Q1 Political Sciences Past Paper PDF

Q1 - Political sciences | Anna Sonnenschein Authoritarianism and the diffusion of the standards of liberal democracy: an illustration → 1987: Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali : lifetime presidency o election of the president +...

Q1 - Political sciences | Anna Sonnenschein Authoritarianism and the diffusion of the standards of liberal democracy: an illustration → 1987: Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali : lifetime presidency o election of the president + recognition of multi-partyism → 1989: only candidate, officially elected with 99.3% of the vote → 1994: only candidate, re-elected with 99.9% of the votes → 1999: two other candidates running, but Ben Ali is re-elected with 99.44% of the votes → 2004: three other candidates and Ben Ali receives 94.49% of the votes → 2009: Ben Ali has to “confront” three other candidates, “only” 89.62% of the votes Ruling party present everywhere, massive electoral fraud, control of the media (other candidates prohibited of publicising their manifesto) Staged as what has to appear as pluralistic control : legitimation and the importance of the norms of pluralistic electoral competition (internally : cannot rely only on force / externally) 2. Democracy a. Origins and definition Where does democracy come from? Democracy appeared in Greece in the 6th century BC → especially in the City of Athens: citizens would meet in the public square (the forum) and make decisions, especially the most important ones → Ex: declarations of war, ratification of laws etc. ANCIENT DEMOCRACY MODERN DEMOCRACY Restrictive definition → Exclude women, minors, slaves and Inclusive definition Citizenship foreigners → No one is excluded → only 10% of the population were citizens Representative democracy Direct democracy → people today do not govern directly; they Delegation → Not many citizens so they can all delegate their power to elected participate representatives Random drawing → The magistrates (for the public affairs) Designation of were selected randomly for 1 year Election the → Considered as the most equalitarian → Favours distinction between the representatives attribution of power governors and the governed → Provided an alteration between being governed and governing 21  Q1 - Political sciences | Anna Sonnenschein A few preliminary words on gender and democracy THE EXCLUSION OF WOMEN FROM POLITICAL CITIZENSHIP Ancient and modern political citizenship have been historically constructed by men, excluding women of the city We will refer to John Lock and the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s theories of the social contract. → Even if their vision of the political order and the functioning of democracy is written in neutral terms, → it is implicitly based on the principal of subordination of women and their confinement in the private sphere → Ex: in Two Treatises of Government, Locke wrote that the domination of the husband over his wife is not to be disputed because it finds its foundation in nature o this division and subordination in the private sphere bears consequence in the public → The individuals involved in the social contract are only men. → His theories rest on a very strict dichotomy between the public and the private spheres. → What happens in the private sphere also does in the public sphere and they do not call for an extension for all citizens. The works about the modern social contract fueled and enriched the vision of democracy that developed based on democratic principles, with the exclusion of women from the public sphere that was in practice. THE INCLUSION OF WOMEN IN INFORMAL CITIZENSHIP: A LONG AND CONFLICTING HISTORY The inclusion of women in the public sphere met with resistance, starting with the development of political regimes based on democratic principles. → There were a few voices who denounced this contradiction o Condorcet (De l'administration des femmes au droit de Cité, 1790); o Olympe de Gouges (Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne, 1791); o Mary Wollstonecraft (A vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792); o John Stuart Mill (The Subjection of Women, 1869) Those remain individual voices and only in the second half of the 19th, there is an organized voice for the political inclusion of women which is took on a collective dimension. o Many countries face movement fighting for gender equality, especially with regards to the rights to suffrage Those paradoxical discourses were trapped in the “Wollstonecraft dilemma”, based on the writing of Mary Wollstonecraft: → the movement that claimed rights (especially the right to vote during the 19th) were trapped in the dilemma and were bound to have contradictory arguments. o On the one hand, the activists called for the political inclusion of women in the public life in the name of equality between all citizens o On the other hand, they have also claimed political rights for women but in the name of some of skills traditionally attached to women as mothers and wives o Ex: the presence of women in politics would improve the morality of life, allow to better fight against alcoholism and prostitution etc → → They claim equality but at the same time, they also use arguments based on a vision of women as naturally peaceful, moral etc 22  Q1 - Political sciences | Anna Sonnenschein A TYPOLOGY OF THE TRAJECTORIES OF WOMEN ACCESS TO SUFFRAGE You can classify two different ways according to which major historical events took place: → “Nordic and Anglo-Saxon countries”: women obtain the right to vote quite early o around WWI or in the interwar years o this is often close to universal suffrage → “Countries under the influence of the Napoleonic Code”: suffrage was only acquired after WWII o 1920 elections in Belgium for women except prostitutes but including soldier widows. o France in 1944 and more than one century after universal male suffrage, we have Switzerland Three main elements can explain this diversity of trajectories : 1| the weight of feminist movements: → in the nordic and Anglo-Saxon countries, the suffragist movements were structured and specially oriented towards the obtention of the right to suffrage at a very early stage, as early as the mid 19th century. → In other countries, the movement appeared later, just before WWII, so they were less powerful and numerous 2| major historical events: We can think