POLM047

 

Democracy and Democratisation

 

Lecturer:      Professor Jack Vowles

  

Module Description:

Aims

To examine theories of democratisation and democratic stability, their normative foundations and associated implications, their empirical underpinnings in comparative empirical research, and assess the consequences of such findings for 'engineering democracy'.

 

Teaching Programme

Teaching is conducted through an introductory lecture, followed by student seminars. The main emphasis is on those weekly two-hour seminar presentations, for which all students are expected to read background materials to make possible their active participation in discussion.

 

Seminars provide an opportunity to discuss a specific set of questions pertaining to the issues scheduled for discussion. All students will be expected to have prepared for the seminar/tutorial by covering some of the reading scheduled for each topic and every student should expect to contribute to the discussion. The role of the course teacher is to facilitate and guide discussion, not to provide you with all the answers.


Seminar Schedule

 

1.         Introduction

3

Feb

 

The Main Theoretical Models

2.         History and Class: Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy

10

Feb

3.         From the Civic Culture to Social Capital

17

 

4.         The Modernisation/Development Model

24

 

 

Cases and Applications

5.         Europe Between the Wars:

3

March

6.         Latin American Theories and Cases: Presidentialism?

10

 

7.         Post-communism

17

 

Easter Break

 

 

 

Recent Developments and Debates

8.         Game Theoretical Models of Democratisation

28

April

9.         Democratisation as Process and Narrative

5

May

10       Electoral Engineering

12

 

11.      Review, Conclusions

19

 

 

 

 

Assessment

 

Assignments

Two 'work in progress' seminar Assessments, worth 5 per cent each

Normally, a presentation will be expected to be of 20-30 minutes in duration, with variation depending on the number of presentations per class.

 

Assessment

Two 'Work in Progress' Seminar Assessments, worth 5 per cent each

Two 4500 word essays, worth 45 per cent each, essay one due March 12, essay 2 due May 28

 

 

Reading

Please note: these lists are not exhaustive and students are encouraged to seek out further sources.

 

Indicative Basic Reading List

Moore, Barrington, Social origins of dictatorship and democracy; lord and peasant in the making of the modern world, Boston, Beacon Press, 1966

Almond, Gabriel A. and Sidney Verba The civic culture; political attitudes and democracy in five nations, Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1963.

Almond, Gabriel A. and Sidney Verba, ed., The Civic culture revisited. Newbury Park, Sage Publications, 1989.

Lipset, Seymour Martin and Stein Rokkan, ed., Party systems and voter alignments: cross-national perspectives. New York, Free Press 1967

Przeworski, Adam, Michael Alvarez, Jose-Antonio Cheibub, Fernando Limongi, Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-being in the World, 1950-1990. Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Putnam, Robert D. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton University Press 1973.

Capoccia, Giovanni, Defending democracy: reactions to extremism in interwar Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.

Linz, Juan J. and Arturo Valenzuela. The Failure of presidential democracy: comparative perspectives. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.

OÕDonnell, Guillermo Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead. Transitions from authoritarian rule. Comparative Perspectives. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, c1986.

Linz, Juan J. and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

Bermeo, Nancy. Ordinary people in extraordinary times: the citizenry and the breakdown of democracy. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2003

Boix, Carles Democracy and Redistribution Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003

Howard, Marc Morjz, The weakness of civil society in post Communist Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003

Acemoglu, Daron and James A. Robinson. Economic origins of dictatorship and democracy. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006

Horowitz, Donald L. A democratic South Africa? Constitutional engineering in a divided society. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1991.

Reilly, Ben. Democracy in divided societies: electoral engineering for conflict management. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Tilly, Charles, Democracy. New York, Cambridge 2007.

 

Other General Background Readings

Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence. Cambridge University Press 2005.

Georg Sorensen, Democracy and Democratization: Process and Prospects in a Changing World  Boulder, Westview Press 2007.

Robert Alan Dahl, Ian Shapiro, Jose Antonio Cheibub, eds, The Democracy Sourcebook , London, MIT Press, 2003 (ready text)

Grugel, Jean. 2002. Democratization: A Critical Introduction. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Dahl, Robert. 1971. Polyarchy. New Haven: Yale.

Linz, Juan and Alfred Stepan, eds. 1978. The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes. London: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Huntington, Samuel P. 1991. The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press.

