The Good Life or Dictatorship, Depression and Genocide

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The Good Life or Dictatorship, Depression and
Genocide?

• The Logic of Comparative Politics

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I. Why Study Comparative Politics?

• Internationalized Problems
• Environment Other countries environmental
  policies affect our air, water, and soil

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Chernobyl Effects
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I. Why Study Comparative Politics?

• Internationalized Problems
• Environment Other countries environmental
  policies affect our air, water, and soil
  
• Economy Other countries economies and economic
  policies affect our economy, for better or worse
  

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I. Why Study Comparative Politics?

• Internationalized Problems
• Environment Other countries environmental
  policies affect our air, water, and soil
  
• Economy Other countries economies and economic
  policies affect our economy, for better or worse
  
• Instability Other countries wars and civil
  violence endanger our security

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I. Why Study Comparative Politics?

• Internationalized Problems
• Environment Other countries environmental
  policies affect our air, water, and soil
  
• Economy Other countries economies and economic
  policies affect our economy, for better or worse
  
• Instability Other countries wars and civil
  violence endanger our security
  
• Repression Human rights violations affect us
  through immigration and international conflict
  

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B. Domestic Problems

• How can we preserve freedom at home? Look at
  cases where freedom failed
  
• How can we achieve economic growth? Look to
  other economies performance
  
• How can we protect our security? Examine
  security strategies of other countries

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C. Questions Looking for variation

• How independent should the judiciary be? Need
  examples of politicized judiciaries
  
• What effect does the two-party system have on
  politics and government? Need examples of
  multi-party systems
  
• What effect does government-sponsored universal
  health insurance have on health? Need examples
  of national health strategies

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II. The Comparative Method Solving Problems and
Answering Questions

• Turn normative (value) problems into empirical
  (fact) ones.
  
• Normative statements
• Definition Prescriptive statements about how the
  world should be or how we ought to behave
  
• Keywords Should, Ought, Right, Wrong, Best,
  Worst
  
• Examples What is the best government? Should we
  take measures to reduce inequality? Should we go
  to war?

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2. Empirical Statements

• Definition Descriptive, Explanatory, or
  Predictive statements about what the world is
  like or how it is likely to change
  
• Keywords Causes, Prevents, Affects, Increases,
  Decreases, Higher, Lower
  
• Examples Does democracy decrease the risk of
  war? Does a free market economy grow faster than
  a command economy?

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B. Theories and Hypotheses

• Identify the dependent variable (DV) What do you
  wish to explain? Chapter 2 has examples of
  problems
  
• Suggest possible independent variables (IVs) that
  might explain the dependent variable. Chapter 2
  has a long list of IVs Resources, Social
  Identity, Ideas, etc.
• Hypothesize either a positive or negative
  relationship between each IV and the DV
  
• Positive () ? Wealth ? ? Political Stability
• Negative or Inverse (-)
• ? Corruption ? ? Political Stability

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4. Theory The story behind your hypotheses

• Why did you expect a positive relationship? What
  causes what?
  
• Are there other things you expect to find if this
  hypothesis turns out to be true?

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Example A theory of political stability with
five hypotheses
Dependent Variable
Independent Variables
Hypothesized Relationships
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C. Hypothesis-Testing Here Comes the Science

• 1. Gather evidence (data) on the DV and all IVs
• Comparative Politics Gather data for each
  country examined (Belgium, France, Sweden,
  Burundi, etc.), perhaps even each country-year
  (Belgium 1990, Belgium 1991, Belgium 1992, France
  1990, France 1991, etc.)
• Process Gather data that might challenge the
  hypothesis (your selection of cases will be
  scrutinized closely for bias!)
  
• Goal Variables shouldvary. Often a problem
  with single-country studies.

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Example Selection on the Independent Variable
Does democracy increase economic growth?
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Example Selection on the Independent Variable
Does your answer change?
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Example Selection on the Dependent Variable
Does ethnic diversity cause civil war?
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Example Selection on the Dependent Variable
Has the answer changed?
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2. Compare the hypotheses to the data

• Is the hypothesis a deterministic law? Very
  rare
  
• Is the hypothesis a probabilistic law?
• Is there a correlation between IV and DV?
• Is the direction ( or -) consistent with the
  hypothesis?
  
