chapter
stringlengths 1.97k
1.53M
| path
stringlengths 47
241
|
|---|---|
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Compare aspects of non-democratic rule in Russia and the Soviet Union
• Understand features of monarchy, communist party rule, and illiberal regimes in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries
Introduction
Russia has undergone many transitions over the past many centuries of its existence, from czarist rule to center of a communist party-led federation known as the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics (USSR). At the end of the twentieth century, this federation collapsed and Russia emerged as an illiberal democracy with stubbornly authoritarian tendencies but also a vibrant and sophisticated civil society.
• Full Country Name: Russia, Russian Federation
• Head(s) of State: President, Prime Minister
• Government: Semi-presidential federation
• Official Languages: Russian
• Economic System: Mixed Economy
• Location: Eastern Europe and Northern Asia
• Capital: Moscow
• Total land size: 6,601,670 sq miles
• Population: 145,478,097
• GDP: \$1.710 trillion
• GDP per capita: \$11,654
• Currency: Russian Ruble
Monarchical Rule, 1613-1917
For centuries, Russia was a key node in the trade routes that wound throughout Afro-Eurasia. Russian explorers traded furs and other animal products for the goods available along these ancient routes: gold, people, and spices. Political consolidation gained momentum during the sixteenth century under Ivan the Terrible, who claimed the title of czar and ruled from 1547 to 1584. He joined with the powerful House of Romanov by marriage and this began a three-century period of czarist rule that would last until revolution in the twentieth century.
During this czarist period, Russia was organized as a feudal state in which power was consolidated in the czar but local power also existed in noble houses. Ivan the Terrible consolidated the czar’s power in Moscow through the creation of standing armies and noble councils. The Orthodox Church provided the religious foundation for political power and state legitimacy. Ivan expanded the territorial reach of Russian rule after defeating khanates in what is now modern-day Russia, along the northwestern shores of the Caspian Sea at the mouth of the Volga River. Subsequent czars, such as Peter the Great (r. 1682-1725) initiated reforms to modernize Russia with military upgrades and the building of a navy, construction of public buildings in European architectural styles, and support for industrialization.
Throughout these centuries of czarist rule, Russia struggled with forging its own path on a vast continent. To the west, new ideas were bubbling up during the Enlightenment, and industrialization and modernization were taking off. To the east, empires of Asia were economically dynamic and some, such as Japan, were also rapidly modernizing. In comparison to European counterparts, Russia was slow to industrialize.
Yet Russian society was not immune to modern ideas, and the abolishment of serfdom in 1861 presented a break with the past. This was not enough to contain growing mass discontent with a brittle political system of czars and noble houses, and revolution broke out in the early years of the twentieth century.
As with much of the world, the twentieth century was a decisive time of change for Russia. In 1905, mass protests broke out in the cities and resulted in Czar Nicholas II creating a legislature. Unrest continued, and this period presented a moment for republican revolution and unprecedented transformation in Russia. The moment passed, however, with the revolution of 1917. This revolution was led by Vladimir Lenin and political parties that adhered to socialism and communism as the path forward for Russia. A vicious civil war ensued, with the Bolsheviks emerging triumphant. Lenin took the mantle as Russia’s paramount political leader and forged a federation under single-party rule.
Single Party Rule, 1922-1991
Organized as a multi-ethnic and multi-national federation, the USSR became the largest sovereign country on the planet, stretching from the Baltics to the eastern shores of Siberia. The USSR’s first leader, Vladimir Lenin, carried out radical wholescale reorganization of the state and society. State-led modernization and industrialization became the watchwords of this time; the countryside was squeezed for the products that would feed urban industrial centers.
In this single-party system, led by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the state was pervasive in all aspects of life. Economically, free markets were abolished and replaced by centralized economic planning: production would proceed according to five-year plans set by a vast planning bureaucracy. The countryside was organized into communes, with production quotas and set prices. The state owned all “commanding heights” of industry, from energy production to steel foundries. Again, production and prices were set, and workers were assigned to workplaces. In this world, there was no inflation and no unemployment – but there existed scarcity and supply-side distortions.
Socially and culturally, the CPSU controlled all aspects of life. The media was entirely state-run, across all communication technologies such as radio, print, and television. The party organized youth groups, women’s federations, and provided for leisure spaces. While the party was officially atheist, it permitted state-sanctioned places of worship. There was no independent organized social life for Soviet citizens.
Politically, the party maintained control through a competitive selection process for party membership; the most desirable offices in the party and state bureaucracies were open only to party members. Appointments were carefully controlled through party personnel bureaucracies, which maintained classified files on all citizens. To enforce party rule through force, Lenin created a secret police known as the Cheka, which was the forerunner to the KGB. While there existed paramount leaders within the CPSU, beginning with Lenin and then the disastrous totalitarianism of Stalin, leadership was also collective in some ways. Major party decisions were made through bodies such as the Politburo and disseminated throughout the party and state apparatus.
Communist party rule lasted for seven decades. Internal weaknesses festered, from ethnic resentments to economic distortions to political stagnation. By the 1980s, reform-minded leaders such as Mikhail Gorbachev attempted small steps toward loosening economic and social controls. By then, it was too late. The 1980s were a restive time throughout the USSR, in the Baltics and the Caucasus, Ukraine and Moldova. In 1989, a string of revolutions in client states of the USSR led to the overthrow of communist parties in East Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Romania, among others. In 1990, there was an attempted coup in Moscow. Through a cascade of shocking events in 1991, the Soviet Union dissolved: one after another, republics seceded from the federation and declared themselves independent. On December 25, 1991, the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin and the Russian flag replaced it.
Illiberal Regime, 1991-Present
In the decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, institutions created by the CPSU were dismantled. Central planning, state-owned industry, and communes went into the dustbin of history. Russia and many of the fourteen other post-Soviet republics adopted liberal market economies, to varying degrees, and multi-party political systems. The transition was rocky in every case.
The Russia that emerged from the ashes of the Soviet Union had many assets. It possessed great energy reserves and mineral wealth and a highly educated population base, along with thousands of nuclear weapons and a sophisticated military-industrial complex. All of this was leveraged to maintain Russia’s status as a regional power. Today Russia is a major energy provider to the European Union, and it has maintained client states in Eurasia such as Belarus and Syria.
While there was hope that Russia would join the liberal European fold in the early 1990s, those hopes have since been dashed. Since the breakup of single party rule under the CPSU, Russia has maintained an illiberal regime. Elections are neither free nor fair according to election observers. Non-state organizations are allowed to exist, but they are subject to harassment by state security agencies if they promote rights considered taboo by conservative Russian leaders and the Orthodox Church. While there are some media freedoms in the country, it remains a dangerous, and even deadly, place for investigative reporters. The courts are not independent, nor does it appear that presidents such as Vladimir Putin are subject to the rule of law.
There appears to be an expansionary imperative to this illiberal Russian state. In 2014 and 2022, Russian military assets were used to annex Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and invade Ukraine in its entirety, respectively. One powerful rationale was to consolidate the Russian nation -- despite popular Ukrainian assertions of a distinct Ukrainian identity -- and Russia's future as a disruptive, undemocratic force remains problematic for the region and beyond.
In summary, Russia has experienced centuries of non-democratic rule, and “varieties of non-democracy” are evident in tracing the history. There were moments when it appeared that republicanism might prevail, such as early in the twentieth century and at the end of that same century, but those moments were fleeting. Each non-democratic regime established institutions to maintain social order and economic and political control; each succeeded for varying lengths of time. Feudal rule under czars persisted for centuries, and Russia’s modernization lagged as a result. Single-party rule by the CPSU created a totalitarian system of large-scale economic tragedies and political repression. Today, there are comparatively more spaces for freedom in illiberal Russia, but they remain highly circumscribed. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/05%3A_Non-Democracies_and_Democratic_Backsliding/5.05%3A_Comparative_Case_Study_-_Russias_evolution_over_time.txt |
Gandhi, Jennifer. (2008). Political Institutions Under Dictatorship. Cambridge University Press.
Hadenius, Axel and Teorell, Jan. (2007). "Pathways from Authoritarianism." Journal of Democracy 18(1): 143-156.
Levitsky, Steven and Ziblatt, Daniel. (2018). How Democracies Die. New York: Broadway Books.
Linz, J.J.J. (1990). The Perils of Presidentialism. Journal of Democracy 1(1), 51-69. https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/225694.
Merrill, Tim L. and Miró, Ramón, eds. (1996). “Social Spending.” In Mexico: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress. Available online at http://countrystudies.us/mexico/
Winters, J. (2011). Oligarchy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511793806
Üngör, Ugur Ümit. (2020). Paramilitarism: Mass Violence in the Shadow of the State. Oxford University Press.
Zakaria, F. (1997). The Rise of Illiberal Democracy. Foreign Affairs, 76(6), 22–43.
5.07: Student Resources
Key Terms/Glossary
• Clientelism - system of exchange in which political elites obtain the political loyalty of clients by distributing resources to clients.
• Corruption - misuse of public resources for private gain.
• Democratic backsliding - when a democracy degrades and becomes more illiberal, authoritarian or autocratic.
• Hybrid regime - non-democratic form of governance that exhibits characteristics of different types of non-democracies.
• Illiberal regime - non-democratic form of governance that presents a façade of liberal institutions.
• Military rule - non-democratic rule by a country’s military elites.
• Monarchy - non-democratic rule by a single individual, with legitimacy typically based in tradition and/or divine right.
• Non-democracy - regimes which deny citizens meaningful institutional channels for making choices about their collective well-being.
• Oligarchy - non-democratic rule by a political elite with control over national wealth and resources.
• Paramilitary - refers to state-affiliated groups with access to military tools and training, usually employed to carry out violence on behalf of the state.
• Patronage networks - refers to social relations that involve the exchange of resources in exchange for loyalty.
• Personalist rule - non-democratic rule by a single individual, with legitimacy typically based in charisma and/or other political authority such as a ruling ideology or tradition.
• Political accountability - institutional channels for holding political leaders responsible for their decisions and actions.
• Political competition - presence of multiple options in political life, for example more than one political party, candidate for office, or policy position.
• Propaganda - biased information meant to convince an audience of a particular perspective or narrative.
• Sharp power - efforts by one country to use information war and diplomatic tactics to undermine the institutions of a target country, often a democracy.
• Single-party rule - non-democratic rule by a political party.
• Theocracy - non-democratic rule by elites who are legitimated by sacred texts.
• Totalitarian regime - non-democratic rule that seeks total control over society by a ruler or political elites.
• Typology - descriptive means to divide a category into sub-categories based on underlying characteristics of items in the category.
Summary
Section 5.1: What are non-democracies?
Non-democracies comprise a diverse array of countries. Commonalities across these countries include limited to no accountability for political elites and limited to no competition for public office. All non-democracies also limit the freedoms of citizens in significant ways.
Section 5.2: Strategies for staying in power
Non-democratic leaders draw from a variety of strategies to remain in power. “Carrots” include the creation of institutions to co-opt opposition and distribute resources via patronage networks or broad-based clientelism. “Sticks” involve surveilling and terrorizing populations through domestic security bureaucracies and paramilitaries. Powerful propaganda bureaus control ideas and discourse. Promotion of non-democratic cultural traditions or ideological controls also serve to legitimize the regime and delineate permissible activity in society.
Section 5.3: Varieties of non-democracy
Non-democracies are a diverse category of regimes. Many scholars have sought to identify patterns across non-democracies by devising qualitative typologies that capture common characteristics across specific cases. New types of non-democracy have been identified over time. Some common types of non-democracy include theocracy, personalist rule and monarchy, single-party rule and oligarchy, military rule, illiberal regime, and hybrid regime.
Section 5.4: Democratic backsliding
Democratic backsliding is the process of a democracy becoming more illiberal and autocratic. This phenomenon has been observed among modern democracies from the nineteenth century through the present. There are many factors which can contribute to democratic backsliding. These may be institutional, cultural, and international in nature.
Section 5.5: Comparative case study - From Czarist Russia to the Soviet Union and after
Russia from the seventeenth century to the present has experienced several types of non-democratic rule. Monarchical, or czarist rule existed until the twentieth century, when revolution led to single-party rule under the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, only to usher in a period of illiberal rule.
Review Questions
Please select the most appropriate answer for each of the following questions.
1. Which of the following are characteristics of non-democracies?
1. Public officials are subject to limited or no accountability for their actions
2. Limited to no competition for public office
3. Limited to non-existent freedoms for citizens
4. All of the above
2. Which of the following type of non-democracy is characterized by political leadership that all belongs to the same political party?
1. Military rule
2. Single party rule
3. Theocracy
4. Personalist rule
3. Non-democracies may have which of the following institutions?
1. Free and fair elections
2. Full civil and political liberties for citizens
3. A cult of personality
4. Independent judiciaries and highest leaders subject to the rule of law
4. True or false: A hybrid non-democracy may exhibit characteristics of more than one type of non-democracy, for example a combination of personalist and single-party rule.
1. True
2. False
5. Which of the following is NOT a kind of non-democracy observed in Russia?
1. Single-party rule
2. Monarchical rule
3. Theocracy
4. Illiberal regime
Critical Thinking Questions
1. Consider a nondemocratic country. What are some of the institutions used by leaders to stay in power – what are some of the carrots, sticks, and ideas employed by rulers?
2. Considering the nondemocracy that you chose for the previous question, What type of nondemocracy is it, and is it a single type of combination of types? Has this nondemocracy changed types over time?
3. Is there evidence of democratic backsliding in any democracies in the world today? Provide evidence to support your response.
Suggestions for Further Study
Books
• Greitens, Sheena. (2016). Dictators and their Secret Police: Coercive Institutions and State Violence (Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Levitsky, Steven and Way, Lucan A. (2010). Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
• Tucker, A. (2015). The Legacies of Totalitarianism: A Theoretical Framework. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781316393055
Articles
• Gandhi, Jennifer and Lust-Okar, Ellen. (2009). Elections Under Authoritarianism. Annual Review of Political Science 12: 403-422.
• Wahman, Michael, Teorell, Jan and Hadenius, Axel. (2013). "Authoritarian Regime Types Revisited: Updated Data in Comparative Perspective." Contemporary Politics 19(1): 19-34.
• Walker, C. (2018). What Is “Sharp Power”?. Journal of Democracy, 29(3), 9-23.
Datasets and websites
• Authoritarian Regimes Dataset. Comprehensive dataset on authoritarian regimes in the world from 1972 to 2014.
• Freedom House. Reports and maps on levels of political and civil rights in countries of the world.
• Polity Project. Multi-factor measure of regime types for countries of the world from 1946 to the present.
Films
• Sørensen, Signe Byrge, Köhncke, Anne, and Uwemedimo, Michael (Producers), & Oppenheimer, Joshua, Cynn, Christine, and Anonymous (Directors). (2012). The Act of Killing. Indonesia: Det Danske Filminstitut and Dogwoof Pictures.
• Wiedemann, Max and Berg, Quirin (Producers), & Henckel Von Donnersmarck, Florian (Director). (2006). The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen). Germany: Buena Vista International. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/05%3A_Non-Democracies_and_Democratic_Backsliding/5.06%3A_References.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Define political identity and related terms such as political socialization and political mobilization of identity.
• Identify the ways in which individuals undergo political socialization towards the formation of political identity.
• Consider the connections between political identity and political mobilization.
Political Identity and Related Terms
Identity, broadly considered, answers the question, 'Who am I?' as well as 'How do I want to be seen by others? and 'How do I want to be seen in the future?' A person’s identity is developed from a combination of factors, including a person’s experiences, relationships, perception of the world, calculation of risk and threat in the world, as well as their observations and experience of societal mores, morals and values. Many times, identity can take firm hold over characteristics for which people have no actual control, like a person’s race, height, eye color, socio-economic class, and so forth. In all cases, identity forms through a process of socialization, where the individual discovers themselves and where they think they fit within the social order. Identity, and the calculation of one’s identity, can have sweeping implications in society. Since identity, once formed or identified, can section people into groups of 'sameness' and 'differentness,' conflict usually follows. As a consequence, the development and outcomes of identity, in it of itself, shapes the world around us and the conflicts that arise. It can also help us understand history and past conflicts when considered through the lens of an identity focused narrative.
Not surprisingly, the term political identity shares almost all of the same traits as the term identity itself. Political identity also answers the questions of 'Who am I?' and 'How do I want to be seen by others,' but from a political orientation. Political identity is defined as how a person or group of persons think of themselves in relation to the politics and government of a country. It refers to the labels and characteristics an individual chooses to associate with based on a multitude of factors including but not limited to, their perception of political ideologies, platforms and parties, as well as how they see themselves from national, racial, ethnic, linguistic, cultural and gender perspectives.
There are many political identities that political scientists have considered over the last two decades, with some identities being rooted in biology and genetics (race, biological gender, etc.) with a great deal being rooted in symbolic, religious, and patriotic origins. (For instance, It’s the difference between being born a certain race and identifying with that race versus deciding to belong to a religious group on one’s own volition). One of the main reasons political scientists have begun focusing on political identity is because human attachment to these identities has been mobilized for/with political consequences. Political mobilization is defined as organized activities intended to motivate groups of participants to take political action on a particular issue. There have been many examples of political identity resulting in political mobilization.
Consider the 2010 Arab Spring, which was a series of protests against oppressive government regions in the Middle East. Protests occurred in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen, and sometimes resulted in violence. The protesters tended to be from two main identity groups. One group was each country’s youth, that is, young people who were dissatisfied with authoritative regimes and wanted democratic governments. Another group were from those belonging to Unions, which were under constant threat in these countries. In this circumstance, the identity of the younger population, as well as the identity of those belonging to Unions and wanting the recognition of their identity as well as the ability to be represented politically, both were mobilizing to demand change. Though there is still conflict in all of these countries, the Arab Spring is said to have ended in 2012, and one of the key findings was that countries which did not have oil and/or oil wealth were much more likely to undergo regime transition as a result of these protests than those countries that were oil rich.
Another more recent example is the January 6th 2021 United States Capitol Attack, which was an event in the United States where approximately 2,000- 2,500 supporters of then President Donald Trump attacked the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. with the intent of overturning the 2020 election results where Joseph Biden won the presidency. These protests were planned and instigated by a number of Trump supporters who identified with a faction within the Republican Party which believed there was widespread election fraud and corruption in the 2020 Presidential Election. Organizing through social media, and attending Trump’s speech the morning of January 6th, the protestors mobilized their collective political identity to attack the Capitol. Some have alleged that Trump’s speech was intended to incite violence, though proving speech invokes action can be difficult to do. An excerpt of Trump’s speech was:
All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical-left Democrats, which is what they're doing. And stolen by the fake news media. That's what they've done and what they're doing. We will never give up, we will never concede. It doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved. Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore and that's what this is all about. And to use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with: We will stop the steal. [Speech by Donald Trump during the January 6th 2021 United States Capitol Attack] (Naylor, 2021)
Following Trump’s speech, protestors marched to the Capitol, attacked and infiltrated the building, assaulted law enforcement officers, vandalized property, and stayed on the premises for hours. All told, the attack on the Capitol resulted in the five deaths, and the injuries of over 130 police officers who were trying to protect the Capitol. The attachment to an identity, in this case, Republicans who believed the election was fraudulent, clearly resulted in the ultimate attack on the Capitol.
Prior to considering the various identities that have been instrumental in political mobilization globally, it is useful to consider the way in which political identities are formed and become solidified. For this, we will look at the process of political socialization in the next section.
The Process of Political Socialization
Political identity, representing the essence, needs and desires of individuals, has major implications in the realm of political science. Political identity is often a key factor to consider for the formation of states, as well as to consider in the context of causes for conflict. If a state’s population is fairly homogeneous, or similar in identity, it may be easier, at times, to have laws and policies that align with the political identity of the people. If a population is heterogeneous, or different in identities, there may be more conflict and less ability to unite people under similar laws and norms. This does not mean that a diverse society cannot be a peaceful or efficient one, but when identities are different enough in terms of values and concerns, conflict is more likely to arise. If one looks at the case of India, state formation was a challenge in part due to the variety of political identities that existed, and political identities translated into communities with potentially different religions, ethnicities, values and beliefs. One could contrast the example of India’s diverse situation with another state’s homogenous situation, like China or Japan. In both examples. Though very different, political identity is an important factor involved in both the formation and maintenance of a state’s regime.
How is political identity formed? Where does one’s political identity come from? Individuals form their political identity through the process of political socialization, which stems from living in a society. Society, broadly defined, refers to a population which has organized itself based on shared ideas for how the world acts and should act through both formal and informal institutions. In living in a society, individuals become politically socialized. Political socialization is the process in which our political beliefs are formed over time. It is how individuals perceive the political world around them, come to understand how society is organized, and how they see their own role in society based on these perceptions. Some aspects of identity tend to be fixed, and these can stem from factors such as race and biological sex (which will be discussed in the following chapters). Biological factors tend to be stationary factors out of an individual’s control.
Other aspects of identity are formed based on symbolic meaning, ideology, gender, religion and culture. Regardless whether the aspects of identity are fixed or dynamic, the process of socialization, which enables individuals to attach and relate with an identity, can be influenced and formed through the influence of a number of different actors/institutions in a person’s life. One of the first places an individual begins their political socialization is with their families. The process can start out simply and implicitly. If mom, dad, or a parental guardian or mentor, have shared their beliefs and perceptions about society, a child may begin to adopt similar perceptions. In some ways, whether a child adopts the same views as their parents, guardians or mentors may depend, at least partly, on whether the child truly recognizes these actors as legitimate with authority. If the child recognizes these actors as legitimate sources of authority, they may be inclined to adopt similar perspectives If a child does not see their parents, guardians or mentors as legitimate, they may adopt opposing stances based, in some part, on their perception that these actors do not have valid stances because their positions of authority were also not valid or secured in the child’s mind.
A second place where political socialization occurs for many is in school. Schools, in many countries, are institutions which provide students with information about the world around them. Teachers and those involved with the curricular, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities of their students can have influence on how students perceive the societal organization around them. In a number of countries worldwide, schools provide structured and standardized education to address core subjects which society deems as important to broach. In the United States, we see subjects like mathematics, science, English, reading, writing and electives like art, home economics, shop class, drama, automotive, and so forth. These subjects, in and of themselves, are showing students what society values or, at the very least, considers important for their education. Within this, teachers can have a huge impact on what a student walks away thinking from a certain subject or course. In some ways, what a student thinks of what a teacher says can be similar to what a child thinks of their parent, guardian or mentor. The individual will ask themselves: Do I trust this person? Do I think this person knows what they are talking about? If students do trust the person and believe the teacher knows what they are talking about, a student may adopt similar views and beliefs as this person. Conversely, if the student does not trust or believe in the teacher, they may adopt opposing views. Many times, those in primary grades will be more likely to trust those who are teaching, but as adolescence arrives, they will begin to ask these questions more critically.
A third place where political socialization can occur for individuals is through their friends and peers. As children age into adolescence, they are potentially more influenced by their friends and peers in ways they had not been as influenced as young children. There are ample studies considering the role of adolescence in the formation of political identity which draw some interesting conclusions. One of the main takeaways from all this research is the finding that adolescents are heavily influenced by their peers to extents which can be both extreme and not representative or predictive of the political identity they will form later on in life. Adolescent youths, in an attempt to fit in or please their friends, will be influenced by their thoughts, ideas, attitudes and beliefs.
A fourth way in which individuals become politically socialized is through media and more recently, social media. Over the last 40 years, the media’s influence has grown substantially both in the United States and around the world. In the early 1980s and before, news in the United States largely took place at one time of day, 6 pm, with local news at 10 pm. Today, news is broadcast every hour of every day in what is called a 24-hour news cycle. CNN was the first news outlet to have a 24-hour news channel in the early 1980s, and other news outlets slowly followed suit. Over the last few decades, there has also been a proliferation of different news outlets which can offer political judgements based on political ideological leanings, speaking more from the perspective of an ideology rather than a position of complete objectivity. Now, more so than ever, there is a spectrum of news outlets, ranging from left to right wing and offering analysis from the perspective of these ideological backgrounds.
In addition to a 24-hour news cycle where state, national and global news can be viewed at will, there has also been the rise of social media accounts through applications like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and so forth. These platforms have given individuals the ability to have near real-time knowledge of what is going around in the world around them as well as the ability to project out their own thoughts, beliefs and judgements about what is going on in the world. Opinions are readily available through social media, and opinions are not edited, managed, corrected, deemed accurate by any overarching source to manage public perceptions. This can be both a good and bad thing for political socialization as well as democracy as a whole. Most people living in a democracy, particularly the United States, will cite their freedom of speech to voice and write their opinions on various platforms. Freedom of speech needs to be protected as it is one of the cornerstones of democracy. On the other hand, the elevation of opinions to broadcasting status can amplify judgments that are not based in facts or scholastic review. This lack of accountability has translated into a dangerous situation where opinions can be viewed as fact with very little evidence to support or validate the opinion. (Give a few examples) All of these factors do, for better or worse, shape a person’s political identity.
A fifth area to consider in the political socialization of individuals is the influence of religion. Religion can be a powerful force in the lives of many people from around the world. At the present time, more than 80% of US citizens, according to large sample survey data, say they believe in a “higher power.” While one may derive from this finding the belief that US citizens are similar in religion and religious values, this would be a mistake. In 2020, 65% of US citizens said they were Christian (a number that has been in steep decline for the last five decades), and only 40% of Americans said religion was important in their lives. Even within the 65% of Christians in the US, there are major divisions, particularly between the majority Protestant population and the minority Catholic population. Aside from the Christian population, other religions represented in the US include Mormonism, Buddhism, Muslim, Hinduism, Agnostic, and Atheist. For those who do attend church or participate in religious activities or events, individuals can begin to view political factors from religious, spiritual or moralistic lenses.
A final area to consider for political socialization is what the government itself says or does and how individuals perceive their actions and values in the context of their greater society. For the following sections, we will consider the importance and influence of key identity groups as they relate to political mobilization. To this end, we will be considering culture, race, ethnicity and gender. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/06%3A_Political_Identity-_Culture_Race_and_Ethnicity_and_Gender/6.01%3A_Introduction_to_Political_Identity.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Define culture and norms.
• Consider the implications of cultures which have strict or loose norms.
• Distinguish between different political culture systems.
Introduction
Culture, broadly defined, is the combination of customs, social institutions, arts, media, and social, economic, political achievements of a social group. In many ways, culture can be seen as a “catch-all” for so many factors of social behavior, habits and traditions found in a society. This also includes norms, which are standard practices, rules, patterns and behaviors that are considered acceptable in a society. In some situations, the inability or unwillingness to abide by norms in a culture can result in punishments and violence. Some scholars have argued that norms can have significant influence on political behaviors. Michele Gelfand, a psychology professor at the University of Maryland, wrote a book entitled, Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire the World. In her book, she argues that cultures which enforce strict adherence to norms tend to have greater control over their own populations, and often less crime, and the promotion of self-control among individuals. In contrast, countries that do not promote strict adherence to norms may be more disorganized and have potentially higher crime, but are more open to other ideas, cultures, and ways of life. Also, interestingly, Gelford argues that cultures that do not have strict adherence to norms tend to perform better in the open market, and experience strong economic outcomes. In explaining how cultures tend to adopt strict or loose adherence to norms, Gelford wrote:
There’s a hidden logic for why these differences evolve: groups that have experienced a lot of threat tend to be tighter. The threat can come from a variety of sources, such as a high level of natural disasters and famine, a scarcity of resources, the potential of invasions, a high population density, economic uncertainty, etc. It makes sense: Groups under threat need rules to coordinate to survive. Cultures that have less threat can afford to be more permissive. There are exceptions, but I’ve found that this general principle helps to explain tight-loose differences across nations, states, social classes, organisations and in pre-industrial societies. (Gelford, 2019)
According to Gelford (2019), cultures will develop as a result of various contexts. In light of historical origins, present-day strains and stresses, and ambitions to acquire or attain certain goals, cultural norms will evolve to adapt to their environment. In evaluating data on political, social and economic measures within 30 different countries, the authors found that cultures had either too-strict or too-loose adherence to cultural norms also had lower levels of happiness and higher rates of suicide. Conversely, cultures which had more moderate adherence to norms were among the happiest and most economically successful countries.
Drilling down further, there is the concept of political culture to consider. Political culture is defined as a shared set of ideological views and beliefs held by a population as it relates to the political system in which they live. A number of factors are related to how political culture manifests in different cultures. Trust, the extent to which citizens believe in the reliability, validity, or truth of their government and their fellow citizens, plays a significant role in political outcomes. For instance, if citizens do not trust the election process, how likely will their representative political parties be willing to accept election results? As discussed in previous chapters, being able to accept election results, even when your party has lost, is an important and foundational feature of any democracy. If trust does not exist here, what are the chances that institutions can perform their functions? The odds for political conflict and violence increases as the level of trust decreases. Another factor relating to how political culture manifests in a given country is postmaterialism, which is the extent to which a political culture focuses or cares about issues which are not of immediate physical and material concern, like human rights and environmental concerns. Both of these factors, along with many others that could be considered, help us understand the political cultures of countries around the world.
Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, both major contributors to the study of comparative politics, have also studied the importance and influence of political culture worldwide. Their contribution in the book, The Civic Culture, recognizes three types of political culture as it relates to political participation and interaction with their political systems. According to Almond and Verba, the first type of political culture is called parochialism, which is a system where citizens are not involved, engaged, or remotely aware of the political operations in their country. In a parochial system, citizens are not interested, and do not care to become interested, in the politics of their countries. In a subject system, citizens are somewhat aware and responsive of their governmental systems, and at the same time, heavily controlled and legislated by their governments. In this system, there is no room for opposition or dissent, they are merely subjects to the government and must abide by the laws or rules or face punishment or violence. This system tends to be aligned with authoritarian regimes. Lastly, the Participant system is one where citizens are aware of government actions, are able to influence and participate in governmental decisions, and at the same time, they must abide by the laws and rules of the government. This system tends to be aligned with democratic regimes. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/06%3A_Political_Identity-_Culture_Race_and_Ethnicity_and_Gender/6.02%3A_Culture.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Define, and distinguish between, the terms Race and Ethnicity
• Consider how race and ethnicity influence political mobilization
Introduction
Race and ethnicity have often been used, mistakenly, as though they are interchangeable terms. The terms are often widely misunderstood, so it is important to ensure the two terms are clearly defined. According to Merriam-Webster, race is “a category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits.” To this end, race is a narrow term which is associated with biological characteristics such as skin color and hair texture. On the U.S. Census, which is conducted every ten years in the United States, the following six options appear for individuals to share their race: White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, or Other Race (for those who do not associate with any of the previous categories). Ethnicity is a broader term than race and is used to categorize groups of people according to their own relation to culture. Racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic and cultural origin are all factors which can be used to describe a person’s ethnicity. Ethnicity can be confusing for many people, especially given the context in which they may be asked about their ethnicity.
In the US Census, there are limited options listed, in fact, only two options: you can either choose that you are of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish descent, or not. Both race and ethnicity can be categorizations that raise problems, especially as the options available to those having to answer to their race and ethnicity, may not be comprehensive or representative of their actual identities. Two of the most obvious problems are this: First, sometimes people do not want to be categorized according to their race or ethnicity, or, second, they feel the current labels do not capture their identities. On the first point, some people do not want to share their race or ethnicity for fear of any consequences that may come from being identified in a certain way. On the latter point, the limited options sometimes presented just do not seem appropriate for those needing to select an option.
Race and ethnicity play a major role in politics around the world. Factors of race and ethnicity can be explored as both an influence on political outcomes, as well as an effect of political outcomes.Within the U.S.,one could study the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, which was a movement that attempted to ensure equal treatment under the law for Black and African American citizens. The momentum for the movement came from civil rights activists and protestors who sought to end racial oppression, end segregation, and end Black voter suppression and discriminatory employment and housing practices. The Civil Rights Movement occurred between 1954 and 1968, and resulted in a number of important changes within the U.S., particularly in relation to ending literacy tests (like the 1964 Louisiana State Literacy Test, which was intended to suppress Black voters), and instituting policies like Affirmative Action.
Race and ethnicity have been studied in relation to quality of democracy, the role of public opinion, individual attitudes, public policy, the quality and scope of institutions within a regime, the evaluating of how different groups work together (or don’t), as well as inequality in wealth and economic outcomes. Overall, the scope of race and ethnicity in politics is sweeping. As an example, much research has been completed in relation to political attitudes in the U.S. and how race and ethnicity can affect trends in political attitudes, as well as how much political parties can diverge on their perspectives on progress for racial equality. In the U.S., political parties have different perspectives on progress for racial equality. Members of the Republican Party are far more likely to say great advances have been made in terms of racial equality in the U.S., while members of the Democratic Party affirm that much more needs to be done.
While the political parties disagree, and political party affiliation tends to be the main queue for how Americans vote, the majority of Black Americans, according to the Pew Research Center, believe most of the institutions in the U.S. are biased and need to be “completely rebuilt.” Matters of race and ethnicity as they relate to politics continue to be significant areas of research around the world. Almost every country on the planet has unique historical contexts and political circumstances that in some way are affected, or affect, different racial or ethnic groups. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/06%3A_Political_Identity-_Culture_Race_and_Ethnicity_and_Gender/6.03%3A_Race_and_Ethnicity.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Define, and distinguish between gender and sex.
• Consider how factors such as gender identity and biological sex influence political, social and economic outcomes.
Introduction
Gender has been an area of increasing consideration in the world of political science over the last two decades. Similar to previous sections in this chapter, how a term is defined has implications for how it is discussed, so it is important that terms and definitions are clear. Gender can be broadly defined as a spectrum of characteristics ranging from feminine to masculine, and gender tends to have more to do with how a person wants to identify. The difference between biological sex versus gender identity is critical to understand. According to the World Health Organization, biological sex refers to “the different biological and physiological characteristics of males and females, such as reproductive organs, chromosomes, hormones, etc.” whereas Gender refers to:
the socially constructed characteristics of women and men – such as norms, roles and relationships of and between groups of women and men. It varies from society to society and can be changed. The concept of gender includes five important elements: relational, hierarchical, historical, contextual and institutional. While most people are born either male or female, they are taught appropriate norms and behaviours – including how they should interact with others of the same or opposite sex within households, communities and work places. When individuals or groups do not “fit” established gender norms they often face stigma, discriminatory practices or social exclusion – all of which adversely affect health.
People frequently confuse the terms ‘gender’ and ‘sex,’ as though they mean the same thing. Instead, gender identity has much more to do with how a person chooses to identify, rather than on their biological sex, which is usually assigned at birth but can be changed in the course of life. Relating to biological sex, the divide between male and female has often influenced politics. Most frequently, women in most societies have been historically underrepresented and discriminated against. Looking globally at women’s suffrage, which is the right of women to vote in elections, over 180 countries now allow women to vote in some capacity. Nevertheless, most of the world’s movement towards allowing women to vote in elections came in the 20th century, including in the United States, where women were only granted the right to vote as of 1920. Beyond the right to vote, women’s rights globally are still not necessarily fully institutionalized, upheld or prioritized.
In most countries, women do not earn the same as men in similar positions, even when their credentials and experience meet or exceed their male counterparts. An interesting case study of the unequal treatment for women’s rights can be seen with the COVID-19 pandemic, which, in most countries, tended to push women out of the workplace. In the United States alone, female workforce participation dropped to 57%, the lowest levels since 1988. Of the 1.1 million people who were pushed from the workforce, 80% were women. Economic projections calculate it will take women twice as long as men to recover from their economic circumstances as a result of the pandemic. The pandemic, which forced many children into lockdown and quarantine, disproportionately affected women greater than men. Consider this:
One of the main drivers of this disparity is the increased burden of unpaid care—shopping, cooking, cleaning, taking care of kids and parents in the household—which is disproportionately carried by women. Pre-COVID-19, women on average already did almost twice as much unpaid care compared to men. The COVID-19 crisis has added a very uneven addition onto an already unequal baseline (Ellingrud & Hilton, 2021).
Outcomes around the world were also poor for women. Globally, it has been calculated that women’s jobs are twice as much at risk than male jobs. Women account for 39% of all jobs worldwide, but their participation in the workforce dropped by 54% worldwide with the pandemic. These findings have led a number of scholars to note that the pandemic has had a regressive effect on gender equality worldwide. This has led many scholars and organizations to consider ways to best reintroduce women into the workplace, and try to support the re-entry of women into the workplace. If women are not able to re-enter the workforce to the levels from pre-pandemic, it is likely that many economies will suffer greatly. Some calculations say the loss of women in the workforce will result in the loss of trillions of dollars of economic output.
Another factor of concern in this area is acceptance of gender identity in different political systems. More attention has been given in recent years to more diversity of options in relation to gender identity and sexual orientation. Sexual orientation is defined as the sustained pattern of romantic and/or sexual attraction to people of opposite sex or gender, same sex or gender, or to both. The top five countries in the world for being accepting of different gender identities and sexual orientations are Iceland, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden and Canada.
Some of the countries accused of mistreating citizens of different gender identities and sexual orientations include: Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Malawi and Oman. Countries that are less accepting of different gender identities tend to have laws or legal codes against transgender and LGBTQIA+ communities. Also, there tends to be state propaganda and morality laws. In some cases, a person’s identity can be tantamount to a crime. Punishments can include long prison sentences and state-sanctioned violence, such as flogging. Some countries even go as far as to outlaw speaking about issues of gender identity and sexual orientation. At present, the US is ranked 20th for its treatment of the LGBTQIA+ community, primarily because not all US states offer protection against gender-based discrimination. In addition, other US states prohibit discussion of homsexuality and LGBTQIA+ issues. Interestingly, a report published by UCLA’s School of Law, the “Social Acceptance of LGBTQIA+ People in 175 Countries and Locations, 1981-2020,” found that 56 out of 175 countries have experienced improvements of acceptance since 1981. In contrast, 57 countries have experienced decreases in acceptance, whereas 62 countries have experienced no change in the acceptance of the LGBTQIA+ community (Flores, 2021). | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/06%3A_Political_Identity-_Culture_Race_and_Ethnicity_and_Gender/6.04%3A_Gender.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Compare aspects of two different societies which had caste system
Introduction
In the 21st century, conversations of political identity frequently center upon how individuals choose to identify themselves and categorize themselves into groups. The burden here tends to rest on individuals locating and assigning themselves an identity that matches their preferences and motivations. There are many examples of this from around the world, relating to racial, ethnic, cultural and gender preferences. Consider racial identity in Brazil: In Brazil in April 2021, over 40,000 political candidates were able to categorize their own racial identities differently than in previous elections. According to political scientist Andrew Janusz from the University of Florida, political candidates in Brazil "have some latitude to fluctuate on how they present themselves" in order to attract the voters they want to turn out at the polls.
Consider gender identity around the world. As of late 2021, there are sixteen countries which allow citizens to choose between male, female, non-binary or third genders on their passports. These countries include Argentina, Austria, Australia, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Malta, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, India, Nepal and, most recently, the United States. In looking at democracies in Western Europe and the United States, the Pew Research Center has found that views on political and cultural identities have “become less restrictive and more inclusive in recent years.” Factors which have been historically important towards justifying one’s political identity, such as birthplace, religion, sharing a country’s customs and beliefs, and the ability to speak the dominant language in a country, have seen collectively decreased importance in terms of how political identity is interpreted today in Western Europe and the United States.
Considering these examples among many, some could argue the 21st century has brought more opportunities for societies to design and assign their own identities in alignment with their preferences and ambitions. Drawing this conclusion, however, downplays the reality that there are still many countries in the world where political identity, as well as other forms of identity, tend to be imposed, rather than chosen for oneself. Furthermore, debate over political identities is still heated around the world, even in places where it seems values of inclusion are being given greater weight.
Although Japan and India are both democracies, and both have constitutions which ensure equal treatment of citizens under the law as well as freedom from discrimination based on race, religion, gender and so forth, both countries have struggled greatly with improving gender equality in various segments of society. Generally, gender gaps are measured in regards to women in the economy (their participation and earning relative to men), women’s access to health, and women’s representation in politics. In all three areas, India and Japan have struggled and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have worsened already large gender gaps in both countries. Using the method of Most Similar Systems Design, this case study will compare two countries which, while both democracies of similar duration and emphasis on civil rights and liberties mentioned in their constitutions, have had difficulty with their policy approaches to decreasing gender gaps. Both countries struggle with historical and cultural remnants of gender roles which continue to pervade all aspects of women’s lives today. Although both countries are now democracies, with legal protections in place to ensure equal rights and prevent discrimination based on gender, these two countries have taken different action to treat current gender gaps.
Japan’s Gender Gaps
Full Country Name: Japan
Head(s) of State: Emperor and Prime Minister
Government: Unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy
Official Languages: Japanese
Economic System: Mixed Economy
Location: Island in East Asia
Capital: Tokyo
Total land size: 145,937 sq mi
Population: 125 million
GDP: \$5.378 trillion
GDP per capita: \$42,928
Currency: Japanese Yen
Japan is an island in East Asia off the coast of China and Taiwan. Today, Japan has one of the oldest democracies in East Asia, and is the 11th most populous country in the world. Japan’s government system is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy where the Emperor is the Head of State, the Prime Minister is the Head of Government, and the Cabinet directs the executive branch. Legislative power is vested with the National Diet, which is a Congress that includes both a House of Representatives and a House of Councillors. Judicial power is vested in the country’s Supreme Court and some lower courts. The supreme law of the land is derived by the 1947 Constitution, which was created under the American occupation of Japan following World War II. Overall, Japan’s democracy is considered consolidated and stable, as the country has upheld free and fair elections, the rule of law, and freedom of the press. Nevertheless, an area of continuing concern in Japanese society is gender equality. Japan ranks 110 out of 149 countries worldwide according to the World Economic Forums’ 2018 Gender Gap Index.
Following the creation of the 1947 Constitution in Japan, which ended the reign of Emperor Meiji and the Meiji Period, Japanese powers were encouraged to initiate their own democracy and enforce democratic reforms. Nevertheless, the 1947 Constitution was mostly drafted by Americans, and reviewed and modified by Japanese scholars. Interestingly, the 1947 Constitution was written to institute democracy, but also written to not contradict the previous Meiji Constitution. In doing so, it was hoped that the people of Japan would more readily accept the new constitution.
Some of the main additions within this Constitution were those given to individual rights, including but not limited to: Equality before the law (freedom from discrimination), democratic elections, the prohibition of slavery, separation of church and state, freedom of assembly, speech association, press, right to property and right to due process. Women were granted the right to vote prior to the Constitution being formally adopted (women’s suffrage granted in 1945), and combined with the individual rights emphasized in the Constitution, it was hoped that women would enjoy equal rights and treatment as men. For a variety of factors, women in Japan have faced great challenges over the decades since World War II in terms of being treated equally under the law and within society. The delay and slow progress in women achieving equal outcomes may be due, in part, to historical context and culture.
Within the Meiji Era, women did not have legal rights of any kind, and they were expected to perform only household duties as directed by the male head of the household. From a historical and cultural standpoint, expectations of women have been strict. Women are expected to be modest, tidy, courteous, obedient and self-reliant. Women were to look well-kept and to be silent and compliant with male expectations and needs. In this vein, both male and female children were to be completely obedient to their parents. Women who expressed themselves or communicated their needs were considered troublesome or overly needy, which were not desirable characteristics. Female children were directed to perform duties to help around the house, while male children were given opportunities for schooling and eventual employment in various vocations. Although the 1947 Constitution did introduce sweeping changes that should have affected the status of women, many of the cultural norms from the Meiji period still stand today, with women being socially expected to be submissive and modest.
The treatment of gender roles does not seem to match the reality of life in Japan. Although there is a preference for women to maintain the Meiji existence, the vast majority of adult Japanese women work (almost 70% of all adult Japanese women are employed). At the same time, Japan has one of the worst documented gender gaps in terms of equal pay for women based on similar credentials and occupational levels as men. Indeed, the OECD noted that Japan has the second worst gender wage gap in the world.
Following other trends around the world with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, employment prospects and data worsened for Japanese women. Indeed, Japan’s women experienced larger reductions in their work hours, had a higher tendency to be furloughed, and were generally pushed from the workforce at a far greater rate than men were in the midst of the pandemic; so much so, the exodus of women in the workplace in Japan has been called the 'she-cession'. Although some recent gains in employment for women have occurred, economic recovery in regards to women in the world place has been slow, and raises questions about the overall ability for women to re-enter the workforce again over the coming years. The effect of the pandemic was particularly difficult for Japan’s women because of their traditional values on gender roles. In this vein, many believed, in the face of the lockdown and quarantines, women should be at home helping their children and tending to household responsibilities. Many women bore the brunt of all family-related obligations during the pandemic, and sluggish economic growth does not improve opportunities for women to return to work.
Inequality in the workplace is not the only area of concern for women in Japan today. Two other areas of concern is the lack of female representation within the political structures and the prevalence of sexism and gender discrimination overall. On the first point, although political parties in Japan have prioritized increasing the representation of women in their organizations, growth has been slow. Interestingly, survey results within Japan indicate that voters are not necessarily biased against candidates for their gender, but rather not many Japanese women run for political office. In line with the belief that women need to be submissive, modest and unambitious, running for office creates problems for each of these characteristics. Although 70% of adult Japanese women are in the workforce, the perception that women should be home with their children and handling household tasks is still firmly embedded in society.
Some research has indicated that Japanese women would be more likely to run for office if political parties made efforts to lend greater support and funding to support their candidacies. Some scholars have also argued that the current structure of Japan’s welfare system is not conducive for women running for office or holding high-level jobs in the workplace. This is because there is a perception that men need to be the main “breadwinners” of the household, and if a woman is not employed, the family is eligible for more government support for women to handle the raising of the children. If women are working in tandem with their husbands working, they will not be eligible for this extra government assistance, which could hurt their families. Data also indicates that women face stark gender-based discrimination and harassment in Japan, whether in the workplace, in schooling, or in society in general. According to a 2021 survey, almost 60% of Japanese women working in government experienced sexual harassment on the job, by both voters and other politicians.
India’s Gender Gaps
Full Country Name: Republic of India
Head(s) of State: President
Government: Federal parliamentary constitutional republic
Official Languages: Hindi, English (Plus over 430 native languages)
Economic System: Middle Income Developing Market Economy
Location: South Asia
Capital: New Delhi
Total land size: 1,269,219 sq mi
Population: 1.3 trillion people
GDP: \$3.050 trillion
GDP per capita: \$2,191
Currency: Indian Rupee
India is a country in South Asia, bordered by Pakistan, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar. India gained its independence from Britain in 1947, and redrafted its Constitution to install a democracy as a federal parliamentary republic. Under its new Constitution, India’s government has all three components of the executive, legislative and judicial branches. The executive branch contains a president with largely ceremonial duties, and a prime minister, whose role is the head of government and is tasked with wielding the executive powers. The prime minister role is appointed by the president with the support of the majority party in parliament at the time. As in the U.S. democracy, the executive branch’s powers are secondary to legislative powers. The legislative branch, which contains parliament, is tasked with making laws and performing all legislative functions. Finally, India’s judiciary is a three-tiered system which includes a supreme court and a number of high and lower courts.
India’s constitution is substantially longer than Japan’s, though similar to Japan’s, fundamental rights are within the first few sections of the entire document. Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution ensure equality before the law as well as the prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth. All this being acknowledged, India is a democracy which also is labeled as having severe problems with gender equality and treatment. While Japan ranks 110 for gender gaps, India ranks 140 (slipping 28 spaces in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic). Like Japan, India has had a long history of abiding by strict gender roles. In Indian society, men are the “breadwinners” and the ones tasked with earning for their families, where women are responsible for reproduction of heirs and handling home duties (submissive to the head of the household).
Historically, women in India never held roles equal to men. Women were seen only as wives and mothers, and their positions were always subordinate to men. In this society, men drive all social, political and economic choices. Beyond this, the role of the women was to ensure, oftentimes, a male child. Male children hold significant roles in the family and, eventually, are tasked with performing last rites for the elders in the family, as well as ensuring the continuation of the family line. Under this system, women were expected to be highly moral and faithful, while men were encouraged to ensure male progeny, even if it meant being unfaithful. Over time, women’s rights in India did not improve, but steadily declined. The birth of daughters was not welcome news. Often, it may be more profitable to sell a daughter or woman as a commodity, rather than keep one in the family.
Although India’s constitution does recognize equal rights for men and women, and that individuals in India would be free from discrimination based on religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth, many conceptions of the role of women in society seem to persist today. The historical and cultural foundations of women in society are difficult to overcome. One of the reasons for India’s gender gap ranking is starkly different than Japan’s, which appears to be most manifest in gender wage gaps and treatment of women in the workplace, is because of India’s practice of sex selective abortion. Sex-selective abortion is a practice of terminating a pregnancy once the sex of the infant is known. In most cases, this means that if a child is known to be female, there may be motivation to end the pregnancy.
While abortion is legal with certain restrictions in India, the practice of sex selective abortion is not. Nevertheless, it is believed that sex selective abortions do take place at a high rate given the grossly uneven ratio of males to females in Indian society. According to the United Nations, both India and China account for more than 90% of all sex selective abortions worldwide, with an estimated 1.5 million missing female births recorded each year globally. Various non-profits and human rights organizations have been working in India to decrease the practice of sex selective abortions, though it can be difficult to monitor these practices since they are not legal and these abortions may be practiced under unsafe or non-ideal circumstances.
Other reasons for India’s low ranking in terms of gender equality include the lack of women’s representation in politics, the lack of women in technical and leadership roles, unequal access to health care, major gaps between male to female literacy levels, expanding gender wage gaps, and an overall decrease of women in the workplace. Generally, the role of women in society is ranked according to women’s economic participation, opportunity and access to education and health care, and their representation in politics.
Case Analysis
Following the end of World War II, Japan’s 1947 Constitution was well-received by the public, and enabled Japan to maintain its historical and cultural origins while adopting democratic values. Their constitution had all the basic ingredients for building a liberal democracy where civil liberties and civil rights were respected. India’s situation was, in some ways, very similar to Japan’s, for instance, there was a priority from the beginning with the new Constitution to ensure equal protection under the law as well as ensuring individuals would not be discriminated on based on characteristics of note like religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth. Both India and Japan are democracies that continue to struggle with gender gaps, and yet, they do differ in their overall trajectory of progress on these issues. Although prior to the pandemic, India had made major leaps in terms of narrowing gender gaps, the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked terrible outcomes for the treatment of women in India. One of the main areas India will need to focus on is the health of women in society, ensuring women have access to affordable and quality healthcare to protect their interests and prospects at survival. Although Japan’s women also bore difficult outcomes from the COVID pandemic, the Japanese government has established a new direction for many of its policies and initiatives relating to decreasing the gender gaps. One of its plans, the Fifth Basic Plan for Gender Equity, calls for major changes to support women in the workplace and to increase their representation in political parties and politics in general. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/06%3A_Political_Identity-_Culture_Race_and_Ethnicity_and_Gender/6.05%3A_Comparative_Case_Study-_Gender_Gaps_in_India_.txt |
Adams, Gerald R. 1998. “The Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status: A Reference Manual.”
Available at: http://www.uoguelph.ca/~gadams/OMEIS_manual.pdf.
Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba. The Civic Culture, Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1963, passim, but especially chapters 1, 5-6, 13 (1, 6, 7, 15 in hardback edition).
Archer, Sally L. 1991. “Gender Differences in Identity Development.” In Encyclopedia of
Adolescence, eds. Richard M Lerner, Anne C Peterson, and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn. New
York: Garland Publishing Inc, p. 522–524.
Bennett, W. L. (2012). The Personalization of Politics: Political Identity, Social Media, and
Changing Patterns of Participation. The Annals of the American Academy of Political
and Social Science, 644, 20–39. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23316140
Bernstein, M. (2005). Identity Politics. Annual Review of Sociology, 31, 47–74.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/29737711
Beck, Paul Allen. 1977. “Role of Agents in Political Socialization.” In Handbook of Political
Socialization: Theory and Research, ed. Stanley Renshon. New York: Free Press.
Berzonsky, Michael D., and Linda S. Kuk. 2000. “Identity Status, Identity Processing Style, and
the Transition to University.” Journal of Adolescent Research 15(1): 81–98.
Blasi, Augusto, and Kimberly Glodis. 1995. “The Development of Identity. A Critical Analysis
from the Perspective of the Self as Subject.” Developmental Review 15(4): 404–433.
Burns, Nancy, Kay Lehman Scholozman, and Sidney Verba. 2001. The Private Roots of Public
Action : Gender, Equality, and Political Participation. Cambridge Mass.: Harvard
University Press.
Cole, Elizabeth R., and Stewart, Abigail J. 1996. “Meanings of Political Participation Among
Black and White Women: Political Identity and Social Responsibility.” Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology 71(1): 130–140.
Côte, James E, and Anton L Allahar. 1996. Generation on Hold: Coming of Age in the Late
Twentieth Century. New York: NYU Press.
Elkins, David J. and Richard E.B. Simeon, “A Cause in Search of Its Effect, or What Does
Ellingrud, K. & Segel. L.H. (February 13th, 2021) COVID-19 has driven millions of women out of the workforce. Here’s how to help them come back Fortune. Available at https://fortune.com/2021/02/13/covid-19-women-workforce-unemployment-gender-gap-recovery/
Political Culture Explain?” Comparative Politics, 11 (January 1979): 127-146.
Flores, A. (2021). Social Acceptance of LGBTI People in 175 Countries and Locations, 1981-2020. Williams Institute: UCLA School of Law. Available at https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/global-acceptance-index-lgbt/
Fung, F. (October 2021) Which Countries Recognize Third Gender Option on Passports? Newsweek. Available at https://www.newsweek.com/which-countries-recognize-third-gender-option-passports-1643167
Erikson, Erik. 1994. Identity: Youth and Crisis. New York: W. W. Norton & company.
Gelford, M. (January 29th, 2019). Culture as the menacing force behind today’s crazy politics. The Economist. Available at https://www.economist.com/open-future/2019/01/28/culture-as-the-menacing-force-behind-todays-crazy-politics
Gentry, Bobbi. 2010. “Young Voters, Political Identity and Voting: Developing Measures in
Quantitative and Qualitative Data.” In Chicago, Illinois.
Greenstein, Fred. 1970. “Research Notes: A Note on the Ambiguity of "Political Socialization":
Definitions, Criticisms and Strategies of Inquiry.” Journal of Politics 32(4): 969–978.
Grotevant, Harold D. 1987. “Toward a Process Model of Identity Formation.” Journal of
Adolescent Research 2(3): 203–222.
Highton, Benjamin, and Raymond E. Wolfinger. 2001. “The First Seven Years of the Political Life
Cycle.” American Journal of Political Science 45(1): 202–209.
Hoegh, Dana G., and Martin J. Bourgeois. 2002. “Prelude and Postlude to the Self: Correlates
of Achieve Identity.” Youth and Society 33(4): 573–594.
Hoover, Kenneth, James E Marcia, and Kristen Parris. 1997. The Power of Identity: Politics in a
New Key. Chatham, New Jersey: Chatham House Publishers, Inc.
Huddy, L. (2001). From Social to Political Identity: A Critical Examination of Social Identity
Theory. Political Psychology, 22(1), 127–156. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3791909
Josselson, Ruthellen. 1980. “Ego Development in Adolescence.” In Handbook of Adolescent
Psychology, ed. Joseph Adelson. New York: Wiley Publications, p. 188–210.
Kroger, Jane. 1995. “Differentiating "Firm" and "Developmental" Foreclosure Identity Statuses: A
Longitudinal Study.” Journal of Adolescent Research 10(3): 317–336.
Lane, Robert. 1967. Political Ideology. New York: Simon & Schuster. Available at:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Pol.../9780029177907
Marcia. 1991. “Identity and Self Development.” In Encyclopedia of Adolescence, eds. Richard M
Lerner, Anne C Peterson, and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn. New York: Garland Publication.
Marcia, James E. 1964. “Determination and Construct Validity of Ego Identity Status.”.
Marcia, James E. 1966. “Development and Validation of Ego Identity Status.” Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology 3(5): 551–558.
Marcia, James E. 2002. “Identity and Psychosocial Development in Adulthood.” Identity: An
International Journal of Theory and Research 2(1): 7–28.
Marcia, James E et al., eds. 1993. Ego Identity: A Handbook for Psychosocial Research. New
York: Springer.
Marcus, George E, and Michael B MacKuen. 1993. “Anxiety, Enthusiasm, and the Vote: The
Emotional Underpinnings of Learning and Involvement During Presidential Campaigns.”
American Political Science Review 87(3): 672–685.
Matteson, D.R. 1993. “Differences Within and Between Genders: A Challenge to the Theory.” In
Ego Identity: A Handbook for Psychosocial Research, eds. James E Marcia et al. New
York: Springer.
Monroe, Kristen Renwick, and Connie Epperson. 1994. “"But What Else Could I do?" Choices,
Identity and a Cognitive-Perceptual Theory of Ethical Political Behavior.” Political
Psychology 15(2): 201–226.
Naylor, B. (February 10th, 2021). Read Trump's January 6 Speech, A Key Part Of Impeachment Trial. National Public Radio. Available at https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/966396848/read-trumps-jan-6-speech-a-key-part-of-impeachment-trial
Plutzer, Eric. 2002. “Becoming a Habitual Voter: Inertia, Resources, and Growth in Young
Adulthood.” American Political Science Review 96(1): 41–56.
Putnam, Robert D. 1993. Making Democracy Work. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Przeworski, Adam. Susan C. Stokes and Bernard Manin, eds. 1999. Democracy, Accountability,
and Representation. New York: Cambridge University Press. Pages 1-16, 29-54, 98-130.
(B)
Quintana, Stephen M. et al. 2006. “Race, Ethnicity, and Culture in Child Development:
Contemporary Research and Future Directions.” Child Development 77(5): 1129–1141.
Romano, L. (April 2021). Why did thousands of Brazilian politicians change their race? CNN. Available at https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/09/americas/brazil-race-politics-change-intl-latam/index.html
Sears, David O., and Sheri Levy. 2003. “Childhood and Adult Political Development.” In Oxford
Handbook of Political Psychology, eds. David Sears, Leonie Huddy, and Robert Jervis.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 60–109.
Silver, L., Fagan, M., Connaughton, A. & Modecai, M. (May 2021). Views About National Identity Becoming More Inclusive in U.S., UK, Western Europe. Pew Research Center. Available at https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/05/05/views-about-national-identity-becoming-more-inclusive-in-us-western-europe/
Waterman, Alan. 1993. “Developmental Perspectives on Identity Formation: From Adolescence
to Adulthood.” In Ego Identity: A Handbook for Psychosocial Research, eds. James E
Marcia et al. New York: Springer, p. 40–65.
Waterman, Alan. 1982. “Identity Development From Adolescence to Adulthood: An Extension of
Theory and a Review of Research.” Developmental Psychology 18(3): 341–358.
Yamaguchi, Kazuo. 2011. “Decomposition of Inequality among Groups through Counterfactual
Modeling: An Analysis of the Gender Wage Gap in Japan.” Sociological Methodology
43:223-55.
———. 2016. “Determinants of the Gender Gap in the Proportion of Managers among
White-Collar Regular Workers in Japan.” Japan Labor Review 51:7-31. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/06%3A_Political_Identity-_Culture_Race_and_Ethnicity_and_Gender/6.06%3A_References.txt |
Key Terms/Glossary
• Arab Spring - a series of protests against oppressive government regions in the Middle East that sometimes resulted in violence.
• Biological sex - refers to “the different biological and physiological characteristics of males and females, such as reproductive organs, chromosomes, hormones, etc.
• Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s - a movement that attempted to ensure equal treatment under the law for Black and African American citizens in the United States.
• Culture - broadly defined, is the combination of customs, social institutions, arts, media, and social, economic, political achievements of a social group.
• Ethnicity - a broader term than race. Used to categorize groups of people according to their own relation to culture.
• Gender - broadly defined as a spectrum of characteristics ranging from feminine to masculine, and gender tends to have more to do with how a person wants to identify.
• January 6th 2021 United States Capitol Attack - an event in the United States where approximately 2,000- 2,500 supporters of then President Donald Trump attacked the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. with the intent of overturning the 2020 election results where Joseph Biden won the presidency.
• Norms - defined as standard practices, rules, patterns and behaviors that are considered acceptable in a society.
• Parochialism - a system where citizens are not involved, engaged, or remotely aware of the political operations in their country.
• Participant system - a system where citizens are aware of government actions, are able to influence and participate in governmental decisions, and at the same time, they must abide by the laws and rules of the government.
• Political identity - how a person or group of persons think of themselves in relation to the politics and government of a country.
• Political mobilization - defined as organized activities intended to motivate groups of participants to take political action on a particular issue.
• Political socialization - the process in which our political beliefs are formed over time.
• Postmaterialism - the extent to which a political culture focuses or cares about issues which are not of immediate physical and material concern, like human rights and environmental concerns.
• Race - defined “a category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits.”
• Sex-selective abortion - a practice of terminating a pregnancy once the sex of the infant is known.
• Sexual orientation - defined as the sustained pattern of romantic and/or sexual attraction to people of opposite sex or gender, same sex or gender, or to both.
• Society - broadly defined, refers to a population which has organized itself based on shared ideas for how the world acts and should act through both formal and informal institutions.
• Subject system - a system where citizens are somewhat aware and responsive of their governmental systems, and at the same time, heavily controlled and legislated by their governments.
• Trust - the extent to which citizens believe in the reliability, validity, or truth of their government and their fellow citizens, plays a significant role in political outcomes.
• Women’s suffrage - the right of women to vote in elections, over 180 countries now allow women to vote in some capacity.
Summary
Subsection #6.1: Introduction to Political Identity
Political identity refers to the labels and characteristics an individual chooses to associate with based on a multitude of factors including but not limited to, their perception of political ideologies, platforms and parties, as well as how they see themselves from national, racial, ethnic, linguistic, cultural and gender perspectives. ne of the main reasons political scientists have begun focusing on political identity is because human attachment to these identities has been mobilized for/with political consequences. Political mobilization is defined as organized activities intended to motivate groups of participants to take political action on a particular issue. There have been many examples of political identity resulting in political mobilization. Political socialization is the process by which individuals perceive the political world around them, come to understand how society is organized, and how they see their own role in society based on these perceptions. Political socialization occurs within families, schooling, church communities and any engagement individuals have with the outside world.
Subsection #6.2: Political Culture
Culture is the combination of customs, social institutions, arts, media, and social, economic, political achievements of a social group. In many ways, culture can be seen as a “catch-all” for so many factors of social behavior, habits and traditions found in a society. This also includes norms, which are standard practices, rules, patterns and behaviors that are considered acceptable in a society. Cultures which enforce strict adherence to norms tend to have greater control over their own populations, and often less crime, and the promotion of self-control among individuals. In contrast, countries that do not promote strict adherence to norms may be more disorganized and have potentially higher crime, but are more open to other ideas, cultures, and ways of life.
Subsection #6.3: Race and Ethnicity
Race is “a category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits.” Ethnicity is a broader term than race and is used to categorize groups of people according to their own relation to culture. Racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic and cultural origin are all factors which can be used to describe a person’s ethnicity. Race and ethnicity play a major role in politics around the world. Factors of race and ethnicity can be explored as both an influence on political outcomes, as well as an effect of political outcomes.Matters of race and ethnicity as they relate to politics continue to be significant areas of research around the world. Almost every country on the planet has unique historical contexts and political circumstances that in some way are affected, or affect, different racial or ethnic groups.
Subsection #6.4: Gender
Gender can be broadly defined as a spectrum of characteristics ranging from feminine to masculine, and gender tends to have more to do with how a person wants to identify. The difference between biological sex versus gender identity is critical to understand. According to the World Health Organization, biological sex refers to “the different biological and physiological characteristics of males and females, such as reproductive organs, chromosomes, hormones, etc.” Relating to biological sex, the divide between male and female has often influenced politics. Most frequently, women in most societies have been historically underrepresented and discriminated against. Another factor of concern in this area is acceptance of gender identity in different political systems.
Subsection #6.5: Comparative Case Study:
Japan and India are both democracies with new constitutions formed in the post World War II period. Within both countries’ constiutions, there is emphasis on both equal treatment under the law for all citizens, as well as freedom from discrimation based on race, religion, sex, and other factors of importance in both societies. Nevertheless, both countries have struggled with large gender gaps in relation to women in the workplace, women’s earnings with equal credentials and positions as men, access to healthcare, and representation in politics. Women in both countries struggled significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, and gender gaps further widened. Japan has instituted new policies to try to close the wide gender gaps, while India has been struggling to devise new policies to improve gender gaps across all segments of society.
Review Questions
1. Organized activities intended to motivate groups of participants to take political action on a particular issue are:
1. Political activities
2. Political Identity
3. Political Mobilization
4. Arab Spring
2. The process by which individuals perceive the political world around them, come to understand how society is organized, and how they see their own role in society based on these perceptions is:
1. Society
2. Political Mobilization
3. Political Socialization
4. Political Identity
3. One way an individual becomes socialized is:
1. Through their families
2. Through their schooling
3. Through their church or religious community
4. All of the above are correct
4. The combination of customs, social institutions, arts, media, and social, economic, political achievements of a social group is:
1. Culture
2. Norms
3. Political Identity
4. Political Mobilization
5. Countries that have loose norms tend to:
1. Be more open to other cultures
2. Experience better economic outcomes
3. Experience better political outcomes
4. All of the above are correct
Answers: 1.c, 2.c, 3.d, 4.c, 5.d
Critical Thinking Questions
1. Consider your national, state and local political context. How is political activity, engagement and behavior shaped by cultural influences and broader social norms, codes, and values?
2. In what ways do cultural and political identities such as race, ethnicity, and gender become politicized in the U.S. and around the world?
3. How can politics and identity inform, or broaden, our understanding of social movements, the economy, regime formation and transition, and overall political participation?
Suggestions for Further Study
On Political Identity and Culture
Books
• Amitav Ghosh, (1988) Shadow Lines, Ravi Dayal Publishers
• Samuel Huntington, (1996) The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Simon and Schuster.
• Anna Tsing, (2004) Friction, An Ethnography of Global Connection, Princeton University Press
On Race and Ethnicity
Books
• Michael Dawson, Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African-American Politics
• Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Barbershops, Bibles and BET (Princeton: Princeton University Press)
• Doug McAdam, Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency
• C. Van Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow
• Donald Kinder and Lynn Sanders, Divided by Color: Racial Politics and Democratic Ideals (1997)
• Paula McClain and Stewart, Can We All Get Along? Racial & Ethnic Minorities in Amer. Politics (2005)
• Abigail and Stephan Thernstorm, ed. Beyond the Color Line (2002)
• Wolbrecht, Tillery, and Hero, ed. The Politics of Democratic Inclusion (2005)
• Wilkins, David E. 2002. American Indian Politics and the American Political System, 2d. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
• Reimers, David M. 1992. Still the Golden Door: The Third World Comes to America, 2d. New York: Columbia University Press. Selections from the CQ Researcher. 2005. Issues in Race, Ethnicity, and Gender, 3d. Washington, DC: CQ Press.
On Gender
Books
• Gender and Elections: Shaping the Future of American Politics, 3rd Edition edited by Susan Carroll and Richard Fox. 2010.
• Women and Politics by Julie Dolan, Melissa Deckman, and Michele Swers. 2011.
• When Does Gender Matter? Women Candidates and Gender Ste | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/06%3A_Political_Identity-_Culture_Race_and_Ethnicity_and_Gender/6.07%3A_Student_Resources.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Define Political Identity
• Describe how Identity Politics is Different from Political Identity
• Explain how Political Identity is important in the study of comparative politics
Introduction
What does it mean to think of yourself as 'American' or 'Peruvian'? What makes someone identify as 'conservative' or 'progressive'? How does one’s gender, ethnic, religious, or class identity influence their political identity? How does politics influence our sense of our gender, ethnic, religious and class identity? These questions are complex, intertwined and important. Our sense of self [our identity] influences our politics and politics influences our sense of self [our identity].
What Are the Components of Political Identity?
As defined in Chapter Six, political identity is how a person or group of persons think of themselves in relation to the politics and government of a country. Everything that makes up our sense of self are components of our political identity. This includes our ethnicity, religion, gender, class, ideology, nationality and even our age and generation.
Why Is Political Identity Important in Studying Comparative Politics?
Understanding how individuals and groups see their own identity as it relates to politics and the state [government] is critical to the analysis of the political culture and political system of any country. In the United States, for example, there is a tendency to think of White evangelicals as likely to affiliate with the Republican Party and for Persons of Color to be more likely to affiliate with the Democratic Party. People with different political identities might also have different ideas of what it means to be 'patriotic' or even 'American'. Identity can be the driving force behind a social or political movement. Identity also can be the goal of a social or political movement in terms of gaining acceptance or redefining traditional identities (Bernstein, 2005).
What Is Identity Politics?
What Is "Identity Politics" and How Is That Different from "Political Identity"?
The term identity politics refers to the “tendency for people of a particular religion, race, social background, etc., to form exclusive political alliances, moving away from traditional broad-based party politics” (Lexico, n.d.). While identity politics can provide a sense of belonging and purpose for a group of people, it also can lead to division and a sense of 'us' versus 'them'. If the sense of belonging and membership in one group outweighs the sense of belonging and membership in a broader group, it can become more difficult for a society to address issues facing all people in the country.
One way to look at this is to think of the difference between pluralism and hyperpluralism. A pluralist society is a society with many identity groups, with different backgrounds, religions and traditions, but where an overarching identity exists that can include everyone living within the country. A society that is hyperpluralist has not just many groups, but groups whose priorities are so divergent as to make finding compromise and agreement on shared values with others in society unachievable. Identity politics is complicated because people often identify with more than one group. One example is with the case study country in this chapter, Israel. The creation of the state of Israel was done specifically to provide a homeland for the Jewish people after WWII. As such, to identify as Israeli for most people is to identify also as Jewish.Therefore, those who live in Israel but are not Jewish fall into a different group with a different set of allegiances. This division creates a sense of exclusion and separation, making political unity and agreement more difficult.
One of the ways to understand identity politics is to contrast it with earlier efforts to see 'colorblind' policies or as John Rawls described in his book A Theory of Justice, a 'veil of ignorance'. In this hypothetical system, people are asked to make policy decisions without knowing who would be affected. The argument is that people would create fair policies, without respect to class, race, ethnicity, religion, etc. Identity politics, however, focuses the lens on specific identities and their differences. As Cressida Heyes (2020) explains in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, members of specific constituencies “assert or reclaim ways of understanding their distinctiveness that challenge dominant characterizations, with the goal of greater self-determination". | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/07%3A_Political_Identity-_Nationalism_Religion_Class/7.01%3A_What_is_Political_Identity.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Define National Identity and related terms including Nationalism and Citizenship
• Describe how Citizenship is different from National Identity and Political Identity
• Describe how National Identity and Nationalism impact rules about Citizenship
• Explain how Nationalism fuels separatist movements
• Explain how National Identity is important in the study of comparative politics
Introduction
Is "Political Identity" the Same as "National Identity"?
These two concepts are not the same, but are interrelated. Political identity is how we see ourselves in a political sense: our political interests, affiliations and priorities. National identity is how we see ourselves as members of a nation of people. This can range from a relatively narrow ethnic identity to a broader civic identity that encompasses many ethnic and religious groups. In Canada, for example, there is the concept of a 'cultural mosaic' of many different types of people, including immigrants, who make up the nation of Canada. This is a broad and inclusive definition. On the other end of the spectrum, some South Asian nations are viewed as practicing an exclusionary form of national identity. (Chakraborty, 2014).
Our national identity is not our only identity and it is common for all of us to have multiple identities. An American may have a racial and/or ethnic identity, such as African American in the US or identification with an indigenous group in Mexico, such as the Nahuatl. There are also gender identities, which over time have shifted from a binary understanding to a more nuanced approach. Also included are age, sexual orientation, and occupation. Identities are ever evolving and identity formation takes place even now. In the pandemic, we saw the formation of identities revolving around one’s vaccination status, with people proud to say they either were vaccinated or chose not to vaccinate. Whether or not these new identities will remain depends on how the pandemic ends. More than likely, they will not.
Researchers often study the impact of these identities on politics separately, with various subfields in political science reflecting this development. Examples include Gender and Politics, or Race, Ethnicity and Politics, or Religion and Politics. Political scientists are keen on understanding the experiences of these groups, who have traditionally been left out of mainstream political science discourse. Over time, the discipline has come to understand that identities can interact with each other in ways that affect politics differently. This is referred to as intersectionality, where the interconnectedness of various identities and categories can lead to the marginalization or to the privilege of particular people and/or groups.
More About "National Identity"
Yet even though all the above listed identities are important for politics and can help predict political behavior, comparative political scientists are quite interested in how national identity affects politics. National identity, like other aspects of identity, creates a feeling of belonging. Symbols are commonly used to reflect the values and priorities of a nation’s identity. Think about the meaning of the colors and design of a national flag, or the choice of a national bird, and the words of a national anthem. People identify with those symbols, colors and words. They can inspire and bind people together. When new nation-states form and after losing a war it is common for countries to choose new symbols. However, this is not always the case, at least not entirely. For example, a number of southern states in the US still have imagery reminiscent of the Confederate Battle flag. Germany, on the other hand, changed its flag away from the Nazi flag [back to one used previously] after World War 2. In the United States, the Pledge of Allegiance was adopted and popularized after the Civil War as a means to unite the country “one nation indivisible” with references to the “flag”.
National identity clearly impacts contemporary politics. It has become a key aspect of one’s core identity and the sense of attachment one has for their nation or country can help us better understand certain behaviors. A good example includes the September 11th terrorist attacks. On that day, Americans from every part of the country felt something terrible. Even though a person may have lived 3,000 miles away in California, and did not physically experience the trauma of this event, the shock, dread, and then anger that person felt was still palpable. Logically, one can say why should events that did not personally happen to me matter. However, this is how powerful national identity can be, where we can internalize what others have experienced and have us affect us in our political behavior. National identity implies a "principle of identity based on impersonal ties, remote ties, vicarious ties", that are arbitrated through common symbols and forms of communication (Hass, 1986).
What is Nationalism?
Nationalism is defined as an ideology where devotion and loyalty to one’s state proves more important than other interests. It is the natural development of having a national identity. The stronger the national identity, the stronger the sense of nationalism. Hass (1986) says that nationalism is “the convergence of territorial and political loyalty irrespective of competing foci of affiliation”. By this Hass means that a national identity may matter more than one’s other identities.
Another analysis comes from Hechter who distinguishes between 'nation' and 'nationalism'. Hechter (2001) defines a nation as "highly solitary, territorially concentrated, culturally distinctive groups". He defines nationalism as "collective action designed to render the boundaries of the nation congruent with those of its governance unit." In other words, when a nation of people has a strong sense of nationalism they work to ensure the boundaries of the state [governance unit] match the geographic boundaries of the nation. Hechter identifies five types of nationalism: state-building nationalism, peripheral nationalism, irredentist nationalism, unification nationalism, and patriotism.
While there are differing theories and views on nationalism, one thing is clear: nationalism can mean different things. Liberal nationalism, for example, is the idea that every group of people with a clear national identity should have their own state; their own country to call their own. This sort of nationalism can lead to independence movements [or even develop during and after independence movements motivated by other factors]. However, nationalism can also imply a sense of superiority or exceptionalism. This is referred to as exclusionary nationalism and can lead to violence. O’Neil and Fields (2020) note that nationalism can be a powerful substitute for democracy. Because it is hierarchical and inclusive, authoritarian states can weaponize nationalism.
Nationalism, as mentioned above, can be a force for the creation of a new and independent state. Examples of nationalism being the inspiration for separatist movements can be seen across the globe. Separatist movements are defined as attempts by members of a group of people who seek to establish their own government, separate from the country they reside in. In Canada, there have been calls for secession by Quebec, also thought of as the “French Canada”. Supporters of this effort are represented by a political party called Bloc Quebecois. According to the New York Times, about 30% of Quebec citizens support secession. Far more, however, are focused on maintaining the values, language and identity of French Canada.
Another example of a separatist movement fueled by nationalism is Catalonia, a wealthy area of Spain that has a history of special autonomy. Violence and prison terms for separatist politicians have reinvigorated the debate. Similar to Quebec:
Catalonia has its own language and distinctive traditions, and a population nearly as big as Switzerland's (7.5 million). It is one of Spain's wealthiest regions, making up 16% of the national population and accounting for almost 19% of Spanish GDP. (BBC)
While separatist movements can be centralizing forces (forces that bring people together), they also can be decentralizing and damaging. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, as quoted by the BBC, “Spain risked being downgraded from a 'full democracy' to a 'flawed' one over its handling of the situation.” In this case, it was not the separatist movement itself as much as the Spanish government’s reaction to it.
Is Nationalism the Same as Patriotism?
Patriotism is best described as pride in one’s state. Often when one thinks of patriotism, thoughts turn to flags, marches, national anthems and other types of displays. Yet these displays could be better understood as expressions of nationalism. In a country like the US, Americans tend not to separate between their nation and state. Indeed, we often refer to countries such as the U.S. as a nation-state. A nation-state is a state where all or most of the people in that state belong to a single nation. Other examples of nation-states include the central European countries of Poland and Hungary. A multinational-state will be where a state contains multiple nations. Examples of multinational states include Russia and India.
Given these definitions, can one have pride in their nation, but not in their state? The answer is yes. Catalonia, discussed above, is a great example. Catalonians have pride in their nation, but generally not in their state, which is Spain. Being a citizen of a country does not automatically make that person patriotic. Ethnic, racial, and/or religious minorities that have been oppressed or have not been incorporated into a country’s political system will often struggle with outward expressions of patriotism. Often, they will develop their own sense of nationalism. Countries such as Spain have several nations. This includes the aforementioned Catalonia, but also Galicia and the Basque country.
One form of nationalism described by Hechter is irredentist nationalism. Irredentism is when one state wants a territory that previously belonged to it to rejoin. This is interesting in light of recent events in Ukraine. Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, sees Ukraine not as a sovereign state, but rather as a piece of the former Soviet Union that should be returned to the fold.
What is Citizenship?
Citizenship is different from national or political identity because it implies a legal status rather than a feeling of belonging. A person can feel a sense of belonging to a nation without being a citizen of that country. Roughly thirty countries grant citizenship at birth (Serhan and Friedman, 2018). Almost all countries have a process whereby a person can become a citizen even if they are not born a citizen. Being able to -- as well as choosing to -- become a citizen are influenced by not just the laws and procedures within a country, but also the ‘human capital’ and ‘social capital’ of the immigrants (Huddleston, 2020). In other words, not all immigrants have the same ability or interest in becoming naturalized citizens. This is true across different immigrant groups and different destination countries. Citizenship typically brings certain legal rights and privileges such as voting and holding elected office, as well as the right to be issued a passport.
Some countries make it quite difficult to become a citizen or a legal resident. The process in the United States, for example, is quite lengthy with very specific requirements - at least for most people. The United States provides an alternative path for those with money, known as the EB-5 or ‘investor visa’. Switzerland also makes it difficult with a 10-year residency requirement to be eligible to apply for citizenship. On the other end of the spectrum, the Dominican Republic allows legal permanent residency if you can demonstrate a monthly income of \$2,000 (or just \$1,500 if you are retired). Yet, becoming a citizen of the Dominican Republic is very expensive. Ireland also makes it quite easy - especially if you can show Irish ancestry.
How Is Patriotism Related to Citizenship?
Citizenship is closely tied to patriotism, which is described above. This is because even though being a citizen confers certain rights and privileges, it also involves special duties. For example, many countries have an enrollment program that requires young men, and in a few cases young women, to compulsory enlist in their militaries through a draft referred to as conscription. This is not the case in most Western countries, such as the US or in most European Union countries. But this is the case in countries such as Israel, Turkey and Russia. There are over 100 nationalities in the Russian Federation. Regardless if they are ethnic Tartar, the Yupik of Siberia or other smaller minorities, all male citizens between the ages of 18-27 are required to serve 12 months.
Interestingly, one does not need to have legal citizenship to have a sense of patriotism. Any person can see the country that they live in as their homeland, and develop a strong sense of affection. There are quite a few examples of people having moved to another country, and either chose not to become a citizen or were not given the chance to, and still strongly supported the state they resided in. Patriotism entails a sense of obligation to care for the country of residence. While citizenship is directly correlated with patriotism, it is not causal. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/07%3A_Political_Identity-_Nationalism_Religion_Class/7.02%3A_What_is_National_Identity.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Define Religious Identity and related terms including Primordialism and Constructivism
• Define Religiosity and understand the 4 B’s - believing, belonging, behaving, and bonding
• Explain how Religious Identity is important in the study of comparative politics
Introduction
As mentioned earlier, individuals can have multiple identities. A national identity is closely tied to one’s sense of nationality and/or the nation they reside in. Similarly, one’s religious identity is also connected to their level of religiosity and/or the religion they often associate with, either through their family or more likely, through their community. Given this, religious identity is defined as how a person or group of persons think of themselves as belonging to and representing the values of a particular religion and/or religious sect. This strong association with community is also what makes religious identity more difficult to study. Nationalism is naturally tied to the development of the modern nation-state. Without the development of a 'nation' in the 18th and 19th centuries, it is unlikely that there would be nationalism. The concept of a nation for some scholars is considered a priori, or deductively reasoned. In other words, the nation must be formed or conceived beforehand, before a national identity can exist. In this approach, the existence of a nation is a necessary feature of nationalism. It may however, not be sufficient for a national identity to develop, meaning that a nation can exist without a sense of nationalism or with little nationalism, but it is clear that in this view a person needs to belong to a nation in order to have a national identity: nation → identity.
However, when looking at religious identity, the a priori argument is less clear cut. One can draw an analogy with national identity - that in order to have a religious identity, or a sense of religiosity, a religion must exist beforehand. However, unlike the nation, religion as a concept is far older. Nationalism developed in part due to the printing press, which itself was introduced in Europe in the 1400s. Anderson (2006) writes that as more and more people became literate, they began to read newspapers. This ritual of buying and reading newspapers allowed people to feel connected. They no longer saw themselves as detached populations, but as one imagined community. Anderson refers to this as print capitalism, and suggests it is the causal mechanism that led to the development of nations around three hundred years ago.
How Does Religious Identity Differ from National Identity?
An argument can be made that religious identity may actually come before the development of a religion. Durkheim writes that religion is an eminently social thing. Rather than focusing on deities and/or the supernatural elements, the formation of a religion centers on the collective consciousness and community. The rituals and practices that people collectively participate in lead to a sense of unity. This development of an identity is what then leads to organized religion. (Wetherell and Mohanty, 2010) When understood in this approach, the arrows are reversed: identity → religion.
Durkheim wrote about pre-modern societies, which were mostly clan or tribe-based. However, if religious identity is indeed ascribed, or collectivity-based, then it can also be free from geographical constraints. As the clan or tribe shifts from one territory to the next, the religious identity should continue as long as the community remains cohesive. This is different from national identity, where lines drawn on a map strongly influence who develops a national identity. If a religious identity can be detached from the land it originated, then an argument can be made that religious identity could have more impact. Evidence for this could include the historical growth of universal religions, such as Christianity and Islam through proselytizing, and the persistence of religious minority groups across the centuries.
Religious Identity: Primordialism v. Constructivism
How then does religious identity affect politics? The discussion above of religious identity formation can help us in this. If religious identity is considered to precede religion itself, for many people they may consider it their primordial identity. Originally coined to discuss ethnic identities, primordialism can also help us understand the salience of religious identities in politics. Primordialism means that individuals will have only one single religious identity and that this identity is fixed in the present and the future. Some contend that one’s religious identity is biologically determined, that you are born into it. Others suggest it is acquired through childhood, through socialization and education. Regardless, primordialists believe that once an identity is acquired it becomes immutable (Chandra, 2001). Regardless of its origin, religious identity is fixed in the long term and matters when one tries to understand the world around them. Mass literacy also plays a role in the hardening of an identity. Van Evera (2001) writes that “written identities also have a resilient quality that makes them almost impossible to stamp out” (pg. 20).
For many, this collective identity approach may describe the pre-modern world, but falls short in the modern context. For many in modern societies, individuals choose to join a community. Particularly in secular societies, religious identity is often a matter of choice. It is not determined by the clan, tribe, or even nation one is born into. This is the constructivist approach and it is the antithesis of primordialism. Constructivist identity posits that people have multiple identities and that as people change, so can either the importance of a particular identity, or the adoption of a new identity altogether. And, given the transitory nature of people today through mass migration, there is a greater likelihood that one could acquire multiple religious identities in their lifetime. We see this with Protestant Christians in the United States, who go ‘church shopping’. This means they visit different congregations before settling down on one church that fits their needs.
Religious Identity and Politics
This discussion on primordialism v. constructivism can help us understand how religious identity plays a role in modern politics. When groups see their identity as primordial, as immutable, then they are less willing to compromise politically on issues that they believe violate their belief systems. For these individuals, compromise may be seen as anathema, or something that is vehemently disliked by the community. This reasoning has been used to explain why conflict may erupt between two or more religious groups. Mostly referring to ethnic identities, others argue that identity is treated as an exogenous variable, a variable that exists on its own and is not related to other variables. That identity can serve as a catalyst for violence, particularly if the group in question believes that their community cannot credibly defend itself against an external threat. However, this comparison of religious identity to ethnic identity is not a perfect one. Religious identity is more complex than ethnic identity. Ethnic identity because of primordialism, often assumes a binary sense. Either you are an American or not. Of course, constructivists would strongly disagree. Constructivists would contend that people can have multiple ethnic identities, particularly in a transnational setting, which is more common in a globalized world.
Measuring Religious Identity
When measuring religious identity, we can rely on what has been referred to as the four B’s - believing, belonging, behaving, and bonding. These four dimensions of religion are important for understanding religion and politics as they influence how people may vote, view certain policies and support certain political parties. Believing is religious belief or believing in certain religious propositions. It involves the way people conceptualize their relationship with supernatural forces. Most religions are theistic, which involve belief in a god (monotheism) or gods (polytheism or henotheism), or some omnipresent force. Even among nontheistic traditions, such as Buddhism, adherents often profess a belief in a version of external transcendence, and that “there is some sort of spirit or life force” (Saroglou, 2011). Belonging is religious affiliation, or belonging to a religious faith, a religious tradition, or a denomination/sect within a particular religion. Denomination is a term associated with Christianity and often refers to a “religious community or (transhistorical) group with a common history and future” (Hoogendoorn, et. al., 2016). A denomination would include groups such as Catholics, Southern Baptists and Latter-Day Saints (Mormons). It does not include non-denominational Christians, which through their label indicates that they do not adhere to any denomination.