Geddes, Barbara. `What do we know about democratization after twenty years?Õ Annual Review of Political Science 2:115-144.

DiPalma, Guiseppe. 1990. To Craft Democracies. Berkeley: University of California.

Linz, Juan J. and Alfred Stepan. 1996. 'Democracy and Its Arenas.'' In Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, eds. Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins. pp3-15.

Rustow, Dankwart. 1970. 'Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model.Õ Comparative Politics  (April): 337-363.

Scott Mainwaring, Guillermo O'Donnell, and J. Samuel Valenzuela. Eds, Issues in Democratic Consolidation. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1992.

 

Ideally, however, you should be aiming to read at least four items for each seminar. For your essays you should be consulting a minimum of eight pieces.

 

Please keep in mind that module reading lists are only indicators of some relevant reading materials and you should browse the library shelves to find alternative sources that may give you a different perspective.


Some of the main journals relevant to this module are Journal of Democracy, and Democratization, both held by the library and available electronically.

 

Data

See my personal website at http://www.jackvowlesdomain.co.uk/Data_Com_Pol_Sci.html.

This lists and provides links to various useful sources of relevant primary data including Freedom House ratings of democracy for most countries in the world, the World BankÕs Database of Political Institutions, the Penn World Tables, and the datasets available from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES).

 

 A useful resource for conducting research is the Web of Science. This allows you to conduct searches of all the major academic journals. You can find details of the Web of Science at: http://www.library.ex.ac.uk/guides/essentials/wos.pdf

 

If you have any further questions please consult the Library staff.


Seminar Topics And Associated Readings

Ideally you should be aiming to read at least four items for each seminar. For your essays you should be consulting a minimum of eight pieces and, at the MA level, some would normally expect more.

 

Many of the readings are available in pdf form on this module's pages in Web-CT.

 

Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (February 10)

 

Required Reading

'The Democratic Route to Modern Society', chapter 7 in Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy.

Theda Skocpol , 'A Critical Review of Barrington Moore's Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy', Politics & Society 1973 4: 1-34, republished in her Social Revolutions in the Modern World, Cambridge University Press 1994, and in The Democracy Sourcebook.

Other sources

APSR review by Gabriel Almond

http://www.jstor.org/view/00030554/di960946/96p00184/0

http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article327501.ece

James Mahoney and Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences. Cambridge University Press, 2003 (ready text).

John D. Stephens, 'Democratic Transition and Breakdown in Western Europe, 1870-1939: A Test Of The Moore Thesis', American Journal of Sociology, 94, 5, 1019-1077.

J.M. Weiner, 'The Barrington Moore Thesis and its Critics' Theory and Society, 2, 3, 1975, 301-330.

Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions. Cambridge University Press 1979.

Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Huber Stephens, and John D. Stephens, eds., Capitalist Development and Democracy, Cambridge, Polity, 1992

Evelyne Huber and Frank Safford, eds. Agrarian structure & political power: landlord & peasant in the making of Latin America. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995.

 

 

From the Civic Culture to Social Capital (February 17)

 

Required Reading

At least two of:

Chapter 1 in The Civic Culture

Chapter 1 in The Civic Culture Revisited.

Chapter 1 in Putnam, Making Democracy Work

 

Other Sources

Philip Converse, APSR review, http://www.jstor.org/view/00323195/di980325/98p08704/0

Peter J. Burnell, Peter Calvert, eds, Civil Society in Democratization. London, Routledge, 2004.

Gabriel Almond, "The Civic Culture: Prehistory, Retrospect, and Prospect" (November 17, 1996). Center for the Study of Democracy. Paper 96-01. http://repositories.cdlib.org/csd/96-01

Muller, E.N. and Seligson, M.A. (1994) Civic culture and democracy: the question of causal relationships, American Political Science Review, 88, pp. 635-652

William M. Riesinger, 'Renaissance of a rubric: Political culture as concept and theory', International Journal of Public Opinion Research (1995) 7: 328-352

Larry Diamond, Political Culture and Democracy in Developing Countries, Boulder, L. Reiner, 1994.

Kendall L. Baker, Russell J. Dalton, Kai Hildebrandt, Germany Transformed: Political Culture and the New Politics. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1981

Robert Rohrschneider, Learning Democracy: Democratic and Economic Values in Unified Germany. Oxford University Press, 1989.

