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).

Question: Can Northern Ireland in the 1960s be considered to have been a democracy given the prevalence of gerrymandering?

Answer: This is an interesting question and the short (but imperfect) answer is ‘yes’. Based on the definitions of democracy that we have looked at, Northern Ireland would have qualified as such:

• Robert Dahl’s minimalist definition requires only that a country is high in terms of inclusion (i.e. that the bulk of the population can vote) and contestation (i.e. that voters have a meaningful choice over who they vote for), and both of those conditions were met in Northern Ireland.

• The Polity IV scale measures regimes in terms of:
  • the competitiveness of executive recruitment;
  • the openness of executive recruitment;
  • the constraints that exist on the executive;
  • the regulation of political participation;
  • the competitiveness of political participation.

In Northern Ireland in the 1960s, multiple parties competed in elections for the executive (both in local and national elections), anyone could (with minor nomination requirements) become a candidate with a prospect (albeit slim, though this is the case in most (all?) democracies) of becoming part of the executive, the executive was limited (in the sense that it was subject to the rule of law and could be voted out), elections were regulated and subject to the rule of law, and parties competed for votes. So, the criteria for democracy are broadly met by this definition too.

However, as always, things are not that simple. We will also cover the concept of electoral integrity, which is essentially about the fairness of elections. We can easily argue that gerrymandering in Northern Ireland was unfair and, indeed, that it impacted on the ability of the population to meaningfully choose the overall winning party in elections. This was because boundaries were drawn in a way that grouped large sections of the electorate together in some districts (restricting the number of representatives that they could elect) whilst ensuring majorities of smaller sections of the population in other districts (thus increasing the number of representatives that they could elect). Given that the case of Northern Ireland conforms to the above two definitions of democracy but clearly had significant problems of implementation, I would probably describe it as a flawed democracy at the time.

The above conclusion is however, at least in part, a judgement on my part. You could make the case that the gerrymandering was so severe that it meant Northern Ireland was not, in practice, a democracy (i.e. a majority had the value of their votes suppressed in some places whilst a minority in those same areas had the value of their votes exaggerated). Of course, if we go down this route then we need to think about where we would set the boundary of our definition. In other words, how flawed does the implementation of democracy have to be before we conclude that it is, in fact, not a democracy? Would we say that the UK, with a single member district plurality (i.e. non-proportional) electoral system, in which multiple governments have been elected against the expressed wishes of a majority of voters, is not a democracy? Ultimately, this is not very different from the judgement that went into saying that countries that score -6 or below on the Polity IV scale are dictatorships, those that score 6 or more are democracies, and those that score between 5 and -5 are anocracies. In other words, there is always an element of judgement in categorisation, and we should be ready to explain why we reach the conclusions that we do.

Question:  I read in the Huber and Gallardo (2004) article that the “alleged stability of majoritarian systems masks the substantial turnover within the cabinet itself”. I was wondering what specifically was meant by “alleged stability”, please? I was under the impression that majoritarian systems, by not providing tools for dealing with the problems it created (no vote of no confidence), was less stable than consensus democracies or PR systems.

Answer:  The Huber and Martinez-Gallardo article centres on challenging pre-existing definitions of stability (which focus on the time that passes between cabinet formation and collapse), and providing alternative ways of conceptualising stability (focusing on ministers’ experience of being in cabinet, and of holding their specific portfolios). The alleged instability of consensus systems is based on the more frequent collapse of cabinets due to one or more coalition partners leaving government (due to disputes or disagreements between parties). Of course, because consensus systems tend to have PR electoral systems, they are more likely to produce coalition governments (because no single party is likely to receive a majority of votes in elections), which then makes it more likely that there is a coalition partner to leave the government and cause the cabinet to collapse. As the article mentions, the French Third Republic, Weimar Germany, and Italy are taken as evidence of this tendency.

However, by presenting their alternative measures of (in)stability, they show that majoritarian systems such as the French Fifth Republic are not as stable as proposed. It is thought that they should be stable because they are more likely to produce majority government that lasts for the whole of its term (i.e. the cabinet will not collapse because there is no coalition partner who can quit). However, as Huber and Martinez-Gallardo show, majoritarian systems are not as stable as thought when we consider the experience of the ministers in cabinets (both in terms of the time they have spent in cabinet, and in charge of their specific portfolios). This is because, whilst cabinets may be less likely to collapse in majoritarian systems, they may well be reshuffled at the discretion of the prime minister (or equivalent), meaning that the turnover of cabinet ministers can be high.