Behaving is religious commitment, or behaving according to values privileged by religion. It involves norms and defining what is right and what is wrong. People with high levels of religiosity often act on their religious convictions. It can also provide an individual with a sense of purpose. Religious values also shape the legal and judicial system of a country. This is true even in largely secular societies, as many of these countries were once religious. Bonding is religious ritual, or bonding by means of spiritual practices and rituals. These are the experiences that people go through, either individually, but more likely together as a community. It can include prayer, meditation, worship, religious ceremonies, and pilgrimages. The four dimensions of belonging, believing, bonding, and behaving represent what Hoogendorn and Saroglu refer to as “the social, cognitive, emotional, and moral elements of religion, respectively” (Saroglou, 2011; Hoogendoorn, et. al., 2016)
Given this complexity, scholars in religion and politics prefer to use the term religiosity instead of religious identity. Macaluso and Wanat (1979) define religiosity as “the strength of a person’s attachment to organized religion”. The authors then attempt to try and measure religiosity, “ as the frequency of attendance at the place of worship. Individuals who go to church or synagogue every week are high in religiosity, those who rarely go are low in religiosity” (pg. 160). Leege and Kellstedt (1993) contend that using church/ synagogue/mosque attendance as the only measure of religiosity is too simple and may not accurately reflect the other ‘B’s explained above. Some religions and/or denominations emphasize individual devotion or noncollective traditions. This is more relevant as a higher number of Americans now identify as non-religious, but still spiritual. A recent Pew Research Center survey indicated that roughly three-in-ten Americans are religiously unaffiliated. Per the survey, these folks are referred to as religious ‘nones’, they are “people who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or ‘nothing in particular’ when asked about their religious identity” (Smith, 2021).
The authors also point to the interactions between the different dimensions in producing a stronger effect. Their discussion of how to measure these different dimensions (methods) has been important for the study of religion and politics. Using this framework then, religiosity can best be defined as ‘strength of person’s commitment to religion”. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/07%3A_Political_Identity-_Nationalism_Religion_Class/7.03%3A_What_is_Religious_Identity.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Define Class Identity and related terms including Economic Class and Social Class
• Describe how Class Identity affects our quality of life
• Explain how Economic Class is about power
• Explain the connection between Class Identity and politics
• Explain how Class Identity is important in the study of comparative politics
Introduction
Class identity can relate both to economic and social class. Class identity is defined as how a person or group of persons think of themselves in relation to others in society based on their economic and social position. While defining and measuring economic status is quite similar across cultures, the same cannot be said for social status. Different societies have different social values and, therefore, assign social class positions in different ways. Class identity is important and often has significant impacts on people’s daily lives. Class identity can impact our happiness, our sense of security, our daily interactions and even our experience with the justice system. While the factors surrounding incarceration are complicated, there is evidence that people from lower economic classes are arrested, charged and imprisoned at higher rates. According to O’Neil Hayes (2020), “Adults in poverty are three times more likely to be arrested than those who aren’t, and people earning less than 150 percent of the federal poverty level are 15 times more likely to be charged with a felony.” Hayes’ research also indicates that “The likelihood that a boy from a family in the bottom 10 percent of the income distribution will end up in prison in his thirties is 20 times greater than that of a boy from a family in the top 10 percent.”
Economic class also is about power.
Classes can be divided according to how much relative power and control members of a class have over their lives. On this basis, we might distinguish between the owning class (or bourgeoisie), the middle class, and the traditional working class. The owning class not only have power and control over their own lives, their economic position gives them power and control over others’ lives as well.
https://openpress.usask.ca/soc112/ch...nd-disability/
Class identity, and its connection to power, also manifests itself in politics. One of the theories of power is called the Elite Theory, a theory put forward in a book called The Power Elite by sociologist C. Wright Mills in 1956 which asserts that political power is held by the Elites. Elites are the upper socio-economic class, or the “ruling class, among those business, government, and military leaders whose decisions and actions have significant consequences” (Mills, 1956). Elite theory says that elites not only have power, but that they use that power for their own self-interests - for the interests of elites. One of the components of being elite is to have social capital. Having social capital means that elites are not just economically comfortable, they also have contacts, a network to call upon for help finding a new job, new clients, new customers - for themselves and their family. At its conception, Mill’s book, The Elite Theory was focused on the nexus of power in the United States. Today, however, it is discussed in international terms. It also has expanded to include not just elite individuals, but elite organizations, such as major oil companies, global military contractors, (Horowitz, 1981).
Class Identity: Economic Class v. Social Class
As mentioned above, it is fairly straightforward to define and describe economic classes in a society. Economic class is based on measurable characteristics: money and material resources.
The photo above shows a sleek yacht. This is one indicator of wealth because of the high cost of the yacht. Therefore, we presume that the owner of the yacht is from the upper economic class. Homes, cars and jewelry are other commonly observed indicators of economic class. The ability to measure economic class can be seen with tools such as NPR’s income calculator, where you can find out if you are 'middle class'.
There are other markers of economic class, however, that are not always as easy to interpret. Fashion and grooming styles are examples. In the past, perhaps, these were more fixed. In contemporary society they are more fluid. Consider this 1794 image of the wife of a wealthy Spanish diplomat.
It is quite easy to know that this is an image of a wealthy person with high status. Yet, such markers of wealth are not always visible today. This picture, of Elon Musk, offers no clues that he is one of the wealthiest persons on Earth.
When we combine both economic [income, wealth] factors with social factors, such as level of education and occupation, we have what is called socioeconomic class. This intersection occurs because a person’s social factors often influence one’s economic class. However, as noted by the Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching, “An individual's socioeconomic status does not always align with their social class identification. In the U.S., for example, those who identify as middle class vary on every indicator of socioeconomic status (e.g., level of education)”. Components of social class vary significantly across cultures. In some societies, for example, it is considered more prestigious to be a religious leader than a medical doctor. One profession that is measured is that of a teacher. Different countries place different levels of respect for teachers. According to a 2018 Varkey Foundation report, “In Malaysia and China, teachers are compared to doctors – seen as the highest status profession in our sample, but [in most countries] it is most common for teachers to be compared with social workers having a mid-range status”.
Class Identity and Politics
Class identity, both economic and social class identity, is a major component of politics. Class identity often influences political affiliations and attitudes. Politicians appeal to class identity as a means of gaining support for their policies. Class identity often drives political and social movements.
One example of the relationship between class identity and political movements is Marxism. Marxism, which is discussed more in Chapter 8, is an approach to political economy that is based on the idea of class conflict - between the owner and worker classes. Marxism focuses on the exploitation of workers by owners and seeks to mobilize the working class to demand that the power dynamic change. Marxists seek to change the economic class structure and, as a consequence, the political structure. Marx saw such class struggle as inevitable due to exploitation and that revolution would also be inevitable. By overthrowing the capitalist class, this revolution would usher in a socialist system (Sociology Boundless, n.d.). But, before such an uprising could happen, the working class had to see itself as working class and recognize that - as a class - they are being exploited by the capitalist class. Marx viewed class in objective terms, whereby “a person’s social class is determined by his or her position within the system of property relations that constitutes a given economic society” (Little, n.d.). Therefore, it is not just about being in a certain class that has political significance, it is also one’s identity as belonging to a particular class that is politically important.
Class identity is not only at the core of certain social/political movements, it is often a key focus of political campaigns seeking to win votes or support - for specific candidates and political parties. A recent example of this in the United States is the intense interest in the working class during the presidential election campaign of 2015-16. The working class is defined as those engaged in manual-labor occupations or industrial work. Often, members of the working class are without a four-year college degree. Unionized working class Americans had been fairly solidly united behind the Democratic Party since the era of FDR in the 1930s. Over the course of the past 30 years, however, the Democratic Party has lost support from working class voters. Donald Trump did not win so much over working class voters as working class voters were disappointed by the Democratic Party candidate and many stayed home rather than vote. Working class voters are incredibly important to American politics. Although Donald Trump’s policies did not particularly benefit them, he did speak to their issues and gave voice to their frustrations (Zweig, 2017).
Members of the working class tend to be more religious, more outwardly patriotic and more culturally conservative than college graduates” (Leonhardt, 2021). This mix of different identity characteristics - including class - helps us understand the relationship to politics. A September, 2021 survey found widely differing views across class lines. In particular, a clear majority of working class respondents voiced serious concern about foreign influence in America. The more educated [and presumably wealthier] respondents had the opposite view (Public Religion Research Institute, 2021).
In this graph, we can see a correlation between class and political views. This relationship is fluid and can be influenced by various factors, including national and global events, economic conditions, the media, and opinion leaders. In the case described above, many working class Americans feel threatened by global trade and have seen their economic security reduced. Whereas, wealthier Americans tend to see globalism in either a neutral or positive light. Politicians both foment and react to these class-linked views. As a recent journal article reminds us “Bernie Sanders characterized his run for the Presidency” as one focused on the working class and such class-based appeals “also figure prominently in debates concerning the success of right-wing populist politicians such as Marine Le Pen in France, Luigi Di Maio in Italy, and Donald Trump in the US” (Robertson, n.d.).
Turning our attention to the role of class in Israeli identity politics, we see something a bit different. Rather than identity politics being a way to bring attention to groups who feel “left behind” in some way, in Israel there is a class-based identity politics movement evident in the more economically and secure middle class. As Kaplan explains:
Whereas theories of identity politics tend to focus on the socially disenfranchised, we look at how the higher-ranked may use others’ essentialisation of culture and identities for their own advantages. We explain the secular middle class’s turn to Judaism as an attempt to reestablish or reclaim the social power they feel entitled to, under changing cultural, social and material conditions. [Kaplan, et al, 2017]
Kaplan’s analysis also highlights the intersection of class, culture and politics:
Inasmuch as Israel is an advanced-capitalist and a Jewish state, our middle-class participants have re-adjusted to the changing terms of belonging to the Israeli collectivity. In doing so, they may very well advance the ‘Judaisation’ of Israeli culture, yet not merely as an explicit political process, but also as a class distinction practice. [Kaplan, et al, 2017]
This example from Israel reminds us that even groups who generally are seen as having well-established economic, social and political power can feel their identity is threatened and, in this case, seek to redefine important aspects of that culture to help maintain their place in the hierarchy. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/07%3A_Political_Identity-_Nationalism_Religion_Class/7.04%3A_What_is_Class_Identity.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Describe the Most Different Systems approach in comparative methodology
• Identify the dependent variable: political outcomes that favor religion
• Describe some examples of how religion relates to identity in Israel and Iran
Introduction
As mentioned in Chapter Two, we use the most different systems approach in comparative methodology. This method looks at cases that are quite different from one another, yet have the same outcome. Different variables exist between the cases, such as democratic v. authoritarian regime, liberal market economy v. non-liberal market economy. Or it could include variables such as societal homogeneity vs. societal heterogeneity, where a country may find itself unified ethnically/religiously/racially, or fragmented along those same lines. In other words, why do we have different systems producing the same outcome?
In a most different systems approach the dependent variable is the same across cases. The dependent variable is the variable that is affected by (“dependent on”) the presence of the independent variable. It is the ‘effect’. For our comparative case study the dependent variable is political outcomes that favor religion. For Iran, it is Shia Islam, whereas for Israel, it is Judaism. How are they dominant In each country? First, the legal codes favor each group (Stern, 2017; Pargoo, 2021). We also see a judicial system that has a role of religious courts. Second, social science evidence also suggests that each group has economic access and favorable treatment in the economy. We also observe favoritism and preferences for religious students and for religious education. Finally, we see this through the political representation of each group, and in the role of religious parties or factions in each country’s political system.
There are additional factors that could affect the dependent variable. In the most different systems approach, these variables will vary, usually significantly. As mentioned above this includes regime type, where Israel is classified as being a democracy, whereas Iran is considered an authoritarian regime (Marshall & Elzinger-Marshall, 2017) For political economy type Israel is a liberal market economy. Iran is a non-market economy, often understood as an emerging market, where market forces are either largely absent, or are in the early development phase. In most emerging markets patrimonialism is the key feature, where a patron-client relationship exists. In these markets, usually a key figure (the boss or patron) grants privileges to people below them (clients). They in turn become their own patrons and create their own clients. This process is repeated until most if not all of the economy is dominated by this system (Bozonelos, 2015).
Other variables that differ include socioeconomic indicators. Israel is considered a technologically advanced society. It ranks high when it comes to GDP per capita, human development and literacy, ranking 19th in the United Nations Development Programme’s 2020 Human Development Report. Iran ranks much lower, around 70th. (United Nations Development Programme, 2020).
Another variable that differs is the level of secularization. Secularization is defined as, "the process by which sectors of society and culture are removed from the domination of religious institutions and symbols" (Fowler, 2014). This process is often thought of as being linear; as traditional agrarian societies governed by arbitrary authority become sophisticated urban societies governed by the rule of law, the country should become more secular. Interestingly, this is not how Israel or Iran have developed. Each country has a mix of secular and religious authority, with Israel having a more secular orientation. Iran was decidedly secular when the shah reigned. This forced secularization backfired and contributed to the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Iran is now defined as an Islamic state and is governed through Islamic institutions. However, there is a growing sense of secularism in the country, though not necessarily in the way that the term is defined in Western scholarship (Pargoo, 2021). Israel could be considered a secular state and many authors would define the country as such. Indeed, the Labour party, which is left of center, has traditionally enjoyed support by the more secular segment of Israeli society. However, a recent law passed in 2018 defines Israel as the nation-state for the Jewish people. This law reflects the growing assertiveness of the more religious part of Israeli society.
The last major variable includes international cooperation with Western countries. Internationally, Israel enjoys close relationships with the West, particularly the United States, where direct military and economic support is legislated yearly. This contrasts with Iran, where their relationships with Western countries are much more distant, especially with the United States. Post-Islamic Revolution, the U.S. has consistently placed some level of sanctions on Iran, with a respite under the Obama administration.
State of Israel
• Full Country Name: State of Israel
• Head(s) of State: President, Prime Minister
• Government: Unitary Parliamentary Republic
• Official Languages: Hebrew
• Economic System: Mixed Economy
• Location: Western Asia
• Capital: Jerusalem
• Total land size: 8,522 sq miles
• Population: 9,508,220
• GDP: \$478.01 billion
• GDP per capita: \$50,200
• Currency: New shekel
Religion and nationalism play a central role in the identity of most Israelis. Most Israelis identify as Jewish. Strongly related to this is the concept of Zionism. Zionism is the ideological drive for an independent Jewish state. This political movement has its roots in the late 1800s, when Jewish minorities faced severe oppression in Europe, particularly in the Russian Empire. This pressure, combined with a British takeover of the former Ottoman region of Palestine, led to a series of aliyahs, or migrations. As the situation of Jewish minorities worsened in Europe, these migrations took on more urgency. Ultimately, conflict erupted between the migrated groups and the Arab population that had existed there for centuries. Unable to maintain military power, the British vacated Palestine, with Jewish groups uniting to declare independence in 1948.
The independence of the state of Israel cemented the importance of a Jewish identity. Israel is a state explicitly created as a homeland for the Jewish people. Jewish identity in Israel has taken on two forms, a cultural Jewish identity and a religious Jewish identity. Quite a few Israeli citizens, and to a larger extent Jewish people in other countries, identify as culturally Jewish. For these folks, being Jewish is a matter of ancestry and culture, and not necessarily religious practice, which can vary from a complete lack of participation to observation of major holidays. The folks belong, but may not necessarily believe or behave. Religious Jews are much more likely to incorporate religious belief and practice into their daily life. These folks believe, behave and belong, which can explain their strong bonding.
Israeli political identity is also informed by a focus on maintaining a Westphalian vision of sovereignty. This can be traced to the creation in 1947, by the United Nations, of a partition plan where the Jewish and Arab groups would be divided into two states. [Heaphy] This decision to give the Jewish people a homeland was largely a reaction to the genocide of Jews in the Holocaust during World War II. As mentioned above, the creation of the state of Israel led almost immediately to war.The initial war in the aftermath of the creation of Israel, as well as subsequent conflicts, have led to significant expansion of territory claimed by Israel that Palestinians [and other Arabs] consider to be theirs. Maintaining control over territory granted by the UN and gained in war, therefore, is a key driver of political identity for Israeli Jews.
Religion also plays a central role for those who feel left out in Israeli politics. Ultra-Orthodox Jews “reject Jewish nationalism as they perceive Jews as a religious group that should not be politically sovereign” until the end of times for humankind. Arab Israelis “oppose the exclusive Jewish elements” promoted by the state. These differing identities help explain differing responses to government action during the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Many Ultra-Orthodox Jews and Arab Israelis “reside in crowded towns, and as they are more religious compared to the rest of the population, they congregate often for prayer and other communal events.” In fact, there was a higher proportion of Coronavirus cases among the Ultra-Orthodox population than among other groups in Israel. [Eiran]
The importance of religion in Israeli identity is seen in the religious imagery on the Israeli passport and flag.
Islamic Republic of Iran
• Full Country Name: Islamic Republic of Iran
• Head(s) of State: Supreme Leader
• Government: Unitary Khomeneinist theocratic presidential Islamic republic
• Official Languages: Persian
• Economic System: Mixed Economy
• Location: Western Asia
• Capital: Tehran
• Total land size: 8,522 sq miles
• Population: 83,1832,741
• GDP: \$1.573 trillion
• GDP per capita: \$20,261
• Currency: Iranian rial
Religion and religious identity also play a major role in Iran. While Iran is located geographically in the Middle East, mainly surrounded by Arab states, Iran is not an Arab country. Arab countries are those where the Arabic language is the dominant language. Most Arabs are Muslim, but in terms of population, most Muslims are not Arabs. Iran is not Arab, the dominant language is Farsi, but Iran is mostly Muslim.
The majority of Muslims in Iran, around 90%, identify as Shi’a. Shi’ism is a branch of Islam, encompassing anywhere from 13% to 15% of the total global Muslim population. The majority of Muslims, anywhere from 80% to 85%, are Sunni Muslims. Shi’ites believe that leadership of the umma, or religious community, should have passed to Ali ibn Ali Talib, the Prophet Muhammad’s cousin & son-in-law upon his death in 632CE. Instead, Abu Bakr was selected to be the first caliph, or successor to Muhammad. Ali eventually became caliph twenty years later and was assassinated about five years later. His son, Husayn, the Prophet’s grandson, took up his father’s cause. Husayn was killed at the battle of Karbala in 680CE, and his martyrdom is viewed as a major event for Shi’a and his death is commemorated yearly (Ashura).
Understanding how the Shi’a came to be provides a foundation for understanding Iranian politics today. While Sunni Muslims bask in the glory of the previous empires, Shi’a Muslims instead see a history of oppression & mistreatment. Many Shi’a see this oppression as a test from God and Husayn’s martyrdom thus became a rallying cry for Shi’a during years of subjugation at the hands of Sunni Muslim rulers. The 1979 Iranian Revolution, which brought religious Shi’a to power is seen as a culmination of this struggle in Iran.
The 1979 Iranian Revolution is a watershed moment in history. The Iranian Revolution was driven by a series of factors. First, the Shah, or King of Iran, promoted a strongly secular state, where Shi’a clergy were persecuted and Islamic holidays were minimized. The Shah promoted an Iranian identity uncoupled from religion through his desire to modernize the country, including the emancipation of women and reforms that aggravated the landed wealthy. He often reached back to history, most notably the 2,500 years of celebration of an ancient Persian empire in the 1970s. This approach backfired as most Iranians had high levels of religiosity. They believed, belonged, and behaved. Thus, the efforts to modernize and reclaim ancient Persian heritage was an affront to their sensibilities. This strong sense of religious identity created strong bonding among religious Iranians, which allowed the clerics to become the main political opposition.
Second, the modernist efforts in Iran were supported by Western Powers, particularly the United States. As the presence of US business interests, primarily related to oil, and the subsequent presence of the US military both grew, resentment among Iranians grew. [Schweitzer]. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was an outspoken critic, who lived in exile. His message of an Iran based on the “laws of God” and the abolishment of monarchical rule appealed to the mass public. When the Shah left Iran in 1979 for ostensibly medical treatment, Khomeini took advantage of his absence and returned to the country. His return was greeted by millions and he immediately went to work transforming the country into the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Official census reports from Iran show over 99% identify as Muslim. However, independent surveys show that it could be as low as 40%. The remarkably high official number probably reflects the lack of perceived religious freedom in Iran. The lower number could be due to how strictly people define being Muslim. [Arab & Maleki]
Identity in Iran is not only about a place of birth, a culture, and a language, it is also about how Iranians see the United States and the opinions of Iranians revolving around the positions and actions that the Iranian government should take. Given the nature of this facet of Iranian identity, we can better understand the tension between the United States and Iran to this day. It is also worth noting that the linkage between a revolution rooted in anti-Western [anti-U.S.] sentiment and Iranian identity presents a challenge to Iranian Americans in defining their own identity. [Hassan]
As with most countries, identity in Iran is multi-faceted. As discussed earlier in the chapter, multiple identities can coexist successfully within one country. However, when those different identities claim to be the “true” identity, conflict [peaceful or violent] tends to ensue. To be Iranian can include several things. It can mean being Persian. It can mean being Muslim. It can focus on the Islamic Revolution of 1979 or Iranian culture before the revolution, including the importance of the monarchy and the Constitutional Revolution of 1906. [Saleh]
Another complication relating to identity in Iran revolves around the Kurdish population. The Kurds are an indigenous ethnic group with a shared language who historically live in parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. The Kurdish language is similar to Persian, the dominant language of Iran. The Kurds do not have their own state. However there is an identifiable area of land often called “Kurdistan”. [Britannica] Although the Kurds have lived in the area that is now Iran for centuries, they do not identify as Iranian. They feel “excluded from the political system...and do not exhibit any emotional connection with Iranian identity.” The Kurds have been seeking independence since at least the middle of the 20th Century and armed conflicts have been common in and near Kurdish areas of Iran [as well as Turkey, Iraq and Syria]. Since the Iranian government sees this as “an affront to the official rhetoric of ethnic unity” it has reacted with military force, what is sometimes known as a “security response”. [Akbarzaheh, et al] In 2017, when the Kurds announced a referendum on independence, the Iranian government threatened to “close all border crossings'' and hinted at the possibility of “more forceful and frequent military action”. [Nadimi]
Similar to Israel, religion features prominently in the Iranian flag.
The green stripe at the top represents the Islamic faith, while the white stands for peace and the red for courage. After the 1979 revolution the inscription of “Allahu akbar” [translated as “God is great”] was added above and below the center symbol. The phrase is repeated on the flag 22 times, a reference to the date of the revolution. According to Britannica, the phrase “Allahu Akbar” is used “to call faithful Muslims to prayer five times a day” and is also heard as “an Islamic battle cry.” The Iranian banknotes also feature religious imagery. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/07%3A_Political_Identity-_Nationalism_Religion_Class/7.05%3A_Comparative_Case_Study_-_Israel_and_Iran-_The_Intersecti.txt |
Anderson, B. (2006) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Revised Edition. London: Verson.
Arab, P. & Maleki, A. (2020) Iran’s secular shift: new survey reveals huge changes in religious beliefs. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/irans-se...beliefs-145253
BBC. October 18, 2019. Catalonia’s Bid for Independence from Spain Explained https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29478415
Bernstein, M. (2005). Identity Politics. Annual Review of Sociology, 31, 47–74. http://www.jstor.org/stable/29737711
Bilefsky, D. (2019). The Reawakening of Quebec’s Nationalism. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/01/w...tionalism.html
Bozonelos, D. (2015). “Iranian Diaspora as a Conduit for Western Technology, Capital and Know-How to Revitalize Iranian Economy,” in Reintegrating Iran with the West: Challenges and Opportunities. International Business & Management, 31: 75-89. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S1876-066X20150000031010
Chandra, K. (2001) “Cumulative Findings in the Study of Ethnic Politics” in apsa-cp: Newsletter of the Organized Section in the Comparative Politics of the American Political Science Association, 12(1), 7-9.
Dann, M. (2019) Israeli elections and identity politics. The Jerusalem Post. https://www.jpost.com/israel-electio...olitics-602906
Encyclopaedia Britannica (n.d.) C. Wright Mills. In Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved January 14, 2022, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kurd.
Encyclopaedia Britannica (n.d.) Kurd. In Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved January 14, 2022, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/C-Wright-Mills.
Eiran, Ehud. (2020) Israel: Politics and Identity in Coronavirus times. Project on Middle East Political Science. Elliott School of International Affairs. https://pomeps.org/israel-politics-a...onavirus-times
Fowler, R. B., Hertzke, A. D., Olson, L. R. and den Dulk, K. R. (2014) Religion and Politics in America: Faith Culture, and Strategic Choices, 5th Edition. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Hassan, Gabriella (2016) Iranian Revolution: Effects on Identity. Thesis. University of Michigan.
https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitst...nal_thesis.pdf
Heaphy, M. (2021) Complex Identity Politics in Israel/Palestine. The Organization for World Peace. https://theowp.org/reports/complex-i...ael-palestine/
Hechter, M. (2001). Containing Nationalism. : Oxford University Press. Retrieved 9 Apr. 2022, from https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view
Heyes, Cressida, "Identity Politics", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/...tity-politics/
Hoogendoorn, B., Rietveld, C. A., van Stel, A. (2016) "Belonging, Believing, Bonding, and Behaving: The Relationship Between Religion and Business Ownership at the Country Level" Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 26: 519-550. DOI 10.1007/s00191-016-0447-7
Horowitz, I. L. (1981). C. Wright Mills’s Power Elite: A Twenty-Five-Year Retrospective. The Antioch Review, 39(3), 373–382. https://doi.org/10.2307/4638471
Huddleston, T. (202). Naturalisation in context: how nationality laws and procedures shape immigrants’ interest and ability to acquire nationality in six European countries. CMS 8, 18. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40878-020-00176-3
Kaplan, D., & Werczberger, R. (2017). Jewish New Age and the Middle Class: Jewish Identity Politics in Israel under Neoliberalism. Sociology, 51(3), 575–591. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26940369
Leege, D, C. & Kellstedt, L. A. (1993). Rediscovering the Religious Factor in American Politics. Oxfordshire, Routledge.
Leonhardt, D. (Nov. 4, 2021). What’s the Matter with Scarsdale? The New York Times
Lexico. (n.d.). Identity Politics. Lexico.com. Retrieved May 4, 2002, from https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/identity_politics.
Little, D. (n.d.). Undated. Marx and Class Consciousness. University of Michigan, Dearborn.
Macaluso, T. F. & Wanat, J. (1979), “Voter Turnout & Religiosity”, Polity, 12(1): 158-169.
Maleki, A., and Pooyan T. A. (2020). Iranians’ attitudes toward religion: A 2020 survey report. Netherlands: Available at https://gamaan.org
Marshall, M., and Elzinga-Marshall, G. (2017). Global Report 2017: Conflict, Governance, and State Fragility. Vienna, VA: Center for Systemic Peace.
Mills, C.W. (1956). The Power Elite. Oxford University Press.
Nadimi, F. (2017) Iran’s Military Options Against Kurdish Independence. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/...h-independence
O’Neil, P. and Fields, K. [2020] Are We in an Authoritarian Moment. W.W. Norton [online workshop] https://wwnorton.com/covid19-worksho...e-oneil-fields
O’Neill Hayes, Tara and Barnhorst, Margaret (2020) Incarceration and Poverty in the United States. American Action Forum. https://www.americanactionforum.org/...united-states/
Robertson, S. (n.d.) Module 7: Social Identities: Class, Status and Power. Retrieved January 14, 2022, from https://openpress.usask.ca/soc112/ch...nd-disability/.
Pargoo. M. (2021) Secularization of Islam in Post-Revolutionary Iran. New York: Routledge.
Passport Index. (n.d.) Israel Passport Dashboard. Retrieved January 14, 2022, from https://www.passportindex.org/passport/israel/.
Pixabay. (n.d.) Flag of Iran. Retrieved January 14, 2022, from https://pixabay.com/illustrations/ir...ation-4610902/
Rawls, J. (1999). A Theory of Justice 2e. Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press; 2nd edition
Robison, J., Stubager, R., Thau, M., & Tilley, J. (2021). Does Class-Based Campaigning Work? How Working Class Appeals Attract and Polarize Voters. Comparative Political Studies, 54(5), 723–752. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414020957684
Saleh A. (2013). “Iran’s National Identity Problem”. In Ethnic Identity and the State in Iran. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137310873_4
Saroglou, V. (2011) “Believing, Bonding, Behaving, and Belonging: The Big Four Religious Dimensions and Cultural Variation” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 42(8), 1320-1340.
Schweitzer, Ryan. [2019] Nationalism through Insecurity: Why 1979 Iranian Revolution Started. Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History. Vol. 9: Issue 1, Article 6.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthe...0&context=aujh
Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching. https://www.northwestern.edu/searle/...identification.
Serhan, Y. & Friedman, U. [2018] American Isn’t the ‘Only Country’ With Birthright Citizenship. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/internat...-trump/574453/
Shahram Akbarzadeh, Costas Laoutides, William Gourlay, Zahid Shahab Ahmed. (2020) The Iranian Kurds’ transnational links: impacts on mobilization and political ambitions. Ethnic and Racial Studies 43:12, pages 2275-2294. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/...7.2019.1592671
Smith, G. (2021), “About Three-in-Ten U.S. Adults Are Now Religiously Unaffiliated". Washington, DC: Pew Research Center.
Sociology Boundless. (n.d.). Class Conflict and Marx. In LibreTexts. Retrieved January 14, 2022, from https://socialsci.libretexts.org/@go/page/7895
Stern, Yedidia [2016] Religion, State, and the Jewish Identity Crisis in Israel
Tamir, Yael. [2021] Identity Politics in Israel and the US. “Democracy in Israel: Past, Present, and Future” Series. UCLA International Institute. https://international.ucla.edu/insti...article/242840
United Nations Development Programme. (2020). Human Development Report 2020: The next frontier - Human development and the Anthropocene. UN: New York.
Wetherell, M. and Mohanty, C. T. (2010) The SAGE Handbook of Identities. Los Angeles: SAGE.
Van Evera, S. (2001) “Primordialism Lives!” in apsa-cp: Newsletter of the Organized Section in the Comparative Politics of the American Political Science Association, 12(1), 20-22.
Zweig, M. (2017). White Working-Class Voters and the Future of Progressive Politics. New Labor Forum, 26(2), 28–36. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26420066 | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/07%3A_Political_Identity-_Nationalism_Religion_Class/7.06%3A_References.txt |
Key Terms/Glossary
• Behaving - religious commitment, or behaving according to values privileged by religion.
• Believing - religious belief or believing in certain religious propositions.
• Belonging - religious affiliation, or belonging to a religious faith, a religious tradition, or a denomination/sect within a particular religion.
• Bonding - religious ritual, or bonding by means of spiritual practices and rituals. These are the experiences that people go through, either individually, but more likely together as a community.
• Citizenship - implies a legal status rather than a feeling of belonging. Different from national or political identity.
• Class Identity - how a person or group of persons think of themselves based on economic and/or social status.
• Conscription - an enrollment program that requires young men, and in a few cases young women, to compulsory enlist in their militaries through a draft.
• Constructivist identity - the idea that people have multiple identities and that as people change, so can either the importance of a particular identity, or the adoption of a new identity altogether.
• Elites - the upper socio-economic class with consequential political power and social capital.
• Elite theory - the idea that the elite not only have power, but that they intentionally use it for their own benefit.
• Exclusionary nationalism - a form of nationalism that includes certain people and either implicitly or explicitly excludes others.
• Four B’s of religious identity - believing, belonging, behaving, and bonding.
• Hyperpluralist society - a society with many groups, but groups whose priorities are so divergent as to make finding compromise and agreement on shared values with others in society unachievable.
• Identity politics - refers to the “tendency for people of a particular religion, race, social background, etc., to form exclusive political alliances, moving away from traditional broad-based party politics.”
• Intersectionality - a situation where the interconnectedness of various identities and categories can lead to the marginalization or to the privilege of particular people and/or groups.
• Irredentism - when one state wants a territory that previously belonged to it to rejoin it.
• Liberal nationalism - the idea that every group of people with a clear national identity should have their own state.
• Marxism - an approach to political economy that is based on the idea of class conflict - between the owner and worker classes.
• Multinational state - a state that contains multiple nations.
• National identity - how a person or group of persons think of themselves as belonging to and representing the values and traits of a nation.
• Nationalism - defined as an ideology where devotion and loyalty to one’s state proves more important than other interests.
• Nation-state - a state where all or most of the people in that state belong to a single nation.
• Patriotism - described as pride in one’s state.
• Pluralist society - a society with many identity groups, with different backgrounds, religions and traditions, but where an overarching identity exists that can include everyone living within the country.
• Primordial identity - the idea that one’s identity is fixed at birth. A religious identity that claims to predate the religion itself.
• Religious identity - how a person or group of persons think of themselves as belonging to and representing the values of a particular religion and/or religious sect.
• Religiosity - the strength of a person’s commitment to religion.
• Separatist movements - defined as attempts by members of a group of people who seek to establish their own government, separate from the country they reside in.
• Social capital - defined as having connections and access to networks of other elites so as to increase one’s influence beyond just economic resources.
• Socioeconomic class - defined as the combination of social factors, such as level of education and occupation.
• Veil of ignorance - a hypothetical system where people are asked to make policy decisions without knowing who would be affected. The argument is that people would create fair policies, without respect to class, race, ethnicity, religion, etc.
• Working class - defined as those engaged in manual-labor occupations or industrial work. Often, members of the working class are without a four-year college degree.
Summary
Section #7.1: What is Political Identity?
Political identity consists of the traits and beliefs that make us who we are, from gender to religion to ethnicity to political affiliation. Understanding different political identities is critical to any analysis of political systems. Imagine trying to comprehend politics in the United States without some sense of who identifies as “conservative” and who identifies as “progressive”. Political identity is as complex and as nuanced as it is essential to the study of comparative politics.
Section #7.2: What is National Identity?
National identity is how we see ourselves as members of a nation of people. This can range from a relatively narrow ethnic identity to a broader civic identity that encompasses many ethnic and religious groups. It can be inclusive or exclusive and not all people will define it the same way, even within the same country. National identity also informs nationalist separatist movements as well as policies about citizenship.
Section #7.3: What is Religious Identity?
Religious identity, rooted in family and community, is how one thinks of themselves as belonging to a religious group. Religious identity is measured using the “four B’s”: Believing, Belonging, Behaving and Bonding. Like national identity, religious identity can be a centralizing force leading to unity or a decentralizing force leading to exclusionary behavior or conflict. There is some debate about whether religious identity can come before the formation of a specific religion. Religious identity is not bound by geography, yet the intensity of religious identity - and its influence on politics - does vary across different countries.
Section #7.4: What is Class Identity?
Class identity has two main components: economic and social. Economic class is about a person’s relative income and/or wealth in society. It is easier to measure and define than social class, though it is not always easy to see. Economic class is about power. Social class can be tied to or independent of economic class. Typically, those of high economic class also have high social status. Yet, social class, because it is about how highly a person is respected and how well connected they are in their society. The subjective nature of social class means it varies across cultures and countries.
Section #7.5: Comparative case study - Israel and Iran: The Intersection of Politics and Identity
Using the Most Different Systems approach, we can see that the independent variable in Israel and Iran are political outcomes that favor religion (though the dominant religion is different in each case). The dependent variable, then, is the power of one religion on the politics of each country. Some control variables include: type of government, economic policy, secularization, cooperation with the West, and socioeconomic indicators.
Review Questions
1. What are the components of political identity?
1. Ethnicity and religion
2. Gender and class
3. Ideology and nationality
4. All of these
5. How does understanding political identity relate to the study of comparative politics?
6. Political identity helps us understand and analyze political movements and systems
7. Political identity helps us understand why all wealthy people are conservatives
8. Political identity is a constant, rather than a variable, in studying comparative politics
2. What are the 4 “B’s of religious identity?
1. Believing, Belonging, Behaving and Bonding
2. Believing, Beholding, Behaving, Bonding
3. Bonding, Behaving, Belonging, Bending
4. Behaving, Binding, Believing, Beholding
3. What political outcomes help demonstrate the dominance of Judaism in Israel and Shia Islam in Iran?
1. Legal codes that favor each group
2. Judicial system that includes religious courts
3. Favoritism and preferences for religious students and religious education
4. The role of religious parties and factions in each country’s political system
5. All of these answers are correct
4. What is an example of political identity in Iran?
1. The importance of the Iranian Revolution
2. The inclusion of Kurds in Iranian politics
3. The exclusion of religion as part of Iranian identity
Answers: 1.d, 2.a, 3.a, 4.e, 5.a
Critical Thinking Questions
1. Predict how national identity, including national symbols, might change in Iran if it became more secular.
2. Choose one of the focus countries from this chapter and explain whether you think religious identity there is seen as primordial or constructivist.
3. Describe how class traits differ between generations. In other words, think of what the class markers were for your parents’ generation compared to your own.
4. How does your class identity inform your political views?
5. Explain how having a nation is necessary, but not sufficient, to have national identity.
6. Describe the difference between primordialism and constructivism as they relate to religious identity
7. Which one of the four ‘B’s most applies to you? Do you maybe believe, but not belong? Or do you behave, but not necessarily believe?
8. Israel and Iran are starkly different countries? Why study two states that are so different? | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/07%3A_Political_Identity-_Nationalism_Religion_Class/7.07%3A_Student_Resources.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Describe political economy as a field of study.
• Define key terms associated with political economy.
Introduction
Political economy, as defined in Chapter One, is a subfield of political science that considers various economic theories (like capitalism, socialism, communism, fascism), practices and outcomes either within a state, or among and between states in the global system. In its simplest form, political economy is the study of the relationship between the market and powerful actors, such as a country’s government. The market is defined as the exchange of goods and services within a given territory. This almost always involves the forces of supply and demand and the allocation of resources through private economic decision-making. The interaction between the state and the market through political, economic, and societal institutions can frame deliverable outcomes, such as public goods. This can occur not only within a country, but between them as well. Public goods are defined as goods and services provided by the state that are available for everyone in society. They are nonexcludable and nonrival in nature. Examples include public roads, public hospitals and libraries. Clearly, political economy will involve the mixing of political and economic policy goals. Finally, political economy also studies how individuals interact with the market and society (Britannica, n.d.)
Political economy is a subfield of political science that often overlaps with other fields and subfields in the social sciences, most notably economics. Political economists are tasked with understanding how the state affects the market. A good example is the concept of wealth distribution within a country. Wealth distribution is defined as how a country’s goods, investments, properties, and resources, or wealth, are divided amongst its population. In some countries, wealth is distributed quite evenly, whereas in other countries, wealth is distributed unevenly. Countries with uneven wealth distribution are more susceptible to political tension as some groups often feel they have been denied their ‘fair share of the pie’. Similarly, political economists look at how the market affects the state and its society. For example, market forces can force elected politicians to change their perspectives. A downturn in the market is correlated with the election chances of sitting politicians. Just ask US President George H.W. Bush, who won a decisive victory in the 1991 Gulf War, but the economic downturn a year later overshadowed his accomplishments. It led Clinton’s campaign manager to coin his now famous phrase, “it’s the economy, stupid!”
Given its definition and scope, areas of research within the political economy discipline can be quite diverse. Generally, though, the three main ways political economy are engaged today include:
1. Studying how the economy (and/or economic systems) affects politics. (Given the expansive scope of this field, our chapter will focus on economic systems.)
2. How political forces affect the economy. (i.e. How do institutions, voters, interest groups affect economic outcomes? How does this influence public policy?)
3. How economic foundations and tools can be applied to study politics.
To gain a fuller understanding of how political economy is studied by comparativists, it’s important to consider its history as a subdiscipline as well as a number of key terms used in the practice of the field.
Political Economy: Foundation and Key Terms
Scholars have been thinking about the interaction between society and the economy for centuries. Ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle, wrote about the oikos, which is the ancient Greek word for house. Aristotle saw the oikos as the basic unit within the polis, or city. From oikos is derived the English word econ-omy, or the study of household accounts, which over time has translated into the study of a country’s wealth and assets. Formal study of political economy began in the mid-1700s. Adam Smith’s 1776 work, the Wealth of Nations, is often considered the starting point. His work was followed by David Ricardo, who wrote about comparative advantage, which will be discussed further below. His work complemented Smith’s thoughts about the free market. A few decades later came the writings of Karl Marx, whose reactions to the free market and capitalism still provide much of the basis for contemporary criticism. Over time, the field garnered more widespread attention. Political economy’s growth as a specific discipline in universities was noted by Dunbar as early as 1891, in an article in The Quarterly Journal of Economics published by Oxford University Press. The article attributes public interest in the subject as a significant cause in its expanded role in academia:
It is the perception of the scope and importance of the questions with which political economy deals that turns the popular current so strongly towards it today. It is keenly felt that on the right answer of these questions must depend not only the future progress of society, but also the preservation of much that has been gained by mankind in the past. (Dunbar, 1891)
Political economists also consider various concepts including private goods, property, and property rights. In contrast to public goods, private goods are defined as an economic resource which are acquired or owned exclusively by a person or group. Public and private goods can vary greatly between countries, for instance, healthcare is sometimes a public private good in some countries whereas it is a public good in most countries. A defining feature of private goods is their potential scarcity, and the competition that arises from this scarcity. Property is defined as a resource or commodity that a person or group legally owns. Property can include tangible items, like cars and houses, to intangible items, like patents, copyrights or trademarks.
Property rights are defined as the legal authority to dictate how property, whether tangible or intangible, is used or managed. These concepts help form the foundation for the vast majority of political economy studies.
States can affect the market through a variety of measures. First, they can simply pass laws that regulate the market. Regulation is defined as rules imposed by a government on society. Various types of regulation exist, from rules on protecting public interests, such as the environment to social cohesion. Regulation that affects the marker is often referred to as regulatory policy, economic regulation, or fiscal regulation. For example, an effective form of regulation is through the policy of taxation. Taxation is defined as the process of a government collecting money from its citizens, corporations, and other entities. Taxes can be imposed on income, capital gains and on estates. Taxes are an important part of a functioning society as governments use tax revenue to pay for public goods. Taxes can be used to regulate economic activity. A country can impose higher taxes on a product, driving up the price, to dissuade people from using it. A good example is the taxes imposed on cigarettes. Referred to as sin taxes, these are taxes levied on a product or activity that are deemed harmful to society. Sin taxes exist on tobacco, alcohol, and gambling in almost every state. Taxation, spending, and regulation are referred to as fiscal policy.
In addition to fiscal policy, governments can exercise monetary policy. Monetary policy is defined as the actions taken by a state’s central bank to affect the money supply. Money is simply a medium of exchange. It is a way to store value and is used as a unit of account in economic transactions. Printed money has no intrinsic value. Its value is determined by the government that prints it. A five-dollar bill is worth five dollars because that is what the US government says it is. Of course, the people of a country need to also believe that the printed money is worth what the government says it is. If the public does not, then the money can be worthless. A good example is the former currencies of countries that adopted the Euro. The German mark, the French franc and the Greek drachma no longer have any value.
A central bank can either expand the money supply, to grow the economy and maximize employment. Economic growth is the process by which a country’s wealth increases over time. Or it can contract the money supply, to slow the economy and moderate inflation. An economic slowdown can be the result, which often occurs in the form of a recession. A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters (three months) of declining economic activity. In each instance, a central bank will manipulate the money supply through interest rates. Let’s examine each scenario. A central bank will reduce interest rates to stimulate economic growth. This makes it easier for businesses to borrow money to expand production, increase hiring, or invest in research & development. Similarly, consumers can borrow at lower interest rates to buy homes or consumer goods.
If, however, economic demand is growing too fast, a central bank raises interest rates to cool off the economy. Some may ask what is wrong with a hot economy? Is that not a good thing? Not necessarily, as a major consequence of higher spending is inflation. Inflation is defined as a general increase in prices, usually within a given time. If the public has access to excess cash or credit and decides to spend, it becomes a simple matter of supply and demand. More demand for products and services leads to higher prices. Prices can also rise for other reasons, including higher labor costs, or an increased cost of inputs, such as fuel for transportation. Regardless of the reason, inflation simply means your dollar will not go as far tomorrow as it did today.
Finally, a country’s economy can be affected externally as well through international trade. International trade is defined as the exchange of goods, services, and activities between countries. States, however, never trade equally. In every trading relationship, one country benefits more than the other. Sometimes, the trade surplus or trade deficit is small and not so consequential. Other times, the surplus or deficit can be large and have important consequences. If a country is experiencing large trade deficits, then that country is importing more than it is exporting. A positive effect of a large deficit is that it is likely that the goods, services, and activities being imported are less expensive, which can help lower costs for consumers in that country. A negative effect of a large is that hard money leaves the country. This can affect the money supply of the country. Conversely, a large surplus usually means that prices of goods, services and activities are generally higher in that country. However, the country is bringing in quite a bit of money, which can be used by a government to fund numerous development projects.
A foundational principle in international trade is that of comparative advantage. Comparative advantage refers to the goods, services or activities that one state can produce or provide more cheaply or easily than other states. Developed by David Ricardo in the early 1800s, comparative advantage entails states that can mutually benefit from cooperation and voluntary trade. This is because no nation is entirely self-sufficient and therefore must trade. Even when states can produce the same goods and services, they often have to trade with other states to overcome their different allocation of resources. This is especially true for states with certain natural resources such as oil or minerals. Thus, because nations have different allocations of resources, such as land, labor, or capital, each enjoys a comparative advantage in producing those goods that use its abundant resources. Over time, the ability of one business or entity to engage in production at a lower opportunity cost than another business or entity will lead to specialization. In this scenario, goods will be less expensive, and production will be more efficient for states that engage in trade.
Political Economy as a Modern Discipline
Per Bozonelos (2022), “in the early twentieth century, economics began to separate itself formally from politics by focusing on theories of economic behavior as they related to human behavior”. The graph below details how interest in economics has skyrocketed, whereas interest in political economy has remained relatively constant. One way to distinguish the two disciplines is to think of economics as focused on analysis of the economy, both at the national, or macro level, and at the firm, or micro, level. Principles of economics include calculating market equilibrium given supply and demand, the projection of various outcomes based on finite resources, and observations regarding the distribution of wealth. Instead, think of political economy as an extension of economics, but with a focus on how politics and public policy affects economics.
While political economy is less well known than economics, “the assumed separation of politics and economics is very much a 20th-century phenomenon” (Robbins, 2017). In our 21st century, economists have increasingly accepted and have in most analyses, incorporated politics and policy decisions. A good example includes housing affordability, where the economics of owning a house are highly political. The market does not always mean fairness and “many issues of political economy are bread-and-butter issues that are important to scholars as well as the public at large.” (Robbins, 2017). Economic decisions are not made in a vacuum by “rational” actors always maximizing their economic self-interest. If that were the case, we would not spend more money on a pair of sneakers just because of the brand or color.
The field of political economy can be extended into two more specific subgroups: comparative political economy and international political economy. The subgroups parallel the subdisciplines of political science discussed in Chapter One: comparative politics and international politics. Comparative political economy (CPE) is defined as the comparison across and between countries of the ways in which politics and economics interact. Often, this comparison lends to observations of similar economic policies resulting in different political outcomes, or vice versa, similar political policies resulting in different economic outcomes. Comparative political economy has generally focused on the politics of economic development, the analysis of different economic systems, the effects and implications of globalization, as well as general economic and social policies. International political economy (IPE) is defined as the study of political economy from a global perspective or through international institutions. Conversations over the distribution of wealth take place at a higher level than individual or cross-national studies. IPE focuses on international trade, economic development, international monetary bodies, as well as the influence of multinational corporations and non-governmental organizations. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/08%3A_Political_Economy/8.01%3A_What_is_Political_Economy.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Define, and discuss significance of, Political Economic Systems.
• Identify the four political economic systems.
• Compare and contrast the four political economic systems.
Introduction
Political economies also vary in how they are implemented, with a major variable being the role of the state in its economy. This role can include a number of attributes. One major attribute is level of involvement or intervention. In some political economy systems, the state is much less involved, sometimes mostly absent, referred to as laissez-faire, which translates from French as ‘let it be’. Laissez-faire is defined as a type of political system where the government chooses not to interfere or intervene in its national economy. At other times, the state acts simply as a referee, only getting involved when there are disputes or when there are major threats to the economy. At the other end of the spectrum are states that have complete control of an economy. Command and control is defined as a type of political economy where the government owns most, if not all, means of production in a society. In this system, there is no market and all economic decisions are made by the state or some agent representing the state, such as a political party.
Almost all contemporary political economy systems fall somewhere in between, usually clustering along the continuum. Countries that have inherited their political economic systems from England, such as Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States, trend more towards less government involvement. Whereas other states, including countries in Latin America and Europe, trend more towards the other end, with more government involvement, including higher taxes and more regulation. Sometimes, state involvement really means state coordination. In countries such as Singapore, China, and Vietnam, the state leads the economy including when and where investment takes place. This is often referred to as statism, which is defined as a political economic system where the government often takes on an enterprising role, usually through a state. Statism is also referred to as state capitalism, where the invisible hand is replaced the visible hand in the market (Bremmer, 2012)
Mercantilism (Economic Nationalism)
The oldest political economic system is mercantilism. Mercantilism is defined as a political economic system which seeks to maximize a country’s wealth through increasing exports and limiting imports. Use of the mercantilist system was most prevalent between the 16th and 18th centuries, and heavily practiced by the British Empire. Hallmarks of the mercantilist system at this time included the complete control of production and trade by state led companies, high inflation and taxes. Mercantilism also allowed for the expansion of the slave trade, as slaves were seen as necessary to an empire’s economic well-being and power.
A good example of mercantilism is the British Empire. To achieve imperial economic growth, the empire strongly discouraged its colonies from importing competitive foreign products, encouraging only the importation of British products. This was often accomplished through taxation, as imperial authorities imposed tariffs on sugar and molasses imported from other countries in order to promote its own monopoly on sugar from the West Indies. The British also put forth trade policies that promoted a favorable balance of trade for themselves, again in an effort to maximize its power through wealth creation. Inevitably, this system led to open military conflict as other empires did the same. The Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese empires would try to promote their own economic interests and would try to protect their own colonial markets from British encroachment.
In theory, mercantilism created a strong relationship between the British empire and its colonies. The empire protected the colonies from the threat of foreign nations, and money from the colonies fueled the imperial engine. In practice however, mercantilism created conflict for the colonies, especially in the Americas, where the cost of imported goods from Britain were substantially higher than imports from other regions. Add to this, the increase in expenses and growing market control, and mercantilism is cited as one of the precipitating factors contributing to the Revolutionary War.
Although mercantilism is the oldest of the various types of political economic systems, it is by no means a relic of the past. It is very much a present day reality, and is now referred to as economic nationalism. Economic nationalism is defined as attempts by a state to protect or bolster its economy for nationalist goals. Economic nationalism has seen a surge both in the United States and in Western Europe. Economic nationalists tend to favor protectionism. Protectionism is defined as policies protecting a country’s domestic industry through subsidies, favorable tax treatment, or imposing tariffs on foreign competitors. The focus is on savings and exports. Economic nationalists do not want the country to be dependent on other countries for key resources. They prefer policies that lead to diversification of domestic production. This is understandable in key sectors like agriculture. It is more controversial in sectors such as consumer products purchased with disposable income. For economic nationalists, some degree of free trade is fine if it furthers the goal of strengthening the power of the state on the international stage. The focus here is on the state. The common feature of political platforms espousing economic nationalism is the combination of “conservative economic proposals with nationalist stances on international trade and cooperation, as well as on immigration.” (Colantone & Stanig, 2019)
While the desire to ‘buy American’ and ‘hire American’ is understandable, it may have unintended consequences. Economic nationalism focuses on the role of growing exports to strengthen the economic position of the state. Nevertheless, if this approach is taken to its logical end, where all countries shun international imports, then there will be a dramatic decline in the ability of exporting companies in the US(and, of course, in other countries) to succeed (and therefore to hire Americans).
Free Market Capitalism (Economic Liberalism)
A competing approach to mercantilism is capitalism. Capitalism, also referred to as free market capitalism, is a political-economic system where individuals and private entities are able to own land and capital needed to produce goods and services. The forces of supply and demand are determined freely by the market, ideally with little to no interference from the state. In its purest form, capitalism is laissez-faire, which we discussed above. Capitalism centers on self-interest, competition, private property, and the limited role of government control in the market. In economics, self-interest is the means through which individuals can act on their own behalf to make choices that benefit themselves. Within capitalism, the self-interest of uncoordinated individuals is thought to contribute to better outcomes for society at large. Competition occurs when industries, economic firms and individuals vie to obtain goods, products and services at the lowest prices. By allowing competition and self-interest of consumers, market outcomes are thought to be improved for all involved.
One concern about capitalism is at the international level, particularly when it comes to trade in goods, services, and activities. As mentioned above, trade imbalances may led to the exploitation of poorer countries by richer countries. Rather than a comparative advantage, the country might be at a disadvantage. Think of a poor country that wants to build up its tourism industry. If it follows a wholly capitalist model and allows for trade and foreign investment, it runs the risk of its domestic tourism industry becoming taken over by large corporate hotel chains.
Still, even with the existence of major trade imbalances, economists have demonstrated that international trade is not a complete ‘zero-sum’ game. A zero-sum game is a situation where one person, or entity, gains at the equal cost of another. Each win must be accompanied by a loss. As Wolla and Esenther explain, the idea of trade being a zero-sum game
is nothing new; it dominated economic and political thought from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Known then as mercantilism, it led to government policies that encouraged exports and discouraged imports. One of Adam Smith’s purposes in writing The Wealth of Nations…was to dispel the zero-sum game myth behind mercantilism. (Wolla and Esenther, 2017)
Modern international trade is not a zero-sum game, as there are gains to be made, even small ones. Still, there are other ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ in trade. Winners include consumers who have more choice at competitive prices. Businesses also are winners, as they can sell products to consumers. Specialization through comparative advantage can lead to what is referred to as economies of scale, or the ability to “produce goods at a lower average cost” (Wolla and Esenther, 2017). Also, countries benefit with an improved standard of living. Two examples are China and India. Both “have experienced growth and development that might not have happened without access to markets.” (Wolla and Esenther, 2017)
The benefits of international trade and free-trade agreements (FTAs) can be seen through data from the US Department of Commerce as described by the US Chamber of Commerce. US FTAs that include 20 countries “represent approximately 6% of the world’s population outside the United States, and yet these markets purchase nearly half of all US exports.” (US Chamber of Commerce.)
Capitalism is most commonly referred to today as economic liberalism. Economic liberalism is defined as a political economic ideology that promotes free market capitalism through deregulation, privatization and the loosening of government controls. Deregulation involves the removal of government power in a particular industry or economic area. An example includes the US president Reagan’s decision to deregulate the phone industry, which AT&T had monopolistic control, in an effort to create competition, provide more choices and lower prices for consumers. Privatization is the selling of government owned assets. A good example includes the sale of a state-owned airport or harbor to a private company. Greece, a country in the European Union, was forced to do so under a deal to save its economy in 2012. Finally, the loosening of government controls, or liberalization, involves the reduction of rules related to trade, including the reduction of trade regulations, taxes, etc. Countries that embrace economic liberalism are said to become more capitalist.
Marxism (Economic Structuralism)
As free market capitalism was a critical response to mercantilism, Marxism became a critical response to free market capitalism. Developed by Karl Marx, who the philosophy is named after, this critique argues that capitalism is destructive, corrupt and unable to survive as an economic system. According to Marx, capitalist systems inevitably lead to conflict between the working class (proletariat) and business owners (bourgeoisie), wherein the workers would eventually rise up against those who own the means of production. In considering more specifically its economic applications, Marxism is defined as a political economic system wherein the means of production are collectively owned by workers, not privately owned by individuals. This system lends itself politically to socialism or communism, both discussed below. In Marx’s mind, eventually social classes, and the subsequent violence that results from class struggle, would no longer exist.
Communism is where the state, usually dominated by one party, is in complete control of the political economic system, including all property. Communist theory suggested that over time, the state itself would wither away and politics would become a relic of the past. A utopia where everyone has achieved true equality would exist without the need of a government. Marx suggested that the communist struggle would begin in industrialized societies that practice capitalism. Yet the first country to embrace communism was Russia, an imperial power that was largely agrarian and still used a serf political economy. In the Russian revolution, communist forces loyal to Vladimir Lenin seized control, imposing communist rule through the state party apparatus, and renamed the country the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Joseph Stalin, the successor to Lenin, forcibly industrialized the country and led it through World War II. Still, the utopia that Marx had predicted never occurred. The USSR eventually collapsed in 1991 and in this wake, most of the country’s allies abandoned communism altogether.
Despite the death of communism, Marxist thought still plays a prominent role in today’s economic discourse. A good example includes economic structuralism, which is considered by most scholars as a modern extension of Marxism. Economic structuralism is defined as a political economic system wherein the working class must be protected from exploitation of the capital owning class, but on an international scale. Economic Structuralism has played a significant role in policy making in the developing world, particularly in Africa and Latin America. The focus here is on workers and owners. It is also on economic structures such as inequality, uneven development, property rights and ownership, specialization, and trade.
Economic structuralist theory has been a significant force in Latin America and, in this context, is often credited to Raul Prebish, an Argentine economist who wrote about this theory in 1949. Love (2005) describes that underdevelopment was seen as an “uneasy mix of traditional and modern economies”. In other words, early structuralists focused on industrialization “as the single most important objective in a development program” (Love, 2005). By way of further explanation:
Structuralist scholars become conceptually known and recognized by their diagnosis in which 'structural deficiencies', 'bottlenecks' or 'inner dysfunctions' are the factors responsible for the developmental divergences in Latin America. (Missio, et al, 2015)
The deficiencies and dysfunctions are both from outside (foreign) and within (domestic). Examples of foreign dysfunctions include the vulnerabilities developing countries experience in participating in global trade, such as less favorable terms of trade and access to necessary technologies. (UIA) Examples of domestic dysfunction include “accelerated population growth, premature urbanization…as well as the underdevelopment of agricultural production” among others. (Missio, et al, 2015)
So, having identified these structural challenges and imbalances, the question becomes how should policymakers respond? Common policy responses include import-substitution industrialization strategies. Import-substitution industrialization (ISI) refers to a country's attempt to reduce its dependence on foreign companies through increased domestic production. Grabowski (1994) describes ISI strategies as “utilizing a variety of policy instruments (tariffs, quotas, and subsidies) to protect the domestic market for many types of manufactured goods”. Since industrial development was a major focus of economic structuralism, economists and policy-makers were “generally very optimistic concerning the positive role that trade, in particular export expansion, could play in overall development” (Grabowski, 1994).
Protectionism is also a major component of ISI strategies. As mentioned above protectionism is designed to protect domestic industries and markets from foreign competition. One category of protectionist policy is the use of direct barriers. The classic - and one of the oldest tools of protectionism - is the use of tariffs. Tariffs are taxes imposed on imported foreign products with the purpose of making those products more expensive and, thus, making the domestically produced products more competitive. However, tariffs can misfire if a domestic company relies on imported components that are more expensive due to the tariff. This added cost is usually passed through to consumers. We saw this happen with the 2018 steel and aluminum tariffs, which resulted in the loss of 75,000 manufacturing jobs. (PBS) Another direct barrier involves the use of quotas or limits on the number of foreign goods coming into a country. The idea is to ensure that domestic companies have a guaranteed share of the market for certain products. This could be televisions, cars or textiles (clothing).
Other forms of protectionism are sometimes referred to as non tariff regulatory barriers, or restrictions on trade not involving a tariff or a quota. These are not as direct or focused but can still have a significant impact on trade. There are three broad categories: financial, physical, and technical. Non tariff financial barriers include government subsidies and tax breaks for specific domestic industries. Thus, instead of taxing imports, the government makes domestic products more competitive (less expensive) by giving businesses cash, forgivable loans, below market loans, or tax breaks to businesses in the sectors the government wants to protect. This financial assistance is a cost borne by all the taxpayers rather than consumers of specific goods. Subsidies are common in agriculture because the ability of a country to provide food for its people generally is considered a matter of national importance and security. Physical barriers can be both natural and human-made. Steep, treacherous mountain passes or dangerous water crossings can make trade more expensive. Similarly, countries can intentionally make border crossings more difficult with structures such as walls and gates. Finally, there are technical barriers. Typically, these come in the form of rules or standards imposed by the destination country on the exporting country. One example comes from trade between the US and Mexico. The US imposed a requirement that all tractor-trailers coming into the US must comply with certain safety standards. (Aguilar, 2011) This requirement meant that, until Mexico could upgrade its fleet of tractor-trailers, Mexican trucking companies had to bring their goods to the border, off load the cargo into a US-compliant truck, and then continue to their destination. This added time, and therefore costs, to the goods coming from Mexico.
The informal sector, also known as the informal economy, is that part of the economy consisting of people producing goods and providing services outside of regular employment. This includes people selling home-made food products, providing auto repair services and child care. The concern for economists is that productivity in the informal sector is low, meaning that these small enterprises are not very efficient and therefore do not contribute to increased standards of living. According to the International Monetary Fund, “today, the informal sector still accounts for about a third of low- and middle-income countries’ economic activity—15 percent in advanced economies.
Socialism (Social Democracy)
A final political economic system to consider is socialism. Socialism, broadly speaking, is both a political and economic system in which property, as well as the means of production, are collectively owned. In most cases, production is owned and controlled by the state. Socialist theory does allow for individual ownership of property, such as one’s house. The emphasis of a socialist system is to secure more equal outcomes and distribution of wealth through the collective ownership of resources and the means of production by the state. Few socialist countries exist today. The closest example we have is Venezuela. Venezuelan leadership, first under Hugo Chavez and then Nicolas Maduro, have nationalized or
Just like Marxism, modern variants of socialism exist today. The most prominent and relevant is social democracy, which is defined as a political and economic system that favors heavy market regulation to achieve a more equal society. This approach argues that capitalism can lead to disproportionate distribution of wealth, which is viewed as inconsistent with democratic principles. The argument goes, how can one have true freedom, if they lack the means to survive? Freedom of speech, of the press or to assemble do not mean much if one goes hungry. Another term for this is democratic socialism, an ideology that seeks democracy not just in the political sphere but in the economic sphere as well.
In social democracies, governments levy high taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals and redistribute the collected funds to poorer members of society through social welfare programs. While social democracies have a capitalist system as their base, it is overlaid with a heavy system of regulation to protect society from the potential harm that a free market capitalist system could yield. At times, some social democratic countries will take over the means of production in a particular industry. A good example is Norway where the oil company is state-owned and the revenues from the sale of oil go to pay for social expenditures, such as education and health.
Social democracy became popular in Europe, where such policies were initially put in place to blunt the ability of communist movements to rally workers to their cause. These policies proved to be quite popular, and have become an important feature in social democracies. Sweden is a great example. The country has developed a political economy where its citizens enjoy quite a few benefits, including access to free health care, free education and generous pensions. These benefits are paid for through higher taxes and societal expectations of corporate behavior. A country, such as Sweden, that has this type of a mixed economy is also often referred to as a social market economy. A social market economy is defined as a socioeconomic system that combines principles of capitalism with domestic social welfare considerations. Over time, the European Union has adopted a number of directives that have aligned with social democracy concepts. These include reducing wage inequality, improving incentives to work and working to sustain domestic demand. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/08%3A_Political_Economy/8.02%3A_Political_Economic_Systems.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Identify and categorize the different economic systems in Germany and China.
• Compare and contrast the various economic outcomes in relation to the political regimes in Germany and China.
• Analyze the implications for public policy in each of these countries in relation to their economic systems.
Introduction
From a political perspective, China and Germany have little in common. China is a socialist republic led by a single, communist political party and communist elites, while Germany is democratic, federal parliamentary republic where two main political parties vie for dominance. China’s political system is authoritarian where national political leaders are selected without nomination or election by the people, most political opposition is suppressed, and media, news and information for the public is mostly controlled by the state. Germany’s political system enables participation of its citizens in politics, representation of opposing views, a free media, and the protection of civil liberties. China and Germany also operate under very different economic models. China’s economy is a market-oriented, mixed economy where the majority of economic ventures are state-owned and dominated by the political interests of the single communist political party. Although not the direct opposite or anthesis of China’s controlled market economy, Germany’s economy is different from China’s in a number of respects. It has a social market economy that brings in aspects of capitalism, particularly the prospect of free market competition, but also protects its economy from unbridled competition at the expense of its citizens. The main difference between China and Germany’s economic system is the extent to which the government validates its role in the control and/or management of the global market system. In short, the Chinese government dominates the market, mostly through state-owned enterprises, whereas the German government prefers to influence the market, mostly through regulation.
Although China and Germany are different in terms of their political and economic systems, they do share some fascinating similarities in terms of their global trading approaches. Both China and Germany are political centers for regional trading blocs, and both maintain mutual dependency on their regional partnerships. Further, both China and Germany depend heavily on their exports, with Germany’s exports accounting for over 50% of their total GDP and China’s exports accounting for almost 25% of its total GDP. (For reference purposes, the US only exports what amounts to less than 15% of its GDP). Although their economic systems differ, it is interesting to point out that both China and Germany face similar economic challenges and vulnerabilities based on their over reliance on upholding export economies. Both systems, relying on their export economies, have created circumstances where their domestic production surpasses their own domestic capacity to use/consume/acquire goods. If German exports were to unexpectedly decrease or decline, domestic consumption would need to increase to levels not feasible with Germany’s current population. China would also face severe economic outcomes should exports decline, but the domestic challenges would be different for China. China has a large population which lacks the purchasing power to buy the goods produced by China, so sharp declines in exports would also be detrimental to China. Therefore, two very different market systems find themselves with a similar problem of managing their export economies carefully in order to ensure domestic economic and political stability.
Using the method of Most Different Systems Design, this case study will compare two countries, China and Germany, considering their different economic structures but similar economic challenges in the coming decades.
Germany’s Social Market Economy
• Full Country Name: Federal Republic of Germany
• Head(s) of State: President & Chancellor
• Government: Federal Parliamentary Republic
• Official Languages: German
• Economic System: Social Market Economy
• Location: Central Europe
• Capital: Berlin
• Total land size: 137,847 sq. miles
• Population: 80 million (July 2021 est.)
• GDP: \$4,743 trillion
• GDP per capita: \$53,919
• Currency: Euro
Germany currently has the 5th largest economy in the world according to its GDP and is one of the largest global exporters in the world. Germany is considered to have a highly developed economic system utilizing a social market economy. The concept of a social market economy originated in 1949 under the leadership of Chancellor Konrad Adnauer. As discussed above a social market economy is a socioeconomic system that combines principles of capitalism with domestic social welfare considerations. It borrows the capitalist principles of fair competition and competitive advantage. Fair competition in capitalism affirms that industries will work to maximize their output and minimize costs to compete with similar industries, forcing the market to provide competitive options to consumers. Fair competition lends to the economic concept of comparative advantage, which again refers to the goods, services or activities that one state can produce or provide more cheaply or easily than other states. While Germany’s economy hinges on fair competition and competitive advantage, it does so with an eye towards the effects and potential hazards of enforcing pure capitalism on social welfare. A social market economy will try not to force competition at the cost of its country’s social welfare. It is useful to look at the Roots of Germany’s social market economy to understand the current status of Germany’s economy today.
Germany’s Economic History
Germany’s social market economy was the product of dire economic conditions coming out of World War II. Coming out of World War II, the lessons of the prior 45 years weighed heavy on the minds of German politicians and economists. Following World War I, Germany was thrown into a weak democracy under the Weimar Republic. Germany suffered greatly under the terms of the Versailles Treaty, which ended the first World War. In addition to the social and economic turbulence caused by the end of the war, Germany was forced to drastically reduce its military. Under the Treaty of Versailles, it was also to take full responsibility for World War I and pay exorbitant reparations to the Allies, and ultimately relinquish some of its territory. Germany signed the Weimar Constitution on August 11st, 1919, and weak political parties attempted to shift power away from the German military. Two of the main political parties at that time included the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USDP). German’s leadership faced dire economic challenges in the years following World War I.
The main challenge facing the Weimar Republic was hyperinflation. Hyperinflation is defined as a much more severe form of inflation that can have deleterious effects on all aspects of a country’s social, political and economic situation. Hyperinflation occurs when inflation exceeds 50%. When the Weimar Republic was forced to pay high reparations and war debts to the Allies following World War I, the German government tried to print more money. At the end of the war, German debt to the Allies totaled 132 billion gold papiermarks, the equivalent of \$33 billion U.S. dollars at that time. (The German currency at this time was called the papiermark.) Germany abolished its use of the gold standard to produce more printed money, and in doing so, it induced a state of hyperinflation where inflation rates soared beyond 20,000%, with prices doubling every 3.7 days. For reference, at the end of World War I, the exchange rate of papiermarks to the U.S. dollar was 4.2 papiermarks to the U.S. dollar; by the end of 1923, the rate was 1 million papiermarks to the U.S. dollar. Hyperinflation meant citizens could not buy basic goods, and many Germans went hungry. It also led to Germany to become delinquent on their reparation payments, leading French and Belgium to justify occupying the Ruhr Valley in Germany as payment. The German economy folded, and the Weimar Republic was forced to adopt a new currency, called the Reichsmark in 1924. The new currency stabilized the economy but did not take away all of Germany’s economic woes. Instead, economic troubles continued and planted the seeds for further societal distress.
At the height of the economic woes of 1923, Adolf Hilter gained notoriety as he advocated for the politically right-wing party, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDP), also known as the Nazi party. In November 1924, Adolf Hitler led an attempt to overthrow the Weimar Republic in what later became called the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich. Over two thousand Nazi party members worked to aid Hitler in overthrowing the government, but the coup d’etat was squashed by the local police. Sixteen Nazi party members were killed in the attempt, and their deaths were used as further motivation to attempt to overthrow the democratic government in Germany. Much of what drew members to the Nazi party at that time was the devastating economic conditions of hyperinflation, unemployment and poor working conditions. The economic troubles, combined with the weight of defeat for World War I, helped raise the ire and unrest of the German people. Although Hitler was sent to prison following the Beer Hall Putsch, he used that time to draft his autobiography, Mein Kampf (meaning, My Struggle).
Over the coming decade, Hitler was able to rally the German people by lambasting the Treaty of Versailles, calling it a disgrace to the German nation. He promoted German pride and ultranationalism, promising to unite all the German people in and outside of Germany. He scapegoated many of Germany’s problems on minority groups, particularly Germany’s Jewish population, and on the communists, denouncing their beliefs. In 1933, the Nazis emerged as the larget party in the Reichstage or German parliament. The President of Germany at that time, Paul von Hindenburg, was compelled to appoint Hitler as Chancellor of Germany. Hitler leveraged a manufactured hatred for the Jewish population, communism, and the architects of the Versailles Treaty, to transform Germany into a one-party dictatorship with a state-controlled economy.
Life under Nazi rule initially yielded strong economic outcomes. Hitler’s leadership and command of a state-controlled economy enabled Germany to experience six years of rapid economic growth. This mercantilist approach allowed Germany to pursue its military objectives. After World War II, Germany was in ruins and most of the most physical capital that had been accumulated had been destroyed in the war. This led German leaders to declare Stunde Null, or zero hour, where the country was going to need to rebuild itself in order to survive. Post-war German economists advocated for radical change. The Nazi regime had overseen a state controlled economy with emphasis on corporate control. Going away from a completely statist approach, German economists advocated greater free-market capitalist principles. At the same time, The German government also wanted to ensure that the people’s welfare, particularly those of the workers, were protected. Transitioning to a fully capitalist model was too risky, and it was believed that not all workers or citizens in general would be able to compete effectively. This led to the adoption of a social democratic political economy.
Germany’s Economy, Present Day Circumstances and Challenges
Germany is Europe’s largest economy, the fifth largest economy in the world according to GDP, and the largest exporter of goods in Europe. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns which began in March 2020, Germany had experienced consistent growth for the past 10 years. When the pandemic struck, Germany’s economy contracted by 5% led by a decline in exports. Still, relative to how other European economies performed, Germany fared better than many of its EU partners. For reference purposes, the Chinese economy contracted by almost 7%, and the U.S. economy contracted by over 19% in the first three months of the pandemic. The economic challenges of the pandemic facing Germany are not unique, as the country grapples with intermittent shutdowns to curb the spread of COVID-19, unemployment, initial disruption of imports and exports, and the social fallout experienced by frequent shutdowns and isolations.
China’s Market-Oriented, Mixed Economy
Full Country Name: People’s Republic of China
Head(s) of State: President
Government: Communist party-led state
Official Languages: Standard Chinese
Economic System: Market-oriented, mixed economy
Location: Asia
Capital: Beijing
Total land size: 5,963,274.47 sq. miles
Population: 1.3 billion (July 2021 est.)
GDP: 19.91 trillion
GDP per capita: \$14,096
Currency: Renminbi
China has the second largest economy in the world according to GDP, and is the world’s largest exporter and trading nation. However, if measuring economies based on Purchasing Parity Power, then China has the world’s largest economy. Purchasing Parity Power (PPP) is a metric used to compare the prices of goods and services to gauge the absolute purchasing power of a currency. China pursues state capitalism, where a high level of state intervention exists in a market economy, usually through state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Part of the reason for the high state intervention stems from China’s political system, which is authoritarian under the sole leadership of a single political party, the Chinese Communist Party. As one may suspect, over 60% of China’s industries and enterprises are state-owned. It is useful to look at the roots of China’s market-oriented, mixed economy to understand the current status of China’s economy today.
China’s Economic History
China’s Communist Party came to power in 1949 after they defeated the nationalists in a brutal civil war. The leadership intended to modernize China as fast as possible, with a desire to become more powerful. From 1949-1952, the Chinese government prioritized projects to repair transportation, communications, and power grids. Military installations and equipment, as well as basic transportation, communications and power systems had been destroyed during the war and were badly in need of repair or rebuilding. Under government direction, the banking system was centralized under the People’s Bank of China. Moving towards a state-controlled economy, the state began to acquire more and more control over various industries. By the end of 1952, only 17% of industries were not state-owned.
After having stabilized the economy, China prioritized industrialization. Chinese government officials looked to the Soviet model to attempt to industrialize in a logical and linear way. Soviet officials were even welcomed in the country to help devise the best way to industrialize. By the end of 1956, all firms were state-owned. During this time, the agricultural industry was largely revamped and, to some extent, considered to be secondary. Agriculture was not invested in, though agricultural output increased during this time period due to more organization and cooperation of those working in the industry.
In 1958, Mao Zedong determined that the Soviet model was not working for China. Instead, Zedong introduced what was called the Great Leap Forward, which was a plan which asked the Chinese people to spontaneously increase production in all sectors of the economy at the same time. For this initiative, communes were created to make Chinese farmers and workers work together cooperatively to increase output. These communes often had 20 to 40,000 members at a time, all tasked with combining their resources to produce more agricultural output. While the agricultural sector was working to increase output, the same expectations were also put on the industrial sector. The economic results of the Great Leap Forward were disastrous for China. The first year yielded strong outcomes for both the agricultural and industrial sectors, but the subsequent years were poor. Due to bad weather conditions, poor allocation of resources, and poorly constructed equipment, agricultural output plummeted from 1959 to 1961. Poor water management helped contribute to widespread famine, which resulted in approximately 15 million people dying of starvation and a significant drop in birth rates.In the meantime, industries were expected to keep increasing output, but the strain on the workers was too great, and industrial output also declined.
Between 1961 and 1965, China again tried to reconstruct its economy, working to entirely replace the concept of the Great Leap Forward. China reformed all of its agricultural practices, including lowering taxes and providing more equipment. The government attempted to decentralize control of various industries to local governments for them to manage resources based on their unique needs. By 1965, economic conditions were again stable, and the focus from the Chinese government was to seek balanced growth across both agricultural and industrial sectors.
In 1966, Mao announced the Cultural Revolution, which was a socio-political and economic movement that sought to expel capitalists and promote the Communist ideology. Attacking capitalism, Mao alleged that the bourgeoisie attempted to infiltrate China with the goal to overthrow the communist government. Bourgeoisie is a term that refers to the upper middle classes, who often own most of a society’s wealth and means of production. Mao attempted to incite young people to violence against those who he accused of perpetuating capitalist practices. Mao’s sayings and wisdom were compiled into the Little Red Book, which became both a required reading of China’s militant communist youth movements, named the Red Guards. In general, the Cultural Revolution had devastating effects on China’s economy. The distraction and disruption of political fighting did not improve agricultural or industrial output. Instead, the disruptions to economic output put a strain on resources, labor and equipment, which many researchers said led to the death of millions.
Between 1961 and 1965, China again tried to reconstruct its economy, working to entirely replace the concept of the Great Leap Forward. China reformed all of its agricultural practices, including lowering taxes and providing more equipment. The government attempted to decentralize control of various industries to local governments for them to manage resources based on their unique needs. By 1965, economic conditions were again stable, and the focus from the Chinese government was to seek balanced growth across both agricultural and industrial sectors.
In 1966, Mao announced the Cultural Revolution, which was a socio-political and economic movement that sought to expel capitalists and promote the Communist ideology. Attacking capitalism, Mao alleged that the bourgeois (a term which means social class, and refers to the upper middle class.) had infiltrated China, and were seeking to own all means of production to perpetuate their own economic superiority. Mao attempted to incite young people to violence against those who perpetuated capitalist ideology. A book of Mao’s sayings and wisdom was compiled into the Little Red Book, which became both a required book of all Red Guards (rebels groups) within the country. In general, the Cultural Revolution had ill effects on China’s economy. The distraction and disruption of political fighting did not improve agricultural or industrial output. Instead, the disruptions to economic output put a strain on resources, labor and equipment.
Mao died in 1976, and in 1978, the Communist Party under Deng Xiaopeng moved the country in a new direction. China reduced government controls, enabled market mechanisms, and generally attempted to reform the economy. This was not a sudden move away from communism, but a gradual move towards a mixed economy, designed to stimulate growth. These reforms slowly opened China to global trade, which improved economic outcomes. The success of these incentivized China to keep pursuing this strategy, and to also invest heavily in the education and training of government officials and future business leaders. China became a member of the World Trade Organization in 2001, cementing its transition from a command and control economy, to a largely state capitalist society. China was able to survive the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, referred to as the Great Recession in the US. China has consistently been the fastest growing economy over the past forty years.
China’s Economy, Present Day Circumstances and Challenges
The COVID-19 pandemic was the first time China’s economy contracted since adopting capitalist reforms, shrinking 6% in 2020. Even though China was the first country affected by the pandemic, it has also been the first to bounce back from its economic effects. The economy recovered with a growth rate of 8.5% in 2021. Nevertheless, the pandemic has impacted the Chinese economy, possibly for the long-term. China is still export-heavy, but some industries are experiencing a decline. Industries in decline in China include telecommunications, fabric/clothing, coal, and logging. These declines are a symptom of changing supply and demand following the COVID-19 pandemic. Similar to trends in other countries, the pandemic hit women in the workforce disproportionately hard, with many women being made to decide whether to continue working or to support their families during the crisis. Also, employment opportunities for almost all sectors decreased, which put a strain on new graduates.
Importantly, China’s continued growth and low inflation rates has raised questions in the international community. Under a largely authoritarian regime, there have been questions over how accurate China’s reporting on economic growth and output is. Some have contended that the level and extent of continued economic growth is not feasible, and sometimes the data reported does not appear legitimate. In tandem with this, the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) has repeatedly ranked China as having problems with corruption on every level. For instance, the reality that China reported little to no economic contraction during the 2008 recession, and its ability to bounce back so quickly from the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, raises concern over how transparent China is about their economic performance.
Export-Based Economic Problems
In reviewing the cases of China and Germany, it becomes apparent they share a similar problem: how to handle economies which are largely export-based. Both China and Germany’s political leaders need to constantly and carefully balance the domestic concerns of their economies alongside their global ‘customers’ who depend on their exports. If the global customer base fails, or switches trade partnerships, China and Germany’s economies may be unable to thrive. Beyond this, relying on exports leaves states vulnerable to the economic conditions of those they trade with - if a state is no longer able to afford the product or buy the goods, the exporter will struggle. This can cause dangerous political conditions in China and Germany. Increasing unemployment due to economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent global recession, may lead its citizens to question their government’s legitimacy. We see this with the rise of the far right in Germany and with the increase of public discontent in China. Will the fallout from the pandemic lead to political changes as well? Only time will tell. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/08%3A_Political_Economy/8.03%3A_Comparative_Case_Study-_Germany_and_China.txt |
Acemoglu, Daron and Robinson, James (2006). Economic Origins of Dictatorship and
Democracy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Aguilar, Julian. (Jan. 22, 2011). US-Mexico Trucker Dispute Takes a Step Forward. The New
York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/u...ttruckers.html
Alt, James and Crystal, Alec (1983). Political Economics, Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Besley, T. (2007). The New Political Economy. The Economic Journal, 117(524), F570–F587.
Blyth, M. M. (1997). “Any More Bright Ideas?” The Ideational Turn of Comparative Political
Economy [Review of Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions and Political Change;
Ideas and Institutions: Developmentalism in Argentina and Brazil, by J. Goldstein, R.
Keohane, & K. Sikkink]. Comparative Politics, 29(2), 229–250.
Bracking, S. (2018). Corruption & State Capture: What Can Citizens Do? Daedalus, 147(3),
169–183. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48563088
Colantone, I., & Stanig, P. (2019). The Surge of Economic Nationalism in Western Europe. The
Journal of Economic Perspectives, 33(4), 128–151.
CSS World. Mercantilism. YouTube. May 29, 2020.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMfdfj7XqOQ&t=68s
CSS World. Economic Liberalism. YouTube. May 30, 2020.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI4WzeCB7i4
Delechat, Corinne and Medina, Leandro. (2020). What is the Informal Economy? International
Monetary Fund.
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft...omy-basics.htm
Dickins, A. (2006). The Evolution of International Political Economy. International Affairs (Royal
Institute of International Affairs 1944-), 82(3), 479–492.
Dunbar, C. [1891] The Academic Study of Political Economy. The Quarterly Journal of
Economics, July 1891, Vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 397-416. Oxford University Press.
Frieden, J. [2020] The Political Economy of Economic Policy. Finance & Development. June
2020, Vol. 57, No. 2.
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft...ff-frieden.htm
Gilpin, Robert. (2001) Global political economy: understanding the international economic order
(Princeton: Princeton University Press)
Gnangnon, S. K. (2018). Multilateral Trade Liberalization and Economic Growth. Journal of
Economic Integration, 33(2), 1261–1301. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26431808
Grabowski, R. (1994). Import Substitution, Export Promotion, and the State in Economic
Development. The Journal of Developing Areas, 28(4), 535–554.
Greenwald, Bruce C. and Stiglitz, Joseph E. (1986). “Externalities in markets with
imperfect information and incomplete markets” Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 101(2), pp. 229-64.
Heider, C. [2016] Why does Political Economy Analysis Matter? Independent Evaluation Group.
World Bank.
https://ieg.worldbankgroup.org/blog/...nalysis-matter
Love, J. L. (2005). The Rise and Decline of Economic Structuralism in Latin America: New
Dimensions. Latin American Research Review, 40(3), 100–125.
Missio, F. et al (2015). The structuralist tradition in economics: methodological and
macroeconomics aspects. Brazilian Journal of Political Economy.
Milner, Helen (2005) 'Globalization, development, and international institutions: normative and
positive perspectives', Perspectives on Politics 3: s, pp. 833-54
PBS. [Feb 7, 2020]. Steel Tariffs Hurt Manufacturers Downstream, Data Shows.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy...eam-data-shows
Persson, Torsten and Tabellini, Guido (2000). Political Economics: Explaining Economic Policy,
Cambridge: MIT Press.
Persson, Torsten and Tabellini, Guido (2003). The Economic Effects of Constitutions,
Cambridge: MIT Press.
Phillips, Nicola. (2004) 'International political economy, comparative political economy and the
study of contemporary development', IPEG Papers in Global Political Economy 8.
Robbins, M. [2017] Why we need political economy. Policy Options Politiques. Institute for
Research on Public Policy. https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/january-2017/why-we-need-political-economy/
Roseberry, W. (1988). Political Economy. Annual Review of Anthropology, 17, 161–185.
Soederberg, Susane, Georg Menz and Philip Cerny, eds, (2005) Internalizing globalization: the
rise of neoliberalism and the decline of national varieties of capitalism (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan)
Strange, Strange (1970) 'International economics and international relations: a case of mutual
neglect', International Affairs 46: 2,, pp. 304-15
UIA. The Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential. http://encyclopedia.uia.org/en
US Chamber of Commerce. (2021). The Benefits of International Trade. https://www.uschamber.com/internatio...national-trade
Wolla, Scott A. and Esenther, Anna, "Does International Trade Create Winners and
Losers?," Page One Economics®, November 2017 https://research.stlouisfed.org/publ...rs-and-losers/ | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/08%3A_Political_Economy/8.04%3A_References.txt |
Key Terms/Glossary
• Zero-sum game - a situation where one person, or entity, gains at the equal cost of another.
Summary
Section #8.1: What is Political Economy?
Political economy is a social science which considers and analyzes the various economic theories (like Mercantilism, Free Market Capitalism / Liberalism, Marxism / Economic Structuralism), practices and outcomes either within a state, or among and between states in the global system. Consideration of political economy can be traced back to the work of Plato and Aristotle, though the most modern initiation of the discussion can be attributed to the work of Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations. Overall, comparative politics would be lacking if it neglected conversations and scholarship relating to political economy, as many political outputs and outcomes are inherently tied to economic structures and ideologies.
Section #8.2: Political Economic Systems
Political economies also vary in how they are implemented, with a major variable being the role of the state in its economy. In some political economy systems, the state is much less involved, sometimes mostly absent, referred to as laissez-faire, which translates from French as ‘let it be’. At the other end of the spectrum are states that have complete control of an economy. There are four main political economic systems, including: Mercantilism (Economic Nationalism), Free Market Capitalism (Economic LIberalism, Marxism (Economic Structuralism), and Socialism (Social Democracy). These political economic systems can result in different outcomes which affect both citizens and the state at large in significant ways.
Section #8.3: Comparative Case Study - Germany and China
Germany and China have different economic systems, but both play prominent roles in the global community as major exporters. When countries are large exporters, they can experience similar problems despite their very different economic systems. Both China and Germany’s political leaders need to constantly and carefully balance the domestic concerns of their economies alongside their global “customers” who depend on their exports. If the global “customer” base fails, or switches trade partnerships, China and Germany’s economies will be unable to thrive. Beyond this, relying on exports leaves states vulnerable to the economic conditions of those they trade with; if a state is no longer able to afford the product or buy the good, the exporter will struggle.
