Introduction authored by Dr.

Anna Krift
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Introduction

The field of comparative politics is ever-changing and dynamic. international relations and its application to the field of
It requires scholars to be flexible and open in order to comparative politics are found in each chapter.
continuously analyze the political movements of states, their
As the chapters continue, the state is reviewed and defined in
political systems, and their leaders. Due to the dynamic nature
Chapter 3. This definition is applied to the field of comparative
of international politics, this book seeks to provide the key
politics to begin comparing states’ political, economic, and
concepts and theories that can be applied to states and political
social structures. Then, the chapters progress to consider how
systems as they persistently change. Additionally, methods and
politics and the economy merge while considering fields of
concepts are depicted to think comparatively when considering
political economy and development in Chapters 4 and 5.
states and how they are similar or varied. This will also provide a
Political styles are then considered in Chapters 6 and 7.
means of further understanding political structures, economic
Democracy and democratic institutions as well as
instability, movements, conflict, and resolution.
authoritarianism are detailed and analyzed.
This book provides a compilation of information on comparative
The structure of political systems follows in Chapters 8 and 9 by
politics through a variety of texts, journal articles, and case
examining constitutions in addition to state influences, such as
studies to provide an integrative approach to learning about
executives, interest groups, political parties, and political
comparative politics. The text begins, in Chapter 1, by providing
systems. Opposition follows as Chapter 10 discusses
an understanding of the field as well as the methods utilized in
revolutions. Various states are highlighted in this chapter, and
the comparative approach. Next, in Chapter 2, it provides a
many cases of revolution are identified, including Mexico’s
broad overview on methods in international relations and how it
historical insurrection. Nationalism and nation are reviewed in
impacts the comparative analysis of states, political systems,
Chapter 11 with definitions provided as well as numerous cases
and leadership. Concepts and definitions of key terminology in
via the compilation of documents.

2
Chapter 12 reviews the concepts of race, ethnicity, and gender
and their effects on political systems are explored through
numerous examples both historic and current. A similar approach
can be found in Chapter 13, as it considers ideology and religion
in the current political landscape with numerous cases included.
Chapter 14 finishes with further exploration on the theories of
international relations and the dynamic of comparative politics in
international relations. Finally, Chapters 15-19 provide case
studies that highlight Brazil, Germany, India, Japan, and the
Russian Federation.

3
Chapter 1

Comparative
Political
Analysis
(Approach)
Learning objectives

After reading this chapter, students will be able to do the

following:

• Appreciate the importance of critical thinking.

• Understand the comparative approach.

Section 1

Defining comparative politics

Sometimes the term used is 'comparative government' or

'comparative political systems.' They all indicate that
comparative method is a common way of learning and teaching
political science. One learns by comparing entities that have
some similarities and then examining the reasons for the
observed differences.

The earliest practitioner was Aristotle who used his students to

collect details of the institutions and procedures of 158 Greek
city states (unfortunately now lost). From this data he drew up his
famous typology of political systems. Later exponents included
de Tocqueville, who, sometimes explicitly and at other times
implicitly, in writing about the USA was comparing it with his
trinity of 'powers'—executive, legislative and judicial—which
native France. Much of his brilliant generalization was based on
constitutional lawyers take to be the dimensions of a country's
travel and observation. Bryce and Lowell early in the twentieth
political system. While understanding cannot be complete
century pursued similar methods, though examining in depth
without undertaking this exercise, it does not always produce a
several countries and going beyond their constitutional
realistic assessment of either the functioning or the power
frameworks to study their parties.
structure of a modern state. To cite only one instance; judges
'Comparative political institutions' is frequently a component of can make laws and executives often draft them and secure their
undergraduate Political Science syllabuses and consists, at the passage with only the most perfunctory reference to the
most formal level, of comparing between different states the legislature.

5
More ambitious political scientists have extended comparative
treatment to political parties, pressure groups, centre-periphery
relations and political development. The success attending such
analyses is often dependent on the possibility for reliable
quantification. Thus comparative studies of electoral systems
may produce fairly reliable predictive models. On the other hand,
attempts to draw up 'democratic indices' in order to predict
which developing countries are likely to evolve into sustainable
democracies may fall back on trying to devise indices of
tolerance or trust. Values are not easily quantifiable. These
difficulties, however, do not detract from the great enlightenment
for political scientists that has been derived by comparative
method.

The previous section is provided by Lynn University

Library’s use of CREDO Reference.

6
Section 2

The development of the study of comparative politics

‘Comparative politics’ existed long before it became a drastically from the universe known to the great writers of the
recognized subfield of the modern discipline of political science. past; second, it has become the special terrain of a recognized
A century or so ago, a knowledge of the variety of political subfield of contemporary political science; and third, as such it
systems formed part of the normal education of literati in shares in both paradigmatic shifts and new developments in
different disciplines, such as law and philosophy, history and research techniques in that discipline.
letters. There were classic writers on problems of modern
government in different countries such as Mill, Bagehot, The academic tradition
Bluntschli, Radbruch, Redslob, Duguit or Bryce. Their treatises
[D]iscussions of government often reflected particular
contained many comparisons, over time as well between
conceptions of history. In the hands of some, this might lead to
different societies. One might go back further in history. Political
the elaboration of ‘historical laws’, often couched in terms of
theory abounds with comparative discourse on both contrasts
different ‘stages’ through which societies would develop.
and commonalities in political life, as even a superficial survey of
‘Diachronic’ comparisons thus came naturally. Models of social
the writings of Aristotle and Polybius, of Dante and Machiavelli,
change often showed a clear evolutionary or even teleological
of Bodin and Locke, of Montesquieu and De Tocqueville, not to
bias....There was generally a strong emphasis on political
speak of the authors of The Federalist Papers, immediately
institutions, which were thought to be not only the results of past
shows. Man has speculated comparatively on problems of
political strife, but also factors which could control present and
government and society in both prescriptive and descriptive
future political developments. ‘[C]omparative’ politics generally
terms since times immemorial. If we nevertheless insist that
assumed specific country perspectives. Thus, in Britain ‘cross-
modern comparative politics is somehow different, this is for
channel’ dialogues easily developed into a contrast between
three not unrelated reasons: first, modern comparative politics
(stable) British ‘cabinet government’ and (unstable) French
deals consciously with a political world which has changed

7
‘gouvernement d’assemblée’ (or for that matter British ‘rule of transient players in a world in which the larger countries
law’ versus French ‘droit administratif’). Trans-Atlantic debates determined history.
resulted in the conflicting typologies of a ‘parliamentary’ versus a
‘Comparative politics’ then went generally not much beyond
‘presidential’ system of democratic government. Perennial
speculation and the study of ‘foreign government’. Other states
debates in France on the merits, or lack of merits, of the French
were generally seen as entities all on their own, or at most as
revolution strongly coloured political discussions on problems of
possible yardsticks against which to measure developments in
constitutionalism and popular sovereignty. Debates in what was
one’s own society, and then often as negative yardsticks at that.
to become Germany had a powerful impact on the analysis of
state and nation, of the exercise of power, of ‘organicist’ versus
The political shocks of the twentieth century & the
‘liberal’ modes of social and economic development, and of the
comparative role of bureaucracies – subjects which were to erosion of institutional certainties
become the concerns of future social science also outside
All this was to change drastically in the wake of three
German borders. Comparisons of European countries with the
fundamental twentieth century shocks: the breakdown of
United States underscored the early nature of American
democracy in Weimar Germany, the rise of totalitarian systems
democracy and stressed the importance of voluntary groups in a
and the turn towards authoritarianism of most of the new states
free society, but the United States could also be held up as a
which were established following the demise of European
negative yardstick for alleged abuses, for its spoils system, the
colonialism. The formally legal ‘Machtübernahme’ in Weimar
role of lobbies or a yellow press, or more generally the dangers of
Germany in 1933 shattered democratic hopes and self-
‘mass society’.
confidence. The Weimar constitution had been heralded as the
Typically, smaller European countries tended to be neglected in perfect model of democratic constitutionalism. Its fall destroyed
the reasoning of learned men outside the borders of the particular the trust in political institutions as sufficient guarantees of
country itself. Linguistic frontiers may partly explain this. But democratic rule. Admittedly, some theoreticians attempted to
probably more important was the assumption, typical of retain ‘institutionalist’ explanations, singling out ‘faulty’
nineteenth and early twentieth century power politics, that small institutions such as proportional representation (e.g. Hermens,
countries hardly mattered. At best they might be of little more 1941), the presence of a directly elected President next to a
than folkloristic interest, at worst they were seen as no more than ‘normal’ but thereby weakened Kanzler, or the absence of judicial

8
review, as major factors in the destruction of democratic rule. But traditional elites, military or bureaucratic governors, or
generally, institutionalist analyses stood discredited. A growing revolutionary party leaders. Such developments further
awareness of the patent discrepancy between the promises of the undermined a belief in institutional approaches, and called for
Soviet constitution of 1936 and the realities of naked power alternative modes of analysis.
relations in the USSR reinforced this tendency, as did events in
One effect of the great political shocks of the twentieth century
Italy since 1922 and in France in 1940.
was a massive migration of scholars, notably to the United States
The rise of totalitarian political systems massively changed the of America, but to a lesser extent also the United Kingdom. One
perceptions of politics. Their development, in some countries and needs only list prominent names such as Karl W. Deutsch, Henry
not in others, raised new problems of comparative enquiry. Earlier W. Ehrmann, Otto Kirchheimer, Paul Lazarsfeld, Karl Loewenstein,
beliefs about the ‘natural’ development of democracy foundered. Hans Morgenthau, Franz Neumann, Sigmund Neumann, and
‘Autocracy’ had been a time-honoured category of political Joseph Schumpeter, to make clear the importance of this factor
analysis, and ‘absolutism’ had been the natural counterpoint of for new developments in the study of politics. That field was also
constitutionalism and later of democracy. But totalitarianism to attract the progeny of European refugees who, as a typical
seemed to represent an entirely new political phenomenon. ‘second generation’, turned to the analysis of comparative and
Problems of power and leadership, of propaganda and mass international politics in great numbers. Exiles from Hitler were
publics, of repressive one-party systems and police rule, came to followed by migrants from Communist repression, and later still
dominate political discussion. Sociological and psychological by a growing number of Third World scholars who opted to stay in
explanations seemed to offer better insights into the realities of the First World. A desire for the systematic study of comparative
totalitarian rule than did traditional political theory or institutional politics came naturally in such circumstances. It heightened
analysis. concern with the realities of political power, both within and
between states. It made for a characteristically ambivalent
The post-1945 world was soon to see also the rise of many new
attitude about democracy: if anything the belief in democratic
states from what had been colonial dependencies. Such states
values became stronger, but expectations about its chances
had generally been equipped with democratic constitutional
turned toward pessimism.
arrangements, which in most cases proved ineffective to stem
developments of authoritarian regimes, whether in the hands of Academe & a changing political universe

9
If migrant scholars looked back naturally on developments in All this fitted in well with the traditional temper of American
continents they had left, the world was changing, and so was the academics. The lure of ‘science’ had traditionally been strong and
role of the United States in what was rapidly becoming global had expanded much beyond the ‘natural sciences’ into the social
politics for policy-makers and students of politics alike. Although sciences and even the humanities. So had the assumption that
Europe remained a key area, other parts of the world, including ‘science’ could and should lead to practical policy results. There
notably the evolving Communist bloc, Japan and a rapidly was a strong belief that the academic enterprise should centre on
growing number of new states, became matters of urgent political the elaboration of testable theories. At the same time, the idea of
and intellectual concern. So did Latin America, long regarded as a interdisciplinary study stood in high esteem. It was given a strong
backyard of a Monroe doctrine America. Comparative politics impetus within some of the great universities (the University of
saw the number of its possible units of analysis grow beyond Chicago being a particularly important centre). Such
recognition. At the same time problems of political stability and interdisciplinarity was moreover reinforced by new agencies,
legitimacy, of social and economic development, of competing including government research councils, the newly established
political regimes and ideologies assumed an entirely new (American) Social Science Research Council and a growing
importance. number of private foundations all becoming increasingly involved
in sponsoring ‘relevant’ research. This in turn facilitated a massive
The need to understand this new world could be met in a variety
expansion of graduate schools, and fostered collaborative
of ways. It underscored the importance of experts on single
research between senior and junior scholars, the latter being
countries, notably those which became the object of particular
called upon to ‘test’ particular theories elaborated by the former
policy concern. It increased the relevance of traditional area
through detailed empirical research. All this came to coincide with
studies which it released from their (sometimes almost museum-
the development of new research tools, which helped to foster
like) preoccupation with the unique features of ‘other’ civilizations;
what was soon to become known as the ‘behavioural
in the process cultural anthropology became a more central field
revolution’ (from which electoral and value studies have
in contemporary social science. At the same time, older beliefs
benefited). Next to library research and field work in a
about inevitable – and presumably static – differences gave way
participatory setting, the survey became a powerful research
to concerns with political and social change – inter alia toward
tool.3 Governments also began to develop more and more
democracy – and beyond this: to discussions of the extent to
important statistical data to monitor the effects of new policies. A
which such changes could, and should, be engineered.
rapidly growing number of international organizations, whether
10
global (such as the United Nations and its specialized agencies, If both the mass, and the sophistication, of such developments in
the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund), or regional social science were taking place initially mainly in the United
(the OECD growing from the efforts of the Marshall Plan, and the States, they soon became an international reality. Early in the
European Communities being particularly important), came to post-1945 period deliberate efforts were made to foster
collect statistical data on many countries. To the extent that they international comparative research. One powerful stimulus came
were presented in standardized form, this facilitated comparative from UNESCO, which established its own International Social
inquiry. More and more efforts also went into the construction of Science Research Council, and which provided a powerful
time-series data, necessary for the study of developments over stimulus for the establishment of international professional bodies
time. This massively increased amount of quantitative data such as the International Political Science Association (IPSA) or
(initially developed mainly in the context of economic and social the International Sociological Association (ISA). Many national
policies and used in particular by economists and experts in governments expanded their research councils. The idea of
social policies) also found its way into data handbooks and data international exchange and research co-operation found
archives (see e.g. Banks et al., 1997; Mackie and Rose, 1991; increasing favour, with the fellowship programmes of a number of
Woldendorp et al., 2000). The computer revolution was American Foundations, the Fulbright programme, and to a lesser
concurrently to facilitate the storage, analysis and access to such extent agencies like the British Council setting a pattern. In the
data. The efforts of individual scholars first, research sponsoring process English became increasingly the lingua franca of modern
agencies later, made the pooling and preservation of research social science.
data (including the products of survey research for secondary
analysis) increasingly common practice. All this occurred at a time The new comparative politics
of a massive expansion of academic enrollment, which increased
Against this general background of political change on the one
facilities not only for graduate research, but also for publishing
hand, and a massive expansion of international and national
research findings. Both university presses and specialized
policy-making and research on the other hand, ‘comparative
commercial publishers massively expanded. Journals
politics’ developed rapidly. The shift in terminology from the older
proliferated. So did professional associations and the number and
term of ‘comparative government’ to ‘comparative politics’ was
specialization of workshops and panels at academic conferences.
symbolic for what was in fact a conscious desire to move away
from the traditional concern with political institutions towards a

11
preoccupation with political and social developments generally become apparent in the work of other scholars of the group, who
and within democratic systems in particular. after all became editors and authors of influential textbooks
organized on the basis of country studies (covering again mainly
There are some particular landmarks in the development of
the larger countries; e.g. Beer and Ulam, 1958; Macridis and
modern ‘comparative politics’. One of these was the Evanston
Ward, 1963).
seminar at Northwestern University in 1952 which brought
together a group of then-younger scholars including Samuel Beer, In the meantime, a group of scholars (including some members of
George Blanksten, Richard Cox, Karl W. Deutsch, Harry Eckstein, the Evanston Seminar) was being formed who as a group would
Kenneth Thompson and Robert E. Ward under the chairmanship have a lasting influence on the development of comparative
of Roy Macridis. In a statement, published in the American politics. Many of them were, or would be, active in what was soon
Political Science Review, they branded the existing study of to become known as ‘the Committee’ (i.e. the Committee on
comparative government as parochial in being mainly concerned Comparative Politics of the American Social Science Research
with Europe only, as being merely descriptive instead of Council). In the second half of the 1950s, this Committee
analytical, as overly concerned with institutions rather than deliberately brought together a number of leading area experts.
processes, and as being insufficiently comparative, wedded With Gabriel A. Almond as its highly influential chairman, it set
above all to case method approaches (Macridis and Cox, 1953). itself to recasting the analysis of comparative politics along
Some of the members of the Evanston group vigorously clashed mainly structural-functionalist lines. As Almond explicitly stated in
with stalwart representatives of an older generation, including the influential volume edited by himself and James S. Coleman,
such luminaries as Carl J. Friedrich, Maurice Duverger, Dolf The Politics of the Developing Areas (1960), the ambition was to
Sternberger and William A. Robson during a colloquium of IPSA find ‘a common framework and set of categories to be used in …
in Florence in 1954 (Heckscher, 1957). Such older practitioners of area political analysis’; to this end Almond himself engaged in
comparative government were not readily persuaded by the new ‘experiments in the application of sociological and
gospel. They were to note gleefully that the most irascible anthropological concepts in the comparison of political systems’,
proponent of the new ‘comparative politics’, Roy Macridis, was irrespective of time or area. This work was eventually to lead to
soon to publish work on France and other countries along what the famous ‘crises of political development’ model, which sought
seemed after all rather traditional lines. The continuing need to to analyse political systems in terms of the character and
take account of specific country perspectives was also to sequence of six major processes: legitimacy, identity, penetration,

12
integration, participation and distribution (see also: Pye, 1966). Such approaches also led to a reconsideration of past patterns of
One manner in which to validate such approaches was to bring political and social change in nations already seen as fully or
together members of the Committee with experts on areas, mainly modernized, including the United States itself and Western
particular institutions or social processes for a series of books on Europe. Historians were asked to join in such efforts at
different aspects of political development, including comparative understanding (see for example: Black, 1966; Tilly,
communications (Pye, 1963), bureaucracies (LaPalombara, 1963), 1975, 1990; Grew, 1978).
political culture (Pye and Verba, 1965), education (Coleman,
The impact of these approaches on the discipline was
1965), parties (LaPalombara and Weiner, 1966), and (belatedly)
substantial. All manner of Ph.D. candidates swarmed out to study
state- formation (Tilly, 1975). Two works were intended to cap the
processes of social and political modernization in countries all
approach: a book offered mainly as a textbook (Almond and
over the world. They did so with different interests and intent.
Powell, 1966), and a co-authored volume on Crises and
Some became thoroughly intrigued with the persistent role of
Sequences in Political Development (Binder et al., 1971). Whereas
traditional structures and beliefs, making them eager novices in
the first seemed to proclaim certainty, the latter revealed
the ranks of area specialists and cultural anthropologists. Others
considerable self-doubt and disagreement in the Committee.
concentrated rather on the other end of the presumed tradition–
Clearly, its members did not see eye to eye on such fundamental
modernity continuum, identifying largely with the search of
matters as the existence or not of a linear development from
economists and experts on public administration for
tradition to modernity, and the possibility to engineer social
‘development’. Yet others felt happier with the work of various
change and democratization or not.
international organizations which sought to monitor and stimulate
Of course, such debates were not restricted to members of the social and economic developments with the aid of statistical
Committee. A great many scholars, in different disciplines, tried indicators, regarding the universe of nations, or some particular
their hand at defining processes of political development and sample of it, as a laboratory in which to test particular
modernization. For all their diversity and disagreement, such development models (see: Przeworski and Teune, 1970).
writings had in common an attempt to understand processes of
social change, conceived as in principle comparable over
different areas and time-periods, and tackled with instruments
from whatever social science discipline seemed appropriate.

13
Inevitable reactions urgent: the comparative study of Communist societies was to a
considerable extent a world unto itself, and many were happy to
For all its exhilaration the political development boom was to leave it at that. The idea of a possible convergence of systems in
create its own reactions, in rather different ways. the West and the East seemed to most observers bereft of reality,
perhaps a matter of speculation for economists, not for those
One reaction consisted in the development of counter-models of
who knew the patent differences in political life from direct
development which treated the prosperous West not as the
physical experience or historical analogy. But developments of
prototype of a modern society which others were naturally to
Communist states did yet enter the field of general comparative
attain at some later stage, but as the root cause of an inequitable
politics for at least two reasons. Communist models might and
distribution of the world’s goods. Marxist theories of
did serve as example and inspiration for Third World countries,
(neo)imperialism held capitalist development responsible for the
notably in
exploitation of the Third World, and regarded the so-called
their Chinese
‘independence’ of former colonies as a thin guise for what was in
and Cuban
practice ‘neo-colonialism’. Notably from the background of Latin
variety. And
America, which had much older independent states than Africa
in a more
and parts of Asia, developed the various brands of ‘dependency’
theoretical
theory which emphasized the co-existence of traditional sectors
vein, a
of society and the economy with modern economic sectors which
debate arose
were in practice little more than the emporia of the advanced
on the issue
economies in the USA and Europe. Such models were given a
to what
more elaborate treatment in Wallerstein’s World System
degree
approach, which became in many ways an academic industry of
totalitarian
its own.
systems were
A second reaction came from those who had difficulty fitting themselves a
Communist systems into the framework of general development product of
theories. To many, such a problem did not seem particularly modernity.
This point
14
had been strongly argued by Carl J. Friedrich, who saw in that see: Ragin, 1987; Rueschemeyer et al., 1992 for recent attempts
characteristic the fundamental difference between older systems to remedy these differences between the case study approach
of autocracy and royal absolutism and modern totalitarian and ‘many cases, few variables’ studies).
systems (Friedrich, 1954; Friedrich and Brzezinski, 1956), but was
denied by scholars like Wittfogel who saw many common Rethinking Europe
features between the systems described by him in his Oriental
For a time Europe became a somewhat ambiguous area in the
Despotism (1957) and systems of modern totalitarian rule.
development of the new comparative politics. The Third World
Nevertheless, whether seen as possible models of modernization,
seemed to attract most of the theorizing and field research, as did
or as alternative expressions of modernity itself, the study of
to a lesser and more specialist sense the development of
totalitarian systems remained on the whole outside the scope of
Communist systems. Europe seemed possibly somewhat old-
general comparative politics writing. At least one reason for this
fashioned, a world of staid democracies about which all was
was the tendency to equate political modernity with democracy,
known and where little happened. The very concept of Europe
in systems already existing or as the natural end-product of
had become somewhat hazy, moreover. The erection of the Iron
political development.
Curtain had lopped off a number of countries which had formerly
A third reaction to the political development literature consisted in formed a natural part of the European universe. If one saw
the allegation that it rode roughshod over the uniqueness of Western Europe as for all practical purposes identical with
particular areas or countries. Such was the natural reaction of ‘democratic Europe’, then certain European countries (including
scholars nurtured in a tradition of ‘configurative’ studies, whether some members of NATO, like Greece, or Portugal, not to speak of
of a particular local culture, or a particular political system. Such Spain) presumably did not belong. If democracy were the defining
scholars were not comfortable with what they regarded as overly characteristic, why then not study all modern democracies
general categories of analysis. They emphasized that the essence together, thus abandoning the very existence of ‘Europe’ as a
of political and social systems lay in the complicated interaction distinct area (a conclusion drawn for example by Lijphart, 1984)?
of many variables which could only be disentangled by destroying
Whatever such qualms, ‘Europe’ was soon to figure prominently
the uniqueness of the whole. And they tended to deny the
on the map of comparative politics again, through a variety of
possibility of real comparative study given the inability of scholars
circumstances. The persistent concern about ‘totalitarianism’
to really know more than one or two cases sufficiently well (but

15
naturally made for comparative enquiry into past events: what (for a fuller elaboration of this theme, see: Daalder, 1987). As a
after all had caused the breakdown of democratic regimes in special subdiscipline, European comparative politics grew largely
some countries, and not others (see notably the consciously from the efforts of a new post-war generation of younger scholars
comparative study of Linz and Stepan, 1978). When much later who engaged in a massive trek, to some extent to the United
Greece, Spain and Portugal all returned to democratic rule, the Kingdom, but particularly to the United States. They found there
reverse question arose: what were the causes for such transitions an exhilarating world of scholarship, with all manner of theoretical
from authoritarian rule (see: O’Donnell et al., 1986; Diamond et al., speculation and rich empirical research. This was in strong
1988). contrast with the paucity of ‘modern’ social science literature in
their own country, and led naturally to a desire to emulate and
The failure of imposed constitutional regimes in many former
replicate studies on America with comparable studies at home. At
colonies raised the issue whether alternative models of
the same time, a confrontation with Anglo-Saxon scholarship also
democracy might have done better; where was one to find these
provoked a natural reaction against what were often felt to be too
but in Europe (the British dominions usually being regarded as
specifically ‘British’ or ‘American’ theories, typologies or models,
mere offshoots of a British system)? The general concern with
and fostered a desire to develop alternative theories and
development posed many questions for which the history of
typologies which were more in line with the understanding of
different European countries might provide possible answers,
one’s own country. At a minimum, more countries should be
whatever the dangers of historical analogies. There was a rich
brought onto the map of European comparative politics, which
literature on European countries, and access to sources was
somewhat ironically required ‘translating’ their experience into
relatively easy. Europe contained, moreover, a variety of cases
Anglo-American concepts.
vital for comparative analysis with a generalizing intent, provided
one really knew the specific cases that made up Europe, and Thus, some of the most innovative comparative politics writing by
went beyond the exclusive concentration on a few larger European scholars betrays, on closer analysis, a strong influence
countries only. of particular country perspectives. This had been irritatingly clear
from what purported to be a general study of political parties by
Much of the history of the development of comparative politics
Maurice Duverger (1954), which for all the help the author
writing in and on Europe can in fact be written in terms of a desire
received in data collection from an early IPSA network of
to take account of the political experience of particular countries
European political scientists, was shot through with French

16
 Switzerland, to counter the massive impact of what seemed too
easy an identification of Anglo-American models of government
with democracy per se.

From the mosaic of such parallel studies a much more

sophisticated picture emerged of the diversities of European
experience which could be studied both in a diachronic and a
synchronic manner, culminating in what is as yet the most
satisfactory attempt at understanding the complexities of
European political developments contained in Stein Rokkan’s so-
called ‘topological-typological’ map, or ‘macro-model’ of Europe
(Flora et al., 1999; Rokkan, 1970; Rokkan, 1975; Rokkan and
Urwin, 1983; cf. Daalder, 1979).

perspectives and prejudices. But one can also document the Different research strategies for studying
impact of Italian concerns in the much more sophisticated democracy
analyses of party systems by Giovanni Sartori (1976). There is the
disappointment of a left-socialist German emigré-scholar about Taking developments in the study of ‘Europe’ as an example, the
post-war developments in Germany and Austria in the work of considerable variety of modes of comparative study becomes
Otto Kirchheimer (see the collection by: Burin and Shell, 1969; readily apparent.
Krouwel, 1999), just as Scandinavia provided the undoubted
A seeming paradox is provided by the country monograph. To the
background of the development of a centre–periphery model in
extent such a monograph is written to elucidate particular political
the rich work of Stein Rokkan (1970). An even clearer example is
experiences for a more general public, it may offer insights of
the deliberate development of the consociationalist model against
comparative importance. This is much more true if the
the background of The Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and
monograph seeks to prove, or disprove, specific theoretical

17
propositions first developed with one or more other countries in great comparative government treatises of the past (e.g.
mind. The most telling example, however, is the consciously Friedrich, 1941; H. Finer, 1949; not to speak of earlier classics
theory-based analysis of a single country case (e.g. Eckstein, such as Lowell, 1896 or Bryce, 1929). These are very hard to find
1966; Lijphart, 1968). Moving to a somewhat higher level of (e.g. Blondel, 1969; S.E. Finer, 1970; for later attempts to analyse
abstraction are comparative analyses of two, or a few, particular ‘European democracies’ see Smith, 1972; Castles, 1982; Steiner,
countries. Most ‘comparativists’ must confess that their real 1986; Pelassy, 1992; Keman, 1996; Lane and Errson, 1998;
knowledge of different countries tapers off quickly beyond a Gallagher et al., 2000), and encounter the obvious problem of an
rather limited number of cases. One obvious way to overcome increased number of countries to be treated, with many more
such limitations is collaborative research, in which, for any given empirical research findings of potential relevance to be covered.
research question, experts on different countries are asked to join
Rather than on analysis at the level of countries as a whole, work
in a common research effort. Most books on (European)
has tended to focus on particular institutions such as monarchy
democratic comparative politics consist of edited volumes of this
(e.g. Fusilier, 1960), heads of state (Kaltefleiter, 1970), the
kind. Such volumes bring much needed information on different
formation of cabinets (e.g. Bogdanor and Butler, 1983; Pridham,
countries together and testify to the fruits of cross-fertilization.
1986; Budge and Keman, 1990; Laver and Shepsle, 1994),
But most of them suffer the natural defects of group enterprises.
parliaments (Wheare, 1963; von Beyme, 1970), electoral systems
The choice of countries is often a function of the availability, or
(Lijphart, 1993), parties in general (Sartori, 1976; von Beyme,
even the reliability, of individual country experts. Even the most
1985; Panebianco, 1988), particular party families, interest
rigorous attempt at editorial guidance rarely results in an even
groups, bureaucratic structures, and so on. In studies focusing on
quality, let alone genuine comparability, of country chapters.
particular institutions or groups, there is always real danger of
Introductory and concluding chapters very often are of a rather ad
analyses that are out of political and social context.
hoc and impressionistic nature (but see for impressive examples
volumes of a lasting nature, such as Neumann, 1956; Dahl, 1966; Alternatively, there is the massive growth of quantitative ‘cross-
Rose, 1974; Budge et al., 1987). national studies’. As stated before, both the quantity and the
quality of data have increased massively in the last decades,
This strengthens the case for attempting individual syntheses
through the efforts of governments, international organizations,
after all. The difficulty of such an enterprise becomes readily
the gallant work of those who prepare ‘data handbooks’), and
apparent, however, if one seeks for post-war equivalents of the

18
organize data archives. Such data invite cross-national studies, in some such ‘cross-national’ analyses verge on what Stein Rokkan
a large number of fields. Thus one need only inspect the guide to once dubbed mere ‘numerological nonsense’.
journal articles in ‘Electoral Studies’, not to speak of important
collaborative volumes (ranging from Rose, 1974 to Franklin et al., New approaches to the study of democratic
1992), to see the richness of studies on electoral behaviour, and politics
of elections (cf. Bartolini and Mair, 1990). We have important
studies on political participation (influenced notably by the works Developments in modern comparative politics, then, were largely
of Verba et al., 1978; and Barnes and Kaase, 1979) and on the the result of a greater knowledge of individual countries on the
impact of changing values (an area dominated by the highly one hand, and of a true revolution in data collection and analysis
debated analyses of Inglehart, 1977, 1990). The study of cabinet techniques on the other. But at the same time, new political
coalitions has offered a fertile testing-ground of formal theories problems appeared on the political agenda, which resulted in
(for a useful survey and discussion see Laver and Schofield, something like a paradigmatic shift. If comparative politics had
1990). As we shall see presently, the data revolution has also had concentrated thus far mainly on problems of regime change,
a great impact on the study of the development and problems of political institutions, and what in systems theory one calls ‘input’
modern welfare states and public policy. Not all such cross- structures, a new concern developed with problems of public
national studies are really comparative, however. Although they policy and political ‘output’. Various factors contributed to this
draw on data from many countries, they are often directed more development.
to problems of general political sociology or psychology than to a
One cause was the (renewed?) ‘Left’ revolution in social science
systematic inspection of country variables. ‘Contextual’
in the 1960s and 1970s, which faced the question why ‘capitalist’
knowledge is often neglected, and with it possibly the essence of
systems endured, once-confident prophesies to the contrary
comparative politics itself, which in the words of Sidney Verba
notwithstanding. This led to a new concern with the role of the
presupposes that one tries to generalize – using that term loosely
state which seemed somewhat forgotten in otherwise rival
– about nations, or to generalize about subnational entities like
approaches of systems theory and economic determinism. A
bureaucracies, parties, armies and interests groups in ways that
parallel debate arose on the extent to which political parties –
use national variation as part of the explanation (italics HD; Verba,
notably Socialist ones (see Castles, 1978; Schmidt, 1982b;
1986: 28). A lack of knowledge of the countries studied has made
Keman, 1988, 1990) – did affect government policies or not. A

19
major element in the discussion became the degree to which A third major contribution came from those who set out to
states differed in their dependence on external economic forces analyse the development of the welfare state in comparative
(e.g. Katzenstein, 1985), which could only be solved by terms. On the one hand, this work fitted in well with the concerns
comparative inquiry. Even when such studies related to European of older development theorists: one should note the link between
countries only, the obvious relevance of international economic state expansion, economic policies and processes of political
structures and events brought scholars closer to those who had development which had characterized the work of German
long been preoccupied with world economic realities (e.g. the Kathedersozialisten and Nationaloekonomen; (re)distribution had
proponents of a World Systems approach mentioned earlier). been one of the paramount concerns of the Committee on
Comparative Politics; and the leading empirical scholar in this
A second major factor was the development of ‘neo-corporatism’.
field, Peter Flora (1974, 1975; Flora and Heidenheimer, 1981;
Originating to some extent from a transposition of an approach
Flora, 1986) saw his work as filling a gap in Rokkan’s macro-
found useful in the study of Latin America (e.g. Schmitter, 1974,
model of democratic politics in Europe. On the other hand,
reprinted in Schmitter and Lehmbruch, 1979), it won great
comparative work on the welfare state was to encounter what
acclaim in attempts to explain ‘Europe’, and possible differences
was soon to become the major debate on its ‘fiscal crisis’, and on
within it. By emphasizing the close interaction between public
possible limits of state intervention more generally (Castles et al.,
and private actors, the neo-corporatist approach seemed
1987; Keman et al., 1987; Lane and Ersson, 1990). The label
successfully to bridge input and output structures, and to present
‘political economy’ was to cover a wide variety of concerns,
a more realistic picture of power relations and policy-making than
ranging from rational choice paradigms based on individualist
either those who had spoken uncritically of ‘the’ state, or those
self-interest, to studies of specific policy areas, competing
who had embraced a naive ‘pluralism’, had been able to provide.
models of general economic and monetary and fiscal policy, and
Neo- corporatism became in Schmitter’s words ‘something like a
renewed debates on political legitimacy.
growth industry’. But the gap between ‘general’ theory and
empirical validation remained substantial, to the detriment of the The great new challenges
value of the approach as a tool for general comparative analyses
as distinct from the study of specific policy areas. But such challenges would seem to pale before the momentous
changes taking place in what had been thought of as the
Communist world, and the attendant shifts in contemporary

20
international relations. In addition, the progress of European At the same time, developments within the European Union
integration, however halting, is affecting the very basis of increasingly undermine the role of member states as independent
independent states as the unit of analysis on which so much of units, even though international modes of decision-making
comparative politics has rested. remain juxtaposed to supranational ones. Powers of decision in
vital matters are either shared or transferred to organs ‘beyond
The long-standing assumption of a natural division of labour
the nation-state’; while at the same time states also lose formal or
between the study of international relations engaged in analysing
effective powers to regional or local units. The ‘national’ power to
the interaction of states, and comparative politics concerned with
control citizens, groups and enterprises becomes more dubious
the study of processes within states, always rested on somewhat
in a world of increased mobility and communication, affecting the
dubious ground. It left unclear how scholars were to handle the
status of individual ‘states’ as realistic units for comparative
formation of (new) states; it glossed over the great influence of
analysis.
domestic political processes on the making of foreign policies; it
belittled what became known in the international relations But the greatest, if generally unexpected, challenge to
literature as ‘transnational’ politics; and it postulated a degree of comparative politics comes from events in Central and Eastern
political independence for ‘sovereign’ states which never Europe. We mentioned earlier that the study of Communist states
completely fitted the realities of an interdependent world (as had become mainly the concern of a specialist group of scholars.
advocates of a World System approach, dependency theorists Experts on Communism have largely lost their ‘subject’, although
and other political economy theorists had long maintained). they have retained their knowledge of language and area.
Scholars who were mainly concerned with the study of the
The division of the world into rival blocs had arguably permitted a
development and the working of democracies, on the other hand,
certain separation of international relations and comparative
stand before an entirely new universe. Their concern had
politics. The assumption that existing states within a bloc
generally been with the comparative treatment of existing
remained distinct units of analysis seemed tenable in a world of
democratic states, which is a far cry from the making of new
relatively stable alliances (the necessary ceteris paribus
democracies in societies which have not known democratic rule
qualification being as easily forgotten as it was given). The much
for two political generations or more. For all the words spoken by
more fluid international scene of today makes such an
pundits at symposia, in newspaper columns or journal articles,
assumption rather more questionable.
the extent to which proven knowledge exists is unclear. The future

21
of democracy presupposes at a minimum the creation of new one and the same time about the development of democracy,
institutions, but the brunt of comparative politics teaching since democratic governance and related performances. In all honesty
Weimar has tended to discount the independent effect of political one should acknowledge that it provides few definite answers.
institutions. Seemingly abstract debates on the merits of
presidential, semi- presidential or parliamentary systems of The previous section is provided by Lynn University

government, on unicameral or bicameral legislatures, on electoral Library’s use of Ebook Central Academic Complete.
systems and their effect on the politicization of cleavages and the
formation of party systems, on the proper role of judicial bodies,
have become suddenly matters of crucial importance again (see:
Lijphart, 1994). But they must function in areas with all the
remnants of a totalitarian past, rival claims for political
control and citizenship, possibly severe disagreements on the
nature of the political unit itself – and all this amidst economic ruin
and change. It is as if all major issues in the study of comparative
politics are chaotically thrown together: the formation of states,
the working of institutions, the rivalry of parties and groups,
competing ideologies, the provision of state services and their
limits, issues of economic interdependence, international power
politics, and what not. Against this, one must ruefully
acknowledge that basic political phenomena such as civil war,
terror, ethnic conflict or the shattering effects of ideological strife,
have traditionally tended to fall in the interstices of the study of
international relations, comparative politics and political theory,
rather than forming their core.

Comparative politics, then, stands before its greatest challenge

yet. Never before were so many fundamental questions raised at

22
Section 3

Why compare countries?

Making comparisons is a natural human activity. From antiquity

to the present, generations of humans have sought to
understand and explain the similarities and differences they
perceive between themselves and others. Though historically,
the discovery of new peoples was often the product of a desire
to conquer them, the need to understand the similarities and
differences between the conquerors and the conquered was
none the less strong. At the turn of the new millennium, citizens
in all countries compare their position in society to those of
others in terms of their regional, ethnic, linguistic, religious,
familial, and cultural allegiances and identities; material
possessions; economic, social and political positions; and
relative location in systems of power and authority. Students
grow up worried about their types of fashion, circle of friends,
larger political world? In order to answer these important
collections of music, appearance and behaviour of their partners,
questions, this chapter is divided into four sections. The first
money earned by their parents, universities they attend, and
section establishes the four main reasons for comparison,
careers they may achieve.
including contextual description, classification and ‘typologizing’,
In short, to compare is to be human. But beyond these everyday hypothesis-testing and theory-building, and prediction (Hague et
comparisons, how is the process of comparison scientific? And al. 1992:24–27; Mackie and Marsh 1995:173–176). The second
how does the comparison of countries help us understand the section specifies how political science and the sub-field of
comparative politics can be scientific, outlining briefly the

23
similarities and differences between political science and natural Contextual description
science. The third section clarifies the terms and concepts used
in the preceding discussion and specifies further those terms and This first objective of comparative politics is the process of
concepts needed for a science of politics. The fourth section describing the political phenomena and events of a particular
summarizes these reasons, justifications, and terms for a science country, or group of countries. Traditionally, in political science,
of comparative politics. this objective of comparative politics was realized in countries
that were different to those of the researcher. Through often highly
Reasons for comparison detailed description, scholars sought to escape their own
ethnocentrism by studying those countries and cultures foreign
Today, the activity of comparing countries centres on four main
to them (Dogan and Pelassy 1990:5–13). The comparison to the
objectives, all of which co-exist and are mutually reinforcing in
researcher’s own country is either implicit or explicit, and the goal
any systematic comparative study, but some of which receive
of contextual description is either more knowledge about the
more emphasis, depending on the aspirations of the scholar.
nation studied, more knowledge about one’s own political
Contextual description allows political scientists to know what
system, or both. The comparative literature is replete with
other countries are like. Classification makes the world of politics
examples of this kind of research, and it is often cited to
less complex, effectively providing the researcher with ‘data
represent ‘old’ comparative politics as opposed to the ‘new’
containers’ into which empirical evidence is organized (Sartori
comparative politics, which has aspirations beyond mere
1970:1039). The hypothesis-testing function of comparison allows
description (Mayer 1989; Apter 1996). But the debate about what
the elimination of rival explanations about particular events,
constitutes old and new comparison often misses the important
actors, structures, etc. in an effort to help build more general
point that all systematic research begins with good description.
theories. Finally, comparison of countries and the generalizations
Thus description serves as an important component to the
that result from comparison allow prediction about the likely
research process and ought to precede the other three objectives
outcomes in other countries not included in the original
of comparison. Purely descriptive studies serve as the raw data
comparison, or outcomes in the future given the presence of
for those comparative studies that aspire to higher levels of
certain antecedent factors.
explanation.

24
From the field of Latin American politics, Macauley’s (1967) The process of classification is not new. The most famous effort
Sandino Affair is a fine example of contextual description. The at classification is found in Aristotle’s Politics (Book 3, Chapters
book is an exhaustive account of Agusto Sandino’s guerrilla 6–7), in which he establishes six types of rule. Based on the
campaign to oust US marines from Nicaragua after a presidential combination of their form of rule (good or corrupt) and the
succession crisis. It details the specific events surrounding the number of those who rule (one, few, or many), Aristotle derived
succession crisis, the role of US intervention, the way in which the following six forms: monarchy, aristocracy, polity, tyranny,
Sandino upheld his principles of non-intervention through guerrilla oligarchy, and democracy (see Hague et al. 1992:26). A more
attacks on US marines, and the eventual death of Sandino at the recent attempt at classification is found in Finer’s (1997) The
hands of Anastasio Somoza. The study serves as an example of History of Government, which claims that since antiquity (ca.
what Almond (1996:52) calls ‘evidence without inference’, where 3200 BC), all forms of government have belonged to one of the
the author tells the story of this remarkable political leader, but following four basic types: the palace polity, the church polity, the
the story is not meant to make any larger statements about the nobility polity, and the forum polity. Each type is ‘differentiated by
struggle against imperialism. Rather, the focus is on the specific the nature of the ruling personnel’ (ibid.: 37). In the palace polity,
events that unfolded in Nicaragua, and the important roles played ‘decision-making rests with one individual’ (ibid.: 38). In the
by the various characters in the historical events. church polity, the church has a significant if not exclusive say in
decision-making (ibid.: 50). In the nobility polity, a certain pre-
Classification can be a simple dichotomy such as between
eminent sector of society has substantial influence on decision-
authoritarianism and democracy, or it can be a more complex
making (ibid.: 47). In the forum polity, the authority is ‘conferred
‘typology’ of regimes and governmental systems. Like contextual
on the rulers from below’ by a ‘plural headed’ forum (ibid.: 51).
description, classification is a necessary component of
Aristotle’s classification was derived deductively and then
systematic comparison, but in many ways it represents a higher
‘matched’ to actual city states, while Finer’s classification scheme
level of comparison since it seeks to group many separate
is based on empirical observation and inductive reasoning (see
descriptive entities into simpler categories. It reduces the
below for the distinction between these two types of reasoning).
complexity of the world by seeking out those qualities that
Both scholars, however, seek to describe and simplify a more
countries share and those that they do not share.
complex reality by identifying key features common to each type

25
Hypothesis-testing the cumulative and incremental addition of system-level attributes
to existing explanatory theory, thereby making such theory
Despite the differences between contextual description and progressively more complete’. The symposia on comparative
classification, both forms of activity contribute to the next politics in World Politics (Kohli et al. 1995) and the American
objective of comparison, hypothesis-testing. In other words, Political Science Review (vol. 89, no. 2, pp. 454–481), suggest
once things have been described and classified, the that questions of theory, explanation, and the role of comparison
comparativist can then move on to search for those factors that are at the forefront of scholars’ minds.
may help explain what has been described and classified. Since
Description and classification
the 1950s, political scientists have increasingly sought to use
are the building blocks of
comparative methods to help build more complete theories of
comparative politics.
politics. Comparison of countries allows rival explanations to be
Classification simplifies
ruled out and hypotheses derived from certain theoretical
descriptions of the important
perspectives to be tested. Scholars using this mode of analysis,
objects of comparative inquiry.
which is often seen as the raison d’être of the ‘new’ comparative
Good classification should
politics (Mayer 1989), identify important variables, posit
have well-defined categories
relationships to exist between them, and illustrate these
into which empirical evidence
relationships comparatively in an effort to generate and build
can be organized. Categories
comprehensive theories.
that make up a classification
Arend Lijphart (1975) claims that comparison allows ‘testing scheme can be derived
hypothesized empirical relationships among variables’. Similarly, inductively from careful consideration of available evidence or
Peter Katzenstein argues that ‘comparative research is a focus on through a process of deduction in which ‘ideal’ types are
analytical relationships among variables validated by social generated. This briefing box contains the oldest example of
science, a focus that is modified by differences in the context in regime classification and one of the most recent. Both Aristotle
which we observe and measure those variables’ (in Kohli et al. and Samuel Finer seek to establish simple classificatory schemes
1995:11). Finally, Mayer (1989:46) argues somewhat more into which real societies can be placed. While Aristotle’s scheme
forcefully that ‘the unique potential of comparative analysis lies in

26
is founded on normative grounds, Finer’s scheme is derived palace-church, forum- nobility, forum-church, and nobility-church.
empirically. These pure and hybrid types are meant to describe all the regime
types that have existed in world history from 3200 BC to the
In Book 3 of Politics, Aristotle derives regime types which are
modern nation state. Finer concedes that there are few instances
divided on the one hand between those that are ‘good’ and those
of pure forms in history and that most polities fit one of his hybrid
that are ‘corrupt’, and on the other, between the different number
types. These pure forms, their hybrids, and examples from world
of rulers that make up the decision-making authority, namely, the
history appear in Figure 1.2. The diagonal that results from the
one, the few, and the many. Good government rules in the
intersection of the first row and column in the figure represents
common interest while corrupt government rules in the interests
the pure forms, while the remaining cells contain the hybrid forms.
of those who comprise the dominant authority. The intersection
Many regime types that were originally pure became hybrid at
between these two divisions yields six regime types; all of which
different points in history. Of all the types, the pure palace and its
appear in Figure 1.1. The figure shows that the good types
variants have remained the most common through history, and
include monarchy, aristocracy, and polity. The corrupt types
despite its popularity today, the forum polity that represents
include tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy. Each type is based on
modern secular democracies is a relatively rare and recent regime
a different idea of justice (McClelland 1997:57). Thus, monarchy is
type (Finer 1997:46).
rule by the one for the common interest, while tyranny is rule by
the one for the one. Aristocracy is rule by the few for the common Furthermore, the publication of truly comparative books in the
interest, while oligarchy is rule by the few for the few. Polity is rule field continues to demonstrate the fruitfulness of this mode of
by the many for the common good, while democracy is rule by analysis. For example, Luebbert (1991) compares Britain, France,
the many for the many, or what Aristotle called ‘mob rule’. Switzerland, Belgium, The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway,
Sweden, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Italy, and Spain to uncover
Finer (1997:37) adopts an Aristotelian approach to regime
the class origins of regime type in inter-war Europe.
classification by identifying four ‘pure’ types of regime and their
Rueschemeyer et al. (1992) compare the historical experiences of
logical ‘hybrids’. Each regime type is based on the nature of its
the advanced industrial countries with those of the developing
ruling personnel. The pure types include the palace, the forum,
world to uncover the relationship between capitalist development
the nobility, and the church. The hybrid types are the six possible
and democracy. Wickham- Crowley (1993) compares instances of
combinations of the pure types, palace-forum, palace-nobility,
revolutionary activity in Latin America to discover the causal

27
configuration of successful and unsuccessful social revolution in Prediction
the region. Foweraker and Landman (1997) compare the
authoritarian cases of Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Spain to illustrate The final and most difficult objective of comparative politics is a
the relationship between citizenship rights and social movements. logical extension of hypothesis-testing, namely, to make
Finally, Inglehart (1997) compares survey data from forty-three predictions about outcomes in other countries based on the
societies to assess the mutual relationship between the generalizations from the initial comparison, or to make claims
process of modernization (or post-modernization) and about future political outcomes. Prediction in comparative politics
changing value systems. In all these works, key explanatory and tends to be made in probabilistic terms, such as ‘countries with
outcome variables are carefully defined and the relationships systems of proportional representation are more likely to have
between them are demonstrated through comparison of empirical multiple political parties’. In this example, a political scientist
evidence. would know the likely effect of a nation switching its electoral
system from a plurality or ‘first-past-the- post’ rule to a
Voting participation proportional one (Hague et al. 1992). Another predictive example

In Contemporary Democracies, Powell (1982) examines a number involves the benefits accrued to political incumbents in contesting

of key hypotheses concerning voter participation in twenty-nine future elections. Based on the empirical observations of past

democratic countries. Participation is measured using voter electoral contests, political scientists could be reasonably secure

turnout, or the percentage of the eligible voters who actually in predicting that the incumbent in any given election has a higher

voted in national elections. He argues that voting participation probability of winning the election than the non-incumbent (see

ought to be higher in countries with higher levels of economic King et al. 1994).

development (per capita GNP), a representational constitution, Although prediction is less an aspiration of comparativists today
electoral laws that facilitate voting, and a party system with than in the past, there are those who continue to couch their
strong alignments to groups in society (Powell 1982:120– 121). arguments in predictive language. For example, weak predictive
His statistical analysis of the data from these countries reveals arguments are found in Huntington’s (1996) The Clash of
positive effects for all these variables on voter participation. Civilizations and the Remaking of the New World Order, and
strong predictive arguments are found in Vanhanen’s (1997) The
Prospect of Democracy. Huntington (1996) identifies nine key

28
cultural groupings which he believes currently characterize the proportion of students, the size of the literate population, the
world’s population, and predicts that future conflicts will be more number of family farms, and the degree of decentralization of
likely to appear in the areas where two or more of these cultures non-agricultural economic resources (Vanhanen 1997:59–60). By
meet or ‘clash’. Not only does he seek to predict future conflicts examining the relationship between the level of democracy and
in the world, but claims that his ‘civilization’ approach accounts the distribution of power resources from 1850–1993, Vanhanen
for more post-Cold War events than rival approaches. His compares the actual 1993 values of democracy to those that
predictions became all the more relevant after the terrorist attacks were predicted using regression analysis. Simply put, making an
on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11 September inference is ‘using facts we know to learn something about facts
2001, which many saw as proof of a clash between the ‘Western’ we do not know’ (King et al. 1994:119 after Mill; see also Couvalis
and ‘Islamic’ civilizations outlined in his book. Similarly, based on 1997). Gabriel Almond (1996) observes that ‘the object of political
observations of the presence of economic resources and the science…is the creation of knowledge, defined as inferences or
occurrence of democracy in the world from the middle of the generalizations about politics drawn from evidence’; and Mayer
nineteenth century until today, Vanhanen (1997:99–154) predicts (1989:56) claims that ‘comparative analysis…[is] a method that
the degree to which individual countries and regions in the world plays a central role in the explanatory mission of political science
are likely to become democratic itself. Thus, comparative politics seeks to achieve the goal of
inference about politics through comparing countries. This
The science in political science section of the chapter clarifies how the process of making
inferences is the underlying principle of comparative politics, and
The preceding section specified the four main objectives of
how the methodological assumptions of natural science are
comparison in political science and hinted, through reference to
important to a science of politics.
questions of explanation, theory-building, and prediction, how
comparison might be considered a science. The key term used For the purposes of this volume, science is defined as the gradual
world based on their distribution of ‘power resources’. accumulation of knowledge about the empirical world through
Democracy is measured by a combination of the smallest parties’ systematic practices of inquiry, including the collection of
share of the vote and the percentage turnout (ibid.: 35). The evidence, the generation and testing of hypotheses, and the
distribution of power resources is measured by an index that drawing of substantive inferences.1 But beyond this basic
combines the urban population, the non-agricultural population, definition, what are the parallels between political science and

29
natural science? What are the main differences between the two? evolution and gravity are mental constructs, whose repeated
And how does comparison help resolve these differences? The empirical verification has given them a law-like status.
strong case for a science of politics suggests that both
Political scientists also collect evidence systematically (e.g.
(comparative) political science and natural science share the
archival records, interviews, official statistics, histories, or
same basic goals, namely, description, classification, hypothesis-
surveys), search for discernible patterns in the evidence, and
testing, and prediction. Both activities require the systematic
formulate theories to account for those patterns. In comparative
collection of evidence; an ordering of the evidence and the search
politics, the political scientist compares countries in an effort to
for discernible patterns; the formulation and testing of contending
verify the theories that have been formulated. Thus, both the
explanations for the occurrence of the patterns; and the building
natural and political sciences seek to make inferences based on
of more general theories. Thus, a science of politics always
the empirical world they observe, and both seek to maximize the
contains this ‘evidence-inference methodological core’ (Almond
certainty of these inferences. Despite these general similarities
1996:52), or the ‘customary pair’ of theory and observation
between natural science and political science, there remain two
(Feyerabend 1993:23; see also Gordon 1991:589–634).
important (albeit not absolute) differences: experimentation and
Two examples from the natural sciences may help make these the generation of scientific ‘laws’. These differences are
points clearer. Both the theory of evolution and the theory of discussed in turn.
gravity are based on the systematic collection of evidence.
The first difference between natural science and political science
Charles Darwin sought to document the entirety of the Earth’s
is the role of experimentation. While for some areas of natural
flora and fauna. Originally in an effort to demonstrate the glory
scientific research, such as astronomy and seismology,
of God’s creation, Darwin soon discovered a pattern in what he
experimentation is not possible, the advances in natural science
was observing for which an alternative explanation was possible.
are generally supported by evidence gathered through
The theory of evolution, buttressed later by the theory of natural
experimentation, which involves the controlled manipulation of
selection, emerged as the new explanation for the variety of
the subject under study in an effort to isolate causal factors.
species found in the natural world. Similarly, Isaac Newton
Evidence in political science, on the other hand, tends not to be
formulated the theory of gravity based on the collection of
gathered through experimentation, even though some political
evidence (the falling apple!). Neither scientist had actually seen
scientists use experiments in their research (e.g. those who work
evolution or gravity but merely observed its effects. In this way,

30
on game theory, focus groups, and ‘citizen-juries’). Comparative the comparativist seeks to demonstrate that the type of electoral
politics, in particular, cannot use experimentation for both system has some bearing on the type of party system. In this
practical and ethical reasons. For example, it would be practically way, comparative research ‘simulates’ experimentation
impossible to re-run the same election in the same country with a (Lieberson 1987:45; Ferguson 1997b; see also Tetlock and
different electoral system to observe the differences in the Lebow 2001).
outcome of the two systems. Ethically, it would be impossible to
The second difference between natural science and political
redistribute income intentionally in a developing country to see if
science involves the law- like status that is given to certain
civil strife erupts. Both these examples demonstrate the use of
scientific theories. Experimentation and repeated empirical
counterfactuals, or situations in which the researcher imagines a
verification give theories in the natural sciences the status of laws
state of affairs where the antecedent factors to a given event are
(e.g. the law of conservation of energy, or Boyle’s Law of Gases);
absent and where an alternative course of events or outcomes is
however, the nature of evidence marshalled in support of theories
considered (Ferguson 1997b).
of political science is such that law-like generalizations are rare.
Whether it is different electoral systems, different distributions of Three famous ‘laws’ of political science are well known. Michels’
income, different levels of economic development, or the ‘Iron Law of Oligarchy’ suggests that the natural processes
absence of particular revolutionary groups, political scientists observable in the dynamics of organizations and small groups are
implicitly suggest a counterfactual situation when making claims such that over time, all groups and organizations develop a
about important explanatory factors. The claim that ‘single- hierarchical structure of authority with a small elite at their head.
member district electoral systems tend to produce two-party In an example from the comparative literature, this law has been
systems’ is in effect also claiming that countries without such tested in the examination of social movement organizations,
electoral systems will necessarily have different political party where evidence suggests that the most successful and
systems. While some historians may construct alternative longstanding social movement organizations tend to have formal
historical scenarios based on ‘calculations about the relative bureaucratic structures and authoritative bodies composed of
probability of plausible outcomes’ (ibid.: 85), political scientists elites from the movement (see Tarrow 1994). The second law,
compare countries that differ in ways that supply the called ‘Duverger’s Law’, states that electoral systems based on
counterfactual situation. For example, by comparing the political single- member districts tend to produce two parties while
party systems across countries with different electoral systems, systems with proportional representation tend to produce multiple

31
parties. This law has been repeatedly tested in comparative logic of inference. Second, comparative politics is a non-
studies on electoral systems and on balance, is supported by the experimental (or quasi-experimental) social science that seeks to
evidence (see Rae 1971; Lijphart 1994a). make generalizations based on the best available evidence
(Campbell and Stanley 1963; Lijphart 1975:162; Lieberson 1987).
The third law on ‘the democratic peace’ states that democracies
Third, as a substitute for experimentation, comparison allows for
do not go to war with each other (Babst 1964). Repeated
control (Sartori 1994:16), holding certain things constant while
comparative studies in international relations of war ‘dyads’ (i.e.
examining and accounting for observed differences (see Chapter
pairs of countries that engage in war with each other),
2). Fourth, while not seeking ironclad laws, comparative politics
demonstrate that ‘[t]he number of wars between the democracies
seeks clarity, understanding, and explanation of political
during the past two centuries ranges from zero to less than a
phenomena about which it can be reasonably certain. The goal of
handful depending on precisely how democracy is defined’ (Levy
this book therefore, is to provide the necessary tools for students
1989:87– 88). Scholars argue that this ‘absence of war between
of politics to achieve this clarity, understanding, and explanation
democracies comes as close to anything we have to an empirical
while avoiding the pitfalls and obstacles that limit such an
law in international relations’ (ibid.: 88). Moreover, combined with
enterprise.
the process of democratization, which has become more
pronounced since 1974 (see Chapter 7), the law of democratic Scientific terms and concepts
peace offers optimism about future conflict in the world, since a
larger proportion of democracies in the world means fewer inter- Before concluding this chapter, it is necessary to define and
state wars (see Ward and Gleditsch 1998; Przeworski et al. 2000; clarify terms that have been used thus far, as well as terms that
Gelpi and Griesdorf 2001). will be encountered throughout the book. These are general terms
used throughout the social sciences that all students of politics
Aside from these three ‘laws’ of political science, the bulk of
ought to know if they aspire to a more scientific approach to
comparative research eschews making such strong claims. What
understanding the political world. These terms include theory and
then are the main conclusions about comparative politics that can
method; ontology, epistemology, and methodology; cases (or
be drawn from this cursory comparison to natural science? First,
countries), units of analysis, variables, and observations; levels of
for practical and ethical reasons, comparative politics relaxes
analysis; and quantitative and qualitative methods. Throughout
some of the rigours of natural science, but still employs the same

32
the discussion every effort is made to show how the book uses empirical theory of social revolution may posit a series of socio-
these terms and concepts of social science. economic factors that account for revolutionary behaviour in
certain types of people, which would then be tested using
Theory & method evidence. In addition, theories in political science can be
deductive or inductive. Deductive theories arrive at their
There are two basic types of theory in political science, normative
conclusions by applying reason to a given set of premises (Stoker
and empirical. Normative theory specifies how things in society
1995:17; Lawson 1997:16–19; Couvalis 1997). For example, the
ought to be, given a desired set of outcomes and philosophical
rational choice perspective in political science assumes that all
position. From the Greeks and Romans to Rawls, normative
political actors maximize their own personal utility, or self-interest,
political theorists establish frameworks for realizing the common
when choosing between alternatives. From that basic
good and address key problems of society through theoretical
assumption, the scholar logically deduces the range of possible
argumentation.
outcomes (Ward 1995:79; Levi 1997). Inductive theories, on the
other hand, arrive at their conclusions through observation of
known facts (Couvalis 1997). For example, a scholar observing
higher instances of peasant rebellion in geographical areas with
higher levels of land and income inequality will arrive inductively
at the conclusion that inequality is related to rebellion.
Comparison of evidence from other countries or geographical
regions would seek to confirm this generalization.
Locke, Rousseau, and Kant
Method, on the other hand, is the means by which a theory is
For example, Rawls (1971) carries on the tradition of liberal
derived and tested, including the collection of evidence,
contract theory found in Locke, Rousseau and Kant, by deriving
formulation and testing of hypotheses, and the arrival at
principles of justice from an idealized thought experiment. In
substantive conclusions. Evidence can be collected, for example,
contrast, empirical theory seeks to establish causal relationships
through the examination of historical records, the collation and
between two or more concepts in an effort to explain the
analysis of open-ended interviews of political activists, the
occurrence of observed political phenomena. For example, an
systematic reporting of the participant observation of social

33
movement activities, or the construction and analysis of mass contrast to ontology, it concerns what knowledge of the political
surveys of a sample of the population. In formulating and testing world is possible and what rules of inquiry scholars follow in
hypotheses, method makes the decision rules and the rejection of knowing the political world. In the history and philosophy of
rival hypotheses explicit. Finally, substantive conclusions are science, epistemology has moved from the strong claim made by
drawn from the theories and the evidence. As the preceding positivists that a unity of the natural and social sciences is
discussion in this chapter suggests, this book, although not possible to one that recognizes a certain plurality of approaches
primarily concerned with different theories of comparative grounded in the link between evidence and inference of the kind
politics, seeks to demonstrate the different ways in which that this book advocates (see Gordon 1991:589–668). In contrast
comparative methods can be used to test deductive and to ontology and epistemology, methodology concerns the ways in
inductive empirical theories of politics. which knowledge of the political world is acquired. As its name
suggests, methodology is the study of different methods or
Ontology, epistemology & methodology systems of methods in a given field of inquiry. There are thus rules
of inquiry specific to qualitative and quantitative methods, even
Ontology, epistemology, and methodology are terms that occur in
though both strive to provide explanation and understanding of
the discussion of the philosophy of science and the distinctions
observed political phenomena. These three concepts also have
between them often become blurred in the comparative literature.
‘directional dependence’ such that ontology establishes what is
Ontology is, quite literally, the study of being, or the metaphysical
knowable, epistemology how it is knowable, and methodology
concern with the essence of things, including the ‘nature,
how it is acquired systematically (Hay 2002:61–66).
constitution, and structure of the objects’ of comparative inquiry
(Lawson 1997:15). It concerns what can be studied, what can be Having defined these terms, it is helpful for the reader to know
compared, and what constitutes the political. In other words, for how the discussions throughout the rest of this book are
comparative politics, ontology concerns the countries, events, grounded in certain ontological, epistemological, and
actors, institutions, and processes among other things that are methodological assumptions. Without entering a philosophical
observable and in need of explanation. Epistemology is the study debate, this book is grounded in the ontological belief that
of the nature of knowledge, or how scholars come to know the animate and inanimate objects in the world exist in and of
world, both through a priori means and through a posteriori themselves, and by extension observable events exist in and of
means of observation, sense impression, and experience. In themselves. The object of political science is to account for and

34
understand these events in terms of why they happened, how adherence to rules of inquiry. On the other hand, it recognizes
they happened, and the likelihood of them happening again in the that knowledge of the political world cannot be ‘value-free’ and
future, as well as in different parts of the world. While adhering to that the processes of theory generation and observation may not
the notion that history is ‘open ended’ (Popper 1997), this book be mutually exclusive (Feyerabend 1993:27; Sanders 1995:67–68;
accepts that there are certain ‘event regularities’ (Lawson 1997) in Couvalis 1997). It therefore accepts that certain kinds of cross-
the world that political science seeks to describe and explain. cultural comparisons and cross-national comparisons can be
made if certain procedures are adopted. Methodologically, the
Epistemologically, comparative politics inhabits a broad
book is concerned with the application of comparative methods
spectrum. One end of the spectrum contends that all things
to real research problems in comparative politics in an effort to
political and social are knowable through the process of
help students make more valid generalizations about the political
deduction based on indisputable assumptions about human
world they observe.
nature. Typically labelled nomological-deductivism, such an
epistemological position adheres to the positivist quest for law Cases, units of analysis, variables & observations
like generalizations about political behaviour. The other end of the
spectrum claims that all knowledge is culturally bound and These four terms are vital aspects of systematic research in
relative, suggesting that it is impossible to know anything beyond comparative politics. Cases are those countries that feature in the
the strict confines of the local cultural context (Kohli et al. 1995). comparative analysis. For example, in States and Social
Such a position suggests that a science of comparative politics is Revolutions (1979), Theda Skocpol examines the cases of France,
not possible, since political concepts would not ‘travel’ across Russia, and China. Units of analysis are the objects on which the
different cultural contexts and there would be fundamental scholar collects data, such as individual people, countries,
differences in their meaning (see Macintyre 1971). electoral systems, social movements, etc. Variables are those
concepts whose values change over a given set of units, such as
In an effort to be inclusive of different methods of comparison,
income, political party identification, propensity to join a protest
this book is located somewhere in between these two extremes.
movement, etc. Observations are the values of the variables for
On the one hand, it accepts that certain deductive theories of
each unit, which can be numeric, verbal, or even visual. For
politics can be tested in the real world and that generalizations
example, a hypothetical study of social movements in Britain,
about the world of politics are possible given the proper
France, The Netherlands, and Germany may have a variable

35
entitled ‘strategy’, which has categories denoted ‘political the commercialization of agriculture, or elite bargaining. In his
lobbying’, ‘peaceful demonstration’, ‘violent direct action’, study of guerrillas and revolution in Latin America, Wickham-
‘grass-roots organizing’, and ‘consciousness-raising’. In this Crowley (1993) seeks to explain the occurrence of successful
hypothetical study, the cases are the countries, the units of social revolutions.
analysis are the movements, the variable is ‘strategy’, and the
In this case, successful social revolution is the dependent
observation is the value of the strategy variable for a given
variable. The independent variables include the presence of a
movement in a given country. In addition to the different values
guerrilla group, the support of workers and peasants, sufficient
that variables assume, they can either be dependent or
guerrilla military strength, the presence of a traditional patrimonial
independent. Dependent variables (alternatively referred to as
regime, and the withdrawal of US military and economic support
outcome variables, endogenous variables, or the explanandum)
for the incumbent regime (Wickham-Crowley 1993:312).
are those political outcomes that the research is trying to explain.
An independent variable, on the other hand, is that which
explains the dependent variable (and is alternatively labelled a
causal variable, an explanatory variable, an exogenous variable, Levels of analysis
or the explicandum). The distinction between dependent and
independent variables is derived from the specific research Levels of analysis in political science are divided between the

question of a comparative project and the particular theoretical micro, or individual level, and the macro, or system level. Micro-

perspective that has been adopted. Since most political events political analysis examines the political activity of individuals,

have multiple explanations, it is possible to have more than one such as respondents in a mass survey, elite members of a

independent variable for a given dependent variable. In formal political party or government, or activists in a protest movement.

models of politics, the dependent variable is often depicted by a Macro-political analysis focuses on groups of individuals,

y, and the independent variable is often depicted by an x. structures of power, social classes, economic processes, and the
interaction of nation states. As in other divisions in political
For example, a dependent variable may include votes for a leftist science, there are those who believe all of politics can be
party, military coups, revolutions, or transitions to democracy. explained by focusing on micro-level processes, and there are
Independent variables to account for each of these dependent those who believe that all of politics can be explained by a focus
variables may include, respectively, social class, economic crisis, on macro-level processes. This is sometimes called the

36
‘structure-agency’ problem of politics (see Hay 1995, 2002). limited but did not determine the actions of individual leaders.
Micro-analysts believe that the world of politics is shaped by the This present book does not privilege one level of analysis over
actions of ‘structureless agents’, while macro-analysts believe another. Rather, it demonstrates the ways in which different levels
that that world is shaped by the unstoppable processes of of analysis fit into different comparative methods.
‘agentless-structures’.
Quantitative and qualitative methods
The comparative politics literature is rich with examples of these
different levels of analysis. In The Rational Peasant, Samuel Simply put, quantitative methods seek to show differences in
Popkin (1979) argues that revolutionary movements are best number between certain objects of analysis and qualitative
understood by focusing on the preferences and actions of methods seek to show differences in kind. Quantitative analysis
individual peasants (a micro-level analysis). Support for this answers the simple question, ‘How many of them are
assertion comes from his intense study of peasant activity in there?’ (Miller 1995:154), where the ‘them’ represents any object
Vietnam. In contrast to Popkin, Jeffrey Paige (1975) in Agrarian of comparison that can either be counted or assigned a numerical
Revolution, demonstrates that revolutions are most likely in value. For example, it is possible to count the number of protest
countries with a particular structural combination of owners and events or assign values to different social movement strategies
cultivators. This macro-level analysis is carried out through (see above, p. 17), the degree to which human rights are
comparing many countries at once, and then verifying the protected (see Chapter 9), and an individual’s identification with
findings in the three countries of Vietnam, Angola, and Peru (see political parties. Quantitative data can be official aggregate data
Chapter 2). In Liberalism, Fascism, or Social Democracy, Gregory published by governments on growth rates, revenues and
Luebbert (1991) claims that the types of regime that emerged in expenditures, levels of agricultural and industrial production,
inter-war Europe had nothing to do with ‘leadership and crime rates and prison populations, or the number of hectares of
meaningful choice’ (ibid.: 306), but were determined structurally land devoted to agrarian reform. Quantitative data can also be
by mass material interests, social classes, and political parties (a individual, such as that found in the numerous market research
macro-level analysis). Finally, in the Breakdown of Democratic surveys and public opinion polls. Quantitative methods are based
Regimes, Stepan (1978) finds the middle ground in accounting for on the distributions these data exhibit and the relationships that
the 1964 breakdown of democracy in Brazil, where he suggests can be established between numeric variables using simple and
that macro-political conditions at the time of breakdown certainly advanced statistical methods.

37
Qualitative methods seek to identify and understand the observation strive to uncover a deeper level of information in
attributes, characteristics, and traits of the objects of inquiry, and order to capture meaning, process, and context, where
the nature of the method necessarily requires a focus on a small explanation ‘involves describing and understanding people as
number of countries. In comparative politics, there are three types conscious and social human beings’ (Devine 1995:140). Similarly,
of qualitative methods: macro-historical comparison (and its three interpretivism, hermeneutics, and ‘thick description’ are
subtypes) (Skocpol and Somers 1980; Ragin et al. 1996); in-depth concerned with interpretation, understanding, and the deeper
interviews and participant observation (Devine 1995); and what is structures of meanings associated with the objects of inquiry.
variously called interpretivism, hermeneutics, and ‘thick
Over the years a division in political science has developed
description’ (Geertz 1973; Fay 1975). In none of these types of
between those who use quantitative methods and those who use
method is there an attempt to give numerical expression to the
qualitative methods; however, it seems that this division is a false
objects of inquiry, and in all of them, the goal is to provide well-
one if both methods adhere to the goal of making inferences from
rounded and complete discursive accounts. These more
available evidence (Foweraker and Landman 1997:48–49). In
complete accounts are often referred to as ‘ideographic’ or
other words, this book is grounded in the belief that the same
‘configurative’, since they seek to identify all the elements
logic of inference ought to apply equally to quantitative and
important in accounting for the outcome.
qualitative methods (see King et al. 1994). Perhaps more
Through focus on a small number of countries, comparative importantly, the qualitative distinction made among categories in
macro-history allows for the ‘parallel demonstration of theory’, the comparative classification schemes necessarily precedes the
‘contrast of contexts’, or ‘macrocausal’ explanation (Skocpol and process of quantification (Sartori 1970, 1994). And, as the
Somers 1980). Parallel demonstration of theory tests the ensuing chapters will demonstrate, it is clear that the field of
fruitfulness of theory across a range of countries. The contrast of comparative politics is richly populated with studies that use
contexts helps to identify unique features of countries in an effort quantitative and qualitative methods (or both) at all levels of
to show their effect on social processes, while bringing out the analysis, as well as across all methods of comparison.
richness of the individual countries and aspiring to ‘descriptive
holism’. Macro-causal analysis seeks to explain observed political Summary
phenomena through the identification and analysis of ‘master’
variables (Luebbert 1991:5). In-depth interviews and participant

38
This chapter has outlined the four main objectives of comparative
politics and argued further that all co-exist and are necessary for
systematic research. Predictions cannot be made without well-
founded theories; theories cannot be made without proper
classification; and classification cannot be made without good
description. The chapter has shown how comparative politics is
scientific if it aspires to making inferences about the political
world based on the best available evidence. Finally, it defined the
key terms that will be used throughout the book. The next chapter
examines the different methods of comparison that are available
to students, all of which can be used to make larger inferences
about the political world that we observe.

The previous section is provided by Lynn University

Library’s use of EBSCO eBooks.

39
Chapter 2

Theories,
Hypotheses &
Evidence

Learning objectives

After reading this chapter, students will be able to do the

following:

• Understand theories, hypotheses, and evidence.

• Analyze the use of theories, hypotheses and evidence

with the comparative approach.
Science & scientific research equipment in their laboratories. Etymologically, the word
“science” is derived from the Latin word scientia meaning
What is research? Depending on who you ask, you will likely get knowledge. Science refers to a systematic and organized body of
very different answers to this seemingly innocuous question. knowledge in any area of inquiry that is acquired using “the
Some people will say that they routinely research different online scientific method” (the scientific method is described further
websites to find the best place to buy goods or services they below). Science can be grouped into two broad categories:
want. Television news channels supposedly conduct research in natural science and social science. Natural science is the science
the form of viewer polls on topics of public interest such as of naturally occurring objects or phenomena, such as light,
forthcoming elections or government-funded projects. objects, matter, earth, celestial bodies, or the human body.
Undergraduate students research the Internet to find the Natural sciences can be further classified into physical sciences,
information they need to complete assigned projects or term earth sciences, life sciences, and others. Physical sciences
papers. Graduate students working on research projects for a consist of disciplines such as physics (the science of physical
professor may see research as collecting or analyzing data objects), chemistry (the science of matter), and astronomy (the
related to their project. Businesses and consultants research science of celestial objects). Earth sciences consist of disciplines
different potential solutions to remedy organizational problems such as geology (the science of the earth). Life sciences include
such as a supply chain bottleneck or to identify customer disciplines such as biology (the science of human bodies) and
purchase patterns. However, none of the above can be botany (the science of plants). In contrast, social science is the
considered “scientific research” unless: (1) it contributes to a science of people or collections of people, such as groups, firms,
body of science, and (2) it follows the scientific method. This societies, or economies, and their individual or collective
chapter will examine what these terms mean. behaviors. Social sciences can be classified into disciplines such
as psychology (the science of human behaviors), sociology (the
Science science of social groups), and economics (the science of firms,
markets, and economies).
What is science? To some, science refers to difficult high school
or college-level courses such as physics, chemistry, and biology The natural sciences are different from the social sciences in
meant only for the brightest students. To others, science is a craft several respects. The natural sciences are very precise, accurate,
practiced by scientists in white coats using specialized deterministic, and independent of the person making the

41
scientific observations. For instance, a scientific experiment in problem such as reduce global terrorism or rescue an economy
physics, such as measuring the speed of sound through a certain from a recession. Any student studying the social sciences must
media or the refractive index of water, should always yield the be cognizant of and comfortable with handling higher levels of
exact same results, irrespective of the time or place of the ambiguity, uncertainty, and error that come with such sciences,
experiment, or the person conducting the experiment. If two which merely reflects the high variability of social objects.
students conducting the same physics experiment obtain two
Sciences can also be classified based on their purpose. Basic
different values of these physical properties, then it generally
sciences, also called pure sciences, are those that explain the
means that one or both of those students must be in error.
most basic objects and forces, relationships between them, and
However, the same cannot be said for the social sciences, which
laws governing them. Examples include physics, mathematics,
tend to be less accurate, deterministic, or unambiguous. For
and biology. Applied sciences, also called practical sciences, are
instance, if you measure a person’s happiness using a
sciences that apply scientific knowledge from basic sciences in a
hypothetical instrument, you may find that the same person is
physical environment. For instance, engineering is an applied
more happy or less happy (or sad) on different days and
science that applies the laws of physics and chemistry for
sometimes, at different times on the same day. One’s happiness
practical applications such as building stronger bridges or fuel
may vary depending on the news that person received that day or
efficient combustion engines, while medicine is an applied
on the events that transpired earlier during that day. Furthermore,
science that applies the laws of biology for solving human
there is not a single instrument or metric that can accurately
ailments. Both basic and applied sciences are required for human
measure a person’s happiness. Hence, one instrument may
development. However, applied sciences cannot stand on their
calibrate a person as being “more happy” while a second
own right, but instead relies on basic sciences for its progress. Of
instrument may find that the same person is “less happy” at the
course, the industry and private enterprises tend to focus more
same instant in time. In other words, there is a high degree of
on applied sciences given their practical value, while universities
measurement error in the social sciences and there is
study both basic and applied sciences.
considerable uncertainty and little agreement on social science
policy decisions. For instance, you will not find many
Scientific knowledge
disagreements among natural scientists on the speed of light or
the speed of the earth around the sun, but you will find numerous The purpose of science is to create scientific knowledge.
disagreements among social scientists on how to solve a social Scientific knowledge refers to a generalized body of laws and
42
theories to explain a phenomenon or behavior of interest that are The goal of scientific research is to discover laws and postulate
acquired using the scientific method. Laws are observed patterns theories that can explain natural or social phenomena, or in other
of phenomena or behaviors, while theories are systematic words, build scientific knowledge. It is important to understand
explanations of the underlying phenomenon or behavior. For that this knowledge may be imperfect or even quite far from the
instance, in physics, the Newtonian Laws of Motion describe truth. Sometimes, there may not be a single universal truth, but
what happens when an object is in a state of rest or motion rather an equilibrium of “multiple truths.” We must understand
(Newton’s First Law), what force is needed to move a stationary that the theories, upon which scientific knowledge is based, are
object or stop a moving object (Newton’s Second Law), and what only explanations of a particular phenomenon, as suggested by a
happens when two objects collide (Newton’s Third Law). scientist. As such, there may be good or poor explanations,
Collectively, the three laws constitute the basis of classical depending on the extent to which those explanations fit well with
mechanics – a theory of moving objects. Likewise, the theory of reality, and consequently, there may be good or poor theories.
optics explains the properties of light and how it behaves in The progress of science is marked by our progression over time
different media, electromagnetic theory explains the properties of from poorer theories to better theories, through better
electricity and how to generate it, quantum mechanics explains observations using more accurate instruments and more informed
the properties of subatomic particles, and thermodynamics logical reasoning. We arrive at scientific laws or theories through a
explains the properties of energy and mechanical work. An process of logic and evidence. Logic (theory) and evidence
introductory college level text book in physics will likely contain (observations) are the two, and only two, pillars upon which
separate chapters devoted to each of these theories. Similar scientific knowledge is based. In science, theories and
theories are also available in social sciences. For instance, observations are interrelated and cannot exist without each other.
cognitive dissonance theory in psychology explains how people Theories provide meaning and significance to what we observe,
react when their observations of an event is different from what and observations help validate or refine existing theory or
they expected of that event, general deterrence theory explains construct new theory. Any other means of knowledge acquisition,
why some people engage in improper or criminal behaviors, such such as faith or authority cannot be considered science.
as illegally download music or commit software piracy, and the
theory of planned behavior explains how people make conscious Scientific research
reasoned choices in their everyday lives.
Given that theories and observations are the two pillars of
science, scientific research operates at two levels: a theoretical
43
level and an empirical level. The theoretical level is concerned
with developing abstract concepts about a natural or social
phenomenon and relationships between those concepts (i.e.,
build “theories”), while the empirical level is concerned with
testing the theoretical concepts and relationships to see how well
they reflect our observations of reality, with the goal of ultimately
building better theories. Over time, a theory becomes more and
more refined (i.e., fits the observed reality better), and the science
gains maturity. Scientific research involves continually moving
back and forth between theory and observations. Both theory and
both inductive and deductive research. It is important to
observations are essential components of scientific research. For
understand that theory building (inductive research) and theory-
instance, relying solely on observations for making inferences and
testing (deductive research) are both critical for the advancement
ignoring theory is not considered valid scientific research.
of science. Elegant theories are not valuable if they do not match
Depending on a researcher’s training and interest, scientific with reality. Likewise, mountains of data are also useless until
inquiry may take one of two possible forms: inductive or they can contribute to the construction to meaningful theories.
deductive. In inductive research, the goal of a researcher is to Rather than viewing these two processes in a circular
infer theoretical concepts and patterns from observed data. In relationship, perhaps they can be better viewed as a helix, with
deductive research, the goal of the researcher is to test concepts each iteration between theory and data contributing to better
and patterns known from theory using new empirical data. Hence, explanations of the phenomenon of interest and better theories.
inductive research is also called theory-building research, and Though both inductive and deductive research are important for
deductive research is theory-testing research. Note here that the the advancement of science, it appears that inductive (theory-
goal of theory-testing is not just to test a theory, but possibly to building) research is more valuable when there are few prior
refine, improve, and extend it. You cannot do inductive or theories or explanations, while deductive (theory-testing) research
deductive research if you are not familiar with both the theory and is more productive when there are many competing theories of
data components of research. Naturally, a complete researcher is the same phenomenon and researchers are interested in knowing
one who can traverse the entire research cycle and can handle which theory works best and under what circumstances.

44
Theory building and theory testing are particularly difficult in the that cannot be “taught” but rather learned though experience. All
social sciences, given the imprecise nature of the theoretical of the greatest scientists in the history of mankind, such as
concepts, inadequate tools to measure them, and the presence of Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Neils Bohr, Adam Smith, Charles
many unaccounted factors that can also influence the Darwin, and Herbert Simon, were master theoreticians, and they
phenomenon of interest. It is also very difficult to refute theories are remembered for the theories they postulated that transformed
that do not work. For instance, Karl Marx’s theory of communism the course of science. Methodological skills are needed to be an
as an effective means of economic production withstood for ordinary researcher, but theoretical skills are needed to be an
decades, before it was finally discredited as being inferior to extraordinary researcher!
capitalism in promoting economic growth and social welfare.
Erstwhile communist economies like the Soviet Union and China Scientific method
eventually moved toward more capitalistic economies
In the preceding sections, we described science as knowledge
characterized by profit-maximizing private enterprises. However,
acquired through a scientific method. So what exactly is the
the recent collapse of the mortgage and financial industries in the
“scientific method”? Scientific method refers to a standardized
United States demonstrates that capitalism also has its flaws and
set of techniques for building scientific knowledge, such as how
is not as effective in fostering economic growth and social welfare
to make valid observations, how to interpret results, and how to
as previously presumed. Unlike theories in the natural sciences,
generalize those results. The scientific method allows researchers
social science theories are rarely perfect, which provides
to independently and impartially test preexisting theories and
numerous opportunities for researchers to improve those theories
prior findings, and subject them to open debate, modifications, or
or build their own alternative theories.
enhancements. The scientific method must satisfy four key
Conducting scientific research, therefore, requires two sets of characteristics:
skills – theoretical and methodological – needed to operate in the
1. Logical: Scientific inferences must be based on logical
theoretical and empirical levels respectively. Methodological skills
principles of reasoning.
("know-how") are relatively standard, invariant across disciplines,
and easily acquired through doctoral programs. However, 2. Confirmable: Inferences derived must match with observed
theoretical skills ("know-what") is considerably harder to master, evidence.
requires years of observation and reflection, and are tacit skills

45
3. Repeatable: Other scientists should be able to independently Types of scientific research
replicate or repeat a scientific study and obtain similar, if not
identical, results. Depending on the purpose of research, scientific research
projects can be grouped into three types: exploratory, descriptive,
4. Scrutinizable: The procedures used and the inferences and explanatory. Exploratory research is often conducted in new
derived must withstand critical scrutiny (peer review) by other areas of inquiry, where the goals of the research are: (1) to scope
scientists. out the magnitude or extent of a particular phenomenon,
problem, or behavior, (2) to generate some initial ideas (or
Any branch of inquiry that does not allow the scientific method to
“hunches”) about that phenomenon, or (3) to test the feasibility of
test its basic laws or theories cannot be called “science.” For
undertaking a more extensive study regarding that phenomenon.
instance, theology (the study of religion) is not science because
For instance, if the citizens of a country generally dissatisfied
theological ideas (such as the presence of God) cannot be tested
with governmental policies regarding during an economic
by independent observers using a logical, confirmable,
recession, exploratory research may be directed at measuring the
repeatable, and scrutinizable. Similarly, arts, music, literature,
extent of citizens’ dissatisfaction, understanding how such
humanities, and law are also not considered science, even though
dissatisfaction is manifested, such as the frequency of public
they are creative and worthwhile endeavors in their own right.
protests, and the presumed causes of such dissatisfaction, such
The scientific method, as applied to social sciences, includes a as ineffective government policies in dealing with inflation,
variety of research approaches, tools, and techniques, for interest rates, unemployment, or higher taxes. Such research may
collecting and analyzing qualitative or quantitative data. These include examination of publicly reported figures, such as
methods include laboratory experiments, field surveys, case estimates of economic indicators, such as gross domestic
research, ethnographic research, action research, and so forth. product (GDP), unemployment, and consumer price index, as
Much of this book is devoted to learning about these different archived by third-party sources, obtained through interviews of
methods. However, recognize that the scientific method operates experts, eminent economists, or key government officials, and/or
primarily at the empirical level of research, i.e., how to make derived from studying historical examples of dealing with similar
observations and analyze these observations. Very little of this problems. This research may not lead to a very accurate
method is directly pertinent to the theoretical level, which is really understanding of the target problem, but may be worthwhile in
the more challenging part of scientific research.
46
scoping out the nature and extent of the problem and serve as a Explanatory research
useful precursor to more in-depth research.
Explanatory research seeks explanations of observed
Descriptive research phenomena, problems, or behaviors. While descriptive research
examines the what, where, and when of a phenomenon,
Descriptive research is directed at making careful observations
explanatory research seeks answers to why and how types of
and detailed documentation of a phenomenon of interest. These
questions. It attempts to “connect the dots” in research, by
observations must be based on the scientific method (i.e., must
identifying causal factors and outcomes of the target
be replicable, precise, etc.), and therefore, are more reliable than
phenomenon. Examples include understanding the reasons
observations by untrained people. Examples of descriptive
behind adolescent crime or gang violence, with the goal of
research are tabulation of demographic statistics by the United
prescribing strategies to overcome such societal ailments. Most
States Census Bureau or employment statistics by the of Labor,
academic or doctoral research belongs to the explanation
who use the same or similar instruments for estimating
category, though some amount of exploratory and/or descriptive
employment by sector or population growth by ethnicity over
research may also be needed during initial phases of academic
multiple employment surveys or censuses.
research. Seeking explanations for observed events requires
If any changes are made to the measuring instruments, estimates strong theoretical and interpretation skills, along with intuition,
are provided with and without the changed instrumentation to insights, and personal experience. Those who can do it well are
allow the readers to make a fair before-and-after comparison also the most prized scientists in their disciplines.
regarding population or employment trends. Other descriptive
History of scientific thought
research may include chronicling ethnographic reports of gang
activities among adolescent youth in urban populations, the
Before closing this chapter, it may be interesting to go back in
persistence or evolution of religious, cultural, or ethnic practices
history and see how science has evolved over time and identify
in select communities, and the role of technologies such as
the key scientific minds in this evolution. Although instances of
Twitter and instant messaging in the spread of democracy
scientific progress have been documented over many centuries,
movements in Middle Eastern countries.
the terms “science,” “scientists,” and the “scientific method”
were coined only in the 19th century. Prior to this time, science

47
was viewed as a part of philosophy, and coexisted with other reasoning activity), and developed empiricism as an influential
branches of philosophy such as logic, metaphysics, ethics, and branch of philosophy. Bacon’s works led to the popularization
aesthetics, although the boundaries between some of these of inductive methods of scientific inquiry, the development of the
branches were blurred. “scientific method” (originally called the “Baconian method”),
consisting of systematic observation, measurement, and
In the earliest days of human inquiry, knowledge was usually
experimentation, and may have even sowed the seeds of atheism
recognized in terms of theological precepts based on faith. This
or the rejection of theological precepts as “unobservable.”
was challenged by Greek philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle,
and Socrates during the 3rd century BC, who suggested that the Empiricism continued to clash with rationalism throughout the
fundamental nature of being and the world can be understood Middle Ages, as philosophers sought the most effective way of
more accurately through a process of systematic logical gaining valid knowledge. French philosopher Rene Descartes
reasoning called rationalism. In particular, Aristotle’s classic work sided with the rationalists, while British philosophers John Locke
Metaphysics (literally meaning “beyond physical [existence]”) and David Hume sided with the empiricists. Other scientists, such
separated theology (the study of Gods) from ontology (the study as Galileo Galilei and Sir Issac Newton, attempted to fuse the two
of being and existence) and universal science (the study of first ideas into natural philosophy (the philosophy of nature), to focus
principles, upon which logic is based). Rationalism (not to be specifically on understanding nature and the physical universe,
confused with “rationality”) views reason as the source of which is considered to be the precursor of the natural sciences.
knowledge or justification, and suggests that the criterion of truth Galileo (1564-1642) was perhaps the first to state that the laws of
is not sensory but rather intellectual and deductive, often derived nature are mathematical, and contributed to the field of
from a set of first principles or axioms (such as Aristotle’s “law of astronomy through an innovative combination of experimentation
non-contradiction”). and mathematics.

The next major shift in scientific thought occurred during the 16th In the 18th century, German philosopher Immanuel Kant sought
century, when British philosopher Francis Bacon (1561-1626) to resolve the dispute between empiricism and rationalism in his
suggested that knowledge can only be derived from observations book Critique of Pure Reason, by arguing that experience is
in the real world. Based on this premise, Bacon emphasized purely subjective and processing them using pure reason without
knowledge acquisition as an empirical activity (rather than as a first delving into the subjective nature of experiences will lead to

48
theoretical illusions. Kant’s ideas led to the development of Lazarsfield who pioneered large-scale survey research and
German idealism, which inspired later development of interpretive statistical techniques for analyzing survey data, acknowledged
techniques such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, and critical potential problems of observer bias and structural limitations in
social theory. positivist inquiry. In response, antipositivists emphasized that
social actions must be studied though interpretive means based
At about the same time, French philosopher Auguste Comte
upon an understanding the meaning and purpose that individuals
(1798–1857), founder of the discipline of sociology, attempted to
attach to their personal actions, which inspired Georg Simmel’s
blend rationalism and empiricism in a new doctrine called
work on symbolic interactionism, Max Weber’s work on ideal
positivism. He suggested that theory and observations have
types, and Edmund Husserl’s work on phenomenology.
circular dependence on each other. While theories may be
created via reasoning, they are only authentic if they can be In the mid-to-late 20th century, both positivist and antipositivist
verified through observations. The emphasis on verification schools of thought were subjected to criticisms and
started the separation of modern science from philosophy and modifications. British philosopher Sir Karl Popper suggested that
metaphysics and further development of the “scientific method” human knowledge is based not on unchallengeable, rock solid
as the primary means of validating scientific claims. Comte’s foundations, but rather on a set of tentative conjectures that can
ideas were expanded by Emile Durkheim in his development of never be proven conclusively, but only disproven. Empirical
sociological positivism (positivism as a foundation for social evidence is the basis for disproving these conjectures or
research) and Ludwig Wittgenstein in logical positivism. “theories.” This metatheoretical stance, called postpositivism (or
postempiricism), amends positivism by suggesting that it is
In the early 20th century, strong accounts of positivism were
impossible to verify the truth although it is possible to reject false
rejected by interpretive sociologists (antipositivists) belonging to
beliefs, though it retains the positivist notion of an objective truth
the German idealism school of thought. Positivism was typically
and its emphasis on the scientific method. Likewise,
equated with quantitative research methods such as experiments
antipositivists have also been criticized for trying only to
and surveys and without any explicit philosophical commitments,
understand society but not critiquing and changing society for the
while antipositivism employed qualitative methods such as
better. The roots of this thought lie in Das Capital, written by
unstructured interviews and participant observation. Even
German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, which
practitioners of positivism, such as American sociologist Paul
critiqued capitalistic societies as being social inequitable and

49
inefficient, and recommended resolving this inequity through This is a skill that takes many years to develop, is not something
class conflict and proletarian revolutions. Marxism inspired social that is taught in graduate or doctoral programs or acquired in
revolutions in countries such as Germany, Italy, Russia, and industry training, and is by far the biggest deficit amongst Ph.D.
China, but generally failed to accomplish the social equality that it students. Some of the mental abstractions needed to think like a
aspired. Critical research (also called critical theory) propounded researcher include unit of analysis, constructs, hypotheses,
by Max Horkheimer and Jurgen Habermas in the 20th century, operationalization, theories, models, induction, deduction, and so
retains similar ideas of critiquing resolving social inequality, and forth, which we will examine in this chapter.
adds that people can and should consciously act to change their
social and economic circumstances, although their ability to do Unit of analysis
so is constrained by various forms of social, cultural and political
One of the first decisions in any social science research is the unit
domination. Critical research attempts to uncover and critique the
of analysis of a scientific study. The unit of analysis refers to the
restrictive and alienating conditions of the status quo by analyzing
person, collective, or object that is the target of the investigation.
the, conflicts and contradictions in contemporary society, and
Typical unit of analysis include individuals, groups, organizations,
seeks to eliminate the causes of alienation and domination (i.e.,
countries, technologies, objects, and such. For instance, if we are
emancipate the oppressed class).
interested in studying people’s shopping behavior, their learning
Thinking like a researcher outcomes, or their attitudes to new technologies, then the unit of
analysis is the individual. If we want to study characteristics of
Conducting good research requires first retraining your brain to street gangs or teamwork in organizations, then the unit of
think like a researcher. This requires visualizing the abstract from analysis is the group. If the goal of research is to understand how
actual observations, mentally “connecting the dots” to identify firms can improve profitability or make good executive decisions,
hidden concepts and patterns, and synthesizing those patterns then the unit of analysis is the firm. In this case, even though
into generalizable laws and theories that apply to other contexts decisions are made by individuals in these firms, these individuals
beyond the domain of the initial observations. Research involves are presumed to represent their firm’s decision rather than their
constantly moving back and forth from an empirical plane where personal decisions. If research is directed at understanding
observations are conducted to a theoretical plane where these differences in national cultures, then the unit of analysis becomes
observations are abstracted into generalizable laws and theories. a country. Even inanimate objects can serve as units of analysis.

50
For instance, if a researcher is interested in understanding how to collect it from. If your unit of analysis is a web page, you should
make web pages more attractive to its users, then the unit of be collecting data about web pages from actual web pages, and
analysis is a web page (and not users). If we wish to study how not surveying people about how they use web pages. If your unit
knowledge transfer occurs between two firms, then our unit of of analysis is the organization, then you should be measuring
analysis becomes the dyad (the combination of firms that is organizational-level variables such as organizational size,
sending and receiving knowledge). revenues, hierarchy, or absorptive capacity. This data may come
from a variety of sources such as financial records or surveys of
Understanding the units of analysis can sometimes be fairly
Chief Executive Officers (CEO), who are presumed to be
complex. For instance, if we wish to study why certain
representing their (rather than themselves). Some variables such
neighborhoods have high crime rates, then our unit of analysis
as CEO pay may seem like individual level variables, but in fact, it
becomes the neighborhood, and not crimes or criminals
can also be an organizational level variable because each has
committing such crimes. This is because the object of our inquiry
only one CEO pay at any time. Sometimes, it is possible to collect
is the neighborhood and not criminals. However, if we wish to
data from a lower level of analysis and aggregate that data to a
compare different types of crimes in different neighborhoods,
higher level of analysis. For instance, in order to study teamwork
such as homicide, robbery, and so forth, our unit of analysis
in organizations, you can survey individual team members in
becomes the crime. If we wish to study why criminals engage in
different organizational teams, and average their individual scores
illegal activities, then the unit of analysis becomes the individual
to create a composite team-level score for team-level variables
(i.e., the criminal). Like, if we want to study why some innovations
like cohesion and conflict. We will examine the notion of
are more successful than others, then our unit of analysis is an
“variables” in greater depth in the next section.
innovation. However, if we wish to study how some organizations
innovate more consistently than others, then the unit of analysis is Concepts, constructs & variables
the organization. Hence, two related research questions within the
same research study may have two entirely different units of Although research can be exploratory, descriptive, or explanatory,
analysis. most scientific research tend to be of the explanatory type in that
they search for potential explanations of observed natural or
Understanding the unit of analysis is important because it shapes
social phenomena. Explanations require development of
what type of data you should collect for your study and who you
concepts or generalizable properties or characteristics associated

51
with objects, events, or people. While objects such as a person, a as a person’s weight, or a combination of a set of related
firm, or a car are not concepts, their specific characteristics or concepts such as a person’s communication skill, which may
behavior such as a person’s attitude toward immigrants, a firm’s consist of several underlying concepts such as the person’s
capacity for innovation, and a car’s weight can be viewed as vocabulary, syntax, and spelling. The former instance (weight) is a
concepts. unidimensional construct, while the latter (communication skill) is
a multi-dimensional construct (i.e., it consists of multiple
Knowingly or unknowingly, we use different kinds of concepts in
underlying concepts). The distinction between constructs and
our everyday conversations. Some of these concepts have been
concepts are clearer in multi-dimensional constructs, where the
developed over time through our shared language. Sometimes,
higher order abstraction is called a construct and the lower order
we borrow concepts from other disciplines or languages to
abstractions are called concepts. However, this distinction tends
explain a phenomenon of interest. For instance, the idea of
to blur in the case of unidimensional constructs.
gravitation borrowed from physics can be used in business to
describe why people tend to “gravitate” to their preferred Constructs used for scientific research must have precise and
shopping destinations. Likewise, the concept of distance can be clear definitions that others can use to understand exactly what it
used to explain the degree of social separation between two means and what it does not mean. For instance, a seemingly
otherwise collocated individuals. Sometimes, we create our own simple construct such as income may refer to monthly or annual
concepts to describe a unique characteristic not described in income, before-tax or after-tax income, and personal or family
prior research. For instance, technostress is a new concept income, and is therefore neither precise nor clear. are two types
referring to the mental stress one may face when asked to learn a of definitions: dictionary definitions and operational definitions. In
new technology. the familiar dictionary definition, a construct is often defined in
terms of a synonym. For instance, attitude may be defined as a
Concepts may also have progressive levels of abstraction. Some
disposition, a feeling, or an affect, and affect in turn is defined as
concepts such as a person’s weight are precise and objective,
an attitude. Such definitions of a circular nature are not
while other concepts such as a person’s personality may be more
particularly useful in scientific research for elaborating the
abstract and difficult to visualize. A construct is an abstract
meaning and content of that construct. Scientific research
concept that is specifically chosen (or “created”) to explain a
operational definitions that define constructs in terms of how they
given phenomenon. A construct may be a simple concept, such
will be empirically measured. For instance, the operational

52
definition of a construct such as temperature must specify plane, while variables are operationalized and measured at the
whether we plan to measure temperature in Celsius, Fahrenheit, empirical (observational) plane. Thinking like a researcher implies
or Kelvin scale. A construct such as income should be defined in the ability to move back and forth between these two planes.
terms of whether we are interested in monthly or annual income,
Depending on their intended use, variables may be classified as
before-tax or after-tax income, and personal or family income.
independent, dependent, moderating, mediating, or control
One can imagine that constructs such as learning, personality,
variables. Variables that explain other variables are called
and intelligence can be quite hard to define operationally.
independent variables, those that are explained by other variables
A term frequently associated with, and sometimes used are dependent variables, those that are explained by independent
interchangeably with, a construct is a variable. Etymologically variables while also explaining dependent variables are mediating
speaking, a variable is a quantity that can vary (e.g., from low to variables (or intermediate variables), and those that influence the
high, negative to positive, etc.), in contrast to constants that do relationship between independent and dependent variables are
not vary (i.e., remain constant). However, in scientific research, a called moderating variables. As an example, if we state that
variable is a measurable representation of an abstract construct. higher intelligence causes improved learning among students,
As abstract entities, constructs are not directly measurable, and then intelligence is an independent variable and learning is a
hence, we look for proxy measures called variables. For instance, dependent variable. There may be other extraneous variables that
a person’s intelligence is often measured as his or her IQ are not pertinent to explaining a given dependent variable, but
(intelligence quotient) score, which is an index generated from an may have some impact on the dependent variable. These
analytical and -matching test administered to people. In this case, variables must be controlled for in a scientific study, and are
intelligence is a construct, and IQ score is a variable that therefore called control variables.
measures the intelligence construct. Whether IQ scores truly
If we believe that intelligence influences (or explains) students’
measures one’s intelligence is anyone’s guess (though many
academic achievement, then a measure of intelligence such as an
believe that they do), and depending on whether how well it
IQ score is an independent variable, while a measure of academic
measures intelligence, the IQ score may be a good or a poor
success such as grade point average is a dependent variable. If
measure of the intelligence construct. Scientific research
we believe that the effect of intelligence on academic
proceeds along two planes: a theoretical plane and an empirical
achievement also depends on the effort invested by the student
plane. Constructs are conceptualized at the theoretical (abstract)

53
in the learning process (i.e., between two equally intelligent relationships between these constructs. Such patterns of
students, the student who puts is more effort achieves higher relationships are called propositions. A proposition is a tentative
academic achievement than one who puts in less effort), then and conjectural relationship between constructs that is stated in a
effort becomes a moderating variable. Incidentally, one may also declarative form. An example of a proposition is: “An increase in
view effort as an independent variable and intelligence as a student intelligence causes an increase in their academic
moderating variable. If academic achievement is viewed as an achievement.” This declarative statement does not have to be
intermediate step to higher earning potential, then earning true, but must be empirically testable using data, so that we can
potential becomes the dependent variable for the independent judge whether it is true or false. Propositions are generally derived
variable academic achievement, and academic achievement based on logic (deduction) or empirical observations (induction).
becomes the mediating variable in the relationship between
Because propositions are associations between abstract
intelligence and earning potential. Hence, variable are defined as
constructs, they cannot be tested directly. Instead, they are
an independent, dependent, moderating, or mediating variable
tested indirectly by examining the relationship between
based on their nature of association with each other. The overall
corresponding measures (variables) of those constructs. The
network of relationships between a set of related constructs is
empirical formulation of propositions, stated as relationships
called a nomological network. Thinking like a researcher requires
between variables, is called hypotheses. Since IQ scores and
not only being able to abstract constructs from observations, but
grade point average are operational measures of intelligence and
also being able to mentally visualize a nomological network
academic achievement respectively, the above proposition can be
linking these abstract constructs.
specified in form of the hypothesis: “An increase in students’ IQ
Propositions & hypotheses score causes an increase in their grade point average.”
Propositions are specified in the theoretical plane, while
[I]ntelligence, effort, academic achievement, and earning potential hypotheses are specified in the empirical plane. Hence,
are related to each other in a nomological network. Each of these hypotheses are empirically testable using observed data, and
relationships is called a proposition. In seeking explanations to a may be rejected if not supported by empirical observations. Of
given phenomenon or behavior, it is not adequate just to identify course, the goal of hypothesis testing is to infer whether the
key concepts and constructs underlying the target phenomenon corresponding proposition is valid.
or behavior. We must also identify and state patterns of

54
Hypotheses can be strong or weak. “Students’ IQ scores are specify a directional relationship that can be evaluated as true or
related to their academic achievement” is an example of a weak false.
hypothesis, since it indicates neither the directionality of the
hypothesis (i.e., whether the relationship is positive or negative), Theories & models
nor its causality (i.e., whether intelligence causes academic
A theory is a set of systematically interrelated constructs and
achievement or academic achievement causes intelligence). A
propositions intended to explain and predict a phenomenon or
stronger hypothesis is “students’ IQ scores are positively related
behavior of interest, within certain boundary conditions and
to their academic achievement”, which indicates the directionality
assumptions. Essentially, a theory is a systemic collection of
but not the causality. A still better hypothesis is “students’ IQ
related theoretical propositions. While propositions generally
scores have positive effects on their academic achievement”,
connect two or three constructs, theories represent a system of
which specifies both the directionality and the causality (i.e.,
multiple constructs and propositions. Hence, theories can be
intelligence causes academic achievement, and not the reverse).
substantially more complex and abstract and of a larger scope
Also note that scientific hypotheses should clearly specify than propositions or hypotheses.
independent and dependent variables. In the hypothesis,
I must note here that people not familiar with scientific research
“students’ IQ scores have positive effects on their academic
often view a theory as a speculation or the opposite of fact. For
achievement,” it is clear that intelligence is the independent
instance, people often say that teachers need to be less
variable (the “cause”) and academic achievement is the
theoretical and more practical or factual in their classroom
dependent variable (the “effect”). Further, it is also clear that this
teaching. However, practice or fact are not opposites of theory,
hypothesis can be evaluated as either true (if higher intelligence
but in a scientific sense, are essential components needed to test
leads to higher academic achievement) or false (if higher
the validity of a theory. A good scientific theory should be well
intelligence has no effect on or leads to lower academic
supported using observed facts and should also have practical
achievement). Later on in this book, we will examine how to
value, while a poorly defined theory tends to be lacking in these
empirically test such cause-effect relationships. Statements such
dimensions. Famous organizational research Kurt Lewin once
as “students are generally intelligent” or “all students can achieve
said, “Theory without practice is sterile; practice without theory is
academic success” are not scientific hypotheses because they
do not specify independent and dependent variables, nor do they

55
blind.” Hence, both theory and facts (or practice) are essential for mathematical models, network models, and path models. Models
scientific research. can also be descriptive, predictive, or normative. Descriptive
models are frequently used for representing complex systems, for
It is important for researchers to understand that theory is not
visualizing variables and relationships in such systems. An
“truth,” there is nothing sacrosanct about any theory, and theories
advertising expenditure model may be a descriptive model.
should not be accepted just because they were proposed by
Predictive models (e.g., a regression model) allow forecast of
someone. In the course of scientific progress, poorer theories are
future events. Weather forecasting models are predictive models.
eventually replaced by better theories with higher explanatory
Normative models are used to guide our activities along
power. The essential challenge for researchers is to build better
commonly accepted norms or practices. Models may also be
and more comprehensive theories that can explain a target better
static if it represents the state of a system at one point in time, or
than prior theories.
dynamic, if it represents a system’s evolution over time. The
A term often used in conjunction with theory is a model. A model process of theory or model development may involve inductive
is a representation of all or part of a system that is constructed to and deductive reasoning. Recall...that deduction is the process of
study that system (e.g., how the system works or what triggers drawing conclusions about a phenomenon or behavior based on
the system). While a theory tries to explain a phenomenon, a theoretical or logical reasons and an initial set of premises. As an
model tries to represent a phenomenon. Models are often used example, if a certain bank enforces a strict code of ethics for its
by decision makers to make important decisions based on a employees (Premise 1) and Jamie is an employee at that bank
given set of inputs. For instance, marketing managers may use (Premise 2), then Jamie can be trusted to follow ethical practices
models to how much money to spend on advertising for different (Conclusion). In deduction, the conclusions must be true if the
product lines based on such as prior year’s advertising expenses, initial premises and reasons are correct.
sales, market growth, and competing products. Likewise, weather
In contrast, induction is the process of drawing conclusions
forecasters can use models to predict future weather patterns
based on facts or observed evidence. For instance, if a firm spent
based on parameters such as wind speeds, wind direction,
a lot of money on a promotional campaign (Observation 1), but
temperature, and humidity. While these models are useful, they
the sales did not increase (Observation 2), then possibly the
may not necessarily explain advertising expenditure or weather
promotion campaign was poorly executed (Conclusion). However,
forecasts. Models may be of different kinds, such as
there may be rival explanations for poor sales, such as economic

56
recession or the emergence of a competing product or brand or Paradigms of social research
perhaps a supply chain problem. Inductive conclusions are
Our design and conduct of research is shaped by our mental
therefore only a hypothesis, and may be disproven. Deductive
models or frames of references that we use to organize our
conclusions generally tend to be stronger than inductive
reasoning and observations. These mental models or frames
conclusions, but a deductive conclusion based on an incorrect
(belief systems) are called paradigms. The word “paradigm” was
premise is also incorrect. [I]nductive and deductive reasoning go
popularized by Thomas Kuhn (1962) in his book The Structure of
hand in hand in theory and model building. Induction occurs
Scientific Revolutions, where he examined the history of the
when we observe a fact and ask, “Why is this happening?” In
natural sciences to identify patterns of activities that shape the
answering this question, we advance one or more tentative
progress of science. Similar ideas are applicable to social
explanations (hypotheses). We then use deduction to narrow
sciences as well, where a social reality can be viewed by different
down the tentative explanations to the most plausible explanation
people in different ways, which may constrain their thinking and
based on logic and reasonable premises (based on our
reasoning about the observed phenomenon. For instance,
understanding of the phenomenon under study). Researchers
conservatives and liberals tend to have very different perceptions
must be able to move back and forth between inductive and
of the role of government in people’s lives, and hence, have
deductive reasoning if they are to post extensions or
different opinions on how to solve social problems. Conservatives
modifications to a given model or theory, or built better ones,
may believe that lowering taxes is the best way to stimulate a
which are the essence of scientific research.
stagnant economy because it increases people’s disposable
The research process income and spending, which in turn expands business output and
employment. In contrast, liberals may believe that governments
[Earlier], we saw that scientific research is the process of should invest more directly in job creation programs such as
acquiring scientific knowledge using the scientific method. But public works and infrastructure projects, which will increase
how is such research conducted? This [section] delves into the employment and people’s ability to consume and drive the
process of scientific research, and the assumptions and economy. Likewise, Western societies place greater emphasis on
outcomes of the research process. individual rights, such as one’s right to privacy, right of free
speech, and right to bear arms. In contrast, Asian societies tend
to balance the rights of individuals against the rights of

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families,organizations, and the government, and therefore tend to looking at the same problem through a “social lens” may seek out
be more communal and less individualistic in their policies. Such social deficiencies such as inadequate user training or lack of
differences in perspective often lead Westerners to criticize Asian management support, while those seeing it through a “political
governments for being autocratic, while Asians criticize Western lens” will look for instances of organizational politics that may
societies for being greedy, having high crime rates, and creating a subvert the technology implementation process. Hence,
“cult of the individual.” Our personal paradigms are like “colored subconscious paradigms often constrain the concepts that
glasses” that govern how we view the world and how we researchers attempt to measure, their observations, and their
structure our thoughts about what we see in the world. subsequent interpretations of a phenomenon. However, given the
complex nature of social phenomenon, it is possible that all of the
Paradigms are often hard to recognize, because they are implicit,
above paradigms are partially correct, and that a fuller
assumed, and taken for granted. However, recognizing these
understanding of the problem may require an understanding and
paradigms is key to making sense of and reconciling differences
application of multiple paradigms.
in people’ perceptions of the same social phenomenon. For
instance, why do liberals believe that the best way to improve Two popular paradigms today among social science researchers
secondary education is to hire more teachers, but conservatives are positivism and post-positivism. Positivism, based on the
believe that privatizing education (using such means as school works of French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798- 1857), was
vouchers) are more effective in achieving the same goal? the dominant scientific paradigm until the mid-20th century. It
Because conservatives place more faith in competitive markets holds that science or knowledge creation should be restricted to
(i.e., in free competition between schools competing for what can be observed and measured. Positivism tends to rely
education dollars), while liberals believe more in labor (i.e., in exclusively on theories that can be directly tested. Though
having more teachers and schools). Likewise, in social science positivism was originally an attempt to separate scientific inquiry
research, if one were to understand why a certain technology was from religion (where the precepts could not be objectively
successfully implemented in one organization but failed miserably observed), positivism led to empiricism or a blind faith in
in another, a researcher looking at the world through a “rational observed data and a rejection of any attempt to extend or reason
lens” will look for rational explanations of the problem such as beyond observable facts. Since human thoughts and emotions
inadequate technology or poor fit between technology and the could not be directly measured, there were not considered to be
task context where it is being utilized, while another research legitimate topics for scientific research. Frustrations with the

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strictly empirical nature of positivist philosophy led to the behaviors, and believe that the best way to study such a world is
development of post-positivism (or postmodernism) during the using objective approach (epistemology) that is independent of
mid-late 20th century. Post-positivism argues that one can make the person conducting the observation or interpretation, such as
reasonable inferences about a phenomenon by combining by using standardized data collection tools like surveys, then they
empirical observations with logical reasoning. Post-positivists are adopting a paradigm of functionalism. However, if they believe
view science as not certain but probabilistic (i.e., based on many that the best way to study social order is though the subjective
contingencies), and often seek to explore these contingencies to interpretation of participants involved, such as by interviewing
understand social reality better. The post-positivist camp has different participants and reconciling differences among their
further fragmented into subjectivists, who view the world as a responses using their own subjective perspectives, then they are
subjective construction of our subjective minds rather than as an employing an interpretivism paradigm. If researchers believe that
objective reality, and critical realists, who believe that there is an the world consists of radical change and seek to understand or
external reality that is independent of a person’s thinking but we enact change using an objectivist approach, then they are
can never know such reality with any degree of certainty. employing a radical structuralism paradigm. If they wish to
understand social change using the subjective perspectives of
Burrell and Morgan (1979), in their seminal book Sociological
the participants involved, then they are following a radical
Paradigms and Organizational Analysis, suggested that the way
humanism paradigm.
social science researchers view and study social phenomena is
shaped by two fundamental sets of philosophical assumptions: To date, the majority of social science research has emulated the
ontology and epistemology. Ontology refers to our assumptions natural sciences, and followed the functionalist paradigm.
about how we see the world, e.g., does the world consist mostly Functionalists believe that social order or patterns can be
of social order or constant change. Epistemology refers to our understood in terms of their functional components, and therefore
assumptions about the best way to study the world, e.g., should attempt to break down a problem into small components and
we use an objective or subjective approach to study social reality. studying one or more components in detail using objectivist
Using these two sets of assumptions, we can categorize social techniques such as surveys and experimental research. However,
science research as belonging to one of four categories. If with the emergence of post-positivist thinking, a small but
researchers view the world as consisting mostly of social order growing number of social science researchers are attempting to
(ontology) and hence seek to study patterns of ordered events or understand social order using subjectivist techniques such as

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interviews and ethnographic studies. Radical humanism and phase, we observe a natural or social phenomenon, event, or
radical structuralism continues to represent a negligible behavior that interests us. In the rationalization phase, we try to
proportion of social science research, because scientists are make sense of or the observed phenomenon, event, or behavior
primarily concerned with understanding generalizable patterns of by logically connecting the different pieces of the puzzle that we
behavior, events, or phenomena, rather than idiosyncratic or observe, which in some cases, may lead to the construction of a
changing events. Nevertheless, if you wish to study social theory. Finally, in the validation phase, we test our theories using
change, such as why democratic movements are increasingly a scientific method through a process of data collection and
emerging in Middle Eastern countries, or why this movement was analysis, and in doing so, possibly modify or extend our initial
successful in Tunisia, took a longer path to success in Libya, and theory. However, research designs vary based on whether the
is still not successful in Syria, then perhaps radical humanism is researcher starts at observation and attempts to rationalize the
the right approach for such a study. Social and organizational observations (inductive research), or whether the researcher starts
phenomena generally consists elements of both order and at an ex ante rationalization or a theory and attempts to validate
change. For instance, organizational success depends on the theory (deductive research). Hence, the observation-
formalized business processes, work procedures, and job rationalization-validation cycle is very similar to the induction-
responsibilities, while being simultaneously constrained by a deduction cycle of research.
constantly changing mix of competitors, competing products,
The first phase of research is exploration. This phase includes
suppliers, and customer base in the business environment.
exploring and selecting research questions for further
Hence, a holistic and more complete understanding of social
investigation, examining the published literature in the area of
phenomena such as why are some organizations more successful
inquiry to understand the current state of knowledge in that area,
than others, require an appreciation and application of a multi-
and identifying theories that may help answer the research
paradigmatic approach to research.
questions of interest.
Overview of the research process
The first step in the exploration phase is identifying one or more
research questions dealing with a specific behavior, event, or
So how do our mental paradigms shape social science research?
phenomena of interest. Research questions are specific questions
At its core, all scientific research is an iterative process of
about a behavior, event, or phenomena of interest that you wish
observation, rationalization, and validation. In the observation

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to seek answers for in your research. Examples include what manually browse through each article, or at least its abstract
factors motivate consumers to purchase goods and services section, to determine the suitability of that article for a detailed
online without knowing the vendors of these goods or services, review. Literature reviews should be reasonably complete, and
how can we make high school students more creative, and why not restricted to a few journals, a few years, or a specific
do some people commit terrorist acts. Research questions can methodology. Reviewed articles may be summarized in the form
delve into issues of what, why, how, when, and so forth. More of tables, and can be further structured using organizing
interesting research questions are those that appeal to a broader frameworks such as a concept matrix. A well-conducted literature
population (e.g., “how can firms innovate” is a more interesting review should indicate whether the initial research questions have
research question than “how can Chinese firms innovate in the already been addressed in the literature (which would obviate the
service-sector”), address real and complex problems (in contrast need to study them again), whether there are newer or more
to hypothetical or “toy” problems), and where the answers are not interesting research questions available, and whether the original
obvious. Narrowly focused research questions (often with a binary research questions should be modified or changed in light of
yes/no answer) tend to be less useful and less interesting and findings of the literature review. The review can also provide some
less suited to capturing the subtle nuances of social phenomena. intuitions or potential answers to the questions of interest and/or
Uninteresting research questions generally lead to uninteresting help identify theories that have previously been used to address
and unpublishable research findings. similar questions.

The next step is to conduct a literature review of the domain of Since functionalist (deductive) research involves theory-testing,
interest. The purpose of a literature review is three-fold: (1) to the third step is to identify one or more theories can help address
survey the current state of knowledge in the area of inquiry, (2) to the desired research questions. While the literature review may
identify key authors, articles, theories, and findings in that area, uncover a wide range of concepts or constructs potentially
and (3) to identify gaps in knowledge in that research area. related to the phenomenon of interest, a theory will help identify
Literature review is commonly done today using computerized which of these constructs is logically relevant to the target
keyword searches in online databases. Keywords can be phenomenon and how. Forgoing theories may result in measuring
combined using “and” and “or” operations to narrow down or a wide range of less relevant, marginally relevant, or irrelevant
expand the search results. Once a shortlist of relevant articles is constructs, while also minimizing the chances of obtaining results
generated from the keyword search, the researcher must then that are meaningful and not by pure chance. In functionalist

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research, theories can be used as the logical basis for postulating desired construct will be measured (e.g., how many items, what
hypotheses for empirical testing. Obviously, not all theories are items, and so forth). This can easily be a long and laborious
well-suited for studying all social phenomena. Theories must be process, with multiple rounds of pretests and modifications
carefully selected based on their fit with the target problem and before the newly designed instrument can be accepted as
the extent to which their assumptions are consistent with that of “scientifically valid.” We will discuss operationalization of
the target problem. constructs in a future chapter on measurement.

The next phase in the research process is research design. This Simultaneously with operationalization, the researcher must also
process is concerned with creating a blueprint of the activities to decide what research method they wish to employ for collecting
take in order to satisfactorily answer the research questions data to address their research questions of interest. Such
identified in the exploration phase. This includes selecting a methods may include quantitative methods such as experiments
research method, operationalizing constructs of interest, and or survey research or qualitative methods such as case research
devising an appropriate sampling strategy. Operationalization is or action research, or possibly a combination of both. If an
the process of designing precise measures for abstract experiment is desired, then what is the experimental design? If
theoretical constructs. This is a major problem in social science survey, do you plan a mail survey, telephone survey, web survey,
research, given that many of the constructs, such as prejudice, or a combination? For complex, uncertain, and multifaceted
alienation, and liberalism are hard to define, let alone measure social phenomena, multi-method approaches may be more
accurately. Operationalization starts with specifying an suitable, which may help leverage the unique strengths of each
“operational definition” (or “conceptualization”) of the constructs research method and generate insights that may not be obtained
of interest. Next, the researcher can search the literature to see if using a single method.
there are existing prevalidated measures matching their
Researchers must also carefully choose the target population
operational definition that can be used directly or modified to
from which they wish to collect data, and a sampling strategy to
measure their constructs of interest. If such measures are not
select a sample from that population. For instance, should they
available or if existing measures are poor or reflect a different
survey individuals or firms or workgroups within firms? What
conceptualization than that intended by the researcher, new
types of individuals or firms they wish to target? Sampling
instruments may have to be designed for measuring those
strategy is closely related to the unit of analysis in a research
constructs. This means specifying exactly how exactly the

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problem. While selecting a sample, reasonable care should be Pilot testing is an often overlooked but extremely important part
taken to avoid a biased sample (e.g., sample based on of the research process. It helps detect potential problems in your
convenience) that may generate biased observations. research design and/or instrumentation (e.g., whether the
questions asked is intelligible to the targeted sample), and to
At this stage, it is often a good idea to write a research proposal
ensure that the measurement instruments used in the study are
detailing all of the decisions made in the preceding stages of the
reliable and valid measures of the constructs of interest. The pilot
research process and the rationale behind each decision. This
sample is usually a small subset of the target population. After a
multi-part proposal should address what research questions you
successful pilot testing, the researcher may then proceed with
wish to study and why, the prior state of knowledge in this area,
data collection using the sampled population. The data collected
theories you wish to employ along with hypotheses to be tested,
may be quantitative or qualitative, depending on the research
how to measure constructs, what research method to be
method employed.
employed and why, and desired sampling strategy. Funding
agencies typically require such a proposal in order to select the Following data collection, the data is analyzed and interpreted for
best proposals for funding. Even if funding is not sought for a the purpose of drawing conclusions regarding the research
research project, a proposal may serve as a useful vehicle for questions of interest. Depending on the type of data collected
seeking feedback from other researchers and identifying potential (quantitative or qualitative), data analysis may be quantitative
problems with the research project (e.g., whether some important (e.g., employ statistical techniques such as regression or
constructs were missing from the study) before starting data structural equation modeling) or qualitative (e.g., coding or
collection. This initial feedback is invaluable because it is often content analysis).
too late to correct critical problems after data is collected in a
The final phase of research involves preparing the final research
research study.
report documenting the entire research process and its findings in
Having decided who to study (subjects), what to measure the form of a research paper, dissertation, or monograph. This
(concepts), and how to collect data (research method), the report should outline in detail all the choices made during the
researcher is now ready to proceed to the research execution research process (e.g., theory used, constructs selected,
phase. This includes pilot testing the measurement instruments, measures used, research methods, sampling, etc.) and why, as
data collection, and data analysis. well as the outcomes of each phase of the research process. The

63
research process must be described in sufficient detail so as to certain (and be able to convince others) that the research
allow other researchers to replicate your study, test the findings, questions they seek to answer in fact deal with real problems
or assess whether the inferences derived are scientifically (and not hypothetical problems) that affect a substantial portion of
acceptable. Of course, having a ready research proposal will a population and has not been adequately addressed in prior
greatly simplify and quicken the process of writing the finished research.
report. Note that research is of no value unless the research
Pursuing research fads: Another common mistake is pursuing
process and outcomes are documented for future generations;
“popular” topics with limited shelf life. A typical example is
such documentation is essential for the incremental progress of
studying technologies or practices that are popular today.
science.
Because research takes several years to complete and publish, it
Common mistakes in research is possible that popular interest in these fads may die down by
the time the research is completed and submitted for publication.
The research process is fraught with problems and pitfalls, and A better strategy may be to study “timeless” topics that have
novice researchers often find, after investing substantial amounts always persisted through the years.
of time and effort into a research project, that their research
questions were not sufficiently answered, or that the findings Unresearchable problems: Some research problems may not be
were not interesting enough, or that the research was not of answered adequately based on observed evidence alone, or
“acceptable” scientific quality. Such problems typically result in using currently accepted methods and procedures. Such
research papers being rejected by journals. Some of the more problems are best avoided. However, some unresearchable,
frequent mistakes are described below. ambiguously defined problems may be modified or fine tuned into
well-defined and useful researchable problems.
Insufficiently motivated research questions. Often times, we
choose our “pet” problems that are interesting to us but not to Favored research methods: Many researchers have a tendency
the scientific community at large, i.e., it does not generate new to recast a researchproblem so that it is amenable to their favorite
knowledge or insight about the phenomenon being investigated. research method (e.g., survey research). This is an unfortunate
Because the research process involves a significant investment of trend. Research methods should be chosen to best fit a research
time and effort on the researcher’s part, the researcher must be problem, and not the other way around.

64
Blind data mining: Some researchers have the tendency to those constructs) that collectively presents a logical, systematic,
collect data first (using instruments that are already available), and coherent explanation of a phenomenon of interest within
and then figure out what to do with it. Note that data collection is some assumptions and boundary conditions (Bacharach 1989).
only one step in a long and elaborate process of planning,
Theories should explain why things happen, rather than just
designing, and executing research. In fact, a series of other
describe or predict. Note that it is possible to predict events or
activities are needed in a research process prior to data
behaviors using a set of predictors, without necessarily explaining
collection. If researchers jump into data collection without such
why such events are taking place. For instance, market analysts
elaborate planning, the data collected will likely be irrelevant,
predict fluctuations in the stock market based on market
imperfect, or useless, and their data collection efforts may be
announcements, earnings reports of major companies, and new
entirely wasted. An abundance of data cannot make up for
data from the Federal Reserve and other agencies, based on
deficits in research planning and design, and particularly, for the
previously observed correlations. Prediction requires only
lack of interesting research questions.
correlations. In contrast, explanations require causations, or
Theories in scientific research understanding of cause-effect relationships. Establishing
causation requires three conditions: (1) correlations between two
As we know from previous [sections], science is knowledge constructs, (2) temporal precedence (the cause must precede the
represented as a collection of “theories” derived using the effect in time), and (3) rejection of alternative hypotheses (through
scientific method. In this chapter, we will examine what is a testing). Scientific theories are different from theological,
theory, why do we need theories in research, what are the philosophical, or other explanations in that scientific theories can
building blocks of a theory, how to evaluate theories, how can we be empirically tested using scientific methods.
apply theories in research, and also presents illustrative examples
Explanations can be idiographic or nomothetic. Idiographic
of five theories frequently used in social science research.
explanations are those that explain a single situation or event in
Theories idiosyncratic detail. For example, you did poorly on an exam
because: (1) you forgot that you had an exam on that day, (2) you
Theories are explanations of a natural or social behavior, event, or
arrived late to the exam due to a traffic jam, (3) you panicked
phenomenon. More formally, a scientific theory is a system of
midway through the exam, (4) you had to work late the previous
constructs (concepts) and propositions (relationships between
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evening and could not study for the exam, or even (5) your dog operate at the empirical or observational level, while theories
ate your text book. The explanations may be detailed, accurate, operate at a conceptual level and are based on logic rather than
and valid, but they may not apply to other similar situations, even observations.
involving the same person, and are hence not generalizable. In
There are many benefits to using theories in research. First,
contrast, 1 Bacharach, S. B. (1989). “Organizational Theories:
theories provide the underlying logic of the occurrence of natural
Some Criteria for Evaluation,” Academy of Management Review
or social phenomenon by explaining what are the key drivers and
(14:4), 496-515.
key outcomes of the target phenomenon and why, and what
Nomothetic explanations seek to explain a class of situations or underlying processes are responsible driving that phenomenon.
events rather than a specific situation or event. For example, Second, they aid in sense-making by helping us synthesize prior
students who do poorly in exams do so because they did not empirical findings within a theoretical framework and reconcile
spend adequate time preparing for exams or that they suffer from contradictory findings by discovering contingent factors
nervousness, attention deficit, or some other medical disorder. influencing the relationship between two constructs in different
Because nomothetic explanations are designed to be studies. Third, theories provide guidance for future research by
generalizable across situations, events, or people, they tend to be helping identify constructs and relationships that are worthy of
less precise, less complete, and less detailed. However, they further research. Fourth, theories can contribute to cumulative
explain economically, using only a few explanatory variables. knowledge building by bridging gaps between other theories and
Because theories are also intended to serve as generalized by causing existing theories to be reevaluated in a new light.
explanations for patterns of events, behaviors, or phenomena, However, theories can also have their own share of limitations. As
theoretical explanations are generally nomothetic in nature. While simplified explanations of reality, theories may not always provide
understanding theories, it is also important to understand what adequate explanations of the phenomenon of interest based on a
theory is not. Theory is not data, facts, typologies, taxonomies, or limited set of constructs and relationships. Theories are designed
empirical findings. A collection of facts is not a theory, just as a to be simple and parsimonious explanations, while reality may be
pile of stones is not a house. Likewise, a collection of constructs significantly more complex. Furthermore, theories may impose
(e.g., a typology of constructs) is not a theory, because theories blinders or limit researchers’ “range of vision,” causing them to
must go well beyond constructs to include propositions, miss out on important concepts that are not defined by the
explanations, and boundary conditions. Data, facts, and findings theory.

