web viewmethodological focus (research methods): purely methodological (does no more than to...

Comparative politics

CLASS 1 (10/02): Introduction:

- Ook vragen over boek dat je niet gelezen hebt!- Reading before class- Carry home assignment on book (4/20) tegen 22 MEI!

* Introduction (Caramani)

What is comparative politics? (1/6)Political science:

- political theory = how it should be; what makes something a democracy (normative) comparative normative approach to society

- comparative politics: empirical questions and interactions within political systems (comparing countries and institutions) a way of looking at things and try to understand them by comparing, other approach; very good approach to understand political phenomena, but it’s not that much of a field as such

- international relations: interactions between systems

Where do we place other courses (political sociology, Europe, political communication …)? Political science = container term, you fit everything under this BUT prof says: comparative politics is way more than a subfield of political science, it’s an APPROACH.

What is comparative politics? (2/6) HOW?Three traditions:

- country focus: descriptive, describes political systems- methodological focus (research methods): purely methodological (does no more than

to establish rules and standards for comparative analysis)- analytical focus: combination of substance and method: describing + explain

similarities and differences

Book: Country Focus: Every week you get a profile on a country, this is comparative in the sense that you have to make the comparison yourself. Every week you get a new profile and you can compare them yourself. The book describes countries in a comparable way. But you don’t know how political systems matter. No causality, maybe a correlation. The goal of this course is to not only describe, but also explain and by being able to explain, prescribe.

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What is comparative politics? (3/6)

Describe similarities and differences: - Classification: organize things - Typology(ex. Parties by number of parties there are in a system or are of importance in a system: example: when you have more than 3 parties, it doesn’t matter anymore how many there are: you create a typology: 1 party system, 2 party system, multi party system)

Explain similarities and differences:- test hypotheses (it matters because there’s a reason for the number of parties

political system)(ex. Why are there few/many political parties? Why is there a female head of state? Why is voter turnout higher in Switzerland than in Belgium?)

What is comparative politics? (4/6)Example: Blais & DobrzynskaTurnout in electoral democracies:

Question: When and where is turnout highest and lowest and why?Why does this matter? You’ll be able to do something about low turnout, because you know under what conditions turnout is higher.Low voter turnout: legitimacy for government is lower (ex. 50% of 10% of population going to vote…)

High voter turnout (=independent variable) is a very important factor in making a political system stable (=dependent variable). Is a normative question, BUT goal is scientific: you want to get high voter turnout (direct implications).

Voter turnout depends on:- socioeconomic environment- institutions- party systems

Turnout highest:Small, industrialized, densely populated, voting compulsory, lower house election decisive, PR, few parties

What is comparative politics? (5/6) WHAT?

Explaining = aim & comparison = method

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Experimental science: there’s a limit to experimental setting (ex. You can’t say: we will eliminate the political parties and see how the system works).Quasi-experimental: study cases who differ from the variables that we wanted to study (principe van test- en controlegroep) (ex. No government: experimental setting is a country that is in the process of making a new one)

What is comparative politics? (6/6)Systematic, explicit comparison:

- It should not be implicit with an absent case(ex. Compare American system to French system(=absent case), France is not described)

- Not normative (ex. Machiavelli: how the system functions en what we would need to make a better function down to facts and figures, not normative)

The substance of comparative politics (1/6)What is compared? National political systems, sub-national political systems (regions, constitutive entities in federations), supra-national units

! Seldom entire systems:- less work- not necessarily interested in the entire political system

The substance of comparative politics (2/6)Important to look beyond institutions and also look at actors

Traditional: analysis of formal institutionsAfter WWII: behavioural: Easton: definition of political system: input output

The substance of comparative politics (3/6)Zie 2

The substance of comparative politics (4/6)Issues we looked at were differentGood summary

The substance of comparative politics (5/6)High level of abstraction of systematic approach leads to counter-reactions: we kept the good things (we still study institutions and actors, because they do matter)

- new institutionalism: new focus on states and their institutions, there was too much focus on behaviour

- grounded theory: mainly focus on western democracies; middle-range

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- case-oriented analysis: small-end, more in detail- rational choice theory: behavioural was very psychologically inspired, very difficult if

you want to model something or build a theory

The substance of comparative politics (5/6)Cyclical process (back to institutions), but:

- Broader focus on institutions- Easton’s work integrated- More attention to output-side (what are the consequences of these institutions, what

does it generate?)

New challenges:- Quid interdependence between national political systems?

Can we still compare? Danger to comparing in a globalizing society? We’ll start to look alike, so it doesn’t make sense to compare them BUT prof says: it’s not the fact that they are similar, it’s the fact that this resemblance is due to the fact that traditional states are way less closed to external influences than before (migration, economic flows, finance, culture values, …). You can’t say that they are different cases. You can’t analytically onderscheiden dependent from interdependent variables.

The method of comparative politics (1/4)Methods differ with respect to:

- Numbers: intensive (small N, many variables)/extensive (large N, few variables) the larger the number of cases, the more superficial it gets

- Dimensions: o spatial (cross-sectional)o functional (cross-organizational) ex. Different parliamentso longitudinal (cross-temporal) depend on what you want to get to know

- Unit of analysis: single actors, institutions- Focus on similarities or differences

The method of comparative politics (2/4)1. Aggregate or ecological data: you don’t have it at the level of the individual (ex.

Election results: how many people voted for a certain party, but we don’t know WHO, we can’t trace them back to the individual)

2. Individual data

The method of comparative politics (3/4)

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Behavioural revolution: from institutions to focus on actors and later we moved back to institutions again.

- there was data available to study behaviour- shift from aggregate to individual data (60-70s studies relied on individual data): you

can say more, because you have more precise information (norms, values, thinking). Why do people vote? Who votes?

- Informatization- “Ecological fallacy” = if you have data at aggregate level, you cannot translate it to

the individual level by definition. If you say something about a country, you can’t automatically assume it also gelden for individuals in that country.

