Poli 316 Notes

United Kingdom
 The United Kingdom was created in 1801, merging England, Scotland, wales, Ireland
 Britain did not become a democracy overnight
o Evolution not revolution: 800 years’ evolution
o Democratization was a slow process
o Contrasts with the dominant European- the practice of switching between
democratic and undemocratic regimes
The legacy of History
 1940-44 Churchill: laud foundation for the welfare state
 1951-64: Churchill, Eden, Macmillan – conservatives
o Maintained consensus on the mixed economy welfare state – led to consumer
prosperity
 1964, Wilson – labor
 1970-74, heath- conservatives
o Britain becomes a member of the European Community
 1979, Margaret Thatcher – conservatives
o Policies of free market and privatization
o Thatcher never won more than 43% of the total vote but division within other
parties helped her win
o Replaced by john major
 1994, Tony Blair – Labor
o 2nd longest-serving prime minister of the past century
o Successor – 2007 – Gordon Brown
 2007, Gordon Brown
 2010-2016, David Cameron
 2016-2019, Teresa May – 2019 presents: Boris Jonson
The Environment of Politics
 One crown but four nations
o United Kingdom
 England: no English state in international law
 Wales: ¼ speak welch
 Scotland: separate legal, religious, educational institutions
 Northern Ireland: the remainder of Ireland rebelled against the Crown in
1916 and a separate Irish state in Dublin in 1921
o Unitary State: political system having one source of authority, the British
parliament
o The UK is a multinational state
o Historically, Scotland, Wales were governed by British Cabinet ministers
accountable to parliament
 Scotland/Wales (1999): responsibilities for policy given to local elected
assemblies
  Northern Ireland is the most un-English part of the UK
 Formally a secular polity
 Identity questions: Catholics and Protestants
 Turmoil since 1968, IRA
o A multiracial Britain
 The worldwide British empire was multiracial and so is the
commonwealth
 Response to terrorist attacks:
 Increase police powers
 Restrictions on asylum seekers
 Deportation made easier
The Structure of government
 Crown rather than a constitution symbolizes the authority of government
o Monarch only ceremonial head of state
 What constitutes the Crown?
o Government
o Government officials
o Whitehall
o Downing street
o Parliament
o Collectively referred to as Westminster
 Unwritten constitution
o Acts of parliament
o Judicial Pronouncements
o Customs and conventions
o Few constraints in the unwritten constitution
 The vagueness makes it flexible
 Can be changed by a majority vote in parliament or by the government
choosing to act in an unprecedented manner
 English courts claim no power to declare an act of Parliament
unconstitutional
 Comparison between British Constitution and US Constitution:
o Amendment of the Constitution
 US: must receive the endorsement of well over the states and members
of congress
 UK: can be changed by a majority vote in parliament, where the
government of the day normally commands a majority; the UK
government can also change it by acting in an unprecedented manner
and claiming that doing so is establishing a new custom
o The constitutional power to the Supreme Court
 US: constitution gives the supreme court the final power to decide what
the government may or may not do.
 UK: the final authority is Parliament
  Courts do not have the power to declare an act of Parliament
unconstitutional; judges simply ask whether the executive acts within its
authorized powers. Even if the court rule that the government has
improperly exercised its authority, the decision can be overridden by a
subsequent act of Parliament retroactively authorizing an action
o The Constitutional protection of personal rights
 US: Bill of Rights in the US Constitution allows anyone to turn to the
courts for the protection of their rights
 UK: The right of the British people are not covered by written guarantees
but rather meant to be secured by trustworthy governors
 The Crown
o Combines dignified parts of the constitution with the efficient parts:
 Dignified parts: sanctify authority by tradition and myth
 Efficient parts: carry out the work of the government
o Queen Elizabeth 2 is the ceremonial head of state
o Having been the monarch since 1952 makes her a symbol of tradition
o She does not influence the actions of what is described as Her Majesty’s
Government
o She is expected to respect the will of Parliament, as communicated to her by the
prime minister
 What the Prime Minister Says and Does
o Political Leader
o Ambiguous Duties
o Imperatives of the Prime minister
 Patronage
 Parliamentary performance
 Winning elections- To keep hold of Downing Street, a prime minister
must retain the confidence of his or her party
 Campaigning through the media
 Party Management
 The prime minister’s power to give a quarter or more MPs a
government job is an important tool for party management
 In dispensing patronage, a prime minister can use any of four
criteria: - loyalty – silencing critics by giving them an office so that
they are committed to the support the government –
representativeness – competence in giving direction to a
government department
 Making and balancing policies
 Strike a balance between pressures from the world “out there”
and pressure from within his or her party and electorate
 Strike a balance between ministers who want to spend more
money to increase their popularity and Treasury ministers who
want to cut taxes to boost their popularity
 Comparison between US president and UK prime minister
o UK prime minister has less formal authority and less security of office compared
to the US president
o Term
 US: the president is directly elected for a fixed four-year term
 UK: prime minister leads her or his party for an indefinite term and can
lose Downing Street if the party’s confidence wanes
o Cabinet appointees
 US: the president is the undoubted leader of the federal executive branch
and can dismiss cabinet appointees with little fear of the consequences
 UK: senior colleagues of a prime minister and potential rivals for the
party leadership may be kept in the cabinet to be muzzled by the
requirement of collective responsibility for government policies
o Authority over Congress
 US: the president is without authority over congress
 UK: a prime minister can mobilize a parliamentary majority to endorse
the government legislative proposals with little change
o Federalism vs Unitary System
 US: federalism
 UK: the prime minister is at the apex of a system of undivided
government with powers not limited by the courts or a written
constitution
 Cabinet Ministers and Civil Servants
o The cabinet is senior ministers appointed by the prime minister
o Must be members of the House of Commons or House of Lords
o Remain important as department heads
o Major Whitehall departments differ greatly from each other
o The political reputation of ministers depends on success in promoting the
interests of their department in parliament, in media, in battles within Whitehall
 Civil Service
o The largest number of civil servants are clerical staff with little discretion
o The most important group of civil servants is the smallest group
 Advise ministers, oversee work of their departments
 Top civil servants are bipartisan, ready to work for whichever party is the
winner
 Thatcher: focus on making civil service more business-like
 o Terms:
 Whitehall: the departments headed by Cabinet ministers and staffed by
civil servants are referred to collectively as Whitehall
 Downing Street: the place where the prime minister works in an 18 th-
century house at Number 10, is a sort of street of Whitehall
 Parliament: is the popularly elected House of Commons and the non-
elected House of Lords, which is located at one end of Whitehall
 Parliament is often used as another way of referring to the House
of Commons
 Westminster: refers to all the institutions we mentioned above – the
Whitehall, the Downing Street, and the Parliament
 Westminster is named after the district in London in the principal
offices of
Political Electoral Systems
 An electoral system or voting system is a set of rules that determine how elections and
referendums are conducted and how their results and determined
 Major types of political electoral systems
o Plurality system
 A system in which the candidates with the highest number of votes wins,
with no requirement to get a majority of votes
 In cases where there is a single position to be filled, it is known as first-
past-the-post
  This is the second most common electoral system for national
legislatures, with 58 countries using it to elect their legislatures
 It is also the second most common system used for presidential elections
 Example: UK Electoral System
o The British government is a multiparty system
o The candidates on the ballot in each parliamentary
constituency are chosen by party members
o The party members also have a vote on the choice of party
leader
o The prime minister is not popularly elected but gains office
by being the leader of the party with the most MPs
o An election offers a voter a very simple choice between
candidates competing to represent one of the 650
constituencies into which the House of Commons is
divided
o Within each constituency, the winner is the candidate who
is first past the post with a plurality of votes, even if this is
less than half the total vote
o Majoritarian system
 Majoritarian voting is a system in which candidates have to receive a
majority of the votes to be elected, although in some cases only a
plurality is required in the last round of counting if no candidate can
achieve a majority
 Majoritarian voting can take place in a single round using instant-runoff
voting (RV), whereby voters rank candidates in order of preference; this
system is used for parliamentary elections in Australia and Papua New
Guinea
 If no candidate receives a majority of the vote in the first round, the
second preferences of the lowest-ranked candidate are then added to
the totals. This is repeated until a candidate achieves over 50% of the
number of valid votes
 Instead of indicating support for only one candidate, voters in IRV
elections can rank the candidates in order of preference. Ballots are
initially counted for each voter’s top choice
 If a candidate has more than half of the vote based on first choices, that
candidate wins. If not, then the candidate with the fewest votes is
eliminated
 The voters who selected the defeated candidate as a first choice then
have their votes added to the totals of their next choice
 This process continues until a candidate has more than half of the votes.
When the field is reduced to two, it has become an “instant runoff” that
allows a comparison of the top two candidates head-to-head
  If no candidate achieves a majority of votes in the first round of voting, a
second round is held to determine the winner. In most cases the second
round is limited to the top two candidates from the first round, although
in some elections more than two candidates may choose to contest the
second round; in these cases, the second round is decided by plurality
voting
o Proportional representation system
 Party-list proportional representation involves voters voting for a list of
candidates proposed by a party by a party. In closed list systems voters
do not have any influence over the candidates put forward by the party,
but in open list systems voters can both vote for the party list and
influence the order in which candidates will be assigned seats
o Mixed system
 In several countries, mixed systems are used to elect the legislature.
These include parallel voting and mixed-member proportional
representation

