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upon talking to jprp, I attach my take home exam about democracy here. It was finished within one day, so it is just a summary based on reading materials. (two days period to finish two questions.)
Answer to Q1 in Part I on democracy:
What is democracy? Although there are various definitions of it, the central idea is that in a democracy “the people” rather than a subset of the people rule. As Lincoln says, it is “a government of the people, by the people, and for the people”. The source of authority or the sovereign of a democracy rests on the people, the demos. Only when dealing with the question of how this abstract concept is translated into a practical definition, or to say, how the will of the people acts in practice, directly or indirectly, different conceptions varies.
Basically, there are two types of concepts of democracy: procedural or substantive. A substantive kind of definition determines a democracy in terms of the outcomes that it produces, such as political justice, economic justice and social justice; a procedural kind of definition determines a democracy in terms of its institutions and procedures, such as elections. The two types of definition can have some overlaps. Usually a procedural definition is a minimalist one, and a substantive definition can be a maximalist one, but it is not all the case. In general, minimalist measures may be able to answer more questions since there is less correlation between their components and those of the study questions. One of minimalist definitions of democracy is provided by Schmitter and Karl in 1974: “Modern political democracy is a system of governance in which rulers are held accountable for their actions in the public realm by citizens, acting indirectly through the competition and cooperation of their elected representatives.” It has the two basic dimensions of democracy suggested by Robert Dahl –inclusion and contestation.
Beyond that, Tilly in his book Democracy points out four main types of definitions: constitutional, substantive, procedural, and process-oriented. A constitutional approach focuses on laws a regime enacts, but large discrepancies between announced principles and daily practice often make it misleading. A substantive approach focuses on the conditions of life and fulfilled political and civil rights in a regime. A procedural definition looks at government practices, especially elections to determine if a regime is democratic or not. A process-oriented approach determines a minimum set of processes that must be continuously held in motion to qualify a democracy. Robert Dahl’s “Polyarchal democracy” is a process-oriented one, which requires six institutions in place to be a democracy– elected officials; free, fair, and frequent elections; freedom of expression; alternative sources of information; associational autonomy; and inclusive citizenship (Tilly, Democracy, p. 10). By the same process-oriented approach, Tilly himself suggests four criteria of judging a regime to be democratic: whether the political relations between the state and its citizens are broad, equal, protected, and mutually binding consultation. Breadth refers to the extent of citizen inclusion for political rights. Equality refers to the level of equality found among and within categories of citizens of a society. Protection refers to the degree of protection against the state’s arbitrary power. Mutually binding consultation refers to the degree to which the state delivers benefits to its citizenry.
Linz and Stepan define democracy this way: “Democracy denotes ... a system of government that meets three essential conditions: meaningful and extensive competition among individuals and groups (especially political parties) for all effective positions of government power, at regular intervals and excluding the use of force; a highly inclusive level of political participation in the selection of leaders and policies, at least through regular and fair elections, such that no major (adult) social group is excluded; and a level of civil and political liberties--freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom to form and join organizations--sufficient to ensure the integrity of political competition and participation.” It summarizes the main elements of definitions by Dahl and Tilly. Compared to Schmitter and Karl’s definition, it has the additional third element: civil and political liberties, or protection of rights, with which someone may argue the definition defines a liberal democracy, not a democracy in general.
When discussing the quality of democracy and democratic consolidation, some writers also implicate what constitute a democracy. Usually, they add more standards. For example, Larry Diamond and Leonardo Morlino in their “The Quality of Democracy” (2004) define a good democracy as “first a broadly legitimated regime that satisfies citizen expectations of governance. Second, a good democracy is one in which its citizens, associations, and communities enjoy extensive liberty and political equality. Third, in a good democracy the citizens themselves have the sovereign power to evaluate whether the government provides liberty and equality according to the rule of law. Citizens and their organizations and parties participate and compete to hold elected officials accountable for their policies and actions. They monitor the efficiency and fairness of the application of the laws, the efficacy of government decisions, and the political responsibility and responsiveness of elected officials. Governmental institutions also hold one another accountable before the law and the constitution. It is a substantive sense of definition, with outcome standards in place and additional emphasis on the existence of rule of law. Linz and Stepan point out five arenas a consolidated democracy should have conquered: free and autonomous civil society, free and inclusive electoral contestation (political society or political rights), rule of law, rational-legal bureaucratic state apparatus, institutionalized market (economic society or economic freedom). More criteria are suggested for evaluation: free and autonomous civil society and economic society, and a rational-legal bureaucracy. Furthermore, Jan Kubik suggests only when the boundaries between the state, civil society, economy, political society and domestic society are well distinguished, and with sufficient communications between each other, does a democracy exist.
