Chapter 7. Democracy
Chapter Overview
This chapter begins by defining democracy and examining the three waves of democracy that
resulted in more people living in democracies than in dictatorships for the first time in history. It
then turns to examine presidential and parliamentary forms of democracy, and the strengths and
weaknesses of each. Next it discusses how electoral rules determine the number of candidates
elected from districts, how votes obtained by parties and elections are translated into legislative
seats, and the shape of party systems. The following section asks whether democracies do a
better job than authoritarian political systems of promoting economic growth and enhancing
citizens’ capabilities. The chapter ends by testing the hypothesis that democracies do a better job
of enhancing capabilities than authoritarian political systems.
The chapter defines a democracy as a state in which virtually all citizens are able to vote for who
will represent them in free, fair, and periodic elections, and distinguishes between direct and
representative democracy. It then turns to the three waves of democracy. The first had its roots in
the American and French revolutions, the second followed World War II, with the rise of
independence movements in European colonies, and the third dates from 1974, with the collapse
of dictatorship in Portugal followed soon after by the fall of authoritarian regimes in Greece and
Spain. This section also discusses the meaning of the maxim “No bourgeoisie, no democracy”
and reviews contending explanations of why some countries succumbed to the appeal of
democracy while others have resisted.
Having discussed the remarkable historical transition from authoritarianism to democracy in a
large majority of countries in the world, the chapter turns to the forms of democracy. It focuses
on presidential and parliamentary democracy, discussing how they differ from each other and the
strengths and weaknesses of each.
Democracies differ not only in the distribution of power between legislature and executive, but in
electoral systems, which determine how elections are conducted. Some countries have single
member districts in which one legislator is elected from each district, while others have
multimember districts. Countries also differ in how votes gained by candidates and parties are
translated into legislative seats. The three main choices are plurality vote, double-ballot, and
proportional representation rules. Finally, electoral rules help shape party systems with single-
member districts in which candidates win by a plurality, creating a bias toward two-party
systems, and multimember districts and proportional representation creating a bias toward
multiparty systems. Electoral rules are not neutral. Different rules benefit different groups and
parties, making electoral rules the focus of intense political struggle.
One of the longstanding controversies in comparative politics is whether democracies are more
successful in promoting economic development than authoritarian political systems. There are
advocates for both types of political system. Some of the best recent research concludes that
neither has a clear advantage in promoting economic growth.
But does one have an advantage in enhancing citizens’ capabilities? The final section tests the
relationship between the level of democracy and physical well-being, informed decision-making,
and safety. The results are mixed. Countries with the highest democratic scores had lower infant
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mortality rates and higher literacy rates than countries with the highest authoritarian scores, but
countries with the highest authoritarian scores had lower homicide rates. These results are a
reminder that all good things do not always go together. They beg the question, however, of
whether democracy has value in and of itself even in those countries where its effects on other
aspects of peoples’ lives is not evident.
Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this chapter students will be able to do the following:
7.1 Describe the popularity and growing moral legitimacy of democracy.
7.2 Summarize the three waves of democracy and analyze the conditions that are conducive to its
success.
7.3 Distinguish between parliamentary and presidential forms of democracy and assess their
relative advantages.
7.4 Describe different electoral rules and assess their effects.
7.5 Evaluate whether democratic states economically outperform their authoritarian rivals.
7.6 Evaluate the performance of democratic and authoritarian states according to the standards of
the Good Society.
Chapter Outline
I. INTRODUCTION
A. Authoritarianism in retreat symbolized by collapse of Berlin Wall in 1989
B. In 2001, 121 of 192—63 percent—of governments were democracies, the highest
percentage in history.
C. Chapter topics
2. Two predominant forms of democracy
a. Presidential
4. Do democracies have a better record of promoting capabilities than
authoritarian regimes?
1. In classical times, democracies were states in which the people participated
directly in making the laws that governed them.
2. Direct democracy also possible in modern times in town hall meetings.
3. Direct democracy impossible in large, complex societies.
4. Modern democracy depends on having people’s views and interests
represented by others.