66
Building blocks of theory exactly how the construct will be measured and at what level of
analysis (individual, group, organizational, etc.). Measurable
David Whetten (1989) suggests that there are four building blocks representations of abstract constructs are called variables. For
of a theory: constructs, propositions, logic, and boundary instance, intelligence quotient (IQ score) is a variable that is
conditions/assumptions. Constructs capture the “what” of purported to measure an abstract construct called intelligence.
theories (i.e., what concepts are important for explaining a As noted earlier, scientific research proceeds along two planes: a
phenomenon), propositions capture the “how” (i.e., how are these theoretical plane and an empirical plane. Constructs are
concepts related to each other), logic represents the “why” (i.e., conceptualized at the theoretical plane, while variables are
why are these concepts related), and boundary conditions/ operationalized and measured at the empirical (observational)
assumptions examines the “who, when, and where” (i.e., under plane.
what circumstances will these concepts and relationships work).
Propositions are associations postulated between constructs
Though constructs and propositions were previously
based on deductive logic. Propositions are stated in declarative
discussed…,we describe them again here for the sake of
form and should ideally indicate a cause-effect relationship (e.g.,
completeness.
if X occurs, then Y will follow). Note that propositions may be
Constructs are abstract concepts specified at a high level of conjectural but MUST be testable, and should be rejected if they
abstraction that are chosen specifically to explain the are not supported by empirical observations. However, like
phenomenon of interest. Recall that constructs may be constructs, propositions are stated at the theoretical level, and
unidimensional (i.e., embody a single concept), such as weight or they can only be tested by examining the corresponding
age, or multi-dimensional (i.e., embody multiple underlying relationship between measurable variables of those constructs.
concepts), such as personality or culture. While some constructs, The empirical formulation of propositions, stated as relationships
such as age, education, and firm size, are easy to understand, between variables, is called hypotheses.
others, such as creativity, prejudice, and organizational agility,
The third building block of a theory is the logic that provides the
may be more complex and abstruse, and still others such as
basis for justifying the propositions as postulated. Logic acts like
trust, attitude, and learning, may represent temporal tendencies
a “glue” that connects the theoretical constructs and provides
rather than steady states. Nevertheless, all constructs must have
meaning and relevance to the relationships between these
clear and unambiguous operational definition that should specify

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constructs. Logic also represents the “explanation” that lies at the implicit assumptions clearly, which leads to frequent
core of a theory. Without logic, propositions will be ad hoc, misapplications of theories to problem situations in research.
arbitrary, and meaningless, and cannot be tied into a cohesive
“system of propositions” that is the heart of any theory. Attributes of a good theory

Finally, all theories are constrained by assumptions about values, Theories are simplified and often partial explanations of complex
time, and space, and boundary conditions that govern where the social reality. As such, there can be good explanations or poor
theory can be applied and where it cannot be applied. For explanations, and consequently, there can be good theories or
example, many economic theories assume that human beings are poor theories. How can we evaluate the “goodness” of a given
rational (or boundedly rational) and employ utility maximization theory? Different criteria have been proposed by different
based on cost and benefit expectations as a way of understand researchers, the more important of which are listed below:
human behavior. In contrast, political science theories assume
• Logical consistency: Are the theoretical constructs,
that people are more political than rational, and try to position
propositions, boundary conditions, and assumptions logically
themselves in their professional or personal environment in a way
consistent with each other? If some of these “building blocks”
that maximizes their power and control over others. Given the
of a theory are inconsistent with each other (e.g., a theory
nature of their underlying assumptions, economic and political
assumes rationality, but some constructs represent non-rational
theories are not directly comparable, and researchers should not
concepts), then the theory is a poor theory.
use economic theories if their objective is to understand the
power structure or its evolution in a organization. Likewise, • Explanatory power: How much does a given theory explain (or
theories may have implicit cultural assumptions (e.g., whether predict) reality? Good theories obviously explain the target
they apply to individualistic or collective cultures), temporal phenomenon better than rival theories, as often measured by
assumptions (e.g., whether they apply to early stages or later variance explained (R-square) value in regression equations.
stages of human behavior), and spatial assumptions (e.g.,
whether they apply to certain localities but not to others). If a • Falsifiability: British philosopher Karl Popper stated in the
theory is to be properly used or tested, all of its implicit 1940’s that for theories to be valid, they must be falsifiable.
assumptions that form the boundaries of that theory must be Falsifiability ensures that the theory is potentially disprovable, if
properly understood. Unfortunately, theorists rarely state their empirical data does not match with theoretical propositions,

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 which allows for their empirical testing by researchers. In other degrees of freedom, which allow them to be more easily
words, theories cannot be theories unless they can be generalized to other contexts, settings, and populations.
empirically testable. Tautological statements, such as “a day
with high temperatures is a hot day” are not empirically testable Approaches to theorizing
because a hot day is defined (and measured) as a day with high
How do researchers build theories? Steinfeld and Fulk (1990)
temperatures, and hence, such statements cannot be viewed as
recommend four such approaches. The first approach is to build
a theoretical proposition. Falsifiability requires presence of rival
theories inductively based on observed patterns of events or
explanations it ensures that the constructs are adequately
behaviors. Such approach is often called “grounded theory
measurable, and so forth. However, note that saying that a
building”, because the theory is grounded in empirical
theory is falsifiable is not the same as saying that a theory
observations. This technique is heavily dependent on the
should be falsified. If a theory is indeed falsified based on
observational and interpretive abilities of the researcher, and the
empirical evidence, then it was probably a poor theory to begin
resulting theory may be subjective and non-confirmable.
with!
Furthermore, observing certain patterns of events will not
• Parsimony: Parsimony examines how much of a phenomenon necessarily make a theory, unless the researcher is able to
is explained with how few variables. The concept is attributed to provide consistent explanations for the observed patterns. We will
14th century English logician Father William of Ockham (and discuss the grounded theory approach in a later chapter on
hence called “Ockham’s razor” or “Occam’s razor), which states qualitative research.
that among competing explanations that sufficiently explain the
The second approach to theory building is to conduct a bottom-
observed evidence, the simplest theory (i.e., one that uses the
up conceptual analysis to identify different sets of predictors
smallest number of variables or makes the fewest assumptions)
relevant to the phenomenon of interest using a predefined
is the best. Explanation of a complex social phenomenon can
framework. One such framework may be a simple input-process-
always be increased by adding more and more constructs.
output framework, where the researcher may look for different
However, such approach defeats the purpose of having a
categories of inputs, such as individual, organizational, and/or
theory, which are intended to be “simplified” and generalizable
technological factors potentially related to the phenomenon of
explanations of reality. Parsimony relates to the degrees of
interest (the output), and describe the underlying processes that
freedom in a given theory. Parsimonious theories have higher

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link these factors to the target phenomenon. This is also an Examples of social science theories
inductive approach that relies heavily on the inductive abilities of
the researcher, and interpretation may be biased by researcher’s In this section, we present brief overviews of a few illustrative
prior knowledge of the phenomenon being studied. theories from different social science disciplines. These theories
explain different types of social behaviors, using a set of
The third approach to theorizing is to extend or modify existing
constructs, propositions, boundary conditions, assumptions, and
theories to explain a new context, such as by extending theories
underlying logic. Note that the following represents just a
of individual learning to explain organizational learning. While
simplistic introduction to these theories; readers are advised to
making such an extension, certain concepts, propositions, and/or
consult the original sources of these theories for more details and
boundary conditions of the old theory may be retained and others
insights on each theory.
modified to fit the new context. This deductive approach
leverages the rich inventory of social science theories developed Agency theory
by prior theoreticians, and is an efficient way of building new
Agency theory (also called principal-agent theory), a classic
theories by building on existing ones.
theory in the organizational economics literature, was originally
The fourth approach is to apply existing theories in entirely new proposed by Ross (1973) to explain two-party relationships (such
contexts by drawing upon the structural similarities between the as those between an employer and its employees, between
two contexts. This approach relies on reasoning by analogy, and organizational executives and shareholders, and between buyers
is probably the most creative way of theorizing using a deductive and sellers) whose goals are not congruent with each other. The
approach. For instance, Markus (1987) used analogic similarities goal of agency theory is to specify optimal contracts and the
between a nuclear explosion and uncontrolled growth of networks conditions under which such contracts may help minimize the
or network-based businesses to propose a critical mass theory of effect of goal incongruence. The core assumptions of this theory
network growth. Just as a nuclear explosion requires a critical are that human beings are self-interested individuals, boundedly
mass of radioactive material to sustain a nuclear explosion, rational, and risk-averse, and the theory can be applied at the
Markus suggested that a network requires a critical mass of users individual or organizational level.
to sustain its growth, and without such critical mass, users may
The two parties in this theory are the principal and the agent; the
leave the network, causing an eventual demise of the network.
principal employs the agent to perform certain tasks on its behalf.
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While the principal’s goal is quick and effective completion of the of the assigned task to make it more programmable and therefore
assigned task, the agent’s goal may be working at its own pace, more observable.
avoiding risks, and seeking self-interest (such as personal pay)
Theory of planned behavior
over corporate interests. Hence, the goal incongruence.
Compounding the nature of the problem may be information Postulated by Azjen (1991), the theory of planned behavior (TPB)
asymmetry problems caused by the principal’s inability to is a generalized theory of human behavior in the social
adequately observe the agent’s behavior or accurately evaluate psychology literature that can be used to study a wide range of
the agent’s skill sets. Such asymmetry may lead to agency individual behaviors. It presumes that individual behavior
problems where the agent may not put forth the effort needed to represents conscious reasoned choice, and is shaped by
get the task done (the moral hazard problem) or may cognitive thinking and social pressures. The theory postulates
misrepresent its expertise or skills to get the job but not perform that behaviors are based on one’s intention regarding that
as expected (the selection problem). Typical contracts that are behavior, which in turn is a function of the person’s attitude
behavior-based, such as a monthly salary, cannot overcome toward the behavior, subjective norm regarding that behavior, and
these problems. Hence, agency theory recommends using perception of control over that behavior. Attitude is defined as the
outcome-based contracts, such as a commissions or a fee individual's overall positive or negative feelings about performing
payable upon task completion, or mixed contracts that combine the behavior in question, which may be assessed as a summation
behavior-based and outcome-based incentives. An employee of one's beliefs regarding the different consequences of that
stock option plans are is an example of an outcome-based behavior, weighted by the desirability of those consequences.
contract while employee pay is a behavior-based contract. Subjective norm refers to one’s perception of whether people
Agency theory also recommends tools that principals may important to that person expect the person to perform the
employ to improve the efficacy of behavior-based contracts, such intended behavior, and represented as a weighted combination of
as investing in monitoring mechanisms (such as hiring the expected norms of different referent groups such as friends,
supervisors) to counter the information asymmetry caused by colleagues, or supervisors at work. Behavioral control is one's
moral hazard, designing renewable contracts contingent on perception of internal or external controls constraining the
agent’s performance (performance assessment makes the behavior in question. Internal controls may include the person’s
contract partially outcome-based), or by improving the structure ability to perform the intended behavior (self-efficacy), while

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external control refers to the availability of external resources innovation diffusion as a process of communication where people
needed to perform that behavior (facilitating conditions). TPB also in a social system learn about a new innovation and its potential
suggests that sometimes people may intend to perform a given benefits through communication channels (such as mass media
behavior but lack the resources needed to do so, and therefore or prior adopters) and are persuaded to adopt it. Diffusion is a
suggests that posits that behavioral control can have a direct temporal process; the diffusion process starts off slow among a
effect on behavior, in addition to the indirect effect mediated by few early adopters, then picks up speed as the innovation is
intention. adopted by the mainstream population, and finally slows down as
the adopter population reaches saturation. The cumulative
TPB is an extension of an earlier theory called the theory of
adoption pattern therefore an S-shaped curve, and the adopter
reasoned action, which included attitude and subjective norm as
distribution represents a normal distribution. All adopters are not
key drivers of intention, but not behavioral control. The latter
identical, and adopters can be classified into innovators, early
construct was added by Ajzen in TPB to account for
adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards based on their
circumstances when people may have incomplete control over
time of their adoption. The rate of diffusion also depends on
their own behaviors (such as not having high-speed Internet
characteristics of the social system such as the presence of
access for web surfing).
opinion leaders (experts whose opinions are valued by others)
Innovation diffusion theory and change agents (people who influence others’ behaviors).

Innovation diffusion theory (IDT) is a seminal theory in the At the micro (adopter) level, Rogers (1995) suggests that
communications literature that explains how innovations are innovation adoption is a process consisting of five stages: (1)
adopted within a population of potential adopters. The concept knowledge: when adopters first learn about an innovation from
was first studied by French sociologist Gabriel Tarde, but the mass-media or interpersonal channels, (2) persuasion: when they
theory was developed by Everett Rogers in 1962 based on are persuaded by prior adopters to try the innovation, (3)
observations of 508 diffusion studies. The four key elements in decision: their decision to accept or reject the innovation, (4)
this theory are: innovation, communication channels, time, and implementation: their initial utilization of the innovation, and (5)
social system. Innovations may include new technologies, new confirmation: their decision to continue using it to its fullest
practices, or new ideas, and adopters may be individuals or potential. Five innovation characteristics are presumed to shape
organizations. At the macro (population) level, IDT views adopters’ innovation adoption decisions: (1) relative advantage:

72
the expected benefits of an innovation relative to prior individuals can be influenced to change their attitude toward a
innovations, (2) compatibility: the extent to which the innovation certain object, events, or behavior and the relative efficacy of
fits with the adopter’s work habits, beliefs, and values, (3) such change strategies. The ELM posits that one’s attitude may
complexity: the extent to which the innovation is difficult to learn be shaped by two “routes” of influence, the central route and the
and use, (4) trialability: the extent to which the innovation can be peripheral route, which differ in the amount of thoughtful
tested on a trial basis, and (5) observability: the extent to which information processing or “elaboration” required of people. The
the results of using the innovation can be clearly observed. The central route requires a person to think about issue-related
last two characteristics have since been dropped from many arguments in an informational message and carefully scrutinize
innovation studies. Complexity is negatively correlated to the merits and relevance of those arguments, before forming an
innovation adoption, while the other four factors are positively informed judgment about the target object. In the peripheral
correlated. Innovation adoption also depends on personal factors route, subjects rely on external “cues” such as number of prior
such as the adopter’s risk-taking propensity, education level, users, endorsements from experts, or likeability of the endorser,
cosmopolitanism, and communication influence. Early adopters rather than on the quality of arguments, in framing their attitude
are venturesome, well educated, and rely more on mass media for towards the target object. The latter route is less cognitively
information about the innovation, while later adopters rely more demanding, and the routes of attitude change are typically
on interpersonal sources (such as friends and family) as their operationalized in the ELM using the argument quality and
primary source of information. IDT has been criticized for having a peripheral cues constructs respectively.
“pro-innovation bias,” that is for presuming that all innovations
Whether people will be influenced by the central or peripheral
are beneficial and will be eventually diffused across the entire
routes depends upon their ability and motivation to elaborate the
population, and because it does not allow for inefficient
central merits of an argument. This ability and motivation to
innovations such as fads or fashions to die off quickly without
elaborate is called elaboration likelihood. People in a state of high
being adopted by the entire population or being replaced by
elaboration likelihood (high ability and high motivation) are more
better innovations.
likely to thoughtfully process the information presented and are
Elaboration likelihood model therefore more influenced by argument quality, while those in the
low elaboration likelihood state are more motivated by peripheral
Developed by Petty and Cacioppo (1986), the elaboration
cues. Elaboration likelihood is a situational characteristic and not
likelihood model (ELM) is a dual-process theory of attitude
a personal trait. For instance, a doctor may employ the central
formation or change in the psychology literature. It explains how
73
route for diagnosing and treating a medical ailment (by virtue of and medical treatment, GDT focuses on the criminal decision
his or her expertise of the subject), but may rely on peripheral making process and situational factors that influence that
cues from auto mechanics to understand the problems with his process. Hence, a criminal’s personal situation (such as his
car. As such, the theory has widespread implications about how personal values, his affluence, and his need for money) and the
to enact attitude change toward new products or ideas and even environmental context (such as how protected is the target, how
social change. efficient is the local police, how likely are criminals to be
apprehended) play key roles in this decision making process. The
General deterrence theory
focus of GDT is not how to rehabilitate criminals and avert future
Two utilitarian philosophers of the eighteenth century, Cesare criminal behaviors, but how to make criminal activities less
Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham, formulated General Deterrence attractive and therefore prevent crimes. To that end, “target
Theory (GDT) as both an explanation of crime and a method for hardening” such as installing deadbolts and building self-defense
reducing it. GDT examines why certain individuals engage in skills, legal deterrents such as eliminating parole for certain
deviant, anti-social, or criminal behaviors. This theory holds that crimes, “three strikes law” (mandatory incarceration for three
people are fundamentally rational (for both conforming and offenses, even if the offenses are minor and not worth
deviant behaviors), and that they freely choose deviant behaviors imprisonment), and the death penalty, increasing the chances of
based on a rational cost-benefit calculation. Because people apprehension using means such as neighborhood watch
naturally choose utility-maximizing behaviors, deviant choices programs, special task forces on drugs or gang-related crimes,
that engender personal gain or pleasure can be controlled by and increased police patrols, and educational programs such as
increasing the costs of such behaviors in the form of punishments highly visible notices such as “Trespassers will be prosecuted”
(countermeasures) as well as increasing the probability of are effective in preventing crimes. This theory has interesting
apprehension. Swiftness, severity, and certainty of punishments implications not only for traditional crimes, but also for
are the key constructs in GDT. contemporary white-collar crimes such as insider trading,
software piracy, and illegal sharing of music.
While classical positivist research in criminology seeks
generalized causes of criminal behaviors, such as poverty, lack of The previous section is by the University of South
education, psychological conditions, and recommends strategies Florida’s Scholar Commons.
to rehabilitate criminals, such as by providing them job training
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Chapter 3

Political
Economy

Learning objectives

After reading this chapter, students will be able to do the

following:

• Understand concepts of political economy.

• Identify characteristics of economic systems.

•
• Analyze states and their political economy.
Section 1

Defining political economy

Classical political economy emerged as a distinct field of the absolutist state. It is part of the more general European
scholarship and policy-oriented analysis during the eighteenth Enlightenment. A parallel tradition in Germany, which was an
century, in rough parallel with the development of a distinct economic laggard, was more oriented to the political dimension
sphere of profit-oriented, market-mediated economic activities of the emerging system of political economy - reflected in the
that was nonetheless seen as dependent on a wider nexus of Polizeiwissenschaften (“police” or policy sciences) that were
legal, political, social, and moral conditions. In contrast with the concerned with good economic, political, and moral government
later discipline of neoclassical economics, which studies such on behalf of the population of a given state.
activities in isolation, classical political economy was a
Following the rolling back of feudalism and the consolidation of
predisciplinary field of inquiry insofar as it tried to put the
capitalism, the rise of organized working-class resistance, and
emerging capitalist economy in its wider social context. Adam
the recurrence of capitalist crises, classical political economy
Smith (1723-90) is exemplary here, writing not only An Inquiry
was slowly displaced by vulgar political economy. This
into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) but
downplayed the class relations between capital and labor and
also A Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and studies of
the origins of value in the labor process, began to focus on the
jurisprudence, politics, logic, and language. Other key figures in
efficient allocation of scarce factors of production to competing
this tradition are David Malthus (1766-1834), and David Ricardo
uses, and sought the causes of economic crisis in factors
(1772-1823) whose work On the Principles of Political
external to the nature and dynamic of capitalism itself.
Economyand Taxation (1817) made him its leading figure.
Although their work is often mentioned as a key part of the
Classical political economy is linked to the rise of a commercial
tradition of political economy, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
and industrial bourgeoisie that sought to challenge the
developed an explicit critique of classical and vulgar political
economic, political, and ideological domination of feudalism and
economy both as scholarship and as the basis of economic

76
policy and practice. They elaborated an alternative account of the dynamic of capitalism were rooted in the inhuman treatment of
capitalist mode of production based on radically different labor power as if it were a commodity. Capitalism is the first
philosophical assumptions and a political commitment to the mode of production based on the existence of formally free
proletariat rather than the bourgeoisie. Thus a significant part of wage-labor and a labor market in which workers sell their labor
their studies was concerned to critique the economic categories power in a formally free and equal commercial transaction to the
and analyses of orthodox political economy. Two major examples owners of the means of production, who in turn need this labor to
are Marx's Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (1844 [trans. set the labor process into motion. The resulting goods and
1964]) and the three-volume Theories of Surplus Value (1861-3 services belong initially to the capitalists for whom the proletariat
[trans. 1963]). They also built on this critique to provide an works, who are therefore free to sell these commodities in the
alternative account of the capitalist mode of production, its social marketplace. Beneath the surface appearance of free and equal
foundations, its dynamic, and its crisis tendencies. Marx's market exchange, however, lay a despotic world of production in
Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), the which capital sought to maximize the production of surplus labor
Grundrisse (1857 [trans. 1973]), and the incomplete analysis in as the basis for economic exploitation and the accumulation of
the three volumes of Capital (1867, 1885, 1894 [trans. 1970]) are capital.
his best-known work here. Their guiding theme is that capital is
Marxism became a crucial reference point for the subsequent
not a thing (a simple, transhistorical factor of production) but a
development of radical, heterodox, and more orthodox forms of
social relation that is a historically specific class relation between
evolutionary and institutional political economy. This trend is
persons, mediated through the instrumentality of things.
sometimes signified in the idea that authors such as Max Weber,
Marx argued that the best starting point for such a critique was to Werner Sombart, Joseph Schumpeter, and Karl Polanyi engaged
ask why wealth in societies where the capitalist mode of in a debate with the “ghost of Marx.” Evolutionary political
production is dominant presents itself as an immense economy holds that time matters: there can be no valid
accumulation of commodities. He regarded the commodity as the transhistorical analysis of economic activities because the nature
“cell form” of capitalism and, on this basis, unfolded the key of economic institutions and conduct, the sites and stakes of
contradictions of capital as a social relation. He defined the economic conflict, and the scope for economic change depend
historical specificity of capitalism in terms of the generalization of on their prior developmental trajectory. And institutional political
the commodity form to labor power, arguing that the nature and economy argues that institutions matter: there can be no pure,

77
isolated economic calculation and conduct because these are
always shaped by specific economic institutions and market
relations and their embedding in a complex extra-economic
environment. It is on this basis that political economy has not only
studied the development of different forms of economic
organization but has also identified a number of more or less
distinct varieties of capitalism.

Vulgar political economy was the basis for neoclassical

economics. This tries to develop a universal, transhistorical
analysis of economic activities based on a general model of
rational economic calculation about the most efficient allocation
of scarce resources (factors of production) to competing ends.
Neoclassical economics is associated with “economics
imperialism,” that is, the extension of economic analysis to social
spheres that are not dominated by profit-oriented, market-
mediated economic activities but are nonetheless marked, it is
claimed, by individual utility maximization within defined rules of
the game. The extension of this model is the basis for rational
choice institutionalism, theories of constitutional design and
public policy, and a new form of political economy.

The previous section is provided by Lynn University’s

use of Credo Reference.

78
Section 2

Economic inequality & welfare

Poverty and inequality: different concepts, difficult The global social movements that have been vocal in opposing
this new phase of capitalism have largely based their criticisms
realities
on the claim that globalisation increases inequality in the world.

One of the most potent sources of protest and conflict in Yet supporters of the liberal approach, who see globalisation as
contemporary global politics is the presence of global economic a source of development on a global scale, claim that the poor

inequality, of which persistent poverty is a consequence and have benefited the most in those places where economic

sometimes, it is argued, a cause. Accurate and useful integration has been made more viable, and that this decreases

estimations of poverty levels and especially income inequality inequality in the long term. What follows is a brief analysis of the

have always been a concern of social scientists and policy ambiguities of recent estimates of inequality. But, before, it is

makers. important to determine, even in general terms, why – besides the

assessment of the general social consequences of globalisation
In recent decades, the technological revolution that gave rise to – inequality matters.
the latest stage of international economic integration, especially
via trade and financial liberalisation – usually termed There are many ways in which income inequality can be severely

‘globalisation’ – has sparked a more contentious debate. This crippling for socioeconomic development, with serious political
has centred not only on the study of ‘real’ levels of income implications – historically perceived. In the 2001 Human

inequality as an end in itself but also on the analysis of inequality Development Report, Birdsall points out that income inequality

that helps to create an accurate picture of the social with the concentration of income at the top combined with

consequences of the singular speed, depth and width of substantial poverty at the bottom of the social pyramid produces

contemporary globalisation. political support for policies that may generate even more
concentration of income and/or support for populist policies that

79
 criminality which, in turn, is closely linked to increased levels of
inequality within countries.

In the current geopolitical context, global inequality also matters

not only as part of a framework for human rights that establishes,
among many related functions, the basic right for development,
education and freedom but also in strategic geopolitical terms.
Although the link between inequality, or poverty itself, and
terrorism is not linear and is just one correlation among many that
feeds terrorist activity, the ‘super empowered angry men’ Thomas
Friedman mentions as being at the root of global insecurity do
certainly rely on those who have little (if any) material wealth and
even less in terms of prospective employment or a stable future
(Friedman, 2000; Wade, 1999).

The challenge of estimating income inequality

produce only short-term positive (if any) results. It may well be
that the absence of a middle class is detrimental to the In 1955, Kuznets famously expounded the idea that higher levels
development of accountable governments, which ultimately of growth would in time lead to less income inequality. However,
compromises sustainable economic growth and even social today it is clear that inequality is far more persistent than
welfare (UNDP, 2001). In addition, inequality is likely to erode expected, even in high-income countries. Thus the links between
social capital. This is now a widely used term which, put roughly, income inequality and economic growth are not automatically
refers to trust, collaboration and citizen responsibility, attributes correlated but are mediated by a series of variables, such as
which are also key to the formation of effective political voting patterns, market failures (especially in capital markets) and
institutions. Social capital determines participation in spheres of uncertain property rights. In this sense, the discussion becomes
community life such as parks, parent-teacher associations of wider: not only does it matter to understand how growth can
public schools, sports leagues, all of which are undermined by

80
produce inequality but also how inequality inhibits the chances of perception is unquestionably substantial. Yet those who see
economic growth. globalisation as a source of unmatched opportunities for
development claim that inequality decreases in countries that
Much controversy underlies the debate on income inequality.
have managed to introduce reforms that allow for more
Although recent estimates have been developed by technically
liberalisation of markets, thus taking advantage of this process of
consistent studies, albeit using different measures, variables, data
global integration as much as possible. To them, it is less and not
sets and interpretations of the concepts studied, they have
more globalisation that leads to inequality.
sometimes produced very different conclusions as to a recent rise
or fall in inequality, especially among countries or in total world Rather than try to settle the debate, it is important to
inequality. On the one hand, there are those who believe that the acknowledge some of the elements that need to be clear when
proportion of people living in extreme poverty in developing using these different studies, as well as some of the evidence that
countries declined in the 1990s. On the other hand, there are seems most plausible in explaining the difficult reality of
studies that point to modest gains by the poor in the same inequality.
period. Yet there are many NGOs which claim that the last decade
What is being measured & how: ambiguities & controversy
has led to greater poverty. Even more convincing, and now
receiving increased international attention, is a study (possibly the First, it is crucial to understand that ‘poverty’, ‘inequality’ and
first in a series) that challenges the methodology used by the even ‘welfare’ are vague concepts, subject to different
World Bank and claims that inequality has been grossly interpretations. While for microeconomic theory ‘welfare’ refers to
underestimated by conventional analyses. utility and satisfaction, other interpretations of the word take into
account elements of ‘quality of life’ rooted in a philosophical
Inevitably, different answers to the question of whether or not
understanding of the human condition and human needs (see, for
inequality has been rising can feed diverse political and
example, Sen and Nussbaum, 1993; Strengmann-Kuhn, 2000).
ideological positions. The street protests organised by
Inequality also may point to a different picture if taken in ‘relative’
international social movements/networks in world capitals during
or ‘absolute’ terms. Economists typically use ‘relative inequality’
World Bank, IMF and G-8 meetings are derived from the belief
as referring to the ratio of individual income as compared with a
that globalisation leads to rich people getting richer and the poor
mean of overall income. If all incomes grow at the same rate,
increasingly becoming poorer. The political impact of this
relative inequality remains unchanged. When it comes to
81
analysing the effects of trade openness, which is an important currencies. It tries to come up with average price levels for all
component of globalisation, on income distribution, a common commodities, weighted by their share in international expenditure,
finding is that greater trade openness has about the same impact so as to make it possible to compare not simply income levels
on the growth rate of income at different levels of income. That is but what people can actually purchase with the money they
not a definitive piece of evidence, but when talking about relative make.
inequality, discrepancies are not so outstanding (Ravallion, 2003).
Sanjay Reddy and Thomas Pogge have claimed that the PPP
However, ‘absolute inequality’ refers to the absolute differences in framework leads to a mistaken assessment of real poverty levels.
incomes. So when incomes grow by the same ratio but starting They argue that in order to evaluate accurately whether a
from an unequal base, inequality in absolute terms inevitably also household is poor, consumption and income must be related not
rises. Thus when they say that inequality has been rising to the local price level of commodities in general but to the local
considerably in the recent years, it is absolute inequality that they cost of a basket of basic necessities, generically described to
usually mean. As Ravallion claims, no one concept is more allow for variations in how the poor in different locations meet
correct than the other; they reflect judgement calls about what their nutritional and other basic needs. In order to avoid the
really constitutes ‘inequality’. arbitrariness of the $1/day standard suggested by PPP
calculations, a basket based on specific needs and local realities
In the same sense, ‘poverty’ is also an imprecise concept by its
must be specified. This avoids the obvious lack of real
very nature. As stated before, determining levels of poverty
comparability if, for example, the cost of rice is included in both
depends on how incomes fall in relation to a ‘poverty line’. This
India and Iceland. Both this effort and the effort of actually
will vary considerably according to which of many views of what
measuring inequality using this new methodology are yet to be
‘poverty’ really means has been adopted. Most recently, an
developed. However, Reddy and Pogge do anticipate that the
engaging debate has developed, which is gaining notoriety in
results to be revealed would prove that World Bank estimates (as
academic circles as well as in the media, regarding the
well as those of analysts who rely heavily on the Bank’s data)
methodology used by international institutions, such as the World
severely underestimate income inequality levels in the world
Bank, for measuring levels of inequality. Normally, the standard
today.
parity purchase power (PPP) framework is favoured. PPP is a
method of arriving at an accurate exchange rate for foreign

82
Inequality among and within countries/regions Colombia and nearly 25 per cent in Mexico. The most populous
countries in the world, China and India, have enjoyed faster
In addition to measurement discrepancies and ambiguities,
income growth than the rich countries. However, it would take
another source of confusion in determining inequality is whether it
them almost a century of constant growth at rates higher than
is inequality between countries or within countries that is being
those in today’s industrialised countries just to reach current US
referred to.
income level.
According to Birdsall, the ratio of average income of the richest
In sub-Saharan Africa poverty is widespread, spreading a number
country in the world to that of the poorest rose from about 9:1 at
of epidemic diseases, condemning a huge number of adults in
the end of the nineteenth century to at least 60:1 in 1999. This
their prime to death. In 16 of the 22 countries in sub-Saharan
means that the average family in the United States is 60 times
Africa with data for the 1990s, the poorest 10 per cent of the
richer than the average family in Ethiopia. In addition, since 1950,
population earned less than one-tenth of the income of the
while the population of poor countries increased 250 per cent,
richest 10 per cent. Conclusions as to the causes and patterns of
that of rich countries grew by less than 50 per cent.
such a problem, however, are still lacking due to limited available
Latin America and the Caribbean are the regions with the highest data. Eastern Europe has relatively low inequality, though Russia
levels of income inequality. In 13 of the 20 countries with data for and Lithuania have registered increases in the recent decade.
the 1990s, the poorest 10 per cent of the population had less
Among OECD countries, while inequality is low, there is diversity
than one-twentieth of the income of the richest 10 per cent,
in the levels of inequality between countries. The United Kingdom
according to UNDP in 2001. This severe inequality means that
and the United States have high levels of inequality in their group.
millions of people are living in extreme poverty. In Brazil, for
Birdsall points out that income inequality in the latter grew in
example, the ratio of income of the top 20 per cent of earners to
recent years not only because profits were sometimes unusually
the bottom is about 25:1, making the country probably the
high (especially in the financial sector) but because there were
world’s most unequal (compared with about 10:1 in the United
losses of income for the bottom income level of the population.
States and about 5:1 in Western Europe). Although Peru,
She claims that the average wage of white male high-school
Colombia and Mexico registered the greatest wage increases in
graduates fell 15 per cent from 1973 to 1993, and the number of
the region, the gap between the skilled and the unskilled rose in
men aged 25 to 54 years earning less than $10,000 a year grew.
the 1990s by more than 30 per cent in Peru, 20 per cent in
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Possibly for the first time in US history, educational gains may be and nationalism, which combined to push the world towards war
reinforcing rather than offsetting income inequality: higher after 1937 (Polanyi, 1944).
education has become a prerequisite for economic success, but
However, after the Second World War, the international economic
because access to it depends on family income, the poor are at a
order assumed a new and very distinct feature. Unlike the
disadvantage.
economic nationalism of the 1930s or the laissez-faire liberalism
In conclusion, although there is controversy about global of the gold standard and free trade years, the new multilateralism
inequality trends, there seems to be evidence that inequality is that emerged was based on domestic governmental intervention.
rising within many countries. However, rising inequality is not This was a kind of political bargain and it shaped the post-war
correlated with growth rates. Ravallion explains that even among economic order: it has been termed by John Ruggie ‘the
growing economies, ‘inequality tends to fall about as often as it compromise of embedded liberalism’. One side of the bargain
rises’ (Ravallion, 2003, p. 7). involved the recognition of the advantages of international
liberalisation while the other required the provision of domestic
The welfare state & the notion of ‘embedded social safety nets to relieve the dislocations of those who lost out
liberalism’: a brief background from heightened international competition in local markets. Thus,
from the start, international liberalisation was coupled with a
In The Great Transformation, Polanyi explored the socially domestic social compact in which ‘governments asked their
disruptive and polarising tendencies in the world economy driven public to embrace the change and dislocation that comes with
by what he called the self-regulating market. Those tendencies liberalisation in return for the promise of help in containing and
were characterised by a ‘double movement’, within which an socialising the adjustment costs’ (Ruggie, 1994, p. 4). Hence, as
unprecedented expansion of the market coexisted with massive Pauly summarises, the compromise combined the ideal of liberal
social disruption and a sharp political reaction in the form of international markets with the practical reality of national
public demands on the state to counteract the deleterious effects economic regulation (Pauly, 1997).
of such market-driven capitalism. Indeed, for Polanyi, this double
movement ultimately generated the political context of the 1930s In fact, empirical evidence confirms that there is a strong positive

and produced a breakdown in liberal economic structures, correlation between openness to trade and the growth of

leading to the phenomena of depression, fascism, unemployment government activity in many countries since the 1960s. Societies

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(rich and poor alike) have demanded and received a larger insurance while reducing its ability to perform that role effectively.
government role as the price of exposing themselves to greater Indeed, there is a visible tension between the consequences of
amounts of external risks. This finding leads to an important globalisation and the requirements for maintaining the social
conclusion: the social welfare state is the flip side of the open legitimacy of free trade and other pieces of economic
economy since wherever external risk is perceived to increase liberalisation that inevitably impose wide domestic social costs,
when liberalisation occurs, the importance of government along (at times) with gains that tend, however, to remain
intervention in the shape of the provision of social insurance is concentrated, sometimes by policy on one societal group.
accentuated significantly.
According to Ruggie there are two sources of ‘disembeddedness’
Globalisation & the end of the embedded liberalism of the state. One has to do with the success of the post-war trade
regime in liberalising the economy. As barriers to the flow of
compromise: new challenges ahead
economic transactions were eliminated and cross-border market

However, the internationalisation and integration of production, forces were encouraged, some of the standard policy tools the

investment and trade – economic globalisation – plays a government had in its power to manage the consequences of this

challenging role in this scenario and threatens the basic bargain liberalisation were lost. The result of this process was the

of ‘embedded liberalism’. On one side, public opinion polls show denationalisation of capital, or put in other words, the increasing

that, despite the perception of a backlash against expansionary separation of national ownership from the physical location of

fiscal policies, due to the spread of neoliberal practices worldwide production. The second source of disembeddedness is related to

with their emphasis on the economic perils of interventionism, the the weakening of domestic social safety nets throughout the

principles behind the welfare state remain highly popular among capitalist world. Ruggie blames this outcome on the decline in
broad segments of society. On the other side, it is possible to productivity and competition from low-labour-cost countries in

attest that confidence in government spending has diminished the context of closer integration in international production
considerably in most advanced countries. networks, as well as on the weight of the welfare state itself on
national budgets. Budget deficits and tax-weary publics
The combination of these two facts leads to what Rodrik compelled governments to shrink the traditional web of social
considers to be the dilemma brought about by globalisation: it policies significantly.
results in increased demands on the state to provide social

85
In addition, at the same time as fiscal austerity was being The place of the state in the context of
pursued, added pressure from global capital for reduced taxes
globalisation
and labour costs has driven many governments to cut back
welfare programmes. In an effort to boost global competitiveness, Given these facts about both developed and developing
‘governments across the planet have, since 1980, rolled back countries, it is important to place this analysis within the context
social democracy and dismantled state socialism’, each following of the vast literature on globalisation. To acknowledge an
very similar macroeconomic programmes based on neoliberal increasing and wide trend in the reduction of public social
premises (Scholte, 1997, p. 448). spending is not to say that the state has grown ‘powerless’ in the
face of globalisation because its capacity to dictate fiscal and
According to the UNDP Human Development Report of 1999, in
monetary policies is subject to the restless moods of global
developing countries as well, the fiscal resource base is being
capital. But equally this approach does not deny the fact that
squeezed. That can be perceived in four ways. The first happens
important changes are indeed happening in the real power of the
through trade liberalisation and the reduction in trade taxes that
state due to globalisation.
follows it. The second has to do with the fact that transnational
operations are difficult to tax. Third, countries compete in Even those who do not accept the argument of the
lowering their corporate and capital gains taxes, reducing tax ‘powerlessness of the state’ admit that there are significant
receipts – a pattern inaugurated by developed countries. Finally, constraints on government capacity to make and implement
the growth of the informal economy is translated into a policy. In fact, the general slide towards more fiscally conservative
substantial reduction in tax revenues in many countries. policies, both on the left and on the right, entailing tax reforms as
well as a significant reduction in social spending, is a reality for
Consequently, as the resource base in developing countries
states; and this is so at a time when social disparities remain high
shrinks, the demand for public resources increases, but in the
and are likely to become even more a source of political stress in
face of reduced revenues, states are reducing spending. Public
the context of a global recession.
spending on health and education in countries with low human
development declined from 2 per cent of GDP in 1986–1990 to Because of this, it is important to identify the new features of the
1.8 per cent in 1991–1996 (UNDP, 1999). state in the context of globalisation. In other words, what kind of
state are we talking about? It is not a ‘powerless state’; neither is

86
it a Keynesian, welfare-producing, interventionist state. It is best provision of social insurance domestically via interventionist
described as a ‘negotiator state’. This view is explored by Sassen public policies? For Rodrik, that is unlikely to happen if
as she explains that the role of the state in today’s global governments lose their autonomy in generating tax revenues and
economy, unlike in earlier times, has been to negotiate the shaping social policies. Again, global capital increasingly
intersection between national law and foreign actors – whether demands both austerity and the continuation of the agenda of
firms, markets or supra-national organisations. This condition liberalisation in the places it will invest, allowing governments in
makes the current phase distinctive. The existence of an rich and poor countries only limited room for manoeuvre in
enormously elaborate body of law that secures the exclusive policymaking – and in poor countries significantly less, if any. In
territoriality of national states to an extent not seen in earlier fact, the slowdown in the 1990s followed a period of inflation,
centuries has now to be seen cohabiting with a considerable deficit spending and increasing government debt levels around
institutionalising of the ‘rights’ of non-national firms, cross-border the industrialised world. Hence, in order to stabilise their budgets,
transactions and supra-national organisations. This illustrates the states adopted stringent monetary fiscal policies, which were the
unavoidable engagement by national states in the process of ones deemed sustainable or credible by financial markets
globalisation and confirms its cooptation with global capital. because they favoured financial stability over employment. This
became known as the ‘politics of financial credibility’ and created
Thus, globalisation is not just a matter of crossing geographic
a crucial pressure, forcing cuts in social spending at a time when
borders, as is captured by measuring international investment
the geopolitical scenario had led to higher than ever expenditures
and trade. It also has to do with the relocation of national public
on security in some developed countries.
governance functions to transnational private arenas and with the
development inside national states – through legislation, court From ‘unequal terms of trade’ to a ‘race to the
rulings, executive orders – of the mechanisms necessary to
bottom’?
accommodate the rights of the global capital in what are still
national territories under the exclusive control of their states. In the 1960s a theory of development emanating from developing
countries emphasised that international trade was based on an
In the light of these facts, a final question needs to be asked: can
unequal exchange between rich and poor countries. Those less
the bargain of ‘embedded liberalism’ be sustained – i.e., the
industrialised countries especially reliant on exports of raw
combination of economic liberalisation internationally with the
materials faced unequal terms of trade with industrialised
87
countries whose export prices used to rise disproportionately liberalisation to workers in developed countries. Trade unions and
more than the prices of the raw materials they imported. This NGOs (most notably) were vocal in claiming that ‘globalisation’
theoretical understanding of the realities of underdevelopment led to a ‘race to the bottom’ phenomenon. That is to say, they
became known as ‘dependency theory’ and was at the root of a believed (and some still do) that because of international
strategy of industrialisation via import substitution that developing competition and the fact that developing countries are abundant
countries, especially in Latin America, followed in the 1960s and in low-skilled labour, the wages of this labour were lower than the
1970s. This strategy followed the logic that protecting the pay of low-skilled labour in developed countries. As markets are
national market was necessary to stimulate the evolution of already interconnected and international trade becomes more
national industries. open, firms have the option of buying low-skilled labour in
developing countries (especially by building plants in these
Although it is now understood that import substitution had merits
countries). So, there is pressure – it is argued – for the reduction
in fostering industrialisation in developing countries, it failed to
of the wages of low-skilled labour in developed countries. This
produce sustainable improvements via increased employment
would characterise the infamous race to the bottom, which fuels
and the fostering of international competitiveness in Latin
contentious ‘anti-globalisation’ movements.
America. By contrast, in East Asia where an export-oriented
economy took shape, the 1980s was a time of growth and not the The USA of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s registered greater
‘lost decade’ that it became for protectionist economies. In the earnings differentials between older and younger workers, and
late 1980s and especially in the 1990s, the interventionist ideas greater differentials between high-skilled and low-skilled
that had motivated ‘dependency theorists’ were vigorously occupations. Also, the economic position of low-skilled men has
exchanged for the neoliberal approach of international institutions fallen by staggering amounts (Freeman, 2000). In Europe, the
and applied by local technocrats. This emphasised international problem was less one of income differentials and more of the
‘free’ trade – or the significant reduction in trade barriers availability of jobs, chiefly because wages are less flexible there
worldwide – as a key to ‘development’. than in the USA. Whether it is earning inequalities or joblessness
that is the major concern, the question remains for both the USA
Developed country workers and trade liberalisation and Europe as to what has caused this decline in the relative
supply for low-skilled labour. Is there indeed a race to the
An interesting twist in this story – seldom related to it – was the
bottom?
intense debate in the 1990s about the damaging effects of trade
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It is a fact that trade between the USA and Europe and developed countries, but it does not account for all of it. As
developing countries has increased significantly in the last two Freeman concludes, the debate over the causes for the
decades. This was the result of several developments, especially ‘immiseration’ of less-skilled workers has an element of a
the significant reduction in trade barriers which followed from judgement call about it. Increased trade with developing countries
international trade agreements and trade reforms in developing is not the sole culprit. Freeman concludes that ‘technological
countries, and the vigorous ‘support’ of the IMF and the World changes that occur independent of trade, unexpected political
Bank for export-oriented strategies as a source of growth and developments, such as German reunification, policies to educate
capital for debt repayment in developing countries. As more and train workers, union activities, the compensation policies of
international trade is still intrafirm trade, the increase in overall firms, and welfare state and related social policies’ have
trade among rich and poor countries is intimately linked also to historically played a crucial role in determining workers’ well-
the expansion of multinational firms which outsource production being and will remain crucial determinants of wages and
to places where labour is cheaper. employment in the future (Freeman, 2000, p. 352).

Despite these facts, there is insufficient evidence to see trade This debate is certainly not likely to become less salient, however.
with developing countries as the culprit for the decrease in Global recession and the deepening of trade integration (most
demand for low-skilled labour in developed countries. Freeman notably via the consolidation of the Free Trade Area of the
explains that the race to the bottom argument is not consistent Americas) are likely to fuel strong political reactions among
with evidence in the USA, where wage differences among states different interest groups. The inability of modern states to
and localities have persisted for decades despite free trade, compensate the losers from globalisation is likely to make
migration and capital flows. Also, ‘among countries, wage matters even more serious.
differences between workers with seemingly similar skills have
also persisted for decades, albeit exaggerated by the divergences Sovereign debt and the challenges it poses for
between purchasing power parities and exchange rates, and by economic welfare
differences in skills that are hard to measure’ (Freeman, 2000, p.
348). Debt has always been a difficult part of the reality of developing
countries. Defaults on debt payments have existed for as long as
Increased trade with developing countries may have produced credit itself. Indeed, the problems of debt servicing preceded
some of the reduction in wages of low-skilled workers in Mexico’s first foreign loan after independence in 1827. However,
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debt has become a particularly prominent issue in international criticised for several reasons. These range from complaining
debates on economic development in recent decades. about its complexity to the idea that relief under the Initiative is
‘too little too late’ and should be less reliant on pervasive IMF
Much of that has to do with the strong activism emerging from
conditionalities and ‘unrealistic’ calculations of debt sustainability.
transnational social networks and campaigns which have not only
brought the issue to the forefront of economic discussions but Moreover, one could also add many other aspects that may have
have stressed the link between debt and human rights. Thus, the reactivated the debt discussion at the international level. The
reasons for the current salience of debt in the global economy are deregulation of financial markets in most developing countries
intimately linked to the emergence and recognition of movements has allowed for a more volatile environment, in which debt, issued
such as the Jubilee 2000 Coalition (now the Jubilee Research) in the form of sovereign bonds, is traded and consequently
and the recent technological advances that have permitted the subjected to the swings of speculative investment by increasingly
proliferation of information via the Internet. Using this last is a numerous and dispersed groups of private creditors. Recent
core piece of these activists’ technique. financial crises have brought to the front the intimate connections
between international (unregulated) financial markets, currency
In addition, this reconsideration of debt as a severe economic
crises and ultimately debt crises. Debt thus became an issue of
constraint to development has been an ongoing process within
interest not only to debtors and the social activists who support
international financial institutions since the 1980s. Although there
cancellation and relief but also to financial market players and,
was a clear perception as long ago as 1967 that debt service
naturally, increasingly to international financial institutions,
payments were becoming severely constraining to some
especially the IMF, which acts as a ‘lender of last resort’ in times
countries, debt relief began to flow to poor countries only in 1979
of chaos.
as a product of the 1977–1979 UNCTAD meetings. These led to
official creditors writing off $6 billion in debt to 45 poor countries. There are important differences between debt as a
Debt relief initiatives followed, culminating in the HIPC Initiative of macroeconomic issue in middle-income countries, where the
1996, managed by the World Bank and the IMF. This programme, issue is seen in terms of alternative mechanisms for debt
which involves a comprehensive framework for debt relief under restructuring, and in low-income countries, where the debate
conditions of macroeconomic management (via stabilisation concerns cancellation, relief and aid. Despite these differences,
programmes supported by the Bank and the Fund), has been the scale of debt problems is indeed substantial overall. The debt

90
owed by the most highly indebted countries in the world is about Congo, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea,
$170 billion (in 1999 nominal terms). Approximately 50 per cent of Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali,
this is owed to bilateral creditors such as the United States, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sao Tome
Japan, France and other European countries. Moreover, while 37 and Principe, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda
per cent of the total is owed to multilateral creditors, the World and Zambia.
Bank, the IMF and the regional and sub-regional development
In Latin America (4 countries): Bolivia, Guyana, Honduras,
bank, 13 per cent is owed to private creditors. The debt of the
Nicaragua
highly indebted, poorest countries in the world represents only 8
per cent of the. developing countries’ approximate $2 trillion debt In Asia (3 countries): Laos, People Dem. Rep., Vietnam,
and only 35 per cent of the debt of all low-income countries. Myanmar (Burma)

Although current debt discussions signal some new elements in

In the Middle East (1 country): Republic of Yemen
the global economy, the burden of debt has always been
substantial especially for low-income countries, which depend on In fact, the debt burden of the poorest countries is 93 per cent of
international lending from multilateral institutions, as they are their income. According to a report produced by the United
considered too risky an investment to attract private capital. Nations Development Programme, cited by Sachs, Tanzania, for
There are two direct effects from indebtedness under these example, has been spending nine times more for debt servicing
circumstances. One is the impact of servicing debt on the than for basic health and four times more than for primary
national budget, because it leads to a reduction in the allocation education. Moreover, in Ethiopia, where more than 100,000
of resources in social spending, probably already a small amount. children die annually from easily preventable diseases, debt
Secondly, there is no doubt that highly indebted poor countries payments are four times more than public spending on health
face severe budgetary constraints and therefore lack resources to care. Sachs describes further this dramatic situation with the case
invest in basic social service provision. of Zambia, which spent more than 30 per cent of its national
budget on debt payments each year during the 1990s but only 10
In Africa (34 countries): per cent on basic social services. In fact, the Zambian

Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African government’s annual health expenditures per person are

Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Democratic Republic of estimated to be $17, compared with G7 expenditures on health

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care of around $2,300 per person. But to make matters worse, in that requiring citizens of poor countries to pay debts accumulated
Zambia 20 per cent of the population is HIV positive (as of 1999) by undemocratic regimes, and for purposes never intended to
and it is estimated that around 9 per cent of Zambian children benefit them, is inherently unjust. This is, in fact, a persuasive
under 15 have lost a mother or both parents to AIDS. Half of all scenario in which arguments for debt relief gain more support.
Zambians have no access to safe drinking water and
Some characteristics of highly indebted poor countries
approximately 30 per cent of children remain unvaccinated.
Indeed, ‘life expectancy has dropped to 43 years in the country • Highly indebted: The debt of HIPC Initiative-eligible countries
and is expected to decline still further as AIDS continues to take grew from about $59 billion in 1980 to $170 billion in 1999,
its toll’ (Sachs, 1999). which increased the average debt-to-export ratio from 199 per

In addition, in Africa as a whole, where only one child in two goes cent to 414 per cent and the average debt-to-GNP ratio from 31

to school, governments transfer four times more to northern per cent in 1981 to 103 per cent in 1999.

creditors in debt payments than they spend on health and

• Poor: Of the total population of 615 million, almost half lives on
education. Of 27 countries, only 10 spend more on basic social
less than $1 a day. With slow growth, the global number and
services than on debt servicing (as of 1998). Those services
proportion of poor people have increased in the past two
include basic education, basic health care, safe water and
decades.
sanitation provision, family planning and nutrition. Indeed, in
many countries, the combined expenditure on defence and debt • High receipt of official development assistance (ODA): Gross
is higher than that on basic social services and often higher than transfers in the form of grants and loans from bilateral and
the combined budgets for health and education. multilateral donors and creditors in the past two decades
amounted to about $445 billion in constant 1995 dollars. On
Increasingly, debates on debt relief focus on the option of
average, net transfers (gross transfers minus debt transfers)
cancellation, because they spur fundamental questions about the
paid by them to the group of countries that eventually become
legitimacy of the debts owned by developing countries. Indeed,
HIPCs were about 10 per cent of their GDP in the 1990s,
considerations about the legacy of debts entered into by corrupt
representing as much as 60 per cent of government revenue
and otherwise illegitimate governments are central to the
and financing. Transfers often exceeded revenue collection by
advocacy for debt cancellation. Few analysts disagree on the fact
governments.

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• Unmanageable stock of debt: The high levels of development is that loans received by corrupt governments – not used to serve
assistance and the stagnation in exports and government the population they ruled in any welfare-increasing aspect –
revenue (which resulted from the low growth) combined to cannot be expected to be repaid by the legitimate governments
produce a more and more unmanageable stock of debt. that took office later.

Of the nearly $140 billion of loans committed to HIPCs between It is also important to notice that odious debt cases are not all
1972 and 1999, about 60 per cent has gone to countries confined to the group of countries which qualifies for debt relief
considered not free in the year they received the funds. Between under the HIPC initiative. Notably, South Africa and Croatia are
1982 and 1995, 33 per cent of these loans went to countries not candidates for HIPC-granted debt relief. In these cases,
ranked by the International Country Risk Guide as corrupt and not perhaps, the argument of odious debt itself – and not simply the
free. Although some of these loans were never delivered, as claim for cancellation of debts based on assessments of
Birdsall and Williamson conclude, the facts show that creditors economic sustainability – seems to hold strength as an argument
have funded utterly illegitimate governments. Because the debts for writing off such debts.
acquired under such singular circumstances are outstanding and
delay a possibility of development for the poorest countries in the The ‘digital’ & ‘ecological’ divides
world, they are usually referred to as ‘odious debts’ and are
Income inequality is a consequence and a producer of other
inevitably the object of international scrutiny, both at the level of
kinds of inequalities. In some sense, it is a consequence,
increasingly engaged international advocacy by civil society-
according to Sachs, of an ‘ecological divide’ – although this is by
based groups and at the level of official creditors involved in the
no means the only cause of inequality and extreme poverty. By
HIPC initiative.
‘ecological divide’ is meant the profound effect that the
Cases of ‘odious debts’ reveal an essential feature of the debt geographical circumstance can have, whether as an
debate, especially when it comes to making efforts towards encouragement to their development or as a crucial obstacle to
achieving significant relief. They point to the fact that not all debts growth. The poorest countries in the world are not merely an
acquired by sovereigns – especially in the cases of the poorest ‘underdeveloped’ version of rich countries. If that were true, the
countries with illegitimate regimes – are to be subjected to the alleviation of poverty would be an easier task. However, as Sachs
obligation of repayment. In other words, the argument in this case emphasises, ‘the poor live in different ecological zones, face

93
different health conditions and must overcome agronomic systems, thus allowing them to benefit from the inflow of
limitations that are very different from those of rich countries’. international capital. This is the case in a number of developing
countries and/or regions experiencing some level of economic
Hunger is not only a product of inefficient or corrupt governance
growth, such as the coastal regions of east Asia, coastal China,
but of serious ecological conditions, such as droughts and low
Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong SAR, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia
productivity of the land in some tropical areas. The vast spread of
and Indonesia. Impoverished regions with unfavourable
diseases such as malaria, hookworm, sleeping sickness and
geographical conditions were excluded from possibly benefiting
schistosomiasis (whose transmission often depends on a warm
from globalisation and are ‘trapped in poverty’. These are
climate) is not only a result of inadequate health policies but a
countries in most of sub-Saharan Africa, central Asia, large parts
sign that scientific breakthroughs are confined to rich countries,
of the Andean region and the highlands of Central America.
even if they are sometimes achieved by scientists who came from
a poor country. In the case of malaria, for example, tropical Moreover, income inequality also produces a ‘digital divide’ in that
conditions allow the infection to spread. Mosquito control is there is a sharply uneven diffusion of information and
expensive and not always effective. If more resources were communications technology among different regions of the world
invested in the search for a vaccine, things could be different. Yet and also within countries. Not only is new technology largely
research and development of this kind demands a market. The produced in OECD countries (even if through using foreign labour
biggest vaccine producers believe there is no market in malaria from developing countries), but the use of this technology is also
and international subsidies that could provide the large labs with highly uneven. OECD countries, with only 14 per cent of the
incentives to produce the needed vaccines to cure tropical world’s population, accounted for 86 per cent of patent
diseases are not available. applications filed in 1998 and 85 per cent of scientific and
technical journal articles published worldwide. Not surprisingly,
The emphasis of development economists on the role of
these are also the countries that invest the most in research and
institutions seems to neglect the fact that the countries which
development: 2.4 per cent compared with 0.6 per cent in South
have prospered the most in the current context of globalisation
Asia. Because innovation also means ownership, which produces
are not only places where institutions are efficiently managed and
profits in the form of royalties and licences, economic inequality is
were well developed, but places where geographical conditions
also a part of this picture. Of worldwide royalty and licence fees in
were favourable to their closer integration into global production

94
1999, 54 per cent went to the United States and 12 per cent to
Japan (UNDP, 2001).

Technology use is uneven within countries. Internet use in urban

regions is greater than in rural ones; it is concentrated among the
better educated and the young, and in many regions men are
more connected than females. In China, the 15 least connected
provinces, with 600 million people, have only 4 million Internet
users, while Shanghai and Beijing (with 27 million people) have 5
million users. In the Dominican Republic, 80 per cent of Internet
users live in Santo Domingo, the capital. In Thailand, 90 per cent
of the users live in urban areas, while in India, from 1.4 million
Internet connections, more than 1.3 million are in only five states
– Delhi, Karnatake, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Mumbai. In
Chile, 89 per cent of Internet users have had tertiary education.
The numbers for Sri Lanka and China are 65 per cent and 70 per
cent, respectively. Men make up 86 per cent of users in Ethiopia,
83 per cent in Senegal, 70 per cent in China, 67 per cent in
France and 62 per cent in Latin America (UNDP, 2001).

The previous section is provided by Lynn University’s

use of Credo Reference.

95
Section 3

An approach to comparative analysis or a subfield?

The first edition of this volume featured a chapter on political concepts of the subfield. This positioning is helpful, I suggest,
economy by Peter A. Hall (Hall 1997). In it, Hall sought to define insofar as while many political scientists see rational choice and
political economy by asking the following question: In the subset political economy as synonymous (Weingast and Wittman 2006;
of those scholars who study the comparative politics of the Alt and Shepsle 1990), a focus on interests rather than rationality
advanced industrial states, how are political economy as a core concern allows me to place political economy in a
explanations constructed? Seen from this vantage, political broader frame that engages a more variegated set of literatures,
economy, Hall answered, appears as a field defined by a specific particularly those on institutions and ideas, than would at first
set of concepts; interests, institutions, and ideas within blush appear to constitute it. When one makes this distinction,
comparative politics. Ten years later, I still find Hall’s specification political economy does not become coterminous with rationality,
of the boundaries of the field, by reference to this troika of and hence with rational choice theory. Rational choice is
concepts, to be most useful for defining what political economy masterfully surveyed in this volume by Margaret Levi, and
is and what it is not. However, in replicating Hall’s analysis, two indeed, much of the work she covers is and should be
caveats are in order. considered political economy. However, in terms of the framing
of this chapter, if rational choice gets to “own” the concept of
First of all, in following Hall’s troika of “interests,” “institutions,”
rationality, then much of the work I would wish to include here
and “ideas” as defining political economy, I necessarily break
must be recoded as some kind of cultural or structural “other
with this volume’s emphasis on “rationality,” “culture,” and
than political economy” approach. Rather than privilege any
“structure” as defining comparative [Link] then do I prefer
particular literature, Hall’s framework allows us more freedom to
Hall’s troika of boundary-setting concepts to the one offered by
broadly define and survey political economy.
the editors? I do so since taking this route allows me to focus on
interests rather than rationality as one of the three defining

96
Despite having just made the case for the usefulness of these perspectives can be understood as an extension of the core
concepts in defining the boundaries of political economy, my insights of each of these classic statements. In noting this
second caveat concerns how developments in the subfield over increasing plurality of approaches, however, I assess two things.
the past decade may have actually made sustaining these First, I return to the relationship of political economy, as it is
boundaries more difficult for two reasons. That is, while political bounded here, to rational choice theory. Second, I ask whether
economy is indeed still very much a way of doing comparative the plurality of approaches this broad view of political economy
politics, one can argue that it has grown from its “reborn” establishes is a problem for a putatively scientific field of study.
beginnings in the 1970s to become a distinct “way of doing” Comparative politics, as a subfield, is sometimes criticized for its
political science in and of itself. For example, as well as scholars intellectual pluralism (Skocpol et al. 1995; Bates 1997b). I argue
working with interests, institutions, and ideas developing their instead that as far as political economy is concerned, such
own research programs, we have also recently seen the decay of pluralism is its signal strength. When one considers that the
the boundary that traditionally set so-called international political objects of political economy are open-ended evolutionary social
economy apart from comparative political economy, increasing and economic systems, the idea that a “theory of everything” can
conceptual borrowing across the subfield, and the emergence of help us understand the world has surely proven fallacious (Blyth
new approaches that go beyond the troika of interests, 2003a, 2007). As such, the increasing pluralism of political
institutions, and ideas (Hobson and Seabrooke 2007; Langley economy should be embraced rather than rejected.
2004; MacKenzie 2006). With those caveats in order, I first
discuss what political economy is and how its modern form came Political economy: what it was & how it
about. Following this, I suggest that the modern troika of political (unexpectedly) came about
economy perspectives just outlined can be read as extensions of
three books published almost a quarter of a century ago: Peter A. The answers to these questions are not as obvious as is typically
Gourevitch’s Politics in Hard Times (1986), Peter A. Hall’s portrayed. What one might call the “standard story” is one where
Governing the Economy (1986), and Peter J. Katzenstein’s Small the birth of capitalism in Europe transforms property relations and
States in World Markets (1985). I link each of these books to patterns of distribution, and “political economy” thinkers theorize
about it (Heilbroner 1953; cf. Halperin 2003). Reflecting upon
one part of the troika; interests, institutions, and ideas, these momentous changes, thinkers such as Smith, Malthus,
respectively, and show how the evolution of each of these Ricardo, and Marx explained these events by reference to factors
97
as different as the division of labor, changes in population, the because it smacked of Marxism, but also because the move
“average” level of profits, and the unfolding of class toward ever greater formalism further “depoliticized” the subject,
contradictions, respectively. Despite their ostensible differences, economics ascended as a legitimate field of inquiry during a
what these classical political economists agreed upon – and this period in which the social sciences as a whole were politically
is the correct part of the standard story – was the essential unity suspect, and as a consequence, “political” economy dropped out
of the economic and the political as equal components in of view (Samuelson 1997; Amadze 2003).
understanding the way the world works (Watson 2005).1
However, such unity was not to last into the modern era, and here The (unexpected) rebirth of political economy
lies the less well-known part of the standard story.
With economics ascendant and political economy out of fashion,
Later political economists, such as Jevons, Walras, and Marshall, it would take a shock to the system to bring it back in. That shock
separated economics from political economy during their came in the 1970s, when the gloss came off the post–World II
“marginalist revolution” by focusing on the moment of exchange economic boom and the developed world underwent its first
rather than the process of value creation. But in making such a postwar recession (Lindberg and Maier 1985; Krugman 1994).
move, they did something else: They removed from political Stagflation, oil shocks, unemployment, and low growth all dented
economy a concern with distribution – who gets what, when, the prestige of economics since economics, as a discipline, didn’t
where, and why – and hence any notion of politics and see it coming, and economists as a group couldn’t agree on what
economics as mutually constitutive. In this reductionist moment, to do about it once it came (Bell and Kristol 1981). In this moment
Pareto efficiency trumped political expediency, and “the politics” of crisis, many scholars began to argue that the separation of
of political economy was evacuated. The result of this separation politics and markets that economics instantiated was perhaps
was that economics forgot history in the search for timeless part of the problem all along.
generalizations about a field of action called “the economy,”
First out of the block were Marxist theorists, eager to denounce
where politics appears only as a distortion of (or a distraction in)
the latest dip in capitalist performance as “the end of times.”
an otherwise self-regulating world (Hodgson 2001). Although
James O’Connor (1974) diagnosed the postwar welfare state as
there were some holdouts to this view, such as Veblen (1899) and
being in a terminal fiscal crisis, while Jurgen Habermas (1975)
Kalecki (1944), the early years of the Cold War effectively put paid
identified a parallel “legitimation crisis” in which the overstressed
to political economy, at least in the American academy. In part

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mechanisms of state redistribution worked against efficient back in part because with states around the world appropriating,
mechanisms of capitalist exploitation. In other parts of the taxing, and spending between 30 and 50 percent of gross
academy, liberal theorists such as Charles Lindblom (1977) domestic product (GDP), the idea of an “economy” that ran by its
pondered the “privileged position” of business as a political actor own transcendental laws apart from politics became an
in capitalist states.2 Meanwhile, other scholars began to wonder increasingly questionable assertion. Most importantly, however, it
if it wasn’t democracy that was the problem, with politicians came back because hard-won empirical research showed that
meshing their electoral cycle to the mechanisms of state the economy was inseparable from politics. Modern political
intervention to produce inflation and low growth through a economy showed that if one wanted to understand significant
“political business cycle” (Nordhaus 1975; Lindbeck 1976; variations in economic outcomes, then embracing the mutual
Buchanan and Wagner 1977). imbrications of states and markets was a pretty good place to
start.
Political scientists embraced these new ideas and pondered, for
example, which states would survive the downturn better than Interests, institutions & ideas as explanatory
others, and in doing so began to see the organization of the state
alternatives
itself as a critical variable in explaining economic outcomes
(Katzenstein 1976; Krasner 1976). Building upon these insights, Despite their desire to place markets and states in the same
some scholars sought answers in analyzing how a post–Bretton equation, what this new generation of political economists had in
Woods financial environment would impact states (Block 1977; common were more questions than answers. The question some
Strange 1970). Others worried more specifically about the United scholars asked was “Qui bono?” – who benefits? (Gourevitch
States in its role as world hegemon and provider of public 1986; Strange 1988). This question privileges the concept of
goods” (Kindleberger 1973). From this angle, an entire body of “interests” by forcing the analyst to ask, “In whose benefit would
work concerned with the stability of the global economy and the it be for outcome X to pertain over outcome Y?” Doing so, in turn,
role of the United States therein, a distinct international political leads the analyst to ask how people come to want what they
economy (IPE) began to take shape. Indeed, by the mid-1980s, want, and then try to link those wants to specific outcomes worth
political economy, in a multiplicity of forms, was back. It was back explaining. Given this desire to link intentions and outcomes,
in part because the excision of the political from the economic interest-based arguments tend to be underpinned by a materialist
that economics as a field relied upon had seemingly failed. It was

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theory of action, based upon the not unreasonable notion that The first version, as Hall’s definition suggests, sees institutions as
where one sits economically may guide one’s preferences historically specific and ontologically prior to the agents who
politically.3 Actors’ class positions, what assets they have, how occupy them. Such institutions structure agents’ choices (Hall
fungible those assets are, how exposure to particular economic 1986; Steinmo et al. 1992). North’s quote, in contrast, suggests a
shocks impacts agents’ resource portfolios: these variables different but equally relevant way of viewing institutions. Rather
become empirical grist to the theoretical mill of interest-based than institutions structuring choices, humans are seen to design
accounts (Block 1977; Frieden 1991b; Rogowski 1989; Swenson institutions to achieve their goals given their preexisting material
2002). interests. Whether to overcome collective action problems or reap
gains in trade, institutions are chosen structures (North 1990). In
A second group of theorists asked another question: “Who varies
either case, while interests are important, it is how they are
and why?” Here institutions rather than interests come to the fore.
refracted through institutions that is the explanatory causa prima.
One influential definition of institutions views them as “the formal
Building on these prior positions, a third group of political
rules, compliance procedures, and standard operating practices
economists asked another question: “Who constructs?” Given
that structure the relationship between individuals in various units
that many of the causes that generate outcomes in the political
of the polity and the economy” (Hall 1986: 19). Another defines
economy are highly complex and not directly observable, some
institutions, more broadly, as “humanly devised constraints that
theorists began to attend to the social constructions agents use
shape human interaction” (North 1990: 3). Basically,
to decode and navigate the political economy, seeing those
institutionalists want to know whether agents act according to
constructions as causally important in and of themselves (Blyth
their materially derived interests or because of the institutional
2002; Parsons 2003). Take globalization, for example. Standard
context in which they find themselves. Institutional explanations
materialist accounts of globalization’s effects on politics tend to
focus our attention on how economies are organized and how
focus on how particular actors are impacted by, for example,
such configurations impact agents’ interests. Seen in this way,
greater integration into financial markets (Frieden 1991b, 2005),
institutions link larger economic structural changes and interests
labor markets (Rodrik 1997; Iversen 2005), or product markets
but become causally important in their own right. There are,
(Keohane and Milner 1996b). In contrast, scholars who attend to
however, two versions of institutionalism that have evolved from
the social construction of globalization ask instead how the
this common position that institutions matter.
multiple causes of the global economy come to be known as
having such specific and unusually linear outcomes in the first
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place. They point out that what globalization “is” is itself Interest-based political economy: origins
constructed differentially across nations. In the United Kingdom
and the United States, globalization is portrayed as an imperative Gourevitch’s Politics in Hard Times (1986) is in many ways the
to be embraced. In France and Germany, it is seen instead as a touchstone for contemporary interest-based explanations in
political choice that, when embraced, undermines national political economy. For Gourevitch, interests are the primary
conceptions of welfare (Hay and Rosamond 2002; Schmidt 2002). explanatory concept, and in this regard he is thoroughly
Such scholarship points to something important: How particular materialist. As he puts it, “what people want depends on where
constructions of the political economy agents develop and deploy they sit” (Gourevitch 1986: 56). However, although Gourevitch
helps bring into being that which is described, rather than simply seeks to reduce politics to the materially derived preferences of
describing an already existing state of affairs (MacKenzie 2006). social actors, the way he does this shows an affinity with other
That is, how agents think about, and hence act, in the political approaches that later works in this tradition eschew. Gourevitch
economy is causally important. explains how changes in the international economy impact a
state’s “production profile” – the configuration of its economic
Clearly, such a variety of perspectives invites a plurality of
sectors – and alters the preferences of domestic actors, given
methodological stances. Rather than adjudicate the one “true”
their assets and resources within such sectors. For Gourevitch,
version of political economy or suggest that a single approach
changes in the global economy create moments of political crisis
actually covers all the bases, in the next section I show how these
that alter agents’ preferences, and into this breech enter
three strands of modern political economy can be usefully
politicians who act as “brokers” who attempt to forge new
understood as the outgrowth of three particular works that all
coalitions of common interest. These coalitions then seek
sought to explain the same thing: the economic policy choices of
electoral or other forms of power in order to advance public
states. These texts can be seen as the springboards for our troika
policies to benefit themselves, rather than other contending
of approaches. Following this discussion, I address the
coalitions whose assets are differentially affected by the same
relationship of this version of “what political economy is” to
changes (Gourevitch 1986: 55–60, 32–34). Examining the
rational choice theory, a body of work that not only has a strong
economic crises of the 1870s, 1930s, and 1970s, Gourevitch
lineage in political economy but sometimes aspires to define itself
shows how these variables and causal mechanisms produce
as political economy.
political coalitions that vary as his theory predicts.

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What makes Politics in Hard Times particularly interesting, if political parties are brokers of broad social coalitions, then
however, is how Gourevitch’s key category of material interest is Britain has seen an alteration in governing parties and coalitions
actually bound up with, and only understandable through, a host but little alteration in economic policies (Hall 1986: 26–37). Hall’s
of secondary variables. Specifically, Gourevitch notes how answer was to see agents’ interests as mediated by their
exogenous economic changes rarely, if ever, telegraph into institutional position rather than being telegraphed straight from
agents’ heads “what has gone wrong” and “what should be their structural location. In brief, Britain was the first industrializer,
done.” As such, political parties, the institutional configuration of an imperial power, and a financial center, all of which led to an
the state, the economic ideas mobilized by agents, and even “a economy that was an agglomeration of small firms with fractious
country’s placement in the international state system of political- labor–management relations, small banks, and externally oriented
military rivalries” all come into play (Gourevitch 1986: 21). Indeed, capital flows (Hall 1986: 37–47).While this set of institutions
one of the most striking findings of Gourevitch’s book was that as worked well in the nineteenth century, once other countries
one moved temporally from one crisis to the next, the role of such caught up and surpassed the United Kingdom in the early
secondary factors became more important in explaining twentieth century, these institutions became increasingly
outcomes over time (Gourevitch 1986: 227–228). Yet, despite this, dysfunctional. However, since such institutions served as the
the take-home message was that to explain states’ policy context in which policymakers’ choices were made, they
choices, materially derived preferences, political brokerage, and structured agents’ choices rather than being themselves objects
coalitional politics were what should be attended to. of choice; key actors’ interests became a derivative function of
their institutional rather than their material position. In short,
Institutional political economy: origins British politicians’ efforts at reform were thwarted by their
particular institutions. Like Gourevitch, however, Hall also relies
A contemporaneous text that sought to explain state policy
upon other secondary variables as part of his explanation. After
choices by reference to institutions rather than interests was
all, how do institutions structure choices? Hall says that they do
Peter A. Hall’s Governing the Economy (1986). Hall’s puzzle was
so by processes of social learning such that “off-the-path” policy
that if Britain had been in relative economic decline since 1913,
thinking, and hence radical policy choices, remain off the table
and if agents’ interests were in the driving seat, then why did
(Hall 1986: 233, 277). Institutions may be granted analytic
none of these agents seem to have an interest in arresting this
primacy, but Hall sees them as acting on and through economic
decline? Or even if they did, why were they unable to do so? For

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ideas, political parties, and even the mass media (Hall 1986: 277– processes of domestic bargaining, developed two mutually
280). supporting sets of institutions: corporatist intermediation and
welfare compensation. This occurred as exogenous economic
Constructivist political economy: origins shocks altered agents’ interests such that coalitions favoring
compensation won the day and built institutions to serve their
A third major contribution was Peter J. Katzenstein’s Small States
interests. But on the other hand, this Gourevitchian story was a
in World Markets (1985). Katzenstein sought to explain why, in the
bit too neat and functionalist for Katzenstein. After all, why
aftermath of the economic shocks of the 1970s, it was the smaller
compromise? Why not conflict as different coalitions push the
and more vulnerable European economies that seemed to better
costs of adjustment onto one another, as happened in the larger
weather the economic storm. What makes Small States
European states in the 1930s? Herein lies the deeper institutional
particularly important was that it embedded one explanation (a
version of events that actually drives the argument as a whole.
materialist-coalitional one) in another (institutional) that, in turn,
The lack of a strong feudal past and the consequent weakness of
opened the door to other approaches (ideational) that attempt to
the landed aristocracy, as far back as the Late Middle Ages, sets
transcend both. Katzenstein’s puzzle was that while large
the scene for compromise (Katzenstein 1985: 159–160). Given
economies adjusted to external shocks either through the market
this..., evolving links between industrial and agricultural sectors,
(via wages and prices) or through the state (via policy
the emergence of proportional representation, and late
interventions), given their relative openness to the international
industrialization all combined to favor compromise rather than
economy, small states had to find other, less destructive ways to
conflict among business and labor groups by the time we get to
adjust (Katzenstein 1985: 24–27). That alternative was flexible
the critical period of the 1930s (Katzenstein 1985: 171, 174). It is
adjustment through domestic institutions, specifically corporatist
this domestic long-run historical and institutional development
institutions, where peak organizations and the state shared the
that drives the ostensible materialist-coalitional story. Each alone
costs of adjustment among encompassing coalitions of social
is insufficient as an explanation, but together they have more
partners (Katzenstein 1985: 30–38).
explanatory reach. Yet, Small States also suggests a move
On the one hand, Small States was a straightforward materialist beyond interests and institutions as explanatory categories,
IPE story.4 Given their degree of openness and exposure to the noting, for example, that the “first trait” of such economies was
international economy, these smaller European states, through “an ideology of social partnership” (Katzenstein 1985: 32).
Motivating such patterns of compromise was the perception of
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vulnerability . . . which . . . generated an ideology of social Samuelson models of trade to determine who benefits and who
partnership . . . [and] . . . acted like a glue for the corporatist loses under protection and free trade, Rogowski predicts the
politics of the small European states. . . . Yet none of the reviews effects of rising and declining trade on capital-rich and capital-
of the book published after it appeared paid any attention to it. poor economies with different land/labor endowments (Rogowski
Why? A decade before the constructivist turn in security studies 1989: 16). Rising and declining trade are seen to have differential
and international relations, scholars of comparative and effects on relatively abundant and scarce factors, respectively,
international political economy simply did not know what to do with different combinations of factors promoting different social
with ideology as an explanatory construct (Katzenstein 2003: 11). cleavages, and from there divergent coalitional outcomes ranging
from the U.S. New Deal to Asian fascism.
This is why Small States is more than a synthesis of coalitional
and institutional approaches. It also opened the door to moving An important extension of this logic is provided by Hiscox (2002).
beyond them, to put ideas and social constructions front and While Gourevitch (1986) focuses on narrow sector-specific
center in political economy explanations rather than treat them as interests and the coalitions they generate, Rogowski (1989)
a residual category to mop up variance unexplained by these focuses on broader class- and factor-based coalitions; Hiscox
other approaches (Blyth 1997). wondered if they might both be right. Might it be the case that
sometimes we see trade politics played out on a broad class-
Extensions of interest-based political economy based canvas and at other times in narrow sectoral politics, and if
so, why? Hiscox links both bodies of work together by focusing
Trade, mobility & politics
on the degree of interindustry factor mobility, and in doing so he
Taking Politics in Hard Times as our starting point, we can trace expands the reach of both [Link] argument is simple and
the development and refinement of interest-based approaches in elegant. If factors are mobile between industries, we can predict
political economy.5 Eschewing the richness of Gourevitch’s broad-based class politics. If they are specific and immobile, we
analysis in favor of parsimony and predictive power, one strand of can predict narrow sectoral conflict. In other words, “class
work that emerges from this focus on the effects of the conflict is more likely when levels of factor mobility are high . . .
international economy on domestic politics is Rogowski’s work on industry-based conflict is more likely when levels of mobility are
shifts in trade patterns and their effect on domestic political relatively low” (Hiscox 2002: 5). The logic is that in the early
alignments (Rogowski 1989). Using Hecksher–Ohlin/Stolper– stages of industrialization factor mobility is high since skills are

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basic and transferable, technology is simple, and transportation as her point of departure the observation that in explaining the
innovations have large effects. As such, both capitalists and development of social policies, it is usually assumed that workers
workers have broadly similar, albeit orthogonal, interests. More and employers have orthogonal interests (Korpi 1978; Esping-
developed political economies, however, produce “more specific Andersen 1985). But given employers’ need for skills and labor’s
forms of human and physical capital and far greater need to acquire them, might it not be possible that Gourevitchian
complementarity between technology and labor skills” (Hiscox coalitions of interest between different employers and workers
2002: 11). This, in turn, implies that workers’ and capitalists’ across sectors could have played a role here (Mares 2003: 2–9)?
interests become more cross-cutting, giving rise to new nonclass Conceiving of skills as mutual investments in specific assets by
or factor based coalitions. Using this framework, Hiscox is not both employers and workers, Mares is able to view social
only able to show how and why forms of trade politics vary, but policies, and indeed entire regimes of social protection, in a new
also offers insight into important questions of economic history light. Rather than view such outcomes as something “won or
and economic policy. lost” by labor in its contest with capital, Mares views social
policies as employer-produced devices to encourage workers to
Assets, skills & compensation invest in skills and thereby insure against specific production
risks. Mares’s logic is powerful and compelling. If the marginal
Another significant contribution to this literature that uses a
productivity theory of wages is correct, then returns to skill
similar “interests and assets” framework is made by scholars who
account for the differential in wages observed across an industry.
highlight the importance of skills in the political economy. Insofar
As such, it is reasonable for workers to learn skills and earn more
as the skills held by labor and sought by employers are valuable
returns to their factor. Skills in this sense become tradable assets.
assets, focusing on skills might shed light on, for example, the
The problem is, of course, that learning skills is a risky business
highly varied forms that welfare states and labor markets take
for both workers and employers. From the worker’s point of view,
around the world. Although more obviously linked to the varieties
not only is it costly to train, but the more skilled you are, the more
of capitalism literature in political science (Thelen 2004; Hall and
redundant (substitutable) one may become if technologies
Soskice 2001), this literature also owes its existence to the focus
change or terms of trade turn against you (Iversen 2005: 3). Yet,
on sectors, assets, mobility, and exogenous changes in the world
from the employer’s point of view, if you spend a lot of money
economy that lie at the heart of Gourevitch’s concerns. Pioneers
training workers and they can easily move to a rival firm, why
of this literature are Mares (2003) and Iversen (2005). Mares takes
bother doing so in the first place? But you still need skilled
105
workers. Mares argues that in order to convince workers to share Andersen 1985). The latter is Mares’s own approach, in which
some of the costs of training, the possibility of nonemployment employers actually set up the welfare state (Mares 2003). Key in
due to their skill set has to be factored into workers’ estimations reconciling these positions is to see the former’s focus on
of their future income streams in making their decision to redistribution and the latter’s focus on insurance as two sides of
undertake training (Mares 2003: 24). Social policies are best seen, the same coin rather than as opposing positions. Making this
then, as a subsidy paid by either the state or the employer (itself a move allows Iversen to “understand how popular preferences for
function of the degree of risk an employer faces) to support the social insurance and redistribution are rooted in people’s position
reservation wage of skilled workers such that the returns to their in the economy, how these preferences are aggregated into social
skills (assets) do not fall below the market-clearing rate of the policies, and how these policies in turn affect individual
unskilled when they are unemployed. For if they did, why would investments into assets that shape economic performance and
anyone bother to learn a trade? Variations in employment interests” (Iversen 2005: 13).
protection can then be understood as employers’ responses to
Drawing on the varieties of capitalism literature (Hall and Soskice
trading off heightened production risk against securing adequate
2001), Iversen posits that economic systems that rely on general
skilled labor via mechanisms of internal firm or external state
skills (typically, the Anglo-American model) create wage inequality
control. Social policies can then, in the aggregate, benefit
and poverty since they “limit . . . incentives for skill acquisition at
employers as well as workers, which is why employers help set
the low end of the academic ability distribution” (Iversen 2005:
them up. Meanwhile, the coalitions of workers and capitalists that
18). Such systems specialize in low-skill manufacturing and
promote such policies can then be deduced given the nature of
increasingly in services, areas in which productivity enhancement
assets, risks, and skills in a given economy (Mares 2003: 21–63).
through skills is limited. Consequently, few such skills are
Taking this logic further is Iversen (2005).6 Building on Mares’s supplied, and over time the wages of those at the bottom end of
analysis, Iversen argues for a micro-level “asset theory of the the distribution fall. However, despite their position in the labor
welfare state” (2005: 11). Like Hiscox, Iversen seeks to unite and market, such workers may not prefer higher taxes and more
extend two interest-based theories. The first is Mares’s foil, the redistribution since “without an investment in distributive
“power-resources” school of welfare state development, which insurance, investment in general skills is the best defense against
sees labor and labor-backed parties as pushing business into adverse changes in the labor market” (Iversen 2005: 24). In
producing welfare policies against their will (Korpi 1978; Esping contrast, where the economic system relies upon more specific

106
skills (typically, in continental Europe), training regimes and Take Rogowski’s description of mid-nineteenth-century Britain as
compensation via insurance come to the fore. Given this an alliance of abundant factors (capital and labor) against the
alternative set of institutional complementarities, workers demand scarce factor (land) (Rogowski 1989: 10). While this has intuitive
greater welfare transfers and pay more taxes to shoulder the plausibility, it also sidesteps the following question: To what
costs of becoming, in effect, “specific assets.” Just as Hiscox extent, in a predemocratic United Kingdom, where political action
unites Rogowski and Gourevitch through a focus on mobility, by labor was met with imprisonment and exile to the colonies
Iversen unites rival views of the origins of the welfare state under the Transportation Acts, could a “political coalition” in any
through a focus on insurance and redistribution as meaningful sense have actually existed? Similarly, Hiscox’s focus
complementary products and as the basis of political coalitions. on the effects of factor mobility leads him to impute to the
authors of the postwar Swedish model of capitalism, Gøsta Rehn
Interest-based theories: strengths & weaknesses and Rudolph Meidner, a desire to promote intraindustry factor
mobility as a way of limiting rent-seeking (Hiscox 2002: 6, 162–
Taken together, this body of literature has several strengths. First
163). Again, this is a logical consequence of the model, but it is
of all, it links macro-level changes in the economy to a set of
hard to find direct evidence that Rehn and Meidner ever thought
plausible microfoundations grounded in agents’ material
this way. In fact, what they did say shows a desire to use mobility
environments; there are no explanatory “leaps of faith” from one
to enhance productivity while squeezing profits, which is an
level of analysis to another. Second, such approaches are
entirely different rationale (Meidner 1980; Blyth 2002).
parsimonious and predictive. Clear and testable propositions can
be deduced from them. Third, they put the politics back into These reinterpretations of history become even more pronounced
political economy by putting the question of distribution front and in the work of Mares and Iversen. Here the works of generations
center. These approaches take seriously the question “Who of labor historians, and quite a few political scientists, are thrown
benefits?” They do, however, have some characteristic into question in what is a rather apolitical reading of events where
limitations, perhaps the most salient of which is how the powerful strikes, lockouts, shootings, revolts, Communist Party agitations,
beam of illumination such theories produce has over time socialist Sunday schools, and hunger marches all become quite
become perhaps somewhat distorting of the historical record. puzzling. After all, employers apparently wanted to give workers a
welfare state, so what was all the trouble about? This is a rather
bold position that may risk sacrificing historical accuracy for

107
theoretical fit by reducing violent political struggles where resources literature that this school juxtaposes itself to, no one
interests were opposed to a coordination game where labor ever called Saltsj€obaden “the historic victory”; it was always “the
activists and social scientists, each lacking the correct theory, historic compromise” – a moment when capital compromised
somehow misread business’ intentions. Countering such claims, because labor had the whip hand (Blyth 2002; Hacker and
Mares notes that this scholarship argues that “the recognition that Pierson 2002; Korpi 1978). Reducing all politics to a series of
employers have been active participants in the creation of the coordination problems and incentives might fit the model, but it
welfare states does not imply that . . . workers have been passive might also, inadvertently rob interest-based political economy of
by-standers . . . [n]or does it imply that employers have been its politics.8
agenda-setters in welfare state reform”. . . [because] . . . “it is
often difficult to distinguish empirically among [actors] underlying Developments in institutional political economy
preferences and strategic motives” (Mares this volume). Yet, if
As argued previously, what differentiates an institutional from an
one cannot make such distinctions, can one really link actors’
interest-based explanation is the contention that institutions
intentions to outcomes via their material interests, as this
structure choices and are prior to interests. However, as also
literature presumes?
noted previously, there is a parallel reading of institutions that
For example, during the 1920s, Belgian capitalists insisted on views them as chosen structures designed to reap gains in trade
including transportation subsidies in welfare packages. In this and/or solve collective action problems (North 1990). In
sense, they helped build the welfare state. But the question examining extensions of this body of scholarship, what stands
remains:Why did they do so? Under this framework, one could out is how later institutionalist work has attempted to synthesize
argue that they did so to solve a coordination problem – getting both sides of this literature. This desire to do so is seen most
labor to work – but one could equally argue that they wanted clearly in recent game-theoretic extensions of institutionalist
such subsidies so that workers did not live near their factories analysis (Hall and Soskice 2001; Greif 2006).
and therefore could not organize (Liebman 1979).7 So, did
Parallelling work by Iversen et al. (1999), Hall and Soskice (2001)
employers build the welfare state to secure skills or demobilize
develop a micro-level explanation of the continuing institutional
labor? It is perhaps worth recalling that the labor power thesis
diversity found among the advanced industrial economies despite
that this “skills-based” explanation of welfare institutions is often
globalization’s supposed “regression to the institutional mean.”
juxtaposed to is a bit of a straw man. In the original power-

108
This “varieties of capitalism” approach takes firms to be the extension of institutionalist theory, it does so by cleaving to what
primary agents of institutional construction and focuses on their is, at base, a less “institutionalist” understanding of institutions.
strategic interaction in game-theoretic terms. Firms, seen as
Also working within a game-theoretic tradition is Greif (2006).
actors in a series of infinitely sequenced games, are both the
Greif, however, uses game theory to move institutionalist political
product of and, more importantly, the producer of specific
economy in another direction entirely. While viewing institutions
institutions. These institutions come into being and evolve over
as “chosen structures” that “structure choices,” for Greif the
time as a function of nationally based firms’ attempts to find
weighting is the other way around. For Greif, institutions are no
solutions to five coordination problems that jointly determine the
mere context or instrument. Rather, “institutions are the engine of
particular variety of capitalism that a country has (Hall and
history” (Greif 2006: 399). Greif’s empirical purpose is to explain
Soskice 2001: 9–21).9 Over time, such strategic interactions
the role of institutions in producing the late medieval economic
among firms pursuing their interests produce self-reinforcing
expansion, and to analyze how different institutions led to
institutional complementarities via feedback loops and increasing
different outcomes among European and Islamic communities
returns, which in turn produce two distinct regime clusters,
(Greif 2006: 25, 252–255, 300–301).
Liberal Market Economies (LMEs) and Coordinated Market
Economies (CMEs). Greif begins by attacking the chosen structures/structuring
choices dichotomy. As he puts it, “[t]hese two seemingly
In this version of institutional theory, the weighting is very much
contradictory views on institutions . . . must be bridged because
on firms’ choices creating institutions, which then serve as the
each captures an important feature of reality” (Greif 2006: 41). He
context of subsequent choices. But note that those institutions
aims to do so by rethinking what an institution is and to then
are causally powerful only to the extent that these firms find the
embed this in a game-theoretic framework (Greif 2006: 14–28,
institutional complementarities created by them to be useful
35–39). Greif views institutions as “elements” that can be
(Blyth 2003b; Howell 2003). In this sense, firms’ interests are
creatively recombined by agents rather than as objects cut from
conditioned by and endogenous to the institutional content, but
whole cloth. As he puts it, “[t]hese institutional elements are
the origins and maintenance of these institutions are exogenous
exogenous to each individual whose behavior they influence.
properties of firm’s prior strategic interests. Therefore, while the
They provide individuals with the cognitive, coordinative,
varieties of capitalism literature represents a progressive
normative, and informational micro-foundations . . . [that] . . .

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motivate them” (Greif 2006: 14).10 Key here is the stress on act as if they were the fully informed agents of game theory (Greif
motivation and cognition, or, as he puts it, “cultural beliefs . . . 2006: 126, 138).11 As such, Greif is able to give a game-theoretic
influence the selection of institutions,” since the “motivation institutional account of institutional stability and change, growth
provided by beliefs and norms . . . is the linchpin of and decline, where material interests pale before beliefs and
institutions” (Greif 2006: 28, 45). Viewing institutions as a ideas.
compound of beliefs and motivations leads Greif to explain
variation in the practices of Christian and Muslim traders as a Non-game-theoretic extensions: the developmental
function of their particularistic beliefs and the institutions such
A final body of institutional scholarship worth examining is the
beliefs made possible. In brief, individualism and weak kin ties
literature on the developmental state in East Asia. This
brought about the corporation and growth in Europe; strong kin
scholarship took an entirely different path from the previously
ties and collectivist beliefs, in contrast, brought about in-group
discussed works and developed a form of institutional analysis
sanctioning, a mistrust of difference, and restricted trade
that is much more classically “historical institutionalist.” That is,
networks in the Arab world (Greif 2006: 25, 253, 300–301, 389–
this literature is more obviously related to works such as
400).
Katzenstein’s Small States (1985) and Hall’s Governing the
In contrast to Hall and Soskice (2001), where game theory is Economy (1986) since it deals with institutions as contingent
largely used metaphorically, Greif actually uses game theory, but historical products that structure choices, but it does so from the
his employment of it is rather unusual. Greif is well aware of the basis of the inductive observation of particular cases. Deyo’s The
standard criticisms of game-theoretic models as being too Political Economy of the New Asian Industrialism (1987) was the
determinate if perfect information is assumed and completely first major statement of this approach. Deyo and his contributors
indeterminate if information is less than complete (McKelvey sought to explain why East Asian industrialization succeeded
1976). As such, its relevance for “the games real actors play” is while most developing states’ industrialization efforts failed. In
often questioned (Scharpf 1997; Munck 2001). Greif accepts explaining this outcome, Deyo et al. highlighted the role of the
these criticisms and then uses institutions to rehabilitate game state in industrial development and, like Hall (1986), stressed the
theory. Accepting that the assumptions underlying game theory importance of institutional linkages. Specifically, the volume
are completely unrealistic, Greif argues that institutions highlighted how institutions that promoted savings for investment
“compress” information into rules and norms that allow agents to capital, insulated state bureaucracies, and facilitated credit

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controls were unique parts of the East Asian experience. Three these states succeeded while others failed, with the answer being
contributions built upon this opening: Haggard (1990), Wade “the right institutions.” But such an answer simply begged
(1990), and Amsden (1989). Haggard (1990) examined why Brazil, another question: What made those institutions the right
Mexico, Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore all began their institutions?
industrialization drives with a strategy of import substitution
Key in addressing this issue was Evans (1995), who sought to
industrialization (ISI), yet only the East Asian states managed to
explain variations in the growth and development of the
change to a more sustainable export-led growth (ELG) strategy.
information technology sectors of Brazil, India, and Korea.
Haggard’s answer to this puzzle invokes factors as diverse as
Creating two ideal types of predatory and developmental states,
egalitarian land reforms and the size of the domestic market, but
both of which are interventionist but only one devolves into
what really drives his argument is state autonomy and, crucially,
chronic rent-seeking, Evans argues that what matters is how the
the institutions that make coherent long-term industrial policy
state simultaneously penetrates and yet remains uncaptured by
over the heads of the powerful possible (Haggard 1990: 23–48,
society. Key in doing this is a specific type of bureaucracy, one
261–264).12 This is why, according to Haggard, despite having
that is meritocratic and efficient. Evans argues that developmental
similar initial conditions and strategies, East Asia flourished while
states with such “Weberian” bureaucracies exhibit a quality he
Latin America stagnated. While Haggard situated critical
calls “embedded autonomy,” where “highly selective meritocratic
domestic institutions within a global context, Wade (1990) and
recruitment creates . . . corporate coherence” inside the state,
Amsden (1989) grappled with the details of East Asian
which facilitates the degree of autonomy necessary to formulate
industrialization to see how rather than “governing the economy,”
longer-term developmental projects. However, this autonomy is
East Asian states sought instead to “govern the market.” For both
“embedded in a concrete set of social ties that [allows for] . . .
of these authors, how the state organized, rationed, and
continual negotiation” by societal actors. As he puts it, “only
authorized inputs was crucial in explaining their success. At base,
when embeddedness and autonomy are joined can a state
rather than “getting the prices right” via wholesale liberalization,
become developmental” (Evans 1995: 12). To make this
these authors show how East Asian states actively sought to get
explanation more than tautologous, Evans brings institutions to
the prices wrong in order to direct capital into specific sectors to
the fore, arguing that institutions give content to interests since
overcome the problem of the small size of their domestic markets
they “have a reality that is prior to ‘individual interests’” (Evans
and move up the value chain via ELG (Wade 1990: 108–112, 157–
1996: 28). As such, institutions, historically contingent and hard to
158, 191–194). Such studies had a clear purpose: to explain how
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replicate, once again appear as the source of growth and same way across cases. They are also a reminder of how
development. complex political economies are and how thinking institutionally
allows theorists to compare across cases. What we also see in
Extensions to this literature are voluminous and form a critical
this literature is a useful “coming together” of both sides of the
part of contemporary political economy approaches to
institutional chosen structures/structured choices dichotomy.
development. Some scholars have moved away from the notion
Scholars such as Hall and Soskice have become far more attuned
of autonomous and enlightened elites maximizing pigovian
to how institutions are chosen structures, while scholars on the
welfare functions to stress how mutual hostage taking in different
other side of the divide, such as Greif, are increasingly concerned
parts of the state explains variations in development (Kang 2002).
with how they structure choices. There are also, of course, some
Others have examined cases of failure and found that even the
general limitations to institutionalist analysis, such as the
best Weberian bureaucracies can be thwarted by noncooperation
availability of comparative cases, but as each branch of this
by capitalists (Chibber 2003), while some are indirectly aided by
literature has developed, each exhibits its own characteristic
an ideology of isolation (Woo-Cummings 1999). Regardless, this
strengths and weaknesses. The approach to institutionalism
literature has made a significant contribution to our understanding
exemplified by the “varieties” approach of Hall and Soskice has
of the complex roles played by states in development.
quickly become one of the most copied, and critiqued, positions
in the literature. Criticisms of this type of institutionalist political
Institutionalist political economy: strengths & and
economy tend to revolve around three issues. First, there is the
weaknesses tendency to confuse ideal types with real existing political
economies, with the result that the more one takes the ideal to be
Like the interest-based approaches discussed earlier, institutional
real, the fewer actual cases the model seems to fit (Crouch 2005;
approaches exhibit both considerable strengths and some
Campbell and Pedersen 2007). Second is the tendency, similar to
signature weaknesses. One major strength is that they “move
that found in Mares and Iversen, to see political struggle as a
beyond the tendency of conventional economic analysis to treat
“too-rational” process where functional fit and self-regulating
all developed [and developing] economies as if they were
equilibrium institutions replace more basic political struggles
institutionally identical” (Hall 1997: 182). In doing so,
(Howell 2003). Third is the attribution of causes to sets of
institutionalist accounts give us some leverage on why similarly
institutions whose purported effects may be generated elsewhere
placed agents in similar structural positions do not in fact act the
(Blyth 2003b).
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Greif’s institutionalism, emblematic of the recent “sociological approaches, is severely attenuated, as recent discussions of the
turn” of economics (Greif 2006: 22), is burdened by a separate set relevance of the developmental state model for the Chinese
of concerns. Perhaps the most basic concern is whether the experience demonstrate (Tsai 2002, 2007).
game (theory) is worth the candle. While multimethod
interdisciplinary work is to be applauded, such explanations must Beyond coalitions & institutions: ideational political
add value to other approaches. Subtract the game theory economy
exposition of the cases and the reinterpretation of everyday
economic and sociological concepts, and one is arguably left with As argued previously, Katzenstein’s Small States (1985) opened
a rather strong culturalist framework where, because agents think the door to moving beyond material and institutional approaches,
in certain categories, given the institutions that their unique ideas suggesting that ideas and ideologies needed to be taken
and beliefs allow them to build, such agents act in specific ways, seriously as explanatory concepts in their own right. This call has
given the institutions that their unique ideas and beliefs allow been taken up by a diverse group of political economists. While
them to build (Seabrooke 2006: 26). Why one needs higher math such approaches began with, and to some extent retained, a
to reach a rather tautological conclusion that anthropologists focus on how elites instrumentally use ideas as resources, more
grew dissatisfied with a generation ago is an open question. recent literature has sought to go beyond this instrumentalist
Finally, the analyses that grew out of the focus on the position. To trace how this branch of political economy has
developmental state also have several limitations. In contrast to evolved over time, I group ideational works under two headings:
our other two versions of institutionalist political economy where ideas as resources and conventions, and ideas as governance
“theoretical overreach” may be a problem, what this literature technologies spread of Keynesian ideas across nations (Hall
exhibits is arguably a lack of theoretical reach. Being inductively 1989). Building on his prior work on how institutions structure
generated from the examination of a few select cases sets up a choices, Hall examined different national receptions of Keynesian
classic “survivorship bias” problem (Taleb 2007).13 By correlating ideas as a way of explaining institutional change. Specifically,
the attributes of “winners” as causes, when “losers” are how individual actors used Keynesian ideas as resources to forge
encountered they are examined from the premises generated by new social coalitions during the dislocation of the 1930s comes
analyses of the successful cases, thus biasing the results. Given to the fore in this analysis. In contrast to materialist models, in
this, the portability of the framework outside of the cases where it Hall’s view, exogenous shocks to agents’ material positions do
was developed, a strength of deductively derived interest-based not unproblematically translate into new political preferences
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without some kind of elite mediation as to what such shocks ideas so successful in its time? Berman focuses squarely on
signify; hence the importance of Keynesian ideas. For Hall, what ideas and how elites use ideas, not just to fashion coalitions, as
determines the degree to which such elite mediation is possible, stated earlier, but in a prior step, to interpret what changes in the
and whether such ideas can recast political debate and thus political economy mean for other agents (Berman 2006). In doing
possible lines of cleavage, is the ideas’ degree of “fit” with the so, Berman moves beyond ideas as individual resources and
existing “structure of political discourse” of a nation (Hall 1989: stresses the importance of ideas as intersubjective conventions
383). Building on Hall’s opening were several contributions that that can restructure agents’ interests. Berman argues that fascism
created a head of steam for ideational scholarship during the came to power because of the “cognitive locking” Marxist
1990s. Notable and influential were Sikkink’s examination of how thinking encouraged among left parties in the 1920s and 1930s.
developmentalist ideas impacted economic policymaking in Latin Marxism was, especially for the German Social Democrats (SPD),
America (Sikkink 1991); how ideas can serve as “road maps” and the paradigm through which contemporary developments were
focal points in situations of multiple equilibria (Goldstein and understood. As such, rigid adherence to the axioms of historical
Keohane 1993); and how neoliberal ideas informed the project of materialism prevented the SPD from reacting in any positive way
EMU (McNamara 1998). to the Depression. After all, if capitalism was going to come
tumbling down, and Marxism told you why, and also told you that
What these contributions all have in common is the instrumental
this was a good thing, why try to stop it? Trapped within this
use of ideas. That is, ideas are used by agents to realize their
logic, left parties became forces for political inaction, which
goals. However, within this literature there is, implicitly at least,
paradoxically laid the groundwork for the rise of fascist parties.
another position: that ideas are not reducible to agents’ a priori
material interests or institutional position (McNamara 1998: 6–9). Unencumbered by such ideas, fascist parties were able to offer
Once “let out of the box,” ideas “have a life of their own” and can alternative diagnoses of and hence alternative policies to the
take interests in new and unexpected directions. To understand Depression that differed from those of liberals (“just wait until
this subtle but important distinction, consider the work of Berman things get better”) or those of Marxists (“just wait; it can only get
(2006), Blyth (2002), and Jabko (2006). Berman asks two worse”). Fascist parties were then able, through argument and
questions: First, why, during the crisis of the 1920s and 1930s, action, to create a new narrative of what the Depression meant
did two sets of political ideas came to prominence: social (and who was responsible for it) that recast agents’ interests and
democracy and fascism? And second, why was the set of fascist served as the basis of their new coalitions. For Berman, ideas are

114
indeed instruments, but they are instruments that can recast consequential purposive action” (Katznelson 2003: 274). In these
interests. They are social technologies that frame and decode unsettled times, the power of ideas to make agents powerful
complex environments such that intersubjective understandings comes to the fore. This theme is developed further in the work of
can be created among differentially located actors as a necessary Jabko (2006). Jabko asks where the ideas for the institutional
step in mobilizing collective action. design of the European Union (EU) came from. For Jabko, a focus
on French elites (Parsons 2003) or on a transnational “neoliberal
My own work very much follows in this tradition of viewing ideas
consensus” (McNamara 1998) is necessary but insufficient to
as both resources and conventions. In Great Transformations
explain the institutional form of the EU. Jabko focuses instead on
(Blyth 2002) I offered an explanation of why one common
the role of the European Commission, a weak actor at the heart of
phenomenon, deflation, produced institutional responses as
the EU as the generator and transmitter some very constituency-
varied as Japanese imperialism, Italian fascism, and Swedish
specific ideas (Jabko 2006: 42–57). As a weak actor that
social democracy. Focusing on ideas as interfaces with the world
nonetheless held a critical position in the emerging European
constructed by agents to make sense of complexity and
system of transnational governance, Jabko argues, the
uncertainty, I sought to show how economic ideas formed the
Commission “worked at constructing a particular integrationist
basis of both the distinctive social coalitions and new institutions
agenda . . . premised on the renewed popularity of market
that emerged in these periods in the United States and Sweden. I
ideas” (Jabko 2006: 48). The Commission thus “sold” the project
argued that ideas matter for political economy explanations to the
of integration to different constituencies according to logics those
extent that phenomena such as deflation and inflation can
constituencies wanted to hear.15
produce nonprobabilistic Knightian uncertainty, a situation where
agents can be unsure of what their interests are because By “playing the market” in this way, the Commission was able to
following their first-best strategies leads to Pareto-inferior bring other, more powerful actors on board and create
outcomes (Blyth 2002, 2007, 2008). In such moments, when momentum for a series of institutional reforms that were in no
individually rational actions lead to collectively suboptimal way reducible to the supposed material interests of the actors in
outcomes, uncertainty over what has gone wrong and what to do whose name these reforms were made, including the Commission
about it leads to an indeterminacy between structure and action itself. In all of these accounts, what comes across clearly is the
where, as Ira Katznelson has put it, “structurally induced contingency of political change and institutional development.
unsettled times can provoke possibilities for particularly Rather than the linear equation of “structural position ! interests !

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actions” that we find in interest-based accounts or the path subject positions.16 Langley analyzes how pensions in the United
dependence of institutional accounts (Pierson 2004; Mahoney States and the United Kingdom have increasingly moved from the
2000), these approaches stress, as do constructivist accounts in province of the state to the market, characterized by a decline in
general, how things “could have been different” had it not been state-based funding and a general shift from defined to defined
for certain socially constructed (ideational) factors (Hacking 1999; contribution schemes (Langley 2006a: 920). This much is well
Hay 1999). Given this, what other perspectives take as almost known. What is not so obvious is how such schemes rest upon
overdetermined, these accounts portray as underdetermined and creating a particular subject, what Langley calls the
dependent upon the particular constructions wielded by less than “entrepreneurial investor subject” (Langley 2006a: 921). Crucially,
powerful actors. Once again, ideas are not simply weapons such subjects are not simply “out there” as already constituted
wielded by powerful agents, although they can be that. Instead, individuals waiting around for the financial services industry to
ideas are contingent properties that can make agents powerful pick them up.17 After all, why should, for example, a technical
(Epstein 2008). worker in an export industry have a given “interest” in a defined
contribution program?
Ideas as governance technologies
Such subjects must be discursively constructed before they can
A final contribution to this literature worth mentioning goes further act in the political economy as entrepreneurial agents. For
still. These authors seek to understand how particular ideas not Langley, the creation of such subjects rests upon “the sidelining
only serve as resources or intersubjective conventions, but are of insurance as a means of . . . managing . . . risks in favor of the
themselves technologies of governance. One such attempt of promotion of investment . . . to bear risk.” In such a world, risk is
note is the work of Paul Langley, who applies actor-network no longer “represented as potential dangers to be collectively
theory to the study of pension privatization and mortgage managed . . . [instead] ‘risk’ [is] represented as . . . a reward for
securitization (Langley 2004, 2006a, 2006b, 2008). Again, while individuals” (Langley 2006a: 921). Creating such subject positions
materialist and institutionalist analyses of these phenomena do is then not simply a matter of appealing to agents’ pre-given
point to important determinants of choice and action (Brooks interests. Rather, it is a process of discursive construction where
2005), what Langley brings to our attention is how such instruments as varied as popular television programs on
“topdown” projects rely upon not just an appeal to agents’ investment, state-sponsored savings programs (401[k]s), and
interests, but an attempt to craft particular subjectivities and calculative technologies of credit reporting are brought to bear to

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create particular risk-bearing subjects who “perform” risk-bearing “performance” over time in the world, made the world more like
practices. Taking this focus on “performativity” further, that is, the theory (MacKenzie 2006: 143–179). In particular, the use of
investigating how the action of employing ideas that seek to the Black–Scholes options pricing model by market participants,
represent or measure a given phenomenon brings the which made assumptions about markets having zero transactions
phenomenon into being, is MacKenzie’s work on the performative costs and being efficient, helped legitimate arguments and
role of financial theory in the economy (MacKenzie 2006). For policies designed to make markets more efficient (MacKenzie
MacKenzie, financial ideas do not merely describe the world; they 2003: 854). Doing so, in turn, enabled agents to employ the
can also help bring that world into being. As he puts it, “financial model in ever wider areas of finance such that the fit between the
economics . . . did more than analyze markets; it altered them. It model and the reality it purported to describe increased over
was an ‘engine’ . . . an active force transforming its environment, time. As he puts it, using the model “altered patterns of pricing in
not a camera passively recording it” (MacKenzie 2006: 12). For a way that increased the validity of the model’s
MacKenzie, economic analyses do not stand outside of reality, predictions” (MacKenzie 2003: 852).
“analyzing it as an external thing” (MacKenzie 2006: 16). Rather,
In a wonderful case of causal recursion, it was not that the
as is common in complex social systems, there is an
model’s fit got better over time as its accuracy grew. Rather, the
interdependence of subject and object such that beliefs about the
model’s usage by more and more actors made the markets
former influence the behavior of the latter. As a consequence,
themselves behave more like the model (MacKenzie 2006: 263–
applying an idea changes the nature of the system where it is
268; 2003: 852–856). These developments, in turn, enabled
applied (Blyth 2008). This is more than Merton’s famous idea of a
agents to deploy ever more sophisticated risk-calculating
“self-fulfilling prophecy” (Merton 1968). In this case, by
technologies based on these same ideas that, in turn, allowed the
performing theory, MacKenzie draws attention to how the use of
development of the “risk society” and risk-bearing subjects
specific models in financial markets becomes part of the
Langley is concerned with (MacKenzie 2006: 211–243). In sum,
infrastructure of markets. That is, such ideas constitute the
these approaches show how ideas not only inform but constitute
“algorithms, procedures, routines, and material devices” that are
structures of governance. Following Hirschman (1978), Langley
markets (MacKenzie 2006: 19).
and MacKenzie show how ideas themselves can constitute and
Given this object/subject interdependence, MacKenzie shows alter the world they supposedly describe. By constructing
how the use of particular financial technologies, their subjects and performing theory, we gain insight into how

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governance is not simply a property of government, but is change offers a very different vantage to the soft functionalism of
something that occurs on and through individual agents. interest-based and institutionalist approaches that sometimes see
the world as all too stable.
Ideational political economy: strengths &
However, like our other approaches, it has certain problems. First
weaknesses
of all, disentangling the effects of ideas from other factors, if seen

Like interest-based and institutional approaches, ideational as possible at all, is extremely difficult. That agents thought in a

approaches have specific strengths and particular weaknesses. certain way may be established, but the extent to which

One strength is that such work enables analysts to ask questions outcomes are directly attributable to these ideas is still difficult to
that other approaches do not even consider asking. After all, if ascertain. Strategies can be applied to attack this problem

one takes complex mediated phenomena such as the causal (Parsons 2003, 2007), but the “How much do ideas matter?”

generators behind deflation, globalization, and multigenerational question never really goes away.18 A second perennial question

institution building projects to be equally obvious to all agents, is “Where do such ideas come from?” This is a problem because

then there would be no point in attending to ideas. However, as if ideas are reducible to agents’ interests, and if they really are just

these examples show, while interest-based accounts can point to instruments to help people get what they want, then the

coalitions that “should be there,” given sectoral alignments, and ideational story collapses into an interest-based account.19

while institutional accounts can point to path dependencies in Finally, there is the quite reasonable question “What do such

policymaking, ideational approaches drop down below the level approaches do to our ability as social scientists to generalize and

of the possible to investigate what real actors thought and did. As predict?” After all, if contingency, construction, and

such, the problematic “reimagining of history” noted earlier is interdependence effects are as replete as at least some of these
avoided. Second, that agents’ subjectivities and interests can be scholars say they are, then whether political economy can aspire

reconstructed despite their ostensible structural positions, as this to the status of a predictive social science is questionable at
literature also demonstrates, is ruled out of bounds by other best.20 Given these concerns, while ideas may matter for political

approaches. In this literature, interests are treated as something economy explanations, it is not clear that they need matter for all

to be explained rather than something to do the explaining with. the questions that political economists ask.

Third, this literature also excels in explaining change. Its focus on

the contingent and dynamic nature of political and economic
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The link not made? Rational choice theory & by rationality as a behavioral postulate, and that political
economy is broader than rational choice and vice versa.
political economy
The first issue is best exemplified by going back to the extensions
I return now to the first caveat we opened with: the relationship of
of interest-based political economy discussed earlier. One could
political economy to rational choice theory. After all, one could tell
argue, quite reasonably, that while Iversen, Mares, Hiscox, et al.
several other versions of this story that include rational choice as
can trace their substantive ideas to Gourevitch, their thinking,
a core component of political economy. One version would be a
both theoretical and methodological, is rationalist. As such, they
more expansive set of four concepts rather than three: rationality,
are more “rational choice theorists” than “interest-based” political
interests, ideas, and institutions, for example. This version of
economists. I would not even be surprised if the aforementioned
events would have Arrow (1948) and Von Neumann and
scholars would self-identify in exactly this way. My point here in
Morgenstern (1953) laying the conceptual foundations upon
mapping the field in this way is somewhat different. Even though
which Downs (1957), Riker (1962), and Olson (1965) build the
this chapter seeks to draw boundaries using discrete concepts, if
basic concerns of the field: spatial models, bargaining, collective
one makes interests a derivative function of rationalism, then one
action, strategic interaction, to name but a few. Following this,
misses how other schools of political economy also deal with
one could point to Bates on development (1981), Elster on
interests: in terms of how our interests are endogenous to the
technical change (1983), Przeworski on left parties and social
institutional context or from analyzing our “ideas about our
democracy (1986), and North on institutions (1990) as the “killer
interests.” That is, theories of institutions are also theories of
apps” of the period, and then, again as Levi has done in her
interest generation, and theories of ideas are also theories of
contribution to this volume, map recent developments from there.
institutional change. By reducing “acting on one’s interests” to
Indeed, there would be nothing wrong with doing so, except for
“acting according to a rationalist behavioral postulate,” one risks
the fact that it would essentially repeat Levi’s chapter. Since she
ignoring what large numbers of scholars who also regard
has done such a good job of this, I see no point in repeating her
themselves as political economists have to say about these same
effort here. Apart from redundancy, however, there are other good
questions. Second, political economy is broader than rational
reasons for not including rational choice theory, and rationalism
choice theory, and rational choice theory is broader than political
as a concept, as its own category in this discussion of political
economy. For some rational choice theorists, rational choice
economy: namely, that interests as a concept are not exhausted
theory is political economy – period. Consequently, if you are not

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doing what they do, then you are not a political economist. described between the camps [rationalists and historicists] in the
Consider, for example, the introduction to the Oxford Handbook earlier edition of this volume has subsided” (Levi this volume). In
of Political Economy (2006). According to the editors of this sum, I argue that rather than rational choice positioning itself as
Handbook, “[I]n our view, political economy is the methodology of political economy, it is more usefully seen as an extremely
economics applied to the analysis of political behavior and important general position in comparative politics that has
institutions” (Weingast and Wittman : 3). Political economy is a evolved into far more than an application of the methodology of
field where “the unit of study is typically the individual. The economics to any and all political economy questions as defined
individual is motivated to achieve goals . . . the theory is based in solely by the concepts of equilibrium, endogenous institutions,
mathematics . . . [and] . . . sophisticated statistical and the like. That this is the case is clearly seen in the embrace of
techniques” (ibid.: 4). Moreover, political economy is defined by ideational and other variables by rational choice theorists, not as
its common foci: “endogenous institutions,” “the revelation and a takeover bid, but as a broadening of the perspective itself.
aggregation of information,” and “the concepts of survival and
equilibrium” (ibid.). Conclusions: comparing approaches & the
question of boundaries
Now, while I fully admit that this is an approach to political
economy, one that can happily sit within the interest-based Having said all that, I do not want the reader to leave this survey
approaches outlined here, it also defines itself in relation to sets with the idea that the field started with interests, moved to
of concepts and categories that effectively says to many of the institutions, and now embraces ideas as some kind of teleological
other scholars discussed here that whatever it is they are doing, it progression. This is simply not the case. All three of these
is not political economy. Rather than adjudicate the “one true positions are vibrant research programs. That they emerged at
version” of the field, I find it more useful to point out here that the same time out of the core concerns of three exemplar works
political economy may be seen as a broader field with more is significant, but one did not succeed the other. What I wish to
concerns than are often portrayed by some rational choice return to here is the issue of the boundaries of political economy
theorists. Indeed, as Professor Levi notes in her chapter, far from and our second opening caveat: the extent to which this diversity
being monolithic, rational choice theory “now tends to be of approaches is something to be concerned about or embraced.
multimethod and catholic in its approach” such that rather than Key in determining this is the extent to which these different
squeezing out other approaches, “the competitiveness I approaches speak to one another. To the extent that they do,
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political economy as a field has a certain coherence. To the while other parts of it have headed off in entirely different
degree that they do not, it remains simply a collection of directions. As seen in the approaches reviewed here, theoretical
approaches within comparative politics that happen to focus on divergence and convergence coexist in this literature. Varieties-
economic questions. type approaches explicitly set as a goal a desire to bring the
literatures of economics and political science together in a game-
As we have seen, each strand of political economy has a
theoretic synthesis (Hall and Soskice2001). But approaches are
distinctive evolution. Interest-based political economy has, when
not defined simply by particular technologies. Greif’s use of game
seen in terms of the overall history of political economy, had the
theory, for example, productively steps beyond its usual
most peculiar evolution. We noted earlier how political economy
materialist/ rationalist formulations insofar as it is embedded in a
was reborn in the 1970s as a partial alternative to formal
cultural and sociological approach that rejects notions of fixed
economic analysis. In its canonization in Gourevitch (1986) this
interests and institutions as products of conscious design. As
strand of political economy put interests front and center, but saw
such, this type of institutional political economy can deploy
those interests as nonetheless mediated by a host of secondary
economic technologies without pushing political economy back
factors. As noted, however, later contributions have been far more
into economics. Finally, there is more mainstream historical
reductionist. This strand of the literature has increasingly become
institutionalist political economy, here identified with, but not
more like mainstream economics with an emphasis on equilibrium
limited to, work on the developmental state. This body of work
modeling and formal theory, which is somewhat ironic when one
has continued the type of scholarship that Hall (1986)
remembers that what “kick-started” this approach was a rejection
exemplified, and has become perhaps the most common form of
of economics’ separation of politics and markets and its
institutional political economy practiced in the field.
attendant reductionism. This strand of the literature now seems to
be repeating this separation insofar as politics in these Ideational political economy is the most variegated type and is
approaches is increasingly reduced to a series of coordination also the most recent vintage. As such, it is harder to give an
games and/ or equilibrium states to be modeled. For some account of its evolution. What one can say is that it has become
scholars this is a concern; for others, it is a sign of progress. an approach to be reckoned with in its own right. Although this
approach contains within it everyone from “thin” constructivists to
Indeed, the evolution of one strand of institutional political
actor-network theorists, it has established itself asmore than just
economy in part reflects this “back to economics” tendency,
a helper for other approaches (c.f. Goldstein and Keohane 1993)

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or as appropriate only for peculiar limit cases” where normal
dynamics break down. Its diversity of approaches, and the types
of questions it asks, certainly add to the breadth of political
economy approaches, and do so in a way that, even more than
institutional works, pulls away from a “reeconomizing” of political
economy toward a genuine postdisciplinary stance.

In sum, if one does not reduce political economy to a singular

approach, it appears as a diverse and thriving area of study.
Given that the object of study of political economy contains
everything from microphenomena to large-scale social processes,
such diversity is probably, on balance, a good thing. After all, in
an uncertain world, diversification is generally regarded as a
prudent strategy – not just to protect us from the “all the eggs in
one basket” problem, but to position us to take advantage of the
unexpected events that often destroy singular theories (Taleb
2007; Blyth 2006).

The previous section is provided by Lynn University’s

use of Ebook Central Academic Complete.

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Chapter 4

Development

Learning objectives

After reading this chapter, students will be able to do the

following:

• Understand concepts of development.

• Identify characteristics of economic development.

• Analyze states and their overall development utilizing

tools such as the UN’s HDI.
Section 1

An introduction to the human development & capability approach:

freedom & agency

The human development & capability approach from the earlier approach: first, the analysis shifts from the
economy to the person. Second, the currency of assessment
How would you define ‘successful’ development? Let us start shifts from money to the things people can do and be in their
with two oversimplifications. Consider first an approach to lives, now and in the future.
development in which the objective is to achieve and sustain
In both situations, trade-offs surface. Policy must consider which
high rates of economic growth. In this situation, the unit of
groups of the population to focus on (distribution), and which
analysis is evident: the economy. This may be the national
period of time to prioritize (dynamics). In the second approach,
economy or the economy of a particular region or sector. The
there are also trade-offs to be considered between which
currency of assessment is also clear: income now and in the
aspect(s) of people’s lives to focus on (dimension).
future. Trade-offs, such as between environment protection and
employment creation, or between this generation and the next, While each perspective takes a fundamentally different objective,
are resolved by market prices, exchange rates and discount they are not totally distinct; they overlap. Those who focus on
rates; in some cases prices may be corrected for social, people’s lives are still vitally concerned with economic growth,
environmental and distributional concerns. macroeconomic stability, income poverty reduction and many
other means of improving people’s lives. And those focused on
Now consider an approach to development in which the
sustained growth still concern themselves with healthy, educated
objective is to expand what people are able to do and be – what
and skilled workers, and some modicum of peace and stability.
might be called their real freedoms. It puts people first. In this
Yet as has been discussed in the previous chapter, normative
view, a healthy economy is one that enables people to enjoy a
frameworks and ideas about what matters have enormous
long and healthy life, a good education, a meaningful job,
practical implications.
physical safety, democratic debate and so on. Notice two shifts

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This chapter describes the second perspective, the people- perspective on one set of issues. In addition to the annual global
focused one, otherwise known as the human development and report, roughly 100 different countries are producing their own
capability approach. Human development has been pioneered by National and Regional Human Develop- ment Reports today, with
different people under different names and at different times. A some of these countries producing state or provincial reports as
focus on people’s freedoms can be found in the notion of ubuntu well. These reports are intended to assess the quality of life of a
in Southern Africa,1 with liberation theology in Latin America and population and be an advocacy tool for its improvement. The
beyond,2 with participatory development, community analysis draws upon data regarding health, education, nutrition,
mobilization, rights- based approaches, sustainable livelihoods work, political freedoms, security, the environment and many
and many other ethical approaches to development. It is equally other aspects of people’s lives. In assessing the state of a
applicable in developed and developing countries. One of its population from a people-centred perspective, these reports have
leading voices is the philosopher and Nobel laureate in the political purpose of raising awareness and generating debate
economics Amartya Sen, whose writings on the ‘capability on public issues and concerns which would otherwise not be on
approach’ provide the philo- sophical basis of human the political agenda.
development and hence of this textbook. Later sections will
• 2009: Overcoming barriers: Human mobility and development
present his foundational work and its basic terms and concepts.
But, before moving to these, we begin by offering an overview of • 2007/8: Fighting climate change: Human solidarity in a divided
the key elements of human development. world

Human development • 2006: Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water
crisis
The idea of human development has been circulated in policy
circles and public debate for the past two decades, with various • 2005: International cooperation at a crossroads
degrees of persuasiveness, incisiveness and accuracy. One
• 2004: Cultural liberty in today’s diverse world
powerful vehicle of communication has been the annual Human
Development Report produced by the United Nations • 2003: Millennium Development Goals: A compact among
Development Programme (UNDP). The first report was published nations to end human poverty
in 1990, and all reports seek to articulate the human development

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• 2002: Deepening democracy in a fragmented world them, simply because the production of weapons makes the
gross domestic product (GDP) of that particular country
• 2001: Making new technologies work for human development
significantly higher. The following quote, taken from a speech
• 2000: Human rights and human development 1999: given by Robert F. Kennedy on 4 January 1968, encapsulates the
Globalization with a human face 1998: Consumption for limitations of GDP as a measure of what makes life valuable:
human development
The Gross National Product of the United States is the
• 1997: Human development to eradicate poverty 1996: largest in the world, but that GNP, if we should judge our
Economic growth and human development 1995: Gender and nation by that, counts air pollution and cigarette advertising
human development and ambulances to clear the highways of carnage. It counts
special locks for our doors and jails that break them. It
• 1994: New dimensions of human security counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our
natural wonder and chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and
• 1993: People’s participation
the cost of a nuclear warhead and armoured cars that fight
• 1992: Global dimensions of human development riots in our streets. Yet the gross national product does not
allow for the health of our children, the quality of their
• 1991: Financing human development
education or the joy of their play. It does not include the
• 1990: Concept and measurement of human development beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the
intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public
The Human Development Reports were the brainchild of Mahbub officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither
ul Haq, a Pakistani economist who wanted to see the world’s our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor
economic and social progress assessed in a different way, our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short,
moving away from the usual income and economic growth except that which makes life worthwhile.4
considerations that had come to characterize the World Bank’s
annual World Development Reports.3 As ul Haq argued, a country Human development draws attention to ‘what makes life
that sells weapons should not be considered more ‘developed’ worthwhile’: people. In so doing, the appraisal of income growth
than a country that has chosen not to make weapons and export itself is altered altogether. The limited value of income and wealth

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has been recognized for centuries. Aristotle argued that ‘wealth is The human development paradigm covers all aspects of
evidently not the good we are seeking, for it is merely useful and development – whether economic growth or international trade;
for the sake of something else’ (Nicomachean Ethics, Book 1, budget deficits or fiscal policy; savings, investment or technology;
chap- ter 5, 1096a5–10). Going even further back in time, the first basic social services or safety nets for the poor. No aspect of the
chapter of Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom relates a development model falls outside its scope, but point of reference
discussion described in an 8th century BC Sanskrit manuscript. A remains the widening of people’s choices and the enrichment of
woman, Maitreyee, asks her husband ‘if “the whole earth, full of their lives. All aspects of life – economic, political or cultural – are
wealth” were to belong to her, she (would) achieve immortality viewed from that perspective. Economic growth therefore
through it.’ Hearing that she would not, Maitreyee asks, ‘What becomes only one subset of the human development paradigm.
should I do with that by which I do not become immortal?’ (cited
On some aspects of the human development paradigm, there is
in Sen, 1999, p13).
fairly broad agreement:
That people matter does not mean that income does not. Income
• Development must put people at the centre of its concerns.
is obviously an important instrument in enabling people to realize
their full potential. A 12-year old boy who wishes to pursue • The purpose of development is to enlarge all human choices
secondary education and become a doctor might have his and not just income.
dreams blighted by the fact that he has to The basic purpose of
development is to enlarge people’s choices. In principle, these • The human development paradigm is concerned both with
choices can be infinite and can change over time. People often building human capabilities (through investment in people) and
value achievements that do not show up at all, or not with using those human capabilities more fully (through an
immediately, in income or growth figures: greater access to enabling framework for growth and employment).
knowledge, better nutrition and health services, more secure
• Human development has four essential pillars: equality,
livelihoods, security against crime and physical violence,
sustainability, productivity and empowerment. It regards
satisfying leisure hours, political and cultural freedoms and a
economic growth as essential, but emphasizes the need to pay
sense of participation in community activities. The objective of
attention to its quality and distribution, analyses at length its link
development is to create an enabling environment for people to
with human lives and questions its long-term sustainability.
enjoy long, healthy and creative lives.

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• The human development paradigm defines the ends of disagreements resolved? What about values that seem
development and analyses sensible options for achieving them. reprehensible, ill-informed or harmful?