Review Questions
At least 5 multiple choice questions which will be converted to Canvas question banks and quizzes
1. The field of political economy is concerned with:
1. International organizations like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund
2. The relationship between political and economic policies.
3. International monetary policies and domestic fiscal policies.
4. Comparative advance and the balance of trade.
2. Which theory in this chapter credits capitalism, globalization and international trade with contributing to poverty in developing countries?
1. Economic Liberalism
2. Economic Realism
3. Economic Nationalism
4. Economic Structuralism
3. Which option below best describes the concept of comparative advantage?
1. Countries compete by trying to produce all items and products within their own country, working to decrease reliance on imports.
2. Countries compete by trying to outsource all production, working to increase reliance on imports.
3. Countries cooperate economically, encouraging countries to produce what they are most efficiently and cheaply able to produce relative to other countries.
4. None of these is correct.
4. Which theory described in this chapter argues that once economic inequalities are apparent, they have a tendency to become self-perpetuating?
1. Feminism
2. Economic Liberalism
3. Mercantilism
4. Economic Structuralism
5. What is Autarky?
1. A situation where countries trade freely with each other.
2. A situation where a country does not trade with other countries.
3. A situation where a country is only able to trade with a few countries.
4. A situation where countries work to destabilize other economies.
Answers: 1.b, 2.d, 3.c, 4.d, 5.b
Critical Thinking Questions
1. What contributed to the rise of political economy as a field of academic study? Describe the factors involved and discuss implications for future research and study.
2. What lessons can we learn from the responses to the COVID-19 pandemic about the importance of political economy?
3. There are a number of different belief systems about the appropriate role of government in economic affairs. How do these beliefs manifest in practical terms? Consider the application of these different belief systems in the context of energy and environment policies.
4. The effects of changes in climate and the environment can impact countries in uneven and, arguably, unfair/inequitable ways. To what extent do various economic systems respond or react to these inequalities/inequities? Are some economic systems more able to handle environmental and climate shifts? If so, how?
Suggestions for Further Study
Journal Articles
• Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson and James Robinson/ [2001] “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation” American Economic Review, 91, 1369-1401.
• Rodrik, Dani. [1997] “Sense and Nonsense in the Globalization Debate.” Foreign Policy 107: 19-37.
• Valenzuela, J. Samuel and Arturo Valenzuela. [1978] “Modernization and Dependency: Alternative Perspectives in the Study of Latin American Underdevelopment.” Comparative Politics 10:4 (July), pp. 535-557.
• Books
• Piketty, T. [2017] Capital in the Twenty-First Century. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
• Spero, J. E. [1990] The Politics of International Economic Relations. St. Martin’s Press, Inc.
• Stilwell, F. [2011] Political Economy, the Contest of Economic Ideas. Oxford University Press; 3rd Edition. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/08%3A_Political_Economy/8.05%3A_Student_Resources.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Differentiate collective action from social movements
• Understand links between collective action and a social movement
Introduction
Public education, elections, and lobbying: all of these are connected to collective action. Collective action pervades social and political life, and it is observable across all societies. Collective action is any activity in which coordination by and across individuals has the potential to lead to achievement of a common objective. At its broadest, collective action can lead to the provision of a public good. A society often decides that the common defense is a necessary public good and pool resources toward that goal. Beyond common defense, collective action is key for the provision of a variety of public goods – such as public education, healthcare, childcare, pensions, infrastructure, and so forth – in which individuals contribute tax revenues or labor, in a coordinated way, to support common goals. Yet collective action can also lead to the achievement of narrower objectives, such as when a focused interest group lobbies for tax breaks that benefit a smaller segment of society. Collective action can result in benefits for all or for the few. That it encompasses such a broad range of actors, actions, goals, and outcomes explains the enduring interest that political scientists have in this concept.
Societies flourish when there is the robust provision of public goods; public goods are the result of collective action. Once provided, a public good has certain characteristics. As defined in Chapter Eight, public goods are defined as goods and services provided by the state that are available for everyone in society. They are nonexcludable and nonrival in nature. Individuals cannot be excluded from enjoying them, and one person’s enjoyment of that good does not impinge upon others’ enjoyment of that good. These characteristics of a public good have the unfortunate effect of impeding the organizing of collective action to provide that good, a problem we will take up later in this chapter. So-called collective action problems are observable throughout societies, but societies also manage to solve them in various ways.
Collective action may also lead to narrower objectives than public goods, for example the provision of common pool resources. These resources are nonexcludable but rivalrous in consumption. A good example of a common pool resource is a river: everyone can enjoy the river, but when I divert water from the river to irrigate my fields, that means others cannot enjoy that diverted water. Collective action also pervades the private sector, and we see this when industry advocacy groups procure favorable government policies such as tax breaks for all the firms in an industry or looser regulatory oversight.
Collective action is fundamental to the functioning of modern societies. A prominent example in our society are elections. Voting is a form of collective action, especially in a democracy where individuals’ decision to vote and cast ballots for a certain candidate or policy can determine a society’s values and allocation of resources. When the electorate in a country is very large, as in the United States, collective action problems become evident. Each individual in a large electorate has disincentives to vote because they may believe their vote -- out of hundreds of millions of eligible voters -- will not matter, hence they may opt to stay home on election day (or not mail in their ballot) and save their time and energy for other purposes. Such individual-level breakdowns in collective action have the potential to lead to the collapse of any given collective action endeavor, in this case the representativeness of a republic.
Yet history abounds with examples of collective action prevailing. It has lead to social change and even revolution. While the example of voting demonstrates how collective action can work in tandem with established political institutions, collective action can also occur outside of existing political institutions. Because of this, collective action has the potential to destabilize societies and challenge existing structures. One illustration of this is when groups unite to demand the franchise (as with the women’s suffrage movement) or workers’ strikes bring industry to a standstill.
Social movements are a subset of collective action. All social movements rely on collective action, but not all collective action is a social movement. Social movements are coordinated and goal-oriented, but they are characterized by political activity outside of established institutions (extra-institutional). Notable examples of social movements in the twentieth century United States include the civil rights movement, which sought equal rights for racial minorities and an end to institutional racism at all levels of government, and various labor rights movements such as those organized by farmworkers (also majority-minority) and industrial workers earlier in the century. All of these can be explored in an international comparative context, as social movements for civil rights and labor rights have spanned the globe. The comparative cases at the conclusion of this chapter will explore comparative labor movements in the socialist and post-socialist world. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/09%3A_Collective_Action_and_Social_Movements/9.01%3A_What_is_collective_action_What_are_social_movements.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Evaluate the “logic of collective action” and challenges to cooperation
• Analyze the different factors that can facilitate collective action
The Logic of Collective Action
As Luis Medina has noted, “A group can create power through coordination,” (2007, p. 4). Collective action hinges on coordination and cooperation, and political scientists have employed many frameworks and utilized the tools of game theory to explore the conditions under which collective action occurs as well as when that action is likely to be successful.
One of the most influential frameworks for understanding collective action is given in Mancur Olson’s The Logic of Collective Action (1965). Olson argues that collective action failures are to be expected given rational and self-interested individuals. Such individuals are disinclined to organize and contribute to the production of a public or collective good because each individual has incentives to stand by and let others do the hard work of achieving the goal, then enjoy the fruits of that collective good once provided. This is known as the free rider problem. Through this logic, Olson establishes the challenges to successful collective action.
Consider the example of climate change. Collective action in the form of everyone reducing their carbon footprint would yield an abatement of this problem. Yet a single country or an individual has weak incentives to reduce their carbon footprint for several reasons. A country’s leaders might reason, “If we reduce our carbon emissions through a carbon tax, that might dampen economic growth. Our constituents won’t like that, and that might hurt our global competitiveness.” Or an individual might think, “Let everyone else reduce their consumption, I’ll keep buying lots of stuff, driving cars and taking planes and eating excessive amounts of animal protein. After all, What difference do my actions make? And if enough of everyone else changes their lifestyles, I can enjoy a healthier planet then, without sacrificing any of my comforts!” The logic here is to freeride on the efforts of others, knowing that the benefits of others' work will apply to everyone regardless of their contributions. This behavior and thinking creates a free rider problem, where individuals are incentivized to refrain from contributing toward the provision of a collective good because they know they can eventually enjoy the benefits of that good if others work toward providing it. This problem raises issues of fairness but even worse, a collective good may not be produced if enough people adopt a free rider mentality.
Beyond the free rider problem, there are challenges to collective action because it hinges on cooperation. The challenges to cooperation are well-illustrated through a simple and eponymous game, the so-called Prisoner’s Dilemma, which illustrates the urge to free ride or “defect” in a situation where cooperation by all would yield better outcomes for all. Yet defection yields better than worst-case individual-level outcomes, so it ends up being the outcome, albeit a sub-optimal one. The set-up for this kind of cooperation game is simple but a powerful illustration of challenges to cooperative endeavors. Imagine two children, Person Y and Person Z, who have taken cookies from the cookie jar at home -- without asking and while no one was looking -- but were then asked about the missing cookies by a parent. There is enough evidence (the missing cookies) to punish the children for their transgression but not enough proof of a more serious crime (such as repeated taking of cookies from the cookie jar, over the course of months of distracted parenting) to extend their punishment. The interrogating parent pressures each child to offer damning evidence of the other’s guilt. What should each do?
As with all games, each player has a set of choices. To keep things simple, they can either stay silent (cooperate) or betray their partner in the cookie-sneaking business. The combination of possible outcomes to this game are the following: both stay silent; one stays silent while the other betrays; or both betray. In this game set-up, there are potential punishments for each outcome. If both stay silent, they receive the lightest of possible punishments, a week without video games. If one stays silent but the other talks, then the betrayer gets zero punishment while the betrayed receives a long punishment of three weeks without video games. In this scenario, one player enjoys the best individual outcome but the other player suffers the worst individual outcome. If both decide to betray the other, then both go aren’t allowed video games for two weeks. A summary of these outcomes is given in the payoff matrix below.
A summary of the payoffs to a standard cooperation game. In each box, the first number indicates the punishment for Person Y and the second number indicates the punishment for Person Z (in weeks without video games).
Payoff: Person Y, Person Z Z stays silent Z betrays
Y stays silent -1, -1 -3, 0
Y betrays 0, -3 -2, -2
This framework illustrates the interdependent nature of the game and weak incentives for cooperation. Each individual, in considering these payoffs, sees the immediate personal gain to betrayal. They know that staying silent would be the best for all, but they still have strong incentives to betray because staying silent means putting themselves at risk for the worst possible punishment. The expected outcome is both choosing to betray the other, and both suffering worse outcomes than if they had cooperated with one another. This result is suboptimal for all. Note that there is a cost to pay for cooperating, too. This is the case for engaging in collective action: to participate is to donate some resource such as one’s time or other resources.
To apply this game to a collective action scenario, imagine playing this game across more than two individuals, for example with one hundred or even millions of players, and the problems of coordination and cooperation become evident. And while this game may seem artificial and overly simplistic, we see the dynamics of this cooperation game playing out in the real world. To take up the example of climate change again, we can replace the children’s choices with the following: staying silent (cooperating) is equivalent to making lifestyle changes to lighten one’s carbon footprint, while betrayal is equivalent to keeping a heavy carbon footprint. Viewed in this way, individuals’ choices and individual-level outcomes make sense as well as the overall outcome for society. Such cooperation challenges are also evident beyond the individual level. For countries, staying silent is equivalent to a government adopting major climate change mitigation policies, while betrayal is equivalent to doing nothing to address climate change.
While this simple cooperation game can highlight some of the costs and dynamics underlying strategic interactions that inform collective action, it is an imperfect means for capturing all the complexity of the social world. Cooperation may be challenging and costly in some ways, but it happens all the time. People participate in collective action because they are true believers in a cause (not captured in this game) or because they have meaningful relationships and social ties with others. Persons Y and Z may have a deep friendship and bonds of trust, something not reflected by the payoff structure given in the game, and this might affect their willingness to cooperate.
Factors promoting collective action
Cooperation can be costly. The Logic of Collective Action highlights important barriers to coordinated action. Yet Olson’s argument and the logic of the cooperation game discussed above should not be taken to mean that collective action is impossible. On the contrary, we observe it frequently in the social world.
The free rider problem, and the barrier it poses to collective action, can be resolved when a group is sufficiently organized. This is usually more likely for smaller groups, for example coordination and cooperation across all the firms in a given industry or united action by all the activists in a given geographical region. Economist Elinor Ostrom, who dedicated her Nobel Prize-winning career to understanding the dynamics of collective action, observed the power of smaller groups with unifying interests: “Mobs, gangs, and cartels are forms of collective action as well as neighborhood associations, charities, and voting,” (2009b). Olson’s framework suggests that collective action is most likely to take place by groups with concentrated interests, where the effort expended is more likely to yield significant gains for each participant. This is what we observe with interest group lobbying in many wealthy democracies today.
Collective action is also more likely when each individual participant anticipates some potential gain from exerting the effort to participate. Additional organizational factors can encourage collective action, such as the existence of competent leaders or a federated structure where smaller units contribute to a larger whole. It also matters when participants know each other, which raises the level of accountability for any proposed action.
Others, such as Thomas Schelling, have noted that the barriers to collective action are not quite as high as proposed by Olson. Collective action is possible when rational and self-interested individuals have reasonable expectations that others will join the movement. This can happen when there is something around which individuals can signal to each other that they are willing to join the movement. It can be wearing a certain color or seeing a certain number of people subscribed to an organizing website. Hence collective action can often be observed in seemingly sudden moments of rapid change, when everyone is joining the movement because they feel like many others around them are also in the movement.
This framework has its limits because it does not explain who or what is the spark that starts the collective action. One of the most elegant and intuitive frameworks for understanding the process of collective action is given by Timur Kuran in the article “Now Out of Never.” In this framework, individuals are moved to act when they reach their individual threshold for tolerance on an issue and are moved to act. In a collective action situation, there are thus “first movers” who have the strongest preferences for change. These initial movers then create the initial momentum whereby the actions of one or a few cascade socially and others join. For example, individuals in a society have different tolerances for the effects of climate change. Some individuals want to see change immediately -- and are publicly agitating for those changes or making more quiet personal adjustments -- while others are quite tolerant of the real and projected consequences of climate change and see no need to act. Kuran’s framework is powerful for connecting the individual-level psychology of collective action with what we observe in the streets.
Circling back to the simple cooperation game described above, scholars have also considered the implications of different variations on the game. What might happen if the game is repeated, which is the case for many scenarios in the world, where we see the same people again and again? This holds true for roommate situations and workplaces, all the way to negotiations between diplomats on high stakes policy issues. Kreps et al. have argued convincingly that when a cooperation game such as the Prisoner’s Dilemma is repeated, players will eventually settle on a strategy of cooperation rather than the non-cooperation we observe when the game is played once.
Elinor Ostrom observed cooperative communities around the world to explore the conditions under which communities are able, over centuries in some cases, to preserve and sustain common pool resources such as irrigation canals, forests, and fisheries. Across her observations, she found that certain organizing principles may create an institutional framework which encourages sustainable collective management of resources. Organizing principles for sustainable collective action include collective decision-making, active monitoring of the shared resource, widely understood and enforced punishments for violations, and effective conflict resolution procedures. Bonds of trust between community members are integral for supporting these long-term arrangements.
In short, there exist many logics of collective action. While there exist barriers to collective action, such as group size, the temptation to free ride, and incentives for non-cooperation, there are also conditions under which collective action takes place. Instances of successful collective action can produce desired outcomes such as public goods and sustained stewardship of natural resources. Understanding the conditions under which collective action is possible continues to be critical for organizing the people and resources to address global and community-level challenges which still plague us. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/09%3A_Collective_Action_and_Social_Movements/9.02%3A_Frameworks_for_collective_action.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Evaluate a framework of several factors that explain the emergence and success of a social movement
• Recognize the impact of additional factors such as international influences and nonviolent tactics
Introduction
Social movements often embody big ambitions that cannot be realized without collective action. The twenty-first century has seen the rise of myriad social movements, from the Sunrise Movement to stop climate change to the #metoo movement for women’s rights and Black Lives Matter for racial justice. Conservative social movements have included the New Christian Right and worldwide New Right movement. While the causes and participants vary greatly, scholars have sought to identify common factors across social movements and explain the conditions under which a social movement may realize its objectives.
The study of social movements is an interdisciplinary enterprise. Social scientists have brought the tools of their disciplines to bear in understanding the complex emergence of collective mobilization. Psychologists bring their focus on the individual level of analysis, while sociologists and political scientists focus on group dynamics and institutional factors that enable or cauterize a social movement. One framework for understanding social movements focuses on three major factors: opportunity, organization, and framing.
Political opportunity
French novelist and poet Victor Hugo is credited with the observation, “Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come.” When applying this hopeful insight to a social movement advocating for a cause, context matters. A moment of ideational awakening may lead to concrete change only when certain stars align. Scholars have found that a social movement is more likely to emerge and prevail when the broader political context is receptive to the ideas promoted by that social movement. Climate change advocacy gained momentum on the streets of wealthy democracies when there was discourse about this problem by political elites; the US gay rights movement gained the most momentum when elected officials signaled that they were willing to change policies on longstanding laws against sexual minorities.
Political opportunity is thus a structural factor that affects whether a social movement forms and might prevail in its goals. Structure here refers to larger social forces at play during a given moment: the institutions and norms, or widely shared beliefs and practices, which constrain individual action. Structure can include whether political institutions and elites are receptive to specific changes, whether society is accepting of the message and tactics promoted by a social movement. As David Meyer has suggested, there must be a “space of toleration [in] a polity” (2004, p. 128) for activists to mobilize. And that society must not repress activists so much that they lack either the vocabulary or means to lodge their complaints. Structure is the context within which a social movement might form and press for change. Within this structure, activists may choose from a range of tactics regarding how to organize, mobilize, and frame their goals (See Figure below).
In the case of the US Civil Rights Movement that unfolded during the mid-twentieth century, markers of political opportunity can be identified in hindsight. These include the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling by the US Supreme Court, which declared unconstitutional the segregation of schools by race. Political leaders also signaled an opening, evident in public addresses such as President John F. Kennedy’s 1963 Report to the People on American Civil Rights, in which he declared, “It ought to be possible, in short, for every American to enjoy the privileges of being American without regard to his race or his color.” Such events signaled that powerful formal institutions were willing to change, and the time was ripe for a social movement to activate and accelerate that change.
Organization and mobilization
While the emergence of a political opening is key, a social moment cannot be sustained without strong organizational structures in place. As Lenin observed, a revolution will succeed when carried out by a vanguard party that offers an “organizational weapon” by which revolutionaries may strike down existing institutions. Successful communist party movements, such as those in Russia, China, and Cuba, relied on disciplined, hierarchical party organizations that reached down to cells of activists at the grassroots level.
More contemporary social movements need not have such extreme organization, but organizational strength is a direct correlate of mobilizational power and momentum. Douglas McAdam has studied several key organizations that facilitated the successes of the US Civil Rights Movement of the mid-twentieth century. These backbone organizations included Black churches, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Black churches contained multigenerational communities united by bonds of faith and trust; HBCUs offered spaces for student organizing; the NAACP provided organizational and political resources to advance civil rights through mass protests, coordinated activities, and legal action. All of these organizations had proven capacity for carrying out complex community actions under adverse circumstances; they were also spaces for pooling resources and communicating initiatives to a relatively large audience of proven and potential activists (McAdam 1999).
Organizational forms may be more decentralized and less hierarchical by design. The “leaderless” Black Lives Matter movement in the US is an example of this: there is no singular set of charismatic leading figures such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Huey P. Newton or Bobby Seale to set the tone and agenda. Local actions are organized and executed without direction from an organizational headquarters. One strength of this evolution in the organization of a social movement is more cellular organization, with new protest repertoires and messages emerging to suit local conditions and audiences. A disadvantage is the potential for the movement to lose momentum without clearly articulated and unifying goals.
New information and communication technologies (ICT) have changed the ways a social movement might organize and mobilize. By the dawn of the twenty-first century, there was optimism regarding the possibilities for uniting activists via social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter (Diamond and Plattner 2012). So-called “liberation technologies” were heralded as a means to organize a social movement in defiance of geographical constraints and even repressive governments. However, this initial optimism has been followed by critiques of these new technologies as leading to “armchair activism” by individuals unwilling to invest real resources into a social movement. Social media platforms have also proven unruly spaces for organizing due to the challenges of misinformation, government interference, and weak bonds of trust between participants. The impact of ICT on the emergence and success of a social movement has thus yielded mixed results.
Framing
Political opportunity, organization, and mobilizational capacity are complemented by the framing of an issue. Framing refers to the ways in which a social problem is defined by, presented to and resonates with members of a social movement and society more broadly. Framing is a key strategic move because the chosen frames must be culturally appropriate and meaningful.
The concept of frames explicitly brings a psychological and emotional element into our understanding of social movements: individuals join because of an affinity for the cause rather than merely out of rational self-interest (Goodwin, Jasper, and Polletta 2001). They must actively engage in “sense making” and determine for themselves, as well as fellow activists, their purpose and goals. Framing can incite emotions such as anger over a perceived injustice but also psychological safety in the belief that one is part of a larger community with shared beliefs.
Framing takes place at the inception of a social movement. It can sustain the movement and attract additional adherents from society. Framing is critical when we consider how the modern environmental movement in the US was galvanized by publications such as Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring, which offered an evocative and powerful vision (a lifeless natural landscape) for understanding ecological disaster through the concrete example of overuse of chemical pesticides. This book helped to frame the problem and invoke the shock, anger, and anxieties that are part of the modern environmental justice movement.
International influences
Many of the causes embraced by social movements span countries, regions and the globe. Given the advent of globalization since the end of the Cold War in 1991, seemingly faraway events may resonate with global audiences: deforestation in Indonesia sparks protests in European cities over unsustainable practices in the supply chains of furniture companies that source wood from Borneo. Environmental activists in Indonesia thus find common cause with counterparts in the Netherlands. Social movements may diffuse across borders, with activists sharing tactics, resources, and providing moral support to one another in their common cause. Diffusion is defined as the spread of an idea, movement, tactics, strategies, and other resources across international borders. One prominent example of international diffusion is the spread of liberal democracy around the globe in the decades spanning the 1990s to the 2000s.
International "democracy promotion" efforts are one driver of this worldwide increase in democracy since the 1990s, whereby international resources are directed toward pro-democracy domestic social movements. These have been led by wealthy democracies (such as those of North America, the Antipodes, the EU, and Japan) to strengthen younger democracies worldwide. Democracy promotion can include a wide range of activities such as government-supported grants to pro-democracy activists in other countries, nonprofit exchanges of information and expertise, and more horizontal exchanges of knowledge and resources between democracy activists worldwide. Pro-democracy movements in countries as varied as Ukraine and Nicaragua receive support from international donors and advisors.
The role of nonviolence
There are consequences to the tactics chosen by social movement leaders and participants. The range of tactics that a social movement may employ is vast, and social movements are constantly innovating and creating new repertoires based on changing contexts, cultural symbols, and new technologies. New strategies emerge with each social movement. Pro-democracy Hong Kong protesters, as part of their movement to secure democratic rights and autonomy within the People’s Republic of China’s “One Country, Two Systems” framework, created new forms of protest in 2019. One notable tactic was occupying terminals of Hong Kong International Airport. This served to disrupt the business of a global city reliant on the flow of businesspeople and tourists by air and draw global attention to their plight.
These protestors and others opted for nonviolent strategies of protest, a tradition which has deep roots in various faith traditions dating back millennia. More recently, social movement leaders ranging from Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., have made significant philosophical contributions and practical applications of nonviolence to movements for social change.
Empirical research comparing nonviolent and violent resistance campaigns has found that nonviolent campaigns are twice as successful as their violent counterparts (53 percent compared with 26 percent) (Stephan and Chenoweth 2008). Note that campaigns are defined by Stephan and Chenoweth as “major nonstate rebellions … [which include] a series of repetitive, durable, organized, and observable events directed at a certain target to achieve a goal,” (2008, p. 8).
The success of nonviolent social movements is attributed to various factors. It is due to higher public perceptions of the legitimacy of nonviolent movements as well as greater public sympathy for movements committed to principles of nonviolence. Nonviolent movements also constrain government responses, as suppressing a nonviolent movement with force can drive public support -- domestic and international -- even more toward the aims of the social movement. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/09%3A_Collective_Action_and_Social_Movements/9.03%3A_A_framework_for_explaining_social_movements.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Compare aspects of two different worker-based social movements
• Apply components of social movement theory to these cases
Introduction
The twentieth century was a century of labor movements. These movements were supported by ideologies such as those stemming from the theories of Karl Marx (1818-1883), which framed society as divided between capitalists and workers. The relationship between these two groups, or classes, is one of exploitation, whereby capitalists squeeze as much labor out of workers for the lowest wages. This is so capitalists might pocket the most profits possible and invest in global expansion; Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924) famously observed the imperialism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and declared it a time of high capitalism. Marx predicted that workers, in realizing the injustices of their situation, would eventually unite and revolt. They would then organize to create a socialist system characterized by economic redistribution. The socialist state would evolve to become a stateless communist society of liberated labor.
Ironically, workers of countries led by communist parties have continued to organize and press for more rights and better working conditions in the twentieth and into the twenty-first centuries. In communist party-led states, labor unions are typically controlled by the communist party. But in communist Poland, workers organized an underground free union movement known as Solidarność (hereafter referred to as Solidarity) that eventually toppled the ruling communist party. In China, blazing economic reforms beginning in the 1970s and the advent of a market economy and private enterprise have spurred workers to organize for stronger protections in the workplace and a more secure social safety net. While some policy concessions have been made toward workers in China, the ruling Chinese Communist Party remains firmly in control.
This comparative case study will apply the components of the social movement framework described in Section 9.3 to explore labor movements in Poland and China. The labor movements in each country have yielded very different outcomes: while Poland’s Solidarity movement was the spark for opposition to eventually overturn communist party rule, in China workers’ protests have remained on the fringes. In each case, we will examine the political opportunity structure, organization and mobilization, framing of the movement, and international factors to explore differences that might account for divergent outcomes.
Solidarity in Poland
From 1952 to 1989, Poland was under communist party rule. A mid-sized country located in central Europe, Poland today neighbors Russia and many republics of the former Soviet Union (USSR). During the time of the Soviet Union (1922-1991), Poland was part of the Eastern Bloc of countries which were led by communist parties internally and shaped by the USSR externally. Poland’s capital then and now is centrally located Warsaw, and it borders the Baltic Sea in the north.
• Full Country Name: Republic of Poland
• Head(s) of State: President, Prime Minister
• Government: Unitary Parliamentary Republic
• Official Languages: Polish
• Economic System: Mixed Economy
• Location: Central Europe
• Capital: Warsaw
• Total land size: 120,733 sq miles
• Population: 38,179,800
• GDP: \$720 billion
• GDP per capita: \$19,056
• Currency: Zloty
Beginning in 1970, workers began to organize protests in Poland. One decade later, this movement culminated in a major strike in the port city of Gdańsk in 1980. The triggering event was the dismissal of a model shipyard worker from the Gdańsk shipyards, which are located in northern Poland on the Baltic Sea. The worker, Anna Walentynowicz, was a welder and crane driver who earned medals for her exemplary work, but she was dismissed for engaging in free union organizing in the shipyards (Kemp-Welch 2008, Chapter 10). Under communist rule, all unions were managed by the ruling party and free unions were forbidden. In response to Walentynowicz's dismissal, more workers organized and their resulting protests included calls for higher wages to offset the rising cost of basic foodstuffs in the state-controlled markets. Eventually workers also demanded the right to form free trade unions with the right to strike.
These protests came at a time of political opportunity. Poland’s economic situation was deteriorating, which placed communist party officials in a difficult situation. More and more workers joined the protests out of frustration with their material conditions. The protests spread nationally, which required a national-level response from the Polish communist party. Workers also found allies in Catholic Church officials and some media outlets. The movement gained momentum and for the first time in communist Poland’s history, protesters were allowed to negotiate directly with communist officials in the Gdańsk shipyards. The workers’ leader, an electrician named Lech Wałęsa, met with communist party negotiators, and the subsequent agreement led to recognition of the Solidarity trade union by the government.
Solidarity went on to attract millions of worker-members in the 1980s. Together with other opposition groups, Solidarity organized protests throughout the country for better working conditions and, eventually, political liberalization. At its height, 80 percent of state employees joined Solidarity. The popularity of this movement led Polish officials to declare martial law in 1981, and hundreds of Solidarity members were arrested. Within years, amnesty was declared and political prisoners released.
During this time, and until the end of communist rule in Poland in 1989, Solidarity led a non-violent movement that was robust in its organization and mobilizational capacity. Members and sympathizers could draw on a rich repertoire of non-violent tactics of civil resistance, including “protests; leaflets; flags; vigils; symbolic funerals; catholic masses; protest painting; parades; marches; slow-downs; strikes; hunger strikes; ‘Polish strikes’ in the mine shafts; underground socio-cultural institutions: radio, music, films, satire, humor; over 400 underground magazines with millions of copies distributed, including literature on how to scheme, strike, and protest; alternative education and libraries; a dense network of alternative teaching in social science and humanities; commemorations of forbidden anniversaries; and internationalization of Solidarity struggle,” (Bartkowski 2009).
The social movement anchored by Solidarity was framed in terms of human rights, with an emphasis on dignity for those groups traditionally championed by communist ideology: workers, peasants, and the downtrodden. This resonated with international supporters such as the Catholic Church’s Pope John Paul II, who was Polish and brought moral authority to the movement’s call for human rights and freedom of conscience. The geopolitics of the Cold War were also operative during this time, with the United States supporting the Polish opposition out of an interest in creating fissures in the Soviet Bloc.
From February to April 1989, the Polish political opposition, including Solidarity leaders such as Lech Wałęsa, sat down opposite communist party leaders for a series of negotiations. These resulted in the institution of democratic elections in Poland and other major economic and political reforms. In 1989, communist rule was overturned in Poland with the election of Wałęsa to the Polish presidency in free and fair elections.
Fragmented labor in China
China has been under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. The country’s capital is Beijing, located in the northeast. China’s center of economic gravity is in the wealthy urban centers of its eastern coastal region, which includes cities such as Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou. China’s western flank includes the Himalayan highlands of Tibet and western deserts of Xinjiang, both gateways to the larger Eurasian landmass. Today the CCP rules over a vast and complex country of over 1 billion, of which hundreds of millions constitute its national workforce.
Whereas the Soviet Union and many other communist party-led states collapsed during the turbulent years spanning 1989 to 1991, the CCP has remained firmly in control of the Chinese state. The CCP did not emerge from this period unscathed, however. Major protests erupted nationwide in 1989, and these were accompanied by popular calls for liberalization of the political system. At the heart of this national movement was a student-led nonviolent protest that lasted from April to June 4, 1989, in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The Tiananmen protests and the nationwide movement were violently suppressed in June 1989 when CCP leaders ordered the party's army, the People's Liberation Army (PLA), to clear demonstrators from public spaces.
Similar to other communist party systems, free unions in China are not allowed, and workers are instead represented through trade unions that fall under the CCP’s United Front. These bargaining units are subsumed within the state structure, which implies that workers do not have an independent means to organize for their rights outside of official channels.
Beginning in 1978, China embarked on a massive “reform and opening” program which entailed liberalizing the economy -- i.e., moving away from a command economy based on economic planning -- and opening up to global trade. These reforms have generated tremendous national economic growth, on the order of over nine percent annually during the period 1978 to 2020. This reform period has also seen significant changes in the employment landscape for workers. Prior to 1978, the dominant employment model for urban workers was the danwei, or work unit, where workers could enjoy firm-based benefits and fixed wages.
Since 1978, there has been significant privatization of the Chinese economy, and the danwei system no longer provides workers with the security and material benefits that workers once enjoyed. One estimate is that employment by private firms in China’s cities has grown from 150,000 in 1978 to 253 million in 2011 (Lardy 2016, p. 40). Related to the rise of the private sector are efforts to increase the productivity and profitability of state-owned enterprises; laying off workers is one tactic. When combined with the more volatile and unstable employment conditions in the private sector, this has spurred labor unrest in China.
Throughout the reform period (1978-present), workers have organized protests in China. Workers were particularly restive during the 2008 to 2012 period. In one example of organized protest activity during this time, workers decided to strike at the Honda car factory in Guangdong province, which led to wage increases for workers. This and other protests may be due in part to shifts in the political opportunity structure (Elfstrom and Kuruvilla 2014). A labor shortage, new labor laws such as the Labor Contract Law of 2008, and greater media openness provided an opening for organized labor to press for gains. The Labor Contract Law, which remains the most significant labor-related legislation in China, provides a legal basis to support workplace rights such as a 40-hour week, payment of wages, and paid leave. Enforcement remains a perennial challenge, which provides the basis for worker protests.
Workers have been strategic in their framing of grievances. In response to the repressive capacity of the Chinese state, protesters have framed resistance in terms of rights accorded them by the law. Such “rightful resistance,” which has roots in rural China, draws on notions of justice that citizens should be entitled to in a society governed by laws (O’Brien and Li 2006). This legalistic appeal has deep roots in China, where the philosophical tradition of legalism (fajia) dates to the first millennium BCE.
In terms of organization and mobilization, there are key differences between the Chinese and Polish cases. At present, there do not exist free labor unions in China, nor are workers organized under the banner of a non-state organization with national reach. There is no Chinese equivalent to Solidarity. Internationally, there is limited support for workers’ rights in China due in part to laws which restrict the operation of foreign nongovernmental organizations within China. Because of these various factors, the labor movement within China remains fragmented and decentralized, with protests breaking out in localities but no overarching national labor movement.
Comparative analysis
These case studies of labor movements across two communist party-led countries illustrate the power of two key factors, political opportunity and broader organizational networks. Both labor movements framed their endeavors in terms of justice and dignity for the working class, which resonates with the dominant communist ideology in both countries. Yet the political opportunity structure varied significantly across Poland and China. In Poland, there was an opening for government leadership to compromise with labor leaders in Poland, especially as the economy weakened. By comparison in China, robust economic growth has supported the position of the CCP, which is to remain adamant in its state-organized union structure. In terms of organizational capacity, there are also stark differences. Chinese labor organizers have not had anything equivalent to the momentum enjoyed by Poland’s Solidarity in the 1980s, which could mobilize over three-quarters of workers in the country in a variety of non-violent actions. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/09%3A_Collective_Action_and_Social_Movements/9.04%3A_Comparative_Case_Study_-_Workers_movements_in_Poland_and_China.txt |
Bartkowski, Maciej. (2009). Poland’s Solidarity Movement (1980-1989). International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. Available online at https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/...ent-1980-1989/
Diamond, L. and Plattner, M. eds. (2012). Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Elfstrom, Manfred and Kuruvilla, Sarosh. (2014). The Changing Nature of Labor Unrest in China. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 67(2): 453-480.
Goodwin, J., Jasper J., and Polletta, F. (2001). Passionate Politics: Emotion and Social Movements. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kemp-Welch, Anthony. (2008). Poland Under Communism: A Cold War History. Cambridge University Press.
Kreps., D., Milgrom, P., Roberts, J. and Wilson, R. (1982). Rational Cooperation in Finitely Repeated Prisoners’ Dilemma. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 103, 179-200.
Kuran, Timur. (1991). Now out of Never: The Element of Surprise in the East European Revolution of 1989. World Politics, 44(1), 7-48. doi:10.2307/2010422
Lardy, Nicholas. (2016). The Changing Role of the Private Sector in China. In Iris Day and John Simon (eds.), Structural Change in China: Implications for Australia and the World. Reserve Bank of Australia, pp. 37-50.
McAdam, Douglas. (1999). Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930-1970. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Medina, L. (2007). A Unified Theory of Collective Action and Social Change. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. doi:10.3998/mpub.168625
Meyer, David. (2004). Protest and Political Opportunities. Annual Review of Sociology, 30, 125-45.
O’Brien, Kevin and Li Lianjiang. (2006). Rightful Resistance in Rural China. Cambridge University Press.
Olson, Mancur. (1971). The Logic of Collective Action. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Ostrom, Elinor. (2009a). "A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems". Science, 325(5939), 419–422.
Ostrom, Elinor. (2009b). “Analyzing Collective Action.” Paper presented at the 2009 Conference of the International Association of Agricultural Economists.
Stephan, Maria J. and Chenoweth, Erica. (2008). Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. International Security, 33(1), 7-44.
9.06: Student Resources
Key Terms/Glossary
• Collective action - Any activity in which coordination by and across individuals has the potential to lead to achievement of a common objective.
• Common pool resource - Something provided to some or all in a society; it is nonexcludable but rivalrous in consumption.
• Cooperation game - A strategic scenario illustrating how players have incentives to work together or not work together to realize common goals.
• Diffusion - The spread of an idea, movement, tactics, strategies, and other resources across international borders.
• Framing - The deliberate representation of a concept or problem to resonate with intended audiences.
• Free rider problem - Occurs when an individual who seeks to benefit from the gains achieved by others but does not contribute to the achievement of those gains.
• Information and communication technologies (ICT) - Platforms which provide the means for members of a social movement to communicate with one another and intended audiences. ICTs can include radio, television, social media platforms, and so forth.
• Social movement - A subset of collective action in which a group of people outside of established political institutions organize to achieve an objective.
• Structure - Social forces which constrain the choices available to an individual or group at a given time; the broader social context within which action takes place.
Summary
Section 9.1: What is collective action? What are social movements?
Collective action is any activity in which coordination by and across individuals has the potential to lead to achievement of a common objective. Collective action can lead to the provision of public goods, collective goods such as common pool resources, or private goods. Social movements are a subset of collective action and comprise political activity outside of established institutions.
Section 9.2: Frameworks for collective action
Collective action is challenged by the free rider problem as well as problems associated with coordination and cooperation. A simple cooperation game can illustrate the incentives for noncooperation. There is a “logic” to collective action whereby small groups united by an overarching goal are more likely to organize collectively. Yet mass collective action is possible and has occurred repeatedly. Factors that promote collective action include trust between participants, the possibility of repeated interactions, and long time horizons.
Section 9.3: A framework for explaining social movements
One framework for understanding social movements focuses on three major factors: opportunity, organization, and framing. Social movements are more likely to prevail when there is a “political process” or opportunity structure that supports the realization of the movement’s goals. While the emergence of a political opening is key, a social moment cannot be sustained without strong organizational structures in place, and these can draw from organizations which pre-date the social movement. Social movements must frame the goals of their movement to mobilize people at an individual and societal level. International influences can also support or thwart a social movement. Finally, tactics matter. Empirical research comparing nonviolent and violent resistance campaigns has found that nonviolent campaigns are nearly twice as successful as their violent counterparts.
Section 9.4: Comparative Case Study - Workers’ movements in Poland and China
Two communist party-led states, Poland and China, experienced significant labor movements. The Solidarity labor union in Poland led a decade of resistance activity (1980-1989) which culminated in the turnover of state power from communist party rule to liberal democracy. In reforming China (1978-present), the labor movement remains fragmented and decentralized, with the Chinese Communist Party firmly in control of labor organizations. Applying concepts from social movement theory, it appears that political opportunity and organizational and mobilizational capacity differed significantly across these cases.
Review Questions
Please select the most appropriate answer for each of the following questions.
1. Which of the following are NOT characteristics of a public good?
1. It is nonexcludable, meaning you cannot exclude anyone from enjoying it
2. It is nonrival, meaning my enjoyment of that good does not affect your enjoyment of it
3. It is common pool, meaning common to all
4. Some public goods are provided as a result of collective action
2. Which of the following is an example of free rider behavior?
1. In a group living situation, I wait for others to clean up the shared living area
2. In a workplace situation, I let someone else clean up the work sink area
3. In a study group, I wait for everyone else to post their study notes to the shared study space and don’t post any
4. All of the above
3. Which of the following are factors that can help explain the emergence and success of a social movement?
1. Framing
2. Political opportunity
3. Organization and mobilization
4. All of the above
4. True or false: Research has found that social movements which rely on nonviolent tactics are twice as successful as social movements which employ violence.
1. True
2. False
5. Which of the following are factors that can help explain the success of Poland’s Solidarity movement compared to China’s labor movement? (Select all that apply.)
1. Framing
2. Political opportunity
3. Organization and mobilization
4. International support
Answers: 1.c, 2.d, 3.d, 4.a, 5.b and c
Critical Thinking Questions
1. Consider a simple cooperation game in which two players can choose between cooperating and betraying the other player. Apply the dynamics of this game to a real world situation and map the choices of “cooperate” and “betray” onto the choices facing actors in this situation. Do we observe cooperation in your chosen real world situation? If so, why? If not, why not?
2. Research a social movement of interest to you. What were the objectives of that social movement? Were they met? If so, was this due to the social movement occurring during a time of political opportunity?
3. Present an example of a powerful frame employed by a social movement. Why is this frame powerful? Who is the audience (or audiences) and why might this framing of the problem resonate with them?
Suggestions for Further Study
Books
• Ash, Timothy Garton. (1983). The Polish Revolution: Solidarity. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
• Chenoweth, Erica and Stephan, Maria. (2011). Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Gallagher, Mary Elizabeth. (2007). Contagious Capitalism: Globalization and the Politics of Labor in China. Princeton University Press.
• Han, Hahrie, McKenna, Elizabeth, and Oyakawa, Michelle. (2021). Prisms of the People: Power & Organizing in Twenty-First-Century America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• McAdam, Doug, Tarrow, Sydney, and Tilly, Charles. (2001). Dynamics of Contention. New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Ostrom, Elinor. (1990). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Tarrow, Sidney. (1994). Power in Movement: Collective Action and Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Articles
• McAdam, Doug. (2017). Social Movement Theory and the Prospects for Climate Change Activism in the United States. Annual Review of Political Science. Vol. 20: 189-208.
• Walder, Andrew. (2009). Political Sociology and Social Movements. Annual Review of Sociology. Vol. 35: 393-412.
Podcast
• How Narrative Drives Movements. Activist Marshall Ganz describes the essential role of storytelling in leadership and organizing. Harvard Kennedy School PolicyCast. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/09%3A_Collective_Action_and_Social_Movements/9.05%3A_References.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Remember the definition of comparative public opinion
• Understand how public opinion is studied in a comparative context
• Apply principles of public opinion across countries
• Analyze how comparative public opinion differs from American public opinion
• Evaluate research in comparative public opinion
Introduction
Comparative public opinion is the research and analysis of public opinion across two or more countries. In addition to the various regional and continental public opinion surveys, known generally as barometers and are discussed later, scholars of public opinion have been organized at the global level since the 1950s.
For example, the World Association for Public Opinion Research, WAPOR, has “promoted the highest professional standards, ethics and techniques for polling around the world. Their international membership represents the industry’s most respected names in the survey and public opinion research field. Through publications, seminars, meetings and educational initiatives, WAPOR engages in a rich ongoing conversation about how best to collect data and maintain data quality not just in advanced democracies, but also in emerging democracies.”
In September 2020, WAPOR hosted a webinar on Advances in Comparative Survey Methods and discussed the continuing development of Multinational, Multiregional, and Multicultural (3MC) survey research methodology. Their goal is to expand worldwide as a field of inquiry and students from around the world are invited to learn more and participate in the development of this emerging field of study and practice.
How is public opinion studied in a comparative context?
Public opinion is studied in the comparative context at three levels: conceptual, operational, and measurement. In addition to these abstract levels, public opinion is also studied at the geographic level. This means public opinion between countries, regions of countries, and continents.
How are principles of public opinion applied across countries?
Public opinion is the scientific use of survey questions and instruments to gauge the explicit and implicit opinions individuals have about political issues and policy topics. Principles of public opinion are applied across countries by researchers and practitioners who are trained in survey methodology.
In addition to survey methodologists, there are also interpreters of public opinion survey data. Interpreters of this data can be elected and appointed officials, the media, interest groups and non-profit organizations, community leaders, and individual members of the general public. Interpretation of public opinion survey data can haphazardly occur, especially by individuals who are not trained in analyzing such data.
How does comparative public opinion differ from American public opinion?
Comparative public opinion differs from American public opinion in three ways. First, comparative public opinion is interested in how the public thinks and believes in particular policy and political issues across at least two different countries. When we look at American public opinion, we are typically interested in what the national sentiment is around particular policy and political issues, or we are interested in the opinions of individuals within particular regions of the countries or specific states. By only surveying people in the United States, this means it is not comparative.
Second, American public opinion has a longer history than comparative public opinion, largely because surveys and polling have been used by the media, pollsters, and political scientists since the 1950s. Most comparative public opinion surveys, or non-American surveys, were consistently developed after 2000. Third, comparative public opinion typically encompasses multiple countries, such as the Afrobarometer which is led by social and political scientists who live and work on the continent. For example, of the 54 countries that make up the African continent, people in 37 countries were recently surveyed in Round 6 of the Afrobarometer. In contrast, American public opinion, again, is only focused on the opinion of people in the United States.
How can we evaluate research in comparative public opinion?
Evaluating research in comparative public opinion is both exciting and challenging. It is exciting because we can see how individuals across different countries think about similar concepts and their operationalization. For example, we may be interested in how people view housing availability across two different countries and realize that the notion of housing is conceptualized differently by people across these two countries. In some countries we find that public housing is largely available to individuals, while in other countries the government plays no role or little role in the process of providing housing. What this means is that if you ask the survey question “what role should the government play in providing housing to individuals in need?” you may find that people don't even associate their government with providing this type of good because it's not a part of the political institutions, culture, and expectations of people within a country.
Evaluating research in public opinion is also challenging because it involves grappling with the conceptual, the operational, and the measurement level of ideas, things, and people that may not directly translate between countries. Moreover, you find this because different languages are spoken in different parts of the world that unless you're fluent in the languages, and also in their culture, of other countries you may find it difficult to see the comparison between two countries given their stark political, social, linguistic, and cultural uniqueness. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/10%3A_Comparative_Public_Opinion/10.01%3A_What_is_Comparative_Public_Opinion.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Remember the definition of political socialization
• Understand how political socialization and public opinion interact
• Analyze how political socialization is discussed in contemporary comparative public opinion research
Public Opinion
When we say public opinion we are collectively referring to the views and opinions of the public at large. In the context of political science, we focus on inherent political questions about views regarding elected officials or public figures, political institutions, policy preferences, or the nature of democracy itself. Some examples include, but of course are not limited to, ‘whether or not you approve of the U.S. President’s job approval’, ‘support for nationwide mask or vaccine mandates’, ‘support for a border wall’, or ‘beliefs in the legitimacy of one home country’s elections’. But the public can have mass opinions on different sorts of subjects, and it does not have to be restricted to politics, such as sports. But over the past few years, even with something like sports, we have seen the politicization of things that used to not be political.
Knowing the public’s opinion, however, is valuable knowledge and something elected officials need and should take into account when determining what issues to focus on, and how to go about solving problems. In addition, if public officials seeking re-election continually ignore his or her constituents’, then there is the possibility for a negative backlash or electoral defeat in their next election. So, public officials need to know what their constituency thinks of them and the issues themselves if they want to serve their constituencies’ wills and have a better shot at winning re-election (Herrick, 2013). But, also knowing the public’s view is valuable knowledge for political scientists or other types of academic scholars. There are entire fields within political science that primarily use public opinion as a data source, and study the impact(s) public opinion has on the polity. Finally, knowing the public’s opinion allows the media to inform us regarding the views of others and gives us the ability to self-evaluate our own views relative to our own community.
Where do our opinions come from?
Where do our opinions come from? Most people derive their opinions (and in this case political opinions) from their beliefs and attitudes, which form in early childhood (Key, 1966). Beliefs are our core views and values that guide us in how we make decisions or interpret the world. For example, one may believe in a higher power or God. Having that belief in God will inform them on what they observe in the world and how to interpret it. Someone may have a strong belief in equality. Having that belief in equality will help them interpret if specific policy is having its desired outcome. Or perhaps we may collectively have a belief that American football is the greatest sport ever invented, especially if we grew up watching Big 12 or SEC football.
Attitudes also impact our opinions. Attitudes are made up of our personal beliefs and our life experiences. For example, someone who has never had a good experience at the DMV, may develop a bad attitude regarding government employees or civil servants. Or, someone who has had negative experiences with the police may have a suspicious attitude regarding law enforcement. Conversely, someone who has had good experience with the police may have a positive attitude or trust law enforcement. As our beliefs and attitudes take shape during childhood development, we are also being socialized, that is, learning how to respond to the world around us, either in thought or action.
Political Socialization
We are socialized into believing all sorts of things and having a variety of different views, and many if not most of these views stay with us throughout our lives (Zaller 1992). Some things we are taught, and other things we learn from our experiences and those around us. As defined in Chapter Six, political socialization is the process in which our political beliefs are formed over time. For example, my favorite college athletic team growing up was (and still is) the University of Mississippi. But I was living in a city approximately an hour east of Los Angeles, CA. So why would a Southern Californian kid pull for a college program 2000 miles away when there are multiple local colleges with prestigious (at least according to their fan basis’) athletic programs to pull for?
It's because my father raised me to pull for Ole Miss. So, one could say I was taught to be an Ole Miss fan by my father. Yet, all my favorite professional teams are from Southern California. So, in terms of professional sports preferences it appears the community outside my family had a greater influence. Perhaps through my experiences as a resident sport fan (going to games, etc.) gravitated me towards pulling for the hometown teams in this instance. So, the same can be said about the nature of our political beliefs. Some beliefs we are taught, and some are based on our life experiences.
There are different agents to socialization, that is, different factors that have helped mold who we are today, and our political views. Since our socialization begins in early childhood, for most individuals, family will be the dominant influence (Davies 1965). Parents and siblings are our largest sources of information throughout early childhood and are still quite dominant well into our early adulthood. For example, children who grow up in households where voting is expected would likely take a greater interest in voting themselves. If one’s parents are politically active in a particular political party that child would also be exposed to the same information sources in which his or her parents base their views; and if one looks upon their parents or siblings as a trusted authority figure, they will likely share, at least at an early age, and hold many of the same beliefs their family has.
Outside the family, another impactful agent is education (Mayer 2011). This can begin at pre-school and evolve well into college. Education is an impactful agent because of both what was learned in an academic environment (i.e., the classroom), but also the exposure to other classmates, friends, and fellow students. If someone grows up in a predominately Evangelical Christian community, they may not meet someone who is Muslim or of a different faith until they go to school. Or, if someone lives in a community that is overwhelmingly white, they may not encounter racial or ethnic diversity until they go to school. These new experiences with others, and the education they receive, can help inform someone’s politics.
Someone’s faith or religion is another impactful agent (Lockerbie 2013). This may not necessarily be the faith someone was baptized in, however, but rather their religiosity, or how often they attend church. After all, if someone is lapsed in their faith or left their faith due to the doctrine, they may not be impacted as nearly as much by that religion. With this said, the faith I was baptized in when I was eight years old (although I haven’t attended in over two decades) was a big part of my upbringing, and I find myself still adhering to some of the principles of that faith, but not nearly to the extent I would if I still attended service regularly. If someone attends church regularly, they are more likely to agree with what’s said from the bully pulpit or that church’s doctrine, and that faith will more actively inform their political points of view.
There are other, and in some cases less impactful, agents of socialization that could also help shape our views. One’s race, gender, or age will no doubt play a role in someone’s political socialization. Anyone who lived through the terrorist attacks on 9/11 still remembers how watching those events influenced their views (Hall and Ross 2015); so, monumental historical events can shape someone’s world outlook. Someone’s career choice, whether or not they served in the military, as well as where someone currently lives or grew up can also play a role. Finally, the media and opinion makers also play a distinct role in shaping our political opinions. By choosing to focus on certain issues, the media can help us define what’s important (Cook et al., 1983), in addition to other forms of media bias giving us a certain perspective of the world. Also, if there are opinion makers’ who people listen to or watch regularly, and trust their analysis, they may hold off on forming an opinion about a political issue until they have heard that commentators take on the subject. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/10%3A_Comparative_Public_Opinion/10.02%3A_Political_Socialization_and_Public_Opinion.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Remember how public opinion is measured
• Understand how individual measures of public opinion affect aggregate measures of public opinion
• Apply principles of measurement to a public opinion survey
Public Opinion Polls
Researchers and consultants use a variety of techniques when trying to gauge public opinion, but the most common tool used are public opinion polls. A public opinion poll is a random sample of subjects from a broader pool of citizens who are interviewed and whose answers are used to make inferences on that larger body. In other words, by interviewing a smaller sub-sample of a population we can make reasonable guesses on what the larger population believes.
Imagine making a large pot of spaghetti sauce. But you want to test the sauce before you serve it to others. So, by tasting a sample you can make a reasonable guess what the entire batch of sauce tastes like. In order for this to work, the small spoon you use to test the sauce must contain all the ingredients and seasoning at the same proportions of the larger pot of sauce. It’s the same dynamic in polling (NBC News Learn 2020). If we want to gauge what the public believes on a set of issues, then our sample must include all the different combinations of demographics and regional influences in that larger body.
How does a smaller sample truly represent the larger public? The sample must be representative, or have all the same features and elements at the same proportions of the larger body. To achieve this, researchers and political scientists use randomization when choosing respondents. Randomization in this case is when everyone in the larger population has an equal chance of being chosen for the smaller representative sample.
Imagine, if you had a perfectly weighted six-sided die. If you rolled it six times, odds are you will not get one of each number. If you rolled the dice sixty times, it’s highly unlikely you will get 10 of each number (an equal distribution of each side of the die), but you’ll probably get at least a couple of rolls with each number. If you rolled the dice six-hundred times you’ll probably not get 100 of each number, but you’ll get closer to 100 for each number than you would get 10 for each number if you rolled it only 60 times. And if you rolled the dice six-thousand times you would get even closer to that equal distribution than if you rolled it six-hundred or just sixty times. In other words, the more times you roll the die, the more likely you are to have an equal distribution of each number.
Even when following the laws of randomization, all public polls have a margin of error, that is a statistical estimation of the accuracy of your sample. Getting back to the sauce analogy, if you use a larger spoon to sample your spaghetti sauce, you’ll likely get more of all the active ingredients than if you use a smaller spoon. So, in this case the larger spoon will have a lower margin of error than the smaller spoon. In other words, statistically, the larger random sample is more likely to be accurate than the smaller one.
When reading polls, this number is represented by using a “+/-” classification. So, if the poll claims that 45% of the public enjoys a particular beverage, and the margin of error is “+/- 5%”, that means the polling is really claiming that somewhere between 40-50% enjoy that particular drink (we simply added and subtracted 5% from 45%). How do you know if the actual number is 40% and not 42%, or 45%? The short answer is we do not. If we get a larger sample we may be able to reduce our margin of error and get a more precise snapshot, but that’s about the only alternative. Public opinion polling is a tool designed to estimate the public’s view. As long as one knows the limitations of this tool then polls can be a valuable technique to gauge opinion.
Another way to measure public opinion is by using focus groups (Morgan 1996). Whereas polls give us a good idea of what the broader public feels or thinks, it does not really reveal the real life dynamic of how opinions are shaped or shared. Have you ever been engaged in a conversation where the person talking to you changes your mind? Or where, you simply just agree with those around you because you really do not care about the issue? Or perhaps, you felt strongly about an issue and then were exposed to more information (like in a news article, podcast, or television advertisement) then changed your mind?
Focus groups are a small subset of individuals that are exposed to a treatment of some kind and then are asked about their impressions of that treatment. When, though, asking their impressions others are allowed to inject their opinions as well, and more real-life interaction can organically follow. Focus groups are a wonderful tool to see how opinions can be formed or how dominant personalities can influence those around them, but can not be generalized to the public at large. Nevertheless, they are a good tool to try to understand how an individual would react to a set of stimuli.
Modes of Contact and Types of Polls
The best scientific polls are usually done over the phone by Random Digit Dial (RDD). Random digit dial polls are good for a variety of reasons. You can use computers to make a lot of contacts within a short period of time, and as a result, have more accurate findings. If it takes too long to complete the poll, those who responded early on may have changed their mind by the time the poll finished. This also can become problematic if the poll is taken during an election with numerous candidates and one decides to drop out. In addition, researchers and pollsters can use the computer to randomly dial numbers which is one of the better ways to try to achieve a random sample. The biggest knock is that the poll biases against individuals who do not have phones, primarily only using cell phones. RDD polls can also be expensive (think of the hours it would take to call the thousands of respondents to complete five-hundred to thousand interviews), but is still more affordable than hiring people to go door to door. Although random digit dial is not perfect, it is better than some of the cheaper alternatives in a variety of ways.
On-line polls have been used with greater frequency as technology has evolved, and it is becoming easier through on-line websites such as Survey Monkey for anyone to create a poll and do an email blast. Potential problems, though, will quickly manifest. Many people are skeptical of doing anything on-line if they do not know the source. And technology has allowed us to screen out anonymous calls and emails (i.e. caller ID’s and SPAM folders). The lower the response rate in any poll (the percentage of contacts who complete the survey) means any assumptions you make about your targeted population becomes less accurate, because we cannot say with certainty that the population who answers the poll is different than those who do.
On-line polls can be quite useful in collecting information in very specific circumstances, however. For example, if a business uses an internal on-line poll to gauge attitudes within that company, but in these cases the respondents already know the poll is coming before they complete it. Some pollsters may offer financial incentives (like a gift card or a lottery drawing) to improve their response rate, but doing something like that will, again, create more bias because we can assume those who are likely to complete the poll because of that incentive are more likely to need it.
There are a variety of polls, some that use either RDD’s or on-line, and others who may use a combination. Tracking Polls is a common tool used by researchers and companies. It’s often used to measure approval ratings among public officials. Tracking polls collect a sample over the period of a few days (typically 3-7), and use a rolling sample. Contacts are made every day, and the new contacts are continually added to the sample while the older contacts are taken out. So, for a tracking poll, it’s more of a useful tool to look at the trajectory of attitudes than any single snapshot.
Exit Polls are conducted on election day. As individuals who voted exit from the polling location, poll workers interview respondents after they have voted. This data is good because we are asking individuals who have actually voted who they voted for, opposed to asking someone who they plan to vote for. The short-coming is that these polls are conducted earlier in the day (which may bias who is being interviewed) and uses a tactic called systematic randomization (randomly choosing a single respondent and interviewing every third, fourth, or some other fixed number after). This tactic is much harder to consistently follow than if one was conducting a cold call.
Push Polls are those designed to provide information under the guise of measuring someone’s opinion. Campaigns frequently use these to try to build false enthusiasm. Embedded in the poll is information the respondent may not know about the candidate. For example, imagine a series of questions like this: Question 1: Were you aware that candidate A once saved the life of a child from a burning building? Question 2: Were you aware that candidate B is under investigation for failing to pay child support? Question 3: If the election were tomorrow, would you vote for candidate A or B? As you can see, the question ordering is designed to push the respondent to answer a certain way.
Straw Polls are often used at events or conventions to gauge the preferences of those who attended. The problem with these polls is that attendees are normally attracted to these events to see a candidate, so unless they hear something at the event that changes their mind, they will choose who attracted them there. Imagine doing a poll at a Los Angeles Laker game asking those who attended who their favorite basketball player is. The results you get at that game will be completely different than if you asked the same question among basketball fans nationwide.
Finally, one needs to be cautious about using data from a non-scientific poll. The classic example of the erroneous results of a non-scientific poll manifested in the false ‘Dewey Defeats Truman’ headline based on the unscientific Readers Digest Poll during the 1946 presidential election. We often see these polls on partisan or news websites. These polls are not random, and those who complete the polls want to complete the poll. As a result, you can see results that are cartoonishly skewed. For example, let’s say a conservative news network conducts a poll asking their viewers who won a debate. And the results show 90% of the respondents say the Republican candidate won. The problem is those who visit the website are much more likely to be Republican voters than not. So of course, they’ll choose the Republican candidate.
Problems with Polls
No matter how much a researcher or pollster effectively achieves randomization of their sample, they all have to be concerned with potential pitfalls in how their poll is presented. One has to be conscious of priming effects. Priming effects are having a respondent to think about a certain subject matter they would not normally be thinking about or thinking about at that time. Recent studies have confirmed priming effects do occur (Lenz 2019). If I contact a respondent and ask them if they prefer their hamburgers from Whataburger or In-and-Out. Then after they give you the response, you ask them what they plan to eat for dinner this evening. And shockingly, they respond, “hamburger”. They of course could be telling you the truth, but would they have planned to eat a burger for dinner, if you didn’t first get them thinking about hamburgers by asking them the Whataburger/In-and-Out question first?
Another type of effect that can skew results is framing (Nelson and Oxley 1999). Framing effects are those that influence a respondent by how a question is presented. There are equally acceptable ways to ask questions, but the word usage one uses could present the issue in a different light. For example, imagine reading a newspaper article on the struggles of undocumented immigrants. Then imagine reading an identical article, but instead of it using the term “undocumented”, it uses “illegal”. The tone of the entire article completely changes.
When asking respondents about policy preferences, how language is articulated could influence their responses. For example, one could use humanizing language to refer to groups or a policy outcome, or conversely, one could use technical jargon or dehumanizing language when describing groups or policy outcomes. Trying to minimize priming and framing effects are some of the larger challenges researchers may face. So, when using data from polls, it is important to read through the polling instrument or questionnaire with a critical eye. Critical analysis is essential in choosing data if the goal is to make generalizable inferences.
In addition, one has to be cautious of social desirability effects (which is commonly referred to as the ‘Bradley Effect’ when being discussed by the media) and band-wagon effects. Ask yourself: Are there responses to questions that society deems to be ‘good’ or ‘right’? And if your answer is ‘yes’, then could questions about these topics yield improper results because the respondent either did not want to be embarrassed by answering ‘incorrectly’ or perhaps judged by the interviewer?
The assumption behind any poll is that the respondents are telling you the truth, and we know people do not always tell the truth. For example, if you are contacted by a college student at a call center, could your opinion on a political topic like “student loan debt forgiveness” change because you are talking to someone who is in college? What if you found the caller charming? Even if the answer is ‘no’, not a lot of people have to be impacted by social desirability effects (Streb et al. 2008) to dramatically skew perception of reality, especially in a society that is evenly polarized.
Band-wagon effects are similar. In this case, it’s not necessarily about going against society, but being influenced by the enthusiasm of those around you (Marsh 1985). Growing up as a Los Angeles Angels baseball fan, I intuitively already knew about the band-wagon effects before I even took my first graduate level seminar. Up until their world series victory, the Angels were the laughing stock of baseball. They also had a reputation for being choke artists (always failing to finish strong). They would be the type of organization where a fan may occasionally put a paper bag over their head. And then one miraculous year, they won the World Series. As the season progressed, there was quite the cornucopia of Angeles’ jerseys and halo hats that flowered throughout Southern California. Will these fans be back when the team starts struggling again the next year or year after? Likely not.
Sometimes there is so much excitement (or anger) towards a candidate, it can spread infectiously. Afterall, have you ever liked or disliked someone and you didn’t know why? You just knew everyone around you (and perhaps people you trust dearly) felt a certain way and you somewhat adopted the same belief even though you may have not had enough time to research the candidate or subject yourself? You can’t really avoid these effects in questionnaire wording, but be conscious of these effects when studying the short and long term results of public opinion. Sometimes (but not all), public opinion can shift just as dramatically in one direction as the other as it can with band-wagon effects.
When studying data from other countries and doing comparative analysis, political scientists have studied rally around the flag effects phenomenon (Baum 2002). These effects can be seen in a dramatic spike (which is often temporary) in public approval ratings nation leaders have during war time, or at-least the beginning of an armed conflict. The suddenness of the spikes could also mean the opinions are less stable. For example, President George H. Bush’s public approval was in the low nineties after Operation Desert Storm, yet he lost a presidential election less than two years later.
President George W. Bush’s approval was in the low nineties after 9/11, but he only won his re-election by a little over two percent (popular vote). A sense of one’s identity as a citizen of a nation is activated, and you temporarily re-range your priorities as a response to an external threat (Hetherington and Nelson 2003). The same type of phenomenon can be activated around anyone one group identifies you may share. For example, have you ever been annoyed hearing someone bash your age group even though you were not the target of the criticism?
The short-comings of public opinion polls should not dismay someone from using them as a research tool. There are many good researchers who have been trained in excellent techniques in minimizing potential problems. Polling and consulting firms are used by many schools and companies for data collection and marketing purposes. Companies and news outlets would not pay for results if there was not a strong track record in polling success. But, as polling has become more frequently used, many more companies and firms have been getting into the industry. Some businesses do not apply the same traditional standards and safeguards in their polls as academics do. So, it is always a good idea to look at the accuracy of past polls the company has produced when looking for reputable places to get data. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/10%3A_Comparative_Public_Opinion/10.03%3A_Measuring_Public_Opinion.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Remember the definition of a barometer
• Analyze at least two different barometers
• Evaluate the similarities and differences between two or more barometers
Introduction
Recall from the beginning of the chapter that comparative public opinion is the research and analysis of public opinion across two or more countries.The case study for this chapter is a comparison of global or regional public opinion surveys, also called barometers. Also remember from Chapter Two, that cases in comparative politics are mostly countries. Here is a comparative case study where the cases are not countries, but instead barometers.
What is a barometer?
A barometer is typically defined as “an instrument for determining the pressure of the atmosphere and hence for assisting in forecasting weather and for determining altitude.” However, when political scientists use the term barometer, we are referring to a survey of questions that are asked of individuals in a particular country or region of the world, to gauge their opinions on political ideas, institutions, and actors.
Barometers Around the World
Eight well known barometers include: Afrobarometer, Arab Barometer, Asian Barometer, Eurasia Barometer, Latino Barometer, Comparative National Elections Project, AmericasBarometer, and World Values Survey. Below is a table that summarizes the year, geographic coverage, and website for each of these barometers.
Table of Barometers Around the World
Name Year Established Geographic Coverage Website
Afrobarometer 1999 African continent, 30 countries Afrobarometer
Arab Barometer 2006 15 countries in Middle East and North Africa Arab Barometer
Asian Barometer 2001 Asian continent Asian Barometer
Eurasia Barometer 1989 25 countries in Eastern Europe Eurasia Barometer
Latino Barometer 1995 18 countries Latinobarometro
Comparative National Elections Project Late 1980s 5 continents, countries vary Comparative National Elections Project
AmericasBarometers 2005 34 countries LAPOP
World Values Survey 1981 Countries vary WVS
According to its website, the Afrobarometer “is a non-partisan, pan-African research institution conducting public attitude surveys on democracy, governance, the economy and society in 30+ countries repeated on a regular cycle. They are the world’s leading source of high-quality data on what Africans are thinking. Additionally, they are the world’s leading research project on issues that affect ordinary African men and women. Afrobarometer collects and publishes high-quality, reliable statistical data on Africa which is freely available to the public.”
The Afrobarometer conducts rounds of questionnaires in specific countries across the African continent. Since 2000, there have been 8 rounds with a total of 171 questionnaires. In the latest round, 34 surveys were asked in 34 different countries. Each country’s question was in one of four languages: Arabic, English, French, or Portuguese.
One example was the questionnaire for the country of Botswana, located in the southern part of the African continent. The survey was conducted in 2019, written in English, and included over 100 questions ranging from personal demographics, views of the economy, politics and recent elections, the media, taxes, corruption, and how the government was handling different matters. To explore the results of the survey, please visit Summary of results: Afrobarometer Round 8 survey in Botswana in 2019.
Arab Barometer
Arab Barometer, according to its website, “is a nonpartisan research network that provides insight into the social, political, and economic attitudes and values of ordinary citizens across the Arab world. They have been conducting high quality and reliable public opinion surveys in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) since 2006. Arab Barometer is the longest-standing and the largest repository of publicly available data on the views of men and women in the MENA region. Their findings give a voice to the needs and concerns of Arab publics.”
From July 2020 to April 2021, the Arab Barometer conducted its sixth wave of surveying across the Middle East North African region, and specifically the countries of Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, and Iraq. This wave consisted of 3 parts from July-October 2020, October 2020, and March-April 2021. The Part 1 questionnaire featured 8 sections of questions: Core Demographics; Lebanon: Beirut Port Explosion; COVID-19; State of the Economy; Trust and Government Performance; Media, Religion, and Culture; International Relations; and Demographics. There are approximately 58 questions across these 8 sections. To explore the results of this wave for the country of Lebanon, read the Lebanon Country Report.
Asian Barometer
The Asian Barometer describes itself as “an applied research program that aims to gauge public opinion across Asia on issues such as political values, democracy, and governance. The ABS covers virtually all major political systems in the region, including regimes that have followed different trajectories and are at different stages of political transition, offering valuable comparative data for researchers and practitioners.”
There have been four completed waves of the core questionnaire of the Asian Barometer, with a fifth wave underway from 2018 to 2021. The fourth wave occurred from 2014 to 2016 and was in 14 countries: Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Mongolia, Mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Myanmar. The core questionnaire consisted of over 170 questions across 24 sections. Some of these sections range from Economic Evaluations, Trust in Institutions, and Social Capital to Citizenship, International Relations, and Socio-economic Background.
Unlike the prior barometers described, the survey results do not appear to be readily available for public consumption.
Eurasia Barometer
Eurasia Barometer writes that it is a “non-commercial non-governmental international social survey organization headquartered at the Institute for Comparative Survey Research "Eurasia Barometer" in Vienna, Austria. Its main aim is to monitor political, social and economic transformations in the countries of post-communist Europe and post-Soviet Eurasia in the opinion of their populations. The target geographical coverage of Eurasia Barometer includes countries of Eastern Europe (Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria), the Balkans, Russian Federation, Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia), Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan). Eurasia Barometer is a network of research organizations and individual researchers operating in more than 25 countries and including over 50 social and political scientists and social survey researchers.”
While it appears that the Eurasia Barometer has been inactive since 2018, this barometer included at least six different projects: New Democracies Barometer; Social and Political Trends in the CISl Interplay of European, National, and Regional Identities; Living Conditions, Lifestyles and Health; Models of Migration in New European Border Regions; and Health in Times of Transition.
For example, the New Democracies Barometer is described as “The cross-national and longitudinal survey "New Democracies Barometer (NDB)" has been conducted in 1991 (NDB I), 1992 (NDB II), 1994 (NDB III), 1996 (NDB IV) and 1998 (NDB V) by the Austrian Paul Lazarsfeld Society for Social Research and is covering the following 11 countries: Belarus, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland, Romania, Ukraine and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.”
The survey instrument appears to have consisted of 43 questions on topics ranging from employment status, how their system of government works, and views of the European Union. No survey results or summaries appear to be readily available.
Latino Barometer
Latinobarómetro, according to its webpage, is a “public opinion study that annually applies around 20,000 interviews in 18 Latin American countries representing more than 600 million inhabitants. Corporación Latinobarómetro is a non-profit NGO based in Santiago de Chile, solely responsible for the production and publication of the data. Corporación Latinobarómetro investigates the development of democracy, the economy and society as a whole, using public opinion indicators that measure attitudes, values and behaviors. The results are used by the region's socio-political actors, international, governmental and media actors.”
Since 1995, this barometer has conducted 22 surveys. The surveys, also called questionnaires, are available in both Spanish and English. The English version of the questionnaire consists of over 100 questions. For example, the first question of the 2020 survey asked “Generally speaking, would you say you are satisfied with your life?” Additionally, questions range from views on the government's role in society, integration across Latin American countries, views on immigration, and who has more power in a country.
The survey results are organized by country. For example, the 2020 questionnaire was fielded in 18 countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
For example, the 2020 survey conducted in the country of Ecuador had a total of 1,200 respondents, 587 who identified as a man and 613 who identified as a woman. 283 were individuals aged 15-25, 415 respondents were aged 26-40, 350 individuals were aged 41-60, and 155 respondents were aged 61 or more. To see aggregate responses to specific questions for specific countries in the region, visit Latinobarometro.
Comparative National Elections Project)
The Comparative National Elections Project (CNEP), hosted by The Ohio State University, describes itself as “a partnership among scholars who have conducted election surveys on five continents. Founded in the late 1980s, it now includes over 50 surveys from 1990 to 2021 in 30 different countries, with multiple election surveys in 16 countries. The geographical scope and theoretical concerns of the CNEP have substantially evolved over the past three decades, with essential items from earlier research foci retained in the common core questionnaire and merged dataset, creating time-series that for some countries stretch back over more than three decades.”
CNEP has over 50 publicly available surveys from countries around the world. For example, one of its first reports is from the 1990 German elections and one of its more recent reports is from the 2016 Taiwanese elections.
The CNEP has developed, and maintained, a common core of questionnaire items that are asked in country-specific surveys. The most recent common core includes what appears to be over 100 questions across 14 themes. Some of these themes include short-term campaign issues, communication channels in which individuals receive election information, socio-political values, and sub-national political identities and preferences for state structure.
One interesting aspect of CNEP’s publicly available surveys is that they are available by country and in the aggregate. The aggregate version includes all 53 available surveys’ common core items merged together in a single file that can be used by survey researchers and data analysts. The technical report of this merged dataset describes the county and year, timing of interviews, the survey organization who conducted the poll, the sponsor of the survey, sampling method, mode of survey (face-to-face, online, telephone, etc.), and population covered.
Unlike other surveys, such as the Afrobarometer and Latino Barometer, it does not appear that the survey results are prepared for general public consumption in the form of public-facing reports. Instead, the data is available in a specialized file format that requires knowledge and ability in using specialized data analysis software.
AmericasBarometer
The AmericasBarometer considers itself “the premier academic institution carrying out surveys of public opinion in the Americas, with over thirty years of experience. As a center for excellence in survey research, AmericasBarometer uses "gold standard" approaches and innovative methods to carry out targeted national surveys; conduct impact evaluation studies; and produce reports on individual attitudes, evaluations, and experiences. The AmericasBarometer survey is the only scientifically rigorous comparative survey that covers 34 nations including all of North, Central, and South America, as well as a significant number of countries in the Caribbean. Each year it publishes dozens of high quality academic studies and policy-relevant papers.”
The AmericasBarometer maintains a repository of country questionnaires and sample designs. Like other barometers, it has a core questionnaire that has been administered 9 times since 2004. The questionnaire is available in both Spanish and English. The most current survey, from 2021, includes two unique elements.
The first unique aspect of the AmericasBarometer is that it used a split-sample design. This means that half (50%) of respondents received a Core A set of questions, while the other half of respondents received a Core B set of questions. Additionally, there is a set of questions that all survey respondents were asked.
For example, a question that was asked of all respondents was “In your opinion, what is the most serious problem faced by the country?”. On the other hand, only individuals in the Core A split-sample were asked “To what extent do you respect the political institutions of [your country]?”. While individuals in Core B split-sample were only asked “Water is a limited, expensive to provide, and necessary resource. Which one of the following statements do you most agree with?”
Second, there are experimental modules within the survey. An experimental module means that the questions within this module are randomly assigned to survey respondents. For example, in the 2021 survey, there is an experimental module that includes 4 different treatments, or sets of questions. Each time the survey is administered, the person being interviewed has a 1 in 4 (25%) chance of being assigned a particular treatment. Experimental modules are increasingly common in surveys, as it allows the survey researcher to see how individuals respond to different “treatments” of questions.
Below is a visualization of split-sample design with common questions across 4 treatments. Split-sample design consists of two core sets of questions, labeled A and B. Given that respondents in sample A or B could be randomly assigned to 1 of 4 experimental modules, the circle of each sample is divided into four equal parts. Additionally, the inner green circle represents the common core questions that were asked regardless of split.
World Values Survey
Finally, the World Values Survey (WVS) writes that its “an international research program devoted to the scientific and academic study of social, political, economic, religious and cultural values of people in the world. The project’s goal is to assess which impact values stability or change over time has on the social, political and economic development of countries and societies.”
Unlike the prior barometers, the WVS is global in nature since it transcends regions and continents. The WVS has conducted seven waves of surveys since 1981. The latest, 7th wave, was conducted from 2017 to 2020 across 51 countries and territories. For this, and prior waves, there is a Master Survey Questionnaire that consists of a Core Questionnaire, Observations by the Interviewer, and Regional and Thematic Modules.
Within the core questionnaire, there are 290 questions asked across a wide range of topics, including happiness and well-being, science and technology, and ethical values and norms. For example, question #49 asks “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?” While question #158 asks a respondent to answer on a 10-point scale from completely disagree to completely agree with the following statement: “Science and technology are making our lives healthier, easier, and more comfortable.” And finally, question #195 asks whether the death penalty is never justifiable (point scale 1) to always justifiable (point scale 10).
In addition to these waves, the WVS has developed the Inglehart-Welzel Cultural Map. According to their website: “The map presents empirical evidence of massive cultural change and the persistence of distinctive cultural traditions. Main thesis holds that socioeconomic development is linked with a broad syndrome of distinctive value orientations. Analysis of WVS data made by political scientists Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel asserts that there are two major dimensions of cross-cultural variation in the world.”
The following is drawn from the WVS Database Findings and Insights page:
• Traditional values emphasize the importance of religion, parent-child ties, deference to authority and traditional family values. People who embrace these values also reject divorce, abortion, euthanasia and suicide. These societies have high levels of national pride and a nationalistic outlook.
• Secular-rational values have the opposite preferences to the traditional values. These societies place less emphasis on religion, traditional family values and authority. Divorce, abortion, euthanasia and suicide are seen as relatively acceptable. (Suicide is not necessarily more common.)
• Survival values place emphasis on economic and physical security. It is linked with a relatively ethnocentric outlook and low levels of trust and tolerance.
• Self-expression values give high priority to environmental protection, growing tolerance of foreigners, gays and lesbians and gender equality, and rising demands for participation in decision-making in economic and political life.
This cultural map brings together many different, and sometimes complementary, and other times competing, ideas and values onto a two-dimension scale. For a thorough introduction to this cultural map, please visit the Findings and Insights page of the WVS Database.
Contributor(s)
2022 version: Byran Martin, Ph.D. and Josh Franco, Ph.D. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/10%3A_Comparative_Public_Opinion/10.04%3A_Comparative_Case_Study_-_Barometers_Around_the_World.txt |
“Afrobarometer.” n.d. Accessed February 12, 2022. https://afrobarometer.org/.
“AmericasBarometer.” n.d. LAPOP. Accessed February 12, 2022. https://www.vanderbilt.edu/lapop/.
“Arab Barometer.” n.d. Accessed February 12, 2022. https://www.arabbarometer.org/.
“Asian Barometer.” n.d. 台大胡佛東亞民主研究中心 Asian Barometer. Accessed February 12, 2022. http://www.asianbarometer.org/.
“Eurasia Barometer.” n.d. Accessed February 12, 2022. http://office.eurasiabarometer.org/.
“Latinobarometro.” n.d. Accessed February 12, 2022. https://www.latinobarometro.org/lat.jsp.
“World Values Survey Association.” n.d. Accessed February 12, 2022. https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp.
Baum, M. A. (2002). The Constituent Foundations of the Rally-Round-the-Flag Phenomenon. International Studies Quarterly, 46(2), 263–298
Cook, F. L., Tyler, T. R., Goetz, E. G., Gordon, M. T., Protess, D., Leff, D. R., & Molotch, H. L. (1983). Media and Agenda Setting: Effects on the Public, Interest Group Leaders, Policy Makers, and Policy. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 47(1), 16–35.
Davies, J. C. (1965). The Family’s Role in Political Socialization. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 361, 10–19.
Gunther, Richard. n.d. “Comparative National Elections Project.” Accessed February 12, 2022. https://u.osu.edu/cnep/.
Hall, Todd H., and Andrew A. G. Ross. 2015. “Affective Politics after 9/11.” International Organization 69 (4): 847–79.
Herrick, R. (2013). Listening and Representation. State Politics & Policy Quarterly, 13(1), 88–106.
Hetherington, M. J., & Nelson, M. (2003). Anatomy of a Rally Effect: George W. Bush and the War on Terrorism. PS: Political Science and Politics, 36(1), 37–42
Key, Valdimer Orlando, and Milton C. Cummings. 1966. The Responsible Electorate: Rationality in Presidential Voting, 1936-1960. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. https://play.google.com/store/books/...d=0EmsAAAAIAAJ.
Lenz, G. S. (2009). Learning and Opinion Change, Not Priming: Reconsidering the Priming Hypothesis. American Journal of Political Science, 53(4), 821–837.
Lockerbie, B. (2013). Race and Religion: Voting Behavior and Political Attitudes. Social Science Quarterly, 94(4), 1145–1158.
Marsh, C. (1985). Back on the Bandwagon: The Effect of Opinion Polls on Public Opinion. British Journal of Political Science, 15(1), 51–74.
Mayer, A. K. (2011). Does Education Increase Political Participation? The Journal of Politics, 73(3), 633–645.
Morgan, D. L. (1996). Focus Groups. Annual Review of Sociology, 22, 129–152.
Nelson, T. E., & Oxley, Z. M. (1999). Issue Framing Effects on Belief Importance and Opinion. The Journal of Politics, 61(4), 1040–1067.
NBC News Learn. 2020 May 5th. Science Behind the News: Opinion Polls & Random Sampling. [Video] YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdgOgAHss-E
Streb, M. J., Burrell, B., Frederick, B., & Genovese, M. A. (2008). Social Desirability Effects and Support for a Female American President. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 72(1), 76–89.
Zaller, John R., and John R. Zaller. 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. Cambridge University Press.
10.06: Student Resources
Key Terms/Glossary
• Afrobarometer - a public opinion survey focused on surveying people in countries across the African continent.
• Agents of socialization - different factors that have helped mold who we are today, and our political views.
• AmericasBarometer (LAPOP) - a public opinion organization focused on surveying people in countries across North, Central, South American and Caribbean regions.
• Arab Barometer - a public opinion survey focused on surveying people in countries across the Middle East and North Africa.
• Asian Barometer - a public opinion survey focused on surveying people in countries across the Asian continent.
• Barometer - another, more general term, for a survey.
• Comparative National Elections Project (CNEP) - a partnership of scholars who conduct election surveys on five continents.
• Comparative public opinion - the research and analysis of public opinion across two more countries.
• Eurasia Barometer - a public opinion survey focused on surveying people in countries across eastern Europe and Central Asia.
• Focus group - a small subset of individuals that are exposed to a treatment of some kind and then are asked about their impressions of that treatment.
• Framing effects - an effect that could influence a respondent’s answer by how the question is presented.
• Latino Barometer - a public opinion survey focused on surveying people in Latin American countries.
• Margin of error - a statistical estimation of the accuracy of one’s sample.
• Priming effects - questions that have a respondent thinking about a certain subject matter they may have not been normally thinking about or thinking about at that time.
• Public opinion poll - a random sample of subjects from a broader pool of citizens who are interviewed and whose answers are used to make inferences on that larger body.
• Public opinion - the views and opinions of the public at large.
• Representative sample - a sample that has all the same features and elements at the same proportions of the larger body.
• Survey - a set of questions that asks individuals, known as respondents, to share their beliefs, attitudes, and views on policy and political issues or individuals.
• Survey questions - included in surveys and consist of questions with multiple choice, true/false, and open-ended response options.
• World Values Survey (WVS) - an international research program devoted to the scientific and academic study of social, political, economic, religious and cultural values of people in the world.
Summary
Section #10.1: What is Comparative Public Opinion?
Public opinion is the views and opinions of the public at large, while comparative public opinion is the research and analysis of public opinion across two more countries or global regions. Public opinion is of interest to scholars and the general public because it helps inform our understanding of the beliefs, attitudes, and views of individuals across countries or regions.
Section #10.2: Public Opinion and Political Socialization
Political scientists use public opinion data to study a variety of different research questions. The foundations of public opinion can be seen in how we are socialized. There are different factors, or agents, that impact our views and begin in early childhood. Family, education, and religion are some of the more dominant factors, but other agents can also influence us extensively. Once our views are established, they still can continue to change, but out of these views we derive our political ideology and our belief in the appropriate role and purpose government plays in our lives.
Section #10.3: Measuring Public Opinion
The most common way to measure public opinion is through public opinion polls. If the goal of the poll is to make generalizations of a larger population of people, the sample must be representative of that larger body, and subjects chosen to be interviewed must be selected randomly. There are different types of polling techniques, which allow researchers to measure public opinion in a variety of ways. All polling has potential problems, many of which can be mitigated to some extent, but researchers need to always be conscious of these problems’ potential influence. Nevertheless, when done correctly, public opinion polls are a valuable tool for researchers and marketers.
Section #10.4: Comparative Case Study - Barometers Around the World
There are at least 8 barometers, or surveys, conducted throughout the world: Afrobarometer, Arab Barometer, Asian Barometer, Eurasia Barometer, Latino Barometer, Comparative National Elections Project, AmericasBarometer, and World Values Survey. Most barometers have questionnaires with a common, or core, set of questions that are asked in each fielding of the survey. All barometers are developed and administered by social scientists located throughout the world.
Review Questions
1. What is comparative public opinion?
1. is the research and analysis of public opinion across two or more countries.
2. is the research and analysis of public opinion across two or more continents.
3. is the research and analysis of elite opinion across two or more countries.
4. is the research and analysis of elite opinion across two or more continents.
2. Which of the following best describes political socialization?
1. Where someone chooses to get their political information.
2. How someone is raised and views the world from an ideological point of view.
3. Why does someone choose whether or not to vote?
4. What political organization someone chooses to work or volunteer with.
3. Which of the following is NOT a challenge of measuring public opinion?
1. Bandwagon effects
2. Framing
3. Priming
4. Education
4. What is the mission of the World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR)?
1. promotes the highest professional standards, ethics and techniques for polling around the world.
2. international membership represents the industry’s most respected names in the survey and public opinion research field.
3. Through publications, seminars, meetings and educational initiatives we engage in a rich ongoing conversation about how best to collect data and maintain data quality not just in advanced democracies, but also in emerging democracies.
4. All of the above.
5. Which of the following is not a public opinion barometer?
1. Afrobarometer
2. Arab Barometer
3. Meximeter
4. Latino Barometer
Answers: 1.a, 2.b, 3.d, 4.d, 5.c
Critical Thinking Questions
1. In September 2020, WAPOR hosted a webinar on Advances in Comparative Survey Methods and discussed the continuing development of Multinational, Multiregional, and Multicultural (3MC) survey research methodology. Watch the webinar and write in 5 or more sentences what you found most interesting and/or most perplexing?
2. Given the problems with polling, should we just stop polling individuals and trying to measure public opinion? Why or why not?
3. Select a barometer you are most interested in, and if available, review its questionnaire. Within the questionnaire, identify at least two questions and compare and contrast them for similarities and differences.
Suggestions for Further Study
Books or Book Chapters
• Aalberg, Toril. 2003. Achieving Justice: Comparative Public Opinions on Income Distribution. BRILL.
• Dalton, Russell J. 2018. Citizen Politics: Public Opinion and Political Parties in Advanced Industrial Democracies. CQ Press.
