ERICA SO U TH AM ERICA O C EA N IA

FE D E R A L CO U N TR IES

Comoros Ethiopia Nigeria South Africa

India Indonesia Malaysia Pakistan Russia United Arab Emirates

Austria Belgium Bosnia & Herzegovina Germany Spain Switzerland

Canada Mexico United States

Argentina Brazil Venezuela

Australia Micronesia

Map 8.1 Federal systems around the world (in yellow).

level.9 W hile the specific definitions may vary, it is clear that federalism is intended to ensure representation for the subnational level in national decision-making.

U n ita rism Most countries in the world are unitary states, in which the central government is the only level of government specified in the constitutional charter. In unitary states, power is not constitutionally divided between layers of government but resides exclusively in the central government. This central government may then create (or allow for the creation of) more local levels of government, but these lower levels are dependent on the center and often accountable to the center. Municipalities, prefectures, counties, or other local governments may elect offi­ cials locally, but these will generally have little power. To use a translation from the French, the republic is “one and indivisible.” Local governments may be able to elect officials, but the national government will make most significant policy. For instance, the center may establish the national school curriculum and may staff the offices of the health service, with relatively little scope for discretion at the local level.

Unitarism is especially prevalent in countries with certain characteristics. One is small size, as contrasted with the large size of most federal states. Most countries that are small are also unitary, with the exceptions being a handful of federal countries composed of a cluster of small islands.10 Another tendency is for unitarism to hold in places where the population is ethnically, linguistically, and culturally homogeneous. Federalism seems to take root more where populations are linguistically diverse, as in Belgium and Switzerland, which are divided into different linguistic communities. Finally, unitarism may vary at least in part on colonial heritage. For example, former French colonies in Africa have long tended to follow the highly unitary features of France itself, while former Spanish and British colonies have varied in their structures.

Authoritarian and D em ocratic Constitutions Historically, making government constitutional meant eliminating the divine right or absolute power of monarchs, such as kings, queens, princes, sultans, or emperors. Constitutionalism, as established in western Europe progressively over the centuries, meant preventing such rulers from exercising power in an arbitrary fashion, and holding them at least partially accountable to the will of at least some of the people. As the power of monarchs faded in many countries, the drafting of constitutions became one way to limit the power of government, to divide and separate power such that a single person or family could no longer dominate. In parts of Europe, for example, constitutional monarchy was seen as distinct from divine right monarchy or absolute monarchy, because executive power came to be derived by a mandate from the consent of the governed.11

Still, not all countries with constitutions exhibit the characteristics of democ­ racy and limited government. In fact, the actors that demanded constitutional­ ism and the end of absolute monarchy were in many cases themselves elites, nobles, revolutionaries, or military leaders. They were not always interested in political rights and civil liberties for all, and they did not always represent the people. For many centuries, the rights established in constitutions were often restricted to a small subset of the population, such as property-owning males of a certain racial or ethnic background.12

Even today, not all political systems are perfectly constitutional, nor are all systems legitimate, fair, and just. Writing down a set of basic laws and rights on paper does not guarantee that those laws and rights will take effect or be enforced in practice; some countries that have constitutions fail to protect rights. Authori­ tarian regimes usually have constitutions, even where they deny political rights and civil liberties to their people. Such regimes may seek to establish their legiti­ macy on the basis of claims made in the constitution. For instance, a revolution­ ary socialist government may draft a constitution holding that the Communist Party is the sole entity capable of expressing the general will of the people. This would not seem “democratic” or “constitutional” to the minds of most people who value individual rights and liberties, but the document itself could nonethe­ less be recognized as a constitution. Other authoritarian regimes may place less importance on political parties (or may outlaw parties entirely) and instead vest the ruler(s) with the authority to determine what the population as a whole requires.13

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Authoritarian constitutions will not typically declare dictatorial rule, how­ ever, and in fact may appear quite progressive in terms of the rights and powers they list. Even totalitarian regimes may formulate extensive sets of rights in their constitutions, at least on paper, whether they defend these in practice or not.14 In some instances, authoritarian regimes may even outline some rights that a demo­ cratic constitution may not contemplate. For instance, the constitution of the Soviet Union established rights such as guarantees of education, access to health care, housing, and a pension in old age, none of which are listed in the United States Constitution. Some authoritarian regimes simply continue to govern under the constitutional charter of a previous democratic regime but will suspend or override certain elements of the constitution. Military regimes have been known to establish martial law or states of emergency, which sometimes extend for long periods of time and during which normal constitutional principles do not apply. This is often done using the justification that national security requires exceptional measures.

Some countries also base part of their judicial and legal system on another authority: official religious law. This tendency is most noteworthy in the Islamic world, where sharia law plays an important role in many countries, though the use of religious law is not limited to Muslim countries. Sharia law is based on the Qur’an (Koran), the Holy Book of Islam, and to a lesser extent on other core Is­ lamic texts. Countries that follow sharia have judges and clerics that rule in con­ junction with their interpretations of the Qur’an. Judiciaries in both Saudi Arabia and Iran are linked to the state religions, and they rule on the basis of religious law in many areas. Even interpretations of issues not treated directly in the Qur’an are reasoned by analogy with reference to the Holy Book or to the words and deeds (known as the sunnah and the hadith) attributed to the Prophet Muhammad.

Religious law is not necessarily authoritarian, nor does it characterize all Muslim countries. For instance, Turkey is a majority Muslim country that is politically secular. Other countries, such as India and Indonesia, make partial use of Islamic law, such as applying it in certain kinds of legal cases between Muslims (such as family law about marriage, divorce, and parenthood between Muslims). Israel, the United Kingdom, and other countries make provisions for the use of religious law by Orthodox Jews and others, largely as an option for use by populations who wish to resolve such matters in religious courts. In fact, one leading scholar has argued that recent years have seen a rise in “constitutional theocracy,” in which constitutional law is combined with recognition of an offi­ cial state religion and some use of religious beliefs or texts as a foundation for law.15

Causes and Effects: What Are the Effects of Federal Constitutions? Two essential questions in the study of political institutions are (1) whether a given design is superior to others and (2) whether the ideal institution depends on country contexts. Political scientists engage in extensive debate over the relative merits of different forms of institutions, whose foundations may lie in

Causes and Effects: What Are the Effects of Federal Constitutions? 185

Constitutional Design: Theocracy in Iran PAGE 476

In Iran (and in Saudi Arabia), clerics have considerable power, both at the pinnacle of the political system and at lower levels of government. Some analysts may see this power as emerging

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran in 2012. Behind him is a picture of his predecessor and leader of the Iranian Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

from a dominant cultural feature and thus reflective of the norms of the people. Some may also see it as fitting that different societ­ ies have different systems reflecting cultural differences. For others, basing law on a single religion (and a single religious text, as interpreted by clerics) constrains, by definition, the rights and liberties of those who are not Muslim or otherwise religious.

See the case study on Iran in Part VI, pp. 476-477. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. Flow is the judiciary an especially powerful branch of government in Iran, and what are its powers?

2. Are there checks on the judiciary's power, and if so, what are they? Or should the country be seen as a case of "judicial sovereignty" as opposed to parliamentary sovereignty?

3. Is it possible to conceive of religious law that is compati­ ble with democracy— and if so, how?— or is separation of religion and the state a necessary feature of democracy— and if so, why?

constitutions, as we’ve discussed. We can consider at least three substantial ques­ tions about the consequences of federal constitutions: (1) Are they good for social stability, (2) Are they good for protecting democratic rights, and (3) Are they good for the economy? We consider these questions here, as well as whether ju­ dicial review is necessary in protecting rights and upholding the law.

Are Federal Constitutions G ood for Social Stability? To help answer the question of stability, we can start by looking at the origins of federalism and unitarism in different societies. A long-standing argument held that federalism was the result of disparate political units coming together for the purpose of security, with the post-revolutionary United States being the classic example.16 It may also be, however, that countries go federal in order to hold to­ gether; that is, they may devolve authorities to regions to prevent secession or division.17 As for unitarism, here too the causes may be found in deep historical legacies, including efforts by monarchs long ago to consolidate power or to unify authority. As noted in chapter 3, the modern nation-states of Europe were cre­ ated from the merging of much smaller units such as principalities, as well as the splintering of large empires.

From one perspective, federalism may be an institution uniquely capable of holding together a polity. By conferring powers to levels of government below the national, federalism may give more people a stake in the political system. If certain regions or groups feel they have greater autonomy, then they may be

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IN S IG H T S Federalism: Origin, Operation, Significance by William Riker

Riker's work is one of the leading arguments about what causes federal systems to emerge. In his examination of the creation of federal systems from the American Revolution up to the 1960s, Riker finds one commonality across diverse cases: Fed­ eralism is the result of a bargain among regional actors and a prospective national government that is driven by external threats. Riker also notes that the American federal system is rela­ tively centralized, because most of the institutions of the na­ tional government do not serve the interests of the states, and the center prevails in most disputes involving the center and the states. The exception that keeps American government from

being totally centralized is the system of political parties, which ensures that some power remains with local actors, due to how candidates are nominated, among other factors. Despite offering considerable explanation of the origin and operation of federal­ ism, Riker surprisingly concludes that federalism is an institu­ tional arrangement of relatively little significance, noting the fundamental similarities in governance between federal and unitary states. William Riker, Federalism: Origin, Operation, Significance. Boston: Little, Brown, &

Co., 1964.

more willing to participate instead of demand independence. Movements de­ manding separatism, secession, or break-up of a country will gain less traction in countries where these groups have powers reserved to them by a federal constitu­ tion. One such approach has been taken by Ethiopia, where the constitution ac­ tually gives different regional groups the right to secede (though it is unclear how this would work in practice). The expectation is that by giving autonomy and power to the ethnic groups, and by offering an out, the constitution will encour­ age compromise and enhance the recognition of the merits of unified govern­ ment. By this logic, federalism enhances stability.

On the flip side, federalism might lead to exacerbating differences and under­ mining stability. By drawing significant lines (almost literally) between different groups, federal systems may end up encouraging different regions of the country

IN SIG H TS Federalism and Democracy: Beyond the U.S. Model by Alfred Stepan

Stepan offers a corrective to the argument offered by Riker, noting that many instances of federalism in established coun­ tries are not the result of “coming together," but of central gov­ ernments working on "holding together" different groups in a single country. Examples may include India, Belgium, and Spain. In addition, Stepan notes there are two other ways that federal countries may be unlike the American model. First, federal sys­ tems may vary in how much power is given to the territorial chamber, such as a Senate. Some forms of federalism have pow­ erful chambers that protect the interests of the states or prov­ inces by giving voters in some areas a disproportionate number

of representatives. Finally, Stepan notes that some instances of federalism are "asymmetrical," with greater powers given to some subnational regions than others. In addition to the three "multinational" countries mentioned previously, Canada also fits this model: Its French-speaking province of Quebec has been recognized as a "distinct society" from the other provinces in ma­ jority Anglophone Canada. In sum, Stepan notes the diversity of federal arrangements and argues that all federalism does not follow the U.S. model. Alfred Stepan, ‘Federalism and Democracy: Beyond the U.S. Model.' Journal of Democracy 10, No. 4 (1999): 19-39.

Causes and Effects: What Are the Effects of Federal Constitutions? 187

Federalism and the States in Nigeria: Holding 1 Together or Tearing Apart? PAGE 519

Nigeria is one of the most interesting cases in the world for the study of how federalism relates to secession and violence. The country began with three regions around the time of indepen­ dence in 1960, and after a civil war broke out among the regions in the late 1960s, governments have created new states in an at­ tempt to defuse conflict. Federalism is thus explicitly linked to the question of stability.

See the case study on Nigeria in Part VI, pp. 519-520. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

What is the nature of regional divisions in Nigeria, and along what lines are people in the country divided? In what ways could expanding the number of states be expected to address the challenge of stability and vio­ lence between regions? To what extent have the attempts to further federalism contributed to reducing conflict, and to what extent can we know how successful it has been?

to develop independent identities. This question emerges in Canada, where Quebec nationalism may have grown as the province’s autonomy has increased. In other countries with more precarious economies and more fragile societies, such as Nigeria, ethnic minorities or regions that feel they are being treated un­ fairly by the central government are often critical of the federal system. In some such cases, they may increase demands for secession or separation, which may even explode into ethnic violence.

Are Federal Constitutions G ood for Dem ocratic Rights? Federalism may have an impact on democracy in ways similar to those discussed earlier: Federal institutions may make government more stable and may facilitate democratic incorporation of the demands of many groups, or federalism may reinforce divisions. Beyond the question of whether federalism is likely to make democracy persist, we may also find the question of democratic rights.

Consider a very heated cultural debate, such as abortion in the United States and many other countries, and how it relates to the question of federalism. The pro-life position holds that embryos and fetuses are people and therefore have a right to live (usually starting from the time of conception), implying that the bio­ logical mother may not choose to abort a pregnancy. The pro-choice position holds that a woman has a right to have control over her own body with respect to reproduction, and that the government may not dictate to her what she must do in terms of the decision to terminate a pregnancy.

There are many ethical, moral, and legal aspects to such a debate, but for the moment we ask only a question about federalism. One perspective on abortion has been a “states’ rights” perspective, which maintains that different states in the United States (say, liberal Vermont and conservative Alabama) should be allowed to have different laws governing abortion, which would reflect the different sets of values and beliefs of the majorities in each place. This structure would allow different parts of a federal country to express their own views on rights and would be consistent with some of the perceived advantages of federalism.

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Now consider another perspective. Whichever side of this debate you may come down on (pro-life or pro-choice), it is worth asking the following question with respect to federalism: Should people have different fundamental rights in a country, depending on where they happen to be born or live? Let’s say that Ver­ mont adopted a more pro-choice set of policies and Alabama a more pro-life set of policies. If you favor the pro-life argument, should a human embryo or fetus in Vermont have fewer rights than one in Alabama? Should Vermont be allowed to adopt its set of policies because of federalism? If you favor the pro-choice argu­ ment, should a woman in Alabama have fewer reproductive rights and less choice than one in Vermont? Should Alabama be allowed to adopt its set of policies because of federalism?

It seems clear that different regions (such as states) should be allowed to pass their own preferred laws and policies to reflect the democratic wishes of their residents. On the other hand, it seems that some major debates get down to ques­ tions of constitutional rights that may need to apply everywhere in a society. This question is fundamentally about what is in a constitution and what federalism should be. The question about democracy and rights under federal constitutions is not straightforward, as this example shows.

Are Federal Constitutions G ood for the Economy? Federalism may be good or bad for an economy, depending on one’s point of view and on circumstances. On one hand, some see federalism as generating healthy competition among states or regions, which can be good for the economy. If state A sees that businesses are relocating to state B next door (maybe for reasons of lower taxes or better public services, for example), then state A may do its best to govern in a way more like state B (say, by lowering taxes or providing better ser­ vices). Such situations will exert a form of positive peer pressure for good economic policies that will benefit the country over the long run. Federalism, by inducing economic competitiveness among states, approximates the kind of competition one sees in a market, which may be good for the economy. O f course, this idea of healthy competition implies that states will perform differently from one another, which may lead to significant differences in development and opportunities within a federal country, as the case of India shows (see the “Case in Context” box).

Along with inducing healthy competition, decentralizing power is theorized to have another advantage: It can allow people to sort themselves into different jurisdictions along with other people who share their policy preferences. Let’s say town X and town Y are side by side. Town X has higher taxes and better-funded schools, while town Y has lower taxes and less school funding. Maybe a family with young children in school will wish to live in town X, and a retired couple with grown children will prefer to live in town Y. Decentralized government can accommodate both, whereas more centralized government would impose the same tax rate and the same amount of school funding for both families.18 This example is more truly a question of decentralization than of federalism, since it deals with local communities, but the principle also extends to federalism and the roles of states, regions, or provinces.

In federal systems, the state or provincial level of government often has a great deal of responsibility in many public services. In the United States, states have a

Causes and Effects: What Are the Effects of Federal Constitutions? 189

India is one of the world's fast-growing economic powerhouses, but it is also the country in the world with the largest number of people living in extreme poverty. Some of the dramatic differ­ ences in development in India can be understood by looking at differences across states. Some states have performed very well, while others have performed quite poorly. The country retains a politics that has a very regional flavor, despite decades of efforts at political centralization.

See the case study on India in Part VI, pp. 464-465. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

Development in India page464

1. What are the positive and negative examples of develop­ ment in India's states, and what lessons does each of these offer?

2. What factors can account for the variations in the perfor­ mance of Indian states?

3. What lessons do you draw from the Indian case about whether federalism might contribute to poverty reduc­ tion or perhaps worsen poverty?

major role in deciding on issues of health policy and in providing support to the poor, while local governments have the most significant responsibilities in pri­ mary and secondary education. Public schools are funded primarily from local taxes, and more Americans participate in local school boards than in any other type of elective office. In many countries around the world—federal and unitary alike—local governments commonly oversee such issues as local sanitation, local roads, and services such as the police, parks, and public lighting.

Although federalism and decentralization have many arguments in their favor, they can complicate economic performance in many circumstances. In countries such as Argentina and Brazil, states and provinces have acted irrespon­ sibly, overspending and forcing the central government to bail them out.19 Situa­ tions like this make economic management difficult, because the states know there is always someone there to bail them out if they overspend; they have a soft budget constraint rather than a hard budget constraint.21 We often see this

Fiscal Federalism by Wallace Oates

Oates developed a "decentralization theorem" of the advan­tages of decentralized government and federalism under certain circumstances. First, Oates argued that federalism al­ lowed for local governments that are closer to their constituents than the central government, and that this allows them to have better information about what local residents need or want. They can use this information to better provide services. Oates also built on the argument that giving local governments the authority to offer different services would allow people to pick and choose where they want to live, based on the mixes of taxes

and services they would get in each place.20 While central gov­ ernments would be needed to provide for truly national needs, such as defense and a common currency, the decentralized gov­ ernments would be better equipped to make decisions about many local issues. The practice of decentralization raises many issues, including which services are local and which are national, but this theory served as a summary and basis for future debates over what should be the responsibility of central versus local or state governments. Wallace Oates, Fiscal Federalism. New York:Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972.

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judicial activism Term used, often pejoratively, to characterize judicial actions that actively reinterpret legislation and thus imply exercising powers typically reserved for the legislative branch.

problem in federal countries where states can exercise a lot of leverage over the national political process through representatives in the legislature, such as sena­ tors.22 In general, federalism can create incentives for politicians to overspend and be fiscally irresponsible.23

Moreover, federalism can allow for inefficient resource allocation. One exam­ ple may be that the Senates of Brazil and of the United States routinely allocate monies disproportionately to less populous, more rural states. In issues from farm policy to national security, smaller states are able to use their leverage in the federal system to guarantee for themselves certain benefits in the form of government funds. We cannot draw a firm conclusion, therefore, about whether federalism is good or bad for the economy (or for stability or democracy); as comparativists recognize, context and other conditions matter.

Ju dicial Review and D em ocracy Along with the division of power between levels of government implied by the issue of federalism versus unitarism, another prominent feature of most consti­ tutions is the division of power among branches of government. In particular, one major question is who is responsible for interpreting the constitution, as noted earlier in the section on judiciaries. A judiciary with constitutional powers of review can engage in an interpretation of the laws, and a question for many observers is whether this is appropriate and to what extent. In the United States, one of the biggest debates about the judicial system is over judicial activism, a term that has a negative connotation for many observers.24 Judicial activism is a hot-button issue in the United States, and the phenomenon is also recognized and debated in other countries as well. According to critics, unelected judges and justices may take advantage of the power of judicial review to essentially legislate from the bench, as opposed to situating lawmaking power with the representatives in the legislature. This practice may take some of the most heated and controversial debates out of the democratic process by removing them from

Beyond the Fiction of Federalism: Economic Management IN S IG H T S in Multi-Tiered Systems

1 by Jonathan Rodden and Erik Wibbels & Rodden and Wibbels note that federalism can prove harmful to the economy rather than beneficial to it under certain cir­ cumstances. They argue that whether federalism is good or bad for the economy depends upon other institutions, such as how political parties are structured and how state (or provincial) gov­ ernments obtain their revenues. For example, if state govern­ ments rely on money transferred from the central government for their revenues, they frequently overspend because they can pass on the costs of their spending to the center. On the other hand, if state governments get most of their revenues from their own taxes, they may spend more responsibly and not put the

national economy at risk. Political parties matter because central government leaders that have political leverage over state-level officials can hold them to compliance with what the center wishes, while a political party system in which the center has little control over state-level actors is more problematic. Each of these scholars continues and develops related arguments in sub­ sequent books, highlighting political incentives and the need for hard budget constraints for states if federalism is to work well.25 Jonathan Rodden and Erik Wibbels, "Beyond the Fiction of Federalism:

Economic Management in Multi-Tiered Systems.'WoM Politics 54, No. 4 (2002): 494-531.

Causes and Effects: What Are the Effects of Federal Constitutions?

the arena of elections, public debates, and protests, and placing them in the arena of lawsuits, legal challenges, and the rulings of a small number of un­ elected judges in robes.

For some, judicial review is crucial to protecting rights and upholding the law.26 By this argument, judges have the role of interpreting laws to ensure com­ pliance with the letter of the constitution and legal precedent. Proponents of an active judiciary may argue that courts have often led legislatures (rather than followed them) in the recognition and expansion of fundamental rights. For this reason, proponents might argue, a judicial system has the task to interpret laws and guarantee that they are consistent with rights and obligations laid out in constitutions. One can witness both sides of this debate, for instance, in the question of whether judiciaries can and should require that a state offer marriage benefits to same-sex couples. Judges hold different perspectives on the role of courts in interpreting constitutions, as is evident in court decisions themselves— which are authored by judges— or in the writings of those judges and justices.

As a result of the political heat it generates, “judicial activism” is a term sus­ ceptible to unclear definition. For instance, critics of judicial activism in the United States have often been conservative critics of justices’ rulings on social and cultural issues, such as the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973, which legalized abortion, and recent judicial decisions at the state level to expand civil union benefits and marriage rights to gay couples. However, studies in the 2000s showed that on the U.S. Supreme Court, the justices who most frequently voted to overturn Congressional laws were the more conservative members.27 More­ over, several of the rulings listed previously for the United States—including

A ceremony to install the new chief justice in France's Cour de Cassation, the country's highest judicial body for civil and criminal matters. France shows that not all judiciaries are structured the same: It has a separate constitutional council (Conseil Constitutionnel) to determine the constitutionality of laws.

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some widely acclaimed and unanimous rulings—may be seen as activist in retro­ spect. As you consider the case of constitutionality in the United States (see the “Case in Context” box), you can use your own analysis to determine if any rulings fall under this definition.

There is one clear way to end judicial activism: End judicial review. This is not merely a thought experiment or hypothetical exercise. In fact, as noted earlier, one can look to the United Kingdom as a model. One argument against extensive use of judicial review is that judiciaries remove contentious issues from the public arena. According to this argument, debates about the most fundamental issues in a democracy are fought out by the strongest ideologically committed advocates in front of unelected judges. These issues are thus examined and decided on by small groups and powerful individuals, and they may not be reflective of broader public opinion. Those arguing against judicial activism would often prefer to have society’s most contentious issues decided in legislatures rather than in courts. The United Kingdom prevents judicial activism by granting the legisla­ tive branch of government an unambiguously higher power than the judicial branch. One way to view opposition to judicial activism is to ask about the extent to which one would sacrifice judicial review. Put another way, judicial review and some degree of judicial activism are the flip side of the checks and balances be­ tween branches of government.

Most countries with written constitutions do have a constitutional court that is responsible for judicial review. By some accounts, the power of judiciaries has increased around the world over time. It should be noted that the debate is not limited to the United States and United Kingdom but, rather, stretches around the world. W hether judicial review has been beneficial to democracy remains open to interpretation.

Whatever its causes, the debate persists between advocates of powerful judi­ cial review processes who argue that judges often lead the law, asserting human rights that may take a long time to work through legislative channels, and those who see it as undue interference by unelected judges in major political issues. Both parliamentary sovereignty and separation of powers are compatible with democracy; they are simply different ways of understanding how constitutions should be interpreted.

CASE IN CONTEXT

Is Judicial Activism in the United States a Problem? PAGE 563

For over two hundred years, the United States has enshrined the principle of judicial review of laws. Courts can strike down laws passed by Congress, if it deems the law to be in violation of the Constitution. The tension between the powers of Congress and those of the judiciary are not easily resolved.

See the case study on the United States in Part VI, pp. 563- 564. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. What might be some of the challenges and problems of judicial activism?

2. Can you think of circumstances in which judicial activism would be appropriate and desirable?

3. What sorts of issues should be decided by the judiciary, and what sorts of issues should be decided by elected lawmakers?

What Explains the Similarities Between the Brazilian and South African Constitutions? 193

IN SIG H T S Toward Juristocracy: The Origins and Consequences of the New Constitutionalism by Ran Hirschl

& H

irschl observes a move toward powerful judiciaries around the world in recent decades and asks about the causes and

consequences of this change. He looks at the causes of greater judicial power— or "juristocracy," as he calls it— in Canada, Israel, New Zealand, and South Africa. For Hirschl, the decision to create strong judiciaries comes from strategic calculations made by some elites, who believe that their interests will be better pro­ tected by judiciaries than by elected officials; that is, they believe that encoding certain principles as constitutional rights will pro­ tect their dominance. When these elites are under threat, a

coalition of economic leaders, political leaders, and members of the judiciary can combine to create a constitutional system where challenges to their power can be debated in terms of rights to be protected by the judiciary, and thereby removed from most public political debate. Hirschl argues that a conse­ quence of increasing judicial review is not the progressive expan­ sion of rights, nor enhanced democracy, but rather a protection of the interests of elites. Ran Hirschl, Towards Juristocracy: The Origins and Consequences of the New Constitutionalism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007.

What Explains the Similarities Between the Brazilian and South African Constitutions?

Contemporary Brazil and South Africa were quite different places in many ways when they both convened constituent assemblies to write new consti­ tutions in the late 1980s (in Brazil) and early 1990s (in South Africa). South Africa was emerging from a long history of racial injustice and segregation in the system known as apartheid from 1948 to 1994. Conflict in the society was cen­ tered on the state’s oppression of the black majority, and the responses of black South Africans to that oppression, though violence also erupted among and be­ tween ethnic groups. In South Africa, the transition to democracy in the early 1990s took place against the backdrop of attempts to move beyond a racially charged past, with the white-led National Party and the black-majority African National Congress (nominally headed by Nelson Mandela) taking the lead roles in negotiation. Brazil, by contrast, had no such legacy of legal, formal discrimi­ nation (though it certainly had a long history of “unofficial” racism and discrimi­ nation) in the twentieth century. It was a country coming out of two decades of military rule, with the military seeking a peaceable exit from power. We might thus expect them to come up with very different constitutions as their leaders formed conventions to establish a common framework for governance.

Yet the two countries’ constitutions share many fundamental similarities. Most obviously, they both are based on a written constitution. Both constitutions expressed aspirational goals for the countries, but more important, they estab­ lished basic political institutions, and the countries featured many similarities in their constitutional designs. Both established constitutional courts that would become powerful in interpreting the constitutions. Both also established a

TH IN K IN G C O M P A R A TIV ELY

K E Y M E TH O D O LO G IC A L TO O L

Most-Different- Systems Design As noted in chapters 1 and 2, com­ parison can be based on two cases that are quite different in many ways, and not just based on countries that are similar in many ways. Countries that are "most different" can make for very compelling comparisons where one finds a common outcome between them. Since the commonali­ ties come from such different cases, it can give some confidence that they are attributable to some of the few similarities between dissimilar coun­ tries. In some cases, such as the prev­ alence of written constitutions discussed in this chapter, the reasons for the common outcome may be that lots of countries follow a similar logic. For the example here, the two countries of Brazil and South Africa established constitutions with several similar features, including strong

194 Chapter 8: Constitutions and Constitutional Design

principle of shared power between the central government and state or provincial governments; that is, both had a degree of federalism.

Perhaps most noteworthy, however, is the sheer length of the constitutions. As of its adoption, Brazil’s constitution of 1988 had 245 articles and filled a small book with all of its provisions. South Africa’s (approved in 1996) had a very simi-

can ask questions about the causes and consequences of institutions. The reasons for the resulting similarities maybe numerous. We might propose

several hypotheses. Hypothesis 1 could be a matter of historical timing, in that both countries adopted their constitutions at a similar moment in history; this may have mattered more than geographic distance between them. Simply put, constitutions written in an era (like the 1980s and 1990s) may be extensive be­ cause countries have grown compelled to address more sets of rights and issues when drafting a new constitution (for a “new country”). Perhaps socially complex societies (whether due to multiethnic identities or complex economic systems, as both Brazil and South Africa have) require more negotiations between conflict­ ing parties. This may result in extensive constitutions detailing the compromise. The American constitution in the late 1700s might simply not envision all the issues that would emerge in modern societies, but those writing constitutions today may write more thorough contracts. For example, a constitution that re­ ceives input from both men and women of different races, social classes, and ethnic or linguistic backgrounds may necessarily involve more written agree­ ments than one written by a more homogenous group operating on a shared set of assumptions.

O ther hypotheses might also explain the extensive nature of these two constitutions. Hypothesis 2 might be less focused on historical background and more on the powerful actors in the constitution writing process, with an emphasis on the economic and political interests of the negotiators. The po­ litical parties in South Africa, and the politicians and military in Brazil, might have thought it necessary to make clear statements about the rights of all parties in the constitutional convention, with guarantees for both the new democratic governments and provisions that would provide some protection to the departing (non-democratic) government. Hypothesis 3 could be that the cases are not completely independent but are actually linked, in that the South African and Brazilian constitutions may have been modeled on certain aspects of other constitutions (whether in Germany or Mexico). Insofar as

judicial review and institutions to support federalism. This happened despite the fact that the two constitu­ tions were created on different continents and in different social circumstances by rather different groups of actors. The fact that the countries are 'most different" in many ways yet similar in outcomes makes it an intriguing pair of cases for hypoth­ eses about why constitutions take the forms they do.

(continued) lar 243 articles, and took on a comparably huge number of issues: It instituted large numbers of rights beyond the freedoms of speech and liberty, specified rules for issues such as funding for political parties, introduced a variety of mu­ nicipal structures, created a formal role for traditional leaders, established proce­ dures for the division of revenue between the levels of government, and described the design of the national flag. Here, it can be useful to do a brief glance at an­ other “shadow” case that we don’t explore fully: These constitutions are both extensive, especially when contrasted with an American constitution that fits on just a few pages.

W hy might such different countries have such similarly extensive constitu­ tions, with features of judicial review and of federalism? We do not offer defini­ tive statements about why constitutions vary in this way, but illustrate how we

What Explains the Similarities Between the Brazilian and South African Constitutions? 195

countries do not exist in vacuums, the South African and Brazilian constitu­ tions may have been modeled in part on experiences elsewhere. I f research turns up evidence (as is the case) that South African and Brazilian constitu­ tion writers did explicitly look to other constitutions as models when writing their own, that would provide some support for Hypothesis 3.

Hypothesis 4 might identify other key similarities amid the differences be­ tween the countries, much as was discussed in chapter 1. South Africa and Brazil may have many differences, but there are also some key political and social simi­ larities that may affect constitutional design. For instance, both are racially and ethnically diverse, and both have high levels of economic inequality. The consti­ tutions were certainly attentive to potential inequities, which may be construed as evidence for this hypothesis. They are also relatively large countries with vari­ ous identity groups living in different locations; this may favor a degree of feder­ alism (which itself requires more extensive constitutional language than smaller, unitary states).

We will not explore the causality in detail, but as with previous chapters we can simply think about what sort of evidence would support each hypothesis. Research can help determine which of the preceding hypotheses has the strongest support from the empirical evidence, and the findings from a specific comparison of these two cases will then have implications for broader research questions and other countries. W hy do constitutions take similar forms in such different

TH IN K IN G CO M P A R A TIV ELY

Pius Langa (left) and Dikgang Moseneke in 2005. Langa was the first black chief justice of South Africa's constitutional court.

196 Chapter 8: Constitutions and Constitutional Design

TH IN K IN G CO M P A R A TIV ELY

countries? W hy do very different countries adopt federalism under disparate cir­ cumstances? These questions can be asked with respect to comparisons across many countries. Someone with expertise on the Brazil-South African compari­ son (or a similar comparison) will not have the final word on this for all countries but can contribute to thinking comparatively about important political questions such as constitutional design. The comparison can point to fruitful avenues for further research on the design and interpretation of constitutions. The compara­ tive method we outlined in the beginning chapters and used in the previous chapters—including its use of the most-similar-systems design and most-different- systems design—can help us in the area of institutions as well.

O f course, we should note that these two constitutions are not completely similar. They have many differences that can also be the subject of further re­ search. For one, the Brazilian constitution established a system with a president elected by popular vote, while in South Africa, the legislative chamber known as the National Assembly elects the president. The range of questions one could ask about these constitutions is thus considerable, and the same holds for the other major institutions explored in this chapter. Much as we can ask questions about federalism, we might look at seemingly similar countries and ask why one ends up being federal and the other unitary. Both Germany and Italy formed into coherent nation-states in the second half of the nineteenth century, and both have major regional differences internally, so why is one federal and the other unitary? Or, with regard to judiciaries, why have courts become so significant in constitutional interpretation even in former British colonies, given that Britain is the home of parliamentary sovereignty? These sorts of questions serve to show that institutions can be examined using the same comparative perspective devel­ oped and used in the earlier chapters. The possibilities of comparing institutions continue as we look at the branches of government in the next chapters.

C h a p te r S u m m a r y Concepts

• Constitutions are the basic charters of modern states, and they are written documents in most countries. Constitutions lay out the basic framework for government institutions in a country, and they are the foundational laws of that country.

■ • Two of the leading elements of constitutional design are federalism versus unitarism and the power of the judiciary to review for constitutionality laws passed by legislatures.

Types • Federal countries are those in which subnational units

such as states or provinces have some constitutional protection and political autonomy from the national government.

• Unitary countries are those in which the central govern­ ment is sovereign and any subnational administrative units are subordinate to the national government.

• Countries with judicial review have constitutional courts that rule on whether laws passed by the legislature are

Chapter Review 197

in accordance with the constitution, and these courts have the power to strike down legislation as unconstitutional.

• Countries with parliamentary sovereignty do not have judiciaries that review the constitutionality of legislation.

Causes and Effects • Federalism has been associated with enhancing national

stability and democracy under some circumstances, and with conflict in other cases.

T h in k in g It T h r o u g h 1. Imagine the U.S. Constitution were to be lengthened to add one

hundred more articles, like many of the more extensive consti­ tutions in the world today. What would be the likely content of these added articles? If the United States hosted a convention to write a new constitution today, do you believe the resulting document would be as brief as that formulated in the 1780s, or would the result likely be longer? Why?

2. What would happen if all copies (yes, including Internet copies) of the United States Constitution simultaneously dis­ appeared? Would the rule of law break down? Or would the society remain robust and functional? What does your answer to this question imply about whether the text itself is of great import, or social outcomes depend more heavily upon customs and culture?

3. Imagine a country that has just achieved a ceasefire in a de­ cades-long civil war. You have been asked by the government to accompany several constitutional experts to the country to advise the new "constituent assembly," whose job it is to write a new constitution that will ensure "stability, democracy, and

• Federalism has also been linked with improvements in economic growth and development, as well as economic difficulties.

• There is a long-standing debate about whether judicial review contributes to the protection of democratic rights or not.

Th inking Com paratively While many countries have written constitutions, these differ in many ways, and it is an open question whether one country's constitution is suited to other circumstances.

prosperity.” Under what circumstances would you advocate that the country adopt a federal structure?

4. Why has the U.S. Constitution survived for over two centuries? Do you believe it is because of the design of the document itself, or because it happened to be implemented in a place with a certain history, geography, and cultural backdrop? Framed in a comparative sense, is the U.S. Constitution simply well suited to the conditions prevailing in the United States, or would it likely have enjoyed the same longevity elsewhere? Would it only work in large, heterogeneous societies, or only work in societies with our particular history of "coming together," or only in a society relatively far removed from most major foreign wars?

5. The United Kingdom is a country where a wide range of indi­ vidual rights are respected, much like in other democracies. Given that many major rights are well protected, what are the problems with parliamentary sovereignty and a lack of judicial review? Are there any disadvantages of eliminating judicial review (and the potential for judicial activism) in well-estab­ lished democratic societies?

CHAPTER 9

Legislatures and Legislative Elections

• Phil Goff, a prominent Labour Party politician in New Zealand, votes in the 2011 elections.

What can New Zealand teach other countries about how to run a democ­racy? A t first glance, the country is so distinctive that one might say little. The island nation has just over four million people, and its greatest claim to fame may be its intimidating rugby team or that it was the setting for The Lord o f the Rings movie trilogy. Its capital, W ellington, is the southern­ most of any country on earth. Yet this former British colony has an electoral system for its legislature that many countries might wish to consider.

New Zealanders actually have two votes in their parlia­ mentary elections. They have one for a specific individual to represent their district, and one for their most preferred party. W hen all the votes are tallied and computed, the winners in each district go to parliament, just as in many countries around the world, including the United States. But there is a catch: Along with these representatives go a number of additional members chosen from lists made by the political parties. These “at-large” members of parliament are allotted to each party in a way that makes the overall composition of the parliament proportional to the vote each party received. The idea is to give each New Zealander his or her own representative for the local constituency, while making parliament more generally reflec­ tive of party preferences in the country as a whole.

New Zealand is not the only country to use this compli­ cated approach to electing its legislature. In fact, the New Zea­ land model drew some inspiration from Germany’s similar model, as we discuss later in the chapter. W hether the system is ideal or not depends on how each individual believes representa­ tion and legislatures should work, which we also discuss in this chapter. W hat is certain is that considering the relative merits of models like New Zealand’s and Germany’s, as contrasted with other models in countries ranging from the United States to the United Kingdom to Japan to Brazil, will provide insight into both representation and the legislatures that are designed to ensure it.

This chapter offers an introduction to the study o f legislatures, w ith spe­ cific attention to the electoral rules and systems that shape them. We discuss how legislators are elected to represent the citizenry. In the two subsequent chapters, we elaborate on many aspects of representation and elections.

199

IN TH IS C H A P T E R

Concepts 200 What Legislatures Are 200 What Legislatures Do 201

Types 202 Unicameral and Bicameral Legislatures 202 Electoral Systems 205 Executive-Legislative Relations 211

Causes and Effects: What Explains Patterns of Representation? 213 Patterns of Representation 213 Electoral Systems and Representation 215 Legislative Decision Making and

Representation 218 Executive-Legislative Relations and

Representation 220

T H IN K IN G C O M P A R A T I V E L Y

Representation in New Zealand and Beyond 222

C A S E S IN C O N T E X T

United Kingdom • Brazil • Japan Germ any • United States

200 Chapter 9: Legislatures and Legislative Elections

legislature Assembly or body of representatives with the authority to make laws.

Chapter 10 discusses the executive branch, but it must be noted that a discus­ sion of executives cannot always be separated from that of legislatures. As a result, we discuss briefly in this chapter the relationships between legislatures and executives, but leave to the next chapter the way in which many of the issues play out in parliamentary and presidential systems. Similarly, in talking about legislative representation in this chapter, we discuss political parties, but a fuller treatment of those im portant institutions is left to chapter 11.

Concepts Politics is about making laws to govern people, and legislatures are the most important bodies that shape the process of making and changing laws. Legisla­ tors legislate. W hile heads of state and heads of government in the executive branch may be the first individuals that come to mind when we think of politi­ cians, the legislatures of the world are often what we will think of when we view politics as a whole process of governing.

What Legislatures Are Legislatures are deliberative bodies composed of the decision makers who rep­ resent the population at large. Legislatures make laws and many political deci­ sions, especially in democracies, but also even in personalistic dictatorships, which may rely on legislatures in their efforts to seem legitimate or to create the appearance of deliberative decision making. Legislatures are where debates take place about the fundamental values and preferences of voters. They are where interest groups and lobbyists often turn when they seek to influence the political process. They are where presidents and prime ministers often start their careers, and they are also typically the institution in government with the greatest re­ sponsibility for overseeing the conduct of the executive (an institution discussed in greater detail in the next chapter). In these bodies, legislators are of course important political figures, being leaders in major debates, whether in actual face-to-face settings in the legislature itself or through the use of the media.

The rise of legislatures, as opposed to executives, is part and parcel of the story of the emergence of constitutional and democratic regimes. For centuries, the history of representative government was the history of elected legislatures in­ creasingly taking political authority from unelected executives. Parliaments, as­ semblies, congresses, and other legislative bodies asserted their rights to represent the populace, usually critiquing the unaccountable power of monarchs, such as kings, queens, or emperors. O f course, the earliest legislatures were not truly representative in most cases. The Parliament that asserted its authority over King John II of England with the drafting of the Magna Carta in 1215 were not elected “commoners,” but rather nobles in their own right. The French Estates- General revealed its inegalitarian character in its basic structure, with separate meetings for nobles, clergy, and commoners (the “third estate”). Even earlier, in the republics of ancient Rome, membership in the Senate was generally restricted to male property-holders or upper-class patricians. In many forms of colonial

rule, as well, legislatures were initially chosen not by the people at large but rather by an elite subset of the population.

This existence of less-than-democratic legislatures can be found in authoritar­ ian regimes today. In authoritarian systems, legislatures may be selected in a number of ways that exclude a free and open vote. For instance, the legislature may be comprised only of a subset of the population, such as being members of a certain dominant political party. This would be the case in Communist regimes such as China, where only members of the official Communist Party (or their close allies) are elected to office in practice. In other authoritarian regimes, legisla­ tors may be appointed by unelected executives. These are legislatures, even if the quality of representation is suspect.

Despite these non-democratic instances, many countries have moved toward more democracy over time, with more regular elections and the extension of the franchise to more people, most notably women, ethnic minorities, and men of lower social and economic status. Citizens in all contemporary democracies elect legislators, with the population at large having some choice among mul­ tiple political parties and/or candidates. The ability of those citizens to vote directly for the executive branch is not universal. W hile some democratic coun­ tries also have a direct election for the executive (such as a president), many others have an executive elected by the legislature itself, and that executive is nominally responsible to the legislature. In these systems, the people vote for their executives only in an indirect fashion, by choosing a legislature that in turn selects the executive branch of government. This makes the legislature of elected representatives the signature element of virtually any democracy.

What Legislatures Do Representatives generally make law by proposing legislation and then organizing votes and bringing these to the floor of the legislature. Legislators who propose or favor a piece of legislation often undertake the necessary compromises and “horse trading” that enable laws to get passed. The necessary trading and com­ promises may take place among the multiple parties in a governing coalition (as elaborated on in the chapter on executives) or within parties, as different legisla­ tors make specific demands of one another in exchange for “yea” or “nay” votes. Depending on the power of party leaders to control the legislators, it may be necessary to make many concessions to specific legislators.

The specific process of legislation will vary from one legislature to the next. In some instances, a strong executive cabinet may be comprised of members of the legislature itself, and the rules governing legislative elections may make passage of the executive’s favored proposals almost “automatic.” In other circumstances, leg­ islation may have to pass through multiple houses, or may have to work its way through votes of multiple committees just to get to the “floor” for a vote. Indeed, in some systems, the legislative process requires both these and more. In the United States, for instance, proposed legislation must often pass through commit­ tees in each of the two chambers of the legislature, then must pass votes in the whole body, then through a conference committee that reconciles any differences between the two chambers’ bills, before going to the president for a signature.

The powers of legislatures are considerable in most democracies. In many coun­ tries, one of the main powers of the legislative branch is the so-called “power of the

202 Chapter 9: Legislatures and Legislative Elections

bicameral legislature Legislature with two chambers, which may have equal or unequal powers.

chamber An assembly or body of a legislature, often referring to one of two such bodies in a bicameral legislature.

purse.” Legislatures typically have control over government budgets and are empow­ ered to disburse funds to the executive branch and to the administrative agencies, or to cut ofF funding to certain initiatives that are unpopular or that it deems to be mismanaged. This power to allocate resources is one of the reasons executives must be attentive to the needs of legislatures, even in the absence of new laws being passed.

Legislatures often debate as part of the functions of representing the elector­ ate and making legislation, and in doing so they also serve the function of focus­ ing national discussion. Legislatures are where many public debates play out. The halls of the legislatures are designed for speechmaking, discussion, and debate, but this does not only happen in the chamber itself. Legislators also engage in less formal debate by shaping and responding to public opinion in the media and through interactions with citizens who have requests, complaints, arguments, suggestions, ideas, and new perspectives. O f course, not all such debate will be meaningful. Especially in authoritarian regimes, legislative debates may be re­ duced to displays of loyalty to the executive. In North Korea, legislators’ most apparent role is to serve as an applauding audience for a dictator. In democracies too, not all legislators clarify and improve political discussion: they may also obfuscate or muddy the waters of political discussion, or may be beholden to special interests acting against the public good (though many such examples are matters of opinion). And they may—perhaps deliberately— spread misinforma­ tion or misleading information. In principle, however, elected legislators at the national level are expected to be opinion leaders that contribute to national dis­ cussions and propose solutions to public problems.

There are also several overlooked roles of legislatures. One is “socializing” politi­ cians. Legislatures can be a “training ground” for future chief executives, such as presidents and prime ministers.1 Another role is constituent service: Citizens often contact their representatives’ offices for assistance with a variety of concerns specific to local individuals or groups. Last but definitely not least, legislators often try to get reelected.2 Indeed, some scholars believe that the fundamental force driving legisla­ tive action is the push for electoral success.3 Getting reelected may not be part of the “job description” of being a legislator, but it is certainly one of the more time-con­ suming aspects of the job in many countries. This may involve extensive campaigning and fundraising in candidate-centered elections, or working to retain a spot on the political party’s list of favored representatives in systems where electors vote by party.

Types Legislative bodies may take a number of forms. They may have one or more houses or chambers, for example. In addition, the electoral processes that give rise to the legislators are numerous. Elections may involve voting for specific candidates, for political parties generally, or both. These different forms of legislatures and legis­ lative elections give rise to different patterns of representation, as we shall see.

Unicam eral and Bicam eral Legislatures Legislatures consist of one or more houses of assembly. Bicameral legislatures— those with two chambers, or houses—are common in democracies, especially in relatively large countries. This is the case in the United States and many nations

Types 203

Sometimes legislative politics gets heated: Parliamentarians from opposing parties fight in Taiwan, 2010.

in Latin America, for instance, where congresses consist of two legislative cham­ bers, with each having its own name (such as House of Representatives or Cham­ ber of Deputies). Many other countries exhibit a similar structure, using different names to signify the two chambers. In bicameral countries, the lower chamber is usually the one whose composition most closely reflects the population at large. Examples are the House of Representatives in the United States or the House of Commons in the United Kingdom. The upper chamber is usually smaller in size, and its composition is often less directly reflective of the population at large; it may represent territories such as states or provinces, as in the case of the Senate in many countries, or specific groups, such in the House of Lords in the United Kingdom. The lower chamber has greater authority than the “upper chamber” in many countries. In countries such as Germany, the upper chamber is limited to voting on certain items that pertain to the states, and in other countries such as the United Kingdom, the upper chamber has even more limited (largely vesti­ gial) powers. Here again, the United States is a bit of an exception in that its upper chamber—the Senate—has at least as much power as the lower chamber.

Unicameral legislatures are quite common in countries with small popula­ tions. For instance, unicameral parliaments are used in Scandinavia and are common in sub-Saharan Africa and some parts of the Middle East. Unicameral representation is usually most appropriate in unitary states and in countries that have relatively homogeneous populations; conversely, unicameral legislatures are uncommon where there are histories of different regional population groups with

lower chamber In a bicameral legislature, the house that typically has a larger number of legislators than upper chambers, and often represents the national vote either more proportionally or through smaller geographic constituencies.

upper chamber The chamber in a bicameral legislature that is usually smaller in number of legislators, often representing larger geogra­ phic constituencies such as states or provinces.

unicameral legislature Legislature with a single chamber.

their own identities, or in which regional minorities may demand special repre­ sentation on the basis of territory. In addition to working in small, unitary de­ mocracies, unicameralism is also common in systems in many authoritarian regimes where a single political party dominates. In these cases, the governing regime may seek to minimize the “separation of powers” between national and regional interests that is implicit in bicameralism, and prefer to channel all politi­ cal demands through a single body dominated by the single party. The world’s most populous country, China, fits the bill here, as it also has a unicameral legis­ lature, despite its size.

Beyond the basic unicameral or bicameral structure, legislatures vary in an­ other simple way: They have many different names, as noted earlier. For example, a legislature may be called a congress ox parliament, an assembly, a house, or a cham­ ber. Some of these terms have relatively specific meanings, or are most commonly used in certain ways to designate whether a legislative body constitutes the entire legislative branch or merely one part of it. Congresses and parliaments generally refer to the entirety of a legislative branch, which may include more than one chamber. Houses and chambers often refer to one of the component parts of the legislature, especially in the many countries with a bicameral (two-chamber) leg­ islature, as noted later. Assemblies may refer to either a legislature as a whole or one particular house or chamber within it.

Congresses and parliaments also have different connotations, as shown in Table 9.1. W hile the distinction is not a hard-and-fast rule, congresses are typi­ cally branches in a system with a separately elected head of government, while parliaments are often the name used for legislatures that choose their own head of government. In most congresses, the separately elected head of government— often called a president—does not depend on the congress for his or her position,

204 Chapter 9: Legislatures and Legislative Elections

t a b l e 9.1 Com m on Attributes of Congresses and Parliaments

Type of Legislature Congress Parliam ent

Example United States United Kingdom

Head of Government President Prime Minister (or Premier, Chancellor, etc.)

Election of Head of Government Separately elected by voters Selected by Parliament

Independence of Head of Government

Executive does not depend on confidence of Congress

Executive depends on confidence of Parliament

Separation vs. Fusion of Powers Separation of powers between Congress and executive

Executive fused with Parliament

Checks vs. Supremacy Checks and balances between branches in constitution

Parliament supreme by constitution (but see next row)

Strong vs. Limited Executive Executive limited by separation and checks

Executive may dominate lawmaking in practice

congress A form of legislature, typically associated with a presi­ dential system in which there is a separation of powers.

parliament A type of legislature, often associated with systems in which the legislators vote on the leadership of the executive branch and the formation of a government.

Bicameral vs. Unicameral Either, but usually bicameral Either

vw. broad w w w .b r o a d

Chloe Smith, Member of Parliament from Norwich (U.K.) and a representative of the Conservative Party, and John Smith, of the Monster Raving Loony Party, whom she defeated.

but rather is accountable to the populace at large and to the constitution gener­ ally. These are usually systems designed with separations of powers and checks and balances between the legislative and executive branches. By contrast, parlia­ mentary systems have executives that depend on parliament to legislate and even to retain their position. W hile the parliament is often the supreme lawmaking body, this does not mean the executive is weak: These systems may actually fea­ ture strong executive powers in practice, depending on whether the executive can control his or her political party and its allies in parliament. We elaborate on this basic distinction further in chapter 10, when we discuss presidential and parliamentary executives, and we look at party systems in chapter 11.

Electoral System s Different legislative systems vary in how they organize elections. Among the various options, there are two basic categories of electoral systems used for legis­ latures, and any number of combinations of these two systems. The first is the district-based electoral system, and the second is proportional representation.

D is tric t Systems District systems allocate one or more seats in the legislature to each of a number of districts in the country. These districts are usually territorial, with different geographic regions representing the different districts. These districts may be known as constituencies, and in most such systems, the district will have a single representative. The most common version is the single-member district (SMD).

district system An electoral system in which voters select representatives from specific geographic constituencies.

constituency A group of voters or a geographic district that legisla­ tors or other elected officials represent.

206 Chapter 9: Legislatures and Legislative Elections

single-member district (SMD) Electoral system in which voters choose a candidate and the winner is elected by the most votes earned or through winning a runoff vote.

first-past-the-post Electoral system in which the candidate with the most number of votes is elected, regardless of whether a majority has been attained.

Single-member district systems divide up a country into a number of territo­ rial districts, with each district having the right to elect one legislator. This person is then expected to represent the interests of that district in the legisla­ ture. In most circumstances, political parties will run candidates for the seat in the legislature, and those representing major, well-known parties will have an advantage over those without such a party affiliation. Parties often have consid­ erable discretion in how they choose their own candidates. In some countries, party leaders may exercise considerable control over who the candidates will be in each district. Another procedure is openly contested “primary” elections in which members of the same party run against one another for the party’s nomi­ nation to a seat. While major parties have an advantage in name recognition and in communicating to voters what their candidates probably believe, “indepen­ dent” candidates may also run if they meet the qualifications for getting their names on the ballot.4 Ballot access is challenging in some countries but famously easy for candidates in others, especially for small local elections. Getting on the ballot is easy in the United Kingdom, for example, where the Monster Raving Loony Party has become a standby. Consider the SMD system in the United Kingdom in the “Case in Context” box entitled “The Mother of Parliaments” (which is not about the Monster Raving Loony Party).

Elections in SMD systems can have different features. A common approach is the first-past-the-post, or “plurality” system, in which the district holds elec­ tions and the candidate with the most votes wins. This may sound obvious, but note that in such a system, it may be common to have a winner with less than 50 percent of the vote, if there are many candidates who split up the vote between them. This can lead to surprising outcomes in some cases. For instance, consider an election in a relatively conservative district in which two conservative candi­ dates run along with one liberal one. The liberal may only win 40 percent of the

CASE IN CONTEXT

The Mother of Parliai and the Westminstei

ments: The United Kingdom ' Model PAGE 549

The British Parliament is often considered the 'mother of parlia­ ments" given its long history and the way it inspired legisla­ tures around the world. It is the most famous example of a parliamentary system, in which the legislature chooses and has constitutional powers over the executive; we explore this system further in chapter 10, contrasting it with presidential systems in countries such as the United States. While the British model, known as the "Westminster model," has been emulated often, it has rarely been adopted in its exact form by other countries.

See the case study of the British Parliament in Part VI, pp. 549-550. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. What features of the British Parliament seem especially "democratic" relative to the American model, and which less so?

2. What role does the notion of "parliamentary sovereignty" leave for the other branches of government, namely the executive and judiciary? How can the Prime Minister and the executive be powerful when the Parliament itself is sovereign?

3. What is the effect of the single-member district voting system on the proportionality of Parliament? Will this type of system be an advantage or a disadvantage for small political parties?

Types 207

vote but take the election if the two conservatives split the remaining 60 percent. Accordingly, many SMD systems adopt other electoral rules, with a popular ver­ sion being a runoff system between the top two candidates that ensures that the eventual winner will have received a “mandate” by winning a majority of the valid votes cast.

In general, first-past-the-post systems will often disproportionately favor larger parties that can gain a winning number of votes in many districts, even if these parties cannot win an outright majority of the votes cast. It can also dis­ favor slightly smaller parties that might get a solid fraction of the vote but not enough to gain a plurality in many districts. A well-known example of this is the United Kingdom, where the Conservative and Labour parties have often won majorities of parliamentary seats without winning a majority of votes cast. The third-largest party, such as the Liberal Democrats in the 2005 and 2010 elections, usually win a smaller proportion of seats than votes. In the 2010 elec­ tion, neither of the two largest parties won a majority, but in the 2005 election Labour won a majority of seats (over 55 percent) with a minority of votes in the country (35 percent), while the Liberal Democrats won only 9.6 percent of the seats for their 22 percent of the vote (Table 9.2).

Not all district systems are single-member districts. There are also multi-member districts (MMDs), in which more than one representative is elected from each district. These arrangements are less “winner-take-all” because they allow for multiple representatives and also multiple parties to have represen­ tatives in the same district.

W hat happens in these M M D systems often depends on the size of the dis­ tricts and the number of representatives in each. Imagine if the United States had a system for its House of Representatives with two representatives in each dis­ trict. Since the Republican and Democratic parties are usually the two leading parties in each district and are usually fairly close in polling, most reasonable calculations would result in the two parties each getting one seat in most districts around the country. But if districts were to have, say, ten representatives, the re­ sults might be significantly different. The two leading parties may split the seats between them. Or perhaps the two leading parties would each take four seats, and then a couple of smaller parties— say one on the far left and one on the far right—would win one seat each. This would change the composition of the leg­ islature, encouraging more small parties to have representatives. Because M M D divides seats up according to the relative performance of different parties, this points in the direction of the next broad category of electoral systems: propor­ tional representation.

runoff Electoral system in which the top candidates after a first round of voting compete in one or more additional rounds of voting until a candidate receives a majority.

multi-member district (MMD) Electoral system in which district constituencies have more than one representative.

t a b l e 9.2 Results for Top Parties in United K in gd o m General Election, 2005

Party Total Votes Percentage of National Vote Num ber of Seats Percentage of Seats

Labour 9,552,436 35.2 355 55.2

Conservative 8,784,915 32.4 198 30.7

Liberal Democrat 5,985,454 22.0 62 9.6

208 Chapter 9: Legislatures and Legislative Elections

proportional representation (PR) In its pure form, an electoral system in which voters choose a preferred party and seats are allocated to parties according to the percen­ tage of the vote the party wins.

open-list proportional representation Electoral system in which voters choose a candidate but votes are aggregated by political party to determine the allocation of seats across parties.

P ro p o rtio n a l R e p rese n tatio n (P R ) Many countries maintain that the most important factor in representation is not the district or geographic territory one represents, nor having an individual can­ didate to represent certain people, but rather the distribution of seats between parties. The logic is simple: If party X wins 44 percent of the vote in the country, party Y 33 percent, party Z 22 percent, and all other parties 1 percent, then party X should have about 44 percent of the seats in the legislature, party Y about 33 percent, and party Z about 22 percent. Proportional representation (PR) can do a better job than SMD of making this happen.

Systems featuring an element of PR still face the challenge of allocating seats once the votes are tallied. There are many ways to allocate seats, but certain rules are common. First, in many PR systems, a threshold is often required to earn seats in the legislature. This may be 5 percent, for instance. W ith that threshold, any party with less than 5 percent of the vote would not earn a seat in the legis­ lature because their vote totals were insufficient. This prevents PR systems from being dominated by lots of small parties—which would make complex coalitions necessary and likely not be conducive to stability— and can help ensure govern- ability by restricting power to a handful of substantial parties. Second, the number of seats for each party cannot perfectly reflect the vote, because there are always fewer seats than there are voters, and there will be some “remainders.” In general, the number of votes a party gets is rounded off to a certain number of seats. For instance, if three parties contest an election for 12 seats, and all the votes for party A would suggest it earned 6.7 seats, party B earned 3.1 seats, and party C earned 2.2 seats, then one actual distribution might be 7 seats for party A, 3 for party B, and 2 for party C. A variety of calculation methods exists for sorting out the seats from votes in proportional representation systems.5

PR is designed (by definition) to offer proportionality in the vote for different parties, as we explore further in the “Causes and Effects” section. A leading ex­ ample of a relatively “pure” PR system, albeit one where democracy is very sus­ pect, is now found in Russia. South Africa also uses a model that features the classic form of PR for its lower house, the National Assembly. However, most countries using PR do not use it in its purest form. Rather, they blend it with district-based systems or make other modifications, as discussed in the section on hybrid systems later in the chapter.

Proportional representation may work in different ways, with different details. For instance, in the variant of PR known as open-list proportional representation (used in Brazil and many European countries), voters choose individual candidates, but the candidates’ votes are combined together with the other members of their party, and then seats are allocated based on the parties’ performances. This makes the legislature proportionally representative, yet the votes for candidates still in­ fluence which individuals are elected to the legislature: The candidates with the most votes within their party will have the highest priority for earning a seat. The system attempts to combine some of the features of PR with the right to vote for individual candidates (hence, “open list” rather than a “closed list” controlled by the party). It encourages candidates to seek individual support and can leave par­ ties “less disciplined” than under forms of PR in which the party exerts greater control over its slate of candidates.

Types 209

w I ■ Electoral Rules and Party (In)Discipline in Brazil's Legislature PAGE 409

The Chamber of Deputies in the Brazilian Congress uses open-list proportional representation.This system allows each voterto select a specific candidate, and then attempts to achieve proportionality by aggregating the votes across parties. In Brazil, a consequence seems to have been weak political parties and a messy legislature, at least at some moments in time. For years, many scholars consid­ ered the electoral system to be the key item in Brazil's politics that could be changed to improve the quality of governance.6

See the case study on the Brazilian Congress in Part VI, p. 409. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. What do you think might be the reasons behind the adoption of open-list PR?

2. What are the consequences of this system for political parties, and why? Should this result be expected in all countries with this system?

3. If in fact the Brazilian Congress is becoming more coher­ ent over time, yet the open-list PR system has stayed the same, what can explain the change?

Even with the distinction between PR and SMD, and the diversity of rules and mechanisms for each, there is additional variety in the types of electoral systems around the world. As suggested previously, many countries attempt to find a balance between the perceived advantages of PR systems and SMD sys­ tems. We might call these “mixed” or “hybrid” systems.

M ix e d o r H y b rid Many countries have sought to balance the advantages of SMD and PR systems, and have invented a number of seemingly ingenious mechanisms for doing so, though these generally make the electoral system more complicated. These sys­ tems—which represent a hybrid between the two sets of systems already dis­ cussed—may have individual elected representatives but attempt to retain (or create) the proportionality among parties that PR systems provide. We return to the cases of Germany and New Zealand at the end of the chapter, but note here that it is possible in theory to elect representatives from districts, and then ensure proportionality of party representation in the legislature, mainly through the ad­ dition of supplemental “at large” seats to the legislature.

Other mechanisms ask voters to do more than choose their preferred candi­ date: They ask voters to rank candidates. The electoral system then uses this in­ formation about ranked preferences to determine winners. The alternative vote, also called the instant-runoff vote or preferential vote, is a simple version. All votes are counted to see voters’ first choices. I f no candidate wins a majority, the candidate with the lowest total is eliminated, and the votes for this last place candidate are redistributed according to those voters’ second-choice picks. I f there is still no majority, then the candidate with the next-lowest total is elimi­ nated, and their votes are redistributed as well, and so on until one candidate has a majority of the vote.

A similar system is the single transferable vote (STV), which is used in some M M D systems where more than one candidate is elected. Under STV, the voter ranks candidates, just as in the alternative vote. But some winning candidates

alternative vote Voting system in which voters rank candidates and the votes of low-ranking candida­ tes are reallocated until a winner is determined.

single transferable vote (STV) Electoral system in which voters rank candidates and the winners' surplus votes are reallocated to other, lower-ranking candidates until a slate of representatives is chosen.

210 Chapter 9: Legislatures and Legislative Elections

t a b l e 9 . 3 Voting Procedures Under Different Electoral System s

Electoral System Procedure for Voter

Single-M em ber District (SMD) Choose candidate; top candidate is elected by most votes or runoff.

Proportional Representation (PR) Choose preferred party; seats allocated to parties by vote percent.

O pen-List PR Choose candidate; votes aggregated by party for allocation of seats.

Mixed Systems/Hybrid Systems Choose candidate and party (two votes), or other combination of above.

Sin gle Transferable Vote (STV) Rank candidates; winners' surplus votes reallocated until slate chosen.

Alternative Rank candidates; votes of losers reallocated until winner found.

strategic voting Voting in a way that does not reflect a .voter's ideal preference, so as to prevent a less-desired outcome.

indirect election Electoral system in which representatives are chosen by other elected officials, rather than directly by the citizenry at large.

will have more than enough votes to win a seat, with some votes left over. The “surplus” votes for winning candidates are redistributed to voters’ second choices (and third choices as necessary, and so on) until a slate of candidates is elected. Table 9.3 presents voting procedures under different electoral systems.

These ranking systems have a major advantage: They encourage voters to pick their most preferred candidate, thus reducing the need for strategic voting. Under strategic voting, many citizens may not vote for their favorite candidate because they fear he/she will not win, preferring instead to vote for a favorite (or a “least bad” option) among those who have a reasonable chance of winning. Ranking systems are used in Australia, and for some local elections in the United States. And the applicability of these voting models is not limited to traditional politics: This vote procedure is also used to select the winners of the Academy Awards, or Oscars.

Indirect election is also a possibility for choosing legislators, and is used most often for the upper chambers of bicameral parliaments. Legislators in the lower chamber (which in reality is the more powerful chamber in most bicameral coun­ tries) choose the members of the upper chamber in some countries. Alternatively,

CASE IN CONTEXT

The Hybrid Electoral System of the Japanese Diet

The Japanese Diet uses a mix of proportional representation and single-member constituencies. For much of the period after World War II, the country was dominated by the Liberal Demo­ cratic Party (LDP), but it now has a more competitive legislature. In the House of Representatives, 300 members are chosen in their districts, and 180 by proportional representation. The upper chamber, known as the House of Councillors, is also elected by a mixture of district-based systems and PR, but with subtly differ­ ent rules. This is a simple example of a hybrid electoral system.

PAGE 491

See the case study on the Japanese Diet in Part VI, p. 491. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. What might be the reasons for developing a hybrid system such as this?

2. What would be the expected consequences of this ar­ rangement for the size and success of political parties?

3. Would there be advantages to adopting such a system in countries such as the United States that rely exclusively on districts?

the members of the upper chamber of legislatures may be chosen by the states/ provinces/regions of a federation. In Germany, for instance, the members of the Bundesrat, the upper chamber of the legislature, are chosen by Germany’s state legislatures.

There is a virtually limitless number of conceivable electoral systems around the world. W hile certain trends predominate, this small selection of possible formats serves to illustrate the variety of options. The preferences for one system over another owes a great deal to national traditions and habits, as well as to the structure of the polity, to include population size, and the importance of group identities and the extent of homogeneity in the population. Moreover, they are presumably “sticky” in the sense that parties and groups that do well within a given electoral system, and who therefore can potentially block changes, typi­ cally have an interest in preserving the system from which they benefit. For this reason, one seldom hears calls from the Republican and Democratic parties for the adoption of an alternative framework.

E xe cu tive -Le gisla tive Relations Legislatures routinely have responsibility for oversight of the executive branch. A classic example might be legislatures requiring testimony by military leaders on the conduct of a war, since the military may come under the authority of the executive branch, yet may be required to report to the legislature. Similar ex­ amples of such legislative oversight can occur in any number of policy areas, with cabinet ministers and executive officials regularly being required to submit re­ ports and to undergo legislative questioning. This may entail the right to review executive appointees to major political positions (including those to the judicial branch in some instances, as well as appointees to some high-ranking executive offices in the administration). Oversight may also, in especially discordant situa­ tions, result in a motion of censure, in which the legislature sanctions or scolds the executive for actions it deems inappropriate.

Beyond simply providing oversight, the legislature may be empowered to remove the executive from office if the executive “loses the confidence” of the people (or its elected representatives in the legislature). In parliamentary sys­ tems, the relationship between the executive and the legislature is relatively close, because of the fusion of the two branches of government. The executive consists of a government elected by the members of the legislature, including a cabinet of ministers led by a prime minister (or equivalent). In these systems, the executive is “responsible” to the legislature and relies on the backing of the legislature for its continuation as a government. This fact confers power to the legislature to remove the executive from office, according to rules that vary from country to country. For instance, in many countries, a majority of the legislature voting “no confidence” in the executive will result in the govern­ ment being disbanded and new elections being called. In Germany, however, bringing down the government requires a “constructive vote of no confidence,” in which the vote of no confidence must be accompanied by a specific proposal for a new government that will take effect upon the completion of the confi­ dence vote.

212 Chapter 9: Legislatures and Legislative Elections

The German Bundesrat, which represents German states, or "Lander."

The parliamentary model allows the legislature to remove the government— making a call for new elections—without necessarily leading to a major consti­ tutional crisis. In presidential systems, the procedure for removing a member of the executive is usually more elaborate, at least for the highest-ranking officials in the government. Legislatures can use processes of impeachment (or of de­ manding resignation) to remove the executive from office under relatively strin­ gent conditions. In parliamentary systems, legislatures can remove executives at most any time for a lack of confidence in governing ability. In presidential sys­ tems, their power to do so is more limited by the fixed term of office given to the president.

CASE IN CONTEXT

Institutional Design: Germany's Bundestag and Bundesrat PAGE 451

Germany's legislative elections feature yet another wrinkle in the mix between district-based systems and PR. The elections for the Bundestag have constituencies but also aim to ensure overall proportionality to make the lower chamber reflective of voters' party preferences. The system is known as a mixed-member pro­ portional system, and it allows (or requires) voters to vote twice: once for an individual and once for a party. Members of the Bundesrat, meanwhile, are selected by assemblies in the states (Lander).

See the case study on the German parliament in Part VI, pp. 451-452. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. What are the mechanics of how the size of the Bundestag is calculated?

2. Which sorts of political actors in Germany would be ex­ pected to like this system, and which would not?

3. Does the structure of representation in the Bundesrat affect the way one views the electoral system in the Bundestag?

Causes and Effects: What Explains Patterns of Representation? 213

Causes and Effects: What Explains Patterns of Representation? Many heated debates center on the systems that elect legislative representatives. At question is how representation will be structured, and particularly how votes are translated into seats. Earlier in the chapter, we outlined the district-based representation and proportional representation approaches to legislative elections as well as hybrid forms. In general, district-based systems are more centered on the election of individual candidates and the latter more centered on the election of political parties, though we discuss a few caveats to that rule. A question for further consideration is “W hich type of election is more representative?”

This, of course, depends on what “representative” means. W hen you consider what it means to have a legislature represent the people, what is essential? Is it necessary to have a single politician representing your district? I f so, how do those who voted against that politician feel “represented”? Advocates of PR or party-based elections argue that political systems should come as close as possi­ ble to making sure each person’s vote “counts” in representation. I f you wish to vote for a smallish (but non-trivial) party because that party matches your beliefs, your vote should not be “wasted” simply because that party does not win a district seat. Rather, your vote should be reflected in the proportion of seats allocated to that party in the legislature.

Patterns of Representation The first challenge with a causal argument about “what types of legislatures are more representative” is having an understanding of what representation means. In the terms of chapters 1 and 2, we have to define the dependent variable. It may be that no single, easily quantifiable indicator of “representativeness” exists, but this should not stop us from engaging in comparative analysis. In fact, the study of the consequences of different legislative forms is a leading example of how comparativists debate challenging concepts that are difficult to define.

representation In legislatures, the process by which elected legislators reflect the interests and preferences of voters in their constituencies.

IN S IG H TS Legislative Politics in Latin America by Scott Morgenstern and Benito Nacif, editors

This edited volume looks at Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico in comparative perspective. The book makes refer­ ence to the U.S. system, because much of the work on legisla­ tures is based on studies of the U.S. Congress, but it explores how Latin American legislatures work differently from the U.S. system and from one another. Morgenstern and Nacif (and the numerous authors of the chapters in the book) show that many assumptions about legislatures are based on study of the U.S. Congress but do not hold in Latin America. First, while many scholars of Congress assume that getting reelected is an ambi­ tion for Congresspersons, many legislators in Latin America may

actually be looking to move to other positions, including such state-level positions as governor. Second, legislatures in Latin America are generally more "reactive” than "proactive," respond­ ing to presidents in different ways. In making these arguments, the book examines three areas in detail: executive-legislative relations, the internal structure of legislative bodies, and the pro­ cess by which policies are made. Through this approach, the au­ thors develop a more nuanced comparative understanding of the variables that make legislatures differ. Scott Morgenstern and Benito Nacif, eds. Legislative Politics in Latin America.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

214 Chapter 9: Legislatures and Legislative Elections

The central function of legislatures is to represent citizens; a relatively small number of legislators represents the population at large, and individual legislators can never exactly represent the views of each and every citizen, but the process of election is seen to approximate the idea of “rule by the many.” Electoral represen­ tation may take place on the basis of geography, identity group, or political party. In many countries, people in local or regional districts may choose one or more area residents to represent their constituency. In some other countries, specific seats may be set aside for women (as in the case of local assemblies known as the panchayati raj in India), racial or ethnic groups, or specific underrepresented castes or social groups, as is discussed further in chapter 14. Yet not all represen­ tation is based on individual representatives, as PR systems offer representation by political party, with citizens voting for parties instead of individual candi­ dates. In this case, representatives appointed by the political parties staff the legislature, voting generally in accordance with the policy directives of the party as a whole.

Implicit in democratic elections is the fact that many citizens will not agree with their representatives some of the time. One may vote for a losing party or candidate, or one may be disappointed with a position taken by a representative one voted for. This raises the question of whether representatives should follow the public opinion of their constituents or their own consciences.

Ask yourself if you believe elected legislators should reflect the opinion of the public that elects them. It may seem obvious that legislators should follow public opinion. After all, representatives are there to represent the people who elected them, and can reasonably be expected to reflect the preferences and values of their voting constituents. Incidentally, while Congresspersons in the United States exercise some independence from their constituents, one of the best ex­ amples of pure obedience to the majority’s will comes from the United States: It is the case of the Electoral College, where the states appoint delegates for the presidential election who are presumed to vote in accordance with the popular vote in the state that delegated authority to them.

IN SIG H T S The Concept of Representation by Hannah Pitkin

Pitkin elaborates the concept of representation that is so cen­tral to the study of legislatures and legislative politics, and does so through an examination of the term, its origins in politi­ cal theory, and even its etymology. One of the key elements of Pitkin's work is the distinction between representation that en­ tails following the will of a constituency's voters and representa­ tion that involves individuals exercising their own discretion and judgment once they are elected. Calling this the "mandate- independence controversy," Pitkin argues that no clear rule can be established for whether representatives should follow the

general wishes of the electorate or should follow their own counsel if they find these views incorrect. Rather, the essence of representation is acting on behalf of others, which implies that representatives should habitually be in harmony with the wishes of their electors, but are also justified in voting independently where there are compelling reasons to do so on behalf of that same group. The rule for mandate versus independence must be examined on a case-by-case basis. Hannah Pitkin, The Concept of Representation. Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1972.

Causes and Effects: What Explains Patterns of Representation? 215

Contrasting with the argument of following public opinion, however, is an argument that legislators should be expected to exercise independence, and per­ haps should even “think better” of the whims of the populace. In other words, voters do not expect to elect unthinking automatons that will do whatever the majority happens to prefer at any moment in time. Rather than simply being as­ signed to do the majority’s bidding, representatives may be partially chosen for their thoughtfulness and reason, ability to foresee the consequences of legislative choices, and for their skill at compromise. They may be expected to exercise dis­ cretion, in other words. They may also be expected to “make the tough choices,” even if the populace does not favor these.

Clearly, elections are the leading accountability mechanisms for legislators in democracies. I f representatives vote in ways that are too far removed from the interests and preferences of their constituents, they can expect forceful chal­ lenges from political opponents (whether in other parties or in their own), and they can probably expect not to win reelection if they get too far “out of line.” On the other hand, public opinion is fickle, and representatives need to cast votes not just on what is popular at a given moment in time, but also with a view toward the future, both at the time of the next election and beyond. As noted in the preceding “Insights” box, there is no unambiguous answer to whether repre­ sentatives should exercise independence from the voters who elected them, or should follow those voters’ wishes closely. But the distinction between these two goes to the heart of the challenging votes that representatives must make on a regular basis.

Electoral System s and Representation Some of the most fundamental questions about representation come from the electoral systems outlined previously: SMD, PR, and hybrid systems imply dif­ ferent forms of representation. Each has advantages in providing for a certain form of representation, and each faces challenges in providing representation by other definitions.

Where legislators are elected in districts, a large portion of the populace may not have voted for its representative. For instance, in an American district where a Democrat is elected with 52 percent of the vote versus 48 percent for a Repub­ lican (or vice versa), nearly half of the district may feel it is “not represented” by the chosen Congressperson. More strikingly, imagine an elected legislator who wins with less than half the vote. Consider a district with 65 percent of voters that say they are liberal and 35 percent that consider themselves conservative. Say the liberals split the vote, with a Democrat getting 33 percent and the Rent Is Too Damn High Party candidate getting 32 percent. The conservative Republi­ can candidate squeaks out a win with 35 percent. This means that 65 percent of the district did not vote for the legislator that represents them, even though this group may agree that they would prefer a liberal. O f course, this can and has happened in reverse, with liberals winning conservative districts due to splits in the vote between conservative candidates.

In any electoral system, the question of how to divide up legislative seats is crucial, and SMD systems face challenges of apportionment and districting of seats. In lower chambers of most legislatures with district systems, the districts

apportionment The process by which legislative seats are distributed among geographic constituencies.

districting The process by which districts or other geographic constituencies are created for the purposes of elections.

216 Chapter 9: Legislatures and Legislative Elections

gerrymandering Creation of districts of irregular shape or com­ position in order to achieve a desi­ red political result.

malapportionment Apportion­ ment in which voters are unequally represented in a legislature, such as through relatively greater numbers of legislators per capita for low- -population areas and lesser number of legislators per capita for high-population areas.

are often expected to be discrete geographic areas, but they are also expected to have comparable numbers of voters for the lower chambers of most legislatures. O f course, precise ratios of seats to the population of each district are not possi­ ble. For example, a district with 1,535,000 voters might be expected to have the same number of representatives as one with 1,536,000 voters. Yet as populations of different areas change, keeping districts at roughly the same population re­ quires changing boundaries. This leads to processes of redistricting, as described in the United States “Case in Context” box. One of the challenges of redistrict­ ing is that legislators themselves often have a role in the districting process, whether directly or through officials they have nominated, and this creates in­ centives for legislators to shape districts that favor them or their party. One con­ sequence is gerrymandering, in which districts are created in irregular shapes or of odd composition in order to achieve a desired political outcome. The term has the negative connotation of being deliberately designed by incumbents to protect their advantage, though it should be noted that districting has often sought to shape boundaries in ways that favor historically underrepresented groups, such as racial minorities.

Malapportionment comes with imbalances in allocating seats to different districts. The extent of malapportionment varies tremendously from one country to another, but it is generally more common in upper chambers of bicameral parliaments, which are often designed to protect the territorial interests of states or provinces. Malapportionment can be defined as the extent to which a system gives some regions a higher ratio of representatives to voters than others. Would such countries be anti-democratic? Would this only apply in authoritarian re­ gimes? Not unless you deem the United States to be anti-democratic or authori­ tarian, as it is one of the most striking examples of legislative malapportionment, at least in the Senate.

States, regions, or provinces are represented in Senates and “upper chambers” of legislatures. As might be suspected, federalism affects apportionment. Federal countries that wish to guarantee representation for smaller, less populous regions will— almost by definition—create seats in the legislature that disproportionately favor those regions. In Brazil, for example, the smallest state (Roraima) has three senators for about 400,000 residents, while the largest state (Sao Paulo) also has three senators, but for over 41 million people. The relevant ratios are that Roraima has one vote in the Senate for every 133,000 residents, while Sao Paulo has one vote only for about every 14 million people. Similarly, differences in state repre­ sentation are found in the United States, where Wyoming has one Senator for approximately every quarter of a million people, while California has a Senator for about every 18 million residents.

The consequences of apportionment and malapportionment are significant. In a theoretical sense, the question of apportionment is about nothing less than the basic principle of “one person, one vote.” Put another way, malapportionment could be viewed as the degree to which an electoral system deviates from the “one-person, one-vote” principle: Even if everyone has the right to vote, not ev­ eryone’s vote “counts the same” if seats are malapportioned. It may have arisen for historical reasons and may be necessary to ensure national unity, but in a very real

Causes and Effects: What Explains Patterns of Representation? 217

sense, one might say that the vote of a resident of a small state counts much more than the vote of a resident of a large state.

People in Wyoming have more representatives per capita in the Senate than Californians, and Vermonters more than Texans. Looked at through this lens, the residents of America’s twenty-five lowest-population states comprise about 16 percent of the population and represent half of the Senate. In theory, these fifty Senators voting as a bloc could (with a vice presidential tiebreak) stop a policy favored in states representing 84 percent of the American population. (This phenomenon is made more striking by the Senate rule known as the fili­ buster, which in theory allows a bloc of only forty-one out of one hundred sena­ tors to stop legislation; see “Case in Context: The United States Congress: Dysfunctional or Functioning by Design?”)

The advantage of small states in representation may have consequences that translate into political outcomes as well. The most obvious examples are those policies that favor low-population regions that are “overrepresented” by malap­ portionment, especially rural regions. In many instances, malapportionment may serve to prevent or impede implementation of a policy that will favor a ma­ jority of the population. In France, the Senate (Senat) has long been known as the “agricultural chamber” because it provides an institutional bulwark to protect the interests of French farmers. The same may be said of farm policy in the United States. In Brazil, the military created additional new states at the end of authori­ tarian rule in the 1980s, and this was interpreted by some as a deliberate effort to ensure a larger number of Senators from pro-military regions of the country.

By contrast with SMD, elections in PR systems are often party-centered, rather than candidate-centered. For proponents of PR, one advantage of these systems is precisely the emphasis on parties, their platforms, and their policy proposals, rather than the particular ideas and charisma of individual candidates. In candidate-based elections, charismatic and/or thoughtful individuals may

CASE IN CONTEXT

The United States Congress: Dysfunctional or Functioning by Design? PAGE 564

The United States is one of the inspirations for democracies around the world, but there are certain aspects of its system that stray from the "one-person, one-vote" ideal, at least in terms of how much representation each person gets per capita. Appor­ tionment in the Senate and the pattern of districting in the House of Representatives are both areas that have been subject to criticism. The apportionment in the Senate means that resi­ dents of smaller states have more representatives per capita than residents of larger states. In the House of Representatives, a big question is how decisions are made to shape districts, and how this affects who is likely to be elected.

See the case study of the U.S. Congress in Part VI, pp. 564- 565. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. If virtually all adults are allowed to vote, then in what sense could one say the U.S. electoral system is less 'one- person, one-vote" than other possible systems? Is this characterization fair, and why or why not?

2. What is it about the U.S. electoral system that favors the status quo, whether in terms of policy or in terms of who gets elected?

3. What features of the U.S system, if any, would you alter?

218 Chapter 9: Legislatures and Legislative Elections

communicate well with voters, leading to successful election campaigns, yet these skills may matter less in the job of legislating and making policy decisions. Instead, what matters is which party has a majority, or which parties are in the coalition that makes up the governing majority. By ensuring that the whole of the legislature reflects the interests or preferences of the whole country, PR entrusts government to the largest party or leading parties that can make up a governing coalition. In theory, this can make government more capable of passing laws and enacting policies that “the people as a whole” want.

PR also tends to support multiple smaller parties, as contrasted with SMD systems, which favor large parties and accentuate the tendency toward two-party systems instead of multiparty systems. We explore the impacts of these electoral systems on party systems in chapter l l . 7

Under SMD, smaller parties may earn a healthy minority of the vote (say, 10-15 percent) in many districts across a country, yet still be largely shut out of the political process. Let’s say the two largest parties—call them the Liberal and the Conservative parties—get an average of 40 percent of the vote each, ranging from about 30 percent to about 50 percent in each district, depending on the district’s political leanings. Say also that two smaller parties (the Libertarians and the Greens) get about 10 percent of the vote in every district. Even if the country had five hundred districts (each with one seat in the legislature), it is very possible that the Liberals and Conservatives would split all the seats between themselves, while the Libertarians and Greens would have zero seats under the district system, because the Liberals and Conservatives would outpoll them in every single district. Under PR, the Libertarians and Greens would not be shut out: In a five-hundred-seat legislature, they would each get about fifty seats, re­ flecting their support of 10 percent of the population each. PR would give these smaller parties leverage in political debate, as they may be able to swing to and from the larger parties, making the difference between the Liberals or Conserva­ tives having a majority or not.

On the other hand, PR does not provide voters with a single identifiable leg­ islator who “represents them.” This can be troubling for several reasons. First, it can mean that voters do not know to whom they should direct their demands. It may be more challenging to participate and feel represented when one must con­ tact an office of a political party, rather than the office of one’s district representa­ tive. This is especially true for voters who voted for a losing party and must go through a period of government in which they feel it will be very difficult to have someone who can speak on their behalf. Second, and related to this, PR can break the geographic link between citizens and their legislators. W hile political parties may have local offices and look to attend to local issues, they tend to re­ spond to the overall national constituency in PR systems. By contrast, in district systems, the adage goes that “all politics is local,” and citizens may feel more represented when it comes to getting political attention for local issues such as a need for bridge repair, sanitation, or other local issues.

Legislative Decision M aking and Representation Another source of questions about the quality of representation comes from how exactly decisions are made within the legislatures. For some time, a particular

Causes and Effects: What Explains Patterns of Representation? 219

IN S IG H T S Legislative Leviathan: Party Government in the House by Gary Cox and Matthew McCubbins

Cox and McCubbins argue that the U.S. House of Representa­tives gets things done largely by the majority party operat­ ing as a "legislative cartel.” As contrasted with other studies that argue that much of the work of policymaking is determined by committees, Cox and McCubbins note that committees are im­ portant but not independent of partisan forces. Majority parties in the House of Representatives routinely shape rules in ways that allow them to dominate the legislative process. In addition, because the majority party dominates decision making, much of the truly important negotiation goes on within the "cartel."

In this model, there is little real debate on policy in the broader legislature itself, and this is not a model of representation that follows the ideal of a deliberative body of equal representatives. Instead, the system is reduced to an intra-party game in which the party leaders are key actors attempting to manage their ma­ jority party vote. Leaders of the parties create the structures that give rise to powerful committees and control the legislative agenda. Gary Cox and Matthew McCubbins, Legislative Leviathan: Party Government in

the House. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

emphasis was placed not on individual members but on committees and their roles.8 These organizations can take on the role of “legislatures within the legis­ latures,” as a select group of parliamentarians or congresspersons shapes a policy and then presents it to the larger body with the expectation that it will be passed in the larger house. As politics has grown more complex and technical over time, legislators have tended to specialize in certain committees and defer to their party colleagues on others. If committees are powerful, then representation is less about each individual vote in the assembly and more about who is assigned to what committee and how this sets or shapes the agenda.

Political parties are some of the key actors in legislatures and are often more important than individuals. In terms of representation, parties are considered “disciplined” if their members vote together, and less disciplined if their mem­ bers vote differently from the party line. This party line is usually determined by the way the national party leadership would like the members to vote. Legisla­ tures vary dramatically in the extent to which their parties exhibit discipline. One of the key factors in determining party discipline is the degree to which party leaders control the electoral fates of their members.9 Dominance by party leaders may seem to be “less representative” than systems in which legislators vote more independently, but many systems—whether SMD, PR, or hybrid— rely on party discipline to get legislation passed.

Assume for the moment that most politicians would like to get reelected or to continue their political careers. (While not always true, this shouldn’t sound like too far-fetched an assumption.) This implies that politicians will be attentive to the people who nominate and select them. Now notice that who chooses the nominees and the representatives will differ from one electoral system to the next. In many party-centered systems, voters select parties and the party itself chooses who will be the representatives to the parliament. In practice, this gives a great deal of power to the leaders of the party, who can “set the lists” to deter­ mine who will become a member of the legislature. Where individual party members depend on party leaders for their nomination, they will typically adhere to the wishes of the leadership, currying favor with those who set the party list.

committee In a legislature, a body composed of a group of legislators convened to perform a certain set of tasks.

220 Chapter 9: Legislatures and Legislative Elections

executive-legislative relations The set of relationships between the executive and the legislative branches of government.

On the other hand, many candidate-centered systems allow voters to choose party nominees, as is the case with party primary elections in the United States. In these instances, party leaders’ leverage declines.

Differences in electoral rules should imply variations in the discipline of the political parties. Electoral systems that give more power to party leaders should lead to systems where parties vote in a disciplined fashion. Systems that encour­ age candidates to focus on district constituencies should lead to less-disciplined parties, with more representatives who have an “independent” streak or vote like “mavericks.” O f course, these representatives will often be bucking the trend of their parties in order to conform to the preferences of the districts they represent. Even in such cases, parties have tools that they can use in their efforts to keep their representatives “in line.” We examine these issues further in chapter 11 on political parties and party systems, but note its significance here for understand­ ing how legislatures operate.

Legislative decisions may be shaped by committees or by political parties (and their leaders), but in either instance it is clear that decisions are not simply a func­ tion of adding up the preferences and the single vote cast by each representative. Other institutions within the legislature shape what issues get on the agenda and how they are presented to the legislature as a whole. These institutions ensure that legislatures have “structure” in how decisions are made: This is a different view of representation than is suggested by public and open debate on the floors of the voting chamber.

Exe cu tiv e -Le gisla tiv e Relations and Representation In most countries today, the power of legislatures and the nature of representa­ tion depend heavily on executive-legislative relations. At times, legislatures will have considerable powers over executives—some of which are noted in the next chapter, such as “votes of no confidence.” On other occasions, legislatures will be relatively less powerful than executives. The balance of power between these two branches says a great deal about how politics plays out in any given country.

Executive-legislative relations are shaped by a number of underlying powers these institutions have vis-a-vis one another. A national constitution may be the ultimate source offormalpower for legislatures and executives. Legislatures with formal powers to recall or bring down the government may see their leverage over the executive enhanced. This may be expected to make the executive more accountable to the legislature, and to make it more attentive to the legislature’s demands. As important as these formal powers arz partisan powers. Where party leaders in the executive have considerable powers to control the political fates of their fellow party members, they will be able to influence the so-called “rank- and-file” members of the legislature. This refers to the party discipline criterion mentioned previously. Where executives have control over party lists, executives will have considerable control in executive-legislative relations.

Executive-legislative relations are more complex than simple rules on paper of who has constitutional power. In many parliamentary democracies, legisla­ tures have the nominal authority to remove the executive at any time with a vote of “no confidence” in the executive, but this does not necessarily mean that there

Causes and Effects: What Explains Patterns of Representation? 221

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu applauds with members of his Likud Party. In 2015, Netanyahu called a parliamentary election more than two years before it was required, in an attempt to reestablish and manage his governing coalition.

will be constant turnover in the executive branch.10 Similarly, in presidential systems, where executives are directly elected, there is most often a formally established balance of powers between the branches, but this can vary from time to time as the political fortunes of presidents fluctuates. Forms of execu­ tive-legislative relations shape the quality of representation as much as electoral systems and the internal functioning of legislatures; the exact ways it does so vary tremendously.

IN S IG H T S Divided Government by Morris Fiorina

Fiorina examines the common phenomenon of divided gov­ernment in the United States' two-party system, in which American voters frequently elect an executive of one party and a legislature led by the other. For more than a century, Ameri­ cans have often voted against the president's party in midterm elections— that is, in years when no presidential election is held— disrupting unified governments and “checking" presi­ dential authority by supporting the opposing party. More re­ cently, years with presidential elections have also seen an increase in ticket-splitting, where voters choose a president of one party and a Congressperson of the opposing party at the same time. Several conditions can contribute to divided

government. Some are due to circumstances. For example, in the United States the declining strength of political parties over time contributed, as voters became more attentive to individual candidates than to party labels. But other reasons may be more purposive or rational, as people may choose to divide govern­ ment, whether consciously or unconsciously. For instance, ticket-splitting can make sense for moderate voters concerned that unified government by either party could be too far left or right: given this concern, divided government provides for a style of "coalition” government that requires cooperation and moderation between the parties. Morris Fiorina, Divided Government. New York:Macmillan, 1992.

222 Chapter 9: Legislatures and Legislative Elections

IN SIG H TS Comparative Legislatures by Michael Mezey

This book offers a typology of legislatures according to two dimensions. The first is whether the legislature has strong or modest policymaking powers, and the second is whether it re­ ceives more or less support from elites and from the society at large. The two dimensions, and the types of legislatures that emerge, can be seen in the following table.

Modest Powers Marginal Reactive

Where legislatures are empowered and supported, they can be active in setting the policy agenda; such is the case with the

U.S. Congress. The British Parliament, by contrast, is much more reactive, because the Cabinet and Prime Minister have the powerto set most policy in motion. Less-supported legislatures (as in some developing countries) are vulnerable to being domi­ nated by the executive or other actors, even if they have strong powers "on paper." The most precarious situation is for constitu­ tionally weak legislatures that are also ill supported: These are marginal. In addition, Mezey shows a fifth category of "minimal legislatures," which have very limited powers but some support from elites; these are often found in authoritarian systems such as the former Soviet Union. The key consequence of a given type is whether the legislature itself is forceful or weak in shap­ ing policy. Michael Mezey, Comparative Legislatures. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1979.

Less Support More Support

Strong Powers Vulnerable Active

Altogether, many factors shape the nature and quality of representation. Elec­ toral systems can give rise to candidate-centered politics, party-centered politics, or a mix of the two. How legislatures themselves operate then also shapes representa­ tion: Sometimes parties and their leaders wield considerable control, sometimes certain committees wield power, and sometimes power is more open to all members of the legislature. Finally, the relationship between the legislature and the executive gives rise to different patterns of representation. All of these affect representation, as do many other factors. Representation itself is a hard concept to measure, but it is at the crux of most comparative questions about how legislatures matter.

T H IN K IN G CO M PA RA TIV ELY

K EY M E TH O D O LO G ICA L TO O LS

Hypotheticals and Counterfactuals The approach to the question of representation here is designed to stimulate debate on the best model for an electoral system, and whether countries might change these. This question involves taking political lessons from one country case, com­ paring these with another case, and then making a proposal based upon

Representation in New Zealand and Beyond

Can any electoral system plausibly claim to have the “best of both worlds” when it comes to representing the electorate? The debate between PR and district-based electoral systems often comes down to one common debate: Is representation choosing a political party and its platform, or voting for a specific candidate closest to one’s views? It is likely that an observer will have a “gut reaction” to the advantages of one or the other, while acknowledging that the opposing side “has a point.”

Party-based elections allow the electorate to focus on the issues and platforms that most interest them, and then to hold the elected government accountable for acting on such issues. They also give a sense, of course, that the overall represen­ tation in the legislature actually reflects the will of the overall population, rather than the will of specific subsegments of the population. Candidate-centered elections, on the other hand, give voters the sense that they have one or more

Representation in New Zealand and Beyond 223

people who represent their interests, and this allows the voters to hold their spec­ ified representative accountable for providing services to their constituency. On the downside, district-based elections may result in disproportionate influence for certain parties— especially large parties at the expense of small parties— and proportional representation elections may sacrifice the identifiability of a specific legislator for a specific constituency. It may seem ideal if a country could have a political system that would have both of these characteristics: individual repre­ sentatives for different districts of the country, and also a legislature whose over­ all composition reflects the partisan preferences of the country.

So an ideal might be a system where each citizen would have a representative for their district, and the overall composition of the legislature could be guaran­ teed to be proportional. As noted before, countries such as Germany and New Zealand have done this. In fact, New Zealand switched its electoral system by national referendum in 1993, and the change brought about a German-style model that explicitly intended to bring greater proportionality into what was previously a first-past-the-post system. This makes the country an especially compelling case that illustrates how electoral systems change the proportionality of seats. In both Germany and New Zealand today, each voter has two votes: a vote for a candidate to represent the district in the parliament, and then a vote for one’s preferred party. Voters may vote for their favorite party and the local candi­ date from the same party, but no one is required to do so: One can “split” the ticket, picking one’s favored candidate and then voting for another party. In each district, the candidate with the most votes is elected to the legislature, and there are a fixed number of such seats. The electoral commission also tallies all the votes for the parties, and figures out how to make the legislature accurately re­ flect the proportion each party received.

For example, say the parliament has two hundred seats, of which one hundred are elected from districts and one hundred are available for allocation to the par­ ties according to the party vote. I f the Social Democratic Party won only twenty- five out of one hundred seats in the districts, but their party vote was 30 percent of the total, the system ensures them about sixty of the total two hundred seats (30 percent) in the parliament. Meanwhile, the parties that win more seats in the constituencies than their party vote are allowed to keep the extra seats they have won, and these are called overhang seats. So if the Freedom Party wins twenty- two seats in the districts, but only 10 percent of the overall vote, they are allowed to keep their twenty-two seats, and are not limited to the twenty that their party vote would imply. A consequence of this is that the exact number of seats in the legislature is not constant. For example, the lower house of the German legisla­ ture (the Bundestag) does not have a fixed number of seats; while the parliament elected in 2009 had 622 legislators, the parliament elected in 2013 has 631.

The intended result is both identifiable representatives for each district and overall PR. A sample of a ballot from such a system can be seen in Figure 9.1, which is from New Zealand. Notice that the candidates in the right-hand column represent some of the parties listed in the left-hand column.

W hy might some argue for countries like the United States to adopt this sort of approach? One major challenge is a willingness to accept a totally new view of representation as both district-based and proportional, which is not how the

TH IN K IN G C O M P A R A TIV ELY

K E Y M E TH O D O LO G IC A L TO O LS

(continued) an expectation of what would happen if an institution were changed. Of necessity, this means a degree of prediction and speculation, but based on inferences. Hypotheti- cals are questions designed to get at what likely might happen in a scenario under certain circumstances; notice that the root of the word is the same as "hypothesis." Counterfactuals are ways of considering what would have happened in a given case under different circumstances; an example might be "what would history have been like if the American colonies had lost the Revolutionary War?" Of course, it cannot be known with certainty what would have happened in a certain situation under other circumstances. In fact, this is why the comparative method— with its most- similar- and most-different-systems designs— is so helpful. But these thought experiments can help us think through the implications of changes in variables such as electoral systems.

Careful analysts will not be cava­ lier about using hypotheticals and counterfactuals. Predictions and policy recommendations are only valuable if based on considerable, careful study and thoughtful consider­ ation of possible consequences. In the case here, there could be unintended consequences of any country switch­ ing its electoral system, and it is the duty of the analyst to think these through. Good comparative analysis should be based on evidence of things that have happened, not simply guesses about "what might happen if." Nonetheless, hypotheticals, counter­ factuals, and thought experiments are used all the time by comparativists eager to play out of the logic of how outcomes might be different in coun­ tries with different institutions, social structures, and cultures.

224 Chapter 9: Legislatures and Legislative Elections

T H IN K IN G " CO M P A RA TIV ELY

j

country has operated historically. It would also require accepting that a computer will make the necessary adjustments to make the legislature proportional. But this process and its decision-making criteria would be quite transparent, being determined before the elections and visible to any and all observers. If you are living in a country that does not use this model, how would you attempt to ex­ plain to a German why your country should not change to such a model?

The idea of representation varies from country to country, with different coun­ tries having different patterns of representation and different ways that represen­ tatives are chosen. Ask yourself how and why you might object to the hybrid electoral system used in Germany and New Zealand (if in fact you do object). Entertaining these sorts of questions will lead to a deeper understanding of how legislative institutions work, as well as what is meant by the concept of represen­ tation that is so fundamental to politics.

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Y O U H A V E 2 V O T E S 30001 P A R T Y V O TE

E x p la n a tio n T h i s v o t e d e c i d e s t h e s h a r e o f s e a t s w h i c h e a c h o f t h e p a r t i e s l i s t e d b e l o w w i l l h a v e i n P a r l i a m e n t . V o t e b y p u t t i n g a t i c k i n t h e c i r c l e i m m e d i a t e l y a f t e r t h e p a r t y y o u c h o o s e .

EL E C T O R A T E V O T E E x p la n a tio n

T h i s v o t e d e c i d e s t h e c a n d i d a t e w h o w i l l b e e l e c t e d M e m b e r o f P a r l i a m e n t f o r t h e A O R A K I E L E C T O R A T E . V o t e b y p u t t i n g a t i c k i n t h e c i r c l e i m m e d i a t e l y b e f o r e t h e c a n d i d a t e y o u c h o o s e .

BUSINESS PARTY

UNION PARTY

SOCIAL DEMOCRAT PARTY

HERITAGE PARTY

£/! WORKER'S LEAGUE

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4 9 LIBERTY PARTY FREE TRADE PARTY FREEDOM PARTY

CHATHAM ISLANDS PARTY

KOTAHITANGA PARTY

NZ FABIEN PARTY

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TRANSUBSTANTIATION PARTY

Vote for only one candidate

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Li t.b js- Fin a l Directions

1. If y o u s p o i l th i s b a l l o t p a p e r , r e t u r n i t t o t h e o f f ic e r w h o ii lu e d i t a n d a p p l y f o r a n e w b a l l o t p a p e r . 2. A f te r v o t i n g , f o ld t h i s b a l l o t p a p e r s o t h a t it s c o n t e n t s c a n n o t b e s e e n a n d p l a c e i t in t h e b a l l o t b o x 3 . Y o u m u s t n o t t a k e t h i s b a l l o t p a p e r o u t o f t h e p o ll in g p la c e .

Figure 9.1 Sample Ballot from New Zealand. (Source: New Zealand Electoral Commission)

Chapter Review 225

C h a p te r S u m m a r y Concepts

Legislatures are deliberative bodies that are the foundation of modern governments. Legislatures pass laws and make policy, but they also lead public debate and have responsibilities for overseeing the executive, among other functions.

Types • Legislatures can be bicameral (with two chambers) or uni­

cameral (one chamber). Legislatures are elected by many different methods, includ­ ing single-member districts (SMD), proportional represen­ tation (PR), and mixed or hybrid systems.

• There are several different patterns of interaction between legislatures and executives.

Causes and Effects A function of legislatures is representation, which can be conceptualized in different ways, and the nature and quality of representation are affected by several factors. Electoral systems can result in representation based on individuals, parties, or some mix of the two. Legislatures vary in the ways they function internally, and this too affects how they represent the populace.

• Executive-legislative relations also affect patterns of representation.

T h in k in g It T h r o u g h 1. Imagine you are the leader of the Monster Raving Loony Party, a

small party in the United Kingdom whose manifesto is posted at the following link: http://www.loonyparty.com/about/policy- proposals/. You are a big believer in the cause and are eager to win some seats in Parliament. Currently, you are at 6 percent in most opinion polls, but elections are not due for another couple of years. However, the government has called for public com­ ment on a commission considering changing the electoral system in the United Kingdom. What would you propose the system should be for House of Commons elections? Consider­ ing political incentives, what do you expect would be the reac­ tion of Members of Parliament from the three leading parties there: the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, and Labour?

2. Imagine you are an American, accustomed to (and approving of) the SMD system for electing congresspersons, and you are debating with a European who lives in a system that has always had PR. This European argues that the PR system offers chances to more political actors, saying that this enlivens debate and forces the legislature to take into account the interests of a

broader range of people. Can you convince your interlocutor that the American system is preferable to the European one?

3. What are the disadvantages, if any, of a system that requires ranking candidates and then calculates winners on the basis of voters' second or third choices?

4. There are several types of legislatures, according to Mezey and to Morgenstern and Nacif (see "Insights Boxes" in this chapter). Can you see advantages in systems that feature "reactive” or otherwise weaker legislatures? Could this be a useful pattern of executive-legislative relations? Or are these sorts of legislatures simply less desirable than their stronger and more active counterparts?

5. Would you expect changes in institutional structures (such as a legislature or legislative elections) in a given country to reshape the political outcomes and policy decisions, or would these fun­ damental outcomes likely be shaped by cultures and other structures and thus be mostly independent of the institutional design? How could you find evidence or arguments to support your claim?

CHAPTER 10

Executives

• British Prime Minister David Cameron with Queen Elizabeth in 2015. According to convention, the Queen issues an invitation to him to form a government, though this is essentially a symbolic gesture. Elections determine who w ill control parliament.

I n 1776, a group of leaders from the thirteen Am erican colonies signed a Declaration of Independence from G reat Britain. M ost o f the document

listed abuses perpetrated by King George III, B ritain’s monarch and head of state. Following the Am erican Revolution, which ended w ith indepen­ dence in 1783, the former colonists established a system o f government strikingly different from th at o f Britain. Known as a republic, the United States had a w ritten constitution, no monarch, powerful state govern­ ments, and several branches of governm ent th at were inde­ pendent and designed to balance one another. The new republic arranged for an elected president as head of state and head of government.

Over the next two centuries, as both the United States and G reat Britain became more m ature democracies, the American presidential system and the British parliam entary system became two defining models for how governments could function. W ith its executive branch led by a prime minister, and a monarch who increasingly became a figure­ head in a ceremonial position, Britain became the “M other of Parliaments” around the world. M eanwhile, many other countries came to emulate the American system of a presi­ dency w ith checks and balances.

In the United States and Great Britain, the executives have kept their same basic form over time, though their powers have shifted somewhat. Parliament formally retains political power and sovereignty in Britain, and the prime minister depends on retaining the legislature’s confidence, yet the prime minister has considerable political leverage. The American president has become more influential over time as the United States has grown, but still remains deeply entrenched in the same basic system of checks and balances that endures to this day. The two countries have been models for other countries for centuries, and they remain the points of departure today for understand­ ing how executives work.

IN TH IS C H A P T E R

Concepts 228

Types 229 Executive Structures: Presidential and

Parliamentary 230 Formal Powers 232 Partisan Powers 235 Coalitions 235 Informal Powers 240

Causes and Effects: What Explains Executive Stability? 240 Stable and Unstable Regimes:

Presidentialism, Parliamentarism, and Democracy 240

Stable and Unstable Executives: Styles of Presidential Rule 243

Stable and Unstable Executives: Patterns of Parliamentary Rule 246

T H IN K IN G C O M P A R A T I V E L Y

Beyond the A merican and British Models 247

C A S E S IN C O N T E X T

France China

United States Nigeria

Russia

227

228 Chapter 10: Executives

executive The branch of govern­ ment, or the individual(s) at the top of that branch, that executes or administers policies and laws in a country.

bureaucracy The organization of unelected officials, often conside­ red part of the executive branch, that implements, executes, and enforces laws and policies.

head of state A person with exe­ cutive functions who is a country's symbolic representative, including elected presidents and unelected monarchs.

head of government The top executive official responsible for forming governments and formula­ ting and implementing policies.

prime minister A chief executive in a parliamentary system of government.

president An executive leader that typically combines the func­ tions of head of state and head of government, and is not directly responsible to a legislature.

monarch A head of state in a monarchy, who usually inherits a position for life and may have either substantial political powers or very limited ceremonial powers.

Concepts Executives earn their name because they execute or administer policies and laws. In most countries, executives implement and administer the laws passed by leg­ islatures, though in some authoritarian regimes the executive may act without a functioning legislature. Executives also contribute to the making of law. Legis­ latures (as examined in chapter 8) are usually authorized to initiate and pass laws in representative democracies, but executives play a major role in the public debate and decision making that leads to new laws. For example, executives may send budget requests to the legislature, or they may work with legislators to for­ mulate a policy that the executive branch desires.

In most cases, executives have a substantial role in determining which laws and policies pass. In the United States, for instance, the president usually signs final bills as they become laws and has the power to veto (disapprove) bills, though the legislature can override the veto with a strong enough majority. In parliamentary systems, the executive shapes the agenda of the parliament to decide which initiatives will come to the floor for debate and also pressures par­ liamentarians to pass its desired policies. The relative power of the executive and legislative branches is one of the leading issues that determine how political deci­ sions are made, and the relationship between the branches is a major theme run­ ning through this chapter.

The executive is the branch of government that runs the government bureaucracy, such as the Department of Defense or Department of Education in the United States, or the Ministry of Health or Ministry of Agriculture in a Eu­ ropean country. These departments or ministries include large numbers of offi­ cials and civil servants that work for the executive branch. For this reason, the executive branch is often held to be responsible for the quality of government actions. W hen social services improve, executives may successfully claim credit, or when a war policy fails, the executive may take the blame. Legislatures have their portion of responsibility, since they typically pass the laws authorizing ex­ ecutive action and also expenditures, but executives are responsible for executing the laws on the books.

The executive can also refer to specific individuals who lead this branch of gov­ ernment. These “chief executives” are heads of state or heads of government. The distinction between these two—head of state and head of government—is signifi­ cant. In brief, the head of state is a country’s symbolic national representative, while the head of government is responsible for forming governments and formulating and implementing policies. Prime ministers are examples of heads of government. Presidents often combine the powers of head of state and head of government.

Monarchs such as kings, queens, and emperors are classic examples of heads of state. Traditional monarchs still wield political influence and power as heads of state in some contemporary societies, such as the sultanates and emirates of the Arab world and some small nations such as Swaziland. In Europe, tradi­ tional monarchies persist but are essentially figureheads with only symbolic power. In some other countries—usually where the nation-state is of more recent origin, such as India and Israel— a ceremonial president may be the nominal head of state, with political power again reserved for the head of government in the form of a prime minister.

Types 229

The responsibilities and powers of the executive branch are extensive. By most measures, the executive could be the most powerful and dominant branch of government: It commands the bureaucracy and maintains nominal control over the military, and it is responsible for spending the budget approved to it by the legislature. In other words, the executive has powers of the pen and the pistol, and some control over the purse. Indeed, when democracies break down into authoritarian regimes, a typical result is the dissolution of the legislative branch and the loss of independence for the judiciary; it is often the executive’s domina­ tion over other branches that distinguishes authoritarianism from the more bal­ anced institutional arrangements of a democracy.

Executive branches of government consist of both a set of elected politicians and a more permanent bureaucracy or civil service. Elected officials will gener­ ally have discretion to make only a limited number of political appointments to allies, supporters, and copartisans. Beyond these, most of the bureaucracy is ex­ pected to remain neutral, executing the law regardless of election results. This ideal is not always upheld in practice, but bureaucrats are generally expected to implement and administer policies, rather than to promote a political vision of what government should do.1

As a point of clarification, in many countries the elected executive officials and high-level political appointees are called the government. This is distinct from the entirety of public institutions in a country. For example, in parliamen­ tary systems, when a “new government” is formed, this does not mean that the state bureaucracy changes, except perhaps at the highest level. Similarly, in the United States, the word administration can be used to refer to the top elected officials in the executive or to the broader bureaucracy that executes policy.

Understanding politics requires understanding how executives are selected. In turn, understanding executives depends on understanding legislatures, which we discussed in the last chapter. Especially in representative democracies (but also even in some authoritarian regimes), executives rely on legislatures or assemblies to pass laws that the executive will then implement or “execute.” In this chapter, we begin by identifying what executives are and what they do. We then discuss the consequences of different patterns of executives. One of the main distinctions is between presiden­ tial and parliamentary forms of government. We use our cases to examine executives comparatively and discuss which forms are most likely to support democracy.

Types There are two basic ways to structure the executive branch of government: presi­ dential and parliamentary systems. The United States is an example of presiden- tialism, while the United Kingdom an example of parliamentarism. Some countries, such as France, have executive systems that combine features of presi- dentialism and parliamentarism, as do some less democratic countries, such as Iran. The relative power of the executive depends upon a range of formal and informal powers, including the ability of the chief executive to discipline and manage their party and any other parties needed to comprise a governing coali­ tion. Presidential and parliamentary systems thus have different kinds of executive-legislative relations. We discuss these variations throughout this section (and a summary view of types can be found in Table 10.1).

government In the context of executives, the set of top elected executive officials and high-level political appointees that shape and orient policy; also refers to the broader administrative apparatus of the state.

administration The bureaucracy of state officials, usually considered part of the executive branch, that executes policy.

executive-legislative relations The set of political relationships between the executive branch of government, which executes laws/ policies, and the legislative branch, which often has the authority to pass those laws/policies.

230 Chapter 10: Executives

presidentialism A system of government in which a president serves as chief executive, being independent of the legislature and often combining the functions of head of state and head of government.

direct election With regard to executives, an electoral system in which voters cast a vote directly for the head of government or head of state.

t a b l e 10.1 Executive Structures

Form o f Executive Features

Presidential President is directly elected by population at large. President is ceremonial head of state and chief executive. Legislature is elected independently of executive.

Parliamentary Prime minister is indirectly elected by parliament/legislature. Prime minister is head of government. Ceremonial monarch or president may be head of state.

Semi-presidential (hybrid) President is directly elected by population at large. Prime minister or chief minister is responsible to parliament. President may have power to appoint prime minister, dissolve legislature, etc.

Executive Structures: Presidential and Parliam entary Under the executive system known as presidentialism, the populace at large votes in elections for a chief executive, usually called a president, in a nationwide election.2 This president is usually elected for a fixed term of several years and depends on the voting populace for their position, though the legislature or courts may have the power to remove the president in serious cases of criminal behavior, unconstitutional action, or other impeachable offenses. Most presidential systems in democracies feature direct elections in a nationwide popular vote, with par­ ticular electoral rules varying by country. In many countries (such as Mexico), the top vote-getter among all candidates wins, with or without a majority; in others (such as France, as seen in the “Case in Context” box), there is a first round be­ tween all candidates and then a runoff between the top two vote-getters, unless one candidate receives an outright majority in the first round. The United States is actually an exception in its presidential electoral process, since election depends on winning a majority of the electoral votes allotted to the various states.

Presidential systems also have legislatures as another “branch” of government, and the issue of executive-legislative relations is important. In nearly all presidential systems, both the executive and the legislature are expected to abide by the rules of a written constitution, though these rules may be flouted by powerful presidents in less-democratic countries. Each branch of government has certain powers, rights, and responsibilities, with the legislature generally having the power to make most law. Presidents have the power to execute these laws, but they cannot make most laws themselves. They typically have the right to assent to a law proposed by the legislature, or to veto it; specific rules for what happens in case of a veto vary by country, but the legislature can often overturn the president’s veto with an ample majority. The intricate dance that results between the executive and legislature in trying to get laws passed and instituted is known in the American system as a set of “checks and balances” between different political actors. Judiciaries also have a role in this set of checks and balances, as they have some authority to interpret the law and rule out provisions that conflict with the constitution or legal code. Checks and balances between independent branches of government may seem the most intuitive

Types 231

Electing the French President:

The French presidential election contrasts with the American presi­ dential election. In France, the election is based on the nationwide vote and usually features two rounds. The first round is between a large number of candidates, while the second round is a "runoff” be­ tween the top two candidates from the first round. These electoral systems can produce different results because of the ways they en­ courage or discourage people to vote for compromise candidates.

See the case study on the French executive in Part VI, pp. 436-437. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

W hat Do Runoffs Do? PAGE 436

1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the French runoff system?

2. Might any recent American elections have turned out dif­ ferently if the electoral system were changed to follow the French model?

3. Would a change to such a system have any implications for smaller parties, or would the overall effect be not much change?

way to set up a democracy—at least to many Americans—but it is not the only way, as we see from parliamentary systems.

Parliamentarism works differently from presidentialism. The first step is an election of members of parliament (MPs), in which voters vote for a political party and/or elect a specific representative of a political party from their district. The second step is where these MPs select an individual as head of government and chief executive. This is an indirect election, in which most voters never vote directly for the individual who becomes head of government. In most cases, each major party participating in the election has a prominent standard-bearer known to the public, so while individuals may not get to vote for this individual, there is often a leading face associated with the party. The leader of the party that wins the most votes is often selected by the parliament as the head of government, though not always. Since many parliamentary systems have a quite a few large parties with none that is large enough to claim a majority of seats, the selection

parliamentarism A system of government in which the head of government is elected by and accountable to a parliament or legislature.

indirect election With regard to executives, an electoral system in which most voters never cast a ballot directly for the individual who becomes head of government.

"The Most Powerful Person in the World"? Checks on American Presidents PAGE 566

The President of the United States is both the ceremonial head of state and the titular head of government, as well as the Com- mander-in-Chief of the nation's armed forces. Presidents are part of a system of checks and balances between executives and the other branches. The nature of these American-style checks and balances is the subject of much of the study of executives.

See the case study on the U.S. presidency in Part VI, p. 566. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. Why might the founders of the American constitution have insisted on checks and balances between the branches of government?

2. Are there negative consequences of checks and balances for making laws and making governments work, and are there examples where these have played out?

3. Before reading on parliamentarism, can you conceive of other ways to protect democracy that would not involve this style of checks and balances?

232 Chapter 10: Executives

semi-presidential system A mixed or hybrid system combining aspects of presidentialism and parliamentarism.

formal powers The powers possessed by a political actor, such as a chief executive, as a function of their constitutional or legal position.

veto Anactofexecutivepowerin which an executive rejects a law passed by a legislature.

dissolving the legislature The practice of a chief executive dis­ banding the legislature, often ac­ companied in a democratic regime by the calling for new elections.

of the head of government depends on negotiations between the parties to see who can form a coalition big enough to govern; we discuss this later in the chap­ ter. W hat heads of government are called in parliamentary systems varies by country and by language and include prime minister, premier, and chancellor.3

An indirectly elected head of government wields a form of executive power that is fused with legislative power. The fact that the executive and legislature come out of the same body gives rise to a different kind of executive-legislative relations than in presidential systems. On one hand, parliamentary systems often feature a high degree of party unity, with executives that can count on the “backbench” legislators in their party to support executive proposals. This is in part because legislators who do not vote along with the executive may create conditions for “no confidence” in the government, which can put legislators’ seats at risk, as we dis­ cuss later. On the other hand, executives in parliamentary systems depend on the continued “confidence” of the legislature, since the legislature selected them and generally has the power to vote out the government. This is much easier to do in most parliamentary systems than in presidential systems that require complicated procedures to impeach presidents or force resignations. Parliamentary systems thus have back-and-forth exchanges between executives and legislatures, but “checks and balances” have different meanings than in presidential systems.

Other countries combine features of presidentialism and parliamentarism. These systems typically feature both a directly elected president as the head of state and a prime minister chosen separately as the head of government. In these semi-presidential systems, the prime minister and other government ministers or cabinet officials may be appointed by the president, but they are responsible to the legislature (or parliament) and can be dismissed by the legislature. France is a useful example of this system, as can be seen in the discussion of the political regime in that country (see Part VI, p. 427).

Many other configurations of executive power are possible besides the preced­ ing three democratic examples. In Iran, for instance, the president may have some power in executive-legislative relations but is relatively powerless compared with the religious clerics. W hether the Supreme Leader in Iran is best seen as a judicial or executive authority (or both) is open to debate, but it shows that many executives often operate in an intricate web of institutions and cannot simply make decisions unilaterally.

Formal Powers W hat executives can do depends on the formal powers they have, which are usu­ ally outlined in a country’s constitutional charter or basic laws. One important formal power is the ability of some presidents to veto laws passed by the legisla­ ture. Depending on the country, the legislature may be able to override the veto with a majority or super-majority of greater than 50 percent. Veto power gives executives a chance to react to the legislature, but executives may also have more proactive formal powers.

An example of a proactive executive power is the ability in many countries to dissolve the legislature. In some countries, this may be exercised only on rare occasions or perhaps a limited number of times per presidential adminis­ tration, while in others it maybe exercised frequently when the executive deems

it will improve governance or perhaps give the government a larger majority. In the United Kingdom, for instance, elections must be held at least every five years, but a prime minister and the government are entitled to call an early election— sometimes called a “snap election”— at a moment that may be most advantageous for the governing party. In some countries, this can be a major advantage to the incumbent, as governments can schedule elections at their convenience after big boosts of government spending, a phenomenon known as the political business cycle.4

Other formal powers in some countries include the power to pass certain laws or orders without the intervention of the legislature. For example, presidents may have the ability to issue decrees, which are orders that have the power of law de­ spite not being passed through a legislature. These have been used extensively in more authoritarian regimes to limit political mobilization. Decrees have also been used by assertive presidents in relatively democratic countries such as Brazil in the 1990s, when a president sought to halt an economic crisis. These may go into effect immediately and, in some instances, may only be overturned by restrictive votes in the legislature or by expiring after a certain period of time. Executives can also issue executive orders to the bureaucracy that shape the way the bureaucracy enacts and interprets the law. This can affect whether and how important regula­ tions are enforced. In some situations, presidents may be empowered to declare a nationwide state o f emergency that confers extraordinary powers to the president (and often to the military) to govern with less input from the legislature. The case of Russia shows that it is possible to centralize a great deal of decision-making power in the executive branch, whether as president or as prime minister.

It is also important to know what executives cannot do, because all democra­ cies (by definition) have numerous checks on executive power. The first and most obvious restraints on executives are periodic elections for new governments. These ensure that an executive cannot remain in power indefinitely without popular support. Second are constitutional limitations on executive power, such as rights guaranteed to all citizens that the executive may not infringe. Third are separa­ tions of powers. This may include separating powers between levels of govern­ ment, such as between central governments and state and local governments in a federal system. It also includes the ways the judicial and legislative branches check executive power and ensure oversight of the executive. Strict term limits on time in office may also be seen as a restriction on executive powers, as is the case with the American president, who may now serve a maximum of two terms and a total of eight years.

The other branches of government are responsible for ensuring that executives do not overstep their limits. Constitutional courts may rule that an executive has acted unconstitutionally or illegally. Legislatures may have even stronger mecha­ nisms. One is public rebuke, such as the ability to censure or reprimand the ex­ ecutive. Legislatures may also be able to prevent executive action by withholding funds from executive agencies. In many instances, the legislature can also remove executives from office. In presidential systems, for example, this can occur after an impeachment process.

In parliamentary systems, the legislature chooses the executives, and the ex­ ecutive formally depends on the support of the legislature to retain office.

decree An executive-made order that has the force of law, despite not being passed through a legislature.

executive order An order made by a chief executive or top official to the bureaucracy that determines how the bureaucracy should enact or interpret the law.

state of emergency A condition allowed by some constitutions in which guarantees, rights, or provisions are temporarily limited, to be justified by emergencies or exceptional circumstances.

term limit Restriction on the number of times or total amount of time a political official can serve in a given position.

impeachment A process by which a legislature initiates procee­ dings to determine whether an official, often a top-ranking execu­ tive official, should be removed from office.

234 Chapter 10: Executives

Executives in Russia: Formal and Informal Powers PAGE 534

The dominance of the executive branch in Russia has become in­ creasingly clear in recent years. Centralization has been especially accentuated under Vladimir Putin, who was president from 2000 to 2008, prime minister from 2008 to 2012, and became president again in 2012. Putin's role as head of state and head of government showed that some executives are capable of wielding authority through formal means and informal means. The powers of the ex­ ecutives have implications for the fate of democracy in Russia.

See the case study on the Russian executive in Part VI, pp. 534-535. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. What factors give rise to centralization by executives in countries like Russia?

2. Does the Russian case suggest that semi-presidential sys­ tems are likely to be unstable?

3. Does the power of Vladimir Putin say anything generaliz- able about the relative importance of formal and informal powers?

Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev at Putin's inauguration following the controversial elections of 2012. Even when Putin was prime minister and Medvedev was president, according to most observers Putin remained in charge.

vote of no confidence A vote taken by a legislature that expres­ ses a lack of support for the gover­ nment or executive, which, if successful, often results in the dissolution of the government and the calling of new legislative elections.

The legislature has the power to dismiss the executive if it no longer deems the government to be functioning adequately. This mechanism, the vote o f no confidence, makes removing an executive much easier than in a presidential system. The vote of no confidence comes in many forms. In its simplest form, a confidence vote is simply called by members of parliament, and the government is voted out if a majority votes no confidence. The head of state then calls new elections for a new government. In Germany, on the other hand, there is a so- called “constructive vote of no confidence,” which is designed to ensure that there will always be a government in place. There, the legislative majority voting no confidence in a government simultaneously proposes a new government that will take its place.

More formal powers for the executive leads to greater influence over legisla­ tures, while more checks on executive powers gives greater authority to legisla­ tures.3 Weaker formal powers may limit executives in their ability to promote their initiatives or agendas. It is relatively obvious that the ability to veto legisla­ tion enhances a president’s power, for example, or that a legislature that can easily override a veto weakens the executive’s power. However, as noted before, formal rules do not fully determine an executive’s power, and it is not always clear how formal rules themselves matter. For example, Brazil’s president used decrees a great deal in the 1990s, but most legislation of any significance ultimately had to be passed through the legislature.

In parliamentary systems, one of the main issues with regard to formal powers is how confidence votes work. Where they are used, votes of no confidence are

Types 235

examples of the legislature exerting its control over the executive, but the exis­ tence of votes of no confidence is not proof of legislative power. In fact, legisla­ tures can be powerful even without using confidence votes. Often, the mere threat of a confidence vote will be enough to force the executive to do the legis­ lature’s bidding. Actual votes of no confidence may rarely come to the floor of the parliament, and may succeed even more rarely, even where executives are weak.

Parliamentary countries are not all destined to have a merry-go-round of failed governments that last only a brief time before being voted down in confi­ dence votes. Some countries have notoriously unstable systems while other coun­ tries rarely witness a confidence vote. Because prime ministers usually represent one of the largest parties in parliament, the executive in a parliamentary system will often have substantial support in the parliament. Parliamentarians who call for a no confidence vote place their own careers on the line, since these votes usu­ ally trigger new elections or shake-ups within the party.

Partisan Powers The formal powers of an executive are not the only factor that determines whether an executive has leverage over legislation. Formal powers are often less important than the partisan powers of the executive—that is, the president’s leverage over same-party legislators and over parties in the governing coalition. Chief execu­ tives who can exercise such authority and can thus control the careers of other politicians will typically be able to pass a great deal of legislation.

The balance of power between the executive and the legislature depends partly on whether executive leaders can control the electoral fortunes of legislators. One of the most important forms of control is over the party’s list of candidates for elections, as noted in the previous chapter. If the executive leaders can choose who will be on party’s list of candidates, then those would-be candidates will be responsive to the needs of the executive. On the other hand, the executive’s par­ tisan powers are lessened if party leaders do not control the electoral fortunes of copartisans. Where party candidates are chosen by voters in primary elections, for instance, they will tend to be more loyal to their constituents than to their party leadership. This may result in legislators who vote against the wishes of their party leaders in the executive. In some parliamentary systems, a critique is that party leaders in the executive can “ram legislation through” and get it ap­ proved by a “rubber stamp” parliament. Where executive leaders control the elec­ toral fortunes of legislators and have a strong majority, the executive maybe able to push its prerogatives through the parliament with ease, knowing that coparti­ sans will support it. By contrast, a critique of certain presidential systems is that some executives may have too little partisan power and thus difficulty passing laws, as the case of Brazil shows.

Coalitions The power of executive leaders also depends on whether a party governs alone or is part of a coalition of two or more parties. Governing coalitions form among parties in the legislature, but they determine the composition of the executive and the government, so we consider them in this chapter. Coalitions usually arise when there are several major parties in a country and the party that won the most

partisan powers The powers accruing to a government official, such as a chief executive, by virtue of the official's leverage or power over members of a political party.

coalition Agroupoftwoormore political parties that governs by sharing executive power and responsibilities.

236 Chapter 10: Executives

China's current political system is authoritarian, with a complex state administration interweaved with the single dominant party, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). At present, Xi Jinping has consolidated power over the party, the presidency, and the military. How one becomes China's "paramount leader" is a study in the politics of party and state in China's intricate system.

See the case study on the Chinese executive in Part VI, pp. 423-424. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. How does a paramount leader consolidate power and emerge in China's system?

2. Why might an authoritarian regime such as China's re­ quire or desire to have any "checks and balances" be­ tween different actors?

3. Can we tell if strong top-down authority of paramount leaders contributed to China’s economic growth, held China back economically, or both?

cabinet The group of senior officials in the executive branch, including ministers, who advise the head of government or head of state.

portfolio The set of duties and tasks that correspond to a given ministerial office.

legislative seats in an election does not have the majority needed to pass legisla­ tion on its own. In parliamentary systems, where the executive depends on the confidence of the legislature, heads of government frequently need to hold to­ gether a coalition in order not to be voted out of office. This is especially common under systems of proportional representation (see chapter 9), where small parties are likelier to emerge and remain in existence. On some occasions, a governing party may have a majority but choose to form an alliance with another party for other reasons.6 Coalitions are somewhat less common in presidential systems, where an election is held for a single chief executive that represents a certain party. In the United States, for instance, the party winning the presidency typi­ cally holds all the seats in the cabinet. Yet even in presidential countries like Brazil, presidents sometimes need to form a cabinet that represents various par­ ties in order to have a coalition of parties that can get legislation passed.

In parliamentary systems, the largest party in the legislature has the advan­ tage in forming a government, and is usually the one from which the head of government emerges.7 Parties with fewer seats are the “junior” members of the coalition but will demand some political reward for agreeing to participate in government. This comes from cabinet appointments to control ministerial portfolios. By controlling certain ministries, coalition members can reward their supporters with ability to shape policy in the area where they control the cabinet position and can help some of their top partisans with high-ranking appoint­ ments in the bureaucracy.8

Chinese leaders at the opening session of the National People's Congress in Beijing in March 2015. In the second row stand five prominent leaders, with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang second and third from the left, respectively.

Types 237

German chancellor Angela Merkel of the Christian Democratic Union (center) talks with then- Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle of the Free Democratic Party (right) and others as they negotiate to form a governing coalition.

Forming governing coalitions is a political art, especially in countries with many parties in the legislature. Not all coalitions are based on the largest party in parliament, for example. If a group of smaller parties gets together, they may be able to exclude the largest party or parties from the government. This may happen, for instance, if one extreme party (say, right-wing or left-wing radicals) gains the largest number of seats, but all other parties combine to prevent them from holding power. Substantial bargaining will take place over how cabinet positions will be distributed among the parties. Generally, the more seats a party wins, the more it can demand in ministerial portfolios and policy concessions.

There are several types of governing coalitions. Consider the following hypo­ thetical example of the country of Santa Gabriela (Table 10.2). There are one hundred seats in the parliament, and the parties are arrayed along the political spectrum from far left (XL) and left (L) through the center (C) to right (R) and far right (XR). Imagine that each seat represents 1 percent of the vote, so that party R got 27 percent of the vote and therefore twenty-seven seats.9 Many pos­ sible kinds of coalitions can be formed after this election. We give one example

t a b l e io.2 Hypothetical Distribution of Seats in Parliam ent of Santa Gabriela

Party XL L C R XR

Seats 30 7 21 27 15

238 Chapter 10: Executives

for several types of coalitions, listing the largest party first in each case, and en­ courage you to figure out other possible examples that fit each type of coalition. W hat different coalitions might form, and which parties might be represented in the executive branch?