But income is not everything. The 12-year old would not have to Because of human diversity itself, our respective values tend to
work if there were adequate public health services for low-income be somewhat heterogeneous. Still, development in a given
families. And, in some cases, income does not help. A girl born in society tends to reflect its most cherished values – of equity,
a well-to-do family might have her dreams of becoming a lawyer harmony with nature, peace and order, material wealth or
blighted because her family and community think it improper for children’s well-being. The UK is the fourth largest global economy
her to work outside the home. but a 2007 UNICEF report on child well-being in rich countries
concluded that UK children had the lowest level of well-being
The first Human Development Report in 1990 defined human
among industrialized nations.5 Not surprisingly, the report
development as ‘both the process of widening people’s choices
created substantial concern. This type of analysis helps people
and the level of their achieved well-being’ (UNDP, 1990, p9). The
clarify what their values are, and what they might wish to change.
purpose of development is to enhance people’s capabilities, in
the present and in the future, in all areas of their life – economic, In 2007, a British TV channel brought a group from the small
social, political and cultural. It is here that human development Pacific island of Vanuatu to make an anthropological study of
rests fully on Amartya Sen’s core idea of capabilities and agency. British people. The trip was sparked by an alternative index of
As these are very rich concepts, we will take time in the next well-being in which Vanuatu ranked as the most ‘developed’
section to introduce these terms with care. For the moment, let us country on earth, while the UK came in at 108.6 In one episode,
continue with our swift tour through ideas of human development, the Vanuatu citizens spent half an hour in Central London during
by noting one feature: choices relate to our values and we have rush hour trying in vain to engage commuters in conversation.
different values and often disagree, so human development also They could not grasp why people would pass each other like
is, fundamentally, engaged in an ongoing conversation about objects and rush like bees in a busy beehive. As a newspaper
what it would be most valuable for us to do next. review of the series put it: ‘This they thought was “crazy,” a
rejection of the most important things in life, which they believe to
This issue of values is critical in the human development
be “love, happiness, peace and respect.”’7 Human development
approach. What are the valuable choices that public policy should
raises issues of values, priorities and trade-offs so that people are
promote? Who defines what is valuable? How are deep
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better able to reflect profoundly on their circumstances and shape Agency and the expansion of valuable freedoms go hand in hand
their respective societies. (see Box 2.3). In order to be agents of their own lives, people
need the freedom to be educated, to speak in public without fear,
One of the central goals of human development is enabling
to have freedom of expression and association, etc. But it is also
people to become agents in their own lives and in their
by being agents that people can build the environment in which
communities. As Sen argues, in development activities ‘the
they can be educated and speak freely, etc.
people have to be seen … as being actively involved – given the
opportunity – in shaping their own destiny, and not just as passive The human development approach is inherently multi-dimensional
recipients of the fruits of cunning development programs’ (Sen, and plural (see Box 2.4). While, in practice, most policies focus on
1999, p53). From this perspective, development relies on people’s one or several components of human development, the approach
freedom to make decisions and advance key objectives. People itself is potentially broad. It is about education as much as it is
themselves decide upon what kind of development they would about health. It is about culture as much as it is about political
like for themselves. When people and social groups are participation. It deals with fiscal policy as much as health policy –
recognized as agents, they can define their priorities as well as higher taxes on alcohol and cigarettes could be as effective in
choose the best means to achieve them. Referring to the choice giving people opportunities to live long and healthy lives as
between cultural tradition and poverty, on the one hand, and spending more on health services. It deals with agricultural
modernity and material prosperity, on the other hand, Sen (1999, policies as much as it deals with exchange rate policies – the
p31) writes: ‘If a traditional way of life has to be sacrificed to devaluation of a currency may do more to promote exports and
escape grinding poverty or minuscule longevity, then it is the provide farmers with greater opportunities to earn a decent
people directly involved who must have the opportunity to income than farm subsidies. It deals with educational policy as
participate in deciding what should be chosen.’ While the much as gender, environmental, industrial or technological
principle of agency is clear, its implementation is more complex. policy. Human development thus relates to many aspects that
Many decisions are made by groups rather than by individuals, concern people’s lives, not only economic ones. It can therefore
and a person’s ability to affect collective choices varies greatly in not be subsumed under one single academic discipline. It
different contexts, as we shall discuss later. encompasses many disciplines, including economics, law,
sociology, history, public policy, political science and philosophy.

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Thus far we have focused mainly on the ‘objective’ of human necessary to demonstrate that the chosen intervention offers
development. Now we turn to the process. Mahbub ul Haq the highest impact in terms of people’s opportunities. When
identified four procedural concerns or principles which have been applying this principle, one must conceive of efficiency in a
used repeatedly in applying human development. They are: dynamic context since what is efficient at one point in time may
equity, efficiency, participation and sustainability. Of course other not necessarily be efficient in the long run.
principles such as responsibility or respect for human rights also
• Participation and empowerment is about processes in which
matter. But we will start with these four because they are often
people act as agents – individually and as groups. It is about
used:
the freedom to make deci- sions in matters that affect their
• Equity draws on the concept of justice, impartiality and fairness lives; the freedom to hold others accountable for their promises,
and incorporates a consideration for distributive justice the freedom to influence development in their communities. For
between groups. In human development, we seek equity in the example in the reform of an education system, human
space of people’s freedom to live valuable lives. It is related to, development would consider and try to draw upon the agency
but different from, the concept of equality, which implies of children, parents, teachers, the local community, teachers
equality of all people in some space. In human development, unions, NGOs, the media, the ministry of education, the finance
equity draws attention to those who have unequal opportunities ministry, social movements and advocacy groups for education,
due to various disadvantages and may require preferential and so on. Whether at the level of policy-making or
treatment or affirmative action. For example, the poor, implementation, this principle implies that people need to be
differently-abled, women, ethnic minorities and other involved at every stage, not merely as beneficiaries but as
disadvantaged sections of the population may need special agents who are able to pursue and realize goals that they value
measures to enable them to have the same level of capabilities. and have reason to value.

• Efficiency refers to the optimal use of existing resources. From a • Sustainability is often used to introduce the durability of
human development perspective, efficiency is defined as the development in the face of environmental limitations but is not
least cost method of reaching goals through the optimal use of confined to this dimension alone.9 It refers to advancing human
human, material, environmental and institutional resources to development such that outcomes progress in all spheres –
expand capabilities for individuals and communities. It is social, political and financial – endures over time. Environmental

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 sustainability implies achieving developmental results without economics and in the social sciences in general, so it is that
jeopardizing the natural resource base and biodiversity of the approach upon which we concentrate.
region and without affecting the resource base for future
In 1979, at Stanford University, Sen gave the Tanner lectures on
generations. Financial sustainability refers to the way in which
human values called ‘Equality of What?’ He questioned the
development is financed without penalizing future generations
adequacy of measuring equality in the space of marginal or total
or economic stability. For example, development should not
utility, or primary goods. And he outlined for the first time his
lead countries into debt traps. Social sustainability refers to the
conception of capabilities, which has been developed in greater
way in which social groups and other institutions are involved
detail since. This section introduces the capability approach – its
and support development initiatives over time, and avoid
key terms, its contrast to other approaches and how various
disruptive and destructive elements. Cultural liberty and respect
components interrelate.
for diversity are also important values that can contribute to
socially- sustainable development. In Inequality Re-examined, Amartya Sen writes: ‘A person’s
capability to achieve functionings that he or she has reason to
These four principles are not exhaustive, and later chapters
value provides a general approach to the evaluation of social
consider the rights- based approach, and aspects of justice and
arrangements, and this yields a particular way of viewing the
responsibility, in greater detail. But these complete the swift
assessment of equality and inequality’ (1992, p5). The key idea of
mapping of human development. The next section focuses in
the capability approach is that social arrangements should aim to
further on key terms.
expand people’s capabilities – their freedom to promote or
Going deeper: The capability approach achieve what they value doing and being. An essential test of
development is whether people have greater freedoms today than
The human development approach has been profoundly inspired they did in the past. A test of inequality is whether people’s
by Amartya Sen’s pioneering works in welfare economics, social capability sets are equal or unequal.
choice, poverty and famine, and development economics.10
Different phrases are used to try to communicate this basic idea
While Sen’s works cover an extremely wide range of topics, his
in simple ways:
‘capability approach’ has provided the basis of a new paradigm in

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• The Human Development Reports describe the objective of survival, health, work, education, relationships, empowerment,
‘expanding people’s choices’ self-expression and culture.

• Amartya Sen’s 1999 book was entitled ‘Development as A vitally important phrase in the definition of functionings is ‘value
Freedom’ and have reason to value’. It sounds abstract but is of
tremendous practical importance. Why? First, functionings are
• Sometimes the words ‘effective freedoms’ or ‘real freedoms’ are
things people value. In other words, an activity or situation
used to emphasize that what matters is the actual possibilities
‘counts’ as a functioning for that person only if that person values
not hollow promises or paper freedoms.
it. This encourages the participation and engagement of those
Formulations of capability have two parts: functionings and people whose lives are at stake, in order to ascertain whether
opportunity freedom. Sen’s significant contribution has been to they will value changes that might ensue. Second, functionings
unite the two concepts. We start with functionings, which are are things people ‘have reason to value’. The capability approach
being and doing activities that people value and have reason to introduces value judgements explicitly. Why? In fact some
value. For example, being nourished, literate and employed. people do value activities that are harmful, such as a
However, functionings are not limited, which is why the human psychopath who values the triumph of the kill as much as the
development approach applies to rich and poor countries, and to victim would value not being killed. The phrase ‘reason to value’
rich and poor people. Functionings also include playing a virtuoso just acknowledges that given our disagreements we do need to
drum solo, having a good reputation and a warm circle of friends. make some social choices. The issues that will be contentious are
At one point Sen considered whether one should ‘separate many and include female genital mutilation, domestic violence,
“material” functionings and capabilities (e.g. to be well- censorship, discrimination, air travel and so on. The capability
nourished) from others (e.g. being wise and contented)’ and approach raises the issue of what process, group, philosophical
evaluate standards of living with reference to material capabilities. structure or institution has the legitimate authority to decide what
In the end he suggested that living standards encompass all people have reason to value. But while the capability approach
valued functionings. ‘It is possible that this way of drawing the argues that public debate and critical scrutiny are often helpful, it
line is a little too permissive, but the alternatives that have been stops well short of proposing one particular process as relevant in
proposed seem clearly too narrow’ (Sen, 1987, p23). So all contexts, and rather depends on the agency of people acting
functionings relate to many different dimensions of life – including
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in those contexts to address these questions themselves and In Mexico, as well as in other parts of the world, there are people
build up and share their repertoire of good practices. who are in the business of dealing with ‘second-hand goods’.
These people go to apartment buildings and neighbourhoods to
Capabilities are the freedom to enjoy valuable functionings. So
buy used things that people no longer want. This merchandise
they combine functionings with a kind of opportunity freedom.
can vary from clothing, electronic appliances and tableware to
Just like a person with a pocket full of coins can buy many
CDs and toys. The profit in this business lies in buying things at a
different combinations of things, a person with many capabilities
very low price and later going to open-air markets and selling
can elect between many different functionings and pursue a
them at a higher price. So the second-hand goods dealer is a
variety of different life paths. For this reason, the capability set
collector of useless things that he can occasionally improve,
has been compared to a budget set. Capabilities are thus
which he then sells in various markets.
described as the real and actual possibilities open to a given
person. As T. H. Green wrote, ‘We do not mean merely freedom The case discussed here is that of Jorge Solís, who began to
from restraint or compulsion … when we speak of freedom as work as a second-hand goods dealer when he was 17 years old.
something to be so highly prized, we mean a positive power or This was because he and his mother were left on their own. His
capacity of doing or enjoying something worth doing or brothers and sisters had married and no one was there to help
enjoying’ (cited in Sen, 2002b, p586). out with the household expenses.

Again, as Green’s quote implies, capabilities include only People know that the second-hand goods dealer is in the
possibilities that people really value. Truly evil or utterly vacuous neighbourhood when they hear him shouting: ‘Old appliances you
activities are not capabilities (although they still exist and must be want to sell?’ Consumers like me hear him and invite him to our
reckoned with, as we shall see). Some of Sen’s descriptions of homes to see what he is selling. One day, I saw Jorge through the
capability stress this, such as his description of capability as ‘a window and I invited him in to see what merchandise he had.
person’s ability to do valuable acts or reach valuable states of
Pedro: Sir, I didn’t hear you shout. I want to sell several things.
being’ (1993, p30). Box 2.6 illustrates the distinction between
Jorge: The thing is that I can’t shout. I have a sore throat.
functionings and capabilities.
Pedro: Really? Have you taken some medicine for your sore
throat? Jorge: No, I don’t have enough money to buy medicine.

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Pedro: But if you don’t buy any medicine, you won’t get better important to be able to choose a career than to be able to choose
and you won’t be able to shout. As a consequence, we won’t be between an array of rival brands of toothpaste, and human
able to hear you and we won’t offer you our things. development needs to identify which choices are valu- able. Also,
the phrase ‘expanding people’s choices’ seems to imply that
Jorge: Well, yes, but there is no other way. I just hope that people
more choices are always better – but this is not necessarily the
see me even if they don’t hear me shout, so that I’ll be able to get
case. Often people value having to make only a few good
something today and sell it.
choices, rather than many cumbersome choices. As Sen writes,
What does this simple story illustrate? Jorge did not have the ‘Indeed sometimes more freedom of choice can bemuse and
functionings required to be healthy and this restricted his befuddle, and make one’s life more wretched’ (1992, p59).
possibilities of promoting his services and receiving a decent Actually the capability approach recognizes that the goal is not to
income. If Jorge does not have more money, he won’t be able to expand the number of choices – it is to expand the quality of
buy the medicine he needs for his throat to heal, and the circle of human life. Also, the term choices itself is problematic because
restrictions will not be broken. the desirability of individual choices varies by culture, and a high
value of ‘choice’ is associated with western liberal individualism.
Common misunderstandings 1: choice People also sometimes value making some choices together – as
a family or a community – and not individually. Also, in fact many
Through the years, a number of common misunderstandings of
capabilities are necessarily the outcome of joint process, not
the capability approach, and relatedly of human development,
individual decisions. The term ‘choice’ obscures this – the
have emerged. This section describes misunderstandings
capability approach’s preference for terms like ‘real freedoms’ is
regarding the role of choice, and the extent of individualism.
an attempt to express the core objective in a culturally adaptable
A misunderstanding between ‘capability’ and ‘choice’ often way. In sum, ‘expanding people’s choices’ does not mean that we
surfaces, especially because the Human Development Reports focus on expanding all choices – regardless of their value, and as
use the phrase ‘expand people’s choices’ instead of the rather if the more choice the better. Furthermore, most choices affect
cumbersome term of ‘capabilities’. The phrase has the advantage more than one person and many are often made after
of being simple English. But the term ‘choices’ is problematic discussion and consultation with others. So, in trying to
because it does not introduce the issues of ‘value’ and ‘have ‘expand people’s choices’ or real freedoms, we are not imagining
reason to value’ that are central to capabilities. It is usually more that individuals are to make choices in isolation. Indeed, many
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capabilities can only be created and sustained by people acting • Explanatory or methodological individualism presumes ‘that all
together. social phenomena can be explained in terms of individuals and
their properties.’
Common misunderstandings 2: individualism
Many presume that the capability approach is individualistic
This brings up one further misunderstanding of Sen’s capability
because it focuses on what individual people (not groups) can do
approach and its relation to individualism. Often people argue that
and be. First, we must point out that much of the work on the
the capability approach is ‘individualistic’ and by this wrongly
capability approach and human development as a whole has
imply that it is a western liberal approach that presumes persons
engaged groups specifically – women’s groups, social
act alone rather than as members of groups. To clarify in what
movements, public actions, democratic practices and so on.
sense the capability approach focuses only on individuals it is
Also, many choices are made by groups, not individuals. The
useful to distinguish three kinds of individualism, only the first of
capability approach thus does not defend methodological or
which is advanced by the capability approach (Robeyns, 2005,
ontological individualism. But even if we are highly interested in
p107; 2008, p90 all quotes):
groups, the capability approach, as initially framed by Sen, takes

• Ethical individualism ‘postulates that individuals, and only the normative position of ‘ethical individualism’ – the view that
individuals, are the ultimate units of moral concern… This, of what ultimately matters is what happens to every single individual
course, does not imply that we should not evaluate social in a society.
structures and societal properties, but ethical individualism
The reason Sen supports ethical individualism is that if the
implies that these structures and institutions will be evaluated in
smallest fundamental unit of moral concern is any group, such as
virtue of the causal importance that they have for individual
the family, the social group or the community, then analyses will
well-being.’
systematically overlook any existing or potential inequalities

• Ontological individualism holds that ‘society is built up from within these units. For example, the deprivations particular to
only individuals and nothing (but) individuals, and hence is women and children have regularly been overlooked by analyses
nothing more than the sum of individuals and their properties.’ that focus on the household. Only if we probe into the well-being
of each person do we have the possibility of discovering the
relative under- nutrition, or subordination, of women.

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A disagreement remains among a group of authors within the While a nuanced consideration of individual capabilities seems
capability approach about the sufficiency of ethical sufficient to evaluate a state of affairs, recognizing the vital role of
individualism. Critics have questioned whether a rejection of social norms, groups, movements and social institutions is
ontological individualism is consistent with a commitment to essential for developing policies to advance capabilities. We shall
ethical individualism. When human beings live together, they return to this point shortly when we discuss the prospective or
generate something truly collective, which is more than the sum policy role of the human development and capability approach.
total of their individual lives and cannot be reduced to individual
Why freedom? Capabilities not just functionings
characteristics. Assessing states of affairs only to the extent that
they have a positive or negative effect on the well-being of each As highlighted earlier, Sen’s capability approach proposes that we
individual is therefore insufficient. This group recognizes that identify functionings – the things (within reason) people value
there may be something genuinely positive in the ‘irreducibly doing and being. The focus of development and policy is then to
social goods’,11 even if it has been generated by the oppression make people free to enjoy some combination of functionings,
of some individuals. According to this argument, an orchestra allowing them to expand their capabilities. But, some people
performance has an intrinsic value even if some members are wonder, why should we focus on freedoms so much? Do poor
forced to play. The architectural beauty of pyramids in Egypt and people really want to have the freedom to avoid hunger and
medieval cathedrals in Europe provide other examples of discomfort? Do they not simply want to avoid hunger and
irreducibly social goods which are of positive value to some, even discomfort? In most cases, yes, but what is distinctive about
if built by oppression and with terrible human cost. A full Sen’s approach is the substantive role that freedom plays. Here
assessment of the situation from either view would trade off the are two of many reasons why freedom is important.
contribution to future generations of people’s capabilities to enjoy
beauty or other irreducibly social goods, against the lack of First, if we only focus on expanding functionings, we could do so
capabilities of some workers. That trade-off is clearly contested, by force, coercion, domination or colonialism. Most basic needs
with those supporting irreducibly social goods implicitly giving a can be met in a prison, for example. Indeed, some countries have
greater weight to the generations that use and enjoy a good, and used force to advance functionings: for example, forced
others arguing for a greater weight – or even for human rights, sterilization or the forced isolation of people who are HIV-
hence certain absolute protections – to be given to those whose positive. Focusing on freedom draws attention to social
capabilities are curtailed by the activity.
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development and the value of empowerment, responsibility and opportunity aspect of freedom, while the notion of agency, which
informed public action. is explained below, refers to the personal process of freedom.

Also, reasonable people sometimes choose to be deprived in one Agency

area of life in order to enjoy another kind of goodness. A person
The third core concept of the capability approach is agency.
who is fasting is in a state of under-nutrition, which may seem
Agency refers to a person’s ability to pursue and realize goals that
very similar to starvation. But, in the one case, the fasting person
she values and has reason to value. An agent is ‘someone who
could eat, although she chooses not to, whereas the starving
acts and brings about change’ (Sen, 1999, p19). The opposite of
person would eat if he could. Similarly, a student who could live
a person with agency is someone who is forced, oppressed or
well if he worked may instead endure poor and overcrowded
passive.
housing conditions so that he might obtain a degree. People
should be free to refrain from a functioning for good reasons if The agency aspect is important ‘in assessing what a person can
and when they so choose. do in line with his or her conception of the good’ (Sen, 1985,
p206). Agency expands the horizons of concern beyond a
Note that, conceptually, ‘there is no difference as far as the space
person’s own well-being to include concerns such as solidarity
is concerned between focusing on functionings or on capabilities.
with the extreme poor. From this perspective, people can be
A functioning combination is a point in such a space, whereas
active and creative, with the ability to act on behalf of their
capability is a set of such points’ (Sen, 1992, p50).
aspirations.
Second, the notion of capability is also closely related to that of
Agency is related to other approaches that stress self-
freedom. Sen defines freedom as ‘the real opportunity that we
determination, authentic self-direction, autonomy, self-reliance,
have to accomplish what we value’ (1992, p31). Freedom, he
empowerment, voice and so on. The strong collective desire for
argues, has two aspects: opportunity and process. The
agency suggests that development processes should foster
opportunity aspect pays attention ‘to the ability of a person to
participation, public debate and democratic practice.
achieve those things that she has reason to value’, and the
process aspect pays attention to ‘the freedom involved in the Agency is inescapably plural in both concept and measurement.
process itself’ (2002b, p10). The notion of capability refers to the In Sen’s view:12

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1. Agency is exercised with respect to the goals the person her up in prison. Anna’s achieved well-being has obviously been
values and has reason to value. considerably lowered. Anna is given the option to sign a piece of
paper declaring that she committed violence and is a member of
2. Agency includes effective power as well as direct control, that
an extreme-left organization (which will then give her a criminal
is, it includes not just individual agency, but what one can do
record). If she does not sign, she will be kept in prison for an
as a member of a group, collectivity or political community.
unspecified length of time. Anna therefore has a (highly
3. Agency may advance well-being or may address other goals – constrained) option to trade her freedom of agency for a higher
for example, relating to the good of one’s family or community, achieved well-being. Becca had the same potential agency but
of other people and of art and the environment. chose not to use it. She is concerned about human rights
violations and the hollowing of democracy itself, but does not
4. To identify agency entails an assessment of whether the wish to sacrifice her achieved well-being for these goals.
agent’s goals are in some way reasonable – a person who
harms or humiliates others would not, in this view, be exerting Such an example shows that the distinctions Sen makes are
agency. important because, in evaluative exercises, one has to ask
whether the relevant dimension of advantage is the standard of
5. The agent’s responsibility for creating or sustaining a state of living, achieved well-being, agency achievement, well-being
affairs should be incorporated into his or her evaluation of how freedom or agency freedom. The central claim of the capability
to act as an agent. approach is that whatever concept of advan- tage one chooses
to consider, the informational base of this judgement must relate
Suppose two sisters, Anna and Becca, live in a peaceful village in
to the space of functionings and/or capabilities, depending upon
England and have the same levels of achieved well-being. Both
the issue at hand. Sen’s claim is that well-being achievements
believe that the power of global corporations is under- mining
should be measured in functionings, whereas well-being freedom
democracy, and that governments should give greater emphasis
is reflected by a person’s capability set. A focus on agency will
to global justice. Anna decides to travel to Genoa to demonstrate
always transcend an analysis in terms of functionings and
against the G8 meetings, while Becca stays at home. At that
capabilities, and will take agency goals into account. However, it
moment, Anna is using her freedom of agency to voice some of
is typical of Sen’s work that he does not defend this as a closed
her politi- cal concerns. However, the Italian police do not like the
protesters and violate Anna’s civil and political rights by beating
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theory or dogma: there can be good reasons to include other therefore compare and contrast the capability approach with
sources of information as well. other approaches to the evaluation of well-being that inform
development policy.
Compare & contrast
With happiness
Human development and the capability approach arose in
conversation with other approaches to development. At that time Much conventional economics is based on a utilitarian approach.
– and, indeed, even now – many were suggesting that social It assumes that the most desirable action is the one that
arrangements and development itself should focus on maximizing increases people’s psychological happiness or desire-fulfilment
income, assets and other commodities in the interests of the most. This view has made a tremendous comeback in recent
achieving happiness. This section compares and contrasts years, drawing on new data on happiness and life satisfaction.
human development with competing approaches. Richard Layard (2005), for example, thoughtfully examines how
our entire economic system could evolve if our steady and
Income, happiness and commodities are obviously important.
enduring purpose were to maximize a nation’s happiness, instead
The problem is that, if policies aim only to increase one of these,
of its income.
they might unintentionally create distortions. This is because
policies that focus on only one objective tend to ignore everything This approach has tremendous appeal. Happiness seems to
else. For example, if a programme aims to maximize individual invite a deeper reflection upon our material goals and values. It
happiness alone, it may celebrate the achieve- ment of a deeply helps people see these goals from a different perspective. Sen
joyous political prisoner, without feeling any obligation to address and others writing on the capability approach consider happiness
the unjust detention in which the prisoner finds himself. A more to be ‘a momentous achievement’ to be celebrated. But when
thorough analysis of the situation might appreciate the prisoner’s you look beyond the headlines, some concerns continue to arise.
tremendous inner strength, on the one hand, while working
First and perhaps most importantly, our mental utility may not
immediately to help free her, on the other.
track in any predictable fashion the things we really value. A poor,
The capability approach argues that focusing on capabilities is a devout widow may become serenely reconciled to her
more direct and accurate way of expanding what people really circumstances, but this does not mean that she would not value
value. Focusing on capabilities introduces fewer distortions. We also having warm socks and pain medication for her arthritis.

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Alternatively, a middle-aged man may become a hospice Third, self-reported utility may often be biased by information and
volunteer following the death of his mother because he wishes to social circumstances. As Sen (2002a) pointed out in the British
share with others the inner peace he has found as a result of Medical Journal, the state of Kerala, which had almost universal
having come to terms with her terminal illness. In doing this, he education and a life expectancy of
may share the pain and tragedy of others’ lives, so his
74 at the time, also had the highest self-reported morbidity in
‘happiness’ would be lower than if he did not do hospice work at
India. In contrast, Bihar, one of India’s poorest states, with a life
all. But he would not wish for any other kind of life.
expectancy below 60, had the lowest rate of self-reported
Second, happiness levels may obscure significant deprivations. morbidity. The objectively healthy state was subjectively health-
Sen notes that people whose deprivations deserve systematic poor and vice versa. How do we evaluate this? It seems that the
attention may often not be utility-deprived: low self-reported morbidity in Bihar occurred because people had
less ability to assess their own health situation, and had less hope
Consider a cripple…. Suppose that he is no worse off than
of doing anything to remedy it. Subjective data, whether on
others in utility terms despite his physical handicap because
happiness or morbidity, is therefore conditioned, to a great
of certain other utility features. This could be because he
degree, for example by our knowledge, aspirations and peer
has a jolly disposition. Or because he has a low aspiration
group.
level and his heart leaps up whenever he sees a rainbow in
the sky. Or because he is religious and feels that he will be With resources
rewarded in [the] after-life, or cheerfully accepts what he
Many other approaches to development focus instead on
takes to be just penalty for misdeeds in a past incarnation.
cultivating different kinds of resources; these may be assets,
The important point is that, despite his marginal utility
property rights or basic needs, such as housing, food, clothing,
disadvantage, he no longer (has) a total utility deprivation.
sanitation and so on. These approaches recognize the
(Sen, 1980, p217)
fundamental importance of commodities and material goods to
His happiness rating, being durably independent of his quality of our well-being in the short- and long-term. They identify valid
life, would therefore not provide a very good policy indicator of connections between resources and capabilities, and argue that,
the requirements needed to address his deprivations. in order to expand capabilities and sustain these expansions,
certain resources are required. In many cases, these analyses are
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utterly apt, and will form, as we shall see, an integral aspect of the 2. Environmental diversities (pensioners in Scotland will need a
human development approach. different income to keep warm in winter than pensioners in Dar
es Salaam);
But measuring resources is still different from measuring
functionings. The capability approach argues that we will 3. Institutional variations (parents in a country with good free
inadvertently make mistakes if we try to give everyone the same public education will require a different income to educate their
resources, because people’s ability to convert the same children than parents in a country without free public education
resources into functionings varies a lot. To take a simple example, or with poor quality schools);
the same amount of rice (or other good), will be converted into
4. Differences in relational perspectives (the material requirements
radically different levels of physical vigour by a child, a disabled
for appearing in public without shame when having guests
teenager, an agricultural worker or an elderly person. Similarly,
depends on local customs); and
people who are physically impaired require greater resources to
achieve mobility. Clearly, people have different abilities to convert 5. Distribution within the family (the family income might not be
resources into capabilities and, if policies equalize resources, they spent to feed the children adequately but instead to buy the
will disadvantage certain groups (in the case of food, labourers, parents’ drinks).
pregnant women, those with allergies or with a high metabolism)
in significant ways. For this reason, we should aim for greater In order to assess people’s well-being, further information is
equality in the space of functionings and capabilities directly. therefore needed on other aspects of people’s lives – their health,
education, nutritional status, dignity, autonomy and so on.
Sen identifies five vital factors that are often overlooked when we
focus on income and resources instead of capabilities (1999, Another problem is that people value things other than increased
pp70–71): resources. The process of maximizing resources may have social
and environ- mental costs (changes in culture and lifestyle) that
1. Personal heterogeneities (a pregnant woman will have different people have good reason to reject. In the words of the 1990
nutrition requirements from an elderly woman); Human Development Report: ‘The basic objective of
development is to create an enabling environment for people to
enjoy long, healthy and creative lives. This may appear to be a

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simple truth. But it is often forgotten in the immediate concern access to the resource coupled with the person’s own
with the accumulation of commodities and financial wealth’ (p9). characteristics (balance, etc.), creates the capability for the
person to move around town when she wishes. Furthermore, let
Putting it all together
us suppose that the person enjoys having this capability to leap
A bicycle provides a good example of how these different upon a bicycle and pedal over to a friend’s house for lunch – thus
concepts relate. A person may own or be able to use a bicycle (a having this capability contributes to happiness or utility.
resource). By riding the bicycle, the person moves around town
and, we assume, values this mobility (a functioning). However, if
the person is unable to ride the bicycle (because, perhaps, she
has no sense of balance or is not permitted to ride), then having a
bicycle would not in fact result in this functioning. In this case, the The bicycle example illustrates how the various concepts are all
access to the resource coupled with the person’s own related to one another when they coincide nicely. The question is:
characteristics (balance, etc.), creates the capability for the which concept do we focus on? Which will be distorted most (or
person to move around town when she wishes. Furthermore, let least) often? The capability approach argues that utility can be
us suppose that the person enjoys having this capability to leap distorted by personality or adaptive preferences; functionings can
upon a bicycle and pedal over to a friend’s house for lunch – thus be enjoyed in a prison or stifled environment; and a bicycle can
having this capability contributes to happiness or utility. be useless if you cannot balance, so capability represents the
most accurate space in which to investigate and advance the
Putting it all together
various forms of human well- being.
A bicycle provides a good example of how these different
The capability approach
concepts relate. A person may own or be able to use a bicycle (a
resource). By riding the bicycle, the person moves around town The capability approach has often been mistaken for a theory of
and, we assume, values this mobility (a functioning). However, if justice, which it is not. So what is it? Basically, while human
the person is unable to ride the bicycle (because, perhaps, she development and the capability approach require positive,
has no sense of balance or is not permitted to ride), then having a normative, predictive and policy analyses, two roles have been
bicycle would not in fact result in this functioning. In this case, the

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more visible to date: an evaluative (normative) role, and a The Human Development Reports, both nationally and globally,
prospective (policy) role.13 represent a good example of the prospective or policy approach.
Prospective analyses ask ‘which policy should be
Simply put, the normative or evaluative role examines which
implemented’. A prospective application of the capability
capabilities have expanded:
approach is a working set of the policies, activities, courses of
[T]he capability approach is a proposition, and the action and recommendations that seem, at any given time, most
proposition is this: that social arrangements should be likely to generate considerable capability expansion and human
evaluated according to the extent of freedom people have to development. The set of policies should be considered together
promote or achieve functionings they value. If equality in with the processes by which these policies were generated, and
social arrangements is to be demanded in any space – and situated in terms of the contexts in which they will be more likely
most theories of justice advocate equality in some space – it to deliver these benefits.
is to be demanded in the space of capabilities. (Alkire, 2005,
Selecting capabilities or functionings
p122)
As we have seen, the capability approach is incomplete. It relies
For example, the Human Development Index is used to rank
on the agency and involvement of people in different contexts to
countries according to their achievements in key functionings.
specify which capabilities to focus on, for example. As noted
Similarly, Robeyns refers to the capability approach as a ‘broad
earlier, the development process should be assessed according
normative framework for the evaluation and assessment of
to the extent to which it expands the ‘capabilities that people
individual well-being and social arrangements’:
have reason to choose and value’.
[T]he capability approach is not a theory that can explain
Because of its resistance to overt prescription, the capability
poverty, inequality and well-being; instead, it rather provides a
approach is open to many different forms of specifications
tool and a framework within which to conceptualize and
regarding what constitute valuable capabilities. Even if it was not
evaluate these phenomena. Applying the capability
necessarily erroneous to look for a complete ordering of what
approach to issues of policy and social change will therefore
constitutes human well-being, it cannot be identified in practice.
often require the addition of explanation theories. (Robeyns,
This is what Sen calls the ‘fundamental and pragmatic
2005, p4)
reasons’ (Sen, 1992, p49) for incompleteness.
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However, the task of specifying capabilities – for example in a because not all human freedoms are equally valuable, Nussbaum
participatory Poverty Reduction Strategy, in a national or local argues that one might need to go beyond the incompleteness of
plan, for an NGO project, or for inclusion in an international Sen’s capability approach so that equal freedom for all can be
multi-dimensional health measure – faces two challenges: a respected.
challenge of omission and a challenge of power. In terms of
She grounds her version of the capability approach on what she
omission, groups may inadvertently overlook a capability that is
calls an ‘internalist essentialist’ position. Insofar as we
quite important. Having a list of capabilities others in a similar
recognize human beings as human, there should be an
situation have selected can help people to clarify their own set,
essentialist basis for any view about what constitutes human life
and may bring to mind important capabilities they might have
and what deprives it of its full human character. Her list of central
overlooked or not dared to hope for. In terms of power, there is
human capabilities is as follows (Nussbaum, 2000, pp78–80):
always a danger that the powerful – be these economic elite, a
particular ethnicity or gender or family or party – will select 1. Life: Being able to live to the end of a human life of normal
capabilities that advance their views, perhaps at the expense of length; not dying prematurely.
minority voices.
2. Bodily health: Being able to have good health, including
Many authors work to address these concerns. The most reproductive health; to be adequately nourished; to have
prominent of these, Martha Nussbaum, has proposed a list of ten adequate shelter.
central human capabilities that, she argues, should be the basis
of constitutional guarantees. In her view, having a list of 3. Bodily integrity: Being able to move freely from place to place;
capabilities is vital to avoid the issues of omission and power. She to be secure against violent assault, including sexual assault
notes that, ‘just as people can be taught not to want or miss the and domestic violence; having opportunities for sexual
things their culture has taught them they should not or could not satisfaction and for choice in matters of reproduction.
have, so too can (they) be taught not to value certain functionings
4. Senses, imagination, and thought: Being able to use the
as constituents of their good living’ (Nussbaum, 1988, p175).
senses, to imagine, think and reason; being able to use
Since what people consider to be valuable and relevant can often imagination and thought; being able to use one’s mind in ways
be the product of structures of inequality and discrimination, and protected by guarantees of freedom of expression with respect
to both political and artistic speech, and freedom of religious
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 exercise; being able to have pleasurable experiences and to having the right of political participation, protections of free
avoid non-beneficial pain. speech and association. (B) Material: Being able to hold
property (both land and movable goods), and having property
5. Emotions: Being able to love, to grieve, to experience longing,
rights on an equal basis with others; having the right to seek
gratitude and justified anger, not having one’s emotional
employment on an equal basis with others; having the freedom
development blighted by fear and anxiety.
from unwarranted search and seizure. In work, being able to
6. Practical reason: Being able to form a conception of the good work as a human being, exercising practical reason and
and to engage in critical reflection about the planning of one’s entering into meaningful relationships of mutual recognition
life (this includes liberty of conscience and of religious with other workers.
observance).
Sen has no objection to Nussbaum’s project of eliminating the
7. Affiliation: (A) Being able to live with and toward others, to incompleteness of his approach, as long as no one’s list is seen
recognize and show concern for other human beings, to as ‘the only route’ (1993, p47). He also supports sharing best
engage in various forms of social interaction; to be able to practices in identifying important capabilities. Fixing one pre-
imagine the situation of another (this includes freedom of determined authoritative list, however, undermines people’s
assembly and political speech). (B) Having the social bases of agency. Setting a fixed and forever list of capabilities, he argues,
self-respect and non-humiliation; being able to be treated as a would be ‘to deny the possibility of fruitful participation on what
dignified being whose worth is equal to that of others (this should be included and why’ (Sen, 2004, p77). Robeyns and
includes non-discrimination). Alkire have thus focused on different aspects of the process of
selecting capabilities, to which we return in Chapter 6. The key
8. Other species: Being able to live with concern for and in questions to keep in mind when selecting capabilities are: (1)
relation to animals, plants, and the world of nature. which capabilities do the people who will enjoy them value (and
attach a high priority to); and (2) which capabilities are relevant to
9. Play: Being able to laugh, to play and to enjoy recreational
a given policy, project or institution?
activities.

[Link] over one’s environment: (A) Political: Being able to

participate effectively in political choices that govern one’s life;

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Ideas Related to Human Development vote and be educated. It is the idea of equality between races
that put an end to the institution of slavery.
‘Ideas change history’. This was the theme of the 2007
The idea of capability, as opposed to utility, forces us to assess
conference organized by the Human Development and Capability
policy from a different perspective. As we have already discussed
Association at the New School in New York. The conference blurb
in the first chapter, ideas about what matters profoundly influence
read as follows:
human actions. Ideas underpin normative frameworks, which in
The special theme of the conference will be on the spread of turn underpin public policy. This chapter explores the relationship
ideas and their social impact. ‘The ideas of economists and between the ideas contained in the human development and
political philosophers, both when they are right and when capability approach and other related ideas in development
they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly thinking.
understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else’ (Keynes).
The human development and capability approach does not have
As the famous quote by Keynes reflects, breakthrough ideas
a monop- oly on ‘people-centred’ development theories
in economics and political philosophy can change history,
emphasizing that the ultimate goal of policy and development is
but what are the processes that shape their spread? Ideas
human flourishing. The basic needs approach held this idea as
spread and have impact through three channels: academia,
early as the 1970s. Equally, the human rights approach holds core
government policy and social movements. What has been
human development ideas as being sacred, such as the right to
the experience of progressive ideas in the past and what are
non-discrim- ination, to be free from hunger, to be educated, etc.
the prospects for (the) human development and capability
More recently, the idea of human security, with its emphasis on
approach in shaping development policy? What is the likely
freedom from violence, fear and insecurity
intellectual trajectory of capability and human development?
– all critical to the human development approach – has also
Indeed, ideas do have the power to change history. Without the
received much attention. How do these ideas compare with one
idea of equality between men and women, or the equality
another? And how do such ideas influence policy? These are the
between races, the world today would look very different. It is the
types of questions this chapter attempts to address. But, before
idea of equality between genders that granted women the right to
doing so, we begin by examining how the notion of free- dom
differs in the human development and capability approach, on the
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one hand, from that espoused in market liberalism, on the other. It From this perspective, it is possible to be free while starving to
is critical that these distinctions be clarified at the outset, given death at the same time. In 1943, a famine struck Bengal, a region
the centrality of freedom to both approaches and to prevent any in the north-eastern part of India, which is now in part the country
unnecessary confusion. of Bangladesh. More than three million people died. As Sen has
observed in his writing on famine, this did not happen because
Human development & market liberalism: freedom people were prevented from trading, were systematically abused
compared by the military or because of food shortages (the amount of
available food in fact rose) – but because an economic shock cut
Earlier, we saw that the idea of freedom – as expressed in the the earnings of people in a wide range of jobs (for example, those
concepts of capability and agency – is the core idea of the human in the fishing industry) and left them unable to buy the food they
development and capability approach.1 But advocates of needed. Sen (1981) has been able to demonstrate a strong link
unbridled market liberalism are also heralds of the idea of between democracy and the reduction of famine. In countries
freedom. For them, increasing people’s choices and freedoms in with a free press, and with political oppositions able to unseat
life also constitutes their main policy objective. That both human unpopular regimes, government takes the action necessary to
development and market liberalism – understood here as the make sure everyone is fed. Given the opportunity, people use
economic ideology that markets should be restricted as little as their political freedom to counteract the inequalities generated by
possible – endorse freedom and human choices as central uncontrolled ‘economic freedom’.
values, has led to some confusion about the distinctions between
them. There are, however, fundamental differences between the For the human development and capability approach, freedom is

two. For market liberalism, freedom means first and foremost not only negative freedom, such as freedom from interference,
being free from interference. For example, one is less free if the but also positive freedom: the freedom to do or be what one

money one earns is taken off in high taxation, even though that values. In order to enjoy the freedom of being fed, some
money is used for providing public goods, such as a national freedoms sometimes have to be restricted. In the example above,

security system. Similarly, one is less free when regulations the freedom to buy and sell can be limited to allow others to have

restrict the trading of goods across borders, even though the what they need to live and flourish. Or the freedom of some to

restrictions might improve the quality of life of poor farmers in speculate on the housing market can be limited so that others

developing countries. can buy affordable housing. In other words, the freedom that

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matters is not the freedom from interference from others, but the health-care facilities by lower income groups (if the privatization
freedom that one has to live a good and worthwhile life. of health services is accompanied by lower public investment in
According to the human development and capability approach, the public health system).
expanding this freedom should be the primary goal of public
Unlike market liberalism, which prescribes the openness of
policy. A consequence of this is that economic and social policies
economies and other ready-made policies irrespective of context,
become deeply intertwined. The economic policy of increasing
the human development and capability approach is not
interest rates, for example, has consequences for the freedom of
prescriptive about public policy.2 It never prescribes a policy as
those who go into debt simply to meet the basic costs of living.
being ‘good’ for any country. Its richness lies in providing an
When human freedom is used to assess economic policy, the
analytical framework to make appropriate policies in given
policy itself cannot be analysed without overlooking its social
contexts, within the overall objective of promoting human
effects.
freedoms. For example, if a country subsidizes the provision of
That human freedom is the ultimate objective of public policy gas, this may appear to be a desirable social policy, since it
does not suggest that one could, or should, get rid of the market lowers family expenditure, reduces wood and carbon
economy. The freedom to buy and sell, the capability to consumption, and thereby promotes environmental sustainability.
participate in markets, remains an important freedom (Sen, 1999, But, on the other hand, industries that use gas would be
p112). But other freedoms are important as well. Market freedom advantaged over other industries, creating a distortion in the
is only one kind of human freedom. It is not an absolute that market. And what was initially a subsidy to help poor families may
necessarily justifies inaction in the face of human needs or non- turn out to be a government transfer to a group of industries.
market aspirations. If the free exchange of goods is only one Thus, what is at first sight a good policy to help fight poverty and
freedom among many which we have reason to value, then the protect the environment might in the end be an inefficient and
marketplace should not dictate society’s shape but should inequitable measure. Although the human development and
instead be seen as a tool to help realize the kind of society human capability approach is not policy prescriptive, its policies are
beings have reason to value. For example, extensive freedom in guided by the questions: Is this policy efficient? Is it equitable? Is
market transactions may result in environmental loss (if an it sustainable? Does it promote empowerment?
increase in the volume of goods bought and discarded is not
accompanied by a recycling policy) or in reduced access to

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Human development and market liberalism may have the same
concerns for ‘choice’ and ‘freedom’, but their underlying
philosophies and ensuing policies are quite different. For human
development, choice is understood in terms of the valuable things
that people are able to be or do. For market liberalism, in
comparison, valuable choices are those that satisfy people’s
preferences. Consider the example of importing cheap goods
from China. For market liberalism, this increases people’s choices
in the sense that consumers in importing countries have a wider
variety of goods to buy from, and they have a choice to
buy the commodities at a cheaper price. But the human
development and capability approach asks additional questions.
Is it a valuable choice to be able to buy, say, toys made in China
for a third of the price of toys made in Europe (because of low
wages) and to be able to choose from a selection of 100 instead
of 50 toys? In contrast to market liberalism, human development
asks us to also examine the valuable choices available to the
Chinese workers who have produced these goods. The cheap
price paid may be a reflection of exploitative labour conditions.

Both human development and market liberalism oppose

discrimination but one does it for reasons of efficiency, while the such as a more creative and dynamic workforce that could lead
other does it on the basis of human rights. For example, the to higher economic performance.
exclusion of women from labour markets is seen by human
While both agree on the importance of the state, human
development as a denial of women’s right to employment. For
development advocates a much larger role for states. For market
market liberalism, in contrast, the exclusion of women from
liberalism, it is not the role of the state to ensure a minimum level
labour markets is a denial of greater economic opportunities,

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of well-being for its population. However, as we have highlighted market liberalism even if both share, on the surface, the same
above, the principle of non-intervention often requires greater concern for human freedom. This has led to a confusion between
scrutiny given the lack of equity and justice it often engenders. the human development approach and human resources, a core
Within the human development and capability approach, market concept in market liberalism. Both approaches perceive health
freedoms go hand in hand with freedoms in other spheres, such and education as being the central focus of public policy, but
as freedom in the political sphere. This is why political and civil there remain fundamental differences between them. Paul
rights, on the one hand, and economic and social rights, on the Streeten (1994) highlights the following: first, he writes, human
other, are inextricably linked. That some groups enjoy the right to development is concerned ‘with the unproductive, the lame
non-discrimination more than others is often the consequence of ducks, and the unemployables: the old, infirm, disabled, and
political action to overcome discrimination. chronically sick’, while human resources are not. Second, the
human resources approach tends to treat people as passive
Another distinction is that market liberalism believes that
‘targets’ and not as ‘active, participating agents’. Third, seeing
everything can be measured in terms of utility, income and
education and health as ends (instead of means to other ends)
opportunity cost. In contrast, human development recognizes
entails different educational curricula and health programmes.
that well-being is multi-dimensional. There are some dimensions
The human resources approach focuses on vocational training
that cannot be compared monetarily: for example, if one chooses
aimed at the labour market, while human development aims at
to work hard during weekends, at the expense of time spent with
education for its own sake and for understanding and
one’s family, market liberalism assumes that the two activities can
transforming the world. Fourth, both have a gender focus, but for
be compared on a single scale, namely, the amount of extra
very different reasons. The human resources approach argues
money one can earn by doing so. Human development
that it is important for a well-functioning economy for women to
recognizes that the fulfilment one derives from work, and
participate in labour markets. Human development advocates
the fulfilment one derives from family relationships, remain
women’s rights in general, whether it leads to economic returns or
incommensurable. An additional income can therefore not
not. In sum, for human development, promoting education and
‘compensate’ for the loss of quality in one’s family life. This is not
health does not have to be justified on the grounds of productivity
merely a matter of ‘opportunity cost’: the benefit of extra work
or efficiency. Even if a certain educational programme does not
and the loss of family life cannot be reduced to a single monetary
yield high economic returns – funding a school for disabled
measure. Human development is thus fundamentally distinct from

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people vs. funding a vocational secondary school – it may be case for laissez-faire market economics. The post-war context
worthwhile. was one that saw the rising influence of Communism in Europe
and elsewhere in the world. Within that political context, the Road
How the idea of freedom spread to Serfdom tried to defend the moral case for upholding the
values of human dignity and freedom against its alternative: the
The idea of freedom as conceived by market liberalism – freedom
model of a state-controlled economy. The book narrates the kind
as non- interference from government – had a tremendous
of society that could emerge if different economic and social
influence on the world in the post-World War II period, particularly
policies were at play. It specifically depicted scenarios about what
from the 1980s onwards, with Ronald Reagan and Margaret
might happen if collectivist policies were to be implemented.
Thatcher as its major protagonists in politics, and the Bretton
Woods institutions – the International Monetary Fund and the The second ingredient is that of targeting ‘second-hand traders’;
World Bank – as its major advocates in the arena of international that is, once the narrative has been written, it has to be
development. This conception of freedom did not however disseminated to an audience. Hayek makes the distinction
spread in a ‘natural’ way. It was a conscious strategy between the producers of ideas and the second- hand traders.
orchestrated by a set of individuals. In a paper examining how the These are the people who communicate ideas to a mass
idea of freedom in the context of market liberalism spread, Alkire audience (journalists, novelists, entrepreneurs and film-makers).
and Ritchie (2007) highlight the following ingredients necessary The narrative is thus not restricted to an academic community but
for the spread of ideas, all of which market liberals deployed in is shared with people who are able to bridge the academic world
order to spread their idea of freedom all over the world. Exploring and that of mass media.
how this idea was disseminated may offer some insights about
Third, ideas need to be sustained by an intellectual community. At
how other ideas, such as those in the human development and
first, the advocates of free market liberalism had a difficult time
capability approach, might equally be spread.
finding employment in universities, and their ideas were not well-
The first element necessary in spreading an idea is the use of received in a world where many young people were actively
moral narratives. In 1945, Friedrich von Hayek published the flirting with communism. So they set out to develop an
Road to Serfdom. This was a clearly and accessibly written book international community of scholars who shared similar principles.
– it was published by the Reader’s Digest – that outlined a moral

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They met once a year in Switzerland and became known as the people who endorsed the idea of freedom as non-inter- ference.
Mont Pélerin Society. Its mission statement is as follows: Another way in which students at universities were exposed to
such ideas was through the publication of accessible policy
The Mont Pélerin Society is composed of persons who
papers by the Institute of Economic Affairs,4 such as the Hobart
continue to see the dangers to civilized society outlined in
papers, which summarized in simple terms how various issues
the statement of aims. They have seen economic and
could be tackled by market liberalism, such as the role of the
political liberalism in the ascendant for a time since World
state, taxation, housing and the provision of public goods, etc.
War II in some countries but also its apparent decline in
more recent times. Though not necessarily sharing a A final, crucial ingredient is political engagement with political
common interpretation, either of causes or consequences, parties and interest groups willing to take these ideas on board.
they see danger in the expansion of government, not least in For example, the spread of neoliberalism in Chile in the 1970s
state welfare, in the power of trade unions and business had a lot to do with: (1) a group of Chicago- educated Chilean
monopoly, and in the continuing threat and reality of economists who worked closely with General Pinochet to manage
inflation.3 the Chilean economy; and (2) powerful interest groups, such as
landowners, who had a stake in the idea of freedom as non-
In addition, intellectual communities need to be given academic
interference. In the UK, there was also very close collaboration
credence. This has been the role of the University of Chicago,
between the Institute of Economic Affairs and the government of
where the first chairs in free market economics were endowed.
Margaret Thatcher during the 1980s.
The academic community was able to permeate the policy world
with its ideas through a policy think-tank, namely the Institute of But freedom as non-interference was not the only prevalent
Economic Affairs, which was founded by the donation of a development idea during this period. Other ideas more related to
businessman (a chicken farmer) who had been inspired by the the human development and capability approach were also
ideas in The Road to Serfdom. present, namely the idea of basic needs, but the idea did not
achieve the kind of momentum that freedom in market liberalism
A fourth ingredient is that of fostering talent and investing in
did because all the necessary preconditions for its successful
senior and junior members to disseminate ideas further. This was
spread were not gathered.
done through additional donations to universities from the
business world to create lectureships and research positions for
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The basic needs approach countries and ‘to create conditions in which the national incomes
of … developing countries would (increase) by five per cent yearly
The idea of freedom as non-interference did not capture the by 1970 and would continue to expand at this annual rate
imagination of development economics overnight. An early thereafter’ (Emmerij et al, 2001, p44). These aims were of course
influence in development thinking was that of economic growth compatible with those of socialist economies. The state was
as the key mechanism for eliminating poverty and securing better thereby granted a strong interventionist role in the economy in
living conditions for people, thereby increasing human choices order to set up the conditions for high economic growth and to
(Srinivisan, 1994; Streeten, 2003). It was believed that an increase achieve the necessary savings rate for investment. The idea of
in wealth would endow people with greater opportunities to live economic growth as the major objective of development was
the kind of lives they chose to live. Streeten (2003, p68) gave increasingly questioned by the narrative that began to unfold in
three justifications for this belief: the 1970s. The narrative was as follows: economic growth tended
to concentrate income and wealth in the hands of the few,
(1) that ‘through market forces – such as the rising demand for
increasing human choices of a few and leaving many in
labour, rising productivity, rising wages, (and) lower prices of the
destitution. The academic community first reacted by trying to
goods bought by the people – economic growth would spread
find alternative ways of linking economic growth with
its benefits widely and speedily’; (2) ‘progressive taxation, social
redistribution policies by publishing studies such as the 1974
services and other government interventions would spread the
‘Redistribution with Growth’ by the Institute of Development
benefits downwards’; and (3) poverty should not be a
Studies at Sussex University. But the academic community
concern in the early stages of development, since what mattered
remained unable to find a sufficient number of allies in the
was to build the productive capacity of the economy first.
political world. Because governments were themselves part of the
This concern for economic growth should not be confused with elite and reluctant to redistribute the benefits of growth towards
market liber- alism. When, in 1961, the United Nations General the poor, it was difficult to put this alternative approach into
Assembly adopted its first ‘Development Decade’, its initial practice. Further and more successful attempts at finding an
objective was to intensify its efforts to support both developed alternative to economic growth were made at the end of the
and developing countries in their efforts to achieve ‘self-sustain- 1970s, with the establishment of the ‘basic needs’ approach. The
ing growth … and social advancement’ in their respective idea of the satisfaction of basic needs as the primary objective of
devel- opment emerged from work on employment at the
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International Labour Organisation (ILO) in the early 1970s. An Although the idea of basic needs emerged as a practical
analysis of data on employment conditions in developing response to poverty in developing countries, it lacked sound
countries demonstrated that economic growth and employment formal and theoretical foundations. It therefore also lacked the
were not necessarily a guarantee of freedom from poverty. backing of a wider intellectual community, which would have
Indeed, many hard-working people remained unable to have their been instrumental in disseminating its ideas. Economic and social
basic human needs – health, food, education and others – met. In narratives had also shifted in the 1980s, which did little to
1977, the ILO published a report on Employment, Growth and buttress the idea of basic needs in the policy arena. The turmoil of
Basic Needs which formally introduced the idea of basic needs as the debt crisis in the 1980s, and the imposition of
the objective of development policy for the first time. The idea macroeconomic stabilization and adjustment policies that
acquired further policy influence when taken up by the then World drastically restricted states in their ability to provide basic social
Bank President Robert McNamara, who set up a special services for their people, essentially brought the basic needs
commission to work explic- itly on basic needs. The work of that approach to a standstill.
commission, led by Paul Streeten, was published in 1981, and
It was only in the early 1990s that the essential ideas behind the
became known as the basic needs approach, which was defined
basic needs approach – that providing the ideal conditions for a
as ‘an approach that attempts to provide the opportunities for the
full human life require a multi-dimensional and non-monetary
full physical, mental and social development of human personality
conception of well-being, which should be the ultimate goal of
and then derive the ways of achieving this objective’ (Streeten, et
development – was reintroduced to the public policy arena.
al, 1981, p33).
Amartya Sen’s groundbreaking theoretical work on equality and
Although the basic needs approach initially emphasized that the poverty measurement, welfare economics and social choice
objective of development was to provide the conditions for a full theory5 – with Mahbub ul Haq playing the critical role of
human life (material, social, cultural and political), it primarily translating these ideas into practicable policy through the creation
focused, in operational terms, on the minimum requirements for a of the Human Development Report and the Human Development
decent life – health, nutrition and literacy – and the goods and Index in 1990 (Fukuda-Parr and Kumar, 2003)
services needed to realize it, such as shelter, sanitation, food,
– firmly established the importance of the human development
health services, safe water, primary education, housing and
and capability approach in policy and development circles.
related infrastructures.

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The human development approach offers three additional war narratives. The Declaration was written in the hopes that the
dimensions to basic needs: first, it is based on a much stronger atrocities committed during wartime would never be repeated
philosophical foundation, thanks to Sen’s pioneering work in again. While political philosophers had long espoused the
welfare economics and social choice, which questioned utility as centrality of human rights, ‘second-hand traders’ like journalists,
the primary marker for judging states of affairs. Second, it blurs and the political engagement of individuals like Eleanor Roosevelt
the distinction between developed and developing countries. It is and public entities like the United Nations (UN), gave it enormous
a framework as relevant for assessing the quality of life of people momentum after World War II.
in the US as it is for, say, Sierra Leone, while basic needs had little
There are significant connections between the human rights
application in industrialized countries. Finally, human
approach and that of human development and capability. As the
development places a greater emphasis on human freedom and
opening sentence of the 2000 Human Development Report on
participation (although the latter was initially a feature of the ILO’s
human rights puts it: ‘Human rights and human development
basic needs approach, it eventually became less of a priority).
share a common vision and a common purpose – to secure the
Human rights freedom, well-being and dignity of all people everywhere’ (UNDP,
2000, p1).
In addition to the idea of basic needs, another influential idea in
In a briefing on the capability approach and human rights, Polly
policy circles in tune with the core principles of the human
Vizard defines a human right as ‘a claim to a fundamental benefit
development and capability approach was human rights. Indeed,
that should be enjoyed universally by all people everywhere on
one could argue that seeing humans as ends of the development
the basis of equality and non- discrimination.’6 She highlights
process was not the sole purview of the human development
five underlying human rights principles:
para- digm alone. It was, in fact, the central concern of the
Universal Declaration on Human Rights as early as 1948: all 1. Universality: they apply to all people everywhere by virtue of
humans should be free and equal in dignity and rights (Article 1), their humanity;
such as the right to work, the right to education, the right to
health, the right to vote, the right to non-discrimination, the right 2. Equality: the benefits of human rights should be enjoyed on the
to a decent standard of living, etc. Like many ideas in basis of equality and non-discrimination;
international policy, human rights evolved as a response to post-

155
3. Inalienability: human rights cannot be transferred or taken assessed. The human rights approach enhances human
away; development with its stronger focus on obligations and duties,
while the latter remains an evaluative framework for assessing
4. Indivisibility: civil, political, economic and social rights are
states of affairs. In contrast, human development does not focus
indivisible – one cannot give priority to one over the other; and
on the state and legal institutions alone. Ensuring that people live
5. Interdependence: economic, social, civil and political rights are flourishing human lives – through the protection of, say, their
deeply interdependent. freedom of conscience, movement or association – is after all not
only the role and responsibility of the state: it is also the role of
She notes that a characteristic aspect of the idea of human rights multiple entities, such as civil society organizations, businesses
is that of ‘assignment of responsibility’. Human rights are usually and individuals. If a country passes a law that ensures the right of
conceived in terms of corresponding notions of obligations and every child to education, the human development approach will
duties. If there is a human right to, say, freedom of conscience, go beyond that right and look at the institutional framework that
then there are obligations on behalf of states and other allows that right to be fulfilled. It will look at the economic, social,
institutions to ensure that people are free to hold opinions they political and cultural institutions that constrain or enhance the
believe to be true. The idea of human rights thus focuses on the fulfilment of that right.
question: who should be doing what for whom? Given that
human rights are inscribed in inter- national law, nation states are According to Sen (2005), the idea of capabilities is distinct from
therefore the primary duty holders for enforcing human rights. the idea of rights in the sense that the former refers to the
States have the main responsibility for providing an adequate opportunity aspect of freedom alone, while the latter also refers
legal framework and institutions that guarantee a respect for to its process aspect. Let us consider two people who do not
human rights. enjoy going out in evenings: one of them, a political dissident, has
been put by the government under house arrest after 5pm every
The major similarity between the two approaches is that both are day and must be accompanied by government agents to all her
based on the maxim that individuals should not be treated as a meetings and walks. The concept of capability tells us that both
means but as an end. Human life, and its quality and dignity, could go out if they chose to. However, the concept of human
should be the criteria according to which states of affairs, as well rights includes in addition the process aspect in the freedom
as economic, political and social arrangements, should be these two have: the political dissident does not enjoy the right of

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free movement. A focus on capabilities only can sometimes freedom for a life of dignity. Human development, in turn, is a
violate basic principles of equity. Sen offers the example of process of enhancing human capabilities – to expand
women living longer than men: if, in order to promote equality of choices and opportunities so that each person can lead a
capability to be healthy between men and women, women were life of respect and value. When human development and
denied health care, this would actively constitute gender human rights advance together, they reinforce one another –
discrimination, which is a violation of human rights. expanding people’s capabilities and protecting their rights
and fundamental freedoms. (UNDP, 2000, p2)
Another aspect that the concepts of capability and human rights
do not share is that of sensitivity to means. Two people might The report highlights the mutual enrichment of ideas of human
enjoy the same right of freedom of movement, but if one were rights and human development (UNDP, 2000, pp1–2): first, human
disabled, she would require different means in order to be able to rights draw attention to the accountability of governments and
enjoy that right. The idea of capability includes differences in other institutions, to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights of
means requirement: the capability to move freely would require all people. Second, the idea of human rights requires a large set
different resources for a blind person (such as special signs at of legal instruments in order to enforce these rights and secure
train stations). The human rights approach does not necessarily people’s freedoms. Third, human rights add moral legitimacy to
take such differences into account. the objectives of human development. Given that the rights to
education, health, non-discrimination and so forth are inscribed in
Another difference between the idea of human rights and human
international legislation, this gives moral legitimacy to the
development is that the latter emphasizes both the intrinsic and
objective of development, which is about promoting people’s
instrumental character of civil and political rights.
health, education and so forth. Fourth, the idea of human rights
These differences suggest that both approaches are draws attention to the people who lack these rights. It gives to
complementary and can in fact reinforce one another. In the human development a sense of prioritization. Social and
words of the 2000 Human Development Report: economic policies should be oriented towards those who are
deprived of basic human rights. As for the contribution of human
Human rights express the bold idea that all people have development to human rights, the report argues that human
claims to social arrangements that protect them from the development brings a ‘dynamic long-term perspective to the
worst abuses and deprivations – and that secure the fulfilment of rights’, and ‘directs attention to the socio-economic

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context in which rights can be realized – or threatened’. Human 1994 Human Development Report shifted the focus of security
development focuses on the institutional factors that violate from the protection of the state and its borders by military means
human rights and tries to find ways of changing these constraints, to the protection of individuals from a wider range of threats to
and of mobilizing resources, so that human rights can be their well-being. It defined human security as including ‘safety
guaranteed, because legislation alone is not sufficient to ensure from such chronic threats as hunger, disease and repression, and
the protection and provision of these rights. protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the patterns of
daily lives, whether in homes, jobs or communities’ (UNDP, 1994,
Human security p1). The report divided human security into seven main
categories: economic security (such as job security), food
Along with human rights, another idea that was increasingly
security, health security, environmental security, personal security,
prominent during the 1990s was human security. The idea of
community security and political security.
security has long been central to the military world. Again,
narratives that unfolded in the 1990s played a role in emphasizing Human security is thus much more than the absence of violent
the importance of security considerations beyond the military conflict:
arena. Indeed, the rise of internal conflicts in many developing
Human security in its broadest sense embraces far more
countries led to an increasing consolidation of security and
than the absence of violent conflict. It encompasses human
development goals. Under- development, poverty and injustice
rights, good governance, access to education and health
have also been considered as breeding grounds for civil conflicts.
care, and ensuring that each individual has opportunities
Development, along with the reduction of poverty and inequality,
and choices to fulfil his or her own potential… Freedom from
was therefore seen as a way of achieving security and peace.
want, freedom from fear and the freedom of future
Emerging from this changing context, human security attempted generations to inherit a healthy natural environment – these
to overcome the limitations of conventional interpretations of are the interrelated building blocks of human, and therefore
security to generate responses that were sufficiently adequate for national, security’. (Commission on Human Security 2003,
dealing with the new sources of insecurity in the post-Cold War p4)
period. Human security essentially highlights the fact that a
military solution is not necessarily the answer to insecurity. The

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Human development & human security expansionist perspective of human development by directly
paying attention to what are sometimes called ‘downside risks’.
The human development approach, pioneered by the visionary
The insecurities that threaten human survival or the safety of daily
economist Mahbub ul Haq (under the broad umbrella of the
life, or imperil the natural dignity of men and women, or expose
UNDP), has done much to enrich and broaden the literature on
human beings to the uncertainty of disease and pestilence, or
development. In particular, it has helped to shift the focus of
subject vulnerable people to abrupt penury related to economic
development attention away from an overarching concentration
downturns, demand that special attention be paid to the dangers
on the growth of inanimate objects of convenience, such as
of sudden deprivation. Human security demands protection from
commodities produced (reflected in the GDP or the GNP), to the
these dangers and the empowerment of people so that they can
quality and richness of human lives, which depend on a number
cope with – and, when possible, overcome – these hazards.
of influences, of which commodity production is only one. Human
development is concerned with removing the various hindrances There is, of course, no basic contradiction between the focus of
that restrain and restrict human (life) and prevent its blossoming. human security and the subject matter of the human development
A few of these concerns are captured in the much-used ‘human approach. Indeed, formally speaking, protection and safeguarding
development index’ (HDI), which has served as something of a can also be seen as augmentations of a sort, to wit, that of safety
flagship for the human development approach. But the range and and security. But the emphasis and priorities are quite different in
reach of that perspective have motivated a vast informational the cautious perspective of human security from those typically
coverage presented in the UNDP’s annual Human Development found in the relatively sanguine and upward-oriented literature of
Report and other related publications that go far beyond the HDI. the human focus of development approaches (and this applies to
human development as well), which tend to concentrate on
The idea of human development, broad as it is, does, however,
‘growth with equity’, a subject that has generated a vast literature
have a powerfully buoyant quality, since it is concerned with
and inspired many policy initiatives. In contrast, focusing on
progress and augmentation. It is out to conquer fresh territory on
human security requires that serious attention be paid to
behalf of enhancing human lives and is far too upbeat to focus on
‘downturns with security’, since downturns may inescapably
rearguard actions needed to secure what has to be safeguarded.
occur from time to time, fed by global or local afflictions. This is in
This is where the notion of human security becomes particularly
addition to the adversity of persistent insecurity of those whom
relevant. Human security as an idea fruitfully supplements the

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the growth process leaves behind, such as the displaced worker security that the world currently faces and will long continue to
or the perennially unemployed. face.

Even when the much-discussed problems of uneven and Human rights & human security
unequally-shared benefits of growth and expansion have been
There is a similar complementarity between the concepts of
successfully addressed, a sudden downturn can make the lives of
human rights and human security. Few concepts are as frequently
the vulnerable thoroughly and uncommonly deprived. There is
invoked in contemporary political debates as human rights. There
much economic evidence that, even if people rise together as the
is something deeply attractive in the idea that every person
process of economic expansion proceeds, when they fall, they
anywhere in the world, irrespective of citizenship or location, has
tend to fall very divided. The Asian economic crisis of 1997–1999
some basic rights that others should respect. The moral appeal of
made it painfully clear that even a very successful history of
human rights has been used for varying purposes, from resisting
‘growth with equity’ (as the Republic of Korea, Thailand and many
torture and arbitrary incarceration to demanding the end of
other countries in East and Southeast Asia had) can provide very
hunger and the unequal treatment of women. Human rights may
little protection to those who are thrown to the wall when a sharp
or may not be legalized, but they take the form of strong claims in
economic down- turn suddenly occurs. The economic case
social ethics. The idea of pre-legal ‘natural’ or ‘human’ rights has
merely illustrates a general contrast between the two
often motivated legislative initiatives, as it did in the US
perspectives of expansion with equity and downturn with security.
Declaration of Independence or in the French Declaration of the
For example, while the foundational demand for expanding
Rights of Man in the 18th century, or in the European Convention
regular health coverage for all human beings in the world is
for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in
tremendously important to advocate and advance, that battle has
the 20th century. But even when they are not legalized,
to be distin- guished from the immediate need to encounter a
affirmation of human rights and related activities of advocacy and
suddenly growing pandemic, related to HIV/AIDS or malaria or
monitoring of abuse can sometimes be very effective, through the
drug-resistant tuberculosis. Insecurity is a different – and in some
politicization of ethical commitments. Commitments underlying
ways much starker –problem than unequal expansion. Without
human rights take the form of demanding that certain basic
losing any of the commit- ment that makes human development
freedoms of human beings be respected, aided and enhanced.
important, we also have to rise to the challenges of human
The basically normative nature of the concept of human rights

160
leaves open the question of which particular freedoms are crucial can take the form of ‘perfect obligations’, which constitute
enough to count as human rights that society should specific demands on particular persons or agents, or of
acknowledge, safeguard and promote. ‘imperfect obligations’, which are general demands on anyone in
a position to help. To give effectiveness to the perspective of
This is where human security can make a significant contribution:
human security, it is important to consider who in particular has
by identifying the importance of freedom from basic insecurities –
what obligations (such as the duties of the state to provide certain
new and old. The descriptive richness of the considerations that
basic support) and also why people in general, who are in a
make security so important in human lives can, thus, join hands
position to help reduce insecurities in human lives, have a
with the force of ethical claims that the recognition of certain
common – though incompletely specified – duty to think about
freedoms as human rights provides. Human rights and human
what they can do. Seeing human security within a general
security can, therefore, fruitfully supplement each other. On the
framework of human rights can, thus, bring many rewards to the
one hand, since human rights can be seen as a general box that
perspective of human security.
has to be filled with specific demands with appropriate
motivational substantiation, it is significant that human security To conclude, it is important, on one side, to see how the distinct
helps to fill one particular part of this momentous box through ideas of human security, human development and human rights
reasoned substantiation (by showing the importance of differ, but also to understand why they can be seen as
conquering human insecurity). On the other, since human security complementary concepts. Mutual enrichment can go hand in
as an important descriptive concept demands ethical force and hand with distinction and clarity.
political recognition, it is useful that this be appropriately obtained
through seeing freedoms related to human security as an Other related ideas
important class of human rights. Far from being in any kind of
The Millennium Development Goals
competition with each other, human security and human rights
can be seen as complementary ideas. Another development idea that has been at the forefront of policy
agendas for the past decade has been the Millennium
One of the advantages of seeing human security as a class of
Development Goals (MDGs). At the Millennium Summit held in
human rights is the associative connection that rights have with
New York in September 2000, 189 UN member states adopted
the corresponding duties of other people and institutions. Duties
the Millennium Declaration, which consisted of eight goals that
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have to be achieved by the year 2015. These goals are divided developing countries, which must face numerous problems
into 21 targets with 60 indicators against which progress is simultaneously, but have limited resources and capabilities. Third,
tracked.7 When possible, indicators are disaggregated according they establish relatively realistic objectives and a time-line in
to male/female, urban/rural and other variables, such as ethnicity which to achieve them. In addition, they are accompanied by a
or language. The MDG targets and indicators can thus be seen as set of homogenous monitoring indicators, which facilitate the
a partial roadmap for human development. analysis and comparison of country and regional performances.
Fourth, MDGs reaffirm the commitment of developed countries to
Unlike policy ideas that are first introduced to the wider public by
support the developing world. The flow of international aid is
a community of like-minded academics, the MDGs were
necessary if these countries are to overcome poverty and
designed by an international political community as a tool to
increase the well-being of their respective populations. The MDG
monitor development progress. The campaign received a lot of
framework encourages worldwide cooperation and solidarity. It
media attention, especially with the ‘Global Call to Action’ in
highlights that governments are accountable not only for reducing
2005, which was better known in Europe as the ‘Make Poverty
poverty or promoting basic health and education, but also for
History’ campaign. Unlike human development, the MDGs do not
promoting gender equality and empowering women, ensuring
include concerns for empowerment and participation (except in
environmental sustainability, providing access to affordable and
relation to gender empowerment), equity and distributional
essential drugs, making available the benefits of new
issues, and the sustainability of development advances across
technologies, and providing universal access to reproductive
time. The MDGs also lack explanatory value and analytical power.
health. Another positive aspect of this is that civil society has
Despite these weaknesses, the MDGs remain useful for the stepped into this public discourse to demand the achievement of
human development approach.8 First, MDG indicators enable us these goals, giving them greater agency and contributing to the
to analyse the reality and evolution of a country’s development overall empowerment of society as a whole.
within a broader frame than the one offered by income or GDP
Sustainable development
per capita. MDGs are related to the human development
approach but are limited to the most basic aspects of human Another idea that has been prominent in the past two decades
well- being. Second, MDGs offer a frame of high-priority and has been sustainable development, that is, an economic
limited interventions. This aspect is essential for public policies in development that is compatible with the capacity of natural

162
resources to sustain such development in the long run – Ghandi would be something distinctly odd if we were deeply concerned
famously said that the world would need six planets if it were to for the well-being of the future – and as yet unborn – generations
sustain consumption levels similar to those of the US. The 1987 while ignoring the plight of the poor today.’ Putting the concern
Brundtland Commission Report, Our Common Future, coined for inter-generational equity above the principle of intra-
sustainable development as ‘development that meets the needs generational equity would amount to ‘a gross violation of the
of the present without compromising the ability of future universalist principle’. Human development ‘certainly demands
generations to meet their own needs.’ The two key concepts (p. such impartiality’.
43) are: (1) needs (the essential needs of the world’s poor should
Another point that Anand and Sen insist on is that the market
be given overriding priority); and (2) limitations (the ability of the
cannot be the only solution for ensuring sustainable development.
environment to meet present and future needs is however
The concern for universalism ‘demands that the state . . . serve as
limited).
a trustee for the interests of future generations’. There is a wide
In a paper that compares the idea of human development with role for the state, through taxes, subsidies and regulation to
that of sustainability, Anand and Sen (2000) argue that human ‘adapt the incentive structure in ways that protect the global
development brings to sustainable development, in addition to its environment and resource base for people yet to be born’.
concern for equity between generations, an equal concern for
As with human rights and human security, sustainable
equity within generations. The demand for sustainability is part of
development therefore shares many similarities with the human
the universal character of human development. Human
development and capability approach. Indeed, the principle of
development is about promoting the freedoms that people have
sustainability is a core human development principle. But the
reason to choose and value in both future and present
human development and capability approach offers a much
generations. This universalism entails that deprivations and
broader framework for analysis and action, such as evaluative
sufferings of both current and future generations be given equal
and institutional tools to address the challenges of development
attention. As Anand and Sen (2000) write, ‘that universalism also
and sustainability.
requires that in our anxiety to protect … future generations, we
must not overlook the pressing claims of the less privileged today.
The previous section is provided by Lynn University’s
A universalist approach cannot ignore the deprived people today
use of Ebook Central Academic Complete.
in trying to prevent deprivation in the future.’ They continue, ‘there

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Section 2

Human development reports & global human development

indicators
Tap on this link to see the United Nations’ website for human
development reports.

Tap on this link to see the United Nations’ website for global
human development indicators.

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Chapter 5

Democracy

Learning objectives

After reading this chapter, students will be able to do the

following:

• Understand concepts of democracy.

• Understand and critically think about state's political
systems.
• Identify characteristics of democratic states.
• Analyze states and their overall democracy.
• Analyze the causes and effects of why states are
democratic or authoritarian.
Section 1

State classifications

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The previous section is provided by Lynn University
Library’s use of Ebook Central Academic Complete.

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Section 2

Democracy

Introduction criteria of political legitimacy, is itself liable to be a persistent

feature of democratic politics. For this reason, this chapter will
The concept of democracy is central to our contemporary begin by considering a recent minimalist view of democracy,
political vocabu- laries, yet agreement on how to conceptualise before going on to consider two important contemporary models
democracy is far from wide- spread.1 As Adam Przeworski has of democracy: the interest aggregating model and the
recently remarked: ‘Perusing innumerable definitions, one deliberative model. It will then briefly consider a supplement to
discovers that democracy has become an altar on which each of these models in the form of ‘contestatory’ democratic
everyone hangs his or her favorite ex voto.’2 Certainly we can mechanisms. The chapter will conclude by indicating what is
say that democ- racy is a form of government that appeals to an arguably the main contemporary challenge to democratic theory
idea of popular sovereignty and, hence, an answer to the and practice in the era of globalisation.
question ‘who rules?’ – but to flesh out this answer will very
Perhaps the best known minimal view of democracy is that
quickly mire us in controversy. This point is of more than merely
advanced by Schumpeter as ‘a system in which rulers are
academic interest for two reasons. First, how we understand the
selected by competitive elections’,3 where such elections are
con- cept of democracy guides our practical reflections on how
held on a regular basis and under conditions of universal
to design or reform democratic institutions, it generates criteria
suffrage. The main question that arises here is this: why should
governing what we can reason- ably expect from democratic
we value democracy understood in this minimalist way?
government and it animates our debates con- cerning political
legitimacy. Second, in so far as reasonable disagreement is an Przeworski has argued that we do have good reasons to value
abiding circumstance of politics and democratic rule is a democracy on a minimal understanding of it; even if it is the
condition of political legitimacy, it follows that disagreement case, as he also argues, ‘that choosing rulers by election does
concerning the nature of democratic rule, and hence of the not assure either rationality [of decision-making], or

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representation [of the interests or will of the people], or equality of these conditions, as the current state of affairs in Zimbabwe
[of cit- izens]’.4 He advances this argument on two main grounds: illustrates, democratic rule may become very fragile.
first, ‘the mere possibility of being able to change governments
Przeworski’s second point turns on the fact that we do not
can avoid violence’ and, sec- ond, ‘being able to do it by voting
actually toss coins but vote:
has consequences of its own’.5
Voting is an imposition of a will over a will. When a decision
With respect to the first point, Przeworski puts his argument thus:
is reached by voting, some people must submit to a
assume that governments are selected by a toss of a, not decision different from theirs or to a decision con- trary to
necessarily fair, coin . . . the very prospect that governments their interests . . . Voting generates winners and losers, and it
would alternate may induce the conflicting political forces to authorises the winners to impose their will, even if within
comply with the rules rather than engage in violence, for the constraints, on the losers. This is what ‘ruling’ is.7
following reason. Although the losers would be better off in
This fact has consequences not because voting imposes an
the short run rebelling rather than accepting the outcome of
obligation to respect the results of voting (although it may,
the current round, if they have a sufficient chance to win and a
Przeworski is more sceptical of this claim that I am) but because
sufficiently large payoff in the future rounds they are better off
‘voting does reveal information about passions, values and
continuing to comply with the verdict for the coin toss
interests’:
rather than fighting for power. Similarly, while the winners
would be better off in the short run not tossing the coin If elections are a peaceful substitute for rebellion, it is
again, they may be better off in the long run peaceably because they inform every- one who would mutiny and
leaving office rather than provoking violence to their against what. They inform the losers – ‘Here is the
usurpation of power.6 distribution of force: if you disobey the instructions
conveyed by the results of the election, I will be more likely
Notice that this argument suggests that the chances of
to beat you than you will be able to beat me in a vio- lent
maintaining democratic rule are increased in having at least two
confrontation’ – and the winners – ‘If you do not hold
relatively matched political parties and where political loyalty is
elections again or if you grab too much, I will be able to put
primarily to political parties rather than individuals. In the absence
up a forbidding resistance.’8

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In other words, voting not only provides a mechanism, like coin- tions will, at least to a significant extent, be shaped by
tossing, that avoids violence but also provides current rulers and commitments to ensur- ing the political equality of citizens (in
possible future rulers with information concerning the political terms of, for example, public and private rights) and to facilitating
constitution of those subject to their rule, information which (given ‘collective self-rule’, where this phrase implies not simply a right
their interest in re-election and election, respectively) is likely to to the periodic selection of one’s rulers by way of competitive
inform the character of their rule. elections but also that ‘important decisions on questions of law
and policy depend . . . upon public opinion formally expressed by
These are, I think, compelling arguments for the value of
citizens’.9 How we under- stand these commitments (and the
democracy even on a minimal view. But that we should value
obligations that they impose), however, will hang to a large extent
democracy on these grounds does not imply that we cannot
on the way in which we conceptualise democracy. For this
reasonably and plausibly expect more – at least from rel- atively
reason, the next two sections of this chapter examine two
mature and relatively wealthy democracies – than simply the
different models— or, more strictly, regulative ideals – of
avoidance of internal violence and the provision of informational
democracy, tracing the distinct ways in which these commitments
constraints on rational rulers. What more can and should we
are cashed out.
expect? The reflections offered in this chapter will begin from the
delineation of a formal concept of democracy as: a mode of The interest-aggregating model
government in which the members of the unit of rule are equal
consociates and have collectively an effective capacity to govern, This first model begins with the intuitively simple and appealing
either directly or via intermedi- aries, matters of common interest thought that the basic substance of political reflection and action
(or concerning the common good) qua member- ship of this unit is interests, where these interests are expressed by political
of rule. actors as preferences. This basic thought orients the justification
and conceptualisation of democracy as a mode of political
This formal concept highlights two features which are typically
government. The argument for democracy on this understanding
taken to be basic to any substantive account of democracy: the
runs as follows:
political equality of citizens and the idea of collective self-rule.
Hence on any more than minimal view of democracy, it is If the good or interests of everyone should be weighed
suggested, we can and should expect that democratic institu- equally, and if each adult person is in general the best judge

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of his or her good or interests, then every adult member of following five ideal standards as the core normative commitments
an association is sufficiently well qualified, taken all around, of democracy:
to participate in making collectively binding decisions that
1 Effective participation
affect his or her good or interests, that is, to be a full citizen
of the demos. More specifically, when binding decisions are 2 Equality in voting
made, the claims of each citizen as to the laws, rules,
policies, etc. to be adopted must be counted as equal and 3 Gaining enlightened understanding
equally valid. Moreover, no adult members are so definitively
4 Exercising final control over the agenda
better qualified than the others that they should be
entrusted with making binding collective decisions. More 5 Inclusion of adults.11
specifically, when binding decisions are made, no citizen’s
Why these criteria? Dahl’s response is that, given the assumption
claims as to the laws, rules, and policies to be adopted are
that democ- racy is to be understood in terms of interests, ‘each
to be counted as superior to the claims of any other citizen.
is necessary if the members. . . are to be politically equal in
10
determining the policies of the association’.12 This establishes
To argue against democracy on this view requires that one reject (1), since to deny any citizen the opportunity to express their
either or both of the conditional statements at the beginning of preferences, place questions on the agenda or give reasons for
Dahl’s remarks. Hence, the anti-democrat must argue that the endorsing or rejecting a given proposal is to mute their political
interests of everyone should not be weighed equally and/or that voice; it justifies (2), since to weigh votes unequally is to weigh
each adult person is not in general the best judge of his or her interests unequally; it implies (4), since oth- erwise the agenda
interests. Although historically both of these anti-democratic may not represent the full range of interests of the citizens; and it
arguments have been made, it is not clear that they can easily be establishes (5), since otherwise the interests of some competent
sustained. persons are not counted. But what of (3)? Dahl’s point here is that
citizens must have an adequate and equal opportunity ‘for
Given this interest-oriented argument for democracy, what ideal
discovering and validating (within the time permitted by the need
standards are appropriate to a democracy? Dahl suggests the
for a decision) the choice on the matter to be decided that would
best serve the citizen’s interests’,13 since otherwise some

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citizens may be disad- vantaged relative to others in terms of choices where there are more than two options and no option
being able to accurately determine the choice which best receives an absolute majority of the votes cast? Here determining
expresses their fundamental interests with respect to a given the collective interest may be harder than it immediately appears
decision. Essentially the democratic idea expressed here involves to be.
two elements. First, that what count as matters of collective
Consider that there are numerous ways in which an aggregation
interest (that is, matters on which political decisions may be
of these votes might be accomplished. On the one hand, there
appropriate) should be determined by equal citizens as a
are majoritarian decision- making rules such as the plurality rule
collectivity within the constraints imposed by the conditions of
(whichever option gets the most votes wins) and the Condorcet
democratic rule. Second, that what is held to be in the collective
rule (the winning outcome is the option which defeats each of the
interest (that is, what is the best course of action for the polity to
others in a vote on every pair of alternatives). The problem here is
adopt) in relation to a given issue should be decided by equal
that the plurality rule implies that a choice is simply that of the
citizens collectively in accordance with the principles of
largest minor- ity, while the Condorcet rule is incomplete in that
democratic rule. This is why Dahl stresses the importance of both
for a given distribution of votes there may not be a Condorcet
the collective ability of citizens as political equals to set the
winner. On the other hand, there are positional decision-making
agenda and to decide what to do. Any form of government that
rules such as the Borda count (the winning outcome is
fails to meet both of these conditions subjects citizens, in one
determined by scoring each option according to its place in a
way or another, to the rule of guardians.
voter’s ranking, thus the top option gets n points, the second n–1
But how are decisions concerning what is in the collective interest points, etc., and then aggregating the point for each option
to be deter- mined? The aim of democracy, as David Miller noted, across all votes cast). The problem here is that ‘it may make the
‘is to aggregate individual preferences into a collective choice in decision among quite popular options depend on the way that
as fair and efficient a way as possible’.14 Now in so far as these some voters rank way-out or eccentric options if these are on the
collective choices take the form of a single-issue choice between ballot paper’16 and, for just the same reasons, this decision rule
option A and option B, such aggregation is straightforward and, is highly vulnerable to strategic voting. Things get worse! As
for issues which are not constitutionally basic, it seems Arrow has demonstrated in his famous Impossibility Theorem,
reasonable to adopt the principle of majority rule, that is, that the given certain reasonable conditions which we might wish a
option with the majority of votes wins.15 But what of collective decision rule to satisfy,17 ‘if there are more than two alternatives,

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any method for making social decisions that ensures transitivity in capacity to govern itself be subject to the dogmatic convic- tions
the decisions must be necessarily either dictated by one person of every member. However, since unanimity is the only way of
or imposed against the preferences of every individual’.18 The avoiding the problems concerning majority rule raised by social
implication drawn from this and related social choice theorems is choice theory, we are thrown once more back on to the task of
that no rule for collective decisions can be discovered that does making sense of this notion. One way to avoid this problem would
not produce arbitrary or meaningless outcomes and hence both be to adapt the unanimity principle so that what requires
(a) there is no deci- sion rule for aggregating preferences which is unanimity is not a proposal but a choice between two proposals –
clearly fair and rational and hence superior to other possible rules and then decide between these proposals on the basis of a
and (b) different rules may produce different outcomes. In this majority vote. This would avoid the most obvious difficulty with
context, Riker has argued that it makes no sense to speak of the unanimity principle while ensuring that all decisions can be
discovering the ‘popular will’ at all.19 unproblematic expressions of majority rule. However, although
such an adapted unanimity principle would avoid the problems
This is clearly in principle a very serious challenge to this model of
raised by social choice theory, it is difficult to see how such a
democracy and it is one that might encourage us to give up trying
demanding principle would be practicable.
to make sense of the notion of majority rule. We might, then,
instead adopt a principle of unanimity in which each citizen has a But does the arbitrariness of decision rules really matter that
right of veto over laws, policies, etc.20 The main objection to this much? Recall that the problem is this:
proposal by Buchanan and Tullock is that it is unfeasible, mak-
The problem of arbitrariness arises because it is not clear
ing government (to all intents and purposes) impossible.21 This
which of the many pos- sible rules best matches our
conclusion is a little quick since, under conditions in which each
intuitive sense of ‘finding the option which the voters most
of us knows that any of us can veto a given proposal, it seems
prefer’, or to put the point another way, for any given rule it
likely that we will rapidly develop a political culture of bargaining,
is possible to give examples where using the rule produces
compromise and trade-offs such as characterises exist- ing
an outcome that seems repugnant to our sense of what a
political contexts in which decisions are subject to this rule (for
democratic decision should be.22
example, treaty negotiations). Still although the conclusion drawn
by Dahl is hasty, it is the right one – under contemporary It was for this reason that Riker insisted that the notion of
conditions, it makes little sense to propose that a community’s ‘popular will’ is just an empty phrase. But to reach this conclusion
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Riker would need to assume that the fact that different decision thought of strategic voting, they might choose to introduce a
rules produce different results or expressions of the ‘popular will’ meta-rule to the effect that the decision rule will be chosen ran-
vitiates the notion of the ‘popular will’ and this does not follow: domly once the votes are cast. This would have the advantage of
the popular will (or collective interest) is just whatever is the result blocking attempts at the strategic manipulation of the outcome.)
of the decision rule that we take to be authoritative for a given But does not this pro- posal suffer from the same disadvantage
decision, that other rules may produce other results is neither as the proposal of unanimity as a deci- sion rule? No. The
here nor there. The real question is how, knowing that different problem there was that where unanimity is used as a decision rule
rules may produce different results, we decide which rule to for specific issues, any member who had particularly strong or
employ for a given decision. Now it might seem that this simply dogmatic convictions on that issue could veto any proposal that
pushes the whole problem back one stage but it does not. From a did not conform with their convictions. But in this case unanimity
democratic point of view, what matters is not that a given is being used as a decision rule for deciding between decision
decision rule may produce results which conflict with our rules and not for deciding between proposals on con- crete
intuitions concerning what a democratic decision would be but topics – and this means that no member of the community will be
that the democratic community has determined what the in a position to know (in more than very general terms) whether or
authoritative rule is for a given class of decisions – and this is the not the choice of decision rule x for treating decisions of type y is
point at which the principle of unanimity has a role to play. In likely to work out in ways that tend to favour them and hence
other words, what matters democratically is not that the rule may members will have no interest-based motive to veto the proposal
produce counter-intuitive outcomes but that the choice of the of particular decision-rules. (Note that if this turned out to be
false, it would provide a general incentive for adopting the
rule is not arbitrary – and the only way to secure this is to adopt
randomising meta-rule suggested above.) In this respect, it
the principle of unanimity. It is, in other words, to treat the choice
seems to me that we can talk intel- ligibly of the popular will or
of decision rule (or rules, where different rules may be used for
collective interest, and hence that the apparent threat posed by
different decisions) as if it were analogous to a treaty – or
social choice theory to this model of democracy is dissolved.
contract! – in which all parties are required to agree. Indeed, this
is, I think, why Rousseau insisted that the contract to form a To conclude this section, let us return to the question of what
political commu- nity must be unanimous. (Moreover, if the more we might expect from democracy in terms of cashing out
members of a community are par- ticularly troubled by the the principles of political equal- ity and ensuring an effective

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capacity for collective self-rule. In terms of this interest- of free public reasoning among equals who are governed by
aggregation model, it is clear that what we can and should expect the decisions. In the deliberative conception, then, citizens
is a commitment to realizing as fully as practicable the five ideal treat one another not by giving equal consideration to
standards which Dahl sketches and thus, most importantly, to interests . . . but by offering them justifications for the
measures which seek to ensure our equal freedom to form and exercise of collective power framed in terms of
identify our own interests, our equal freedom to express these considerations that can, roughly speaking, be
interests at all stages of the democratic process from agenda- acknowledged by all as reasons.23
set- ting to final decision-making and the equal weighting of our
The deliberative argument for democracy, thus, emerges from a
interests in deter- mining our collective decision. Our democratic
claim about the political equality of citizens as grounded on their
institutions are to be evaluated in terms of their design and
equal moral status as autonomous individuals capable of giving
performance against their satisfaction of, and com- mitment to,
and exchanging reasons – and, hence, on what Rainer Forst has
such measures.
called their basic moral right of justification, that is, the basic right
The deliberative model to have exercises of collective power over their free activ- ity as
citizens justified by reasons that are acceptable to them as
Whereas the first model takes interests as the basic currency of citizens.24
politics, the sec- ond model takes public reasons as occupying
Given this argument for democracy, what ideal standards does it
this position. Joshua Cohen has helpfully summarized the
invoke? On Cohen’s account, these standards can be given by
distinction thus:
presenting ‘an idealized pro- cedure of political deliberation,
According to an aggregative conception of democracy . . . constructed to capture the notions of free, equal and reason that
decisions are collective just in case they arise from figure in the deliberative ideal’.25 We can summarise this ideal
arrangements of binding collective choice that give equal procedure thus:
consideration to . . . the interests of each person bound by
1 All citizens acknowledge the freedom of each citizen to
the decisions. According to a deliberative conception, a
participate.
decision is collective just in case it emerges from arrange-
ments of binding collective choice that establish conditions

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2 Citizens are formally equal in that each has the same rights interest-aggregation model since it requires that citizens exercise
to propose issues and solutions, to offer reasons for or against a form of
proposals, and to have an equal voice in deciding the outcome.
democratic self-restraint, namely that they reflect as citizens and
3 Citizens are substantively equal in that each has an equal not in terms of their private interests.
opportunity to exercise their rights of participation.
At this stage, we can turn to the issue of what it means to talk of
4 Citizens are reasonable ‘in that they aim to defend and ‘collective self-rule’ in this context. Ideally, of course, collective
criticize institutions and programs in terms of considerations that self-rule here refers to the generation of a consensus such that for
others, as free and equal, have rea- son to accept, given the fact any given law or policy, it can be justi- fied to all citizens in terms
of reasonable pluralism and on the assumption that those others that they could not reasonably reject. (This does not require that
are themselves concerned to provide suitable justifications’.26 the justification is the same for all citizens; an overlapping
consen- sus will do as well as a common consensus.) However,
The standards invoked by this idealised procedure are
since it is unlikely that such a consensus will emerge on most, if
interestingly analogous to those proposed by Dahl in that this
not all, issues, it is clear that most deci- sion-making will require
procedure ensures the opportunity for effective participation
the use of some decision-rule in this same way as required for the
(proposing issues, solutions and offering reasons), equal- ity of
interest-aggregration model.28 The deliberative model is, how-
voting (each has an equal say and each counts as one in a vote),
ever, arguably better placed with respect to the issues raised by
gaining enlightened understanding (where this now implies the
the need to select a decision-rule. Thus David Miller has argued
opportunity to con- sider and determine, within the time available,
that the interest-aggregation model is exposed to social choice
the reasons that one considers best concerning the issue at
dilemmas in part because it posits choosing a decision rule
hand), exercising final control over the agenda (equal rights to
independently of consideration of the content of the citizens
propose issues) and inclusion of adults (all persons with the
views, whereas because the deliberative model sees the content
deliberative capacities). In addition, this model also invokes the
of citizens’ judgements concerning the collective interest as
standard of reasonableness, namely, that citizens acknowledge
emerging in the course of reasonable delib- eration, it is less
the fact of reasonable pluralism and seek to offer reasons that
vulnerable to these problems in three ways.29 First, we may plau-
other reasonable citizens could not rea- sonably reject.27 In this
sibly expect that the deliberative process may produce voters’
respect, the deliberative model is more demanding than the
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rank orderings that are ‘single-peaked’, that is, ‘the alternatives deliber- ative model is better placed, however, depends on
can be arranged on a continuum such that if, say, a voter ranks whether or not citizens do in fact exhibit the commitment to
the alternative on the left highest, he does not rank the alternative reasonableness that this model calls for, and that, in turn, hangs
on the left above that in the centre’.30 This matters because in to a significant extent on whether the claim that involvement in
cases where such single-peaking occurs, there is always a deliberation with free and equal others has transformative effects
Condorcet winner. We can expect this because in many cases the on individual citizens, that is, cultivates a disposition to
policy options represent a choice between two values and voters’ reasonableness.
ranking reflect their weighing of these values. Second, where
In considering the question of what more we might expect from
such single-peaking does not occur, it is likely to be the result of
democracy in terms of cashing out the principles of political
more than one dimension of disagreement emerging in the
equality and ensuring an effective capacity for collective self-rule,
deliberative process
we can note that the deliberative model involves a commitment to
– but precisely because the dimensions of disagreement become realising as fully as practicable a framework of social and
apparent through deliberation, it may be possible to disaggregate institutional arrangements that ‘facilitate free reasoning among
the original choice sce- nario into components such that for each equal citizens . . . while ensuring that citizens are treated as free
component there is single-peaking. Third, if we consider and equal in that discussion; and tie the authorization to exercise
majoritarian (for example, Condorcet) and positional (e.g., Borda public power – and the exercise itself – to such public
count) types of decision-rule, we can note that whereas the reasoning’.31 It is against such criteria that our democratic polity
former aim to satisfy as many people as possible, the latter aims is to be judged.
to satisfy everyone collectively as much as possible and,
consequently, which of these aims is best may hang on the nature Contestatory democracy
of the issue over which we are seeking to come to a decision.
Given the above account of the two models of democracy, we
Miller’s point is that deliberative democracy will be well placed to
might still rea- sonably be concerned by the potential problem
choose decision-rules that are appropriate to the issue at hand
posed by the tyranny of the majority. While both models provide
since the nature of this issue will be revealed in deliberation,
effective arguments for liberal freedoms such as freedom of
whereas the interest-aggregating model of democracy will not be
speech and freedom of association as intrinsic to democratic rule,
so well placed. Whether or not it is actually the case that the

186
it remains plausible that, under non-ideal conditions, the interests There is an enormous gulf between being subject to a will
or rea- sons expressed by minority groups may be ignored or, at that may interfere in your affairs without taking your
least, not granted equal status within the decision-making perceived interests into account and being subject to a
process. In the practical context of democratic rule by way of process such that, while it takes your interests and those of
representative government, addressing this problem ‘would others equally into account, it may deliver a result – for
require not just that the majority are heard in determining what reasons you can understand – that favours others more than
com- mon, perceived interests ought to be pursued by you.34
government, but also that the relevant minorities get a hearing,
Consequently, under non-ideal conditions, a concern with
‘So the question is whether there is any way of subjecting
promoting demo- cratic stability in the sense of a strong
government to a mode of distributive or minority control in order
identification of citizens with their dem- ocratic institutions entails
to balance the electorally established mode of collective or
that we have good reasons to adopt a contestatory supplement
majority control.’32
to our basic democratic fora and that this is the case whether our
Pettit’s suggestion is to introduce contestatory mechanisms. democratic understanding is primarily informed by either of the
These are mech- anisms through which a minority group who two main models considered.
hold that the decision reached has not adequately acknowledged
their political voice can contest the decision through ‘a procedure Globalisation & democracy
that would enable people, not to veto public decisions on the
In this final section, I want to mention a significant contemporary
basis of their avowable, perceived interests, but to call them into
issue for democratic theory, namely, the problem of the
question on such a basis and trigger a review; in particular, to
embeddedness of democratic polities within networks of
trigger a review in a forum that they and others can all endorse as
transnational governance.
an impartial court of appeal’.33
It is increasingly becoming a commonplace that democratic
This supplement to both the major models is important not least
polities in the form of the sovereign nation-state are situated
because it contributes to maintaining an effective sense of
within, and subject to, forms of regional and/or global governance
political belonging among minority groups. After all, as Pettit
by way either of regional organisations such as the European
notes:
Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Free Trade Area (NAFTA) (which

187
may or may not be polities themselves: the EU is a polity but democratic rule cannot be restricted to the level of the sovereign
NAFTA is not) or the multilateral institutions of global governance state but must track the levels of governance to which we, as
such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the International peoples, are subject.35 This raises a plethora of theoretical and
Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. In this context, recall practical issues for democracy but the challenges posed by these
our basic formal definition of democracy as a mode of difficulties need to be met if we are to maintain our practical
government in which the members of the unit of rule are equal identities as democratic citizens.
consociates and have collectively an effective capacity to govern,
either directly or via intermedi- aries, matters of common interest Conclusion
(or concerning the common good) qua membership of this unit of
This chapter began with reference to a minimalist view of
rule. Up to this point we have been considering the issue of
democracy and it did so because reflecting on this view should
citizens possessing ‘an effective capacity to govern’ in terms of
remind us of a point which needs to be borne in mind when
the internal arrangements and conditions of a polity, but it is
considering the concept of democracy. This is that the more we
equally clear that such an effective capacity can be undermined
demand from democracy, the more we are likely to be
by virtue of being subject to external forms of governance such
disappointed by our democratic institutions and, in our
that, for example, policies concerning the subsidisation of
disappointment, to lose sight of the very real benefits which
manufacturing industry within the polity are politically
democracy delivers even on a minimalist view. With this warning
disconnected from public opinion on this topic and subject to the
in mind, however, it has been argued that we can, at least in some
authority of the WTO. The dilemma, therefore, is that a polity
circumstances, expect more from democracy than the minimalist
which has the form of a democratic polity may only exhibit the
view admits and I have tried to sketch what more we might
appearance of democratic rule rather than the reality of such rule
reasonably expect by reference to the two major contemporary
– or, more strictly, may only exhibit the reality of such rule in
models – or regulative ideals – of democracy as well as
externally limited and con- strained contexts. In this real world
suggesting that contestatory mechanisms can play an important
contemporary context, maintaining the claim that a polity is
sup- plementary role with respect to these models. Finally, the
democratic requires either a highly implausible and imprac-
chapter has indicated the central issue for the future of
ticable reassertion of its autonomy or a democratisation of the
democratic theory and practice, namely, our subjection to forms
forms of transna- tional governance to which it is subject. In this
respect, as David Held has powerfully argued, a concern with
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of transnational governance over which, at present, we can
exercise little or no effective democratic control.

The previous section is provided by Lynn University

Library’s use of Ebook Central Academic Complete.

189
Section 3

Forms of government

Government individuals who control and exercise control over political

decision-making. Their function is to make and enforce laws and
Government is the means by which state policy is enforced, as arbitrate conflicts. In some societies, this group is often a self-
well as the mechanism for determining the policy of the state. A perpetuating or hereditary class. In other societies, such as
form of government, or form of state governance, refers to the democracies, the political roles remain, but there is frequent
set of political institutions by which a government of a state is turnover of the people actually filling the positions.
organized (synonyms include “regime type” and “system of
government”). Governments consist of two broad interplaying Forms of government
elements that generally determine how a government is coded:
Governments with Aristarchy attributes are traditionally ruled by
the power source and the power structure. Power source refers
the “best” people. Aristocracy refers to the rule by elite citizens;
to the individuals and institutions that exercise governing
a system of governance in which a person who rules in an
authority over a state and the means by which they obtain their
aristocracy is an aristocrat. It has come to mean rule by “the
power, while power structure refers to the system by which they
aristocracy” who are people of noble birth. A meritocracy refers
are organized.
to rule by the meritorious; a system of governance where groups
In the case of its broad definition, government normally consists are selected on the basis of people’s ability, knowledge in a
of legislators, administrators, and arbitrators. Government is the given area, and contributions to society. Finally, a technocracy
means by which state policy is enforced, as well as the refers to rule by the educated; a system of governance where
mechanism for determining the policy of the state. States are people who are skilled or proficient govern in their respective
served by a continuous succession of different governments. areas of expertise in technology would be in control of all
Each successive government is composed of a body of decision making. Doctors, engineers, scientists, professionals

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and technologists who have knowledge, expertise, or skills, In an absolute monarchy, the ruler has no limits on their wishes or
would compose the governing body, instead of politicians, powers. In a constitutional monarchy a ruler’s powers are limited
businessmen, and economists. by a document called a constitution.

Governments with autocratic attributes are ruled by one person Governments with oligarchic attributes are ruled by a small group
who has all the power over the people in a country. The Roman of powerful and/or influential people. These people may spread
Republic made Dictators to lead during times of war. In modern power equally or not equally. An oligarchy is different from a true
times, an Autocrat’s rule is not stopped by any rules of law, democracy because very few people are given the chance to
constitutions, or other social and political institutions. After World change things. An oligarchy does not have to be hereditary or
War II, many governments in Latin America, Asia, and Africa were monarchic. An oligarchy does not have one clear ruler, but several
ruled by autocratic governments. powerful people. Some historical examples of oligarchy are the
former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Apartheid in South
Governments with democratic attributes are most common in the
Africa. Fictional oligarchic examples include the dystopian society
Western world and in some countries of the east. In democracies,
of Oceania displayed in the book Nineteen Eighty-Four, the
all of the people in a country can vote during elections for
stratocracy government of Starship Troopers, and the kritarchic
representatives or political parties that they prefer. The people in
“Street Judges” of Judge Dredd.
democracies can elect representatives who will sit on legislatures
such as the Parliament or Congress. Political parties are Democratic governments
organizations of people with similar ideas about how a country or
Democracy is a form of government in which all eligible citizens
region should be governed. Different political parties have
have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives.
different ideas about how the government should handle different
problems. Democracy is the government of the people, by the Introduction
people, for the people.
Democracy is a form of government in which all eligible citizens
Governments with monarchic attributes are ruled by a king or a have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives.
queen who inherits their position from their family, which is often Democracy allows people to participate equally—either directly or
called the “royal family. ” There are at two opposing types of through elected representatives—in the proposal, development,
monarchies: absolute monarchies and constitutional monarchies. and creation of laws. It encompasses social, economic, and
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cultural conditions that enable the free and equal practice of The earliest known direct democracy is said to be the Athenian
political self-determination. The term originates from the Greek Democracy in the 5th century BCE, although it was not an
word: δημοκρατία (dēmokratía), which translates to “rule of the inclusive democracy; women, foreigners, and slaves were
people”. This term was used around 400 BCE to denote the excluded from it. In the direct democracy of Athens, the
political systems then existing in Greek city-states, notably electorate did not nominate representatives to vote on legislation
Athens. and executive bills on their behalf (as in the United States
Congress), but instead voted on these items in their own right.
A democratic government contrasts two forms of government
Participation was by no means open, but the in-group of
where power is either held by one, as in a monarchy, or where
participants was constituted with no reference to economic class
power is held by a small number of individuals, as in an oligarchy
and they participated on a large scale. The public opinion of
or aristocracy. Nevertheless, these oppositions, inherited from
voters was remarkably influenced by the political satire performed
Greek philosophy, are now ambiguous because contemporary
by the comic poets at the theaters.
governments have mixed democratic, oligarchic, and monarchic
elements. Several variants of democracy exist, but there are two Also relevant is the history of Roman republic, beginning circa
basic forms, both of which concern how the whole body of 449 BCE. The ancient Roman Republic’s “citizen lawmaking”—
citizens executes its will: direct democracy and representative citizen formulation and passage of law, as well as citizen veto of
democracy. legislature-made law—began about 449 BCE and lasted the
approximately 400 years to the death of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE.
Direct democracy
Modern-era citizen lawmaking began in the towns of Switzerland
Direct democracy is a form of democracy in which people vote on in the 13th century CE. In 1847, the Swiss added the “statute
policy initiatives directly. This is different from a representative referendum” to their national constitution. Currently in
democracy, in which people vote for representatives who then Switzerland, single majorities are sufficient at the town, city, and
vote on policy initiatives. Depending on the particular system in canton level, but at the national level, double majorities are
use, it might entail passing executive decisions, making laws, required on constitutional matters. The intent of the double
directly electing or dismissing officials, and conducting trials. Two majorities is simply to ensure any citizen-made law’s legitimacy.
leading forms of direct democracy are participatory democracy
and deliberative democracy.
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Representative democracy rights and the rule of law—are 85 in number and represent 38
percent of the global population. In 2010 the United Nations
Direct democracy was very much opposed by the framers of the
declared September 15 the International Day of Democracy.
United States Constitution and some signatories of the
Declaration of Independence. They saw a danger in majorities
forcing their will on minorities. As a result, they advocated a The previous section is provided by Lumen’s
representative democracy in the form of a constitutional republic Boundless Political Science.
over a direct democracy. For example, James Madison, in
Federalist No. 10, advocates a constitutional republic over direct
democracy precisely to protect the individual from the will of the
majority. Representative democracy is a variety of democracy
founded on the principle of elected people representing a group
of people. For example, three countries which use representative
democracy are the United States of America (a representative
democracy), the United Kingdom (a constitutional monarchy) and
Poland (a republic). It is an element of both the parliamentary
system and presidential system of government and is typically
used in a lower chamber such as the House of Commons (UK) or
Bundestag (Germany).

Democracy in the contemporary world

According to Freedom House, in 2007 there were 123 electoral

democracies – up from 40 in 1972. According to World Forum on
Democracy, electoral democracies now represent 120 of the 192
existing countries and constitute 58.2 percent of the world’s
population. At the same time, liberal democracies—countries
Freedom House regards as free and respectful of basic human
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Chapter 6

Authoritarianism

Learning objectives

After reading this chapter, students will be able to do the

following:

• Understand concepts of authoritarianism.

• Understand and critically think about state's political
systems.
• Identify characteristics of authoritarian states.
• Analyze states and their overall democracy or lack of
democracy.
• Analyze the causes and effects of why states are
democratic or authoritarian.
Section 1

Countering democratic norms

Since the great financial meltdown of 2008, it has become to understand these trends and how to classify stagnating
commonplace to think of the West as being in normative retreat. polities and decaying institutions—also requires us to examine
The melt- down has undercut the perception that Western the broader global political changes and systemic shifts that
economic systems are superior, touched off an ongoing crisis in have produced new counternorms and counterpractices.1
the Eurozone, and seen the sitting prime minister of an EU
Policy makers and academics have been hesitant to
country (Hungary’s Viktor Orbán) openly doubt whether liberal
acknowledge some of these recent cross-regional trends. Many
democracies can remain globally competitive. In parallel,
deeply held and still highly in- fluential assumptions about the
revelations about NSA surveillance and the release of the U.S.
nature of the liberal political order, the nor-
Senate report on CIA torture have reinforced perceptions that the
United States acts hypocritically and applies double standards mative fabric of global governance, and the diffusion of
when it comes to so-called values issues. democratic norms are products of the years just after the Cold
War. Back then, in the 1990s, when the Soviet Union had just
Beyond vocal criticism of the West as a problematic champion of
collapsed and former communist countries had begun economic
demo- cratic norms, a larger international backlash against
and political transitions, liberal-democratic values ap- peared
liberal democracy has grown and gathered momentum. Over the
triumphant and free of significant ideological competition. At
past decade, authoritarians have experimented with and refined
the same time, U.S. power was unrivaled, U.S. control of global
a number of new tools, practices, and insti- tutions that are
institutions was strong, and there was a broad perception that a
meant to shield their regimes from external criticism and to erode
U.S.-led liberal world or- der would continue to set the rules,
the norms that inform and underlie the liberal international
standards, and norms for international interactions. In light of the
political order. The important debate about whether there has
“pushback” that authoritarian regimes are now carrying out,
been a democratic recession over the last decade—about how

195
upbeat assumptions about liberal democracy’s effortless dom- Counternorms versus liberal democracy
inance require careful scrutiny.
Just as the backlash against liberal democracy spans different
The truth is that norms privileging state security, civilizational
regions and countries, it also contains various alternative
diversity, and traditional values over liberal democracy now enjoy
narratives and norms. The most commonly voiced critiques
significant backing, and they are reshaping the international
stress the primacy of state sovereignty and security, while
environment. The effects are most visible in the narrower political
charging that liberal-democratic governments and international
space that nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are facing, the
organizations are too prone to meddle in the domestic affairs of
shifting purposes that regional organizations are embracing, and
other countries. Liberal democracy’s universalism—its claim to be
the rising influence of non-Western powers as international
the sole legitimate form of human governance—comes under
patrons. Together, these effects reveal an international political
challenge, with lib- eral-democratic discourse said to be serving
climate that has made the work of spreading democratic norms
as cover for U.S. and Western geopolitical interests.
far more difficult than it was two decades ago.
Counternorms are thus grounded in changing power balances, as
Perhaps most disturbingly, authoritarians have pursued these the post–Cold War era of U.S. hegemony gives way to a more
tactics and counterpractices because they are proving effective: multipolar world—a shift often summed up (not without irony) as
The activities of NGOs can be successfully restricted; regional the “de- mocratization of international relations.”
organizations can be repurposed to support the political agendas
The single most powerful source of counternorms has been the
of authoritarian member states; and interna- tional investment
post-9/11 turn toward counterterrorism and security. Since the
and assistance can be procured from new donors with- out
2001 terror attacks, there has been a collective acceptance,
accompanying political conditions. Success breeds imitation, and
stretching well beyond the confines of the United States, that the
more authoritarian regimes (plus some backsliding democracies)
tradeoff between security and individual lib- erty should be
across Eurasia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa are
rebalanced in favor of the former. As Kim Lane Scheppele has
beginning to emulate these practices.
observed, this “international state of emergency” has empowered
gov- ernments to expand executive authority, increase areas of
secrecy and state privilege, set up exceptional legal
procedures, expand domestic surveil- lance, bypass national

196
asylum procedures, and establish forms of cooper- ation between accepting each other’s decisions to list this group or that as
security services that escape transnational oversight.2 While the “terrorist.”4
1990s saw the steady expansion of global civil society and
A related concern, heightened by blacklisting, has been the
transnation- al networks, the 2000s witnessed the globalization of
growing abuse of the red-notice system that the International
anticonstitutionalist measures for purposes of fighting terrorism
Criminal Police Or- ganization (Interpol) uses to ask states to find,
and strengthening state security. Among the most powerful
apprehend, and extradite individuals wanted for prosecution or
counterterrorist norms to arise thus far has been the widespread
the serving of a criminal sentence elsewhere. According to the
acceptance of organized blacklisting of suspected terrorists
legal watchdog Fair Trials, the governments of Belarus,
and their supporters. The legal basis for this practice dates from
Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and Venezuela have
almost two years before 9/11, when UN Security Council
played a large role in driving up the number of red notices issued
Resolution 1267 of October 1999 created a committee that
from 1,277 in 2002 to 8,132 a decade later.5
became charged with compiling a sanctions list aimed at all al-
Qaeda affi Resolution 1373, adopted on 28 September Appeals to “civilizational diversity” and the principle of
2001, required states to criminalize terrorist fi and noninterference in the domestic affairs of sovereign states form
authorized govern- ments to establish their own domestic another class of emerging counternorms. The People’s Republic
blacklists. According to scholars and legal advocates, of China is the leading supporter of this manner of critiquing
international blacklisting has had ill effects on political rights liberal democracy’s universalism as well the polit- ical
worldwide.3 With no clear criteria for listing and no procedure for conditionality that international institutions adopt to further
delisting, the “terrorist” designation has become a weapon that universal democratic norms.
authoritarians can wield against political foes. It has also
spawned the rise of “parallel” systems of ad- ministrative The “respect for civilizational diversity” counternorm is the
interventions that supplant the criminal-justice system and operating principle of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
weaken the rule of law. Moreover, blacklisting appears to have (SCO), a regional group founded in 2001 by China, Russia, and
generated a type of intergovernmental “logrolling” in which states four Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and
do each other favors by readily Uzbekistan). Chinese official statements and commentary
repeatedly refer to the group’s embodiment of the foundational
“Shanghai Spirit,” a norm that enshrines respect for state
197
sovereignty and noninterference, promotes the “democratization passed in 2011. Kyrgyzstan’s unicameral parliament, widely
of international relations,” and rejects the imposition of political thought to be one of the region’s more pluralistic, in October
and econom- ic conditionalities by global-governance 2014 overwhelmingly approved a bill criminalizing “propaganda
institutions.6 As David Lewis has observed, in Central Asia the for nontraditional sexual relations” and banned information
SCO’s norms have displaced the liberal-dem- ocratic principles alleged to promote “homosexual lifestyles.” The Senate of
that the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe neighboring Kazakhstan passed a similar draft bill in February
(OSCE) has traditionally promoted across the former Soviet 2015. With Almaty a candidate city for the 2022 Winter Olympics,
space, and have even prompted the OSCE to water down its activists and athletes have intensively lobbied the International
regional projects that deal with “democratic values.”7 Olympic Committee to pressure the government of Kazakhstan to
reject the legislation.
A third distinct group of counternorms concerns the defense of
“tradi- tional values.” Here, Russia is the main backer. Proponents Outside the region, Russia has acquired partners willing to
of the “values” school of thought, which is rooted in strands of introduce the traditional-values agenda in international fora. On
neo-Eurasianist thinking and fueled by Russia’s stand against 27 September 2012, a resolution of the UN Human Rights Council
what the Kremlin sees as Western en- croachment, maintain that cosponsored by Russia called for “a better understanding and
Western individualism has gone over the edge into a state of appreciation of traditional values” to be applied in human-rights
crisis and moral decay. This accounts for the challenge now being work. The vote was 25 for and 15 against, with 7 countries
posed to Western decadence worldwide by a turn toward sources abstaining.9 In a sharp criticism of the text, the EU affirmed that
of national culture, heritage, and religion. human rights are “universal and inalienable” while warning that
tra- ditional values are “inherently subjective and specific to a
The Kremlin is pushing the traditional-values agenda as normative
certain time and place.” The EU’s statement went on to worry that
cement for the new economic and security architecture that it is
introducing “the concept of ‘traditional values’ into this discourse
seeking to build across Eurasia.8 As part of these efforts, LGBT
can result in a misleading inter- pretation of existing human rights
communities and civil society representatives have found
norms, and undermine their universali- ty.”10 Although
themselves targeted by stigmatization campaigns and legislative
emphasizing different goals, the counterterror, civilization- al-
restrictions. Eurasian countries are introducing bans on
diversity, and traditional-values agendas all question the
“homosexual propaganda” similar to the one that Russia
feasibility or desirability of liberal democracy’s universal

198
aspirations. Basic changes in the international order over the last decisive role. Whatever the case may be, a broad perception
two decades have powered the rise of each of these sources of arose that Western democracy promoters were using NGOs as
counternorms. political weapons. “Color revolution” became a synonym for
“foreign-sponsored regime change,” and governments began to
Goodbye NGOs, hello zombies treat de- mocracy monitors as potential security threats. Within
eighteen months of the March 2005 “Tulip Revolution” in
Nowhere is the contrast between the relatively democratization-
Kyrgyzstan, all five former So- viet Central Asian republics
friendly world of twenty years ago and today’s harsher
enacted restrictive NGO-registration laws. In 2011, the Arab
international environment more apparent than in the NGO realm.
Spring drew more attention to the role that foreign-fund- ed civil
In the 1990s, academics and policy makers heralded the rise of
society groups (and social media) might play in political unrest.
NGOs. These independent actors in international politics, it
Three years after that, the EuroMaidan protests in Ukraine
was said, were achieving a new prominence and fueling a shift
brought down a Russian-backed president and again heightened
away from traditional state power. The most influential scholarly
the anxiety felt in certain quarters about the political weight of
study of the topic claimed that NGOs regularly “boomeranged”
foreign-backed civil society groups.
around recalcitrant governments to effect positive change,
exerting pressure via transnational networks that include other In response, governments across the world have developed a
NGOs, international organi- zations, and like-minded states.11 In “counter- revolutionary playbook” that targets NGOs and
hindsight, this celebratory account appears clearly premature. democracy monitors. The common charge is that they act on
Such optimistic studies assumed that NGO campaigns and behalf of outside interests eager to infl - ence domestic political
activities would enjoy a clear field indefinitely, while the severity outcomes. New legal restrictions limit NGOs’ access to foreign
and effectiveness of future state responses went unanticipated. funds and even stigmatize the groups as Trojan horses that
covertly serve the West. In addition to the best-known cases in
The turning point came after the so-called color revolutions that
Eurasia and the Middle East, countries including Ecuador,
flared in the former USSR during the first half of the 2000s. In
Ethiopia, Hungary, India, Mexico, Paki- stan, Sudan, Venezuela,
Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004), and Kyrgyzstan (2005), street
Vietnam, and even Canada have moved over the last ten years to
protests following flawed elections swept regimes from power.
put a squeeze on the activities of foreign-funded NGOs within
Experts still debate whether West- ern-funded NGOs played a
their borders. Measures range from outright bans on foreign

199
funding (Er- itrea, Saudi Arabia), to restrictions on foreign funding In the case of Ethiopia, a pioneering study exploring the effects of
of political work, to burdensome mandates that force NGOs to a re- strictive 2009 NGO law found that 90 percent of domestic
secure government approval of any outside funding and to meet NGOs concerned with political or human-rights issues either
stringent reporting requirements.12 Darin Christensen and Jeremy folded or shifted to work in less contentious areas such as
Weinstein’s 2013 study of 98 countries found that 12 economic development or social services.17 Gov- ernments have
governments had prohibited the foreign funding of the third learned that they will face few international consequences for
sector, while 38 had imposed restrictions on outside funding (20 cracking down on NGOs, and that such “sovereignty-preserving”
of them since 2002).13 An- other recent academic survey identifi efforts have the encouragement of China, Russia, and other non-
45 countries that have imposed laws restricting foreign funding of Western powers.
domestic NGOs since 1993, noting that 38 of them have adopted
Even as they ramp up their repression of independent NGOs,
these restrictions since 2003.14 Demonstration effects also seem
govern- ments have been promoting pseudo-NGOs and fake
to be important: Studies suggest that countries carefully pay
democracy monitors that emulate the form but not the substance
attention to and emulate the normative practices of their
of true civil society groups. The proliferation of government-
neighbors.15 Far from being a temporary measure, the
organized nongovernmental organizations (GONGOs) has been
clampdown on NGOs is a growing global trend.
especially striking: Unhappy with a civil society that
Evidence from the latest crackdowns strongly suggests that these independently monitors and challenges them, authorities have
new restrictions are accomplishing their political objectives. In been busy building their own tame simulacrum of it that
Russia, ground zero of the NGO backlash, a 2012 law required collaborates with power rather than criticizing it. In like manner,
NGOs receiving outside funds to register as “foreign agents” on governments have begun funding youth movements, such as the
pain of fines. Few chose to regis- ter at first, so the law was Russian group Nashi, that stress themes of national pride and
amended to allow the Russian Justice Ministry to decree whether sovereignty.
a group qualifies as independent or not. The ministry has since
The rise of what I call “zombie” election monitors offers another
formally warned twenty groups that they must register, while at
dramatic case in point. Traditionally, election monitoring has been
least six groups—including election watchdogs, legal societies,
the mission of a few skilled NGOs and international organizations
and LGBT organizations—chose to close rather than accept the
such as the OSCE, acting through its Offi for Democratic
stigmatizing label of “foreign agent.”16

200
Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). These groups bring to It may be tempting to dismiss zombie monitors as laughably
their work extensive experience, technical expertise, and a code phony and hence powerless to undermine international standards
that lays out the best practices to be followed in observing and with their bogus as- sessments, or to reverse general international
evaluating elections, including measures such as long-term impressions of an election’s poor quality. Yet, critically, zombies
monitoring. Over the last decade, many authoritarian are not meant to function as perfect substitutes for Western
governments and ruling parties have con- tinued to avow their democratic watchdogs. Instead, their role is less ambitious, and
acceptance of external election observation as a norm, but have thus easier to play: Regimes use zombies to confuse and distract,
undercut it in practice by using “zombie” monitors. Zombie mon- to sow uncertainty by promoting progovernment “narratives,”
itors try to look like democratic observers, but serve autocratic and to boost the plausibility of government complaints that
purposes by pretending that clearly fl elections deserve critical foreign observers are biased.19 What is more, zombies are
clean bills of health. allowing authoritarians to attempt a gradual redefinition of the
very purpose and role of outside election observation. Instead of
Authoritarians have increasingly hired or deployed zombies on
being a neutral activity that evaluates the quality of electoral
election days without regard to their expertise, competence, or
processes objectively and openly, even if this might “un-
credibility. Azerbai- jan’s 9 October 2013 presidential election
dermine” sovereignty, election observation becomes in
appears to have marked a wa- tershed in the practice—of the 42
authoritarian eyes a “sovereignty-enhancing” partnership
invited organizations that were there to observe the elections,
between invited observers and the governments that summon
many had never been heard of before. The process ended with
them.
incumbent president Ilham Aliyev claiming a third term (he has
been free to run indefinitely since engineering a 2009 The new authoritarian regionalism
constitutional change that erased term limits) on the basis of
almost 85 percent of the vote. The process began with the Another international development that has fostered the rise of
national election commission accidentally releasing a “result”— counter- norms involves various regional organizations and the
before voting had even started—that showed Aliyev as the win- new legal frameworks and activities that they have been fostering.
ner with nearly 73 percent. Of the reports that observer groups As had been the case with NGOs, scholars who studied regional
issued on the electoral process, only the ODIHR’s was critical.18 organizations in the wake of the Cold War be- lieved that on the
whole they would assist democratic consolidation.20 The ex-

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pansion of the EU and its adoption of the strict Copenhagen For instance, the SCO’s 2009 Anti-Terrorism Treaty and the 2012
criteria for mem- bership spread an impression that deeper Joint Security Agreement of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
regional integration would reinforce democratic consolidation and give execu- tive authorities and security services a number of
institutional transformation. The EU standards, for instance, gave extraterritorial powers that bypass traditional domestic legal
democrats in such then-aspirants as Slovakia and Romania a checks and international norms. Each compact provides for a
basis for criticizing the democratic shortcomings of their own common blacklist of suspected terrorists and “extremists,” and
governments. There was scholarly criticism of this view, but it each allows any member state to extradite suspects to any other
stopped short of questioning the basic idea that regional member state on the basis of a mere accusation, with no clear
organizations would by and large promote the dif- fusion of standards of evidence. The security services of member states,
democratic norms.21 meanwhile, may conduct investigations on one another’s territory,
with information about suspects and targeted individuals to be
Yet their political agendas seem to be drifting away from reaffi
shared upon request.23 Not surprisingly, human-rights watch-
dem- ocratic principles, and may even be veering toward new
dogs have criticized both of these treaties for undermining
practices that serve to shield their authoritarian members from
political rights in member countries.24 Kuwait’s legislature
outside criticism of what they do at home. As Latin America
delayed ratification of the GCC pact amid worries—voiced by
expert Christopher Sabatini has observed regard- ing the
lawmakers and civil society groups—that it would undermine the
Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA, found-
country’s constitutional principles. After Kuwait finally ratified the
ed in 2004) and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR,
pact in 2015, these concerns appeared justified as three
founded in 2008), these new organizations rely on “anti-
prominent Kuwait activists were reportedly detained at the
imperialist” sentiment plus what he calls “the vague basis of
request of Saudi authorities.25
norms of regional solidarity.”22
When not dreaming up agreements that embed authoritarian
Of particular concern are the agreements and treaties that some
practices, regional organizations have been busy diluting
regional organizations have been forging, often in the name of
democratic standards and incubating fresh “zombie monitors.” In
new norms of regional security, stability, or counterterrorism.
Eurasia, the Commonwealth of In- dependent States (CIS)
These compacts are creating legal frame- works that could serve
Election Monitoring Observers (founded 2005) like to associate
to institutionalize authoritarian and anticonstitutional practices.
themselves with international standards and Western organi-

202
zations such as the OSCE. In fact, however, the CIS observers of the African Union’s rotating presidency by Zim- babwe, for
have offered an assessment opposite to the ODIHR’s in every example, has given that country’s nonagenarian strongman
regional election that both have observed save one—the 2010 Robert Mugabe a welcome new platform from which to repeat his
balloting that made Viktor Yanukovych president of Ukraine. In denunciations of “imperialists and colonialists.”28
Latin America, UNASUR wants its monitors to “accompany” host
None of this means that regional organizations are playing a
governments throughout the electoral process and to reach
solely neg- ative role, of course. On the contrary, groups such as
accommodation with the results. It does not expect monitors to
the African Union and ASEAN in Southeast Asia openly reflect on
assess either the political environment that precedes the voting or
democratic issues and conduct regular outreach to civil society.
the conduct of the election itself.26 And even the African Union,
And yet the broader analytical point re- mains: Regional groups
which in other ways has embodied democratic principles—it has
themselves have become institutional arenas where democratic
a policy against according recog- nition to coups, for instance—
norms are contested and counternorms introduced. Indeed, even
has proven too accommodating in its as- sessments. Thus its
the OSCE, long the embodiment of the 1975 Helsinki Accords’
observation team was quick to declare the Democratic Republic
normative “human values” agenda, has come under siege as a
of the Congo’s November 2011 presidential election a success
group of Eurasian states led by Russia has proposed to reduce
even as EU and U.S. observers were reporting chaotic conditions
the ODIHR’s budget and autonomy.
and irreg- ularities that had damaged the quality of the vote.27

Why do regional organizations so often fail to show fi when New patrons & providers
uphold- ing democratic standards? A major and perhaps
A third international trend that has reinforced the rise of
surprising role in the failure is played by leading regional powers.
counternorms is the advent of alternative providers of
States such as Brazil and South Africa are preoccupied with
international public goods. Since the 2008 fi crisis, it has
leveraging their newfound prominence in regional or- ganizations
become commonplace to speak of the West’s eco- nomic
to cement coveted status as regional bellwethers and “emerging”
retrenchment and the rise of emerging powers as major players in
global powers. They seem to fear that criticizing neighboring
the world economy. Although obituaries of the Western-led liberal
governments will arouse unwanted resentment, while embattled
economic order seem premature—overall world trade recovered
authoritarians are practiced in the art of using appeals to regional
by 2010, and in 2013 U.S. dollars constituted more than 60
solidarity to defl international opprobri- um. The 2015 assumption

203
percent of global reserve holdings and over 80 percent of foreign the SCO. That organization, he says, “is better and more powerful
exchange—the one area where Western economic hegemony has [than the EU], and we have common values with them.”29
markedly waned is that of providing development aid, including
The rise of alternative patrons is transforming the development
project stabilization assistance, and concessionary loans.
land- scape. Over the last four years, China has lent more money
Emerging donors, especially China and the Gulf states, have in Latin Amer- ica than have the World Bank and the Inter-
transformed the dynamics of international development lending. American Development Bank combined. In Africa, China has
China now has the world’s second-largest economy, smaller only doubled its development financing, going from US$10 billion lent
than that of the United States (by some reckonings, China’s may from 2009 through 2012 to twice that amount for the period from
even have recently nosed into fi place). Beijing’s stock in trade is January 2013 to February 2015.30 Beijing has also become the
to offer packages that defy traditional distinctions between aid leading lender to Central Asia, and is playing a major role in the
and investment, often accepting as security for its loans access Ca- ribbean as well as the island states of the Pacific. Together
to host-country energy resources, commodities, or other assets. with this, a shift from grants to loans secured by concessions has
raised further concerns about repayment terms, political
Whatever China’s intentions, its influence as a political model is
conditions, and the demands that Beijing might make on its
linked unavoidably to its growing economic engagement and
debtors in the future.
international pa- tronage. The availability of alternative donors
who demand fewer demo- cratic conditions and good- In other cases, emerging donors have stepped in to aid
governance guarantees, makes it easier for state recipients countries not serviced by the Western-led aid community. Since
throughout the developing world to reject Western funding if the the instability of the Arab Spring, the oil-rich Gulf states have sent
prodemocratic “strings” attached to it are considered too tens of billions of dollars abroad, and now provide the lion’s share
constricting. The prestige of these economically successful of development aid to Egypt, Bangladesh, the Maldives, and
authoritarians gives other leaders who are bent on deviating from Yemen. Other cases suggest that in postconflict settings,
liberal-democratic norms a plausible al- ternative to having to governments that have been shunned or sanctioned by the West
submit to liberal values and Western criticism. Thus Turkish can now readily find new patrons as alternatives to the liberal
president Recep Tayyip Erdo÷an has repeatedly brought up the peace-building com- plex. After the Sinhalese-dominated Sri
idea of dropping talks with the EU in order to seek membership in Lankan government launched its ruthless and successful 2009

204
military offensive against Tamil insurgents, it bypassed Western other Western countries have continued to whittle down their
donors and their human-rights concerns by turning to China and presence in international news-gathering (few U.S. newspapers
India for postconflict assistance.31 Angola, Sudan, and Tajiki- maintain permanent foreign bureaus or correspondents anymore),
stan can also be seen as part of this growing new “illiberal” Russia and China have been pouring state funds into news and
peace-building complex. broadcasting operations. As of 2013, according to one report,
China Central Television (CCTV) had set up seventy international
In 2014, Beijing strongly backed and indeed capitalized two new
bureaus, including twenty in Africa and a dozen in Latin America,
lending organizations in order to challenge the West’s monopoly
with a plan to broadcast (in local languages) to regions and
of control over official international financial institutions. The New
countries where China has made big investments.32
Development Bank (or NDB, originally called the BRICS
Development Bank) and the Asian Infra- structure Investment Russia has upped its international media presence by expanding
Bank (AIIB) are supposed to perform tasks resembling those of the reach of its television channel Russia Today (now rebranded
the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, with an emphasis simply as RT), and by launching (in November 2014) a state-run
on financing large-scale infrastructure projects in developing multimedia outlet called Sputnik in 34 countries across five
countries. In- terestingly, while U.S. officials were cautiously continents. Sputnik’s stated goal is to counter “Western
supportive of the NDB, they publicly campaigned against the AIIB propaganda” worldwide.33 Going forward alongside these efforts
to the point of lobbying allies such as Australia to forgo are the activities of global outlets such as Iran’s Press TV, the
membership. Yet U.S. geopolitical influence now appears weak as Venezuelan-run Telesur consortium, and several Gulf
53 states have joined, including France, Germany, and the United broadcasters. Togeth- er, they pose a serious, amply funded
Kingdom as well as (after a change of mind) Australia. Whether challenge across large swaths of the world in covering news,
these banks can truly devise workable lending practices without setting journalistic standards, and editorializing about political
imposing Western-style oversight and conditions remains to be events.
seen. Yet their political significance as alternative sources of
In the 1990s, the West still had a near-exclusive role as the
international financing should not be underesti- mated.
provider of in- ternational funding and information the world over.
Another former Western monopoly of the liberal order that has Emerging donors and alternative patrons have changed that. In
been broken is the field of global media. As the United States and development assistance, in project finance, and in global media,

205
emerging powers are displacing the West. The upshot of these much as possible, the issue of perceived Western political decline
trends is more contention over the normative foundations of the from the fate of liberal democ- racy.
international order (with nonliberal voices having a bigger say
The need is to combat the rise of counterdemocratic practices
than before), more authority for counternorms such as
em- bodied in new regional frameworks or the proliferation of
noninterference in coun- tries’ internal affairs, and more influence
zombies. Here, policy makers should concentrate on
for various authoritarian alterna- tives to liberal democracy.
benchmarking these new phenomena against existing
Handling the shock of the new international standards or introducing new standards against
which the credibility of such practices and frameworks must be
As we have seen, rising new counternorms are threatening to tested. For example, a code of standards governing election
strait- jacket liberal democracy’s power even as they chip away at observation does exist, and longstanding UN principles undergird
its status as the most sources of norms for global governance. it. Similarly, new regional treaties and agreements should not be
The appear- ance of these counternorms is not adventitious, but passively accepted, but should instead be actively scrutinized in
has a basis in funda- mental changes that have been altering the light of international human-rights laws and countries’ com-
post–Cold War international order. Changes in the legal status mitments to such standards. Identifying best practices in election
and role of NGOs, the conversion of regional organizations into observation, news coverage, legal development, blacklisting, and
arenas of contestation, and the rise of alter- native patrons have data-sharing will be crit- ical to stopping the “anything goes”
turned a world that was once relatively favorable to the spread of thinking that is too often assumed to be a natural concomitant of
democratic norms into one where authoritarians can push back— multipolarity.
and have learned to do so in innovative ways. Whatever the exact
Moreover, diplomats and foreign-policy offially should
extent of worldwide democratic regression, it is clear that
reconsider how emerging powers can gain status by adopting,
counternorms to liberal democracy have taken root and are
rather than rejecting, standards that respect good governance
helping authoritarians to retain power.
and democracy. Recent schol- arship has shown that political
What can democracy advocates and prodemocratic policy practices such as gender quotas for leg- islatures tend to spread
makers do about all this? A key challenge is to disentangle, as not on principled grounds, but rather because countries get the
impression that adopting them is the “high-status” thing to do.34

206
In view of this, liberal democracies should do all they can to re- political leaders and analysts in the United States and Europe,
inscribe principles such as good governance, transparency, and integration has been a dominant foreign-policy organizing
respect for the due autonomy of civil society in the honor roll of concept, serving as the West’s strategic lodestar over the past
“things that enhance a country’s standing in the world.” Appeals quarter century. The democracies’ central assumption has been
to national pride and prestige are likely to have more effect on that patient engagement with authoritarian states would yield
emerging powers than will lectures about democratic clear mutual benefits. By embracing such regimes and
shortcomings. encouraging their integration into the glob- al economic system
and key political institutions, Western powers hoped to coax the
Finally, Western representatives charged with public diplomacy
autocracies toward meaningful political reform, leading them
and re- gional engagement must resist the urge to decouple
eventually to become more like the democracies. Even the
normative from geopo- litical issues. If the West were to reduce its
tougher cases for democratization, such as Russia and China,
support for liberal norms and a rule-based international order for
were expected slowly but inevitably to liberalize politically as their
the sake of political expediency, it would only hasten the erosion
economies grew and their middle classes developed.
of its own normative standing and emphasize that we are now in
world of competitive patronage dynamics where the high- est But in an unanticipated twist, the authoritarian regimes, both large
bidder wins. Instead, the onset of multipolarity, when it truly and small, have turned the tables on the democracies. Rather
emerges, should be embraced with a clear sense of liberal than reforming, most of these repressive regimes have deepened
democracy’s purpose and unique standing in the universe of their authoritarianism. And now they are turning it outward.
competing norms and counternorms. Without confidence in its Although the leading authoritarian regimes are today integrated
own values, the West not only will continue to lose its global in many ways into the global system, they have not become
appeal, but will lose itself. more like the democracies; rather, they have developed policies
and practices aimed at blocking democracy’s advance. Exploiting
Dealing with the Authoritarian Resurgence globalization and the opportunities presented by integration with
the West, these states have set out to undermine the very
Since the end of the Cold War, the democratic West has
institutions and arenas that welcomed them.
accorded particular prominence to the idea of integrating
nondemocratic regimes into the liberal international order. For

207
Today, authoritarian regimes are projecting power beyond their months, it has annexed Crimea, invaded Ukraine, and plowed
borders. They are targeting crucial democratic institutions, significant new military resources into the Middle East. Russian
including elections and the media. They use deep economic and airstrikes in Syria, be- gun in September 2015 on behalf of Bashar
business ties to export corrupt practices and insinuate al-Assad’s brutal regime, caught the West off guard, as did the
themselves into the politics of democracies, both new and Kremlin’s military forays into Crimea and other parts of Ukraine in
established. They are influencing international public opinion and 2014. Iran, meanwhile, has upped its activities in Afghanistan,
investing heavily in their own instruments of “soft power” in order Iraq, and Lebanon. Augmenting its existing presence in Syria, Iran
to com- pete with democracy in the realm of ideas. sent ground troops into the country in October 2015, side by side
with Russia in a show of solidarity. Saudi Arabia, for its part, has
In 2014, the National Endowment for Democracy’s International
undertaken a months-long bombing campaign in Yemen in an
Forum for Democratic Studies launched a two-year initiative on
effort to contest rival Iran in a region beset with power vacuums.
resurgent authori- tarianism, from which this essay and others in
this volume come. The proj- ect found that regimes in countries The authoritarian toolkit
as diverse as China, Russia, Venezuela, and even archrivals Iran
and Saudi Arabia, despite disagreeing on many issues, broadly The willingness of these illiberal regimes to use military power is
share the objective of containing the spread of democracy. one sign of the changing international environment. But it is their
Moreover, these regimes are capitalizing on the benefits of development of so-called soft power that is the most
integration to pursue this goal both domestically and conspicuous aspect of the new au- thoritarianism. The term soft
internationally. power is a rather uncomfortable fit for these efforts, however, as
none measures up to Joseph Nye’s conception of such power
One area in which the rise of authoritarian power has been highly
that emphasized states’ capacity to attract others by the
visible is geopolitics. China has been exerting its influence more
legitimacy of their “policies and the values that underlie them.”1
forcefully in the South China Sea, for example, flexing its muscles
Even the China model, which has attracted any number of
with an island-building spree in the Spratly Island chain and
authoritarian governments and even some Western analysts, is
generally adopting a more assertive military profile in the region.
fraught with problems. Yet that has not stopped the leading
Russia, although seen by some as enfeebled, has pushed into
authoritarian governments from hijacking the concept of soft
high gear a policy of disruption: Within a span of eighteen
power as part of a broad assault on democracy and its values.

