A student has very helpfully flagged up that the presidential / parliamentary / semi-presidential typology of democracies that we use is not the only typology available. So, for information and interest, here is an alternative typology, which is widely used in Poland (let me know if this is the same for other countries too):

1. Parliamentary-cabinet system – dualistic executive (cabinet and a head of state with a highly limited scope of power), government responsible to the legislature, the executive has the legislative initiative, the head of state is not responsible to the legislature – examples: UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy
2. Presidential system – executive power held by a president elected in a general elections, separation of the legislature and the executive (government is not responsible to the parliament, president does not have legislative initiative), checks and balances (president has the veto power, but they might be impeached) – examples: US, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico.
3. Semi-Presidential – combines solutions typical for both parliamentary and presidential systems, dualistic executive (cabinet and president), president is popularly elected (their position is stronger than the position of the government) and they are not responsible to the parliament, the government is responsible both to the parliament and to the president – examples: France, Russia, Ukraine.
4. Chancellor system – often considered as a type of the parliamentary system; the chancellor has a stronger position than prime ministers, they are the only member of the cabinet chosen by the parliament, they constructs the government themselves, ministers are not responsible to the parliament, the chancellor is responsible to the parliament but they can be dismissed in a constructive vote of confidence only – examples: Germany.
5. Parliamentary-committee system  – parliament remains the highest institution, all other institutions are responsible to the parliament, the executive is simultaneously the head of state, government is responsible to the parliament – this system functions in Switzerland.

According to the above, Poland is considered by Polish political scientists as a parliamentary system, since it has a dualistic executive, the role of the president is limited and they are not responsible to the parliament. The President has no power to interact with the government, as they do in, for example, semi-presidential France, and their orders need to be countersigned by the prime minister.

However, it is also true that the power of the president in Poland is slightly greater than in, for example, Italy – they are popularly elected for a fixed term and have the veto power. This solution in the Polish constitution of 1997 seems rather awkward and is the result of a compromise between the right, which advocated for a presidential system, and the left, which wanted a strong prime minister like in Germany. Many unnecessary disputes took place therefore, including conflicts over who should represent Poland in international bodies – the agreement is that the prime minister represents the state in the EU, but it is the President who takes part in NATO and UN meetings.

Question: I have been asked what Arrow’s theorem is by a few students. You probably won’t need to know the answer to this question in detail for many introductory courses on political science, but it may be useful to know in the longer term.

Answer: The first thing to say is that this topic is covered well in Clark, Golder, and Golder, Foundations of Comparative Politics (pp. 209-212). So, if you want a detailed and accessible account of Arrow’s theorem then I suggest referring to that source. However, this is a topic that is often presented in more complex language than necessary, so I will also briefly summarise it here.

Kenneth Arrow argued that, if we want stable decisions to be made, we cannot meet all of the basic criteria for fairness in decision-making that he sets out. Specifically, he argues that for decision-making to be fair it should:

• Not be a dictatorship; decisions should not be made by a small sub-set of people (or just one of them), referred to as the ‘nondictatorship condition.’
• Not exclude those with certain preferences, referred to as the ‘universal admissibility condition.’
• Not deliver an outcome other than the one that most people prefer (i.e. it must actually deliver what has been chosen, not something else), referred to as the ‘unanimity, or pareto optimality, condition.’
• Not change preferences between two items because another item is introduced (e.g. if I prefer political party x to political party y then that should be the case even if political party z arrives on the scene; I might rank z above x and y, below them, or between them, but I don’t suddenly prefer y to x because z has arrived), referred to as the ‘independence from irrelevant alternatives condition.’

Arrow proves that if all of the above conditions are met then it is not possible to arrive at a stable decisions in a group. As an example, imagine that the three blue dots (1, 2, and 3) in the below image (from Wikipedia) are voters, and the three red dots (A, B, and C) are candidates. Voter 1 prefers A to B, and B to C; voter 2 prefers B to C, and C to A; voter 3 prefers C to A, and A to B. Imagine that voters 1 and 3 get together to choose candidate A. Voter 2 can then approach voter 3 and suggest that they instead elect candidate C, which they both prefer to A. But then voter 1 can approach voter 2 and suggest that they elect candidate B, which they both prefer to C. In other words, there is no stable decision outcome; two of the three voters can always align to elect a candidate that they prefer to the one that won.

Arrow states that the only solution to this, if we want a stable outcome, is to break one of the above conditions: either one of the voters must become a dictator and choose their preferred candidate (breaking nondicatorship), or they conveniently exclude one of the voters so that the other two can arrive at a stable decision (breaking universal admissibility), or they randomise the decision so that it bears no relation to their preferences (breaking unanimity or pareto optimality), or they introduce another candidate that somehow shifts one of the voters so that they change their rankings of the original candidates (breaking independence from irrelevant alternatives).