A minimum winning coalition has no “surplus” parties beyond those re­ quired to form a government. So, for instance, a coalition of the four parties C, R, L, and XR would not be “minimum winning” because parties C, R, and L could still have more than 50 percent of the seats even without the seats of XR. However, removing any one of the parties from the C-R-L coalition would give the coalition less than the 50 percent of seats needed. C-R-L is thus an example of a minimum winning coalition. There are several other possibilities in this elec­ tion, such as an XL-XR-L coalition. A more restrictive version of a minimum winning coalition is minimum connected winning; this arrangement occurs when all parties in the coalition are “connected” to one another on the political spectrum. This prevents the example of the parties XL (far left) and L (left) forming a coalition with the party XR (far right), which would be improbable because there is no realistic “connection” linking these parties. There are other parties in between, namely R and C. The logic is to include policy preferences as a factor in coalition formation. This rules out several minimum winning coali­ tions, but C-R-L is an example of a minimum connected coalition.

The minimum size coalition goes a step further and says the coalition that governs will be that closest to the threshold needed, usually 50 percent plus one seat. A coalition that includes only 51 percent of the seats is preferred to a coali­ tion that includes a larger percentage of seats, because the participating parties will maximize their relative power within the coalition by not dispersing power. There will often be only one possible minimum size coalition, even when there are many possible “minimum winning coalitions.” In Santa Gabriela, XL-C is the minimum size coalition.

Other logics can also shape the types of coalition that emerge (Table 10.3). One logic is to minimize the number of parties involved: two-party coalitions will be preferred to three- or four-party coalitions, even if the two-party coali­ tion means more seats. Another option is that coalitions should contain the party

t a b l e 1 0 . 3 Types of Coalition

Type of Coalition Definition of Coalition Exam ple Seats (#)

Minimum Winning No extra or surplus parties that are not needed to govern X L - X R - L 52

Minimum Connected Winning Minimum winning and parties are connected on policy spectrum C - R - L 55

Minimum Size As close as possible to minimum number of seats needed (often 50 percent)

X L-C 51

Minimum Number of Parties10 Fewest number of parties needed to form majority X L-R 57

Median Party" Includes the median party in the middle of the political spectrum X L-C 51

Minimum Range Minimum number of spaces between parties on policy spectrum R - C - X R 63

minimum winning coalition A governing coalition that contains

no surplus parties beyond those

required to form a government.

minimum connected winning coalition A minimum winning coalition in which all parties in the

coalition are "connected" or adja­

cent to one another on the political

spectrum.

minimum size coalition A gover­ ning coalition that is closest to the

threshold needed to govern, typi­

cally 50 percent of the legislative

seats plus one seat.

Types 239

holding the median seat in parliament or the “middle” parliamentarian on the political spectrum, because this echoes the will of the “median voter” or average citizen. In this case, party C is the median party. The median party coalition may or may not be “minimum winning.” A final type of majority coalition will mini­ mize the range or number of “spaces” on the political spectrum between parties. Between C and XR, for instance, there are two “spaces” (C to R, and R to XR). The same is true for L and R, while XL and R would have three spaces. Such coalitions prefer parties that are not too far apart, but there is no requirement that parties need to be “connected” or adjacent to one another. In Santa Gabriela, two spaces is the minimum possible. Sometimes this includes three parties con­ nected to one another, and sometimes two parties with a space in between them.

These coalitions all have a governing majority and all share a logic in which participating parties attempt to minimize the size or scope of the coalition. However, there are also two other major possibilities in coalition formation. A grand coalition may be made up of two or more parties that represent well over half of the electorate, and hold well over half the seats. One motivation for a grand coalition is national unity among the largest parties in a time of crisis. An example was the national unity government in Britain during World War II, when Conservatives, Liberals, and Labour all joined to support the war effort. Less dramatically, the “Grand Coalition” from 2005 to 2009 in Germany emerged after a closely contested election in which neither party came close to a majority, but preferred a centrist coalition to another coalition that might have included parties on the left wing of the political spectrum.

Finally, not all governments necessarily have a majority of the seats in the legislature. In some parliamentary systems, the largest party (or a group of parties) may be able to form a government even with less than 50 percent of the seats. This happens where there are three or more major parties represented in parliament and no party gains a majority of seats. The government’s ability to remain in power is tenuous in these cases, lasting until a vote of no confidence occurs or the next election is held. In Canada from 2008 to 2011, the Conservative government of Stephen Harper governed with only 46 percent of the seats in Parliament, since the next largest party was the Liberals (25 percent of seats), followed by two other parties (the New Democratic Party and a regional Quebec-based party, the Bloc Quebecois), with whom neither the Conservatives nor the Liberals could form a majority coalition. The Conservatives formed a government, which fell in 2011 when the other three parties agreed to vote no confidence and call new elections; the Conservatives then won an outright majority in the ensuing election.

In general, parties and their leaders decide to participate in a coalition because they prefer to be in government where they can affect policy, rather than in op­ position. Parties often have to compromise in order to join a coalition, and will prefer to form a government with those parties with which they agree on policy. In general, parties may prefer not to have a coalition that is very large and has well above 51 percent of the seats. The reason is relative power. A party that holds 33 percent of the seats (for instance) will have most of the say in a coalition com­ prised of parties representing 55 percent of the seats in parliament but would only have a smaller fraction of the power in a coalition comprised of parties represent­ ing 70 percent of the seats. This is why we might expect coalitions to be relatively

grand coalition A governing coalition composed of two or more major parties that hold a superma­ jority of legislative seats and repre­ sent a supermajority of the electorate.

240 Chapter 10: Executives

t a b l e 1 0 . 4 Presidential Powers

Type of Power D efinition Exam ples (Not in A ll Countries)

Formal Powers Powers assigned to the office of the president by constitutional authority or by law

Dissolve the legislature Issue decrees and executive orders Veto legislation

Partisan Powers Powers to control decisions and votes of legislators and other politicians through control of political party

Control lists of candidates for office Appoint party members to executive office Affect career paths of party members

Informal Powers Powers of the president that are not official, but come from informal ability to influence public policy

Influence public opinion and public debate Campaign for individuals or causes Patronage and clientelism

informal powers Those powers possessed by an office holder that

are not "official" but rather based

on custom, convention, or other

sources of influence.

patronage The use of government favors, typically in the

form of employment, to garner

political support.

clientelism The practice of exchanging political favors, often in

the form of government employ­

ment or services, for political

support.

close to 50 percent of the seats, though it must obviously be above 50 percent in order to constitute a governing majority.

Informal Powers Apart from formal and partisan powers, executives can have others that we simply call “informal powers” (see Table 10.4). These include the ability to influence public debate and public opinion. For instance, if the president of France wishes to force a public debate on immigration, he may bring up the issue in speeches and talk about it in the media. In the United States, we know this as the “bully pulpit of the presidency.” There is nothing in most democratic constitutions giving the president legal authority to shape public opinion, but he is clearly free to use the podium and public position to shape politics. Indeed, one prominent scholar has referred to the most essential power of the American president as the “power to persuade,” since formal authority alone will not work to control the legislature or the bureaucracy.12 In many countries, presidents can also use the government as a source of patronage or for the purposes of clientelism. This means providing jobs or other benefits to supporters, with the executive known as the patron and the recipients of this support known as the clients. Patron-client politics is generally seen as poor governance, but it is clearly a power that some presidents have.

Causes and Effects: What Explains Executive Stability? One big question in the study of executives has been whether parliamentary forms of government are better for protecting democracy than presidential forms of government. While it may come as a surprise to American students, the debate has generally had presidentialism “on the defensive.” Advocates of parliamentary forms of government have argued that parliamentarism better protects democ­ racy. They point to evidence from Europe and several former British colonies around the world. These countries have a long history of parliamentarism and a stronger record of democracy than many presidential systems.

Causes and Effects: What Explains Executive Stability? 241

The Presidency in Nigeria: Powers and Limitations PAGE 521

With its tendency for patronage and the need to balance the pre­ carious relationship between North and South, Nigeria shows that social context greatly affects the environment in which presidents operate, regardless of constitutional powers. Given longstanding conflicts and challenges to governance in the country, the elec­ tion of the executive in Nigeria takes into account the realities of ethnic divisions across the different regions of the country.

3. What are the intended effects of the new constitutional rule shaping presidential election in a multi-ethnic coun­ try like Nigeria?

2. What accounts for the similarities in certain features of the presidency across both military and civilian regimes?

1. Would you consider the Nigerian presidency a strong or weak institution? Why?

See the case study on the Nigerian executive in Part VI, p. 521. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

Stable and Unstable Regim es: Presidentialism , Parliamentarism , and D em ocracy The debate has been whether presidentialism or parliamentarism affects the sta­ bility of democracy, not about whether parliamentarism is preferable to presiden­ tialism in every respect. Presidential systems may have other advantages over parliamentarism, such as allowing voters to identify clearly with an individual candidate, giving voters a greater range of electoral choices, and providing the opportunity to “split a ticket” and cast a vote for one party in legislative elections and another party in the executive election.

Consider what is likely to happen in each type of system and how it will affect democracy. According to the argument in favor of parliamentarism, a parliamen­ tary regime makes governments likelier to reach compromise and share power. There are often multiple parties represented in a parliamentary cabinet. Presiden­ tial regimes, on the other hand, generally have only one party represented in the cabinet and are less willing to compromise and share power. Moreover, if a par­ liamentary executive becomes unpopular, it can be easily removed by a no confi­ dence vote. This means that a crisis in a particular government does not become a crisis of the whole political regime, whereas removing an unpopular elected president from office creates more of a constitutional crisis. (See the “Insights” box on the work of Juan Linz.)

Yet some scholars disagree that parliamentarism is better for democracy than presidentialism.13 One critique introduces another factor into the equation: the political party system. In this critique, the argument is that parliamentary sys­ tems are not necessarily more inclined to power sharing. It depends on how leg­ islators are elected and how many parties end up being represented in parliament. If a parliamentary system has just a couple of major parties, there will be few incentives for prime ministers to share power. (See the “Insights” box presenting Mainwaring and Shugart’s critique.)

Another way to critique the argument in favor of parliamentarism is to exam­ ine specific empirical cases to see why democracy has succeeded in some places and not others. Parliamentarism has been predominant in Europe and presidentialism

242 Chapter 10: Executives

IN SIG H TS The Perils of Presidentialism and The Virtues of Parliamentarism by Juan Linz T' T :

Juan Linz argues that parliamentary systems are better for de­mocracy than presidencies, for five reasons: 1. Competing vs. Clear Legitimacy. Presidentialism divides

power between the legislature and executive, which makes it unclear who is responsible for public action. Par­ liamentarism makes clear that the executive heads the government.

2. Fixed vs. Flexible Terms. Presidential systems have rigid terms for presidents (such as four years), which makes changing an unpopular government difficult. Parliamen­ tary governments may be replaced at any time upon losing the confidence of parliament.

3. Winner-Take-All vs. Power Sharing. Presidentialism allows a single party to lead the executive branch. Parliamentarism

leads to more power sharing (via coalitions). This helps democracy by including more participants in decision making.

4. Presidential vs. Prime Ministerial "Style." Presidencies lead to more authoritarian, bombastic style than is found with the negotiating tendencies of prime ministers.

5. Outsider vs. Insider Executives. Presidents are likelier to be outsiders than prime ministers because parliamentary leaders have been in politics for decades.

Linz argues that these factors in the long run increase the likelihood that presidential systems will be taken over by authoritarians.

JuanLinz, "The Perils ofPresidentialism."Journal of Democracy 1,No. 109901:51-69; and'The Virtues of Parliamentarism." Jourr-a of Democracy 1, No. 4 0990): 84-91.

in Latin America and Africa, for example. We can see this by contrasting the stable democracy of the parliamentary system in the United Kingdom with the presidential systems of Brazil and Nigeria that have had periods of military rule. But Europe may have had successful democracies not because of parliamen­ tarism, but rather because it is rich. The less successful histories of democracy in Brazil and Nigeria may not be because of presidentialism, but because those countries and others in their regions are lower-income. Close attention to the empirical cases chosen (the when and where of an argument) can affect our con­ clusions about how and why democracy persists.

To put it another way, remember that correlation is not causation (see chapter 2): Just because parliamentary Germany is more democratic than Iran and Iran has an elected president does not mean that parliamentarism causes Germany’s democracy to succeed or that directly electing a president causes Iran’s democracy to fail. The challenge is to document cause and effect rather than to assume it. This means that we need to try to anticipate and control for other, confounding variables—such as rich versus poor societies—when we look for causal relationships between outcomes such as parliamentarism and successful democracy.

The argument in favor of parliamentarism is a model for reasoning through the consequences of institutional design. Similarly, the response by critics exem­ plifies how thoughtful critiques can use both empirical evidence and theoretical argumentation to counter prominent theories. The argument that says party sys­ tems matter helps to specify further the conditions under which parliamentarism and presidentialism work well to support democracy. Both the theory and the

Causes and Effects: What Explains Executive Stability? 243

Juan Linz, Presidentialism, and Democracy: A IN SIGHTS A Critical Appraisal

by Scott Mainwaring and Matthew Shugqri

Mainwaring and Shugart offer a two-part critique of Linz's argument. The main theoretical critique is that parlia­ mentarism can be just as "winner-take-all" as presidentialism. In Britain, for example, a parliamentary executive may in fact have even more power than a presidential executive, if the prime minister tightly holds the reins of his/her own party. Where one party governs in a parliamentary system and the executive can dominate the legislature, parliamentary majori­ ties are truly "winner-take-all." This article also offers an empiri­ cal critique that considers other factors. Presidential systems are most common in poorer countries (such as Latin America

and Africa), while parliamentarism prevails in wealthy countries in Europe. It may be that wealth is actually causing democracy in Europe and poverty is causing authoritarianism in Latin America, and presidential or parliamentary government has little to do with these outcomes. Mainwaring and Shugart also note that parliamentary systems are more common in small countries (and islands) and in countries with a British colonial heritage, and that each of these factors may also increase the likelihood of democracy.

Scott Mainwaring and Matthew Soberg Shugart, “Juan Linz, Presidentialism, and Democracy: A Critical Appraisal." Comparative Politics 29, No. 4 (1997): 449-471

critique are part of the constructive process of building scientific knowledge about the world.

In the debate over presidentialism and parliamentarism, it may be useful to consider examples such as India, which has long been one of the world’s most surprising democracies: It is a relatively poor country (though growing rapidly), highly unequal, with more than a billion people from many different religious and ethnic backgrounds. Its parliamentary system is based on the British model. Parliamentarism may or may not have contributed to India’s rather successful democracy, and you can consider the Indian case to test this hypothesis. Has the parliamentary system resulted in power-sharing rather than “winner-take-all” politics, for example? Has it resulted in a prime ministerial “style” that is less centralized than in presidential systems? There is evidence both for and against the argument that parliamentarism has been a cause of India’s democracy, as you will begin to see in the following box. Investigating further can allow a full hy­ pothesis test of whether India follows the logic outlined by Juan Linz in the “Insights” box.

Stable and Unstable Executives: Styles of Presidential Rule Looking beyond whether a democratic regime persists, there is also the question of how executives govern. Popularly elected leaders in a democracy are expected to work within a society that has rules and other institutions. For example, the legislature is expected to have some say as well as the president, and the president is not expected to be above the law. However, chief executives govern in very dif­ ferent ways, and there are some circumstances where elected executives wield considerable power. In many cases, even if a regime is formally a democracy, the president may assert more authority and centralize power considerably. One such

244 Chapter 10: Executives

IN SIG H TS Delegative Democracy by Ci i illermo O'Donnell

O'Donnell argues that there is a kind of democracy called del­egative democracy that differs from the normal representa­ tive democracy. In delegative democracies, a president is elected and then proceeds to govern however he or she sees fit. Power is concentrated in the single individual that runs the executive, and this executive sees himself/herself as having been delegated power fora period of time, rather than seeing himself/herself as a representative of the people's interests. O'Donnell considers this a kind of democracy, because the president will respect cer­ tain limits, such as elections and limits on the term of office, but

there are few checks on presidential power and little account­ ability of the president to other institutions. Courts and legisla­ tures in particular have relatively little influence. O'Donnell finds this type of system to have existed in many parts of the develop­ ing world, from Latin America to parts of Asia and Africa. The ex­ istence of delegative democracy highlights the importance of executive power in determining the extent and nature of de­ mocracy in a country.

Guillermo O'Donnell,"Delegative Democracy." Journal of Democracy 5, No. I (1994): 55-69.

populism A political approach in which leaders, often heads of

government and top executive branch officials, make direct

appeals to "the people" and seek

to develop direct political ties

with the masses.

type of regime is “delegative democracy,” which confers substantial power to presidents. W hile the concept of delegative democracy was originally conceived for Latin American countries, you may consider whether the case of Russia under Vladimir Putin fits with the model.

Executives influence the economy as well as politics, and they may contribute either to good or to poor economic performance. Executive powers in the econ­ omy include proposing budgets for the legislature to approve, collecting taxes, and regulating the economy. Executives also make decisions about staffing key economic institutions, such as the central bank that controls the money supply. Finally, the executive in some cases will make major interventions in the econ­ omy. Examples include nationalizing companies or privatizing them, and per­ haps bailing out important industries such as banks in a financial crisis. All together, these economic responsibilities mean that the executive branch has a great deal of leverage over the economy.

So how does a strong executive benefit or hurt the economy? One argument is that powerful executives can damage the economy through populism, a political approach in which leaders make appeals to “the people” and seek to develop direct political ties with the masses. W ith populist approaches, presidents often use the resources of the government to reinforce their personal power, making themselves into the symbolic embodiment of the nation and working to under­ mine other institutions. In many cases, such leaders literally hand out money as they go spending large sums of government revenue to help their supporters and increase their own popularity. This propensity for populism will likely hurt the economy over the long run, if it results in excessive government spending. In a similar vein, executives can control patronage, as noted previously (under “Infor­ mal Powers”), and they may use control over government as a way to distribute favors to certain groups; this too can prove detrimental to the economy in the long run.14

On the other hand, strong executives may also make for a strong state, which is often associated with good economic performance, as seen in chapters 3 and 4.

Causes and Effects: What Explains Executive Stability? 245

Juan and Eva Peron of Argentina in 1951. They are among the most important populist figures in the history of Latin America.

This may include decisive national leaders such as strong presidents, or strong bureaucracies in the executive branch. Examples would include ministries and government economic councils in East Asia that were responsible for major deci­ sions that promoted economic development. To use a contemporary example, it is difficult to understand China’s recent development without talking about the importance of decisions made by executive officials and leaders, from the presi­ dent and premier to top officials at the central bank.

Neoliberalism and the Transformation of Populism IN S IG H T S in Latin America: The Peruvian Case

by Kenneth Roberts

Roberts examines the concept of populism, which is often associated with powerful and charismatic presidents, and argues that its most important characteristic is a leader who establishes personalistic links with the people. This happens when other institutions are weak, and the tendency of popu­ list presidents to individualize power relates to the "delegative democracy" of O'Donnell noted in a previous box. Historically, populism was most significant in the 1930s and 1940s in Latin America, when several charismatic presidents asserted per­ sonal power and spent large sums of government money in support for the working classes. This would suggest populist

presidents are inclined to hurt the economy in the long run, but Roberts notes that populism can be consistent with more limited spending. In fact, some populist presidents in the 1990s, including Alberto Fujimori in Peru, Carlos Menem in Argentina, and Carlos Andres Perez in Venezuela, imple­ mented free market neoliberal reforms (see chapter 4). This suggests to Roberts that populism is less about excessive eco­ nomic spending and more about the chronic weakness of other institutions outside the executive.

Kenneth Roberts, "Neoliberalism and the Transformation of Populism in Latin America: The Peruvian Case."Worid Politics 48, No. I (I995):82-II6.

246 Chapter 10: Executives

consociationai Systems that use formal mechanisms to coordinate different groups sharing access to power.

Stable and Unstable Executives: Patterns of Parliam entary Rule A final set of causal questions about executives is what makes their governments endure or collapse. Most of the preceding “Case in Context” boxes point to rela­ tively stable governments that last from one election to the end of a term of office, at least in the years from the 1990s to the present. Other countries, however, are more notorious for executive instability due to coalitions that break down fre­ quently. The case of Italy shows that governments in some countries are unstable while others endure. Italy has changed prime ministers nearly forty times since the end of World War II; during that time, the United States has had twelve presidents, only one of which resigned from office. This means a change of gov­ ernment has happened in Italy more than once every two years, though elections are only required to be held every five years. The turnover in the executive is even more dramatic if one counts a government as new every time a cabinet is re­ shuffled to accommodate various parties. By this criterion, Italy has had over sixty governments since World War II, leaving the average duration of a govern­ ment at just about one year. This gives Italy perhaps the most unstable govern­ ment among advanced democracies, though the constitution and the basic structure of government have persisted for some time. That is, Italy has seen unstable governing coalitions in a stable regime.

Despite the frequent turnover of governments, there are some ways in which Italian politics exhibits continuity. There are not necessarily new faces leading Italian politics every year or so. In fact, the very first post-war prime minister, Alcide de Gasperi of the Christian Democrats, led eight different cabinets in his eight years in office before finally losing the prime minister’s chair. Several prime ministers, including recent Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, have been in the post three or more times. Moreover, there have been some time periods when prime ministers have been relatively secure, including Berlusconi from 2001 to 2006. Nonetheless, many governments have lasted less than a year, and very few last more than three.

A flip side of instability is the fact that many parliamentary systems are rela­ tively inclusive of different parties and interests. This can be as a result of the electoral rules that favor multi-party systems (as discussed in chapters 7 and 9), or because cooperation happens where different groups in society have reasons to share power and build trust. For example, where countries are divided into dif­ ferent ethnic groups, elites and leaders may attempt to find mechanisms that will help govern without worsening conflict. However, these incentives are not lim­ ited to divided societies. In many European countries, political parties and inter­ est groups have developed political systems that strive for consensus and inclusion of major actors in all big government decisions. These mechanisms are sometimes known as consociationai arrangements, as discussed in the next “Insights” box.

The debate about whether presidentialism or parliamentarism is “better” enters into this discussion of unstable coalitions and consociationai arrangements. Note that in the preceding “Insights” box, the parliamentary systems are quite stable, while the presidential systems in Colombia and Lebanon have struggled more to prevent conflict. An argument in favor of parliamentarism holds that the flexible terms of office mean that a “crisis of government” does not become a “crisis of

Beyond the American and British Models 247

IN S IG H T S Consociational Democracy by Arend Lijphart

This article shows that there are many ways for different groups and parties to share power in the executive branch, whether the system is parliamentary or presidential. In societies where reaching consensus is a priority and there are many politi­ cal parties, one leading form of power sharing is the grand coali­ tion cabinet that includes multiple parties. Another way to share power is for leading political elites to appoint powerful advisory councils and committees that reflect the interests of many major actors. Efforts such as these have featured in countries in central and northern Europe, such as Netherlands, Austria, and

Denmark. Presidential systems can find mechanisms for sharing power as well as parliamentary systems. At the time of Lijphart's writing, examples included agreements by the two leading par­ ties to alternate the presidency in Colombia and between differ­ ent religious groups to divide executive posts in Lebanon. This idea of consociational democracy suggests that executives need not be "winner-take-all" if there are other factors that push toward social consensus.

Arend Lijphart, "Consociational Democracy."Wor\d Politics 21, No. 2 (1969): 207-225.

regime.” That is, a government that fails and falls does not imperil the whole constitutional system. In a sense, Italy shows that. On the other hand, it is not clear that such instability in governments is desirable either. Certainly, the fixed terms of presidential systems at least theoretically provide the possibility that a government will adapt and respond to unpopular moves in time. Moreover, ex­ treme instability in governments is likely to place many politicians in “permanent campaign” mode, which may compromise their focus on governing.

O f course, whether a country has stability or instability in its governments depends on several features of political institutions: political parties and how they operate; electoral rules; rules about votes of no confidence; and whether party leaders can “discipline” the members of a party’s rank and file. In addition, history and social realities contribute to these outcomes, and only further com­ parative research can point to the factors that cause these different outcomes.

Beyond the American and British Models

The United Kingdom and the United States are emblematic examples of the two basic ways of structuring the executive in a democracy, and the com­ parison of the parliamentary and presidential systems has become a central debate in the comparative study of executives. In both of these countries, democ­ racy has persisted for a long time, and indeed both countries have increasingly extended the franchise and other democratic rights to more people over time. These two emblematic cases serve to show that both presidential and parliamen­ tary systems are compatible with democracy, if social conditions are conducive.

As the chapter suggests, however, looking only at these two cases will tell us little about the variety of types of executives, much less give us a full understand­ ing of the merits of different systems. Apart from executives that follow the two basic forms—presidential and parliamentary—there are hybrids and other

T H IN K IN G CO M P A R A TIV ELY

K E Y M E T H O D O L O G IC A L T O O L

Case Selection O n e m ain lesson fro m th e d e bate

o v e r pre sid e n tialism v e rsu s pa rlia­

m e n tarism is th e im p o rta n c e o f case

se le c tio n f o r c o m p a riso n s. C a se s are

o fte n (b u t n o t ne ce ssa rily) c o u n trie s

th a t w e se le c t to study, a n d s e le c tin g

th e rig h t o n e s is key. T h e d isa d v a n ­

ta g e s o f pre sid e n tialism for d e m o c ­

ra c y c e rta in ly a p p e a r to be gre ater in

248 Chapter 10: Executives

TH IN K IN G CO M PA RA TIV ELY

K EY M E TH O D O LO G ICA L TO O L

(continued) countries that are lower-income and have been democracies for only a short time, as noted by Mainwaring and Shugart in the "Insights" box earlier in the chapter. To make a causal argument, it is important to understand the background condi­ tions that shape the likelihood of democracy.

Would it be reasonable to com­ pare a low-income presidential coun­ try in Africa with a long-established parliamentary regime in northern Europe and make inferences about how presidentialism affects democ­ racy? Or would a comparison of the United States and a European coun­ try be more appropriate? Conversely, is the United States a representative example of all presidentialist coun­ tries around the world, or is it a special case? The right selection depends on the specific question the researcher is asking and the argument one hopes to make.

Several rules of thumb are useful for beginning comparativists in select­ ing cases. The first is to select cases that make possible a comparison on the basis of most-similar-systems (MSS) or most-different-systems (MDS) analysis. This choice will help prevent "selection on the dependent variable," in which a researcher looks only at countries with similar outcomes and makes faulty inferences based on limited information.15 A second gen­ eral rule is to select cases where the researcher does not have a precon­ ception or bias that will complicate the honest assessment of the evidence.

models that combine features of both. From France to India to Switzerland to Uruguay, countries around the world have a huge variety of executive structures beyond the American and British archetypes.

In fact, the United Kingdom and the United States themselves are not static in how executive power works. The United Kingdom’s form of parliamentarism has usually been winner-take-all for the winning party, but a coalition between two parties governed from 2010 to 2015. Comparative research can help us to explain how executive power can change over time within a country, and not just in the United Kingdom. W hy do some Italian coalition governments last longer than others, if the rules that shape elections of the legislature and the executive remain the same? Similarly, presidentialism is expected by some to lead to more “winner-takes-all” politics, but these systems also divide and share power in dif­ ferent ways over time. Some American presidents have asserted greater executive control over other branches. Prominent examples include Abraham Lincoln in the Civil War and Franklin Delano Roosevelt in World War II. Other presidents have followed Congress more. The extent of executive power—and why it varies from time to time—is thus an open question even after 230 years in a country like the United States. As with parliamentarism, this question is not only for the American case but also applies in countries such as Nigeria.

Consider Table 10.5, which includes a basic summary of the executive struc­ ture for the twelve countries profiled in this book. You will note a diverse array of executive structures, with some countries sharing certain features in common. You may detect patterns in the presidential and parliamentary experiences of the countries, and you can select cases for further comparison. The comparative method allows researchers to analyze why countries developed the executive structures they did, or what the consequences of these structures have been. It is also possible to do a comparison over time within one country, along the lines suggested previously for the United Kingdom or the United States. W hy have executive structures changed or remained static over time? This question could be asked for any number of countries, including France, Iran, Nigeria, or Russia. Considering what you may know about these countries from this table and from other chapters, can you suggest what might be good test cases for studying the causes and effects of executive structures?

Selecting the right cases for comparative study can make the difference be­ tween an effective analysis and a weaker one. W hile we have referred to the United Kingdom and the United States as emblematic examples of parliamentary and presidential systems, the selection of cases for further study only begins with acknowledging these two models. The best cases to select will depend on the question being asked. Considering Table 10.5, a question about why ceremonial presidents have lost some of their powers over time might best be addressed by looking at countries such as Germany, India, Japan, or the United Kingdom. On the other hand, a question about the partisan powers of directly elected presi­ dents might be well suited to a comparison of countries in the Americas, such as Brazil, Mexico, and/or the United States. A question about the informal powers of heads of state or chief executives might be able to draw on any number of the countries in the table. Russia and France might make for a useful analysis of the causes or consequences of semi-presidential systems.

Beyond the American and British Models 249

r T H IN K IN G .C O M P A R A T IV E LY

t a b l e 1 0 . 5 Co m p a rin g Cases

Case Executive Structure

Brazil Directly elected president chosen by national popular vote. Runoff election held between top two vote getters if none receives a majority in first round. President has weak partisan powers, but can issue decrees.

China Executive structure includes president as head of state and chief executive. Two other top positions— often held by president— are head of the single (Communist) party and head of military. Premier is head of government in legislature.

France Semi-presidential system combines presidentialism and parliamentarism. President is directly elected and appoints prime minister, but this appointment must be approved by legislature and government depends on confidence of National Assembly. President has power to dissolve legislature.

Germany Parliamentary system with chancellor as the chief minister chosen by lower house of parliament (Bundestag), often at the head of a governing coalition of multiple parties. Ceremonial president has relatively limited powers.

India Parliamentary system in which prime minister is head of government chosen by lower house of parliament (Lok Sabha) and depends on confidence of this body. President is also chosen by legislature, but has relatively minor powers.

Iran President is elected and has authority vis-a-vis legislature, but real power lies with Guardian Council of top clerics and Supreme Leader, also a cleric (ayatollah). Other councils (Expediency Council, Assembly of Experts) also wield power.

Japan Parliamentary system in which prime minister is head of government chosen by parliament (Diet), and depends on confidence of lower chamber (House of Representatives). Emperor is ceremonial head of state.

Mexico President is directly elected by popular vote; top vote-getter wins even if no majority is attained. No re-election is allowed. For decades up to 2000, presidents in the dominant PRI party picked successors by "pointing the finger" (dedazo).

Nigeria President is directly elected in national popular vote, separate from legislature. Prior to 1999, military leaders often led executive after coups. Largest party prior to 2015 elections (POP) attempted to alternate northern Muslims and southern Christians in executive posts.

Russia President is directly elected head of state. President appoints prime minister (chairman) as head of government, subject to approval of the legislature (State Duma). Vladimir Putin has exerted considerable authority both as president and as prime minister.

United Kingdom

Prime minister is elected by House of Commons, the lower chamber of Parliament. Executive has strong powers to set agenda and pass legislation, largely due to partisan powers. Monarch is ceremonial head of state, with no real political power.

United States Directly elected president chosen by electoral college. Executive powers are separate from and checked by legislature. President has veto power, but cannot dissolve legislature. President has relatively weak partisan powers over legislature.

250 Chapter 10: Executives

T H IN K IN G ' C O M P A R A T IV E LY ,

Executives do not operate in a vacuum. They are affected by other structures ̂ and institutions. The legislative branch of government is a most important ex­

ample, but the institutions of federalism and constitutional authority discussed in the previous chapters matter as well. Political parties (discussed in the next chapter) are equally important. Moreover, features of certain executives, such as populism, are partially shaped by factors that lie beyond political institutions, such as high income inequality, low levels of public trust, and perhaps even cul­ turally rooted styles of leadership. Much of the discussion in this chapter cannot be isolated from how legislatures, political parties, and other institutions operate, and, ultimately, from political society more broadly. The ways all of these features interact will shape how executives perform.

W ith the concepts and arguments developed here, you should be able to inves­ tigate other executive structures around the world and form your own hypotheses and comparative arguments about them. There is much research to be done about the relative powers of executives in political systems and the consequences of these. This suggests that executive power will for a long time demand further study in countries around the world.

C h a p te r S u m m a ry Concepts

• Executive branches execute and administer the laws proposed by legislatures in representative democracies. In non-democratic or authoritarian regimes, executives will often have a great deal of power.

Types • Executives can be structured in two main ways—

parliamentary and presidential— though there are also executives that combine features of both.

• The United Kingdom is the original and most famous example of a parliamentary system, and the British model is known as the Westminster model.

• Presidential regimes predominate in the Americas and in Africa, including in the United States.

• Like many other countries, France, Russia, and China combine some aspects of parliamentarism and some aspects of presidentialism.

• Executives have formal powers outlined in the law, partisan powers that come from influence over a political party, and other informal powers associated with the prominence and position of the executive.

Causes and Effects • There is a debate about whether parliamentarism is better

for democracy than presidentialism, because parliamentarism should lead to fewer outsiders and less radicalism, and it allows legislatures to remove unpopular executives.

Chapter Review 251

Presidential systems are most prevalent in lower-income regions and parliamentarism in Europe, so the advantage of parliamentarism may be due to other factors.

T h in k in g It T h r o u g h 1. Consider the "Insights" boxes on Linz and on Mainwaring and

Shugart. Note that Mainwaring and Shugart disagree with only one of Linz's five theoretical arguments against presidentialism. What theoretical arguments can you offer defending presiden­ tialism on the other criteria?

2. Considering the experiences of other countries described in this chapter and in Part VI, are there any institutional features you would advocate the United States should adopt? Why?

3. Do you think populism is possible under parliamentary rule? Why or why not?

4. We reproduce Table 10.2 here. Imagine yourself as the leader of each of the different parties and that you are interested in having an influence on government policy. What other parties would you approach in an attempt to form a coalition, and what would be your ideal coalition in each case? Why?

Powerful executives have been associated with both centralization and populism, but also with promoting economic development. Parliamentary systems can operate in many ways and may have relatively stable or unstable governments.

5. Consider Table 10.2 again. Identify the possible coalitions fol­ lowing the various criteria for coalition formation:

a. Minimum winning b. Minimum connected winning c. Minimum size d. Minimum number of parties e. Median party f. Minimum range

t a b l e io.2 Hypothetical Distribution of Seats in Parliam ent of Santa Gabriela

Party XL L C R XR

Seats 30 7 21 27 15

• Communist demonstrators in Russia in 1999. They are carrying a picture o f former Communist dictator Joseph Stalin, who led the Soviet Union from the m id-1920s to 1953. Even years after the fall o f the Soviet Union, some hoped for the Communist Party's return to power.

Throughout the Cold W ar (1945 to 1991), the United States and the Soviet Union (or U.S.S.R.) were seen as political opposites in many ways. One of the key differences was between capitalist and communist economic systems, of course, but some of the other major differences were in how poli­ tics operated. The United States was a liberal democracy in which different political parties— mainly the Democrats and Republicans— competed for votes and in which citizens were free to join different interest groups to express their beliefs and opinions. The U.S.S.R. was a country dominated by a single party and state that claimed to be the sole legitimate representative of all the country’s people. In political terms, the United States was a m ultiparty pluralist democracy, while the U.S.S.R. was a single-party totalitarian regime. This was a fundamental difference in the two coun­ tries. W hile most Americans believed that the right to free­ dom of association and to vote for multiple parties was based on individual rights, the leaders of the Soviet Union argued that the Com m unist Party alone— in collaboration with the state— could speak for the rights of workers.

The U.S.S.R. and its eventual collapse seemed to show that single-party rule was illegitimate, as were systems where the state plays a major role in deciding which organizations have a voice in politics. Yet many countries today remain dominated by a single party. As M ap 11.1 shows, for example, the African continent has a large number o f countries where a single party has been dom inant since the 1990s— and many of these are even full-fledged democracies. The United States has only two major parties, far fewer than some other democ­ racies in Europe and elsewhere that may have five or six major parties represented in the legislature. The number of major parties in a country thus continues to vary in the post-C old W ar world.

Countries today also vary in how the state interacts with interest groups. Again, the U.S. model— in which different groups compete openly for influ­ ence in a “marketplace of ideas”—is not the only way a democracy can work. W hile few people openly advocate for Soviet-style authoritarian rule, many do advocate for much more structured interaction between major interest

IN TH IS C H A P T E R

Concepts 255 Political Parties 255 Party Systems 255 interest Groups 256

Types 257 Political Parties: Elite, Mass, and Catch-All

Parties 258 Party Systems: Dominant-Party, Two-Party,

and Multiparty Systems 259 Interest Groups: Pluralism and

Corporatism 264

Causes and Effects: Why Do Party Systems Em erge, and What Effects Do They Have? 267 Party Systems and Representation 267 Interest Groups and Representation 272

T H IN K IN G C O M P A R A T I V E L Y

Party System s in Sub-Saharan Africa 275

C A S E S IN C O N T E X T

China Russia

Japan • Mexico

Germ any

253

254 Chapter 11: Political Parties, Party Systems, and Interest Groups

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groups and the state than we see in the United States. For example, maybe major business groups and leading labor unions should have regular access to the top officials in government. Indeed, many people have argued that incor­ porating the decisions of all major groups into decision making will allow for more consensus and compromise, and in the end a better democracy. There is, in short, an ongoing debate about how the interests of citizens should be brought together and represented. That is the subject of this chapter.

Concepts 255

Concepts Most people will never be elected to or even run for public office, yet many will participate in politics in some way or another, beyond the act of voting. For exam­ ple, many will be active in some type of organization with a political or public goal, whether to promote some cause or interest or just to support a candidate for public office. Politics is not exclusively the domain of elected officials and appointed judges but also depends on citizens organizing and mobilizing to make their voices heard.

In considering institutions in the last several chapters, we have focused on the branches and structures of government itself: elected legislators and executives, as well as judges that may be elected or appointed. Yet many of the most important institutions that shape politics and policymaking in different countries are composed of groups of individuals who are not necessarily politicians themselves. Citizens do work in groups to have a profound impact on political life. They support their pre­ ferred candidates for public office and may join a political party to do so, and then they may volunteer time or contribute money to those parties. They also form interest groups that share common ideas or goals, and they may volunteer time or contribute money to those groups as well. In so doing, they bring together people with common interests in attempts to influence politics, policy, and the lawmaking process.

Political Parties We consider political parties first because they are closely linked to the institu­ tions of government we have examined so far. The main goal of political parties is the election of their candidates to public office. This goal is not only pragmatic but also ideological (related to ideas, ideals, and beliefs): Parties want their elected representatives to make policy decisions the party supports.

Because elections channel party interests and ideas into the political process, parties must be responsive to what the electorate wants and demands. Being re­ sponsive does not mean, however, that they simply do or say whatever it takes to ensure the election of their candidates; rather, they are typically defined by a particular set of principles, which they try to stand by. Parties must often coordi­ nate large numbers of voters around a common platform, or set of ideas that the party takes as its basic principles. Platforms help parties distinguish themselves from other parties in competitive electoral environments. Because parties have a role in developing political ideas and in gathering voters around these ideas, it is often said that parties articulate and aggregate political interests.

Party System s Countries have different numbers of major political parties, and the different pat­ terns of party politics are called party systems. At one extreme, some authoritarian regimes outlaw political parties entirely, often on the grounds that they divide people into factions. Other countries are dominated by a single party, whether be­ cause voters prefer this party in reasonably free and fair elections, or because the dominant party has systematic advantages, or because other parties are outlawed. In most full democracies, the citizens’ right to vote for different competing parties is seen as indispensable. Sometimes the result of exercising this right is a party system with two major competing parties, and sometimes it is a system with more than two major parties. We explore these different types in greater detail later in the chapter.

political party A political organi­ zation that seeks to influence policy, typically by getting candi­ dates and members elected or appointed to public office.

party system Patterns of party politics characterized by the number of relevant parties in a country.

256 Chapter 11: Political Parties, Party Systems, and Interest Groups

interest groups Organizations that make demands in the political system on behalf of their consti­ tuents and members.

Interest Groups The other main type of organization that has a major role in comparative politics is the interest group. These are organizations that make any number of demands in the political system on behalf of their constituents and members; such groups often have an active membership that pays dues to participate in and support the organization. Interest groups generally advocate for some policy position or po­ litical perspective, though they may not always seek to support specific candi­ dates in elections. Like political parties, interest groups may endorse politicians in the hope of getting support for their causes, may contribute to or support campaigns, and so on, but they may also focus on petitioning or lobbying politi­ cians to pass certain policies or laws. Interest groups want to see laws and policies that reflect their interests or views on the issues, so these groups often make public expressions of their political views.

Examples of interest groups are numerous and show the range of what such groups are and do. They include organizations of business owners and labor unions of workers, for instance. In some circumstances, interest groups may be huge, as confederations of labor unions in some countries may represent a large fraction of all workers or households. Interest groups can also reflect the interests of a relatively smaller group of people and may serve different demographic groups. In the United States, prominent examples include the National Organi­ zation for Women (NOW), which advances causes on behalf of its many

Members of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo marching in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2003 demand information about family members who were “disappeared" by the Argentine dictatorship between 1976 and 1983. While many interest groups correspond to economic interests, the Mothers are an example of an interest group based on shared commitments and beliefs about the rights of citizens.

Types 257

members, and the National Rifle Association (NRA), which represents the in­ terests of many gun owners.

Some interest groups advocate on behalf of their members and also provide certain services or products to their members. For example, the AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons) estimates that it has between 40 million and 50 million members, mostly senior citizens and people in or ap­ proaching retirement. It advocates on behalf of benefits for seniors, such as Social Security and Medicare, in addition to providing services such as supplemental health insurance for its members. The American Automobile Association (AAA) advocates on behalf of motorists and also provides members with travel discounts and access to tow truck services. For our purposes, interest groups are broadly defined but can include any organizations that advocate on behalf of a particular cause or in favor of certain legislation or policy.

The concept of interest groups is closely linked to the concepts of civil society and social movements. The first of these, civil society, is made up of many types of civic associations and social organizations, including volunteer organizations, neighborhood associations, and the like. Many of these are interest groups, though some may not take a political stand or advocate for a specific policy posi­ tion, instead preferring to mobilize group members to take action on their own for improvement of their community, for instance. In the next chapter, we dis­ cuss another set of actors and organizations known as social movements, which are often distinct from interest groups in the ways they make their demands and the conditions under which they operate.

Interest groups and political parties are responsible for the functions of interest articulation and interest aggregation. Interest articulation is the pro­ cess by which individuals and groups express their demands, needs, or wants in a political system. This is especially associated with interest groups, which pub­ licly express their viewpoints, though parties do some interest articulation as well. Interest aggregation is especially associated with political parties and is the process by which individuals’ preferences are brought together to make collec­ tive decisions. In most modern countries, it is not possible for those in govern­ ment to govern by knowing each individual and taking his or her unique perspective into account. Rather, governments rely on citizens to express them­ selves collectively through mechanisms such as parties and interest groups. Citizens take on the responsibilities of making demands from their government, and doing so regularly involves the collective action of many people. Contrast what a single person working alone can achieve in politics with what people working together can achieve, and you will see the importance of interest aggregation and collective action.

Types Political parties can take on a variety of different forms, and political systems can have different numbers of parties. The number of different examples and types of interest groups are too numerous to mention, but we can outline how interest groups work in different countries by looking at something of great political im­ portance: the structures of interest group representation.

civil society The set of organiza­ tions in civic life outside the state through which citizens associate and articulate and advance their interests; includes civic associa­ tions, interest groups, and volunteer organizations.

interest articulation The process by which political actors express their demands, needs, or wants in a political system, often through interest groups.

interest aggregation The process by which individuals' preferences are brought together to make collective decisions, often through political parties and the party system.

258 Chapter 11: Political Parties, Party Systems, and Interest Groups

elite parties Political parties in which membership and scope were largely restricted to a small number of political elites.

mass parties Parties consisting of large numbers of citizens as mem­ bers and that undertake massive political mobilization.

catch-all parties Political parties that are flexible on their ideological positions and aim to attract sup­ port from a broad range of interest groups and voters.

Political Parties: Elite, Mass, and Catch-All Parties For the average observer, the most distinguishing features of different political parties are the views they champion. For example, the Democrats and the Republicans in the United States can be distinguished by the parties’ platforms on issues ranging from abortion to immigration to health care to taxes. Some parties are on the left of the economic spectrum, and others are on the right. In the United Kingdom, for instance, the Labour party has historically been associ­ ated with workers and unions, and the Conservative party is tied to business. Some parties—such as the “Green Party” in many countries— support environ­ mental groups and are in turn supported by environmentalists. In many countries, there are parties that represent specific ethnic and racial groups, such as the Inkatha Freedom Party in South Africa that is strongly identified with the Zulu people. There are single-issue parties— such as those specifically opposed to immigration or favoring the legalization of marijuana— and there are even parties with no identifiable ideology whatsoever. Some obvious distinctions thus exist between political parties in the people they represent and the basis of their platforms.

Alongside differences in what the policies parties want, there are differences in how political parties are structured, an aspect that has changed over time. By most accounts, political parties first emerged as coalitions between indi­ vidual legislators and politicians who shared common political interests and/or common beliefs; they formed their parties together to promote these common interests. These parties were known as elite parties because their membership and scope were largely restricted to a small number of political elites. By con­ trast, the twentieth century saw massive political mobilization of large num­ bers of citizens in larger parties. Communist and Socialist parties, for example, emerged as powerful groups in many countries, and they envisioned their structures as containing millions of workers and laborers who would pay dues, have membership cards, and become part of a broad movement. These came to be known as mass parties, and they were not restricted to leftist groups but became common among both fascists and more democratic groups attempting to include larger numbers of citizens in party politics. More recently, some major political parties have shifted to become catch-all parties, which are flex­ ible on their ideological positions as they aim to attract support from a broad range of interest groups and voters.1 Proponents of the catch-all thesis have argued that when one party becomes successful as a catch-all party, it puts pressure on other parties to adopt the same approach and become more catch­ all themselves.2

Other categories may exist as well, but this change over time describes many of the major shifts in the types of parties that exist. For some scholars, however, the distinctions between elite, mass, and catch-all parties can be overstated, be­ cause all of these types are subject to common problems. One of the leading critiques of how parties operate—which we explore further in the next chapter, when we discuss social movements—was made by Robert Michels: It is that they tend to operate from the top down, having “oligarchical tendencies,” regardless of their ideology and rhetoric.3

Types 259

Party Systems: Dom inant-Party, Two-Party, and M ultiparty System s The many forms and structures of political parties shape the politics of different coun­ tries. But as important as the parties themselves is the party system in which they operate. How politics plays out in a given country depends on which parties can get enough seats to have a strong voice and make a difference. A Green Party may be rela­ tively inconsequential in policymaking if it never gains legislative seats because one or two other parties dominate, but it may affect policy more if it is routinely one of five or six parties that holds seats and is sought after as a partner in a governing coalition.

The most basic characteristic of party systems is how many major parties can be expected to compete meaningfully in elections to participate in government. Some countries have one party that is dominant, others have two, and yet others have more than two major parties that compete and jockey for position. Countries with only a single large party can be referred to as dominant-party systems. These occur in both authoritarian and quite democratic countries. Among democracies, South Africa is an example of a democratic country with a dominant party, the African National Congress (ANC). Many authoritarian regimes have dominant-party sys­ tems in which the governing party is in charge of politics. One particular type of system with a dominant party is the authoritarian single-party system in which parties besides the dominant one are banned or disallowed. Examples have come from around the world, including many communist regimes—especially during the Cold War, but also in countries such as China, North Korea, and Cuba today—as well as right-wing dictatorships such as Nazi Germany and right-leaning regimes in Asia, and many regimes with less clear ideologies in Africa up to the 1990s.4

The 100th anniversary of South Africa's African National Congress Party (ANC) took place in 2012. ANC supporters listen to South African president Jacob Zuma address a crowd gathered for the anniversary celebrations in Bloemfontein, South Africa.

dominant-party system Party system in which a country contains only one large political party that predominates politically, often controlling the legislative and exe­ cutive branches of government.

single-party system An authori­ tarian system in which parties besides the single dominant party are banned or disallowed.

260 Chapter 11: Political Parties, Party Systems, and Interest Groups

Single-party regimes are often authoritarian, but they do have their defenders. Proponents of single-party regimes may say these are better suited to the needs of some countries. One such argument has been that liberal democracy is not equally well adapted to all cultures and regions of the world. This perspective was associated with, among others, Lee Kuan-Yew, the long-time prime minister of Singapore. Lee’s argument in favor of single parties was based on a concept of “Asian values” that were argued to be distinct from “Western values,” as noted in chapter 6.5 This included an emphasis on community and deference to authority as opposed to a foremost emphasis on individual rights, and thus a cultural ac­ ceptance of dominant parties that may be most capable of delivering strong eco­ nomic performance. A similar argument has been made more recently by the Chinese Communist Party.

Another argument has held that multiparty systems can be too divisive. This has featured prominently among leading parties in ethnically divided countries in Africa and countries divided along sectarian lines in the Middle East. In the African country of Uganda, for example, the current president—who has been in power since 1986—long argued for “no-party” democracy on the grounds that political parties in Africa would simply split the vote along ethnic lines and give rise to tribalism or conflict. These lines of argument have been contested by many scholars, including African and Asian scholars who see the argument for domi­ nant parties or restrictions on multiparty systems as an effort by elites to justify their own regime’s continuation in power. Nonetheless, these examples feature prominently in discussions about whether dominant parties are appropriate or not.

W hile many single-party systems are not democratic, some democracies have single dominant parties as well. Examples include several countries in Africa today, such as South Africa, which is dominated by the African National Con­ gress (ANC). The major distinctions from the authoritarian regimes just dis­ cussed are that voting is relatively free and fair and civil liberties are protected: It just happens that people elect and continue to re-elect the same party to govern, even though they could potentially make other choices. Some regimes have made the case that a single political party can encompass the many political debates in

The Chinese Party System PAGE 424

China is the most influential and important dominant-party system in the world today. The country is authoritarian and func­ tions essentially as a single-party system. The various mechanisms for ensuring the dominance of the Communist Party are useful to understand, especially since the "Communist” in Communist Party has changed so dramatically with the many changes in China.

See the case study on the Chinese party system in Part VI, pp. 424-425. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. How has China's Communist Party developed and main­ tained its dominance?

2. What are some of the mechanisms it uses to maintain this system?

3. Do you find there to be any legitimate justifications for single-party rule, and on what does the Chinese Commu­ nist Party base its legitimacy?

Types 261

Japan has been ranked as a free country by the independent or­ ganization Freedom House for every year since it began keeping track of democracy around the world. Yet for most of that period up to recent years, Japan was dominated by the Liberal Demo­ cratic Party (LDP). How a dominant party could coexist with de­ mocracy was one of the key questions of Japanese politics for many years.

See the case study on the Japanese party system in Part VI, pp. 491-492. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. What are the characteristics that distinguish a dominant- party system from a single-party system?

2. What accounts for the continued victories of the LDP over so many years?

3. Does the existence of repeated victories by the same party call democracy into question?

two-party system A political party system consisting of two significant parties that have a duo­ poly on opportunities to govern.

reasons we explore

a country, but most observers in Western democracies argue that the right to choose from different parties (with their advocacy of different policies) is essen­ tial to democratic governance. A characteristic of dominant-party systems is a lack of competitiveness in national elections and, hence, a relatively certain out­ come of those elections.

To many people living in advanced, industrialized democracies, the two-party system is more common and familiar than the dominant-party system. In two-party systems, there is a duopoly of power between two major parties that are seen as the main contenders for most major political offices. This duopoly usually persists over multiple elections. The two major parties present different platforms, which often correspond to one more liberal and one more conservative party in terms of economic policy, though this is not always the main political distinction. Such a model can be seen in the United States with the Democrats and Republicans, for example, as well as in many other countries around the world, such as Spain, with its left-leaning Socialist Workers’ Party (Partido Socialista) and right-leaning People’s Party (Partido Popular). As we discuss in the “Causes and Effects” section, the way elections work is a major factor in determining whether a democracy will have a two-party system. In particular, the presence of single-member districts in legislative elections (as discussed in chapter 9) contributes to the likelihood of two-party systems for

Yukio Hatoyama (center) of the Democratic Party of Japan formalizes a coalition in 2009 with the leaders of the People's New Party and the Social Democrats. The agreement ensured that Hatoyama would become the prime minister and brought an end to more than fifty years of nearly continuous rule by the Liberal Democratic Party.

262 Chapter 11: Political Parties, Party Systems, and Interest Groups

multiparty system Apolitical party system consisting of more than two significant parties that have opportunities to govern.

fragmentation (of party system) Contrasting with concen­ tration, the extent to which politi­ cal power and representation in a party system are characterized by relatively large numbers of relati­ vely small parties.

concentration (of party system) Contrasting with frag­ mentation, the extent to which political power and representation in a party system are characterized by relatively small numbers of relatively large.parties.

Two-party systems may seem natural and stable to those who have lived their lives in them, but they are not the most common party system in a democracy. In fact, most democracies have more than two major parties. The scholar Arend Lijphart studied thirty-six long-standing democracies and found that multiparty systems with three or more parties were the norm in about half of these coun­ tries.6 Some multiparty systems have two parties that are strongest year in and year out, but these compete against a handful of other parties that regularly win enough seats to influence the outcomes of elections. Whereas in two-party sys­ tems one party or the other will typically win a given election by taking a major­ ity of seats, multiparty systems quite often result in no party winning a majority because the vote is divided more ways. To recall some of the lessons of chapters 9 and 10, a no-majority win often happens when legislative elections are based on proportional representation, and it often results in executive branches that func­ tion with a coalition of multiple parties.

W ithin these different categories— dominant-party, two-party, and multi­ party systems—the specific nature of the party system can still vary from case to case. For instance, a multiparty system can be considered relatively fragmented, with many small parties, or relatively coherent or concentrated, with a small number of larger parties.7 Two-party systems may see frequent alternation of power between the two, or may see one party that is stronger and wins more often for an extended period. Dominant-party systems may feature different de­ grees of dominance by the leading party, ranging from single-party regimes with 100 percent of the seats in a legislature to systems where a dominant party wins elections routinely but narrowly.

Counting the actual number of parties that matter is more challenging than it might sound. To determine the nature of a party system, assume one wants to consider only relatively serious parties that have a chance of winning a reasonable number of seats. As a hypothetical example, take the United States House of Representatives with its 435 members. I f 434 were from the Republicans and Democrats, while one representative was a member of the Socialist Party or Lib­ ertarian Party, would it be reasonable to call this a multiparty system? Most would say it would remain a two-party system. W hat about the United Kingdom,

Consensus-Based Politics in Germany PAGE 452

Germany, like many other countries, is a multiparty system in which it is common for a relatively small number of parties to wield most of the influence. The Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) have been the major players there for years, though several other smaller parties have retained influence and sometimes been in government coalitions.

3. Thinking back to chapter 9, what sorts of coalitions would you expect to emerge in a multiparty system, and which parties would you expect to enter coalitions together?

2. What does a multiparty system imply for the quality of governance?

1. What factors might account for Germany having more than two important parties?

See the case study on the German party system in Part VI, pp. 452-453. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

Types 263

where the Conservative and Labour parties have long been the two largest, but the Liberal Democrats regularly command a substantial fraction of the seats that is enough to prevent either of the other two from winning a majority? As of 2012, the Liberal Democrats were in a position where they were a necessary part of the Conservative-led governing coalition. Is this a two-party or multiparty system? Could we call it a “two-and-a-half”-party system?

Perhaps surprisingly-, the answer for many political scientists is yes, we can say a country has “two-and-a-half” major parties. There are a number of metrics used to measure the effective number o f parties, and these are designed to get at how many major parties of consequence a system contains.8 Another way to look at this issue is how fractionalized or fragmented a party system is, on a range between a perfectly concentrated dominant-party system to a perfectly frag­ mented system in which each seat goes to a different party.9

We will not explore the formulas in great detail here, but a simple example can illustrate the difference between a more fragmented and a more concentrated party system. Table 11.1 gives some fictional countries, for which any resem­ blance to actual countries is coincidental. The middle columns reflect the propor­ tion of legislative seats won by each of the five largest parties in descending order. So PI is the largest party, and P5 is the smallest (if there is a P5; these systems have different numbers of parties). The formula for the effective number of par­ ties takes the proportion of seats held by each party, squares each one, and adds these squares together. The result is a fraction, and the calculation then takes the inverse. So a system with two parties each having 50 percent of the seats would have l/[(0.50)2 + (0.50)2] = 2 as the effective number of parties. And a system with three parties each having 33.3 percent of the seats would have l/[(0.333)2 + (0.333)2 + (0.333)2] = 3 as the effective number of parties. This formula gener­ ates the results in Table 11.1 for less clear-cut cases.

The effective number of parties calculated by this formula should be close to what one might expect from the proportions of seats won. There is a clear dominant-party system and a clear two-party system, even if other tiny parties compete in those two countries. In Duopolia, the two small parties matter more than the small one in Monopolia because they can tip the balance of power from P I to P2 or vice-versa. The United Realm looks like it should have about “two- and-a-half” or three parties: The third-largest is only half as powerful as the two largest parties, but it is also big enough to tip the balance of power once again. Fragmentia, meanwhile, has close to five meaningful parties, but we probably would not think of P3, P4, or P5 as being quite as important as P I or P2. By contrast, Coalitiastan has two clear leading parties, and it looks more concen­ trated than Fragmentia, so it has a smaller effective number of parties but will also require governing coalitions for as long as this distribution of parties stands. As a result, it is more than just a two-party system. In fact, P3, P4, and P5 are all important, and either of the big parties would need at least two of them to make a coalition government; the effective number of parties is more than three.

A final aspect of party systems to consider is party system institutionalization, or the extent to which a party system is stable and remains so over time. It has several aspects.10 One is the persistence and electoral success of parties over time. Do parties endure for a long time once they are established, or do they come and

effective number of parties A measure designed to capture the number of meaningful parties in a party system that weights the number of parties represented by their size.

party system institutionalization The degree to which a party system is stable and remains so over time, as measured by such characteristics as the persistence of parties, the stability of their ideolo­ gies, and the degree to which they are distinct from the specific indivi­ duals that lead them.

264 Chapter 11: Political Parties, Party Systems, and Interest Groups

t a b l e 11.1 N um ber of Parties

Proportion of Legislative Seats Won (%)

Country P I P2 P3 P4 P5 Effective No. o f Parties

People's Republic of Monopolia

99 1 1.02

United States of Duopolia

49 48 2 1 2.12

United Realm 40 40 20 2.78

Federation of Fragmentia

27 25 17 16 15 4.71

Coalitiastan 38 35 9 9 9 3.43

Note: P = Party.

go, with old ones fading away and new parties emerging constantly? A more volatile party system is less institutionalized. Another aspect is the degree to which parties have stable ideologies, programs, or platforms. This relates to the question of whether a party is coherent and cohesive or not.11 A final aspect is the degree to which parties operate as institutions, as opposed to being focused on certain individuals. Where a party system is more institutionalized, a party’s name has significance: It is likely to be around and to be associated with a certain set of ideas. By contrast, in less institutionalized party systems, a party’s name (or brand) is less meaningful and more often subject to the whims of personalistic leaders.

Party systems are often more institutionalized in longstanding democracies and less institutionalized in less-established democracies, but this is not always the case. In France’s well-established democracy, for example, the main party of the center-right has gone through many changes in name and structure in recent years, even as the right has won the presidency regularly for nearly twenty years. Conversely, other countries, such as Chile and Ghana, developed institutional­ ized party systems soon after becoming democracies in the 1990s.12 Despite these exceptions, the tendency persists: Substantial breakdowns of party system institutionalization are more common in fragile democracies, as the case of Russia showed from the 1990s to the current authoritarian era dominated by President Vladimir Putin (see the next “Case in Context” box).

Interest Groups: Pluralism and Corporatism Like political parties, interest groups are distinguished from one another by the specific ideas they hold as well as by their structure, which varies widely. Apart from the forms and functions of specific groups, there are also different patterns of how interest group representation works in politics. The most fundamental distinction is between countries where interest groups compete openly to influ­ ence government decision making— a pattern known as pluralism— and countries

Types 265

where there is a formal, established relationship between certain interest groups and state power—a pattern known as corporatism. The distinctions between the two forms of interest group representation can be summarized in terms of whether specific interest groups are identified as having a monopoly on the rep­ resentation of a specific interest; both forms are ideal types, and many countries have had some mixture of the two forms.

Pluralism reflects the idea that interest groups compete in a “marketplace of ideas.” Countries that have pluralist politics will often have large numbers of competing groups that strive to affect policy. Under a pure form of pluralism, none of these groups would have privileged access to the government or receive preferential treatment, even if they would sometimes win and sometimes lose arguments about what the government should do.

Under corporatism, on the other hand, certain major groups are designated as representatives of certain interests, and these have a more structured interac­ tion with the government in power and with the state’s administration (or bu­ reaucracy). Advocates of corporatism sometimes assert that people “naturally” belong to certain interest groups— such as workers belonging to labor unions and business owners belonging to business organizations— and that organizing on this basis is thus important for political representation. Rather than an open competition among all interest groups, corporatist arrangements seek consensus based on regular interactions between designated groups and the state. Using the same root word as corporatism, one way to understand the phenomenon is that there is “incorporation” of specific interest groups into the decision-making structures of the state.13

Since many of the major decisions made in politics are about economics and economic policy, the most important interest groups in corporatist countries are usually organizations representative of business and those representative of labor. Business and organized labor confer with the state on issues such as wages, benefits, taxes, and policy toward foreign capital and international com­ petition. At the national level, the bargaining between groups often involves peak organizations, which are top-level associations that bring together many like-minded organizations. Examples include national labor federations made

pluralism A system of interest group representation in which groups compete openly to in­ fluence government decisions and public policy, and in which specific groups do not have official prefe­ rential access to decision making.

corporatism A system of interest group representation in which certain major groups are officially designated as representatives of certain interests, and have a more structured interaction with the government in power and with the state's administration.

peak organization Top associa­ tions, such as labor federations and large business organizations, that represent common interests by bringing together many like- minded organizations.

Personalism and the Party System in Russia PAGE 535

Russia illustrates the challenge and importance of party system institutionalization. The country has seen some major parties come and go while a single individual, Vladimir Putin, has accu­ mulated more power. Even in the absence of single-party rule, a poorly institutionalized party system can facilitate authoritarian tendencies.

See the case study on the Russian party system in Part VI, pp. 535-536. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. Building on the observations of previous chapters, how do weak institutions in Russia facilitate the rise of a "strong man" like Putin?

2. What might account for the poorly institutionalized party system in Russia?

3. Which seems to have come first, the weak party system or the personalism of Putin?

266 Chapter 11: Political Parties, Party Systems, and Interest Groups

IN S IG H T S W ho Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City by Robert D ahl "

Dahl's work focuses on one city— New Haven, Connecticut— and documents how different sets of actors and interests have important roles in governing. It has become one of the foundational descriptions of how pluralism operates. Dahl finds that different aspects of policy and political decisions were influ­ enced by quite different groups and not always by the same elites. The book argues that New Haven's social elite was not the same as its economic elite, and that the business community was not always the dominant player in decisions. Elected politicians wielded considerable power in shaping policy, but they were also responsive to interest groups and needed to sell their pro­ grams to voters at large. Among interest groups, the sets of actors

that predominated differed. Dahl examined decisions about urban planning and development and education, as well as nom­ inations for public office. While the business sector played a role in some aspects of decision making, the popularly elected mayor and appointed boards wielded significant influence. Dahl's work on the functioning and benefits of pluralism countered the view held by others that in a capitalist democracy, a single "power elite" dominates across the many aspects and areas of politics.” Some critics continue to argue that pluralist accounts understate the extent to which economic elites can shape politics.

Robert Dahl, Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961.

up of many different unions, or business organizations representing many dif­ ferent companies or industries.

Corporatism has been a major force in contemporary history. In fact, some have argued that the twentieth century was the “century of corporatism.”15 Over the course of the twentieth century, corporatism was influential across much of Europe and Latin America and in many parts of Asia and Africa. The geographic and historical reach of this phenomenon has led to many variants: Some are more social and some more pro-market liberal in Europe, while some forms in Latin American have been more state-led, others more led by labor, and yet others more inclusive of the peasantry.16 Some analysts have advocated corporatism as a relatively successful and harmonious way to promote economic growth and de­ velopment, while others have criticized it as favoring specific groups over indi­ vidual rights and lending itself to exclusionary politics. Countries such as Mexico may provide evidence for either perspective.

It is possible to distinguish between more authoritarian and more democratic forms of corporatism.17 In quite a few instances, corporatism has overlapped with dominant-party systems, and a single leading party undertakes the coordination of different interest groups. This has often been an authoritarian form of corpo­ ratism in which interest-group participation is highly regulated by the state. Ver­ sions of these circumstances can be seen in many single-party countries. Indeed, corporatism was especially noteworthy for part of the twentieth century as a strategy by which central governments could co-opt different groups, bringing them into the political system on terms set by the state or the leading party. In­ corporated groups included workers and unions, business elites, peasants or farmers, and even students. This featured prominently in Latin American coun­ tries, for instance, where one of the leading examples is Mexico between the late 1930s and 2000 (see the “Case in Context” box).

Corporatism happened under authoritarian regimes and dominant-party re­ gimes in many cases, but it is not limited to dominant- or single-party systems,

Causes and Effects: Why Do Party Systems Emerge, and What Effects Do They Have? 267

_ , ■ . : : .

_ _ A CASE IN CONTEXT ,

--| The PRI and Corporatism in Mexico pageso6

As noted in chapter 6, Mexico was once called “The Perfect Dic­ tatorship." Part of the reason for this name was the ability of Mexico's PRI party to bring major interest groups under its banner. These included labor, business, and the state bureau­ cracy, as well as the armed forces. This broad-based form of cor­ poratism made it very difficult for competitors to defeat the PRI, and the party governed uninterrupted from the 1930s to 2000.

See the case study on the Mexican party system in Part VI, pp. 506-507. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. How are interest group representation and the party system related in this case, and how did corporatism relate to the ability of the dominant party to retain power?

2. How was Mexican corporatism distinct from many other versions of corporatism?

3. What were some of the causes of the end of single-party dominance, and how do these relate to the corporatism that prevailed for so long?

and in fact has featured prominently in many of Europe’s multiparty systems, especially in social-democratic countries of northern Europe. This can be seen as a more democratic form of corporatism. Many of the political systems of north­ ern Europe are consensus based and have been multiparty regimes in which cor­ poratism has played a major role. We now examine the pros and cons of pluralism and corporatism.

Causes and Effects: Why Do Party Systems Emerge, and What Effects Do They Have? There are many questions about cause and effect in the study of parties, party systems, and interest groups. W hy do different party systems emerge? W hy do some countries have greater party system institutionalization than others? W hy do certain types of parties—such as Communist parties, social democratic par­ ties, conservative pro-business parties, or fascist parties— emerge in some coun­ tries and not others? W hy do some interest groups have greater impact in some places than others? We cannot address all of these here, but we encourage further research on this range of questions. We will focus on three questions: the causes of the emergence of party systems, the consequences of party systems on the quality of representation, and the consequences of different patterns of interest- group representation.

Party System s and Representation Party systems are closely related to how political representation works. In some senses, party systems are both a consequence of how representation works and a cause of how representation takes shape. We examine both sides briefly.

W h a t F actors S hape P a r ty Systems? Looking first at what causes different types of party systems to emerge, one main factor is the type of electoral system, as we discussed in chapter 9. Recall that a basic distinction among types of electoral systems is between district systems and

268 Chapter 11: Political Parties, Party Systems, and Interest Groups

proportional representation systems; in their simplest forms, the former has leg­ islative elections within the geographic subdivisions of a country, while the latter allocates legislative seats according to the overall proportions of seats parties win in an election.18 W hat would these different types of systems imply for whether two-party or multiparty systems will emerge?

In democracies that have single-member district systems, there is a pro­ nounced tendency for two-party systems to emerge and persist, while multiparty systems are quite common in countries that use proportional representation. For many analysts, the electoral system itself seems to have an impact on the number of viable parties that emerge. The logic behind this is intuitive. Proportional representation, for example, is designed to accurately reflect the overall distribu­ tion of preferences for different parties, and the result is often many different parties winning legislative seats. District-based representation, by contrast, often favors relatively large parties that can win a plurality of votes, and tends to result in fewer seats for small parties. The consequence of district systems as opposed to proportional representation was most famously associated with Maurice Duverger (see the “Insights” box on his book Political Parties).

O f course, the electoral system is not the only cause of political party systems. Geographical, historical, social, and economic factors are also important, and certain political traditions or political cultures may lend themselves to more con­ centrated party systems or more fragmented systems.19 Africa, for example, was home to a large number of one-party states in the 1960s to 1980s. The reason may be seen as geographical, because tendencies persist in certain regions of the world (with countries sometimes modeling their political systems on those of their neighbors), or as economic because it applies to countries with certain levels of income. These tendencies in regions and in individual countries are also his­ torical and social. Again in Africa, the historical context for many one-party regimes was the struggle for independence and freedom under a leading nation­ alist party, a phenomenon that can still be seen today with dominant parties even

INSIGHTS Les Partis Politiques [Political Parties] by hiaurice Duverger

Duverger's work in this book and related articles discusses nu­merous features of political parties and party systems, but it is most renowned for its establishment of “Duverger's Law.” The core result of this finding was that two-party systems tend to emerge where elections are based on a simple plurality vote. The logic is that parties on each side of the political spectrum (left and right) will recognize that they cannot afford to split the vote in a plurality system. To use an example, if six parties on the right each got 10 percent of the vote, their combined total would be 60 per­ cent, but individually they would lose to the Communists if the Communists had, say, 40 percent of the vote. The parties on the

right would therefore work together— to collaborate on selecting candidates and even to merge— in order to compete with party on the other side. The left would do this as well, leading to a two- party system. By contrast, Duverger finds that proportional repre­ sentation is conducive to multiparty systems because it encourages small parties, and other systems such as runoff elec­ tions have effects in between these two extremes. Duverger sug­ gests that this is a virtual law of political life, and is true in so many cases that it is often seen as one of the strongest findings in politi­ cal science, though he and others do note occasional exceptions. Maurice Duverger, Les Partis Politiques [Political Parties], Paris: A. Colin, 1951.

Causes and Effects: Why Do Party Systems Emerge, and What Effects Do They Have? 269

IN S IG H TS Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis by Giovanni Sartori &

I n a major investigation of the origins, types, and functioning of I different political parties, Sartori finds that different political party systems emerge due to differences in beliefs among groups in society, and not just due to the type of electoral system used. He outlines a wide range of types of party systems that can be classified as one-party systems, two-party systems, and more limited and extreme forms of party “pluralism" with three to five or more than five parties. In Sartori's argument, ideological dis­ tance and "segmentation" between groups is a key variable. Where groups in society are rather close together on the political

spectrum, a multiparty system emerges with a relatively small number of parties. By contrast, where people are deeply divided and fragmented by ideology, a more fractious multiparty system is likely to emerge. In one-party countries, Sartori sees several types of party systems that range from totalitarian regimes (like Nazi Germany or Soviet communism) to more pragmatic domi­ nant parties; the "ideological intensity" of the dominant party again matters in the specific party system that takes shape.

Giovanni Sartori, Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976.

in relatively democratic countries such as South Africa and Tanzania. Yet we must also be careful not to generalize about regions, as we show in the “Thinking Comparatively” section at the end of the chapter: All continents have mixes of party systems. Africa has two-party systems and fragmented multiparty systems as well as dominant-party systems, and the same goes for other continents.

A leading argument linking social and other political factors to the party system holds that which parties emerge and where parties stand depend largely on ideology and the beliefs of the citizens. This may sound obvious, but it is quite distinct from the argument that the electoral rules and other institutions deter­ mine what party systems will look like. Parties often have deep roots in an ideol- ogy or in a social base, and party systems will be shaped by the parties that emerge. A prominent example would be Communist parties around the world, which traditionally have had a strong ideological basis in Marxism and strong support among members of the working class and labor unions (as well as intel­ lectuals in some cases). The presence and strength of Communist parties on the left has also had the effect of shaping other parties on the right of the political spectrum. The link between the working class, Marxist ideology, and Commu­ nist parties shows that party systems are shaped not only by the electoral system, but also by social realities and political culture. Other examples include Chris­ tian Democratic parties or other parties on the center-right in Europe and the Americas that are influenced by a degree of social conservatism. A prominent scholar who has worked on ideology and party systems is Giovanni Sartori.

H o w D o P a r ty System s S hape P olitical O utcom es? In addition to being caused by various factors, party systems are themselves causes of political outcomes. In particular, they may shape whether politics are very moderate or more extreme. For example, one consequence of a two-party system under many circumstances is the tendency of the major parties to try to median voter The voter who is attract the hypothetical median voter, or the voter who is theoretically in the theoretically exactly in the middle middle of the distribution of voters in a certain geographic area. I f we assume for of the distribution of voters.

270 Chapter 11: Political Parties, Party Systems, and Interest Groups

strategic voting The practice of voting in a way that does not reflect one's ideal preference, in order to prevent electoral out­ comes one thinks are worse, such as voting for a second-best candidate one thinks can reaso­ nably win.

Political Spectrum

Figure 11.1 Voter Distribution and Political Party Strategy with Median Voter.

the moment that voters in a given district can be put on a spectrum from most liberal on the left to most conservative on the right, as in Figure 11.1, then the voter in the exact center is shown by the vertical line. In this example, the Con­ servative party will generally capture the votes to the right of center, and the Liberal party will capture the votes to the left of center. I f both the Liberals and the Conservatives are strategic and rational, they will each do what they must to capture the entire half of the electorate that is on their side—plus a little more. Since the Liberals know that people on the far left are unlikely to vote Conserva­ tive, and the Conservatives know that people on the far right are unlikely to vote Liberal, the best strategy becomes trying to capture those represented by the median voter—the person right in the middle. In this case, the median voter is the swing voter (i.e., one who could go either way), and winning the swing vote is the key to getting a majority: 50 percent of the vote plus at least one person. The major parties will therefore propose policies that appeal to the median voter. Visually, you can think of this as the parties positioning their platforms where the vertical line is: Both become relatively moderate and centrist.

O f course, parties must try to attract the median voter while still retaining the votes of the ideologues at their respective ends of the political spectrum. Yet those more extreme voters on the far left and far right also make their own ratio­ nal calculations. They know that not voting for the large party on their side (when there are multiple parties on a side) may help tip the election to the other side. A very conservative voter, for example, has a reason to vote for a moderate Conservative party if doing so helps prevent the Liberal party from winning in­ stead. This thinking discourages relatively extreme voters from voting for smaller and more extreme parties. Voters thus engage in strategic voting, or voting in ways that do not reflect their ideal position, in order to prevent outcomes they think are even worse. Since swing voters are often the deciding factor in winning or losing an election, some analysts suggest that single-member districts and two-party systems draw candidates and voters alike toward the middle, in the direction of the median voter, therefore having a moderating impact on representation.

There are several reasons why a system with two dominant parties might not lead to moderation, however. In particular, one could imagine that the distribu­ tion of voters does not always look like what is shown in Figure 11.1. Perhaps it

Causes and Effects: Why Do Party Systems Emerge, and What Effects Do They Have? 271

An Economic Theory of Democracy

This work by Downs is known especially for its theorizing about the median voter. The book develops the logic noted in this section, in which parties rationally adjust their platforms to appeal to the median voter. Downs does not, however, assume that all politics consists of appealing to the median voter. He notes the limitations to the median voter theorem and the con­ ditions under which it will not hold. This work built on research in economics and political strategy and applied it to the study of

elections and political parties. In addition to developing the spe­ cific median voter model, this form of research inspired much of the work in rational choice theory. According to this theory, most behavior of individuals or groups (such as political parties and interest groups) can be explained by actors attempting to maxi­ mize their economic or political gains.

Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper Collins, 1957.

looks more like that in Figure 11.2, which is known as a bimodal distribution because it has two peaks: many voters who are fairly Liberal, and many voters who are fairly Conservative, but not many in the center or at either extreme. In this case, the Liberals might try to maximize their vote by offering platforms that appeal to voters on the left, about where the vertical line is shown. The Conserva­ tives will do the same on the right. If they failed to do this, they would open themselves up to defeat by another new party that could claim more of the vote by positioning themselves strategically. For instance, if this country had exactly one hundred people, and the Liberals went for the center, then another party— call them the Left Party— could position themselves just to the left of the Liber­ als, and the Conservatives would position themselves just to the right of the Liberals. The Conservatives would sweep the vote on the right, and the Left would take the vote to the left. The Liberals would thus be committing political suicide. More likely is that the Liberals and Conservatives would each go for the

M edian voter M edian voter M edian voter on the left overall o n th e right

i f e i h

L e ft Party R ig h t PartyLiberals C onservatives r Po litical Spectrum

Figure 11.2 Bimodal Voter Distribution.

272 Chapter 11: Political Parties, Party Systems, and Interest Groups

vertical line to capture the votes on their respective sides. In this case, a system with two dominant parties leads to polarization, not moderation.

We return to this example in questions at the end of the chapter. For now, though, you can imagine how such a political system might develop into a more competitive multiparty system, as new parties might emerge in an attempt to position themselves strategically. The key point is that this distribution of voters within this party system does not result in the two big parties going for the median voter if the parties are strategic and rational.

There are other reasons, too, why parties might not attempt to appeal to the median voter. Imagine a case where voters cannot simply be arrayed along a spec­ trum from right to left, and you will see that predicting their voting is much more complex.20 Since people care about many different issues, such as religious or moral issues and the economy, it is not always clear what the left and the right will mean. Finally, it has been observed in the American context, for example, that there are essentially “safe seats” in many districts because certain parts of the country are quite liberal or quite conservative; parties as a whole are therefore less likely to move toward the center, because each legislator responds to his or her own district’s voters.21

It should be noted that the ways dominant-party and single-party regimes shape political outcomes is not as straightforward as it might seem; even in these systems, there are debates about the quality of representation. For over a century, many communists claimed that only a Communist Party could truly represent and speak on behalf of workers,22 but the collapse of communism around the world seemed to discredit this alternative to the multiparty democracy associated with liberal individualism.23 Similarly, single-party fascist regimes—including Nazi Germany—led to an association of single-party regimes with authoritarian and even totalitarian rule. The result was that prominent theories about democ­ racy often assume multiparty competition to be the best form of political repre­ sentation.24 This did not, however, mean that all multiparty systems extend the principle of competition in the same way in the realm of interest groups. In mul­ tiparty democracies, interest groups may operate in relatively open competition under pluralism or in a more structured fashion using corporatist arrangements, as we discuss next.

Interest Groups and Representation Pluralism and corporatism are each advocated by their respective proponents on the basis that they provide better and more effective representation. To start with pluralism, this theory describes how interest groups work in some countries, but it is also a theory about how interests should operate. Some theorists called “plu- ralists” openly advocate that this is the best approach for a government system: The government should listen to the competing arguments laid out by different social interests and mediate between them. This is closely linked to classical lib­ eral ideas about democratic politics, which hold that government decisions should be based on respect for individual liberties. In the case of pluralism, an emphasis is on the equal opportunity for different groups to influence politics, with guarantees of rights to organize and assemble to petition the government.

Causes and Effects: Why Do Party Systems Emerge, and What Effects Do They Have? 273

For instance, if workers in a given industry are seeking a nationwide increase in the minimum wage, but industrial capitalists fear this will harm profits and eco­ nomic growth, it becomes the role of elected representatives to listen to the pop­ ulace, process its demands, and respond accordingly.25

Yet there are also major critiques of the pluralist model. As is the case with presidentialism and other institutions in previous chapters, the model used in the United States is not presumed to be the best model for all democracies. The cri­ tique of pluralism can take at least two major forms that relate to interest groups. The first is that pluralism in essence gets bogged down due to the actions of special interest groups and is an inefficient way to make good decisions about effective policy.

One of the main challenges to assumptions about pluralism is the existence of the collective action problem. People do not necessarily participate in interest collective action The pursuit of groups for all the beliefs they support. Rather, they consider the benefits of their political or social goals by mem- own action and the costs of undertaking the action. This is especially true with bersofagrou p. public goods, where if a benefit for a certain person is small, then joining an in­ terest group may not be worth the effort. The same is true if costs to the indi­ vidual of joining the group are high. Achieving a desired result is rarely due to one more person’s action, so people have an incentive to be free riders: Let others do the work and hope to participate in the collective reward.

The other critique of pluralism comes from the perspective that corporatism does a better job at integrating interests and ensuring the structured representa­ tion of major groups in society. The argument draws upon a variety of empirical examples, ranging from economic growth successes in East Asia to harmonious social policies in Europe. In terms of economic growth, the likes of Japan and

IN SIG H TS

The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups and The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities byMancurOlspn

Olson's early book, The Logic of Collective Action, is the basis of the field of study in how collective action occurs, as out­ lined previously. The logic of collective action applies to interest groups as well as other actors we discuss in the next chapter. Rather than assuming people will easily form interest groups to press for public demands, Olson noted the free rider dilemma and the tendency of interest groups to function better when they provide specific benefits for their members. This is a critique of pluralism in the sense that interest groups cannot be assumed to form to represent diverse interests. Olson extended this cri­ tique in his later work, The Rise and Decline of Nations, in which he argued that the accumulation of special interests over time slows

down economic growth because governments respond to po­ litically powerful actors, rather than to the needs of the economy. One empirical example is striking: The United Kingdom, a victor in World War II, did worse economically for several decades than Germany and Japan, which lost the war. Olson attributes this to the continuity of special interests in the United Kingdom as con­ trasted with the elimination of many of those interests for the defeated countries.

Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965; and The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982.

274 Chapter 11: Political Parties, Party Systems, and Interest Groups

South Korea from the 1950s to 1980s were countries where scholars found that close linkages between the state and top business organizations (as well as labor) were important in setting national goals and reaching high levels of eco­ nomic performance.26 Meanwhile, in the context of long-established democra­ cies in Europe, corporatist arrangements were argued to be a political solution that gave rise to consensus-based decision making. This was reputed to be useful in reducing social tensions and in ensuring a relative political harmony between business and labor, since both were regularly integrated into political decision making.

O f course, corporatism can also have major disadvantages. It does not reflect an “arms-length” relationship between interest groups and the state. This raises the question about how the groups that participate in corporatist arrangements are chosen, and how this representation changes over time. W hat seems like useful collaboration at certain moments can seem like “crony capitalism” and favoritism at others. In addition, the structured relationships may favor some of the institutions that are powerful in the status quo. For example, who is more truly representative of American industry, Google or General Motors? While this may seem a minor issue, corporatism may tend to “calcify” relations between the state and certain actors. If the automobile industry and auto workers have close relationships with the state for decades, will they combine to support the General Motors of the world rather than the Googles? While corporatism has been seen by its proponents as facilitating policymaking, it may also be prone to make real reform more difficult. The economies of Europe in the 1990s faced a major challenge to economic growth as reform of labor and business relations became difficult. In situations where reform is needed, corporatist arrangements can impede economic adjustments by protecting the status quo for many workers and businesses.

Corporatism also tends to result in decision making by a relatively small number of elites, specifically those in government, business, and labor. In a more severe form, corporatism has been highly exclusionary and authoritarian. The idea of corporatism even contributed to totalitarian ideologies such as the early years of German Nazism in the 1930s and the period of Italian Fascism under Benito Mussolini from the 1920s to the 1940s. For many, this association with totalitarian regimes discredited corporatism as corporatist arrangements in­ fringed individual rights in favor of groups and the state; totalitarian regimes provide the worst examples of this. To return to the school of thought favoring pluralism, James Madison and the authors of The Federalist Papers (1787/1961) argued that it is natural for people to form different “factions,” and the best way to prevent any one of these from becoming too powerful and tyrannical was to encourage these different groups to compete. The debate between pluralism and corporatism is thus unresolved, with different empirical cases offering different lessons. Indeed, the debate may not be fully resolved because many countries feature elements of both models.

Party Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa 275

Party Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa

As noted at the beginning of the chapter, different political party systems have flourished at different times and in different places around the world. The United States has been a relatively stable two-party system for decades, while some countries in Western Europe have often had multiparty regimes, where parties that perform the best in elections often do not win a majority and thus need to make coalitions with other parties to govern.

Meanwhile, single-party and dominant-party regimes have rarely been found in Western Europe since the end of World W ar II, but have been much more common in Asia, the Middle East, occasionally in Latin America, and in Eastern Europe under Soviet rule. Africa is a final region of the world that has seen many single-party and dominant-party regimes. One may be tempted to reach some relatively straightforward conclusions about what shapes party sys­ tems: Poorer regions and developing countries are likelier to have single-party systems. Leaders in Africa and scholars alike have at different times offered justifications and explanations for single-party dominance. The same has held in countries from Syria to Singapore. One might even hear (or make) argu­ ments that these regions are culturally or politically unprepared for multiparty democracy.

However, one should not jump to such a conclusion. To take Africa as an ex­ ample, the continent also has a number of other types of party systems, from multiparty competition in the tiny country of Benin to a stable two-party system in Ghana. Moreover, there is a major distinction between the quite democratic dominant-party systems in countries like Botswana or South Africa and the more authoritarian dominant-party systems in countries like Cameroon or Ethiopia.

This illustrates the importance of avoiding excessive generalizations that do not match up with the evidence. In particular, it is advisable to engage in a bit of “comparative checking” so as not to generalize from one or two cases. Indeed, the particular cases that do not fit the generalization would be useful ones to exam­ ine further, if they are “deviant cases” as noted in chapters 2 and 5.

There are several causes and consequences of different party systems and pat­ terns of interest-group representation, and this area is still the subject of consid­ erable research and debate. W hile it seems that electoral institutions do help shape party systems, these systems are also influenced by ideologies, cultures, economics, histories, and many other factors. Similar factors also shape how plural or corporatist is the state’s relationship to interest groups. In turn, the pat­ terns that emerge in party systems and interest group representation affect what citizens do and how they vote and participate in politics. This chapter has thus begun to give a bigger role in politics to those citizens who may never consider themselves politicians. This focus on the actions and behaviors of groups of citi­ zens will continue into our next chapters, where we look at the many ways people identify politically and express their interests and beliefs through different kinds of action.

THINKING COMPARATIVELY

K E Y M E TH O D O LO G IC A L TO O L

Com parative Checking Comparative politics will often be based on the examination of a small number of case studies. This allows the analyst to dig into the case in depth, but it also has the disadvan­ tage of giving a "small sample size" of just a couple of cases. Unless one uses quantitative and statistical methods, one often does not subject the hy­ pothesis to full testing across all the possible cases. A danger of this can be making inferences too quickly without keeping sight of whether the argument applies beyond the cases in the study. Ideally, we would like to make arguments that apply to more than just the cases we examine. A partial solution to this challenge is comparative checking, or relatively brief glances at other cases to see if the argument holds up or has obvi­ ous flaws. This does not mean doing a full study of more and more cases, but rather briefly reviewing other cases to see if one's conclusions seem to work at a glance. In layman's terms, a bit of comparative checking can help tell if an argument "passes the sniff test." If so, one has greater confi­ dence in the argument; if not, the comparative check can be useful in forcing the analyst to revisit the argument to see if it can be modified to make it more applicable to other cases.

276 Chapter 11: Political Parties, Party Systems, and Interest Groups

C h a p te r S u m m a ry Concepts

Political parties are organizations that have the aim of nominating candidates and electing representatives to public office.

• Political party systems are different patterns in the number of major political parties and in the patterns of party politics. Interest groups are organizations that advocate for some policy perspective or political goal, and they may or may not support specific candidates.

Types Political parties have taken forms including elite parties, mass parties, and contemporary catch-all parties.

• Political party systems can be divided into dominant-party systems, two-party systems, and multiparty systems.

• Interest groups can compete with one another for political influence in a system known as pluralism, or they may have

T h in k in g It T h r o u g h 1. Look back at the voter distributions in Figures 11.1 and 11.2.

Imagine you are trying to start a third party called the Right Party to compete with the Liberals and Conservatives in a country that those two parties have dominated politically. You believe that the Conservatives are too moderate and would ideally like to po­ sition yourself as far to the right as possible. Strategically, what would be your best position on the political spectrum, keeping in mind that the height of the peaks in the figures reflects how many voters there are on that part of the spectrum? Would your strategy be different for Figure 11.1 as opposed to Figure 11.2?

2. Building on the last question, now place yourself in the position of the Conservatives. What would prevent parties from beating you? If the Right Party comes along, how could you prevent this other party from taking your place? What argument would you make to voters about why they should vote for you rather than a party that is farther out on the political spectrum?

3. The United States has long been associated with the ideas of pluralism. Are there any advantages that could be had from

more structured interactions with the state under corporatism.

Causes and Effects Political party systems are shaped by electoral rules as well as other factors such as ideology and social and historical influences.

• The political party system itself also affects politics by helping to determine whether major parties tend toward the center of the political spectrum or not.

• Pluralism and corporatism have both been argued by their respective advocates to result in stronger democracy.

Thinking Comparatively • Certain types of party systems may be more prevalent in

some regions of the world, but it is important to engage in comparative checking to avoid over-generalizing.

developing greater corporatist arrangements? What are some of the advantages that would be expected by advocates of corpo­ ratism in democratic societies? What would you expect to be the drawbacks of any such changes?

4. Thinking backtosomeofthe comparative strategies from previ­ ous chapters, how would you determine whether a certain country's party system is shaped more by its electoral rules or by other factors? Flow can comparison help you answer this ques­ tion, and what sorts of comparisons might you set up to distin­ guish between different causal factors?

5. This chapter has addressed both party systems and interest groups. Do you find one of these sorts of groups responds to the other more? Which set of organizations do you find more important in shaping how politics operates and what govern­ ments do? If you were given $100 that you were required to donate to either a party or interest group, which would you donate to, and why?

CHAPTER 12

Revolutions and Contention

• Egyptian protestors restrain a tank in early 2011 during the "Arab Spring" uprisings. Throughout much of the Arab world, remarkable changes took place in this period and have continued since. Where will these revolutions— and their aftermath— lead?

IN THIS C H A P T E R

Concepts 279 What Is "Contention"? 279 Revolutionary and Non-Revolutionary

Contention 279

Types 280 Social Movements 280 Revolutions 284 Insurgencies and Civil Wars 287 Terrorism 287 "Everyday Resistance" 289 Thinking About Contention: Summary

Causes and Effects: Why Do Revolutions Happen? 291 Relative Deprivation 291 Resource Mobilization and Political

Opportunities 292 Rational Choice 294 Cultural or "Framing" Explanations 296

TH INK IN G C O M P A R A T I V E L Y

The "Arab S pring" of 2011 298

C A S E S IN C O N T E X T

Brazil Iran

• France Russia

I n late 2010, in a small town in Tunisia, a policewoman insulted a street vendor and toppled his produce cart. This would normally have been an event of limited consequence, but what happened next made history. The vendor, M ohamed Bouazizi, went to the municipal offices to register his complaint. Rebuffed there, he set himself on fire in the street. H e is believed to have done so to protest his humiliation and his lack of opportunity. His act galvanized protestors, seeming to indicate to many that “enough is enough”

when it came to poor governance and a lack of social oppor­ tunities. The symbolic tactic of self-immolation would be repeated in Tunisia and elsewhere. Faced with continuous street protests, the Tunisian government—which did not use overwhelming force— fell by mid-January, not long after Bouazizi died of his injuries. By the end of the month, pro­ tests had spread to other Arab countries, notably Egypt. There, the state began to make strong efforts to quell pro­ tests. O n one hand, it repressed protesters, among other places in the famous gathering point of T ahrir Square in Cairo. O n the other hand, it became clear that there were

290 limits to the army’s willingness to repress the population. By mid-February 2011, the government of Hosni M ubarak had fallen. The uprisings then spread to other parts of the Arab world.

For years, many analysts and citizens had been skeptical about democratic opening and regime change in this region, and yet suddenly the air was full of excitement and a sense of opportunity. Outcomes have varied dramatically. Tunisia and Egypt ousted their old governments largely as a result of protests. The former case, so far, seems like a democratic suc­ cess story. In the latter case, post-revolutionary elections led

China • to M ohammed Morsi and the M uslim Brotherhood briefly holding power, before they were displaced by a military coup in July, 2013. Libya witnessed a NA TO -supported insur­

gency that eventually dislodged the Qaddafi regime. Syria harshly cracked down on protestors, followed by insurgency, partial state failure, and the de facto control of some parts of its territory by ISIS. Saudi Arabia has been mostly quiet. This process and these varied outcomes are in need of

278

Concepts 279

explanation. W hy is this happening at all? W hy in a “wave”?1 Finally, why has contention been successful in some places, less successful in others, and non-existent in still others? Revolutions and related efforts remain an impor­ tant part of the contemporary world, and they are among the most interesting subjects in comparative politics.

Concepts Students of comparative politics ask many questions about dramatic events like social movements and revolutions. W hy do some instances of collective action achieve their apparent objectives, while others do not? How do individuals and groups select different strategies and tactics for the pursuit of their interests? W hy are some conflicts “reformist” and others “revolutionary”? W hy are some violent and others peaceful? In shedding light on these and other questions, com­ parative political analysis can help to influence policy choices for governments and social movement organizers.

Conflict is a near constant of political life, because politics involves disputes over resources. These include not only material resources, such as housing, food, consumer goods, and access to services like medical care, but also less tangible goods like status 2S\A power? All modern societies distribute resources unequally, though they vary considerably in the extent and form of this inequality. Politics can be viewed as an arena in which resources are distributed, and one in which conflict takes place over how they are distributed. In this chapter we consider some of the many forms that such conflict takes. Social scientists interested in studying conflict often refer to it as “contention.”3 They refer to the joint efforts of individuals to bring about a preferred outcome as “collective action.” What Is "Contention"? Conflict can be peaceful or violent, and can happen inside formal institutions or outside of them. In democratic societies, conflict is normally channeled through participation in electoral politics, via the institutions discussed in chapters 8 through 11. For example, people can organize themselves into political parties and try to use these parties to gain office and work through the executive or leg­ islative branches of the state. Constitutions, discussed in chapter 8, can from this perspective be viewed as the formal rules in terms of which conflicts in a society will be resolved. Non-democratic societies also sometimes have formal channels through which some conflict can be negotiated. For example, local councils or committees, as well as governmental organizations like the police, might be re­ sponsive to citizen inquiries in some such societies. However, even in democratic societies formal politics is sometimes not sufficient to deal with conflicts.

Revolutionary and N on-Revolutionary Contention W hat political scientists call “contention” is behavior that occurs mostly out­ side of formal political channels.4 The category includes social movements,

revolution A form of collective action in which some large-scale, structural change is either attempted or accomplished.

contention The name, most associated with scholars like Sidney Tarrow and Charles Tilly, referring to the pursuit of collective goods largely outside of formal political institutions.

collective action The name given by social scientists to joint efforts of individuals and groups to bring about a shared, preferred outcome.

formal institutions Institutions that are governed by formal rules and typically linked to complex organizations like the state or corporations.

social movements Ongoing, organized collective action oriented toward a goal of social change.

280 Chapter 12: Revolutions and Contention

social revolutions Revolutions that dramatically change social structures.

insurgencies Contention with formalized military conflict.

civil wars Sustained military conflict between domestic actors.

terrorism in the context of revolutions or insurgencies, a tactic used by some participants that involves violence directed at non­ military targets.

everyday resistance Efforts to resist or obstruct authority that are not clearly organized over time, such as work stoppages, slowdowns, and sabotage.

civil society A space in society outside of the organization of the state, in which citizens come together and organize themselves.

social networks Structures of social ties and connections among individuals.

social revolutions, insurgencies and civil wars, and even terrorism, as well as so-called “everyday forms o f resistance,”5 in which people without the resources needed to organize themselves for ongoing mobilization nevertheless resist power. Scholars try to understand both the nature of these different sorts of con­ flict and their causes.

Perhaps the most fundamental difference is between forms of contention thought of as “revolutionary” and those that are not. Social scientists debate the exact definition of revolutions, as we will see, but most agree that they either at­ tempt to or succeed in radically transforming social, political, and economic rela­ tionships. O f course, other forms of contention also involve efforts to make change, but often more gradually or less radically.

Types Not all forms of contention are as transformative as the “great social revolutions” of France, Russia, and China. As we shall see in this section, scholars have de­ fined several distinct types of revolution according to actors’ aims or accomplish­ ments, and there are many important but non-revolutionary forms of social change.

Social Movements Social movements are in some ways the most normal of the major forms of con­ tentious action and are considered a healthy part of civil society, at least in de­ mocracies.6 As discussed in chapter 3, “civil society” can mean different things, but the main idea is that modern, democratic polities allow for citizens to come together and debate questions of value and policy, ideally free from state coer­ cion.7 Thus civil society can be found in media sources like newspapers and the Internet but also in public gatherings and interactions between citizens, and above all in the social networks that make this kind of deliberation sustainable. Social movement organizing takes place in this space: That is, social movements have a kind of autonomy from the state.8

Social movements take place when citizens organize over time in the pursuit of common purposes. For example, movements have sought the expansion of suf­ frage rights to women or members of minority groups or movements to advance “pro-life” or “pro-choice” positions. In contrast, regardless of its goals, a sponta­ neous protest like a riot or a mob is not a social movement. Flowever, social movements might use public demonstrations as a tactic. W hat would make a string of public demonstrations a social movement, then, would be their common underlying coordination.9 Some group or connected groups of people, linked via social networks, work together on common goals and use protest activity as a way of achieving those goals. Other tactics might include community organiz­ ing, “consciousness-raising,” educational or propagandistic work, and political lobbying. Since social movement activity is the most “normal” of the major forms of contentious action, most modern democratic societies have essentially reserved a place for it alongside formal politics. Former social movement leaders often enter into formal politics, perhaps most famously Congressman John Lewis, who was the Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the

Types 281

A protest by Spanish indignados (or "indignant ones") in 2012. These protests, which some consider similar to the "Occupy" movement in the United States and elsewhere, were notable in Spain, among other countries. Analysts note that Spain's very high rate of unemployment contributed to discontent, especially for youth.

civil rights movement in the 1960s. Increasingly, social movement activity of this sort is becoming transnational, crossing the boundaries of the nation-state and taking place in what some call global civil society.10 Think, for example, of pro­ tests against globalization like the World Social Forum, the Occupy Movement, or the demonstrations of the Spanish indignados (“indignant ones,” including many unemployed and underemployed Spanish youth). These sorts of protests often deliberately seek to cross national borders and to protest forces that do so as well.11

Social movements organize, or coordinate collective action, in many different ways. Organizations created to serve the purposes of social movements are called social movement organizations. W hile we must be careful to remember that movements do not reduce to such organizations, social movement organizations are often very important. Some are more elite-led, and others more grassroots.

For example, the Solidarity movement in the 1980s in Poland that eventually triumphed over the communists had clear leadership, while social-movement or­ ganizing against the authoritarian regime in Iran in 2009-2010 was more decen­ tralized, communicating via technology like texting, Twitter, and Facebook, and even involving activists literally calling to one another from rooftops. Some are highly unified, meaning that most activists agree and that there is not a lot of competition between different groups with their own aims. Others are more factious and divided. W hat seems to be true in most cases is that, for social movement activity to endure, some organizing must take place, and this often means that some individuals will be set off from other participants as leaders.

organization The ongoing coordination of collective action in the pursuit of common purposes.

social movement organization An organization that has been created to help maintain and lead social movement activity overtime.

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Brazil has often been considered a country of elite-led transitions and non-revolutionary change, but in fact it has generated im­ portant examples of contentious action. One of the most inter­ esting cases is the Landless Workers Movement, which organized to try to make landownership more equal in this very unequal society.12 The movement has had some notable success and has influenced the left-leaning governments of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003-2010) and Dilma Rousseff (2011-present).

See the case study of the Landless Workers Movement in the Brazil country materials in Part VI, p. 410. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. Why would Brazilian society have important populations interested in land reform?

2. How did Brazilian activists organize to put land reform on local and national agendas? What sorts of organiza­ tional structures did they create to facilitate collective action?

3. Why might some people be worried about the potential co-optation of this movement?

iron law of oligarchy The idea, developed by Robert Michels, that collective action always produces new elites.

mobilization The engagement of individuals and groups in sustained contention.

Some argue that social movement activity (like party organizing) eventually runs up against the “iron law o f oligarchy”.13 According to this theory, organizational leadership necessarily creates its own interests and every movement creates a new elite. It is worth noting that these concerns apply not just to social movements but also to other forms of contention discussed later.

Imagine that you and your classmates create a social movement. Your goal is to organize in favor of curricular changes at your university (maybe you don’t want to have to take comparative politics!). If there is broad consensus among the students, there are clear and available mechanisms for communication (maybe on social media), and, most important, if your goals are clear and minimal and do not en­ counter sharp resistance, relatively little organization and complex coordination will be necessary. But what if the goals are less clear, or can only be accomplished in stages, or meet with strong resistance by the administration? For example, you want to take comparative politics but students have a number of conflicting sug­ gestions about how it should be taught. Then the movement will need to achieve ongoing mobilization. In this instance, some individuals are going to have to assume positions of leadership, making decisions about what sorts of statements to issue, how to frame arguments and goals, and when to call for demonstrations. Otherwise, individual protest actions will be easily dispersed.

Typically, some individuals form groups and present themselves as strategic leaders. Once such groups are formed, the groups themselves, as well as the lead­ ers within them, often get a vested interest in the group and the movement. Perhaps you were relatively unknown before the formation of the social move­ ment but now you have lots of status and a thousand friends (at least on Face- book). Do you, upon the movement’s accomplishing its goals, really want to go back to being that kid in the back of the classroom to whom nobody pays atten­ tion? Something of the same applies in “real world” social movements: Leaders and their organizations often acquire status and power. This does not always lead to conflict with the movement’s goals, but it can.

Moreover, in most major social movements, alternative groups claim the mantle of leadership. This can be seen clearly in the most famous social move­ ment in U.S. history, the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, in which there were periods of tension and cooperation between the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), as well as pre-existing organizations like the National As­ sociation for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and more “radical” organizations like the Nation of Islam and the Black Panther Party, which pre­ sented itself as leading a distinct, if related, “Black Power” movement.14 The point is not that the leaders of these different groups pursued only their own interests—they were all clearly devoted to the expansion of civil rights, and each played an important role in the movement’s achievements—but that the interests of organizations and their leaders matter in social movements.

At the same time, the American civil rights movement offers cautionary evi­ dence against simply associating social movements with their most visible leaders and leading organizations. Grassroots participation and organization and on- the-ground improvising were common. To take just one example, the Montgom­ ery Bus Boycott of 1955-1956 depended heavily on the ingenious improvisational work of hundreds or even thousands of black citizens not identified as social movement “leaders” in the conventional sense.15 W hile social movement organi­ zation depends on official leaders, it also depends on the initiative of grassroots activists.

Leaders and activists involved in the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which took place in 1955 and 1956 in Alabama.

284 Chapter 12: Revolutions and Contention

class structure The ongoing and patterned relationships between "classes," typically understood as groups of individuals linked together by economic interest or activity.

political revolutions Revolutions, the main effect of which is to alter political institutions rather than social and economic structures.

Most important, movements are dependent on ongoing mobilization. A great deal of work in recent years has been devoted to tracing and explaining different patterns of mobilization. Two of the most important political scientists in this area stress several key “mechanisms of mobilization,” including “diffusion, bro­ kerage, and new coordination.”16 This means that when mobilization happens successfully, it spreads, often “shifting scales” (moving from the local to the state, national, or global level or else moving in the other direction from more macro levels to local activism); it involves individuals, groups, and organizations bring­ ing previously disconnected actors together in pursuit of common goals; and it involves novel efforts on the part of those actors to work together.17 We can think of this as basically an effort to break down some of the elements of what is hap­ pening when a social movement achieves mobilization. An important part of explaining any social movement is explaining how such steps are traversed.

Social movements shade into other forms of contention. Since social move­ ment activity has been normalized in contemporary democracies,18 it shades into electoral politics. Social movements also shade into revolutions. We can distin­ guish revolutions from social movements based on differences in goals or in con­ sequences, though there is perhaps no single clear line separating the two categories. Social movements tend to be viewed as reformist. They aim to make a society live up to some of its idealized values, or to extend rights associated with citizenship to groups to which those rights were previously denied. In other words, social movements aim to affect important social change but not dramatic structural transformation. Revolutions, in contrast, aim at the latter.19

Revolutions Most commentators agree that revolutions must be relatively sudden and must achieve dramatic social and political change. Beyond this, revolutions are chal­ lenging to define.20 They must be transformative, at least in intent, and, depend­ ing on how narrowly we want to define “revolutions,” in their actual consequences.21 Thus, a reform program is not a revolution, though failed reforms can help pro­ duce revolutions.22 They must involve, like social movements, some level of popu­ lar mobilization.22. Given the difficulty in defining “revolution,” one common strategy has been to enumerate types of revolutions. One basic distinction is be­ tween so-called social revolutions and more limited political revolutions.24

Social revolutions transform social and political structures. In other words, they make major changes in how power and other resources are distributed in society. For thinkers like Karl Marx, social revolutions more specifically trans­ form the distribution of material resources among groups. Contentious action, according to this line of thinking, is only a social revolution if the class structure is transformed. Thus the Russian Revolution of 1917 would be considered a social revolution because it used the power of the state to transform the basis of eco­ nomic activity, for example, by “nationalizing” industries, redistributing land from wealthy landowners to collectives comprised of peasants, and so forth. The same is true of the French Revolution, which essentially destroyed France’s no­ bility and the social system on which it rested.

Political revolutions are probably more common than social revolutions. A political revolution changes political institutions like the state rather

Types 285

than transforming social structures like a class system or the basic features of an economy. It is important to distinguish political revolutions from other kinds of political change, however. Electoral transference of power between parties or groups would not be considered a political revolution, because it would not actu­ ally change political structures. For example, when a new president is elected in the United States, no new constitution is written, and no radical changes to the structure of government itself are contemplated: The new administration seeks only to use those structures somewhat differently than its predecessor and, per­ haps, to gradually reshape them. Likewise, incremental changes in political structures through, say, consecutive constitutional amendments would not be considered a political revolution, because political revolutions are typically un­ derstood to happen suddenly.

We might also like to distinguish coups d’etat, which often present them­ selves as “revolutions,” from revolutions themselves. For some scholars, what would distinguish a coup d’etat from a revolution is that the former is elite- driven (typically by the military and sometimes in alliance with civilian actors), whereas revolutions necessarily involve the mobilization of some other important groups besides elite actors holding formal power. However, sometimes military leaders respond to ongoing public mobilization by staging a coup. In such in­ stances, depending on the outcome, scholars are more likely to consider the event a revolution.26

Other examples of political revolutions might include some of the Latin American wars of independence in the early nineteenth century and the wave of anti-Soviet revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In these latter cases, far-reaching political transformations took place, and the satellite states of the Soviet Union were replaced with democratic republics. These changes, in turn, gave rise to economic changes that impacted the class structure in these societies: Most political scientists would still consider these “political revolutions,” however, since such changes were not direct aims or con­ sequences of the revolutions in question.

A third possible type is anti-colonial revolutions.27 Most of the social and political revolutions discussed so far in this chapter are made against the state

coup d'etat The use offeree or threat offeree, typically by the military or a coalition involving the military, to impose a non-electoral change of government.

anti-colonial revolutions Revolutions brought by subjugated populations against colonial powers, typically with the purpose of removing them so that the society in guestion can achieve independence.

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PAGE 437

The French Revolution might be the most iconic and well-studied revolution, and leaders of other revolutions have often looked to its history for guidance.25 While not all scholars consider it the first modern revolution, most agree that it was seen as novel and that it dramatically influenced and still shapes revolutionary patterns.

For more on the French Revolution, see the case study in Part VI, pp. 437-438. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. Why would the French aristocracy help bring about re­ forms that ended up undermining its group interests?

2. Why do some scholars see this as a "bourgeois revolution"?

3. Flow do causal factors like state weakness, status-order problems, and new, potentially revolutionary, ideologies like nationalism interact in this case?

286 Chapter 12: Revolutions and Contention

Third-World revolutions A concept developed by John Foran holding that revolutions in the developing world have special characteristics.

subaltern Occupying lower rungs in a hierarchical system.

The French Revolution has been a model for many revolutionaries ever since it took place, and it is a case that has been considered by virtually all theorists of revolution.

and/or the groups controlling the state before the revolution. But sometimes groups are subject to the domination of powers beyond their own nations and states. In such cases, those powers are sometimes the ultimate targets of the revolution. For example, in the middle of the twentieth century numerous anti­ colonial revolutions, typically motivated by nationalism, were made against colo­ nial powers as well as local interests perceived to serve them. Their articulated goal was the removal of these powers so that the nation could “rule itself” inde­ pendently. W hether anti-colonial revolutions should be considered a type of political revolution or their own category is open to debate.

The fact that formal colonialism is now relatively rare has not stopped all scholars from treating “Third World Revolutions” as a distinct type.28 Accord­ ing to such scholars, inequalities in the developing world depend for their en­ forcement not just on the states, armies, and police of those states themselves, but on an international networks of more powerful states (e.g., the United States, Western Europe, Japan, perhaps now China) and international organizations (e.g., the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund). “Third World Rev­ olutions,” these scholars argue, therefore have distinct dynamics and should be analyzed separately. Just the same, this category overlaps with the broader dis­ tinction between social and political revolutions. A given case might, for certain purposes, be classified as both a political revolution and a “Third World” or anti­ colonial one.

Revolutions may take place “from below” or “from above.” All revolutions involve elite and subaltern actors (those lower down the social hierarchy or with

Types 287

less power and status before the revolution), but some are more and some less elite-driven than others. This distinction is complicated by the fact that, as we will see in the “Causes and Effects” section, different theories of revolution place greater or lesser emphasis on elite and popular participation in explaining revolu­ tions. In any case, the categories of revolutions “from below” or “from above” cut across some of the other types of revolutions discussed in this section. For ex­ ample, India’s anti-colonial resistance included both elite and subaltern actors.

Insurgencies and Civil Wars Insurgencies can be thought of as enduring, organized, armed actors contesting the power of the state. Insurgencies in some instances shade into revolutions, and many insurgencies claim to be making revolutions. Insurgencies also sometimes look like social movements, and they can often be tied to social movements car­ ried out by civilians. We might distinguish insurgencies from revolutions and social movements, however, by the degree of formalization of military conflict.29 One notable recent work defines insurgents as “nonstate armed actors that use violence to reformulate or destroy the foundations of politics in a given coun­ try.”30 Often, conflicts between groups of insurgents or between insurgents and the state are classified as “civil wars.”

Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish revolutions from the civil conflicts to which they give rise.31 For example, consider the U.S. Civil War. If it had turned out differently, it might have been subsequently defined as a political revolution, even though the goals of the Confederacy were conservative. Consider further the wars of independence in Latin America in the early nineteenth century. These were revolutions, though they did not achieve major social-structural change. They were led at first by civilians who aimed to create independent re­ publics and to make citizens where there was before only the monarchy and its subjects. However, because Spain used its army to attempt to put down these revolutions, the conflict took military form. Different actors in these societies took sides. A number of groups were loyal to the crown and fought against the revolutionaries, and thus we might even think of these conflicts as “civil wars.”32

Insurgencies might develop when several conditions occur. First, a govern­ ment that oppresses the residents of a given region, class, or group, or one that otherwise seriously fails to fulfill their expectations, is likely to generate the desire for insurgent activity. Second, a political system that does not allow for other avenues for the expression and resolution of grievances increases the likeli­ hood of insurgency. Third, a weak state increases the chances of an insurgency developing. For an insurgency to endure, neither the insurgents nor the state can be strong enough to decisively win. Guerrilla tactics are designed to produce just this sort of situation.33 This often leads to protracted conflicts spanning years or even decades.

Terrorism Definitions of terrorism have been controversial. We can define it as broadly as the use or threat of violence for political ends, or as narrowly as the use of vio­ lence by nonstate actors against civilians for the purpose of reducing civilian support for one or another official policy. Some would argue that terrorism

guerrilla tactics Military techniques designed to produce ongoing stalemate, usually employed in situations of asymmetric military capability.

288 Chapter 12: Revolutions and Contention

should be seen as a tactic or strategy rather than a distinctive type of contentious action.34 If we view terrorism in this way, then it really is nothing more than a potential tool of individuals and groups participating in the other forms of con­ tention discussed in this chapter. Yet terrorism is a concept that appears more complex upon examination. It necessarily involves violence, or at least the threat of violence. Definitions of terrorism must all take into account the following issues: (1) who or what is perpetrating the violence; (2) who or what is the target of the violence; and (3) the goals, purposes, or consequences of the violence. Not all definitions give the same answer to each of these questions.

The broadest definitions of terrorism say that it makes no difference who or what is carrying it out.35 Most important, they accept that states can be terrorist actors. This was the original meaning of the concept, which derives from descrip­ tions of the violence of the French Revolution.36 States like the former Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, or Chile under Pinochet (1973-1990), in executing thou­ sands of citizens (or many more in the former two cases) without fair trials, em­ ploying torture, and so forth, were doing essentially the same thing as nonstate actors like al Qaeda or would-be state actors like the so-called Islamic State (also known by the acronyms ISIS or ISIL). Narrower definitions seek to exclude state-led terrorism, or at least to designate a separate category (“state terrorism”) for it.37 The rationale for this is that the causes of organized violence perpetrated by a state and by a group of clandestine civilians are likely to be very different even if, for the victims, the effects are the same.

Broad definitions of terrorism say that the judgment of whether a given case of violence is terrorism does not depend on the status or identity of its victims. Narrower definitions tend to exclude violence directed toward certain classes of victims. For example, some would not consider violence directed at military in­ stallations or at military personnel, particularly in wartime, to be terrorism.38 The question gets a bit fuzzier when we consider other functionaries of the state: Is violence carried out against the police terrorism? W hat about bombing a gov­ ernment building, such as a post office, when it is closed after working hours? The narrowest definitions assert that a distinctive feature of terrorism is that its victims are themselves civilians.39 Broad definitions, again, say that the “pur­ poses” of the violence are unimportant, or that they cannot even be reliably known.40 Narrower definitions claim that, to be terrorism, violence must be in­ tended to instill fear in a population.41 Still narrower definitions assert that this intended fear must be part of a calculated strategy to bring about some major political change.42

As with revolutions, terrorism can be divided into types. For example, some terrorism— sometimes called “demonstrative terrorism”—seeks to make a show for publicity purposes, while “destructive terrorism” is oriented more directly toward coercion.43 The best conceptualization and definition of terrorism de­ pends on the sorts of questions that a scholar is asking. I f we are interested in the question of how terrorism affects civilian victims, we might want to include vio­ lence carried out by both nonstate actors and states in our definition (unless we have reason to believe that who does the violence makes a difference in how it is experienced by its victims). I f we are interested, though, in explaining common patterns of civilian-on-civilian violence in places like Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and

Types 289

IN SIG H T S Understanding Terror Networks

■ by Mark Sageman

Researchers like Marc Sageman take a “social networks" per­spective on these groups, meaning that they look at terrorist linkages as webs of relationships rather than as formal organiza­ tions or as ideological groups. According to Sageman, at least through the mid-2000s, al Qaeda was part of a "small world net­ work' characterized by “dense interconnectivity.*,4This contrasts sharply with the structure of a formal military organization or even a typical social movement, which tend to be more fixed in structure and hierarchical.

As Sageman suggests, this network structure of many con­ temporary terrorist groups has important implications. Gov­ ernments opposing such groups cannot just take out “the leader," whose importance may be mostly symbolic, since others can easily take his/her place. The decentralized nature of

the organizations means multiple actions can be carried out si­ multaneously, and that not all participants have full knowledge of plans or even of the group's structure. Of course this carries certain disadvantages for such groups as well, particularly inef­ ficiency. However, it helps to explain the resilience and endur­ ance of such networks. Some terrorist groups, such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), have in recent years been engaged in quasi-state-building activities. The more successful they are in this regard, the more centralized their organizational structures will become (if the reason why is not clear, think back to chapter 3). As such, it may be that terrorist groups vary signifi­ cantly in terms of their organizational and network structures.

Mark Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks. Philadelphia: University o f Pennsylvania Press, 2004.

Israel/ Palestine, we might opt for a narrower definition. In such cases we would probably exclude violence carried out by a state.

Some prominent examples of contemporary terrorism act as “terror networks,” exhibiting a particular pattern of organization. I f we focus our attention on con­ temporary “terror networks” rather than on terrorism as a tactic, we might find something more comparable to the other types of conflict discussed in this chap­ ter, though most acts of terrorism are not carried out by networks of this sort. Much of the attention has been on organizations like al Qaeda and related groups.

"Everyday Resistance" Some groups resist when they don't have the organizational resources to mobilize into social movements or revolutions. Banditry and other forms of resistance de­ fined by the broader society as “crime” can often be understood in this way.45 Subaltern groups employ what the political scientist James Scott has called “weapons of the weak” to practice “everyday resistance.”46 For example, they might struggle symbolically against inequality by telling stories that challenge prevailing power relations. They might struggle against it materially by engaging in tactics like work stoppage, slowdowns, boycotts, or even sabotage (some of these behaviors can be used as tactics in social movement organizing as well, of course). As Scott describes such efforts, “they require little or no coordination or planning; they make use of implicit understandings and informal networks; they often represent a form of individual self-help; they typically avoid any direct, symbolic confrontation with authority.”47

W hy would some individuals and groups resist inequalities in this way, rather than through formal political participation or joining social movements

290 Chapter 12: Revolutions and Contention

individualization The treatment of problems as linked to the interests of individuals rather than as issues of common concern or interest.

collective behavior A paradigm for understanding various forms of contention, popular for part of the twentieth century, which emphasized the irrational, social- psychological dynamics of protest.

and revolutions? The short answer is that there are often barriers to participa­ tion in these sorts of activities. Subaltern groups likely to engage in “everyday resistance” are also likely to be excluded from formal politics. This may because of an autocratic state or simply a matter of their distance from formal political life. For example, a centralized authoritarian state might deliberately not extend any political voice to the rural poor. Or political parties in an established de­ mocracy may discover that there are no gains to be made in catering to margin­ alized constituencies, either because their numbers aren’t sufficient, or they aren’t perceived to be likely to vote, or no other parties are competing for their support.

But why wouldn’t such people just join social movements or revolutions? At first glance, it may seem harder to understand why someone would engage in “everyday resistance” rather than other forms of contentious politics. Here we need to step back and think about what makes mobilization possible. In the case of resistance against totalitarian regimes like the Nazis, the answer is clear: A repressive state makes organizing too dangerous. But what about other circumstances?

Let us consider a fictitious (though fairly realistic) scenario. The residents of a rural region in a developing country live in small villages. Each village family has its own plot of land. They have traditional privileges to cultivate this land but no formal property rights, and the villagers share in farming some commonly held land. Villages are themselves separated by great distances, dangerous roads, and harsh mountain conditions. The state, aiming to increase agricultural pro­ duction for export, establishes a company that will oversee the cultivation of non-traditional crops, say, pineapples and bananas. However, rather than orga­ nizing workers into a formal labor force on industrial plantations, this company keeps workers in their traditional villages, paying them piecemeal for their pro­ duction of bananas and pineapples, and questions their claims to use the land traditionally allotted to them. The residents of these distinct villages may define their interests in similar terms: Under ideal circumstances, they might want to organize to remove the company, or to gain a voice in its decision making, or simply for higher wages. However, their ability to do so depends on their ability to transcend the individualization of their behavior and goals. They need some mechanism of communication through which they can agree about these goals and coordinate their action. In the circumstances described, this becomes very difficult. Individuals without the resources to resist collectively often resist in the only ways that they can. If communication between individuals with common interests is difficult and restricted to the local level, direct resistance and ob­ struction of perceived opponents rather than social movements and revolutions to dislodge or replace them are likely.

Th in k in g A b out Contention: Sum m ary Scholars have a variety of views on how distinct are these different types of contentious action. Some decades ago, most of them were placed under the general category of collective behavior.48 But now we often try to treat them separately (though, admittedly, many social scientists continue to focus on common features of different types of collective action). For example, some

Causes and Effects: Why Do Revolutions Happen? 291

scholars specialize in explaining social revolutions and others social move­ ments, assuming that these are distinct phenomena with distinct causes. Some argue, though, that we can treat them as existing on a continuum of contentious action.49 These phenomena— and their causes— can overlap. We divide them here— as ideal types—for the sake of clarity, but in reality the lines separating different forms of contention are not always so clear.50 Moreover, an instance of collective action can change form, moving, say, from everyday resistance to social movement organizing to social revolution.

Causes and Effects: Why Do Revolutions Happen? There are a number of theories that have been used to explain contentious action. Here for the sake of clarity we focus on explanations of revolutions specifically. It is worth noting, however, that each of the explanatory strategies discussed here have been applied (with differing levels of success) to many of the forms of con­ tentious action discussed previously. As you go over these explanatory theories, think about how they might be modified and applied to other forms of conflict. Note that some theories try to explain why revolutions and other forms of con­ tention are attempted and others try to explain why they are successful, a subtle but important difference.

Relative Deprivation According to our first theory, relative deprivation can change people’s psychology and increase the demand for social transformation. This family of theories at­ tempts to explain revolutions as abnormal deviations from a normal status quo. The theory assumes that societies tend toward a kind of “equilibrium” state in which conflict is normalized or settled through formal political channels. However, sometimes certain conditions—for example, rapid economic growth, efforts to reform the state, or the intervention of a foreign power—produce dis­ equilibrium to which revolution serves as a response. This theory goes by different names (as it has been presented in different forms) such as strain theory;51 the “collective behavior theory”;52 “social psychological theories”;53 or even the Tocqueville effect.54 Most theories of this kind specify a social psychological mechanism linking changes in the social order to the desire for rapid social transformation. People’s lives are disrupted, this produces tension, and they re­ solve that tension through reconstructing society and its political institutions.

There are certain surprising things about many revolutions that “disequilib­ rium theory” can help to explain. Some major revolutions have taken place during or just after periods of economic grow th or some other sort of improve­ ment in the lives of one or another group.55 This seems surprising, as we might intuitively expect groups that are suffering to be more inclined to revolutionary behavior (and sometimes they are!). However, this theory suggests that dra­ matic upward and downward mobility raise the possibility of revolutions, be­ cause they upset established conventions and status-relationships and open up the possibility of a potentially revolutionary group experiencing relative deprivation.56

strain theory A theory suggesting that major social change causes social “strain" or conflict which increases demand for revolution.

Tocqueville effect The name given by some scholars to Tocqueville's observation that changing relative status positions were an important factor in some groups participating in the French Revolution.

relative deprivation The state of having or feeling that one has less than other members of one's reference group (including one's own group over time).

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You likely are already aware of the Russian Revolution of 1917, sometimes called the Bolshevik Revolution, which brought into being the Soviet Union. This was one of the most consequential revolutions in history, in part because its success contributed to the polarization of global politics throughout much of the twen­ tieth century. The Russian Revolution is interesting, though, not just because of its consequences, but because of how it stands in relation to revolutionary theory. It was a Marxist revolution that didn't strictly follow Marx's template, in particular because of in­ novations made by Russian Marxists, especially Vladimir Lenin. Among other things, Lenin emphasized that revolution was pos­ sible in Russia even though it had not experienced the most robust capitalist modernization. He also emphasized that a small "vanguard” of organizers could lead a revolution, which some think contradicts Marx's idea that major structural forces, rather

than leaders and groups, produce revolution (an idea with which Lenin did not entirely disagree).

To learn more about this process, see the case study in the Russian country profile materials in Part VI, p. 536. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. What were the major factors that increased the probabil­ ity of revolution in Russia?

2. What is a "Leninist party," and how important were Lenin and the sort of organization he championed to the revo­ lution's success? More generally, what does the Russian case tell us about how much individuals and leaders matter?

3. Could the Russian Revolution have produced a different outcome, or was Soviet authoritarianism inevitable given the conditions of Russian society at the time?

absolute deprivation A condition of being deprived of resources below some given threshold, as distinguished from relative deprivation.

political opportunities The availability of political options to redress grievances.

Resource M obilization and Political O pportunities Theories of relative deprivation focus on explaining demand for revolution. By contrast, “resource mobilization” theories assume frequent or even constant demand for social change, often treating it as a consequence of absolute deprivation rather than relative deprivation. Proponents of this theory argue that what matters in producing a revolution are political opportunities or events that allow potential revolutionaries to “mobilize resources.”57 The most

IN SIG H T S Political Order in Changing Societies and W hy Men Rebel by .bimuetHuntington arid Je d Gut; &

Here we jointly consider two classic works by different politi­cal scientists who shared partially overlapping perspectives. Huntington argued that revolution takes place when the devel­ opment of the political system lags behind economic and social modernization. This process creates demands for broader incor­ poration of groups that previously were not involved in political life, but institutions are not able to accommodate those de­ mands. As he put it, "ascending or aspiring groups and rigid or inflexible institutions are the stuff of which revolutions are made."58 Revolutions are most likely when, during moderniza­ tion, the alienation of a frustrated and growing middle class takes place at the same time as the alienation of the rural poor.59

While Huntington placed less emphasis on social psychologi­ cal aspects of this process, others, like Gurr, focused attention on relative deprivation as the linkage between modernization, aspi­ ration, and dissent. In other words, revolutions are explained by the social psychology of status differences. Both of these theo­ ries owe a good deal to the classic works of Alexis de Tocqueville and Crane Brinton. Critics of this theory assert that it is overly general and that it assumes that consensus rather than conflict is the normal state of affairs in society.

Sam uel Huntington, Political Order in C h a n gin g Societies. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968: and Ted Gurr, Why Men Rebel. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970.

Causes and Effects: Why Do Revolutions Happen? 293

important political opportunity for revolutions is state breakdown, when a state loses its ability to carry out its core functions and to stifle dissent.60 Other politi­ cal opportunities that might facilitate contentious action would include elite con­ flict, military or other coercive forces becoming discontent with the prevailing order, the opening of a political system, or the creation of new groups or com­ munication technologies that facilitate organizing.61

Another set of resources for would-be revolutionaries are pre-existing pat­ terns of mobilization. If we return to our previous example in the “Everyday Resistance” discussion, we would say that the villages described there had a low potential for mobilization. This is why we would expect the villagers to engage in “everyday resistance” rather than organized strikes, social movement activity, or revolution. However, some other environments provide patterns of mobilization that can facilitate organizing and collective action and can thus be thought of as resources. For example, in a heavily industrialized society, factory workers labor closely together and may have a history of mobilization via labor union organiz­ ing. In this instance, there is a pre-existing pattern of mobilization, as well as potential organizational resources, which can be put to new uses.

In an industrial setting, the relevant organizational resources would be the labor unions themselves. However, organizational resources can take many forms. W hat is key to all of them is that organizational resources allow some central coordination, which can be important in early mobilization: It is very difficult for any given leadership to remain in control of a revolutionary process for long. Along similar lines, social networks and media access are important resources facilitating contentious action.

Finally, political opportunity and resource mobilization theorists are inter­ ested in access to material resources. Revolutions, like any other collective behav­ ior, need to be financed. This doesn’t mean that they have formal budgets and actors responsible for balancing them, of course, but especially in those many revolutions in which violence is a key tactic, revolutionary actors need access to weapons, meeting places, and supplies for the combatants.

state breakdown Dramatic decline in state capacity.

CASE IN CONTEXT

The Chinese Revolution page42s

In some ways the Chinese Revolution imitated the Russian Revolution described in the previous section. Like the Russian Revolution, it was based on Marxism, and many of its leaders hoped to create a world of equality and social harmony. How­ ever, it evidenced some major differences, perhaps the most important being the centrality of peasant participation (Marx thought that peasants were not revolutionary, but Mao Zedong felt that in Chinese circumstances the peasants were the most important revolutionary class).

This revolution raises two key questions that interest us, and you can consider them further by looking at the case study in the

China country profile materials in Part VI, pp. 425-426. Those questions are the following:

1. When did the Chinese Revolution begin or end? Was the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty in 1911 and the establish­ ment of the republic its own revolution, or just a part of the broader revolution that led to the establishment of the (Communist) People's Republic of China in 1949?

2. Why did the communists, rather than their opponents, the "nationalists," triumph in the Chinese Revolution? Does this case show us that organizational resources and practices are key to successful revolutions?

294 Chapter 12: Revolutions and Contention

IN SIG H TS States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China by Theda Skocppl •

& Skocpol's theory is a structuralist theory of revolutions. This means that she aims to explain social revolutions by focusing on the behavior of social structures (most importantly, states and social classes) rather than individuals and their beliefs, goals, and strategies. In concentrating on her three main cases of France, Russia, and China, Skocpol found two necessary conditions which she argued together cause social revolution. First, state collapse, provoked by foreign conflict, creates the possibility of revolt, divid­ ing elites. Second, certain conditions facilitate revolt among the rural poor. According to this theory, if the potential for peasant

mobilization accompanies "state breakdown," successful revolution will take place. Skocpol's emphasis on state breakdown was antici­ pated by scholars like Alexis de Tocqueville and Crane Brinton, and has been carried forward byJackGoldstone and others.

Critics of this theory worry that it is too mechanistic, that it leaves out human agency, and that it pays little attention to cul­ ture and ideology.62 Others suggest that it only applies to a lim­ ited range of cases.

Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979.

Rational Choice The rational choice theory of revolutions says that to understand revolutions we need to understand the conditions under which it becomes rational for people to engage in collective action.63 Proponents of the rational choice theory of con­ tentious action, including revolution, sometimes present it as a complement to resource mobilization/political opportunity theory.64 It shares the general as­ sumption that conflict is endemic to society and that individuals rationally pursue their own interests. However, it pushes these assumptions much further.

This approach focuses on individuals’ rational analysis of costs and benefits for participation in contentious action. According to this theory, states hold together when they prevent individuals from making the choice to pursue dissenting in­ terests through alternative organizations.65 W hen states are successful in doing this, they hold together because the majority of individuals—even if they do not like the state or the regime that controls it—judge that it would not be in their own interests to engage in protest activity or revolution. Indeed, according to this theory, this is the state of affairs most of the time: It is seldom rational for the individual to join organized protest activity.