The Role of Parliament

 1
o The principal division in Parliament is between parties with the majority of seats
in the House of Commons and opposition party
o If a bill of motion is identified as a vote of confidence in government, the
government will fall if it is defeated
o MPs from the majority party generally vote as party leadership instructs
o Whitehall departments draft bills presented to parliament
o Government rather than Parliament set the budget
 2
o Function of MPs
 Weigh political reputations
 Publicize issues
 Scrutinize legislation
 Examine how Whitehall departments administer public policies
 MPs in the governing party have private access to government ministers
 3
o House of Lords
 Unique as the second chamber because initially composed of hereditary
peers
 1999: Labor abolished the right of all but 92 hereditary peers to sit in the
House of Lords
 The government often introduces noncontroversial legislation in Lords if
it deals with technical matters
 Uses Lords as revising chamber to amends bills
  Lords cannot veto legislation but can amend or delay the passage of
government bills
The Courts and Abuses of Power
 Supreme Court was created as the highest judicial authority, in 2009
 Replaced old practice of highest court being committee of House of Lords
 The court consists of a president and 11 justices
 Serves as final appeals on points of law
 Limited powers, cannot declare Acts of Parliament unconstitutional
Government as a Coalition
 Within the Whitehall network, the core set of political figures is important in
determining policies
o Prime minister
o Cabinet Ministers
o In a coalition government, major decisions cannot be made by a single politician

Political Culture and Legitimacy

 Trusteeship Theory of Government: leaders take initiative
 Collectivist Theory of Government: government balances competing for demands
 Individualist theory of Government: parties represent people, not groups
 Evidenced by the readiness of the British people to comply with basic political laws
 Not related to economic calculations
 Symbols of common past as major determinants of legitimacy
 Habit and tradition

Political Socialization and Participation

 Socialization influences the division between those who do and do not participate
o Family and Gender: create youthful identification with the party
o Education: more educated not as likely to be conservative as once were
o Class: conservative = middle class, Labor = working class
o Mass Media: only a few papers, TV is the primary source of news
 Voting: competitive elections being higher turnout
 Sign Petitions
 Contact Politicians
 Party Volunteers

Political Recruitment
 Important political roles:
o Cabinet minister
o Higher civil servant
o Partisan advisers
o Intermittent public persons
 Each group has own recruitment pattern
 Starting early on political career necessary for success
  Geography – career will be spent in London

Organizing Group Interests

 Civil society institutions flourished in Britain for centuries
o Confederation of British Industries: big business, direct contacts with Whitehall
o Trade Union Congress: labor
o Voluntary/Charitable Associations

What Interest Groups Want

 Most interest groups pursue three goals
o Sympathetic administration of established policies
o Information about government policies and changes in policies
o Influence on policymaking
 Insider Interest Groups: have values in harmony with all parties
 Outsider Interest Groups: demands are inconsistent with the party in power
o Keeping Interest Groups at a Distance: less reliance on negotiations with groups
and more on the authority of Crown

Party System and Electoral Choice

 The general election must occur at least once each five years
 The Prime minister is free to call an election any time
 The winner is the candidate who is first past the post (plurality)
 The winner nationally is the party that gains the most seats
 Two-party system vs multiparty system
 The distribution of seats in the House of Commons is different from the distribution of
the share of votes

Centralized Authority and Decentralized Delivery

 In a unitary state, political authority is centralized
o Decisions are binding on public agencies through Acts of Parliament and
regulations
o The treasure must authorize expenditures before the bill can be put to
Parliament
o Minister must pilot bill through Parliament
o Minister may also negotiate an agreement with public agencies outside and with
affected interest groups
 Devolution to Elected Officials:
o Local government is subordinate to central government
o Scotland and Wales to representative assemblies
o Local council elections fought on party lines
  The local government is divided into two tiers of the country, district councils, each with
responsibility for local services
 Central government grants are the largest source of local government revenue
 Non-elected institutions:
o Executive agencies
o National Health Services (NHS)
o Quasi-Autonomous Nongovernmental Organizations
 Advisory Committees
 Administrative Tribunals
 From Trust to Contract
o Civil service has relied on trust in delivering policies
o Government buying from the private sector
 Turning to the Market
o Privatization
 The Contingency of Influence
o The theory of the British government is centralist
o All roads lead to Downing Street
o Influence varies with the problem

Policy Performance
 The government relies on four major resources to produce benefits of public policy:
o Laws: unique resource of government, contracts are only effective if enforces
o Money: taxes on income and consumption and stealth taxes
o Personnel: public employees and needed to administer laws and deliver services
o Social Security most costly program of British government

