University of Notre Dame

This is a seminar on the nature and consequences of democracy. It is a companion course to GOVT575, "Comparative Research on Democratization" (offered spring 1999), which examines causes of democracy. However, neither seminar is a prerequisite for the other.

"Comparing Democracies" is a semester‑long workshop devoted to establishing rigorous criteria for evaluating how democratic "democracies" are and what difference it makes. During most of the post-war era, U.S. political science moved toward a consensus on a narrow, Schumpterian concept of democracy that reduced a rich and complex tradition to electoral competition, broad suffrage, and certain attendant institutions. This was a useful concept for several decades, as it made possible an increasingly rigorous program of research on the causes and consequences of democracy. But at the end of the Third Wave, it has become hard to ignore the price that we paid for this productivity. Now there are many more countries that satisfy the minimal requirements for a narrow version of democracy. At the same time we are painfully aware that some democracies are much more “democratic” than others. Yet the concept we inherited does not provide us with clear criteria for making such judgments. The purpose of this seminar is to reconsider, in a more broad-minded frame of mind, what the essential components of democracy are, and to examine empirically their interrelationships and their consequences for other social and political values. We will read and discuss selected theoretical works–some old, some recent--that propose definitions of and justifications for democracy. We will break down the concepts into measurable components and function as a research team to produce qualitative and quantitative indicators of the quality of democracy. Students will also present and critique their own research on the consequences of these qualities of democracy for regime stability, social equity, or other outcomes. The seminar includes practical instruction on concept formation, measurement theory, dimensional analysis, and other methodological tools that would be useful for analyzing many complex political phenomena besides democracy.

A complete set of articles and some chapters will be placed in the Kellogg Information Center on the third floor of Hesburgh Center, and all books will be on reserve in Hesburgh Library. In addition, selected books will be available for purchase at the bookstore. They are:

David Held, Models of Democracy (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1987).

Richard S. Katz, Democracy and Elections (Oxford UP, 1997) ($60 because not yet available in paperback)

Arend Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries (Yale UP, 1999) (available later in the semester, as it was just published in August).

and a limited number of copies of Marija J. Norušis, SPSS Professional Statistics 6.1 ( SPSS, Inc., 1994).

If anyone is interested in buying Robert F. DeVellis, Scale Development: Theory and Applications, Applied Social Research Methods Series, Vol. 26 (Sage, 1991) (113 pp., $21.95+shipping), I will place an order myself to expedite delivery if you tell me at the first class meeting.

August 25. Introduction: Empirical Research on the Nature and Consequences of Democracy

No reading assignment.

September 1. No class due to APSA. Readings for other weeks are a bit heavier to compensate, but if we fall behind in discussing them, I may schedule a makeup class.

September 8. Minimalist Concepts

**Exercise: Bring to class a checklist of essential components of democracy. 10% of grade.

David Held, Models of Democracy (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1987), pp. 51-71 (Locke, Montesquieu, Madison, Bentham, Mill), 72-85 (Rousseau), 85-104 (J.S. Mill) and 143-185 (Weber and Schumpeter) and 186-220 (Dahl and his critics).

Adam Przeworski, Democracy and the Market (Cambridge UP, 1991), chapter 1, pp. 10-50.

Richard S. Katz, Democracy and Elections (Oxford UP, 1997), pp. 3-66.

Recommended

Joseph Schumpeter, “The Classical Doctrine of Democracy” and “Another Theory of Democracy,” in Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (Harper and Row, 1950), pp. 250-83.

Robert Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics (Yale UP, 1989), pp. 13-33 and 213-24.

Dahl, On Democracy (Yale UP, 1998).

September 15. Measurement Theory and Methods

David Nachmias and Chava Nachmias, Research Methods in the Social Sciences, second ed. (St. Martin’s Press, 1981), chapters 2, “Conceptual Foundations of Research” (pp. 29-54); 6, “Measurement” (pp. 131-151); and 15, “Index Construction and Scaling Methods” (pp. 391-414).