For example, imagine that you are disaffected with life in your society, frus­ trated that you have to take so many courses to get a college degree, irritated that those who hold power get to decide what will happen in class and can coerce you into reading certain books (like this one). You meet someone who suggests that you should join their revolutionary group, which will seek to overturn the aca­ demic hierarchy by force and award PhDs to everyone on the grounds that they have already learned a lot in the “real world.” For the sake of argument, imagine that you agree with the beliefs and goals of their group and that you would really like to see such a social revolution take place (but please don’t contemplate this too seriously!).66 You have basically two choices: You can join the revolutionary group or you can choose not to join. There are also two basic possible outcomes: The revolution might succeed or it might fail. Chances are, your participation

t a b l e 12.1 Is It Rational to Jo in the Revolution?

Causes and Effects: Why Do Revolutions Happen?

Participate Do Not Participate

Revolution Succeeds Share in collective benefits Share in collective benefits

Revolution Fails Face personal costs Face no personal costs

really isn’t going to make the difference. So if you think in purely rational terms and only of your own interests and goals, you will likely conclude that the right thing to do is to abstain from joining and to just hope that the revolution suc­ ceeds. If you join and it fails you will likely face sanctions, like jail time or worse. If you abstain and it fails there will be no cost and no benefit. I f you abstain and it succeeds there will be no cost and all of the benefits. If you join and it succeeds you will reap these same benefits but will have to bear the costs of risk and par­ ticipation. Table 12.1 illustrates a basic scenario of this sort in which it would be irrational to join a revolution.

In other words, the rational thing to do is to be a free rider: not join and hope others do the job for you. This is how rational choice theory explains the relative strength of states and the weakness and infrequency of revolutions despite the fact that they believe conflict is endemic to society. Most people make the ratio­ nal choice to not participate in revolutions most of the time, even those people who have an individual interest in dramatic social change.

Efforts to explain revolution and related activities, from this point of view, should focus on conditions that alter the rational calculus of interest of potential revolutionaries, as illustrated in Table 12.2.

I f a situation becomes so polarized that there will likely be costs brought to bear on individuals by both sides (the state and a revolutionary group), this in­ creases the cost of abstention. I f this is coupled with a perceived weakness of the state, this will likely increase the willingness of a number of individuals to join the revolution. Another example: If the revolution’s success seems fairly likely, and its current participants can plausibly promise rewards to participants, this will also likely increase participation.

t a b l e 12.2 One Scenario in W hich Many A ctors May Ju d g e It Rational to Join the Revolution

Participate Do Not Participate

Revolution Succeeds Share in collective benefits but also receive personal favors and special access to resources because 1 am a "revolutionary."

Share in collective benefits, but no personal favors or special access to resources.

Revolution Fails Low likelihood of personal costs because the state is weak and so many people are participating in the revolution.

My group may be targeted for reprisal, so 1 may face personal costs even though 1 didn't participate.

free rider Someone who benefits from a collective or public good without contributing to it.

296 Chapter 12: Revolutions and Contention

IN SIG H TS The Rebel's Dilemma by A ' ' -" Lichbach

Lichbach develops Mancur Olson's approach to the "logic of collective action” discussed in the last chapter, creating a powerful theory of dissent and pioneering the application of collective action theories to revolutions and related forms of contention. According to Lichbach, the analysis of revolutions and other forms of collective action involves discerning the solu­ tion to collective action problems arrived at in particular cases. In other words, we need to figure out the circumstances under which it would be rational for one or another individual to join in contention. Solutions run the gamut from "increasing benefits"

to “increasing the possibility of making a difference," from "in­ creasing the possibility of winning" to “lowering costs." The logic of our description of rationalist analyses of revolutionary partici­ pation follows from his work in The Rebel's Dilemma.

Critics might charge that this theory makes the unrealistic as­ sumption that human beings are always self-interested and ratio­ nal. Some might also suggest that this approach is insufficiently attentive to social structures.

Mark Lichbach, The Rebel's Dilemma. Arm Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995.

Cultural or "Fram ing" Explanations Proponents of cultural or “framing” theories argue that previous theories like resource mobilization or political opportunity theory pay insufficient attention to variation in how social movement and revolutionary actors think about their par­ ticipation, and the causal impact of differences in how movements’ and revolu­ tions’ targets are “framed.”67 Others argue that contention itself has changed, becoming more focused on cultural issues like “identity.”68 Many are interested in “new social movements” like the global feminist movement or movements that mobilize around ethnic identities, a subject to which we turn in chapter 14.69

framing The way in which a given The core idea of fram ing is that every type of social action we engage in takes problem or situation is described place via “discourse” or “stories” that we tell about ourselves, our behavior, and its and understood, with implications context.70 Participants in all kinds of social behavior aim to construct narratives for how it might be addressed. that make sense of their behavior in the social environment. Your act of reading

this textbook might be “framed” in relation to a basic narrative about how you are a student enrolled in a college or university. Your long-term horizon probably includes some sort of job or advanced study (and hopefully a job after that!). Your act of reading is likely framed in relation to your role. As a student, you want or are expected to learn, and your act of reading the text is, at least officially, under­ stood in this light. Note that these “frames” are more or less collective in charac­ ter. In other words, you can reject them privately if you want to, but it is very difficult to do so publicly— say, by standing up in class and telling your instructor that you don’t want to learn—without facing consequences.

According to these theories, the same is true in situations of social movements and revolutions. I f you were to stand up in your classroom and declare that you are starting a social revolution, it is unlikely that this frame would “make sense” to those around you. More likely, they would have an alternative frame via which to interpret your outburst: You “are weird” or “have issues.” Even if one thinks that common interests would suggest that some group, say factory workers, should organize or even revolt, if the appropriate frames are not in place it is unlikely that they will be successful. The factory worker in the United States who stands on the shop floor and declares a social revolution is likely to be greeted with the same response as our fictional student doing the same in class.

Causes and Effects: Why Do Revolutions Happen? 297

Iran's Islamic Revolution and "Green Revolution"? PAGE 478

In 1979, many observers were surprised when a revolution swept the Shah out of power in Iran, putting a religious regime in the place of his more secular dictatorship. Many revolutions seem to be "left wing," which in many people's minds means socialist and secular. Yet here was a conservative revolution that seemed, at least, to be counter-modernizing. Of course, the reality on the ground was more complicated. The coalition that led to the Shah's downfall brought together many actors, from religious leaders like the Ayatollah Khomeini to secular Marxists to middle- class students. Just the same, the revolution has been taken by many to call into question existing theories of revolution.71

For more on the Iranian Revolution, see the case study in the Iran Country Profile materials in Part VI, p. 478. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. Was the Iranian Revolution "reactionary"? Is a religious revolution a contradiction in terms or just unusual when judged against the background of modern European revolutions?

2. What caused the Iranian revolution? How important were religious ideas? Does the Iranian Revolution en­ hance the plausibility of cultural/framing theories of revolution?

3. Why did this revolution take place in Iran but not in other Islamic countries at the time, like Egypt or Saudi Arabia?

So where do frames come from? They are part of culture. Different communi­ ties, practices, and walks of life exhibit shifting “frames” through which social problems and appropriate responses are constantly interpreted. The idea is the same, however: Contentious action like revolution can only take place when par­ ticipants have a frame for conceiving of it and talking about it. In many, if not most, modern social revolutions this language is provided by nationalism.72 Some scholars have even argued that the very idea of revolution (sometimes called “rev­ olutionism”) is itself a prerequisite for revolutionary activity.73 From this point of view, revolution cannot take place simply whenever there is inequality, anger, and frustration. Rather, revolution is only possible when the idea of revolution al­ ready exists as a model for addressing that discontent. Scholars increasingly em­ phasize that ideas about how to protest play an important role in contention.74 Others stress the enduring influence of ideologies, a subject to which we turn in chapter 15.75 One relatively recent theory of revolutions in the developing world, along somewhat similar lines, stresses the importance of “political cultures of opposition.”76

As you approach the close of this chapter, you now know that scholars have a range of ways in which they conceptualize and explain contention, and that they do not all agree. In general, though, theories might lead us to expect that several conditions would increase the likelihood of successful contention:

1. Some pre-existing grievances felt by one or more groups. 2. A weakening in the institutions that repress collective dissent, yet without

sufficient political opening such that disputes can be resolved via formal political institutions.

3. The emergence of new methods or means of organizing and communication, whether these be technological (e.g., newspapers, social networking sites, enhanced transportation) or of some other form (e.g., semi-spontaneous

298 Chapter 12: Revolutions and Contention

IN SIG H TS Taking Power: On the Origins of Third World Revolutions by John Foran -

I n a book that aims to explain a large number of revolutions in I the developing world, Foran brings together several elements of many of the theories noted in this section of the chapter. To these he adds two things. First, he argues that to understand revolutions in the developing world we need look beyond just the actors in the specific societies in which revolutions are taking place. "State breakdown" then becomes the breakdown of the international system's ability to reinforce existing social relations.

Flowever, Foran avoids what many critics regard as the ex­ cessive structuralism of approaches like Skocpol's by noting

the necessity of "political cultures of opposition." For a revolu­ tion to take place, the actors involved must be united by a lan­ guage that (1) makes sense of their grievances and (2) channels them toward revolutionary activity, rather than quiescence or everyday resistance.

Critics of such approaches suggest that "ideas" and “culture" are hard to measure and that it is thus difficult to calculate their causal role.

John Foran, Taking Power: On the Origins of Third World Revolutions. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

organizing like the Montgomery Bus Boycott), or else new access to such means and methods.

4. Sufficient organizing success such that actors perceive some reasonable chance of further success.

5. The emergence of ways of talking and writing about underlying social problems that points toward contention rather than quiescence as the solution.

6. Organizational leadership that maintains the unity of contentious organiz­ ing rather than fracturing contention.

As you know, different theories place greater and lesser emphasis on each of these factors, and common sense tells us that they all matter. Drawing on the methods discussed throughout this book so far, think about how we might ad­ vance research from this point, determining with greater precision the relative weight of each of these factors and the precise ways in which they interact to produce successful organizing or revolt.

T H IN K IN G CO M P A RA TIV ELY

K E Y M ETH O D O LO G IC A L TO O L

Deviant or Negative Cases A "deviant case" is a case that has a notably different outcome from what one or another theory might predict. Such observations, also called "nega­ tive cases," are useful not because

The "Arab Spring" of 2011

As discussed at the beginning of this chapter, beginning in Spring 2011 many authoritarian governments in North Africa and the Middle East witnessed a tremendous wave of contention. The protests began in Tunisia and spread quickly to many countries, with the most immediate consequence in Egypt, where hundreds of thousands of people crowded into Tahrir Square to demand change.

This truly momentous development encouraged further protests in other parts of the Arab world. Major protest action began, among other places, in Yemen, Libya, and then Syria. In the Libyan case, the dictator Muammar Qaddafi was quite willing to use massive force to repress protestors. Chillingly, authoritarian

The "Arab Spring" of 2011 299

A Tunisian man casts a vote in elections in October 2011 made possible by the "Arab Spring.'

(continued) they necessarily invalidate a given theory but because they allow us to gain more leverage as we attempt to test hypotheses. Often they do so by producing anomalous results that require re-thinking of original theo­ ries. In this section, be attentive to the way in which the "negative case" of Saudi Arabia could cause a scholar to reconsider existing theory.

dictators seem to have learned the lesson that repression is the way to preserve power. NATO intervened militarily in Libya, ostensibly to protect civilians, but ultimately to provide material assistance to rebels who eventually dislodged the Qaddafi regime. The outcomes in other cases have been mixed. The memory of the Arab Spring still inspires hope in many, but it would be a stretch to say that it democratized the region. So far, outcomes run the gamut from Tunisia’s seemingly successful initial transition to democracy to pronounced state weakness in Libya, considerable repression in Egypt, and major gains for terrorist groups in Syria, not to mention great loss of life and massive displacement of people from their homes.

W hat would we want a theory of contention to be able to explain about these events? There are many interesting questions to be answered, but among the most central we would want to include the following: (1) W hy did this wave of conten­ tion emerge? (2) W hy were the proponents of regime change successful in Tunisia and Egypt but not in Syria and only with NATO support in Libya? And, finally, (3) W hy has no significant contention been seen in Saudi Arabia, where a number of similar conditions can be found? In other words, any theory of what caused the revolts in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere should be able to account for Saudi Arabia as a “negative case” in which at least some of the key factors in the other cases are present but in which the outcome is sharply different. These are not the only interesting questions one can ask about the Arab Spring revolts and their aftermath, but here we focus on them, largely restricting our discussion to the events of 2011.

To work toward establishing hypotheses, let us first think about what our theories would predict, and then we will briefly consider some of the common and varying conditions present in our cases. See Table 12.3.

As you can see from this table, not all of the hypotheses generated from these theories are mutually exclusive. Indeed, you can probably see ways in which they could be combined. This does not mean that the underlying theories are fully compatible: certain general theoretical issues cannot be glossed over. For ex­ ample, some versions of rational choice theory says that demand for revolution is constant, while relative deprivation theory says it varies. Nonetheless, we can draw on different theories as we attempt to explain the complexities of a series of cases.

300 Chapter 12: Revolutions and Contention

A number of factors may have contributed to the emergence of the “Arab Spring.” Many commentators have noted that demographic pressures produced discontent. These are societies with a comparatively high number of young adults and few economic opportunities for them. Another clear factor is the sense of frustration that many in the Arab world feel with their countries’ non- democratic status, particularly when judged against a world in which democracy has seemed ascendant for some decades now. Others point to social media, ar­ guing that Twitter and Facebook helped protestors solve collective action prob­ lems, noting that some of the regimes have tried to restrict access to information technology.

W hat conditions were common in these societies before the wave began? Islam is the majority religion in all of them. Each began the sequence as an au­ tocracy and, indeed, with a long history of authoritarianism. Each has relatively high poverty (though this varies in extent from case to case, as we shall see). Yet there are important variations along these dimensions. Note that the two cases where contentious action was most successful—Egypt and Tunisia— are not major oil exporters (Table 12.4).

This might suggest that being an oil exporter potentially thwarts this sort of contention, perhaps because oil export provides resources for the state to main­ tain legitimacy or even to repress opponents. Obviously, the lack of major gov­ ernment oil revenues is not a sufficient condition for successful contention, given that Syria also is not a major oil exporter, and its regime has, despite serious op­ position, held onto power. To some extent, though, this is a matter of scale. In relative terms, the Syrian government, at least in years prior to the conflict, de­ rived considerable resources from oil exports.

Another point of variation concerns the relationship between religion and politics. While, as noted earlier, they are all majority-Muslim countries, there are important differences in this regard. Perhaps the sharpest contrast here can

t a b l e 1 2 . 3 Contention: Theories, Hypotheses, and Evidence

Moving Toward Hypothesis What d o e s the th e o ry p re d ict Possible Instance

Theory ca u se s contention? What w ould a case lo o k lik e i f it fo llo w e d the theory?

Relative Deprivation Increased discontent due to declining Demographic and economic trends mean poor job prospects status of key groups for young adults, who mobilize against regimes they see as

barriers to advancement.

1. Political opening (from democratic re- 1. Low willingness/capacity to repress protests leads to more forms or fiscal weakening of the state) successful contention.

2. Pre-existing mobilization capacity 2. More and larger pre-existing political groups leads to more among key groups contention.

Rational Choice Theory Changes in the strategic situations faced Lack of repression of early protests changes actors' views on by key actors risks of contention. Weak state responses make victory seem

more likely, producing cascade of participation.

Political Opportunities/ Resource Mobilization

TH IN K IN G CO M P A R A TIV ELY j

Cultural or "Framing" Changing ideas or cultural change Contention emerges and strengthens as the very idea spreads Theory before or during the process that radical change is needed (e.g., the "Arab Spring" idea).

The “Arab Spring" of 2011 301

t a b l e 12.4 Net Oil Exports, 2009, Barrels Per Day (in Thousands)

Tunisia 5

Egypt -38

Libya 1,525

Syria 117

Saudi Arabia 7,322

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, http://www.eia.gov/countries/index.cfm.

be found between Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is essentially a theoc­ racy (though Islam in Saudi Arabia is Sunni Islam, meaning the clergy do not hold formal power, which is held by the royal family). The regime’s legitimacy is maintained both by religious arguments and by lavish spending of oil revenues. Egypt has a long history of Islamic militancy, but for decades it was dominated by secular nationalists who attempted to marginalize political Islam. Framing theories of revolution might note that this could advantage the proponents of contentious action, since religious modes of dissent could likely be more readily used as a wedge in a society like Egypt than in Saudi Arabia. O f course, this can also produce problems for revolutionaries. The Arab Spring led the Muslim Brotherhood to power, but their overreach prompted resistance and their even­ tual fall, and some critics of the current regime suggest that Egypt has returned to “Mubarak-lite” style governance.

Another issue is the degree of poverty faced by these countries. I f the relative deprivation theory is right, we would expect to find one or another group experi­ encing economically generated discontent. W hile these issues are complicated, for the sake of simplicity here we will just look at per capita income (Table 12.5). Again, for the sake of simplicity, we will take these data to indicate that Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria are likely to have a high degree of economically induced discon­ tent, Libya a moderate degree, and Saudi Arabia a low degree.77 Finally, if we

t a b l e 12.5 2010 Per Capita Incom e in Selected Countries (in U.S. dollars)

Country GDP Per Capita (USD)

Tunisia 4,222

Egypt 2,654

Libya 11,321

Syria 2,931

Saudi Arabia 15,836

T H IN K IN G C O M P A R A TIV ELY

Source: UN Statistics Division, Social Indicators, http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/ products/socind/,accessed on July 17,2012

302 Chapter 12: Revolutions and Contention

examine the sequence of contention in these societies, we see an important dif­ ference in the process of contention. In four of the five cases (Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, and Libya), strong contentious action developed, but in two of them (Egypt and Tunisia) the military was unwilling to fully repress the regime’s op­ ponents in the early states of collective action (Table 12.6). This suggests that the military and its linkage to the existing regime—which we can take to be a func­ tion of state capacity—is critical to outcomes. Focusing on general judgments of just these variables, we can summarize the cases as shown in Table 12.6.

I f we take our negative case— Saudi Arabia—out of the comparison, a clear hy­ pothesis suggests itself: Successful collective action appears to be a function of the state’s failure to repress. Other features are held constant, with the exception of the fact that Libya is an oil exporter, which is perhaps relevant only insofar as it facilitates the state’s repressive capacity. In other words, factors like economic discontent and the religious versus secular character of the regime appear to be constants and thus causally unimportant. This is broadly consistent with our “political opportunity theory” discussed previously. However, when we bring Saudi Arabia into the com­ parison, this no longer appears to be the case. Rather, Saudi Arabia, where no major contention has emerged, varies from the other cases in two respects: (1) it is a reli­ gious regime and (2) it does not seem to have witnessed dramatic, economically generated discontent. In other words, the inclusion of this case makes these factors relevant, which is critical to the hypotheses suggested by framing and relative depri­ vation approaches. Note that it does not demonstrate their causal force, however.

The purpose of this exercise is to get you thinking about how to make com­ parisons and not to fully explain variation in the “Arab Spring” once and for all. Indeed, this task will likely take years, both because we need to see how these processes play out and because scholarship in political science often depends on many efforts by many scholars to generate and test hypotheses. W hat you can see here, however, is one way in which we may begin to proceed if we wish to make sense of emergent patterns in the “Arab Spring.” Note how much case selection matters. W hat would we conclude if Saudi Arabia weren’t included? Can you think of other cases that might change our conclusions if we included them? Or cases that point to causal factors that we have not considered here?

t a b l e 1 2 . 6 Contention in the "Arab Spring": Five Cases

Major oil exporter? Theocratic regime? Econom ically

generated discontent? State/military w illing to

repress protest?

Tunisia N N Y (high) N

Egypt N N Y (high) N

Libya Y N Y (moderate) Y

Syria N* N Y (high) Y (so far, to the extent possible)

Saudi Arabia Y Y N Y (presumably)

*As stated in the text, the Syrian state has in recent years derived considerable revenues from oil export, even though the country's share in the total international oil market is small.

T H IN K IN G CO M PA RA TIV ELY

Chapter Review 303

C h a p te r S u m m a r y Concepts

• Comparative political analysts are interested in how and why conflict sometimes takes place outside of formal institutions.

• There are a number of forms that such conflict takes. We were especially attentive to the differences between revolutionary and non-revolutionary strategies to create change.

Types Social movements are probably the most common form of organized conflict in advanced industrial democracies. Social movements are commonly regarded as organized collective action in the pursuit of social reforms of one or another kind. Revolutions are perhaps less common in advanced indus­ trial societies but quite common in modern societies more generally. Revolutions are usually thought of as producing dramatic change rather than mere reforms.

• Social revolutions change structures like the class system. • Political revolutions change the state.

Anti-colonial revolutions create newly independent states after removing colonial powers. Insurgencies shade into revolutions. We can distinguish them by the degree to which insurgencies take protracted military form, often in the absence of large-scale civilian mobilization.

• Terrorism can be studied as a tactic employed by participants in social movements, revolutions, and insurgencies or as a particular form for the organization of resistance. In the latter case, much attention is placed on "terror networks.”

• "Everyday resistance" is the name scholars give to the ways that groups resist and express discontent in the absence of the resources needed for complex organization and coordination.

T h in k in g It T h r o u g h 1. This chapter began and ended with a brief discussion of the

"Arab Spring." Based on the theories and concepts discussed here, why do you think the protests described there have been successful and others unsuccessful? What do these cases tell us about contention in general?

2. The United States is a society in which wealth is unequally distrib­ uted and a number of groups feel aggrieved. Why is it that there has not been a strong revolutionary tradition in the United States? What would the theories we have considered say about this question?

3. In today's world some groups claim to be making revolutions through democratic elections. In your view, is this possible? How would this change our definition of revolutions? Does it make sense to broaden our concept so as to include such cases? Why or why not?

Causes and Effects • There are at least four general types of theories of revolu­

tion, and these theories can, with some modification, be applied to other forms of contention.

• Theories of "relative deprivation" and "social disequilibrium" try to explain revolutions through focusing on an increase in the demand for revolutions. It looks at the impact of moderniza­ tion on existing political institutions and social hierarchies. It suggests that when modernization impacts these hierarchies, social equilibrium is broken and important groups seek to produce a new equilibrium through revolution.

• Theories of political opportunities and mobilization try to explain revolutions through focusing on supply of mobilization opportunities rather than demand for revolution. It suggests that new political opportunities, such as state collapse and the presence of useful ways of organizing dissent, matter most. Collective action theories argue that collective action prob­ lems are the main barrier to revolution. When revolutions do take place, the best way to explain them is to show how collective action problems were solved. Framing or cultural theory says that other theories must be supplemented by a focus on ideology or culture. Material conditions are not enough to produce revolutions. Rather, people need to have ideas that “frame" their grievances in a way that suggests that revolution is the legitimate solution.

Th inking Com paratively • The "Arab Spring" of 2011 presents a set of interesting and

useful cases for these theories.

4. All of the major forms of contention discussed in this chapter are hard to control and to lead. They often lead to unin­ tended consequences and escape the grasp of those who began them. Which types of contention would be most dif­ ficult to lead, and why? Which ones might be a bit easier to lead, and why?

5. In this chapter we considered numerous forms of contention, and then we focused on explanations of revolution. These explana­ tions could potentially be applied to some of the other forms of contention as well. For which forms of contention do you think these explanations would be most successful? And for which do you think they would face the greatest difficulties? Why?

CHAPTER 13

,

• Rwandan refugees in 1994. This image is disturbing because it took place in the midst of the Rwandan genocide, one of the worst outpourings of ethno-nationai violence in recent years. Can comparative political analysis help us to understand and put a stop to such horrific events?

The twentieth century witnessed some of the greatest atrocities in human history, from the Nazi Holocaust to the deaths of millions through vio­ lence, starvation, and famine in China, Cambodia, the Soviet Union, and Bangladesh, among many other places. As a response to the horrific events in Nazi Germany in particular, the international community declared that it would never again allow genocide, the mass murder of people of a particular racial, ethnic, or national group. Although mass killing continued around the world in subsequent decades, it was only in the late 1990s that much of the public realized that genocide had not been eradi­ cated (though some observers were aware that it had never really disappeared). The genocides in both Rwanda and the Balkans were well documented, but the international re­ sponses to these crises were dramatically different. In the Af­ rican case, the international community did very little, and peacekeepers stood by as the killing occurred, as their man­ date did not authorize interference. In the European case, N A TO mounted a joint military effort, bombing Serbia and forcing an end to formal hostilities, eventually bringing some of the leaders to The Hague for criminal trial.

Now, in the twenty-first century, genocide has continued, most notably in Sudan, and the international community has largely remained divided and confused about how to proceed. To some extent this response may be due to a lack of sufficient will. But it may also be due to failure to truly understand vio­ lence linked to political identities. I f this is true, policymakers may need to begin by understanding the nature and causes of national and ethno-national identities more generally. Comparative analysis of political identities and nationalism aims to help us better understand these issues. W hy do some identity groups engage in violence against others? Is it mostly related to the identities themselves or to circumstances such as eco­ nomic development or political institutions?

Comparative politics also aims to go beyond questions about violence to ask about political identities more generally. W h y do modern societies almost invariably define their populations as nations? W hy do they approach citizen­ ship and national membership differently? W hy do some societies seem to place so much emphasis on race and ethnicity as a basis for nationalism, and

genocide Efforts to diminish or destroy a people and/or culture.

IN TH IS C H A P T E R

Concepts 306 Identity 306 Nationalism and the Nation 306

Types 307 Primordialist Approaches 307 Perennialist Approaches 308 Modernist Approaches 308 Types of Nationalism 311

Causes and Effects: What Causes Ethno-N ational Conflict? 313

T H IN K IN G C O M P A R A T I V E L Y

Ending Ethnic and National V iolence 321

C A S E S IN C O N T E X T

United Kingdom • Mexico • Japan Germ any • Nigeria

305

306 Chapter 13: Nationalism and National Identity

identity The social label ascribed to an individual or group that locates the individual or group in political society more broadly.

social identity theory An important theory in social psychology that sees personal identities as linked to and partially derived from group identities and roles.

national identity An identity that locates one's social position in relation to national membership.

others seemingly less so? W h a t causes collective identities to change? In recent years, interest in identity and its political consequences has grown. As always, in this area of research, comparative analysis depends on clearly formulated concepts.

Concepts We must begin by clarifying the meaning of the concepts of “identity,” “the nation,” and “nationalism.”

Identity W hat is identity? Probably the best way to begin thinking about it is at the level of the individual. At the most basic level your identity is your sense of self. You have a sense of who you are and of what makes you special and unique. You also participate in attributing identities to others. In other words, as social identity theory argues, even our own personal identities are constructed on the basis of social sources, and the ongoing acts of having an identity and labeling others are social.’ Every day, we construct symbolic representations of the social world in which we live and our place in it. Thus our personal identities—our senses of ourselves as individuals— are drawn from roles linked to the role and group iden­ tities (e.g., student or professor, Brazilian or American, woman or man, brother or sister) that our society makes available to us.

The identities that matter most in politics are group identities. Group identi­ ties draw boundaries between in-groups and out-groups, though the way in which such boundaries are constructed varies a great deal. For example, some­ times group identities are very sharply bounded, and individuals are not allowed to pass from one group to another.2 In other situations group boundaries are permeable, and one can choose whether or not to belong to the group in question. Likewise, certain sorts of identities are compatible, such as being simultaneously Spanish and Catholic, whereas others are likely to be perceived by some people as incompatible, such as being simultaneously an anarchist and a fascist.

Identities are cultural, historical, and political. This means that they are created by human societies and expressed symbolically, that they change over time, and that they influence and are influenced by the ways that power is distributed in society. W hen we study them we should be attentive to how they are constructed by different individuals and groups, how their forms change over time, and how different individuals and groups, with varying access to resources, struggle to identify themselves and one another for their own purposes. In short, identities are the social labels ascribed to individuals or groups, locating the individual or group in political society more broadly.

Nationalism and the Nation In this chapter we focus on what might be the most important form of political identity in today’s world, national identity. As suggested at the beginning of this

Types 307

chapter, for some the idea of nationalism conjures up images of stringent restric­ tions on immigration, of discriminatory behavior, and, at its worst, of genocide. And yet while nationalism and national identity can be and sometimes are linked to exclusion and violence, this is not the whole story.3 They are also linked in some cases to inclusive citizenship and democracy. Indeed, some scholars think that modern democracy would not have emerged without nationalism. In gen­ eral, we could start by defining nationalism as the idea that nations should be the basic units of social and political life. Nations, in turn, are often defined as rela­ tively large groups that think of themselves as equal and sovereign.'1' In other words, in modern politics, nations are thought of as the source of the state’s le­ gitimate authority. This is why all modern governments, even authoritarian ones, claim to speak on behalf of the “people” or “nation.” To reiterate, nationalism is the view that we all have a national identity and that this identity is important. National identity says that we are members of nations, and that these nations are sovereign and equal.

Types Scholars of nationalism typically follow Anthony Smith in dividing theoretical approaches to the subject into several main groupings: “primordialists,” “peren- nialists,” and “modernists.”5 Primordialists think that all societies have some­ thing like nationalism, and that the main problem involves explaining why this is so. Perennialists disagree and think that not all societies have nationalism, but that some pre-modern societies did have it. Modernists take national identity to be a modern phenomenon, which for most means from the late eighteenth cen­ tury to the present).6 Whether you are a primordialist, a perennialist, or a mod­ ernist depends on how you conceptualize nationalism and the nation. The major classifications group theories by the date of national identity’s emergence, and this is really a question of how you define the nation, national identity, and nationalism.7

Prim ordialist A pproaches Primordialists tend to treat national identity as being the same thing as collective identity more generally. In other words, they think there is not much of a differ­ ence between the identities of modern nations and the type of identity found among groups as diverse as, say, the pre-Colombian Inca, medieval Europeans, members of traditional Hindu castes, and members of the hunter-gatherer soci­ eties that human beings inhabited for most of our evolutionary history. For pri­ mordialists, since collective identity is necessary for societies to function, a form of nationalism is a universal feature of human societies.

Some primordialists are devotees of sociobiology or evolutionary psychol- ogy.8 These are theories that aim to explain almost all of human behavior and society in terms of evolutionary theory. These scholars tend to treat national identity as biologically rooted, and to explain it in relation to its ability to en­ hance the reproductive success of our ancestors. For example, positive in-group sentiment might have helped by enhancing altruistic behavior to perceived in­ group members and non-favorable behavior to the out-group. Other scholars

nationalism The view that the world is and should be divided into nations that are thought of by nationalists as sovereign and egalitarian.

nation A group thought of as sovereign and equal, typically comprised of a large, often geographically bounded population.

primordialism The label applied by Anthony Smith to those theories of national identity that see it as continuous with pre-historical ("primordial") forms of identity.

perennialism The label applied by Anthony Smith to those theories of national identity that see it as neither exclusively modern nor continuous with pre-historical forms of identity.

modernism The label applied by Anthony Smith to those theories of national identity that see it as exclusively modern.

sociobiology An approach to the study of societies that sees human society as governed by the same (evolutionary) principles as animal societies.

evolutionary psychology An approach to the analysis of human behavior that seeks to explain it almost exclusively on the basis of evolutionary theory (see also Sociobiology).

308 Chapter 13: Nationalism and National Identity

treat national identity’s ubiquity as more of a social or cultural imperative than a consequence of evolutionary processes.9 Because human beings are social crea­ tures they need to form identities. W hat unites all of these theorists is the basic idea that nations are “primordial units” to which people feel passionately loyal.

Perennialist A pproaches Perennialist approaches say that not all identities are natural and universally present, but that nationalism is not solely modern. There is great diversity in the ways that perennialists treat national identity. A number of them see nationalism as originating in medieval or early modern Europe.10 A common strategy is to define national identity as present when a single, strongly identified group has its own territory and language.11 Another is to define an ethno-cultural community as a nation when it has a state that corresponds to it.12 Perennialists then mean to exclude certain political identities from the category “national” but define the phenomenon far more inclusively than the modernists. In other words, they do not treat kinship groups and nations as overlapping or close categories, as many primordialists would. There are comparatively fewer scholars who defend “peren- nialism” than “primordialism” or “modernism.”

M odernist Approaches Most modernists see nationalism as emerging first in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and spreading from there, though they differ on the details. The clearest definitions of nationalism from this perspective focus on several key aspects of national identity. First, nationalism says that the nation cannot just be some small elite, but has to correspond to most or all of a society’s population. Second, it says that society’s members are all equal in some way. Fi­ nally, nationalism says that the nation is sovereign.13 Modernists note that these features did not apply to most societies and identity groups historically, but that in the modern world this mode of identity has spread rapidly and is now dominant.

CASE IN CONTEXT

National Identity in the United Kingdom PAGE 550

English nationalism is often considered one of the first, or per­ haps the very first, case. Interestingly, though, different scholars see it emerging in different historical moments: medieval times, the sixteenth century, the seventeenth century, and even the early twentieth century. Moreover, English national identity has co-existed with British national identity, and also with regional identities— to some, also national— like the Scottish, the Welsh, and the Northern Irish. All of this raises questions about how we define and empirically study the nation.

For more on the changing face of English/British national identity, see the case study in Part VI, pp. 550-551. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. How is it possible that different scholars date the emer­ gence of English nationalism so differently?

2. How does English nationalism relate to British nationalism?

3. How does British nationalism relate to the identities of Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish Britons?

Types 309

■ _ CASE IN CONTEXT # Industrialization, Modernity, and National Identity

in Mexico p a g e 507

Many structuralist theories focus on industrial capitalism as a key cause. At first glance, structuralist theories focused on capitalism seem well prepared to explain the emergence of national iden­ tity in Europe, but they sometimes encounter trouble when ap­ plied to developing world societies. Mexico is a case in point. One cannot begin to speak of modern industrial capitalism in Mexico until, at the very earliest, the late nineteenth century, and many would judge even this too early. Yet nationalism was an important force in Mexican politics from the early 1800s.

For more on the case of Mexican nationalism, see the na­ tional identity case study in Part VI, pp. 507-508. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. Flow would the approaches to nationalism discussed in this chapter treat the Mexican case? Which account seems to fit the case best?

2. If we consider Mexico against the background of Latin America more generally, what light does the comparison shed on this question?

Modernists comprise a large share of scholars studying nationalism and na­ tional identity, and members of this large group disagree about many things. One major point of disagreement separates those who are more “structuralist” and those who are more “constructivist.” The basic difference between these two approaches is not too difficult to understand, though there is a large debate in social science about what these terms mean. Structuralists see big, difficult-to- change parts of society—such as major features of the economy—as determining what really matters about national identity. Constructivists emphasize that na­ tions are symbolic constructs, and so place greater emphasis on the creative ef­ forts of individuals and groups to define and redefine their identities.

An example of a structuralist theory is Ernest Gellner’s linking of industri­ alization to national identity (see “Insights” box).14Gellner argued that national

structuralism An approach to nationalism studies that sees big, difficult-to-change parts of society as determining what really matters about national identity.

constructivism In nationalism studies, the view that nations are symbolic constructs and so place greater emphasis on the creative efforts of individuals and groups to define and redefine their identities.

IN SIG H TS Nations and Nationalism by Ernest Gellner

Gellner argues that industrial capitalism produces nationalism, in part through the instrument of the state. For Gellner, capi­ talism requires a homogeneous, interchangeable, socially and geographically mobile workforce as well as standardized lan­ guage. Holding laborers in place by feudal ties or localism will be a major barrier to economic development, and capitalism is facili­ tated by literacy, common language, and a mobile workforce com­ pensated in wages. Gellner's theory is that these needs lead to nationalism, because nationalism encourages the social character­ istics that capitalism requires. Nationalism takes a language of "the people" and gives it high status. The national state standardizes its usage through official documents, the education system, and so

forth. Likewise, nationalism says that everybody in the nation is fundamentally equal, which breaks down hierarchical ties and gives rise to the interchangeability of modern workers. Critics worry that the theory doesn't clearly specify "causal mechanisms" through which the effect is produced. Nationalism seems to "go with" capitalism, but we need a theory of how capitalism produces nationalism. If nationalism is created forthe sake of capitalism, who are the “agents" who accomplish this, and what are their motiva­ tions and goals? Gellner's answer to this question is that the state coordinates the rise and maintenance of national identity, but that it does so because of underlying economic forces. Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983.

310 Chapter 13: Nationalism and National Identity

IN SIG H T S Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity byh I'rdkenUld

Greenfeld argues that nationalism is fundamentally cultural and needs to be understood as an imaginative response to social conditions. To understand nationalism's emergence and growth, we must understand why the idea spread that humanity is divided into distinct "peoples” who are "sovereign" and "equal." For Greenfeld, the key preconditions for the development of na­ tional identity are problems in stratification systems through which societies hierarchically divide themselves, such as the class structure. Elite status-inconsistency— a condition present when the stratification system breaks down and elites are no longer sure of their status— leads some groups to seek to transform identity, and national identity often seems to such groups to

serve their interests well. Greenfeld examines this hypothesis against a number of cases (including England, France, Russia, Germany, and Japan), finding pronounced status-inconsistency in each case in the key groups that are most central in redefining their societies as nations. At the same time, Greenfeld acknowl­ edges the importance of institutions like the state prior to na­ tional identity's emergence in helping to shape the type that develops in any given case. Scholars working with this theory also note that political institutions play an important role in spreading and preserving national identity.

Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.

identity and nationalism are useful (or “functional”) for industrializing societies be- cause they promote social mobility, shared language, and common understandings.

An example of a constructivist theory is Liah Greenfeld’s argument that na­ tional identity is an imaginative response to contradictory public claims about a

economics,group’s status.15 Greenfeld emphasizes social psychology, rather than in analyzing the processes through which national identity emerges and thrives (see “Insights” box).

These theories reveal just how different such structuralist and constructivist approaches can be, but simultaneously reveal points of similarity. For example, the group status-inconsistency that Greenfeld emphasizes may often be due to “structural” changes in society such as shifting ways of organizing social and economic class or innovations in the ways that states recruit their staff. In other words, the fact that such a theory emphasizes social psychology and symbolic construction does not mean that it ignores structural characteristics of society.

CASE IN CONTEXT

Importing National Identity in Japan? PAGE 493

Japan had a clear civilizational identity for centuries before modern nationalism. Indeed, under the Tokugawa regime, the country turned inward and sharply limited commercial and cul­ tural contact with the outside world. Yet many scholars think that it only developed modern national identity in the late nineteenth century. One of the most striking things about the case of Japan is how quickly industrialization and economic growth followed the development of national identity.16

For more on Japanese nationalism, see the case study in Part VI, p. 493. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. What does Japan show us about the relationship between nationalism and other key aspects of modernization?

2. Are economy-centered, state-centered, or constructivist theories best suited to explaining the case of Japanese nationalism?

Types of Nationalism As discussed in chapter 1, political scientists can move up and down Sartori’s ladder of abstraction in searching for more or less general conceptualizations of nationalism. At the level of greatest generality, scholars might look at the psy­ chological preconditions of collective identity itself. A primordialist perspective might be useful in this case. At the same time, only modernist conceptualiza­ tions might offer sufficient specificity for asking questions about modern nation­ alism’s emergence, since they are most able to draw clear qualitative distinctions between national identity and other identities out of which it might grow or that might otherwise resemble it in certain respects.

In order to ask and answer more specific comparative questions about national identity and other variables, however, one needs still more specific conceptual­ izations. These typically take the form of typologies of nationalism. Most com­ monly, typologies posit a choice between two main forms of national identity (see Table 13.1). For part of the twentieth century, the distinction was between so-called Western nationalism and Eastern nationalism.17 Note that these geographical distinctions were largely intended to capture an alleged difference between the nationalisms characteristic of Eastern and Western Europe. Western nationalisms, such of those of France and Britain, it was often alleged, were compatible with tolerance, liberal-democratic political institutions, and so forth. Eastern ones, however, like those of Germany or Russia, were based on the col­ lective notion of the “volk,” tended toward xenophobia, and were perhaps inhos­ pitable to liberal-democratic institutions.18

Later, this distinction was developed and clarified into a distinction between civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism.19 While different scholars parse these concepts in slightly different ways, the main issue here is a distinction between those societies who treat citizenship as technically open and as not based on eth­ nicity, and in turn take citizenship as the marker of national membership, and those that either have closed conceptions of citizenship (citizenship is and should be, according to such nationalisms, a biological inheritance) or that do not treat formal citizenship as a true marker of national belonging. France and Germany have been commonly taken as examples of these two kinds of nationalism. One might expect that societies characterized by civic nationalism could do a better job of incorporating immigrant communities and might even be less prone to inter­ state conflict, though this should be thought of as a hypothesis and not a fact.

t a b l e 1 3 . 1 Traditional T yp o lo g y of Nationalism

"Western," "Civic," or "Eastern" or "Ethnic" "Territorial" Nationalism s Nationalism s

France Germany

United Kingdom Russia

United States Central and Eastern Europe

Western nationalism An antiquated term for what is now often called "civic nationalism" (see Civic nationalism).

Eastern nationalism An antiquated term for what is now often called "ethnic nationalism" (see Ethnic nationalism).

civic nationalism A form of nationalism that says that you are a member of the nation if you are a citizen of its state.

ethnic nationalism A form of nationalism that says that you are a member of the nation because of your ancestry.

Australia

312 Chapter 13: Nationalism and National Identity

CASE IN CONTEXT

Ethnic Boundaries of the German Nation? PAGE 453

France is often presented as a quintessential "civic" nationalism. Germany is often juxtaposed to France as the quintessential "ethnic" nationalism.22 Indeed, some go so far as to try to explain the rise of the Nazis as a function of this ethnic nationalism, a much debated and controversial claim.

For more on nationalism in Germany, see the national iden­ tity case study in Part VI, pp. 453-454. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. Why do many scholars consider German nationalism to be ethnic nationalism?

2. What would researchers have to show in order to demon­ strate that long-standing patterns of Germany identity explain German atrocities in the twentieth century? What obstacles might such scholars face?

3. Has German nationalism changed in the post-World War II years?

territorial nationalism According to some scholars, a type of nationalism that closely resembles civic nationalism, in that membership is fundamentally determined by where one is born or where one resides rather than one's ancestry.

Two foreign-born children take their oaths as citizens of the United States in 2011.

Sometimes this basic binary distinction takes on a slightly different form, such as in the distinction between “territorial” and “ethnic” nationalisms, though there is considerable overlap here with the civic-ethnic distinction.20 Territorial nationalism is meant to refer to nationalism in which membership corresponds to residency in a territory, and civic nationalism to citizenship in a state, but in the modern world these concepts are closely related.

Liah Greenfeld adds a further element to this civic and ethnic typological scheme, arguing that while ethnic nationalisms are always “collectivistic,” civic ones can be either collectivistic or individualistic (for examples, see Table 13.2). This distinction can be rather difficult to understand.21 The model of individual­ istic nationalism holds that nations are associations of individual persons.

Causes and Effects: What Causes Ethno-National Conflict?

t a b l e 1 3 . 2 Greenfeld's Expanded T y p o lo g y of Nationalism CASE EXAM PLES

Civic Ethnic

Individualistic United States N/A United Kingdom

Collectivistic France Germany Japan Russia

This suggests that, whatever the reality of the political community and the pro­ cesses through which it is formed and maintained, it is conceived of by its mem­ bers as voluntary or associative. Collectivistic nationalism, in contrast, sees the nation as having a kind of collective agency or will that transcends the agency or wills of individual members. According to Greenfeld, collectivistic nationalism increases the likelihood of authoritarianism.

Some critics allege that all such typologies are problematic because they appear to be linked to value judgments about different societies.23 This concern deserves serious consideration. Typologies from political science exist to help us better analyze politics, but they may have other effects. If our categories too neatly sort the world in ways that make some actors appear to be more (or less) virtuous than others, we run the risk of creating damaging stereotypes.

Indeed, if the strongest claims made by proponents of typologies of national­ ism and national identity are true—if there are differences between civic and ethnic nationalisms that have implications for both domestic and international conflict—it would be hard for many social scientists, as citizens, to avoid making value judgments about them. But this critique should be a helpful reminder to us that as social scientists we should remain careful to avoid the projection of our own values onto the cases we study. Typologies of nationalism remain impor­ tant in the literature, but they are controversial. One reasonable position is that so long as we treat such typologies as ideal types—and not as totalizing descrip­ tions of specific identity groups—many critics’ concerns lose some of their ur­ gency. I f we use categories thoughtfully, we may be less apt to simply label one country’s nationalism as civic and another’s as ethnic, but rather to see that strands of nationalism corresponding to both types pervade most polities. Con­ sidering the “civic” and “ethnic” ideal types might then be most useful as we track change within countries over time, and not only in comparing between countries.

Causes and Effects: What Causes Ethno-National Conflict? Much of the recent interest in nationalism and related forms of political iden­ tity—as noted previously—concerns the widespread perception that national and ethnic conflict and violence have increased since the end of the Cold War.

313

314 Chapter 13: Nationalism and National Identity

Recent research has shown, however, that the growth of such violence began decades earlier and that what appeared to be a spurt of such violence in the 1990s was a continuation of a long-run trend.24 Moreover, most ethnically heteroge­ neous regions see very little intergroup violence.25 Nevertheless, given the extent and seriousness of such violence—and the hope that policy based upon social scientific knowledge can help us to reduce it—this is a particularly important area of research on political identities. There is relatively little theoretical consen­ sus about how to explain ethno-national violence, and indeed what ethnic vio­ lence is.26 We need to clearly conceptualize both “ethnicity” and “violence” (and, of course, to remember that not all conflict is violent).27

To begin studying such ethno-national conflict, the comparative political analyst must answer several questions. First, what makes a conflict national or “ethno-national”? Related to this, does a conflict being “national” or “ethno- national” matter? In other words, can we understand a conflict better, or predict its likely course more effectively, if we know that it is linked to nationalism? Second, what type of conflict do we seek to explain? Third, what is the appropri­ ate level of analysis to address the questions asked—for example, should our

Late Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic on trial at the UN War Crimes Tribunal in 2001.

Causes and Effects: What Causes Ethno-National Conflict? 315

cases be distinct societies, localities, examples of group behavior, specific events, and so forth?

As for the first question, scholars take a variety of views. Some have sug­ gested that there are multiple types of ethno-national identity, and that focus­ ing on these different types might help us to account for variation in probabilities of violence.28 A primordialist view of ethno-national identity, in contrast, might assume unchanging, irrational attachments to a given group. In addition, there are perspectives designated as constructivist (closely consistent with the “constructivist” view of nationalism discussed earlier) and as instrumentalist, meaning that the analyst assumes little significant affective attachment to the group but rather sees ethnicity as a product of political entrepreneurs seeking to manipulate populations for the pursuit of their own strategic ends. Finally, a number of scholars treat ethno-national identity as synonymous with “commu­ nal groups” more broadly for their research purposes:29 For such analysts, it matters little whether a given group defines its boundaries in ethnic, racial, religious, or any other sorts of terms, so long as the observable dynamics of conflict are the same.

Regarding the second question, about what type of conflict we seek to ex­ plain, some scholars have argued for a “disaggregation” of the concept of vio­ lence.30 That is, there is more than one type of violence in need of explanation, and different kinds of violence might have different causes. The most fundamen­ tal distinction, perhaps, is between violence carried out by or via the state and violence that takes place between social actors independent of the state. Think of the difference between state-led efforts at genocide and, say, less centrally orga­ nized conflict between Hindus and Muslims in India. There are good reasons to suppose that the social and political conditions that underlie state-led genocide do not fully explain sectarian conflict outside the state, though they do have much in common. Much literature implicitly focuses on the former type, perhaps because state-led genocidal efforts have been so lethal, and because they at least give the appearance of being preventable. However, genocide and other forms of intergroup violence, like periodic riots, can be analytically distinguished and likely require different explanatory approaches.31

Others note, importantly, that analysts must be attentive to who the parties to conflict are, since the “who” has great implications for the “why.”32 Lying behind such typologies are the analytical imperatives to (1) identify the major groups involved; (2) analyze their relative size and resources; (3) consider their relation­ ship to the state and the society’s stratification system; (4) take into account how they “frame” their own identities and those of other groups; and (5) understand the historical context of their relationships, given that these impact both how their identities and the potential for conflict are culturally framed and also the strategic calculations they are likely to make about the behavior of contending groups.

Ultimately, as with all of comparative political analysis, our goal is to provide explanations. There are several existing explanatory strategies in this area of re­ search. It is worth noting that many scholars combine bits and pieces of these different explanatory strategies.

instrumentalism A type of explanation in social science that says that you can explain something by showing how its development or persistence is in the (usually material) interest of powerful individuals or groups.

316 Chapter 13: Nationalism and National Identity

CA SE IN CO N TEX

The Nigerian Civil War or Biafran War: Nationalism and Ethno-National Conflict in a Post-Colonial Society PAG E 522

In much of the world, notably in Africa and the Middle East, as well as parts of Asia, European colonial powers created novel borders and boundaries. When these societies became independent in the mid- to late twentieth century, they sometimes experienced problems of ethno-national tension and even violence, as groups without shared histories of long-standing political unification struggled over control of their new polities. A good example is Nigeria, where regional ethnic and religious tensions have been an issue since independence. The most extreme expression of these tensions manifested in the Biafran War (or the Nigerian Civil War) of 1967-1970, which caused tremendous loss of life.

For more on ethno-national conflict in Nigeria, see the case study in Part VI, p. 522. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. What would each of the major theories of ethno-national conflict we consider in this section say about this case? Each would find some supporting evidence. Does one or another theory, though, explain this case more fully?

2. How does ethno-national pluralism intersect with the resource-rich character of the Nigerian state? Would conflict be as much of a problem if Nigeria's oil wealth did not make the stakes so high?

3. Given what social-scientific theories of ethno-national conflict can show us about this case, what sorts of poli­ cies might mitigate further tensions and violence in Nigeria?

Primordial Bonds You will recall from earlier in the chapter that primordialists tend to believe that national identity is essentially just another instance of a universal human ten­ dency to form close (or “primordial”) attachment to groups. The basic idea of primordialist explanations of ethnic conflict is that conflict takes place when pre-existing groups feel that their group and/or their identity is under threat. For instance, perhaps “globalization” is causing a group to feel that its identity is being diluted. Or perhaps members of another group are perceived to be outcom- peting them for jobs and other resources. Primordialist theories assume that these groups exist prior to the level of conflict, and that it is people’s “passions” and “loyalties” that cause the conflict.

Let us consider a stylized example. Imagine a state called Pluria, controlled by a large group called the Plurals. But there is a region in the country of Pluria populated by two other groups known as the Alphas (Group A) and the Betas (Group B). The Alphas and Betas understand themselves (and each other) to be ethno-national groups. There are few Plurals in the region where the Alphas and Betas live. Members of group A (the “Alphas”) tend not to trust members of group B (the “Betas”), and the Betas tend not to trust Alphas. However, both the Alphas and Betas have lived side by side for several genera­ tions without conflict. However, some Alphas perceive the Betas to have closer ties to the Plurals, the large group that controls the state. These members of group A begin to speculate that group B plans to exploit these ties to dominate them. This perception of threat upsets the cooperative equilibrium that had been in place. Once group A feels threatened, and some of its members’

Causes and Effects: What Causes Ethno-National Conflict?

hostility to group B is noticed by some members of group B, a counter-reaction among some members of group B develops. Some members of group A then take this counter-reaction as evidence in support of their prior belief that group B is opposed to their interests. Such a cycle could spin out of control and lead to conflict, and scholars have noted many cases that correspond roughly with this sort of pattern.

Some scholars who are sympathetic to elements of primordialist theories would argue that primordialist explanations alone are not fully satisfactory, as they need to be supplemented in order to explain conflict. Indeed, this may even be true of the stylized example considered in the previous paragraph. Since pri­ mordialist views of ethnic groups and nations seem to assume the permanent character of these groups and that these types of identities exist in all or virtually all human societies, they may have trouble explaining why in only certain cases ethnic conflict takes place. For example, if Hutus and Tutsis, Bosnians and Serbs, or Indian Hindus and Muslims lived alongside each other for many years, why did conflict suddenly erupt between them at particular historical junctures? To answer such questions, primordialists often need to invoke some other explana­ tory element, like economic crisis, political conflict, “modernization,” and so forth. To this extent, as we have seen in other chapters, scholars may need to draw on distinct theories, creating a “hybrid” model of conflict to fully explain many cases.

Cultural Boundaries Culturalist/constructivist explanations argue that conflict is the result of the distinct ways in which groups and their boundaries are constructed. In other words, some ways of drawing boundaries increase the chances that one group will attack another. At first glance, this theory might seem very similar to the primordialist theory noted previously. However, it differs in seeing high vari­ ability in the ways that different groups think about and represent themselves (and others) and sees this variability as key to explaining conflict. Often, such theories are rooted in accounts of “types” of nationalism like those discussed in the previous section.

Thus, some argue that ethnic nationalisms exhibit a higher probability of en­ gaging in violence. Others similarly suggest that the likelihood of conflict is in­ creased by “barricaded” identities, which construct sharp distinctions between in-group and out-group members and depict out-group members as threatening. This idea can be contrasted with “bounded” identities, which facilitate having multiple different associations.33 As with primordialist explanations, however, other factors likely need to be invoked to explain why conflict actually takes place when it does, and why most “ethnic” or “barricaded” identities are not engaged in violence most of the time. Nations thought to construct boundaries in ethnic terms are not constantly at war, and even if it turns out that groups with “barri­ caded identities” are more likely to engage in violence, they are not constantly doing so, so some other variable must explain why violence emerges when it does.34 Thus we might see a society constructing exclusive, impermeable bound­ aries as a condition that increases the probability of violence, but not a sufficient condition in and of itself.

318 Chapter 13: Nationalism and National Identity

Material Interests Instrumentalist explanations make the assumption that people pursue “material” interests and that concerns like national pride or the dignity or “purity” of the ethnic group do not really matter much to them. The theory is called “instrumen­ talist” because it says ethno-national identities are just used as “instruments” for the pursuit of other purposes. Instrumentalists’ explanatory strategy, therefore, involves hypothesizing that certain conditions in given cases make it politically expedient for some actors to deliberately foment ethnic boundaries and conflict. For example, if one group engages in violence toward another, perhaps the un­ derlying reason is that the first group wants access to resources controlled by their victims. As with other theories noted so far, simple versions of such explanations taken alone are incomplete, begging questions about how ethnic boundaries could be useful manipulative tools to begin with if strategic action is paramount. In other words, if everyone is rational and self-interested, why are some people ethnic/national chauvinists to begin with? W hy does it help politicians’ chances, in some cases, to play to such sentiments?

One potential solution to this problem is to adopt George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton’s idea of “identity utility.”35 Economists have long argued that people seek to maximize their “utility,” or, roughly speaking, their satisfaction from dif­ ferent choices. We can recognize that people derive utility not just from material things but also from their identities. For example, it might be reasonable to assume that, on average, people prefer clear, dignified identities that are condu­ cive to self-esteem. Then one can ask about the conditions under which people would turn to ethno-national chauvinism as they seek those ends. In this view, identity is thus shaped by preferences about both material and non-material payoffs.

Rational Calculation Rational choice explanations—which have much in common with instrumental­ ist approaches—aim to model the strategic calculus of actors in situations of potential ethnic conflict. W hat distinguishes such approaches from ordinary in­ strumental explanations is (1) their typical use of mathematical models and (2) their focus on modeling the ability of members of a group to anticipate and thus make rational choices about how to respond preemptively to the behavior of members of the other group (and their own). The variables that must be consid­ ered in such models are many, including perceived likelihood of the other group perpetrating violence, perceived likelihood of victory if conflict breaks out, and perceived costs associated with avoiding violence. As noted earlier, rational choice models do not necessarily assume that material factors are central, and thus can be combined with any of the other perspectives mentioned here. For example, one could in principle combine a rational choice approach with a constructivist one, using constructivism to explain the exclusivist preferences of nationalist or ethnic chauvinist actors, and rationalism to explain the choices they make given those constructed preferences.

Let us try to imagine how such explanations work (see Table 13.3). It would not be rational, for example, for you to redefine yourself as the sole member of a group that nobody has ever heard of: There would be no actual group to offer

Causes and Effects: What Causes Ethno-National Conflict? 319

INSIGHTS Nations, States, and Violence by D avid Laitin

Laitin uses a "rational choice' perspective to explain why some ethnic and national groups attempt to assimilate, why others try to secede, and so forth. He notes that most ethnic and na­ tional groups get along with little violence, though they may have grievances with one another, and argues that the rational calculation of interest explains why grievances sometimes result in violence. The spread of new identities depends on strategic decisions made by individuals about group affiliation, which in turn are shaped by the decisions of people around them. Indi­ viduals make choices about keeping or changing their own group affiliations based on three factors: economic benefit,

"in-group status,” and "out-group status." Group affiliation can impact one's income (as one's ethnic status can determine one's career prospects); it can influence one's standing within one's own group, and it can influence one's standing in the other group. For example, majority groups in some countries may con­ demn efforts by others to assimilate to the majority group, while the majority may encourage such efforts in other countries. As­ similation, secession, and other options are rational or irrational, depending on such factors.

David Laitin, Nations, States, and Violence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

t a b l e 13.3 Factors Influencing Ethno-National Identity: A Rational-Choice Approach

Adopt the Majority Reject the M ajority Ethno-National Ethno-N ational Identity Identity

Few seek Potential rewards if No majority-group membership gains, assimilation successful, but high risk is but risks of in-group and out-group

present, as potential costs sanctioning minimized, include both in-group and out-group sanctioning.

Many seek Likelihood of group No majority-group membership gains, assimilation sanctioning goes down. and still no risk of in-group and out-group

Rewards are still present but sanctioning, with fewer potential costs.

benefits, and nobody else would recognize that membership. Likewise, if you were a member of a minority group in a highly segregated society, trying to as­ similate to the majority identity might not be rational, since you would likely face resistance from both majority and minority group members. However, as larger numbers of those around you take the assimilation path, it may become increas­ ingly rational for you to do so (depending, of course, on your preferences). According to scholars like David Laitin (see “Insights” box), these are the sorts of factors that shape the likelihood that someone will adopt a given ethno- national identity.

Somewhere along the line there is a “tipping point” beyond which it becomes more rational to assimilate than to persist in one’s minority-group affiliation.36 O f course, identification with an ethno-national group in most cases has no con­ nection to violence. But a similar logic to the preceding applies to participation in secessionist movements. Scholars use this logic to try to predict whether par­ ticipation in such movements will “cascade,” or spread through a group.37

320 Chapter 13: Nationalism and National Identity

Social P sychology Social-psychological explanations come in a variety of forms.38 On one hand, these approaches focus on common patterns of boundary construction and the ways in which social categorization structures our perceptions of those around us. Thus, they partially overlap with cultural constructivism. On the other hand, many stress the importance of status differences, and feelings of discontent and envy that these produce, in engendering conflict. The overarching idea, though, is that collectively held or group feelings and resentments lie behind conflict.39

In general, then, social-psychological theories focus on two things. First is the interactive process of the formation of group boundaries, the perception that “we are us” and “they are them.” This relates to both the primordialist and construc­ tivist approaches described previously (approaches that differ from each other most fundamentally with respect to the question of how such boundaries are established and how much they vary). The second is the relative social status of “us” and “them” in this connection. Many theories agree that some status con­ figurations are more dangerous than others, and also that “status dynamics”— ways in which status systems change— can precipitate conflict. As such, social-psychological theories of group violence are “demand side” theories, loosely analogous to the social-psychological theories of collective action dis­ cussed in the previous chapter. In other words, they attempt to explain violence by assuming that it is a response to an increase in intergroup grievances. These theories view increased grievances (or the ways structural circumstances, such as a system of group rankings, can generate resentments) as key to explaining the likelihood of violence.

O f course, for most research questions, none of these ideal-typical explana­ tions alone will suffice, but thinking through these general explanatory strategies is a good place to begin as we try to construct hypotheses to explain specific cases of ethnic conflict.

IN S IG H T S Ethnic Groups in Conflict by Donald L Horowitz

H orowitz's account of ethnic conflict emphasizes (among other factors) the social psychology of group resentment. Horowitz notes that ethnically diverse societies can be ranked or unranked systems. In a ranked system, at least one ethnic group is subordinated to another (as in India's caste system). In un­ ranked systems, ethnicity might correlate with social class, but one group is not structurally subordinated to another. In ranked systems, conflict typically takes the form of class warfare or social revolution, whereas in unranked systems conflict is often a drive to exclude, expel, or exterminate other groups. Among unranked systems, Horowitz further distinguishes between societies with many dispersed ethnic groups and those 'ethnically centralized

systems" with just a couple or several major groups. Major con­ flict centering on the state is likelier in ethnically centralized sys­ tems than in ethnically dispersed systems. While structural power relationships between groups matter, the driver of con­ flict is social-psychological: group resentment. Groups tend to compare themselves to other groups (a process exacerbated in many countries by colonialism) and often see themselves as en­ titled to higher status than other groups. Where differences in status persist, the potential ingredients for ethnic conflict are present.

Donald L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press, [1985]2000.

Ending Ethnic and National Violence 321

Ending Ethnic and National Violence

In this chapter’s “Thinking Comparatively” section, we consider how compara­tive research can influence policy. As noted at the beginning of this chapter, much of the practical “payoff” of research in this area, it is hoped, is that we may be able to reduce the probability of inter-group conflict.41 Obviously, policy pre­ scriptions should be strongly influenced by what empirical evidence about con­ flict shows us about theoretical explanations. If it seems that constructivist explanations of violence are correct, we may hope to use policy to influence the formation of ethnic and national boundaries. If rational-choice theories are cor­ rect, we can use them to alter the calculus of interests of leaders in potentially violent situations, perhaps by making clear that they will face consequences for their actions if they pursue violence. In general, there are at least four main pro­ posed strategies for managing conflict suggested by social scientists, and com­ parative political analysis is being used to assess their reliability. These are open questions. W hich of these views do you find most persuasive? W hat sorts of evi­ dence could help us decide between them? Can you think of additional or supple­ mentary approaches?

1. Institutional Approaches By far the most influential proposal in political science has been that we may be able to reduce conflict by structuring institutions differently. There are several reasons for the popularity of this approach, among others that (1) political sci­ ence in general in recent years has relied heavily on institutional analysis and (2) institutions—unlike, say, culture more generally—seem to be relatively ame­ nable to engineering, at least in theory.42 Typically, scholars propose one or another version of federalism or “consociationalism” as the solution to ethnic conflict.43 Those who favor federalist solutions can be divided into two groups. Some wish to see decentralized political institutions cut across ethnic ties, the goal being to reduce the likelihood that leaders of such groups could harness political institutions in support of the interest and aims of their group. Others wish to see federation cut along ethnic lines. For example, some policy makers proposed a federated structure for Iraq that would have allowed considerable autonomy for Shiites, Sunni, and Kurds. In situations where formal ethnic feder­ alism is not feasible (for example, if the geographical settlement of different groups will not allow it), consociationalism calls for other methods for the sys­ tematic representation of ethnic groups as groups in the state.

2. Cultural and Civil Society Approaches We have already noted that some suggest “peace building” initiatives, or efforts to foster “positive intergroup contact” as key.44 In an important study, Ashutosh Varshney argues against excessive reliance upon institutional solutions to inter­ group conflict.45 His analysis of group conflict in India reveals its local character and its roots in the structure of social networks. Conflict tends to take place in mostly urban areas and, indeed, in specific urban areas. Varshney’s analysis led to the conclusion that the major variable that can explain the geographical

T H IN K IN G CO M P A R A TIV ELY

K EY M E TH O D O LO G IC A L TO O L

Large-N Studies Most of the comparative analysis discussed in this book involves trying to discern causal sequences in a relatively small number of cases. This approach has great utility. Some­ times, however, we need to compare lots of cases to make sure that our conclusions are not artifacts of case selection or bias.

This is exactly what James Fearon and David Laitin did.40They noted that much research on ethno-national bias selects cases based on observed incidence o f violence. That research then finds links to patterns of ethno- national identity. But Fearon and Laitin chose a different tack, looking at a large sample including many

consociationalism An institutional approach to managing potential

conflict in polities with multiple

groups, one which involves

ensuring that each group has

political representation.

322 Chapter 13: Nationalism and National Identity

T H IN K IN G CO M P A RA TIV ELY

K EY M E TH O D O LO G ICA L T O O L

(continued) cases of ethno-nationally diverse or heterogeneous societies. They found that ethno-national diversity was a poor predictor of inter-group conflict. This does not mean that ethnicity and nationalism have nothing to do with rates of conflict. Indeed, more recent work by Lars-Erik Cederman, Andreas Wimmer, and Brian Min has argued that ethnic conflict can be predicted more successfully when we take into account the role of the state. This work suggests that the key to explain­ ing such conflict is to examine the ways in which access to state power intersects with ethnic and ethno- national distinctions.46

Large-N studies of this sort— which deal with a large number of observations— can often help us to distinguish between findings that only hold for a small number of cases and those which capture general tendencies or relationships.

distribution of conflict in India is the vibrancy of civic life: More specifically, in urban areas, the presence of civic associations that cut across ethnic lines protects against violence, which in India took place disproportionately in areas with low levels of associational activity. The major policy payoff here would be to find ways to strengthen non-ethnic associationalism. W hile in some ways this approach is presented as an alternative to institutional strategies, it is better regarded as a complement to such strategies. In other words, we are still talking about efforts to shape organizations rather than directly addressing networks, identities, or behavior.

3. Procedural and Judicial Approaches Some scholars advocate using national and international judicial institutions to address problems of intergroup violence.47 Rational choice and related forms of analysis draw important attention to the fact that the strategic considerations of both perpetrators and victims of violence shape outcomes over time. On one hand, it is important that potential perpetrators of violence have the reasonable expectation that there will be consequences if they harm others. On the other hand, once a cycle of violence has begun, it is important that at least some who have ties to such perpetrators do not so fear reprisal as to reach the judgment that ending violence would be too risky. Thus, some argue both for the importance of “individualizing responsibility” for the worst atrocities in ethnic conflict and for implementing forgiveness programs of one kind or another.48 The de-escalation of South African conflict serves as a model for many proponents of this view.

4. International-System Approaches More generally, international pressure can also reduce the violence carried out by states.49 States and international actors can bring a variety of consequences to bear on transgressors of international human rights norms, and these may have an important deterrent effect. Such approaches are most likely to be successful, many scholars believe, when (1) the claim that other states or the international community are likely to act seems plausible and (2) the potential perpetrator of violence is not already isolated internationally, and thus has something to lose.

As you can see, these approaches are linked to the theories of conflict dis­ cussed previously. But how could we further test whether policies derived from theories will work? One approach would be to experiment with them, but for both practical and ethical reasons, this is not a real option. Therefore we are largely dependent on comparing historical evidence from the real world, espe­ cially when it exhibits “natural experiments” that mimic experimental compari­ son. We can test existing theories of conflict through small groups of comparable case studies or through “large-N” studies. In either of these types of analysis, we would look for statistical correlations between variables suggested both by theory and by the observation of intergroup violence.50

As with many of the areas discussed in this book, this is an ongoing research agenda with lots of questions left to debate and resolve. The hope is that we can come to more fully understand the ultimate sources of intergroup violence and, by doing so, the most efficacious ways to reduce or prevent it.

Chapter Review 323

C h a p te r S u m m a r y Concepts

Comparative political analysts are interested in classifying and explaining major political identities.

• National identity is an important modern political identity emphasizing popular sovereignty and equality.

Types • National identities are conceptualized in three major ways

by comparative political analysts; their positions are known to scholars as "primordialism," “perennialism,” and "modernism." Primordialists group national identity with collective identities more generally. For a primordialist, national identity is basically the same thing as tribal, clan, ethnic, or racial identity. Perennialists think that nationalism has been around for many centuries, but they do not see all collective identities as. basically the same. Rather, they focus on one or another criterion that makes national identity different from more ancient identities (e.g., a common vernacular, control of a state). Modernists believe that nationalism is different from the sorts of political identities that preceded it. Some believe that modern nationalism began as early as sixteenth-cen­ tury England. Many others locate the emergence of na­ tional identity in the late eighteenth century. Some scholars argue that nationalism comes in different types. The most common distinction is between a "civic" or liberal" type and an exclusive or "ethnic" type.

Causes and Effects Scholars have produced a range of theories to explain ethnic and national violence. We considered five of them in schematic form.

One theory holds that "primordial attachments" are respon­ sible for collective violence. From this point of view, in other words, explanations of collective violence must account for the emotional motivation of perpetrators. Such theories often suggest that such emotional motivations are en­ coded in our biology, or in any case in our social nature, and threats to national identity (e.g., perceived imminent violence perpetrated by another group, or fears about cultural dilution in the face of globalization) promptthe behavior.

• Another theory holds that the nature of the cultural bound­ aries between groups strongly impacts the probability of conflict. Groups that define cultural boundaries as imper­ meable and essential are, according to this point of view, more likely to engage in violence. A third theory holds that material interests are the main determinant of collective violence. In other words, according to this theory, when groups claim to be engaging in violence because of group affiliation they are actually interested in increasing their access to material resources like money, water, food supplies, or technology. A fourth theory holds that collective violence is best ex­ plained through modeling the rational decision-making processes of group leaders and/or members.

• A fifth theory holds that collective violence is the product of social-psychological processes that go beyond the ways that cultural boundaries are constructed.

Th in kin g Com paratively We thought about major policy proposals for reducing or eliminating inter-group conflict, and we linked these back to our earlier, causal theories of ethno-national violence.

T h in k in g It T h r o u g h 1. In the "Causes and Effects" section of this chapter, we consid­

ered five major theories of intergroup/ethno-national conflict. These theories are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Sketch a hybrid theory that includes key elements of at least two of the theories discussed. Make clear (1) what is potentially gained

through the linkage and (2) what, if anything, is lost about each of the theories included in the hybrid.

2. This chapter ends with a discussion of policy recommendations that have been made by political scientists who study ethno- national violence. We noted that they related to theories of

324 Chapter 13: Nationalism and National Identity

ethno-national violence. However, some do not address "root causes,” instead focusing on institutional solutions (like conso­ ciationalism) to problems that many theories would say are based on primordial, cultural, or material differences. Is this a contradiction? Why might someone who believes ethno-national conflict to have such geneses still prefer institutional solutions?

3. Can the different theories of ethnonational conflict we have considered in this chapter be combined? Try to construct a

hybrid theory, building on what you have learned from this chapter.

4. Pick a country you know well. Which of the three major per­ spectives on the historical origins of nationalism and national identity discussed in this chapter— primordialism, perennialism, and modernism— do you think would be most useful for the analysis of nationalism in this case? Explain the reasons for your selection.

» m F m

CHAPTER 14

Race, Ethnicity, and Gender

• Brazilian President Dilma Rousseffin 2015, one of the most prominent female heads of state. Does her success indicate that gender discrimination no longer affects politics? As we shall see, no.

329

IN THIS CHAPTER

Concepts 327 Race and Ethnicity 327 Gender 328 Sexual Orientation 329

Types 329 Disentangling Race and Ethnicity Discrimination Based on Race

and Ethnicity 332 Gender Discrimination 333 Empowerment of Women and

Minority Groups 334

Causes and Effects: What Factors Influence the Political Representation of Women and M inority Groups? 337 Social Movement Mobilization 337 Political Parties Based on Gender

or Ethnicity 339 Institutions for Promoting Women's and

Minority Group Representation 341

T H IN K IN G COMPARATIVELY

Indicators of Gender Empowerment 344

CASES IN CONTEXT

Iran India

Japan Brazil

feminism A social and intellectual movement that aims to ensure equal rights for women and men.

critical race theory A movement in social, political, and legal theory that aims to discern the subtle effects of racism and related forms of prejudice. 326

I n recent years, a number of countries have elected members of historically disadvantaged groups to the highest office. This trend has been especially

notable in the Americas. Latin America, for example, has in the last decade seen the election o f several im portant women as president: Michele Bachelet

in Chile, Cristina Fernandez in Argentina, and Dilma Rousseff in Brazil. The Americas have also recently wit­ nessed the election of presidents from other disadvantaged social groups, such as Evo Morales in Bolivia, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil (before Rousseff), and Barack Obama in the United States. Some constituencies greeted these elections as a sign of political empowerment, and most observers would agree that this trend constitutes progress. But, as we shall see, it emphatically does not mean that race, ethnicity, and gender are no longer sources of political, social, and economic inequality.

Gender continues to strongly shape political representa­ tion, economic position, and social status, thus remaining a key and often under-examined feature of comparative poli­ tics. Race and ethnicity matter, too, especially in our global culture in which international migration is so common.1 Perhaps more than ever before, our societies are racially and ethnically diverse (to varying degrees, of course) and increas­ ingly transnational in character, which produces both oppor­ tunities and challenges.2 In this chapter we consider identities linked to gender, race, and ethnicity in relation to efforts to achieve empowerment and political representation.

Despite the importance of gender, race, and ethnicity, with some notable exceptions these subjects have often been m inimized in the study of comparative politics. Happily, this tendency has started to change, in part be­

cause of fem inist and critical race scholarship. In this chapter we first focus on gaining clarity about the concepts of race, ethnicity, and gender. We then move on to related concepts such as gender discrimination and gender em­ powerment. Then we turn our attention to how some women and members of minority groups have worked to enhance their participation and represen­ tation in formal institutions. As we shall see, while efforts to more fully

Mexico

Concepts 327

incorporate women and m inority groups into formal political processes have a lot in common, they vary in im portant ways as well.

Concepts Social scientists interested in these questions need to first define what we mean by race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. Though some of these concepts are related, they differ in important ways as well.

Race and Ethnicity As we saw in chapter 13, all human societies construct collective identities, which vary considerably depending on their context. Among other things, these identities often involve boundaries between an “in-group” (“us”) and an “out­ group” (“them”).3 One strategy for trying to understand various types and in­ stances of collective identity is to focus on the nature of these boundaries. Different types of identities depend on contrasting ways of drawing lines be­ tween groups of people. Identities based on race, ethnicity, and gender draw these lines in overlapping and yet distinct ways.

We shall untangle the related concepts of race and ethnicity later in the chapter; for now we will just point to shared features of these categories of iden­ tity. Both suggest that people are divided into such groups, with the bases be­ tween groups allegedly established either by biological differences or by culture and tradition. Both treat group membership as important, and both can be sources of out-group discrimination and in-group pride. Different cases posit

boundaries Lines drawn symbolically between groups of people.

race The idea that human beings are divided into different groups, often thought of (erroneously) as biological categories.

ethnicity The quality that one has by identifying with or being ascribed membership in an ethnic group.

gender Culturally constructed roles or identities one has by virtue of being ascribed the status of male or female, to be distinguished from biological sex.

Whip-toting riot police in South Africa's apartheid state in 1985.

328 Chapter 14: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender

transgender An identity in which one's gender does not conform to conventional matching with biological sex.

social construction The process through which socially shared meanings and definitions are established and maintained.

biological determinism The view that a feature of social life, such as gender or ethnicity, is caused by underlying biology.

different sorts of boundaries between ethnic and racial groups, some more per­ meable than others. Unequal relationships between ethnic and racial groups can be caused and reinforced by formal and legal differences. For example, think of explicit segregation under “Jim Crow” laws in the southern United States before the civil rights movement peaked in the 1960s or under South African apartheid. Alternatively, inequalities can be buttressed by more subtle forms of discrimina­ tion. Finally, as we discuss further in the “types” section below, some people think of race and ethnicity as biological categories, though most social scientists reject this idea.4

As discussed in the previous chapter, there is a range of social-scientific views on the nature of national, ethnic, and racial identities. Some accounts emphasize constructivism, others instrumentalism, and still others primordialism (see chapter 13 if you need to review these concepts and theories).

Gender The first distinction that needs to be drawn here is between gender and sex.5 People often conflate these two ideas, but they are not identical. From the point of view of social scientists, sex refers to biological differences between people as linked to reproductive potential. In other words, one’s sex is the more or less objective quality that one has by virtue of being biologically male or female. Gender., in contrast, is cultural.6 This means that it is essentially symbolic. One way to formulate this is to say that gender is the way in which human beings “make sense” out of sex. For example, think of ideas like “masculinity” and “fem­ ininity.” We may link these ideas to ways of acting and even different sorts of bodies. For example, in some cultures, maybe being very muscular is masculine, in others not; in some cultures, femininity and athletic prowess may go hand in hand, while in others femininity may be linked to perceived physical passivity. But given all of these differences, we know that ideas about gender (like mascu­ linity and femininity) cannot be reduced to underlying sex differences. Indeed, some individuals’ experienced gender does not “match” their biological sex in the traditional sense, and some individuals have transgendered identities.

There are many debates among social scientists about the precise relationship between sex and gender. The dominant view is social constructionism (or social constructivism), which holds that biological sex does not determine gender. From this point of view, biology is not destiny. Biological determinism, the other end of the spectrum, asserts that gender is just a reflection of sex. As far as we are aware, there are no serious social scientists that are true biological determinists in this sense. The debate is really between “strong” and “weak” versions of social constructionism. The “weak” version holds that gender is indeed culturally con­ structed but that there may be some biological differences between women and men that limit or constrain this construction. For example, perhaps evolution has indeed encouraged some different tendencies in how one thinks about hierarchy or relationships or sexuality itself.7 The “strong” version holds that any such ten­ dencies are insignificant or do not exist at all.

In other words, social scientists agree that gender is not determined by biologi­ cal sex. This premise has some important implications. Perhaps most important, if gender is socially constructed, it can change over time. Gender might have

meant something different in 1950s America than it does today, for example. In other words, being a woman or a man decades ago was likely experientially dif­ ferent in some respects than it is today (just think of the television show M ad Men). Note that if biological determinism is true, this change would be impos­ sible. If gender can change over time, this means that (1) activists can try to shape it, at least to some extent, and (2) social scientists can try to map and explain the ways in which it has changed. Activities, identities, roles, jobs, even objects in the world can be seen as “gendered,” and regardless of one’s sex, everyone can partici­ pate in such gendered activities, perform such gendered roles, and exemplify dif­ ferent gendered styles, in varying ways and to different degrees.8

Sexual Orientation When social scientists speak of sexual orientation in the most narrow sense, they refer to the fact that different people seek different sorts of sexual partners. His­ torically, in many societies a heterosexual, or “straight,” sexual orientation has been held up as the standard. People with other orientations, such as gays and lesbians, were labeled as deviant and, as a result, often faced serious discrimina­ tion. Some scholars refer to this view, which takes heterosexuality as “normal” and preferred, as “heteronormativity” or “normative heterosexuality.”9

Even today, same-sex relationships are subject to discrimination and are even illegal in some countries and territories, but social movements have led to de­ criminalization and widespread acceptance in numerous locations. They have also expanded civil rights in other ways for persons of diverse sexual orientations, including, in some places, the extension of basic institutions like marriage, and they have elevated the status of people of diverse sexual orientations. The process of extending rights and ending discrimination is far from over, and even in coun­ tries where the rights of gay, lesbian, and transgendered persons have been in­ creased the most, discrimination remains a serious issue.10

Types Different types of disadvantage and discrimination emerge in relation to catego­ ries such as race, ethnicity, and gender. At the same time, these categories may have different implications for potential empowerment.

D ise n tan glin g Race and Ethnicity As with gender, some people imagine race to be a biological category. Scientifi­ cally, however, this way of thinking is inaccurate. As scholars have emphasized, there is far greater genetic variation within than between so-called racial groups.11 The socially constructed (and thus non-biological) nature of race becomes even clearer when we look at the history of racial concepts. Categories such as “white” or “black” or “Asian” may appear to be stable and thus grounded in human nature, but they are not. Indeed, to take just one particularly striking example, in the nineteenth-century United States, Irish immigrants were sometimes defined as “non-white,” and even today in much of Latin America and other parts of the world, racial categories are far more fluid and permeable than they are in the United States.12 Further, consider the racial typologies constructed in late-colonial

330 Chapter 14: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender

racialization The historical process through which social relations become interpreted in terms of racial categories.

racial formation A concept developed byOmi and Winant (1994) that describes the process through which ideas of race are constructed and develop over time.

ethnic group A group that identifies itself as having strong cultural commonality and a shared sense of long-run history, sometimes thinking of itself as a kind of kinship group.

Latin America, where elites asserted that some people of mixed-race parentage fell into categories such as “coyotes,” “wolves,” and “mulattos.”13

We can draw one of two possible conclusions from this set of successive and inconsistent categorizations. One possibility is that there are distinct and bio­ logically real “races” but that most people have gotten them wrong for most of history, and that we now know what they really are. The other possibility is that they have been social constructions all along: in other words, that people have invented these ideas rather than discovering them in nature. Most scholars draw the latter conclusion.14

Scholars who study racial identity increasingly speak of certain stages or peri­ ods of racialization and racial formation, meaning times in which social dis­ tinctions pertaining to the idea of “race” became more pronounced.15 Typically, these processes have to do with one or another group having an interest in closing off competition for status or resources.16 W hen individuals and groups compete for social status, they often seek to formally exclude others from competition, making it easier for themselves.17 Race has often been used for this purpose.18 For example, Europeans drew distinctions between themselves and “black” individ­ uals from sub-Saharan Africa for centuries, but when European colonizers of the Americas sought to enslave those individuals on a mass scale and to exploit in­ digenous groups, they drew a clearer, “racialized” line between themselves, the indigenous population, and Africans, trying to justify their different forms of exploitation.19

In summary, most scholars believe that race is not a real, biological fact but is instead a social construction. An identity is a “racial” identity when people in a society think that one or another group is significantly biologically different from other groups, and view these imagined differences through the race concept. For this reason it is only a useful category for comparative analysis when we are studying societies who think about themselves and others in terms of race. In such cases, we aim to understand (1) how they think about race, (2) how ideas of race are constructed by different groups, and (3) whose interests are served by these different constructions. Some important comparative analysis aims to ex­ plain differences between societies’ constructions and uses of race.20

The terms “ethnicity” and ethnic group are sometimes used as synonyms of race, but they are often applied more broadly. An influential conception of ethnic groups is as follows: “named units of population with common ancestry myths and historical memories, elements of shared culture, some link with a historic territory, and some measure of solidarity, at least among their elites.”21 Note that, defined in this way, ethnicity is conceptually broader than race: “Common ances­ try myths” does not necessarily imply that those myths are thought to be biologi­ cal, even if they often are understood to be so. I f one chooses this sort of approach, the concept of “ethnic group” is a broader category of collective identity than more narrowly defined “national identity” discussed in the previous chapter.22

Yet much work on questions of ethnicity and ethnic identity focuses not on the long-term past but on the nature of these identities and the roles they play in the contemporary world. Typically, it conceptualizes ethnicity as an identity that is not necessarily bound to a state (though states often influence ethnicity in a variety of ways). For example, Irish Americans, Korean Americans, and African

Americans might be characterized as “ethnic groups,” because while some mem­ bers of these groups feel a sense of cultural belonging, they do not desire to form their own state as a result. Ethnicity, as such, is perfectly consistent with mem­ bership in a broader civic or multicultural community in which individuals pos­ sess other collective identities besides their ethnicity.23 Sometimes, in-group or out-group members think of ethnicity in biological terms. In other words, for some, the concept of ethnicity shades into the concept of race. But thinking of ethnicity this way is not a definitional feature. More often, social scientists think of ethnicity as based on cultural commonalities, ranging from common rituals and practices to common language. In the U.S. context, the national census con­ siders categories such as Hispanic or Latino to be “ethnic” rather than “racial” categories. This has been somewhat controversial since categories such as Asian and African American are treated as race.24

Ideas such as ethnicity are constructed in very different ways in different soci­ eties.25 Thus, identities deriving from tribal forms of organization in some parts the world, those deriving from distinct units in hierarchical stratification systems in some African societies or in India, and those of “hyphenated Americans” cannot for all research purposes be treated as instances of the same general phe­ nomenon, yet social scientists will often treat all such identities as “ethnic.” In modern societies, the following components are likely to be building blocks for how ethnicity is identified: type of national identity, how the state deals with questions of citizenship and residency, formal and informal rules of national be­ longing and participation in public life, and the broader stratification system (which in most modern societies means the class structure).

The contemporary United States is an illustrative example. Its civic identity has been described as a “melting pot,” but it is not hard to find contradictions of this idea. Examples include the indigenous population’s forced relocation on very unfavorable terms, clearly genocidal by today’s standards; slavery and then segre­ gation of African Americans; and discrimination against various waves of im­ migrants from the nineteenth century to the present. W hile this model of assimilation has been hotly contested—both by scholars who argue that the United States has never been a melting pot and by those who argue that it should not be—the “melting pot” ideal has remained. Others, though, suggest that mul- ticulturalism is an alternative view.26 Here the core idea is that members of dif­ ferent groups do not need to leave to the side their differences. In a context like the United States, though, this is still linked to the civic nationalism model, as the idea is that ethnicity and race-neutral categories like citizenship are still the basis of rights and participation in politics.

In any case, civic identity in the United States has not meant the denial of ethnicity, at least in recent decades. Rather, it has allowed for dual and multiple affiliations, as in the case of so-called “hyphenated Americans.” American cul­ ture has encouraged immigrants and their descendants to hold onto a recon­ structed version of their old national identities, redefined as ethnicity.27 This cultural aspect has sometimes been a matter of others labeling immigrants and sometimes one of proud internal identification (or both). Some societies, how­ ever, may seek to force immigrants to give up their traditional identities in order to assimilate.28 More generally, the state plays a role in the ongoing construction

332 Chapter 14: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender

audit studies Research carried out by social scientists to measure the extent to which hiring practices are discriminatory.

of ethnicity, such as by making “official” decisions about how to use ethnic cat­ egories in the census or in laws and judicial decisions involving ethnicity.29 It has made such decisions in cases involving questions of affirmative action in employ­ ment and in efforts by college and university admissions offices to ensure a di­ verse student body. The state also shapes ethnicity through the way it handles intergroup conflict, particularly in societies with multiple ethnic groups that sometimes experience pronounced differences, such as India or Nigeria.

Discrim ination Based on Race and Ethnicity Both ethnicity and race often serve as the basis for discrimination, which can be both explicit and implicit. In a country like the United States, racial and ethnic identities have a pronounced impact on one’s prospects for income, assets, educa­ tion, marriage, and incarceration, among other outcomes.30 This impact is per­ haps most notable in relation to assets and wealth, which is partly a legacy of historical inequalities.31 Some discrimination is explicit and obvious: Almost everyone recognizes the most virulent forms of racism. But while some people believe that racial and ethnic discrimination have declined globally—and indeed, in the United States, surveys show that explicit racism is much less prevalent than it once was32—members of minority groups continue to experience high rates of discrimination.33 A lot of inequality based on race and ethnicity is not obvious to most observers.34 In the United States, audit studies (which use field­ work to measure discrimination) confirm that equally qualified applicants with names stereotypically linked to some minority groups are less likely to be offered job interviews than applicants with stereotypically “white” names.35 In short, social scientists who study race and ethnicity almost universally agree that even as explicit racism has declined in societies like the United States, racial and ethnic disparities remain a serious problem.

Discrimination and its historical legacies take very different forms in different societies. Since race and ethnicity are socially constructed and because they in­ tersect with other potential bases of cleavage in a variety of ways, there is no one set pattern of racial and ethnic discrimination. Brazil, for example, is often con­ trasted with the United States on this issue.36 Many have asserted that Brazil does not face exactly the same problems of racism as the United States, since there is no sharp color line the Brazilian culture of race and ethnicity. Yet it is clear to most observers that some groups in Brazil are nevertheless disadvan­ taged, leading to recent efforts at affirmative action and related approaches.

Demographics cause variation in how race and ethnicity are constructed, and they link to discrimination as well. Societies with a long tradition as destinations for large-scale immigration can be expected to exhibit different dynamics than societies that have received little immigration. This observation might help ex­ plain why some countries in Western Europe, such as France, have faced chal­ lenges incorporating immigrant groups in recent years. Polities that presided over long histories of slavery may exhibit dynamics different from societies with­ out such histories. Cultural traditions and beliefs likely matter as well. Finally, the principal actors involved vary from case to case. Actors that can be agents of discrimination include not just the state but other societal institutions, as well as groups and individuals within the society.

Gender Discrim ination The meaning of gender discrimination may seem fairly obvious. Many people are explicitly discriminated against on the basis of their gender. For example, a woman might be denied a job because she is a woman, or her work might be unpaid, or paid less than the work of an equally qualified man.37 In a number of countries, as with racial and ethnic discrimination, political action over decades has resulted in laws offering some protection against discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation. Yet again, the protection offered does not fully resolve the problem, and in a number of societies explicit job discrimination re­ mains rampant. Beyond this, other forms of discrimination, perhaps less obvious, happen in virtually all societies.38 W hile both men and women experience sexual harassment, women are far more likely to encounter it.39 Yet social-scientific data suggest that—in addition to persistent discrimination of this kind—women are systematically disadvantaged in somewhat subtler ways as well.

Women are often paid less than men.40 In a number of places, this inequality is explicit, and it still happens with frequency in advanced industrial and post­ industrial societies like the United States, despite efforts to curb the problem. But think about ways in which women suffer from pay differentials beyond such ex­ plicit forms of discrimination:

• First, cultural pressures still sometimes emphasize that women bear spe­ cial responsibility for raising children. As a result, “work-life balance” issues tend to be especially acute for women, and, in just about any field, taking time off from the workplace means lower pay and slower ascent of the career ladder.41 Women take time off not only to give birth but because in some cases they feel more pressure than male counterparts to stay home with children on an ongoing basis.42

• Second, employers often engage in anticipatory discrimination for these reasons. Women might be less likely to receive promotions— or even op­ portunities to demonstrate they deserve promotions or raises—because of expectations that their time may be divided between work and family.

• Third, discriminatory attitudes about women’s abilities and competencies persist. For example, some people still believe, erroneously, that men are better at math and science and related technical subjects.

• Fourth, on a related note, the labor market itself is gendered.43 Some jobs are considered by many to be stereotypically or characteristically male, and others stereotypically or characteristically female. Traditionally, jobs gendered as female have paid lower wages than those gendered as male. Thus women could, within these categories, receive “equal pay for equal work” and still, when we think about the broader society, be paid unfairly in the aggregate.

These are just some examples of mechanisms through which gender discrimi­ nation in the labor market operates. O f course, they play out very differently in the wide range of contemporary societies.

In addition to pay inequality, women are often systematically disadvantaged because in many societies, parents invest more in the human capital of their sons than their daughters.44 In these instances, women are not competing on a level playing field, as they have fewer resources. This tendency has been greatly

334 Chapter 14: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender

CASE IN CONTEXT

j Gender in Post-Revolutionary Iranian Politics PAGE 479

Many people think of post-revolutionary Iran as a country where discrimination against women is widespread. Indeed, this is ac­ curate. However, as is so often the case with this country, the real­ ity is more complex than many know. Iranian society is one in which women— despite structural and institutional obstacles and inequalities— do find ways to assert their agency.

For more on these issues see the case study in Part Vi, p. 479. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. What conditions did women face in Iran before the revolution?

2. How has the revolution impacted women's position in Iranian society?

3. How do some Iranian women resist coercion?

reduced, however, in many advanced industrial and post-industrial societies. Indeed, in a number of countries, women consistently outperform men in the educational system.45 Institutions of higher education increasingly have a hard time achieving gender balance between male and female students, because women tend to have higher grades and better test scores. In fact, many colleges and universities may now be practicing so-called “affirmative action” for men.

Beyond serious, ongoing explicit and subtle discrimination in economic life, women continue to face discrimination in the political sphere in virtually all so­ cieties, though societies vary substantially in the extent to which this is true.46 It is only over the last century that women have acquired the right to vote in most countries (including the United States), in some far more recently, and in a few not at all. And even in countries with long-established traditions of women’s suf­ frage, women politicians rarely occupy top posts at parity with men. As we shall see later in this chapter, there is much debate about why this is the case and what its main consequences might be. Women are less likely than men to hold office at all levels of government. This disparity is perhaps most notable at the upper ech­ elons of the executive branch. Systematic disadvantage of women in politics most likely reinforces other forms of disadvantage, since research indicates that women in political office are more likely than men to aim to eradicate discrimination and related problems.47 Beyond these issues, bear in mind that globally, women are considerably more likely than men to experience poverty and sexual violence.

We wish to emphasize that while these claims are generally true, the global population of societies exhibits wide variation in the extent of observable gender discrimination and inequality. Some countries, such as the Scandinavian societ­ ies of Sweden, Norway, and Finland, stand out as especially progressive, although even these have not erased gender inequality.48

Em pow erm ent of Women and M inority Groups empowerment An increase in the Empowerment is the expansion of the socially defined capability of a given social, political, or economic group.49 The simplest way to think of empowerment is as the opposite of dis- capabilities of an individual or crimination. That is, you might think about women or minority groups becoming group' empowered to the extent that they overcome such discrimination. This idea is

Types 335

Gender Empowerment in Japan? PAGE 493

Centuries ago Japan was noteworthy, among other reasons, be­ cause it was sometimes governed by empresses. Yet contempo­ rary Japanese politics has been regarded as a case in which gender discrimination is high. How and why is this the case?

For more on the subject see the case study in Part VI, pp. 493-494. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. On what grounds could someone claim that gender dis­ crimination in Japanese politics is relatively high?

2. What are the major factors that have contributed to this tendency?

helpful but only partially defines empowerment, which could, in principle, extend beyond the establishment of parity. We think of empowerment as ex­ panding women’s and minority group members’ capabilities in all spheres of life that bear on politics.

Empowerment can be economic.50 For example, prohibiting or undoing economic discrimination (such as in the labor market) based on gender, race, or ethnicity is a form of empowerment. Many agencies encourage economic development—another form of empowerment—by offering small loans specifically to women.51 Similarly, many developing world societies, such as Brazil and Mexico, target women with “conditional cash transfers”; that is, they disburse funds to those who comply with certain conditions, such as enrolling children in schools.52 In part, this practice rests on evidence that women are more likely than men to invest such funds in the human

Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkol Karman, who, along with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011.

336 Chapter 14: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender

capital of their families (i.e., health and education) rather than in personal con­ sumption. Further, one can think of women’s cooperatives—in which women not only pool resources but also create political structures that allow them to exert leadership— as potentially empowering. Government programs that provide ser­ vices such as child care and medical care to women can also be empowering.

Empowerment can also be cultural or symbolic. One example of symbolic empowerment is a low-status group engaging in collective action to elevate its status. O f course, status often goes along with economic class and political power, but we should not assume that it always does so or that it is not indepen­ dently important.53 The lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) move­ ment in the United States and a number of other countries stands out as one that has aimed to shape the status position of the populations it represents and sup­ ports. One aspect of the movement is working to expand the political representa­ tion of LGBT people. It also seeks to promote positive depictions of LGBT people, both in the media and in everyday life. This effort has involved lobbying media as well as more grassroots action such as gay pride parades and related events. Such actions aim to extend social benefits to in-group members, in addi­ tion to demanding broader social acceptance and elevated status. Symbolic em­ powerment may be an important component in achieving political and economic empowerment, since politics and economics are ultimately cultural.

Finally, empowerment can be political.54 We can think of the women’s move­ ment and the civil rights movement in the United States as empowering, and we can think of participation in more specific social movement and protest activity as potentially empowering. Indeed, we would likely judge a movement or activity successful to the degree that it empowers group members. Political parties that aim to advance the goals of specific ethnic groups are also potentially empower­ ing (for interesting reasons, as we shall see, political parties that represent women as a group are relatively rare55). Laws and interventions to ensure political op­ portunities for women and members of minority groups may be empowering as well. Perhaps most important, we can see empowerment in initiatives that in­ crease women’s and minority group members’ representation in political offices.

On a related note, some scholars interested in women’s empowerment have focused on “state feminism,” which one political scientist defines as “the advocacy

Gender and Political Representation in Brazil: Where Has Progress Come From? PAGE 410

Historically, Latin America has been viewed, rightly or wrongly, as a region in which women face widespread discrimination. Yet in recent years, the women's movement has made notable ad­ vances in this region, such as in Brazil.

For more on the state of women's political empowerment in Brazil, see the case study on pp. 410-411 in Part VI. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. What have been the major successes of feminist activism in Brazil in recent years?

2. Why, according to political scientists, have gender-linked parties not been prominent in Brazil?

3. Why, nevertheless, has the Workers' Party tended to be more favorable to women's empowerment?

Causes and Effects: What Factors Influence the Political Representation of Women and Minority Groups? 337

of women’s movement demands inside the state.”56 This perspective reminds us that beyond social movement organizing and political competition for elected office, both elected and appointed office-holders inside the state bureaucracy can contribute to the empowerment of women and other groups in myriad ways.57

In the “Causes and Effects” section that follows, we focus on political empow­ erment because it is fundamental. Once a group is politically empowered, it has an expanded capacity to shape agendas. As a result, it can then push for other forms of empowerment.

Causes and Effects: What Factors Influence the Political Representation of Women and Minority Groups? In this section we consider factors affecting political representation of women and minority groups. As noted previously, we are narrowing our focus a bit, as we will pay less attention here to questions of economic and symbolic empower­ ment, though these are not unrelated. We focus on social movement mobiliza­ tion, the creation of political parties based on gender or ethnicity, and institutional design tools such as quotas. These potential causes of empowerment are not mu­ tually exclusive but rather may go together.

Social M ovement M obilization Perhaps the most important process through which women and minority groups can be empowered is through social movement mobilization.58 Indeed, this pro­ cess often underlies the two other main processes we consider in this section: political parties and policy responses.59 As noted in chapter 12, social movements typically need to develop organizations to maintain their momentum and direc­ tion over an extended period: Political parties are one such type of organization. The development of a political party out of a social movement is a step in the institutionalization of that movement’s concerns.60

Social movement mobilization can also be effective in other ways. It can act in the form of symbolic empowerment to expand the interests of a group. Thus, social movement activity can aim to transform political culture or popular atti­ tudes about a group, such as LGBT people (as we mentioned earlier). The civil rights movement in the United States is another clear example here. The move­ ment’s goals were many and included both the political and economic empower­ ment of African Americans, but one of its key aims was breaking down the symbolic barriers that facilitated many white Americans’ support of or tolerance for the discriminatory Jim Crow laws. Another example is activism on the part of minority groups in a number of European societies (such as the Scottish and Welsh in the United Kingdom and the Catalonians in Spain). These movements have sought symbolic empowerment in addition to expanded political power.

We looked at major theories of contentious action, including social move­ ments, in chapter 12. One major cluster of social movement theories, prominent in Europe, claims that these movements have brought concerns of identity to the foreground in recent decades.61 This assertion is debated, however, as some argue that identity concerns have always been central to social movements.

338 Chapter 14: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender

IN S IG H T S American Indian Ethnic Renewal: Red Power and the Resurgence of Identity and Culture by Joan e Nagel

Nagel's book is an effort to explain a fascinating demographic pattern in the late-twentieth-century United States: the dra­ matic increase in the number of persons claiming an American Indian or Native American identity. This trend was not a product of an increased birthrate but, rather, of more individuals claiming an identity that they would not have avowed previously. Nagel finds that, in part, this change was a consequence of social movement activity. In the civil rights era, a number of factors in­ creased the likelihood of mobilization around an American Indian identity, and an important movement among persons of American Indian identity developed. Most notably, a group of "Red Power" activists seized Alcatraz Island in San Francisco in 1969. But this was only the most visible event in a much more widely dispersed process, which included additional takeovers, marches, and many other actions.

According to Nagel, part of what social movement mobiliz­ ing accomplished was a transformation in the status of American Indian identity. Movement activists redefined this identity from one that had been given little status in the broader American society to one seen as a source of pride. Nagel's account of this case highlights the importance of social movement organizing

in empowering groups symbolically, beyond just the expansion of economic position and political power.

Joane Nagel, American Indian Ethnic Renewal: Red Power and the Resurgence of Identity and Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

In 1969, American Indian activists took over Alcatraz Island. This protest activity drew attention to their cause.

INSIGHTS The Power of Identity by Manuel Castells

Castells considers the importance of identity movements in the contemporary world. He finds that identity issues prompt a great deal of contemporary social movement activity. The most important social transformations are cultural or cogni­ tive, he argues, since “domination is primarily based on the con­ struction of reality in the human mind."62

Castells argues that there are three main kinds of political identities. These are "legitimizing identities," "resistance identi­ ties," and "project identities." Legitimizing identities are tied to the nation-state, which Castells believes to be threatened by the rise of the global "network society." "Resistance identities' are tied to members of communal groups (like some ethnic groups) and are

often oriented toward resisting the network society and global­ ization. Finally, "project identities" look forward rather than back­ ward. They do not aim just to defend existing communities from larger forces but to construct new identities that transform soci­ ety more broadly. Castells' favorite example here is the global feminist movement, which he calls the 'movement against patri­ archy." The core idea is that this movement has had success by changing women's identities, and that in the process it came to reconfigure key social institutions, such as the family. The recon­ figuration of these institutions has changed gender identities more broadly. Manuel Castells, The Power of Identity. 2nded. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.

W hether or not social movement activity focusing on questions of identity is novel, there is no disputing that it can be an effective strategy for empowering a group. As noted previously, one way it can work is through helping establish and support political parties that represent the interests of a group.

Political Parties Based on Gender or Ethnicity So how do political parties help represent a group’s interests? First, most modern electoral systems depend on political parties to organize and structure political competition. As a result of this process, parties bind political representatives together under common platforms, which can strongly influence votes and thus political decision-making. This influence varies from case to case, of course, and not all parties are equally capable of shaping the voting behavior of party mem­ bers. Another reason that parties can matter is that in some political systems parties exist as either an official (e.g., contemporary China) or de facto (e.g., Mexico under the PRI) layer in institutional decision-making processes. As chapters 9 through 11 show, the nature of the electoral system and how the legislature and executive are structured also affect the ways in which parties organized around an ethnic group might exert influence. As we shall see, the nature of those systems also impacts the probability that an ethnic party will develop.

However party organization intersects with the formal organizational fea­ tures of the state, parties are useful tools for pursuing group interests. W hen and why ethnic parties are formed is a somewhat complicated question. Several vari­ ables probably matter, but in interaction with one another.63 In other words, none of them alone is likely sufficient to produce ethnic parties.

The first such variable is demographic.64 How racially and ethnically hetero­ geneous is the society in question? This is not to suggest that there is an ideal level of ethnic heterogeneity for the formation of ethnic political parties, but that some level of heterogeneity is key. The relative shares of the population di­ vided into each group, as well as the number of groups and the geographical dispersion of groups, can influence the probability of the formation of ethnic parties. This demographic variable interacts with several other variables, the most important of which are likely (1) the society’s culture of ethnic affiliation more broadly (e.g., how does the culture in general handle ethnic attachment?) and, equally important, what other bases for political mobilization are available that might crowd out ethnic party organizing; (2) the nature of political compe­ tition in the society in question; and (3) the historical and structural relation­ ships between ethnic groups.6S

The way a society handles questions of ethnic affiliation more broadly might also be relevant to ethnic party formation. For example, does the society define national identity in ethnic terms, or does it view national identity as attached to citizenship?66 Imagine a society that historically treats national identity in ethnic terms and where a large ethnic majority comprises this ethno-national group. We would expect this situation to affect the likelihood that either the majority group or any minority groups would seek political representation through parties.

Causes and Effects: What Factors Influence the Political Representation of Women and Minority Groups? 339

340 Chapter 14: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender

INSIGHTS From Movements to Parties in Latin America by Donna LeeVan Cott , , ■ -

Van Cott seeks to explain how it came to be that Amerindian social movements in four Latin American countries success­ fully created parties pursuing their interests in the 1990s. Her four positive cases are Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela, and she notes that similar results did not take place in Argentina or Peru. This full set of both positive and negative cases allows her to compare societies in which there are large indigenous popula­ tions (Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru) and those in which there are smaller indigenous populations (Argentina, Colombia, and Ven­ ezuela). This comparison shows that demographic variables alone do not explain the fate of ethnic parties, but rather that demographic variables interact with other factors. There are two main factors that Van Cott considers especially important: insti­ tutional factors and social movement activity.

Within the institutional factors, Van Cott believes two to be particularly important. First, decentralization and related reforms (including reserved seats) in some of these countries allowed for opportunities for new political actors tied to ethnicity-linked or­ ganizing. At the same time, the traditional left was weakened in the period of the "Washington Consensus," meaning that ideo­ logical space was opened up for new ways to frame resistance and to organize politically. In the successful cases, social move­ ment activists seized on these opportunities as they created par­ ties to pursue their group interests.

Donna Lee Van Cott, From Movements to Parties in Latin America. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Perhaps equally or even more important, other bases for social cleavage can crowd out ethnic attachment as a basis for forming political parties.67 This is sometimes true of social class, for example. Sometimes a strong tradition of class-based organizing—think of a society in which people are mobilized as workers or as peasants—might reduce the likelihood of organizing around ethnicity.

The nature of political competition in a society seems to matter a lot as well. Ethnic parties seem to be more likely in parliamentary systems in which there is proportional representation. This is because it is more likely that an ethnic party could win some seats and play a role in a coalition government in such cases.

CASE IN CONTEXT

W hy Aren't There Major Ethnic Parties in Mexico? PAGE 508

Mexico, like many countries, has had a long history of ethnic dis­ crimination. As in the United States, we might expect to find a history of political parties forming there on the basis of ethnic cleavages. Yet again, as in the United States, we find little such history. This outcome, however, seems likely to be due to a differ­ ent set of conditions, thus facilitating an interesting comparison.

For more on ethnic cleavages and political parties in Mexico, see the case study in Part VI, pp. 508-509. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. Why might one expect to find ethnic parties in Mexico? 2. What major features of Mexican political development

might help us account for their absence? 3. How does this interesting case compare with the cases of

the United States and India (discussed later)?

Causes and Effects: What Factors Influence the Political Representation of Women and Minority Groups? 341

India stands out as a country where some ethnic-group-affiliated parties have seen success. What accounts for this success, and why have others failed? Political scientists in recent years have made advances in accounting for this variation.

For more on this question, see the case study in Part VI, pp. 465-466. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

in India page46s

1. What are the basic characteristics of those parties that have been successful?

2. How and to what extent might knowledge derived from the case of India be applied to other cases?

3. How does the development of ethnic parties in India compare with the cases of the United States and Mexico (discussed previously)?

Imagine a country in which 10 percent of the population falls into an ethnic group that has faced some discrimination, and members of this group seek to influence the political process in order to reduce this discrimination. A party could help in a system based on proportional representation, because if a high percentage of group members voted for the party, it could win parliamentary seats and bargain to join a governing coalition.68 However, if the society has a first-past-the-post system (i.e., the winning candidate simply needs the most votes), there is little likelihood that group members would rationally pursue party organization. The reason is that if the party was perceived to be linked to the needs of a minority ethnic group, it would have trouble reaching the vote thresh­ old needed to win seats. O f course, depending on how such an electoral system is structured, a minority ethnic party could achieve reasonable representation under some conditions. For example, if an ethnic minority is geographically con­ centrated, constituting a majority in some areas, it might be in the minority at the national level but still capable of winning a number of seats in the legislature.

Finally, the nature of the historical and structural relationships between groups, including their relative power, could matter greatly in influencing the likelihood of ethnic party development. For example, historical discrimination against a group may motivate them to form a party.

So far in this subsection we have been discussing political parties based on ethnic group membership. But what about gender? Interestingly, political parties based on gender are much rarer than parties based on ethnicity. Some scholars have investigated why this might be (see the “Insights” box on Mala H tun’s work).

In short, several factors curb the formation of a women-only political party. The main reason may be, however, that women are institutionally linked to men: Their interests as individuals and as members in other groups are tied in important ways to the interests of individual men and other members of those other groups.69

Institutions for Prom oting Women's and Minority G roup Representation One goal of many social movements and political parties is institutional design that will expand a certain group’s political representation. W hile social movement

342 Chapter 14: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender

INSIGHTS Is Gender like Ethnicity? The Political Representation of Identity Groups byM daHtun

Mala Htun asks us to consider some key differences in the ways equitable political representation can be achieved for women and members of other groups. What she finds is that the nature of the group and its position in society matter greatly in achieving this representation. Gender groups seldom form po­ litical parties and, as a result, the preferred method to improve equity for women has tended to be candidate quotas (discussed further in the section that follows). In certain circumstances, however, ethnic groups have had greater success in establishing political parties.

The logic that Htun uses to explain this outcome is simple but powerful. Ethnic groups tend to "coincide” with other forms

of group difference, whereas gender tends to "crosscut" them. For example, membership in a particular ethnic group might be related to the position of group members in the class structure, whereas women as a group tend to be found across the class structure of a given society (however economically empowered or disempowered they may be as a group). Since ethnic groups often "coincide,” they can form parties and then seek reserved seats. But since women are a "crosscutting group," they have dif­ ficulty organizing via parties that represent the varied interests of women as a group.

Mala Htun, 'Is Gender Like Ethnicity? The Political Representation of Identity Groups."Perspectives on Politics 2, No. 3 (2004):439-458.

organizing and political party formation can acquire a degree of permanence, institutional design can potentially shape outcomes independent of the ongoing efforts of activists. In other words, this approach seeks to turn empowerment into an automatic feature of the political institutions of a given country. O f course, we could think of all legislation that is designed to empower women or members of minority groups as institutional design, since laws are part of the institutional fabric of the state. But what we have in mind here are efforts to ensure the partici­ pation of women and members of minority groups in formal political office.

The fundamental institutional design feature that has been used is a quota system, which reserves a certain number of candidacies or seats for members of a group.70 This system has been implemented in a number of different ways. The biggest division is between “reserved-seat” systems and “candidate-quota” sys­ tems.71 Reserved-seat systems are what they sound like: systems that reserve a certain number of seats for members of a particular group. For example, constitu­ tions in some Latin American countries guarantee a specified number of seats for members of one or another indigenous community. Reserved-seat systems are the oldest form of quota system, and they tend to have only a limited impact on the representation of women’s groups.72 This limited impact may be due, in part, to the politics of implementing them: agreeing to set aside a high percentage of all seats for members of a particular group may meet with political opposition in many circumstances.

The other major types of systems are “candidate-quota” systems.73 Here the idea is to guarantee that a certain number of female candidates—or members of other groups as the case may be— are running in elections. One major way this takes places is within political parties. Although gender-based political parties are relatively rare, political parties may still address issues related to gender, or they may position themselves to capture the votes of those who favor gender

Causes and Effects: What Factors Influence the Political Representation of Women and Minority Groups? 343 ■h I

equality. Thus some parties will aim to formally or informally increase the number of female candidates within the party. W hen this is done formally, it is a party-level quota system. For example, a Social Democratic Party in country X might apply to itself the rule that 30 percent of its candidates for legislative office will be women. Imagine that they face a Christian Democratic Party as their main opponent. That party will now have to make a strategic choice: One pos­ sible option among others would be to apply a quota that matches or exceeds that self-imposed quota on the Social Democrats in order to demonstrate that, despite other ideological and policy differences, the Christian Democratic Party is pro­ gressive on issues of gender equality.

Party leadership may succeed in self-imposing quotas in systems where pro­ portional representation is the norm, given that party leadership tends to have more power to select its candidates in such systems. I f voters vote for parties rather than individual candidates, it is easier for the party to impose formal rules on itself as it selects candidates. How do you think such an approach would work in the United States, where many candidates are not selected by party leaders but in primaries where voters choose the party’s nominee? W hat would happen if, say, the Republican Party leadership decided that it wanted to adopt a 40 percent quota for female candidates? Unlike in systems with centrally controlled party lists of candidates, this may be very difficult to achieve.

Another way quota systems can be adopted is through a law or constitution stating that all parties must meet certain quota thresholds.74 But the adoption of such a system can be difficult to achieve as well and would require major changes in how elections are organized in a society such as the United States. More generally, the likelihood of a country’s developing quota systems that apply to all parties depends on each party’s calculation of its own electoral prospects if such reforms are carried out, as well as the parties’ relative power. If a given party stands to benefit from new arrangements, it can be expected to support them, but if a party is either strongly ideologically opposed to the idea or stands to have trouble meeting quota requirements, it is likely to resist their universal imposition. Scholars debate which quota system is most effective.75

You can see the complexity of analyzing how, when, and why institutional design affects the representation of women or members of other groups. Two things, however, are clear. First, global efforts to expand political representation of women are clearly increasing, and different quota systems have led to impor­ tant gains. Second, social scientific interest in these issues is increasing as well— something to keep in mind for your next research project.

More generally, remember that the causes we have considered in this section are not mutually exclusive explanations of how empowerment takes place. Rather, these are potential tools for those who seek to empower minority groups, women, and other groups. In many cases of successful empowerment, these elements work together. For example, it is possible for social movement organizing to help produce both political parties and new institutional designs. However, parties and institutional design also influence the environment in which social move­ ment organizing takes place. There seems to be no standard way in which these pieces fit together.

344. Chapter 14: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender

INSIGHTS Quotas for Women in Politics: Gender and Candidate Selection Reform Worldwide by Mona Lena Krook

& Krook has developed an innovative approach to the study of empowering women through institutional design. She com­ pares a number of cases of more and less successful adoption of reserved seat and candidate quota systems, and she draws the following general conclusions, among others:

1. The causal impact of a given variable is not universal, but rather depends on interaction effects with other vari­ ables. Thus there is no "one size fits all" approach to insti­ tutional design in this area.

2. Institutional design can affect three major arenas, those of "systemic," "practical," and "normative" institutions. Dif­ ferent sorts of institutional design efforts affect these arenas in different ways. Not only do formal institutional changes matter, but moral arguments about issues such as justice and equity do, too.

3. Processes of change differ in quality. The more successful ones are "harmonizing sequences" in which changes build on one another and actors adjust for unintended consequences of previous stages, while "disjointed se­ quences" are less successful.

4. Many actors with a variety of goals are involved in these processes. These actors include, at the very least, state- level actors like politicians, actors in "civil society" like ac­ tivists, and "transnational" actors like certain NGOs. It is exceedingly difficult to predict how such actors will interact.

Mona Lena Krook, Quotas for Women in Politics: Gender and Candidate Selec­ tion Reform Worldwide. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

THINKING COMPARATIVELY

K EY M E TH O D O LO G ICA L TO O L

Selecting or Creating Indicators An in d ic ato r is a m e asure that in d i­

cate s th e pre sence , a m o u n t, or

d e g re e o f a va ria b le yo u are re se a rch­

in g. G o o d indicators have to w ork

e ffe ctive ly in at least t w o w ays. First,

th e y have to b e true to th e u n d e rly ­

in g c o n c e p t y o u are researching.

Se c o n d , t h e y n e e d to b e a c tu a lly

m easurable, m e a n in g , a m o n g o th er

th in g s, that a n y o b se rv e r u sin g th e

indicato r w ill see it in m o re o r less the

sam e w ay. A n o th e r w ay to say this is

that indicators m u st c o m p rise m e a ­

sures th a t are b oth "valid" an d

"reliable."

A useful re ce nt in d ic a to r w e have

for s tu d y in g w o m e n 's e m p o w e rm e n t

Indicators of Gender Empowerment

Imagine that we wanted to evaluate how well the United Kingdom and some of its former colonies are empowering women. We will include Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United States, and the United Kingdom in this set of cases. Suppose the idea is to build toward considering a hypothesis about a pos­ sible effect of traditional British culture on gender roles in politics and economic life. This may sound like a strange idea, but it is not implausible, given that gender is culturally constructed in different ways in different societies. Moreover, some research suggests that English colonialism had different impacts from other colonizers on the long-term democratic quality and stability in former colonies.76 For the sake of our thought experiment here, let us just imagine that this research has led us to hypothesize that former English colonies might show greater political empowerment of women than former Spanish colonies.

I f we want to explore the possibility of testing a hypothesis, we cannot just spend time in these societies and see how people feel about gender and politics. Rather, we need to select specific indicators of gender empowerment that allow us to measure it in a rigorous way. Otherwise, we will likely project our own biases onto the social and political realities that we observe. If, though, we can settle on reliable and valid indicators of gender empowerment and if, in turn, we find that gender empowerment as measured through these indicators is consis­ tent with our hypothesis, we could work toward testing whether and to what extent colonial legacy is the operative cause of any observed pattern.

Indicators of Gender Empowerment 345

One recent indicator of the political empowerment of women was the Gender Empowerment Measure, which brings together several more specific indicators (see “Key Methodological Tools”). This measure has been used in a number of United Nations reports in the late 2000s and for many purposes, despite criti­ cism, was considered by many the best single measure of gender empowerment at that time.

If we look at Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) ranks for 2009 for the Anglo-colonies in which we are interested (see Table 14.1), we see results that seem consistent with our initial hypothesis. Australia ranks second, Canada fourth, the United States thirteenth, New Zealand twentieth, and the United Kingdom twenty-first. Ranks for former Spanish colonies are not this high, with only Spain being ranked higher than the lowest ranked British zone societies in this respect. Should we just conclude that former British colonies are clearly sites of higher levels of political empowerment for women? Not so fast. Since GEM is a composite measure, it captures economic empowerment as well. It may be that the strong showing of former British settler colonies (relative to former Spanish colonies) in terms of GEM is a consequence of higher levels of economic devel­ opment in these societies.

Let’s try a narrower indicator. Remember that we are fundamentally con­ cerned with political empowerment of women in this question. W hat if we look at the percentage of women holding legislative office? This could give us a clearer indication of political empowerment, given that it won’t include information about the relative economic standing of women, which we may consider to be a different question (see Table 14.2).

Here, we see a very different pattern. In our set of comparative cases, Bolivia is on top, and the United States is on the bottom. New Zealand is the only former British settler colony in the top thirty, and Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Spain, Nica­ ragua, Mexico, and Argentina all outperform all the other former British settler colonies in our group (as do Costa Rica and El Salvador, though they do not rank as highly as the other Latin American countries listed in Table 14.2).79

THINKING COMPARATIVELY

KEY M E TH O D O LO G IC A L TO O L

(continued) is th e GEM , o r G e n d e r E m p o w e rm e n t

M easure, w h ic h is p ro m in e n tly fea­

tu re d in UN D e v e lo p m e n t Reports.

T h e GEM se e k s to m e asure t h e exte nt

to w h ic h w o m e n have p o litic al and

e c o n o m ic co n tro l o f th e ir lives an d

e n v iro n m e n ts in d ifferent socie tie s. It

is a c o m p o s ite in d ic ato r b a se d on

u n d e rly in g m e asu re s o f w o m e n 's and

m en's share s o f (1) p o litic al positions,

(2) p ro m in e n t e c o n o m ic roles, a n d (3)

overall in co m e .77 N o m e asure is per­

fe c t, how ever, a n d so m e scholars

have c ritic iz e d th e GEM o n te c h n ic a l

g r o u n d s.78 W e s h o u ld also note th a t it

has n o w a y to a c c o u n t for s y m b o lic

a n d sta tu s-re late d c o m p o n e n ts o f

e m p o w e rm e n t.

t a b l e 14.1 G ender Em pow erm ent Measure (GEM) Global Ranks, Selected Countries

2 Australia 4 Canada 13 United States 15 Spain 20 New Zealand 21 United Kingdom 44 Chile 49 Argentina 50 Uruguay 51 Cuba

{Source: UN Human Development Report, 2009.)

346 Chapter 14: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender

t a b l e 14.2 Ranking of Percentage of Women in National Legislature, Selected Countries

Rank Country % Seats in Lower/

S in gle House % Seats in Upper

House

2 Bolivia 53.1 47.2

4 Cuba 48.9 N/A

9 Ecuador 41.6 N/A

12 Spain 41.1 33.8

15 Nicaragua 39.1 N/A

17 (tied) Mexico 38 33.6

22 Argentina 36.2 38.9

29 New Zealand 31.4 NA

44 Australia 26.7 38.2

49 Canada 25.2 38.6

57 United Kingdom 22.8 24.1

73 (tied) United States 19.3 20.0

(Source: Interparliamentary Union 2015.)

Does this demonstrate that selected former Spanish colonies have higher levels of the political empowerment of women than former British colonies? Not necessarily. Can you think of some of the limitations of this indicator? One would be that legislative representation is not the only form of representation. Another might be that empowerment of a group, even political empowerment, likely ex­ tends well beyond having members of that group hold office. Both of these are concerns about the potential validity of this indicator as a measure of the under­ lying concept we are researching: political empowerment of women. W hat we see here is that a number of former Spanish colonies have achieved very high levels of legislative representation of women, outpacing former English settler colonies by this measure, which is interesting and deserving of comparative exploration.

The bottom line is that there is almost never a perfect indicator. (Indeed, the United Nations has replaced the GEM with new measures of gender-adjusted development and gender inequality in recent years, in response to scholarly cri­ tiques.) All choices of indicators involve trade-offs. You must be mindful of these trade-offs and remember that indicators are only stand-ins for the underlying concepts you are researching. Indicators and measurements are crucial in under­ standing the extent to which women and ethnic and racial groups are empowered and active in politics. Conducting careful comparative research can give us greater insight into questions that matter to us, on issues as profound as our very identities as people.

Chapter Review 347

C h a p t e r S u m m a r y Concepts

• The meaning of concepts like race and ethnicity varies in relation to context. While some people think of race and sometimes ethnicity as biological, most social scientists view them as culturally constructed.

• Gender is distinguished from biological sex, and most social scientists think of gender as cultural rather than biological. In recent years a number of societies have grown more pluralistic and tolerant with respect to sexual orientation.

Types • Race historically has almost always been linked to social

actors' beliefs about biology, whereas ethnicity emphasizes cultural traditions. The concept of race in particular has been linked to exploitation. Discrimination based on both race and ethnicity is a common feature of many polities, historically and today. Discrimination has in some societies become more subtle over time, but its consequences, and the consequences of

T h in k in g It T h r o u g h 1. The theme of empowerment is much discussed in this chapter,

including dimensions of empowerment and ways in which de­ velopment is conceptualized and measured by social scientists. But what is empowerment? Develop your own conceptualiza­ tion and link it back to the discussion in the chapter. What, if anything, is missing?

2. We discussed political, economic, and cultural or symbolic em­ powerment. How are these dimensions related? Is one more fundamental than the others, and, if so, why? If a group wants to improve its position, would it be best advised to begin by focus­ ing on one or another form of empowerment?

3. Imagine that you have been asked to consult with members of an indigenous group in a hypothetical country that wants to create a political party. How would you go about your work? What pieces of information would you seek to collect, and why? What major questions would you want answered, and why? How would the answers to these questions impact your recommendations?

4. Imagine now that you have been asked to consult with social movement activists that represent poor rural women of a

historical legacies of earlier forms of discrimination, are clearly visible.

• Discrimination based on gender is also a pervasive feature of polities. Again, a good deal of progress has been made, but gender discrimination remains a problem.

• Empowerment can be economic, symbolic, or political.

Causes and Effects • One potential source of empowerment is social movement

mobilization. Another is political parties, and parties tend to be more viable for ethnic groups seeking empowerment than for gender groups.

• Institutional design strategies like reserved seats and quotas can also be used in support of empowerment.

Th in kin g Com paratively • A thought experiment about relative gender empower­

ment in the former colonies of Spain and the United Kingdom demonstrates the pros and cons of two major indicators of political empowerment.

particular ethnic group. They tell you that their ethnic, gender, and class status compound each other and that their interests really are distinct from those of other groups. They would like your technical assistance as they aim to build a social movement. In particular, they would like your advice about how to "frame" that movement. What questions do you ask them, and how do you advise them? How is this case different from organizing around "women's issues" or the interests of a particular ethnic group?

5. Imagine once more that you are an "empowerment consultant." You have been contacted by the representatives of a political party that represents the interests of an ethnic group that has historically faced severe discrimination, one that is largely found in a particular area of the country and which constitutes about 10 percent of the country's population. They tell you that their country is going to write a new constitution and that they have a number of delegates in the constitutional assembly. They want your advice about what sorts of institutional designs they should push for as they aim to protect the interests of their people. What do you need to know in order to give them advice? How would your answer depend on their answers?

• President Evo Morales of Bolivia in 20)4. Morales is Bolivia's first indigenous president and an advocate of a left-leaning ideology that some refer to as "twenty-first-century socialism."

I f you were to walk through downtown Caracas, Venezuela, you might see I huge banners with pictures of Argentinian M arxist revolutionary Che G ue­ vara and slogans declaring the arrival of “twenty-first-century socialism.” Supporters of Venezuela’s late president, Hugo Chavez, and his “Bolivarian Revolution” (named for Venezuelan revolutionary Simon Bolivar) extol the virtues of the regime. They are conspicuously dressed in red, a color that has symbolized attachment to socialism and communism since the nineteenth century. The Chavista government is not alone in its socialist position, as governments in countries like Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua take a similar line.

Halfw ay across the globe, if you were to stroll through Tehran, Iran, you would encounter m ostly very different public symbolism. The Iranian governm ent, which also calls itself “revolutionary,” attempts to garner public support through justifying itself in religious terms. Scholars who study rela­ tionships between religions and the state find th a t in much of the world, religion is very m uch involved in the state.1 Moreover, survey research shows th at m uch o f the world is quite religious.2

I f you had told comparative political analysts in the 1960s that regimes like these would proliferate in the early twenty-first century, most would have disagreed sharply. They might even have laughed, as they expected m odernization to render ideology and religion obsolete. Prom inent scholars declared the “end o f ideology,” m eaning that major political programs such as fascism, socialism, and communism had run their course.3 Virtually all analysts agreed that religion would fade from public life in coming decades.4 Yet both ideology and religion continue to exert a strong influence on m odern politics.

Their persistence has led analysts to ask a series of questions: W h a t did the last generation of theories get wrong? D id they misunderstand m odern­ ization? W h a t is modernization, anyway? W h a t is modernity? H ow has the role of religion in modern societies changed as societies have modernized? W hy haven’t ideologies such as fascism and socialism disappeared? Finally, the persistence of ideology and religion draws attention to important, perennial

349

IN THIS CHAPTER

Concepts 350 Modernity and Modernization 350 Ideology 351 Religion 351 Secularization, Religion, and Modern

Politics 352 Religious Conflict 353

Types 354 Modern Ideologies 354 Modern Forms of Religion in Politics 357

Causes and Effects: Why Do Religion and Id eo lo gy Remain Prevalent in Modern Politics? 360 Why (and How) Does Modernization Alter

Religion's Role in Politics? 360 Why Didn't ideology (and History) End? 364

T H IN K IN G COMPARATIVELY

Two Lefts in Latin America? 367

CASES IN CONTEXT

United Kingdom • Russia • France ■ Iran • Nigeria

350 Chapter 15: Ideology and Religion in Modern Politics

political culture The symbolically encoded beliefs, values, norms, and practices that shape the formal distribution of power in any given society.

modernity A contested term that refers to a type of society, typically one experiencing economic growth and with a relatively strong state, among other characteristics.

modernization The process through which a society becomes “more modern," which is typically understood to mean having an advanced economy and, sometimes, a democratic polity.

secularism The ideological complex that favors secular (non­ religious) culture.

questions of social and political theory concerning the role of ideas in politics. To what extent do religions and ideologies affect political processes? As you saw in chapter 5, some analysts argue that certain religious ideas increase the likelihood of economic development. Related theories, mentioned in chapter 6, suggest that certain religious ideas promote democratization.5 These are un­ settled questions, and there is a lot of interesting work to be done in this area of comparative politics.6

Concepts Both ideology and religion, when considered from the perspective of political science, are examples of what scholars call political culture. This means, essen­ tially, that they are different types of representations that people hold about poli­ tics and related matters. People have all sorts of beliefs, but ideological and religious beliefs tend to be deeply held and therefore may be highly impactful. This does not mean that religion and ideology are the same thing, of course, as we discuss in this chapter. Ideologies are explicitly political in their orientation, whereas religions might have political implications but are broader belief systems that extend well beyond politics.

Given that our interest is in understanding ideology and religion in modern politics, and since much analysis concerns the relationship between these phe­ nomena and modernity, we start by discussing the concepts of modernity and modernization. Note that you have already seen these concepts come up from time to time in earlier chapters.

M odernity and M odernization “Modernity” is one of the most important labels in contemporary political life. Virtually nobody aspires to being “pre-modern.” Rather, modernity constitutes a particular rung in the international status hierarchy, and as such has been a moving target for societies aspiring to “modern” status over the last several centuries.7

Modernity is a cultural construction; it has its origins in a particular time and place.8 In other words, people created the idea of modernity, and like all ideas that bear on competition for status and power, it served certain interests and did not serve others. Most fundamentally, the idea of “the modern” helped both mo­ tivate and justify European colonial projects in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.9 Indeed, this concept was perhaps one of the most formidable tools of those colonial projects’ “soft power.”10 The European powers and some members of the Westernized classes in the subjugated, colonized populations agreed that such societies needed modernization. The watchwords of this vision were technical efficiency, education, literacy, civilization, and secularism (favoring secular—non­ religious—culture). It is not surprising, therefore, that anti-colonial resistance was, in its first generation, typically carried out using this same conceptual language:11 Rather than being the agents of modernization, colonizers were

Concepts 351

re-interpreted as barriers to it. Bound up with the notion, sometimes explicitly and sometimes implicitly, were the corollaries that modernization was a both a necessary and an inevitable process.