In practice, our day-to-day decision-making breaks one of Arrow’s conditions by, for instance, creating an agenda-setter who decides the order or manner that things are voted on, and what options are to be included (e.g. think about how the Brexit referendum question was asked; imagine how it would have affected the outcome if it had been a rank order exercise between ‘hard Brexit’, ‘soft Brexit’, and ‘no Brexit’ instead), and thus has a crucial role to play in the outcome of the vote (and therefore acts as a sort of dictator).

Supplemental question: I read that a nonprofit in the US which ‘studies and advances better voting methods’ is pushing for Approval Voting.

Further, LSE’s Voting Power and Procedures (VPP) research programme brought 22 voting theory specialists to vote to select the “best voting procedure” to elect one out of three or more candidates. They chose as many procedures as they approved of from a list of 18:

• Approval Voting (place an ‘x’ by all candidates you approve of) won with 15 votes.
• Alternative Vote (AV) took second place with 10 votes.
• Plurality Voting (SMP)/First Past The Post (FPTP) received no votes.

So, despite not being used much in practice, I was wondering whether Approval Voting is expected to fulfil more of the criteria of Arrow’s Theorem more often than other systems? Or does it maybe depend on the country?

Answer: Approval voting is an interesting option and worth considering but I am not sure that it helps us overcome Arrow’s theorem. Remember that the theorem is not about how many of the criteria are met, but the impossibility of meeting all of them at once (whilst ensuring a stable electoral outcome), and I do not think that approval voting allows this to be the case. Take the example in the image attached to the above post on Arrow’s theorem, in which we can see that if we gave the three voters the option to exercise approval voting, they would each approve of the two candidates closest to them and refuse to endorse the candidate furthest from them. Thus, each candidate would end up with two votes and the election would be inconclusive (i.e. not a stable outcome). In line with Arrow’s theorem, the only ways around this would be to create a dictator, exclude one of the voters, deliver an outcome unrelated to the votes, or introduce another candidate that somehow changes the voters’ preference rankings of the current candidates. In other words, even with approval voting, we would still have to break one of Arrow’s conditions and, to answer the second question, I don’t think this is country-specific (i.e. it is a universally applicable theory).

First question: Is democracy inevitable for China if it keeps on growing economically, as suggested in Why Nations Fail (possibly due to a series of revolutions that end in democratic stability)?

Answer: No, I wouldn’t say that democracy is inevitable in China, even if the economy continues to grow. Indeed, I would be hesitant to say that any of the relationships that we talk about between economics, culture, and democracy imply inevitable consequences. Remember that, because we talk about trends amongst many cases, we are dealing with probabilistic relationships. There will always be exceptions to the tendencies that we observe and this should not surprise us. What is interesting is the point at which there are so many exceptions, or such a significant exception (which I think China constitutes), that we need to think about revising the theory that implies the tendency we have observed previously. As it stands, I think we can still have a theory that says that, generally, as economies grow they are more likely to become, and remain, democracies, and also try to develop our ideas about why China is an exception to this. Of course, as we’ve considered previously, we still don’t know what the causal direction of the relationships between economics, culture, and democracy is, and it may be that examining the case of China sheds light on this.

Second question: Does the degree to which culture vs economics predicts changes through Modernisation Theory vary across countries/regions/etc?

Answer: This is an empirical question that we could probably answer by analysing existing data on countries. However, let’s deal with it theoretically: I think it’s a plausible proposition; it seems likely that the influence of economic change might vary depending on culture and that the influence of culture might vary depending on economic development. So, some countries might have particular cultural features (e.g. strict social structure) that limit the influence of economic change to bring about political change (though it may still increase the likelihood of such change) whilst other countries do not. Similarly, it might be that economic development washes out the power of culture (e.g. through increasing links with other countries) so that the influence of culture is less in economically developed countries. However, it also seems plausible that economic development could increase the power of culture; as people attain economic security they seek to instead emphasise the cultural issues that are important to them (indeed, at the individual level, this relates to the arguments of Inglehart and Norris).

Third question: Does Selectorate Theory imply that the CCP is not shooting itself in the foot with economic development in the long run?

Answer: Can you explain why you think this would be the case? What about selectorate theory suggests that economic development would undermine a dictatorial regime such as China?