Robert F. DeVellis, Scale Development: Theory and Applications, Applied Social Research Methods Series, Vol. 26 (Sage, 1991). 113 pp.

Marija J. Norušis/SPSS, Inc., “Factor Analysis,” SPSS Professional Statistics 6.1 ( SPSS, Inc., 1994), pp. 47-81.

Recommended

Hubert M. Blalock, Jr., Conceptualization and Measurement in the Social Sciences (SAGE, 1982), chapters 1-3 (pp. 11-107.

Joseph B. Kruskal and Myron Wish, “Multidimensional Scaling,” Sage University Paper series on Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences, 07-011 (Sage publications, 1978).

Richard A. Zeller and Edward G. Carmines, Measurement in the Social Sciences: The Link between Theory and Data (Cambridge UP, 1980), chapters 1-4 (pp. 1-101).

Roderick P. McDonald, Factor Analysis and Related Methods (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1985).

William Jacoby, Data Theory and Dimensional Analysis [SAGE series: Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences, 07-078] (Newbury Park, CA: SAGE, 1991).

September 22. Indicators of Democracy

David Collier and Steven Levitsky, “Democracy with Adjectives: Conceptual Innovation in Comparative Research,” World Politics 49:3 (April 1997): 430-51.

Kenneth Bollen, “Political Democracy: Conceptual and Measurement Traps,” in Alex Inkeles, ed., On Measuring Democracy: Its Consequences and Concomitants (Transaction 1991), pp. 3-20. Also published in Studies in Comparative International Development 25:1 (Spring 1990): 7-24.

Seymour Martin Lipset, “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy,” American Political Science Review 53 (March 1959): 69-105.

Phillips Cutright, “National Political Development: Measurement and Analysis,” American Sociological Review 28 (1963): 253-64.

Adam Przeworski, Michael Alvarez, José Antonio Cheibub, and Fernando Limongi, “What Makes Democracies Endure?” Journal of Democracy 7:1 (January 1996): 39-55, especially the appendix on classifying regimes.

Mark Gasiorowski, “An Overview of the Political Regime Change Dataset,” Comparative Political Studies 29:4 (August 1996): 469-83.

Michael T. Hannan and Glenn R. Carroll, “Dynamics of Formal Political Structure: An Event-History Analysis,” American Sociological Review 46 (1981): 19-35.

Michael Coppedge and Wolfgang Reinicke, “Measuring Polyarchy,” in Inkeles, ed., On Measuring Democracy, pp. 47-68. Also published in Studies in Comparative International Development 25:1 (Spring 1990): 51-72.

“Survey Methodology,” Freedom in the World 1990-91 (Freedom House, 1991), pp. 49-52.

Axel Hadenius, Democracy and Development (Cambridge UP, 1992), pp. 36-71.

Recommended

M. Morris, Measuring the Condition of the World’s Poor: The Physical Quality of Life Index (Pergamon, 1979)

Tatu Vanhanen, The Emergence of Democracy: A Comparative Study of 119 States, 1850-1979 (Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 1984).

September 29. Debates about Measuring Democracy

**Exercise: Bring to class correlations and scatterplots of at least two indicators of democracy. 10% of grade.

Giovanni Sartori, “Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics,” American Political Science Review 64 (1970): 1033-1053.

Kenneth Bollen, “Issues in the Comparative Measurement of Political Democracy,” American Sociological Review 45 (1980): 370-90.

Kenneth Bollen, “Liberal Democracy: Validity and Sources Biases in Cross-National Measures,” American Journal of Political Science 37 (1993): 1207-30.

Kristian Gleditsch and Michael D. Ward, “Double Take: A Re-examination of Democracy and Autocracy in Modern Polities,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 41:3 (June 1997).

Anonymous, “Subjective Measures of Liberal Democracy,” ms. under review.

David Collier and Robert Adcock, “Democracy and Dichotomies: Justifying Choices about Concepts,” Annual Review of Political Science, vol. 2 (Palo Alto: Annual Reviews, 1999), pp. 537-565.

Robert Adcock and David Collier, “Nailing Down Issues of Conceptual Validity,” paper presented at the Conference on Regimes and Political Change, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, August 6-7, 1999.