Transforming ideas like “modernity” and “modernization” into social-scientific concepts is a difficult task, since we do not want to reproduce the biases implicit in the original concepts.12 Indeed, some scholars have called for the abandon­ ment of these concepts altogether. For this book we think the concepts are still worth using, partly because most of the world goes on talking about modernity and modernization. Political scientists and scholars in related fields generally mean several things by modernity and modernization, or they focus on several distinctive features of modern or modernizing societies.13 First, they often char­ acterize modernity by growth-oriented, or capitalist, economies, rather than stagnant or “traditionalistic” economic systems, in which there is little accumula­ tion of wealth over time. Second, they often characterize modernity by its open system of stratification, meaning that social position in modern societies is not fixed at birth: In “modern” societies, according to this view, social mobility is pos­ sible and legitimate. Third, they often characterize the chief political form of mod­ ernity as the modern, bureaucratic state; they see centralization and bureaucratization of power as hallmarks of modernity. Finally, as noted in chapter 13, some scholars see national identity as a distinguishing marker of modernity. As we discuss later, scholars increasingly note that modernization can take a variety of forms.14

Ideology Most comparative political analysts think of ideologies as highly organized and rationalized systems of ideas that directly bear on politics.15 According to this way of thinking, your ideas about your tastes in music, fashion, food, and so forth are probably not ideological.16 But whether you know it or not, your thinking about politics is probably shaped by an ideology. This ideology most likely con­ tains ideas about what rights people should have and where these rights come from, ideas about whether individuals matter more than groups or vice versa, ideas about how the economy ought to be organized, and ideas about how collec­ tive decisions should be reached. Some people can be considered very ideological, meaning that they think a lot and very clearly about these things, or even that they are rigidly devoted to their views about them, but all of us are influenced by ideologies to some degree.17

Major political ideologies include liberalism, fascism, and socialism, each of which we discuss further later in the chapter. It is worth noting that these major political ideologies are largely secular. In other words, they oppose reli­ gion as a basis for organizing politics and present themselves as alternatives to it. Some scholars have gone so far as to argue that ideologies are like “secular religions.”18

Religion Analysts tend to think about religion in two basic, contrasting ways: by using functional definitions and by using substantive definitions.19 Functional defi­ nitions specify what religion does. They define religion by its ability to foster social integration, to give people a sense of order through creating and telling

ideology A systematically coordinated and cognitively salient set of beliefs focused on politics.

functional definition Definition that aims to define a given pheno­ menon by what it does.

substantive definition Definition that aims to define a given phenomenon by what it is rather than by what it does.

352 Chapter 15: Ideology and Religion in Modern Politics

secularization The process through which (according to some theories) societies become less religious as they become more modern.

A line of women waits for a bus in Tehran. Note the religious imagery on the building behind them.

myths about history and the cosmos, or by its ability to motivate collective action. I f we use a functional definition, we see lots of things—including modern ideologies— as religion. For certain research purposes, this view may be helpful.

More often, as we have seen throughout this book, when doing comparative analysis we want to make clear distinctions so that we can locate and explain variation. Substantive definitions of religion help make this possible. A substan­ tive definition focuses on the content of religious belief or organization, its “sub­ stance” rather than just what it does. For example, a substantive definition might say, “Religions are systems of belief that grant a prominent place to God.” For many purposes, though, this particular definition would not be helpful, since a number of religions (e.g., Buddhism) do not have gods, and many others (e.g., animism and Hinduism) have many gods or god-like entities. More commonly, though, substantive definitions of religion argue that what separates religion from other aspects of culture is that it gives prominence to some transcendent force (i.e., one beyond the normal or merely physical human experience).20 This might be a deity, a goal such as Nirvana, or even the Platonic ideal of “the good.”

Along these lines, some analysts define religion substantively as a cultural system or network of beliefs and organizations that are oriented toward the tran­ scendent.21 Note that this definition, unlike most functional ones, allows us to then pose empirical questions about religion’s growth, decline, or changing fea­ tures because we can track change about beliefs in the transcendent over time.

Secularization, Religion, and Modern Politics As noted previously, for a number of years comparative analysts thought that re­ ligion would decline in the modern world. They called this idea “secularization”

Concepts 353

or “secularization theory,” and they came up with a number of reasons for their prediction.22 Some noticed that as societies modernized, new religious groups emerged, giving people greater religious choice. For example, in the modern United States—unlike in, say, medieval France— one can choose from a wide variety of world religions, and in particular from a huge array of Protestant Christian denominations. Some scholars thought that this pluralism would undermine religious belief, because religious people would be less likely to have their beliefs constantly reinforced by like-minded people around them.23 Others thought that modernization would cause religion’s decline because of the im­ portance of science and technology in the modern world. According to this point of view, “rational” explanations would replace “irrational” religious ones, leaving some people “disenchanted.”24

Scholars have noticed, however, that this theory seems to describe only one small part of the world: Western Europe.25 Much of the world is very religious, and some claim that over the longer term societies like the United States have actually become more religious26 Moreover, since societies with the highest birth rates tend to be more religious than societies with low birth rates, we may see continuing increases in global religiosity in coming decades.27

Comparative analysts continue to note some important changes in religion’s role as societies modernize, however, and the old theories of secularization are not all wrong. Scholars today do not agree on whether we should call these changes “secularization,” but they widely agree that we should distinguish be­ tween any change in religious belief itself and changes in religious institutions or organizations,28 It seems that when societies modernize, religious institutions or organizations tend to become increasingly differentiated (independent) from the state, although, as we shall see, the extent of this varies.29 Along similar lines, in some, but not all, modern societies, religious institutions and organizations become privatized.30 This means that they become increasingly independent not just of the state but of the public sphere: They lose their status in support of public claims. For example, in societies with a strong tradition of privatizing religion, such as France, efforts by the church to influence major political decisions are viewed negatively. Much of the comparative analysis of religion and politics today involves mapping institutional or organizational changes and then trying to explain the different patterns that emerge. For example (as we discuss in more detail in the “Types” and “Causes and Effects” sections), some societies separate church and state and then organize religions as denominations.31 Some almost fully privatize religious institutions and organizations, while others allow the state to control them. Comparative analysis seeks to explain these variations.

Religious Conflict Religious conflict is not surprising in a world with major ideological and religious differences, especially as religion’s relationship to politics is in flux.32 Many ana­ lysts assert that religion has served and will continue to serve as a motivator for international conflict, and we certainly have seen dramatic examples of reli­ giously inspired violence across national boundaries in recent years. Others draw our attention to cases where pluralism within a polity causes great tension that leads to violence. Analysis of such cases is often complicated by the fact that

differentiation The process through which institutions become increasingly autonomous from one another, including the reduction or other change in the linkages between religion and other institutions.

privatization In the context of the social scientific study of religion, this refers to the process of religious practice being confined to the private sphere.

public sphere The space in which public life and deliberation take place (as opposed to the "private sphere”).

354 Chapter 15: Ideology and Religion in Modern Politics

liberalism An ideology that emphasizes individual freedoms, representative democracy, and the market economy.

social democracy An ideological movement that favors both representative democracy with respect for basic individual rights and state action to promote relative economic and social equality, viewed by some as a variety of socialism but by most as a variety of liberalism.

libertarianism A form of liberalism, strongly opposed to social democracy, that is especially concerned with minimizing the role of government.

religious difference tends to go along with other types of difference, such as re­ gional and ethnic identity. As such, many of the theories discussed in chapters 12 and 13 are used to explain religious conflict as well.

Types In this section we begin by describing and exemplifying the major forms of ideol­ ogy visible in modern politics. We then move on to do the same for the major patterns of religious involvement in politics.

Modern Ideologies As noted previously, the main families of modern political ideologies are liberal­ ism, fascism, and socialism. This list is not exhaustive of the ideological universe, of course, but these are the most important major ideologies that political scien­ tists have analyzed.

L ib eralism Liberalism is probably the most widespread and influential of modern ideolo­ gies. Indeed, it is so widespread that sometimes analysts do not even notice that it is an ideology. Thus scholars who declared that ideologies would disappear in modern society often did not include liberalism in this prediction.33

Like all complex ideologies, liberalism takes many forms, and not all of them are fully consistent. In general, though, the ideology of liberalism holds that (1) individuals are and should be more important than groups; (2) indi­ viduals’ relationships with the state should be organized through democratic citizenship; (3) a democratic political system should be representative, and it should have constitutional limits that protect the rights of individuals; and (4) free-market capitalism is the best, and for many the most “natural,” way of or­ ganizing the economy.

Our fourth point in the preceding paragraph is a generalization in that differ­ ent variants of liberalism take different stances on the state’s role in the economy. As noted in the “Liberal Ideology in the United Kingdom” case study, many ana­ lysts consider social democracy to be a variant of liberalism, though it owes a great deal to socialism as well: It promotes state management of the economy as a means to preserve representative democracy. Broadly, liberalism is a contin­ uum, from libertarianism—the view that the state’s involvement in the economy and social life must be reduced to the minimal necessary level for the mainte­ nance of order—to social democracy.

We should briefly mention “conservatism” in this context. In early nineteenth- century Europe, conservatism was a distinct ideology, one which aimed to re­ strain modernization processes, defend monarchy, and preserve religious organizations in their traditional positions. We can still today speak of conserva­ tism as a strong cultural tendency in many societies. Indeed, in some societies it could still be treated as a distinct ideology. Yet in many societies conservatism has come to constitute a form of liberalism. In the contemporary United States or Western Europe, few conservatives would go so far as to question liberalism’s emphasis on representative democratic institutions and markets.

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C A SE IN CO N TEX T

■ Liberal Ideology in the United Kingdom PAGE 552

The United Kingdom was the birthplace of both orthodox liber­ alism and Keynesianism, two main views about the state's role in the economy that are central to modern ideological debate. Indeed, the society has also had strong social-democratic actors.

For more on liberalism in the United Kingdom, see the case study in Part VI, p. 552. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. Are both of these views varieties of liberalism? 2. If so, what makes them different from other ideologies,

like socialism or fascism?

As we shall see, liberalism is often suspicious of other ideologies. Indeed, some liberals present Nazism and socialism as more like each other than oppo­ sites. Rather than viewing ideologies on the standard “left-right” continuum, they see them on a continuum with liberalism at one end and totalitarianism at the other.

Fascism The ideology (or family of ideologies) known as fascism as very prominent in the twentieth century, which saw fascist governments in Spain, Portugal, and Italy, among other places.34 Some analysts also classify National Socialism (the ideology of the German Nazi Party) as fascist, while others see it as a distinct form given its totalitarian aspirations and more virulent, bizarre form of racism.

Fascism can be distinguished from liberalism in several ways. First, fascism does not share liberalism’s respect for the individual. Rather, fascist ideology holds that the state, as the embodiment of the nation, is most important. In the paradigmatic case of Italian fascism under Mussolini, fascism was grounded in a nationalism that sought to recover the “glorious” history of Ancient Rome. Second, in line with fascism’s lack of concern for the individual, the political programs associated with it typically do not make much effort to protect the in­ dividual’s rights. Third, fascism is anti-democratic, in that it views an authoritar­ ian protector for the nation (e.g., Franco in twentieth-century Spain) as preferable to liberal democracy, which it argues can be co-opted by ideologies and actors hostile to the nation’s interests. Finally, while fascists often embrace capitalist economics, they typically promote state capitalism, in which the state has control of production and the use of capital.

Liberals criticize fascism not only for its lack of respect for individual rights but for the horrific human rights abuses that have been carried out in its name. Socialists critique it for these reasons as well and often add the critique that, in their view, fascism is fundamentally about preserving the capitalist economy. Indeed, some socialists believe that capitalism will inevitably fall back on fascism as its ultimate defender.

fascism An authoritarian ideology associated with regimes like the Nazis and that of Italy's Benito Mussolini, favoring authoritarianism, militarism, and right-wing nationalism.

356 Chapter 15: Ideology and Religion In Modern Politics

socialism An ideology (or family of ideologies) that emphasizes economic equality as a key goal, to be pursued in large measure through state action.

Fascists hold a flag honoring Benito Mussolini, Italy's notorious World War II—era dictator and ally of Adolf Hitler.

Socialism Perhaps the most widely discussed ideology (or family of ideologies) is socialism. Though there are many forms of socialism, by far the most influential socialist was Karl Marx, though the ideology predated him. Marx constructed his social­ ism as a critique of liberalism.

According to Marx, the freedoms promised by liberalism were illusory.35 For example, Marx said, you might believe you can liberate people by giving them freedom of speech or religion, but this belief is based on a misunder­ standing of freedom and the ways in which we are unfree. The main problem in modern society, from this point of view, is not that authoritarian regimes limit people’s ability to make their own choices, but that our economic system alienates us. In our ideal state, Marx says, we would experience fulfillment through labor. But capitalism, which divides our labor via assembly-line manu­ facture and the bureaucratic organization of office work, makes it impossible for us to find fulfillment in this way (if you have ever seen the movie Office Space, then you should have a good idea of what he had in mind). Marx further argued that capitalism impoverishes the majority as it enriches a parasitic mi­ nority. To solve these problems, socialists like Marx argued that revolution is necessary. The working class must seize the state and use it to take collective ownership of factories and other elements of the productive process, which are controlled by “capitalists.” Once this happens, Marx hoped, socialism will eventually give way to communism, in which there will be no forced division of labor and, thus, no alienation.

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Communist ideology in Practice: Russia and the Soviet Union PAGE 537

A number of socialist regimes developed in the twentieth cen­ tury. The Soviet Union might have been the most important of these, if for no other reason than that it exported socialist ideol­ ogy and used its influence to produce socialist revolutions in other states, with some success. But what would Marx have thought of the Soviet Union? Was it consistent with his socialist vision? Or did it embody some other form of socialism?

For more on this case, see the case study in Part VI, p. 537. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. How did Lenin and Stalin change socialism? 2. Was the Soviet Union ideologically uniform, or were there

ideological struggles within it? 3. Does the demise of the Soviet Union "prove socialism

wrong"? Why or why not?

These ideas inspired much of the world in the twentieth century, leading to the establishment of socialist or communist regimes in China, Vietnam, Russia, Cuba, and many other places. Many socialists, however, became disillusioned with these regimes. Some saw them as brutal and dehumanizing, with little likeli­ hood of ever producing the promised world, free of alienation. Some of these disil­ lusioned individuals turned to the ideology of liberalism. W ithin it, a subset attempted to construct a modified version—social democracy, which (as men­ tioned earlier) aims to preserve representative democracy and the respect for indi­ vidual rights through active state management of the economy. Social democrats have been some of the most ardent supporters of the welfare state discussed in chapter 4. Moreover, they are hard to locate within the typology of ideologies we have developed here. Some would see social democrats as liberals, because of their emphasis on democratic institutions and freedoms. Others would see them as so­ cialists, since many social democrats emerged from the socialist tradition and since they tend to favor more state spending than do liberals. Finally, despite the emergence of social democracy in the twentieth century, there are still numerous proponents of more traditional socialism in the world, and some have played an important role in protest against globalization and related phenomena.

Modern Form s of Religion in Politics Students in the United States are likely quite used to the idea of the “separation of church and state,” given its prominence in U.S. political institutions and cul­ ture. Yet even in the United States, religion is politically important, and in much of the world religious and political institutions are intertwined.36 At the organi­ zational level, this involvement can take many forms. Governments often regu­ late religions, stipulating what they can and cannot do. Governments also affect religious organizations financially. Many governments offer religious organiza­ tions direct financial support. Others give them tax advantages. Finally, numer­ ous societies have established religions, meaning there is an official religion of established religions Religions the state.37 Yet even in most such cases, we see some level of differentiation be- that are granted official status and tween religious and political institutions. support by the state.

358 Chapter 15: Ideology and Religion in Modern Politics

lay state State that establishes a formal separation of religion and public life.

religious state State in which religion is a key part of official politics, often involving religious establishment, religious legitimation of the state, and restrictions on religious minorities.

L ay a n d R eligious S tates Most societies see increasing differentiation of religious and political institu­ tions as they modernize. This does not happen in the same way everywhere, though there are several common patterns. A prominent one is the “laicist” pattern, in which the state seeks to completely dominate and privatize reli­ gion.38 The core idea is that public life must be “lay” rather than religious: The state is seen as sharply antagonistic to religious organizations, as if competition between them were zero-sum. One of the most important examples of this pat­ tern is France (see the “Case in Context” box). In a society exhibiting this pat­ tern, it is not just that the there is a separation between church and state but that, culturally, religion tends to be considered a matter of private conscience and nothing more. W hat this means will become clearer later, when we discuss denominationalism.

We should note that lalcism sometimes goes along with socialism in ideology. There are liberals who favor a laicist approach— and, indeed, the earliest archi­ tects of laicism in both France and Latin America considered themselves liberals. However, most modern socialist regimes have been laicist in their approach to religion, including the Soviet Union, Maoist China, and Cuba since soon after Castro came to power in 1959.

In societies with laicist systems, there are often minority groups and religious organizations that favor the inverse set of arrangements: a theocratic state, or at least one in which a single religion is given support. Moreover, sometimes these individuals triumph and overturn lay states.

We speak of societies such as Iran as “religious states.” Like lay states, their proponents often view competition between religion and a secular state as zero- sum. The difference is that they favor the religious side. Religious states vary a lot, and some are more tolerant of minority religions and of secular people than others. Saudi Arabia, for example, is fairly intolerant. Costa Rica, which takes Roman Catholicism as the state’s official religion, is fairly tolerant of religious difference.

IN SIG H TS Public Religions in the Modern World by Jose Casanova

Jose Casanova's Public Religions in the Modern World challenges conventional wisdom about secularization and the modern state. Casanova begins by a close analysis of what other scholars have meant by secularization. He comes to the conclusion that they have meant three things but have often confused them: a reduction in individuals' religious belief and practice; institu­ tional differentiation; and religion's "privatization,” or its eviction from public life. He places the first of these to the side and exam­ ines differentiation and privatization. Differentiation does indeed

seem to be a core feature of modernization's impact on religion. Privatization, however, is an "option," not a necessary feature. In other words, according to Casanova, it is possible for a society to be both religious and modern, and even for religion to enter into public life in a modern society. Moreover, it is possible for the social position of religion to change, and some societies have witnessed religion's de-privatization.

J o s e C a s a n o v a , Public Religions in the M odern World. C h ic a g o : U n iv e r s it y o f C h ic a g o P ress, 1994.

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France is often presented as the quintessential lay state. Religion is heavily privatized, and the population is, in comparative terms, fairly secular in its orientation. These issues have grown more complex in recent years, as evidenced by controversies over the use of Muslim symbols and traditional dress in public spaces in France.

For more on this case, see the case study in Part VI, pp. 438-439. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. How is French secularism different from what is found in the United States?

2. Why did French secularism develop in the way that it did? 3. Are recent controversies over Islamic symbols qualita­

tively different from earlier episodes in the history of French religious politics?

Sisters who were expelled from their school in France in 2003 for wearing Islamic headscarves. The issue of public use of religious clothing and symbols has been a source of great controversy in France.

D e n o m i n atio n alism Scholars take full denominationalism to be somewhat exceptional. The main example of a fully denominational system is the United States. One could argue, though, that societies with growing religious pluralism, such as Brazil, might be moving toward a denominational model. In addition, some societies where established religions coexist with religious pluralism and high tolerance for reli­ gious difference share certain characteristics of the denominational model.

To fully understand denominationalism, we must first understand the concept of the denomination. If you live in the United States, you are probably used to hearing religious groups referred to as “denominations,” which are different from “churches” in the traditional sense and “sects.”39 A “church,” as social scien­ tists usually use the term, typically tries to make itself mandatory in a given ter­ ritory and to link itself to the state (in other words, social scientists who study religion use this word in more restrictive sense than you probably do). A sect, in contrast, often tries to turn away from the state and from public life, and is typ­ ically defined as a group that removes itself from some other religious organiza­ tion. Denominations are in a middle ground between churches and sects, engaging in public life but respecting pluralism (at least in principle) and con­ sidering membership to be voluntary.40 Thus, a society in which religious differ­ ence is organized denominationally tends to see many different religious groups and organizations. Unlike in a lai'cist society, however, denominations do not consider politics to be off limits. In a denominational society such as the United States, religious leaders of all persuasions routinely make pronouncements about public life. Majorities in denominational societies consider religious motivations

denominationalism A system or set of beliefs that privileges denominational forms of religious organization.

religious pluralism The situation in which there are multiple religious organizations within a given society (the opposite of religious monopoly)

denomination A type of religious organization, prevalent in the United States among other places, that is voluntary and accepts the principle of religious pluralism.

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Religion and Politics in Iran

Iran is in many ways the polar opposite of France with respect to religion. Rather than privatizing religion, Iran elevates one religion and makes it the basis of the state's legitimacy, strongly favoring it and using it as the basis for law and politics.

For more on this case, see the case study in Part VI, pp. 479- 480. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

PAGE 479

1. Why does Iran have a religious state when so many other Islamic societies have secular nationalist states?

2. Is the Iranian religious state a modern state? Why or why not?

to be appropriate in politics, as long as one or another religious group is not ul­ timately favored by the state, though sometimes this leads to controversy.

Some scholars have viewed denominationalism very positively as offering a good way to manage religious difference. As a result, there is some discussion about whether and to what extent it can be exported.41 Views on this matter depend largely on explanations of denominationalism’s origins. If its origins lie in institutional design, perhaps it is exportable. If they lie in difhcult-to-change features of a society, such as levels of religious pluralism and diversity, it would be harder to export to countries without similar conditions.42 If this is the case, however, perhaps denominationalism can develop spontaneously in different so­ cieties. We should note that denominationalism often coincides with the ideol­ ogy of liberalism. At the same time, many proponents of liberal ideology are la'icist and worry that denominationalism can lead to states treating majority re­ ligious groups preferentially. Further, they worry that it may lead to failure to fully protect the rights of minority religious groups, depending on demographic factors and disproportionate political influence.

Causes and Effects: Why Do Religion and Ideology Remain Prevalent in Modern Politics? As we have mentioned, neither ideology nor religion has ended, despite some analysts’ predictions. Religion remains an important part of politics in most of the world, and while the bipolar order of the Cold War is no more, ideological difference is still plainly visible. In this section of the chapter, therefore, we examine causal arguments about the changing role of religion and ideology in modern politics. We begin with religion and then turn to ideology.

Why (and How) Does M odernization Alter Religion's Role in Politics? Virtually all scholars agree that “modernization” changes religion’s role in politics. They may disagree about the details, but generally, they hold that (1) as societies modernize, religious organizations tend to be increasingly differentiated from other organizations, especially the state; (2) as economic development increases,

Causes and Effects: Why Do Religion and Ideology Remain Prevalent in Modern Politics? 361

Religious Difference and Conflict in Nigeria: Disentangling Ethnicity and Religion? PAGE 523

The impact of modernization on religion and public life becomes especially complicated in situations of religious diversity. The complication increases when religious difference creates tension and also overlaps with other potential bases of conflict, such as region and ethnicity. This is emphatically the case in Nigeria, which has struggled with problems of religious difference, in­ cluding both inter-religious violence and elite bargaining within the state about regional, ethnic, and religious representation.

For more on religious difference in Nigeria, see the case study in Part VI, p. 523. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. How does the state manage religious difference? 2. How might Nigeria's federal system help? 3. What are the prospects for the development of a denomi­

national approach to religious difference in Nigeria and other societies that face inter-religious conflict?

religious belief tends to decline somewhat— maybe not as much in more reli­ giously diverse societies, though this is subject to much debate.

M o d e rn iz a tio n T h eo ry a n d S ecu la riz a tio n As noted earlier in the chapter, traditional secularization theories hypothesized that “modernization” would lead to religion’s decline. Most often such theories did not distinguish between decline in rates of religious belief and practice (mea­ sured through surveys of beliefs or of attendance at religious services) and changes in religion’s public role. In addition, these theories often focused on particular features of modernization, such as increasing social mobility, increasing plural­ ism, and the growth of science.

Over the last couple of decades, secularization theories have been heavily criticized.43 Yet some scholars have continued to promote them, often assembling

IN S IG H T S Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide by Pippa Norris pad Poaald Inglehart

Norris and Inglehart test secularization theory against data drawn from the World Values Survey over a twenty-year period.They hypothesize and argue that societies with high levels of human development have more "existential security" and less need for religion. Their argument is based on several assumptions. First, they assume that religion's main function is to help people deal with what they call "existential insecurity." In other words, re­ ligion comforts people in the face of suffering and death. They then assume that, as development increases, suffering is de­ creased and death delayed. Life expectancies rise, debilitating ill­ nesses are reduced, and infant and child mortality decline. They suggest that this should lead to a decline in religiosity, and they

test their hypothesis by analyzing the relationship between increasing human development and levels of religious belief, and they find much support for it, as increasing human devel­ opment leads to some decline in religiosity in general. How­ ever, they encounter some anomalies, most notably the case of the United States, which has both high levels of human de­ velopment and high religiosity. They explain this anomaly by noting the high levels of income inequality in the United States relative to other countries with similar levels of human development.

P ip p a N o r r i s a n d R o n a ld I n g l e h a r t , Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics W orldw ide. N e w Y o r k : C a m b r id g e U n iv e r s it y P ress, 2 0 0 4 .

362 Chapter 15: Ideology and Religion in Modern Politics

powerful evidence (see the “Insights” box titled Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide). The evidence assembled by scholars such as Norris and Ingle- hart is hard to ignore. That being said, critics of this theory make two arguments worth consideration. First, it could be that some confounding variable helps ex­ plain religion’s relative decline in some societies. Second, not all scholars are convinced by Norris and Inglehart’s explanation of why the United States has high religiosity despite its high level of development. In any case, the controversy over secularization theory rages on.

T he “R eligious E co n o m ies” A p p ro ac h Over the last two decades, many scholars have proclaimed a new paradigm in the social-scientific analysis of religion.44 This is distinguished from other work in the field by its heavy reliance on methods derived from economics and ratio­ nal choice theory. Indeed, it is sometimes referred to as the “supply side ap­ proach” to religion.4S Whereas previous theories treated questions of religiosity as being ultimately about variations in levels of religious demand, the “religious economies approach” posits that a generic level of religious demand is a con­ stant, and that what explains variation in religiosity is the nature of the religious market in any given society. As with all markets, the theory further assumes, monopoly is bad, since competition spurs innovation and the tailoring of specific (here religious) products to market preferences. Thus the United States, which has high levels of religious pluralism and no established (monopoly) religion, has high levels of religious belief. European societies, which generally have low levels of religious pluralism and, often, established religions, exhibit low religi­ osity. This approach has been hugely influential, aided by the increasingly visible role of religion in public affairs. Sociologist Rodney Stark went so far as to argue that the world is itself growing more religious due to increasing religious special­ ization. He claimed that medieval Europe (so often the historical benchmark for

IN SIG H TS The Political Origins of Religious Liberty b y /'rth o n y G ili 0

Gill applies the insights of the religious economies school— which emphasizes rational choice theory and economic models— to the question of why some countries have more reli­ gious toleration than others. He argues that "religious firms" seek to maximize their "market share." We would expect that domi­ nant religions may ask the state to establish them as official, and smaller religions to seek toleration. Further, we would note that political leaders often use religion to reinforce their power. If most citizens adhere to an established church, which represents a religious monopoly, leaders have little incentive to change the status quo. If the religious landscape features a lot of pluralism, they are better off just leaving religion alone.

So what causes religious toleration? One cause is any inde­ pendent increase in pluralism. If minority religions grow for some reason, politicians have incentives to treat religions more equally. But Gill also notes that as regimes become more established, they feel less of a need to pander to majority religions, and reli­ gious pluralism will increase if they do not repress religious mi­ norities. Thus a circular process of toleration and expanding freedom can develop. Gill uses this framework to explain the comparative fate of religious freedom in the United States, Latin America, and Russia and some of its neighbors.

Anthony Gill, The Political Origins of Religious Liberty. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Causes and Effects: Why Do Religion and Ideology Remain Prevalent in Modem Politics? 363

religiosity) was not really that religious, because it had high levels of “religious monopoly.”46

W hile the “religious economies approach” has been influential, empirical evi­ dence on the impact of levels of pluralism is mixed. Some studies have found that pluralism is linked to increased religiosity, while others have found the opposite, and still others have found no discernible effect.47 Some scholars also criticize the approach’s rather narrow focus on questions of attendance at religious services or on self-reported measures of religious belief, rather than on institutional shifts.

In s titu tio n a l T heories Much work in the comparative analysis of religion and politics takes a different tack, focusing on institutions and organizations. These theories aim to explain how and why religious organizations become differentiated from others, particu­ larly from the state, and why religion becomes privatized.48

The classical sociological approach to these questions viewed societies as com­ plexes of interdependent institutions that function together systemically, meaning they are connected by ordered networks.49 Traditional forms of this approach held that societies are functionally integrated, or that linkages between social in­ stitutions depend on their related and overlapping functions. So an institution such as the state may have as its core functions the preservation of order and the coordination of collective projects, whereas a religious institution might have as its core function the creation of societal legitimacy, providing a narrative that supports the existing social order. Note that in many societies these functions would overlap: A religious organization such as a church, mosque, or synagogue might help legitimize the state, which in turn might protect and support the re­ ligious organization.

According to differentiation theories, as societies modernize they generate an increasing number of interdependent institutions. For example, in a relatively simple society, socialization could take place via the large, intergenerational family. But when the process of socialization becomes more complex—for ex­ ample, when it begins to require specialized knowledge that family members do not have—new institutions must form to serve these new requirements. Thus, once societies reach a certain level of complexity, there is a need for a separate educational system. W hen the complexity increases even more, differentiation increases within that educational system (e.g., separation of primary, secondary, and post-secondary education; longer and more complex post-graduate training; greater field-specific technical training). This differentiation of non-religious in­ stitutions would gradually reduce the scope and autonomy of religious institu­ tions, turning them into one institution among others rather than society’s core integrating institution.

Such an account raises the question of why some societies might incline toward greater complexity to begin with. Many, perhaps most, scholars have as­ sumed that increasing complexity (and therefore differentiation) is rooted in eco­ nomic processes. Adam Smith, Emile Durkheim, and Karl Marx—representatives of very different traditions—all saw increasing division of labor as the motor in this process. From this general point of view, the source of ongoing differentia­ tion in modern societies is capitalism. Note that this account of why capitalism

religious monopoly The situation in which one major religion dominates the religious landscape within a given society (the opposite of religious pluralism)

364 Chapter 15: Ideology and Religion in Modern Politics

and economic development might lead to secularization is very different from Norris and Inglehart’s view, discussed earlier in the chapter. Norris and Inglehart assume that the psychology of the individual actor is the mechanism connecting development and secularization. Differentiation theories, on the other hand, typically assume that the mechanism exists at the level of institutions rather than individual psychology.

Not all theories of differentiation look like this, however. Some are more actor-centered and suggest that differentiation takes place if and when powerful individuals and groups want it to take place. For example, some scholars have argued that the differentiation of religious and educational institutions in the nineteenth-century United States did not happen simply because of the society’s increasing complexity. Rather, they argue, it happened because some key, socially mobile groups benefited from drawing a sharp distinction between science and religion and from bounding clear institutional turfs for each.50

As you can see, there are a number of competing theories about what happens to religion in modern societies. Not all of these theories even agree about what is in need of explanation. In other words, the basic empirical description of the processes is at issue. Something similar is true, we shall see, of the analysis of ideology’s role in contemporary politics.

W hy Didn't Id e o lo gy (and History) End? Scholarly attention to religion has, to some extent, displaced attention to secular ideologies in recent years. This trend is probably best explained by current events and contemporary history: Religion has seemed to matter more in recent political conflict. In recent years, in particular, there has been resurgence of both the left and the right around the globe.51 Conservative evangelical Christianity and some conservative forms of Islam have been influential in a diverse range of societies (for example, conservative evangelicalism has been influential in the United States while conservative Islam has been influential in Afghanistan, among other

Secularism and State Policies Toward Religion: IN S IG H T S The United States, France, and Turkey

by Ahmet Kuru &

Kuru examines the relationship between the state and religion in three countries: France, Turkey, and the United States. He makes a conceptual distinction between "assertive secularism" and "passive secularism." Assertive secularism is what we have called the "lay state." "Passive secularism" means that the state is mostly separated from religion, but religion is tolerated in public life: in other words, what we have called "denominationalism” in this chapter. Kuru wants to explain why assertive secularism is dominant in France and Turkey and why passive secularism is the norm in the United States. He notes that ideas and culture matter, arguing that ideas emerge in social and cultural contexts and

that "ideological path dependence" helps explain the patterns. The key feature is whether a single, dominant religion is closely linked to an authoritarian government before the establishment of modern statehood. If so, it is likely that modernizers will em­ brace "active secularism.” In France and Turkey, dominant reli­ gions were perceived to be closely allied with and inseparable from the enemies of a modern republic. In the United States, there was no such clear identification, and secularism took on the passive form.

Ahmet Kuru, Secularism and State Policies Toward Religion: The United States, France, and Turkey. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Causes and Effects: Why Do Religion and Ideology Remain Prevalent in Modern Politics? 365

IN S IG H TS The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama

I n this famous, controversial, and sometimes misunderstood I book, Fukuyama argues that political conflict has been seen as ideological struggle since the beginning of modernity. Many different visions of the good life have contended with one another, from socialist to religious conservative. Liberalism was only one contender among many, until the fall of the Soviet Union de-legitimized socialism. Then, no alternative to liberalism was left standing, and a consensus emerged about market rela­ tions in economics, liberal democracy in politics, and open strati­ fication in society.

Many read Fukuyama's thesis as if he were simply arguing that the “good guys” had won, though his argument is more

ambivalent, suggesting that the end of great ideological struggles may make it harder to find meaning and achieve great things. This argument has been the subject of major debates, most no­ tably between its supporters and those of Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" argument (discussed in a separate "Insights" box). Critics of Fukuyama say he fails to see other sources of divi­ sion and conflict, that the fall of the Soviet Union does not invali­ date all leftist regimes and ideologies, and that his account is teleological, meaning it assumes that history has a particular des­ tination, or "end," toward which it is directed.

Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Free Press, 1992.

countries). In many societies, right-wing actors, both religious and secular, have attempted to scale back or dismantle the welfare state. On the left, we have seen some actors turn to social democracy, which is consistent with the arguments of those who forecast an “end to ideology.” Social democrats and liberals in general believe that some version of capitalism should be allowed and that liberal- democratic government is preferable to authoritarianism. Others on the left, however, seek an ideology that will stridently oppose liberalism, such as “twenty- first-century socialism.”

Efforts to articulate and foment “twenty-first-century socialism” have been particularly important. The idea here is to incorporate and respond to criticisms made of twentieth-century socialism—for example, that it was anti-democratic, allowed for the establishment of new oppressive bureaucratic hierarchies, and that it was often murderous on a mass scale—without throwing out socialism’s core aspirations. Proponents of twenty-first-century socialism, therefore, tend to accept the Marxist critique of capitalism as essentially exploitative and alienating and hope for a utopian future. They suggest that this can be achieved via a form of political decentralization that they call “participatory democracy.”52

One might be tempted to dismiss this as the utopian thinking of radical politi­ cal activists, but those who have done so have been consistently surprised. As sug­ gested by the chapter opening, in various parts of the developing world—especially in several Latin American countries in recent years, particularly Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador, among others—these ideas have captured the imaginations of self­ described revolutionary governments. Nicolas Maduro (and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez) in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia, and the many intellectuals and politicians associated with them, make strident claims that ideological conflict remains. That their governments constitute an alternative to liberalism cannot be missed (even if it’s not always precisely clear what that alternative is).

Religious opposition to liberal/secular modernity and alternative ideologies such as “twenty-first-century socialism” share some things in common and are in

"twenty-first-century socialism" Ideology of government supporters in some contemporary societies (e.g., Venezuela, Bolivia) that aims to emphasize the allegedly more participatory and democratic features of these governments.

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IN SIG H T S The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order by Samuel Huntington I

W ithin political science, Samuel Huntington was one of the earliest voices claiming that religion would play an important, indeed resurgent, role in contemporary geopoli­ tics. In The Clash of Civilizations, he famously argued that the world is divided into a set number of distinct "civilizations,' and that these civilizations were built around different cul­ tural traditions and often incompatible values. What would replace old ideological conflicts between the Soviet Union and United States would be a clash between the world's civi­ lizations, particularly between Islam and "the West." While many critics derided this analysis as simplistic and reduction- istic, it gained wide currency, particularly after the terrorist

attacks of September 11,2001. For many public commentators and media figures, Huntington's model of opposed cultural traditions was a promising explanation. This and similar expla­ nations have consequences and profound implications for policy. If Islam is by nature anti-democratic and pitted against "the West," and if civilizations are based on incommensurable moral and political beliefs, then conflict is largely inevitable, and preparing for conflict the most prudent policy. But if this analysis is incorrect, these implications might be misleading, and such policies possibly even counterproductive.

Samuel Huntington,The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996.

other ways very different. Contemporary Venezuela and Iran have sometimes made common cause probably not only because they share some common inter­ ests but because their ideological positions are sufficiently compatible, at least in the short run. W hat is shared? First and foremost, perhaps, is a clearly articu­ lated opposition to the United States. But beyond this, they share a criticism of liberal modernity as falsely universalizing a particular kind of experience and as hiding deeper alienation and exploitation. It is for this reason, in part, that

IN S IG H T S Multiple Modernities byShm uel N. Eisenstadt

Many scholars have argued that contemporary ideological and religious conflict is less about "tradition" versus "mo­ dernity" and more about different "modernities," or different un­ derstandings of what modernity means. Seemingly conservative systems such as the contemporary Iranian regime incorporate elements of the "modern package." They revise the meaning of key terms, however, in relation to their indigenous cultural tradi­ tions and to the goals of those shaping the system: Iran's "de­ mocracy” may not be Europe's democracy.

According to scholars such as Eisenstadt, we can make sense of such cases by recognizing that there are multiple modernities. This label recognizes that the modernization processes wit­ nessed in the United States and Western Europe are not the only available models, but rather that modernity might take different forms in other cultural contexts. The concept of modernity may have roots in the West, but it was carried globally via processes of

diffusion (especially, though not exclusively, via colonialism), and it has been re-framed and re-interpreted wherever it has gone.54 Many scholars have understood the pairing of capitalism in eco­ nomics and liberal democracy in politics as the core features of modernity. These are only forms, however, of the more general phenomenon of growth-oriented economics and political sys­ tems. Thus early critical modernities arose in the competing al­ ternative ideologies of the twentieth century: communism and fascism. From this point of view, the alleged "religious resur­ gence" of recent years should be considered another example of this process of emergent alternative modernities. While Eisen- stadt's approach shares some common ideas with Huntington's assessment, it differs notably in pointing to common underlying features of modern societies.

Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, “Multiple Modernities" Daedalus 129, No. 1, Multiple Moder­ nities, (Winter 2000): 1-29.

Two Lefts in Latin America? 367

Chavez and others like him could compellingly use religious discourse even as he and the Catholic Church remained in sharp conflict.53

These issues have practical, policy-relevant importance. We can only hope to come to terms with contemporary international religious and ideological conflict if we can first understand its sources, and the foremost task here is to examine the nature and aspirations of regimes that define themselves as in conflict. This the­ oretical perspective should help elucidate the nature of not only “anti-Western” cultural movements but also “Western modernities” and their often unspoken assumptions.

Two Lefts in Latin America?

Over the past decade, ideological debate has been a key feature of Latin American politics. Left-leaning politicians came to occupy virtually every government in the region in the 2000s (with the exceptions of Colombia and Mexico). Before long, the major ideological debate was not over the “left” versus the “right” but, rather, over whether there were “two lefts” in Latin America and, if so, which was to be preferred.55

The reasons for this leftward regional turn were complex, but most likely in­ cluded (1) the democratization of much of the region in the “third wave,” dis­ cussed in chapter 6, which opened political systems and empowered populations to express their preferences; (2) economic problems in the “lost decade” of the 1980s and the austerity that many governments implemented to address them, yielding a desire for change; and (3) a demonstration effect, as the region’s left­ ward turn may be viewed as a wave. One lens for viewing this trend was the idea of Latin America’s “pink tide.”56 Note that the metaphor seems to suggest a hybrid ideology, which softens “red” socialism and communism. There may indeed be advantages to using a single, general category of this sort. As we have stressed throughout this book, the ultimate determinant of whether a category or concept works is whether it allows us to gain “leverage” over an empirical ques­ tion that we wish to ask. Thus, if we want to understand why Latin America turned to the left, in general, in the late 1990s, a concept like the “leftward turn” or the “pink tide” might be sufficient.

But what if we, like many regional political actors, are interested in asking more specific questions that require drawing sharper distinctions?57 W hat if we want to note variation within this so-called “pink tide”? Moreover, what if we think the general trend might hide causal variation? In other words, could it be that the leftward turn in some Latin American countries has very different characteris­ tics and even responds to some distinct causal factors?

As we have said, virtually every Latin American society in the period in ques­ tion turned to a left-leaning president of one stripe or another, except for Mexico (which came very close to electing one) and Colombia. It is also worth noting that Peru elected Alan Garcia, who had in his career been identified with the left but who was, in relative terms, to the right of his opponent, Ollanta Humala

TH IN K IN G C O M P A R A TIV ELY

K E Y M E TH O D O LO G IC A L TO O L

Using Typologies to Disaggregate Concepts Typologies serve a variety of pur­ poses in comparative politics, as we have seen throughout this book. Some just serve to clarify thinking. Some, called "ideal types," are used in order to show how empirical cases stray from theoretical expectations. Yet here we are interested in how a typology might help us disaggregate the concept of a "leftward turn" in Latin America. If it serves our pur­ poses, any such typology would allow us to move beyond viewing that turn as a single political process, and reveal various strands or versions of that process. Such a typology identi­ fies variation, sometimes in the form of distinct "paths," which we can then seek to explain. See if you think such a typology is useful in this case.

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T H IN K IN G CO M P A RA TIV ELY

(who was elected president, in turn, in 2011, after moving toward the ideological center). Chile elected a center-right president, Sebastian Pinera, but then re­ elected ex-president Michelle Bachelet of the Socialist Party.

Two governments in particular have been seen as emblematic of variation within the region’s leftward turn: Brazil under Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (and subsequently Dilma RoussefF) and Venezuela under the Chavistas (first Hugo Chavez and then, since Chavez’s death, Nicolas Maduro). Typically, the Bachelet government in Chile, sometimes the Garcia government in Peru, and the Tabare Vazquez government in Uruguay were regarded as of the same type as Brazil under Lula da Silva (known popularly as Lula). The Morales government in Bolivia, the Correa government in Ecuador, and the Ortega government in Nicaragua were seen as clearly falling into the Chavista camp, whatever differ­ ences were visible between these cases. Finally, the case of Argentina under the Kirchner and Fernandez governments has been a bit more ambiguous, and some might debate how to classify the Uruguayan government of Mujica.

On what basis is the distinction between these “two lefts” drawn? On one hand, the difference seems to be a matter of policy, and on the other, a matter of ideology. Thus one way to present the typology is by degree of ideological orien­ tation. It would classify along a continuum that looks something like this:

Ideological Pragm atic iff

(e.g., Venezuela, (e.g., Brazil, Chile) Bolivia, E cuador)

Viewed this way, the category represented by Brazil would be thought of as simply being “less ideological” or “more pragmatic” than the category represented by Venezuela. W hy might someone make this argument? Well, for one, Lula’s rhetoric in earlier organizing and campaigns in Brazil was fairly similar to Chavez’s rhetoric in Venezuela. Yet they governed very differently. W hile neither caused his country to default on debt obligations (as some feared), the Chavista policy playbook, especially after Chavez’s self-designation as “socialist” in 2005, in some ways resembled the more traditional left, with its focus on establishing cooperatives, nationalizing industries, controlling the exchange rate, and dra­ matically increasing public spending (and at the time of this writing, the Venezu­ elan government’s fiscal situation is very poor, and there is a possibility of future default). Lula’s and RoussefFs policies in Brazil have been far less radical. Indeed, the main strategy seems to be to allow the market to produce growth, under the watchful eye of the state, while the state invests heavily in human capital and uses targeted spending to try to redress extreme poverty (most famously in the Bolsa Familia conditional cash transfer program). Both governments reduced poverty and inequality, at least in the first decade of the 21st century, but they did so in different ways, and analysts foresee very different prospects in terms of the sus­ tainability of their approaches.58

Another major difference concerns politics and the democratic status of the , state. The recent governments in Brazil, and those with affinities for them, have \ clearly embraced pluralist democracy. These regimes have not been free of cor­ ruption, but they have not tried to force their opponents outside of the political process. W hile some commentators would disagree, most would say that a coun­ try like Venezuela has shown less respect for pluralism, in that the regime has juxtaposed “participatory democracy” to allegedly “bourgeois” and liberal “repre­ sentative democracy,” and in many ways has endeavored to return the country to authoritarian centralism.59 Again, one way to view the difference is to see the more moderate pole as being “less ideological” than the radical pole.

Some people would be critical of this idea, however. Remember that liberal­ ism, too, is an ideology. Maybe the juxtaposition of “pragmatism” with “ideol­ ogy” falsely presents state-led development in a capitalist framework and pluralist democracy as if they were “just practical” or somehow the natural or normal state of affairs, operative unless a society is polluted by an ideology. From a social scientific point of view, this position cannot be sustained. Liberalism in both economics and politics is not a universal or natural feature of political societies and has roots every bit as ideological as socialism and fascism. Governments like those of Lula and Rousseff may indeed be “more pragmatic” than those of Chavez, Maduro, and Morales, of course, but the differences point us toward constructing a typology that sees these as variations within a broader ideological field. Some ideologies might favor a more dogmatic relationship to key ideologi­ cal texts than others.

One tempting way to read the contemporary ideological landscape in Latin America would be to see it as a version of the ideological development that has been seen in Western Europe and the United States, but adapted to developing world conditions. Thus the Lula and Rousseff governments seldom endorse full- scale traditional protectionism, work hard to attract and retain foreign direct investment, and aim to streamline but generously fund social programs. Brazil aims not to destroy one class in the alleged interests of another, but to reduce income inequality in the service of sustainable development. This position con­ trasts sharply, as noted before, with that of the Chavista government, which in the economic sphere, and especially in discourse, practices a more traditional leftist approach.60 From this point of view, the political spectrum might resemble the model on p. 370.

This sort of typology helps us pose important causal questions. One major question would be why the regimes sort themselves in the way that they do. A n­ other would be how and why regimes within countries move between these cat­ egories. For example, Chile moved from “pragmatic leftism” to “traditional liberalism” with the election of Pinera, but then back to “pragmatic leftism” with the return of Bachelet. I f we tracked changes within countries over time, we might notice patterns of regimes’ ideological drift. Finally, a typology like this might help us in posing questions about one of the most interesting areas of re­ search about ideology: To what extent do the ideological predilections of popula­ tions and formal political actors predict policy choices? We have simplified things here, but if we were to use this typology we might attempt to measure (1) the ideological content of the discourse of political figures and (2) the ideological

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T H IN K IN G CO M P A RA TIV ELY

T rad itio n al Socialism “Pragm atic Leftism ” T rad itio n al Liberalism

Brazil (Lula, Rousseff)

Venezuela Mexico (Chavez, M a d u ro ) (Calderon, Pena Nieto)

E cuador Uruguay Colom bia (Correa) (Vazquez, Mujica) (Uribe, Santos)

Bolivia C hile Chile (Morales) (Bachelet) (Pinera)

A rgentina (K irc h n e r, F e rn a n d e z )

orientation of the population (through surveys), and then match them to ideo­ logical regime type.61 This method would potentially allow us to see whether differences between countries like Brazil and Venezuela spring from different ideologies, or whether those ideologies are more responsive to structural features of the society or to leadership decisions made within the state.

C h a p te r S u m m a ry C o n c e p t s

Religion and ideology are two major forms that ideas take as they shape politics. Ideology gets defined in lots of ways, but many scholars see it as systematically organized beliefs about how politics and society should be constructed. Religion, too, gets defined in lots of ways, but many schol­ ars see it as a system of beliefs and accompanying organi­ zations that posit a transcendental source of meaning. Scholars used to think that religion and ideology would both decline as societies modernize, but it now appears to most students of comparative politics that they continue to shape politics in meaningful ways.

T y p e s • The main modern ideologies are liberalism, fascism, and

socialism. Much of twentieth-century international conflict was interpreted in the light of these ideologies.

• There is consensus that while religion does not necessarily decline when societies modernize, religion does tend to undergo a process of differentiation. Scholars have tried to explain this in several ways.

• There are three main ideal-typical patterns of modern rela­ tionships between religion and politics: lay states, religious states, and denominationalism.

Chapter Review 371

Causes and Effects • Modernization theory argues that as economic develop­

ment takes place, religious belief and practice will decline. Some very strong evidence has been mustered in support of this theory, though there are also some anomalies.

• The 'religious economies school" is most interested in the relationship between religious pluralism and religious belief. According to this theory, the more diverse the offerings in any given religious marketplace, the more religious belief and practice you will find. As with modern­ ization theory, this approach has strong evidence behind it but also serious anomalies.

• Many theorists focus on changing relationships between religious organizations and the state rather than just

T h in k in g It T h r o u g h 1. As has been noted in this chapter, the United States is some­

what unusual in (1) its level of religious belief and practice given its development status and (2) the denominational way in which it organizes religious difference. How would modern­ ization theory, the religious economies school, and institutional analysis approach this feature of the United States? Which of these theories, in your view, is most promising as an explan­ ation, and why?

2. As noted previously, some prominent actors in Latin America claim to be making a "revolution* in favor of "twenty-first-century socialism.” Some of their critics argue that this is no different from earlier forms of socialist ideology. What would the "twenty- first-century socialists' say in response to this charge? Who do you think is right, and why?

3. Proponents of the "multiple modernities" approach think that modernization takes notably distinct paths in different cultural contexts. In contrast, traditional modernization theory says that

looking at whether individual-level belief and practice go up or down over time. These scholars have produced a variety of theories to explain why some societies produce lay states, others religious states, and still others denomin­ ational systems.

• Strong evidence indicates that religion and ideology have not gone away but are, rather, at least as important factors shaping comparative politics today as they were decades ago.

Th inking Com paratively • The ideological landscape of contemporary Latin America

points to the potential utility of different typologies in comparative analysis.

modernization is always the same basic underlying process, though cultural context shapes how it happens. How could we design a comparative analysis to judge between these two the­ ories? Which cases would you select, and why? What questions would you ask about them?

4. In certain respects, lay states and religious states are mirror images of each other. One type of state tries to push religion out of the public square, and the other tries to firmly plant it there. Thinking about Ahmet Kuru's argument, analyze the nature of the relationship between these types of states. Why are they in certain respects so similar? How might we explain their differences?

5. We have seen that liberalism and socialism have been enduring political ideologies. The other major modern political ideology, fascism, has fewer proponents today. Has fascism likely disap­ peared? Why or why not? Under what circumstances might we expect to witness a resurgence of fascism?

CHAPTER 16

Comparative Politics and International Relations

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• A poster in Ireland expresses the frustration of some Europeans, in Ireland and elsewhere, with fiscal austerity in recent years.

The years between 2009 and 2015 saw major economic upheaval across Europe as nineteen of the continent’s economies struggled desperately to save their common currency, the euro. The crisis came after several years in which eurozone countries (European Union countries whose currency is the euro) in southern Europe faced high levels of debt. Greece ultimately re­ quired a bailout from European funds— and then a second one in 2012— sparking fear of contagion, since Portugal, Ireland, Spain, and Italy also risked defaulting on their debts. As Europe’s largest economy and the center of the eurozone, Germany sought to hold the euro together without a massive bailout of the slower-growing economies. It pushed for strict controls on spending in the southern European countries, including requirements for aus­ tere budgets that would cut back on generous social programs and old-age pensions.

The complications were numerous: Although Germany called for austerity in southern European countries, it had benefited from exports to those indebted countries, and banks in Germany, France, and abroad risked collapse if the euro fell apart. By 2012, the euro seemed to be hanging on by a precarious political and economic arrangement, one that involved a mix of cooper­ ation and diplomatic fights among Europe’s major allies. W hile the immediate crisis seems to have passed in 2015, there are still concerns that Greece may eventually exit the euro (in a so-called “Grexit”), thereby calling the entire future of the common currency into question.

In Europe, recent years have showed the challenges of reconciling international relations with domestic politics, yet the backdrop for this crisis is decades of remarkable European successes in creating a more unified continent. After the horrors of W orld W ar II, G erm any and France (along w ith Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg) led a process de­ signed to bring Europe together economically and politically.

It was clear th at Europe w anted to avoid another cataclysmic war, and the continent’s leaders felt th at integration was the solution. The process began w ith a common m arket in coal and steel, w hich was symbolically rich in indicating shared sovereignty over the very materials needed for war.

IN TH IS C H A P T E R

Concepts 375

Issues 376 Globalization and Trade 376 International Institutions

and Integration 380 Immigration 382 Environment and Sustainability 384 Transnational Networks 387 Nuclear Threats and Terrorism 388

Causes and Effects: What Are the Main Causes in International Relations? 390 Realism 390 Liberalism 393 Constructivism 394 Marxism 395

TH IN K IN G C O M P A R A T I V E L Y

The EU and Levels of Analysis 395

C A S E S IN C O N T E X T

United States Iran • India

France • Japan

373

374 Chapter 16: Comparative Politics and International Relations

free trade A policy or approach in which a government allows foreign goods and services to compete freely with domestic production, as contrasted with protectionism, which favors domestic production.

European Union (Elf) The political and economic union of many European states, numbering twenty-eight as of 2015.

Integration later expanded into a broader common market between these countries, and the European Com m unity took on new members: the United Kingdom, Denmark, Spain and Portugal (after these two countries became democracies), and Greece. Integration then widened and deepened further, moving beyond free trade to free movement of peoples across many European borders, increasing the role of the renamed European Union (EU). Along­ side this process, the Berlin W all fell in 1989, East and W est Germany reuni­ fied in 1990, and the Cold W ar ended by 1991. The EU ultim ately invited in most of the countries of central and eastern Europe, as well as countries in Scandinavia, and even M editerranean island nations. It also created the euro in 1999 for the majority of its countries, deepening its integration further even as it expanded to include twenty-eight countries (see M ap 16.1).

Yet throughout all of this integration, the countries of the EU have jeal­ ously guarded their sovereignty, and major decisions and treaties must be approved unanimously. M eanw hile, some countries, such as Norway and Switzerland, have opted to stay out of the EU altogether.

lA I_

M V

M e m b e r s o f t h e E u r o p e a n U n i o n

M em bers o f eurozone (2015)

M em bers o f EU n o t in eurozone

N ote: Year listed is w hen country jo in e d w h a t is now called the E uropean Union (from 1993), or its predecessors, including the European C oal a n d Steel C o m m u n ity (from 1952), E uropean Econom ic C o m m u n ity (from 1957), a n d the E uropean C o m m u n ity (from 1967).

*West G erm any w as a m e m ber o f the European C o m m u n ity u ntil 1990, w ith reunified G erm any (including E a st G erm any) being a m e m ber thereafter.

'fibfniles

Map 16.1 Members of the European Union.

Concepts 375

European integration since World W ar II thus offers one of the world’s greatest contemporary examples of international cooperation, while it also demonstrates the challenges of this cooperation and the reality that most states engage in international relations with a view toward their own national inter­ ests. W hether the ambitious and remarkable European project of post-war unification is in the process of foundering or flourishing, it is important to note how the comparative politics of different countries interfaces with interna­ tional relations.

® © •

Concepts Throughout this text, we have examined issues of comparative politics, which tends to focus on politics within different countries. In some instances, we have made reference to factors that cross borders, such as revolutions or processes of democratization that come in waves. Yet we have not focused directly on the many areas of international relations between countries, including war and peace and economic relationships. In discussing the actions of governments in international relations, we are often referring to decisions made in foreign policy.

We consider two main areas under the topic of international relations: inter­ national security and international political economy. International security refers to issues of war and peace between nations and to issues of global security and conflict more broadly. As we discuss herein and have noted previously, these include terrorism and terrorist acts committed by nonstate actors. In addition, civil wars and conflicts may take place within a state and yet involve the relations between states. For example, a rebel group that is trying to take over the govern­ ment in one country may seek refuge in a neighboring country. All of these issues of security and conflict fit in the domain of international relations, but they in­ tersect with the comparative politics we have discussed throughout this book.

Beyond security studies, the other principal area of study in international rela­ tions is international political economy, which examines how the economic relations between countries affect politics and how political relations affect econ­ omies. In the modern world, countries trade in goods and services, and money flows across borders, often in amounts reaching totals of trillions of dollars a day. Comparative politics and international relations intersect on political economy issues when it comes to questions of globalization, international trade, interna­ tional finance, and efforts at integration or cooperation on economic issues.

International relations issues do not always fit neatly in one or the other of the two main categories we’ve set out here. Consider, for instance, efforts to stop flows of illegal drugs across borders. Is this a question of international security or of international political economy? A plausible answer is “both.” Similar argu­ ments could be made for questions of refugees fleeing violence in one country, or of immigration more generally. Many issues in the twenty-first century are transnational in that they cross borders. The range of issues linking comparative politics and international relations is vast, and we explore them in this chapter.

international relations The study of relations between countries and between actors in the international system.

foreign policy The set of policies toward foreign nations made by a national government.

international security The study of issues of war and peace between nations and global security and conflict more broadly.

international political economy The study of how the economic relations between countries affect politics and how political relations affect economies.

transnational Issues or institutions that cross international borders.

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globalization The increasing interaction, both economic and cultural, among peoples and societies across national borders.

capital A factor of economic production consisting of accumulated wealth or financial resources available for investment.

international trade The economic exchange of goods, services, and capital across international borders.

We will briefly examine some of the leading issues where comparative politics and international relations overlap and affect one another. We look at how do­ mestic politics affects international relations and how transnational issues affect the politics of different countries. Many of the issues we discuss are some of the great challenges and opportunities facing nation-states in the twenty-first century.

Issues In this chapter, rather than address the “Types” we find in different social and political categories (such as types of revolutions, or types of development, or types of party systems), we focus on some of the leading issues in international relations that relate to comparative politics. These include economic globaliza­ tion, immigration, transnational networks, and the global environment and sustainability.

G lobalization and Trade Globalization is one of the major trends in the world, a force shaping not only the economy but many aspects of everyday life. It refers to increasing interaction, both economic and cultural, between peoples and societies across national bor­ ders. Perhaps more than any other phenomenon, globalization epitomizes how international phenomena affect comparative politics. We begin with a discussion of the economic relations that come with flows of goods, capital, and people across borders.

W hat crosses borders? First, traded goods do, in the form of imports and ex­ ports. These can include cars or food, minerals or natural resources such as bar­ rels of petroleum, textiles, or toys. Second, services are increasingly transnational. Examples include the now-famous customer service call centers located in India that serve a global clientele, or medical tourism that leads some residents of wealthy countries to seek out lower-priced surgeries in countries such as Thailand or Costa Rica. Third, money (or capital) crosses borders for a number of reasons. Many people and corporations have investments or own properties in other countries. Many immigrants living overseas send money home to their families or communities as well. And anything imported must be paid for, so money flows constantly. Finally, people cross borders, whether in search of opportuni­ ties for work or political freedoms, or to flee violence or strife in their home countries, or for recreation or business. W ith these transnational flows come challenges relating to the movements of goods, services, money, and people.

Turning first to international trade of goods and services, economic interac­ tions between countries have increased significantly in recent years. Many people in advanced, industrialized countries are aware that an increasing number of goods come from overseas, but the extent is still impressive: The clothes on your back may have been tailored in Bangladesh or Pakistan, the cell phone in your hand may have been assembled in Brazil or China, with parts from Malaysia, and the apple you had at lunch may have come from Chile. Increasingly, this is true of services as well, especially as technology makes it easier and cheaper to communicate around the world. I f you need an x-ray in the middle of the night

Issues 377

A ship makes its way through the Panama Canal between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

in an American hospital, there is a growing chance that the image will be exam­ ined by a technician in Australia, while a call to customer service in Europe may result in talking with someone in India.

This increase in international trade has given rise to many concerns in wealth­ ier countries about job outsourcing (contracting abroad) and offshoring (basing some services or processes abroad). In some lower-income countries it has also created enthusiasm about the prospects for growth. As wealthy countries rely on goods produced in emerging economies, and as emerging economies rely on mar­ kets in wealthy countries, the world economy becomes more interdependent (in that individual economies are dependent on one another) and interconnected.1 The trend of increasing trade has thus given rise to many cliches about globaliza­ tion, some of which may indeed have a grain of truth to them: The world is “flat” or “shrinking,” we are living in a “global village,” and we have never been closer.2 This is not to say globalization is brand new: By some measures, the end of the nineteenth century, when Great Britain was the leading power, was a time as globalized as any other time in history up to the last two decades.3 Still, global­ ization is especially pressing today. Countries have increasingly reduced their barriers to trade with one another over recent decades. The importance of global trade in reshaping countries’ economies is exemplified by the rise of China (see the “Case in Context” box).

Trade between two or more countries— at least when it is voluntary—is based on the idea that the countries involved gain some advantage from trading.

outsourcing In international trade and business, the practice of an economic actor contracting out to other actors, often overseas. (See offshoring)

offshoring In international trade and business, the practice of an economic actor basing some of its services or processes abroad rather than in its domestic market. (See outsourcing)

interdependence A relationship in which two or more actors (such as countries) are mutually depen­ dent upon one another.

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comparative advantage In international trade, the idea that different countries or territories will have different relative advantages in the production of different goods and services, which forms the basis for gains from trade.

One of the leading principles in international trade and political economy is comparative advantage. This principle holds that countries can benefit from trade by specializing in the goods they can produce with the greatest relative efficiency, and by trading for goods they produce relatively less efficiently.

The following is a simple illustration to show the benefits of trade under the principle of comparative advantage. Imagine two countries, Pacifica and Atlan- tica, both of which have working populations that can produce shirts and phones. Pacifica is more populous, with 2,000 people to Atlantica’s 500. On the other hand, it takes somewhat fewer people in Atlantica to produce a shirt or a phone than it does in Pacifica (see Table 16.1). It takes five Atlanticans to make a shirt as contrasted with ten Pacificans, and ten Atlanticans to make a phone as con­ trasted with fifty Pacificans. This is not necessarily because the skills of the work­ ers differ by country, but could perhaps be because there are more labor-saving machines in Atlantica, for example, which allow workers there to produce more rapidly. I f Atlantican labor has advantages that allow it to produce more effi­ ciently, how could these two countries gain from trading with each other?

For simplicity’s sake, say Pacificans are interested only in buying more phones right now, and Atlanticans are interested only in buying more shirts. The strategy for each country without trade would lead to forty phones produced and pur­ chased in Pacifica and one hundred shirts in Atlantica:

Pacifica:

Atlantica:

Have 2,000peopleproduce 40 phones.

Have 500people produce 100 shirts.

But if the two countries can trade, the strategy for each country could be dif­ ferent. I f the international price were four shirts to one phone, for example, the following is possible:

Pacifica:

Atlantica:

Have 2,000people produce 200 shirts, then trade to Atlantica for 50 phones.

Have 500people produce 50 phones, then trade to Pacifica for 200 shirts.

By specializing in the good they make relatively more efficiently and then trading, both countries are better off. Pacifica ends up with fifty phones instead of forty, while Atlantica ends up with two hundred shirts instead of one hundred.

t a b l e i 6 . i Benefits of Trade Under Com parative A dvantage

Country Population Labor per

Shirt Labor per

Phone Possibilities W ithout Trade Possibilities with Trade (Price: 4 Shirts = 1 Phone)

Pacifica 2,000 10 people 50 people Make 200 shirts or 40 phones Make 200 shirts, trade for 50 phones

Atlantica 500 5 people 10 people Make 50 phones or 100 shirts Make 50 phones, trade for 200 shirts

The example would still work even if one country or the other wanted to trade only some of its product rather than all of it. And this example has two other noteworthy features. First, shirts require less labor to make than phones in each of the countries. Comparative advantage does not depend on countries differing on which product is easier to make than the other. Second, recall that a unit of labor (that is, a person) in Atlantica is more productive than a person in Pacifica in making both shirts and phones, perhaps because of the machines they work with. Atlantica has an “absolute advantage” in both shirts and phones, because both require less labor in Atlantica than in Pacifica. Yet comparative advantage still allows trade to benefit both countries, despite Atlantica’s absolute advantage in both industries. This is the key lesson of comparative advantage, even though it is counterintuitive for many people.

As for the politics of trade, some groups will clearly benefit from trade while others will suffer, at least in the short run. Critiques of economic globalization often focus on those who are disadvantaged by trade and who may be politically important actors. The economic gains from comparative advantage are in aggre­ gate, and while they may appear good for consumers and some producers, the benefits are not equal for all producers.

In the preceding example, opening up to trade might actually put workers out of a job in the Atlantican shirt industry as Atlantica imports shirts from Pacifica, and in the Pacifican phone industry as Pacifica imports phones from Atlantica. W ith exposure to trade, economic actors representing the relatively efficient sec­ tors will benefit, and economic actors representing less efficient sectors may lose out. Free market economics may claim that these workers can simply move to the new industry (e.g., Atlanticans would move from making shirts to assembling phones), but this process is not simple: It can mean periods of unemployment and require retraining, for example. This change of industry can create economic, social, and political disruptions and uncertainty. Moreover, the more efficient phone making gets, the more dependent upon technology (rather than human labor) its production might become, and it may be that those former shirt makers in Atlantica end up working in lower-level service jobs, such as warehouse pro­ cessing or retail. Finally, we should note that the process of offshoring produc­ tion, if not adequately regulated or monitored, can result in environmental damage to the locations where production takes place. It can worsen environ­ mental degradation around the world if production becomes “dirtier” overall by moving to countries with lower environmental standards.

For example, say that building phones requires a lot of capital investment to build high-tech factories, while the shirt industry mainly requires labor and lim­ ited investment in some sewing machines. If Atlantica is relatively abundant in capital investment in the phone industry, and Pacifica is relatively abundant in labor for making shirts, then Atlantican capital owners will benefit from trade and Pacifican laborers will benefit.4 Conversely, Atlantican laborers may not ben­ efit as they find themselves competing with laborers in Pacifica, and Pacifican capital owners may not benefit as they find themselves competing with Atlantican capital owners. In an even simpler sense, ask yourself this: I f you were the leader of Pacifica, would you want to have your economy based on producing shirts, or would you prefer to have your country produce higher-value and higher-tech

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protectionism In international trade, the practice of a country protecting or giving favor to its own domestic producers.

multilateral In international relations, the actions of three or more countries working together.

intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) The set of international organizations that push for cooperation between countries and work for the prevention or mitigation of international conflicts.

United Nations The most comprehensive global institution, which aims to prevent and manage conflict and to establish multilateral cooperation on matters of international law, economics, and human development and well-being.

international financial institutions (IFIs) Multilateral institutions, particularly the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, that have considerable leverage in international economy.

integration In international relations, a process by which countries agree to collaborate economically or politically, to make some decisions collectively and to shape common strategies.

goods like mobile phones? The answer to these economic questions often comes in the form of protectionism, or efforts by governments to protect domestic in­ dustries from foreign competition. The politics and demands of these different groups will influence the decisions made by governments. International trade is clearly an area where international politics affects the domestic and vice versa.

International Institutions and Integration Since World War II, countries have increasingly collaborated on economic and policy matters. This too links comparative politics to international relations be­ cause individual nation-states have made conscious decisions about international relations that are often based on domestic politics. Collaboration began between the advanced, industrialized countries and accelerated after the end of the Cold War. At the multilateral level between many countries (i.e., when three or more countries participated), cooperation took the form of freer and more open trade in goods, greater movement of capital and finance, and greater cooperation in international law to bring some criminals to justice.

Several intergovernmental organizations push for cooperation between countries and work toward conflict prevention. The United Nations is the most comprehensive global institution. It was designed after World War II to provide a global forum for diplomacy and conflict prevention, and it encompasses a number of agencies with missions to enhance security and development; these include the development organization UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

Some multilateral institutions have had significant influence in the global economy and have been the source of much debate. This is especially true of the major international financial institutions, namely the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. These two organizations have had leverage in international politics, especially in the 1980s and 1990s. During that period, these institutions pressured developing countries to follow a free market model rather than a model that featured protectionism, investments by the government in state-owned enterprises, and greater state intervention in the economy (as noted in chapter 5). This came to be known as the “Washington Consensus,” because it reflected the policy recommendations of the World Bank and IMF, both of which are based in Washington, D.C., along with the views of the United States government. The debate about the impacts of these reforms has raged, with advocates saying that these institutions helped developing economies make a needed shift to open up to market forces, while critics have argued that the draconian reforms hurt people and economies in developing countries and pre­ cipitated financial crises.5

Apart from these global, multilateral institutions are a range of regional orga­ nizations. At this level, there is sometimes economic and political integration, where countries agree to open up their economies to one another and shape common strategies toward other countries outside the regional bloc. There are many examples, including the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA) and associations for free trade in South America, Pacific Asia, and regions of Africa, but the standout example is the EU, noted at the beginning of the chapter.

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How the EU has achieved greater economic and political integration in a world of sovereign nation-states is one of the great questions of modern political economy. Over the decades from the 1950s to the present, much of Europe has transitioned from a region of long-standing suspicions and historical animosities (such as between France and Germany) to a more closely integrated set of coun­ tries. These share a supranational set of political institutions and interdependent economies. As noted at the beginning of the chapter, European integration began as little more than a trade zone involving six countries and a common market in coal and steel. Yet this cooperation expanded over time to include more members (see Map 16.1 at the beginning of the chapter), while also deep­ ening its integration. The six original members formed the European Economic Community that established a common customs union for trade with other countries. Over time, the members reiterated a push for “ever closer union” be­ tween member countries. Subsequent treaties established the European Union, and its many member countries agreed to pool their sovereignty on some major issues. Besides the establishment of the euro, a notable example was the creation of the Schengen area, which eliminated internal border controls between the countries of the zone. The area encompasses the various EU countries on the continent (though not the United Kingdom or Ireland). The European Union now makes many of its decisions based on qualified majorities, rather than on a “one country, one vote” principle.

We return to the example of the EU in the “Thinking Comparatively” section at the end of the chapter, but we note here that integration does not mean that nation-states have ceased to be important. In fact, even in the EU, major deci­ sions about issues such as foreign policy or taxation require unanimous consent of the member governments, meaning that each nation-state effectively has a veto. As one of the world’s most integrated supranational bodies, the EU shows that most integration is still deeply dependent on the nation-state. At the same time, globalization and integration have occurred alongside the emergence of many identities below the level of nation-state, such as ethnic groups and regional

PAGE 567

The United States has been a leading nation in world affairs for over a century. It has been called the "indispensable nation” due to its dominant military, its economic significance, and its cultural power. The United States has exerted its power in many ways, including major and minor wars, but it has also at times been re­ luctant to engage in foreign entanglements.

For more on U.S. relations with the world, see the case study in Part VI, p. 567. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. When has the United States favored greater global inte­ gration, and when has it not done so?

2. What might explain the historical tendency for isolation­ ism to recur in the United States?

3. What challenges are likely to be the most significant for the United States in the future?

The United States and the World: A Love- Relationship?

Hate

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immigration The movement of people to foreign countries.

assimilation The practice of being integrated into another culture, especially with respect to immigration.

groups, in countries from Russia to Ethiopia to Mexico. Thus, even as China has integrated with the world economy, the Uighur ethnic group in the west of the country has tried to secure greater autonomy, and even as Spain has integrated with the EU, the Catalonian and Basque regions have sought guarantees of greater autonomy from the Spanish central government. Sometimes the groups seeking autonomy refer to themselves as nations. This combination of integration above the nation-state level and pressures from ethnic or regional groups below has put the nation-state under pressure, but it continues to be the central actor in inter­ national relations and comparative politics.

Im m igration Another key area where domestic and international politics intersect is immigration, defined as the movement of people to foreign countries. Immigra­ tion is clearly an issue of international relations because it involves a country from which a person leaves (or emigrates) and a country to which the person migrates, or immigrates. It is also a matter of comparative politics because it regularly be­ comes a major domestic issue in the countries involved.

The details of immigration debates vary from one country to another, but im­ migration patterns can be compared. In many prominent examples, the pattern is for immigrants to move from lower-income countries with limited economic op­ portunities to wealthier countries. Immigration often induces conflicts or ten­ sions between citizens of the receiving country and the newcomers, whom citizens often deride, claiming that foreigners harm the job prospects of “natives.” For example, one of the leading political issues in the United States is the status of large numbers of migrant workers from Mexico, along with other Latin American countries to a lesser extent. Immigration is a major issue across Europe as well, though patterns of immigrants’ countries of origin differ from one European country to another. In France, many of the tensions are with respect to North African immigrants and their descendants. In Germany and northern Europe, there are larger numbers of immigrants from Turkey and the Middle East.

The issues surrounding immigration are numerous, contentious, and often blurred. One major issue is assimilation (being culturally absorbed by or inte­ grated into another culture). Some immigrant groups prefer to merge with the “mainstream” of society, while others prefer to retain their cultural autonomy.6 Moreover, there are major debates about how nation-states should accommodate immigrants. Advocates of assimilation often argue that immigrants must adapt to the cultural practices and conceptions of liberal values in the countries where they migrate. Immigrants, however, may wish to retain their own cultural tradi­ tions. They may argue that respect for different traditions is a basic tenet of modern liberal societies and that assimilation to a dominant culture is not re­ quired. Further, some scholars have claimed that positions in favor of assimila­ tion are often based on misconceptions and simplistic notions about people of other backgrounds.7

Middle-ground views tend to favor multicultural notions of citizenship pro­ tected by a liberal state. Debates over multiculturalism are common in advanced, industrialized countries that have substantial numbers of migrants from the de­ veloping countries, and immigration has become a major issue in domestic and

Issues 383

comparative politics. This is true across the European Union, as well as in the United States. In fact, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a splash with a famous statement in 2010 saying that multiculturalism has “utterly failed.”8

Sometimes immigrant communities are blamed for violent crimes committed by a handful of their members— a position that most social scientists view as unjustified. For example, the London bombings o f2005 were not reflective of the actions or beliefs of the Muslim population in Britain, despite arguments to the contrary. One controversial perspective holds that Britain is now home to “Lon- donistan,” a foreign population from Pakistan and other Muslim countries that is unassimilated to Western values such as tolerance and respect for individual rights, and that this is a threat to Western democracies.9 An opposing perspec­ tive defends multiculturalism and argues that different communities and belief systems can and should be accommodated within tolerant and open societies.10 W hile defending multiculturalism and promoting tolerance, some social scien­ tists are interested in exploring the relationship between the reception of immi­ grant groups and the development of extremist attitudes. Do discrimination and poor economic prospects fuel radicalism?

Distinctions between types of immigrants matter, such as between those who are documented (have attained legal residence) and those who are undocumented (and are thus often considered illegal). A related distinction is between immigra­ tion patterns of different lengths of time. Some people leave their countries in search of temporary work (such as for a single growing season in agriculture), others seek permanent residence in a new country, and still others seek to become naturalized citizens of a new country. There are also distinctions between gen­ erations of immigrants: Some groups consider themselves or are ascribed the status of immigrants even though they were born in the new country. All of these distinctions are quite important, but these separate types of immigrants are often considered part of the same debate.

Another issue is the tension between immigrants and descendants of immi­ grants from previous waves of immigration. Many countries—especially, but not

^ i

I C A S E IN C O N T E X TL ____| Globalization and Culture in France PAGE 439 As we have noted in previous chapters, France gives us many ex­ amples of how cultural and economic challenges interact when questions of immigration arise. France experiences ongoing debate about its future in light of integration with the EU and the arrival of growing numbers of immigrants, especially from its former colonies in North Africa. It also has notable variation in how succeeding generations of immigrants are treated by and respond to French society.

For more on these issues in France, see the case study in Part VI, pp. 439-440. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. In what ways has France been ambivalent about the progress of globalization?

2. What might explain why France was once quite favorable to globalization but has more recently become uncertain about it?

3. In what ways has France tried to mitigate the perceived downsides of globalization?

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nativism A political attitude that seeks to protect the interests of established groups of residents in a given country against the interests of more recent immigrants.

brain drain The departure or emigration of skilled and educated members of a population, especially with reference to developing countries in the international system.

remittances Cash or resources sent to a home country, often to family and friends, by emigrants.

sustainability The notion, especially used with regard to the environment, that a resource is capable of being sustained for use or enjoyment by future generations.

exclusively, those with civic forms of nationalism, as outlined in chapter 13— have welcomed immigrants over time but face new challenges with each genera­ tion. Many Americans famously and proudly refer to the United States as a “nation of immigrants,” while also calling for stricter limits on immigration and efforts to stop the flow of immigrants and deport those present. Pride in a history of immigration can thus coexist with nativism, which seeks to protect the inter­ ests of established groups of residents against the interests of immigrants. This position attempts to portray more recent immigrants as somehow different from previous waves. Sometimes even scholars make such claims, singling out groups like Hispanic or Islamic immigrants as being less open to assimilation, less dem­ ocratic, or less capable of economic integration.11 Impartial reviews of the evi­ dence, though, belie such claims.12

Immigration thus brings together issues in the social, economic, and political domains. The social side involves cultural assimilation and competing concep­ tions of what it means to be part of a nation. Some of the hottest debates on im­ migration are as much about money as they are about identity. On the economic side, immigration raises issues of competition with native-born workers for jobs and for some public benefits. The political domain includes aspects of the social and economic sides but focuses on immigration as a policy issue, which is com­ plicated because immigration is both a transnational and a domestic issue.

We should also note that just as immigration poses challenges, emigration— leaving a country to live in another—has some important economic implications for the countries left behind. One issue is the brain drain, or the fact that many times it is the most skilled and highly educated members of a population who leave. In some of these circumstances, relatively poor countries have invested heavily in preparing some of their top young people to build their country, only to see them leave for better opportunities elsewhere. On the flip side, emigrants are often huge contributors to their home countries through remittances of cash or resources sent back home to families and friends. Further, some emigrants who have left their home countries have gone into exile for political or economic reasons, because they are fleeing repression or lack of opportunity. This situation confronts the home country with the challenge of defining whether and how such emigrants should be reintegrated into their home societies, if and when they return. It can apply to short-term migrant workers who leave home temporarily for work, as well as to exiles who flee their homes indefinitely, leaving their prop­ erty behind.

Environm ent and Sustainability Contemporary debates in comparative politics and international relations are not just about maximizing economic growth but also about the consequences of that growth around the world. A major worry is that the current consumption of resources and rates of environmental pollution are not sustainable, or capa­ ble of being sustained for future generations. At the local level, this has become a major issue in rapidly industrializing countries such as China, where environ­ mental degradation has worsened dramatically through the pollution of air, water, and land. The result has been contamination and disease affecting many millions of people.

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Environmental degradation accompanies rapid growth in China.

Environmental consequences from industrialization are horrific in many loca­ tions, yet the leading issue with respect to the environment at the global level is climate change. This is sometimes referred to in terms of global warming, though models of climate change predict a range of effects on the climate. Most climatologists and natural scientists agree that climate change is attributable in part to man-made causes, and continue to collect more data that supports this hypothesis.13 The extent of humanity’s impact on the climate is debated, but the prevailing current theory holds that mankind’s effect on the climate has come mainly through greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Pollutants such as carbon dioxide and methane are emitted into the atmosphere and trap solar energy, warming the planet below, as in a greenhouse. Many of these pollutants come from fossil fuels used to produce energy, such as petroleum, coal, and natural gas. This theory is the origin of the call for alternative energy sources, such as solar or wind power.

Climate change estimates predict that global temperature averages will peak at two or more degrees Celsius above historic averages. This change is predicted to bring about other consequences, including melting of glaciers and ice sheets, rises in sea levels, flooding of coastal lowlands, increased numbers and severity of

climate change A set of changes to the earth's climate.

greenhouse gases (GHG) Emissions of gases such as carbon dioxide and methane from industrial activity and consumption of fossil fuels that contributes to climate change.

alternative energy Energy sources, such as solar or wind power, that are not derived from fossil fuels.

386 Chapter 16: Comparative Politics and International Relations

externality An economic phenomenon in which the gains and costs from a given activity do not accrue to the same actor.

extreme weather events such as hurricanes and avalanches, desertification of marginal agricultural lands, and extinction of large numbers of animal and plant species. To the extent these events materialize, they will signify major, costly disruptions to peoples and societies across the planet. Droughts may lead to major conflict over food and water. Flooding may actually erase some cities.

Climate change and environmental sustainability present some of the most fundamental dilemmas in politics. One basic feature of pollution is that it is an externality from economic activity, meaning that the gains and costs from an activity do not accrue to the same actor. In the case of polluting, individual com­ panies may gain profits from their production (or countries may grow economi­ cally from it), with the act of polluting as a by-product, but the costs of that pollution are passed on to others. Because polluters do not pay the costs to society associated with pollution, they do not have as much of an incentive to stop it. This condition represents the collective action problem and the “free rider” prob­ lem outlined in previous chapters. One of the leading discussions about pollution is on the difficulties of managing resources that are shared among many people (or countries), when all actors have an incentive to free ride—to maximize their own benefit while passing the costs of their action onto others.

Climate change is thus more than a scientific challenge: It is also a political challenge both within and across national borders. Most efforts to halt climate change involve securing commitments by sovereign nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions over time. These agreements are not easily secured, as they require cooperation and agreement among large numbers of actors, and be­ cause there is little agreement on which countries should pay the costs of halting greenhouse gas emissions. In general, large developing countries such as China and India hold that the developed countries are responsible for most of the emis­ sions to date, and are thus primarily responsible for stopping climate change while lower-income countries catch up in development. Developed countries generally respond that climate change was unknown when many of the rich world’s emissions occurred, and that much of the future damage will come from

IN SIG H TS The Tragedy of the Commons by Garrett Hardin &

Garrett Hardin's article is foundational in the study of common resources, and it has implications for many envi­ ronmental challenges in the world today. The article focuses on the challenges of overexploitation of common resources by large and growing populations. Hardin's illustrative example of the tragedy is a pasture open to all herdsmen and their herds of animals. As each herdsman allows his herds to graze, the pas­ ture is degraded a bit and its resources (grass) are used up, yet each herdsman has an individual incentive to encourage his livestock to continue grazing. This situation ultimately leads to a depleted common resource because benefits from using the

commons are individual, but costs are shared by all. Hardin notes that this principle also operates with pollution in the at­ mosphere, except that users are not "taking out" natural re­ sources, but rather "putting in" contaminants and thus "using up" a resource shared by all. Possible ways to address the trag­ edy of the commons include assigning private property rights and requiring those who exploit natural resources to pay the costs associated with their use, or through cooperative institu­ tions and practices.14

Garrett Hardin, "The Tragedy of the Commons." Science 162, No. 3859 (1997): 1243-1248.

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the developing countries.15 Addressing climate change thus raises many of the central dilemmas in international politics. There have been successes in commu­ nities around the world in managing common resources, but scaling these efforts up to international levels through cooperation among nation-states is difficult.16

Transnational Netw orks Many of the challenges facing nation-states in contemporary politics come from nonstate actors, and especially from transnational networks of different actors working across borders. Some transnational networks are particularly worrying because they are criminal or violent, and comparative politics matters here in part because these networks thrive where states are weak, failed, or col­ lapsed. Since September 11, 2001, the most notorious of these has been al Qaeda, the Islamic fundamentalist terror group. One of the distinguishing characteristics of al Qaeda and other terrorist groups like it, as discussed in chapter 12, is its decentralized structure, and the fact that its ideology spreads to other like-minded organizations.17 Stopping or defeating the al Qaeda net­ work is thus not as clear-cut as defeating a nation-state in a traditional war. Similarly, although smuggling and trafficking rings may have hierarchical or­ ganizations, they may be more like networks than like nation-states. The “war on drugs” and the “war on terrorism” have pitted nation-states against much more amorphous and flexible enemies that do not have a capital city or even a fixed base of operations.18

O f course, not all transnational networks are criminal or violent; rather, globalization has generated a large number of transnational networks designed to leverage citizens’ political voice. The emergence of transnational advocacy networks may be a key to facilitating greater governmental response to issues such as environmental protection and preventing violence against women.19 In some circumstances, governments may not make needed changes unless pres­ sured to do so by networks of advocates and activists that cross borders. The success of these networks may be due in part to their flexibility, which allows them to use strategies that are not available to governments.20 Taking both terror groups and advocacy networks into account, it is both for better and for

transnational network A network of nonstate actors working across state borders.

CASE IN CONTEXT

Resource Management in Japan PAGE 494

To illustrate the challenge of managing common resources, we can look at the question of overfishing in Japan. This particular issue shows the difficulty of coordination in situations where each actor would like to maximize its individual benefit, yet ail actors doing so would result in an unfavorable outcome for all.

For more on environmentalism in Japan, see the case study in Part VI, pp. 494-495. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. In what way does Japan contribute to the overfishing problem, and why does it not take action to stop it?

2. To what extent is it "rational” for any one country to limit its own role in depleting common resources?

3. What are some other examples of common resources that are difficult to manage politically?

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worse that transnational networks affect the politics and societies of countries around the world.

nuclear proliferation The expansion of the number of

countries and other actors

possessing nuclear technology.

Nuclear Threats and Terrorism The classic issues of international relations are those of war, peace, and conflict among nations. This may seem to be exclusively the domain of international rela­ tions and thus unrelated to comparative politics, but, as we will see in the section on “Causes and Effects,” there is major debate about the role of domestic politics and domestic institutions in shaping international relations.

During the Cold War, the central issue in international relations was the war (or lack thereof) between the major powers: the United States and the Soviet Union. Weapons that created the possibility for mass casualties in civilian popu­ lations heightened the sense of urgency over war and peace. Some of these weap­ ons are chemical, such as deadly gases and biological weapons that can spread infectious bacteria, viruses, and other deadly agents through a population. But the class of weapons that received and continues to receive the most attention is nuclear weapons, which can create massively destructive explosions capable of killing millions of people. The only use of nuclear weapons (then called atomic weapons) has been by the United States in the 1945 bombing of Japan at the end of World War II.

Nuclear weapons are currently known to be possessed by only a small number of countries: the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. Israel is widely assumed to have nuclear weap­ ons but has not declared its nuclear status, and Iran is widely presumed to be working toward nuclear status. In many cases, countries have argued that devel­ oping nuclear weapons is a deterrent against attacks by other countries; this probably applies in many cases, such as the U.S.S.R. seeking a deterrent to the United States, or India seeking a deterrent to China, and Pakistan in turn seek­ ing a deterrent to India (see the “Case in Context” box, “India in the Twenty- First Century”). Many current nuclear powers are hoping to prevent further nuclear proliferation—the spread of nuclear technology—to other states.

IN SIG H T S The Five Wars of Globalization by Mokes Naim

Naim notes five major "wars" of globalization that pit nation­states against flexible, decentralized criminal networks. Gov­ ernments are waging wars against criminal activities in the areas of drug trafficking, arms trafficking, intellectual property theft (or piracy), human trafficking (alien smuggling), and money launder­ ing. The criminal networks that mastermind these forms of traffick­ ing and theft may be involved in more than one such area, and trends in these areas of criminality reinforce one another. Nairn notes that nation-states will face considerable difficulty in defeating

these networks, for several reasons: These networks are not bound to certain geographic locations, are quite nimble compared with government bureaucracies, and are responding to strong incen­ tives supplied by the market. Accordingly, Naim recommends that governments must adapt newer, more flexible international institu­ tions to battle these networks, while also preferring regulation of these ills over outright prohibition and criminalization.

Moists Naim, Th e Five Wars of Globalization." Foreign Policy 134, No. 1 (2003), 28-37.

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K U i i Iran and the Politics of Nuclear Proliferation PAGE 480

Iran is developing the capacity to enrich and refine nuclear mate­ rials. The country is also an enemy of American ally Israel, and its regime is adversarial to the United States. The American govern­ ment seeks to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, though Iran says its nuclear activity is for peaceful purposes.

For more on nuclear power in Iran, see the case study in Part VI, pp. 480-481. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. What might be the American and Iranian arguments against and for Iran's developing nuclear processing technology?

2. If we assume Iran will not stage a direct nuclear attack on the United States or Israel, in what ways does Iran illus­ trate the risks of proliferation?

3. How is nuclear proliferation linked to the prospects for terrorism?

Terrorism is the other major concern in international security today. The defi­ nition of terrorism is greatly contested, as discussed in chapter 12, but in the context of international relations for this chapter we may define it roughly as the use of violence to achieve political ends through psychological impacts on a civil­ ian population. It is usually distinguished from acts of war in which militaries attack one another, but terrorism by this definition could occur during war when militaries target civilians. Often, terrorism is associated with nonstate actors, but countries such as the United States also declare other countries to be “state sponsors of terrorism.”21

It has often been said that the world changed on September 11, 2001, when the Islamic fundamentalist group al Qaeda launched a terrorist attack on the United States. The attack killed nearly three thousand Americans in New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and on an airliner in Pennsylva­ nia. This led to a United States response that began to shape the foreign affairs of the post-9/11 period. Yet terrorism began long before 2001, and movements around the world have been classified as terrorist organizations. Examples include the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the United Kingdom and Ireland, whose stated aim

terrorism The use of violence to achieve political ends through psychological impacts on a civilian population.

nonstate actors In international relations, actors in international politics that are not nation-states; includes multinational corpora­ tions, transnational advocacy groups, and international criminal networks.

India in the Twenty-First Century: Domestic Politics, J Identity, and Security page466

It is commonly said that India and Pakistan have the world's "most dangerous border.” The reasons for this assertion straddle the boundaries of comparative politics and international relations. Both countries are nuclear powers, and a range of domestic dif­ ferences have resulted in long-standing tensions and conflict.

For more on these issues, see the case study in Part VI, pp. 466-467. As you read it, keep in mind the following questions:

1. How do domestic politics and international security inter­ act in India and Pakistan?

2. How do national and religious identity and political insti­ tutions affect relations between the countries?

3. Are the issues raised here best seen as issues of interna­ tional relations, comparative politics, or both? Why?

390 Chapter 16: Comparative Politics and International Relations

realism In international relations, a theory that treats states in the

international system largely as

acting on the basis of national self-interest, defined often in terms

of power, survival, and security.

was the end of British presence in Ireland, and separatist groups such as the Basque group ETA in Spain and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. States often define terror­ ist groups as those seeking to overthrow or replace an existing state structure. Showing the ambiguities of such definitions, the white apartheid regime in South Africa deemed the African National Congress a terrorist organization, but it was seen as a freedom movement by the majority of South Africans and ultimately by international public opinion. There have also been terror attacks committed in the United States by American citizens, such as the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995 by Timothy McVeigh, which killed 168 people.

Terrorism is an international issue with significant domestic impacts, and a domestic issue with significant international impacts. To take one major exam­ ple, the Palestinian group Hamas is deemed a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States, and the European Union. Yet many Palestinians see it as a move­ ment of freedom fighters seeking to liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation. Internationally, Hamas is also widely assumed to be supported by Iran and prob­ ably Syria. The actions of Hamas, which include rocket and mortar attacks into Israel, are central to Israeli domestic politics and to the foreign affairs of the United States in the Middle East. In turn, the decisions the Israeli government makes shape the international context of the region.

The issue of terrorism is of particular concern when it overlaps with the capac­ ity for mass destruction, as highlighted by the cases of Iran, India, and Pakistan. For Iran, a concern is that it may distribute nuclear weapons to surrogate terror groups for an attack on its enemies, rather than deploy them itself. For India and Pakistan, a major issue was the black market network led by Pakistani nuclear head A. CX Khan, which resulted in nuclear technology making its way into the hands of numerous regimes and organizations. The prospects that a terror group may get its hands on nuclear devices, whether through state sponsorship or a black market, is one of the leading concerns in contemporary international relations.

Causes and Effects: What Are the Main Causes in International Relations? Several major theories of international security offer different explanations for conflict and cooperation between states. To illustrate these, we will focus mainly how these theories work in the area of security, conflict, and peace, rather than international political economy. We have addressed political economy in several other chapters (especially 4 and 5) and will return to it in the “Thinking Com­ paratively” section later in the chapter. The major theories we examine in this section are realism, liberalism, constructivism (which is generally seen as an ap­ proach rather than a theory), and, to a lesser extent, Marxism. We note how comparative politics fits into (or does not fit into) each of these theories. In each case, we look at the theory and how it explains in general the prevalence of con­ flict or peace in international relations.

Realism Realism is probably the leading theoretical approach to international relations today, and the other major theories have emerged more recently as responses or

Causes and Effects: What Are the Main Causes in international Relations? 391

correctives to realism. From the perspective of comparative politics, realism is noteworthy for the ways it does not examine the internal politics of nation-states and finds relatively little room for domestic and comparative politics in interna­ tional relations. The realist literature treats states in the international system largely as unitary rational actors—those capable of making reasoned decisions on the basis of national self-interest. This model holds that the main determinant of international action is self-interest, defined often in terms of survival and security.

This line of argument dates back to classical realists, most notably Thucydides in ancient Greece, Machiavelli in Renaissance Italy, and Thomas Hobbes, author of Leviathan, in seventeenth-century England.22 These philosophers emphasized how human nature gave rise to conflict and necessitated seeking power in order to achieve security. The leading modern example of realist thinking in inter­ national relations can be found in the work of Kenneth W altz.23 W altz’s work is the foundation for much of contemporary realism and is known as “neorealism” to distinguish it from the classical realism of political philosophers of earlier centuries.

The conditions of anarchy and the balance of power are central to realism, but realism is a theory that contains many different perspectives. For example, defensive realism holds that a lack of conflict and even cooperation can emerge under specific circumstances, namely when it is easier to defend than to attack and when states can see clearly what other states’ intentions are.24 On the other hand, offensive realism holds that states are never satisfied with the status quo (the way things are) and will seek to maximize their power whenever they can, striving toward the hegemonic position where possible.25

Some of the work in realism features rational choice theory, discussed in pre­ vious chapters (such as the work of Timur Kuran in chapter 12 and David Laitin in chapter 13). Rational choice typically involves a formal model of strategic in­ teractions between actors, often by conceiving of these interactions as “games” in which the “players” respond rationally to incentives and to the expected actions of other players, given their incentives. These games give rise to the name game theory; they are designed to simplify the problem to its essence in order to ana­ lyze the actions of the players.

The most famous illustration is the prisoner’s dilemma. In this game, one imagines two prisoners being interrogated separately by a jailer. Each prisoner can choose whether to rat out his fellow prisoner or not, and what each says af­ fects the sentence of both prisoners (see Table 16.2). Each prisoner’s cell in the table has two possibilities—to not tell or to rat out the other prisoner—giving four possible outcomes in the table. These outcomes are known as the payoff matrix, because they reflect the payoffs the players get depending on their choices. The prisoners would be better off if both refused than if both were to rat out the other, so we might expect them to cooperate and not tell. Yet the result will be that both defect and rat each other out. Why?

Consider the situation from the perspective of prisoner 1 (called PI) by look­ ing only at P i ’s payoffs. If P2 cooperates, P I is better off defecting, because he will go free. If P2 defects, P I is still better off defecting as well, because he gets five years instead of ten. No matter which strategy P2 chooses, P I is better off

unitary rational actor In international relations theory and especially realism, the idea that states act as if they were single individuals capable of making decisions on the basis of rational calculations about the costs and benefits of different actions.

defensive realism A realist theory that holds that peace or cooperation can emerge under specific circumstances, namely when it is easier to defend than to attack and when states can see clearly what other states' intentions are.

offensive realism A realist theory that holds that states will seek to maximize their power whenever they can.

game theory A set of approaches to the study of strategic interaction between actors, often relying on mathematical modeling and assumptions of the rationality of different actors.

prisoner's dilemma (game) A model of a game in which two actors would benefit from cooperation, but each has individual incentives to defect from cooperation.

payoff matrix In game-theoretic models, the distribution of payoffs to players depending on the choices made.

392 Chapter 16: Comparative Politics and International Relations

Theory of International Politics by Kenneth Waltz *

Waltz's theory of realism holds that the actions of states can be explained by the structure of the international system and the distribution of power within it. The central fact that shapes the behavior of states is the anarchy of the interna­ tional system, in which there is no sovereign power. Given the anarchic system, the distribution of power within that system shapes how states act. States behave differently depending on whether the system has a single great power, two great powers, or multiple great powers. A bipolar world is one with two great powers, such as in the Cold War between the United States and

the U.S.S.R. Waltz argued that this was the most stable arrange­ ment. A multipolar system has many powers, such as in Europe in the nineteenth century and up to World War I. In a unipolar system, there is a single power, known as a hegemon. Waltz argued that the bipolar system would be especially stable be­ cause it enables countries to join with one power or the other to balance the efforts of the other to reach hegemony. This idea of the balance of power came to be one of the leading premises of realism. Kenneth Waltz, theory of International Politics. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979.

security dilemma Dilemma in which each actor in the interna­ tional system expects others to maximize their own security advan­ tage, and thus builds up power itself, leading to an arms race.

defecting; put another way, no matter which row of the payoff matrix P I finds himself in, he is better off in the “Defect” column. In the terms of game theory, PI has a dominant strategy to rat out P2. By the same token, no matter what PI decides, P2 is better off defecting and ratting out P I. So they both go to jail for 5 years, even though they both would have been better off had they cooperated.

In international relations, this logic can be used to model many kinds of behavior when one state does not know what another is doing. One major illus­ tration is the idea of an arms race, and the phenomenon called the security dilemma.26 The security dilemma arises in situations where each actor thinks that the other actor will be trying to maximize its advantage. Whatever the other actor does, a country is better off building up its own arms. So both defect from cooperation and produce more arms to protect themselves. Cooperation might be a much better outcome overall than an arms race, but each individual country’s incentive is to defect from an agreement. Seen from a rationalist perspective, this is a version of the prisoner’s dilemma.

In rational choice, cooperation between actors is possible under certain circum­ stances, if the payoffs to each actor are best for them individually. This can often occur through repeated interactions.27 For example, if the prisoner’s dilemma hap­ pens with repeated interactions between the “players,” then many more dynamic possibilities are opened up as players are able to signal their intentions to one

t a b l e 1 6 . 2 The Prisoner's Dilem m a

Prisoner 1

Cooperate ("Don't Tell") Defect ("Rat Out")

Cooperate ("Don't Tell") PI gets 1 year, P2 gets 1 year

PI goes free, P2 gets 10 years

Defect ("Rat Out") PI gets 10 years, P2 goes free

PI gets 5 years, P2 gets 5 years

Causes and Effects: What Are the Main Causes in International Relations? 393

another and to reward or punish one another over time. In addition, some scholars note that international institutions can be used to create circumstances for coopera­ tion, as we discuss next, under “Liberalism.” Realism is the predominant approach, or paradigm, in international relations, but liberalism places greater emphasis on how domestic institutions and politics shape the behavior of states.

Liberalism The most prominent school of thought to challenge realism in international rela­ tions has been liberalism, which holds that states can have different preferences and internal structures that lead them to behave in different ways. Liberalism pays greater attention to the role of domestic institutions in international rela­ tions, and it makes efforts to explain cooperation and peace between some states while also accounting for conflict in other circumstances. The liberal critique of realism holds that realism is best suited to explaining conflict and a lack of coop­ eration, but that it fails to account for more optimistic outcomes. As a leading scholar of liberalism puts it, “[t]he Realist model of international relations, which provides a plausible explanation of the general insecurity of states, offers little guidance in explaining the pacification of the liberal world.”28 Liberal scholars argue that domestic institutions and comparative politics matter more. For ex­ ample, free-market democracies that value individual liberties highly may be ex­ pected to act differently from totalitarian dictatorships. Cooperation and lack of conflict can emerge when like-minded states interact, when states have incen­ tives to trade and exchange with one another, or when states comply with differ­ ent institutional norms.

There are several strains of liberal thought.29 One, known as “commercial lib­ eralism,” is based on the idea that countries engaged in economic interactions with one another have more incentive to be peaceful.30 This line of logic dates back to the eighteenth-century economist Adam Smith. Another strain of liberalism is “liberal institutionalism,” which argues that international institutions—such as

liberalism In international relations, a theory that holds states can have different preferences and Internal structures that lead them to behave in different ways, especially with regard to the conduct of states that hold liberal values of democracy and free market commerce.

IN S IG H T S Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs by Michael Doyle

Doyle is a leading contemporary proponent of democratic peace theory, and this book offers his synthesis of liberal theory along with treatments of other theoretical approaches. The treatment of liberalism traces the democratic peace to the philosopher Immanuel Kant, who argued a "perpetual peace" would emerge between liberal republics. Doyle notes that de­ mocracies regularly go to war, but almost never against other democracies. Thus, democratic peace holds between democra­ cies but not between a democracy and an authoritarian regime. The reasons for this are numerous. First and foremost, in liberal regimes, the voting public must consent to the costs of war, and decisions to go to war will not be undertaken lightly.

Not being led simply by dictatorial rulers, liberal regimes delib­ erate carefully about war and do not enter it rashly. Second, democracies have an ability to observe one another's political processes and intentions rather transparently, and extend to one another respect and a presumption of accommodation. And third, the logic of liberal regimes typically extends over into commercial or economic interests, which adds material reasons to the moral commitments that prevent conflict be­ tween liberal states.

Michael Doyle, 'Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs.' Philosophy and Public Affairs 12, No. 3 (1983): 205-235; and 'Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs, Part2.'Philosophy and Public Affairs 12, No. 4 (1983):323-353.

394 Chapter 16: Comparative Politics and International Relations

democratic peace A phenomenon associated with liberalism that holds

that democratic countries will rarely

if ever go to war with one another.

constructivism In international relations, a theory that holds that

decisions made by states need to

be understood in the context of

social and political interactions,

and that behavior is shaped by

norms and values as well as

narrowly defined interests.

free trade blocs, international forums, and international financial institutions— can mitigate the effects of anarchy and make more cooperation possible than real­ ists expect.31 One of liberalism’s strongest claims is the existence of a democratic peace. This theory seeks to explain why democracies (almost) never go to war with one another and have not done so since the first democracies emerged in the 1700s.32 The reasons for the democratic peace may be numerous (see the “Insights” box on “Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs”), including common values and the ability of democratic regimes to observe the domestic debates going on inside other democratic regimes.

Several arguments in international relations focus on the importance of do­ mestic politics. Some of these show how foreign policy decision making does not come only from a calculation of a state’s interest but also depends on the actors and interests involved in making the decision. W hen one looks inside the gov­ ernment to see how a decision is actually being made, the “unitary rational actor” looks less clear. In addition to the presence of liberal institutions, the organiza­ tional processes for making decisions and the interactions between decision makers and their advisers may be especially important in the final decisions made by governments.33

Constructivism The third leading school of thought in international relations today is constructivism. Constructivism is an approach arguing that decisions made by states need to be understood in their broader, constructed context of social and political interactions. In particular, states will not simply view one another as having purely aggressive intentions, even in a state of anarchy. The contexts in which states interact may range from competitive to cooperative, and states may respond in many different ways.34 One might not necessarily interpret all mili­ tary exercises by other countries as overtly hostile, for instance, even if they do heighten the sense of alert. Here, too, comparative politics has some role in shap­ ing international relations: Countries that have reason to trust one another may

IN S IG H T S Social Theory of International Politics by Ale< under Wendt &

For Wendt, the anarchy of the international system does not necessarily give rise to states conflicting with one another. At the most fundamental level, states may view other states as enemies, as rivals, or as friends. Where states expect one an­ other to behave as enemies, war and conflict will be common­ place. Yet Wendt notes that recent centuries have often seen states treat one another as rivals rather than enemies. In these circumstances, states may compete and will not be at perma­ nent war; they may develop a culture in which they often respect one another's sovereignty and do not represent exis­ tential threats to one another, though reversions to war are

possible. Beyond this, states sometimes treat one another as "friends," and see themselves on the same team. Conflict is highly unlikely in these circumstances. Examples may be the United Kingdom and United States, or even contemporary France and Germany, which clearly view one another as part­ ners today despite the horrific wars in their pasts. Wendt argues that states can internalize to different degrees these world­ views, and that these will give rise to different types of politics between them.

Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

The EU and Levels of Analysis 395

do so on the basis of histories or cultures that are partly shaped by domestic poli­ tics. One prominent formulation from constructivism holds that anarchy does not simply lead to conflict, but rather depends on “what states make of it”35 (see the “Insights” box on Social Theory o f International Politics).

Marxism Prior to the emergence of constructivism, the other alternative explanation to re­ alism and liberalism was Marxism. Marxism wielded considerable influence for many decades as an explanation for the behavior of actors in the international system. The peak of its appeal came during the Cold War, though new variations on Marxist theory have been proposed since. While the end of the Cold War largely removed the prospect of communism as a viable way to address imperialism worldwide, Marxist theory persists in diagnosing how the global political economy functions, and especially who gains and who loses in this system. In general, Marx­ ist theory emphasizes the role of social classes in shaping politics and highlights the role of capitalist accumulation as a prime driver in international affairs. Many of the manifestations of Marxism as it relates to international relations theory are in the area of international political economy, and we treated some of these—such as dependency and world-systems theory—in chapter 5 on development. Nonethe­ less, there are ways that Marxist analysis relates to questions of violence and con­ flict. Most notably, Vladimir Lenin, the founding leader of the Soviet Union, theorized that brutal imperialism and domination and exploitation of poor coun­ tries was the logical consequence of capitalism’s international efforts at accumu­ lation.36 This formulation thus took a theory of society, economy, and comparative politics and scaled it up to the level of international relations.

Marxism In international relations, a theory that emphasizes the role of social classes in shaping politics and highlights the role of capitalist accumulation as a prime driver in international affairs.

The EU and Levels of Analysis

This chapter has touched on some of the leading issues in international rela­tions that relate to comparative politics. The discussion of “Causes and Effects” highlights how different explanatory models in international relations reflect different perspectives on the importance of domestic politics and institu­ tions on international relations. The range of topics in international relations is so vast that it is its own field, and this discussion in a text on comparative politics can only briefly mention a subset of the relevant issues.

Yet examining certain topics will reveal many of the key themes that link comparative and international politics. The EU is the world’s quintessential ex­ ample of efforts at supranational governance in which countries have given away a degree of real sovereignty. As such, it poses many of the central analytical ques­ tions addressed herein. For example, the crisis over the euro that started around 2009 and continues up to 2015, brings up a host of dilemmas in international cooperation. How can countries ensure that others do not free ride? Can states trust one another to cooperate, or will each behave in its own self-interest? At the same time, there are even more fundamental questions, such as “W hat is Europe?”

T H IN K IN G C O M P A R A TIV ELY

K E Y M E TH O D O LO G IC A L TO O L

Levels of Analysis In our discussion linking comparative politics and international relations, we are considering different levels of analysis. In one prominent formula­ tion, international politics can be seen through the lens of three different levels: individual actors, domestic political institutions and groups within a country, and the interna­ tional system.37 Through much of the book, we have discussed the first two of these levels of analysis: how indi­ viduals and domestic political institu­ tions (including groups and cultural

396 Chapter 16: Comparative Politics and International Relations

T H IN K IN G CO M P A R A TIV ELY j

►

K E Y M E TH O D O LO G ICA L TO O L

(continued) norms) affect each other. We have looked comparatively to develop causal arguments about a range of topics: how domestic political groups shape democratic institutions, how and why individual people organize into groups, or how institutions give individuals incentives to behave in certain ways. International relations adds the international system as a third level of analysis. This level of analysis again affects the others, and vice versa. One of the premises of this discussion is that domestic politics can affect international relations, and it has been shown that diplomacy and foreign policy are indeed condi­ tioned on domestic politics.38 Con­ versely, the international system will affect domestic politics as well.39 It is important to remain aware of the level of analysis at which your argu­ ment is operating, though there are often good reasons to consider mul­ tiple levels of analysis as part of your investigation.

State employees protest against fiscal cutbacks at the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, in 2010. Given current economic and political difficulties, many wonder what will become of the eurozone in the coming years.

Is it a political unit that has overcome the challenge of anarchy by creating insti­ tutions? Is it a certain set of peoples, or is it changing definitively due to immi­ gration, transnational movement of ideas, and the spread of globalization? There are more questions than answers when it comes to complex issues in international relations, as Europe illustrates. As we note in concluding, this uncertainty is important from the perspective of research in comparative politics: It means that the central questions are not resolved, and that research areas and agendas remain open to the curious and motivated analyst.

The EU also shows that the debates between theoretical perspectives are un­ resolved, as has been the case in our other chapters. The fact of European coop­ eration over sixty years may support the ideas of liberalism and constructivism: Shared values, norms, and a common political adherence to democratic institu­ tions may have facilitated peace and cooperation. On the other hand, each of the countries in the EU has valued its own self-interest over integration on many occasions. This observation might seem to support realist theory, though a vari­ ety of interpretations is possible. W hile cooperation may support one or more of these theoretical perspectives, so too can the seeming breakdowns in cooperation give ammunition to realism, liberalism, constructivism, Marxism, or other theo­ retical frameworks. Here, too, the example of the EU generates major debates that are not easily resolved except through further contestation of ideas.

The fundamental difference between comparative politics and international relations is that the former looks primarily at politics within countries while the latter looks primarily at politics between countries. We have noted in this chapter

Chapter Review 397

(and in previous chapters) that politics within countries affects politics between countries, and vice versa: International forces sometimes shape phenomena such as democratization, development, nationalism, and revolutions. The EU shows how these levels o f analysis interact (see the “Key Methodological Tool” discus­ sion in the margin). In the EU, decisions made by the European Central Bank regarding the fate of the euro will have significant effects on politics in Germany and Greece, at the same time that politics in Germany and Greece have major effects on the euro and on the decisions of the European Central Bank. Paying attention to the different levels of analysis in such situations is useful for develop­ ing a clear sense of how comparative politics and international relations each contribute to the study of politics globally.

We cannot resolve the fundamental issues of comparative politics and interna­ tional relations here, of course. Even a start at doing so requires the combined efforts of thousands of social scientists and academics, diplomats and statesper- sons, members of advocacy and activist groups, not to mention millions (or even billions) of citizens. It requires a collective enterprise in seeking knowledge that is based both on collaboration and on disagreement and debate. We reiterate that the domestic politics of countries affects international politics, and that international politics affects domestic politics as well, and we encourage you to further explore the major themes of these fields. We hope you will use the tools from this chapter and the text as a whole to participate in this exploration, making your own contri­ butions to the knowledge that scholars of comparative politics continue to seek.

T H IN K IN G C O M P A R A TIV ELY

levels of analysis In international relations, the different levels that can be the context of a study, including the individual level, the nation-state level, and the level of the international system.

C h a p te r S u m m a r y Concepts

• Comparative politics focuses largely on politics within individual countries, while international relations focuses on relations between countries.

Issues • There are a large number of issues that link comparative

politics and international relations, including globalization and trade, international integration immigration, transna­ tional networks, nuclear and terrorist threats, and the question of environmental sustainability.

Causes and Effects • There are several main schools of thought in international

relations, including realism, liberalism, and constructivism, while Marxism once featured prominently as well.

Contemporary realism emphasizes the anarchy of the international system and the efforts of each nation-state to make itself secure in this system, which leads to frequent conflict.

• Liberalism emphasizes the effects of political institutions and domestic politics more than realism, and finds more factors that mitigate the likelihood of conflict. Constructivism emphasizes the social context in which international interactions happen, and argues that anarchy does not necessarily lead to conflict.

Th inking Com paratively • International relations often operates at a different level

of analysis from comparative politics by looking at the international system, but the levels of analysis can interact.

398 Chapter 16: Comparative Politics and International Relations

T h in k in g It T h r o u g h 1. We discussed the problem of global climate change in this

chapter as a major issue facing the international community. Im­ agine that you are the head of an international commission charged with coming up with a plan to address the problem. You have been told to prepare three proposals, one based on realist assumptions about international relations, one based on liberal assumptions, and one based on constructivist assump­ tions. How would your three proposals differ?

2. Substitute the problem of nuclear proliferation for climate change in the previous question. How would your three pro­ posals differ? Now compare your answers to these questions. Does theoretical perspective impact these problems of inter­ national politics in the same way across different issues or in different ways?

3. Take a main phenomenon discussed in any of the institutional chapters in this book (chapters 8-11), such as presidentialism vs. parliamentarism, proportional representation vs. district sys­ tems, federalism vs. unitarism, or multiparty systems vs. two- party systems. How might these variations in institutional

design impact the likely behavior of different states in the international system?

4. The foreign policy doctrine of U.S. President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009 was based on the ideas that the United States was an indispensable leader as the world's hegemon, and that it should act unilaterally and preemptively as necessary to prevent threats from arising. It also held that U.S. action should promote regime change in favor of democracy in order to enhance American security. Does this sound like a realist doctrine, a liberal doctrine, or a constructivist doctrine? Why?

5. The European Union has achieved significant economic inte­ gration in recent decades, but it still makes many of its major decisions by unanimous consent. One of the dilemmas of the EU has been the trade-off between "broadening" the Union to more members and "deepening” the integration among exist­ ing members. Why might these two goals be seen as potentially contradictory? If you were a government leader in France or Germany, which of these two directions would you want to see the EU favor, and why?

399

Brazil ►

Key Features o f C o n te m p o r a r y Brazil

Population: 202,656,788 (estimate, July 2014)

Area: 8,514,877 square kilometers

Head of State: Dilma Rousseff (president, 2011-present)

Head of Government: Dilma Rousseff (president, 2011-present)

Capital: Brasilia

Year of Independence: 1822

Year of Current Constitution:

1988

Languages: Portuguese (official), many indigenous languages

GDP per Capita: $11,208 (World Bank estimate, 2013)

Human Development Index Ranking (2014):

79th (high human development)

Sources: CIA World Factbook; World Bank World Development Indicators; United Nations Human Development Report 2014.

PROFILE A

O Introduction B ra z il h a s alw ay s b e e n o f in te r e s t to c o m ­ p a ra tiv e p o litic a l a n a ly sts, b u t n o w m o re t h a n ever. T h e c o u n tr y h a s in r e c e n t years a c h ie v e d c o n sid e ra b le e c o n o m ic g r o w th a n d c o n s o lid a te d its d e m o c ra c y , a f te r y e ars o f a l­ te r a tio n b e tw e e n d e m o c ra tic a n d a u th o r ita r ­ ia n r u le i n w h ic h t h e la t te r w a s p re d o m in a n t. I t h a s also e x e rc is e d m o re g lo b a l in flu e n c e t h a n e v e r b e fo re — a lo n g - s t a n d i n g a m b i­ tio n . S c h o la rs a re e a g e r to u n d e r s ta n d h o w it h a s d o n e so, a n d to p r e d ic t th e p a t h t h a t i t is lik e ly to ta k e in t h e fu tu r e . T h e re is in c re a s ­ in g f a ith t h a t th e s e p o sitiv e c h a n g e s have b e e n p la n te d o n so lid g r o u n d a n d m a y be s u s ta in e d , a n d m a n y o t h e r c o u n trie s are lo o k in g to B ra z il as a so c ie ty t o b e e m u la te d in te rm s o f so c ia l p olicy, c itiz e n p a r tic ip a ­ tio n , a n d e c o n o m ic d e v e lo p m e n t.

B ra z il a lso s ta n d s o u t in L a ti n A m e ric a fo r se v e ra l im p o r t a n t re a so n s . F i r s t , it is th e o n ly P o r tu g u e s e - s p e a k i n g c o u n tr y in th e r e g io n t h o u g h its p o p u la tio n c o m p rise s a h e f ty c h u n k o f th e t o ta l L a ti n A m e ric a n p o p u la tio n . S e c o n d , it e m e rg e d fro m c o lo ­ n ia lis m as a n in ta c t u n it, d e sp ite its s tro n g r e g io n a l te n s io n s , w h e re a s S p a n is h A m e ric a s p lit u p in to m a n y s m a lle r c o u n trie s . T h ird , a n d re la te d to th is , B ra z il g a in e d its in d e ­ p e n d e n c e w i th o u t a w a r, b u t, i n essence,

Ethnic Groups in Brazil Source: CIA World Factbook.

■ W h ite 47.7% ■ M ixed Race 43.19 ■ Black 7.6% I A sian 1.1% ■ Indigenous 0.4%

■ R om an C atholicism 64.6% ■ O th er C atholicism 0.4% ■ P ro testant C hristianity 22.2% ■ O th er C hristianity 0.7% ■ Spiritism 2.2% ■ O th e r 1.4% fll N on e 8.0% ■ U nspecified 0.4%

Religious Affiliation in Brazil Source: CIA World Factbook.

400 Brazil

Profile 401

w i t h t h e h e lp o f th e P o r t u g u e s e ro y a l fa m ily . T h is a n d s u b ­ s e q u e n t e v e n ts h a v e le d so m e to d e s c rib e B ra z il as a n o n ­

re v o lu tio n ary society in w h ic h g ra d u a l c h an g e is p re d o m in a n t. Slavery laste d lo n g e r in B ra zil t h a n in m o st societies, a n d it e n te re d th e tw e n tie th c e n tu ry w it h a n a g ra ria n e co n o m y a n d a h ig h ly u n e q u a l social o rd e r (R o e tt 2011; S k id m o re 2010). I t d id , how ever, have m o re success th a n m a n y o th e r L a tin A m e ric a n c o u n tries in ach iev in g p a rtia l in d u stria liz a tio n in th e tw e n tie th century.

B ra z il is c h a r a c te riz e d b y p r o n o u n c e d r e g io n a l d iffe r­ ences. T h e c o u n tr y is g e o g ra p h ic a lly e n o rm o u s , a n d s e t tle ­ m e n t p a tte rn s a n d e c o n o m ic b a se s in d iffe re n t re g io n s v a ry c o nsiderably. T h e la rg e c ities o f th e s o u th e a s t, s u c h as Sao P a u lo a n d R io de J a n e iro , in c lu d e h u g e p o p u la tio n s a n d are m o re c losely l in k e d to t h e g lo b a l eco n o m y , e sp e c ia lly Sao P a u lo . W h i l e t h is a re a c a n b e v ie w e d as a “re g io n ,” h is to r i­ c ally th e r e w e re te n s io n s between th e s e c itie s, w i t h P a u lis ta s a n d re s id e n ts o f R io s o m e tim e s v y in g fo r n a tio n a l in flu ­ ence. M o r e s t r ik in g c o n tra s ts , h o w e v er, are fo u n d b e tw e e n th is a n d o th e r re g io n s , in c lu d in g t h e re la tiv e ly p o o r a n d iso la te d A m a z o n i a n re g io n , w h e re a la r g e r A m e r in d ia n p o p u la tio n is p re s e n t, a n d th e n o r th e a s t , w h e re so m e o f th e e a rlie s t s e ttle m e n t w a s e s ta b lis h e d o n t h e b a sis o f s u g a r c u l­ tiv a tio n . T h is a rea , to o , r e m a in s re la tiv e ly p o o r w h e n c o m ­ p a r e d to th e so u th e a s t.

Historical Development B ra z il b e g a n as a q u in te s s e n tia lly a g ric u ltu ra l society, w ith early in ro a d s b y b o t h D u tc h a n d P o rtu g u e s e c o lo n ia lists (on th e colo n ia l p e rio d , see F a u sto 1999 a n d S k id m o re 2 010). In th e e n d , i t b e c a m e th e p rin c ip a l c o lo n ia l p o ssessio n o f th e P o rtu g u e s e c ro w n , w h ic h h a d p lay e d a c ru c ia l role in early E u ro p e a n n a v ig a tio n a n d e x p lo ra tio n , m u c h o u t o f p ro p o r­

tio n to its in flu e n ce a n d p o w e r w i t h in E u ro p e o th e rw is e . P rio r to its c o lo n iz a tio n , B ra z il w a s h o m e to n u m e ro u s A m e r in d ia n c u ltu re s . T h ese w e re fa s c in a tin g a n d im p o rta n t, b u t th e y te n d e d to h ave rela tiv e ly lo w levels o f co m p le x social o rg a n iz a tio n , u n lik e th e In c a , M a y a , a n d M e x ic a (or A z tec s) in d iffe re n t p a r ts o f th e S p a n ish E m p ire . T h is h a s im p lic a ­ tio n s fo r th e c o lo n ia l p o litic a l a n d social s tru c tu re s t h a t d e ­ v e loped. T h e e c o n o m ic m o d e l t h a t d e v e lo p e d in co lo n ia l B ra z il w as b a se d f u n d a m e n ta lly o n p la n ta tio n a g ric u ltu re , w ith th e in itia l focus in th e n o rth e a s t, w h e re su g a r c ane w as th e m a in p ro d u c t fo r e x p o rt. L a te r in th e c o lo n ia l p e rio d th is w as su p p le m e n te d b y m in in g . I n c o lo n ia l S p a n is h A m e ric a , m in in g te n d e d to “go w i t h ” co m p le x A m e r in d ia n o rg a n iz a ­ tio n a n d to p ro d u c e in itia lly s o m e w h a t “in d ir e c t c o lo n ia lism ”

R ace a n d e th n ic ity are c o m p lic a te d in B ra z il (as th e y are

everyw here!). I t is v e ry im p o r ta n t to n o t v ie w race a n d e th ­ n ic ity t h r o u g h a U .S .-sty le ra c ia l tem p la te . I n th e tra d itio n a l U .S . c u ltu re o f race a n d e th n ic ity , ra c ia l a n d e th n ic categories are o fte n im a g in e d to b e m o re r ig id t h a n t h e y ty p ic a lly are in B ra zil. H o w e v e r, o n e d oes n o t w a n t to fa ll fo r w h a t scholars have c alled th e B ra z ilia n “m y th o f ra cial dem ocracy.” T h a t is, so c ial-sc ie n tific ev id en ce stro n g ly in d ic a te s t h a t ra cial a n d e th n ic d is c rim in a tio n do ta k e p lace in B ra z ilia n society. O n e q u e s tio n w o r th t h in k i n g a b o u t is w h e th e r th e B ra z ilia n w ay o f “d o in g ” e th n ic ity a n d race m a k e s a d d re ss in g th is d is c rim i­ n a tio n easier o r m o re d iffic u lt (see d isc u ssio n in M a r x 1998). I n a n y case, k e ep in m in d t h a t categ o rie s lik e “w h ite ” or “b la c k ” c a n m e a n d iffe re n t t h in g s in d iffe re n t societies.

I n re lig io u s te rm s, B ra z il re m a in s a so c ie ty o f h ig h v ita l­ ity. T h e C a th o lic C h u r c h is s till im p o r t a n t to a larg e sh a re o f th e p o p u la tio n , a n d B ra z il h a s c o n trib u te d im p o rta n tly to th e o lo g ic a l d e v elo p m en ts in p a s t d e ca d es lik e lib e ra tio n th e ­ o lo g y a n d th e e s ta b lis h m e n t o f e cc lesiastical b a se c o m m u n i­ ties. A t th e sa m e tim e , B ra z il a lso h a s o ne o f th e h ig h e s t rates o f P r o te s ta n t a d h e re n c e in L a t in A m e ric a . S o m e even see P r o te s ta n t s tr e n g th as cau sally re la te d to C a th o lic in n o v a tio n (because o f c o m p e titio n ) in c o u n trie s lik e B ra z il (see G ill 1998). P e n te c o sta l fo rm s o f P r o te s ta n tis m have b e e n p a rtic u ­ larly im p o rta n t, esp e cially a m o n g p o o re r p o p u la tio n s.

w i th h ig h levels o f a d m in is tra tio n c a rrie d o u t, in p a rt, th r o u g h e x is tin g social s tru c tu re s ( M a h o n e y 2010). T hese areas b e c a m e th e “cores” o f th e c o lo n ia l sy ste m w h ile a g ri­ c u ltu ra l p r o d u c tio n for e x p o rt w as la rg e ly c o n fin e d to th e c o lo n ia l “p e rip h e ry ” lik e A r g e n tin a a n d V en ez u e la (areas w h ic h o n ly m u c h la te r g re w in p ro m in e n c e ). B ra zil, in te re s t­ ingly, seem s to d e v ia te fro m th is g e n e ra l re g io n a l p a tte rn . I n th is re sp e c t, p e rh a p s, it m o re closely re sem b les early E n g lis h c o lo n ia lism in p laces lik e B a rb a d o s , w h e re h ig h ly lucrative su g a r c u ltiv a tio n w as a lso p ra c tic e d , w ith a so cial stru c tu re b a s e d m o s tly o n slavery.

T h e e ig h te e n t h - c e n t u r y e x p a n s io n o f m in in g a c tiv itie s, e sp e c ia lly in M in a s G e r a is , h a d im p o r t a n t im p lic a tio n s for t h e p o litic a l s tr u c tu r e o f th e P o r tu g u e s e c o lo n ie s a n d for B r a z il’s fu tu r e . P e rh a p s th e m o s t i m p o r t a n t e ffe c t w a s th e s h i f t i n r e g io n a l e lite p o w e r a n d in c o lo n ia l a d m in is tr a tio n , as th e n o r th e a s t c ity o f S a lv a d o r c e a se d to b e th e m a in co­ lo n ia l p o r t, w i t h R io d e J a n e ir o t a k i n g o ver t h a t role. R io w a s a lso t h e c a p ita l u n t i l it w a s m o v e d to th e n e w p la n n e d c ity o f B ra s ilia in 1960.

402 Brazil

Historical Development Timeline 1500

1500s

1600s

1808

1821

1822

1888

1889

1880s-1920s

1930

1930s

1937

1946

1954

Portuguese mariner Pedro Alvares Cabral is the first European to explore Brazil. Portuguese crown attempts to colonize Brazil by granting Captaincies (Capitanias) to nobles, but few successful outposts are established. French and Dutch excursions establish inroads along Brazil's coast, but depart by mid-1600s. The Portuguese monarchy flees Portugal and establishes residence in Brazil. Portuguese monarchy returns to Portugal. Dorn Pedro, a prince and son of Portugal's king, declares Brazilian independence from Portugal and remains in Brazil as Emperor. Princess Isabel abolishes slavery by decree while Emperor Dorn Pedro II is away in Europe. The military deposes Emperor Dom Pedro II and establishes a republic, now known as the Old Republic (Republica Velha); constitutional democracy is largely limited to land-owning males. Economic boom based on agricultural exports (coffee, sugar, etc.) to Europe. General Getulio Vargas takes presidency. Great Depression interrupts world trade, cuts off imports and harms the economy; this gives impetus to Brazil's fledgling industrialization in the medium term. President Vargas proclaims "New State" (Estado Novo) along fascist lines. Brazil returns to democratic rule. Vargas commits suicide while president (1951-1954), having been elected some years after his previous removal.

I960

1964

1964-1982

1982

1985

1988

1988-1994

1992

1995-2003

2003-2011

2011

2015

President Juscelino Kubitschek moves capital to new city of Brasilia. Military overthrows President Joao Goulart in coup d'etat. Military rules Brazil in "bureaucratic-authoritarian" style; industrialization deepens. Massive street protests for direct elections (Diretas Ja!), with trade union leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva a prominent figure; democratic elections are held for governors. Presidential election is held;Tancredo Neves is elected but dies before taking office; Jose Sarney becomes president. Constitution is passed by Brazil's Constituent Assembly. Growing inflation problems and economic crisis. President Fernando Collor (1990-1992) resigns amid corruption scandal. Presidency of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (a sociologist) ends economic crisis, begins to see economic growth, better social services, and declining inequality. Presidency of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a former Marxist trade union leader and head of the Worker's Party (PT); continued economic growth and declines in inequality, as well as an expanding international role for Brazil. Dilma Rousseff of the PT becomes Brazil's first female president. Rousseff begins her second term.

A s n o te d in th e b r i e f in tr o d u c tio n , t h e tr a n s itio n to i n ­ d e p e n d e n c e in B ra z il w a s re la tiv e ly p e a c e fu l. T h e re h a d in th e la te c o lo n ia l y e ars b e e n a c o u p le o f m in o r re b e llio n s (F a u sto 1999), in c lu d in g t h e w e ll-k n o w n In c o n fid e n c ia M in e ir a , b u t n o th in g t h a t re m o te ly th r e a te n e d th e re g im e . N a p o le o n w as in v a d in g P o r tu g a l, a n d th e ro y a l fam ily, u n d e r D o m Jo a o , m o v e d th e c o u r t to R io d e J a n e ir o a n d c o n tin u e d to g o v e rn fro m th e re . D o m J o a o re m a in e d th e r e u n til 1821, w h e n a lib e ra l re v o lt b a c k h o m e fo rc e d h i m to r e tu r n to L is b o n . A p p ro x im a te ly a y e a r a f te r h is r e tu r n , h is so n P e d ro , w h o h a d b e e n s e n t as re g e n t, d e c la re d in d e p e n ­ d e n ce . H e w as s o o n n a m e d E m p e ro r. B e tw e e n th e r u le o f P e d ro I , th e lo n g r u le o f P e d ro I I , a n d a re g e n c y in

b e tw e e n , t h e B ra z ilia n e m p ire w o u ld la s t u n t il th e 1 8 8 0 s. I t w a s as su c h th e o n ly m o d e r n e m p ire o f sig n ific a n t d u ra ­ t io n in t h e A m e ric a s . B r a z il’s e m p ire w a s q u ite c o n se rv a tiv e in n u m e ro u s w a y s— t h e c ritic a l a llia n c e w a s b e tw e e n th e g o v e rn m e n t, t h e C a th o lic C h u r c h , a n d a g r ic u ltu r a l e lite s— b u t i t w a s a c o n s titu tio n a l m o n a rc h y ( R o e tt 2 0 1 1 2 6 - 2 7 ) .

O v e r th e c o u rse o f th e n in e te e n th c e n tu r y th e n a tu re o f B ra z ilia n e x p o rts c h a n g e d , b u t its key e c o n o m ic a c tiv ity re ­ m a in e d th e e x p o rt o f p rim a r y p ro d u c ts . C o ffe e w a s a sc en ­ d a n t, a n d o n th e b asis o f coffee p r o d u c tio n a n d e x p o rt a g a in t h e re g io n a l b a la n c e o f p o w e r a n d s ta tu s s h ifte d a b it, to th e b e n e fit o f th e Sao P a u lo e lite. D e p e n d e n c e o n coffee, th o u g h , w a s n o to rio u s ly p ro b le m a tic fo r L a t in A m e r ic a n c o u n trie s.