There are three mainly used measures of democracy – PACL, Polity IV, and Freedom House. Freedom House (2005) provides an annual measure of ‘global freedom’ for 192 countries and eighteen territories from 1972 to 2004. The measurements provided by Freedom House are based on both substantive and procedural definitions. When it evaluates the extent to which a citizenry enjoy political rights and civil liberties, it incorporates some substantive judgments; when it measures electoral procedure, it looks for procedural elements. PACL, produced by Przeworski, Alvarez, Chelibub, and Limongi, defines democracies as “in which who govern are selected through contested elections” (P 2000). It has four rules for operationalizing their concept: if the chief executive is elected, if the legislature is elected, if there is more than one party competing in the elections, and if an alternation in power under identical electoral rules has taken place. It emphasizes on elections and contestations. Polity IV is an annual measure of “democracy” and “autocracy” for 184 countries from 1800 to 2003. A country’s Polity Score is based on five different attributes or dimensions: the competitiveness of executive recruitment, the openness of executive recruitment, the constraints that exist on the executive, the regulation of political participation, and the competitiveness of political participation. Together, these dimensions capture Dahl’s notion of both contestation and inclusion. PACL and Polity IV are a minimalist definition. PACL is on dichotomy and the rest two are continuous.
The relationship between democracy and wealth has been in a long time debate in politics. In ancient Greece, Aristotle says a society with a predominant middle class and a widespread wealth is a lasting polity, since the most trustworthy person everywhere is the mediator, and the middle class is a sort of mediator between the poor and the rich. A society united on the majority will last longer than the one in which the extremities in distrust of one another rule. (Aristotle, Politics, 1984) It implicates that a certain level of wealth and certain economic structures are required for a country to be democratic. Later the enlightenment thinkers believe technological advancements and economical changes will enable change in people's moral and cultural values, and political and social insititutions in society. It implicates that economical advances can bring about political change, mostly, in a progressive way.
In the 1950s and 1960s, modernization theory brings out the theses that all societies pass through the same historical stages of economic development following the example of the Western Europe, and countries are more likely both to become democratic and to stay democratic with economical development. Although the theory was originally developed by economists and economic historians, it was taken up quickly by political scientists. In 1959, Lipset raised a hypothesis that is whether a high level of development is a precondition for the emergence and maintenance of democratic rule. The empirical evidence they have is that there are a higher proportion of democracies among rich countries than among poor countries.
The mechanism linking development with democracy suggested by classic modernization theory is based on functionalism which stresses the interdependence of the institutions in society and their interactions in maintaining social unity. Especially the division of labor theory produced by Emile Durkheim points that in a capitalist society, with the complex division of labour, certain political and social institution change would be needed to maintain order. Basically, modernizaton theory argues that as a country develops, highly advanced technological level and complex production relationship require the active cooperation of employees and autonomy of the direct producers. As a result, the society can no longer be effectively run by the central command. Also, new groups and assoications emerge and so does civil society. They form a social base being able to bring down dictatorship. (Przeworski’s summary in 2000, from Principles of Comparative Politics by Clark etc., 2009, p.170)
There are some more specific explanations in modernization theory. Barrington Moore in 1966 makes a more powerful explanation that in the nineteenth century, the commercialization of the agriculture in England made peasants landless, at the same time coalitioned the landed upper classs with the bourgeoisie, and empowered them with an economic base to balance the power of the crown. Eventually it helped to build up a representative democracy. Bates and Lien (1985) argue the increased mobility of assets in England at that time enabled the gentry to hide their assets from state predation. The crown, in need of economic support from economic elites, had to negotiate with them in order to gain revenues. During the process the power of Parliament which represents the interests of economic elites was strengthened. Clark etc. summarize the effect of mobilizing assets ensembles that of the credible exit threat in a Exit, Voice, and Loyalty game. (Clark, 2009)
Modernization thoery is challenged by Adam Przeworski and Fernando Limongi in 1997. They think the higher frequence of democracy among rich countries than among poor countries is not because development increases the likelihood that poor countries will transition to democracy, but because development makes democracy more likely to sustain once established. They call the second mechnism an “exogenous” thoery, the first mechanism an “endogenous” thoery. (Boix and Stokes, 2003)
The causal mechnisem behind the exogenous thoery, brought out by Przeworski and Limongi, is that because people prefer to stay in democracies with developed economy. Why? Because in democracies, everyone can expect to get moderate share of total income, while in dictatorships, the victor can win all of the income but the loser can lose all. And the marginal utility of consumption is lower at higher levels of consumption; thus the gain from winning the struggle for dictatorship is smaller. In poor democracies, the value of becoming a dictator is greater – you have chance to win more income, and the cost of destroying captial stock is lower – the economy can catch up faster after the war for dictatorship. In rich democracies, the gain from getting all rather than a part of total income is smaller and the recovery from destrution of war is slower. So the people are more willing to struggle for dictatorship in poor countries than in rich countries. (Boix and Stokes, 2003)
But Carles Boix and Susan C. Stokes in 2003 reject Przeworski and Limongi’s theory. They point out P and L fail to provide a theory linking development to democracy only under the condition of an existing democracy. If only exogenous thoery works, in such a society there must be some factors which only work to sustain a system of democracy, but not work to transition the same society from dictatorship to democracy earlier. P and L didn’t explain those factors. Thus Boix and Stokes reembrace modernization theory: development is both an endogenous and exogenous cause of democracy.
