Voting Systems
- Proportional Representation- elected in large multimember district, # of seats proportional to # of votes
- Advantages: more accurate representation, better for minorities (gender, race, political), fewer wasted votes, increased likelihoood of majority rule, less opportunity for gerrymandering
- Disadvantages: closed list is inflexible, no local / geographic representative, coalitions can be unstable
- Party list- large district, voter votes for party / closed list- party chooses order / open list- voter chooses order
- Mixed member- 1/2 party lists, 1/2 SMD/ benefits of PR and SMD
- STV- choice voting (pick 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.)
- Pluralism (FPTP)- 2 party-voting
- Advantages: keep status quo, protect against extremist idea, stable, median voter
- Disadvantages: low voter turnout, "dominant" party, 2 parties can be too similar, extremism
- Bloc voting- Palestine / in candidate districts with 5 seats open- Hamas put up 5 people, Fatah put up 10 people = vote splitting and Hamas wins
Executives
- Coming to power- ascription (characteristics, criteria, bloodline), appointment (formal/informal), election, force (assasination, coup d'etat, revolution)
- Leaving power- violence, dying, term limits, vote of no confidence (parliamentary), impeachment, designated successor
- Executive power- create legislation, make appointments, oversee bureaucracy, guide public opinion ("bully pulpit")
- Neustadt- demands from bureaucracy, Congress, partisan, citizens, abroad / formal power- awarded by office, actual power- what he can do / tools- persuasive, professional reputation, public prestige, choice
- Barber- character, world view, and style help predict behavior and direction of policies / criticisms- simplistic, external variables? / how much energy do they put into it? how much do they like it? (active positive- JFK, active negative- Nixon, passive positive- Reagan, passive negative- Eisenhower)
- Federalist #70- need energetic president / unity, sufficient powers, some secrecy / no double presidency b/c need accountability
Bureaucracy
- Career civil service
- Weber- organized hierarchically (specialization), appointed based on qualifications (merit), official doesn't own office
- What they do: administration, services, regulation (create policy), licensing, advisory, adjudication
- Disciplinary implementation- decide when to implement more specific laws, how to implement / interpret, how to administrate
- US: 15 Cabinet (DOD, Sec. of State), federal agencies- specific purpose (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms ATF), independent regulatory agencies (FTC, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission FERC)
- Communist countries: extensive power, control economy
- Western Industrialized countries: highly trained and educated, France and Japan- specific process, Germany and UK- civil service exams
- Less-developed countries: corruption, bad public services
- Good: rationality, uniformity, predictability, supervision, expertise, overall efficiency
- Bad: too bid hurts productivity and efficiency, corruption (revolving door and regulatory capture), independence vs. coordination, bad perception
- What to do?: ombudsperson (outsider), legislative oversight, privatization / decentralization, politicizing
- Regulation: law passed, regulatory agency sets up draft regulations, multiple stakeholders submit comments, regulations are re-written and passed
- FEMA- before 9/11- independence but no coordination, after 9/11- w/ Dept. of Homeland Security, coordination but no independence
Public Policy
- Deals in Congress (Milligan)- dracula Congress, power for lobbyists, rules committee- blocks votes on items supported by majority if they are opposed to president/party leadership, add amendments during conference committee, decrease in open rules, no time to review legislation, decrease in debate, revolving door, increase in pork
- Farm Bill (Pollan)- subsidies on corn, soy, and wheat, affects: obesity, world agri. prices, int'l policy, land use, beneficiaries: agri-business, no salience (no one cares), complex
- U.S. public policy- increase party power, increase centralization of power, decrease efficiency b/c increase in pork, increase corruption, non-alignment public policy
Laws
- Criminal vs. civil
- Constitutional law
- Administrative law- regulations
- Int'l law- enforcement problems
- Canon law- religious
- Positive law- man-made law (natural law is innate, social contract is common)
- Rule of law- due process, judicial review (Marbury v. Madison), precedent (stare decisis), judicial restraint, judicial activism (Warren Court in 1960s)
- Common law- judicial decisions based on tradition, precedent / written or unwritten / England / most consistant over time
- Civil (Code) law- legislature creates law, vague civil codes set out principles / Europe / up to date
- Influences of Judges: political socialization, geography, occupational background, party, concept of judicial role, collegues' opinion, public opinion
Unitary System vs. Federalism
- Unitary System (France)- centripital, centralized
- Good: efficiency (consistency), decreased regional tensions, can implement large-scale benefits (3 Gorges Dam in China)
- Bad: some districts lose wealth, no adaptation to regional or cultural differences, not connected to govt., loss of efficiency in big bureaucracy
- Federalism (Germany)- centerfugal
- Good: local power, limits centralized power, increase participation, efficient, policy experimentation
- Bad: expensive (2 sets of govt.), inefficient, unfair regionally, corruption, increase influences of interest groups, interstate conflict, federal-state conflict
- U.S. Balkanization of govt.- 80,000 local govts., jurisdictional conflicts, problems: Arrowhead-Transmission line, burden-shifting
- Federalism in U.S.- early (state power), modern (national dominance) contemporary (new federalism- power to states, devolution, block grants)
- Cakes: layer cake (separate powers), marble cake (mixed), fruit/birthday cake (shared programs under fiscal federalism)
Happiness
- Harvard study- focus on relative position in society
- How to measure?