5. In contemporary society, direct democracy must give way to representative
democracy.
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1. A democracy is a state in which virtually all citizens are able to vote for who
will represent them in free, fair, and periodic elections (Joseph Schumpeter).
2. Role of citizens in this version of democracy similar to consumers in
marketplace.
3. This definition is less demanding than the classical version of democracy, but
many countries still have not met it.
4. Those that have met it find it surprisingly difficult to achieve.
D. Transition from autocracy to democracy proceeded in three waves (Samuel
Huntington).
1. First wave of democracy had roots in the American and French revolutions of
18th century.
a. Vote extended to citizens who had previously been excluded
b. Chief executives and cabinets became responsible to elected assemblies.
c. By 1930, about 30 countries in the world met this minimal standard.
d. Barrington Moore, Jr. attributed this transition to democracy to the
presence of an independent, self-confident, vigorous commercial middle
class.
i. “No bourgeoisie, no democracy.”
ii. Where the middle class was weak, its members tended to side with
authoritarian governments, aristocracy, and landlords out of fear that
democracy would empower lower classes to take their property and
wealth.
iii. Where the middle class was strong, its members believed they could
ally with lower classes to demand democracy, which they could
control to protect their interests.
e. First wave receded in the 1930s as fascism took control in Germany,
a. Third wave crossed ocean to Latin America, Asia, and then Eastern
Europe.
b. Only Middle Eastern and African countries resisted the surge.
4. Why have some countries succumbed to the appeal of democracy while others
have resisted?
a. Some analysts offer cultural explanations—countries with Muslim
populations are less likely to be democratic.
b. Other analysts offer sociological explanations—countries with higher
levels of education are more likely to be democratic.
c. Still others offer economic explanations—economic development
promotes democracy.
d. Finally, some scholars argue that economic development causes
democratic stability, not democratization—poor countries are more likely
to collapse into authoritarianism, leading “over time to a high proportion
5. Difficult to isolate a single factor that accounts for why some countries take
democratic path and others do not.
a. Wealth, education, and confident middle class are the seeds of democracy.
b. Whether take root depends on soil in which they are planted
c. Some forms of authoritarianism more amenable to democratization than
others.
d. Militaries far more likely to give way to democracies than personalized
dictatorships.
e. Also essential to look beyond domestic politics.
E. Democracy no panacea
1. Mauritius has ethnic conflict.
2. Also suffers from corruption
F. Its democratic record still the best in Africa and one of the best in the developing
world.
IV. COMPARATIVE POLITICAL ANALYSIS: DOES DIVERSITY UNDERMINE
DEMOCRACY?
A. Problem
1. Does ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity pose an obstacle to democracy?
2. Authoritarian leaders claim they need to rule with an iron fist in diverse
societies to prevent civil war.
3. Is this argument valid or simply an excuse to justify authoritarian rule?
B. Methods and hypothesis
1. M. Steven Brooks and Robin Fish used Freedom House rankings of countries
to establish their dependent variable.
2. They used a data set of fractionalization as their independent variable.
3. They did a statistical analysis to determine whether fractionalization affected
the type of regime.
4. To ensure their results could be attributed to fractionalization, they controlled
for four other variables often regarded as determinants of democracy.
a. Economic development
b. British colonial heritage
c. Predominance of Islam
d. Predominance of oil production
C. Results
1. Contrary to prevailing wisdom, diversity or fractionalization did not hinder
democracy.
2. Their results are strengthened by holding constant four other factors that
might have resulted the results.
V. PRESIDENTIAL AND PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY
A. Democracy, like authoritarianism, comes in many forms.
B. Different models of democracy can be arrayed along a continuum of presidential
and parliamentary forms.
C. Presidential systems—United States an example
1. Sovereignty is shared between the legislature and the president, creating
checks and balances between them.
2. Presidents are directly elected by the public.
3. Presidents serve for fixed terms of office.
4. Presidents do not owe their jobs to the legislature.
D. Parliamentary systems—Great Britain an example
1. The legislature is directly elected by the people and is sovereign.
2. Prime ministers are selected by the legislature.
3. Prime ministers can be removed when a majority of the legislature no longer
supports them.