Germany
Why Germany’s historical experience differs considerably from most other European
democracies
1. Political and social forces from modernization came much later in Germany than the
rest of Europe
2. By the 19th century, German territory was still divided among dozens of political
units. In contrast, most European nation nations have had defined borders by the
19th century
 3. Germany has a difficult and protracted process of nation-building. It was split by
sharp religious, regional, and economic divisions
The Second German Empire
 In 1871 Bismarck, the Prussian chancellor enlarged the territory of Prussia and used the
Franco-Prussian war to establish a unified Second German Empire
 Authoritarian states
 Political power flowed from the monarch – the Kaiser
 The government at times suppressed potential opposition groups, especially the
roman catholic church and the social democratic party
 The government expected little from its citizens
 Industrialization started in the Second German Empire:
 The force of industrialization was not strong enough to modernize and liberalize
society and the political system
 Political and economic power remains in the hands of the traditional aristocratic
elites and the bureaucracy
 Weak middle class
 A strong authoritarian state could resist the democratic demands of a weak
middle class
 The state was supreme
 The outbreak of WW1
 Failures of government leadership
 A blindly obedient public
 World war 1 devastated the nation
 3 million German soldiers, civilians lost lives
 Economic strained to the breaking point
 Government collapsed
 Germany ended up being a defeated and exhausted nation
 The Weimar Republic
 In 1919, a popularly elected constitutional assembly established the new
democratic system of the Weimar Republic
 Germans had their first real experience with democracy
 The constitution granted citizens the right to vote, guaranteed basic
rights
 Directly elected parliament and the president held political power
 The hopeful beginning – disastrous end
 Problems in the Weimar republic:
 In the Versailles peace treaty ending WW1, Germany lost all its overseas colonies
and a large amount of its European territory
 Moral guilt for the war and the financial cost of postwar reparations to the
victorious allies
 Social uprising
 Wartime destruction
 All together led to an economic catastrophe
  Many blamed
 In 1929 Great Depression struck Germany harder than one other European country and
the US
 Political tensions increased, and parliamentary democracy began to fail.
 Defenders of democracy became the minority in the parliament
 Non-democratic parties, such as the communist party and Hitler’s National
Socialist German Workers Party, became the majority in the parliament
 The Results
 The machinery of the democratic system failed to function or get bypassed
 President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor of the Weimar
Republic in 1933
 Why the Weimar Republic failed
 Democracy depends on an administrative and military elite who often longed for
the old authoritarian political system
 The public in Germany also developed similar sentiments under the
encouragement of the Weimar elites
 A series of severe economic and political crises eroded public support for
Weimar – leading to the popular support of the extreme left and right parties
 Institutional weakness led to Weimar’s vulnerability
 Most Germans underestimated Hitler’s ambitions, and capabilities
 The Third Reich
 Used parliament to enact legislation granting dictatorial powers
 New Authoritarian “leader state”
 Hitler pursued extremist policies
 Destroyed opposition
 Massive public work projects lessened unemployment
 Expansion of army
 The expansionist foreign policy led to WW2 in 1939
 60 million lives lost worldwide, including 6 million European Jews
 End of the war, Germany was in ruins

Institutions and Structures of Government

 1 - Basic law – specific goals:
o Develop a stable, democratic political system
o Maintain historic continuity in political institutions
o Recreate federal structure of government
o Avoid institutional weakness that contributed to the collapse of Weimar
democracy
o Establish institutional limits on extremist, anti-system forces
 2 – Institutions and Structure of Government
o Federal system
 State government
  State governments have unicameral legislature (Landtag), popular
vote
 Controlling party/coalition in state legislature selects a minister
president-chief executive of the state government
 The governing coalition can vary widely across the state
 16 states (Lander)
 Policy admin, enforcing legislation enacted by the federal
government and their laws; oversees the operation of local govs.
 Federal Government:
 Is the major source of policy legislation
 Bicameral federal legislature
 Federal Legislature has 2 houses:
 1 – Bundestag (Federal Diet) (lower house)
o 598 deputies
o Enact legislation
o Oversight – “question hours”
o Enact legislation: all federal laws must receive their
approval
 Procedure:
 Executive branch propose legislation ->
Bundestag evaluate and amend them ->
approval
o Elect the federal chancellor (ex. The head of the exec
branch)
 A candidate is proposed by the federal president,
as provided for by the Basic Law.
 The election is then held exclusively among the
Members of the German Bundestag, who vote in a
secret ballot without any prior debate
 The candidate requires an absolute majority in
parliament.
 Greater than 50% of votes from about 600
members in the Bundestag
 Following his / her election, the successful
candidate is appointed by the Federal President
and sworn in before the Bundestag. He / She is
now able to propose his / her federal ministers
o Serves as a forum for public debate
o Scrutinize the actions of the government via “question
hour”
o Has strong committees to strengthen its legislative and
oversight rules
 2 – Bundesrat (Federal Council) (upper house)
 o 69 members
o Represents state interests
 How?
 Evaluate legislation
 Debate government policy
 Sharing info between federal and state
governments
 Must approve the subset of legislation that
directly affects state interests
 Bundesrat is the essential part of German
Federalism
o Is composed solely of representatives appointed by the
state governments
o The state government also participate in selecting the
federal president and the federal justices
o Each state appoints members of the state cabinet to serve
in the Bundesrat.
o Bundesrat serves as a chamber that acts as a permanent
conference of state officials
o Each state receives seats in numbers roughly
proportionate to the state’s population, ranging from 3 to
6

 3 - Federal Chancellor and Cabinet

 GFR has a dual executive: federal chancellor and federal president
 The basic law gives substantially greater formal powers to the
former.
  What are the sources of chancellors’ authority?
o Chancellor is elected by the Bundestag, directs the federal
government, and counts on Bundestag’s support for
government legislation.
o Chancellors usually lead their party, directly party strategy
and heading the party slate at elections
o Control over the cabinet: each of the 14 departments are
headed by a minister, who is formally appointed, or
dismissed by the federal president on the
recommendation of the chancellor without having to have
approval from the Bundestag
 According to the Basic Law, what are the three principles of the
federal government’s functions?
o The chancellor principle: the chancellor defined
government policy – the German Cabinet is formally
subordinate to the chancellor in policymaking
o Ministerial autonomy: gives each minister the authority to
direct the ministry’s internal workings within governments
guidelines without Cabinet intervention
o Cabinet principle: when conflicts arise between
departments over jurisdictional or budgetary matters. The
Cabinet will resolve them.
 The Federal President
 Is mostly ceremonial post
 To maintain neutrality in electoral politics, the president is
selected by a Federal Convention, which is composed of all
Bundestag deputies, and an equal number of representatives
chosen by the state legislatures.
o President is also involved in the political process, which
must be countersigned by the chancellor:
 Appoints government and military officials
 Signs treaties and laws
 Has the power of pardon
 President nominates a chancellor to the Bundestag and can
dissolve parliament if a government bull loses a no-confidence
vote. However, the Basic Law limits the president’s ability to act
independently
 Constitutional Ambiguity:
o On whether the president must honor certain government
requests (unclear on whether the president has the
constitutional right to veto legislation, to refuse the
chancellor’s Cabinet recommendations, or even to reject a
request to dissolve the Bundestag)
 o The Judicial System
 Ordinary courts:
 Hear criminal cases and most legal disputes
 Administrative courts:
 Hear cases in specialized areas
o Deals with complaints against government agencies
o Handles tax matters
 Constitutional courts:
 Reviews the constitutionality of legislation, mediates disputes
between levels of government, and protects the constitutional
and democratic order
 4 – Separation of Powers
o Basic Law – avoiding concentration of power:
 Chancellor cannot simply dissolve the legislature and call for new
elections; According to the Basic Law, the Bundestag can be dissolved by
the federal president if the Chancellor loses a vote of confidence, or if a
newly elected Bundestag proves unable to elect a chancellor with an
absolute majority.
 Basic Law limits the legislature’s control over the chancellor
 Constructive no-confidence vote:
 For the Bundestag to remove a chancellor, a majority must
simultaneously agree on a successor – which makes it more
difficult to remove.
 Role of the constitutional court as a check
Party Government
 Government for the parties, by the parties, and the parties:
o History: the German empire and the Third Reich suppressed the political parties
o In GFD, the basic law established that:
 Guarantees the parties’ legitimacy and their right to exist
 Parties are designated as the primary institutions of representative
democracy
 Parties act as the intermediaries between the public and the government
 The Basic Law assigns an educational function to the parties