of two different kinds of historical events: → war: the idea is to reward to honor their sacrifice to the homeland → national independences: they also grant universal citizenship to the population 3| the type of regime: → there are countries were a law granting suffrage to women has to go through parliament alone (can be rather quick) but → in other countries, there is important autonomy for local powers, ending up delaying women's access to political citizenship for it has to go through different processes o Ex: Switzerland (federal state) women had the right to vote at the federal level in 1971, but at the local level only in 1990. The defining features of modern democracy Out of these 4 general characteristics, we can see 3 main implications. These conditions may be implemented in practice through very diverse institutional arrangements → Modern democracies can be extremely different from each other → No society has “invented” modern democracy: there is no single model of democracy. o There have been innovations taken over by other societies and there are not part of classical democratic practices ▪ Ex: the fact that political parties are an important part of democratic life. ▪ It first emerged in the USA in the beginning of the 19th century, the fact that voting is secret is also something that originated in the mid-17th in South-Australia. ▪ At the time, all the democratic countries didn't have secret ballot and when they did, you would just note the candidate you were voting for; – → Democracy is a continuous variable: o a continuum between authoritarian regimes and full democracy with many intermediate stages (and a threshold) Division de quelque chose en deux éléments que l'on oppose nettement o there is not as such a dichotomy between democracy on the one side and dictatorship on the other side. o This may be self-evident for some country ▪ Ex: very easy to classify Switzerland on the one hand and North Korea on the other hand 23  Q1 - Political sciences | Anna Sonnenschein Subtypes created to conceptualize political regimes that fall in the “grey area” (restrictive democracy, delegate democracy, illiberal democracy,..) FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT The national government is exercised by The political authorities can, once they are elected, adopt → the legislature (parliament, a congress or an assembly policies they want without any constraint by an unelected whatever the type) power o elected by the people → monarch, religious authority, militaries, foreign → and the executive branch (head of government) authority o elected by the people Constitutional courts may overturn some decisions to o selected among the majority of the protect civil liberties parliament Executive leaders answer for their actions in front of he There is an electoral process leading to the forming of new elected representatives in the legislative branch. government → Both branches are responsible for their policies in → it is recurrent, free, and fair: front of voters. → all candidates can campaign and enjoy an equal playing field and all the votes are counted without fraud. CIVIL LIBERTIES UNIVERSAL PARTICIPATION The constitution is the codification of citizen's rights and government authority = Constitution The adult population enjoys the right to vote and to run for office without any exclusion Ex: No human rights violations against citizens, no censorship → exclusion based on income, gender, education, and no ban on the organization of legitimate political ethnicity, wealth, religion etc. parties or interest groups Modern democracy can however exclude some adults Independent organizations and the judiciary control and based on the place of birth or criminal records protect citizen's rights against government encroachment → exclude foreigners → Ex: constitutional courts, ombudsman etc in order to protect citizen against eventual encroachment. All of them exclude minors, but there are differences in the age of majority Ex: 21, 18, 17 for some countries. Two conceptions of democracy Minimalist conceptions It’s a mistrust of the masses, the people → Low participation = better stability Authors such as SCHUMPETER are suspicious of the people and have a very restrictive view of democracy. → He considered that democracy was based on competition, on an economic model. → It's a market: the role of the citizen is only to elect their representative. → If necessary, they are also here to sanction the representative at the end of their mandate. → Bottom line, people do not have to get involved in political matters because they don't have the capacity to do so. Vision of Bolivia in the Constitution of Bolivia (1826) → It should be a lifetime president → To ensure stabile of the nex democratic country 24  Q1 - Political sciences | Anna Sonnenschein MAXIMALIST CONCEPTIONS They are opposed to the elitist and minimalist conception and consider that everyone should take part in political life, which shouldn't be specialists' activities. Two main trends: → advocates of the participatory ideal : every individual has a necessary capacity to participate to decision- making o Ex: LENINE “every cook must be able to govern the state” → advocates of the deliberative ideal: public good is better obtained through deliberative democracy with free and public confrontation of arguments between rational individuals with mutual respect. o This will enable consensus on the common good and general interest o Ex: citizen jury, deliberative polls etc. The 2 conceptions coexist today in our system: the “government of experts” and direct democracy. b. Typology of democratic regimes All democracies share the 4 fundamental characteristics before mentioned, yet there is a great diversity of democratic regimes and all systems do not function the same way. → Some authors have tried to organize this diversity and created typologies that interact → it's not one or the other Parliamentary or presidential? These are ideal types that proceed from a theoretical vision of reality. → There are institutional arrangements that mix elements of the two models and create semi presidential regimes, combining a directly elected President and a prime minister responsible to parliament. PARLIAMENTERY DEMOCRACY PRESIDENTIAL DEMOCRATY Separate electoral process for the members of the Same election for the legislature and the head of legislature and the head of government government → voters who elect the legislature and whose votes → No single party has the majority, but parties are aggregated at the local levels form a coalition to appoint the new government. → voters who elect the President and whose votes are aggregated at the national level Separation of functions between the executive and the legislative, but Strict separation of powers between the executive → no explicit separation of powers among the head and the legislative of government and the members of the cabinet No separation between the head of government and Separation between the head of government (prime the head of state minister) and the head of State (monarch) → the president and the members of the cabinet → Whose political role (form monarch) in modern are not members of the legislatures, democracies is weak, oriented towards the → the president elect simultaneously endorses the preservation of national unity. roles of Head of government and Head of state No (or only few) possibility of new elections before Possibility of new election before the end of the the end of the fixed term fixed term (dissolution, vote of no confidence) → when the President and the members are = There are regular elections, but there can be elected, there are supposed to serve until the elections sooner than expected. end of the term 25  Q1 - Political sciences | Anna Sonnenschein Majoritarian or consensus? Once again, these are only ideal-types. → Although most of the systems show mixed combinations of the features o Ex: the USA which is majoritarian for the executive and legislative branches and consensual for the national majority/regional minority organization, there are few exceptions for authors and constitutionalists → But, some countries are close to the ideal type o Ex: the UK which is a model of almost a pure majoritarian democracy (Westminster model) and on the other side, o Or Belgium and Switzerland which are deemed very close to the pure consensual model Arend Lijphart argued that → some democratic regimes are organized to facilitate the rule by the majority and → some others are designed to protect minorities, and thus to promote consensual decision-making = Different conceptions of the democratic process translated into 2 constitutional features 2 main criteria to distinguish between majoritarian and consensual: → balance of power between the executive and the legislative branch; → balance of power between the central government (national majority) and the local government (sub- national or regional minorities) designed to protect minorities, and thus to promote consensual facilitate the rule by the majority = MAJORITARIAN decision-making = CONSENSUS Disproportional: it influences voters Proportional representation: it directly → they know that if they vote for small parties, Electoral translates the percentage of vote system they will have little chances of winning the obtained by each party in the same elections in the end so they may waste their proportion of seats in the legislatures vote Two-party: it's a consequence of the Multi-party: when people support a disproportion. given party, they will be represented in Party system → The party which wins the election has almost the legislature so there is a multiparty the majority in the legislature, there is no system need to form a coalition Single party: another consequence of the Coalitions: since you have an important disproportion number of parties, most of the time Government → cabinets are made of people from a same there is a need for a coalition to form a party government Executive dominance: if you have single party cabinet and the party also has the majority in the Balanced power: the legislative branch assembly/parliament/congress is important, Inter-branch balance → most of the time, the Head of the government → so there is a balance between the is also the main leader of the party. There is executive and the legislative dominance of the executive over the branches legislative Unitary: Majoritarian democracies tend to have unitary and centralized government Local government → the majority at the national level also decide Federal polities and public policies at the local and the regional level. Legislature Unicameral: It also means that Bicameral 26  Q1 - Political sciences | Anna Sonnenschein → there is usually no federal senate in the C° so that the legislature is more likely to be unicameral. Flexible: The Constitution is flexible → it's easy to change it because the will of the Rigid: because you define the rights of majority at the national level is expected the minorities in Constitution. The Constitution prevail. majorities cannot change the → They are rarely constraint by the legal Constitution interpretation of the Constitution → Ex: British westminster model. Strong judicial review Judiciary Weak or no judicial review → Powerful supreme court Optimal for Homogeneous society Plural society c. Conclusion: some contemporary political dynamics The idea was to pick two important dynamics of our contemporary democracies to see how they are likely to change in the future. THE QUESTIONING OF REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY “Directization” of representative democracy (IAN BUDGE, 1996): classical representative democracy is more and more questioned, under the influence of : – → direct democracy: referenda, rights of local initiative, recall,... → deliberative and participative democracy: procedures for consultation, public involvement in decision- making and citizens conferences, citizens juries, deliberative polls, etc THE EXPANSION OF CITIZENSHIP The history of democracy is the history of the progressive expansion of citizenship to groups that used to be excluded. → It's contested at the beginning, then when the boundaries of citizenship change, the new boundaries progressively come to be considered as natural, self evident and become widely accepted → property and literacy (19th), women and ethnic minorities (20th). Workers underlined that there would be an expansion of citizenship rights to new groups in society and these are the possibilities put forward by different authors: → young individuals: they are considered as independent minors so the age of political majority will be lowered, as seen in many different countries → migrants: citizen located outside their national territories, foreign residents → non-human population: apes and other animals. 27