208
Through authoritarian learning (for example, by adapting or or Deutsche Welle, which operate according to a fundamentally
mimick- ing democratic forms) and by exploiting the opportunities different value system. Because editorial accountability for
presented by globalization, authoritarian trendsetters have authoritarian media outlets ultimately rests with the political
created a modern antidemo- cratic toolkit that in many ways leader- ship, the content that they produce is compromised,
serves as the mirror image of democratic soft power. Its contents through either editorial omission or commission. Thus if CCTV
include government-organized nongovernmental organizations reports at all about controversial topics such as the Tiananmen
(GONGOs), “zombie” election monitoring, foreign aid and Square Massacre, Tibet, or Taiwan, it is not in a dispassionate or
investment, and both traditional- and new-media enterprises. critical way. RT, meanwhile, unfailingly follows the Kremlin line,
rationalizing the status quo that the regime seeks to maintain by
The leading authoritarian governments have established a wide
cynically portraying all systems, whether authoritarian or
constella- tion of regime-friendly GONGOs, including think tanks
democratic, as corrupt.
and policy institutes that operate at home and abroad. Some of
these groups are benign, but many operate with the aim of Similarly, the deepening commercial integration of the last two
subverting authentic debate, either by spreading re- gime decades has enabled the Chinese and Russian governments to
messages in a nontransparent way or by crowding out authentic influence political af- fairs in both young and established
voices. “Zombie” election monitoring, which allows authoritarian democracies. These regimes have iden- tified ways to
regimes to ma- nipulate the integrity of the election process, is a compromise the values of transparency and accountability and to
related innovation. In terms of aid and investment, China and export corruption to the democracies. For example, under
other authoritarian governments have sunk vast sums into the Vladimir Putin, a centerpiece of Russia’s engagement with the
developing world, enabling recipient governments to side- step West has been the corrupt and exploitative export of
the standards of transparency and accountability required by the hydrocarbons, which has had an impact on Western financial,
estab- lished international institutions. legal, and political institutions.2 In short, the author- itarian toolkit
enables illiberal regimes to project their influence into the
Finally, illiberal regimes are scaling up their traditional- and new-
democratic space in a variety of ways.
media capabilities and broadcasting content to global audiences.
On the surface, these enterprises seem like soft-power At the same time, authoritarian regimes have become adept at
instruments. But China’s CCTV and Russia’s RT are not the BBC muffling voices from the democracies. Over time, Western

209
universities, think tanks, and media and technology companies propagat- ing instead norms based on “state sovereignty” and
operating in China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf States security, “civilizational diversity,” and the defense of “traditional
have become more integrated commercially with these values” against liberal democracy.
authoritarian systems. This has sometimes enabled these regimes
These all enjoy signifi backing today. The effects are most visible
to coopt their Western partners and induce self-censorship,
in the narrowing of the political space for civil society, the shifting
thereby resetting norms of free expression through what is
missions that regional organizations are embracing, and the
essentially economic coercion.
growing clout of non-Western powers as international patrons.3
In addition, the authoritarians are trying to unmoor the institutions
that have served as the glue of the post–Cold War order. Illiberal The worst get worse
regimes work together within the regional and international rules-
In the face of this authoritarian mobilization, the democracies
based organizations that have been crucial to the global political
have been caught....due in part to complacency but also to the
framework—the UN, the Or- ganization of American States, the
“crisis of con- fi that set in after the 2008–2009 global economic
Council of Europe, and the Organization for Security and Co-
crisis (and has been exacerbated by the European migrant crisis
operation in Europe (OSCE)—in order to neuter their human-rights
that began in 2015), the estab- lished democracies so far have
and democracy components. Meanwhile, authoritarian gov-
had no coherent answer to the authoritarian surge. More
ernments are establishing their own organizations, including the
troublingly, the West seems to have fallen into a political torpor
Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Eurasian Economic
that contributes to a larger “failure of imagination” in responding
Union, which are promoting alternative, authoritarian-friendly
to the se- rious challenges that have emerged in the new,
norms.
contested environment.4 In order to understand the growing
In a relatively short period, the leading repressive regimes have challenges to democracy posed by the au- thoritarian surge, we
forged a formidable infrastructure for challenging the must examine the evolution of the authoritarian toolkit since the
democracies and their values, and a real competition over norms “backlash” against democracy began in the mid-2000s.
has emerged as the West’s normative pow- er has begun to
At first, the backlash was apparent only in a limited number of
unravel. As Alexander Cooley observes, leading authoritarian
coun- tries and was confined largely to the domestic level. In this
regimes are challenging the notion of universal human rights and
early phase, authoritarian regimes used legal, regulatory, and

210
informal measures, often restricting freedom of expression and during these years. In the MENA region, fifteen of eighteen
association, to obstruct the emer- gence of democratic pluralism. countries have become less free over the past ten years, and in
Repression in authoritarian settings tends to exhibit an ebb and many cases considerably so. (Tunisia, which has established a
flow in which the government’s grip is tightened and then, at nascent democracy, is of course an exception.) Countries such as
some point, relaxed. The authoritarian backlash never eased, Bahrain, Iran, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, which were already
however. Instead, it has gained momentum and deepened in highly autocratic, have become even more so, especially since
intensity over the past decade. the Arab uprisings.

Freedom House’s Freedom in the World report bears this out: In Egypt under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is by most accounts
each of the past nine years, declines in political rights and civil even more repressive than it was during the Hosni Mubarak era.
liberties have outstripped improvements. Notably, a large share of
China, with the world’s largest population and second largest
those declines have occurred in countries already deemed Not
economy, ranks among the world’s most politically repressive
Free by Freedom House. In other words, countries in the worst
states. On Freedom House’s combined 100-point scale5 for
category have become even more re- pressive, sinking further
political rights and civil liberties, China scores a paltry 17, the
within that category. This deepening authoritari- anism in already
same as in 2006. Out of 40 possible points for political rights,
repressive environments has been a crucial driver of the decline in
China scores just 2, an astonishingly low number that re- flects
Freedom House ratings often cited as evidence of a “democratic
the systematic repression and denial of political rights in that
recession.”
country. As in Russia, deepening authoritarianism in an
A big part of this story is found in the two regions that represent increasingly internationalist China reverberates beyond its
centers of authoritarianism: the former Soviet Union (FSU) borders.
and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). In the FSU, rights
Above all, authoritarian rulers are preoccupied with regime
and freedoms markedly de- clined in countries such as
survival, and they study and learn from other authoritarian
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan between 2006 and 2015.
regimes, both past and present, in order to maintain power. The
Moreover, in Russia, whose intensifying authoritarianism has
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has scruti- nized the collapse of
implications not just for its neighborhood but for the wider
the Soviet system in order to avoid the same fate,6 while Vladimir
world, political rights and civil liberties worsened significantly
Putin’s Kremlin has carefully studied the durability of the Chinese
211
system in the post-Tiananmen period. In the fi case, the CCP Speakers included Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu and
seeks to draw lessons from Soviet failure; in the second, the foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. Senior officials from
post-Soviet Kremlin, like any number of other contemporary nondemocracies such as China, Egypt, Iran, Syria, and the United
authoritarian governments, attempts to glean what it can from Arab Emirates attended the conference, along with officials from
China’s seeming success at repressing political opposition while Burma, a country in the midst of a troubled transition. The
growing its economy. Russian speakers warned attendees that “color revolutions are a
new form of warfare invented by Western governments seeking to
One sign of the priority given to regime security by authoritarian
remove independently-minded national governments in favor of
gov- ernments is their massive investment in internal security,
ones controlled by the West.”9
which, tellingly, can outstrip even military and external-defense
budgets. The Chinese and Iranian governments, for example, use In September 2015, Russia, Belarus, and EU-aspirant Serbia took
public funds to build vast security apparatuses that are devoted part in a military-training exercise dubbed Slavic Brotherhood
to suppressing internal dissent.7 Following the Arab uprisings in 2015, held in Novorossiysk, Russia. Army-General Valeriy
2011, Saudi Arabia increased the staff of its already am- ply Gerasimov, head of Russia’s General Staff, explained that such
manned interior ministry by sixty thousand.8 These regimes have exercises were needed because “‘so- called color revolutions’”
made the prevention of domestic dissent a cornerstone of their are “a form of armed struggle that must be met by military force.”
national (read “regime”) security strategy. According to Gerasimov, interpreting color revolutions as a type
of warfare allows for military-training adjustments and calls
Thwarting “color revolutions” for the armed forces to devise ways to thwart such popular
movements.10 Through training exercises such as Slavic
In countries where basic democratic rights are routinely denied,
Brotherhood 2015, Russia and other authoritarian states are
the menace of a “color revolution” has become the central
developing the hard-power capacity to con- tain democratic
organizing concept around which authoritarian regimes formulate
development and any form of organized dissent.
their security and propa- ganda strategies. For example, the May
2014 Moscow Conference on In- ternational Security, sponsored China has likewise devoted considerable attention to the concept
by Russia’s defense ministry, focused on the impact of popular of color revolutions. On 13 June 2015, for example, the People’s
protest—specifically color revolutions—on interna- tional security. Daily, a CCP mouth- piece, published fi scholarly articles

212
exploring the roots of color revolutions and what China might use and the challenge that it poses to the re- gime’s ability to
learn from the experience of the affected nations. The CCP dominate key political narratives, the CCP has undertaken a vast,
regime believes that the United States had a hand in these multilayered set of measures to maintain control.12
protest movements and that NGOs helped to foment them.
The CCP’s censorship measures have also had a demonstration
China’s offi military strategy now states that “anti-China forces
effect abroad. Other countries—both authoritarian and semi-
have never given up their attempt to instigate a ‘color revolution’
authoritarian—see the “success” of Beijing’s approach to
in this country.”11 By assigning responsibility for domestic
controlling the Internet and other information and
dissent to external forces, these governments create a rationale
communications technologies and realize that systematic online
for internationalizing their strategy of “democracy containment.”
censorship can be achieved. Over time, other countries have
These kinds of cross-national military and security exercises learned by observation or direct assistance from China, and have
show the extraordinary lengths to which these regimes and others adapted methods of Internet repression to their own contexts.
are going to stifle political pluralism. This is part of a larger effort
In September 2013, Chinese authorities, citing the need to crack
at authoritarian learning that has also helped authoritarians to
down on what they termed “online rumors,” issued new
craft more sophisticated methods for controlling civil society, the
guidelines for social media, which serve as vital popular forums
business community, and political opposition.
for discussing politics. Under the new rules, Internet users who
Authoritarian learning also has played a visible role in shaping post defamatory comments that are seen by 5,000 users or
how re- pressive regimes manage and censor the Internet, which reposted more than 500 times could face up to three years in jail.
they see as a grow- ing threat. China is a leader in this regard, Since its adoption, this measure has effectively suppressed the
demonstrating that it is possible to expand Internet access— most-followed civic voices in China on social media. The Kremlin
some 640 million people are now online in Chi- na—while clearly took notice, because less than a year later, in August
maintaining effective control over political content. The authori- 2014, it put into effect a new set of regulations similar to the
ties in Beijing, like illiberal governments in many other capitals, Chinese guidelines. Russia’s “blogger law” requires any person
exploit the globalization of commerce to use the most modern whose online presence draws more than 3,000 daily readers to
technology available on the world market, often provided by register, disclose personal information, and submit to the same
Western firms, to censor the Internet. Facing this degree of online regulations as mass media.

213
Authoritarian regimes also are learning from each other how to describes as employing the “practices of de- mocracy to subtly
choke off independent civil society. In recent years, trendsetting undermine democracy.”14 Beijing has moved aggressively to fill
authoritarian re- gimes have adopted a cascade of laws the public space with GONGOs and, as part of its larger
restricting the civil society sector, and other countries, including ambitions, seeks to develop an array of state-backed think tanks.
some democracies, have followed suit.13 Trou- blingly, the On 27 October 2014, at the sixth meeting of the Leading Group
intensive learning that has taken place at the domestic level for Overall Reform, Chinese president Xi Jinping, who heads the
also has been crucial to the development of the authoritarians’ group, called for the creation of a new set of CCP-directed think
methods for obstructing democracy beyond their borders. In tanks: “Building a new type of think tank with Chinese
other words, the most influential authoritarian regimes, Russia characteristics is an important and pressing mission. It should be
and China foremost among them, have served as incubators for targeted [at] promoting scientific and democratic decision
the innovation of antidemocratic techniques that are now applied making, promot- ing modernization of the country’s governing
internationally. By and large, observers in the democ- racies have system and ability, as well as strengthening China’s soft
failed to appreciate this. power.”15 The CCP already has taken the GON- GO concept one
step further, requiring all domestic cultural, economic, and social
The challenge from “zombie” democracy organizations to establish Party-organized groups (sometimes
called “PONGOs”), which will allow the authorities to assert even
Through experimentation and learning, authoritarian regimes have
greater control in this sphere.16
re- fined their techniques of manipulation at the domestic level.
By constructing fake political parties, phony social movements, As authoritarian “zombie democracy” has migrated from the
and state-controlled media enterprises that appear in many ways domestic to the international level, China’s state-backed
to be like those of their democratic counterparts, autocrats GONGOs increasingly in- sinuate themselves into regional and
simulate democratic institutions as a way of pre- venting supranational rules-based organiza- tions. At sessions of the
authentic democracy from taking root. Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a component of the Geneva-
based UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) that reviews human
Authoritarian regimes have coupled their harsh crackdown on
rights in all UN member states, Beijing-aligned
indepen- dent NGOs, for example, with a scaling up of
“nongovernmental” organizations take part in UN meetings in
government-backed GON- GOs, entities that Moisés Naím
order to push the line of Chinese authorities and harass human-

214
rights activists who criticize the Chinese gov- ernment in this Similarly, the Cuban and Venezuelan governments brought
forum. GONGOs to the April 2015 Summit of the Americas in Panama,
with the aim of present- ing regime-backed groups as authentic
In October 2013, several Chinese GONGOs descended on
civil society members. Many of these groups claim to be
Geneva as Chi- na’s rights record was under review by the
autonomous, yet they dutifully advocated the positions of their
UNHRC. At such UPR sessions, representatives of GONGOs,
countries’ governments.
sometimes in coordination with Chinese diplo- mats, use a variety
of tactics to intimidate activists, taking unauthorized pho- tos of Meanwhile, apart from influencing the proceedings of regional
them and fi up meeting halls with regime representatives to organi- zations, Russia sinks extensive resources into GONGOs
drown out accusations of rights abuses. According to a 2015 in countries on its periphery and beyond. Through organizations
Reuters investigation, 47 NGOs from Mainland China, Hong such as Russky Mir and the Foundation for Defense of Rights of
Kong, and Macau are authorized to participate in UNHRC Compatriots Abroad, the Kremlin funds many initiatives of this
meetings. Of these, at least 34 are GONGOs, ei- ther under the kind. The Baltic states endure an especially heavy dose of
authority of Chinese government ministries or CCP bodies, or Russian “soft power,” as Kremlin-supported GONGOs try to
headed by a current or retired government or Party offials.17 influence the public debate and shape the views of these
societies, which are home to large ethnic-Russian communities.
In what has become an annual ritual at the OSCE’s Human
Dimension Implementation Meetings (HDIMs) in Warsaw, Poland, According to a 2015 report, the investigative-journalism initiative
GONGOs from countries such as Azerbaijan, Belarus, Re:Bal- tica found in 2013 that Russky Mir was making grants to
Kazakhstan, and Russia take part in proceedings that were support the promo- tion of “Russian language and culture” in the
intended to allow authentic civil society groups to voice their Baltic states, while the smaller Foundation for Defense of Rights
views about human rights and democracy in their countries.18 In of Compatriots Abroad funded “fi - ers that support and
2014, Kremlin-backed GONGOs stayed true to form and sought promote” the Russian version of twentieth-century his- tory;
to con- fuse the discussion about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In “researchers who accuse the Baltic states and Ukraine of human
September 2015, Azerbaijani GONGOs actively confronted rights violations”; ethnic Russians “who were tried [for]
independent Azerbaijani civil society participants and tried to participating in the 2007 riots in Tallinn,” Estonia’s capital; and
muddy the waters regarding the country’s rights record. “active participants of the deportation of Lithuanians to Siberia”

215
during and after World War II.19 While the Kremlin ruthlessly Crimean locals called the Russian troops whose presence the
represses the activities of independent NGOs in Russia, beyond Kremlin denied) had invaded the peninsula. During this pseudo-
its borders Russian authorities eagerly exploit the open space of referendum, a mix of radical political fig- ures who were brought
the democra- cies, providing...political support to Kremlin-friendly to Crimea despite lacking credentials for authentic election
GONGOs that operate unhindered in these democratic settings. monitoring appeared in Russian-government media outlets to
pres- ent findings that went in lock step with those of the Kremlin.
Authoritarian regimes also have begun using methods of election
Even China, a country that itself does not hold real elections, has
manipu- lation at the international level, supporting faux
sent observers to recent elections in Burma and Zimbabwe.
monitoring groups that en- dorse fraudulent elections with the
aim of clouding the assessments made by established monitoring The battle over information
organizations. These “zombie” monitors have prolifer- ated
widely. Two authoritarian-led initiatives, the Commonwealth of The ideas and messages of zombie NGOs and election monitors
Indepen- dent States Election Monitoring Organization and the are dis- seminated through state-backed media, which serve as
Shanghai Cooperation Organization, have sent purported instruments for ma- nipulating audiences and suppressing
monitors to recent polls across Eurasia. In October 2013, democratic content. At home, the au- thoritarians can deploy a
Azerbaijan’s government brought in zombie monitors from abroad potent combination of censorship and propaganda, allowing them
to sanctify its patently manipulated presidential election. A host of to dominate the media space and create an unchallenged al-
ersatz monitoring organizations, with names such as the Observer ternate reality for their audiences. Beijing, Moscow, and Riyadh
Mission of the Standing Conference of Political Parties of Latin spare little expense to keep alternative ideas and information from
America and the Caribbe- an and the Observer Mission of the entering mainstream political discussion. In a perfect example of
NGO Forum of the Organization of Black Sea Economic the studious authoritarian avoid- ance of sensitive domestic
Cooperation, along with a motley group of fringe politicians from issues, China’s state-run media did not report at all on the
Europe, praised this Alice in Wonderland–like pseudo-election country’s massive stock-market collapse in August 2015.20
event.
Abroad, however, Beijing and Moscow cannot impose censorship
A similar spectacle occurred in Crimea during a “referendum” in the same way they do at home; instead, they use other
held in March 2014 after Russia’s “little green men” (as some techniques adapted from domestic experience and apply them to

216
the international arena. In the online realm, for example, these CCTV Amer- ica’s Washington headquarters employs about thirty
regimes rely on trolls, cyberattacks, and disinfor- mation to journalists produc- ing Mandarin-language content and more than
achieve their objectives. While these illiberal governments are a hundred producing En- glish-language content. CCTV also has
com- mitted to preventing the competition of ideas within their broadcasting facilities in New York and Los Angeles. China’s
borders, they have taken big steps to make certain that their own media presence in the developing world is grow- ing: It has
point of view is heard abroad. The best-resourced among them twelve bureaus in Latin America and has built an enormous media
have built formidable media outlets that enable them to project foothold in sub-Saharan Africa. In November 2015, it came to
their messages into the global marketplace of ideas. light that China Radio International (CRI), Beijing’s state-run radio
network, is operating as a hidden hand behind a global web of
At home, these regimes repress domestic media and increasingly
stations on which the Chinese government controls much of the
obstruct the work of Western news organizations, thereby cutting
content. According to a Reuters investigation, 33 stations in 14
off one of the few remaining arteries for transmitting information
countries “primarily broadcast content cre- ated or supplied by
on these politically closed countries. By manipulating the granting
CRI in the United States, Australia, and Europe.” As part of this
of visas and harassing and even jailing journalists (as in the case
elaborate Chinese government effort to exploit the open media
of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian), these regimes set
space, more than a dozen stations across the United States
the terms of engagement. At the same time, au- thoritarian media
operate as part of the CCP’s “borrowed boat” approach, in which
outlets have exploited the openness of democracies by
existing media outlets in foreign countries are used to project
increasing their presence and activities in a number of democratic
China’s messages.21
countries. Telesur, supported by Venezuela and several other
countries, operates in Spanish-speaking Latin America. China’s Beijing devotes elaborate efforts to limiting foreign reporting that
CCTV and Russia’s RT have a large and growing presence in the it deems unfavorable. Over the past two decades, the Chinese
United States; both have open access to dozens of cable and government has developed tools to extend information controls
satellite systems in the United States and around the world for to media outlets based outside of China. In many cases, Chinese
broadcasting their state-backed content. officials directly impede indepen- dent reporting by media based
abroad. More prevalent, however, and often more effective are
CCTV offers programs in Arabic, French, Russian, and Spanish,
methods of control that subtly induce self-censorship or inspire
while China’s state news agency, Xinhua, is expanding worldwide.

217
media owners, advertisers, and other international actors to take real influence. Although it may be comforting to think that people
action on the CCP’s behalf.22 in the democracies have a natural resis- tance to foreign
propaganda, this is not always the case. One need only look at
Like CCTV, Russia’s RT has a Washington, D.C., headquarters
how warped and false arguments about Russia’s invasion of
and broad- cast facilities in New York, Miami, and Los Angeles.
Ukraine snaked their way into the debate in the United States and
State or state-friendly media in Russia—Life News, NTV, Channel
Europe.23
One Russia, and Russia 24—disseminate not just the Kremlin’s
narratives but also outright fakery to domestic audiences and Authoritarian-backed media have become intertwined with the
those in the Russian-speaking space. These outlets spread the world of normal news, especially online. Western news outlets
same stories via social media as well. RT, meanwhile, pushes this today are picking up key narratives pushed by Russian state
manipulated content out to international audiences. media. Slick websites with phony news and Kremlin spins appear
in the new democracies of Central Europe. In today’s helter-
In addition to its English-language broadcasts, Russia’s state
skelter, fragmented media world, it is much easier for
media de- vote substantial attention to reaching the Balkans,
authoritarian gov- ernments to manipulate the global
Latin America, and the Middle East. Russia, like China and Iran,
understanding of important issues, making it harder to distinguish
sees an opportunity to exploit the information space in the
between authentic and phony information.
Balkans, where the democracies’ already limited media presence
is shrinking. A large part of Russia’s editorial efforts, along with Responding to Authoritarian Internationalism
those of other authoritarian regimes, are aimed at assailing the
West, distorting perceptions of democracy, and tarnishing the A renewed struggle between democracy and authoritarianism has
image of the United States and the EU. To the extent that these emerged. The decade-long democratic decline reported by
regimes have agreed on any ide- ology, it is anti-Americanism. Freedom House has been most dramatic within the ranks of
This focus is best understood as a reflection of the absence of a already authoritarian regimes, which have become even more
positive ideology or vision of their own. repressive. At the same time, the most infltial among them—
China, Russia, and Iran—have become more internation- alist. In
For a long time, the West did not worry about authoritarian
doing so, they have found ways to exploit integration and to
internation- al media enterprises. Over time, however, it has
broad- en their infl in the democratic world. Through the
become clear that outlets such as CCTV and RT are able to exert
218
development of the antidemocratic toolkit of simulated NGOs, not to promote authoritarianism, but rather to contain the spread
think tanks, election monitors, and news media, the autocrats of democracy and re- shape the norms of the international order.
are actively seeking to undermine democracy from within. It will be increasingly important for observers in the West to
understand the alternative (and more malev- olent) explanation for
Increasingly, these regimes show solidarity and coordination with
these massive influence initiatives, because as Peter
one another, at least when it comes to contesting and containing
Pomerantsev observes, “illiberal regimes across the world are
democracy and the ideas central to it. Through this more
adopting sim- ilar strategies and uniting to create global networks
internationalist approach and authoritarian learning, China,
of pseudorealities.”25
Russia, Iran, and other illiberal regimes have developed
instruments to counter the democratic West’s soft power. But the Yet so far the democracies, whether out of complacency or
power that the authoritarians are exerting is not soft power as willful ig- norance, have not taken seriously the prospect that
customarily understood. Indeed, the application of the term soft these emboldened il- liberal powers could reshape the
power—a benign con- cept generally applied to efforts made to undefended post–Cold War liberal order. The challenge is
bolster a country’s image, contrib- ute to open debate, and win particularly vexing because the authoritarians have turned
friends and allies—to the ideas-related efforts of the integration, jiu jitsu–like, against the democracies. This
authoritarians is problematic. What the authoritarian regimes are unexpected twist requires some fresh and serious thinking about
practicing is instead a more malign mirror image of soft power. how the democratic world should respond to the growing
authoritarian challenge.
This misunderstanding has led observers in the West to assume
that the authoritarians have established their international media Any such renewed thinking will first require dispensing with the
outlets (CCTV, RT, and Iran’s PressTV, for example) in order to false framing of this issue as a choice between shunning or
build prestige and gain respect from the outside world—that is, to engaging authori- tarian regimes. Most of them are already
win hearts and minds. But this is a fundamental misapprehension. thoroughly integrated into the international system, making some
As China, Russia, and Iran have spent vast and increasing sums kind of engagement unavoidable. It is the nature of the
on media and other tools to exert international influ- ence, the democracies’ engagement that must be rethought. The es-
image of all three countries has remained very low in the West, tablished democracies must pursue a more nimble and principled
and in some cases is sinking even lower.24 Their principal aim is approach that takes into account the new environment in which

219
authoritarian re- gimes are seeking to undermine democratic
institutions and values.

The democracies need to renew and refresh their commitment to

demo- cratic institutions, and to take steps to stop the
authoritarians from hollow- ing out the most important regional
and global rules-based organizations. As China, Russia, and Iran
scale up their media presence in places such as the Balkans,
Central Europe, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa, so too
should the United States and European democracies instead of
scaling back as they have been doing. Moreover, the democratic
states need to upgrade and modernize their international media
capacity so that they can compete and flourish in this new and
contested environment.

The democracies must pursue democratic learning—innovation

by civil society but also renewal of commitment from democratic
governments—with the same vigor that the authoritarians devote
to their pursuit of authoritarian learning. If the democracies
instead opt to pursue a reactive, status-quo policy that allows the
authoritarians to keep the initiative, we can expect the grim
prospect of an even greater erosion of democratic space in the
years to come.

The previous section is provided by Lynn University

Library’s use of Ebook Central Academic Complete.

220
Section 2

Forms of government

Non-democratic governments: authoritarianism, An autocracy is a system of government in which a supreme

political power is concentrated in the hands of one person,
totalitarianism & dictatorship
whose decisions are subject to neither external legal restraints

Unlike democracy, authoritarianism and totalitarianism are forms nor regularized mechanisms of popular control. By contrast, a
of government where an individual or a single-party concentrates single-party state is a type of party system government in which

all power. a single political party forms the government and no other
parties are permitted to run candidates for election. Typically,
Introduction single-party states hold the suppression of political factions,
except as transitory issue oriented currents within the single
Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by party or permanent coalition as a self-evident good. The
submission to authority as well as the administration of said Communist Party of China’s single-party rule of the People’s
authority. In politics, an authoritarian government is Republic of China is a prominent contemporary example.
characterized by highly concentrated and centralized power
maintained by political repression and the exclusion of potential Totalitarianism
challengers. It uses political parties and mass organizations to
mobilize people around the goals of the regime. Authoritarianism Totalitarianismis an extreme version of authoritarianism.

emphasizes arbitrary law rather than the rule of law, including Authoritarianism primarily differs from totalitarianism in that

election rigging and political decisions being made by a select social and economic institutions exist free from governmental

group of officials behind closed doors. Authoritarianism is control. By contrast, totalitarianism is a political system where

marked by “indefinite political tenure” of an autocratic state or a the state holds total authority over the society and seeks to

ruling-party state. control all aspects of public and private life wherever necessary.

221
The term ‘an authoritarian regime’ denotes a state in which the Dictatorship
single power holder – an individual ‘dictator,’ a committee or a
junta or an otherwise small group of political elite – monopolizes A dictatorship is defined as an autocratic form of government in
political power. However, a totalitarian regime attempts to control which the government is ruled by an individual: a dictator. In
virtually all aspects of the social life, including economy, contemporary usage, dictatorship refers to an autocratic form of
education, art, science, private life, and morals of citizens. The absolute rule by leadership unrestricted by law, constitutions, or
concept became prominent in Western anti-communist political other social and political factors within the state.
discourse during the Cold War era in order to highlight perceived
For some scholars, a dictatorship is a form of government that
similarities between Nazi Germany and other fascist regimes on
has the power to govern without consent of those being
the one hand, and Soviet communism on the other.
governed (similar to authoritarianism), while totalitarianism
Political scientists Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski were describes a state that regulates nearly every aspect of public and
primarily responsible for expanding the usage of the term in private behavior of the people. In other words, dictatorship
university social science and professional research, reformulating concerns the source of the governing power and totalitarianism
it as a paradigm for the Soviet Union as well as fascist regimes. concerns the scope of the governing power. In this sense,
For Friedrich and Brzezinski, the defining elements were intended dictatorship (government without people’s consent) is a contrast
to be taken as a mutually supportive organic entity composed of to democracy (government whose power comes from people)
the following: an elaborating guiding ideology; a single mass and totalitarianism (government controls every aspect of people’s
party, typically led by a dictator; a system of terror; a monopoly of life) opposes pluralism (government allows multiple lifestyles and
the means of communication and physical force; and central opinions).
direction, and control of the economy through state planning.
The wave of military dictatorships in Latin America in the second
Such regimes had initial origins in the chaos that followed in the
half of the twentieth century left a particular mark on Latin
wake of World War I, at which point the sophistication of modern
American culture. In Latin American literature, the dictator novel
weapons and communications enabled totalitarian movements to
challenging dictatorship is a significant genre. There are also
consolidate power.
many films depicting Latin American military dictatorships.

The previous section is provided by Lumen’s

Boundless Political Science.
222
Chapter 7

Constitutions &
Constitutional
Design

Learning objectives

After reading this chapter, students will be able to do the

following:

• Identify characteristics of constitutions.

• Understand concepts of constitutions.

• Compare countries constitutions and their structure.

Section 1

The Constitution & the structure of government power

Preamble Jennings reiterated the conventional wisdom and reinforced

public opinion about the wondrous design of American
On the day after the presidential election of 2000, the news on government contained in the Constitution. Yet his praise of the
ABC World News Tonight was anything but routine: candidates founders was misleading: in fact, the Constitution helped
George W. Bush and Al Gore disputed the election results. produce the “turmoil” of the 2000 presidential election.
Victory addresses and concession speeches were postponed, as Presidents are selected by an Electoral College, a process
the arduous process of challenging the vote in the pivotal state whereby the winner of the popular vote in a state usually takes all
of Florida commenced. of its electoral votes. Bush was able to win a scant majority in
the Electoral College, even as more people voted for Gore
As anchor Peter Jennings noted at the outset of the evening
nationwide.
broadcast, “Uncertainty, intrigue and partisan politics make for a
volatile mix.” But he ended the broadcast with a reassuring note, The media have long been enthusiastic about the Constitution.
much as anchors had done following previous elections: “Finally, They provided crucial assistance in the processes leading up to
this evening, a very brief personal note. A colleague and I who its adoption in the 1780s. They continue to venerate it today.
have covered the transfer of power in many unfortunate parts of
the world, very often at the point of a gun, agree today on the The first American political system
marvel of this democracy. For all the turmoil last night and today
We can understand what the Constitution was designed to
and perhaps tomorrow, Americans, unlike so many others, take
accomplish by looking at the political system it replaced: the
the peaceful and orderly transition of power, ultimately, for
Articles of Confederation, the United States’ first written
granted. A gift from the founding fathers.”
constitution, which embodied political ideals expressed by the
Declaration of Independence.

224
From thirteen colonies to United States material self-interest that persisted through the adoption of the
Constitution.
By the mid-eighteenth century, Britain’s thirteen colonies on North
America’s east coast stretched from Georgia to New Hampshire. Among the opponents of the Stamp Act were printers who
Each colony had a governor appointed by the king and a produced newspapers and pamphlets.
legislature elected by landholding voters. These colonial
The arduous technology of typesetting and hand-printing
assemblies, standing for the colonialists’ right of self-government,
individual pages did not permit sizable [Link] Stephen
clashed with the royal governors over issues of power and
Botein, “‘Meer Mechanics’ and an Open Press: The Business and
policies. Each colony, and the newspapers published therein,
Political Strategies of Colonial American Printers,” Perspectives in
dealt with the colonial power in London and largely ignored other
American History 9 (1975): 127–225; and “Printers and the
colonies.
American Revolution,” in The Press and the American Revolution,
The Stamp Act Congress ed. Bernard Bailyn and John B. Hench (Worcester, MA: American
Antiquarian Society, 1980), 11–57. Also, Charles E. Clark, The
British policy eventually pushed politics and news across colonial Public Prints: The Newspaper in Anglo-American Culture (New
boundaries. In 1763, the British antagonized the colonialists in York: Oxford University Press, 1994), chap. 9; and “The Press the
two important ways. A royal proclamation closed off the frontier Founders Knew,” in Freeing the Presses: The First Amendment in
to colonial expansion. Second, the British sought to recoup Action, ed. Timothy E. Cook (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
expenses borne defending the colonies. They instituted the first University Press, 2005). Newspapers reached large audiences by
ever direct internal taxes in North America. The most famous, the being passed around—“circulated”—or by being read aloud at
Stamp Act, required the use of paper embossed with the royal [Link] C. Leonard, News for All: America’s Coming-of-
seal to prove that taxes had been paid. Age with the Press (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995),

Such taxes on commerce alienated powerful interests, including chap. 1. Printers’ precarious financial condition made them

well-off traders in the North and prosperous planters in the South, dependent on commissions from wealthy people and official

who complained that the tax was enacted in England without the subsidies from government, and thus they were eager to please

colonists’ input. Their slogan, “No taxation without people in power. Crusading journalism against government

representation,” shows a dual concern with political ideals and authorities was [Link] amplification of this argument, Timothy E.

225
Cook, Governing with the News: The News Media as a Political Once again, delegates from the various colonies met, this time in
Institution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), chap. 2. a gathering known as the Continental Congress, to address the
The Stamp Act, however, was opposed by powerful interests and difficulties with Britain. But this congress’s petitions, unlike those
placed financial burdens on printers, so it was easy for of the Stamp Act Congress, were rebuffed. Repressive policies
newspaper printers to oppose it vigorously with hostile stories. were kept in place. The Continental Congress launched a boycott
of British products, initiated the Revolutionary War, and passed
During the Stamp Act crisis, news began to focus on events
the Declaration of [Link] Jack N. Rakove, The
throughout the thirteen colonies. Benjamin Franklin, postmaster
Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the
of the British government for the colonies, developed a system of
Continental Congress (New York: Knopf, 1979).
post roads linking the colonies. Printers now could send
newspapers to each other free of charge in the mail, providing The Declaration of Independence
content for each other to copy. Colonial legislatures proposed a
The Declaration of IndependenceThe document drafted by
meeting of delegates from across the colonies to address their
Thomas Jefferson and adopted by the Continental Congress in
grievances. This gathering, the Stamp Act Congress, met for two
revised form in 1776, which declared the independence of the
weeks in 1765. Delegates sent a petition to the king that
thirteen colonies from Britain., issued on July 4, 1776, announced
convinced British authorities to annul the taxes.
that the thirteen colonies were independent of Britain. It was
The Continental Congress designed to be read aloud in public and to be sent to international
audiences. Its point-by-point charges against British rule give
In 1773, the British government awarded the East India Company
equal weight to how the king damaged America’s economic
a monopoly on importing and selling tea to the American
interests and how he ignored principles of self-government.
colonies. This policy, too, hurt powerful interests: colonial traders
and merchants. Rebellious Bostonians ransacked the East India The Declaration is a deeply democratic [Link]
Company’s ships and pushed cartons of tea overboard. The Lynd, The Intellectual Origins of American Radicalism (New York:
British reacted harshly to this “Boston Tea Party”: they closed the Vintage, 1969); Garry Wills, Inventing America: Jefferson’s
port of Boston, deported rebels to England for trial, and restricted Declaration of Independence (New York: Vintage, 1979); and
settlement in and trade to the west of the country. Pauline Maier, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of
Independence (New York: Knopf, 1997). It is democratic in what it
226
did—asserting the right of the people in American colonies to raise taxes and relied on revenues from each of the states. There
separate from Britain. And it is democratic in what it said: “We was no president to enforce the laws and no judiciary to hear
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created disputes between and among the states.
equal” and have inviolable rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of
Each state delegation cast a single vote in the Continental
happiness.” The Declaration concludes that the people are free to
Congress. Nine states were needed to enact legislation, so few
“alter or abolish” repressive forms of government. Indeed, it
laws were passed. States usually refused to fund policies that
assumes that the people are the best judges of the quality of
hampered their own interests.
government and can act wisely on their own behalf.
Changes in the Articles required an all-but-impossible unanimous
The Articles of Confederation
vote of all thirteen delegations. The weakness of the Articles was
Drafted in 1777, the Articles of ConfederationThe first American no accident. The fights with Britain created widespread distrust of
written constitution, adopted by the Continental Congress in central authority. By restricting the national government,
1777, ratified in 1781, and superseded when the Constitution was Americans could rule themselves in towns and states. Like many
ratified by nine of the thirteen states in 1788. were the first political thinkers dating back to ancient Greece, they assumed
political constitution for the government of the United States. that self-government worked best in small, face-to-face
They codified the Continental Congress’s practices and powers. communities.

The United States of America was a confederation. A political Creating & ratifying the Constitution
system in which a government acts as a unit superior to the
The Constitution was a reaction against the limitations of the
states but is dependent on their consent. of states. Although the
Articles of Confederation and the democratic experiments begun
confederation was superior to the individual states, it had no
by the Revolution and the Declaration of Independence.
powers without their consent.

Under the Articles, the Continental Congress took over the king’s
powers to make war and peace, send and receive ambassadors, The case against the Articles of Confederation
enter into treaties and alliances, coin money, regulate Indian
affairs, and run a post office. But the confederation could not

227
The Articles could not address serious foreign threats. In the late Rebellion: The American Revolution’s Final Battle (Philadelphia:
1780s, Britain denied American ships access to British ports in a University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002). Led by Captain Daniel
trade war. Spain threatened to close the Mississippi River to Shays, it began in 1786, culminated with a march on the federal
American vessels. Pirates in the Mediterranean captured arsenal in Springfield, Massachusetts, and wound down in 1787.
American ships and sailors and demanded ransom. The national
The Continental Congress voted unanimously to raise an army to
government had few tools to carry out its assigned task of foreign
put down Shays’s Rebellion but could not coax the states to
policy.A synopsis is Jack N. Rakove, Original Meanings: Politics
provide the necessary funds. The army was never assembled.
and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution (New York: Knopf,
1996), 25–28. More generally, see Max M. Edling, A Revolution in Leaders who supported national government portrayed Shays’s
Favor of Government: Origins of the U.S. Constitution and the Rebellion as a vivid symbol of state governments running wild
Making of the American State (New York: Oxford University Press, and proof of the inability of the Articles of Confederation to
2004). protect financial interests. Ordinary Americans, who were
experiencing a relatively prosperous time, were less concerned
There was domestic ferment as well. Millions of dollars in paper
and did not see a need to eliminate the Articles.
money issued by state governments to fund the Revolutionary
War lost their value after the [Link] S. Wood, “Interests and Calling a Constitutional Convention
Disinterestedness in the Making of a Constitution,” in Beyond
Confederation: Origins of the Constitution and American National The gathering of delegates from twelve of the thirteen states who
Identity, ed. Richard Beeman, Stephen Botein, and Edward C. met in Philadelphia from June to September of 1787; originally
Carter II (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), authorized by the Continental Congress to consider amendments
69–109. Financial interests were unable to collect on debts they to the Articles of Confederation, they ultimately drafted the
were owed. They appealed to state governments, where they Constitution that replaced it. was convened in 1787 to propose
faced resistance and even brief armed rebellions. limited reforms to the Articles of Confederation. Instead, however,
the Articles would be replaced by a new, far more powerful
Newspapers played up Shays’s Rebellion, an armed insurrection national government. Twelve state legislatures sent delegates to
by debt-ridden farmers to prevent county courts from foreclosing Philadelphia (Rhode Island did not attend). Each delegation would
mortgages on their [Link] Leonard A. Richards, Shays’s cast a single vote.

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Who were the delegates? Constitution, The Federalist was widely republished in book
format. Scholars now regard it as the fullest explication of the
The delegates were not representative of the American people.
logic underlying the Constitution.
They were well-educated property owners, many of them wealthy,
who came mainly from prosperous seaboard cities, including Madison drafted the first working proposal for a Constitution and
Boston and New York. Most had served in the Continental took copious notes at the convention. Published after his death in
Congress and were sensitive to the problems faced by the United 1836, they are the best historical source of the debates; they
States. Few delegates had political careers in the states, and so reveal the extraordinary political complexity of the deliberations
they were free to break with existing presumptions about how and provide remarkable insight into what the founders had in
government should be organized in America. [Link] standard edition of Madison’s notes is in The Records
of the Federal Convention of 1787, ed. Max Farrand, 3 vols. (New
The Constitutional Convention was a mix of great and minor
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1937).
characters. Exalted figures and brilliant intellects sat among
nonentities, drunkards, and nincompoops. The convention’s Once the Constitution was drafted, Madison helped write and
driving force and chief strategist was a young, bookish politician publish a series of articles in a New York newspaper. These
from Virginia named James Madison. He successfully pressured Federalist papers defend the political system the Constitutional
revered figures to attend the convention, such as George Convention had crafted.
Washington, the commanding officer of the victorious American
Interests & the Constitution
revolutionaries, and Benjamin Franklin, a man at the twilight of a
remarkable career as printer, scientist, inventor, postmaster, In the early twentieth century, historian Charles Beard asserted
philosopher, and diplomat. that the Constitution was “an economic document for economic
ends,” pushed by investors and industrialists who would profit
The unassuming and slight James Madison made an unusual
more from a national economic and political system than from
teammate for the dashing, aristocratic ex-soldier Alexander
one favoring small-scale agricultural [Link] A. Beard,
Hamilton and the august diplomat John Jay. But despite these
An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United
contrasts and some political divides, they merged their voices in
States (New York: Macmillan, 1913). Research has not upheld
the Federalist papers, published in New York newspapers under
Beard’s stark division of reaction to the Constitution into well-off
the pseudonym “Publius.” Soon after the ratification of the
229
supporters and poor, democratic adversaries. Many local, well-to- pursue their self-interest or individual preferences above the
do patriarchs opposed the Constitution; many small merchants public good., groups pursuing their self-interest above the public
wanted a national government. good. For Madison, factions were inevitable. His worst nightmare
was of a faction becoming a political majority, trampling on the
But Beard’s focus on economic and social interests is revealing.
rights of its helpless opponents, and quickly enacting its program.
Paper money, debt relief, and Shays’s Rebellion concerned those
He favored a large republic, which, he believed, would discourage
committed to existing economic and social orders. Consider
a faction’s rise to power. Madison expected that in a republic, the
Federalist No. 10, the most famous of Madison’s Federalist
number of locally oriented interests would increase and diversify,
papers. In it, he decried the dangers of democracy; he started
which would make it harder for any one of them to dominate.
with “a rage for paper money” and “an abolition of debts,” then
Minority factions could pass legislation by forming temporary
the specter of “an equal division of property,” all of which he
majorities, Madison reasoned, but these diverse majorities would
found an “improper or wicked project.” Madison paid attention to
not be able to agree on a single project long enough to be
the right to acquire and maintain property, which the Declaration
oppressive.
brushed aside. He claimed that political systems were created to
maintain liberty—including the liberty to accumulate wealth. Drafting the Constitution
Political equality meant only that each person had a right to
Delegates to the Constitutional Convention first gathered on May
express himself or herself.
25, 1787, in what is now called Independence Hall in
Ideas & the Constitution Philadelphia. Their goal was to devise a constitutionA system of
fundamental laws and principles that prescribe the structure and
The Constitutional Convention responded to ideas, not just
functions of the government., a system of fundamental laws and
interests. Delegates doubted that the people could wisely rule.
principles outlining the nature and functions of the government.
They sought to replace democracy with a republic, in which
George Washington presided. Delegates worked in an intimate
officials would be chosen to act on the people’s behalf. Federalist
setting without committees. The structure of power created by
No. 10 makes the case.
the Constitution in Philadelphia resulted from a deeply political
Madison was concerned with threats to order and stability from [Link] scientists have revealed the degree to which the
what he called factionsJames Madison’s term for groups that Constitutional Convention and the ratification conventions can be

230
understood to be the result of manipulation of parliamentary Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787
rules, strategic voting, shifting coalitions, and the “agenda- (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1937), vol. 1, 17. The
setting” and “framing” use of mass communication. Our analysis delegates feared that exposure through newspapers would
draws on these authors, especially John P. Roche, “The Founding complicate their work. The delegate who is today regarded as the
Fathers: A Reform Caucus in Action,” American Political Science great defender of civil liberties, George Mason, wrote to his son
Review 55 (December 1961): 799–816; Calvin C. Jillson, approvingly: “This I think myself a proper precaution to prevent
Constitution Making: Conflict and Consensus in the Federal mistakes and misrepresentation until the business shall have
Convention of 1787 (New York: Agathon Press, 1988); and William been completed, when the whole may have a very different
H. Riker, The Strategy of Rhetoric: Campaigning for the American complexion from that in the several crude and indigested parts
Constitution (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996). might in their first shape appear if submitted to the public
eye.”Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of
The Secrecy of the Constitutional Convention
1787 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1937), vol. 3, 28.
Deliberations took place in secret, as delegates did not want the
This gag rule was rigorously enforced. One day the presiding
press and the public to know the details of what they were
officer, George Washington, noticed that an inattentive delegate
considering (Note 2.16 "Comparing Content"). Newspapers
had dropped his notes on the floor when leaving the hall.
hardly mentioned the convention at all, and when they did, it was
Washington broke his usual silence and rebuked the unknown
in vague references praising the high caliber of the [Link]
infractor: “I am sorry to find that some one Member of this Body,
John K. Alexander, The Selling of the Constitutional Convention:
has been so neglectful of the secrets of the convention as to drop
A History of News Coverage (Madison, WI: Madison House,
in the State House a copy of their proceedings, which by accident
1990).
was picked up and delivered to me this morning. I must entreat

Comparing Content: the Convention’s Gag Rule Gentlemen to be more careful, least [sic] our transactions get into
the News Papers, and disturb the public repose by premature
Press coverage of the Constitutional Convention cannot be speculations.”
compared because one of the first decisions made in the
Constitutional Convention was that “nothing spoken in the House Throwing the notes on the table, Washington exclaimed, “I know

be printed, or otherwise published or communicated.”Max not whose Paper it is, but there it is, let him who owns it take it.”

231
Delegate William Pierce, who recorded this tale, noted that The membership of the Constitutional Convention was so small—
Washington “bowed, picked up his Hat, and quitted the room never more than fifty on a given day—that they could proceed
with a dignity so severe that every Person seemed alarmed.”Max largely in “a committee of the whole.” This size enabled them to
Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 continue their discussions in private at their preferred
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1937), vol. 3, 86–87. boardinghouses and taverns—and to keep a tight lid on public
discussion.
The founders were not unanimous about the threat posed by the
press. Thomas Jefferson was in Paris as an ambassador. In The cross-cutting divides
August 1787, he wrote to his counterpart in London, John Adams,
The delegates immediately discarded the Continental Congress’s
that there was no news from the convention: “I am sorry they
mandate that they recommend amendments to the Articles of
began their deliberations by so abominable a precedent as that of
Confederation. They agreed to draft a new Constitution from
tying up the tongues of their members. Nothing can justify this
scratch in order to create a national government superior to and
example but the innocence of their intentions, & ignorance of the
independent of the states.
value of public discussions. I have no doubt that all their other
measures will be good & wise.”Max Farrand, ed., The Records of This crucial decision was followed by disagreement about exactly
the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven, CT: Yale University how to create a national government. The states varied widely in
Press, 1937), vol. 3, 76. economic bases, population sizes, and numbers of slaves.

In 1787, the powers of the press were identified in ways we Three cross-cutting divides existed among the states:
recognize in the twenty-first century. Washington was concerned
that news about the political process might produce rumors, 1. Large states versus small statesThe terms “large state” and
confusion, worry, and public opposition to worthwhile policies. “small state” are misleading. Some small states had larger
But as Jefferson recognized, the news can also lead to productive populations than large states. The small states all shared
public debate, dialogue, and deliberation. economic vulnerability and an inability to grow, usually
because they were boxed in by other states on their western
edge, which made it impossible to hope for westward
expansion.

232
2. Cosmopolitan, centrally located states (Connecticut to Virginia) The Grand Convention (New York: Macmillan, 1966), 361–63 and
versus parochial states on the northern and southern borders 369–71.

3. Southern states, reliant on slavery in their economies, versus Cosmopolitan, centrally located states, provided strong initial
Northern states, which were not support for the Virginia Plan against scattered opposition from
border states. But Madison could not hold this coalition behind
The powers and structures of the Constitution resulted from a
both a strong national government and a legislature allocated by
series of compromises designed to bridge these three divides.
population. Delegates from the small states of New Jersey,
Large & small states Delaware, and Maryland liked a strong national government, but
they feared being overpowered. Delegates from populous
The most threatening split in the convention emerged initially Massachusetts and three fast-growing Southern states joined the
between large and small states. two largest states, Virginia and Pennsylvania, to support
legislative districts based on population, but they disliked the
Large states fired the first salvo. The Virginia PlanJames
Virginia Plan’s sweeping powers for the national government.
Madison’s initial working draft at the Constitutional Convention,
containing strong national powers, a popularly elected bicameral On June 15, the small states proposed an alternative. The New
legislature, and a weak executive elected by the legislature., Jersey PlanThe alternative to the Virginia Plan, offered by William
drafted by Madison, foresaw a strong national government that Paterson of New Jersey, with reduced national powers and a
could veto any state laws it deemed contrary to the national single legislative body representing the states. enhanced the
interest. The central institution was a bicameral (two-chamber) national government’s powers to levy taxes and regulate
legislature. The people would elect the lower house, which would commerce but left remaining powers to the states. The plan had a
in turn select the members of the upper house; the two chambers federal executive, elected by the legislature, to enforce states’
together would then elect the executive and judiciary. Breaking compliance with national law, and a federal judiciary to settle
with the Articles of Confederation’s equal representation of states, disputes among the states and between the states and the
the Virginia Plan allotted seats to both chambers of the legislature national government. Any national law would become “the
by population size [Link] text of the Virginia Plan (and its main supreme law of the respective States.” The New Jersey Plan
rival, the New Jersey Plan) can be found in Clinton Rossiter, 1787: preserved the core of the Articles of Confederation—equal

233
representation of states in a unicameral (single-chamber) how the new government would be empowered to deal with
legislature. slavery. Northerners feared the South’s growth and room for
expansion. Southerners worried that the North would threaten the
Only three states voted for the New Jersey Plan, but the Virginia
practice of slavery, which, although legal in all states, was a
Plan’s vulnerability was exposed. Facing an impasse, delegates
central part only of Southern economies.
from Connecticut suggested a compromise. Borrowing the
Virginia Plan’s idea of a bicameral legislature, they proposed that Northern interests in a strong national government acceded to
one chamber, the House of Representatives, be made up of Southern demands on slavery. Southerners argued that slaves
representatives from districts of equal population, while in the should be counted when allocating legislative seats. Eventually,
Senate each state would be equally represented with two the convention settled on a three-fifths clauseConstitutional
senators. provision that, for purposes of representation, only 60 percent of
the enslaved population would be counted.: 60 percent of the
This Connecticut Compromise (also known as the Great
enslaved population would be counted for purposes of
Compromise)The solution worked out by delegates from
representation. Northern delegates, convinced that the largest
Connecticut to create a bicameral legislature, with one chamber
slave-holding states would never have a majority in the Senate,
(the Senate) representing states, and the other (the House of
gave in.
Representatives) representing the people in districts of equal
population size. was adopted by the convention with only Virginia As the convention considered the national government’s powers,
and Pennsylvania in opposition. Thus the configuration of today’s an alliance of delegates from New England and the Deep South
Congress emerged not so much from principled deliberations emerged to defend local control and their states’ economic self-
between the Constitution’s founders as from the necessity for interest. Southerners sought to maintain slavery, while New
compromise between competing state interests. In essence, the Englanders wanted national tariffs to protect their commerce.
founders decided to split the difference. They struck a deal that resulted in New England delegates voting
to require the return of fugitive slaves and to prevent Congress
North and South
from regulating the slave trade until 1808.
After this vote, North versus South displaced the divide between
The delegates did not confront slavery head on (indeed, the word
large and small states. The convention became preoccupied by
“slavery” is not directly mentioned in the Constitution). As a
234
result, the issue of slavery would overshadow much of federal by population, as the number of electors is equal to the total of
politics until its bloody resolution in the Civil War of the 1860s. representatives and senators. If the Electoral College did not
produce a majority result, the president would be chosen by the
The executive
popularly elected House, but with one vote per state delegation.
By now, the Constitutional Convention could not break down, The quoted phrase comes from John P. Roche, “The Founding
because the document had something for everybody. Small Fathers: A Reform Caucus in Action,” American Political Science
states liked the security of a national government and their equal Review 55 (December 1961): 810. With all sides mollified, the
representation in the Senate. The Deep South and New England convention agreed that the office of president would be held by
valued the protection of their economic bases. Pennsylvania and one person who could run for multiple terms.
Virginia—the two most populous, centrally located states—
Bargaining, compromise & deal making
foresaw a national government that would extend the reach of
their commerce and influence. The Constitutional Convention began with a principled consensus
on establishing a stronger national government; it ended with
The convention’s final sticking point was the nature of the
bargaining, compromise, and deal making. State delegations
executive. The debate focused on how many people would be
voted for their political and economic self-interests, and often
president, the power of the office, the term of the office, how
worked out deals enabling everyone to have something to take
presidents would be elected, and whether they could serve
home to constituents. Some complex matters, such as the
multiple terms.
structures of the executive and judicial branches, were left up to
To break the logjam on the presidency, the convention created the the new congress. As one scholar writes, the Constitution is “a
Electoral CollegeThe body of electors chosen by states to select patch-work sewn together under the pressure of both time and
the president and vice president of the United States. as the events by a group of extremely talented…politicians.”
method of electing the president, a political solution that gave
Ratifying the Constitution
something to each of the state-based interests. The president
would not be elected directly by the popular vote of citizens. The signing of the Constitution by the delegates on September
Instead, electors chosen by state legislatures would vote for 17, 1787, was just the beginning. The Constitution would go into
president. Small states got more electoral votes than warranted

235
effect only after being approved by specially elected ratifying the Constitution’s lack of a Bill of RightsConstitutional sections
conventions in nine states. guaranteeing specific liberties from infringement by the new
government; more precisely, the first ten amendments to the
Ratification was not easy to win. In most states, property
Constitution, passed by Congress in 1789 and ratified by 1791 to
qualifications for voting had broadened from landholding to
fulfill the Federalists’ campaign promise during the state
taxpaying, thereby including most white men, many of whom
conventions ratifying the Constitution.—clauses to guarantee
benefited from the public policies of the states. Popular opinion
specific liberties from infringement by the new government. A few
for and against ratification was evenly split. In key states like
delegates to the Constitutional Convention, notably George
Massachusetts and Virginia, observers thought the opposition
Mason of Virginia and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, had
was ahead.
refused to sign the document in the absence of a Bill of Rights.
The opposition to ratification
The campaign for ratification
The elections to the ratifying conventions revealed that
Despite such objections and obstacles, the campaign for
opponents of the Constitution tended to come from rural inland
ratification was successful in all thirteen [Link] Maier,
areas (not from cities and especially not from ports, where
Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787–1788
merchants held sway). They held to the ideals of the Declaration
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010). The advocates of the
of Independence, which favored a deliberately weak national
national political system, benefiting from the secrecy of the
government to enhance local and state [Link]
Constitutional Convention, were well prepared to take the
Herbert Storing, What the Anti-Federalists Were For (Chicago:
initiative. They called themselves not nationalists but
University of Chicago Press, 1988). They thought that the national
FederalistsThe name adopted by those favoring the ratification of
government’s powers, the complex system of government,
the Constitution.. Opponents to the Constitution were saddled
lengthy terms of office, and often indirect elections in the new
with the name of Anti-FederalistsThe name applied to those who
Constitution distanced government from the people
opposed ratification of the Constitution., though they were
unacceptably.
actually the champions of a federation of independent states.
Opponents also feared that the strength of the proposed national
By asking conventions to ratify the Constitution, the Federalists
government posed a threat to individual freedoms. They criticized
evaded resistance from state legislatures. Federalists
236
campaigned to elect sympathetic ratifiers and hoped that H. Riker, The Strategy of Rhetoric: Campaigning for the American
successive victories, publicized in the press, would build Constitution (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), 26–28.
momentum toward winning ratification by all thirteen states. Printers followed the money trail to support the Federalists. Most
newspapers, especially those whose stories were reprinted by
The Federalists’ media strategies included images, too. A famous
others, were based in port cities, if only because arriving ships
woodcut at the start of the Revolution was of a serpent cut into
provided good sources of news. Such locales were dominated by
thirteen sections with the admonition “Join or Die.” Federalists
merchants who favored a national system to facilitate trade and
provided a new twist on this theme. They kept track of the
commerce. Newspapers were less common in rural interior
ratification by an edifice of columns, elevated one by one as each
locations where Anti-Federalist support was greatest.
state ratified. The next state convention on the list would be
represented by a hand lifting the column, often accompanied by Federalists also pressured the few Anti-Federalist newspapers
the confident motto “Rise It Will.” that existed. They wrote subscribers and advertisers and urged
them to cancel. Anti-Federalist printers often moved to other
Anti-Federalists did not decry the process by which the
cities, went out of business, or began reprinting Federalist
Constitution was drafted and ratified. Instead, they participated in
articles. Federalists hailed such results as the voice of the people.
the ratification process, hoping to organize a new convention to
When an Anti-Federalist paper in Philadelphia halted publication,
remedy the Constitution’s flaws.
Federalists exulted, “There cannot be a greater proof that the
Newspapers & ratification body of the people are federal, that the antifederal editors and
printers fail of support.”More specifically, see Robert A. Rutland,
The US newspaper system boosted the Federalist cause. Of the “The First Great Newspaper Debate: The Constitutional Crisis of
approximately one hundred newspapers being published during 1787–88,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society
the ratification campaign of 1787–88, “not more than a dozen… (1987): 43–58. These examples come from Robert Allen Rutland,
could be classed as avowedly antifederal.”Robert Allen Rutland, The Ordeal of the Constitution: The Antifederalists and the
The Ordeal of the Constitution: The Antifederalists and the Ratification Struggle of 1787–1788 (Norman: University of
Ratification Struggle of 1787–1788 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966), 73–74, 135–38, 265–66; and John P.
Oklahoma Press, 1966), 38. Anti-Federalist arguments were rarely Kaminski and Gaspare J. Saladino, eds., Commentaries on the
printed and even less often copied by other [Link]

237
Constitution, Public and Private (Madison, WI: State Historical escaped unharmed. The tale implied that divine intervention had
Society of Wisconsin, 1981), vol. 1, xxxii–xxxix. ensured Washington’s leadership by “the providential
preservation of the valuable life of this great and good man, on
Today the most famous part of this newspaper campaign is the
his way home from the Convention.”John P. Kaminski and
series of essays (referred to earlier) written by Alexander
Gaspare J. Saladino, eds., Commentaries on the Constitution,
Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison, and published in New
Public and Private (Madison, WI: State Historical Society of
York newspapers under the collective pseudonym “Publius.” The
Wisconsin, 1981), vol. 1, 243.
authors used their skills at legal argumentation to make the
strongest case they could for the document that emerged from Not all states were eager to ratify the Constitution, especially
the Constitutional Convention. These Federalist papersA series of since it did not specify what the federal government could not do
essays written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James and did not include a Bill of Rights. Massachusetts narrowly
Madison, published in New York newspapers during the debate voted in favor of ratification, with the provision that the first
over the ratification of the Constitution; they are generally Congress take up recommendations for amending the
understood to offer the fullest logic behind the creation of the Constitution. New Hampshire, Virginia, and New York followed
Constitution., steeped in discussion of political theory and history, this same strategy. Once nine states had ratified it, the
offer the fullest logic for the workings of the Constitution. Constitution was approved. Madison was elected to the first
However, they were rarely reprinted outside New York and were a Congress and proposed a Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments
minor part of the ratification campaign. to the Constitution. Only after the Congress had approved the Bill
of Rights did North Carolina and Rhode Island ratify the
Newspapers instead played on public sentiment, notably the
Constitution.
adulation of George Washington, presiding officer of the
convention, and his support of the [Link] the most Constitutional principles & provisions
commonly reprinted articles, see William H. Riker, The Strategy of
Rhetoric: Campaigning for the American Constitution (New The principles underlying the Constitution
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), chap. 6, esp. table 6.1.
While the Constitution established a national government that did
The most widely disseminated story concerned his return trip
not rely on the support of the states, it limited the federal
from Philadelphia to Virginia. A bridge collapsed but Washington
government’s powers by listing (“enumerating”) them. This
238
practice of federalism means that some policy areas are exclusive Checks & balances
to the federal government, some are exclusive to the states, and
At the same time, each branch lacks full control over all the
others are shared between the two levels.
powers allotted to it. Political scientist Richard Neustadt put it
Federalism aside, three key principles are the crux of the memorably: “The Constitutional Convention of 1787 is supposed
Constitution: separation of powers, checks and balances, and to have created a government of ‘separated powers.’ It did
bicameralism. nothing of the sort. Rather, it created a government of separated
institutions sharing powers.”Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential
Separation of powers
Power (New York: Wiley, 1960), 33. Of course, whether the
Separation of powersThe doctrine whereby legislative, executive, founders intended this outcome is still open to dispute. No
and judicial powers are placed in distinct, at least partially branch can act effectively without the cooperation—or passive
autonomous, institutions. is the allocation of three domains of consent—of the other two.
governmental action—law making, law execution, and law
Most governmental powers are shared among the various
adjudication—into three distinct branches of government: the
branches in a system of checks and balancesThe Constitution’s
legislature, the executive, and the judiciary. Each branch is
approach whereby every branch is equipped with powers at least
assigned specific powers that only it can wield.
partially countervailing those of the other two branches., whereby
In perhaps the most abiding indicator of the separation of each branch has ways to respond to, and if necessary, block the
powers, Pierre L’Enfant’s plan of Washington, DC, placed the actions of the others. For example, only Congress can pass a law.
President’s House and the Capitol at opposite ends of But the president can veto it. Supreme Court justices can declare
Pennsylvania Avenue. The plan notes the importance of the two an act of Congress unconstitutional through judicial reviewThe
branches being both geographically and politically distinct. power of the Supreme Court to render acts of Congress or
decisions of the executive null and void on the basis that they
This separation is in the Constitution itself, which divides powers violate the Constitution.
and responsibilities of each branch in three distinct articles:
Article I for the legislature, Article II for the executive, and Article The logic of checks and balances echoes Madison’s skeptical
III for the judiciary. view of human nature. In Federalist No. 10 he contends that all
individuals, even officials, follow their own selfish interests.
239
Expanding on this point in Federalist No. 51, he claimed that from France, sits down for coffee with Washington. Jefferson
officeholders in the three branches would seek influence and inquires why Congress will have two chambers. Washington asks
defend the powers of their respective branches. Therefore, he Jefferson, “Why did you pour that coffee into your saucer?”
wrote, the Constitution provides “to those who administer each Jefferson replies, “To cool it,” following the custom of the time.
department the necessary constitutional means and personal Washington concludes, “Even so, we pour legislation into the
motives to resist encroachments of the others.” senatorial saucer to cool it.”

Bicameralism The bias of the system

Government is made yet more complex by splitting the legislature The US political system is designed to prevent quick agreement
into two separate and distinct chambers—the House of within the legislature and between the branches. Senators,
Representatives and the Senate. Such bicameralismThe practice representatives, presidents, and Supreme Court justices have
of having two separate chambers within the legislature; in the varying terms of offices, distinctive means of selection, and
Constitution, this means that Congress is made up of a House of different constituencies. Prospects for disagreement and conflict
Representatives and a Senate. was common in state legislatures. are high. Accomplishing any goal requires navigating a complex
One chamber was supposed to provide a close link to the people, obstacle course. At any point in the process, action can be
the other to add [Link] S. Wood, The Creation of the stopped. Maintaining the status quo is more likely than enacting
American Republic (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina significant changes. Exceptions occur in response to dire
Press, 1969), chap. 6. The Constitution makes the two chambers situations such as a financial crisis or external attacks.
of Congress roughly equal in power, embedding checks and
What the Constitution says
balances inside the legislative branch itself.
The text of the Constitution consists of a preamble and seven
Bicameralism recalls the founders’ doubts about majority rule. To
sections known as “articles.” The preamble is the opening
check the House, directly elected by the people, they created a
rhetorical flourish. Its first words—“We the People of the United
Senate. Senators, with six-year terms and election by state
States”—rebuke the “We the States” mentality of the Articles of
legislatures, were expected to work slowly with a longer-range
Confederation. The preamble lists reasons for establishing a
understanding of problems and to manage popular passions. A
national government.
story, possibly fanciful, depicts the logic: Thomas Jefferson, back
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The first three articles set up the branches of government. We Article V specifies how to amend the Constitution. This shows
briefly summarize them here, leaving the details of the powers that the framers intended to have a Constitution that could be
and responsibilities given to these branches to specific chapters. adapted to changing conditions. There are two ways to propose
Article I establishes a legislature that the founders believed would amendments. States may call for a convention. (This has never
make up the heart of the new government. been used due to fears it would reopen the entire Constitution for
revision.) The other way to propose amendments is for Congress
Article II takes up the cumbersome process of assembling an
to pass them by a two-thirds majority in both the House and
Electoral College and electing a president and a vice president—a
Senate.
process that was later modified by the Twelfth Amendment. The
presidential duties listed here focus on war and management of Then there are two ways to approve an amendment. One is
the executive branch. The president’s powers are far fewer than through ratification by three-fourths of state legislatures.
those enumerated for Congress. Alternatively, an amendment can be ratified by three-fourths of
specially convoked state conventions. This process has been
The Constitutional Convention punted decisions on the structure
used once. “Wets,” favoring the end of Prohibition, feared that the
of the judiciary below the Supreme Court to the first Congress to
Twenty-First Amendment—which would have repealed the
decide. Article III states that judges of all federal courts hold
Eighteenth Amendment prohibiting the sale and consumption of
office for life “during good Behaviour.” It authorizes the Supreme
alcohol—would be blocked by conservative (“dry”) state
Court to decide all cases arising under federal law and in disputes
legislatures. The wets asked for specially called state conventions
involving states. Judicial review, the central power of the
and rapidly ratified repeal—on December 5, 1933.
Supreme Court, is not mentioned. Asserted in the 1804 case of
Marbury v. Madison, it is the ability of the Court to invalidate a law Thus a constitutional amendment can be stopped by one-third of
passed by Congress or a decision made by the executive on the either chamber of Congress or one-fourth of state legislatures—
basis that it violates the Constitution. which explains why there have been only twenty-seven
amendments in over two centuries.
Article IV lists rights and obligations among the states and
between the states and the national government. Article VI includes a crucial provision that endorses the move
away from a loose confederation to a national government
superior to the states. Lifted from the New Jersey Plan, the
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supremacy clauseClause in Article VI of the Constitution stating person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
that the Constitution and all federal laws are “the supreme Law of This amendment provides the basis for civil rights, and further
the Land.” states that the Constitution and all federal laws are democratization of the electorate was guaranteed in subsequent
“the supreme Law of the Land.” ones. The right to vote became anchored in the Constitution with
the addition of the Fifteenth, Nineteenth, Twenty-Fourth, and
Article VII outlines how to ratify the new Constitution.
Twenty-Sixth Amendments, which stated that such a right,
Constitutional evolution granted to all citizens aged eighteen years or more, could not be
denied on the basis of race or sex, nor could it be dependent on
The Constitution has remained essentially intact over time. The the payment of a poll tax.
basic structure of governmental power is much the same in the
twenty-first century as in the late eighteenth century. At the same Constitutional interpretation
time, the Constitution has been transformed in the centuries since
The Constitution is sometimes silent or vague, making it flexible
1787. Amendments have greatly expanded civil liberties and
and adaptable to new circumstances. Interpretations of
rights. Interpretations of its language by all three branches of
constitutional provisions by the three branches of government
government have taken the Constitution into realms not imagined
have resulted in changes in political organization and [Link]
by the founders. New practices have been grafted onto the
power of all three branches to develop the vague language of the
Constitution’s ancient procedures. Intermediary institutions not
Constitution is well documented in Neal Devins and Louis Fisher,
mentioned in the Constitution have developed important
The Democratic Constitution (New York: Oxford University Press,
governmental roles.
2004).
Amendments
For example, the Constitution is silent about the role, number, and
Many crucial clauses of the Constitution today are in the jurisdictions of executive officers, such as cabinet secretaries; the
amendments. The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments ratified judicial system below the Supreme Court; and the number of
by the states in 1791, defines civil liberties to which individuals House members or Supreme Court justices. The first Congress
are entitled. After the slavery issue was resolved by a devastating had to fill in the blanks, often by altering the law.
civil war, equality entered the Constitution with the Fourteenth
Amendment, which specified that “No State shall…deny to any
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The Supreme Court is today at center stage in interpreting the Article II’s brevity would be turned to the office’s advantage by
Constitution. Before becoming chief justice in 1910, Charles President Theodore Roosevelt at the dawn of the twentieth
Evans Hughes proclaimed, “We are under a Constitution, but the century. He argued that the president is “a steward of the
Constitution is what the Court says it is.”Hughes was then people…bound actively and affirmatively to do all he could for the
Governor of New York. Quoted in Edward S. Corwin, The people.” So the president is obliged to do whatever is best for the
Constitution and What It Means Today (Princeton, NJ: Princeton nation as long as it is not specifically forbidden by the
University Press, 1954), xiii. [Link]ffrey K. Tulis, “The Two Constitutional
Presidencies,” in The Presidency and the Political System, 6th
By examining the Constitution’s clauses and applying them to
ed., ed. Michael Nelson (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2000), 93–
specific cases, the justices expand or limit the reach of
124.
constitutional rights and requirements. However, the Supreme
Court does not always have the last word, since state officials Intermediary institutions
and members of the national government’s legislative and
The Constitution is silent about various intermediary
executive branches have their own understanding of the
institutionsInstitutions that have, largely informally, arisen to
Constitution that they apply on a daily basis, responding to,
bridge the gap between the government and the people or the
challenging, and sometimes modifying what the Court has held.
gaps among the three branches.—political parties, interest
New practices groups, and the media—that link government with the people and
bridge gaps caused by a separation-of-powers system. The
Specific sections of the Constitution have evolved greatly through
political process might stall in their absence.
new practices. Article II gives the presidency few formal powers
and responsibilities. During the first hundred years of the republic, For example, presidential elections and the internal organization
presidents acted in limited ways, except during war or massive of Congress rely on the party system. Interest groups represent
social change, and they rarely campaigned for a legislative different people and are actively involved in the policy process.
[Link] Jeffrey Tulis, The Rhetorical Presidency (Princeton, The media are fundamental for conveying information to the
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987). public about government policies as well as for letting
government officials know what the public is thinking, a process
that is essential in a democratic system.
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The Constitution in the Information Age Let us return to our discussion at the beginning of this chapter.
The news declared a “constitutional crisis” during the aftermath
We have seen that the Constitution is a political document of the 2000 presidential election. The covers of Time, Newsweek,
adopted for political reasons in a highly political process. Yet the and US News & World Report all displayed the manuscript of the
text of the Constitution, and the structure of power it created, are Constitution and its boldly emblazoned preamble, “We the
almost entirely above political controversy. It is an object of pride People.” The stories reported the 4–3 vote by the Florida
for almost all Americans. Supreme Court, which ordered a statewide recount of that state’s
vote (the vote that would decide the national outcome), and the
The Constitution as a sacred document
US Supreme Court’s 5–4 order to halt the recount and hear the
The official presentation of the Constitution in public buildings Bush campaign’s appeal. Both Newsweek and US News & World
show it as a sacred documentA revered manuscript given exalted Report superimposed the word “CHAOS” on the Constitution;
status; applied to the Constitution., demonstrating its exalted Newsweek showed the word looming menacingly beneath the
status. The original document is ensconced in what is called a torn, seemingly fragile document.
“Shrine” at the National Archives.
All three news magazines lamented that the Constitution was
Not far from the “Shrine” in the National Archives, the twentieth- threatened by unscrupulous, self-interested politicians intruding
century re-creation by Howard Chandler Christy hangs in the US into the realm of dispassionate principle. To quote Newsweek,
Capitol. The eye is carried toward the beatific glow around the “The endless election has not been a grand contest of famous
document itself, George Washington standing proudly as its legal gladiators contesting broad constitutional principles…[but] a
guardian. The atmosphere is of nobility, grandeur, and calm, not local fight, a highly personal shoving match driven by old grudges
base self-interest and conflict—though the latter characterized and vendettas.”Evan Thomas and Michael Isikoff, “Settling Old
the convention at least as much. Scores in the Swamp,” Newsweek (December 18, 2000), 36–44,
quotations on 38. Yet it was the complex electoral and federal
The media rarely show the Constitution or the structure of the system devised in the Constitution itself that caused much of the
political system as a cause of political problems. However, media crisis.
depictions of the politicians charged with fulfilling the
Constitution’s vision in public life are far less positive.

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Entertainment media occasionally present stories about the father, a crusading editor, and has sold out to the state’s political
Constitution and the structure of power it created. Consider the boss. At Paine’s urging, Smith submits a bill proposing a national
familiar tale of a lone individual bravely fighting to restore a boys’ camp but later learns that the site has been bought by the
wayward political system to its virtuous roots. In the 1930s, boss to sell at a huge profit to the government for a dam Paine is
Director Frank Capra perfected the genre in a series of Hollywood proposing. Smith refuses to back down, and a fake corruption
movies that reached its height in the classic 1939 film Mr. Smith charge is launched against him with devastating results. About to
Goes to Washington. resign in disgrace, Smith visits the Lincoln Memorial. Sustained
by the love and political know-how of Saunders, Smith fights
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
back by a filibuster on the Senate floor. The Washington reporters
James Madison’s portrayal in the Federalist papers of sacrosanct who had earlier scorned his innocence are transformed into his
institutions and fallible politicians finds its movie version in Frank supporters by his idealism. But his home state hears little of this:
Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to [Link] analyses of the the boss controls all radio stations and newspapers and brutally
film include Brian Rose, An Examination of Narrative Structure in quashes any support. Smith faints in exhaustion when confronted
the Films of Frank Capra (New York: Arno Press, 1980), chap. 3; with baskets full of trumped-up hate mail, but is saved when the
and Charles J. Maland, Frank Capra (Boston: Twayne, 1980), guilt-ridden Paine tries to shoot himself and confesses to the
chap. 4. Upon its 1939 release, it was hugely popular and a corrupt scheme. The movie ends in a blaze of jubilation as the
critical success, second only to Gone with the Wind in box-office Senate president, apparently satisfied with Smith’s vindication,
receipts and Oscar nominations. The title alone has recurred gives up gaveling for order.
repeatedly in political talk across the decades ever since.
Many observers see the message of Mr. Smith as reassuring: the
Mr. Smith begins when a senator dies. The governor, pushed to system works, preserved by the idealist individual American hero.
appoint either a party hack or a reformer, picks instead his sons’ The founders and their handiwork are viewed as above criticism.
“Boy Ranger” leader, resonantly named Jefferson Smith (James During the climactic filibuster, Smith reads the Declaration of
Stewart). The naive Smith heads to the capital under the wing of Independence and the Constitution, lecturing the senators, “Great
the state’s senior senator, Joseph Paine (Claude Rains), who principles don’t get lost once they come to light—they’re right
entrusts Smith to the dead senator’s cynical secretary, Clarissa here.”
Saunders (Jean Arthur). Paine is a onetime associate of Smith’s
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The film endures because it is richly challenging: Mr. Smith is both continuing sagas that reporters narrate across days, months,
a celebration in theory and an indictment in practice of the even years.
American political system.
The Constitution also gives the media an easy symbol with which
Mr. Smith has been a template for media depictions of the they can display their idealism, a perhaps unattainable (and un-
American political system. The Reese Witherspoon vehicle Madisonian) political system in which officials work efficiently,
Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde (2003) follows the same cooperatively, and selflessly in the public interest.
formula of an idealistic individual going to Capitol Hill and
Media consequences
redeeming the promise of the political system against crooked
politicians. This positive media portrayal of the Constitution encourages
reverence for the political system even when there is much
Media interactions: why the media love the Constitution
criticism of the officials in that [Link] Samuel P. Huntington,
Why do the media today present a rosy picture of the Constitution American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony (Cambridge, MA:
and the political system it created? One historic reason is that Harvard University Press, 1981). Typical are the results of a public
opposition to the Constitution collapsed after the Bill of Rights opinion poll conducted during 1992, a year marked by high public
was added to it in 1791. Within a few years, the Constitution was unhappiness with government. Not surprisingly, the survey
no longer an object of political controversy. Even during the Civil showed that the public was highly critical of how the president
War, the ultimate “constitutional crisis,” both sides were faithful to and members of Congress were handling their jobs. But the
the cherished principles of the Constitution—at least as each side public did not criticize the institutions of Congress and the
read them. presidency themselves. Ninety-one percent said they approved of
“the constitutional structure of government.”
The Constitution is the essential framework for the work of
reporters as well as politicians. Reporters rely on order and Political scientists John Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse who
regularity to perform their job day in, day out. The procedures conducted the research concluded, “People actually see two
established by the Constitution—such as how presidents are quite different political systems…Anything associated with the
elected; how a bill becomes a law; how the president, Congress, constitutional system elicits a positive response…To the extent
and the Supreme Court vie for power—are the basis for there are problems with the political system it is because we have

246
deviated from what was outlined in the Constitution, not because An unusual example is provided by Gregory [Link] example
that outline was flawed.” is taken from Richard B. Bernstein and Jerome Abel, Amending
America: If We Love the Constitution So Much, Why Do We Keep
Yet many of the media’s indictments against politicians are for
Trying to Change It? (New York: Times Books, 1993), chap. 13. In
behaviors encouraged by the Constitution. Reporters and the
1982, as a sophomore at the University of Texas at Austin,
mass media often criticize American politicians for “squabbling”
Watson found a stimulating topic for a government class essay:
and “bickering.” But the separation of powers, as the founders
The Bill of Rights, as drafted by Madison and passed by
designed it, is supposed to encourage conflict within the
Congress, originally included twelve amendments. Only ten were
legislature and between the three branches.
ratified by the states and included in the Constitution.
The Constitution is a remarkably terse document. Generations
In 1982, congressional pay raises were controversial, and Watson
have worked to evolve its meanings in over two centuries of
concluded that this issue made one of the two unratified
politics and policies. Americans may rarely question the
amendments pertinent: “No law, varying the compensation for the
Constitution itself, but they surely disagree and debate over how
services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect,
its principles should be applied. In the chapters to follow, we will
until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.” Only
see many contemporary examples of politics around the
six of the thirteen states had ratified this amendment by 1791.
Constitution in the information age—from constitutional
But Watson noticed that the amendment had no time limit. In his
amendments, to disputes between the branches over the powers
essay, he laid out the history of the amendment and urged that it
of each, to the meanings of the Constitution’s clauses when
be ratified by thirty-two more states. His instructor, dubious that a
applied in public policy.
constitutional amendment could be revived after almost two
Civic education hundred years, gave Watson’s paper a C.

The message of civic education is the relevance and importance Undeterred, Watson launched a campaign to get state
of politics. If the workings of the American political system are not legislatures to pass this congressional compensation
what we like, there are ways to change structures, policies, and amendment. His first successes were with Maine in 1983 and
political practices. Colorado in 1984. The news media began paying attention. The
story of legislators voting themselves pay raises and news of

247
scandals over congressional perks of office resonated with the
public; the momentum shifted in Watson’s favor. In 1992,
Michigan became the thirty-eighth state to ratify the amendment.
Congress recognized Watson’s efforts in what became the
Twenty-Seventh Amendment to the Constitution—203 years after
their congressional forebears had passed it.

The previous section is provided by [Link]’s The

Constitution and the Structure of Government Power.

248
Section 2

Constitution building

Tap on this link to visit the Institute for Democracy and Electoral
Assistance’s Constitutional Building: A Global Review.

249
Chapter 8

Executives,
Interest Groups,
Political Parties
& Systems
Learning objectives

After reading this chapter, students will be able to do the

following:

• Identify characteristics of interest groups, political

parties and political systems.

• Understand interest groups, political parties and party

systems.

• Analyze the causes and effects of roles that interest

groups and political parties play in the government.
Section 1

Political executive

The political executive consists of those institutions formally accountability have become institutionalized through the
responsible for governing a political community—that is, for acceptance and use of regular procedures.
applying its binding decisions, which may be formulated, to a
The above generalizations may be valid for mature and
greater or lesser extent, by the executive institutions themselves.
developed political systems, but they hardly apply to the new
The structure, function, and character of the executive have
nations, which are in a period of transition. Force continues to
varied widely over time, and no single conceptual framework can
play an important role in their political life, and the legitimization
disclose all these variations and their consequences. Yet, certain
of mechanisms of nomination, selection, and decision making
fundamentals are clear, and on these we can concentrate our
has yet to develop. Lack of a sense of community, a low level of
attention. The two most prevalent structural forms of the
industrial development and modernization, and a confused party
executive are the presidential and the cabinet systems. The
configuration continue to characterize the new nations: charisma
source of executive power has shifted from hereditary right, co-
and personal relations are more important than institutions and
optation, and the use of force to election, either direct or indirect.
legitimized procedures; governmental roles and functions and
The legitimacy of executive power has become secularized;
the corresponding structures, including the executive, are
“tradition,” divine origin, and other forms of appeal to occult
undifferentiated; factions often play the game of politics without
forces have given way to rational criteria of achievement and
accepting general rules, and executive leadership is unstable
popular approbation. The principal functions of the
because of the prevalence of factional strife. There is a gap
contemporary political executive are increasingly being carried
between form and substance in the new nations, so that while
out by specialized structures; these functions are representation
most of them have copied the formal and written constitutional
and integration, leadership, deliberation and decision making,
arrangements of developed societies, particularly the
control and supervision of subordinate decision-making and
organization of the executive, they have failed thus far to endow
enforcement organs. Finally, executive responsibility and

251
these arrangements with corresponding political roles and account for a genuine collegiality of decision making and
functions. With rare exceptions, the executive is the political responsibility. Thus, viewed from the point of decision making and
leader who has attained power and the executive structures are responsibility and depending upon the formal constitutional
only a temporary and fluid machinery that serves his rule. It is arrangements, the prevalent norms in the society, and such
only in a few of the developing societies—notably in India, adventitious factors as personality and circumstance, there is a
Ceylon, and in some of the stable democracies of Latin America continuum between genuine one-man rule and genuine
—that executive structures and corresponding roles are collegiality. The structures are generally flexible enough to allow
beginning to be clearly differentiated. for movement from one form to the other, within the same political
system. This, incidentally, is true both for cabinet systems and for
The office presidential systems.

The executive office consists of a number of elected and Under United States and French influence, the presidential
appointed officials responsible for the over-all performances of system has been adopted in various forms and with varying
the functions associated with it. The number of officials is degrees of effectiveness in Latin America and French-speaking
generally small —twenty or, at most, thirty. If we include top civil Africa. The cabinet system, which originated in England, has been
service personnel, heads of planning agencies and nationalized adopted in most of the countries of the European continent, in all
industries, top scientists, and defense officials who participate in the English-speaking dominions, in many of the former British
deliberation and decision making, the number rarely goes beyond colonies, and in many of the totalitarian systems—notably in the
a hundred. While the executive is a collective entity, ultimate Soviet Union and eastern Europe. The differences between the
responsibility for decision making is sometimes lodged in the two systems are formal rather than substantive. In the presidential
hands of one man. This is notably the case in presidential system, the president is elected by the people. He holds the
systems and in many of the cabinet systems in which a well- highest executive office over a given period of time, during which
disciplined party controls a majority in the legislature. In he is not politically accountable to the legislature. All top
totalitarian one-party systems the leader of the party is in law or executive officials are nominated by him and can be removed by
in fact—and often in both —in charge of the executive. On the him. In the cabinet system, on the other hand, the prime minister
other hand, in a number of multiparty parliamentary democracies, and his cabinet are responsible to the legislature. They are
notably in the Scandinavian countries, the coalition cabinets formally invested with executive power by a vote of the

252
legislature, and their term can be suspended at any time by an West Germany and France. In West Germany proportional
adverse vote. representation was greatly modified by the requirement that half
of the members of the legislature be elected by majority vote.
Despite these formal differences, universal suffrage, the growth of
Executive stability and independence were strengthened by the
national parties, and the progressive adoption of a majority
provision that the chancellor cannot be removed from office by a
electoral system account for striking similarities. In presidential or
vote of the legislature unless it is accompanied by a vote in favor
cabinet systems, the immediate source of executive power is the
of a successor.
election and the party. In the cabinet system, the leader of the
majority party becomes prime minister. If the party is disciplined, In France proportional representation in legislative elections was
it is unlikely that it will overthrow the prime minister. Thus, while abandoned in 1958. In the presidential election, if none of the
the prime minister is technically responsible to the legislature, he candidates receives an absolute majority on the first ballot, the
is just as immune to it as the president. In the one-party contest is narrowed to only two candidates on the second. As for
totalitarian systems that have adopted the cabinet system— and executive-legislative relations, parliament was “rationalized”;
we use the Soviet Union as the prototype—it is the party that stringent restrictions were placed on the vote of censure by the
sustains executive leadership. As long as the leader controls the national assembly, the executive was given control over legislative
party ( as Stalin did) or is accepted by the higher party echelons business and legislation; the committee system was simplified
(the Central Committee and the Politburo), he also controls the and the powers of the committees drastically reduced; and the
legislature and is technically immune to legislative scrutiny. If president was given the right to dissolve the National Assembly
there are dissensions within the party or if the leader loses his and call for an election. The trend has been the same,
support in the Politburo and the Central Committee, he can no significantly, in Great Britain, where the control of the executive
longer hold his position. over Parliament is made effective through the control of the
majority party, and in the United States, where legislative initiative
Many trends since World War ii account for the reinforcement of
has passed into the hands of the president and party discipline in
the political executive. Among them, the most significant ones are
Congress has been tightened.
the widespread adoption of the majority electoral system and
constitutional reforms establishing the ascendancy of the From an organizational viewpoint, all executives display striking
executive over the legislature. The two most notable cases are similarities. The prime minister or president is surrounded by

253
concentric circles of advisers and staff and line agencies: the first and economic development through planning. This may also be
is the immediate circle of personal advisers and liaison agents; one reason for the rapid turnover of executives and, in general,
the second consists of specialized coordinating agencies with for executive instability. The loads upon executive management
functions that cut across departmental or ministerial decision making and enforcement have been too heavy, and the
responsibilities (economic planning, national security, atomic corresponding supports, in the form of party systems or interest-
energy, space programs, administrative reorganization, etc.); the group organizations, too weak. There is also a contradiction
third is the cabinet, consisting of top officials responsible for between the roles associated with political unification and
policy making and administration of functionally defined community building, on the one hand, and those related to policy
governmental activities (foreign affairs, trade, labor, welfare, making and enforcement, on the other. The first tasks require
defense, etc.); a fourth circle consists of an increasing number of personal leadership, the appeal to national symbols, and
independent or semi-independent agencies with regulatory and ideology, while the second call for rational skills, organizational
supervisory responsibilities, some of which operate or control talents, and a pragmatic assessment of goals and available
economic services. To gain a comprehensive view of the political means.
executive, however, we must further expand our circles to include
other forces in the political system. There are the political parties Functions of the political executive
and the party leaders, who must be persuaded or placated; the
The political system can be seen as a mechanism through which
legislature, whose compliance to policy measures is
interests and demands are translated into decisions. The
indispensable; interest groups that must be taken into account;
decision-making mechanism must be widely accepted by the
the press and the public at large, from which support is ultimately
community—that is, it must have legitimacy. Since the political
to be derived; and, finally, other nations, various international
executive plays an important role in transforming interests and
organizations and the international community at large.
demands into decisions, it has, first and foremost, output
In the new nations the lack of stable structures sharply contrasts functions. However, since it also represents and accommodates
with the leadership and decision-making tasks imposed upon the major social and interest groupings, it plays an integrative role as
executive. Difficulties in creating a viable political community, well. In addition to being the central policy-making organ, it also
providing unity where there was factionalism and tribalism, are supervises and controls all the subordinate deliberative and
augmented by the immediate and urgent needs of a rapid social enforcement organs.

254
Integration & representation Charisma—a personal magic of leadership arousing special
popular loyalty or enthusiasm—is an indispensable ingredient of
The integrative and representative function of the political
leadership. This aspect of leadership is closely related to the
executive is both ceremonial and efficient. The executive
ability to take a determined stand and to express a belief without
embodies the political community and represents it internally and
equivocation. As John Stuart Mill remarked, “a great part of
externally. It provides effective links between the members of the
political power consists in will. … One person with a belief is a
community and the state. In some political systems the
social power equal to ninety-nine who have interests.” If we
ceremonial and symbolic role is played by a politically
combine the rational and charismatic traits, leadership must: (a)
irresponsible head—the monarch or the president of the republic.
provide for representation and identification within the
In other instances, mostly in presidential systems, the ceremonial
community; (b) foresee common problems and suggest policy
and efficient functions are combined in the same office and man.
solutions; (c) provide, at the executive level, a strong following of
It is, of course, the efficient functions of integration on which
loyal officials; and (d) receive popular support. Thus, the political
depends the durability of the effective ties that link the community
executive has significant input functions to perform. By injecting
with its ceremonial head. By integrative functions, we mean
new demands and expectations or by proposing solutions, it can
representing demands and interests and making decisions
manufacture supports. While it acts within a given structure of
accordingly. This is the ultimate test of performance. It links the
political forces, it can rearrange these forces and create new
executive with the party, the legislature, and the public. It is the
reference groups to gain support.
“hyphen which joins, a buckle which fastens” the community to
the executive. To play this integrative role, the executive must Decision making & deliberation
provide for leadership, decision making, and enforcement.
Political theory has long distinguished between legislative and
Leadership executive acts. This formal distinction is no longer adequate.
First, the political executive can perform the leadership functions
The crux of executive power is leadership. Yet, leadership is a
traditionally assigned to the legislature. Second, it possesses
phenomenon not well understood. It varies from one system to
independent powers—for instance, in foreign policy and defense.
another and from one period to another. A leader must have the
Third, the practice of delegated legislation has given vast, albeit
ability to organize, deliberate, decide, and execute and the
subordinate, legislative powers to the executive. Finally, the law
capacity to arouse trust and affection and to gain support.
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enacted by the legislature is initiated, prepared, and drafted by regulation and international conflict has emphasized coordination
the political executive—policy initiation has become an executive and preparedness for quick action. It also reflects a concomitant
prerogative. The legislative process tends to be increasingly one- trend in favor of developing new procedures to provide for
sided. In the totalitarian systems that have adopted cabinet deliberation prior to a decision. Given the sheer bulk of matters
government, legislative scrutiny is of no significance, and this is that call for decisions and the need of specific knowledge and
virtually the case in all cabinet systems that have a strong, information in order to make them, decision making becomes a
disciplined party system. Only in the United States does the matter of following deliberative and consultative processes.
legislature continue to have genuinely independent power of Increasingly, it becomes a matter of process rather than
legislative scrutiny and initiative. Even so, Congressional initiative substance. In turn, the basis of the authority of the executive
tends to be limited to scrutiny and amendment of proposals shifts from the personal to the procedural. The appeal of
already submitted by the executive. charisma becomes limited, and tradition is no longer invoked. The
basis of executive authority begins to coincide with its ability to
In order to initiate, decide, and act, the executive must deliberate.
act on the basis of rationalized procedures. It is only in the new,
As a result, intelligence, fact finding, liaison, and staff agencies
underdeveloped nations that the charismatic leader has played,
have mushroomed. This has particularly been the case with new
and may continue to play, an important role. Crisis situations,
governmental activities that do not fit the traditional organization
however, often account for the emergence of personal
of the executive into departments and ministries: economic
government in developed societies. The emerging leader either
planning and supervision; coordinating the preparation of
bypasses the existing procedures or sets them aside in an effort
budgetary policy; providing administrative reform to create new
to establish new ones. In all cases the effective invocation of
structures that can cope with new functions; and considering
personal government and the successful appeal to new political
national security matters from a variety of governmental points of
institutions are closely related to the legitimacy of the political
view. Thus, new layers of agencies and offices have developed to
system.
comprise what may be called the office of the president or the
office of the prime minister. Supervision & enforcement

The trend is universal, but it is especially clear in developed While the classic distinction between deliberation (legislature) and
societies, in which industrialization has created the imperative of execution (executive) is no longer tenable, it is still true that the

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political executive is the agency of execution in the narrow sense. totalitarian ones, of persuading the elite. Second, there are
It supervises and controls all subordinate organs. However, systemic restraints —no leader can attempt a synthesis of policy
execution, properly speaking, is within the purview of the objectives and goals that does not reflect, up to a certain point,
bureaucracy. Executive decisions are general and comprehensive the existing demands and aspirations of the community. To go
in scope, and their detailed implementation is in the hands of the too far in suggesting policy goals is to become separated from
civil service and the various subordinate agencies. The political supporters; to stand still is to alienate the interests and the
executive, however, remains responsible for the organization and demands that could provide support. To be effective and to gain
reorganization of the machinery of government. It can create and approbation and support, the executive must gear its actions to
reorganize departments and agencies, establish the rules of the interests and demands within the system. As was pointed out
advancement and recruitment within the civil service, and set earlier, the limits of initiative and freedom of action may be wide
down procedures for making subordinate decisions. Ultimate and it is the task of leadership to discover them. But, failure to do
responsibility for lack of efficient execution will be focused on the so or miscalculation may lead to disapproval and rejection. Third,
political executive. But, it is increasingly understood that the there are various types of constitutional and procedural limitations
political executive establishes the procedures surrounding that trace the contours of executive power and provide for
bureaucratic decisions without assuming direct responsibility for executive responsibility. We already mentioned the formal
implementing or failing to implement them. A division of labor responsibility of the cabinet to the legislature. In presidential
between the political executive and the bureaucracy as a whole systems in which the chief executive is not directly responsible to
has developed and is reflected in different evaluations of roles the legislature—for example, in the United States and, to a certain
and functions and differing standards of responsibility. degree, in France–separation of powers, judicial review, legislative
scrutiny, and, in some instances, the direct association of one or
Executive restraints & responsibility
the other of the houses of legislature in the exercise of executive
The growth of executive power and the increasing scope of prerogatives impose restraint.
initiative and decision making call for a discussion of the existing
The substance of executive responsibility, however, lies in the
restraints and of the manner in which responsibility is
party system and in periodic elections. The party is both an
institutionalized. The restraints appear to be relatively few. First,
instrument at the disposal of the leader to attain power and carry
there is the burden, common to all political executives, including
out policies and a device that controls him, since without the

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support of the party, he is invariably helpless. As long as the party forms–either through the party system, through open competitive
acquiesces or agrees, the political executive is omnipotent in elections, or through well-articulated social grouping –have yet to
virtually all political systems, despite procedural limitations. To develop. As a result, no matter what the constitutional
lose the support of the party is to lose power. The political prescriptions, the top executive and his associates are often
executive is, in fact, both the leader and the prisoner of his party. removed from office because of mob violence, factional uprisings,
The only way to overcome party control is to appeal to the or military coups. It should be recalled, however, that executive
people. However, in totalitarian systems, there is no mechanism responsibility and the manner in which top political leadership is
for this, and even in democratic systems, where the mechanism is replaced or called to office did not become institutionalized in
readily available, such an occurrence is rare. Ramsay MacDonald most countries until the end of the nineteenth century and, in
did it in 1931, and Charles de Gaulle, in 1962. But the first was some European systems, not until the twentieth.
supported by a party other than his own, and the second
A typology of political executives
managed to overcome a badly divided and fragmented party
system. Theodore Roosevelt’s failure demonstrated the difficulty A typology of the political executive requires a prior typology of
of this procedure in the United States. The appeal to the people political systems. The two types that we discussed–cabinet and
through election provides the second type of responsibility. In presidential–represent descriptive, rather than analytical,
democratic societies, where basic freedoms are respected, an categories. The same is true of the widely used distinction
election is the most effective instrument of control and, ultimately, between “weak” and “strong” executives. A strong executive has
of executive responsibility. It gives the electorate the opportunity been defined in terms of stability in office and ability to make and
to approve or disapprove of policies and to choose between enforce decisions. This is the case when party support is
competing parties and leaderships. In totalitarian systems the forthcoming or when specific constitutional provisions secure the
executive is responsible to the party only. In all cases, however, stability and the independence of the executive. Weak executives,
we must consider the degree of freedom that surrounds an on the other hand, obtain wherever the parties are many or lack
election and the role and structure of political parties in internal discipline, so that the executive cannot rely upon a
democratic societies as opposed to the internal organization and disciplined majority in the legislature–a situation often prevalent
the degree of discipline within the party in a one-party totalitarian among multiparty cabinet systems. Thus, weak executives
system. We must look at the substance and not the form. This is generally accompany multiparty or weak-party configurations,
abundantly clear in the new nations, in which institutionalized
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while strong executives can accompany either two-party or Following Max Weber, the basis of executive legitimacy may be
disciplined-party systems. The key variable is the party, not the classified as rational, traditional, and charismatic [seeLegitimacy].
constitutional and procedural arrangements. In fact, it may be Rational legitimacy—the development of institutions and
argued that “executive leadership” and “strength” in West procedures that channel executive decision making and, hence,
Germany since World War ii and in France in the Fifth Republic legitimize it–is prevalent in both totalitarian and democratic
derive from the existence of a majority party rather than from systems. Traditional legitimacy is generally associated with static
constitutional arrangements. and primitive societies and is, therefore, characteristic of very few
contemporary executives. Charismatic legitimacy is most
To provide for an analytic typology, we shall use the concepts of
prevalent in intermediate stages of development–where tradition
power, legitimacy, and decision making. In terms of power,
has been exploded, but authority has not been institutionalized
absolute and qualified executives can be distinguished: the first is
and legitimized. This type includes many of the new Afro-Asian
endowed with unlimited powers, and the second operates within
nations.
accepted and formulated restraints. Unless we refer to extinct
satrapies and tyrannies, it will be difficult to identify absolute Finally, in terms of decision making, executives can be classified
executives today. Absolute power is qualified in several ways: by as monocratic or pluralistic, personal or collegial, arbitrary or
constitutional limitations (i.e., separation of powers), by shared limited. The obvious “syndromes” here are the “monocratic-
executive power (collegiality), and by clear procedures for personal–arbitrary” and the “pluralistic–collegial–limited.” But,
assuring the responsibility of the political executive to the party or these syndromes do not fit neatly in empirical situations–unless
to the people. The combination of constitutional limitations, we limit our comparisons arbitrarily (e.g., Great Britain versus a
collegiality, and responsibility characterizes the generic category Latin American dictatorship). Generally speaking, one can equate
of democratic executives. The absence of such characteristics or the “monocratic–personal-arbitrary” syndrome with totalitarian
the absence of their explicit formulation and effective systems and the “pluralistic-collegiallimited” one with democratic
implementation typifies the executives in closed polities, the most systems if it is remembered that ingredients of all six can be
prevalent of which are the modern totalitarian systems. found in all contemporary political systems. The types suggested
[SeeTotalitarianism.] are only analytical types; they must be carefully related to a
generalized theory of political systems in order to study the

259
empirical forms they take and the conditions under which they are and lodge them within the office of the president or the prime
likely to develop and change. minister.

Trends & prospects The multiplicity of the new functions and the growth of new
administrative structures to cope with them account for the
As we have seen, the burden of decision making thrust upon the
emergence of two opposed developmental trends: concentration
political executive has grown immensely. The effective
and diffusion. Concentration is a constitutional and political
performance of executive leadership calls for an unprecedented
requirement. Even in collegial executives, one man increasingly
balance between leadership and technical know-how, information
bears the responsibility for decision making. The growth of
and evaluation, specialization and coordination. Political
powers, the multiplicity of offices, and the division of tasks within
structures must adjust to new environmental demands. The
the executive have only underlined this. It has been heightened
adjustive process of the executive branch over the years,
by the considerations of defense and strategy. Institutionalized
particularly since World War I, has involved devolution,
forms such as the inner cabinet or the National Security Council
depoliticization, and the creation of new administrative organs.
are likely to give place to restricted committees of very few
Devolution is the delegation of the power to make decisions to
officials. Crisis government and corresponding flexible structures
subordinate organs or agencies. Every effort has been made to
to cope with crises have now become permanent aspects of
decongest the political executive by explicitly authorizing
executive decision making. Yet, at the same time, the more
subordinates or subordinate agencies and boards to make
important a decision, the more it is contingent upon a complex
decisions. Depoliticization is the process whereby certain issues
process of deliberation and consultation in which offices and men
are removed from the realm of political controversy and executive
with specialized tasks participate. It is increasingly diffuse and
discretion. Collective bargaining; wage fixing on the basis of a
bureaucratized, while it appears to be highly concentrated and
preagreed device that pegs wages on the cost of living index; and
often personal. A separation of powers that limits the ability of the
the establishment of public corporations, boards for nationalized
top executive to reach a decision and act is informally
industries, and regulatory commissions are some of the most
institutionalized within the political executive. Divergent points of
usual practices. Finally, an inevitable solution to the problem of
view, varying evaluations, and conflicting information about the
handling the new burdens is to create new agencies and offices
same situation confront the top political leader. As decision
making becomes routinized and bureaucratized, the top political

260
executive often becomes limited to ad hoc compromises and may
be reduced to immobility. This conflict, between the
concentration of decision making and the diffusion and
impersonality that go with the routinization of decision making,
must be resolved if the political executive is to play its role of
leadership effectively.

The trends we noted above apply primarily to the developed

political systems. In the new nations the executive, along with
virtually all other governmental structures, is still in the process of
establishing itself as a legitimized instrument of decision making.
The problem ahead is not so much finding a proper balance
between personal leadership and bureaucratic mechanisms for
decision making, but rather establishing viable and stable
structures with specialized roles and effective capabilities to
suggest policies and make decisions. Whether this will be
accomplished or not depends upon a great number of factors—
the development of a sense of community, agreement on the
basic rules of polity, the development of institutions with specific
tasks, and, above all, the routinization and institutionalization of
the personal government which continues to be the rule today.

The previous section is provided by

[Link]’s Political Executive.

261
Section 2

Foreign policy roles or the President & Congress

Tap on this link [Link]’s CRS Report to Congress: Foreign

Policy Roles of the President and Congress.

262
Section 3

Interest groups

Preamble to the microphone at the “Patriots of Tomorrow” awards

banquet, Lisa reads her revised essay, now titled “Cesspool on
The media often depict interest group lobbyists negatively in the the Potomac.” A whirlwind of reform-minded zeal follows.
news and in entertainment. One particular episode of The Congressman Arnold is caught accepting a bribe to allow oil
Simpsons provides an extreme example. Lisa Simpson writes an drilling on Mount Rushmore and is arrested and removed from
essay titled “The Roots of Democracy” that wins her a trip to office. Lisa does not win the essay contest.
Washington, DC, to compete for the best essay on patriotism
Congressman Arnold is corrupt, but the cartoon’s unpunished
award. She writes, “When America was born on that hot July day
instrument of corruption is the lobbyist.
in 1776, the trees in Springfield Forest were tiny saplings…and
as they were nourished by Mother Earth, so too did our fledgling Interest groups are intermediaries linking people to government,
nation find strength in the simple ideals of equality and justice.” and lobbyists work for them. These groups make demands on
government and try to influence public policies in their favor.
In Senator Bob Arnold’s office a lobbyist proposes to raze the
Their most important difference from political parties is that they
Springfield National Forest. Arnold responds, “Well, Jerry, you’re
do not seek elective office. Interest groups can be single entities,
a whale of a lobbyist, and I’d like to give you a logging permit, I
join associations, and have individual members. The University of
would. But this isn’t like burying toxic waste. People are going to
Texas at Austin is an educational institution. Its main purposes
notice those trees are gone.” The lobbyist offers a bribe, which
are teaching and research. Like other educational institutions, it
Arnold accepts.
is an interest group when it tries to influence government
Lisa sees it happen and tears up her essay. She sits on the steps policies. These policies include government funding for facilities
of the Capitol and envisions politicians as cats scratching each and student grants, loans, and work study. It may also try to
other’s backs and lobbyists as pigs feeding from a trough. Called influence laws and court decisions applying to research,

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admissions, gender equality in intercollegiate sports, and student the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial
records. It may ask members of Congress to earmark funds for Organizations (AFL-CIO).
some of its projects, thereby bypassing the normal competition
Economic interest groups represent every aspect of our economy,
with other universities for funds based on merit.
including agriculture, the arts, automobiles, banking, beverages,
Single entities often join forces in associations. Associations construction, defense, education, energy, finance, food, health,
represent their interests and make demands on government on housing, insurance, law, media, medicine, pharmaceuticals,
their behalf. The University of Texas belongs to the Association of sports, telecommunications, transportation, travel, and utilities.
American Universities. General Electric (GE) belongs to over These groups cover from head (i.e., the Headwear Institute of
eighty trade associations, each representing a different industry America) to toe (i.e., the American Podiatric Medical Association)
such as mining, aerospace, and home appliances. and from soup (i.e., the Campbell Soup Company) to nuts (i.e.,
the Peanut Butter and Nut Processors Association).
Many interest groups have individuals as members. People join
labor unions and professional organizations (e.g., associations for Societal interest groups
lawyers or political scientists) that claim to represent their
Societal interest groups focus on interests based on people’s
interests.
characteristics, such as age, gender, race, and ethnicity, as well
Types of interest groups as religion and sexual preference. The National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People(NAACP) is one of the oldest
Interest groups can be divided into five types: economic, societal, societal interest groups in the United States.
ideological, public interest, and governmental.
Ideological interest groups
Economic interest groups
Ideological interest groups promote a reactionary, conservative,
The major economic interest groups represent businesses, labor liberal, or radical political philosophy through research and
unions, and professions. Business interest groups consist of advocacy. Interest groups that take stands on such controversial
industries, corporations, and trade associations. Unions usually issues as abortion and gun control are considered ideological,
represent individual trades, such as the International Brotherhood although some might argue that they are actually public interest
of Teamsters. Most unions belong to an association, groups.
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Public interest groups intervention for themselves. These groups may give rise to
additional groups.
Public interest groups work for widely accepted concepts of the
common good, such as the family, human rights, and consumers. Some interest groups are created in reaction to an event or a
Although their goals are usually popular, some of their specific perceived grievance. The National Right to Life
positions (e.g., environmental groups opposing offshore drilling Committee (NRLC) was founded in 1973 in response to the US
for oil) may be controversial and challenged. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision earlier that year legalizing
abortion. However, groups may form long after the reasons for
Government interest groups establishing them are obvious. The NAACP was not founded until

Government interest groups consist of local, state, and foreign 1909 even though segregation of and discrimination against black

governments. They seek to influence the relevant policies and people had existed for many years.

expenditures of the federal government. Interest group entrepreneurs usually are important in the creation
of groups. Often they are responding to events in their lives. After
Life stages of interest groups
a drunk driver killed one of her daughters, Candy Lightner
Interest groups commonly experience a life cycle of creation (or founded Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) in 1980. She
birth), growth and change (or evolution), and sometimes death. thereby identified latent interests: people who could be grouped
together and organized to pursue what she made them realize
Creation was a shared goal, punishing and getting drunk drivers off the
road. She was helped by widespread media coverage that
As the United States has become more complex with new
brought public attention to her loss and cause.
technologies, products, services, businesses, and professions,
the US government has become more involved in the economy Evolution & demise
and society. People with common interests organize to solicit
support and solutions to their problems from government. Interest groups can change over time. The National Rifle
Policies enacted in response to the efforts of these groups affect Association (NRA) started out as a sports organization in the late
other people, who then form groups to seek government nineteenth century dedicated to improving its members’
marksmanship. It became an advocate for law and order in the

265
1960s, until its official support for the 1968 Gun Control Act and have little input when the leaders decide policy
brought dissension in its ranks. Since the election of new leaders objectives. Their participation is limited to sending in dues,
in 1977, the NRA has focused on the Second Amendment right to expressing opinions and, if membership is voluntary, leaving
bear arms, opposing legislation restricting the sale or distribution when dissatisfied.
of guns and ammunition.
Voluntary membership
Interest groups can also die. They may run out of funds. Their
People join membership interest groups voluntarily or because
issues may lose popularity or become irrelevant. Slavery no
they have no choice.
longer exists in the United States and thus neither does the
American Anti-Slavery Society. When membership is voluntary, interest groups must recruit and
try to retain members. Members help fund the group’s activities,
How interest groups are organized
legitimize its objectives, and add credibility with the media.

Interest groups have leaders and staff. They control the group, Some people may not realize or accept that they have shared
decide its policy objectives, and recruit and represent members. interests with others on a particular issue. For example, many
young adults download music from the Internet, but few of them
Leaders & staff
have joined the Future of Music Coalition, which is developing
Leaders and top staff usually run the interest group. They do so ways to do this legally. Others may be unwilling to court conflict
because they command its resources and information flow and by joining a group representing oppressed minorities or
have the experience and expertise to deal with public policies espousing controversial or unpopular views even when they agree
that are often complex and technical. Almost a century ago, with the group’s views.
Robert Michels identified this control by an organization’s leaders
People do not need to join an interest group voluntarily when they
and staff and called it “the iron law of oligarchy.”
can benefit from its activities without becoming a member. This is
This oligarchy, or rule by the few, applies to single-entity interest the problem of collective goods. Laws successfully lobbied for by
groups and to most associations. Their leaders are appointed or environmental organizations that lead to cleaner air and water
elected and select the staff. Even in many membership benefit members and nonmembers alike. However, the latter get a
organizations, the people who belong do not elect the leaders free ride.
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There are three types of incentives that, alone or in combination, Public Interest (CSPI) is a consumer organization that focuses on
may overcome this free-rider problem. food and nutrition issues, produces quality research, and has
A purposive incentive leads people voluntarily to join and media savvy. It is a valuable source of expertise and information
contribute money to a group because they want to help the group for journalists. The frequent and favorable news coverage it
achieve its goals. Membership in the American Civil Liberties receives brings the group and its activities to the public’s
Union (ACLU) increased by one hundred thousand in the eighteen attention and encourages people to support and join it.
months following the 9/11 attacks as the group raised concerns
News coverage of an interest group does not always have to be
that the government’s antiterrorism campaign was harming civil
favorable to attract members. Oftentimes, stories about the NRA
liberties. [10] In addition, people may join groups, such as
in major newspapers are negative. Presenting this negative
the Union of Concerned Scientists, because of
coverage as bias and hostility against and attacks on gun owners,
a solidary incentive. The motivation to join the group stems from
the group’s leaders transform it into purposive and solidary
the pleasure of interacting with like-minded individuals and the
incentives. They use e-mail “to power membership mobilization,
gratification of publicly expressing one’s beliefs.
fund raising, single-issue voting and the other actions-in-solidarity
People may also join groups to that contribute to [their] success.”
obtain material incentives available only to members. AARP,
Groups also make personalized appeals to recruit members and
formerly the American Association of Retired Persons, has around
solicit financial contributions. Names of people who might be
thirty-five million members. It obtains this huge number by
sympathetic to a group are obtained by purchasing mailing lists
charging a nominal annual membership fee and offering such
from magazines, other groups, and political parties. Recruitment
material incentives as health insurance and reduced prices for
letters and e-mails often feature scare statements, such as a
prescription drugs. The group’s magazine is sent to members and
claim that Social Security is in jeopardy.
includes tax advice, travel and vacation information, and
discounts. Interest groups recruit members, publicize their activities, and
pursue their policy objectives through the new media. The Save
Recruitment
Our Environment Action Center consists of twenty national
One-way interest groups recruit members is through media environmental groups pooling their databases of supporters and
coverage. The appealingly named Center for Science in the establishing a website. Through this network, people can receive
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informational newsletters via e-mail, sign petitions, and contact Strikes are the union action most often shown in the news. These
their representatives. are usually framed not as legitimate collective tactics to improve
wages and working conditions, but as hurting or inconveniencing
Required membership
consumers by disrupting services (e.g., suspending classes in
Employment in most automobile plants requires that workers are elementary and high schools) and causing the cancellation of
members of the International Union, United Automobile, events (e.g., professional sporting games).
Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW).
Unions are rare in movies. Norma Rae (1979), Matewan (1987),
Workers fought to establish unions to improve their wages,
and the documentary Harlan County, USA (1977), favorably
working conditions, and job opportunities. One way of achieving
portray workers’ struggles to organize and strike for better
these objectives was to require all workers at a plant to be union
working conditions, wages, and security, against exploiting
members. But union membership has plummeted as the United
employers. But in the classic union film, the Academy Award–
States has moved from a manufacturing to a service economy
winning On the Waterfront (1954), the union is corrupt, violent,
and employers have effectively discouraged unionization. Many
and linked to organized crime; the union leaders exploit members
jobs do not have unions for workers to join whether they want to
to enrich themselves.
or not. Today only about 12 percent of workers belong to a union
compared to a high of 35.5 percent in 1945. Only 7 percent of Representation
private sector workers belong to a union. A majority of union
Groups claim to represent the interests of their members or
members now work for the government.
constituents, but these interests may conflict. In an extensive
Media depictions of unions study, Dara Z. Strolovitch found that civil rights organizations
prioritized the interests of their middle-class members over the
One reason for the decline of unions is their mainly negative
interests of the poor and working class. For example, they
portrayal in the mass media. There are hardly any labor-beat
pushed for affirmative action rather than welfare and antipoverty
reporters in the news media, so union officials are infrequently
policies.
used as sources and are consequently unable to frame union
news to their advantage. A problem for AARP is that, aside from being fifty or over, its
members may have little in common. In 1988, AARP supported

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legislation setting up a catastrophic health insurance plan in voters in several states, including Arkansas, West Virginia, and
Medicare to provide insurance for elderly people faced with huge Gore’s home state of Tennessee. Had any of these states gone for
medical bills for major illnesses. After the plan went into effect, Gore, he would have won the election.
many seniors objected to the increase in their Medicare premiums
Interest groups can promote candidates through television and
and an annual surtax of as high as $800. Their complaints were
radio advertisements. During the 2004 presidential election, the
widely covered in the media. Congress repealed the program the
NRA ran a thirty-minute infomercial in battleground states
next year.
favoring President George W. Bush and calling his opponent “the
Even when members share a group’s general goals they may most anti-gun presidential nominee in United States history.” In
reject some of its policy proposals or tactics. In 2009, Apple quit 2008, the NRA issued ads endorsing Republican presidential
the US Chamber of Commerce because the chamber opposed candidate John McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin.
global-warming legislation.
Endorsements do carry risks. If the endorsed candidate loses, the
Interest groups & elections unendorsed winner is likely to be unsympathetic to the group.
Thus relatively few interest groups endorse presidential
Interest groups become involved in elections to influence
candidates and most endorsements are based on ideology.
policymakers. They may contribute funds, make independent
expenditures, advocate issues, and mobilize voters. Wealthy Funding candidates
groups help pay for the presidential nominating conventions and
Made possible by the 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act
the presidential inauguration. They give funds to political parties
(FECA),political action committees (PACs) are a means for
because “by helping party leaders retain or regain control of the
organizations, including interest groups, to raise funds and
House or Senate, policymaking rewards…follow.”
contribute to candidates in federal elections. Approximately one-
Endorsing candidates third of the funds received by candidates for the House of
Representatives and one-fifth of funds for Senate candidates
Interest groups may endorse candidates for office and, if they
come from PACs.
have the resources, mobilize members and sympathizers to work
and vote for them. President Bill Clinton blamed the NRA for Al However, in January 2010 the Supreme Court ruled that the
Gore losing the 2000 presidential election because it influenced government cannot ban political spending by corporations in
269
candidate elections. The court majority justified the decision on legislators. A businessman defending his company’s PAC is
the grounds of the First Amendment’s free speech clause. The quoted as saying, “Talking to politicians is fine, but with a little
dissenters argued that allowing unlimited spending by money they hear you better.”
corporations on political advertising would corrupt democracy.
Much better. The Center for Responsive Politics shows
Many interest groups value candidates’ power above their correlations between campaign contributions and congressional
ideology or voting record. Most PAC funds, especially from voting. After the House of Representatives voted 220–215 in 2003
corporations, go to incumbents. Chairs and members of to pass the Medicare drug bill, the organization reported that
congressional committees and subcommittees who make policies “lawmakers who voted to approve the legislation have raised an
relevant to the group are particularly favored. The case of Enron, average of roughly twice as much since 1999 from individuals and
although extreme, graphically reveals such funding. Of the 248 PACs associated with health insurers, HMOs [Health Maintenance
members of Congress on committees that investigated the 2002 Organizations] and pharmaceutical manufacturers as those who
accounting scandals and collapse of the giant corporation, 212 voted against the bill.”
had received campaign contributions from Enron or its
accounting firm, Arthur Andersen. Interest Groups & the political system

Some interest groups do fund candidates on the basis of ideology In the book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, John J.
and policy preference. Ideological and public interest groups base Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt argue that the activities of
support on candidates’ views even if their defeat is likely. Pro-life interest groups, notably the American Israel Public Affairs
organizations mainly support Republicans; pro-choice Committee, are one reason why, since World War II, the United
organizations mainly support Democrats. States has provided more direct economic and military support to
Israel than any other ally and pursues a policy of preserving and
The interest group–candidate relationship is a two-way street.
enhancing Israel’s security. This raises the question of why
Many candidates actively solicit support from interest groups on
interest groups succeed or fail to achieve their policy objectives.
the basis of an existing or the promise of a future relationship.
Candidates obtain some of the funds necessary for their Why Interest Groups Are (or Are Not) Successful
campaigns from interest groups; the groups who give them
money get the opportunity to make their case to sympathetic The main factors determining an interest group’s effectiveness are
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its assets, objectives, alliances, the visibility of its involvement in Objectives
policy decisions, and its responses to political change and crises,
The ease or difficulty of achieving a group’s goals can determine
plus, of course, the media’s depiction of it.
its success. Preventing legislation from being enacted is usually
Assets easier than passing it. In a comprehensive study of interest group
activities during the last two years of the Clinton administration
Successful interest groups have prestige, respected leadership,
and the first two years of the George W. Bush administration,
political skills, and ample finances. The Business Roundtable,
researchers found that although some advocates succeed
composed of the chief executives of the two hundred leading
eventually in changing policy, “[t]he vast bulk of lobbying in
corporations, has them all and thus has access to and influence
Washington has to do not with the creation of new programs, but
on policymakers. Monetary assets allow groups to contribute to
rather with the adjustment of existing programs or with the
political campaigns through their political action committees
maintenance of programs just as they are.”
(PACs).
Moreover, legislation enacted over the opposition of powerful
The status and distribution of an interest group’s members also
interest groups, tends to be watered down. Or the political costs
contribute to its success. Automobile dealers are influential and
of its passage are so heavy that its proponents in the presidential
live, as do their employees, in congressional districts across the
administration and Congress are discouraged from challenging
country. After President Barack Obama proposed putting
the groups again.
automobile loans under the oversight of a new federal consumer
authority aimed at protecting borrowers from abusive lender, the Alliances
dealers’ lobbying arm, the National Automobile Dealers
Interest groups sometimes cooperate with other groups to help
Association, organized opposition, including trips to Washington
them achieve a policy objective they could not accomplish alone.
for some of the eighteen thousand dealers to meet and plead
A coalition expands resources, broadens expertise, and adds to
their case with their legislators. Congress exempted auto dealers
the credibility of the policy objectives. Alliances are often of
from the regulation.
natural allies such as the National Restaurant Association,
the American Nursery and Landscape Association, and
theNational Council of Agricultural Employers, who united to

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oppose restrictions on immigration and penalties on businesses benefits provided for veterans. In general, the news media pay
that employ illegal immigrants. But they can be made up of little attention to iron triangles in the absence of conflict and
strange bedfellows, as when the American Civil Liberties Union controversy, and interest groups are likely to achieve many of
(ACLU) and the National Rifle Association (NRA) allied to oppose their objectives.
the US Department of Justice putting raw, unsubstantiated data
Political change & crises
into a national computer network. For the ACLU, it was a violation
of people’s right to privacy; for the NRA, it was a move toward Whether interest groups defend what they have or go on the
denying people the right to bear arms. offense to gain new benefits often depends on who is in control
of the government. Some interest groups’ goals are supported or
Visibility of policy involvement
opposed far more by one political party than another. A new
Interest groups are often most successful when their activities are president or a change in party control of Congress usually
unreported by the media, unscrutinized by most policymakers, benefits some groups while putting others at a disadvantage. The
and hidden from the public. Opposition to a group’s activities is Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in the 2010
difficult when they are not visible. As one lobbyist observed, “A election put a brake on new regulation of business by Congress,
lobby is like a night flower, it thrives in the dark and dies in the reduced funds for regulators to hire staff and enforce regulation,
sun.” and limited investigations of industry practices.