• Norris, Pippa. The Globalization of Comparative Public Opinion Research. The Sage Handbook of Comparative Politics. Ed. Neil Robinson and Todd Landman. Sage, 2009, 522-540. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/10%3A_Comparative_Public_Opinion/10.05%3A_References.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Identify what is political violence
• Explain how political violence differs from criminal violence
• Understand the differences between different forms of political violence
• Differentiate between the two categories of political violence
Introduction
Political violence is a difficult term to define. The main question that arises is “when is violence considered political?” Before we can answer that, we first must define the concept of violence. Kalyvas (2006) states that “[a]t the basic level, violence is the deliberate infliction of harm on people”. Although some scholars have rightly considered non-physical aspects, such as social or economic oppression, as a form of oppression (i.e., “structural” violence), we will primarily focus on the physical variety in this chapter. So while harm can come in many types, political violence exclusively focuses on physical violence. Physical violence includes the use of physical force to exert power. Examples include the use of weapons by criminal gangs to mark their territory, kidnappings, mass shootings, and torture. And while many of these examples can also be considered as political violence, the simple act of violence itself does not make it political. There is another step that makes violence become political.
Political violence occurs when the use of physical harm is motivated by political intentions. For example, when violence is used to destroy a social order, but also to preserve a social order, we can consider this political violence. Thus, political violence can be used by those seeking to challenge the socio-political status quo. And it could involve those who want to defend that same status quo.
Differentiating when an act of violence is simply criminal, or should be considered political violence can be tricky. For example, many scholars contend that the actions taken by the drug cartels in the Gulf of Mexico should be described as political violence. The cartels often target law enforcement, kidnap the loved ones of government officials and threaten the government itself. Thus, by targeting the official capacity of the government, some say that the Mexican drug trafficking groups are politically violent. However, we have to ask what are the intentions of these narco groups? Their primary interests are financial; the continued flow of narcotics from Central and South America to the U.S. border. They are overwhelmingly not interested in challenging the socio-political order. They have little interest in regime change, or in elections. The drug cartels tend to get involved only when their interests are threatened. As long as the Mexican government stays out of their way, they will respond in kind.
What are some forms of political violence? Are interstate wars, or wars between two or more countries, considered political violence? The answer generally is no. Even though our definition above does not necessarily preclude international wars, the vast majority of political violence transpires within a state. Intrastate political violence is defined as political violence that wholly or largely occurs within a state or country. While individuals are being subjugated to political violence in the context of an international war, such a war still is a contestation between two or more sovereign entities where individuals are “participating” as a member of a sovereign state (see the definition and more details on state in chapter XX). So we need to think about who is using violence against who when we are trying to classify different forms of political violence. Generally speaking, at least one of the parties involved in a case of political violence is a non-state actor. A non-state actor is any political actor that is not associated with a government. It is further defined as “an individual or organization that has significant political influence but is not allied to any particular country or state” (Lexico, n.d.).
Non-state actors include a wide range of organizations and individuals. Many non-state actors are charities, or have peaceful intentions. This includes non-governmental organizations, multinational corporations, and trade unions. They can also include individual political actors as well (a deeper discussion of non-state actors occurs in Chapter 12). Non-state actors that engage in political violence traditionally involve insurgents, guerilla groups and terrorists. Each one of the groups will be discussed at length in this chapter. Finally, political violence can include a wide range of activities: terrorism, assassinations, coups, battles, riots, explosions, and protests.
A more difficult differentiation occurs when non-state actors have a transnational presence. Transnationalism is defined as “events, activities, ideas, trends, processes and phenomena that appear across national boundaries and cultural regions” (Juergensmeyer, 2013). Thus, transnational political violence is defined as political violence that occurs across different countries or crosses state borders. By their nature, insurgents and guerilla groups tend not to be transnational, as their focus is on overthrowing a government within a specific country, or succeeding in the secession of a region or province. Secession is defined as the act of formal withdrawal or separation from a political entity, usually a state. The goals of secessionist movements are often the creation of a new state, or leaving to join another state.
This is not the case with terrorism, however. Since the 1990s, terrorism has become transnational, with the rise of groups such as al-Qaeda and their affiliates and offsprings. Transnational actors blur the line between comparative politics and international relations. As countries have allied to combat transnational terrorist activity, their responses could be understood through international relations theory. In addition, international governmental organizations, such as the United Nations have also worked with individual member-states on counterterrorism strategies. Still, terrorism is often researched by comparative scholars as the targets of their political violence are civilians. Given that these attacks happen within a country, comparative methodology can help in analyzing and/or assessing terrorist acts and their responses.
Given the above discussion, we can present several categories of political violence. The first category involves state-sponsored political violence. This form of political violence occurs when a government uses violence, either against its own citizens, referred to as internal sponsored political violence; or against foreign citizens, usually in neighboring countries, referred to as external sponsored political violence. The second category involves non-state sponsored political violence. Forms of non-state sponsored political violence involves insurgencies, civil wars, revolutions, and terrorism. Each one of these categories, both state-sponsored and non-state sponsored forms will be discussed at length below. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/11%3A_Political_Violence/11.01%3A_What_is_Political_Violence.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Differentiate between internal and external state-sponsored political violence
• Understand different repressives policies (domestic terrorism)
• Evaluate different models of state-sponsored terrorism
Introduction
A major characteristic of a state is their ‘monopoly on the use of violence’. By this we mean that only the state and its institutions, such as the police or the military, have the authority to use violence, when necessary. The last part has been italicized for a reason. If the government of a country enjoys this monopoly, then the leaders, elected or not, are also responsible for when violence is used. Rules and regulations must exist for states when violence is employed by authorities. For example, all police authorities worldwide are expected to undergo formal training, background checks. In addition, most law enforcement officers are expected to be actively licensed, with periodic reviews of their performance. Unfortunately, those with the ability to wield such power, often through small arms and/or other weaponry, have too often abused this authority. We see many instances of protestors on global TV stations being beaten in the streets, or images of villages being looted or burned. When this occurs, it often leads the people of that country to believe that their government has transgressed their responsibility. At this stage, we can say that this state has engaged in state-sponsored political violence.
State-sponsored political violence can be characterized as “official government support for policies of violence, repression, and intimidation” (Martin, 2020, pg. 66). Officially, a government can sanction violence against people or organizations that are deemed to be a threat to the state. Who exactly gets to decide who is a threat, and in turn define them as an enemy is left to debate. Many times, state-sponsored political violence is often referred to as government terrorism, or state-sponsored terrorism. The word terrorism itself is often used to describe many different violent actions. Political leaders often use the word to describe actions taken by their political opposition. Similarly, people also apply the word terrorism to unpopular decisions made by leaders that have had harmful repercussions.
However, in political science terrorism has a specific meaning. Terrorism is defined as a violent act that generally targets noncombatants for political purposes. Some go even further and define terrorism as violence carried out by nonstate actors that targets noncombatants for political reasons. We tend to disagree and believe that such actions carried out by governments can rightfully also be labeled as terrorism. This is because terrorism is better understood as a tactic. The goal in terrorism is to use violence to disruption and fear among the general population as away to put pressure on government leaders. Terrorists hope that this pressure will lead to changes in government policy that they fond favorable. Let’s look at how different governments approach the use of political violence.
In democratic regimes, these decisions are often left up to the executive branches of a government. For example, in parliamentary systems, the Prime Minister’s cabinet will often make that call, often in consultation with the country’s intelligence agencies. In presidential systems, this decision often falls to the President, who usually consults with a national defense council. These councils often include the country’s defense minister, national security advisor and other relevant officials, such as the foreign minister. Either way, the decisions to determine who is a threat are eventually scrutinized by opposing politicians, or directly by the public. A good example is when opposition parties call for a vote of no confidence in parliamentary systems for example. Through voting mechanisms, the public can concur with their elected leaders and re-elect them, or dissent and choose to vote for opposing candidates and/or parties.
In authoritarian regimes, a similar process plays out, but with some important differences. The decision on who is an enemy is still made at the executive level. However, whether it is a Prime Minister or a President, or a Premier making that call is irrelevant. In authoritarian systems there is also little to no recourse for those who may disagree. Often, the opposition party, if one exists, is ignored, and the public often lacks the formal voting mechanisms to remove a leader they disagree with. This can explain why the propensity for political violence may be greater in authoritarian regimes. As there are less checks on those who have a monopoly on the use of power, abuse of that authority is more likely.
Internal State-Sponsored Political Violence (Government Terrorism)
When a government finally determines who is a threat and designates someone, some group, or some organization as an enemy, the next step is figuring out where this threat/enemy is located. If it is determined to be within the borders of the country, then the threat is considered to be an internal threat. If it is determined to be outside the borders of the country, then the threat is considered an external threat. This distinction clearly matters as the state will have more autonomy to use violence against internal threats vis-a-vis external threats. The concept of sovereignty applies. Remember from Chapter One, sovereignty is fundamental governmental power, where the government has the power to coerce those to do things they may not want to do. Also remember from Chapter Three, sovereignty also involves the ability to manage the country’s affairs independently from outside powers and internal resistance. If a country enjoys widespread sovereignty, then the government will have more room from which to address internal threats. States have little to no sovereignty beyond their borders, though can project power in the defense of their interests.
When violence is officially sanctioned against a perceived internal threat or enemy, it can come in many forms. In democratic countries, this often involves use of force to arrest or detain those who act against the state. It may also involve the use of lethal means, particularly if the democratically elected government believes the threat could be an existential threat, or a threat to the existence of the state itself. An example could include a group that espouses an apocalyptic ideology, and may lack any political goals, other than seeing the destruction of their home government. Still, in a democratic society, the public will tend not to tolerate large scale measures. It is one thing to punish an extremist group, it’s another thing for wider security measures that could affect society writ large.
Still, the use of violence in a democratic society can occur without formal sponsorship by its government. Political violence can be used by vigilante groups, paramilitaries, and other armed groups. In many countries, these groups may not have the explicit support of the state, but implicit support instead. Often, they are administratively separate from official government structures. Such groups will wage unofficial campaigns of violence and suppression against perceived internal enemies. They may or may not work with a state’s security apparatus when targeting others. In addition, as these organizations are not part of a government’s official institutions, governments may claim that they exert no control or influence over the group’s actions.
In authoritarian countries, repression through violence may be official state policy. This is often referred to as overt repression as policy. Countries such as the Soviet Union under Stalin, or Nazi Germany, or in more recent times, Cambodia when ruled by the Khmer Rouge and Afghanistan in the 1990s before the U.S. invasion toppled them, all had adopted explicit repressive policies of violence towards people and segments of their population. Hundreds of thousands of people were exiled to work camps in Siberia during Stalin’s reign. Millions of people were killed in Nazi death camps, simply for being born in the wrogn group. The Khmer Rouge is responsible for one of the worst mass killings of the late 20th century. Up to two million Cambodians were massacred in their attempt to transform the country into an agrarian utopian society. Finally, Taliban rule of Afghanistan in the 1990s was cruel and vicious, often targeting minority groups, such as the Hazaras.
In addition to overt repression, where violence is the official state policy, there is also covert repression as policy. Often actions undertaken by secret police services, or domestic intelligence agencies are considered covert. Use of violence against individuals or groups is often done secretively with society unaware that these violent actions are taking place. There are plenty of examples of authoritarian regimes using their domestic law enforcement services to quell opposition or stifle any dissent. Intelligence agencies such as in Syria or Iraq, referred to as the Mukhabarat in Arabic, are often integrated parts of a country’s military structure. By surveilling the population, they can alert the military or law enforcement of any potential threats to the authoritarian regime’s rule. Covert repression can also include nonviolent means as well. The former country of East Germany had the Stasi, or the State Security Service is a good example. The Stasi became infamous for their network of informants they developed in East German society. They used this network to terrify the population and use that fear to target those who might oppose the regime.
Keep in mind that such violence is much less tolerated today than it was in the past. Before the end of the Cold War, the concept of sovereignty was paramount when it came to the internal affairs of a state. However, since the 1990s, there has been a significant shift in the view of sovereignty. Following numerous humanitarian crises, scholars, policymakers and IGO officials have advocated for a new approach: responsibility to protect (R2P). If a state refuses to protect its own citizens, then other states are expected to intervene in the state where abuses are occuring. R2P goes as far as to suggest using military force to protect another country’s citizens from persecution, especially if authorized by the UN Security Council.
External State-Sponsored Political Violence (State-Sponsored Terrorism)
When a country decides that the threat is external, the state can also take action. This action can be in the form of state-sponsored terrorism, which is defined as government support for terrorist actions in other states. However, these actions are going to be much more constrained than internal actions. Martin (2007) differentiates between two models of state-sponsored terrorism. The first is the patronage model of state-sponsored terrorism, which is when a state actively participates and encourages terrorist actions in other countries. The second is the assistance model of state-sponsored terrorism, which is when a state tacitly supports and encourages terrorist actions in other countries.
A good example of the patronage model of state-sponsored terrorism is Iranian support for Hezbollah in the Lebanon. Hezbollah is both a militant organization and a political party in Lebanon. Hezbollah directly translates as ‘party of God’ and politically represents Shi’a Muslim interests in Lebanon’s parliament. Founded during the devastating Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), the organization is active. They engage in combating other militias in Lebanon, have directly confronted Israel, both through fighting Israelis in southern Lebanon before Israeli forces pulled out in 2000 and with their rocket attacks on the country, and in supporting the Bashir al-Asad regime during the Syrian civil war. Hezbollah is designated as a terrorist organization by the US and other Western countries and Iran has been accused of supporting Hezbollah with weaponry, training and funding (Robinson, 2021).
For the assistance model of state-sponsored terrorism, a great example includes Pakistan’s tacit support for Lashkar-e-Taiba. Lashkar-e-Taiba roughly translates as ‘army of the righteous/pure’. They are a Pakistani-based terrorist organzation that is most famous for a 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai, India, where operatives targeted the country’s financial district, a famous hotel landmark, and a Jewish cultural center. Pakistan has since banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, and prosecuted former members, however, the government tacitly supported the organization in the 1990s and still operates within Pakistan through a number of offshoot groups (Macander, 2021). | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/11%3A_Political_Violence/11.02%3A_State-sponsored_political_violence.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Identify the different types of non-state political violence
• Understand the differences between civil wars, insurgencies, and guerilla warfare
• Apply explanations of terrorism
• Evaluate what is a revolution
Introduction
As we stated earlier, a non-state actor is a political actor not associated with a government. Non State actors come in many different types, from transnational corporations to nongovernmental organizations, such as Greenpeace, to international drug trafficking rings. Yet there are quite a few non-state actors who engage in political violence, from guerillas to insurgents to terrorists. Generally speaking, non-state political violence is by the type of action, rather than the type of actor. This is because the non-state actors can all engage in different types of political violence. For example, terrorists can participate in insurgencies and/or civil wars, whereas guerillas can engage in terrorist actions.
Insurgencies/Civil Wars
In the simplest term, a civil war (simple) is an armed conflict between two or more groups where one of the combatants is the government. Does this mean then that an armed engagement between a street gang and a police unit constitutes a civil war? The answer would be no. Even though the media may use terms such as war or civil war to describe such violence, political scientists would not refer to it as either war or a civil war. Remember, political violence is defined as the use of physical harm is motivated by political intentions. Given this, political violence scholars have narrowed the definition of the term.
According to Sambanis (2004), to meet the definition of civil war (political science), a conflict must be between a rebel group and the government who are politically and militarily organized with stated political objectives that take place in the territory of a state that is a member of the international system with a population of at least 500,000. In addition to these general requirements, there are additional critical characteristics in distinguishing civil wars from the rest of armed engagement. The violence cannot be one-sided (see the section below on terrorism), and there needs to be sustained violence.
What then distinguishes civil war from other types of violence (e.g., riots, terrorism, and coup d’etat)? First, civil wars are notated for the level of destruction. Wars within a country are often devastating. The US civil war killed over 600,000 people. Its scars are still felt in the US till this day. Given this, most scholars have adopted a numerical threshold of 1,000 deaths when defining political violence as the Correlates of War project as the one of the main deciding factors in determining whether an armed conflict should be classified as a war. While the use of numerical threshold can be useful in determining whether a violent episode is a civil war or not, strict application of that threshold can exclude cases that otherwise meet the definition of civil war.
Given the power dynamics involved in civil wars, the weaker-side (typically the rebels) often rely on certain techniques when challenging the government. This reliance on insurgency tactics is what characterizes a civil war. An insurgency is an act of uprising or revolt against a government and/or the state. It is closely related to the concept of a rebellion, which we will define below. Insurgents claim that they represent the will of the people against a government that no longer represents them. For many insurgents then, their ultimate goal is the overthrow of the government, which in that case makes them revolutionaries (discussed more below). For other insurgents, their state goal may be secession, or if secession is not an attainable goal, then some level of political autonomy.
Insurgents use particular tactics because of the power imbalance that they face against the state. Even in a situation where the state is facing extinction as a functioning political entity, the state still often has the overwhelming firepower. This follows what we discussed earlier, where part of the definition of a state is that it monopolizes the legitimate use of violence. As such, the challenging side needs to be creative and innovative when challenging the government since the insurgent’s probability of success is much lower, especially in head to head combat.
Guerilla warfare is similar to insurgency, and often the phrases are interchangeable. Like terrorism and insurgency, guerilla warfare is also better understood as a tactic, where small, lightly armed bands engage in guerrilla warfare from a rural base that targets the state. Guerilla warfare differs from insurgency in that these fighters usually do not engage in mass mobilization practices. Insurgents claim to represent the will of people. Guerillas do not. They tend to represent the interests of certain groups, and not necessarily the entire population. Of course, these definitions overlap and using the terms interchangeably happens in all settings.
What causes civil wars? Earlier literature on the onset of civil wars focused on grievances. The grievance explanation says that political violence along communal lines is jointly a product of deep-seated grievances about the status of the group and the situationally motivated political interests that various political actors desire to pursue (Gurr, 1993). Grievances often revolve around economic, social, and political rights, as well as demand for political autonomy. These grievances contribute to the likelihood of communal mobilization, which can lead to political violence.
This is especially more likely when a group historically has some level of political autonomy and then loses it. Resentment about the restriction on one's political access appears to drive rebellion amongst various communal groups. Rebellion is an act of violently challenging the government or existing ruler in order to bring attention to the status quo with which the challengers are dissatisfied. In this context, the sentiments of grievance can help leaders of the disadvantaged communal group. They can point to this instance as a basis in legitimizing their cause and propelling the movement. Given this, as the level of grievances increases within a group, the easier it becomes for leaders to recruit potential rebels. In turn, this can lead to rebellion and civil war.
The grievance explanation has been challenged by a number of scholars. Collier and Hoeffler (2004) prefer to look at opportunity factors for rebellion instead of motivational factors. They see rebellion as an industry that generates profit from exercising control over resources. They argue that “the incidents of rebellion are not explained by motive, but by the atypical circumstances that generate profitable opportunity” (Collier and Hoeffler 2004, 564). More specifically, factors associated with the cost of and the availability of financing the rebellion, relative military advantage of the potential rebel group, and the patter of demographic dispersion are all considered robust indicators of whether rebellion is an attractive option for opportunistic actors. In addition, Collier and Hoeffler (2004) show that rebellion is most likely when participants have low incomes. In their model, they incorporate measures of per capita income, the rate of male secondary school enrollment, and the economic growth rate. The basic idea is that if joining the rebel movement appears to be more profitable for the individuals, then it incentivizes the desire to participate, which in turn determines if a rebellion remains viable.
Finally, Fearon and Laitin (2003) argue that civil war is understood through favorable environments. They disagree with theories that place emphasis on the necessity of strong, widespread popular support based on factors associated with grievances. Instead, they argue that an insurgency can be viable and sustained under certain conditions: mountainous terrain, contiguous crossborder sanctuaries, and an easily recruited population. These conditions favor insurgents given the asymmetric distribution of power between the rebels and government forces.
Non-State Terrorism
Again, terrorism is defined as a violent act that generally targets noncombatants for political purposes. Many non-scientific analyses of various terrorism cases often cite religion, ethno-racial factors, extreme political ideology as the primary motivation for extreme groups to resort to violence. Many make a causal link between these factors and the outcome of a terrorist act by political extreme groups. However, it is evident that mere membership in a particular religious or ethnic group is not always causing one to commit these violent acts. So when and why do political extreme groups commit violence?
In the literature on the origins of terrorism, there are two dominant schools of theoretical explanation: psychological and rational choice explanations. The psychological explanation of terrorism relies on the idea that the violence itself is the desired outcome as opposed to being the means to the end. Post (1990) claims that “individuals become terrorists in order to join terrorist groups and commit acts of terrorism.” While Post recognizes that this is a rather extreme claim, the psychological explanation posits that an act of violence is rationalized by the core ideology of a terrorist group where the participants are psychologically compelled to commit acts of violence.
Conversely, scholars like Crenshaw (1990) rely on the rational choice explanation of terrorism where the use of terrorism is believed to be the result of a willful strategy based on a careful political calculation. In this framework, terrorism is understood as an expression of political strategy where the act of violence is amongst many alternatives from which an extreme group may choose. Simply put, when the expected benefit of a terrorist act outweighs the const of such behavior and produces the highest expected utility, then such an act becomes the most strategically sound option for a group. This analytical approach follows the conventional explanations for terrorism that a relatively weak group relies on a policy choice to make it hard for the state to ignore their claims.
For example, if the US armed forces were to go head to head with an existing terrorist groups, it is clear that the U.S. would easily defeat them. As a result, it makes no sense for a terrorist group to fight the US conventionally. Instead, it is preferable to strike the US where it is most vulnerable - targeting noncombatant targets, such as civilians. When looking back at the September 11th, 2001 (9/11) terrorist attacks, we see that al-Qaeda’s main target was the World Trade Center, the financial nerve center of the country. Military targets, such as the Pentagon, were also hit, but the goal of the attacks were to punish the American people, and put pressure on the US government to change their foreign policy and international behavior. If we were to use the rational choice explanation of terrorism, then the 9/11 attacks were not committed by an irrational group of extremists, but as a group engaged in a willful strategy to accomplish a political outcome. Indeed, it would be counterproductive to label them as “irrational” as that could lead to an underestimation of another attack.
The evidence is mixed in terms regarding the effectiveness of non-state terrorism. Terrorist action can lead to a specific change in government policy, but there have been few notable overall shifts in foreign policy. For example, al-Qaeda bombed several train stations in Madrid in 2004 as a reaction to the Spanish government involvement in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. The attacks took place right before national elections and they influenced how Spanish citizens voted. Once the new government came in, they withdrew Spanish forces from coalition fighting in Iraq. However, the attacks in Madrid did not change the overall Iraq War. Other countries refused to change course.
Terrorist action can also lead to changes in government policy that were not intended by the group. For example, the 9/11 attackers did not intentionally desire to change airport policies in the US. However, as anyone who has traveled in the past twenty years knows, the attacks had a dramatic impact. Now, all travelers in the US have to endure more intrusive safety protocols, including x-rays, taking off one’s shoes, opening up carry-on bags, prohibition of liquids, etc. Prior to these attacks, most anyone could enter an airport, without as much intrusion. For example, people were able to go through security without a ticket and walk their loved ones to the gate. Similarly, they could wait at the gate when welcoming back their loved ones. These privileges no longer exist.
On other hand, sometimes the state purposes of a terrorist organization fail completely. A good example includes the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) call for the creation of a caliphate. A caliphate is essentially a state run by Islamic political authorities. A caliphate has not existed for quite a few centuries. ISIS leaders, who claimed to represent the interests of all Muslims worldwide, desired to build a caliphate in the areas of Syria and Iraq that they had conquered. A caliph is believes to be the rightful successor to the Prophet Muhammad, which is an important concept in the history of Islam. Yet despite the best efforts of ISIS, the caliphate did not last. Syrian, Russian, Kurdish and American forces largely defeated ISIS in 2019. Even though ISIS committed atrocious violence and killed many non-combatants, they ultimately failed to achieve their primary political goal.
So how do we protect ourselves from a potential terrorist attack? Most countries develop counterterrorism policies, especially those that have been targeted in the past or are actively targeted today. Counterterrorism policies are defined as government or military efforts to prevent or thwart terrorism. Examples of counterterrorism policies include the U.S. government’s efforts to cut off terrorist financing. This is accomplished by monitoring incoming and outgoing financial transactions, such as wire transfers and bank deposits. Other examples include extensive background checks for international student visas and retinal and fingerprint scans at border checkpoints. Another good example involves the EU’s efforts to deradicalize convicted terrorists. They have developed a Radicalization Awareness Network (RAN). According to the European Commission, “The RAN is a network of frontline practitioners who work daily with both those vulnerable to radicalization and those who have already been radicalised.” (European Commission, n.d.)
Revolution
The term revolution has been used in a variety of contexts. For example journalists will label news where a group of citizens politically (and often violently) protest and challenge the government in power as a revolution. An example includes current pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. Certain media outlets have labeled these protests as a revolution. Even the participants of the protest have used the word revolution in their slogan, “Liberate Hong Kong, the Revolution of Our Times.” While journalists can use the word revolution, generally speaking describing the struggle as a revolution may not be appropriate. As mentioned in Chapter 2, political scientists need to clearly define the terms prior to making descriptive or causal inferences about the event of their interest. Otherwise, any potential politically violence action can be called a revolution.
According to Skocpol (1979), a revolution is defined as a public seizure of the state in order to overturn the existing government and regime. This definition has three important parts. First, there has to be public participation in the movement. This means that the public must play a critical role. This characteristic of a revolution differentiates it from other types of political violence such as a coup d’etat. Recall from Chapter Three, that a coup d’etat is an attempt by elites to overthrow the current government of a state through abrupt seizure of power and removal of the government’s leadership. While many political challenges and violence are initiated by political elites, a revolution must be supported by the general public.
Second, the main purpose of a revolution is the public seizure of the state. Other types of political violence may not require the seizure of the state. Some politically violent actors can achieve their goals with concessions from the state. For example, some insurgents may settle for an expansion of voting rights or meaningful protection of civil rights. Or, some terrorists may settle for a change in policy. A revolution in contrast will end with the rebel group in control of the state apparatus, taking full control over the function of the government.
Third, once the state is captured by the rebels, there will be a shift in the regime. This characteristic is critical when attempting to differentiate a revolution from all other types of political violence against the state. Without regime change, such actions are classified under other types of political violence (e.g., civil war). It is very important to be able to clearly identify whether a particular event constitutes a revolution or not when studying the onset, nature, and possible solution to political violence. While violent episodes may initially appear to be the same in terms of the cause, researchers are most likely to observe differences in the duration or the nature of violence between revolution and non-revolutions.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 is a great example of a revolution as described by Skocpol. It marked the end of centuries of imperial Russian rule, with the assassination of the Romanov family in 1918. The ensuing civil war saw the communists, or Bolsheviks, fight under Vladimir Lenin. Their red army fought against the white army, a loose association of loyalists, capitalists and other elements. The success of the communists in 1923 led to a dramatic reordering of Russian society. A largely agrarian society was collectively industrialized in the ensuing decades. New social norms were introduced. It was truly a revolution in every sense of the word.
The above discussion generally discusses a revolution accomplished through violent means. However, in some cases revolutions may occur without violence. Quite a few nonviolence movements have succeeded in achieving regime change. Nonviolence movements are defined as movements that engage in nonviolent practices to accomplish political goals. Tactics can include protests, boycotts, sit-ins, and civil disobedience. They are also referred to as nonviolent resistance or nonviolent protests. All three elements identified by Skocpol need to exist: public participation, public seizure of a state, and a shift in regimes. Where nonviolent revolutions differ is that the movement’s leaders convince the state’s military, or some portion thereof, that the state is better off under a new regime. It is not a coup per se, as a coup is led by military elites. In nonviolent revolutions, the military either refuses to intervene, and/or abandons the regime in power entirely. When that happens, the reigning military authority will work with the new regime to maintain peace and security.
A great example of a nonviolent revolution is the fall communist regimes in 1989. The Soviet Union installed loyal regimes in Eastern European countries in the aftermath of World War II. As part of the Warsaw Pact, countries such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and East Germany were satellite states, dependent on the Soviet Union for their legitimacy and survival. When popular uprisings would occur, Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, Soviet forces rolled in, quelling any hopes of democracy. When popular uprisings occurred again in 1989, Soviet forces withdrew this time, allowing the puppet communist regimes to collapse. Eastern Europe quickly adopted democratic capitalist models. Little violence occurred, with the exception of the execution of Nicolae Ceaușescu in Romania. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/11%3A_Political_Violence/11.03%3A_Non-state_political_violence.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Understand how political violence can end
• Analyze what are negotiated settlements
• Evaluate the difference between peacekeeping and peacemaking
Introduction
How does political violence end? Various arguments have made that the way in which political violence ends will determine if it happens again. Let’s use civil wars as an example. In general, civil wars that end in a negotiated settlement have a higher chance of experiencing a renewed war in relation to the wars that end in a decisive victory (Wagner 1993; Licklider 1995). This is due to the fact that a negotiated settlement leaves the organizational capacity of both sides intact, making a future resumption of a war possible (Wagner 1993). On the contrary, a decisive victory of one side implies that the losing side no longer has its capacity to harm while the victor retains the capacity to repress any future mobilization. Consequently, a renewed violence becomes unrealistic for the losing side, keeping the probability of war recurrence at low.
A good example involves the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in the country of Sri Lanka. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was a Tamil militant organization that was based in northeastern Sri Lanka. Its aim was to secure an independent state of Tamil Eelam in the north and east in response to the state policies of successive Sri Lankan governments towards Tamils. The LTTE carried out its first major attack on July 23rd, 1983, which led to what is referred to as Black July, the common name used to refer to the anti-Tamil pogrom and riots in Sri Lanka. Black July is generally seen as the start of the Sri Lankan Civil War between the Tamil militants and the government of Sri Lanka.
For over 25 years, the war caused significant hardships for the population, environment and the economy of the country, with an initial estimated 80,000–100,000 people killed during its course. Sri Lanka is a nondemocracy, with a history of significant discrimination against non-Buddhist minority groups. Its authoritarian government was able to carry out quite repressive policies to defeat the separatist movement.
In late 2005 and the conflict began to escalate until the government launched a number of major military offensives against the LTTE beginning in July 2006, driving the LTTE out of the entire Eastern province of the island. In 2007, the government shifted its offensive to the north of the country, the government took control of the entire area previously controlled by the Tamil Tigers, including their de facto capital Kilinochchi, main military base Mullaitivu and the entire A9 highway, leading the LTTE to finally admit defeat on 17 May 2009. Following the LTTE's defeat, pro-LTTE Tamil National Alliance dropped its demand for a separate state, in favor of a federal solution
The Sri Lankan government was accused of massive war crimes violations against its own citizens.
Toft (2009) argues that civil wars that end in rebel victory are likely to produce enduring peace, but not in the way one expects. Rebel victories often end in political transformation, with the new regime often embracing democracy, though not always. Still, even if the rebel group adopts a democratic regime, it does not mean that they will abstain from repression. Remember, if a rebel group wins, then this means that their capacity to wage violence is still intact. While rebels often reward the citizens who supported them and their successful challenge, they may also subdue groups within the country that opposed them. As a result, this new government, even if democratic, is likely to pursue repressive policies following the end of the civil war. Ironically, it is these same repressive policies that may have motivated the original conflict in the first place. However, after a civil war ends, repression leads to peace
Another way that civil wars can end and lead to peace are through negotiated settlements. Negotiated settlements are defined as successful discussions between combatants where an agreement is reached to end political violence. Hartzell (1999) argues that the key to the enduring peace settlement requires the institutionalization of certain power-sharing mechanisms. When rebels, insurgents, guerillas or terrorists disarm, they worry not just about their own safety, but also regarding the needs of the groups they were fighting for. A negotiated settlement often involves the recentralization of power in certain areas. This is where a government reasserts its authority, such as policing or education. Former rebels are concerned that without their inclusion in the decision-making process, there will be a lack of proper political representation. This could also lead to less access to economic opportunities. For these folks to lay down their weapons, at minimum safeguards must be in place to protect their interests, at best they need to be part of the solution.
Walter (1999, 2002) argues that power-sharing through a negotiated settlement may not be enough. Just because two or more sides agreed to do something, does not mean that they will follow through with it. There has to be a way to make sure that these negotiated settlements can be enforced. The simplest way to do this is through a third-party guarantor. A third-party guarantor is defined as an external force that can enforce the provisions of a negotiated settlement. Walter shows that the implementation of power-sharing agreement in itself is not sufficient in producing an enduring peace. This is due to the fact that a durable negotiated settlement requires not only short-term security concerns, but also long-term political problems that the post-war environment may produce.
Peacekeeping forces are the best example of a third-party guarantor. Peacekeeping forces refer “to the deployment of national or, more commonly, multinational forces for the purpose of helping to control and resolve an actual or potential armed conflict between or within states” (Encyclopedia Princetoniensis, n.d.). Peacekeepers generally contribute to the durability of peace established through negotiated settlements. In a post-conflict environment peacekeepers facilitate an environment where self-sustaining peace is possible. This is true even after the peacekeepers have departed. Peacekeepers can help prevent violence from re-occuring through monitoring the behavior of the former belligerents, and in some cases enforcement of the agreed upon provisions. They also help prevent mistakes and miscommunications that could lead to resumption of violence. Increased communication can dampen the effect of spoilers, or disaffected individuals who may disagree with a negotiated settlement and prefer political violence to peace. Finally, peacekeepers can also prevent potential abuse of former rebels.
Peacekeeping has been relatively successful since it began back in the 1940s. A conservative estimate suggests that peacekeepers reduced the risk of war recurring by over half! Likewise, it does not seem to make a difference whether the peacekeepers have been invited or imposed (Fortna, 2008). Consent-based (traditional) peacekeepers are peacekeepers that have been invited by the belligerents. Peace enforcement missions occur when consent is not required or peacekeeping forces were not invited by the belligerents. This happens when an outside organization, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) imposes a security force in an area. This happened in Bosnia and in Kosovo during the Yugoslavia Wars of the 1990s. Finally, peacekeepers are important even when there are strong financial incentives to still fight, such as when lootable resources are involved. Lootable resources are defined as accessible natural resources, such as oil, minerals and precious metals that can confer wealth on those who own, mine or transport them.
Peacebuilding is also an important aspect of a post-conflict strategy. Peacebuilding is defined as the implementation of structures to promote sustainable peace. Peacebuilding efforts are relatively successful because it aims to restructure the political, economic as well as social institutions in a country. This often includes building stronger institutions, encouraging mass political participation, and promoting respect for societal diversity. Doyle and Sambanis (2000) also suggest that a successful peacebuilding strategy needs to address several items. These include addressing local sources of hostility, understanding the local capacity for change, and determining the level of commitment from the international community. Finally, peacebuilding does not necessarily require the use of peacekeepers or a peace enforcement mission. However, the likelihood of success increases greatly when UN peacekeepers are present. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/11%3A_Political_Violence/11.04%3A_How_Does_Political_Violence_End__Post-Conflict_Strategies.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Understand how low-intensity conflict can contribute to a resumption of fulls-cale conflict
• Distinguish the differences between indiscriminate and selective violence
• Explain how changes in counterinsurgency strategy affects the outcome of a conflict
Introduction
Given the potential brutality and destructiveness of political violence, there is an assumption that all involved parties would have an incentive to maintain peace. This assumption is even more understood after an especially violent episode, such as a civil war. However, evidence shows that political violence reoccurs and that civil wars have an ever higher than expected reoccurrence rate. As with any conflict, there is usually some low-level violence that will persist for a while. However, the presence of low-intensity violence does not necessarily mean that political violence will happen again. A Low-intensity conflict (LIC) is defined as a level of hostilities or use of military power that falls short of a full‐scale conventional or general war (encyclopedia.com). Given this, understanding when political violence reoccurs is important. More specifically, let’s look at what factors transform a low-intensity conflict into full-scale conflict, such as civil war.
One way of understanding when political violence reoccurs is through the post-conflict dynamics. Specifically, how the government treats the former rebels matters. Government actions can either incentivize or disincentivize an insurgency. When ordinary individuals believe they are unable to remain neutral, or government action threatens their personal security, there is a greater likelihood of a renewed war. For the insurgents, inaction could be more detrimental to their personal or community’s well-being. To better understand this dynamic, we will compare two cases. The first case involves the relationship between the Jummas (Hills people) and the Bangladeshi government. The second case examines the relationship between the Kurdish minority and the Turkish government during their long-running civil war.
We relied on Mill’s Method of Difference (most similar systems) approach given the similarity between the two cases. This includes the compared past history and the wartime dynamics. The dependent variable is a recurrence of political violence. The independent variable is the post-conflict dynamics, also understood as the causal mechanism. These dynamics varied greatly. While the Turkish government heavily employed indiscriminate violence, the Bangladeshi government was more selective when using violence to counter insurgents. Indiscriminate violence is defined as the use of violence that is random in nature. It is this difference that makes these two conflicts an ideal pair for comparative case analysis.
As mentioned, these conflicts were quite similar in their characteristics. Their similarity stems from a conflict between the government and a minority ethnic group. Both minority groups originally sought secession as a solution for discriminatory treatment, such as the denial of their distinct identity within their respective societies. Each government mistreated their respective ethnic minority, as part of their nation-building process. Each country sought to forcibly assimilate their minorities and ignore cultural differences. Even without active opposition, the Kurds in Turkey and the Jummas in Bangladesh suffered from severe political, social and economic exclusionary policies and practices. During periods of unrest, both the Bangladeshi and Turkish governments relied on the use of indiscriminate violence against civilians, usually claiming that they were countering an insurgency.
The PKK Case: Turkey and the Kurdish Insurgency
• Full Country Name: Republic of Türkiye
• Head(s) of State: President
• Government: Unitary Presidential Constitutional Republic
• Official Languages: Turkish
• Economic System: Free Market Economy
• Location: Eastern Europe
• Capital: Ankara
• Total land size: 302,455 sq. miles
• Population: 84 million (July 2021 est.)
• GDP: \$692 billion
• GDP per capita: \$8,080
• Currency: Turkish Lira
In the Turkish case, we explore the continuing conflict between the government forces and the Kurds. The Kurds are an ethnic group, speaking a Indo-Iranian language, native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan. Kurdistan is not an independent state. Instead, the population is dispersed among four countries: Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran. Kurdish groups have gained a level of self-government in Iraq and Syria, both after following devastating civil wars. The Kurds in Iraq rule what’s called Iraqi Kurdistan, which is de jure, or formally recognized by the Iraqi government. The Kurds in Syria rule in Rojava Kurdistan, or simply Rojava. Their autonomy is de facto, or unrecognized by the Syrian government.
For Kurds in Turkey, their interests have historically been represented by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The PKK is the name of the Kurdish insurgency movement in Southwestern Turkey. This conflict illustrates how the continued use of indiscriminate violence, such as torture, kidnappings, disappearance and summary executions, provided a strong incentive for Kurds to support the PKK. A milestone in the war came with the capture of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan in 1999. Many thought that his arrest, and the statement he made after his arrest, served as symbolic that the war had ended. Öcalan publicly announced that a reliance on violence in resolving the Kurdish struggle was a mistake. He also endorsed that the PKK seek a non-violent political solution. He ordered high-ranking PKK officers to surrender as well, of which 16 individuals associated with the PKK turned themselves in. The capture of Öcalan coincided with a growing sense of war fatigue among ordinary Kurds. Kuridh public opinion supported Öcalan’s endorsement of a nonviolent approach. Combined, these two factors saw PKK violence decline dramatically. In turn, Turkish government reprisals also declined. For the first time in many decades, the Kurdish region of Turkey experienced a period of relative calm.
The decrease in violence did not mean that tension faded. Public demonstrations still took place, especially over mistreatment. This sometimes led to violent clashes between the two sides, which led to a resumption of political violence just a decade later. This time around, rather than just focusing on Kurdish actors, the Turkish government also targeted noncombatant villagers, mostly women and children (Yildiz, 2005; Yildiz & Breau, 2010). This is a means of deterrence and has unfortunately become common practice in southeastern Turkey. The government has essentially reverted back to its reprisals before the capture of Öcalan.
The persistence of indiscriminate violence against the Kurdish minority, and Kurish noncombatants has shaped the narrative of the overall conflict. For many, the capture of Öcalan meant the end of the insurgency. However, the postwar period saw continued physical threats. Kurds were targeted even when someone desired to remain neutral. Many Kurds still rely on the PKK to help them absorb the brunt of government violence. In sum, the post-conflict environment, where Turkish government reprisals have continued, have motivated Kurds to support the rebel cause, eventually leading to a resumption of political violence.
The Chittagong Hills Tract Case: Bangladesh and Jummas (Hill people)
• Full Country Name: People’s Republic of Bangladesh
• Head(s) of State: President
• Government: Unitary Dominant-Party parliamentary republic
• Official Languages: Bengali
• Economic System: Developing market economy
• Location: South Asia
• Capital: Dhaka
• Total land size: 57,320 sq. miles
• Population: 161,376,708
• GDP: \$1.11 trillion
• GDP per capita: \$6,633
• Currency: Taka
In the Bangladesh case, many of the conditions that exist in the Turkey case are mirrored. For example, there was an armed rebellion between the Bangladesh government and the Jummas. The Jummas, or hill people, are a group of ethnically distinct tribes living in the Chittagong Hill Tracts area. This area is in the northeast of the country, bordering India and Myanmar. Jumma is a collective name, which is derived from a particular farming method these groups employ - Jum, which is cultivation of crops through a slash and burn method. Just like Turkey, Bangladesh attempted to forcefully and violently assimilate all minority groups. This prompted armed challenges from members who faced oppression.
Yet unlike Turkey, the conflict in Bangladesh ended differently. Originally, the government of Bangladesh also relied on the use of intimidation and coercion regarding the Jummas. The noncombatant population was also gravely affected through indiscriminate violence. It was a change in attitude and government policy towards the Jumma that made peace possible. In 1983, the government of Bangladesh offered general amnesty to all of the Shanti Bahini insurgents, one of the main Jumma groups fighting the government. About 3,000 rebels accepted this deal and surrendered. It took more than ten years to fully achieve a peaceful resolution.
The change in the government’s counterinsurgency strategy clearly produced a different outcome than in Turkey. Counterinsurgency is defined as a government’s efforts to reduce and/or mitigate political violence instigated by insurgents. Counterinsurgency tactics can include use of indiscriminate violence, which is what happened in Turkey, or can be nonviolent. In Bangladesh, the government used selective violence, which is when a government only targets active participants in the war and/or those who commit political violence. As such, ordinary Hill people could stay neutral. They did not feel compelled to fight back as they were no longer threatened with indiscriminate violence.
The Bangladesh case portrays how the commitment of the government of Bangladesh and the tribal people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in finding a political solution to the civil war produced a successful negotiated settlement that is still in effect to this date despite some lingering issues. The counterinsurgency strategy focused on the process of deliberation and transparency, coupled with a tremendous reduction in the use of force. This allowed for a relative period of peace to emerge and set the state for a series of peace negotiations that ultimately culminated in the Chittagong Hill Tract Peace Accord of 1997.
11.06: References
Collier, P. & Hoeffler, A. (2004). Greed and Grievance in Civil War. Oxford Economic Papers, 56(4), 563–595.
Crenshaw, M. (1990). The Logic of Terrorism: Terrorist Behavior as a Product of Strategic Choice. In W. Reich (Ed.), Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind (pp. 7-24). Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Doyle, M. & Sambanis, N. (2000). International Peacebuilding: A Theoretical and Quantitative Analysis. The American Political Science Review, 94(4), 779–801.
European Commission (n.d.) “About RAN”. Accessed March 5th, 2022. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/networks/radicalisation-awareness-network-ran/about-ran_en
Fearon, J. & Laitin, D. D. (2003). Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War. The American Political Science Review, 97(1), 75–90.
Fortna, V. P. (2008). Does Peacekeeping Work?: Shaping Belligerents’ Choices After Civil War. Princeton University Press.
Gurr, T. R. (1993). Minorities at Risk: A Global view of Ethnopolitical Conflicts. In US Inst Peace, 1993. xii+427 pp (p. xii+427–xii+427).
Hartzell, C. A. (1999). Explaining the Stability of Negotiated Settlements to Intrastate Wars. The Journal of Conflict Resolution, 43(1), 3–22.
Juergensmeyer, M. (2013). What is Global Studies? Globalizations, 10(6): 765-769.
Kalyvas. (2006). The Logic of Violence in Civil War. Cambridge University Press.
Martin, G. (2007) Understanding Terrorism Challenges, Perspectives, and Issues. Second Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Martin, G. (2020) Understanding Terrorism Challenges, Perspectives, and Issues. Seventh Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Licklider, R. (1995). The Consequences of Negotiated Settlements in Civil Wars, 1945–1993. The American Political Science Review, 89(3), 681–690.
Post, J. M. (1990). Terrorist Psycho-logic: Terrorist Behavior as A Product of Psychological Forces. In W. Reich (Ed.), Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind (pp. 25 - 40). Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Sambanis, N. (2004). What Is Civil War? Conceptual and Empirical Complexities of an Operational Definition. The Journal of Conflict Resolution, 48(6), 814–858.
Skocpol, T. (1979). States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China. Cambridge University Press.
Toft, M. D. (2010). Securing the Peace: The Durable Settlement of Civil Wars. Princeton University Press.
Wagner, R. H. (1993). The Causes of Peace.In Licklider, R. (ed.). Stopping the Killing: How Civil Wars End (pp. 235-268). New York University Press.
Walter, B. F. (1999). Designing Transitions from Civil War: Demobilization, Democratization, and Commitments to Peace. International Security, 24(1), 127–155.
Walter, B. F. (2002). Committing to Peace: The Successful Settlement of Civil Wars. Princeton University Press.
Yildiz, K. (2005) The Kurds in Turkey: EU Accession and Human Rights. London and Ann Arbor: Pluto Press in association with Kurdish Human Rights Project.
Yildiz, K. & Breau, S.C. (2010) The Kurdish Conflict: International Humanitarian Law and Post-conflict Mechanisms. New York: Routledge. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/11%3A_Political_Violence/11.05%3A_Comparative_Case_Study_-_Conflict_Termination-_Bangladesh_and_Turkey.txt |
Key Terms/Glossary
• Assistance model of state-sponsored terrorism - when a state tacitly supports and encourages terrorist actions in other countries.
• Caliphate - a political arrangement where the government is ruled based on the idea of Islamic rules.
• Civil war (political science definition) - a conflict between a rebel group and the government who are politically and militarily organized with stated political objectives that take place in the territory of a state that is a member of the international system with a population of at least 500,000.
• Civil war (simple definition) - an armed conflict between two or more groups where one of the combatants is the government.
• Consent-based (traditional) peacekeepers - peacekeepers that have been invited by the belligerents.
• Counterinsurgency - defined as a government’s efforts to reduce and/or mitigate political violence instigated by insurgents.
• Counterterrorism policies - government’s efforts to prevent terrorism from occurring.
• Covert repression as policy - actions undertaken by secret police services, or domestic intelligence agencies to enforce repressive policy.
• Existential threat - a threat to the existence of the state itself.
• External sponsored political violence - when a government uses violence against foreign citizens, usually in neighboring countries.
• External threat - a threat determined to be outside the borders of a country.
• Grievance explanation - says that political violence along communal lines is jointly a product of deep-seated grievances about the status of the group and the situationally motivated political interests that various political actors desire to pursue.
• Guerilla warfare - a type of military conflict where small, lightly armed bands engage in guerrilla warfare from a rural base that targets the state.
• Indiscriminate violence - defined as the use of violence that is random in nature.
• Insurgency - an act of uprising or revolt against a government and/or the state.
• Internal sponsored political violence - when a government uses violence against its own citizens.
• Internal threat - a threat determined to be within the borders of a country.
• Intrastate political violence - political violence that wholly or largely occurs within a state or country.
• Jummas (hill people) - a group of ethnically distinct tribes living in the Chittagong Hill Tracts area, so named due to their particular crop cultivation method of slash and burn.
• Kurds - an ethnic group, speaking a Indo-Iranian language, native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan.
• Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) - the name of the Kurdish insurgency movement in Southwestern Turkey.
• Lootable resources - defined as accessible natural resources, such as oil, minerals and precious metals that can confer wealth on those who own, mine or transport them.
• Low-intensity conflict (LIC) - is defined as a level of hostilities or use of military power that falls short of a full‐scale conventional or general war.
• Monopoly on the use of violence - only the state and its institutions, such as the police or the military, have the authority to use violence, when necessary.
• Negotiated settlements - defined as successful discussions between combatants where an agreement is reached to end political violence.
• Non-state actors - political actors not associated with a government.
• Nonviolence movements - defined as movements that engage in nonviolent practices to accomplish political goals. Tactics can include protests, boycotts, sit-ins, and civil disobedience.
• Overt repression as policy - state repression through official state policy.
• Patronage model of state-sponsored terrorism - when a state actively participates and encourages terrorist actions in other countries.
• Peacebuilding - defined as the implementation of structures to promote sustainable peace.
• Peace enforcement missions - occur when consent is not required or peacekeeping forces were not invited by the belligerents.
• Peacekeeping forces - refer “to the deployment of national or, more commonly, multinational forces for the purpose of helping to control and resolve an actual or potential armed conflict between or within states”.
• Physical violence - the use of physical force to exert power.
• Political violence - the use of physical harm is motivated by political intentions.
• Psychological explanation of terrorism - the idea that the violence itself is the desired outcome as opposed to being the means to the end.
• Rational choice explanation of terrorism - the idea that the use of terrorism is a result of a willful strategy based on a careful political calculation.
• Rebellion - an act of violently challenging the government or existing ruler in order to bring attention to the status quo with which the challengers are dissatisfied.
• Responsibility to Protect (R2P) - if a state refuses to protect its own citizens, then other states are expected to intervene in the state where abuses are occurring.
• Revolution - is a public seizure of the state in order to overturn the existing government and regime.
• Secession - defined as the act of formal withdrawal or separation from a political entity, usually a state.
• Selective violence - when a government only targets active participants in the war and/or those who commit political violence.
• Spoilers - disaffected individuals who may disagree with a negotiated settlement and prefer political violence to peace.
• State-sponsored political violence - characterized as “official government support for policies of violence, repression, and intimidation”.
• State-sponsored terrorism - government support for terrorist actions in other states.
• Terrorism - defined as a violent act that generally targets noncombatants for political purposes.
• Third-party guarantor - defined as an external force that can enforce the provisions of a negotiated settlement.
• Transnational - defined as “events, activities, ideas, trends, processes and phenomena that appear across national boundaries and cultural regions”.
• Transnational political violence - defined as political violence that occurs across different countries or crosses state borders.
• Violence - the deliberate infliction of harm on people.
Summary
Section #11.1: What is Political Violence?
Political violence is a form of violence. Political violence occurs when the use of physical harm is motivated by political intentions. It is differentiated from criminal violence, which generally is not motivated by politics. Several types of political violence exist. Intrastate violence occurs within a country, whereas transnational violence occurs across countries. Political violence can also be divided into two categorie. The first is internal sponsored political violence, or when a government uses violence against its own citizens. The second is external sponsored political violence, or when a government uses violence against foreign citizens.
Section #11.2: State-Sponsored Political Violence
States have a monopoly on the use of violence, which means only states have the authority to use violence, when necessary. State-sponsored political violence can be divided into two categories: internal and external. Internal state-sponsored political violence is also called government terrorism and occurs when a government officially sanctions violence against an internal threat or enemy. External state-sponsored political violence has also been called state-sponsored terrorism. Different models of state-sponsored political violence exist, either through active or tacit support.
Section #11.3: Non-state Political Violence
Non-state actors also participate in political violence. Insurgents can participate in rebellions and civil wars. These non-state actors are also referred to as guerillas and sometimes terrorists, given the tactics that they use. Insurgents and/or guerillas are often motivated by grievances, where political violence along communal lines is jointly a product of deep-seated grievances about the status of the group. Terrorist action can be explained through psychological or rational approaches. Finally, revolutions are when the public seizes the state in order to overturn the existing government. Revolutions are often violent as the existing regime opposes such action. Nonviolent revolutions can also occur, usually when a nonviolent movement succeeds in its goals.
Section #11.4: How Does Political Violence End? Post-Conflict Strategies
There are various arguments on how political violence ends. In general, civil wars that end in a negotiated settlement have a higher chance of experiencing a renewed war in relation to the wars that end in a decisive victory. Negotiated settlements are defined as successful discussions between combatants where an agreement is reached to end political violence. Sometimes, a third-party guarantor is needed to enforce the negotiated settlement. Peacekeeping forces are a good example of a third-party guarantor, which can be either through consent or without consent. Sometimes, peacebuilding is used instead, especially when institutions need to be rebuilt.
Section #11.5: Comparative Case Study - Conflict Termination: Bangladesh and Turkey
The presence of a low-intensity conflict (LIC) can lead to a resumption of a full scale conflict. When a government uses indiscriminate violence, or random violence, against insurgents, it leads those who prefer peace to instead support the insurgents. This is what happened in Turkey, with their Kurdish minority, where even though the leader of the PKK was captured, the group still remains popular. Alternatively, if a government uses selective violence in their counterinsurgency strategy, only targeting those who actively participate in political violence, then a negotiated settlement is possible. This is what occurred in Bangladesh, when the government did not target ordinary Jumma people, who did not feel compelled to to fight back.
Review Questions
1. What is political violence?
1. Political violence is the deliberate infliction of harm on people.
2. The use of physical force to exert power.
3. Occurs when the use of physical harm is motivated by political intentions.
4. Violence that wholly or largely occurs within a state or country.
2. State-sponsored political violence has also been referred to as:
1. Government terrorism (when it is within a state or internal)
2. State-sponsored terrorism (when it is outside or external)
3. Both responses are correct
4. Neither response is correct.
3. Which answer below is not an example of non-state political violence?
1. Civil war
2. Insurgency
3. Guerilla warfare
4. Responsibility to Protect (R2P)
4. Negotiated settlements
1. are defined as an external force that can enforce the provisions of a negotiated settlement.
2. are defined as successful discussions between combatants where an agreement is reached to end political violence.
3. are defined as an external force that can enforce the provisions of a negotiated settlement.
4. are defined as accessible natural resources, such as oil, minerals and precious metals that can confer wealth on those who own, mine or transport them.
5. Which response below is NOT correct?
1. Indiscriminate violence by a government’s forces can lead to a resumption of conflict with insurgents.
2. Indiscriminate violence by a government’s forces can also be referred to as selective violence.
3. Indiscriminate violence by a government’s forces can be part of a country’s counterinsurgency strategy
4. Countries can use indiscriminate violence to punish the supporters of an insurgent group.
Answers: 1.c, 2.c, 3.d, 4.b, 5.b
Critical Thinking Questions
1. How does political violence differ from other types of violence? Can a criminal act ever be considered political violence?
2. Describe the difference between state-sponsered and non-state terrorism. Which one do you think you would fear more?
3. How do civil wars and revolutions differ? First, clearly explain each term and compare these types of violence.
4. What is the difference between peacekeeping and peacebuilding? Which approach do you think would be more effective if political violence happened in your society?
5. How can a low intensity conflict (LIC) lead to a resumption of full-scale conflict? Can you think of a situation when it would not?
Suggestions for Further Study
Journal Articles
• Kalyvas, S. N. (2004). The Paradox of Terrorism in Civil War. The Journal of Ethics, 8(1), 97–138.
• Quinn, J., Mason, T. D., & Gurses, M. (2007). Sustaining the Peace: Determinants of Civil War Recurrence. International Interactions, 33(2), 167–193. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/11%3A_Political_Violence/11.07%3A_Student_Resources.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Understand why comparative politics still matters
• Consider why states remain important
Introduction
The central theme of this textbook has been the exploration of comparative politics. Comparative politics is a subfield within political science where the focus is understanding the similarities and differences between cases. For comparative politics, these cases mostly consist of states, or countries as we refer to them in political science. However, as previous chapters have shown, states are no longer the only actor on the international stage. Non-state actors, such as terrorist and criminal organizations have been much more active. International and supranational organizations, such as the United Nations and the European Union have taken on more state responsibilities, such as medical provision. Finally, there has been a rising call for greater autonomy within states. Through subnational governments, minority groups have been pressing for more say in their affairs, with some groups seeking outright secession.
Given this increasing complexity, is there still a value of studying comparatively? Are we better off focusing at the global level of analysis? Should we analyze global trends and processes that impact our lives? No one doubts the importance of a global economy in our lives. The global pandemic disrupted global supply chains, causing shortages in products throughout countries. Alternatively, are we possibly better served shifting our attention to within country analysis, where we focus on trends and processes within a country without trying to compare. We see countries fragmenting along ethnic, racial, or religious lines, such as Ethiopia or India. We also see countries struggling with intense politics in the wake of the pandemic, such as the United States and Brazil. By insisting on a comparative framework are we missing out on important context? For example, while the U.S. and Brazil may both be hyperpolarized at this moment, they are clearly two different countries, with two vastly different historical trajectories and outcomes. Given these challenges, is there a value of studying comparatively?
Our direct answer is yes. We think that pressures from above and pressures from below make it even more important for comparative politics to exist and grow as a subfield and area of research. Our main reasoning is that even though more performers have come onto the political stage, the state remains the central actor in this production. When global trends and processes impact us, we often try to understand from our national point of view. We see this with the COVID-19 pandemic, where the responses to the virus have overwhelmingly been managed by individual governments. Even within the European Union, where member-states have given up sovereignty for peace and prosperity, European countries struggled to coordinate their COVID-19 policies. It took quite a bit of time for the European Commission to provide a coherent policy (Goniewicz, et. al. 2020). We also see this when responses to COVID-19 are compared, which is almost always done cross-nationally. Research suggests a bivariate relationship between a country’s Global Health Security Index Score and their death rates. The analysis was completed in June 2020, before the two major waves of 2021 and 2022. Yet even then, the research shows how the state is still considered the main unit of study in comparative work.
This is also true of pressures from below. While COVID-19 has been a global phenomenon, subnational governments, such as U.S. states or Canadian provinces, looked to their national government for policy coordination, funding and political leadership. In federal countries, where power or sovereignty is shared among the national government and subnational governments, the pandemic laid bare the disparities within a country. A good example is India, a federal state with 28 states and 8 union territories. The COVID-19 wave that washed over the country in April and May 2021 shocked the country. Individual states such as Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra were caught off guard for the swift rise in cases. Per the Lancet (2021), the states were “quickly running out of medical oxygen, hospital space, and overwhelming the capacity of cremation sites”. In contrast, other states such as Kerala and Odisha, were better disposed. The Lancet (2021) also notes that the states “have been able to produce enough medical oxygen in this second wave to export it to other states”.
This phenomenon of pressure from above and pressure from below seems at first contradictory. Can the world really be globalizing and fragmenting at the same time? The answer we believe is yes, and that this has been occurring for a while. In the early 1990s, right after the Cold War ended, Barber (1992) alluded to this in his work, Jihad vs. McWorld. He argued that two principles, tribalism and globalism were happening at the same time, and sometimes in the same place. He labeled globalism, McWorld, where a market imperative drives integration and a certain homogeneity. In contrast, he uses the term Jihad for tribalism, using the Arabic word for struggle. In this tendency, Jihad represents the fracturing of societies. Small scale wars instigated by subnational groups seek to redraw boundaries, both internally and externally. Many of these groups seek a state of their own, with the promise of self-determination. Barber notes that neither force is democratic. McWorld requires “order and tranquility” and not necessarily freedom. Whereas Jihad is “grounded in exclusion”. It is parochial by its definition and achieves solidarity through warfare.
These paradoxical forces of globalization and fragmentation have been a recurring discussion in fields such as international relations, international political economy and in international business. However, these forces are less central in the study of comparative politics. The focus on the state as the unit of analysis is most likely the reason. Most comparativists research aspects of the state, such as their regime type, or political economy, or episodes of political violence, including terrorist attacks, and then compare across states. We believe that globalization and fragmentation are integral components of comparative politics. In order to better understand these two forces and their fit in the subfield, we need to define both globalization and fragmentation. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/12%3A_Challenges_and_Questions_in_Comparative_Politics/12.01%3A_Challenges_and_Questions.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
Define globalization
• Discuss the differences between economic, political and cultural globalization.
• Distinguish between globalization and glocalization.
• Reflect on how globalization affects individuals and influences government policy.
Introduction
The collapse of the Soviet Union permitted long-developing global trends and processes to finally become the leading voices. Democracy defeated authoritarianism. Capitalism defeated communism. The West, led by the US and her NATO allies, had triumphed. Liberalism, defined as a society where personal autonomy and freedoms are preferred in political, economic and social decisions, would be adopted everywhere. Human rights, market activity, religious freedom, and people power were now the goals. Some authors, such as Fukuyama (1989) wrote that the end of the Cold War meant that there would be no serious competition left. Free-market, capitalist liberal democracies were the endgame. We were witnessing the end of history.
These global political, economic and social trends are collectively referred to as globalization. The term became popular in the 1990s. In his bestseller, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Friedman (1999) described it as an “overarching international system shaping the domestic politics and foreign relations of virtually every country”. He claimed that the driving force behind globalization was free-market capitalism, where economic deregulation, market competition and privatization were the global norms. Globalization meant the spread of capitalism to all corners of the earth. Over time, these trends and processes would have a homogenizing effect, where the economies of the world would come together, pushing for a new global society based on capitalism, democracy and liberalism.
In response, Steger (2020) felt that Friedman’s discussion of globalization was somewhat simplistic. Globalization is more than just the advent of economic capitalism, or of Western values replacing local traditions. Globalization is best understood as the “thickening of the global-local nexus”, or what Steger refers to as glocalization. Steger contends that globalization is overused, that the term is employed to describe both the process and the condition. In other words, how do we get to a globalized world, and how will it look once we are there? The author separates the two, using globalization to refer to the processes and globalism to describe the condition, or the end-state. This then allows Steger to provide a short definition, “globalization refers to expansion and intensification of social relations and consciousness across world-time and world-space”. He then further simplifies the definition:
Globalization is about growing worldwide interconnectivity
Globalization has a number of ramifications for comparative politics. Worldwide interconnectivity is thickening the relationships between peoples, companies and countries. This has led to a muddying of the boundaries between comparative politics and international relations, to the point where it has become hard to separate what happens within a country to what happens outside of it. At some level, these interconnections have always existed. Some argue that globalization is not a new phenomenon, with roots in the ancient trade routes on land and sea. Others contend that the first age of globalization was in the heyday of European empire making, where Britain, France, the Netherlands and other countries colonized large swaths of the world. Finally, some suggest that the end of World War II and the development of international economic institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund is when globalization took shape (Ritzer & Dean, 2015). Regardless of when we think globalization began, there is no doubt that globalization, as a process, has had an impact on how we consume, act, think, and even pray.
Given the complexity of globalization, study of related phenomena is often divided by discipline. There are ecological concerns of global production and global supply chains; philosophical considerations of the homogenization of globalization; effects of globalization on religious practices, such as pilgrimages; the leisure industry and worries about overtourism, and fast spreading technological advancements, including the importance that global social media platforms have in our lives. In comparative politics, the most relevant disciplines are economic globalization, political globalization, and cultural globalization. We will discuss each in detail below.
Economic Globalization
Discussion on globalization usually begins with economics. As we discussed above, free-market capitalism has been identified as the driving force in contemporary globalization, even if that may no longer be the case after the COVID-19 pandemic. Scholars use the term neoliberalism when describing this importance of free-market capitalism. Neoliberalism is a newer form of the (classical) liberalism, described above, where individual freedom and autonomy in political, economic and social decisions is preferred. Neoliberalism though is much more focused on economic freedoms. It takes the classical liberal arguments of private property, legal enforcement of contracts and the ‘invisible hand’ of the market, principles of free market capitalism within a country, and takes them global. Through identified policy proposals, including “deregulation (of the economy), liberalization (of trade and industry) and privatization (of state-owned enterprises)”, this D-L-P Formula was promoted worldwide by leading international economic institutions (Steger, 2021).
Neoliberalism has also been referred to as the Bretton Woods System, named after a conference held in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire in 1944 to arrange and manage international economic relations after World War II. The US had a strong role in creating both the World Bank, an international institution that provides loans and financial assistance to developing countries, primarily by funding industrial projects, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which manages the global monetary system and provides loans to countries that experience a currency crisis. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which later became the World Trade Organization, was also initiated at Bretton Woods. The World Trade Organization (WTO) supervises the trade agreements between countries, with the aim of promoting free trade.
The collective efforts of the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO in promoting neoliberalism is labeled the Washington Consensus, so named because the World Bank and the IMF are headquartered in Washington, DC. Scholars, policymakers and politicians argued that D-L-P would lead to free trade between countries and foreign direct investment. Free trade is defined as unregulated trade of goods and services between countries, usually through the reduction of import and export controls. Foreign direct investment (FDI) is domestic investment by a foreign company, where the investment can be in the form of exports, the building of a production plant in the host country, an acquisition of a domestic company, or a joint venture.
FDI would spur the creation of jobs within a country, leading to increased employment, and the advent of more wealth in that country. Workers, who were barely surviving while working in agriculture, would benefit the most. Higher paying jobs would lead to more consumer spending, which would then encourage entrepreneurship. The importation of cheaper goods and services would help lower the cost of living as well. These changes would help create the conditions for the development of a middle class, which for some political scientists and economists, is the foundational stone for a functioning democracy. If all countries adopted a neoliberal approach, then the triumph of free-market, capitalist liberal democracies would be complete.
Steger (2020) refers to this discourse as market globalism, where a “self-regulating market…serves as the framework for a future global order.” For market globalists, capitalism is the end-game. They see a future where integrated markets create a global society where everyone benefits. The saying is that a ‘rising tide lifts all boats’. This is an optimistic view of globalization where people are allowed to participate in a global marketplace of ideas, goods, products, and services. The thicker the connections, the faster and more pronounced the changes. Capital will flow to poorer countries with higher margins of profit, with multinational corporations taking advantage of underdeveloped markets, rife with opportunities.
For many, this future has materialized. Research has shown that the while economic globalization has led to dramatic global economic growth, accompanied with a reduction in poverty and the creation of a sizable middle class, particularly in East Asian countries. However, growth in wealth has been uneven.
Political Globalization
Political globalization has called into question the future role of the state. The rise in importance of international institutions in the post-Cold War era has led to the erosion of state sovereignty and declining authority. International institutions are bodies of authority above the state that codify, maintain and sometimes enforce, sets of rules that govern state behavior. The United Nations (UN), the World Bank, the IMF and the World Bank are all examples of international institutions. Some initially believed that national governments would wither away and that some version of a world government would develop. Few, if any, believe this to be the case. More important is the concept of global governance, which is defined as the collective efforts of the world’s countries to find lasting solutions to global problems through the constellation of international institutions.
Global governance has been called into question during the pandemic, with many countries having sought to address the spread and containment of the virus on their own. The US, UK, EU, Russia, and China all developed their own vaccines. Some countries, such as the US under the previous Trump administration, eschewed cooperation with international institutions, such as the World Health Organization (WHO). The Trump administration accused the WHO of being insufficiently critical of China, where the COVID-19 virus originated and went as far to rescind the US’s annual contribution for WHO expenses. While the election of Biden in 2020 reversed this stance, multilateralism, or the formal cooperation between three or more states on a particular issue.
Additional actors have crowded the notion of state supremacy. In addition to international institutions are non-state actors. Non-state actors are defined in Chapter Eleven as political actors not associated with a government. It is further defined as “an individual or organization that has significant political influence but is not allied to any particular country or state” (Lexico, n.d). These include individuals who can exert significant political influence. They can include twitter users, documentary filmmakers, activists, consumer advocates, celebrities, ordinary citizens. Good examples include Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors and Greta Thunburg, a young Swedish environmentalist. Other non-state actors include multinational corporations (MNCs), such as McDonalds or Starbucks, transnational criminal organizations, transnational terrorist organizations, paramilitaries, and armed resistance groups. In some cases, it can involve decentralized networks, such as reddit communities, where like-minded individuals come together online to affect politics, or impact the market through their collective action.
The most prolific non-state actors are nongovernmental organizations. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are private, voluntary organizations that unite, usually for action on specific issues. NGOs lie outside the traditional structure of international politics, but many have a significant impact on world affairs. NGOs derive their power from a variety of sources, most notably that of moral authority, where members believe that the cause they are fighting for is righteous. This includes many environmental NGOS, such as Greenpeace, that use the media and the strength of their individual activists to promote their cause.
Finally, the discourse of political globalization has focused on the process of democratization, as discussed as economies converged on a neoliberal model of economic governance, the belief was that the politics would also converge as well. The diffusion of capitalist beliefs would be accompanied with the spread of democratic norms. Growing wealth would lead to an increase in the size of a country’s middle class, which would then lead citizens to demand greater representation in their government. For quite a few, globalization not only meant greater cooperation between countries to address global problems, such as climate change or terrorism, but also that this cooperation would happened between increasingly democratic states.
This has not occurred and indeed bureaucratic authoritarianism may develop as a viable alternative to democratic governance. Bureaucratic authoritarianism is the management of a country through a strong bureaucratic organization that excludes the popular will of the people, and where decisions are made by technocrats, or subject matter experts. Both Russia and China have veered towards this model and its effectiveness is being studied by other political leaders. Indeed, the general lockdown of many countries’ economics, the closing of borders and the granting of emergency powers during the pandemic suggest the shift towards authoritarianism may accelerate.
Cultural Globalization
Cultural globalization can be understood in a number of ways. First, is through the flow of people that have occurred in the last three decades. Second, is through the ever growing flow of information brought on newer technologies. Ideally, scholars thought that the peoples of the world would eventually coalesce into a one global civil society, or what Steger (2020) calls the global imaginary. The global imaginary refers to people’s growing consciousness of global connectivity, where people think of themselves as global citizens first. Yet, globalization has affected the ways in which cultural forms move and change. These moves are re-used to fashion new identities in diverse contexts. Changes affect how we view ourselves and others impacts our daily lives and those around us. For example, migration can have a nativist effect on the receiving country. Too much migration often leads to a rise in anti-immigrant sentiment among the public, which is sometimes accompanied by xenophobia and discriminatory action.
The end of the Cold War has seen a growth in the number of people moving from one place to another, referred to as migrants. These movements, usually between countries, have been both intentionally and unintentionally. Intentional migration is when a person chooses to move from one place to another. This can include immigrants and sojourners. Immigrants are migrants who willingly and legally left their home countries to work and live in another country. Immigrants often have needed skill sets or investment capital. Sojourners are migrants who temporarily live in a place & return to their home country. This included international & study abroad students and also temporary labor.
Unintentional migration is when a person does not choose to move from one place to another. There are several types of unintentional or irregular migrants. The most well known are refugees. A refugee is a person who is outside his/her country of nationality or habitual residence who has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group. A temporary asylee is someone who intends to stay in a new place for a brief time, but is subsequently unable to return home. Temporary asylees are not refugees, as they do not possess equal status & are often treated differently by the general population. Internally displaced people (IDPs) are unintentional migrants who have not crossed a border to find safety. Unlike refugees, they are on the run at home. At the end of 2017, some 40 million people were internally displaced due to armed conflict, generalized violence or human rights violations. IDPs often move to areas where it is difficult for aid agencies to deliver humanitarian assistance and as a result, these people are among the most vulnerable in the world.
There are also flows of information as well. The Internet and the rise in social media are two of the key changes in how we receive our information. The Internet, or interconnected global computer network that allows for communication and information sharing, rose to prominence in the 1990s. The development of HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP, HyperText Markup Language (HTML), and the first Web browser, combined with Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) helped to create the World Wide Web. Through access to websites, document repositories, blogs, discussion communities and instant access to news Internet-based resources vastly expand individuals’ abilities to access greater social information. We live in a digital world where the Internet and access to the Internet is ubiquitous. Millennials and members of Generation Z are digital natives, or people who were raised with technology. In contrast, Generation X and the Baby Boomers are considered digital immigrants, or people who did not grow up with today’s technology. An analog world, of vinyl records, turntables, printed books, live music, political rallies, and physical interactions, will never entirely disappear. However, our relationship with the Internet has fundamentally shifted our understanding of the world, going from a post-industrial society to an informational society.
The Internet has created sociopolitical venues for information to leave countries that are cracking down on dissidents and attempting to severely restrict access to information. Anyone can blog, which democratizes access to information and allows for all to act as public intellectuals. Knowledge exchange has become not a privilege, but an expectation, almost even a right. States have a difficult time regulating the Internet. Even when a government attempts to crackdown on users, users and activists find ways around. A good example is the use of the Internet and social media during the Arab Spring. Before the protests began, youth movements had already been organizing through Internet web pages and social media. Facebook and Twitter were instrumental in the lead up to the “Day of Revolt” in Cairo’s central Tahrir Square. al-Jazeera reported that “the week before Hosni Mubarak’s resignation, the total rate of tweets about Egypt surged from 2,300 a day to 230,000 around the world”.
The Mubarak regime blocked Internet use during the protests of early 2011. Protesters began using proxy computers to get around censors. They connected to users in Sweden, using dial-up modems. Once they were no longer subject to Egyptian authorities, protesters published an “Egypt Wiki page – a “how-to” list for activists to get online and stay connecte, started using text messages to organize their marches” (al Jazeera, 2016). Protesters also went analog. They created handheld signs when demonstrating. Per al Jazeera, “If you could not look down at your phone for updates, you could look up and find signs that explained where and when to gather next”. One could argue that cutting internet access led to unintended consequences. It may have led to more citizens taking to the streets, further fueling the revolution. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/12%3A_Challenges_and_Questions_in_Comparative_Politics/12.02%3A_Pressure_From_Above-_Globalization_%28Economic_Politi.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Compare and contrast globalization and fragmentation.
• Identify fragmentation as well as related terms such as devolution, economic nationalism and geopolitics.
• Distinguish between economic, political and social fragmentation.
Introduction
Ironically, while the forces of globalization are strengthening worldwide connections, the forces of fragmentation threaten to tear apart existing global structures. Fragmentation is understood as the fracturing of established orders, be they political, economic, or cultural. It is the opposite of globalization’s endgame. Globalization scholars in the 1990s predicted that a convergence would occur, where the gaps between vastly different economies would shrink and/or eventually disappear.
Fracturing can take place at several levels, at the individual level, the domestic level, and at the global level. Individually, people are becoming less trustworthy of the world around them. Steger and James (2019) have referred to this as the Great Unsettling, where earlier ways of acting and knowing have been upended through globalization, causing uneasiness among people. The post-Cold War era has seen rapid changes in the way they work, communicate, buy, learn, and in some cases, physically survive. This has led to an unsettling of relations. By this, the authors mean relations between “people, machines, regimes, objects, [and] nature” that have defined our lives. A good example has been the ubiquity of technology and our reliance on it, especially during the pandemic. We now use technology to order food, attend classes, and even date. The authors contend that for many people, the way they understand life has become disembedded from what they used to know. There is a desire by many to ‘return’ to the past, when life was simpler.
Domestically, fragmentation is happening in two ways. First, existing political systems in democratic countries are fraying. Historically, developed or consolidated democracies are dominated by center-right and center-left parties. For many European democracies, this would be the Christian Democrats on the right and the Social Democrat on the left. These two parties would often compete for the right to form governing alliances. Since the Global Financial Crisis voters have less faith in established parties. Second, we have seen devolution. As discussed in Chapter One, devolution is where the central government in a country deliberately transfers power to a government at a lower level. Devolution was designed to bring democracy closer to the people through the empowering of local and regional governments. The goal was to better respond to the voters’ needs, especially in countries with significant ethnic or religious minorities.
Globally, fragmentation is developing in two significant paths. First, has been the development of economic nationalism. Economic nationalism was defined in Chapter Eight as attempts by a state to protect or bolster its economy for nationalist goals. This usually involves actions taken by a country to protect its economy from outside competition & influences such as tariffs, import quotas and subsidies. Second, and much more importantly, has been the growing geopolitical tension between major powers. Geopolitics is defined as the study of the geographical aspects of political phenomena (Kristof 1994: 508). China and Russia see themselves as global powers in their own right and are pushing back against US hegemony. China is asserting itself in Asia-Pacific region, taking a more nationalistic tone towards the island of Taiwan. Russia has made it clear that the former Soviet Union is its sphere of influence, and has declared the potential NATO membership of neighboring Ukraine a red line.
Economic Fragmentation
Economic fragmentation is intimately linked to globalization. There has been significant backlash against globalization as for many, globalization has not benefited them economically. Milanovic’s (2016) analysis of global growth over the past four decades shows that globalization has shown a curvilinear relationship between income growth and income group by percentile. The bottom 50% saw a total increase in wealth, which is evidence that globalization has worked for a number of developing countries. Yet, a smaller global capitalist elite has gained the most from globalization. The top 1% has seen their wealth grow by 27%, and now control over 40% of the world’s total wealth.
Milanovic’s (2016) study shows that globalization has left many behind. Middle and working-class populations in developed economies have seen little to no benefit. This trend started in the 1990s and accelerated with the Global Financial Crisis in 2008. For example, in the US, the wages of less skilled workers—those without a college education—have stagnated or declined for decades. For example, America’s median household income remains below its peak in 1999. Previously comfortable middle-class towns and neighborhoods struggle with joblessness and drug abuse. The pandemic has only made these issues more acute.
Cumbers (2017) suggests that workers in neoliberal economies are ‘economically marginalized’. Workers in countries such as the U.S., UK, Singapore and other similar countries suffer from lower levels of social protection, employment rights and democratic participation in their economic decision-making. Neoliberal economics are deregulated and concentrated in their capital. This produces an environment where workers experience economic marginalization and feel like they have no control over their economics, and to a lesser extent, their lives.
Political Fragmentation
The acceleration of job losses in manufacturing and other labor positions has had a direct effect on domestic politics in democracies. The rise of populism, especially national-populism is directly correlated to the growing economic misfortunes of their citizens. Populism is built on an appeal to the people. It is a denunciation of the elite and the idea that politics should be an expression of the general will. Populism can occur on both the left and the right ideologically. Leftist-populism is characterized by a combination of populism with some form of socialism. In leftist-populism, the ‘worker’ needs protection from globalization. The desire is to prioritize class allegiance over national attachment. Leftist populists see capitalists as greedy. They see immigration as a weapon used by global capitalists to pit working class people against each other. Leftist populism had political success in Latin America in the 2000s and is often an alternative.
National-populism occurs when right-wing populists combine it with nationalism. In national-populism, the ‘nation’ needs protection from globalization. Steger & James (2019) argue that the new wave of right-wing populism is intricately connected to the shifting perceptions of the role of globalization in the world. For national-populists, the “nation” itself needs protecting from globalization. The real enemy are globalists who care nothing about the countries they fleece. They tend to use nationalistic slogans such as “take our country back!” or “make America great again!” In the aggregate, national populists oppose or reject liberal globalization, mass immigration and the consensus politics of recent times. They promise instead to give voice to those who feel that they have been neglected, if not held in contempt, by increasingly distant elites. It can best be understood as “hard-working people” vs “globalist elites” (Steger & James, 2019).
National-Populism centers on three “threats”:
• Threats to one’s employment (economic threat hypothesis)
• Threats to one’s cultural or national identity (cultural threat hypothesis)
• Threats to one’s personal security of physical safety (security threat hypothesis)
The common thread among all right-wing national-populists is the rejection or containment of immigration. The anxiety towards immigration often translates into populist attitudes. National-Populists have built winning strategies centered on anti-globalization, immigration and security from foreign threats. They have become a major force in democratic societies, with far right parties winning seats in parliaments, fueling Brexit, and the election wins of Donald Trump in the US and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil.
Societal Fragmentation
The Global Financial Crisis exposed serious cracks in the global civil society. Belief in the future of globalization was muted. The recession caused unemployment levels to spike in the developed world and worsen difficult situations in the developing world. The difficulties stemming from the Global Financial Crisis contributed to the Arab Spring, particularly in Egypt, where the crisis affected wages. Similarly, protest movements developed in Greece fueled by the debt crises, and in the US where the Tea Party movement took to the streets. There have been anti-government protests in India, Iraq, Hong Kong, Lebanon and most of Latin America, particularly in Chile, where the protests led to a complete rewrite of the country’s constitution. There were so many demonstrations in 2019 that it became known as the “Year of Protests”. Below is an image of how diverse the protests were even before the pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an explosion of protests. Even though most countries shut down during the early phases of the pandemic, protests continued. According to the The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), protests actually increased 7% in 2020. At first, the protests were against the lockdowns of societies, however as vaccine mandates became law, citizens also protested these as well. The pandemic protests are a good example of populism described in the previous section. Most protesters framed closures and mandates as government overreach and argued they were fighting for their freedoms. Will protests continue when the pandemic enters the endemic stage? A lot will depend if certain measures stay in place.
Brexit is a great example of societal fragmentation. Brexit is the term used to describe the UK’s decision to leave the European Union (EU). The EU is a supranational organization, where member-states agree to give up or share sovereignty on particular issue areas. The UK joined in the 1970s, with the intent of benefiting from closer economic ties. However, as the EU progressively became more of a political union, successive UK governments balked. The UK opted to not enter into three major EU projects: the Schengen Agreement, where citizens of the EU can move freely without a passport; the monetary union, where countries adopted the Euro; and the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The UK has traditionally been a global leader in the promotion of neoliberalism. UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher worked closely with US President Ronald Reagan in the Washington Consensus. The UK had been a member of the EU since the 1970s, and was instrumental in neoliberal reforms in EU policy. The Global Financial Crisis deeply affected the UK. The Conservative Party adopted a policy of austerity, where the government preferred not to run large budget deficits to strengthen the economy. General discontent led voters to seek alternative parties. The surge of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) worried the Conservative Party. This forced then PM David Cameron to call for a Brexit vote so he would not lose MPs to UKIP. UKIP campaigned on an explicit anti-immigrant and anti-Islam message that proved effective. Was UKIP responsible for Brexit? No. But UKIP provided ammunition for some who supported Brexit.
On 23 June 2016, the United Kingdom held a referendum to gauge public support for continued British membership in the European Union, with a majority voting for Leave.
This outcome represented a radical departure from over 40 years of British involvement in European integration, a vote of no confidence in the European project itself. As such, understanding the causes of Britain’s momentous decision, as well as its potential ramifications for the UK, the EU and their future relationship to one another, is of central importance. ‘Sovereignty’ and ‘immigration’ were the two most frequently cited concerns among those who voted Leave. Thus, it was the interaction between Britons’ strong sense of national identity and the enlarged EU’s movement towards political union that arguably took the UK out!
Brexit has led to serious economic and political consequences at home. The image above clearly shows that Scotland voted to Remain. Scottish nationalists are pushing for a second independence referendum, claiming that Brexit goes against the will of the Scottish people. In addition, Brexit has led to a unique situation in Northern Ireland, which is the UK’s only land border with the EU as Ireland is an EU member-state. There are no obvious methods whereby the UK could halt free movement of European citizens into Britain without erecting border controls with the Republic of Ireland or between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Finally, Brexit has implications for the future of the EU. Could other countries follow? If so, this will make it much more difficult for Europe to coordinate on meaningful policies. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/12%3A_Challenges_and_Questions_in_Comparative_Politics/12.03%3A_Pressure_from_Below-_Fragmentation.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Summarize the current state and relevance of comparative politics.
• Reflect on the field of comparative for future areas of inquiry.
Concluding Thoughts
The above discussion, combined with the full content of this book, highlights the continuing importance of comparative politics. Comparative politics as a field of study has a wide scope, capable of addressing issues of democracy and authoritarianism, state-controlled market systems versus free-market systems, economic and political inequalities, environmentalism and climate change, the origins and causes of political conflict, as well as the complex and fragile nature of political identities. Globalization has made the world a smaller place, where political, social and economic forces can affect everyone and everything on the planet. At the same time, the effects of globalization are experienced at ground level, where people work, go to school, and raise their families. They are felt where people live, which is in states. Likewise, fragmentation is fracturing the world we live in. The effects of fragmentation are also experienced at the global level, as it impacts the global order and the efficacy of international institutions.
The world feeling “smaller” is not inherently a bad thing. In some ways, the world became smaller because the advent of shared scientific practices in a number of critical fields has advanced knowledge and understanding across, within and between states. Cultivating understanding of why social, political and economic outcomes occur is a precondition for approaching solutions to complex global problems. Conversely, we also need to understand when social, political and economic outcomes do not go as planned. It is important to learn why certain processes have failed, and what these failures mean. The effects of failures, be it from globalization or from fragmentation, are understood through the lens of one’s states.
Comparative politics is unique in that it is the job of comparativists to make systematic and intentional comparisons on political phenomena, especially those issues that are critical to global and regional security and stability. The ability to drill-down to gather deep meaning in political phenomena is a strength of the comparative field, and one that provides fertile ground for new scholars and researchers to continue the traditions of the field with new and powerful areas of inquiry.
12.05: References
Barber, B. R. (1992) “Jihad vs. McWorld,” Atlantic, 269(3), 53–65.
Cumbers, A. (2017) “New Index of Economic Marginalisation Helps Explain Trump, Brexit and alt.right,” The Conversation. Accessed February, 23rd, 2022. Available at: https://theconversation.com/new-inde...
Friedman, T. L. (1999) The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Fukuyama, F. (1989) “The End of History?”, The National Interest, 16: 3-18.
Goniewicz K., Khorram-Manesh A., Hertelendy A. J., Goniewicz, M. Naylor, K., & Burkle Jr., F. M. (2020) "Current Response and Management Decisions of the European Union to the COVID-19 Outbreak: A Review" Sustainability 12(3838): 1-12. doi:10.3390/su12093838
Kristof, L. K.D. (1994). Geopolitics. Encyclopedia Americana. International ed., 12: 508.
Lancet. (2021 8-14 May). "India's COVID-19 Emergency", The Lancet, 397(10286): 1683. Published online 2021 May 6. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(21)01052-7
Lexico, (n.d.) “NON-STATE ACTOR”, Oxford Dictionary. Accessed February, 25th, 2022. Available at https://www.lexico.com/definition/non-state_actor
Milanovic, B. (2016) Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization. Cambridge, MS: The Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press.
Ritzer, G. & Dean, P. (2015) Globalization: A Basic Text. Second Edition. West Sussex UK: Wiley Blackwell
Steger, M. B. (2020) Globalization: A Very Short Introduction. Fifth Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Steger, M.B. (2021) Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction. Second Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Steger, M.B. & James, P. (2019). “Making Sense of the Populist Challenge to Globalizaton.” In Globalization Matters: Engaging the Global in Unsettled Times. Cambridge University Press, 187-208. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/12%3A_Challenges_and_Questions_in_Comparative_Politics/12.04%3A_Conclusion.txt |
Key Terms/Glossary
• Bretton Woods System - a conference held in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire in 1044 to arrange and manage international economic relations after World War II.
