Comparative Government- Ch 7

Cultural arguments regarding democracy fall into two categories

-Primordialist -Constructivist

Issues with Montesquieu and Mill

-neither specifically says what it is about culture that matters for democracy, non-falsifiable -believed that economic development and culture both matter for democracy, hard to discern exact causal relationship

Almond and Verba The Civic Culture

-recognized the importance of economic development for democracy, they believed that only the culture could provide the psychological basis for democratization -Claimed three basic types of political culture n the world parochial (african tribes) , subject (centralized authoritarian institutions), and participant (only compatible one with democracy)

Participant culture reflects cluster of attitudes

1. belief on the part of individuals that they can influence political decisions 2. positive feelings toward the political system 3. high levels of interpersonal trust 4. preferences for gradual societal change

Rank of 15 societies based on two dimensions

1. payoffs to cooperation 2. market integration higher values on both dimensions associated with higher mean offers in the ultimatum game -shows that individuals in these societies looked for similar situations in their everyday lives when faced with the novel situation presented in the experiment

why might someone make a positive offer in the Ultimatum Game

1. proposer might want to make a positive offer out of a sense of fairness 2. proposer only makes a positive offer in order to reduce the risk that he would get nothing if the responder rejects it

need to examine what effect being a Protestant, Catholic, or Muslim country has on

1. the probability of becoming democratic 2. the probability of staying democratic

results of ultimatum game/dictator game

In industrialized student populations the most common offer is almost always 50% with the average varying between 40-45% and offers less than 20% are rejected by the responders half the time. The result of the dictator game is normally 20-30%. In small scale societies range from 15-50% and rejection rate was quite small or quite high depending on society.

Lower Freedom House Scores

Islamic states because of treatment of women and girls. Because there is a wider gender gap in literacy, government participation, and overall empowerment brings down FH score

results

Little evidence that Catholicism is a barrier to democracy. No evidence that Protestant countries will be more likely to become democracies. Evidence that muslim countries are less likely to become democracies, however after taking into account the fact that a lot of muslim countries are poor, suggests that they are less likely to be democracies because they are poor not because they are muslim.

Examples of democratic Islamic states

Loya Jirga (Grand assembly) in Afghanistan has functioned since 1709 Compact of Medina in 622 A.D. Prophet Mohammad sought the consent of all who would be affected by his rule

Causal story connecting Protestantism to Democracy

Protestantism encouraged economic development which in turn created a bourgeoisie whose existence was both a catalyst and a necessary condition for democracy

Stark

argues that Christianity in general encouraged growth of capitalism and democracy. Argues that because Christianity focuses on Orthodoxy (correct belief) rather than orthopraxy (correct practice) and posits a ration and personal God, a brand of science and philosophy arose in predominantly Christian countries that supported the development of democratic self-rule

Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order"

argues that Islamic and Confucian cultures are incompatible with democracy

Cultural Modernization Theory

argues that socioeconomic development does not directly cause democracy, instead economic development produces certain cultural changes, such as the emergence of a civic culture and it is these cultural changes that ultimately produce democratic reform

Islam is incompatible with democracy

because Muslims are prone to political violence (according to Huntington) and the inability of Islam to disassociate religious and political spheres, and Islam's unequal treatment of women

Montesquieu 1700s

believed that monarchy suited european states, depotism to oriental, and democracy to the ancient world

preference falsification

citizens do not reveal their true preferences in public for fear of being punished

Civic Culture

conceptualized as a shared cluster of attitudes that includes things like a high level of interpersonal trust, a preference for gradual societal change, a high level of support for the existing political system, and high levels of life satisfaction

All religions have historically been compatible with a broad range of political institutions

confucian society can exist in democracies like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, muslims live in democratic societies like the US and Canada

Mill

does not see particular cultural traits as necessary conditions for democracy because he thinks that culture is inherently malleable and as a result people can learn to be good democrats

Dictator Game

essentially the same as the Ultimatum Game except that the responders are not given an opportunity to reject the offer, they simply get whatever the proposer dictates.

ex post or ad hoc

if explanation does not suggest testable implications other than those that led to it

coefficient

indicates the direction in which the independent variable affects the probability of becoming a democracy -positive coefficient indicates that an increase in the independent variable in question increases the probability of becoming a democracy

Ultimatum Game

individuals are paired together (anonymous), the first player called the "proposer" is provisionally allotted a divisible "pie." The proposer then offers a portion of the total pie to the second player called the "responder." The responder knowing both the offer and the total amount of the pie can either accept or reject the offer. If the responder accepts, then he receives the amount offered and the proposer gets the remainder. If the responder rejects the offer, then neither receives the money.

Dictator Game

no fear of rejection, thus only offer a positive offer for sense of fairness. Thus allows experimenter to distinguish between proposers who make offer out of sense of fairness or out of a fear of rejection

arguments that religions or civilizations are incompatible with democracy

observation based on a point in time

natural experiment

one in which mature rather than the analyst exogenously intervenes in the data-generating process

Inglehart

political culture is determined by the levels of overall life satisfaction, the levels of interpersonal trust, support of gradual societal change among the individuals in a nation -if had these characteristics likely to be stable democracy

dependent variable

probability that a country will become a democracy given that it was a dictatorship in the previous year (emergence of democracy)

democratic survival

protestant majority-good for democratic survival muslim majority-bad for democratic survival (only because of poor economy) Catholic majority- significantly less likely to remain democratic

homo economicus

purely self-interested actor

Barry

refutes Almond and verba, suggests that experience with democracy causes the emergence of a democratic culture, Muller and Seligson provide evidence specifically that levels of interpersonal trust in a country are determined by the country's level of democracy and that life satisfaction has no noticeable effect on democracy. Only find that low level of support for revolutionary change are more likely to be democratic.

Asian Values Debate in 1990s

scholars argued that Confucianism's respect for authority and it's emphasis on communalism and consensus rather than individual rights and competition made it incompatible with democracy -Bangkok Declaration signed into April 1993 stated that Asian values justify a different way of understanding human rights and democracy

growing empirical evidence

suggests that it is inappropriate to view particular religions or civilizations as being permanently incompatible with democracy. Stance on different religions towards political institutions depends less on the content of religious doctrine and more on the interest of the religious leaders

standard error

tells how confident we are in our results, small standard of error more confident

have no reason to suspect

that ethnic, religious, or cultural diversity inhibits or promotes the emergence of democracy

Experimental research

the analyst deliberately introduces variation into what is called the data-generating process

data-generating process

the process by which data or observations are generated, the defining characteristic of experimental

Independent variable

the things we hypothesize might affect the emergence of democracy

Catholicism

traditionally been seen as antithetical to democracy because emphasis on one church and one truth incompatible with democracy's need to accept various different and competing ideologies as legitimate

Primordialist

treat culture as something objective and inherited, fixed since primordial times and remains unchanged by political interaction

Constructivist

treats culture as constructed or invented, recognize that culture is malleable and can change in response to social, political, and economic factors

World Values Survey

used to examine the relationship between culture and democratic institutions, also used to examine sociocultural and political change broadly "Democracy may have problems, but it's better than any other form of government, agree disagree?"