Michael Coppedge, “Thickening Thin Concepts and Theories: Combining Large N and Small in Comparative Politics,” Comparative Politics 32:4 (July 1999): 465-76. A lengthier version more focused on democratization can be found at <http://www.nd.edu:80/~mcoppedg/crd/cpmeth.htm>.

Zachary Elkins, “Gradations of Democracy? Empirical Tests of Alternative Conceptualizations,” paper presented at the Conference on Regimes and Political Change, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, August 6-7, 1999. Forthcoming in American Journal of Political Science.

Renske Doorenspleet, “Reassessing the Three Waves of Democratization,” World Politics 52:3 (April 2000): 384-406.

Recommended

Imre Lakatos, “Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes,” in John Worrall and Gregory Currie, eds., The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes (Cambridge UP, 1978), pp. 8-101.

October 6. Critiques Inspired by the Real World

**Please plan to discuss your paper with me privately, alone or as a team, before fall break.

Phillippe C. Schmitter and Terry Lynn Karl, “What Democracy Is. . . and Is Not” Journal of Democracy 2 (Summer 1991): 75-88.

Michael X. Delli Carpini and Scott Keeter, What Americans Know About Politics and Why It Matters (Yale UP, 1996), pp. 62-104.

Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, “Toward Consolidated Democracies,” Journal of Democracy 7:2 (April 1996): 14-33.

Guillermo O’Donnell, “Illusions about Consolidation,” Journal of Democracy 7:2 (April 1996): 34-51; and the debate on it in JoD 7:4 (October 1996): 151-68.

E. Huber, D. Rueschemeyer, and J.D. Stephens, “The Paradoxes of Contemporary Democracy: Formal, Participatory, and Social Dimensions,” Comparative Politics 29:3 (April 1997): 323-342.

Aníbal Pérez Liñán, “Assessing the Quality of Democracy: A Citizens’ Perspective,” in Miguel Gutiérrez-Saxe and Jorge Vargas Cullell, eds., “A Citizens’ Audit on the Quality of Democracy: A Proposal,” unpublished ms., The Helen Kellogg Institute of International Studies, University of Notre Dame, April 1998. 16 pp. +19 pp. of tables.

Maxwell A. Cameron, “Presidential Coups D’Etat and Regime Change in Latin American and Soviet Successor States: Lessons for Democratic Theory,” Kellogg Institute Working Paper #249 (February 1998).

Recommended

Guillermo O’Donnell, “Delegative Democracy,” Journal of Democracy 5 (January 1994): 55‑69;

Philippe C. Schmitter, “Dangers and Dilemmas of Democracy,” Journal of Democracy 5:2 (April 1994): 57-74.

Luis Roniger and Ay_e Güne_-Ayata, Democracy, Clientelism, and Civil Society (Lynne Rienner, 1994).

Lawrence LeDuc, Richard G. Niemi, and Pippa Norris, eds., Comparing Democracies: Elections and Voting in Global Perspective (SAGE, 1996).

Wanderley Guilherme dos Santos, “Polyarchy in 3D,” Dados 41:2 (1998): 207-281.

James Holston and Teresa P.R. Caldeira, “Democracy, Law, and Violence: Disjunctions of Brazilian

Citizenship,” in Felipe Agüero and Jeffrey Stark, Eds., Fault Lines of Democracy in Post‑transition Latin America (North‑South Center Press/University of Miami ;Distributed by Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998), pp. 263-96.

Andreas Schedler, Larry Diamond, and Marc F. Plattner, eds., The Self-Restraining State: Power and Accountability in New Democracies (Lynne Rienner, April 1999).

October 13. Theoretical Support for Broadening the Concept

Katz, Democracy and Elections, pp. 67-99.

David Held, Models of Democracy (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1987), pp.1-41 (Athens, Augustine, Aquinas, Machiavelli. Hobbes), 103-139 (Marx and Engels), 221-242 (Marcuse and Habermas), 243-264 (Hayek, Nozick, Poulantzas, MacPherson, Pateman), and 267-99 (Held).