The method of comparative politics (4/4)Recovery of ecological data: very difficult and long process to get individual data + difficult to get them across different places and time

CONCLUSION (1/1)No comparing without difference: you need some divergence in order to be able to compareBUT: be aware of problem of interdependence (the fact that countries are interdependent makes them similar) how much divergence is left? Galton Problem

Difference is meaningful to study, make sure the cases you compare are ‘clean’ casesIndicators

Approaches (1/1)

Uses of theory (1/1)

Alternative perspectives (1-7/7)The five I’s = main approaches

1. Institutions: traditional, initial approach. Structures; institutions shape behaviour2. Interests (related to institutions):

a. Rational choice: rational behaviour maximizing utilityb. Corporatism: group interests (trade unions, employers federations)

Ex: consociationalism (Lijphart)3. Ideas (related to behavioural): ideas and ideology matter for output how should

society look like? Norms and valuesEx. Laïcité (secularisering)Ex. Almond & Verba (1963) en Putnam (1993)

4. Individuals: elite level and mass levelEx. LTA (Leader Trade Assessment): profiling leaders based on their word use

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Herman Van Rompuy: low ‘need for power’/’locus of control’/’self-confidence’, complex thinking

5. International environment

What more? (1/1)6. Interactions: important to get ‘the bigger picture’, we moved from meta to mid-range

theories

* Chapter 2: approaches in comparative politics (Guy Peters)

* Chapter 3: comparative research methods (Hans Keman)

CLASS 2 (24/02): Democracies and authoritarian regimes

* Chapter 4: Democracies (Peter Mair)

Why not put this in 1 chapter?- It would be a very long chapter- Nobody is specialized in both regimes (democratic and non-democratic ones)- Broad distinction between both because the degree in democracy can be important to look at certain variables (ex. Level of education), in many cases we don’t make broad distinctions, but we just compare two or more countries, we look in detail at sub-systems (ex. Level of constitutional rights). If you only compare democratic and non-democratic, it would be a superficial analysis.

- Ex. Question: How are the different types more or less inclusive? (degree of inclusiveness = independent and see: how does the degree of inclusiveness influence the degree of stability over time?)

Democracies: introduction (1/1)

Many countries call themselves democratic, but not all of them are democratic. Evolution of nation-states into democratical regimes is something from the last decade. In the 1970s: small group (27,5% in ‘74) and pretty much homogeneous, although differences between ex. N-AM and W-EUR: presidential/parliamentary regime vs monarchy; type of welfare state; party systems; unitary vs federal state structure; electoral system

Sub-system = part of the entire political system

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This group gets bigger, but also more heterogeneous: - welfare state regimes, not that easy to fit this model in the new democratic countries

(ex. Member states former Soviet Union; former colonies in Africa, Asia etc: not as developed as West-European countries)

- the order in which different types of rights were created (liberal, political, civil, constitutional) influences the stability of the country and the way it functions (?)

Comparing democracies (1/1)

Aim: 1. Describe2. Describe differences and similarities and find out which ones matter

1. Comparison of democracies: ex. Lijphart (comparing majoritarian vs consensus models)

2. The “third wave” of democratization, Huntington (starting 1974, peaking after 1989) historical approach; difficulty: when is a wave over?

3. Institutional engineering (the challenge of building democracies from scratch)Ex. Who makes a democracy? Not a one-step thing Example: what the US does in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. Implement a constitution in these countries. DEF = Trying to intervene in political/institutional system, often externally (ex. US, EU, IMF, World Bank, …) to change the political dynamic of the country (most intervened: electoral system and party system)

4. Neo-institutionalism (institutions as independent variables)

Defining democracy (1/3)

* Procedural definitions:It only looks at procedural features, no normative component.Schumpeter: “free competition for a free vote” he sees a democracy like thisWhat could be the outcome of this? Risk: what is the common good? Political system may become something of the majority, turn or more to non-democratic system (!) If any extremist, non-democratic party gets a majority of the votes, they can change the rules/rights (ex. Women are not allowed to work) in a very democratic way, but not with a democratic outcome… Can we speak of democracy if the rules of the system are in such democratic, but allow for a non-democratic outcome of the system? Ex. Germany forbid certain non-democratic parties (after WWII), in Belgium it’s not forbidden but there’s a political rule that we don’t want them to govern. Other countries (ex. France) DO allow them to govern.

* Substantive definitions:

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Stresses the goals of a democratic regime. It looks into how society should and has to look like (normative component).

Procedural are more common, easier to compare on procedural aspect than on substantive aspect

Basic norms France: egalité, fraternité, liberté abstract universal citizen, strict separation of … and stateBelgium is composed of different groups, not universal. We do recognize: there are differences in our citizens, completely opposite to French system.


Dahl: polyarchy (expanding procedural definition)Citizen rights: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of property, …Constitutional rights: basic rights described in the constitution

As long as you don’t have civil liberties, the political rights won’t get you far. Dahl says: Schumpeter has a good definition, but it would be better if we make it ‘thicker’.


Illiberal democracy: very populist, the elections are kind of a ritual, you take part in this, but for the rest there are no, too little or few civil liberties. In practice there are limits on individual freedom, you can’t say the elections are very meaningful. There’s a decrease of them again, not a stable country either you have the whole package (elections, but also civil liberties, constitutional rights etc) OR you have nothing at all. Only having elections as a ritual doesn’t work in the long term.

Developing democracy (1/1)

Incorporation:When rights come in a certain order, it makes them stable. First of al political rights, then you make them participate, then you build up other rights and this is done regularly. Gradual incorporation of the masses: gradual broadening of the group that is entitled to vote. Not everybody got the same rights to vote at the same time. Systems absorb new groups gradually.

Representation: Organization of political system in such a way that they can become meaningful; a new party ‘break’ into the system: at the moment when the parties were establishes, there was already

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a parliament with parties, so they came in when the parliament was already formed. They had to compete to gain enough votes to become members of parliament.

Organized opposition:How can the opposition, who tends to be a minority, still be meaningful? Through the media, popular initiatives (referenda). As an opposition your hands are tied.

we build op systems gradually

- Freedom House Index: catalog countries around the world on themes we can discuss (free, party free, not free at all). Number of non-democratic countries is sinking. The number of free countries increases. Number of party free countries is going up and down.- Voting rights: Scandinavian countries, Australia, Japan: universal male/female suffrage at the same time - Proportional voting formulas: majoritarian system, most common system around the globe: the first passed the post (UK): most straightforward and easiest system: in each area there’s a seat and the party with the most votes, gets that seat. Why increase in proportional electoral systems? There’s a growing number of democracies who are often less afraid of political difference to be expressed (coalitions, everybody’s voice to be heard).