Furthermore, using the same graph presented by P and Lof the relationship between the probability of regime transition and the level of capital income from 1950 to 1990, they provide a different explanation of data. The probablity of transition to democracy declines sharply at income level above $7000, except that most of time it increases with income. They point out P and L draw wrong inference from the fact that there is low probablity of transition at high levels of development. It is because many dictatorships have already undergone transition to democracy during development before reaching the income level of $7000, the number of remaining dictatorships is small when the world becomes rich. And because the number of them is small, the possible number of transitions is also small; thus the probablity of transitions is prone to big variations due to small events, which leads the inference draw from it to be highly vulnerable. Then they incorporate the data from 1800 to 1949 for their model to take into account the facts that most democracies transitioned themselves before 1950, that the distribution of regimes was not random but highly correlated with income in 1950, and that the distribution of growth patterns is not random. They found endogenous effect significant. They also include more controling variables in the model to see if wealth is only one of mulitple causes to determine the causal relationship.
Boix offers an explanation of the casual mechanism between development and democracy under the new model. The income level itself doesn’t influence the relationship directly. It takes effect by changing other social structures in the society. As countries develop, incomes become more equally distributed and wealth become widespread. The poor and the middle class would have more desire and power to ask for participating in ruling, which would pressure the society towards democratization. (Robert Dahl also mentions this, from H&K 1995, p.27) Also, in a democracy with more equal income distribution the rich would be deprived less of their income by the redistributive tax policy favored by the median voter than in a dictatorship with unequal income distribution. The rich prefers to democratization and also to stay in a democracy. It is similar to Aristotle’s theory. (Boix and Stokes, 2003)
In 1991, Lipset, Seong, and Torres found an “N-curve” relationship between authoritarianism and economic development. The probability of non-democratic regimes decreased with development among lower- and upper-income countries, while increased in a middle range of countries. (Haggard &Kaufman,1995) In sum, the relationship between development and regime type seems indeterminate among middle-income countries. (Huntington, The Third Wave) This is also the case in P and L’s graph on the probability of regime transition against income.
H and K then suggest that the stability of authoritarian regimes depends both on economic performance in the long term and economic conditions in the short run. An economic crisis, a sharp, not self-correcting deterioration in aggregate economic performance which may not cause the collapse of authoritarian regimes, did appear to accelerate it. It poses challenges both to policy and to the collation of interests that benefited from the policy status quo. Authoritarian regimes are more dependent than democracies on their capacity to deliver material resources to key supporters. Thus economic crises can play a pivotal role on dismantling them. And it also shapes the terms on which authoritarian governments withdraw. An authoritarian regime withdraw during a non-crisis transition is better positioned to establish incoming institutional rules that favor policy continuity, including limits on political competition, than during a crisis transition.
The effect of democracy on economic development is still in debate among political scholars. In theory, there are two opposite arguments. In the nineteenth century liberal and socialist thinkers agree that democracy, based on universal suffrage, threaten property rights and therefore capitalism. In the postwar period several scholars argue that dictatorships are more effective at increasing saving and investment rates and at preventing political elites from rent seeking. On the opposite of those arguments, some claim that democracies lead to higher growth rates. Democracies constrain the confiscatory temptations of rulers and thereby secure property rights. They increase political accountability and reduce corruption and waste. They are more likely to provide public goods essential to economic development. From an empirical point of view, Przeworski and Limongi report the evidence that the type of political regime matters for growth is ambiguous. (Boix and Stokes, 2003)
Przeworski et al(2000) confirm the thesis that dictatorships have more variation in economic performance than democracies. They find that the standard deviation in economic growth rates between 1950 and 1990 was 7.04 for dictatorships and just 4.85 for democracies. Both economic miracles and disasters are prevalent in dictatorships.
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发表于 5-20-2009 19:28:01
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