RUSSIA
The resource curse, also known as the paradox of plenty, refers to the paradox that countries
with an abundance of natural resources (fossil fuels, minerals etc.), tend to have less economic
growth, less democracy, and worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural
resources
In the 1990s, Russia had a harsh decade of economic contradiction and social dislocation
following the painful transition from the socialist economic system to a market-oriented
capitalist system

Two Major Policy Challenges for Russia More Recently

 Russia needs to reduce its dependence on natural resource exports
o 2000-2008 (the first two terms of Putin’s Presidency):
o Russia had high and steady economic growth for 2 reasons:
 Confidence in Putin’s leadership
 The world oil process started increasing significantly and stayed high until
2008; Russia is a major exporter of oil, gas, and other natural resources
o Impact: real incomes in Russia tripled from 2000 to 2008
o 2008 global financial crisis:
 Russia’s dependence on revenues from natural resource exports had a
steep downside; the federal budget fell into a deep deficit
 Capital fled the country
 The stock market lost two-thirds of its value in less than one year
 Consumer demand dropped, hurting Russian manufacturers
 Russia’s economy contracted more than that of any other major power:
GDP fell almost 8% in 2009 and only began to recover slowly in 2010
 Russian government reserved financial sources that helped spare the
country many of the worst effects of the recession
 Bailed out failing banks, industrial enterprises, employment
benefits, and pensions.
 Many Russians were shielded from poverty and the country
avoided massive financial instability
o 2012-2012: brief economic recovery
o 2013: growth fell again and turned negative in 2015 due to the following
reasons:
 The drop in world oil and gas prices
 Western economic sanctions over the annexation of Crimea
o The above ups and downs are evidence of the “resource curse” in Russia
o Reasons for the “resource curse”: in countries relying on windfall
revenues from natural resources, the leaders avoid investing in the skills and
knowledge of the population. As a result, such societies wind up with lower
levels of economic and political development in resource-poor countries
o Why Putin and his government fail to break the resource curse?
 They lack effective policy instruments to bring about more diversification
and innovation in the economy -> a dilemma:
  On one hand, major reform requires an enormous and sustained
exercise of power by the country’s political leaders to overcome
the resistance of administrative and social groups to change
 On the other hand, to accomplish goals, modernizing rulers have
commonly resorted to centralizing power in their own hands,
undermining the incentives for entrepreneurial incentives outside
the state that could drive sustained growth

 The demographic crisis facing Russia

o In most years since the end of the Soviet regime:
 Death have outnumbered births
 Immigration party offsets natural population loss but has brought other
challenges
 Life expectancy at birth is very low, particularly for males (male life
expectancy is 65, about the same as an India or Pakistan).
 Population flows out of the Far North and the Far East to warmer
climates, hurting the sustainability of some of the remote cities built in
Soviet times
 High Barriers to the geographic mobility costs, the illiquidity housing
market
o Why the Russian leaders have been unable to break through the obstacles
standing in the way of solving the policy challenges?
 Resistance by state officials to any reforms that weaken their power
 The vat physical size of the country impedes efforts to control and
coordinate bureaucratic activity
 The legacy of the Soviet development model, which concentrated
resources in giant state-owned enterprises – often located in remote,
harsh regions – that are nearly impossible to convert into competitive
capitalist firms viable in a global marketplace
Historical Legacies
 The Tsarist Regime
 The Communist Revolution and the Soviet Order
 Political Institutions of the Transition Period: Demise of the Soviet Union
 Political Institutions of the Transition Period: Russia 1990 – 1993

1. The Tsarist Regime

 9th century: The Russian state traces its origins to the princely state that arose around
Kyiv (today’s capital of Ukraine)
 9th century – 19th century: The Russian state was autocratic:
o It was ruled by a hereditary monarch whose power was unlimited by any
constitutional constraints.
 In the 1st decade of the 20th century, the Russian tsar agree to grant a constitution calling
for an elected legislature
 o Soon the tsar dissolved the legislature and clawed back most of the
constitutional concessions he had made

What are the historical legacies of Russian statehood?

 Autocracy- Russia was ruled by a hereditary monarch (the Tsar) whose power was
unlimited by any constitutional constraints
 Absolutism- The tsar aspired to wield absolute power over the subject of the realm
 Patrimonialism- The ruler treated his realm as property that he owned, rather than as
an autonomous community with its own legitimate rights and interests
a. this concept of power continues to influence state rulers today
 Orthodox Christianity- The Orthodox Church ties itself closely to the state, considering
itself a national church
a. traditionally, it has exhorted it's adherents to show loyalty to the state in worldly
matters, in return for which it has sought a monopoly of spiritual power
b. today, this legacy is still manifest in the present-day rulers’ efforts to call upon
the church to bless their rule and reinforce q the social fabric, as well as in many
Russians’ impulse to identify their state with a higher spiritual mission

 Absolutism, patrimonialism, and orthodoxy have been recurring elements of Russian

political culture, tending to reinforce deeply conservative and collectivist patterns of
behavior in state and society
 At particular points in Russian history, the country’s rulers have tried to modernize it's
economy and society
o Modernizing rulers (ex-Peter the Great 1682-1725; Catherin the Great 1762-
1796) brought Russia closer to Western European models
o Russia’s constant expansion through conquest and annexation of neighboring
territories and it's needed to defend its borders
o The state’s role in controlling and mobilizing society rose with the need to
govern a vast territory
 Compared to other major powers of Europe, Russia’s economic institutions remained
backward well into the 20th century
 The trend of its development is toward an industrialized society
 By 1917 was Tsarist order fell, Russia had a large industrial sector, although it was
concentrated in a few cities
 Given the industrialization in Russia, why there was no peaceful democratic transition
but instead let communists seize power in 1917?
o Russia’s large industrial sectors were concentrated by the vast and impoverished
peasantry and the radicalized industrial working class
 o The social basis for a peaceful democratic transition was too weak to prevent the
communist from seizing power in 1917
 Why did the thousand-year tsarist era leave a contradictory legacy
o Tsars attempted to legitimize their absolute power by appealing to tradition,
empire, and divine right
o Tsars treated the law as an instrument of rule
o The doctrines that rulers should be accountable to the rules and that sovereignty
resides in the will of the people were alien to Russian state tradition
 Russia’s political traditions also include a yearning for equality, solidarity, and the
community, as well for moral purity and sympathy for the oppressed

