Comparative politics

Loveless Landslide - There was a lack of affinity with the current UK prime
minister even though he had won the election. The labor party was simply voting
against the conservative party.
Independent variable -> Dependent variable
IV - As countries get wealthy DV - They become more democratic
These however could be interchangeable (multicausality)
IV - ? -> DV Civil War
Why can't you just study countries who've had civil wars? Because you'd
be excluding countries who've no had civil wars.
How scientific is political science?
7 Problems
Difficulty "controlling the variables"
In comparative politics, a scientist cannot control aspects of a
country in any meaningful way, for example demographics politics GDP
Few Cases
Only so many countries, with so much history, lading to less
"cases" to compare
Demands of gathering data about cases
Some governments could disallow foreign scientists from access to
text, or a language barrier could exist
Selection Bias
Choosing to focus on a specific region or government style could
lead to biased conclusions, Ex. studying Latin American democracy could poorly
inform ideas relating to democracy in eastern Europe for example
Multicausality
While cause and effect exists, when focusing on politics, a cause
and effect could refer to the same thing

Inductive - Specific ideas to reach general conclusions

Deductive - General ideas to reach specific conclusions
Quantitative - Researching a broad set of data
Qualitative - Researching a specific set of data

Identify an interesting puzzle

"Which kind of healthcare system provides the best results"
Define your terms
"What do we mean by "best results"? What "systems" exist?"
Generate a hypothesis
"Socialized medicine is better than a privatized system in terms of extending
average life expectancy."
Test your hypothesis
"Do people in countries with socialized medicine have longer lives than in
countries with privatized system?"
Which kind of reasoning is this? What kind of methods are you most likely to use to
answer these questions?
Use deductive reasoning and quantitative data research

Puzzle
Why did Pakistan end up such a weak, undemocratic state?
Study
Learn the language, live there. Interview experts, politicians, etc. Examine
archives, study the country's history, etc.
Hypothesize
Creating a new state allowed for dominance by the military and corrupt
elites, making democratization difficult.
Test your hypothesis against available materials. Other scholars will also test
your hypothesis
 Use Inductive reasoning and qualitive data researched

Correlation is NOT causation!

Both ice cream sales and shark attacks increase when the weather is hot and
sunny, but they are not caused by each other. (good weather, people spending time
at the beach)

WHY BOTHER?
Comparative politics attempts to be empirical, not primarily normative. But
it is also about the pursuit of better lives for human beings.
It teaches us to check our assumptions by looking in detail at specific,
actual cases and trends and to adjust. (be foxes not hedgehogs)
It helps us understand political behavior without resorting to vague
assertions about, for ex, culture
It helps us understand our own country better

State Sovereignty
Treaties of Westphalia 1648
There is no higher power than the state
States should not interfere with domestic matters in other states.
That each state has a "monopoly of force" at home
States are legally equal
State (political entity with a defined area) vs Regime (Ours is a democratic
regime) vs Government (The body of people who decide laws, but replaceable)
Some ways to describe states
Strong, weak, fragile, failing
For example if an armed group rebels against its government, that
considers the state weak. (African countries for example) North Korea however is a
strong state
Capacity
Autonomy
Sources of legitimacy
Traditional
A monarchy
Charismatic
The leader relies on appealing to he party to the people to ensure his
leadership
Rational-Legal
There are rules to become head of state (election) is the most common
Centralization?
Federal - multiple levels of government (US having different states) (Larger
countries would opt for this, for easier governing) (China while big is a unitary
state)
Symmetrical or asymmetrical?
Unitary - single central authority (France) (Smaller countries would opt for
this, the don't need to devolve power downward through states)
All political power is located in the government
Why the trend toward devolution?
Where is the trend in the opposite direction? (Russia, Putin is taking
power away from substate leaders, making it so they answer to him)

Political Identities
Anarchism - Weaken (maybe dismantle) State
Fascism - Strong State, want to "purify" the country, white nationalism,
Liberalism - Advocating for change within the system presented, in most
places liberals are closer to the right, but in America this term is associated
with the left, allowing capitalism to flourish with out government intervention
Social democracy - Generous welfare state, states play bigger role in the
economy, want socioeconomic equality, no moral intervention
Communism - government takes over the economy, all private property is taken
by the government.
Let's map out or (rough) ideological position
Both right and left parties are more central, their ideologies stemming from
liberalism
Politics of the cold war has placed a dangerous stigma on "socialism"

Political Attitudes
Radical, liberal, conservative, reactionary
The line model vs the circle model

