AP Comp Day 10 – democracy?Goal – To understand that democracy has potential problems and

solutions. To understand that the cultural theory helps to understand why people make the political choices they make.

1. Review S&K Democracy and Zakaria’s solution2. Evaluate Carothers’ arguments

a. Identify and evaluate the 5 assumptions of the transition paradigmb. Why may transition shift?c. Choose 2 of his proposals - evaluate his reasoning &specific evidence

3. Issues of developing a comprehensive definition and explanation of democracy (its different manifestations) and democratization. A. What are the inherent contradictions within democracy as a type?B. Why may democracy work in some countries and not in others?C. Why may democracy take very different forms in different countries?

4. Free response AP Questions and scoring5. Discuss Wildavsky – developing political preferences Which category best

describes the US polity?6. How did Brooks use the cultural theory?

1. Make specific connections to Wildavsky specific cultures7. Political development definition

Elected officials make policy within constitutional limits w/o veto from informal or unelected sources or from super-sovereign influences from abroad

1. competitive, fair, free, non-coercive & regular elections

2. practically full universal suffrage

3. Practically universal right to run for office

4. Free and noncoercive right to expression

5. Free, widely available & multiple information sources

6. Civil society

S and K - Procedures of Democracy in a nation-state:S and K - Procedures of Democracy in a nation-state:

1. Agreement that electoral winners get to rule, but winners cannot freeze out opposition

2. Citizens must follow rules, currently agreed to or not, so long as there is legitimacy based partially on belief that free elections will occur later “contingent consent”

3. There does not have to be consensus, just rule of law consistent with the political culture or set of political norms

4. Must be opportunity for alternation of power and policy

S and K’s factors of feasibility for S and K’s factors of feasibility for Democracy in a nation-state are:Democracy in a nation-state are:

For a system to be typed as having transitioned from authoritarianism through the transitional democracy types to being a consolidated democracy, the system must have:

1. met the five conditions of democracya) Free fair electionsb) Freedom of political assemblyc) Regime has accountability based on fixed, knowable,

transparent proceduresd) Civil and political rights

e) Independent judiciary 2. Been in existence for some kind of length of time

3. Democratic practices that have become deeply ingrained and the five conditions have been met relatively consistently

Kesselman - Preconditions for Kesselman - Preconditions for consolidationconsolidation

Authoritarian

Transitional Democracies

Electoral authoritarian Illiberal procedural

Substantive D

Carothers’ 5 Assumptions about Transition Carothers’ 5 Assumptions about Transition processprocess

1. If a country is moving away from authoritarianism, it therefore must be moving TO democracy

2. There are three distinct phases of transitions1 – opening2 – breakthrough3 – consolidation

3. Elections are the key determining event that leads the breakthrough into the 3rd phase

4. The underlying factors of society, economy, culture and history will have very little impact

5. Democracy would lead to state-building which would enforce democracy, but a functioning state was not important

2.b.Why might democratization shift?

a. Modernization increases value of gov’t action, leading to corruption

b. Complacency of citizens

c. Rulers change rules to freeze out opposition

d. Non-elected officials use their clout to control elected officials

e. Modernization leads to critical mass of relative deprivation

f. Crisis leading to demagoguery

Short-Answer Concepts: We suggest that you spend approximately 30 minutes total on questions 1 through 5.1. Describe the status of private property in China under Mao. Identify and explain one policy undertaken by the Chinese government within the past 30 years that contradicts that policy.2. Define political ideology. Identify one political party that participated in the 2006 presidential elections in Mexico and describe one central element of its political ideology.3. Colonialism had an impact on both the colonizer and the colonized. Describe one example of how colonialism has shaped contemporary politics in Nigeria. Describe two examples of how colonialism has shaped contemporary politics in Great Britain.4. Describe one feature of a bureaucracy in the context of an authoritarian system. Explain how that feature you have described can both help and hinder the effective implementation of public policy in an authoritarian system.5. Identify two countries in the AP Comparative Government and Politics course—other than Iran—where religion serves as a source of political legitimacy. Describe how religion confers political legitimacy in each of the two countries that you have identified.

