Professor Matthew Søberg Shugart: Institutional Engineering and Democracy--Readings

IRGN 490

Readings

April 2, 4, & 9

Peruse the Freedom House ratings of all countries and note the classification of countries as free, partly free, or not free, as well as the trends. and compare to their list of “electoral democracies”;

also look at their methodology; so you know what they are talking about.

Carles Boix, “The Roots of Democracy,” Policy Review, 2006.

The above are for the first session, Monday, April 2

The remaining items are for the sessions of April 4 and 9. Read in the order listed, and plan on getting through the first half of these materials before the Wednesday, April 4, session.

Philippe C. Schmitter and Terry Lynn Karl, “What democracy is...and is not” (Journal of Democracy, Summer, 1991)

Barbara Geddes, “What do we know about democratization after twenty years?” Annual Review of Political Science 1999. 2: 115–144.

Diamond, Larry Jay. “Is the Third Wave Over?,” Journal of Democracy.

Highly recommended:

Samuel Huntington, Democracy’s Third Wave (JoD)

Also recommended:

Schedler, Andreas, 1964-, What is Democratic Consolidation?

Democracy and its ‘architecture’ for coping with societal divisions

April 11

Debate between Donald Horowitz and Arend Lijphart on institutional design for divided societies

Horowitz and Lijphart chapters, in Reynolds, ed. The Architecture of Democracy (will be supplied as scanned copy)

The presidential–parliamentary debate

April 16

Juan Linz, "Perils of Presidentialism," Journal of Democracy, volume 1, no. 1 (1990)

Juan Linz "Virtues of Parliamentarism," Journal of Democracy, volume 1, no. 4 (1990).

(Note: The Linz articles seem not to be available on line; the journal is in the library. See also the note posted to the course conference folder.)

Francis Fukuyama, Björn Dressel, and Boo-Seung Chang, “Facing the Perils of Presidentialism?” Journal of Democracy 16,2 (2005): 102-116.

M. Steven Fish, “Stronger Legislatures, Stronger Democracies,” Journal of Democracy 17.1 (2006): 5–20.

Recommended:

Shugart, “Presidentialism, Parliamentarism, and the Provision of Collective Goods in Less-Developed Countries,” Constitutional Political Economy 10, 1 (1998) (look at the tables if nothing else)

Case study session

April 18
Cases in which alternative forms of executive-legislative structure were considered or in which significant changes have been made to the powers of the executive, the legislature, or both

General reading: Shugart, “Semi-Presidential Systems: Dual Executives and Mixed Authority Patterns,” French Politics, 2005, 3 (323-51).

Cases might include:

Israel—direct election of PM: why was it adopted? why was it abandoned?
Ukraine—from presidential-leaning to parliamentary-leaning semi-presidentialism?
Indonesia
Chile
Argentina
Brazil
South Korea
Philippines
Mozambique

Electoral systems: Theory and practice

April 23

IDEA Handbook, chapters 1 and 2

April 25

“You are like Kerensky”

—Henry Kissinger to Mario Soares

“I don't want to be like Kerensky”

—Soares to Kissinger

“Nor did Kerensky”

—Kissinger

Take a moment on April 25 to remember it as the day of the Revolution of the Red Carnations, the date the “Third Wave” began!

IDEA Handbook, chapter 3, including some of the case studies, too (especially those on India, Ireland, and Brazil)

Case study session

April 30

Electoral reform in ongoing democracies

Reading: IDEA Handbook, BC case study; also recommended: Thailand, New Zealand, and Japan case studies.

Also: Click on the country/province names below to peruse some websites about these jurisdictions' proposed reforms so that you may get an idea of what the processes and electoral-engineering issues are.

Possible cases include:

British Columbia and Ontario,* Canada
New Zealand
Thailand
Netherlands
USA, especially California
U.K. (Jenkins Commission, the Power Inquiry, House of Lords reform, etc.)

* This server has been having problems; if the link fails, try this.

Party systems and party organizations

May 2

Joel D. Barkin, “Elections in Agrarian Societies,” Journal of Democracy 6.4 (1995): 106–16.

Andrew Reynolds, “The Case for Proportionality,” Journal of Democracy 6.4 (1995): 117–24.

Recommended:

Shugart, “Presidentialism, Parliamentarism, and the Provision of Collective Goods in Less-Developed Countries,” Constitutional Political Economy 10, 1 (1998) (reprints of this were distributed in class)

Scott Mainwaring, “Party systems in the third wave” (JoD)

May 7--Federalism, decentralization, cultural autonomy, separation?

Ghal and Solnick chapters in Reynolds, ed. The Architecture of Democracy (will be supplied as scanned copy, posted at the course on-line conference)

Alfred Stepan, “Federalism and democracy: Beyond the US model” (JoD)

May 8--deadline for getting my consent on your Policy Analysis Report topic

May 9--Discussion

A day to discuss the cases that you have by now will have agreed to write on. Nothing formal required for this class; more of a "brainstorm" session and an opportunity for everyone to find out what everyone else is doing. Also we might have some time to catch up on some topics that have gone by too quickly over the first few weeks, so bring your questions!

--for this class, I am going to ask everyone to post one short item (news story or anything else relevant) about his or her case, in order to facilitate discussion

May 14 --Case study session

Engineering party structure and competition through electoral system design and reform

General readings…
IDEA Handbook, pp. 129-37 (on presidential election methods; pay special attention to the discussion of rules with “distribution requirements,” as these are adopted precisely where there are regionally based ethnic divisions but a shortage of national parties to aggregate across them)

--other readings may be added

Possible cases:

Brazil, Colombia, Iraq, Liberia, Nepal, Somaliland, Peru

May 16--Case study session

Coping with demands for autonomy or separation

Possible cases

Ethiopia/Eritrea
Yugoslavia (Bosnia-Hercegovina, Serbia/Kosova, & Macedonia)
Papua New Guinea/Bougainville
Indonesia/E. Timor & Aceh
Iraq/Kurdistan
Ukraine/Crimea (and other regions)
Bolivia/Santa Cruz
Other Latin American cases, such as those with demands for indigenous autonomy (e.g. Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador)

May 18, 9:00 a.m.--new due date for Policy Analysis Reports

May 21--Discussion of Policy Analysis Reports

Papers will have been posted at the on-line conference; everyone should read at least five of his or her colleague's papers.

May 23--no class

May 28--no class

May 30-- External actors, state-building and democratization

Part 1: Electoral observation and management of the transition election

Main reading, to frame the discussion: Thomas Carothers, “The Observers Observed,” Journal of Democracy 8, 3 (1997): 17–31.

Also see:

Jørgen Elklit and Andrew Reynolds, “A framework for the systematic study of election quality” Democratization 12, 2 (April 2005): 147 – 162. [Not in detail, but consider whether this framework is a useful response to the problems noted by Carrothers, or if it falls into the same pitfalls that he identified]

Terrence Lyons, "Post-Confict Elections and the Process of Demilitarizing Politics: The Role of Electoral Administration," Democratization 11, 3 (June 2004). [This piece is valuable for its focus on the pre-election period, and its discussion of models of election management institutions.]