Concepts and Problems of Comparative Politics

1. Concepts and Problems of Comparative Politics

2. Politics • Focuses on human decisions • Power • Who gets what, when, where and why? • The authoritative allocation of values for a society? • Political science – the study of human decisions

3. Why Governments? • What are the functions of government? • Enhance security, community, nation building • Secure order • Protect property • Promote economic efficiency and growth • Addresses problems of market failure (electricity, water, sewer) • Public good(s) issues • Non-excludable • Not rival (consumption does not detract from someone else’s) • Subject to market failure • No incentive for private production (clean air, national security)

4. Why Government? • Protect the weakest members of society • Provide parameters of social justice • Formally defined: • Governments are organizations of individuals legally empowered to make binding decisions on behalf of a community. OR • Governments are the formal institutions that make decisions about public policy and the processes and procedures of decisionmaking.

5. Why Government? • Comparative Politics: • is thus the comparative study of decisionmaking in political systems • Related to a given territory (national territory) • Backed by authority and coercion (self-defense or expansion)

6. Nature of Man in Social Groups • Thought: • Hobbes and Weber; Rousseau and Locke • Weber • The defining characteristic of government is its monopoly over the use of force • Hobbes • State of nature inhospitable (condition of man without government) • Man in conflict against all • Nature is barbaric and fear filled • Government is the only solution to inevitable chaos • Concerned with internal and external security

7. Nature of Man in Social Groups • Rousseau • State of nature brutish without law, morality • Men ally to form “society” • The Social Contract –agreement on membership • Government is a source of power and inequality and thus human alienation and corruption • Questioned assumption that majority will always correct • Government should act morally. Should ensure freedom. • Locke • State of nature not in conflict until the creation of property • Property is the source of conflict (Its mine!) • Government with a limited role (protecting property) is good • Must have an agreed upon social contract • Establish and enforce property rights and rules of economic exchange.

8. Government as the Problem? • Critics: Anarchists and Libertarians • Anarchists: • Communitarians who see societies as communities of people who in their natural condition are equal • Governments lead to corruption in these communities which leads to oppression and alienation • Alternative is voluntary cooperation

9. Government as the Problem? • Libertarians: • Individualists who see society as composed of human beings with some fundamental rights (property, freedom of speech) • The more government gets involved, the more prone it is to violate basic rights; e.g. law enforcement. • Alternative is a society of unfettered individualism • Ayn Rand

10. Government as the Problem? • Destruction of Community • Does government build or destroy communities? • Violations of Basic Rights • Define basic rights? • Does the power held by governments allow them to violate rights? • Economic Inefficiency • Surplus? Deficit?

11. Government as the Problem? • Government for Private Gain • Rent Seeking – benefits created through government intervention in the economy • Tax revenue or profits created because government restricted competition • Food subsidies • Gas/oil/energy subsidies • Influence trading? (insider information) • One person’s gain is another’s (or society’s) loss • Vested interest and inertia • Once rents are created, difficult to abolish • House of Lords in Great Britain

12. Alternatives to Government? • Markets and Voluntary coordination • Very small government • Extreme decentralization • Free market, individual property rights Thoughts????

13. Political Systems – Properties of • Two Elements: • Independent parts with environmental boundaries • A set of institutions that formulate and implement the collective goals of a society or groups within it? • Defined: A particular type of social system involved in making authoritative public decisions that has sovereignty. • Decisions are backed by legitimate coercion and compellance (power) • Legitimacy: those who are ruled believe that their rulers have a right (by law or custom) to implement their decisions by force if necessary • The “right to rule” • May ebb and flow over time

14. States • Internal and External Sovereignty • Old and New States • Classification by Developmental Status • Classification by Size • Classification by Governmental or Political System Type • A particular type of political system that has sovereignty

15. Internal and External Sovereignty • Sovereignty • Independent legal authority over a population in a particular territory based on the recognized right to self-determination • Kuwait • Internal Sovereignty • Right to determine matters regarding one’s own citizens without intervention • External Sovereignty • Right to conclude binding agreements with other states

16. Sovereignty Today • Traditional forms joined by new forms • Supranational organizations • European Union • North American Free Trade Agreement • United Nations • Eg: 1994 17 peacekeeping missions, 100,000 peacekeepers • United Nations subunits or related orgs: • FAO, WHO, UNESCO, IMF, World Bank

17. Old and New States • 1945 - 68 states; increased by 117 by 1999 • 1999 – 185 member states in the U.N. • 1990s - 20 new states • Taiwan, Switzerland, Vatican not members of the U.N. • First, Second and Third World: • Advanced industrial democracies, Communist bloc, underdeveloped/developing nations • Still useful as a categorization?

18. Does Size Matter in Politics? • Big and Small States: • Russia – 17 million square kms • Vatican City > ½ sq km and >1,000 residents • China – 1.2 billion population • Does size determine politics? • Does area and population determine economic development, foreign policy and defense issues? • Geographic location important to defense; central location means you need a large army; to do this you need high level of resource extraction =>authoritarian regime? • Population growth rates and implications for economic development • Economies need to keep pace with population growth

19. Building Community • Common identity and sense of community among citizens important • Without a unifying factor cleavage can dominate • Japan: example of a population that is ethnically homogeneous with shared language, little religious diversity and strong political history; in addition, enjoys relative geographic isolation from neighbors • Nigeria: extremely large and diverse population; no common pre-colonial history; sharp religious divisions; 250 ethnic groups; language diversity

20. Nations, states, nation-states? • Nation – a group of people with a common identity (how people identify themselves) • Nations do not necessarily have government or state • Some nations have close correspondence with state e.g.; Japan, France, Sweden • Nationhood as culture? • State – political system with sovereignty • Nation-state – cases in which the scope of legal authority and national identification coincide • What about multinational states? • U.S.S.R, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia

21. Nationality and Ethnicity • Ethnicity – Weber – humans who entertain a subjective belief in their common descent because of similarities of physical type or of customs or both • Croats, Serbs and Muslim Bosnians – groups which differ by religious custom, marriage and historical memories – but are physically similar; may believe themselves to be descended from different ancestors and thus genetically different • Jewish population of Israel – today heterogeneous from a homogeneous start – culture endures but not genetic homogeneity

22. Other sources of division • Language • Religious differences and fundamentalism • What happens when divisions persist? • How do these sources of difference impact politics?

23. Cross-Cutting Cleavage • Political cleavage • When national, ethnic, linguistic and other divisions systematically affect political allegiances and policies • Cross-cutting cleavage • Groups that share a common interest on one issue are likely to be on opposite sides of different issues • Eg: Netherlands – class and religion cross-cut • Catholics and Protestants are equally likely to be rich or poor and discrimination does not focus solely on Catholics

24. Cumulative Cleavage • Cumulative cleavages – the same people are pitted against one another over and over again on a wide variety of issues. • Eg: Northern Ireland; Catholicism and poverty and history of discrimination: Protestantism and wealth and no history of discrimination