In what are called iron triangles, or subgovernments, policy on a Crises, especially ones extensively depicted by the media, often
subject is often made by a relatively few people from Congress, involve politicians and interest groups trying to achieve or prevent
the bureaucracy, and interest groups. A classic iron triangle has policy changes. Looking to exploit the horrific BP (British
been veterans’ affairs policy. Members of Congress chairing the Petroleum) oil spill of 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico (which was
relevant committees and subcommittees and their aides, key widely covered in the media and replete with images of the oil-
agency administrators from the US Department of Veterans infested waters and oil-coated beaches and wildlife),
Affairs, and representatives from interest groups such as the environmentalists and their congressional allies worked for
American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) have “measures to extend bans on new offshore drilling, strengthen
interacted and dominated policymaking. This policymaking has safety and environmental safeguards, and raise to $10 billion or
taken place with low visibility and very little opposition to the more the cap on civil liability for an oil producer in a
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spill.” Opposing them were the oil and gas industry, which, The relationships between interest groups and policymakers vary
according to the Center for Responsive Politics, spent $174.8 depending on the administration in power. Energy companies had
million on lobbying in 2009, and its allies in Congress from such a close political support and referral relationship with the George
oil states as Texas and Louisiana. W. Bush administration but primarily a pressure relationship with
the Obama administration. Relationships also vary by subject. For
Relations between interest groups & policymakers example, a Democratic president’s choice to head the US
Department of Labor may have to be acceptable to the American
When viewed overall, there is a hierarchy in the influence of
Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations
relations between interest groups and policymakers.
(AFL-CIO), but the union organization has little influence over
• At the top, the interest group makes policy. This is uncommon. other cabinet appointments.

• More common, the group maintains close political relations with Who Benefits from Interest Groups?
policymakers.
In Federalist No. 10, James Madison warns of the dangers of
• The group has an unchallengeable veto status over some factions: “[A] number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority
governmental decisions, for example, over a presidential or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some
appointment. common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights
of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of
• The group receives some attention from policymakers but
the community.” Madison believed that factions were inevitable,
mainly has a pressure relationship with them.
because their causes were “sown in the nature of man.”

• The group has only a potential reprisal relationship with

Madison’s factions are not exactly today’s interest groups.
policymakers; it can threaten to oppose a member of Congress
Indeed, interest groups, by representing diverse segments of
at the next election.
society, offset one of Madison’s concerns—the domination of the

• At the bottom of the ladder, rejected by policymakers, the group majority. Nonetheless, his warning raises important questions
is left to agitate and resist; its public demonstrations usually about the effects of interest groups.
signify its inability to achieve its objectives by less visible
means.
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Pluralism: Competition among Groups economics. A corporation can deploy multiple lobbyists and
obtain access to various policymakers by joining several trade
Briefly stated, pluralism is the theory that competition among
groups, belonging to business associations such as the US
interest groups produces compromise and balance among
Chamber of Commerce, and using its CEO and other personnel
competing policy preferences. For pluralists, the abundance of
from headquarters to lobby.
interest groups, the competition between them, and their
representation of interests in society are inherent in American Business and trade associations make up approximately 70
democracy. Bargaining between groups and ever-changing group percent of the organizations with representation in Washington,
alliances achieve a desirable dispersion of power or at least an DC. Add interest groups representing professionals, and they
acceptable balancing of the various interests in society. account for approximately 85 percent of total spending on
lobbying.
Pluralists acknowledge that some groups might dominate areas
where their interests are paramount. But they believe two factors Quite often a policy appears only to affect specific corporations
rectify this situation. Inoverlapping membership, people belonging or industries and therefore does not receive much media or public
to several interest groups encourage negotiation and attention. The Walt Disney Company’s copyright on Mickey
compromise. And underrepresented people will in time establish Mouse was due to expire in 2003 and those on Pluto, Goofy, and
groups to assert their interests. Donald Duck would expire soon after. In 2000, after lobbying and
well-placed campaign contributions by Disney, Congress
The Advantage of Business extended all copyrights for twenty more years.

An argument against pluralism is that business has an advantage Business is not monolithic. Interests conflict between and among
over other segments of society, particularly the poor and the industries, individual corporations, and organizations representing
working class. These Americans lack the disposable income and professionals. Large businesses can have different objectives
political skills to organize. The issues that concern them are often than small businesses. The interests of manufacturers,
absent from the policy agenda. Business sponsors political distributors, and retailers can clash. Moreover, even when
advertisements, gives campaign contributions through PACs, business is united, its demands are not necessarily gratified
donates to political parties, hires law and public relations firms, immediately and absolutely, especially when the issue is visible
and funds research advocacy groups promoting free-market and the demands provoke opposition.
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Negative Depictions of Business However, the negative view of business is incarnated in the
enduring image of the chairman of the seven leading tobacco
The media often depict business interest groups negatively, which
companies testifying before Congress
can limit the groups’ influence. Witness, for example, stories
about the dubious dealings and bankruptcy of corporations such Enduring image
as Enron, the trials of corporate leaders who have pillaged their
On April 14, 1994, the chief executives of the leading tobacco
companies, and the huge salaries and bonuses paid in financial
companies stood up, raised their right hands, and swore before
and related business sectors.
members of the subcommittee on Health and the Environment of
Corporations and their executives are commonly the villains in the House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy and
popular films including RoboCop (1987), Wall Street (1987), The Commerce that nicotine was not addictive. The photograph of
Naked Gun 2 and ½: The Smell of Fear (1991), and the this moment, prominently featured in the US and foreign media,
documentaries of Michael Moore, particularlyRoger and has become an enduring image of business executives who place
Me (1989). Television news stories oftentimes portray the big the interests and profits of their corporations above the public
business sector as buying access and favors with lavish interest even if it requires them to engage in self-deception, defy
campaign contributions and other indulgences, wielding undue common sense about the dangers of their products, and give
influence on the policy process, and pursuing its interests at the deceptive testimony under oath.
expense of the national interest. [18] Newspapers similarly frame
Had one sat through the several hours of hearings, watched them
business interest groups and their lobbyists as involved in
on television, or read the transcript, the executives would have
dubious activities and exercising power for private greed. Typical
come across as less defiant and more reasonable. They agreed to
is the New York Times’ headline: “Vague Law and Hard Lobbying
give Congress unpublished research documents, acknowledged
Add Up to Billions for Big Oil.”
that cigarettes may cause various health problems including
These stories could frame business interest groups more cancer and heart disease, and admitted that they would prefer
positively. They could point out that business lobbyists favor that their children not smoke. [20] But the photo and its brief
essential and deserving objectives, present information and valid explanatory caption, not the complicated hearings, are the
arguments to policymakers, and make their proposals in a enduring image.
political arena (i.e., Congress) in competition with other groups.
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Why does this image of venal, almost criminal, tobacco may be suitable for advertisements. The Lockheed Martin
executives endure? Simply put, television news’ continuing Corporation has advertised in the policy-oriented National
coverage of the litigation by state attorneys general against the Journal in order to reach Washington insiders and policymakers.
tobacco companies required vivid video to illustrate and
Some interest groups engage in public relations campaigns.
dramatize an otherwise bland story. What better choice than the
Walmart paid $10 million annually in order to counter lobbying
footage of the seven tobacco executives? Thus the image
groups that were funded by two unions. These unions were
circulated over and over again on the nightly news and is widely
critical of the retail giant’s low wages, inadequate health care, and
available on the Internet years later.
discrimination against women. The public relations campaign
Interest groups in the Information Age promoted the company’s positive activities and responded to
criticisms.
Media Interactions
Public relations is not confined to American interest groups.
Many business interest groups try not to interact with the news Approximately 160 foreign governments have US public relations
media at all. They avoid media attention, particularly when it is consultants or lobbyists representing them in communicating with
likely to be negative. They prefer to pursue their policy the US media, policymakers, and the public. The firms instruct
preferences out of the media’s and the public’s sight and scrutiny. their clients on how to deal with the media, arrange meetings for
them with journalists, set up editorial briefings, pitch stories to
Public relations
reporters and editors, and try to create newsworthy events. These
Other interest groups have the need or the resources to strive for tactics usually succeed in increasing and improving the countries’
a favorable image and promote themselves and their policy news coverage and images.
preferences. One way is through advertising. They place
Occasionally, the media expose this public relations activity.
advertisements on the television networks’ evening news shows
The New York Times revealed that, in part because fifteen of the
in policymakers’ constituencies, such as Washington, DC, and
nineteen terrorists involved with the attacks on 9/11 were Saudi
New York, where opinion leaders will see them and in prominent
Arabian, the Saudi “government has spent millions of dollars on
newspapers, such as the New York Times, Washington Post,
well-connected lobbyists and national television advertisements
and Wall Street Journal. Even media outlets with tiny audiences
since 9-11 in a drive to improve its image among Americans.”
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Advocacy Campaigns Attracting Media Attention

A few interest groups engage in advocacy campaigns through the Most interest groups do not engage in advocacy campaigns.
media. A notable example took place during the 1994 attempt by Indeed, they lack sufficient funds to advertise at all. Yet coverage
the Clinton administration to change the US health-care system. in the news media is essential, especially for many public interest
Some $60 million was spent on advertising, with opponents groups, if they are to recruit members, raise funds, improve their
outspending supporters two to one. access to policymakers, and obtain public support for their
objectives. So they hold news conferences, issue press releases,
The Health Insurance Association of America (now
release research studies, give interviews to journalists, and try to
named America’s Health Insurance Plans), representing small to
have their spokespeople appear on talk radio and television
medium-sized insurance companies, waged the most effective
public affairs shows. Their problem is that there are far more
public campaign. Under the appealing name of the Coalition for
groups seeking news coverage than the media can or do
Health Insurance Choices, it spent around $14 million creating
accommodate.
and showing television ads in which a woman (Louise) and her
spouse (Harry) critically comment on alleged defects in the Interest groups deploy several techniques to attract media
president’s health-care proposal. “Having choices we don’t like is coverage. Among them are the catchy phrase, the telling statistic,
no choice at all,” says Louise in one ad. No direct reference was the scorecard, and the poll. Charlton Heston embodied the
made to the health insurance industry behind the ad. catchy phrase. While he was president and spokesperson of the
National Rifle Association (NRA), he held up a musket during its
The ads were aimed at members of Congress and thus aired
annual meeting and told members that the only way he would
mostly in Washington, DC, and on CNN. They attracted news
give up his gun is when they pry it “from my cold dead hands.”
coverage, which amplified awareness about, attributed influence
to, and enhanced their effects. This attention increased even This media-attention-getting phrase became his trademark, which
more when the Clintons made a parody version of the ad. By he repeated with other guns at subsequent conventions. They
framing the administration’s proposal in terms of high cost and were the last words he uttered before he officially stepped down
big government, the ads contributed to its defeat in Congress. It from the NRA’s presidency in 2003.
would not be until 2010 that reform of health care would be
achieved.
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Another technique is the telling statistic. A report titled City “California family farmers” (the word “family” encouraged a
Slickers: How Farm Subsidy Checks End Up in Big Cities from positive response), the phrase “financial responsibility” is quite
the Environmental Working Group achieved widespread and vague, and the 71 percent figure was achieved by adding the 44
prominent publicity when it revealed that $1.2 million per year in percent “definite yes” response to the 27 percent “probably yes”
agricultural subsidies was going to people living in the 90210 zip response.
code, which is, as most Americans know from the television show
Disproportionate Coverage
of the same name, urban and affluent Beverly Hills. Because farm
subsidies are traditionally justified as preserving and protecting Most news coverage of societal and public interest groups goes
family farms, the report persuasively reframed the issue as only to a few. According to an article by Lucig H. Danielian and
government subsidies of wealthy corporate farm interests. Benjamin Page, “The media seize upon a few prominent
individuals or groups to speak for broad sets of interests.”
Some interest groups issue scorecards that enable journalists
easily to report how policymakers have voted on issues of Witness a study of 244 interest groups in fourteen major
concern to the group’s members and the public. The League of newspapers, two news magazines, and the top three television
Conservation Voters has released a list to the press during networks. The single most-covered group in each of four policy
election years of the “Dirty Dozen” members of Congress with the areas received around 40 percent of all the coverage in that area.
supposedly worst records on the environment. The legislators These were the Sierra Club on the environment, theCouncil on
targeted are usually in close races and some 60 percent of them Foreign Relations on national security and foreign policy,
have been defeated. theAmerican Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for civil rights, and
the Christian Coalition of America on broad matters of public
Interest groups also pay for or conduct public opinion polls,
policy. The figure reaches approximately 68 percent when the
sometimes with questions that frame the issue to push the public
number of groups is raised to twelve (5 percent of the total
toward their point of view. During the California water shortage of
number) to include the National Association for the Advancement
2001, the California Farm Bureau released a poll showing that 71
of Colored People (NAACP), Greenpeace, and a few others. In
percent of those polled believed “that the federal government has
contrast, 34 percent of the interest groups did not appear in a
a financial responsibility to help keep California’s farmers in
single story.
agriculture production.” The actual question asked about

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The larger a group’s budget, the more likely it is to be covered. Disproportionate coverage of a few societal and public interest
These groups have staff to communicate with the media, hold groups enhances their importance and the impression that each
regular press conferences, provide the press with dependable one represents a policy area. Instead, there is often a spectrum of
information, stage events with dramatic visuals and symbolism, interest groups across areas. Sparse or nonexistent coverage of
and make news by suing the government. They also are covered these interest groups means that the media do not bring their
because reporters return repeatedly to sources that are familiar to demands, activities, and policy perspectives to the attention of
them and their audiences. policymakers and the public.

Most news organizations are not inclined to incur the expense of Unfavorable media depictions of labor unions reinforce their
investigating interest groups’ organization and claims of negative stereotypes. This coverage reduces public support for
accomplishments. Nor are they able to obtain easy access to the unions’ organizing efforts and discourages people from voluntarily
groups’ records. For ten years, the Christian Coalition was the joining unions. It discredits striking as a desirable or even
most prominent interest group of the religious right. Journalists appropriate way for unions to achieve their objectives.
took the claims of its leaders at face value. Only later did former
Media coverage of business interest groups conveys their power.
national leaders who had left the group reveal to the press that
It limits this power by framing it as excessive and adverse to the
the number of members had been inflated.
public interest and by exposing some of it as greed and
Media Consequences exploitation. This coverage affects public opinion. Of the people
polled about “the power of different groups in influencing
Media depictions matter. Favorable coverage of public interest
government policy, politicians, and policymakers in Washington”
groups seeking to protect the environment and consumers has
and which groups had “too much” influence, 86 percent selected
helped get their issues on the policy agenda and some of their
“big companies,” 83 percent chose “political action committees
proposals enacted. The breast cancer lobby is far more
which give money to political candidates,” and 71 percent picked
successful at shaping media coverage and thus influencing public
“political lobbyists.” Overwhelmingly, people have the impression
opinion and determining public policy (including government
that government is run by a few big interests. In November 2005,
funding) than the prostate cancer lobby, even though the
90 percent of respondents to a Harris poll (up from 83 percent the
diseases have almost identical morbidity and mortality rates.

279
previous year) said big companies had too much influence on
government.

No wonder interest groups become issues in elections. Each

party accuses the other of being beholden to “special interests”
and of unsavory relationships with lobbyists. The media pursue
stories about interest group contributions and of lobbyists holding
prominent staff positions in candidates’ campaigns. Democratic
presidential candidate Barack Obama refused in the 2008
presidential election to accept contributions from registered
lobbyists and political action committees (PACs). Republican
nominee John McCain established a conflict-of-interest policy
that resulted in the resignation or dismissal of several members of
his campaign staff who were registered as lobbyists.

The previous section is provided by [Link]’s

Interest Groups.

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Section 4

Political parties

Preamble prognosis for the Democratic Party was more pessimistic.

Clymer quoted a Democratic Party leader as saying, “God knows
A favorite pastime of political journalists is periodically assessing we need help” and another who observed that his party had “run
the state of political parties, usually in conjunction with national out of gas.” [1] He argued that the Democrats lacked a unified
elections. Journalists are rarely optimistic or complimentary message or a clear leader, and quoted a party activist: “Our party
when describing parties’ present status or forecasting their has so many disparate points of influence that we can never
future. However, history has shown that the Democratic and focus enough to achieve our programs.” [2]
Republican parties are amazingly enduring institutions, even
In hindsight, Clymer’s predictions are not entirely accurate,
when the mass media have sold them short.
especially after the victory of Democratic president Barack
Reporters routinely take stock of the parties, and their prognosis Obama in 2008, and illustrate the pitfalls of speculating about the
is typically bleak and filled with foreboding. In 2003, New York future of political parties. However, his observations raise
Times political reporter Adam Clymer took stock of the important ideas about American parties. Political parties are
Democratic and Republican parties in a series of front-page enduring and adaptive institutions whose organization and
articles. “With the Congress thinly divided along partisan lines, functions change in response to different political and historical
another presidential election taking shape, and the rules of circumstances. [3] The two major American political parties, the
campaign finance in limbo, the two national political parties are Republicans and the Democrats, each have gone through
at crucial turning points,” he wrote. Clymer described a periods of popularity, decline, and resurgence.
revitalized Republican Party that was looking forward to an era of
The Democratic and Republican parties have dominated for over
political dominance after having had “one foot in the grave” for
150 years because of their ability to adapt to changing political
more than twenty years since the Watergate scandal in 1974. His
and cultural circumstances. In the early decades of the republic,

281
when voting rights were limited to male landowners, parties argue initiated a period of decline. The renewed parties of today
formed around charismatic leaders such as Thomas Jefferson are service-oriented organizations dispensing assistance and
and John Adams. When voting rights were extended, parties resources to candidates and politicians. [3]
changed to accommodate the public. As immigrants came to the
Fear of Faction
United States and settled in urban areas, party machines
emerged and socialized the immigrants to politics. The founders of the Constitution were fearful of the rise of
factions, groups in society that organize to advance a political
Parties also have adapted to changes in the media environment.
agenda. They designed a government of checks and balances
When radio and television were new technologies, parties
that would prevent any one group from becoming too influential.
incorporated them into their strategies for reaching voters,
James Madison famously warned in Federalist No. 10 of the
including through advertising. More recently, the Republican and
“mischiefs of faction,” particularly a large majority that could seize
Democratic parties have advanced their use of the Internet and
control of government. [4] The suspicion of parties persisted
digital media for campaigning, fundraising, and issue advocacy.
among political leaders for more than a half century after the
History of American Political Parties founding. President James Monroe opined in 1822, “Surely our
government may go on and prosper without the existence of
Political parties are enduring organizations under whose labels parties. I have always considered their existence as the curse of
candidates seek and hold elective offices. [1] Parties develop and the country.” [5]
implement rules governing elections. They help organize
government leadership. [2] Political parties have been likened to Despite the ambiguous feelings expressed by the founders, the

public utilities, such as water and power companies, because first modern political party, the Federalists, appeared in the

they provide vital services for a democracy. United States in 1789, more than three decades before parties
developed in Great Britain and other western nations. [6] Since
The endurance and adaptability of American political parties is 1798, the United States has only experienced one brief period
best understood by examining their colorful historical without national parties, from 1816 to 1827, when infighting
development. Parties evolved from factions in the eighteenth following the War of 1812 tore apart the Federalists and the
century to political machines in the nineteenth century. In the Republicans. [7]
twentieth century, parties underwent waves of reform that some

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Parties as Factions The Federalists & the Republicans

The first American party system had its origins in the period The Federalist Party originated at the national level but soon
following the Revolutionary War. Despite Madison’s warning in extended to the states, counties, and towns. Hamilton used
Federalist No. 10, the first parties began as political factions. business and military connections to build the party at the
Upon taking office in 1789, President George Washington sought grassroots level, primarily in the Northeast. Because voting rights
to create an “enlightened administration” devoid of political had been expanded during the Revolutionary War, the Federalists
parties. [8] He appointed two political adversaries to his cabinet, sought to attract voters to their party. They used their newfound
Alexander Hamilton as treasury secretary and Thomas Jefferson organization for propagandizing and campaigning for candidates.
as secretary of state, hoping that the two great minds could work They established several big-city newspapers to promote their
together in the national interest. Washington’s vision of a cause, including the Gazette of the United States, the Columbian
government without parties, however, was short-lived. Centinel, and the American Minerva, which were supplemented
by broadsheets in smaller locales. This partisan press initiated
Hamilton and Jefferson differed radically in their approaches to
one of the key functions of political parties—articulating positions
rectifying the economic crisis that threatened the new
on issues and influencing public opinion. [11]
nation. [9] Hamilton proposed a series of measures, including a
controversial tax on whiskey and the establishment of a national Disillusioned with Washington’s administration, especially its
bank. He aimed to have the federal government assume the foreign policy, Jefferson left the cabinet in 1794. Jefferson urged
entire burden of the debts incurred by the states during the his friend James Madison to take on Hamilton in the press,
Revolutionary War. Jefferson, a Virginian who sided with local stating, “For God’s sake, my Dear Sir, take up your pen, select
farmers, fought this proposition. He believed that moneyed your most striking heresies, and cut him to pieces in the face of
business interests in the New England states stood to benefit the public.” [12] Madison did just that under the pen name of
from Hamilton’s plan. Hamilton assembled a group of powerful Helvidius. His writings helped fuel an anti-Federalist opposition
supporters to promote his plan, a group that eventually became movement, which provided the foundation for the Republican
the Federalist Party. [10] Party. This early Republican Party differs from the present-day
party of the same name. Opposition newspapers, the National
Gazette and the Aurora, communicated the Republicans’ views

283
and actions, and inspired local groups and leaders to align Infighting soon caused the Republicans to cleave into warring
themselves with the emerging party. [13] TheWhiskey Rebellion in factions: the National Republicans and the Democratic-
1794, staged by farmers angered by Hamilton’s tax on whiskey, Republicans. [16]
reignited the founders’ fears that violent factions could overthrow
the government. [14] Establishment of a Party System

First Parties in a Presidential Election A true political party system with two durable institutions
associated with specific ideological positions and plans for
Political parties were first evident in presidential elections in 1796, running the government did not begin to develop until 1828. The
when Federalist John Adams was barely victorious over Democratic-Republicans, which became the Democratic Party,
Republican Thomas Jefferson. During the election of 1800, elected their presidential candidate, Andrew Jackson. The Whig
Republican and Federalist members of Congress met formally to Party, an offshoot of the National Republicans, formed in
nominate presidential candidates, a practice that was a precursor opposition to the Democrats in 1834. [17]
to the nominating conventions used today. As the head of state
and leader of the Republicans, Jefferson established the The era of Jacksonian Democracy, which lasted until the outbreak
American tradition of political parties as grassroots organizations of the Civil War, featured the rise of mass-based party politics.
that band together smaller groups representing various interests, Both parties initiated the practice of grassroots campaigning,
run slates of candidates for office, and present issue including door-to-door canvassing of voters and party-sponsored
platforms. [15] picnics and rallies. Citizens voted in record numbers, with
turnouts as high as 96 percent in some states. [18] Campaign
The early Federalist and Republican parties consisted largely of buttons publically displaying partisan affiliation came into vogue.
political officeholders. The Federalists not only lacked a mass Thespoils system, also known as patronage, where voters’ party
membership base but also were unable to expand their reach loyalty was rewarded with jobs and favors dispensed by party
beyond the monied classes. As a result, the Federalists ceased to elites, originated during this era.
be a force after the 1816 presidential election, when they received
few votes. The Republican Party, bolstered by successful The two-party system consisting of the Democrats and
presidential candidates Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Republicans was in place by 1860. The Whig Party had
James Monroe, was the sole surviving national party by 1820. disintegrated as a result of internal conflicts over patronage and

284
disputes over the issue of slavery. The Democratic Party, while paramilitary power group in the city.” [21] The idea of a “balanced
divided over slavery, remained basically intact. [19] The ticket” consisting of representatives of different groups developed
Republican Party was formed in 1854 during a gathering of during the machine-politics era. [22]
former Whigs, disillusioned Democrats, and members of the Free-
Because party machines controlled the government, they were
Soil Party, a minor antislavery party. The Republicans came to
able to sponsor public works programs, such as roads, sewers,
prominence with the election of Abraham Lincoln.
and construction projects, as well as social welfare initiatives,
Parties as Machines which endeared them to their followers. The ability of party
bosses to organize voters made them a force to be reckoned
Parties were especially powerful in the post–Civil War period
with, even as their tactics were questionable and corruption was
through the Great Depression, when more than 15 million people
rampant. [23] Bosses such as William Tweed in New York were
immigrated to the United States from Europe, many of whom
larger-than-life figures who used their powerful positions for
resided in urban areas. Party machines, cohesive, authoritarian
personal gain. Tammany Hall boss George Washington Plunkitt
command structures headed by bosses who exacted loyalty and
describes what he called “honest graft”:
services from underlings in return for jobs and favors, dominated
political life in cities. Machines helped immigrants obtain jobs, My party’s in power in the city, and its goin’ to undertake a lot of
learn the laws of the land, gain citizenship, and take part in public improvements. Well, I’m tipped off, say, that they’re going
politics. to lay out a new park at a certain place. I see my opportunity and
I take it. I go to that place and I buy up all the land I can in the
Machine politics was not based on ideology, but on loyalty and
neighborhood. Then the board of this or that makes the plan
group identity. The Curley machine in Boston was made up
public, and there is a rush to get my land, which nobody cared
largely of Irish constituents who sought to elect their
particular for before. Ain’t it perfectly honest to charge a good
own. [20] Machines also brought different groups together. The
price and make a profit on my investment and foresight? Of
tradition of parties as ideologically ambiguous umbrella
course, it is. Well, that’s honest graft.[24]
organizations stems from Chicago-style machines that were run
by the Daley family. The Chicago machine was described as a Enduring Image: Boss Tweed Meets His Match
“hydra-headed monster” that “encompasses elements of every
major political, economic, racial, ethnic, governmental, and The lasting image of the political party boss as a corrupt and
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greedy fat cat was the product of a relentless campaign by the election of a governor, a mayor, and the speaker of the
American political cartoonist Thomas Nast in Harper’s assembly.
Weekly from 1868 to 1871. Nast’s target was William “Boss”
The New York Times, Harper’s Weekly, reform groups, and
Tweed, leader of the New York Tammany Hall party machine, who
disgruntled Democrats campaigned vigorously against Tweed and
controlled the local Democratic Party for nearly a decade.
his cronies in editorials and opinion pieces, but none was as
Nast established the political cartoon as a powerful force in successful as Nast’s cartoons in conveying the corrupt and
shaping public opinion and the press as a mechanism for greedy nature of the regime. Tweed reacted to Nast’s cartoon,
“throwing the rascals” out of government. His cartoons ingrained “Who Stole the People’s Money,” by demanding of his
themselves in American memories because they were among the supporters, “Stop them damned pictures. I don’t care what the
rare printed images available to a wide audience in a period when papers write about me. My constituents can’t read. But, damn it,
photographs had not yet appeared in newspapers or magazines, they can see pictures.”[25]
and when literacy rates were much lower than today. Nast’s skill
The Tweed Ring was voted out in 1871, and Tweed was ultimately
at capturing political messages in pictures presented a legacy not
jailed for corruption. He escaped and was arrested in Spain by a
just for today’s cartoonists but for photographers and television
customs official who didn’t read English, but who recognized him
journalists. His skill also led to the undoing of Boss Tweed.
from the Harper’s Weekly political cartoons. He died in jail in New
Tweed and his gang of New York City politicians gained control of York.
the local Democratic Party by utilizing the Society of Tammany
(Tammany Hall), a fraternal organization, as a base. Through an Parties Reformed
extensive system of patronage whereby the city’s growing Irish
Not everyone benefited from political machines. There were some
immigrant population was assured employment in return for
problems that machines either could not or would not deal with.
votes, the Tweed Ring was able to influence the outcome of
Industrialization and the rise of corporate giants created great
elections and profit personally from contracts with the city. Tweed
disparities in wealth. Dangerous working conditions existed in
controlled all New York state and city Democratic Party
urban factories and rural coal mines. Farmers faced falling prices
nominations from 1860 to 1870. He used illegal means to force
for their products. Reformers blamed these conditions on party
corruption and inefficiency. They alleged that party bosses were

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diverting funds that should be used to improve social conditions The merit system, now called the civil service, was instituted in
into their own pockets and keeping their incompetent friends in 1883 with the passage of the Pendleton Act. The merit system
positions of power. wounded political machines, although it did not eliminate them.
[26]
The Progressive Era
Progressive reformers ran for president under party labels.
The mugwumps, reformers who declared their independence
Former president Theodore Roosevelt split from the Republicans
from political parties, banded together in the 1880s and provided
and ran as the Bull Moose Party candidate in 1912, and Robert
the foundation for the Progressive Movement. The Progressives
LaFollette ran as the Progressive Party candidate in 1924.
initiated reforms that lessened the parties’ hold over the electoral
Republican William Howard Taft defeated Roosevelt, and
system. Voters had been required to cast color-coded ballots
LaFollette lost to Republican Calvin Coolidge.
provided by the parties, which meant that their vote choice was
not confidential. The Progressives succeeded by 1896 in having New Deal & Cold War Eras
most states implement the secret ballot. The secret ballot is
Democratic President Franklin Delano
issued by the state and lists all parties and candidates. This
Roosevelt’s New Deal program for leading the United States out
system allows people to split their ticket when voting rather than
of the Great Depression in the 1930s had dramatic effects on
requiring them to vote the party line. The Progressives also hoped
political parties. The New Deal placed the federal government in
to lessen machines’ control over the candidate selection process.
the pivotal role of ensuring the economic welfare of citizens. Both
They advocated a system of direct primary elections in which the
major political parties recognized the importance of being close
public could participate rather than caucuses, or meetings of
to the power center of government and established national
party elites. The direct primary had been instituted in only a small
headquarters in Washington, DC.
number of states, such as Wisconsin, by the early years of the
twentieth century. The widespread use of direct primaries to An era of executive-centered government also began in the
select presidential candidates did not occur until the 1970s. 1930s, as the power of the president was expanded. Roosevelt
became the symbolic leader of the Democratic
The Progressives sought to end party machine dominance by
Party. [27] Locating parties’ control centers in the national capital
eliminating the patronage system. Instead, employment would be
eventually weakened them organizationally, as the basis of their
awarded on the basis of qualifications rather than party loyalty.
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support was at the local grassroots level. National party leaders selected primarily by party leaders, to primary elections, which
began to lose touch with their local affiliates and constituents. make it easier for the public to take part. The Republican Party
Executive-centered government weakened parties’ ability to soon followed with its own reforms that resulted in states
control the policy agenda. [28] adopting primaries.

The Cold War period that began in the late 1940s was marked by The unintended consequence of reform was to diminish the
concerns over the United States’ relations with Communist influence of political parties in the electoral process and to
countries, especially the Soviet Union. Following in the footsteps promote the candidate-centered politics that exists today.
of the extremely popular president Franklin Roosevelt, Candidates build personal campaign organizations rather than
presidential candidates began to advertise their independence rely on party support. The media have contributed to the rise of
from parties and emphasized their own issue agendas even as candidate-centered politics. Candidates can appeal directly to the
they ran for office under the Democratic and Republican labels. public through television rather than working their way through
Presidents, such as Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and the party apparatus when running for election. [31] Candidates
George H. W. Bush, won elections based on personal, rather than use social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, to connect with
partisan, appeals. [29] voters. Campaign professionals and media consultants assume
many of the responsibilities previously held by parties, such as
Candidate-Centered Politics
developing election strategies and getting voters to the polls.
Political parties instituted a series of reforms beginning in the late
Political Parties Today
1960s amid concerns that party elites were not responsive to the
public and operated secretively in so-called smoke-filled rooms. Political parties play an important role in politics today. Whereas
The Democrats were the first to act, forming the McGovern- observers like the Washington Post’s David Broder could write a
Fraser Commission to revamp the presidential nominating book in 1972 with the title The Party’s Over, such eulogies were
system. The commission’s reforms, adopted in 1972, allowed premature. Compared to the 1970s, party organizations today are
more average voters to serve as delegates to larger, farther reaching, and better financed. Relations among
thenational party nominating convention, where the presidential party officials in Washington and the states have improved
candidate is chosen. The result was that many state Democratic
parties switched from caucuses, where convention delegates are
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dramatically. Voters are still more likely to cast their votes along who take extreme ideological positions to become prominent in
partisan lines than independently. government, much like Madison feared at the founding.

American political parties have a number of distinctive Ideological Ambiguity

characteristics. The two major political parties have been
Rather than assuming strong, polarizing ideological alignments,
dominant for a long period of time. The parties are permeable,
the two major parties represent the core values of American
meaning that people are able to join or leave the party ranks
culture that favor centrist positions inherent in the liberal tradition
freely. The two major parties are ideologically ambiguous in that
of liberty, democracy, and equal opportunity. [4] These values
they are umbrella organizations that can accommodate people
appeal to the majority of Americans, and political parties can
representing a broad spectrum of interests.
advocate them without losing followers.
Two-Party Domination
Former Democratic Speaker of the House Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill
A two-party system is one in which nearly all elected offices are was fond of saying, “In any other country, the Democratic Party
held by candidates associated with the two parties that are able would be five parties.” [5]O’Neill was referring to the fact that the
to garner the vast majority of votes. The Republican Party and the Democratic Party has no clear ideological identity and instead
Democratic Party are the major parties that have monopolized accommodates interests from across the liberal-conservative
American politics since the early 1850s. [1] A major party runs spectrum. Groups who both favor and oppose gun control can
candidates for local, state, and federal offices in a majority of find a home in the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party is
states and holds one of the two largest blocs of seats in the US loosely associated with a liberal attitude toward politics, which
Congress. [2] proposes that government should take a more active role in
regulating the economy, provide a social safety net, and ensure
Many people consider the two-party system as a uniquely
equality in society through programs like affirmative action.
American phenomenon. Some scholars argue that this
acceptance of the two-party norm is a result of Americans’ Similar things have been said about the Republican
aversion to radical politics and their desire to maintain a stable Party, [6] although the Republicans have a more unified message
democratic political system. [3] Having too many parties can than the Democrats. The Republican agenda favors capitalism
destabilize the system by confusing voters and allowing parties and limited government intervention in people’s lives. The

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Republican Party’s base includes fewer disparate groups than the Permeability
Democratic base. The Republican Party is associated with a
Political parties in the United States are porous, decentralized
conservative outlook that advocates limited government
institutions that can be joined readily by people who choose to
intervention in society and a free-market economic system.
adopt the party label, usually Democrat or
Party Platforms Republican. [10] American parties are
notmass membership organizations that require people to pay
Rather than developing distinct ideological positions, parties
dues if they want to belong, which is the case in many European
developpolicy platforms. Policy platforms are plans outlining party
democracies. Instead, party membership is very loosely defined
positions on issues and the actions leaders will take to implement
often by state laws that are highly variable. In some states,
them if elected. [7] Parties frequently assume middle-of-the-road
citizens declare a party affiliation when registering to vote. People
positions or waffle on issues to avoid alienating potential
also can join a state or local party organization, or work for a
supporters. [8] For example, party platforms may oppose abortion
candidate associated with a particular party.
—except in cases of rape or incest. [9]
Parties are umbrella organizations that accommodate labor and
Some scholars contend that American parties have become more
business federations, interest groups, racial and ethnic
ideologically distinct over the last three decades. Party leaders
constituencies, and religious organizations. Traditionally, the
are expressing polarized opinions on issues, especially at the
Democratic Party has been home to labor unions, and the
national level. These differences can be seen in the highly
Republican Party has accommodated business interests,
partisan debate over the health-care system. Democrats in
although these relationships are not set in stone.
Congress support government involvement in the health-care
system and worked to pass the Patient Protection and Affordable The fact that groups seeking to achieve similar political goals are
Care Act endorsed by President Obama in 2010. Republicans found in both parties is evidence of their permeability. Pro-choice
sought to repeal the act in 2011, arguing that it would cost people and antiabortion forces exist within the two major parties,
their jobs. although the Democratic Party is far more accommodating to the
pro-choice position while the Republican Party is overwhelmingly
pro-life. The WISH List is a group supporting pro-choice
Republican candidates. The Democratic counterpart supporting
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pro-choice women candidates is Emily’s List. Democrats for Life Party organizations take many forms. National and state parties
of America and Republican National Coalition for Life represent are large and complex organizations. They have permanent
antiabortion constituencies. headquarters, chairpersons, boards of directors, and full-time
employees with specialized responsibilities. They maintain lists of
Parties compete for the allegiances of the same groups in an
officers and members, operate under established bylaws and
effort to increase their bases of support. As the Latino population
rules, and hold scheduled meetings and conventions. Local
has swelled to over 35 million people, the Democratic and
parties range from highly active, well-organized, professional
Republican parties have stepped up their efforts to attract Latino
structures to haphazard, amateur operations. [3]
voters and organizations. Both parties have produced Spanish-
language television ads and websites, tailored their messages National Parties
about health care and education to appeal to this group, and
National party committees today are the power centers of the
recruited Latino candidates. [11] The parties also have increased
Republican and Democratic parties. They are the ultimate
their appeals to Asian American voters.
authority in the parties’ organizational hierarchy. The Democratic
Party Organization National Committee (DNC) and theRepublican National
Committee (RNC) are located in Washington, DC. The DNC and
The organizational structure of political parties consists of the RNC chairs are the leaders of the party organization and are
machinery, procedures, and rituals party leaders and visible representatives of the parties in the press.
professionals employ so that parties operate effectively in the
electoral and governing processes. [1] Party organizations National organizations are responsible for putting on the

establish connections between leaders and followers so that they nominating conventions where presidential candidates are

can build and maintain a base of supportive voters they can selected every four years. Nominating conventions provide an

count on during elections. Parties maintain permanent offices to opportunity to rally the troops and reward the party faithful by

assist their constituencies. They engage in party-building having them participate as delegates. They also provide an

activities, including voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives. opportunity for parties to showcase their leaders and policies in

They provide candidate support, such as collecting polling data front of a national television audience.

and running ads. [2]

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National parties adapted to the era of candidate-centered politics volunteers and raise funds for campaigns. These committees
by becoming service-oriented organizations, providing resources organize media appeals to promote the party’s leaders and
for candidates and officeholders. They stepped up their agenda through television advertising, press briefings, direct mail,
fundraising activities, expanded their staffs, and established e-mail solicitations, and social media.[4]
stronger linkages with state, local, and candidate campaign
State Parties
organizations. The DNC and the RNC have established
multimedia strategies that include traditional mass media appeals State party organizations operate in vastly different environments
through press releases and staged events. They also get their because of the political culture of individual states. There is fierce
message out using sophisticated websites, Facebook pages, competition between parties in some states, while other states
Twitter feeds, and YouTube channels. Party websites are a one- lean more favorably toward one party. Party competition,
stop shop for information about candidates and officeholders, however, exists in every state. According to Gallup, the two
issue positions, and voting logistics. They also provide a gateway parties were competitive in a majority of states in 2011. Only
for people to become involved in politics by providing information fourteen states were solidly Democratic and five states were
about volunteer activities and offering opportunities to contribute solidly Republican. [5]
to the party.
Party and election laws vary greatly among states. In Maryland,
Legislative Campaign Committees voters must register and declare their party identification twenty-
nine days before a primary election in order to participate. In
Legislative campaign committees finance and manage legislative
Massachusetts, independents can register with a party to vote in
elections. Members of Congress officially oversee the committee
that party’s primary on Election Day. In Wisconsin, party
staffs. The National Republican Congressional
preference is part of the secret ballot.
Committee, National Republican Senatorial
Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Like their national counterparts, state parties provide candidates
and theDemocratic Senatorial Campaign Committee help with services, such as volunteer recruitment and polling. They
candidates for the House and Senate meet the demands of offer citizens access to government leaders and information
modern campaigning. They provide survey research to determine about issues. State parties have become multimillion-dollar
voters’ candidate preferences and stands on issues. They recruit organizations, most of which own their headquarters, employ full-

292
time staffs, and have operating budgets of over a half-million from opposing parties spar openly by taking different positions on
dollars. State legislative campaign committees assist in issues. [1]
campaigns by dispensing funds to candidates. [6]
Presidential Leadership
Local Parties
The president is the official and symbolic leader of his party.
Local party organizations exist at the legislative district, county, Presidents can use this position to rally members of Congress to
city, ward, and precinct levels. Some local parties are extremely push their agendas as President Franklin Roosevelt did to get his
vital, providing the link between average people and parties. In New Deal programs passed quickly with the help of congressional
addition to fulfilling the basic election functions, they sponsor Democrats. President Ronald Reagan mobilized congressional
public affairs programs, provide services to senior citizens and Republicans to enact the so-called Reagan revolution of
young people, and organize community events. Some local conservative policies, such as cutting taxes and increasing
parties are less active because many community-level positions, defense spending. Other presidents prefer to adopt a policy of
like town council seats, are nonpartisan. triangulation, where they work both sides of the congressional
aisle. [2] President Barack Obama successfully encouraged
Party in Government Democrats and Republicans in Congress to pass a bill extending
tax cuts to citizens.
The party in government constitutes the organized partisans who
serve in office, such as members of the Democratic and Since the 1990s, presidents have assumed a major responsibility
Republican parties in Congress. Parties provide an organizational for party fundraising. President Bill Clinton made fundraising a
structure for leaders in office, develop policy agendas, and ensure priority for the Democratic Party. He was the headliner at major
that majority and minority party opinions are voiced. The party in events that drew big crowds and raised millions of dollars.
government seeks to represent its supporters, achieve policy President George W. Bush became the top fundraiser for the
objectives, and enhance the prospects for reelection. It is the Republican Party, raising a record $84 million in six months en
center of democratic action. Party coalitions of many route to achieving a $170 million goal by the 2004 presidential
officeholders can be more powerful mechanisms for voicing election. [3]During his campaign for the presidency, Barack
opinions than individual leaders acting on their own. Coalitions Obama raised over $600 million mostly through online appeals.
Once in office, President Obama continued to raise funds for
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Democratic Party candidates through appearances at dinners and period before 1980, when conservative southern Democrats often
events as well as through his campaign organization’s website, disagreed with the liberal and moderate members of their party.
Organizing for America. [4] Republicans in Congress today are more united in taking
conservative positions than in the past. [5]
Legislative Parties
Legislative parties like those in Congress are found in forty-nine
Legislative parties are the internal party organizations within each
of the fifty state legislatures. Nebraska, which has a nonpartisan,
house of Congress. The Speaker of the House and the Senate
unicameral legislature, is the exception.
Majority Leader, the highest ranking leaders in Congress, are
members of the majority party. They work closely with the Divided Government
majority leader, whip, chair of the policy committee, and chair of
The American system of separation of powers and checks and
campaign committee in each body. The House and Senate
balances devised by the framers presents some obstacles to
minority leaders head a similar cast on the opposite side of the
elected officials using their party connections to wield
partisan fence. The Democratic Caucus and the Republican
power. Divided government, which occurs when the chief
Conference, consisting of all members elected from a party, are
executive is of a different party from the majority in the legislature,
the internal party organizations within each house of Congress.
is a common occurrence in American government. Divided
They oversee committee assignments and encourage party
government can get in the way of cooperative policymaking.
discipline by asking members to vote along party lines.
Presidential vetoes of legislation passed by Congress can be
Party discipline can be difficult to enforce given the diversity of more frequent during periods of divided government. [6]
constituency interests and personalities in Congress. The extent
President Clinton faced the challenges of divided government
to which party members are willing to vote in a block varies over
beginning in 1994, when the Republicans took control of the
time. Party unity in congressional voting rose from 40 percent in
House and Senate. Clinton did not use the veto power once when
the early 1970s to 90 percent or more since 2000.
his Democratic Party controlled Congress between 1993 and
Members of the same party in Congress are more similar 1994. After the Democrats lost fifty-two seats in Congress to
ideologically in recent years than in the past. The Democratic Republicans as a result of the 1994 midterm elections, President
Party in Congress contains few conservatives compared to the Clinton used the veto to block legislation his party opposed,

294
including tax bills that were central to the Republican Party’s Since the 1960s there has been a gradual decline in identification
platform. From 1995 to 2000, he vetoed thirty-six with political parties and a rise in the number of independents. In
bills. [7] Democratic President Barack Obama was faced with 2000, more people identified as independents (40 percent of the
divided government in 2010 when the Republican Party won the voting population) than affiliated with either the Democratic (34
majority in the House of Representatives while the Democrats percent) or Republican (24 percent) parties for the first time in
held the Senate by a small margin. Obama used the State of the history. [3] The proportion of people registering as independents
Union address to call for the parties to work together on key increased 57 percent between 1990 and 1998, while those
issues, especially health care and the economy. [8] registering as Democrats declined by 14 percent and as
Republicans by 5 percent. In 2011, 31 percent of the population
Party Identification identified as Democrats, 29 percent as Republican, and 38
percent as independents. [4]
People who identify with a political party either declare their
allegiance by joining the party or show their support through Trends in Party Identification
regular party-line voting at the polls. People can easily switch
their party affiliation or distance themselves from parties entirely. Trends in party identification from 1932 to the present have been

However, people who do not declare a partisan affiliation when compiled by the Pew Research Center in this interactive graph

they register to vote lose the opportunity to participate in primary found at [Link]

election campaigns in many states. As voter identification with political parties has declined, so has
dedication to the two-party system. According to a national
Partisan Identification
survey, citizens have more trust in product brands, such as Nike,
A person’s partisan identification is defined as a long-term Levis, Honda, and Clorox, than in the Democrats and
attachment to a particular party. [1] Americans are not required to Republicans. [5] Since the 1980s, Americans have become
formally join party organizations as is the case in other skeptical about the two major parties’ ability to represent the
democracies. Instead people self-identify as Republicans, public interest and to handle major issues facing the country,
Democrats, or members of minor parties. They also can declare such as crime, the environment, and saving Social Security. At
themselves independent and not aligned with any political the same time, support for third parties, like the Tea Party, has
party. [2] increased over the last decade. [6] Still, the two-party system
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continues to dominate the political process as a viable multiparty Depression. The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 marked the
alternative has not emerged. beginning of a realignment favoring the Republicans. In this
coalition, white Southerners moved away from the Democratic
Party Coalitions
Party as they favored the more conservative values espoused by
Party coalitions consist of groups that have long-term allegiances the Republicans. [9]
to a particular political party. Regions of the country establish
Partisan dealignment occurs when party loyalty declines and
loyalties to a specific party as a result of the party’s handling of a
voters base their decisions on short-term, election-specific
war, a major social problem, or an economic crisis. Social,
factors, such as the leadership qualities of a candidate. [10] The
economic, ethnic, and racial groups also become aligned with
inclination of people to identify as independents rather than as
particular parties. Catholics and labor union members in the
partisans is evidence that a dealignment is occurring. [11] A
Northeast form a part of the Democratic coalition. White
partisan dealignment may be occurring today, as more people are
fundamentalist Protestants are a component of the Republican
identifying as independents and more voters select their
coalition. [7] Parties count on coalition members to vote for them
candidates on the basis of personal traits, such as honesty. Mass
consistently in elections.
media can contribute to partisan realignment by focusing
A major, enduring shift in coalition loyalties that results in a attention on candidates’ personalities and scandals, which are
change in the balance of power between the two major parties is short-term factors that can influence vote choice.
called a realignment. [8]Realignments can be sparked
Minor Parties
by critical elections, where a minority party wins and becomes the
majority party in government following an election, and remains A minor party, or third party, is an organization that is not affiliated
dominant for an extended period of time. American parties realign with the two major American parties—the Democrats or
about once every thirty or forty years. A critical election in 1932 Republicans. Minor parties run candidates in a limited number of
brought the Democrats and President Franklin Roosevelt to elections and they do not receive large pluralities of votes. They
power after a period of Republican domination dating from the arise when the two major parties fail to represent citizens’
1890s. This New Deal coalition was based on an alliance of white demands or provide the opportunity to express opposition to
Southerners and liberal Northerners who benefited from the social
welfare policies of the Democratic administration during the Great
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existing policies. Citizens often form a minor party by uniting CNBC’s Rick Santelli’s Chicago Tea Party
behind a leader who represents their interests.
The national protests were prompted by a video of a rant by
Functions of Minor Parties CNBC editor Rick Santelli opposing government subsidies of
mortgages that went viral after being posted on the Drudge
Minor parties raise issues that the Democrats and Republicans
Report.
ignore because of their tendency to take middle-of-the road
positions. As a result, minor parties can be catalysts for Santelli called for a “Chicago Tea Party” protest, which ignited the
change. [1] The Progressive Party backed the women’s suffrage movement. The Tea Party’s efforts were publicized through new
movement in the early twentieth century, which led to the media, including websites such as Tea Party Patriots, Facebook
passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Child labor laws, the pages, blogs, and Twitter feeds.
direct election of US senators, federal farm aid, and
Minor parties can invigorate voter interest by promoting a unique
unemployment insurance are policies enacted as a result of third-
or flamboyant candidate and by focusing attention on a
party initiatives. [2]
contentious issue. [3] Voter turnout increased in the 1992
More recently, the Tea Party has raised issues related to the presidential contest for the first time in over two decades in part
national debate, government bailouts to failing industries, and the because of minor-party candidate Ross Perot. [4] Perot, a wealthy
health care system overhaul. The Tea Party is a conservative- businessman, was a candidate for president in 1992 for the minor
leaning grassroots political movement that emerged in 2009 when party, United We Stand America, receiving nearly twenty million
the Young Americans for Liberty in the state of New York votes. He ran again in 1996 as a member of the Reform Party and
organized a protest against state government “tax and spend” earned nearly eight million votes. [5]Perot supporters were united
policies. The Tea Party–themed protest recalled events in 1773, in their distrust of professional politicians and opposition to
when colonists dumped tea into Boston Harbor to demonstrate government funding of social welfare programs.
their opposition to paying a mandatory tax on tea to the British
Minor party candidates can be spoilers in elections by taking
government. Subsequent Tea Party protests took place in states
away enough votes from a major party candidate to influence the
across the country. Tea Party supporters participated in national
outcome without winning. Minor parties collectively have
protests in Washington, DC, which drew thousands of supporters.
captured over 5 percent of the popular vote in every presidential

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election since 1840, although individual minor parties may win freedoms to the extreme and oppose government intervention in
only a small percentage of votes. [6]Green Party candidate Ralph the lives of individuals, support the right to own and bear arms
Nader was considered by some analysts to be a spoiler in the without restriction, and endorse a free and competitive economic
2000 presidential campaign by taking votes away from market. [10]
Democratic contender Al Gore in Florida. George W. Bush
Single-Issue Minor Parties
received 2,912,790 votes in Florida compared to Al Gore’s
2,912,253 votes. [7] If 540 of Nader’s 96,837 votes had gone to Sometimes called ideological parties, single-
Gore, Gore might have ended up in the White House. [8] issue minor parties exist to promote a particular policy agenda.
The Green Party is a product of the environmental movement of
Types of Minor Parties
the 1980s. It advocates environmental issues, such as mandatory
Minor parties can be classified as enduring, single-issue, recycling and strong regulations on toxic waste. [11]
candidate-centered, and fusion parties.
Candidate-Centered Minor Parties
Enduring Minor Parties
Candidate-centered minor parties form around candidates who
Some minor parties have existed for a long time and resemble are able to rally support based on their own charisma or
major parties in that they run candidates for local, state, and message. Former World Wrestling Federation star Jesse “The
national offices. They differ from major parties because they are Body” Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota in 1998 under
less successful in getting their candidates elected. [9] the Independence Party label, an offshoot of the Reform Party.
The plainspoken, media savvy Ventura made the need for an
The Libertarian Party, founded in 1971, is
alternative to two-party domination a core theme of his
an enduring minor party, which is a type of minor party that has
campaign: “It’s high time for a third party. Let’s look at
existed for a long time and regularly fields candidates for
Washington. I’m embarrassed. We’ve got a lot of problems that
president and state legislatures. The Libertarians are unable to
the government should be dealing with, but instead, for the next
compete with the two major parties because they lack a strong
nine months, the focus of this nation will be on despicable
organizational foundation and the financial resources to run
behavior by career politicians. If this isn’t the right time for a third
effective campaigns. The party also holds an extreme ideological
party, then when?” [12]
position, which can alienate voters. Libertarians take personal
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Fusion Minor Parties Comparing Content: The Tea Party

Fusion minor parties, also known as alliance parties, are enduring There has been almost as much discussion about media
or single-issue minor parties that engage in the practice coverage of the Tea Party as there has been about the
of cross endorsement, backing candidates who appear on a organization’s issue positions, candidate endorsements, and
ballot under more than one party label. Fusion parties routinely protest activities. Tea Party activists, such as former Alaska
endorse candidates who have been nominated by the two major governor and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin,
parties and support their causes. Cross endorsement allows have lambasted the traditional news media for being tied to
minor parties to contribute to the election of a major-party special interests and irrelevant for average Americans. Instead,
candidate and thus gain access to officeholders. In addition to Tea Party leaders have embraced social media, preferring to
giving a major-party candidate an additional ballot position, fusion communicate with their supporters through Facebook and Twitter.
parties provide funding and volunteers.
Early Tea Party protests against government economic policies
Only eight states permit the practice of cross endorsement. The received little mainstream press attention. Media coverage
most active fusion parties are in New York. The Liberal Party and increased as the Tea Party staged rowdy protests against
the Democratic Party cross endorsed Mario Cuomo in the 1990 government health care reform, and public interest in the
New York governor’s race, leading him to defeat his Republican movement grew. Stories by major news organizations focused on
Party and Conservative Party opponents handily. The the evolution of the Tea Party, its positions on issues, its
Conservative Party and the Republican Party cross endorsed membership, and its most vocal spokespersons. Tea Party rallies
George Pataki in the 2000 governor’s race, leading him to garnered extensive attention from mainstream media as well as
victory. [13] During the 2010 midterm elections, the Tea Party political bloggers. The Tea Party received the lion’s share of
cross endorsed several successful candidates running in the media coverage on election night in 2010, as the mainstream
primary under the Republican Party label, upsetting mainstream press framed the election results in terms of public dissatisfaction
Republican candidates. Some of the Tea Party–endorsed with the political status quo as evidenced by victories by Tea
candidates, such as US Senate candidate Rand Paul in Kentucky, Party–backed candidates. [14]
went on to win the general election.
Coverage of the Tea Party differs widely by media outlet. CNN
reports of a Tea Party protest in Chicago featured on-site
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reporters aggressively interviewing average citizens who were gained firsthand knowledge of the group and its goals. [17]Both
participating in the event, challenging them to defend the Tea reports were debated widely in the press.
Party’s positions on issues. CNN and network news outlets
Challenges Facing Minor Parties
reported that members of Congress had accused Tea Party
protestors of anti-Obama racism based on racially charged A minor-party candidate has never been elected president. In the
statements and signs held by some protestors. Fox News, on the past five decades, minor parties have held few seats in Congress
other hand, assumed the role of Tea Party cheerleader. Fox or high-level state offices. Few minor party candidates have won
analyst Tobin Smith took the stage at a Tea Party rally in against major-party candidates for governor, state representative,
Washington, DC, and encouraged the protestors. Reporting live or county commissioner in the past two decades. Minor-party
from a Boston Tea Party protest, Fox Business anchor Cody candidates have better luck in the approximately 65,000
Willard encouraged people to join the movement, stating, “Guys, nonpartisan contests for city and town offices and school boards
when are we going to wake up and start fighting the fascism that in which no party labels appear on the ballot. Hundreds of these
seems to be permeating this country?” [15] positions have been filled by minor-party representatives. [18]

Studies of mainstream press coverage of the Tea Party also vary A majority of the public favors having viable minor-party
markedly depending on the source. A 2010 report by the alternatives in elections. [19] Why, then, are minor parties unable
conservative Media Research Center found that the press first to be a more formidable presence in American politics?
ignored and then disparaged the Tea Party. The report alleged
that ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN framed the Tea Party as a fringe Winner-Take-All Elections
or extreme racist movement. [16] Conversely, a 2010 survey
One major reason for two-party dominance in the United States is
conducted by the mainstream newspaper the Washington
the prominence of the single-member district plurality system of
Postfound that 67 percent of local Tea Party organizers felt that
elections,[20] also known as winner-take-all elections. Only the
traditional news media coverage of their groups was fair,
highest vote getter in a district in federal and most state
compared to 23 percent who considered it to be unfair. Local
legislative elections gains a seat in office. Candidates who have a
organizers also believed that news coverage improved over time
realistic chance of winning under such a system are almost
as reporters interviewed Tea Party activists and supporters and
always associated with the Democratic and Republican parties,

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which have a strong following among voters and necessary is an insurmountable barrier for most minor parties that lack
resources, such as funding and volunteers to work in campaigns. established organizations in many states. [23]

In contrast, proportional representation (PR) systems, such as Campaign finance laws work against minor parties. The 1974
those used in most European democracies, allow multiple parties Federal Election Campaign Act and its amendments provide for
to flourish. PR systems employ larger, multimember districts public financing of presidential campaigns. Rarely has a minor-
where five or more members of a legislature may be selected in a party candidate been able to qualify for federal campaign funds
single election district. Seats are distributed according to the as the party’s candidates must receive 5 percent or more of the
proportion of the vote won by particular political parties. For popular vote in the general election. Similar barriers hinder state-
example, in a district comprising ten seats, if the Democratic level minor-party candidates from receiving public funding for
Party got 50 percent of the vote, it would be awarded five seats; if taxpayer-financed campaigns, although some states, such as
the Republican Party earned 30 percent of the vote, it would gain Connecticut, are debating plans to rectify this situation.
three seats; and if the Green Party earned 20 percent of the vote,
Lack of Resources
it would be granted two seats. [21] PR was used for a short time
in New York City council elections in the 1940s but was The financial disadvantage of minor parties impedes their ability
abandoned after several communists and other minor-party to amass resources that are vital to mounting a serious challenge
candidates threatened the Democratic Party’s stronghold. [22] to the two major parties. They lack funds to establish and equip
permanent headquarters. They cannot hire staff and experienced
Legal Obstacles
consultants to conduct polls, gather political intelligence, court
Minor parties are hindered by laws that limit their ability to the press, generate new media outreach, or manage
compete with major parties. Democrats and Republicans in office campaigns. [24]
have created procedures and requirements that make it difficult
Lack of Media Coverage
for minor parties to be listed on ballots in many states. In
Montana, Oklahoma, and several other states, a candidate must Minor parties rarely receive significant media coverage except
obtain the signatures of least 5 percent of registered voters to when they field a dynamic or outlandish candidate, such as Jesse
appear on the ballot. A presidential candidate must collect over Ventura, or when they are associated with a movement that taps
one million signatures to be listed on the ballot in every state. This into public concerns, such as the Tea Party. The dominant
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horserace frame employed by the media focuses on who is ahead votes for minor-party candidates are wasted. [26]Major parties are
and behind in an election and usually tags minor-party candidates often successful in attracting minor-party voters because major
as losers early in the process. Media treat minor parties as parties are permeable and ambiguous ideologically. [27]
distractions and their candidates as novelty acts that divert
After the Democrats in Congress were instrumental in passing the
attention from the main two-party attractions.
Voting Rights Act in 1964, the Republican Party absorbed the
Minor parties often are unable to air televised campaign ads southern Dixiecrats, a Democratic Party faction opposed to the
because they lack funds. Even in the digital era, television legislation. The two major parties tried to attract Ross Perot’s
advertising is an essential part of campaigns because it allows Reform Party supporters after his 1992 presidential bid, with the
candidates to control their own message and reach large Republican Party succeeding in attracting the lion’s share of
numbers of voters. Minor-party candidates have difficulty gaining votes. The Republican Party’s position against big government
publicity and gaining recognition among voters when they cannot appealed to Perot supporters. [28] Even though the Tea Party
advertise. gravitates toward the Republican Party, Republicans have not
universally accepted it.
Minor-party candidates routinely are excluded from televised
debates in which major-party candidates participate. [25] By Political Parties in the Information Age
being allowed to participate in the 1992 presidential debates,
Reform Party candidate Ross Perot achieved national visibility Political parties thrive when they are able to manage the media
and symbolic equality with incumbent president George W. Bush and effectively promote their candidates, leaders, and causes.
and Democratic candidate Bill Clinton. Their goal is to use the media to publicize policy positions,
activities, and leaders. Party organizations launch media blitzes
Absorption by Major Parties and provide technical communications assistance to campaigns

When a minor-party movement gains momentum, the Republican and government officials so that they can attract media attention.

and Democratic parties move quickly to absorb the minor party They also use media to inform and mobilize their loyalists. Media

by offering enticements to their members, such as support for depictions tend to be dramatic, emphasizing infighting among

policies that are favored by the minor party. Major-party party members as well as conflicts between different parties.

candidates appeal to minor-party supporters by arguing that

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Media Interactions said and to recast any misstatements. [1] Spin doctors can be
elected leaders, party officials, or interest group leaders. In 2011,
Political parties are obsessed with keeping their names and
Republican Congressman Paul Ryan and Washington Governor
representatives in the public eye. Publicity gives the impression
Gary Locke provide opposing commentary on the State of the
that the party is active and influential. A party with a strong media
Union address by President Barack Obama. Minnesota
presence can attract volunteers and financial contributors. Parties
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann gave the Tea Party spin on
use a variety of tactics in their efforts to control the media agenda
the address via webcast.
and get their message out to the public and to journalists. They
employ many of the same tactics as interest groups, such as Specific media outlets are associated with spin doctors who favor
holding news conferences, issuing press releases, giving a specific party. Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh
interviews to journalists, and appearing on television and radio favors the Republican Party and draws a large audience. Liberal
talk shows. Democratic and Republican officials provide talk show hosts such as MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow tend to
competing commentary about issues. Party leaders participate in support Democrats. The Fox News Network hosts spin doctors
“spin sessions” to get their views heard. Parties engage in such as Bill O’Reilly, who calls his program a “no-spin zone”
aggressive advertising campaigns. Finally, they maintain despite its constant promotion of Republican and conservative
significant web and digital media presences to reach their causes.
supporters and to court the press.
Advertising
Partisan Spin
Political advertising is a way for parties to disseminate messages
Political parties seek to influence political debate on a daily basis without having them filtered by journalists. Parties engaged
by confronting the opposition in the media. They engage in spin, extensively in issue advocacy, advertising campaigns that focus
the practice of providing an interpretation of events or issues that on legislative policies. They also develop ads supportive of their
favors their side. High-profile partisans make the rounds of candidates and leaders and critical of the opposition. Online
political talk programs such as Meet the Press, and news shows video is a cost-effective alternative to television advertising,
and give interviews to print journalists to spin their views. Partisan although many more people are reached through TV ads than via
spin doctors routinely appear on television immediately following online ads.
candidate debates or major speeches to interpret what has been
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Websites for its quest to win the White House in 2012. Clicking on the link
to the Republican National Committee site led directly to page
Party websites offer a vast amount of information to average
featuring a negative ad against the Obama administration and the
citizens, political activists, and journalists who take the initiative
opportunity to “Help Fight Back” by donating money. The
to visit them. Websites provide an effective mechanism for
Democratic National Committee website, which represents the
communicating information to citizens and can lessen the
party of the sitting president, focuses heavily on the
administrative burden on party organizations. They reach a large
accomplishments of the Obama administration.
number of people instantaneously and have become more
effective mechanisms for raising funds than the earlier method of Media Depictions of Political Parties
direct mail. The sites include general political information, such as
In depicting political parties, the media highlight conflicts
facts about American democracy and party history. Press
between the two major parties and divisions within each party.
releases, platforms, and position papers give the lowdown on
The press also focuses on the strategies parties employ in their
issues and candidates. Party sites also host discussion boards
pursuit of political power.
and blogs where party elites, including candidates, interact with
rank-and-file members. [2]Websites hype symbols that create a Partisan Conflict
sense of identity as well as a party brand. The technical delivery
of this content is an important aspect of outreach, so developing Parties as adversaries is an accurate characterization of one of
e-mail lists of party members, especially visitors to the website, is their primary functions, representing opposing viewpoints and
a priority. providing platforms for debate. The modern party has been called
“a fighting organization.” [3] Indeed, parties actively promote this
The Democratic Party’s and Republican Party’s websites have image. Reporters consulting party websites and reading partisan
become sophisticated. In addition to the sites’ content, visitors blogs get their fill of negative hyperbole about the opposition.
are offered the opportunity to connect with the party through
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and other social media. Some The press coverage can exaggerate the conflicts between parties
of the material on Democratic and Republican websites consists by employing sports and war metaphors. Parties often are
of negative, at times vicious, attacks on the opposing party. In described as attacking, battling, fighting, jousting, beating, and
2011, the Republican Party used its website to gain momentum pummeling one another. This type of media coverage becomes a
problem when parties genuinely try to work together while the
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press continues to frame their relations in conflict terms. When they make large financial donations to party organizations and
the Republican congressional leadership held a meeting at the campaigns.
White House in 1995 and agreed to work with Democratic
Media depictions suggest that parties fail to live up to campaign
President Bill Clinton on public policy, Republican House Speaker
promises about policies they will enact if their candidates are
Newt Gingrich told reporters that the meeting was “great.” When
elected. A recurring media theme during President Obama’s
the press immediately speculated about when the cordial
presidency is that Obama has not represented his party’s
relations would break down, Gingrich reacted by dressing down
interests, such as on the issue of tax cuts. However, press
reporters: “[Y]ou just heard the leaders of the Republican Party
coverage is not consistent with research demonstrating that party
say that the Democratic President today had a wonderful meeting
leaders keep campaign promises at least two-thirds of the
on behalf of America; we’re trying to work together. Couldn’t you
time. [5]
try for twenty-four hours to have a positive, optimistic message
as though it might work?” [4] Media Consequences

Party Strategies Political parties have had to adapt to a dynamic mass media
environment that at times has weakened their position in the
Media depictions often focus on the strategies parties use to win
political process. The introduction of television in the 1950s
elections and control government. The press is obsessed with
allowed candidates and government officials to circumvent
how the Republicans and Democrats manage their messages to
parties and take their appeals directly to the public. An example is
attract or lose supporters.
Nixon’s “Checkers” speech. Richard Nixon, who was running on a
One strategy typically portrayed by mass media is that parties ticket headed by Republican presidential candidate General
routinely compromise the public good to achieve self-interested Dwight D. Eisenhower, had been accused of taking money from
goals. The Democratic Party is continually criticized for catering campaign supporters. The Republican Party was unhappy with
to organized labor, Hollywood liberals such as Barbara Streisand Nixon and considered dropping him from the ticket. To save his
and Alec Baldwin, and feminists. The Republican Party is chided political career, Nixon went on television to make his case to the
for favoring conservatives and corporate interests. The press American people by detailing his personal finances and denying
argues that both parties support these privileged groups because any wrongdoing. With his wife, Pat, by his side, Nixon declared
that there was one gift from supporters he would not return, a
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dog named Checkers that had become a beloved family pet. The officeholders, and voters. They engaged in aggressive fundraising
tactic worked as the public bought into Nixon’s impassioned schemes so that they could afford to hire the services of
television appeal. Eisenhower and Nixon went on to win the consultants and purchase expensive advertising time on
election. television and space in print publications. Parties have facilities
where politicians do on-air television and radio interviews and
By the 1980s, party elites had less influence on public opinion
tape messages for local media markets. They invest heavily in
than media elites, especially journalists. [6] The press had
advertising during and between election cycles.
assumed parties’ responsibility for recruiting candidates,
organizing the issue agenda, and informing and mobilizing Today, major parties are at the forefront of innovation with
voters. [7] Journalists controlled the amount of publicity parties communications technology as they seek ways of making the
and candidates received, which contributes to their recognition Internet and digital media more effective and exciting for party
among voters. members. These media efforts have been paying off. Seventy-
seven percent of the public believes that political parties are
Consultants work directly with candidates to develop media
important to them for providing political information. [9] Party
strategies, often leaving parties out of the loop. In his bid for the
advertisements can influence the opinions of up to 4 percent of
2004 Democratic presidential nomination, former governor of
voters, enough to sway an election, although this does not
Vermont Howard Dean worked with consultants to develop an
happen in every contest. [10]
innovative campaign strategy centered on using the Internet to
build a base of online supporters through sites including
[Link] and [Link], and to raise funds. The The previous section is provided by [Link]’s
Democratic Party expressed concerns about Dean’s tactics Political Parties.
because he ignored the traditional bases of the party’s support,
such as environmental activists and other liberal interest
groups. [8]Dean was successful in raising funds on the Internet
but was unable to secure the presidential nomination.

Parties responded in the 1990s by developing media strategies to

enhance their proficiency as service providers to candidates,
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Section 5

Untitled

“It begins…The power of the Executive Branch is vested in the

President of the United States, who also acts as head of state
and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. The President is
responsible for implementing and enforcing the laws written by
Congress and, to that end, appoints the heads of the federal
agencies, including the Cabinet. The Vice President is also part
of the Executive.”

Tap on this link to visit the White House’s official website and
read “Our Government: The Executive Branch.”

307
Chapter 9

Revolutions

Learning objectives

After reading this chapter, students will be able to do the

following:

• Identify characteristics of revolutions.

• Understand the role of revolutions for governmental

structures.

• Appreciate the economic, political and social factors

involved with revolutions.

• Analyze the causes and effects that revolutions play in

the government.
Section 1

Defining revolution

This word is commonly used to refer to a sudden overthrow of revolutionary organization. MARXIST revolutionaries typically see
the status quo and its replacement by an entirely different state themselves as a vanguard acting on behalf of the masses; in
of affairs. That the word is also used for the turning of a wheel other cases revolutions have been brought about by small
conveys this sense of social arrangements being turned upside- groups in pursuit of their own interests. For example, it might be
down. Many believe in the necessity of revolution for a argued that the English Revolution of 1642–53 merely replaced
fundamental reformation of society. The argument is that existing monarchical rule with that of the Whig Grandees. The historian
political and social institutions must be swept away if better ones Christopher Hill argues that the real revolutionaries of the period,
are to emerge. Democratic SOCIALISTS and the reformist left radical groups such as the DIGGERS, RANTERS and
prefer the idea of change achieved gradually by an incremental LEVELLERS, were initially encouraged in order to mobilize mass
transformation of society, mirrored by changes in individual support and then ruthlessly suppressed when Whig aims had
consciousness and behaviour. Finally a revolution may be been achieved. This has been a common fate for revolutionaries:
conceived not as a deliberate strategy so much as the emergent many surviving Bolsheviks were purged early on in Stalin’s
effect of other social, political and economic changes, as in the consolidation of power over the SOVIET UNION.
industrial revolution.
It was the French Revolution of 1789 that provided the
Revolution has often been pursued as a part of a strategy for archetypal model for revolutions that were to follow and that
bringing about a new society, led by revolutionaries organized demonstrated the rising power of the middle classes as opposed
into parties dedicated to the overthrow of existing states and to the authority of the crown and nobility. The slide of the French
institutions. LENIN’s political strategy rested upon his Revolution into repression also provided a warning of what was
determination to turn the more radical elements of the Russian to come in many later revolutions. The revolutions that took
Social Democratic Party into an effective and dedicated place during the long revolutionary century from 1840 to 1970

309
were inspired predominantly by the UTOPIAN hopes of LIBERAL following the establishment of a discredited liberal democratic
reformers, SOCIALISTS, ANARCHISTS and COMMUNISTS. administration.
Following on the European industrial revolution, the rapidly
The Cold War between the Soviet bloc and Western capitalist
expanding middle classes demanded more political influence.
states led to a number of attempts to sponsor ‘revolutions’
The result was a wave of largely unsuccessful ‘bourgeois’
throughout the developing world or to oppose such revolutions
revolutions from 1848 onwards. At the same time the newly
with pro-Western counterrevolutions. Such revolutions were often
created industrial working classes were beginning to organize
only nominally communist or liberal democratic. The concept of
themselves into TRADE UNIONS and revolutionary parties
‘permanent revolution’ also arose in the twentieth century to
inspired by the leadership of revolutionaries such as BAKUNIN
describe a constant and dynamic transformation of society
and MARX. The result was that bourgeois revolutions often paved
towards full communism following partial socialist revolutions.
the way for attempts to bring about more radical social change
The phrase, most associated with Trotsky, originates in the idea
from below.
that socialism must develop on an international scale because it
In 1905 there was a failed liberal revolution in Russia that paved could not survive within state boundaries. MAO instigated the
the way for the socialist revolution of 1917. In 1918 the Kaiser ‘cultural revolution’ from 1966 to 1976 in a bid to transform
was overthrown in Germany by a popular revolution which Chinese society at a more fundamental level rather than simply
resulted in the establishment of the short-lived Weimar Republic. changing the institutional and political structures of the state. In
This was followed by an abortive socialist revolution led by retrospect this has come to be seen as a disastrous measure that
LUXEMBURG and Karl Liebknecht in 1919. The Xinhai Revolution discredited communism both within and outside China. Since
in China overthrew the Qing Dynasty, establishing the Republic of 1960 there have been many further revolutions, some claiming an
China in 1911. By 1949 this had been overthrown by a socialist affinity with socialism and others with bourgeois liberalism,
revolution led by MAO’s peasant armies. The 1936 Spanish particularly in the ex-colonies of the great nineteenth-century
Revolution quickly went beyond the establishment of a republic powers. In many cases these have turned out to be no more than
as a result of the action of both anarchists and socialists, until coup d’états, a simple replacement of one ruling élite with
crushed by Franco. The pattern was repeated again in CUBA another. The year 1968 saw a wave of protests and near-
where the last major socialist revolution took place in 1959 revolutionary conditions in many Western states, most notably in

310
France, but this seemed to mark the end of the revolutionary political revolutions. This is partly because the political scene
decades rather than a new era of radical political change. appears much less likely to give rise to revolutionary opportunities
and partly because the ‘failure’ of many revolutions has left many
This is not to argue that revolutions are no longer a feature of
much less confident that this is an effective method to bring
contemporary politics. Revolutions in Iran (1979) and Afghanistan
about a better society. Left reformers now tend to support
(1996) established fundamentalist Islamic states. The satellite
engagement with existing institutions in the pursuit of incremental
communist parties of Eastern Europe were largely overthrown in
political change. The problem with this strategy is familiar.
bloodless revolutions such as the ‘velvet revolution’ in
Attempts to bring about significant reform tend to be resisted by
Czechoslovakia in 1989. Since the rise of neoliberalism it could
powerful vested interests. It should be noted that revolutionary
even be argued that MARKET capitalism has become a
and reformist change are not necessarily incompatible. The two
revolutionary movement backed by the crusading right-wing
may be pursued as part of a single strategy: reforms may
ideology of the US translated into military force. There are also
produce an appetite for more radical change. However, in
still some revolutionary movements on the left, such as the
practice, reforms often reduce the pressure for more significant
ZAPATISTAS in Mexico, but most ANTI-CAPITALIST organizations
change. Many Marxists have argued that the rise of the welfare
work through protest and more LOCAL forms of DIRECT ACTION.
state and sectional forms of trade unionism has stabilized the
Revolution may be seen as an emergent process that arises capitalist system.
naturally through other changes. The terms ‘industrial revolution’,
The desirability of revolution is one of the biggest dividing lines
‘scientific revolution’ or ‘technological revolution’ all capture this
between utopians. Many anarchists and Marxists would agree
sense of the rapid transformation of everyday life, just as the
that those currently in power will not let go of it without the resort
1960s have been described as a ‘sexual revolution’. Though not
to violence. Therefore, they argue, it is a sad necessity that violent
entirely uninfluenced by the political aims and interests of various
revolution will be necessary in order to bring about any progress
groups, such revolutions tend to occur in an unforeseen way
towards a free society. One of the major disagreements between
through complex combinations of social, economic, technological
revolutionary anarchists and Marxists has concerned whether a
and political factors. Often this form of change interacts with
revolution should be followed by a transitional period in which the
deliberate political revolutionary attempts. Those on the Left have
old institutions of the state are retained in order to achieve full
generally moved away from the idea of violent and sudden
communism gradually. Anarchists, including KROPOTKIN and

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Bakunin, have worried that retaining these institutions leads to the
re-emergence of a hierarchical society. Other radical utopians
would argue that there is a close link between ends and means,
and that trying to achieve freedom through violence is always
doomed to failure. Only NON-VIOLENT RESISTANCE and a
revolution in personal consciousness can hope to change society
in ways that will not lead to new forms of oppression. There is
currently no way to resolve such a debate. That future revolutions
would need to be different from those of the past, and that the
prospects for them seem much more uncertain, is less
contentious.

The previous section is provided by Lynn University’s

use of Credo Reference.

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Section 2

Further defining revolution

Political scientists are deeply divided concerning both the be the most imaginative piece of applied political science in
meaning of the term ‘revolution’ and the true explanation of the human history. Arendt (On Revolution, 1963) chooses to regard
phenomena denoted by it. To some extent the chosen this example, not as exceptional, but as the prime example of a
explanation will determine the chosen meaning, so that successful revolution. She argues that all political
theoretical discussions over whether the American Revolution, transformations called revolutions are united by the straining of
say, was a ‘true revolution’ will not be resolved merely by a subject peoples towards liberty, and the search for a constitution
dictionary definition. It is clear that the meaning of the term has that will guarantee liberty. The Glorious Revolution, and the
changed, since it was first used of the ‘Glorious Revolution’ in American Revolution, thus seem to be examples of revolutions
England of 1688. What was then meant was the ‘revolution’ to which have achieved their ends, partly because they avoided the
some previous and lamented state of affairs, the term denoting violence and social upheaval of later revolutions, and partly
the turning of the wheel of fortune. Now it seems to mean any because transformation occurred at the political level, while
major transformation that occurs simultaneously on the social retaining sufficient social continuity to guarantee stability.
and the political level, upsetting expectations and conformities
Modern theorists are for the most part unpersuaded by Arendt’s
that were sufficiently well established to define all important
account, which, in the light of such phenomena as the ‘Islamic
forms of association under the preceding order. The element of
Revolution’ in Iran, can only seem stipulative. They tend to argue
violence is sometimes considered necessary – although this is
that violent transformations are of a different kind from non-
partly because those who advance this idea are influenced by a
violent ones. The ancestor of such a view is the theory of Marx,
theory of ‘revolutionary transformation’ which requires it. An
which regarded the French Revolution as the paradigm; and
exception to such a thesis is the American Revolution, which
which was, if not obsessed, at least fascinated by the enormous
was relatively pacific, and culminated in the calm and reasonable
and hitherto undiscovered forces which that revolution
adoption of a constitution that has sometimes been thought to

313
unleashed. Thus there emerged the Marxian theory of revolution, Leninist theories of revolution emphasize the role of the
which exists in two possibly compatible versions. The first version revolutionary agent, believing that revolutions occur at least in
holds that revolutions occur when productive forces develop to part because their ‘subjective’ conditions (and not only the
the point where production relations begin to fetter them and, ‘objective’, or what Marx had called ‘material’ conditions) are
those enormous forces having been contained only briefly, the fulfilled. The important difference between Leninist and Marxian
fetters burst asunder, toppling all institutions along with them. The views is that the former regard the accumulation of political power
second version says that revolution is the product of class as an essential element in revolution, whereas the latter think of
struggle, which grows until all existing institutions are invaded by revolution primarily in social terms. Modern theorists tend to
it, when open conflict breaks out, leading to the replacement of recognize that the important modern events called revolutions
the ruling class by those that had been ruled by it. This second have always involved the seizure of political power, usually by
version of the theory originates in French revolutionary thinking, soldiers or intellectuals–hence the element of coup d’état has,
and gains some inspiration from Hegel’s diagnosis of the relation since the Russian Revolution, come to seem indispensable (thus
between master and slave. The two theories are usually held John Dunn, e.g.: Modern Revolutions, 1972). However, this does
together, partly because both are thought to explain revolution in not settle the question of how the violent transformation of
terms of the existence of a contradiction within the foundations of political power comes about, nor whether there is any single end
the social order. It is thus a fundamental thesis of Marxism that towards which all revolutions are directed. The manifest lack of
revolutions involve the defeat of one class by another; hence agreement among observers has a strong ideological cause: it
there are two revolutions involved in the transition from feudalism seems to validate a coup d’état to say that it was part of an
to socialism: that in which the bourgeoisie overthrows the inevitable, and socially based, revolution; to confess candidly that
aristocracy (‘the bourgeois revolution’), and that in which the it was motivated by the desire for power is to suggest that its
proletariat overthrows the bourgeoisie (‘the proletarian credentials are no better (and probably worse) than those of the
revolution’). USSR propaganda described the bolshevik coup regime that it sought to replace.
d’état in October 1917 as the Great October Proletarian
The anti-communist revolutions that occurred across Eastern
Revolution, on the assumption that it was the natural sequel to
Europe in 1989 are notable for their lack of violence – that in
the ‘bourgeois’ revolution that had occurred in February.
Czechoslovakia going by the name of ‘The Velvet Revolution’.
Unlike the communist coups d’état which had imposed

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communism on Eastern Europe, these anti-communist upheavals
involved the whole population, expressed a longing for a free
economy, the rule of law and secure property rights, and were in
every way the opposite of revolutions as described by Lenin and
as theorised in standard works of political science. Indeed they
were the first examples in history, in which the working class rose
up in protest against the people who had enslaved it. Since these
events, Marxist and neo-Marxist thinking about revolution –
include much written about the French Revolution – has lost its
credibility.

The previous section is provided by Lynn University’s

use of Credo Reference.

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Section 3

Revolutions in world history

The Mexican Revolution thoughtfulness, at other times more with simple cunning, to
rebuild and reshape their country. It was a contentious process,
The Mexican Revolution was the first great political and social often punctuated by violence, especially in the 1920s. Both
revolution of the twentieth century. It was also one of a cluster of idealism and opportunism flourished. Idealism seemingly
revolutions occurring at about the same time in Russia, China, triumphed in the 1930s, when revolutionary momentum on
the Ottoman Empire, and Iran (then called Persia). These various levels found a leadership, personified in Lázaro
revolutions, particularly those in Russia and China, had an Cárdenas, sympathetic to its goals. After 1940, however, the
enormous impact on the history of the twentieth century. revolution lost its way. Opportunists, like the ones described by
Carlos Fuentes in his brilliant novel, The Death of Artemio Cruz,
The Mexican Revolution in its revolutionary decade, 1910–1920,
rose to the top and essentially murdered the revolution. They
features bloodshed, betrayal, and cruelty, as well as class
embalmed the corpse of the revolution and put it on display. It
struggle, intervention by the United States, and a colorful
endured for the remainder of the century, mostly as form and
assembly of larger-than-life revolutionaries. Overall, it illustrates
rhetoric. No one, even as the system began to unravel in the
those characteristics of revolution discussed in the previous
1980s, found a way to move beyond the sterile politics and
chapter. Of primary importance, the revolution was a product of
social injustice that characterized Mexican life in the late
Mexican history, one way of responding to the political situation
twentieth century.
created by the regime of Porfirio Díaz. And it shaped the way
politics were done for the remainder of the twentieth century. The revolutionary decade (1910–1920)

In the twenty years that followed the chaos and dislocation of the The revolutionary decade began with the problems experienced
revolutionary decade, those Mexicans who had gained power in by the regime of Porfirio Díaz. Long-lived (1876–1910) and
the revolution used that power, sometimes with great

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successful for most of its existence, the Díaz regime emphasized policies also created two problems. The first was the expansion
economic growth and a strong central government. of foreign investment. Foreigners held approximately one-third of
the land in Mexico at the turn of the century. They dominated
It grew, however, increasingly dependent on foreign investment
industry and held important stakes in mining and timber.
and the global market.
American holdings in both agriculture and industry were
While economic problems and the development of a Mexican particularly large. Secondly, in the last few years of the Díaz
nationalism lessened the popularity of the regime in the first regime, developments in the world economy damaged important
decade of the twentieth century, it floundered initially on the issue sectors of the Mexican economy, especially agriculture, mining,
of continuismo, i.e. the modification of constitutional timber, and textiles. Unemployment was high in industry and
arrangements to allow Díaz to continue in office. Liberals in mining. Small businessmen also suffered from the economic
Mexico spent the first decade of the twentieth century calling for downturn. Bad harvests in 1908 and 1909 led to famine and food
free elections and a constitution that worked. Organized in the riots.
Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM) in 1906, they worked in Mexico
Economic contraction, in turn, influenced two other aspects of
and in exile in the United States to end the Díaz regime. Franciso
the revolution. One was nationalism, in particular, the belief that
Madero, a member of the Coahuila provincial elite, landowner,
foreigners had undue influence on Mexican politics. The second
industrialist, and banker, who was often called “The Apostle of
was the vulnerability of regional elites (Coahuila and Sonora in
Democracy,” challenged continuismo with a book entitled The
particular), who found their economic interests jeopardized by the
Presidential Succession of 1910 (1908). He later campaigned
policies of a regime on which they had little or no influence.
against Díaz in 1910. To the extent that ideology helped to bring
about the revolution, the ideology that initially influenced the In the spring of 1910 the Anti-Re-electionist Party nominated
Mexican Revolution was an older liberal one that called for Madero as a candidate for president. Arrested by Díaz, he spent
constitutions, representative bodies, and free elections. Election Day in prison in San Luis Potosi. Diaz was, not
surprisingly, re-elected. In September, Díaz celebrated his
Although the constitutional challenge was important, there were
eightieth birthday and the centennial of Mexican independence.
other factors behind the challenge to the regime. The regime had
The following month, Madero, released on bail, escaped to San
long been concerned with economic growth and with its role in
Antonio, Texas. There he issued the first of the many plans in the
the emerging world economy. The very success of the regime’s
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revolution, the Plan of San Luis Potosi. Primarily a political the Díaz regime. While clearly interested in what political
document, it promised democracy and federalism but also arrangements the revolution might produce, they emphasized
mentioned the right of workers to bargain collectively and social and economic issues. In part, they stressed the defense of
agrarian reform. the traditional. This could be seen especially in the followers of
Zapata. They wished to regain their communal lands from those,
The combination of a regime experiencing heavy criticism and
Mexicans and foreigners alike, who had used the legal system to
open challenge and the disintegration of the social consensus of
gain ownership, and to re-establish largely autonomous
the elites opened the floodgates to a torrent of ideas, aspirations,
municipalities. They did not, however, simply wish to turn the
and schemes. Centers of revolution developed in
clock back. They recognized, for example, the importance of
Chihuahua under Pascual Orozco, Jr. and in Morelos under collective bargaining rights for the working class.
Emiliano Zapata. Other ideologies, in particular anarcho-
Luis Cervantes, the representative of the intelligentsia in Mariano
syndicalism, a radical movement emphasizing the power and
Azuela’s novel The Underdogs (Los de abajo), waxes eloquent on
influence of trade unions, and a kind of agrarian populism among
the motives of the revolutionaries:
the peasants, gained prominence.
It is not true you [Demetrio Macias, the protagonist of The
Over the next few years, the revolution existed essentially on two
Underdogs] took up arms simply because of Señor Monico. You
levels. The first level involved the elites. They emphasized politics,
are under arms to protest against the evils of all the caciques
nationalism, and the revival of a stagnant economy. They
[political bosses] who are overrunning the whole nation. We are
gathered support from the middle and lower middle classes,
the elements of a social movement which will not rest until it has
including businessmen, merchants, the intelligentsia, bureaucrats,
enlarged the destinies of our motherland. We are the tools Destiny
and local officials. Aware of the needs of the working class and
makes use of to reclaim the sacred rights of the people. We are
the peasantry, they were, however, not willing to venture far in the
not fighting to dethrone a miserable murderer, we are fighting
direction of social reform. Early on, the most prominent
against tyranny itself.
representative of this group was Madero.
The reality, of course, is that motives were mixed. Some saw the
The second level included mostly workers and peasants, those
revolution as a grand struggle for justice in the face of tyranny.
most directly affected by the economic problems associated with
Many, perhaps most, had more concrete aims.
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Madero gained broad support in 1911 and defeated Díaz. In the of the former dictator, had already rebelled once against Madero
fall he took office as president. Although aware of the need for and had been defeated and arrested. Gaining release from prison,
land reform, his initial measures seemed designed more for he rebelled again in February 1913. This rebellion also failed and
speculators than for campesinos. In less than a month after Felix Díaz found himself besieged in an old fortress in Mexico
Madero took office, he faced the opposition of Zapata. Zapata City. The commander of the federal troops, Victoriano Huerta,
was a trainer of horses and a stable master. Elected to local office came to an agreement with Díaz. He also concluded the Pacto de
in 1909 in the village of Anenecuilco, Morelos, he was deeply la Embajada with the American ambassador, Henry Lane Wilson.
sympathetic to the problems of the peasants. In his own plan, the The main idea of the agreement with the American ambassador
Plan of Ayala (November 1911), Zapata advanced a radical was to remove Madero from power in favor of Felix Díaz. Huerta,
agenda for land reform. He called for land redistribution in the however, managed to make himself president. In the process he
form of communes and cooperatives and also for the return of had President Madero and José María Pino Suarez, his vice-
municlpal autonomy. He also advocated democracy and president, murdered.
collective bargaining rights for the working class.
Huerta’s cynical opportunism led to a civil war that engulfed large
Pascual Orozco, who had combined cowboys, miners, portions of Mexico from 1913 to 1917. Huerta gained the backing
lumberjacks, Indians, and farmers in Chihuahua into a force that of Orozco, but he was opposed by many of the elites. The most
was originally Maderista, emerged as the major opponent of important of these, Governor Venustiano Carranza of Coahuila,
Madero. He, too, issued a radical plan of social reform, the Plan detested Huerta’s regime and issued his own plan in response to
Orozquista (March 1912). Zapata and Orozco, although unable to it, the Plan of Guadalupe (1913), a document almost exclusively
coordinate their individual efforts effectively, nonetheless were a concerned with politics. Zapata, of course, still looking for
formidable opposition to Madero by 1913. In the meantime, support for land reform, opposed Huerta even more strongly than
Madero failed to win support from the industrial workers who he had Madero. Pancho Villa, who had fought in 1910–1911
formed the Casa del Obrero Mundial, a workers’s council in under Orozco, emerged as an important new opponent in
Mexico City in 1912. Chihuahua, where he gathered cowboys, sharecroppers, miners,
and lumberjacks into a first-class fighting unit, the Division del
The greatest danger to Madero, however, came from
Norte, the most powerful rebel force in the revolution. Where
reactionaries, opportunists, and foreigners. Felix Díaz, a nephew
Zapata was the leader of a community, Villa seemed more the

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man on horseback (he was a superb horseman). Brave, country. In the summer of 1914, even though Huerta had left the
charismatic, dedicated to his men, and an excellent organizer and revolutionary stage, Carranza was still no match for Villa and his
manager, he was not all bravado, however. He believed in the ally Zapata, neither in terms of military strength nor political
redistribution of income from the rich to the poor and noted the following.
importance of education. Most of all, he seemed interested in a
Alvaro Obregón Salido, who had not participated in the Maderista
return to the autonomy enjoyed by what had been frontier
revolt of 1910–1911, was on the fringes of the elites socially. He
communities in Chihuahua. In this respect, both he and Zapata
soon, however, became the indispensable man for Carranza and
wanted to return to a world that governed itself with minimal
the Constitutionalists. Obregón not only wanted to liberalize
interference from Mexico City. Like Zapata, too, he was a
politics, he also presented an extensive social agenda that
regionalist, uncomfortable on the national stage.
included agrarian and industrial reform. He could step outside the
In the chaos of warring factions, American intervention once elite view of the world and understand the needs of other social
again forced the revolution in a particular direction. In April 1914 groups in Mexico. He eventually became the most important
the US Navy launched an attack on the Mexican port of Veracruz. figure in the first, most violent phase of the revolution. Obregón
After a naval bombardment, the US Army secured and occupied made two significant contributions to the Constitutionalist
the city. In November 1914 the American government decided to position in 1914. First, he courted the working class, organized in
back Carranza’s Constitutionalist army as the faction most likely the Casa del Obrero Mundial, and the urban intellectuals. The
to respect American interests in Mexico. It used its position in workers provided important support for the army. When
Veracruz to equip Carranza’s army. The army received some Carranza’s stance on land reform, which stressed the importance
12,000 rifles and carbines, over three million rounds of of observing property rights, was widely denounced by Villista
ammunition, machine guns, barbed wire, cars, trucks, and and Zapatista leaders, Obregón arranged a meeting between the
artillery. These supplies were crucial in the eventual two sides at Aguascalientes in
Constitutionalist defeat of Villa’s forces.
October.
Between the American occupation of Veracruz and the resupply
The convention at Aguascalientes brought the followers of Villa
of Carranza’s s troops, Villa had repeatedly defeated Huerta’s
and Zapata closer together and made clear their differences with
forces, forcing Huerta to give up the presidency and flee the
Carranza. It also made plain the radical nature of their ideas,
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effectively pitting them against Carranza and Obregón. Stunned While Obregón defeated Villa, Zapata continued to hold the south
American observers made the fateful decision to support and the center of Mexico. At the same time, working-class
Carranza and Obregón. radicalism, centered on the Casa del Obrero Mundial, formed a
growing threat to the Constitutionalist movement. A strike in May
At the end of the year, Villa and Zapata met for the first time at
1916 resulted in victory for the Casa. When few of the promises
Xochimilco. As an American agent (quoted in John Womack’s fine
made in May were kept, a renewed strike in July found the
biography of Zapata) described the scene, Villa was “tall, robust,
government better prepared. It used the army to break the power
weighing about 180 pounds… wearing an English [pith] helmet, a
of the anarcho-syndicalist unions.
heavy brown sweater, khaki trousers, leggings and heavy riding
shoes.” Zapata was much shorter than Villa, “weighing probably Villa, despite defeat by Obregón, continued to be troublesome.
130 pounds…[and wearing] a short black coat, a large light blue His raid on Columbus, New Mexico, early in 1916, resulted in the
silk neckerchief, pronounced lavender shirt…d} a pair of black, “Punitive Expedition” led by General John [Link]. Villa
tight-fitting Mexican trousers with silver buttons down the outside became an almost legendary figure, but could not translate this
seam of each leg.” The two chiefs, at first at a loss for words, into effective political power.
eventually found common ground in their dislike of Carranza.
While the fighting continued, the Constitutionalists staged a
They were unable, however, to effectively coordinate their armies.
meeting in 1916 at Queretaro. This was a very different affair from
While the nation saw them as a united force, they continued to
the meeting two years prior at Aguascalientes. Fewer military
fight largely separate campaigns, which weakened each of their
leaders were present. Instead there were more people with
positions greatly.
university educations and professional backgrounds. Out of the
In 1915 Obregón’s reorganized and well-equipped armies meeting came the Constitution of 1917, the most important
defeated Villa’s forces in a series of battles from April to June. document in twentieth- century Mexican history.
Obregón applied the lessons the Great War was teaching the
The Constitution of 1917 created a series of reforms that
world and used barbed wire and carefully placed machine guns to
would lay the foundation for a new Mexican government. It called
good effect. He also had the use of modern artillery provided by
for separation of church and state, the right to education through
the Americans.
public schools, the regulation of working conditions, and the right
of workers to form unions and to strike. It also empowered the
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government to redistribute land. This meant not simply restoring also to the urban middle classes and the workers. It had done the
land illegally seized from the peasantry. It also made possible the least for the majority of the population, the peasants. But even for
expropriation of land that was not serving a useful purpose. them it had made promises and created a constitutional basis for
Finally, it also asserted that the nation owned the subsoil action on those promises. The Constitution of 1917 had set an
resources. Nearly every group in the Mexican Revolution found agenda that was basically democratic and progressive. The
something in the Constitution it had been fighting for. The revolutionaries had seized and reconstituted power. It now
Constitution, a clear repudiation of laissez-faire liberalism, owed remained to be seen how effectively they would use it.
much to the plans, especially the Plan Orozquista and the Plan de
Using power (1920–1940)
Ayala. It was, however, a document of reform, not of revolution.
The costs of the revolution were enormous. In a nation with a Reconstruction was the most important task of the 1920s. This
population of roughly 15 million, between 1.5 and 2 million died. was, however, no easy task given the lack of institutions and
Many of the leaders of the revolution were assassinated. The first governmental processes, the absence of consensus as to how to
was Emiliano Zapata in April 1919-He became a martyr. Carranza proceed, and the continuing tendency to use violence to resolve
was held responsible for Zapata’s death and lost a great deal of differences of opinion. The Constitution of 1917 provided a basic
popularity. The following year Carranza attempted to plan for reconstruction, but in 1920 it offered little more than
handpick his successor. To many, workers, peasants, and even promises. To what extent could the government turn those
the Americans, this could only mean a continuation of a regime promises into realities?
that seemed unable to address the basic problems of the country.
His former lieutenant, Obregón, who had resigned after the Obregón brought with him from Sonora people with
assassination of Zapata, led a march on Mexico City that administrative experience and political skills. He, Adolfo de la
deposed the isolated Carranza. Carranza was assassinated later Huerta, and Plutarco Elías Calles counted themselves as
that year. hardheaded realists. They were eager to repeat on a national level
what they had been able to accomplish in Sonora.
The Mexican Revolution, while occurring at the same time as the
Great War and revolutions all around the world, had followed and The new government emphasized reconciliation. It negotiated the
continued to follow itsown path. It had broadened the practice of retirement of Pancho Villa in 1920 and ended the conflict with the
politics and given voice not only to provincial and local elites but Zapatistas and other regional rebels. It also welcomed the return

322
of former opponents of Carranza to political life. Members of the A massive rebellion nonetheless broke out in December 1923.
government saw themselves as successors to Madero, as the The government, backed by organized labor and the peasants,
true representatives of the Mexican Revolution. The new slogan put down the rebellion by March the following year. A by-product
was “The Revolution transformed into government” (“La of the failed rebellion was a smaller, less dangerous military.
Revolucion hecha gobierno”).
President Calles had a reputation of being more radical and more
Obregón reached out as well to different interest groups. He had nationalistic than Obregón. During his term in office, he continued
already formed an alliance with the Regional Confederation of Obregón’s policies, maintaining a good relationship with labor,
Mexican Workers (CROM), the most important organization for extending land redistribution, expanding the railroad system, and
workers for most of the 1920s. He also sponsored land building rural schools. Overall, however, presidential power grew
redistribution in areas where peasant unrest was most at the expense of increasingly dependent states.
pronounced.
In the course of the 1920s, the United States came to view
Although Obregón was acknowledged as the undisputed caudillo Mexico with suspicion. Influenced by the emergence of Soviet
or political boss in Mexico, he had to contend with regional Russia, some in Washington considered the Calles government a
leaders and with the large revolutionary army. Mass politics Bolshevik government and talked about “Soviet Mexico.”
served as a counterweight to the ambitious politicians and Internally, the passage of anticlerical legislation in 1926 led to the
generals. Cristero Rebellion in west-central Mexico. It began with the
declaration of a strike by the Roman Catholic Church on July 31,
As the end of his term neared, Obregón worked to organize a
1926. For three years, priests did not celebrate mass, baptize
peaceful transition. Relations with the United States had
babies, or give the dying the last rites. Between 1927 and 1929,
improved, leading to formal recognition of the Mexican
bands of Cristeros attacked the government under the slogan of
government in 1923. Earlier, in the spring, Villa’s assassination
“Viva Christ the King!” (“Viva Cristo Rey!”). Tens of thousands of
removed any possibility he might take advantage of the transition
Mexicans died in a renewal of a civil war with a distinctive
period. Calles announced as his candidacy for the presidency.
religious basis.
The beneficiary of Obregón’s support, Calles won the election.
At the end of Calles’ term, whether Obregón would return to
office became the major political question. The Constitution had
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been amended in 1927 to permit one nonconsecutive re-election, nomination of Cardenas. He likely endorsed him with the idea in
and in 1928 the presidential term extended to six years. Obregón mind he could use Cardenas, a friend and loyal supporter in the
ran for office and won re-election in July 1928. past, as he had used previous presidents.

Obregón survived two assassination attempts but he did not Even though Cardenas’s election was assured, he campaigned
survive the third. Calles, in an attempt to head off chaos, resisted throughout Mexico. He apparently sought a popular mandate for
the idea of re-election and instead handed the presidency to a a continuation of the revolution. Elected in July 1934, he took
candidate acceptable to both his supporters and those of office the following December and began what essentially formed
Obregón. In all, there were three presidents between 1928 and a second revolution, a period of rapid and radical change. In
1934, a period known as the Maximato. Calles, the most powerful several ways, it resembled the Stalin Revolution in the Soviet
man in the country despite his lack of office, became known as Union, also in the 1930s. It featured a reorganization of
the Jefe Maximo (Supreme Chief). agriculture, although one that had very different results from the
Soviet effort. It solidified a political system that endured for the
Under the first of the three presidents, the government negotiated
next few decades, again a very different system from that of the
an end to the Cristero Rebellion and improved relations with the
Soviet Union. Finally, it emphasized the creation of a Mexican
United States. In 1929 both the Callistas and the Obregónistas
identity and encouraged a feeling of national pride in Mexico,
cooperated to form a federation of the state and regional
again superficially similar to Stalin’s efforts to create the new
revolutionary parties, the National Revolutionary Party (PNR).
Soviet man and woman and pride in the Soviet Union. Cardenas’s
Within the PNR, a revitalized agrarian movement became
efforts, however, while revolutionary, were far more moderate and
increasingly influential. Calles could not counterbalance it with
involved relatively little violence. Still, Mexico at the end of the
CROM, the labor movement, in that CROM was excluded from
1930s was quite different from what it had been at the beginning
the PNR because of its opposition to Obregón’s re-election.
of the decade.
In 1933 the agrarian forces established the National Peasant
The initial problem the government faced was what to do with the
Confederation and called for the renewal of agrarian reform.
Jefe Maximo. Calles expected to continue to manage political
Working within the PNR, they supported the nomination of Lazaro
affairs from behind the scenes, but Cardenas worked in the first
Cardenas as candidate for president in 1934. Calles did not
year to retire or replace army generals and state governors allied
oppose the will of the party he had created and agreed to the
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with Calles. He also accelerated land reform and tolerated the must always keep in mind that it is people and their happiness
strike movement, gaining the support of agrarian and labor and not the production of wealth that matters.” The governments
organizations. When Calles began to criticize government policy that followed soon altered this radical perspective.
in 1935, Cardenas purged his cabinet of Calles’s supporters. The
Cardenas also courted labor. The PNR’s Six-Year Plan called for
Cardenistas took over the PNR, the Congress, and the
increased state intervention in the economy and Cardenas gave
governments of a number of states.
the labor movement free rein to strike, particularly against foreign
It took several additional months for the game to play out. firms. In 1936 a number of unions came together to create the
Cardenas had Calles put on a plane for the United States in April Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM). Vicente Lombardo
1936 and sent into what was in effect exile. Unlike so many of the Toledano, the major figure in the CTM, worked to gain CTM
other leaders of the Mexican Revolution, Calles was not endorsement of the policies of the government. The
assassinated. The Maximato ended peacefully. confederation also participated with the PNR in electoral politics.

The main thrust of Cardenas’ policy concerned the welfare of the The alliance between government and labor led to the most
average Mexican. Two interconnected activities were necessary dramatic event of the Cardenas government, the expropriation of
for his policy to work. One involved a reduction of the power of the foreign-owned petroleum industry in March 1938. After a local
the hacienda or large estate. The other called for the construction federal arbitration board ruled in favor of
of the ejido, communally owned land that could be worked either
an increase in wages and improved social benefits for workers, oil
communally or by individuals.
companies appealed to the Federal Conciliation and Arbitration
In 1935 land grants quadrupled. The next year, with the end of the Board. When it ruled in favor of the workers, the oil companies
Maximato, even more dramatic actions took place. Cardenas again balked and Cardenas acted. It was, in effect, a declaration
expropriated many of the richest zones of commercial agriculture of economic independence and was wildly popular in Mexico. It
in the country and provided funding for tractors and other echoed one of the main themes of the Mexican Revolution and
equipment through the National Ejidal Credit Bank. During his might justly be considered a high point of the second phase of
administration some fifty million acres were distributed to about the revolution.
800,000 peasants. More than 11,000 ejidos were established. At
the end of the decade, one of Cardenas’s ideologues wrote: “We
325
In line with the social and economic changes, Cardenas also Education (SEP) commented in 1926 that “Our little rural school
transformed Calles’s party into a party based on the CTM and the stands for Mexico and represents Mexico in those far-off corners
newly created National Peasant Confederation (CNC). Other —so many of them that belong to Mexico but are not yet
sectors of the new party included the military and a unit Mexico.”
composed largely of state employees. The 1938 party convention
The cultural revolution accelerated in the 1930s. In particular, the
accepted these changes and gave the party a new name: the
Cardenista policy and ideology of indigenismo took root.
Party of the Mexican Revolution (PRM).
Indigenismo opposed the older idea of civilizing the Indians.
Cardenas’s government also instituted a cultural revolution. The Rather, it called for the promotion of the social, economic, and
cultural revolution in Mexico aimed primarily at the creation of a spiritual emancipation of Indians while at the same time it
new Mexican national identity. This meant, first of all, fighting the preserved the best of native culture. Those in charge of the work
influence of the Catholic Church. More positively, like the great of preservation often made unfounded assumptions about Indians
social revolutions in Russia and later in China, revolutionaries in and their heritage, which often produced representations of that
Mexico wanted to create new revolutionary men and women. heritage that were not authentic. Nonetheless, the intention was
They wanted to bring Mexicans from all regions and classes to improve the life of Mexico’s Indians and to preserve their
together in a process that might be termed “Mexicanization.” The culture. Indian heritage received new prominence and
battleground for Mexicanization, the creation of a republican and acceptance.
secular outlook, was the school. One person in particular, José
Mexico’s cultural revolution shocked some, while disappointing
Vasconselos, made the cultural revolution of the 1930s possible
others by not going far enough. By the 1940s, however, it had
through his educational reforms in the 1920s. He created a
created a somewhat different Mexico, one in which most young
system of rural primary schools, which by 1936 included some
people had learned to read and write. The Mexico heavily
11,000 schools, 14,000 teachers, and more than 700,000
influenced by France that many had criticized during the Porfiriato
children. It was an impressive accomplishment although not
had been Mexicanized. Mexicans now saw themselves and
nearly enough. Estimates were that twice as many rural
their country differently. This was portrayed artistically in the
schoolteachers were needed. This educational reform was
stunning murals of José Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera.
reminiscent of educational efforts in the French Third Republic in
While Orozco painted what the revolution had been, Rivera
the era before World War I. One official in the Ministry of Public

326
painted what it should have been. Both glorified Mexico, its agricultural affairs shifted from the ejidos to commercial
people, customs, and history. In many ways, however, Mexico’s agriculture and the private sector. The Cardenista project of a
cultural revolution, while bringing the country together, obscured rural Mexico of prosperous ejidos remained uncompleted. It may
the importance of the several regions into which Mexico was then have been a utopian approach in many respects, and its attempt
still divided. at social engineering ran counter to the economic trends of the
twentieth century.
The “death” of the revolution
The government under Ávila Camacho also emphasized
In the 1940 presidential race, the PRM faced a choice between a
industrialization. Taking advantage of the demand created by
Cardenista candidate, the radical Francisco Mugica, and a more
World War II, Mexican industry grew by an average of 10 percent
moderate figure, General Manuel Ávila Camacho, Cardenas’s
a year between 1940 and 1945. Labor, in the form of the CTM,
defense minister. Cardenas believed the PRM was “a
went along with the policy of industrialization. In the postwar
revolutionary instrument” that would continue the revolution and
period, the CTM was strengthened at the expense of the labor
did not try to influence the choice of the PRM’s candidate. It
movement more generally in an effort to keep wages low and
chose Avila Camacho.
make foreign investment attractive.
Although Ávila Camacho promised “to consolidate the gains of
Finally, Ávila Camacho changed Cardenas’s “revolutionary
the Cardenas regime,” his government took Mexico in another
instrument,” the PRM, to offset the power of the labor and
direction. This could be seen plainly in the lack of attention paid
peasant sectors. In 1946 it was reconstituted as the Party of the
to land reform and the ejido. Land redistribution slowed to a crawl
Institutional Revolution (PRI) and the authority of the leadership
during Ávila Camacho’s time in office. Even more important, the
strengthened.
government failed to make available to the ejidos the necessary
financing and the other kinds of assistance farmers needed. The government and its supporters in the PRI established a vision
of a modern Mexico reminiscent of the vision of the cientificos,
Not coincidentally, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Mexican
the supporters of industrialization, foreign investment, and
Ministry of Agriculture established the Mexican Agricultural
technological progress in the Porfirean era. Essentially, they
Project in 1943. Its work formed the basis for the “Green
brought the revolution to an end. It had served its purpose. Now
Revolution” of hybrid grains. The emphasis in Mexican
industry, commerce, science, technology, foreign capital, all these
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were to be used to create a vibrant, urban, modern state and stable political system worked with only the occasional hitch until
society. the 1980s, when a slow unraveling of the economy began.
Revolutionary institutions, symbols, and rhetoric imperfectly
In itself an appealing vision, it obscured the reality of Mexico in
disguised the hollowing out of the revolution.
the post-World War II period. That Mexico was a society in which
small numbers of people owned and controlled industry, Conclusion
commerce, communications, and finance. Similarly, a few
In many respects the long reign of the PRI was a brilliant, if deeply
landowners and agricultural companies dominated agriculture.
flawed, achievement. It provided stability and continuity for
Workers and peasants lost ground economically. Politics was
decades. Insiders in the system lived well. Those outside the
organized for the benefit of a few powerful individuals and
system received handouts. It is ironic that the Mexican Revolution
groups. In a sense, politics became a game in which those few
in its institutionalized form became the basis for a highly sterile
privileged players earned a rich reward. The majority were not
political life for several decades. In this sense, the use of power
players and gained only occasional scraps, generally around
led nowhere or only back to a new version of the Porfirean era. In
election time.
that regard, it must be regarded as a failure.
In 1947 the economist Daniel Cosío Villegas published an article
The Mexican Revolution was not, of course, the only revolution to
called “The Crisis of Mexico,” in which he announced the “death”
be embalmed and put on display. It was, however, perhaps the
of the Mexican Revolution. There seems little doubt that it did die,
one most skillfully used for that purpose in the twentieth century.
or rather was murdered by the real life counterparts of Carlos
As will be seen, both the Russian and the Vietnamese, after far
Fuentes’s eponymous fictional creation, Artemio Cruz, in the
more bloodshed and violence, also embalmed their revolutions in
1940s and 1950s. What is striking, though, is the manner in which
systems that mocked the original ideals of the revolutions. The
those who murdered it embalmed the revolution and put it on
same could be said of revolution in China and Cuba. The Mexican
display in much the same way Lenin’s corpse was displayed in
Revolution managed to reach a kind of halfway house with the
the mausoleum in Red Square. Mass politics continued to be a
idealism and radicalism of the Cardenas era of the 1930s. Had
feature, largely ritualistic, of Mexican life. Educational
Carlos Salinas de Gotari resembled Mikhail Gorbachev more
opportunities led to the growth of a middle class. Labor unions
closely in his reform-mindedness, perhaps the revolution might
continued to seek, within limits, a better life for their members. A

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have finally achieved a stage allowing for indefinite political
evolution.

It remains to be seen whether the institutions and arrangements

now in place in Mexico after the election of Vicente Fox in 2000
as president will lend themselves to any kind of evolutionary
refashioning of politics and economics. Perhaps Mexico in the
twenty-first century can recapture a useful version of the Mexican
Revolution of the twentieth century or perhaps it will find a way to
leave behind the corpse of that revolution in the creation of some
new basis for politics and government.

The previous section is provided by Lynn University’s

use of Ebook Central Academic Complete.

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Chapter 10

Nationalism

Learning objectives

After reading this chapter, students will be able to do the

following:

• Identify characteristics of nationalism.

• Understand the role of nationalism for the state and its

government structures.
Section 1

Defining nationalism

1. The sentiment and ideology of attachment to a nation and to attempts at European government an association of nationalism
its interest. and legal and political ideals of the nation-state. These ideals
attempt to find the ingredients of political obligation and political
2. The theory that a state (perhaps every state) should be
identity in allegiances which are in some sense less than wholly
founded in a nation, and that a nation should be constituted as a
political–matters of geographical, cultural and ethnic association.
state. Hence, the attempt to uphold national identity through
The motive is to find some binding force between people that is
political action. National identity is something more than
stronger than any revocable agreement to be governed, wider
nationhood: it involves, not only the territorial integrity, common
than any merely personal affection, and sufficiently public to lend
language, custom and culture noted above as essential to the
itself to the foundation of political institutions and laws. (See pre-
idea of a nation, but also consciousness of these, as determining
political order.)
distinct rights and duties. This consciousness is held to render
intelligible and to justify the habits of association among Some oppose nationalism to patriotism. Any number of contrasts
neighbours. (In its extreme form nationalism might involve the might be intended; for example, that between a sentiment of
emergence of an ethnocentric or even racist ideology.) attachment (patriotism), and an ideology of national superiority
(nationalism); or that between a respect for political institutions
Nationalism has often been thought to be a political reaction to
and laws (patriotism), and an attachment to race, language and
the Napoleonic conquest of Europe, and to the break-up over
custom (nationalism). Modern nationalism is often decried, on
the centuries of the Empire in Central Europe. However, that is
account, e.g., of its attempt to found political obligation in purely
misleading, if it is meant to imply, e.g., that the ideology of
social allegiances, or its alleged irrationalism, or its opposition to
national self-determination neither preceded Napoleon in
universalist doctrines, or its nascent belligerence or xenophobia.
Europe, nor occurred independently elsewhere. It is more
Patriotism might then be proposed as a beneficent alternative, a
plausible to say that there emerged from the Napoleonic

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sentiment which fills the gap between obligations incurred and Perhaps the matter can be put in more simple terms: in the
obedience required, without having recourse to a bellicose fiction communist state, they are in charge. After the overthrow of
of national integrity. However, both ‘nationalism’ and ‘patriotism’ communism, we are in charge. But who are we? This is the
are used loosely, and, as defined in this dictionary, they are clearly question to which nationalism provides the easiest and the most
compatible. emotive answer.

The defence of a politics of national identity is part of the legacy

of Central European romanticism, and found early expression in The previous section is provided by Lynn University’s
the writings of Herder and Fichte. In the UK nationalism is use of Credo Reference.
confined to the Celtic fringes, where, it has been associated with
movements for home rule in Ireland, Scotland and – to some
extent – Wales. English nationalism is virtually unknown, at least
under that description. The same could be said of American
nationalism, although the US has defined itself successfully as a
nation, has attached itself firmly to a cherished territory, and
generated the strongest form of contemporary patriotism.

Perhaps the greatest rise in nationalism in recent years has been

in post-communist Europe – especially in the provinces of the
former Yugoslavia and the republics of the former USSR. The
emergence of nationalist movements in these places is commonly
attributed to one or other or both of two causes: first, the
existence of ethnic, religious and social conflicts which the
communist system had suppressed but not resolved, and which
have suddenly come to the surface; second, the need to find
grounds for the legitimacy of a new social and political order
without relying on the discredited search for a unifying ideology.

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Section 2

Further defining nationalism

Nationalism is more than a description of a political movement. It Nationalism and the State
also describes a field of study concerned with the configuration
of identity with contemporary state and society, including the The study of nationalism is complicated because of the ways in
provenance and implications of those identities, and so spans which it is coupled with a study of societies more broadly, and
questions of sociology, history and politics. how this is related to the processes and structures of the state in
particular. While the state can take a dynamic form (and so is not
Nationalism, argues Hearn (2006: 11), is best conceived as ‘the
a monolithic entity), the mass state – as opposed to the city
making of combined claims, on behalf of a population, to an
states described in the discussion of Athenian citizenship – is a
identity, to jurisdiction and to territory’. This definition is put
product of modernity in so far as it came into being during a
forward in a manner that emphasises the processes (e.g. ‘making
period of relatively rapid social, economic, political development
of’) nationalism, rather than its objective content per se. Yet it is
(from the end of the fifteenth century onwards) (Gellner, 1983).
a definition that is also sensitive to how nationalism can entail a
One of the things this led to, and which is crucial for an
meaningful reflection of people's ‘consciousness’ too, and the
understanding of nationalism, was the emergence of a political
dialectical interactions these may reflect. As such Hearn's
body – a government and wider bureaucracy – with enough
definition is a useful means of delineating what is often portrayed
authority to govern over a given territory, and in turn expect
as either ‘natural’ phenomena, or as something cynically
people in that territory to owe their allegiance to it (in contrast to,
engineered by elites. And yet there remain good reasons for Hall
say, owing allegiances to a monarch or other ruler) (Smith, 1986).
(1998: 1) to insist that ‘no single, universal theory of nationalism
The point is that the state bases its very legitimacy (the very right
is possible. As the historical context is diverse, so too must be
to rule over populations) on being able to represent the people in
our concepts.’
it. While citizenship describes this relationship between people
and the state – a relationship that grants certain ‘rights’ (such as

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voting, legal protection and free education) as long as citizens could be a ‘nation’, when Tuscany (a region of Italy), which was
adhere to certain ‘duties’ (e.g. obey the law, pay taxes, even much more homogeneous, was not. He wondered therefore how
participate in jury service if asked, or undertake national military the idea of nationality differed from that of a nation. Renan's
service where this is mandatory) – the modern type of state is answer was that nations are not ‘eternal entities’ – by which he
also meant to be made up of people who share a similar meant that they have a beginning and an ending. Like another
language, culture and history. This is what makes it a nation- French sociologist, Emile Durkheim, he argued that a nation is a
state, and an important part of a nation-state is a sense of large-scale solidarity, one made up of a desire to continue a
national identity: an identity that reflects some of the common life:
characteristics shared across other people in their country, and
A nation is not therefore about objective criteria such as ethnic,
which differentiates them from people in another country.
linguistic, geographical bonds, but instead a belief in a common
The criteria of national identity are not always easy to list and past as well as an ability to ‘forget’ which means that national
often end up being intuitive and psychological. Hearn (2006: 6–7) identities are actually an outcome of imagined shared history.
registers this and places it amongst other ways of conceiving (Renan, 1990: 16)
nationalism (including nationalism as identity, ideology, a social
So Renan emphasises the importance of a ‘will to nationhood’
movement, and historical process). That is to say, nationalism as
that seeks a consensus (on historical memory) on which to rest
a feeling in a manner that is intuitive, can be psychologically
present-day consent through a ‘daily plebiscite’. This is the aim,
charged, or is at least emotionally ‘non-rational’ (ibid.). This,
and societies may well fall short of it, but nonetheless appeal, in
however, is not the only way of thinking about nationalism, and to
Renan's terms, to consenting participation in a ‘discourse on
take in a broad perspective it would be fruitful to begin with the
society that performs the problem of totalizing a people and
first part of the concept – that of the nation.
unifying the national will’ (Bhabha, 1994: 160–1).
What is a Nation?
Importantly, Renan makes a conceptual contrast with ethnicity, in
The title of this section comes from a lecture given by the French a manner that has political implications that take us back to
writer Ernest Renan in the late nineteenth century. Renan could Hearn's definition discussed at the outset. Calhoun (1993: 229)
not understand how it was that Switzerland, which had three elaborates this in his observation that a ‘crucial distinction
languages (French, German and Italian) and a variety of religions, between ethnicities and nations is that the latter are envisioned as
334
intrinsically political communities, as sources of sovereignty, while state gave rise to nationalism (Gellner's position as above), or
this is not central to the definition of ethnicities’. That is not to say whether a modern cultural movement gave rise to a mass identity.
that conceptions of the nation cannot (or do not) significantly
Imagined Communities
overlap with ethnicity, that they are not, à la Hobsbawm (1991: 4),
‘different, and indeed non-compatible, concepts’. Nor indeed A highly influential elaboration of the former view comes from the
should this suggest that all nations have sovereignty, but it is historical sociologist Benedict Anderson (1991) in his book
instead to open up the ways in which the ethnic basis of Imagined Communities, which has emerged as a central account
nationhood is often disputed. Those who hold this view are often in the field. Anderson argues that nationalism emerged in Europe
grouped as ‘modernists’, and a trailblazing account was provided in the eighteenth century and created nations as ‘imagined
by Ernest Gellner's (1983) Nations and Nationalism. For him: political communities’ that are both ‘limited and sovereign’ (ibid.:
6). By this he means two things. First, it is imagined in so far as all
It is not the case that the ‘age of nationalism’ is a mere
members of even the smallest nation will never meet each other,
summation of the awakening and political self assertion of this,
and yet in the minds of each lives an image of their connection to
that, or the other nation. Rather when general social conditions
each other. In this regard nations ‘only fully realize their horizons
make for standardised homogeneous, centrally sustained high
in the mind's eye’ (Bhabha, 1994: 293). Second, it is ‘limited’
cultures, pervading ethnic populations and not just elite
because each nation has finite borders beyond which live other
minorities, a situation arises in which well defined educationally
nations. Third, nations are ‘sovereign’ because they were created
sanctioned and unified cultures constitute very nearly the only
in an age of modernity when the ideas of rule by monarchies
kind of unit with which men willingly and often ardently identify
seemed less rational. Lastly, he argued that regardless of the
with. (Ibid.: 55)
actual inequality the nation is always conceived as a deep and
It is important to remember, however, that there are a variety of horizontal comradeship. The latter passes over an often ‘turbulent
positions amongst modernists who may otherwise find agreement and contested history’ to give an emphasis to ‘tradition and
with Gellner, and who offer a different historical timing of the heritage, above all on continuity so that our present political
emergence of nationalism, as well as its key influences. Perhaps a culture is seen as the flowering of a long organic
core distinction concerns whether the creation of the modern evolution’ (Schwarz, 1986: 155).

