Next Week (23 April – 27 April) in POLS209

Hope everybody had a relaxing break!

This coming week in POLS209 we have a couple of deadlines and only one lecture (Wednesday is ANZAC day):

1. Comment on and vote on the classification systems developed before break. I will set up a voting form later in the week (voting is due on April 27 – I will set up another announcement later in the week with the link to the voting form); right now, just go over to the two course blogs to comment on the various systems, suggesting potential improvements or changes in response to possible classification problems. (I will be providing some comments as well, but I want to give others a chance to comment before I do). The systems are, in no particular order:

a.       Monday 10AM tutorial:

                                                               i.      Impacts of freedoms and Political Institutions

                                                             ii.      Tyranny of Ideas group.

                                                            iii.      Group X

b.      Monday 1:10PM tutorial:

                                                               i.      Democats group (see also here and here).

                                                             ii.      The Big Guns group

                                                            iii.      The Back Row Gang group

c.       Tuesday 3:10PM tutorial (only one group)

d.      Wednesday 10:00AM tutorial (only one group)

e.      Wednesday 3:10PM tutorial

                                                               i.      How restrictive of basic human rights are modern states?

                                                             ii.      We’re Realists, No Need for a Name, Power is our Only Game group.

                                                            iii.      Group A+

f.        Friday 11:00AM tutorial (only one group)

There are 9 potential options; you may suggest improvements to the questions that each of these groups suggested as potential research questions, tweaks to the criteria for classification, or anything else for any of them. You obviously don’t need to comment on all of them, or any, if you don’t feel like you have something to contribute, though remember that comments or posts on the blog count for 5% of your grade.

2. The second thing that is coming up is the first draft of the case study (due on April 27). The case study is different from the regime classification project (there has been some confusion on this point). In the case study you get to study one particular regime in detail that YOU choose (I won’t assign it to you). You can choose any regime you think could be considered non-democratic – any of the regimes we are studying in this course is fine, for example (the GDR, Syria, Venezuela under Chavez, North Korea, China, Zaire under Mobutu, Romania under Ceausescu, Singapore, etc.) though any regime you can argue is non-democratic is fine as well (if you are unsure, let me know).

This first draft can be a bit rough – no need to worry too much about every little formal aspect, and you can leave some sections in outline form. (And this is really only the first half of the case study anyway). The point is to turn in something that we (the tutors and I) can provide useful feedback for before the final draft (June 8), but do try to turn in something that shows some research and is reasonably coherent. (Remember you can turn in something that is not an essay – a video, for example, or a wiki page. If you are unsure, just ask!).

When you are writing this draft, the main question you should focus on is the question of how a ruler or a ruling group (party, etc.) in your chosen case maintained himself/themselves in power:

a.       Who is the “winning coalition” in your case? How did/does this coalition remain loyal? (And over what time period?) Were/are they paid off through “private” goods? Is there something more that held/holds it together? Have the means used to hold the ruling coalition together had economic or social effects? (Think here of the Bueno de Mesquita reading and try to figure out whether it applies to your chosen case, or if not, why not).

b.      Alternatively, you may want to examine the sorts of institutions that are/were used to manage the strategic problems of holding a coalition together, intimidating opponents, and making credible promises. Were there elections? What were they used for if not “democratically”? Why were elections necessary to holding power, if they existed? How were potential opponents coopted or defanged? Was there a cult of personality, and did it work by making people believe in the ruler’s special characteristics? How was the loyalty of the security forces secured? (Think here of the Levitsky and Way, Kricheli and Magaloni, Pfaff, and Wedeen readings especially).

c.       Comparisons to any of the cases we have talked about in the course are fine too. And you can of course also address other questions – e.g., is the system non-democratic because of something about the country’s culture? Has it worked in a wise way because of its non-democratic nature? Etc. It is also important to give a (very brief) sense of how the regime came to power (e.g., via coup, or election, or revolution).

So far in the course we have mostly focused on how ruling groups in non-democratic regimes (which we can define in many ways - that's part of the point of doing a regime classification exercise) maintain themselves in power - how they assemble coalitions, secure loyalty, and prevent revolts from both close allies and the general population. But in lecture this week we will start thinking about a question that many of you may have had: are dictatorships, or at least some non-democratic regimes, necessarily bad? Aren’t there some non-democratic regimes that seem to work very well? And, if they work very well, is there anything wrong with them? Aren’t there some cultures that are better off with a non-democratic political system? (However we define non-democratic!)

We will focus in particular on Singapore next week, which is generally agreed to be an economic success story with a more or less non-democratic political system, but this week we will talk about a more general problem: are there “benevolent autocrats” – generally unaccountable rulers that nevertheless appear to govern well? And are there political systems that can produce such benevolent autocrats? What is the evidence on this matter?

The main reading on this topic is a working paper by the economist William Easterly, “Benevolent Autocrats” (http://williameasterly.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/benevolent-autocrats-easterly-2nd-draft.pdf). Easterly thinks that there are no such autocrats; what we have is rather a statistical mirage that makes us think that there are such autocrats. The paper itself contains some statistical analysis that you may find hard to follow, but try to at least skim it and get the gist of it, and look especially at the introduction (where Easterly lays out the argument) and the last section (where Easterly suggests some reasons why the idea of the “benevolent autocrat” is so popular). What do you think – are there any benevolent autocrats? Is the evidence Easterly produces convincing that there are no such rulers? And is there any reason why some places might be better off being ruled by a benevolent autocrat rather than a more democratic system? Or is the popularity of the idea due to some of the reasons Easterly notes?

I also suggest learning a bit more about the Singaporean political system, if you have not already. I have included in the course notes an older article (1994) on it by Denny Roy (1994. Singapore, China, and the "Soft Authoritarian" Challenge. Asian Survey 34 (3): 231-242. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2644982, http://victoria.lconz.ac.nz/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=1378545) which looks at it through the lens of so-called “Asian values.” Do you think Singapore and China are doing well (or did well in the past) because their political systems are not democratic? (Think carefully about this question. It’s not as easy to answer as it may initially look). You may of course look elsewhere for information about the Singapore political system.

Help! I have questions! What can I do?

Ask questions! You can always ask questions during the lecture or tutorials, e-mail me (Xavier.marquez@vuw.ac.nz) or contact me via twitter (@marquezxavier).

You can also use this course blog - http://politicalpathologies.blogspot.com or http://politicalpathologies2.blogspot.com - to raise issues, questions, etc. Comment on this post, for example!