Paths to democracy (fig 5.1)

Liberalization + become more inclusive= typology: when you want to apply this to concrete cases, it’s not that easy. But why is it still useful? If we still want to add cases that do not apply to the typology, what should we try to explain then? To adapt the typology or reasons why they do not fit. Dig further into it and trying to understand it better.

Typologies of democracy (1/2)

Typologies of democracy (2/2)

Audience democracy (1/1)

= people become spectators of what’s taking place in politics, the active engagement that we nourished and cultivated from the beginning of the last century is decreasing; turning democracies to mass democracies; making them realize it is important to be awake and active we saw this go down again, citizens become passive/consumersThere is a decrease political participation, in voter turnout (! Not in Belgium, because it’s compulsory)

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* Chapter 5: Authoritarian regimes (Paul Brooker)

Introduction (1/2)

Authoritarian regimes are everything else, the rest-category, a container concept. Everything that does not fit under democracy, fits under authoritarian regime. It looks more superficial, because there’s way more to cover.

Censorship: an intervention on what can be said/thought. You know you will be punished for what you say/think. Ex. Charlie Hebdo: form of censorship?

Introduction (2/2)

Are all monarchies authoritarian regimes? NO! Constitutional monarchy (ex. Belgium): we can choose our political leaders and as long as they do not back up the king, he can’t do anything. Important intervention of king: in a period of government formation.

Ruling monarchy: the King governsConstitutional monarchy: the King does not govern, but he reignsPersonal dictatorship: based on 1 person, on 1 actor

Not a clear cut typology, just to give an indication of how many trees there are in the wood, but you can see what types of trees are in the wood when you dig deeper.

Who rules? (2/6)

What features do they share? They need to be ceremonial! Much more than democracies because they are based on procedures

Who rules? (4/6)

It can also turn into a family tradition, but not in the way a democracy can.

Personal rule: when the individual is very important (ex. Cuba, USSR Stalin). They have to build their authority on an organization (party, military).

Reverse of the principal-agent relationship (in politics): principal are citizens, the agent is the person citizens elect to represent them in the parliament. The agent serves the principal, defends their interests. Now: people serve politicians (!)

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Who rules? (6/6)

Organizational rule:- military rule: very unstable- one-party rule: often one way or another a dictatorship, seem to be more stable

Why do they rule? (1-3/3)

They need a form of legitimacy: religion, resources, economic progress democratic claims: help the people, do the best thing for the people. Many authoritarian regimes use the world ‘democracy’ in a wrong way.

Religious claims to legitimacyIdeological claims legitimacy: the role of Catholic Church in Western Europe

How do they rule? (1/2)

What makes the difference between authoritarian and totalitarian regimes?Totalitarian: total control, both internally and externally. Often these countries are fully closed from the outside world

How do they rule? (2/2)

What makes the difference between authoritarian and totalitarian regimes?Totalitarian: total control, both internally and externally. Often these countries are fully closed from the outside world

Authoritarianism: limited political pluralism, less of a mass-mobilization. There is political leadership, but it’s less pronounced.

CONCLUSION (1/1)

Democracies are fragile, something that has to be cultivated in order to survive, although they tend to be more stable. We have more concerns about their degree of fragility. Authoritarian/totalitarian regimes are not long-lasting, high difficulty to survive in the long run.

CLASS 3 (03/03): State structures

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* Chapter 4: The nation-state (Gianfranco Poggi)

Two topics in this chapter:1. What are the main features/characteristics of states?2. States development

Difference between polity (=society or entity; setting organized through the political authority), politics (=entire field of activity: looking into what people do to make rules; not outcome) and policies (=decisions that are taken by public, binding, supposed to be legitimate bodies like the government; help us organize society; outcome)

We are looking at polity. A state is something that developed in the “modern West”. Western Europa, North America, but also for example Australia.

The Nation-State: introduction (1/1)

- Europe is not a state, supranational body, but it shares a lot of features with a state (clear population, sovereignty, …). Some refer to a federal system and that is a state. - Specific forms of territories with autonomy- Nations

A portrait (1/1)

Features: territory (= no way out*), sovereignty, monopoly of legitimate violence (=rechtsstaat: within certain limits), plurality of states, the people/’nation’ (=nations are useful to create an identity to feel you belong to a state) They can organize, function and structure in their own way. They don’t need to be democracies, don’t need to follow an ideology or certain principles.

* two reasons: 1. Historic evolution of polities over time and very strong association of polities with territory 2. There is no higher authority, the state is sovereign. You can only be sovereign if you define where you can be sovereign, unless it’s global, but then we wouldn’t need the definition of a state anymore…

ISSUE: where does the territory begin and end? The precisely should be between brackets: Israel is by definition a modern nation-state, but the borders of Israel are to a certain extent being questioned. Iraq, Turkey, Japan and China are questioning borders in the Caribbean.

Monopoly of legitimate violence is an issue in some Latin and South-American countries.

A more expansive concept (1/2)

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Additional features:1. Development of a public- and state-binding law replacing religious norms2. Centralized organization3. Differentiation between state and society4. Formation of a public sphere5. Democratic participation6. Citizenship: to feel you belong; no military function: nobody would be willing to

sacrifice yourself if you don’t feel you belong to the nation; you wouldn’t want to defend it; counter disunity

A more expansive concept (2/2)

Two sides: 1. Nations are historically embedded, going back to a common history, traditions, religious belief, language, …2. There’s something historically that made these groups grow into nations

Nations are partly a construction: they may refer to historic features, some are build on 1 nation, others on a couple of groups/nations. Modern Italy, Belgium, UK: not 1 nation as in 1 identity. France is more of a one nation-state.

Centralized type of modern state is kind of a reaction to the nation-states.

State development (1-3/3)

Three phases of European state formation:1. Consolidation of rule/power2. Rationalization of rule: public law, state law, civil servant, … Went hand in hand with:

centralization of power, development of a structured hierarchy of a system, functions.

3. Expansion of rule: from lean state with limited set of functions to modern welfare state where the state interferes in many fields of our lives

CONCLUSION (1/1)

If we talk about states, we talk about specific polities, mainly Western nation-states. TYPICAL QUESTION: GIVE ME A GOOD EXAMPLE OF expansion of rule (ex. The state I come from…)

* Chapter 11: Federal and local government institutions (?)