So, their argument does not relate to the lack of a vote of no confidence in particular. Crucially, the presence of absence of a vote of no confidence is actually to do with whether the system is presidential (no vote of no confidence) or parliamentary (vote of no confidence), rather than strictly whether it is majoritarian or consensus orientated. Remember, of course, that a parliamentary system may be more majoritarian (e.g. the UK) or consensual (e.g. Germany) based to a notable extent on their electoral system. A presidential system will always have the additional consensus requirement that the president must approve bills passed by the legislature but may still be more or less consensus orientated depending on the electoral system used for the legislature.

Question: Why does median voter theory require that there be only two parties? Is it not always electorally efficient to align with the preferences of the median voter?

Answer: This is a good question and the answer centres on parties outflanking the party that positions itself at (or nearest) the median voter. So, let’s imagine a two-party system with a left party and a right party, in which the left party has positioned itself almost at the median voter whilst the right party is further away. Of course, the latter party picks up the votes of everyone in the electorate to the right of their position, as well as everyone to their left who is closer to them than the (almost-median) position of the left party. The left party does the same for all voters to their left and everyone between them and the median voter, as well as picking up the crucial median voter (because they are closer than the right party).

Now let’s imagine that a new left party enters the electoral arena to represent those voters on the left who feel alienated by the central position of the original left party. The new party will pick up all the votes to the left of their position, and all the votes of those to their right who are, nonetheless, closer to their position than that almost median position of the original left party. So, the left vote is split and the right party, which remains unchallenged on the right, can win without positioning themselves at the median voter. The right party can still count on everyone to their right (and those to their left who are closer to them than they are to the median) but the original left party cannot count on the votes of everyone to their left. In other words, they have been outflanked on the left as well as on the right, and there are not enough votes around the median to deliver victory. Of course, this depends on the precise positions of the parties because there are, in a normal distribution, more votes to be won around the median voter. So, if the new left and original right parties move to the extremes it still makes sense for the original left party to go to the median, where there are more votes.

Of course, all of this turns on other assumptions including, for instance, that voters turn out to vote. If parties moving to the median would alienate voters on the left or right to the extent that they stopped voting then that would also undermine the simple calculus involved in moving to the median voter (hence the idea of shoring up the base).

First question: In presidential systems like the US, does the president (as part of the executive and not the legislature) make any laws? E.g. how did the Trump administration enact the ‘travel ban’ and the 2017 tax cuts?

Answer: The short answer here is: no, the president does not make any laws. In practice, if they want legislation to be passed then they must find a friendly representative (usually from their own party) to introduce it into the legislature. Even then, though, it can be hard to pass legislation because party discipline is often weaker in presidential systems (because the president is outside the legislature and cannot promote representatives, or threaten an early election). This means that, often, the support coalition for legislation must be built on a case-by-case basis, and representatives can extract concessions for their support (meaning that the legislation often gets altered from the president’s ideal form before it is passed). With the preceding in mind, the ‘travel ban’ (I assume you mean in 2017 rather than in relation to coronavirus) and 2017 tax cuts might seem inexplicable. However, President Trump used an executive order to pass the former; executive orders are a constitutionally defined power of presidents to direct the practice of government departments, and do not constitute legislation. In fact, they can be overturned by legislation passed in the legislature (Congress, in the case of the US), and are subject to judicial review as well. As for the tax cuts, they were passed as legislation by the Republican Party in Congress, and President Trump had to rely on his allies in the party to introduce the legislation and ensure that it passed through both chambers.

Second question: In parliamentary systems like the UK, what powers do the Prime Minister and the Government have besides voting in parliament (as opposition MPs also do)?

Answer: Some very important ones: the power to introduce legislation, the power to call an election and, in the case of the PM, the discretion to promote or demote MPs to and from ministerial positions. In the first of those cases, most of the time legislation is introduced in a parliamentary system it is done so by the government, so they act as the legislative agenda-setter. In the second case, the PM and government usually have the ability to call an election (fixed parliamentary terms in the UK are a recent innovation and may be removed under this government), which of course can be used to ensure that their MPs vote in favour of their legislation (because many MPs would rather avoid fighting early elections). And finally, in the third case, the PM (and the party whips who support them and act as enforcers) can use promotion or demotion to ensure loyalty amongst MPs. So, all of these powers function through the parliament, which shows the nominal importance of the institution, and hence the reason for calling it a parliamentary system (though as Professor Hix pointed out, the power lies with the government!). Outside of parliament, the government, of course, also has some discretion over how government departments are run and how policy is implemented, or in other words the power to direct the day-to-day functioning of government.

Third question: Presidential systems are said to have more veto players than parliamentary systems. Is that only because the executive and the legislature are mutually independent, or are there other reasons (other veto players)?