Bob Edwards, M.W. Foley, and Mario Diani eds. Beyond Tocqueville: Civil Society and the Social Capital Debate in Comparative Perspective. Tufts University Press, 2001.

David J., Elkins and Richard E. Simeon, 'A cause in search of its effects, or what does political culture explain?' Comparative Politics (1979) 11: 127-145.

Ronald Inglehart, The renaissance of political culture. American Political Science Review (1988) 82: 1203-1230

Robert Jackman and Ross Miller, 'The poverty of political culture', American Journal of Political Science (1996) 40: 697-716.

Wilson, Richard W. 'The Many Voices of Political Culture: Assessing Different Approaches,' World Politics 52 (January 2000), 246-73

J. Johnson, 'Conceptual Problems as Obstacles to Progress in Political Science: Four Decades of Political Culture Research', Journal of Theoretical Politics, 2003; 15(1): 87 - 115.

Russell J. Dalton, 'Citizen Attitudes and Political Behavior' Comparative Political Studies, 2000; 33(6-7): 912 - 940.

Laitin, David D. 1995. 'The Civic Culture at 30' American Political Science Review 89:168-73.

Goodhart, Michael, 2005. Civil Society and the Problem of Global Democracy', Democratization 12(1): 1-21.

Tarrow, S. 'Making social science work across space and time: A critical reflection on Robert Putnam's Making Democracy Work', American Political Science Review, 90, 1996.

Berman, Sheri. 1997. 'Civil society and political institutionalization,' American Behavioral Scientist, 40 (5), 1997, 562-574.

 

 

Modernisation (February 24)

 

Required Reading:

Seymour Martin Lipset 'Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy' American Political Science Review, 53, 1 (1959), pp. 69-105.

Przeworski, Adam, Michael Alvarez, Jose-Antonio Cheibub, Fernando Limongi, Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-being in the World, 1950-1990. Cambridge University Press, 2000, introduction and chapter 1.

 

Other Sources

Sunder Ramaswamy, Jeffrey W. Cason, eds., Development and Democracy: New Perspectives on an Old Debate, Middlebury College Press, 2003.

Joe Foweraker and Todd Landman, 'Economic development and democracy revisited: why dependency theory is not yet dead', Democratization, 11, 1, 2004 , pp. 1-20

Evelyne Huber, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, John D. Stephens 'The Impact of Economic Development on Democracy' Journal of Economic Perspectives, 7, 3 (1993), 71-86.

Ross E. Burkhart, Michael S. Lewis-Beck, Comparative Democracy: The Economic Development Thesis', American Political Science Review, 88, 4 (1994), 903-910.

Seymour Martin Lipset 'Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy' American Political Science Review, 53, 1 (1959), pp. 69-105.

Lipset, Seymour Martin and Stein Rokkan, ed., Party systems and voter alignments: cross-national perspectives. New York, Free Press 1967

Przeworski, Adam, Michael Alvarez, Jose-Antonio Cheibub, Fernando Limongi, Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-being in the World, 1950-1990. Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Granato, Jim, Roinald Inglehart and David Leblang, 'Culture, Values, Stable democracy and Economic Development' American Journal of Political Science (1996) 40: 680-696

Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Huber Stephens, and John D. Stephens, eds., Capitalist Development and Democracy, Cambridge, Polity, 1992

 

 

Europe Between the Wars  (March 3)

 

Required Reading

Capoccia, Giovanni, Defending democracy: reactions to extremism in interwar Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005, chapter 1.

Nancy Bermeo, 'Going Mad or Going Bad: Citizens, Scarcity, and the Breakdown of Democracy in Interwar Europe', Scholarship Repository, University of California (http://repositories.edlib.org/csd/97-06).

 

Background Reading

Berg-Schlosser, Dirk, and Jeremy Mitchell, eds., Conditions of Democracy in Europe 1919-39: Systematic Case Studies. Basingstoke, MacMillan, 2000.

Berg-Schlosser, Dirk, and Jeremy Mitchell, Authoritarianism and Democracy in Europe, 1919-39: Comparative Analyses, Palgrave-MacMillan 2002.

Berg-Schlosser, Dirk, Democratization: The State of the Art. Barbara Budich, 2005.

Hermens, F, Democracy or Anarchy: A Study of Proportional Representation. Notre Dame, Notre Dame University Press. 1941.