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Introduction (1/1)

If you look at the state as an organization: how is it structured? State architecture (the way it is build).Nation-states=dominant form of political organizations

1. Spain is officially not classified as a federal state. We need more than a distinction between unitary and federal states. 2. The nation-state is under pressure from above (supranational, international) / below (nation-state=effort to centralize; pressure from regions)

Modern nation-state territorial governance (1-2/2)

Union-state = union of states/entities, something that had kind of an identity before that. Comes close to confederation, but it’s not (confederation=number of sovereign states deciding that they do a couple of things together) (ex. Commonwealth: Canada, New-Zealand, Australia, UK)

Territorial governance welfare state (1/2)

The way that local or regional or intermediate levels within the state architecture, they have been conceived at the beginning of the nation-states has been at the centre. This principal-agent relationship has changed: the lower levels became more than agents, they got political power (administratively executing). This was triggered by evolutions within the welfare state, but it makes that states nowadays are more different from each other than they were at the beginning of the modern nation-state. At the outside there was already some differentiation. Different types of relations between subordinate and central-state level.

Territorial governance welfare state (1-2/2)

4 types of evolutions:1. State systems tended to be more symmetric at the beginning than now. Symmetry: not all of the levels have the same power asymmetry: functional decentralization (ex. Spain, Italy: a number of regions have more power/autonomy than others), administrative deconcentration, fiscal decentralization2. P-A model replaced by choice model: More diversity, some things can only be organized at the local level. You have more of a choice which model you want and you can move to another region/…

3. Move towards fiscal decentralization: within certain boundaries you can decide if you want to raise taxes, …

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4. From hierarchy to equality of levels

If you want to compare states, it’s more complicated, because they differ more now than they did before.

Federal vs unitary states (1-2/2)

Useful to get a glimpse of how it is to be unitary, how much diversity there is in the world. There is a setup according to criteria helping you find different types, but NOT to idealize concrete cases into types… You use specific criteria to see where a concrete case fits in.

Lijphart: unitary/federal BUT add a second dimension which is centralized/decentralized. Something in between: semi-unitary or semi-federal. Something is a certain type because it fits specific criteria.

Regionalization/decentralization (1-2/2)

It’s very difficult to distinguish this into types, because they talk about different things. We can not compare them easily.

Decentralization: What do you take away from the center? What is taken out? Transfer or political decision making, fiscal, … Does it count for the country as a whole? Or only for certain regions? If you want to compare this, you better compare it to regionalism.

Regionalism: bottom-up: the demand from the regions (lower level) to get more autonomy; ISM = particular way of looking at thingsRegionalization: considered to be a top-down process: things are given to regions; to de-burden the central level OR because you might need an intermediate level to better run society

! Examples

Local level (1/2)

Not every state has an intermediate level, but every state has a local level. Initially as the basic agent of the central principle (executing, putting into practice). But more and more to get more political autonomy itself.

1. Very difficult to compare: Even bigger variety of local levels: how are they organized? How big are they?

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2. Differences between urban and rural, very difficult to classify.

Local level (2/2)

Political localism: to what extent politics and political life (questions, issues, actors, figures, …) have their own dynamics as compared to the central level

Legal localism: there’s a lot of legal and decision-making autonomy and they administratively run by themselves, disconnected from the centre, but in another way. It’s a legal level by itself.

LOGIC OF FISCAL AUTONOMY? To steer the society in a certain way, the fiscal autonomy might get you nowhere without political autonomy. You simply execute. Don’t stare blind on the amount of fiscal autonomy. (!!!!)

CONCLUSION (1/1)

Increasing variety of systems, they way states are internally organized. The former, hierarchial, symmetric nation-state is losing out. The pressure on the nation-state from below is important, maybe even more important than the top-down pressure!

CLASS 4 (10/03): book 1

BOOK 1: Patterns of democracy (A. Lijphart)

1. There are different ways to organize different patterns in democracies. Differ in who they want to govern and HOW they want to do this.

Governing for the majority’s wishes (ex. UK) majority modelGoverning for as many people as possible (ex. Belgium) consensus model (says the majority model is the minimum requirement (?))

2. Differ among 10 variables and they are divided into two clusters:- Executives-Parties (joint power)

- Federal-Unitary (divided power) Inclusiveness is important (how many people are represented?; including as many people as possible)

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10 variables: consider this as a continuous thing, not just one or the other. Most democracies fall in between.

Executive-parties clusterFederal-Unitary cluster

Belgium: large coalitions; executive is dominant (executive legislative balance between dutch- and frenchspeaking); multi-party system (until 60s three big parties: Christiandemocrats, socialists, liberalists): linguistic factor plays a very important role; proportional electoral system, interest groups: ABVV. Federal state in 1993

What do we need to change the constitution? Special majority

Conclusions:

CLASS 5: BOOK 2Zie notities Romy!

CLASS 6 (31/03):

* Chapter 10: Elections and referendums (Michael Gallagher)

Age? Citizen or not? (ex. Do you have to have Belgian nationality to vote?; in Germany you have to have lived in the country for a certain period to be able to vote) This is an issue in a globalizing world: why should you have the nationality if you want to vote? (Change nationality? Doesn’t make sense to change it every … years)

Current discussions:1. Don’t ask for voting rights, it doesn’t get you anywhere…2. Responsive to citizens? To what extent do you get feedback, is there exchange, …3. Thresholds? The higher the threshold, the more difficult for smaller parties to get

represented.4. Fragmentation: the extent to which the votes are spread over different parties.

fragmentation is bad for coalition stability. The more fragmentation, the less stable the coalition is.

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Introduction (1/1)

Myth to think it’s possible to have a direct democracy with so many different people, representatives are necessary.

Elections and electoral systems (1/13)

Example: in Belgium vote for Green party, it probably will get on the agenda. In Belgium there’s a highly proportional system. In the UK, there’s a first past the post system. Green issues do not make it on the agenda very easily, doesn’t make sense to vote for the green party, because they almost have no chance of getting elected. What would be your voting strategy? Vote for the candidate who is most likely to get elected. In France, …


Who is entitled to vote?

Advantage of compulsory voting, voluntary voting: how will you organize this? In the US, you have to get registered (you have to express your will to go voting), but as a system it’s making a move towards the citizens. You leave the choice up to them. People really need to be motivated, because making it voluntary means setting a threshold. For people who cannot read/write, it’s not self-evident to go voting (+ take time off from work to go register AND to go vote…).


There should be elections at least every … years. Why don’t we set how long by definition 1 term will be? The parliament cannot intervene when G doesn’t work.