2. The Communist revolution and the Soviet Order

 The Tsarist regime was unable to cope with the overwhelming demands of national
mobilization during WW1
 Tsar Nicholas 2 abdicated in Feb. 1917 and soon was replaced by a short-lived
provisional government, which never fell when the Russian Communists took power in
Oct. 1917
 What was the goal of the Russian Communists – Bolsheviks
o To create a socialist society in Russia and, eventually, so spread revolutionary
socialism throughout the world
 What is socialism, according to the Russian Communist Party
o Meant a society without private ownership of the means of production, one
where the state-owned and controlled all-important economic assets and where
political power was exercised in the name of the working people
 In post-revolutionary Russia, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) is
established, comprising a confederation of Russia, Belorussia, Ukraine, and the
Transcaucasian Federation (divided in 1936 into the Georgian, Azerbaijan, and Armenian
republics)
What were the leaders of the Russian Communist Party?
 Vladimir Lenin: (first leader of the Russian Communist Party and first head of the Soviet
Russian government)
o Party controlled the state
o The final power to decide policy rested in the Politburo of the CP
 Joseph Stalin (1924-1953)
o Power was even further centralized
o Stalin instituted a totalitarian regime intent on building up Russia’s industrial and
military might
o Use mass terror to intimidate and control the country
o The state survived WW2 and pushed back the invading German army to Berlin
o USSR imposed the communist rule on all the Eastern European regimes it
occupied
 What was the impact of Stalin’s rule of the USSR?
 o The following institutions of rule that Stalin left behind eventually crippled the
Soviet State:
 Personalistic rule
 Insecurity for rulers and ruled alike
 Heavy reliance on the secret police
 A militarized economy
o Stalin’s successors could not reform the system without undermining communist
rule itself
 Nikita Khrushchev (1953-1964)
o Loosened some of the harsh controls and reduced the level of political
repression, but was unable to accomplish fundamental reform
 Leonid Brezhnev (1964-1982)
o Abandoned the impulse for reform and instead concentrated on consolidating
power
o Impact: the political system and economy stagnated, and the fundamental
weakness of the system mounted
 What was the problem with the late Soviet system?
o Lack of bureaucratic mobilization
 Over-centralization undermined the leader’s actual power to enact
significant policy change or to realize when serious policy change was
needed
 The center’s ability to coordinate bureaucratic agencies for executing its
initiatives was frequently undermined by tacit resistance to the center’s
orders by officials at lower levels, information distortions, and the force
of inactivity
 Bureaucratic officials were more devoted to protecting and advancing
their own personal and career interests than to serving the public
interest
 The political system was top-heavy, unresponsive, and corrupt
 The political system of the USSR was unable to modernize the economy
or improve living standards for the population
 By the early 1980s, the economy had stopped growing and the country
was unable to compete for military or economically with the west
 After Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, and Konstantin Chernenko, the ruling party politburo
turned to a vigorous young reformer named Mikhail Gorbachev to lead the country
o Gorbachev moved both to strengthen his own political base and to carry out a
program of reform
o He emphasized the need for greater openness in society and focused on
improving the economic well-being of the country and its people
 Mikhail Gorbachev (1985-1991)
o Called for political democratization
 o Legalized private enterprise for individual and cooperative businesses and
encouraged them to fill the many gaps in the economy left by the inefficiency of
the state sector
o Welcomed the explosion of new informal social and political associations
o Made major concessions to the US in the sphere of arms control, which resulted
in a reality that called for the destruction of entire classes of nuclear missiles
 Gorchov’s plan for free elections and a working parliament was realized in 1989 and
1990 as elections were held and new deputies were elected at the center and in every
region and locality
 Gorbachev’s radicalism reached its most dramatic confirmation through the astonishing
developments of 1989 in Eastern Europe:
o All the regimes making up the communist bloc collapsed and gave way to
multiparty parliamentary regimes in nearly bloodless popular revolutions
o USSR stood by and supported the revolutions
o The collapse of communism in Eastern European means that the elaborate
structure of party ties, police cooperation, economic trade, and military alliance
that had developed in Eastern Europe after WW2 vanished
 Boris Yeltsin (Gorbachev’s rival)
o Elected chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet in June 1990s
o Yeltsin’s rise forced Gorbachev to alter his strategy
o In August 1991, a conspiracy of senior officials placed Gorbachev under house
arrest and seized power
o In November 1991, President Yeltsin issued a decree formally outlawing the
CPSU
o In December, Yeltsin and the leaders of Ukraine and Belarus formally declare the
USSR dissolved, Independent Russia was raised in its place
o Yeltsin was elected in a direct and competitive election
 Easier to mobilize public support against Gorbachev and the central
Soviet Union government
o Yeltsin demanded extraordinary powers from parliament to cope with the
country’s economic problems
o September 1993, Yeltsin dissolved the parliament by decree and called for an
election for a new parliament
o The constitution approved in December 1993 referendum has remained in force
ever since
 1993 constitution combines elements of presidential and parliamentarian
 Separation of executive, legislative, judicial branches
 The federal division of power between central and regional levels
of government
 Gave president wide power
 President can dissolve parliament or dismiss government
 Head of state, commander of chief
 Security Council – chaired by president
 o Formulates policy foreign and defense areas
 State council – heads of regional governments, parallels the Federation Council
 Public Chamber
o 168 members from civil, sports, artistic, other NGOS
o Deliberate on matters of public policy
o May diminish role of Parliament

The Presidency
 President appoints prime minister, government
 Has right to issue presidential decrees, which have the force of law
 Prime minister primarily responsible for economic, social policy
 President oversees ministries, other bodies concerned with coercion, law enforcement,
state securities
 In practice, the government answers to the president, not to parliament
 The usual pattern is for the governments base of support to be the president, rather
than a particular coalition of parties in parliament

The Government
 Senior echelon of leadership in the executive branch, consisting of the prime minister, a
number of deputy prime ministers, and the heads of ministries and state agencies
o Charged with formulating national policy and overseeing their implementation
 Economic and social
 Corresponds to cabinet in Western parliamentary systems
 Not party government, nearly all members of the government are career
managers and administrators, rather than party politicians
 Reflects that presidents’ calculations about how to weigh considerations
such as personal loyalty, professional competence, and the relative
strength of major bureaucratic factions in selecting Cabinet ministers
 Under President Putin, the head of the government is distinctly
subordinate to the president

The Parliament
 Federal Assembly is bicameral
o Lower house: State Duma
o Upper house: Federation Council
 The legislation originated in Duma
o Federal Council can pass, reject, call for the formation of an agreement
commission to iron out differences
 o If Duma rejects upper houses charges, can override Federation Council by a two-
thirds vote and send the bill directly to the president
 When a bill clears parliament, it goes to the president for his signature
o If the president refuses to sign the bill it returns to Duma
o Duma pass with amendments or override the veto with a two-thirds vote
o Federation Council must approve the bill; simple majority if it approves president
amendments or two thirds to override the president