335
It is really important, however, not to confuse the term imagining was particularly evident in the circulation of newspapers in which
with fabrication because Anderson argues that just because we news stories were simultaneously consumed by an increasing
imagine our social and political order as a ‘national’ one, this number of reading masses who began to share the same
does not mean it is not ‘real’. What he says is that ideas can language, and the widespread availability of these in the same
become a powerful basis for social action. Indeed, it is worth language allowed the reader to have much in common with their
bearing in mind that Gellner's (1983) position was also alive to co-reader. One implication is that these newspapers contained a
this distinction. For the latter: ‘calenderical symmetry’ – by this he meant that because the date
was at the top of newspapers it placed everybody in the country
The idea of man without a nation appears to impose strain on the
in the same time frame. The important thing to notice here is that
modern imagination. A man must have a nationality as he must
he argues that nations and states are the result of a recent
have a nose and two ears. All this seems obvious, though, alas, it
cultural artifact (so nationalism creates nations, not the other way
is not true. But that it should come to seem so very obviously true
around).
is indeed an aspect, perhaps the very core, of the problem of
nationalism. Having a nation is not an inherent attribute to Ethnies and Pre-Modernity
humanity, but it has come to appear as such. (Ibid.: 6)
Not everybody shares the view that nations are an outcome of a
Anderson seeks to illustrate this with reference to his discussion relatively modern imagined identity, however, and detractors often
of the relationship between national vernaculars and identity. To point to what they see as a key flaw in the modernist augment:
this end he identifies the emergence of the printing press – giving why does nationalism persist in the modern (and modernised)
rise to what he called ‘print capitalism’ – as something which did world? The most prominent opposing view comes from a cluster
more than anything else to allow people to imagine themselves as of work around ‘ethno-symbolism’ which says that pre-modern
a nation. Why would this be important? ethnic ties have been important in creating ethnic cultures that
forge a nation. For example, in his book The Ethnic Origin of
Well, first, it allowed for the development of commercial book
Nations, Anthony Smith (1986) argues that modernists, in their
publishing on a wide scale at a time when there was a serious
determination to reveal the invented or constructed nature of
decline in the use of Latin as the main European script. This
nationalism, ignore the continuing persistence of myths, symbols,
meant that more and more regional languages – or ‘vernaculars’ –
values and memories over time, and the significance that these
were used and provided the basis for a national language. This
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things can have for large numbers of people. He argues: ‘the The Bad and the Banal
“roots” of these nations are to be found, both in a general way
You may have already noticed that nowhere has this discussion of
and in many specific cases, in the model of ethnic community
nationalism dwelt on the obviously bad kinds. You only need to
prevalent in much of the recorded history of the globe’ (ibid.: x).
think about some of the many conflicts that have scarred Europe
More precisely, he argues that modern nation-states have
in the last one hundred years. The Nazism of Hitler's Germany
emerged out of a complex mixture of social and ethnic ties all the
and the Holocaust, the Fascism of Franco's Spain and
way back from pre-modern times. He calls these ‘ethnies’ which
Mussolini's Italy – or even much more recently the ethnic
he says modernity has transformed but not erased. In so doing he
cleansing of Muslims in Bosnia – are all illustrations of an extreme
seeks to link ‘the consequences of modernity with an
and terribly violent nationalism. Clearly very few academics would
understanding of the continuing role played by cultural ties and
characterise these as other than what they are – racist
ethnic identities which originated in pre-modern epochs’ (Smith,
movements that grasp and exploit part of a national story that
1995: 47).
supports their political cause. This is true of all the kinds
The analogy he makes is that when it comes to thinking about mentioned above, the best known perhaps being Hitler's fantasy
nations we should regard the modern era as a scroll that has that the German people descended from racially superior ‘Aryans’
been re-used and on which are recorded the experiences and who had many mythical qualities but were principally white and
identities of different ethnic cultures in the past: the earlier Christian.
influencing and being modified by the latter, to produce layers of
The reason for not dwelling on these types of nationalism is that
collective cultures which we call ‘the nation’. In Smith's view this
they are today much less valid – though they have not gone away
would explain which populations are likely to start a movement of
– and are difficult to sustain. But more importantly, by focusing on
nationalism; what the content of this would be (role of memories,
extreme nationalisms we push our own nationalism to the
myths and symbols in languages, public holidays, sacred sites);
periphery of social life, making it something that happens
and most importantly why nationalism is able to generate such
elsewhere and not here, amongst us. In his book Banal
widespread national appeal.
Nationalism Michael Billig (1995) argues that we tend to think
about our everyday nationalism as ‘patriotism’, something which

337
is good and beneficial rather than irrational or dangerous. preserve of white Christians. What the focus on headscarves also
Reflecting on his account, Billig (2009: 349) states: highlights is how central gender and women are to our ‘banal
nationalism’. If we stop and think about it the nation is often
Banal nationalism attempted to look beyond the dialogues of
imagined as a big family, and the homeland as a vulnerable
conscious sense-making towards a psychology of the unnoticed.
woman needing protection – the nasty aspect of this is that rape
The flags hanging in the street, or attached to the lapels of
is frequently used as a weapon of war. Reflecting on this Nira
politicians, carry no propositional message for the ordinary citizen
Yuval-Davies (1997) has argued that gender is a key part of
to receive passively or consciously argue against. Yet, such
nationhood because women are often seen as biological
symbols help us to maintain the everyday world as belonging to
reproducers of members of ethnic groups and, by extension, as
the world of nation-states.
reproducers of national groups. This means that while men are
He argues that this encourages the view that nationalism has more likely to monopolise its political and military representation,
gone away and then returns – that it is a latent force that it is women who come to ‘embody’ the nation as such (Meer et
manifests itself like a natural disaster which strikes spontaneously al., 2010).
and unpredictably. This is referred to as the ‘Sleeping Beauty’
syndrome which only sees nationalism as sometimes spectacular The previous section is provided by Lynn University’s
but misses its more subtle manifestations and ignores how we all use of Credo Reference.
participate in sustaining it for different ends. Symbols in this way
can act as ‘border guards’, and are ‘linked to specific cultural
codes and function to identify people as members or non-
members of the specific national collectivity’ (May, 2001: 61).
Thus in Why the French Don't Like Headscarves, John Bowen
(2006) says this is precisely what happens because even though
the Muslim headscarves and mosque are not objectively more
visible than other religious difference or the cathedral, they are
subjectively shocking because they force French people to think
about how being French is no longer – if it ever was – the

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Section 3

Views of nationalism

Nationalism refers to a sense of devotion to a nation and to the Centralized monarchies established their feudal states,
consciousness of seeking to promote a national culture or identifying acceptable regional languages, separate economies,
national interests. The sentiment of loyalty toward a nation is and even distinct art forms associated with that “national” group
widespread and global. Nationalism is a powerful force that for that divided as well as created conflicts among peoples.
centuries has brought people together. At the same time, it has
However, the scholarly examinations of the division of humanity
divided them and also sparked and brought violent conflicts.
into nations appeared in the latter half of the eighteenth century
It has been noted that “the national idea has become the central (Grosby, 2005). There are three important stages or phases
principle according to which modern society structures inclusion associated with the study of nationalism: First is the idea of
and exclusion, not only in the sphere of culture and identity, but nationalism, which was born before World War I; second is the
also in the legal, political, military, and social domains” (Wimmer, period between 1918 to 1945 when nationalism became a
2002, p. 57). Given its significance, nationalism is a critical issue subject of academic inquiry; and third is between 1945 to the
that needs to be studied by addressing its causes and impacts late 1980s when the debates and research on nationalism
on social conflicts in a multicultural and globalized world. became more diversified (Özkirimli, 2000). Since then,
scholarship in this area has expanded to include the connection
Historical Overview of transnationalism as well, reflecting the “multiple national
residences, identities and loyalties” in this era of migration and
The elements of nationalism can be traced back to ancient times.
globalization (Bryceson & Vuorela, 2002, p. 4).
A sense of pride and community was expressed among ancient
Greeks, who, oftentimes, as a people, felt superior in relation to The interest, among classical scholars and researchers, in
others. Some of the features of nationalism and cultural nationalism grew significantly in the twentieth century. There are
superiority also appeared in the Roman Empire and elsewhere. many reasons for increased scholarly attention on the problem of

339
nationalism and its impact around the world. One was the functionalist perspective on nationalism (Wimmer, 2002). Gellner
“attempt to come to terms with the brutality of World War stated,
I” (Grosby, 2005, p. 117). During this war, millions of people were
Nations as a natural, God-given way of classifying men, as an
killed. Nationalism served as a vehicle for mass mobilization in
inherent though long-delayed political destiny, are a myth;
which one nation fought against another. Nationalism and
nationalism, which sometimes takes pre-existing cultures and
ideology had also played a critical role in the rise of Italian
turns them into nations, sometimes invents them, and often
fascism and German Nazism, which brought death and
obliterates pre-existing cultures: that is a reality, for better or
destruction in Europe and elsewhere. Thus, World War II further
worse, and in general an inescapable one. (p. 49)
expanded the attention of various scholars to study and tackle
the problem of nationalism and its domestic and international Hobsbawm gave credence to the role of political and social
dimensions. After World War II and later, there were emerging transformations in his analysis of nationalism. According to
political movements in Asia and Africa that aimed at ending Hobsbawm, “Both nations and nationalism are products of social
colonization. These decolonization movements were inspired, in engineering” (Özkirimli, 2000 p. 116). He also understood how the
part, by nationalism, the desire for freedom, and the rejection of past, and history, are used to justify the actions of nationalists
the European presence in the region. Also, leaders of national and to maintain group cohesion. Benedict Anderson (1990), in his
self-determination were becoming strong and gaining momentum book Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and
in other parts of the world, especially those who wanted to gain Spread of Nationalism, described the nation as an imagined
independence. political community, noting that the “members of even the
smallest nation will never know most of their fellow members,
Scholars’ Views on Nationalism
meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives
the image of their communion” (Anderson, 1990, p. 15). He
Scholars who wrote and researched different aspects or angles of
asserts that both “nation” and “nationalism” are socially
nationalism include: Ernest Gellner, Benedict Anderson, John
constructed. It is important to understand that people who
Armstrong, Eric Hobsbawm, Anthony D. Smith, and more. For
perceive themselves as a member of a nation base that sense of
instance, Gellner (1990) saw nationalism as a primarily political
belonging without face-to-face interaction with their fellow
principle, implying that the political and national unit should be
community members. In addition, Anderson understood the
congruent. He expressed what could be considered a

340
connection between nationalism, printed literature, and other exclusions of those that are perceived or identified as “others”
resources that often are disseminated to promote and advance within the country (e.g., immigrants, minorities, and more). Two
nationalism. faces of nationalism are worth mentioning and discussing here.
One is negative nationalism, and the other positive nationalism
Smith (2001) has also greatly contributed to nationalism studies.
(Reich, 2001).
He argued that the central question in our understanding of
nationalism is the role of the past in the creation of the present. In Negative nationalism can exclude people in the so-called
addition, Smith supported the idea that nationalism has its “homeland.” This includes the exclusion of certain groups despite
tradition, and that its roots are found in premodern times. the fact that they are living and working within the nation's
According to what has been called a neoromantic view of borders. Some national extremists may perceive minorities, and
nationalism (Wimmer, 2002), kinship, belief systems, common others, unjustly, as not truly being part of the national community.
identity, and associated myths are elements of nationalism. Smith In addition, they also see other nations, or the world, as a zero-
suggested that while nationalism may be an old phenomenon, it sum game, or win-lose situation, in which nationalist gains come
is often reinforced, energized, and promoted by those who bond at other nations’ expense. Usually champions of negative
and have feelings of solidarity among themselves. Today the nationalism turn away from global responsibilities (Reich, 2001).
members of the nation do not need to be alike to join the national On the other hand, those espousing positive nationalism promote
cause; however, they have to share some type of real or imagined and value their own national heritage, including the diversity of
solidarity that they believe in. the nation's population, and seek justice for all. This perspective
of nationalism is more inclusive and promotes the expansion of
Two Faces of Nationalism opportunities for all members of the community inside the
national borders as well as for members of other nations.
Nationalists have a tendency to believe that the nation, or
Furthermore, it is more likely for the society to be open and
country, they belong to or identify with should come first. They
tolerant toward the rest of the world. Here, people would be able
may make divisions of people (“us” versus “them”) based on
to learn from other cultures as well as instill habits of good
national identity; those who are inside the nation's borders can be
citizenship and social justice.
placed in the category of “us” and those outside national borders
are classified as “them,” although there is room for divisions and

341
Major Paradigms of Nationalism roots to antiquity; however, they are the products of human social
organization (Puri, 2004).
There are four main paradigms, among others, that have been
Instrumentalist theorists pay more attention to nationalist beliefs
widely used by scholars and pundits to understand nationalism
that are critical in order to understand nationalism and its causes.
and what causes it. One is called primordial, which has a long
These national beliefs, or perceived sense of community among
history. This paradigm makes an attempt to describe and explain
its members, often are the result of human manipulation.
the phenomenon of nationalism, from the biological or
Instrumentalists don't ignore the kinship and other affinity ties of
evolutionary perspective, by seeing humans that affiliate, belong,
members of the nation. However, they place an emphasis on
and organize themselves based on their affinity of birth. For
elites and their opportunity to manipulate the masses for their
primordialists, “nations are the foundations of human history,
own interests. Indeed, they make an argument that nations and
extension of primitive kinship groups with common ancestry and
nationalism are made up by social elites who advance or
clear social and territorial boundaries” (Puri, 2004, p. 44).
maximize their interests.
Proponents of this paradigm also place importance on language,
race, religion, custom, and identity. All these factors, they argue, Modernist proponents “saw nations as communities of action and
make people or members of the nation identify and affiliate with purpose” in which individuals and groups work and live within the
one another. However, this paradigm or theory has been widely community (Smith, 2009, p. 7). In other words, nationalism is an
criticized by scholars as too narrow and just based on biological ideology of dynamic collective effort as well as sacrifice on behalf
accounts of nations (Puri, 2004). In other words, according to the of the nation (Smith, 2009). Modernists also see nation building
opponents, this theory leaves out, or does not tackle, the cultural and nationalism as something that can develop and flourish out of
and political aspects of nationalism. the condition of modernity. In addition, modernists acknowledge
that the nation is also a modern phenomenon. It is a product of
The perennialist paradigm, and its proponents, are closely related
national ideologies that continue to be evident in the modern and
to primordialist because of their fundamental emphasis on
industrial societies.
nations. However, according to perennialists, nations are not
“natural” as primordialists proclaim. Those who are in the camp of
perennilists assert that contemporary nations may trace their

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The Role of Symbols in Nations and Nationalism and members are more likely to unite due to common imagery,
shared myths, values, and memories (Smith, 2001).
The common denominator is that all nations use some type of
national symbol and ceremony that, to them, have a value. These Hypernationalism

symbols make sense and are considered important for It is the extreme form of nationalism that claimed over one
nationhood and independence. Many scholars and policy hundred million deaths in the twentieth century. It also continues
analysts have paid attention to the meaning of a nation's symbols to divide the human race along the lines of nationality, territorial,
and found them to have a significant role in the nation's formation and identity boundaries that have been created over the
and in nation building (Elgenius, 2011). Of course, a nation's centuries. This type of nationalism is often characterized by
symbols and flags, in some instances, but not always, have been authoritarianism. Leaders and their followers often are able to
introduced, adopted, altered, tested, and established over a manipulate the masses by using propaganda, and other forms of
period of time and also during the most pivotal times of nation persuasion, to buy into this exclusionary ideology. Those in
making (Elgenius, 2011). Thus, for some people of a particular leadership positions may use various forms of propaganda to
nation, the flag is meaningful and may even represent pride, appeal to the ordinary citizens. Three nations—Japan, Italy, and
identification, sacrifice, or freedom. However, national flags, on Germany—who initiated World War II, were all led by leaders who
the other hand, have sometimes contributed to conflicts, carnage, stressed unmet nationalist goals and grievances in the years
and divisions among people. leading up to the outbreak of fighting in 1939 (Hauss, 2003). The

People seem to come together when they celebrate and identify ordinary citizens who took up arms in those conflicts may have

with national holidays, making use of flags, ceremonies, anthems, shared the same kind of deeply rooted emotions and the sense of

emblems, war memorials, and more. All of this, in itself, creates a patriotism that, at least, was portrayed by their leaders as a

visible image that nationalists connect to. In addition to this, worthy cause to join. This was based on ideology and

“flags are political symbols because they authenticate boundaries nationalism. The ordinary Germans were bombarded with

between those who belong and those who do not” (Elgenious, messages that were aimed against other groups. In addition,

2011, p. 3). Furthermore, national symbols, and particularly the respected local leaders also served the Nazi ideology, and this

flag, represent and reinforce people's attitudes toward a nation, served to deepen their resentments and hate. Hitler had to rely on
newspapers, mass organizations, public meetings, and primitive

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radio and film technologies. Today's nationalist (and often what they call historical rights (Gans, 2003). It seems that, to
demagogic) leader has the full range of mass media technologies some, territory and land are vital to national sentiments and
to draw on, and in some of the most destructive conflicts in feelings. It is critical to mention that there is “cultivation of
recent decades (e.g., in Rwanda and Serbia), they did just that. emotions toward the nation as a physical place,” and this can be
Also, social media has been used to manipulate and portray the considered by nationalists as important to them (Hogan, 2009, p.
“other” as a threat or evil. One example is that of the Rwanda 102). Finally, territorial nationalism still is alive and well globally
conflict. There was the Hutu “hate radio” station that encouraged due to nationalist claims. Countries or states may contest such
genocide against Rwanda's Tutsi minority (Snyder & Ballentine, claims. As a result, these self-determination movements may
2001). create new countries or states, but at the same time spark and
cause conflicts. Thus, the issue of nationalism will remain a
It is critical to understand the role that leaders have to play in
significant social and political concept with lasting influence and
today's world. They remain very important in the nation-state
impact in the years ahead.
organized system. Of course, they have a responsibility to resist
and fight hypernationalist ideas and the various forms of
propaganda that goes with them. However, this is not always the The previous section is provided by Lynn University’s
case. Especially in the age of social media, extremist groups and use of Credo Reference.
demagogic leaders have a tendency to use them, and other
channels, to get their messages out. Thus, hypernationalism
tendencies are still present in today's world and can bring chaos
and carnage on a mass scale.

Territorial Nationalism

Even in contemporary times, territory and sovereignty often play a

critical role in nationalism. This type of nationalism presumes that
all inhabitants of a nation, whether they like it or not, owe
allegiance to their nation or country. And national groups quite
often make demands for territorial sovereignty in the name of
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Section 4

Nationalism : a very short introduction

The problem I [the Egyptian Pharaoh Ka-mose] should like to know for what
purpose is my strength . . . I sit here [in Thebes] while both an
What is so important about the existence of nations? Throughout Asiatic and a Nubian have his slice of Egypt . . . A man cannot
history, humans have formed groups of various kinds around dwell properly when despoiled by the taxes of the savages. I will
criteria that are used to distinguish ‘us’ from ‘them’. One such grapple with him, and rip open his belly. My wish is to save Egypt
group is the nation. Many thousands, indeed millions, have died and to smite the Asiatics. —From a speech of Pharaoh Ka-mose
in wars on behalf of their nation, as they did in World Wars I and
In the Qin and Han Periods (221 BCE to 220 CE), distinctions
II during the 20th century, perhaps the cruelest of all centuries.
were drawn between the self-described superior Chinese and
This is one of the reasons why it is so important to understand
those who were viewed by them to be less than human aliens,
what a nation is: this tendency of humanity to divide itself into
the Di and the Rohn. In the tenth chapter of the book of Genesis,
distinct, and often conflicting, groups.
there is recognition of territorial and linguistic divisions of
Evidence of humans forming large, territorially distinct societies humanity into what the ancient Israelites called gôyim.
can be observed from our first written records. Writings from the
These are the sons of Shem according to their clans and
Sumerian civilization of the area of the Tigris and Euphrates
languages, in their lands according to their nations (gôyim). These
Rivers from approximately 2500 BCE record beliefs that
are the clans of the sons of Noah according to their lineage in
distinguished the ‘brothers of the sons of Sumer’, those of
their nations (gôyim). —Genesis 10:31–32
Sumerian ‘seed’, from foreigners. During the 16th century BCE,
Egyptians thought themselves to be distinct from both the In the 5th century BCE, the historian Herodotus asserted a
‘Asiatics’ to their east and the Nubians to their south. ‘common Greekness’ among the Hellenes.

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Then there is our common Greekness: we are one in blood and those societies designated by such terms as the biblical Hebrew
one in language; those shrines of the gods belong to us [both the gôy and the Greek génos? These societies have something to do
Spartans and the Athenians] all in common, and the sacrifices in with birth, territory, and being related in some way, a kinship of
common, and there are our habits, bred of a common upbringing. some kind.
—Herodotus, The History
Were these ancient societies ‘nations’?
Plato and Aristotle divided humanity between Hellenes and
bárbaroi, the barbarian peoples from Asia Minor. The Greek
‘bárbaros’ may have its origin as an onomatopoeic designation Such divisions, where one group differentiates itself from and
for the foreign speech of the peoples from Asia Minor that was opposes another, continue at the beginning of the 21st century:
incomprehensible to the Hellenes. However, in the aftermath of both Chechens and Ukrainians consider themselves to be
Greek wars with Persia, it acquired a tone of contempt that different from Russians; Kurds distinguish themselves from both
continues to this day in our use of the term ‘barbarian’. Moreover, Iraqis and Turks; the Taiwanese seek an existence separate from
in his description of the ideal republic, mainland China; Slovaks and Czechs have separated, forming
distinct national states; Kashmir is considered by some not to be
Plato described a familiarity that bound together all those born as
part of India; and so on. The goal of this book is to examine this
Hellenes, as if they were all members of the same familial
tendency of humans to separate themselves from one another
household. As a consequence, he thought the barbarians were
into those distinct societies that we call nations.
not only foreign to the Hellenes but also their enemies by ‘nature’.
Having recognized this, it must also be acknowledged that human
I assert that the Greek stock (génos) is, with respect to itself, its
beings exhibit another tendency, when they engage in activities in
own [as if of the same household] and akin; and with respect to
which it seems not to matter who were their parents, where they
the barbarian, foreign and alien. Then when Greeks fight with
where born, or what language they speak.
barbarians and barbarians with Greeks, we’ll assert that they are
at war and are enemies by nature. —Plato, The Republic These activities, rather than asserting divisions within humanity,
bring people together. For example, scientists are concerned with
Plato used the term génos to refer to this familiarity that bound
understanding the physical facts of the universe, such as the
together all those born as Hellenes. What is the character of
nature of light. Light itself is not English, French, or German; and
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there is no English, French, or German scientific method. There is character; thus, for any nation there will be different and
only science. To speak of a supposedly racial or national scientific competing beliefs about it that often manifest themselves as
method, as when the Nazis insisted that there was an ‘Aryan political differences. Some may view their nation as standing for
science’, is to betray the character of science by introducing individual liberty, while others may be willing to sacrifice that
considerations that have no place in understanding the physical liberty for security. Some may welcome immigrants, and support
aspects of the universe. Other notable examples of activities and policies that make it easy for them to become citizens; while
their corresponding conceptions that bring humans together are others may be hostile to immigration. To take another example,
the monotheistic religions and commerce. Furthermore, consider disputes today in India. Some members of that nation
throughout history, empires, such as the Roman and Ottoman, have a narrow, intolerant view of their country by insisting that it
have sought to unify their peoples as a political alternative to should have only one religion, Hinduism; while others think that
nations. Thus, while an individual often understands himself or there should be freedom of religion such that Muslims, Sikhs, and
herself as a member of a particular nation, one may also Christians are rightly members of the nation.
recognize oneself as a part of humanity.
Distinctive of nationalism is the belief that the nation is the only
If a proper examination of the question ‘what is a nation?’ goal worthy of pursuit – an assertion that often leads to the belief
requires consideration of the tendency of humans to assert that the nation demands unquestioned and uncompromising
distinctions, then it must also take into account those activities loyalty. When such a belief about the nation becomes
that unify humanity. To fail to do so will only result in a predominant, it can threaten individual liberty. Moreover,
misapprehension of the significance of the nation in human nationalism often asserts that other nations are implacable
affairs; and it is precisely an inquiry into that significance that is enemies to one’s own nation; it injects hatred of what is perceived
the focus of this book. We are concerned, above all, with the to be foreign, whether another nation, an immigrant, or a person
question ‘what does the existence of nations tell us about human who may practise another religion or speak a different language.
beings?’ But what is a nation, and what is nationalism? Of course, one need not view one’s own nation and its relation to
other nations in such a manner.
Many wrongly use the term ‘nationalism’ as a synonym for
‘nation’. Nationalism refers to a set of beliefs about the nation.
Any particular nation will contain differing views about its

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In contrast to nationalism, the nation is a particular kind of There are a number of complications to this definition of the
society. But what kind of society is the nation? nation that require careful examination.

However, clarifying further what we mean by the terms ‘nation’ Time, memory, and territory
and ‘nationalism’, and addressing the other questions raised
Nations emerge over time as a result of numerous historical
briefly in this first chapter, involve other related problems: what is
processes. As a consequence, it is a pointless undertaking to
a social relation?; what is a territory?; what is kinship?; the
attempt to locate a precise moment when any particular nation
appearance of the nation in history; the relation of the nation to
came into existence, as if it were a manufactured product
religion; and the tendency of humanity to divide itself into different
designed by an engineer. Let us examine why this is so. All
nations. Each of these problems will be taken up in the chapters
nations have historical antecedents, whether tribe, city-state, or
that follow.
kingdom. These historically earlier societies are important
What is a nation? components in the formation of nations. For example, the English
nation emerged out of the historically earlier societies of the
The nation is a territorial community of nativity. One is born into a Saxons, Angles, and Normans. However, these historical
nation. The significance attributed to this biological fact of birth antecedents are never merely just facts, because key to the
into the historically evolving, territorial structure of the cultural existence of the nation are memories that are shared among each
community of the nation is why the nation is one among a of those many individuals who are members of the nation about
number of forms of kinship. It differs from other forms of kinship the past of their nation, including about those earlier societies.
such as the family because of the centrality of territory. It differs
from other territorial societies such as a tribe, city-state, or There would, for example, have been no nation of ancient Israel

various ‘ethnic groups’ not merely by the greater extent of its had there not been memories about the past, such as the exodus

territory, but also because of its relatively uniform culture that from Egypt, Moses and his bronze snake (which was kept in the

provides stability, that is, continuation over time. Jerusalem Temple until the reign of King Hezekiah (714–686
BCE)), and the reigns of David and Solomon. There would have
been no nation of England had there not been memories about
the Saxon King Alfred (849–899 CE) and the ‘good old law’.
Likewise, memories about the Piasts (10th–12th centuries CE)
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and their kingdom were components in the emergence of Poland conception, one is then both related to those other individuals,
as a nation, as were those about the Yamato Kingdom (4th– 7th and aware of the relation. The relation itself, for example living in
centuries CE), with its worship of the sun goddess Amaterasu at the same geographical area or speaking a common language, is
Ise, for the Japanese nation. what is meant by the term ‘collective consciousness’. This term in
no way implies the existence of a group mind or a combination of
The events described by such memories may not be factually
biological instincts, as if humans were a colony of ants. Rather, it
accurate: for example, the ten plagues in the ancient Israelite
refers to a social relation of each of a number of individuals as a
account of the exodus from Egypt, or that the Japanese emperor
consequence of those individuals participating in the same
is a descendant of Amaterasu. Every nation has its own
evolving tradition.
understanding of its distinctive past that is conveyed through
stories, myths, and history. Whether historically accurate or not, The main sanctuary of the Japanese sun goddess Amaterasu at
these memories contribute to the understanding of the present Ise
that distinguishes one nation from another. This component of
When those individuals not only participate in the same tradition
time – when an understanding of the past forms part of the
but also understand themselves as being different from those
present – is characteristic of the nation and is called ‘temporal
who do not, then there exists a self-designating shared belief,
depth’.
which is called a ‘collective self-consciousness’,
These memories also form a part of the conception that one has
that is, a distinctive culture. Properties or qualities of a tradition
of oneself. As the mind of the individual develops within various
are recognized which distinguish it from any other; they are the
contexts, such as the family or different educational institutions, it
boundaries of the social relation that allow us to distinguish ‘us’
seeks out those various and fluctuating traditions that are ‘at
from ‘them’. To return to our examples, those who accept, and by
hand’. The child learns, for example, to speak the language of his
doing so participate in, the tradition of the Israelite exodus from
or her nation and what it means to be a member of that nation as
Egypt distinguish themselves from those who do not. Those who
expressed through its customs and laws. These traditions
worship the Japanese sun goddess Amaterasu distinguish
become incorporated into the individual’s understanding of the
themselves from those who do not.
self. When those traditions that make up part of one’s self-
conception are shared by other individuals as part of their self-

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Those who speak one language understand themselves to be born in that territory, even if they were born before you. In such a
different from those who speak a different language. The nation is situation, there exists a territorially formed ‘people’ that is
a social relation of collective self- consciousness. believed to have

This distinguishing, shared self-awareness is expressed in and existed over time; and this is what is meant by the term ‘nation’.
influenced by the everyday conduct of the individuals who make This relation is conveyed by variation of a term that
up the social relation of the nation, for example the clothes one simultaneously refers to both the territory and its population, for
wears, the songs one sings, the language one speaks, or the example England-English, France-French, Germany- Germans,
religion one observes. It is sustained by various institutions, such Canada-Canadians, Kurdistan (literally, ‘land of the Kurds’)-Kurds,
as the Jerusalem Temple for ancient Israel, or the shrine at Ise for and so forth. This variation implies the following conception: a
Japan, or the Parliament for England, that bear those traditions people has its land, and a land has its people. The nation is a
around which the social relation of the nation is formed. Those social relation with both temporal depth and bounded territory.
institutions provide a structure for the nation. Thus, the nation is
The act of seeking out and laying a claim to a past and its
formed around shared, self-designating beliefs that have such a
location establishes continuity between that past and its location
structure.
with the present and its location. This continuity is viewed as
However, the nation is formed around shared traditions that are justifying the order of the present because it is understood as
not merely about a distinctive past, but a spatially situated past. necessarily containing that past. For example, during the early
Where there is a spatial focus to the relation between individuals, 20th century, many Jews thought that modern Israel could only
then place becomes the basis by which to distinguish one person be located in the area of the eastern Mediterranean because that
from another. The inhabitants of a location understand was where their past – ancient Israel – had existed. The belief in
themselves to be related to those whose self-understanding such a continuity provides an understanding of the self and its
contains a reference to that location. The location, thus, is no place in the world. When one says, ‘I am English’, one
longer merely an area of space; it has recognizes, perhaps often implicitly, various characteristics about
oneself, for example having been born in the territory of England,
become a space with meaning: a territory. Usually this self-
which makes one English.
understanding revolves around birth in a territory. One thereby
recognizes oneself to be related to those who have also been
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However, the characteristics (and the traditions that bear them) the Israelites were descendants of Abraham, the belief that the
that contribute to the self-image of the individual are many and Japanese are descendants of the first emperor, the Romanian
varied. Clearly, not all aspects of the self and the many social belief that the Romanians are descendants of the ancient
relations one forms are about being a member of a nation. If one Dacians, and, for China, the belief that there is a Han race. Such
is a scientist, one understands oneself as participating in a world beliefs in a supposedly common descent are in many cases
community of scientists pursuing physical, biological, or without factual basis; yet they appear repeatedly throughout
mathematical truths. If one is an adherent to a monotheistic world history. What accounts for their persistence; and how do such
religion such as Christianity or Islam, then one may understand beliefs help us to understand what is a nation?
oneself in terms of universal brotherhood. However, central to the
Humans are preoccupied with vitality; that is, a concern with the
existence of the nation is the tendency of humanity to form
generation, transmission, sustenance, and protection of life itself.
territorially distinct societies, each of which is formed around its
The obvious social relation formed around this preoccupation is
own cultural traditions of continuity. The nation is a territorial
the family. However, the numerous individual families of the nation
relation of collective self- consciousness of actual and imagined
understand themselves to be just that; thus, the continuation of
duration.
the nation into the future is understood as entailing the
The nation, kinship, and community continuation of the families into the future. From everything we
know historically and anthropologically about humans, they have
There are usually other understandings of the nation that support always formed not only families, but also larger groups of which
the belief in its continuity. It may be understood as having to do families are a part. Parents transmit to their own offspring not only
with the eternal, hence continuous, order of the universe, usually their ‘flesh and blood’, but also their own cultural inheritance –
as an act of the gods, for example the Sinhalese belief that Sri their language, customs, and so forth – of the larger group, of the
Lanka is uniquely sanctified as a Buddhist land because of the nation. This cultural inheritance is usually viewed by the parents
acts of the Buddha on the island, or that the United States of as being quite precious to their existence. This inter-generational
America embodies the order of God’s nature as proclaimed in the transmission of one’s culture may be part
Declaration of Independence. Often the continuity of the nation is
of the reason for the tendency to view the nation as a form of
thought to be a result of a supposed descent from a common
kinship, because what is being transmitted is a part of one’s self
ancestor, examples of which are the ancient Israelite belief that

351
to one’s descendants. However, there is another reason for this This focus on birth places the nation within the continuum of
tendency. groups of kinship. It is this element of kinship that the prolific
scholar of nations and nationalism Anthony Smith has rightly
As discussed, birth within the territory is also recognized to be the
sought to capture in his argument for the existence of what he
criterion for membership in the nation. There is thus a
characterizes as the ‘ethnic’ element in the nation.
commingling of recognition of two lines of descent: descent in the
territory of the nation and descent from parents who are members Similar to the nation, one is born into an ethnic group. Because of
of the nation. This criterion of birth, and the traceable relations this characteristic of birth, both the ethnic group and the nation
formed as a result, is why the nation is a form of kinship. are often perceived as being ‘natural’ relations. Despite this
perception, both of these forms of kinship incorporate other
Kinship refers to recognized traceable lines or relations of
cultural traditions, such as language and religion, as boundaries
biological descent, for example a child is related to his or her
of the social relation. While it is sometimes difficult to distinguish
parents because the child is recognized as being descended from
clearly an ethnic group from a nation, ethnicity tends to
them through birth. Broader relations of descent are also
emphasize beliefs in descent from a supposed common ancestor
perceived, resulting in, for example, the acknowledgement of
or ancestors, as if the ethnic group were an extended family,
aunts, uncles, and cousins.
while the focus of the nation is territorial descent. Important to
This fact is not to lend credence to beliefs such as that the realize is that kinship is an ambiguous relation, as it is a
Germans are descended from ancient Teutonic tribes, or that the consequence of the perception of being related. Usually any
Japanese are descended from the emperor, or that there is a Han nation contains within it numerous ethnic groups.
race. All nations are formed over time out of a combination of
The nation is a community of kinship, specifically a bounded,
different populations, and all nations have immigrants. Although
territorially extensive, temporally deep community of nativity. The
for those immigrants to become members of the nation, they
term ‘community’ refers to a level of self- consciousness of the
must usually undergo a legal process of ‘naturalization’; that is,
individual such that one recognizes oneself to be necessarily and
they must be transformed as if they had been born in the national
continually related to others, as occurs, for example, through
territory.
birth. The obvious example of a community is the family, where
one is always related to other members of the family, irrespective

352
of disagreements between those members. Important for been in his power to defend that fortress, would have
understanding the nation is to recognize that relations that are sacrificed his life a thousand times rather than, through his
perceived to enduringly bind one individual to another are fault, have let it fall into the hands of the enemy.
possible not only within a family, but also within the territorially
The problem is how to account for the combination of sentiments
extensive, modern nation.
of self-interest and self-sacrifice.
There have been those who have thought, because of these
There appear to be a number of incomparable purposes of
enduringly binding relations, that the nation designates an idyllic
human conduct, or even areas of understanding to which the
condition of a conflict-free unity. Such a romantic view of the
concept of usefulness does not apply, for example ‘beauty’.
nation can be found in the work of Johann Gottfried von Herder in
Nonetheless, one can still agree with Aristotle that ‘every
the 18th century and Johann Gottlieb Fichte in the 19th century.
partnership is constituted for the sake of some good’ and thus
However, no community is free from conflict. Even within the isolate the defining purpose of the nation. However, the isolation
family, there are jealousies and resentments. In the village – often of that defining purpose is an abstraction that obscures the
appealed to as a romantic example of a community – there exist unavoidable presence of many different factors in the formation
many different kinds of attachments as cause for conflict. There and continued existence of any social relation, such as the pursuit
are friendships and animosities, groupings distinguished by of power over another. Having noted this qualification, the
economic activities and their corresponding interests, for example character of the nation revolves around the classificatory
farmers and traders, and usually competing families. distinction of a ‘we’ in contrast to a ‘them’ arising from the
significance attributed to the circumstances of birth: the relations
In contrast to the romantic view of the nation, the actions of the
formed as a consequence of being born in the nation’s territory.
members of the nation involve many different, even contradictory,
Thus, that ‘we’
pursuits. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Adam Smith
caught well these contradictory pursuits when he observed: has attributed to it a relation of kinship that indicates a shared
locational preoccupation with the generation and sustenance of
There is many an honest Englishman, who, in his private
life, and its transmission over time.
station, would be more seriously disturbed by the loss of a
guinea, then by the national loss of Minorca, who yet, had it

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Patriotism attachments. Thus, it may be more helpful to distinguish the love
for one’s paramour or children from the ‘love’ for one’s nation by
The preoccupation with vitality involves establishing different understanding patriotism as signifying attachments of loyalty to a
kinds of limits or boundaries to respectively different kinds of territorial community. There are often different aspects to the
relations of vitality. Humans draw a distinction between their own patriotic attachments that one forms to one’s nation, as a
children and those of another. One usually does not love consequence of the different factors involved in the historical
another’s children as if they were one’s own. And one does not formation of a particular nation. One may, for example, be loyal to
usually love another nation as if it were one’s own. Such a one’s nation because of its laws, or its customs, or its religion.
limitation on the recognition of, and the love for, what is There are usually many and differing, even conflicting, views of
understood to be one’s own is a consequence of the the nation that correspond to these different factors. However,
preoccupation with the continuation of the self, both its biological inescapable is the fact that the individual often shows a
and cultural components. The love that one has for one’s nation is preference for his or her fellow nationals.
designated by the term ‘patriotism’.
This preference need not take the form of a prejudice against, or
The widely used term ‘love’ as an expression of the attachments hatred of, those who are not members of one’s nation. Patriotism
that the individual has to his or her nation is not altogether need not deny varying and different pursuits by the members of
satisfactory because we also employ the same term to describe the nation. It need not reject differing conceptions of the nation
the attachments one has to one’s paramour, children, friends, and held by members of the nation, as nationalism often does.
god. Indeed, some individuals have genuinely loved all of Indeed, in so far as patriotism implies a commitment to the well-
humanity. being of one’s country, it provides the basis for working out the
differences, involving reasonable compromise, between the
What such a wide use of the term indicates is that, in each of
individual members of the nation and their differing conceptions
these instances, the individual puts aside, or ‘transcends’, his or
of what the nation should be out of a concern for promoting that
her own self-interest for the sake of others. However,
well-being. The process of working out these differences through
understanding properly the character of such attachments should
compromise is politics. The concern for the well-being of the
take into account not only the act of self-transcendence common
nation that includes the willingness to compromise is central to
to all of these attachments, but also the different objects of those

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the civility between the members of the nation that makes politics The formation of a nation
possible.
The relatively greater territorial extent of the nation indicates the
When one divides the world into two irreconcilable and warring
search for, and the establishment of, a medium between, on the
camps – one’s own nation in opposition to all other nations –
one hand, the precarious isolation of the tribe or city-state, which
where the latter are viewed as one’s implacable enemies, then, in
can be dominated by a larger society; and, on the other, the
contrast to patriotism, there is the ideology of nationalism.
imperial rule of empire that apparently inescapably involves
Nationalism repudiates civility and the differences that it tolerates
bureaucratic despotism. The territorial community of the nation
by attempting to eliminate all differing views and interests for the
indicates an area of cultural familiarity and loyalty between these
sake of one vision of what the nation has been and should be. For
two alternatives that allows for self-rule. Its existence implies, as
example, a French nationalism might consist of the belief that to
Ernest Renan observed in his essay ‘What is a nation?’, a coming
be a good member of the French nation, one must hate
together over time of previously distinct populations that have
everything English and German; and anyone who does not, isn’t
much in common; it implies a bounded territorial community of
‘truly’ French.
custom and law.
Nationalism knows no compromise; it seeks to sweep aside the
There is thus, as the French sociologist Dominique Schnapper
many complications that always are part of life as it actually is. As
observed, a duality to the nation. On the one hand, there is the
a systematic, uncompromising, and unrealistic view of the world,
appeal to the temporal continuity of a territory and a significance
the ideology of nationalism is relatively recent, appearing, for
attributed to territorial relations as a consequence of birth, both of
example, in the German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s
which account for the character of the nation as a territorial
Addresses to the German Nation (1808) and later in the writings
community of kinship. We may formulate this part of the duality
of such authors as the German historian Heinrich von Treitschke
as the acceptance of a limiting tradition that distinguishes one
(1834–96) and the French journalist Charles Maurras (1868–1952).
nation from another. On the other hand, there is the uneven
One may perhaps observe anticipations of it in much earlier
coming together of previously distinct localities into a national
periods, for example in the Roman Cato the Elder’s (234–149
territory and their respective populations into a nation that is
BCE) reported hatred of all things Greek.
abetted by numerous factors, such as: a developing self-
understanding conveyed through history, a law of the land, a

355
common religion, usually a common language, and an For example, seemingly somewhat amorphous ‘ethnic groups’
authoritative centre with institutions capable of sustaining the that lack a culturally unifying centre or institutions, such as the
nation over time (for example, London as the centre of England Aramaeans of the ancient Near East or the Vandals, Avars, and
with the institution of Parliament). This part of the duality Picts of the early Middle Ages, and even culturally more cohesive
represents innovative, expansive tendencies of human conduct in societies, such as the ancient Hellenes or Sumerians, are to be
the sense that previously local customs are supplanted, rarely distinguished from the culturally relatively uniform nation. While
entirely, by a law of the land, a common culture, and a loyalty – there is merit to these distinctions, one should resist pursuing
patriotism – to the nation with its national territory. The nation them too far because historically the processes involved in the
represents an uneasy balance of tradition and innovation. formation of the nation are always complicated, making such
distinctions difficult in any particular instance. For example, what
A nation will territorially encompass a number of different
is one to make of Great Britain, which contains England,
localities. While the spatially smaller village, city, and region
Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland? Should Kurdistan or
continue to exist, they are understood by their inhabitants to be
Kashmir or Quebec be designated as regions, ethnic groups,
parts of the nation. Thus, the common culture of the nation is only
‘proto-nations’, or nations?
relative; it is rarely complete such that the inhabitants of the
village, city, and region within the nation cease to recognize The complications suggested by these questions indicate that we
themselves as inhabitants of such localities. However, during are dealing with uneven processes of an understanding of the self
periods of intense patriotic enthusiasm, such as during a war, the involved in the always historically complex formation of a shared
attachments of the inhabitants of the local village, city, or region self-understanding, a collective self- consciousness.
to the nation may become dominant; but such a situation can
Nonetheless, our use of the term ‘nation’ implies the continuation
only be episodic.
over time of a relatively uniform territorial culture. Thus, a number
Because the nation exhibits only a relative cultural uniformity, it is of developments that allow for such a continuation and culture
often difficult to distinguish it from other territorial societies. It is may be ascertained. A nation requires a relatively extensive,
tempting to avoid this difficulty by formulating categories that are bounded territory or an image of such a territory, the existence of
differentiated by degrees of cultural uniformity, thereby which usually involves the following: a self-designating name, a
distinguishing one form of territorial relation from another. centre (with institutions), a history that both asserts and is

356
expressive of a temporal continuity, and a relatively uniform the nation. For example, the imperial states of the Austro-
culture that is often based on a common language, religion, and Hungarian Empire and the Soviet Union contained many different
law. Still, it is more faithful to the historical evidence to realize that nations. Furthermore, nations have existed in the absence of a
each of these characteristics is rarely found to be absolute or state, as did Poland during the 19th century and as does
complete; rather, they are processes in the development of Kurdistan today.
interests, practices, and institutions, all of which are beset with
The necessity for distinguishing nation from state does not imply
ambiguities and tensions.
that there does not exist a complex connection between these
Nation, state, and empire two forms of social relation. On the one hand, nations have been
consolidated through a state’s exercise and extension of
The recognition by the individual that he or she is a member of a sovereignty over time; for example, the expansion of what was
nation is but one among a number of the parts of the image that becoming the French nation during the 12th through 16th
one has of oneself. Described graphically, it is but one layer of a centuries from the Capetian Île de France to encompass today
multi-layered self-consciousness. The layer that represents the the territory of France from the Atlantic Ocean, on its western
recognition of being a part of a territorial kinship may or may not border, to the Pyrenees, on the southern border, with the northern
coincide with the recognition that one is a citizen of the political and eastern borders fluctuating over the years depending upon
and legal relation of the state. the outcome of war, the latter being often an important factor in
the formation of both a nation and a state.
Kurdistan, designated by areas that contain a Kurdish
majority but which spans sections of Iran, Iraq, and Turkey The consolidation of the nation, in this case of the French nation,
does not eclipse the various, at times pronounced, regional
The state may be loosely defined as a structure that, through
attachments. Indeed, it is historically rare for one nation to have a
institutions, exercises sovereignty over a territory using laws that
state and for one state to have a nation; many of the world’s
relate the individuals within that territory to one another as
states are sharply divided by regions that sometimes appear to
members of the state.
be ‘proto- nations’, such as Quebec in Canada or the Basque
The legal and political relation of the state is analytically distinct region in Spain.
from the cultural community of the territorial relation of kinship,

357
The regions of France by the ruling centre of the state over a formless population. On
the contrary, acceptance of such policies often requires an
Nevertheless, the state’s exercise of sovereignty entails the
appeal by the ruling centre to pre-existing traditions, whether to
promulgation of law throughout the area being governed, thereby
language, religion, or legal code. Thus, the particular policy that
incorporating various regions into the legal regulation of the state.
the ruling centre chooses to propagate is rarely one capriciously
Furthermore, the effectiveness of ruling is dependent upon the
chosen as if it were invented out of thin air, even if that policy
standardization of communication, language and script,
represents an audacious transformation of a previously existing
throughout the area under the authority of the state. Thus, for
tradition. For example, in 1501 CE the Safavid Isma‘il appealed to
example, certainly one factor in territorially extensive China, with
the previously existing tradition of Shi‘ite Islam to distinguish
its diverse regions, becoming ‘Chinese’ was the standardization
Persia from the Ottoman Empire, which observed the Sunni form
of Chinese script throughout what was becoming China as early
of Islam. The history of the consolidation and stable existence
as 221 BCE, under the direction of the chancellor Li Ssu.
over time of every state reveals this appeal to, and transformation
Similarly, an Armenian script was created around 405 CE.
of, previous traditions in the effective exercise of sovereignty over

The 36 letters of the Armenian alphabet, created by Mesrop a territory. In other words, the state, although distinct from the
nation, generates a territorial community of kinship such that
Mashtots around 405 CE
what emerges over time is a national state.
Other cultural policies of the ruling centre of the state, such as the
The exception to this phenomenon of the convergence between
adoption of a particular religion and its propagation throughout
two forms of human relation, the state and the nation, is the
the area being ruled, have often contributed mightily to the
empire, which contains many nations. We may, today, be
relative cultural uniformity of a territory. This is apparent in
witnessing the emergence of the empire of the European Union.
Eastern Orthodoxy, a tradition in which each nation has its own
saint and church, such as Saint Sava for the Serbian Orthodox There are no culturally obvious limitations to the expansion of an
Church. empire. Its boundaries arise often out of military concerns, as, for
example, the construction of the Great Wall of China, begun
However, the consolidation of a relatively uniform territory and
under the direction of General Meng T’ien in 221 BCE; Hadrian’s
culture of a national community is rarely exclusively the result of a
wall as a demarcation of the northwestern boundary of the
particular policy or set of policies being adopted and propagated

358
Roman Empire in Britain; or the defeat of the Muslim forces under protection and preservation in the world. If the national state fails
the command of Amir ‘Abd-al-Rahman by Charles Martel in 732 to fulfil this purpose (through military defeat or other means), then
CE near Tours that checked the expansion of Islam. The protest it risks the possibility of breaking up, because the attachments of
to this more or less limitless extension of the sovereignty of an the members of the nation to that nation may be withdrawn. New
empire has been the assertion of cultural distinctiveness and loyalties may then emerge, thereby undermining the existence of
political independence by various national communities of the nation. Be that as it may, the determination as to whether the
territorial kinship within, or threatened by, an empire, for example nation forms the state or the state forms the nation is beside the
the Judaeans, from 66 to 72 CE and again from 132 to 135 CE point, as, to varying degrees, depending upon the nation in
against the rule of the Roman Empire, and, in the 20th century, question, both complicated processes are involved.
India against Great Britain. The explicitly political objection to
The formation of a national state, whether historically a
empire has been that it denies nations the freedom to determine
development from state to nation or from nation to state, is
their own affairs, as expressed by the claim to the right of self-
burdened with the complications of innumerably different
determination. However, it may not always be clear exactly the
attachments and processes. As was observed, one consequence
nature of the ‘self’ that seeks independence, because such a
of these complications is that many national states contain
‘self’ is in the process of being formed, as is occurring today in
pronounced regional attachments or even other nations. Once
Northern Ireland, the Kashmir, Macedonia, and Eastern Turkestan.
again, the territorial relation of the nation is culturally only
The development of cultural distinctiveness through political relatively uniform. Why this is so requires a discussion of the
sovereignty leads us to consider historically the relation between character of the social relation.
state and nation from the opposite direction: namely, when the
nation seeks to become a state. How is this movement from
The previous section is provided by Lynn University’s
nation to national state to be understood, and, crucially, why does
use of Ebook Central Academic Complete.
it tend to happen?

The nation seeks a state out of the necessity to protect and

preserve the lives of its members; that is, so that the nation,
through its representatives and institutions, can act to secure its

359
Chapter 11

Race, Ethnicity
& Gender

Learning objectives

After reading this chapter, students will be able to do the

following:

• Identify characteristics of race, ethnicity and gender.

• Understand and critically think about race, ethnicity, and

gender.

• Analyze current issues with race, ethnicity, and gender.

Section 1

Defining race

While racial categories and ethnic identities are part of our However, this is too simple an approach. In fact, what makes
everyday discourse, it is hard to say what a ‘race’ actually is. racial discrimination especially troubling is the fact that this set of
Genetic difference does not map to racial categories – there is no characteristics does constitute and help to determine the
‘racial gene’ that allows us to read off racial categories. individual’s life chances across a very wide range of variables:
housing, healthcare, education, job opportunities and so on. The
However, race is obviously a major source of self- and other-
more these cleavages coincide on racial grounds, the less
identification and a way in which the world is carved up,
satisfactory it is to dismiss racial groups as arbitrary and simply
conceptually, socially and economically. Races are groupings of
irrelevant from the moral point of view.
human beings into categories according to morphology and
genetics. Groups are characterised as ‘white’, ‘black’ and so on, In so far as difference-blind liberalism fails to take into account
on the basis of skin colour and facial features. the background conditions, structures, hierarchies and patterns
of oppression and domination, it will, to that extent, risk
Race is largely a social construction, which selects certain
reflecting them and leaving them in place. In so far as difference-
characteristics and clusters groups around them. This
blind liberalism fails to reflect the idea that individuals are
contingency is one way of understanding – and undermining –
essentially constituted by racial identity, then it fails properly to
the idea of a racial hierarchy. Racial hierarchies mean that
represent them in its decision procedures. This is the sort of case
advantageous and disadvantageous treatment is distributed
made by critical race theorists against difference-blind liberalism.
depending on membership of a racial group. But, since the
characteristics that determine membership of a racial group are
The previous section is provided by Lynn University’s
clustered together on an arbitrary basis, discrimination on the
use of Credo Reference.
basis of race is itself arbitrary (and consequently unjust).

361
Section 2

Defining ethnic group

An ethnic group refers to a socially recognized set of people who origin and/or cultural practices. Broadly defined ethnic groups
have a common heritage or background who may share the are identified by a collective body of individuals who share the
same country of origin, cultural practices (e.g., religious beliefs, same country of origin, cultural practices, and/or racial
primary language, socially transmitted customs), or racial characteristics. In either case, at least one of the corresponding
characteristics (e.g., skin color, facial structure, hair color). The facets must be met for each of the respective definitions. Ethnic
interconnection between ethnic groups and other socially groups, and membership within an ethnic group, may be self-
distinguished groups, such as cultural and racial groups, defined (i.e., socially distinguished by members of the group
introduces sociocultural complexity when defining and itself) or objectively defined (i.e., socially distinguished by people
classifying ethnic groups. Cultural groups are socially outside of the group and usually based on external, observable
differentiated based on shared practices, beliefs, and values held ethnic features such as skin color and facial structure).
by a collection of people. Racial groups are socially differentiated
The shared practices, beliefs, and values of an ethnic group
based on observable physical characteristics, such as skin color
contribute to a sense of cohesion. In addition, the characteristics
and hair texture. Ethnic groups may be interconnected with
that differ from one ethnic group to another often further
cultural and racial groups because people within the same ethnic
distinguish these groups and contribute to views among group
group often engage in similar cultural activities and often display
members that their ethnic group is unique from other ethnic
similar racial characteristics.
groups. The differences between ethnic groups, real or
Theorists suggest that an ethnic group can be broadly or perceived, may sometimes contribute to tension and hostility
narrowly defined based on the primary characteristics between members of different ethnic groups. These hostile
considered (Yang, 2000). Ethnic groups can be narrowly defined perceptions or interactions are more likely to occur when group
if a collective body of individuals shares the same country of differences are viewed in a negative light, or when there is a lack

362
of understanding of the nature of the differences between ethnic representation within a population may be used to identify the
groups. However, the differences between ethnic groups social, political, and health needs of the groups and to ensure the
generally pale in comparison to the commonalities that can be provision of equal opportunities (e.g., employment, education)
found across members of certain ethnic groups, and the and appropriate services (e.g., health care) (Sandefur, Campbell,
differences that do exist do not play a fundamental role in & Eggerling-Boeck, 2004). At times, the classification of ethnic
defining human nature. groups may be disadvantageous when the categories used are
too limited, heterogeneous, or nonrepresentative. Other issues
Classification of Ethnic Groups that may arise from classifying ethnic groups for the purpose of
identifying needs of specific groups is that, for certain aspects
Ethnic groups are generally classified through the use of labels
(e.g., education and employment), there may be more similarities
that represent some aspect of their shared characteristics or
between members of different groups than there are similarities
heritage. The label used varies based on how the term ethnic
among individuals within an ethnic group. In addition, some of the
group is defined. For example, when “ethnic group” is linked to
differences that are attributed to ethnic group status may actually
racial characteristics, names such as white or black may be used
be due to other socioeconomic influences.
to identify specific ethnic groups. In other cases, when the
conceptualization of an ethnic group is linked to country of origin Self-defined identification has become the more prevalent option
or nationality, labels such as European or African American may for classifying ethnic groups due to the subjectivity of ethnic
be used. group membership. However, although this approach supports
the saliency of personal affiliation with one's ethnic group(s), it
There are several benefits to classifying ethnic groups. Ethnic
may adversely affect the ability to adequately ensure equal
group membership contributes to a social connection that is
opportunities and service provision. As noted by Waters (1990),
subjectively meaningful to many individuals. Members often base
while ethnic identity (i.e., how much an individual feels that he/she
part of their identity on their ethnic group affiliation. This
is a part of an ethnic group) is generally purely based on self-
identification often has strong implications on an individual's
definition, being viewed by society as a member of an ethnic
psychological adjustment and social well-being. The classification
group is usually not solely based on self-defined classification.
of ethnic groups is also intended to provide information on the
Many individuals have certain features or characteristics that
characteristics of a population. Information on the ethnic group
associate them with a particular ethnic group. As a result, these

363
individuals are often viewed by society as belonging to that ethnic and health research), ethnic enumeration generally relied on
group, which in turn influences the possible social implications observer-selection. Toward the turn of the century, most Western
(e.g., unequal treatment) associated with being perceived as nations began to shift to systems that allowed individuals to
belonging to the ethnic group. Thus, objectively defined choose the ethnic group with which they felt most affiliated.
identification of group members may be more useful in situations
There is now a growing movement toward using the terms ethnic
that concern the social consequences of ethnic group
and racial interchangeably due to a converging conceptualization
membership (Aspinall, 1997).
of the terms (American Anthropological Association, 1997). There
Defining and Classifying Ethnic Groups across Time is also an emergent trend toward deemphasizing the use of the
words race or racial, and using classifications based on ethnic
In industrialized Western nations, such as the United States,
groups instead. As suggested by the American Anthropological
approaches to describing ethnic groups have varied across time
Association, ethnic enumeration allows for the classification of
(Sandefur et al., 2004). During the nineteenth and early twentieth
more specific social categories, is more relevant for empirical
centuries, ethnic and racial groups were essentially considered
purposes (e.g., is a better predictor of health and social
identical and predominantly biologically based, suggesting that
outcomes), and generally holds less negative connotations than
individuals were born into a specific ethnic group, and ethnic
the concept of race. In addition, there is a need to better account
group membership was permanent. Classification of ethnic group
for the increasing representation of individuals with multiple
members was generally based on observable ethnic features.
ethnic backgrounds. In response to this, many ethnic group data
During the second half of the twentieth century, the collection systems have begun to include opportunities for
characteristics considered when defining ethnic groups became individuals to select more than one ethnic background.
predominantly socially distinguished (e.g., based on heritage and
Defining and Classifying Ethnic Groups across Countries
cultural practices), rather than biologically determined. Choices
about ethnic group membership also reflected a dynamic process Using global data on the “2000 round” (1995–2004) of
that involved an interconnection between one's heritage, country government census data collected by the United Nations
of origin, racial characteristics, and cultural practices. Previously, Statistical Division, Morning (2008) documented variability in
when ethnic group information was gathered through most data categories used for ethnic enumeration in over 140 countries. The
collection systems (e.g., census data collection, social science overview revealed that over 60 percent of the countries used
364
some form of ethnic enumeration in their government census. Of The social-cultural complexities involved in the process of
these countries, some used question-and-answer formats that defining and classifying ethnic groups has led to variability in the
better reflected ethnic characteristics based on country of origin conceptualization of the construct. Current understanding
or racial characteristics, whereas other countries used formats suggests that ethnic groups are primarily socially distinguished
that defined and classified ethnic groups based on the different and are defined based on an interconnection between a variety of
languages or dialects spoken by the inhabitants. In comparison to sociocultural factors, such as nationality, cultural practices, and
the other countries that did include some form of ethnic racial characteristics. Existing lines of inquiry call for better
enumeration, the United States was the only one that categorized representation of the term ethnic group, especially when used for
ethnic and racial group membership separately. The United ethnic enumeration, so that information gained through the use of
States was also the only country that included just one ethnic the term will have empirical value and personal significance for
affiliation (Hispanic or non-Hispanic) in the single question members of identified ethnic groups.
pertaining to ethnic group membership. The other nations that
incorporated some type of ethnic enumeration used the terms
ethnic and racial interchangeably, refrained from using the terms The previous section is provided by Lynn University’s

race or racial altogether, and/or included a wider range of use of Credo Reference.
possible affiliations in their questions directed at ethnic
enumeration. Despite these differences, the approach to ethnic
enumeration used by other nations with comparable demographic
composition to the United States was conceptually similar to the
approach to racial enumeration used by the United States (e.g.,
both approaches included similar response categories such as
white, black, Chinese, and Korean). Similar to the 2000 census,
the overall ethnic enumeration format used by the United States
in the 2010 census still separates the categorization of ethnic and
racial groups and includes only one option for ethnic affiliation
(i.e., Hispanic or non-Hispanic) (Humes, Jones, & Ramirez, 2011).

365
Section 3

Defining gender

l. Feminists and others make a distinction between sex (which is supposed, and that the distinction between man and woman is
a biological fact about the individual), and gender, which is a at every point negotiable.
human artefact. The masculine and feminine genders are shaped
3. Gender also refers to a distinction in grammar, more or less
by society and culture, while male and female sexuality are,
defunct in the English language, between the masculine,
although to some extent malleable, based in sexual difference,
feminine and neuter noun, and the corresponding forms of the
which is a trans-historical fact. Not only can individuals choose
adjective. Only pronouns retain gender distinctions in English
their gender, they can also work to ensure that gender is
(he/she/it etc.). Some languages have no gender distinctions –
changed – so that women, for example, are perceived differently.
e.g. Turkish and Hungarian. Others (e.g. Arabic) allow masculine
Many feminists believe that their principal task is not to work for
nouns with feminine adjectives and vice versa. These facts have
women’s rights in a man-made world, but to create another
not prevented feminists from seeing the generic use of the
world, made in part by women. In this world the feminine gender
masculine pronoun in English, to refer indifferently to all human
will be constructed in a new way, so that women will no longer
beings, as sexist. The influence of feminism in this matter has
be perceived as child-bearing, home-building, man-dependent
been so great that it is now difficult to publish an article in an
creatures, but as autonomous agents who set their own agendas
American academic journal without using the feminine pronoun
and depend only on themselves.
when referring indifferently to all human beings. This dictionary
2. Use of the term has become confused by the widespread uses the masculine pronoun, on the grounds that the feminine
adoption – under the influence of feminist politics – of ‘gender’ pronoun makes a loud political statement in a context where
as the word for sex, perhaps in order to indicate that sexual political statements (as opposed to reports of them) should be
differences are not as absolute as they have traditionally been kept to the minimum.

The previous section is provided by Lynn University’s

use of Credo Reference.
366
Section 4

One hundred years of racial politics

Race is above all a matter of politics. The assignment and 1903 the imperial system was at its height, racial slavery was
acceptance of racial identity, the configuration of racially very much a living memory (and indeed a continuing reality in
demarcated groups, the "logic of collective action" as practiced some places), and the world's racial hierarchy was taken for
by members of these groups, and the stratification (imposed and granted, at least by the "lords of humankind" (Kiernan 1969), the
opposed) of society along racial lines are but some of the main rulers of the system. But from other standpoints this structure
dimensions of racial politics. The state is a central player in racial was entirely unacceptable: exploitative, tyrannical, and
matters: the modern state carries out racial classification, boundlessly brutal. Because racial rule, white supremacy, had
surveillance, and punishment of the population; it distributes provided a structure of domination since its origins in the
resources along racial lines; it simultaneously facilitates and fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it had also (always) drawn
obstructs racial discrimination; and it is both structured and resistance. Born out of the independent and self-reliant cultures
challenged by political mobilization along racial lines. To make of the subordinated, resistance is an aspect of human autonomy
sense of the huge conundrum of racial politics is obviously not that can never be fully abdicated, no matter how imprisoned or
easy. To do so on a worldwide scale, taking into account the subjugated the resister. For many years, for centuries, racial
immense transformations that have occurred over the past resistance was effectively located outside the state. The racially
century or so, is a daunting task indeed. Yet there is no escaping subordinate were not even recognized as human beings in many
this work, for these epochal shifts have in many ways shaped us: cases much less as citizens. But at the turn of the twentieth
nation and society, culture and individual, world system and century that resistance was becoming more organized, more
psyche, all bear the mark of racial politics. articulate. The tumultuous struggles to put an end to slavery had
largely ceased by then, but the experience of abolitionism—the
In this essay I proceed as follows. Initially I present an overview,
world's first transnational social movement (Keck and Sikkink
necessarily schematic, of world racial politics a century ago. In
1998)—had provided invaluable political experience.

367
Advancing industrialism was imposing new and more varied East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere" (the Japanese imperial scheme),
demands for labor, and the changing nature of the world and Hitler's drive for Lebensraum were all justified in explicitly
economy was reshaping the parameters of empire. These racial terms, much as the empires of "old" Europe had been. The
developments created opportunities for participation and for following section deals with the racial "break." World War II
political opposition that had hardly existed earlier. New subaltern reshuffled the political deck again, far more comprehensively than
elites were making their voices heard and generating new the "war to end all wars" had ever done. World War II was an
organizations. antifascist war, an antiimperial war in part, an antiracist war in
part. By fostering resistance to the Japanese in Asia and the
New avenues for racial politics were beginning to appear. Next I
Germans and Italians in Africa, World War II unwittingly lent
survey racial politics in the interwar years. World War I deeply
support to anti-imperialist movements. By casting themselves
transformed the world racial system, mobilizing millions of
(with some truth) as the champions of democracy, the Allies
soldiers and workers, prompting reassessment of the imperial
touched off a new phase of civil rights and human rights activities
system, touching off revolution in Russia and fear of communism
all over the world, including in their home countries. The breakup
everywhere, and elevating the United States to secure status
of the Grand Alliance and the onset of the cold war made the
among the world powers. The upheavals that followed the war
global South (soon to be the "third world" and the "nonaligned"
cast a pall on the imperial system; indeed they foreshadowed its
world) a vast battleground, with the forces of empire on one side,
doom after World War II. The crises of the Depression and the rise
and those of communism and nationalism on the other. All these
of fascism had powerful racial undertones. The weakened
developments were fundamentally structured by race.
position of the dominant nations during the 1930s made empire
Furthermore, World War II occasioned vast population shifts. It
(and transnational spheres of influence) harder to maintain. The
drove labor recruitment efforts, military conscription and
rise of fascism created new difficulties for the imperialist powers;
subsequent demobilization, and northward migrations by millions
fascism also revealed some discomfiting affinities with the
both during and after the hostilities. These processes vastly
traditional systems of empire. While it was particularly racist in its
transformed the colonies and hinterlands of the entire world. As
German form, it was not free of racial dimensions in either its
the population structures, residential patterns, and labor
Italian or Japanese versions. Fascism was an imperial project in
dynamics of many countries were altered, so too were their
its own right: an effort to replace the obsolescent empires with
political systems. Thus did antiimperial and civil rights
new ones. Mussolini's quest for an African empire, the "Greater
movements arise; thus did these movements combine to impel a
368
global "break" in racial politics that began during and continued structures of race and racism. It was simply managing white
after World War II. supremacy in a significantly updated and revised fashion.

Next I consider racial politics at century's end. After the A concluding section muses theoretically on racial politics today.
movements, after the revolutions, after the empires' official Here I offer some brief reflections on the tasks intellectuals and
retreats, there was reform. State-based racial reform took various activists committed to racial justice face at the threshold of the
forms. Passage of civil rights laws and adoption of more inclusive twentieth-first century. We must reassess our understandings of
immigration policies, extension of citizenship and citizenship the meaning of race and the dynamics of racism in the aftermath
rights, repatriation of abandoned colonials like the "pieds noirs" of the triumphs and tragedies our movements have experienced
from Algeria, and widespread official professions of commitment since the onset of the racial break during and after World War II.
to racial equality were some of the chief lines of racial reform. We face a new set of tasks at present. Racial hegemony has
With the fall of the apartheid regime in South Africa in 1994—an developed in an era when outright racial domination has been
event halfway between racial reform and revolution—the post- anathematized. Was that all we antiracist activists accomplished?
World War II break reached its limits. Well before the collapse of Is it likely that all the blood, sweat, and tears of the postwar
apartheid (which was a late event in the cycle) the construction of movements, the labors undertaken in the service of revolution,
a new racial hegemony was already well advanced, particularly in "regime change," social justice, and racial reform can be
the United States. The United States had attained the status of absorbed and contained by modest adjustments in racial policy
leading superpower and culturally hegemonic society. Yet it was and rhetoric? Can a series of ineffectual efforts at the
also a complex combination of the old and new racial systems. redistribution of economic resources and political power—so
By undertaking "moderate" racial reforms in response to ineffectual that they have often been characterized as "token" or
movement demands, the United States was able to derail the symbolic—put paid to the bill for half a millennium of coercion,
more radical potential of the domestic antiracist movements that decimation, and theft? I hardly think so.
formed a leading edge of the break and acquired huge (indeed
worldwide) political influence. Yet while it touted "color blindness" World Racial Politics a Century Ago
and claimed largely to have achieved racial equality, the U.S.
One hundred years ago W. E. B. Du Bois published The Souls of
racial state had hardly transformed the fundamental social
Black Folk. The book was recently described by Du Bois's

369
preeminent biographer David Levering Lewis as "an electrifying and country, looked closely at black families and black religion,
manifesto" and "a work of transcendent intellectual passion and and situated his own experience within the odyssey of his people.
numinous prose." For those readers who were prepared to All this history, practice, and theory he synthesized in an account
receive it and digest it, Souls offered an entirely new, and in many practical enough and resilient enough to endure for the rest of the
ways prophetic, interpretation of racial politics. Largely focusing century and beyond.
his attention on the United States, but at pains to set his native
Let us consider the global racial environment of one century ago,
land in a global context, Du Bois exhorted his long-oppressed
the 1903 sky into which Souls was launched like a great
people to mobilize and reconquer their rights and their place in
illuminating flare. We begin with the United States, to which the
history, to take new pride in their heritage and culture, and to
book devoted its primary attention, and then look more broadly at
understand their lives as situated in the vast historical drama of
the racial world of a century ago. In the 1903 United States the
the human quest for freedom and dignity. Souls possessed an
great majority of black people still resided in the South, where Jim
unparalleled emotional power and beauty: it was politics, history,
Crow was at its height. Most black people were peasants; debt
and poetry all at once; it treated black religion, psychology,
peonage ("sharecropping") remained the chief form of labor and
education, and music as variegated branches of a unified African
was often the only way to survive. The southern peasantry was
American experience. It drank deeply from the well of
not exclusively black by any means, but the ubiquity of Jim Crow
Enlightenment rationality and European letters, yet gloried as well
continuously reinforced the near-total disempowerment of blacks,
in the enormous contributions, the unique "gifts," the
thus shoring up status differences between them and the often
treasurehouse of African American (and of African) culture. The
equally impoverished white "croppers" with whom they shared a
book recollected the sweep of black history: the uprooting from
landlord. Enforced by lynching and nightriding mobs of hooded
Africa, slavery's unrequited labor and loss of millions of lives, the
white terrorists, southern racial "etiquette" required blacks to
horrific bloodletting and suffering of the Civil War and the dashed
remove their hats in the presence of whites, to step off the
hopes of inclusion and justice that followed ("Of the Dawn of
sidewalk (where one existed) into the muddy street at the
Freedom"). Yet Du Bois did not despair. Instead he rejected the
passage of a white, and to wait in such shops as would serve
accommodationism that dominated black politics at the turn of
blacks until all whites had been served, no matter who had
the twentieth century ("Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others")
arrived first. A thousand other rules of this type were in place,
and set forth the key principles of a political program for black
most of them subject to the wildest interpretative variations
enfranchisement and empowerment. He explored black life in city
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imaginable. The institutionalized manifestations of Jim Crow were tens of thousands of years. Those who survived this holocaustit
ubiquitous: separate schools (where there were schools for confined to native reserves (Stannard 1992).
blacks at all), separate transportation, separate accommodation
But at the turn of the twentieth century the United States had
in respect to food service and lodging, separate everything.
entered the imperial world, despite a significant anti-imperialist
These systems all had the sanction and force of law; to violate
movement at home, with the so-called Spanish-American War of
them was to break the law and subject oneself to the tender
1898. Now firmly in possession of Puerto Rico and regent of
mercies of the police, courts, chain gangs, and jails of the South;
Cuba after the passage of the Platt Amendment (1902), the
that is, if one was lucky enough to avoid the retribution of informal
United States had also secured possession of the Philippines with
enforcers active in the KKK (McMillen 1989; Litwack 1980). Jim
its brutal suppression of that country's independence movement
Crow reigned well beyond the old Confederacy: "up South" in the
and 1903 capture of nationalist leader Emilio Aguinaldo. This was
old Union states discrimination was together: they were applied in
a campaign that involved 125,000 U.S. troops and took
Texas and elsewhere to Mexican Americans as well as blacks. In
something like 200,000 Filipino lives (Linn 2000; Stanley 1974).
California elaborate racial hierarchies secured cheap labor from
immigrants and Mexicans.4 Meanwhile anti-Asian nativism, Wherever the United States went, it took with it a racial system
though based in California, had become a nationwide movement that had been honed in the post-Reconstruction South: in Cuba
with secure roots in the white working class. Anti-Chinese riots and Puerto Rico it sought to impose racial segregation; in the
and constant agitation soon combined with restrictive Philippines it assumed the white man's burden, as well as a
immigration policies toward Asians; in contrast to this Pacific certain Christian evangelism, no small matter in a country with a
policy, Atlantic immigration was fostered until 1924 (Perlman significant Muslim minority;5 vis-a-vis China, Japan, and the
1950, 52; Saxton 1996; Almaguer 1994). Philippines it alternatively trolled for superexploitable labor and
erected barriers against the "yellow peril"; and in Latin America it
That was the domestic racial panorama in 1903. But the United
embarked on a series of interventions on behalf of various
States was also a racial power outside its own borders. The
corporate predators.
United States had always had internal colonies; it was after all a
settler nation. It had slaughtered and evicted those indigenous Let us look now at the 1903 world from a wider angle. By the turn
peoples whose presence had been established in its territories for of the twentieth century European imperialism had completed its
transition to a new form of colonial rule. Not only the African slave
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trade but slavery internal to the continent was on the wane: the more widespread among the masses of imperial subjects (Scott
Belgian genocide had been a vast alchemical effort to forge gold 1986; Bhabha 1994). In particular the pan-African call began to
(or in this case, rubber) directly out of human flesh. Peonage and echo across the imperial world: the first of five important pan-
even industrial labor was replacing slavery. As export-oriented African congresses was held in England in 1900. Throughout the
agriculture and mining became the key imperial activities in colonial world there were strikes and labor union activity (Cooper
Africa, railroads and ports had to be built, and urban centers 1987; Wallerstein 1976; Chatterjee 1993). There were religiously
developed. Having carved up the continent at the Congress of based movements, sometimes millenarian (Fields 1985; Ranger
Berlin (1885), the imperial powers had fallen into discord by the 1967); there were the stirrings of nationalism.
century's turn, as later arrivals at the African table tried to secure
Latin America had undergone most of its anticolonial upsurge
a heaping plate of spoils for themselves.
over the course of the nineteenth century, yet the Americas were
Imperialism in Africa around 1900 was a very different system hardly free of North American and European domination. This was
than it had been just half a century earlier. It was no longer a relationship that remained quite racially inflected. The United
expansive; it was now developmentalist. Drained of administrative States had declared the Americas its sphere of influence in 1832
and tutelary zeal (especially after the economic downturns of the and had intervened thereafter in pursuit of a series of goals: to
1870s and 1890s), the empires now relied more on indirect rule defend slavery in the first half of the century, to dominate sea-
and native elites than they had in the past. They maneuvered to lanes, where possible to shape terms of trade, and to "manifest
maintain their comparative advantages vis-a-vis each other and destiny." The mid-nineteenth century had seen war with Mexico
sought stability rather than total control in the colonies. As the and a series of proslavery interventions in Central America. By the
century turned, though, their imperial subjects began to stir in time of the "Spanish- American" war and the construction of the
new ways. Schooled by abolitionism and generations of Panama Canal, the Caribbean was perceived in Washington as a
enterprising missionaries, trained by their own colonial masters to North American lake, to the dismay of nationalists throughout
administer the empire locally—the British principle of indirect rule Central and South America.
was the best example of this—the natives began to grow restless,
Still, for much of the nineteenth century the United States could
to mobilize politically. Elites questioned colonial rule in the
not do more than impede European influence: Europe still
language and style of their colonial rulers. Subversion and
constituted the major export market and provided Latin American
noncompliance— always present as resistance tactics—became

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elites with their key cultural reference points. By the turn of the groundwork for the 1911 overthrow of the Qings and the
century, though, the United States was far more interventive. At establishment of the republic, as well as reinforcing the
the same time, nationalism was sweeping Latin America, and the nationalism that was to bring forth the May 4th Movement after
continent was entering a crisis of identity that was highly racial. World War I and the Communist Party a few years later (Preston
On the one hand the "whitening ideal" remained in force; on the 2001).
other the national character (typically mestizo) was being
In India opposition to British rule also began to crystallize anew
venerated: in Os Sertoes, the epic account of a millenarian
around the turn of the century. The legacy of the 1857 rebellion
rebellion in the backlands of Brazil (Cunha 1995; Levine 1992), in
and its fierce repression by the British had now receded
the efforts of Cuban revolutionary Jose Marti to define an America
somewhat, and political organization was taking place through
independent of the big bully to the north, and most
the Congress. Gandhi's arrival from South Africa during World
comprehensively in the revolution that convulsed Mexico after
War I is usually taken as the starting point for a new wave of
1910, a new Latin American nationalist politics was being defined.
anticolonial mobilization, but it is obvious to all that Gandhi and
Though contradictory and uncertain, Latin American political
his associates did not invent that movement, however much they
insurgencies of this period were uniformly concerned to
were to lead it in new directions. After the war the independence
distinguish their societies' racial practices from those on view in
movement would take off in earnest, employing protest tactics of
North America.10 These differences would acquire greater
an entirely new type (L. James 1998).
definition and significance as the twentieth century progressed. In
Asia anti-imperialism was also on the increase. I have already
Racial Politics in the Interwar Years
mentioned the Philippines. In China the Boxer Rebellion of 1900
—an explicitly nationalist, anticolonial campaign that targeted In the carnage and aftermath of World War I the world racial
foreigners and demanded the cessation of the Qing concessions system was deeply transformed. The war placed millions under
to the imperial powers of "spheres of influence" in Shanghai and arms for the first time:
elsewhere—reached such a level of influence that an
expeditionary force of 19,000 soldiers—2,500 U.S. marines not only Europeans and white Americans, but Africans, African

among them—had to be dispatched to China to suppress it. Americans, South Asians, and Caribbeans as well. Although it

China was forced to indemnify the colonial powers for the losses was not the fully cataclysmic, truly global confrontation that World

they had suffered in the rebellion. These events laid the War II would prove to be—the Pacific basin, for example, was

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largely though not tot lly untouched by World War I—the war still world in the throes of "globalization" (fully ninety years after this
shattered the former world order of the "long 19th century." essay's appearance) as it does about the world of 1915. Note that
the mere handing up of this indictment indicated how much race
In a memorable 1915 essay Du Bois located the source of the war
consciousness had already changed in the early twentieth century
in the contradictions and instabilities of imperial and racial rule, in
from what it had been a few decades earlier. Granted, Du Bois
the insatiable greed of the "advanced" nations:
was a genius, with vastly greater cultural capital at his disposal
Whence comes this new wealth and on what does its than had most of his contemporary brothers and sisters "behind
accumulation depend? It comes primarily from the darker nations the veil." Yet his insights and critique cannot properly be seen as
of the world—Asia and Africa, South and Central America, the the product of his own labors and genius alone. Rather, they
West Indies and the islands of the South Seas. There are still, we issued from a deeper well: the fierce struggles of his people for
may believe, many parts of white countries like Russia and North human rights and dignity. He drew from that deep well and
America, not to mention Europe itself, where the older ultivated the territory on which it stood (to his great credit). It
exploitation still holds. But the knell has sounded faint and far, nurtured him as well as his people.
even there. In the lands of the darker folk, however, no knell has
So Russia fell to the first successful socialist revolution in history.
sounded. Chinese, East Indians, Negroes, and South American
Russia withdrew from the war and made peace at Brest-Litovsk.
Indians, are by common consent for governance by white folk
At Versailles the imperial powers could not fully grasp the
and economic subjection to them. To the furtherance of this
"consequences of the peace"; they contented themselves with
highly profitable economic dictum has been brought every
ratifying the prewar global order as far as possible: extracting
available resource of science and religion. Thus arises the
punitive reparations from their defeated foes; taking control of the
astonishing doctrine of the natural inferiority of most men to the
former German colonies in Africa; sharing out the booty of the
few, and the interpretation of "Christian brotherhood" as meaning
Ottoman world—Syria, Egypt, the newly created Iraq—among
anything that one of the "brothers" may at any time want it to
other territories; and creating "mandates" for the victors where
mean. (Du Bois 1915, 645)
outright territorial appropriation might be too embarrassing.
For a moment consider this analysis as an artifact of its time.
In the face of socialist revolution in Russia the Allies were far less
Step beyond the marvels of Du Bois's expressive skills, beyond
complacent. They invaded in support of the Whites in the ensuing
his critique of empire, which reveals as much about the present
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civil war, and deployed the Wilsonian doctrine of "national self- acted with the support of police and military units to destroy
determination" in the vain hope of derailing the updated entire neighborhoods, as in the case of the Tulsa "riot" of 1921,
communist call for anticolonial revolution. In the wake of the which razed the previously prosperous black area of Greenwood,
Russian events and as a fairly direct consequence of the war, killing hundreds in "death squad" style and burning and looting
millions of colonial subjects gravitated toward communism. In the indiscriminately (Madigan 2001).
United States wartime conscription and augmented economic
Meanwhile, back on the plantation, fear of communism and
demand had spurred the first "great migrations" of blacks
racism were beginning to blend as mass deportations took place
northward from the South: now Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland,
in the early 1920s, new immigration restrictions were imposed in
Pittsburgh, and Detroit were much darker than they had been.
1924,and eugenics was endorsed by the Supreme Court as a
The "making of the ghetto" began in earnest. Blacks "up South"
constitutional social policy.
in these cities and others began to make demands: they wanted
to vote and work for wages, to join unions, and end lynchings. Just as World War I elevated the United States to secure status
They resonated to the mass appeal of Marcus M. Garvey and his among the world powers, it also confronted the country—as
United Negro Improvement Association, which brought a pan- much as the "old European" empires—with the political instability
Africanist and to some degree anticolonialist message to the inherent in racial rule. Although it did not have an old-fashioned
streets of the ghetto for the first time. empire to police in the manner of the British in India or the French
in the Maghreb, the United States had developed abundant
So, far from producing greater racial equality as many had hoped,
imperial inclinations as the century dawned. By the end of World
the war brought greater racial conflict. Black soldiers had
War I there were interventions underway in Mexico, Haiti,
distinguished themselves in the Ardennes and elsewhere,
Nicaragua, Cuba, Panama, Honduras, and the Dominican
distressing their white American officers and winning the
Republic. Those "little brown men," as McKinley might have said,
admiration of the French. Their return home brought both parades
also wanted to eat and vote and run their own countries, it
(down Fifth Avenue from Harlem) and four years of white assaults
seemed. Speaking of McKinley, during the years between the
("race riots") on black communities across the country.
wars the Philippines, his great imperial conquest, remained a U.S.
Demobilized black soldiers of radical leanings formed the African
regency, under the suzerainty of two U.S. generals, the Mac
Black Brotherhood (Solomon 1998) to resist white marauders, in
Arthurs, father and son.
some places successfully. More often, however, armed whites

375
Indeed the upheavals that followed the war threatened the In the face of this challenge, the imperial democracies wobbled:
imperial system, anticipating the break that would demolish it they all had supporters of fascism within their own ranks, and
after World War II. The attraction of communism, especially their policies overlapped more than a bit with those of the fascist
during the Depression, and the elective affinity between the powers, especially where race was concerned. On the one hand
communist movement and the anti-imperialist and antiracist the United Kingdom, France, and the United States were
ones, confronted the imperial "mother countries" with enormous democracies, flawed to be sure, but not authoritarian police
dilemmas. The rise of pan-Africanism, both in the socialist version states (at least not at home, at least not systematically). Yet to
(which was associated with Du Bois, Padmore, and many others), their dark-skinned subjects trapped in rural debt peonage,
and in the Garveyite version (which achieved a tremendous level confined to native reserves, or crammed into urban slums,
of mass support and was rooted in the legacy of Booker T. democracy seemed in short supply as well. Is it a mere accident,
Washington), was also troubling to imperial elites in the United for example, that during the twentieth century the term ghetto
States, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, and Africa itself. came to characterize black slums in U.S. cities? There was
indeed an uncomfortable resemblance between the fascism that
The rise of fascism further complicated the picture. Here was a
Whitehall, the White House, and the Elysee deplored and
racist and imperialist political movement, equipped with power in
denounced, and those same "democratic" countries' racial
several industrialized nations, and endowed as well with
practices in Mississippi, Malaya, and Madagascar.
widespread popular support. German fascism was particularly
racist, but fascism as an Italian and even Japanese phenomenon In short the crises of the Depression and the rise of fascism,
was not free of racial dimensions. Fascism was an imperial themselves both direct "consequences of the peace," had
project as well: it sought to revive the old empires (Mussolini powerful racial undertones. During the 1930s, as Andre Gunder
claimed to be reawakening the greatness of Rome) as well as to Frank (1969) has famously suggested in respect to Latin America,
create new ones. Mussolini's quest for an African empire, the the weakened position of the dominant nations made empire (and
"Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere" (the Japanese imperial transnational spheres of influence) harder to maintain. Frank
scheme), and Hitler's drive for Lebensraum were all justified in argued that national economic autonomy grew in Latin America
explicitly racial terms, much as the empires of "old" Europe had during the 1930s because the international imperialist regime lost
been. a measure of its power: as it was wracked by economic crisis at
home and confronted by the rise of new and hostile powers, both

376
communist and fascist, the U.S. big daddy could devote less system" (Wallerstein 1974-89), is what I am calling the racial
attention to managing the little Latino kids down south. From the "break"; it was a complex of sociopolitical conflicts and
perspective I am advancing here, it appears that antiracist and adjustments that both modified and preserved the world racial
anticolonialist activity also benefited during this same period from system in our own era.
the crisis of the ruling regimes.
The racial break was the most significant challenge to white
Few today would question the claim that the interwar years were supremacy that had been mounted since the rise of Europe a
a particularly difficult period for the big powers: the nations that half-millennium earlier. Yet, world-shaking as it was, it could not
had triumphed in World War I now experienced new crises, new dislodge, but only somewhat weaken, the tenacious traditions of
instabilities, a new popular disillusionment and bitterness. Their white racist world domination. I have written at length about the
recent victory was turned inside out as bread grew scarce and break elsewhere (Winant 2001). Here I can only begin to suggest
the rivals they had so recently humiliated rose up in terrifying the forces that contributed to the new situation. Above all, the
strength to challenge them once again. But in all the consensus break was an accretion of innumerable conflicts and experiences,
that permeates this account of the interwar years, has the theme which flowed together and accumulated in a politically
of racial rule and racial insurgency received the attention it overdetermined pattern during the post-World War II decades.
deserves? Have race and racism, continuing colonial rule and Some of the main elements of this conjuncture, this buildup of
white supremacy been recognized as pivotal elements and political confrontations, were the following:
central contradictions in the run-up to World War II? I think not.
The upsurge of anticolonial and antiracist movements
The Racial "Break"
The mass mobilizations that the war drove forward resulted, in its
World War II reshuffled the global political deck once again, far aftermath, in the presence around the world of millions of
more comprehensively than the "war to end all wars" had ever demobilized fighters. Armed and trained to fight against fascism
done. During and after the war the world underwent a profound and imperialism, well-schooled in the ideologies of democracy
shift in the global logic of race, a crisis of world racial formation. and self-determination, many veterans made a seamless
This racial metamorphosis, perhaps the most comprehensive to transition between fighting a world war and fighting an
have occurred since the rise of the "modern world- anticolonial war. Many who had experienced the trenches and
wartime factories of the Allies (especially in the United States) did
377
not look kindly upon the segregation and second-class directly entered into armed conflict with the United States.17 The
citizenship to which they were told to return at the war's end. Of conflict between the superpowers was largely fought out in the
course, not only demobilized soldiers found themselves opposed global South, where colonialism and white supremacy were
to attempts to restore the old colonial and white supremacist (correctly) perceived as U.S. policies. The very persistence in the
system; soldiers have families, communities, friends as well. United States proper of racial segregation, lynching,
Many colonial subjects and racially identified "others" had not disenfranchisement, and racist practices of every type thus
fought in the war but had weathered "the war at home." They had quickly became an international issue of the first order. The
found new jobs, moved to the cities, and so on. Such accruing international political disadvantage of this situation,
experiences made return to antebellum conditions quite combined with increasingly effective domestic movements for
unthinkable. These patterns, themselves redolent of the end of civil and human rights, contributed to the momentum of racial
World War I and indeed of the defeat of Reconstruction, deeply reform initiatives at home (Dudziak 2000).
shaped postwar social movements both in the United States and
Worldwide demographic transition
on a global level.
World War II brought about huge population shifts both during
The consolidation of the cold war
and after hostilities. The war made vast labor recruitment efforts
Competition between the superpowers developed quickly after necessary; it also involved military conscription and subsequent
World War IPs end. As a neocolonial power, the United States demobilization on an unprecedented scale. The northward
engaged in numerous wars with insurgent national liberation migration of millions resulted both from labor demand (for both
movements, which almost always identified themselves as military production and reconstruction) and from the hunger of the
communists as well as nationalists. Although these conflicts were "wretched of the earth" for a better life in the postwar years. The
generally more anti-imperialist than cold war-based, in the United old empires "struck back" as former colonial subjects— East and
States they were inevitably interpreted as great-power West Indians, Caribenos, Maghrebines and sub-Saharans,
confrontations; opponents were branded as surrogates for the Filipinos and Moluccans, Koreans and Chinese—set off in
USSR. The United States generally took a direct hand in these unprecedented numbers for the northern metropoles. Migration
wars— though not always; it had surrogates as well such as not only meant movement from South to North on a global scale;
France, Portugal, Pakistan, and Israel. In contrast the USSR never it also meant population shifts from countryside to city within

378
virtually every nation. Rural people—typically poor, less educated, II and continued after its end for decades. World War II had been
and dark-skinned—made their way to urban shantytowns and an antifascist war, an anti-imperial war (in part), an antiracist war
ghettos in Rabat and Rome, Sao Paulo and San Francisco, Dakar (in part). It had schooled resistance to the Japanese in Asia and
and Diisseldorf, Capetown and Cleveland. After a few years of the Germans and Italians in Africa, and thus advanced the causes
this in the United States, black people were no longer of anti-imperialism and antiracism. Much of this was unwitting or
concentrated in the South, no longer mainly rural. In Europe, at least unavoidable. The Allies had cast themselves during the
former working-class suburbs had now sprouted mosques and war (with some truth) as the champions of democracy. In a kind of
halal butcher shops. In Africa and Latin America, in the "blowback," then, they set in motion a new phase of civil rights
Philippines and the Arab countries, the shantytowns on the urban and human rights activity all over the world, including in their
periphery became hotbeds of despair, criminality, and political home countries. At home they were compelled to undertake racial
opposition. All this migration meant that an enormous cultural reforms and engage in more inclusive practices—economic,
mixing was underway: Europe's "others"—its former wogs, political, and cultural—than ever before.
niggers, noirs, coolies, and kaffirs—were now inside the
The onset of the cold war made the old imperial domains (or the
"motherland" to a far greater extent than previously. The United
"third world," or the "nonaligned nations") a vast battleground,
States became a far browner and yellower country than it had
with the forces of empire on one side, and those of communism
ever been before. Yet proximity did not in general lead to
and nationalism on the other. In short order, the old empires
assimilation, "melting," or miscegenation (although of course it
began to collapse. The Dutch left Indonesia, after a brutal but
did increase these phenomena as well), so much as it advanced
hopeless colonial war, in 1948. The British abandoned Malaya in
diasporic consciousness, ethnonationalism, and antiracist
1950; the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu in 1954- Africa
politics.
was cleared of the Union Jack by the 1960s, and in 1962 the
These processes vastly transformed the colonies and hinterlands French admitted defeat in their long and bloody campaign to hold
of the entire world. As the population structures, residential on to Algeria. Of course, the imperial death throes were more
patterns, and labor dynamics of many countries were altered, so prolonged than that. The Portuguese empire did not fall until
too were their political systems. Thus did anti-imperialist and civil 1975, and it took a military revolt within the colonial army to
rights movements arise; thus did these movements combine to accomplish that feat. The world had by then moved into a
impel a global break in racial politics that began during World War neocolonial stage (Nkrumah 1965). The waning of the old

379
European empires left a power vacuum that the United States postimperial, postcolonial, but subject to a multilateral discipline
rushed to fill, most notably in Vietnam but also in Congo, Iran, as onerous as any that had preceded it. Ushered in by the oil
and Indonesia, as well as in its traditional backyard: Latin America shocks and the explosion of "third world" debt during the 1980s,
and the Caribbean. the economic unraveling of much of the global South meant an
end to dreams of "development." By the 1990s a new
All these developments were fundamentally affected by racial
postcolonial regime was in place, one of spiraling indebtedness
dynamics. All echoed past global tensions and conflicts over
and seemingly eternal discipline at the hands of avaricious
race, such as those that occurred after Versailles. All this
creditors. This was the world economic order, administered in the
contributed to the worldwide racial break.
main by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It was a system
controlled from the global North and fully dedicated to indirect
Racial Politics at Century's End
rule of the global South on the behalf of transnational capital. Its
After the movements, after the revolutions, after the empires' institutions and policies went by various names: the World Trade
official retreats, there was reform. State-based racial reform took Organization (WTO), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
various patterns: passage of civil rights laws and adoption of (GATT), "structural adjustment policies," as well as the more
more inclusionist immigration policies, extension of citizenship general term "globalization" and the old imperial chestnut "free
and citizenship rights, repatriation of abandoned colonials, like trade." Something had certainly changed since the heyday of the
the "pieds noirs" from Algeria, and widespread official professions "old Europe's" imperial era. The United States was the new boss,
of commitment to racial equality were some of the chief lines of for one thing. The names and acronyms were certainly different:
racial reform. With the fall of the apartheid regime in South Africa what had once been colonial territories and then "Less Developed
in 1994—an event halfway between racial reform and revolution— Countries" (LDCs) were now "Highly Indebted Poor
the post-World War II break reached its limits. Well before the Countries" (HIPCs).
collapse of apartheid (which was a late event in the cycle) the
So the imperial system continued, transformed to be sure from
construction of a new racial hegemony was already well
the pre-World War II modality of direct rule by the various "mother
advanced, particularly in the United States. In part as a
countries," transformed even from the cold war setup of
consequence of the transformed conditions that succeeded the
competing power blocs and a certain intermediate, "nonaligned"
break, a new world economic system came into being:
group of countries. Yet something remained the same at the turn

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of the twenty-first century. The North-South system was still, so By 1998 African debt/annual GDP ratios had reached the
to speak, color-coded. It still operated a worldwide racial division obscene level of 125 percent, and debt service in many southern
of labor. It still relied on a (updated to be sure) means of racially countries amounted to more than 50 percent of state revenues
organized exploitation: global debt peonage. per year. By way of contrast, consider that in 1953 the victorious
Allies cancelled 80 percent of defeated Germany's war debt, and
Just as in the days of African slavery, when dark-skinned workers
only insisted on a repayment rate on the remaining 20 percent of
labored in chains to subsidize their white "owners" and
3 to 5 percent of annual export earnings. The IMF and other big
"masters," so now in the twenty-first century Africans labored in
lenders have imposed similar lenient terms on central Europe
the chains of transnational debt peonage to subsidize the great
debtors after the fall of communism. So why was Africa expected
banks, securities markets, and "developed" nations that were
to pay the rich countries at as much as fifteen times the interest
their creditors, or perhaps one should say their modern slave
rates charged to European debtor countries (Sassen 2001; Stiglitz
masters. Latin Americans ravaged their forests and abandoned
2002; Bello 2001; Chua 2002)? The global "debt trap" now
subsistence crops for cash-crop, export-oriented cultivation.
engulfs not only impoverished nations but fairly developed ones
Marooned in the shantytowns and slums of hundreds of hungry
like Argentina, Mexico, and South Korea. Assaults on the world's
cities, Asians now toiled in sweatshops, making apparel,
poor via the global financial system—notably the debt and its
televisions, circuit boards, and suitcases. Laboring under an
policing by the IMF through "structural adjustment policies"—
unimaginable weight of indebtedness, the "independent"
result in the deaths of millions every year (Beneria 1999;
countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America danced to the tune
Weissman 2000). All this can readily be understood in terms of
played by their northern lenders. Unable to represent the interests
racism: the world's poor are largely peasants and superexploited
of their peoples, the "independent" governments of these
workers; they are dark-skinned sharecroppers and peons of a
countries instead secured the discipline of their subjects by
global corporate plantation, owned and run by white men in
means of coercion and corruption. Thus much of the world's
business suits.
population was governed (indirectly, to be sure) on behalf of the
world's northern rulers. This "indirect rule" was a great To be sure, a new transnational movement has emerged against
improvement (in the eyes of those who benefited from it, anyway), this state of affairs and has even scored some successes, notably
on nineteenth-century imperial practices that went by the same the string of mass demonstrations that have been mounted over
name. the past few years in Seattle, Washington, Genoa, Quebec, New

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York, and Cancun at the annual meetings of the World Trade elites, of course, and the mass constituency for such radical
Organization, the IMF/World Bank, the Free Trade Association of reforms was unavailable after moderate ones had been enacted.
the Americas, and similar conclaves of world economic So after the antiracist movement's rising phase, which began
managers. The World Social Forum, which has met in Porto during the war itself and gradually consolidated as a mass
Alegre, Brazil, since 2001, has launched a series of initiatives movement over the 1950s and 1960s, there was a second phase
aimed at creating a transnational agenda for "globalism from of containment that took effect over several decades of fierce
below"; numerous progressive organizations and activists— struggles. This was the accommodationist or reformist moment—
political, religious, indigenous, workers', and community groups— the last phase of the break in the United States—which was
have signed on. There is a movement out there. largely completed by about 1970. Although profoundly changed
in the upheavals of the post-World War II period, the centuries-old
Turning to U.S. racial politics after the break: during the post-
and deeply entrenched system of racial inequality and injustice
World War II decades the United States has grown used to its role
was hardly eliminated. Rather the postwar racial order, faced with
as leading superpower and culturally hegemonic society. Yet it
an unprecedented set of democratic and egalitarian demands,
also remains a complex combination of the old and new racial
was adapted over the course of a decades-long political struggle.
systems. By acceding to certain "moderate" movement demands,
Through an extended interplay of conflict and compromise, a
by revisioning and reinterpreting long-standing racial policies in
multileveled and nuanced encounter between that which was
order to incorporate their more digestible features, by co-opting
dying and that which was struggling to be born, the racial state
movement leaders and adopting movement rhetoric, the United
incorporated its opposition. A new racial politics developed in the
States was not only able to defuse and marginalize the radical
U.S.; racial hegemony replaced racial domination.
potential of the antiracist movements that confronted it in the
post-World War II period. It was also able to manage racial From the standpoint of the racial state, the contentious politics
inequality and racial divisions far more effectively than it could (McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001) of the break were resolved by a
have done using the old-style, intransigent means. Yet while it brokered or "pacted" racial peace. This consisted of a
sang the siren song of democracy and civil rights, the U.S. racial combination of significant concessions to antiracist movements
state did not transform essential social structures of race and on the one hand, with the utter repudiation of the movements'
racism; that would have required far more thoroughgoing reforms. more radical demands on the other. Thus civil rights legislation, as
Such measures would have been undesirable to established well as administrative and judicial intervention on its behalf, made

382
no effort to achieve income and wealth redistribution along racial Racial Politics Today
lines, to enhance political participation in any substantial way on
the part of racially defined minorities, or to foster widespread The racial politics that results from this synthesis of challenge and
cultural reorientation with respect to race and racism. incorporation, racial conflict and racial reform, has proved neither
stable nor satisfying. Both globally and locally it is a strange brew,
From the standpoint of the antiracist movements, official white
often appearing more inclusive, more pluralistic than ever before,
supremacy and de jure segregation were defeated, and a
yet also filled with threats of "ethnic cleansing," resurgent
modicum of access to the mainstream institutions of the country
neofascism, and perhaps equally insidious, renewed racial
—economic, political, and cultural—was achieved, at least for
complacency. What conclusions, theoretical and political, can we
minority middle-classes.18 But this came at the price of having to
draw from all this about twenty-first-century racial dynamics?
abandon larger hopes for more radical reforms and social
First, to understand the changing significance of race at the end
restructuring. It required the repudiation of those activists and
of the twentieth century, the century whose central malady was
organizations who sought such broader social transformations,
diagnosed by DuBois as "the problem of the color-line," requires
and the abandonment of the hopes of millions of immiserated
us to acknowledge the possibility that racial inequality and
ghetto and barrio dwellers, now labeled the "underclass."
injustice no longer operate so clearly through a color-line at all.
Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. The epoch of the This is not to deny the continuing significance of race and color; it
postwar racial break ended in the United States with the onset of is merely to recognize the augmented flexibility, the fungibility, of
a new racial regime, one that could defuse the ferocious conflicts racial meanings and racialized social structures after the complex
that had developed since the war, yet that could still maintain a realignments of the post-World War II racial break.
substantial continuity with the legacies of past white
If the meaning of race and the logic of racism have changed, our
supremacism. Yes, white supremacy had been wounded, but not
understandings and practices of antiracism must change too. The
mortally. It had again proven itself quite capable of
inheritors of the postwar antiracist movements, from the African
metamorphosis: absorbing and adapting much of the "dream,"
National Congress in South Africa and the Movimento Negro
and repackaging itself as "colorblind," pluralist, nonracialist, and
Unificado in Brazil, to SOS Racisme in France and a wide variety
meritocratic.
of antiracist groups in the United States, must recognize the
obsolescence of their own concepts, at least in the following

383
ways They (we) must realize that it is dangerous to assign to the example, affirmative action, reparations for slavery, and
state the task of safeguarding racial justice. Seeking redress for cancellation of international debt).
grievances of racial discrimination, hate crimes, or
Both these points draw on critical race theory (CRT) and its
institutionalized racism tends to underestimate the extent to
understanding of the limits of rights-based politics (Delgado and
which the state is already itself racialized. The exercise of racial
Stefancic 2001; Valdes, Gulp, and Harris 2002). I do not wish to
hegemony, the incorporation of antiracist opposition, has
imply, though, (and I don't think CRT people do either) that rights
demonstrated yet again that the state is a thoroughly racial
politics and egalitarian demands are entirely wrong or impractical;
institution, just as much as it was in the days of de jure
rather they are inadequate in the face of racial hegemony, and
segregation, apartheid, or colonialism. As such it is incapable of
largely incapable of effectively countering their rearticulation by
intervening effectively in racial conflicts from an outside and
the political right in the aftermath of the racial break. Amid all this
putatively "neutral" position, incapable of more than palliative
analysis of racially grounded social structures, we should look
antiracist action. While it may still be desirable to place such
more closely at the microsocial dynamics of race: the way racial
demands on the state—for example, by seeking extension of civil
practices operate on the experiential level. Here the whole legacy
rights laws or judicial intervention against discriminatory practices
of sociological pragmatism comes into play:22 a crucial "micro-"
—this cannot substitute for direct political mobilization:
legacy of the racial break is the recognition that a whole lot of
confrontational, negotiated, or even electoral. Indeed, casting the
everyday life is racially interpreted, experienced in a way inflected
state in the role of resolving racial conflict tends to discredit and
by race, and therefore at least potentially subject to a deep set of
delegitimate autonomous (civil society-based) mobilization on
democratic impulses and motivations.
racial grounds. They (we) must reexamine our time-honored
reliance on egalitarianism. As the New Right and Finally, we really must jettison our tendency to see racial matters
neoconservatives in the United States, and neofascists like the as belonging to domestic political and policy spheres. In this
Front Nationale in France and the FPO in Austria have essay I have attempted to address more seriously the
demonstrated,20 after the racial break it is has become possible international dimensions of racial injustice and racial politics. As
to uphold the principle of racial equality while simultaneously social movements, including antiracist ones, become ever more
steadfastly opposing such practical antiracist policies as income transnational in their orientation, it becomes possible to see the
and wealth redistribution or positive antidiscrimination (for local and national features of racism more clearly and

384
comparatively. Indeed racial dynamics can be more effectively
grasped when they are understood not as deviations from
supposedly central democratic and egalitarian ideals (of the
nation, the Enlightenment, modernity, etc.), but as historically and
sociologically constitutive of nation, economy, polity, culture, and
personal experience.

One hundred years after the publication of The Souls of Black

Folk, a century after Du Bois's announcement of the "problem of
the color-line" and presentation of the first radical democratic
theory of racism, half a century after the onset of the racial break
and the prolonged invention of racial hegemony, where do racial
politics stand? In this essay I have traced, undoubtedly in all too
schematic and cursory fashion, the vast trajectory of racial
conflict over the course of the twentieth century. This vertiginous
history of triumph and tragedy has left us, on the threshold of the
twenty-first century, still far short of the racially inclusive
democracy we seek. Despite real gains achieved by enormous
effort and sacrifice, racial justice still remains in short supply all
across the planet. The stigmata of race are still highly visible. The
struggle continues.

The previous section is provided by Lynn University’s

use of Ebook Central Academic Complete.

385
Section 5

Situating the field of gender & politics

Discipline & Field Issues professionalization 3 (Norris 1997), differences among gender
and politics scholars occur not only along these lines but also
This book concerns a new body of knowledge and an emerging
are defined by a varied recognition of the political significance of
set of questions that has accompanied national, cross national
social relationships and hierarchies that are not considered to be
and international global political movements aimed at trying to
“public” or related to the state by mainstream political scientists.
understand and to improve the situation of women by eliminating
gender inequities and injustices. To the extent that these bodies Four Major Themes
of knowledge, concepts and questions have become recognized,
recorded, institutionalized and legitimized, they may be
considered a field of study or, more formally, a discipline. Often, Previous surveys of the gender and politics field have identified
because of their grass- roots origins and continuing links to particular themes that characterize the research and the
specific communities and cultures, these ideas are dynamic and questions being asked. This volume is organized around four
diverse. Although they remain united by their common interest in major themes or approaches. The first offers a different and
gender and power or gender and the political, different scholars perhaps more fundamental perspective drawn from the point of
in the same country as well as scholars in different countries and view of scholars from Latin America and Africa who argue that
from different cultures have different views concerning what the the crea- tion of knowledge about gender is deeply linked to
field encompasses. Just as commentators on the discipline of global hierarchies of po- litical, economic and linguistic power
political science as a whole have noted that major differences and show how this is manifest in their regions. A second major
exist between the discipline of political science as practiced in theme concerns the exclusion of women from de- mocratic
the United States as opposed to Europe due to different political institutions (legislatures, political parties, public bureauc-
intellectual tradi- tions2 and to varying degrees of racies, courts) and from political processes such as elections.

386
The assumption of this approach is that the primary agenda is to stage for this collection. They remind us that knowledge
improve the political representation and participation of women in production requires power and that social movements.
political institutions – what Anne Phillips (1989) has called “the
can be a source of such political support. In countries where
politics of presence.” The third theme involves approaches that
states may be weak and/or undemocratic, where universities may
include but also go beyond the traditional public/private
be few in number and/or may exclude women, where political
boundaries of state-centric political science and instead, draw on
science as a discipline is not well established, excludes women or
theories, concepts and institutions more often addressed in the
may be banned altogether, gender and politics knowledge
fields of sociology, philosophy, economics, psychology,
production continues but under different circumstances. Non-
anthropology, geography, women’s studies and history in addition
governmental organizations often are the centers of such
to the discipline of political science. The fourth theme that
knowledge production. Global networks are extremely important.
characterizes the field of gender and politics focuses on
These chapters are particularly significant to this review because
evaluating and critiquing mainstream concepts, theories and
they offer a valuable critique of the Eurocentricism of the political
discourse to show how these concepts and theories are gender
science discipline4 and of much of the work in gender and
biased, how they exclude women and gender from consideration,
politics that focuses on women’s political representation in de-
how they disempower and silence women and how they may be
mocratic nation-states. They suggest that because gender and
reconstructed.
politics scholars and practitioners are not so wedded to the
The chapters in this volume loosely correspond to these four dominant paradigm, yet forced to operate at least somewhat
themes al- though some chapters include more than one theme within it, they can be a source of innovation and creative new
or approach. The chapters on Latin America and Africa (chapters approaches. They can expand the perspective of the field of
two and three) draw our attention to the first theme, namely the gender and politics and of political science as well. For these
ways in which knowledge production or discipline creation is reasons, the chapters on Latin America and Africa lead this
related to power. This refers to power not only within political collection and are crucial to defining and understanding the state
institutions, but power in terms of economic, military, cultural and of the field.
linguistic dominance. Because this is a new perspective not often
The chapters on Latin America and Africa also make us acutely
discussed in disciplinary reviews, these two chapters set the
aware that the nature of the state, the economy, the openness of

387
the society and the government, culture, religion and the with representative political institutions. The chapters on South
prevalence and role of universities are all factors that shape the Asia, Europe and the United States (chapters four, five and six) fall
nature of inquiry in various parts of the world and consequently broadly into this category. The approach in these chapters
condition the study of gender and politics. Military dictator- ships, concerns the exclusion of women from democratic political
whether in Africa, Asia, the Americas or Europe generally have a institutions (legislatures, political parties, public bureaucracies,
dramatic impact not only on what occurs at universities but also courts), and from political processes such as elections. They seek
on what can happen in civil society – an impact that varies with to identify the mechanisms and causes of these forms of
the conditions of each country and region. In China, for example, exclusion as well as policies that can improve the situation. The
the formation of the People’s Re- public of China in 1949 assumption of this approach is that the primary agenda is to
established a strong centralized government which has taken the improve the political representation and participation of women in
lead in improving the well-being of women as part of its quest to these institutions.
liberate labor, a model considerably different from conditions
The third theme can be found in studies that go beyond the
impacting gender and politics in other parts of the world (Han
traditional public/private boundaries of political science and
1997). National indebtedness has had a great influence not only
instead draw on theories, concepts and institutions more often
on universities but also on the lives of women. Countries in civil
addressed in the fields of sociology, philosophy, psychology,
conflict have created situations where women have served as
anthropology, geography, women’s studies and history rather
revolutionary activists, as peacemakers or as peacekeepers. In
than in the discipline of political science. This theme is found in
these situations, the generation of knowledge about women and
sev- eral of the chapters in the other three categories. As
politics or gender and politics may occur primarily in grassroots
illustrated in the chapters on Latin America and Africa (chapters
and indigenous women’s movements, in non-governmental
one and two), the field of gender and politics has developed
organizations, in networks of women activists and/or among
largely out of interdisciplinary work drawing on other social
scholars who communicate with one another within and across
science disciplines and methods. The chapter on gender and
geographic boundaries.
politics in South Asia while focusing on women’s representation in
The second theme – in contrast with the perspective of the political institutions, stresses the importance of family and kinship
chapters on Latin America and Africa – assumes the existence of to this process in South Asia. The discussion of gender and
democratic nation-states or of emerging democratic nation-states globalization, and of gender and political economy in the chapter

388
on the United States and the chapter on international relations the field of gender and politics expands the concept of the
(chapters six and seven respectively) illustrate how gender and political beyond the confines of the nation-state to include the
politics scholars draw on other disciplines and intellectual impact of international power hierarchies and show that the locus
approaches including economics, anthropology, history, of knowledge pro- duction is not necessarily confined to
geography and sociology. Feminist theory al- so is informed by a universities and established profession- alized academic
wide range of philosophical and historical knowledge in its disciplines. The chapters on South Asia, Europe and the United
creation of new concepts and new explanations. States review a rich literature that focuses on the representation
of women in democratic political institutions within the nation
A fourth approach to the study of gender and politics places more
state. Several chapters including those on Latin America, Africa,
emphasis and importance on the way mainstream concepts and
South Asia, the United States, international relations and feminist
policies structure thought and discourse to exclude women and
theory in whole or in part illustrate the ways in which the field of
gender from consideration, a practice that disempowers and
gender and politics has moved beyond the pub- lic/private
silences women and leads to gender-biased conclusions and
dichotomy that characterizes much of political science research
policies. The agenda is to disrupt the mainstream “normal,” to
to draw on the insights and methods of other social science
explain and challenge its gender bias and to develop new
disciplines. Finally, the chapters on international relations and
concepts to rectify this situation. This is a primary focus for
feminist theory review some of the many ways that the field of
feminist theory as explained in chapter eight. Because the field of
gender and politics has challenged mainstream concepts that
international relations is heavily involved with public policy
shape and propagate gender bias and how the field has devel-
discourse, gender and politics scholars have also been
oped new theories and new ways of viewing the world that
particularly active in challenging the gender biased concepts of
promote social justice, gender equality and women’s well-being.
those in international relations within the discipline of political
science as illustrated in chapter seven. Three Streams of Analysis
In summary, the chapters in this volume written by authors from a
Many factors have shaped the field of gender and politics as it
wide variety of regions in the world reflect all four of these
exists today in the discipline of political science. The
approaches with some chapters representing more than one
development of the field cannot be separated from 1) the
approach. The chapters on Latin Amer- ica and Africa show how
changes in capitalism – specifically changes in labor markets – or

389
from 2) the emergence of women’s movements globally during were or- ganized either around the workplace (pensions, health
the 20th and 21st centuries. Insofar as this project concerns the insurance) or the state (welfare programs, social security). This
development of gender and politics within the discipline of model of production treated men and women as separate groups
political science, neither can the project be separated from 3) the defined by law and by custom to have differ- ent responsibilities
state of political science as a discipline glob- ally, especially as it and different roles. To the extent that women were al- lowed to
is represented in the International Political Science Asso- ciation. work in the waged economy, they were largely crowded into low
Each of these three influences help explain the emergence and paying gendered occupations such as clerical, retail, nursing,
devel- opment of the relatively new field of gender and politics teaching, child care and/or domestic service. In industrialized and
and provide a frame- to situate the variety of approaches semi-industrialized coun- tries, a few worked in low paying
represented by the subsequent chapters in this book. manufacturing jobs such as sewing, tex- tiles, cigarette making.
In non-industrialized countries, women worked in agriculture, in
Gender, Politics, Changes in Capitalism & in Labor the market, and/or in the home, usually confined by law and cus-
Markets tom to subordinate roles under male supervision and control. The
changes brought on by World War II in the United States whereby
Changes in global capitalism and subsequent changes in the women were brought into the waged labor force for the war effort
gendered divi- sion of labor during the second half of the 20th was a harbinger of what was to occur globally in the late 1960s,
century have altered the politi- cal position of women, albeit quite the 1970s and the 1980s, as off-shore production proved to
differently in different parts of the world. This in turn has impacted enhance profits and contribute to what some called “the
the development of the field of gender and politics. Prior to World deindustrialization of America (Bluestone 1982).” In the United
War II, in most parts of the industrialized world – with some States, manu- facturing plants organized under the Fordist mode
exceptions – industrial manufacturing was organized around the of production (with strong unions, stable employment, manual or
male wage earner. Some women worked for wages as domestics, craft-based employment and paying family wages to long time
nannies, prostitutes, schoolteachers, nurses, clerical and retail male employees) moved abroad where they estab- lished
workers. Some women worked in textile and other factories. factories employing large numbers of women. As men lost their
Almost all women were expected to do unpaid work in the home jobs in the United States, family incomes fell and more and more
or on the farm, to bear and raise children and to care for the sick women joined the waged labor force to supplement their family
and elderly. For countries with social services, these services incomes. In 1989, Guy Stand- ing wrote his famous article,
390
“Global Feminization through Flexible Labour,” showing that the Asia than in Latin America (Horton 1999, 576). Goldin has shown
feminization of the workforce was a global phenomenon. As that in the United States, the shift of women out of the home and
Standing noted, his term, “feminization of the labor force,” into the waged labor force occurred in stages beginning in the
referred not only to the increased number of women in the global late nineteenth cen- tury and evolving through three evolutionary
waged labor force, but also to the changes in the structure of the phases to a revolutionary phase beginning in 1970 (Goldin 2006,
jobs that were available (Standing 1989). Instead of steady life 2). Early phases of the process saw young single women entering
time jobs for primarily male waged workers, the global the labor force. As industrialization progressed and more white
manufacturing structure had changed to one of flexible collar jobs became available and women obtained higher levels of
production – what has since been labeled “commodity chain education, larger numbers of married women entered the labor
production” (Gereffi and Korzeniewicz 1994). Flexible production force for longer periods of time. The revolutionary phase was
refers to off-shore global produc- tion where factories (often with marked not by any par- ticularly dramatic increase in numbers of
primarily male workers) move at will to sources of ever cheaper women in the labor force, but rather by a more highly educated
labor and where primarily women are recruited to take low waged female labor pool. This correlated also with a change in women’s
manufacturing jobs often in export zones set aside for for- eign self reported life expectations, social norms concerning family
direct investment in developing countries. These jobs are and work and individual identity (Goldin 2006). Beginning in the
generally low paid, insecure and irregular. In 1999, Standing ear- ly 1980s, 80 percent of young women in the United States
updated his 1989 article to conclude that the global trends he expected to work when they were thirty five years of age. Women
noted in 1989 were accelerating and that around the world, were getting more educa- tion, getting married later, getting
women not only were being recruited into these unstable, low divorced more often, and spending less of their lives in married
paid, part time jobs, but that these were primarily the kinds of status. They expressed an interest in employment as part of a
jobs available to men as well under this system of post-Fordist long term career which had equal importance to that of their hus-
production (Standing 1999). bands (Goldin 2006, 10-12).

In the 1980s, many women in middle income developing Another important change with regard to global capitalism in the
countries moved out of agriculture and into white collar last half of the 20th century that impacted women as well as the
occupations such as teaching, nursing, sales, clerical and discipline of political science has been a major shift from state
services. In general, more women participated in agriculture in centered economies based on Keynesian beliefs to a neo-liberal

391
philosophy articulated by Frederik von Hayek and Milton resources and/or production of commodities that could be sold
Friedman. The neo-liberal view holds that the role of the state in for foreign exchange to repay the foreign debts. These neo-liberal
the economy should be limited to maintaining a stable supply of policies had a profound impact on many women in developing
money in proportion to the rate of growth in the economy. Capital, countries as they experienced cuts in education, health care,
goods, services and (in theory even labor) should be allowed to water distribution, energy, welfare and food subsidies for the
flow both within and between states with as little state regulation purpose of servicing foreign loans. In many cases, state funded
as possible. public services such as piped water or electricity were privatized
and marketed. University curricula around the globe were
With the oil crisis of 1973 when the Organization of Petroleum
impacted as neo-liberalism, also known as “The Washington
Export- ing Countries (OPEC) raised the price of their oil three and
Consensus,” became the new mantra. For many women in indus-
then four times in one year, many oil importing developing
trializing and poor countries, these neo-liberal changes were
countries had to borrow funds from international lenders to pay
mobilizing fac- tors, ones that brought the inequity of the global
for the increased cost. For many of these coun- tries, this was the
order into sharp focus. This ideological change also impacted the
beginning of a debt burden that forced them to restructure their
industrialized countries of Europe and North America as welfare
economies towards export production. The extra monies
systems were reduced and state services were eliminated or
accumulated by the OPEC countries made their way into western
privatized.
banks which in turn lent them at high rates of interest to
developing countries. With the demise of the Bretton Woods The Emergence of Women’s Movements and their
system in 1971, the International Monetary Fund and the World
Differences
Bank served as the gatekeepers to global capital by requiring
those countries in need of international loans to implement neo- The 1960s, a time of state organized (Keynesian) as opposed to
liberal policies as a condition for obtaining a loan. In exchange for globalized or neo-liberal capitalism, marked the beginning of what
loans from these institutions and ultimately from private lenders, is sometimes called “second wave” feminism in the United States
countries had to agree to neo-liberal structural adjustment and Europe (as opposed to “first wave” feminism which refers to
policies (SAPs) that usually called for cutting state spending on the suffrage movement). In this period,
domestic consumption and services (especially services to
women and children) in favor of investing in the extraction of raw

392
states used Keynesian economic policies to organize and direct and private), and in identities- both individual and group (Scott
investment, devise industrial policy, regulate business and use 1986). This understanding considerably broadened the study of
taxation to redistribute wealth (Fraser 2009). Gender relations gender and politics and constitutes a major contribution of
were expected to be (and for many were) those of the waged or gender and politics as a field to the discipline of political science
salaried male worker and the house keeping, childrearing woman. (Hawkesworth 2006)
Authority structures and decision-making tended to be
As Nancy Fraser has noted, the second wave feminist struggle in
hierarchical and dominated by males. Feminists of the 1960s and
the United States against the constrictions of post World War II
1970s in the United States chafed against the gender inequities of
state organized (Keynesian) capitalism and the gendered bias of
this era. They mobilized to help pass the Equal Pay Act of 1963
institutions (such as the bar- riers to women in the waged working
and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 making discrimination
force, the expectation that girls should be wives and mothers
on the basis of sex illegal. They campaigned to enable women to
first, if not exclusively, the barriers to women in higher education,
control their bodies through legalized contraception and abortion.
in the professions, and in the public and political arena) ironically
With momentum building in the civil rights movement and more
coincided with the transformation of state organized capitalism
women in the waged labor force, unraveling and exposing
into neo- liberal capitalism as it developed in the 1970s and
patriarchal prac- tices, campaigning for equal treatment by the
1980s (Fraser 2009).
state and other institutions, consciousness raising, and trying to
pass legislation were some of the main activities. These second Neo-liberal capitalism brought with it a cry for the deregulation of
wave feminists eschewed authoritarian structures, challenged busi- ness and a reduction of government spending including
traditional hierarchical authorities and attempted to build horizon- welfare payments and state services, but it also was associated
tal democratic participatory organizations. with a reorganization of many busi- nesses into networked rather
than hierarchical structures with off-shore pro- duction bringing
Some elements of second wave feminism (radical and socialist
women of all ethnicities and nationalities into the waged
feminist) challenged liberal conceptions of the public and the
workforce. It generated dramatic changes in the family as the
private to argue that gen- der power was located not only in the
two-earner family and the double or triple shift became the norm
public arena involving the state and its institutions, but also in all
for women. Single parale headed households. Many second wave
perceived relationships between men and women, be they in the
feminists celebrated the economic independence, increased
accepted norms of the society, symbols, institutions (both pub- lic

393
education and increased public awareness that women gained Women Organizing Internationally
from employment outside the home, while at the same time
struggling with the recognition that unwaged care work was vital Globally in the 1960s and the 1970s, the United Nations
and necessary and had to be valued and signifi- cantly rewarded Commission on the Status of Women (created in 1946) was
as waged work. Most second wave feminists sought help from moving beyond its early legal em- phasis on obtaining equal
the state in this enterprise calling for public childcare programs, citizenship rights for women who married interna- tionally to
manda- tory pregnancy leave policies, parental leave policies and emphasize social and economic rights for women in the world. In
more responsibility by males for care work. Meanwhile, neo- 1975, the United Nations held its First World Conference on
liberalism’s emphasis on the indi- vidual and individual self- Women in Mex- ico, a meeting that some Mexican feminists
sufficiency encouraged women to assume an indi- vidual identity boycotted in a move that high- lighted their anti-imperialist
rather than a family identity. Second wave feminist scholars resentment against the West. This reflected the negative
developing the gender and politics field were caught up in these sentiments that developing and colonized countries often have
debates and movements. had for the imposition of what they have considered a western
imperialist femi- nism that they did not feel they had had a fair
While elements of the second wave feminist movement wished to
opportunity to shape or direct. In spite of these reactions,
have women recognized as different from men and therefore to
subsequent United Nations World Conferences on Women in
be treated differ- ently by the state, most feminists in the United
1980, 1985 and 1995 mobilized large numbers of women in many
States during this era were concerned with how the patriarchy
countries in local, national and regional meetings to discuss
treated all women as a class in a systemic way to maintain
women’s issues in preparation for these world conferences. The
women’s inferiority and subordination. They sought to oblit- erate
early meetings were charac- terized by splits between the Eastern
the differences between men and women by seeking recognition
Soviet bloc countries and the West. The differences between
and representation in public and private forums. Differentiating
North and South continued in all these conferences. Conflicts
among women according to race, class, or ethnicity was a high
among Middle Eastern delegates characterized the 1985
priority for only a few.
conference in Nairobi, while Catholic and Muslim delegates
opposed key provisions of the agenda proposed for the 1995
conference (Bayes and Tohidi 2001). As improved
communications, especially the telephone, fax machine and ulti-
394
mately the internet evolved, transnational women’s non- women from many different geographic, social, economic,
governmental or- ganizations became more numerous. religious, and political contexts. This development calls for a re-
cognition of the differences among women, of the unique
Prior to 1995, United States foundations and many northern
contexts that do not unite women as sisters but rather show that
European governments funded projects for women in developing
race, nationality, ethnicity, class and intersectionality require
countries. In many cases in developing countries, this favored a
recognition and representation.
class of educated, internationally oriented women who
established organizations that addressed issues that ap- pealed As Fraser notes, women’s movements and feminism have had a
to western funding agencies such as domestic violence and para- doxical relationship with neo-liberalism. Second wave
reproduc- tion. In contrast, local grassroots women’s movement feminism emerged at about the same time as neo-liberalism,
organizations were concerned with survival issues such as drew on neo-liberal ideas of individual rights to mobilize against
poverty, education, health, children, the environment and working the gendered strictures of state organized capitalism and in many
conditions. In some countries, still a third sometimes overlapping ways made gains for women’s equality and political recognition.
group of women emerged to run for public office.
As state organized capitalism has begun to erode due to
Changes in the 1980s neoliberal globalization, deregulation, off-shore production, rapid
capital mobility, the growth of “too big to fail” corporations and
Another development significantly impacting the field came to the reduction or privatization of public ser- vices, second wave
light in the 1980s and may also be associated with the transition feminist claims for political rights and political recogni- tion have
from state capitalism based on the bounded nation state to a been joined and sometimes criticized by women’s grassroots
more transnational neo-liberal order. This involved the publication movements’ claims for economic redistribution to address the
of works by feminists of color which brought attention to the fact enormous inequalities that the global neo-liberal order has
that racial, class, and imperialist colonial attitudes and structures generated. This debate and con- flict is reflected in the field.
divide women in the women’s movement (Mohantry 1984; Spivak
1988; hooks 1981; Hurtado 1989). Since the 1990s, this
recognition has re- sulted in a concern for domestic and global
“intersectional” analysis to disen- tangle the perspectives of

395
The Discipline of Political Science and its global politics have continued to shape the organization ever
since. Today, the organization has 48 national associations as
Development
active members – 16 are from Western Eu- rope; 9 are from
Whereas the study of politics is as old as the study of social Eastern Europe; 6 are from Asia (China-Taipei, India, Japan,
discourse and philosophy, the field or discipline of political Korea, Nepal, and Singapore); 4 are former Soviet Union

science is of more recent vin- tage, emerging in the latter part of countries (Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan); 4 are from Latin

the 19th century. The founding of the American Political Science America – (Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina); 3 are from the

Association (APSA) in 1903 serves as a marker. The International Middle East – (Israel, Lebanon, Turkey); 3 from Africa – All Africa,
Political Science Association (IPSA) was founded as a part of Cameroon, South Africa; 2 are from North Amer- ica – (US and

UNESCO in 1949 after World War II. Originally it was an Canada); and one from Oceana – Australasia. (Since 1952, IP- SA

association of national political science associations. Reflecting has also been open to individual membership and now has over

the global political hierar- chy of the world at that time, most of 1500 in- dividual members.)

the founding members of IPSA were from North American,

John Trent notes in his summary of findings from the first seven
European or British Commonwealth countries. The founding
books in the IPSA World of Political Science book series, of which
members included the American, Canadian, French and Indian
this volume is a part, that political science as a discipline has
po- litical science associations. In the 1950s, most Western
been “Western dominated” (Trent 2009, 4, 14) and mainly “male
European nations (Sweden, the United Kingdom, Austria,
and white” (ibid., 14). Trent reports that globally, barely a third of
Belgium, Greece, Finland, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway,
political scientists are female (ibid., 13). Fur has flourished in
Spain, Switzerland) joined; two Eastern Europe national
democratic regimes with an “open educational system,
associations became members (Poland and Yugoslavia), and two
prosperity, foreign exchanges, returning exiles, research models
Middle Eastern organizations joined – (Israel, Lebanon). Finally,
and theories, leading scholars and educators, professional
the Soviet Union; two additional Asian countries – (Japan,
associations, and above all, relatively independent universities
Ceylon); and two Latin American associations (Brazil and Mexico)
and stable sources of funding” (ibid., 8). Because political science
were members by 1960.
has tradi- tionally had a state-centric frame and because women

Not all of these associations have remained as IPSA members. have generally been excluded from the state and its activities,

Just as global politics influenced the creation of the IPSA, so too,

396
scholars in political science depart- ments have tended to ignore volume, attempts to reach across borders combined with
gender. critiques of western Eurocentrism have made many aware of and
more sensitive to the western, Eurocentric bias of politi- cal
The essays in this volume confirm and elaborate on these
science as a discipline and of the biases of western feminism in
findings with regard to the study of gender and politics.
relation to the field of gender and politics in political science.