Multi-member constituency: in each constituency more than 1 candidate is elected.

Majoritarian Proportional (you have majoritarian systems with multimember constituency, so just make distinction between majoritarian and proportional)


Majoritarian system:

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- Plurality (you need a higher % than the other candidates to get elected) and majority (you need more than 50% of the votes to get elected)

o Simple system: easy for voters system works in countries with a low rate of education, parties know how to behave etc.

o BUT: many votes get wasted, because of the high level of proportionality- Party bloc vote: in a constituency where for example 5 or 6 seats can be won, all of

these go to the party with the most votes (Middle East; US: the way in which those people are elected who run for president you win a state or you lose it)

- Alternative vote: you eliminate in each round the weakest candidate, only those with >50% go through; sometimes only 2 rounds (second round only two candidates who obtained highest votes in 1st round clear-cut decision); sometimes 3 rounds but in third round only have to have more votes than the others, not >50%

o Intermediary steps when more than 2 roundso Bottom line: voters are entitled to make their own choice, an open choice. o List: the likeliness that 2 voters will rank the same person first is very small.

The weakest is the person with the least amount of favourite votes (look at every voter’s list and see how many times A/B/C/D/E got ranked first eliminate least number; see how many times the remaining candidates got ranked second eliminate least number in total!! (so how many times ranked 1 and how many times ranked 2). We do this until somebody has the majority of the votes.

This is why it’s called alternative voting: we look at second choice if the first choice isn’t clear.

You make all your choices at once. You don’t know how the others will vote, so it’s very hard to vote strategically.

Imposes on the voter that you really have to make your own choice, without strategic behaviour.

Two-round: first ideological behaviour and then strategic behaviour Example: …?


PR list systems:- Proportionality = the extent to which we can translate the number of votes into the

number of seats (if you get 30% of the votes, you also get 30% of the seats)- Less important waste of vote.


More subtypes in majoritarian systems.

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1. List system: thresholds

2. Mixed system: prof wouldn’t put this under the label of proportional systems, but apart. It’s a mixture of both types of electoral systems.


List systems: you present a list with a number of candidates equal to the number of seats to be won (difference between countries where you can cast 1 preferential vote on one list or countries where you can cast multiple preferential votes on one list like in Belgium)


Mixed systems: - Mixed member proportional system- Mixed member majoritarian system (parallel): we elect part through proportional

principle and we make this compensate for the disproportionality that has been created through the elections


Lost votes: zie alternative voting (we eliminate the one with the least votes). = lost vote allocation

Surplus vote allocation: how many votes do you need to be elected? Surplus votes are transferred to other candidates.

Candidates are more important! This system advantages systems where individual and strong candidates are important. Difficult: pretty highly proportional outcome (used by very few: Malta and Ireland)


The higher district magnitude overall, the higher proportionality. BUT it depends on the number of parties. If you have a high level of parties, it can outweigh the level of district magnitude, the more fragmented the % of votes each party won. Elections and electoral systems (12/13)

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Intra-party choice: the only system that guarantees total choice to voters is single transferable vote (?)


Thresholds: constitutional thresholds do not have a lot of impact in practiceIf you have 100 seats, national threshold is 1% (you need 1% of the votes in order to have 1 seat).

In many countries, especially small countries in Europe, you don’t have constitutions with more than 20 seats.

Referendums (1/5)

What is their added value in terms of direct decision-making? (= second best option, because it’s not feasible)

Direct democracy means that citizens would put up the ag enda itself. Referendums are being put on the agenda and then there’s a choice for the voters, so it’s not a true form of punctual direct democracy. It’s an element of representative democracy, where some topics are considered to be so important that the G, … etc think they cannot decide on this by themselves, they need the opinion of the public.

Aim? Backup, support, legitimacy, ratification / you want to check how much veto there is against what you want to do, veto against it. Referendums can be organized from these two perspectives.

Does it have to be taken into account? Or just an advice you get- This is tricky! Advisory referendums on strongly politically polarized issues, you

cannot take them as simply advisory. It sends the wrong message to the citizens. If you make them binding, you give away a lot of decision. You do not control what can take place. Imagine the outcome is no…).

- A lot of thresholds. It’s not because you have them, that you cannot build in thresholds to make sure it’s useable, to make it something that will work.

Referendums (2/5)

Process-related

Referendums (3/5)

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Outcome-related: mainly way more negative

There are many important issues that cannot be put into a referendum. We like the process, but what can we really achieve with it?

Referendums (4/5)

Growing tendency to use them, the reason why we do this is not necessarily because we think we can achieve much.

Referendums (5/5)

Impact? Issue-voting vs second-order in most cases we do not have the impression that public policies are better. It might work to increase legitimacy of the process, but in terms of outcome it doesn’t get us far.

CLASS 7 (21/04):

* Chapter 12: Political parties

Introduction (1/5)

Anti-establishment parties, populist parties (Podemos in Spain has some populist treats)Issue in countries like Belgium, Netherlands?

- Party membership declining: membership dropped tremendously- Trust in parties is low (one party system, authoritarian party losing ground on a very important onderdeel of the system=basic institution of politics, choosing who will represent us there’s not really an alternative, parties are the actors that are supposed to channel the representativeness of the system, they are the bridge between the individual and society, they aggregate preferences)- Hopping from party to party

Introduction (2/5) See conclusion handbook

To what extent do new parties want to operate volgens de regels die reeds opgezet werden

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Paul De Grauwe: how would his government look like? They would be technocrats: people who are experts, who are specialized in certain fields

Stel: staatssecretaris: ontdekt een volledig nieuwe wereld in een bepaald gebied, zijn geen experten (bv. Asiel voor Maggie De Block) parties put forward people who have to decide about huge policy fields on which they know close to nothing

We don’t have many alternatives, we can add stuff to the system we have, but replacing the sytem with something new is not really possible up to now.


Many parties look very different from the way the looked before. They might have changed for the worse or for the better… Important: parties are changing. Parties try to reinvent themselves (ex. Branding, new forms of organization, functioning, structures, …)


In the end things might not be as hopeless as they are. Writer chapter: critical to American system and American democracy, he sees many advantages in the way we run democracies in Europe. This might be the reason he thinks it’s not that bad. + in the end: we simply don’t have a good alternative to offerBecause of that parties remain something very important in democracies.