• Brexit - the term used to describe the UK’s decision to leave the European Union.
• Bureaucratic authoritarianism - the management of a country through a strong bureaucratic organization that excludes the popular will of the people, and where decisions are made by technocrats, or subject matter experts.
• Digital immigrants - people who did not grow up with today’s technology.
• Digital natives - people who were raised with technology.
• Economic marginalization - an environment where workers feel like they have no control over their economics, and to a lesser extent, their lives.
• Free trade - the unregulated trade of goods and services between countries, usually through the reduction of import and export controls.
• Foreign direct investment (FDI) - the domestic investment by a foreign company, where the investment can be in the form of exports, the building of a production plant in the host country, an acquisition of a domestic company, or a joint venture.
• Fragmentation - understood as the fracturing of established orders, be they political, economic, or cultural.
• Geopolitics - defined as the study of the geographical aspects of political phenomena.
• Global governance - the collective efforts of the world’s countries to find lasting solutions to global problems through the constellation of international institutions.
• Global imaginary - refers to people’s growing consciousness of global connectivity, where people think of themselves as global citizens first.
• Globalization - an overarching international system shaping the domestic politics and foreign relations of virtually every country. Defined by Steger as growing worldwide interconnectivity.
• Glocalization - defined by Steger as the “thickening of the global-local nexus”.
• Great Unsettling - earlier ways of acting and knowing that have been upended through globalization, causing uneasiness among people.
• Immigrants - migrants who willingly and legally left their home countries to work and live in another country.
• Intentional migration - migrants who choose to move from one place to another.
• Internally displaced people (IDPs) - unintentional migrants who have not crossed a border to find safety.
• International institutions - bodies of authority above the state that codify, maintain and sometimes enforce, sets of rules that govern state behavior.
• International Monetary Fund (IMF) - an international institution that manages the global monetary system and provides loans to countries that experience a currency crisis.
• Internet - an interconnected global computer network that allows for communication and information sharing that rose to prominence in the 1990s.
• Leftist-populism - characterized by a combination of populism with some form of socialism. In leftist-populism, the ‘worker’ needs protection from globalization.
• Market globalism - Steger defines it as a discourse where a “self-regulating market…serves as the framework for a future global order.”
• Migrants - people who move from one place to another, usually between countries.
• Multilateralism - the formal cooperation between three or more states on a particular issue.
• National-populism - characterized by a combination of right-wing populism with nationalism. In national-populism, the ‘nation’ needs protection from globalization.
• Neoliberalism - the driving ideology in contemporary globalization. It promotes free-market capitalist principles worldwide.
• Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) - private, voluntary organizations that unite, usually for action on specific issues.
• Populism - denunciation of the elites in a country and the idea that politics should be an expression of the general will.
• Refugee - a person who is outside his/her country of nationality or habitual residence who has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group.
• Sojourners - migrants who temporarily live in a place & return to their home country. This included international & study abroad students and also temporary labor.
• Supranational - where member-states agree to give up or share sovereignty on particular issue areas. The European Union (EU) is an example.
• Temporary asylee - a person who intends to stay in a new place for a brief time, but is subsequently unable to return home.
• Unintentional migration - migrants who do not choose to move from one place to another.
• Washington Consensus - the collective efforts of the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO to promote neoliberalism. So named because the World Bank and the IMF are headquartered in Washington, DC.
• World Bank - an international institution that provides loans and financial assistance to developing countries, primarily by funding industrial projects.
• World Trade Organization (WTO) - an international institution that supervises the trade agreements between countries, with the aim of promoting free trade.
Summary
Section #12.1: Challenges and Questions
States are no longer the only actors on the international stage. Given this, does it make sense to still study comparatively? We answer yes as the state is still the most important unit of analysis. This is evident in the recent pandemic, where management of controlling infection, vaccine development, and deployment has overwhelmingly been at the state level. Even so, the state is not immune to outside pressures. Pressure from above comes in the form of globalization. Pressure from below is through fragmentation. Paradoxically, these pressures have been present for decades and have been a recurring dimension.
Section #12.2: Pressure From Above: Globalization
Globalization is an overarching international system shaping the domestic politics and foreign relations of virtually every country. There are three disciplines from which we study the effect of globalization on comparative politics. The first is economic globalization, where the ideology of neoliberalism has been the driving force in the global economy. The second is political globalization where international institutions work with member-states and each other to promote good global governance. The third is cultural globalization, where the flow of people and the flow of information through newer technologies has changed societies and our role in them.
Section #12.3: Pressure from Below: Fragmentation
Fragmentation is understood as the fracturing of established orders, be they political, economic, or cultural. Fragmentation can take place at several levels. First, individually where people lose faith in the world around them. Second, domestically, where existing political systems are fraying. Third, at the global level, where nationalism and geopolitics are becoming more prominent. Fragmentation can also be understood through three disciplines. Economic fragmentation can be seen through the marginalization of those who have not benefited from globalization. Political fragmentation is evident through the rise of populism, particularly national-populism, which has rocked democracies, such as the US, the UK and Brazil. Finally, a wave of protests have swept over the world, originally stemming from the Global Financial Crisis, and most recently with the COVID-19 pandemic. Brexit is a good example of social fragmentation and the consequences that come from it.
Section #12.4: Conclusion
Comparative politics offers a wide scope of research topics, including but not limited to: studies of democracy, authoritarianism, different economic systems, the origins and outcomes of political conflict, issues relating to political identity, economic inequalities, environmentalism and climate change, and so much more. The impact of globalization will continue to be a dominant theme as various social, political, and economic forces affect individuals within, between and across states. In the midst of many critical research questions and lacunae in the literature, the field of comparative politics offers researchers and scholars the opportunity to delve deeper into political phenomena in deliberate and systematic ways; processes that can be underappreciated in the face of other methods which rely upon Large-N studies alone.
Review Questions
1. Which two pressures do contemporary states face?
1. COVID-19 and Populism
2. Globalization and Fragmentation
3. Politics and Economics
4. Migration and Technology
2. What is Globalization?
1. The driving ideology in contemporary globalization. It promotes free-market capitalist principles worldwide
2. The formal cooperation between three or more states on a particular issue
3. Understood as the fracturing of established orders, be they political, economic, or cultural
4. An overarching international system shaping the domestic politics and foreign relations of virtually every country.
3. What is Fragmentation?
1. The collective efforts of the world’s countries to find lasting solutions to global problems through the constellation of international institutions.
2. It refers to people’s growing consciousness of global connectivity, where people think of themselves as global citizens first.
3. Earlier ways of acting and knowing that have been upended through globalization, causing uneasiness among people.
4. Understood as the fracturing of established orders, be they political, economic, or cultural.
4. What is Brexit? How does it represent societal fragmentation?
1. It is the term used to describe the UK’s decision to leave the European Union.
2. Brexit has led to serious economic and political consequences at home.
3. Both responses are correct.
4. Neither responses are correct.
5. Why are states still considered the most relevant unit of analysis?
1. The state remains the central actor in international politics, as seen in the recent COVID-19 pandemic.
2. The impact of globalization is best understood at the state level.
3. It is where the negative effects of fragmentation are fully realized.
4. All of these responses are correct.
Answers: 1.b, 2.d, 3.d, 4.c, 5.d
Critical Thinking Questions
1. How have the forces of globalization impacted the country you live in? Do you think this impact has been positive or negative? Which one of the three aspects of globalization - economic, political, and cultural - do you think has been the most relevant for your society?
2. Have the forces of fragmentation affected your country? If so, how? Has it been economic nationalism, economic marginalization, national-populism or something else? If not, why do you think that is the case?
3. Of the two pressures - globalization and fragmentation, which one do you think will have the greater effect in a post-pandemic world? Will we see a return to neoliberalism and global governance? Or will we see a further fragmentation of economies, polities and societies?
Suggestions for Further Study
Articles
• Birdsall, N. (2012). “Global Citizens and the Global Economy.” Center for Global Development.
• Guo, C. (2021). “Globalization and De-globalization.” In M. K. Sheikh & I. Svensson (Eds.), Religion, Conflict and Global Society: A Festschrift Celebrating Mark
• Juergensmeyer (pp. 175–182). Danish Institute for International Studies.
• Stepputat, F., & Larsen, J. (2015). “Global political ethnography: A methodological approach to studying global policy regimes.” Danish Institute for International Studies.
Books
• Stiglitz, Joseph. (2002) Globalization and its Discontents. W. W. Norton & Company
• Wolf, Martin. (2004) Why Globalization Works. Yale University Press; First Edition
• Baldwin, Richard. (2019) The Great Convergence. Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press; Reprint edition | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Comparative_Government_and_Politics_(Bozonelos_et_al.)/12%3A_Challenges_and_Questions_in_Comparative_Politics/12.06%3A_Student_Resources.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Understand that you are welcomed to become a part of this increasingly diverse disciplinary community
Welcome to political science: the scientific study of who gets what, when, where, how, and why. But political science is more than the study of political behaviors, processes, and institutions. Political science is a scholarly community of students, teachers, researchers, and practitioners who deeply care about promoting the generation, dissemination, and application of knowledge to improve our understanding of politics and solve public problems. And you are warmly welcomed to learn more about this increasing diverse and lively community that resides all over the planet.
Political science is a relatively new scholarly community, with the national American Political Science Association (APSA) having been established at the turn of last century in 1903. Over the last 116 years, the discipline has dramatically evolved. From early efforts to establish the discipline as a bulwark for inspiring a democratically minded public, to pioneering innovations in political institutions and processes, the community has maintained a constant effort to understand, and in ways shape, politics. And in its formative years, the discipline sought to differentiate itself from the fields of history and economics. As the first generation of political scientists were trained, the roots of political science as a “borrowing” discipline were established.
For the students of today, what does it mean for political science to be a “borrowing” (Dogan 1996) discipline? It means that while political science has core tenets, theories, and ways of analyzing the political world, it also does its best to utilize and leverage knowledge from a range of other fields: history, economics, psychology, sociology, statistics, anthropology, computer science, mathematics, cognitive science, and even biology. Additionally, these fields can borrow from political science as well. For example, there is an entire field of political economics that compares market-based systems with government-run systems. Therefore, students with a diversity of intellectual interests can explore them through the borrowing framework core to political science.
The evolution of political science is driven by teachers and researchers who hold a commitment to professing and studying politics. But it is important to highlight, that current teachers and researchers started as students, just like you, who were eager to learn more about their government, to understand different political systems, and to explore the world beyond their borders. With each new generation of political science students, educators, and researchers in colleges and universities, new voices begin to shape the discipline in expected and unexpected ways.
This book, Introduction to Political Science Research Methods (IPSRM), is an Open Education Resource (OER) written by community college faculty and financially supported by the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC). The purpose of this book is three-fold: introduce college students to research methods of political science; provide a no-cost textbook for adoption by faculty and use by students; and invite faculty and students to contribute to the improvement of the book with their own contribution.
Students are the future of any academic discipline and scholarly community. In many ways, how students of political science are educated now will shape the discipline for generations to come. Thus, a no-cost textbook that introduces students to the research methods in political science comes an important time in the discipline’s history. As advanced democracies are strained by right-wing populist movements promoting austerity (Erel 2018), a rise in inequality that manifests itself in students struggling with food and housing insecurity (Broton and GoldrickRab 2018), and a Big Data revolution upending industries and displacing workers (Frank, Roehrig, and Pring 2017; Peters 2017), there is a clear need for all political science students to have access to learning about the methods used by our discipline to create new knowledge in the field. It is important to empower current students and future researchers with the tools to creatively grapple with the trends and challenges facing societies and governments.
Faculty, both teachers and researchers, have the dual task: welcoming students to the discipline and imparting knowledge of political behaviors, processes, and institutions to create a publicly spirited and scholarly minded and civically engaged public. While most students in colleges and universities will only take one course in political science, largely to fulfill a social science or national government requirement, there will be a fraction who choose to continue their study of political science because something sparked their interest. This spark is, we hope, turns into a gleaming shine that motivates students to shape their political institutions and processes at the subnational, national, and global level. As faculty, our dual task is one we embrace. And what this textbook provides is an introduction to research methods, a growing part of the core of our discipline.
Lastly, as this is an Open Education Resource, you, whether student or teacher or researcher, are wholeheartedly welcomed and invited to contribute to its improvement. Whether you find a grammatical error, feel that a chapter section needs clarification, we overlook underrepresented communities or voices in the examples we use, or that we are missing an entire topic, you are welcomed to contribute. As a Creative Commons with Attribution and Non-Commercial (CCBY-NC) license, you can expand our this textbook and make it your own. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/01%3A_Introduction/1.01%3A_Welcome.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Remember that political science is a scholarly community of students, teachers, researchers, and practitioners
• Recognize that community members can be a part of different subfields
Political science is a discipline of students, teachers, researchers, and practitioners. But instead of thinking of political science as an academic discipline, we can think of it as a community, or better yet, a social network of individuals that associate it groups. The relationships within groups of students, teachers, researchers, and practitioners typically consumes our time and attention. For example, if you are a student, you may have disagreed with a classmate said during an in-class discussion. You may have wanted to respond, but the class ended, so you needed to wait for the next class to offer your perspective. Another example comes from a doctoral-level graduate student who is presenting their research for the first time at an academic conference. A graduate student is typically nervous about this experience because it is one of the first times they are interacting with faculty beyond their university. This example is slightly different because it demonstrates the interaction between groups.
The social network of political science is dynamic and the interactions between groups help shape the discipline in meaningful ways. For example, the American Political Science Association’s “Political Science Now” blog featured a blog post titled “APSA Announces the New Editorial Team for the American Political Science Review”. The American Political Science Review, also known as APSR, is a flagship journal for the discipline. This means that many political science researchers seek to submit and have their articles accepted for publication in the journal. What is notable about the new Editorial Team is that it’s all women: the first time in the Association’s 100+ year history for this to occur. To many, this represents a sea change in the discipline to not just ensure description representation, but also substantive representation. Now, this sea change is only possible because the political science community is increasingly diverse and interacting regularly.
In addition to the social network of political science, there is also sub-disciplinary networks of students, teachers, researchers, and practitioners that engage in the acquisition, creation, and dissemination of knowledge. At the core of this sub-disciplinary networks are the subfields of political science: American Government and Politics; Comparative Politics; International Relations; Political Theory; Political methodology; Public policy; and Political science education.
Each subfield is populated by students, teachers, researchers, and practitioners. For example, you may be a 2nd-year political science student at a community college. For your fall semester, you are enrolled in Introduction to International Relations and Introduction to Political Science Research Methods. This means you would be a student in two of the seven subfields for the term. And your professors are teachers within those subfields. You may discover that your professor of Introduction to Political Science Research Methods also conducts Political Science Education research, so that would also make them a researcher in another subfield. Individuals can be a part of different subfields in different roles, and you as a student, are beginning to discover the communities of individuals that make up these subfields. Consider another example: You decide to write a paper in your international relations class about the number of indigenous people who have served as UN representatives for countries around the world. To complete this paper, you will explore scholarship in international relations, comparative politics, and perhaps even U.S. government. Thus, as a budding political scientist, you traverse the sub-fields as well. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/01%3A_Introduction/1.02%3A_The_Social_Network_of_Political_Science.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Remember the organization of the book and chapters
• Understand that you feedback can help improve the experience for future students
This textbook, Introduction to Political Science Research Methods (IPSRM), is an Open Education Resource (OER) and consists of the following 10 chapters. A team of six political scientists at six different community colleges in California co-authored this Open Education Resource.
Each chapter is structured to include the following seven elements: Chapter Outline, Chapter Sections, Key Terms/Glossary, Summary of each Chapter Section, Review Questions, Critical Thinking Questions, and Suggestions for Further Study.
The Chapter Outline provides a list of the chapter’s sections. You can click on the name of the chapter section to move directly to that section. This outline is important because it quickly and concisely provides you an overview of the chapter and a clear sense of its contents.
The Chapter Sections can be considered the body of the chapter because they collectively include most of the substantive content. While each chapter author has endeavored to write Chapter Sections as stand-alone parts, there will naturally be a flow and integration of the chapters.
Key Terms/Glossary serves as a repository of definitions of key terms used throughout the chapter sections. The key terms are listed in alphabetical order. In some instances, key terms will be linked to external content, such as Dictionary.com or Wikipedia, for students and faculty to explore the term further. Additionally, key terms are linked within chapter sections, meaning you can click on the key term and be directed to Key Terms/Glossary section.
Summary of the chapter provides a one paragraph synopsis of each section of the chapter. The goal is to distill each chapter section into a bite-sized chunk that can be quickly referenced. Each synopsis highlights a major concept of the section and serves as a reference. These should not be viewed as replacements for reading a specific chapter section.
Review Questions include at least 5 questions that could serve as a pop quiz, clicker questions, student self-check, or as part of a question bank used for a summative assessment, such as a traditional midterm of final. In future iterations of the textbook, we plan on creating a Learning Management System Course Shell that would convert these questions in both a Question Bank and Quiz. Similarly, Critical Thinking Questions include at least 3 questions that can serve as a short or long essay prompt for an in-class or at-home assessment.
Finally, Suggestions for Further Study includes links to websites, journal articles, and books related to the chapter topic. The goal is to build a robust repository of resources that can be explored by students and faculty. While we take effort to list OER or other open access content, there will be resources that are currently not freely available. As the textbook expands, this section will grow as well.
It is recommended that the chapters are followed for most coherent use. We recognize, and encouraged, some faculty will want to assign specific chapters to complement an existing textbook adoption. We expect that after the textbook is adopted and utilized, feedback from faculty and students to help us refine the content of each chapter, and the ordering of the materials. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/01%3A_Introduction/1.03%3A_Organization_of_the_Book.txt |
Learning Goals
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Understand the process of analyzing journal articles
• Analyze a published peer-reviewed journal article
One way to understand research is by "standing on the shoulders of those who came before" -- by understanding and building upon the research questions, data, and analysis generated by others in the discipline. A good starting point is knowing where to read and explore peer-reviewed scholarship in the discipline Every discipline, whether political science, anthropology, criminal justice, nursing, economics, biology, engineering, and so on, is based on knowledge debated, disseminated, and created in journal articles.
Journal articles are peer-reviewed publications that help scholars communicate ideas, theories, empirical analyses, and conclusions. Journal articles are contained in journals that are typically owned by publishing companies. For example, the University of Cambridge, located in the United Kingdom, owns and operates Cambridge University Press. This press partners with the American Political Science Association (APSA) to publish the following journals: American Political Science Review, Perspectives on Politics, and PS: Political Science and Politics. Additionally, APSA also partners with Taylor and Francis to publish the Journal of Political Science Education (JPSE). The key difference between the 4 journals is that one, JPSE, is published by Taylor and Francis, while the other 3 journals are published by Cambridge University Press.
The ability to critically read journal articles is a skill that is developed with practice. This skill is especially useful when you are a university student. If you are contemplating attending graduate school to earn a Masters, professional, or Doctoral degree, then analyzing journal articles is an essential skill.
Peer-review is the process by which a scholar submits a manuscript to a journal editor. The editor decides whether to forward the manuscript to 2-4 other scholars for their review or not. When an editor decides not to forward a manuscript, this is called a “desk rejection”. These 2-3 reviewers will read the manuscript, comment on it, and suggest whether the manuscript should be accepted for publication, revised and resubmitted for consideration, or rejected. Manuscripts that are accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal are Journal Articles.
Journal Article Analysis consists of reading journal articles and analyzing them. You are responsible for identifying twelve parts of a journal article: title, main point, question, puzzle, debate, theory, hypotheses, research design, empirical analysis and methods, policy implications, and contribution to the discipline, and future research. Journal Articles vary in their organization and inclusion of these twelve parts. Increasingly, many articles explicitly describe all or most of these parts; however, other articles may not state a part, or may omit it entirely. There is a diversity of article authors, writing styles, and approaches to the discipline, this outline and subsequent elaboration is just one of a multiple of frameworks for analyzing political science research.
Journal Articles, especially in the field of political science, typically have twelve parts.
1. The Title of an article appears on the first page of the article. The Title is brief, typically no more than 5-10 words, and identifies for the reader the subject of the article.
2. The Main Point of an article is typically found in the Abstract. An Abstract is a summary of the article, which is located on the first page, after the Title. The main point may be in the Introduction of the article.
3. The Question of an article is typically found in the Abstract. The question may be in the Introduction of the article as well.
4. The Puzzle is a missing piece of knowledge that the article seeks to fulfill.
5. The Debate is how scholars currently argue the subject of the article. Debates have at least two sides, and the two sides we are most familiar with are “pro” and “con”. However, debates can be more complex.
6. The Theory is how the author thinks something works. For example, we may have a theory about how campaigns influence voters. Theories consists of constants, variables, and the relationships between variables.
7. The Hypotheses are derived from the Theory. A hypothesis is the expectation that one variable affects another variable in a specific way.
8. The Research Design is how the author compares the effect of the explanatory variable (X) on the outcome variable (O) in a group (G) or set of groups.
9. The Empirical Analysis is the use of quantitative or qualitative evidence to explore whether the hypothesized relationship between two variables does indeed occur in the world.
10. The Policy Implications are how the findings of the article should influence the behavior of individuals, groups, organizations, or governments.
11. The Contribution to the Discipline is how the article helps fill the missing Puzzle piece
12. Future Research offers suggestions for future research that build on the findings from the article.
With these twelve parts listed, let’s explore each of them in greater detail. The Title of an article appears on the first page of the article. The Title is brief, typically no more than 5-10 words, and identifies for the reader the subject of the article. Titles can be informative, as they may include the primary independent variable, primary dependent variable, or question of the article.
The Main Point of an article is typically found in the Abstract. An Abstract is a summary of the article, which is located on the first page, after the Title. The main point may be in the Introduction of the article. Main points, while presented at the beginning of an article, are largely derived after the political scientist has completed their research. So, keep in mind that political scientists don’t regularly start with main points, typically, but rather the main point is a result of their research process.
The Question of an article is typically found in the Abstract. The question may be in the Introduction of the article, as well. An article can have more than one question. So, do not be surprised if you find more than one question. Keeping a list of questions is a useful way to eventually identify the primary question of the article, while also recognizing related secondary questions.
The Puzzle is a missing piece of knowledge that the article seeks to fulfill. Puzzles are what political scientists try to solve. To solve a puzzle, a political scientist needs to have a sense of what the whole puzzle looks like. In other words, when you see the puzzle box and the image you are trying to recreate, that’s a sense of the whole puzzle. Second, a political scientist needs to know how the current pieces fit together. Imagine that the puzzle was partially complete, so we would closely examine how the pieces that make up the partial puzzle are put together. Lastly, a political scientist decides which pieces they want to add to the partially complete portion of the puzzle. In other words, they need to decide which pieces they want to pick up and then try to place them.
The Debate is how scholars currently argue the subject of the article. Debates have at least two sides, and the two sides we are most familiar with are “pro” and “con”. However, debates can be more complex. Debates in political science can be normative or positive debates. Normative debates focus on “what should be” while positive debates focus on “what is.” Normative debates are typical in the practice of politics. For example, in the U.S. House of Representatives, members will debate policy issues using a range of philosophical and logical arguments. On the other hand, most debates in political science are positive.
Positive debates can exist on a conceptual, operational, or measurement level. Conceptual debates are were political scientists argue about a broad concept, like democracy or representation or power. Operational debates focus on taking broad concepts, like democracy, and arguing how they are represented in the real world. For example, many scholars would agree that the United States is conceptually a democracy. However, some scholars would argue and operationalize the United States as a representative democracy. Finally, measurement debates focus on how an operationalized concept is measured. For example, how do we measure a representative democracy? Are individuals elected to serve in national legislatures through winner-take-all a representative democracy? Or are individuals elected to serve in national legislatures through proportional representation a representative democracy?
The Theory is how the author thinks something works. For example, we may have a theory about how campaigns influence voters. Theories consists of constants, variables, and the relationships between variables. Theory is used by political scientists to clearly explain their logic of the constants, variables, and relationships between variables. Constants are objects that do not change. A reason for stating constants is that the world is complex, therefore it is important to simplify it by “holding things constant.” In other words, stating constants lets us focus on the variables and their relationship.
Variables are objects that do change. Variables are typically classified into three categories: independent variable, mediating variable, and dependent variable. Independent variables are the objects that “cause” something to happen. Mediating variables are objects that “help cause” something to happen. And dependent variables are objects that are the “effect” of the “cause” and/or “helping cause.” For example, your interpretation of a political actor, such as the President, may be caused by an action the President took. But your view of the action is mediated by your partisan affiliation.
The Hypotheses are derived from the Theory. A hypothesis is the expectation that one variable effect another variable in a specific way. Above, I described a theory about how the action of a political actors effects your interpretation of the political actors, given your partisan affiliation. Now, we could generate several hypotheses from this theory. Hypothesis 1 is that if the President takes no action, then you will have no interpretation of the President. Hypothesis 2 is that if the President acts, then you will have a positive view of the President if you have the same partisan affiliation as the President. Hypothesis 3 is that if the President acts, then you will have a negative view of the President if you have a different partisan affiliation as the President.
The Research Design is how the author compares the effect of the explanatory variable (X) on the outcome variable (O) in a group (G) or set of groups. Some political scientists use notation to denote research design. Below are 4 common examples, and 2 complex examples:
• Example 1: G O. This is a single group, observation only.
• Example 2: G X O. This is a single group, treatment then observation.
• Example 3: G O X O. This is a single group, observation before treatment, the treatment, then observation after treatment
• Example 4: G X O and G _ O. This is a two-group design. Group 1 receives them treatment, then is observed. Group 2 does not receive the treatment, then observed.
• Example 5: G O X O and G O _ O. This a two-group design. Group 1 and Group 2 are observed, then Group 1 receives the treatment while Group 2 does not receive the treatment. Finally, both Groups are observed again.
• Example 6: G O X O _ O and G O _ O X O. This is a two-group design, known as a switching replications design. Group 1 and Group 2 are observed, then Group 1 receives the treatment, while Group 2 does not receive the treatment. Then both Groups are observed. Next, Group 1 does not re-receive the treatment, and Group 2 receives the treatment for the first time. Then both groups are observed again.
The Empirical Analysis is the use of quantitative or qualitative evidence to explore whether the hypothesized relationship between two variables does indeed occur in the world. Empirical analysis can feature quantitative, qualitative, or both types of evidence. Quantitative data is numerical and often, but not always, organized via tools such as spreadsheets. Political scientists using quantitative evidence conduct statistical analysis using statistical models to examine the data contained in their spreadsheet. Qualitative evidence is typically individual or collection of text, images, and audio in a paper or electronic document. Political scientists using qualitative evidence conduct content analysis or interpretation using theoretical or non-theoretical framework. Qualitative and quantitative evidence can be analyzed in the context of a theoretical framework but also to uncover descriptive trends. For example, quantitative evidence can be visualized into a scatter plot to help the researcher observe trends in the data. Likewise, qualitative evidence, such as Congressional Record Statements, can be organized into categories by researcher to see if there is a noticeable pattern.
The Policy Implications are how the findings of the article should influence the behavior of individuals, groups, organizations, or governments. Policy implications are typically stated by the political scientist towards the end of an article. What the researcher is doing is predicting how their article, and its findings, would influence the behavior of individuals, groups, organizations, or governments.
The Contribution to the Discipline is how the article helps fill the missing Puzzle piece. Contribution to the Discipline is a statement of how the political scientists’ research helps add a puzzle piece that was missing from our current world of knowledge.
Finally, Future Research is how the article offer suggestions for future research that build on the findings from the article. Future research are suggestions for what another political scientist can do to help build on this new knowledge that has been uncovered. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/01%3A_Introduction/1.04%3A_Analyzing_Journal_Articles.txt |
Learning Goals
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Remember the process of writing a research paper plan
• Create a research paper plan
A goal of an Introduction to Political Science Research Methods course is to prepare you to write a well-developed research paper that you could reasonably consider submitting to a journal for peer review. This may sound ambitious, since writing a publication-quality research paper is typically reserved for faculty who already hold a doctoral degree or advanced graduate students. However, the idea that a first or second-year student is not capable is a tradition in need of change. Students, especially those enrolled at community colleges, have a wealth of lived experiences and unique perspectives that, in many ways, are not permeating throughout the current ranks of graduate students and faculty.
Writing a research paper should be viewed like managing a project that consists of workflows. Workflows serve as a template for how you can take a large project (such as writing a Research Paper) and disaggregate it into specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely tasks. This is called “project management” because you are taking a “big” project, organizing it into “smaller” projects, sequencing the smaller projects, completing the smaller projects, and then bringing all the smaller projects together to demonstrate completion of the “big” project. In the real-world, this is a valuable ability and skill to have.
We have all project managed; we just never call it that. For example, have you had a plan a birthday party? Or maybe organize a family dinner? Or maybe write a research paper in high school? The party, dinner, and researcher paper are all examples of projects. And you managed these projects from beginning to end. The result of your efforts was a “great time” or “delicious dinner” or “excellent work”. In other words, don’t underestimate your ability to successfully manage a complex project.
The process of writing a political science research paper closely follows the process of analyzing a journal article. A research paper consists of an introduction, body, and conclusion. The introduction contains the title, the main point, question, and preview of the body. The body includes the puzzle, debate, theory, hypothesis, research design, and empirical analysis. Finally, the conclusion contains policy implications, contribution to the discipline, and future research.
\(1\): Visualization of research paper parts
A crucial difference between analyzing a journal article and writing a research paper is a literature review. When analyzing a journal article, you don’t search for a literature review. Rather, you look for the outputs of a literature review process: puzzle, debate, and theory. A literature review is your reading and analysis of anywhere from 10 to 100 journal articles and books related to your research paper topic. This sounds like a lot, and it is. But don’t be exasperated by the number of articles or books you must read, simply recognize that you need to absorb existing knowledge to contribute new knowledge.
A literature review can serve as an obstacle for the first-time writer of a political science research paper. The reason that such an obstacle is just the sheer amount of reading that one needs to engage in in order to understand a topic. Now, we may have difficulty in reading because we have a learning disability or deficit disorder. Or, reading can be challenging because we don’t have access to the articles and books that help make up our understanding of a topic. The key is not to get caught up in what we cannot do what we have trouble doing, but rather to focus on what we can accomplish.
How can we conduct a literature review? First, we want to select a topic that we are interested in. Now there’s a range of things in the world that we can explore. And because the world is complicated, there is a lot that we can explore. But some straightforward advice is to research something you care about. What is something from your personal experiences, or what you observed in your family and community, or what you think society is grappling with, that you care about? The answer to this question is what you should research.
After we selected a topic, we should search for more information by visiting our library, talking with a librarian, meeting with our professor, and visiting reputable information sources online.
The campus library serves as a repository of information and knowledge. Librarians are trained professionals who understand the science of information: what it is, how it’s organized, and how we give it meaning. So, you can meet with the librarian and ask for their help to navigate in person and online resources related to your topic. What a librarian may ask you, in addition to your topic, is what your research question?
You may be asking what’s the difference between a question and a research question? Frankly, one question has the adjective “research” in front of it. A question generally with the word: who, what, when, where, why, and how. On the other hand, a research question typically starts with why. A why question suggest that there are two things, also known as variables, that interact in a way that is perplexing and intriguing to you. For example, why do some politicians tweet profusely, and other politicians don’t even have a Twitter account? A secondary question is: what causes a politician to utilize social media? Now the answers to these questions require some research that something that you can do.
With your topic and research question in hand, you will be directed to books, journal articles, and current event publications to learn more about your topic. Sifting through the mountains of information that exist today is a skill. Honing this skill is a lifelong process because the information environment is constantly changing. For your purposes in writing a research paper, you should consult with your professor about what are reputable books, journals, and new sources. In political science, university presses, the journals of national and regional associations, and major news outlets all serve as reputable sources.
A go-to source for finding academic articles and books on a topic is Google Scholar. Unlike Google search engine, which provides results from all over the World Wide Web, Google Scholar is a search engine that limits results to academic articles and books. By narrowing the results that are provided, Google scholar helps you cut through the noise that exist on the Internet. For example, in my web browser I type in https://scholar.google.com/. In the search box, I type “politics and twitter” and below the following results appear:
\(2\): Output of Google Scholar search of “politics and twitter”
In this example, we see that there are over 1.2 million results. How do you decide on the 10, 20, or 100 articles and books to read? One way to shorten your reading list is to see how many times something has been cited. In the example above, we see that the article titled “What the hashtag?” has been cited 460 times. If an article or book is cited in the hundreds, or thousands, of times, then you should at its your reading list because it means that a lot of people are focused on the topic, or the findings, or the argument that that object represents.
Writing a political science research paper is a generally nonlinear process. This means that you can go from conducting a Literature Review, and jump to Policy Implications, and then update your Empirical Analysis to account for some new information you read. Thus, the suggestion below is not meant to be “the” process, but rather one of many creative processes that adapt to your way of thinking, working, and being successful. However, while recognizing your creativity, it is important to give order to the process. When you are taking a 10-week or 16- week long course, you need to take a big project and break it up into smaller projects. Below is an example of how you segment a research paper into its constituent parts over an 8-week period.
\(3\): Proposed 8-week timeline for preparing your research paper | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/01%3A_Introduction/1.05%3A_Research_Paper_Project_Management.txt |
• Journal article: a peer-reviewed research paper that was typically written by researchers who hold advanced degrees
• Journal: a collection of peer-review journal articles that is produced by a publishing company
• Literature review: a process of collecting, reading, and synthesizing journal articles, books, and other scholarly materials related to your research topic
• Peer-review: a process by which a research paper is evaluated by a journal editor and researchers in the field who issue a judgment about whether the paper should be accepted for publication, rejected for publication, or revised and resubmitted for consideration.
1.07: Summary
Summary of Section 1.1: Welcome
This section welcomes you, the student, to the discipline of political science. The American Political Science Association (APSA) is introduced. The purpose of this textbook is discussed. This textbook is an Open Education Resource (OER) and licensed CC-BY-NC. This license allows the content to be reused, remixed, and adapted, if attribution is provided, and it is for noncommercial purposes.
Summary of Section 1.2: The Social Network of Political Science
The social network of political science consists of students, teachers, researchers, and practitioners. Individuals interest within and between these groups to help create the political science community. Additionally, the seven subfields of political science are declared: American Government and Politics; Comparative Politics; International Relations; Political Theory; Political Methodology; Public Policy; and Political Science Education. Summary of Section
1.3: Organization of this Book:
This section outlines the chapters of the book and their authors. Additionally, the structure of each chapter is outlined and described. We invite faculty and students to provide feedback to help us improve future editions of the book.
Summary of Section 1.4: Analyzing Journal Articles
Analyzing journal articles is a core skill that every political science student needs to master. Our goal is to introduce this process in the 1st or 2nd year of a student’s collegiate experience, to better prepare them for upper-division courses and later graduate level coursework. One model for analyzing journal articles is described in brief and detail.
Summary of Section 1.5: Research Paper Project Management
Research paper project management helps you take a large project (writing a research paper) and segmenting into smaller, more manageable tasks. This section describes a key process to writing a research paper: conducting a Literature Review. A literature review consists of reading 10-100 journal articles and books to help you get a clearer sense of your topic so you can answer your research question.
1.08: Review Questions
1. What does APSA stand for?
a. American Political Science Association
b. American Politics Studying Association
c. American Politics and Science Association
2. Which of the following is NOT a subfield of political science?
a. American government
b. Comparative Politics
c. International Relations
d. Political Theory
e. Logic
3. Which of the following is NOT one of the twelve parts of analyzing a journal article?
a. Theory
b. Hypotheses
c. Research Design
d. Empirical Analysis
e. Narrative
4. A journal article is not peer-reviewed. True or false?
a. True
b. False
5. Which of the following best defines a literature review?
a. a process of collecting, reading, and synthesizing journal articles, books, and other scholarly materials related to your research topic
b. A process of quoting journal articles, but not books
c. A process of citing books, but not journal articles
d. a process of collecting, reading, and synthesizing journal articles, books, and other scholarly materials
1.09: Suggestions for Further Study
Books
• Fink, Arlene G. 2019. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper. Fifth edition. SAGE Publications, Inc.
• Machi, Lawrence A., and Brenda T. McEvoy. 2012. The Literature Review: Six Steps to Success. Second edition. Corwin.
• Ridley, Diana. 2012. The Literature Review: A Step-By-Step Guide For Students (Sage Study Skills Series). Second edition. SAGE Publications Ltd. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/01%3A_Introduction/1.06%3A_Key_Terms_Glossary.txt |
• 2.1: Brief History of Empirical Study of Politics
Empiricism is research that seeks patterns and explanations for general phenomena and specific cases. Empirical political science has its roots in the study of institutions. However, it took off methodologically with the behavioral wave in the 1950s. This was a shift to the study of human behavior, such as voting patterns.
• 2.2: The Institutional Wave
The traditional wave of methodology in political science is institutionalism, or the study of institutions in a society. Institutions often reflect the bargains made between actors in each society that determine how the rules of society should look like, which is why they are difficult to reform, replace, or dismantle. Institutionalism ebbed during the heyday of the behavioral revolution. However, the desire to bring institutions back has led to the development of neoinstitutionalism.
• 2.3: The Behavioral Wave
Behavioralism is the study of political behavior and emphasizes the use of surveys and statistics. Charles Merriam at the University of Chicago had an outsized influence on behavioralism. The “Chicago School” has strongly influenced political science, through its emphasis on quantitative methodology, often at the expense of normative questions. Many incoming scholars are expected to understand statistical techniques for use in their research.
• 2.4: Currents- Qualitative versus Quantitative
There are two major currents in political science: the qualitative methodological and quantitative methodological currents. Methods are simply the steps taken by social scientists during their research. They are the techniques used to collect, construct, and consider data. Qualitative methods solve puzzles in political science without using some type of mathematical analysis. Whereas, quantitative methods prefer the use of mathematical analysis or measurement.
• 2.5: Currents- Politics- Normative and Positive Views
The normative view of political science explores what should be, while the positive view explains what is. These views are important to recognize, since both have their supporters and detractors. As a student of political science, it is useful to be able to identify both views. And it is up to you when, how, and why you use one view, or another, or even both, to explore, explain and analyze political actors, behaviors, institutions, and processes.
• 2.6: Emerging Wave- Experimental Political Science
Experimental political science is growing in the discipline. It centers on the researcher using random assignment in laboratory settings or quasi-random assignment in other settings, to explore precise cause-and-effect relationships between a treatment and outcome of interest.
• 2.7: Emerging Wave- Big Data and Machine Learning
The emerging waves of Big Data and machine learning are just beginning to influence political science. Big Data is the growing mountain of data being generated by political actors and institutions. And machine learning is the increasingly sophisticated way of sifting, sorting, and identifying patterns in these mountains of data.
• 2.8: Key Terms/Glossary
• 2.9: Summary
• 2.10: Review Questions
• 2.11: Critical Thinking Questions
• 2.12: Suggestions for Further Study
02: History and Development of the Emperical Study of Politics
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Remember a brief history of the empirical study of politics
• Understand how each iteration of the study of politics influenced the following iteration
What is empirical study? Empirical study is research that seeks patterns and explanations for general phenomena and specific cases (Powner 2014). For political science this means attempts to explain various political phenomena, which could include understanding the behavior of voters, or the foreign policy of a country. In the discipline of political science, we often say that the empirical study of politics traces its roots to what is called the behavioral revolution of the post-World War II era (more on that in Section 2.3).
It is not that empirical analysis did not occur at all before WWII, but that most of this inquiry often centered on the study of institutions, often accompanied with praise, or with criticism for these institutions. The institutions that were studied were of great importance: parliamentary democracy (Mill 1910), military formation and strategy (von Clausewitz 1956), or of the political-economic systems within countries (Smith 1937; Marx and Engels 1967). Their writings and thoughts on how these institutions structure political, economic, and social interaction, are still with us today and influence our understandings in both normative and positivist political science (North 1991).
However, the major shift to studying the behavior of individuals themselves, and a commensurate increase in the methods, has indelibly changed the field. Foremost, scholars could become more “objective”, or less normative, in their study of human behavior. The goal was no longer to provide evidence with moral arguments. Instead, this new political science would, as Shively (2017) stated, be “concerned with ascertaining the facts needed to solve political problems.” Through the introduction of formal theory, political scientists use facts as their empirical foundation, or assumptions, and develop social theories that are generalizable to other areas of study.
This new approach inevitably led to the importation of research methods from other disciplines, such as economics and psychology. This set off an explosion of research into methodology and their application to political questions, such as voting behavior and party formation. Discussions on tradeoffs, alliances, and rationality were brought over from economics. In contrast, discourse on media cues, opinion formation, the effect of societal prejudices, such as racial attitudes, were brought in from sociology and psychology. Institutions were no longer the focus. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/02%3A_History_and_Development_of_the_Emperical_Study_of_Politics/2.01%3A_Brief_History_of_Empirical_Study_of_Politics.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Understand the importance of institutions in political science
• Compare old institutionalism to neoinstitutionalism
Why do you need to know about this?
Given the discussion above there have been two major waves in political science methodology. The traditional methodological wave of research is that of institutionalism. Institutionalism involves the study of institutions within a society. Indeed, Peters (2019) explains that political science emerged from the study of history due to its almost exclusive focus on institutions. There was a desire by philosophers to understand the governing mechanisms of society and private life.
Thus, political science became the study of how the government works, the study of laws and the process of lawmaking. It also included normative discussions on how these institutions should be structured and what best practices should be incorporated within the machinery of government.
North (1991) defines institutions as, “the humanly devised constraints that structure political, economic, and social interaction”. In other words, institutions often reflect the bargains made between actors in each society that determine how the rules of society should look like. A good example is the Electoral College, an institution that most students grapple with understanding. To best understand the Electoral College, one must accept that it was a compromise at the Constitutional Convention. The smaller states, such as New Jersey, proposed that the President be selected by the state legislators. They feared that a direct popular vote, which was favored by New York & Virginia, would always be dominated by larger, more populous states. The Framers of the Constitution compromised and came up with an institution that tried to solve this impasse - Electors. The Electors would be chosen by the state legislatures, giving the smaller states what they wanted. Whereas the total number of electors each state would be given would in large part be dependent on the state’s population, thereby giving the larger states more Electors, and thus satisfying their desire more influence.
At first, Electors were able to vote their conscience. Today, Electors must vote for the candidate that their state citizens have voted for. In the end, what has developed is an institution where citizens vote directly at the state level for a presidential candidate in November. Then in December, the Electors gather in Washington, D.C. to tell each other how each of their states voted. In today’s wired world, where election results are reported in near time, the process of having an Electoral College (college means in Latin - a collection of individuals, or to gather) is rather archaic. However, institutions are built to last as they represent the compromises made in a society, compromises that sometimes are hard fought. In sum, institutions are about perseverance. Rhodes et al (2008) referred to institutions as “dried cement” where “cement can be uprooted when it has dried, but the effort to do so is substantial”.
The Electoral College is a good example of why political scientists study institutions. Institutions live on, sometimes even past their expiration date. In other words, once institutions are developed, deviation is uncommon and thus the actions and decisions made by institutional leaders can be predictable. In addition, David (1994) discusses that institutions do not just spontaneously appear. They are often the codification of preexisting socially established “convention”, or the use of social norms for negotiations within a society. Thus, the high costs associated with the formalization of social norms can help explain why institutions are longlasting.
Yet even though the importance of institutions is evident, the institutional wave in the political science has ebbed and flowed over the discipline. As mentioned, institutionalism had its heyday before the behavioral wave crashed onto the shores of the discipline in the 1950s. Peters (2019) refers to this as “old” institutionalism, which is often considered atheoretical. By this we mean that traditional institutionalism was not as interested in developing theories. Theories in political science are defined as “some general, internally consistent statements that could explain phenomena in a variety of settings” (Guy Peters 2019). A benefit of the behavioral revolution was the shift in thinking towards theory development. The study of micro-level political behavior allowed for such inferential statements to be made regarding individual behavior.
The behavioral wave almost washed out institutionalism in political science. However, the tendency in behavioralism to reduce all collective behavior to individual behavior left many researchers unfulfilled. Clearly, institutions must influence people’s behavior. Not every action could be scaled down to individual desires or wants. If society remains organized, there will be rules, norms and expectations of behavior. These structures exist in every society and will prevent individuals from pursuing any activity that they want. We can say that their behavior has been bounded, or that their decision-making process has been conditioned. The desire to bring institutions back into the discussion on politics has been referred to as neoinstitutionalism.
Neoinstitutionalism has its roots in the 1980s and as a wave in political science has been gaining force. The desire to explain the role of a country’s formal and informal institutions, such as the military, voting regulations, criminal legal codes has inevitably led scholars to study the state. Now, when students think of state, they think of the state of California, or the state of Nevada. And if you do, you would be partially right. In political science, when we say state we mean the centralized authority in a given area, also referred to as sovereignty (O’Neil 2017). The more common word we use today to describe this centralized authority is country.
Yet even if you look at the name of the country this book is published in - the United States of America (USA) - you will notice the word state. Each state, such as Texas, is effectively a centralized authority in each area, with its own police forces, laws, and social programs. Thus, the USA is really a union of independent countries that have come together to form a larger political union. And indeed, much of the discussion at the Constitutional Convention was how much power each state would retain vis-a-vis the newly created federal government. Then, neoinstitutionalism is about ‘bringing the state back in” when discussing politics and political behavior. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/02%3A_History_and_Development_of_the_Emperical_Study_of_Politics/2.02%3A_The_Institutional_Wave.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Recall what behavioralism is
• Explain the impacts behavioralism has on current students and scholars
The second wave in political science, which started in earnest after World War II, is the behavioral wave. Behavioral political science, or behavioralism, is the study of political behavior and emphasizes the use of surveys and statistics. As opposed to the institutional wave, which focused on the nature, structure, processes, and outcomes of institutions, the behavioral wave is centered on individuals, groups, and the general public and demanded the use of the scientific method.
The godfather of behavioral political science was Charles Merriam, a professor at the University of Chicago from 1900 to 1940 (“Guide to the Charles E. Merriam Papers 1893-1957” n.d.; Dahl 1961). During his four-decade career, Professor Merriam established a political science program which trained a generation of behavioral political scientists, such as V.O. Key and Gabriel Almond. In doing so, these graduate students left the University of Chicago for positions at colleges and universities around the country, thereby helping spread this new wave in political science known as the “Chicago School”.
Heaney and Hanesen (2006, 595), in describing the Chicago School, write: “The building of the Chicago School reveals that the evolution of political science is about more than the advent of ideas. It is also about how ideas are taken up by scholars on a faculty, taught to students in a curriculum, and supported in their development by an infrastructure for inquiry. The efforts of Charles Merriam gave a vision of a new science of politics a material life at the University of Chicago.” With this in mind, it’s helpful to acknowledge that we, as students of the discipline and budding political scientists, have a role to play when it comes to shaping the norms, conventions, and trends in the field. In this case, Professor Merriam had a vision for what political science ought to be.
How does the Chicago School affect students, like you, today? There are at least three ways that the Chicago School influences the study of political science today. First, when you’re reading journal articles or books, you’ll typically find the inclusion of data and statistical analyses. Data and statistical analyses represent, in some fashion, the idea of rigorous science. Before the behavioral wave, most research of politics focused on first-hand accounts, written constitutions and laws, and the nature of government and its relationship to the people. However, after the behavioral wave, researcher politics began to explore political actors and phenomenon in more detailed ways.
For example, institutional political scientists would have been interested in how government should operate. Behavioral political scientists would have been interested in how the government is operating. Now there’s a slight distinction that I want to bring to your attention between these two sentences. It’s the use of the word “should” versus the word “is”. When you ask what “should be”, as explained in a later section, you bring in your assumptions, your values, and your prescriptions for the way government should work. But, when you ask, “what is”, you’re still making assumptions, but you are expected to leave your values and your prescriptions out of your analysis. This is one way the Chicago school influences us today because it pushes us to leave our personal biases at the door.
The second way the Chicago School influences political science today is that students at the undergraduate and graduate level are expected to have some quantitative analysis training. For example, for those who are declared political science majors, you’re aware that there is likely a statistics requirement to earn your degree. You may be asking “why do I have to take statistics in order to get a degree in political science?” Well, in some ways, you can thank the Chicago School for this because they drove the use of statistics and political analysis and they argued that it was an essential component of how to do the science of politics. Another way of putting this is, if you were a student of politics at the turn of the 20th century, you would have studied the classics like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, reading constitutions and laws and congressional testimonies and reports, and elaborating on how democracy should work. But, at the turn of the 21st century, statistics and mathematical models are standard tools that all students are expected to be acquainted with.
Finally, the third way the Chicago School shapes political science today is that there is an underlying concern that political science cannot simply be and end unto itself. Political science should inform the behaviors of individuals, groups, elected and appointed officials, and governments and countries here at home and around the world. In other words, the Chicago School didn’t overtake the discipline to the point where we no longer value questions of what should be. While this may have never been the intention of Charles Merriam and his students, the effect for some time was to push away from the normative view of what should be. But with any good change in the discipline, there will always be pushback from those who feel that there is a single way to conduct the work within the discipline. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/02%3A_History_and_Development_of_the_Emperical_Study_of_Politics/2.03%3A_The_Behavioral_Wave.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Understand the difference between qualitative and quantitative methods
• Recount the discourse surrounding the two methodological currents
• Review mixed-methods research
Along with the two major waves of institutionalism and behavioralism, there are two major currents in political science: the qualitative methodological current and the quantitative methodological current. Just like their ocean counterparts, these methodological currents help determine how political scientists attempt to understand the world. And just like ocean currents help to regulate and stabilize global climate patterns, quantitative and qualitative methods help regulate and stabilize the scientific inquiry. Methods are simply the steps taken by social scientists during their research. They are the techniques used to collect, construct, and consider data. By using replicable methods, or research steps that can be duplicated by other scholars, this allows political scientists to use the scientific method in their inquiries (this is discussed more in Chapter Three: The Scientific Method)
Qualitative methods are defined by Flick (2018) as “research interested in analyzing the subjective meaning or the social production of issues, events, or practices by collecting nonstandardized data and analyzing texts and images rather than numbers and statistics”. What this means is that researchers try to solve puzzles in political science without using some type of mathematical analysis or using a simple mathematical measurement, such as coding of text and/or images. Quantitative methods are defined by Flick (2018) as “research interested in frequencies and distributions of issues, events, or practices by collecting standardized data and using numbers and statistics for analyzing them”. What this means is that political scientists solve puzzles using mathematical analysis or mathematical measurement.
Shively (2017) more elegantly states that quantitative research is attentive to, “numerical measures of things...to make mathematical statements about them. Whereas qualitative research is “less concerned with measuring things numerically and tends to make verbal statements about them.” Baglione (2018) more simply states that it comes down to the use of numbers versus the use of words as the evidence used to draw conclusions. The obvious differences between the two currents has led to a potential divide in the field of political science - those who use qualitative methods, specialize in them, and prefer these approaches, such as ethnological research, case study (or small-n), or archival work (Chapter Seven); and those who use quantitative methods and develop and implement mathematical and statistical techniques, such as analyzes of datasets and formal modeling (Chapter Eight).
As expected, the behavioral revolution created a wedge among political scientists. Qualitative research scholars often scoffed at the opaqueness of mathematical techniques made ever more complex by quantitative methodologists. They also bemoaned the lack of applicability of some of these developments, often calling the papers, “math for math’s sake”. In response quantitative scholars viewed traditional qualitative techniques, such as archival work as antiquated, or newer techniques, such as interpretivism, as non-inferential, and thus of less use.
The clash of currents between qualitative and quantitative methodology reached its peak in the 1990s, when the book Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research (DSI) came out in 1994. Written by Gary King, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba (1994), DSI suggests that qualitative research would improve if they adopted some of the tools used by quantitative scholars. These tools include better defining the research problem, identifying which theories to draw hypotheses from, case selection, testing and retesting to further clarify the theory. As expected quite a few qualitative scholars did not appreciate what they viewed as a talking down to by notable scholars in the discipline. Though this was not the intent of DSI, as its goal was to shrink the divide between the two currents. Nevertheless, this was not how it was received.
The major countercurrent to DSI was the book edited by Henry E. Brady and David Collier (2004), Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards (RSI). In RSI, Brady and Collier appreciate the effort by King, Keohane, and Verba (1994) to bridge the divide between the two methodological currents. However, they are concerned that DSI overemphasizes the importance of quantitative tools when designing qualitative research agendas. Charles Ragin (2004), one of the contributors to the volume, contends that the key goal of qualitative research - inference, is not much different from the goal of qualitative research - making sense of cases.
Both sets of scholars have the same objective, albeit with different means of getting there. Additionally, contributing authors, such as Gerardo Munck (2004), detailed qualitative tools for each step of the research process, focusing on case selection, measurement and data collections and assessing causation.
A more critical countercurrent to DSI was the Perestroika movement in political science, where qualitative scholars critiqued the dominance of quantitative methodology in the discipline, including the elected leadership of the American Political Science Association (APSA). Calling themselves an intellectual rebellion, the authors in their book Perestroika, push for a pluralistic future of political science, where all methods are respected and treated fairly. Shapiro (2005) comments that political science has become too method-driven, and instead should be more problem-driven. And that if method selection drives the analysis, then it leads to what he calls the “self-serving construction of problems”. Finally, the study of normative politics, and the importance of narratives and discourse to contextualize the study of politics has substantive value. Sacrificing substance at the altar of mathematics and statistics, Sanders (2005) argues is shortsighted.
Has the clash of currents subsided? Not really. Qualitative scholars contend that the flagship journal American Political Science Review (APSR) is still “hostile to qualitative concerns in the discipline” (McGovern 2010). However, a newer current within the discipline has developed to respond to the concerns of these scholars: the Qualitative and Multi-Method Research section of APSA. The goals of this research section are to further discussion within quantitative methodology and investigate how the various branches of methodology interact. Also referring to the latter goal as mixed-methods research, Creswell and Clark (2017) describe it as research involving both quantitative and qualitative data.
Quantitative data consists of closed-ended information. This can include interval or ratio scale data (more on this in Chapter Eight), often asked in surveys. Whereas qualitative data includes open-ended information that is often gathered through interviews or observation. Mixed-methods research is simply the mixture of close-ended and open-ended techniques to triangulate the right conclusions. Are mixed methods the future methodological current of political science? It is premature to suggest that this is the case. Graduate students are still likely to specialize in a methodological current. However, what is sure is that the current of quantitative methodological supremacy has receded enough to allow other currents to reach the shore. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/02%3A_History_and_Development_of_the_Emperical_Study_of_Politics/2.04%3A_Currents-_Qualitative_versus_Quantitative.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Remember the difference between normative view and positive view of politics
• Understand politics from both views
The history and development of the empirical study of politics can be rooted in the debate between “what should be” versus “what is”. When individuals, including political scientists, ask “what should be?” they are asking a normative question. On the other hand, when individuals ask, “what is?” they are asking a positive question.
For example, a national government expends resources. These resources can be expended domestically or internationally. Domestic spending includes constructing infrastructure, like roads and bridges, and paying for public employees to work, like engineers and construction workers who design and build infrastructure. International spending includes foreign aid to governmental or non-governmental entities. When individuals, including political scientists, ask “what should be?” they are asking a normative question. On the other hand, when individuals ask, “what is?” they are asking a positive question. For example, who is paying membership dues to an international organization, providing aid to foreign governments, or supporting non-profit organizations working in foreign countries?
Now, let’s assume a national government spends 100% of its resources domestically. From a positive view, “what is” is that the government is spending all its resources domestically and none of its resources overseas. A positive view could expand by staying how much is spent on infrastructure versus salaries, say 75% for infrastructure and 25% for salaries. However, a positive view would not argue that 100% should not be spent on domestic priorities, or that the split in allocating between infrastructure versus salaries should be different.
On the other hand, a normative view, “what should be”, would argue that less than 100% should be spent on domestic priorities, while a percentage greater than 0% should be spent on foreign priorities. Now, let’s assume that the government changes its expenditures so that its 90% domestic and 10% foreign. With 10% allocated to overseas efforts, a normative view would argue that some portion of the 10% should go towards membership dues while the remainder should go to providing aid to foreign governments.
Why differentiate between positive and normative perspectives? When reading a journal article, book, or news article, we generally expect there to be a focus on what is and not on what should be. On the other hand, when we read a newspaper editorial or watch a television program, we would expect to see and hear opinions and speculations. Our ability to discern between fact and opinion is essential to engaging in political science. Politics, by its nature, is strewn with opinions from individuals, organizations, and leaders. However, an opinion shouldn’t stand for fact and should not replace an objective reality. Therefore, the ability to acknowledge, identify, and categorize information helps us build our understanding of the world around us.
2.06: Emerging Wave- Experimental Political Science
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Comprehend the role of experiments in political science
• Understand the reluctance of political scientists to embrace experimentation
An emerging wave of methodology in the discipline is that of experimental political science. The value of this method has increased in the past few decades as true experimentation can establish causality, or to definitively say that variable X causes variable Y. This is also referred to a causal relationship, or a causal mechanism. In other methods of political science, such as a quantitative analysis of data sets, research generally leads only to correlational relationships, which are much weaker than causal relationships. In correlational relationships, one can only show that there is a relationship between two or more variables. And just because a relationship exists between variables does not mean that additional relationships exist between the variables that could provide alternative explanations. Hatcher (2013) accepts that there may be an “observed correlation that differs from the research hypothesis”.
Out of the desire to provide stronger evidence for cause and effect, political scientists have begun using experimental methods. Experiments are understood by McDermott (2002) to “refer primarily to laboratory studies in which investigators retain control over the recruitment, assignment to random conditions, treatment, and measurement of subjects”. McDermott points out that experiments diminish the effect of bias as it focuses on standardization in the research process. Thus, by having exact procedures, measures, and analyses, researchers can manipulate a variable of interest, repeat the experiment among many subjects, providing for strong internal validity. The standardization of the techniques allows for the replication of the experiment by other scholars, and thus provides for a measure of external validity (more on this below). This then allowed the researchers to draw causal inferences.
Experimental political science has become popular in political psychology and in understanding voter behavior. It has not yet caught on in the overall discipline. Even though experimentalism is part of the behavioral wave, there is a concern regarding the overall external validity and the ability to generalize beyond the studied population. While manipulation of a variable may show a statistical effect in an experiment with students, will it have the same effect with the larger population? McDermott (2002) posits that political scientists are being too critical and failing to understand that experimentalists do not make larger claims about human behavior from limited study. They understand that external validity is made over time, with quite a bit of replication. In addition, experiments are intended to test theories and build hypotheses, not generate broader conclusions.
Additionally, a peer-review journal, the Journal of Experimental Political Science (JEPS), was founded in 2014 to help foster additional interest and research using experimental and quasiexperimental methods. The editors of JEPS explain (Mann et. al) that they define “experimental methods broadly: research featuring random or quasi-random assignment of subjects to different treatments in an effort to isolate causal relationships in the sphere of politics. JEPS embraces all of the different types of experiments carried out as part of political science research, including survey experiments, laboratory experiments, field experiments, lab experiments in the field, natural and neurological experiments.” | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/02%3A_History_and_Development_of_the_Emperical_Study_of_Politics/2.05%3A_Currents-_Politics-_Normative_and_Positive_Views.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Define big data and machine learning
• Explaining how big data and machine learning are being used in political science
Political science is a dynamic discipline because it is willing to borrow from other disciplines to improve its study of political actors, institutions, and processes. There are a couple of emerging waves that are changing the nature of scientific inquiry and of political science. Two waves that we want to highlight here are big data and machine learning.
The human mind is not capable of sifting, sorting, and analyzing these growing datasets, but computers are. It is useful to note that up until the late 1980s and early 1990s, researchers had to calculate descriptive statistics and linear regressions by hand and with calculators. But over the last 20 years, technology has become widely available and access to software has increased. With both the hardware and software in the hands of more political scientists, we increase the range of exploration and knowledge generation that comes with analyzing political phenomena.
Big data is defined as the mountain of information, in the form of petabytes and exabytes, that is being stored on computers and servers around the world. As computers proliferate, and our use of them for personal, organizational, corporate, and governmental use grows exponentially, the amount of information we are generating as a human society is exploding by leaps and bounds every single day. And there are concerns about what this means for society (Brady 2019). With growing mountains of data, some questions arise: How can we study it? How can we uncover patterns in the data? How can we derive new meanings and understandings from these data?
Big Data is “big” because the amount of space it takes on a computer hard drive, but the techniques to analyze “Big Data” are available in computer programs political scientists have used for years to statistically analyze large data sets. SPSS, Stata, R, and Python are all staples of statistical data analysis software in the discipline.
But, within the last decade, two major changes are revolutionizing the study of everything, from politics and economics to biology and chemistry. First, we have seen significant advances in computer hardware technology. Specifically, the advances in graphic processing units also known as GPUs have fundamentally changed our ability to analyze mountains of data. The short of the long is that computer processing units or CPUs have shrunk in size but have grown in computational power. Why do you think you can hold a computer in the palm of your hand? GPUs, working independently and in conjunction with CPUs, have tremendous computational power.
Second, computer scientists have been developing new programming languages, mechanisms for programming collaboration, and pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence. This is where our second wave of machine learning starts to emerge. As computer science has pushed the boundaries of software, given the advancements in CPUs and GPUs, it is pushing the boundaries of what software can do with respect to inputting, analyzing, and learning from data in the world around us. Machine learning is the ability of a computer program to start with an initial model data, analyze actual data, learn from this analysis, and automatically update that initial model to incorporate the findings from its analysis. Now, this doesn’t just happen once in the computer software is done, this cycle can happen iteratively thereby allowing the software to uncover categories, patterns, and meanings.
What does this all mean for political science? Honestly, we don’t have an answer to that question. What we do know is that the next generation of political scientists will be leading efforts to utilize big data and machine learning to explain political behaviors, institutions, and processes. It’s an exciting time to be entering the field and the experiences you have, the questions that intrigue you, and the research will conduct will help build our knowledge of politics. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/02%3A_History_and_Development_of_the_Emperical_Study_of_Politics/2.07%3A_Emerging_Wave-_Big_Data_and_Machine_Learning.txt |
• Behavioralism: is the study of political behavior and emphasizes the use of surveys and statistics
• Big data: the mountain of information, in the form of petabytes and exabytes, that is being stored on computers and servers around the world
• Chicago School: started by Dr. Charles Merriam, a professor at the University of Chicago from 1900 to 1940, that focused on the study of political behavior using surveys and statistics
• Empiricism: is research that seeks patterns and explanations for general phenomena and specific cases
• Experiments: laboratory studies in which researchers recruit subjects, randomly assign subjects to a treatment or control condition, and then determine the effect of the treatment on the subjects
• Institutionalism: the study of political institutions
• Machine learning: the ability of a computer program to start with an initial model data, analyze actual data, learn from this analysis, and automatically update that initial model to incorporate the findings from its analysis
• Mixed Methods: the use of both quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis
• Normative view: the view of what should or ought to be, accounting for personal bias and opinion
• Positive view: the view of what is, regardless of personal bias or opinion
• Qualitative: typically, the use of interviews, archival research, and ethnographies to understand politics
• Quantitative: generally, the use of mathematical models and statistics to measure a relationship between two variables
2.09: Summary
Summary of Section 2.1:Brief History of Empirical Study of Politics
Empiricism is research that seeks patterns and explanations for general phenomena and specific cases. Empirical political science has its roots in the study of institutions. However, it took off methodologically with the behavioral wave in the 1950s. This was a shift to the study of human behavior, such as voting patterns.
Summary of Section 2.2: The Institutional Wave
The traditional wave of methodology in political science is institutionalism, or the study of institutions in a society. Institutions often reflect the bargains made between actors in each society that determine how the rules of society should look like, which is why they are difficult to reform, replace, or dismantle. Institutionalism ebbed during the heyday of the behavioral revolution. However, the desire to bring institutions back has led to the development of neoinstitutionalism, with a focus on the role of the state in society and the economy.
Summary of Section 2.3: The Behavioral Wave
Behavioralism is the study of political behavior and emphasizes the use of surveys and statistics. Charles Merriam at the University of Chicago had an outsized influence on behavioralism. The “Chicago School” has strongly influenced political science, through its emphasis on quantitative methodology, often at the expense of normative questions. Many incoming scholars are expected to understand statistical techniques for use in their research. In response, some scholars are looking to bring back the normative discussion.
Summary of Section 2.4: Currents: Qualitative versus Quantitative
There are two major currents in political science: the qualitative methodological and quantitative methodological currents. Methods are simply the steps taken by social scientists during their research. They are the techniques used to collect, construct, and consider data. Qualitative methods solve puzzles in political science without using some type of mathematical analysis. Whereas, quantitative methods prefer the use of mathematical analysis or measurement. The behavioral revolution created a wedge among political scientists, which has led to a strong back and forth discourse on the value of qualitative methodology in political science. More recent scholars using multi-method approaches, combining qualitative and quantitative techniques.
Summary of Section 2.5: Currents: Politics: Normative and Positive Views
The normative view of political science explores what should be, while the positive view explains what is. These views are important to recognize, since both have their supporters and detractors. As a student of political science, it is useful to be able to identify both views. And it is up to you when, how, and why you use one view, or another, or even both, to explore, explain and analyze political actors, behaviors, institutions, and processes.
Summary of Section 2.6: Emerging Wave: Experimental Political Science
Experimental political science is growing in the discipline. It centers on the researcher using random assignment in laboratory settings or quasi-random assignment in other settings, to explore precise cause-and-effect relationships between a treatment and outcome of interest.
Summary of Section 2.7: Emerging Wave: Big Data and Machine Learning
The emerging waves of Big Data and machine learning are just beginning to influence political science. Big Data is the growing mountain of data being generated by political actors and institutions. And machine learning is the increasingly sophisticated way of sifting, sorting, and identifying patterns in these mountains of data.
2.10: Review Questions
1. Which of the following definitions best describes institutionalism?
a. Institutionalism involves the study of institutions within a society
b. Institutionalism involves the study of behavior of political actors within institutions
c. Institutionalism involves the study of the interaction between political institutions
2. Which of the following definitions best describes behavioralism?
a. Behavioral political science is the study of political behavior and emphasizes the use of surveys and statistics
b. Behavioral political science is the study of political behavior and emphasizes behavior within institutions
c. Behavioral political science is the study of political behavior
3. Which of the following views is institutionalism most associated with?
a. Normative
b. Positive
c. Negative
d. Neutral
4. It is useful to note that up until the late 1970s and early 1980s, researchers had to calculate descriptive statistics and linear regressions by hand and with calculators.
a. True
b. False
5. Machine learning is the ability of a computer program to start with an initial model data, analyze actual data, learn from this analysis, and automatically update that initial model to incorporate the findings from its analysis
a. True
b. False
2.11: Critical Thinking Questions
1. Why is knowing part of the history of political science important for students and scholars today?
2. Compare and contrast normative view versus positive view.
3. How are the institutional wave with the behavioral wave in political science the same? How are they different? Which wave do you find most appealing? Why?
2.12: Suggestions for Further Study
Journal Articles
• Bond, Jon R. 2007. “The Scientification of the Study of Politics: Some Observations on the Behavioral Evolution in Political Science.” The Journal of Politics 69 (4): 897–907. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2508.2007.00597.x.
• Heaney, Michael T., and John Mark Hansen. 2006. “Building the Chicago School.” The American Political Science Review 100 (4): 589–96. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055406062460.
• Dahl, Robert A. 1961. “The Behavioral Approach in Political Science: Epitaph for a Monument to a Successful Protest.” The American Political Science Review 55 (4): 763– 72. www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-sciencereview/article/behavioral-approach-in-political-science-epitaph-for-a-monument-to-asuccessful-protest/F3C1ECC1F1A9CE408DDC565B4F3E980C.
• North, Douglass C. “Institutions.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 5 (1): 97-122 www.jstor.org/stable/1942704?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/02%3A_History_and_Development_of_the_Emperical_Study_of_Politics/2.08%3A_Key_Terms_Glossary.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Remember what is the “philosophy of science”
• Understand how paradigms rise and fall
Before exploring the scientific method in detail, it is important to recognize the concept of science itself. Science is the systematic study of the world around and beyond us. Part of engaging in political science research is to acknowledge the underlying concepts of politics and science being brought together in a coherent field of study for students at colleges and universities throughout the world. In this chapter, we explore: the philosophy of science; three models of the scientific method; and three applications of these scientific method models.
Philosophy of Science
Before conducting research in any field, including political science, it’s important to step back to recognize that the field is trying to contribute to our human understanding of the world around us. Whenever we question what we are doing, how we are doing it, and why we are doing it, then we are engaging in the process of philosophizing. The philosophy of science (Wikipedia contributors 2019) is the exploration of science by asking at least three questions: What are the foundations of science? What are the methods of science? And what are the implications of science? Among the mountain of contributors to the philosophy of science, we want to recognize Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn.
Karl Popper (Thornton 2019) is known for the concept of falsification. Falsification is the principle that any theory, or explanation of how the world works, can always be proven false and that a theory can never be proven true. This idea is important in political science for two reasons. First, it allows political scientists and students to engage in a continuous debate about the research, the findings, and the conclusions. This means the debate will always continue. And while some debates may be settled, falsification means that new research can unsettle it, thereby sparking a new wave of research, findings, and conclusions. Second, falsification in political science prevents its community members from closing off possibilities for future research. This is important because it essentially requires scientists and students to keep an open mind about the possibility of new information changing their understanding of politics. As we strive to continually understand the political world, we need to be open to new information.
Thomas Kuhn (Bird 2018) is known for the concept of paradigm shift. A paradigm is the current way of thinking, doing, and understanding. A shift occurs when the current ways undergo a significant change, thereby changing how we think, do, and understand. Paradigm shifts are a part of any discipline, including political science. In political science, paradigms serve as a stable framework in which to think about politics, do research of politics, and understand politics. This stability is undergirded by faculty who teach and train an understanding of politics. And while stability contributes to the process of accumulating knowledge, it doesn’t mean it’s the right way or only way. Sometimes paradigms shift, thereby uncovering new ways to think about, do research, and understand politics. One way paradigms shift is by having new, unconventional, and non-traditional students become political scientists who will ask different questions, challenge existing research, and produce new research.
The philosophy of science helps us recognize that we are exploring the foundations, methods, and implications of science. Our exploration helps us uncover ideas and meanings that contribute to our personal understanding of science. And beyond our individualized knowledge, we can begin to contribute to our collective understanding by asking questions, challenging existing methods, and articulating new impacts of science on people, communities, and societies more generally. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/03%3A_The_Scientific_Method/3.01%3A_Philosophy_of_Science.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Remember the stages of the scientific method
The scientific method is a process used by individuals, particularly scientists, to analyze some aspect of the world. We offer three models of the scientific method that start from simple to complex. The reason for presenting three models is to demonstrate how we can start with a core concept and extend it.
Model 1: Observation-Theory-Data: Our first model focuses on the core components of the scientific method: observation, theory, and data. The scientific method first begins with observations of the world around us, a response to stimuli. Stimuli are objects that attract our attention. For example, as we walk towards the beach from the parking lot, we may see a lot of beachgoers eagerly staring into the ocean. The behavior of the crowd is a stimulus because it draws our attention. Our response to this stimulus is to consider why the beachgoers are acting this way. Thus, our observations may lead to questions. Are there surfers in the water? Did someone spot a school of dolphins or a shark? Is someone in need of help or is the Coast Guard conducting a rescue operation? In order to understand the stimulus or our response, we must make connections between two variables.
The connections that we make form the foundation of a theory, or the answer to our questions. In other words, a theory is an explanation of the relationship we observed between two variables. For example, we may observe a tweet about foreign policy from the President of the United States. Shortly after, we may see an increase in the stock prices of aerospace companies. So, we form a theory about presidential statements and the economy, connecting these two variables with one another. With our theory in mind, we can proceed to explore it by collecting data. Continuing with our example, we may collect data of presidential tweets and stock market prices for the first two years of the presidency to see what the relationship is between these two variables.
Model 2: Observation-Theory-Hypothesis-Data: Our second model builds on the previous model by adding a hypothesis. A hypothesis is a statement that asserts the direction of the relationship between two variables. Hypothesis follows theory because a theory proposes that there is a relationship between two variables, while a hypothesis states what the relationship is. For example, we may observe that voters seem supportive of a challenger to the incumbent president. So, why are voters eagerly supporting a would-be president instead of the actual president? It could be that voters feel the country is not going in the right direction, so they believe a change in presidential leadership will put the country in the right direction. Thus, we have a theory of presidential leadership and voter behavior. A hypothesis that follows from the theory could be: if incumbent presidential leadership is erratic, then voters are more likely to vote for the challenger in the upcoming presidential election. To examine this hypothesis, we would collect data on the erraticism of the incumbent president and data on the votes cast in the election.
Model 3: Observation-Theory-Hypothesis-Data-Analysis-Update: Our third model continues to build on the previous models by adding analysis and update. Analysis is an examination of the collected data. We can analyze data using methods that are appropriate for the data collected. Two principal methods of data analysis are qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative data analysis is explored in Chapter 7 and quantitative data analysis is examined in Chapter 8.
The process consists of six stages: observe, articulate theory, propose hypotheses, collect data, analyze data with respect to hypotheses, and revise theory based on findings.
Observe is the first stage of the scientific method. By observing individuals, organizations, and institutions interacting in the real world, we begin to learn about the nature of their interests and the degree of their interaction. For example, say it is the holiday season, and I observe how my partisan identification differs from my parents. I could discuss this observation with my parents but avoid the conversation because it may ruffle some feathers at the holiday dinner table. So instead, I ask myself “Why?”
By asking myself “Why?”, this leads to the second stage of the scientific method: articulate a theory. Recall that a theory is an explanation of how one variable has a relationship with another variable. Using my observation from above, I have one variable: partisan identification. Now, what is the other variable that can help us articulate a theory? Here, there can be a multitude of reasons, but I could theorize that partisan identification is a function of technology use. So, I have articulated a theory that technology use has a relationship with partisan identification.
After the articulation of the theory, the next step in this process is to develop a hypothesis. Again, I theorized a relationship between technology use and partisan identification. A potential hypothesis derived from this theory is that an increased use of technology is likely to affect what political party individuals identify with.
The next step in this process will be to find identify and collect the appropriate data I will need to help me test my hypothesis. One way to do this might be to interview people about their use of technology, how often they use it. For the second variable, I would ask a question about what party they identify with. Another way to collect the data I need is to find already existing datasets that have collected this information. After collecting this information, I can then analyze the data to see if there is an empirical relationship that exists between technology use and partisan identification.
After analyzing the data, multiple outcomes can be possible. I might find that partisan identification is linked to the use of technology, and I would be able to conclude that the evidence does support my theory. On the other hand, it is also possible that I do not find a relationship between the two variables and the evidence does not support my theory. This next step would then require me to update my theory or my hypothesis, leading me to restart the cycle again.
There are multiple stages to the scientific model. Individuals form questions and answers to those questions by first observing the world around them. Derived from the answer is the hypothesis, which will then allow individuals to test their theory. Providing evidence of the theory may require collecting data and analyzing the data. While there are multiple stages, it is possible that not all researchers will partake in each stage; thus, the presentation of multiple models of the scientific method from the simple to more complex. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/03%3A_The_Scientific_Method/3.02%3A_Whats_is_the_Scientific_Method.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Apply the scientific method to open access journal articles
Applying the scientific method to political phenomena is what you, as a student in a political science research methods, will be doing in the course. Political scientists, especially those who conduct research, utilize the scientific method. Not all political scientists use all aspects of the scientific method all of the time. Many times, a political scientist is focused on the “observation” stage of the process. This means a researcher is trying to learn more by directly observing, participating and observing, or indirectly observing through others. Other times, a political scientist is focused on the “analysis” stage. This means a researcher is focused on refining the tools used to empirically analyze political phenomena.
Let’s explore how we can map the stages of the complex model of the scientific method to three open access journal articles. The purpose of this mapping is to demonstrate how the research political scientists publish relates to the scientific method.
Journal Article #1
The first article we will map is titled “Do Inheritance Customs Affect Political and Social Inequality?” (Hager and Hilbig 2019) by Anselm Hager and Hanno Hilbig in the American Journal of Political Science. Remember that our third model of the scientific method includes six stages: Observation, Theory, Hypothesis, Data, Analysis, and Update. Every peer-reviewed journal article has a Title and Abstract. An abstract is a summary of the article’s contents. Below is the title and abstract.
Do Inheritance Customs Affect Political and Social Inequality?
Abstract
Why are some societies more unequal than others? The French revolutionaries believed unequal inheritances among siblings to be responsible for the strict hierarchies of the ancient régime. To achieve equality, the revolutionaries therefore enforced equal inheritance rights. Their goal was to empower women and to disenfranchise the noble class. But do equal inheritances succeed in leveling the societal playing field? We study Germany—a country with pronounced local‐level variation in inheritance customs—and find that municipalities that historically equally apportioned wealth, to this day, elect more women into political councils and have fewer aristocrats in the social elite. Using historic data, we point to two mechanisms: wealth equality and pro‐egalitarian preferences. In a final step, we also show that, counterintuitively, equitable inheritance customs positively predict income inequality. We interpret this finding to mean that equitable inheritances level the playing field by rewarding talent, not status.
The title is presented as a question: Do Inheritance Customs Affect Political and Social Inequality? Titles as questions are informative because they typically include some aspect of the observation, theory, or hypothesis. In this case, we can see elements of a theory and hypothesis. For example, a theory of inheritance customs and social inequality could be declared from the title. And the hypothesis can be whether or not such customs influence inequality. So, we have mapped 2 of the 6 stages of the scientific method using just the title.
Moving to the abstract, we are searching for the 4 other stages: observation, data, analysis, and update. In search for observation, we know that they have a theory of inheritance customs and social inequality, but what entity or groups are they observing? In this case, the abstract asks: “Why are some societies more unequal than others?” In a general sense, the authors are observing societies. If we read further, we find the following sentence: “We study Germany—a country with pronounced local‐level variation in inheritance customs—and find that municipalities that historically equally apportioned wealth, to this day, elect more women into political councils and have fewer aristocrats in the social elite.” So while the authors are generally interested in societies, they specifically focus on municipalities in Germany.
With observation set, there are three more stages to identify. In the abstract, there is a sentence that clearly mentions data: “Using historic data, we point to two mechanisms: wealth equality and pro‐egalitarian preferences”. While we don’t have specifics of the historic data, we can learn more about it later in the article. Finally, in reading the remainder of the abstract, nothing appears clearly as the analysis or update. Therefore, at this point, we would need to read through the article to identify these last two components.
Journal Article #2
The second article we will map is titled “When Diversity Works: The Effects of Coalition Composition on the Success of Lobbying Coalitions” (Junk 2019) by Wiebke Marie Junk which was also published in the American Journal of Political Science. Unlike the prior article, I have numbered each sentence by including square brackets [ ] with a number inside. This will help us read through the abstract more carefully.
When Diversity Works: The Effects of Coalition Composition on the Success of Lobbying Coalitions
Abstract
[1] Lobbyists frequently join forces to influence policy, yet the success of active lobbying coalitions remains a blind spot in the literature. [2] This article is the first to test how and when characteristics of active coalitions increase their lobbying success. [3] Based on pluralist theory, one can expect diverse coalitions, uniting different societal interests, to signal broad support to policy makers. [4] Yet, their responsiveness to this signal (i.e., signaling benefits) and contribution incentives within the coalition (i.e., cooperation costs) are likely to vary with issue salience. [5] This theory is tested on a unique data set comprising 50 issues in five European countries. [6] Results reveal a strong moderating effect of salience on the relationship between coalition diversity and success: On less salient issues, homogenous coalitions are more likely to succeed, whereas the effect reverses with higher salience, where diverse coalitions are more successful. [7] These findings have implications for understanding political responsiveness and potential policy capture.
Recall that our third model of the scientific method includes six stages: Observation, Theory, Hypothesis, Data, Analysis, and Update, so we are searching for representations of these in the title and abstract. The title provides us the basis for a theory. We could reword the title to state a theory of coalition composition and lobbying success. It is not atypical of titles to provide the basis for a theory. The first three sentences of the abstract reveals that the author is observing lobbyists, coalitions, and policy makers. These objects are interacting to create a political phenomenon that the researcher is interested in exploring.
The third sentence “Based on pluralist theory, one can expect diverse coalitions, uniting different societal interests, to signal broad support to policy makers” can be considered a hypothesis. For example, we can restate this sentence: if coalitions are more diverse, then they serve as a clearer signal to policy makers. Sentence four relates to the hypothesis because it introduces the concept of issue salience and the author returns to it in sentence six. Sentence five reads: “This theory is tested on a unique data set comprising 50 issues in five European countries.” The word “data” so this is a clear statement of the data that is used.
In reading sentence six, the author states “Results reveal a strong moderating effect of salience on the relationship between coalition diversity and success.” Issue salience is how widespread an issue is known. If an issue is very salient, that means a lot of people are aware of it. If an issue is not salient, that means that few people are aware of it. We will return to this in a moment. The author started with a theory of coalition composition and lobbying success. However, after analyzing their data, they find that issue salience “moderates” the effect of coalition composition on lobbying success. Therefore, we should update our theory. Unfortunately, the author does not list what kind of analysis they conduct with the data, so we would need to read the article to find these details.
Journal Article #3
The third article we will map is titled “Evaluating the Conflict-Reducing Effect of UN Peacekeeping Operations” by Havard Hegre, Lisa Hultman, and Havard Mokleiv Nygard published in the Journal of Politics.
Evaluating the Conflict-Reducing Effect of UN Peacekeeping Operations
Abstract
[1] Several studies show a beneficial effect of peacekeeping operations (PKOs). [2] However, by looking at individual effect pathways (intensity, duration, recurrence, diffusion) in isolation, they underestimate the peacekeeping impact of PKOs. [3] We propose a novel method of evaluating the combined impact across all pathways based on a statistical model of the efficacy of UN PKOs in preventing the onset, escalation, continuation, and recurrence of internal armed conflict. [4] We run a set of simulations based on the statistical estimates to assess the impact of alternative UN policies for the 2001–13 period. [5] If the UN had invested US\$200 billion in PKOs with strong mandates, major armed conflict would have been reduced by up to two-thirds relative to a scenario without PKOs and 150,000 lives would have been saved over the 13-year period compared to a no-PKO scenario. [6] UN peacekeeping is clearly a cost-effective way of increasing global security
Let’s read through the title and abstract, line by line, and see what each line provides us in terms of the six stages of the scientific method. The title provides us parts of observation since it specifically mentions United Nations (UN) peacekeeping and conflicts. Additionally, the title offers information that could be reworded as: a theory of peacekeeping operations and conflict. Sentence 1 states how prior research, worded as “several studies”, shows a positive influence of, worded as “beneficial effect”, peacekeeping operations.
Sentence 2 states that looking just at intensity, or duration, or recurrence, or diffusion by themselves overlooks their combined effect on conflict. For example, have you tried to carry a bag of groceries with just one finger? Even though you struggled, you still carried the bag from your car to your home. So, you could argue that your finger has all the strength needed to lug the bag. Now, have you carried a bag of groceries using all five fingers? Most likely but wouldn’t say you carried the bag with five fingers, rather, you would declare that you are carrying it with your hand. Therefore, what the authors are arguing is that we need to see the effect of the hand, not just each individual finger. With respect to the scientific method, this sentence is not clear, but seems like it would fit under analysis.
Sentence 3 declares that the authors have a “novel method of evaluating the combined impact across all pathways based on a statistical model”. This is clearly analysis because you use a “statistical model” to conduct analysis of data. Additionally, sentence 4 describes how the authors use “simulations based on the statistical estimates to assess the impact of alternative UN policies for the 2001–13 period.” While simulations are a bit advanced (Carsey and Harden 2015), but they relate to analysis as well.
Sentences 5 and 6 describe how alternative policy choices by the United Nations could have resulted in less conflict and less lives lost. This most closely relates to update, since Hegre, et. al. suggest that more peacekeeping operations can reduce the impacts of conflicts. After reading through the abstract, the hypothesis and data are not clear, so we would need to read through the article to uncover this information.
Summary of Mapping Journal Article Abstract Content onto Scientific Method stages
Journal Article Hager and Hilbig 2019 Junk 2019 Hegre, et. al. 2019
Observation Society and inequality in society Lobbyists, coalitions, policy makers United Nations, conflicts
Theory Equal inheritance rights and societal equality Coalition composition and lobbying success Peacekeeping operations and conflict
Hypothesis “But do equal inheritances succeed in leveling the societal playing field?” “Based on pluralist theory, one can expect diverse coalitions, uniting different societal interests, to signal broad support to policy makers.” -NIA-
Data Country-specific: Germany 50 issues in five European countries -NIA-
Analysis -NIA- -NIA- Statistical models and simulations
Update -NIA- Theory of coalition composition, issue salience, and lobbying success More peacekeeping operations reduces the impacts of conflicts
NIA = Not In Abstract | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/03%3A_The_Scientific_Method/3.03%3A_Applying_the_Scientific_Method_to_Political_Phenomena.txt |
• Abstract: An abstract is a summary of the article’s contents. Below is the title and abstract.
• Falsification: the principle that any theory, or explanation of how the world works, can always be proven false and that a theory can never be proven true
• Hypothesis: a statement derived from theory, providing the direction of the relationship between two variables
• Paradigm: current way of thinking, doing, and understanding
• Philosophy of science: exploration of the foundations, methods, and implications of science
• Scientific method: systematic process of discovering new knowledge
• Theory: a statement, derived from observations, that declares a relationship between at least two variables
3.05: Summary
Summary of Section 3.1: Philosophy of Science
The philosophy of science is the exploration of science by asking at least three questions: What are the foundations of science? What are the methods of science? And what are the implications of science? Karl Popper is a notable figure for his contribution of the concept of falsification, while Thomas Kuhn is well known for his concept of paradigm shifts.
Summary of Section 3.2: What is the Scientific Method?
The scientific method is explained using three models, from simple to complex. Common to all three are the initial steps, observation and theory making. Observations of the world around us lead to inquiry about the phenomena we see and to propose theories about how we think the world works. Derived from the theory is a hypothesis that will allow us to test the theory. Evidence in support of the theory may be found by collecting and analyzing the data.
Summary of Section 3.3: Applying the Scientific Method to Political Phenomena
Open access journal article abstracts are mapped to see how political scientists utilize the scientific method in their research. Not all political scientists will utilize each stage of the scientific method due to the nature of their research question. In the three articles mapped in this section, all participate in the observation of phenomena and theory making; however only Hager and Hilbig 2019 and Junk 2019 participate in data collection; whereas Junk 2019 and Hegre et. al. 2019 both update their theories.