Conceptual Analysis: We suggest that you spend approximately 30 minutes on question 6.6. (a) Describe one similarity and one difference between illiberal democracy and liberal democracy.(b) Identify an institution that would need to be changed to make an illiberal democracy more liberal.(c) Describe a change to the institution you identified in (b) that would facilitate a shift from illiberal to liberal democracy.(d) Explain why the change you described in part (c) would lead to a more liberal democracy.

Wildavsky’s Cultural ModelWildavsky’s Cultural Model• How does political culture develop?Culture is defined as the shared values legitimating social practices.

People have relations they justify by rationalizing relative to values, and all values exist to rationalize behavior

Thus culture (way of life) develops as a result of people rationalizing their social behaviors consistent with shared values – further reinforcing those values in practice if they support their way of life and changing those values that do not support their way of life.

Political preferences are built into the political system based on making choices about supporting or rejecting institutions/authority relative to how much they advance the culture – I am for this or against this based on if it is consistent with my shared values and rationalized behaviors.

Culture is also determined by conflict with other cultures. My culture is X because it is not Y.

•How do people choose their political propensities?

People choose their preferences by answering two questions: Who am I? and what should I do? and by evaluating if their active choices have furthered their way of life. As they make more choices and evaluations, they further know what they will want in the future.

• How do people choose their political propensities?Who am I? – part of a group or an individualWhat shall I do? – follow a set of strict rules or have very few

rules to followOnce these questions are answered, we can determine one of

four main cultures: Fatalistic, Hierarchic, Egalitarian, Individualistic

Fatalists –people cannot control their own lives as less connected indies because the rules are imposed, thus no preferences what will be will be

Hierarchist – strong bonds put the group over the indie, justifying strict rules and inequality b/c it is more effective for supporting the group

Individualist – self-regulated competition and cooperation amongst adults seeking opportunities to be different

Egalitarian – voluntary strong association with a group, the group works because everyone is equal and is willing to work together as equals

Follow a bunch of

rules.

What shall I

do?

Follow few rules

Who am I ?An individual w/ weak group connections

A member of a group with strong group connections

Social cleavages etcSocial cleavages etc..

people identify themselves as part of a group based on self-selected traits, characteristics and factors

When one “group” has a conflict with another, it is a social cleavage

These can be cross-cutting cleavages, like gender or religion in the US. This means that, regardless of other group identification, this one group trait leads to conflict across other group traits. Gender for example, regardless if people are poor, black, Jewish, urban, or immigrant, gender plays a significant role in social and political conflict.

Other cleavages are cumulative. This means that conflict grows more intense as more and more cleavages are added together.

•For example, in Northern Ireland, religion, region and wealth all go together. Catholics are political weaker, their regions where they live poorer and their families poorer.

•In the US, race, urbanization, poverty, gender all go together to further exacerbate each of the other cleavages such that black, urban, women are more likely to be poorer than almost anyone else in the US

Political developmentPolitical developmentPalmer – “Based on United Nations definition – achievement of stable

democracy that promotes well-being of its citizens in equitable, humane and environmentally concerned way”

1. Full range of human needs – government must do more than rule – it needs to promote the economic and social well-being of its citizens – access to education, healthcare, housing, employment and a “reasonable distribution of wealth”1. Sometimes focus on national economic growth is mistaken for

improved quality of life2. Uniform standard for comparing states with a stable criteria3. Raises questions about relations between policies and cultural and

economic context – politics affects and is affected by environment conditions and this definition allows us to ask questions about stability w/o democracy, etc.

4. This definition is normative however and is biased in favor of western standards with the state as the central actor – but states are losing their monopoly

5. Definition of development, as a process, inevitably leads to the conclusion that a world government is the goal – but this may not at all be beneficial if one uses the historical cultural method of analysis