Definition of parties (1/1)

What are the tools we need to compare parties? Before we can compare, we have to be able to define ‘parties’. List in the book not good, very American – historical chronological list – not contemporary (how we talk about parties today)

We can talk about a party when that and that and that is present, it has to fulfil a couple of criteria. Objectives, methods, role and system Parties are not all necessarily interested in holding office (to have power, to run the country), they just want to throw up the system, to be able to blackmail other parties.

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Not a clear cut definition of what a political party is, but gives the elements of what you can look at to try to find out what a political party is.

They organize themselves (different types of organizations, American - Middle-East - European)

Very important: you have to start from a definition of the outset.

Origins of parties (1/1)

Parties we have often go way back in time, they are not necessarily traditional because of their background, but because they have existed for a very long time. More than a typology, it’s a history of parties we have had.

Did parties originate in parliament or outside of parliament? This distinction means that parties had to meet very different criteria in order to be able to operate. Outside of parliament: mass parties not liberals, but social party – social democrats (cleavage capital/labour)

Functions of parties (1/2)

Imagine we would try to organize European elections and we do not have parties. What would work and what would not? We would have a very open system of nominations, where whoever wants can say I want to be a candidate can do that. In the end you would get a long list of candidates and citizens have to vote for 1 of them. Time-consuming (negotiate with others to get a majority, otherwise it won’t get voted, it takes time to get to a decision) + weak parliament (what you would miss is the capacity of taking a strong position against the government)

Functions of parties (2/2)

Recruitment and selection: to renew and refill the basket of candidates you need, but also to broaden political structures (socialize people as political citizens)

Models of party organization (1/9)

Different parties organize themselves in different ways. Handbook p. 205: What comes after that? What’s the focus of that organization in parliament?

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Modern nation state characterized by focus on basic principles. Liberal parties go hand in hand with the setting of modern nation states.


Parties came from the outside and had to break into the system mass parties about what is taking place in society (schooling, youth movement, organizations, social security, housing, …). They had to heavily invest into an organization. ‘The machinery’


Catch-all parties: parties started growing towards each other ideologically. ideological war is over? No, this is not the case, but in terms of parties, operating in a broader system where ideological debates became less important, they had to reinvent themselves to bereiken the people they were trying to attract. They had to broaden their perspective, they had to try to attract/catch new groups. They invest in voters and in connecting to voters. Tendency from parties to reach out to voters, communication. Catch them all broader society.


Further evolved into cartel parties. Since it becomes kind of impossible to invest in a source-efficient way … It’s harder and harder to invest in voters, you can grasp it less and less. Parties focus more and more on themselves and their own functioning within the states. Because it’s hard to reach out to voters, many of them have not been in parliament for a long time. They are part of the state, the infrastructure running the society. They are institutions in themselves, they are no longer an actor that want to fight the establishment. They ARE the establishment. They are considered to be part of it.

Politics is becoming increasingly complex, because states are more complex. Even for a politician it is often hard to get to know a topic. Parties have to invest in that. They have to make sure that everybody can survive in this complex system (=modern ally party=cartel party).


Anti-cartel parties: the idea of having less of the heavy institutionalized structure, they do not tend to invest that much in their own think tanks etc.Business-firm parties: ex. Berlusconi, Duchâtelet, … at the outset they tend to have a lot of money, but in terms of structure they run like a business company.

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This is a WESTERN EUROPEAN story! Betekent niet dat je dit model volledig zal terugvinden in andere context.


European perspective: what happens in US is anything BUT a political party because it functions so differently. You can not compare these parties on a couple of aspects. In organizational and functional terms, American parties are very different from European parties.

Compare them to cadre parties: no part in machinery, focus on individuals, no former membership organization, historical artefact, …

! DIFFERENCE: how candidates for elections are recruited and selected, completely different process. Takes away an important function of parties: recruitment and selection (American parties have very little to say about that). As a party you can define your ideological profile: what do you want to present to the voters? What kind of picture do you want to present to voters and what kind of people do you want to have in your party and government? American parties don’t have a hold on that. The way candidates are selected takes away a lot of power from American parties.


Party membership is declining: you can prove and disprove anything with figures depending on how you present it. Parties count membership in the message they want to give. You can count members OR you can give a ratio (members in relative numbers as compared to electoral position ex. Party that goes for 50% of the votes and has 20000 members is different fro ma party that goes for 5% of the votes and has 20000 members) OR organizational density (members and voters).

Not considered to be a problem, because membership has not been an important issue for parties BUT in Western-Europe and old parties it IS important = historical heritage.

Socialist party broke into the system and the first thing the liberals did want trying to attract more members.


Debate: is it important for parties to have members? Parties without members? YES OR NO?

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Flemish nationalists made an enormous uprise the last 10 years: first thing was investing in members, because of historical tradition. If such a party would have been set up in another country where membership isn’t as important, they wouldn’t make a fuzz about it.


Rules we set to parties with respect to their rights, but also their duties.

Democracy (1/1)

Prof: mixed feelings about this section: we can have parties without democracy but we cannot have a representative democracy without parties. What is the exact relationship between parties and democracy?

- Parties do not need some form of democracy to function, but do we then still call them parties?

- Do parties contribute to democracy and its stability? Certain historical events can ervoor zorgen that there is a certain kind of mistrust (ex. WWII, Berlin Wall)

- Some parties can contribute to democracy- Some parties question the whole system (ex. Islamic parties)

Parties are a tricky thing to come to grips with/to look at. Make sure the definition is correct and that it fits with what you want to study. Parties is an issue that is in movement, in evolution. It depends very much on time and context. Parties today are not what parties were 50 years ago. Parties in the USA are not what parties are in Europe and so on. You have to be aware of the importance of context (place, time, history, …).

* Chapter 13: Party systems Alleen basics kennen!

Introduction (1/1)

You can only talk about party systems when there’s more than one.

Genealogy (1-5/8) Where do we come from and how can we explain it? Not in terms of organization (chapter 12: individual level, how you can compare different parties to each other). Chapter 13: the whole constellation of party systems, he doesn’t look to it planet by planet anymore, he looks at the solar system as such)

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Genealogy (6/8)

Two important decisive moments in history led to losers and winners organizing themselves in parties. Depending on how important it was, it’s still present in today’s parties. Across Western-Europe we tend to find different … (facist, dictatorship, …) across different societies, but these two events were present almost everywhere.