3.06: Review Questions
1. Which philosopher of science is most associated with the concept of falsification?
a. Karl Popper
b. Thomas Kuhn
c. Richard McKelvey
d. Kenneth Arrow
2. Paradigm shifts can occur due to
a. production of new research
b. challenging existing research
c. continuing to ask the same question
d. exploring the same answers
3. Which of the following is NOT a part of the scientific method?
a. Argument
b. Observation
c. Theory
d. Hypothesis
e. Data
f. Analysis
g. Update
4. Common to the scientific method models are each of the following except:
a. Argument
b. Observation
c. Theory
d. Hypothesis
e. Data
f. Analysis
g. Update
5. Engaging in the scientific method, requires that researchers must participate in every stage.
a. True
b. False
3.07: Critical Thinking Questions
1. Suppose you hear on the news that a candidate’s personality has implications for why people are voting for the candidate. When you ask your friends and family about their opinions about the candidate, none of them seem to mention personality as a factor in their vote. The news and your friends and family seem to be contradicting each other. Utilizing the scientific method, how might you go about investigating this?
2. Utilizing the three articles mapped in the chapter as examples, create a similar map of an article you find interesting. You can find open access articles at https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/open-access or onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/doSearch?AllField=open+source&ConceptID=58 &startPage=&accessStatusFilter=on
3. Write down observations you have made about the world. What questions do you have? What do you think are answers to the questions?
3.08: Suggestions for Further Reading Study
Journal Articles
• Voit, Eberhard O. 2019. “Perspective: Dimensions of the Scientific Method.” PLoS Computational Biology 15 (9): e1007279. https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007279
• Kind, Per, and Jonathan Osborne. 2017. “Styles of Scientific Reasoning: A Cultural Rationale for Science Education?” Science Education 101 (1): 8–31. doi.org/10.1002/sce.21251.
• Dieckmann, Nathan F., and Branden B. Johnson. 2019. “Why Do Scientists Disagree? Explaining and Improving Measures of the Perceived Causes of Scientific Disputes.” PloS One 14 (2): e0211269. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0211269. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/03%3A_The_Scientific_Method/3.04%3A_Key_Terms_Glossary.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Remember the definition of theory
• Understand how a theory is generated
• Apply a model theory
• Analyze increasingly complex theories
• Evaluate statements to determine if they are theories or not
• Create a theory
Before diving into theories, hypotheses, variables, and units, it’s important to highlight two broader concepts: correlation and causation. Correlation can be defined as a “process of establishing a relationship or connection between two or more measures” (“Correlation - Google Search” n.d.). For example, imagine a car is waiting at a road intersection. When the traffic light turns green, we observe the car move forward. It can be argued that there is a correlation between the color displayed on the traffic light and the movement of the vehicle. The traffic light–car example is relatively clear, but the question is: does the traffic light color cause the car to move? This question brings forward the concept of causation. Causation can be defined “as the action of causing or producing” (“Definition of Causation | Dictionary.com” n.d.). While the movement of the car corresponds to the color of the traffic light, what causes the movement of the traffic light is the driver pressing down on the accelerator pedal. Doing so, fuel is released into the engine which powers the turning of the wheels.
Why is correlation and causation important to political science? Correlation is important because it lets us establish connections between political ideas, actors, institutions, and processes. When we observe the world, our mind is primed to make connections between things. Doing so helps us give meaning to the world and develop our understanding of it.
For example, let’s explore the relationship between demographics and congressional representation. Below is a map of the United States. Each state is shaded in a color of sky-blue which denote the percentage of women who reside in each state. Using the legend in the bottom left corner of the map, we see that the lightest shade of sky-blue represents 47.9% to 50% of a state’s population is woman. The darkest shade means that women account for 51.5% to 52.6% of a state’s population. In other words, lighter shades mean a lower percentage of women and darker shades mean a higher percentage of women.
The next map of the United States displays information about the representation of women in the 116th Congress. In reviewing the map, we see variation in the number of women who represent different states. For example, we see that California has 20 women representing it in Congress. While this map doesn’t differentiate between the Senate and the House of Representatives, we know that California has two female senators and eighteen Congresswomen. You will notice that the following states have no female representation: Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Maryland.
Seeing these two maps lets us establish a connection between the two concepts represented by the maps. The question we ask ourselves is does there appear to be a correlation between the percent of women living in a state and the number of women representing that state and Congress? In reviewing both maps, it would be fair to suggest that there does appear to be a correlation between the two. For example, we see that Idaho, Montana, and the Dakotas have 50% or fewer women living in these states. Then when we look at the congressional map, we see that those states have no females representing them in Congress. Therefore, we have some evidence to suggest that there is a relationship.
In political science, we are interested in exploring this relationship further. A question we can ask ourselves is: as the percentage of women increases in a state, do we see an increase in the number of women in Congress? And using the language of causation, we could ask: do greater numbers of women cause an increase in the number of women representatives? The figure below is a visualization of a correlation between our two concepts. As we will explore later in this chapter, this is an example of what we call a causal model.
There is a commonly repeated adage that correlation does not equal causation. In political science, we take this adage to heart because it is important to be critical of what we perceive to be connections between two concepts and not making the inferential leap that one is caused by the other. Unlike our peers in the natural sciences, we study individuals, institutions, and processes that are inherently complex and intertwined. We, like most others, can be susceptible to presuming that there is a causal relationship between objects we are observing. Therefore, it is important to take to heart that correlation is a prerequisite to causation, but there are other conditions that need to be satisfied for us to make the inference of causality.
Four Conditions of Causality
There are four conditions of causality: logical time ordering, correlation, mechanism, and nonspuriousness. Logical time ordering refers to the idea that one variable needs to precede another variable in time for the first variable to influence the second variable. For example, throughout the world, people are protesting their governments. In some countries, governments respond with the metaphorical yawn. However, in other countries, the governments may respond with repressive tactics. The question is do the protest precede the government response? On its face, the answer is yes because why would the government respond to silence?
The second condition of causality is correlation. As we explored above, correlation is a connection between two variables. Correlation is a prerequisite to establishing a causal relationship because if two variables do not move together, then it is difficult to suggest that one influences the other. Maintaining our example of public protest and government response, we often see that when people protest, the government pays attention. This is due to mainstream media coverage and social media activity of the protest. Since governments typically have responsibility for maintaining peace and security, anytime there are activities that may disrupt peace, the government will likely pay attention to what the media is covering and decide whether to respond.
Our third condition of causality is mechanism. A causal mechanism is an explanation for how one variable influences the other. Explanations can vary from relatively straightforward to exhaustively complex. There is utility in employing both types of explanations to describe the influence of one variable on the next variable. The reason is it may be straightforward to some while the government responds to protesters. However, underlying this interaction, there may be other actors, decisions, and actions that may shape engagement between the government and protesters. For example, the Arab Spring starting in 2010 provides a contemporary example where people throughout countries in the Middle East publicly protested for changes in their political leadership and government systems. How did these protesters come together? Some researchers point to social media, like Facebook and Twitter, which helped people collectively organize their protesting efforts. Thus, we have a mechanism that shows how protest formed, and how that initiated reaction from governments.
The final condition of causality is non-spuriousness. Non-spuriousness means that another variable is not having an influence. With our example of protest and government response, we must be careful to consider that other factors may influence this relationship. What else could influence a government’s response to a protest within its country? A government may be hesitant to respond with lethal force if it knows it’s being observed by an international media. An international media outlet serves as a third-party observer to the activities within a country. As the media records through video and first-hand accounts, they can begin to share that information with the rest of the world. A government that uses lethal weapons on people who are peacefully protesting could result in an outcry from the international community. Thus, are protests the only thing that is influencing the government’s response? Or is there a spurious factor, such as the international media outlet, that having the government question how it should respond?
As you can see, from a running example of public protest and government action, establishing a causal relationship between two variables is difficult. The difficulty doesn’t mean we don’t work through these four conditions, both using reason and evidence, rather it represents a rigorous way to determine a causal relationship. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/04%3A_Theories_Hypotheses_Variables_and_Units/4.01%3A_Correlation_and_Causation.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Remember the definition of theory
• Understand how a theory is generated
• Apply a model theory
• Analyze increasingly complex theories
• Evaluate statements to determine if they are theories or not
• Create a theory
Remembering the Definition of Theory
In its simplest form, a theory is an explanation of how the world works. Now, there are many ways in which the world works: natural, physical, chemical, biological, social, political, historical and the list can go on. For example, political scientists are interested in how elected officials behave during campaigns (Warren 2008). One theory is that elected officials are more responsive to voters during campaigns. A reason an elected official is more likely to spend time in their communities, host town halls, and meet with stakeholders during campaigns is because they want to demonstrate how they are proactively serving their constituents.
In addition to suggesting how some aspect of the world works, theories also lead us to explore possibilities. For example, what happens if an elected official spends less time or more time with their constituents during campaigns? One could argue that by spending less time with constituents during the campaign, an elected official is less likely to earn their support. On the other hand, if an elected official spends more time with constituents, support for their campaigns will increase.
In constructing a theory, we are engaging in a process of observing the world and proposing how the world works.
A theory is a set of assumptions about constants, variables, and the relationship between variables. In other words, a theory is a statement about the relationship between two objects with all other objects held constant. In a complex world with a multitude of objects surrounding us, it can be difficult to focus on just two objects. Thus, for a theory to be useful, we need to be able to focus on at least two objects and the relationship between those objects. So, how can we focus on just two objects and their relationship? To help us focus, we can hold all other objects constant. Constant means that all other objects, except for the two objects we are interested in, are held still.
Figure \(1\): Visualization of a theory
The letter X and the letter Y represent the two objects of interest, while the yellow box symbolizes that a relationship exists between the two objects. The reason a theory needs to have at least two objects is because a theory is an explanation of how one object relates to another object. If we are just focused on one object, then we do not have a theory. Rather, we are observing an object for its own sake.
Understanding How a Theory is Generated
A theory can be generated in three ways. First, a theory can be generated without reference to any existing theory. This is very rare since a theory requires two objects. These two objects exist because theories have attempted to explain the objects. Second, a theory can be an extension to an existing theory. Given the multitude of theories that already exist, it is common for someone to rely on and extend an existing theory. Third, a theory can be the contradiction of an existing theory. While it is common to build on an existing theory, it can be just as common to use contradiction to generate a theory.
Applying a Model Theory
A model theory is a statement that two objects, X and Y, exists and that a relationship exists between X and Y. With this model theory, how can we apply it to topics or subjects we are interested in? Let’s consider three examples.
First, we may be interested in the relationship between political actors in a democracy. The two political actors we are interested in is the government and the media. We could argue that the media is represented by object X while the government represented by object Y. A theory should explain why and how there is a relationship between the media and the government. Additionally, the theory should assume that other political actors are held constant, so we can focus on the relationship between the media and the government.
Our next example is the relationship between information and voters in a representative democracy. In this example, information is represented by X while voters are represented by Y. Why would a voter have a relationship with information? One reason this relationship would exist is because voters use information to make decisions on how to vote. Another reason is that information is sent to voters from candidates and campaigns in order to influence a voter’s decision.
Analyzing Increasingly Complex Theories
The core of any theory is the relationship between a minimum of two objects of interest. However, theories can be more complex by having additional variables that can serve different roles in a theory. For example, imagine we have a theory that states a relationship between three variables: X, Y, and Z. The relationship between these three objects could be described in a multitude of ways, but let’s focus on three potential relationships: X and Y, Y and Z, and X and Z.
Figure \(2\): Visualization of a complex theory
Creating a Theory
Theories are statements of relationships between two concepts. There are three characteristics of theories that we should seek to achieve when proposing a theory. First, a theory should be general, meaning that it can include a variety of operationalizations and geographic contexts. Let’s compare a specific theory to a general theory. A specific theory may be focused on how voters in a midwestern U.S. state decide to support a presidential candidate. A researcher would then propose hypotheses, collect evidence, analyze the data, and make some findings. The knowledge generated from this process would be useful for future researchers want to better understand the Midwestern voter, to political campaigns that try to reach these voters, and to news outlets that want to provide background information to a new story at the written. The question is: How can this theory be extended beyond the voter living in the Midwest of the United States?
To answer this question, we need to propose a more general theory. A general theory can explore how voters respond to national-level candidates. A researcher would again propose hypotheses, collect evidence, analyze the data, and generate some results. Given that there are voters in Europe, South America, Africa, Asia, Oceania, as well as North America, we can collect evidence from voters living in countries in these regions of the world. In analyzing the data, research and a fine a lot of differences but they also might find a lot of similarities between voters responding to national level candidates in their countries. The similarities and differences can help us better understand the relationship declared by the theory. So, by using a more general theory we could subsume the more specific theory that was originally discussed.
It’s not to say that a specific theory is less useful than a general theory, because you can see how the two ideas intertwine. By starting with the general theory, we can think more broadly about how it applies in different times, places, and subjects. From here, we can narrow down to specific places that are of greater interest to us knowing that we are feeding into the broader exploration and knowledge creation process.
The second characteristic of theories is to try to make them parsimonious. Parsimonious means frugal or to use something sparingly. When generating a theory, the point is to keep it simple because when you make a theory too complicated it’s more difficult to see its generality and, as will discuss momentarily, it’s falsifiability. Let’s walk through two examples of theories from the most parsimonious to the least parsimonious so we can fix in our mind the utility of maintaining simplicity. Consider that I have a theory about gender and representation. My hypothesis is that gender has an influence on who runs and who wins elected office. Therefore, in a study of voters, male candidates are more likely than female candidates to be elected to office. To explore this hypothesis, I would collect data, analyze it, and reach some initial findings that either support or do not support my hypothesis. This is a relatively straightforward theory in the sense that an attribute of a candidate influences a voter support for that candidate.
Now, let’s make our original theory more complicated. Let’s consider a theory about candidate attributes, voter behavior, campaign strategies, election processes, and policy outcomes. What should strike you is that we have more than two concepts; here we have five concepts. In proposing this theory, it could be argued that these concepts are linearly related: candidates attributes affect voter behavior, which influences campaign strategies, which then shapes electoral processes, and finally then alters policy outcomes. A well-reasoned explanation for these connections may be convincing to some. However, the length of the theoretical chain makes it susceptible to criticism. For example, are candidate attributes the only thing that influences voting behavior? Moreover, does voter behavior influence campaign strategies or is the relationship the other way around? Therefore, given the complexity of the theory, it can be difficult to discern the nature of the relationships between different concepts. Hence, parsimony is an important characteristic to consider when developing a theory to make clear and bring into relationships within a theory.
Falsifiability is the third characteristic of theories we want to explain. Falsifiability is the ability of a theory to be shown as false. Why should a theory be falsifiable? A theory that is not falsifiable means that no amount of reason or evidence can lead a researcher to suggest that their original theory is incorrect. If reason or evidence cannot be presented, then a theory cannot be scrutinized. Thus, the scientific method process is broken because new information cannot be brought to challenge a theory and suggest a new theory for us to be considered. At some point, enough reason and evidence are brought to bear to suggest a theory is now a law. But the law is not ironclad, it just becomes accepted by the scientific community for the time being. Establishing a theory as a law does not preclude it from being falsified in the future when new times, places, and contexts may challenge the findings from theories.
Together, generality, parsimoniousness, and falsifiability work together to make theories integral parts of the scientific method and the discovery and creation of new knowledge. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/04%3A_Theories_Hypotheses_Variables_and_Units/4.02%3A_Theory_Constrution.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Remember the definition of hypothesis
• Understand how a hypothesis is derived from a theory
• Apply a model hypothesis
• Analyze increasingly complex hypotheses
• Evaluate statements to determine if they are hypotheses or not
• Create a hypothesis
A hypothesis is an if-then statement that is derived from a theory. While a theory states that there is a relationship between two concepts or objects of interest, a hypothesis declares the values of the two concepts and how the change in the value of one affects the change in the value of the second object. For instance, a hypothesis derived from the theory that elected officials are more responsive to voters during campaigns might be that during the campaign season elected officials are more likely to host town hall meetings as compared to when the candidate is not running for reelection.
Generating hypotheses from theories can be a difficult task because concepts need to be operationalized into objects that can be measured. Recall that theories must be falsifiable. A hypothesis allows us to test the theory, providing evidence in support of our theory. Additional examples of hypotheses include:
• In a comparison of US citizens, those that incur a higher cost of voting will be less likely to vote in each election.
• In a comparison of US states, those that have a more professionalized legislature are more likely to produce complex laws.
• In a comparison of countries, those that have developed natural resources are more likely to have autocratic rulers.
• In a comparison of political leaders, those that have diverse economies are more likely to support climate change policies.
The anatomy of a hypothesis is that it includes the units of observation, one value of the independent variable, and one value of the dependent variable. For example, let’s break down one of the examples from above. “In a comparison of US states” the term US states would serve as the units of observation. In the part “a more professionalized legislature”, the term professionalized (or professionalization) would serve as the independent variable. And finally, in part “more likely to produce complex law”, the term complex (or complexity) would serve as the dependent variable.
4.04: Exploring Variables
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Remember that variables can be categorized as discrete or continuous
• Differentiate between discrete and continuous variables
Variables are objects that vary or change. Variables vary because of their inherent properties, by nature, or by manipulation. Let’s explore each of these in turn. Variables may hold inherent properties that make them vary. For example, let’s explore political efficacy. Political efficacy is a complex concept (Atabey and Hasta 2018), but it boils down to your belief that you can understand politics, influence a political institution, and that the political institution will be responsive to your concerns.
Political efficacy can be high, medium, or low. If, for example, you had a high understanding of politics, a strong belief that you can influence a political institution, a high expectation that a political institution would be responsive to your concerns, then you would have high political efficacy. On the other hand, you would have low political efficacy if you had little understanding of politics, a weak belief that you can influence an institution, and low expectations about institutional responsiveness. How can we measure political efficacy beyond using the high, medium and low categories?
Variables can be placed into two categories: discrete and continuous. Discrete variables can have values which we can count. For instance, a discrete variable can be -2, -1, 0, +1, +2, and so forth. On the other hand, continuous variables have values which we can specifically measure. In this case, a continuous variable can be zero, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, and so forth. Within these two categories, exists two additional variable types. Discrete variables can have nominal and ordinal values. While continuous variables can have interval and ratio values. These are discussed in a later chapter.
What’s one way we can visualize discrete and continuous variables? Below in Figure #.1, there are three panels. Panel 1, which visually represents two discrete variables. Both the independent variable and the dependent variable have two values: no or yes. Given that we can count no (“0”) and yes (“1”), we would consider this a discrete set of variables. Let’s consider the following example. Our independent variable is “Registered to Vote” has two values: not registered to vote (“No”) or registered to vote (“Yes”). Our dependent variable is “Voted in the prior Presidential election” and has two values: did not vote in the prior presidential election (“No”) and did vote in the prior presidential election (“Yes”).
Figure \(1\): Progress from Discrete to Continuous Variables, Panel 1
Panel 2 shows how we begin to move from discrete values to continuous values. This occurs when we add more values of the independent variable, dependent variable, or both simultaneously. For example, instead of our independent variable being “Registered to Vote” as holding only two values, Yes or No, let’s think of this as “Likelihood of Being Registered to Vote” which holds more than two values. The likelihood ranges from higher, medium, and lower, and these values are represented by the increased number of rows.
Figure \(2\): Progress from Discrete to Continuous Variables, Panel 2
Finally, panel 3 visually represents a continuous independent variable and dependent variable. The reason this is the case we have many values of both variables, as represented by the high number of rows and columns, in comparison to panel 2.
Figure \(3\): Progress from Discrete to Continuous Variables, Panel 3 | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/04%3A_Theories_Hypotheses_Variables_and_Units/4.03%3A_Generating_Hypotheses_from_Theories.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Understand the difference between a unit of observation and unit of analysis
Political scientists observe a range of political objects, such as political actors, institutions, processes, interactions, and outcomes. Units of observation are the objects that a researcher is specifically observing with the goal of describing the relationship between the objects. On the other hand, a unit of analysis is the object that a researcher is specifically analyzing. These two, units of observation and analysis, may sound similar, but are different concepts. Let’s explore three examples from open access, peer-reviewed journal articles to help illuminate the difference between units of observation and units of analysis.
Our first example comes from the Journal for International Development and the article “Rethinking research partnerships: Evidence and the politics of participation in research partnerships for international development” by Jude Fransman and Kate Newman (Fransman and Newman 2019). In the article abstract, they write: “This article responds to the drive for research partnerships between academics and practitioners, arguing that while potential benefits are clear, these are frequently not actualized resulting in partnerships that are ineffectual or worse, exacerbate damaging or inequitable assumptions and practices. In order to understand/improve partnerships, a systematic analysis of the interrelationship between what counts as evidence and dynamics of participation is proposed. Drawing on data from a seminar series and iterative analysis of seven case studies of partnerships between Higher Education Institutions and International Non‐Governmental Organisations, the article concludes by suggesting substantial shifts in the theory and practice of partnerships.”
Thus, the authors observe how higher education institutions and international non-governmental organizations partner to conduct research. And this means their units of observation are academics and practitioners. However, the question is, what are Fransman and Newman analyzing? Is it the academic organizations, international non-governmental organizations, or both? With a careful read of the article, it could be argued that the units of analysis are case studies of the partnerships themselves. For example, Table 1 in the article shows a comparison of seven case studies that details the lead organization, additional partners Involved, types of funding, level/scale of the partnership, disciplinary/thematic focus, and research approaches. And throughout the remainder of the article, they are focused on the partnerships.
Our second example is found in the Economics and Politics and the article “The heterogeneous effect of oil discoveries on democracy” by Tania Masi and Roberto Ricciuti (Masi and Ricciuti 2019). In the article abstract, they state: “This paper evaluates the existence of a resource curse on political regimes using the Synthetic Control Method. Focusing on 12 countries, we compare their democracy level with the weighted democracy level of countries that have not experienced oil shocks and have similar pre‐event characteristics. We find that the exogenous variation in oil endowment does not have the same effect on all countries. In most cases, the event has a negative effect in the long run, but countries with a pre‐existing high level of democracy are not negatively affected.” This abstract suggests that the authors are observing countries. Now, are the countries the unit of analysis as well? A thorough review of the article suggests that the units of analysis are the countries as well. For example, Figure 1 in the article compares the level of democracy in each country with a “synthetic” version of itself. This suggests that both the unit of observation and the unit of analysis are the same.
Our third example is located in the Journal of Representative Democracy and the article “Filling the Void? Political Responsiveness of Populist Parties” by Carolina Plescia, Slyvia Kritzinger, and Lorenzo De Sio (Plescia, Kritzinger, and De Sio 2019). The abstract reads: “This paper examines the responsiveness of populist parties to the salience of issues amongst the public focusing on a large number of issues on which parties campaign during elections. The paper investigates both left- and right-wing populist parties comparatively in three countries, namely Austria, Germany and Italy. We find that while populist parties carry out an important responsiveness function, they are only slightly more responsive than their mainstream counterparts on the issues they own. The results of this paper have important implications for our understanding of political representation and the future of the populist appeal.” There are several objects mentioned in the abstract that could serve as units of observation: parties, issues, the public, campaigns, elections, and countries. It would follow that the researchers are observing parties within specific countries, so we could assert that the units of observation are countries themselves. However, given the variety of the objects the paper is examining, it’s clear that the units of analysis are not just parties within countries. We could argue that the units of analysis are the relationship between parties and the public. Particularly, this article is interested in how parties are responsiveness to the priorities of the public. Therefore, the researchers are keenly interested in measuring the relationship between these two objects. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/04%3A_Theories_Hypotheses_Variables_and_Units/4.05%3A_Units_of_Observation_and_Units_of_Analysis.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Create a causal model
Causal modeling is the process of visualizing the relationships between concepts of interest (Youngblut 1994a, [b] 1994). Additionally, this process also encourages researchers to consider the possibility of other relationships between concepts that were not originally theorized or otherwise considered.
Causal modeling was popularized by Judea Pearl, among other scholars (Pearl 1995, 2009; Pearl, Glymour, and Jewell 2016). Underlying causal modeling is the concept of causality. In a public lecture at the University of California, Los Angeles, Dr. Pearl stated that “causality – namely, our awareness of what causes what in the world and why it matters” (Pearl 2009).
As a student of political science, it is important to know that the concept of causality has been broached with adherence or passivism in the discipline. Those who adhere to the concept of causality are vested in theorizing, hypothesizing, and accumulating empirical evidence that explains the causes and effects of political behavior, processes, and institutions. Research that does not aspire to declare and determine a cause-and-effect relationship is not rigorous, in the view of adherents. On the other hand, passivists of causality believe, while important, the discipline should not preclude or dismiss studies of politics that don’t have an explicit cause-andeffect relationship which is being examined. The aspiration is on discovery and explanation, not only cause-and-effect.
In his book Causality, Dr. Pearl (2009) shares: “The two fundamental questions of causality are: (1) What empirical evidence is required for legitimate inference of cause-effect relationships? (2) Given that we are willing to accept causal information about a phenomenon, what inferences can we draw from such information, and how? These questions have been without satisfactory answers in part because we have not had a clear semantics for causal claims and in part because we have not had effective mathematical tools for casting causal questions or deriving causal answers.”
Why are these questions important for political science students and scholars? Regarding the first question, we observe the world. From our observation, we begin the process of stating theories, producing hypotheses, and finding explanations from political actors, behaviors, processes, and institutions. The observed world offers us empirical evidence and this evidence is a prerequisite to inferring a cause-effect relation. With respect to the second question, political science grapples with what inferences can be drawn from information and how. Information includes quantitative and qualitative data. How we draw inferences from this information includes the use of probability, statistics, mathematics, and logic.
Causal modeling, as Dr. Pearl has explored, has an underlying logic and mathematics. For our purposes, we want to explore three visualizations to seed the utility of causal modeling and leave the underlying logic and mathematics for you to further explore on your own or in future courses. Below are three causal models: 1, 2, and 3.
Model 1 shows the simplest relationship between two objects: A and B. There is an arrow that points from A to B, this denotes the direction of the relationship. One can assume when an arrow points from one object to another, that the pointing object is a “cause” while the pointed object is an “effect.”
Figure \(1\): Causal model: A to B
Model 2 shows the relationship between three objects: A, M, and B. There is an arrow that points from A to M. M stands for mediator, since it mediates, or stands in between, the relationship between A and B. Given that A influences B through M, A is more precisely stated as an “indirect cause”. While there is an arrow from M to B, M is not considered the “cause” because the model includes A.
Figure \(2\): Causal model: A to M to B
Finally, model 3 shows the relationship between three objects: A, B, and C. First, we notice that A points to B, meaning that A is considered a “cause” of the “effect” B. However, unlike model 2, we also see C. C has a directional relationship with both A and B. In this instance, C is called a “confounder” because we didn’t explicitly include it in the original model, as denoted by the dots instead of solid lines of the circle.
Figure \(3\): Causal model: C to A, A to B, and C to B
Drawing causal models is useful because it lets us “see” the relationships between objects of interest. As you explore political phenomenon, keep the tool of causal modeling handy. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/04%3A_Theories_Hypotheses_Variables_and_Units/4.06%3A_Casual_Modeling.txt |
• Causal modeling: visual method for describing simple and complex relationships between variables
• Causation: an explanation of how one variable, typically known as the independent variable, affects another variable, typically known as the dependent variable
• Correlation: a relationship between two variables
• Hypothesis: an if-then statement explaining how one variable should influence another variable
• Theory: a statement declaring a relationship between two variables
• Unit of analysis: an object that is analyzed, using qualitative or quantitative methods, by the researcher
• Unit of observation: an object that is observed by a researcher
• Variable: an object that can hold at least two values
4.08: Critical Thinking Problems
Summary of Section 4.1: Correlation and Causation
Causation and correlation are important to political science. Correlation establishes connections between ideas, actors, institutions, and processes while causation establishes a causal connection. Because connections are established does not mean that the connection is a causal one; correlation does not equal causation. Correlation is, however, one condition of causality along with logical time ordering, mechanism, and non-spuriousness. When these four conditions are met, a causal connection is possible.
Summary of Section 4.2: Theory Construction
A theory is an explanation of how the world works. It is a set of assumptions about constants, variables, and the relationship between variables. Generating a theory can occur in three ways: without referencing existing theory, extending an existing theory, or contradicting an existing theory. When creating a theory, researchers should remember that theories should be general, parsimonious and falsifiable.
Summary of Section 4.3: Generating Hypotheses from Theories
A hypothesis is an if-then statement that is derived from a theory. While a theory states that there is a relationship between two concepts or objects of interest, a hypothesis declares the values of the two concepts and how the change in the value of one affects the change in the value of the second object. Hypothesis should contain three elements: units of observation, a value of the independent variable, and a value of the dependent variable.
Summary of Section 4.4: Exploring Variables
Variables are objects that vary or change due to their inherent properties. They can be placed in two categories: discrete (values we can count) and continuous (values we can measure). Discrete values can be nominal or ordinal whereas continuous variables can be interval or ratio.
Summary of Section 4.5: Units of Observation and Units of Analysis
Political scientists observe a wide range of political objects; however, these objects do not have the same purpose. Some objects are units of observation and others are units of analysis. Units of observation are the objects that a researcher is specifically observing with the goal of describing the relationship between the objects. A unit of analysis is the object that a researcher is specifically analyzing.
Summary of Section 4.6: Causal Modeling
Causal modeling is the process of visualizing the relationships between concepts of interest. It allows us to “see” the relationships between objects of interest. It can also be useful in assisting researchers to consider the possibility of other relationships between concepts.
4.09: Review Questions
1. Correlation is when one variable causes another variable to change.
a. True
b. False
2. Causation is when one variable is correlated with another variable
a. True
b. False
3. Hypotheses are typically considered if-then statements
a. True
b. False
4. Identify the discrete variable(s) and the continuous variable(s).
a. Gender and money
b. Money and gender
c. Race and gender
d. Time and race
5. Which of the following best describes a unit of observation compared to a unit of analysis?
a. Unit of observation is what the researcher is looking at, while the unit of analysis is what the researcher is analyzing
b. Unit of observation is what the researcher is analyzing, while the unit of analysis is what the researcher is observing
c. The unit of observation and the unit of analysis are the exact same thing, therefore there is no comparison to be made
4.10: Critical Thinking Questions
1. Generate a causal theory between two variables you are interested in. Assess the likelihood of causality by addressing the four conditions of causality.
2. Generate a causal theory between two variables and provide a visual representation. Next, create a hypothesis that would allow you to test your theory.
3. Identify a variable of interest and assess how you will measure it. Utilizing the same variable, first create a discrete variable and then create a continuous measure of the variable.
4.11: Critical Thinking Questions
Websites
Journal Articles
• Youngblut, J. M. 1994. “A Consumer’s Guide to Causal Modeling: Part I.” Journal of Pediatric Nursing 9 (4): 268–71.
• Clarke, Kevin A., and David M. Primo. 2007. “Modernizing Political Science: A ModelBased Approach.” Perspectives on Politics 5 (4): 741–53.
• Tully, Mary P. 2014. “Research: Articulating Questions, Generating Hypotheses, and Choosing Study Designs.” The Canadian Journal of Hospital Pharmacy 67 (1): 31–34.
Books
• Jaccard, J., and J. Jacoby. 2010. “Theory Construction and Model Building: A Practical Guide for Social Scientists.” New York: The Guilford Press.
• Pearl, Judea. 2009. Causality. 2nd edition. Cambridge University Press.
• Morgan, Stephen L., and Christopher Winship. 2015. Counterfactuals and Causal Inference. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107587991. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/04%3A_Theories_Hypotheses_Variables_and_Units/4.07%3A_Key_Terms_Glossary.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Identify the process by which ideas and observations are turned into concepts
• Consider the relationship between concepts, dimensions, and indicators
• Understand the method of concept mapping
What is conceptualization?
Concepts are the building blocks of theories. Concepts are “names for things, feelings, and ideas generated or acquired by people in the course of relating to each other and to their environment."1 Creating concepts is one of the first steps to engaging with the world. The process of conceptualization calls for the powers of observation and imagination. A political scientist might observe that all groups of people abide by authority, and that authority looks different across different groups of people. That might lead to the conceptualization of “regime,” or the organization of political authority across different societies. Or a political theorist might imagine that it’s possible to organize a political authority for all of humankind. That might lead to the conceptualization of “global government.” In other words, conceptualization is a process of naming things in the world, either observed or imagined (or sometimes a mix of the two), and using language to communicate those names, or concepts.
Political thinkers have long sought to conceptualize political authority, beginning with early philosophers such as Aristotle. In Politics, Aristotle begins by conceptualizing aspects of political life such as citizenship and the state. He asserts, “He who has the power to take part in the deliberative or judicial administration of any state is said by us to be a citizens [sic] of that state; and, speaking generally, a state is a body of citizens sufficing for the purposes of life.”2 After noting these building blocks of political life, Aristotle then wonders about the many ways in which citizens and states are organized. He muses,
“We have next to consider whether there is only one form of government or many, and if many, what they are, and how many, and what are the differences between them. …Governments which have a regard to the common interest are constituted in accordance with strict principles of justice, and are therefore true forms; but those which regard only the interest of the rulers are all defective and perverted forms, for they are despotic, whereas a state is a community of freemen.
“Having determined these points, we have next to consider how many forms of government there are, and what they are; and in the first place what are the true forms, for when they are determined the perversions of them will at once be apparent. The words constitution and government have the same meaning, and the government, which is the supreme authority in states, must be in the hands of one, or of a few, or of the many. The true forms of government, therefore, are those in which the one, or the few, or the many, govern with a view to the common interest; but governments which rule with a view to the private interest, whether of the one or of the few, or of the many, are perversions.”3
Aristotle, writing from a place of observation but also imagination, offers foundational concepts for understanding political life: citizens, states, and varieties of government. A shorthand term for the concept “varieties of government” that we use today is “regime.”
For Aristotle, the key variation in political authority is whether government (or regime) comprises one, a few, or many leaders. Second, he considers in whose interest that government is ruling, a narrow or broader constituency. By conceptualizing government in this way, Aristotle is making some important moves. He is asserting that there are two salient dimensions to regime, the size of the ruling group and in whose interest, they are ruling. Table 5.1 summarizes the types of government (regime) identified by Aristotle.
Table \(1\): Aristotle’s forms of government (regime types)
Ruling in whose interest
Number of Rulers Common interest Private interests of one or the few
One Kingship Tyranny
Few Aristocracy Oligarchy
Many Polity Democracy
In short, concept building is determining, to the best of our ability, precise language for observations and ideas that we believe are important for understanding social life. Concepts are the building blocks for theory and theory testing.
Dimensions and indicators
The brief foray into Aristotle’s conceptualization of political authority reveals two additional important aspects of concept building: dimensions and indicators. Concepts, especially the complex ones that are foundational in the study of human behavior, often have many dimensions. After identifying a concept such as “forms of government” (hereafter “regime”), concept building involves further thinking about underlying variation in that concept. Regime type, for example, might be thought of in Aristotelian terms: how concentrated political authority is in that society (e.g., in one, a few, or many leaders). Another dimension of regime may be how leaders are selected, regardless of their number. Yet another dimension, considered by Aristotle, is whether leaders serve public or private interests.
These are all dimensions of the same single concept, regime. Consider another important concept in politics, prosperity. There are many dimensions to this concept. One dimension may be the amount of wealth in a society. Another dimension might be how healthy a society is. Another dimension may be how equally goods are distributed in a society. Yet another dimension may be stability in the wealth enjoyed by members of a society. And so forth. Note that there exist many possible measures for each dimension of prosperity, a topic that will be taken up in section 5.3.
Indicators are more concrete aspects of dimensions. They are more specific and are often what we observe in the world around us. Continuing the example of regime, Aristotle and observations of the contemporary world suggests three dimensions to this concept: how leadership is structured, how that leadership rules over society, and how that leadership is selected. Aristotle suggests one indicator for the structure of different regimes: when there is one, a few, or many rulers. More generally, another indicator of this dimension might be the specific number of rulers in a government. In the United States, the number of elected rulers in federal government is 537, or 535 legislators, one president, and one vice president. Today, regime is also understood in terms of whether public office holders are selected via elections. This dimension of regime is leadership selection, and one indicator of this is the presence or absence of elections. Recall the discussion of variables in Chapter 4 and note that dimensions and indicators can be variables.
Concepts, dimensions, and indicators relate to one another in terms of their level of abstraction and how many may be nested within the other. Concepts are building blocks and foundational for scholarly inquiry. They are often abstract, for example the concept of “regime” as a way of naming and thinking about political authority. Dimensions are less abstract, and there may be many dimensions to a concept. Indicators are the most concrete, and there may be many indicators for a single dimension of a concept. Figure 5.1 below sums up how we might think about the concept of “regime”, related dimensions, and possible indicators of those dimensions.
Figure \(1\): An example of a concept, dimensions, and indicators
Concept mapping
Concept mapping is a method for identifying concepts, dimensions and indicators, and their relationships to each other. Concept mapping can help with formulating a research topic and eventually a research question. It is a means to place concepts in a visual way such that one has a pictorial understanding of relationships between concepts, dimensions, and indicators. Concept mapping can be done by individuals or groups. Creating a concept map entails several conventions.
First, key concepts are usually enclosed in boxes or circles on a concept map. Another alternative is writing concepts on slips of paper to move them around the concept map. If a researcher wanted to create a concept map around the question, “What are the consequences of different regime types in the world?” they might first start by putting the word “regime” in a box at the top of the mapping space. Other related concepts, such as “conflict” and “prosperity” and “power” might also go in boxes on the map.
Second, concept maps are spatially organized from top to bottom, with more general concepts at the top of the mapping space (anything from a piece of paper to a wall-sized whiteboard) to more specific concepts at the bottom.
Third, lines or arrows are used to connect related concepts. If the researcher wants to explore the relationship between “regime” and “leadership form”, they might put those two phrases in circles and then connect those circles with a line and the words “according to Aristotle, determined by”. Another line might connect “regime” and “private interest” with “is perverted when rulers rule in the”. Figure 5.2 below offers an example of a concept map created using a computer program.
Figure \(2\): An example of a concept map created using the IHMC CmapTools computer program by Vicwood40, CC BY-SA 3.0
Concept maps are a useful tool for visually depicting the scope of one’s knowledge on a central concept, relationships between that concept and relevant concepts, dimensions, and indicators.
Concept maps can also reveal how knowledge is organized and gaps in knowledge (i.e., areas for research). Concept mapping is distinct from other activities such as brainstorming because there are specific conventions how concept maps are drawn and how space is utilized in a concept map. Brainstorming can be a more general way to jot down concepts which are related to each other, but there are no conventions in brainstorming for how to organize concepts visually.
1 Hoover, Kenneth and Todd Donovan. 2011. The Elements of Social Scientific Thinking. Tenth Edition. Wadsworth Cengage Learning, p. 12.
2 Aristotle. 350 BCE. Politics. Book 3, Part I. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. Available online at http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.html.
3 Ibid. Book 3, Parts VI and VII. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/05%3A_Conceptualization_Operationalization_Measurement/5.01%3A_Conceptualization_in_Political_Science.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Consider the process by which concepts are operationalized to begin collecting relevant data in the “real” world
• Understand aspects of data collection - What, why, how
Operationalize a concept
After putting a name to observations of the world – creating concepts – the next step is to “operationalize” those concepts. Operationalization is the process by which a researcher defines a concept in measurable terms. In other words, “to operationalize a concept means to put it in a form that permits some kind of measurement of variation.”4 Variation implies that the measure selected will take on different values. For example, one operationalization of the concept “regime” might be to focus on the number of leaders in power. This might be measured by counting individuals in power. Observing real world country cases, it would appear that this ranges in number from a single leader (such as Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, who was either prime minister or president from 1980 to 2017) to many (such as China’s Politburo Standing Committee, which has varied from five to eleven decision-makers since 1949).
Note the importance of variation when operationalizing a concept. Without variation, it is difficult to identify patterns of association such as correlation and causation. If “regime” were operationalized more broadly (and poorly) as “presence of a government,” then there would be no variation on this measure in the contemporary world. It would then be difficult to ascertain the causal effect of regime type on some outcome of interest (i.e., dependent variable), such as interstate war, if the operationalization of that concept did not vary.
A constant – the presence of government – cannot therefore explain something that varies, which in this example is the presence or absence of interstate war. This problem also arises if we treat this operationalization of regime as the outcome of interest. Again, an absence of variation makes it difficult to ascertain determinants of that constant. Imagine asking whether levels of economic growth have some effect on regime type. Economic growth varies by country, but if regime type is operationalized as the presence of a government, this constant cannot be explained by other social phenomena which vary.
Operationalizing a concept must be done with some additional considerations in mind, specifically identifying valid and reliable measures of that concept. These considerations will be taken up in section 5.3 of this chapter. At the moment, the important thing is to think about ways to measure a concept and be sure that there is variation on that measure. Returning to the example of Aristotle, he first conceptualizes something we refer to today as “regime,” then operationalizes regime by suggesting two measures: how many leaders are in power and in whose interest they rule. For the first measure, Aristotle offers “one, few, [and] the many [rulers]” as three categories for measuring this concept. For the second measure, Aristotle offers two categories, whether a ruler is ruling in the name of “private” or “common” interests. A third measure that is commonly used today to operationalize the concept of regime is the presence of free and fair elections. This is a binary measure: does a country hold competitive elections or not? With these three measures as starting points, a researcher can embark on the process of data collection.
Collecting data
Data collection is the gathering of relevant information to inform a research topic or question. Ideally, collected data will help with answering a research question, but the process of data collection may entail learning about many aspects of a research topic before a question crystallizes. Chapters 6 and 7 will explore in more depth quantitative and qualitative methods for data collection. For our purposes here, the central questions will be,
• What kind of data should I collect?
• Why am I collecting this data?
• How can I collect this data?
Determining what kind of data to collect hinges of the operationalization of a concept. There are also practical scope considerations to resolve before embarking on data collection. These usually have to do with time and space: which period of time and which parts of the world (if not the entire world) to focus on. For beginning researchers, the best strategy for answering these questions is asking, what am I interested in? And do I have any prior knowledge that I can bring to bear on answering these questions of research scope? The first question is the more important one and reflecting on personal interest and taste is a good start.
Research and especially data collection require sustained effort and often present unexpected challenges, hence a genuine interest can help motivate a researcher through rough patches. The second question can also help relieve some of the challenges with data collection (e.g., overcoming linguistic constraints, knowledge of existing data sources, contextual expertise) but is of secondary importance. Research and data collection can certainly be about creating new knowledge on entirely unfamiliar topics, and unbridled curiosity is encouraged.
A second set of considerations hinges on whether a researcher is interested in quantitative, qualitative, or mixed sources of data. Chapters 7 and 8 take up qualitative and quantitative research methods, respectively, and here the focus is on which methods to pursue. The method often hinges on how a concept has been operationalized. If we operationalize regime as a simple count of how many leaders are in power in a country, then this lends itself to building a quantitative dataset. If we are interested in collecting the titles of those political offices, this suggests a more qualitative approach is needed. But perhaps both the number of leaders and their titles might be useful, which suggests collecting a mix of quantitative and qualitative data.
Taking up the second question, “Why am I collecting this data?” a researcher might return to first principles. What is the underlying concept of interest in this research project? How has that concept been operationalized, and does the proposed measure (or measures) vary in value? Data collection always demands resources, be it time or money or carbon emissions or all the above, hence it is important to question from the outset what kind of data might be ideal for understanding underlying concepts. Having a research question formulated can also help with this, as the proposed data collection can be more sharply evaluated when thinking about whether the ideal data might help to answer a central question of interest.
Finally, the third question a researcher might ask is, “How can I collect this data?” An important first step is conducting a literature review. As the saying goes, “Don’t reinvent the wheel.” A literature review is the process of reading relevant scholarly work on a research topic or research question of interest. This is often conducted with the assistance of other experts, for example professors, librarians, and colleagues. When reviewing relevant literature, a researcher can ascertain whether relevant data has already been collected and exists in an accessible dataset.
Or they might identify whether related research, and accompanying datasets, might be available and used in part to build a new dataset. There are many publicly available quantitative datasets available for download from the internet. Governments and international organizations such as the United Nations and World Bank are also common repositories of useful social science data. Librarians are also excellent resources and often know where to locate data within a library’s holdings. Figure 5.2 offers a starting point for locating common social science statistical datasets.
Some common sources of data for research in the social sciences
1. Government Statistics: National governments are often the only institutions with the resources (and authority) to collect comprehensive social statistics, and thus publish the overwhelming majority of social statistics available. Most countries have a national statistical agency that collects and publishes statistics, and simply perusing that agency's website or publications catalog is often the best way to find their statistics. The US is more complicated, since responsibility for statistics is spread among many federal agencies. Wikipedia has a list of the principal federal statistical agencies. The United Nations and other international government organizations collate and publish comparative statistical data from their member nations. Most state, provincial, and municipal governments also collect and publish some statistics.
2. Public Opinion Polls: News and political organizations routinely conduct or commission opinion polls on a variety of topics. Many of those poll results can be found at the ICPSR or other poll archives for which university libraries often have subscriptions.
3. Academic Research: Social science researchers often gather data as part of their studies. The results are usually presented in the published academic literature. Search any of the major article databases to find these articles. Most articles will only contain summary data, but the complete datasets can often be obtained from the original researchers.
4. Commercial Market and Business Research: Many corporations and trade organizations collect economic statistics and sell them for profit. Often a very hefty profit, which means university libraries purchase only a limited number of these data products.
Source: UCLA Library. Research Guides, “Social Statistics and Data,” Available online at http://guides.library.ucla.edu/data/sources
Statistical datasets are often available for download from the internet or via subscription from a university or college library. Qualitative datasets are generally more difficult to come by. In the course of conducting a literature review, a scholar may cite a qualitative dataset (typically their own), and these are sometimes available on scholars’ personal webpages or the webpages of affiliated research centers. It also doesn’t hurt to contact a scholar directly if you are interested in their data; the scholarly spirit is to share knowledge, after all.
4 Hoover, Kenneth and Todd Donovan. 2011. The Elements of Social Scientific Thinking. Tenth Edition. Wadsworth Cengage Learning, p. 42. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/05%3A_Conceptualization_Operationalization_Measurement/5.02%3A_Operationalization.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Analyze different types of measurement
• Evaluate the quality of measures
• Explore existing measures of regime type
Types of measurement
When operationalizing a concept, one important consideration is the kind of measure that will be used. Measurement is “the assignment of numbers or labels to units of analysis to represent variable categories.”5 In other words, measurement is putting values on variables. Measurement is highly concrete insofar as it entails translating observations of the world into standard units. Those units can still be very abstract, but measurement is a crucial step for creating the data that can then be analyzed. For example, the research and advocacy organization Freedom House uses a scale that ranges from 0 to 100 to measure the levels of freedom, political and civil, in countries around the world.6 The number 100 on the Freedom House scale does not equate to 100 units of something tangible, the way we would measure, say, pounds of flour, yet it is a more precise way of thinking about differing levels of freedom around the world. Based on the Freedom House scale, it is possible to compare levels of freedom across countries and over time and analyze trends more systematically.
There are four types of measures: nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio. Table 5.3 below summarizes them briefly.
Table \(1\): Types of measures
Type of Measure Description
Nominal
Observations are classified into two or more categories, with numerical values assigned to each category
Example: Racial and ethnic categories maintained by the US Census Bureau
Ordinal
Observations are rank ordered, with numbers assigned to indicate the rank ordering on some dimension
Example: Attitude question on surveys ranging from 1 = “Strongly Disagree” to 5 = “Strongly Agree”
Interval
Observations fall along a scale with standard units
Example: Timeline that ranges from 1945 to 2000 with 5-year periods of time demarcated
Ratio
Interval ratio with an absolute zero
Example: Age, weight
Nominal measures are focused on classification. One example of a nominal measure are the racial and ethnic categories used in the US Census, such as “Black or African American” (a racial category) or “Hispanic” (an ethnic category).7 Aristotle offered a nominal measure of regime type when he listed six different types of regime, including “democracy” and “tyranny” and so forth.8 Numbers can be assigned to each category, but these assignments are arbitrary and not useful for rank-ordering categories. Good nominal measures are those which are exhaustive and mutually exclusive. A nominal measure is exhaustive when every observation falls within the given categories. A well-constructed nominal measure should also have mutually exclusive categories, meaning that there is no overlap between categories. On these criteria, it would appear that the racial categories used by the US federal government are problematic. First, they are not exhaustive as they do not include the possibility of classifying individuals who identify as two or more races. Second, the categories are not mutually exclusive, as the “White” and “Black or African American” racial categories both include individuals who may trace their geographic origins to the African continent.
Ordinal measures classify and rank-order observations. Observations fall along some ranking system, with numbers assigned to different ranks. One example of an ordinal measure is a survey question which asks respondents whether they “strongly agree,” “somewhat agree,” “[are] neutral,” “somewhat disagree,” and “strongly disagree” with a statement, and there are numerical values in descending or ascending order assigned to each response category. Another example of an ordinal measure are socioeconomic categories which may range from “lower class” to “lower middle class” to “middle class” to “upper class”. Note that the categories in ordinal measures provide some information about relative rankings. For example, someone in the upper class probably has higher household income than someone in the lower class. However, ordinal measures are not designed for mathematical manipulation. One should not take the average of all the responses to a survey question noted above to arrive at the “average” level of agreement to a statement.
An interval measure contains numerical values which are assumed to have equal distances between each unit. Taking the Freedom House scale mentioned previously, which ranges from 0 to 100, countries fall on this scale based on observations of levels of freedom in each country. Another example of interval measurement is the numerical score you might receive for each exam in your class, which typically ranges from 0 to 100. Mathematical manipulation can be conducted on these measures. For example, if you received an 80 and a 70 on your two exams, they could be averaged to yield an average exam score of 75 (assuming the exams were worth the same percentage of your final grade).
Ratio measures are interval measures that have a true zero. An example of this is weight or age. What is the significance of a measure having a true zero? This allows for statements comparing observations on the ratio. For example, if two people are 20 and 40, it is possible to state that the 40-year-old is twice as old as the 20-year-old. Taking the example of interval measure noted previously, there is no true zero on the Freedom House measure. It could be the case, for example, that countries fall below zero but are just not captured by the criteria used for the scale. And for an interval measure such as Freedom House’s, it is not possible to state that a country ranked 60 on the Freedom House scale is twice as free as a country ranked 30 on that scale.
Comparing across these four types of measures, each yields information that builds upon the contributions of the previous kind of measure. Nominal measures help with classification. It follows from this that nominal measures allow for counting the total number or frequency of some category within the classification system. Ordinal measures classify as well, but they also allow for ordering observations. Interval measures classify and rank order observations, but they also present equal intervals for measuring observations. Finally, for those variables where there is a true zero, ratio measures allow for classification, rank ordering, and measuring intervals. They also allow for assessing the relative value of observations.
Quality of measures
An important consideration when determining a measure for a concept is whether that measure is of high quality. Some criteria for evaluating this are the precision and accuracy of the proposed measure. A precise measure is one that is exact. For example, consider how to measure education levels. Doing so by tracking the schools from which an individual has graduated is one measure, and it is passably precise. (For example, an individual may graduate from elementary, then middle and high school.) Counting the years that an individual has attended school is perhaps a more precise measure, since not all education systems may be divided into elementary, middle, and high school levels. This second approach allows for more fine-grained data collection – i.e., more precise data – for analysis.
Accuracy presents additional challenges. An accurate measure is one which measures the underlying concept that it was intended to measure. This relates to two characteristics, reliability and validity. A reliable measure is where there is a low possibility of measurement error. One way to assess this is to see whether different researchers still arrive at the same findings when applying the same measure. Reliable measures are those which have the potential for replicability, one of the standards for evaluating the robustness of a research finding. A valid measure is more difficult to evaluate, but it basically reduces to whether a measure is meaningful. For example, is an IQ test a valid way to measure a person’s intelligence? Validity is difficult to assess and therefore hotly debated among researchers.
One way to think about precision, reliability, and validity is to imagine a dart board with concentric circles and a bull’s eye in the center. The bull’s eye in the center of the dart board is the concept that a researcher is trying to measure. A precise measure would be a dart that has a fine needle rather than a fat needle. A reliable measure would be one where repeated darts thrown at the dart board all land on the same spot on the target. That doesn’t mean the darts have landed on the bull’s eye, but at least they are landing on the same spot again and again. A valid measure would be one where repeated darts thrown at the dart board sometimes hit the bull’s eye, but the darts may be scattered all over the target. But a reliable and valid measure would be one where darts thrown at the target consistently strike the bull’s eye. (Note that measures may be reliable but not valid. Measures may also be valid but not reliable. And they may be neither, which means the darts are not striking the target at all but instead landing all over the adjacent wall.)
Figure \(1\): Dart board as metaphor for precision, reliability, and validity of measure by Christina B. Castro, “Dart board,” 2008, Flickr creative commons, CC BY-NC 2.0
Applying concepts and measures: Some measures of regime type
To circle back to the discussion raised at the beginning of this chapter, the concept of regime has been a perennial focus of political science since antiquity. Regime, or the collection of rules by which political authority is organized in a society, is a locus of political power. Scholars also believe that variation in regime types over time and space can help with understanding outcomes such as individual well-being and societal prosperity.9 This chapter began by examining how Aristotle sought to conceptualize his observations of political authority, settling on the concept of “constitution” which we today refer to as “regime”. Early attempts to operationalize and conceive of measures for regime focused on the number of leaders in power and in whose interest they ruled. Political scientists at present have conceived of myriad measures for regime type. This section will examine two different measures which present examples of ordinal and interval measures.
Professor Barbara Geddes of the Political Science Department at the University of California, Los Angeles, offers one ordinal measure for understanding the diverse group of countries in the world which are commonly referred to as authoritarian regimes, or nondemocracies. (We can think of a democracy most simply as a country where there are free and fair elections; a nondemocracy is where these are absent.) For Geddes, nondemocracies include everything from North Korea under the Kim family to Brazil under military dictatorship. Looking at the sheer diversity of nondemocracies in the world, and narrowing her focus to the twentieth century, Geddes devised several categories for dictatorships of the world. The categories she devised were personalist, military, single party, and hybrids of these three categories.10
Table \(2\): Geddes types of nondemocracy (Example of a nominal measure)
Type of dictatorship Description
Personalist
Rule by a single person
Example: Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe, 1980-2017
Military
Rule by military leaders
Example: Turkey, 1960-1965; military coup in 1960 and general in power through 1965
Single party
Rule by a single political party
Example: People’s Republic of China under the Chinese Communist Party, 1949-present
Hybrid
May be combinations of two or three of the above categories
Example: North Korea under the rule of the Kim family, Workers’ Party of Korea, and North Korean military since 1953
This ordinal measure for dictatorship offers a first cut at classifying a very diverse universe of cases. There are qualitative differences between the categories constructed by Geddes, for example whether political leadership is concentrated in a single person, the military, a political party, or some combination of these three. Note that there isn’t any rank ordering of these types of nondemocracies on any dimension. Because of this, it is not possible to consider whether, for example, a greater concentration of leadership in fewer individuals correlates with greater wealth concentration in the country. Geddes’ measure strives to be exhaustive, as she argues that every nondemocracy in the world during the twentieth century might fit into one of these four categories. There may be questions, however, about the reliability of this measure. Might another researcher, starting from scratch, categorize countries in the same way as Geddes? China, for example, might be categorized as a personalist regime under Mao Zedong’s rule (1949-1976) rather than a single party regime.
A second example of a widely used interval measure of regime type is known as Polity IV. This measure considers the entire range of regime types, from highly undemocratic to so-called consolidated democracies of the world.11 It places observations on a scale that ranges from -10 (for highly undemocratic) to +10 (for highly democratic). As the Polity Project webpage notes,
“[Polity IV] envisions a spectrum of governing authority that spans from fully institutionalized autocracies through mixed, or incoherent, authority regimes (termed "anocracies") to fully institutionalized democracies.
“The ‘Polity Score’ captures this regime authority spectrum on a 21-pont scale ranging from -10 (hereditary monarchy) to +10 (consolidated democracy). The Polity scores can also be converted into regime categories in a suggested threepart categorization of ‘autocracies’ (-10 to -6), ‘anocracies’ (-5 to +5 and three special values: -66, -77 and -88), and ‘democracies’ (+6 to +10).”12
The Polity datasets are publicly available and downloadable from the internet. Scores are available for 151 countries ranging over the period 1800-2017, with annual observations for each country. Countries are placed each year on this -10 to +10 scale depending on the degree of political competition observed, citizen participation, and constraints on the executive. The higher a country scores on these dimensions, the higher its Polity Score. Canada, for example, has a Polity Score of +10 over the period 1946-2017.
Note that this measure rank-orders countries along some underlying dimension of “authoritarianism,” where those countries which are deeply authoritarian are closer to -10 while those which are further from authoritarianism, or more democratic, are closer to +10. While the Polity Score is an interval measure of regime type, the excerpt above also suggests that this can be an ordinal measure with the following categories: autocracy, anocracy, and democracy.
Polity Score today is considered one of the most precise and reliable measures for regime type. Its validity, like the validity of most every measure for regime type, is debated. By one scholar’s count, there exist today at least nine interval measures of democracy alone.13 The endeavor continues. Projects which culminate in measures such as Polity Score are valuable for putting words and measures to concepts which we know are deeply consequential.
5 Raymo, James M. 2009. “Methods of Sociological Inquiry.” Course slides, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
6 See Freedom House online at https://freedomhouse.org/
7 A summary of US Census Bureau racial and ethnic categories is available at https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fa...e/US/RHI625218
8 One of Aristotle’s criteria for these categories was the number of rulers, so there was also some attempt at interval measurement in his classification of regime type. However, this was mixed with his focus on whether rulers ruled in the common or private interest.
9 See, for example, Przeworski, Adam et al. 2000. Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and WellBeing in the World, 1950-1990. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
10 See Geddes, Barbara. 2003. Paradigms and Sand Castles: Theory Building and Resaerch Design in Comparative Politics. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
11 Consolidated democracy refers to those democracies where democratic institutions such as elections, checksand-balances within government, and civil society, are robust and democracy is widely accepted as the ideal kind of political authority.
12 The Polity Project is available online at http://www.systemicpeace.org/polityproject.html. This website contains downloadable datasets and codebooks.
13 Pemstein, Daniel, Meserve, Stephen A., and Melton, James. 2010. “Democratic Compromise: A Latent Variable Analysis of Ten Measures of Regime Type,” Political Analysis 18: 426-449. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/05%3A_Conceptualization_Operationalization_Measurement/5.03%3A_Measurement.txt |
• Concept mapping: Method for identifying and visualizing dimensions and indicators of concepts and relationships between concepts
• Concepts: These are the building blocks of theories and are labels or language to describe objects, events, practices, and ideas in social life; complex concepts are further broken down into dimensions and indicators
• Conceptualization: The process of creating concepts by applying the powers of observation and imagination
• Dimension: One aspect of a concept; for example, the concept of “government” might be broken down into multiple dimensions such as “centralization of power,” “levels of bureaucracy,” and so forth
• Indicator: Observable aspect of a concept
• Interval measure: A measure for a variable in which observations fall along a scale with standard units
• Nominal measure: A measure for a variable in which observations are classified into two or more categories
• Operationalization: Process of defining a concept in measurable terms; identifying variables (or indicators) that are relevant for understanding and observing a concept in concrete ways
• Ordinal measure: A measure for a variable in which observations are rank ordered
• Ratio measure: An interval measure with a true zero value
• Regime: The system and rules, either formal or informal, for organizing government in each society; a binary approach to regime is to divide governments into democracies and nondemocracies
• Reliability: When there is a low probability of error for a proposed measure
• Validity: When a proposed measure is a meaningful measure of its underlying concept
5.05: Summary
Summary of Section 5.1: Conceptualization in political science
This section explored what a concept is and the process by which we create concepts. It began with the conceptualization of “regime” (going back to Aristotle). Then it drilled down into how social scientists think about concepts, i.e., dimensions and indicators of concepts. It explored dimensions and indicators of the concept “regime”. The final section discussed one method, concept mapping, that is useful for identifying concepts and, by extension, dimensions, indicators, and research questions.
Summary of Section 5.2: Operationalization
This section continued the example of conceptualizing “regime” and explored how to operationalize the concept. It walked through various considerations in data collection such as “What kind of data should I collect?”, “Why am I collecting this data?”, and “How can I collect this data?”. It concluded with some common data sources for research in the social sciences.
Summary of Section 5.3: Measurement
This section discussed types of measurement such as nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio measures. It considered criteria for the quality of measures such as precision, reliability, and validity. Finally, the chapter introduced commonly used measures of regime type and discussed each in turn.
5.06: Review Questions
1. What is the primary difference between operationalization and measurement?
a. Measurement is about deciding whether a variable should be measured as nominal, ordinal, interval or ratio while operationalization is about defining a concept
b. Operationalization is about deciding whether a variable should be measured as nominal, ordinal, interval or ratio while measurement is about defining a concept
c. Operationalization centers on defining a concept, while measurement is focused on describing an abstract idea
2. Concept mapping is the method for identifying and visualizing dimensions and indicators of concepts and relationships between concepts
a. True
b. False
3. Which of the following statements best describes conceptualization?
a. The process of creating concepts by applying the powers of observation and imagination
b. Process of defining a concept in measurable terms; identifying variables (or indicators) that are relevant for understanding and observing a concept in concrete ways
c. Method for identifying and visualizing dimensions and indicators of concepts and relationships between concepts
4. Reliability is when a proposed measure is a meaningful measure of its underlying concept
a. False
b. True
5. When a proposed measure is a meaningful measure of its underlying concept. Which term does this phrase best define?
a. Validity
b. Reliability
c. Efficiency
5.07: Critical Thinking Questions
1. Identify three concepts central to the study of politics.
2. What is concept mapping?
3. Taking a concept from Question 1, operationalize it and suggest one measure for that concept.
4. What does it mean when a measure is reliable?
5. What does it mean when a measure is valid?
6. Power is often referred to as the currency of political science. What are some dimensions of power?
7. How might you operationalize a concept such as power?
8. What are different types of measures and what are each type good for? If you had to conceive a measure for “power”, what kind of measure would you use and why? Assess the reliability and validity of that measure.
5.08: Suggestions for Further Study
General resources on research methods:
• Geddes, Barbara. 2003. Paradigms and Sand Castles: Theory Building and Research Design in Comparative Politics. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
• Hoover, Kenneth. And Donovan, Todd. 2014. The Elements of Social Scientific Thinking. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
General resources on data sources:
• University of Michigan. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). Available online at www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/instructors/icsc/datasets.jsp
• UCLA Library. Research Guides, “Social Statistics and Data,” Available online at http://guides.library.ucla.edu/data/sources
Measuring regime type:
Concept mapping:
• Novak, Joseph D. and Alberto Cañas. 2006. “The Theory Underlying Concept Maps and How to Construct Them.” Available online at web.stanford.edu/dept/SUSE/projects/ireport/articles/concept_maps/The%20Theor y%20Underlying%20Concept%20Maps.pdf | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/05%3A_Conceptualization_Operationalization_Measurement/5.04%3A_Key_Terms_Glossary.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Understand the role of design in conducting research
• Identify the purposes of conducting research
Observations of the world may lead to research questions and theories about how the world works. For instance, political participation is a topic that political scientists try to understand. A common research question is why people choose to vote for certain presidential candidates. It is possible that multiple theories can explain the same phenomena. As one can already guess, there are multiple answers to this question. One theory suggests that individuals vote for those who share the same party identity because sharing the same party provides an information shortcut, showcasing that the candidate possibly shares the same views on issues.
Another answer to this question is that individuals most likely vote for the incumbent president when the economy is doing well and are less likely to do so when the economy is not doing well. If there are multiple answers to a research question, how can researchers showcase why their answer is the answer to be considered? In other words, why the theory put forth is the best answer. In this chapter, we provide you with the tools to provide evidence to support your answer to your research question.
One way to assess the validity of a theoretical explanation is to understand the research design. Research design is an action plan that guides researchers in providing evidence to support their theory. Another way to think of research design is as a blueprint. When building a house, it is necessary to first create a plan that will provide the foundation for what you are doing. How big will the house be? How many bedrooms should the house have? What kinds of material should be purchased? Like a blueprint, research design is a critical first step that allows decisions to be made in advance. Because it can be exciting to try to find evidence to support your explanation of the world, there is a tendency to jump immediately ahead into data collection and analysis; however, research design comes before gathering data. There are multiple first decisions to make. We will cover different aspects of design, including purpose, types, sampling, and observations.
Suppose you were interested in the outcome of the 2016 presidential elections. In 2016, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were the candidates for their respective parties. Clinton was the heavily favored candidate with many national polls predicting she would win. While she did receive the most votes, Donald Trump won the most electoral votes to become the 45th president. How might you go about understanding the result of the election? To proceed, a researcher must first try to figure out the purpose of the research that will be conducted. Ultimately, the type of design will then be determined by its purpose. Three such purposes of research are exploration, description, and explanation.
Exploratory research sounds exactly like what you might be thinking—to explore. It could be possible that a phenomenon has recently occurred, and you do not know what is going on. On the other hand, it is possible that you do know what is going on, but you are trying to observe it so you can better understand it. In both instances, exploratory research seeks to understand an issue, trying to figure out what is going on. In the case of the election, researchers might try to figure out what rules exist to allow an individual to win a presidential election by way of Electoral College votes rather than the popular vote. Since multiple polls were being conducted, how were they conducted and where were they conducted? Who was included in these polls? What circumstances led to individuals to choose one candidate over the other?
Just as exploratory research is associated with exploration, descriptive research is associated with description. Descriptive research builds upon exploratory research to provide further information about a phenomenon. Exploratory research may assist researchers in identifying the many variables while descriptive research can expand on this by collecting additional information on these variables. Additionally, descriptive research can provide information about relationships between identified variables, often called correlational research. Descriptive research might ask what kind of people were most likely to vote for Trump and for Clinton? Which of these voters were most likely to turn out to vote? Were there voters who changed their minds at the last minute? These questions attempt to describe what was going on.
While exploratory and descriptive provide answers to “what,” explanatory research seeks to explain “why.” Explanatory research goes further than just explaining the relationships between variables and providing predictions, it tells us which variable likely led to a certain outcome. What caused the outcome to occur? In instances such as the 2016 election, it can be difficult to try to determine cause and effect but through research design we might try to create similar conditions and try to make causal inferences. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/06%3A_Elements_of_Research_Design/6.01%3A_Introduction-_Building_with_a_Blueprint.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Identify components of experimental designs
• Read and interpret research design notation
• Differentiate between experimental and nonexperimental designs
• Understand why nonexperimental designs are used
In political science, the “gold standard” is an experimental design. An experimental design can help determine the effect of the independent variable or the treatment on the dependent variable or the outcome because the treatment can be isolated as the likely cause. Comparisons are made between the experimental group and the control group to see if the outcomes are different. Because random assignment ensures that the two groups are the same and the only difference is the treatment, researchers can make the conclusion that the difference in the outcomes of the groups is likely due to the treatment. Because of these factors, an experimental design is best suited for the purposes of explanatory research to establish causality.
To help with understanding research design, it is common to utilize notation to provide a visual depiction of the design. We will utilize the following notation as borrowed from Trochim and Donnelly (2005).
Figure \(1\): Notation is useful to present a visual representation of research design. The figure displays the notation for an experimental design
The selection of individuals into groups is denoted by R (random assignment) or NR (nonrandom assignment). Observations are denoted as “O” and “X” is the treatment. One line of notation will refer to a single group. Two lines denote two different groups, three lines denote three groups, and so on. The notation from left to right denotes the passage of time. Using this notation, we can generally classify designs into experimental and nonexperimental. We will talk about the experimental design first and then nonexperimental designs.
There are three crucial components: random assignment, manipulation of the treatment, and the existence of a control group. Generally, there are two groups, an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group will be administered a treatment while the control group will not be administered a treatment. The control group is supposed to be what the experimental group would look like if the experimental group was not given the treatment.
Comparisons are then made between the two groups using pretests and posttests to determine the effect of the treatment on outcomes. Random assignment refers to the placement of cases into control and experimental groups in an unbiased manner such that the likelihood of any case being placed into groups is exactly the same. With random assignment, we can be assured the groups are equal to each other, or any reason that we might think they are different is removed. If there are differences, it is due to chance.
The pretest establishes a baseline, allowing us to understand how things are before the treatment is implemented and the posttest provides us with information about outcomes after the treatment. If this sounds familiar, it is because an experiment in political science is similar to an experiment performed in a science lab!
Figure \(2\): A variation on the classic experiment, this is an experimental design that does not contain a pretest.
Experimental designs can vary in relation to the classic example presented. One variation of the classic example is not administering a pretest. This can be due to fears that taking a pretest can affect the results or it just may be that a researcher is unable to administer a pretest. This makes it difficult to attribute the varying outcomes to the treatment but can still allow conclusions about causality because a control group does exist.
Figure \(3\): The Solomon 4-Group Design is an experimental design that combines the classic experiment with the posttest only design.
Another variation to the classic experiment is the introduction of groups beyond the traditional two groups that tries to address the effect of a pretest on outcomes. This variation is known as a Solomon 4-Group Design. As the name indicates, there are four groups. Two are experimental groups and two are control groups. One experimental group and one control will have a pretest and posttest and the remaining groups will not be pretested. In this way, comparisons can be made between the two pairs and it can be determined as to whether the pretest had an effect on results.
As we move further away from the classic experimental design, the ability of researchers to establish causality diminishes. Nonexperimental designs may lack random assignment into groups, the ability of the researcher to control the treatment, a control group, or all of these characteristics of an experiment. Ethical concerns may lead to the implausibility of implementing an experiment. For instance, to determine the effect of a treatment, a researcher may decide to randomly assign individuals into a control group and an experimental group. The experimental group receives a treatment that could cure a serious illness but those in the control group who could benefit from the same treatment are denied it. In a case such as this, ethical concerns may prevent the random assignment of the treatment and instead provide the treatment to all who are willing to be treated.
Figure \(4\): Quasi-experiments may attempt to be similar to an experiment but, in this particular case, lacks random assignment into groups.
Quasi-experimental designs try to approximate experiments but lack a key component, random assignment. For instance, in a nonequivalent 2-group comparative design, cases are divided into two groups, one an experimental group and a comparison group that is meant to be like a control group. Unlike an experiment, assignment into groups is not random. It is possible that individuals self-selected into groups. In a design known as matching, cases are matched together on multiple variables with the only variation being that of the treatment variable. While it may be possible to match on identified variables, it is difficult to discern whether variables that are not observed are also evenly distributed. Because the formation of the two groups was not through random assignment, we do not know if the groups are equivalent to one another. Variables that are unaccounted for could potentially be what is truly affecting the outcome rather than the treatment; thus, it is difficult to establish the effect of the treatment on the outcome we are trying to explain.
In the example above, it is possible that individuals who chose to be part of the experimental group to receive the life saving treatment were more likely to be individuals who exhausted all other types of available treatment and are now utilizing the remaining treatment as a last resort. It could also be possible that those in the treatment group wanted to take part in the study because they have a greater zest for life. Because such characteristics might not have been apparent in the matching phase of the study, this might have an added effect that was not accounted for.
Figure \(5\): A nonexperimental design with pre-test and a post-test, but no control group
Difficulty in establishing causality can also result when there lacks a comparison group. Researchers might be able to administer the treatment but are unable to have a control group for multiple considerations. In this case, the same group acts as a control for itself. Because the pretest is administered before the treatment, it provides us with the results of the outcomes before a treatment. It is then compared with the posttest to see if there were any changes between the two.
Comparison is made within-group. If there are differences, it may be attributed to the treatment. This design can be problematic because threats to the validity of the design exist. Without a control group, it can be difficult to attribute the outcome to the treatment because it could simply be due to maturation or normal growth. In other words, the results would have been the same without the treatment. It could also be due to the administration of a pretest that primed cases to be better prepared for the next test.
While there are multiple designs that exist, the purpose of your research will often dictate the best design to use for your study. If you are trying to establish causality, experimental designs will likely be the design of choice. Experimental designs have internal validity, thus ensuring that you can provide causal conclusions about an independent variable’s effect on an outcome. When it is not feasible and the reasons as to your research study are not establishing causality, but instead gathering information, nonexperimental studies that do not necessarily require random assignment or a control group will serve your research goal just as well. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/06%3A_Elements_of_Research_Design/6.02%3A_Types_of_Design-_Experimental_and_Nonexperimental_Designs.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Understand the logic of sampling
• Differentiate between samples and population size
• Identify the difference between probabilistic and non-probabilistic sampling
While we have provided you with major designs, it is important to be able to understand additional components of research design. Understanding these components will help you to build on existing designs so you can create blueprints that are specific to your research. Sampling is an important component to consider because it can be difficult to obtain data on every single case in the population. How your sample is created and who is part of your sample have implications for the conclusions you can make about your results.
An important component of research design is determining who will be part of the study, the number of cases, and how cases will be selected into the study. The first step is to determine what population you are interested in. The population refers to all cases that could be a part of the study. For instance, if you are interested in why people vote for certain candidates, the population of interest is all adults who are 18 years or older and are registered to vote.
It would not make sense for your population to include those who are not registered to vote because your question is specific to voter behavior. A case would be a single unit of the population identified, or an adult who is 18 years or older and is registered to vote. If everyone who is part of this population could also be a part of the study, the evidence for the theory put forward would be quite convincing; however, this would be difficult to obtain. Not only would it be very costly, it might not necessarily be feasible due to time constraints because there are more than 130 million voters in the United States. While there is a temptation to try to include every possible case, one thing to consider is that this is still just a snapshot in time. What do we mean by snapshot in time? All cases might be included for one election year but there are several elections a year along with many years! In the end, the population might just really be a sample in the context of time.
The next step would be to try to figure out the number of cases to include that will still provide a convincing argument to support the theory. According to the law of large numbers, we do not necessarily need to include every single case to provide a convincing argument. Rather than the entire population, the study will likely be based on a sample. We need to provide a sample, or a selection of cases from the population, that is large enough that we can approximate the population values we are seeking. The law of large numbers tells us that when we provide a large enough sample that is also representative of the population, it will lead to the results that are close to the results if we collected data on all the cases in the population.
When sampling, another characteristic that we may be looking for is representativeness. It can be argued that the value of the sample is only meaningful in that it can help us draw conclusions about the population we want to know more about. To figure out representativeness, we need a sampling frame. The complete sampling frame is a list of all those in the population. This list might contain information about the characteristics of the population we are interested in. For our sample to provide us with results that can tell us about the population, we need the sample to be representative, or to be similar to that of the population. If you are interested in learning about voters in the United States, only including voters from California will not be very helpful. This sample can provide you with information about voters in California, but not necessarily about voters in the United States. To ensure representativeness, you can select from the sampling frame who it is that should be included in your sample.
There are two ways to sample cases, one of which, if done properly, will produce representative samples and one that will not reflect representativeness. Probability sampling will produce samples that are more likely to be representative of the population as opposed to nonprobability sampling. Probability sampling requires the use of random selection to place cases into a sample. Examples of probability sampling are simple random sampling, stratified sampling and clustered sampling. Nonprobability sampling uses nonrandom processes to select cases to be part of the sample. Examples of nonprobability sampling include convenience sampling, quota sampling, and snowball sampling.
Probability Sampling
Simple random sampling is argued to be the best approach in selecting a sample. In a simple random sample, each case has an equal chance of being selected to be part of the study. Through simple random sampling, your sample is much more likely to be reflective of your population. A simple way to think of random sampling is putting names in a hat and drawing names out of a hat. This means that if you were interested in studying political science students and there were 1,000 political science students, each student would have a 1 in 1,000 chance of being chosen to participate in your study.
Stratified sampling is similar to random sampling but there may exist a concern over what the sample looks like. There may be a concern about the inclusion or exclusion of certain characteristics. To ensure proportional representation, or ensuring the sample has similar characteristics to that of those in the population, stratified sampling will take into consideration such characteristics and ensure the sample looks like the population. Therefore, we need to know these characteristics relative to the population before selecting the sample.
For instance, if not having enough people who are racially representative of the population is a concern, when sampling you will ensure that twenty percent of the sample is African American and twenty percent of the sample identifies as Latinx because that is the proportion they make up in the population of interest. This is known as a proportionate stratified sample. A disproportionate stratified sample oversamples certain groups that otherwise make up a smaller portion of the sample. Oversampling allows researchers to provide greater insight into these groups and might not be able to do so if few are part of the sample.
A clustered sample takes into consideration that a simple random sample may not be feasible because the population may be quite dispersed. If your population is all U.S. adults who are registered to vote, it might be difficult to acquire a list of every registered voter and then randomly select individuals to be part of your survey. If administered in person, imagine how difficult it would be to fly from one part of the country to the next all for an interview! Instead, the researcher will narrow it down by selecting areas or clusters and then randomly sampling from these areas. For example, a researcher may randomly select states and from within those states, select counties, then cities, and then precincts. Once precincts have been randomly selected, all those who are in those precincts will be measured.
Nonprobability Sample
While random sampling was noted earlier as the ideal way to create a sample, nonprobability samples also serve a purpose. Nonprobability sampling may be chosen due to the small number of cases available. Nonprobability sampling includes convenience, quota, and snowball sampling. Convenience sampling refers to selecting cases that are available. It is almost like not sampling at all because there are no criteria to be part of the sample other than being part of the selected population and a willingness to be part of the sample. An example of selecting cases to be part of a convenience sample is asking individuals who are walking out of a polling place to answer questions.
Quota sampling refers to selecting cases according to a quota or a set number of cases. Researchers may set a fixed number and go about creating a sample that will meet that number. Quota sampling can also be similar to stratified sampling when the researcher is trying to ensure the sample looks similar to the population, meaning that those in the sample are similar in characteristic to the population.
In a snowball sample, initial cases are identified to be a part of the sample. It can be one case, or it can be more. These initial individuals will then provide you with referrals of other individuals who could be a part of the sample. Eventually, the number of cases you have will increase through referrals of individuals who you are able to get to be part of the sample. The sample size will pick up momentum as you are able to accumulate more referrals, gaining more mass and picking up more cases along the way. Utilizing this sampling method is especially useful when working with a hard-to-reach population. For instance, if you were to understand the circumstances in which individuals become homeless, a snowball sample would be helpful especially because a list of homeless individuals does not exist.
Probability and nonprobability sampling are methods for choosing cases to be part of a study. We generally utilize samples because trying to collect information from the population can be difficult. The law of large numbers tells us that we do not necessarily need to include every case to provide us with the data we are looking for when the size of our sample is sufficiently large enough. In creating our sample, there are additional rules of thumb to follow. One general rule is that if the population being studied is small--equal to or less than 100--the best strategy is to include all the cases. Another general rule is to always aim for a larger sample because nonresponse, or not receiving a reply from a case, is a likely possibility. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/06%3A_Elements_of_Research_Design/6.03%3A_Components_of_Design-_Sampling.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Understand the difference between primary and secondary data sources
• Identify ways in which primary data can be collected
• Differentiate between cross-section and longitudinal data
A critical component of research design is to consider how and when observations will be obtained, or in other words data collection. Researchers must take into consideration the way data will be collected as well as the timing of data collection. Data collection methods can fall under primary sources or secondary sources. Data from secondary sources refers to existing data collected by someone else. Researchers do not need to collect the data again and will instead compile the variables they need for their studies.
For political scientists, a readily available secondary data source is called the American National Election Studies (ANES). The ANES is a collaboration between Stanford University and the University of Michigan. It provides researchers with information about such topics as voting behavior and electoral participation.
Another source of data is the General Social Survey (GSS). The GSS is collected by the National Research Center and the University of Chicago. The data covers topics that might be of concern to social scientists. For instance, psychological well-being and morality are topics the GSS collects data on.
Secondary data sources can be useful and help save researchers time and money; however, the researcher is constrained by the topics collected by the institutions collecting the data. The data available might not necessarily be helpful in answering your research question, so you might have to collect your own data.
Unlike secondary sources, primary sources refer to original data collected by the researchers. Generally, this entails the creation of a data collection instrument. Although obtaining original data may be more time consuming than utilizing secondary resources, one advantage of original data is that it will ensure that the data you get is what you are looking for.
For instance, you might be interested in elections at the local level but the ANES does not ask questions about local elections. You can collect your own data by creating a survey instrument that is specific to elections at the local level. Data can be obtained through multiple approaches. One way to obtain data is to create and administer a survey. Surveys often contain closed-ended questions, limiting the responses that can be provided. An example of a question that might be on a survey is “Are you a registered voter?” or “Did you vote in the last election.” The answer choices to the questions are predetermined. In these two instances, answers that can be provided might be “yes,” “no,” or “not sure.” Interviews are another way to acquire data. In interviews, questions are often open-ended, allowing the cases the opportunity to provide detailed answers which go beyond the limited responses available on a survey. An example of an interview question might be something like, “Why did you register to vote?” or “Why did you choose to vote in the last election?” Questions such as these allow respondents to provide more detailed answers.
Related to what data is collected is when data will be collected. How many observations will you be taking? Will it be just a one-shot survey, or will you be administering the survey over the next few years? A one-shot survey is deemed a cross-sectional study whereas the latter would be considered a longitudinal survey. In a cross-sectional study, observations are taken at a single point in time. A longitudinal study will have multiple observations over a specified length of time with the same individuals. Longitudinal studies can be either panels or cohort studies. A panel study is often a sample of cases that are likely to be representative of the population. Cases in a cohort study are likely to share characteristics or experiences. Multiple observations are collected from these cases over time. A repeated cross-section is a combination of cross-sectional data and multiple observations; however, observations may not be collected from the same cases. This type of research can help provide insight into established patterns.
In this chapter, we provided an overview of research design. You should be able to recognize research design notation and be able to understand the components of the design as well as differentiate experimental designs from nonexperimental designs. In providing you with this overview, we have given you a foundation to begin building designs of your own. Similar to the use of secondary sources to acquire data, pre-existing designs may not fit the needs of your study. When this occurs, you may have to adapt them to what you are trying to accomplish with your study. If making causal inferences is what you are trying to achieve, your foundation should be the design that will allow you to establish causality--the classic experiment. From this initial design, you can then determine whether you can randomly assign individuals to groups or how many times it would be possible to take observations. And from this starting point, you can also determine if you have enough information to implement an experiment. If you do not, then you might reconsider and instead start with an exploratory study that can help you identify possible causes of an outcome. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/06%3A_Elements_of_Research_Design/6.04%3A_Components_of_Design-_Observations.txt |
• Control group: one group in an experimental study that is not administered the treatment
• Cross-sectional study: study in which observations are taken at a single point in time
• Descriptive: descriptive research builds upon exploratory research to provide further information about a phenomenon and may also contain information about relationships between variables
• Experimental design: an experimental design can help determine the effect of the independent variable or the treatment on the dependent variable or the outcome because the treatment can be isolated as the likely cause
• Experimental group: one group in an experimental study that is administered the treatment
• Explanatory: explanatory research seeks to explain “why” an outcome occurs
• Exploratory: exploratory research seeks to understand an issue, trying to figure out what is going on
• Longitudinal study: studies in which observations are taken at multiple points in time, often over a specified length of time
• Nonexperimental design: designs that are not experimental due to lack of random assignment, control group, or the ability to manipulate the treatment
• Non-probabilistic sampling: sampling technique that does not utilize probability to place cases into a sample
• Population: all cases that could be a part of the study
• Primary source: original data collected by researcher
• Probabilistic sampling: sampling technique that utilizes probability to place cases into a sample
• Random assignment: the placement of cases into control and experimental groups in an unbiased manner such that the likelihood of any case being placed into groups is exactly the same.
• Representativeness: characteristic of a sample to reflect what the population of interest looks like
• Research design: an action plan that guides researchers in providing evidence to support their theory
• Sample: a selection of cases from the population
• Secondary source: existing source of data that has been collected by other researchers
• Treatment: the cause of an outcome and is able to be manipulated the be researcher in an experiment
6.06: Summary
Summary of Section 6.1: Introduction
The first step in conducting research is not to data collection but making decisions about how you will go about providing evidence to support your theory. This first step is known as research design and can be compared to the blueprint of a house. The research design you utilize will be dependent on the purpose of your research: exploration, description, and explanation.
Summary of Section 6.2: Designs
The gold standard in political science is the experimental design. In the classic experiment, a treatment (or the independent variable) is administered to a group called the experimental group and observations of the experimental group are compared to a control group. This design is ideal for establishing causality, but experiments are not always feasible. Nonexperimental designs may be used to try to also allow the researcher to draw causal inferences, but it does not have key components of experiments: random assignment, manipulation of the treatment, and a control group.
Summary of Section 6.3: Components: Sampling
When conducting research, there is usually a population of interest that is identified. While it may seem ideal to be able to include every case of the population in the study, this is not exactly feasible. Instead, cases from the population are pulled out to create a sample of the population, either through probabilistic or non-probabilistic sampling methods. To provide results that can be generalized back to the population, it is ideal to have a large sample and a sample that reflects the characteristics of the population.
Summary of Section 6.4: Components: Observations
An additional research design component is collecting observations. Observations can be collected through multiple tools, but two popular tools are surveys and interviews. Another aspect of observation collection that needs to be considered is how often observations will be collected. When observations are collected only once, this is called a cross-section. When observations are collected multiple times on the same cases in a set time period, this is known as longitudinal data.
6.07: Review Questions
1. Research design is analogous to
a. drawing a blueprint
b. eating a bowl of soup
c. spinning a spiderweb
d. casting a wide net
2. Which of the following is NOT a purpose for conducting research?
a. experimentation
b. explanation
c. description
d. exploration
3. What is the key component in an experiment that differentiates it from a non-experiment?
a. random assignment
b. treatment
c. observation
d. control group
e. sampling
4. The design deemed to be the gold standard in political science research is experimental design.
a. True
b. False
5. Taking observations from the same group of people over an extended length of time is NOT called
a. a cross-sectional study
b. a cohort study
c. a longitudinal study
d. a panel study
6.08: Critical Thinking Questions
1. Look for an article that interests you. Utilizing research design notation, identify the design being utilized by the authors and explain the components of the design.
2. Find a poll completed by any outlet, from newspapers to news channels to research organizations. From this poll, evaluate what it is the individual or organization is trying to do. Decide if this is a representative sample of their population of interest or not and defend your answer.
3. Practice: Identify a political phenomenon that you are interested in. Put together a design that will allow you to go about studying this phenomenon. First, consider what an experimental design would ideally look like and then consider what is plausible.