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C offee prices h a d a te n d e n c y to flu c tu a te w idely, m e a n in g t h a t b u sin e ss w as h a rd to p re d ic t, a n d s o m e tim e s r u in e d fa rm e rs. T h is a lso c o n trib u te d , w ith o u t d o u b t, to th e relativ e w e a k n e ss o f th e B ra z ilia n sta te , as it d id to n u m e ro u s o th e r sta te s i n L a tin A m e ric a in volved in th e e x p o rt o f coffee a n d s im ila r g o o d s. J u s t th e sa m e , B ra z ilia n p o litic s re m a in e d su rp risin g ly stable in th is p e rio d , a n d th e c o u n try w a s n o t w ra c k e d b y th e re le n tle ss c ivil w a rs t h a t tro u b le d its n e ig h ­ bors. B ra z il was in volved, th o u g h , in th e m o s t in fa m o u s in ­ te rn a tio n a l w a r o f L a t in A m e ric a n h isto ry , th e “W a r o f th e T rip le A llia n c e ,” w h ic h p i tt e d B ra zil, A r g e n tin a , a n d U r u ­ g u a y a g a in s t P a ra g u a y a n d re s u lte d in th e d e v a s ta tio n o f th e la tte r c o u n try a n d k ille d so m a n y o f its m e n as to p ro d u c e u n u s u a l d e m o g ra p h ic p ro b le m s. B ra z il a lso su ffe red h e av y losses, how ever, a n d e x p e rie n c e d fiscal d iffic u lties as a re su lt o f its in volvem ent.

A n o t h e r im p o r t a n t n i n e t e e n th - c e n t u r y d e v e lo p m e n t (S k id m o re 2 0 1 0 : 7 1 -7 2 ) w a s th e h e a v y im p o r ta ti o n o f a F re n c h p h ilo s o p h ic a l sy s te m k n o w n as “p o s itiv is m ” (th e slo g a n o n th e B ra z ilia n flag, “O r d e r a n d P ro g re s s ,” is a m a r k o f th e in flu e n c e o f th is p h ilo s o p h y ). I n a n u ts h e ll, p o s itiv is m c la im e d t h a t h u m a n h i s to r y m o v es fro m “re li­ g io u s” to “m e ta p h y s ic a l” to “p o s itiv e ” sta g e s as c u ltu r e b e ­ com es m o re ra tio n a l a n d sc ien tific . T h is p h ilo s o p h y h a d g r e a t a p p e a l to in te lle c tu a ls in p lac es lik e B ra z il a n d M e x ic o , w h e re i t se e m e d to o ffer a d ia g n o s is o f th e so u rc es o f th e c o u n tr y ’s a lle g e d “b a c k w a rd n e s s ” a n d a lso a tr e a t­ m e n t p ro g ra m : e c o n o m ic a n d c u lt u r a l m o d e r n iz a tio n , in ­ c lu d in g th e e s ta b lis h m e n t o f ra ilro a d s a n d o th e r in f r a s tr u c tu r e as w e ll as th e e x p a n s io n o f e d u c a tio n . O f c o u rse , th e im p lic a tio n s o f th is v ie w fo r o ld -fa s h io n e d c o n ­ c ep ts lik e “E m p ir e ” w e re n o t to o “p o s itiv e .” P o s itiv is m , sci­ e n tis m , r e p u b lic a n is m a n d o t h e r id ea s a b o u t m o d e r n iz a tio n c a u g h t o n m o re a n d m o re a m o n g B r a z ilia n e lite s. T h e t r o u ­ ble w a s t h a t th e s o c ie ty w a s s ti ll b a s e d o n p l a n ta tio n a g ri­ c u ltu re fo r e x p o rt, a n d th u s i m p o r t a n t a c to rs w e re o p p o s e d to fu ll p o litic a l m o d e r n iz a tio n . A l l b e ts w e re off, th o u g h , a fte r th e a b o litio n o f sla v ery i n 188 8 a n d a f te r P e d ro I I w as d e p o s e d a y e a r late r. P a ra d o x ic a lly , a n u m b e r o f th e re p u b ­ lic a n s w h o fa v o re d th e a b o litio n o f m o n a rc h y h a d p re v i­ o u sly b e e n s ta u n c h c o n se rv a tiv e s, w h ic h se e m s to sh o w th e c e n tr a lity o f in te r e s t in t h e i r c a lc u la tio n s (F a u sto 1999). P re su m a b ly , th e y h o p e d to e x e rt g re a te r in flu e n c e in a r e ­ p u b lic . A n d in d e e d , th e re p u b lic t h a t w a s c re a te d w as fo r m a n y y e a rs d is p ro p o rtio n a te ly re sp o n siv e to e lite in te re s t. F ro m th is p o in t o n , in c e r ta in re s p e c ts , B ra z il s ta r te d to re se m b le th e m o re ty p ic a l L a ti n A m e r ic a n p a tt e r n , w it h

p o litic a l in s ta b ility a n d w e a k in s titu tio n s s e rv in g as o b s ta ­ cles to d e v e lo p m e n t.

T h e n e x t m a jo r d e v e l o p m e n t in t h e p o l it i c a l h i s t o r y o f B r a z i l w a s t h e c o u p d ’e t a t t h a t b r o u g h t G e t u l i o V a rg a s t o p o w e r i n 1 9 3 0 . V a rg a s w a s a p o p u l i s t , a n d h e l a r g e ly w o r k e d to u n d e r c u t t h e in f lu e n c e o f t h e r e g io n a l o lig a r c h ie s t h a t h a d e x e r t e d d i s p r o p o r t io n a t e i n f lu e n c e o v e r t h e c o u n t r y in t h e p r e v io u s d e c a d e s , t h o u g h h e d i d r e t a i n t ie s to s o m e e lite g r o u p s ( R o e t t 2 0 1 1 ; S k id m o r e 2 0 1 0 ). V a rg a s e n c o u r a g e d i n d u s t r i a l m a g n a te s a n d la b o r a lik e , a n d t h e l a t t e r b e c a m e a n i n c r e a s in g l y i m p o r t a n t f o r c e i n B r a z i l ia n p o litic s i n t h i s p e r io d . V a rg a s w a s a lso a s t a t e - b u i l d e r a n d a c e n t r a l i z e r . T h e B r a z i l ia n s ta te h e h e l p e d to d e v e lo p w a s a ls o o n e w i t h m i l i t a r i s t i c f e a t u r e s . V a rg a s b u i l t o n e a r l ie r e f f o r t s to in c u lc a te s t r o n g n a t i o n ­ a lis m in t h e B r a z i l ia n p e o p le a n d l i n k e d t h i s n a ti o n a l ­ is m to h is e f f o r ts to f u r t h e r i n d u s t r i a l i z e a n d m o d e r n iz e t h e c o u n tr y . B e y o n d n o t i n g h is n a ti o n a li s m a n d p o p u ­ lis m , i t is h a r d to p i n V a rg a s d o w n id e o lo g ic a lly . S o m e h a v e v ie w e d h i m as h a v in g s o m e l e f t - w i n g t e n d e n c ie s , a n d m a n y h a v e i n t e r p r e t e d h i m as t o y i n g w i t h s o m e ­ t h i n g c lo s e to fa s c is m . B y t h e e n d o f t h i s p e r io d h e h a d b e c o m e d i c t a to r , a n d w h i l e B r a z i l ia n t r o o p s f o u g h t w i t h t h e a llie s in W o r ld W a r I I , V a rg a s w a s d e p o s e d fo llo w ­ i n g t h e e n d o f t h e w a r.

I n t h e c o m in g y e a r s p o l it i c a l i n s t a b i l i t y c o n ti n u e d — V a rg a s w a s e v e n b r o u g h t b a c k i n 1 9 5 1 , t h o u g h h e k i ll e d h i m s e l f i n o f f ic e r a t h e r t h a n b e d e p o s e d a g a i n i n 1 9 5 4 — b u t a m i d s t t h e d i s o r d e r B r a z i l c o n ti n u e d w i t h a p r o g r a m o f e c o n o m ic n a t i o n a l i s m a n d i m p o r t s u b s t i t u t i n g i n d u s ­ t r i a l i z a t i o n . T h e c o u n t r y ’s r e c o r d in t h i s c o n n e c ti o n w a s m ix e d . G r o w t h w a s i r r e g u l a r a n d o f t e n slow , a n d i n ­ e q u a l i ty r e m a in e d n o t o r io u s ly h i g h , b u t t h e c o u n tr y h a d a m o r e d i v e r s if i e d i n d u s t r i a l b a s e t h a n d i d m a n y o f its n e ig h b o r s . U n d e r J u s c e lin o K u b its c h e k ( 1 9 5 6 - 1 9 6 0 ) , t h e m o d e r n i s t c a p i t a l o f B r a s ilia w a s e s ta b l is h e d . I n 1 9 6 4 , f o llo w in g a m i l i t a r y c o u p , t h e c o u n t r y s u c c u m b e d to th e w a v e o f “b u r e a u c r a t i c - a u t h o r i t a r i a n i s m ” t h a t w a s to d o m i n a t e t h e r e g io n fo r s o m e y e a rs ( O ’D o n n e l l 1 9 7 3 ; S te p a n 1 971).

T h is m ili ta r y re g im e s o u g h t to ta k e a n a ctiv e role in s h a p in g th e d e v e lo p m e n t p ro c e ss a n d d e e p e n in g i n d u s tr ia l­ iz a tio n ( O ’D o n n e ll 1973). I t sa w B r a z il’s s tr o n g u n io n s a n d d e m a n d s fo r w o rk e r a d v a n ta g e s as fa c to rs t h a t p re v e n te d t h e a c c u m u la tio n o f c a p ita l n e e d e d to b e c o m e a n a d v a n c e d , in d u s t r ia l society. A c c o rd in g ly , it c e n tr a liz e d p o w e r a n d re p re s s e d d is s id e n c e , m o s t n o ta b ly a f te r it d e c re e d

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I n s ti tu tio n a l A c t # 5 (Ato Institutional No. 5) i n 1 968, w h ic h b a n n e d a sse m b ly a n d th e h o ld in g o f u n i o n e le c tio n s. T he m ilita r y p ro m o te d in d u s tr ia l in v e s tm e n t fro m fo re ig n a n d d o m e s tic so u rc es in a n a tte m p t to c o n v e rt B r a z il’s in d u s tr y fro m m a k in g t h e lik e s o f te x tile s a n d su g a r to m a k in g m o re so p h is tic a te d p ro d u c ts lik e ste el a n d a u to m o b ile s fo r c o n ­ s u m p tio n in B ra z il itself. T he m ilita r y p a r tia lly su c c e e d e d , p re s id in g ov er so m e d e e p e n in g o f in d u s tr ia liz a tio n t h a t r e p re s e n te d a s u b s ta n tia l p o r t io n o f th e “B ra z ilia n M ir a c le ” o f th e p o s t- w a r e ra (E v a n s 1979; C a r d o s o a n d F a le tto 1979). U ltim a te ly , h o w e v er, m a k in g th e n e c e s s a ry in v e s t­ m e n ts r e q u ir e d m o re a n d m o re sta te s p e n d in g a n d d e b t. I n th e lo n g r u n , th e b o rro w in g c u lm in a te d in t h e 1 9 8 0 s d e b t crisis. G r o w in g p re ssu re s fo r p o litic a l lib e r a liz a tio n sig­ n a le d th e e x h a u s tio n o f m ilita r y ru le .

T he m il ita r y c o n tro lle d th e p ro c e ss o f lib e r a liz a tio n in th e in iti a l sta g e s b u t fo u n d i ts e l f p u s h e d to m a k e g re a te r m o v es to w a r d f u l l d e m o c ra c y ( H a g g a r d a n d K a u fm a n 1995). P o litic a l p re s s u re fo r d e m o c r a tiz a tio n c a m e fro m m a n y p o litic a l a c to rs. S e v e ral p o litic ia n s f r o m S ao P a u lo a n d o th e r la rg e s ta te s p re s s e d t h e re g im e to g r a n t m o re a u ­ th o r ity to th e sta te s. B y th e m id -1 9 8 0 s , m illio n s to o k to th e s tre e ts to d e m a n d e le c tio n s , w i t h m a n y le d b y tr a d e u n io n le a d e r a n d p o litic a l h o p e f u l L u iz I n a c io L u la d a Silva. T h e p ro te s ts le d to m assiv e ra llie s in th e 1 9 8 0 s c a ll­ in g fo r “D i r e c t E le c tio n s N o w ” (Diretas jd!), w h ic h th e b u s in e s s c o m m u n i ty in c re a s in g ly s u p p o r te d . A s th e m il i­ t a r y re g im e r e c o g n iz e d its lo ss o f p o w e r, i t a g re e d to

Regime and Political Institutions T he executive in B ra z il’s fe d e ra l sy ste m is d ire c tly e le cte d , w i th th e v o te ta lly fo r th e p re sid e n c y b a s e d o n th e n a tio n a l p o p u la r v ote. I f n o c a n d id a te receives a m a jo rity i n th e first ro u n d , a s e c o n d -ro u n d r u n o f f e le c tio n is h e ld b e tw e e n th e tw o le a d in g c a n d id a te s . I n b o t h r o u n d s , v o tin g is o b lig a to ry fo r a ll c itiz e n s , th o u g h th e se c re t b a llo t gives c itiz e n s th e o p p o r t u n ity to “s p o il” th e ir b a llo t o r leave i t b la n k . T h is v ir­ tu a lly g u a ra n te e s t h a t th e e le c te d p re s id e n t w ill h ave b e e n v o te d in to office w ith a m a jo rity m a n d a te . T h e te r m o f office is fo u r y ears, a n d th e p re s id e n t is lim ite d to tw o te rm s.

A c c o r d in g to th e C o n s ti tu t io n , th e p r e s id e n t h a s c o n ­ sid e rab le p o w e rs, in c lu d in g th e a b ility to d e c re e c e rta in law s fo r a lim ite d tim e ( t h ir t y days), w it h t h e so -c a lle d “p ro v isio n a l m e a s u re ” (medida provisoria). Y et d e sp ite th e s e fo rm a l p o w e rs, th e f r a g m e n te d n a tu r e o f th e p a r t y sy ste m lim its th e p r e s id e n t’s p o w e r o v e r th e n a tio n a l le g is la tu re . T h e p r e s id e n t c a n o f te n c o u n t o n less t h a n o n e - th i r d o f th e

e le c tio n s fo r s ta te g o v e rn o rs in 1 9 8 2 , fo llo w e d b y n a tio n a l e le c tio n s in 1985.

D e m o c r a ti c e le c tio n s r e s u lte d i n a m a s siv e v ic to r y fo r T a n c r e d o N e v e s , w h o d e f e a te d th e m ilita r y - b a c k e d c a n ­ d i d a te c o n v in c in g ly . N e v e s d ie d b e fo re a s s u m i n g office, h o w e v e r, le a v in g V ic e P r e s id e n t J o s e S a r n e y to a s s u m e th e p re s id e n c y . I n 1 9 9 0 , F e r n a n d o C o l lo r b e c a m e th e firs t d i r e c tly e le c te d p r e s i d e n t o f B r a z il a f te r t h e m il i ta r y r e g im e . H i s p r e s id e n c y w a s m a r k e d b y s c a n d a ls a n d a fa ile d e c o n o m ic p o lic y t h a t le d to i m p e a c h m e n t in 1 9 9 2 ; V ice P r e s i d e n t I t a m a r F r a n c o g o v e r n e d u n t i l th e n e x t e le c tio n s in 1 994.

T h e tw o f o llo w in g p r e s id e n ts g o v e r n e d B r a z il fo r tw o te r m s e a c h , fo r a t o ta l o f s ix te e n y e a rs , a n d th e s e y e a rs saw r e la tiv e im p r o v e m e n ts in a d d r e s s in g B r a z il ’s e c o n o m ic a n d s o c ia l c h a lle n g e s ( R o e tt 2 0 1 1 ). F e r n a n d o H e n r i q u e C a r d o s o ’s g o v e r n m e n t ( 1 9 9 5 - 2 0 0 3 ) c o n s o lid a te d a n e w e c o n o m ic p o lic y — T h e Plano Real— t o g e t h e r w i t h a n e w c u r re n c y ( th e real) t h a t b r o u g h t a re la tiv e ly s ta b le e c o n ­ o m y a n d th e b e g in n i n g s o f a d e c lin e in in e q u a lity . T h is w a s fo llo w e d b y t w o te r m s o f L u iz I n a c io L u l a d a S ilva ( 2 0 0 3 - 2 0 1 1 ), k n o w n s im p ly as L u la . H e w a s a f o u n d in g m e m b e r o f t h e W o r k e r s P a r t y (Partido dos Trabalhadores, P T ) a n d u n i o n l e a d e r w h o w a s o n c e a M a r x i s t b u t g o v ­ e r n e d in a c e n t r i s t f a s h io n . C u r r e n t p r e s id e n t D i l m a R o u s s e f f o f t h e P T w a s e le c te d in 2 0 1 0 as L u la ’s su c c e s­ sor. S h e n a r ro w ly w o n r e e le c tio n in 2 0 1 4 , d e f e a ti n g o p ­ p o s itio n r iv a l A e c io N e v e s .

C o n g re s s b e in g c o -p a rtis a n s . E v e n th e s e c o -p a r tis a n s are p r im a r ily c o n c e rn e d w i th sa tis fy in g t h e ir o w n c o n s titu e n ­ cies in t h e i r sta te s, a n d n o t w i t h p le a s in g t h e n a tio n a l p a r ty le a d e rs . W h i l e fo rm a l p o w e rs a re u s e fu l, m o s t p re s id e n tia l p re ro g a tiv e s o f sig n ific a n c e c a n b e c o n s o lid a te d o n ly b y ex­ ten siv e n e g o tia ti n g a n d b a r g a in in g w i t h o t h e r p a r tie s , in d i ­ v id u a l le g isla to rs , a n d th e sta te g o v e rn o rs a n d c ity m ay o rs w h o s u p p o r t th e s e leg isla to rs . T h is p ro c e ss ty p ic a lly i n ­ volves a m o re o r less e x p lic it tr a d i n g o f favors a n d re so u rc e s (a n d o f te n o u tr ig h t c o rru p tio n ) t h a t m a k e s it c o stly to c h a n g e th e status quo.

T h e ju d ic ia l p o w e r in B ra z il h a s as its m o s t i m p o r t a n t i n s ta n c e th e F e d e ra l S u p re m e C o u r t (Supremo Tribunal Federal— S T F ) , w h ic h h a s th e a u th o r ity to p r o n o u n c e o n t h e c o n s t itu tio n a l ity o f law . T h e C o n s t itu tio n re serv e s s u b ­ s t a n tia l re s p o n s ib ilitie s , f u n c tio n s , a n d re so u rc e s fo r th e s ta te g o v e rn m e n ts as w e ll.

Profile 405

Regime and Political Institutions Regime Federal republic, representative democratic elections

Administrative Divisions Twenty-seven federal units: twenty-six states (estados) + Federal District of Brasilia

Executive Branch President

Selection of Executive Direct election by national popular vote; voting is compulsory; runoff between top two candidates if none receives 50 percent in the first round

Legislative Branch Bicameral Congress {Congresso Nacional) Lower chamber: Chamber of Deputies (Camara de Deputados) Upper chamber: Senate (Senado Federal)

Judicial Branch Federal High Court (Supremo Tribunal Federal) has some power of judicial review

Political Party System Multiparty system, with four to five prominent parties leading parties: PT (left/center-left), PSDB (centrist, technocratic), PMDB (centrist, traditional), Democrats (center-right, traditional)

Political Culture I n m a n y w ays, B r a z ilia n s o c ie ty is re n o w n e d fo r b r in g in g to g e th e r e le m e n ts o f d i s t in c t t r a d itio n s . I n te rm s o f its p e o p le , B ra z il h a s la rg e n u m b e rs o f in d ig e n o u s p e o p le s, p e o p le o f A f r ic a n d e s c e n t, a n d d e s c e n d a n ts o f m ig r a n ts o f E u r o p e a n a n d A s ia n o rig in . B r a z ilia n p o litic s fo llo w s th e n a tio n a l tr e n d o f b l e n d i n g a n d c o m b in in g tr a d itio n s . W h il e u n iq u e , B ra z il is a ls o lik e m a n y c o u n trie s i n p r o ­ cesses o f ra p id m o d e r n iz a tio n in t h a t it p re s e n ts a fa s c in a t­ in g m ix tu r e o f th e t r a d it io n a l w i t h t h e t e c h n o c r a tic a n d “m o d e r n .”

T h is c o m p le x c u ltu r e c a n b e se e n , fo r e x a m p le , in th e c o m b in a tio n o f h ig h ly a d v a n c e d c e n te rs o f e fficiency in cer­ ta in a sp e c ts o f th e s ta te , c o m b in e d w i t h o ld -fa s h io n e d p a ­ tro n a g e -b a s e d b u re a u c ra c ie s (E v a n s 1989). S o m e d ip lo m a ts in B ra z il’s F o re ig n M i n i s t r y a n d e c o n o m is ts a t its C e n tr a l B a n k are a m o n g t h e w o r ld ’s b e s t, w h ile m a n y le g isla to rs , m in is te rs , a n d ju d g e s (a n d so m e p re sid e n ts) h a v e b e e n n o ­ to rio u s ly c o rru p t. B ra z il is h o m e to so m e o f t h e w o r ld ’s m o s t a d v a n c e d in d u s tr ie s — in p e tr o le u m e x p lo ra tio n , a ir­ c r a f t m a n u fa c tu re , a n d m o b ile p h o n e assem bly, a m o n g o th e r a rea s— b u t is a lso h o m e to p o v e rty t h a t riv a ls th e p o o re s t c o u n trie s o n e a r th . A s h o m e to m o s t o f th e A m a z o n , B ra z il is a le a d e r i n g lo b a l d e b a te s a b o u t e n v iro n ­ m e n ta l su s ta in a b ility , w h ile a lso w in k in g a n d n o d d i n g at w e a lth y p o litic ia n s w h o c h o p d o w n h u g e s w a th s o f p ris tin e

ra in f o r e s t fo r t h e i r p ro fita b le c a ttle ra n c h e s . A c u ltu r a l e le­ m e n t t h a t w o rk s its w a y in to p o litic s is th e n o tio n o f jeitinho, o r “f in d in g a lit t le w ay.” T h is h a s a c o n n o ta tio n o f s k illfu l­ n e ss a n d c le v ern e ss, b u t a lso o f b e in g c o n n iv in g a n d eva­ sive. A t its b e s t, it m e a n s c re a tiv ity a n d in v e n tiv e n e ss , w h e t h e r in b u s in e s s o r in B ra z ilia n s ’ r e n o w n e d a b ilitie s in soccer. A t its w o rs t, it c o n trib u te s to p ra c tic e s lik e ta x eva­ sio n , c o r ru p tio n , a n d g e tt i n g a h e a d a t a n o th e r ’s e x p en se. T h e b le n d o f m o d e r n a n d tr a d it io n a l c a n b e se e n a m o n g th e m a n y B ra z ilia n s w h o w ill c o n d e m n c o r ru p tio n a m o n g p o li­ tic ia n s , b u t w h o a lso p rid e th e m se lv e s in a v o id in g p a y m e n t

o f t h e i r ta x sh a re . B ra z il h a s c h a n g e d o ver tim e , a n d o fte n fo r th e b e tte r.

O n e e x am p le is t h e p o litic s b e tw e e n le ftis ts a n d in d u s tria l cap ita lis ts . A s B ra z il h a s m o v e d in to t h e tw e n ty -firs t c en ­ tu ry , m a jo r p o litic a l forces o n b o t h th e le ft a n d t h e r ig h t have m o d e ra te d . T h e W o rk e rs ’ P a r ty ( P T ) m o v e d fro m ra d i­ cal M a r x is m in t h e 198 0 s to m o re s o c ia l-d e m o c ra tic p olicies in th e 1 990s. T h e P T a n d its lea d er, L u la d a Silva, w e re u n ­ ac c e p ta b le to th e m ilita r y a n d u n e le c ta b le fo r m o s t m id d le - class B ra z ilia n s in to th e 1 990s, b u t b y th e 2 0 0 2 ele ctio n s th e y h a d b e c o m e m a in s tre a m . I n fa ct, L u la w o n e le c tio n a n d t h e n re e le c tio n h a n d ily i n 2 0 0 6 , e a r n in g th e s u p p o rt o f m a n y in th e m id d le class. D u r i n g L u la ’s te r m o f office, th e g o v e rn m e n t c o n tin u e d p r o - m a r k e t re fo rm s, m u c h to th e

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r e lie f o f th e b u sin e ss c o m m u n ity , w h ile also e x te n d in g m o re b e n efits to th e p o o r (see th e fo llo w in g s e c tio n , “P o litic a l E c o n o m y ”). M e a n w h ile , th e m ilita r y a n d o th e r c o n se rv a ­ tiv es to u t B ra z il’s dem ocracy, e ven w h e n it re su lts in th e ele c tio n o f p o litic a l rivals, a n d th e t r a d itio n a l o lig a rc h ic p o litic ia n s a n d b o sses o f B ra z il’s n o r th e a s t have a lso u p d a te d th e ir im a g e , a lb e it slowly. F e w revel o p e n ly a n y m o re in th e o ld a p p ro a c h o f ju s t d e liv e rin g “p o r k ” to c o n s titu e n ts .

Political Economy B ra z il h a s e m e rg e d to b e c o m e o n e o f th e m o s t d y n a m ic e c o n o m ie s in t h e d e v e lo p in g w o rld , b u t i t is a lso c h a ra c te r­ iz e d b y s h o c k in g in e q u a litie s , e x tre m e p o v e rty , r a m p a n t c o rru p tio n , h ig h co sts o f d o in g b u sin e ss, a n d a m o n g th e w o r ld ’s h ig h e s t ta x ra te s. I t is o n e o f th e r e n o w n e d B R I C c o u n trie s t h a t a re p ro je c te d b y m a n y to b e e c o n o m ic g ia n ts o f th e fu tu re : B ra z il, R u ssia , I n d ia , a n d C h in a . W h il e it s till faces h u g e d iffic u ltie s in in te g r a ti n g its d iv erse p o p u la ­ tio n in to th e m o d e r n e conom y, B ra z il h a s d e v e lo p e d d r a ­ m a tic a lly fro m its e x p o r t- o r ie n te d a g r ic u ltu r a l b a se in th e n i n e t e e n th c e n tu ry , w h e n th e c o u n tr y w a s d o m in a te d by o lig a rc h ic p la n ta tio n o w n e rs w h o e x p o rte d coffee, su g a r, a n d o th e r p ro d u c ts to E u ro p e .

T h e c o u n tr y ’s e c o n o m ic h is to r y a c c o u n ts fo r m u c h o f w h e re B ra z il is today. B ra z il b e g a n to in d u s tr ia liz e in e a r­ n e s t in t h e la te n i n e te e n t h c e n tu ry , a n d t h is p ro c e ss acceler­ a te d t h r o u g h th e 1 9 2 0 s, e sp e c ia lly in th e s o u th a n d s o u th e a s t o f th e c o u n try . T h e G r e a t D e p re s s io n a n d its col­ lap se o f w o rld tr a d e w a s in itia lly a c a ta s tro p h e fo r S o u th A m e ric a ’s a g r ic u ltu r a l- d o m in a te d e c o n o m ie s, w h o lo s t t h e i r m a rk e ts a r o u n d th e w o rld . B u t th e d e c lin e in tr a d e le d B ra z il to p ro d u c e m o re o f its o w n in d u s tr ia l g o o d s (su ch as te x tile s , c e m e n t, o r p ro c e ss e d foods) r a th e r t h a n re ly in g o n im p o rts . T h is le d to m o re a d v a n c e d i n d u s t r ia liz a tio n a n d th e “B ra z ilia n M ir a c l e ” a fte r W o r ld W a r I I (see th e “H i s ­ to ric a l D e v e lo p m e n t” s e c tio n at th e b e g in n in g o f th e p r o ­ file). U n d e r b o t h d e m o c ra tic r u le (1 9 4 6 -1 9 6 4 ) a n d m ilita r y ru le (1 9 6 4 -1 9 8 0 s), B ra z il m o v e d f ro m p ro d u c tio n o f sim p le i n d u s tr ia l g o o d s to a m u c h m o re in te n siv e e c o n o m y t h a t p ro d u c e d a p p lia n c e s, a u to m o b ile s, e le c tro n ic s , p e tr o c h e m i­ cals, a n d e v en a irp la n e s . T h e i n d u s tr ia liz a tio n e x te n d e d w e a lth to a b ro a d e r c ro s s -s e c tio n o f society, c r e a tin g a n u r b a n m id d le class o fw o rk e rs , m a n a g e rs , a n d p ro fessio n als. F ro m 1968 to 1973, B r a z il’s G D P h a d a n a verage g r o w t h o f m o re t h a n 10 p e rc e n t a y e ar, b u t e c o n o m ic c o lla p se i n th e 198 0 s le d to s h u tte r e d fa c to rie s a n d s e n t m illio n s o u t o f

B ra z il is th u s h o m e to a b e w ild e rin g a n d s o m e tim e s c o n ­ tra d ic to r y p o litic a l c u ltu re . M o d e r n a n d s o p h is tic a te d , b u t also t r o u b lin g a n d g ritty , it seem s a c o u n try o n t h e m o v e, y e t also o n e s o m e tim e s s tu c k in tim e . A le a d in g sa y in g is t h a t “B ra z il is th e c o u n try o f t h e fu tu re , a n d alw ays w ill b e .” B ra z il is m o re d e m o c ra tic , e q u ita b le , a n d sta b le t h a n j u s t a c ouple o f d e ca d es ago, b u t m o s t B ra z ilia n s a n d B ra z ilia n is ts w o u ld say it h a s a lo n g ro a d to tra v e l i n its d e v e lo p m e n t.

w o r k a n d in to th e less se c u re , in f o r m a l e c o n o m y o f s tre e t v e n d in g a n d o d d jo b s . S o o n t h e re a fte r, excessive g o v e rn ­ m e n t s p e n d in g le d to h y p e rin fla tio n a n d f u r t h e r d e c lin e . F in a lly , in th e 1 9 9 0 s, th e c o u n tr y s ta b iliz e d u n d e r P re s i­ d e n t F e rn a n d o H e n r i q u e C a rd o s o ( 1 9 9 5 -2 0 0 3 ) a n d g re w im p re ss iv e ly o n c e a g a in in th e y e ars u n d e r P re s id e n t L u iz I n a c io L u la d a Silva (2 0 0 3 -2 0 1 1 ).

P o v e rty a n d in e q u a lity re m a in B ra z il’s g re a te s t eco n o m ic c h a lle n g e s. F o r y e ars, B ra z il w a s r e p u te d to b e th e m o s t e co ­ n o m ic a lly u n e q u a l so c ie ty o n e a r t h , w ith o n ly a fra c tio n o f v e ry w e a lth y p e o p le a n d h u g e n u m b e rs o f p e o p le liv in g in p o v e rty in r u r a l areas o r in u rb a n s h a n ty to w n s k n o w n as favelas. A s B ra z il h a s g ro w n m e th o d ic a lly o ver t h e la s t d e c a d e o r m o re , i n e q u a lity h a s fa lle n , b u t s till re m a in s at very h ig h levels. T he im p ro v e m en ts have b e e n h e lp e d alo n g by p o licy c h an g e s, especially n e w a n d im p ro v e d social program s. T h e g o v e rn m e n ts o f C a rd o so , L u la , a n d D ilm a R o u sseff (2 0 1 1 -p resen t) have c rea te d a n d e x p a n d e d inn o v ativ e so cial p ro g ra m s t h a t p ro v id e m o d e s t c a s h b e n e fits to lo w -in c o m e fa m ilie s t h a t have t h e ir c h ild r e n v a c c in a te d a n d stay in school. T h is re d u ce s p o v e rty w h ile also im p ro v in g B ra z il’s h u m a n c a p ita l fo r th e n e x t g e n e ra tio n .

I n te rm s o f th e c o n te m p o ra ry eco n o m y , B ra z il is a m a jo r e x p o r te r a g a in , b u t n o w w i t h a n e ven m o re h ig h ly d iv ersi­ fied e conom y. I t f e a tu re s s u b s ta n tia l se c to rs in a g ric u ltu ra l e x p o rts , m a n u f a c tu r in g , e x tra c tiv e i n d u s tr y (su c h as o il p ro d u c tio n ), a n d services. A t th e sa m e tim e , B ra z il h a s s tru g g le d in r e c e n t y e a rs w i t h in fla tio n a n d s lo w in g g r o w th . F ro m a g r o w th ra te o f a b o u t 7.5 p e rc e n t in 2 0 1 0 , B ra z il h a s d e c lin e d to u n d e r 3 p e rc e n t in r e c e n t y e a rs, a n d p ro je c tio n s a re t h a t th is w ill d e c lin e to n e a rly z e ro in 2 0 1 5 . T h e q u e s ­ t io n th e re fo re , is w h e th e r B ra z il w ill b e able to c o n so lid a te its b ro a d ly s h a re d e c o n o m ic g a in s o f re c e n t y e a rs, w h ile in ­ c re a s in g g r o w th ra te s o v e rall. T o th e e x te n t it is a ble to do so, i t is w e ll p o s itio n e d to b e o n e o f t h e le a d in g e c o n o m ie s o f th e tw e n ty - f ir s t c en tu ry .

Case Studies 407

CASE STUDIES

Does the Global Economy Help or Hurt Developing Nations Like Brazil? C H A P T E R 5, P A G E 112

For centuries, Brazil has been one of the most important countries to consider on the question of whether opening up to the global economy helps or hinders de­ velopment. Depending on perspective and the moment in history, openness to the outside world has helped Brazil ad­ vance economically and has contributed to economic challenges; dosing off to the global economy seemed both to help and to hurt as well. Can Brazil help us decide under what conditions other de­ veloping countries should open or close themselves off to trade with the advanced economies?

Brazil's earliest interactions with the global economy were based on the noto­ rious slave trade, which brought slaves from west Africa to harvest agricultural products. Up until the 1880s, Brazil relied on slave labor. While this period saw some agro-export success, the economic gains were obviously distributed primarily to the oligarchic elite, and not to workers. This early pattern formed the basis of Bra­ zil’s tremendous inequality, so the overall effect on the economy is open to inter­ pretation. Brazil did continue to grow its economy after slavery was abolished and up to the 1920s, and it did so in large part through agricultural exports to industrial­ ized countries.

As noted in the section on "Political Economy," ties to the global economy in

the 1930s had ambiguous effects on Brazil. The Great Depression hit Brazil and Latin America hard, as it cut off the trade with the outside world on which the economy had come to depend; this suggests that being deprived of global markets hurt Brazil. On the other hand, Brazil deepened its industrialization in the wake of Depres­ sion as it shifted to domestic production for domestic markets; this suggests that looking inward actually helped. The ambi­ guities extend further with the era known as bureaucratic-authoritarian rule under the military from 1964 to the 1980s. During this period, Brazil continued to protect do­ mestic industry by raising barriers to for­ eign corporations, but with a caveat; The government in Brasilia also invited foreign corporations to establish factories in Brazil and serve the domestic market (Evans 1979). The deepening of industrialization that followed might suggest that Brazil benefited from either closing off to foreign capital or opening up to it, depending on the interpretation.

The pro-market neoliberal era of the 1980s and 1990s gave additional fodder for debate about the merits of interna­ tional economic linkages. A consensus emerged in the early 1980s that Brazil's indebted economy needed to be stabi­ lized and reformed, but the consensus also took on a more assertive form with the argument that countries like Brazil

needed to get the government out of the economy. Major U.S.-based institutions pushed a "Washington Consensus" that demanded privatization, deregulation, and less spending by Latin American gov­ ernments. This set of policies undoubt­ edly contributed to a downturn in the short term, but whether it created the basis for Brazil's longer term success is subject to debate.

Most recently, Brazil seems once again to be benefiting from globalization while simultaneously being challenged by it. The country has seen a commodity boom and rising incomes from exports, but is also facing increasing competition from China, for example, in a variety of areas. In short, one cannot simply see Brazil's interaction with the global economy as good or evil. Connections to the global economy must be seen as partly (but not wholly) respon­ sible for many of Brazil's booms and busts alike, and responsible for many opportuni­ ties as well as many inequalities. Nor can one look at it just at a single moment in time. The recent era of neoliberalism and free market economics is one period in which openness shaped the political econ­ omy of the country, but a longer historical perspective would suggest that this is an incomplete picture. Linkages to the global economy must be seen more broadly and in historical terms as one of the key ten­ sions in Brazilian economic trajectory.

4 0 8 Brazil

Democratic Consolidation in Brazil

Brazil has moved back and forth between authoritarianism and democracy for much of its existence as an independent country. The country was an empire for the period from 1822 to 1889, followed by a Republic from 1889 to 1930. Both of these had some formal democratic insti­ tutions including elected legislatures and relatively liberal laws that enfranchised large numbers of people by nineteenth- century standards, but both were in prac­ tice dominated by landowning elites (Graham 1990). The twentieth century saw a coup leading to military rule from 1930 to 1945, followed by a democratic republic from 1945 to 1964, which in turn fell to another military coup. Brazil's mili­ tary regime fell under the category known as bureaucratic-authoritarian (see chapter 6) from 1964 to the 1980s. A gradual tran­ sition to the current democratic republic began in 1982, resulted in a presidential election in 1985, and was codified in the Brazilian Constitution of 1988.

Brazil's numerous experiences with regime change feature prominently in studies of democratization and demo­ cratic breakdown, partly because it is a large and important country in Latin America and partly because the histori­ cal evidence can provide support for sev­ eral different theories of regime change. There is evidence, for example, that indi­ vidual groups of political actors played a major role in transitions, and that prevail­ ing ideas in the military shaped its will­ ingness to wield authority, but also that

the progressive modernization of the economy played a major role in Brazil's political changes (O'Donnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead [1986] 1993; Stepan 1971; O'Donnell 1973; Evans 1979).

The study of democracy in Brazil goes beyond the question of transition from one regime type to another. Perhaps the most important issues today for those studying Brazilian politics are about dem­ ocratic consolidation. Since 1988, Brazil's democracy has achieved some consolida­ tion, with repeated elections that have seen incumbents voted out of office and the election of Lula da Silva, whose candi­ dacy was at one point unacceptable to the military. The country has protections for civil liberties as well, and a return to out­ right authoritarian rule seems quite un­ likely in the near future. Yet that does not mean Brazil has created effective repre­ sentation or equal opportunity for all citi­ zens. The rule of law does not extend equally to everyone everywhere in Brazil: Some areas (both remote rural areas and parts of major cities) are almost lawless and ruled by criminals, while corruption is considerable in the police and in many political institutions. Of course, looking at this in comparative perspective, it is possi­ ble to say that no country perfectly fulfills the ideal of a consolidated democracy.

One of the most interesting transitions in recent years has been a set of economic and policy changes that have improved the well-being of the lowest-income people in Brazil. One of these changes is

C H A P T E R 6, P A G E 130

the overall growth of the Brazilian econ­ omy, which has been stable and solid after decades in which the country was known for its massive crises. In terms of government policies, the most famous is the Bolsa Familia, or Family Allowance. This program, known as a "conditional cash transfer," provides direct income from the government to poor families on the condition that they keep their chil­ dren in school and keep their vaccinations up to date. The program predates the Lula presidency, but it was dramatically ex­ panded on a nationwide basis under Lula. While economic growth and policies such as Bolsa Familia may seem to be largely an issue of economics, they can also bring political change. First, economic growth and "pro-poor" programs are credited with reducing inequality and poverty in recent years, and there is some evidence that low-income Brazilians with access to some disposable income participated ac­ tively in reelecting Lula (Zucco 2008). Second, such social policies suggest gov­ ernment that directly addresses problems facing the poor, which was not always the case under Brazilian democracies that were long considered elite-led. Third, this set of changes brings poorer Brazilians into greater contact with state institu­ tions, such as the education and health systems. This raises the prospect of strengthening relations between the state and society at large, which is one measure of what democratic consolida­ tion is about.

Case Studies 409

Electoral Rules and Party (In)Discipline in Brazil's Legislature C H A P T E R 9, P A G E 2 0 9

Brazil has a bicameral legislature, like most federal systems. The upper chamber, called the Senate (Senado), is designed to represent the states (estados). Three sena­ tors represent each state in the Senate, for a total of eighty-one for the twenty-seven states of the federation, including the Federal District that comprises the capital, Brasilia. The lower chamber, known as the Chamber of Deputies (Camara dos Depu- tados), nominally represents the popula­ tion at large, but in Brazil's federal system, the electoral rules for the Chamber of Deputies guarantee that even the lower chamber takes on a localist flavor. One of the most pressing issues in Brazilian poli­ tics is how members of Congress come to represent the interests of certain localities over those of the country at large, even though Deputies are not elected in spe­ cific districts.

Representatives in the Chamber of Deputies are elected by an arrangement known as open-list proportional repre­ sentation (or open-list PR). Deputies are elected on a state-wide basis, and not from specific local districts. There may be as many as seventy deputies from a state (as in the case of Sao Paulo) and as many as 513 deputies in all, with the number from each state depending on popula­ tion. In elections to the Chamber, voters choose their most preferred candidate from a long list of options; that candidate is affiliated with a political party, and there are many parties in Brazil, both large and small. The "open-list PR" system allocates a state's seats in the Chamber of Deputies based on the total number of votes a party receives in each state from all its candidates. Thus, if the state of Parana is

entitled to thirty seats in the Chamber, and all of the candidates from the Work­ er's Party in Parana together earn one- third of all the votes in the state, then the PT earns ten seats in the Chamber from the state of Parana. This makes it a form of proportional representation that reflects the votes for different parties.

But which ten members of the Work­ er's Party would be sent to Congress from Parana in this example? This is determined by which candidates received the most individual votes. This “open-list" feature means voters have more say over which candidates go to Congress, as contrasted with conventional PR systems in which party leaders rank their preferred list of representatives that will go to the legisla­ ture depending on the party's share of the vote. Obviously, candidates seeking election want their party to garner a lot of seats (since that gives a greater chance of being elected), but must also gain consid­ erable individual name recognition to separate themselves from the pack. Indi­ vidual candidates thus prioritize making a name for themselves in certain cities and towns, carving out electoral support, while also seeking to join parties that they think will give them the best shot at elec­ tion. What they do not necessarily priori­ tize is following the wishes of their party's leaders. This weakens the cohesion of par­ ties and makes those political parties dif­ ficult to "discipline."

Open-list PR thus has certain intuitive advantages, such as combining propor­ tionality with votes for individual repre­ sentatives, but it has also contributed to problems in governing in a Congress that was chaotic for many years (Power 2000).

One result was a large number of parties represented in both chambers, and for a long time a great deal of “floor crossing," as deputies moved from party to party (call it "party hopping") in an attempt to jockey for the best position for future elections. It also led party leaders to at­ tempt to "bribe" legislators in their party to secure their votes on important legisla­ tion; sometimes this happened with pa­ tronage or "pork" for a legislator's home district or electoral base, and sometimes the bribes were literal. As Brazilian gover­ nance grew somewhat less chaotic over the period from 1994 to the present, the problems associated with open-list PR were seen as somewhat less troubling: more legislators stuck with their presi­ dents and with their parties, though the trends of "party indiscipline" continued.

Brazil's electoral system offers an illus­ tration of how institutions must be under­ stood in relation to one another, and how diverse institutional arrangements can be. In this case, the functioning of the legisla­ ture depends on both electoral systems (as examined in chapter 9) and party sys­ tems (examined in chapter 11). Many ana­ lysts of Brazil have argued that the way deputies favor their own states leads to patronage politics rather than a legisla­ ture that looks out for the national inter­ ests. The debate about consequences is ongoing, but one common academic suggestion to reform Brazilian politics has been the modification or elimination of open-list PR, with the argument usually favoring more traditional ("closed-list") PR that would give party leaders greater le­ verage over their rank-and-file members in Congress.

410 Brazil

WBBSMw m Brazil's Landless Movement

’ ^'̂ 00

As noted already, Brazil has often been seen as a society where social change comes about not through revolutions but through gradual transitions, yet some im­ portant transformative movements have come out of Brazil. Like the rest of Latin America, Brazil has long been character­ ized by high levels of poverty and in­ equality. One form of this inequality has been in patterns of land ownership. This is important, of course, because many Bra­ zilians value social equality and would like to see fair opportunities for all citizens. It is also important, though, because compar­ ative analysis shows that high levels of in­ equality are bad for other things that people value, like democracy. While Brazil has not seen land reform on the scale of those produced by major social revolu­ tions like those of China, Russia, or Cuba, it has, in recent years, seen notable efforts to distribute some land to the poor, land both privately owned and held by the state. This land redistribution would have

been very unlikely without the Landless Movement.

The Movement began in the 1970s with the main aim of encouraging groups of ac­ tivists to occupy and distribute land and to pressure the state to sanction this. Efforts began in the south but spread to various parts of the country. Social movement theory would predict that organizations would be needed if this movement were to develop. Sure enough, in 1984, a formal or­ ganization, the MST (the Movement of Landless Rural Workers) was created.

The activities of this movement shift and vary over time (Ondetti 2008). The movement first appeared in the 1970s, had mixed experience in the 1980s and early 1990s, and then had considerable success during the first administration of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-1999), who implemented a major land reform program. The movement had renewed success under the administration of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003-2011), although

C H A P T E R 12, P A G E 282

the MST was somewhat critical of Lula because of expectations raised by his per­ ceived ideological affinity with the Move­ ment and also the associations between his Political party— the Workers' Party (PT)— and the MST. It will be interesting to watch the ongoing development of this social movement during the government of Dilma Rousseff.

Why is the Landless Movement consid­ ered a social movement rather than a revo­ lution? It is important to remember that our categories of contention are "ideal types." It may be possible to argue that the Landless Movement is revolutionary, since it does clearly aim to transform the Brazilian social structure. However, most see it as a social movement because it does not aim to di­ rectly capture the state and because it is focused on the specific issue of land reform rather than a total transformation of poli­ tics and society, even though many of its activists and supporters do have such hopes for a total transformation.

CASE STUDY

Gender and Political Representation in Brazil: Where Has Progress Come From? C H A P T E R 14, P A G E 3 3 6

Like most modern societies, Brazil has struggled to provide gender equity. Also like most modern societies, it still has a ways to go on this issue. That said, the country has made considerable progress in recent years, especially since the 1990s, perhaps symbolized by the fact that the country currently has a female president, Dilma Rousseff. Com­ parative political analysts ask how and why this progress has been made, in

part because understanding the sources of both progress and failures may help future organizers and party leaders to make further progress, both in Brazil and elsewhere.

Some of the political successes of the Brazilian women's movement include the following:

1. Women's suffrage in 1932, though this proved moot in the Estado Novo (1937-1945, when women

were equally unable to vote) and in later authoritarian governments.

2. The decriminalization of divorce in 1977, with reforms in the late 2000s making divorce easier to obtain. This is important because typically women without the right to divorce are more likely to be stuck in dangerous situations like ongoing domestic violence, and it is widely held in today's world that

Case Studies 411

CASE STUDY (continued)

Gender and Political Representation in Brazil: Where Has Progress Come From? C H A P T E R 14, P A G E 336

people should be free to enter into and exit relationships consensually.

3. Creation of the Conselho National dos Direitos da Mulher (CNDM, The National Council on Women's Rights) in 1985 and the Secretaria Especial de Politicos para as Mulheres (SEPM) in 2003. This was a conse­ quence of important women's movement activism in civil society, and it essentially coincided with the re-emergence of Brazilian democracy. The CNDM has been involved in numerous important feminist initiatives (Macaulay 2006:48).

4. In 1996, the passage of a law proposed by the PT (Workers'Party) establishing minimal candidate quotas of 30 percent for both men and women. This means is that parties are required to run slates

of candidates at least 30 percent of whom are women.

5. Dilma Rousseff's election in 2010.

Fiona Macaulay (2006: 39) notes that an interesting feature of recent Brazilian experience is that advances on gender issues at the national level have not often come from the state, but rather from the Partido dos Trabalhadores (the party of both Rousseff and Lula da Silva), though some proposals have come from actors from a variety of parties and even though gender has not historically been an axis of "party system cleavage" in Brazil. This latter point is not especially surprising, particularly given that gender-based par­ ties, unlike ethnicity-based parties, are rare for reasons discussed in chapter 14 (see Htun 2004; Htun and Power 2006). More interesting is the fact that PT has, in comparative terms, nominated many

more female candidates than other par­ ties and has more consistently focused on gender issues. Macaulay's analysis sug­ gests that this is partially due to the role that female activists and party operatives have played within the PT.

Macaulay further points to the fact that Brazil has a fairly decentralized fed­ eral political system, and that local and state-level reforms have also been benefi­ cial to women in some areas (Macaulay 2006: 35). The downside of this, of course, is that women's rights and their enforce­ ment vary from area to area as well. Despite substantial progress on issues of gender and politics in Brazil, serious prob­ lems remain, including limited represen­ tation of women's issues, a higher rate of poverty for women than men, and a nota­ bly high rate of domestic violence. Many would also point to Brazil's strong restric­ tions on abortion in this connection.

Research Prompts 1. We have noted that Brazil is sometimes considered a "non­

revolutionary" society in which transitions are gradual. Be this as it may, it is demonstrable that Brazil stands out in the Latin American context for the degree to which its transition to inde­ pendence was peaceful. Why might this be? What would major theories of revolution say about this, and how might this case (in comparative Latin American perspective) help us to consider the relative merits of those theories?

2. After decades of mixed performance, Brazil has recently achieved impressive economic growth. What would the major theories of development considered in chapter 5 say about this case? What can Brazil's experience tell us about those theories?

3. Describe the nature of Brazil's electoral system. If this system were adopted in the United States, what would its consequences for poli­ tics likely be in the short, medium, and long terms? Why must we be cautious and tentative in asking such hypothetical questions?

4. A question is raised in the case study herein about whether the Brazilian Landless Workers' Movement is a social movement or a revolution. How would you define it based on the description offered here? What are the implications of your choice for your theoretical approach to contention?

5. One of the case studies in this chapter discusses how Brazil has moved from a more corporatist to a more pluralist mode of in­ terest articulation. How and why has this happened? What sorts of comparative cases could one select in order to better answer this question?

6. Brazil has alternated between democracy and authoritarianism for some time, with a strong authoritarian tradition. More re­ cently, it has had notable democratic success. Is this likely to last? Why or why not? Be sure to draw both on facts about Brazil and on theories of democratic consolidation in your response.

B China 412

Key Features o f C o n te m p o r a ry China

Population: 1,355,692,576 (estimate, July 2014)

Area: 9,596,961 square miles

Head of State: Xi Jinping (president, 2013-present)

Head of Government: Li Keqiang (premier, 2013-present)

Capital: Beijing

Year of Independence: Never formally colonized, with the exception of Hong Kong, despite European imperial involvement in the nineteenth century. People's Republic of China established in 1949.

Year of Current Constitution:

1982

Languages: Mandarin is the majority language. There are numerous dialects and minority languages.

GDP per Capita: $6,807 (World Bank estimate, 2013)

Human Development Index Ranking (2014):

91st (medium human development)

Sources: CIA World Factbook; World Bank World Development Indicators; United Nations Human Development Report 2014.

Introduction F o r a c o m p a ra tiv e p o litic s sc h o lar, C h i n a is o n e o f th e m o s t f a s c in a tin g c o u n trie s . I t ra ises n u m e ro u s q u e s tio n s a n d issu e s, as w e s h a ll see, a b o u t e c o n o m ic d e v e lo p m e n t, d e ­ m o cra cy , th e re la tio n s h ip b e tw e e n p o litic a l p a r tie s a n d th e s ta te , a n d th e cau ses a n d c o n se q u e n c e s o f so c ia l re v o lu tio n s, a m o n g m a n y o th e rs . W e s h a ll e x p lo re so m e o f th e s e h e re , a n d y o u c a n u se th e th e o rie s t h a t y ou h a v e a c q u ire d in t h e th e m a tic c h a p te rs o f th is b o o k to c o m p a re a n d c o n tr a s t C h i n a

w i t h o th e r cases. O f c o u rse , a le a d in g issu e in t h e p o litic s

o f C h i n a is th e q u e s tio n o f h o w i t h a s ra p id ly b e c o m e th e w o r ld ’s s e c o n d -la rg e s t e c o n o m y a n d a m a jo r g lo b a l p o w e r, j u s t a fe w s h o r t d e c a d e s a f te r b e in g c h a r a c te riz e d b y ex­ tr e m e p o v e rty (th o u g h m a n y C h in e s e c iti­ z e n s re m a in v e ry p oor). I t h a s d o n e so in a n o n - d e m o c r a tic , o n e - p a r ty sta te t h a t r e ­ s tric ts m a n y b a sic fre e d o m s . C h i n a t h u s p re s e n ts a c h a lle n g e to t h e s o -c a lle d “W e s t­ e rn m o d e l” o f p o litic s a n d e c o n o m ic s b a se d o n lib e ra l d e m o c ra c y a n d fre e m a rk e ts . T h e im p lic a tio n s o f C h in a ’s rise fo r th e f u tu r e are m assiv e, b o t h w i t h in C h i n a a n d a r o u n d th e w o rld . W e e x a m in e th e s e issu es o f p o litic a l e c o n o m y a n d th e re g im e in th is pro file .

A n o t h e r s t r ik in g t h in g a b o u t C h in a fro m th e p o in t o f v ie w o f p o litic a l science is

H a n C hinese 91.1 O th er groups 8.51

Ethnic Groups in China Source: CIA World Factbook.

I N om inally secular/atheist 8 6- | D aoist 3 -4%

B uddhist 3-4% SK C hristian 3—4% I M uslim 1-2%

Religious Affiliation in China Source: CIA World Factbook.

Profile 413

RUSSIA

KAZAKHSTAN Harbin

MONGOLIA Sea o f Japan

Shenyang

Qinhuangdao .

™ c B e i j i n g * . Tianjin

Urumqi

Dalian

Qingdao f S Yellow Zhengzhou Seo Nanjing ‘ .Sh a n g h a i

Lanzhou

Chengdu Lhasa

- J tohmaputra

East China f SeaChongqing

Guangzhou TAIWAN ■BANG!INDIA J BURMA

(MYANMAR) Macau

U A O S PHILIPPINES HAINAN DAO

«300 600 Kilometers

600 Miles

th e d e g re e o f p o litic a l, e c o n o m ic , a n d c u lt u r a l u n i ty t h a t it h a s m a n a g e d to a ch iev e d e sp ite its e n o rm o u s siz e (in te rm s o f b o t h g e o g ra p h y a n d p o p u la tio n ) a n d its div ersity . C h in a is a m o n g t h e m o s t g e o g ra p h ic a lly d iv erse c o u n trie s in th e w o rld . Its la n d m ass e n c o m p a s se s o v e r 9.5 m illio n s q u a re m ile s. P a r ts o f s o u th e r n C h in a a re tro p ic a l a n d s u b tro p ic a l, w h e re a s in th e n o r t h w in te rs c a n b e q u ite c old. R a in fa ll a lso v a rie s co n sid era b ly , b e in g a m p le n e a r th e c o a s t a n d m in im a l i n th e e n o rm o u s G o b i D e s e r t. T h e w o r ld ’s la rg e s t m o u n ta in s — th e H im a la y a s — a re s h a re d b y C h in a , b u t o th e r re g io n s a re la rg e ly flat, a n d t h e T u r f a n D e p re s s io n lies b e lo w sea level. C h i n a e v en h a s ra in fo re s ts i n t h e s o u th .

C h in a ’s p o p u la tio n c u r re n tly s ta n d s a t a r o u n d 1.4 b il­ lio n , m a k in g it t h e la rg e s t c o u n tr y in t h e w o rld in p o p u la ­ tio n te rm s . D e m o g ra p h e rs e x p e c t C h in e s e p o p u la tio n g r o w t h to slow in th e c o m in g d e c a d e s , a n d so m e su g g e s t t h a t I n d i a ’s p o p u la tio n w ill o v e rta k e C h i n a ’s, t h o u g h th e a c c u ra c y o f t h is fo re c a st r e m a in s to b e seen. C h in a ’s d e ­ m o g ra p h y h a s h is to ric a lly b e e n sh a p e d b y sta te policy. P o p ­ u la tio n g r o w t h w a s p a r tia lly a fu n c tio n o f t h e e ffo rts o f th e s ta te to e x p a n d p o p u la tio n u n d e r M a o Z e d o n g . I n t h e late 1 970s, in a n e ffo rt to slo w p o p u la tio n g r o w t h , th e “O n e C h i ld P o lic y ” w a s e sta b lish e d . T h is p o lic y im p o s e s p e n a l­ tie s o n f a m ilie s w i t h tw o o r m o re c h ild r e n , t h o u g h t h is ru le is n o t s u p p o s e d to a p p ly to e th n ic m in o ritie s a n d o th e r g ro u p s u n d e r so m e c irc u m s ta n c e s . O n e m a jo r d e v e lo p m e n t t h a t is a t le a s t p a r tia lly a n u n in te n d e d c o n se q u e n c e o f th is p o lic y is t h a t m a n y fa m ilie s have u s e d se x -se lec tiv e a b o r­ t io n a n d in so m e cases e v en in fa n tic id e in t h e i r e ffo rts to e n s u re t h a t t h e i r o n e c h ild w ill b e m a le . A s a r e s u lt, to d a y ’s p o p u la tio n in C h in a is u n b a la n c e d in r e la tio n to g e n d e r.

414 China

T h e p o p u la tio n o f C h i n a seem s la rg e ly h o m o g e n e o u s , b u t o n ly a t first g la n c e . O v e r 9 0 p e rc e n t o f t h e p o p u la tio n fa lls in to t h e H a n e th n i c categ o ry . Y e t t h e re m a in in g 8.5 p e r c e n t o f th e p o p u la tio n falls in to n u m e ro u s g ro u p s (sm a ll in p e rc e n ta g e te rm s , b e c a u se o f C h in a ’s la rg e p o p u la tio n , b u t s till n u m e ro u s in a b so lu te te rm s). T h e se c a te g o rie s in ­ c lu d e th e M a n c h u (th e e th n ic g ro u p t h a t w a s d o m in a n t d u r in g th e Q i n g D y n a s ty ), T ib e ta n s , M o n g o ls , Z h u a n g ,

a n d U ig h u r, a m o n g o th e rs . I n te rm s o f re lig io n , C h in a ’s sta te is officially a th e is t in

c h a ra c te r, o w in g , in p a r t, to th e le g a c y o f M a r x is m , w h ic h h o ld s t h a t re lig io n is a fo rm o f “false c o n sc io u s n e s s.” A n ­ o th e r fa c to r is th e se n se t h a t t h e p a s t a c tiv ity o f re lig io u s m is s io n a rie s , e sp e c ia lly in t h e n i n e t e e n t h c e n tu ry , w a s d is ­ ru p tiv e . J u s t th e sa m e , v ib r a n t re lig io u s c o m m u n itie s r e m a in in C h in a , a n d re lig io n h a s h is to ric a lly p la y e d a n i m p o r t a n t ro le in so c ia l c o n flic t (see, in p a r tic u la r , d is c u s ­ sio n o f th e T a ip in g R e b e llio n l a te r in th e s e c o u n tr y m a te ri­ als). T h e fo llo w in g c h a r t sh o w s th e p e rc e n ta g e o f th e p o p u la tio n t h a t p ro fesse s a lle g ia n c e to se v e ra l m a jo r re li­ g io n s. S tu d e n ts s h o u ld k e e p in m in d t h a t so m e sc h o lars e s tim a te h ig h e r levels o f re lig io u s b e lie f a n d p ra c tic e t h a n th e s e d a ta s u g g e s t (see P e w F o r u m 2 0 0 8 ).

I n s h o r t, C h in a is a la rg e , c o m p le x , h e te ro g e n e o u s soci­ e ty in w h ic h o n e m a jo r e th n ic g ro u p ( H a n C h in e s e ) p r e ­ d o m in a te s . T h e sta te is o fficially se c u la r, b u t u n d e r n e a th th is su rfa c e a n u m b e r o f c itiz e n s are re lig io u s ( W e im in g 1999). I t h a s a v a rie d g e o g ra p h y a n d so m e s tr ik in g d e m o ­ g ra p h ic p a tte rn s . T h e s e b a sic f e a tu re s fo rm th e c o n te x t th r o u g h w h ic h w e t r y to u n d e r s ta n d C h i n a ’s p o litic a l d e v e lo p m e n t.

Historical Development C h in a s ta n d s o u t a m o n g m o s t m o d e r n c o u n trie s fo r h o w lo n g it h a s e x is te d as a la rg e -s c a le a n d m o re o r less u n ifie d c iv iliz a tio n . In d e e d , C h in a h a s b e e n a d is tin c t g e o p o litic a l e n tity fo r millennia. A s w e s h a ll see, h o w e v er, th is d o e s n o t m e a n t h a t it d o e s n o t c h a n g e , o r t h a t i t is n o t c h a n g in g now . T h e b e g in n in g o f t h e h is to r y o f I m p e r ia l C h i n a is c o n ­ v e n tio n a lly d a te d a t 2 2 1 b c e , a n d h is to ria n s h a v e t r a c e d th e se q u e n c e o f im p e ria l re g im e s t h a t fo llo w e d . T h e h is to r y o f modern C h in a , h o w e v er, b e g in s in t h e la te r y e ars o f th e Q in g D y n a s ty (1 6 4 4 -1 9 1 2 ). T h e Q i n g D y n a s t y e n te re d in to d iffic u ltie s in th e n i n e te e n th c e n tu r y d u e to se v e ra l k e y facto rs: fo re ig n in te rv e n tio n , fiscal d iffic u ltie s , i n te r n a l in ­ sta b ility , a n d a c h a n g in g g e o p o litic a l e n v ir o n m e n t (for a n

o v e rv ie w o f th is p e r io d , see S p e n c e 1 990; F a ir b a n k a n d G o ld m a n 2 0 0 6 ).

C h i n a in th e n i n e te e n t h c e n tu r y fa c e d in c re a s in g fo r­ e ig n in te r v e n tio n . W e s te r n n a tio n s im p o s e d t h e i r o w n “rig h ts ” to tr a d e w i t h C h i n a , u s in g fo rce w h e n necessary. T h is e v en in c lu d e d B ritis h m e r c h a n ts ’ in tr o d u c tio n (sm u g ­ g lin g ) o f o p iu m to th e C h in e s e m a rk e t. W h e n C h i n a tr ie d to re sist, th e y w e re tw ic e m ilita r ily c o e rc e d (in t h e 1 8 4 0 s a n d 1850s), a n d a m o n g o th e r t h in g s H o n g K o n g b e c a m e a c ro w n c o lo n y o f th e B ritis h E m p ire . B e y o n d d ir e c t in te rfe r­ en ce o f th is s o r t w i t h in C h in a p ro p e r, E u r o p e a n p o w e rs also in te r f e r e d in C h i n a ’s t r a d i tio n a l sp h e re o f in flu e n c e , p a rtic u la r ly in s o -c a lle d “F re n c h I n d o C h i n a . ” I t is

Profile 415

im p o r ta n t to u n d e r s ta n d t h a t C h i n a c o n s id e re d its e lf, n o t

w ith o u t e v id e n c e , to b e o n e o f th e w o r ld ’s g r e a t c iv iliz a ­ tio n s , a n d t h e i r re la tiv e w e a k n e s s in th e face o f E u r o p e a n p o w e rs w as e x p e rie n c e d as h u m ilia tin g . A t t h e sa m e tim e , th e Q in g D y n a s t y fo u n d i ts e l f in se rio u s fiscal d iffic u lties. I t w a s u n a b le to c o n s is te n tly ra is e th e re v en u e s t h a t w e re r e q u ire d to p r o te c t i ts e l f a n d to m a in ta in i n te r n a l o rd e r (F a ir b a n k a n d G o l d m a n 2 0 0 6 :1 8 7 ; S p e n c e 1990). P a r tia lly as a re s u lt, th e c o u n tr y w itn e s s e d se rio u s in te r n a l d i s t u r ­ b a n c e s. A m o n g th e s e w e re th e T a ip in g R e b e llio n o f th e 1850s a n d 1 8 6 0 s, w h ic h w a s le d by H o n g X iu q u a n , w h o

c la im e d to b e th e b r o t h e r o f Je su s C h r i s t a n d w h o w a n te d to d isp la c e th e Q i n g a n d im p o s e a q u a s i-re lig io u s re g im e . T h e e n s u in g c o n flic t k ille d m a n y m illio n s b e fo re th e Q in g e v e n tu a lly p u t i t d o w n . T h is w a s o n ly th e m o s t i m p o r ta n t o f a se ries o f n in e t e e n t h - c e n t u r y re b e llio n s a g a in s t th e Q in g . F in a lly , it is i m p o r t a n t to n o te t h a t d u r in g th is sa m e p e rio d o f th e la te n in e te e n th c e n tu ry , C h i n a ’s n e ig h b o r J a p a n u n ­ d e r w e n t d r a m a tic c h a n g e s a n d b y th e e n d o f th e c e n tu ry e m e rg e d as a m a jo r r e g io n a l p o w e r, d e fe a tin g C h in a its e lf in th e S in o -Ja p a n e s e W a r o f 1 8 9 4 -1 8 9 5 a n d t h e n d e fe a tin g R u s s ia in th e R u s s o -J a p a n e s e W a r o f 1 9 0 4 -1 9 0 5 .

H isto rical D e v e lo p m e n t T i m e l i n e

1644-1912

1839-1842

1842

1850-1873

1856-1860

1860

1894-1895

1898

1899-1901

1911-1912

1912

1920-1921

1925

1926

1931

1934-1935

1936

Qing Dynasty First Opium War (with Britain) Treaty of Nanking. Britain takes Hong Kong and imposes trading rights for itself. Taiping (1850-1864), Nien (1853-1868), and Panthay (1855-1873) Rebellions Second Opium (or "Arrow") War with Britain and France Convention of Peking imposes humiliating condi­ tions on China Sino-Japanese War (China defeated) Hundred Days' Reform, ended by coup d'etat Boxer Rebellion, ended by foreign intervention (eight foreign powers) Revolution of 1911 Fall of the Qing Dynasty, foundation of Guomind- ang (GMD or Nationalist Party), establishment of the Republic of China, which then falls into disor­ der and civil conflict Chinese Communist Party founded Death of Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Kuomintang Chiang Kai-Shek leads "Northern Expedition,” achieving partial political unification. Japanese invasion of Manchuria The "Long March" of the Communists, who face repression at the hands of the Nationalists. The march facilitates Mao's rise within the group and the move toward the countryside. Beginning of the "Anti-Japanese War," which can be thought of as the beginning of the Second World War in China.

1937

1946-1949

1949

1949

1950-1952

1950-1953

1955-1956

1957

1957,1959

1958-1960

1966-1969

1976

1976

Japanese invasion of Manchuria (Northeast China) in lead-up to World War II After end of World War II, Civil War between Nationalists and Communists continues. Communists victorious, Nationalists exiled to Taiwan. People's Republic of China is proclaimed. Major land reform is carried out. Korean War, in which China backed North Korea against U.S.-backed South Korea Major agricultural collectivization is carried out. The "Hundred Flowers Campaign" in which dissent is encouraged but then punished The "Anti-Rightist" Campaigns, in which alleged enemies of the revolution are repressed The "Great Leap Forward"— An effort to force in­ dustrialization and meet often unrealistic produc­ tion goals. Among other things this produces a famine that leads to millions of deaths, some say as many as twenty million or more. The "Cultural Revolution" and massive political repression, especially in the late 1960s, though some think this period lasts until Mao's death. The government encourages students to root out al­ leged enemies of the revolution. Among others, Deng Xiaoping loses his position, only to be reha­ bilitated in 1974. Arrest of the "Gang of Four," prominent Communist leaders of the Cultural Revolution Mao Zedong's death

416 China

Timeline (Continued) 1978-1979

1989

1993

1997

Deng Xiaoping consolidates his dominance in the post-Mao transition. Deng Xiaoping reforms begin, which open China to greater private enterprise and foreign trade and begin to dismantle the collectiv­ ization of agriculture, leading to greater agricultural productivity. Tiananmen Square assault by military on protesters centerpiece of repression of movement for political reform Jiang Zemin assumes presidency. China officially takes over Hong Kong from United Kingdom.

2003

2008

2007-2010

2013

China becomes member of World Trade Organiza­ tion (WTO). Hu Jintao assumes presidency. Beijing Olympics are taken by many as a sign of China's ascendancy. China becomes world's second-largest economy, largest exporter, largest holder of foreign currency reserves, and largest polluter. Xi Jinping becomes president and Li Keqiang becomes premier.

N o t su rp risin g ly , m a n y in C h i n a w e re n o t p le a se d b y th is c o n s te lla tio n o f fa cto rs. I t is n o t h a r d t o see w h y th is le d to a n u p s u rg e in C h in e s e n a tio n a lis m ( H a r r is o n 2 0 0 1 ). S o m e d e c id e d t h a t g re a te r o p e n n e s s to b o t h J a p a n a n d th e W e s t w o u ld b e n e e d e d , i n te rm s o f b o t h te c h n o lo g y a n d p o litic a l id ea s. B y th e firs t d e c a d e o f th e tw e n ti e th c e n tu ry , th e Q i n g re g im e w a s e m b ra c in g re fo rm s a n d e v en to y in g w i th c o n s titu tio n a lis m . H o w e v e r, th is w a s n o t e n o u g h to sto p th e g r o w in g d is c o n te n t, a n d a p o litic a l re v o lu tio n (th e “C h in e s e R e v o lu tio n o f 1911”) to p p le d th e Q i n g in 1912. T h e m o s t im p o r t a n t le a d e r in th is m o v e m e n t w a s S u n Y at-sen.

U n f o r tu n a te ly , th is re v o lu tio n d i d n o t b r i n g a b o u t s ta b le , c o n s t it u t io n a l g o v e r n m e n t (on th is p e r io d , see F a i r b a n k a n d G o ld m a n 2 0 0 6 ; S p e n c e 1 9 9 0 ). R a th e r , C h i n a d e s c e n d e d in to w h a t s c h o la rs re fe r to as th e p e r io d o f “W a r lo r d is m ” ( S c h o p p a 2 0 1 0 : 4 7 - 4 8 ) . I n s h o r t, t h e ex­ i s t in g s ta te b ro k e d o w n , a n d lo c a l p o w e r b ro k e rs w e re r e ­ sp o n s ib le fo r m u c h o f t h e o r d e r t h a t r e m a in e d . I t w a s in t h is c o n te x t t h a t so m e o f t h e p o litic a l fo rc e s t h a t s till s h a p e C h i n a w e re c re a te d . I n t h e 1 9 2 0 s, C h i a n g K a i- s h e k , le a d e r o f t h e N a t io n a l i s t P a r t y (th e G u o m i n d a n g o r G M D ) , s u c c e ss fu lly e s ta b lis h e d c e n t r a l p o litic a l o r d e r in m u c h o f C h in a . Y e t th is v ic to r y w a s n e v e r a b s o lu te . T he C o m m u n i s t P a r t y h a d b e e n e s ta b lis h e d in t h e e a rly 1 9 2 0 s, w it h th e e a r lie r g r o u n d w o r k b e in g s e t b y t h e “M a y F o u r t h M o v e m e n t,” a n d th e N a t io n a lis ts a n d C o m m u n is ts ex ­ is te d in te n s io n . A t tim e s , t h e C o m m u n is ts fo llo w e d C o ­ m in t e r n o rd e rs to c o o p e ra te w i t h th e N a tio n a l is ts , a n d a t o t h e r tim e s n o t. L ik e w is e , C h i a n g K a i - s h e k a n d th e

N a tio n a lis ts a lt e r n a te d b e tw e e n c o o p e r a tio n w i t h a n d c o ­ e rc io n o f t h e C o m m u n is ts . M o re o v e r, th e r e w a s e v e n s u s ­ ta i n e d v i o le n t c o n f r o n ta tio n within t h e G M D in t h e la te 1 9 2 0 s. D u r i n g th e lo n g r e s is ta n c e to J a p a n in th e 1 9 3 0 s a n d 1 9 4 0 s th e r e w e re p e r io d s i n w h i c h t h e N a tio n a lis ts w e re fo rc e d t o te m p o r a r i ly c o o p e ra te w i t h t h e C o m m u ­ n is ts , b u t t h i s d i d n ’t la s t. A f t e r t h e w a r, th e C o m m u n is ts , u n d e r t h e le a d e r s h ip o f M a o Z e d o n g , g r a d u a lly d e fe a te d th e N a t io n a lis ts , w h o r e tr e a t e d a lo n g w i t h C h i a n g K a i- s h e k to T a iw a n . I n a c c o m p lis h in g t h is , th e C o m m u ­ n is ts w e re g r e a tly a id e d b y th e w o r k t h e y h a d d o n e in o r ­ g a n iz in g p e a s a n t c o m m u n itie s .

I n 1949, M a o d e c la re d th e P e o p le ’s R e p u b lic o f C h in a (P R C ). A t firs t, th e n e w re g im e w a s v e ry m u c h in lin e w it h th e C o m m u n i s t re g im e in th e S o v ie t U n io n , b u t o v e r tim e th e y t o o k a d iffe re n t c o u rse (T eiw e s 2 0 1 0 ). A k e y e m p h a sis o n t h e P R C w a s to e n c o u ra g e th e c o lle c tiv iz a tio n o f a g r i­ c u ltu r e a n d fo rc e d i n d u s tr ia liz a tio n . I n 1958, M a o d e c la re d th e “G r e a t L e a p F o r w a r d .” T h is is o f te n th o u g h t a b o u t b y sc h o la rs as o n e o f t h e c le a re st e x a m p le s o f th e “v o lu n ta ris m ” o f M a o is t t h o u g h t. W h e r e a s tr a d i tio n a l M a r x is m h a d e m ­ p h a s iz e d t h a t u n d e r ly in g s t r u c tu r a l c o n d itio n s w o u ld d e ­ te r m in e th e s e q u e n c in g o f r e v o lu tio n a ry p ro c e ss e s , M a o is m h e ld t h a t t h r o u g h a g r e a t a c t o f t h e c o lle ctiv e w ill, C h in a c o u ld force m o d e r n iz a tio n . U n fo rtu n a te ly , t h e “G r e a t L e a p F o r w a r d ” p ro d u c e d f a m in e r a th e r t h a n m o d e r n iz a tio n . T h e m a in r e a s o n w a s t h a t a g r ic u ltu r a l c o lle ctiv e s fe lt o b lig a te d to e x a g g e ra te t h e i r p ro d u c tiv ity , a n d th e sta te in t u r n d e ­ m a n d e d s o -c a lle d excess g r a in p r o d u c tio n ( F a ir b a n k a n d G o l d m a n 2 0 0 6 : 3 6 8 -3 7 4 ). M illio n s d ie d .

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P o litic ally , C h i n a u n d e r M a o w a s a p a r ty d ic ta to rs h ip , o n e i n w h ic h t h e p a r t y w a s c le a rly p e rs o n a lly c o n tro lle d b y

M a o h im s e lf. T h e p a r ty a n d t h e s ta te w e re o r g a n iz a tio n a lly i n te r p e n e tr a te d a t e v ery level. W h i l e t h e r e w e re s o m e m in i ­ m a l “d e m o c ra tic ” f e a tu re s in te r n a l to th e p a r t y a t c e r ta in levels, t h e p a r ty w as u n d e r s to o d to h a v e a m o n o p o ly o n g u id in g th e sta te . T h e r a tio n a le fo r th is w a s t h a t t h e p a r ty w a s sa id t o t r u ly re p re s e n t t h e w o rk e rs, a n d a n y o th e r p a rty , th e re fo re , w o u ld n e c e ssa rily r e p re s e n t class e n e m ie s a n d b e o n th e w r o n g side o f h isto ry .

M a o w as alw ays o n th e lo o k o u t fo r C h in a ’s t u r n aw ay fro m rev o lu tio n . H e t h o u g h t t h a t rev o lu tio n n e e d e d to be

“p e rm a n e n t” a n d t h a t t h e b o u rg e o is “class e n em ies” o f th e w orkers c o u ld b e a n y w h ere . F o r th is re a so n h e e n c o u ra g e d self-criticism . I n d e e d , in th e late 1950s h e in itia te d th e “H u n d r e d F lo w e rs” c a m p a ig n (S pence 1990: 5 6 9 -5 7 3 ). T he id ea w as t h a t in te lle c tu a ls a n d o th e rs w o u ld c riticize a n d th u s im p ro v e th e rev o lu tio n . H o w ev e r, M a o w as less t h a n satisfied w h e n his o w n p o licies b e c a m e th e o b jec t o f c riticism . H e a n d o th e rs soon d e n o u n c e d th e s e c ritics as “rig h tists.” T h is p h e ­ n o m e n o n w as even c le a re r in th e “c u ltu ra l rev o lu tio n ” o f th e late 1960s (S pence 1990: 6 0 2 -6 1 7 ; F a irb a n k a n d G o ld m a n 2 0 0 6 : 3 8 3 - 4 0 5 ) . M a o tr ie d to o rg a n iz e a m o v e m e n t to ta r g e t “rig h tists” a n d a lle g ed e n em ies o f th e re v o lu tio n , b u t so o n th e s tu d e n t “R e d G u a r d ” g ro u p s e sc ap e d h is co n tro l. M a n y w ere a tta c k e d a n d k ille d , a n d s till o th e rs lo st th e ir jo b s a n d w ere im p riso n e d o r se n t t o w o rk w it h th e p e a s a n ts in th e c o u n try ­ side. P u rg e s to u c h e d a ll levels o f th e society, in c lu d in g fu tu re le a d e r D e n g X ia o p in g .

M a o d ie d in 1 9 7 6 , a n d a f te r a b r i e f p e r io d a n e w , r e ­ f o r m is t g e n e r a ti o n c a m e i n t o le a d e r s h ip ( G ille y 2 0 1 0 ). D e n g h i m s e l f w a s t h e c e n t r a l f ig u r e h e r e . T h e n e w l e a d ­ e r s h ip slo w ly a llo w e d s o m e l im i te d c r it ic is m o f M a o a n d M a o is m . G r e a t e r i n t e l l e c t u a l f r e e d o m w a s a llo w e d , th o u g h t h e r e w e r e s t i ll s o m e i m p o r t a n t l im i t a t i o n s in

t h i s c o n n e c ti o n . P e r h a p s m o s t im p a c tf u lly , t h e re g im e

b e g a n to m a k e e c o n o m ic re fo r m s . A t f i r s t m a n y o f th e s e w e r e c o n c e r n e d w i t h a g r ic u lt u r a l p o lic y . A g r i c u l t u r a l w o r k e r s w e r e a llo w e d t o p r o f it i n d iv i d u a ll y ( th o u g h m o s t l a n d w a s s t i l l s t a te - o w n e d ) , c h a n g i n g t h e in c e n tiv e s t r u c t u r e o f t h e a g r i c u l t u r a l e c o n o m y , in t u r n p r o d u c in g g r e a t e r p r o d u c tiv i ty . C h i n a s lo w ly a n d s t r a te g ic a ll y p r i v a t i z e d s o m e s ta te fir m s , m o v in g to w a r d a m o d e l o f “m a r k e t s o c i a li s m .” I t a ls o s k i l lf u l l y in c r e a s e d its i n t e ­ g r a ti o n w i t h t h e g lo b a l e c o n o m y . C h i n a ’s g r o w t h in r e c e n t d e c a d e s h a s b e e n t r u l y a s t o n i s h i n g , w i t h h u n d r e d s o f m il l io n s l if t e d o u t o f p o v e r ty .

P o litic a lly , th e re fo rm s h a v e b e e n less n o te w o rth y . T he c e n tr a l g o a l se e m s to h a v e b e e n th e p re s e rv a tio n o f t h e p o w e r o f th e C o m m u n is t P a rty , w h ic h h a s b e e n q u ite id e o ­ lo g ic a lly flexible. J u s t t h e sa m e , t h e p a r t y c o n tin u e s to d e ­ s c rib e i ts e l f as M a o is t, a n d , a t le a s t oste n sib ly , c a p ita lis t re fo rm s i n th e e c o n o m ic sp h e re a re p re s e n te d as p re p a r in g t h e w a y fo r f u lle r so c ia lism in th e fu tu r e . T h e re g im e has e x p a n d e d th e role t h a t c itiz e n s c a n p la y in lo c a l p o litic s , a n d i n te r n a l p a r t y p o litic s a re n o l o n g e r j u s t th e p ro d u c t o f th e d e lib e ra tio n o f a sin g le in d iv id u a l— th is b e c a m e e s p e ­ c ia lly c le a r u n d e r t h e le a d e rs h ip o f J ia n g Z e m i n — b u t fo r t h e m o s t p a r t i m p o r t a n t d e c is io n m a k in g r e m a in s se c u re ly w a lle d o f f fro m “t h e p e o p le .”

M a n y e x p e c t t h e tw e n ty - f ir s t c e n t u r y to b e “C h i n a ’s c e n tu ry ,” a n d C h i n a h a s re c e n tly b e c o m e t h e w o r ld ’s sec­ o n d - b ig g e s t eco n o m y . H o w e v e r, as w e d isc u ss h e re in , so m e q u e s tio n s a n d p re s s u re s r e m a in . C a n C h i n a m a in ta in its h i g h level o f e c o n o m ic g r o w th w i th o u t th e e c o n o m y ov er­ h e a ti n g a n d h ig h in fla tio n e ro d in g c itiz e n s ’ g a in s ? W il l C h i n a d e m o c ra tiz e , o r w i ll th e p a r t y c o n tin u e to re sist p re ssu re s to a llo w th is ? C a n C h in e s e g r o w th b e m a d e m o re c o m p a tib le w i t h t h e e c o lo g ic a l in te r e s ts o f th e c o u n tr y (a n d t h e w o rld)?

Regime and Political Institutions T h e c e n tr a l fe a tu re o f th e C h in e s e re g im e is t h e sin g le ­ p a r ty sy ste m , a n d d e c isio n m a k in g effe c tiv e ly re sts w i t h a s m a ll g ro u p o f C o m m u n i s t P a r t y o f C h i n a ( C P C ) e lite s in th e to p sta te o rg a n k n o w n as th e P o litb u ro . T h e le g is la tu re ( N P C ) is e le c te d b y in tr ic a te sy ste m s t h a t e n s u re b o t h C o m m u n is t P a r t y d o m in a n c e a n d to p - d o w n c o n tro l. I t is in d ir e c tly e le c te d b y lo w e r-le v el a sse m b lie s t h a t s tr e tc h

d o w n to th e lo c a l level: v illa g e -le v e l a sse m b lie s c h o o se r e p ­ re s e n ta tiv e s in towns, w h o se le c t re p re s e n ta tiv e s in t u r n to la r g e r counties, a n d th e i n d ir e c t e le c tio n s c o n tin u e u p w a rd to th e levels o f prefectures, provinces, a n d fin a lly u p to th e N P C a t t h e to p . A t e a c h level, th e C P C d o m in a te s a n d e n su re s t h a t o n ly its p a r ty m e m b e rs a re se le c te d fo r th e h i g h e r levels o f th e le g is la tu re .

418 China

R e g im e a n d P olitical In stitu tio n s

Regime Authoritarian

Powers in Constitution Unitary system; written constitution; officially socialist

Administrative Divisions Twenty-two provinces (and China claims Taiwan as twenty-third) Five autonomous regions (including Tibet) Four municipalities (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Chongqing) Two special administrative regions (Hong Kong, Macau)

Executive Branch Three top positions with executive functions: President of People's Republic of China; Secretary-General of Communist Party; and Chairman of Central Military Council Politburo is executive committee of the Communist Party, and includes top leaders of the party Head of government is the premier, recommended by president and approved by legislature; leads the State Council that oversees administration

Legislative Branch National People's Congress (NPC); elected in indirect elections from village level up to NPC

Selection of Executive Indirect; president selected by NPC

Judicial Branch Supreme Court elected/appointed by NPC and its committees

Political Party System Single dominant party: Communist Party of China (CPC)

T h e exec u tiv e b r a n c h h a s se v e ra l p r o m in e n t p o s itio n s , as e x a m in e d f u r t h e r in t h e b o x “W h o G o v e rn s C h in a ? ” a n d as n o te d in th e re g im e c h a r t. T h e p r e s id e n t is th e fo rm a l h e a d o f s ta te , w h ile th e s e c re ta ry -g e n e ra l le a d s th e C P C . I n p ra c tic e , a single p e rs o n o f te n h o ld s b o t h p o s itio n s , a lo n g w i t h t h e ro le o f c o m m a n d e r in c h ie f, a n d is k n o w n as th e

“p a r a m o u n t le a d e r.” T h e p re m ie r, w h o is re sp o n sib le fo r t h e o n g o in g o p e ra tio n s o f th e g o v e rn m e n t a n d fo r im p le m e n t­ in g law s, is n o m in a te d b y th e p r e s id e n t a n d a p p ro v e d b y th e N P C . T h is sy s te m e n su re s t h a t p o lic ie s se t b y t h e P o litb u ro a n d th e e x ec u tiv e p a ss in to law.

Political Culture P o litic a l c u ltu re s a re co m p le x a n d m u ltifa c e te d , lo c a te d b o th in th e m in d s o f in d iv id u a l m e m b e rs o f so c iety a n d in p u b ­ licly e sta b lish e d sym bols a n d s tru c tu re s . A s su c h , m a p p in g p o litic a l c u ltu re is a c o m p le x ta s k , above a ll in a larg e so c iety lik e C h in a . A ty p ic a l s tra te g y is to focus o n im p o r ta n t fea­ tu re s o r c u rre n ts o f a g iv en c o u n try ’s p o litic a l c u ltu re . H e re w e b riefly fo cu s o n tw o o f t h e m o s t i m p o r t a n t c u rre n ts in C h in e s e p o litic a l c u ltu re : C o n fu c ia n is m a n d M a o ism .

C o n f u c ia n is m is t r a c e d b a c k to C o n f u c iu s , a p h i lo s o ­ p h e r w h o liv e d f r o m a r o u n d 551 to 4 7 9 b c . F o r th e s tu d y o f p o liti c a l c u ltu r e , th e p a r ti c u l a r s o f h is p h i lo s o p h y a re n o t t h e i m p o r t a n t t h in g . R a th e r , w e a re i n te r e s t e d in h o w g e n e r a lly C o n f u c i a n id e a s w e re p ic k e d u p a n d c a r r i e d a lo n g c u ltu r a lly o v e r m a n y y e a rs , a n d w e a re in te r e s te d in th e c o n s e q u e n c e s o f t h e s e id e a s. C o n f u c ia n is m as e s t a b ­ l is h e d e m p h a s iz e d f o r m a l e d u c a tio n , th e i m p o r t a n c e o f p u b lic r i t u a l , a s t r i c t c o d e o f e th ic a l re s p o n s ib ility , a n d

p ie t y to w a r d o n e ’s fa m ily a n d a n c e s to r s ( H a r r is o n 2 0 0 1 ). W h i l e m a n y fin d t h e s e id e a s i n tr in s ic a ll y a p p e a li n g a n d in te r e s t in g , as s o c ia l s c ie n tis ts w e b e lie v e t h a t th e y b e c a m e i n f lu e n tia l i n p a r t b e c a u s e th e C h in e s e im p e r i a l s ta te e m p lo y e d t h e m fo r m a n y c e n tu r ie s in its e ffo rts to m a i n t a i n its le g i tim a c y a n d s t a f f its e lf. I m p e r i a l e x a m in a ­ t io n s b a s e d o n C o n f u c ia n is m d e te r m in e d w h o w o u ld b e a b le to h o l d w h i c h o fficial jo b s . T h is e n h a n c e d a n d m a i n ­ t a i n e d C o n f u c ia n i s m ’s p r e s tig e in p r e - m o d e r n C h i n a , as it w a s a s s o c ia te d w i t h b o t h t h e s ta te a n d h i g h so c ia l s ta tu s .

C o n f u c ia n is m is o f te n u s e d b y th e o r is ts (so m e tim e s , p e rh a p s , f u n c tio n in g as a c u ltu r a l ste re o ty p e ) w h o e m p h a ­ size c u ltu r e in t h e i r e ffo rts to e x p la in se v e ra l p o litic a l a n d e c o n o m ic p h e n o m e n a o b se rv a b le i n C h i n a a n d o th e r c o u n ­ trie s w i t h s tro n g C o n f u c ia n h e rita g e , su c h as J a p a n , K o re a, S in g a p o re , a n d V ie tn a m . S o m e a rg u e , fo r e x a m p le , t h a t

Profile 419

C o n f u c ia n p o litic a l c u ltu r e u n d e rlie s a u th o r it a r ia n p o litic s .

T h is id e a w a s a ctiv ely p ro m o te d b y L e e K w a n Y ew in S in ­ g a p o re , fo r e x am p le. O th e r s , as p o in te d o u t i n c h a p te r 4, have tr ie d to u se C o n f u c ia n c u ltu r e to e x p la in b o t h (1) th e e c o n o m ic u n d e rd e v e lo p m e n t e x p e rie n c e d b y C h i n a u n til re c e n tly and (2) its re c e n t g r o w th .

M a o is m a tt e m p te d to re p la c e C o n f u c ia n is m in th e sp h e re o f p o litic a l c u ltu re , v ie w in g th is as n e c e s s a ry to m o d e r n iz a tio n . F o r t h is re a so n , m a n y a n a ly sts a re su s p i­ cio u s o f c la im s a b o u t th e c o n te m p o ra r y c o n se q u e n c e s o f tr a d it io n a l C o n f u c ia n is m , sin c e t h e y a rg u e t h a t th e r e is little c o n tin u ity b e tw e e n p r e -m o d e r n C o n f u c ia n is m a n d c o n te m p o ra ry C h in e s e p o litic a l c u ltu re .

M a o is m — in C h in a o fte n c a lle d “M a o Z e d o n g T h o u g h t ” (Jo s e p h 2 0 1 0 a : 1 3 5 - 1 5 0 ) — is a v a r ia n t o f M a r x is m . A s su c h , it e m p h a s iz e s t h e im p o r ta n c e o f class s tru g g le , sees h is to r y as th e s to ry o f c lass e x p lo ita tio n , a n d c alls fo r a f u tu r e in w h ic h th e d iv is io n o f la b o r a n d a s s o c ia te d e x p lo i­ ta ti o n w ill b e re v e rse d . H o w e v e r, M a o m a d e m a jo r re v i­ sions to p re v io u s v e rsio n s o f M a r x is m . T h e tw o m o s t im p o r t a n t a re (1) t h e c e n tr a lity o f th e p e a s a n tr y in M a o is t th o u g h t a n d (2) M a o is m ’s v o lu n ta ris m .

M a r x w as s k e p tic a l o f p e a s a n ts as re v o lu tio n a rie s . H e th o u g h t t h a t t h e y w e re in h e r e n tly c o n se rv a tiv e . I t w a s th e u r b a n , i n d u s tr ia l w o rk e rs— t h e p r o le ta r ia t— t h a t w e re m o s t fu lly a lie n a te d a n d t h a t , th e re fo re , h a d th e g re a te s t re v o lu ­ tio n a r y p o te n tia l. S c h o la rs h a v e o f te n n o te d th e iro n y t h a t M a r x is m e n d e d u p b e in g m o s t su c c e ssfu l i n p lac es lik e R u ssia , C h in a , a n d la te r t h e s o -c a lle d “T h ir d W o r ld ” w h e re a n d w h e n i n d u s tr ia liz a tio n a n d u r b a n iz a tio n w e re less es­ ta b lis h e d (th o u g h in d u s tr ia l w o rk e rs d id p lay a n i m p o r t a n t role in th e R u s s ia n R e v o lu tio n ). S o m e w o u ld a rg u e t h a t M a o is m is m o re c o n s is te n t w i t h w h a t a c tu a lly h a p p e n e d in th e tw e n tie th c e n tu ry . M a o e m p h a s iz e d th e re v o lu tio n a ry p o te n tia l o f p e a s a n ts a n d c o n c e n tra te d h is o rg a n iz in g a m o n g th e m . H e re g a rd e d t h e m as v ir tu o u s , o fte n

Political Economy D e s p ite a lo n g a n d ric h h is to r y a n d c u ltu r e , C h i n a s p e n t c e n tu rie s in a s ta te o f e c o n o m ic s ta g n a tio n t h a t c o n tin u e d u p to th e 1 980s. T h ro u g h th e m id - tw e n t ie th c e n tu r y a n d M a o ’s C o m m u n is m , C h in a w itn e s s e d p o v e r ty a n d e ven fa m in e o n a m assive scale, b o t h o f w h ic h w e re e x a c e rb a te d b y th e p o lic ies o f th e C o m m u n is t P a r t y le a d e rs h ip . C h i n a ’s e c o n o m ic m o d e l c h a n g e d d ra m a tic a lly , h o w e v er, a f te r th e rise o f D e n g X ia o p in g in 1 978. D e n g in s t i t u t e d re fo rm s t h a t o p e n e d C h in a u p to g re a te r c a p ita lis m , w i t h th e m o s t

p u n is h in g w a y w a rd e lite s, s e n d in g th e m to w o rk w i th p e a s ­ a n ts fo r “re -e d u c a tio n .”

W h e n w e say t h a t M a o is t t h o u g h t e m p h a siz e s “v o lu n ­ ta ris m ” w e m e a n t h a t M a o th o u g h t t h a t t h r o u g h a g r e a t a c t o f w ill a c o lle c tiv ity c o u ld “leap” o u t o f th e s tr u c tu r e d d e te r­ m in a tio n o f h is to ry (Jo s e p h 2 0 1 0 a : 141-142). T h u s, a p e o p le co u ld h e ro ic a lly ex ceed th e e c o n o m ic p ro d u c tiv ity o f w h ic h c o n v e n tio n a l analysis w o u ld e x p e c t th e m capable. C ritic s w o u ld p o in t to th e d isa stro u s c o n se q u en c es o f th e “G re a t L e a p F o r w a r d ” as sh o w in g t h e d a n g e ro u sn e ss o f t h is idea.

I n th e y e a rs fo llo w in g M a o ’s d e a th , M a o is m h a s b e c o m e m o re o p e n a n d flexible. I t r e m a in s , a t le a s t fo rm ally , t h e core id e o lo g y o f th e sta te . J u s t th e sa m e , so m e w o n d e r i f M a o is t “m a r k e t so c ia lism ” is re a lly so c ia lism — o r M a o is m — a t all. C o n fu c ia n is m , w h ic h w as o fficially to h a v e b e e n re p la ce d , h a s b e e n g ra d u a lly e n d o rs e d as w e ll b y C h in a ’s elites. S o m e s tu d e n ts o f c u ltu re w o u ld a rg u e t h a t th e C o n f u c ia n legacy, d e sp ite M a o ’s o p p o s itio n to it, h a d n e v e r re a lly d is a p p e a re d in a n y case. T h u s b o t h o f th e s e k e y s tra n d s o f C h in e s e p o ­ litic a l c u ltu r e re m a in im p o r t a n t in to d a y ’s C h in a , as in te l­ le c tu a ls w o r k to re v ise a sp e c ts o f e a c h t h a t a re v ie w e d as in c o n s is te n t w ith th e m o d e m w o rld (e.g., tr a d itio n a l C o n ­ fu c ia n is m ’s c ritic a l sta n c e to w a rd com m e rc e ).

A t th e sa m e tim e , C h in a h a s m a n y o f th e fe a tu re s o f in ­ d u s tria liz e d societies, a n d a g ro w in g q u e s tio n is h o w m id d le - class c o n su m e rs (especially in c o sm o p o lita n u rb a n areas) w ill c o ex ist w i th C o n fu c ia n o r M a o is t view s in a n in cre asin g ly e n tre p re n e u ria l society. I n re c e n t years, m u c h o f C h in a ’s elite a n d m asses a lik e have e m b ra c e d a v isio n t h a t “to b e co m e ric h is g lo rio u s.” T h e c o u n try h a s e m b ra c e d m a n y a sp e cts o f capi­ ta lism , ev en as th e g o v e rn m e n t tig h tly lim its p o litic a l rig h ts a n d in te rv e n e s h e avily in th e econom y. C h in a ’s p o litic a l cul­ tu r e th u s d ra w s u p o n m u ltip le stra in s o f lo n g s ta n d in g p h i­ lo so p h y “m a d e in C h in a ,” ev en w h ile ta k in g o n som e o f th e c u ltu ra l fe a tu re s o f o th e r c o n te m p o ra ry societies in a n age o f g lo b a l c o m m u n ic a tio n s a n d e x ch a n g e.

p r o m in e n t c h a n g e s b e in g o p e n in g a g r ic u ltu r e a n d in d u s tr y to p riv a te o w n e rs h ip .

C h in a ’s r e c e n t e m b ra c e o f g r e a te r o p e n n e s s to m a r k e t forces h a s h a d d ra m a tic effects. I n d u s t r y flo u ris h e d , e s p e ­ c ia lly a lo n g th e c o a s t, as C h i n a p u s h e d e c o n o m ic g r o w th b a s e d o n c h e a p e x p o rts a n d b e c a m e th e “w o rk s h o p o f th e w o rld .” A g r ic u ltu r a l p r o d u c tiv ity im p ro v e d as w e ll, a n d r e ­ in fo rc e d in d u s tr ia liz a tio n : A s p ro d u c tiv ity im p ro v e d in r u r a l a re a s, fe w e r p e o p le w e re n e e d e d to p ro d u c e th e sam e

420 China

a m o u n t o f fo o d , a n d m a n y r u r a l d w e lle rs m ig r a te d to u rb a n a rea s to b e c o m e fa c to ry w o rk e rs. W a g e s w e re (a n d re m a in ) lo w b y W e s te r n s ta n d a rd s , b u t o fte n re p re s e n te d s ig n ifi­ c a n tly in c re a s e d in c o m e fro m t h a t w h ic h w a s availab le in r u r a l a rea s. I t m a y b e t h a t since t h e re fo rm s w e re p a sse d , m o re t h a n h a lf a billion p e o p le (o fte n e s tim a te d a t 6 0 0 m il ­ lio n ) h a v e c o m e o u t o f p o v e rty . C h i n a h a s b e c o m e th e w o r ld ’s le a d in g e x p o rte r a n d s e c o n d -la rg e s t eco n o m y , b a se d in p a r t o n e x p o rt-le d g r o w t h in m a n u f a c tu r in g a n d re la te d in v e s tm e n t. I t h a s g o n e fro m b e in g o n e o f th e w o r ld ’s p o o re s t c o u n trie s to m id d le -in c o m e s ta tu s in j u s t th r e e

de ca d es. D e s p ite th e a p p a r e n t success o f m a rk e t- f r ie n d ly re fo rm ,

C h i n a is fa r fro m p u re ly c a p ita lis t. T h e sta te c o n tin u e s to p la y a m a jo r ro le in th e eco n o m y , in c lu d in g in w ays t h a t som e g lo b a l c o m p e tito rs say gives C h in a “u n f a ir a d v a n ­ ta g e .” F o r in s ta n c e , C h in a h a s re q u ir e d t h a t m a jo r fo re ig n in v e s to rs w i s h in g to in v e s t in C h i n a m u s t p a r tn e r w ith C h in e s e c o m p a n ie s in “j o in t v e n tu r e s .” T h is e n su re s t h a t C h in e s e c o m p a n ie s b e n e fit fro m in v e s tm e n t a n d t h e t r a n s ­ fe r o f sk ills, k n o w le d g e , a n d te c h n o lo g y . T h ese a n d o th e r sta te in te rv e n tio n s a re i n a d d itio n to c o n tr o llin g th e c u r­ re n c y to p ro m o te e x p o rts .

C h i n a ’s p o litic a l e c o n o m y s till h a s se v e ra l m a jo r c h a l­ le n g e s. O n e o f t h e m o s t p re s s in g fo r m o s t C h in e s e is th e c o n tin u e d p o v e rty o f r u r a l a re a s, a n d t h e r e la te d p ro b le m o f h ig h a n d g r o w in g in e q u a lity . U r b a n a reas a lo n g t h e c o a s t

h a v e b e n e fite d t h e m o s t fro m C h i n a ’s b o o m , a lo n g w it h so m e c ities a lo n g m a jo r w a te rw a y s. D e s p ite e ffo rts to d e ­ v e lo p t h e in te rio r, C h i n a s till h a s h ig h levels o f p o v e r ty in r u r a l areas. S e c o n d , C h i n a ’s e n v ir o n m e n t is d e g ra d e d due to p o llu tio n t h a t h a s c o m e w i t h in d u s try . M a n y c ities have h e a v ily p o llu te d w a te r su p p lies a n d a w fu l a ir q u a lity fro m fa c to ry e m iss io n s a n d th e s h i f t fro m b icycles to e v e r m o re c a rs fo r tr a n s p o r ta ti o n . T h ird , C h in a faces a d e m o g ra p h ic c h a lle n g e t h a t m a n y w e a lth y c o u n trie s face, b u t e v en m o re so: Its “O n e C h i l d ” p o lic y h a s lim ite d th e b i r t h ra te fo r m a n y y e a rs, b u t i t also m e a n s a ra p id ly a g in g p o p u la tio n t h a t m a y stru g g le in th e f u tu r e to c are fo r its g r o w in g n u m b e r o f e ld e rly c itiz e n s . A fin a l m a jo r c h a lle n g e is th e r u le o f la w fo r in te lle c tu a l p ro p e rty , as C h in a h a s b e e n a h a v e n fo r d ig ita l p ira c y a n d “r ip p in g o ff” p a te n ts a n d c o p y ­ rig h ts o f m a jo r in te r n a t io n a l c o m p a n ie s . T h is is n o t j u s t a p ro b le m fo r D isn e y , L e v i ’s, o r th e p h a rm a c e u tic a l c o m p a n y P fiz e r, b u t a lso fo r C h in a ’s a m b itio n s to b e c o m e a w o rld le a d e r in th e re s e a rc h a n d d e v e lo p m e n t t h a t le a d to a m o re v a lu e - a d d e d e conom y. A t t h e sa m e tim e , so m e w o u ld a rg u e t h a t th is w a y o f lo o k in g a t t h in g s p riv ile g e s th e p o in t o f v ie w o f t h e w e a lth ie s t c o u n trie s , a s k in g d e v e lo p in g c o u n ­ trie s to p la y b y a d iffe re n t se t o f ru le s t h a n th e y d id w h ile th e m se lv e s d e v elo p in g .

C h in a ’s p o litic a l e c o n o m y is e x p lo re d f u r t h e r in th e fol­ lo w in g case s t u d y “H o w D i d C h i n a B e c o m e a n E c o n o m ic P o w er? ”

CASE STUDIES

China is seen today as the greatest chal­ lenge to the global economic power of the United States, yet just over thirty years ago it was one of the world's poorest countries. This slow development came despite the country's ancient history as a leader in world trade and technological innovation. Starting in 1949, the Commu­ nist Party increased the state's role in the economy. Mao and the Communists col­ lectivized agriculture (prohibiting private

farming) and tried to promote heavy in­ dustry such as steel production. From the 1950s to the 1970s, Mao attempted major economic overhauls in the so-called "Great Leap Forward"— which resulted in a catastrophic famine— and the so-called "Cultural Revolution." In 1978-1979, China began economic reforms under a new leader, Deng Xiaoping. These reforms fa­ cilitated private enterprise and gave more flexibility to local officials. Critically, the

reforms were gradual and strategic: China didn't open all areas of its economy im­ mediately to international market forces. China seized advantage of growing glo­ balization and adopted an export-led growth model based on selling goods to the world's wealthiest countries.

The last thirty years have seen spec­ tacular growth of about 10 percent per year, a rate at which the size of the overall economy doubles about every seven

Case Studies 421

Become an Economic Power? CHAPTER 5, PAGE 105

years. With growth has come economic power, but also a rising tide of inequality (especially between the relatively wealthy coastal regions and the rural interior of the country) and significant environmen­ tal degradation. Recent years have seen some disputes with the United States over trade and the value of the Chinese currency, which Washington asserts is un­ fairly "undervalued" to favor Chinese com­ panies by making Chinese goods cheaper to Americans and American goods more expensive in China. Others, though, sug­ gest that China should attempt to shape the value of its currency in the pursuit of its own interests, and not those of the United States or other countries. This policy, which in part involves China using the proceeds from sales of exports to buy American gov­ ernment bonds, is controversial. It is seen by some as the United States and other countries "borrowing from China to buy from China."

Nonetheless, from the perspective of the developing economy, keeping the currency at a low value seemed to work

very well for countries such as South Korea as they industrialized and modern­ ized. It meant people in these Asian coun­ tries had to defer the chance to consume as they grew wealthier, sometimes for a generation. In the end, however, the willingness to save and lend instead of borrow and consume contributed to de­ velopment. Whether this tendency is a matter of culture and society, of eco­ nomic policy, or of political regime re­ mains a matter of debate. Some say it reflects an "Asian" willingness to defer gratification (or, one could argue, a con­ temporary Western inability to defer gratification). Others suggest that only rather authoritarian regimes can manage such approaches. Still others might say it is simplya matter of astute economic policy.

China's development success has been astounding, but it also has problems. The most conspicuous may be an increas­ ing challenge of sustainability as China has passed the United States to become the world's largest polluter in absolute terms (though the U.S. remains a much larger

polluter per capita than China). In addition, China's development model may have the "opposite" challenge of the United States today. China as a country saves a great deal of money and consumes relatively little, given its size and income. The coun­ try's earnings depend heavily upon ex­ ports, as well as on increasing investment in infrastructure ranging from railroads to coal-fired power stations to apartment buildings. While China scolds the United States for spending beyond its means and borrowing too much, others might criti­ cize China for an economy that saves, in­ vests, and lends too much.

We can learn from China's successes and problems to address questions that interest peoples around the world: Why does rapid economic development happen? Is China's success evidence that the free market promotes development, or that the state drives development, or both, or neither? Is recent economic suc­ cess a consequence of Chinese culture? If so, how do we account for China's long economic stagnation before 1979?

C A SE STU DY

Is China Destined for Democracy? CHAPTER 6, PAGE 131

Is it possible to predict whether countries will become democracies? Some will say yes and others no, but political scientists are generally interested in the predictive power of their theories for the future, even if these theories are based on evi­ dence from the past. For instance, a politi­ cal scientist who argues that economic

development leads to democracy might make this argument using existing evi­ dence and building on the moderniza­ tion theory seen in chapter 6. At the same time, this theorist would also be making a theoretical prediction: poor countries that grow and modernize economically are predicted to democratize in the future. If a

theory is accurate and powerful, it will often help us to predict future events, even if they are based on readings of the past. The question of whether China will become a democracy presents a useful example of how theories make predic­ tions, and how empirical evidence sup­ ports or challenges theories.

422 China

CA SE STU DY (continued)

Is China Destined for Democracy?

Imagine three theorists who are asked about the future of China. The first is a modernization theorist, as noted earlier. What would a modernization theorist pre­ dict about democracy in China's future, given China's rapid economic growth? A second theorist is a certain kind of cultur- alist who believes that a country's regime type (whether democratic or authoritar­ ian) is rooted in deep cultural values. What would this theorist expect, if China has never had a "political culture” of democ­ racy? A third theorist might argue that democratization depends on the actions of specific individuals. Would this theorist be able to make predictions about the future?

Observing China's rapid economic growth and emergence of an urban middle class, the modernization theorist might predict that China will move inexo­ rably toward democracy in the coming years. As China develops economically and urbanizes, a middle class is emerging. Modernization theorists would likely pre­ dict that China will follow the path of other countries that have developed: Countries that modernize regularly prog­ ress toward more rights (such as property rights) and a middle class more willing to use its economic and political power to demand and protect these rights. Eco­ nomic development leads to democracy, so if China sees development, democracy should follow.

The culturalist theorist we mentioned might explain the lack of demand for democracy in China by deep and long- lasting tendencies in the population, the political system, or the political culture. For example, one argument about the

polities of East Asia suggests that cultures in the region accept the importance of state authority and may tolerate a lack of rights as a result; this is sometimes seen as a Confucian heritage, drawing upon the works of the philosopher Confucius dis­ cussed briefly in the "Political Culture” sec­ tion earlier in the chapter. While not all culturalists would adopt this perspective, and this interpretation of Confucianism is highly contestable, our hypothetical cultur­ alist might say that China's cultural heritage will work against democratization.

The third theorist may compare transi­ tions to democracy in other countries and conclude that these really depended on the decisions of a small handful of very important individuals. The experience of South Africa and Presidents Nelson Man­ dela and F. W. de Klerk in the early 1990s might be such an example, as would many other cases around the world. This theorist would only be able to make more ambiguous predictions about China's future, and might conclude that “it de­ pends on leaders" more than forces like economic change or culture; it would thus be difficult for this theorist to predict in advance how movements toward de­ mocracy in China will play out, since "it depends" upon individuals and their choices.

The modernization theorist would likely predict that China is on the road to democracy, and that democracy is all but inevitable as China grows richer. Our example of a culturalist would likely be skeptical about the prospects for democ­ racy. And the theorist focusing on leader­ ship would probably caution both of the others that their predictions are quite

i-fe is?

CHAPTER 6, PAGE 131

uncertain. The first two theories have the merit of making clear predictions in advance. They can be falsified for the Chinese case if they get it wrong. If we fast-forward thirty years, either the mod­ ernization theorist or the culturalist is likely to have been shown wrong, at least for this case, and the other theory may well have some evidence supporting it.

The third theory, about leaders, may have more difficulty making clear predic­ tions about whether China will become a democracy at a certain point in time, but it does make an important theoretical prediction of its own: If and when China does democratize, it will be primarily be­ cause of the leadership and decisions of individuals. This too can be falsified, if it is shown that large groups of people or im­ personal forces drove the outcomes in China more than selected leaders. The theory might say that democratization is more unexpected in some places than others. Someone who traces democrati­ zation to economic modernization will expect that they can "see democracy coming," even if they cannot pinpoint the moment it will occur.

Consider whether one or more of the three hypothetical theorists makes the most intuitive sense to you. Some empha­ size political economy, some emphasize culture, and some emphasize individuals, among other possibilities. Your prefer­ ence will give you some ideas about what you would predict for China. More gener­ ally, if you find yourself coming back to similar kinds of predictions across differ­ ent chapters, this may give you some in­ sight into the type of comparativist and thinker you are.

Case Studies 423

r ! CASE STUDY

W ho Governs China?

Understanding who really leads China and holds power there requires careful examination of leadership positions as well as the informal influence of different individual politicians and groups. This authoritarian, single-party country has over a billion people and multiple influ­ ential institutions that feature promi­ nently in government, yet power often comes to be associated with individual leaders. How does this work? As sug­ gested previously under the "Regime and Institutions' sections of this country profile, China's system formally features three different top executive positions, plus a head of government called the premier that presides over the legisla­ ture. There are also two major councils that bring together top leaders, one for the state government called the State Council and one for the Communist Party known as the Politburo.

The three top executive positions are the President of the People's Republic of China (the formal head of state), the Sec­ retary-General of the Communist Party (the head of the governing party), and the Chairman of the Central Military Council (the commander-in-chief, as it were). At present, Xi Jinping has consolidated all three authorities in his person, so there is little doubt about who leads the execu­ tive branch. Meanwhile, to use the terms of chapter 10, the premier is a head of government similar to a prime minister; he is appointed by the president and ap­ proved by the legislature, the National People's Congress. Li Keqiang is currently in this post. There are also other members of the Politburo that are politically

prominent, and some of them jockey for position to be the next generation of Chinese leaders.

It is common to talk about major peri­ ods in recent Chinese history that are as­ sociated with a single "paramount leader," regardless of these many different official leadership posts. The paramount leaders sometimes have held the official execu­ tive leadership positions, but not always. Recent leaders, including Xi Jinping, have held the three key offices of head of state, head of the Communist Party, and head of the military, and this trifecta can be taken as a clear indicator of their "paramount” status. They have been president, party leader, and commander-in-chief all in one, leaving little doubt about who is the top decision maker. Yet the previous para­ mount leaders, Mao Zedong (1949-1976) and Deng Xiaoping (about 1978-1992), could be seen as the leaders of their eras because of their ability to wield influence over party and state institutions in slightly different ways. Mao's control was most direct: He was the chairman of the various committees, commissions, and major de­ cision-making bodies of his era; it is for this reason that he is often referred to as "Chairman Mao," and not "President Mao." Deng Xiaoping, by contrast, did not hold all of the top positions himself yet there was also little doubt who the decision maker was during his time as paramount leader. Deng held certain posts as the head of the administration in the State Council, and he presided over the military at certain times, but these were not the true source of his leverage. Rather, he ex­ ercised authority through the individuals

CHAPTER 10, PAGE 236

who served as "figureheads" in the top three posts and through his predomi­ nance among the members of the Polit­ buro and other organs of state and party.

Paramount leaders have governed and wielded power in very different ways. Mao Zedong pushed ambitious economic plans and attempts to modernize China in a very top-down, authoritarian fashion. These included the so-called Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, which over the long run were responsible for the famine, stagnation, and repression associated with Mao's rule. Deng Xiaoping became paramount leader at the end of 1978 and remained so into the 1990s. Deng became known as the leader who set China on the path to economic dyna­ mism with major reforms, but he was also responsible for the violent crackdown in Tiananmen Square in 1989. After Deng's passing from the scene, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping continued Commu­ nist Party control with economic reform. All can be seen in different ways as prag­ matists who have attempted to increase China's engagement with the world and further development by engaging more people in the process, all while retaining the tight grip of the Communist Party.

The image of Chinese executive lead­ ership is one in which top politicians accu­ mulate power informally within the Communist Party and interlocking state institutions, often making alliances as needed with other key players while gain­ ing in seniority. In contemporary China, we might say that accumulating power within the party and state has led to the top ex­ ecutive positions, rather than the power

424 China

coming from the positions themselves. The presidency has little formal power at­ tached to it, for example, though the presi­ dent is the head of state. Yet becoming president is a clear sign of power. The elec­ tion of the president is dominated by the Communist Party in the legislative branch

(National People's Congress), but upon the recommendation of a single candidate by the Politburo, the leading decision-making organ within the Communist Party. In short, the one candidate selected by the CPC elites is almost guaranteed to be pres­ ident. It may not be surprising that the

party will often select its own leader, or the person it wishes to become its leader, to the position. China's intricate set of gov­ erning mechanisms makes the Politburo and other leadership organs the leading sources of executive power in the world's most populous country.

The Chinese Party System CHAPTER 11, PAGE 260

China is the most influential and impor­ tant dominant-party system in the world today. The country functions essentially as a single-party system, though some other parties are nominally allowed. China's Communist Party has held onto power for over six decades through a combination of factors. The various mechanisms for en­ suring the dominance of the Communist Party are useful to understand, especially since the meaning of "Communist" in Communist Party has shifted so dramati­ cally with the many changes in China over the last several decades.

The first and most obvious factor is the tight linkage between the Commu­ nist Party, the Chinese state bureaucracy, and the military. The Communists control the state apparatus and can call on the military as needed to protect the regime. Through years of Communist dominance, the state and military have contributed to single-party rule. This has sometimes taken place with violent repression by the military, as in Tiananmen Square in 1989 and in purges by leader Mao Zedong in

previous decades. It has also happened on an ongoing basis through the use of state organs to harass certain opposition forces that might pose a threat, imprison prominent dissidents, and control the media (including new media such as Google's China-based search engine and social media). Many of these efforts to minimize opposition have been passed by the National People's Congress (NPC), but they rely upon the state for enforcement.

A second factor is the electoral system, which provides built-in advan­ tages for the Communist Party. The most important feature is the indirect election process, by which local councils elect members of governing councils at higher levels, and so on up to the NPC. For in­ stance, national-level legislators are se­ lected by provincial legislators, who are in turn selected by council members at lower levels. The result of this indirect election process is absolute dominance for the Communists at the national level in Beijing. While it is possible for

independents and even some members of other small parties to elect a single del­ egate or two at the local level, it is exceed­ ingly difficult for enough independents to be elected to get an independent or member of another party at the next level up. The well-established, well-resourced Communists are present in every local election throughout the country and dominate the indirect elections to higher levels; this means a virtual single-party state at the national level, with the only exceptions being other parties that are closely "allied” to the Communists and ba­ sically under Communist control.

A third set of factors has to do with the Communist Party's legitimacy, including its actual performance in government. China's economic growth under Commu­ nist Party rule has been superb in recent years. While it is difficult to get an indepen­ dent view of Chinese public opinion, even international news reports suggest that many Chinese are relatively satisfied with government performance and are thus not pressing for immediate moves toward

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The Chinese Party System CHAPTER 11, PAGE 260

a multiparty system. This idea that a gov­ ernment's legitimacy can be based on economic performance has often been tested in a democracy, and it also seems to have held in some authoritarian and exclu­ sionary systems (Epstein 1984). Legitimacy can also be based upon other factors than economics. The Chinese Communist Party has made significant efforts over the years

to associate itself with a variety of ideas that it has used to trumpet the regime's ability to represent the Chinese people. These have included the claim that the Communists can uniquely represent the working class and peasants, but have also included touting Chinese nationalism. The Chinese Communists have focused on trumpeting China's greatness and rise to

power, and opposition to foreign (espe­ cially Western and Japanese) influence. This has flourished through the Commu­ nist period (even though Communist ideology is traditionally seen as formally opposed to nationalist sentiment). This cluster of factors shows several ways that an authoritarian single-party system can persist even in the presence of elections.

The Chinese Revolution

The case of China allows us to consider two issues of concern to us in the study of contention and revolutions. First, it highlights the question considered in the chapter about how to define revolu­ tions and even subtypes like "political revolutions" and "social revolutions." Second, it focuses attention on the im­ portance of mobilization in successful revolution, a factor highlighted by re­ source mobilization and political oppor­ tunity theories. Interestingly, the case of China considered alone gives at least some support to all of the theories con­ sidered in chapter 12.

The reason that China highlights the definitional issue is that the country went through a long process of social change, and it is therefore difficult to precisely date when revolution began. As dis­ cussed in the preceding historical narra­ tive, China saw major changes over the course of the nineteenth century, includ­ ing foreign intervention, domestic revolts (some of which, like the Taiping Rebellion, were revolutionary in intention), and fiscal

problems. This led many to seek the mod­ ernization of both state and society. At the same time, the state came to be per­ ceived as weak, because of those very same fiscal difficulties, the trouble it had in maintaining domestic order, and in par­ ticular its loss in the Sino-Japanese War. State weakness— sometimes called "state breakdown"— is seen by many scholars as an essential precursor to revolution. The late Qing state responded by implement­ ing an ineffectual reform program, a factor sometimes stressed by relative de­ privation theories of revolution.

In 1911 and 1912, contention reached a level most scholars would consider revo­ lutionary, and yet what took place at that time was not a "social revolution" in the sense defined in chapter 12 The funda­ mental emphasis was on the transforma­ tion of political structures: the end of the Qing Dynasty and the creation of a repub­ lic. Of course, as our brief historical narra­ tive shows us, the republic was weaker than expected and China descended into the period of "Warlordism." Now this

CHAPTER 12, PAGE 293

certainly had consequences for social structures (just as the successful creation of a strong republic would have), but these consequences were indirect.

It was within this context that the rival parties involved in the next stage of the revolutionary process developed, the Na­ tionalists (heirs to the early republicanism) and the Communists (Averill 1998). As the reader knows from the previous historical narrative, the Communists were ulti­ mately triumphant. The most important factor that scholars have used to explain this difference is their advantage in mobi­ lization capacity (Skocpol 1979: 252-262). While the Nationalists were in power, they were often ineffective, and some of their members acquired a reputation for corruption (Schoppa 2010:59), although some recent scholars argue that the Nationalists were more capable state- builders than traditional accounts sug­ gest (see a brief discussion of these and related issues in Edmonds 1997). In the rural areas controlled by the Communists during the conflict, they were focused on

426 China

+ % CASE STUDY (continued)

I The Chinese Revolution CHAPTER 12, PAGE 293

the establishment of peasant organiza­ tions, indeed, as early as the late 1920s. This strategy— which is linked to Mao­ ism's emphasis on peasants as revolution­ ary actors, which Marx would have rejected— paid enormous dividends in the 1940s when peasants helped the Communists defeat the Nationalists once and for all. Of course, proponents of other

theories of revolution could point to other factors that might help to explain the Communists' success. Cultural or framing theories could point to the salience of Maoist ideology. Relative deprivation and political opportunity theories could point to the ongoing weakness of the state.

Finally, it is important to note that the Chinese Revolution did not end in 1949. Mao

was a proponent of "permanent revolution." Indeed, at least ostensibly it is still going on today. More realistically, perhaps, we could say that it was carried out in stages during Mao's rule. Collectivization of agriculture, the "Great Leap Forward," and the "Cultural Revolution" (Perry 1998) were all key epi­ sodes in the Maoist effort to remake the un­ derlying structures of Chinese society.

Research Prompts 1. Consider the discussion of economic development and democ­

racy in China that you have read in these country case materials. Alongside it, review the discussion of these same themes in the country case materials on India. Both societies have been "mod­ ernizing" rapidly in recent decades, but they have done so in very different terms. India first embraced democracy and only more recently has achieved rapid economic growth. China has achieved dramatic growth, but so far has seen very little democ­ ratization. What accounts for these different trajectories? Which theories can you draw on from the thematic chapters of this textbook to explain the variation between these two cases? How might we empirically test the hypothesis that you generate?

2. The case study on democratization in China (which connects to chapter 6 asks you to think about what several major theories of democratization would predict with respect to the Chinese case in the coming years. Bring the thought experiment to its conclu­ sion: Which theory do you find most plausible with respect to China, and why? How could we get an empirical answer to this question?

3. Compare the Chinese Revolution to the Russian Revolution, dis­ cussed in the country case materials on the Russian Federation.

Both were intended to be Marxist revolutions, but they exhibited notable differences. How were these revolutions different, and how might a social scientist explain their differences?

4. Compare the overview of Chinese political history with our overview of Mexican political history in the Mexico country case materials. Both societies have had long-standing, highly com­ plex civilizations stretching back centuries. However, Mexico experienced direct colonialism, whereas China's brush with European imperialism was largely indirect. What are the major implications or consequences of this difference for Chinese and Mexican political development? How could one use major theories of comparative politics to begin generating ideas in response to this question?

5. The chapter 11 case study shows that China is governed through a complex set of political institutions. Compare and contrast this with Iran, especially the box on Iran's judiciary. Can you hypoth­ esize about why authoritarian regimes might have such intricate sets of governing institutions? Do these compare or contrast with any other countries that have witnessed authoritarian rule in the twentieth century— such as Brazil, Germany, Mexico, Nigeria, Japan, or Russia? What selection of cases might best enable you to test your preliminary hypothesis?

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p a r t because o f a stro n g c u ltu ra l tra d itio n p ro sc rib in g such questions. T he C I A W o rld F a c tb o o k , th e m a in source w e have u se d here fo r d a ta o n th e e th n ic co m p o sitio n o f th e o th e r co u n ­ tries considered in th is b o o k , does n o t list e stim a te d p e rce n t­ ages o f e th n ic g roups in F rance. I t no tes sim ply th a t F re n c h e th n ic g roups in clude “C e ltic a n d L a tin w ith T eu to n ic ” as w ell as “Slavic, N o r t h A fric a n , In d o c h in e se , a n d B asque m in o ri­ ties.” O f th ese g roups, th e N o r t h A fric a n m in o rity — m a n y fro m F ra n c e ’s fo rm er colony o f A lg e ria — a n d su b -S a h a ra n A frica n s m ay b e th e m o s t politica lly im p o rta n t.

M a n y in t h i s g ro u p m a y l is t Is la m as t h e i r r e lig io n , th o u g h t h e m a jo r ity a re p ro b a b ly n o n - p r a c tic in g . W e c a n

Historical Development A s n o te d , F ra n c e h a s tra v e le d a ro c k y ro a d to p o litic a l m o ­ d e rn ity . I n 1789, F ra n c e g ave us w h a t m a n y c o n s id e r th e firs t m o d e r n re v o lu tio n ( A r e n d t 1963; F u r e t [1988] 1995), d e p o s in g th e B o u rb o n m o n a rc h y , e s ta b lis h in g a R e p u b lic , a b o lis h in g t h e n o b ility (noblesse), a n d o p p o s in g t h e p o w e r o f th e R o m a n C a th o lic C h u r c h a n d u ltim a te ly re p re s s in g it. T h e re v o lu tio n ev en c re a te d a n e w c a le n d a r, w i t h t h e b e g in ­ n in g o f th e re v o lu tio n t h e s t a r ti n g p o in t fro m w h ic h f u tu r e y e a rs w o u ld b e c o u n te d . T h is re v o lu tio n is d is c u s s e d f u r t h e r in a case s tu d y la te r in t h e F ra n c e c o u n tr y m a te ria ls .

A f te r a d e ca d e o f ra d ic a liz a tio n a n d in c re a s in g c o n fu sio n , N a p o le o n B o n a p a rte to o k p o w e r (see th e d isc u ssio n in P a rry a n d G ir a rd 2 0 0 2 : 7 -2 4 ). N a p o le o n w as a n early exam p le o f w h a t m o d e rn a u th o rita ria n is m ( w ith lo ts o f references to “th e p e o p le ” a n d ev en p lebiscites a n d o th e r e le m e n ts o f d e m o c ­ racy) m ig h t lo o k lik e . H e f u r t h e r s p re a d m o d e rn p o litic s th r o u g h c o n q u e st, c e n tra liz in g p o litic a l a u th o r ity a n d im ­ p o s in g N a p o le o n ic la w in n u m e ro u s c o u n trie s— it s till serves as th e basis fo r la w in m u c h o f th e w o rld to d a y — a n d also ra is in g n a tio n a lis m in th e re sistan c e h e e n g e n d e re d . E v e r since th e tim e o f N a p o le o n ’s d o m in a tio n , p e o p le have d e ­ b a te d w h e th e r h is re g im e c o n so lid a te d o r re v erse d th e re v o ­ lu tio n . T h e b e s t a n sw e r is p ro b a b ly to say t h a t it d id b o th . O n o n e h a n d h e r e - e s ta b lis h e d o rd e r, p r o c la im in g h i m s e l f em p e ro r, e sta b lish in g a C o n c o rd a t w ith t h e C h u r c h , a n d c re a tin g a n e w “n o b ility ” t h a t w a s d is tin c t fro m th e h e re d i­ ta r y noblesse o f t h e p rio r re g im e . O n th e o th e r h a n d , he sp read m a n y o f t h e re v o lu tio n ’s a ch iev e m en ts to th e re s t o f

E u ro p e a n d b e y o n d . N a p o le o n w as o nce d e p o s e d a fte r m ilita r y d e fe a t a n d se n t

to a n isla n d exile, b u t h e e sc ap e d a n d b riefly re s u m e d h is efforts b e fo re b e in g d e fe a te d a g a in a t W a te rlo o . F o llo w in g

o n ly e s tim a te th e re la tiv e s h a re o f t h e F r e n c h p o p u la tio n w h o a re o fficially M u s lim s . A d h e r e n ts o f Is la m p ro b a b ly c o n s titu te s o m e w h a t less t h a n 10 p e r c e n t o f t h e F r e n c h p o p u la t io n . I n r e c e n t y e a rs th e r e h a v e b e e n m a n y q u e s ­ tio n s a b o u t t h e i r a s s im ila tio n (o r d i s c r im in a tio n a g a in s t th e m , d e p e n d in g o n o n e ’s p o i n t o f v iew ). T h e m a jo r ity o f th e F r e n c h p o p u la t io n is a t le a s t n o m in a lly C a th o lic , b u t, as in m u c h o f E u r o p e , m o s t i n t h e n o m in a l ly C h r i s t ia n c a te g o r y a re n o t r e g u la r c h u r c h a tte n d e e s . S o m e so u rc e s (e.g., K u r u 2 0 0 9 : 2 4 4 ) e s tim a te t h a t j u s t m o re t h a n h a l f o f th e F r e n c h p o p u la t io n (55 p e rc e n t) a d h e r e s fo r m a lly to a r e lig io n .

N a p o le o n ’s d e m ise , F ra n c e saw th e re s to ra tio n o f th e o ld B o u rb o n m o n a rc h y t h a t h a d lo st p o w e r in th e g re a t revolu­ t io n o f 1789. L o u is X V I I I a n d C h a rle s X g o v e rn e d as c o n sti­ tu ti o n a l m o n a rc h s ( F u r e t 1995: 2 7 0 - 2 7 2 ) , h ow ever, even i f th e y a n d som e o f th e i r s u p p o rte rs m ig h t h ave p re fe rre d a b so ­ lu tism . I n o th e r w o rd s, th e re w a s n o fu ll r e tu r n to th e system fro m b e fo re th e re v o lu tio n .

I n 1830, C h a rle s X w a s re p la ce d b y L o u is -P h ilip p e (also a B o u rb o n b u t fro m th e m o re lib e ra l O rle a n s b ra n c h o f th e fam ily) in th e “Ju ly R e v o lu tio n ” (see P a r r y a n d G ir a rd 2 0 02: 5 5 -5 9 ). C a lle d th e “C itiz e n K in g ” b e ca u se o f h is s tro n g e r a n d m o re c o n siste n t s u p p o rt fo r t h e “c o n s titu tio n a l” in “c o n s titu ­ tio n a l m o n arc h y ,” L o u is -P h ilip p e w o u ld h o ld th e th ro n e u n til 1848, w h e n a re v o lu tio n a ry w ave sh o o k E u ro p e . I n F ra n c e , t h is b ro u g h t a b o u t th e “S e c o n d R ep u b lic .” B y th e e n d o f th e year, L o u is -N a p o le o n B o n a p a rte w as e le cte d p re sid en t. T h e n e p h e w o f th e fo rm e r E m p e ro r, h e d e c la re d himself E m p e ro r N a p o le o n I I I in 1851, e n d in g th e S e c o n d R e p u b lic a n d u sh e rin g in th e S e c o n d E m p ire . N a p o le o n I I I w as k n o w n fo r e n c o u ra g in g in d u s tria liz a tio n a n d eco n o m ic m o d e rn iz a ­ tio n , a n d P a ris w as re d e sig n e d u n d e r h is w a tc h , p ro d u c in g m u c h o f th e in f r a s tr u c tu r e a n d p la n fo r th e c ity as it is k n o w n to d a y ( P a rry a n d G ir a rd 2 0 0 2 : 6 3 - 6 9 ; S c h w a rtz 2011: 6 0 -6 1 ). T h is w as also a tim e o f in c re a sin g F re n c h g e o -p o litic a l a m b itio n s , as N a p o le o n I I I w a g e d m ilita ry c a m ­ p a ig n s , in c re a s e d F re n c h c o lo n ia l activity, a n d in v ad e d M e x ico , in s ta llin g a m e m b e r o f th e H a p s b u rg fa m ily as E m ­ p e ro r M a x im ilia n th e re i n th e 1860s. E v en tu ally , th o u g h , m ilita ry a c tiv ity w as N a p o le o n I l l ’s d o w n fa ll. H e w as d e ­ fe a te d b y B ism a rc k ’s P ru s sia in th e F ra n c o -P ru s s ia n W a r o f 1870 a n d a lm o s t im m e d ia te ly lo st p o w e r in F ra n c e. T his tr a n s itio n m a rk e d t h e b e g in n in g o f F ra n c e ’s T h ird R epublic.