Answer: Yes, the most important additional veto player is the president themself, who has a constitutionally defined veto; such a powerful additional block on legislation generally does not exist in parliamentary systems (as you say, this relates to the mutual independence of the executive and legislature in presidential systems). Additionally, presidential systems are often set up to have two powerful chambers in the legislature, whereas parliamentary systems may be unicameral or have a weaker upper chamber (as is the case in the UK). Additionally, there are then other things that may be associated with presidential systems, such as federalism, that introduce veto players. Of course, such things are not exclusive to presidential systems (e.g. Germany is a federal parliamentary system), so the association may emerge from historical or cultural context (e.g. countries in Latin American that adopted constitutions similar to, or influenced by, that of the US, thus implementing presidentialism and federalism) and thus are not integral to presidentialism.

Question: I was wondering if you could explain the recent political turmoil in several Southern American countries [at the time of writing: 11.11.2019] – where did come from and why, and how do you think this will play out for democracy?

Answer: Thanks a lot for the message; these are great (and big) questions!

I’ll take two examples of what you’re talking about as illustrative:

 – Evo Morales stepping down as president of Bolivia, in response to protests that emerged from a disputed presidential election: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/11/world/americas/evo-morales-renuncia.html

 – Chile’s president, Sebastián Piñera, agreeing to the drafting of a new constitution following protests sparked by rising public transport costs: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/11/world/americas/chile-protests-new-constitution.html

In each of the above cases, there is a specific issue identified as the cause of the unrest: in Bolivia, it was concerns over the president’s disregard for the constitution, and term limits in particular, and the threat that it posed to the country’s democracy; in Chile, it was frustration over the constitutionally defined limits on the state to intervene in the economy (stemming from the era of the Pinochet dictatorship), which has implications for inequality and the cost of living.

The above specific causes are important, and should not be discounted, but we are often also interested in common underlying factors that lead to phenomena (such as protest or government breakdown) in multiple cases. In this light, it is interesting to refer to the readings from our week on ‘Regimes: Presidents, Ministers, and Parliaments’, a number of which relate to impact of the choice between presidentialism and parliamentarism on government and regime stability. Drawing on his observation of regime instability in South America at the time, Linz argued that the problem was the adoption of presidential systems that caused deadlock between legislatures and executives. Horowitz argues against this, noting that Linz’s case selection is limited and that stable presidential systems can be designed if electoral systems are chosen wisely. As we will see in that week’s lecture, the combination of presidentialism with an electoral system leading to many parties in the legislature (as is the case in Chile) may be problematic because it creates too many veto players (causing gridlock).

There is also an interesting consideration about what causes protests to spread once they have begun. If there has been underlying discontent for some time, why do lots of people pick that moment to protest? There are lots of answers to this but, from our week on ‘Interest Groups and Social Movements: Why Mobilise?’, Kuran has argued that there could be a bandwagon effect (as more people protest, other people pass the threshold at which they become willing to do so as well) whilst Farrell examines the ways in which the internet (and social media) may play a part.

So, to summarise the answer to your first question, there may be long-term underlying causes such as the design of the constitution (and challenges that may pose for effective government) coupled with immediate political or policy concerns (a decreasingly democratic president, or inequality and the cost of living) that drive a protest bandwagon effect assisted by the ease of internet-based communications.

As for your second question, I am reasonably optimistic about the outcomes for democracy in the cases of Bolivia and Chile. The military had refused to defend the outgoing president in Bolivia but has not attempted to become involved in the government. In Chile, the protests are not anti-democratic and have forced compromise (though maybe not enough) from the president. In both cases, it seems like we are observing the important role of protest in democracy. There may be other countries however, such as Venezuela, where there is less cause for optimism.

I hope this answers your questions!

Question: Student groups were asked to find recent literature shedding light on whether democracy affects economic performance, vice versa, both, or neither.

Answer: Many thanks for your very productive response to the task in the classes on Monday, in which you were asked to find a recent article shedding light on the causal relationship between democracy and economic performance (in response to the Przeworski and Limongi (1993) article). Your sterling work means that we have the makings of a good, up-to-date, literature review on the topic, which is now a shared resource. In alphabetical order of first author surname, the sources suggested [some by multiple groups] were:

• Acemoglu (2014). ‘Does democracy boost economic growth?’
• Baklouti and Boujelbene (2017). ‘An econometric study of the role of the political stability on the relationship between democracy and economic growth’
• Baklouti and Boujelbene (2018). ‘The Nexus Between Democracy and Economic Growth: Evidence from Dynamic Simultaneous-Equations Models’
• Brezis and Verdier (2014). ‘Geography, Economics, and Political Systems: A Bird’s Eye View’
• Chatterjee (2011). ‘Democracy and economic transformation in India’ Chapter Understanding India’s New Political Economy, edited by Ruparelia, Reddy, Harriss, and Corbridge.
• Doucouliagos and Ulubaşoğlu (2008). ‘Democracy and Economic Growth: A Meta‐Analysis’
• Dizikes (2019). ‘Study: Democracy fosters economic growth’
• Gerring, Bond, Barndt, and Moreno (2011). ‘Democracy and Economic Growth: A Historical Perspective’
• Gerring, Kingstone, Lange, and Sinha (2011). ‘Democracy, History, and Economic Performance: A Case-Study Approach’
• Gründler and Krieger (2016). ‘Democracy and growth: Evidence from a machine learning indicator’
• Hanson and Gallagher (2012). ‘Winning Coalition Size and Economic Performance: The Selectorate Theory and East Asian Developmental States’
• Heo and Tan (2001). ‘Democracy and Economic Growth: A Causal Analysis’
• Ishtiaq, Majeed and Sohail (2016). ‘Financial Sector, Democracy and Economic Growth: A Panel Data Analysis’
• Knutsen (2012). ‘Democracy and economic growth: A survey of arguments and results’
• Patti (2009). ‘Globalization, democratization and economic growth’
• Piątek, Szarzec, and Pilc (2013). ‘Economic freedom, democracy and economic growth: a causal investigation in transition countries’
• Pozuelo, Slipowitz, and Vuletin (2016). ‘Democracy does not cause growth’
• Shabbir (2017). ‘Corruption, Democracy and Economic Growth: Does Conditionality Matter?’
• Wu (2012). ‘When Is Democracy Better for Economic Performance and when Is It Not: the Interaction Between Polity and Structural Factors’

This looks like an excellent list to me so now we all just need to find time to read them all! Then, perhaps, we will finally be able to tell people whether democracy leads to improved economic performance, vice versa, both, or neither.

First question: Selectorate theory assumes that any leader’s goal is to stay in office and maximise rents. Are there clear cases in the world today of autocrats that do not fit that description? I.e. ‘benevolent dictators’ who deliver more public goods than are needed to satisfy their winning coalition? If so, why might that be?

Answer: The examples that spring to mind in answer to this question are a number of regimes in the Middle East that have high levels of public good provision (at least in some senses) despite being dictatorships with small winning coalitions (e.g. Saudi Arabia). The explanations in this case may be related to the immense wealth that such regimes possess; even if a very large proportion of that wealth is retained by the ruling family, they can still afford to spend significant sums on public goods. More specifically, increased spending by such regimes was observed in response to the Arab Spring, and I think this points towards an explanation that lies outside selectorate theory. The starting assumption of the theory is that the disenfranchised population has little or no say in the regime’s survival, for which only the selectorate and, more so, the winning coalition are key. However, it is possible to imagine the disenfranchised section of the population in dictatorship mobilising to pose a threat to the regime (or even just that the threat of such mobilisation exists), and that the regime would respond to this, for instance by increasing public spending. Further to this, and more broadly, it is worth noting that the authors have responded to previous criticism but that selectorate theory has come in for additional criticism subsequently, for example in the following articles:

• Kennedy (2009). ‘Survival and Accountability: An Analysis of the Empirical Support for “Selectorate Theory”.’
• Arena and Nicoletti (2014). ‘Selectorate theory, the democratic peace, and public goods provision.’
• Gallagher and Hansen (2015). ‘Power Tool or Dull Blade? Selectorate Theory for Autocracies.’

Second question: How does selectorate theory fit with the fact that there exists applied research in e.g. development economics which recommends policies to alleviate poverty, effectively spend on public health, etc? When autocrats take such advice, are they just responding to pressure from their winning coalition which has grown?

Answer: I would say that advice stemming from such research is likely to emanate from international organisations and this indicates another factor that is external to selectorate theory: external pressure. It is difficult to conceptualise such pressure, which may come with important economic implications in terms of aid or trade, within the selectorate theory framework, though this does not necessarily mean that the two explanations are mutually exclusive. To the extent that autocrats respond to such advice when it emanates from within their countries, we might think that it would be a reflection of the propositions of selectorate theory. Of course, selectorate theory does not suggest that autocracies with small winning coalitions will never provide public goods, just that they are less likely to do so. So, autocrats with small winning coalitions may respond to research-led advice on multiple occasions but, on average, still do so less frequently (and effectively) than autocracies with large winning coalitions (or democracies).