The Election in Russia’s Duma

 Before 2007 and again since 2016, the Dumas 450members were equally divided
between deputies elected by plurality votes in 225 single-member districts and 225
deputies elected through proportional representation (PR) in a single national electoral
district
 A party receiving at least 5 percent of the vote on the party-list ballot was entitled to a
share of the party-list seats in the Duma equal to its share of the party-list vote
 Votes cast for parties that fail to clear the barriers are redistributed to the winning
parties
 The 2007 and 2011 Duma elections were run under an all-PR system- all 450 deputies
were elected proportionally from party lists in a single nation-wide district, with the
threshold for winning seats set a 7%
 In 2013, the Duma voted to return to the old half and half system, with a 5% threshold
for party representation starting in 2016
  This frequency changes in electoral rules reflect the authority’s habit of manipulating
institutions for short-term political gain
 The parties cleared the electoral threshold from factions in the Duma
 Deputies may not switch faction membership
 Faction leaders are represented in the governing body of the Duma, the Council of the
Duma
 Factions are the main vehicle of political discussion in the Duma and give members a
channel for influencing legislation
 The United Russia party in 2016 got 75% of seats in Duma, which I enough to pass any
constitutional legislation as well as ordinary legislation
 United Russia party deputies vote with iron discipline, the Duma gives President Putin
unquestioning support even on unpopular legislation
 Other factions/parties have very little influence on the agenda
 The outcome is that Duma become a rubber stamp for the executive branch
 Despite that, if there are divisions within the government over a piece of legislation,
they are often carried over into the Duma – intergovernmental bureaucratic politics
 The Federation Council is designed as an instrument of federalism in that every
constituent unit of the federation is served by 2 representatives
 The population of small ethnic-national territories is greatly overrepresented compared
with more populous regions
 Members of the federation council:
o In 2000, were formally named by the governor and regional legislature of each
territorial subject
o In 2012, each regional legislature would elect one of its members to serve as a
member of the Federation Council from the legislative branch while the
executive branch representative would be chosen by the governor from
candidates that he or she identified before being elected

Executive – Legislative Relations

 Relations between the president and parliament during the 1990s were often stormy
 The first Dumas (elected in 1993 and 1995) was dominated by the Communist Party and
other leftist factions hostile to Yeltsin
 Disagreement on economic and social issues but agreement on federal relations in spite
of the opposition of the Federal council, whose members fought to protect regional
prerogatives
 The 1999 election produced a Duma with a pro-government majority. President Putin
and his government built a reliable base of support in the Duma
 In a Westminster-type setting, parliament and government have mutually offsetting
powers -> government and the members of the majority party need each other
 In Russia, the parliamentary deputies have almost no political resources outside the
dominant party, United Russia, which is controlled by the presidential administration
and government. The parliamentary deputies in the party cannot counterbalance the
executive
The Judiciary and Law Enforcement
 The Procuracy (the major institutional actors in the legal system)
o Comparable to prosecuting attorneys in US
o Wide-ranging responsibilities, centralized hierarchy, considered the most
prestigious branch of the legal system
 The Judiciary
o Unitary hierarchy: all are federal courts
o Supreme Commercial Courts is the highest appellate court, source of instruction,
direction to lower courts
o Judges nominated by the president, confirmation by Federation Council
o Ministry of Justice oversees court system, lacks authority over procuracy
 The Bar
o Advocates, comparable to defense attorneys in the US
 1993 Constitution provides for judicial review by Constitutional Court
o Presidential authority is a challenge for courts
 Central Government and Regions
o 80% of the population is ethnically Russian
o Ethnic minorities each no more than 4%
o Currently has 85 territorial units
 Republics, districts, provinces, territories, cities

The central government and the Regions

 Under President Yeltsin, the central government granted wide autonomy to regional
governments in return for political support
 He even signed a series of bilateral treaties with individual regions to codify the
respective rights and responsibilities of the federal government and the given regional
governments
 Under Putin, federal policies were issued to swing back sharply toward centralization

The Reason why Russia did not break up

 80% of Russia’s population is ethnically Russian
 Russia’s thousand-year history of statehood
 Putin merged smaller ethnic territories into larger surrounding units. In most of these
cases, the smaller ethnic district was impoverished and hoped to attain better living
standards by becoming part of a consolidated territory
 The abolition of direct popular election of governors, including the presidents of the
ethnic republics

The Dominant Party Regime

 Elections and Party Development
  From Multiparty system to Dominant Party Regime
o Polarization of Party System: 1980s- 1990 a two-party system: LDPR & CPRF
o Building Party of Power: 1999 – 2000 Yeltsin successor: Putin
o 2003-2004 elections: pro-Putin party, Unity, renamed United Russia
o The 2011-2012 election cycle and the 2016 Duma Election
 In Russia, the party system has largely ceased to play the role of interest aggregation.
Instead, it serves to mobilize support on the party of the public and the political elite for
the incumbent rules
 Therefore, the party system in Russia neither gives the voters meaningful choices over
policy nor holds political officials accountable

CHINESE POLITICS
Hundred Flowers Campaign
 Why did Mao initiate this campaign?
o Concern over bubbling tensions released in other socialist states with the death
of Stalin
o Let’s release those tensions before they erupt
 What were the critics?
o Complaints about excessive bureaucracy
o Party as yes-men
o Peasants discontent with collectivization
o “volunteer” work with no compensation
 What was the outcome of the campaign
o Mao crushed the opposition
  “Things are just beginning to change. The rightist offensive has not yet
reached its peak. The rightists are still enthusiastic. We want them to
rage for a while and climb to the very summit.”
 1957: Abandon the Soviet model in favor of the “Great Leap Forward”
1. De-emphasize heavy industry in favor of agriculture and light
industry
2. Realize that the Soviet model was based on an assumption of
labor shortages while china had a labor surplus
a. Soviet tendency to substitute capital for labor
inappropriate for labor rich/capital-poor China
3. Abandon central planning in favor of more local initiatives in
general
4. Shift from reliance on technology to reliance on human willpower
as a means to bring about a transformation of the economy,
society, human spirit
 Problems Addressed by GLF
a. Population/unemployment
i. How to solve the problem of unemployment in the
cities/underemployment in the countryside?
b. Primitive socialist accumulation:
i. How to generate the capital needed for modernization without exploiting
rural areas to develop urban areas?
c. How to instigate technological resolution w/out a technological elite?
i. Concern with the possibility of a “new class”; “mental vs manual labor”
ii. Reduce technological dependence on USSR – “self-reliance”
iii. Focus on a small scale, “mass-accessible” technologies
GLF Policies
1. raise the production targets of heavy industry
2. dismantle centralized bureaucracy -> more autonomy for local units
*hsia feng: administrative offices closed and officials were sent to farms and factories
for manual labor
3. “walking on two legs”: focus on small scale labor-intensive industries based on indigenous
technology to develop simultaneously with modern, heavy industry sectors (which were based
on imported technology)
4. Industry and Education:
 A new rural education system based on combining work and study
d. “set down youth”: have urban students spend part of the year working in rural
communes
e. Reduce the gap between mental and manual labor
5. Collectivization: the scale of private plots is reduced. Collective labor expanded
+ large scale irrigation and water conservation projects
+ managed by a flood of urban cadres to the countryside
+ private possessions abolished
= Rural Peoples Commune
Problems of GLF
1. The haste with which communes have undertaken, lack of planning =
ORGANIZATIONAL CHAOS
2. Resentment over the distribution of rewards/arbitrary work assignments
a. People were overworked -> little time for family plots
3. Hundred Flowers -> lack of feedback: having seen what happened to those who
criticized policies, cadres & population were reluctant to report problems, criticize
programs
a. Thus, experiments went on long after their failure was clear

