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CONCEPTS
Comparison
Models of Political
Development
Verney
Lijphart Models
Social Cleavage
Lijphart's 7 Cleavages
USDOP
spatial
analysis
2002
French Pres elections
2003
Israeli election
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David Wilsford in
"Getting Students to Think (Comparatively): Teaching the
Introductory Course in the 1990s" :
"Students experience most
education passively rather than actively. This is particularly
true of the social sciences as compared to the natural sciences,
which use hands on laboratory tasks as a common supplement to
lectures. Second, American students exhibit high levels of
parochialism, especially in contrast to students from other
advanced, industrial democracies. There is not much natural
inclination to seek knowledge of the outside world, which is after
all the basis of comparative
politics". |
One of the best ways to
understand the American interest articulation process is to compare it to
the process in other countries. Comparison is one of the fundamental ways
that we develop knowledge about political systems, ie. it is one of the
fundamental ways that we "know".
Comparing "our" system to others
is also a way for us to evaluate the effectiveness of our system and to
perhaps advocate changes.
When comparing one system's approach to
interest articulation to another, there are a number of factors to
consider. Most important are:
1) the structure of the political
institutions
2) the impact of history/ culture
3) the contemporary
"quarrels"
Lijphart's Democracies provides us with
the basis for an analysis of the first two of these factors.
The
Structure of Political Institutions
Lijphart explores two basic models of democracies, the
Westminster and Consensus models of democracy. The link at the top of this
page provides a simple summary table of the differences between the two
models.
We Americans are most familiar with our own system which is
a hybrid of the two models explored by Lijphart and these differences can
be explored in more detail by accessing the link to Verney -- "presidential vs.
parliamentary government".
In essence, the difference between the
Westminster and Consensus models is how one explores "government by 'the
people'"
Does government "by the people" mean all of the people or
merely a majority of the people?
The Westminster model (often
termed the majoritarian model) generally says 'the people' really means a
majority of the people.
The Consensus model generally says 'the
people' means all the people.
"The people' is an interesting
phrase. Many things are done in the name of "the people". But who or what
are/is the people? Paolo Fabbri argues that the phrase "the people" is a
phrase invented and used by whomever it suits for whatever cause they
intend. When we talk about a government of, by and for the people, what
are we talking about?
This is the essence of the concept of
interest articulation and different systems have different approaches to
government by "the people".
Every democratic political system
has governmental structures which include or exclude segments of their
population (their "people") in the governmental process. The Westminster
model generally excludes all of those who didn't support the winning
party/candidate (no matter how a winner is chosen). The Consensus model
tends to argue that even parties who "lost" should be included in the
governing process. What this model emphasizes is consensus rather than
opposition, inclusion rather than exclusion.
One of the first
governmental processes we need to explore is how "the people"
are "created" in electoral systems. Ie., what are the electoral
mechanism that generate "the people". We also need to know
a little bit about "the people".
In Chapter 3 of
his book Democracies, Lijphart identifies the 21 "long-term" democracies (LTDs) he utilized
in his study and the 30+ other democracies he excluded. He identifies the
similarities among the 21 LTDs and the differences between those
democracies included and those excluded.
Among the LTDs, Lijphart
found the following:
1) all 21 LTDs belong to
the "well-to-do portion of mankind"
2) their high levels of economic
development are reflected in their high levels of industrialization and
urbanization
3) they are generally a culturally homogenous grouop
(Western Judeo-Christian)
4) generally located in the North Atlantic
area.
5) there are huge differences in the sizes of the
populations
6) there are major differences in the social
homo/heterogeneity of the countries
Our examination will be
more expansive than just these 21!
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Questions to
Consider: |
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What conclusions can we
draw from this analysis?
Is there a relationship between
democracy and political culture? Between model of democracy and
social homogeneity? |
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Making Comparisons:
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During the
semester we will explore in some detail 3 political systems
different from our own.
They are: Israel,
Australia, India |
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