6.09: Suggestions for Further Study
Websites
Articles
• Abutabenjeh, Sawsan., and Raed Jaradat. 2018. “Clarification of Research Design, Research Methods, and Research Methodology: A Guide for Public Administration Researchers and Practitioners.” Teaching Public Administration 36(3): 237-258.
• Bell, David C., Erbaugh Elizabeth B., Serrano, Tabitha, Dayton-Shotts, Cheryl A., and Montoya Isaac D. 2017. “A comparison of network sampling designs for a hidden population of drug users: Random walk vs. respondent-driven sampling” Social Science Research 62 (February 2017): 350-361.
• Gorard, Stephen, Roberts, Karen, and Chris Taylor. 2004. “What Kind of Creature is a Design Experiment?” British Eduational Research Journal 30(4): 577-590.
• Guterbock, Thomas M., Diop, Abdoulaye, Ellis, James M., Holmes, John Lee, Le, Kien Trung. 2011. “Who needs RDD? Combining directory listings with cell phone exchanges for an alternative telephone sampling frame” Social Science Research 40(3): 860-872.
• McDermott, Rose. 2002. “Experimental Methods in Political Science.” Annual Review of Political Science 2002(5): 31-61.
Books
• De Vaus, David. 2001. Research Design in Social Research.
• Chambliss, Daniel F. and Russell K. Schutt. 2019. Making Sense of the Social World: Methods of Investigation. 6th Edition.
• Jhangiani, Rajiv. S., Chiang, I-Chant A., Cuttler, Carrie, and Dana C. Leighton. 2018. Research Methods in Psychology. Retrieved from https://kpu.pressbooks.pub/psychmethods4e/. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 License. CC BY-NCSA 4.0 License | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/06%3A_Elements_of_Research_Design/6.05%3A_Key_Terms_Glossary.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Define qualitative research methods
• Understand the strengths and limitations of qualitative research methods
Political science is the study of power, political authority, conflict, and negotiation, all of which can be approached through deep observation and analysis. In understanding these central foci of political life, there is a rich body of work employing qualitative research methods. Qualitative research refers to data collection in which the focus is on non-numerical data. This can include texts, interviews with individuals or groups, observations recorded by researchers, and many other sources of knowledge. Despite the quantitative turn that political science has taken in recent decades, qualitative approaches have provided powerful insights into many important research questions.
Early political thinkers from Aristotle to Sun Tze were deeply analytical in their approach to understanding the world, and they did so by observing and recording phenomena through nonnumerical means. Aristotle, in Book IV of Politics, discusses possible types of regimes in the world and argues that polity, a combination of democracy and oligarchy, is the best possible kind of government given his observations of human behavior.14 Today, political scientists employ a variety of qualitative research methods to understand topics as varied as the dynamics of revolution, campaign strategies, and the impact of political change on communities and individuals.
Qualitative methods can also be part of a larger methodological toolkit used by political scientists. Some scholars rely on “mixed methods” to answer their research questions about the world. Mixed methods utilize both qualitative and quantitative methods. For example, consider the research question, “Under what conditions might Texas become a purple state within the United States, i.e., a place that is a mix of Democratic and Republican voters?” Quantitative data may tell researchers about trends in voter registration and turnout over time. Qualitative methods, such as interviewing Texans in focus groups or town hall-style meetings, will illuminate how voters perceive their political choices and political future. The combination of both qualitative and quantitative data can overcome deficiencies in relying solely on one or the other.
The methods employed by qualitative researchers are myriad, and we will review several of them in this chapter (Table 7.1). Because politics are inherently relational, one starting point in the qualitative method toolkit is talking to people. This can take the form of interviews, either of a single individual or group of people. Documentary sources are also a valuable source of knowledge. Documents may be collected from repositories such as libraries or archives or when visiting relevant sites such as the offices of government bureaus or advocacy organizations. Ethnographic research involves “going into the field,” or conducting fieldwork at one or more research site(s) to address a research question. Fieldwork can include interviewing and document collection and analysis, but it is also a means for a researcher to collect and record observations about their subject.
For example, a Canadian political scientist interested in understanding US southern border policy might be well-served by conducting fieldwork on the US-Mexico border and observing the interplay between US government authorities and citizens on both sides of the border. There are also exciting research possibilities in the digital realm, and digital ethnographers are exploring political dynamics in this space. Some researchers, for example, are mapping the political communication strategies carried out on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. All these methods can come together in the building of case studies, which are in-depth examinations of particular cases to unravel one of the most challenging aspects of political science research, causal mechanisms. Each of these methods will be explored in a separate section in this chapter.
Figure \(1\): Summary of Qualitative Methods
Qualitative Method Brief description
Interviewing Conversation with one or more people to collect data on a research question
Documentary sources Texts collected from field sites, relevant organizations, libraries, archives, etc. Archival research, which often focuses on documentary sources, is especially powerful for collecting primary sources, or those documents which are original sources of knowledge on a topic
Ethnographic research Site-specific collection of data; often referred to as “fieldwork”; researcher records observations “in the field” and may also rely on interviews and collection of documents
Digital ethnography Collection of data in the cybersphere and observation of activity mediated by computers or related information technologies, including virtual reality
Case studies Focused examination of an event, place, or individual to explore dynamics of analytical interest; case studies may employ some or all of the above methods
Strengths and limitations of qualitative methods
There are many reasons to employ qualitative methods in research. First and foremost, qualitative methods are useful for identifying causal mechanisms. Recall the scientific method emphasizes the formulation of testable hypotheses from broader theories. These hypotheses imply explanatory (independent) and outcome (dependent) variables. Linking explanatory and outcome variables is a causal logic. This causal logic is essential, as it tells a “story” that connects concepts. Qualitative methods, particularly case studies, can be powerful in illuminating causal mechanisms. If we think of theories as stories, qualitative methods are a way to knit together a narrative in a coherent and plausible way to help us know whether a story is true or false.
For example, scholars in international relations have long observed that modern democracies tend not to go to war with one another.15 Collecting data on regime type (democracy versus nondemocracy) and outbreak of war has yielded the finding that democracies over the past century have been unlikely to go to war with one another. But why is this? Statistical analysis may yield a significant correlation, but this is not causation. Qualitative methods such as detailed case studies of two democracies in a crisis situation can help uncover what led to reconciliation rather than war. This kind of “process tracing,” or uncovering the process by which events unfolded, is a strength of qualitative approaches.
A second strength of qualitative methods is producing more fine-grained and nuanced analysis than widely used quantitative methods such as regression analysis. Whereas regression analysis attempts to identify trendlines in collected data, fitting a straight line through a cloud of data points, qualitative methods are interested in the messiness of observed data. Qualitative methods, in short, are interested in depth over breadth. For example, it can be illuminating to see that race is a key correlate of party affiliation in the US, but interviewing individuals can help to drill down into how racial identity might shape whether a person identifies as a Democrat, Republican, or independent.16 Again, qualitative methods are helpful for understanding the “why” by digging into the details.
It is important to note the shortcomings of qualitative methods, too. They are typically very resource intensive. Downloading publicly available data from the Internet on is generally less costly than arranging interviews or making research plans to live in, say, Catalonia for a semester (no matter how delightful the latter would be). Qualitative methods can be resource-intensive, both in terms of time and money expended. Related, the resource-intensiveness of some qualitative methods, such as case studies, implies that a researcher may only generate one or a few of them to answer a research question. Suppose a researcher wanted to compare the quality of governance around the world. One quantitative starting point for exploring this topic would be to download the World Banks’ Worldwide Governance Indicators.17 A more in-depth, qualitative approach might be reading World Bank and other organizations’ reports on select countries’ governments. Crafting case studies of even two countries’ quality of governance might take weeks, months, or years of careful data collection and writing. This would yield an “n” of two -- and here again the tradeoff is depth over breadth.
A final critique of qualitative methods relates to the difficulty replicating findings. If one gold standard in hypothesis testing is replicability of research findings, this is challenging to achieve with many qualitative methods. The observations that a researcher might record while embedded in pro-independence organizations in Catalonia, Spain, are very difficult to confirm by subsequent researchers. Even if a researcher were to have access to the same fieldwork sites, they will likely face very different circumstances. Compounding this are issues with access to research sites. A researcher conducting fieldwork in China and visiting government bureaus may share their findings and conclusions in research papers, but due to the closed nature of the government in China, other researchers are unlikely to have access to the same government bureaus. This also relates to the reliability of inferences reached solely from qualitative research. If other researchers cannot confirm the data used for a research paper, how reliable are the findings? One workaround is employing mixed methods to triangulate across multiple sources and findings. This can at least demonstrate that the findings within a study have internal validity.
14 Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Aristotle: Politics,” available online at www.iep.utm.edu/arispol/#H10. Accessed August 2019.
15 See Bruce Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).
16 See Pew Research Center, “Trends in party affiliation among demographic groups,” March 20, 2018. Available online at https://www.people-press.org/2018/03/20/1-trends-in-party-affiliation-among-demographic-groups/. Accessed August 2019.
17 These indicators have been tracked for 215 countries and territories over the period 1996-2014 and involve quantifying six different governance indicators. They are available for download from https://datacatalog.worldbank.org/dataset/worldwide-governance-indicators. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/07%3A_Qualitative_Methods/7.01%3A_What_are_Qualitative_Methods.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
● Explore interviewing as a qualitative research method
● Consider approaches to interviews such as interviewee selection, structured versus unstructured interviewing, and recording data
Simply put, interviews are conversations with relevant human subjects for the purposes of answering a research question. There is great variation in how to approach interviewing. Key decisions for researchers revolve around interviewee selection, whether to structure interviews or leave them unstructured, and whether to record what is said during an interview.
Interviewee selection hinges on identifying those individuals who possess the knowledge and experience to best answer a research question. Consider again the research question, “Under what conditions might Texas become a purple state?” Texas is a huge state, with a population in the tens of millions. To select interviewees whose responses might provide leverage in answering this research question, there are two approaches. Ideally, researchers would randomly select and then interview a sample of Texans which represents the diversity of the Texas electorate. For example, they might try to locate a mix of interviewees who represent the racial, ethnic, gender, religious, educational attainment, urban/rural, and other relevant dimensions of diversity among the state’s voters.
More realistically, especially for solo researchers just getting started, a second approach to interviewing is more network-based. This is nonrandom selection and involves interviewing Texans whom a researcher knows directly or through networks. A researcher might consult their address book for everyone they know who lives in Texas, then contact those Texans for interviews. Then the researcher might ask those contacts or initial interviewees to introduce them to other Texans who might want to discuss their political views. In this way the researcher can interview subjects with relevant knowledge, but the entire sample of interviewees may not be representative.
One significant upside of nonrandom interview selection is potentially having greater rapport with the interview subjects. When a researcher already has a relationship with an interviewee or has been introduced by a trusted third party, interviewees are more likely to be candid in their responses. Independent researchers often have to bow to reality and rely on nonrandom selection with the aim of getting as close to the ideal as possible. This opens the interview data to challenges of unreliability, but even with nonrandom information from interviews, the data obtained is more nuanced in terms of how voters actually think about their party affiliation and insights into trends in voter attitudes in Texas.
A second consideration is whether to conduct structured versus unstructured interviews. Structured interviews are interviews conducted with a pre-written set of questions which are read word-for-word to each interview subject. There is no deviation from these prescribed questions as the interview progresses. Structured interviews will yield higher levels of consistency and comparability in the data collected. For this reason, structured interviews are recommended if a team of researchers is fanning out to interview many subjects. Structured interviews are also recommended for less experienced interviewers who may benefit most from careful preparation and having a prepared script for an interview.
An unstructured interview is one where the researcher has a general sense of the topics or questions the interview will cover, but the intention is to ask follow-up questions in “real time” as the interview progresses. This is the most flexible approach to an interview. It also creates the most space for discovery and in-depth exploration of a topic during an interview. Unstructured interviews are ideal when a researcher is in the initial stages of exploring a research topic. On the other hand, unstructured interviews are also very demanding of the interviewer. The interviewer must be mindful of probing an interesting topic as much as possible while balancing constraints
such as being mindful other topics to cover, the time allocated for the interview, the energy levels of the interview subject, and other such considerations. Unstructured interviews run the risk of wandering too far off topic that important topics may not be discussed.
Interviews may also be semi-structured. These are interviews where the researcher has a prepared list of questions to ask, but the researcher is also willing to deviate from this list when a question piques their curiosity or demands additional follow-up questions not on the initial list. Semi-structured interviews seek to combine the benefits of structured and unstructured interviews and maximize, on the one hand, preparation by the researcher and, on the other hand, flexibility when encountering unexpected information.
A third consideration is whether and how to record interviews. Imagine the interview as a key site for data collection in the research project. Data from the interview must be collected and recorded, then merged with data collected from other interviews. This pooled data can then be analyzed or referenced when writing up research findings. A key initial step is for the researcher to decide how to collect data from the interview itself. There are a variety of ways to do this, but all data collection requires consent from each interview subject.
The simplest technology is pen and paper: write notes during the interview or immediately after to recall as much as possible of the conversation. A second option is recording the interview, either just a sound recording or video. Then, to analyze or reference content from the interview, it is important to transcribe the recording into text. This can be done using transcription software or manually transcribing a replay of the recording. Having a text of recorded interviews is critical to search the interview for key words or quotes that may inform research findings.
Which is recommended, handwritten notes or recording an interview? Handwritten notes have the advantage of setting and interview subject more at ease, as subjects tend to be more restrained when they know they are being recorded. Some interview subjects, especially public figures, may be more used to having their comments recorded and hence more readily grant permission. If the subject matter is sensitive, handwritten notes are likely the better choice. Recording the interview has the benefit of greater accuracy and allows the interviewer to focus more on guiding the interview rather than juggling notes and interview questions at the same time.
At some point, the data collected from an interview will need to be entered into a larger database. This can be as simple as creating a document or spreadsheet with notes from all the interviews conducted or using one of many open source software packages available for entering and analyzing interview data.
A note on conducting research on human subjects
Research which involves engaging with people, or human subjects, must be accompanied by protections for those subjects. This is critical for ensuring the integrity of the research project and the credibility of both the researcher and any sponsoring institutions. Research with human subjects will be addressed in the chapter on ethics in research. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/07%3A_Qualitative_Methods/7.02%3A_Interviews.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
● Understand the variety of documentary sources available to researchers
● Explore documentary data analysis techniques such as content analysis
Documentary sources can contain a wealth of information to address a research question. Documents here are treated as primary sources, or original source material that can help with answering some aspect of a research question. Documents need not be created at the time or place that we are interested in studying, however. For example, a scholar may have a research project focused on the codification of human rights post-World War II. A key document in this research would be the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).18 The researcher could locate a copy of the UDHR online or when visiting the United Nations headquarters in New York City, but it isn’t necessary for them to have access to the original document. In other research projects, however, access to original documents may be critical, for example actual ballots if the research concerns election fraud. But even in those cases, resource constraints and difficulties with procuring access to field sites may be insurmountable. Reports by credible organizations may substitute as enough documentary sources.
This is an exciting time to draw on documentary sources because of the digitization of many documents. This has vastly increased accessibility to documents and decreased costs to researchers. The U.S. National Archives, for example, contains a wealth of documents that are cataloged on its website. Researchers may access digital documents in the National Archives through databases such as ProQuest, which is often available through university and community college libraries.19
There are limits to documentary sources, as some political phenomena are not inherently text based. The rise of the bureaucratic state heralded the rise of documents in our lives, but many political activities are non-textual. Some examples include illicit activities such as human trafficking or smuggling. Yet so long as the illicit world must interact with the modern state at some point, for example in banking activities or as subjects of government reports, there is often some oblique way of obtaining documents to understand these seemingly undocumented topics.
The variety of documentary sources available to a researcher will be a function of the researcher’s resources, access, and creativity. Some researchers are fortunate to have deep research pockets and can travel to far flung sites to collect documents. Compounding this is access to key sources, for example relationships with government officials in relevant bureaucracies. More typically, researchers will run into limits when it comes to resources and access. In these cases, and generally, a researcher must think creatively about which documents to search for to address a research question.
One step is getting to know librarians and, related, the databases and archives that are available through libraries. Librarians often know about collections of documents, archives, or other repositories of key documents. To continue the U.S. National Archives example mentioned above, researchers today do not need to make costly trips to Washington, D.C., to search the Archives, as many documents are now available through subscription-based databases such as ProQuest.
Another step is understanding the organizational landscape in which a given research topic is embedded. To continue the previous example of researching the codification of human rights, one starting point would be to explore UN archives, some of which are digitized and available online. Another tack would be to contact law school libraries to examine their collections. A researcher could also probe whether there are human rights lawyer associations which might
have libraries open to researchers. Nongovernmental organizations active in human rights law might also have relevant documents, such as reports or recommended language for draft laws in various areas of human rights.
After collecting documents, there are several ways to utilize them in research. One is drawing out key sections in collected documents to reference or quote from when writing up research findings. This can be as low-tech as manually highlighting passages on paper copies of documents and flagging them with sticky notes or going fully digital and using text-recognition software to search for key terms and passages on digital versions of documentary sources.
Another way to utilize collected documents is to conduct content analysis on keywords or phrases. This can be as basic as counting the frequency a term appears in a set of documents. For example, if a researcher wanted to examine whether there was change over time in the codification of the human right to asylum, they might collect as many human rights-related treaties as possible from the UN, say during the period 1945 to 1985, then count the frequency of “asylum” in the documents and see whether this changed significantly over the chosen period of time. Quantitative methods such as factor analysis can also be used to determine whether there are underlying “factors” or common explanatory variables, which might explain the variation observed across documents.20 The actual mechanics of such techniques are beyond the scope of this chapter, but it is worthwhile knowing that documents may be analyzed and utilized in ways that go beyond their service as sources of quotable material. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/07%3A_Qualitative_Methods/7.03%3A_Exploring_Documentary_Sources.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
● Understand the basics of ethnographic research - What, why, and how
● Consider the emerging field of digital ethnography
All research is immersive, but ethnographic research is particularly immersive because it calls upon the researcher to situate themselves in the social contexts of their research subjects. Ethnographic research calls on the researcher to be a close observer of the practices, language, culture, beliefs, and other aspects of the life of their research subjects. Ethnographic research ranges from observing the political strategies of candidates on the campaign trail in small town USA to living in remote Chinese counties and interviewing officials on their local development strategies.21
What is ethnographic research? As noted by Reeves et al., “Ethnography is the study of social interactions, behaviours, and perceptions that occur within groups, teams, organisations, and communities.”22 Ethnography calls upon the researcher to engage in “thick description” (attributed to Clifford Geertz) of a research site. Accordingly, ethnography has its roots in anthropology. Ethnographic fieldwork became prominent during the early twentieth century, when scholars such as Bronislaw Malinowski sought to document in detail the lives of people in remote locales such as Papua New Guinea and the Canary Islands. The purpose then, as now, was not just to collect detailed notes on the lives of others, but also to answer questions raised by social science theories about human behavior, motivations, and organization.
Why engage in ethnographic research? Ethnographic research is a powerful tool for building a more holistic understanding of hitherto unknown or very superficially understood phenomena in the social world. For solo researchers, ethnographic research is a particularly demanding and resource intensive form of data collection. Yet, it has the potential to accomplish something that is highly valued in research: depth of understanding. When presented with a world event as complex as, say, the economic rise of China in the late twentieth century, conducting ethnography at sites where there is a great deal of economic dynamism can be illuminating and anchor our understanding of large, abstract global events. China’s economic “miracle” is due to decisions made by individuals, in response to incentives embedded in their social context. Ethnographic fieldwork, more than any other research tool, helps generate knowledge about these individual- and society-level factors.
How does a researcher conduct ethnographic research? First and foremost, a researcher must record their observations when engaged at their research site (or sites). These observations may take the narrative form of diary entries, for further distillation when writing up research findings. Observations may be captured in a more analytical way from the outset of the ethnographic research, for example noting categories of behavior and adding annotations accordingly. To take the example of a researcher immersed in a Chinese township, their field notes might be sorted into observations about economic life, political life, social life, and so forth. These initial recorded observations form the bulk of ethnographic data. Second, ethnography may also draw on the qualitative tools noted earlier in this chapter such as interviews and documentary sources. Researchers may shift away from pure observation to conduct interviews with research subjects in order to collect data in a more focused way. And documents can supplement (or call into question) observations. In all, the goal is to build a rich portrait of a place and its people in order to address an underlying research question.
Digital Ethnography
Given vast changes in information and communication technologies (ICT), new sites for ethnographic research have emerged in recent decades. Whereas traditional ethnography relied on researchers being situated in a physical space and observing social life there, digital ethnography challenges these notions of physical immersion. Instead the researcher is immersed in relevant digital spaces such as online chat rooms and other social media platforms where information is exchanged. Digital ethnography asserts that there is a “materiality of digital worlds, which are neither more nor less material than the worlds that preceded them.”23
The Internet, like all social spaces, is deeply political. Government documents are uploaded to government webpages in “transparency” initiatives, and societal actors in turn upload leaked government documents to sites such as Wikileaks to further challenge official narratives. Myriad groups now create Facebook pages, build virtual communities, and push out information via such twentieth and twenty-first century information and communication technologies (ICT). Political parties seek to reach constituents via various social media platforms, and US president Trump has drawn attention to the power of “tweeting” via the online communication tool Twitter. Far- right political movements located in wealthy democracies around the world have created global networks through a variety of social media platforms. These platforms have created the capacity for rapid and far-reaching mobilization of like-minded individuals.
All of this creates a rich opportunity for research and analysis. Researchers engaging in digital ethnography seek to record and identify patterns in the digital worlds of their research subjects.
A researcher attempting to map the political strategies of groups supporting Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro might subscribe to the Facebook pages of various groups supporting the president and his political party, for example. She might record the messages that are posted on such sites and conduct content analysis on the kinds of vocabulary employed. Or she might examine photos uploaded to these Facebook pages to determine the tactics used to signal who “belongs” to such a movement.
In short, new ICT offer many new -- and potentially lower cost -- possibilities for conducting research on important political topics. An important debate animating the study of social movements and state-society relations concerns the nature of Internet-based technologies: to what degree are they “liberation technologies” versus tools for continued repression by authoritarian governments?24 Researchers engaging in digital ethnography are opening up a rich trove of data sources to begin to weigh in on this and other debates. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/07%3A_Qualitative_Methods/7.04%3A_Ethnographic_Research.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
● Define a case study as a qualitative research method
● Understand the process of case selection
What is a case study?
In the words of political scientist John Gerring, a case study is “an intensive study of a single unit for the purpose of understanding a larger class of (similar) units.”25 A case study is above all else an in-depth description and exploration of an event, person, group, and/or place. In addition to deep analytical description, case studies may be critical and present evidence to build counter- narratives to the dominant narrative of an event. The “intensive study” of a case study may stem from utilizing all of the methods described above, from interviewing subjects to engaging in ethnographic fieldwork, in order to build a comprehensive understanding of the case. Quantitative data may also be marshaled to deepen the case study. The goal of crafting a case study is to draw inferences from that case to test theory.
The first issue the researcher must address is case selection. First, given the definition above, a case study should be relevant to the theory or hypothesis that a researcher wishes to test. For example, if a researcher wanted to investigate how mineral wealth might contribute to poor governance outcomes in a country, it would not make much sense to select a country without mineral wealth. (To be concrete, the Democratic Republic of Congo might be a good country case to explore, but Haiti less so. However, to make the inferences from that case study more valid, a researcher might want to consider crafting a second case study on a country similar to the DRC, but without sources of mineral wealth, to explore whether governance outcomes differ across the two cases.)
Second, the selected case should be representative of a larger group. This is to head off criticism that the chosen case is too much of an outlier to provide leverage on understanding the general phenomena of interest. To take up the previous example, if a researcher wishes to study the DRC as a case of the so-called “resource curse,” in what ways is the DRC like other mineral-rich countries? In which ways does it differ? And are those differences so significant that the DRC is not representative of the “class” of mineral-rich countries that the researcher would be exploring with this case study? Of course, every place and person is sui generis, but an important consideration is whether there are such enormous differences that a case is an outlier rather than representative.
Third, case selection hinges on practical considerations. Is this a case for which there exists a robust body of secondary literature to build a baseline of preliminary knowledge? Does understanding the case require language skills? Does the researcher know which organizations or individuals to contact to collect information? Do they have access to those organizations and individuals? Will building the case study require conducting fieldwork? If so, for how long, and how much might this require in research funds?
Case studies are a powerful tool in the qualitative methods toolbox. They are a means to investigate the causal processes which are often lost in traditional quantitative approaches such as regression analysis. They are also empirical and hence testing theory against what is transpiring in the “real” world. They demand a researcher to think creatively and holistically about a subject, then dive fully into learning as much about it as possible. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/07%3A_Qualitative_Methods/7.05%3A_Case_Studies.txt |
• Case study: Focused examination of an event, place, group or individual to explore dynamics of analytical interest and/or test theory
• Digital ethnography: Ethnographic research conducted online or in cyberspace, where activity is mediated by computers, information technologies, and/or virtual reality
• Ethnographic research: Research conducted at a relevant research site (or sites), often referred to as “fieldwork,” whereby the researcher records observations and may conduct interviews and collect documents or other data
• Interview: A conversation with one or more people to obtain information related to a research topic or question. Interviews may be structured, unstructured, or semi-structured.
• Qualitative research: Refers to data collection in which the focus is on non-numerical data
7.07: Summary
Summary of Section 7.1: What are qualitative methods?
This section introduced qualitative methods as a suite of methods that generate non-numerical data. Qualitative methods can include interviews, documentary sources, ethnographic researcher, and case study-building. Qualitative methods are most powerful for the depth of understanding they can generate on a topic, especially the leverage they provide for grasping causal mechanisms. Drawbacks to these methods include their resource-intensive nature and questions about representativeness and reliability.
Summary of Section 7.2: Interviews
Interviews are a key source of data on political life. This section discussed interviewee selection and other considerations such as whether and how to record interviews. It also discussed the difference between structured, unstructured, and semi-structured interviews.
Summary of Section 7.3: Exploring documentary sources
There are a variety of documentary sources that researchers may locate to collect data on their research topic. Documentary sources are also amenable to different kinds of analysis, some quantitative, such as content analysis and factor analysis.
Summary of Section 7.4: Ethnographic research
Ethnographic research is immersive research in which researchers conduct observation-based research and collect data at one or more sites relevant to their research question. Digital ethnography is a newer kind of ethnography in which researchers explore the digital world to address research questions.
Summary of Section 7.5: Case studies
This section introduced case studies, which are analytical, in-depth analyses of an event, person, group, and/or place with the purpose of providing insights on a research topic or to test theory. This section explored aspects of case selection as well as practical considerations such as access to relevant data sources.
7.08: Review Questions
1. b. False
2. observations “in the field” and may also rely on interviews and collection of documents. Which of the following terms matches this definition?
a. Ethnographic research b. Interviewing
c. Documentary sources d. Case studies
3. What is a strength of qualitative methods?
a. useful for identifying causal mechanisms b. useful for conducting statistical analyses
c. useful for identifying correlations d. useful for conducting causal analyses
4. a. True
b. False
5. analysis on ______ or phrases.
a. Keywords. b. Passwords c. Keystones d. Passages
7.09: Critical Thinking Questions
1. What are some of the major advantages of qualitative research? What are some drawbacks of qualitative research?
2. What are some of the considerations a researcher should have in mind when planning interviews?
3. What are some potential places to locate documentary sources?
4. Compare and contrast ethnographic research and digital ethnography.
5. What are some characteristics of a strong case study?
6. might employ to learn more about this research topic?
7. about this topic? Think big! Who might be “dream” interviewees, and what are some
ways to contact them? Be pragmatic! Who are some individuals you might contact?
8. might explore before committing to in-depth research on a single case study? Recall the criteria for a strong case study.
7.10: Suggestions for Further Study
Documentary Sources:
● United Nations Archive: https://archives.un.org/
● U.S. Congressional Record: https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record
● U.S. Library of Congress Catalog: https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/searchBrowse
● U.S. National Archives Immigration Records:
● Frisch, Scott A., and Sean Q. Kelly. 2012. “Political Science and Archival Research.”
Doing Archival Research in Political Science, 35. https://www.researchgate.net/profile...4_Doing_Archiv al_Research_in_Political_Science/links/5d1cf76992851cf44062e65c/Doing-Archival- Research-in-Political-Science.pdf#page=47.
Ethnography/Fieldwork:
• Maria Heimer and Stig Thogersen, eds. Doing Fieldwork in China. University of Hawai’i Press (2006).
• Digital Ethnography:
● Digital ethnography research centre. RMIT University. Available online at digital- ethnography.com/
Case Study:
• Robert H. Bates, Avner Greif, Margaret Levi, Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, and Barry R. Weingast. Analytic Narratives. Princeton: Princeton University Press (1998).
• Gerring, John. 2004. “What Is a Case Study and What Is It Good for?” The American Political Science Review, 98(2), 341-354 | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/07%3A_Qualitative_Methods/7.06%3A_Key_Terms_Glossary.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Understand what quantitative methods are
• Learn Steven’s Four Scales of Measurement
• Master the differences between cases, coding, and variables
As mentioned in Chapter Two, quantitative methods are defined by Flick (2018) as “research interested in frequencies and distributions of issues, events, or practices by collecting standardized data and using numbers and statistics for analyzing them”. Again, what this means is that political scientists solve puzzles using mathematical analysis or complex mathematical measurement. This differs from using qualitative methods where the main source of evidence used to solve a puzzle is the use of words. When using such methods, we often turn to appraising evidence in the form of words. As mentioned in Chapter Seven, we can use interviews and focus groups, archival research, and even digital ethnographies to understand the world. Given this, quantitative methods are simply the use of numbers to draw conclusions rather than words.
In political science, statistical analyses of datasets are the preferred quantitative method. This mostly developed from the behavioral wave in political science where scholars became more focused on how individuals make political decisions, such as voting in each election, or how they may express themselves ideologically. This often involves the use of surveys to collect evidence regarding human behavior. Potential respondents are sampled using a questionnaire constructed to elicit information regarding a subject. When using voters as an example, we may develop a survey that asks citizens if they are registered to vote, if they intend to vote, and which candidate for an office they might vote for. Respondent choices are then coded, usually using a scale of measurement, and the data is then analyzed often with the use of a statistical software program. Scholars probe for correlations among the constructed variables for evidence in support of their hypotheses on the topic.
However, quantitative methods extend beyond statistical analyses of survey datasets. Formal models are one such method. In formal models, political scientists attempt to understand representations of political institutions and political choices in the abstract. Relying on logic and causality, these scholars express relationships among concepts and variables in mathematical terms. They often use precise statements, written as equations, where the results can be replicated, almost always through a mathematical proof. Modeling the behavior of individuals or institutions has proven quite helpful in political science, particularly in the applied side of political science: public policy making. In this field, elected officials and subject matter experts work together to develop programs that can benefit society. Often the effect of a program is not discernible until the program has been implemented. However, formal models could help in projecting or predicting the effects of the program before implementation, which can help policymakers immensely.
Given that quantitative methods in political science often includes the analysis of data sets, it is often referred to as large-n analysis, where the “n” stands for number. Thus, we have an analysis of a large number of cases, again often assembled as sets of data. Cases are the people, places, things or actions (subjects) that are being observed in a research project. They are often also the unit of analysis. Units of analysis the “who” or the “what” that you are analyzing for your study. So, for large-n analyses of surveys, each case could consist of one respondent to the survey, or one person. Alternatively, cases could include the recording of individual actions taken. For quantitative analyses of institutions, cases could include people, such as senators or representatives, or the decisions made by lawmakers and/or policymakers.26
Keep in mind that cases and data are intertwined, but not the same thing. Each case can produce numerous data points. For example, each respondent in a survey can answer multiple questions, which could lead to large amount of data collection. In addition, in observational studies, where researchers observe and record the actions of individuals, there can also be a plethora of data points(Diez, Barr, and Cetinkaya-Rundel 2012).27
As statistical analyses of datasets are the popular quantitative method in political science, it is good to understand how such analyses work. First, it is important to understand that in some analyses, words must be transformed into numbers. By this we mean that any responses provided in surveys must be converted to numerical expressions, or value, for an analysis to take place. We often refer to this as coding. Coding is essential for the creation of variables to analyze in any quantitative research. A variable is defined by Hatcher (2013) as having “some characteristic of an observation which may display two or more values in a data set”.
In other analyses, there may be no need to code. The data itself is already in numerical form and forms the variable without any changes. An example could be a survey instrument that asks a respondent if they donated money to a campaign and what was the amount. As campaign donations is measured in dollars, there may be no need to code as the amounts represent individual data points for that variable.28 In other examples, respondents might be asked to rate themselves or some item/activity on a scale of 1-5. Consequently, each response and corresponding number could also be brought in directly, such as the campaign donations above. Or researchers can recode the data points, in some cases changing the way the variable is analyzed, or even create new variables entirely.
To better understand how variables work, we reference the four scales of measurement often used by statisticians. In his book on data analysis, Hatcher (2013) recounts this classification system, which is partially reproduced below in Table 8.1. These scales help researchers determine which statistical techniques would be the most proper to use to analyze the relationships between variables, which are all measured, coded and constructed differently,
Table 8-1: Steven’s Four Scales of Measurement
Type of Measurement Definition* Example
Nominal Scale Identifies the groups to which a participant belongs; does not measure quantity or amount This is a variable that classifies a respondent. An example could include political party identification, where the distance between the variables is unimportant
Ordinal Scale Subjects are placed in categories, and the categories are ordered according to amount or quantity of the construct being measured. However, the variables are not equidistant from each other. This is a variable that is constructed from an ordinal scale, or a ranking of variables. An example could include asking students on a scale of 1-5 how liberal they might be. Ordinal variables are normally constructed from just one survey question, or a single item. Thus, the distance between the choices (1 through 5) are not necessarily equal.
Interval Scale
A quantitative variable that possesses the property of equal intervals, but does not possess a true zero This is a variable that is constructed from a Likert- scale, or when several survey questions are used to create a score, or multiple items. An example would be asking students to complete a number of survey questions regarding their ideology on scales of 1-5. The responses are totaled and divided by the number of questions, providing a single score on where the student is positioned ideologically.
Ratio Scale An interval quantitative variable that displays a true zero This is a variable that has equal intervals between the responses or scores, but also includes a zero option which indicates that no amount of the construct has been measured.
*definitions taken directly from Hatcher (2013) | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/08%3A_Quantitative_Research_Methods_and_Means_of_Analysis/8.01%3A_What_are_Quantitative_Methods.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Identify different types of graphs
• Explain the measures of central tendency, including mode, median, and mean
• Understand measures of dispersion, including deviation, variance, and standard deviation
In political science research, some scholars are primarily interested in describing the world while others are interested in explaining a particular phenomenon in the world. In other words, political science research involves dual goals of description and explanation. It is important to note that the craft of describing and explaining are interactive in nature, and they often feed to each other. However, in most cases, we first have to know something about the world before embarking on the task of explaining something that happens in that world. In this section, we will explore the various techniques for summarizing the data.
Whether one is collecting original data or compiling a dataset based on existing data sources, the first step is to organize the raw data into a more manageable format. Johnson, Reynolds, and Mycoff (2020) suggest first convert raw data into a data matrix where each row represents a unique entry and each column represents different variables (see Table 8-2). While this format of data organization allows researchers to clearly see information about each observation and compare a few observations, it is not the most suitable format for summarizing the data so that the researcher can grasp on to the general information about the world she is interested in. So, what is the correct format in presenting numerical data to describe the information that a researcher is interested in? It all depends on the level of measurement of the variables (i.e., nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio) that your dataset includes.
Table 8.1
County Unemployment Rate Life Expectancy Average High Temperature(Celsius) Most Common Language
Belgium
7 81 6 Dutch
France 10 82 7 French
Ireland 6 81 8 English
Luxembourg 6 82 2 Luxembourgish
Monaco 2 89 13 French
Netherlands 5 81 6 Dutch
United Kingdom 4 81 8 English
It is important to note that representing data in a table format in itself was not the shortcomings of Table 8-2. It was the type of information included in the table was the issue here in the purpose of the table was to present summary information about the observed data here. Often, we refer to this as descriptive statistics, or the numerical representation of certain characteristics and properties of the entire collected data. The goal of the descriptive statistics table is to simply present numbers that describe the cases, or that the basic features of the data in the study. Take a look at Table 8-3 below. This is an example of a frequency table that includes frequency, proportion, percentage and cumulative percentage of a particular observation. Even in this table, some are more useful in terms of understanding one particular observation relative to the rest in the world one is interested in describing and explaining. Proportion and percentage (measures of relative frequency) allow us to easily make a comparison between different observations of the same variable.
Table 8.2: Frequency Distribution: Airport in Western European Countries
County Frequency Proportion Percentage Cumulative Percentage
Belgium 41 0.04 4 4
France 464 0.45 45 49
Ireland 40 0.04 4 53
Luxembourg 2 0.00 0 53
Monaco 0 0.00 0 53
Netherlands 29 0.03 3 56
United Kingdom 460 0.44 44 100
Total 1036 1.00 100
Source: Johnson, Reynolds and Mycoff(2015)020)
A frequency distribution for a quantitative variable could be presented in a graph format called histogram. This is a type of graph here the height and area of the bars are proportionate to the frequencies in each category of a variable. A histogram can be used for interval or ratio variable with a relatively large number of cases. For categorical variables (ordinal or nominal), a researcher can display the date in a similar fashion with a bar graph. A bar graph is a visual representation of the data, usually drawn using rectangular bars to show how sizable each value is. The bars can be vertical or horizontal. Given the nature of ordinal or nominal data, a bar graph deals with a much smaller number of categories than its histogram cousin which deals with interval or ratio data.
If a researcher is interested in presenting a relationship between two variables in a graphic format, a scatterplot would be an excellent choice. This form of graph uses Cartesian coordinates (i.e., a plane that consists of x-axis and y-axis) to display values for two variables from a dataset to display how one variable may influence the other variable.
Social scientists, in general, and political scientists and economists are often interested in the trend of a variable over time. A time-series plot can be used to display the changes in the values of a variable measured at a different point in history. For this graph, the x-axis represents the time variable (e.g., months, year, etc.) and the y-axis represents the variable of interest. Unlike the scatterplot, each dot (observation) is connected to each other to display the changes in the value of the variable of interest. We can, for instance, display the number of proposed constitutional amendments in the United State since its finding or the number of women in the U.S. Congress over the years. For the latter example, we can use two lines to differentiate the presence of female representatives in the House of Representatives and the Senate by using two separate lines on the same graphics plane.
As mentioned above, researchers can describe the data by relying on descriptive statistics. Descriptive statistics are the numerical representation of certain characteristics and properties of the entire collected data. One of the primary purposes of descriptive statistics is to “explore the data and to reduce them to simpler and more understandable terms without distorting or losing much of the available information”. (Agresti and Finlay 1997). The most frequently used descriptive statistics are information that locates the center or middle of data distribution and information about how data are distributed relative to the located center.
Measures of central tendency - the mode, median, and the mean - locate the center of a distribution of a particular data set. In other words, a measure of central tendency identifies “the most typical case” in that data distribution. First, the mode is the category with the highest frequency. Second, the median is the point in the distribution that splits the observations into two equal parts. It is the middle point of the data distribution when the observations are ordered by their numerical values. If there are odd numbers of observations in the data, the single measurement in the middle is the median. In the case of even numbers of observations, the average value of the two middle measurements is the median. Finally, the mean or the average is perhaps the most common way of identifying the center of a distribution. It is the sum of the observed value of each subject divided by the number of subjects. It can be expressed more formally:
$Y_underbar = \dfrac{ΣY_i}{n} \label{8.1}$
where $Y_underbar$ represents the mean (the average), $Σ$ means $Y_1 + Y_2 + ... Y_n$ ($Y$s are measurements of each observation, and $n$ represents the number of observations. For example, if there are 5 students with midterm exam scores of 80, 77, 91, 62, and 85, n = 5, and = 395 (add all the test score). The mean score for this midterm exam is 395÷5, which is 79.
In addition to the measures of central tendencies, researchers often rely on the measure of data variability to fully understand the data being utilized in their research. Perhaps the simplest measurement of data variation is the range. The range is the difference in the value between the maximum and minimum value. For example, if the highest midterm test score for a class was 100 and the lowest score was 70, the range for this particular dataset is 100 - 70 = 30. Another related measurement of variability is called the interquartile range or IQR. The IQR is the difference between the 75th percentile (where 75% of values are located under that point) and the 25th percentile (where 25% of observations are below this point). In other words, the IQR is the range where the maximum values it the third quartile (Q3) and the minimum values is the first quartile (Q1) This measurement tells us how spread the middle 50% of the observations are. Some scholars use a boxplot to graphically display, quartiles and the median
Another way of measuring the dispersion of data is by examining how distant the included observations are from the mean. The distance of an observation from the mean is called the deviation. Variance is simply defined as the average of the squared deviation. To calculate variance, you first measure the distance of each observation from the mean and square them. Add all the squared deviations and divide it by the number of observations (for population variance) or divide it by the number of observations minus one (for sample variance). We denote variance by using σ2 (pronounced sigma squared).
Population Variance:
$σ^2 = \dfrac{Σ(Y_i - μ)^2}{N} \label{8.2}$
Sample Variance:
$σ^2= \dfrac{ΣY_i Y_underbar}{n-1} \label{8.3}$
In Equation \ref{8.2}, μ(pronounced mu) is the population mean (or average) of a variable $Y$ and $Y_i$ represents each observation. The equation is slightly different for the sample variance (Equation \ref{8.3}). Doing this by hand is rather tedious for data with a large population or sample. As a result of many researchers rely on various statistical analysis software or spreadsheets like Excel.
The standard deviation is the square root of the variance. It represents the typical deviation of observation as opposed to the average squared distance from the mean.
Population Variance:
$σ^2 = \dfrac{Σ(Y_i - μ)^2}{N} \label{8.4}$
Sample Variance:
$σ^2= \dfrac{ΣY_i Y_underbar}{n-1} \label{8.5}$
The standard deviation is useful in further interpreting the data at hand. Typically, about 68% of observations fall within the first deviation from the mean. What does that mean? Well, let us consider the following example. Your political science professor tells you that the average/mean score for an exam you just took was 85 with the standard deviation of 5. It means that the scores of 68% of the students fall between 80 - the mean of 85 minus the standard deviation of 5 - and 90 - the mean of 85 plus the standard deviation of 5. It is important to note that an observation deviates from the mean in both positive and negative directions.
As Figure 8.1 shows, about 95% of the data falls within the second standard deviation. It means then that 95% of the exam scores should falls between 75 and 95. So if you have scored 96 on this exam, what can we say about your score? Well, you could say that you did very well since your score is beyond the second deviation, which means there are only less than 5% of people who scored higher than you. Differently put, there are about 95% of your peers who scored lower than your score.
In the next section, we will build on the content of this section and explore the means of testing relationship. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/08%3A_Quantitative_Research_Methods_and_Means_of_Analysis/8.02%3A_Making_Sense_of_Data.txt |
Learning Objectives
• Explain the properties of the normal distribution
• Explain the concept of z-score and calculate it
• Conduct a hypothesis testing (differences of means test)
• Differentiate between Type-I and Type-II errors
Statistical inference is defined as the process of analyzing data generated by a sample, but then used to determine some characteristic of the larger population. Remember, surveys analyses are the bread and butter of quantitative political science. As we are most likely unable to survey everyone in each population, such as all registered voters in the U.S., we instead generate a sample that allows to draw inferences or draw conclusions about the studied population. Samples are useful as it allows scholars to test relationships between variables without having to spend the millions needed to research a larger population.
Before we discuss the concepts of statistical inference and the means of testing relationships, let us begin by revisiting Figure 8.1 located at the end of the previous section (Section 8.2). You will notice that the curve is bell-shaped, with the exam scores peaking in the middle. This curve is called a normal distribution where the value of the mean, median, and the mode is the same, and data near the mean are more frequent in occurrence. It is safe to say that most variables that political scientists are interested can be assumed to be normally distributed. But, what does this curve represents? The height of the line represents the density of a particular observation.
Do you notice that the peak of the curve is located at the middle of the distribution? It means that there are a lot more observations with the value of the mean or close to it than any other values in a normally distributed variable. In other words, as you move away (or deviate) from the mean, you will see fewer observations. It may make more intuitive sense using the test score example from the previous section. The mean test score of 85 signifies that a large proportion of students scored something close to 85. Recall the idea of standard deviation? Approximately 68% of the scores will fall between the first standard deviation from the mean. In the above example, we noted that 68% of students fall between the scores of 80 and 90.
Another thing you might notice about the normal distribution curve is that is symmetrical. Half of the observations fall above the mean and the other half lies under the mean. Again, a normal distribution has the same value for mean, median and mode, meaning that the value of the mean is the most occurring and is also the middle value. Given this, the normal distribution is often referred to as N(μ, σ2).
Sometimes, you may be interested in comparing certain values using different measures that are designed to measure similar concepts. Let us take the SAT and ACT for this example (adopted form OpenIntro Statistics). High school students who are interested in applying for four-year colleges and universities, are required to complete at least one of these aptitude examinations. Universities and colleges then use the SAT or ACT score, along with a combination of other inputs, such as GPA and community service, to determine if a student’s application is accepted. It is important to note that the SAT is scored out of 1600 and that the ACT is scored about 36. For example, say Carlos took the SAT and scored a 1300, and Tomoko took the ACT and scored a 24. How can you compare and determine who has performed better? Well, one way is to standardize the scores if certain statistics are available: the mean and the standard deviation. With the mean and standard deviation along with the values of interest (in this case the test scores of Carlos and Tomoko), we can calculate the Z-score, which tells us the number of standard deviations that a particular observation falls above or below from the mean.
Z-score = x-μ/σ (8.6)
In Equation 9.6, x represents an observation you are interested in. The mean is represented by μ and σ denotes the standard deviation of the dataset. So, in order for us to be able to compare the score of Carlos and Tomoko, we first calculate z-scores for both and compare them. We need the information below as well to accomplish this task.
Statistics SAT ACT
Mean(μ) 1100 21
Standard Deviation(σ) 200 6
Carlos took the SAT and scored 1300 so his z-score is:
Z = (1300-1100)/200 = 1
Carlos took the ACT and scored 24 so his z-score is:
Z = (24-21)/6= 0.5
These statistics mean that Carlos’s score was 1 standard deviation above the mean whereas Tomoko’s score was 0.5 standard deviation above the mean. So, who performed better on the standardized test? The answer is Carlos as 1 standard deviation above the mean is better than 0.5 standard deviation above the mean. Keep in mind that it is quite likely for a z-score to have a negative value as well. This simply means that the standard deviation is below the mean by a certain distance. Z-scores allow researchers to compare the scores of the same exam taken in different class sections, provided that the mean and the standard deviation for both classes are available.
Once we establish the techniques for comparing data, such as scores for the SAT and ACT, research can start developing statistical hypotheses. Statistical hypotheses are statements about some characteristics of a variable or a collection of variables. There are two types of hypotheses used in statistical hypothesis testing. A null hypothesis (Ho) is a working statement that posits the absence of statistical relationship between two or more variables. In statistics, we desire in proving whether a working statement can be proven false. Related to the null hypothesis is the alternative hypothesis (Ha). Also known as research hypothesis, it is simply an alternative working statement to the null hypothesis. Essentially, it is the claim a researcher is making when testing the relationships between data. To best illustrate statistical hypotheses, null and alternative hypotheses, let us consider the following data and go through the process of hypothesis testing.
The Department of Political Science at San Diego City College wanted to see if extra study sessions will have any effect on the students’ performance on the midterm exam. We have randomly selected students to attend extra study sessions.
for the American politics (population mean) class was 75, with the standard deviation of 7 amongst 200 students. The mean score of the students who attended the extra study session (sample mean) was 82 and there were 50 students who were attended. Can we figure out if the extra study sessions on average had any effect on student performance?
In order for us to be able to conduct this test, we have to decide on a couple of more things. First, we have to determine the level of probability that you are comfortable with in terms of mistakenly accepting the alternative hypothesis. This is called statistical significance or the alpha level. In other words, it is the probability of rejecting the null hypothesis when it is true. For example, an alpha of 0.05 means that we want to be 95% confident, and this is typically the level that most political scientists would agree as being acceptable. For this example, let us use the alpha of 0.05 (95% confidence). This decision lead us to identify another critical element needed for hypothesis testing: critical z-score. This value tells us whether we need to reject the research claim or not. Since we have decided that the alpha to be used here is 0.05, the critical z- score is 1.96. You can identify this number by a z-score probability table often located at the back of an introductory statistics textbook. Also, we need to decide whether we are going to be conducting one-tailed or two-tailed test. Since this is beyond the scope of this textbook, I will use the two-tailed test for this example. The summary of the information we have for this example can be found in the table below.
Statistic Value
Population Mean(μ) 75
Population Deviation(σ) 7
Sample Mean(Y_underbar) 82
Sample size(n) 50
Alpha-level 0.05
Critical z-score 1.96
Null Hypothesis(Ho) Y_underbar = μ
Alternative HypothesisI(Ha) Y_underbar = μ or Y_underbar > μ
Now we have all the necessary information, we can conduct the hypothesis testing using this example. Ultimately, a hypothesis testing involves the examination of the observed test statistic relative to the threshold that you have determined (critical z-score). If the observed test statistic goes beyond the critical value, we can safely say that your research claim may be correct. To calculate the observed test statistic (in this case z-score for the samples) by using the equation below.
Zobs = |Y_underbar - μ|/
Zobs = |82-75|/7* sqrt(50)
Now compare the observed z-score and the critical z-score.
Zobs : |7.07|>1.96(Zcritical)
In this case, since the observed z-score was larger than the threshold of 1.96 we can say that the claim that Y_underbar = μ can be rejected. Conversely, if the observed z-score was smaller than 1.96, we will say, we failed to reject the null hypothesis. It is important to note that we never accept the null hypothesis. So, what does this mean ultimately? According to the test result here, we can safely say that the observation that the average score of those who received extra support was higher than the population average was not the result of change. In other words, we can make a conjecture that the extra support may have contributed to the higher average for the sample (extra support) group. While our example used the comparison of the means using z-scores, we can use the same concept for the comparison of the means tests with t-test and a comparison of proportions as well.
When conducting a hypothesis testing to make a statistical inference, it is possible that your decisions about whether to reject the null-hypothesis or not was incorrect. It is possible for you to mistakenly reject the null-hypothesis that was true. This type of error is called a type-I error, and this is the case of “false-positive” conclusion. When a researcher fails to reject the null hypothesis that is false, the researcher has committed a type-II error (“false-negative” conclusion). We can try to safeguard against these errors. The significance level that we discussed above (alpha-level) is the probability that you will commit a type-I error. By increasing the alpha-level, you can ensure that your chance of committing this type or error is reduced. As for a type-II error, the probability of committing this error relates to the concept of “power” in the testing. Simply put, the larger the sample included in the test, the less likely that the study will suffer from a type-2 error.
In this section, we have introduced the foundational knowledge to expand on your interest in advancing your quantitative method skills. What you were exposed here is a small tip of a huge statistical iceberg. If you are interested in the quantitative political research, we highly encourage you to enroll in an introductory level statistics course, preferably in political science (if your school offers) or in other social and behavioral sciences department. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/08%3A_Quantitative_Research_Methods_and_Means_of_Analysis/8.03%3A_Introduction_to_Statistical_Inference_and_Hypothesis_Te.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Read and understand a standard regression table commonly found political science journals
• Comprehend the numerical expressions in a regression table, including the coefficient, standard error, and confidence level
Political scientists often present their analytical results of the research in the table. In addition, quite a few articles or books often will include summary statistics as well, usually prior to presenting their analysis. The previous sections equipped you with enough information to accurately review analyzes data published in various journals. However as mentioned throughout this book, methodological advancements are a feature in political science, particularly in the advancement of quantitative approaches. Researchers will often borrow techniques from other disciplines, especially those with tangential puzzles or problems, such as economics, or psychology. Likewise, they will seek to incorporate new developments from statisticians and/or from mathematicians in formal modeling or game theory.
Again, even though some researchers in political science use mathematical models of behavior or have begun using experimental methodology, quantitative research in political science relies heavily on observational methods. Once the information has been coded and arranged into a datasets, political scientists will often use a type of regression analysis. Even though this type of quantitative analysis is the most common approach, an in-depth discussion on regression and other statistical techniques is beyond the scope of this chapter and the textbook. However, we believe that it is nevertheless important to introduce you to a basic understanding of a statistical table in a journal article, and how analytical results of quantitative research are generally presented.
To repeat, a student needs additional exposure and training in quantitative methods in order to properly interpret a table of results generated by a regression statistical analysis. However, there are some elements of a regression table that warrants a discussion in this section as political science students will be required to read such tables in the articles they have been assigned in class. However, even before a student begins the analysis of a regression table, she first needs to identify the causal relationship being examined in the article. In other words, the first task in the analysis of a statistical results table is to identify the outcome (dependent) variable(s) and the explanatory (independent) variables. In the process of identification, one also needs to understand how each variable is quantified/measured (see Section 8.1). Also, it is important to identify the statistical model being estimated. Again, all this discussion is beyond the scope of the current chapter. We merely want to make you aware that there are many things to consider when looking at a regression table.
The first number to understand in the regression table above is called the coefficient. Coefficients inform the reader of the nature of the relationship between the outcome and explanatory variables. Each coefficient has either a positive or negative sign. A negative sign indicates an inverse relationship with the outcome variable. In simpler terms, if the value of a coefficient goes up, then the value of the outcome variable goes down. Conversely, a positive sign on a coefficient means that an increase in the value of the coefficient results in an increase in the value of outcome. In terms of substantive definition of a coefficient, or what does this relationship, either inverse or positive, really mean will depend on the statistical model utilized in the study.
The second number, right below the coefficient in parentheses is the standard error. In a very useful website by Steven Miller (“Reading a Regression Table: A Guide for Students” 2014), he notes that “the standard error is [an] estimate of the standard deviation of the coefficient”. This helps us in understanding just how correlated the two variables are. And it tells us how potentially wrong the estimate is as it captures how much uncertainty we have in the model. The higher the standard error, the weaker the model is relative to variables. This means that we are not as sure if the correlation, or relationship between the variables, is as certain as it may appear. Finally, researchers use the standard error when looking to improve the certainty of the findings.
The third set of numbers to consider are at the bottom of the regression table. These are the confidence levels for each coefficient. The idea of confidence is very similar to the concept of statistical significance or alpha levels introduced in Section 8.3. Typically speaking in the social sciences, researchers use asterisks (*) to report the level of significance. A coefficient with one asterisk “*” indicates that the relationship between the outcome and that particular variable has 90% confidence. In addition, two asterisks “**” indicates 95% and three asterisks signifies 99% confidence accordingly. Most statistical software programs, including Stata, R, SPSS, and SAS, automatically report the significance level of the explanatory variables. If the coefficients do not have any asterisk at all, that means that the model was unable to distinguish if the relationship between the outcome and the variables were important. Instead, it could be a result of random or systematic factors. In this case, researchers would report that these coefficients without any asterisks were statistically insignificant.
Finally, remember that in a regression table, there could be quite a few additional reported numerical indicators. In addition, the variety of statistical figures these will change depending on the utilized models. Furthermore, a researcher may include additional diagnostic tests, often to ensure the robustness of the model. As noted above, in order for a student to feel fully equipped to confidently be a “consumer” of quantitative political research, additional quantitative method and statistic courses will be required. However, we hope that in the very least this chapter has piqued your interest in quantitative approach to political research. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/08%3A_Quantitative_Research_Methods_and_Means_of_Analysis/8.04%3A_Interpreting_Statistical_Tables_in_Political_Science_Ar.txt |
1. Quantitative methods are the use of mathematical analysis or complex mathematical measurement to solve problems or puzzles. These methods generally involve the use of statistical techniques, particularly when analyzing datasets constructed from surveys. Datasets consists of data points generated from cases. Cases can include people, or decisions made by people. Data can be measured differently, using four scales - nominal scales, ordinal scales, interval scales, ratio scales.
Summary of Section 8.2: Making Sense of Data
The initial step is to organize the raw data into a more manageable format. Afterwards, there are various ways that the data can be presented: frequency table, histogram, bar graph, scatterplot, time-series plot. Datasets all have a central tendency, which locates the center of the data, which then allows for an analysis to take place. The mode, median, and the mean can help us determine the central tendency. From this, we can determine the range and interquartile range, the deviation, the variance, and the standard deviation.
Summary of Section 8.3: Introduction to Statistical Inference
Once we have established some elementary statistics, we can then begin to analyze the data. First, we look at the normal distribution of the data. It is often represented through a bell curve. with the exam scores peaking in the middle. If the value of the mean, median, and the mode is the same, and data near the mean are more frequent in occurrence, we can refer to this curve as a normal distribution. Understanding the distribution of the data then allows us to begin comparing. Using a z-score, we can determine if a particular data point falls above or below the mean, and how many standard deviations as well. With these techniques, we can begin developing statistical hypotheses. The two most common are the null hypothesis and the alternative hypothesis. To determine if we can accept or reject the null and/or alternative hypotheses, we have to establish the level of statistical significance we are interested in, or the alpha level. At times we mistakenly reject the null-hypothesis that was true. This type of error is called a type-I error. However, when a researcher fails to reject the null hypothesis that is false, the researcher has committed a type-II error.
Summary of Section 8.4: Interpreting Statistical Tables in Political Science Articles
Political scientists often use regression analyses to understand relationships between variables. These regression results are often represented in table format. In these tables, there are three numerical expressions that every student should understand, regardless of their skill levels. The first is the coefficient, which is a numerical expression of the relationship between the outcome and explanatory variables. The second is the standard error, defined as the estimate of the standard deviation of the coefficient. The third is the confidence level, which communicates the statistical significance of the correlation between the variables. Researchers use asterisks (*) to report the level of significance in the table.
8.06: Review Questions
• What are quantitative methods?
a. analyses that involves some kind of mathematical analysis or complex mathematical measurement
b. analyses that involves some kind of observation of a person or group
c. analyses that involves some kind of visual aid, such as a piece of art or drawing
• a. True
b. False
• a. True
b. False
• a. An error of mistakenly reject the null-hypothesis that was true
b. An error of failing to reject the null-hypothesis that was false
• a. An error of failing to reject the null hypothesis that is false
b. An error of mistakenly reject the null-hypothesis that was true
8.07: Critical Thinking Questions
1. What are quantitative methods?
2. What are cases? What are variables?
3. What are the differences between the level of measurements (i.e., nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio)?
4. What are the different ways data can be presented?
5. What are the measures of central tendency?
6. What are the variance and the standard deviation, and how are they related?
7. What is z-score and how is it used the process of hypothesis testing?
8. What is a null hypothesis? What is an alternative hypothesis?
9. What are type-I and type-II errors?
10. What are three main reported numbers in a regression table?
11. Think about how datasets are constructed. What are the potential pitfalls in this process? How are variables possibly designed? How could your personal biases enter into these processes?
12. How important is the standard deviation to understanding relationships between data points? Why do you think students find it so hard to understand this concept? What could students do to better understand the standard deviation?
13. What is statistical inference? How can the z-scores help us understand statistical inference? How can these statistical techniques help us think about hypothesis testing?
8.08: Suggestions for Further Study
Suggestions for Further Study
Websites
• Agresti, Alan. 2017. Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences, 5th ed. Pearson.
• Marchant-Shapiro, Theresa. 2015. Statistics for Political Analysis: Understanding the Numbers, Sage/CQ Press.
• Ross, Sheldon. 2017. Introductory Statistics, 4th ed. Academic Press.
• Shively, W. Phillips. 2017. The Craft of Political Research. 10th edition. New York: Routledge.
• ● 1st edition, 2020: Dino Bozonelos, Ph.D., Masahiro Omae, Ph.D. ○ Peer reviewers: TBD
References
Agresti, A., and B. Finlay. 1997. “Introduction to Multivariate Relationships.” Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences, Ed 3: 356–72.
Diez, David M., Christopher D. Barr, and Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel. 2012. OpenIntro Statistics. OpenIntro.
Flick, Uwe. 2018. An Introduction to Qualitative Research. Sage Publications Limited.
Hatcher, Larry. 2013. Advanced Statistics in Research: Reading, Understanding, and Writing up
Data Analysis Results. Shadow Finch Media, LLC.
Johnson, Janet Buttolph, H. T. Reynolds, and Jason D. Mycoff. 2015. Political Science Research
Methods. CQ Press.
“Reading a Regression Table: A Guide for Students.” 2014. Steven V. Miller. 2014. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/08%3A_Quantitative_Research_Methods_and_Means_of_Analysis/8.05%3A_Summary.txt |
• Alpha Level (statistical significance): The probability of rejecting the null hypothesis when it is true
• Alternative hypothesis (Ha): Also known as research hypothesis, it is simply an alternative working statement to the null hypothesis. Essentially, it is the claim a researcher is making when testing the relationships between data
• Bar Graph: A visual representation of the data, usually drawn using rectangular bars to show how sizable each value is. The bars can be vertical or horizontal
• Cases: are the people, places, things or actions (subjects) that are being observed in a research project
• Central Tendency - consists of the mode, the median, and the mean, which locate the center of a distribution of a particular data set. It identifies “the most typical case” in that data distribution
• Coding: refers to the conversion of words or words phrases into numerical expressions that can be used for statistical analyses
• Coefficient: a numerical expression of the relationship between the outcome and explanatory variables
• Confidence Levels: representation of statistical significance or alpha levels on regression tables
• Descriptive Statistics: The numerical representation of certain characteristics and properties of the entire collected data
• Deviation: distance of an observation from the mean
• Frequency Table: A table that includes frequency, proportion, percentage and cumulative percentage of a particular observation
• Histogram: A type of graph here the height and area of the bars are proportionate to the frequencies in each category of a variable.
• Interquartile Range (IQR): The IQR is the difference between the 75th percentile (where 75% of values are located under that point) and the 25th percentile (where 25% of observations are below this point)
• Interval Scale: A quantitative variable that possesses the property of equal intervals, but does not possess a true zero
• Large-n: a dataset with a large number of cases
• Mean: Sum of the observed value of each subject divided by the number of subjects
• Median: The point in the distribution that splits the observations into two equal parts. It is the middle point of the data distribution when the observations are ordered by their numerical values.
• Mode: The most frequently occurring category/value in data.
• Nominal Scale: Identifies the groups to which a participant belongs; does not measure quantity or amount
• Normal Distribution: A distribution with a bell-shaped curve where the value of the mean, median, and the mode is the same, and data near the mean are more frequent in occurrence.
• Null hypothesis (Ho): A working statement that posits the absence of statistical relationship between two or more variables. In statistics, we desire in proving whether a working statement can be proven false
• Ordinal Scale: Subjects are placed in categories, and the categories are ordered according to amount or quantity of the construct being measured. However, the variables are not equidistant from each other
• Quantitative Methods: analyses that involves some kind of mathematical analysis or complex mathematical measurement
• Range: the difference in the value between the maximum and minimum value
• Ratio Scale: An interval quantitative variable that displays a true zero
• Scatter Plot: A graph that uses Cartesian coordinates (i.e., a plane that consists of x-axis and y-axis) to display values for two variables from a dataset to display how one variable may influence the other variable
• Standard Deviation: The square root of the variance. It represents the typical deviation of observation as opposed to the average squared distance from the mean.
• Standard Error(s): An estimate of the standard deviation of the coefficient (Miller)
• collection of variables
• Statistical inference: Defined as the process of analyzing data generated by a sample, but then used to determine some characteristic of the larger population
• Time-Series Plot: A graph used to display the changes in the values of a particular variable measured at a different point in history.
• Type-I error: An error of mistakenly reject the null-hypothesis that was true
• Type-II error: An error of failing to reject the null hypothesis that is false
• Units of Analysis: the “who” or the “what” that you are analyzing for your study. Often interchangeable with word cases
• Variable: defined by Hatcher (2013) as having “some characteristic of an observation which may display two or more values in a data set”.
• Variance: The average of the squared deviation.
• Z-score: A statistic that tells us the number of standard deviations that a particular observation falls above or below from the mean. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/08%3A_Quantitative_Research_Methods_and_Means_of_Analysis/8.5%3A_Key_Terms.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Define research ethics
• Understand the purpose of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)
Now that you have become familiar with many of the details associated with the scientific method, research design, and the various methods for conducting research, we still have one final puzzle to address—how do we conduct research the “right” way? Just as individual judgments and choices are guided by a society’s morals, norms, and principles, so too is the discipline of political science. For instance, what is the right way to frame our questions without misleading our research subjects? How ought we interpret results that may be ‘fuzzy’ or prone to manipulation? And what, if anything, do we owe the individuals and communities that makes much of our scholarship possible in the first place?
These are just a few of the ethical challenges that confront political science researcher, and like the principles that guide any given society, they are subject to debate, interpretation, and tend to operate at the intersection of theory and practice. Thus, in order to research and produce knowledge in an ethical way, our craft is governed by a number of principles and rules that depends on researchers exercising sound judgment when their exact application may be unclear.
The word ethics comes from the Greek work word ēthos, meaning moral character, and ēthikos, pertaining to customary behavior. Put another way, ethics are the systems of principles that guide a particular group’s appropriate action. Indeed, all scientists are expected to conduct research in a particular way, which observes agreed upon principles established and revised by various “epistemic communities,” or communities of learning and knowledge production. Some of these ethical principles may seem obvious: not claiming credit for the work of others (e.g. plagiarism); misrepresenting sources or inventing data; using unreliable data, and distorting opposing views (Booth, Colomb, and Williams 2008). However, some ethical considerations are less straightforward, such as contemplating the potential effects of one’s research on society. Indeed, from the invention of dynamite to the creation of the internet, scientists are seldom capable of maintaining a monopoly on how their research, inventions, and discoveries will ultimately impact individuals, society, or our planet.
Failing to take ethical considerations in one’s research may not only do irreparable harm to others, but also to your reputation, that of your home institution and our discipline—political science. It is for this reason that in the United States, political scientists must submit their research proposals to Institutional Review Boards (IRBs), which assesses the degree to which the researcher and their project’s design has taken appropriate measures to protect the rights and well-being of their “human subjects.” A full discussion of IRBs is beyond the scope of this chapter, as their particular protocols and emphasis varies depending on their location. Yet generally speaking, IRBs were developed between 1970-1990 in response to unethical research on human subjects, such as that conducted by Dr. Josef Menegle and others during the Nazi Regime (Yanow and Schwartz-Shea 2011). Although designed to protect the researcher, their research participants, and the universities or institutions in which they are typically housed, they have been critiqued for being overly bureaucratic and legalistic in nature (Yanow and SchwartzShea 2011).
Moreover, because IRBs cannot anticipate the numerous judgments calls we may confront when conducting research, a common refrain by most IRBs is that when in doubt, err on the side of caution(Shively 2017). Thus, the task of preparing young political scientists for the ethical challenges that await them in designing, conducting, and hopefully, publishing their findings is largely the responsibility of the guardians and practitioners of our discipline—such as authors of this text and your instructor. That being said, what follows is by no means a compressive guide to ethical research nor can your instructor prepare you for all the potential ethical questions and dilemmas that may arise as you progress in this field. What we instead offer are a number of key principles, some of which are subject to debate, that you must grapple with and consider when engaged in research. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/09%3A_Research_Ethics/9.01%3A_Ethics_in_Political_Research.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Consider the unique ethical considerations that pertain to working with human research subjects
• Understand the significance of fully informed consent and how to go about obtaining it
All scientists must consider the potential impacts of their work. Yet, what is arguably distinct about the social sciences in general and political science specifically is the central role that humans play in our studies. For instance, as Chapter 7 on qualitative methods demonstrates, approaches to political science rely heavily on interviewing human subjects, and in some instances, living with and significantly immersing oneself in their cultures, communities and ways of life. For instance, the relational character of participant observation often requires researchers to establish relationships with participants to co-create knowledge, rather than simply treating them as informants which are mined for academic data (Yanow and Schwartz-Shea 2011). Indeed, one of the rewarding and challenging aspects of conducting research in political science, perhaps unlike the study of atoms, rocks, or even the cosmos, is that our “subjects” are not only a means to testing theories, illuminating puzzles, and discovering new ones, but are also ends in themselves. Consequently, this requires striking a balance between one’s role as a researcher, an active participant in the phenomenon under investigation, a friend, and in certain instances, an adversary.
To be sure, political research always entails an element of human costs, be it the time our participant gives us, reliving a private or traumatic event, or worse. This is true for both qualitative and quantitative approaches. That being said, research that minimizes such costs and
is conducted in an ethical fashion can help us better understand certain political phenomena that can lead to positive change for humanity, emancipation for the oppressed, and the empowering process of having one’s voice heard. And while there is no exact formula for assessing when our research ends justify our means, as a scientific community, we generally agree on a number of foundational principles and practices that assist us in making ethical research considerations and choices. For instance, we must consider to what extent our study might harm our subjects, be it physical, psychological, and emotional, intentional or not.
It is for this reason that we are expected to be forthcoming with our research participants and avoid misleading them as our research and its dissemination may put them in harm’s way. For example, given the personal and individual nature of qualitative data collection, the principle of “fully informed consent” is employed before participants engage in our study. There are a number of ways this can be done, but it is often useful to use a consent script that is read to all participants, which is useful to maintain a common standard for all participates and is often reviewed by an IRB before the study can even begin (See Image 9.2) . This script typically informs participants about the exact nature of the study, the potential implications for them, what will happen to them during this process, what will happen to the data they provide, how it will ultimately be used, and that they have the right at any time during the study to withdraw if they feel uncomfortable or are no longer willing to participate (Gibbs 2008).
Although a consent script gives the research and their home institution legal protection and provides the study’s participants with the information they need to decide if it is in their interest to proceed, this is no substitute for the trust often necessary for conducting qualitative research. For example, the use of participant observation and other forms of immersion research are frequently instrumental to not only learn, but also engender trust with human subjects. Even if a researcher has a profound research question, theory, or hypothesis, without access to the necessary archives, organizations, or communities, let alone the trust of key individuals, the project cannot proceed beyond the theoretical. However, once access and trust are established, multiple opportunities can emerge for one to learn from. Given that many of our initial hunches and subsequent questions we ask interviewees emerge from provisional inferences made before we conduct any fieldwork, participant observation can help us construct survey instruments that minimize the potential for confirmation bias and/or misrepresenting our study’s participants (Yanow and Schwartz-Shea 2011).
Moreover, establishing deep connections with human subjects can give researchers unique access and perception as an ‘insider,’ rather than an ‘outsider,’ with only scholarly interests. For example, when conducting qualitative interviews, surveys, or ethnography, we often have access to rich details of our participants’ lives, communities, etc. This richness often entails getting close to our participants and it is not uncommon for friendships and deep connections to grow. Indeed, one of the exciting aspects of this kind of research is that it is unpredictable and can lead to new discoveries that we did not originally anticipate. However, while this can lead to a deep understanding of the phenomena under investigation, we may be exposed to data that could be illegal, ethically dubious, or might put us or our participants in danger. With this in mind, the following section discusses how such access and trust entails a number of ethical considerations, such as being forthcoming about our interests and intentions as both scholar, participants, and who we are individually. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/09%3A_Research_Ethics/9.02%3A_Research_Ethics.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Understand the importance of anonymity and confidential to ethical data collection
• Consider how a reflexive approach to data collection can minimize bias and open ourselves to new ways of thinking
As the above section points out, engendering trust can provide access to individuals, communities and insights that would be otherwise difficult to obtain. But with such access also comes a great deal of responsibility when it comes to data collection. For instance, an important ethical consideration is offering to conduct an interview, survey, or observation under the condition of confidentiality. This not only allows human subjects the comfort to speak their truth but takes seriously the principle of “first do no harm,” rather than treating them as means to our own academic ends.
It is not uncommon that a researcher may come to the realization that one or a number of the participants in their study may face some kind of retribution, embarrassment, or worse as a result of our study, even if the participant may not have realized it at the time of consent. Once again, we are confronted with an ethical dilemma: do we cite the source knowing that it will give more credibility to our study or do we anonymize, if not completely omit this information, knowing the potential harm that could befall our participant(s)? This is not an easy decision, but as we have mentioned, the ethical researcher is encouraged to be cautious rather than risk human harm. Indeed, we are asking our subjects to help us learn and create knowledge. Therefore, it would not only be selfish but unethical to knowingly put them in harm’s way for the sake of our study, if we know there is even a possibility of negative repercussions.
Beyond minimizing the potential of physical or psychological harm that could befall our human subjects, we must also consider the epistemic violence, or harm that can come as a result of local knowledge being displaced and/or distorted by our alternative own frameworks, concepts and ways of knowing (i.e. epistemology) (Spivak 2010). For example, political scientists also adjust their instruments data collection methods in the field based on how different participants interpret the phenomenon under investigation, and the meanings they ascribe to them. Similar to Schaffer’s study of “demokrassi” in Senegal, how interviewees understand key concepts and ideas under investigation, in this case democracy, frequently vary from language used in academic debates (Schaffer 2000). It can be incredibly frustrating when our survey instruments, typically rooted in theoretical literature or previous studies, do not mesh with what participants are articulating in the field. It is therefore not uncommon for scholars, either subconsciously or otherwise, to gather data in such a way that can mistakenly confirm hunches, and related questions, which animate their projects.
Yet, the desire to confirm what we are looking for can unwittingly bias the responses of our interviewees, based on how one frames their questions and any perceived position of authority or power of the interviewer. Ethically, avoiding the temptation to impose our conceptual apparatus on human subjects can discipline the researcher’s thinking, help them productively rethink initial hunches in useful ways, avoid the presumptive authority of academic concepts, and be open to a constant integration and revaluation of them (Godrej 2011). For instance, participant observation is often an essential tool for providing evolving survey instruments with the appropriate language for bridging academic debates with what our interviewees are trying to tell us. However, a key dimension of such an approach is a commitment to reflexivity regarding the ways in which one’s personal identity, perception by others, and worldview may affect the way they are able to gather and analyze one’s data (Yanow and Schwartz-Shea 2011). This may involve “interrogating forms of inclusion and exclusion and breaking down boundaries. Likewise, it may involve listening for silences and sometimes responsibly sustaining those silences, depending on the context (Ackerly and True 2010; Cecelia Lynch 2013).”
Reflexive research also includes an awareness of the distorting effects that arise from ones’ location in their academic field, one’s personal relationship to their subjects, and acknowledging the fact that they are inextricably involved in the social processes under observation (Cecilia Lynch 2014). Yet, as one learns how to mitigate potential response bias (the tendency of participants to answer our question inaccurately due to the wording of questions or how their answer will be perceived by the researcher) and confirmation bias (the tendency of researchers to interpret data in such a way that it confirms their existing beliefs), our unique position in the field can also help bridge boundaries between academic debates and our research subjects, along with those between theory and practice. Ethically engaging the voices, stories, and insights of human subjects thus have both material and epistemological consequences. Specifically, allowing researchers not only contribute to key debates in political science, but also share what we have learned with those who helped co-generate this new knowledge. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/09%3A_Research_Ethics/9.03%3A_Navigating_Qualitative_Data_Collection.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Explain the rationale behind the principle of data access and research transparency
• Understand the benefit of increased openness in quantitative research
While quantitative/statistical analysis, when used properly, could yield powerful information to support one’s theoretical claims, improper use of such technique could ultimately challenge the integrity of the quantitative method as well as the research being conducted. Without proper precautions, statistics can lead to misunderstanding as well as intentional misrepresentation and manipulation of the findings.
One of the most important facts to consider when applying the quantitative method to one’s research, is to make sure that the principle of objectivity, which is at the heart of the scientific method, is reflected in practice (Johnson, Reynolds, and Mycoff 2015). In other words, in
addition to presenting the information in an objective manner as possible, one must ensure that all relevant information in interpreting the results is also accessible to the readers as well. The implication of this principle in practice is that not only should a researcher provide access to data used in a research project but also explain the process of how one has reached the conclusion that is presented in the research. This resonates with the current discourse on data access and research transparency in the political science discipline.
The most recent work on data access and research transparency in political science discipline were borne out of the concerns amongst practitioners that scholars were unable to replicate a significant proportion of research produced in top journals. In order for the discipline to advance knowledge across different subfields of political science and different methodological approaches, the principle of data sharing and research transparency became ever relevant in the discourse of the discipline. The idea is that evidence-informed knowledge needs to be accessible by the members of other research community whose research may rely on different methodological approaches. As a result of the growing concerns about the lack of norms of data sharing and research transparency culture amongst practitioners of various methodological communities and substantive subfield, the American Political Science Association (APSA), the national professional organization for political scientists, have produced an ethics guideline to ensure that the discipline as a whole can advance the data sharing and research transparency culture and practice.
The recently updated ethics guidelines published by APSA which is mentioned in (Lupia and Elman 2014) states that “researchers have an ethical obligation to facilitate the evaluation of their evidence-based knowledge claims through data access, production transparency, and analytic transparency so the at their work can be tested and replicated”. According to this document, quantitatively oriented research must meet the three prongs of research ethics: data access, production transparency, and analytical transparency. When conducting quantitative political research, all three needs to be incorporated for it to be considered meeting the ethical standard.
First, researchers must ensure data accessibility. Researchers should clearly reference the data used in their work, and if the data used were originally generated, collected, and/or compiled by the researcher, she should provide access to them. This is a practice already adopted by many journals where the condition of publication of an article is to provide access to data used in the manuscript. Some researchers include code and commands used in various statistical software, such as Stata, SAS, and R, so that one can replicate the published work.
Second, researchers need to practice production transparency. Not only should the researcher share the data themselves, but she also needs to provide a full account of the procedures used in the generation and collection of the data. First and foremost, this principle provides safeguards against unethical practice of misrepresenting or inventing data. One of the most famous recent cases of data fraud in political science research perhaps is the case involving Michael LaCour (Konnikova 2015). He completely fabricated the data he and his co-author Donald Green used in their research where many political scientists thought was miraculous findings. Only when two UC Berkeley grad students, David Broockman and Josh Kalla, tried to replicate the study and contacted the firm that LaCour supposedly used in the collection of the survey data, it was revealed that LaCour completely made up the “survey data” the authors used in their research.
Finally, researchers need to ensure analytical transparency where the link between the data and the conclusion of the research is clearly delineated. In other words, a researcher must explicitly explain the process that led to the conclusion of a research project based on the data being used in such a study. The empirical evidence must be clearly mapped on the theoretical framework of a given research project. Some scholars are concerned about the implication of radical honesty in political science research, identifying that the probability of successful journal publication may diminish as the level of transparency and radical honesty increases (Yom 2018). As a result, the idea of radical honesty in political science research requires the institutional buy-in beyond an ethical practice at the individual level. Unless such a practice is beneficial to a scholar, as opposed to being a challenge, the culture of analytical transparency may not cascade to the greater political science community beyond the pockets of ethical practitioners that currently exist.
It is important to note that increased openness in quantitative research provides political scientists with a number of benefits beyond what is promised in the ethical front (Lupia and Elman 2014). First, transparency and increased data access offer members of a particular research community to examine the current state of their own scholarship. Through such “internal” self-assessment within a particular subfield of political science, scholars are able to cultivate ̈an evidentiary and logical basis of treating claims as valid” (Lupia and Elman 2014). In many subfields, the validity of their knowledge requires replication of existing work. When access to quality data is limited, it becomes challenging to determine whether we should have confidence in the research findings presented. Without the culture and practice of data access and research transparency, it affects the confidence of a particular subfield as well.
In the literature of civil war onset, Hegre and Sambanis, for example, conducted a sensitivity study on the findings of various published works (Hegre and Sambanis 2006). Essentially, a sensitivity study is the examination of a numerical measurement (e.g, whether a civil war started or not) under a different condition than the original setting. In this particular case, the scholars of civil war literature uses different definitions of when a violent conflict constitute a civil war. The implication of this is that some scholars may have included or excluded certain cases from their dataset. Consequentially, it will influence the results of their study. So, one way to conduct a sensitivity study is to use the same definition, for example, of an outcome variable and replicate the study to examine the effect of such change.
This project was the result of the observation that several empirical results are not robust or replicable across studies. Because the authors of these articles in the sensitivity analysis practiced the ethical culture of data sharing and research transparency, scholars of civil war literature were able to reflect on the state of their research community. For the members of other research communities, the culture and practice of openness could contribute to the persuasiveness of the findings. This is based on the idea that the more one is empowered to understand the process through which the researchers have reached a particular conclusion, the more likely that the reader is likely to believe and value the knowledge.
Next, the culture and practice of openness help political scientists more effectively communicate with members of other communities, including non-political scientists. This is very important, for our research findings often carry real political and social implications. Generally speaking, good political research must contribute to the field of political science as well as to the real world (King, Keohane, and Verba 1994). Our findings are often used by political actors, policy advocates as well as various non-profit organizations that affect many lives of the general public. For example, Dr. Tom Wong, an expert on immigration policy, has worked as an expert advisor in the Obama administration and testified in various federal court cases to advocate for the rights of undocumented immigrants. He supported his position by relying on his research on the impact of undocumented immigrants which were primarily written for academics. However, he was also able to communicate with non-political scientists partly because of the fact that his research reflected the value of data access and research transparency (Wong 2015, 2017).
Although political scientists should intrinsically adopt ethical research practices, it is also quite effective to identify the potential benefit of such practices to their research communities so that the practitioners have the incentive to adopt the culture of data sharing and research transparency and becomes second nature. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/09%3A_Research_Ethics/9.04%3A_Research_Ethics_in_Quantitative_Research.txt |
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Critically evaluate the epistemic power associated with knowledge production
• Consider the ethical implications associated with publishing one’s research
Given the differences in the way qualitative and quantitative scholars tend to approach political research, what constitutes ethical practice may seem to operate differently as well. For example, due to the reliance on statistics, many students of political science may mistakenly believe that the quantitative method is always transparent, objective and, therefore, ethical as opposed to the qualitative method where the reliance on human communications and interactions is thought to always be subjective. The quantification of political data involves human processes where there are plenty of opportunities for the product (i.e., dataset) to be biased, especially when such a process is not transparent. Conversely, a series of interviews for the purpose of data collection for qualitative scholars can be conducted in such a way to reduce potential biases in the processes. These claims about whether qualitative or qualitative approaches are better suited for minimizing biases and upholding the standard of objectivity may be rooted in the idea that the primary, and for some, only, purpose of political research is to make inferences about the political world.
Smith (Smith and Renwick Monroe 2005) notes that part of the reason why there is this type of methodological dispute is because political scientists have not agreed on what makes good political science research. He argues that while inference testing is essential to political science research, such an endeavor requires substantively interesting questions and hypotheses about the political world. As such, political science, as a discipline, needs to reconsider the notion that both qualitative and quantitative approaches are essential, for the formation of substantively interesting hypotheses and questions and the improvement of our analytical technique are both critical in the advancement of the field. Because of the differences in the nature of both approaches, it is essential to approach the discussion on the standard of ethical practice accordingly as well. In other words, some ethical standards can be more or less relevant to each approach because of the differences in how data are collected and analyzed.
As noted in the previous chapter, findings from political science research often become a basis for political and social changes that have serious real-life implications. Unless the practitioners of political research, whether they are qualitatively or quantitatively oriented, conduct their research in an ethical manner, the integrity of the discipline as well as policies being produced based on our research, for example, could face serious challenges. Because political scientists are thought to be experts on political and social problems to some extent, we have some perceived authority on these issues. As a result, when we make some claims about political and social issues in the public sphere, it may carry some weight than an individual’s opinion, for example, on various political issues.
Academics have and reproduce what Audie Klutz and Cecelia Lynch (Klotz and Lynch 2007) refer to as “epistemic power,” through the knowledge we generate as researches and disseminate through writing and lecturing. Consequently, we can never be entirely value-neutral or eliminate our personal biases as we replicate or challenge the assumptions of our discipline through our scholarship and our individual methodological choices (Klotz and Lynch 2007). From using translators in the field to employing professional services to transcribe interviews, we must take great pains to consider the potential for bias to creep into our analysis, to not misrepresent our study’s participants, and to always consider their wellbeing.
Therefore, when one begins to analyze what they have learned in the field and prepare to share their findings, it is important to offer reflections on instances where one’s fieldwork resulted in dissonance with their initial theoretical framework and where our interviewees challenged and/or enriched the initial line of inquiry (Yanow and Schwartz-Shea 2011). For example, the reflexive approach mentioned in the previous section is also useful when the researcher is analyzing their data. This includes strategies such as “member checking,” in which findings are discussed with those studied in the field. This does not deny or undermine the researcher’s epistemological role, but rather acts as a strategy for addressing the dynamics associated with a researcher’s subjectivities (i.e. confirmation bias). Ultimately this is your study, and it would be unwise to let your participants editorialize your findings. However, if a quote or the like might make them uncomfortable, misrepresent their meaning, or worse, we must take this under consideration.
Lastly, when it comes to publication, it is argued that qualitative researchers in particular have an ethical reasonability to consider how this research will be used, given the trust, intimacy, and potential for human impact this chapter has addressed (Gibbs 2008). In this final stage of research, it is ethically important to reflect on how this information may impact those that made the researcher’s study possible in the first place. Indeed, many research agendas pertaining to sensitive topics that might put the researcher and/or their participants in danger. Therefore, many interviews and surveys must not only be conducted on the basis of anonymity, the original data stored in a secure location, but also evaluated now that all the pieces of the puzzle have come together and are almost ready for publication.
For instance, publishing and sharing one’s findings may entail information and/or quotations for which the research is ethically unable to provide full citations based on confidential interviews, field, and participant observations. As subsequent researchers may therefore be unable to replicate our findings, effectively using quotes and accounts from anonymous subjects is often dependent on such data being shared by more than one person or sources. Another way to bolster the credibility of anonymous sources is triangulating their accounts and linking them in the analyses with contextual information (e.g. “according to several soldiers involved in the conflict”). Once again, being transparent as possible entails a delicate balance between protecting our human subjects and the integrity of our research.
Congratulations, your study is published and the colleagues who cite your work continue to grow in number! Nevertheless, it is unlikely that the study’s participants that made your accolades possible subscribe to the American Journal of Political Science. Indeed, researchers are routinely criticized for failing to bring the study’s findings back to the individuals/community under investigation, if not providing it in such a way that they can understand, use, or verify. Ethically, we should avoid being parasitic with our work and strive to bring something of value back to the community and/or persons that made your study possible. This may seem like an onerous last step with little instrumental reward, but as this chapter as endeavored to point out, when you conduct and report your research ethically, “you join a community in search for some common good...you discover that research focused on the best interest of others is also your own” (Booth, Colomb, and Williams 2008). | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/09%3A_Research_Ethics/9.05%3A_Ethically_Analyzing_and_Sharing_Co-generated_Knowledge.txt |
• Epistemology: concerns the theory of knowledge creation, specifically to its method, scope and criteria for validation
• Fully informed consent: the process of obtaining permission from human subjects, after thoroughly conveying the risks, benefits, methods, and purpose of the study
• Reflexivity: the act of reflecting on the role that researcher’s personal characteristics (biases, culture, etc.) may impact their research design, data collection, and interpretation processes.