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4. While prime ministers rule only with the support of the legislature, that
support assures them of legislative support for their policies.
E. Strengths and weaknesses of presidential and parliamentary systems
1. Presidential
a. Weaknesses
i. Can suffer gridlock when legislature and president disagree, which
can undermine support for democracy.
ii. Can be unrepresentative when presidents receive a small plurality of
the vote but win all the power.
b. Strengths
i. Voters can hold presidents accountable since they directly elect them.
ii. Voters can target their vote in support of, or opposition to, a
particular chief executive.
2. Parliamentary
a. Weaknesses
i. More difficult for voters to hold chief executive accountable.
ii. Voters have more difficulty assigning responsibility for performance.
iii. Voters cannot target their vote for or against a particular chief
executive.
b. The strength of parliamentary systems is that they are more representative.
VI. ELECTORAL RULES AND PARTY SYSTEMS
A. Democracies differ not only in how power is distributed between legislative and
executive branches, but in electoral systems that determine how elections are
conducted.
B. Number of candidates elected from districts
1. Single-member districts in which one legislator is elected from each district—
United States is an example.
2. Multimember districts in which the number of legislators from each district
depends on the population of the district—Sweden is an example.
C. How votes obtained by parties and elections are translated into legislative seats.
1. Plurality vote in which the candidate with the most votes wins even if they do
not receive a majority of the votes—United States, Canada, Great Britain.
2. Double-ballot election in which the winning candidate must have a majority
of the vote, and if no candidate receives a majority in the first election, a
second run-off election is held between the two candidates who received the
highest number of votes in the first round—France is an example.
3. Proportional representation (PR) in which parties that achieve a certain
threshold of the votes are awarded seats on the basis of the percentage of the
vote they receive—the Netherlands is an example.
D. Presidential vote in the United States in 2000 as example of the differences
election rules make.
E. Different groups of people prefer electoral rules that work to their advantage.
1. Ethnic and regional minorities often prefer PR.
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2. Some political parties prefer changes in electoral rules, but once established,
electoral rules seldom change because winners under existing rules do not
want to change a system that benefits them.
F. Electoral rules shape party systems.
1. Single-member districts in which candidates win by a plurality create a bias
toward two-party systems.
2. Multimember districts and proportional representation create a bias toward
multiparty systems.
G. Additional consequences of electoral rules
1. PR tends to produce systems with greater party discipline.
2. PR also tends to result in more female legislators.
H. No electoral system is perfect.
1. Some promote accountability at the expense of choice.
2. Others do the opposite.
3. A choice among lesser evils is better than no choice at all.
VII. DEMOCRACY, AUTHORITARIANISM, AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
A. Do democracies do a better job than authoritarian political systems of promoting
economic growth and enhancing citizens’ capabilities?
B. Economic growth
1. In Chapter 1, we suggested that economic growth is not as good an indicator
of how well states perform as capabilities.
2. Economic growth is still important for raising people out of extreme poverty,
and higher incomes provide people with greater choices about how to live
their lives.
3. Is democracy or authoritarianism more conducive to promoting economic
growth?
4. The case for authoritarianism
a. Less temptation to invest in low-yield projects to win votes
b. Can ignore demands to spend money immediately and invest scarce
resources in projects with long-term payoffs
c. Can create more orderly, stable environment supportive of growth
5. The case for democracy
a. Has the rule of law, which creates a predictable environment
b. Has the benefits of debate, more access to information, and more
responsiveness, which enables governments in democracies to reverse
policy mistakes more quickly than authoritarian systems
c. Citizens have more freedom, which encourages them to be more
productive and creative
C. The evidence
1. Record of democracies and dictatorships is mixed.
2. Democratic and authoritarian countries have had success and failure.
3. Research of leading scholars suggests that neither democracy nor authoritarian
rule has a clear advantage in promoting economic growth.