T h e T h ird R e p u b lic — w h ic h w o u ld la s t u p u n t i l W o r ld W a r I I — is c o n sid e re d b y so m e to h a v e b e e n a F re n c h “g o ld e n a g e,” th e “B e lle E p o q u e ,” as it is o f te n c a lle d ( P a r r y a n d G ir a r d 2 0 0 2 : 74). I t w a s a p e r io d o f g r e a t flo w e rin g in th e a rts a n d lite r a tu r e , b u t it a lso saw a g r e a t d e a l o f p o l it i ­ c a l a n d so c ia l a c tiv ity a n d co n tro v e rsy , a n d h a s b e e n se e n b y m a n y in F ra n c e as a p e r io d o f in s ta b ility . P e rh a p s m o s t fa m o u sly , i t w itn e s s e d t h e “D r e y f u s A ffa ir,” i n w h ic h a J e w is h officer w a s fa lsely a c c u se d o f s p y in g fo r G e rm a n y . I t is h a r d to e x a g g e ra te h o w im p o r t a n t th is e v e n t w a s fo r in ­ te lle c tu a ls a n d p o litic ia n s , w h o sa w i t as a b o u t m o re t h a n j u s t th e g u i lt o r in n o c e n c e o f o n e m a n , b u t r a th e r a b o u t t h e n a tu r e o f F r e n c h c u ltu r e a n d id e n tity . D r e y f u s ’s a cc u se rs w e re t h o u g h t o f as c o n se rv a tiv e , e v en re a c tio n a ry , o fte n C a th o lic , a n d i n so m e c ases a n ti- S e m itic . S o m e v ie w e d th e m as h e irs to th e s u p p o rte rs o f m o n a rc h y a n d e m p ire fro m p re v io u s c e n tu rie s . D r e y f u s ’s s u p p o rte rs w e re th o u g h t o f as se c u la r, a n d o f te n so c ia lists. S o m e v ie w e d t h e m as th e h e irs o f th e R e p u b lic a n t r a d i t io n (fo r m o re o n th e D re y fu s A ffa ir, see B e g le y 2 0 0 9 ).

F ra n c e w a s b a d ly s h a k e n b y W o r ld W a r I. L ik e th e r e s t o f th e p a r ti c ip a n ts in o t h e r c o u n tr ie s , n e ith e r t h e arm y, n o r t h e p o litic ia n s , n o r th e c itiz e n s fu lly a n tic ip a te d th e n a tu r e o f t r e n c h w a r f a r e , w i t h its e n o rm o u s lo ss o f life , te rrib le c o n d itio n s , a n d s e e m in g ly i n f in ite s ta le m a te s . F ra n c e w a s e v e n tu a lly a m o n g t h e v ic to rs , b u t t h e c o n flic t p la y e d a n i m p o r t a n t ro le in p ro d u c in g t h e n e x t E u r o p e a n crisis. F ra n c e in s is te d t h a t G e r m a n y p a y h u g e i n d e m n itie s , a n d its p r e p a r a to r y s tra te g y fo r th e n e x t p o ss ib le w a r w i t h G e r m a n y w a s b a s e d o n its e x p e rie n c e s in W o r ld W a r I, p r e p a r i n g a s in g le , s u p p o s e d ly im p r e g n a b le , lin e o f d e ­ fe n se c a lle d th e M a g i n o t lin e .

T h e in d e m n i ty im p o s e d o n G e r m a n y c o n tr ib u te d to th e e c o n o m ic a n d so c ia l p ro b le m s t h a t c o n d itio n e d H i t l e r ’s rise to p o w e r. W h i l e H i t le r ro se in G e rm a n y , F ra n c e saw a d if­ fe re n t p a tte r n , m o s t n o ta b ly w it h th e le f t- w in g “P o p u la r F r o n t” g o v e rn m e n t h e a d e d b y L e o n B lu m , w h ic h w as fo rm e d in 1936 ( P a r r y a n d G i r a r d 2 0 0 2 : 1 6 3 -1 6 9 ). T he s h o rt-liv e d g o v e rn m e n t w a s a c c o m p a n ie d b y s trik e a n d la b o r m o b iliz a tio n , b u t F ra n c e w as h ig h ly p o la r iz e d in t h is p e rio d , a n d th e P o p u la r F r o n t g o v e r n m e n t w a s o v e r by 1938. W h e n w a r c a m e , G e r m a n y b y p a sse d th e M a g i n o t L in e w i t h re la tiv e ease. T h e F re n c h sta te c o lla p se d , a n d th e V ic h y G o v e r n m e n t w as e s ta b lis h e d u n d e r M a r s h a ll P h ilip p e P e ta in , o n e o f th e le a d e rs o f th e a r m y t h a t h a d j u s t fa ile d so m is e ra b ly i n s to p p in g t h e G e r m a n a ssa u lt. T h is g o v e rn m e n t w a s lo n g se e n as e s s e n tia lly a p u p p e t o f th e

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G e r m a n o c c u p ie rs , th o u g h m o re r e c e n t h is to ric a l e v id e n ce s u g g e sts t h a t t h e V ic h y g o v e rn m e n t p la y e d a n a ctiv e ro le in d e c isio n m a k in g a n d c o lla b o ra te d m o re w illin g ly w i t h th e N a z is , e v en p a r tic i p a tin g i n th e d e p o r ta tio n o f Je w s. A t th e sa m e tim e , m a n y th o u s a n d s o f F re n c h m e n a n d w o m e n p a r tic i p a te d a ctiv ely in t h e re sista n c e , as w e ll as in th e F re e F re n c h , le d b y C h a rle s D e G a u lle .

A f t e r th e a llie d v icto ry , D e G a u lle w o u ld b e c o m e p re s i­ d e n t o f th e “F o u r t h R e p u b lic .” D u r i n g th is p e r io d , F ra n c e fo c u se d o n r e c o n s tr u c tio n a n d e c o n o m ic d e v e lo p m e n t, as­ s iste d b y th e U n ite d S ta te s ’ M a r s h a l l P la n . D e G a u lle so o n le f t p o w e r, b u t h e w a s c a lle d b a c k in 1958, i n t h e m id s t o f crisis o v e r F r e n c h c o lo n ia l a ffa irs in A lg e ria . T h e n e w (a n d c u rre n t) c o n s titu tio n w as w r itte n , a n d F ra n c e ’s c o n te m p o ­ r a ry “m ix e d p r e s id e n tia lis t” sy s te m w a s e s ta b lis h e d . F ra n c e w e n t t h r o u g h se v e ra l d e c a d e s o f s tr o n g e c o n o m ic p e rfo r­ m a n c e a n d relative p o litic a l sta b ility . I n th is sa m e p e rio d F ra n c e lo s t m o s t o f its im p e ria l p o sse ssio n s, e sp e c ia lly w ith d e c o lo n iz a tio n in A f r ic a i n 1960.

A p r o m in e n t f e a t u r e o f F r a n c e ’s p o s t- w a r p o litic s h a s b e e n t h e p ro c e s s o f E u r o p e a n i n te g r a t i o n , w h i c h h a s o f t e n b e e n l e d b y F r a n c e in t a n d e m w i t h d e m o c r a tic G e r m a n y . T h e e a rly y e a rs o f i n te g r a t i o n w e re e s p e c ia lly d r a m a tic , b e c a u s e t h e tw o c o u n tr ie s h a d b e e n t h e c e n tr a l b e ll ig e r e n ts i n c o n t i n e n ta l E u r o p e a n w a r s f r o m N a p o le o n to H it le r . B e g in n i n g in 1 9 5 0 , F r a n c e a n d G e r m a n y — a lo n g w i t h Ita ly , B e lg iu m , t h e N e t h e r l a n d s , a n d L u x e m ­ b o u r g — a g r e e d to fre e a n d o p e n t r a d e in c o a l a n d ste e l. T h is w a s s e e n as e c o n o m ic a lly s ig n if ic a n t, b u t e v e n m o re i m p o r t a n t s y m b o lic a lly a n d p o litic a lly , as it m e a n t th e tw o c o u n tr ie s w o u ld b e o p e n ly t r a d i n g th e ra w m a te ria ls n e e d e d fo r w a r. F u r t h e r in te g r a t i o n c a m e in 1957, w h e n t h e T r e a t y o f R o m e e x te n d e d t h e e c o n o m ic c o o p e r a tio n to c re a te a E u r o p e a n E c o n o m i c C o m m u n ity . F u r t h e r ex­ te n s io n s o f t h e E u r o p e a n p r o j e c t c a m e w i t h e x p a n s io n to m a n y o t h e r c o u n tr ie s (n o w tw e n ty - s e v e n ) , a n d t h e d e e p ­ e n i n g o f i n te g r a t i o n t h r o u g h fre e t r a d e , fre e flo w s o f la b o r a n d c a p ita l, a n d th e c r e a tio n o f t o d a y ’s c o m m o n c u rre n c y , t h e e u ro . T h e f o r m e r E u r o p e a n C o a l a n d S te e l C o m m u ­ n i t y o f 1 9 5 0 h a s n o w b e c o m e th e b r o a d e r a n d d e e p e r E u r o p e a n U n i o n ( E U ) .

T o d a y F r a n c e is c o n s id e r e d to b e , w i t h G e r m a n y , o n e o f th e t w o m o s t p o w e r f u l s t a te - le v e l a c to rs in t h e E U . Y e t i t fa c e s a n u m b e r o f s i g n if ic a n t q u e s tio n s . F i r s t , h a s its s y s te m o f im m i g r a t i o n a n d a s s i m il a ti o n b r o k e n d o w n ? S e c o n d , w h a t w i l l h a p p e n to t h e F r e n c h w e lf a r e sta te ? Is i t in n e e d o f re fo r m s , a n d i f so, w h i c h re fo r m s , a n d w ill it

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Historical Development T i m e l i n e

800 Charlemagne consolidates rule in much of Western Europe.

1870 The Second Empire ends shortly after Napoleon Ill's forces are defeated by Prussia (under Bismarck)

1000s-1700s Rivalry between France and Britain through Middle at the Battle of Sedan in September, 1870. Ages includes numerous wars. 1870-1940 Third Republic

1334-1453 Hundred Years' War between France and Britain 1871 Paris Commune 1643 Louis XIV becomes King of France, rules for over 1894 Conviction of Alfred Dreyfus

70 years. 1906 Dreyfus declared to be innocent 1789 French Revolution begins with the storming of 1914-1918 First World War

Bastille prison; self-proclaimed National Assembly 1936 Short-lived "Popular Front" government issues Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. 1939-1945 Second World War

1793 The most violent part of the French Revolution 1940-1944 Vichy Government, which collaborates with the Nazis begins, known as the Reign of Terror; King Louis 1944-1946 After the fall of the Vichy government, a provisional XVI executed by guillotine. government is in place.

1799 Napoleon's Seizure of Power 1946-1958 Fourth Republic 1804 Napoleon's Coronation as Emperor 1954-1962 War in Algeria, culminating in Algerian indepen­ 1812 Russian invasion dence in 1962 1814 Napoleon's defeat and imprisonment 1958-Present Fifth Republic 1815 Napoleon returns, but is soon defeated by British at

Battle of Waterloo. 1958 Constitution establishes "Mixed Presidentialist"

system 1814-1830 Bourbon Restoration of Louis XVIII (1814-1824) and 1966 France leaves NATO

Charles X (1824-1830) 1968 Major student protests in Paris (and numerous 1830 July Revolution other countries) 1830-1848 July Monarchy of Louis-Philippe ("Citizen King") 1981 Frangois Mitterrand is elected president (the only 1848-1852 Revolution of 1848 and the Second Republic Socialist elected to this post during the Fifth Re­ 1848 Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte elected President of public) and governs until 1995.

the Republic 1995-2007 Presidency of Jacques Chirac 1852 Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte named Emperor 1999 France adopts the euro.

Napoleon III, beginning the "Second Empire" 2007-2012 Presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy (1852-1870) 2009 France returns to NATO.

1870-1871 Franco-Prussian War, in which France is soundly defeated

2012-present Presidency of Frangois Hollande

b e p o lit ic a l ly p o s s ib le to p r o d u c e t h e m ? F in a lly , w h a t w ill F r a n c e ’s ro le b e i n th e E u r o p e o f t h e f u t u r e , g iv e n th e e n o r m o u s q u e s tio n s t h a t t h e E U n o w fa ce s as i t s tr u g g le s to c o o r d in a te r e g io n - w id e m o n e t a r y p o lic y w i t h s t a te - lev e l fisc a l p o lic y ? O n e o f t h e i n t r i g u i n g fa c ts a b o u t

c o n te m p o r a r y F r a n c e is t h e d e g r e e to w h i c h m a n y o f t h e s e d e c is io n s w i l l b e t a k e n a t a E u r o p e a n lev e l. I t s h o u l d b e n o t e d , th o u g h , t h a t F r a n c e (lik e o t h e r c o u n ­ tr ie s i n t h e E U ) h a s a n a ti o n a l v e to o n m o s t i m p o r t a n t m a tt e r s .

Regime and Political Institutions F ra n c e has a semi-presidential system o f g o v e rn m e n t, also c alled a presidential-parliamentary system . T h is h y b rid h as b o th a d ire c tly ele cte d p re sid e n t a n d a p rim e m in iste r, w ith

th e fo rm e r th e h e a d o f sta te a n d th e la tte r th e h e a d o f g overn­ m e n t. P re sid e n tia l ele ctio n s are fo llo w ed b y e lections to th e leg isla tu re , a fte r w h ic h th e p re sid e n t n o m in a te s a p rim e

432 France

m in is te r to r u n th e g o v e rn m e n t. H o w ev e r, p rim e m in iste rs serve a t th e d isc re tio n o f th e leg isla tu re , a n d th e low er h ouse (the Assemblee Nationale, o r N a tio n a l A ssem bly) m ay force re sig n a tio n o f th e g o v e rn m e n t a t a n y tim e b y a sim ple m ajor­ ity v o tin g for censure. I n pra ctic e , th is h as m e a n t th a t th e p re sid e n t a p p o in ts a p rim e m in is te r o n ly a fte r c o n su ltin g th e lea d er o f th e la rg e st p a r ty in th e le g isla tu re to d e te rm in e th e la tte r’s w ishes.

T h e u p p e r le g is la tiv e c h a m b e r , th e S e n a te , h a s n e a rly c o - e q u a l p o w e rs w i t h th e N a t i o n a l A s se m b ly , b u t th e

N a t io n a l A s s e m b ly ta k e s t h e le a d o n m o s t le g is la tiv e d e ­ b a te s a n d le g is la tio n . A s o p h i s t ic a t e d s y s te m o f c h e c k s a n d b a la n c e s in c lu d e s t h e p r e s i d e n t ’s a b ility to d isso lv e t h e le g i s l a tu r e a n d c a ll n e w e le c tio n s , b u t n o m o re t h a n o n c e in a n y g iv e n y e a r. B y c o n v e n tio n , t h e p r im e m in is te r h a s g r e a t e r p o w e r o v e r d o m e s tic p o litic s a n d t h e p r e s id e n t m o re p o w e r o v e r f o re ig n a ffa irs, b u t t h e s e lin e s c a n b e b lu r r e d , e s p e c ia lly w h e n t h e p r e s id e n t a n d t h e le g is la tiv e m a jo r ity a re f r o m d if f e r e n t p a r ti e s , a s i t u a t io n k n o w n as cohabitation.

Regime and Political Institutions Regime Republic, democratic

Administrative Divisions

Twenty-seven regions (of which twenty-two are in "metropolitan France" and five are overseas); smaller divisions are departments, arrondissements, cantons, and communes

Executive Branch Semi-presidential; president and prime minister

Selection of Executive Direct election of president, in two rounds, with second-round runoff between top two candidates, appointed prime minister

Legislative Branch Bicameral Lower chamber: National Assembly (Assemblee Nationale) Upper chamber: Senate (Senat)

Judicial Branch Several top authorities: Court of Cassation (Courde cassation) as court of final appeal for individuals; appointed Constitutional Council (Conseil constitutionnel) has authority to rule laws unconstitutional and invalid

Political Party System Multiparty system with several parties in Parliament, generally with one large party on the center-right (currently the Union for a Popular Movement, UMP) and the Socialist Party on the center-left; also the National Front (far right), Communist Party (far left), and other moderate and fringe parties

F in a lly , a j u d i c i a l b o d y k n o w n as t h e C o n s t i t u t i o n a l C o u n c il h a s t h e p o w e r t o re v ie w m a j o r la w s b e f o re t h e i r p a s s a g e a n d c a n r u le t h e m u n c o n s t i t u t i o n a l a n d th u s in v a lid ; t h i s c o u n c il m a y a ls o h e a r a p p e a ls to la w s a n d s im ila r ly r u l e o n c o n s t it u t io n a l i t y . T h e C o u n c i l is

c o m p o s e d o f n i n e m e m b e rs , t h r e e e a c h a p p o in t e d b y th e p r e s i d e n t a n d t h e le a d e r s o f t h e t w o le g is la tiv e h o u s e s , as w e ll as a ll f o r m e r F r e n c h p r e s id e n ts n o t a c tiv e ly i n ­ v o lv e d i n p o liti c s .

Political Culture P ro b a b ly th e m o s t d is tin c tiv e fe a tu re o f F r e n c h p o litic a l c u ltu re is th e h is to ric a l re la tio n s h ip b e tw e e n a le ft-w in g , s e c u la ris t, re p u b lic a n is m a n d a m o re c o n se rv a tiv e a n d less e g a lita ria n a lte rn a tiv e , o f te n a sso c ia te d w i t h R o m a n C a ­ th o lic is m . W e d o n o t w is h to c a ric a tu re t h e d is tin c tio n b e ­ tw e e n th e s e tw o s tra n d s o f F re n c h p o litic a l c u ltu re . T h e y h a v e e a c h c h a n g e d a g o o d d e a l o v e r tim e , as h a s t h e re la tio n s h ip b e tw e e n th e m . F o r e x a m p le , fe w o n t h e F re n c h

le f t to d a y fa v o r t h e d ir e c t a s sa u lt o n th e c h u r c h t h a t m a n y e ig h te e n th - a n d n i n e te e n t h - c e n tu r y re v o lu tio n a rie s d id , a n d th e F r e n c h r ig h t is n o lo n g e r ro y a list. M o re o v e r, b o t h tr a d itio n s h a v e fa v o re d p o litic a l c e n tra lis m , a n d som e w o u ld say a u th o r ita r ia n c e n tra lis m . N e v e rth e le s s , h e re fo llo w id e a l-ty p ic a l sk e tc h e s o f th e tw o tra d itio n s .

B o th r ig h t- a n d le ft-w in g th o u g h t in F ra n c e h a d o rig in s a m o n g th e e ig h te e n th - c e n tu ry philosophes, a n d th e v ery

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d e sig n a tio n s “le f t” a n d r i g h t ” e m e rg e d in t h e F re n c h R e v o ­ lu tio n . F ro m th e b e g in n in g , th e F re n c h le ft ra d ic a lly o p ­ p o se d h ie ra rc h y a n d royalty, p ro m o tin g d e m o c ra c y a n d re p u b lic a n ism as a lte rn a tiv e s. V ie w in g th e R o m a n C a th o lic C h u r c h as lin k e d to ro y a l p o litic s a n d th e n o b ility (and in d e e d b e in g t h e “F ir s t E s ta te ” p rio r to th e R e v o lu tio n ), a n d n o tin g its su b s ta n tia l c o n tro l over la n d , sc h o o lin g , a n d m u c h la w m a k in g , a ra d ic a l le ft a im e d to e lim in a te th e s e “re g re s­ sive” so cial actors. T h is tr a d itio n w a s la rg e ly c ritic a l o f N a ­ p o le o n as w e ll as th e S e c o n d E m p ire o f N a p o le o n I I I (18 5 2 -1 8 7 0 ). O v e r th e c o u rse o f th e n i n e te e n th c en tu ry , m a n y o f its p ro p o n e n ts t u r n e d to so c ia lism a n d c o m m u n is m . W h i l e b y th e m id d le o f th e t w e n ti e th c e n tu ry it w as c le ar t h a t c o m m u n is m o n t h e S o v ie t m o d e l w a s n o t a v iab le o p tio n for F ra n c e , th e c o m m u n is ts w e re i m p o r ta n t in th e re sistan c e a g a in s t H itle r. M a n y c o m m u n is ts w e re se e n as n a tio n a l h e ro es o f th e R e sista n c e , a n d a sp e cts o f c o m m u n is t id eo lo g y r e m a in e d p o p u la r w ith in te lle c tu a ls a n d th e w o r k in g classes. A f te r th e w a r, th e la rg e r F re n c h le ft fa v o re d so c ial d e m o c ­

ra cy a n d h e lp e d to c o n s tr u c t t h e F re n c h w e lfa re state. T he r ig h t- w in g t r a d i t i o n is a ls o q u ite h e te r o g e n e o u s

a n d h a s a ls o c h a n g e d o v e r t im e . S o m e o f t h e s u p p o r te r s o f t h e r e s to r a t io n m o n a r c h ie s o f L o u is X V I I I a n d C h a r le s X w e re o u t - a n d - o u t r o y a lis ts , b u t e v e n t h e y w e re r e la ­ tiv e ly few . I n t h e n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y t h e F r e n c h r i g h t fa v o re d m a i n t a i n i n g a n d e v e n e x p a n d i n g t h e p riv ile g e s o f th e C a th o l ic C h u r c h . S u p p o r te r s in c lu d e d n o t o n ly th e r e m n a n ts o f t h e o ld n o b i l i t y b u t a ls o w e a lth y i n d u s t r i a l ­ is ts . M o r e t h a n a n y th i n g , t h e y f a v o re d t h e m a i n te n a n c e

o f s o c ia l o rd e r. O v e r t h e c o u rse o f t h e la te n in e t e e n t h c e n tu ry , as is d is ­

c u sse d f u r t h e r in th e n a tio n a lis m case stu d y , a n “e th n ic ”

c o n c e p tio n o f t h e F r e n c h n a tio n d e v e lo p e d , su s p ic io u s o f “c o s m o p o lita n is m ” a n d o f te n a n ti- S e m itic . T h o u g h m o s t

sc h o la rs t h i n k t h is w a s c o n fin e d to a m in o rity , it b e c a m e im p o r t a n t b y t h e e a rly y e a rs o f th e t w e n t i e th c e n tu ry . T h is t r a d i t io n m a y h a v e w itn e s s e d its m o s t e x tre m e e x p re ss io n in t h e c o lla b o ra tin g V ic h y re g im e d u r i n g W o r ld W a r I I . I t lives o n in t h e N a t io n a l F r o n t p a r t y o f J e a n - M a r ie L e P e n (n o w r u n b y h is d a u g h te r, M a r i n e L e P e n ), a x e n o p h o b ic p a r ty w h ic h is a bove a ll p re o c c u p ie d w i t h im m ig r a tio n , e sp e c ia lly im m ig r a tio n b y M u s lim s , w h ile a lso h a v in g a h is to r y o f a n ti- S e m itis m . T h is g ro u p w a s fo r m a n y years p o litic a lly m a r g in a l; th o u g h th e e ld e r L e P e n d id fin is h in se c o n d p la c e in t h e p r e s id e n tia l e le c tio n s o f 2 0 0 2 , th e v a st m a jo rity v o te d a g a in s t h im . M a r i n e le P e n d id w e ll in th e firs t r o u n d o f th e 2 0 1 2 e le c tio n s , h o w e v e r, a n d , in d e e d , N ic h o la s S a rk o z y m o v e d to th e r ig h t o n im m ig r a tio n issu e s i n th e fin a l r o u n d in a n e ffo rt to a tt r a c t h e r s u p p o rt­ ers. ( M a n y c o m m e n ta to r s v ie w e d th is m o v e as a s tra te g ic m is ta k e , c o n tr i b u t in g to H o l la n d e ’s 2 0 1 2 v icto ry .) P e rh a p s e v e n m o re s u rp r is in g , th e N a t io n a l F r o n t d id v e ry w e ll in th e 2 0 1 4 E U P a r l ia m e n t e le c tio n s , s h o c k in g m a n y o b ­ se rv e rs , b o t h in F ra n c e a n d in te r n a tio n a lly . I t is w o r th n o t in g , th o u g h , t h a t th is w a s n o t a sp e c ific a lly F re n c h d e v e lo p m e n t; r ig h t- w in g p a r ti e s d id v e ry w e ll in t h e 2 0 1 4 E u r o p e a n p a r lia m e n ta r y e le c tio n s m o re g e n e ra lly .

O v e r th e y e a rs F r e n c h p o litic a l c u ltu r e h a s d e v e lo p e d a s tr o n g c e n te r t h a t b u ild s o n a c o m p ro m is e b e tw e e n t h e tw o tr a d itio n s n o te d h e re . H is to ric a lly , b o t h th e so c ia lists a n d th e le a d in g r ig h t- o f - c e n t e r p a r ti e s h a v e s u p p o r te d m a in ­ ta i n i n g t h e w e lfa re s ta te , s ta tu s q u o in te rm s o f c h u r c h - s ta te re la tio n s , t h o u g h th e y d is a g re e a b o u t so m e o f th e d e ta ils .

Political Economy F ra n c e h a s o n e o f t h e w o r ld ’s m o s t a d v a n c e d e c o n o m ie s, a n d h a s fo r so m e tim e . M e a s u r e d in te rm s o f t h e H u m a n D e v e lo p m e n t In d e x , its c itiz e n s live in o n e o f t h e t w e n ty b e s t - o f f e c o n o m ie s in th e w o rld . T h e F r e n c h e c o n o m y is a m o n g th e t e n la rg e s t in th e w o rld (in th e to p five w h e n m e a s u re d sim p ly b y in c o m e , a n d to p t e n w h e n m e a s u re d in te rm s o f w h a t t h a t in c o m e c a n buy), a n d it h a s o n e o f th e h ig h e s t G D P s p e r c a p ita in th e w o rld . M o re o v e r, c itiz e n s b e n e fit fro m re la tiv e ly g e n e ro u s w e lfa re s ta te b e n e fits t h a t are d isc u sse d f u r t h e r a b it la te r in t h is s e c tio n . T h e y a lso p a y

h i g h e r ta x e s t h a n c itiz e n s in c o u n trie s w i t h less g e n e ro u s w e lfa re sta te s: I n d e e d , g o v e r n m e n t re v e n u e s a m o u n t to n e a rly 5 0 p e rc e n t o f G D P .

T h e F r e n c h e c o n o m y h a s h is to ric a lly p riv ile g e d a n im ­ p o r t a n t ro le fo r t h e s ta te , th r o u g h re g u la tio n , g o v e rn m e n t o w n e rs h ip o f firm s , a n d r e d is tr ib u tiv e e ffo rts. I n re c e n t y e a rs, as so c ie tie s w i t h w e lfa re s ta te s e n te r e d in to a p e rio d o f “r e tr e n c h m e n t ” f o llo w in g th e e c o n o m ic c rises o f th e 1970s, th e r e w e re so m e e ffo rts to scale b a c k t h is sta te i n ­ v o lv e m e n t, p a r tic u la r ly u n d e r c o n se rv a tiv e p re sid e n ts

434 France

Ja c q u es C h ir a c a n d N ic o la s S a rk o z y . T h e sta te h a s p a r tia lly d iv e s te d its e lf fro m so m e o f its h o ld in g s , t h o u g h i t h a s h a d a b it m o re tro u b le fre e in g i ts e lf fro m w e lfa re o b lig a tio n s a n d d e re g u la tin g th e la b o r m a r k e t, as it h a s fa c e d p u b lic re sista n c e w h e n it h a s a tt e m p te d to d o so.

T h e F re n c h e c o n o m y in so m e w ays is a ty p ic a l “p o s ti n ­ d u s tr i a l” econom y. N o te t h a t t h is d o e s n o t m e a n t h a t th e r e is n o in d u s try , b u t r a th e r t h a t se rv ice s a re d o m in a n t. In d e e d , in d u s tr y a c c o u n ts fo r 18.7 p e rc e n t o f G D P . A g r i ­ c u ltu r e o n ly a c c o u n ts fo r 1.9 p e rc e n t, w i t h services ac­ c o u n tin g fo r a f u ll 79.4 p e rc e n t o f G D P (2 0 1 3 e s tim a te , p e r C I A W o r ld F a c tb o o k ).

F ra n c e h a s re la tiv e ly lo w in c o m e in e q u a lity , n e a r t h e av­ e rag e fo r e u ro z o n e c o u n trie s . Its G i n i in d e x is 3 1 .7 ( W o rld B a n k 2 0 1 3 e stim a te ), w h e re 0 w o u ld m e a n p e r fe c t e q u a lity a n d 1 00 w o u ld m e a n p e rfe c t in e q u a lity . T o p u t t h is in p e r­ s p e c tiv e, th e U n ite d S ta te s h a s a G i n i in d e x o f o v e r 4 0 , a n d so m e c o u n trie s h a v e fig u re s a r o u n d 70! F ra n c e a lso has re la tiv e ly lo w p o v e rty . H is to r ic a lly it h a s su ffe re d fro m re la ­ tiv e ly h ig h levels o f u n e m p lo y m e n t, w h ic h so m e a n a ly sts h a v e a ttr ib u te d to th e r ig id ity o f its h ig h ly r e g u la te d la b o r m a rk e t. S o m e w o u ld a rg u e t h a t th is is a fu n c tio n o f th e F re n c h s ta te ’s o n g o in g in v o lv e m e n t in th e eco n o m y . H o w ­ ever, o th e r a d v a n c e d e c o n o m ie s h a v e, sadly, “c a u g h t u p ” w ith F ra n c e in u n e m p lo y m e n t. S o m e , n o ta b ly its n e ig h b o r to th e s o u th , S p a in , h a v e fa r m o re se rio u s u n e m p lo y m e n t p ro b le m s.

T h e F r e n c h w e lfa re sta te h a s b e e n re s ilie n t in th e face o f e ffo rts to ro ll i t b a c k (P ra s a d 2 0 0 6 ). I t h a s , as n o te d p re v i­ ously, se e n c o n sid e ra b le p riv a tiz a tio n , a n d th e r e h a v e b e e n p u s h e s to w a rd d e r e g u la tio n , b u t th e sta te c o n tin u e s to p la y a n e n o rm o u s ro le in th e F re n c h eco n o m y , e m p lo y in g

n u m e ro u s c itiz e n s a n d c a p tu r in g a la rg e sh a re o f th e G D P . M o re o v e r, sta te se rv ice s c o n tin u e to b e fa irly g e n e ro u s in c o m p a ra tiv e te rm s . C o m p a ra tiv e a n a ly sts h a v e id e n tifie d se v e ra l re a so n s fo r th is . F ir s t, th e r e is th e F r e n c h tr a d itio n o f s ta tis m t h a t w e have m e n tio n e d . S e c o n d , w h ile th e m o d e r n F r e n c h w e lfa re sta te h a d ro o ts in th e le f tis t F r o n t P o p u la ire a llia n c e in th e la te 1 9 3 0 s, it is i m p o r t a n t to n o te t h a t so m e i m p o r t a n t f e a tu re s o f t h e F r e n c h w e lfa re sta te w e re c re a te d , e x p a n d e d , a n d m a in ta in e d p re c ise ly b y c o n ­ se rv ativ es. I n th e F i f t h R e p u b lic , D e G a u lle e sta b lis h e d a lo n g tr a d i t io n o f c o n se rv a tiv e e le c to ra l su ccess. In d e e d , w h ile in t h e U n ite d K in g d o m a n d t h e U n ite d S ta te s t h e 1 9 8 0 s saw a tta c k s o n th e w e lfa re sta te as c o n se rv a tiv e p a r ­ tie s r e tu r n e d to p o w e r, i n F ra n c e th e S o c ia lists fin a lly to o k p o w e r in 1981 w h e n F r a n f o is M i t t e r a n d w as e le c te d (1 9 8 1 - 1 995). T h u s, o n o n e h a n d , th e c o n se rv a tiv e s w e re id e n tifie d w i t h th e w e lfa re s ta te , a n d o n th e o th e r, d u r in g t h e m o m e n t w h e n th e r ig h t w a s a tt e m p t in g to d is m a n tle a sp e c ts o f th e w e lfa re sta te in o t h e r c o u n trie s , th e le f t h e ld p o w e r in F ra n c e .

A n o t h e r k e y f e a tu r e o f t h e F r e n c h w e lfa re s ta te t h a t m a y h e lp to p re c lu d e a tta c k s o n i t is t h a t (1) m a n y o f its b e n e fits a re n o t ra d ic a lly r e d is tr ib u tiv e ( E s p i n g - A n d e r s o n 1 9 9 0 : 2 7 ) a n d (2) a s ig n if ic a n t p o r t io n o f s ta te re v e n u e s c o m e f r o m a c o n s u m p tio n ta x c a lle d a V a lu e - A d d e d T a x (o r V A T , s im il a r to s ta te -le v e l sales ta x e s fo u n d in th e U n it e d S ta te s). W h y w o u ld t h is m a tte r? A c c o r d i n g to so m e s c h o la rs ( P r a s a d 2 0 0 6 ) , c o n s u m p tio n ta x e s a re less lik e ly to b e p e rc e iv e d as u n f a ir b y p o litic a l o p p o n e n ts o f t h e w e lfa re s ta te , a n d th u s less lik e ly to g e n e ra te s tr o n g o p p o s itio n .

Within the comparative European context seventeenth century as "strong" in the competitors. For this reason many histori- France is thought of as having historically twenty-first-century world, in its time it ans have thought of the French state of had a strong state. While we would was more unified and it more consistently Louis XIV as serving as the epitome of not recognize the French state of the controlled its territory than many of its European absolutism. It is perhaps as a

Case Studies 435

CASE STUDY (continued)

The State in France ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■Hi

CHAPTER 3, PAGE 59

result of this strong absolutist state that the modern French state has been so cen­ tralist. The French Revolution had a well- institutionalized, if fiscally unsound, state to transform, and in the post-revolution­ ary years the state was expanded, with new layers of administration added. Over the course of the nineteenth century, the state's reach and dominance over local society increased slowly but surely (Weber 1976).

The French economy has featured a prominent role for the state for many years, especially when contrasted with Great Britain and the United States. This has been true at least since the time of Jean-Baptiste Coibert, a seventeenth- century economic thinker. France was one of the earliest of economic modern­ izers and was a great economic power in the eighteenth century. The modern French economy with its significant state involvement— known as dirigisme— is a product of the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. President Charles de Gaulle nationalized key industries and used the state to promote recovery from the damage of the war, while American aid in the form of the post-war Marshall

Nobody doubts France's democratic cre­ dentials. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, it is among the world's leading democracies. Moreover, its 1789 revolution was and remains a source of inspiration to pro-democracy

Plan contributed to reconstruction. The program was successful: France achieved solid growth and marked improvements in the standard of living in the three de­ cades from about 1945 to about 1975, known as the trente glorieuses ("glorious thirty”).

Under recent president Nicolas Sar- kozy there was great debate about the role that the state would continue to play in the economy. On one hand, there is the question of whether future economic competitiveness can co-exist with the general support of workers' rights that state regulation makes possible. On the other hand, there is the ongoing question of the state's ability to make economic policy. Monetary policy is already carried out at the EU level, and there is now some talk of the centralization of European fiscal policy as well, though it is too early to tell whether this will take place.

Heir to a revolutionary tradition that figures prominently in its national con­ sciousness, the French state has often aimed to present itself as the defender of "the people," including workers.The French state has heavily regulated the labor market, for example by implementing a

forces everywhere (even if it did not im­ mediately culminate in a democracy). Indeed, it is precisely because of the country's democratic achievements that it is worth reflecting on the challenges that France faced in institutionalizing its

thirty-five-hour work week and by estab­ lishing strong protections against layoffs and firings. The state directly employs a relatively large proportion of the workforce, totaling 5.4 million workers and over 20 percent of the total workforce as of the end of 2014 (DGAFP Annual Report 2014). It has also provided generous stipends to the un­ employed. Perhaps as a result, France has often struggled with higher levels of un­ employment than some other developed countries. Former president Sarkozy has tried to overturn some of these regulations but was stymied by public protests.

As is discussed further in the case study on French nationalism, the French state has historically played a critical role in French national consciousness. Citizen­ ship, understood as a kind of relationship that an individual has with the state, has historically been key to French national identity (Brubaker 1992; Greenfeld 1992). This is reinforced by the strongly central­ ist institutional structure of the French state. Loyalty is owed to the central state as the institutional embodiment of the nation, and not to other identities or insti­ tutions that mediate between citizens and the state.

democracy. If France, of all countries, en­ countered such difficulties, should we expect anything less for today's democra- tizers? In short, the French case under­ scores the difficulty of democratic consolidation.

■

Authoritarian Persistence in Nineteenth-Century France c h a p t e r 7, page 157

436 France

CASE STUDY (continued)

Authoritarritarian Persistence in Nineteenth-Century France CHAPTER 7, PAGE 157

We will not repeat the sequence de­ scribed in the "Historical Development" section of the country profile. It is enough to note that the revolution, which de­ posed the monarchy, passed through a republican period, to the “terror," and eventually to Napoleon's rule, which was despotic by any modern definition. This was followed by the restoration of the previous monarchy, and then the "July Monarchy" of the "Citizen-King," Louis- Philippe, and finally by the Second Repub­ lic (1848-1852). The Second Empire (of Napoleon III) lasted from 1852 until 1870, when, following France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian war, the "Third Republic" began (for an authoritative overview of this period, see Furet [1988] 1995). Indeed, even in the twentieth century France saw considerable conflict between democratic and authoritarian tendencies, finally put to rest in the post-World War II period.

In short, French political history in the nineteenth century presents us with a range of political and social models,

instability, and considerable authoritarian persistence. Why did these occur? One hypothesis might be the collapse of the existing order. Perhaps the elimination of well-established, if flawed, political models left the political arena too open to contestation. Indeed, if the monarchy could be abolished, was anything beyond question, negotiation, or dispute?

Another idea comes from Alexis de Tocqueville, the great observer of both American and French society. As we saw elsewhere in this book, he found much to admire about the participatory- democratic habits and decentralization of American politics. In contrast, he thought that a key problem in France was the lack of these habits (because institu­ tions had not encouraged them), along­ side a centralized state and a revolution that had awakened a passionate distrust of all inequalities without providing op­ portunities for French citizens to develop democratic freedoms (see Tocqueville [1856] 2002, esp. pp. 310-311).

Another approach might emphasize the legacies of inequalities themselves: The revolution aimed to abolish the nobil­ ity, but of course privilege lived on, and both old and new social elites and the church did what they could to protect their interests as they saw them (for one variation of this argument, see Marx [1852] 2007). If it was clear to such actors that their opponents meant for their elimina­ tion, this would have major implications for their strategic decisions. The same is true of their opponents.

Think about how a rational-choice ap­ proach (e.g., that of Lichbach 1995, or Kuran 1991) might model the situation in which these actors found themselves and how such an approach might try to explain the sequence of unstable politics found in nineteenth-century France. Then think about the implications of the French case for contemporary democratizers. Can we compare such cases over time? And, if so, are there any limits on our abil­ ity to do so?

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i i i i

Electing the French President: W hat Do Runoffs Do? CHAPTER 10, PAGE 231

In France in 2002, most voters were shocked as the results came in for the first round of presidential voting. In this first round of French elections, the nationwide popular vote is tallied for the many candi­ dates, and a candidate is elected only if he or she secures an outright majority, which is uncommon. In the absence of a major­ ity, the top two candidates have a runoff to determine the winner. This system

allows citizens to vote for their most pre­ ferred candidate in the first round, then vote for an "electable" candidate in the second round. Typically, the runoff had amounted to a showdown between the leading candidate of the center-right (often called the "Gaullist" candidate after French war hero and later president Charles de Gaulle) and the candidate of the center-left Socialist Party. But in 2002,

with the first-round vote split between many candidates on the left, the Socialist performed poorly and came in third with 16 percent behind center-right candidate Jacques Chirac (just under 20 percent) and the far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the National Front, who tookjust under 17 percent of the vote. The runoff came down to the right versus the far right.

Case Studies 437

CASE STUDY (continued)

Electing the French President: What Do Runoffs Do? c h a p t e r 10, p a g e 231

For some, Le Pen's first-round success served as a condemnation of the French practice of having elections with a "runoff" between the top two candidates: It gave a huge platform and political spotlight to a candidate on the fringe (though the Na­ tional Front has done surprisingly well in subsequent elections). What happened next had the opposite effect, though it was predictable: Jacques Chirac won 82 percent of the vote in the runoff, and Le Pen won less than 18 percent. Chirac thus took nearly all of the vote that had gone to all other candidates in the first round and won the presidency overwhelmingly, and Le Pen barely increased his tally at all despite the elimination of all other candidates. Turnout also increased in the second round, despite the fact that Chirac's win was near-certain, as French voters turned out overwhelm­ ingly (while also taking to the streets in pro­ test) to vote against Le Pen.

This raises the issue of whether runoffs are good or bad for representation and de­ mocracy. While anomalies such as the Le Pen result can emerge in the first round,

proponents of the system can argue that it performed exactly as intended: It allowed French voters to express their initial prefer­ ence, then weeded out the more extreme candidate. It also signaled the frustration of voters with the Socialist Party, which al­ lowed that party to reshape its platform for the future, rather than simply resting on its laurels as the presumptive leader of the left. As importantly, the runoff ensured that the individual elected president ulti­ mately received more than 50 percent of the votes in a presidential election. That is, the president ends up with a clear mandate of over half of French voters electing him or her. This contrasts with the American model, for example, in which it is relatively common for presidents to win the presi­ dency with less than 50 percent of the popular vote. It should also be noted that voter turnout is much higher in French elections than in the United States and many other countries, at about 80 percent in most presidential elections and 60 per­ cent in parliamentary elections (Interna­ tional IDEA 2011).

For these reasons, runoffs are cur­ rently used in elections in a large number of countries, including for parliamentary districts in France itself. The runoff features frequently in elections in Latin America and Africa, where presidential­ ism is common. In these countries, there are particular historical and social rea­ sons that can make the runoff appealing. In Chile in 1970, the Marxist Salvador Al- lende was confirmed president by Con­ gress after receiving less than 37 percent of the vote; three years later, a military coup to overthrow the elected president resulted in nearly two decades of brutal dictatorship. And in Africa, presidential elections can result in voting along ethnic lines in the first round, but broader coalition building across ethnic lines to win in the second round. It is worth con­ sidering how history might have been different— and whether violence and de­ mocracy would be affected— if a French- style runoff system had existed in Chile in 1970 or did not exist in some African countries today.

U . i i ; t ■

I I1 The French Revolution CHAPTER 12, PAGE 285 i

The French Revolution took place amid major structural problems in eighteenth- century French society (Furet 1995; Doyle 2003). In this period France, like much of early modern Europe, remained an “estate society," divided into three groups: a nobility with special privileges, the clergy, and commoners. The social

status of the nobility, however, was weakened by the ongoing efforts of the centralizing, absolutist crown. As the monarchy and its state grew stronger, the nobility felt increasingly marginal­ ized. At the same time, the French absolutist state, largely through its in­ volvement in foreign wars (especially the

American Revolution), faced major fiscal difficulties (Doyle 2003). Indeed, by the late eighteenth century it was nearly bankrupt. Meanwhile, periodic problems in food distribution and rural poverty en­ sured that much of France's rural popula­ tion felt discontent. Finally, the spread of the Enlightenment and of nationalism

438 France

provided the bases for an intellectual cri­ tique of the old regime (Greenfeld 1992; Bell 2001).

The revolution began as a series of efforts to reform the French state. The crown called an "Assembly of Notables,” but the assembly declared that the Es­ tates General, which had not met since the early seventeenth century, needed to be called. When the Estates General con­ vened, it was divided in the customary manner into the three estates mentioned previously. However, before long, politics and propaganda forced representatives of the first two estates to join the latter one, the core idea being that the French nation shouldn't be divided by estates, since all of its members should be equal. The third estate was the nation, as Sieyes declared (Furet 1995:45-51). In other words, the Es­ tates General was reinterpreted as being something like a modern, national legisla­ ture (though the leaders of the Estates General remained bourgeois and nobles,

along with some clergy, and not "popular" actors).

Reform quickly devolved into a novel form of collective behavior that was sur­ prising even to its most central partici­ pants and those who attempted to lead and control it. Street actions began, and mobs attacked the Bastille prison on July 14,1789, wishing to destroy a reviled symbol of the arbitrary authority of the monarch to imprison opponents at will. By 1792, the monarchy had fallen amidst increasing violence— much perpetrated by mobs known as the "sans culottes"— opening a period known as the "Terror," in which perceived enemies of the revolu­ tion were murdered in large numbers. Robespierre was a key figure in this period, perpetrating the paranoid violence that ultimately consumed him. This was fol­ lowed by a period of relaxation known as the "Thermidorian reaction” and, finally, by the rise of Napoleon. On one hand Napoleon appears a conservative figure,

since, for example, he declared himself emperor. But on the other hand he can be viewed as a revolutionary whose mission was to spread the French Revolution to the rest of Europe, through an imperial war.

What struck so many contemporaries was the Revolution's destructive nature. It seemed intent upon an eradication of the old society, and the replacement of all of its forms by new, “revolutionary” ones. This included the creation of a new, revolution­ ary calendar, the efforts to destroy the Church and its teachings, the war on the nobility, the destruction of many architec­ tural sites, and so forth. The French revolu­ tion subsequently became the model for many later revolutionaries and its ideals in­ spirational for nationalists and republicans everywhere. At the same time, it surprised nearly everyone involved, and those who attempted to control it quickly learned that they had helped to unleash social forces beyond their ability to lead (Arendt 1963).

Religion and Secularism in France CHAPTER 15, PAGE 359

France is the society most closely associ­ ated with the idea of lai'cite, though one encounters it prominently in a number of other societies as well, including parts of Latin America (Blancarte 2008). France was historically a Catholic society. For a time, there had been a relatively large Protestant minority (the "Huguenots') but they were repressed and most fled after 1685, when Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes that had granted freedom of

conscience and practice to Protestants. France's Catholicism was central to its early modern identity.

Most scholars see French secularism as having its origins in the eighteenth century. Religion and politics had been closely linked in continental Europe for a long time, but the church and the state had experienced considerable tension at certain points in the history of their rela­ tionship. As the French absolutist state

rose, a theological position known as Jansenism, and a political theory known as Regalism, helped the king to exert greater control over the church. Despite these tensions, after the French Revolu­ tion began in 1789, republicans and rev­ olutionaries identified the church with the “old regime" (Kuru 2009) and thus repressed it, murdering many priests. The French Revolutionary regime tried to create its own, secular religion, and to

Case Studies 439

replace religious symbols with its own, secular ones. This was changed by Napoleon, who concluded an agree­ ment (known as a 'concordat") with the church, but even then the state domi­ nated the church, and the church never returned to its former powers. Subse­ quent French history witnessed multiple struggles between monarchy/empire and democratic republicanism (Furet 1995), with the former being more closely associated with a pro-Church po­ sition. Democratic republicanism was eventually triumphant, though, and over

time French Catholicism (along with other, minority religions) was "privatized" (on privatization, see Casanova 1994). In today's France the view that the Catholic Church should have an expanded rule in politics is marginal.

In recent years this has been linked to great controversy, particularly because immigration has notably increased the Islamic share of the French population. Great debates have been held over whether religious garb (in particular, the Muslim hijab) can be worn in schools and other public organizational spaces (Scott

2007). Opponents of traditionally Islamic symbolism in public have drawn on long-standing national mythology about la'iciti, though their critics suggest that this is a cover for unspoken ethnic dis­ crimination. The fundamental conflict has concerned not whether members of religious groups should be able to prac­ tice their religion, but whether they should be able to engage in religious ex­ pression (including clothing) in public institutions. It is worth further noting that to some extent this issue cuts across the French political spectrum.

Globalization and Culture in France CHAPTER 16, PAGE 383 & 5 ^ s IS?

France's relationship with globalization has been complex. In the late nineteenth century, France was a lead "globalizer." If you travel in the developing world today, you may learn that the architecture built in the nineteenth century had a marked French influence; this is a visible indicator of French influence at one point in time. French ideas were extraordinarily influen­ tial around the globe in this period, at least in more cosmopolitan social sectors in many societies. Especially influential was the idea of positivism, that science and reason could contribute to the bet­ terment of society. In the late nineteenth century, the culture with the broadest global reach was almost certainly French, though the British Empire ensured global expansiveness for British culture as well.

In the twentieth century, though, France grew more ambivalent about glo­ balization. Perhaps this is because rather

than being a net exporter of cultural forms, it began to import them. France continued to be influential in global cul­ ture, especially in its former colonies, but in many ways its leading position was overtaken by the United States. Globaliza­ tion has taken on new forms and grown, with new media and new patterns of communication, and the influence of American ideas and culture has spread. One indicator of this rise of "Anglo-Saxon" culture has been the replacement of French, which was long the language of diplomacy, with English as the dominant language in international affairs. Less for­ mally, but perhaps more consequentially, cultural forces from Hollywood to hip hop have reshaped French film, literature, music, and the arts.

French ambivalence about globaliza­ tion also reflects economic ideas, espe­ cially about global capitalism. This dates

back centuries. In the early modern period, royal ministers exhorted nobles to engage in commerce, but many rejected this idea, convinced that commerce would "disparage" (deroger) nobility (Furet 1995 Greenfeld 2001). Important early so­ cialist works, many of which predated and anticipated Marx, developed in France. In the late eighteenth century, Rousseau and others developed the critique that modern social relations are corrupting; this later found expression on both left and right, and in both radical democratic movements and with more extreme op­ position to capitalism and democracy. Within the French economy itself, there has often been an emphasis on crafts­ manship and small-scale production. At the same time, France in the twentieth century did establish major corporations, but often did so with state support; ex­ amples of major French companies that

440 France

---------- , i CASE STUDY (continued)

■ I Globalization and Culture in France c h a p t e r i e , p a g e 383

were state-owned or nationalized at one time include the car company Renault, the oil giant Total, and several major banks and utilities.

A common refrain in France has been the need to develop in a 'French way," re­ sisting Americanization and globalization. Economically, this is linked to common tropes in French culture: Societies fully im­ mersed in global capitalism "live to work," whereas some French citizens would argue that the French "work to live." France has thus been somewhat skeptical of multinational businesses and of the consequences of international trade agreements, and it has even tried to limit the spread and use of English words in French business. This is not simply a matter of the French government, but im­ portant segments of the citizenry as well. One example is Jose Bove, an activist and "farmer" who destroyed a McDonald's restaurant under construction in 1999. This action was well received by many

members of the French public, and Bove is a well-known figure in France, though his popularity has its limits; when he later ran for president, he received less than 2 percent of the vote. On the other hand, he is not a typical "French farmer." His parents were university researchers, and he spent part of his childhood in California. In any case, some took his stance to be a fairly extreme expression of a common sentiment.

While ambivalent about some aspects of globalization, France has also been a key mover of deeper integration in continental Europe in the period since World War II. It has sought to develop strong economic ties to Germany and other economies while developing in a way that relies heav­ ily on elements of free markets yet contin­ ues to guarantee an active role for the state in the economy. It has been a strong sup­ porter of the European Union, and in 2011 France, along with Germany, exercised a considerable influence over how the EU

responded to the fiscal crises in Greece and Italy, and worries over Portugal and Spain as well. France also retains major global linkages to former colonies, particularly in North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. North African migrants— especially from Algeria and Morocco— constitute an important group in French society, one which pushes the boundaries of cultural change, given that some members of that group are per­ ceived to be less than receptive to tradi­ tional French notions of laicite (see the Introduction and the “Religion and Secu­ larism” box for more information on this).

Together, these debates about eco­ nomics and cultural identity suggest a society that has conflicting and perhaps contradictory views about the desirability of globalization; in this, France shares many challenges with other countries— including the United States— that grapple with the tough issues of how to respond as nations in an international twenty-first century.

Research Prompts 1. France has runoff elections, and the United States does not.

What are the major consequences of this difference? Would you expect the consequences of this difference to play out in the same way in a wider range of comparative cases? Why or why not?

2. France is a society that has had many revolutions, and one in which revolution has become a key idea in the culture. Brazil is a society that, despite promoting social change in important, novel, and influential ways, has largely been free of revolutions as such. Can you explain this difference?

3. The French state captures a considerably larger share of its GDP as revenue than other countries. Why might this be?

4. The French welfare state has survived "retrenchment" more suc­ cessfully than a number of others, despite some changes,

including the privatization of a number of formerly state-owned enterprises. How do you explain its staying power? Will it likely remain strong in the future?

5. The United Kingdom has a fairly small extreme, xenophobic right wing (represented by the British National Party), whereas in France this group has been a bit larger (though the National Front still represents a minority of French citi­ zens, with its presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen, winning nearly 18 percent of the first-round vote in 2012, and the party doing very well in 2014 EU parliamentary elections). Is this difference a function of different ideas of nationhood, different historical experiences, different patterns of decline of traditional left-wing parties, different political institutions, or something else?

R B I R

441

B Germany Key Features o f C o n te m p o r a r y G e r m a n y

Population: 80,996,685 (estimate, July 2014)

Area: 357,022 square kilometers

Head of State: Joachim Gauck (president, 2012-present)

Head of Government: Angela Merkel (chancellor, 2005-present)

Capital: Berlin

Year of Independence: Unification achieved in 1871; re-unification in 1990

Year of Current Constitution: 1949

Languages: German

GDP per Capita: $46,260 (World Bank estimate, 2013)

Human Development Index Ranking (2014):

6th (very high human development)

Sources: CIA World Factbook; World Bank World Development Indicators; United Nations Human Development Report 2014.

Introduction Germany is a country of enduring interest to political scientists for a number of reasons. Its historical state-building process draws atten­ tion, both because of the early success of Prussian state-builders and because of the relatively late development of the unified German state (1871), after years of decentral­ ization and nationalist aspiration. Germany is also of interest because of its development tra­ jectory, as it achieved relatively rapid industri­ alization and economic growth in the mid- to late nineteenth century, and came to be per­ haps the preeminent European power shortly after its political unification. The country, as we will see, is frequently cited as a prototypi­ cal case of ethnic nationalism, meaning that boundaries between Germans and others are typically understood in ethnic terms rather than as a function of citizenship. As such, Germany is frequently contrasted with France, and a robust social-scientific litera­ ture seeks to explain this difference. More­ over, there are major debates about whether German culture is changing or has changed in this connection.

I G erm an 91.5 T urkish 2.4% O th e r 6.1%

Ethnic Groups in Germany Note that most of those in the "other" category are from or descend from citizens of other European societies, including Russia. Source: CIA World Factbook.

P rotestant C hristianity 34% R om an C atholicism 34% Islam 3.7% O th e r religion or

non-affiliated 28.7%

Religious Affiliation in Germ any Source: CIA World Factbook.

442 Germany

SWEDEN

Rostock Lubeck

^Bremerhaven* Hambur9 Wilhelmshavei

ETHERLANDS Bremen

BerlinHannover POLANDMagdeburg

- Duisburg • c

• Essen Dusseldorf

Leipzig Kassel Dresden<i^ i? Cologn

BELGIUM

• Frankfurt Wiesbaden*

CZECH REPUBLIC Saarbrucken • Mannheim Nuremberg

• Karlsruhe • Stuttgart Danube.

FRANCE

Munich AUSTRIA

0 30 60 Kilometers

SLOVENIA

D France 427

PROFILE Key Features o f C o n te m p o r a r y France

Population: 66,259,012 (estimate, July 2014)

Area: 643,801 square kilometers

Head of State: Frangois Hollande (president, 2012-present)

Head of Government: Manuel Vails (prime minister, 2014-present)

Capital: Paris

Year of Independence: France was never formally colonized. Many date the consolidation of the French state to the era of Louis XIV (1643-1715) and the birth of modern France to the French Revolution of 1789.

Year of Current Constitution:

1958

Languages: French

GDP per Capita: $42,503 (estimate, 2013)

Human Development Index Ranking (2014):

20th (very high human development)

Sources: CIA World Factbook; World Bank World Development Indicators; United Nations Human Development Report 2014.

I Rom an C atholicism 83-889 Protestant C hristianity 2% Judaism 1%

I Islam 5-10% I U naffiliated 4%

R e lig io u s A ffilia t io n in F ra n c e Source: CIA World Factbook.

Introduction F ra n c e h a s h i s to ric a lly b e e n s itu a te d a t th e c e n te r o f W e s te r n E u r o p e . T h is is tr u e n o t o n ly g e o g ra p h ic a lly b u t in te rm s o f F ra n c e ’s i d e n t ity a n d c u ltu re . A t le a s t sin c e C h a r ­ le m a g n e u n ite d sig n ific a n t p o r tio n s o f W e s t­ e rn E u r o p e in t h e e ig h th a n d n i n th c e n tu rie s , p r e s e n tin g h i m s e lf as h e ir to th e R o m a n E m p ire , m a n y h a v e c o n sid e re d F ra n c e th e c e n tr a l c a rrie r o f E u r o p e a n c iv iliz a tio n .

G e o g r a p h ic a lly , F r a n c e e x te n d s fro m t h e E n g li s h C h a n n e l i n t h e n o r t h to th e M e d i t e r r a n e a n in t h e s o u t h . T h e P y re n e e s d iv id e i t f r o m S p a in (a n d t h e t i n y m o u n ta in c o u n tr y o f A n d o r r a ) i n th e s o u th w e s t, a n d i t s h a r e s its e a s te r n b o r d e r w i t h B e lg iu m , L u x e m b o u r g , G e r m a n y , S w itz e r la n d , a n d Ita ly . I n a d d i t i o n to its m o u n ta in o u s a rea s ( b o th t h e P y r e n e e s a n d th e A l p s as w e ll as t h e s m a lle r J u r a a n d M a s s i f C e n tr a l ) , i t h a s g o o d f a r m l a n d , b e in g m o s t fa m o u s fo r th e p r o d u c ti o n o f g r a p e s a n d c e re a ls . F r e n c h a g r ic u ltu r e h a s h is to r ic a ll y e x c e lle d in th e p r o d u c ti o n o f w in e , c h e e s e , a n d o t h e r ite m s c o n s id e r e d b y i n te r n a t i o n a l c o n s u m e rs to b e lu x u r io u s .

T o d a y ’s F ra n c e is in te r e s tin g to s c h o la rs o f c o m p a ra tiv e p o litic s fo r n u m e ro u s re a s o n s . F i r s t , w h ile so m e p e o p le te n d to t h i n k o f E u r o p e a n so c ie tie s as c o n s is te n tly sta b le a n d e v id e n c in g c o n s is te n t, p ro g re s s iv e d e v e lo p m e n t o ver tim e , F r a n c e ’s p a ssa g e to p o litic a l m o d e r n ity w a s e x tra o r­ d i n a r i ly rocky. I t a lso p la y e d o u t in s t r i k in g fa s h io n th e c o n tr a s t b e tw e e n d e m o c r a tic - r e p u b lic a n a n d a u th o r i ta r i a n c e n t r a li s t fo rm s o f p o litic s , s e t tl i n g o n a “m ix e d p re s id e n - t i a l i s t ” sy s te m in t h e F i f t h R e p u b lic (w h ic h s till g o e s o n to d a y ) t h a t c o n tin u e s to s tim u la te m u c h d e b a te . F ra n c e a lso s h o w e d u s w h a t c o n flic t b e tw e e n c ivic r e p u b lic a n is m a n d a m o n o p o lis tic c h u r c h c o u ld lo o k lik e , p io n e e r in g a c e r ta in k i n d o f s e c u la ris m , o f te n c a lle d laicite.

I t is d iffic u lt to e stim a te th e relative share o f th e p o p u latio n co m p rise d b y d iffere n t e th n ic g ro u p s in F rance. T h is is because F ra n c e places re stric tio n s o n n a tio n a l sta tistica l surveys th a t d o c u m e n t th e e th n ic a n d racial iden titie s o f respondents, in

428 France

IRELAND

English Channel

Cherbourg Lin* BELGIUM Q

W '

Bres

# Le Havre •Rouen

; r { GERMANY

'hk Paris

Orleans Nantes

Bay o f Biscay

Tours

F R A N C E

Dijon

7 \ h •

Bordeaux

-LAUS. SWITZERLAND

.'1 r : . C J ly0n J

Saint-Etienne •

Grenoble ITALY

Toulouse

Montpellier •

Marseille* Toulon

Profile 443

G e r m a n y is a lso o f in te r e s t as a s o c ie ty t h a t h a s w it­ n e sse d ra p id a n d c o n s e q u e n tia l p o litic a l tra n s itio n s . I t h a s se e n a u th o r ita r ia n is m (w ith so m e d e m o c ra tic fe a tu re s ) u n d e r B ism a rc k a n d K a is e r W il h e lm I I , a n d th e n d e m o c ra ­ tiz a tio n in th e w a k e o f W o r ld W a r I. D e m o c r a tic c o n so li­ d a tio n , h o w e v er, fa ile d in t h a t p e r io d , a n d th e W e im a r R e p u b lic c o lla p se d b y 1933. T h e c o u n tr y t h e n w itn e s s e d th e rise o f a to ta lita r ia n re g im e . F in a lly , a f te r G e r m a n y ’s d e fe a t in W o r ld W a r I I , it h a s se e n t h e su c c essfu l c o n so li­ d a tio n o f a re p re s e n ta tiv e d e m o c rac y , in itia lly in t h e W e s t b u t c o n tin u in g in a ll o f G e r m a n y w i t h re -u n if ic a tio n a f te r th e c o lla p se o f S o v ie t p o w e r. I n d e e d , m a n y see p o te n tia l lesso n s in th e success o f th is d e m o c ra tic c o n s o lid a tio n . T o d a y G e r m a n y is a E u r o p e a n a n d g lo b a l le a d e r, w i t h r o ­

b u s tly d e m o c ra tic p o litic s , a s tr o n g e c o n o m y (a h ig h ly a d ­ v a n c e d o n e t h a t h a s m a n a g e d to m a in ta in s t r e n g th in th e e x p o r t o f m a n u f a c tu r e d g o o d s), a n d a r e tu r n to in te r n a ­ tio n a l in flu e n c e .

G e r m a n y ’s g e o g ra p h y h a s h is to ric a lly b e e n sh a p e d b y p o litic a l d iv is io n , m o s t n o ta b ly in t h e fo rc e d s e p a ra tio n

Historical Development G e r m a n y ’s m o d e r n h i s t o r y is e x tr a o r d in a r ily c o m p le x , o w in g in p a r t to th e m a n y p o litic a l u n its t h a t c o m p o s e d th e s ta te . I n d e e d , u n t i l 1871 th e r e w a s n o “G e r m a n y ” in t h e se n se o f a s in g le n a tio n - s t a te , b u t r a t h e r a c o m p le x c o n fig u r a tio n o f s m a lle r s ta te s a n d p r in c ip a litie s as w e ll as fre e to w n s . P ru s s ia s to o d o u t as a s t r o n g e a rly s ta te a g a i n s t th is b a c k g r o u n d . M o re o v e r, i t is n o t t h a t t h e r e w a s a c le a r a n d r e c o g n iz a b le “G e r m a n n a tio n ” t h a t w a s s im p ly a w a it­ in g p o litic a l u n if ic a tio n (B e rg e r 2 0 0 4 ). I n d e e d , as h i s t o r i ­ a n s p o i n t o u t, m a n y r e s id e n ts o f P ru s s ia d id n o t s p e a k G e r m a n , n u m e ro u s S w iss d id (a n d s till do), a n d th e r e w as l it t l e c o n s e n s u s a b o u t w h a t e x a c tly q u a lifie d o n e as a G e r m a n (K itc h e n 2 0 0 6 :9 ; B e rg e r 2 0 0 4 ). A t t h e s a m e tim e , a v a g u e se n se o f G e r m a n i d e n t i ty h a d d e v e lo p e d o v e r th e c o u rse o f t h e e i g h te e n t h c e n tu ry . A t firs t, th is i d e n tity w a s v e ry “c o s m o p o lita n ” a n d fo c u s e d o n t h e id e a o f G e r m a n y as a c u lt u r a l c o m m u n i ty (G r e e n f e ld 1 9 9 2 ; B e rg e r 2 0 0 4 ). H o w e v e r, th e N a p o le o n ic in v a s io n s t r a n s f o r m e d G e r m a n id e n tity , le a d in g to e ffo rts to d e fin e G e r m a n n e s s against w h a t F r e n c h c iv iliz a tio n w a s ta k e n to r e p re s e n t (K itc h e n

2 0 0 6 ; G r e e n f e ld 1992). I n th e p o s t-N a p o le o n ic y e a rs, a s p ira n ts to a G e r m a n

n a tio n - s ta te w o u ld have to m a k e d o w i t h a lo o se c o n fe d e ra ­ tio n o f e x is tin g u n its , e s ta b lis h e d a t th e C o n g re s s o f V ie n n a ,

b e tw e e n E a s t a n d W e s t G e r m a n y a f te r W o r ld W a r I I . P r e ­

viously, m u c h o f its lo n g - r u n h i s t o r y o f p o litic a l d is u n ity c a u s e d t h e r e g io n to b e d o m in a te d b y P ru s s ia in th e e a s t a n d A u s tr ia (to d a y n o t a p a r t o f G e rm a n y ) in t h e s o u th , w i t h s m a lle r s ta te s in th e w e s t. R e lig io u s v a ria tio n e x acer­ b a te d s u b re g io n a l d iffe re n c e s, w i t h s o u th e r n p a r ts o f th e G e r m a n r e g io n h a v in g la r g e C a th o li c p o p u la t io n s (in A u s tr ia a n d B a v a ria , fo r ex am p le) a n d w i t h t h e n o r t h t e n d in g to w a rd P ro te s ta n tis m . A s is th e case in m u c h o f W e s te r n E u r o p e , G e r m a n so c ie ty h a s se e n n o te w o rth y sec­ u la r iz a tio n . T h e m a jo rity o f t h e c o u n tr y is s till n o m in a lly C h r is tia n , b u t ra te s o f c h u r c h a tte n d a n c e a re low. T h e re is a s m a ll M u s lim p o p u la tio n , m a n y o f w h o m a re o f T u r k is h d e ­ sc e n t. M o r e g e n era lly , th e q u e s tio n o f h o w im m ig r a n ts w ill b e in c o rp o ra te d in to G e r m a n so c ie ty r e m a in s a n im p o r ta n t issue o f som e in te re s t to sc h o la rs. D e s p ite s e c u la riz in g tr e n d s , re lig io n s till m a tte rs in G e r m a n y (see d isc u ssio n in F e tz e r a n d S o p e r 2 0 0 5 ).

w i t h b o t h A u s tr ia a n d P ru s s ia e x e r tin g le a d e rs h ip . T h e p e r io d o f th e c o n fe d e ra tio n w a s o n e o f m o d e r n iz a tio n a n d its a tt e n d a n t u n c e r ta in tie s a n d c o n flicts: G e r m a n y b e g a n in d u s tr ia l iz a ti o n , w h ile m o d e r n lib e ra ls a n d tra d itio n a lis ts sq u a b b le d . T h e re w e re p e rio d s o f s tr e e t c o n te n tio n , m o s t n o ta b ly in 1 8 4 8 , a y e a r in w h ic h m a n y E u r o p e a n c o u n trie s e x p e rie n c e d a tte m p t e d re v o lu tio n s. M o r e g e n e ra lly in th is p e r io d , in te lle c tu a ls a n d a r tis ts d e v e lo p e d id ea s o f G e r m a n n a ti o n h o o d , a n d m a n y h o p e d to see th e m m a d e in to a re a l­ ity (B e rg e r 2 0 0 4 ; G r e e n f e ld 1992). C o n f lic t b e tw e e n th e s e c o n te n d e rs f o r d o m in a n c e o f th e c o n fe d e ra tio n issu e d in th e A u s tr o - P r u s s ia n W a r (1866), in w h ic h A u s tr ia w a s d e ­ fe a te d . T h e G e r m a n C o n f e d e r a tio n w a s re p la c e d b y a s m a lle r c o n fe d e ra tio n , le d b y P ru s s ia a n d e x c lu d in g A u s tr ia a n d p a r ts o f S o u th e r n G e rm a n y .

T h e G e r m a n sta te w o u ld a c h ie v e u n ific a tio n i n t h e w a k e o f P ru s s ia ’s d e fe a t o f F ra n c e i n th e F r a n c o -P r u s s ia n W a r, s e a le d a t th e B a ttle o f S e d a n in 1871, w h ic h le d to th e fa ll o f N a p o le o n I I I (for a g o o d o v e rv ie w o f t h is p e rio d , see K itc h e n 2 0 0 6 ). T h e u n ite d G e r m a n y — w h ic h e x c lu d e d A u s tr i a — w a s o r g a n iz e d as a n E m p ir e , re fe rre d to as th e “ S e c o n d R e ic h .” O t t o v o n B ism a rc k , a P ru s s ia n “J u n k e r ” w h o is c o n s id e re d th e a r c h ite c t o f u n if ie d G e rm a n y , a n d w h o h a d le d P ru s s ia a n d t h e N o r t h G e r m a n F e d e ra tio n in

444 Germany

th e y e ars p rio r, w a s n a m e d c h a n c e llo r, a p o s t t h a t h e w o u ld h o ld u n t il 1890.

B is m a rc k is i m p o r t a n t n o t j u s t b e c a u se o f G e r m a n y ’s u n ific a tio n a n d th e w a y i n w h ic h G e r m a n y ’s u n ific a tio n i n ­ flu en c ed E u r o p e a n p o w e r p o litic s — fo llo w in g th e F ra n c o - P ru s s ia n W a r G e r m a n y e m e rg e d as E u r o p e ’s c e n tra l p o w e r— b u t also b e c a u se o f th e w a y h e m a n a g e d d o m e s tic p o litic s . G e r m a n y w a s d iv id e d b e tw e e n c o n se rv a tiv e s w h o s u p p o rte d m o n a rc h y , lib e ra ls , a n d so c ia lists a n d so c ial d e m o c ra ts. P o litic a l p a r tie s a n d in te lle c tu a l g ro u p s p ro lif­ e ra te d , a n d th e r e w e re m a n y s u b ty p e s o f th e s e c a te g o rie s

(“o ld ” v e rsu s “n e w ” lib e ra ls , a n d so fo rth ). B is m a rc k g o v ­ e r n e d la rg e ly as a c o n se rv a tiv e b u t m a d e u se o f so m e ideas fro m t h e m o d e ra te le ft. P e rh a p s m o s t im p o r t a n t is t h e es­ ta b lis h m e n t o f in c ip ie n t w e lfa re sta te fu n c tio n s — d isa b ility , u n e m p lo y m e n t, a n d h e a lth in s u ra n c e , as w e ll as p e n sio n s— in th e 1 8 8 0 s ( E s p in g - A n d e r s e n 1990: 24), to b e e x p a n d e d in t h e t w e n tie th c e n tu r y (M a r e s 2 0 0 1 : 6 0 - 6 3 ; H e n ts c h e l 2 0 0 8 : 7 9 3 - 8 0 1 ) . T h e se p ro g ra m s w e re n o t as g e n e ro u s as la te r w e lfa re s ta te p ro g ra m s w o u ld b e , n o r as g e n e ro u s as th e so c ia l d e m o c ra ts w a n te d . T h e G e r m a n im p e r ia l sta te a lso e x te n d e d su ffra g e to a ll m ale s.

H isto rical D e v e lo p m e n t T i m e l i n e

1648

1815

1834

1848

1864

1866

1870

1871

1914-1918

1918

1919-1933

1939-1945

Treaty of Westphalia signals rise of modern nation­ state system; present-day Germany governed by many principalities. End of Napoleonic Wars; Congress of Vienna gives rise to loose Germanic Confederation led by Prussia (present-day northern Germany) and Austria. Establishment of the Zollverein (Customs Union) in the Confederation Revolutionary upheaval in Europe, including in German states German-Danish War over Schleswig-Holstein Led by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, Prussia defeats powerful Austria in Austro-Prussian War. Prussia defeats France in Franco-Prussian War. Unification of Germany under Prussian leadership World War I. Germany joins Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Empire as Central Powers vs. Great Britain, France, and Russia as Allies; United States enters war on side of Allies in 1916. Armistice ends World War I, with Great Britain and France demanding reparations from Germany and demilitarization of Rheinland. Weimar Republic presides over hyperinflation and Great Depression. Hitler elected chancellor as head of National Socialist (Nazi) Party, establishes "Third Reich." Germany invades Poland; Great Britain and France declare war on Germany. World War II. The Holocaust, led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, results in the extermination of 6 million Jews as well as members of many other

1945

1945-1989

1948

1950

1961

1989

1990

1980s-1990s

2002

2005

2011-2015

groups. Germany invades and occupies much of western Europe, bombs Britain extensively, and invades Russia, but ultimately retreats. Retreat from Russia in 1943 and D-Day in 1944 (Allied invasion of occupied France) signal beginning of the end ofThird Reich. Allies (including Soviet Union, Great Britain, United States, France) take Berlin.Third Reich Falls; Hitler commits suicide. Soviets occupy East Germany; Americans, British, and French occupy West Germany. Germany divided into Communist East Germany and democratic/capitalist West Germany; major repression in East Germany. Berlin Airlift Treaty of Rome begins integration in western Europe of European Community, with West Germany and France leading. Berlin Wall raised overnight by Soviets and East German regime. Fall of the Berlin Wall signals end of Communism. Reunification of East and West Germany as Federal Republic of Germany (Helmut Kohl, chancellor) European integration accelerates (Single European Act, 1987; Maastricht Treaty, 1992 through 1999). Euro begins circulating as new currency, with Deutschmark phased out. Angela Merkel becomes Germany's first female chancellor. Countries in the eurozone face the need for finan­ cial bailouts, which are resisted in Germany.

Profile 445

I n e c o n o m ic te rm s , la te - n in e te e n th - c e n t u r y G e r m a n y

saw c o n tin u e d in d u s t r ia liz a t io n a n d g r o w th . T h e c o u n tr y c am e to riv a l B r ita in in m a n y re sp e c ts ( K itc h e n 2 0 0 6 ). Its e c o n o m y w as p a r tic u la r ly s tr o n g in so m e a re a s, lik e c h e m i­ c a l e n g in e e rin g . Its re s e a rc h u n iv e rs itie s w e re im p o r t a n t as w e ll, a n d w e re e m u la te d e ls e w h e re , in c lu d in g in th e U n ite d S ta te s.

I n te rm s o f fo re ig n p olicy, th e sta te ru s h e d to c o m p e te w i t h m o re e s ta b lis h e d c o lo n ia l p o w e rs in th e “sc ra m b le fo r A fric a ,” th o u g h G e r m a n y n e v e r su c c e ss fu lly e s ta b lis h e d a la rg e c o lo n ia l sy ste m ( K itc h e n 2 0 0 6 : 1 6 8 -1 6 9 ). B ism a rc k , h a v in g a lie n a te d F ra n c e n o t j u s t t h r o u g h d e fe a tin g t h e m in th e F ra n c o -P r u s s ia n W a r b u t in t a k i n g A ls a c e - L o r r a in e as p a r t o f t h e p e a c e s e ttle m e n t, e s s e n tia lly b u i lt h is fo re ig n p o lic y a r o u n d m a n i p u la tin g a llia n c e s su c h t h a t F ra n c e w o u ld b e u n a b le to m a k e c o m m o n c a u se w i t h R u s s ia , A u s tr i a , a n d /o r t h e U n i t e d K i n g d o m a g a i n s t t h e n e w G e r m a n sta te . P e rh a p s su rp risin g ly , h e w a s a ble to d o so w i t h success, th o u g h h is to r ia n s te n d to see t h e s e ttle m e n t o f th e F r a n c o -P r u s s ia n W a r a n d th e su b s e q u e n t d ip lo m a c y o f b i n d in g a llia n c e s as c ritic a l to th e d e v e lo p m e n t o f th e F i r s t W o rld W a r.

L e a d e rs h ip w a s less c ap a b le fo llo w in g B is m a rc k ’s d e ­ p a r tu r e fro m office in 1 8 9 0 ( K itc h e n 2 0 0 6 ). A f t e r a S e rb ia n n a tio n a lis t lin k e d to so m e fig u re s in th e S e rb ia n g o v e rn ­ m e n t k ille d A rc h d u k e F r a n z F e rd in a n d o f A u s tria , w a r b e g a n , a n d G e rm a n y jo in e d A u s tria (D av ies 1996: 8 7 5 -8 9 5 ). R u ssia b a c k e d S erbia, a n d F ra n c e a n d th e U n ite d K in g d o m allie d w ith R ussia. T h e U n ite d S ta te s w o u ld so o n jo in th e allies as w ell. W o rld W a r I w a s a b r u ta l c o n flict, in w h ic h tre n c h w a rfa re w as p r e d o m in a n t. W h il e som e fo resaw th e im p lica tio n s o f n e w m ilita r y te c h n o lo g y a n d stra te g y , m a n y o f th e c o m b a ta n ts a n d c itiz e n s o n b o t h sides w e re sh o c k e d by th e tra g e d y o f w eb s o f a llian c es a n d c o n ce rn s ov er n a tio n a l h o n o r le a d in g to y e ars s p e n t in th e m u d , w ith m illio n s o f d e a th s in a w a r t h a t w as b a sica lly a t a sta le m a te fo r m u c h o f its d u ra tio n (W e b e r 1972: 3 6 3 -3 7 0 ). Its g lo b a l c o n se q u en c es w ere fa r-re a c h in g . A s w e s h a ll see, it c h a n g e d G e r m a n p o li­ tics forever, b u t it also p ro d u c e d th e c irc u m s ta n c e s o f th e R u ssia n R e v o lu tio n , w h ic h le d to th e fo rm a tio n o f th e S oviet

U n io n . G e r m a n y ’s d e fe a t m e a n t t h e e n d o f t h e E m p ir e . A new ,

re p u b lic a n g o v e r n m e n t w as fo rm e d . T h e n e w fo rm o f th e G e r m a n s ta te , k n o w n as th e W e im a r R e p u b lic b e c a u se its c o n s titu tio n w a s e sta b lis h e d in t h e c ity o f W e im a r , w a s h a m p e r e d f ro m t h e s t a r t b y a series o f d iffic u ltie s ( F u lb r o o k 1990: 155). D e s p ite g r e a t h o p e s , i t w o u ld o n ly su rv iv e fo r a

b it m o re t h a n a d e c a d e , c o lla p s in g as th e N a z is a sc e n d e d to po w e r.

S o m e o f th e m a jo r p ro b le m s w e re c o n se q u e n c e s o f th e T r e a ty o f V e rsa illes, w h ic h e n d e d W o r ld W a r I. D e s p ite th e o b je c tio n s o f so m e i f its a llie s , F ra n c e in s is te d o n d is a b lin g i n d e m n itie s fo r G e r m a n y to p a y in d e fin ite ly . T h is c o n d itio n g e n e ra te d d is c o n te n t a n d p ro v o k e d r e s e n tm e n t a m o n g th e G e r m a n p o p u la tio n t h a t w o u ld la te r fe e d in to c ritiq u e s o f t h e W e im a r R e p u b lic ’s lib e ra l o rd e r, a n d it a lso w e a k e n e d t h e s ta te ’s e c o n o m ic p o s itio n ( F u lb r o o k 1 990: 1 6 3 -1 6 4 ).

T h e s i t u a t io n w a s e x a c e rb a te d w h e n t h e g lo b a l d e p re s ­ sio n s p re a d to G e r m a n y (J a m e s 2 0 0 9 ). S o c ie ty p o la r i z e d p o litic a lly , a n d i n s t i t u t i o n a l a lte ra tio n s to th e W e i m a r R e p u b lic c o u ld n o t h e lp . T h e N a z i p a r t y d id w e ll in th e 1 9 3 0 a n d 193 2 le g is la tiv e e le c tio n s , a n d H i t l e r c a m e in s e c o n d , w i t h a p p ro x im a te ly 3 7 p e r c e n t in th e p r e s i d e n t ia l e le c tio n s o f 193 2 ( K it c h e n 2 0 0 6 : 2 4 9 , 251). I n 1933 H i t le r w a s a p p o in t e d c h a n c e llo r , th e p o s it io n f r o m w h i c h h e w o u l d d is m a n tl e t h e W e i m a r o r d e r a n d , w i t h it, G e r m a n d e m o c ra c y .

T h is b rin g s o u r s h o r t n a rra tiv e to th e in fa m o u s p e rio d o f th e N a z i P a r ty ’s d o m in a n c e o f G e rm a n y . U n d e r H itle r , th e N a z is q u ic k ly m o v e d to u n d e r m in e th e ru le o f la w a n d th e e x is tin g c o n s titu tio n a l o rd e r. T h e y d id so b o t h th r o u g h f o rm a l in s t itu tio n a l m e a n s (e.g., th e “E n a b lin g L a w ” o f 1933) a n d in fo rm a lly , su c h as d u r in g th e “n ig h t o f t h e lo n g k n iv e s ” in w h ic h th e N a z is p u r g e d p o litic a l e lites (F u lb ro o k 1 9 9 0 :1 7 8 - 1 8 7 ) . G e r m a n y b e c a m e a to ta lita r ia n p o lic e sta te .

M o s t a la r m in g o f a ll, th e a n ti- S e m itis m t h a t h a d b e e n p r e s e n t in G e r m a n y fo r y e a rs ( K itc h e n 2 0 0 6 : 1 3 3 - 1 3 8 ) , a n d b e e n a p r o m in e n t p a r t o f H i t le r ’s r h e to ric , c a m e fu lly o u t in to th e l ig h t o f d a y ( F u lb r o o k 1 9 9 0 :1 9 6 - 2 0 3 ) . J e w is h id e n ­ t ity w a s le g a lly d e fin e d , a n d a series o f d is c rim in a to ry law s w e re p a sse d , w h ic h in c re a s in g ly c irc u m s c rib e d G e r m a n J e w s ’ m o v e m e n t w i t h in th e society. V io len c e a g a in s t Jew s b e c a m e in c re a s in g ly c o m m o n , n o ta b ly th e m ass vio le n c e o f th e K r is ta lln a c h t o f 1938. E v e n m o re c h illin g ly , th e re g im e a im e d to se q u e ste r Je w s in c o n c e n tra tio n c a m p s w ith u lti ­ m a te ly g e n o c id a l p u rp o s e s . H is to r ia n s e s tim a te t h a t a ro u n d 6 m illio n Je w s w e re m u rd e re d b y t h e N a z is . T h is re lig io u s m in o r ity su ffe red m o re t h a n m o s t, b u t o th e r g ro u p s, su c h as P o le s, S o v ie t C itiz e n s , G y p s ie s, h o m o se x u a ls, a n d even so m e C h r i s t ia n re lig io u s a c to rs, as w e ll as p o litic a l activ ists o p p o s e d to t h e N a z is , w e re a lso o p p re s s e d a n d m u rd e re d in g r e a t n u m b e rs .

H i t le r ’s fo re ig n p o lic y w a s e x p a n s io n a ry (F u lb ro o k 1 9 9 0 : 1 8 7 -1 9 5 ), a n d G e r m a n y ’s te r r i to ri a l a m b itio n s le d to

446 Germany

th e S e c o n d W o rld W a r. G e r m a n y t o o k C z e c h o s lo v a k ia in 1938 a fte r t h e fa m o u s a t te m p t b y N e v ille C h a m b e r la i n to “a p p e a se ” H i t l e r a t M u n ic h . I n 1939 G e r m a n y in v a d e d P o la n d , a n d W o r ld W a r I I b e g a n . A t firs t th e S o v ie t U n io n w as n o t p a r t o f th e h o s tilitie s , S ta lin a n d H i t le r h a v in g s ig n e d a n o n -a g g re s s io n p a c t, b u t th e N a z is h a d n o in te n ­ tio n o f lo n g - te r m c o e x iste n c e w i t h a m a jo r s o c ia lis t p o w e r ( K itc h e n 2 0 0 6 : 2 9 7 - 2 9 8 , 3 0 1 -3 0 4 ). W h i l e F ra n c e q u ic k ly fe ll to G e rm a n y , th e c o lla b o ra tin g V ic h y re g im e p u t in p lac e, B r ita in a n d la te r th e S o v ie t U n i o n fo u g h t p e rs is ­ ten tly . T h e y w e re j o in e d b y th e U n it e d S ta te s a f te r J a p a n ’s a tt a c k o n P e a rl H a r b o r in D e c e m b e r o f 1941. I t t o o k u n t il 1945, b u t t h e A llie s w e re e v e n tu a lly t r iu m p h a n t, a n d G e r m a n y w a s p a r tia lly d e s tro y e d in th e p ro c ess.

T h e e ffo rt to r e c o n s tr u c t G e r m a n y — e c o n o m ic a lly , p o ­ litic a lly , a n d so c ia lly — w a s d a u n tin g . T h e S o v ie t U n io n h a d o c c u p ie d th e e a s te r n p o r t io n o f th e c o u n tr y w h ile th e U n it e d K in g d o m , F ra n c e , a n d th e U n it e d S ta te s o c c u p ie d th e w e s t. T h e s e w o u ld b e c o m e tw o d i s t in c t s ta te s , th e F e d e ra l R e p u b lic o f G e r m a n y ( W e s t G e r m a n y ) a n d th e G e r m a n D e m o c r a tic R e p u b lic ( E a s t G e rm a n y ). W e s t G e r m a n y e m b ra c e d lib e ra l d e m o c ra c y a n d a m ix e d e c o n ­ om y, w i t h s t r o n g s u p p o r t fo r so c ia l d e m o c ra c y a n d a re la ­ tiv e ly r o b u s t w e lfa re s ta te . E a s t G e r m a n y b e c a m e a s a te llite s ta te o f t h e S o v ie t U n io n . E c o n o m ic r e c o n s tr u c ­ tio n o f W e s t G e r m a n y w a s g r e a tly a id e d b y f u n d s fro m th e U n i te d S ta te s in th e fo rm o f th e M a r s h a l l P l a n (D a v ie s 1996: 1 080).

C u ltu r a l r e c o n s tr u c tio n w a s p e rh a p s j u s t as c o m p li­ c a te d , i f n o t m o re so. S uccessive g e n e ra tio n s o f G e r m a n s h a d to re d e fin e t h e ir id e n tity a f te r th e h is to ric a l c rim e s o f th e N a z is (see d is c u s s io n in 0 1 i c k 2 0 0 5 ) , tr y in g to re h a b ili­ ta te a se n se o f G e r m a n - n e s s t h a t w a s n o t im p lic a te d a n d t h a t w o u ld n o t b e lik e ly to issu e in a r e t u r n to m il i ta n t x e ­ n o p h o b ia . A g a in s t th e sk e p tic s, W e s t G e r m a n y h a d success i n b u ild in g a la rg e ly to le ra n t, f u n c tio n a l, d e m o c ra tic soci­ ety, o n e t h a t h a s la rg e ly b e e n e c o n o m ic a lly su c c e ssfu l to b o o t. A sta b le p a r ty sy ste m d e v e lo p e d (D a v ie s 1996: 1074), w ith th e C h r is tia n D e m o c r a tic U n io n P a r ty a n d th e S o c ia l D e m o c ra tic P a r t y b e in g t h e m o s t i m p o r t a n t (a n d th e y

re m a in as su c h to d a y in u n ifie d G e rm a n y ). U n lik e in th e W e im a r R e p u b lic ( K itc h e n 2 0 0 6 ), p o s t-w a r G e r m a n y w as n o t d a m a g e d b y re le n tle ss c o n flic t b e tw e e n s m a ll p a rtie s . M o re o v e r, k e y le a d e rs o f b o t h p a rtie s , lik e K o n ra d A d e n a u e r (a C h r is tia n D e m o c ra t) a n d W illy B r a n d t (a S o c ia l D e m o ­ c ra t), p la y e d k e y ro les in th e o n g o in g d e m o c ra tic c o n s o li­ d a tio n o f W e s t G e rm a n y . T h e E a s t G e r m a n s ta te , p e rh a p s o w in g to its s ta tu s as a sa te llite , w a s ju d g e d b y m o s t to be less su c c essfu l, w i t h p o o r e c o n o m ic p e rfo rm a n c e o v e r m a n y y ears.

A s p a r t o f t h e w a v e o f re v o lu tio n s t h a t s w e p t C e n tr a l a n d E a s te r n E u r o p e a n d b r o u g h t th e S o v ie t U n io n to a n e n d , th e B e rlin W a l l fell in 1989, a n d E a s t a n d W e s t G e r m a n y w e re u n if ie d in 1 9 9 0 . E a s t G e rm a n y , o w in g to d e c a d e s s p e n t as a c o m m a n d e c o n o m y a n d w i t h p o litic a l s u b o r d in a tio n to th e S o v ie t U n io n , h a d a lo w e r level o f so ­ c io e c o n o m ic d e v e lo p m e n t. T h e re u n ific a tio n o f G e r m a n y r e s u lte d in m a jo r tra n s fe rs o f r e so u rc e s fro m w e s t to east. D e s p ite th e fa c t t h a t t h i s h a s p a r ti a lly re d re s s e d th e im ­ b a la n c e s in e c o n o m ic d e v e lo p m e n t, d iffe re n c e s a re s till v isible.

T h r o u g h o u t re c e n t d e c a d e s, G e r m a n y h a s b e e n a le a d e r in t h e c re a tio n a n d e x p a n s io n o f th e E u r o p e a n U n io n . I t w a s a n in it ia t o r o f t h e p ro je c t o f E u r o p e a n in te g r a tio n , b e ­ g i n n in g in th e 1950s w i t h fre e tr a d e i n c o al a n d ste el, a n d th e n m o v in g to a c o m m o n m a rk e t, c o m m o n tr a d e p o lic ies, a n d u ltim a te ly to a c o m m o n c u rre n c y a n d o p e n b o rd e rs w i t h i n p a r ts o f t h e c o n tin e n t. W h i l e th e p ro c e ss o f E u r o p e a n i n te g r a tio n h a s b e e n re m a rk a b le , t h e re g io n h a s fa lle n o n m o re d iffic u lt tim e s e v en as G e r m a n y h a s b o o m e d e c o n o m ic a lly . T h is h a s p u t t h e E u r o u n d e r p re s s u re , w i th G e r m a n s b e in g fa c e d w i t h a d ile m m a : T h e c o u n tr y is h e si­ t a n t to b a il o u t c o u n trie s f a c in g fin a n c ia l d iffic u ltie s in th e e u ro z o n e , b u t i t a lso is th e k e y p la y e r t h a t m u s t d o so i f th e e u ro z o n e is to h o ld to g e th e r. I n s h o r t, r e c e n t e c o n o m ic t u r ­ b u le n c e h a s c o n firm e d w h a t G e r m a n y ’s tu m u l tu o u s h is to r y h a s u n d e rlin e d : T h e c o u n tr y h a s e m e rg e d as c o n te m p o ra ry E u r o p e ’s m o s t i m p o r t a n t p o w e r, th o u g h th e r e is d is c o m fo rt w i t h th is ro le a m o n g so m e G e r m a n s a n d so m e o u tsid e o f G e rm a n y .

Regime and Political Institutions T he h e ad o f g o v e rn m e n t in th e F e d e ral R epublic o f G e rm a n y ’s stu d y o n pages 4 5 1 -4 5 2 ) a fte r legislative elections. Since no p a rlia m e n ta ry system is th e chancellor, a p o sitio n com parable single p a r ty is u sually able to a tta in a m ajo rity o f seats in th e to a p rim e m inister. T he c h ancellor is selected by th e low er B u ndestag, G e rm a n y ’s c h ancellor re g u la rly governs at th e h e ad h ouse o f th e legislature, th e B u n d e sta g (see th e c h a p te r 9 case o f a co alitio n o f tw o o r m ore pa rties. T h e c h ancellor h im s e lf/

h e rse lf is a lm o st always e ith e r fro m th e C h ris tia n D e m o cra tic

U n io n P a rty (C D U , a n exam ple b e in g c u rre n t c h ancellor A n g e la M e rk el, or, in earlier years, H e lm u t K o h l o r K o n ra d A denauer) o r th e Social D e m o c ra tic P a rty (S P D , w ith

exam ples like G e rh a rd S c h ro d e r o r W illy B randt). T he c h a n ­ cellor’s p o w e r is lim ite d b y G e rm a n y ’s federalism , w h ic h em ­

pow ers representatives o f th e states (L ander) in th e u p p e r h ouse (B undesrat) to v ote o n a ll legislation a ffecting th e states.

Regime and Political Institutions Regime Democratically elected federal republic

Administrative Divisions 16 Lander (states)

Executive Branch Chancellor (head of government) President (head of state, ceremonial)

Selection of Executive Selected by Bundestag

Legislative Branch Bicameral Lower chamber: Bundestag; members elected by mixed system of districts, proportional representation Upper chamber: Bundesrat; members selected by Lander (state) governments

Judicial Branch Constitutional Court with powers of judicial review

Political Party System Multiparty, with frequent coalitions Main parties: CDU (center-right), SPD (center-left), Greens (left), Liberals (right), Left. Of these, the CDU and the SPD have historically been predominant.

T h o u g h lim ite d b y c o a litio n p o litic s a n d fe d e ra lis m , c h a n c e llo rs a n d t h e i r c a b in e ts c a n re ly o n c o n sid e ra b le p a r ty d is c ip lin e to p a ss le g is la tio n (see th e c h a p te r 11 case s tu d y o n p a g e s 4 5 2 -4 5 3 ). I n a d d itio n , G e r m a n y is a rg u a b ly th e c e n tr a l p la y e r in E u r o p e , a n d its g o v e r n m e n t h a s a m a jo r ro le in s h a p in g t h e a c tio n s a n d p o lic ie s o f th e b ro a d e r

E u r o p e a n U n io n . I n p a r tic u la r , th e E u r o p e a n C e n tr a l B a n k is a E u r o p e - w id e i n s t it u t io n t h a t p re sid e s o ver th e c o m m o n c u rre n c y k n o w n as t h e E u r o , b u t it is lo c a te d in F r a n k f u r t a n d is se e n as s h a p e d b y G e r m a n e c o n o m ic p o li­ cies. (See c h a p te r 16 f o r a l o n g e r d is c u s s io n o f t h e E u r o p e a n U n io n .)

Political Culture M u c h a tt e n ti o n h a s b e e n fo c u se d o n n a tio n a lis m as a k e y fe a tu re o f G e r m a n p o litic a l c u ltu r e , w i t h c o n sid e ra b le p r e ­ o c c u p a tio n , v e ry u n d e rs ta n d a b ly , w i t h th e N a z i re g im e o f th e 193 0 s a n d 1 940s. A w h o le i n d u s tr y o f sc h o la rs h ip at­ te m p ts to u n p a c k t h e re la tio n s h ip b e tw e e n t h a t re g im e a n d th e lo n g - r u n G e r m a n p o litic a l-c u ltu r a l tr a d i tio n (see, fo r e x a m p le , d isc u ssio n in G r e e n f e ld 1992; G o ld h a g e n 1996; B ro w n in g 1 992; as w e ll as in B e rg e r 2 0 0 4 ). P re c is e ly b e ­ c ause th is im p o r ta n t c o n v e rsa tio n h a s re ce iv e d so m u c h at­ t e n tio n , w e fo c u s less c e n tra lly o n it h e re.

R a th e r, w e w ill n o te t h a t a k e y a s p e c t o f G e r m a n p o liti­ c al c u ltu re — b o t h E a s t a n d W e s t b e fo re re -u n if ic a tio n — h a s c e n te re d o n h o w G e r m a n i d e n t ity c a n b e re c o n s titu te d fo llo w in g t h a t s h a m e fu l e p is o d e in th e n a tio n ’s h isto ry .

In d e e d , t h is h a s p e rh a p s b e e n the c e n tr a l q u e s tio n o f G e r m a n p o litic a l c u ltu r e sin c e t h e S e c o n d W o r ld W a r. T he p o litic a l r ig h t in G e r m a n y w a s so d e -le g itim a te d b y a sso c i­ a tio n w i t h th e N a z is as to r e n d e r a c o n se rv a tiv e n a tio n a lis m a lm o s t im p o s sib le . T h e c e n te r - r ig h t (le d b y A d e n a u e r a n d th e C h r i s t ia n D e m o c ra ts ) w a s d o m in a n t in t h e e arly y e ars, b u t th is w a s n o t a r i g h t- w in g id e o lo g ic a l g ro u p b u t r a th e r a m o d e ra te re g im e t h a t fo c u se d o n re c o n s tr u c tio n a n d sta b i­ liz a tio n o f th e s o c ie ty (K itc h e n 2 0 0 6 : 3 1 6 -3 4 5 ; D a v ies 1 996: 1072). L a te r, th e S o c ia l D e m o c ra ts w o u ld have g re a t su ccess, p a r tic u la r ly d u r in g th e c h a n c e llo rs h ip o f W illy B r a n d t, u n d e r w h o s e le a d e rs h ip G e r m a n y a im e d to b o t h m a i n ta in its a llia n c e s w i t h t h e o th e r W e s te r n d e m o c rac ies a n d ach iev e a p a r ti a l r a p p ro c h e m e n t w i t h th e S o v ie t U n io n

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(K itc h e n 2 0 0 6 : 3 5 4 -3 6 1 ; D a v ie s 1996: 1114). M o re g e n e r­ ally, b o th p a rtie s have s tu c k to a re la tiv e ly safe p o s itio n in s u p p o r t o f th e w e lfa re sta te . I n s h o rt, G e r m a n y ’s e x p e ri­ e nces w i th p o litic a l in s ta b ility in th e W e im a r y e ars a n d w i th to ta lita ria n is m in th e 1930s a n d 1 9 4 0 s se e m to have le d th e c o u n try to b e h e a lth ily w a r y o f ra d ic a l p o la riz a tio n .

O n th e o t h e r h a n d , G e r m a n y h a s s o m e tim e s b e e n a t th e fo re fro n t o f e ffo rts to e x p e rim e n t w i t h d ir e c t d e m o c ra c y a n d re la te d id ea s. F o r e x a m p le , a n u m b e r o f its sta te s, p a r­ tic u la rly B a v aria, s ta n d o u t fo r t h e i r fr e q u e n t u se o f re fe r­ e n d a . P e rh a p s m o re q u ix o tic a lly , a n u m b e r o f G e r m a n lo c a litie s have issu e d lo ca l c u rre n c ie s, a t le a s t so m e o f th e m h o p in g to re s is t excess “c o m m o d ific a tio n ” a n d to r e ta in lo c a l c o n tro l o f e c o n o m ic p ro c esses b y d o in g so. F in a lly , th e G r e e n p a r ty h a s d o n e w e ll in G e r m a n y (in d e e d , G e r m a n y h a s h a d a s tr o n g e n v iro n m e n ta l m o v e m e n t m o re g e n era lly ), a n o th e r e x a m p le o f in n o v a tiv e , b ro a d ly so c ia l-d e m o c ra tic te n d e n c ie s.

T h e re is a n o th e r re la te d q u e s tio n o f p o litic a l c u ltu r e a n d G e r m a n y ’s a d a p ta tio n to th e p o s t- w a r w o rld . T h is is th e role o f G e r m a n y as th e p r im e m o v e r in E u r o p e a n u n i ­ f ic a tio n . M u c h o f t h e p o litic a l in n o v a tio n o f th e p e rio d a f te r 1945 in E u r o p e h a s c o m e w i t h t h e c re a tio n o f n e w s u p e r - n a tio n a l in s titu tio n s a t th e E u r o p e a n level. G e r m a n y a n d F ra n c e h a v e b e e n th e p illa rs o f t h is lo n g e x p e rim e n t fro m th e b e g in n in g , a lo n g w i t h I ta l y a n d t h e s m a lle r B e n e lu x c o u n tr ie s o f B e lg iu m , th e N e th e r la n d s , a n d L u x e m b o u rg . A t its o rig in s , t h e E u r o p e a n U n io n (w h ic h w a s k n o w n p re v io u s ly b y d iffe re n t n a m e s s u c h as th e E u r o p e a n C o m m u n ity ) w a s w id e ly se e n as a n e ffo rt b y th e c o n tin e n ta l p o w e rs to p re c lu d e f u t u r e w a rs th r o u g h e c o n o m ic , so c ia l, a n d p o litic a l c o o p e ra tio n . A s o f 2 0 1 5 , m a n y c o m m e n ta to r s a re le f t w o n d e r in g a b o u t th e f u tu r e o f th is in itia tiv e , d u e to f in a n c ia l p ro b le m s i n a n u m b e r o f e u r o z o n e c o u n trie s .

Political Economy G e r m a n y is b y m o s t c o u n ts t h e w o r ld ’s f i f th - la r g e s t e c o n ­ om y, c o m in g b e h in d o n ly th e U n ite d S ta te s, C h in a , J a p a n , a n d I n d ia (on t h e b asis o f p u rc h a s in g p ow er). T h e i n d u s tr ia l p o w e rh o u se w a s t h e w o r ld ’s la rg e s t e x p o r te r f o r so m e y e ars, b e fo re c e d in g t h a t h o n o r to C h in a m o re re ce n tly . B y v i r tu e o f its size a n d p r o m in e n c e , G e r m a n y is th e e n g in e o f th e E u r o p e a n U n io n , th e w o r ld ’s la rg e s t e c o n o m ic fre e tr a d e a rea , w h ic h h a s a c o m b in e d e c o n o m y s o m e w h a t la r g e r t h a n t h a t o f th e U n ite d S ta te s. T h e c o u n tr y ’s e c o n o m ic m o d e l c o n ta in s m a n y fre e m a r k e t e le m e n ts, b u t a lso fe a tu re s a n active sta te role in in v e s tm e n t, in b u ild i n g h u m a n c a p ita l, a n d in p r o v id in g s u p p o r t fo r th e v u ln e ra b le . E c o n o m ic d e ­ c is io n -m a k in g sin c e W o r ld W a r I I h a s p r io r itiz e d c o n se n ­ sus b e tw e e n m a jo r e c o n o m ic a c to rs, in c lu d in g c o rp o ra tio n s , la b o r u n io n s , a n d th e sta te . A t t h e sa m e tim e , it h a s s h o w n less w illin g n e s s to e n g a g e in K e y n e s ia n c o u n te r-c y c lic a l sp e n d in g ( A lle n 1989) t h a n o th e r m a jo r a d v a n c e d in d u s ­ t r ia l so c ieties, re m a in in g fiscally c a u tio u s.

T he h is to r y o f th e G e r m a n e c o n o m y is o n e o f t h e m o s t in tr ig u i n g a n d m o s t c losely s tu d ie d in th e a re a o f d e v e lo p ­ m e n t. A t t h e tim e o f th e n in e te e n t h - c e n t u r y I n d u s t r ia l R e v o lu tio n , G e r m a n y fe ll b e h in d G r e a t B r ita in as t h e le a d ­ in g e c o n o m ic p o w e r, b u t so o n g re w p o w e r f u l b y d e v e lo p in g a ste el in d u s try , h e a v y in d u s try , a n d ra ilro a d s . I n c o n tr a s t w it h a B ritis h e c o n o m ic m o d e l t h a t w a s re la tiv e ly fre e - tr a d e a n d f r e e - m a r k e t o r ie n te d a n d b a se d o n p riv a te

in v e s tm e n ts o f m o d e ra te size, th e G e r m a n e x p erien c e w as m o re b a s e d in in v e s tm e n t fro m m a jo r so u rces o f cap ital, su c h as in d u s tria l in v e s tm e n t b a n k s a n d th e sta te i ts e lf (K u r th 1979), t h o u g h sc h o lars d e b a te th e extent to w h ic h sta te in v o lv e m e n t w a s a fa c to r ( H e n ts c h e l 2 0 0 8 : 753). G e r m a n y ’s a b ility to c a tc h u p to t h e lik e s o f B rita in ev en led to th e d e v e lo p m e n t o f th e o rie s t h a t th e r e c o u ld b e “a d v a n ­

ta g e s to b a c k w a rd n e s s ,” as re la tiv e ly less d e v e lo p e d c o u n trie s w o u ld c re a te th e la rg e in s titu tio n s n e e d e d to p u s h d e v elo p ­ m e n t fo rw a rd a n d le a p fro g th e le a d e r (G e rs c h e n k ro n 1962). B y th e e arly tw e n tie th c e n tu ry , G e r m a n y w a s o n e o f th e w o r ld ’s in d u s tr ia l a n d e c o n o m ic lea d ers. T h e tw e n ti e th c e n ­ tu r y b ro u g h t m assive u p h e a v a l, e sp e c ia lly a fte r G e r m a n y ’s d e f e a t in W o r ld W a r I. A f t e r t h e w a r, G e r m a n y w e n t th r o u g h th e h o rro rs o f t h e G r e a t D e p re s sio n , d u r in g w h ic h th e c o u n tr y su ffe red h y p e rin fla tio n .

T h is se q u e n c e o f e v e n ts c o n tr ib u te d to th e rise o f th e N a z is a n d A d o l f H it le r ; W o rld W a r I I t h e n b ro u g h t d e ­ s tr u c tio n to m u c h o f E u r o p e , a n d u ltim a te ly to G e r m a n y itself. F ro m 1945 to 1 9 9 0 , t h e c o u n tr y w a s sp lit in to th e c a p ita lis t W e s t a n d th e C o m m u n is t E a s t, w i t h t h e l a tte r fa llin g fa r b e h in d W e s t G e r m a n y eco n o m ica lly . W e s t G e r m a n y w a s q u ite su c c essfu l a f te r th e w a r, as w a s J a p a n , w h ic h le d to th e th e o r y t h a t th e loss in th e w a r h a d e lim i­ n a te d t h e m a n y “sp e c ia l in te re s ts ” in p o litic s t h a t c o m p lic a te re fo rm ; th is w o u ld e x p la in success re la tiv e to v ic to rs s u c h as

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th e U n ite d K in g d o m a n d t h e U n ite d S ta te s (O ls o n 1984).

A f te r th e fa ll o f th e B e rlin W a ll sig n ifie d th e e n d o f th e C o ld W a r in 1989, G e r m a n y re u n ifie d i n 1 9 9 0 a n d r e s u m e d its p lac e as o n e o f th e w o r ld ’s le a d in g e co n o m ies.

P e r e s tim a te s fo r 2 0 1 3 , 3 0 p e rc e n t o f G e r m a n y ’s G D P co m es fro m in d u s tr ia l p ro d u c tio n , 69 p e rc e n t c o m e s fro m th e se rv ice se c to r, a n d o n ly 0 .8 p e r c e n t c o m e s fro m th e ag ­ r ic u ltu r a l s e c to r ( C I A W o r ld F a c tb o o k ). G e r m a n y ’s u n e m ­ p lo y m e n t ra te w a s e s tim a te d a t 5 .3 p e rc e n t ( C I A W o r ld F a c tb o o k 2 0 1 3 ), w h ic h is q u ite lo w b y E u r o p e a n s ta n d a rd s , e sp e c ia lly since th e e c o n o m ic c risis t h a t b e g a n i n 2 0 0 8 . G e r m a n y ’s g in i in d e x is 3 0 .6 , a c c o rd in g to W o r ld B a n k es­ tim a te s , w h ic h m a k e s th e G e r m a n in c o m e d is tr ib u tio n fa irly e g a lita r ia n b y c o m p a ra tiv e s ta n d a rd s .

B e g in n in g in 2 0 1 1 , a b ig q u e s tio n fo r G e r m a n y ’s e c o n ­ o m y h a s b e e n w h e t h e r th e e u r o z o n e w ill h o ld to g e th e r. T h e q u e s tio n h a s a r is e n as s e v e ra l s o u th e r n E u r o p e a n e c o n o m ie s (m o s t n o ta b ly G re e c e , b u t a lso S p a in a n d P o r­ tu g a l, a m o n g o th e rs ) h a v e la g g e d b e h in d G e r m a n y a n d

n o r t h e r n E u r o p e i n te r m s o f p ro d u c tiv ity . T h is s itu a tio n

h a s ra is e d th e p r o s p e c t t h a t so m e c o u n tr ie s m ig h t n e e d to d r o p t h e e u ro as a c u r re n c y to r e g a i n t h e i r c o m p e titiv e ­ n e ss. F ro m th e p e rs p e c tiv e o f m a n y G e r m a n s , t h e i r s o u th ­ e r n n e ig h b o rs h a v e liv e d b e y o n d t h e i r m e a n s fo r y e ars (d r a w in g s u p p o r t f r o m e c o n o m ie s s u c h as G e r m a n y ’s) a n d n o w m u s t m a k e t h e p a in f u l a d ju s tm e n ts n e c e s s a ry to c o m ­ p e te . H o w e v e r, G e r m a n y to o h a s d e p e n d e d o n e c o n o m i­ c a lly v ia b le s o u t h e r n n e ig h b o rs , b o t h as m a r k e ts fo r its e x p o r ts a n d as d e s t in a t io n s fo r a g o o d d e a l o f th e c a p ita l in its b a n k in g se c to r. P e rs p e c tiv e s c r itic a l o f G e r m a n y h ave h e ld t h a t i t is f o r c in g o t h e r E u r o p e a n c o u n tr ie s to c u t p u b lic se rv ic e s a n d re d u c e w a g e s (p e rh a p s b e c a u se G e r m a n s a re c o n c e r n e d a b o u t in fla tio n ), e v en th o u g h G e r m a n y h a s re lie d o n th e r e s t o f E u r o p e as w e ll. T h is s itu a ti o n sh o w s t h e in te r d e p e n d e n c e o f i n te r n a tio n a l e c o n ­ o m ie s in t h e p r e s e n t day, a n d e s p e c ia lly i n E u r o p e . A s o f 2 0 1 5 , d e b a te s a b o u t th e e u r o z o n e ’s f u tu r e c o n tin u e , w it h G e r m a n y p la y in g a le a d in g ro le.

CASESTUDIES I H I

The German State: Unification and Welfare CHAPTER 4, PAGE 87

The story of the unification of the German state is a complex one for the major theories of state formation considered in chapter 3. Judged against European benchmarks, the German state devel­ oped late (1871), though Prussia devel­ oped a strong state in the eighteenth century (Anderson 1974). The question of why Germany was so late to modern state-building is a difficult one to answer, and in part will depend on which theory of state formation one finds most plausi­ ble. Most would agree that at certain criti­ cal junctures (e.g., the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation) divisions be­ tween small-scale political and cultural units were reinforced. Others would likely place emphasis on the rivalry between

Prussia and Austria (first the remnant of the Holy Roman Empire): Rather than a single German center of power there were two, and neither was sufficiently strong to decisively vanquish or incorpo­ rate the other. Still others would focus on local traditions of dependence in smaller states like Bavaria, and pressure from other powers (to take just one example, after the Hanoverian succession the Brit­ ish Crown was eager to ensure that Ha­ nover remained their possession and was not swallowed up). Some would argue that the very question is confused: With something like state formation, perhaps we should not ask why it didn't happen when and where it didn't but why it did happen when and where it did.

So why did the state finally develop? Arguments could be made in support of each of the major theories of state forma­ tion considered in chapter 3. Proponents of the cultural theory might point to the prior development of German na­ tionalism (discussed further in the case study "Ethnic Boundaries of the German Nation?”). Its emergence among some German elites predated unification by about a century, though even at unifica­ tion not all residents of the German state would be committed German national­ ists. Given that national identity demands that the nation be sovereign, and given the challenges inherent in exercising such sovereignty without a unified state, pro­ ponents of this theory would suggest that

450 Germany

C A S E S T U D Y (c o n tin u e d )

The German State: Unification and Welfare CHAPTER 4, PAGE 87

it explains state formation by pointing to the collective motive to form a state. The Bellicist theory would focus on war making, noting the centrality of interstate conflict to the rise of Prussia and to its eventual displacement of Austria. They would further stress that Prussia's defeat of France was the decisive element in es­ tablishing the formation of a broader German state. Economic theories of the state would focus on efforts by Friedrich List and others to industrialize Germany. From this point of view, we should be at­ tentive to the fact that one of the earlier organizations that produced some unity was the Zollverein (Flentschel 2008: 762), which managed customs on trade within Germany. Finally, diffusion and systems theories would point to the fact that, from at least 1648 on, Europe was governed by

a "state system." Tendencies toward orga­ nizational imitation might be taken to ex­ plain the rise of the German state. Think a bit about how one might try to gain some empirical leverage in testing these theo­ ries of German state formation.

Germany is also of interest because— despite its later problems— it was one of the first states to move toward welfare functions. Flere Bismarck was again impor­ tant. Bismarck was a junker (junkers were often relatively poor but proud nobles from eastern Germany who traced their noble status back to the medieval period), and members of his social class tended to be quite conservative. Conservatives strongly opposed the socialist and social democratic activists, like Marx (exiled to England) and Lasalle, who were active or influential in the period. In what some

have considered a brilliant political move, Bismarck co-opted some social demo­ cratic demands by authorizing a system of social insurance (Esping-Andersen 1990: 24; Flentschel 2008: 793). This was no twentieth-century welfare state, but it did provide disability and health care insur­ ance as well as retirement benefits. Some would argue that the German Empire's early welfare state construction was criti­ cal to the success of its state formation. One question you might ask is why wel­ fare state construction was so closely linked to state formation more generally in this case. Come back to this case study when you have finished reading all of chapter 3 (if you have not already finished that chapter), and think about the implica­ tions of each theory of welfare state for­ mation you find there.

n . ' . T Democracy and Authoritarianism in Germany CHAPTER 7, PAGE 157

Many people know of German Nazism (1933-1945) as the epitome of twentieth- century totalitarianism, with its denial of basic human rights and its culmination in the atrocities of the Flolocaust. But it is important to consider German history in the twentieth century as a set of shifts between democratic and authoritarian rule. In other words, Nazism is not the whole story in Germany. This is a country that has seen oscillations between de­ mocracy and democratic breakdown, culminating in democratic consolida­ tion over the last fifty years such that virtually no observers worry about the

ongoing democratic status of contem­ porary Germany.

In the German Empire after unifica­ tion there were democratic elements, most notably that suffrage was extended to all males for voting in legislative elec­ tions. Yet few would describe this system as "democratic," since the chancellor (Bismarck until 1890) and the Kaiser (Wilhelm I and II) held disproportionate power. After the collapse of this system as a result of the First World War, the country embarked upon an experiment with a democratic republic. Great effort was expended on the constitution of this

Weimar Republic, but it would be for naught (for more on this fascinating period, see the essays in McEliigott 2009). Serious economic problems, resulting from both the Treaty of Versailles and, later, the Great Depression, compounded the existent political polarization of German society. Political parties proliferated, and despite institutional changes meant to quell disorder, Hitler and the Nazis would eventually take power. It is unclear how long and in what form the Nazi regime would have lasted if it were not for the Second World War, but in any case military defeat brought the Nazi era to a close. This

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CASE STUDY (continued) | |g|

Democracy and Authoritarianism in Germany CHAPTER 7, PAGE 157

led to an externally imposed transition in East and West Germany.

Here, as discussed in the Germany country profile, Germany's political history bifurcates until 1990. During the Cold War, Germany was divided into a democratic West Germany and a Communist East Germany. Thus the eastern part of today's Germany experienced both of the twenti­ eth century's most infamous forms of totali­ tarian rule: Nazism and Soviet Communism. The two most important stories here, from the perspective of democratization theory, are (1) the re-establishment of democracy in West Germany after the Second World

War (Schmidt 2008: 58-59) and (2) the successful re-unification of Germany and the continuation of the country's robust democracy in the face of re-unification.

The case of West German democratiza­ tion is fairly singular. In other words, the degree to which it can serve as a model for other regimes seeking to make a demo­ cratic transition is limited. First of all, the authoritarian regime fell because it was de­ feated by foreign powers. Second, those powers helped to shape the transition, both in political and especially in economic terms. Third, the nature of the authoritarian regime demanded such thoroughgoing

repudiation that democracy's legitimacy was high (indeed, in general, the defeat of the axis powers was linked to a global wave of democratic prestige).

The case of unification is a bit more useful for comparative analysis, if for no other reason than not all of the aforemen­ tioned conditions apply to the case. So far at least, the unified Germany has defied fears that it would come to dominate Europe or revert to the authoritarian im­ pulses that surfaced at various points in the country's history. Indeed, to most ob­ servers, the unified Germany appears to be a highly stable and successful democracy.

Institutional Design: Germany's Bundestag and Bundesrat c h a p t e r 9, p a g e 212

There are many ways to structure legisla­ tures, and the German model is an intrigu­ ing one for other countries. Germany is a federal country in which the sixteen states (Lander) have considerable authority, and it has a bicameral legislature with a cham­ ber known as the Bundesrat to represent the states. The country also has a blend of different electoral systems for its lower house, known as the Bundestag. The mixed system is a case of careful institu­ tional engineering that incorporates many different features.

In the Bundestag, the electoral system features elements of both district-based representation and proportional repre­ sentation (PR). At each election, every German has two votes: one for a preferred

candidate from the district and one for a preferred party; this is similar to the New Zealand example, also discussed in chapter 9. The district-based vote for a candidate means that each geographic constituency in Germany has its own rep­ resentative, just like in district systems elsewhere in the world. But the party vote is tallied to ensure that the overall distri­ bution of seats in the Bundestag reflects the partisan preferences of the country as a whole. After all the district representa­ tives are calculated, the party vote is used to add "at-large" seats as necessary to the Bundestag. For example, a party that gets 24 percent of the overall party vote but only earns 18 percent of the district seats would be "compensated” with additional

at-large seats to make its overall represen­ tation in the parliament proportional to its support. This gives the proportionality in the legislature associated with PR, even while giving each constituency its own representative as in district systems. All members of the Bundestag vote to elect a chancellor as the head of government.

The legislature also has another inno­ vation: a modified version of the vote of no confidence. As with other parliamen­ tary systems, Germany's chancellor and government can be dismissed by a vote of no confidence, but the form is known as a "constructive vote of no confidence." The twist in Germany is that those proposing to bring down the government must si­ multaneously present and support a new

452 Germany

CASE STUDY (continued) ■

Institutional Design: Germany's Bundestag and Bundesrat C H A P T E R 9, PAGE 212

governmental majority coalition that will go into effect. This prevents opposition parties from reducing the government to permanent gridlock by bringing down governments without being able to pro­ pose a viable governing alternative.

Germany also has features that pro­ tect the sixteen states in the federal system, mainly through the Bundesrat. The members of the Bundesrat are ap­ pointed by the respective state govern­ ments to represent the interests of that state. Each state's delegation to this upper chamber must vote as a bloc, otherwise its votes are not counted. With regard to powers, the Bundesrat has the right to vote on any matter that materially affects the sixteen Lander, including matters of budgets and administration. While the powers thus have some constitutional

limits, the amount of legislation deemed to affect the states is considerable, which gives the Bundesrat substantial authority. On issues that do not have special bearing on the states, the Bundesrat can still review legislation and offer objections, which can be overturned by the Bundestag.

In addition to these legislative ar­ rangements, Germany has a ceremonial president, who has relatively few powers beyond those of a figurehead. Germany's presidential selection is undertaken by a body that brings together the elected legislators of the Bundestag along with representatives of Germany's sixteen Lander. The president is deemed to be im­ partial, and nominees are typically se­ lected for their reputation for being non-partisan.

In combination, the various aspects of the German political system are intended to balance and distribute power in several ways. The party vote has the effect of en­ suring that the most successful parties have a mandate to govern, while the con­ stituency vote allows each geographic area to be represented by its preferred candidate. The constructive vote of no confidence allows for an unpopular gov­ ernment to be overturned while also plac­ ing a premium on governability. Finally, the delicate balance of powers between the Bundestag and Bundesrat is designed to ensure that federalism is protected, but so are the prerogatives of the parliamen­ tary majority. This set of institutional de­ signs shows that there is a nearly endless variety of possible models for structuring political systems.

Consensus-Based Politics in Germany CHAPTER 11, PAGE 262

Germany is a country that exhibits many of the features of consensus-based poli­ tics. Through two main mechanisms high­ lighted in chapter 11, Germany's politics typically includes multiple political per­ spectives in the government (Lijphart 1999). The first is the multiparty parlia­ mentary system, which relies often on coalitions to form governments, even though it is common for certain leading parties to wield most of the influence. The Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) have been the major players for years, though

several other smaller parties have retained influence and sometimes been in govern­ ment coalitions. The second is that German politics has featured a form of corporatism that institutionalizes cooper­ ation between major interest groups.

The factors contributing to the multi­ party system relate to the electoral system noted in the preceding box. While some larger parties tend to do well in the district elections, the smaller parties ben­ efit from the proportional representation seats in the Bundestag. German legisla­ tures have recently had five or six parties

represented, and governments have gen­ erally required a coalition of two or more parties. There have been coalitions made up of parties on the left and coalitions comprised of parties on the right, as well as a "Grand Coalition" that brought to­ gether the country’s two leading parties for several years. All of these cases have necessitated political bargaining be­ tween governing parties, and some dis­ tribution of cabinet seats. German governments have been relatively stable since World War II, with many govern­ ments seeing out their terms of office,

Case Studies 453

CASE STUDY (continued)

Consensus-Based Politics in Germany CHAPTER 11, PAGE 262

and the country has had a relatively small number of chancellors.

Germany is also a case of consensus formation in political negotiation be­ tween interest groups. That is, Germany has a form of corporatism. Corporatist ar­ rangements bring together labor, busi­ ness, and government to make decisions about the economy and wages, regard­ less of who is in government. This can moderate the economic consequences of political shifts from left to right, since the same actors are expected to bargain with one another on a sustained basis. This is common in northern Europe,

including countries such as the Nether­ lands, Austria, and the countries of Scan­ dinavia (Siaroff 1999). It has been argued that German corporatism is of a special character insofar as it also includes a fourth actor: the major banks that finance investment (Siaroff 1999, citing Hicks 1988). This inclusion of the banks as major corporatist actors is seen as distinct from the more "social democratic" corporatism seen in other parts of northern Europe where labor may have a stronger voice relative to capital.

There is a unifying theme that links multiparty systems and corporatist

systems in countries like Germany: an em­ phasis on consensus that tends to accom­ modate a range of actors in decision making. This contrasts with more majori- tarian rule in countries such as the United Kingdom, where governments often con­ sist of a single party and relations be­ tween governments and interest groups are more arms-length. Whether this has contributed to social stability in Germany since World War II— through the partition and reunification of the country and its emergence as the economic powerhouse of the Eurozone— is a topic for further consideration.

Ethnic Boundaries of the German Nation? CHAPTER 13, PAGE 312

As noted in chapter 13, France is often taken to exemplify the "civic" nationalist tradition, while Germany is frequently held up as the clearest example of the "ethnic" tradition (Brubaker 1992; Green- feld 1992; Berger 2004). This can mean dif­ ferent things, but at a minimum it suggests that the "symbolic boundaries" (Barth 1969, Lamont and Molnar 2002) that tend to be used when German na­ tionalists speak about their identity have often emphasized ascriptive characteris­ tics imagined to be biological or quasi-biological.

The national identity that developed in Germany in the early nineteenth cen­ tury spread in the context of French domi­ nation of German territories under Napoleon (Kitchen 2006). Some scholars have argued that it was characterized by

“ressentiment" against the French, and that as a result it was defined against French notions of national membership as linked to citizenship and related En­ lightenment ideals (Greenfeld 1992). Others have noted that German national identity developed in the context of po­ litical divisions: The boundaries of the ter­ ritorial state could not serve as the boundaries of membership, since there was no German territorial state at the cru­ cial moment of the formation of the na­ tional identity (Brubaker 1992).

Few dispute that German nationalism has historically drawn ethnic boundaries. Rather, debates center on several related issues about the extent to which this has been the case and its main implications (Berger 2004). With regard to the first issue, some assert that what appears to be

ethnic nationalism is more of a "cultural nationalism," suggesting that not all Ger­ mans have historically divided themselves from others on the basis of racial ideas, but adherence to cultural traditions. Just the same, most would acknowledge that at key points in German history ethnic boundaries have come to the fore. With regard to the second issue, the major controversy concerns the relationship between German ethnic nationalism and the Nazi atrocities. Some scholars (Greenfeld 1992; Goldhagen 1996) argue that there is a direct linkage between the ethnic nationalism formed in the nine­ teenth century and the Holocaust and that a majority of German citizens were complicit in these acts. Others, though, wish to emphasize a narrative about a more heterogeneous German culture of

454 Germany

CASE STUDY (continued)

Ethnic Boundaries of the German Nation? CHAPTER 13, PAGE 312

identity, one that has historically included not just xenophobia but alternative strands emphasizing liberal tolerance. Analysts continue to debate these issues, and in recent years German citizenship

laws have undergone some partial, liber­ alizing reforms.

Think about how each of the major theories of ethno-national conflict and vio­ lence discussed in chapter 13 would apply

to this case. What sorts of features of German identity would those focused on cultural boundaries point to? How might proponents of instrumentalist and social- psychological theories approach this case?

Research Prompts 1. What would major theories of democratization and democratic

consolidation say about the pattern of authoritarianism and de­ mocracy that Germany witnessed in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries? What are the implications of the German case for those theories?

2. As discussed in several of the case studies, Germany has often been considered a prototypical case of ethnic nationalism and, moreover, its nationalism has often been causally linked to its twentieth-century totalitarian regime. Design a comparative analysis— drawing on several cases— that would allow us to ex­ amine this claim. Is yours an MSS or MDS design? Why?

3. Some argue that Germany is a case of state-led development. Others argue that market forces have played a central role in Germany's historical economic performance. How can these

claims be reconciled? To what extent is either or both of these claims true?

4. What are the pros and cons of the institutional structure of Germany's government? Besides the fact that it seems compli­ cated at first glance, what is the strongest argument you can make against the German two-vote system, which combines district-based elections with overall proportionality in the Bundestag? What is the strongest argument that you can make for it?

5. Germany was in certain respects a "late modernizer" within the European context. In particular, it is noteworthy that the country only achieved political unification in 1871. Situating Germany in its comparative European context, analyze the main conse­ quences of this modernization pattern.

455

<§f India Key Features o f C o n te m p o r a r y India

Population: 1,236,344,631 (estimate, July 2014)

Area: 3,287,263 square kilometers

Head of State: Pranab Mukherjee (president, 2012-present)

Head of Government: Narendra Modi (prime minister, 2014-present)

Capital: New Delhi

Year of Independence: 1947

Year of Current Constitution: 1950

Languages: English, Hindi; other major languages include Bengali, Tamil, Urdu

GDP per Capita: $1,499 (World Bank estimate, 2013)

Human Development Index Ranking (2014):

135th (medium human development)

Sources: CIA World Factbook; World Bank World Development Indicators; United Nations Human Development Report 2014.

Introduction I n d i a is th e w o r ld ’s la r g e s t d e m o c ra c y , a n d a s u r p r is i n g o n e b y m o s t a c c o u n ts . I t is a d iv e rs e s o c ie ty o f o v e r o n e b i l l i o n p e o p le , d iv id e d i n to d if f e r e n t m a jo r re lig io n s , l a n ­ g u a g e s , a n d so c ia l g ro u p s (see th e c h a rts t h a t follow ). T h is d iv e rs ity w a s p e rh a p s even m o re s t r i k in g u n d e r B ritis h c o lo n ia l ru le p r io r to 1947, as B ritis h I n d i a also c o n ta in e d b o t h p re s e n t-d a y P a k is ta n a n d B a n g la d e s h , tw o M u s lim - m a jo r ity c o u n trie s t h a t t o ­ g e th e r c o m b in e fo r o v e r 32 5 m illio n p e o p le

to d ay , m o re t h a n th e U n i te d S ta te s. P r io r to c o lo n ia lis m , I n d i a w a s la rg e ly d e c e n tra liz e d , w it h t h e te r r it o r y b e in g r u le d b y m a n y r e ­ g io n a l o r lo c a l p rin c e s . T h e c re a tio n o f th e I n d i a n n a ti o n - s ta te as w e k n o w i t to d a y w as p a r t a n d p a rc e l o f th e p ro c e ss o f I n d ia n d e c o lo n iz a tio n .

M u c h o f th e c o u n tr y w a s c h a ra c te riz e d f o r c e n tu rie s b y a r ig id c a s te sy s te m t h a t s t r a tif ie d th e p o p u l a t i o n b y p ro fe s s io n s a n d b y so c ia l s ta n d in g . A l o n g th e s e m a n y

| In d o-A ryan 72% D ravidian 25% O th e r 3%

H induism 80.5% Islam 13.4% C hristianity 2.3% Sikhism 1.9% O th e r 1.8%

Ethnic Groups in India Note that while the CIA World Factbook includes only three main groups, which are really language families that overlap with ethnicity, these categories include many smaller groups. Note, too, that caste distinctions in India are sometimes treated as similar to ethnic distinctions. Source: CIA World Factbook.

Religious Affiliation in India Note that Hinduism is used as an umbrella term to cover a wide range of religious groups with different traditions, practices, and beliefs. Many of these groups would reject the characterization of being Hindu. In constitutional terms, even well-established groups such as Jains and Buddhists are nominally considered Hindu. Source: CIA World Factbook.