• Clarification: On “Does Selectorate Theory imply that the CCP is not shooting itself in the foot with economic development in the long run?”: I think selectorate theory can imply that, when done right, economic development (through policy concessions) would not undermine a dictatorial regime, while economic modernisation theory states that economic development tends to do so. In light of these two, it could be said that giving too many policy spoils (leading to economic growth) may increase the chance of a democratic transition. So, the question was: Could the CCP’s policy concessions be seen as a mistake since it may heighten the chance of democracy in the long run?
  • Answer: This is an interesting question. I would say that this is a logical implication of combining the two theories; selectorate theory suggests that China delivers a high level of public goods, including economic growth, because it has a large selectorate and, crucially, winning coalition (given that it is a single-party regime with a large number of party members), but that this could ultimately make it more difficult to avoid a transition to democracy (if we believe that modernisation theory is correct). Of course, we can also use selectorate theory to suggest that the provision of public goods by the Chinese state will keep the selectorate and the winning coalition happy and thus reduce the likelihood of the latter defecting, or of any significant opposition movement emerging within the selectorate (or from the population outside the selectorate). This would imply a flaw in modernisation theory: if non-democratic regimes deliver economic growth and distribute public goods to enough people in the winning coalition (and selectorate, and even the population) then they can avert significant calls for democracy that might be expected as a consequence of economic development (though this might be contingent on also respecting property rights, as many non-democratic regimes do).

Fourth question: And are the HK protests linked to a progression of this kind in some way?

Answer: Do you mean linked to economic development or to selectorate theory? If the former, I am inclined to say that economic development is not a key driver in the Hong Kong protests; the events that precipitated the protests were related to a law that would have enabled extradition of Hong Kong citizens for trial in mainland China. The protestors object to the growing influence of China in Hong Kong and felt that this was a step too far, so it seems to be a reasonably straightforward attempt to defend the political rights that they have (which emerged from the deal between the UK and China when Hong Kong was returned to the latter by the former). Given that China tolerates significant economic inequality it seems less likely to me that people in Hong Kong are concerned that the CCP is intent on redistributing their relatively high levels of wealth and income, so I don’t think that economics significantly underpins the protest. If you’re thinking of selectorate theory, we might see the protests as an attempt by an existing selectorate (given the, admittedly limited, rights of Hong Kong citizens to influence the makeup of their local government) to protect their status as such. We can also see the protesters as an alternative winning coalition to the incumbent government in Hong Kong or, if we perceive the influence of the CCP as high, as a group outside the selectorate organising to try and become part of the selectorate. I don’t know enough to say which of those interpretations is most accurate but we can certainly use the ideas of selectorate theory to analyse what is happening in Hong Kong.

• Clarification: On “And are the HK protests linked to a progression of this kind in some way?”: In terms of economic development, the question was more about the long run. Had Hong Kong not experienced the economic growth it did, would protests have been less likely because people would have had bigger, more immediate concerns (this also relates to the arguments of Inglehart and Norris)? And would the CCP value the popular support of Hong Kong politicians as much as they do when selecting leaders today?
  • Answer: I see what you mean; it may be that the longstanding high levels of economic development in Hong Kong are what ultimately underpin a commitment to democracy there, and this suggests that once some level of democratic practice and values are established in an economically developed country or region it can be hard to subsequently remove them (in line with the survival story, which also implies that if China were to transition to democracy it would be difficult to reverse that move because of the high levels of economic development (at least amongst large sections of the population)). Of course, this does not contradict the above answer; if the transition to democratic practice and values is not undertaken then it appears possible for non-democratic regimes to survive despite (or because of) economic growth. As for the CCP valuing the popular support of politicians in Hong Kong, I’m not sure how true that is, and their continued support for Carrie Lam despite mass public opposition (and the fact that Hong Kong elections are democratic in a limited sense) suggests that they are more concerned with other factors.

Fifth question: You implied that Chinese economic development may mean that some models of democratic transition need to be revised, or adjusted in their probabilistic predictions. Could one way of revising be to connect Modernisation Theory to Selectorate Theory and institutionalisation (Week 3 paper) in the following way? Economic development makes democracy more likely but this can be largely mitigated by dictatorial leaders that optimally/overly institutionalise (or receive information about its selectorate in another way). In brief, for China, economic causes of democracy are undermined because its government/dictator is particularly skilled in holding power.

Answer: You’re right that I implied this but it is also a matter of judgement; one could argue that China is just a normal exception to a tendency, which we always expect to see in probabilistic relationships. However, given its prominence, it may call modernisation theory into question and, in that case, your proposed combination of theories certainly makes sense. Skilled dictatorial regimes with large selectorates and, crucially, winning coalitions are best off providing public goods (including economic growth that might otherwise suggest democratisation) to keep those groups (and even the population at large) happy. However, they would also be sensible (as per Gandhi and Pzeworski) to optimally institutionalise by incorporating potential opposition forces into partisan legislatures (i.e. co-opting them), which also provides information to the regime on that opposition (as you observe). Further, Magaloni would argue that they need to go a step further and have some sort of credible (if limited) electoral mechanism in place so that there is a manner by which those opposition forces can legitimately exercise some power (without needing to challenge the whole system from outside it).