4. Democracies do have some clear advantages
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a. Give more choice to women, and one of these choices is to have fewer
children, which means there are fewer citizens competing for the national
income.
b. Democracies have a better record of steady economic performance.
VIII. DEMOCRACY, AUTHORITARIANISM, AND THE GOOD SOCIETY
A. Physical well-being
1. Hypothesis is that democracies do better job of meeting citizens’ physical
needs
2. Independent variable operationally defined using Polity IV scores and four
groups
a. Democracy
b. Semidemocracy
c. Semiauthoritarian
d. Authoritarian
3. Dependent variable operationally defined using infant mortality rates
4. Results inconclusive
a. Democracies’ infant mortality averaged 12.53 per 1000 live births.
b. Semidemocracies averaged 45.52.
c. Semiauthoritarian averaged 57.58.
d. Authoritarian averaged 27.57.
5. While the most democratic states had the best average infant mortality rates,
the most authoritarian states had the second-best average.
B. Informed decision-making
1. Independent variable remains the same.
2. Informed decision-making operationally defined as literacy rates
3. Results
a. Democracies average literacy rate—94.24%
b. Semidemocracies average literacy rate—76.44%
c. Semiauthoritarian average literacy rate—66.68%
d. Authoritarian average literacy rate—87.39%
4. As with infant mortality, while the most democratic states had the best
average literacy rates, the most authoritarian states had the second-best
average.
C. Safety
1. Dependent variable is homicide rate per 100,000.
2. Results
a. Democracies averaged 5.91 homicides.
b. Semidemocracies averaged 15.28.
c. Semiauthoritarian averaged 12.04.
d. Authoritarian averaged 5.43.
D. Summary
1. Democracies scored best on two out of three performance tests.
2. Semidemocratic states did not perform better on average than
semiauthoritarian ones.
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3. Pure authoritarian states performed better than both semidemocracies and
semiauthoritarian states.
4. Democracy by itself is not the solution for all public problems.
a. Some democracies have a relatively poor record—India as example with
poor rural education and child malnutrition.
b. Some authoritarian states perform remarkably well on some indices—
Cuba with literacy.
6. Results say nothing about whether democracy should be valued for its own
sake, as opposed to the results it may have on other aspects of life.
IX. CONCLUSION
A. More people than ever before live in democratic countries.
B. Democratization proceeded in three waves.
1. American and French revolutions launched first wave.
2. Second followed World War II as many colonies became independent
countries.
3. Third began in 1975 with democratic transitions occurring in Portugal, Spain,
and France and then travelling to Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe.
C. As democracy spread it took two main forms.
1. Presidential
2. Parliamentary
D. Democracies also differ in how elections are conducted.
1. Countries use different ways of translating votes into legislative seats.
2. These election rules shape party behavior and competition.
E. Finally, chapter examined whether democracies had a better record of improving
7.1 Describe the popularity and growing moral legitimacy of democracy.
Video: People on the streets of Brussels share a sense of relief after Belgium’s political parties
break a 15-month deadlock moving closer to forming a government
7.2 Summarize the three waves of democracy and analyze the conditions that are conducive
to its success.
Case Study: Iraq’s Transition to Democracy
Video: Despite Poverty and Discrimination Creoles Maintain Unique and Idyllic Cultural
Diversity on Mauritius
7.4 Describe different electoral rules and assess their effects.
Activity: Explore Comparing Electoral Systems
Multiple Choice Questions
1. By the late 1990s, which of the following statements was incorrect?
a. More countries had democratic governments than at any time in history.
b. Political scientists had concluded that democracy was in retreat.
c. Political scientists had concluded that authoritarianism was in retreat.
d. Even authoritarian political systems such as North Korea needed to justify their rule
by claiming to be democracies.
democracy.
Topic: Introduction
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Skill Level: Understand the Concepts
2. Belgium lacked a formal government for:
a. 249 days.
b. 412 days.
c. 159 days.
d. 541 days.
Answer: d
Learning Objective: LO 7.1: Describe the popularity and growing moral legitimacy of
democracy.
Topic: Introduction
Difficulty Level: Easy
Skill Level: Remember the Facts
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