Results of GLF
1. an initial surge of popular enthusiasm and local initiative soon gave way to a lack of
planning, inefficiencies
2. food shortages/floods 1960
3. the worst famine in human history: 30 million died as a consequence of GLF disruption
of the economy

Retrenchment with the return of the moderates

- Mao steps down as Head of State (April 1959)
o Liu Shaoqi (First Vice Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party)
 Reassert party authority (central party) and state apparatus in the
management of the economy

Policy Adjustments after GLF

1. Rural communes remain, though subjects to adjustments as a major new form of rural
social organization
a. Return to the natural village as the unit of accounting
i. Rural markets/material incentives restored
2. Introduced new technologies and organizational patterns in rural life
3. Symbolized the break with the Soviet model of development
4. Change rural psychology: broke down the traditional conservatism, encouraged a new
spirit of experimentation and local initiative

Reasons for initiating the Cultural Revolution:

1. Existing bureaucracy, by virtue of its power & prestige, is acquiring material privileges
and exploiting society
2. Because of this, they have a vested interest in preserving the status quo
3. Leading the masses down the capitalist road
a. Return of private plots and markets in the countryside -> bourgeois ideology
resulting from Liu Shaoqi’s policies
b. This generates social inequality, class distinctions, class conflict
Call for a “Cultural Revolution”
- To correct the ideological and cultural decay
o Total reform and reorganization of the political structure
o Spiritual transformation of the nation
o The bourgeois ideology of the state/party apparatus
 Bourgeois socioeconomic relations
o Need to raise socialist consciousness to
 Socialist socioeconomic transformation

Special concern about China’s “Youth”

- Characteristics of China’s Youth:
o A generation coming into adulthood whose commitment to the revolution was
not tempered by war and revolution
o Under the guidance of the current party/state bureaucracy, could easily be
corrupted into the bourgeois mentality

Mobilization of The Masses

- RED GUARDS
o “It is justified to rebel”
o “Destruction before construction”
- Participants
o Initially, university and middle school students
- Targets
o Teachers, administrators for lack of revolutionary commitment

Goals of the Cultural Revolution

- Overthrow those within the party who are in authority and are taking the capitalist road
- Attack “Four Old’s”:
o Old ideas: are not in conformity w/ Mao’s thought
o Old culture: any remnants of Confucianism
o Old customs: social norms of everyday life such as filial piety, woman’s
subservience to men, etc.
o Old habits of exploiting classes to corrupt the masses

By 1996, Cultural Revolution was Our of Control

- Homes being ransacked, old books and art destroyed, the street name changed
o People in western dress attacked
o Buddhist and Daoist temples sacked
o Party officials, school administrators were “arrested” and paraded through the
streets & forced to “confess their crimes” in “self-criticism” sessions
o Intellectuals were a special target
- Violent clashes occurred with peasants, workers, and internal factions among red guard
units
 - Who brought the Red Guard under Control?
o PLA
- When was the Red Guard Repressed?
o When they began entering factories -> threat to production, to the proletariat

Outcomes of the Cultural Revolution

1. The real failure of the Cultural Revolution is that it did NOT produce democratic political
institutions that may have
a. Political power still resides w/the party
b. It was being reconstituted in its Leninist form
c. Ruling preeminent with State and PLA
2. Working-class: egalitarianism
a. Trade union bureaucracy and Ministry and Labor abolished
b. Bonuses and piecework eliminated -> primacy of moral and political incentives
over material
3. PEASANTRY: CR was largely an urban movement
a. Workers, students, intellectuals, NOT PEASANTS were the main actors
b. Most peasants never directly involved
c. Red Guards were forbidden to enter villages
d. When they did, found little enthusiasm for their revolutionary sloganeering
4. STUDENTS/EDUCATION: “redness” over “expertness”
a. Abolished tuition, entrance exams, age limits
b. Admissions criteria and curricula in middle schools thru universities were
redesigned to favor rural and working-class youth
c. “class background”, recommendation of local commune/revolutionary
d. Committee supersedes academic criteria for admission to college
e. Shorten formal education and combine it with productive work
f. Admission to university only after several years of labor
g. Drop-in university enrollment to 1/3 of prior to CR
5. SET DOWN YOUTH: policy of having urban students completing
a. Middle school or college “go down to the village, up to the mountaintop” to
carry the revolution to the people
i. Also a way to disperse the red guards
ii. Unwelcomed in the countryside because the students have no useful
skills and just another mouth to feed

INDIA
History in the Making of Contemporary Politics
- India’s history affects current politics in a different manner from that of western liberal
democracies
 - Not like European countries, India did not experience the industrial revolution, which
caused a great split with tradition in Europe
- Not like Russia or China, India did not have a violent Marxist revolution
- Not like the US, Canada, or Australia, India is not the outcome of wholesale colonization
of an entire territory by white settlers
- India is an ancient civilization, transformed by successive waves of immigrants who have
been accommodated, adding their cultures, rituals, and social networks as integral parts
of this diverse civilization
- Seamless connectivity between the past and the present
- The British Raj: centralized government with quasi-autonomous intermediaries,
exploitation and economic stagnation, the legacy of democratic institutions
- Indirect rule by Britain via quasi-autonomous intermediaries, such as native princes,
tribal leaders, and zamindars (Hindi for landlords)
- British rule was marked by economic stagnation and deindustrialization of India

How did British Colonization Affect Indian Political Culture

- British rule left a rich legacy of social change through the following aspects:
o Legislation,
o Rule of law,
o Devolution of power,
o Administrative unity of a specific territory,
o A welfare state, a modern army, police and
o Professional bureaucracy and English-speaking middle class with skills or
representation and political mobilization, governance, and electoral
communication
- These assets have become an important asset for India’s service industry
- Affect the integration of the Indian market with the global political economy

History in the Making of Contemporary Politics

- Independence Movement: anti-colonial
o The movement was based on the platform that strategically combines agitation
for self-rule with orderly participation in colonial institutions and administration
o The movement was generally constitutionalist and liberal in nature
o The movement was mostly under the control of leaders who had been educated
in the West
The “Givens” of Indian Society
- Religious Diversity and Political Conflict
o Hindu’s divided
o Punjab has Sikh majority
o Hindu nationalism
o Partition of British India and the creation of Pakistan
- Caste and Politics
o Jatis – basic social units that govern marriages, social networks, food taboos,
rituals
o More than 2000 jatis in India four varnas:
 Brahmins – priests
 Kshatriyas – rulers, warriors
 Vaisyas – mercantile class
 Sudras – service groups, agriculturists, artisans
- Language
o Indo-Aryan languages, North and Dravidian languages, South
o The largest single language is Hindi, along with English, recognized as an official
language of India
- Social Class
o Did not develop a revolutionary peasant movement
o Industrial working-class small and only fraction unionized
o Pluralistic, segmented
Political Institutions and the Policy Process
- India adopted parliamentary democracy: accountability, professionally military, career
civil service, rule of law
- The President
o Combines ceremonial roles with substantive powers
o Elected by a special electoral college consisting of members of the legislative
assemblies of the state and of the national parliament
o Expected to exercise powers on the advice of the Council of Ministers, with the
prime minister at its head
- The Prime Minister
o Controls, coordinates departments of government, determines policy through
submission of program for parliamentary action
o If he commands majority in Lok Sabha, his government is secure
o President appoints the prime minister and has the authority to dismiss him
o By convention, these powers are severely limited
o President invites the leader of the majority party or coalition in the Lok Sabha to
form the government
- The Parliament
o Upper House – Rajya Sabha (Council of States) has features of the U.S. Senate
 250 members, some appointed
o Lower House – Lok Sabha (House of the People)
 545 members, directly elected
 A simple majority, single-member constituencies, 5-year term, can be
dissolved
o The Legislative Process
 Follows British practice
 Once both houses pass a bill, requires the president’s assent to become
law
o The Judiciary
 Committed to individual rights: equality, liberty
 The system is independent of external control, free to interpret the law
 Supreme Court has original exclusive jurisdiction in disputes between
government/states, or two states
 Appellate jurisdiction in civil, criminal cases involving a question of law,
meaning, and intent of the Constitution
 Supreme Court determines the constitutionality of any enactment