456 India

Profile 457

so u rces o f d iv e rs ity a n d p o te n tia l c o n flic t, I n d i a w a s o n e o f th e p o o re s t c o u n trie s o n e a r t h th r o u g h o u t th e tw e n tie th c e n tu ry . I t is a so u rc e o f in s p ir a tio n to m a n y t h a t I n d i a h a s r e ta in e d its d e m o c ra c y fo r a lm o s t a ll o f its t w o - t h ir d s o f a c e n tu r y o f in d e p e n d e n c e , d e sp ite th e ra v ag e s o f p o v e rty a n d h u n g e r, so c ial in e q u a lity , a n d a m u lt itu d e o f c u ltu r e s a n d b e lie fs d e n se ly p a c k e d in to t h e S o u th A s ia n s u b c o n tin e n t.

E v e n w i t h its m a n y so c ia l p ro b le m s , I n d ia to d a y is lik e ly to b e se e n as a th r iv in g h u b o f t h e f u tu r e , r e n o w n e d for

Historical Development I n d i a is h o m e to so m e o f t h e w o r l d ’s m o s t h is to r ic c iv ili­ z a t io n s a n d is t h e s o u rc e o f se v e ra l o f t h e w o r l d ’s g r e a t re lig io n s , m o s t n o ta b ly H i n d u i s m , w h ic h r e m a in s its m a ­ jo r i t y r e lig io n , a n d B u d d h i s m , w h ic h c o n tin u e s to h a v e a t r e m e n d o u s in flu e n c e i n n u m e r o u s E a s t a n d S o u th e a s t A s ia n c o u n tr ie s , t h o u g h i t is o f less i m p o r t a n c e i n c o n ­ t e m p o r a r y I n d i a . T h e c o u n tr y ’s r e c o r d e d h i s t o r y d a te s b a c k m il l e n n i a a n d c o n s is te d fo r c e n t u r ie s o f a ra n g e o f e m p ire s , s m a ll s ta te s , a n d p r i n c ip a litie s . I t w a s fo r m a n y c e n tu r ie s a c ro s s ro a d s o f p e o p le s , w h e r e c u ltu r e s c a m e to g e t h e r a n d n e w o n e s w e re c r e a te d , a n d w h e r e t r a d e n e t ­ w o rk s l in k e d to g e t h e r . I n d i a ’s p a s t in v o lv e s so m e o f r e ­ c o rd e d h i s t o r y ’s m o s t c o m p e l li n g c h a r a c te r s , i n c lu d in g t h e e m p e r o r A s h o k a , w h o in th e f o u r d e c a d e s b e fo re h is d e a th i n 2 3 2 b c e n o m in a lly u n i te d m u c h o f t h e r e g io n k n o w n as t h e I n d i a n “s u b c o n t in e n t ” a n d o r d a in e d a le g a l c o d e t h a t e m p h a s iz e d s e c ta r ia n a n d e th n i c to le r a n c e in th e h e te r o g e n e o u s te r r ito r y . T h e s u b c o n t in e n t w it n e s s e d G r e e k i n v a d e rs f r o m t h e w e s t u n d e r A l e x a n d e r t h e G r e a t a n d T u r k ic r a id e r s f r o m t h e n o r t h . T u r k s e s ta b li s h e d s ta te s i n n o r t h I n d i a b y th e e a rly 1 2 0 0 s . T h e r e g io n w a s s e t t l e d b y M u s lim s , as w e ll as H i n d u s a n d B u d d h is ts , a n d w a s c ris s c ro s s e d b y m e r c h a n t s as i t b e c a m e a l in c h p i n o f th e sp ic e t r a d e t h a t c o n n e c te d E a s t a n d W e s t. M a n y o f s o u th A s ia ’s M u s lim s t o d a y a re d e s c e n d a n ts o f t h o s e w h o c o n v e r te d to I s la m a t t h is t im e . M u c h o f I n d i a w a s t h e n u n i t e d u n d e r t h e M u g h a l E m p ir e u p to t h e 1 7 0 0 s. T h e M u g h a l re ig n w a s a n i m p o r t a n t c e n t r a l i z i n g p e r io d a n d h e lp e d to c re a te w h a t w e k n o w to d a y as m o d e r n I n d i a , b u t t h e s u b c o n t in e n t r e m a in e d a d iv e rs e a n d h e te r o g e ­ n e o u s e m p ir e u n d e r th e M u g h a l s , a n d n o t a m o d e r n

n a ti o n - s ta te . D e s p ite its e x c e e d in g ly r ic h p r io r h is to ry , t h e f o rm a tio n

o f m o d e r n I n d i a is o f te n se e n as b e g in n in g w i t h th e a d v e n t o f E u r o p e a n c o lo n ia l ru le , w h ic h b e g a n in th e s e v e n te e n th

t e c h n o lo g ic a l in n o v a tio n , e n g in e e r in g p ro w e ss, a n d e n tr e ­ p r e n e u r ia l s p irit. I t h a s g ro w n ra p id ly in r e c e n t y e a rs a n d h a s b e c o m e a g lo b a l le a d e r in te c h n o lo g y , science a n d e n ­ g in e e r in g , a n d t h e se rv ice in d u s try . I t is lik e ly to b e c o m e th e w o r ld ’s m o s t p o p u lo u s n a tio n i n th e n e x t d e c a d e s , a n d i f m u c h o f t h a t p o p u la tio n c a n c o m e o u t o f p o v e r ty a n d in to th e m id d le class, it w ill, a lo n g w i t h C h i n a , b e c o m e o n e o f th e le a d in g g lo b a l p o w e rs as th e tw e n ty - f ir s t c e n tu r y p ro g re s se s.

c e n tu r y a n d la s te d u p to 1947. I n d i a w a s g r a d u a lly c o lo ­ n iz e d b y m a n y E u r o p e a n p o w e rs o v e r se v e ra l c e n tu rie s , th o u g h o v e r tim e B r itis h c o lo n ia lis m c a m e to d o m in a te . S m a ll p o r tio n s o f th e c o a s t w e re firs t t a k e n b y P o rtu g a l, a n d t h e n i n th e s e v e n te e n th a n d e ig h te e n th c e n tu rie s F r e n c h a n d E n g lis h c o m p a n ie s p ro g re s siv e ly c o lo n iz e d m u c h o f th e s u b c o n tin e n t. B ritis h c o lo n ia l r u le d id n o t b e g in w i t h o u tr ig h t c o n q u e s t, b u t r a th e r w i t h t h e e s ta b lis h ­ m e n t o f t r a d i n g p o s ts u n d e r th e B ritis h E a s t I n d ia C o m ­ p a n y (on t h e E a s t I n d i a C o m p a n y a n d th e g r o w th o f c o lo n ia lis m , see M e t c a l f a n d M e t c a l f 2 0 0 6 ). T h e C o m p a n y h a d a c h a r te r fro m th e B ritis h m o n a r c h to e sta b lis h a m o n ­ o p o ly tr a d e i n I n d i a , fo r p r o d u c ts t h a t in c lu d e d c o tto n a n d silk , te a , a n d o p iu m : I n d e e d , t h e s e sa m e B ritis h in te re s ts fo rc e d C h in e s e a u th o ritie s to o p e n t h e i r m a rk e ts to o p iu m sales in t h e n in e t e e n th c e n tu ry , w h ic h le d to d r u g a d d ic tio n a n d d e s ta b iliz in g a n d h u m il ia ti n g i n te r n a tio n a l c o n flicts fo r th e Q i n g D y n a s ty . G iv e n t h e ric h n e s s o f tra d e , B ritis h I n d i a c a m e to b e se e n as th e c ro w n je w e l o f a ll E u r o p e a n c o lo n ia l p o ss e s sio n s. I t e v e n tu a lly e n c o m p a s s e d p re s e n t- d a y I n d ia , P a k is ta n , a n d B a n g la d e s h a n d b e c a m e c e n tr a l to

th e a im s a n d a s p ira tio n s o f th e B r itis h E m p ire . A f t e r e ig h te e n t h - c e n t u r y c o n flic t b e tw e e n E n g la n d a n d

F ra n c e , t h e B r itis h E a s t I n d i a C o m p a n y g a in e d c o lo n ia l c o n tro l o v e r m u c h o f to d a y ’s I n d ia , P a k is ta n , a n d B a n g la ­ d e sh . B r itis h c o lo n ia lis m g r a d u a lly b e c a m e m o re d ir e c t a n d in te n s e o ver tim e . I t m e t w i t h re s is ta n c e a t v a rio u s p o in ts , b u t su c c e e d e d i n p a r t t h r o u g h p la y in g v a rio u s I n d i a n a cto rs a g a in s t e a c h o th e r. T h e m o s t s e rio u s n in e t e e n th - c e n t u r y r e ­ sista n c e a g a in s t th e B ritis h w a s t h e re v o lt o f 1 8 5 7 -1 8 5 9 (so m e tim e s c a lle d th e “S e p o y R e b e llio n ”), a f te r w h ic h th e B ritis h sta te t o o k o v e r c o n tr o l fro m t h e E a s t I n d ia C o m ­ p a n y a n d r u le d I n d ia d ire c tly . S c h o la rs d e b a te w h e th e r, to w h a t e x te n t, a n d h o w th e e m p ire t r u ly s e rv e d B r ita i n ’s eco ­ n o m ic in te re s ts ( B a la k r is h n a n 2 0 1 0 ), b u t th e r e is little

458 India

Historical Development Timeline -1600s Territory today encompassed by India was, by the 1964 Death of Jawaharlal Nehru

fifteenth century, home to large numbers of em­ 1966 Indira Gandhi (daughter of Nehru and no relation pires, states, and religious traditions, including to Mahatma Gandhi) becomes prime minister, and Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. continues most policies set by Nehru.

1498 Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama reaches India and the Portuguese establish a small state by 1505.

1971 India and Pakistan go to war over East Pakistan; former East Pakistan separates from West Pakistan

1600s British East India Company begins trading in India and becomes Bangladesh. and eventually consolidates control over most of 1974 India explodes a nuclear device. the subcontinent, prevailing over French and 1975-1977 "The Emergency": martial law under Indira Gandhi, Dutch competition. who rules by decree and imprisons opposition

1857 Major rebellion against rule of the British East India leaders. Company 1977 Congress Party loses power for the first time.

1858 Britain asserts direct crown control over most India, 1979 Indira Gandhi returns as prime minister. and rules parts of India indirectly through 'Princely 1984 Indira Gandhi is assassinated by her Sikh body­ States” of local nobles. guards; riots ensue in which several thousand

1915-1930S Mohandas Gandhi becomes leader of the Indian National Congress and leads protests against

members of the Sikh minority are killed; Rajiv Gandhi (Indira's son) becomes prime minister.

British rule, demanding home rule and eventually 1989 Protests increase in Kashmir, a Muslim majority area independence. administered by India on the border between India

1919 Massacre of several hundreds of unarmed Indians and Pakistan. at Amritsar by British troops under General 1991 Rajiv Gandhi is assassinated by militants seeking a Reginald Dyer separate homeland for Sri Lankan Tamils and angry

1930s-1940s Anti-colonial movement accelerates with mass at India's intervention in the conflict. strikes and mobilizations, led by Gandhi and 1991 Pro-market economic reforms begin under finance Jawaharlal Nehru of the Congress Party, and minister Manmohan Singh (later prime minister), Muhammad Ali Jinnah of the Muslim League. under pressure from the International Monetary

1947 Independence and partition of British India into Fund and the World Bank. India and Pakistan (with Pakistan including East 1992 Hindu nationalists destroy a mosque in Ayodhya Pakistan, or present-day Bangladesh); tensions and that is of historical importance to some Muslims, conflict emerge between Hindus and Muslims over but also is in a location sacred to some Hindus. partition, culminating in war and massive refugee 1996 Atal Bihari Vajpayee becomes prime minister as flows of Indian Muslims to Pakistan and Pakistani head of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Hindus to India. Party (BJP); governs only briefly, but returns from

1948 Mohandas Gandhi is assassinated by Hindu funda­ 1998 to 2004. mentalist who rejected Gandhi's calls for peace 2000s India's economy booms, with growth rates between Hindus and Muslims. occasionally reaching near 8 percent.

1950 India ends its symbolic links to Great Britain with adoption of new constitution that establishes a

2004 Congress Party voted back into power with Manmohan Singh as prime minister.

republic; India's "princely states" are incorporated 2008 Islamist militants from Pakistan stage simultaneous into the nation's states and territories. terror attacks in Mumbai.

1962 War with China centered on a border dispute. 2014 Narendra Modi of the BJP elected Prime Minister.

Profile 459

d o u b t t h a t i t e n h a n c e d B r ita in ’s in te r n a t io n a l s ta n d in g , p o w e r p o s itio n , a n d se n se o f p re s tig e , a n d m a n y a rg u e t h a t it “d e in d u s tr ia liz e d ” I n d i a (e.g., A l le n 2011). T h e re is also n o d o u b t t h a t it w a s n o t d e s ire d b y m o s t o f th e su b ju g a te d p o p u la tio n a n d t h a t it w a s a s tr ik in g ly “illib e r a l” se t o f in ­ s titu tio n s fo r su c h a se lf-c o n sc io u sly “lib e r a l” so c ie ty to a d o p t.

I n th e e arly tw e n tie th c en tu ry , I n d i a n re sistan c e to B ritis h ru le g re w , w it h th e I n d i a n C o n g re s s P a r t y le a d in g th e a n ti­ c o lo n ia l m o v e m e n t. Its k e y le a d e r w a s M o h a n d a s G a n d h i (o fte n k n o w n as M a h a tm a , o r “g r e a t s o u l”), w h o le d p e a c e ­ f u l d e m o n s tr a tio n s , m a r c h e s , a n d p r o te s ts d e m a n d i n g h o m e r u le . G a n d h i ’s m e t h o d s p i o n e e r e d n o n - v i o le n t re sista n c e —- la te r u se d b y th e lik e s o f M a r t i n L u th e r K in g in th e U n ite d S ta te s— a n d w e re k n o w n in I n d ia as satyagraha. G a n d h i ’s c h a ris m a tic a p p e a l to m a n y m illio n s o f I n d ia n s w a s e n h a n c e d b y h is d e c isio n s to e a t a n d d re ss sim ply, r a th e r t h a n fo llo w in g th e e x p e c ta tio n s o f B ritis h c u ltu r e (a n d , in p a r t, d u e to re lig io u s re aso n s). T h e o th e r m a in p o l­ itic a l le a d e r o f C o n g re s s w a s J a w a h a r la l N e h r u ; a lso m a k in g c o m m o n cause w i t h t h e m in t h e e v e n tu a l d e m a n d s fo r in ­ d e p e n d e n c e w a s M u h a m m a d A l i J i n n a h o f th e M u s lim L e a g u e .

G a n d h i, N e h r u , a n d J i n n a h p re sse d fo r I n d ia n in d e ­ p e n d e n c e fro m B rita in , a n d th e m ove to d e c o lo n iz a tio n ac­ c elera ted a fte r W o r ld W a r I I , b u t as in d e p e n d e n c e a p p ro a c h e d J in n a h a n d t h e M u s lim L e a g u e in s is te d o n a p a r titio n o f I n d ia w i th a n in d e p e n d e n t sta te fo r M u s lim s . (B ritish c o lo n ia lism , o f c o u rse p lay e d a c ritic a l h is to ric a l role in e x a c e rb a tin g su c h d ivisions.) O n A u g u s t 15, 1947, I n d ia b e c a m e in d e p e n d e n t, b u t h a d sp lit in to a m a jo r i ty - H in d u I n d i a a n d m a jo r ity - M u s lim P a k is ta n . P a k is ta n in c lu d e d W e s t P a k is ta n (p re s e n t-d a y P a k is ta n ) a n d E a s t P a k is ta n (p re s e n t-d a y B a n g la d e sh ), w h ic h w e re o n o p p o site sides o f I n d ia . I f c o m b in e d , th e s e th r e e c o u n trie s to d a y ( In d ia , P a k i­ sta n , a n d B a n g la d e s h ) w o u ld have a to ta l o f o ver 1.5 b illio n pe o p le , a n d w o u ld e asily b e t h e m o s t p o p u lo u s n a tio n o n e a rth . A s it is, th e ir a c tu a l d iv isio n h a s b e e n c o n se q u e n tia l, w ith c o n flic t b e tw e e n I n d i a a n d P a k is ta n b e in g a m a jo r source o f in stab ility . T h e 1947 p a r titio n le d to th o u s a n d s o f d e a th s a n d m illio n s o f re fu g e e s as H in d u s le ft P a k is ta n fo r I n d ia a n d M u s lim s l e ft I n d i a fo r P a k is ta n ( b o th g ro u p s o fte n w a lk in g o n foot), w i t h c o n flicts a n d m assa cre s b e tw e e n th e g ro u p s o c c u rrin g in th e process. T en s io n s c o n tin u e d a fte r th e a ssa ssin a tio n o f G a n d h i in 1948 b y a H i n d u f u n d a m e n ta lis t w h o o b je c te d to G a n d h i ’s effo rts to re co n c ile a n d p ro m o te to le ra n c e b e tw e e n H in d u s a n d M u s lim s .

I n d i a n p o litic s in th e firs t d e c a d e s a f te r in d e p e n d e n c e w a s d o m in a te d b y t h e I n d i a n C o n g r e s s P a rty . A s I n d ia ’s firs t p rim e m in is te r, N e h r u le d t h e c o u n tr y fro m 1947 t o h is

d e a th in 1 964. H i s g o v e rn m e n ts d e v e lo p e d m a n y la s tin g f e a tu re s o f th e I n d i a n sta te a n d eco n o m y , m o s t n o ta b ly c re ­

a tin g a v e ry a c tiv e a n d in te r v e n t io n is t s ta te . W h i l e so m e e c o n o m ic p r o d u c tio n re m a in e d in p riv a te h a n d s , th e sta te o w n e d m a n y la rg e e n te rp ris e s a n d re g u la te d th e e c o n o m y h eavily. A c e n tr a l P l a n n in g C o m m is s io n w a s ta s k e d w i th o r g a n iz in g t h e eco n o m y , a n d th e g o v e r n m e n t p r o c e e d e d o n th e b a sis o f F iv e -Y e ar P la n s m o d e le d o n S o v ie t p la n n in g . I n t h is m ix e d eco n o m y , I n d ia a c h ie v e d so m e m o d e s t g r o w th a n d d e v e lo p e d s tr o n g e d u c a tio n a l p r o g ra m s in sc ien c e a n d e n g in e e r in g , w h ile a lso w o r k in g to im p ro v e a g ric u ltu re . H o w e v e r, th e s t a tis t a p p ro a c h also le n t i ts e l f to c o rru p tio n a n d inefficiency, g iv e n t h e n e e d o f b u s in e s s e s to se c u re p e r­ m its a n d lic e n se s fro m a d m in is tr a to r s a n d b u re a u c ra ts .

I n d i r a G a n d h i a s c e n d e d to t h e ro le o f p r im e m in is te r in 196 6 a n d g o v e rn e d fo r o v e r a d e c a d e . S h e la rg e ly fo llo w ed th e p o lic ie s se t in p la c e b y h e r fa th e r, J a w a h a rla l N e h r u , a n d b u i lt u p o n th e s e w i t h e ffo rts to in c re a s e a g ric u ltu r a l p r o d u c tio n in r u r a l a rea s. O n t h e in te r n a ti o n a l fr o n t, h e r g o v e r n m e n t s u p p o r te d r e s id e n ts o f E a s t P a k is ta n w h o m ili­ ta te d fo r in d e p e n d e n c e fro m P a k is ta n in 1971; th is le d to a w a r w i t h P a k is ta n t h a t re s u lte d in t h e in d e p e n d e n c e o f E a s t P a k i s t a n as th e n e w n a tio n o f B a n g la d e s h . I n d ir a a n d h e r fo llo w ers w e re a c c u se d o f e le c to ra l fra u d in th e 1971 elec­ tio n b y a n in c re a s in g ly re stiv e o p p o s itio n , a n d in re sp o n se th e g o v e r n m e n t d e c la re d m a r t i a l la w in 1975. K n o w n as “T h e E m e rg e n c y ,” th is p e r io d la s te d n e a rly tw o y e a rs u n til 1977, a n d c a n b e se e n as t h e o n ly p e r io d in w h ic h d e m o c ­ ra c y su ffe re d a s e tb a c k in i n d e p e n d e n t I n d ia . T h e E m e r ­ g e n c y u ltim a te ly e n d e d in 1977, a n d c o s tin g th e C o n g re s s P a r t y c o n tro l o f t h e g o v e r n m e n t fo r th e firs t tim e , as th e J a n a ta P a r t y (u n d e r P r i m e M i n i s t e r M o r a r j i D e sa i) to o k o v e r th e g o v e r n m e n t u n t i l 1 9 8 0 . I n d i r a G a n d h i a n d th e C o n g r e s s r e tu r n e d to p o w e r in 1 9 8 0 , a n d th e p r im e m i n ­ is te r h e r s e l f w a s a s s a s s in a te d b y h e r b o d y g u a r d s — o f th e S ik h m in o r ity — in 1 9 8 4 . T h is r e s u lte d in d e a d ly a n ti- S i k h rio ts . I n t h e m e a n tim e , t h e p o s t o f p r im e m in i s t e r p a s s e d to R a jiv G a n d h i , I n d i r a ’s s o n a n d th e n e x t g e n e ra tio n o f th e “N e h r u - G a n d h i d y n a s ty ” i n th e C o n g re s s P a rty . R ajiv h i m s e l f w a s a s s a s s in a te d b y a S ri L a n k a n T a m il s e p a ra tis t

in 1991. T h ro u g h t h e 1 9 9 0 s a n d 2 0 0 0 s , I n d i a h a s w itn e s s e d sev­

e ra l so u rc e s o f v io le n c e a n d in s ta b ility . T h e m o s t im p o r ta n t in te r n a ti o n a l c o n flic t h a s b e e n w i t h P a k is ta n , e sp e c ia lly as

460 India

th e tw o n u c le a r-a rm e d p o w e rs c o n te s t th e d is p u te d re g io n a lo n g t h e ir s h a re d b o rd e r. T h e I n d i a n - a d m i n is te r e d p ro v ­ in ce o f J a m m u a n d K a s h m ir h a s a M u s lim m a jo rity , m u c h o f w h ic h w ish e s to c o m e u n d e r P a k is ta n i so v e reig n ty , w ith a n o th e r c o n tin g e n t a d v o c a tin g in d e p e n d e n c e . C o n f lic t e ru p ts sp o ra d ica lly , a n d w a s m o s t te n s e w h e n t h e tw o c o u n ­ trie s te s te d n u c le a r d ev ices in a s ta n d o f f in 1 998. S e c ta ria n c o n flic t h a s a d o m e s tic c o m p o n e n t as w e ll, w i t h c o n flic ts o n g o in g b e tw e e n I n d i a n H in d u s a n d th e sig n ific a n t m i­ n o r ity o f I n d i a n M u s lim s . A m o s t d ra m a tic c o n flic t c a m e w h e n m o b s o f H i n d u n a tio n a lis ts d e m o lis h e d a h o ly M u s lim m o sq u e b y h a n d in A y o d h y a i n 1 9 9 2 , o n th e g ro u n d s t h a t it h a d b e e n b u i lt o n th e site o f a te m p le m a rk ­ in g th e b irth p la c e o f th e H i n d u d iv in ity R a m a . T e n s io n s m o u n te d f u r t h e r w h e n th e B h a ra tiy a J a n a ta P a r t y (B JP ) g o v e rn e d i n t h e p e rio d fro m 199 8 to 2 0 0 4 , as th e p a r ty p r o ­ m o te d H i n d u n a tio n a lis t id e a ls w h ile a tt e m p tin g to c o u r t so m e M u s lim a n d C h r i s t ia n v o te rs . T h e p a r t y m a in ta in e d t h a t H i n d u sh o u ld b e I n d i a ’s le a d in g c u ltu r a l id e n tity a n d s h o u ld b e fo s te re d b y sta te in s titu tio n s .

V io len c e a n d c o n flic t c o n tin u e i n c o n te m p o ra r y In d ia . I n 2 0 0 8 , t h e in te r n a tio n a l a n d d o m e s tic a sp e c ts o f I n d i a ’s s e c ta ria n d iv id e c a m e to g e th e r tra g ic a lly w h e n c o o rd in a te d b o m b in g s a n d su ic id e a tta c k s o n p r o m in e n t sites in th e m e ­ tro p o lis M u m b a i re s u lte d in se v e ra l h u n d r e d d e a th s . I n

a d d itio n to th e s e c o n flic ts b e tw e e n M u s lim s a n d H i n d u s , I n d i a h a s a lso w itn e s s e d in s u rg e n c ie s b y ra d ic a l le ftists k n o w n as N a x a lite s , w h o a re in s p ir e d b y M a o is t d o c trin e . V io len c e a lso ta k e s o n v a rio u s d a ily fo rm s t h a t a m o u n t to m o re d e a th s , b u t a p p e a r less in t h e n ew s: I n d i a h a s h ig h levels o f so c ia l v io le n c e a g a in s t w o m e n , w i t h d e a d ly abuse r e m a i n i n g c o m m o n . A n i n c r e a s in g p h e n o m e n o n is sex- selective a b o rtio n , w h ic h h as re su lte d in m a n y “m is sin g girls.”

I n d i a h a s b e e n le d b y re fo rm is t g o v e rn m e n ts a n d p rim e m in is te rs in r e c e n t y e a rs, a n d a m id m a n y u n c e r ta in tie s has e m e rg e d e c o n o m ic a lly in th e la s t tw o d e ca d es, as d isc u sse d i n t h e “P o litic a l E c o n o m y ” s e c tio n la te r in th e c h a p te r. P r im e M in i s t e r M a n m o h a n S in g h (a S ik h , a n d th e first n o n - H i n d u to h o ld t h e p o st) g o v e rn e d fro m 2 0 0 4 to 2 0 1 4 a n d w a s f o rm e rly t h e f in a n c e m in i s t e r t h a t i n it i a t e d i m ­ p o r t a n t e c o n o m ic re fo rm s i n 1 991. I n 2 0 1 4 , N a r e n d a M o d i o f t h e B JP w a s e le c te d . S o m e e c o n o m ic a n a ly s ts r e s p o n d e d to h is e le c tio n w i t h e n th u s ia s m , g iv e n t h e e c o ­ n o m ic su c c esses in th e s ta te o f G u ja r a t u n d e r h is w a tc h . I n d i a is s t i ll rife w i t h e x tr e m e p o v e r ty a n d s t a r t l i n g i n ­ e q u a lity , b u t i t is in c re a s in g ly v ie w e d as a w o rld e c o n o m ic l e a d e r a n d o n e o f t h e k eys to th e e c o n o m y o f t h e tw e n ty - f ir s t c e n tu ry . A s t h e w o r l d ’s la r g e s t d e m o c ra c y a n d a h ig h ly h e te r o g e n e o u s c o u n try , i t faces m assiv e c h a lle n g e s , b u t o p p o r t u n i t i e s as w e ll.

Regime and Political Institutions I n d ia is a fe d e ra l p a rlia m e n ta ry sy ste m w it h tw o c h a m b e rs o f p a rlia m e n t, th e lo w e r h o u se c a lle d th e L o k S a b h a (w ith a b o u t 5 50 m e m b e rs , th o u g h th e n u m b e r varies), a n d th e u p p e r h o u se k n o w n as th e R ajya S a b h a (w ith n o m o re th a n 2 5 0 m em b e rs), w h ic h re p re se n ts th e sta te s. T h e L o k S a b h a h a s th e g re a te r p o w e rs o f t h e tw o: I t e lects th e p rim e m in is ­ te r a n d c a n v ote o u t t h e g o v e rn m e n t w i th a v o te o f n o c o n fi­ d ence; th e g o v e rn m e n t is th u s a c c o u n ta b le to th e L o k S abha. T he L o k S a b h a also is th e fin a l a u th o rity o n “m o n e y b ills ” re g a rd in g ta x a tio n a n d s p e n d in g a p p ro p ria tio n s. I n som e cases, a g o v e rn m e n t m in is te r in tro d u c e s leg isla tio n in th e L o k S a b h a , w h ile in o th e r cases in d iv id u a l m e m b e rs o f th e L o k S a b h a in tro d u c e b ills. E x c e p t fo r m o n e y b ills, th e R ajya S a b h a h a s a role a fte r b ills p ass th e lo w e r c h a m b e r. I f th e R ajya S a b h a v otes a g a in s t a b ill, a j o in t c o m m itte e o f th e tw o h o u se s is fo rm e d , w it h a m a jo rity p re v ailin g . S ince th e L o k S a b h a is m o re n u m e ro u s , it h a s th e a d v a n ta g e in su c h votes.

O t h e r b ra n c h e s a n d p o w e rs o f g o v e rn m e n t also have roles. I n d i a h a s a fo rm a l, w r it te n c o n s titu tio n a n d a S u p re m e C o u r t re sp o n sib le fo r d e c id in g o n th e c o n s titu tio n a lity o f law. A s a fe d e ra l sy ste m , i m p o r t a n t p a rts o f I n d ia n la w are m a d e a t th e sta te level. S ta te s have th e ir o w n H ig h C o u r ts (w ith som e sta te s g ro u p in g to g e th e r to sh a re a H i g h C o u rt) a n d th e ir o w n le g isla tu re s a n d executives. T h e sta te assem ­ b lie s se le c t m o s t o f th e m e m b e rs o f th e n a tio n a l R ajya S a b h a . T h e p r e s id e n t is la rg e ly c e re m o n ia l b u t m u s t a s s e n t to p a r lia m e n ta r y b ills fo r th e s e to b e c o m e law . O c c a s io n ­ ally, th e p r e s id e n t m a y offer a n o b je c tio n to a b ill a n d se n d i t b a c k to th e le g is la tu re , b u t i f i t p a sse s a se c o n d tim e , th e p re s id e n t is c o n s titu tio n a lly r e q u ir e d to a sse n t. O n v e ry ra re o c c a sio n s, th e p r e s id e n t m a y ex erc ise a “p o c k e t v e to ” b y n e ith e r a s s e n tin g to a b ill n o r r e t u r n i n g it to th e p a r lia ­ m e n t. O n m o s t o c ca sio n s, p r e s id e n ts a s s e n t to t h e w is h e s o f p a rlia m e n t.

Profile 461

Regime and Political Institutions Regime Federal representative democracy; parliamentary system

Administrative Divisions Twenty-nine states and seven union territories

Executive Branch Prime minister as head of government (in Parliament) President with largely ceremonial powers

Selection of Executive Prime minister selected by Parliament President elected by electoral college of Parliament and state legislators

Legislative Branch Bicameral Parliament Lower chamber: Lok Sabha (House of the People) Upper chamber: Rajya Sabha (Council of States)

Judicial Branch Supreme Court of India

Political Party System Multiparty system, with two major parties leading coalitions at national level: Indian Congress Party (United Progressive Alliance) and Bharatiya Janata Party (National Democratic Alliance)

Political Culture T h ere a re a n u m b e r o f n o te w o r th y fe a tu re s o f I n d i a ’s p o lit­ ic a l c u ltu re , se v e ra l o f w h ic h a re d is c u s s e d in d e ta il in th e case s tu d ie s t h a t follow . W e w ill t r y to sin g le o u t a n d b rie fly c o m m e n t o n th e s e h e re . P e rh a p s th e m o s t s in g u la r fe a tu re o f I n d i a n p o litic a l c u ltu r e is its d iv ersity . I n d i a is a s tr ik ­ in g ly h e te ro g e n e o u s a n d c u ltu r a lly c o m p le x society. A s d is ­ c u sse d p reviously, it is th e p o in t o f o r ig in fo r tw o o f th e m o s t i m p o r t a n t w o rld re lig io n s: H i n d u i s m a n d B u d d h is m . T h e l a tt e r is n o w p r a c tic e d b y a v e ry s m a ll m in o r ity o f th e I n d i a n p o p u la tio n , b u t I n d i a h a s a n e n o rm o u s M u s lim p o p u la tio n a n d n o ta b le S ik h a n d C h r i s t ia n p o p u la tio n s , as w e ll as o th e r re lig io n s lik e J a in is m . I n d i a is sim ila rly a c o u n tr y o f g r e a t e th n ic d iv ersity , a n d r e g io n a l id e n titie s v a ry c o n sid e ra b ly as w e ll. R e lig io u s, e th n ic , a n d g e o g ra p h i­ c a l c a te g o rie s o v e rla p , b u t th e y a re n o t id e n tic a l.

I n d ia is also a s o c ie ty t h a t h a s e x h ib ite d a h ig h d e g re e o f i n e q u a lity a n d stra tific a tio n . T h is c a n b e m e a s u re d in te rm s o f in c o m e , fo r e x a m p le , as I n d i a h a s re la tiv e ly h i g h in c o m e in e q u a lity , b u t c u lt u r a l so u rc e s o f i n e q u a lity a re a lso n o t­ able. T h e m o s t c o n tro v e rs ia l h a s b e e n t h a t o f c a ste . C a s te is a so u rc e o f c o n tro v e rs y b o t h in I n d ia p ro p e r a n d a m o n g sc h o lars. I t is c o n tro v e rs ia l a m o n g sc h o la rs b e c a u se it u s e d to b e a s s e rte d t h a t c a s te w a s a l o n g - s t a n d i n g t r a d it io n o f I n d ia n c u ltu r e ( D u m o n t [1966] 1981). W h i l e m o s t h is to r ­ ia n s a rg u e t h a t c aste h a d f e a tu r e d in I n d i a n life b e fo re th e

a d v e n t o f B ritis h c o lo n ia l ru le , so m e r e c e n t h is to r ia n s (e.g., D ir k s , 2 0 0 1 ) h a v e a rg u e d t h a t c a s te as w e k n o w it w a s a t le a s t p a r tia l ly a fu n c tio n o f c o lo n ia lis ts h a v in g u s e d su c h d is tin c tio n s to a id in s u b ju g a tin g a n d r u lin g In d ia . W h a t ­ e v er t h e h is to ric a l so u rc es, c a s te d i s tin c tio n s h a v e b e e n i m ­ p o r t a n t f e a tu re s o f c o n te m p o ra r y I n d i a n p o litic s , w ith p o litic a l p a r tie s s o m e tim e s c o in c id in g w i t h c aste s (see case s tu d y o n “E th n i c it y a n d P o litic a l P a r tie s in I n d i a ”), a n d w i t h so m e g ro u p s b e in g fa v o re d o v e r o th e rs .

A n o t h e r n o ta b le f e a tu r e o f m o d e r n I n d i a n p o litic a l c u lt u r e — w h i c h e x is ts in te n s io n w i t h t h e p re v io u s ly n o te d c h a r a c te r i s ti c — is I n d i a ’s d e m o c ra c y . A s is d is c u s s e d in m o re d e ta i l in a c ase s tu d y , “D e m o c r a c y ’s S u c c ess in I n d i a , ” I n d i a is n o ta b le fo r b e in g t h e w o r l d ’s l a r g e s t d e m ­ o c rac y , a n d i t a c h ie v e d t h i s w e ll b e fo re its r e c e n t g a in s in e c o n o m ic d e v e lo p m e n t. I n d e e d , t h e c o u n tr y r e m a in s re la ­ tiv e ly p o o r a n d y e t h a s la r g e ly b e e n a d e m o c r a tic success. T h is is a n i m p o r t a n t p h e n o m e n o n in m a n y w a y s. I n d ia n s tr e a t p o l it ic a l a n d c iv il lib e r tie s as r ig h ts a n d e n ti t l e ­ m e n ts , a n d t h is h a s g iv e n ris e to s o c ia l m o v e m e n ts a n d p r o t e s ts , a lt e r n a tio n s in g o v e r n m e n t, a n d a w id e ra n g e o f p o l it ic a l p a r tie s , in c l u d i n g i m p o r t a n t c o m m u n i s t p a r tie s b e in g e le c te d to r u n s o m e s ta te s (a n d p e r f o r m in g q u ite w e ll b y m a n y m e a s u re s i n th e f a m o u s c ase o f th e s ta te o f

K e ra la ).

462 India

I n d ia is k n o w n fo r its re m a rk a b le c o n tr a d ic tio n s w h e n it c o m e s to h o w th e p o litic a l c u ltu r e in te ra c ts w i t h th e eco n o m y . T h e c o u n tr y h a s tr e m e n d o u s e n tr e p r e n e u r ia l e n e rg y , y e t a lso w a s k n o w n fo r d e c a d e s as h a v in g a h i d e ­ b o u n d s ta te . T h e sta te i ts e l f is a lso c o n tra d ic to ry . T he c o u n tr y h a s a fa m o u s ly s tr o n g a d m in is t r a tio n a n d c ivil se rv ice , in th e se n se t h a t to p - r a n k i n g officials a re a c c o m ­ p lis h e d , w e ll-e d u c a te d , a n d a d m ir e d . O n t h e o t h e r h a n d ,

th e I n d i a n sta te h a s b e e n c h a r a c t e r iz e d b y m assiv e a m o u n ts o f c o r r u p tio n , w i t h b rib e s b e in g e x p e c te d fro m th e lo w e st o fficial u p th e c h a in to h ig h e r r a n k in g su p e rio rs . T h e re s u lt h a s b e e n a s ta te t h a t h a s t e c h n ic a l c o m p e te n c e a t t h e to p , b u t h is to r ic a lly h a s fa ile d to d e liv e r n e e d e d se rv ice s to th e b e n e fic ia rie s in th e p o p u la tio n . T h is c o n tr a d ic t o r y n a tu r e o f t h e p o liti c a l c u lt u r e p lays a ro le th e p e rs is te n c e o f ex­ tr e m e p o v e rty .

Political Economy I n d ia ’s p o litic a l e c o n o m y is s e e m in g ly a s tu d y in c o n tra s ts , as is th e case w i t h m a n y d e v e lo p in g c o u n trie s . T h e c o u n ­ tr y ’s e c o n o m ic h is to r y h a s w itn e s s e d a c o m b in a tio n o f s ta g ­ n a tio n , m o d e s t g r o w th , a n d m o re r e c e n t su ccess. U n d e r sta te p la n n in g a n d s ta te -le d d e v e lo p m e n t fo r m u c h o f its p o s t-in d e p e n d e n c e p e rio d fro m th e 1 9 4 0 s th r o u g h th e 1 9 8 0 s, I n d i a h a d a m id d lin g level o f e c o n o m ic success (K o h li 2 0 0 4 ). Y et it w a s c le a r t h a t th e c h a lle n g e s re m a in e d as o f th e 1 9 9 0 s. O n e o f th e k e y fe a tu re s o f th e I n d ia n p o lit­ ic a l e c o n o m y w a s n o te d e arlie r: th e u se o f e x te n siv e g o v e rn ­ m e n t p la n n in g , in te rv e n tio n , a n d r e g u la tio n . A le a d in g m a n ife s ta tio n o f th is w as w h a t c a m e to b e k n o w n as th e “lic e n se raj,” o r th e c o m p le x sy s te m o f r e g u la tio n s — o fte n in th e fo rm o f r e q u ire d lic e n se s a n d p e r m its — t h a t b u s i­ n e sse s n e e d e d to follow . T h is sy s te m w a s n o m in a lly s u p ­ p o s e d to e n su re c o o rd in a tio n , p la n n in g , a n d p ro te c tio n s fo r w o rk e rs, b u t it c a m e to re p re s e n t b u re a u c ra tic in efficie n cy t h a t stifle d in n o v a tio n .

B y t h e 1 9 9 0 s, th e I n d ia n sta te w a s se e n as in c re a s in g ly

m e d d le s o m e , d y s fu n c tio n a l, c o r ru p t, a n d m u c h in n e e d o f re fo rm . A s o n e le a d in g sc h o la r o f I n d ia p u t it, th e sta te w as “h ig h ly c e n tr a liz e d a n d i n te r v e n tio n is t, a n d y e t seem [ed] p o w e rle ss” (K o h li 1990: 8). A m a jo r re sp o n se c a m e in 1991 w it h a se t o f re fo rm s t h a t o p e n e d u p I n d i a ’s e c o n o m y so m e ­ w h a t a n d b e g a n to d is m a n tle t h e lic e n se raj. W h i l e I n d i a d id n o t u n d e r ta k e a n y m assiv e tr a n s itio n to fr e e - m a r k e t p rin c ip le s , th e c h a n g e s w e re sig n ific a n t b y I n d i a n s ta n ­ d a rd s. T h e c h a n g e c o in c id e d w i t h th e e n d o f t h e C o ld W a r , w h e n th e S o v ie t U n io n c o lla p se d , h a v in g o n c e b e e n th e c o m m a n d e c o n o m y m o d e l t h a t I n d i a (w h ile re m a in in g d e m o c ra tic ) h a d s o u g h t to follow .

I n d i a ’s g r o w t h s o o n a c c e le ra te d , th o u g h th is is n o t a t­ tr ib u ta b le to t h e re fo rm s a lo n e (see b o x “W h a t E x p la in s I n d i a ’s R e c e n t G r o w th ? ”). T h e c o u n tr y h a s g r o w n r a p id ly in t h e y e a rs a f te r 2 0 0 2 , a v e ra g in g in t h e ra n g e o f 8 p e r c e n t

p e r y e ar. T h is is e v e n m o re im p re ss iv e g iv e n t h a t p o p u l a ­ tio n g r o w t h h a s s lo w e d in t h e c o u n tr y to c lo s e r to 1 p e r ­ c e n t, m e a n in g t h e g r o w t h p e r c a p ita h a s a c c e le ra te d . F ro m a n e c o n o m y t h a t w a s h i d e b o u n d a n d r a th e r in e ffic ie n t, m o d e r n e n te r p r is e h a s e m e rg e d in v a rio u s fo rm s , r a n g in g f r o m s o m e o f t h e m o s t su c c e ss fu l m u ltin a t io n a ls in th e w o rld (su c h as t h e T a ta c o n g lo m e ra te ) to r e m a rk a b ly i n ­ n o v a tiv e s m a ll-s c a le e n te r p r is e s p o p p in g u p as s u rv iv a l s tra te g ie s in d ir t- f lo o r h o m e s in th e M u m b a i s lu m o f D h a r a v i. M u c h o f I n d i a ’s g r o w t h h a s c o m e in t h e d iv e rs e s e rv ic e s e c to r, n o t o n ly in m a n u f a c t u r i n g . D e s p ite th is , a g r ic u ltu r e s t ill e m p lo y s a b o u t h a l f o f a ll I n d i a n s , o f te n in t h e fo rm o f s m a ll-s c a le o r s u b s is te n c e a g r ic u ltu r e o n f a m ily p lo ts .

O f c o u r s e , t h e b o o m in t h e G D P g r o w t h r a te d o e s n o t im p ly t h a t I n d i a ’s e c o n o m ic p ro b le m s a re so lv e d . A le a d ­ i n g f e a tu r e to n o te i n I n d i a is h i g h le v e ls o f e x tre m e p o v e rty , p r e v a le n t i n r u r a l a n d u r b a n a re a s a lik e . T h e c o u n tr y s id e , w h e re l a n d is re la tiv e ly sc a rc e g iv e n th e p o p u l a t i o n d e n s ity , r e m a in s h o m e to so m e o f t h e w o r ld ’s m o s t c h r o n ic s itu a ti o n s o f m a l n u t r i t i o n a n d u n d e r n o u r ­ is h m e n t. D e s p i te t h e d e c a d e s s in c e t h e e n d o f p r in c e ly t itle s a n d t h e a b o li tio n o f c a s te d i s c r im in a t io n , t h e r e are p o w e r f u l l a n d e d e lite s t h a t c o n tr o l m u c h o f t h e w e a l th , w h il e i n c o m e s fo r t h e p o o r a re t in y a n d f r a g ile . E q u a l ly s t r i k i n g ju x ta p o s itio n s a re f o u n d i n th e m a s siv e a n d g r o w i n g in e q u a liti e s in I n d i a ’s m a jo r c itie s . M u m b a i h a s b e c o m e a c la ss ic e x a m p le o f t h is , b e in g a c e n te r b o t h o f th e a f o r e m e n t io n e d c o r p o ra te b o o m — w i t h h i g h - e n d re a l e s ta te a n d a w e a l th y f in a n c ia l d i s t r i c t — a n d t h e o v e r­ c ro w d e d s lu m s ( M e h t a 2 0 0 4 ) . R e g a r d le s s o f in n o v a tio n a n d e n tr e p r e n e u r s h ip , w o r k a m o n g t h e u r b a n p o o r r e ­ m a in s la r g e ly i n t h e i n f o r m a l s e c to r, w i t h n o b e n e fits , m u c h u n c e r t a in t y , a n d o f t e n h a z a r d o u s w o r k i n g a n d liv in g c o n d itio n s .

Case Studies 463

For many years after its independence from Britain in 1947, India achieved rela­ tively slow growth on the order of about 4 percent per year. Growth was hindered by extensive regulations and the license raj" that required many licenses and approvals to conduct business. Under this system, state policy often favored the well con­ nected rather than making decisions based on economic rationality and effi­ ciency. Economic improvements have been more dramatic in recent years, and this change has followed the implemen­ tation of pro-market economic reforms in 1991 at the direction of Manmohan Singh, who at the time was finance minister and later served as Prime Minister. But what is India's development path, and does openness to the market alone explain its recent success?

There are a number of distinctive fea­ tures of India's development. One is that India established a robust democracy before achieving a modern economy, whereas many theories lead us to expect the opposite sequence. This makes India a very interesting case for scholars who want to study how politics shapes eco­ nomic performance. India's state action has long been shaped by the govern­ ment's need to respond to the expecta­ tions of important economic actors and the populace at large, which makes it dif­ ferent from development initiatives at­ tempted by authoritarian regimes that

could have more closed patterns of deci­ sion making (Kohli 2004).

India's recent growth has also been very interesting as a contrast to other developing countries, especially China. While China has achieved much of its rapid growth on the basis of investment in manufacturing, India has seen exten­ sive growth in services as well and has boomed in part due to the growing con­ sumption of its middle class, as opposed to investment for exports to foreign coun­ tries. While India and China have highly skilled professional sectors, a difference is in the caricature of each development model: China is the "world's workshop," making plastic toys and simple electron­ ics on the factory floor, while India is the world's "back office," home to many "call centers" that provide customer service and other support, as well as engineering, computing, and other services (see Fried­ man 2005 for a popular version of this ar­ gument). The reality is much more nuanced, but the distinction illustrates some features of the respective paths.

An additional striking feature of Indian development is that high levels of ex­ treme poverty still accompany its growth over the last two decades. While poverty has been reduced, hundreds of millions are still extremely poor in India, living on less than a dollar a day. Scholars debate why extreme poverty persists in the country, with many stressing more

CHAPTER 5, PAGE 99

growth as the remedy and others saying that only growth coupled with better governance, improved agricultural per­ formance, and more effective investment in human capital will work (Sen 2000; Balakrishnan 2010).

As for the causes of the boom, a common argument is that the liberaliza­ tion of the economy after 1991 was the key factor. This can certainly be supported by the timing of the boom, which began after the reforms had taken root, though critics could argue that the boom did not happen immediately following the re­ forms. Policy reform is not the only factor, however. Careful attention should be paid to the deeper historical origins of the con­ temporary Indian economy. In particular, the long emphasis on education under Nehru in such areas as science and tech­ nology has likely paid important divi­ dends in subsequent decades as the beneficiaries of investments in education have entered the labor force (see Kohli 2004). The favorable international context has also mattered, including technologi­ cal advances in telecommunications and information sharing that facilitated off­ shoring of service jobs to India's booming technology sector (Friedman 2005). In other words, while market reforms may have been a component of India's chang­ ing economic fortunes, the correlation between the two is not the same as proof of causation.

464 India

Democracy's Success in India: W hat Can W e Learn from a Deviant Case? CH A P T E R 6, PAG E 133

How does modernization theory account for low-income democracies such as India? As discussed in chapter 6, modern­ ization theory predicts that economic de­ velopment will lead to democratization and democratic consolidation. Indeed, this relationship generally holds. More often than not, increasing economic de­ velopment increases the probability that any given society will have democratic politics. India, however, poses a major anomaly for some versions of moderniza­ tion theory. Given that India's population is approximately one-seventh of the world's population, this anomaly is not easily dismissed.

Why does India constitute an anomaly or "deviant case" for modernization theory? India only recently began to see notable economic development, and for most of the twentieth century the coun­ try was profoundly poor. Modernization would lead us to suspect authoritarian governance under these conditions. Yet after decolonization India defied pessi­ mists and built the world's largest democ­ racy, one which has now endured for decades. There are several conclusions that one could draw from this. We could

decide that this anomaly disproves or re­ futes modernization theory, and turn to some other theory of democratization. For example, we could turn to institu­ tional theories of democratization as an alternative. Perhaps something about the parliamentary form of government rather than presidential government contrib­ uted to India's rather successful democ­ racy (as is discussed in chapter 10); one could consider the Indian case to test this hypothesis. For example, has the parlia­ mentary system with its multiparty coalitions and governments that are ac­ countable to the legislature resulted in more power-sharing and less "winner- take-all" politics? Has it resulted in a prime ministerial "style" that is less centralized than in presidential systems? There is evi­ dence both for and against the argument that parliamentarism has been a cause of India's democratic success.

Another alternative, though, would be to use a deviant case like India's democracy to amend or clarify the nature of the origi­ nal theory. What if modernization theory is not making the law-like generalization that development leads inevitably to democra­ tization, but rather a "weaker" claim that

economic development facilitates democ­ ratization and democratic consolidation? Why would this be different? Because the theory would now say that it is unlikely that India could successfully democratize with­ out first achieving a higher level of eco­ nomic development, but not that it is impossible. A more flexible theory of mod­ ernization might be compatible with in­ cluding insights from other theories. For example, perhaps modernization theory could be linked to institutional theories, like the one on parliamentarism men­ tioned previously. Maybe parliamentarism is particularly called for as a form of institu­ tional design when the society in question has a relatively low level of economic de­ velopment. We are speculating here for the sake of argument, and not proposing this theory; India's history of development and democracy does not and cannot prove this assertion. Rather, it might suggest this hy­ pothesis, which we could then test through the examination of other well- selected cases. In general, deviant cases are useful. We should be pleased when we find them, as they help us to critically assess existing theories, modifying or re­ jecting them as appropriate.

ism and Differences in Development in India CHAPTER 8, PAGE 189

One of the main advantages of federalism is purported to be its impact on economic and social development. As noted in chapter 8 federal systems may allow dif­ ferent states to engage in healthy

competition with one another, while also ensuring that government decisions about taxes and services are "closer to the people," and thus more responsive. A country like India, the United States, or

Brazil can have different policies in differ­ ent states, each adapted to local needs and demands. Yet this key advantage of federalism and decentralized government is also one of its disadvantages: Allowing

Case Studies 465

Differences in Development in India c h a p t e r s , p a g e is p

states to do things differently can mean some may do better and some worse than others.

India has highly varying levels of devel­ opment and economic well-being, and some of the variations are by state. In recent years, federalism has been comple­ mented by decentralization to a more local level, as major reforms transferred signifi­ cant development responsibilities from the central government to local institu­ tions, a system of decentralization known as the panchayat raj. For comparativists studying a country as huge and complex as India, a comparison across states or across local communities can be as fruitful as efforts to compare India to another country (Kohli 1990, Mullen 2011, e.g.).

Some Indian states have witnessed very high performance, with some of the best outcomes found in relatively unlikely places. The state of Kerala, for example, was renowned for a period of time as a place where significant improvements in development indicators were realized

without rapid economic growth, but rather through strategic interventions in providing public services made by the Communist Party that governed in the state (Sen 2000). In West Bengal as well, surprising achievements happened in rural areas as Communists with few links to the landed elite were able to reach out to the poor in the countrywide and incor­ porate them into politics (Kohli 1989). Yet other states— such as the poor states of Bihar and Orissa— have lagged behind considerably. In terms of India's economic boom, advances have been clearest in some of the areas where high-tech indus­ tries and firms have clustered, such as around the metropolitan cities of Delhi and Mumbai, as well as Bengaluru (for­ merly Bangalore) in the state of Karnataka and Flyderabad in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

Are federalism and decentralization of power thus "good" for development be­ cause they allow the better-performing states to get ahead and set the model for

the worse performers, or "bad” for devel­ opment because they allow the worse- performing states to fall behind? There is no simple answer to this question. One thing that is certain is that poorly gov­ erned states do not always automatically adopt models as demonstrated by well- governed states. Politics, history, and other institutions shape policy responses, and do not always easily allow the "right" policy to be chosen (see Kohli 1989, Mullen 2011). The states that are poorly governed often remain that way, to the detriment of their populations, regardless of being able to observe better perfor­ mance in other places. On the other hand, federalism and decentralization can be seen as providing opportunities for those states with healthier institutions and po­ litical cultures to be able to benefit their own populations, even if governance elsewhere in the country is poor. The pros and cons of federalism are thus both on display in highly uneven political econo­ mies like India.

Ethnicity and Political Parties in India

Indian society was historically divided into "castes," and many have viewed these divisions as long-standing (e.g., Dumont 1981), though more recently some histori­ ans have argued that the caste "system" as such only developed during the period of British colonialism (Dirks 2001). The pro­ ponents of the latter view are not saying that caste did not exist before colonialism, but rather that the British used it as an

instrument of colonial rule and in doing so universalized and rigidified it. Depend­ ing on how one defines ethnic groups, populations defined as castes can be thought of as falling into this category. The question is a bit complicated, since caste groups are understood to form bases in the society's stratification system, rather than culturally distinct groups that exist side by side (in other words, caste's

CHAPTER 14, PAGE 341

linkage to the class structure is more direct than the general correlation be­ tween class and status-group that we find in some other societies). It is also debat­ able whether the FHindu nationalist party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) should be considered an ethnic party: It is ostensibly organized around religion, but ethnic and religious differences are often closely associated.

466 India

CASE STUDY (continued)

Ethnicity and Political Parties in India CHAPTER 14, PAGE 341

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) stands out for its relative success in recent years. It has done reasonably well, capturing double digits in some national votes. This party aims to represent low-caste individ­ uals. Kanchan Chandra (2004), in an im­ portant book on the subject, refers to these groups as the "scheduled castes" rather than the "untouchables," a label you might have heard but one that is con­ sidered offensive by many. Chandra seeks to develop a general theory of the success of ethnic parties based largely on the analysis of the BSP. This theory is limited to "patronage democracies" in which the spoils of the state are the main objects of

political competition and political parties are, at least in part, vehicles through which groups aim to capture those spoils.

Chandra's basic contention is that parties will be successful at capturing a high percentage of the vote of the ethnic group or groups they claim to represent when two criteria are met. The first is that the internal party structure must allow members of the group in question to move up within the party.This is because potential voters need to be able to see that group members will actually be able to hold some power and, presumably, access spoils. The second major criterion is that the party must stand a reasonable

chance of actually winning a share of power. Again, the presumption is that it would be irrational to cast one's vote for a party that stands no reasonable chance of winning (just ask Ralph Nader, the American presidential candidate in 2000). This is, of course, a function of (1) the relative size of the group or coalition of groups in question; (2) the perceived like­ lihood that members of those groups will vote for the party; and (3) the nature of the electoral system. As you think about Chandra's approach to the analysis of ethnic parties, consider how well it might explain other cases mentioned in chapter 14.

CASE STUDY

India in the Twenty-First Century: Domestic Politics, Identity, and Security CHAPTER 16, PAGE 389

In India, domestic and international poli­ tics are deeply intertwined. This is true on questions of security, as well as in the economy. Especially important is the country's relationship with neigh-boring Pakistan and how this reflects relations between Indians domestically. The chal­ lenge of India-Pakistan relations affects questions of nationhood, identity, vio­ lence, and government in India; in short, international relations affect most every­ thing addressed in the chapters of this book. On the flip side, India's domestic politics also affects its international rela­ tions. Comparative politics and interna­ tional relations may be two subfields of political science, but they are not totally separable.

India's long and contested border with Pakistan is often called the "world's most dangerous border.” It has been a source of conflict for more than sixty years, since the partition of India at inde­ pendence in 1947; that division left mil­ lions of Muslims in India and millions of Hindus in Pakistan that wanted to change their nationhood and generated flows of refugees across the borders in both direc­ tions. Religious differences, both within India and between the two countries, have been important ever since. One of the most contentious points has long been the disputed region of Kashmir, which is claimed by Pakistan but currently administered by India. The border be­ tween Pakistan and India is notoriously

tense and is clouded by the prospect of nuclear standoff or even possible use of nuclear weapons. In 1998, Pakistan's test­ ing of an atomic device resulted in India testing its own devices just days later; both tests were widely seen as provoca­ tive signals to the opposite country. Indeed, the development of nuclear weapons in Pakistan was fueled in large measure by historical animosity toward India, which was a nuclear power as of the 1970s. The fact that both have nuclear weapons heightens the stakes of war and peace in the region.

Relations between the countries affect the domestic politics of each in many ways. To consider just India here, a key issue in domestic politics is, of course, how to

Case Studies 467

CASE STUDY (continued)

India in the Twenty-First Century: Domestic Politics, Identity, and Security CHAPTER 16, PAGE 389

handle relations with Pakistan. But this is more than just a policy issue: It enters into the many topics we have discussed throughout the chapters of this book. For example, the very question of Indian na­ tionhood and identity, the political party system, and the resulting policymaking in the Indian parliament have been affected by the question of Islam and the resulting rise of Hindu nationalist sentiment. This was at the origin of some of the popularity of the Hindu nationalist BJP, which gov­ erned from 1998 to 2004, though the party addresses issues other than Hindu nation­ alism. Distrust between groups is fed by such events as the 2008 bombings in the metropolis of Mumbai by Pakistani mili­ tants, though it should be noted that most Hindus and Muslims in India live side by side peacefully; indeed, many Muslim groups spoke out against the attacks and

there has been relatively little recrimination against Indian Muslims generally. India has an estimated 160 million Muslims, which is a minority of the country's population but still represents over 10 percent of the world's Muslims and the third-largest Muslim population in the world, after Indo­ nesia and Pakistan (Pew Forum 2009).

This international relationship between the two nuclear powers also affects the do­ mestic politics of other countries around the globe. The United States, for instance, debates its relationship with Pakistan, which seems a necessary yet challenging one. There is distrust between the coun­ tries, with the United States accusing Pakistan of a duplicitous intelligence and security services that seek to harbor Islamic fundamentalist terror groups rather than hunt them down; the most obvious exam­ ple came after the death of al Qaeda leader

Osama bin Laden, who was found living very close to a major Pakistani military acad­ emy. Yet a common analysis is that Pakistan is primarily concerned about its relationship with India, and dedicates its security and intelligence forces toward India rather than toward Afghanistan and al Qaeda.

The Pakistani and Muslim questions should not suggest that Islam is a "prob­ lem" that drives Indian politics. India has persisted for over six decades as a democ­ racy with basic rights for all, and most In­ dians of different religions live peacefully alongside one another. The country also has many other hot issues of identity and nationhood, such as traditional social seg­ regation by class or caste, for example. The relevance of the Pakistan and Muslim questions simply illustrates how interna­ tional factors feed into domestic politics, and vice versa.

Research Prompts 1. As a low-income democracy, India is seen as a deviant case for

modernization theory when it comes to democratization. What comparative analyses could you set up to test hypotheses about the reasons behind India's democratic success? Would yqu prefer another low-income democracy elsewhere, such as Ghana in Africa? Or a low-income country neighboring India that shares a region and some history but is not democratic, such as Pakistan? What would be the merits of your research design?

2. Do a brief search of the literature to find two or more states of India to compare on the question of economic development. What do you find are some of the main factors that emerge to account for why certain states have done better or worse than others?

3. India has developed economically at a much faster rate since making economic reforms beginning in 1991. What is the best argument you can make that India's economic boom of the last two decades has been based on something other than this set of reforms? What is the evidence you have to make this other claim?

4. If relations between India and Pakistan are deeply rooted in iden­ tity issues and history, what are the implications for policy-making that might contribute to peace going forward? Are there any fac­ tors that can be changed (unlike the demographics and history of the countries) that can contribute to a more optimistic outcome?

5. The end of British colonialism in India was led by remarkable his­ torical figures such as Mahatma Gandhi, who was seen as a na­ tional hero. Yet independent India (while democratic) was neither peaceful nor just: It has witnessed significant sectarian violence, political assassinations, ongoing social inequalities, and state cor­ ruption. Does this imply that the efforts of individuals such as Gandhi are ultimately unable to transform the quality of govern­ ance, and that politics depends more upon cultures and struc­ tures that individuals cannot change? If not, why was someone like Gandhi unable to create lasting change in these areas? If so, on the other hand, how can one account for the decolonization of India itself without reference to individuals and their actions?

468

Iran (Islamic Republic of Iran) PROFILE Key Features o f C o n te m p o r a ry Iran

Population: 80,840,713 (estimate, July 2014)

Area: 1,648,195 square kilometers

Head of State: Ali Hosseini Khamenei (Supreme Leader, 1989-present)

Head of Government: Hassan Rouhani (president, 2013-present)

Capital: Tehran

Year of Independence: The Islamic Republic was founded in 1979, but Iran was never fully colonized and had been a distinct geopolitical entity in a variety of forms for centuries.

Year of Current Constitution: 1979

Languages: Persian is the majority language. Other important languages include Turkic, Azeri, Kurdish, and Luri, among others.

GDP per Capita: $4,763 (World Bank estimate, 2013)

Human Development Index Ranking (2014):

75th (high human development)

Sources: CIA World Factbook; World Bank World D evelopm ent Indicators; United Nations Human Development Report 2014.

Introduction I r a n is o f i n te r e s t to m a n y p o litic a l a n a ly s ts b e c a u s e o f its r e v o lu t io n a r y r e g im e a n d b e c a u s e o f its f o r e ig n p o lic y . M a n y i n te r ­ n a t i o n a l r e la tio n s t h i n k e r s see I r a n as p o ­ te n t i a l l y th r e a t e n i n g to t h e W e s t, a n d in p a r ti c u l a r to A m e r ic a n p o lic y in t h e M i d d le E a s t, as w e ll as to Is ra e l. G iv e n t h a t in 197 9 I r a n w i tn e s s e d a r e v o lu t io n a g a i n s t a n a u ­

t h o r i t a r i a n r e g im e b a c k e d b y th e U n i te d S ta te s , y ie ld in g a s tr o n g l y r e lig io u s , a n t i - A m e r ic a n re g im e , a n d g iv e n f u r t h e r t h a t t h e U n i te d S ta te s h a s b a c k e d a u th o r i t a r i a n g o v e r n m e n ts in o t h e r I s la m ic s o c ie tie s i n a n e f f o r t to p r e v e n t g o v e r n m e n ts lik e t h a t in I r a n f r o m t a k i n g p o w e r t h e r e , m u c h a t­ t e n t i o n h a s b e e n fo c u s e d o n e x p la in in g c o n te m p o r a r y I r a n i a n p o litic s . A n d in d e e d th e s e a re i m p o r t a n t c o n s id e ra tio n s . H o w ­ ever, i t is i m p o r t a n t t h a t w e n o t t h i n k o f I r a n solely in te r m s o f th e f o r e ig n p o lic y i n ­ te r e s ts o f t h e W e s t. R a th e r , w e , as c o m p a r ­ a tiv e p o litic a l a n a ly s ts , n e e d to t r e a t i t lik e a n y o t h e r c a s e , p o s in g e m p ir ic a l q u e s tio n s a b o u t w h y t h e c o u n t r y ’s p o l it i c s h a s t h e fe a tu r e s t h a t it d o e s.

I Persian 61 °A ■ Azeri 16% M Kurd 10% I L ur 6% I Baloch 2% I Arab 2% M T urkm en 2! SI O th er 1%

Shi’a Islam 8 Sunni I s la m ' O th e r 2%

Ethnic Groups in Iran Source: CIA World Factbook.

Religious Affiliation in Iran Source: CIA World Factbook.

• o

Profile 469

ARMENIA

• Tabriz

Now Sh a h r•

Mashhad★ Tehran

Kermanshah

Esfahan Birjand• Dezful

• Ahvaz

Abadan

KermanShiraz

Zahedan 1 • Bushehr

Asaluyeh Bandar Abbas

PAKISTAN Persian

Gulf Chabahar j

OMAN

GEORGIA KAZAKHSTAN j UZBEKISTAN

Caspian Sea TURKMENISTAN

SAUDI ARABIA

Gulf o f Oman

0 110 220 Kilometers

0 110 220 Miles

470 Iran (Islamic Republic of Iran)

T h e “re v o lu tio n ary ” c h a ra c te r o f th e re g im e is i ts e l f a so u rc e o f c o n sid e ra b le in te re s t. W h i l e in so m e re s p e c ts th e I r a n ia n re v o lu tio n re se m b le d o t h e r m a jo r re v o lu tio n s, it d iffe re d fro m m a n y i n t h a t i t d id n o t c le a rly le a n to w a rd th e p o litic a l le ft, t h o u g h so m e e le m e n ts in th e re v o lu tio n a ry c o a litio n d id (P a rs a 2 0 0 0 ; K u r z m a n 2 0 0 4 ; S a le h i-Is fa h a n i 2 0 0 9 : 3 2 - 3 3 ) . I n d e e d , i t is h a r d to p la c e t h e I r a n i a n

Historical Development I r a n h a s a lo n g a n d fa s c in a tin g h isto ry , d a tin g b a c k to th e g r e a t P e rs ia n E m p ir e (a n d earlier). H e r e w e a re in te re s te d in its c o n te m p o ra ry h isto ry , w h ic h m e a n s t h a t w e n e e d to b e g in w it h th e tw e n tie th c e n tu ry . O u r g o a l is to u n d e r ­ s ta n d h o w I r a n d e v e lo p e d s u c h t h a t th e Isla m ic R e v o lu tio n c o u ld ta k e p lace in 1979.

I t is c r it i c a l to u n d e r s t a n d t h a t w h i le I r a n h a d n o t b e e n f o r m a lly c o lo n iz e d , it h a d b e e n a t t h e m e rc y o f tw o im p e r i a l p o w e r s , G r e a t B r i ta i n a n d R u s s ia (a n d l a t e r th e S o v ie t U n io n ) , fo r s o m e y e a r s ( H a m b ly [1991] 2 0 0 8 a , [1991] 2 0 0 8 b ) . T h is w e a k e n e d th e Q a j a r D y n a s ty , w h ic h h a d h e ld p o w e r s in c e 179 5 in a m o n a r c h ic a l s y s te m . I r a n w a s la r g e ly a t r a d i t i o n a l r e lig io u s s o c ie t y i n w h i c h S h a r i ’a la w w a s p r a c t ic e d , a n d t h e c le r g y e x e rc is e d so m e s t a te - l ik e f u n c ti o n s (K e d d ie [1991] 2 0 0 8 : 179), b u t W e s te r n - d e r i v e d id e a s o f n a tio n a li s m a n d m o d e r n i z a t io n h a d b e g u n to se e p i n to t h e c o u n tr y b y t h e la te n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y ( M o a d d e l 2 0 0 5 ) . I n 1 9 0 5 - 1 9 0 6 c o n te n tio u s a c tio n fo rc e d th e Q a j a r to a d o p t a c o n s titu tio n a l m o n a rc h y (K e d d ie [1991] 2 0 0 8 : 2 0 2 - 2 0 3 ) . T h is is n o t to sa y t h a t t h e Q a j a r r e g im e w a s h a p p y a b o u t s u c h a d e v e l o p m e n t (K e d d ie [1991] 2 0 0 8 : 2 0 5 - 2 0 7 ) , a n d t h e S h a h in 1 9 0 8 a tt e m p t e d to c ir c u m v e n t c o n s t it u t io n a l i t y b u t w a s fo rc e d f r o m office. H e w o u l d m a k e a f a ile d a t t e m p t e d to r e ­ e s t a b lis h h is a u th o r i t y t w o y e a r s la te r. T h e t u r n to c o n ­ s t i t u t i o n a l m o n a r c h y d i d n o t, h o w e v e r, m a k e t h e B r i ti s h a n d R u s s ia n s a n y le s s lik e ly to in te r v e n e i n I r a n , a n d in 1 9 0 7 a t t h e A n g l o - R u s s i a n C o n v e n ti o n t h e y h a d e s s e n ­ t ia l ly a g r e e d to d iv id e t h e c o u n t r y in to z o n e s w h e r e o n e o r t h e o t h e r p o w e r w o u ld e x e r t p r e d o m i n a n t i n flu e n c e (K e d d ie [1991] 2 0 0 8 : 2 0 5 ). F o re ig n in te r v e n t io n c o n tin u e d d u r i n g t h e F i r s t W o r ld W a r . A f t e r t h e w a r, t h e g o v e r n ­ m e n t m a d e a n a g r e e m e n t w i t h t h e U n i t e d K in g d o m t h a t w o u ld h a v e e x p a n d e d t h a t c o u n tr y ’s in f lu e n c e i n I r a n , b u t t h e a g r e e m e n t w a s n o t i m p le m e n te d a n d its c o n te n ts g e n e r a te d d i s c o n te n t w h e n t h e y b e c a m e p u b lic ( H a m b ly [1991] 2 0 0 8 b : 2 1 5 - 2 1 7 ) .

re v o lu tio n in id e o lo g ic a l te rm s . I n c e r ta in re s p e c ts i t is v e ry c o n se rv a tiv e , a n d it o f te n is d e s c rib e d as su c h . Y et s e c u la r M a r x i s t s w e re p a r t o f th e r e v o lu ti o n a r y c o a l itio n t h a t h e lp e d to b r in g d o w n th e S h a h , a n d e v en to d a y th e r e a re f e a tu re s o f t h e I r a n i a n g o v e r n m e n t t h a t a re le ft-le a n in g . T h u s , I r a n h a s th e p o t e n t i a l to u n s e t t l e s o m e o f o u r p r e ­ c o n c e iv e d n o tio n s a b o u t h o w p o litic s w o rk s.

I n 1921, R e z a K h a n h e lp e d to o rg a n iz e a co u p d ’e ta t, w i t h S a y y id Z iy a a l- D in T a b a ta b a i e m e rg in g as P rim e M in i s t e r a n d R e z a K h a n as M i n is te r o f W a r (K e d d ie [1991] 2 0 0 8 : 2 1 0 - 2 1 2 ; H a m b ly [1991] 2 0 0 8 b : 2 1 9 -2 2 1 ). R e z a K h a n w o u ld b e c o m e P rim e M i n is te r h im s e l f in 1923 a n d t h e n , in 1925, b e c o m e th e c o u n tr y ’s m o n a rc h ( H a m b ly 2 0 0 8 b : 2 2 4 - 2 2 5 ) , as R e z a S h a h P a h la v i, in a u g u r a tin g th e P a h la v i D y n a s ty , w h ic h w o u ld la s t u n t il 1979. R e z a S h a h , lik e h is s o n a n d successor, M o h a m m a d R e z a S h a h (o ften re fe rre d to sim p ly as “th e S h a h ”), w a s se c u la r, W e s te r n iz ­ in g , a n d m o d e r n iz in g in o rie n ta tio n . N o ta b le p ro je c ts in ­ c lu d e d th e e s ta b lis h m e n t o f a W e s te rn -s ty le le g a l sy ste m , th e e x p a n s io n o f th e sta te b u re au c rac y , a n d th e c re a tio n o f th e T r a n s - I r a n ia n R ailw ay. R e z a S h a h also tr ie d to force his su b je cts to w e a r W e s te r n c lo th in g , a m o n g o th e r sy m b o lic m a n d a te s (H a m b ly [1991] 2 0 0 8 b : 2 2 5 - 2 2 6 , 2 3 0 - 2 3 2 ) .

T h e S h a h e s ta b lis h e d c lo se tie s w ith G e r m a n y in th e 193 0 s ( H a m b ly [1991] 2 0 0 8 b : 2 4 1 -2 4 3 ). W h il e th is m ay h a v e o w e d m o re to in te r e s t (a c h ie v in g a c o u n te rw e ig h t to th e S o v ie t U n i o n a n d th e U n ite d K in g d o m ) t h a n to id e o ­ lo g ic a l a ffin ity , th e a sso c ia tio n w o u ld la te r p ro v e p ro b le m ­ a tic fo r h im . D u r i n g th e S e c o n d W o r ld W a r , h e a tte m p te d to m a in t a in f o rm a l n e u tra lity , b u t th e A llie s w o u ld n o t a c c e p t t h is , in p a r t b e c a u se t h e y w a n te d to u se th e T r a n s - I r a n i a n R a ilw a y to se n d su p p lies to R u ssia . A s a re s u lt, S o v ie t a n d B ritis h t ro o p s o c c u p ie d t h e c o u n try , a n d i n 1941 th e S h a h re s ig n e d . T h is p la c e d h is so n , M o h a m m a d R e z a S h a h , o n t h e th r o n e . N o t b e in g fo rm a lly a sso c ia te d w i t h h is f a th e r ’s lin k s to G e rm a n y , t h e n e w S h a h c o u ld w e a th e r th e d ip lo m a tic a n d p o litic a l sto rm s. A f t e r s o m e y e a rs, th e S h a h w o u ld b e k n o w n as a stro n g ly a u th o r ita r ia n r u le r w h o u s e d sy s te m a tic v io le n c e to q u e ll o p p o s itio n .

A crisis w o u ld d e v elo p in t h e e a rly 1950s a f te r M o h a m ­ m a d M o s a d d e q b e c a m e P r im e M i n i s t e r ( H a m b ly [1991] 2 0 0 8 a : 2 5 1 -2 6 3 ). M o s a d d e q , a m o n g o t h e r th in g s , s o u g h t to n a tio n a liz e I r a n ’s o il i n d u s t r y (as h a d b e e n d o n e , fo r ex­ a m p le , b y M e x ic o w i t h its o w n so m e y e a rs e arlie r). A c oup

Profile 471

H isto rical D e v e lo p m e n t T i m e l i n e

1795-1925 Qajar Dynasty 1963 The "White Revolution" is announced, and includes 1906 Constitutional monarchy established after the a number of reforms such as agrarian reform and

“Constitutional Revolution” women's suffrage. 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention, used to justify English 1963 Exile of Ayatollah Khomeini

and Russian spheres of influence within Iran and 1973 Spike in global oil prices benefits Iran in the short periodic intervention term.

1908 Mohammad Ali Shah tries to undo the constitu­ 1978-1979 Increasing social conflict, Iranian Revolution, tional order but is forced from power. and the return of Ayatollah Khomeini; the Shah

1919 Anglo-lranian Agreement, never implemented, but departs Iran. upon becoming public generates considerable 1979 Foundation of Islamic Republic, by the end of the discontent year religious leaders had come to dominate, and a

1921 Reza Khan becomes Minister of War after helping new constitution was passed. to bring a coup which places Seyyed Zia'eedin 1979 Beginning of Iranian hostage crisis Tabatabaee as Prime Minister (still under the Qajar 1980 Abolhassan Bani Sadr is elected as president, but is Dynasty). impeached the following year.

1923 Reza Khan (later to be Reza Shah) becomes Prime 1980-1989 Iran—Iraq War Minister. 1981 Release of American hostages shortly after Ronald

1923 Ahmad Shah leaves the country, showing Qajar Reagan takes office Dynasty's weakness. 1981 Bani Sadr forced from power by Khomeini, further

1923 Major political reforms cementing the position of religious leaders in the 1925 Reza Shah Pahlavi becomes monarch (beginning revolutionary regime

of Pahlavi Dynasty) 1981 Mohammad-Ali Rajai elected president but killed 1925-1926 Establishment of European-style legal system within a month; Ali Khamenei, future Supreme 1938 Completion of Trans-Iranian railway Leader, assumes the presidency. 1941 Reza Shah resigns following the country's occupa­ 1988 Iran Air flight 655 is shot down accidentally by the

tion by the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union United States, killing 290 passengers and crew (part of World War II), leaving Mohammed Reza members. Shah in power. 1989 Death of Ayatollah Khomeini; rise of Ayatollah

1942 Formal alliance is formed between Iran, the United Khamenei; election of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to Kingdom, and the Soviet Union in the struggle the presidency against the Nazis. 1997 Election of Mohammad Khatami to the presidency

1944 Death of Reza Shah (perceived as more liberal, raising hopes of reform 1951-1953 Tumultuous period in which the elected govern­ in both Iran and the West)

ment of Mohammad Mosaddeq holds power, in­ 2005 Election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presi­ cluding efforts to nationalize the Iranian oil industry dency (perceived as a hard-liner, dampening

1953 Coup d'etat, with backing from Britain and the United hopes for reform) States, brings down the Mosaddeq government. 2009 Ahmadinejad's reelection, apparently fraudulent,

1954 Settlement of the oil industry question, with favor­ provokes major protests. able terms for multinational corporations 2013 Hassan Rouhani is elected president.

d ’e ta t w a s la u n c h e d , w i t h s u p p o r t fro m b o t h th e U n ite d K in g d o m a n d th e U n it e d S ta te s, w h o w a n te d to e n s u re c o n tin u e d W e s te r n c o n tro l o ver I r a n i a n n a tu r a l re so u rc e s (K e d d ie [1991] 2 0 0 8 ). T h e re is n o te l lin g w h a t w o u ld h a v e

h a p p e n e d h a d fo re ig n i n te r v e n tio n n o t b r o u g h t d o w n th is g o v e r n m e n t ( H a m b ly [1991] 2 0 0 8 a : 2 5 4 ), b u t i t is c o nceiv­ able t h a t M o s a d d e q c o u ld have b u ilt o n su c c e ssfu l n a tio n ­ a liz a tio n to e x p a n d I r a n i a n d e m o c ra tiz a tio n . I n a n y case,

t h is w a s n o t to b e , a n d t h e S h a h ’s a u th o r it a r ia n g o v e rn m e n t n e g o tia te d g e n e ro u s te rm s fo r m u ltin a tio n a ls in v o lv e d in t h e e x tra c tio n o f I r a n i a n o il, su c h t h a t n a tio n a liz a tio n w o u ld n o t d ra m a tic a lly im p in g e o n th e in te re s ts o f th e o il c o m p a n ie s ( H a m b ly [1991] 2 0 0 8 a : 2 6 5 ).

T h e S h a h ’s re g im e w a s b a sic a lly a n a u th o r i ta r i a n d e v el- o p m e n ta lis t sta te (F o ra n 2 0 0 5 : 7 5 -8 1 ). M o h a m m a d R e z a S h a h , in a series o f e c o n o m ic p la n s , a im e d to c o n tin u e th e p ro c e ss o f i n d u s t r ia liz a tio n a n d m o d e r n iz a tio n t h a t h a d b e e n s ta r te d u n d e r h is fa th e r, u s in g o il re v e n u e s as a p r in c i­ p a l so u rc e o f fu n d in g . I n t h is h e w a s fa irly su c c essfu l: I r a n m o d e r n iz e d so m e w h a t ra p id ly , b u i lt a n o ta b le m id d le class w it h a c o s m o p o lita n o rie n ta tio n , a n d e s ta b lis h e d a n o ta b le h ig h e r e d u c a tio n i n f r a s tr u c tu r e . I n p o litic a l te rm s , th e S h a h w a s la rg e ly re g re ssiv e , t h o u g h h e w a s w i llin g to m a k e re fo rm s w h e n h e t h o u g h t th is w o u ld e n h a n c e h is p o s itio n . T h u s th e “W h i t e R e v o lu tio n ” o f 1963 d is tr ib u te d la n d , ex­ te n d e d su ffra g e (m o st n o ta b ly to w o m e n ), a n d m a d e a n u m b e r o f o th e r re fo rm s (H a m b ly [1991] 2 0 0 8 a : 2 7 9 -2 8 3 ). T h is s h o u ld n o t b e u n d e r s to o d as p u re ly b e n e v o le n t la r ­ g e sse , h o w e v er: T h e S h a h fa c e d c iv il d is c o n te n t a n d p r o ­ te s ts , a n d h is “W h i t e R e v o lu tio n ” w a s a c c o m p a n ie d by e ffo rts to re p re ss h is c ritics. F o r e x a m p le , t h e A y a to lla h K h o m e in i, a p r o m in e n t c le ric , w as fo rc e d to leave th e c o u n ­ t r y in 1963. M o r e g e n e ra lly , th e S h a h ’s sta te w a s h ig h ly re p re ssiv e , a n d th e s e c u rity forces (th e SA V A K ) w e re n o t o ­ rio u s fo r t o r tu r i n g a n d m u r d e r in g d is s id e n ts (F o ra n 2 0 0 5 : 77; H a m b ly [1991] 2 0 0 8 a : 2 9 0 - 2 9 1 ) . I t is w o r t h f u r t h e r e m p h a s iz in g t h a t t h is re g im e w a s s u p p o r te d b y W e s te r n p o w e rs lik e th e U n ite d K in g d o m a n d th e U n ite d S ta te s, la rg e ly b e ca u se o f C o ld W a r c o n c e rn s. In d e e d , w h e n P re s i­ d e n t J im m y C a r te r b e g a n to e m p h a siz e h u m a n r ig h ts as a m a jo r c rite rio n in U .S . fo re ig n p o lic y in t h e la te 1 970s, th is h e lp e d to w e a k e n th e S h a h ’s p o s itio n (F o ra n 2 0 0 5 : 78; K u r z m a n 2 0 0 4 : 2 2 - 2 3 ) . T h is o c c u rre d d u r i n g a n e c o n o m ic d o w n t u r n , f u r t h e r w e a k e n in g th e S h a h .

J u s t th e sam e, th e revolution to o k m a n y by surprise. A c ­ c o rd in g to C harles K u rz m an , it w as “u n th in k a b le ,” b o th in th e sense th a t few p re d ic te d it a n d because social-scientific theories have h a d som e difficulty in acc o u n tin g fo r it (K u rz m a n 2 004). I t is im p o rta n t to em phasize th a t in 1978 a n d 1979 actors d e m a n d in g c h ange sp a n n e d th e political sp e c tru m a n d th e re ­ lig io u s-sec u lar divide: I t w as by no m ean s obvious to all t h a t a conservative religious regim e w o u ld em erge victorious fro m th e Ira n ia n R evolution, a t least initially, th o u g h i t is also clear th a t th e religious c o m p o n e n t o f th e revolution w as absolutely c en tral to its success, as K h o m e in i w as th e one actor w h o seem ed

472 Iran (Islamic Republic of Iran)

capable o f u n ify in g diverse revolutionary elem ents (A rjo m an d 2 009). S ecu lar M a rx ists w ere im p o rta n t in th e o p p o sition to th e S h a h ’s regim e, a n d over tim e th e m id d le class g o t o n b o a rd as well. A s o ften h a p p en s in revolutions, various g roups likely felt th a t th e y w o u ld be able to c o ntrol th e process, a n d th e secu­ la r allies o f th e clergy u n d o u b ted ly d id n o t envision th e regim e th a t em erged. Scholars w h o are in terested in th e role o f c u ltu re in ex p la in in g revolutions o ften p o in t to th is case, d ra w in g at­ te n tio n to th e im p o rta n c e o f T w elver S h i’ism in Ira n , w h ic h facilitated th e rise o f th e clergy to political leadership, p a rtic u ­ larly o n K h o m e in i’s in te rp re ta tio n o f th e n a tu re o f sacred au­ th o rity (A rjo m a n d 2 0 0 9 :1 6 - 3 5 ) . T he clergy’s consolidation o f th e ir p o w e r o nly to o k place over th e first couple o f years o f th e regim e, d u rin g a n d a fte r th e conflict w ith B a n i Sadr. E ven in th e c o n stitu tio n a l o rd e r th a t w as established, w h ic h places u lti­ m ate a u th o rity w ith th e clergy (discussed fu rth e r in th e case studies th a t follow), som e d em ocratic form s are present, w ith elections h e ld for th e presidency a n d th e parliam ent.

I t w o u ld n o t b e a n e x a g g e ra tio n to say t h a t th e I r a n ia n R e v o lu tio n s h o c k e d t h e w o rld . W h a t to m a k e o f a re v o lu ­ tio n a r y r e g im e t h a t w a s ra d ic a lly a n ti- W e s te r n b u t n o t a lso s e c u la r a n d so c ia lis t o n th e m o d e l o f C h i n a a n d th e S o v ie t U n io n ? A t th e v e ry le a st, th is d ra m a tic a lly c o m p lic a te d th e m o d e r n i z a tio n n a rra tiv e s t h a t u n d e rla y b o t h S o v ie t a n d W e s te r n c a p ita lis t d e v e lo p m e n t. W h e n A m e r ic a n h o sta g e s w e re ta k e n b y r e v o lu tio n a ry s y m p a th iz e rs , t h is d id litt le to ease th e sh o c k . A n e ffo rt to re sc u e t h e m a u th o r iz e d b y J im m y C a r te r w a s u n su c c e ss fu l, a n d t h e y w o u ld o n ly b e r e ­ le a s e d a f te r R o n a ld R e a g a n t o o k office.

D u r i n g th e p o s t-re v o lu tio n a ry e ra w e c o u ld d iv id e I r a ­ n ia n p re s id e n tia l p o litic s in to five m a in p e rio d s . T h e firs t is t h e in s ta b ility o f th e e arly y e ars. T h e se c o n d is th e p e rio d o f K h a m e n e i’s p re sid e n c y d u r in g w h ic h c le ric a l a u th o r ity w as c o n s o lid a te d a n d th e w a r w i t h I r a q to o k place. T h e t h i r d is th e p e rio d o f R a fs a n ja n i’s p re sid en c y , a fte r 1989, d u r in g w h ic h , as A r jo m a n d n o te s (2 0 0 9 : 7), th e sy ste m o f “d u a l le a d e rs h ip ” b e tw e e n th e S u p re m e L e a d e r a n d t h e p re s id e n t fu lly d e v e lo p e d . R a fs a n ja n i’s p re sid e n c y is a lso n o ta b le fo r e ffo rts to r e b u ild t h e I r a n ia n e conom y, w h ic h in c lu d e d som e c apitalist reform s. T he fo u rth p e rio d encom passes M o h a m m a d K h a ta m i’s re fo rm ist presidency b e g in n in g in 1997, w h ic h ra ised h opes fo r m a n y t h a t th e re g im e w o u ld liberalize. Finally, th e 2 0 0 5 election o f M a h m o u d A h m a d in e ja d o p e n e d a p e rio d o f conservative re tre n c h m e n t.

S o m e e x p e c te d t h a t r e v o lu tio n a ry I r a n w o u ld n o t la s t, p a r tic u la r ly g iv e n i n te r n a ti o n a l p re ssu re s t h a t it fa ce d , in c lu d in g t h e I r a n - I r a q W a r (1 9 8 0 -1 9 8 9 ) b u t also th e

Profile 473

c o u n tr y ’s re la tiv e d ip lo m a tic is o la tio n . Y et th e re g im e c o n ­

so lid a te d its c o n tro l a n d i t h a s r e m a in e d in p o w e r since. T h e t r a n s itio n a f te r K h o m e in i’s d e a th in 1 989 w a s p a r tic u la r ly im p o r ta n t. A r jo m a n d (2 0 0 9 ) d e sc rib e s w h a t fo llo w e d , in th e la n g u a g e o f M a x W e b e r, as th e “r o u tin iz a t io n ” o r “in ­ s titu tio n a liz a tio n ” o f th e “c h a ris m a tic a u th o r i ty ” o f K h o ­ m e in i, m e a n in g t h a t th e re v o lu tio n h a d to face th e classic p ro b le m o f g o in g o n w it h o u t its m y s tic a l le a d e r a n d t u r n in g th e re v o lu tio n in to s o m e th in g t h a t d id n o t d e p e n d o n t h a t lea d er. M a jo r c o n s t itu tio n a l re fo rm s re m o v e d th e office o f P rim e M in is te r , m a k in g t h e sy s te m m o re p re s id e n tia lis t, a n d in m a n y w ays th e re fo rm s a lso so lid ifie d th e c le rg y ’s p o w e r a n d a u th o rity . S a y y e d A l i K h a m e n e i to o k o v e r as th e n e w S u p re m e L e a d e r, a p o s t h e s till h o ld s a t th e t im e o f th is w ritin g . W i t h th e e le c tio n o f t h e re la tiv e ly lib e ra l M o h a m ­ m a d K h a ta m i in 1997, so m e o b se rv e rs b o t h in I r a n a n d

a b ro a d fe lt t h a t th e re g im e m ig h t b e o p e n in g to g re a te r d e ­

m o c ra tiz a tio n , b u t th e s e h o p e s w e re d a s h e d a f te r th e e lec­ tio n o f A h m a d in e ja d in 2 0 0 5 . A h m a d in e ja d w as b o t h a h a r d lin e r and a p o p u lis t w h o s e d e m a g o g u e ry a p p e a le d to m a n y o f I r a n ’s w o rs e off. J u s t th e sa m e , h e fa c e d o p p o s itio n , a n d h is re -e le c tio n i n 2 0 0 9 w a s d e n o u n c e d b y m a n y as fr a u d u le n t. T h is le d to m a jo r p ro te s ts a g a in s t th e r e g im e , in th e s o -c a lle d “G r e e n R e v o lu tio n ” (d isc u sse d f u r t h e r in a case s tu d y l a te r i n t h e c h a p te r), s u p p o r te d b y m a n y p r o m i­ n e n t f o rm e r lea d ers. A g a in , it se e m e d fo r a tim e lik e th e re g im e m ig h t n e e d to m a k e m a jo r c o n c e ssio n s, b u t th e u se o f fo rce b r o u g h t th e p ro te s ts to a h a lt. S o m e h a v e se e n th e 2 0 1 3 e le c tio n o f H a s s a n R o u h a n i as s ig n a lin g a p a r ti a l m o v e b a c k to w a r d t h e c e n te r, a n d so m e a re h o p e f u l a b o u t h is e le c tio n le a d in g to a p o t e n t ia l t h a w in g o f I r a n i a n - W e s te r n re la tio n s .

Regime and Political Institutions I r a n ’s p o lic y m a k in g p ro c e ss is v e ry c o m p le x , as b o th e le c te d a n d n o n -e le c te d officials p lay m a jo r roles in s e ttin g policy. T h e re g im e h a s a d u a l n a tu r e , as th e e le c te d fe a tu re s o f a re p u b lic m ix w it h th e in s titu tio n s o f th e o c ra tic ru le by M u s lim clerics. O n o n e h a n d , I r a n is a p re s id e n tia l sy ste m w ith a p o p u la rly e le c te d p re s id e n t t h a t g o v e rn s w i t h th e c a b in e t. T h e p a rlia m e n t, k n o w n as t h e M a jlis, is a lso e le cte d , a n d i t e x erts so m e c h e c k s o n p re s id e n tia l p o w e r. H o w e v e r, a n o th e r im p o r ta n t p o lic y m a k in g b o d y is th e G u a r d i a n C o u n c il, a g ro u p o f tw e lv e clerics t h a t have a ra n g e o f

im p o r t a n t p o w e rs. T h e y c a n a p p ro v e o r re je c t c a n d id a te s for th e p re sid en c y , fo r p a rlia m e n t, a n d fo r m in is te r ia l p o sitio n s. T h e y c a n also v e to le g is la tio n m a d e b y th e M a jlis i f th e y d e e m i t n o t to fit w i t h Is la m ic la w o r th e I r a n i a n C o n s ti tu ­ tio n . F in a lly , th e S u p re m e L e a d e r is p e rh a p s th e c e n tra l fig u re in I r a n ia n p o litic s . H e to o is a c leric (a h ig h - r a n k in g ayatollah), a n d h e a p p o in ts h a l f o f th e m e m b e rs o f th e G u a r d i a n C o u n c il, as w e ll as t h e h e a d o f th e ju d ic ia ry ; th e S u p re m e L e a d e r also in d ir e c tly c o n tro ls w h o is elig ib le for th e o th e r six p o s ts in t h e G u a r d i a n C o u n c il, since t h e h e a d

R e g im e a n d P olitica l In stitu tio n s

Regime Theocratic state, but with some features of presidential and parliamentary democracy

Administrative Divisions Unitary state; thirty provinces + capital province of Tehran

Executive Branch President and cabinet, but with a number of executive functions held by the Supreme Leader (non-elected) and the Guardian Council

Selection of Executive Election from within a set of candidates approved by the Guardian Council

Legislative Branch Elected Parliament, called the Majlis. The Guardian Council can veto legislation.

Judicial Branch Politicized judiciary controlled by religious conservatives, with Islamic law the basis of the system. Supreme Court and Judicial High Council are top bodies.

Political Party System Multiparty system but with restrictions

o f th e ju d ic ia ry n o m in a te s th e s e fo r c o n s id e ra tio n b y th e M a jlis. T h e S u p re m e L e a d e r, n o t t h e p re s id e n t, h a s a u th o r­ ity o ver th e m ilita ry . M o re o v e r, th e S u p re m e L e a d e r m u s t o fficially a ffirm th e e le c tio n o f th e p re sid e n t. M a n y c o m ­ m e n ta to rs th u s c o n clu d e t h a t p o w e r lies u ltim a te ly w i t h th e c le rg y a n d n o t w ith t h e m o re “d e m o c ra tic ” b o d ie s in I r a n , th o u g h th e s e e le c te d b o d ie s are n o t m ere p u p p e ts . F in a lly , th e re are a d d itio n a l c o n su lta tiv e b o d ie s in Ira n : A n

474 Iran (Islamic Republic of Iran)

Political Culture O n e fe a tu re o f I r a n i a n p o litic a l c u ltu r e is th e e x te n t to w h ic h re lig io sity , id e o lo g ic a l o rie n ta tio n , p o litic a l t r a d i ­ tio n a lis m , a n d w o rld v ie w c o rre s p o n d to p o s itio n in th e I r a ­ n ia n c lass s tr u c tu r e . O f c o u rse , c u lt u r a l o r ie n ta tio n e v e ry w h e re is lin k e d to so c ia l class, as g e n e ra tio n s o f soci­ o lo g ists h ave sh o w n , b u t t h is te n d s to b e v e ry p ro n o u n c e d in c o u n trie s lik e I r a n . P a r t o f t h is h a s to d o w it h th e fa ct t h a t I r a n , lik e its n e ig h b o r, T u rk ey , w e n t th r o u g h a n e ffo rt a t W e s te r n iz a tio n a n d m o d e r n iz a tio n “fro m a b o v e.” R e z a S h a h in I r a n , a n d K e m a l A t a tu r k in T u rk ey , e a c h a tte m p te d to n o t o n ly m o d e r n iz e t h e eco n o m y , th e s ta te b u re a u c ra c y , a n d th e in f r a s tr u c tu r e o f th e i r c o u n trie s , b u t to W e s te r n iz e t h e ir p o p u la tio n s c u ltu ra lly . T h is m e a n t, in p a r t, a c c e p tin g a p a r ti c u la r W e s te r n c o n c e p tio n o f w h a t m o d e r n i ty is, o n e t h a t p riv ile g e s th e se c u la r. B o th re g im e s a tte m p te d to im p o s e a W e s te r n c u ltu r a l p r o g r a m as a s o r t o f to ta l w a y o f life , re g u la tin g , fo r e x a m p le , th e c lo th in g o f t h e i r p o p u la ­ tio n s (as a n u m b e r o f o th e r c o u n trie s , s t a r tin g a t le a s t w it h R u ss ia u n d e r P e te r t h e G r e a t, h a d done). I n b o t h c o u n trie s , th is p ro g ra m w a s m o s t su c c e ssfu l a m o n g th o s e g ro u p s t h a t b e n e fite d m o s t fro m m o d e r n iz a tio n . I t is n o t s u rp ris in g t h a t m id d le -c la s s p e rs o n s in I r a n w o u ld b e m o re lik e ly to a d o p t a W e s te r n c u ltu r a l sty le, b o t h b e c a u se o f th e b e n e fits th e y d e riv e d a n d b e ca u se in s titu tio n s in w h ic h th e y w e re e m b e d d e d , su c h as th e u n iv e rs itie s a n d th e sta te b u r e a u ­ cracy, re in fo rc e d t h is sty le. T h o se g ro u p s t h a t b e n e fite d less, th o u g h , a n d w h ic h w e re less o r g a n iz a tio n a lly w e d d e d to a W e s te r n iz e d c u ltu r a l sty le, d id n o t u n d e rg o th e sa m e

Political Economy O n e o f t h e m o s t s tr ik in g fe a tu re s o f th e I r a n i a n R e v o lu tio n a n d its a f te r m a th is th e d a m a g e t h a t w a s d o n e to t h e e c o n ­ om y. E c o n o m ic g r o w th d r o p p e d d ra m a tic a lly in th e y e ars a f te r 1979, w i th G D P p e r c a p ita d r o p p in g b y SO p e rc e n t o v e r th e re v o lu tio n a ry r e g im e ’s firs t d e c a d e b e fo re g ra d u a lly

E x p e d ie n c y C o u n c il ad v ises th e S u p re m e L e a d e r, a n d a n A s se m b ly o f E x p e r ts is e m p o w e re d to e le c t t h e S u p re m e L e a d e r a f te r h is p re d e c e s so r d ies, re sig n s, o r is in c a p a c i­ ta te d ; th e A s s e m b ly o f E x p e r ts is n o m in a lly e m p o w e re d to re v ie w th e S u p re m e L e a d e r, b u t h a s n o t d o n e so in p ra c tic e , p e rh a p s in p a r t b e ca u se its c o m p o s itio n is in d ire c tly c o n ­ tr o lle d b y th e S u p re m e L e a d e r. T h ese a rra n g e m e n ts a re d is ­ c u sse d in m o re d e ta il in th e case s tu d ie s t h a t follow .

c h a n g e to t h e sa m e e x te n t. A s a re s u lt, p o o r e r a n d m o re r u r a l a c to rs re m a in e d m o re re lig io u s a n d tr a d i tio n a l in th e i r o r ie n ta tio n (as, in d e e d , p o o r e r a n d m o re r u r a l p o p u la ­ tio n s te n d to d o in g e n e ra l). T h is d iffe re n c e lives o n in c o n ­ te m p o r a r y I r a n , th o u g h w e w o u ld n o t w is h to e x a g g e ra te it.

R e la te d to th is is t h e c h a r a c te r o f I r a n i a n n a tio n a lis m .

I n m a n y , a n d p e rh a p s m o s t, c o u n trie s , n a tio n a lis m h a s a s e c u la r c h a r a c te r (G re e n fe ld 1992), p e rh a p s b e c a u se th e id e a o f th e so v e re ig n a u th o r ity o f th e p e o p le h a s th e p o te n ­ t ia l to u n d e r c u t re lig io u s o r g a n iz a tio n s . T h is w a s c e rta in ly t r u e in I r a n u n d e r th e S h a h , a n d e v en e arlie r, w h e re a se c u ­ l a r b r a n d o f n a tio n a li s t d is c o u rs e w a s u s e d as a n a lte rn a tiv e to Is la m (M o a d d e l 2 0 0 5 ). I n th is re s p e c t I r a n w a s s im ila r to m a n y o f t h e A r a b s ta te s— su c h as Ir a q , E g y p t, a n d S yria, a m o n g o th e r s — w h ic h a lso saw s e c u la r n a tio n a lis m j u x ta ­ p o s e d to Is la m . Y et I r a n saw th e e m e rg e n c e o f a n a lte rn a ­ tiv e , re lig io u s n a tio n a lis m , w h ic h d e fin e d i ts e l f against th is s e c u la r n a tio n a lis m (Ju e rg e n s m e y e r 1993). T h is a lte rn a tiv e n a tio n a lis m c o u ld p r e s e n t i ts e l f as a u th e n tic a lly Is la m ic a n d c o u ld p r e s e n t its s e c u la ris t a lte rn a tiv e as a fo re ig n im p o r t, p o ss ib ly e v e n c o lo n ia l. I n d e e d , c u ltu r a lly o n e sees a s im ila r p h e n o m e n o n in th e A r a b sta te s, b u t b y a n d la rg e w i t h less p o litic a l success, as s e c u la r n a tio n a lis t re g im e s h a v e h e ld o n u n t il re c e n tly in m a n y o f th e m . I n sta te s w h e re “A r a b S p r in g ” re v o lu tio n s h a v e b e e n su c c e ssfu l, w e s till d o n o t k n o w w h a t k i n d o f g o v e r n m e n t w ill u ltim a te ly e m e rg e. I n a n y case, re lig io u s n a tio n a lis m o f t h is s o r t h a s b e e n a n d r e m a in s a n i m p o r t a n t fe a tu re o f I r a n i a n p o litic a l c u ltu re .

re co v e rin g to a ro u n d p re -re v o lu tio n a ry levels (S a leh i-Isfa h an i 2 0 0 9 : 6 - 7 ) . P a r t o f th is h a s to d o w i t h th e fa c t t h a t I r a n is a m a jo r o il p ro d u c e r a n d t h e i n te r n a ti o n a l o il m a r k e t h i t a ll o il e x p o rte rs h a r d in th e 1 9 8 0 s, w i t h lo w e r c o m m o d ity p ric e s in g e n e ra l c o n tr i b u tin g to th e d e b t w o e s o f m u c h o f

Case Studies 475

th e d e v e lo p in g w o rld in t h a t p e rio d . A s S a le h i-Is fa h a n i n o te s (2 0 0 9 : 7), b a d p o lic y a n d th e l o n g - s t a n d i n g w a r w i th I r a q a lso p la y e d m a jo r ro les in th e c o u n tr y ’s p o o r e c o n o m ic p e rfo rm a n c e in t h is p e rio d . N o t s u rp risin g ly , w h e n H a s h - e m i-R a fs a n ja n i w a s e le c te d i n 1989, h e e m b a rk e d o n e c o ­ n o m ic re fo rm s ( A r jo m a n d 2 0 0 9 : 5 6 - 5 8 ) , in c lu d in g p riv a tiz a tio n o f so m e e n te rp ris e s — th o u g h th e s e w e re m in ­ im a l, a n d p u b lic s e c to r e m p lo y m e n t re m a in e d h ig h — a n d c h a n g e s m a d e to f in a n c ia l m a rk e ts . E c o n o m ic p e rfo rm a n c e in th e 1 9 9 0 s w a s m ix e d , b u t w i t h th e o il b o o m o f t h e 2 0 0 0 s I r a n a c h ie v e d n o ta b le g r o w th a n d a c c o m p a n y in g im p ro v e ­ m e n ts in w e ll-b e in g ( S a le h i-Is fa h a n i 2 0 0 9 : 8).

T h e m o s t i m p o r t a n t p ro b le m t h a t I r a n fa ce s, lik e t h a t o f o th e r o il p ro d u c e rs , is m a n a g in g to a c h ie v e s u s ta in a b le g r o w th w h ile e a s in g its o w n d e p e n d e n c e o n o il. I r a n w a s th e w o r ld ’s t h ir d - l a r g e s t o il e x p o r te r u n t i l re c e n tly , p r o ­ d u c in g o v e r 4 m il lio n b a rre ls p e r d a y a n d e x p o r tin g m o re t h a n 2 .5 m illio n ( C I A W o r ld F a c tb o o k ). H o w e v e r, t h is c h a n g e d d r a m a tic a lly a f te r 2 0 1 1 , w h e n th e U n it e d S ta te s a n d E u r o p e a n c o u n tr ie s p la c e d s a n c tio n s o n I r a n fo r th e c o u n tr y ’s c o n tin u e d e ffo rts t o d e v e lo p a n u c le a r p r o g r a m . 'This m o v e d is r u p te d a n d slo w e d I r a n i a n p r o d u c tio n , a n d th e c o u n tr y ’s e x p o r ts fe ll b y o n e - h a lf . T h e U .S . D e p a r t ­ m e n t o f e n e r g y n o w ra te s th e c o u n tr y as o n ly t h e f o u r­ t e e n th la r g e s t e x p o r te r in th e w o rld , a n d w i t h d e c lin in g o u tp u t. E v e n so, I r a n ’s d e p e n d e n c e o n o il is su c h t h a t p e ­ tro le u m a c c o u n ts fo r 8 0 p e r c e n t o f e x p o rts ( C I A W o r ld F a c tb o o k ).

F o r t h e o il t h a t stay s i n t h e c o u n try , th e g o v e r n m e n t h as

p ro v id e d m assiv e su b s id ie s fo r e n e rg y c o n s u m p tio n t h a t w e re d e c la re d to b e in t h e ra n g e o f $ 1 0 0 b illio n p e r y e a r u p to 2 0 1 0 . T h e s e su b s id ie s a m o u n t to o v e r $ 1 ,0 0 0 p e r p e rso n , w h ic h is e s tim a te d b y th e I n t e r n a tio n a l M o n e t a r y F u n d to b e g r e a te r t h a n th e a v era g e in c o m e in m a n y h o u se h o ld s. T h e c o u n tr y ’s o il d e p e n d e n c e is v isib le i f w e lo o k a t v a rio u s e c o n o m ic s e c to rs ’ s h a re o f G D P : A s o f 2 0 1 1 , a g ric u ltu re s ta n d s a t 1 0.6 p e rc e n t, w i t h se rv ice s a n d i n d u s tr y e a c h at a b o u t 45 p e rc e n t, o f w h ic h a n o ta b le sh a re is o il re la te d ( C I A W o r ld F a c tb o o k ). I n a d d iti o n to th e p ro b le m o f o il d e p e n d e n c e a n d q u e s tio n s o f th e “re s o u rc e c u rs e ” d isc u sse d in th e N ig e r ia case, I r a n ’s b r o a d e r e c o n o m y h a s b e e n d a m ­ a g e d b y s a n c tio n s . I n 2 0 1 5 t h e c o u n tr y ’s c u rre n c y (th e rial) w a s w o r t h o n ly a b o u t o n e - t h i r d in d o lla r te rm s o f w h a t it w a s w o r t h in 2 0 1 2 .

F in a lly , lik e m a n y d e v e lo p in g c o u n trie s (a n d so m e “d e ­ v e lo p e d ” c o u n trie s , n o ta b ly S p a in ), I r a n h a s a g ro w in g p ro b le m w ith y o u th u n e m p lo y m e n t. T h e c o u n tr y ’s g e n e ra l u n e m p lo y m e n t ra te as o f 2 0 1 3 s to o d a t a n e s tim a te d 16 p e r­ c e n t ( C I A W o r ld F a c tb o o k ), w i t h y o u th a n d y o u n g a d u lt u n e m p lo y m e n t c o n s id e re d to b e n o ta b ly h ig h e r. T h ese fig­ u re s a re a c c o rd in g to th e I r a n i a n g o v e rn m e n t, a n d t h e y m ay u n d e r s ta te t h e tr u e d e g re e o f u n e m p lo y m e n t in th e c o u n try . S tr o n g e r g r o w th w o u ld , o f c o u rse , re d u c e th e s e n u m b e rs s o m e (th e I r a n i a n e c o n o m y s h r a n k in 2 0 1 3 ), b u t th e r e is c le a r e v id e n c e t h a t u n e m p lo y m e n t h a s b e c o m e a s tr u c tu r a l p a r t o f I r a n ’s econom y.

Systems? CHAPTER 7, PAGE ISO

We saw in chapter 6 that democracy and democratization are “moving targets" in the sense that standards and critical thresholds for democratic practice change over time. The United States of America in 1800, for example, would not be judged very democratic in today's world, though at the time it was one of the democratic pioneers. So what do we make of countries

that have some democratic features but which retain strong authoritarian charac­ teristics as well? We saw in the chapter that one example of this can be found in the so-called "hybrid" or "competitive authori­ tarian" regimes that scholars have dis­ cussed in recent years, such as Venezuela. In these instances, the following pattern is common: A democratic system becomes

more authoritarian over time as one set of actors becomes adept at manipulating in­ stitutions to maintain and augment their political interest. For the most authoritar­ ian of such regimes, democratic competi­ tion becomes a farce that can be used to try to shore up the regime's legitimacy, but the underlying logic of the system is nearly fully authoritarian.

476 Iran (Islamic Republic of Iran)

CASE STUDY (continued) . __________

Democratic Features of Authoritarian Systems? The Case of Iran CH A P T E R 7, PAGE 150

Iran, though, is a different sort of case. While very few commentators would regard the current Iranian regime as demo­ cratic, it has some clear democratic features, and it is possible to argue that it is as demo­ cratic as the dictatorship of the Shah that preceded it (which had the support, inci­ dentally, of the Western democracies). As noted in the preceding text, Iran does have an elected president and an elected legis­ lature, the Majlis. Religious leadership can restrict individuals from running for these positions (and from serving in the Cabinet as well), and it does so with regularity. However, Iranian voters are nevertheless often faced with real choices in these elec­ tions. The reform movement associated with Mohammad Khatami, elected in 1997, discussed in the “Historical Development" section earlier in the chapter, gives clear indication of this, as does the shift that came with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's elec­ tion in 2005. However, subsequent events make clear that not only do existing institu­ tions work to limit and even exclude change, but that institutional norms can be violated if necessary to preserve the status quo. Widespread perceptions of fraud in the 2009 re-election of Ahmadinejad led to protests that the regime quelled with violence.

Voters also have the ability to indirectly shape clerical rule. This is done through two institutional mechanisms. First, the elected Majlis can exert some influence over who is appointed to the Guardian Council. Second, the Assembly of Experts is actually an elected body. However, there is a catch. Only clergy can run in elections for this Assembly. Just the same, the elec­ torate can indirectly exert some influence through this mechanism. Of course, com­ plex systems of indirect influence produce collective action problems for individuals seeking to make far-reaching changes.

So it does little good to characterize the Iranian regime as just a dictatorship (Arjomand 2009: 4) or as "medieval." It seems to be something else. Culturally, at the root of this lies a conflict over the nature of sovereignty. Traditional, religious regimes historically have insisted that sov­ ereignty was divine, and thus could only be discerned or exercised by religiously legitimated authorities. Most modern democratic states— even constitutional monarchies— tend to view sovereignty as vested in the people (this change owed greatly to the global spread of national identity). The institutional structure of the Iranian state, though, seems to imply a sort

of dual sovereignty of the people and a deity, with the latter (whose will, again, can only be discerned by religious elites) exert­ ing ultimate authority. This set of arrange­ ments is itself a function of the conflictual nature of the process that produced the current regime. Some clerical actors were and are proponents of theocracy. Some other actors are proponents of popular sovereignty. The result is a sort of hybrid.

Many other states had historical peri­ ods in which sovereignty was blurred in this way. Prominent examples might be England in the seventeenth century and Japan after the Meiji Restoration, among many others. This could be taken to give optimism to those who hope for a more democratic Iran. However, we should not assume without further evidence that mixed sovereignty is a stage on a progres­ sive, linear development. The fact that popular sovereignty and fully constitu­ tional governance came to triumph in much of the world does not mean this will necessarily take place in Iran. In the mean­ time, we can only conclude, with Arjomand (2009: 6), that "theocratic government, participatory democracy, and populist social justice" exist in tension in Iran's post-revolutionary regime.

CASE STUDY

Constitutional Design: Theocracy in Iran CHAPTER 8, PAGE 185

In Iran, Muslim clerics have very impor­ tant roles in constitutional interpreta­ tion at the pinnacle of the political system, and indeed at lower levels of

government as well. In this country where powerful clerics act as judges who interpret the constitution, the style of government has been seen as

emblematic of the idea of "theocracy," or rule by a religious hierarchy. To under­ stand how this Islamic Republic works in practice requires an understanding of

Case Studies 477

Constitutional Design: Theocracy in Iran CHAPTER 8, PAGE 185

the mix of “Islamist" and "republican" im­ plicit in the name.

Iran's governing structure was noted earlier in the "Regime and Political Insti­ tutions" section, but we review certain aspects here that illustrate how the power of religious clerics operates. Iran has an elected president and an elected legislature (Majlis), but both are quite weak in certain aspects due to Iran's power structure. At the pinnacle of the political system, above the president, is the Supreme Leader, a cleric who is con­ stitutionally empowered to ensure that Iran is governed in accordance with the principles of the Islamic Revolution. This head cleric appoints the judiciary (which enforces Islamic Shari'a law) and the lead­ ers of the major media outlets, and has the authority to veto presidential candi­ dates and/or remove elected presidents. This rule by religious leaders is but­ tressed by the Guardian Council of twelve clerics, the final authority on most matters. It has considerable powers, in­ cluding a right to veto any law passed by the Majlis and the power to approve or veto any candidate for the presidency or legislature. It thus has more extensive powers than most constitutional courts or supreme courts.

The clerics of the Guardian Council are not directly elected. Instead, six of them are appointed by the Supreme Leader and six are selected by the Majlis, though the six chosen by the latter method are also subject to nomination by the judi­ ciary. In effect, elected politicians and the policies they make are subject to review

by clerics whose powers are judicial in nature, but they also have characteristics of legislative or executive power. The checks on the judiciary are more indirect and come with appointment of new cler­ ics to the posts by political leaders. In a sense, this is similar to life appointments to constitutional courts in other countries: Interpreters of the constitution in coun­ tries such as the United States are ap­ pointed to life terms by the elected branches and are thus supposed to be free from political pressures. In Iran, how­ ever, those who do the appointing are not elected by conventional democratic means, which makes the notion of "checks and balances" more challenging to interpret.

The power of Supreme Leaders has shaped modern Iran. Ayatollah Ali Khame­ nei has been Supreme Leader since 1989 and is the successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the Islamic Revo­ lution that took power in 1979. Both of these Supreme Leaders have adhered to a strict interpretation of Shia' Islam and a conservative political stance that has re­ sisted political reforms. Examples have in­ cluded pushes for a strict adherence to Islamic law, a conservative dress code for women, and intolerance of critiques of the electoral process.

While the theocratic elements of the Iranian regime are prominent, we must not overlook the aspects of Iran's politics that are more "republican"— that is, that relate to elected officials. While elected of­ ficials are circumscribed by the power of the clerics, each elected government has

made its imprint. The former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-2013) was a fiery conservative who adopted a strongly anti-American and anti-Israel for­ eign policy that distinguished his govern­ ment from that of the current president, Hassan Rouhani, who, as noted earlier, is seen as somewhat more reformist. Former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989-1997), seen as a more mainstream conservative by Iranian standards, contin­ ues to wield influence as head of the Expe­ diency Council and chairman of the Assembly of Experts, two bodies noted previously.

Iran is a challenging case that can help observers define the boundaries of what is a democracy and what is not, especially when it comes to the power of unelected officials and the nature of who chooses political leaders and how. From one per­ spective, Islamic countries may plausibly have different political legal systems than countries whose founders were of Euro­ pean origin and still have some features of a constitutional republic or a democracy. From another, basing law on religious texts interpreted by clerics will by defini­ tion constrain rights and liberties to an extent that democracy is not possible. In Iran the judiciary seems to be an espe­ cially powerful branch of government, but the clerics also seem to have powers that go beyond those of a typical judicial branch. There is much to interpret in the question of whether Iran is a theocracy, a republic, or both, and whether it is domi­ nated by the judiciary, the executive, or both.

478 Iran (Islamic Republic of Iran)

Iran's Islamic Revolution and "Green Revolution"?

In 1979 many observers were surprised by the Iranian Revolution. A coalition of actors including secular Marxists, stu­ dents, everyday people, and especially re­ ligious readers like the Ayatollah Khomeini and their followers successfully deposed the Shah who had governed for decades. They then implemented an Islamic revolu­ tionary regime. This case has fascinated scholars of revolution. It seems to prob- lematize structuralist accounts of revolu­ tion, and scholars who seek to explain it have emphasized charismatic leadership (Arjomand 2009) and cultural or ideologi­ cal frames (Foran 2005:80-87; Parsa 2000) alongside structural factors. Indeed, one major theorist argues that social science simply cannot satisfactorily explain the Iranian Revolution (Kurzman 2004). It begs for comparison with other societies in the Muslim world where secular authoritarian dictatorships did not see successful Is­ lamic revolutions (the comparison with Egypt, which became a center of Islamist ideology, is perhaps the most instructive). Scholars have considered a number of po­ tential explanatory factors in this connec­ tion, one of the most promising being the potential political role of the clergy in Shi'ism, whereas Sunni Islam has a tradi­ tion of separation between religious and political leaders. Just the same, this is not a total explanation, since Sunni Islam is cer­ tainly compatible with regimes that legiti­ mate themselves in religious terms and enforce religious law, with Saudi Arabia being just one notable contemporary example.

Ever since the revolution, the Iranian regime has been hard to classify. On one hand, it attempts to use the state's oil wealth to address social issues, and lead­ ers like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad form al­ liances with leaders of the international left, like Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. On the other hand, the regime is staunchly conservative, restricting behaviors it re­ gards as immoral and upholding reli­ gious law, thus appearing to many to be reactionary. As has been noted, a reli­ gious council is the country's ultimate authority. Despite the successful con­ solidation of the revolution and the au­ thoritarian nature of the regime it produced, post- revolutionary Iran has witnessed contention. Over the three decades in which this regime has held power, more moderate "reformers" like Mohammad Khatami have struggled against more radical figures like Ahma­ dinejad. Reformers have pushed for more pluralism, greater freedoms, and less hostile relationships with the West. In the 1990s it looked like they might succeed, but they have since met with persistent setbacks.

In June of 2009 Ahmadinejad was re­ elected as president of Iran. His re-election was denounced as fraudulent by observ­ ers both internationally and in Iran. Pro­ testers engaged in a series of massive street rallies, famously organizing them­ selves, in part, via new social media like Twitter and Facebook. Some began to speak optimistically of these protests as a "Green Revolution" that would usher in a

CHAPTER 12, PAGE 297

less authoritarian, more democratic system. After some hesitation, the state used considerable force to repress these rallies, killing some of the protesters and making it clear that further protests would be met with greater violence. Leaders of the opposition— and some foreigners alleged to be in league with them— were arrested. Resistance to the regime went underground, and so far, at least, no "Green Revolution" has taken place. Scholars are still trying to sort out all of the reasons why the revolt was, ulti­ mately unsuccessful.

Some would stress the continued strength of the Iranian state, arguing that so long as a state is willing to violently re­ press protests and is capable of doing so, proponents of social change have little hope. Others argue that the lack of con­ crete international support doomed the protesters. Still others suggest that the protesters were only one among several major groups in the society and that the regime still has many supporters. Two key recent factors that add to the complicated prospects for collective action are the 2013 election of the more reformist Rou- hani and the drop in global oil prices. If the latter continues indefinitely this could put pressure on the regime. The successes and failures of revolutions and social movements such as those in Iran are the subject of major debates, and indeed in the wake of the "Arab Spring," a process the Iranian regime has found worrisome, interest in these questions has only increased.

Case Studies 479

CASE STUDY

Gender in Post-Revolutionary Iranian Politics CHAPTER 14, PAGE 334

Iranian society is notorious for gender inequality. It was hardly an egalitarian society in this respect before the 1979 revolution, and for most of the post­ revolutionary period religious elites have favored policies and views that many would consider discriminatory. The con­ sequence and legacies of this show up clearly in the quantitative data. In terms of women's political representation in the legislature, Iran is near the bottom, ranked 134th internationally with 3.1 percent of seats in the Majlis held by women (Inter­ parliamentary Union 2015). Similarly, its global Gender Empowerment Measure rank has the country in the 103rd position. The World Economic Forum's Gender Gap Index ranks Iran 123rd (out of 134). The country scores particularly badly in terms of "economic participation and opportu­ nity" and "political empowerment." Iran's performance in terms of gender equality/ inequality in the areas of “educational at­ tainment" and "health and survival"— the

other main components of the index— are also poor, though not as bad as the first two (Hausmann, Tyson, and Zahidi 2010: 164-165). Moreover, feminist activ­ ists have been repressed (Haeri 2009: 125-126).

At the same time, some scholars have argued that the picture is more compli­ cated than these data suggest. Ziba Mir- Hosseini (1999) has argued that in some areas women's participation in public life has improved, notably in the educational system, and particularly in universities. Mir-Hosseini (1999: 7) points out that this may even be a function of religious tradi­ tionalism in a certain sense, since "the en­ forcement of hejab became a catalyst... by making public space morally correct in the eyes of traditionalist families, it legiti­ mated women's public presence." In recent years, females are near parity with males in terms of primary and secondary educational enrollment, and women's en­ rollment in tertiary education exceeds that

of men (Hausmann et al. 2010: 165). Mir- Hosseini further points to more gender- centered and even feminist trends in some areas of intellectual, cultural, and institu­ tional life under the post-revolutionary regime, such as changes in divorce laws after 1992 and even the appointment of some female judges (1999:7-8). Moreover, Shahla Haeri (2009) stresses an incipient women's movement in Iran, suggesting that expanding women's participation helped to fuel the reform agenda during the Khatami presidency and that women continue to organize.

Nobody would argue that the post­ revolutionary regime in Iran is a feminist one, just as no proponent of liberal de­ mocracy would argue that Iran in 2015 is a democratic society. However, scholars remind us that beneath repressive sur­ faces, women and others work to expand women's rights in even the most difficult of circumstances.

CASE STUDY

Religion and Politics in Iran

Iran is a very interesting case to contrast with France with respect to the question of religion and politics. Like much of the Is­ lamic world, Iran saw the rise of a twentieth- century regime that embraced secular nationalism. The Shah's regime constructed historical memories about the great Persian civilization of the past and tried to marginal­ ize Islam. The government of the Shah re­ pressed religious leaders it considered a

threat. In short, the Shah's regime aimed to conduct itself in accord with Western- derived notions of secular modernity (and, indeed, with the concrete backing of West­ ern powers). In this it was roughly parallel to modernization in many predominantly Sunni parts of the Islamic World: In places like Egypt, Iraq, and Syria, secular nationalist regimes predominated (for comparative discussion, see Moaddel 2005).

CHAPTER 15, PAGE 360

In many Muslim-majority countries, these secular-nationalist regimes were met with religiously organized resistance (Juergensmeyer 1993), though in most of the Islamic world this resistance was not successful in its ultimate objective of taking power. In Iran, this resistance was successful, and a religious regime cap­ tured the state in the revolution of 1979. Comparative analysts have debated the

480 Iran (Islamic Republic of Iran)

CASE STUDY (continued)

Religion and Politics in Iran CHAPTER 15, PAGE 360

best explanation for the success of reli­ gious actors in Iran, but one of the most convincing theories is that Shi'a, rather than Sunni, Islam is dominant in Iran, and the clergy is historically more powerful and independent in Shi'a Islam, facilitating their serving as political actors in the revo­ lution. While this is not a total explana­ tion— the presence of a strong clergy is not a necessary and sufficient condition

for successful revolution— analysts be­ lieve that it helps us to understand why successful religious revolution might have been more likely in Iran.

The revolution produced a religious state that is nevertheless modern. Con­ temporary Iran is a highly differentiated society with extensive enrollment in higher education, a complex state, and many of the other features we would

typically consider key to modernity. But the state is understood to be legitimated in religious terms and to ultimately serve religious ends. As discussed in chapter 15 a number of scholars now argue that Western secular modernity is only one of a number of possible varieties. Modern Iran is a case in point. While some media depictions present it as a “backward" soci­ ety, this is potentially deceiving.

and the Politics of Nuclear Proliferation CHAPTER 16, PAGE 389

Iran has a foreign policy that puts it in conflict with that of the United States, and the two countries have been in heated diplomatic conflict for years over Iran's “nuclear ambitions" and its apparent desire to develop a nuclear weapon. One leading American concern is that Iran will target its regional neighbor Israel, a key American ally in the volatile Middle East. Along with the United States, several other countries also hope to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons tech­ nology. Iran claims to be developing its nuclear technology for peaceful purposes and as an energy source, but international observers are skeptical of this claim and have urged Iran to stop processing radio­ active material for nuclear fuel. The coun­ try is thus at the forefront of contemporary debates about foreign policy and the question of nuclear proliferation, and thus serves as a useful illustration of some of

the leading dilemmas in international relations.

For those hoping to prevent nuclear proliferation, one of the central chal­ lenges is preventing new countries from attaining nuclear weapons when they may have real incentives to develop them. Why would a country wish to have nu­ clear weapons? One simple answer of long standing in international relations theory is that the country thinks it will be more secure with nuclear weapons than it was without them. Applied to the case of Iran, it may believe it can deter an Ameri­ can or Israeli attack if Iran has a nuclear weapon it can use in retaliation. There may also be domestic reasons for building nuclear weapons, such as if the public, the military, and the energy industry push for it, for example (Sagan 1996). In normative terms, those seeking nuclear technology also note a double standard among those

who have nuclear weapons yet seek to deny others the right to develop them.

Other actors— especially the United States and Israel— have sought to compel Iran to cease its advancement toward nuclear status. They have threatened and implemented economic sanctions against Iran. This may have some effect, but it may also be of limited consequence if the countries already had limited eco­ nomic interactions, and it may end up hurting the population at large rather than the government. Attempts at "smart sanctions" that target a country's leader­ ship (and their bank accounts and ability to travel, for example) are an alternative, but most sanctions are only effective if they are supported by all major countries in the region and in the world economy. In 2012, other countries ranging from those of the EU to India placed growing pressure on Iran. More directly, countries

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Iran and the Politics of Nuclear Proliferation CHAPTER 16, PAGE 389

such as Israel and the United States can threaten military action against Iran, but this has major consequences for the at­ tacking country, including loss of life, risk of retaliation, and economic and political costs to the government. On the other hand, inaction may see Iran move ever closer to nuclear status. In other words, there is no clear and obvious solution among the options to punish a country seeking nuclear weapons.

Major powers could offer incentives to Iran to give up its program, and as of 2015,

the United States, Iran, and other interna­ tional actors reached a tentative agreement to establish an inspections system. Of course, if a country gains such preferential treatment from attempts to build nuclear weapons, then this provides an incentive to pursue the technology. Another dilemma is that nuclear proliferation among some countries makes other countries feel they require nuclear weapons. For example, when China acquired a nuclear weapon, this furthered India's incentives to "get the bomb," and when India did so, then Pakistan

felt the need to do so as well. Similarly, with Israel widely presumed to be a nuclear power, Iran may feel it requires the weapons due to the security dilemma it faces.

The resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue is uncertain, but the nature of these considerations illustrates some of the les­ sons of game theory, which is used to un­ derstand the decisions made by actors when they are in strategic interaction with one another: The decisions of each actor are shaped by their incentives and by what the other actors do.

Research Prompts 1. Do some background reading on the Iranian revolution and on

Egypt, and compare Iranian society in politics on the eve of the revolution to the society and politics of Egypt in the same period. Can you come up with a theory of why a revolution took place in Iran but not in Egypt at that time? How might you go about testing your theory? Now bring Turkey into the mix.

2. Compare the "Green Revolution” in Iran to the Arab Spring movements discussed in the "Thinking Comparatively" section at the end of chapter 12. How does this case fit into the com­ parative framework discussed there?

3. Chapter 6 on democracy and regimes discusses the conceptual­ ization of democracy and democratization at great length. As discussed here, Iran is a complex case in this connection.

To what extent do you judge contemporary Iran to be a demo­ cratic society? What does Iran suggest about the general rela­ tionship between authoritarianism and democracy in modern societies?

4. Iran is a major oil producer and exporter. How do you think this has impacted Iran's political history in recent decades? Did Iran's status as an oil producer increase the likelihood of a revo­ lution taking place against the Shah or reduce that likelihood? And has it been an aid ora hindrance in the efforts of the revo­ lutionary and post-revolutionary regime to consolidate its gains?

5. Is Iran a traditional society or a modern society? Or does the country give us reason to question this binary pair?

482

Japan PROFILE Key Features of C o n te m p o r a ry Ja p a n

Population: 127,103,388 (estimate, 2014)

Area: 377,915 sq km

Head of State: Emperor Akihito (1989-present)

Head of Government: Shinzo Abe (prime minister, 2012-present)

Capital: Tokyo

Year of Independence: Never formally colonized, though occupied by the Allies after World War II

Year of Current Constitution: 1947

Languages: Japanese

GDP per Capita: $38,634 (World Bank estimate, 2013)

Human Development Index Ranking (2014):

17th (very high human development)

Sources: CIA World Factbook; World Bank World Development Indicators; United Nations Human Development Report 2014.

Introduction Japan has long been a country of interest to comparative political analysts working on modernization processes. This is because Japan was, in many ways, the first non- Western society to “modernize,” in the sense of developing a growth-oriented, industrial economy, a modern state, a modern national identity, and system of social stratification based predominantly on economic class rather than ascriptive status-group membership. Japan’s culture had been largely insular—as a matter of official policy—for several centu­ ries until the middle of the nineteenth cen­ tury. However, in the closing decades of the nineteenth century and throughout the first part of the twentieth century it achieved dramatic social transformation, becoming a modern state almost overnight. Scholars have long been intrigued by this pattern. On one hand it is intrinsically interesting from an intellectual point of view. On the other hand, many have hoped that Japan would hold the key to development that other na­ tions could follow. Indeed, many of the “Asian Tigers” that achieved economic mod­ ernization in recent decades took several pages from Japan’s playbook.

■ Japanese 98.5% Korean 0.5% C hinese 0.4%

I O th er 0.6%

Ethnic Groups in Japan Source: CIA World Factbook

Shintoism 83.9%

B uddhism 71.4%

O th e r 7.8%

C hristianity 2%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Religious Affiliation in Japan Note that according to these data the m ajority of the Japanese population adheres to both Shintoism and Buddhism, exceeding 100 percent. Source: CIA World Factbook.

Profile 483

Yellow Sea

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East China o ^ Sea

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SHIKOKU

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J a p a n ’s g e o g ra p h y o n ly a d d s to th e in te r e s t o f th is case. J a p a n is n o t e sp e c ia lly r e s o u rc e -ric h , a n d its la n d is n o t a b u n d a n t re la tiv e to its m o d e r n p o p u la tio n . A s su c h , w h e n th e J a p a n e s e e c o n o m y m o d e r n iz e d , th e sta te lo o k e d a b ro a d i n its se a rc h fo r n a tu r a l re so u rc e s, o n e o f th e p r in c ip a l fac­ to rs le a d in g to th e c o u n tr y ’s d is a s tro u s in v o lv e m e n t in th e S e c o n d W o rld W a r ( N a k a m u r a [1988] 2 0 0 8 : 4 8 5 ). J a p a n is sm a ll in re la tiv e te rm s , a series o f m o s tly m o u n ta in o u s is ­ la n d s . T h is im p a c te d th e c o u n tr y ’s e a rly d e v e lo p m e n t in i m p o r ta n t w ays, h e lp in g to p r o te c t it fro m c o n s ta n t th r e a t o fin v a s io n ( G o rd o n 2 0 0 9 : 3 - 4 ) a n d a id in g in th e T o k u g a w a e ffo rts to m a in ta in c u ltu r a l is o la tio n . I t h a s also m e a n t t h a t J a p a n h a s fa c e d u n iq u e p ro b le m s w i t h la n d sc a rc ity as its p o p u la tio n h a s g ro w n .