- Mexico- GDP pc: 7,500 (low middle), but happiness: 90%
- Measurements: GDP pc, Gini Index (inequality), happiness indexes, non-regional differences (job satisfaction)
- Conspicuous consumption- rich accumulate wealth to display it- happiness fueled by neighbor's envy
International Organization
- Struggle for order and stability in unpredictable setting
- Multinationals- business, Exxon
- INGOs- Red Cross
- Supranational Organizations- EU, UN
- IGOs- NATO
- Multifunctional- funding, equality, new regional powers, meeting so many needs, increase importance for small states
- International law- rights and obligations of states (problem: no enforcement)
- Treaties: economic and trade (NAFTA), security (defense- NATO, peace- ABM), humanitarian (environment- Kyoto, democracy- UN Declaration of Human Rights), issues: lack of legislation and enforcement
- China and Environment: air pollution, desertificiation, water scarcity and pollution, acid rain / huge economic growth / world problem- air pollution and dust, trade, tragedy of commons / politics- political change or status quo
- Collapse (Diamond)- make bad decisions because: don't anticipate, don't percieve problem, fail to solve problem, try to solve but fail / problems because: tragedy of commons, bad reasoning, inability to agree who should pay, lack of education, complexity
Human Rights
- What are they? Who defines? How to enforce? Contradictions/Impossibilities?
- Magnarella- cultural imperialism, religion, developed vs. undeveloped, group vs. individual interests, realism (nations will to what is in their best self-interest), cultural relativism vs. rights- how can same standard apply in different areas
- Cambodia- Khmer Rouge- utopian communist revolution, tried to achieve self-sufficient agrarian economy, killed 1.5 to 2.3 million
International System
- Problem: don't agree on what system is emerging
- Historical- 19th c. balance of power, interwar instability, bipolar Cold War
- Unipolar- 1 power (U.S.)
- Counterweight- group reaction to primary power (U.S. vs. China, EU, Middle East)
- Multipolar- regional, economic blocs (EU, ASEAN, NAFTA)
- Stratified- softer unipolar w/ second tier (US, EU vs. ASEAN) / 1st tier dominates, but there is cooperation
- Zones of Chaos- development (1st, 2nd, 3rd world) / some resources in 3rd world, but unstable / 1st- US, UK, France, 2nd- Brazil, India, 3rd- poor Asian, Middle East
- Globalized- economic interests / fair trade, WTO rules / economic heavy-weights can do thing to manipulate world trading system
- Resource wars- resource (energy and water) power / oddball countries- Brazil, Canada, Norway, Venezuela, Nigeria
- Clash of civilizations- cultural schisms / Christian vs. Islam / West vs. East
- Proliferation- nuclear / US, UK, Russia, France, China ... also, Israel, S. Africa, India, Pakistan, N. Korea, Iran
- Globalization- complete network, common thread of all models / culture, economics, information, trade, social interaction
- Interventionism- use military force in other lands / islolationism- minimized importance of outside world
- Klingberg's Alternationa Theory: 21 introvert, 27 extrovert
International Relations
- More complex, lack sovereignty, dependent on power, struggle of influence in unpredictable setting characterized by chaos
- Treaty of Westphalia- ends 30 Years War, nation-state as highest level of government, sovereignty of states, wars around issues of state, modern contradictions- no human/democratic rights, supranational organizations?, religious states, globalization
- National interest: vital vs. secondary, temporary vs. permanent, specific vs. general, complementary vs. confliction
- Realist school- Machiavelli, Morganthau, Hobbes / nations pursue interests, not ideas / elements of power: military, geographic, human / reaffirms sovereign nation state
- Idealist school (Cosmopolitanism)- Wilson, Carter, Kant, J.S. Mill / expect nations to be true to their values, ideals, and morals / image of world community
- International society- middle ground / international and supranational organizations mediate relations / compromise but focus on int'l practices and norms
- Issues: war, sovereignty, human rights, security (national and human), religion, democracy
- Microtheories for war- individuals / macrotheories for war- nation, history- balance of power, hierarchy of power, democratic peace / misperception, lost in translation