Genealogy (7/8)

The losers organize populist parties, neo-populist, … Most of them on the right side of the spectrum, but the new ones often on the left side.

Genealogy (8/8)

In some countries only 1 cleavage dominates, whereas in other countries (ex. Belgium) more than 1 cleavage dominates.

The basic ingredients are there, but they can grow or dalen in importance.

Morphology (1/6) how does it look like? How should we describe it?

How many parties they are and how big are they these are important together, because if you have many parties, but only 2 of them matter, the rest doesn’t play an important role

Morphology (2-3/6) IMPORTANT!

P. 223

Four types of party systems are a mixture of size and number.

1) Dominant-party system: 1 big party in government, very disperate opposition in parliament. Not the healthiest of all party systems.

2) Two-party system: ex. US, UK, … go hand in hand with majoritarian electoral system. It’s one or the other, smaller parties are kind of hopeless.

3) Multi-party system: how big is the ideological difference between these parties? In which are coalitions, cooperation possible or is there competition of power?

a. Moderateb. Polarized: radical players (why fighting against the system? Within the centre

you have old system establishment parties)4) Bipolar-party sytem:

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Morphology (4/6)P. 225

You can see it as a normative debate, but you can also look at it from what you want. It’s not absolute normative debate, there are trade-off’s.

Morphology (5-6/6)

Look at how many parties there are – look at how many parties count the extent to which the size of parties matters. Look at mixture of the two! Look at the role parties can fulfil.

CLASS 8 (28/04):

* Chapter 2: Legislatures

Introduction (1/5)

Zie notities Romy

CLASS 9 (05/05):

* Chapter 18: Political Participation

Introduction (1/1)

PP = Links the mass to the political elitesNot always direct results or slim chances (form of participation, even though you know the chances might be very small) ex. Voting for Green party, even though you know they won’t be in charge

% demonstration: going upwards

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How? (1-3/3)

Table 18.1: - social movements: point claims towards policy makers; rather small (they have a

core, but not formally organized) example: hart boven hard

- interest groups: formally organized, memberships; internal organization is very centralized; very strong bargaining position

- political parties

Why? (1-3/1)

Trying to change policy + trying to spread ideas of the groupCostly? Energy, money … there’s something more behind it

Sometimes it doesn’t start from an ideology, but it’s some kind of ‘last resort’.

Olson: People do participate, because there are selective incentives: example: sometimes vrijwilligersloon, but in general not really…

- this theory overestimates costs:o example: fanclubs you love to do it, it’s not a cost to you

= intrinsic motivation! (people who think the same way)o economic goal: benefit from ito maybe they don’t realize how costly it is, because they’re so convinced and

into it- free-rider problem

When and where? (1-4/4)

Sometimes very easy to make a claim in certain democracies, in certain other democracies you have to start and make your own organization etc. Different democracies need different actions to be able to point out some things.

Multi-party system: the chances are bigger that your demand fits with their offer

Ghent system: trade union membership for employment insurance (uitkering wanneer werkloos) benefits

People will always try to find the way that asks the least effort to reach their goals.

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Who? (1-3/3)

Some people feel like it wouldn’t matter anyway, even though they still think politics are important.Parents engaged in politics? Influences your point of view.

Conclusion (1/1)

CLASS 10 (12/05): G and bureaucracies

* Chapter 8: G and bureaucracies

Introduction (1/1)

Have an idea of different types of G

Political regime: two types: parliamentary or presidential influence on how G looks like etc

Definition: 1 person/ collective body = executive: head of G is NOT head of state (Spain is a good example of a constitutional monarchy, The Netherlands, France, Germany, …)

Where is head of state a member of the government? United States

Why separate this? Imagine head of state = head of G, what does this mean for relation between G and legislator? If you split it, it changes the power relationship. Often head of state who can dissolve (ontbinden) regering/parlement(?)

President who chooses ministers: we don’t tend to know most of the members of the American G. It’s the president who is elected and who gets the mandate.

Collective body executive: regular G with different ministers, there tend to be different types depending on how much power the prime minister has with respect to the other ministers

Political parties: formations that (outside parliamentary arena) in order to break into the system (ex. Socialist party), initial idea = to unite people and give them a voice, give them strenghth

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Types of government (1-5/5)

Presidential regime: head of G = head of state and being able to choose other members of the GAmerican system: relation between congress and government, has to finish the mandate. Can president send congress home? Who are they accountable to? Parliament put the congress in this position, therefore they are accountable to parliament.

Presidential ParliamentaryHoG = HoS HoG ≠ HoSElected people Depending on composition of parliamentCongress Parliament1 person Collective

Example Belgium: Dissolve government (parliamentary): ‘constructive vote of no-confidence’ and come up with a plan B (present a new prime minister and members)

Switzerland: rotating system: strong emphasis on sharing of power between different groups, rotation of function of the head of state

Internal working of government (1-3/3)

Autonomy of government (1-2/3)

US: president is very autonomous with respect to parties Belgium: heads of party decide personally who will be the people they send into government, not even the members of the party! Party leaders are important people, but they also have a lot of impact on what happens in government. Parties who run, not only government, but also the country! They do not only appoint people, but they also have regular meetings

! Shadow prime ministers they have a lot of grip on government. You better become head of party instead of minister (you will have more power) particratie (political parties tend to have a lot of power)

Parliament is not the place where a lot is decided anymore, they want to have a say in government, because they want to realize the promises they made to the citizens. Party executes what coalition agreements are about.

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In most cases parties do not tend to have that much grip on government (they DO in Belgium, Switzerland, …), unless head of party becomes minister or head of government (ex. Di Rupo). Otherwise, the members of G tend to have some autonomy.

Belgium: has to do with type of federal structure too

Democratic systems: on the whole, parties have a say in it, but on average they do not tend to have an excessive amount of power. We should rather be worried about the amount of power ministers have.

Autonomy of government (3/3)

Government work implies more and more work, especially in welfare states. They deal with every aspect of our lives (work, employment, health, education, …). Modern G don’t only run a country, they run our lives. You can hardly imagine any aspect of your life in which G does not intervene in one way or another.