J a p a n is la rg e ly e th n ic a lly h o m o g e n e o u s , th o u g h n o t e n ­ tire ly so. A c c o rd in g to t h e C I A W o r ld F a c tb o o k , 9 8 .5 p e r­ c e n t o f th e p o p u la tio n is e th n ic a lly J a p a n e se . P e rh a p s n o t su rp risin g ly , m o s t s tu d e n ts o f J a p a n e s e n a tio n a l i d e n t ity

Historical Development J a p a n w as g o v e rn e d fro m th e b e g in n in g o f t h e s e v e n te e n th c e n tu r y u n t il 186 8 b y t h e T o k u g a w a re g im e , s o m e tim e s r e ­ fe rre d to as th e T o k u g a w a sh o g u n a te . T h is w a s a n o lig a r­ c h ic a l sy ste m in w h ic h th e u p p e r n o b ility (o r D a im y o ) d isp la c e d th e e m p e ro r a n d g o v e rn e d th r o u g h a m ilita r y le a d e r (sh o g u n ) a n d h is sta te (k n o w n as th e B a k u fu ). A c h a ra c te ris tic fe a tu re o f T o k u g a w a J a p a n w a s its c lo se d n e ss to th e re s t o f th e w o rld , a n d to th e W e s t in p a rtic u la r. T o k u g a w a J a p a n w a s a n e s s e n tia lly a g r ic u ltu r a l s o c ie ty w i t h a la rg e p e a s a n t class, a re la tiv e ly la rg e m ili ta r y n o b ility (th e S a m u ra i), a n d a sm a lle r u p p e r n o b ility (th e a fo re m e n ­ tio n e d D a im y o ). T he r e la tio n s h ip s b e tw e e n th e s e g ro u p s w e re su p e rfic ia lly s im ila r to th e fe u d a l a r ra n g e m e n ts t h a t p re v a ile d in m e d ie v a l E u ro p e . A s i n fe u d a l E u r o p e , c o m ­ m erc e w a s n o t a h ig h ly r e g a rd e d a c tiv ity a n d w a s e s se n tia lly to le ra te d as n e ce ssa ry : P a in s w e re ta k e n to a v oid tr a d in g w i t h o t h e r so c ieties. S ta tu s d is tin c tio n s w e re r ig id a n d l in k e d to d iffe re n c e s in p o litic a l a n d p e r s o n a l rig h ts .

T h is a ll b e g a n t o c h a n g e b y t h e m id d le o f th e n i n e te e n th c e n tu r y (G o r d o n 2 0 0 9 : 2 2 ). E u r o p e a n p o w e rs h a d ex­ p a n d e d t h e i r c o lo n ia l a d v e n tu re s in A s ia . I n d ia w a s b e c o m ­ in g m o re fo rm a lly c o lo n iz e d t h a n e v e r b e fo re , a n d fo re ig n p o w e rs in te rv e n e d d e cisively in C h in a , in p a r tic u la r d u r in g th e tw o “o p iu m w a rs .” E u r o p e a n so c ieties s o u g h t so u rc es o f m a te ria ls b u t a lso m a rk e ts fo r t h e sale o f th e i r g o o d s . W h il e J a p a n w a s n o t c o lo n iz e d , fo re ig n p o w e rs b e g a n to p re ssu re

n o te t h a t t h e J a p a n e s e n a ti o n te n d s to d e fin e its b o u n d a rie s in e th n ic r a th e r t h a n civic te rm s . I n th e re lig io u s field, so m e c a u tio n is i n o rd e r w h e n c o m p a rin g J a p a n (lik e C h in a ) to so m e o f o u r o t h e r cases. W e s te r n p o p u la tio n s t e n d to v ie w re lig io u s a ffilia tio n as m u tu a lly exclusive. N o t all E a s te r n re lig io n s necessarily see t h in g s th is w a y (th o u g h so m e d o , a n d th e r e a re re lig io u s cla sh e s in A s ia n c o u n trie s as w ell). H o w e v e r, re lig io n s lik e B u d d h is m , S h in to is m , o r C o n f u c ia n is m c a n s o m e tim e s c o e x ist w ith o th e rs e v en in t h e a lle g ia n c e o f a sin g le i n d iv id u a l b e c a u se th e s e re lig io n s h a v e m o re r itu a lis tic r a th e r t h a n c re e d a l te n d e n c ie s (th o u g h w e w o u ld n o t w is h to e x a g g e ra te th e e x te n t o f th is d iffe r­ e n ce in te n d e n c y ). I n o t h e r w o rd s , so m e v a rie tie s o f th e s e r e lig io n s a re less fo c u se d o n th e c o n te n t o f th e o lo g ic a l b e li e f t h a n o n a series o f v a lu e s a n d p ra c tic e s. T h u s y o u w ill n o tic e in t h e re lig io u s a ffilia tio n c h a r t t h a t , a c c o rd in g to a t le a s t o n e so u rc e , m a jo ritie s o f t h e J a p a n e s e p o p u la tio n c la im a ffilia tio n w i t h b o t h B u d d h is m a n d S h in to is m .

i t to o p e n to tra d e . F o r a w h ile it re s is te d , b u t d e sp ite th e c o u n tr y ’s p ro u d m a r t ia l t r a d itio n s , it w a s c le a r w h e n C o m ­ m o d o re M a t t h e w P e r r y sa ile d in to J a p a n e s e w a te rs in 1853 a n d 1 854 t h a t J a p a n c o u ld n o t m a tc h th e W e s t ’s m ilita r y t e c h n o lo g y ( G o r d o n 2 0 0 9 : 4 9 - 5 0 ) . T h e T o k u g a w a g o v ­ e r n m e n t r e lu c ta n tly a n d slo w ly o p e n e d to W e s te r n tr a d e . T h is w a s d a m a g in g to t h e i r in te re s ts in se v e ra l w ays. F ir s t, g re a te r o p e n n e s s m e a n t m o re access to n e w id ea s, lik e d e m o c rac y , c o n s titu tio n a l m o n a rc h y , a n d n a tio n a lis m ( G re e n fe ld 2 0 0 1 ). S e c o n d , th e s e id ea s se e m e d to b e l in k e d to c a p a c itie s t h a t th e J a p a n e s e sta te la c k e d . F in a lly , c a p itu ­ la tin g to W e s te r n d e m a n d s su g g e s te d w e a k n e s s , w h ic h is alw ays b a d fo r a sta te b u t w a s lik e ly e sp e c ia lly so fo r a sta te fo r w h o m t h e m ili ta r y n o b ility w a s so im p o r t a n t. I t d id n o t ta k e lo n g fo r d is c o n te n t to s p re a d . A s c u ltu r a l o r fr a m in g th e o r is ts o f re v o lu tio n w o u ld n o te , t h e to p p le d e m p e ro r r e ­ m a in e d as a n a lte rn a te o b je c t o f lo y a lty to th o s e d issa tis fie d w i th th e T o k u g a w a re g im e . R a d ic a liz e d a n d tr a d itio n a l a c to rs a lik e c a m e to see th e e m p e ro r as a p o te n tia lly u n if y ­ in g fig u re . F o r th e t r a d itio n a lis ts , th e r e tu r n t o a sta te b a s e d o n t h e e m p e ro r w a s p re s e n te d as a “r e s to ra tio n ,” in th is in ­ sta n c e th e “M e iji R e s to ra tio n ” o f 1 868. T h e n e x t se v e ra l d e c a d e s w e re s o m e w h a t tu m u l tu o u s , as th e n e w re g im e u n ­ ra v e le d J a p a n ’s se m i-fe u d a l sy s te m ( G o r d o n 2 0 0 9 : 6 2 - 6 4 ) a n d b e g a n b u ild in g a m o d e r n s ta te . T h e re w a s a m a rk e d t u r n to w a r d W e s te r n le a r n in g , a n d a g ro w in g p u s h fo r

Profile 485

m o re p o p u la r re sp o n siv e n e ss o n th e p a r t o f th e g o v e rn ­ m e n t. T h e M e iji c o n s titu tio n w a s p a s s e d in 1889. B y

m o d e r n s ta n d a rd s , th is w a s n o t a n e sp e c ia lly d e m o c ra tic d o c u m e n t, w i t h o n ly a tin y fra c tio n o f th e p o p u la tio n e li­ g ib le to v o te ( G o rd o n 2 0 0 9 : 91, 1 2 5 ) a n d g iv e n t h a t it

d e c la re d th e e m p e ro r t o b e u ltim a te ly so v e re ig n ( M ita n i [1988] 2 0 0 8 : 59). S u b s e q u e n t d e m o c r a tiz a tio n w a s y e t to c o m e , a n d u n iv e rs a l su ffra g e (in c lu d in g t h e v o te f o r w o m e n ) w o u ld n o t b e e sta b lis h e d u n t il a fte r W o r ld W a r I I .

Historical Development T i m e l i n e

1600-1868 Tokugawa regime 1941-1945 War in the Pacific, with Japan fighting U.S. and 1853 Commodore Perry (from the United States) arrives,

demanding that Japan open itself to trade with other Allies on islands, atolls, and in regions from the Philippines to near Japanese coastline.

the West. 1945 The United States drops atomic bombs on 1867-1868 Meiji Restoration, which is ostensibly conservative Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Japan surrenders.

but which will produce a program of moderniza­ 1947 Constitution of 1947 is proclaimed, re-establishing tion and Westernization. democracy, and including women's suffrage.

1870-1873 Major reforms 1953-1970S "Japanese Miracle," a period of dramatic economic 1877 Satsuma revolt expansion 1889 Meiji Constitution, which establishes constitutional 1991-2001 Economic crisis and the “Lost Decade"

monarchy and limited parliamentary system 1993-1994 LDP briefly loses power but remains the largest 1890 Elections held under the Meiji Constitution party in Diet; coalition government initiates elec­ 1894-1895 Sino-Japanese War; Japan occupies Taiwan by 1895. toral reforms. 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War 1995 Aum Shinrikyo cult/terror organization releases 1910 Japan colonizes Korea, signifying expansionist

phase of Japanese Empire deadly sarin gas in Tokyo subway; thirteen people are killed and many more are injured or

1914-1918 Japan is a combatant in the First World War, allied incapacitated. with Britain, France, the United States, and Russia. 2009 LDP loses control of government as DPJ wins gen­

1923 Japan suffers the deadliest earthquake in its history. eral election. 1931 Japan invades Manchuria on Chinese mainland,

establishes Manchukuo government. 2011 Massive earthquake and resulting tsunami results

in over 15,000 deaths and reactor meltdowns at the 1937-1941 Second Sino-Japanese War Fukushima nuclear power plant. 1941 Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor begins Japan's

involvement in the Second World War, on the side of Axis powers Germany and Italy.

2012 Shinzo Abe elected Prime Minister as LDP regains control of government.

J a p a n w e n t th r o u g h m a n y s tr ik in g c h a n g e s in th e p e rio d fro m th e 1 8 8 0 s to th e S e c o n d W o r ld W a r , m o d e r n iz in g its econom y, society, a n d sta te . T h e c o u n tr y tr a n s f o rm e d its so c ial s tru c tu r e b y d o in g aw ay w i th s a m u ra i s ta tu s d iffe r­ e n c e s a n d b u i l t a m o d e r n s ta te ( G o r d o n 2 0 0 9 : 6 4 - 6 6 ) . I t a ls o b e g a n to a c h ie v e ra p id e c o n o m ic d e v e lo p m e n t ( C ra w c o u r 2 0 0 8 : 3 8 6 - 3 8 7 ) d u r in g a n d a fte r th e F ir s t W o r ld W a r. I n th e sa m e p e rio d , fro m 189 0 to 1910, J a p a n b e g a n to flex its m ilita r y m u sc le o u tw a r d in A s ia . I t firs t w o n a m a jo r w a r a g a in s t C h in a (1 8 9 4 -1 8 9 5 ) a n d c la im e d p re s e n t-d a y T a iw a n as a colony. I t t h e n w o n a w a r w it h

R u ssia (1 9 0 4 -1 9 0 5 ) a n d la te r c la im e d K o re a as colony (1910), a m o n g m a n y o th e r isla n d s a n d te rrito rie s . I n a m a tte r o f d e c a d e s th e c o u n tr y m o v e d fro m b e in g a p r e d o m in a n tly a g ric u ltu r a l so c ie ty to b e in g o n e o f t h e w o rld ’s m a jo r e c o ­ n o m ic a n d m ilita r y p o w e rs.

A d is tin g u is h in g fe a tu re o f th is p ro c e ss w a s th e s tro n g ro le t h a t t h e sta te p la y e d in a llo c a tin g c a p ita l fo r p ro d u c tiv e u se as i t i n d u s tr ia liz e d . T h e sta te o w n e d o r c o n tro lle d m a n y firm s , a n d th e sta te l in k e d i ts e l f to p riv a te firm s t h a t r e ­ c eiv ed sta te a s s is ta n c e i n a c c e ssin g c a p ita l a n d i n o t h e r w ays (C ra w c o u r 2 0 0 8 : 414). I n so m e a re a s, lik e h e a v y in d u stry ,

486 Japan

th e sta te m a i n ta in e d its in v o lv e m e n t fo r s tra te g ic re a so n s ev en t h o u g h it to o k d e c a d e s to a c h ie v e p ro fita b ility (C ra w - c o u r 2 0 0 8 : 4 2 2 , 4 3 5 ). T h e sta te also p la y e d a n i m p o r t a n t role in th e d e v e lo p m e n t o f ra ilw a y s, J a p a n e s e sh ip p in g , a n d o t h e r in f r a s tr u c tu r a l d e v e lo p m e n ts (C ra w c o u r 2 0 0 8 : 3 9 3 - 399) as w e ll as th r o u g h c r e a tin g a sy s te m o f c o m m e rc ia l law (G o rd o n 2 0 0 9 : 95), a fa c to r t h a t i n s titu tio n a l e c o n o m ists w o u ld e m p h a s iz e (e.g., N o r t h 1990). T h e J a p a n e s e e c o n o m y to o k o f f d u r in g W o rld W a r I b e c a u se J a p a n e s e p ro d u c e rs fo r e x p o r t c o u ld ta k e a d v a n ta g e o f th e d is r u p tio n o f e x ist­ in g su p p ly c h a in s to access m a rk e ts . E c o n o m ic h is to ria n s c o n s id e r J a p a n e s e e c o n o m ic p e rfo rm a n c e to h ave b e e n s tro n g in re la tiv e te rm s th r o u g h o u t n o t j u s t t h e 1 920s b u t also th e 1 930s, t h o u g h th e c o u n tr y d i d e x p e rie n c e f r e q u e n t fin a n c ia l c rises, a n d th e e ffects o f t h e G r e a t D e p re s s io n w e re n o ta b le ( N a k a m u r a [1988] 2 0 0 8 ).

Ja p a n e s e e c o n o m ic a n d m ilita r y e x p a n s io n to o k p lace u n d e r a n in c re a s in g ly a g g ressiv e, m ilita r is tic , a n d n a tio n a l­ istic re g im e . J a p a n in v a d e d M a n c h u r ia o n th e C h in e s e m a in la n d in 1931 a n d a tte m p t e d to e s ta b lis h c o n tro l o f m u c h o f th e P a c ific in su b s e q u e n t y e a rs. W h e n W o r ld W a r I I c a m e a b o u t, J a p a n a llie d w i t h N a z i G e r m a n y a n d fa sc is t Italy. I n 1941, J a p a n ’s a tt a c k o n P e a rl H a r b o r , H a w a ii, b ro u g h t th e U n ite d S ta te s in to th e w a r t h a t h a d b e g u n in 1939. A f t e r m o re t h a n th r e e y e ars o f t o ta l w a r f o u g h t across th e P a c ific O c e a n , A m e r ic a n forces c lo s e d in o n J a p a n a n d p re p a re d fo r in v asio n . I n 1945, h o w e v er, A m e r ic a n forces e sta b lis h e d a ir s u p re m a c y o ver J a p a n a n d f ire b o m b e d T o k y o a n d o t h e r J a p a n e s e c itie s , le a v in g h u n d r e d s o f t h o u s a n d s d e a d . P r e s i d e n t H a r r y T r u m a n t h e n a u th o r i z e d th e d r o p p i n g o f t w o a to m ic b o m b s o n th e J a p a n e s e c itie s o f H i r o s h i m a a n d N a g a s a k i o n A u g u s t 6 a n d 9, 1945. J a p a n s u rre n d e re d six d ays later.

A f te r th e tra g e d ie s o f W o r ld W a r I I , J a p a n b e g a n e c o ­ n o m ic a n d p o litic a l re c o n s tr u c tio n u n d e r A m e r ic a n - le d A ll ie d m ili ta r y o c c u p a tio n u n t i l 1952. A la s tin g im p a c t o f p o s t-w a r re c o n s tr u c tio n w as th e b e g in n in g o f J a p a n ’s r e ­ m a rk a b le e c o n o m ic p e rfo rm a n c e ; it is e s tim a te d t h a t th e J a p a n e se e c o n o m y g r e w a t t h e tre m e n d o u s ra te o f a lm o s t 10 p e rc e n t p e r y e a r b e tw e e n 1945 a n d 1973 (K o sa i 2 0 0 8 : 494). A g a in , th e sta te p la y e d a la rg e role in t h e eco n o m y : A s J a p a n re c o v e re d fro m th e w a r, th e g o v e rn m e n t stra te g ic a lly s u p p o rte d th e r e d e v e lo p m e n t o f th e c o al a n d ste el in d u s ­ trie s , u tiliz in g th e s o -c a lle d “p r io r ity p ro d u c tio n m e t h o d ” (K o sai 2 0 0 8 : 5 0 0 —501). T h e s ta te , in c o o p e ra tio n w i t h p r i­ v a te e n te rp ris e , la te r im p le m e n te d “r a tio n a liz a tio n p la n s ” fo r k e y i n d u s trie s (K o sa i 2 0 0 8 : 5 1 6 -5 1 8 ). B e g in n in g in th e

e arly 1 9 6 0 s, t h e g o v e rn m e n t re la x e d r e g u la tio n s o n fo re ig n tr a d e , w h ic h h e lp e d J a p a n e s e e x p o rts in t h e ir su b s e q u e n t b o o m (K o sa i 2 0 0 8 : 5 2 2 -5 2 7 ).

D e m o c r a tiz a tio n p ro g re s s e d a lo n g w i t h e c o n o m ic g r o w th in th e y e a rs d u r in g a n d a f te r t h e A l lie d o c c u p a tio n , w i t h a series o f n e w c o n s titu tio n a l g u a ra n te e s in th e c o n s ti­ tu ti o n o f 1947 (F u k u i [1998] 2 0 0 8 : 156). T h is o w e d b o t h to th e o c c u p a tio n a u th o ritie s i n s is tin g o n d e m o c r a tiz a tio n and to J a p a n e s e e ffo rts. J a p a n ’s d e m o c r a tiz a tio n o v e r th is p e rio d a lso m ay b e d u e to th e J a p a n e s e e c o n o m ic success o f th e p o s t- w a r y ears: A s a n u m b e r o f th e o rie s in c h a p te r 6 w o u ld su g g e s t, s tr o n g e c o n o m ic g r o w th a n d th e e m e rg e n c e a n d d e v e lo p m e n t o f a m id d le class, w h ic h c le a rly t o o k p lac e in p o s t- w a r J a p a n (F u k u i [1998] 2 0 0 8 : 2 0 4 ), a re a sso c ia te d w i t h d e m o c ra tic c o n so lid a tio n . O n e la s tin g a s p e c t o f th e p e a c e w a s a c o n s titu tio n a l c o m m itm e n t n o t to d e p lo y its m il ita r y overseas.

P o s t-w a r J a p a n b e c a m e a d e m o c rac y , a lb e it o n e w it h a n o ta b le lim ita tio n : I t w a s d o m in a te d b y a sin g le p a rty , th e L ib e r a l D e m o c r a tic P a r t y o f J a p a n ( L D P ) fo r m o s t o f th e p o s t- w a r p e r io d . T h e L D P ’s h e g e m o n y is a b it m o re c o m ­ p lex t h a n i t a p p e a rs a t firs t g la n c e , a n d th is w a s n o t sim p ly a s in g le - p a r ty sy ste m . D u r i n g th e e arly y e ars a f te r A l lie d o c c u p a tio n , a m u l t i p a r t y s y s te m d e v e lo p e d , b u t b y th e 1 9 6 0 s t h e L D P h a d c o m e to w i n m a j o r ity g o v e r n m e n ts c o n siste n tly . J a p a n w a s s till te c h n ic a lly a p lu ra lis tic a n d c o m p e titiv e p o litic a l e n v iro n m e n t, b u t th e L D P m a n a g e d to d e fe a t its (so c ia list a n d o th e r) o p p o n e n ts a n d to re g u la rly w i n leg isla tiv e m a jo ritie s , th u s n o t n e e d in g to fo rm c o a li­ tio n s . M a n y c o m m e n ta to rs a n d c itiz e n s fe lt t h a t th is r e ­ d u c e d re sp o n siv e n ess to c itiz e n c oncerns. A system de v elo p ed in w h ic h r e p re s e n ta tiv e s e sta b lis h e d lo c a l tie s a n d w o rk e d to e n h a n c e th e in te re s ts o f lo c a l c o n s titu e n c ie s , o r g a n iz e d p a r tia l ly th r o u g h exclusive se ts o f so c ia l n e tw o rk s c a lle d koenkai (K a b a s h im a a n d S te e l 2 0 1 0 : 3 - 4 , 1 5 -1 7 ). T h is w as, m a n y a n a ly sts b e lie v e, r e in fo rc e d b y J a p a n ’s e le c to ra l sy s te m , as d is c u s s e d in th e c h a p te r 11 case study. I n J a p a n ’s s y s te m , v o te rs v o te d fo r o n e in d iv id u a l w i t h in a d i s tr ic t, b u t o f te n m u ltip le L D P c a n d id a te s w e re r u n n i n g w i t h in th e d is tr ic t. T o d iffe re n tia te th e m se lv e s fro m o th e r L D P c a n d i­ d a te s, p o litic ia n s s o m e tim e s t u r n e d to p e rs o n a l n e tw o rk s a n d e v en c o r ru p tio n (K a b a s h im a a n d S te e l 2 0 1 0 : 1 5 -1 7 ). T h is le d to c o m p le x fa c tio n a lis m a n d d iv is io n s w i t h in th e L D P . W h il e th e L D P e x e rte d n e a r h e g e m o n y f o r d e c a d e s , th e y o c c a sio n a lly h a d to fo rm c o a litio n g o v e rn m e n ts as w e ll, a n d th e D e m o c r a tic P a r t y o f J a p a n (D J P ) i n p a r tic u la r r e m a in e d a n e le c to ra l adversary.

Profile 487

B e g in n in g in th e la te 1 9 8 0 s, it b e c a m e c le a r t h a t th e L D P ’s g rip o n p o w e r w a s w e a k e n in g , a n d it h a d to fo rm

c o a litio n s to g o v e rn i n t h e 1 9 9 0 s as m a n y v o te rs b e c a m e d is e n c h a n te d w it h p a r tie s m o re g e n e ra lly (L e B la n c 1999: 5). T h e p a r ty fe ll o u t o f p o w e r b rie fly in 1 9 9 3 -1 9 9 4 , th o u g h i t re m a in e d t h e la rg e s t p a r t y in th e D ie t. D u r i n g t h e 1 9 9 0 s, d iffic u ltie s a n d fru s tr a tio n s m o u n te d as th e c o u n tr y e x p e ri­ e n c e d fin a n c ia l c risis a n d a p ro lo n g e d p e r io d o f s ta g n a tio n . S o m e h a v e su g g e s te d t h a t th is e n d e d t h e i m p lic it b a r g a in in J a p a n ’s p o s t- w a r d e m o c rac y , in w h ic h th e L D P g o v e rn ­ m e n ts w e re c o n tin u a lly r e tu r n e d to p o w e r in e x c h a n g e for su s ta in e d e c o n o m ic g ro w th .

A n o t h e r fa c to r in t h e L D P ’s lo n g d o m in a n c e w a s th e f r a g m e n ta tio n o f th e o p p o s itio n , b u t th is w a s fin a lly o ver­ c o m e w h e n th e D J P to o k o ver th e g o v e r n m e n t a fte r a r e ­ s o u n d in g w i n i n e le c tio n s in 2 0 0 9 . F ro m th e p o i n t o f v iew o f so m e d e m o c ra tic th e o r is ts , a lte rn a tio n in p o w e r c o n s ti­ t u te s a n a d v a n c e , as i t su g g e s ts th e p o s s ib ility o f in c re a s e d p lu ra lis m a n d c o m p e titio n . I n 2 0 1 2 , th e L D P r e tu r n e d to p o w e r a n d , as o f th is w r it in g , it h a s re m a in e d th e r e since, th o u g h lik e w i t h th e P R I i n M e x ic o fe w se e m to e x p e c t it to r e tu r n to th e level o f d o m in a n c e i t o n c e e x e rte d .

Regime and Political Institutions J a p a n h a s a p a r lia m e n ta r y sy ste m w i t h a c e re m o n ia l e m ­ p e ro r. T h e b ic a m e ra l p a r lia m e n t h a s a lo w e r c h a m b e r in w h ic h 3 0 0 o f 4 8 0 seats a re e le c te d b y d is tr ic t c o n s titu e n c ie s a n d th e re m a in in g seats a re e le c te d b y p r o p o r tio n a l re p re ­ s e n ta tio n in d iffe re n t “b lo c k s ” o r re g io n s o f th e c o u n try . T h e u p p e r c h a m b e r h a s m o s t o f its m e m b e rs e le c te d in t h e ir re sp e c tiv e p re fe c tu re s , w i t h a r e m a in d e r v o te d i n b y p r o ­ p o r tio n a l r e p re s e n ta tio n as w e ll. T h e H o u s e o f R e p r e s e n ta ­ tiv es is th e m o re p o w e r f u l b o d y , b e in g a ble to o v e rru le th e H o u s e o f C o u n c illo rs o n b u d g e t a n d fin a n c e m a tte r s , a n d o v e rrid e th e H o u s e o f C o u n c illo rs w i t h a t w o - t h ir d s m a ­ j o r it y o n o t h e r m a tte rs . I n th e la te t w e n ti e th c e n tu ry , p e r­ h a p s th e m o s t d i s t in g u is h i n g fe a tu re o f th e p o lic y m a k in g p ro c ess in J a p a n w a s th e d o m in a n c e o f th e L D P . B e ca u se o f th e e x te n t o f t h is d o m in a n c e , a n d p e rh a p s b e c a u se o f t h e

n a tu r e o f th e J a p a n e s e e le c to ra l sy s te m (K a b a s h im a a n d S te e l 2 0 1 0 : 1 5 -1 7 ), th e L D P d id n o t n e e d to be fu lly r e ­ s p o n s iv e t o th e w is h e s o f t h e e le c to ra te . R a th e r, th e sta te w a s a p lac e in w h ic h p o litic a l e lites w o rk e d w it h th e b u s i­ n ess c o m m u n ity to m a n a g e J a p a n e s e e c o n o m ic p e rfo rm ­ a n ce . F o llo w in g th e rise o f c o a litio n g o v e rn m e n ts , th o u g h , a n d a c c e le ra tin g t h r o u g h th e D J P ’s r e c e n t su ccesses, w e may b e se e in g a n in c re a s e in re sp o n siv e n e ss to c itiz e n s (K a b a s h im a a n d S teel 2010). O n o n e h a n d , c o m m e n ta to rs n o te a d e clin e in p u b lic t r u s t o f p o litic a l p a rties. O n th e o th e r h a n d , a n u m b e r o f p o p u la tio n se g m e n ts are involved in civil society. A l l else b e in g e q u a l, p o litic a l a ctiv ity a m o n g th e c itiz e n ry a n d p lu ra lis t c o m p e titio n b e tw e e n p a rtie s c o u ld b e e x p e c te d to in cre ase a cc ountability.

Regime and Political Institutions Regime Constitutional monarchy (parliamentary democracy with ceremonial emperor)

Administrative Divisions Centralized, unitary government; forty-seven prefectures

Executive Branch Prime minister and cabinet

Selection of Executive Selected by Parliament, ceremonially appointed by emperor

Legislative Branch Bicameral parliament (Diet) Lower chamber: House of Representatives Upper chamber: House of Councillors

Judicial Branch The Japanese Supreme Court (which has fourteen Justices and one Chief Justice) is the ultimate judicial authority in the country.

Political Party System Multiparty system. Dominated by the LDP for decades, though the DJP governed 2009-2012; political environment is one of pluralistic competition, with the LDP and the DJP as the two strongest contenders.

488 Japan

Political Culture S c h o la rs in te re s te d i n J a p a n e s e p o litic a l (a n d eco n o m ic) c u ltu re h a v e e m p h a s iz e d a n u m b e r o f th e m e s , b u t p e rh a p s t h e m o s t d is tin c tiv e o n e is th e a lle g e d ly c o lle c tiv istic a n d e g a lita ria n c h a r a c te r o f J a p a n e s e b e lie fs a n d p ra c tic e s (K u n io 2 0 0 6 ), p a r tic u la r ly w ith r e g a rd to t h e i r m a n ife s t­ a tio n i n J a p a n e s e economic culture. J a p a n h a s re la tiv e ly lo w levels o f in c o m e in e q u a lity (K o sa i 2 0 0 8 : 512). S o m e a sse rt th a t th is m ig h t b e p a r tia lly d u e to th e c u lt u r a l fo u n d a tio n s o f b u sin e ss m a n a g e m e n t in J a p a n . Y o s h ih a ra K u n io g o e s so fa r as to a d d a lle g e d c u ltu r a l o r ie n ta tio n s to w a rd m a te ria l­ ism , sa v in g s, h i g h v a lu a tio n o f e d u c a tio n a l a tta in m e n t , a n d a s tro n g w o r k e th ic as k e y c o m p o n e n ts o f J a p a n e s e e c o ­ n o m ic c u ltu r e (2 0 0 6 : 83), e v en as h e stre sse s th e i n s t it u ­ tio n a l d im e n s io n s o f J a p a n ’s e c o n o m ic p e rfo rm a n c e as w ell. I t s h o u ld b e n o te d , h o w e v er, t h a t th e s e lo w levels o f i n ­ e q u a lity a n d h ig h savings are m o s t n o te w o r th y in th e p o s t­ w a r e ra, a n d n o t as tr u e fo r e a rlie r p e rio d s .

M u c h h a s b e e n m a d e o f J a p a n e s e c o r p o ra te g o v e r n ­ a n c e as a le n s in to J a p a n e s e c u ltu r e . J a p a n e s e firm s se e m to d iffe r fro m W e s te r n firm s in k e y re s p e c ts . M a j o r J a p a ­ n e se in d u s t r ia l firm s h a v e re la tio n s h ip s w i t h t h e i r (e sp e ­ c ia lly m a le ) e m p lo y e e s t h a t m a n y d e fin e as p a te r n a lis tic , p r o v id in g e x te n siv e b e n e fits a n d n e a rly g u a r a n t e e i n g lif e ­ tim e e m p lo y m e n t fo r g o o d c o n d u c t. T h e n o t io n t h a t a ll a re p a r t o f a “te a m ” o r e v e n a “f a m ily ” is re la tiv e ly s tro n g . J a p a n is a m a r k e t e c o n o m y , b u t th e te n d e n c y to c h a n g e jo b s o v e r th e c o u rs e o f o n e ’s l if e tim e t h a t h a s b e c o m e c o m m o n in p la c e s lik e th e U n i te d S ta te s h a s n o t h i t J a p a n to t h e sa m e e x te n t. W i t h i n J a p a n e s e firm s , o n e t e n d s to see a s t r o n g se n se o f s o lid a rity , w h ile s ta tu s d iffe re n c e s are m itig a t e d b y c u lt u r a l n o rm s t h a t d is c o u ra g e m assiv e in c o m e in e q u a l it y w i t h i n t h e firm . I n a ty p ic a l c o r p o ra ­ tio n in t h e U n i te d S ta te s , t h e s a la rie s o f e x e c u tiv e s d w a r f th o s e o f e n tr y - le v e l e m p lo y e e s, b u t i n J a p a n , t h e r a tio o f e x e c u tiv e to e n tr y - le v e l e m p lo y e e s a la rie s t e n d s to b e n o t­ a b ly low er.

O f c o u r s e , t h is is n o t a p e r f e c t s y s te m . R e la tio n s b e ­ tw e e n w o r k e r s a n d m a n a g e m e n t m a y b e less c o n f lic t u a l

Political Economy S o fa r in t h is c o u n tr y p ro file , w e h a v e d is c u s s e d t h e lo n g - r u n d e v e lo p m e n t h is to r y o f J a p a n , a n d w e d isc u ss t h e s ta te ’s role in th e Ja p a n e s e e c o n o m y in th e fo llo w in g case study. H e r e , in c o n tra s t, w e w ill fo c u s o n r e c e n t h is to r y a n d th e

t h a n i n m a n y o t h e r c o u n tr ie s , b u t l a b o r h a s a re la tiv e ly w e a k p o s i t i o n v is - a - v is c o r p o ra tio n s : W o r k e r s h a v e d iffi­ c u lt y e s t a b l i s h i n g in d u s t r y - w i d e o r g a n iz a ti o n s a n d d e ­ m a n d i n g c h a n g e , r a t h e r t h a n p u r s u i n g i n s t it u t io n a l l y s t r u c t u r e d n e g o tia tio n . T h is w a s a t le a s t p a r t i a l l y a p r o d ­ u c t o f th e L D P ’s p o lic y o f r e d u c in g u n i o n s t r e n g t h ( M a n o w 2 0 0 1 : 4 4 ). I n a d d it i o n , s t r o n g c u l t u r a l n o r m s o f e m p l o y m e n t s e c u r it y a n d re la tiv e e q u it y m ig h t i m p a c t t h e c o m p e tit iv e n e s s o f J a p a n e s e firm s o v e r t h e l o n g h a u l. M o r e o v e r , t h e a lle g e d c o lle c tiv is m a n d “te a m o r i e n t a ­ t i o n ” o f J a p a n e s e firm s m a y b e a f a c to r in t h e n o ta b ly h i g h ra te s o f d i s c r i m i n a t i o n a g a i n s t w o m e n ( in c lu d in g la c k o f e q u a l p a r ti c i p a ti o n i n t h e b e n e f its o f e m p lo y m e n t a n d s e x u a l h a r a s s m e n t ) t h a t e x is ts in J a p a n e s e w o r k ­ p la c e s . F in a lly , t h e c u lt u r e o f J a p a n e s e firm s h a s s o m e ­ tim e s b e e n s e e n as a h i n d r a n c e , r e q u ir i n g re fo r m . T h e firm s t h a t d e v e lo p e d in t h e e a rly y e a r s o f J a p a n e s e i n d u s ­ t r i a l i z a t i o n — th e zaibatsu— w e re h i g h ly c o n c e n tr a te d a n d m o n o p o lis tic ( G o r d o n 2 0 0 9 : 9 6 - 9 7 ) . T h e y w o u ld l a te r b e p a r t i a l l y b r o k e n u p in t h e p o s t - w a r y e a r s , b u t la r g e c o n g lo m e ra te s k n o w n as keiretsu p e r s i s t e d , w i t h a n e x a m p le b e in g M i t s u b i s h i . C e n t e r e d a r o u n d h u g e b a n k s , t h e s e w e re a n i n t e g r a l p a r t o f p o s t - w a r i n d u s t r ia l iz a t i o n , b u t t h e y l a t e r c a m e to s y m b o liz e t h e p o s s ib i l it y o f c ro n y c a p i ta l is m , w i t h c o z y r e la tio n s h ip s b e tw e e n e c o n o m ic a n d p o l it i c a l e lite s .

T h ese a sp e c ts o f e c o n o m ic c u ltu r e — w it h a n e m p h a sis o n c o n ti n u ity a n d o u tw a r d c o lle ctiv e h a r m o n y — c a n be se e n re fle c te d i n p o litic s m o re n a rro w ly d e fin e d . T h e L D P g o v e rn e d w i t h o u t in te r r u p tio n fo r d e c a d e s a n d a tte m p te d to r e p re s e n t J a p a n ’s d iv erse in te re s ts , b u t th e p a r ty w a s a lso d iv id e d b y fierce i n te r n a l f a c tio n a lis m t h a t c o n tr ib u te d su b ­ s ta n tia lly to its e v e n tu a l d o w n fa ll, as p a r ty m e m b e rs d is ­ a g re e d o v e r h o w to re s p o n d to c o n s titu e n t d e m a n d s a n d n e e d s . F o r m o re o n v a rio u s a sp e c ts o f J a p a n ’s ric h p o litic a l c u ltu r e — in c lu d in g t h e L D P , th e s ta te , a n d g e n d e r issues— see th e m o re d e ta ile d c o u n tr y case s tu d ie s la te r in th e s e c o u n tr y m a te ria ls .

c o n te m p o ra ry s ta te o f J a p a n e s e p o litic a l e conom y. J a p a n , as w e h a v e n o te d , w a s th e firs t n o n - W e s te r n s o c ie ty to d e v elo p su s ta in e d e c o n o m ic g r o w th , in m a n y w ay s e s ta b lis h in g a p a th t h a t h a s b e e n fo llo w e d , w i t h v a ria tio n s , b y th e

Profile 489

so -c a lle d A s ia n tig e rs (e.g., S o u th K o re a , S in g a p o re ) a n d , m o re re ce n tly , e v en C h i n a . T h is it d id , in p a r t, th r o u g h sta te c o o rd in a tio n . T h is d o e s n o t m e a n a S o v ie t-s ty le c o m ­ m a n d eco n o m y , b u t r a th e r th e sta te s tra te g ic a lly fa v o rin g c e r ta in se c to rs a n d h e lp in g to c o o rd in a te th e d e p lo y m e n t o f c a p ita l fo r p ro d u c tiv e p u rp o s e s : in o th e r w o rd s , s ta te man­ agement o f th e e c o n o m y b u t n o t la rg e -s c a le sta te ownership. T he Ja p a n e s e sta te h a d a h is to r y o f w o r k in g w e ll w i t h t h e la rg e , i n d u s t r y - s p a n n in g c o rp o ra tio n s t h a t w e re so im p o r ­ t a n t to J a p a n e s e g r o w t h in th e t w e n ti e th c e n tu r y (see E v a n s 1989).

J a p a n w as o n e o f th e w o r ld ’s g r e a t e c o n o m ic success s to ­ rie s o f th e tw e n tie th c e n tu ry . W h i l e e c o n o m ic d e v e lo p m e n t p ic k e d u p d u r i n g t h e in te r w a r p e r io d , i t w a s e s p e c ia lly fo llo w in g re c o n s tr u c tio n a n d A m e r ic a n o c c u p a tio n a f te r W o r ld W a r I I t h a t J a p a n b u i lt m a jo r g lo b a l e n te rp ris e s a n d b e c a m e a n e x p o r t p o w e rh o u s e , w i t h e x a m p le s o f le a d in g firm s in c lu d in g T o y o ta a n d H o n d a in th e a u to m o b ile in ­ d u s try a n d S o n y a n d T o s h ib a in e le c tro n ic s . T h e tr a d it io n o f s tro n g g r o w t h slo w e d b y t h e 1 9 8 0 s a n d w e n t in to crisis in th e e arly 1 9 9 0 s. T h e cau ses o f t h e c risis w e re c o m p le x , b u t t h e y i n c lu d e d a n o v e rh e a te d re a l e sta te m a r k e t t h a t col­ la p s e d a n d se rio u s p ro b le m s s p re a d in g th r o u g h o u t th e fi­ n a n c ia l sy ste m (m u c h lik e i n th e U n ite d S ta te s in 2 0 0 8 ). T h e g o v e rn m e n t r e s p o n d e d v e ry slow ly a n d o n ly “b a ile d o u t ” th e b a n k in g s y s te m to w a r d t h e e n d o f t h e d e c a d e . J a p a n ’s e c o n o m y h a s n e v e r c o m p le te ly re c o v e re d . A n u m b e r o f a n a ly sts h a v e c o n c e rn s to d a y a b o u t J a p a n e s e c o m p e ti­ tiv e n e ss a n d th e c o m p e titio n p o s e d b y C h i n a a n d o th e r c o u n trie s to J a p a n ’s p o s itio n as a p r e e m in e n t e c o n o m ic p o w e r. N o ta b ly , in t h is case, t h e c o n c e rn a lso e x te n d s to g e o p o litic s, a n d C h i n a ’s in c re a s in g a m b itio n s in t h e P a c ific R im m a y b e e x p e c te d to c o m e a t t h e e x p e n s e o f J a p a n ’s

in flu e n c e . I n 2 0 1 4 a n d 2 0 1 5 , th e r e h a s b e e n c o n sid e ra b le d e b a te

o ver t h e c o u n tr y ’s c u r re n t e c o n o m ic p o lic y o f P r im e M i n i s ­ t e r S h in z o A b e . A f t e r n e a rly tw o d e c a d e s o f lo w g r o w t h , A b e p ro m is e d a se t o f d ra m a tic p o lic ie s (c o m m o n ly re fe rre d to as “A b e n o m ic s ”) to j u m p s ta r t th e eco n o m y . T h e se i n ­ c lu d e d in c re a s e d g o v e r n m e n t s p e n d in g a n d lo o se m o n e ta ry

p o lic y t h a t lo w e rs i n te r e s t ra te s; i t w a s h o p e d t h a t th is w o u ld e n c o u ra g e c o n s u m e rs to s p e n d a f te r m a n y y e a rs o f

s ta g n a tio n (a n d t h a t th is w o u ld h e lp fu lly ra is e p ric e s a fte r m a n y y e a rs o f p ric e d e c lin e s t h a t h a d d is c o u ra g e d s p e n d ­ in g ). A b e a lso p ro m is e d s t r u c tu r a l re fo rm s t h a t w o u ld e n ­ c o u ra g e e a s ie r h i r in g a n d f irin g , th e r e b y m a k in g th e la b o r m a r k e t m o re flexible. In d ic a to r s have b e e n m ix e d : T he J a p a n e s e s to c k m a r k e t m o re t h a n d o u b le d fro m t h e tim e A b e t o o k office to e a rly 2 0 1 5 , b u t g r o w t h h a s b e e n w o b b ly a n d th e c o u n tr y ’s d e b t h a s c o n tin u e d to in c re a s e to v e ry h ig h levels.

D e s p ite so m e c o n c e rn s a b o u t J a p a n e s e e c o n o m ic p e r ­ f o r m a n c e i n r e c e n t y e a rs , th e c o u n tr y ’s b a sic e c o n o m ic i n d ic a to r s a re s t i ll s o u n d . A c c o r d i n g to t h e C I A W o r ld F a c tb o o k , t h e c o u n tr y ’s u n e m p lo y m e n t ra te s to o d a t a n e n v ia b le 4.1 p e r c e n t in 2 0 1 3 . ( I t s h o u ld b e n o te d t h a t th e u n e m p lo y m e n t ra te is c a lc u la te d o n t h e b a s is o f th e n u m b e r o f p e o p le i n th e la b o r fo rc e as t h e d e n o m in a to r , so J a p a n ’s la rg e e ld e rly p o p u l a t i o n t h a t is o u t o f th e la b o r fo rc e m a y a ffe c t th is n u m b e r.) G D P p e r c a p ita s to o d a t $ 3 8 ,6 3 4 a c c o r d in g to t h e W o r ld B a n k , a n d in te r m s o f H u m a n D e v e l o p m e n t in d ic a to r s J a p a n is a m o n g th e g lo b a l le a d e rs . T h e J a p a n e s e e c o n o m y a c c o m p lis h e s th is w h ile m a i n t a i n i n g a lev e l o f in c o m e i n e q u a l it y s u b s ta n ­ tia l ly b e t t e r t h a n t h a t f o u n d in t h e U n i t e d S ta te s a n d c o m ­ p a ra b le to t h a t o f t h e W e s t e r n E u r o p e a n w e lfa re sta te s ( th o u g h t h e s e s ta te s s lig h tly o u tp e r f o r m J a p a n i n te r m s o f t h i s i n d i c a to r ) . I ts g i n i lev e l s t o o d a t 3 2 .1 in 2 0 1 3 , m a k in g i t c o m p a ra b le to m a n y w e s te r n E u r o p e a n c o u n tr ie s a n d g i v in g i t a m a r k e d ly lo w e r le v e l o f i n e q u a l it y t h a n th e U n i t e d S ta te s .

J a p a n w a s fa m o u s fo r its m a n u f a c tu r in g fo r e x p o rt, w h i c h s to o d a t t h e h e a r t o f t h e “J a p a n e s e M ir a c le ” t h a t ra n fro m th e 1950s to t h e 1 9 7 0 s, b u t to d a y services are p r e ­ d o m in a n t , a c c o u n tin g fo r 7 1 .6 p e r c e n t o f G D P i n 2 011, w i t h in d u s tr y a c c o u n tin g fo r 27.3 p e rc e n t a n d a g ric u ltu re 1.2 p e rc e n t.

The economic indicators in this section are drawn from the CIA World Factbook.

490 Japan

CASE STUDIES

As noted in the "Historical Develop­ ment" section at the beginning of this profile, Japan has shown remarkable economic performance since the late nineteenth century. It has done so, many scholars believe, because of the adroit way in which the state has managed economic development. As noted ear­ lier, Japanese economic development began shortly after efforts to create a modern state, one which quickly ex­ panded its tax base and, among other things, invested in human capital by en­ suring that a high and growing percent­ age of the population received at least elementary education (Gordon 2009: 67-68, 70).

The Japanese state did not achieve this by establishing a Soviet-style com­ mand economy. Rather, it worked as a co­ ordinating agent (Hall and Soskice 2001) that could help the economy avoid a series of problems, such as the lack of capital, the establishment of basic infra­ structure, the development of heavy in­ dustry, and other achievements that might have been more difficult without coordinated effort. As one historian puts it, "in its macroeconomic policy the [Japanese] government followed the principle of balanced budgets, but at the same time in its micro-economic or sec­ torial policy, it followed government interventionist principles, by providing special tax measures for and fiscal invest­ ment in particular industries" (Kosai 2008: 535). The state remained a major player in

planning and even in operating enter­ prises. One of the leading institutions in the Japanese government was the Minis­ try of International Trade and Industry (MITI), which took on major roles in plan­ ning and coordination of the economy, in a style has been termed "plan-ratio­ nal" development (Johnson 1982). This Japanese model of the developmental state was subsequently emulated by other "East Asian tigers" such as Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan. In other words, the Japanese state remained relatively lean, and did not promote growth through widespread state ownership, but rather it aimed to help to shape the economic en­ vironment in a way that would be good for Japanese businesses.

In achieving this balance, it was likely aided by the fact that labor unions tend to be specific to firms in Japanese culture (think of them as vertically integrated within firms) rather than tied to classes of workers as such as in other societies (think of these as horizontally integrated, cut­ ting across firms) (Hall and Soskice 2001: 34-35). This likely reduced pressure for state expansion because it reduced the likelihood of class-based organizing. At the same time, it is worth remembering, as noted in the "Political Culture" section, that government policies influenced union weakness: The LDP, which was strongly opposed to robust union organi­ zation, reduced freedom to organize and strike and required arbitration in case of labor disputes (Manow 2001: 44). Finally,

CHAPTER 4, PAGE 84

Japan's rapid economic growth made possible a distribution of the gains that kept most actors satisfied: Pay increases were possible while firms remained profitable.

At the same time, the paternalistic fea­ tures of Japanese firms and their ten­ dency to provide lifetime employment likely reduced potential welfare costs for the state. This links to issues of gender and politics discussed in the next case study: Paternalism extended to expectations for families in providing care for children and others, and this often means women's unpaid labor (Kabashima and Steel 2010: 19) as families in the "private sphere" take on a relatively important role in the provision of "welfare" service (Esping- Anderson 1997:181).

In the 1970s the Japanese state aimed to take on more welfare functions (Kosai 2008: 536), as discussed earlier, in the "Political Economy' section. Some have argued that Japan evidences a distinct type of welfare state formation, but the most important analyst of welfare states, Esping-Anderson (1997), argues that the Japanese welfare state is a "hybrid" of con­ servative and liberal approaches to wel­ fare state formation and functioning. It combines low levels of social spending with state policies to maintain full em­ ployment, strong cultural expectations of family provision, and company-based (that is, private-sector) provision of social insurance (there is a public system, but it is supplementary).

Case Studies 491

_ • The Hybrid Electoral System of the Japanese Diet CHAPTER 9, PAGE 210

Japan's parliament, called the Diet, is bi­ cameral, having been established in its current form by the Constitution of 1947, which was crafted under the American oc­ cupation that followed Japan's surrender in World War II. Yet electoral procedures for the Diet have changed, most substan­ tially in the electoral reform of 1994 that dramatically altered Japanese politics. The Diet is now elected by a hybrid system that includes features of both district- based and proportional representation.

The lower (and more powerful) chamber in Japan is called the House of Representatives and was modeled in part on the American chamber of the same name and in part on the British House of Commons. Currently, this lower house is comprised of 480 representatives elected by a system that mixes single-member districts (like the U.S. House of Represen­ tatives) with proportional representation (more common in continental European democracies). Of the 480 representatives, 300 win seats in specific district elec­ tions, and an additional 180 are chosen based on party lists in eleven different regional blocks around the country. All representation thus has a territorial com­ ponent, though the 180 seats attempt to

introduce proportionality into the system. The House of Councillors is the upper chamber, with 152 members se­ lected from Japan's forty-seven prefec­ tures, while an additional 100 members are directly elected at a national level (in a single nationwide district). The legisla­ tive chambers are not symmetric in their powers, as the House of Representatives has the authority to overrule the House of Councillors and also selects the prime minister. Most laws gain approval from both chambers to pass, but a two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives can pass legislation even over the nega­ tive vote of the House of Councillors.

The system is notable not only for its hybrid structure but also for how it re­ formed a previous system. From 1947 to 1994, the electoral system consisted of districts that would elect three to five rep­ resentatives, according to whichever can­ didates received the most individual votes. The old electoral system for the House of Representatives, called the "single non- transferable vote" (SNTV) system, has been argued to be more proportional than ma- joritarian systems with single-member dis­ tricts, but in Japan it seemed to favor the long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party

(LDP), for reasons seen later, in the box for chapter 11 (Cox 1996). The LDP attempted on multiple occasions to move toward sin­ gle-member districts, which would give it even larger majorities, but opposition par­ ties successfully resisted these changes.

The reformed system finally came about in 1994. At that time, the LDP had at last lost governing power, though it re­ mained the largest party in parliament. The reform of 1994 was intended to change a party system that had for a long time been characterized by individual politicians cultivating support from local networks; this system was to be replaced with one in which parties would take more programmatic stances (Horiuchi and Saito 2003: 672). Another conse­ quence of the 1994 reform was to reduce the power of rural areas, which had been overrepresented for decades, and give more equal representation to urban areas. Over the long run, the effects of the reform seemed to contribute to the even­ tual defeat of the LDP and the rise of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which held a clear majority of more than three hundred seats in the House of Represen­ tatives between 2009 and 2012.

Win for So Long? c h a p t e r 11, p a g e 26i

Japan has been ranked as a "Free" country by the independent organization Free­ dom House for every year since it began keeping track of democracy around the world. Yet for most of that period up to recent years, Japan was dominated by the

Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The LDP governed from 1955 to 2009, except for a brief interlude in 1993-1994, and has again governed since 2012. Throughout the long period of its dominance, the system legally allowed and enabled other

parties to participate, though the LDP rarely faced serious party competition. The country had the free elections ex­ pected of a multiparty democracy, and was not a single-party state, but it had one party that dominated elections. How

How Did Japan's Dominant Party

492 Japan

C A SE STU D Y (continued)

How Did J i' s Dominant Party Win for So Long? CHAPTER 11, PAGE 261

a dominant party— albeit one riddled with factionalism— coexisted with de­ mocracy was one of the key questions of Japanese politics. What accounts for the continued victories of the LDP over so many years?

There are several possible explanations for this. One could be based on interest group representation in Japan, as well as economic performance. Japan's LDP pre­ sided over a form of corporatism that may have helped the party continue its victo­ ries, not least due to economic achieve­ ments for several decades up to the 1980s. During most of the LDP's rule, the govern­ ment reached out to business as well as other interest groups as it made its deci­ sions about planning and guiding certain aspects of the economy (Evans 1989). Japan had weli-structured relationships between government policymakers and economic stakeholders; companies could expect to give input to the policy process, and some would receive advantages to boost production, but these would only persist as long as performance was good. Government leaders kept very close ties to top business executives, and thus they knew what business required to build and expand; it seems many of these ties went back to personal relationships at the highly prestigious Tokyo University Faculty of Law (Evans 1989). Despite this close relation­ ship, the LDP government also had some "autonomy" from the corporations and conglomerates; government did not simply do the corporations' bidding. A result was economic success, which may have favored the LDP's dominance. Per­ haps surprisingly, some scholars have even argued that Japan's loss in World War II was part of the reason for this more coopera­ tive arrangement; by contrast with the

United Kingdom, in which special interest groups survived the war and continued their demands when the war ended, Japan had a new political system, a reconstruct­ ing economy, and a rapidly changing soci­ ety (Olson 1984). This relationship between government and business was presumed healthy for a time, but as Japan went through the "lost decade" of the 1990s with little growth and evidence accumu­ lating that the country's economic bubble had burst, the constructive engagement between state and business was recast as "crony capitalism," a system of favors to in­ siders that caught up with Japan in the long run. This coincided with the LDP's in­ creasing weakness.

There are also several arguments relat­ ing to the electoral system, the internal workings of the LDP, and Japan's unique political culture. As noted in the previous case study, Japan long had an electoral system for the House of Representatives based on a single, non-transferable vote (SNTV), in which LDP politicians often competed against one another for the seats within a certain constituency. (This system is still used for the upper chamber, but has now been replaced in the lower house.) A key feature of the LDP years was factionalism inside the party: While the party presented a common banner, it was riddled with internal divisions often cen­ tered around individual leaders or small groups of politicians. In this system, LDP incumbents benefited from the mobiliza­ tion by informal “support groups" from certain neighborhoods or communities in the constituencies. These groups were known as koenkai, and they supported fa­ vored politicians in the expectation of fa­ voritism in return. Since the LDP had the advantages of incumbency it was able to

win a large proportion of seats by distrib­ uting benefits to local constituencies (Cox 1996). In addition to the koenkai and the patronage that helped the LDP, the elect­ oral system also disproportionately fa­ vored rural areas, where the LDP had its strongest base. Finally, the electoral system fragmented the opposition, such that the LDP commanded majorities in the seats in the Diet even when it was un­ popular and failed to gain a majority of votes (Scheiner 2006). In this context, the LDP became a powerful machine without being ideologically coherent, and its flex­ ibility seemed to allow it to coopt or incor­ porate other actors that emerged from other parties.

Electoral reform in 1994 eventually gave an opening to other parties. One ar­ gument that purports to explain both the persistence and the fall of the LDP thus finds that the LDP benefited from the electoral system for many years, but that the party's decline was assured as other parties adapted to the new electoral system. In this logic, the LDP's ability to hang on for another decade and more after 1994 was attributable in part to the particularly charismatic Prime Minister Ju­ nichiro Koizumi (Krauss and Pekkanen 2011). The LDP's resurgence since 2012, however, may cast this interpretation into doubt.

There are other possible explanations besides the preceding ones for the LDP's long hegemony. In general, it can be said that any number of the variables seen in previous chapters— from development and the role of the state to the function­ ing of electoral systems in the legisla­ ture— can be posited to contribute to the dominant-party system that governed Japan for half a century.

Case Studies 493

Importing National Identity in Japan?

Japan— much like China— had a strong sense of identity and civilizational unique­ ness for centuries. Indeed, there is much that resembles modern nationalism in the Tokugawa regime's hostility to foreign in­ fluence and sense of Japanese cultural superiority. However, most scholars of national identity do not see Tokugawa Japan as a national society (Greenfeld 2001; Gordon 2009: 51), because however salient Japanese identity was, it was not tied to the idea of the Japanese as a sov­ ereign and equal people. Rather, estate- based divisions were of critical importance, with a huge gap between the nobility and commoners, and political authority was not seen as a reflection of the will of any unified "nation."

Nationalism as such, therefore, was imported to Japan (Doak 2006; Greenfeld 2001). It happened in the nineteenth cen­ tury, during and after the opening of the society to the West. It is worth noting that nationalism as a type of identity spread globally in this way into virtually all of to­ day's societies: In other words, Japan is not unusual in this respect, though it is an exemplary case of this phenomenon. Why

would an identity like this spread? Who would gain from it?

Scholars who are interested in explain­ ing Japan's turn to nationalism can focus on several different types of interests. First, some note that nationalism provided a language that articulates a critique of the Tokugawa regime, and that demanded a response to the military and economic su­ periority of foreign powers. Second, some note that nationalism served the interest of the Meiji state in inculcating national senti­ ment in its citizens: As elsewhere, the state endeavored to use nationalism to influence the behavior of its citizens (Gordon 2009: 135-137). Third, some emphasize the importance of the status-inconsistency of elite groups— in particular the large class of samurai— a variable that has been linked to the importation of national identity in nu­ merous other cases (Greenfeld 2001). Note that the first two explanatory strategies focus on the relationship between national identity and the state while the latter one focuses more on what's happening within society, outside of the state. See if you can find ways in which these explanatory strat­ egies could be blended together.

CHAPTER 13, PAGE 310

In any case, by the close of the nine­ teenth century a significant portion of Japanese society thought of that society in national terms. Moreover, there was a strong sense that the nation needed to assert itself internationally, as it did in both the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo- Japanese War, before adopting a still more expansive policy in the twentieth century, culminating in its involvement in the Second World War. After Japan's defeat in that conflict, Japanese national­ ism has found less militaristic expression, with a strong focus on economic compe­ tition as an avenue for the realization of the nation's status.

So, did Japan (and other countries) really "import" national identity? It seems clear that the general concept of national identity, linked to popular sovereignty and idealized equality of membership, did diffuse globally over recent decades and centuries, and in this sense the idea of the nation was imported to Japan. But what Japanese citizens made with this identity is a different story: Japanese nationalism was fashioned in the mold shaped by its members, like every other nation.

Gender Empowerment in Japan? CHAPTER 14, PAGE 335

Historically, women's participation in Japanese politics has received little em­ phasis, both in popular discussion and in the academic literature, in part because of discrimination and in part because of the (male) elite-centeredness of much work in political science (LeBlanc 1999).

What scholars have uncovered has largely not been good. Japan stands out, when compared to its peers in terms of socioeconomic development, for the relatively low political empowerment of women. For example, despite having the world's eighth-highest level of HDI in

recent years, its Gender Empowerment Measure rank was fifty-seventh globally in 2009 (UN Human Development Report 2009). In terms of women's legislative representation, Japan recently stood at 113th (Inter-Parliamentary Union 2015).

494 japan

Gender Empowerment in Japan?

Similar trends have been visible in subnational representative bodies. As Sherry L. Martin (2008: 125) puts it, "the extent of women's underrepresentation in elected offices makes Japan an outlier in comparative studies of women and politics." However, she notes that great progress has been made in the last several years. While women's share of seats in both the Diet and local political bodies remains low, it has been growing. This is likely owed to both institutional changes and reforms since the 1990s and women's increasing civii society activism.

The political ethnographer Robin LeB- lanc (1999) has emphasized that Japanese women do have agency, and that narra­ tives about their participation in political life that are focused on elite politics often

miss the ways in which women can mobi­ lize a "housewife" identity and build on social networks to pursue their chosen ends. This is not to say that women and men have achieved political equality in Japan (or elsewhere, for that matter), but that there is more to Japanese women's political participation (and women's par­ ticipation in politics in other societies as well) than can be revealed through a tra­ ditional political science lens.

Beyond questions of political repre­ sentation, it is worth noting that Japan stands out as a country where gender dis­ crimination in employment and everyday life is quite high (Hausmann, Tyson, and Zahidi 2010). Japan's Gender Gap Index ranks it ninety-fourth globally. To some extent this is a function of the fact that

CHAPTER 14, PAGE 335

political empowerment is a component of the index. In terms of two of the other four components (equity in education and health) Japan does very well in comparative terms, but in terms of fair economic opportunity, it fares poorly, in­ cluding in terms of equal pay for equal work and participation in the work force (Hausmann et al. 2010:174-175). This is, of course, of concern to women and others who are opposed to inequality. But the ramifications of gender discrimination extend beyond such concerns. Indeed, some evidence indicates that Japanese economic performance suffers notably because of gender inequity, with one anal­ ysis estimating a 16 percent loss in GDP as a result of such discrimination (Hausmann etal. 2010:30).

Resource Management in Japan

There are two highly symbolic illustra­ tions from Japan that show the challenge of environmental sustainability and the importance of the "tragedy of the com­ mons" discussed in chapter 16. One is the fishing of the world's oceans, and the other is the question of climate change. Many situations involving the global envi­ ronment are situations where multiple countries draw upon resources that are used by all, and the earth's atmosphere and its oceans are two leading examples. The atmosphere has an ability to hold carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses, but growing levels of pollutants

have been associated with global climate change. A lack of attention to this common pool resource will make every­ one worse off. In a similar sense, the oceans have a fish stock upon which many countries rely, yet there is dear evi­ dence of overfishing and a lack of coordi­ nation or adequate provision for sustainability over the long run.

One aspect of the challenge arises from the lack of a clear governing author­ ity for these international common pool resources. There is no overarching world government to require states to behave in certain ways; the United Nations does not

CHAPTER 16, PAGE 387

have significant authority, and the world's sovereign nations have little incentive to give up their powers to some world government. Certain states— especially smaller or weaker states— may be com­ pelled to behave in certain ways by threats of war, economic sanctions, or diplomatic pressure, but in international relations terms, the system has an anar­ chic structure in which each state is sover­ eign. This gives rise to the collective action problems at the international level.

Japan is one of world's great offenders when it comes to overfishing the oceans, though by no means the only one.

■

Case Studies 495

ElCA SE STU D Y (continued)Resource Management in Japan CHAPTER 16, PAGE 387 Japanese fishing (and whaling) has been thus one of the clearest illustrations of how the tragedy of the commons oper­ ates. The example of Atlantic bluefin tuna is illustrative. Japanese consume as much as three-fourths of all the Atlantic bluefin tuna caught in the world, eating it mostly raw as sashimi (Blair 2010). The stock of the fish is severely depleted, and there is a risk that it will be fished to extinction; this de­ pletion happened especially after the 1970s, when bluefin tuna consumption took off in Japan (Kolbert 2010). Yet Japan celebrated when an international body opted not to prohibit international trade in the species (Kolbert 2010). As with other

cases of extinction and endangerment of species, the example shows how quickly irreversible change can occur when re­ sources begin to decline.

Another issue links Japan symbolically to the question of sustainability, though it is hardly a "Japanese issue” alone. This is the Kyoto Protocol, an international agree­ ment to address the issue of climate change. The protocol was agreed to in the Japanese city of Kyoto in 1997 and subse­ quently was ratified by legislatures of the many countries that signed it, with the ex­ ception of the United States. It was de­ signed as a global response to climate change that would commit all signatory

countries to reduce global emissions to levels below those from 1990. Yet the Kyoto Protocol faced challenges from the start. The United States was the world's largest polluter when its congress rejected the protocol. Meanwhile, major develop­ ing countries were not required to reduce emissions under the agreement, though China is now the world's largest polluter. More recently, Russia and Japan itself de­ clined to sign onto future reductions, while Canada pulled out of the protocol at the end of 2011. As with overfishing, the lack of collective action is indicative of the challenges present in issues of interna­ tional environmental protection.

Research Prompts 1. Compare the modernization paths of China and Japan. In what

ways are they similar, and in what ways are they different (in terms of both politics and economics)? Using theories from chapters 3-7 (and, possibly, chapters 12 and 13 as well), develop hypotheses to explain the variation that you noted in response to the first part of this prompt.

2. Compare the period of LDP hegemony in Japan to the experi­ ence of Mexico under the PRI. How did each party cement its control? To what extent did the nature of single-party domi­ nance vary? What similar and different causes lay behind single­ party dominance? Then bring China into the comparison. What might this comparison suggest about what seem to be the

main factors that influence types of single-party dominance in more and less democratic societies?

3. Compare long-run economic development in the United King­ dom, Germany, and Japan. Be especially attentive to the role of the state in these cases. How do the cases contrast? What are the implications of your comparison for the theory that state involvement is bad for economic development?

4. In chapter 15 we introduced the concept of "multiple moderni­ ties" that scholars like S. M. Eisenstadt have developed. Japan is often regarded as a Western-style modernizer. Is Japanese modernity "Western," or does it have its own distinct characteristics?

0 Mexico Key Features o f C o n te m p o r a ry Mexico

Population: 120,286,655 (estimate, July 2014)

Area: 1,964,375 square kilometers

Head of State: Enrique Pena Nieto (president, 2012-present)

Head of Government: Enrique Pena Nieto (president, 2012-present)

Capital: Mexico City

Year of Independence: Often cited as 1810, when the movement for independence began, but actual independence was established in 1821.

Year of Current Constitution: 1917

Languages: Spanish; Nahuatl; Mayan; other Amerindian languages.

GDP per Capita: $10,307 (World Bank estimate, 2013)

Human Development Index Ranking (2014):

71st (high human development)

Sources: CIA World Factbook; World Bank World Development Indicators; United Nations Human Development Report 2014.

PROFILE Introduction M e x ic o is a c o u n tr y t h a t receives a g r e a t d e a l o f a tte n tio n fro m p o litic a l sc ien tists fo r n u ­ m e ro u s re aso n s. O n e o f th e m o s t im p o r ta n t is t h a t i t is a la rg e c o u n try b o rd e rin g o n a c u l­ tu r a l ly v e ry d iffe re n t o n e w it h a c o n tra s tin g p o litic a l a n d e c o n o m ic h is to r y (C a m p 2 0 0 7 : 1 -9 ), th u s f a c ilita tin g c o m p a ris o n s. A n o t h e r is t h a t its e c o n o m ic a n d p o litic a l h is to rie s are fa s c in a tin g a n d se t u p m a n y o th e r p o te n tia l c o m p a ris o n s t h a t a llo w us to g a in som e lev erag e o ver a n u m b e r o f th e o rie s o f c o m ­ p a ra tiv e p o litics. I n e c o n o m ic te rm s , i t has a lte rn a te d b e tw e e n p e rio d s o f g r o w th a n d s ta g n a tio n , a n d th e s ta te ’s e c o n o m ic p o lic y h a s s h ifte d o n n u m e ro u s o c casions o ver th e de ca d es. S ince 1994 it h a s b e e n e c o n o m ic a lly in te g r a te d w ith th e r e s t o f N o r t h A m e ric a via th e N o r t h A m e r ic a n F re e T ra d e A g re e m e n t, a n d h a s m o re g e n e ra lly in c re a s e d its g lo b al e c o n o m ic in te g r a tio n in re c e n t years. A lo n g w it h B ra zil, it has h a d m o d e ra te success in r e c e n t d e c a d e s in e s ta b lis h in g a d iversified in d u s tr ia l b a se . Y et severe p o v e rty is a p e rsis­ t e n t p ro b le m , a n d e c o n o m ic d iffic u ltie s are lin k e d to se rio u s p o litic a l c h allen g e s.

I n p o litic a l te rm s , M e x ic o h a s o c ca sio n ­ a lly b e e n th o u g h t o f as h a v in g a s tro n g sta te , sin c e th e sta te h a s o f te n b e e n in te rv e n tio n is t

| M estizo 60% A m erindian 31 W h ite 9%

I O th er 1%

Ethnic Groups in Mexico Source: CIA World Factbook.

| R om an C atholicism 76.5% P rotestant C hristianity 6.3%

■ O th er 0.3% H N o t specified 13.8% I N o religion 3.1%

Religious Affiliation in Mexico Note that we have included Jehovah's Witnesses (1.1%) in the "Protestant Christianity" category. Source: CIA World Factbook.

Profile 497

498 Mexico

in M e x ic o ’s h isto ry . I n te rm s re la tiv e to th e r e s t o f L a tin A m e ric a a t th e tim e , t h e d e ca d es o f la te -n in e te e n th - c e n tu r y d o m in a n c e b y P o rfirio D ia z , c a lle d th e “P o rfiria to ,” saw fa irly s tro n g d e v e lo p m e n t ( M o r n e r 1993:6), in w h ic h th e sta te e n c o u ra g e d fo re ig n c a p ita l to b u ild ra ilro a d s a n d to tra n s fo rm th e c o u n try s id e , p ro m o tin g a m o re c o m m e rc ia l a g ric u ltu ra l m o d e l a n d b e g in n in g to e sta b lish in d u s tr ia l ac­ tiv ity in th e c ities (M e y e r a n d S h e rm a n 1987: 4 3 1 -4 7 9 ; K ra u z e 1997: 218). L ik e w ise , th e sta te t h a t e m e rg e d fro m th e M e x ic a n R e v o lu tio n (w h ic h b e g a n in 1910), a fte r se ri­ ou s in s ta b ility a n d a ro u n d o n e m illio n d e a th s , w a s a sta te t h a t c a m e to in te rv e n e activ ely i n th e e conom y, fo r ex am p le in M e x ic o ’s e arly n a tio n a liz a tio n o f o il (1938). T h e p o s t­ re v o lu tio n a ry r e g im e a lso a c te d s tro n g ly a g a in s t t h e R o m a n C a th o lic C h u r c h , d r a m a tic a lly r e d u c in g its c a p a c ity to a c t in p o litic s (B la n c a rte 1992). S o, o n o n e h a n d , a t k e y p e rio d s in its h is to ry th e M e x ic a n sta te a p p e a rs to b e stro n g . O n th e o th e r h a n d , h o w e v er, w e m u s t c o n sid e r t h a t th e sta te w a s for m a n y d e c a d e s p ro n e to i n s ta b ility a n d irr e g u la r tra n s fe rs o f p o w e r, t h a t e ven in th e y e ars o f re la tiv e s ta b ility p ro m o te d b y th e I n s t itu t io n a l R e v o lu tio n a ry P a r ty ’s (Partido Revolu- cionario Institutional, o r P R I ) d o m in a n c e fo r m u c h o f th e t w e n tie th c en tu ry , a u th o rita ria n is m w a s th e n o rm (M e x ic o in m o s t o f t h a t p e rio d w a s, as w e s h a ll see, a v a ria tio n o n th e “p a r ty d ic ta to rs h ip ” m o d el), a n d t h a t i n v e ry r e c e n t y e a rs th e c o u n try h a s s tru g g le d w it h serious p ro b le m s o f o rg a n iz e d c rim e a n d d r u g tra ffic k in g , p r o m p tin g so m e a n a ly sts to w o rry (so m e w h a t h y p e rb o lica lly , w e th in k ) a b o u t th e

p o s s ib ility o f a M e x ic a n “fa ile d s ta te ” o n t h e U .S . b o rd e r (for a m o re re a so n a b le view , see O ’N e il 2 0 0 9 ). T h e se issu es are d isc u sse d in m o re d e ta il i n th e c h a p te r 3 case study.

P e rh a p s th e s e c h a lle n g e s s h o u ld n o t b e s u rp r is in g w h e n w e c o n s id e r (1) t h a t m o d e r n M e x ic o is g e o g ra p h ic a lly d i­ v e rse; (2) t h a t it is a h ig h ly u n e q u a l so c ie ty w i t h c o n sid e r­ able h e te ro g e n e ity a n d c u ltu r a l d iv e rs ity ; a n d (3) t h a t it e m e rg e d fro m a h ig h ly c o n ffic tu a l a n d u n e q u a l p o s t-c o lo n ia l so c ie ty in w h ic h m u ltip le e x o g e n o u s sh o c k s d is r u p te d t h e tr a d itio n a l so c ia l s tr u c tu r e . I n te rm s o f g e o g ra p h ic a l a n d c u ltu r a l d iv ersity , t h e s h a r p e s t c o n tr a s t is b e tw e e n th e d rie r, n o r t h e r n p o r t io n o f th e c o u n try , w h ic h is th e c e n te r o f m o s t in d u s t r ia l a ctiv ity , a n d th e s o u th e r n p o r tio n o f th e c o u n try , w h ic h h a s a tro p ic a l c lim a te a n d is p o o re r, w i t h a la rg e r in d ig e n o u s p o p u la tio n . E x o g e n o u s sh o c k s to M e x ic a n d e v e lo p m e n t in c lu d e d n u m e ro u s fo re ig n in te rv e n tio n s t h a t b o t h c h a n g e d d o m e s tic p o litic s a n d , in th e m o s t e x tre m e in s ta n c e o f w a r w i th t h e U n ite d S ta te s in th e 1 8 4 0 s, le d to m assive lo ss o f te rrito ry . T o th is lis t w e c o u ld a d d th e i m p a c t o f fo re ig n c a p ita l d u r i n g th e P o rfiria to a n d th e so c ia l d is lo c a tio n e x p e rie n c e d b y th e r u r a l, la rg e ly in d ig e ­ n o u s p o p u la tio n , a n d it is n o t h a r d to u n d e r s ta n d w h y i m ­ p o r t a n t g ro u p s o f r u r a l p o o r w e re w i llin g to fo llo w le a d e rs lik e P a n c h o V illa a n d E m ilia n o Z a p a ta d u r in g t h e M e x ic a n R e v o lu tio n (W o m a c k 1968; K n ig h t 1 990a). T h a t re v o lu ­ tio n , lik e t h e ev en ts t h a t c a u s e d it, w o u ld p ro v e to b e a d e ­ s ta b iliz in g force, e v e n as a n e w o rd e r e m e rg e d t h a t c la im e d to g o v e rn in its n a m e .

Historical Development M e x ic o w as a rg u a b ly th e m o s t i m p o r ta n t o f S p a in ’s c o lonies in th e “N e w W o r ld ” (T h o m a s 1993). T h is w a s m a in ly d u e to its e c o n o m ic v a lu e , w h ic h h a d tw o m a in sources. F ir s t, it h a d m in in g w e a lth , a n d S p a in w as a m e rc a n tilis t p o w e r, m e a n in g t h a t i t v ie w e d th e m a x im iz a tio n o f h o ld in g s o f g o ld a n d silver (“b u llio n ”) as f u n d a m e n ta l to s ta te p o w e r a n d th e k e y m e a su re o f e c o n o m ic p e rfo rm a n c e . S e c o n d , M e x ic o h a d a la rg e , c o m p le x A m e r in d ia n c iv iliz a tio n b e fo re th e a r­ riv a l o f E u ro p e a n s (in fa c t it h a d n u m e ro u s in d ig e n o u s g ro u p s a n d c u ltu re s , p e rh a p s m o s t n o ta b ly th e M a y a in th e S o u th , th o u g h th e i r co m p le x so c iety h a d e n te re d in to d e ­ c lin e so m e tim e b e fo re E u r o p e a n c o n ta c t, a n d th e e m p ire o f th e M e x ic a , o fte n c a lle d th e “A z te c s ,” c e n te re d in to d a y ’s M e x ic o C ity). T h is m e a n t t h a t s ta te -lik e s tru c tu re s c o u ld be b u ilt “o n to p o f ” th e e x is tin g p o litic a l a n d so c ial in s titu tio n s in th e so c iety ( M a h o n e y 2 010). T h is w a s sim ila rly t h e case

in t h e a re a a ro u n d to d a y ’s P e ru , fo r th e sa m e re a so n s (in th is case, th e In c a c iv iliz a tio n w as t h e re le v a n t one). T h u s b o th M e x ic o a n d P e ru fa m o u s ly b e c a m e “c o res” o f th e S p a n ish c o lo n ia l sy ste m , w h ile areas lik e th e S o u th e r n C o n e (to d ay ’s A r g e n tin a a n d C h ile ), V e n ez u e la , a n d p a r ts o f C e n tr a l A m e ric a r e m a in e d “p e r ip h e r a l” to t h a t sy ste m u n t il th e clo s­ in g y e ars o f S p a n is h c o lo n ia lism ( H a l p e r in D o n g h i 1993).

B e in g a colonial core m e a n t t h a t th e c e n tra l p o w e r p a id lots o f a tte n tio n to M e x ic a n society (M a h o n e y 2010). C o lo n ia l M e x ico h a d m ore colonial b ureaucracy th a n p e rip h e ra l re­ gions, a n d it h a d a m o re com plex social stru c tu re , in p a r t b e ­ cause o f th e society’s relative c u ltu ra l diversity b u t in large m ea su re because th e a m o u n t o f w e a lth g e n e ra te d b y m in in g , a n d th u s th e re n ts th a t c o uld be sip h o n e d o f f b y m u ltiple actors, facilitate d th is . P e rh a p s n o t surprisingly, its efforts to achieve in d ep e n d en c e follow ed a p a th th a t d iffere d in c e rta in key

Profile 499

respects fro m th e p a tte rn w itn esse d in m ore p e rip h e ra l areas. I n places lik e B uenos A ire s a n d C aracas, local elites te n d e d to b e stro n g supporters o f in d ep e n d en c e (L y n c h 1973). I n places like M exico, such elites w ere less sure, a n d th e first stages o f th e revolt a g a in st S p a in cam e o u t o f th e M e x ic a n periphery. In d e ed , M e x ico o n ly b ecam e in d e p e n d e n t w h e n a liberal revolt in S p a in caused som e M e x ic a n conservatives, m o s t no tab ly A u g u s tin de Itu rb id e , to c h an g e sides, favoring a conservative g o v e rn m e n t a t h o m e versus a lib eral g o v e rn m e n t fro m E u ro p e (M eyer a n d S h e rm a n 1987: 2 9 4 -3 0 8 ; A n n a 1998). A t first, M e xico trie d a n im p e ria l system , w ith Itu rb id e th e em peror. T his laste d o n ly a m a tte r o f m o n th s b efore th e c o u n try becam e a republic. T he im p o rt o f th is , for com parative politics, is t h a t th is process b o th indicates a n d reinforced a stro n g tra d itio n a l­ ist o r conservative s tra in in th e politics o f in d e p e n d e n t M exico.

I n a ll o f L a tin A m e ric a , politics in th e n in e te e n th c e n tu ry w as d iv id e d b e tw e e n conservatives a n d liberals, b u t th e conserva­ tives w ere b o th stro n g e r a n d m ore conservative in M e x ico th a n in m a n y o th e r places (on n in e te e n th -c e n tu ry M e x ic a n conser­ vatism , see K ra u ze 1997). P erhaps m o st im p o rta n t, M e x ica n conservatives h e lp e d th e R o m a n C a th o lic C h u rc h m a in ta in th ro u g h o u t a g o o d p o rtio n o f th e n in e te e n th -c e n tu ry s tre n g th a n d privileges th a t w ere a lm o st w ith o u t p a ralle l in th e region, tw o o f th e m o s t im p o rta n t b e in g th e C h u r c h ’s e n o rm o u s la n d - h o ld in g a n d th e fa ct th a t it w as a llow ed to o p e rate a p arallel legal system th ro u g h w h ic h its clergy co u ld b e trie d (L y n ch 1986: G ill 2 0 0 8 ). T h is o n g o in g p o la riz a tio n w as a n im p o rta n t factor in th e W a r o f th e R e fo rm in th e 1850s a n d th e revolu­ tio n b e g in n in g a fte r 1910, as w e ll as th e su b seq u e n t C ristero R e b ellio n in th e 1920s.

Historical Development T i m e l i n e

1810

1821

1833-1834

1836

1838-1839

1846-1848

1853

1855

1856

1857

1858-1861

1862

1864-1867

1867

1876-1911

1910

1911-1913

“Grito of Dolores" marks beginning of indepen­ dence movement. Plan of Iguala and its “Three Guarantees" and the establishment of Mexican independence Valentin Gomez Farias attempts anti-clerical and other reforms. Santa Anna displaces Gomez Farias, prompting a period of conservative rule. Independence of Texas The "Pastry War' (French invasion) U.S. War with Mexico, which leads to the United States seizing a considerable portion of Mexican national territory, including much of present-day Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah Gadsen Purchase transfers more Mexican land to the United States. Ley Juarez introduces anti-clerical reforms. Ley Lerdo forces alienation of Church Lands. Liberal constitution of 1857 War of the Reform European intervention, led by France Rule by Emperor Maximilian, imposed by French forces Return to liberal government, under Juarez The Porfiriato, during which Porfirio Diaz domi­ nates Mexican politics Diaz "defeats" Madero in a fraudulent election that is the opening scene of the Mexican Revolution. Presidency of Francisco Madero

1913-1914

1914-1920

1920-1924

1924-1928

1926-1929

1928-1934

1929

1934-1940

1968

1988-1994

1994-

1994

1994-2000

1994

2000

2006-2012

2 0 1 2 -p re sent

Presidency of Victorino Huerta, which begins with a coup d'etat and the murder of Madero Presidency of Venustiano Carranza, proponent of 'constitutionalism" Presidency of Alvaro Obregon Presidency of Plutarco Elias Calles, who creates the party that later becomes the PRI Cristero Rebellion Period in which Calles dominates but does not hold the presidency Founding of PRI (at the time called the PNR) Presidency of Lazaro Cardenas, which includes nation­ alization of oil in 1938 as well as major agrarian reforms Major student protests quelled with violence. Presidency of Carlos Salinas de Gortari, known for its liberal economic reforms North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA) enters into effect. Beginning of Zapatista National Liberation Army EZLN activities under Subcomandante Marcos Presidency of Ernesto Zedillo Peso crisis, resolved with major aid from the United States under Bill Clinton Election of Vicente Fox of PAN signals the end of PRI hegemony in Mexico, and progress for Mexican democracy. Presidency of Felipe Calderon Presidency of Enrique Peha Nieto

500 Mexico

I n th e e a rly y e a rs o f t h e r e p u b lic , M e x ic o d e s c e n d e d i n to w h a t sc h o la rs c a ll “c a u d illis m o ,” w h i c h e s s e n tia lly m e a n s r u le b y s tro n g m e n . Y ou w il l r e c o g n iz e fro m c h a p te r 3 t h a t th is w o u ld b e a s y m p to m o f re la tiv e s ta te w e a k n e s s : T h e M e x ic a n sta te w a s a t le a s t p a r tia l ly a v e h ic le fo r th e p u r s u it o f th e p riv a te in te r e s t o f a “p r e d a to r y ” e lite r a th e r t h a n a n o r g a n iz a tio n in w h ic h r u le o f law , e q u a l access, a n d i n s t itu t io n a l le g itim a c y w e re e s ta b lis h e d . W h i l e th e i n s t itu t io n a l tr a p p in g s o f a lib e r a l r e p u b lic w e re in p la c e , th e h o ld e r o f th e p re sid en c y u ltim a te ly a n sw e red to a m ilita r y e lite , a n d in M e x ic o th is m e a n t A n to n io L o p e z d e S a n ta A n n a . S a n ta A n n a fa m o u s ly s w itc h e d sid e s in M e x ic a n p o litic s , a lte r n a t in g b e tw e e n th e c o n se rv a tiv e s a n d th e l i b ­ e rals (M e y e r a n d S h e r m a n 1987; B a z a n t 1985: 4 3 6 - 4 4 4 ) , s o m e tim e s a s s u m in g t h e p re s id e n c y h im s e lf, b u t e v en t h e n o f te n v a c a tin g th e office to r e tir e to h is p riv a te e s ta te w h ile a d e s ig n e e h a n d le d t h e g o v e r n m e n t ’s d a y - to - d a y a ffa irs. H i s a u th o r it y r e s te d e s s e n tia lly o n h is r e p u ta ti o n as a g r e a t w a r r io r a n d h is a b ility to e s ta b lis h a p riv a te a r m y to o u t- c o m p e te p o te n tia l d o m e s tic riv a ls. O f c o u rse , th e r e is o n e e asy w a y to lo se le g itim a c y in a sy s te m o f th is s o rt, w h ic h is to fa il i n m il ita r y te rm s . S a n ta A n n a lo s t p o w e r a f te r th e u n s u c c e s s fu l e ffo rt to sto p th e d e c la r a tio n o f th e i n d e p e n d e n t R e p u b lic o f T e x a s. H e w o u ld t e m p o r a r ily g a in it b a c k a f te r h e ro ic se rv ice a g a in s t th e F r e n c h in th e “p a s tr y w a r,” a n d t h e n lose p o w e r a g a in in s u b s e q u e n t y e a rs, g a in in g i t a g a in d u r in g t h e U .S . in v a s io n o f M e x ic o , a n d lo s in g p o w e r fo r g o o d in 1855, w h e n t h e R e v o lu tio n o f A y u tla (1 8 5 4 -1 8 5 5 ) b r o u g h t th e lib e ra ls to p o w e r ( H a m n e t t 1994).

A f t e r so m a n y y e ars o f p o litic a l in s ta b ility a n d p ro te c ­ tio n o f c o n se rv a tiv e in te re s ts , th e lib e ra ls w e re e a g e r to d r a ­ m a tic a lly re m a k e M e x ic a n p o litic s (K ra u z e 1 9 9 7 :1 5 7 -1 5 9 ). T h is th e y a tte m p te d to d o in th e C o n s ti tu tio n o f 185 7 a n d in tw o m a jo r re fo rm s , k n o w n as th e L e y J u a r e z a n d t h e L e y L e rd o (a fte r t h e ir a u th o rs). T h ese law s e x p a n d e d c iv ilia n p o w e r o v e r th e c le rg y a n d fo rc e d th e C h u r c h t o se ll its m a s ­ sive p ro p e rtie s . H o w e v e r, th e C h u r c h ’s c o n se rv a tiv e allies w e re u n w illin g to a c c e p t th e n e w o rd e r, a n d a m a jo r civil w a r, k n o w n as th e W a r o f th e R e fo rm (1 8 5 8 -1 8 6 1 ), b ro k e o u t ( H a m n e t t 1994). E v e n tu a lly th e re p u b lic w as a ble to d e fe n d i ts e l f a g a in s t c o n se rv a tiv e in s u rg e n ts . A t th e sa m e tim e , M e x ic a n c o n se rv a tiv e s, le d b y J u a n A l m o n te , su ccess­ fu lly c o n v in c e d N a p o le o n I I I to in v a d e F ra n c e a n d to im p o s e a E u r o p e a n m o n a rc h , A r c h d u k e M a x im ilia n , as E m p e r o r o f M e x ic o (M e y e r a n d S h e rm a n 1987: 3 9 1 -4 0 1 ). Iro n ic a lly , M a x im il ia n h a d lib e ra l s y m p a th ie s a n d d i d n o t

r o ll b a c k th e re fo rm s a n d o th e rw is e p u rs u e t h e p o lic ies t h a t h is c o n se rv a tiv e s u p p o rte rs w o u ld h a v e lik e d . A s a re s u lt, h e so o n h a d re la tiv e ly little b a c k in g . A s lo n g as F re n c h t ro o p s re m a in e d i n M e x ic o , h e w a s a ble to re sist J u a r e z ’s r e s is ta n c e m o v e m e n t. B u t a f te r th e close o f t h e A m e r ic a n C iv il W a r , w i t h t h e U n ite d S ta te s s e n d in g t ro o p s to th e M e x ic a n b o r d e r a n d t h r e a te n i n g in te r v e n tio n in fa v o r o f J u a r e z a n d t h e lib e ra ls , F r e n c h tro o p s w ith d re w , a n d M a x i­ m il ia n ’s re g im e e n d e d s o o n th e re a fte r.

T h is m e a n t a (b rie f) r e tu r n to lib e ra l, c iv ilia n g o v e rn ­ m e n t. H o w e v e r, in 1871 P o r f ir io D i a z r a n o n a c a m p a ig n o f “n o r e - e le c t io n .” H a v in g lo s t, h e b e g a n a re v o lt w h ic h c u lm in a te d in h is t a k i n g p o w e r i n 1876. I n c e r ta in r e ­ sp e c ts , th is s ig n a le d a r e tu r n to c a u d illis m o , as h e w o u ld g o v e rn , t h o u g h n o t alw ay s fo rm a lly h o ld in g office, u n t il 1910. H o w e v e r, so m e i m p o r t a n t d iffe re n c e s s e p a ra te th e “P o r f i r ia t o ” f r o m t h e sty le o f r u le d e v e lo p e d b y S a n ta A n n a i n th e firs t h a l f o f th e c e n tu ry . F i r s t , D i a z a im e d to u s e h is p o w e r to fo rce th e m o d e r n i z a tio n o f th e c o u n tr y (as h e a n d h is a d v is e rs u n d e r s to o d th is p ro c ess). A s in B ra z il, “p o s itiv is m ” p la y e d a k e y ro le in f o r m in g M e x ic a n id e a s o f p ro g re s s a n d m o d e r n i z a tio n (C a m p 2 0 0 7 : 3 6 - 3 8 ) . D ia z c o u r te d f o re ig n in v e s tm e n t a n d p re s id e d o v e r s o m e g r o w th in m a n u f a c tu r i n g , th e c o n s tr u c ti o n o f a n o ta b le sy s te m o f ra ilr o a d s , a n d t h e tr a n s f o r m a ti o n o f a g r ic u ltu r e (M e y e r a n d S h e r m a n 1987: 4 3 1 - 4 7 9 ; K ra u z e 1 997). A l l o f th e s e d e v e lo p m e n ts w o u ld h a v e i m p o r t a n t im p l ic a t io n s fo r s u b s e q u e n t p o litic s , as th e y p r o d u c e d so m e d is lo c a tio n a n d u p s e t t r a d i t i o n a l w a y s o f d o in g t h in g s . P e r h a p s a g r ic u ltu r a l c h a n g e s w e re th e m o s t im p o r t a n t, b e c a u se t h e y b ro k e u p t r a d i t io n a l lo c a l la n d o w n e r s h ip p a tt e r n s a n d h e lp e d to c o n c e n tra te la n d in th e h a n d s o f a s m a ll e lite (C a m p 2 0 0 7 : 38), a n d i n tr o d u c e d w a g e la b o r as th e b a sis o f th e r u r a l e c o n o m y in a t le a s t so m e a re a s. A s m a n y s c h o l­ a rs h a v e p o in te d o u t, th is , a n d so c ia l i n e q u a lit y m o re g e n e ra lly , w o u ld p la y a m a jo r ro le in th e d i s c o n te n t t h a t f u e le d t h e M e x ic a n re v o lu tio n b e g in n in g in 1910 (C a m p 2 0 0 7 : 4 2 ; K n ig h t 1 990a). I n p a r tic u l a r , E m ilia n o Z a p a ta ’s i n s u r g e n c y w a s fo c u s e d , a b o v e a ll, o n la n d o w n e r s h ip ( W o m a c k 1968).

T h e re v o lu tio n h a d as its p ro x im a te cause th e re v o lt o f F ra n c is c o M a d e ro , w h o h a d r u n a g a in s t D i a z a n d lo s t in a fr a u d u le n t e le c tio n (for a d e fin itiv e a c c o u n t o f t h e re v o lu ­ tio n , see K n i g h t 1 9 9 0 a , 1 990b). M a d e ro w a s e s s e n tia lly a n o r t h e r n e lite a n d a lib e ra l. H e w a s so o n j o in e d in h is ef­ fo rts b y d is tin c t so c ia l g ro u p s , t h e m o s t i m p o r t a n t o f w h ic h w e re le d b y F ra n c is c o (“P a n c h o ”) V illa i n th e n o r t h a n d

Profile 501

Z a p a ta . Id e o lo g ic a lly , th e s e g ro u p s w e n t w e ll b e y o n d M a d e ro ’s lib e ra lism : T h o u g h h is to r ia n s d is a g re e a b o u t w h a t e x a c tly t h e y s to o d for, it is a g re e d t h a t th e y s o u g h t to re d re ss p ro b le m s o f e c o n o m ic in e q u a lity a n d n o t j u s t p o liti­ c a l issues. S c h o la rs d is a g re e a b o u t w h e n , p recisely, th e re v o lu tio n e n d e d , a n d w e c a n n o t tra c e h e re a ll o f its tw is ts a n d tu r n s . N o te , th o u g h , t h a t M a d e r o g o v e rn e d u n t il h e w a s a ssa ss in a te d b y V ic to ria n o H u e r t a in 1913. H u e r t a w as in t u r n d isp la c e d b y V e n u s tia n o C a r r a n z a in 1914. I t w as u n d e r C a r r a n z a t h a t th e r e v o lu tio n a ry c o n s titu tio n o f 1917 w a s p a sse d . C a r r a n z a w a s fo rc e d o u t i n a re v o lt in 1 9 2 0 le d b y A lv a ro O b re g o n , a n d O b r e g o n w o u ld h i m s e l f a ssu m e th e pre sid en c y . S e v e ral y e ars la te r, O b r e g o n w o u ld b e fol­ lo w e d b y P lu ta rc o E lia s C a lle s , w h o w o u ld fo u n d th e p a r ty t h a t w o u ld b e c o m e th e P R I a n d w h o w o u ld d o m in a te M e x ic a n p o litic s — b o t h d ir e c tly a n d i n d ir e c tly (K ra u z e 1997: 4 0 4 - 4 3 7 ) — u n t il L a z a r o C a rd e n a s w a s e le c te d in 1934. E lia s C a lle s is b e s t k n o w n fo r c o n s o lid a tin g th e sy ste m o f P R I - p a r t y d o m in a n c e t h a t w o u ld e n d u re u n t il 2 0 0 0 a n d fo r p r e s id in g o v e r th e p e r io d o f th e C ris te ro R e b e llio n , a m a jo r c iv il w a r in w h ic h in s u rg e n ts a im e d , u n ­ successfully, to d e fe n d th e R o m a n C a th o lic C h u r c h fro m th e s ta te ’s a lle g e d d e p re d a tio n s (B la n c a rte 1992). C a rd e n a s is b e s t r e m e m b e re d fo r h is p o p u l is t p o litic s , fo r h is role in f u r th e r so lid ify in g M e x ic a n c o rp o ra tis m , fo r th e n a tio n a l­ iz a tio n o f M e x ic a n o il, a n d f o r h is e ffo rts a t a g r a r ia n re fo rm

(K ra u z e 1997: 4 3 8 - 4 8 0 ) . T h e re is m u c h to d e b a te a b o u t t h e e x te n t to w h ic h th is

b ro a d e r p ro c e ss w a s re v o lu tio n a ry . I t c le a rly g e n e r a te d so m e i m p o r t a n t c h a n g e s i n p o litic s , so c ia l life , a n d e v en re lig io n . Y e t th e r e g im e t h a t it e n d e d u p p ro d u c in g b y th e m id d le o f th e t w e n ti e th c e n tu r y lo o k e d i n c e r t a in w ays lik e th o s e fo u n d in m a n y o t h e r L a t i n A m e r ic a n so c i­ e tie s a t th e tim e . T h e m o s t o b v io u s d iffe re n c e w a s t h a t

a u th o r i ta r ia n p o litic s in M e x ic o w a s so c le a rly d o m in a te d

b y o n e p o liti c a l p a r ty , th e P R I . T h e m o s t o b v io u s s im ila r ­ ity w o u ld b e t h e t u r n to i m p o r t s u b s ti tu tio n as a d e v e lo p ­ m e n t s tra te g y . I n M e x ic o , fo r a tim e a t le a s t, m a n y ju d g e d th i s a p p r o a c h to b e su c c e ss fu l, y ie ld in g th e s o -c a lle d “M e x i c a n m ir a c le ” (B a s a n e z 2 0 0 6 : 2 9 7 ) o f m e d iu m - te r m s u s ta in e d e c o n o m ic g r o w th . E c o n o m ic a lly , th o u g h , th e c o u n tr y e n te r e d i n to c ris is— lik e m o s t o f L a t i n A m e ric a — in th e 1 9 8 0 s. B y th e e a rly 1 9 9 0 s, P r e s id e n t S a lin a s d e G o r - t a r i i n tr o d u c e d i m p o r t a n t lib e r a l e c o n o m ic re fo rm s. S c h o la rs d e b a te th e r e la tio n s h ip b e tw e e n th e s e re fo rm s a n d t h e s u b s e q u e n t e c o n o m ic t u r b u le n c e , in c lu d i n g th e p e s o c risis o f 1 9 9 4 . A l s o i n th e e a rly 1 9 9 0 s , M e x ic o w i t ­ n e s s e d th e b e g in n i n g o f a n in s u r g e n c y in th e s o u th e r n s ta te o f C h ia p a s , p r o te s ti n g lib e ra l re fo rm s a n d “g lo b a liz a ­ tio n ” m o re g e n e ra lly . I n l a te r y e a rs , M e x ic o ’s c itiz e n s b e c a m e m o re a n d m o re i n te r e s te d in b r e a k in g th e P R I ’s s tr a n g le h o ld o n p o w e r. T h e N a t io n a l A c t i o n P a r t y (Partido Action National, or P A N ) s u c c e ss fu lly w o n t h e p re s id e n c y w i t h V ic e n te F o x i n 2 0 0 0 . P A N is a c e n te r - r i g h t p a r t y t h a t te n d s to b e less a n ti- c le r ic a l t h a n t h e P R I (in d e e d , th e C a th o li c C h u r c h p la y e d a ro le in M e x i c a n d e m o c r a tiz a ­ tio n , as it d i d e ls e w h e re d u r in g “t h i r d w a v e ” d e m o c r a tiz a ­ tio n ). I t h a s a lso c o n tin u e d w i t h e c o n o m ic lib e r a liz a tio n . F o x w a s s u c c e e d e d b y P r e s id e n t F e lip e C a ld e r o n . C a ld e r o n h a d s o m e su c c ess b u t fa c e d d iffic u ltie s g e n e r a te d b y h is ef­ fo rts to c o n tr o l d r u g g a n g a c tiv ity , e s p e c ia lly in b o r d e r s ta te s . I n so m e a re a s , t h e s ta te ’s a b ility to e x e r t its W e b e ­ r i a n “m o n o p o ly o n th e le g itim a te u se o f fo rc e ” w a s to ta lly c a lle d in to q u e s tio n . P R I c a n d id a te E n r iq u e P e n a N ie to w o n th e 2 0 1 2 p r e s id e n tia l e le c tio n s . O n e k e y q u e s tio n o f M e x ic a n p o litic s c o n c e rn s w h e t h e r th e P R I h a s c o m e to fu lly a c c e p t p lu r a li s t d e m o c ra c y o r if, u p o n r e ta k in g p o w e r, it w il l a g a in a im to m o n o p o liz e it.

Regime and Political Institutions M e x ic o ’s p o litic a l s y s te m is s tr o n g ly p r e s id e n tia lis t, th o u g h i t h a s b e c o m e less so in r e c e n t y e a rs as m u l t i p a r t y c o m p e titio n h a s b e c o m e a r e a l it y (C a m p 2 0 0 7 : 1 8 1 -1 8 3 ). I n t h e y e a rs o f P R I d o m in a n c e th is w a s h i g h li g h t e d b y th e e x tr a o r d in a r y p o w e r t h a t th e p r e s id e n t h a d b o t h w i t h in t h e in s t it u t io n a l f r a m e w o r k o f t h e s ta te and w i t h i n t h e p a rty . T h e e x e c u tiv e b r a n c h p lay s a c r itic a l ro le n o t j u s t in t h e a d m in is tr a tio n o f t h e s ta te b u t a ls o in c o n c e iv in g a n d p r o p o s in g le g is la tio n . I n d e e d , h is to ric a lly , t h e e x te n t to

w h ic h le g is la tio n is p ro p o s e d b y th e e x e c u tiv e in M e x ic o h a s b e e n s ig n if ic a n t (C a m p 2 0 0 7 : 1 8 1 -1 8 2 ). C a m p n o te s tw o a d d it io n a l so u rc e s o f t h e le g is la tu r e ’s re la tiv e w e a k ­ n e ss (2 0 0 7 : 1 8 7 -1 8 8 ). F ir s t, r e p re s e n ta tiv e s c a n n o t b e r e ­ e le c te d im m e d ia te ly a f te r s e r v in g a t e r m . S e c o n d , th e r e s e a r c h s ta f f o f t h e le g is la tu r e is s m a ll a n d p o o rly f u n d e d , w h e re a s t h e e x e c u tiv e ’s s t a f f is ro b u s t.

T h e ju d ic ia l sy ste m h a s a lso su ffe re d h is to ric a lly fro m re la tiv e w e a k n e s s a n d la c k o f in d e p e n d e n c e , th o u g h th is

502 Mexico

Regime and Political Institutions Regime Federal republic, democratic (more fully so in recent years, especially since PAN victory in

2000 presidential election)

Administrative Divisions Thirty-one states as well as the Federal District of Mexico City

Executive Branch President

Selection of Executive President is elected by popular vote. Note that presidential selection has changed notably in recent years (see case study box later in these country materials).

Legislative Branch Bicameral Congress Lower chamber: Chamber of Deputies (Cdmara de Diputados) Upper chamber: Senate (Senado)

Judicial Branch Supreme Court of Justice, composed of eleven justices (one the "president" of the supreme court). Justices are nominated by the executive and approved by the legislature.

Political Party System Multiparty system, though for much of the twentieth century Mexican politics was completely dominated by the PRI. The PAN broke this monopoly in 2000 but as of this writing a PRI member again holds the presidency.

h a s c h a n g e d so m e w h a t in th e w a k e o f re fo rm s p a s s e d in t h e in 2 0 0 0 , th e r e h a s b e e n g r e a te r c o m p e titiv e n e s s in t h e e lec- 1990s (C a m p 2 0 0 7 : 1 8 9 -1 9 2 ). A f te r th e d e fe a t o f th e P R I to r a l system .

Political Culture M e x ic o is a c o u n tr y w h e re sc h o la rs h ave fo c u se d a g o o d d e a l o f a tte n tio n o n q u e s tio n s o f p o litic a l c u ltu re . C lassic a c c o u n ts o f th e “c u ltu r e o f p o v e r ty ” b y a n th ro p o lo g is ts (L e w is 1961) a n d o f th e “civic c u ltu r e ” b y p o litic a l sc ie n tists ( A lm o n d a n d V erba 1963) lo o k e d a t M e x ic o as a p r o m in e n t case. T h e se a c c o u n ts te n d e d to v ie w M e x ic o in n e g a tiv e te rm s , o r to tr e a t its c u ltu r e as p ro b le m a tic o r as c o n tr ib u t­ in g to p e rc e iv e d e c o n o m ic o r p o litic a l de fic its. T h u s L e w is a im e d to e x p la in m u ltig e n e ra tio n a l p o v e rty in th e T e p ito n e ig h b o rh o o d o f M e x ic o C ity (th o u g h g e n e r a liz in g a b o u t p e rso n s in p o v e rty m o re g e n era lly ), a r g u in g t h a t i t w as tr a n s m it te d th r o u g h c u ltu r a l tr a its lik e a u th o r ita r ia n is m , a te n d e n c y to w a rd in te r p e r s o n a l v io le n c e, m iso g y n y , a n d p o o r e d u c a tio n (it is im p o r ta n t to n o te h e re t h a t L e w is w as n o t c la im in g t h a t M e x ic a n s p o ss e s se d th e s e tr a its m o re t h a n o th e r p o p u la tio n s ). A lm o n d a n d V erba, in c o n tra s t, re lie d o n m o re re p re s e n ta tiv e su rv e y s o f a sa m p le o f th e M e x ic a n p o p u la tio n as th e y c o m p a re d M e x ic a n p o litic a l a ttitu d e s a n d o rie n ta tio n s to th o s e h e ld in o th e r c o u n trie s lik e E n g la n d , G e rm a n y , Italy , a n d th e U n ite d S ta te s. T h e ir g e n e ra l c o n c lu sio n w as t h a t th e M e x ic a n p o p u la tio n h a d a

less d e m o c ra tic c u ltu r a l o r ie n ta tio n t h a n th e p o p u la tio n s o f o t h e r c o u n trie s . T h is s o r t o f a r g u m e n t h a s g e n e ra te d a r o b u s t d e b a te in th e so c ia l scien ces a n d in p o lic y d e b a te s a b o u t th e re la tio n s h ip b e tw e e n c u ltu re , p o v e rty , a n d d e ­ m o c ra c y m o re gen era lly .

L e t u s fo c u s o n th e p o litic a l c u ltu r e e x a m p le fo r a m o m e n t. T h a t A lm o n d a n d V e rb a ’s d a ta sh o w e d less d e m o ­ c ra tic a ttitu d e s a n d o rie n ta tio n s (as th e y w e re d e fin in g th e m ) is clear. T h is is n o t th e so u rc e o f a n y c o n tro v e rsy a m o n g so c ia l sc ie n tists. W h e r e th e a r g u m e n t g e ts m o re c o m p le x is w h e n c a u s a l c la im s a re m a d e a b o u t th e r e la tio n ­ s h ip b e tw e e n th e s e v a lu e s a n d p o litic a l o u tc o m e s. A lm o n d a n d V e rb a ’s s tu d y w a s c o n d u c te d a t th e h e ig h t o f t h e P R I p a r ty d o m in a n c e i n M e x ic o . S o m e sc h o la rs w a n t to a rg u e t h a t p o litic a l c u ltu r e “tric k le s u p ” a n d s tr u c tu r e s i n s t it u ­ tio n s ( I n g l e h a r t a n d W e lz e l 2 0 0 5 ). O t h e r s w a n t to a rg u e t h a t p o litic a l i n s tit u t io n s p ro d u c e c u ltu re s . S o fro m o n e p o in t o f view , M e x ic a n a u th o r ita r ia n is m w a s a re s p o n s e to a m o re a u th o r ita r ia n p o litic a l c u ltu re . F ro m a n o th e r p o in t o f view , th e o b se rv e d c u ltu r a l te n d e n c ie s in t h a t p e rio d w e re re a so n a b le a d a p ta tio n s to a n a u th o r i ta r i a n p o litic a l

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e n v iro n m e n t. N o te t h a t t h is is a g e n e ra l d e b a te in c o m p a ra tiv e p o litic s a n d t h a t M e x ic o is j u s t o n e p a r ti c u ­ larly i n te r e s tin g case in th is c o n n e c tio n .

C a n y o u t h i n k o f w a y s in w h ic h w e m ig h t b e a ble to m a k e p ro g re s s o n th is d e b a te r a th e r t h a n h a v in g e a c h side r e p e a te d ly a s s e r t its t h e o r e tic a l p o i n t o f view ? O n e s t r a t ­ e g y w o u ld b e to fo c u s o n M e x i c o ’s d e m o c r a tic tr a n s itio n . I f th e firs t th e o r y is r ig h t, i t s h o u ld h a v e b e e n d riv e n la rg e ly b y c u lt u r a l c h a n g e . T h a t is, M e x ic a n p o lit ic a l c u l­ t u r e s h o u ld h a v e b e c o m e m o re “d e m o c r a tic ,” w i t h i n s t i t u ­ tio n a l c h a n g e a n d f o r m a l d e m o c r a ti z a tio n fo llo w in g . I f th e se c o n d t h e o r y is r ig h t, w e w o u ld e x p e c t e lite b a r g a i n ­ in g a n d i n s t i t u t io n a l c h a n g e to c o m e firs t, w i t h c u lt u r a l c h a n g e s to fo llo w , i f a t all.

Political Economy M e x ic o is a n im p o r t a n t e m e rg in g eco n o m y , in c re a s in g ly in te g r a te d w ith th e b r o a d e r g lo b a l eco n o m y . Its e c o n o m ic h i s to r y h a s b e e n m ix e d , a lte r n a t in g b e tw e e n p e rio d s o f g r o w th a n d crisis. A s d is c u s s e d pre v io u sly , it w a s, in e c o n o m ic as w e ll as p o litic a l te rm s , o n e o f S p a in ’s m o s t i m p o r ta n t c o lo n ia l p o sse ssio n s. I n th e n in e t e e n th c e n tu ry , p o litic a l in s ta b ility c a u s e d e c o n o m ic p ro b le m s , sin c e a p r e ­ d ic ta b le p o litic a l a n d e c o n o m ic e n v ir o n m e n t is n e c e ssa ry f o r in v e s to rs a n d o th e r e c o n o m ic a c to rs to a c t o p tim a lly . I n t h e la te r n i n e te e n t h c e n tu ry , m o d e r n e c o n o m ic in f r a s tr u c ­ tu r e w a s b u ilt d u r in g th e P o rfiria to , b u t th e so c ia l d islo c a ­ tio n s c a u se d in p a r t b y t h is p ro c e ss y ie ld e d la te r in sta b ility . T h e M e x ic a n R e v o lu tio n u s h e re d in a n o th e r p e r io d o f i n ­ s ta b ility w h ic h lik e ly h e ld e c o n o m ic p e rfo rm a n c e b a c k , t h o u g h i t is a rg u a b le t h a t th e f r u its o f d e v e lo p m e n t i n s u b ­ s e q u e n t y e a rs w e re s o m e w h a t m o re e q u ita b le as a re s u lt o f th is p ro c ess. F in a lly , as i n m u c h o f L a ti n A m e ric a a n d th e re s t o f th e d e v e lo p in g w o rld , M e x ic o t u r n e d to i m p o r t s u b ­ s titu tio n as its d e v e lo p m e n t s tra te g y in t h e m id d le o f th e tw e n tie th c e n tu ry . T h is se t o f p o lic ie s c o in c id e d w i t h fa irly c o n s is te n t a n d s tro n g e c o n o m ic g r o w th fo r se v e ra l d e c a d e s, th o u g h e v en a t t h e e n d o f th is p ro c e ss M e x ic o w a s le f t w i t h h i g h in e q u a lity a n d n o ta b le p o v e rty .

T o d a y ’s M e x ic a n e c o n o m y is d o m in a te d b y se rv ice s (60 p e rc e n t o f G D P ) a n d i n d u s t r y (37 p e rc e n t), w i t h a g ric u l­ tu r e a c c o u n tin g fo r u n d e r 4 p e r c e n t o f G D P (2 0 1 3 e s ti­ m a te s, C I A W o r ld F a c tb o o k ). U n e m p lo y m e n t is a t le a st fo rm a lly q u ite lo w a t p re s e n t, e s tim a te d a t 4.9 p e r c e n t (2013 e s tim a te , C I A W o r ld F a c tb o o k ). A s th e C I A W o r ld F a c t­ b o o k n o te s , M e x ic o h a s a h i g h ra te o f underemployment,

W h i l e th is is a g o o d stra te g y , as is o f te n th e case th e e m p iric a l d a ta d o n o t im m e d ia te ly resolve th e c o n flic t b e ­ t w e e n th e s e riv a l th e o rie s , as th e r e is e v id e n c e to s u p p o rt b o t h v ie w s. I t is p r e tt y h a r d to e x p la in th e M e x ic a n tr a n s i­ tio n w it h o u t fo c u s in g o n i n te r n a l p a r ty d y n a m ic s in th e P R I , o r g a n iz in g in th e P A N , a n d th e c rises a n d e c o n o m ic d islo c a tio n s o f t h e 1 9 8 0 s a n d 1 9 9 0 s t h a t u n d e r c u t o n e o f th e P R I ’s m a in p illa rs o f leg itim a c y . O n th e o th e r h a n d , th e r e is e v id e n c e (C a m p 2 0 0 7 ) t h a t M e x ic a n p o litic a l c u l­ tu r e in th is p e rio d c h a n g e d n o ta b ly (sim p ly s p e a k in g , b e ­ c o m in g m o re d e m o c ra tic ), in o n e a c c o u n t “c o n v e rg in g ” a b it w i t h th e p o litic a l c u ltu re s o f C a n a d a a n d th e U n it e d S ta te s, ju s t as M e x ic a n e c o n o m ic c u ltu r e n o ta b ly s h if te d th r o u g h m o d e r n iz a tio n (B a s a n e z 2 0 0 6 ).

h o w e v er. W h a t th is m e a n s is t h a t m a n y M e x ic a n s d o n o t h a v e sa tis fa c to rily r e m u n e ra tiv e jo b s , a n d a la rg e p e rc e n ta g e (a ro u n d a q u a r te r o f th e la b o r force) w o rk s i n th e in fo rm a l eco n o m y . T h is is v e ry c o m m o n i n th e d e v e lo p in g w o rld , a n d it is w o r t h k e e p in g i n m in d b e c a u se it im p a c ts th e e x te n t to w h ic h u n e m p lo y m e n t ra te s in d e v e lo p e d a n d d e v e lo p in g so c ie tie s a re c o m p a ra b le m e a su re s. M e x ic o d o e s c o n tin u e to su ffe r fro m h ig h in c o m e in e q u a lity . Its g i n i co efficie n t s ta n d s a t 4 8 .9 ( W o rld B a n k 2 0 1 3 e stim a te ). T h is is so m e ­ w h a t w o rs e t h a n t h e g in i c o efficie n t fo r t h e U n it e d S ta te s, i ts e l f k n o w n as a c o u n tr y w i t h re la tiv e ly h ig h in c o m e

in e q u a lity . T h e M e x ic a n s ta te h a s h is to r ic a lly p la y e d a n im p o r t a n t

ro le in e c o n o m ic m a n a g e m e n t. A s n o te d p re v io u sly , d u r i n g th e P o r f ir ia to t h e s ta te e n d e a v o re d to a t t r a c t a n d p r o te c t c a p ita l. I ts ro le in t h e e c o n o m y g r e w a f te r t h e re v o ­ lu tio n a n d u n d e r th e P R I (C a m p 2 0 0 7 : 4 5 ), p a r tic u l a r ly b e g in n i n g in th e 1 9 3 0 s a n d 1 9 4 0 s. M e x ic o p r a c tic e d s ta te - le d d e v e lo p m e n t, n a ti o n a li z i n g e n te r p r is e s lik e o il (c re a t­ in g th e g i a n t P E M E X firm ) as w e ll as r a ilr o a d s , e n g a g in g in la n d re fo r m (w h ic h g e n e r a lly te n d e d t o w a r d th e d i s tr i­ b u tio n o f re la tiv e ly s m a ll la n d h o ld in g s ) , a n d a d o p tin g a s t r a te g y o f i m p o r t - s u b s ti t u ti n g i n d u s t r ia liz a t io n , p r o te c t ­ in g d o m e s tic i n d u s tr ie s . I t in v e s te d h e a v ily in i n f r a s tr u c ­ tu r e as w e ll. T h is w a s t h e p e r io d o f th e “M e x ic a n m ir a c le ” ( B a s a n e z 2 0 0 6 : 2 9 7 ) w h ic h p ro d u c e d s te a d y g r o w th , re la ­ tiv e ly lo w in f la tio n , a n d ra p id in d u s tr ia l iz a t io n . U n f o r t u ­ n a te ly , M e x ic o s u ffe re d , a lo n g w i t h t h e r e s t o f L a t i n A m e r ic a , f r o m th e d e b t c ris is o f t h e 1 9 8 0 s, re la te d h e re to th e d r a m a tic d e c lin e in o il re v e n u e s w h ic h , a lo n g w ith

504 Mexico

o t h e r fa c to rs , e x a c e rb a te d th e s t a te ’s d iffic u ltie s in p a y in g its d e b ts . C o n s e q u e n tly , th e c o u n tr y fa c e d s e rio u s e c o ­ n o m ic d iffic u ltie s — in c l u d in g a n in c re a s e in p o v e r ty a n d th e e x p a n s io n o f t h e in f o r m a l e c o n o m y — a n d M e x ic o slow ly t u r n e d to w a r d re fo rm . M e x ic o fo llo w e d p r e s c r i p ­ tio n s to p r iv a tiz e a n u m b e r o f in d u s tr ie s , in c l u d i n g b a n k s t h a t h a d u n d e r g o n e e m e rg e n c y n a tio n a liz a tio n in 1 9 8 2 , th o u g h th e s ta te c o n tin u e s to o w n P E M E X , C F E (a m a jo r p o w e r c o m p a n y ), a n d o t h e r e n te rp ris e s . T h e M e x ic a n

e c o n o m y h a s a ls o se e n t h e g r o w t h o f a g rib u s in e s s in r e c e n t y e a rs. M e x ic o h a s c o m e to b e m o re in te g r a t e d w i t h th e g lo b a l e c o n o m y , p a r tic u la r ly t h r o u g h N A F T A (w h ic h c a m e in to e ffe c t i n 1 994) a im in g to b o ls te r g r o w t h t h r o u g h in d u s t r ia l e x p o r ts . T h is s tr a te g y h a s p ro d u c e d g a in s , th o u g h it h a s a ls o le f t th e c o u n tr y v u ln e r a b le to g lo b a l e c o n o m ic fo rc e s, in c lu d in g th e p e s o c ris is o f 1 9 9 4 a n d th e c o u n tr y ’s s e rio u s e x p o s u re to t h e g lo b a l e c o n o m ic c risis b e g in n i n g in 2 0 0 8 .

CASESTUDIES

The Mexican State and Rule of Law CHAPTER 3, PAGE 56

As discussed in chapter 3, one of the dis­ tinguishing features of modern states (in addition to their relative autonomy, bureau­ cratic mode of organization, and so forth) is that they have established the rule of law. This means that, at least ideal-typically, a fully functioning modern state (1) has a legal-rational framework for resolving conflict; (2) enforces that framework trans­ parently; and (3) enforces it equally, rather than privileging one or another set of actors based on network ties or some other sort of affiliation.

The Mexican state has done this at various times in its history with varying degrees of success. As Morner (1993: 6) notes, the state was relatively weak after independence and then grew in strength during the Porfiriato, entering a period of weakness during the revolution and its immediate aftermath before gaining ca­ pacity again in the middle of the twenti­ eth century. In very recent years there has been a great deal of concern in Mexico and abroad, particularly in the United States, about increasing levels of violence, drug trafficking, ongoing corruption, and the seeming inability or unwillingness of components of the Mexican state (army,

police, and the judicial system) to curb criminal activity. Some areas of Mexico, it is alleged, largely lie outside of the state's real jurisdiction. In some towns in parts of the country, drug gangs essentially exer­ cise state-like functions, resolving disputes and maintaining order of a certain sort.

How could we explain the presence and influence of powerful criminal organi­ zations that make a mockery of the state's 'monopoly on the legitimate use of force"? Several basic factors are likely deci­ sive. First, there must be gains to be made above those made in licit activity for an important segment of people. Otherwise, there would be little incentive to engage in illicit activity. This would suggest that continued economic development would help to reduce organized, nonstate vio­ lence (of course, organized nonstate vio­ lence makes economic development more difficult to achieve). Second, the risks must not be so high as to discourage a large number of criminals from partici­ pating in illicit activity. In contemporary Mexico, as in many parts of the develop­ ing world, the risks that state enforcement poses to criminals is relatively low be­ cause of high rates of impunity. The state

cannot or will not enforce the law in cer­ tain areas, dramatically reducing the cost (in terms of risk) for illicit activity. Finally, illicit groups must have the resources nec­ essary to seek their chosen ends, and these resources can be both material and organizational. Material resources include both guns, which in the case of Mexico are often trafficked from the United States, where there is little gun control, and money, again from the United States, as it is estimated that cross-border drug trade sends between $15 billion and $25 billion to Mexico each year (O'Neil 2009: 70). Organizational resources include the ongoing existence of criminal gangs, as well as their established ties, via corrup­ tion, to state actors.

Interestingly, a number of commenta­ tors have tied the escalation in Mexican drug violence to reform. Some of this has to do with the fact that the PRI historically sometimes worked with criminal net­ works rather than aiming to squash them (O'Neil 2009:65). Moreover, at lower levels of the organizational structure of the state, police corruption was common under the PRI (Davis 2006), and remains so. Where and when the PAN came to

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Rule of Law CHAPTER 3, PAGE 56

hold office, linkages between the PRI and drug traffickers were broken, producing non-institutional (and thus often violent) responses (O'Neil 2009: 65). In essence, whereas the PRI had allowed the contin­ ued existence of illicit organizations but had co-opted them and used them for their purposes, after the emergence of democratic pluralism, these organizations faced higher risks and thus sought new techniques to maintain and protect their autonomy and interests. Exogenous fac­ tors were important as well, including U.S. efforts to restrict the flow of trafficking in the Caribbean region. If the costs of one path get too high, traffickers will look for another path, and trafficking through

Mexico rose dramatically in response to changing patterns of U.S. enforcement (O'Neil 2009:66; Davis 2006:62). Of course, this necessarily bolstered the position of Mexican illicit organizations. Thus at the same time, Mexican criminal organiza­ tions had greater profits, more autonomy, and a reason to become more indepen­ dent. Then the Mexican government at­ tempted to stamp them out. At this point the organizations had little choice but to fight back.

It is worth noting that some of the same commentators have seen link­ ages between Mexican democratization (O'Neil 2009; Davis 2006) and rising crime in Mexico (this is perhaps not surprising

since reform and democratization have been so closely linked). Indeed, the rise in crime witnessed in Latin America from the 1980s on does roughly mirror the pat­ tern of regional democratization. Could it be, as some authors have asked, that de­ mocratization and rule of law don't always go hand in hand? Others (Magaloni and Zepeda 2004) have looked at economic data, though, and argued that while de­ mocratization seems the culprit, its near simultaneity with rising crime is largely coincidental, and that the most important variables associated with rising crime are income inequality and economic difficul­ ties. This is an ongoing debate in the field.

m CA SE STU DYUrn Mexico's "Perfect Dictatorship" and Its End CHAPTER 7, PAGE 154 In Mexico in 2000, a remarkable thing hap­ pened to the Partido Revolucionario Institu­ tional (the PRI): It lost. The PRI ruled Mexico from 1929 to 2000, a period of seventy-one years that equaled the amount of time the Communist Party ruled the former Soviet Union. Throughout that time, the PRI held elections, and it routinely won them. The party's dominance was so complete that a leading Latin American intellectual, the Pe­ ruvian Nobel Prize-winning novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, called Mexico "The Perfect Dictatorship.” How did the PRI dominate for so long, and conversely, why did this finally come to an end?

The PRI's electoral invincibility was built on several pillars, and including both "carrots" and "sticks."The “carrots" included

the successful incorporation of many di­ verse interest groups into the party's gov­ erning structure; we note this later, in the box on chapter 11, where we discuss cor­ poratism under the PRI. In addition, PRI rule included many "sticks," though op­ pression was not constant and not always overt. The most dramatic event came in 1968, when the government cracked down on student protesters in a plaza in Mexico City in what came to be known as the Night of Tlatelolco (Krauze 1997: 717— 726). Official figures at the time were that four people were killed, but other esti­ mates were much higher, ranging as high as 3,000.

The PRI's eventual decline was accel­ erated by a range of factors and by several

events. In particular, the government's le­ gitimacy suffered when it presided over major economic turmoil in 1982. In that year, Mexico hit a debt crisis that left it unable to pay back foreign debt, and this signaled the end of the "Mexican Miracle” of growth that it had achieved for several decades. During the 1980s, support from peasants and labor unions began to shift to opposition parties, including the PRD and the PAN. Around this time, opposition parties first built their political base by winning elections in Mexico's states and cities, with numerous governors being elected from other parties from 1989 through the 1990s. As this happened, it became costlier and more difficult for the PRI to rig a national election just as the

506 Mexico

5 Mexico's "Perfect Dictatorship" and Its End CHAPTER 7, PAGE 154 economic crisis depleted the govern­ ment's resources (Levy and Bruhn 2006). Even less political events seemed to con­ tribute further to the PRI's decline. A major earthquake in Mexico City in 1985 was handled with incompetence by the gov­ ernment, yet other non-governmental organizations responded effectively, which undermined the PRI's claim that it alone was capable of addressing public needs (Haber 2006:74-76).

The declining legitimacy of the PRI came to a head when it used less-

As noted previously, Mexico was once called "The Perfect Dictatorship." Part of the reason for this name was the ability of Mexico's PRI party to bring major interest groups under its banner. This included labor, business, the state bureaucracy, as well as the peasantry. At the same time, the PRI successfully marginalized from politics the military and the church, two other major forces in Latin America that could threaten the basis for rule (Stevens 1977: 253). The broad-based form of corporatism that took in Mexico's major institutions made it very difficult for competitors to defeat the PRI, and the party governed un­ interrupted from the 1930s to 2000.

The PRI in Mexico managed the repre­ sentation of different interest groups by incorporating these various forces into the dominant party's decision-making structures. Under most circumstances, it would be challenging for a single party to be the party of both labor and business,

than-subtle tactics to win the 1988 presi­ dential election. In that year, the party- controlled electoral council infamously announced that all of its computers tragically crashed just when it appeared the popular opposition candidate Cu­ auhtemoc Cardenas of the PRD party (and son of PRI founder Lazaro Cardenas) would win the presidential election. When the computers turned back on, PRI nominee Carlos Salinas de Gortari mirac­ ulously found himself with an insur­ mountable lead over Cardenas. The

yet Mexico's corporatism developed a symbiotic relationship for the interest groups and the governing party. The labor movement was represented mainly by the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), which received state sponsorship and whose leadership maintained close rela­ tions with the political leadership of the PRI. A similar relationship emerged be­ tween the PRI and the National Peasant Confederation (CNC). In the cases of labor and peasant groups alike, organizations that joined the government-sponsored confederation received particular eco­ nomic benefits (such as wages or subsi­ dies) that unaffiliated groups did not (see Levy and Bruhn 2006: 73-83). Meanwhile, business groups were more formally inde­ pendent from the PRI, but they received considerable support from the party in the form of policies and preferential treatment, such as subsidies, tax breaks, loans, pro­ tections from foreign competition, and

ballots from this 1988 election were later burned, but the result contributed fur­ ther to the collapsing legitimacy of the party.

The PRI managed to hold on for one more election in 1994, but lost the presi­ dency at last in 2000 (for more detail on the transition, see the essays in Middle- brook 2004). It returned to power with the 2012 election of Enrique Pena Nieto, but many observers would argue that it will not (and perhaps does not aim to) re­ cover its traditional form of dominance.

pro-business state investment (Levy and Bruhn 2006:84). In return for this set of poli­ cies that favored the broad array of interest groups, Mexico's unions and business lead­ ers were expected to turn out the vote for the PRI. This state corporatism worked in different ways in other countries in Latin America, as well as in Europe, due to the long-standing dominant party system.

However, the PRI eventually lost its control in Mexico. Some of these reasons were highlighted in the chapter 7 case study, but an important component of the end of the dominant party system was the decline of the PRI's corporatist strategy. Over time, pressures on the PRI increased, partly due to faltering eco­ nomic performance, especially after the debt crisis of the early 1980s. When the PRI lost its ability to command support from peasants, laborers, and business, it lost not just voters but also the institu­ tional underpinnings of its rule.

The PRI and Corporatism in Mexico c h a p t e r 11, page 26/

Case Studies 507

The PRI and Corporatism in Mexico CA SE STU D Y (continued)

CHAPTER 11, PAGE 267

Key moments in Mexico's political economy came in the 1970s, when busi­ ness groups grew disenchanted with the increasingly populist strategies em­ ployed by presidents Luis Echevarria and Jose Lopez Portillo from the 1970s to

1982 and based in part on the discovery of new oil reserves. Increased govern­ ment spending and indebtedness re­ sulted in a debt crisis in 1982, during which Mexico devalued the peso and moved much more toward a neoliberal

economic model emphasizing markets and free trade. This in turn alienated the other part of the PRI's political base— labor and peasants— and signaled the beginning of the end of the party's tradi­ tional form of dominance.

Industrialization, Modernity, and National Identity in Mexico CHAPTER 13, PAGE 309

As you saw in chapter 13, one major theory of nationalism holds that it is a product of industrial capitalism. Recall that this theory is functionalist in that it takes nationalism and national identity to emerge because industrial capitalism needs it, or at least needs some functional equivalent, to do so. The idea here is that nationalism's emphasis on equality and the importance of vernacular language, as well as the inherent similarity and frater­ nity between co-nationals from different localities, helps to break down barriers to geographic and social mobility, and that an industrial economy with its urbaniza­ tion, shift to wage labor, and so forth cannot function if cultural barriers pre­ vent it. This argument, as noted in the chapter, is plausible.

However, when applied to the em­ pirical case of Mexico it becomes diffi­ cult to sustain. Mexico begins to see at least some of its residents acquiring national consciousness in the years after and around 1810. Even the Plan of Iguala (1821), in many ways a conservative docu­ ment, uses the language of nationalism,

referring to Mexico in several passages as "La nation." (The Plan de Iguala is available online via Rice University.) In short, there is no doubt that nationalism was present in the country during the independence struggles and even a few years before.

This does not mean, by any stretch, that national identity had established "he­ gemony" in Mexico in this period. In other words, it does not follow from the fact that official documents used national lan­ guage (1) that all Mexicans thought of themselves as members of the nation or (2) that those who did all had the same idea of the nation (Anna 1998). Some elites in the early independence years likely continued to try to hold on to the sort of identity that had predominated in the colonial period. Many subaltern per­ sons likely thought of themselves in terms of predominantly local identities, though careful research by historians has shown that some subaltern actors did quickly begin to make use of national identities to make political claims on elites in Latin America once these became available (Mallon 1995). In any case, given that

Mexican industrialization does not get underway in any meaningful sense until the Porfiriato, it is essentially impossible to argue that industrial capitalism pre­ cedes and therefore causes the spread of national identity in this case. Some might argue that an agriculture- and mining-based commercial capitalism was tied to the development of national­ ism in Mexico, but this is a different argu­ ment and would require considerable evidence.

Does this mean that we should throw out arguments about industrial capitalism causing national identity to emerge or that this case refutes them categorically? Not necessarily. First of all, Mexico may turn out to be exceptional in this regard, and a scholar cannot know until he/she exam­ ines other cases. In other words, maybe industrial capitalism giving rise to national­ ism as seen in Ernest Gellner's theory is a common path but not the only possible one. Second, even if industrial capitalism did not cause national identity's emer­ gence, it still played an important role in the story of nationalism in Mexico. It's just