Gender and Politics within the Discipline of Political Within the International Political Science Association, the IPSA
Science Re- search Committee on Sex Roles and Politics was first created
as a study group in 1976 at the IPSA meetings in Scotland and
Until recently, political science has been a male dominated made a permanent Re- search Committee in 1979. The objectives
discipline even in Western industrialized nations. Establishing the of those involved in the creation of the research committee at the
field of “women and poli- tics,” which has subsequently become time were to address “a broad array of issues involving gender
“gender and politics,” as a “field” in the discipline has been a and politics focusing on the political participation of wom- en;
struggle supported by and dependent upon women’s movements women and public policy in comparative perspective; women in
outside the academy primarily in the last part of the 20th century. public world countries; women, religion and politics; the role of
The women’s movements, in turn, have in part been responses to legislation and the status of women; women and the transition to
major changes in capitalism in the last part of the twentieth democracy; strategies for the empowerment of women; feminist
century as increasing numbers of the world’s women have had an theory; women and nationalism; eco-feminism; and the global
opportunity to be educated and/or have moved from unpaid work women’s movement and international relations” ([Link]). To
to positions in the waged economy. provide a separate forum for the issues important to women in
developing countries, in 1988, a group of IPSA RC 19 members
Now, at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century,
created the IPSA Research Group on Wom- en, Politics, and
the field of gender and politics, like the global economy, is
Developing Nations. In 1992, IPSA recognized this group as a
undergoing major changes associated with globalization.
Research Committee (RC 7). While many of the topics considered
Globalization has brought more women from different parts of the
by RC 7 were not different from those considered by RC 19,
globe together and generated a myriad of transnational women’s
some topics such as women and development, women and
networks and organizations that generate and transmit
religion, women and the environment, women and nationalism,
knowledge about gender and politics. As illustrated in this
397
women, debt and structural adjustment were new or given a grassroots organizing, political activity in transnational
greater emphasis reflecting the priorities of developing countries. organizations and leadership training for women around the world
Both committees considered many of the same original topics of are part of the agenda.
RC19 such as women and public policy in comparative
Another way that the organizational history of gender and politics
perspective, political participa- tion of women, women in public
in the International Political Science Association suggests the
administration, women in legislatures, elec- toral politics,
nature of the field and its development is that membership in RC
strategies for the empowerment of women, women and ethnic
19, RC 7 and RC 52 have included scholars primarily from
conflict, women’s human rights, and women and democratization.
Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand,
In 2000, a group of IPSA members – most were members of
Russia, Latin America, Israel, Bangladesh, the Philippines and
RC19 and/or RC 7 – de- cided to create a new Research
India with very few from Africa, Japan, Korea, China, Central Asia,
Committee on Gender, Globalization and Democratization (RC52)
Vietnam and other parts of Asia, the Caribbean, or the Arab
to study the new realities of globalization and its gendered
Middle East. In part this reflects the hegemony of the English
consequences. This research committee focuses on 1) the
language (French is also an official language of IPSA but most
various understandings of globalization in different parts of the
sessions are conducted in English).
world and the differ- ential impact that these processes have on
women in different contexts; 2) the changes in gender It also reflects the educational systems in various countries, the
relationships created by economic globalization processes such status of women in those countries, the wealth of countries that
as: a) migration and gender; b) the changing patterns of are able or not able to send scholars to international meetings,
production and modes of production, privatization, deregulation, the kind and source of foreign aid available to the country, the
structural adjustment policies, trade agreements, and gender; c) status of the discipline of political science in the educational
the rampant growth of sex trafficking; systems of various coun- tries and the extent to which women are
recruited into the discipline in various countries. All of these are
d) transnational organizations and gender politics; and e)
factors which shape this review of the status of gender and
transnational femi- nism. A third theme concerns the impact of
politics at the end of the first decade of the 21st century.
globalization processes on the prospects for democratization in
the world, especially a kind of democratiza- tion that includes
women. Education for women – especially gender training,

398
The Essays in the Volume Imperialism of Categories: Situating Knowledge in a Globalizing
World.” In this address, Rudolph calls attention to the tendency of
The essays in this volume do not follow a uniform pattern in those in a dominant culture or society to do cultural vio- lence by
structure or con- tent but do all illustrate commonalities with imposing their own categories developed through their own
others in that they exhibit one or more of the four major particu- lar history, culture and place on an alien culture in a
approaches or themes described above. We have learned as a different location with a different history. Those in the dominated
group of authors that although we all are interested in studying alien culture absorb the imposed categories and ideas to a
gender and politics, we do not necessarily think alike and we do degree but not fully. Their view of the world or their knowledge is
not always have similar assumptions. We are representatives of therefore inherently different and needs to be understood, em-
our regions, but not of all aspects of the field in our regions. The braced and respected (Rudolph 2005).
same can be said for the chapters in this book. Furthermore,
The field of gender and politics has intellectual roots in 19th
while the regions of Latin America, Africa, Europe, South Asia and
century Western liberal, socialist and Marxist thought. Its
the United States are discussed here, the Old Commonwealth
emergence as a field of study and policy making has been
countries (Australia, New Zealand, Canada), the Middle East, the
strengthened by changes in the global capi- talist economy in the
Caribbean, Russia, and many countries in Asia including Japan
late 20th century that have disrupted many patriarchal structures
and China are not repre- sented. Yet, in spite of its chapter
and brought women all over the world into the waged labor force,
asymmetry with regard to approach and its limited sampling of
and also by the global emergence of women’s movements in the
the world’s regions, this book as a whole offers a picture of the
20th century. The chapters on Latin America and Africa (chapters
subfield of gender and politics as it exists in the first part of the
two and three) offer per- haps the most important “finding” or
21st century, its contributions, its questions, its debates and the
new perspective of this book which is that knowledge production
kind of knowledge it generates. As a review of the field, it differs
is power based and that knowledge about both po- litical science
from previous reviews in that it raises the issue of the relationship
and gender and politics is conditioned by the global distribu- tion
between knowledge production, knowl- edge transfer and
of power. Countries and regions in the periphery often have
geopolitical power. The chapters about Latin America and Africa
difficulty escaping the ideological hegemony of core countries.
in this collection support the insights articulated by India area
Western Eurocentric assumptions about the “normality” of
special- ist Susanne Rudolph in her 2005 presidential address to
knowledge production in universities, about the functioning of
the American Political Science Association entitled “The
399
political science as an academic discipline in univer- sities and or develop- ment of specific disciplines in those universities. As
about the relationship of gender and politics as a subfield of both Mendoza and Gouws note in this volume, the existence,
politi- cal science do not apply or apply differently in many non- status, funding, and control of uni- versities in Latin America and
western countries in the world. Chapters four, five and six in this in Africa have in many cases not been condu- cive to nurturing
book document the emphasis and importance given by many political science as a discipline. These same forces have shaped
gender and politics scholars in India, Europe and the United the discipline where it does exist to be unwelcoming to the study
States to the idea of increasing women’s representation at all of gender and politics as a sub-field.
levels in liberal forms of democratic government as the heart of
Furthermore, Breny Mendoza observes that in Latin America and
the field. Chapters seven and eight on international relations and
other colonized or post-colonial countries, political science as a
feminist theory dis- cuss still another dimension of the field of
discipline is situated differently than it is in North American and
gender and politics which involves the element of the field that
European countries. In Latin America, political science interacts
seeks to challenge “male-stream” political science concepts,
with North American and European po- litical science by
assumptions and theories within the discipline that make women
“mirroring and contesting” it, and in turn interacts with what she
invisible, powerless, voiceless.
calls a “shadow dialogue” constructed by western scholars to
In organizing essays for this volume, we have come to pre- sent themselves as knowledgeable and others as incapable
understand that knowledge creation is linked to power of knowledge. This shadow dialogue is unique and ever present,
configurations in the world, that the west is not the center of the although often invisible and ignored. Knowledge paradigms and
universe for all, and that the discipline of political science has public policies imposed on Latin Amer- ica by Europe and North
been and continues to be primarily western and Eurocentric in its America have conditioned, contained and often si- lenced
orientation. Authors Breny Mendoza, from Latin America and knowledge production in Latin America, especially ideas and
Amanda Gouws, from Africa, challenge the assumption that the litera- tures written in Spanish or indigenous languages. Where
study of gender and politics takes place principally within the political science de- partments do exist, for the most part they do
discipline of political science or even in universities in their not include gender and politics as a part of the discipline. Latin
regions. The continents of Africa, Asia and Latin America have American feminists who study gender and politics tend to be in
very different and varied histories with regard to the existence, other disciplines such as sociology, law, literature, an- thropology,
history and role of universities, not to mention the existence and/ communications, economics, economic development, women’s

400
studies and/or psychology (Archina, Donoso 2009; Valdéz 2009, scholarship in the academy in Africa has grown out of a critique
Vargas 2009, Richard 2008). This does not mean that neither of women in development (WID) that dealt with symptoms rather
Africa nor Latin Amer- ica produces knowledge about gender and than the causes of wom- en’s inequality. Gender studies started
politics. Rather it means that such knowledge is produced in outside of the academy and moved in, although it is still not fully
some other venue by feminist and women scholars accepted. Feminists still tend to teach gender cours- es in
addition to their normal responsibilities. As in Latin America,
– some working in universities in academic departments and
Gouws notes that feminists in Africa have formed a variety of non
many in inde- pendent non-governmental organizations often
governmental or- ganizations that have had an important role in
supported by indigenous or foreign funders. Mendoza calls
increasing gender scholarship in Women’s Studies departments
attention to an “epistemological decolonial revolution” occurring
and other multidisciplinary venues to promote African feminist
in many parts of Latin America in support of the “shift to the left”
analysis. However, many institutional and cultural barriers persist,
in opposition to neoliberal ideas and practices. This revolution
including creeping au- thoritarianism and global donor
draws upon the histories, cultures and knowledge bases of
involvement in African agenda setting.
indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples to construct their own
centers of knowledge. Coming from India, the largest democratic nation in Asia with a
British colonial history and a well established university system,
Amanda Gouws echoes Mendoza’s observations and criticisms in
Ranjana Kumari in chapter four finds western ideas of democracy
her sur- vey of gender and politics in Africa. Gouws foregrounds
and representation to be cen- tral in the field of gender and
the sad condition of tertiary education in Africa, a condition which
politics. She reviews the literature concerning gender and
means that although African feminist scholars attempt to
governance in South Asia to argue that the greatest obstacles to
generate their own indigenous theoretical models to explain
women’s political participation in this part of the world lie in family
African politics, they must compete in this endeavor with scholars
struc- tures and the social valuation of women. She notes that
from Europe and North America who operate from more well
some of this literature is devoted to arguments concerning why
funded and es- tablished university bases. Feminist scholars in
women should participate in the po- litical process and why they
Africa also must contend with the donor driven agendas of
are needed. In a region with one strong democ- racy (India) and
funders from the North and with the male domi- nated nature of
several democratizing nations (Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and
most African academic departments. Gouws notes that feminist
the Maldives), South Asia has one of the lowest levels of women

401
in par- liaments of any region in the world, including East Asia and science departments, most departments offer gender and poli-
Sub-Saharan Af- rica. Kumari notes that family structure is not tics courses and many universities in North America and Europe
only a negative but also a posi- tive factor in encouraging women have Gender and/or Women’s Studies departments as well. (As
to enter politics. Asia has had an unusually large number of Breny Mendoza notes, this is increasingly the case in Latin
powerful female leaders as heads of government primarily America.)
because family is often seen as more important than gender in
This may not necessarily mean that the struggles to have women
Asian socie- ties. Women who are daughters, wives or widows of
in positions of political authority, to have gender as a significant
powerful politicians of- ten ascend into politics in South Asia to
and serious part of the curriculum in political science or to have
extend the family dynasty. At the lower levels of Indian politics,
barriers to women’s equality with men removed have been
quota systems and reserved seats have had considerable
successful, but the political situation is different from that in
success in populating the local government councils; however,
Africa, Latin America, and Asia – not to mention the Middle East.
Kumari reports a dearth of women politicians between those at
This observation may downplay the problems that exist here.
the highest level and those at the lowest local level.
What ex- actly does it mean to have gender and politics
The final part of Kumari’s chapter summarizes the findings of institutionalized? Does it mean more advanced feminist political
studies of the many ways that South Asian societies socialize thinking and action? Does it reflect more political power and
women and men to ex- clude women from political participation participation for women?
and of other barriers that mitigate against women assuming an
Monique Leyenaar in chapter five, writes about the field of
equal role in South Asian political life. She also discusses the
women in politics in Europe by presenting a comprehensive
impact that quotas have had in improving women’s political
account of scholarly studies concerning the rise in women’s
situation in South Asia.
participation in European parliaments over fifty years from
Writing from their positions in Western Europe and the United 1955-2005. While she recognizes that European gender scholars
States, Monique Leyenaar (chapter five) and Jane Bayes (chapter have been active in producing and advocating feminist theory,
six) do not ques- tion the position or role of universities or the femi- nist methodologies and gender policies, have studied
discipline of political science in their societies. While the field of women’s movements and engaged in comparative and
gender and politics does not have a presence in all political interdisciplinary research involving gender and politics, her

402
chapter illustrates the concern and success that European gender and public policy. Bayes adds to this a survey of
women have had in studying and improving the political globalization in the gender and politics field to show how these
representation of women in European parliaments – institutions trends have drawn on contributions from other disciplines to
which are not only public (as opposed to institutions such as the become almost separate subfields in the literature – gender and
family) but institutions that are explicitly and traditionally post-colonial studies, globalization and gender, and gender and
understood as political in western political theory. Her ap- proach, democratization.
unlike that of Mendoza or Gouws, does not contest or question
The chapter by Elizabeth Prügl discusses the developments in the
the relevance of traditional Eurocentric political science, but
field of gender and international relations, noting that feminists
rather brilliantly il- lustrates how this kind of analysis can explain
have focused on and made some limited gains in their gendered
and promote the representation of women in politics. Her chapter
critiques of mainstream interna- tional relations. She surveys
focuses on 25 countries of the European Union where she finds
developments in the literature in security studies, gender and war,
that states can be grouped from high to low levels of women’s
gender and peacekeeping, international political economy and
parliamentary representation. She then examines voting, recruit-
global economic governance. This field and its many subparts
ment, selection, election and representation in each to explain the
have grown exponentially as globalization trends of the last thirty
chances of women becoming elected to parliament. This
years have ex- panded the field of gender and politics to include
approach requires an extensive examination and comparison of
topics much more varied and far reaching than the struggle to
political parties in each country as well as their gender policies
include women in the electoral and gov- ernance processes
such as quotas.
within nation-states.
In chapter six, Bayes surveys the types of questions raised at
Mary Hawkesworth’s survey of western feminist political theory
different times by those developing the field of gender and
litera- ture in chapter eight rounds out the volume by noting that
politics in the United States. She does this by summarizing and
feminist theory from the beginning has had to develop strategies
comparing six different surveys of the field that include primarily
to overcome the Aristotelian assumption of mainstream Western
United States authors: in 1983, 1993, 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2010.
philosophy that injustice cannot exist without being tied to
The body of literature covered by these surveys gener- ally covers
specific historical events. Hawkesworth argues that feminist
the development of feminist theory and addresses questions re-
theorists have faced the challenge of how to develop concepts
lated to gender and participation, gender and representation and

403
and analytic strategies to show that gender injustice is present in among regions. We are reminded that political science as a
the on-going “natural,” legal social relations of most societies. discipline is associated heavily with western, democratic,
The theoretical project has involved making these injustices prosperous capitalist societies, ones with well-funded,
visible, questioning them, bringing them in- to the light of day for independent universities. Yet other countries and re- gions
reworking and re-examination. These efforts occurred as a part of without these attributes also have women, women’s movements,
the liberal and socialist movements in the 18th and 19th centuries and the production of knowledge about gender and women,
with liberals targeting the state and its laws and socialists knowledge that circulates in often unconnected worlds separated
focusing more on the exploitative gendered divisions of labor by hegemonic structures of language, custom and institutions.
brought on by capitalist industrial production. Hawkesworth then The field of gender and politics consequently has much to offer
presents and evaluates some of the ways that a rich variety of the discipline of political science as it pushes it to expand beyond
feminist theories have been classified in the last part of the 20th its current disciplinary boundaries. As Marian Simms and Marian
century – the “hyphenation model,” the “equality-difference” Sawer observed in 1984, the discipline of political science with its
debate, postmodern feminism, socialist/Marxist feminism and traditional focus on the nation state, continues to guide its
difference feminism. Using specific works to illustrate her points, followers into studies of women’s representation in political
she provides a brief survey of ways that feminist political theorists institutions, an approach that is well rep- resented in this volume.
have explored androcentric bias in the Western tradition of Simms and Sawer also noted in 1984 that the disci- pline of
political theory and summarizes western feminist theo- political science because of its focus on the nation state tends to
di- rect its followers away from questions of gender. Other social
rists’ efforts to learn from and rectify their mistakes as they have
science disci- plines such as anthropology, sociology, geography,
attempted to break away from imperialist thinking in their search
and psychology have been less gendered-biased. Feminists
for social justice.
concerned with the political have con- sequently borrowed from
To conclude, Marian Simms and Jane Bayes note that this many of these other disciplines to redefine and ex- pand their
volume has contributions from scholars from five different regions concepts and methodologies in ways that include women and
in the world, each bringing their own perspectives and gen- der. This is another area where gender and politics has
approaches to bear on the topic and in so doing, shedding new contributed to the dis- cipline of political science. Finally, the field
light on what has gone before and on some broad differ- ences of gender and politics has made important and innovative
conceptual, theoretical and linguistic contributions to the
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discipline of political science and to the knowledge base of the
world as a whole as it seeks to delegitimize gender biased
concepts and conscious- ness and to reconceptualize new
avenues towards social justice.

The previous section is provided by OAPEN’s open

access library, including Gender and Politics.

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Chapter 12

Ideology &
Religion in
Current Politics

Learning objectives

After reading this chapter, students will be able to do the

following:

• Identify concepts of ideology and religion.

• Understand and critically think about ideology and

religion, and its connection to the state.

• Analyze current issues linked to ideology and religion.

Section 1

Ideology & politics

Most scholarly research on elections appears to accept institutions and ideas. Formal theories of political choice are
Professor Rogers's first insight as true, and the second as explicitly designed to focus on strategic move ments by
inexplicable. The "politics" of the cam paign, the speeches, candidates to increase their expected vote share, given the
the persuasion, the posturing, and the symbolism, are just expected platform of their opponent(s). This analysis relies on the
applesauce, a minor side dish to the main course of issue stew. correctness of an analogy drawn from economic spatial location
Conse quently, it is hard to explain why enormous resources of theory, an analogy that has systematically misled political
money, time, and energy are dissipated in this unimportant and theorists. The alternative proposed here is a concept that, while
unexamined aspect of elections. For some reason, actual hardly new, captures concisely what current theory omits. That
participants seem to take the process very seriously. The way concept is ideology.
citizens make political choices affects more than just the
In the following pages, a theory of ideology is spelled out, and its
immediate distribution of resources. The institutions, or
implications for political choices in a community are explored.
"humanly created rules of the game," 1 of the society help to
Our first task is to convince social scientists that this conception
determine its long-run prosperity, the ideas that are important for
is important, and that its incorporation into existing work is
political debate in future contests, and the ability of citizens to
valuable. We begin by arguing that the present notion of political
cooperate and trust each other. Ultimately, the ideas institutions
interaction, particularly the theory of elections, can be greatly
promote, and the ethical restrictions institutions place on
improved by being modified to account for ideology. Then, the
individual actions, are the most important determinants of the
theory of public goods, voting, and interest group influences on
very definition of a society and how it performs.2
elections are reviewed. Finally, we present a unified model of
Yet, the classical spatial theory of electoral competition among purposive political action, incorporating voters, candidates,
parties and candidates consciously abstracts away from parties, and interest groups in the face of immanent uncertainty.

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Along the way, we hope to persuade the reader of two things. In constructing a formal theory of policy formation, we reprise
First, rigorous formal models of politics may someday account for Downs's original motivation for using spatial theory: to represent
emotion, history, and the idiosyncrasies of human cognition. political preferences in the face of uncertainty, where "represent"
Second, adding such factors to existing models will strengthen takes on the technical meaning given it in microeconomic theory.
their power to predict and explain. We require a theory that focuses on the simplified, abstract left-
right "ideological" dimension Downs constructs, but that is still
As noted above, this formal perspective on ideology is not wholly
based on voters who care about policies. Downs speaks of his
new. Many points addressed in this work were advanced in
spatial theory as if this were his goal, but presents no model that
Anthony Downs's seminal 1957 book, An Economic Theory of
can represent choices by rationally uninformed voters. Later work
Democracy. But this work has been misinterpreted; the orthodox
in political theory has confused Downs's simple model with his
"Downsian" model of elections is different from what Downs
ambitious goal, and has accepted "issues" as the space where
intended. The main goal of Downs's theory was accounting for
political choice takes place. This focus conflicts with the simple,
the pervasive atmosphere of uncertainty and limited information
symbolic, and viscerally evocative messages of real cam paigns.
in which political decisions are made. Downs advances the
Until now, spatial theory has not accounted for ideology.
rudiments of a spatial model in his chapters 1-4, and it is on this
foundation that much of modem spatial theory, including the Downs defines ideology as "a verbal image of the good society
"median voter theorem," is built. Unfortunately, the extensions of and the chief means of constructing such a society" ( 1957, p 96;
the spatial model were accomplished mechanically, taking emphasis added). Note that this definition has two parts:
"issues" as the dimension(s) of the relevant space. It was identifying the ends toward which society should strive, and then
precisely Downs's point that voters have too little information specifying policies that are means to these ends. The reason
about parties or candidates to make such a detailed analysis. In that ideologies serve a vital purpose in politics is the uncer tainty
fact, the attenuated incentives for voters to learn much about that suffuses political decisions. The decision rules political actors
politics prompted Downs to develop his theory in the first place. use to select specific policies are hard to gauge. Perhaps more
The spatial theory of Chapters 1-4 in Downs was a man of straw, important, the causal link between means and ends is clouded.
and it is time to begin to analyze men of flesh and blood.
Downs notes that differences between parties are bereft of
ideological conflicts in a world of certainty.

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 When voters can expertly judge every detail of every stand than an n-dimensional policy space would imply, even if what
taken and relate it directly to their own views of the good voters care about is the n-dimensional
society, they are interested only in issues, not in
space . A reduced-dimensional policy space represents party
philosophies. Therefore parties never need to form
conflict very accurately, and at far less cost to the voters and the
weltanschauungen at all, but can merely take ad hoc stands
parties themselves. Further, the form of this cleavage is
on practical problems as they arise. ( 1957, 98)
predictable from the intellectual content of the ideologies: the
The situation is very different if voters are unsure of what parties verbal image of good doesn't just list the dimensions of conflict,
will do. Voters may be uncertain because (1) they don't know the it logically implies them.
details of what the party claims as its platform, (2) they are unsure
Consequently, parties organize themselves around ideologies, not
of the implications of a policy, such as a new superconducting
policy positions. Platforms are more than a point in an n-
supercollider, for their individual welfare, or
dimensional space; they become abstract, even ethical,
(3) they find such claims less than completely credible. This is, in statements of what is good, and why.
Downs's view, no more, and no less, than a rational reaction to
Each party realizes that some citizens vote by means of
the costliness of political information.
ideologies rather than policies; hence it fashions an ideology
[A] voter finds party ideologies useful because they remove which it believes will attract the greatest number of
the necessity of his relating every issue to his own votes. . . . This ideology must be both internally consistent
philosophy. Ideologies help him focus attention on the and consistent with the party's concrete policies . . . In our
differences between parties; therefore they can be used as model, each party designs its ideology to appeal to that
samples of all the differentiating stands. With this shortcut a combination of social groups which it feels will produce the
voter can save himself the cost of being informed upon a wider most support. If its design is accurate, policies chosen for
range of issues. (1957, 98) their consistency with the ideology will automatically please
the citizens being courted by the party. (Downs 1957,
Downs is hinting here at something profound: the cleavages
101-2)
between parties separate along simpler, more predictable lines

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The point of these lengthy, repeated quotations is to establish value most. We are left with a challenge: how are we to depict the
Downs's goal in applying spatial theory to politics. The irony of relation between ideology, the realm of real political discourse,
crediting Downs with originating classical spatial theory in politics and the complex n-dimensional space that real voters care
is that he was trying to accom plish exactly the opposite. A theory about? In other words, how are ideologies projected or mapped
of ideology was his goal, and simple spatial theory was only the onto predictions about policy?
means of accomplishing tis. What is now called the "Downsian"
The answer Downs gives is vague and confused, which probably
spatial model is, instead, a synthetic spatial location theory
ex plains why little has been made of this connection until now.
derived from economics and decision science.
He claims: "voters are ultimately interested in actions, not
Downs's earlier-cited opinion that, in a certain world, ideology is ideologies, so each party must frequently check its actions
irrele vant has proved prescient: spatial theory has assumed directly against the voters' preferences" (Downs 1957, 102).3
certainty, and has largely ignored ideology. Candidates position But how are these preferences expressed? How can a party
themselves in n-dimension pol icy spaces in which voter ideal measure policy preferences when political rhetoric, and the very
points are fixed and certain points. Ellipsoidal indifference curves construction of an individual's political outlook, is expressed in
encompassing convex upper contour sets represent voter ideological terms?
preferences, and allow the researcher to describe the choices
The fact that the two spaces are separate requires some
voters make among competing policies or candidates.
correspondence between them. Downs recognizes this, and
In the following chapters, we review both the contributions and offers the following explanation:
draw backs of this perspective in detail. For now, we wish only to
This dualism can be depicted on our graph of political space
emphasize that this picture is wrong, or incomplete: the campaign
. . . . Each party takes stands on many issues, and each
has been left out! In trying to bring the campaign back in, we are
stand can be assigned a position on our left-right scale.
led to notice the difference between choice based on issues and
Then the party's net position on this scale is a weighted
choice based on campaigns. Real campaigns designed to attract
average of all the particular policies it upholds . . . . Each
votes are dominated by symbolism and a few simple messages
citizen may apply different weights to the individual policies,
or themes. Scholarly spatial analysis of voting has emphasized
since each policy affects some citizens more than others.
issues, and positions on issues may be what voters ultimately
(1957, 132-3)
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The ideas embodied in this nascent theory of ideology have not "median voter theorem." Various versions of the median voter
been extended, or even much noticed, by students of politics. theorem (MVT) are identified with Downs ( 1957), Black ( 1958),
Political scientists have either rejected Downs or embraced only Davis and Hinich ( 1966, 1967), and Plott ( 1967). The MVT is a
chapters 1-4. In part, the explanation lies in the fact that Downs's highly abstract theoreti cal approach to voting behavior.
correspondence, or mapping, be tween ideology and policy is not Nonetheless, the MVT purports to make important predictions
workable. If the ideological dimension is a weighted average of about practical political interaction. The central point of
policy positions, where the weights differ across voters, there is
the MVT is to identify a general structural force in politics that
no coherence in ideological messages, and therefore no
drives candi dates, parties, and policies toward the middle of the
information (even on average) in ideological positions.
distribution of voter preferences. In its more extreme form, the
Consequently, ideology (as Downs defines it) might be a
MVT confers the powers of univer sal choice on a single actor, the
shorthand rule or heuristic for individual voters, but it is not a
median voter.
means of communicating in groups or organizing parties.
The debt owed by such spatial theory to Hotelling ( 1929) and
The thesis advanced in this book is that ideologies are quite
Smithies (1941) is obvious. Still, as we shall soon see, this debt is
different from personal belief systems or heuristics to guide
really not clearly understood, and in some ways, the insights of
individual choice. Ideolog ical messages contain coherent
Hotelling and Smithies have been subtly misapplied by political
statements of how to choose and what to do. Citizens can, on
theorists. 4 Spatial location theory in eco nomics generally took
average, agree on the content and meaning of these state ments,
as its object of analysis N firms (imagine them to be hot dog
though their evaluation of the worth of the statements may differ.
vendors with wheeled carts), choosing where to locate along a
As a result, ideologies are the basis for choice in group decisions,
straight line (imagine a boardwalk along a beach). Some fixed,
and provide the language in which groups debate and disagree.
exogenous distribution of potential customers along this line is
In the following pages, Downs's fundamental insights on the assumed. 5
importance of uncertainty in political discourse are reformulated
Consider an example with two vendors (N = 2). The
in a more general theory of ideology. It is useful, before we begin,
prediction of
to contrast a model of choice based on ideology with the best-
known of the voting models of choice under cer tainty, the

411
Hotelling and Smithies in this case is that the vendors would end • Transactions are enforced at no marginal cost to any party to
up rubbing elbows at the location of the median beachgoer. Any the transaction.
other arrangement would mean that one vendor serves more, and
• Movement is free, and it is clear what movement means: the
the other less, than half the total market. Consequently, no
physical location of the hot dog cart changes along the single
other pattern can be an equilibrium, since each vendor can either
dimension of the beach. The perception of relative distance is
(1) move closer to his rival, or (2) if already next to his rival, move
objective and shared.
around, closer to the center, and capture for himself a larger
market share. More succinctly, since each vendor can guarantee • The distribution of hungry sunbathers is exogenous, and does
himself at least half the market by locating in the center of the not change in response to movements or fixed locations of hot
distribution of sunbathers, no other location makes sense. This dog vendors.
nice result breaks down if N 3, since if three (or more) vendors are
side-by-side, the ones in the middle have zero market share. Let us consider applying exactly these four assumptions to a
Such vendors could increase their profits by moving anywhere simple political issue, say the proportion of total budget spent on
else in the space. education. Let voters be distributed along the 0 percent to 100
percent interval. Pick the initial positions of two candidates
Consider for a moment the assumptions that underlie this Theta and Psi and call these positions
model of spatial competition, and compare the situation
being analyzed to political interaction. The assumptions of the (} and l/J, respectively. One possible configuration is depicted
hot dog game can be set out as follows: in figure 1,

• Vendors are identical, except for location on the boardwalk: where (} =/:- l/J. Assume that voters' ideal points are uniformly
they sell indistinguishable hot dogs and offer the same buns, distributed along
napkins, and condiments; and their carts have similar
the 0 percent to 100 percent interval, so that the median lies at 50
appearances. People choose one over the other based solely
percent. The question is, how directly applicable is the logic of
on the concern for minimizing the walk from beach blanket to
the spatial location game? If all hot dogs are identical, it makes
frankfurter freighter.
sense to choose vendors based purely on their physical
closeness to the hungry sunbather. Once the purchase is made,

412
the sunbather has eaten and does not care if the vendor moves, candidates who manifest leadership, calmness in a crisis,
as he can always patronize the competitor. But it is much less good character, and consistency. None of these nonpolicy
clear what "move ment" means for a candidate in a political/ characteristics have analogues in the frank furter example,
policy location game. The politi cian is making a contingent because the frankfurter purchase is a one-shot deal, with no
promise, separated in time from the point when the promise is opportunity for reneging or ex post recontracting. Once we have
expected to be fulfilled. As a result, politicians often couch received the hot dog and examined it, we pay for it, assuming the
pledges in terms that both state the promise and make a vendor will not snatch the steaming tube steak back and run
commitment to carry away chortling. All of these problems of reneging and ex post
recontracting exist for politicians, however, and must be
it out.
accounted for by a successful theory of political choice.
For example, Theta might assert: "If I am elected I will, once in
The only way a candidate can persuade voters he will do as
office months from now, work for educational proportion (}
promised is to create and maintain a reputation for probity and
because I believe (} is the best policy." This is important because
consistency. 7 The candi date may want to avoid specific
no voter cares about any one of a series of campaign promises
promises and to maintain room for maneuver, but competitive
for its own sake. Voters value only the single, final choice among
pressures make it difficult. The campaign provides him with a
mutually exclusive alternatives (the budget cannot have both (}
series of situations where he must somehow persuade
and (}' proportions spent on education). The candidate can
prospective voters he will behave as promised. 8 Ideally, he must
improve his vote share (his sole concern) by "moving" from (} to
convince them he will deliver as promised because deep personal
(}' , since (}' is closer to the median. The promise to choose (}
beliefs prevent him from doing anything else. Returning to
was incredible.
figure 1 , this means that moving Theta's position from (} to (}'
Voters must therefore assess not just the platform, but also the means that neither position is believable, since it is now obvious
candidate. More accurately, voters must assess the commitment that the politician values winning more than policy. His promises
a candidate has to his professed platform, as well as other, more were cheap talk.
abstract, qualities.6 The political leader must respond to
This discussion raises more questions than it answers. To wit, ( I )
unforeseeable exigencies of national crisis or interna tional
What is the meaning of equilibrium or disequilibrium in a spatial
conflict. Voters, therefore, rationally value, and vote for,
413
location game where a candidate must persuade voters of his compared as models, with the stories stripped away, the
position, rather than simply announc ing it? (2) How do parties metaphor we invoke is significant if it suggests a new model. It
and potential candidates choose, or (more accu rately) acquire, a cannot be said that classical spatial theory is useless because the
reputation for a particular ideology or set of positions? (3) Most examples used to illustrate its logic are wrong. Our argument is
important, are these reputations chosen at all, or does the that a slightly different "story," one based on ideology, will allow a
competition of politics select for the best ideologies? much richer model, one that boasts both practical verisimilitude
and theoretical rigor.
To answer these questions, we need a theory of ideology that has
precise formal implications but preserves the intuition behind Defining Ideology: Decisions & Uncertainty
Downs's original con tribution. This intuition is lost in the modem
spatial theory; we bring it back. The received theorems of spatial Of all political assets, the existence and maintenance of an
theory do not need to be corrected in achiev ing this synthesis. ideology is by far the most fundamental. Most other strategic
The theorems are useful and obviously "correct," as equi librium political activities, such as choos ing candidates, issues, or
conditions. If, instead of modeling individual candidates as coalitions, as well as tactical decisions of the cam paign, such as
moving around the space, classical spatial models endogenized spending money on advertising, or taking public positions, are
candidate choice and allowed parties to switch among subordinate. Day-to-day "politics" can only be understood in its
candidates, the same results would still follow. 9 We seek not so broader ideo logical context. Association between a party, or
much to modify spatial theory, as to reinterpret the intuition candidate, and an ideology is logically antecedent to the political
behind its results. strategy of selecting a point in the n dimensional policy space.
Consequently, to understand political choice, we must learn what
The metaphor of movement, and of fixed spatial representation of
ideologies are and where they come from.
prefer ences, has been widely criticized by political scientists
(including Stokes 1963 and Sartori, 1976). The metaphor Settling on a definition of ideology is no mean task. Dozens of
scientists use to justify models is important, because it suggests different definitions exist, each with some claim to primacy. We
an approach to conceiving of the problems we are investi gating. review three of the more prominent clusters of interpretations as
Metaphors also direct the way researchers think about new follows:
solutions to these problems. Even if the models will ultimately be

414
• Ideologies are collections of ideas with intellectually derivable It is worth stressing that all notions of ideology exhibit an
normative implications for behavior and for how society should inherent tension between two related phenomena. The first is an
be organized (Higgs and Twight 1987; Reichley 1981; North anthropomorphic collection of ideas, and the second is the
1981, 1990a, 1994; Lodge 1976). application of these ideas one finds in an individual 's belief
system; his weltanschauung , if not his weltansicht. We shall
• Ideologies are economizing devices by which individuals
discuss this problem at some length later, but for now we will
understand, and express ideas about, politics (Higgs 1987;
resolve this tension by decree: ideologies are collections of
Enelow and Hinich 1984; Congleton 1991; North 1981,
ideas. Individual belief systems or schema may mimic some or all
1990a, 1994; Macridis 1980; Downs 1957).
parts of a particular ideology, but these beliefs are distinct from
• Ideologies are complex, dogmatic belief systems by which ideologies. As a practical matter, successful ideologies will find
individuals interpret, rationalize, and justify behavior and substantial correspondence across individual schema, but this is
institutions (Higgs 1987, 1990; Domhoff 1983; Joravsky not necessary for the definition.
1970; North 1990a, 1994; Sartori 1969, 1976).
It is also important to distinguish the concept of "ideological
These terse summaries represent what we believe are the dimension" from the usage of Almond ( 1960), which was stated
three major aspects of ideology emphasized by scholars. IO more clearly and more forcefully by Sartori (1976):
Higgs ( 1987) emphasizes four separate aspects (cognitive,
The ideological continuum goes from the extreme of
affective, programmatic, and solidary), but we will use only
ideological fanati cism and future-oriented principledness to
three, choosing to merge the affective and solidary functions.
the opposite extreme of sheer practicalism and pragmatism
Ideologies perform an important psychological service . . . . When speaking of more-or-less ideol ogy and,
because without them people cannot know, assess, and conversely, of more-or-less pragmatism, the implication
respond to much of the vast world of social relations. need not be motivational but might well be cultural. That is,
Ideology simplifies a reality too huge and complicated to be the ideological dimension differs from all others in that it
comprehended, evaluated, and dealt with in any purely points to a cultural factor, to the overall temper (and
factual, scientific, or other disinterested way. (Higgs 1987, temperature) of politics in a given cultural set ting. (Sartori
37-38) 1976, 78)

415
This observation, and usage, is not wrong; it is simply different The definition just offered is so general and encompassing, it is
from our meaning. The intensity with which beliefs are held, or important to list as illustrations sotne ideologies and
commitment to the ideas the ideology embodies, are, for us, nonideologies. Instinctual, genet ically programmed, or sexual
matters of voter perception, not the ideas a party espouses and reactions are not ideological, for ideologies are always ideative.
represents. Sartori is quite right to claim, however, that an Often an ideology (such as Islam, Marxism, or Mormonism) is
understanding of the extent of commitment by adherents, and partly composed of ideas that serve to control or divert certain
the reasons for it, are crucial to an understanding of any political aspects of human behavior by asserting their baseness. This may
system. lead to some subtle distinctions, of course. Is a group of men
who beat and rob a passerby traveling alone in a forest behaving
Following is the definition of ideology as it will be used throughout
ideologically? One might answer no, they are simply thugs trying
this book.
not to starve. Yet if we asked these men what moti vates their
Ideology: an internally consistent set of propositions that makes behavior, the answer would not be "self-interest," even if they tell
both proscriptive and prescriptive demands on human behavior. the truth. Instead, they would likely offer some justification (they
All ideologies have implications for ( a) what is ethically good , are op pressed politically; the man they robbed is wealthy; the
and (therefore) what is bad; (b) how society' s resources should man they robbed is a tax-collector/Irishman/Muslim/Catholic/
be distributed; and ( c) where power appropriately resides. immigrant/ Mets Fan) that implies their action is not "bad." In fact,
it may even be moral! Though their actions hurt the man they
More simply, an ideology tells us what is good, who gets what, robbed, their conception of "society" might dictate that society is
and who rules. Given the generality of this definition, many ideas better off after the robbery than before.
that are not obvi ously political are still, in our terms, ideologies. It
is no accident that these powerful ideas-including religion; To clarify the notion of ideology, let us consider two of the best
seemingly simple moral precepts, such as Kant's "categorical examples of well-known (if not always well-articulated) political
imperative"; formal familial relations; and traditional obligations- ideologies, capitalism and communism. To illustrate the tripartite
are included. They all potentially shape the universe of political categorization, we distinguish these two in table 1 , along with
discourse and the conceptual framework individuals use to two other examples (fascism and the platform of the New Deal
understand and debate politics. Culture, history, ideas, and Democrats). The interesting thing about this table is that it allows
emotion matter.
416
us to consider the particular conflicts among these competing Formerly means no one believes this nonsense any longer. Surely
nations about how a society should be organized. this is not true; some minor ity of elderly Japanese, no doubt, still
believed in Emperor Hirohito's divine right to rule, or even his
The "What is Good?" column has very different answers for
outright divinity, until the time of his death in 1988. Many African
capitalism, communism, and fascism. The latter two encourage
and South Pacific island nations retain some vestige of a divine
citizens to work for the state, the welfare of their fellow citizens
imprimatur on the mandate to rule.
and country; capitalism lauds work for oneself. Though the New
Deal represents a mixture of these motives, its basis is closest to Still, for our purposes, the condescending and western formerly
Capitalism. The difference is that the New Deal advocates does not eliminate the divine right of kings as an ideology, even if
intervention by government to help those unable to help it is true that literally no one believes it. The set of ideas that,
themselves. More than a duty to achieve, New Deal ideology together, make up an ideology (the king rules with a divine
would claim each has a right to obtain sufficient education and mandate, revolution is blasphemy, fealty to king is fealty to God)
wealth for self-fulfilment. A similar compari son in the "Who Gets exists, independent of whether anyone accepts them. The fact
What?" and "Who Rules?" columns shows that, while the that no one finds them persuasive as a way to live, or to organize
ideologies are different across rows, the conception within each a society (both physically and intellectually), reflects on the
row is similar; each is internally coherent. The ideas represented ideology's power. But it does not change its identification as an
are mutually sup porting rather than contradictory, or just ideology, at least in our semantic construction of ideologies as
unrelated. anthropomorphic entities.

Imagine two further examples, an ideology that no one believes The second example, an ideology that no one believes yet, is
any more, and an ideology that no one believes yet. For the first, more amorphous, but in some ways more interesting. Imagine a
consider the "divine right of kings." A simple description of this world, or, in Plato's sense, an Order of Being, in which all
ideology is "the sup posedly God-given right to rule formerly potential ideologies can be mentally apprehended at once. That
attributed to monarchs. "11 Two aspects of the definition are of is, let many internally consistent sets of ideas with implications for
interest, the word supposedly and the word formerly. For human action and the "right" way to organize society be arrayed
someone believing in the divine right of kings, supposedly is before us. Any individual could begin to comprehend fully only a
insulting; believing the right to be divine makes it so in fact. fraction of these. The number one is persuaded by, believes in,

417
or accepts as correct must be a small proportion of the space of can identify with it and which in turn can give the individual a
potential ideologies. Yet one can imagine conceiving a new set of role in the drama it portrays. (Boulding 1964, 39; quoted in
ideas with implications for political behavior. We are led to look Goertzel 1992)
to an ideology's origin.
In terms of the three questions (what is good, who gets what, who
The Origins of Ideology rules) an ideology must answer, the implications of the Robin
Hood myth are ob vious. If the ruler behaves badly and allows
How can we explain the origin of ideologies? The most basic illegitimate power to accumulate in the hands of the wealthy, he
human disputes are over property rights, rights to food, shelter, has violated the implicit agreement that gives him the power to
and protection of the family from aggression. At their base, these rule. It is not, then, wrong to steal if the theft is from the rich and
disputes are not ideological (in the sense we have defined the distributed to the poor (after the Merry Men deduct appropriate
word as derived from abstract ideas), but any such contention operating expenses, overhead, and consulting fees). Because the
possesses an ideological aspect. In the earlier example of ruler behaves badly, an action normally proscribed (such as theft)
robbers in the forest, the wealthy traveler would tell you he was may be encouraged. The poor get the proceeds, giving them the
attacked by unprin cipled thugs. The "thugs" themselves, power to ensure that the ruler is ultimately overthrown.
however, may assert, and even believe, their right to redistribute
We admire the stories of Robin Hood, and relate them to our
income from the rich to the poor. We will argue that, while
children. Though simple and incomplete, the dictum of "take from
ideologies are used strategically in this fashion, they are created
the rich and give to the poor" is clearly ideological, and clearly
out of culture, history, and emotion. Boulding gives an insight into
political. 12 This tendency to use ideas to justify and give
the role of drama in the creation of ideology.
legitimacy to one's actions is well understood, its reasons for
An image of the world becomes an ideology if it creates in existence obvious. The choice of how to justify something one
the mind of the person holding it a role for himself which he already wants to do might be thought of as strategic.
values highly. . . . To create a role, however, an ideology Nonetheless, we must be careful not to attribute too much
must create a drama. The first essen tial characteristic of an intellectual power, bordering on foresighted ness, to people
ideology is then an interpretation of history sufficiently justifying primitive urges. Imagine you are hungry, and a passerby,
dramatic and convincing so that the individual feels that he obviously well-fed, has a cartload of food. You tell yourself he

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won't miss the food you will take, and it will save your life. So you Proponents of an ideology are people persuaded of its
take it, by force if necessary. correctness, its moral force, or even just its coincidence with their
own private, non ideological goals. The crucial point is that
How far would you go? Would you injure the person if he tries to
political disagreements will take the form of arguments over the
resist? Does it matter whether the food is for him alone, or if he is
moral superiority of ideologies with contradic tory implications.
taking it to an orphanage? If he dies in the struggle, how will you
That is, arguments will turn into debates over how the disputes
act the next time you are similarly hungry and see someone better
should be resolved, not a comparison of the naked interests of
off than yourself? The answers to these questions become more
the disputants.
interesting, and, for our purposes, more useful, if the "you" we are
considering is part of a society of similar people, and these To summarize, we have outlined the first, and perhaps most
confrontations become routine. Consistent actions, justified in important, origin of ideology: legitimation and justification of acts
consistent ways, are the origins of ideologies. Over time, the ideology's cre ator(s) found desirable for other reasons. Many
justifications that might be come ideologies are tested and such justifications fail, of course, and are not heard again
compared, based on whether they work. At the outset, "working" systemically. 16 For those that do succeed, as the acts or
may be defined as justifying something the actor(s) wants to do processes become regular and routinized, the ideological justifica
anyway. tion becomes accepted by repetition and by its utility in
consistently resolving disputes. It becomes orthodox, and is
Very soon, however, more is demanded, as "success" demands
widely believed if the group or individ ual whose power is given
two types of consistency. 13 First, the same ideology must justify
legitimacy does not (too often) contradict the ideology by word or
the same action, and vice versa, in all similar situations. Second,
deed. This orthodoxy inevitably creates an opposing, or
as the ideology evolves over time and becomes more
heterodox, position. Such an observation is hardly novel, having
sophisticated, it must avoid contradictions. Consistent failure of
been dis cussed at length by Habermas, Hayek, Hegel, Marx, and
either type of consistency can make the ideology wither away.
others. But our intended use of the opposition of the orthodox
This is not to say that perfect consistency is required, since, as
and heterodox ideologies, as a basis for a rational spatial theory,
Higgs ( 1987) notes, this is impossible. 14 Still, there exists a
is novel.
threshold above which contradictions in an ideology weaken its
foundations of legitimacy and make it rapidly lose adherents.

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Ideology Determines the Terms of Debate be a centre party, but there is no centre tendency, no centre
doctrine. The term "centre" is applied to the geometrical
The terms of the debate, the logic and language of the dispute, spot at which the moderates of opposed tendencies meet:
itself, in the most fundamental sense, are framed by the orthodox moderates of the right and moderates of the left. Every
ideology. Dissidents are often those least advantaged by the centre is divided against itself and remains separated into
orthodoxy, and their dissidence may be motivated by this two halves, left-centre and right-centre. (Du verger 1951,
strategic, essentially economic objection. But dissidents are also 215)
often drawn from groups the system appears to serve best, their
Sowell points out that this dichotomizing tendency is noticeable
objec tions fueled by a genuine moral and emotional outrage
even in issues that seem unrelated:
against what they perceive as inequities. The rhetorical
requirements of a successful polemic ensure that any heterodox One of the curious things about political opinions is how
ideology must oppose the orthodox by suggesting intellectual or often the same people line up on opposite sides of different
emotional reasons why the status quo is wrong or unsupport issues. The issues them selves may have no intrinsic
able. The contest is more than one of persuasion: ultimately, connection with each other . . . yet the same familiar faces
the contest is decided by who gets to use their words, their can be found glaring at each other from opposite sides of
conception, to describe the conflict. I 7 This tension between two the political fence, again and again. It happens too often to
opposing sets of ideas, and statements of those ideas, creates a be a coinci dence, and it is too uncontrolled to be a plot.
relevant policy space of only a few dimensions. In the most (Sowell 1987, 6)
extreme, and clearest, case, the orthodox and heterodox
ideologies cleave along a single dimension, as two points Sowell is quite right that there need be no "intrinisic connection"
determine a line. As Duverger ( 1951) points out: be tween issues. All that is necessary is that the orthodox
ideology support certain positions, and the opposing ideology
A duality of parties does not always exist, but almost always will automatically take the other side. Though the orthodox and
there is a duality of tendencies. Every policy implies a choice the heterodox ideologies may differ on many issues, the basis for
between two kinds of solution: the so-called compromise such differences derives from this reduced-dimensional
solutions lean one way or the other. This is equivalent to contraposition. It is insufficient simply to look into who benefits
saying the centre does not exist in politics: there may well and who loses from a particular policy, as this will not allow one
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to understand policy outcomes. What is necessary to understand The Importance of Ideology in Politics
any policy debate is to compre hend the ideologies that contest
the status quo. 18 Recall the standard two-candidate spatial model of voting
discussed earlier, which assumes candidates locate in the
For example, any local dispute tends to become not just one but
feasible policy space to maximize their chances of victory. In
two ideas. The first is the legitimizing ideology that justifies the
game theoretic terms, if candidates choose strate gies solely
resolution of the dispute in this instance, and implicitly advances
based on an objective of winning elections, if the space is uni
reasons why similar future disputes should find the same
dimensional , and if all voters choose strictly according to
resolution. The second is the heterodox ideol ogy used by those
distance, the Nash equilibrium strategy for the two candidates is
who lost, or are not in power, claiming the result was not
to choose the median. As the MVT shows, no alternative can
legitimate and should be reversed. Thus, although the heterodoxy
attain a majority over the median position. As an equilibrium
may be de novo, it is never ex nihilo. Orthodoxy, because it is the
condition, and a means to identify the powerful tendency in
first move, can be chosen from all the ideas available for
political competition for the middle to wield power, the classical
justification. The heterodox position has no such latitude for
spatial model has proved invaluable. Still, social science has gone
choice, but must attack the intellectual and moral basis of the
too far in applying the metaphor of spatial location competition to
orthodoxy. 19
the political process, which has, in truth, a very different set of
Finally, to the extent that a heterodoxy is successful, it replaces incentives.
(again, in the classic Hegelian-Marxian dialectic dynamic) the
There are two possible remedies to the problem of representing
orthodoxy. The old or thodoxy is not, generally, the best response
voter choice under uncertainty over candidate intentions and
to the new. Nonetheless, the new orthodoxy will set the terms for
future events. One is to try to adjust the classical model to
what the new heterodoxy will look like. As a result, the latitude for
account for the candidates' incentive to misrepresent and voters'
genuine political strategizing of the sort routinely assumed by
consequent discounting of candidate announcements in
classical spatial models is severely circumscribed. The political
campaigns. The most advanced work in this area is Austen-Smith
process, depending as it must on the evolution of ideas, their
(1990) and Banks ( 1990, 1991). This approach focuses on the
emotional and moral appeal, and the credibility of participants on
role of costs of misrep resenting intentions, and the credibility of
both sides, just won't allow it.
politicians. The information is specific, the issues are well known

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and understood; the only question is whether the candidate is In real political campaigns, no party could be successful, either in
telling the truth. elect ing its candidates or even in making known its platform,
without some coher ent and appealing ideology. Potential
This work is important, and may well restore the game model of
candidates for ideologies are sparse. The creation and
cam paigns to preeminence in spatial theory, but it addresses
popularization of a new ideology is a difficult task, requiring time,
only the narrow question of uncertainty about intentions. Worse, it
money, considerable organizational skills, and (not least) an
assumes the same level of information that the old spatial model
intellec tually powerful and emotionally compelling set of ideas. A
required, and does not address new issues at all. Candidates take
nascent political party faces an almost insurmountable problem of
separate positions on all known issues, and voters evaluate them
entry. The difficulty is not one of choosing among a variety of
based on their credibility. The other approach, the one we take in
available and well-understood ideologies and then adopting the
the following pages, though in the same spirit of correcting the
set of positions associated with that ideology. It is generally
standard spatial model, is radically different in its logic and
impossible to carve out some new position in the space of ideolo
application. We seek to represent voter choice directly as
gies, and then run campaigns against existing parties on that
ideology, rather than as a spatial communication/signaling game
basis. No new ideologies exist!
where ideology plays a part.
The reasons are not obvious, particularly from a theoretical
We must be careful, however, lest it sound as if an ideology is a
perspective. Consider the "space of ideologies" alluded to above.
fungible resource one buys, like a consultant or a commercial. An
We might imagine a collection of all functional relations, or
ideology is a mechanism for transmitting information and
mappings, between some set of ideas and an exhaustive list of
persuading, a generally consis tent set of ideas about what is the
implied policies. These mappings exist t the extent that they imply
"good" in politics and social intercourse. This mechanism is
a general, and largely consistent, set of policies. The means by
evolved, not designed, and the extent of consistency among its
which this implication is arrived at and widely shared among
precepts is a consequence of that evolution. Any given ideology
citizens is complex, but rests on some complicated, and perhaps
may advance ideals that are in conflict (for example, the value of
fuzzy, cognitive process of inference. Imagining this entire space
the individ ual and the necessity of loyalty to the state), requiring
of mappings in any intuitive sense, however, is extraordinarily
a balance of contradic tory imperatives.
difficult. We can imagine a collection of ideologies that we know
(socialism, communism, ritual cannibalism, free market cap

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italism, Christianity, or Islam). The larger set of ideologies that examine the set of policies implied: most sets of ideas have no
could exist, from which the smaller set of examples that we know implication, or else imply everything. We are begging the question
are chosen, is quite beyond our comprehension, however. The act of creation, of course, since creation recognized an implication
of creation of an ideology requires an intellectual step, a spark of where none before existed. Choosing a set of ideas by some
recognition, of making a connection among apparently unrelated arbitrary means, and then examining their implications, virtually
disputes or problems that no one else has ever conceived of. The always results in failure, because, in general , no causal
question is, how large is the set of potential, or uncon ceived, implication exists.
ideologies? We can, with difficulty, conceive of the abstraction of
The second problem harks back to our earlier discussion of the
an insensible space containing correspondences between sets of
origin of opposition. Even if there exists a universe of potential
ideas and the policies they imply. There are two restrictions on
discourse in the space of potential ideologies, the act of creation
the number of ideologies we might count as genuine elements of
ineluctably evokes the form of its own opposition. Conceiving of a
this collection of sets of ideas, and the correspondences to policy
new ideology that does not address the existing orthodoxy is of
they represent.
little use. Thus, the space of potential ideologies is very narrow. In
The first is the rule of consistency, alluded to earlier. Ideologies any practical sense, it is restricted to a choice among those
are buffeted and reshaped by the values of the competing ethical ideas that justify gainsaying the prevailing ideology, or (what
rules they in voke. This is not a process of logic alone, but tests amounts to the same thing) attacking the justification that the
the emotional appeal and attraction of particular aspects of the prevailing ideology offers.
ideology to adherents. Nonetheless, the set of ideas comprising
We can conclude that the set of feasible new ideologies at any
the ideology must causally imply the set of policies that citizens
given point is severely restricted, even before one encounters the
associate with that position. It is not enough for an ideology to be
problems of populariz ing and persuading. Any aspirant, in order
a shorthand signal , a correspondence between a name and a list
even to qualify for consideration, must answer or contradict the
of actions by government.
prevailing ideology, and must do so in a way that is both logically
This rule of consistency dramatically restricts the set of coherent and emotionally appealing. This barrier to the entry of
correspondences that qualify, in any reasonable sense, as new parties is not remotely fungible. Groups that would otherwise
potential ideologies. We cannot simply take a set of ideas and organize can be thwarted, permanently, by this barrier alone.

423
Duverger notes this tendency for orthodox, established ideologies But we must also emphasize that while a campaign to popularize
to block the creation of new ones, particularly in the manifestation an ideology may founder on the reefs of poverty, it may not sail
of parties as advancers of an ideology (discussed later, in chap. through on monsoons of money alone. At the end, we will
5). He notes: have at least summarized an argument for using ideology as
the means of representing political choice. Further, preliminary
The question is then to organize progressively a mass of
conclusions of the implications for community in society,
new electors. . . the development of local [party]
once the under standing of elections as an ideological debate is
committees is the natural answer to this. But once this first
accepted, are drawn out. The ability of societies to prosper, and
phase is passed, once parties are firmly consti tuted, fresh
to create welfare for their citizens, depends on the ability of
parties as they appear beat against the barrier of the old
those citizens to believe in the legitimacy of the existing order.
ones: separate local movements cannot pass beyond their
If ideologies form the basis of debate in polities, they also serve
birthplace, and re main incapable of giving rise to a truly
as the means by which people understand each other and
national party. (Duverger 1951, xxvii)
themselves. Politics with out ideology is Babel.
Even if the new ideology overcomes the local organizational
barriers, it is also necessary that it attract the political resources
to bring the idea, or basis of the organized movement, to the The previous section is provided by Lynn University’s
attention of the public. Neither idea nor money is alone sufficient use of Ebook Central Academic Complete.
for success. Both are necessary. The best ideology, in terms of
internal logical consistency and emotional appeal, is as nothing
without committed apostles to spread it, and financial resources
to make their efforts effective. Conversely, even an enormous
quantity of money, used to advertise an ideology in every
conceivable forum, is of little use unless the message is effective.
Money does not rule the mind, and the mind motivates political
action by individuals. We must add money, or (better) political re
sources generally, to our list of necessary conditions for success.

424
Section 2

Political ideology

Conservatism classical liberalism, which supported freedom for the individual in

both the economic and social spheres.
Conservatism is a social and political philosophy that supports
Libertarian conservatism describes certain political ideologies
retaining traditional social institutions and has many modern
within the United States and Canada which combine libertarian
variations.
economic issues with aspects of conservatism. Libertarian
Conservatism, taken from the Latin word conservare (“to retain”) conservatives generally support strict laissez-faire policies such
is a political and social philosophy that promotes retaining as free trade and oppose any national bank, regulations on
traditional social institutions. Edmund Burke, an Anglo-Irish businesses, environmental regulation, corporate subsidies, and
politician who served in the British House of Commons and other areas of economic intervention.
opposed the French Revolution, is credited as one of the
Fiscal conservatism is the economic philosophy of prudence in
founders of conservatism in Great Britain and is generally viewed
government spending and debt. Edmund Burke, in particular,
as the philosophical founder of modern conservatism.
argued that a government does not have the right to run up large
Variants of Conservatism debts and then throw the burden on the taxpayer.

Liberal conservatism is a variant of conservatism that combines National conservatism concentrates more on national interests
conservative values and policies with classical liberal stances. than standard conservatism, and it upholds cultural and ethnic
Historically, the term referred to combination of economic identity. It is heavily oriented towards the traditional family and
liberalism, which champions laissez-faire markets, with the social stability, and it is in favour of limiting immigration. As such,
classical conservatism concern for established tradition, respect national conservatives can be distinguished from economic
for authority, and religious values. It contrasted itself with

425
conservatives, for whom free market economic policies, conservatism in the United States has been chiefly associated
deregulation, and fiscal conservatism are the main priorities. with the Republican Party. Major movements within American
conservatism include support for tradition, law-and-order,
Cultural conservativism the preservation of the heritage of one
Christianity, anti-communism, and a defense of “Western
nation, or of a shared culture that is not defined by national
civilization from the challenges of modernist culture and
[Link] conservatives hold fast to traditional ways of
totalitarian governments. ” Economic conservatives and
thinking even in the face of monumental change. They believe
libertarians favor small government, low taxes, limited regulation,
strongly in traditional values and politics, and often have an
and free enterprise. Social conservatives see traditional social
urgent sense of nationalism.
values as threatened by secularism, so they support school
Social conservatism is distinct from cultural conservatism, prayer and oppose abortion and homosexuality.
although there are some overlaps. Social conservatives believe Neoconservatives want to expand American ideals throughout the
that the government has a role in encouraging or enforcing what world and show a strong support for Israel. Paleoconservatives,
they consider traditional values or behaviors. A social in opposition to multiculturalism, press for restrictions on
conservative wants to preserve traditional morality and social immigration.
mores, often through civil law or regulation. Social change is
Liberalism
generally regarded as suspect.

Religious conservatives principally seek to apply the teachings of Liberalism is a broad political ideology or worldview founded on
particular religions to politics, sometimes by merely proclaiming the ideas of liberty and equality.
the value of those teachings, and at other times by having those
Sources of Liberal Thought
teachings influence laws.
Liberalism, from the Latin liberalis, is a broad political ideology or
Conservatism in the United States
worldview founded on the ideas of liberty and equality. Liberalism
The meaning of “conservatism” in America has little in common espouses a wide array of views depending on their understanding
with the way the word is used elsewhere, since what most of these principles, and can encompass ideas such as free and
Americans consider conservatism is what much of the world fair elections, free trade, private property, capitalism,
considers liberalism or neoliberalism. Since the 1950s
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constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free press, and the free Classical vs. Modern Liberalism
exercise of religion.
Classical liberalism is a political philosophy and ideology
Liberalism first became a powerful force during the belonging to liberalism in which primary emphasis is placed on
Enlightenment, when it became popular among philosophers and securing the freedom of the individual by limiting the power of the
economists in the Western world. Liberalism rejected the notions, government. The philosophy emerged as a response to the
common at the time, of hereditary privilege, state religion, Industrial Revolution and urbanization in the 19th century in
absolute monarchy, and the Divine Right of Kings. The early Europe and the United States. It advocates civil liberties with a
liberal thinker John Locke, who is often credited with the creation limited government under the rule of law, private property, and
of liberalism as a distinct philosophical tradition, employed the belief in laissez-faire economic policy.
concept of natural rights and the social contract to argue that the
Both modern American conservatism and social liberalism split
rule of law should replace both tradition and absolutism in
from Classical Liberalism in the early 20th century. At that time
government; that rulers were subject to the consent of the
conservatives adopted the Classic Liberal beliefs in protecting
governed; and that private individuals had a fundamental right to
economic civil liberties. Conversely social liberals adopted the
life, liberty, and property.
Classical Liberal belief in defending social civil liberties. Neither
Liberalism & Revolution ideology adopted the pure Classical Liberal belief that
government exists to protect both social & economic civil
The revolutionaries in the American and France used liberal
liberties. Conservatism shares an ideological agreement on
philosophy to justify the armed overthrow of what they saw as
limited government in the area of preventing government
tyrannical rule. The nineteenth century saw governments
restriction against economic civil liberties as embodied in the
established around liberalist political ideology in nations across
ability of people to sell their goods, services or labor to anyone
Europe, Latin America, and North America. Liberalist ideas spread
they choose free from restriction except in rare cases where
even further in the twentieth century, when liberal democracies
society’s general welfare is at stake.
were on the winning side in both World Wars I and II, and when
liberalism survived major ideological challenges from fascism and While many modern scholars argue that no particularly
communism. Today, liberalism remains a political force with meaningful distinction between classical and modern liberalism
varying degrees of power and influence in many countries. exists, others disagree. According to William J. Novak, liberalism
427
in the United States shifted in the late 19th and early 20th century into several major and minor movements in the following
from classical liberalism (endorsing laissez-faire economics and decades. Marx rejected the foundational aspects of liberal theory,
constitutionalism) to “democratic social-welfarism” (endorsing hoping to destroy both the state and the liberal distinction
such government involvement as seen in the New Deal ). This between society and the individual while fusing the two into a
shift included qualified acceptance of government intervention in collective whole designed to overthrow the developing capitalist
the economy and the collective right to equality in economic order of the 19th century.
dealings. These theories came to be termed “liberal socialism”,
Social democracy, an ideology advocating progressive reform of
which is related with social democracy in Europe. According to
capitalism, emerged in the 20th century and was influenced by
the Encyclopedia Britannica, “In the United States, liberalism is
socialism. Yet unlike socialism, it was not collectivist nor anti-
associated with the welfare-state policies of the New Deal
capitalist. It was not against the state; rather it was broadly
program of the Democratic administration of Pres. Franklin D.
defined as a project that aims to correct, through government
Roosevelt, whereas in Europe it is more commonly associated
reformism, what it regards as the intrinsic defects of capitalism by
with a commitment to limited government and laissez-faire
reducing inequalities. Several commentators have noted strong
economic policies. ” Consequently in the U.S., the ideas of
similarities between social liberalism and social democracy, with
individualism and laissez-faire economics previously associated
one political scientist even calling American liberalism “bootleg
with classical liberalism, became the basis for the emerging
social democracy”.
school of right wing libertarian thought.
American Tradition & Liberal Heritage
Liberalism & Socialism
Many fundamental elements of modern society have liberal roots.
Some confusion remains about the relationship between social
The early waves of liberalism popularized economic individualism
liberalism and socialism, despite the fact that many variants of
while expanding constitutional government and parliamentary
socialism distinguish themselves markedly from liberalism by
authority. One of the greatest liberal triumphs involved replacing
opposing capitalism, hierarchy and private property. Socialism
the capricious nature of royalist and absolutist rule with a
formed as a group of related yet divergent ideologies in the 19th
decision-making process encoded in written law. Liberals sought
century such as Christian socialism, Communism and Social
and established a constitutional order that prized important
Anarchism. These ideologies — as with liberalism — fractured
individual freedoms, such as the freedoms of speech and
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association, an independent judiciary and public trial by jury, and
the abolition of aristocratic privileges. These sweeping changes in
political authority marked the modern transition from absolutism
to constitutional rule.
Traditional political spectrum: The traditional left-right political spectrum.
Later waves of liberal thought were strongly influenced by the The terms “right” and “left” refer to political affiliations which originated early
need to expand civil rights. In the 1960s and 1970s, feminism in in the French Revolutionary era of 1789–1796, and referred originally to the
seating arrangements in the various legislative bodies of France. The
the United States was advanced in large part by liberal feminist
aristocracy sat on the right of the Speaker (traditionally the seat of honor)
[Link] liberals also have advocated for racial and the commoners sat on the Left, hence the terms right-wing and left-
equality, and the civil rights movement in the United States during wing politics.
the 1960s strongly highlighted the liberal crusade for equal rights.

Origins of the Political Spectrums

The Traditional Political Spectrum
Originally, the defining point on the ideological spectrum was the
The traditional political spectrum models different political
ancien regime (“old order”). “The Right” thus implied support for
positions by placing them upon a left-right geometric axis.
aristocratic or royal interests and the church, while “The Left”
Background implied support for republicanism, secularism, and civil liberties.
Support for laissez-faire capitalism was expressed by politicians
The traditional political spectrum is a way of modeling different sitting on the left, because these represented policies favorable to
political positions by placing them upon one or more geometric capitalists rather than to the aristocracy, but outside of
axes symbolizing independent political dimensions. Most long- parliamentary politics, these views are often characterized as
standing spectra include a right and left, and according to the being on the right.
simplest left-right axis, communism and socialism are usually
regarded internationally as being on the left, opposite fascism As capitalist economies developed, the aristocracy became less
and conservatism on the right. relevant and was mostly replaced by capitalist representatives.
The size of the working class increased as capitalism expanded
and began to find expression partly through trade unionist,

429
socialist, anarchist, and communist politics, rather than being In left-right politics, right-wing describes an outlook or specific
confined to the capitalist policies expressed by the original left. position that accepts or supports social hierarchy or social
This evolution has often pulled parliamentary politicians away inequality. Social hierarchy and social inequality is viewed by
from laissez-faire economic policies, although this has happened those affiliated with the Right as either inevitable, natural, normal,
to different degrees in different countries. or desirable, whether it arises through traditional social
differences or from competition in market economies. It typically
Thus, the word “left” in American political parlance may refer to
accepts or justifies this position on the basis of natural law or
“liberalism” and be identified with the Democratic Party, whereas
tradition. Although the term ‘right-wing’ originally designated
in a country such as France these positions would be regarded as
traditional conservatives and reactionaries, it has also been used
relatively more right-wing, and “left” is more likely to refer to
to describe neo-conservatives, nationalists, Christian democrats,
socialist positions rather than liberal ones.
and classical liberals.
Left-wing vs. Right-wing
In modern parlance, left-right has acquired the added dimension
In left-right politics, left-wing describes an outlook or specific of the balance of governmental power and individual rights,
position that accepts or supports social equality, often in wherein moving left increases the power of government and
opposition to social hierarchy and social inequality. It typically moving right the rights of individuals. In this view, “reactionary”
involves a concern for those in society who are perceived as has the aspect of “anarchy”. This introduces, or exposes, a
disadvantaged relative to others and an assumption that there are limitation in this simple binary spectrum, where by social views of
unjustified inequalities that need to be reduced or abolished. In left-right, fascists and totalitarian systems are on the far right;
left-right politics, left-wing describes an outlook or specific whereas by a balance of government to individual power, fascists
position that accepts or supports social equality, often in and totalitarian systems are on the far left.
opposition to social hierarchy and social inequality. It typically
Issues with the Traditional Political Spectrum
involves a concern for those in society who are perceived as
disadvantaged relative to others and an assumption that there are Researchers have frequently noted that a single left-right axis is
unjustified inequalities that need to be reduced or abolished. insufficient to describe the existing variation in political beliefs.

430
Researchers have frequently noted that a single left-right axis is anticlericalism), foreign policy (interventionism vs. non-
insufficient in describing the existing variation in political beliefs, interventionism), and freedom (positive liberty vs. negative liberty).
and often include other axes. Though the descriptive words at The Nolan Chart, created by libertarian David Nolan, shows what
polar opposites may vary, often in popular biaxial spectra the he considers as “economic freedom ” (issues like taxation, free
axes are split between cultural issues and economic issues, each trade, and free enterprise) on the horizontal axis and what he
scaling from some form of individualism (or government for the considers as “personal freedom” (issues like drug legalization,
freedom of the individual) to a form of communitarianism (or abortion, and the draft) on the vertical axis. This puts left-wingers
government for the welfare of the community). In this context, the in the left quadrant, libertarians in the top, right-wingers in the
contemporary American on the left is often considered right, and what Nolan originally named “populists” at the bottom.
individualist (or libertarian ) on social/cultural issues and
communitarian (or populist) on economic issues, while the
The previous section is provided by Lumen Learning’s
contemporary American on the right is often considered
communitarian (or populist) on social/cultural issues and Boundless Political Science.

individualist (or libertarian) on economic issues.

Numerous alternatives exist, usually developed by those who feel

their views are not fairly represented on the traditional right-left
spectrum. One alternative spectrum offered by the conservative
American Federalist Journal accounts for only the “degree of
government control ” without consideration for any other social or
political variable and, thus, places “fascism” (totalitarianism ) at
one extreme and “anarchy” (no government at all) at the other
extreme.

Other axes include: the focus of political concern

(communitarianism vs. individualism), responses to conflict
(conversation vs. force), the role of the church (clericalism vs.

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Chapter 13

Comparative
Politics &
International
Relations
Learning objectives

After reading this chapter, students will be able to do the

following:

• Identify concepts of international relations and its theory.

• Understand and critically think about international

relations and comparative politics.

• Analyze current issues in international relations.

Section 1

Theories of international relations

The study and practice of international relations has led Classical realists say this is just human nature. People, by nature,
international relations scholars to suggest different ways that are at some level greedy and insecure and behave accordingly.
states might and should behave with regard to their neighbors So even if you’re not greedy and insecure, you have to behave
around the world. that way, because that’s the game. Structural realists say it’s
more about how the world is organized—an anarchic system
Realism creates the Hobbesian state of nature, referring to the 16th
century English philosopher who justified the existence of the
RealismThe approach to international relations theory that says
state by comparing it to a somewhat hypothetical “state of
that states must look out for their own interests first, and that
nature,” a war of all against all. So states should seek peace, but
military and economic power are the keys to security. suggests
prepare for war.
that states should and do look out for their own interests first.
Realism presumes that states are out for themselves first and This tends to make national security look like a zero-sum game:
foremost. The world is therefore a dangerous place; a state has Anything I do to make myself more secure tends to make you
look out for No. 1 and prepare for the worst. When George W. feel less secure, and vice versa. A realist might counter that a
Bush convinced the U.S. Congress that he should send in U.S. balance of power between states in fact preserves the peace, by
soldiers into Iraq in 2003 and take out Saddam Hussein, this was raising the cost of any aggression to an unacceptable level.
realism in action. Realism suggests that international relations is
Realists argue that war, at some point, is inevitable. Anarchy
driven by competition between states, and states therefore do
persists, and it isn’t going away anytime soon.
and should try to further their own interests. What matters, then,
is how much economic and especially military power a state has.
When your neighbor misbehaves, you can’t call the police.

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Liberalism international law in a way that parallels respect for the law
common in advanced democracies. Liberal commercialismThe
LiberalismA theory of international relations that says that idea that economic growth and trade ties between states can
cooperation is possible to build global security. suggests in fact foster global security. sees the advance of global commerce as
states can peacefully co-exist, and that states aren’t always on making less likely. War isn’t actually very profitable for most
the brink of war. Liberal scholars point to the fact that despite the people, and it really isn’t good for the economy. Liberal
persistence of armed conflict, most nations are not at war most of internationalismThe belief that as more states become
the time. Most people around the world don’t get up and start democracies, war will be less likely to occur. trades on the idea
chanting “Death to America!” and trying to figure out who they that democracies are less likely to make war than are
can bomb today. Liberalism argues that relations between nations dictatorships, if only because people can say no, either in
are not always a zero-sum game. A zero-sum game is one in legislatures or in elections. Consider that public protest in the
which any gain by one player is automatically a loss by another U.S. helped end U.S. involvement in Vietnam—that kind of thing
player. My gains in security, for example, don’t make you worse doesn’t always happen in non-democratic [Link] it can.
off, and your gains in anything don’t make me worse off. Liberal Argentina’s misadventures in Las Malvenas—the Falkland Islands
theory also points to the fact that despite the condition of anarchy —led to protests that brought down a longstanding military
in the world, most nations are not at war, most of the time. So the dictatorship and restored democracy to the nation in 1982.
idea that international relations must be conducted as though one Together, these three are sometimes called the Kantian
were always under the threat of attack isn’t necessarily indicative triangleImmanuel Kant’s belief that the combination of liberal
of reality. institutionalism, commercialism and internationalism together will
produce a more stable, prosperous world., after the German
There are different flavors of liberalism. Liberal institutionalismThe
philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), who outlined them in a
theory that world and regional structures such as the United
1795 essay, Perpetual Peace.
Nations can be used to create global security. puts some faith in
the ability of global institutions to eventually coax people into The liberal argument that states can learn to get along is
getting along as opposed to going to war. Use of the United somewhat supported by the work of Robert AxelrodRobert
Nations, for example, as a forum for mediating and settling Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Basic Books,
dispute, will eventually promote a respect for the rule of 2006., who used an actual experiment involving a lot of players

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and the prisoner’s dilemma game to show how people and understand that they would be facing each other for some time,
perhaps states could learn to cooperate. The prisoner’s dilemma refraining from killing each other meant that they all got to live.
is a fairly simple game that is useful for understanding various
parts of human behavior. In this game, you have two players, both Constructivism
prisoners. Each player has two choices: Defect to the authorities
ConstructivismThe international relations theory that suggests
and rat out the other player in exchange for a reduced sentence,
that people create their own reality, making the decision to go to
or cooperate with the other player and go free. If the players each
war or remain at peace a matter of choice. is another and also
defect they get 1 point apiece; if they cooperate they get 3 points
interesting way of looking at international relations. It may tell us
apiece. If, however, one player cooperates and the other defects,
more about why things are happening the way they do, but
the defector gets 5 points and the cooperator gets zero. Given
somewhat less about what we should do about it. Constructivism
that set of constraints, in a realist world, both players defect and
argues that culture, social structures and human institutional
score only 1 point each. The best result would be for both to
frameworks matter. Constructivism relies in part on the theory of
cooperate, go free, and generate the most points between them.
the social construction of reality, which says that whatever reality
In the Axelrod experiment, the game was iterated or repeated, so
is perceived to be, for the most part people have invented [Link]
that in a round-robin featuring dozens of players, each player
course, if the theory were entirely true, then the very idea of the
played the other player multiple times. The players were all
social construction of reality would also be socially constructed,
notable game theorists, and each devised a particular strategy in
and therefore potentially untrue. To the extent that reality is
an attempt to win the game. What Axelrod found was the player
socially constructed, people can make choices. Hence the
in his experiment who used a strategy called “tit-for-tat” won. Tit-
constructivist argument is, in part, that while the world system is
for-tat simply began by cooperating, and then did whatever the
indeed a form of anarchy, that does not demand a realist
other player did last time in the next round. In a repeated game,
response to foreign policy. People can choose to otherwise. So
which certainly describes relations between states, players
constructivists might argue that the end of the Cold War between
eventually learned to cooperate. Axelrod cites real world
the U.S. and the Soviet Union was at least in part a decision by
examples of where this kind of behavior occurred, such as the
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to change his thinking. He
German and Allied soldiers in the trenches of World War I, who
attempted then to ratchet down tensions with the U.S., and to
basically agreed at various times not to shoot each other, or to
shell incoming shipments of food. As the soldiers came to
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liberalize Soviet [Link], 2012, p. 26. The fact that the have to confront the U.S. in anyway, the sites they were building
Soviet Union promptly disintegrated doesn’t change that. looked just like all the Soviet missile sites they’d ever built.

Combining theories to explain: The Cuban missile crisis In the governmental politics model, internal political struggles can
lead to decisions that may at least be questionable. In this case,
Although constructivism can be a bit mushy, some clear versions
Soviet President Nikita Khruschev may have been pushed by
of it are quite interesting and useful in helping to understand why
internal political forces to put missiles in Cuba. President John F.
states behave the way they do. Realism tends to treat states as
Kennedy faced internal pressure for air strikes on the Soviet sites
single, rational actors—as though the state were a single being,
in Cuba, but resisted them.
behaving in a consistent fashion with a constant eye to its own
interest. As detailed by the scholar Graham AllisonGraham In the end, the two sides were able to negotiate their way out of
Allison, Essence of Decision, 1971., the rational actor model of the standoff and ratchet down the rhetoric. The Soviets pulled the
analysis sees states nearly as single organisms, pursuing policies missiles out of Cuba; the U.S. pulled missiles out of Turkey—like
with some planning and coherence. Allison used the 1963 Cuban Cuba for the U.S., right on the Soviets’ doorstep—and promised
missile crisis, in which the United States and the Soviet Union not to invade Cuba. What’s also useful and interesting about
nearly came to blows over the Soviets’ efforts to put nuclear- Allison’s work is that it shows how using different theories
armed missiles in Cuba, to explain how other factors could together can explain why states behave the way they do. Putting
explain why states behave the way they do. Allison suggests two missiles in Turkey and Cuba was a realist approach to
other models. In the organizational process model, the regular international affairs. A constructivist view can tell us why things
behavior and processes of government agencies (bureaucracies) happened the way they did: The culture and politics of the U.S.
tends to dictate how and why things happen in government. So, and the Soviet Union led them to make decisions, and respond to
for example, one of the ways in which U.S. officials were able to each other’s decisions, in ways that can’t be viewed as entirely
figure out that the Soviets were building missile sites was from rational. And, finally, the solution came from a somewhat liberal
aerial reconnaissance and satellite photos of the sites. Despite approach to policy: Sit down, talk it out, reach an agreement and
the fact that the Soviets were trying to keep the missiles a secret, pull back from the brink. Although in succeeding decades where
so they could be set up and ready to go if the Soviets should the missiles were placed became less of an issue, as each side
developed weapons that could hit any spot on the globe from

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anywhere else, despite all the weapons, nobody fired a shot. Critical feminism, on the other hand, sees capitalism as the
Despite more than five decades of nuclear tension, threats and source of women’s oppression, and seeks to create new
military buildup, the world failed to blow itself up. structures for society. Cultural or essentialist feminism stresses
the differences in how women view and think about the world. It
Feminism argues that women’s approach to the world would be more likely
to bring peace and avoid conflict.
Realism, liberalism and constructivism may be the three most
prominent theories of international relations, but they are by no As usual, there’s probably some kernel of truth in all of these
means the only ones or the most important. Feminist scholars ideas, and places where we could find cases that contradict
look at international relations through the prism of gender these notions. Clearly, for example, women tend to be less
relations, noting that for much of human history, women have involved in violent crime, and women in some parts of the world
been relegated to a sideline role in politics and government. This are being sold into slavery and prostitution, where their lives are
isn’t wise: More than half the people in the world are women. largely controlled by men. On the other hand, it was a female
Nonetheless, males have dominated both the study and practice politician, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who
of international relations, but feminist scholars note that women’s marshaled her country’s military to go to war with Argentina and
roles as wives, mothers and workers have made all of that reclaim the Falkland Islands in 1982. But while history is full of
possible. Also, a female perspective on foreign policy might be valiant female warriors and strong leaders—from the Trung sisters
different. Feminist theoryA body of theory that seeks to and Trieu Thi Trinh of Vietnam, to Joan of Arc, and Queen
understand global politics through the prism of gender issues. Elizabeth I—they are much less common than are men famous for
sometimes argues that having more women in positions of power their conquering exploits. And the women warriors, generally, are
could change things, as women may be more likely to believe famous for having defended their homelands as opposed to
peace through international cooperation is possible. conquering somebody else’s. While some men have felt
threatened by the rise of feminism in the last 60 years, it really is
Feminist international relations theory has variants, of course.
an opportunity to look at the world in a slightly different way,
Liberal feminism wants to ensure that women have the same
perhaps shedding some light on why things happen the way they
opportunities in society as do men, so that means liberal in the
do.
broader sense of general support for democratic capitalism.

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Neo-Marxism analysis. Economic problems and conflicts do continue to inform
international relations, and states do continue to try to acquire
Neo-Marxists look at international relations through the raw materials as well as markets for finished goods. China, for
perspective of our old friend Karl Marx. Remember that Marx saw example, is investing heavily in Africa to lock up supplies of
the world in terms of its productive relations, so that the way in minerals for its growing manufacturing sector. The Chinese
which we organize production determines social and political apparently aren’t always the best employers. To the extent that
relations as well. Neo-Marxist theoryAn application of Marxist they mistreat African workers, the states where this happens will
principles to the understanding of global politics, in particular how face the competing demands of a big country that is paying them
the nature of production—capitalism—may drive states to act a lot of money for resources, and the needs of its own citizens
toward each other in certain ways. applies this to international who work for the Chinese.
relations, and tends to argue that capitalism drives states to
Neo-Marxists might point to this an example of where liberal
compete and attempt to dominate each other.
commercialism is really just the capitalist class protecting its own.
For example, under the variant known as Marxism-Leninism, China is nominally still a communist state, but its economic
named after the Russian revolutionary leader, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin system is really much more a sort of state-sponsored capitalism.
(1870–924), world relations are really defined by the desire for Capitalism, Neo-Marxists argue, in its relentless quest for rising
industrial nations to develop both sources of raw materials and profits, leads to the degradation and impoverishment of workers.
markets for finished products (what Lenin called the core and the The realist explanation of U.S. policy with regard to Central
periphery). Lenin was writing at a time when most of Africa had America is that the U.S. propped up right-wing dictatorships there
been carved into colonies by the European powers, and the because they opposed communism. The other explanation was
British Empire still stretched from Africa to India to Hong Kong, so that U.S. commercial interests, such as the United Fruit
there was some evidence for what he was saying. The collapse of Company, pushed to maintain their stranglehold on the banana
the Soviet empire and China’s turning away from purely Marxist industry. This helped lead, for example, to a CIA-sponsored coup
economics has taken some of the steam out of the Marxian in Guatemala 1954. The company had convinced the U.S.
railroad of history, and we may not agree with Marx and Lenin’s government that the democratically elected Guatemalan
suggestion that a socialist dictatorship is a necessary step on the president was pro-Soviet. What is known for sure is that he was
road to nirvana. But it could be wrong to completely reject their promising to redistribute land to Guatemalan peasants, which

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would have threatened the company’s monopoly on the banana From a realist perspective, Mexico is not in a position to go to war
trade. with the U.S., so working with the U.S. seems a much more likely
alternative. As Mexico’s overall economy is so dependent on
In the view of neo-Marxist analysis, the Cold war was about the
sales to and from the U.S., Mexico will do what it can to protect
threat to U.S. business interests. The same would be true for the
and preserve an open trading relationship between the two
first and second Gulf Wars, with the U.S. fighting Iraq in part to
nations. A liberal perspective might suggest that Mexico put
preserve access to Middle Eastern oil. The United States
pressure on the U.S. to address its own consumption problem,
intervened when Iraq invaded Kuwait much more quickly than it
while continuing efforts to bring the drug lords to heel. A
intervened in the former Yugoslavia, when Serbs were killing
constructivist approach might suggest that the real problem for
Bosnian Moslems in much greater numbers than Iraqis were
Mexico is poverty and the disparity of wealth in the country; it is
killing Kuwaitis. Neo-Marxism also is realist in its orientation,
generally not rich people who go out and decide to sell illegal
since it presumes that conflict and potential between states is the
drugs. It might also suggest that Mexico’s leaders can and should
reality of international affairs. But in their eyes, that conflict is
make choices that differ from what realism or liberalism might
driven by the conflict between business interests and workers.
suggest. A feminist analysis might suggest that Mexico’s
Combining Theories to Explain: Mexico and the Drug Wars somewhat patriarchal society leads it to overlook more peaceful
avenues to solving the problem. A neo-Marxist take on it all would
Let’s look at these perspectives using Mexico as an example. suggest that the capitalist nature of Mexico’s economy virtually
Many of Mexico’s foreign policy issues involve the United States. ensures an unequal distribution of wealth, leading the poor to
The U.S. is Mexico’s biggest trading partner; Mexican workers in seek other means of empowerment, and the rich to seek to
the U.S. send back a lot of money to their families still in Mexico; maintain the system that helped them become rich in the first
and U.S. drug policy has helped lead the Mexican government place. There may be some truth to all of these ideas; you will have
into an ongoing war with drug lords. That in itself raises a to decide what makes sense to you.
question: Why does Mexico persist in fighting the drug war when
drug consumption is a much bigger problem for the United States The previous section is provided by [Link]’s
than it is for Mexico? Primer on Politics.

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Section 2

The practice & study of international relations

International relations is both the practice and the study of the A Brief History of International Relations
relations of nation-states and other entities in the international
system. This article reviews both of these. Traditionally, In a sense, the history of international relations, literally meaning
international relations focused primarily on state-to-state the relations between nations, must begin with the Peace of
relations, but today the field focuses as well on other actors such Westphalia in 1648, which is regarded as the founding moment
as intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and nongovernmental of the nation-state. At the end of the Thirty Years'War in Europe
organizations (NGOs), multinational corporations (MNCs), and between those states that wished to maintain the Catholicism of
even individuals. Thus today these interactions and their study the former Holy Roman Empire and those who wished to be
are often termed global politics or world politics. While Protestant, it was concluded that each state would follow the
international relations as a field of study originated largely within religion of its sovereign. In that time we moved from what was
political science and remains centered there, it is also an primarily a feudal system to what became the nation-state
interdisciplinary field, encompassing the study of economic, system, so named when we assumed that each state would
social, and cultural interactions as well. While international govern a single nation of people, and each nation would have its
relations has tended to be dominated by those who term own state. Original concepts of the nation defined it as a group
themselves realist theorists, liberal or idealist theories continue to of people who shared history, traditions, and culture, sometimes
abound, and radical theories of many varieties also exist. While religion, and usually language. Over time, some have come to
international relations began as a field largely in the United distinguish the concept of an ethnically based nation from that of
States, today it is studied widely all over the world in different a civic nation, based in common identity and loyalty to a set of
ways. political ideas and institutions. Today the word nation, which
rightly refers to the people, is often used synonymously with
state, as in the United Nations (UN). In practice, however, a state

440
may comprise more than one nation or, alternatively, a nation may relations between groups or sovereign units of any kind, or
be spread out over several states. For example, the Kurdish between any actors across the boundaries of those sovereign
people are spread between parts of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran, among units. The interaction between technological, social, economic,
other places. During the period when European colonialism and political change has changed the character of international
ended in Africa and elsewhere, the lack of congruence between relations over time. During the hunting and gathering period,
nations and the states that were established led to many conflicts people wandered from place to place in search of food. At the
that continue even today. It is probably more appropriate today to time of the Agricultural Revolution, people began to settle in one
speak of the interstate system than the international system, as place. The Industrial Revolution led to settlement in cities, to the
the system is generally regarded as comprising sovereign and rise of the bourgeoisie and eventually the labor movement, and to
equal states. changes both in governance and warfare. Cities in Germany
began to form into economic units, the Zollverein, or customs
A state is more properly the governmental apparatus by which a
unions, and other city-states formed in Italy, Greece, and China,
nation rules itself. Max Weber provided the classic definition of
eventually integrating into nation-states. By 1776 the Declaration
the state:
of Independence led to the United States as the first new
Today, however, we have to say that a state is a human democratic nation. In France, in 1789, the Declaration of the
community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the Rights and Duties of Man was one of the first statements of the
legitimate use of physical force within a given territory. Note that human rights of individuals. The rise of democracy coupled with
‘territory’ is one of the characteristics of the state. Specifically, at industrial technology led to the rise of nationalism and a new kind
the present time, the right to use physical force is ascribed to of warfare by the Napoleonic period, where civilian loyalty began
other institutions or to individuals only to the extent to which the to play a role and war was no longer a matter between kings and
state permits it. far removed from civilians.

It is important to keep in mind that this definition specifies the By 1815 the first IGOs had come into being. In that year the
‘legitimate’ use of force. Congress of Vienna established a system of regular meetings of
diplomatic representatives of states, a system that would become
International relations, more broadly speaking, could be regarded the forerunner of the United Nations Security Council. It also
as originating much earlier than 1648, as it generally includes the established the Central Commission for the Navigation of the

441
Rhine, the first of many river commissions which would presage Modern international relations changed significantly at the end of
the international single-functional organizations which would World War II and with the construction of the UN and many other
attempt to solve the technical and economic problems of the new international structures. In the areas of economics, security,
international system. Along with the rise of international and human rights, major changes occurred in the international
nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), this new level of system (Table 1).
aggregation would bring about both normative and legal changes
The Great Depression, which had begun with the American stock
that would eventually become one of the forces changing the
market crash of October 1929, spread throughout the world for
character of international relations.
roughly the next decade, becoming one of the factors that led to
Periods of war and peace have alternated in international the next major war. World War II began in Europe in 1939, and the
relations, with periods of war often followed by the creation of United States joined the war after the Japanese bombing of Pearl
international organizations intended to prevent additional war. Harbor, 7 December 1941. The war led to the defeat of the Axis
World War I, 1914–18, led to the 1919 creation of the League of powers, Germany, Italy, and Japan, and to the restructuring of
Nations, the first international organization open to universal European and other states. During and after the war, states came
membership. The League was based in the theory of collective together to create both economic and security organizations, so
security, by which states agreed that there would be rules against as to reduce the future possibility of either economic collapse or
aggression, and that violation of those rules would result in world war.
punitive action by all the members of the organization against the
The Bretton Woods conference created the International Bank for
violator. However, the League, with a voting structure requiring
Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), otherwise known as the
unanimity, was discredited when it was unable to stop the
World Bank, and its sister institution, the International Monetary
violations when Italy invaded Ethiopia and Japan attacked
Fund (IMF), in 1944. The IBRD had as its original purpose the
Manchuria. This, coupled with the failure of the Unites States to
reconstruction of Europe after the war, and later broadened its
join the League, and with other states leaving the organization,
purpose to include the economic development of the less-
were among the factors that led to its failure.
developed states. The IMF, on the other hand, had the purpose of
From World War II to the End of the Cold War stabilizing the international monetary system, by providing
shorter-term loans that would help stabilize a nation's currency in

442
times of difficulty. There was also originally an attempt to create culminating in the creation of the EU in the Maastricht agreement
an International Trade Organization, but agreement could only be in 1992. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
reached on creating a more modest General Agreement on Tariffs (OPEC), created in 1960, had an important impact when it cut
and Trade (GATT) in 1947. GATT conferences focused on supplies and raised prices during the 1973 and 1979 oil crises,
outlawing quotas and foreign exchange controls, on reducing thus forcing the high energy usage countries to pay attention to
tariffs, and on extending most-favored-nation protection to all oil suppliers.
members (meaning there would be no most-favored nation in
During the war, beginning in 1942, some of the Allied powers
trade agreements). By the time of the Kennedy Round in the early
began to work on a charter for a new global general-purpose
1960s, there had been tremendous reductions in tariffs, especially
organization to replace the League of Nations. In the summer of
for industrial goods, and increases in exports, but the trade gap
1945, after the end of the war in Europe, but before the end of the
between the industrialized North and the primarily agricultural and
war in Asia, the Allied powers, including the US, France, United
commodity-based South had become more pronounced. This led
Kingdom, China, and Russia, and 51 states in all, came together
to the rise of North-South conflict especially during the 1970s,
in the San Francisco conference to sign the United Nations
and discussion of whether there should be a New International
Charter. The Charter came into force on 24 October 1945, now
Economic Order. Problems were compounded by the start of the
celebrated as UN Day. In the Charter, the member states declare
international debt crisis, often said to have begun on Friday, 13
the maintenance of international peace and security to be a
August 1982, when Mexico announced it could not meet its
central purpose of the organization, and collective security and
payments on its foreign debt. By the Uruguay Round of GATT, in
peaceful settlement to be the central methods to accomplish this.
1995, the agreement had transformed into the World Trade
In Article 1.1, the first purpose stated is:
Organization (WTO), which continued, with the Doha Round
beginning in September 2001, to be unable to come to agreement To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to
on issues of commodity and service trade and patents and take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal
intellectual property rights. of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of
aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by
Regional economic organizations also began to play important
peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice
roles, with the original institutions of what would become the
European Union (EU) created in 1952 and 1958, ultimately

443
and international law, adjustment or settlement of international agencies that are part of the broader UN system, although not a
disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace. part of the UN itself, the central ones are those discussed above.

Achieving international cooperation to solve economic, social, Human rights became important especially in the decades after
cultural, and humanitarian problems and to promote respect for World War II. While the American and French Revolutions had
human rights are also important purposes. The General Assembly produced a codification of civil and political rights, often termed
was set up to include all member states (51 originally, 192 by the first generation of human rights, the Bolshevik Revolution in
2007), with an equal vote, and the Security Council to include as Russia in 1917 and the Maoist Revolution in China in 1949
permanent members the five Allied powers, the winners of World acknowledged economic and social rights, or the second
War II, who would have the right of veto, and eventually ten other generation of human rights. With the establishment of the UN,
rotating members, with decisions requiring 9 votes out of 15 (and human rights began to become a recognized priority in the
no vetoes of permanent members). Under Article 25 of the international system, with the Preamble of the Charter stating that
Charter, UN member states agree to accept and carry out the the peoples of the UN were determined:
decisions of the Security Council. Its decisions, unlike the
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and
recommendations of the General Assembly, have the force of
worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and
international law. Resolutions of the General Assembly, on the
women and of nations large and small.
other hand, are important because they represent the wide-
spread consensus of the states members of the international The UN Commission on Human Rights, led by Eleanor Roosevelt,
system. The Economic and Social Council of the UN, along with produced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was
its commissions focusing on particular matters within its adopted by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 1948. By
jurisdiction, is unique in providing (under Article 71 of the Charter) 1966 this had been codified into international law, in the form of
consultative status for many NGOs, thus providing a voice for at two treaties: the International Covenant on Civil and Political
least portions of civil society in UN affairs. Any member state of Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
the UN must also be a member of the International Court of Cultural Rights, both of which came into force in 1976. Other
Justice, the court intended to provide judicial decision making for global and regional human rights treaties, on genocide, women's
disputes between states as an alternative to war. While there are rights, against racial discrimination and torture, created an
other organs that are part of the UN, and also many specialized infrastructure of rights based in treaties and courts which began
444
to recognize at least some rights for individuals under divisions. Today the G-77 continues to play an important role in
international law. international politics and in the UN, where it has a membership of
130 states out of the total UN membership of 192.
Decolonization of the empires of the European states, occurring
primarily during the period from the late 1940s through the early Many of these same countries joined with others in establishing
1960s, changed the political and economic landscape. The the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), setting forth the principle of
independence of India and Pakistan from the British Empire in nonalignment with respect to both the Eastern and Western blocs
1947 was followed by the independence of Burma (now in their Cold War. The NAM, originally 25 states convened by Tito
Myanmar) and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1948, and of Indonesia of Yugoslavia at the Belgrade Conference in 1961, and now a
in 1949. In the period 1957–63 most African states became group of 118 states, chose not to create a formal structure.
independent from the French and British Empires, with others Consensus decision making (which does not imply unanimity) has
gaining independence from Portugal in 1974–75. The rise of this helped it to maintain solidarity.
new group of states began to change the power structure of the
The emergence of Europe as a major player in the international
international system as they came to be able to act together, first
system was aided in the wake of World War II by reconstruction
in terms of joint interests in national liberation and in overcoming
assistance from the IBRD and through Marshall Plan aid from the
Western colonialism and neocolonialism, especially beginning at
United States, but regional integration in Europe, eventually
the Bandung Conference of 18–24 April 1955. The Group of 77
culminating in the formation of the EU, also played an important
(G-77), which got its name from the 77 nonaligned nations who
role. The Treaty of Paris led to the creation in 1952 of the
first signed a joint declaration on 15 June 1964 and then adopted
supranational European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC),
the Charter of Algiers in October 1967, established a permanent
established by France, Germany, Italy, and the Benelux countries,
institutional structure to promote the collective economic
Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg, in order both to provide
interests of the less-developed states. During the period of the
an engine of growth for the region, as well as to link the
mid-1970s, while the international system debated the question
economies of France and Germany in such a way that it would
of whether there would be a New International Economic Order, a
make it more costly and difficult to go to war with each other
unified political position strengthened the negotiating position of
again. The treaty was intended to lead to spillover into other
the G-77, but as development proceeded at different rates in
sectors of the economy and did so with the establishment in 1958
different states, the group began to see regional and national

445
of the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European food, in 1976 on human settlements (especially cities), in 1977 on
Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM), under the Rome Treaties water and on desertification. The Stockholm Conference began a
among the same countries. The Merger Treaty of 1965 integrated pattern of holding not only a meeting of UN member states, but a
the three into the European Communities, and eventually the parallel forum of NGOs and civil society, which would consider
European Community. By February 1992 the Maastricht Treaty on the same issues as the UN conference. The pattern was to persist
European Union had been signed, and by 1 January 2002, the throughout the other conferences, and to repeat as these
Euro had been adopted by most EU members as a common conferences repeated in the 1980s and 1990s. This led to an
European currency. On 1 January 2004, the EU was enlarged increased role for civil society organizations in the UN system by
from 15 to 25 members with the addition of Eastern European the mid-1990s. While these ad hoc conferences did not produce
members plus Malta and Cyprus, with two more Eastern Union treaties, they led to the development of environment ministries in
memberships increasing the EU to 27 by the present. While the many countries, and to the further development of international
EU has been unable to adopt a constitution, it does now have a law on the environment, and of certain international organizations
Common Foreign and Security Policy that allows it to act in as well. The Stockholm Conference resulted in the 1975 creation
unified fashion in many areas in other international forums such of the United Nations Environment Program, or UNEP. The 1992
as the UN. Rio Earth Summit, or the United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development (UNCED), was the occasion for
While economics, security, and human rights received increasing
the signing of the Framework Convention on Climate Change
attention and institutionalization in the period immediately after
(FCCC) and the Convention on Biodiversity, and also led to the
World War II, it was not until the 1970s that attention began to be
creation of a new UN organ, the Commission on Sustainable
paid to environmental matters. Concerns with pesticide pollution
Development. Environmental matters began to be seen as more
and with the rapidly rising world population led the UN in June,
and more significant, and led the parties to the FCCC to adopt
1972 to hold the United Nations Conference on the Human
the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, but political will to implement
Environment (UNCHE) in Stockholm, Sweden. This was followed,
measures to deal with many environmental issues has not yet
during the decade of the 1970s, by a large number of ad hoc- or
attained the momentum to actually stop a lot of environmental
mega-conferences intended to put a variety of issues, especially
damage.
environmental issues, on the agenda of the UN and its members.
Among these were conferences in 1974 on population and on

446
Security continued after World War II to be a major concern to Collective defense, backed up by nuclear deterrence, superseded
states, and a variety of approaches were pursued to further collective security as the dominant theory of security during most
international peace and security. First, the UN Security Council of the period of the Cold War.
was based in the theory of collective security, continuing the
Nuclear deterrence played a central role in the security theory of
system put forth in the League, by which states agreed that they
the superpowers during the Cold War, and reliance on nuclear
would jointly put forth rules against aggression, and that violation
deterrence made the achievement of nuclear weapons capability
of those rules would result in punitive action by all the members
attractive to other states as a result. The US dropping of the
of the organization against the violator. In the case of the UN,
atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August
Chapter VII of the UN Charter put forth the basic principles for the
1945 marked the advent of the nuclear era. The Soviet Union
operation of collective security. However, the unity of the
tested its first atomic bomb in 1949, the United Kingdom in 1952,
permanent members of the UN Security Council, which had been
France in 1960, China in 1964, India a ‘peaceful nuclear
presumed for the effective working of the Security Council,
explosion’ in 1974 and a nuclear bomb in May 1998, followed
vanished with the onset of the Cold War between the US and the
within weeks by a Pakistani test Initial reliance on ‘massive
Soviet Union, and their allies in the Western and Eastern blocs,
retaliation’ led eventually to the notion of graduated nuclear
and the Security Council was left unable to function as planned
responses and to the advocacy of limited nuclear war fighting by
when faced with vetoes from one side or the other on security
the Reagan administration in the early 1980s.
matters. With George Kennan's 1947 article in the journal Foreign
Affairs, espousing US and Western containment of Soviet Along with nuclear deterrence, however, states also pursued arms
communism, especially in Europe, came the 1949 development of control and disarmament. Bilateral efforts between the US and
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, based in the the USSR led to the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty and the
theory of collective defense. As the theory behind the security Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 1972 and the Strategic Arms
alliance, collective defense was based on the concept under Reduction Treaty in 1991, as well as other agreements.
which states agreed to band together to defend each other Multilateral agreements included, most importantly, the Nuclear
against outside aggression, agreeing that they would see an Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1970, and a series of nuclear free
attack on one member as an attack on all. When West Germany zones in the Southern Hemisphere, beginning with the Latin
joined NATO in 1955, the Soviet Union formed its own alliance of American Nuclear Free Zone in 1967. Nuclear nonproliferation
the Eastern bloc, the Warsaw Pact, which lasted until 1991.
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was relatively successful until the North Korean withdrawal from peacekeeping troops, supplied not by the major powers as with
the NPT and subsequent testing of a nuclear weapon in October collective security, but by middle-level powers such as Canada,
2006. India, and the Scandinavian countries. Thus the United Nations
Emergency Force came into being, policing the border between
Diplomacy and international law also played a role in the
Israel and Egypt after a cease-fire had been agreed upon. Many
maintenance of international peace and security. In the case of
peacekeeping missions were utilized to keep the peace after
the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, when the US
cease-fires in many regions of the world, both during the Cold
discovered that the Soviet Union was in the process of placing
War and after that. There continue to be important advances in
nuclear weapons in Cuba, the crisis was resolved by a
the development of all of these mechanisms, both in the UN and
combination of a generally low-key military blockade and
in regional organizations.
diplomatic efforts. The development of a variety of instruments of
international humanitarian law, otherwise known as the laws of After the Cold War
war, was also significant in regulating war. The Geneva
While the end of the Cold War meant that there was a possibility
Conventions of 1949 and the 1977 Protocols to those
of joint action for international peace and security in the UN, it
conventions are most significant here, focusing especially on the
also led to the preponderance of the Western states and
protection of noncombatants.
especially the United States. In the early 1990s, the first Gulf War
During the period when the UN Security Council was unable to was viewed as a triumph of collective security, as the UN Security
make collective security work in the intended way, the UN did Council unanimously agreed to stop Iraq's illegal occupation of
develop a set of new instruments for international peace and Kuwait. Peacekeeping also experienced a resurgence. In 1992,
security. Beginning in the late 1940s, and especially in 1956, the the Security Council asked the UN Secretary-General to look
UN developed a set of techniques that were not specifically again at the options for maintaining international peace and
mentioned in the UN Charter. In 1956, when Israel and Egypt security after the end of the Cold War, and the resulting report
were engaged in conflict involving the Suez Canal, and Britain Agenda for Peace suggested that a combination of preventive
and France entered on the side of Israel, and there was a threat of diplomacy, peacemaking (especially mediation), peacekeeping,
Russian entry on the side of Egypt, Canada proposed that there and peace building would be effective.
be a withdrawal by all parties and their replacement by UN

448
A renewed effort toward development also transpired, and caused the destruction of the World Trade Center and damage to
thinking on development expanded from an emphasis solely on the US Pentagon on 11 September 2001. Worldwide opposition
economic development to a focus on human development as to terrorism led to a variety of multilateral initiatives against
well, with the publication of the first Human Development Report terrorist activities. By March of 2003, however, when the US
by the UN Development Program in 1990, and the Human began its war against Iraq, this time it was without the support of
Development Index, encompassing not only GDP, but also the UN Security Council. UN Security Council Resolution 1441 of
indicators of human health and education. There was the hope 8 November 2002, had explicitly denied the authorization of the
that developed states would finally reach the goal of increasing use of military force without a further resolution, deleting the
their official development assistance (ODA) to the level of 0.7% of language of “all necessary means” that would have authorized
GDP, a goal they had established during the second ‘Decade of force. The international consensus which had appeared to
Development’, but most had never met. With the Millennium develop after the end of the Cold War, and after 9/11, evaporated
Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals in 2000, hope as US intervention accentuated the conflict in the Middle East.
was further increased, but instead, foreign aid after that period
Structures in International Relations
remained between 0.2% and 0.3% of GDP.
The question of structure in international relations includes both
Many have argued that the end of the Cold War transformed
who the actors are in the international system and how the
international relations. Some argued transformation from an
system itself is structured. Traditionally, nation-states have been
ideological battle between East and West to greater international
regarded as the primary actors in international relations, but today
cooperation. Huntington argued that the East-West conflict would
most international relations scholars and practitioners also
be superseded by a clash of civilizations, or a battle of the West
recognize the importance of IGOs, NGOs, MNCs, and other
versus the rest. Others argued that the basis of conflict would be
nonstate actors such as social movements, as well as terrorist
the poverty, crime, corruption, and environmental degradation
networks. The structure of the system, which had traditionally
that would accentuate conflict between the haves and the have-
been regarded as anarchic, in that it had no overall government,
nots.
has at various times been considered to be bipolar, multipolar, or
Much of the debate over a possible transformation of unipolar. One of the basic debates, often termed the structure
international relations occurred again after the terrorism that versus agency debate, asks whether stability and change in the

449
system result primarily from the agency of individual actors or created at the time of the Congress of Vienna in 1815, when both
from the structure of the system itself. diplomatic forums that can be regarded as the predecessor of the
UN Security Council and functional organizations like the
While in earlier periods of history we witnessed the presence of
International Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine were
city-states, such as the Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta,
created. IGOs come in both regional and global forms, with some
or Chinese city-states, as well as the growth of empires, such as
being general purpose, and others more specifically oriented to
the Roman Empire, the Mayan and Inca Empires, the Ottoman
single subjects.
Empire, successive iterations of Chinese empires, and later, the
British Empire; the dominant form of organization in the The first major universal organization, open to all nation-states,
international system by the time it came to be studied as a was the League of Nations, created primarily to avoid a relapse
separate field was the nation-state. Generally judged to have into war after World War I in 1919. Both the League and the UN,
begun with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, at the end of the its successor created in 1945 after World War II, were based on
Thirty Years'War, the nation-state system, based in the sovereign the principle of collective security, under which states agreed to
equality of independent states governing people of a single create international law against aggression and to enforce this
nationality, replaced the Holy Roman Empire. While in practice with sanctions, both nonmilitary and military, if the law should be
both extensive immigration, and empires dividing up and violated. While the League was plagued with a cumbersome
combining tribes and nationalities under different governing structure, including a unanimity voting requirement, and ultimately
structures, led to each state actually comprising multiple did not include the US and some other major states, the UN has
nationalities, the system of independent states became the basis been relatively successful in providing international security,
of the structures of international law and organization that sometimes under the collective security doctrine of enforcement,
developed over the course of time. but more often under the peacekeeping mechanisms which were
not originally provided in the Charter, but evolved beginning in
International organizations began to coordinate the relations
1948, and especially at the time of the Suez Canal crisis in 1956.
between these independent states. IGOs are organizations
The security, development, human rights, and environmental
created by a treaties among states, composed primarily of states,
aspects of the UN, and its specific organs, are discussed in the
and thus having some derivative degree of legal standing under
previous sections.
international law. IGOs are generally regarded to have been first

450
Among the single-subject organizations are the functional form of being able to tax, borrow, and lend, and to have direct
organizations, many of which were formed before the UN, but power over individuals and firms. Other IGOs, in contrast, still
which became the specialized agencies of the UN system. These function by means of cooperation between nation-states, with
separate organizations have separate memberships and budgets final authority resting with the agreement of their member states.
from that of the UN itself, but are parts of the broader UN system. Many other regional free-trade organizations, such as the North
Among these are the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) American Free Trade Association, were also formed later,
located in Rome, the Universal Postal Union (UPU) and the modeled on the success of the EU, but none have the close
International Telegraphic Union (ITU), the International Labor degree of integration present in the EU.
Organization (ILO), and the World Health Organization (WHO), all
Other types of IGOs include alliances, like the NATO and the
located in Geneva, and the International Atomic Energy Agency
former Warsaw Pact, which were regional defense pacts of the
(IAEA), located in Vienna.
Western and Eastern blocs, respectively, organized under
Regional IGOs have developed with different degrees of collective defense principles, under which each member agreed
integration in different regions. One of the earliest was the to regard an attack on one as an attack on all. Cartels, like the
Organization of American States, reorganized formally by the Rio OPEC, and Intergovernmental Council of Copper Exporting
Treaty in 1945 to include security functions, but which had Countries (CIPEC), the copper cartel, and others in bauxite,
previously been created as the Pan-American Union in 1890. bananas, and the like, bounded together to attempt to increase
Among other multipurpose regional organizations are the the prices of their goods, while international commodity
Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), and the African organizations, like the International Coffee Agreement, included
Union, formerly the Organization of African Unity. Probably the both producers and consumers.
most significant, and certainly the most integrated of the regional
INGOs, like IGOs, have regular meetings and decision-making
organizations, is the EU, of which the first part began in 1952, but
procedures and a permanent secretariat, but comprise individuals
which was formally constituted as the EU under the Maastricht
and private organizations, and are not created by state
Treaty of 1992. The EU, which was discussed in the previous
agreement. There are far more NGOs than IGOs. Among
section, is really the only international organization (and then only
prominent NGOs are groups like Amnesty International and
the European Community part of the EU), that can be regarded as
Human Rights Watch, Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund,
being supranational or having powers over the nationstate in the

451
as well as the International Chamber of Commerce. The term countries. The corporations have certainly been one of the
NGO generally does not include MNCs or terrorist organizations. vehicles of globalization, spreading around the world patterns of
trade, consumption, and the cultural aspects associated with
Many NGOs have consultative status with IGOs, and thus can
them. While in the late 1950s multinationals were often regarded
attend the meetings of IGOs and sometimes even speak at those
as a major force for economic development, providing foreign
meetings. Under Article 71 of the UN Charter, both national and
direct investment that would catapult economies without
international NGOs can apply for consultative status with the
sufficient savings into export-led industrialization, only a few
UN's Economic and Social Council, and many attend UN human
countries developed in this mode, with others continuing to be
rights bodies and international conferences on environment, food,
damaged by the repatriation of profits to multinationals'home
population, development, and women's and other human rights.
countries and by the declining terms of trade for the primarily
NGOs were responsible for the early development of ideas for
agricultural and commodity products that were the chief exports
having environment conferences and for having the International
of the less-developed countries. With economic capacities larger
Women's Year conference in 1975. At many General Assembly
than that of most nation-states, MNCs came to be regarded as
conferences, the practice has also developed of having a
significant actors in the world system, although different theorists
separate meeting outside the formal conference structures for
have argued as to whether they reinforce or challenge the power
other NGOs that do not have formal consultative status. NGOs
of nation-states.
have also become important in the delivery of development aid
and humanitarian aid in the field. Médecins sans Frontiéres won a There are many actors that are not formal organizations. Among
Nobel Peace Prize in 1999 for its work in the delivery of medical these are social movements and networks. The anti-nuclear-
aid, and the Grameen Bank in 2006 for its micro-credit programs. weapons movements of the late 1950s were a major force in
leading to such treaties as the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963.
MNCs, which developed first in the mining, milling, and
Both environmental NGOs and the broader environmental
transportation industries around the 1850s, initially spread among
movement were important in leading to the UN's Stockholm
the industrialized countries, and later throughout the world. These
Conference on the Human Environment in 1972, and in turn to the
corporations have been lauded as being a great force for peace
creation of the UN Environment Program and later the
and criticized as being a great threat to peace, by creating
Commission on Sustainable Development. Transnational
exploitative relations between developed and developing
advocacy networks, consisting of certain states, IGOs, and

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NGOs, were significant in leading to the development of the This system evolved over the course of two world wars and the
international ban on land mines, the program of action against development of the Cold War into a bipolar system of the Western
illicit trade in small arms, and the International Criminal Court. (capitalist and democratic) and Eastern (communist and
authoritarian) blocs, each organized in military alliances, NATO
Finally, terrorist networks such as Al-Qaeda have come to be
and the Warsaw Pact. The hierarchical structure of the two blocs,
regarded as significant forces in the world system, beginning with
led by the US and the USSR, each with nuclear weapons thought
the bombing of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam
to deter the other bloc from attack, is also thought by many to
in 1998, and especially with the 9/11 attacks on of the World
have provided stability within the blocs as well. At the end of the
Trade Center and the Pentagon. Terrorist networks, in order to
Cold War, offensive realist Mearsheimer argued that we would
avoid detection, are more likely to be structured in small cells,
soon miss this hierarchical set of structures backed by nuclear
with a looser central structure. While some groups employing
deterrence, as we would more likely see armed conflict without it.
terrorism were formed specifically to push for liberation of certain
territories, as originally with the Palestine Liberation Organization With the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union,
(PLO) and later Hamas, others have more diffuse aims and more and the decline of the Soviet bloc, it can be argued that the
global reach. The notion that one man's terrorist is another's international system is now characterized by a unilateral power
liberation fighter has meant that it has been difficult for states to structure dominated by the US. Some have even argued that
agree on a definition of terrorism that would allow the completion there is a US empire. Others note the relative decline of the
of a comprehensive treaty. economic power of the US, and the rise of other states such as
China and India, and regional organizations, especially the EU,
While new actors have been recognized in international relations,
but also other regional free-trade areas and organizations such as
the structure of the system itself has also changed over time.
ASEAN, the Organization of American States (OAS), and the
While many theorists regard the international system as
African Union (AU), and conclude that the system is in fact
anarchical, in that it has no formal government, there have in fact
becoming more multilateral.
been various structures that have governed the system. Until
World War I, the system was generally considered to be a Arguments over the power structure of the system rest to some
balance-of-power system, with Britain shifting its power so that degree on definitions of power. Those who argue that we have a
neither continental European alliance could overpower the other. unilateral system tend to emphasize the overwhelming military

453
power of the US, while others emphasize economic power. (1832). Each expressed concern with the acquisition and
Joseph Nye and others have emphasized “soft power” or the preservation of state power that continues to characterize those
power of diplomacy, and cultural and other factors. If one takes who identify themselves as realists. Machiavelli urged those who
into account all of the various possible measures of power, it is govern to protect their own power. Hobbes believed human
more difficult to see the system as unilateral. beings were greedy and self-interested, and that life was a war of
all against all, and thus nasty, brutish, and short. He urged the
Theoretical Perspectives in International Relations
creation of Leviathan, all-powerful government, as the solution.
Traditionally, the main competing theoretical perspectives in Clausewitz, defining war as “an act of violence intended to
international relations have been the meta-theoretical approaches compel our opponent to fulfill our will,” argued that war was the
known as realism and liberalism, but radical and critical continuation of politics by other means. Clausewitz, however, also
perspectives on international relations have always existed along reminded us that war is a messy business, that armies in real war
with those. Over the course of time, the two main sets of theories get mired in mud, and that there is thus a big difference between
evolved to become known as neorealism and neoliberalism. real and ideal war.
Among radical theories have been a variety of theories known as
Among the forerunners of liberalism, or idealism (as it was more
critical theories, including Marxism and neo-Marxism,
often termed in the period between World Wars I and II), were
dependency theory, world systems theory, feminism, and
Immanuel Kant's Perpetual peace (1795), and William Penn's
postmodernism or post-structuralism. Finally, constructivism,
proposals in the late 1600s for international law and government.
which emphasizes the role of changing norms and the changing
Kant's thesis that democratic governments associated in a
construction of identities, and which some consider to be a spin-
republic would bring about peace became the foundation of one
off from liberal thinking, has become an important theoretical
of today's major theoretical research areas in international
perspective.
relations, that of democratic peace theory. Hugo Grotius, who
Among the forerunners of realist thinking were authored The law of war and peace (1625), is widely regarded as
Thucydides'‘Melian dialogue’ from his fifth-century History of the the father of international law. Woodrow Wilson, in his address to
Peleponnesian war, Machiavelli's Prince (1513), Thomas Congress in April 1917, argued that the world needed to be made
Hobbes'On the natural condition of mankind, as concerning their safe for democracy. In 1918, among his Fourteen Points were the
felicity and misery (1651), and Karl von Clausewitz's On war
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notion of open covenants openly arrived at and the creation of a common good. Neoliberal institutionalists, beginning with the
general association of nations. functionalist integration theory of Mitrany and moving through the
neo-functionalism that underlaid Monnet's plans for the
Realism became the dominant theory of international relations
development of the EU, now emphasize the importance of the
after World War II. Among the realists are Carr, Morgenthau, Aron,
role of multilateral international institutions and regimes.
Waltz, Gilpin, and Grieco. Hans Morgenthau, perhaps the
quintessential realist thinker, argued in 1948 that politics, Neorealism and neoliberalism are adaptations of traditional
especially international politics, is a struggle for power and that, realism and liberalism that bring them closer together. While
in an anarchical world, with no central government, each state will traditional realists and idealists tended to argue over whether
protect its survival with self-help methods, seeking a human beings were essentially evil and greedy, or good, with a
preponderant balance of power in its favor. Morgenthau concern for others, the neorealist versus neoliberal debate
enumerated eight elements of power geography, natural focuses more on the anarchical structure of the international
resources, industrial capacity, the state of military preparedness, system and its consequent impact on state behavior. Kenneth
population, national character, national morale, and the quality of Waltz's structural realism, the best-known neorealist theory,
diplomacy. Yet power can only be approximate, and the key suggests that it is the lack of central authority that leads states to
elements of power change over time and space and issue. behave as they do. Baldwin outlines the main differences in the
Deterrence theory rests in the theory of realism, yet sophisticated neorealist versus neoliberal debate. While both acknowledge that
deterrence theorists recognize that it is the perception of both the international system is to some degree anarchic, neorealists
capability and intention that deters, rather than capability alone, argue that anarchy limits cooperation more than neoliberals
and that such perceptions can only be estimated, rather than believe. For neorealists, cooperation is difficult; for neoliberals,
calculated. easier. Neorealists tend to place more emphasis on
states'concerns with relative gains over others, neoliberals on the
Traditional liberal thinking stressed both democratic and
pursuit of absolute gains. Neorealists tend to study security and
economic ideals, placing emphasis on the development of both
to believe security is a more important goal of states, while
democracy and a market economy and free trade, based in Adam
neoliberals emphasize economics. In terms of analysis of power,
Smith's laissez-faire theory that if each pursued his own interest,
neorealists focus on capabilities, neoliberals on intentions. Finally,
the invisible hand of the market would transform this into the
while neorealists see international institutions and regimes as

455
insignificant, neoliberals, particularly neoliberal institutionalists, to buy into the security system underlying the UN, and the
see them as significant. Steven Lamy, in his ‘Contemporary economic system exemplified by the IBRD, IMF, and GATT.
mainstream approaches: neo-realism and neo-liberalism’ in the
Baylis and Smith text, provides more detail on the wide variations
among neorealist and neoliberal thinkers.

Foremost among early radical theorists was V. I. Lenin, who

extended Karl Marx's theories on capitalism and communism as
he wrote Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism (1916).
Dependency theory, which was nurtured in the Economic
Commission for Latin America, was a later version of neo-
Marxism, arguing that dependency of the less-developed states
on the more developed in the capitalist international system was
causing their under-development, and that they needed to de-link
themselves from that system. Since the system controlled world
markets, independence eventually proved impossible.
Wallerstein's world systems theory advanced similar arguments,
arguing that the world economy consists of a core (largely
democratic, high-wage, industrialized countries) which utilizes its
power to redistribute resources from the periphery (largely
nondemocratic, low-wage, raw material exporting countries). Robert Cox reminds us that “Theory is always for some one, and
Gaining expanded on this by arguing that there exists a core and for some purpose.” Cox makes the point that both neorealism
periphery in each country, as well as in the world system. and neoliberalism are both status quo ‘problem-solving’
Gramsci's work on hegemony argues that hegemony is not orientations which legitimate injustice in the international system,
simply domination, but a mixture of coercive power and consent. as opposed to critical theory, which questions the status quo and
For example, one might argue that the US role immediately after works for change. Critical theory is more often associated with
World War II was hegemonic in the sense that it got other states the work of the Frankfort School, which has focused more on the

456
role of culture and on a reconceptualization of emancipation, professional diplomats. Presaging the rise of critical theory and
including a reconciliation with nature. Habermas, probably the post-behavioralism almost half a century later, Carr spoke of the
most influential of the Frankfurt School, stressed the centrality of inextricable linkage of purpose and analysis, and the impossibility
communication and of participatory democracy. For a while after of separating the role of the investigator from that of the
the end of the Cold War, critical theory and neo-Marxist theories practitioner of politics. He argued that purpose - especially the
fell out of favor in international relations, often dropping out of specific purpose of preventing war - was the initiator of the study
textbooks altogether, but the increasing inequality of the world of international politics, and that purpose remained, along with
economic and political system today has brought back serious observation and analysis, as a necessary element of a mature
theoretical concerns based on more radical theorizing. science.

History of the Field of Study French scholar Raymond Aron argued that the study of
international relations, defined as the relations among nations or
Political science, in some sense, can be regarded as having political collectivities that are territorially organized, was a
begun with the work of Plato in Greece and Confucius in China in peculiarly American form of study, and that international relations
the fourth and fifth centuries BC. International relations, in reality could not be separated from other social phenomena.
understood in the broader sense as the relationships between He argued that the focus on international relations was actually
independent units, has always been a part of that study. However, interstate relations, symbolized by the actions of the diplomat and
international relations as a separate field of study is generally the soldier who represent the state in peace and war. His
understood as having begun in the United States in the early argument that international relations could not “rigorously
twentieth century. separate inter-state relations from inter-individual relations
involving several political units” presaged the distinction
British scholar E. H. Carr, writing in 1939 The twenty years'crisis
otherwise not clearly made until the 1970s between international
1919–1939, spoke of the debate between what were then called
and transnational relations. Yet he simultaneously argued that an
idealists and realists in the growth of the science of international
essential difference remained between internal and foreign
relations. He argued that international relations as a field came
policies, based on the notion that states internally “reserve the
about as a result of democratization and of the popular demand
monopoly on violence to those wielding legitimate authority”
to overcome the secrecy of international politics as practiced by
while states, not having emerged from the (Hobbesian) state of

457
nature, exhibit foreign policies accepting “the plurality of centers as US foreign policy establishment oriented. World Politics
of armed force.” Aron argued that historical and sociological followed in 1948, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, which has
analysis was a more appropriate method of studying international bridged the fields of peace research and international relations, in
relations than the formal rationalism that seemed to be the basis 1957, and the International Studies Quarterly, more oriented to
of this new American field. He also argued that the realist-idealist work employing quantitative and behavioral methodologies, in
distinction made by American international relations scholars, 1962.
who particularly saw the old Europe as realist and the United
The International Studies Association (ISA) is probably the most
States as idealist, simply made no sense, as all states ultimately
important international organization of scholars in the field of
followed realist principles in a system in which each was
international relations. Created in 1959, ISA has sections on
responsible for its own survival.
virtually all of the subfields of international relations, five journals,
In terms of the development of the infrastructure of the new field, including its flagship journal International Studies Quarterly, and
research institutions came first, with the foundation of the holds an annual meeting that, while still including predominantly
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1910, the Council Americans and political scientists, attracts international relations
for Ethics in International Affairs in 1914, the Hoover Institution on scholars from around the world. ISA cooperates with 57
War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University in 1918, and international studies associations in over 30 countries. Other
the Council on Foreign Relations in 1921. The first university scholarly organizations include the British International Studies
department of international relations appears to have been the Association, sections of the European Consortium for Political
Department of International Politics, at University College of Research, and sections of professional organizations in many of
Wales at Aberystwyth in 1919. It was followed by the School of the social science disciplines.
International and Public Affairs at Columbia University in 1946
The Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs
and the School of International Studies at jawaharlal Nehru
lists as members institutes in 19 schools from the United States
University in 1947.
(American University, Columbia, Duke, George Washington,
Journals in the field proliferated with the advent of research and Georgetown, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Princeton, Syracuse, Tufts,
educational institutions. The Council on Foreign Relations began University of California, San Diego, the Universities of Denver,
Foreign Affairs in September 1922, a journal which has been seen Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Pittsburgh, Southern California,

458
Washington, and Yale), and 11 outside the US, as well as 21 Nye's introduction of the concept of transnational relations as the
affiliates. While the institutes focus on the theory, as well as interaction of all entities, at least one of which is not a state or an
practice of international relations, they place a particular agent of a state, across state boundaries, the conceptualization
emphasis on producing professionals who will practice in the field of international relations has broadened. Some may still consider
of international relations, either as diplomats or in international the relevant distinction to be between the international politics of
business or NGOs. state-to-state relations and the transnational relations of other
entities across state borders, but in actual usage the terms have
Chief among the best-selling textbooks in international relations
become blurred. Even within political science the term politics
today are, at the graduate and advanced undergraduate level,
has broadened beyond a sole focus on government and the state
Baylis and Smith's Globalizataion of world politics, and at the
to a focus on the political or power relations in all entities, ranging
undergraduate level, Goldstein's International relations, by 2005
from the family to university departments, to NGOs, and the
in its 7th edition authored by Goldstein and Pevehouse. Both offer
media as well. Today the blurring of the lines between domestic
comprehensive introductions to the theory and practice of the
and international politics has meant that the study of international
field, although in both cases there is little emphasis on human
relations itself has broadened, examining the relations between
rights.
the two-level games of international and domestic politics (as per
A debate continues as to whether international relations is a Putnam's work), and the two areas of transnational and
subfield of political science, or whether the international parts of international relations. The terms global politics and world politics
the social science disciplines, such as political science, sociology, are often used to replace the term international relations,
anthropology, are subfields of the interdisciplinary field of indicating movement away from the traditional state-based
international relations. In institutional terms, international relations analysis. Strangely enough, though, the terms global relations
is studied in both of those contexts. International politics has and world relations seem not to be used at all.
generally been seen as that part of international relations that
Conclusions: Evolving Issues in International
focuses on interstate relations, while international relations
encompasses the broader relations between all entities, including Relations
individuals, nongovernmental and business organizations, across
The study and the practice of international relations, or global or
the boundaries of sovereign states. Particularly after Keohane and
world politics, continues, then, to focus around both conflict and
459
cooperation. Carr has argued that the fundamental problem of recognized only states. The growth of MNCs, on the one hand,
political change is “the compromise between power and morality” and NGOs, on the other hand, has forced the field to reconsider
and that the difference in the way this plays out in the domestic its understanding of the relationship of the state system to global
and international realms is due to the lack of organization in the civil society. As the structure of the system continues to change,
international sphere. He argues that change is inevitable and that with increasing globalization and shifts in power as successive
thus “the defence of the status quo is not a policy which can be waves of countries develop economic and military power, the
highly successful.” Ignoring either power or morality is thus theories of the field have adapted to these changes.
unrealistic.
As the system changes, the question of global governance has
Sovereign equality, as embodied in the Westphalian order, in come to occupy a central place in international relations. As
international law and most forms of international organization, states emphasize the rule of law and good governance, and some
may no longer be adequate in the face of challenges from both begin to cede powers to larger integrative efforts, while others
those who argue that international politics should reflect the continue to utilize military force to advance their interests, the
international power structures and those who argue that the question of whether the role of military force is changing remains
continuously emerging framework of individual human rights front and center. The theoretical diversity in the study of
means that international structures should become increasingly international relations, strengthened now with the return of radical
democratic, based on one person one vote, rather than one state perspectives to join realism and liberalism, will continue to be a
one vote. A change of views in the centrality of states in the source of strength in examining these questions from the full
international system versus the role of individuals on the one range of vantage points.
hand, and complex interdependence among Western
industrialized states on the other hand, has led to a more
nuanced understanding of the relationships between the structure The previous section is provided by Lynn University’s
of the system and the behavior of the multiple actors in the use of Credo Reference.
system. The development of human rights perspectives and
human rights treaties, commissions, and courts, especially in
Europe, the Americas, and Africa, has increased the standing of
the individual in international law, a domain that formerly

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Section 3

Foreign policy analysis

Definitions non-state actors have increased their influence over foreign

policy so that human rights, for instance, have become a field in
Foreign policy in its traditional definition is the policy of a state which states and a network of national and transnational NGOs
towards external actors and especially other states. In contrast closely cooperate (and compete) with each other (Risse et al.
particularly to neorealism (→ Theory Concept: Realism and 1999b).
Neorealism), it therefore does not primarily look at the
None the less, the state remains at the heart of foreign policy.
international system as such but offers an ‘inside-out’
The focus on decision-making processes within the state is
perspective to understand the decision-making process within a
therefore still useful, even though one needs to take into account
state that produces policies directed beyond the state (→ levels
that the overall picture is a lot more complex.
of analysis).