Autonomy: what me mainly think about is how it gets hampered (gehinderd) by parties, legislative power can also limit the power of G

Political capacity (1-3/3)

Three factors may ‘hinder’ the political capacity:

1. Unified vs divided GNo details!!!

Goes hand in hand with presidential regimes, rather than parliamentary regimes ( because ofseparation of power)

2. Majority vs minority GMajority: at first sight, it makes it look easier Reason to get minority G? Because it may be very troublesome to get a majority + costly (price you need to pay to form a coalition may be very high)

3. Single-party vs coalition G

we tie this to G

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Bureaucratic capacity (1-2/4)

Capacity of administration, good reasons to have established public administration across time. People who are trained/specialized /not directly dependent on ruler or HoS, but who are just reliable on their expertise and work they deliver (Max Weber: modern nation state) smoothly, professionally run

Flip side of it: it seems to be an evergrown story, bureaucraties tend to take it all over. They tend to limit efficient functioning (professional entrepreneurs complain about slow bureaucracy in order to set up a ‘filiaal’, even within Europe, within Schengen)

How come? It cannot that easily be controlled by G, have been set up as an autonomous independent institution in order to make it professional and independent from political will and power of the ruler, so difficult to control! If you cannot control it, you can get a lot of abuse of the system.

Bureaucratic capacity (3/4):

What do we do to make it function? Politics try to come to grips with public administration again. Try to control it again. Tendencies of where G t

1. Spoil system: replace top layers (in US: everybody) of public administration, new coalition: appoint new people on a competitive basis

2. NPM: we do not simply replace top layers, because of their political colour, but we do it because they have fixed terms, and when we renew those terms we can think in terms of skills etc (set up goals: you have 5 years to accomplish this or that)

CLASS 11 (19/05): Policy-making and questions on exam

* Chapter 20: Policy-making

Introduction (1/1)

Public policies = more narrowPolitics = running/steering of society, organizing it and making it function Politics = struggle of resources

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Box 20.1 = important!- Name a couple of types of policies and explain differences- These are different types, what do they differ on?- This is a typology of policies, define a useful policy question we could use this for

Aim: compare things: what impact does a type of electoral system have on the share of distributive and redistributive measures/public policies? + hypothesis: more distributive in proportional systems (broader range of interests)

Independent var = type of electoral systemDependent var = type of public policy

Compare unitary and federal systems share of regulatory/constituting policies? ! The Spirit Level: (re)distribution

Conceptual models of policy-making (1-2/3)

One is NOT more right than the other, but it’s an analytical way to approach reality.

This chapter is strongly tied to last two classes!

You’ll never have full information, you cannot make a precise forecast into the future.

Bounded rationality assumes there is some rationalityTwo models as each other’s opponent

Conceptual models of policy-making (3/3)

4 & 5 go together: group model and elite model: who runs/governs the country?

Institutions that matter? Rationality that matters? It depends on the actors (elite/group)?

None of them is more right or more wrong, but the model you choose depends on what you want to study. You can also combine them.

The policy cycle (1-5/5)

Two basic models: one is this one and the other one is the blackbox model (input outcome). This cycle is limited to policy-making side, blackbox is broader.

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Who adopts the policies? The legislative power (Congress, parliament or government!)

1. Agenda-settingSomething gets on the agenda as being something we have to tackle (monetary policy, the crisis, Grexit, referendum, …)

2. Policy formulation: Full rationality, garbage can model.

3. Policy adoption: Depends to a certain extent on how we frame it, but also other factors: what is it going to cost and how much are we willing to spend on it? Who is entitled to take this decision (Minister, G, Congress?), institutional factors come in very strongly: who has the power to decide and political capacity to do so? Consensus/compromise or clear-cut decision?

4. ImplementationNPM

5. EvaluationFeedback loop (blackbox) but also in policy cycle. Was it a good decision?

Institutions, frames, and policy styles (1-2/2)

What can explain differences?- Institutions- Cognitive frames: - Normative frames: norms and values on equality goes hand in hand, what is

important to us helps us shape the way we look on things (The Spirit Level!). If we think religious liberty is important, we will spend money on it. Especially topics with an ethical dimension.

Ex. Europe has been trying to improve the position of women. Taking care of children is also an issue of the father (80s). Policies that combine payed and unpayed labour, it’s something that is important to men AND women. Frame it: if you have better child care facilities, de weg naar de arbeidsmarkt voor vrouwen ligt open. lobbying for using economic potential of highly skilled women. Framing is important! Though there was no official competence with respect to child care, there has been some incentives for member states to improve child care facilities. People who try to set the agenda can use these frames as an instrument.

- National policy styles: result of institutions rather than a factor such as institutions themselves and normative/cognitive frames; comprehensive (1 party in government,

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shifts over time, instable) vs incremental (proportional coalitions: you try to find some form of consensus; the ones that are your opponent today, could be your coalition partner the next period; there’s some stability over time).

International factors (1-2/3)

Diffusion: ‘travelling’ of concepts, ideas and tools. Mainly at the level of agenda-setting, but also other issues. They try to describe the fact that across countries, the same things pop up regarding issues/problems/policies (ex. CO2 uitstoot)

Transfer: how come that there is diffusion? Diffusion because of concrete exchange of good practices/copying? Takes place often between G.

Convergence: across time and space, our solutions to issues might get similar. Doesn’t matter whether it’s Canada, Norway, Belgium or France, certain issues we will tackle in the same way. The outcome will be the same.

International factors (3/3)

1) Imposition: Ex. Quota for women around the globe, didn’t do that because they wanted to, but because they had to in order to get aid. Most of the rules for EU comes from EU, not from member states themselves (ex. Agriculture) convergence

2) International harmonization: voluntary aspect involved in it3) Competition: different actors face the same incentives and they react in the same

way because it pays off4) Transnational communication

Conclusion (1/1)

We know more about the rest, than we know about the policy-making as such.

IMPORTANT: Institutions Cognitive/normative framesInternational

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EXAM:

How and why can you compare? (first classes: political systems, after that sub-systems = tools that help you look at things in a certain way)

Knowledge: NO % or statistics, but ex. Different types of electoral/party/G systemsInsight: Different types of national policy styles, in what type of political regime would you find adversial (proportional/consensus type of democracy) and conversial (?) and EXPLAIN.Formulate research question making use of political capacity of G.

Essay question about book you have read, smaller questions on both books.

Ex. Smaller questions – knowledge: ‘please explain difference between polarized and any other type of multi-party system’

Multiple choice: sometimes MORE than 1 right answer

! Essay question: doesn’t have to be example on the book

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web viewmethodological focus (research methods): purely methodological (does no more than to...

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