- Keeping the peace- world government, collective security (agreement to counter aggressor), functionalism (cooperation in specialized areas leads to overall cooperation among nations), 3rd party assistance, diplomacy (use envoys), peacekeeping (outside military force stabilize)
Transitions
- 9 Marxist-Leninist dictatorships- put tons of $ into military, didn't invest in infrastructure, 5-year plan, system broke and failing
- Now; 28 noncommunist states / 8 fully democratic- Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia / 5 emerging- Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia / 5 transitional- Ukraine, Georgia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzogovina, Moldova
- Successes: break with past (mass mobalization, electoral revolutions), elites, former communist parties (evolve into Western-style democracies), media (free and diverse), civil society (need to increase # of non-profit NGOs), political parties (slow to develop), early economic reforms (property rights, entrepreneurship, individual wealth, Russia moving backwards), no essential preconditions, international community (EU, NATO membership, West not interfering with domestic affairs, stickiness
- Problems: dominant presidents (no counterbalance or constitutional limits- Russia, Belarus), resource curse (rich gas and oil reserves consolidated by state
- Transitions: single democratic standard?, do they occur similarly?, similar patterns across time and cultural region?, what political institutions are best (pluralism, PR / presidentialism, parliamentary)?, liberal democracy even when violate rights?, economic liberalization and democratic liberalization, are there pre-requisites (economic, culture, interest groups, meet certain threshold before transitions)?
- S. Africa- good, external pressure for democratic reforms
- Romania- good, closer to European tradition, better economics = easier
- Peru- still waiting, extensive Western invovlement during Fujimori's term
- Kazakstan- reversion, Nazarbayev president for life, resource curse, no political reforms/civil liberties
Russia
- Peristroika- restructuring, economic reforms
- Glasnot- opennes, transparency with govt.
- Yetlsin- elected in 1991, used force against dissidents in 1993, economic shock therapy = hyperinflation, loss of state supports, good: pro-democracy and ended communism, bad: quasi-authoritarian, badly executed economic reforms, loss of super-power status
- Putin- Federal presidential republic (PM under control of President), edict power, head of leg. and executive (no checks and balances), emergence of regional power
- Nikonov- no democracy to controlled democracy, need to pull back and take it slowly
- Rumer- only democracy in name, Yeltsin attacked opposition, skewed elections, removed checks and balances
- Problems: corruption, red tape, lack of accountability, health problems, inflation, unemployment, Chechnya, fragmented parties, politicized constitution
- Economic concerns- slow pace of privitization, no solid economic framework = decrease in foreign investment, privitization and oligarchs
- Issue: transition fast or slow?, economic or political reforms?, only Western-style democracy?
China
- Great Leap Forward (1957)- increase spread of socialism, planned economy, failed
- Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)- killed dissidents, intellectuals
- Communist party still in control / authoritarian- increase economic growth and globalization, increase inequality and social and environmental problems
- Economic growth- fastest in world, trade surplus, because of privitization and increase in domestic privately owned companies
- Problems: inequality (but decrease in poverty), shortage of workers (increase wages and middle class), environment, rising expectations (people get richer and want more- post-materialistic)
- 3 Gorges Dam- people used to govt. telling them what to do / bad: flooded cultural relics, 1.2 million displaced, silt, environmental impact / good: can control floods, electricity (!!!), supposed to increase river transportation
- Impact of authoritarianism: fragmented authoritarianism (negotiated state), created space for autonomy (loopholes for bargaining), party and state differentiated (local govt. power), corruption (shows lack of state power)
I hope you enjoyed all of these great note!
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