Burt L. Monroe, “Fully Proportional Representation,” American Political Science Review 89:4 (December 1995): 925-940.

David Held, “Democracy and Globalization,” in Daniele Archibugi, David Held, and Martin Köhler, eds., Re-Imagining Political Community: Studies in Cosmopolitan Democracy (Stanford UP, 1999), pp. 11-27.

Paul Q. Hirst, “Democracy and Civil Society,” in Paul Hirst and Sunil Khilnani, eds., Reinventing Democracy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), pp. 97-116.

Recommended

Carole Pateman, Participation and Democratic Theory (Cambridge UP, 1970);

John Dunn, “Democratic Theory,” in Dunn, Western Political Theory in the Face of the Future (Cambridge UP, 1979), pp. 1-28.

Benjamin Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age (University of California Press, 1984).

William H. Riker, Liberalism Against Populism: A Confrontation Between the Theory of Democracy and the Theory of Social Choice (Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1982).

Samuel Merrill, III, Making Multicandidate Elections More Democratic (Princeton UP, 1988).

Arthur Lupia and Mathew D. McCubbins, The Democratic Dilemma: Can Citizens Learn What They Need to Know? (Cambridge UP, 1998), part I.

David Beetham, ed., Defining and Measuring Democracy (Sage Publications,1994).

October 20. No class, due to fall break.

October 27. Brainstorming Session

**Write a proposal of 500-1000 words that defines a neglected component of democracy, justifies its inclusion in the concept of democracy, suggests how it might be operationalized, and proposes a consequence of possessing or lacking this component. Present this in class. My hope is that students with similar interests will collaborate on the seminar paper, especially if they have complementary skills or backgrounds. 20% of grade.

November 3. Consequences of Democracy: War and Peace

**Please plan to discuss your paper with me privately again, alone or as a team, before this class.

Zeev Maoz and Bruce Russett, “Alliance, Contiguity, Wealth, and Political Stability: Is the Lack of Conflict among Democracies a Statistical Artifact?” International Interactions 17 (1992): 245-67.

James Lee Ray, Democracy and International Conflict: An Evaluation of the Democratic Peace Proposition (University of South Carolina Press, 1995), chapter 3 (pp. 86-130).

H. Farber and Joanne Gowa, “Common Interests or Common Polities? Reinterpreting the Democratic Peace,” Journal of Politics 59 (1997): 393-417.

David L. Rousseau, Christopher Gelpi, Dan Reiter, and Paul K. Huth, “Assessing the Dyadic Nature of the Democratic Peace, 1918-88,” American Political Science Review 90:3 (September 1996): 512-33.

Recommended

Kurt Taylor Gaubatz, Elections and War: The Electoral Incentive in the Democratic Politics of War and Peace (Stanford UP, Sept 1999).

Mark J.C. Crescenzi and Andrew J. Enterline, “Ripples from the Waves? A Systemic, Time-series Analysis of Democracy, Democratization, and Interstate War,” paper prepared for presentation at the Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association, March 17-21, 1998, Minneapolis, MN.

November 10. Consequences of Democracy: Culture, Public Opinion, and Human Development

Alexis de Tocqueville, “Author’s Introduction,” Democracy in America (Anchor Books, 1969), pp. 9-20.

Richard S. Katz, Democracy and Elections (Oxford UP, 1997), chapter 15 (pp. 278-310).

Arend Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries (Yale UP, 1999), chapters 15 and 16 (pp. 275-309).

Michael K. Le Roy, “Participation, Size, and Democracy,” Comparative Politics 27:3 (April 1995): 297-316.

Jim Granato and Ronald Inglehart, “Cultural Values, Stable Democracy, and Economic Development: a Reply,” American Journal of Political Science 40:3 (August 1996): 680-96.

Christopher J. Anderson and Christine A. Guillory, “Political Institutions and Satisfaction with Democracy: a Cross‑national Analysis of Consensus and Majoritarian Systems,” American Political Science Review 91:1 (March 1997): 66-81.