This traditional definition has become more problematic over Theoretical perspectives
time, in particular in the light of (→) globalization and (→) regional
For classical realism (→ Theory Concept: Realism and
integration. On the one hand, this has made it more difficult to
Neorealism). foreign policy was a cornerstone in the study of
draw clear boundaries between what is to be counted as
international relations. In the words of Walter Lippmann (1943),
‘domestic’ and what is ‘foreign’. In the setting of the European
foreign policy was ‘the shield of the republic’. For realists, the
Union, for instance, many policy decisions are no longer taken
task and the art of the statesman were to guide the ‘ship’ of the
purely within the member states, but have direct effect across
state through the ‘rough sea’ of the international system so that
the whole of the Union. The EU has also added an additional
it was not conquered and life on board was well. Foreign policy
layer of foreign policy in that such policy is now conducted both
was to guard the predominantly geopolitically defined interests of
on the member state and on the EU levels. On the other hand,
the state and maintain the balance of power through masterful

461
diplomacy. The writings of the former United States Secretary of the significance of bureaucracies. On the one hand, he treats
State, Henry Kissinger (e.g. 1957, 1994), can be seen as these as machineries that operate on the basis of often unwritten
outstanding examples of this tradition, although his record in codes and rules, the so-called ‘standard operating procedures’,
office is more contested (e.g. Hitchens 2002). that allow them to make sense of events and respond within
known practices. On the other hand, the notion of a machinery is
When International Relations as a discipline became more and
misleading to the extent that there are also different interests, for
more interested in explanation on the level of the system (→
instance between different government departments such as
levels of analysis) in the 1960s and 1970s, foreign policy analysis
those concerned with foreign policy, trade and defence, which
increasingly developed as a separate subdiscipline with its own
lead to what is known as ‘bureaucratic politics’. Both aspects
discussions. These continued to be related to the debates in
undermine the rationality of the decision-making process.
International Relations as a whole, but developed their own
dynamic. For analysts of foreign policy, a focus on the properties The importance of Allison's work cannot be underestimated.
of the system to explain particular outcomes such as war was During the 1970s in particular, there followed a variety of attempts
insufficient. The task was to open up the ‘black box’ of the state to explain foreign policy through an inclusion of factors that
and see how foreign policy decisions were arrived at. constrain rationality. In addition to the workings of a bureaucracy,
scholars focused primarily on psychological and cognitive
One of the most influential works written during that period was
factors. Among the former, the effect of stress under heavy time
Graham Allison's Essence of Decision (1971). In explaining the
constraints plays a particularly important role, but also the
decisions by the United States and Soviet Union governments
question of personalities in interpersonal relationships among
during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the world to
policy-makers (e.g. de Rivera 1968; Kinder and Weiss 1978). It
the brink of the Third World War, Allison argued that the prevailing
was, however, the latter, cognitive factors that proved to be of
‘rational actor model’ to account for policy decisions was
particular importance not only for foreign policy analysis but also
insufficient to offer a convincing answer to the question of why
for the further development of the discipline as a whole.
such decisions are taken. He proposed two additional models
that analysts would have to consider: the ‘organizational The study of cognition tries to understand the way people think
behaviour model’ and the ‘government politics model’. Broadly and arrive at decisions. The main argument of cognitive
speaking, Allison alerted the discipline with these two models to approaches is that it is important to recognize that foreign policy

462
is ultimately made by individuals; that these individuals have to These attempts to include cognition in the analysis did however
understand events in specific ways before they can react to them; ultimately open the door to other approaches that came to the
and that they will have developed specific ways of thinking both fore from the 1980s onwards under the umbrella of constructivist
to make sense of events and to devise possible responses. Two and reflectivist approaches (→ Theory Concept: Social
projects pursuing such an approach have become particularly Constructivism; Theory Concept: Postmodernism and
famous. Robert Jervis (1976) argued that all events need to be Poststructuralism). On the one hand, the focus on cognition fed
‘perceived’ by policy-makers and that the analyst has the task to into attempts to explain foreign policy at least in part through the
distinguish between (correct) perceptions and ‘misperceptions’. A importance of ideas in the policy-making process. In the work of
group around Robert Axelrod (1976) developed the method of Goldstein and Keohane (1993), for instance, ideas are defined as
‘cognitive mapping’ through which they tried to distil from ‘beliefs held by individuals’ and therefore can be seen as
interviews, speeches and other texts the core concepts with cognitive concepts (→ Ideas and Norms). On the other hand, a
which a policy-maker works, and how they are interlinked in his or number of people from Axelrod's group later reflected on their
her thinking to lead to the assessment of the utility of possible work and argued that in fact, they had not really mapped a
policy actions. Similar concepts had been put forward earlier, for decision-maker's ‘inner thoughts’ but rather a (→) discourse in
instance by Ole Holsti (1962, ‘belief systems’) and Alexander which the decision-maker had been participating. To infer from
George (1967, ‘operational code’). this map that these were what the decision-maker actually
thought, would be an untenable assumption (Bonham et al. 1987).
A strong motivation behind such approaches was not only to
This led to studies of foreign policy from new angles, including
explain particular foreign policy decisions, but also to make them
more critical approaches that focused on the problematization of
better by highlighting the biases and blind spots within a policy-
core assumptions and practices within foreign policy discourses
maker's mind. Cognitive maps, for instance, could serve as an
rather than the explanation of individual policies (e.g. Campbell
instrument for self-reflection. Alas, in the end, the complexity of
1998), although the latter was still pursued even from discursive
such maps and the time therefore involved in drawing them
perspectives (e.g. Larsen 1997; Wæver 2002).
meant that their success in the world of practitioners remained
limited. Many foreign policy analysts nowadays combine different factors
in their explanation of foreign policies. One of the first to provide a
comprehensive matrix of variables influencing foreign policy
463
decision-making was James Rosenau (1967, 1980). Later, notions It was David Campbell (1998) who offered a more radical
such as that of a ‘foreign policy system’ (Clarke and White 1989) reformulation of the relationship between foreign policy and
also tried to integrate different approaches within a coherent national identity. For Campbell, national identity was no longer a
framework. The advantage of such overarching approaches is given as in classical realist thought. Instead, foreign policy served
that they intuitively make sense - it seems unlikely that actors act in part at least to construct such an identity through the
only according to rational criteria in a given situation or that they representation of an ‘other’ without which national identities (and
only give in to their feelings. However, there is a trade-off with identities in general) would be meaningless. Campbell saw the
parsimony, and many crucial insights in foreign policy analysis institutionalized, state-centred form of foreign policy analysis as
would not have been possible without the more radical part of a broader practice of foreign policy that was ‘foreign
approaches that emphasized one factor over others. policy’ to the extent that it represented something or a group of
people as ‘foreign’, as ‘alien’ to the nation, in other words, it
Empirical problems ‘made’ something ‘foreign’. This construction of the ‘foreign’ did
not have to be directed at other states or actors in the
An interesting empirical problem that also further illustrates the
international realm, but could also take place domestically, within
development of foreign policy analysis is the relationship of
the confines of state borders, in the representation of minorities
foreign policy and identity. In the classical realist account of
and other socially marginalized groups. Campbell's work provides
foreign policy, the identity of a nation (and that of others) was
a very different perspective on foreign policy that questions from
given and had to be defended through foreign policy. With the
a theoretical perspective the difference between the state and the
rise of cognitive and psychological approaches, authors such as
international that we already problematized in the introduction to
Kenneth Boulding (1959) stressed the role of national stereotypes
this entry.
in decision-making, and argued that images of one's own identity
and that of other nations often lead to misjudgements and
The previous section is provided by Lynn University’s
consequently misguided policies, and eventually possibly war.
use of Credo Reference.
Clearly, such images were important aspects of cognitive maps
and misperceptions. Following this argument, a great number of
scholars pursued the problem of the impact of ‘enemy images’ in
conflict and war.

464
Section 4

International relations theory

Theories of International Relations allow us to understand and try the theories concerned as they have been developed within the
to make sense of the world around us through various lenses, discipline of International Relations.
each of which represents a different theoretical perspective. In
order to consider this as a whole for beginners it is necessary to Traditional theories
simplify IR theory. This chapter does so by situating IR theory on
Theories are constantly emerging and competing with one
a three-part spectrum of traditional theories, middle-ground
another. For that reason it can be disorientating to learn about
theories and critical theories. Examples are used throughout to
theoretical approaches. As soon as you think you have found
help bring meaning and perspective to these positions. Readers
your feet with one approach, you realise there are many others.
are also encouraged to consult this book’s companion text,
Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientifi Revolutions (1962) set
International Relations Theory (2017), which expands greatly on
the stage for understanding how and why certain theories are
the subject matter of this chapter.
legitimised and widely accepted. He also identifi the process that
Before we get started, one very important note. You may notice takes place when theories are no longer relevant and new
that some of the theories you are introduced to here are referred theories emerge. For example, human beings were once
to by names that also occur in other disciplines. Sometimes this convinced the earth was fl and accepted this as fact. With the
can be confusing as, for example, realism in IR is not the same advancement of science and technology, humans discarded this
as realism in art. Similarly, you may hear the word ‘liberal’ being previously accepted belief. Once such a discovery takes place, a
used to describe someone’s personal views, but in IR liberalism ‘paradigm shift’ results and the former way of thinking is
means something quite distinct. To avoid any confusion, this replaced with a new one. Although changes in IR theory are not
note will serve as a caveat that in this chapter we only refer to as dramatic as the example above, there have been signifi
evolutions in the discipline. This is important to keep in mind

465
when we consider how theories of IR play a role in explaining the practice, US President Woodrow Wilson addressed his famous
world and how, based upon different time periods and our ‘Fourteen Points’ to the US Congress in January 1918 during the
personal contexts, one approach may speak to us more than fi year of the First World War. As he presented his ideas for a
another. Traditionally there have been two central theories of IR: rebuilt world beyond the war, the last of his points was to create a
liberalism and realism. Although they have come under great general association of nations, which became the League of
challenge from other theories, they remain central to the Nations. Dating back to 1920, the League of Nations was created
discipline. largely for the purpose of overseeing affairs between states and
implementing, as well as maintaining, international peace.
At its height, liberalism in IR was referred to as a ‘utopian’ theory
However, when the League collapsed due to the outbreak of the
and is still recognised as such to some degree today. Its
Second World War in 1939, its failure became diffi for liberals to
proponents view human beings as innately good and believe
comprehend, as events seemed to contradict their theories.
peace and harmony between nations is not only achievable, but
Therefore, despite the efforts of prominent liberal scholars and
desirable. Immanuel Kant developed the idea in the late
politicians such as Kant and Wilson, liberalism failed to retain a
eighteenth century that states that shared liberal values should
strong hold and a new theory emerged to explain the continuing
have no reason for going to war against one another. In Kant’s
presence of war. That theory became known as realism.
eyes, the more liberal states there were in the world, the more
peaceful it would become, since liberal states are ruled by their Realism gained momentum during the Second World War when it
citizens and citizens are rarely disposed to desire war. This is in appeared to offer a convincing account for how and why the
contrast to the rule of kings and other non-elected rulers who worst confl in known history originated after a period of supposed
frequently have selfi desires out of step with citizens. His ideas peace and optimism. Although it originated in named form in the
have resonated and continue to be developed by modern liberals, twentieth century, many realists have traced its origins in earlier
most notably in the democratic peace theory, which posits that writings. Indeed, realists have looked as far back as to the ancient
democracies do not go to war with each other, for the very world where they detected similar patterns of human behaviour
reasons Kant outlined. as those evident in our modern world. As its name suggests,
advocates of realism purport it refl the ‘reality’ of the world and
Further, liberals have faith in the idea that the permanent
more effectively accounts for change in international politics.
cessation of war is an attainable goal. Taking liberal ideas into
Thomas Hobbes is often mentioned in discussions of realism due

466
to his description of the brutality of life during the English Civil unavoidable and perpetual and so war is common and
War of 1642–1651. Hobbes described human beings as living in inherent to humankind. Hans Morgenthau, a prominent realist,
an orderless ‘state of nature’ that he perceived as a war of all is known for his famous statement ‘all politics is a struggle for
against all. To remedy this, he proposed that a ‘social contract’ power’ (Morgenthau 1948). This demonstrates the typical realist
was required between a ruler and the people of a state to view that politics is primarily about domination as opposed to
maintain relative order. Today, we take such ideas for granted as it cooperation between states. Here, it is useful to briefl recall the
is usually clear who rules our states. Each leader, or ‘sovereign’ (a idea of theories being lenses. Realists and liberals look at the very
monarch, or a parliament for example) sets the rules and same world. But when viewing that world through the realist lens,
establishes a system of punishments for those who break them. the world appears to be one of domination. The realist lens
We accept this in our respective states so that our lives can magnifi instances of war and confl and then uses those to
function with a sense of security and order. It may not be ideal, paint a certain picture of the world. Liberals, when looking at the
but it is better than a state of nature. As no such contract exists same world, adjust their lenses to blur out areas of domination
internationally and there is no sovereign in charge of the world, and instead bring areas of cooperation into focus. Then, they can
disorder and fear rules international relations. That is why war paint a slightly different picture of the same world.
seems more common than peace to realists, indeed they see
It is important to understand that there is no single liberal or
war as inevitable. When they examine history they see a world
realist theory. Scholars in the two groups rarely fully agree with
that may change in shape, but is always characterised by a
each other, even those who share the same approach. Each
system of what they call ‘international anarchy’ as the world has
scholar has a particular interpretation of the world, which includes
no sovereign to give it order.
ideas of peace, war and the role of the state in relation to
One central area that sets realism and liberalism apart is how they individuals. And, both realism and liberalism have been updated
view human nature. Realists do not typically believe that to more modern versions (neoliberalism and neorealism) that
human beings are inherently good, or have the potential for represent a shift in emphasis from their traditional roots.
good, as liberals do. Instead, they claim individuals act in their Nevertheless, these perspectives can still be grouped into theory
own self-interests. For realists, people are selfi and behave ‘families’ (or traditions). In your studies, you will need to unpack
according to their own needs without necessarily taking into the various differences but, for now, understanding the core
account the needs of others. Realists believe confl is

467
assumptions of each approach is the best way to get your agreements. In terms of liberalism, its proponents argue that
bearings. organisations are valuable in assisting states in formulating
decisions and helping to formalise cooperation that leads to
For example, if we think of the simple contrast of optimism and
peaceful outcomes. Realists on the other hand believe states
pessimism we can see a familial relationship in all branches of
partake in international organisations only when it is in their self-
realism and liberalism. Liberals share an optimistic view of IR,
interest to do so. Many scholars have begun to reject these
believing that world order can be improved, with peace and
traditional theories over the past several decades because of their
progress gradually replacing war. They may not agree on the
obsession with the state and the status quo.
details, but this optimistic view generally unites them. Conversely,
realists tend to dismiss optimism as a form of misplaced idealism The middle ground
and instead they arrive at a more pessimistic view. This is due to
their focus on the centrality of the state and its need for security The thinking of the English school is often viewed as a middle
and survival in an anarchical system where it can only truly rely on ground between liberal and realist theories. Its theory involves the
itself. As a result, realists reach an array of accounts that describe idea of a society of states existing at the international level.
IR as a system where war and confl is common and periods of Hedley Bull, one of the core fi of the English school, agreed
peace are merely times when states are preparing for future with the traditional theories that the international system was
conflict. anarchic. However, he insisted that this does not imply there are
no norms (expected behaviours), thus claiming there is a societal
Another point to keep in mind is that each of the overarching
aspect to international politics. In this sense, states form an
approaches in IR possesses a different perspective on the nature
‘Anarchical Society’ (Bull 1977) where a type of order does exist,
of the state. Both liberalism and realism consider the state to be
based on shared norms and behaviours. Due to its central
the dominant actor in IR, although liberalism does add a role for
premise, the English school is often characterised as having an
non-state actors such as international organisations.
international society approach to IR. This describes a world that
Nevertheless, within both theories states themselves are typically
is not quite realist and not quite liberal – but rather a world that
regarded as possessing ultimate power. This includes the
has elements of both.
capacity to enforce decisions, such as declaring war on another
nation, or conversely treaties that may bind states to certain

468
Constructivism is another theory commonly viewed as a middle the past and the emerging norms of the future. As such,
ground, but this time between mainstream theories and the constructivists seek to study this process.
critical theories that we will explore later. It also has some familial
links with the English school. Unlike scholars from other Critical theories
perspectives, constructivists highlight the importance of values
Critical approaches refer to a wide spectrum of theories that
and shared interests between individuals who interact on the
have been established in response to mainstream approaches in
global stage. Alexander Wendt, a prominent constructivist,
the fi mainly liberalism and realism. In a nutshell, critical theorists
described the relationship between agents (individuals) and
share one particular trait– they oppose commonly held
structures (such as the state) as one in which structures not only
assumptions in the fi of IR that have been central since its
constrain agents but also construct their identities and interests.
establishment. Thus, altered circumstances call for new
His famous phrase ‘anarchy is what states make of it’ (Wendt
approaches that are better suited to understand, as well as
1992) sums this up well. Another way to explain this, and to
question, the world we fi ourselves in. Critical theories are
explain the core of constructivism, is that the essence of
valuable because they identify positions that have typically been
international relations exists in the interactions between people.
ignored or overlooked within IR. They also provide a voice to
After all, states do not interact; it is agents of those states, such
individuals who have frequently been marginalised, particularly
as politicians and diplomats, who interact. As those interacting on
women and those from the Global South.
the world stage have accepted international anarchy as the defi
principle, it has become part of our reality. However, if anarchy is Marxism is a good place to start with critical theories. This
what we make of it, then different states can perceive anarchy approach is based upon the ideas of Karl Marx, who lived in the
differently and the qualities of anarchy can even change over nineteenth century at the height of the industrial revolution. The
time. International anarchy could even be replaced with a different term ‘Marxist’ refers to individuals who have adopted Marx’s
system if a critical mass of other individuals (and by proxy the views and believe that society is divided into two classes – the
states they represent) accepted the idea. To understand business class (the bourgeoisie) and the working class (the
constructivism is to understand that ideas, or ‘norms’ as they are proletariat). The proletariat are at the mercy of the bourgeoisie
often called, have power. IR is, then, a never-ending journey of who control their wages and therefore their standard of living.
change chronicling the accumulation of the accepted norms of Marx hoped for an eventual end to the class society and

469
overthrow of the bourgeoisie by the proletariat. Critical theorists challenges faced by people living within these regions as well as
who take a Marxist angle often argue that the internationalisation an acknowledgement of how their issues could be better
of the state as the standard operating principle of international addressed. Postcolonial scholars are, therefore, important
relations has led to ordinary people around the globe becoming contributors to the fi as they widen the focus of enquiry beyond
divided and alienated, instead of recognising what they all have in IR’s traditionally ‘Western’ mindset.
common as a global proletariat. For this to change, the legitimacy
Another theory that exposes the inequality inherent in
of the state must be questioned and ultimately dissolved. In that
international relations is feminism. Feminism entered the fi in the
sense, emancipation from the state in some form is often part of
1980s as part of the emerging critical movement. It focused on
the wider critical agenda.
explaining why so few women seemed to be in positions of power
Postcolonialism differs from Marxism by focusing on the and examining the implications of this on how global politics was
inequality between nations or regions, as opposed to classes. structured. You only need look at a visual of any meeting of world
The effects of colonialism are still felt in many regions of the world leaders to see how it appears to be a man’s world. Recognising
today as local populations continue to deal with the challenges this introduces a ‘gendered’ reading of IR, where we place an
created and left behind by the former colonial powers. issue such as gender as the prime object in focus. If it is a man’s
Postcolonialism’s origins can be traced to the Cold War period world, what does that mean? What exactly is masculinity as a
when much activity in international relations centred around gender and how has it imposed itself on international relations?
decolonisation and the ambition to undo the legacies of European As V. Spike Peterson (1992) argues, as long as gender remains
imperialism. This approach acknowledges that politics is not ‘invisible’ it may be unclear what ‘taking gender seriously’ means.
limited to one area or region and that it is vital to include the Once it is recognised that gender is essentially a social
voices of individuals from other parts of the world. Edward Said construction permeating all aspects of society, the challenges it
(1978) developed the prominent ‘Orientalist’ critique, describing presents can be better confronted in a way that benefi all
how the Middle East and Asia were inaccurately depicted in the individuals. Here, you might be beginning to see some overlaps –
West. As a result, more focus within the discipline was placed on with constructivism for example. We are doing our best to present
including the viewpoints of those from the Global South to ensure each approach separately so that you have a clearer starting
that Western scholars no longer spoke on their behalf. This point, but it is wise to caution you that IR theory is a dense and
created a deeper understanding of the political and social

470
complex web and not always clearly defi Keep this in mind as you theories would rather avoid. If you can shake the foundations of a
read on, and as your studies develop. structure, be that a word or an idea, you can move beyond it in
your thinking and become free of the power it has over you. This
The most controversial of the critical theories is poststructuralism.
approach introduces doubt to the reality we assume to share and
It is an approach that questions the very beliefs we have all come
exposes the often thin foundations that some commonly held
to know and feel as being ‘real’. Poststructuralism questions the
‘truths’ stand upon.
dominant narratives that have been widely accepted by
mainstream theories. For instance, liberals and realists both Theory in practice: examining the United Nations
accept the idea of the state and for the most part take it for
granted. Such assumptions are foundational ‘truths’ on which The United Nations (UN) is a highly respected international
those traditional theories rest – becoming ‘structures’ that they organisation created at the conclusion of the Second World War
build their account of reality around. So, although these two from the ashes of the League of Nations. Although it continues to
theoretical perspectives may differ in some respect in regards to exist, many doubt its claims to success. The United Nations
their overall worldviews, they share a general understanding of General Assembly is an organ that provides every country with a
the world. Neither theory seeks to challenge the existence of the seat at the table. However, the United Nations Security Council is
state. They simply count it as part of their reality. where power ultimately resides. The Security Council has ten
Poststructuralism seeks to question these commonly held elected non-permanent members, each with their own vote. More
assumptions of reality that are taken for granted, such as the importantly, the Security Council also contains fi permanent
state – but also more widely the nature of power. Jacques members – the United States, Russia, China, France and the
Derrida’s contribution in this area was in how he showed that you United Kingdom – reflect the victors of the Second World War
could deconstruct language to identify deeper, or alternative, who stood dominant in 1945 as the United Nations was created.
meanings behind texts. If you can deconstruct language (expose Any of those fi permanent members can, through the use of a
its hidden meanings and the power it has), then you can do the veto, stop any major resolution.
same with fundamental ideas that shape international relations –
The United Nations does not possess complete power over
such as the state. By introducing doubt over why the state exists
states. In other words, it has limited authority to interfere in
– and who it exists for – poststructuralists can ask questions
domestic concerns since one of its main purposes has generally
about central components of our political world that traditional

471
been to mediate diplomatically when issues between countries alternatives to war through trade and diplomacy (among other
arise. To better understand this last point, one can point to the things), which are staples of the liberal account of IR. On the
challenges faced by the UN’s peacekeepers, who comprise other hand, middle-ground theories such as constructivism focus
civilian, police and military personnel positioned in areas of confl on ideas and interests. As constructivists focus often on the
to create conditions for lasting peace. Irrespective of any actual interactions of elite individuals, they see large organisations like
desire to maintain peace in a certain area, peacekeepers are the United Nations as places where they can study the
typically only permitted to apply force in matters of self-defence. emergence of new norms and examine the activities of those who
This draws on the common (though not always accurate) are spreading new ideas.
description of the United Nations as ‘peacekeeper’ rather than
Realists, although they do not reject the United Nations
‘peacemaker’. For these reasons, among others, it is possible to
completely, argue that the world is anarchic and states will
argue that the United Nations as an organisation is merely
eventually resort to war despite the efforts of international
symbolic. At the same time, despite its limited ability to infl
organisations, which have little real authority. Generally, realists
heads of state or prevent violence, it is also possible to
believe that international organisations appear to be successful
argue that many nations have benefi from its work. Aside from
when they are working in the interests of powerful states. But, if
its mission to maintain peace and security, the United Nations is
that condition is reversed and an organisation becomes an
also committed to promoting sustainable development,
obstacle to national interests, then the equation may change. This
protecting human rights, upholding international law, and
line of enquiry is often used by realists to help explain why the
delivering humanitarian aid around the world.
League of Nations was unsuccessful
From a theoretical point of view, the effectiveness and utility of
– failing to allow for Germany and Japan’s expansionist desires in
the United Nations differs depending on which perspective we
the 1930s. A contemporary example would be the United States
choose to adopt. Liberals tend to have faith in the capacity of
invading Iraq in 2003 despite the Security Council declining to
international organisations, primarily the United Nations, along
authorise it. The United States simply ignored the United
with others organisations such as the International Monetary
Nations and went ahead, despite opposition. On the other hand,
Fund, the World Health Organization and the World Bank, to
liberals would argue that without the United Nations, international
uphold the framework of global governance. International
relations would likely be even more chaotic – devoid of a
organisations may not be perfect, but they help the world fi

472
respectable institution to oversee relations between states and Poststructuralists would seek to question the meanings behind
hold bad behaviour to account. A constructivist would look at the the role of the United Nations and the arbitrary power structure of
very same example and say that while it is true that the United the Security Council. They would also look at how key terms are
States ignored the United Nations and invaded Iraq, by doing so used by the United Nations and what they mean. For example,
it violated the standard practices of international relations. The examining the wording of concepts like ‘peacekeepers’ and
United States disregarded a ‘norm’ and even though there was ‘peacekeeping’ as opposed to ‘peace-making’ and ‘peace-
no direct punishment, its behaviour was irregular and so would enforcing’. Or similarly, ‘collective security’ versus ‘international
not be without consequence. Examining the difficulties the security’: poststructuralists would be sceptical as to whether
United States faced in its international relations following 2003 these terms really differ in meaning and would point to the power
gives considerable weight to the constructivist and liberal of language in advancing the agenda of the United Nations – or
viewpoints. perhaps that of the powerful states controlling it. Even the name
of the dominant organ of the United Nations – the ‘Security’
In contrast to liberals and constructivists, who value the United
Council – begs the question, security for whom? A critique here
Nations to an extent, critical theories offer different perspectives.
would point out that at its core, the United Nations is primarily
Marxists would argue that any international body, including the
concerned with facilitating the national security of powerful states
United Nations, works to promote the interests of the business
rather than human security. In instances like these, the tools that
class. After all, the United Nations is composed of (and was built
poststructuralism provides to deconstruct and analyse wording
by) states who are the chief protagonists in global capitalism –
have real value.
the very thing that Marxism is opposed to. Likewise, the United
Nations can be said to be dominated by imperial (or neo-imperial) Feminists would look to how those in positions of power, whether
powers. Imperialism, according to Marxist doctrine, is the highest politicians or those working for the United Nations such as offi
stage of capitalism. The United Nations, then, is not an and delegates, perpetuate a discourse of masculinity. Alternative
organisation that offers any hope of real emancipation for citizens. feminine perspectives are still not adequately recognised and
Even though it may appear humanitarian, these actions are those in decision-making positions of power continue to be
merely band-aids over a system of perpetual state-led disproportionately male. Many countries that make up the United
exploitation that the United Nations legitimises. Nations marginalise the feminine voice domestically and thus
perpetuate this at the international level. This is especially true of

473
states where women hold more traditional roles in society and are However, this is a good starting point for achieving an overall
therefore less likely to be considered suitable for what may be understanding of the fi and where the most common approaches
traditionally viewed as masculine roles, such as a delegate or are situated. Hopefully this has helped you consider your own
ambassador. theoretical inclination – or at least piqued your interest in
determining where you might stand. It is not necessary to adopt
Finally, postcolonialists would argue that the discourse
one theory as your own. But it is important to understand the
perpetuated by the United Nations is one based on cultural,
various theories as tools of analysis that you can apply in your
national or religious privilege. They would suggest, for instance,
studies. Using a theory to critique an issue, as this chapter did
that, as it has no African or Latin American permanent
with the United Nations, is to understand the reason why these
members, the Security Council fails to represent the current state
theories exist. Simply, they offer a means by which to attempt to
of the world. Postcolonialists would also point to the presence of
understand a complex world. As international relations has grown
former colonial powers on the Security Council and how their
in complexity, the family of theories that IR offers has grown in
ability to veto proposals put forward by other countries
number. Due to its complexity and diversity, it is common for
perpetuates a form of continued indirect colonial exploitation of
newcomers to have some differences in grasping IR theory, but
the Global South.
this chapter should give you the confict to get started.
Hopefully, this brief reading of the United Nations from these
varied perspectives has opened your eyes to the potential of IR
The previous section is provided by the University of
theory as an analytical tool. We have barely scratched the
Minnesota’s Open Textbook Library.
surface, but it should be clear why so many divergent views are
needed in IR and how, in a basic sense, they may be applied.

Conclusion

This chapter has surveyed the main approaches in IR theory, each

of which possesses a legitimate, yet different, view of the world. It
is important to note that the theories listed in this chapter are not
exhaustive and there are many more that could be examined.

474
Chapter 14

International
Case Studies

Learning objectives

After reading this chapter, students will be able to do the

following:

• Identify characteristics of several states.

• Apply comparative politics concepts and theories to

each state.

• Understand and critically think about international

relations and comparative politics in relation to states.

• Analyze current issues with each state.

Section 1

Brazil

476
477
The previous section is provided by Lynn University’s 478

use of Ebook Central Perpetual Titles.

Before moving on to the next reading, tap on this link to visit the terms of leadership, organization, and tactics, have taken place,
CIA’s World Factbook and read about Brazil. making it well-prepared to confront the Temer administration's
efforts to suppress mobilization.

Repression, it's not new

From hostile skepticism to strategic utilization:
In November of 2016, as part of what was called Operação
how the Brazilian landless movement learned from
Castra, police forces raided schools and training sites operated
repression to use legislation by the Brazilian MST (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem
Terra/Landless Workers Movement). Fourteen members were
This paper explores the evolution of the Landless Movement's
arrested for alleged illegal activities (Seabra & Boldrini, [31]).
practices with respect to legislation and public policy from the
Besides this overt act of repression, President Michel Temer –
1980s to the Temer government, which took power after Dilma
who assumed power after the impeachment and removal of Dilma
Rousseff was removed from the Presidency in 2016. The main
Rousseff earlier in the year – announced plans to privatize state-
argument is that the movement has learned over time, from
owned utilities, public lands, and airports, expressly defying
viewing government with hostile skepticism, to understanding its
widespread mobilizations in opposition to such initiatives. As
relationship with different administrations in terms of strategic
these developments manifest, the era of working with what could
utilization. Central to this argument is that instead of the
have been termed allied governments, namely, the center-left
government's use of repression contributing to demobilization, a
Partido do Trabalhadores (Workers' Party, or PT) administrations
variety of acts initially intended to suppress the movement
of Luiz Ignácio Lula da Silva (2002–2010) and Dilma Rousseff
subsequently provided the Landless Movement with knowledge
(2011–2016), has ended.
on institutions, policies, and laws. Such lessons contributed to
the movement's ability to address a variety of its internal For the Landless Movement, which includes the one million and a
weaknesses. How lessons have been acquired, as well as how half people who have been mobilized by the MST and a coalition
the movement has altered its approach with respect to the state, of rural and urban unions, movements, and religious
becomes apparent in subnational comparisons and in charting organizations, mobilizing within a hostile environment is not new.
developments in the movement's approach to federal legislation In its three-decade struggle for agrarian reform, the movement
over time. Actual changes in the movement, most notably in has periodically encountered efforts to quell its efforts. Well-
479
known instances include the encounter in 1981, during Brazil's addressing critical movement problems, chiefly in economic
period of military rule (1964–1985), at Encruzilhada Natalino development.
(Christmas Crossing) in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, as well as
I argue that the movement has changed over time with respect to
the massacre in the municipality of Eldorado das Carajás in 1997,
how it conceives of and engages law and public policy. The
when 19 landless activists were gunned down by police forces.
movement, which initially encountered government with hostile
Seminal studies on the movement document such episodes of
skepticism, has learned to strategically utilize some laws and
repression (Branford & Rocha, [ 2]; Fernandes, [16]; Wright &
policies to protect itself from repression and strengthen its
Wolford, [43]), whereas later scholarship tends to analyze the
internal organization. This evolution becomes apparent when
increase in movement interaction with the Brazilian state
charting the movement's development at both the subnational
concerning public policy (Carter, [ 7]; Pahnke, Tarlau, & Wolford,
and federal levels over time. Beyond Brazilian studies, the
[27]; Vergara-Camus, [39]; Wolford, [42]).
Landless Movement's ability to persist for multiple decades
One gap in the literature concerns how the Landless Movement makes it of interest to scholars of contentious politics generally,
has gained lessons from experiences of repression – when mainly with respect to how social movements can learn from and
authorities attempt to suppress mobilization, both in terms of adapt to hostile political environments.
using physical force and/or engaging in more covert actions. To
This article features data from semi-structured interviews,
document such dynamics, I turn to the concept of learning,
ethnographic fieldwork, and textual analysis. The interviews were
especially as it pertains to the movement's educational project.
conducted with movement leaders and members, as well as with
By educational project, I mean the network of schools and
allies, opponents, and governmental officials over the course of
informal sites where members receive training according to the
twenty months between 2009 and 2011. My interviews took place
movement's pedagogy, known as Educação do Campo
in the capital city of Brasilia, and at multiple places in the states
(Education of the Countryside). Even as the movement is active in
of Pernambuco, São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul, and Paraná. The
other areas such as health care, economic development, human
ethnographic section was conducted in primary, secondary, and
rights, and international relations, its educational initiatives are
post-secondary schools, informal movement training sites, and
noteworthy for understanding learning and adaptation due to the
production cooperatives in these states. My time at each site
expansion of the movement's activities in this area since the late
varied, from three days to one month. I participated in meetings,
1990s. In fact, efforts in education have become central in

480
worked alongside members, and co-habitated with students. words, when governments intend to suppress movements, the
These states are representative of the Landless Movement's latter lose.
practices. First, the schools host students from every state in
Critiques of this static conceptualization led scholars to conceive
Brazil.[ 1] Second, the economic and educational initiatives in
of repression in a dynamic way. McAdam's ([20]) classic study of
these states, in Rio Grande do Sul, especially, have become the
the US Civil Rights Movement detailed how the potential for state
model for the movement's efforts in general. I compliment the
repression impacted movement strategy, particularly how leaders
data from my fieldwork with textual analysis of legislation,
selected certain cities for mobilization. In Europe, Kriesi ([19])
newspaper articles, and movement documents that were
found that movements that endured repression developed
published between 1985 and 2016. I focus on 31 movement
stronger identities and at times radicalized their demands. Della
manuals (17 in education, 12 in production, 2 on general
Porta's ([11]) research shows how movements and police forces
movement trends) and analyze articles from the movement's
interact over time, provoking one another to escalate conflict.
principal publication for allies and members, the Jornal do Sem
Others note that state violence creates crises in authority that
Terra (Landless Journal).
becomes opportunities for later mobilization (Melucci, [23]), as
Integrating studies of repression and learning well as chances for movements to assess failure (Davenport,
[10]). One trend in social movement research has been to discern
The nature of repression and its effects on social movements
patterns of change over time.
have been researched for decades. Some have conceived of
repression in a mechanical or static manner. For instance, Research on the dynamic nature of repression and movement
McCarthy and Zald ([21]) consider it a constraint, which functions response has prompted scholars to exchange conceptual
as a 'cost' for movements. Tilly ([37]) finds that governments are parsimony for complexity. Earl ([14], [15]) has encouraged greater
more likely to harshly repress movements in their early stages theoretical and empirical sophistication concerning repression,
than after collective action has persisted. In terms of revolutionary noting how repression includes arrests, police and military
contention, Skocpol ([33]) sees a correlation between weak states violence, disappearances, imprisonment, infiltration, covert
that possess limited means to suppress and the ability for actors counterintelligence, restrictions of free speech and assembly, and
to seize power. Such research considers the use of state murder. In highlighting the complexity of repressive environments,
repression against movements in a zero-sum way, or in other one study on the Alter-globalization movement highlights how

481
increased monitoring, surveillance, and force led to Wang and Soule ([40]) document how tactics travel between
demobilization (Buttel & Gould, [ 3]). Boykoff ([ 1]), in embracing movement organizations that are within networks. Just as much
multiple practices within how to understand repression, theorized as movements learn how to engage authorities, they also learn
that the decline of US radical leftism was linked to governmental what does not work from their counterparts (Zielińska, Kowzan, &
efforts to infiltrate, stigmatize, divide, intimidate, cut resources, Prusinowska, [44]). Robles and Veltmeyer ([29]) note that when
and then co-opt. Repression, as these studies highlight, has the Brazilian Government cut public resources to disrupt the MST,
many dimensions. the movement increasingly relied on foreign non-profit
organizations, began to professionalize, and developed an
Implicit within studies of repression – and what needs further
increased willingness to work with certain governmental officials.
unpacking with respect to the state – are practices of learning
Based on his own experiences and research, from the anti-
within movements. Scholars have theorized learning in a variety
nuclear movement in the 1980s to WTO and alter-globalization
of ways. Fox ([17]) work on Mexican food policy illustrates how
protests in the 2000s, Choudry calls 'below the radar organizing'
states and social actors collaborate, mutually constituting one
the practices when activists produce knowledge and identities as
another in acquiring knowledge on public policy. Tarlau ([36]), who
they 'learn-by-doing' ([ 8], p. 9). An analogous understanding is
adapts Fox's work to Brazil, explains how rural movements
found in Caldart's work on the MST, who claims that the
successfully changed education policy when leaders and
movement is 'an educational principle' because its history of
government elites cooperated. Kilgore ([18]) equates learning with
struggle provides opportunities for knowledge acquisition
how movements form identities and understand those of their
(Caldart, [ 4], p. 323). Movements, for Chaudry and Caldart, are
opponents in conflict. Some work on the Brazilian MST, in a
knowledge producers that plan, act, and react to the conditions in
similar vein, notes the movement's efforts to disseminate an anti-
which they are embedded.
capitalist identity among its membership (Meek, [22]; Meurer &
David, [24]). Many of these studies acknowledge that movements Integrating the literatures on repression and learning allows us to
can acquire lessons by working through the state, and in the analyze the mutual constitutive nature of states and social
process, remain relatively autonomous. movements. Furthermore, bringing these literatures together
expands our theoretical understanding of how movements
The few attempts to directly incorporate studies of repression
mobilize through the state as they work towards their agenda.
with learning have noted organizational and tactical development.
This is most clearly seen in how state repression may initially

482
pose serious problems for movements, yet at a later time, may the administration's economic development plans. Ondetti's ([26])
potentially produce a variety of lessons that lead movements to historical study notes other, equally significant moments – the
adapt. Other studies have gestured at this understanding of government of Collor de Mello's (1990–1992) extensive use of
repression, yet have not made explicit the counterintuitive idea wire-taps and force and the Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC)
that repression can backfire, even benefitting a movement. What administration's (1994–2002) creation of legislative obstacles for
at one time imperils a movement, subsequently, can provide land redistribution – that contributed to periodic demobilization.
lessons and opportunities for movement persistence. In this
After surveying the many different experiences of repression,
regard, the Landless Movement provides a particularly illustrative
some questions arise: have the movement's tactics and mode of
case for deepening our knowledge concerning how social
engaging its opponents changed, or adapted, due to efforts to
movements learn from experiencing repression over time. With its
subdue its efforts? Also, has the movement acquired any kind of
three-decade long existence, and resilience in the face of a
knowledge concerning how to interact with actors who are hostile
variety of forms of repression, the MST and its allies offer a
to its interests? To answer these questions, we must first posit an
privileged perspective on how state attempts at suppression can
early moment in the movement's existence to chart change over
generate lessons for movements, and in some moments,
time. One such point is in the 1980s, when the Landless
strengthen them.
Movement demanded and mobilized for certain pieces of
Hostile skepticism: the landless movement's initial legislation, particularly the drafting of the 1985 Programma
interactions with legislation Nacional de Reforma Agrária (the National Program for Agrarian
Reform, or PNRA) and the 1988 Constitution.
Multiple studies of the Landless Movement highlight significant
episodes of repression. Even before activists decided to officially On 10 October 1985, Brazil's first post-military regime President,
call themselves the MST, Colonel Curió's failed attempt to bribe, José Sarney, issued the PNRA, a decree that declared the overall
divide, and coerce activists is considered a crucial moment in the governmental strategy with respect to land redistribution for the
movement's history (Carter, [ 6]; Wright & Wolford, [43]). Such following 15 years. Before and after its promulgation, the newly
encounters were not unusual during Brazil's military regime formed MST and its emerging cadres of allies were skeptical, and
(1964–1985), when the government, in the name of national even dismissive. Shortly before the decree was issued, the
security, strategically suppressed mobilizations that threatened movement reported in the Jornal Sem Terra how 'it is unjust that

483
certain interests, such as those in the Sociedade Rural Brasilero 46% of respondents believing that education was the first priority
(Brazilian Rural Society), are trying to block the PNRA ... they and 40% who thought income inequality was paramount (Silva,
stand in the way of perfecting democracy' (JST June, 1985). One [32]). Furthermore, the debates and discussions surrounding the
religious organization in the movement, the CNBB drafting of the Constitution had more legitimacy then the PNRA
(Conferência Nacional dos Bispos do Brasil/National Conference due to the participation of multiple political parties and
of Brazilian Bishops), stated that 'with or without the PNRA, the movements in the convention. The Landless Movement, in
movements should continue to mobilize to expand the reach of recognizing this, organized a petition that gained over a million
the PNRA. That is why we support that the movement's use of signatures in support of a Constitutional Amendment concerning
land occupations.' (JST October/November, 1985) The MST even agrarian reform that was drafted by member organizations and
published an entirely different, alternative list of articles for the allies.
PNRA in the article entitled 'How the PNRA Should Be' (October/
Even as this participation displays a certain kind of hope,
November, 1985). After the PNRA was issued, another story in the
analyzing movement texts from the time of the Constitution's
MST's principal publication entitled 'Six Months of Waiting, and
drafting reveals the prominence of a hostile, if not antagonistic,
only Deception' was followed with the statement 'PNRA or
attitude with respect to government, as well as a simplistic
PNRL? – National Program for Agrarian Reform, or National
understanding of how legislation operates. With respect to
Program for the Protection of Large Landowners?' (JST October/
various legislative provisions and the movement's latter
November, 1985). Shortly before, and then after the promulgation
approach, before the Constituent Assembly began in 1985,
of the PNRA, the MST and its allies routinely expressed their
leaders referenced clauses of the 1967 Constitution and the 1964
overall skepticism concerning the government's legislative
Rural Land Statute that claim that territory must serve a social
initiatives.
function (função social). Essentially, the clause stipulates that
The debates surrounding the 1988 Constitution were more critical owners who do not use their land, and/or who break certain laws,
for a variety of social movements when compared to the PNRA. are susceptible to governmental expropriation. The first edition of
Still, agrarian reform was not only the worry of a few rural actors – the movement's newsletter from 1981 comments that the
a survey conducted by the periodical, the Jornal do Brasil in 1987 government should redistribute land to carry out the
found that 38% of Brazilians considered agrarian reform the most Constitution's social function clause (JST, May 1981).
important issue for discussion in the Constituent Assembly, with

484
The desire to carry out the law is mixed with rejections of it and government as primarily an antagonist. Moreover, the
an overall skepticism. In 1987, the movement declared that 'only movement's stance concerning law was quite simple: the social
popular pressure can change the direction of the Constituent function clause was something to be enforced. When the
Assembly' (JST February/March 1987). Again, shortly after government displayed a lack of willingness to carry this out and
publishing this statement, in an article entitled 'Only Popular conduct expropriations, then the movement was quick to create
Pressure will Change the Constituent Assembly,' we find the its own, quasi-parallel proposals, revealing its more pervasive
proposal for an entirely different section for the Constitution hostile skepticism. The movement did participate with formal
detailing criteria for expropriation and redistribution (JST May authorities at certain moments, for instance, in proposing its
1987). Later, movement leaders comment that 'the assembly has amendment to the Constitution, yet the MST and its allies found
lost the autonomy and ability to represent the real needs of greater hope outside of institutions, minimally recognizing the
Brazilians,' (JST, June 1987) and that 'the government does not importance of legislation in the promotion of its agenda. The
carry out agrarian reform, and so we will' (JST, July 1987). The movement throughout the 1980s held a hostile view of law and
movement's skeptical attitude with respect to government is seen public policy, and remained skeptical of governmental efforts to
again, when months before the Constitution is even promulgated, address its demands.
activists emphasize that 'agrarian reform does not come about
From hostile skepticism to strategic utilization: learning in
through laws. Our petition with over a million signatures was not
even taken into consideration. This means one thing: this subnational experiences

Constitution is not ours' (JST May 1988). Just as the military The 1990s saw the Landless Movement's near annihilation, and
government protected landed interests in the name of national then growth that went beyond the expectations of its leaders.
security, the movement saw no need to believe that any post- One of the movement's founders, João Pedro Stédile, claims, 'we
military administration would willingly redistribute land. could have ended at that time. If he [Collor] had pressured us just

Analyzing the PNRA and the Constitution reveals how the a little more, we would have been destroyed.' (Stédile &

movement conceived of law and public policy in general. These Fernandes, [34], p. 105). Collor's impeachment and then

two pieces of legislation, the decree specifically oriented towards resignation in 1992 ended two years of constant repression. A

the movement's interests, and the other, a more wide-reaching few years after, two massacres of landless activists by police

document, reveal how the Landless Movement considered the forces occurred – the deaths of 16 people in the Rondonia in

485
1995 and 19 protestors in Eldorado das Carajás in 1996. Popular of activists and allies from all over Brazil for training on
sympathy for the movement grew after CNN covered the event mobilization and politics (Plummer, [28]). These states also boast
internationally and a sympathetic soap opera, O Rei do Gado, ran some of the most developed collective production operations,
in Brazil. As Ondetti ([25]) notes, the combination of popular namely COPAVI in Paraná and COOPAN in Rio Grande do Sul, as
sympathy and continued mobilization explains the movement's well as most of the movement's experiences with agroecological
'take-off' when the number of occupations and new members production.
increased exponentially.
Despite these similarities, movement actions in each state with
Analyzing developments at the subnational level, principally in the respect to legislation have differed significantly. In Paraná, MST
states of Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul, display how the leaders and State Secretary of Education officials created a series
movement learned and changed its approach to legislation in light of legally binding documents to promote, advance, and protect
of experiencing these instances of repression. At first glance, the the movement's educational initiatives – a starkly different
movement's activities in each state show many similarities. appreciation of legislation when compared to the 1980s. For
Original members in both states were displaced, small farmers – instance, in 2010, the Paranaense government issued pareceres
from large-scale public dams in Paraná and evictions from 117/10, 743/10, 1011/10, while the State Secretary of Education
Indigenous reserves in Rio Grande do Sul. The Landless formalized resoluções 3922/10 and 4783/10, and instruções
Movement has a long history in Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul, 27/2010 and 001/2010.[ 3] This flurry of legislative activity ranges
emerging in the late 1970s/early 1980s. Additionally, thousands of from formally recognizing the legitimacy of Education of the
movement members and allies have participated in educational Countryside in certain elementary schools (parecer 117/10) to
projects in these states (MST 1998, 2000, 2010). Paraná features listing the required classes that movement-affiliated teachers
four schools on movement settlements that have yearly must take to work in schools (instrução 027/10).
graduated dozens of members and allies since the 1990s.[ 2] At
Similar legislative work did not take place in Rio Grande do Sul.
ITERRA in Rio Grande do Sul, every course of Técnico em
While one parecer sanctioned the itinerant schools in 1996 in Rio
Administração de Cooperativas (Technician in Cooperative
Grande do Sul, concomitant resoluções and instruções did not
Administration or TAC) – which in 2015 was in its 15th course –
follow. After gaining initial legal approval, the movement then
usually graduates 30 students. The more formal aspect of these
banked on the government's Constituinte Escolar (Constituting
schools does not include how they also have hosted thousands

486
the School) program. Characteristic of Constituinte, the program Antônio Britto (1995–1999), of the centrist PMDB (Partido do
actively involved social actors in crafting school directives and Movimento Democrático Brasileiro/Brazilian Democratic
rules (Interview: Ex-CRE, Bagé-RS, 17 May 2011). At the time of Movement Party). Britto's support for the movement did not arise
its creation, Constituinte was heralded as a 'process of popular from some sense of social justice, but instead from the general
participation in the direction of public policies' and believed to be political climate throughout Brazil in the wake of the events at
a way 'to strengthen control over the state' (Constituinte Escolar, Eldorado das Carajás. Following his tenure, Olivia Dutra, with his
Secretary of Education 2000). Yet, while the program succeeded movement-supported Constituente Escolar, took over.
in creating numerous conferences and meetings for discussion, it
Policies begin to change with Dutra's successor, Germano
did not result in legislation. When the ally Dutra government
Rigotto (2003–2007), also of the PMDB, when he became the
(1999–2003) of the PT left power in 2002, Constituente Escolar
governor of Rio Grande do Sul in 2003. While interviewing MST
also came to an end.
members in Rio Grande do Sul, I was told that the Rigotto
So, why was the movement far more active in legislative activity government placed more reporting requirements on movement
in Paraná than in Rio Grande do Sul? Part of the answer concerns schools. Still, more extreme changes took place after the Rigotto
changing external, non-movement conditions. The experiences of administration. From 2007 to 2011, the Landless Movement faced
repression at Eldorado das Carajás created widespread public a concerted effort by the Ministerio Público (Public Prosecutor's
sympathy for the Landless Movement, which translated into Office or MP) to end the movement, repression from the state-
various favorable public policies in economic development, level government of PSDB (Partido da Social Democracia
agricultural extension, and education (Cardoso, [ 5]). As one MST Brasileira/the Party of Brazilian Social Democracy) Governor Yeda
leader in Rio Grande do Sul commented on this historical Crusius (2007–2011), and opposition from the State Secretary of
moment in the mid-1990s, 'we had been working on education Education. The Secretary of Education from the Crusius
for ten years to create schools with teachers and classrooms. The administration told me how she felt the MST was part of the
itinerant schools then began, they were legally approved, and for 'backward left' that is 'absolutely ideological ... really, out of this
the first few years we made frequent reports on our actions world' (Interview: Former Secretary of Education, RS 11 March
without any problems.' (Interview: MST Sector Education – RS, 9 2011). At this time, the MST's escolas itinerantes (itinerant
March 2011). The subnational, state-level government in place at schools), which are schools located in encampments where
the time of the itinerant school's creation was led by families await land title, were closed in Rio Grande do Sul when

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the MP issued a TAC – Termo de Ajustamento de Conduta member of the PMDB. Moreover, he had a reputation for favoring
(Conduct Readjustment Statement) – requiring that the State movement objectives and demands. As one official described,
Secretary of Education end its partnership with the MST.[ 4] The 'Requião was different. His government was like a united front,
Crusius government's willingness to use force against rural and with many parties and allies. And he made an agreement with
urban movements led to a federal investigation into its heavy- movements that if elected, he would carry out their
handed tactics (Rondon, [30]; Weissheimer, [41]). ideas' (Interview: Department of Diversity, Secretary of Education
– PR, 3August 2011). Among such movement ideas was
In Rio Grande do Sul, the MP especially was opposed to the MST
increased funding for education in rural areas, as well as
and its allies. One leading MP official described the movement as
enforcing a ban on exporting Genetically Modified Organisms
'terrorist,' employing tactics 'similar to those used by guerrillas in
(GMOs) from Paranaense ports. The administration appointed key
the Vietnam War,' and with children in schools 'never learning to
officials into state government who regularly met and negotiated
read or write anything but the name Karl Marx' (Interview: MP
with movement leaders over policy issues. The Requião
Official, 15 March 2011). The ministry sought to 'declare the MST
administration differed dramatically from the prior Lerner
illegal,' in the name of 'protecting children' from the movement's
government (1995–2002), which was known for violently
alleged 'disruption of public order,' and 'use of public resources
repressing social actors (Branford & Rocha, [ 2], pp. 148–170).
for criminal behavior' (Public Ministry, Act 1.116, 2007). Declaring
the movement illegal involved denouncing it as a terrorist External conditions, while crucial, provide a partial explanation for
organization, which sanctioned the arbitrary arrest and detention the differences in movement actions in the two states. Once
of members, the increased use of force during protests, and Requião was in power, in 2002 movement leaders from Paraná
creation of various spaces as 'off-limits' to mobilization (Scalabrin went to Rio Grande do Sul to learn how its counterpart interacted
2010). One MST leader in the state claimed that such acts of with public officials to establish schools in encampments. As I
repression led many activists to quit (Interview: MST State was told by one MST leader who was on that trip, 'we went to
Director RS, 3 April 2011). learn how the schools functioned, how they were organized. We
copied them. We also went with some people from the
In Paraná, external conditions were more favorable for the
government' (Interview: MST Education-PR, 31 July 2011). It was
movement during the same period. Roberto Requião served as
later, after repression unfolded in Rio Grande do Sul during the
governor from 2003 to 2011. Like Rigotto, Requião was a
Crusius administration, when movement leaders and government

488
officials in Paraná saw the need to protect their gains. First, in Diversity – PR, 12 August 2011). The cooperation that began in
2008, in the midst of government efforts to suppress the 2002 continued, and then expanded once the movement and
movement in Rio Grande do Sul, the MST published Escola certain officials saw repression unfold in Rio Grande do Sul. For
Itinerante do MST: História, Projeto, e Experiencias (the Itinerant this reason, it was in Paraná – and not in Rio Grande do Sul –
School of the MST: History, Project, and Experiences). As stated where cooperation between government officials and movement
in the document's opening, its 'principal objective' is to leaders led to a flurry of laws and regularly practiced routines.
'disseminate the experience of the movement's work in education
In comparing the experiences in the two states, we can observe
for reflection and to translate the history of MST schools for
that the cause for the movement's extensive legislative work in
experiences in other states' (MST 2008, pp. 6–7). As it was under
Paraná is not found solely in external conditions, but additionally
attack, the movement reacted by publishing reports to circulate
in how movement leaders and allies learned from the repression
for others to copy and imitate.
that unfolded in Rio Grande do Sul. The massacre at Eldorado
Another, even more significant reaction occurred with legislation. das Carajás sparked some legislative changes in each state, yet
When Requião announced that he would not seek reelection in in Rio Grande do Sul, the movement initially capitalized on this
2010, the movement faced a period of uncertainty. One ally who opportunity without extensively engaging in the legislative
worked in the state government mentioned how at this time he process. In Paraná, looking to its neighbor just to the south, led
made a concerted effort to discuss and formulate laws with movement leaders and government officials to reflect on what
Indigenous and Landless movement leaders (Interview: Ex- could be done to mitigate potential government repression. This
Departmento de Diversidade, Curitiba-PR, 20 August 2011). A spurred the movement to work through the state to advance its
former member of the MPA who became part of government agenda, acquiring knowledge from experiences of repression in
similarly mentioned how for fear of what took place in Rio Grande one state to protect its gains in another. The efforts to suppress
do Sul, the movement favored laws and created new routines. I the movement in Rio Grande do Sul triggered increased action
was told that 'by the last years of the government, the and mobilization in Paraná, making the movement stronger in the
government and the movement had learned. Things became face of potential future opponents. Instead of facing the
routine. Like, when we needed buses for events, and we had over government with hostile skepticism, the movement, particularly in
60 events in 2009 and 2010, the government would automatically the 1990s, began to recognize the possibility to utilize public
provide them' (Interview: Ex-Administrator, Department of policy and certain laws.

489
Unlike efforts in Paraná, movement efforts have been ineffective in 1997 the movement led a March to Brasilia to demand land
in São Paulo state. When I spoke with one activist in the Pontal redistribution, rural education, and economic development
de Paranapanema region, I was told that 'the materials in policies. After the March, the Encontro Nacional de Educadores
settlement schools are often printed and distributed by da Reforma Agrária (National Meeting for Educators in Agrarian
agribusiness, promoting the use of pesticides and so on. And the Reform, or ENERA) took place and featured movement members
director of education in the area, when he hears that we are with and allies who helped create PRONERA as a federal program.
a social movement, doesn't even want to talk or listen' (Interview: Beginning as one course in adult literacy, PRONERA has
MST Sector of Education – SP, 8 November 2011). This was increased to become over 25 courses in areas such as history,
corroborated in my interview with the director of pedagogy in the medicine, and cooperative management. PRONERA grants the
Pontal – where there are over on hundred schools on agrarian movement a great deal of leeway – government finances are
reform settlements – who had never heard of Education of the distributed to public and private host institutions, which Landless
Countryside (Interview: Secretary of Education, Instruction leaders and members then use to select professors and provide
Supervisor – SP, 21 November 2011). While in São Paulo state, pedagogical materials of their choosing. While the Landless
the MST has not succeeded in gaining resources or Movement has been concerned with education since its
acknowledgment for primary or secondary education. Research inception,[ 5] in Por uma Educação Basica do Campo (Towards a
on the failure in São Paulo highlights the role of governmental Primary Education of the Countryside), which was the manual
elites that block movement initiatives (Tarlau, [35]). Unlike published to disseminate the debates from the national
experiences in Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul, the movement has conference on education, we find the first noted use of the term
not managed to adapt lessons to campaigns in São Paulo. Educação do Campo (MST 1998, see also Tarlau, [36]).

Learning and strategic utilization at the federal level How PRONERA became part of INCRA (Instituto Nacional de
Colonização e Reforma Agrária/National Institute for Colonization
Also beginning in the mid-1990s, PRONERA (Programma
and Agrarian Reform) reveals the movement's strategic use of law
Nacional para Educação na Reforma Agrária/National Program
and public policy. As part of the federal government, INCRA is
for Education in Agrarian Reform) illustrates how the movement
principally in charge of overseeing land redistribution and
learned to work through the state, strategically utilizing legislation
managing the initial stages of rural settlement formation. Before
at the federal level. Following the events at Eldorado das Carajás,
PRONERA, the MEC (Ministério da Educação/Ministry of

490
Education), was principally in charge of education. This changed flow of federal funds to social movements. During the
after movement leaders successfully included rural education into investigations, funds that went to support movement education
INCRA's responsibilities. When I asked movement leaders why and economic development projects were cut. As a result,
they chose to work with INCRA, I was told, 'INCRA has a different movement leaders began to protect themselves by codifying their
nature [than MEC], it allows for public policies to develop that are educational project. Particularly relevant is Resolução 1 CNE/CEB
oriented for the countryside and that provide a place for social from 2002, which recognizes Education of the Countryside and
movements. In MEC, a policy gets institutionalized, gets framed that rural life requires a special form of education featuring social
in a certain way, and then we [the movement] movements. Commenting on the resolution, one movement
disappear' (Interview: MST Sector of Education – SP, 29 October leader emphasized that it is 'an instrument that the movement
2010). Another aspect of INCRA is that it has the reputation of uses to assert the right to education, as well as something that
being staffed by social justice-minded officials (Wolford, [42]). An gives people an increased sense of self-esteem (Interview: MST
additional quality of INCRA that the movement takes advantage Sector of Education – SP, 29 October 2010).' From 2002 to 2015,
of is, as one INCRA official mentioned, that it is a 'state within a 20 of Brazil's 26 states passed similar resolutions that recognize
state' that 'does too many things ... taking on 'responsibilities the legitimacy of Education of the Countryside.[ 6]
other institutions ought to' (Interview: INCRA Official, Brasilia, 1
The meaning of law as an 'instrument' is further clarified upon
February 2011). This latter feature, which may appear negative, is
analyzing two other legislative efforts – one during the Lula
beneficial because the combination of movement allies and an
administration and the other while Rousseff was in office.
imprecise internal division of labor allows the movement to utilize
Concerning the former government, decree 7352 made
INCRA. Thus, when PRONERA was created in the aftermath of
PRONERA an official public policy (política pública) in 2010.
the massacre at Eldorado das Carajás, the movement pressured
When I asked movement leaders in Brasilia why they pressured
authorities to have INCRA – and not MEC – oversee its execution.
Lula to issue the decree, I was told that it functions as a 'legal
This strategic utilization of INCRA did not occur without attempts impediment in case someone challenges [the movement's
to suppress the movement's objectives. Shortly after the initiation actions]. Programs (programmas) do not have this kind of
of PRONERA, congressional inquiries (Comissões Parlamentares protection' (Interview: MST Sector of Education 2011). Even if
de Inquérito, or CPIs) were launched in 2002, 2008, and 2010. government authorities choose to defund PRONERA, they still
The CPIs began with the expressed purpose to investigate the must yearly debate it. As a program and not a public policy,

491
PRONERA could be ignored and cut without discussion in members and that were intentionally returned blank (Interview
government. Treating law as an instrument entails such a with INCRA official – PR, 1 August 2011). Similarly, I was told of
strategic approach – legislation functions as a barrier in case the lack of progress in settlements in São Paulo state, where only
future administrations attempt to oppose the Landless one settlement experience was referenced with respect to the
Movement's objectives. distribution of definitive titles (Interview with INCRA official – SP, 1
November 2011). One way that the government's attempts to
The second effort concerns agrarian reform settlements. Since
issue definitive titles has encountered obstacles is found in the
the 1980s, the movement has proposed that families who acquire
coordinated, informal acts whereby movement members stall
land should remain with usufruct (titulo de concessão) instead of
titling by not filling in the paperwork. Also, after repeated
definitive title (titulo de dominio). This contradicts the stipulation
meetings and negotiations with the governmental actors, the
within the Brazilian Constitution, which stated that upon receiving
movement succeeded in 2014 to remove the Constitutional
land, families should ultimately receive definitive title. Granting
provision on definitive title (MST 2014). Unlike the 1990s, the
definitive title allows members to rent and sell their land. The
movement has created legislative barriers and promoted informal
argument, according to the movement, is that the government
practices among its membership that function to block, or at least
should first provide extensive infrastructure investment before
complicate, efforts at breaking up settlements. In changing laws
definitive titles are even considered. Governmental actors,
and understanding their strategic utility, instead of viewing
especially since the 1990s, have promoted issuing definitive titles
government with hostile skepticism, the Landless Movement has
to limit their financial obligations. In line with this rationale, in
organized efforts to protect settlements by working through the
2016, medida provisória 759 was passed with the twin goals to
state.
force settled families to repay outstanding loans to the federal
government and privatize settlements through incentivizing Responding to repression, addressing weaknesses, and
individuals to sell their lots. accumulating forces

For years, definitive titles have been actively resisted by When Lula came to power in 2002, the Landless Movement was
movement leaders and members. When I asked one INCRA experiencing two opposing trends: on the one hand, an influx of
official on his ability to convince families to accept definitive titles, new members and allied groups after the two massacres in the
he pointed over his shoulder to boxes of titles sent to MST 1990s, which appeared positive, and on the other, a model of

492
economic development in crisis (Cristofoli, [ 9]; Diniz & Gilbert, The Landless Movement's educational project became central to
[13]). An assessment conducted by the movement on its the movement's attempts to address its weaknesses in economic
cooperatives had noted systematic mismanagement and development, while simultaneously facing its antagonists'
unsustainable levels of debt (MST 1999). Debt was in part due to changing modes of repression. The movement emphasized these
the structure of PROCERA (the Programa de Crédito Especial priorities in its acumulação das forças (accumulation of forces)
para a Reforma Agrária/Special Program for Agrarian Reform phase of resistance. In 2009, the MST issued two cadernos de
Credit). This credit program incentivized the formation of groups debate (notebooks for debate) to describe this phase. The first –
by dividing funding opportunities into tetos (ceilings) 1 and 2 (De os Desafios da Luta pela Reforma Agraria Popular e do MST
Souza, [12]). To receive Ceiling 2 resources, which were double (Challenges Facing the Struggle for Agrarian Reform and the
Ceiling 1 amounts, individuals had to request credit as a group. MST) – acknowledges how repression from large landowners and
Members called PROCERA 'easy money' because requirements the Brazilian government changed after 2002. 'The agents of
for obtaining credit were lax (Interview: COPERLAT Director, repression,' it is claimed, 'have begun to use other spaces and
former MST State Director – RS, 1 January 2011). Furthermore, at other facets of the state (MST 2009, 10).' Oppositional
various cooperatives in the 1980s and 1990s, families intended to governmental institutions identified include the MP and the
engage in the large-scale production of commodities like corn Tribunal das Contas da União (the Government Auditor, or TCU),
and soy, heavily investing in machinery and storage facilities. At as the use of CPIs is also considered by the movement a new
one cooperative, when I asked one member why they chose such technique to suppress mobilization. 'We must confront,' reads Os
a course of action, I was told that the goal was 'to be like the big Desafios, 'challenges to the building of political and economic
ones, you know, like the large landowners' (Fieldnotes: from forces in our settlements and encampments. It is understood that
COOPTAR, Near Pontão – RS, 5 April 2011). Also at this time, the struggle for agrarian reform today is a process of
members were encouraged to live and produce entirely accumulating forces' (MST 2009, 13).
communally. Yet, often with few resources and little training, as
Responding to the new forms of state repression, the movement
one leader remembered, 'when we came together to socialize
adapted in two ways. The first entails strengthening the
production, all we socialized was misery' (Interview: MST Sector
movement internally. Part of the rationale came from recognizing
of Production Paraná, 11 August 2011). Without adequate
that movement methods needed revision because of over-
training, debt accrued, production stalled, and members quit.
bureaucratization and the inability to surprise enemies. A second

493
notebook in the series, Para Debater os Desafios Internos do 2001). A subsequent description of the MST's professional
MST (Debating the MST's Internal Challenges), specifically training courses state that they 'help form militant technicians
documents internal problems, including over-centralization, a lack who are capable to influencing and organizing practical issues in
of creativity among the rank-and-file, excessive attention to settlements, as well as provide political and technical
economic matters, and the lack of learning, debate, and reflection assistance' (ITERRA 2008, 7). The CPIs and the endemic
(MST 2009, 14–18). Central to internal improvement means economic challenges propelled the movement to create a new
encouraging members to learn how to engage in self-critique and cadre of leaders who can meet practical, daily problems for
assessment. members.

The second adaptation addresses weaknesses the movement's One illustrative use of the militant technician is in offering
weaknesses in economic development. Specifically, this has led technical assistance concerning agroecology. Family-centered
to the promotion of new agricultural production techniques and a forms of production have always sat at the center of the struggle
new kind of leader, which is known as the técnico-militante for agrarian reform. Embracing agroecology continues these
(militant-technician). Creating the movement's leaders from its earlier practices. The difference is the planned attempt to
own ranks has long been a staple of the MST (Veltmeyer & Petras, confront problems on settlements and in economic production by
[38]). Since its formative years, dozens of Cadernos de Formação coordinating transitions to collective, labor-intensive
(Training Notebooks) have been produced and used to educate technologies, like permaculture, and away from mechanization
members on the reasons for demanding agrarian reform, how to and debt. Agroecology is integral to the ongoing effort to bring
organize meetings, and conduct land occupations. back into movement ranks those members who had disapproved
of past collectivization experiments on encampments and
While a continuation of past practices, the militant-technician
settlements (Interview: MST State Director – RS, 3 April 2011).
differs. For this kind of leader, the movement requires formal
Furthermore, every post-secondary Education of the Countryside
training in addition to commitment to the movement. In a
course – each of which receives PRONERA financing – features
description of the Instituto de Educação de Josue de Castro, or
courses on agroecology. At the MST's Escola Milton Santos,
IEJC's,[ 7] pedagogical project from 2001, the school's goals
(Milton Santos School) in the state of Paraná, I was told by one
include offering professional and high school education, training
student that in addition to receiving instruction about
militants to become technicians and work within the MST (MST
agroecology, these new leaders were 'learning how to work and

494
live collectively, with the idea to take this back to where we movements work through states: different kinds of repression,
live' (Interview: Nucleo Escola Milton Santos – Londrina, PR 6 which at one point sought to suppress the movement,
July 2011). The students were not only receiving technical subsequently, have propelled movement adaptation and even
training, but were also being prepared on how to promote the improvement. I reach this conclusion by integrating the social
movement's efforts to recoup disillusioned members. Such movement theories on learning and repression, drawing out the
activities are paid for with state financing, which the Landless latent theme that an additional way to conceive of how
Movement has acquired by strategically using legislation for its movements can work through state authority is by adapting in
own objectives. response to repression. My analysis of the Landless Movement's
evolution illustrates these points, namely in how the movement
The political and economic dimensions of the militant technician
evolved from viewing the government with hostile skepticism to
should not be underestimated. I was told that around 5% of
strategically utilizing laws and policies for the movement's
movement members nationally apply such production
benefit. Such changes are apparent at the subnational level, in
approaches (Interview: MST Sector of Production – PR, 11 July
comparing developments in Paraná, where the MST prompted
2011). If compared with the standard tally for movement
the creation of various laws, and in Rio Grande do Sul, where
membership – a million and a half people – then roughly over
legislative activity was minimal. Lessons also were gained at the
seventy thousand are involved in agroecology. While at first
federal level, in the movement's efforts to promote legislative
glance a small figure, analyzing the effort in relation to the
changes and work through certain institutions, and not others.
movement's overall goals reveals a sincere attempt at remedying
problems in the movement's economic development plans. Also, The Temer administration is decidedly opposed to the Landless
PRONERA resources are used in financing the training of militant Movement in terms of the government's willingness to use
technicians, showing how the movement is using public policy to repression and propose economic plans that run counter to the
improve its economic initiatives and train new leaders to engage movement's goals. Well-before Temer came to power, the
new opponents. movement took a series of steps to improve its internal
organization and address a variety of weaknesses, especially
What's next
since the 1990s. Unlike the early 1990s, when the movement was
In my theoretical and empirical analysis, I privilege a dynamic fledging, it has grown in terms of numbers and geographic reach.
approach to repression that offers a way reconceive how International, in addition to domestic, allies now support the

495
Landless Movement. The movement's past efforts to address
weaknesses have produced real effects, in terms of creating new
kinds of leadership and addressing economic problems. For
these reasons, the movement's adaptations provide the means
for it to persist despite governmental repression that may
continue into the foreseeable future.

The previous section is provided by Lynn University’s

use of Academic Search Ultimate.

496
Section 2

Germany

497
498
499
Tap on this link to visit the CIA’s World Factbook and read
about Germany.

The previous section is provided by Lynn University’s

use of Ebook Central Perpetual Titles.

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Section 3

India

501
502
The previous section is provided by Lynn University’s 503
use of Ebook Central Perpetual Titles.
Before moving on to the next reading, tap on this link to visit the citizenship on the part of marginalized communities. While the
CIA’s World Factbook and read about India. focus of the analysis will be on the processes that led up to
statehood, the conclusions offer some insights into why pro-poor
policy shifts at the national level in India have uneven regional
effects. Despite the change in national political regime in India
with the election of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance
Questioning Borders: Social Movements, Political in 2004, marginalized groups in India continue to experience the
state through the refractive lens of multiple regional political
Parties and the Creation of New States in India
histories.
As the world's largest multi-ethnic democracy, India has a federal
This article focuses on one part of the ever complex field of
constitution that is well-equipped with administrative devices that
popular politics and resistance. It examines how, why and with
offer apparent recognition and measures of self-governance to
what consequences some social movements in India have drawn
territorially concentrated ethnic groups. This article analyzes how
on regional identity frames in electoral politics and demanded
demands for political autonomy-or statehood-within the federal
political autonomy in the form of statehood within the federal
system have been used as a frame for social movement
system. Explanations for the creation of India's newest states,
mobilization. It focuses on the most recent states to have been
Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand in 2000, often draw
created in India: Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand, which
implicitly on the idea that state formation reflects the successful
came into being in 2000. These are the first states to have been
mobilization of identity frames by social movements, in the
created in India on a non-linguistic basis. Their creation has
context of a multi-ethnic federal system that provides institutional
triggered questions about whether the creation of more, smaller
recognition of the country's diversity. The dominant shorthand
states can improve political representation and help to make the
narrative about the formation of these new states can be
state more responsive to diverse needs in India. This article draws
summarized as the view that they were formed to better represent
attention to the processes which have brought borders into
tribal or hill-dwelling communities, whose interests had been
question, drawing social movements and political parties into
expressed by long-running regional social movements.
alignment about the idea of creating new states. It ultimately
Ramachandra Guha, for instance, expresses a commonly offered
looks at why the creation of states as a result of such processes
opinion when he states that: "Official acknowledgement of the
may not lead to more substantive forms of political and economic
504
history of adivasi suffering ... came through the creation ... of two demands for statehood. The first of the case study states,
states of the Union named Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh ... Also Jharkhand was formed from the southern districts of Bihar. These
formed was the state of Uttaranchal,1 from the hill districts of districts contain substantial deposits of minerals and large areas
Uttar Pradesh, likewise rich in natural resources and likewise of forest. The Tata steel plant established in 1908 in Jamshedpur
subject to exploitation by powerful external interests."2 in Jharkhand was the first of its kind in India. These districts are
Alternatively, TK Oommen makes a direct link between social also home to a once majority tribal population that today
movement mobilization and the achievement of statehood when accounts for approximately 26 percent of the state's population
he suggests that "faced with the irresistible force of mobilization (2001 census), but had been at the heart of a long-standing
the Jharkhand state was finally formed in the year 2000."3 demand for political autonomy in the region. Today, Jharkhand
has the second-highest level of rural poverty in the country.
The processes by which social movements come to foreground
Uttarakhand comprises the former hill districts and two
identity and in some cases link this to statehood are, however,
neighbouring plains districts of Uttar Pradesh, India's most
often quite opaque in the existing literature on social movements
populous state. Uttarakhand is also heavily forested. The hill
in India. This article submits that it is not the case that social
districts which were the epicentre of the statehood demand are
movements fall neatly into identity- or interestbased categories.
home to a predominantly upper-caste population, in contrast to
Instead, some movements are encouraged to foreground identity
the plains of Uttar Pradesh which, along with Bihar, saw the rise
claims as a result of the broader political context in which they
of new types of political parties specifically mobilizing lower
operate. A change in borders did not simply constitute an
castes in the 1990s. The population of Uttarakhand is
institutional attempt to redress the marginalization of certain
considerably less poor than Jharkhand and its parent state of
groups in the population through a "politics of recognition" that
Uttar Pradesh.4 Jharkhand and Uttarakhand were both home to
acknowledged the suffering of local communities. Instead, the
iconic "new social movements" formed in the 1970s, which raised
questioning of borders took place in the course of the processing
questions about the impact on local communities of new patterns
of social movement demands in local politics.
of development involving the exploitation of natural resources,
The discussion will be organized around a comparison of the and sought to assert the rights of local populations to land and
reasons that social movement activity in the two new states of livelihoods in the countryside. The third new state, Chhattisgarh
Jharkhand and Uttarakhand became increasingly concerned with formed from Madhya Pradesh, did not see a strong popular
movement for statehood, although it too is rich in natural
505
resources, and saw sustained social movement activity in the including political parties, trade unions and intellectuals on the
1970s. left, to represent issues affecting the marginalized.9 Furthermore,
as Rajni Kothari noted, the emergence of new movements was
This article builds on the increasing recognition of the porosity of
linked to a shift towards a more participatory vision of
the boundary between institutionalized and non-institutionalized
decentralized democracy and development, in which grassroots
politics, or between social movements, electoral politics and the
issues became the subject of political activism.10 Partly because
state.5 As Jack Goldstone argues, social movements in most of
their birth is linked to a crisis in the party system, social
the world have become an essential part of "normal politics." The
movements in India have tended to be analyzed separately from
"actors, fates and organisations" of social movements are often
political parties. In part, this reflects something of a disciplinary
closely intertwined with political parties: they are not simply
division of labour with political parties and social movements
"challengers" outside the polity, as the traditional image of social
analyzed in separate bodies of work. But social movements are
movements implied.6 Such an emphasis on the interconnections
also commonly seen as an alternative mode of enabling social
between movements and the political sphere builds on the work
change outside the party system, and social activists themselves
of Sidney Tarrow, which emphasizes the importance of the
have often sought to retain autonomy from party politics because
political context in which movements operate in determining their
of the fear of co-option.
strategy and ability to achieve their goals.7
Whatever the origins of social movements, however, the trajectory
A focus on such relationships is a departure from earlier
of social movement activity in India since the 1970s suggests a
conceptualizations of the new types of social movement that
symbiosis between the development of movements, the
emerged in India in the 1970s, including in the regions that
transformation of the Congress Party from the dominant party of
became new states. These were commonly described as "non-
Indian politics and the emergence of new political parties, many
party political formations," reflecting their emergence at a
of which have politicized new types of identity based on caste
moment of crisis in India's established political system.8 Many of
and/or region and taken up some of the issues raised by social
the "new social movements" raised critiques of prevailing
movements of the 1970s. Gradually, many non-party movements
processes of development in different regions of India. Authors
have moved into a degree of alignment with electoral politics.
such as Gail Omvedt and Smitu Kothari have argued that they
represented the failure of the established organs of opposition

506
Furthermore, broader changes within electoral politics reflect than others. Mary Katzenstein, Smitu Kothari and Uday Mehta
different modes of mobilization by marginalized communities. argue that identity-based movements (around caste, regional or
There is growing recognition of a wider range of political religious identities) have engaged more successfully with electoral
participation on the part of the poor in India, from higher levels of politics. By contrast, they suggest, movements concerned with
voting, to the ad hoc demonstrations and negotiations with the wider social or economic change, such as environmental or
state within the realm of what Partha Chatterjee, drawing on a women's movements, have been more confined to bureaucratic
Gramscian concept, defines as "political society."11 The success or judicial activism.14 In slight contrast, this article resists
of new forms of caste-based political party in some states of positing too sharp a distinction between identity- and interest-
northern India, especially Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, from the based movements. Rather, it seeks to examine why some social
1990s has altered spaces for participation and engagement with movements, or parts of such movements, have chosen to
the state. This has coincided with what Ajay Gudavarthy foreground claims based on regional identity at particular points
describes as a shift away from a "civil society versus the state" in time.
model of human rights activism, towards a "civil society versus
The discussion draws on archival research and field interviews
political society" model. Human rights organizations have begun
conducted as part of wider research into the politics of federal
to question the utility of an anti-state framework for rights
reorganization in India. The first section will show that the social
movements. More attention has been paid to some of the
movements that were formed in Jharkhand and Uttarakhand in
silences of earlier movements about issues of caste and gender,
the early 1970s were not primarily preoccupied with demands for
for instance, and there is increasing recognition of the alternative
statehood, and that a view of social movements as primarily
spaces of empowerment offered by democratic politics.12 The
challengers outside the party system is fairly accurate in this
poor may have little choice but to engage in the shorter-term,
period. The second section will argue that a focus on statehood in
transactional thickets of political society without the luxury of
both regions resulted from interactions between social
autonomy from politicians and political brokers, but there is also
movements, political parties and the state (in both coercive and
some optimism about the changing grounds for engagement with
accommodating guises) in the 1980s. As the government sought
the state in this space.13
to accommodate elements of the original social movements,
Nevertheless, it seems likely that the changing nature of political more radical actors within the movements began to foreground
space offers greater opportunities to certain types of movement demands for statehood. Furthermore the idea of statehood was

507
seized on by other political parties, in particular the Hindu Uttarakhand, social movement activists gradually became more
nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at a critical phase in its focused on demanding statehood. This was in contrast to
expansion as a national party. These developments are important Chhattisgarh, however, where statehood did not become a
because they challenge the idea that these states were the simple subject for strong popular mobilization. For this reason,
product of resistance by marginalized groups. An epilogue to the Jharkhand and Uttarakhand form the focus of this article.
paper will look beyond 2000 to ask whether the interactions
Land and Forest Struggles in Jharkhand in the 1970s
between social movements, political parties and the state in the
process of state formation have continued to shape the space for Jharkhand has a two-century-old history of resistance in tribal
a "politics of the marginalized" to the present. areas, and the demand for a tribal-dominated Jharkhand state
had been articulated by the Adivasi Mahasabha, led by Jaipal
Social Movements and the Idea of Statehood in the 1970s
Singh since 1938. This was reformed as the Jharkhand Party after
All three of the regions that became states in 2000 saw the independence. The "Greater Jharkhand" state demanded by
emergence of distinctive types of social movement in the early Jaipal Singh contained tribal-majority districts of Bihar, Madhya
1970s: Chipko, the people's forestry movement in the Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal.15 The party became the main
Uttarakhand hills; the trade union movement among miners, the elected opposition to Congress in Bihar in the 1950s, but
Chhattisgarh Mines Shramik Sangh; and the workerpeasantry declined in the late 1950s and especially after the party accepted
movement in Jharkhand led by the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha an invitation to merge with Congress in 1963. In the 1960s and
(JMM). These regions were all distinguished from the remainder of 1970s, a new, more radical phase of activism began that
their parent states by their distinctive ecology and concentration developed at arm's length from existing political parties. The
of natural resources. In all three cases, the issues raised by social demand for statehood was less central to the activities of these
movements related primarily to the role of the state in the new groups.
management of natural resources and the rights of local
The most prominent of the new social movements was the
communities to substantive economic inclusion. The movements
Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) which was formed in late 1972 by
of the early 1970s drew on the idea of statehood where it was
the Bengali Marxist trade unionist AK Roy, Santal tribal leader
useful to them but for none of them was it a primary
Shibu Soren and a Kurmi-Mahato leader Binod Bihari Mahato.
organizational device or motivating idea. In Jharkhand and
The JMM sought to unite protests of Scheduled Caste and
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Scheduled Tribe workers in the colliery sector in Dhanbad, with repressed forcefully, culminating in a series of deaths in shooting
movements of the peasantry occurring in the rural hinterland by police between 1978 and 1980.
around Dhanbad. Dhanbad and surrounding areas had not been
The JMM also demanded statehood, but this was not a primary
strongholds of the old, pro-statehood Jharkhand Party. The
tool of mobilization. Instead, the JMM sought to provide
background to the agitation in Dhanbad was stagnation across
leadership to existing protest movements. They also appealed to
the agrarian sector, the increasing transfer of land to industry and
a common identity of Jharkhandis as "workers" in both rural and
flouting of land alienation laws,16 plus migration into the region.
urban areas. The Marxist AK Roy argued that the Jharkhandi
Shibu Soren organized a dhan katti andolan ("cut down paddy"
"nation" was suffering from a situation of "internal colonialism,"
movement) in which groups of Santal adivasis as well as non-
exploited by outside interests.18 Thus, the idea of a Jharkhandi
tribal Kurmi- Mahatos organized as part of BB Mahato's Shivaji
nationality provided a useful frame to unite local agitations, but
Samaj and forcibly harvested paddy and reclaimed tribal land.17
social movement activity in Jharkhand in the 1970s was not
The dhan katti andolan and land reclamation movements reached
driven primarily by the urge for a separate state. As a
their climax in the harvests of 1974-1975. The JMM, and Shibu
correspondent for Economic and Political Weekly wrote, what
Soren in particular, developed a reputation for delivering summary
distinguished the "Jharkhand" movement of the 1970s from its
justice against landlords, moneylenders and "exploitative
earlier incarnations was its use of direct action more than its
outsiders," or dikus as they were known in local languages.
commitment to achieving a concrete state:
Later in the 1970s, the JMM again took a leadership role in
None of the organisations, not even the Jharkhand party, is in
protests against teak plantations in the forests of Singhbum in
great haste to get a separate state. The reason for the revival of
Chotanagpur. Alongside the agitations associated with the JMM,
the movement, according to Horo [then leader of the Jharkhand
a number of other regional protest movements began in this
Party], is to help the oppressed train themselves in mass
period. These included the activities of the Kisan Samitis of the
struggles. Shibu Soren, the general secretary of Jharkhand Mukti
far-left CPI (ML), sympathetic to the Naxalbari movement in
Morcha, has a similar view: "Even if Jharkhand does not come
neighbouring West Bengal. There were also protests against the
into being in my lifetime, why should I be bothered? Our first
displacement to be entailed by the construction of the Koel Karo
concern is to chase away the blood-suckers and help the people
dam and the Subarnarekha River multipurpose project. Some
lead a respectable, quiet and fraternal life." ...It is not that until
parts of these movements, particularly in the forests, were

509
Jharkhand is attained, the 'liberation' should be postponed; what repertoire on which the JMM could and did draw, but not the
they would do as the government, the organisations are doing driving force for their activities. This observation helps to break
meanwhile, by mass struggles. That is when...the current from a teleology that suggests that the creation of the new states
movement radically differs from Jaipal Singh's agitation. To sum in 2000 should be seen as the culmination of the longrunning
up, the current movement is basically for a political Jharkhand, agitations in the region. Statehood was not the necessary, or
and not for a territorial Jharkhand, though this aim is never to be primary focus of social movement activity in the 1970s.
lost sight of (emphasis added).19
The Chipko Movement: Keeping Statehood at Arm's Length
But in contrast to Chipko in Uttarakhand, which will be discussed
In Uttarakhand, the attitude of social movements in the region
in the next section, the JMM did have a strong repertoire of
towards the demand for statehood was quite different from the
demands for statehood on a cultural or ethnic basis to draw on.
1970s onwards. For a long time many social activists were
As Shibu Soren said during an interview: "At the beginning I told
outwardly hostile to the idea, seeing it as one that had been
the others that establishing the JMM wasn't enough-we have to
pushed by political parties from outside and not an appropriate
do something to unite the people. And the Jharkhand andolan is
response to the issues raised by social movements. The Chipko
very old so we should support it and we should demand a new
movement in Uttarakhand began a matter of months after the
state." He went on to suggest that a link to the Jharkhand
Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM). The movement started in
movement was something of an act of translation, a bridging
Chamoli district in Garhwal in early 1973 after the Forest
mechanism between the ideals of the JMM and the sphere of
Department allocated 300 ash trees to Symonds Company,
reference of the local people: "I used to tell Roy-ji (AK Roy) ... that
having previously refused to allocate trees to a cooperative set up
the people in Jharkhand understand the language of Birsa
to generate local employment by Chand Prasad Bhatt. Members
Munda, Tilka Manjhi, Sidhu and Kanhu Murmu and Shekh
of the cooperative began hugging trees to prevent them being
Bhikhari [leaders of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century revolts].
felled and the movement became known as Chipko (the Hindi
They don't understand the language of Lenin. People here have a
verb chipna means "to stick to"). A series of similar local
right to land, forest and water." 20
agitations followed in other parts of Garhwal and from 1974 in
Despite this the idea of statehood, per se, was not central to the Kumaon, the other region of the Uttarakhand Himalayas.
JMM's activities in the early 1970s. It was part of a broader

510
Chipko has been read as a series of local "peasant protests" that case for statehood soon after independence. After the Janata
reflected the moral political economy of peasant communities in Party formed governments in both Delhi and Uttar Pradesh from
regions which had been disturbed by the advent of commercial 1977 to 1980, Janata Party MP Trepan Singh Negi led a campaign
forestry.21 Authors such as Emma Mawdsley and Haripriya for statehood for the region and sought to reach out particularly
Rangan have argued, somewhat differently, that participation in to residents of Uttarakhand who were now living outside the hills.
the movement was motivated by concerns of people throughout It was at this time, with a Janata government at the centre that
the hills who relied for their livelihoods on similar economic was perceived to be sympathetic to regional movements more
activities including village-based agroforestry, and paid work in generally, that more concerted voices were raised in favour of
the hills and plains.22 Different groups, in more or less remote statehood within the region. A local newspaper editorial
regions, had common concerns which Mawdsley summarizes as summarized the rationale behind the emergent demand: "The
the growing sense "that the state's management of the forests problem is that the majority of the state [UP], moreover the
offered few dividends for the local people in this already country, are plains areas and when it comes to planning no close
economically marginalised area, and further that it was degrading attention is given to the fact that the hills have special needs."25
the ecological base upon which local people depended."23
In a bid to consolidate this kind of sentiment, and seeking to build
There were three major streams within the broader movement a movement in the hills rather than among Uttarakhandis resident
that became known as Chipko: one led by the "Gandhian," outside the region, a new regional party-the Uttarakhand Kranti
Sunderlal Bahugana in Garhwal, the second by Chandi Prasad Dal (UKD)-was established in 1979 with the sole agenda of
Bhatt, who was more influenced by socialism, and a third by the campaigning for statehood.
Uttarakhand Sangarsh Vahini (USV) in Kumaon, which was more
Activists in the broader movements, however, continued to keep
Marxist in orientation.24 None of these streams, despite their
a demand for statehood at arm's length, asking whether the
different ideological proclivities, found it useful to promote the
creation of a new state would do anything to alter the nature of
goal of statehood.
politics or the developmental environment in the hills. After a
Unlike Jharkhand, the demand for an Uttarakhand state before degree of openness to the idea of statehood in the late 1970s,
the 1970s had been primarily made by national political parties. articles in the Nainital Samachar, a newspaper sympathetic to
The leader of the Communist Party of India, PC Joshi, made a social movements in the region (especially the USV), began to

511
express hesitation about the idea of statehood. In 1979, one within the social movements in each region from 1980 onwards,
writer expressed doubts about what statehood could achieve: "by in light of the growing interventions of the central government. As
thinking about the idea of 'our state,' we build castles in the air in the central government from 1980 to 1984 responded to elements
our hearts."26 Writers frequently sought to distance the social of movement demands and sought to co-opt the mainstream of
movements from the demand for statehood. Some highlighted each movement, more radical elements came to foreground the
the fact that the demand was mostly raised at election time and idea of statehood.28 In both cases, however, local BJP politicians
was disproportionately backed by people who had left the hills to also began to demand statehood. Support for statehood by the
live in Delhi or Lucknow. "These Delhi-walas think that they are BJP locally began to weaken the connection between statehood
the contractors of the votes and trees of this region," wrote demands and the critique of the state and patterns of regional
Narendra Rautela.27 economic development that had been central to earlier local
struggles.
This section has highlighted the decision made by movement
leaders not to use a demand for political autonomy as a primary Jharkhand: Co-option, Electoral Competition and Statehood
frame for the struggles in Jharkhand and Uttarakhand in the in the 1980s
1970s. At this stage, the conception of social movements as
challengers outside formal politics holds fairly well. The next The first sign of the attempted co-option of social movements in

section will demonstrate how interactions between social Jharkhand was Shibu Soren's electoral pact with Congress. Indira

movements, political parties and the state brought a demand for Gandhi sought to lessen the challenge posed by the JMM in

statehood to centre stage, as the activities of social movements Jharkhand by drawing its less ideologically driven wing into

were met with responses within the formal political sphere. The electoral politics. Soren was apparently promised immunity from

processes of negotiation and selected co-option that ensued prosecution for his activities while "underground" during the

have influenced the longer-term nature of political inclusion in the Emergency in return for a seat-sharing arrangement with

emergent new regimes in these regions. Congress in elections in 1980.29 However, despite the JMM's
electoral success in 1980, when it won 11 seats, the pact was
From Social to Statehood Movements strongly opposed by more left-wing JMM leaders such as A.K.
Roy and Binod Bihari Mahato. The JMM formally split for the first
The push for statehood in both Jharkhand and Uttarakhand arose
as a result of increasing competition between different actors
512
time at the end of 1984, when Mahato formed a breakaway "real" economic blockades.32 After a series of strikes, the central
JMM, accusing Soren of having been bought by Congress.30 government offered to hold talks with Jharkhand leaders.

In June 1986, a new generation of activists in the Jharkhand The decision by the leaders of the AJSU and the JCC to connect
movement less connected to the older forest and land struggles more determinedly to historical discourses of place, territory and
set up a student wing of the JMM-the All Jharkhand Students identity in Jharkhand arose out of competition between social
Union-under the leadership of Surya Singh Besra, a Santal movement actors and opposition to attempts by the state to co-
adivasi student. Besra drew inspiration from the students' opt malleable leaders. It can also be seen as logical for a
movement in Assam, whose leader had recently become chief movement seeking to consolidate a base for collective action.
minister, travelling to Assam as well as to Gorkhaland to learn The most sustained struggles led by the JMM had been in the
from the more radical tactics used by activists there. The murder Santal Parganas, along with the forest movements in Singhbum,
of 37-year-old Nirmal Mahato, president of the JMM, in August Chotanagpur. Elsewhere in the Chotanagpur region, which had
1987 strengthened the resolve of Besra and his colleagues to been the main base for the older Jharkhand Party, the JMM did
push for statehood. 31 A month later, the Jharkhand Coordination not have such strong roots. As Stephen Marandi, a former JMM
Committee was also formed in a bid to strengthen the Jharkhand politician said, "We raised all these issues [land alienation, forest
movement by acting as an umbrella organization for different rights, etc.] but not in an organised way so we didn't get a good
groups and emphasizing the cultural unity of the Jharkhand response in the Chotanagpur region. But everyone supported the
region. The founders of the JCC also sought to sideline the more creation of Jharkhand."33
right-wing elements of the JMM, especially those who had moved
The idea of statehood had deep popular resonance as a result of
closer to Congress and were perceived to be less committed to
the much longer-term mobilizations by the Jharkhand Party.
pushing the demand for statehood. In 1980 Ram Dayal Munda
Extracts from focus-group discussions held in Jharkhand after
had returned to Jharkhand and became vice chancellor of Ranchi
the achievement of statehood exemplified the significance and
University, setting up a Centre for Tribal Languages and Literature
sophistication of local understandings of the idea of becoming a
which became the centre of Jharkhandi cultural revivalism. In
new state among adivasis:
1988 and 1989, AJSU and the JCC (sometimes acting in
harmony, sometimes independently) organized a number of mass [Focus Group Member 1] We knew that if we had a separate state
rallies demanding statehood and introduced a new tactic of everything would be ours. I remember that our elders told us that
513
we would be gifted with a state which would give prosperity who were often the "dikus" (exploitative outsiders) who had been
specifically to us adivasis. the targets of the earlier Jharkhand movements. It stepped up its
organization in Jharkhand in a period of uncertainty for the
[Focus Group Member 2] The need for a state that would belong
Jharkhand "movement," after the Jharkhand Party's 1963 merger
to us-the land owners in this part-was very important for me
with Congress. It hoped to counter the activities of the Church in
because somehow it was a question of my, as well as all my
tribal regions (which had been closely associated with the
adivasi brothers' and sisters' existence.
Jharkhand Party) and increasingly to mobilize the non-Christian
[Focus Group Member 3] Jharkhand: a piece of a promised land tribals, who constituted the majority of the tribal population, and
that we had been waiting for ever since we got freedom, the land to assimilate them into mainstream Hindu society.36
of Lord Birsa, the land of his beloved children-the adivasis. We
In the late 1970s under the Janata government in Bihar, Jana
don't want anyone's money, just respect, and this was it.34
Sangh politicians in Jharkhand began to discuss statehood. But it
Thus we should not see the shift to a focus on the goal of was really in the 1980s, in response to the emergence of the JMM
statehood among prominent social movement activists as a in electoral politics and the new agitational politics of AJSU and
betrayal of broader struggles around social and economic rights. the JCC, that the BJP adopted a determined focus on statehood.
Nevertheless, many other local activists consciously kept the The BJP's longer-term advocates of statehood for Jharkhand
campaign for statehood-both cultural and electoral-at arms' used the fact that the region's developmental needs differed from
length.35 the rest of Bihar to explain their support for the idea. Inder Singh
Namdhari, BJP state president between 1988 and 1990 and a
The forceful campaign for regional autonomy encouraged other pivotal player in getting the party nationally to officially support
political parties to join the statehood bandwagon. One major the demand for statehood in 1989, says that he got involved in
development of the late 1980s which was of critical importance in politics because of "an obsession that there should be a separate
building political momentum behind the demand for statehood state. If nature's resources were properly utilised or exploited
was the adoption of the demand as official BJP party policy. The then we could be the first state in the country. The resources here
Jana Sangh, forerunner to the BJP, had been building a base in are greater than any other state."37
Jharkhand from the late 1960s. Its original support was drawn
from non-tribal groups, especially trading and industrial elites,

514
Importantly, he also sensed that support for statehood would state of Jharkhand, also joined the party in 1998. The traditional
allow the BJP to compete better against the JMM. Namdhari support base of the BJP was among upper castes and non-tribals
proposed that the state be named Vananchal rather than in Jharkhand, but it increasingly reached out to non-Christian
Jharkhand, and that the new state should comprise only the tribals too in the 1990s. The party's support for statehood helped
districts of south Bihar, distinguishing the BJP's demand for a to break down notions of cultural or ethnic exclusivity associated
new state from the Greater Jharkhand of the historical Jharkhand with the demand. Some upper-caste villagers, for example,
movement. He underlined the fact that because the tribal reported that they had begun to welcome the idea of statehood
population was no longer in the majority in the region, it was during Lalu Prasad Yadav's anti-upper caste regime in Bihar, even
important for the movement to have a regional rather than "racial" though many were wary about a state that they felt was being
character.38 created primarily for adivasis. As one Rajput villager explained, "I
voted for the party which would give a new state as I was fed up
There were strong concerns among many activists about the role
of Lalu's atrocities. We just wished that his cruel name would be
of political parties in demanding statehood, especially about the
separate from our land." 40
extent to which the BJP should be offered instrumental support
as the party "most likely" to create a state. Was statehood to be The emergent consensus between civil society activists and
seen by Jharkhand activists as a good in and of itself? One focus political parties around the idea of statehood concealed
group participant expressed a commonly held view that fundamental conflicts and ambiguities surrounding the meaning
statehood was to be achieved as the outcome of a popular of statehood. What should be the borders of a new state? How
struggle, not through the ballot box: "I felt it would be a people's would a new state reorient itself to the needs and expectations of
movement that would create the state," he said. "I never really felt different communities? The contraction to just those districts that
a political party or a candidate could do this." Nevertheless, a fell into South Bihar perforce reduced the centrality of tribal
number of JMM politicians joined the BJP in this period, identity to the idea of Jharkhand because it did not take in
apparently inspired by its commitment to statehood. One former neighbouring regions with large tribal communities. The case for
JMM MP said that he joined the BJP in 1996 after falling out with statehood made by the BJP reflected a vision of a state which
the JMM leadership because he felt that the BJP was the most would support the expansion of industry and natural resource
likely party to create the state.39 Arjun Munda, a tribal politician extraction and help to absorb tribals into the economic
from the JMM and the BJP's second chief minister of the new mainstream, supported by their assimilation into Hinduism. This

515
stood in contrast to the movements of the 1970s which had more radical wing of the movement emerged in the All Jharkhand
grown from concern about exclusionary patterns of development Students Union (AJSU) and the Jharkhand Coordination
and dispossession. This tension at the heart of the growing Committee (JCC), which increasingly underscored the urgency of
consensus around the desirability of statehood led some of those the need for statehood. At the same time, local BJP workers
who had led the call for statehood in the 1980s to feel uneasy became convinced that the adoption of the statehood goal would
about the compromises involved in the state's formation. A improve their chances of competing against the JMM. The idea of
veteran activist who had been deeply involved with the JCC statehood arguably came from the "movement" but political
questioned the extent to which the BJP's eventual concession to parties played a key role in shaping the new electoral arena, in
use the name Jharkhand, rather than Vananchal, for the new state which support for statehood became the lowest common
represented a fundamental shift in their understanding of the denominator among groups competing for electoral space in the
demand for statehood. For him, there was no distinction between region.
a "territorial" and "political" Jharkhand. The simple achievement
Uttarakhand: Political Parties and Popular Mobilization
of a state in the name of Jharkhand was a matter for ambivalence
not celebration in and of itself: In Uttarakhand, the transmission of the idea of statehood largely
went the other way: from parties to movements. Despite a history
Freedom from exploitation would only be possible in a different
of protest movements in the hills of Uttarakhand, it was not until
type of state...The problem was one of protecting the political and
the mid-1990s that a movement focused on statehood could be
economic rights of the people in terms of the control of natural
said to have emerged. This happened after political parties raised
resources (jal, jungle and jamin): their 'usufructory' rights. First,
the call for statehood and the political context in Uttar Pradesh
you need autonomy in the form of a separate state, and then the
encouraged fresh mass mobilization in protest at the treatment of
larger goal is to build on this movement in the interests of the
the hills.
larger Indian population towards a socialist revolution.41
In 1980, after Indira Gandhi returned to power, a new Forest Act
In Jharkhand, then, a shift from social to statehood movement(s)
had been introduced which increased state control over forestry
took place in the 1980s after part of the JMM leadership led by
in the name of preventing deforestation. In 1981, in direct
Shibu Soren had been brought within the Congress' sphere of
response to Chipko, a 15-year moratorium on felling trees at over
influence and began to contest elections. In the later 1980s, a
1000 feet was implemented. The Chipko movement itself
516
declined from this point but a new wave of protest movement 1983.43 Like the UKD, local leaders of the BJP were concerned
began in the hills. Now protests occurred because there were about the implications of the 1980 Forest Act. Shoban Singh Jina,
incidents of the Forest Department continuing to fell trees while an elderly leader of the BJP, organized a meeting in Almora
such opportunities were closed to local industry. Furthermore, a district in 1984 to discuss the act. At the meeting, Jina argued
jungle katao andolan, a movement to cut down trees took place against the Forest Act and in favour of the need for a separate hill
in 1988-89 as part of a protest against the new Forest state.44 Another proponent of the idea of statehood within the
Regulations which had what many considered to be the perverse Sangh Parivar, the "family" of Hindu nationalist organizations, was
effect of preventing other much-needed development projects the senior Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader Bhaurao
(such as electricity, roads, schools) from taking place across the Devras. The RSS believed that national security would be at risk
region. The leadership of this andolan was drawn from the in this border region without economic development. They were
Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD), the regional party established in particularly keen to stem migration from the hills, which they saw
1979 to fight for statehood.42 Also in 1988, the Uttarakhand as weakening India against its enemies.45 Dr Nityanand, another
Sangharsh Vahini (USV)-the most left-wing of the organizations RSS worker and professor at a college in Dehra Dun, suggests
involved in Chipko-decided to take up the campaign for that the RSS were also responding to the increasing agitations on
statehood. They claimed to be fighting for more than simply the statehood question in the 1980s. He writes: "The campaign
statehood, however. Their vision was of a radically decentralized for the creation of Uttaranchal gradually became intense in the
federalism in which all matters except foreign affairs, defence, 1980s and the Naxalite factor also started to be invited from its
communications, currency and railways would be devolved to the platforms."46 The BJP national executive first passed a resolution
state level (their slogan was "New Bharat [India] new supporting statehood for what the BJP called Uttaranchal, as well
Uttarakhand"). They gradually began to link various strands of as Vananchal (Jharkhand) in 1989. It highlighted the issue during
movement activity in the hills, such as the anti-liquor andolan of the frequent elections of this period in Uttar Pradesh in 1989,
the early 1990s and protests about new forest regulations, to the 1991 and 1993.
demand for statehood.
The real moment at which social movement actors and parties
At a similar time, local BJP politicians began to pass resolutions fused around the idea of statehood, however, came in 1994. The
on the need for statehood and demanded the national leadership Uttar Pradesh state government had introduced new reservations
of the party support the demand for a hill state as early as (affirmative action) for lower-caste communities designated as

517
"Other Backward Classes" (OBCs) in higher education institutions character to the Uttarakhand regional movement, in a way
across Uttar Pradesh (including the hills with their predominantly comparable to the ethnic content of the original Jharkhand
upper caste and only 2 percent OBC population). A series of demand, regardless of the attempts by UP's political leadership
protests against the impact of this new reservations policy in the to paint it in this light.47 Here, as in Jharkhand, the idea of
hills, organized by student leaders, spiralled into a mass regional statehood became a subject for mass mobilization as a result of
movement demanding statehood. The movement gained changes in the broader political context. Statehood was by no
momentum after a number of instances of police firing on means naturally connected to a politics of resistance in the hills. It
demonstrators, and apparently deliberately incendiary statements was the interactions between social movements, the state and
by state leaders such as Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati. new types of political party that helped to produce a focus on
The OBC chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mulayam Singh Yadav, statehood.
had seemingly deliberately seized an opportunity to make political
Conclusion & Epilogue
capital out of anti-reservations protests in the hills. He sought to
cement his own fraying social coalition among lower castes and This article has shown how the intersection of movement and
highlight his own social justice credentials by portraying the party politics helped to shape the goals and strategies adopted
protestors in the hills as chauvinistic upper castes whose main by social activists in Jharkhand and Uttarakhand, bringing a
concern was their opposition to affirmative action for lower castes demand for new states to preeminence. Through a discussion of
tout court. In fact the movement in the hills drew together a some of India's most iconic social movements, the article makes
diverse coalition of social groups including ex-servicemen, it clear that we must pay attention to such interactions when
students' and women's groups. These groups were galvanized by thinking about the spaces for, and possibility of, an autonomous
the provocations of the state government and began to bring field of subaltern politics. These themes have been taken up not
together a broader set of grievances about the treatment of the to diminish the agency of the marginalized but to argue that any
hills under the banner of statehood. Months of protests, road account of the politics of marginality must take account of the
blockades and disruption to local services followed. Much of the interrelationships between institutionalized and non-
leadership came from a younger generation, and hailed from institutionalized politics.
outside the movement or political realm (such as the ex-
servicemen) but older activists with memories of the Chipko era The narratives presented in this paper stop short of the actual
also became involved. There was in fact no explicit caste moment of state creation because the aim has been to
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demonstrate the nature of the coalitions that developed locally in Since the granting of statehood, Jharkhand has displayed greater
support of statehood as a result of interactions between social political instability than possibly any other Indian state. In ten
movements and political parties. The explanations for the final act years (2000-2010) it has seen the formation of eight different
of state creation in the year 2000 lie at other levels of the federal short-lived governments with four different chief ministers, and
system.48 The compromises involved in the emergence of broad two periods of President's Rule.51 Since state formation, the
prostatehood coalitions suggest that seeking statehood within the BJP's rising adivasi leader of the 1990s and Jharkhand's first
federation-questioning borders-may not be a reliable route to chief minister, Babulal Marandi, has left the BJP to form his own
creating new pro-poor regimes. In an argument developed further party, the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha. There is a strong impression
elsewhere, I have suggested that one of the reasons for the that weakly organized political parties offer limited mobility for
emergence of political consensus around particular regional aspiring candidates, even as the promise to extract rents from
identities was an attempt by some political parties to depoliticize mining and industrial ventures increases the lure of political
ethnic cleavages and/or unsettle an attempt by social movements careers. Jharkhand appears to be moving close to what Yadav
to associate a regional political identity with an emancipatory and Palshikar have described as a "malady" of "systemless
politics of particular marginalized communities.49 Rather than competition." This is a situation of extreme fluidity in which
representing a moment at which political regimes with new, more electoral competition is not bound by political party conventions
inclusive social bases were constituted, such developments and where individual entrepreneurship or loose, very short-term
meant that the process of state formation left an uneasy legacy of groupings hold sway.52 The absence of a stable political regime
superficial political inclusion that masked continued practices of has reduced the ability of the state to pursue long-term
exclusion. This brief epilogue will consider the impact of these developmental goals. It has delayed the agreement, for example,
legacies in the new states. Such regional political histories help to of minimum, implementable standards for rehabilitation and
explain why the reception of the anti-poverty initiatives of the resettlement following industrial development. Equally, such
central government differs on a regional basis. As John Harriss instability has also forestalled movement on dozens of
reminds us, state-level political regimes, and in particular the memorandums of understanding with business signed by the
extent to which the political power of lower castes/classes has government. In some senses, the paralysis in governance in
been well-institutionalized, matter in explaining rates of poverty Jharkhand reflects the strength and spaces maintained by local
reduction.50 resistance movements. But it also marks the absence of a
political settlement that can effectively mediate between deeply
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divergent visions of development. Agreement in favour of and of the intimidation of activists campaigning against
statehood masked such tensions rather than representing a new corruption in its implementation.53 Until December 2010,
political contract. Without functioning state institutions, inclusive Jharkhand is the only state in India not to have held elections to
economic growth looks set to remain elusive. Furthermore, in panchayats since the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments
Jharkhand (and Chhattisgarh), there has been a reversion to were enacted. This followed a 2005 ruling by the Jharkhand High
movements outside the electoral system since state creation with Court challenging the reservation of the posts of pradhan
the spread of a variety of groups under the loose umbrella of (chairperson) for adivasis in scheduled areas where the tribal
Naxalism (as well as counter-Naxal movements). This reflects in population had fallen below 50 percent.54
part a dissatisfaction with the functioning of institutionalized
Uttarakhand has seen far greater political stability than Jharkhand
politics, as well as contests over the ownership of natural
since 2000 but it too has been affected by the nature of its
resources in the context of increasing Maoist activity across
formation. The manipulation of the borders of the new state by
central India.
the central government to include large plains areas, as well as
All political parties play lip-service to tribal leadership-all four the hills, has allowed for the effective sidelining of calls for more
chief ministers have been adivasis-but substantive improvements careful attention to development in the distinctive geography of
in the material lives of adivasis or their political representation are the hills (central to the original idea of statehood). The plains
harder to discern. In some ways Jharkhand has become a more districts of Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar were included in
hostile space for civil society since 2000, despite attempts by the new state at the insistence of the central government on the
ministers in the UPA-led coalition between 2006-08 to institute ostensible grounds of improving the new state's economic
consultations with key activists over issues such as rehabilitation viability. The main axes of exclusion are thus topographical in this
and resettlement, and over the design of a "common minimum region, which is much more ethnically homogenous than
program" mirroring the initiatives of the central UPA government. Jharkhand. Some veteran activists complain, for instance, that
Shortly after the state was created in 2001, police opened fire on the state capital Dehra Dun is on the edge of the plains, rather
villagers taking part in the decades-old protest against the Koel than their preferred remote location of Gairsain, nestled on the
Karo dam, leading to eight deaths. There are serious reports of border of the Kumaon and Garhwal hills, which they argue would
irregularities in the implementation of one of the UPA's flagship have encouraged local legislators to become cognizant of the
schemes, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, specific needs of the hills.

520
In short, the long-term history of state formation matters.
Supporting territorial reorganization allowed national political
parties to negotiate or blunt a critique of the forms of
development taking place in resource-rich regions such as
Jharkhand and Uttarakhand, or at least shift it from the centre of
electoral politics. Political inclusion requires stable, responsive
political regimes that can negotiate between different interests
with a degree of autonomy. The state that has been produced out
of the struggles and counter-struggles in Jharkhand lacks these
characteristics. The state produced in Uttarakhand is quite
different to the hill-state imagined by activists in the hills, but is
considerably more stable.

The previous section is provided by Lynn University’s

use of ProQuest Social Science Database.

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Section 4

Japan

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 523

The previous section is provided by Lynn University’s use of Ebook Central Perpetual Titles.
Tap on this link to visit the CIA’s World Factbook and read about
Japan.

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Section 5

Russia

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526
527
 The previous section is provided by Lynn University’s
use of Ebook Central Perpetual Titles.

Before moving on to the next reading, tap on this link to visit the
CIA’s World Factbook and read about Japan.

Power & Plunder in Putin's Russia

Since Vladimir Putin rose to power in 1999, the quest to restore

the might of the Russian state at home and abroad has been a
hallmark of his rule. Yet another such hallmark has been rampant
looting by the country's leaders. Thus Russia has figured
prominently in recent scholarly discussions about kleptocracies-
regimes distinguished by a willingness to prioritize defending their
leaders' mechanisms of personal enrichment over other goals of
statecraft. In a kleptocracy, then, corruption plays an outsized
role in determining policy. But how have the state-building and
great-power ambitions of the new Russian elite coexisted with its
scramble for self-enrichment? Putin's Russia offers a vivid
528
illustration of how kleptocratic plunder can become not only an with all property rights effectively conditional on the regime's
end in itself, but also a tool for both consolidating domestic goodwill.2
political control and projecting power abroad.
Even as the siloviki network took shape, emerging Russian elites
In Russia, circumstances have conspired to provide fertile ground with newly acquired wealth were developing innovative uses for
for kleptocracy. The country's long history of feudalism, from the international financial system. Since 1991, capital has
which it rapidly transitioned into totalitarianism and then again streamed out of Russia on a breathtaking scale. A recent analysis
into oligarchic state capitalism, left little room for a tradition of estimates the total assets held offshore by Russian citizens to be
individual property rights. And the chaotic aftermath of the Soviet roughly equal to the total assets held within Russia.3 The chief
Union's collapse paved the way for the rise of an elite with the cause may be simply that those Russians who have captured
means and motivation to wield state power for private benefit. large shares of the country's wealth now wish to keep that wealth
secure. Oligarchs can stow their assets in countries whose rule-
During the 1990s, Russia's political, social, and economic
oflaw systems offer greater financial protections, while continuing
institutions were reeling as they struggled to adapt after the long-
to enrich themselves in Russia. Yet the Russian government also
ruling Communist Party's fall. Into the resulting power vacuum
has been strategically using offshore capital to pursue its
stepped the remnants of the Soviet security services-one of the
international political objectives.
few institutions still strong enough to assert its members'
economic and political prerogatives.1 Former KGB officers A Strategy of Rule
(sometimes called the siloviki, or "strong-men") embedded
Today, opaque financial flows and the equally murky ex-KGB
themselves in government bodies, businesses, and other
network come together in a system of corruption that serves dual
influential institutions throughout Russia. They used these
purposes. Those at the top follow the imperative of self-
perches to observe, control, and build their power, often in
enrichment, while also finding in corruption a highly effective
cooperation with organized-crime networks. Under Russia's
political tool. When these two motivations come into tension, self-
current president, himself a KGB veteran, these efforts have paid
enrichment will win out, meaning that Russia is indeed a
off: The network of former KGB officers surrounding Putin has
kleptocracy in the terms we set out above. Yet in practice, while
established de facto ownership of the entire Russian economy,
illicit enrichment creates myriad inefficiencies and injustices, it
rarely comes into conflict with the ruling regime's quest to tighten
529
its grip. Often the two go together. Russia's kleptocratic system Sticks & Carrots
does, however, decisively shape its rulers' choice of methods.
In modern Russia, corruption works in two key ways to keep
Russia's kleptocracy follows a distinctive foreign policy, with both power squarely in the hands of the well-connected. First, favored
pragmatic and ideological drivers. While the Putin regime lacks a officials and their allies enjoy great license to steal from the state
guiding ideology comparable in scope to communist dogma, one budget, extort money from private businesses, and even
consistent trope it has advanced is that the Western countries orchestrate the outright seizure of profitable enterprises. Indeed,
have conspired to weaken Russia, which must reclaim its rightful officials are often essentially forced into participating in corrupt
place among the world's great powers. Lacking the economic schemes. Property claims and business ventures thus become
and military might that elevated the USSR to superpower status, contingent on the whims of the powerful. Second, as political
the Putin regime has sought to give itself a leg up by exploiting scientist Alena Ledeneva has explained, this pervasive corruption
the rules of the globalized world order. To this end, it has used provides Russia's elites with both a carrot and a stick for use in
corruption internationally both to undermine democratic resolve controlling the officials themselves.4 Corrupt acts by bureaucrats,
and principles in established democracies and to bring foreign whether willing or reluctant, produce evidence that can later be
political and economic elites (particularly in former Soviet states used selectively to punish anyone who steps out of line.
and satellites) under its control.
Thanks to this web of illicit ties and compromising information, a
Domestically too, the Putin regime has used kleptocratic tactics, hidden political hierarchy based on personal relationships, money,
in part, to restore certain aspects of the Soviet model. In parallel and informal power supersedes Russia's often hollow formal
to their international chase after great-power status, Russia's institutions. The resulting system is fundamentally undemocratic,
rulers have tried to banish the chaos of the 1990s at home by unjust, and antithetical to good governance. It is, however, an
reestablishing a considerable degree of Soviet-style control over effective means of political control: Kleptocracy ensures that
all aspects of political, economic, and social life. Unwilling or businessmen and officials stay pliable by keeping both in
unable to re-create a one-party system backed up by mass permanent legal jeopardy.
repression, the Putin regime has developed a more modern set of
One instructive example is the recent case of former Komi
authoritarian strategies, with the tactical deployment of corruption
Republic governor Vyacheslav Gaizer. After seven years as the
perhaps foremost among them.
region's finance minister and deputy governor, Gaizer, by then a
530
prominent national leader of the ruling United Russia Party, was soliciting a bribe. Making this charge against a cabinet minister
appointed governor by President Dmitry Medvedev in 2010 and even more astonishing was the alleged victim: Igor Sechin, the
reappointed by Putin in 2014. But in September 2015, Gaizer and chief executive of Russia's massive state oil company Rosneft
eighteen of his associates (including several members of the and perhaps the closest political ally of President Putin. As with
regional administration) were arrested on charges of fraud and the Gaizer case, the government's version of events demands
racketeering. As detailed in opposition activist Ilya Yashin's report considerable suspension of disbelief. As implausible as it is that
"The Criminal Russia Party," the operations of Gaizer's team were an entire region could be run for years by an organized-crime
essentially indistinguishable from those of a classic mafia group.5 operation without the national government's knowledge, it is
For years, the ex-governor's outfit used both violent and political perhaps even harder to believe that a cabinet minister would
tactics to seize assets and extract bribes from local businesses. demand that one of the most powerful men in Russia personally
deliver to him two-million dollars in cash. Nonetheless, the choice
The case against Gaizer was a national scandal, but not because
of this pretext reflects an environment in which corruption
anyone was surprised to see such corruption and criminality in a
allegations are both a potent weapon and a pointed warning to
Russian regional administration: The situation in Komi was more
others.
the rule than the exception. More startling was the national
government's de facto admission, implicit in the charges against Moreover, the backstory to the Ulyukayev case involves a far
Gaizer, that an entire region had been run for years (with the more plausible instance of corruption. In September 2014, one of
blessing of Russia's top leaders) by what was in essence a mafia Russia's richest businessmen, Vladimir Yevtushenkov, was
organization. The crimes in question, after all, had long been well charged with money laundering and placed under house arrest.
known and reported by local media outlets without any official The Russian government quickly seized Yevtushenkov's
response. Gaizer's fall was a punishment not for being a criminal, controlling share in the highly profitable oil company Bashneft, a
but rather for going too far or otherwise displeasing his political stake it kept despite Yevtushenkov's later release. Press reports
masters. suggested that the charges against Yevtushenkov were part of a
move by Sechin to incorporate Bashneft's assets into Rosneft,
Another recent corruption case sheds further light on
then under fiscal stress due to a drop in oil prices. Sechin indeed
kleptocracy's political dimensions. In November 2016, Russia's
tried to claim the Bashneft shares, but others in government,
then-economy minister Aleksey Ulyukayev was arrested for
including Ulyukayev, opposed the move out of concern that too

531
much of Russia's economy was being concentrated into massive to strengthen civil society. The primary purpose of
state-owned firms. In October 2016, Rosneft acquired the Khodorkovsky's imprisonment was to send a message to his
controlling Bashneft stake. On 15 December 2017, Ulyukayev fellow oligarchs that their participation in opposition politics was
was sentenced to eight years in prison for allegedly insisting on a unacceptable. The seizure and distribution of his assets was
bribe to seal his approval of the deal. merely a side benefit for those involved.

The Bashneft saga was an unusually high-profile instance of a The practices deployed against Yevtushenkov and Khodorkovsky
phenomenon that menaces all owners of Russian businesses, occur at all levels of Russian society, with profound political and
large and small: reiderstvo (or "raiding"), the practice of corrupt economic consequences. Local authorities can arrest
officials and business interests conspiring to seize commercial compromised rivals and expropriate the businesses of any local
assets through tactics such as the falsification of documents, entrepreneurs who might dare to support these officials'
lawsuits, and judicial orders.6 In the most notorious case, the opponents or to fund any independent political activity. At the
Russian state in 2003 seized the oil company Yukos from same time, the ease with which rapacious officials can seize
businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was imprisoned on successful businesses has accelerated the concentration of
charges of a range of financial crimes. As with Bashneft, the bulk Russia's economic resources in a small number of hands. In this
of Yukos's assets ended up under the control of Sechin's way, Russia's kleptocracy is a self-sustaining system that closes
Rosneft. down the possibilities for reform from within.

In many cases, reiderstvo is practiced for straightforward Beyond Russia's Borders

economic reasons-a corrupt official or businessman sees a
The political and economic logic of kleptocracy inevitably spills
profitable company, and simply decides to take it.7 This appears
over beyond Russia's borders. To launder and store its illicit
to have been largely the cause of Yevtushenkov's woes. But as
riches, the Russian elite depends on open markets, foreign legal
the Khodorkovsky case shows, "raids" on private business can
protections, and relations with other states-especially wealthy
also have decidedly political motives. In the early years of Putin's
ones (such as the United Kingdom and the United States) into
presidency, Khodorkovsky was unusual among Russia's oligarchs
whose large luxury realestate markets it can sink vast wealth with
in taking an interest in social and political reform. In 2001 he
anonymity. One might expect that this would motivate Russia to
launched the Open Russia initiative (the first of two by the name)
maintain stable foreign relations and behave as a traditional great
532
power. In some cases-as in the international dealings of the members). By reducing the leverage of these states vis-`a-vis
mammoth state-owned gas monopoly Gazprom, or in Moscow's Moscow, the pipelines further Russia's traditional quest to divide
relations with elites in other post-Soviet states-efforts to Europe and gain dominance in its eastern half. The Nord Stream
strengthen Russia's political influence and to bolster its financial initiatives-whose Swiss incorporation allows them to avoid EU
flows are indeed intertwined. Here, kleptocracy supplies jurisdiction-also threaten to weaken the EU by generating
additional means to ends it largely shares with traditional great- conflicts of interest (former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder
power politics. was tapped to chair the Nord Stream shareholders' committee)
and sparking political squabbles pitting states imperiled by the
Yet revelations of the theft at the system's core, which could
initiative against those that stand to gain. In a protest to the
intensify both international sanctions and domestic discontent,
European Commission, eight EU members expressed alarm at
pose a constant threat to Putin and his circle. As a result, fear
the "potentially destabilising geopolitical consequences" of Nord
may propel them into reckless behavior. To avert perceived
Stream 2.8
threats to the kleptocratic system, Russia's elites are willing to
risk losing access to the markets that have been absorbing their The funds that the pipelines will generate represent not only a
ill-gotten gains. In these cases, they resort to extreme measures means of renewing the Putin regime's depleted treasury, but also
more characteristic of rogue states or nonstate actors than of a potential source of rents. Completion of Nord Stream 2 would
traditional great powers. be a boon for Gazprom, which has majority ownership of Nord
Stream. Currently chaired by Victor Zubkov, a former Russian
Gazprom's dealings in Europe demonstrate how the Russian
prime minister and close associate of Putin, Gazprom is
state uses its control of economic resources to advance
struggling with U.S. sanctions, as well as with an EU
conventional great-power interests alongside those more
antimonopoly investigation and prohibition on raising capital. The
particular to kleptocracy. Two major pipeline projects, the already
CEO of Nord Stream 2, longtime Putin associate and former Stasi
operational Nord Stream 1 and the planned Nord Stream 2, stand
agent Matthias Warnig, is another figure who represents Russia's
at the intersection of monopoly power, crony capitalism, and
interwoven webs of economic and political influence.9
foreign-policy opportunism. The aim of both pipelines is to carry
gas under the Baltic Sea to Germany, bypassing Ukraine as well In post-Soviet states, corruption constitutes one of Russia's most
as several other Central or Eastern European states (including EU important levers of influence. The outstanding example was

533
Moscow's relationship with former Ukrainian president Victor This response has provoked costly European and U.S. sanctions
Yanukovych, who effectively functioned as a Russian proxy until on Russian companies and officials. It has also deeply
the 2014 EuroMaidan Revolution. After trying and failing to antagonized Ukrainians, likely reducing Russia's long-term
suppress these mass protests, which were motivated in large part chances of influencing elite factions in Ukraine. Confronted with a
by outrage over corruption, Yanukovych fled both his office and popular grassroots movement in a neighboring state that
the country (tellingly heading to Russia). Before his fall, challenged kleptocracy itself, however, the Kremlin eschewed
Yanukovych had benefited from a corrupt scheme that depended these long-term geopolitical calculations. Instead, it behaved in a
on Gazprom providing gas at a substantial discount to an manner that reflected its roots in the organized-crime syndicates
intermediary company owned by Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry of the 1990s: Like a gangster, it sought to signal its lack of
Firtash. The company then resold it to Ukrainian customers at far restraint.
higher prices, with much of the profit going to finance
Alexander Litvinenko, a former Federal Security Service (FSB)
Yanukovych's political campaigns. While the grotesque images of
officer who turned against the agency and migrated to London in
Yanukovych's gold and marble palaces, car collection, and
2001, used a different term for kleptocracy. He called Russia a
private zoo may have resonated most with the public, his ledgers
"mafia state." In two politically explosive publications, Litvinenko
also detail the spending of US$2 billion over five years on
described the KGB's transformation into a mafia organization and
unofficial cash payments to politicians, media representatives,
alleged that the FSB (a KGB successor agency) had organized a
and foreign consultants. This points to a political system driven
series of explosions in Russian apartment buildings in 1999,
by bribery.10
helping to spark the Second Chechen War and cement Putin's
The case of Ukraine also highlights the more erratic side of rise to power.11 He also began to cooperate with Spanish
Russia's kleptocratic foreign policy. The Kremlin saw an prosecutor José Grinda, who was investigating St. Petersburg
existential threat in Ukraine's 2014 "Revolution of Dignity," which mafia bosses with alleged money-laundering operations in Spain.
had the potential not only to cement the country's place in Litvinenko was scheduled to travel to Madrid for an in-person
Europe and outside Russia's grasp, but also to set an example for meeting with Grinda in November 2006.
Russia's own civil society. Moscow reacted by annexing Crimea
A week before his trip, Litvinenko was poisoned on U.K. soil with
and starting a war, now more than three years old, that has
polonium, a rare radioactive isotope. Following a painful hospital
ravaged the eastern Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk.

534
stay, he died on November 23. A lengthy U.K. investigation found and a Spanish judge has issued an arrest warrant for twelve
that two KGB veterans, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun, had Russian citizens, including Aulov and Vladislav Reznik, the former
carried out the murder. The inquiry concluded that they probably chairman of the Duma's finance committee.14
had done so under the direction of the FSB, and most likely with
Facing the Backlash
the approval of Putin and FSB director Nikolai Patrushev.12
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Russia has refused to turn the alleged Kleptocracy puts enormous resources at the Russian
assassins over to the United Kingdom, and in 2007 Lugovoi government's disposal, enabling Moscow to coopt foreign
secured a seat in the State Duma. To silence a loose-lipped business and political elites. Yet with Western societies waking up
defector, Moscow proved willing to risk a crisis in Anglo-Russian to the security threat stemming from Russia's kleptocracy, it also
relations. The timing suggests that defending kleptocracy was a makes the regime vulnerable to international sanctions. In August
priority: Litvinenko's prior sensitive accusations notwithstanding, 2017, a near-unanimous act of the U.S. Congress codified and
he was killed only as he started to cooperate in exposing the amplified the sanctions (including visa bans, asset freezes, and
regime's financial crimes. prohibitions on business activities and technology transfers)
already in place against certain Russian companies and
Despite Litvinenko's untimely passing, Grinda's investigation
individuals due to Moscow's aggression in Ukraine and cyber-
succeeded in producing damning evidence of extensive
interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The act calls
connections between Russian elites and the mafia bosses
specific attention to the fight against corruption. It tasks three
passing their money through Spain. An indictment in the case
U.S. government agencies with compiling a report that will detail
was issued in 2015. Using intercepted telephone conversations
the holdings, involvement in corruption, and relationships to
between known mafia figures and high-level Russian officials,
President Putin of significant individuals in Russia; the U.S.
Grinda found that the mafia "is integrated into Russia's police
economy's exposure to "Russian politically exposed persons and
structures." The officials mentioned as having ties to the mafiosi
parastatal entities" (with particular attention to "the banking,
included former prime minister and current Gazprom chief
securities, insurance, and real estate sectors"); and the possible
Zubkov, Investigative Committee chairman Alexander Bastrykin,
results of further sanctions.15 This requirement for a systematic
and top drug enforcer Nikolai Aulov; the latter had spoken to the
analysis of Russia's kleptocracy demonstrates a new
crime boss at the center of Grinda's case 78 times in about
eighteen months.13 The case is slated for trial in February 2018,

535
understanding of the threat, as well as bipartisan political resolve Russia's rulers also face growing social and economic discontent.
to address it. The country's economy is struggling, with bankruptcies in the
third quarter of 2017 nearing record numbers. Economic, social,
When kleptocracy took hold in the 2000s, Russia's economy was
and labor protests-which occur throughout the country, but
growing, oil prices were soaring, and the rising middle class was
especially in major urban areas in the central regions-are also
grateful to Putin. Maintaining this system during the current
growing more frequent. The majority are sparked by local
economic downturn is proving more difficult. It is no coincidence
grievances such as salary arrears, housing-construction scams
that the most significant opposition political movement in Russia
that defraud would-be homeowners, and ecological damage.16 A
today centers on an anticorruption message. Activist Alexei
few campaigns, such as the recurring protests by long-haul
Navalny, persevering through spells of imprisonment, has
truckers against new taxes imposed in late 2015, have been
galvanized a protest movement that in March and June 2016
coordinated and national in scope. Permeating these protests has
drew tens of thousands of people, most of them young, to take to
been outrage at the grave injustice of a system in which the
the streets against kleptocracy. The tech-savvy team at Navalny's
nation's wealth goes abroad to support the lavish lifestyles of a
Foundation Against Corruption produces documentaries
small minority, while the vast majority face a diminished quality of
unmasking high-level corruption, which have drawn tens of
life and reduced salaries, pensions, and social services.
millions of views on YouTube. Despite frequent arrests and
attempts at intimidation, Navalny's backers have also organized a Domestic and international scrutiny of kleptocracy is the most
national campaign for Russia's March 2018 presidential election, serious challenge that Putin's system currently faces. During
with offices in more than a hundred cities and towns. As of this Putin's first two terms as president, his administration was able to
writing, the authorities are refusing to register Navalny on the harness kleptocratic structures and tactics to project Russian
technical grounds that he has a criminal conviction (on trumped- power and influence on a global scale. But since Putin's 2012
up fraud charges). But Navalny and his team have defined the return to the presidency, maintaining this system amid swelling
presidential contest to such an extent that an election without domestic criticism has necessitated greater levels of repression,
them will be an unmistakably empty ritual. And the emerging and the shrinking economy has brought about increasingly visible
network of young activists will persist in fighting corruption long divisions within the Russian elite. Internationally, kleptocracy now
after the election is over. portends financial and political isolation. The longer Russia

536
remains in thrall to corruption, the more isolated, poor, and
authoritarian it is likely to become.

The previous section is provided by Lynn University’s

use of ProQuest Military Database.

537
Chapter 15

Appendix

• Image credits

• References
Section 1

Image credits

Cover Aristotle: [Link]

Cover art: [Link] Locke: [Link]

Rousseau: [Link]
Copyright
Jacques_Rousseau_(painted_portrait).jpg
Copyright symbol: [Link]
Kant: [Link]
intellectual-98570/

Chapter 2
Introduction
Title page: [Link]
Intro lettering: [Link]

Inductive vs. deductive: [Link]

Chapter 1
File:Inductive_and_deductive_reasoning_in_the_scientific_method.svg

Title page: [Link]

Chapter 3
aristotle-2298848/

Title page: [Link]

Columns: [Link]
liberty-1210001/
Communism: [Link]
moscow-17071/ Chapter 4

Ballot: [Link] Title page: [Link]

currency-1726618/
Globe: [Link]
compass-269633/ Impoverished children: [Link]
can-1125850/

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Chapter 5 Title page: [Link]
wall-1722196/
Title page: [Link]
architectural-high-rise-building-947662/ Chapter 13

Chapter 6 Title page: [Link]

monastery-1807513/
Title page: [Link]
Chapter 14
Chapter 7
Title page: [Link]
Title page: [Link]
Chapter 15
Chapter 8
Title page: [Link]
Title page: [Link]
signing-1779925/ Appendix

Chapter 9 Title page: [Link]

Title page: [Link]

File:Obama_Health_Care_Speech_to_Joint_Session_of_Congress.jpg

Chapter 10

Title page: [Link]

guy-fawkes-mask-2698475/

Chapter 11

Title page: [Link]

warsaw-2637115/

Chapter 12

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