NIGERIA
Basic Demographic Knowledge
 - Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country
- Rich cultural diversity
- North: Large-scale emirates; Muslim
- South: small kingdoms and decentralized village communities; oil-rich; Christian
- Since 1960, coups, a civil war, numerous economic setbacks, and a dangerous terrorist
threat
- Ethnic politics and religious differences between Christians and Muslims

History
- The 1950s: nationalist movement to articulate a new national identity that united its
people
- Independence from Britain in 1960
- The 1970s and 1980s, a series of dictators
o Resource curse
o Foreign borrowing and unpopular economic reforms
- The 1990s: political liberalization and democratization
o Improved integrity of the election
o Since 2009, terrorism, corruption, and poor service

Current Policy Challenges

- Nigeria – the question of the future of the country
- Ethnic, regional, religious divisions intensifying
- Transition to democracy in 1999: Nigeria returned to civilian rule
- Failure of democracy to harness their country’s wealth to provide basic human needs:
education, por=table water, reliable transportation, communications
- Ranked one of the poorest, most corrupt nations
- After Buhari’s election in 2015 (i.e. a former military dictator), the new government
replaced the military’s leadership and liberated most of the territories held by Boko
Haram (terrorism)
 Still not able to effectively respond to the humanitarian crisis. In 2016,
more than 4 million people were facing severe food shortages
 New militant groups have emerged to destroy oil infrastructure –
reduced oil exports
 Secessionist resurgence in the east, where a bloody civil war took place
from 1967 to 1970

The Effects of History

- Enduring Effects of Precolonial Events
o Early empire of Nigeria: complex political systems
- Colonial Interlude (19000-1960)
o Conference of Berlin 1884: divided Africa
- Modern constitutional development 1922
- Created a federal system in 1954 with 3 regions
 - Became self-governing 1957-1959
- Nigerian Independence
o October 1, 1960
 Conflict tore apart the ruling coalition in Western Region
 National census
o 1965: law and order broke down in Western Region over election-related fraud,
violence
o The military ended the First Republic in January 1966 coup

Environmental and Demographic Constraints on Development

- Conditions Affecting Agricultural production and the Sale of Primary Commodities
o British developed the Nigerian economy to be compatible with them
o South – cocoa, palm oil, timber, rubber
o North – cattle, hides, cotton, peanuts
o Had to diversity economy
- Disease: malaria is debilitating, river-borne disease, HIV
- Population Growth: almost half of the population aged 15 or less

Environmental Potential and Limitations

- Urbanization: rapidly urbanizing, the strain on infrastructure, less agricultural labor
- Petroleum: accounts for 90% of exports
- Geographic Distributions of Natural resources Political Effects: oil concentrated in Niger
Delta, locals protest sharing the wealth
- The International Environment: third-world experience, high dept
Political Culture and Subcultures
- Ethnic identity – Three largest ethnic groups in Nigeria -> 2/3 of the national and
influential in politics
o Hausa-Fulani: the mostly northern half of Nigeria; the majority are Muslim;
greater subsistence agriculture residents than the south
o Igbo (llbo): southeastern, responsive to western culture; market agriculture;
o Yoruba: Lagos, Oba, lineage chiefs, and British
o ******** Ethnic groups in Nigeria are geographically separated
- Religion
o Christianity, Islam, traditional institutions
- The Evolution of Nigerian Nationalism (3 major sources)
o Freed slaves from North America and others of descent from the Caribbean who
settled on the West African coast and developed a culture unrelated to any of
those indigenous to the country
o Nigerians who fought for the British in WW2 and felt frustrated at the lack of
recognition of their service
o Nigerians who studied in the UK, US
o ******** A variety of ethnic backgrounds, in their quest for independence ->
Nigerian nationalism via cross-ethnic alliances
 o Democratic Norms and Values: little tolerance for opposition, support for
democracy high
o The Political Role of Women: position of women varies immensely
o Political Corruption: pervasive

Political Socialization
- The Family
o Polygamy
o Kinship, sense of identity
- Schools: viewed as important, expected from the government
- The Mass Media: independent press, radio, TV
- The State

Political Recruitment
- Northerners dominated the leadership of the country under military, civilian rule
- Military power
- Role of Nigerian universities
- Civil service
- No recruitment of strangers
- Federal character of appointments of military personnel
- Ethnic politics still dominate

Political Structure
- The Development of the Constitution of 1999
o 5 successful coups and three civilian constitutions. 2003 and 2007 flawed
elections under democracy
o 1999: the power transition to civilian rule and 2007 first peaceful power transfer
of civilian authority
o 2015 electoral defeat of the PDP by the APC has especially rekindled hope that
Nigeria’s democracy has survived the test of time
o The post-independence decades included 5 successful coups and three civilian
constitutions. 2003 and 2007 flawed elections under democracy
- Federalism: established in 1954
o Self-governing: Eastern, Western, North
o All levels derive funds from the national oil monopoly, money distributed by the
national government
- Parliamentary versus Presidential Government
o Pluralism, lack of trust by subcultures
o No institutional structure can overcome a roadblock
- Judiciary
o Federal, state courts integrated into a single system of trial, appeals courts
o The Independent judiciary survived throughout military regimes
o Traditional authorities maintain the greatest influence in a judicial role
Parties and Elections
- National council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCGC): nationalist party 1944
- Regional Parties:
o Northern People’s Congress (NPC)
o All People’s Party (APP)
o Alliance for Democracy
- 1993: party activities banned, except 5 artificially created parties
- 1998, 1999 elections: parties required to show nationwide organization
- Ethnic Solidarity and Party Loyalty: drives political organizing

Policy Formation and Implementation

- Extractive Performance
o Fiscal system
o Revenues from oil
- Distributive Performance
o Potential to be rich, but remains poor
o Education
- Dealing with Debt and Structural Adjustment
- Regulative Performance
o The Census issues
- Conclusions on Performance
o Curse of oil

Nigeria in Africa and in the World

- Has population, resources to be a regional power, substantial military power
- Economic Community of West African States
o Free trade zones
o A critic of intentional organizations’ monetary policy: World Bank, IMF
- France: closer economic ties
- US, Britain: condemnation of military rulers

Prospects for Development

- Political, economic setbacks
- Few have gotten rich, too many poor
- Oil wealth exacerbates the problem because money accrues to the national government
- Emergence of vigorous private sector
- Environmental destruction of oil
- Regions unharmonious