Ertman, Thomas, 'Democracy and dictatorship in interwar western Europe revisited', World Politics, 50, April 1998, 475-505.

Nancy Bermeo, 'Democracy in Europe'. Daedalus, 123, 1994

Gregory M. Luebbert, Liberalism, Fascism, or Social Democracy: Social Classes and the Political Origins of Regimes in Interwar Europe. Oxford University Press 1991.    

Mark Irving Lichbach, 'Governability in interwar Europe: A formal model of authority and performance', Quality and Quantity, 16, 3, 1982, 197-216.

Berman, S., 'Civil society and the collapse of the Weimar Republic' World Politics, 49, 1997.

Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century. Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1999.

Juan J. Linz, 'Fascism, Breakdown of Democracy, Authoritarian and Totalitarian Regimes, Coincidences and Distinctions', Estudio Working Paoer 2002/179. (http://www.march.es/ceacs/ingles/publicaciones/working/archivos/2002_179.pdf)

        

Latin America and Presidentialism (March 10)

 

Required Reading

Bermeo, Nancy. Ordinary people in extraordinary times: the citizenry and the breakdown of democracy. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2003, chapter 7

Linz, Juan J. 1990. `The Perils of Presidentialism.' Journal of Democracy 1(1):51-69.

 

Background Reading

Linz, Juan J. and Arturo Valenzuela. The Failure of presidential democracy: comparative perspectives. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.

O'Donnell, Guillermo Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead. Transitions from authoritarian rule. Comparative Perspectives. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986.

Linz, Juan J. and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

Linz, Juan J. and Alfred Stepan, eds., 1978. The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press.

Bermeo, Nancy. Ordinary people in extraordinary times: the citizenry and the breakdown of democracy. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2003

Shugart, Matthew S. `On Presidents and Parliaments.' East European Constitutional Review 2, 1, 30-32.

 

 

Postcommunism (March 17)

 

Required Reading

 

Howard, Marc Morjz, The weakness of civil society in post Communist Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003, introduction

Michael McFaul, 'Transitions from Postcommunism' Journal of Democracy 16, 3, 2005 5-19.

 

Background Reading

Howard, Marc Morjz, The weakness of civil society in post Communist Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003

Linz, Juan J. and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

Graeme Gill, Democracy and Post-Communism: Political Change in the Post-Communist World. Routledge, 2002.

Julie Smith and Elizabeth Teague, Democracy in the New Europe: The Politics of Post-communism. Greycoat Press, 1999.

Christian W. Haerpfer, Democracy and Enlargement in Post-Communist Europe: The Democratisation of the general public in 15 Central and Eastern European Countries, 1991-98, Routledge 2002.

Groth, A. J. Communism, Post-Communism and Democracy: A Policy-Outcomes Perspective, Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 2005, 21,  3, 375-394

Richard Davis Anderson, M. Steven Fish, Stephen E. Hanson, and Philip G. Roeder, Postcommunism and the Theory of Democracy. Princeton University Press 2001.

Pavol Demeš , Joerg Forbrig, Robin Shepherd, Reclaiming Democracy: Civil Society and Electoral Change in Central and Eastern Europe, The German Marshall Fund, 2007

Fowkes, Ben. The Post-Communist Era: Change and Continuity in Eastern Europe. NY: St. Martin's Press, Inc., 1999

Holmes, Leslie. Post-Communism: An Introduction. Durham: Duke University Press, 1997.

David W. Lovell, 'Trust and the politics of postcommunism', Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 34, 1, March 2001, Pages 27-38

 

 

Game Theoretical Models (April 28)

Boix, Carles Democracy and Redistribution Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003

Acemoglu, Daron and James A. Robinson. Economic origins of dictatorship and democracy. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006

 

Required Reading: Boix, Democracy and Redistribution, introduction

 

 

Process and Narrative  (May 5)

 

Tilly, Charles, Democracy. New York, Cambridge 2007.

Required Reading: Tilly, chapter 1.


Engineering Democracy (May 12)

 

Required Reading:

Arend Lijphart, 'Constitutional Design for Divided Societies', Journal of Democracy, 15, 2, 2004.

Horowitz, D.L. (2003) 'Electoral Systems: A Primer for Decision Makers'  Journal of Democracy 14(4): 115-127.