Let's sort this out

Ethnic Identity
Nation, Nationalism, nation-state - a nation must aspire to achieve its own
state ship, Believe they deserve their own voice, a shared location, culture,
language, EX. Greenland, or Native Americans.
Nationalist Unionists, The soviet union, the united kingdom
Multi-national states, vs diverse states
Cleavages?
Citizenship
Patriotism
Balkanization - When a country breaks up into smaller countries based on
ethnic lines, religious lines, or random lines, Yugoslavia.
This was a violent bloody process, evolving ethnic cleansing.
"If Scotland were to break up, it would be bloodless"
Does Ethnic diversity always lead to distinct national identities?
Not always, different ethnic groups may build a strong national
identities
A sense of ethnicity can change over time, Guatemala for example many
of its people didn't identify as indigenous, until more recently
Brazil has an African population from its years and years of slavery of
those people, now many Brazilians have an African heritage

Rwanda
Hutu - Tutsi
At first this was a status of something like owning animals as a farmer
When Belgium colonized this became an ethnic identity, leading to the
Rwandan genocide in 1994

Citizenship - is a legal denotation if you belong to a nation

They way it's awarded varies from nation to nation
Some Countries, about 33 mostly in the western hemisphere, determine
citizenship based on place of birth (jus soli)
Many more countries determine it based on citizenship of parents (jus
sanguinis)
Most countries also have a process of gaining citizenship through
naturalization or other legal processes
US has accepted both historically
(Trump's executive order attempts to end birthright citizenship)
Slaves were even granted this right for being born on American (and
south American) soil

Institutions of Democracy
Participation, Competition, Liberty
Majoritarianism and protection of individual liberties are often in
tension. A liberal democracy includes both. (Liberal Democracy refers to a weaker
state to insure freedom)
Negative freedom refers to absence of external restrictions on a
persons ability to decide
Positive freedom refers to the ability to choose for oneself
Negative rights exists until someone acts to negate them
Positive rights are subjected to the reaction of others
Countries can be split into three categories
Free - democratic /Partly Free - finds itself in between/Not Free -
authoritarianism
A shifting international balance
In 2020 the number of free countries in the world reached its lowest
level since the beginning of a 15-year period of global democratic decline, while
the number of not free countries reached its highest level
Why is the world getting less democratic
Gaps in wealth, conservative reaction to culture changes,
increase in populist and personalist politics. some people blame China
Use FreedomHouse.Org for papers
Commonality: Separation of Powers
Branches of Government
Executive
Head of state of government
Parliamentary, presidential, and semi-presidential
systems
Term length may be fixed (president) or not (Prime
minister)
Legislative
Lawmaking
Unicameral or bicameral
Constitutional Court
Determines the constitutionality of laws and acts
Judicial review (abstract or concrete)
Concrete - needs a court case to prove it
abides with the constitution. US uses this
Abstract - does not need a court to prove
it abides with the constitution. India uses this
Three types of executive designs
Parliamentary systems
Ex. UK South Africa
Presidential systems
Ex. US Brazil Nigeria
Semi-Presidential system
Ex. France
How do president get his/her job?
Through election. US is the only system with an electoral college
Presidents are the head of state AND government. Presidents also
get to choose their cabinets and do not need to be apart of the legislature
Terms and status of reelection can vary from country to country.
You cannot remove a president easily.
How does the Prime Minister get his or her job?
If a party wins a majority of seats by vote, the leader of said
party becomes Prime Minister.
If parties form a coalition, leader of the party can
change, or the coalition could collapse, a vote of no confidence to change the
leader
Coalitions are difficult to manage and please
Prime Ministers are powerful because their executive and
legislative branches are "fused".
In the US, its more difficult to pass legislation
comparatively to parliament. The US is much more constrained by design
 No term limit for a PM, could be reelected forever technically
Uses winner take all elections
You are more bound to your party comparatively to the US partys

Presidential w/ PR - proportional representation meaning

multiple reps. in each district
Presidential w/SMD - single member district meaning a
single rep in each district
Parliamentary w/PR
Parliamentary w/SMD

In parliamentary systems, some countries are constitutional

monarchies with power concentrated in the parliament.
Orange countries are ones in which parliaments are more powerful

WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Effect on legislative/executive relations and efficiency of government?
President cant directly introduce legislation
Voter control over selection of leaders
Term? Removal from office?
Can't simply remove the president, outside of reelection. PM can
be voted out, but happens rarely
Strength of Parties?
Stronger in PM system. These parties have much more control of
themselves and who leads them and becomes PM
Likelihood of coalitions?
Happens often in PM systems, does not happen much, (or ever) in
president systems

Electoral Systems
Single member district = PLURALITY - based = "winner take all" or
"first past the post" UK/US
Multi-member district = proportional representation (PR) elections
Proportional Representation elections naturally have more parties
as these parties can still see representation in parliament. (vote does not go to
waste), more extremist parties this way, more diversity in parties, harder for
parties to get seats, leads to coalitions, so no exactly the party the people voted
for. smaller parties are "kingmakers" by giving their seats to a bigger party,
giving them even more power. could be months before a majority is formed through
coalition, giving a party a majority
(third party votes in US can be seen as a waste, as they
have near 0 chance of winning)
Higher turnout compared to SMD
Campaigns are much shorter
Voting for a party not so much an individual
Mixed systems

UK Chapter