• Evaluate the usefulness of the laws.
• How much better can we predict if we know this
  law, versus knowing nothing but the average value
  of the DV? (Example How much better do we do at
  predicting growth if we apply the law to each
  case than if we just guess Medium for every
  country?)
• How much variation in the DV is left unexplained?

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3. Evaluate challenges to the theory

• Could the DV be causing changes in the IV?
  Solution Time (Cause must precede effect!)
  
• Is the independent variable really an intervening
  variable? Solution Control variables.
  
• Did some hypotheses fail the test? What might
  have led to this failure? Solution Control
  variables.
  
• Do you need to modify your story to better
  predict the DV?
  
• What new hypotheses are suggested by these
  results?

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III. Defining Politics A Starting Point for
Models

• Definition The authoritative allocation of
  resources and values.
  
• Politics creates winners and losers
• Key Terms
• Authority Government has a monopoly on the
  legitimate use of force, so it is the only one
  with the authority to allocate.
  
• Resource Allocation Money, labor, commodities
• Allocation of Values Deciding between
  incompatible moral or ethical principles

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IV. How are resources authoritatively allocated?
A Simple Process Model
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A. Agenda-Setting

• Proposing alternatives to the status quo
• Status Quo The way things are (the current
  system)
  

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1. Individuals
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1. Individuals
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1. Individuals -- Powerless alone
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2. Unorganized Groups
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2. Unorganized Groups -- Must be considered, but
cannot set agenda
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3. Organized groups
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3. Organized groups -- Set agenda and shape
citizen response
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4. Benefits of Organization
a. Credible Commitment -- Conditional support
b. Outreach -- Publicity, Money, Media Access
c. Persuasion -- Information to representatives

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5. How to Initiate Change

• Representatives The Elected
• Use Money, Votes, Publicity
• Math for politicians Anything Money
  Anything Else?
  
• b. Bureaucrats Experts and Career Officials or
  Dictators
  
• Use Information, Persuasion
• c. Appointees Judges, Cabinet, etc.
• Target Appointers
• d. ALL Corruption or Revolution

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B. Government Action 1. Legislation
a. Logrolling You scratch my back, Ill scratch
yours b. Partisanship Leads to either parti
san government or gridlock
From the early American practice of neighbors
gathering to help clear land by rolling off and
burning felled timber.
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2. Implementation Bureaucracy, Courts, and the
Rule of Law

• a. Enforcement of laws
• Relies on executive power and judicial capacity
• b. Regulations and Decrees
• Substitute for legislation in many dictatorships
• Clarify legislation in democracies

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C. Citizen Response

• Media reports Citizens base decisions on
  easily-accessible information, whether right or
  wrong
  
• Elections and voting Citizens may punish or
  reward leaders (retrospective voting) or look to
  the best candidate for the future (prospective
  voting)
• Protest and Resistance Citizens may ignore,
  disobey, protest, or fight government authority
  (Challenge to states monopoly on the legitimate
  use of force)

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D. Implications of the Model

• Agenda-Setting can determine the outcome of
  political struggles ? organization key to
  political success
  
• Democracies should prompt less violent resistance
  than autocracies (legal avenues for powerful
  interests to set agenda)
  
• Rational politicians try to anticipate which
  coalitions will support or oppose them in
  elections or war ? pre-empt opposition

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V. Key Variables in Comparative Politics Steps
in the General Model

• How is the agenda set?
• What issues or ideas (cleavages) divide
  unorganized groups?
  
• How do people organize?
• How do organized interests pressure the
  government?
  
• How do governments decide?
• Which coalitions do leaders have to please to
  remain in power?
  
• What procedures exist to select between
  logrolling and partisanship?
  
• Does partisanship produce partisan rule or
  gridlock?
  
• How do citizens behave?
• How do citizens perceive government action?
• When are citizens likely to obey the law?
• When are new leaders selected?
• What form will citizen resistance take?

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D. Why study these variables?

• What causes civil war and genocide?
• What causes depressions and recessions?
• What causes political violence?
• Comparative Politics At least some causes of
  these things lie in the political choices made by
  different countries people and governments --
  and the cultures in which those choices are made