Arthur Lupia and Mathew D. McCubbins, The Democratic Dilemma: Can Citizens Learn What They Need to Know? (Cambridge UP, 1998), pp. 205-227: “The Institutions of Knowledge.”

Recommended

James S. Fishkin, The Voice of the People: Public Opinion and Democracy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995).

G. Bingham Powell and Georg Vanberg, “Election Laws, Disproportionality and the Left-Right Dimension: Implications for Two Visions of Democracy.” Paper prepared for delivery at the 1998 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston, September 3-6, 1998.

November 17. Consequences of Democracy: Governability, Public Order, and Human Rights

**By this class meeting, each student will sign up to serve as a discussant for another student’s paper. Coauthored papers will have more than one discussant. Your performance as discussant will be 10% of the grade.

Bingham Powell, Jr., Contemporary Democracies: Participation, Stability, and Violence (Harvard UP, 1982), chapters 1 and 10.

Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy, chapters 14 and 15 (pp. 243-274).

Michael Coppedge, “Parties and Society in Mexico and Venezuela: Why Competition Matters,” Comparative Politics 25:3 (April 1993): 253-74.

Jeffrey J. Ryan, “The Impact of Democratization on Revolutionary Movements,” Comparative Politics 27:1 (October 1994): 27-44.

Matthew Krain, “Contemporary Democracies Revisited: Democracy, Political Violence, and Event Count Models,” Comparative Political Studies 31:2 (April 1998): 139-64.

Christian Davenport, “The Weight of the Past: Exploring Lagged Determinants of Political Repression,” Political Research Quarterly 49:2 (June 1996): 377-403.

November 24. Consequences of Democracy: Economic Policy and Performance

Larry Sirowy and Alex Inkeles, “The Effects of Democracy on Economic Growth and Inequality: A Review,” in Inkeles, op. cit., pp. 125-56. Also published in Studies in Comparative International Development 25:1 (Spring 1990): 126-157.

Marc Lindenberg and Shantayanan Devarajan, “Prescribing Strong Economic Medicine: Revisiting the Myths about Structural Adjustment, Democracy, and Economic Performance in Developing Countries,” Comparative Politics 25:2 (January 1993): 169-82.

John F. Helliwell, “Empirical Linkages Between Democracy and Economic Growth,” British Journal of Political Science 24:2 (April 1994): 225-48.

José Antonio Cheibub, “Political Regimes and the Extractive Capacity of Governments: Taxation in Democracies and Dictatorships,” World Politics 50:3 (April 1998): 349-76.

Leblang, David A. “Property Rights, Democracy and Economic Growth,” Political Research Quarterly 49: 1 (March 1996): 5-26.

Marcus L. Crepaz, “Consensus versus Majoritarian Democracy: Political Institutions and Their Impact on Macroeconomic Performance and Industrial Disputes,” Comparative Political Studies 29:1 (February 1996): 4-26.

December 1 and 8. Presentation of research papers

**You must place a copy of your draft paper on reserve and give a copy to your designated discussant and to me by the previous class meeting. This draft counts as 30% of your course grade, so it is crucial to have a good draft ready on time. Final drafts for grading will be due on the official exam date for this course. (There is no final exam.) The final draft counts 20%, and grading standards rise between the first and last drafts, so substantial improvement is expected.

Please do not plan on taking an Incomplete for this course. It is almost always a bad idea, as you are not likely to have more time to devote to your paper later on, and late papers are rarely better than ones turned in on time. For this reason, I will deduct one sign (eg., A to A-) from the grade of any paper turned in over Christmas break, and two signs (eg., A to B+) for any paper turned in by the absolute deadline of exam week of the spring 2000 semester. Any paper not turned in by that date automatically becomes an F by Graduate School rules.

To recapitulate, grades are based on

10% checklist of essential components of democracy, due September 8

10% correlations and scatterplots of at least two indicators of democracy, due September 29

20% proposal presented at brainstorming session on October 27

10% performance as discussant December 1 or 8

30% for the draft presented in class December 1 or 8

20% for the revised, final version of the paper turned in by the exam date.