 

Background Reading

Arend Lijphart, Power-Sharing in South Africa University of California Press, 1985.

Horowitz, Donald L. A democratic South Africa? Constitutional engineering in a divided society. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1991.

Reilly, Ben. Democracy in divided societies: electoral engineering for conflict management. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Kurth, James. 2005. 'Ignoring History: US Democratization in the Muslim World.' Orbis (Spring): 305-322

Tures, John. 2005. `Operation Exporting Freedom: The Quest for Democratization via United States Military Operations.'' Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations 6(1): 97-111.

Larry Diamond. 2005. 'Building Democracy after Conflict: Lessons from Iraq.' Journal of Democracy 16(1, January): 9-23.

Larry Goodson, 2005. 'Bullets, Ballots and Poppies in Afghanistan' Journal of Democracy 16 (1).

Horowitz, Donald L. 1990. 'Comparing Democratic Systems.' Journal of Democracy 1, 1. 51-69.

Horowitz, D.L. (1997) 'Encouraging Electoral Accommodation in Divided Societies', in  B. V. Lal, & P. Larmour (Eds.), Electoral Systems in Divided Societies: The  Fiji Constitutional Review. Canberra: ANU.

Horowitz, D. L. (2000).  'Some Realism about Peacemaking'  Paper delivered at the  conference ÒFacing Ethnic ConflictsÓ Center for Development Research:  Facing Ethnic Conflicts, Bonn, 14-16 December 2000, 1-17. 

Horowitz, D.L.  (2002)  'Constitutional Design: Proposals Versus Process', in A. Reynolds (Ed.), The Architecture of Democracy; Constitutional Design, Conflict Management and Democracy, Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 15-36.

Horowitz, D.L. (2003) 'Electoral Systems: A Primer for Decision Makers'  Journal of Democracy 14(4): 115-127.

Horowitz D.L.  (2004) 'The Alternative Vote and Interethnic Moderation:  A Reply to Fraenkel and Grofman'  Public Choice 121 (3-4): 507-516.

Lijphart, Arend. 1992. 'Democratization and Constitutional Choices in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland, 1989-1991.' Journal of Theoretical Politics 4(2).

Taagepera, Rein. 1998. 'How Electoral Systems Matter for Democratization' Democratization 5(3): 68-91.

Sarah Birch. 2005. 'Single-member district electoral systems and democratic transition'. Electoral Studies 24: 281-301.

Horowitz, Donald L. 1994. 'Democracy in Divided Societies.' In Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner, eds. Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict, and Democracy. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 35-55.

Fraenkel, J. (2001a) 'The Alternative Vote System in Fiji; Electoral Engineering or Ballot- Rigging?' Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 39(2):1-31.

Fraenkel, J.  and B. Grofman (2004) 'A Neo-Downsian Model of the Alternative  Vote as a mechanism for Mitigating Ethnic Conflict in Plural Societies'. Public  Choice 121(3-4): 487-506.

Fraenkel, J. and B. Grofman  (2006a)  'Does the Alternative Vote Foster Moderation in Ethnically Divided Societies? The Case of Fiji'.  Comparative Political Studies 39(5): 623-651.

Fraenkel, J.  and B. Grofman  (2006b). 'The Failure of the Alternative Vote as a Tool for Promoting Ethnic Moderation in Fiji: A Reply to Horowitz' Comparative Political Studies 39(5):  663-666.

Fraenkel, J.  and B. Grofman, 'The Merits of Neo-Downsian Modeling of the Alternative Vote:  A Reply to Horowitz' (http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~bgrofman/)

Pippa Norris, Driving Democracy: Do power-sharing regimes work? New York, Cambridge University Press (http://www.pippanorris.com)

 

 


ESSAYS

 

Theoretical Essay due March 13

 

  1. Review the main theoretical frameworks for the study of democratisation: in summary, those based on class, culture, development, elites or institutions. On what matters do they converge, and where do they most significantly disagree? Explore the differences in the hypotheses they generate. Are the differences a matter of asking different questions, or are they more fundamental?  To what extent are the differences associated with normative assumptions?

 

Empirical Essay due May 28

 

  1. With reference to a number of relevant case studies, how would you sum up the 'state of the play' in the empirical study of the transition to and consolidation of democracy, the development of stable institutions and processes within that framework?  What are the best explanations for democratic success or failure?