9.07: Summary
Summary of Section 9.1: Ethics in Political Research
To conduct political research in an ethical way, our practice must follow a number of principles and rules that are established by the community of practitioners. One of the primary reasons for establishing and following such standards is to ensure that our research is not causing any irreparable harm to others as well as to protect the integrity and reputation of the political science discipline. The Institutional Review Board helps ensure that ethical research practices are institutionalized and potential harms to the subjects of a study are reduced by embedding various safeguards into the design of a research project.
Summary of Section 9.2: Ethics and Human “Subjects”
It is important to note that our “subjects” are not only a means of testing theories, illuminating puzzles, and discovering new ones, but are also ends in themselves. As such, it is necessary to be cognizant about the need to balance between one’s role as a researcher, an active participant in the phenomenon under investigation, a friend, and in certain instances, an adversary. When engaging in research involving human subjects, it is essential that the participants are fully informed as they consent to their participation.
Summary of Section 9.3: Navigating Qualitative Data Collection
In the process of qualitative data collection, it is important to ensure the anonymity and confidentiality of the subjects to achieve ethical data collection. A researcher must also consider a reflexive approach to data collection so that one can minimize bias and open ourselves to new ways of thinking.
Summary of Section 9.4: Research Ethics in Quantitative Research
Although all political science share core ethical principles, there are potential differences between qualitative and quantitative approaches to political science, such as their respective approaches to addressing issues associated with objectivity and subjectivity. One key concern for the quantitative researcher are the ethical and analytical benefits associated with facilitating data access, production transparency, and analytical transparency.
Summary of Section 9.5: Ethically Analyzing and Sharing Co-generated Knowledge
Due to the fact that academics possess “epistemic power”, it is essential to be aware that we can never be entirely value-neutral or eliminate our personal biases as we conduct political research. It is ethically important to reflect on how the results of a study may impact those that made the study possible. Also, let us strive to bring something of value back to the community and/or persons that made your study possible.
9.08: Review Questions
1. Epistemology concerns the theory of knowledge creation, specifically to its method, scope and criteria for validation
a. True
b. False
2. Fill in the blank: All scientists must consider the potential impacts of their work. Yet,
what is arguably distinct about the social sciences in general and political science specifically is the central role that ______ play in our studies.
a. Humans
b. Creatures c. Animals
d. Organisms
3. Fill in the blank: Beyond minimizing the potential of physical or psychological harm that could befall our human subjects, we must also consider the _____________, or harm that can come as a result of local knowledge being displaced and/or distorted by our alternative own frameworks, concepts and ways of knowing (i.e. epistemology)
a. epistemic violence
b. mind altering
c. epistemic undermining d. undermining
4. Fill in the blank: The idea is that _________ knowledge needs to be accessible by the members of other research community whose research may rely on different methodological approaches.
a. evidence-informed b. intuition-informed
c. gut-informed
d. experience-informed
5. Fully informed consent: the process of obtaining permission from human subjects, after thoroughly conveying the risks, benefits, methods, and purpose of the study
a. True b. False
9.09: Critical Thinking Questions
Critical Thinking Questions
1. What are some of the major advantages and disadvantages of working with human subjects?
2. What are three key ethical considerations one must consider while engaged in political science research.
3. What are some unique differences in ethical practices between qualitative and quantitative research?
4. Why are data access, production transparency, and analytical transparency critical to political research?
5. What is “epistemic power”, and the role it plays in society?
6. You just finished one of your best interviews, but you forgot or didn’t have the opportunity to read your IRB approved consent script to your participant: what do you do?
7. You found out the possibility that the publication of your research could potentially threatens the lives of your “subjects.” However, your academic career advancement depends on the publication of this research. How do you resolve this dilemma?
8. You have just finished a fresh round of interviews that seem to contradict not only what other interviewees have already shared with you, but potentially the central thesis of your project. Ethically, what are your best options to resolve this dilemma?
9.10: Suggestions for Further Study
Websites
1. “Institutional Review Boards and Social Science Research | AAUP.” n.d. Accessed December 14, 2019. www.aaup.org/report/institut...ds-and-social- science-research.
2. “Human Subjects Research Ad Hoc Committee.” n.d. Accessed December 14, 2019. https://connect.apsanet.org/hsr/.
3. “Academy Adopts Five Ethical Principles for Social Science Research.” n.d. Accessed December 14, 2019. https://www.acss.org.uk/developing-g...ciples-social- science/academy-adopts-five-ethical-principles-for-social-science-research/.
Journal Articles
1. Fujii, Lee Ann. 2012. “Research Ethics 101: Dilemmas and Responsibilities.” PS: Political Science & Politics 45(04): 717–23.
2. Fisher, Pamela. 2012. “Ethics in Qualitative Research: ‘Vulnerability’, Citizenship and Human Rights.” Ethics and Social Welfare 6(1): 2–17.
3. Lupia, Aurthur, and George Alter. 2014. “Data Access and Research Transparency in the Quantitative Tradition.” PS: Political Science & Politics, 47(1), 54-59.
Books
1. Desposato, Scott, ed. 2016. Ethics and Experiments: Problems and Solutions for Social Scientists and Policy Professionals. 1 edition. New York, NY: Routledge.
2. Panter, A. T., and Sonya K. Sterba. 2011. Handbook of Ethics in Quantitative Methodology. Taylor & Francis.
3. Shively, W. Phillips. 2017. The Craft of Political Research. 10th edition. New York: Routledge. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/09%3A_Research_Ethics/9.06%3A_Key_Terms_Glossary.txt |
Congratulations! For anyone who reads a book from beginning to end, it is important to recognize the accomplishment. Taking the time and making the effort to read through material that is new, challenging, and worthy of recognition. Too often, we minimize these wins or ignore them completely. So, a hearty congratulations to you.
10.02: The Path Forward
It is rare to have a course on political science research methods for students in their first or second year at a college or university. For example, there are only 12 out of 114 community colleges in California that offer the course you just completed. At my undergraduate and graduate institution, the University of California, Merced, the political science program has one lower division course and one upper division course in political science research methods.
While rare now, it’s fair to expect that political science research methods will become a staple in most political science programs. With this course under your belt, what is the path forward now that you have introduced yourself to political science research methods? The path forward includes consulting with your professors, looking ahead to see what upper division courses may be available to you, and seriously considering earning a Master’s or doctoral degree in the discipline.
Your professor who taught the course will have a sense of additional opportunities that are available to you at your college or university. If your student had the community college your professor may consider offering individual or group research opportunities. This may be done informally by meeting once a week during office hours, or this can be done formally through a course such as special topics or individualized studies course. For example, when I was a student at Cerritos Community College, I completed 5 units of Directed Studies in Political Science in spring and summer of 2004.
While students at community colleges can’t take upper division courses since they are not offered at two-year institutions, they can certainly look ahead to their four-year institutions of interest to see what’s available. For students already at a four-year college or university, they should meet with the professors and academic advisors to map out what upper division courses can help strengthen the research methods. It’s important to plan ahead about how you want to develop your knowledge, skills, and abilities. Most of the time, we can be fixated on the idea of a single class or just earning a degree. But, instead of thinking about college or university in this traditional way, consider it in a continuous way you’re thinking about the amount of knowledge you’re acquiring, the number of skills you’re developing, and the number of abilities that you’re practicing.
As I shared with my students over the years, being in college or university is a special time in your life not only because you grow personally, introduce yourself to professional opportunities, but you get to intellectually engage in a range of topics and later on into a specific discipline that you’re intrigued by. This intellectual experience is something to be embraced not just for the degree you’ll earn, but for all the other tangibles and intangibles that come with learning about the world.
Thinking about earning a graduate degree, such as a Master’s or PhD, may not be at the forefront of your mind when you’re starting your college or university experience. Obviously, you’re probably worried about how you can pay for the experience, were you going to live, who your friends are going to be, or how you do your laundry. It is just some of the things that students who go from high school directly into college or university having to grapple with. Now, for returning or nontraditional students, there may be another set of factors that your preoccupied with: how do you go to work and school, who can take care of your children while you’re in class, and how can you carve out time to do homework at night or the weekends.
All this is what we call life, but part of living life is looking ahead. While we may be stuck in the day, concerned about how were going to pay our rent or mortgage, or who is going to cook dinner tonight after a long day of work, we just have to think ahead. And part of that future is furthering your education. My advice here is rather simple: just think about it. Let the idea evolve in your mind as you begin the long hike up to your goal of earning a bachelor's degree. As its stews there, take concrete steps to seriously position yourself to take that next step: ask your professors about their experience, visit the websites of graduate programs, call college or university you are interested in and asked to speak with somebody about what it takes to earn a Masters or PhD. This will go a long way in helping you determine if this is the next step you. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/10%3A_Conclusion/10.01%3A_Congratulations.txt |
Political science research methods is a dynamic area of study, research, and practice. Advances in computer technology, modeling, and interdisciplinary work is pushing political science in new and exciting directions. There are several frontiers of research methods within the discipline that represent the cutting edge of the field. Let’s explore just one of these directions.
Geographic information systems, or GIS for short, use spatial data to help understand the world, identify relationships, and discover patterns with respect to place. Can you remember a world where you didn’t have Google Maps to help you get from point A to point B? Before the rapid expansion of GIS, people relied on a paper map. People would then estimate the time it would take to travel using distance divided by miles per hour, not taking into traffic or weather, because the data was simply not integrated.
GIS is a relatively new tool to political science, but it has been used in politics since the founding of the country. For example, when carving out new states longitudinal and latitudinal lines were used to denote the boundaries of states. State legislatures, when drawing new congressional districts or state legislative districts, would use maps to see how the party in power to give itself the upper hand in electing their peers. Campaigns would use maps of polling locations to determine where to deploy the volunteers to help encourage people to vote. All these are examples of our rudimentary GIS, this case maps merged with political knowledge, was used.
Researchers are increasingly using GIS to conduct and visually present research findings. For example, how would you decide where to build a nuclear power plant? Now, this may not seem like a political question initially, more a technical or engineering question but in reality, the country of Nigeria is actively considering whether and where to build nuclear power plants. The Nigerian Atomic Energy Commission is tasked with answering this question. Using GIS software, Eluyemi et. al. (2020) compare proposed sites by the Commission with all available tectonic maps. In their research article, they present 12 figures to help geographically contextualize potential nuclear power plant sites. With this information now publicly available, government officials, interest groups, and the people can more meaningfully engage in a debate about the utility of this energy source.
In addition to GIS as a way to conduct and visually presented information, there is a related field called spatial statistics. As was discussed in the chapter about Quantitative Research Methods, traditional statistics has been a staple in political science research for decades. What makes spatial statistics unique is that it integrates geocoded data into analyses. Why is geocoded data important to integrate into statistical analyses? First, statistics relies on an assumption that units of observation are independent and identically distributed. What this means is that how one person responds to a survey question should have no bearing on how another person responds to the same survey question. Or, what the state of California does with respect to gun control laws has no influence on what the states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona do with respect to gun control laws. In both of these examples, we can imagine how the actions of one person, or one state may influence the actions of another person or another state.
Spatial statistics allow the researcher to mathematically connect units of observation together based on their geographic location with one another. By making this connection, we can begin to measure the influence that one person or state can have on another. This is important because we are aware that such connections exist, but traditional statistics is unable to establish these connections. By measuring this influence that units can have on one another, we can better determine how strong the relationship is between a set of factors and the outcome that were interested. For example, what if the state of California increases its gas tax? Would we expect to see the states of Oregon, Nevada, or Arizona also increase their gas tax to keep up with California? Or would we expect to see the opposite, where neighboring states would lower their gas tax to demonstrate how competitive they were compared to the Golden State? By using spatial statistics, we can consider that geographic proximity, while also considering how the state demographics, or political party control may also influence this decision.
10.04: How to Contribute to this OER
For the students who just finished reading this book, recognize that you can contribute to. Far too often, the voices of students are overlooked when it comes to textbooks. This is interesting, isn’t it. The traditional textbook is written by an individual professor or group of professors who have the knowledge, skill, and ability to take a concept from their discipline and crystalize it into a digestible set of materials. And the primary audience is students, so while students are viewed as consumers of the textbook, they aren’t considered producers of the content. In some ways, this makes no sense. Students who contribute to what they read. And they can.
You are personally invited to contribute to Introduction to Political Science Research Methods. This textbook is an Open Education Resource with the CC-BY-NC license. What does this mean? It means that the end of this book has been reached, but it is just the beginning for you to contemplate how you want to contribute to this textbook.
Maybe a key term definition was unclear? Well, update it to make it clear. Maybe a chapter section was under-explained? Ok, then add to it or re-write it all together. Maybe a picture would have been worth a thousand words? Great, then find a CC-BY-NC picture that include it. Or maybe we missed an entire topic that should be its own chapter? Superb, then draft a chapter and add it to the resource.
The beauty about Open Education Resources is that they are freely available to everyone, which invites everyone to participate in their cultivation. Up until very recently, this cultivation was reserved for people who it made it through graduate school, join the ranks of the professoriate, and maintained their membership in the academy. But, as with all things, changes afoot. What this OER represents is an opportunity to shape knowledge and to create a broader understanding of our world to the eyes of more, and more people. If you are planning on contributing to this OER, then we encourage you to reach out to the authors and co-authors of the various chapters. They will be more than happy to answer your questions and encourage you to become a contributor. There are a variety of resources that can help you get a lay of the OER land. We would strongly encourage you to visit the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges’ Open Educational Resources Initiative webpage for a host of information: www.asccc.org/directory/open...initiativeoeri. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/10%3A_Conclusion/10.03%3A_Frontiers_of_Political_Science_Research_Methods.txt |
In 1989 the Berlin Wall came down. Two years later, the Soviet Union disintegrated. This collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union discredited the idea of socialism for generations to come. It was seen as representing the final and irreversible victory of capitalism over socialism. This triumphant dominance was barely challenged for nearly the next two decades. But then the 2008 crisis hit and threw the Western world into a state of turmoil. More than a decade on, things are far from being back to 'normal'; on the contrary, everything has come even more apart at the seams. Wars are raging, populists are taking over the reins and our ecology is going downhill.
This volume begins with a number of separate studies of some of the consequences of the introduction of capitalism into the former Soviet Union and China. It continues by examining possible alternatives to the existing organisation of the world economy, particularly as posed by the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative. It further considers alternatives to the policies currently pursued domestically and discusses ways of achieving these changes.
Socialism and capitalism competing
As gloomy and disturbing as the twenty-first century has been so far, it would be pretentious to claim that our times are exceptional in their level of grimness. In retrospect, we know that the good times were the exception to the norm, not the other way around. This is particularly true for the boom years following the Second World War. Prematurely, many came to be convinced that lasting prosperity was from then on the order of the day. At the very latest, the 2008 crisis (if not already three-and-a-half decades prior to it) brought home that capitalism means misery for millions of people.
The grievances of today have triggered doubts among the young generations all over the globe that the world has to be like this. Such sentiments have expressed themselves in a variety of social movements, from the Arab Spring to the Occupy movement. Alongside these movements, ideas have reappeared – many of which are almost as old as the problem created by capitalism – among them calls for considering socialism as an alternative as outlined most famously by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
In 1848, in their Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels called on the working class to unite in order to create a socialist society. This call was international. Socialism would only be possible in countries that had laid the material basis for abundance under capitalism, they reiterated. Seventy years later, Lenin still held the same conviction. Even after he had been on the forefront of the first socialist seizure of power in 1917, he was adamant that for the revolution in Russia to survive it needed a far more advanced Germany or Britain to follow suit.
That a country like Germany might have its own revolution was not a far-fetched idea at this moment in time. Millions of people in the belligerent countries had been radicalised by their wartime experience. Whether the men in the trenches or the women in the factories, they understood that the fate of their nations depended on them. The ruling classes understood this too. The danger of revolution and unrest made the latter concede to a number of demands they had so long managed to circumvent. In the wake of revolutionary movements, former empires became republics and countries all over Europe introduced social reforms, such as unemployment insurance, social housing and war disabled relief.
While prior to the war, governments brought themselves to implement social welfare reforms in order to constrain the influence of social-democratic parties (most famously, Bismarck with his social welfare policies), now many social democratic parties became the closest allies, if not pivotal, in undermining and containing the revolutionary craving of their often much more militant followers by soothing them with reform policies. After these revolting masses were let down by their party once too often, they lost their spirit. The 1929 Wall Street Crash and the depression of the 1930s further disintegrated society. These factors combined allowed fascist movements to rise. Decisively for the catastrophes to come was that in Germany the conservative right opted for Hitler to save their skin.
The Second World War led to yet another radicalisation of working people all over Western and Eastern Europe and beyond. The threat of a social revolution was back on the agenda, alarmingly so to the rulers of the time. Stalin – who was about to swallow many countries in Eastern Europe – would have seen a genuine socialist revolution as a mortal threat to his totalitarian regime, while the Western rulers feared an end to their economic domination. These fears resulted in an expansion of the welfare state that was unseen in history and never seen again. Governments began caring for their citizens 'from the cradle to the grave'. Strengthened by full employment and favourable labour legislation, in most West European countries trade unions grew in numbers of members and in their political and economic influence.
For some time, it looked as if the 'mixed economy' of welfare-state capitalism had banished unemployment and delivered universal and long-lasting prosperity. Against this backdrop, it seemed reasonable to many working people to demand a fairer share of the cake. By that time, in the late 1960s, students also passionately vocalised their impatience with rigid hierarchies and dusty social mores. But then in 1973, the price of oil quadrupled. This unexpected earthquake shook one Western economy after the other.
In response to the oil crisis and the subsequent instability of markets, neo-liberal policies gained dominance. Thatcherism and Reaganomics in the 1980s came to determine not only their countries of origin but also influenced developments globally. Parallel to this, trade unions lost much of their industrial power. Social welfare was cut back, traditional industries closed down, state-owned services privatised and the financial markets deregulated. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 further escalated the ideological offensive against public ownership and state provision of welfare and services in many capitalist countries. Austerity programmes, which had initially been launched by conservative governments, were continued by social- democratic governments, most notoriously by New Labour in Britain and the SPD in Germany, which goes a long way to explain their gradual decrease in popularity in the coming decades.
From 1989 into the 1990s, the neo-liberal economic template was implemented in most of the post-communist states of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) devised programmes for the transition to a market economy, following the same mantras of liberalisation and deregulation, macroeconomic stabilisation and privatisation. Sometimes even the same advisors travelled from country to country, bringing what was termed the Washington Consensus first to Poland and later to Russia. In Central and Eastern Europe, where a legal consciousness was relatively strong, economic and institutional reforms produced economic growth fairly quickly, albeit alongside widening inequality.1 In the post-Soviet states, the lack of rule of law, the prevalence of corruption and strong bureaucratic networks – all factors impeding the full implementation of 'shock therapy' – led to economic decline, here with even more sharply rising inequality.
In Russia and Ukraine, businessmen with close connections to the state created private banks and bought much of the state-owned oil, gas and metals assets cheaply, creating a class of 'oligarchs'. In Russia, from 2000 onwards, Putin moved against some of these oligarchs to deprive them of their influence on the media and to increase the role of the state in the ownership and control of the economy, to the benefit of his former KGB colleagues, other personal cronies and himself. In most other respects, however, Putin has followed the calls of the neo-liberals for low flat taxes on incomes; low taxes on corporations; slashing of social spending to be replaced by private insurance; freer labour markets achieved by cutting back workers' and trade union rights; allowing the sale of land to individuals and corporations; raising the pension age; and joining the World Trade Organization.2
The increasing role of private enterprise in China and the opening up of the country to the world economy led to China replacing Japan as the main challenger to US economic dominance in the 1990s. This was not affected by the 1997 Asian financial crisis, which had ramifications around the world, including in Russia, but hardly affected the neo-liberal hegemony. Combining a neo-liberal economic policy with a neoconservative belief in the omnipotence of America, the administration of George W. Bush led the country into wars in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. Regime change proved easy, but it was much harder to keep the newly installed governments in control of their countries. America's world hegemony was severely challenged following these conflicts. The subsequent sharp increases in oil and gas prices strengthened not only the feudal Arab monarchies but also the Putin regime, giving the Kremlin a popular basis of support.
Populism as an alternative?
Despite long decades of capitalism seeming invincible, neo-liberalism suffered its own crisis of credibility. In the aftermath of the 2008 Western financial crisis, millions of people lost their jobs or their homes, real wages fell and health and social spending was curtailed, as governments resorted to austerity policies to reduce their deficits. In the United Kingdom, major banks and financial institutions became insolvent or survived only because they were propped up with government funding. Meanwhile, the rich got richer year by year – in some parts of the world, astronomically so.3
The political impact of the 2008 crisis varied between different countries. In the United States, it was a major factor in the defeat of the Republicans and the election of the Democrat Barack Obama as the first black president in 2008. In Britain, on the other hand, Gordon Brown's pursuit of austerity policies led to Labour's defeat in 2010 and the election of a much more austere Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, led by David Cameron. In the eurozone, Angela Merkel's Germany led the trend towards austerity and pressured other states into subscribing to it too, which resulted in years of economic stagnation.
Austerity policies from above eventually incited a range of radical social and political movements of resistance from below. The year 2011 began with the flowering of the Arab Spring. In May the 'indignant citizens' movements emerged on the squares of Spain and Greece. In the autumn, the Occupy movement appeared across the United States and the City of London. In December, hundreds of thousands of Russians protested against fraudulent parliamentary elections. Putin's response on his return to the presidency in May 2012 was to clamp down brutally on the opposition and launch a campaign to uphold 'traditional' conservative, religious values, promoting a statist form of Russian nationalism and continuing neo-liberal economic policies.4 In most Western countries, the protest movements had important political results. The indignant citizens created Podemos in Spain and boosted Syriza in Greece. In 2015, Bernie Sanders announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for America's president as a democratic socialist, and Jeremy Corbyn, the far-left candidate, was elected leader of the Labour Party.
One of the most dramatic consequences these developments have had is the rise of populism as expressed in Brexit, Trump and the far right throughout Europe. In France, where the left is split several ways, the right-wing populist Marine le Pen went through to the final round in the 2017 presidential election, being beaten there by Emmanuel Macron who advocated a neo-liberal economic policy. As Jan-Werner Müller argues, typically, the populists of our time rage against the elites and the establishment, even though many stem directly from them. They launch campaigns against elite corruption and 'treasonous' trade deals and claim the exclusive right to represent the people, among other things by promising to return their national sovereignty to them. Further, they declare immigrants to be the main source of their people's ills; for example by equalising Islam with terrorism, thereby appealing to the chauvinist and racist prejudices of the more backward part of the population. Such hatred often goes hand-in-hand with anti-Semitism. Once in power (which is often gained with the active support of the traditional conservative right), populist governments undermine checks and balances, clamp down on trade unions and civil society organisations, and use referenda that allow for popular participation in politics as supposed instruments of real democracy. This is often accompanied by some kind of showdown with the alleged enemies of the people, whom they accuse of conspiring against the nation with the backing of the mainstream media which spread 'fake news'.5
Such a scenario is hardly what Marx and Engels would have wanted to see as the consequence of having neo-liberal ideas discredited.
Area studies and global theories
This edited volume is not intended to provide summary overviews of the history and essence of global theories revolving around socialism and capitalism. Instead, it brings together research studies from the 2010s, which deal with capitalism in action against the backdrop of a new international situation. On the one hand, for more than a quarter of a century the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc are no more; and on the other hand, China is more powerful than ever.
The global repercussions of both regions' trajectories demonstrate the still persisting significance of research that is located in the multidisciplinary field of area studies. In the English-speaking world, area studies has just celebrated its centenary. The University of London created the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) in 1915 and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in 1916. The area studied by SSEES – the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe – has functioned as a laboratory for the experiment of making the transition from centrally planned economies to various forms of capitalism. This also implied that boundaries became much more malleable than in the decades prior to this. For area studies, this has wide-reaching implications. Such sudden geopolitical and ideological remapping (for example, former Eastern Bloc countries becoming members of the European Union) has thrown into question the traditional separation of the East European area from Europe as a whole.
Moreover, global trends often manifest themselves in concrete area or country situations. The area studies tradition is to analyse the interaction of the cultural, historical, social, economic, political and ideological influences on a specific dynamic. One early example of someone taking an area studies approach, albeit not using the term, was Karl Marx. He developed his theory of the state on the basis of the study of the state in France in works such as The Class Struggles in France and The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Many present-day area studies practitioners might not see themselves in the Marxist tradition, but not unlike him, they have again turned their attention to the global significance of their research beyond the confines of their traditional region or country of study.6
Our prime geographical focus is nevertheless on those two great powers, one in decline, the other rising. We also consider the implications of these developments for Western societies. The volume covers three major areas. Part One revolves around the impact of capitalism on countries that had centrally planned economies. Part Two focuses on the alternative posed by China's outstanding economic growth – its domestic consequences, and how it is projecting its economic power to challenge the current international economic order. Part Three identifies features in contemporary society that point towards alternatives that have the potential to challenge the existing socio-economic relationships in Western states.
There is a substantial literature on the 'varieties of capitalism'. Hall and Soskice deal exclusively in two models of capitalism. One is the 'liberal market economy'; that is, the Anglo-American version. The second is the 'coordinated market economy', more normally known as the mixed economy or social-market economy; that is, the version found in Scandinavia and Germany.7 Others have added Eastern Europe to this mix.8 In another twist, János Kornai views varieties of capitalism by their political regimes.9
Similarly, we can talk of 'varieties of socialism'. The Soviet model of central planning and one-party rule was only one of many possibilities. Within Eastern Europe, there were experiments with market socialism in Hungary and self-management in Yugoslavia. The model of 'socialism with Chinese characteristics' has taken the role of the market much further.10 Within the Marxist tradition, many tendencies reject Leninist concepts of the need for a single ruling party.11 Beyond the Marxists, the nineteenth-century concept of cooperative socialism shows resilience in the forms of the contemporary cooperative movement and worker-owned enterprises such as John Lewis. Many Western socialists favour a pluralist system, with a combination of nationalised, municipal, cooperative and private business providing support for well-funded public health, social, educational and environmental services.
Despite the geographical foci that this volume deals with, it nevertheless has global reach. The opening chapter by Ruslan Dzarasov shows how contemporary Russian society is a semi-dependent capitalism, depending on the core capitalist countries for its markets while simultaneously exercising hegemonic power regionally. This reinforces the relevance of world systems theory, classifying Russia as part of the semi-periphery. Here our application of area studies confirms a particular approach to global economic relationships.
The last years saw a continuous increase in social inequality. This trend was accelerated by the 2008 financial crisis, which hit almost everyone but the wealthiest. In 2014, a global debate on inequality was initiated following the publication of Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Piketty argues that capitalism automatically produces extreme inequality. He warns that the increasing imbalance in global wealth has the potential to cause major instability and to threaten democracy. He recommends that the state should intervene to counteract this.12
Two chapters in this volume examine how the rich in Russia have accumulated their wealth and how they legitimise it. Catherine Suart dissects the origins of the wealth held by the Muslim business elite in Russia. She also explores how these oligarchs strive to legitimise their power and exercise political influence. Power legitimisation is also the topic of the next chapter. Elisabeth Schimpfössl and Timothy Monteath investigate the philanthropic practices exercised by Russia's hyper-rich and compare them to those of the British elite.13
There is growing interest in the impact on society around the world of informal practices. A major contribution towards the study of this is The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality, published in the UCL Press Fringe Series.14 A final chapter in the first part of the present volume analyses the impact of neo-liberal reforms on the traditional informal structures prevalent in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Costanza Curro discusses the survival of the birzha, the informal youth networks in Georgia.
The principal challenge to Western capitalist dominance of the world economy in general and American dominance in particular comes not, as yet, from systemic alternatives arising from within the West, but from China, the focus of Part Two. This part is opened by a chapter that deals with the rise of China's billionaires and their close relationship with the Communist Party officials. Its author, Ion Marandici, finds that higher income levels correlate with party membership and education.
Heiko Khoo poses the key question whether China today is capitalist or socialist and whether it offers a viable alternative to both Soviet-style socialism and to free-market capitalism. He applies the theories and definitions of capitalism and socialism developed by the Hungarian reform economist János Kornai. Khoo argues that the rise of China challenges the hegemony of liberal democracy and the free market which is held to underpin it. China's leader Xi Jinping is the most influential Marxist in today's world, but outside China few people read his writings or speeches, and many Western Marxists consider China to be capitalist. Nevertheless, the impact of his ideas and actions is decisive in shaping the fate of China. Khoo locates Xi's line today in the tradition of the New Economic Policy (NEP), introduced by Lenin in Russia in 1921. According to Khoo, Xi's emphasis on Marxism as China's guiding ideology is connected to a radical campaign against corruption that is designed to strengthen the communist party's popular support and appease social discontent. His defence of the central role of public ownership and his outright opposition to parliamentary democracy indicate that China will remain a communist state for the foreseeable future.
The next chapter on China deals with the country's role on a global scale. Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative seems to pose a challenge to Western neo-liberal trading patterns.15 Peter Braga and Stephen Hall ask whether the Belt and Road Initiative poses an alternative system, as opposed to an alternative communications network. They conclude that it does not, but that China will use the project to stimulate changes in the global system to its own advantage.
The two chapters in Part Three bring us back to Western Europe and North America, where the discrediting of neo-liberalism has led to a renewed interest in ideas of a mixed economy. More effective state intervention should both revive growth and reduce inequality.16 Among other concepts, Keynesianism is beginning to make a comeback. Writing in 2018, Robert Skidelsky, the biographer of John Maynard Keynes, is among several who have warned that the world economy is heading for another crash. He has called for a partial return to Keynesianism with governments borrowing in order to invest.17 Keynes had argued that, in order to avoid recessions, which he saw as endemic in the capitalist system, the government should be ready to borrow money and raise the level of aggregate effective demand. In Western Europe between 1945 and 1973, Keynesian theory was generally seen as the answer to Marx's theory of inevitable capitalist crisis.
Geoffrey Hosking's chapter, which focuses on Britain as an example but is of global significance, concretely shows the impact of neo-liberal policy. He shows that the resulting inequalities have led to a loss of faith in the political system and rising right-wing populism. In arguing for a return to Keynesian policies, he points out some of the mistakes made by governments in the past, which prevented these policies from working properly.
Others have questioned whether a return to Keynesianism is viable in the twenty-first century and suggested that it is capitalism itself which needs to be replaced, not simply the neo-liberal model. Some have argued that capitalism can only continue to exist by taking away democratic rights.18 As traditional social democracy adapted itself to neo-liberal ideas and policies, its support amongst the working class tended to decline.19 This was sometimes challenged by new, radical movements on the left which occasionally inspired large numbers of young people into political activity and in a short time achieved substantial support: for example, Podemos in Spain, Syriza in Greece, Jeremy Corbyn in Britain and Bernie Sanders in America.20 Pete Duncan's chapter discusses the successes and limitations of these four movements.
1Sebastian Leitner and Mario Holzner, 'Economic Inequality in Central, East and Southeast Europe', Intervention: European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies 5, no. 1 (2008), 155–88.
2For a neo-liberal programme articulated early in the Putin era, much of which has been implemented, see Vladimir Mau, From Crisis to Growth (London: Centre for Research into Post-Communist Economies, 2005), especially ch. 10. Mau is now Rector of the presidential Russian Academy for the National Economy and State Service in Moscow. For a celebration of neo-liberal achievements in the former Soviet bloc, and a call for their greater application in the former Soviet Union, see Ånders Aslund, How Capitalism was Built: The Transformation of Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 358–65.
3Few still subscribe to the declaration of the final global triumph of capitalism as expressed in Francis Fukuyama's The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992), an idea which its author has abandoned in the meantime (see Fukuyama, Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalisation of Democracy (London: Profile Books, 2015)).
4Ilya Budraitskis, 'Contradictions in Russian Cultural Politics: Conservatism as an Instrument of Neoliberalism', in The Art of Civil Action, ed. Philipp Dietachmair and Pascal Gielen, accessed 15 January 2019, http://www.criticatac.ro/lefteast/russian-contradiction/.
5Jan-Werner Müller, What is Populism? (London: Penguin, 2017).
6For example, Geoffrey Hosking, having studied the phenomenon of trust within Russia, then moved on to write a book on the global importance of trust. Geoffrey Hosking, Trust: A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).
7Peter A. Hall and David Soskice, eds., Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
8Dorothee Bohle and Béla Greskovits, Capitalist Diversity on Europe's Periphery (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012).
9János Kornai, The Socialist System: The Political Economy of Communism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007).
10For an analysis of the workings of the different models of 'real existing socialism', see Alec Nove, The Economics of Feasible Socialism (London: Allen & Unwin, 1983) and Heiko Khoo's chapter in this volume.
11Leszek Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism: Its Origins, Growth and Dissolution, 3 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978).
12Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014). The crisis had already evoked an academic debate on the costs of inequality; in particular, see Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone (London: Allen Lane, 2009); Joseph E. Stiglitz, The Price of Inequality: The Avoidable Causes and Hidden Costs of Inequality (New York: Norton, 2012); James K. Galbraith, Inequality and Instability: A Study of the World Economy just before the Great Crisis (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); Branko Milanovic: Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2016); and Chrystia Freeland, Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else (London: Penguin, 2012).
13On the process of privatisation in Russia and its consequences, see Chrystia Freeland, Sale of the Century: The Inside Story of the Second Russian Revolution (London: Little, Brown, 2000); David E. Hoffman, The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia (New York: PublicAffairs, 2011); Thane Gustafson, Wheel of Fortune: The Battle for Oil and Power in Russia (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012); Stephen Fortescue, Russia's Oil Barons and Metal Magnates: Oligarchs and the State in Transition (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006); and Elisabeth Schimpfössl, Rich Russians: From Oligarchs to Bourgeoisie (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018).
14The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality, ed. Alena Ledeneva (London: UCL Press, 2018).
15Peter Frankopan, The New Silk Roads: The Present and Future of the World (London: Bloomsbury, 2018).
16The Alternative: Towards a New Progressive Politics, ed. Lisa Nandy MP, Caroline Lucas MP, and Chris Bowers (London: Biteback, 2016); and Colin Crouch, Making Capitalism Fit for Society (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013).
17Robert Skidelsky, Money and Government: A Challenge to Mainstream Economics (London: Allen Lane, 2018). See also David Sainsbury, Progressive Capitalism: How to Achieve Economic Growth, Liberty and Social Justice (London: Biteback, 2013); Beyond Neoliberalism, Nationalism and Socialism: Rethinking the Boundary between State and Market, ed. Thomas Aubrey (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017).
18Wolfgang Streeck, How Will Capitalism End? Essays on a Failing System (London: Verso, 2016).
19Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics, 2nd ed., paperback (London: Verso, 2014); and Stephanie L. Mudge, Leftism Reinvented: Western Parties from Socialism to Neoliberalism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018).
20Paul Mason, Why it's STILL Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions (London: Verso, 2013).
Bibliography
Aslund, Ånders. How Capitalism was Built: The Transformation of Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Aubrey, Thomas, ed. Beyond Neoliberalism, Nationalism and Socialism: Rethinking the Boundary between State and Market. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017.
Bohle, Dorothee, and Béla Greskovits. Capitalist Diversity on Europe's Periphery. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012.
Budraitskis, Ilya. 'Contradictions in Russian Cultural Politics: Conservatism as an Instrument of Neoliberalism'. In The Art of Civil Action, edited by Philipp Dietachmair and Pascal Gielen. Accessed 15 January 2019, http://www.criticatac.ro/lefteast/russian-contradiction/.
Crouch, Colin. Making Capitalism Fit for Society. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013.
Fortescue, Stephen. Russia's Oil Barons and Metal Magnates: Oligarchs and the State in Transition. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
Frankopan, Peter. The New Silk Roads: The Present and Future of the World. London: Bloomsbury, 2018.
Freeland, Chrystia. Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else. London: Penguin, 2012.
Freeland, Chrystia. Sale of the Century: The Inside Story of the Second Russian Revolution. London: Little, Brown, 2000.
Fukuyama, Francis. The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Free Press, 1992.
Fukuyama, Francis. Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalisation of Democracy. London: Profile Books, 2015.
Galbraith, James K. Inequality and Instability: A Study of the World Economy just before the Great Crisis. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Gustafson, Thane. Wheel of Fortune: The Battle for Oil and Power in Russia. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012.
Hall, Peter A., and David Soskice, eds. Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Hoffman, David E. The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia. New York: PublicAffairs, 2011.
Hosking, Geoffrey. Trust: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Kolakowski, Leszek. Main Currents of Marxism: Its Origins, Growth and Dissolution. 3 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.
Kornai, János. The Socialist System: The Political Economy of Communism. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007.
Labour Party. Alternative Models of Ownership. 2018. Accessed 25 November 2018, labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Alternative-Models-of-Ownership.pdf.
Laclau, Ernesto, and Chantal Mouffe. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. 2nd ed., paperback. London: Verso, 2014.
Ledeneva, Alena, ed. The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality. London: UCL Press, 2018.
Leitner, Sebastian, and Mario Holzner. 'Economic Inequality in Central, East and Southeast Europe'. Intervention: European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies 5, no. 1 (2008), 155–88.
Mason, Paul. Why it's STILL Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions. London: Verso, 2013.
Mau, Vladimir. From Crisis to Growth. London: Centre for Research into Post-Communist Economies, 2005.
Milanovic, Branko. Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2016.
Mudge, Stephanie L. Leftism Reinvented: Western Parties from Socialism to Neoliberalism.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018.
Müller, Jan-Werner. What is Populism? London: Penguin, 2017.
Nandy, Lisa, Caroline Lucas, and Chris Bowers, eds. The Alternative: Towards a New Progressive Politics. London: Biteback, 2016.
Nove, Alec. The Economics of Feasible Socialism. London: Allen & Unwin, 1983.
Piketty, Thomas. Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014.
Sainsbury, David. Progressive Capitalism: How to Achieve Economic Growth, Liberty and Social Justice. London: Biteback, 2013.
Schimpfössl, Elisabeth. Rich Russians: From Oligarchs to Bourgeoisie. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.
Skidelsky, Robert. Money and Government: A Challenge to Mainstream Economics. London: Allen Lane, 2018.
Stiglitz, Joseph E., The Price of Inequality: The Avoidable Causes and Hidden Costs of Inequality. New York: Norton, 2012.
Streeck, Wolfgang. How Will Capitalism End? Essays on a Failing System. London, New York: Verso, 2016.
Wilkinson, Richard, and Kate Pickett. The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone. London: Allen Lane, 2009. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Socialism_Capitalism_and_Alternatives_(Duncan_and_Schimpfossl)/1%3A_Introduction.txt |
Modern Russian society can be defined as a semi-dependent form of capitalism. This means that on the one hand, it depends heavily on the core capitalist countries, while on the other, it aspires to play a regional hegemonic role. All contradictions in Russia's economy, domestic and foreign policy stem from this intermediate position in the capitalist world- system.
Creeping Stalinism: The economic foundation of post-Soviet society
The roots of the present-day model of capitalism in Russia lie in two major factors: (1) degeneration of the Soviet bureaucracy, and (2) the influence of global financialised capitalism.
Leon Trotsky in his insightful work The Revolution Betrayed demonstrated that contrary to Stalin's proposition, Soviet society was by no means socialist. Actually, it was no more than a transitional formation which amounted merely to an attempt at constructing socialism. In the absence of a victorious world revolution, this society could well revert to capitalism. Trotsky also singled out the source of this degeneration, in the special position of the ruling bureaucracy: 'Privileges are worth little if they cannot be handed on to one's children by way of inheritance. Therefore, the privileged bureaucracy will sooner or later seek to take ownership of the enterprises it now manages, to turn them into private property.'1
Cambridge University Professor David Lane speaks of two main social groupings which aided in the transition of the Soviet system to capitalism: the 'administrative class', consisting of the Soviet bureaucracy, and the 'appropriating class', made up of the intelligentsia who had an interest in using markets to benefit from their professional knowledge.2 To these two social categories can be added the black-market entrepreneurs who had gradually developed behind the ostensibly monolithic façade of the Soviet system.3 In the course of Gorbachev's Perestroika, these groupings tacitly formed a powerful pro-capitalist social bloc, which facilitated the demise of the Soviet system and its transition to capitalism.
A no less important factor shaping the new social system was the unprecedented Western influence on the process of transformation in the former Soviet republics. The defeat of the Soviet Union in the Cold War had compromised the socialist system of values, helping to create a situation in which Russian society uncritically adopted a bourgeois system of values which presupposed the broad introduction of private property. It was against the backdrop of its victory in the Cold War that ruling groups in the West, above all in the United States, were able to exert a decisive behind-the-scenes influence on the formation of the post-Soviet societies.
This formation was based on the principles of the notorious Washington Consensus, which underlay the policies pursued by Western (primarily American) financial organisations in their dealings with developing countries.4 As the American researcher Janine Wedel argued, the Russian reforms were mapped out by a few Harvard University experts with close links to the US government. They were implemented in Russia by the politically dominant group of pro-Western politicians belonging to the close coterie of the first Russian president, Boris Yeltsin.5
It follows from the above that implementation of the Russian reforms saw the desire of Soviet state functionaries to become private-property owners merging with the ambition of the Western ruling elite to impose their system of values on their historical adversary.
The foundations of the new social system were laid by privatisation. Its nature can be seen in the materials of an official report by the Accounting Chamber of the Russian Federation.6 The report states that privatisation was based neither on the selection of particular state assets whose effectiveness might have been increased by their transfer to private hands, nor on the creation of equal opportunities for all layers of the population. As a result, the preconditions were created for countless breaches of the law during the privatisation process. In the course of this process, an enormous transfer of wealth from the state to the private sector was carried out. Its scale can be gauged from the fact that the privatisations yielded the government less than 5 per cent of the market price of the former state enterprises.7 An important dimension of this process was that privatisation further strengthened informal control over the assets of the new owners (see more on this below). This was only the continuation of informal control over state enterprises enjoyed by the Soviet bureaucracy from Stalin's time.
Other reform policies had the same thrust. The liberalising of prices - that is, their freeing from control by the state - in fact facilitated transfer of labour income into private hands through price increases on the part of the new owners. To fight inflation, the authorities started the so-called financial stabilisation approach, reduced to restrictive monetary policy. The money stock was squeezed at the expense of real wages, pensions and social transfer payments. All this resulted in the enormous decline in aggregate demand, leading in turn to an equally great decrease in gross domestic product (GDP).
To better understand the nature of the post-Soviet social system, one should focus on the aims of the new capitalist elite in terms of the type of income that they extract from the assets under their control, which reflects a particular model of corporate governance established in modern Russia. It is highly authoritarian in nature, because it is based on a high rate of concentration of property rights.8 However, the real concentration of power at Russian enterprises is even greater than is assumed by the formal concentration of property rights. The most important feature of the Russian model of corporate governance is that it is largely based on informal control.
Dominant groups controlling Russian productive assets developed a sophisticated network of power relations, allowing them to influence both the internal and external environment of their enterprises. One should call the network of these predominantly informal institutions an 'infrastructure of control'. Its external elements typically include a sophisticated chain of offshore firms disguising the real owners of enterprises; ties to corrupt state functionaries lobbying for their business interests; and protection provided by so-called roofs - state law enforcement agencies, private security firms and criminal structures. The main aim of the external elements of the infrastructure of control is to protect the 'property rights' of the established dominant groups against encroachments by hostile groups. The internal elements of the infrastructure include top-down management with a highly centralised decision-making process; overgrown departments of monitoring and control; and internal security services. These institutions were designed to suppress worker protests and opportunist actions by hired employees. The whole infrastructure of control ensures reliable control on the part of owners over the financial flows of their enterprises.9 It follows from the above that the highly authoritarian character of Russian big business assumes extra-economic compulsion.
The largely informal character of the Russian model of corporate governance has numerous and vital consequences for business strategies, social relations and national economic development. It is impossible to fix legally informal control over enterprises, and hence it is equally impossible to bequeath it to inheritors. However, informal control can always be challenged. Waves of property redistribution between rival groups of dominant owners roll regularly across the landscape of Russian big business. The majority of these takeovers are hostile in nature and carried out with the help of coercion from state organs and/or criminal groups. Alternatively, the state can use so-called state corporations to transfer property from alien to friendly business groups. This means that ownership and control in Russian business are fundamentally unstable.
One of the most important results of this instability of property rights in modern Russia is the shift of the typical corporate strategy to a short-term time horizon. This determined short-term rent as the predominant type of income maximised by the majority of Russian corporations. This rent can be quantitatively defined as 'free cash flow' net of interest payments on loans and also dividends of non-controlling shareholders. Rent extraction assumes offshore figurehead trading intermediaries. The latter are usually registered in some offshore jurisdictions with a favourable tax regime. Typically, Russian owners do not supply the products of the controlled enterprises directly to the domestic market. First, they sell goods to their own offshore trading companies at prices lower than the market level. Intermediaries later resell the products at market prices. As a result, profit is accumulated in the accounts of the trade intermediaries and later is transferred to private accounts of the final beneficiaries. Alternatively, the latter can establish firms supplying raw materials, parts and/or equipment to the controlled enterprises at prices higher than the market level. The result is the same. Funds are withdrawn from enterprises and transferred to private offshore accounts. This system was especially evident on the eve of the global financial meltdown of 2008, when oil revenues of Russian capitalism were at their highest. According to some data, 90 per cent of Russian big business is registered in offshore sites and 80 per cent of the deals in Russian securities are carried out through the same jurisdictions.10 According to the Russian Central Bank, in the period from 1994 to the first quarter of 2018, the net export of private capital from Russia amounted to \$714 billion.11
The rent type of incomes appropriated by Russian capitalists should be distinguished from the entrepreneurial profit dominating economies of the centre. The latter depends on the difference between costs and revenues. The rent in question only partially depends on this factor because it is extracted due to control over the firm's financial flows. The above means that sources of this income may be formed at the expense of wages, salaries of rank-and-file managers, investment funds, depreciation funds, violation of contractual commitments, and tax evasion - sometimes even embezzlement of loans and any other kinds of financial flows. Some of these sources represent costs rather than revenues. Dependence of this short-term rent extraction on the largely informal infrastructure of control makes this type of income close to Marxian feudal rent, which is appropriated by extra-economic coercion. Hence, the rent of Russian capitalists should be placed somewhere in between the entrepreneurial profit of the centre and the feudal rent of the periphery. The aims of Russian firms reflect the semi-peripheral nature of Russian capitalism.
Figure \(1\) shows in generalised form the impact of the transition to peripheral (or semi-peripheral) capitalism on the social and economic development of the former Soviet republics. All of the former Soviet republics lag behind the USSR in terms of both Human Development Index (HDI) and per capita GDP rankings, with Estonia being the only exception. (And even Estonia is behind the USSR in terms of per capita gross national income (GNI) rank.)
Split elite and authoritarian state
Beginning in the mid-2000s, Western analysts started actively discussing the return of Russia to the authoritarian path of development and resumption of the Cold War.12 Such a change is usually regarded as a result of the personal influence of Vladimir Putin, especially in connection with his past KGB experience. In fact, the political system of modern Russia, like its foreign policy, is only the natural result of the new social-economic system of semi-peripheral capitalism, which replaced the Soviet system.
According to the famous theory of hegemony developed by Antonio Gramsci, the mechanism of democracy under capitalism assumes a certain compromise of the ruling class with subjugated classes and social groups. It includes the observation of certain social-economic rights of the labouring classes, petty bourgeoisie and intellectual circles.13 This service is provided by the social welfare state. It allows the ruling class to present its own interests in society as national interests shared by everyone. An important precondition of this social compromise is formation of the general class consciousness of capitalists in a given society, which assumes limiting the interests of individual capitalists when they contradict the general, whole-class interests. Only with this backdrop can a relatively independent (from particular representatives of the ruling class) democratic state appear.14
Table \(1\): Rankings corresponding to Figure \(1\)
USSR
Estonia
Lithuania
Latvia
Russia
Belarus
Kazakhstan
Georgia
Azerbaijan Armenia Ukraine Uzbekistan Moldova Turkmenistan Kyrgyzstan
HDI rank
31
30
37
44
49
52
56
70
78 84 84 105 107 111 120
Per capita GNI rank
39
42
44
51
50
71
53
108
66 112 118 126 138 79 152
The modern semi-peripheral capitalism established in Russia is a far cry from the preconditions for bourgeois democracy. As mentioned above, its private ownership is based on an infrastructure of control - that is, on supra-economic coercion and violence. This type of private property, reflecting the joint effect of degeneration of the Soviet system and Western influence (see above), became the major institution strengthening the violation of human rights in modern Russia. First, these are rights of hired labour. Distribution of the national income is determined by the power of big capital in its coarse form. It implies transfer of part of the income created by the labour of the Russian population (and in the case of oil revenues, by labour in other countries) to the world financial markets. Such a regime is incompatible with a genuine democracy. Indeed, under a democratic regime people would not tolerate not only some particular politicians, but the social system of peripheral capitalism as such. Thus, the foundations of the authoritarian political regime are rooted not in past experiences of Mr Putin, but in the nature of the new social system which was partially inherited from the degeneration of the Soviet system and formed under the crucial influence of the West.
As is well known, the radical market reforms of the early 1990s, and privatisation in particular, were challenged by the Russian Supreme Soviet - the first truly democratically elected parliament in modern Russian history. This led to an eventual showdown between the parliament and President Yeltsin, supported by the West, in October 1993. It was a decisive moment for the fate of democracy in modern Russia. For the sake of going forward with radical market reforms, the liberal pro-Western power elite resorted to shooting up the first legally elected parliament in modern Russian history.15 It is worth mentioning that Yeltsin's edict, which disbanded the Supreme Soviet, justified this move by the Supreme Soviet's 'direct resistance to implementation of social and economic reforms'.16 The parliamentary opposition, while pursuing its own aims, at the same time protested against the radical market reforms on behalf of the wider Russian public. Shooting up the parliament removed the last obstacles on the way to formation of the new capitalist class - notorious Russian oligarchs - and secured the authoritarian political regime favourable to their economic power and corresponding to it. It is exactly the type of pseudo-democratic power free from the societal control necessary to establish the external elements of the infrastructure of control. The shooting up of the democratically elected parliament, whatever conservative trends it demonstrated, was an undisguised act of civil war. It was carried out with the tacit support of the American administration. The memoirs of Strobe Talbott, the deputy US Secretary of State responsible for policy towards Russia in the Clinton administration, testify that in the moment of this acute crisis the US administration was concerned only with preserving in power Mr Yeltsin, who was making important unilateral concessions in vital strategic issues.17 Results of this 'victory' were fixed in the new authoritarian Constitution which cut the rights of the State Duma and the new Russian Parliament, and disproportionately extended presidential power.
Mr Putin only applied the mechanism of authoritarianism created by his powerful predecessor with the full support of the West. It is important to emphasise that this mechanism itself reflects the objective character of the social-class relations established in the country in post-Soviet times. More than that, present Russian capitalism has inner features which prevent its democratic evolution.
As was shown above, due to the fundamental instability of its control over assets, Russian big business is oriented towards short-term rent rather than long-term growth. This creates obstacles for the process of recognition of general interests by the Russian property-owning class. That is why such aims as modernisation, social stability, a worthy place at the world market and the like are not shared by all business groups. The recurring process of redistribution of property rights demonstrates the constant 'war of all against all' in the milieu of big business. Essentially, Russian oligarchs represent a mechanical aggregation of rival, hostile groups. Such a situation prevents the development of the joint class consciousness of the current Russian bourgeois class in a meaningful form. In the absence of the joint interests of the ruling class, there is no real place for genuine social compromise with other social classes and groups. It appears that there are no socio-economic foundations for the hegemony of the current Russian bourgeoisie.
There are no preconditions for the formation of a relatively independent bourgeois state either. The principle of 'equidistance of power from oligarchs' proclaimed by Putin is no more than a slogan. A number of his cronies joined the Forbes 'Golden hundred' of Russians, when Mr Putin came to power.18 The external elements of the infrastructure of control, 'roofs' provided by the state functionaries and lobbyist structures, mean that in fact they have a double system of responsibilities. Ostensibly they are responsible to the state hierarchy, while actually they stick to the interests of business groups to which they are linked by informal networks of power and money relations. External elements of control are very costly, but they are vital to preserve control over enterprises. From this it follows that bribes (which facilitate informal links between power and money) are intrinsic to the system and represent part of the investment of capital by Russian big business. That is why it is impossible to overcome corruption in the society of semi-peripheral capitalism without challenging this social system as such.
Thus, modern Russia demonstrates an atomised proprietary class and fragmented state. Having come into being in the 1990s, it was followed by economic decline and plummeting living standards that threatened the disintegration of the very fabric of society. This was saliently demonstrated by the 'parade of sovereignties' (which means that many Russian regions proclaimed their independence from the central power) which rolled over Russia in the early 1990s. All this was only a window of opportunity for the local elites' takeover of the former state assets in 'their' territories. It was this growing vacuum of power which was stopped by Mr Putin's strengthening of his personal power regime.
Putin carried out an administrative reform strengthening control of the central government bodies in the hierarchy of power; cancelled election of the regional heads, replacing it by direct appointment; increased expenditures on the military, secret services and law enforcement agencies; ousted from the country a few powerful oligarchs who challenged his personal power, and so on. In the absence of real preconditions for bourgeois democracy and any influential social protest movements, Putin's authoritarianism helped to fill the vacuum of power and stopped the anarchic disintegration of the country. This explains his popularity among the Russian population. However important in their time, these achievements are only relative and temporary.
One must say that Putin's reforms left intact the foundations of the social system established in Russia after the fall of the Soviet system. The US expert on Russia, Marshall Goldman, wittily called modern Russia 'Petrostate'.19 Indeed, the relative political and social stability of our society achieved in the 2000s rested on partial redistribution of oil revenues. It was this which allowed a significant increase of expenditures on defence, the state apparatus, education and healthcare. Subsidies to some regions, which were largely embezzled, bought loyalty of the local elites. However, these measures do not solve the long-term problems of the inefficient social system.
Indeed, the domestic policy of the Russian state is ambiguous and contradictory. One of the most salient contradictions in modern Russia is the fact that the sharp anti-American rhetoric of the mass media coexists with staunchly neo-liberal economic policy based on American recipes. Even more than that, government bodies responsible for economic policy are headed by pro-American functionaries. Their main instruments of economic policy are (a) restrictive monetary policy and (b) a balanced budget approach. These are seen as the main preconditions for financial stabilisation which is expected to facilitate economic growth. Restrictive monetary policy is designed to suppress inflation, but it also serves to establish a foreign currency rate favourable for exporters. To prevent appreciation of the rouble, the Russian Central Bank buys 'excess' foreign currency and invests it in the world financial markets (largely in US assets). The budget deficit is decreased at the expense of cutting expenditures on the national economy, national defence, education, science and healthcare. Obviously, it is a conventional neo-liberal agenda. It was not changed even under the conditions of anti-Russian economic sanctions imposed on the country in retaliation for its firm position in the Ukraine crisis (see the next section).
In obvious contradiction to this approach stands the so-called manual management of the national economy on the part of the Kremlin group, which entails 'point management' of the presidential administration. The Kremlin group is an influential state body in modern Russia that sometimes challenges the government, infringing on its sphere of influence. A number of Russian oligarchs dependent on the Kremlin act as vehicles of the latter's economic policy. Dependent structures of big business are unofficially, but earnestly 'advised' to invest in one or another project considered important for national economic development by the Kremlin administration. This policy corresponds to Putin's international strategy (see below). For instance, under current conditions pro-Kremlin oligarchs are guided to create enterprises in the Russian Far East to supply raw materials and semi-processed products to China. Another important vehicle of the Kremlin's economic policy is represented by 'state corporations'. These bulky and rigid structures represent state holdings whose assets were appropriated under strong pressure from the state. They are notoriously inefficient but increase the economic influence of the Kremlin.
Obviously, 'manual management' goes against the conventional principles of the neo-liberal approach of the Russian government. Economic policy eventually reflects some compromise between two approaches intermediated by Putin. Naturally, this compromise fails to provide any clearly articulated long-term strategy of economic or social development of the country. The very fact of the deep split in the Russian elite reflects the essential properties of semi-peripheral capitalism. They also condition a contradictory approach to foreign policy.
Neo-revisionist foreign policy: The clash of capitalisms?
One may single out two groups of the Russian ruling class, who cooperate and compete in shaping Russian domestic and foreign policy. They can be defined according to the direction of their integrationist strategy. 'Atlantic integrationists' are oriented towards strengthening their ties with the West. Their opponents can be called 'Eurasian integrationists', because they try to entrench Russia's independent stance in the world arena. The first group is largely represented by notorious Russian oligarchs, who extract their rent in Russia and then invest large parts of it in the West. Even when they buy enterprises abroad, these are savings rather than investments because their profitability is usually much lower than that of their Russian assets. (This does not mean that Russian business is more efficient. Big business simply redistributes income in its favour using noneconomic means.) Trying by all means to integrate into the Western ruling elite, these oligarchs are dependent on the West. The second group largely consists of oligarchs associated with the so-called Kremlin group. Functionaries from law enforcement agencies occupy a prominent position in this group. The two orientations of Russian foreign policy are only another dimension of the split peculiar to the ruling class of a semi-peripheral capitalism. Russian foreign policy is determined by behind-the-scenes collusion and compromise of these two powerful groups. This explains its inconsistency and wavering.
Mainstream Western political analysts depict Russian foreign policy as a revisionist one, attempting to undermine the current world economic order. It is substantiated by the fact that it allegedly tries to restore the Soviet Union in a new form. In December 2012, then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned Russia for the alleged attempt 'to re-Sovietize the region' of the former USSR: 'It's not going to be called that. It's going to be called customs union, it will be called Eurasian Union and all of that,' she explained. 'But let's make no mistake about it. We know what the goal is and we are trying to figure out effective ways to slow down or prevent it.'20 However, Russian policy is by no means a revisionist one. In fact, Putin challenges neither Western domination in the world in general, nor US hegemony in particular. He is rather trying to defend Russian national interests in the existing framework of the current world order. According to Richard Sakwa from Kent University (UK), such a strategy, based on an attempt to change the practice of Western domination rather than undermine it, should be called 'neo-revisionist'.21
This can be seen from the recent history of Russian foreign policy. In his first tenure in power (2000-4) Putin's policy more or less continued the 'Yes' diplomacy of his predecessor in relations with the West. He made a few important unilateral concessions, signing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START, 2002), which contained conditions unilaterally favourable for the United States; closing Russian military bases in Vietnam; closing the electronic surveillance centre in Cuba; helping to establish US military bases in Central Asia; and cooperating on Afghanistan and in some other issues. In response, the then-new Russian president expected that the West would recognise the leading role of Russia in the former Soviet space. However, this never happened. What followed was seen in Moscow as creeping but persistent strategic encirclement of Russia; the most treacherous was considered the expansion of NATO to the East despite oral guarantees that this military bloc would never move 'an inch' to the East. Quite important was the US decision to deploy an anti-missile defence system in Europe allegedly directed against the menace of North Korean forces, but obviously against Russia. One of the most threatening developments to Russian interests was a number of 'coloured revolutions' organised by the United States in the former Soviet space. Against this backdrop, the invitation to join NATO granted to Ukraine 'represented a fundamental threat to Russia's national security. It would have rendered Russia indefensible and threatened to destabilise the Russian Federation itself. When the United States went so far as to suggest that Georgia be included as well, bringing NATO deeper into the Caucasus, the Russian conclusion - publicly stated - was that the United States in particular intended to encircle and break Russia'.22
A clear signal that Moscow was reconsidering its policy of unilateral concessions was sent to the West by Putin in his famous 'Munich speech', made at the 43rd Munich Security Conference in 2007. The Russian president condemned the US policy of establishing a 'unipolar world' and reminded the West of its obligations on the non-expansion of NATO.23 Despite the fact that the speech did not contain any aggressive statements, the very claim of Russian leadership to an independent international policy annoyed the Western political establishment.24 The next year, dramatic events in the Caucasus put this new strategy to a severe test.
In August 2008, the pro-American Georgian regime of Mikheil Saak'ashvili invaded the breakaway republic of South Ossetia in the Southern Caucasus. This had been an autonomous region, while Abkhazia had been an autonomous republic in Soviet Georgia. Both proclaimed independence and had been attempting to join Russia ever since the breakdown of the Soviet Union, on the same moral and judicial grounds by which Georgia received its own independence. The military attempt to suppress the maverick region followed after tacit support and encouragement on the part of the United States, despite unofficial warnings on the part of Russia that this would not be tolerated.25 The Russian army quickly interfered, putting an abrupt end to the Georgian adventure and securing independence for the two republics. As was observed by the well-informed British Times newspaper, the reasons for this clash were deeper than just local ethnic conflict: 'Oil may not be the cause of the war between Georgia and Russia, but it is a central element in the wider geo-strategic picture, and a source of incendiary tension that has helped to inflame the area.'26
The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) is an international organisation of regional economic integration formed in 2015 by Belarus, Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation, and joined the same year by Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. The EAEU proclaims the free movement of goods, services, capital and workforce, and conducts a coordinated, agreed policy in particular sectors of the economy. Post-Soviet republics view the concept of Eurasian integration as a way of mobilising their joint resources for modernisation of their countries confronted with strong external challenges, defined in terms of both geopolitics and geoeconomics.27 The EAEU population amounts to 183.8 million, its joint GDP to \$1.8 trillion; industrial production in 2017 was 2.2 per cent of world output; and foreign trade with the outside world in 2014 was \$877.6 billion (3.7 per cent of world exports and 2.3 per cent of world imports).28 The world share of EAEU economies is quite modest. Nevertheless, integration has facilitated mutually beneficial economic (especially trade) relations. Russia is the main driving force behind the EAEU. However, while its share in foreign trade of the fellow-members of the union is great, their share in Russia's imports is low.29 This means that for Russia, geopolitical aspects of the union are more important than economic aspects. Indeed, it is the most important Russian initiative of recent years in the former Soviet space.
Even more challenging was the Ukraine crisis, which erupted in late 2013. This country plays the key role in Mr Putin's design of the EAEU project and in any attempt to restore Russia's role in the former Soviet space. According to a US military expert, Ukraine plays an enormously significant role in energy resources transportation to the West and helps to prevent the revival of anything like a superpower in the former USSR.30 This made Ukraine a battleground for the strategic clash of Russia and the West long before the Maidan uprising of 2013-14. The United States had long exercised their 'soft power' in this country, which cost them \$5 billion, according to the famous confession of the then US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland.31 The Maidan uprising itself was quite justified as an expression of people's outrage against the corruption and gross inefficiency of the country's leadership. However, it was exploited and directed from behind the scenes by the West, mainly by America. Russian interference was both predictable and justified as defence of Russian interests against Western interference behind the façade of a new coloured revolution. Reunification of Crimea was a pre-emptive strike, which thwarted the ousting of the Russian navy from its major naval base on the Black Sea in Sevastopol.32 However, Russian support of the Donbas uprising of the pro-Russian population against the dictatorship of the Ukrainian nationalists was limited, since Putin abstained from open recognition of the two breakaway republics and from granting them full-scale military support.33
The Russian role in the Syrian conflict should be seen in connection with the Ukraine crisis. For a long time, Russia was working behind the scenes to form the alliance of Iran, Hezbollah and Syria in support of the friendly Assad regime.34 However, Russian direct involvement was facilitated by the stalemate of the Ukraine crisis. Putin needed some tool to divert the US military, economic and political resources from Central Europe to some other region more important for American interests. He found Syria, saving Assad from destruction and turning back the course of the Syrian civil war. Doing this, the Russian president attempted to compel the West to recognise Russia as an indispensable player in the international arena.
Putin's foreign policy is quite pragmatic, pursuing economic interests rather than cherishing imperial dreams. In particular, the above-mentioned 'manual management' is used by the Kremlin group in the Russian Far East to join the supply chain of Chinese industry. A number of enterprises are established in the region to supply raw materials and semi-processed goods to the industrial heart of China. The problem is that these goods are already being supplied to China by Australia, and extraction of Australian mineral resources is controlled by powerful Western financial groups. The Kremlin suggests a certain share in Russian business in this region to these financial groups to placate them and obtain their support for the project. An additional dimension of this policy is the Kremlin's hope to enlist the support of powerful segments of the Western elite in broader areas of international policy.35 It is the type of scheming pertinent to Mr Putin. He would never make such a blunder as poisoning former KGB defectors by chemical warfare agents or direct interference in the US elections. Mr Putin prefers much subtler ways of behind-the-scenes influence, which leaves no traces.
However clever and skilful such types of scheming may seem, it can promote Russian interests only in the short or at most medium term because it fails to address the roots of Russian problems - the deficiencies of a semi-peripheral capitalism.
Conclusion
Summing up the above, one must note that Russian capitalism is a far cry from what was dreamed about by the Soviet population on the eve of transition to the new social system. The image of the new society was appealing because of its pledge of democracy, economic prosperity and human rights. However, radical market reforms produced semi-dependent capitalism. Its economy is based on transfer of part of the wealth created by the labour of its population to the dominant capitalist countries. It is the real condition of access to the capitalist world-system. As a result of this, the Russian economy, and economies of all other former Soviet republics as well, inevitably suffer backwardness, economic inefficiency and the mass impoverishment of the population. Big business is based on rent-seeking behaviour, undermining the accumulation of capital and economic growth. The high rate of exploitation of labour is incompatible with human rights and real democracy. The authoritarian state is the only alternative to social chaos. Under conditions of the Great Stagnation,36 the struggle for redistribution of global wealth exacerbates. This increases the number of international conflicts in which Russia is involved. Under such conditions, inefficient, semi-dependent Russian capitalism is unable to defend national interests in the framework of the existing world order.
1Lev Trotskii, Predannaia revoliutsiia. Chto takoe SSSR i kuda on idet? (Moscow: Moskovskii rabochii, 1991 [1936]), 210.
2David Lane, Elites and Classes in the Transformation of State Socialism (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2011), 43.
3Stanislav Menshikov, The Anatomy of Russian Capitalism (Washington, DC: Executive Intelligence Review News Service, 2007), 9.
4By the 1990s, world experience already had demonstrated that the formula of 'liberalisation plus stabilisation' (that is, privatisation and a restrictive monetary policy) served to aggravate poverty and misery in the developing countries. Michael Chossudovsky, The Globalisation of Poverty: Impact of IMF and World Bank Reforms (London: Zed Books, 1997).
5Janine Wedel, Collision and Collusion: The Strange Case of Western Aid to Eastern Europe (New York: Palgrave, 2001), ch. 4.
6Sergei Stepashin, ed., Analiz protsessov privatizatsii gosudarstvennoy sobstvennosti v Rossiiskoi Federatsii za period 1993-2003 gody (Moscow: Olita, 2004).
7Stanislav Menshikov, Anatomiia rossiiskogo kapitalizma (Moscow, Mezhdunarodnye Otnosheniia, 2004), 61-62.
8Tatyana Dolgopyatova, 'Evolution of the Corporate Control Models in the Russian Companies: New Trends and Factors', SUHSE Working Paper WP1/2005/04 (Moscow: State University-Higher School of Economics, 2005).
9Ruslan Dzarasov, 'Insider Control and Investment Behaviour of Russian Corporations' (PhD thesis, Staffordshire University, UK, 2007), 78.
10Robert Nigmatulin, ed., Modernizatsiia Rossii: problemy i puti ikh resheniia (Moscow: ZATS Modernizatsiia, 2012), 53.
11'The net inflow/outflow of private capital (according to the data of the Balance of Payments of Russian Federation)', Central Bank of the Russian Federation, accessed 17 August 2018, http://www.cbr.ru/statistics/?PrtId=svs.
12Edward Lucas, The New Cold War: How the Kremlin Menaces both Russia and the West (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).
13Joseph V. Femia, Gramsci's Political Thought: Hegemony, Consciousness, and the Revolutionary Process (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981).
14Ralph Miliband, Marxism and Politics. Marxist Introductions. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977).
15Antonio Rubbi, Yeltseniada: Pervoye desiatiletye postsovetskoi Rossii (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnoshenia, 2004), 188-205.
16Moskva. Osen'-93: Khronika Protivostoianiia (Moscow: Respublika, 1995), vii.
17Strobe Talbott, The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy (New York: Random House, 2002).
18Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Milov, Putin 10 Let. Itogy (Moscow: Solidarnost', 2010), 6.
19Marshall Goldman, Petrostate: Putin, Power and the New Russia (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).
20Bradley Klapper, 'Clinton fears efforts to "re-Sovietize" in Europe', The Seattle Times, 6 December 2012, accessed 29 August 2018, www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/clinton -fears-efforts-to-re-sovietize-in-europe/.
21Richard Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands (London: I.B. Tauris, 2015).
22George Friedman, 'The Russo-Georgian War and the Balance of Power', Geopolitical Intelligence Report, 12 August 2008, accessed 26 November 2018, worldview.stratfor.com/article /russo-georgian-war-and-balance-power.
23Vladimir Putin, 'Vystuplenie i diskussiia na Miunkhenskoi konferentsii po voprosam politiki bezopasnosti 10 fevralia 2007 g', Prezident Rossii, 10 February 2007, accessed 4 September 2018, www.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24034.
24Thom Shanker and Mark Landler, 'Putin Says U.S. is Undermining Global Stability', New York Times, 11 February 2007.
25Thomas Omestad, 'Putin's Russia Acts as a Great Power Again', US News & World Report, 22 August 2008.
26Ben Macintyre, 'Georgian Oil Pipeline: The Frontline', The Times, 13 August 2008.
27See papers written by leaders of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan who initiated the EAEU: Vladimir Putin, 'Novyi integratsionnyi proekt dlia Evrazii - budushchee, kotoroe rozhdaetsia segodnia', Izvestiia, 3 October 2011; A. Lukashenko, 'O sud'bakh nashei integratsii', Izvestiia, 17 October 2011; N. Nazarbaev, 'Evraziiskii Soyuz - ot idei k istorii budushchego', Izvestiia, 25 October 2011.
28Eurasian Economic Union, 'EAEU, 2016', accessed 4 September 2018, www.eaeunion.org/#about.
29Elena Ustyuzhanina, 'The Eurasian Union and Global Value Chains', European Politics and Society 17, supp. 1 [The Eurasian Project in Global Perspective] (2016): 35-45.
30R. Craig Nation, NATO's Relations with Russia and Ukraine (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 2000).
31Victoria Nuland, 'Victoria Nuland Admits Washington Has Spent \$5 Billion to "Subvert Ukraine"', 9 February 2014, accessed 7 May 2018, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2fYcHLouXY.
32Rodolfo Ragonesi, 'The Crimean Question', Times of Malta . com, 14 April 2014, accessed 7 May 2016, www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140414/opinion/The-Crimean-question.514876.
33Richard Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands (London: I.B. Tauris, 2015).
34Talal Nizameddin, 'Squaring the Middle East Triangle in Lebanon: Russia and the Iran-SyriaHezbollah Nexus', The Slavonic and East European Review 86, no. 3 (July 2008): 475-500.
35Personal communication of the author with an expert in Russian big business in the Far East, who requested that his identity not be disclosed.
36This refers to the view that recent sources of economic growth are becoming exhausted. See Tyler Cowen, The Great Stagnation (New York: Dutton, 2011).
Bibliography
Chossudovsky, Michael. The Globalisation of Poverty: Impact of IMF and World Bank Reforms. London: Zed Books, TWN Third World Network, 1997.
Cowen, Tyler. The Great Stagnation. New York: Dutton, 2011.
Dolgopyatova, Tatyana. 'Evolution of the Corporate Control Models in the Russian Companies: New Trends and Factors'. SUHSE Working Paper WP1/2005/04. Moscow: State University- Higher School of Economics, 2005.
Dzarasov, Ruslan. 'Insider Control and Investment Behaviour of Russian Corporations'. PhD thesis, Staffordshire University, UK, 2007.
Eurasian Economic Union. 'EAEU, 2016'. Accessed 4 September 2018, www.eaeunion.org/#about.
Femia, Joseph V. Gramsci's Political Thought: Hegemony, Consciousness, and the Revolutionary Process. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981.
Friedman, George. 'The Russo-Georgian War and the Balance of Power'. Geopolitical Intelligence Report, 12 August 2008. Accessed 26 November 2018, worldview.stratfor.com/article/russo-georgian-war-and-balance-power.
Goldman, Marshall. Petrostate: Putin, Power and the New Russia. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Human Development Report 1990 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).
Human Development Report 2016: Human Development for Everyone (Washington, DC: Communications Development Incorporated, 2016).
Klapper, Bradley. 'Clinton Fears Efforts to "re-Sovietize" in Europe'. The Seattle Times, 6 December 2012. Accessed 29 August 2018, www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/clinton-fears-efforts-to-re-sovietize-in-europe/.
Kotz, David, and Fred Weir. Russia's Path from Gorbachev to Putin: The Demise of the Soviet System and the New Russia. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2007.
Lane, David. Elites and Classes in the Transformation of State Socialism. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2011.
Lucas, Edward. The New Cold War: How the Kremlin Menaces both Russia and the West. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Lukashenko, A. 'O sud'bakh nashei integratsii'. Izvestiia, 17 October 2011.
Macintyre, Ben. 'Georgian Oil Pipeline: The Frontline'. The Times, 13 August 2008.
Menshikov, Stanislav. Anatomiia rossiiskogo kapitalizma. Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnoshenia, 2004.
Menshikov, Stanislav. The Anatomy of Russian Capitalism. Washington, DC: Executive Intelligence Review News Service, 2007.
Miliband, Ralph. Marxism and Politics. Marxist Introductions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.
Morozov, Sergei. Diplomatiia Putina. Moscow: Izdatel'stvo 'Krylov', 2008.
Moskva. Osen'-93: Khronika Protivostoianiia. Moscow: Respublika, 1995.
Nation, R. Craig. NATO's Relations with Russia and Ukraine. Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 2000.
Nazarbaev, N. 'Evraziiskii Soyuz - ot idei k istorii budushchego'. Izvestiia, 25 October 2011. Nemtsov, Boris, and Vladimir Milov. Putin 10 Let. Itogy. Moscow: Solidarnost', 2010.
Nigmatulin, Robert, ed. Modernizatsiia Rossii: problemy i puti ikh resheniia. Moscow: ZATS Modernizatsiia, 2012.
Nizameddin, Talal. 'Squaring the Middle East Triangle in Lebanon: Russia and the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah Nexus'. The Slavonic and East European Review 86, no. 3 (July 2008): 475-500.
Nuland, Victoria. 'Victoria Nuland Admits Washington Has Spent \$5 Billion to "Subvert Ukraine"'. 9 February 2014, accessed 7 May 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2fYcHLouXY.
Omestad, Thomas. 'Putin's Russia Acts as a Great Power Again'. US News & World Report, 22 August 2008.
Putin, Vladimir. 'Novyi integratsionnyi proekt dlia Evrazii - budushchee, kotoroe rozhdaetsia segodnia'. Izvestiia, 3 October 2011.
Putin, Vladimir. 'Vystuplenie i diskussiia na Miunkhenskoi konferentsii po voprosam politiki bezopasnosti 10 fevralia 2007 g'. Prezident Rossii, 10 February 2007. Accessed 4 September 2018, http://www.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24034.
Ragonesi, Rodolfo. 'The Crimean Question'. Times of Malta . com, 14 April 2014. Accessed 7 May 2016, www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140414/opinion/The-Crimean-question.514876.
Reddaway, Peter, and Dmitri Glinski. The Tragedy of Russia's Reforms: Market Bolshevism against Democracy. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2001.
Rubbi, Antonio. Yeltseniada: Pervoe desiatiletie postsovetskoi Rossii. Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnoshenia, 2004.
Sakwa, Richard. Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands. London: I.B. Tauris, 2015.
Shanker, Thom, and Mark Landler. 'Putin Says U.S. is Undermining Global Stability'. New York Times, 11 February 2007.
Stepashin, Sergei, ed. Analiz protsessov privatizatsii gosudarstvennoy sobstvennosti v Rossiiskoi Federatsii za period 1993-2003 gody. Moscow: Olita, 2004.
Talbott, Strobe. The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy. New York: Random House, 2002.
Trotskii, Lev. Predannaia revoliutsiia. Chto takoe SSSR i kuda on idet? Moscow: Moskovskii Rabochii, 1991 [1936].
Ustyuzhanina, Elena. 'The Eurasian Union and Global Value Chains'. European Politics and Society 17, supp. 1 [The Eurasian Project in Global Perspective] (2016): 35-45.
Wedel, Janine R. 'Clique-Run Organizations and U.S. Economic Aid: An Institutional Analysis'. Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization 4, no. 4 (Fall 1996).
Wedel, Janine R. Collision and Collusion. The Strange Case of Western Aid to Eastern Europe. New York: Palgrave, 2001. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Socialism_Capitalism_and_Alternatives_(Duncan_and_Schimpfossl)/2%3A_Part_I_-_Capitalism_in_Action/1%3A_Semi-dependent_capitalism_-_Russia.txt |
Introduction
In September 2015, ahead of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice), President Putin attended the official inauguration of the reconstructed Moscow Cathedral Mosque. Alongside the presidents of Turkey and the Palestinian Authority stood Dagestan-born businessman Suleiman Kerimov (45th on the Russian Forbes rich list),1 who had donated over half the mosque's construction funds "as charity towards Allah".2 Such philanthropy was not new to Russia's business elite,3 but the overt association with the mosque and Islamic practices was a rare acknowledgment of Muslim identity among Russia's hyper-rich. This chapter examines how such Muslim identities have shaped and diversified Russia's business elite, as ranked by the most credible of the remaining Russian rich lists, published by Forbes Russia in 2016.4 It provides a new religious framework for exploring the popular topic of wealth generation and political influence in the early years of capitalism in Russia, and uses the same approach to examine more recent topics of scholarly interest such as power legitimisation and philanthropy, as investigated by Elisabeth Schimpfössl and Timothy Monteath in chapter 3.5
Of the 200 businessmen and women listed by Forbes Russia in 2016, 21 had Muslim identities (see Table \(1\)). Throughout this chapter, they are referred to collectively as the Muslim Business Elite (MBE). The methodology for this identification was based on an inclusivist, sociological approach to Muslim identity,6 including both Mosque-goers and those raised in 'Muslim-heritage' cultures or regions.7 This approach accommodates the broad array of ethnic groups that make up Russia's Muslim population, which have largely developed in isolation from one another,8 and the secularisation of many Muslim practices during the anti-religious campaigns of the Soviet Union. As Dominic Rubin observes in his recent travelogue of Russia's Muslim heartlands, 'the closer one gets to individuals, the more individual and idiosyncratic "Russian Islam" begins to seem'.9 Casting the net in such a way groups together wealthy businessmen such as Vagit Alekperov (9) and Alisher Usmanov (3), who run some of Russia's most strategically important companies, and more regionally powerful players such as Airat (126) and Radik Shaimiev (127). While other studies of the business elite may categorise these individuals differently, their unification here allows this study to focus on the dynamics between religion and capitalism within as broad a group as possible.
Table \(1\): List of Russia’s business elite with Muslim identities (2016) (Source: Author’s own research files)
*Accurate as of 1 September 2016. The average age of the MBE is 53. Of the 193 businessmen for whom Forbes provides ages, the average is 53.5.
Name 2016 rating Ethnicity Age* Place of birth Initial source of wealth
Alisher Usmanov
3
Uzbek
63
Chust, Uzbek SSR
Trade
Vagit Alekperov
9
Azerbaijani
66
Baku, Azerbaijan SSR
Oil & Gas
Mikhail Gutseriev
16
Ingush
58
Akimolinsk, Kazakh SSR
Finance
Iskander Makhmudov
21
Uzbek
52
Bukhara, Uzbek SSR
Trade
Suleiman Kerimov
45
Lezgin (Dagestan)
50
Derbent, Dagestan ASSR
Trade
Mikhail Shishkhanov
46
Ingush
44
Chechen-Ingush ASSR
Finance
Sait-Salam Gutseriev
48
Ingush
57
Akimolinsk, Kazakh SSR
Finance
Farkhad Akhmedov
51
Azerbaijani
61
Baku, Azerbaijan SSR
Oil & Gas
Aras Agalarov
55
Azerbaijani
60
Baku, Azerbaijan SSR
Trade
Ruslan Baisarov
89
Chechen
48
Veduchi, Chechen-Ingush ASSR
Trade
Ziyavudin Magomedov
93
Avar (Dagestan)
47
Makhachkala, Dagestan ASSR
Trade
Airat Shaimiev
126
Tatar
54
Muslyumovo, Tatar ASSR
Oil & Gas
Radik Shaimiev
127
Tatar
51
Kazan, Tatar ASSR
Oil & Gas
Rustem Sulteev
131
Tatar
62
Tatar ASSR
Trade
Albert Shigabutdinov
132
Tatar
63
Pervouralsk, RSFSR
Trade
Ziyad Manasir
140
Jordanian
50
Amman, Jordan
Trade
Aleksei Semin
152
Tatar
48
Kazan, Tatar ASSR
Finance
Deni Bazhaev
155
Chechen
20
Moscow, Russian Federation
Inheritance
Musa Bazhaev
156
Chechen
50
Grozny, Chechen-Ingush ASSR
Oil & Gas
Arsen Kanokov
160
Kabardian
59
Shithala, Kabardino-Balkar ASSR
Trade
Rustam Tariko
168
Tatar
54
Menzelinsk, Tatar ASSR
Trade
Information pertaining to the religious identities of the Forbes-listed individuals was compiled from personal interviews in newspaper, radio and television archives,10 according to four research categories: 1) self-identification; 2) family identification;11 3) religious observances;12 and 4) traditional religion of ethnic group. In all, the 21 individuals represent nine different ethnic groups traditionally affiliated with Muslim identities: Tatar (6), Chechen (3), Ingush (3), Azerbaijani (3), Uzbek (2), Kabardian (1), Avar (1), Lezgin (1), Jordanian (1). The strongest of these research categories, self-identification, included Chechen businessman Ruslan Baisarov (89), Uzbek businessman Alisher Usmanov (3),13 and former president of Kabardino-Balkaria Arsen Kanokov (160), who considers himself to be a law-abiding (pravovernyi) Muslim and undertakes the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj).14
Business as usual
How Russia's business elite generated their initial wealth has fascinated scholars since the fall of the Soviet Union. Those who made their money in the murky years of the early 1990s have received particular attention in an attempt to unravel the close and complex relationship between business, organised crime, and the state. Muslim businessmen and their religious identities, however, have rarely dominated the debate,15 despite the fact that the majority began their commercial activities at the very same time and many of them have been open about their initial source of wealth in public interviews.16
Foreign trade was one of the principal methods through which many of Russia's business elite entered the commercial world at the end of the Soviet period. It was one of the three areas to benefit from the 1988 Law on Cooperatives introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev, which permitted private ownership in the services, manufacturing and foreign trade sectors through the establishment of cooperatives. No special permission was required to establish a cooperative and it legalised the trading of goods which had previously been bought and sold on the black or grey markets.17 As a result, from 1988 through the early 1990s, the law enabled those with and without privileged access to start making money.18
Over half the MBE made their initial wealth in foreign trade. Low-value consumer goods such as cigarettes and food were quickly replaced in 1991 and 1992 by electrical appliances, computers and other office equipment and, in the case of Uzbek businessman Iskander Makhmudov (21), larger commodities such as coal and metal. Some of the most successful traders were Tatar businessmen Albert Shigabutdinov (132) and Rustem Sulteev (131), who established one of the biggest foreign trading cooperatives in Tatarstan. Others saw trade as a stepping-stone to other industries, and for one member of the MBE, the change in commercial activity was explicitly driven by religious beliefs. In an interview with Vedomosti in 2003 in which he discussed his early business activities, Alisher Usmanov (3) stated that he chose to stop trading cigarettes because 'as a Muslim [he] could not sell poison'.19
In the early 1990s, banking and finance also became a growing area for private commercial activity following the introduction of the Central Bank Law and the new Commercial Banking Law in December 1990, marking the beginning of Russia's market-based financial system.20 These laws created a two-tier banking system by separating the Central Bank's operations from commercial banking functions, and allowed for the relatively straightforward establishment of new commercial banks by resident or foreign entities.21 A number of the MBE took advantage of this new banking legislation and shifted their focus from trade to finance in the early 1990s. Ingush businessman Mikhail Gutseriev (16) established one of the first cooperative banks in Moscow and used it to hold the accounts of companies registering in the newly created free economic zone of Ingushetia.22 As he boasted in an interview with a Financial Times correspondent in 1994, 'twenty-three billion roubles [more than US \$10 million at the time] flowed into our accounts today alone. And it's like this every single day'.23 Dagestani businessman Ziyavudin Magomedov (93)24 also reported that he made his first 'serious money' in finance, having traded computers and other electrical appliances while still at university from 1988 to 1990. In 1993 he created Interfinance Company alongside his brother Magomed Magomedov and cousin Akhmed Bilalov and began managing internal currency bonds from foreign trade associations, accumulating US \$15 million of their own money and US \$50-\$60 million under management by 1994.25
The large privatisation auctions were an area in which the MBE made fewer financial gains than their non-Muslim counterparts of the mid-1990s in Russia. The main exceptions were the four TAIF shareholders, who benefitted from the second wave of privatisations in 1994 when the Tatar government created Tatar American Investments and Finance (TAIF) to hold the government's stakes in newly privatised assets such as Tatneft and Nizhnekamenskneftekhim. Albert Shigabutdinov (132) and Rustem Sulteev (131) were given a 14 per cent stake and they now control the company alongside Airat (126) and Radik Shaimiev (127).
Commercial lobbying
While the TAIF shareholders inevitably benefitted from the lobbying of the former President of Tatarstan and father of the Shaimiev brothers, Mintimir Shaimiev,26 the remaining MBE do not appear to have turned to their home regions for political support and lobbying. Instead, those who entered politics to lobby for their commercial interests did so through the same route as their non-Muslim counterparts.
The close relationship between business and the state in Russia has been cited as one of the defining methods by which the business elite made their wealth.27 At the fall of the Soviet Union, lobbying and political influence were still highly personalised, and personal political connections were crucial to obtaining favourable decisions.28 This personalised interaction between state and enterprise was inherited by the business elite in post-Soviet Russia, and remains part of the perceived sistema of governance in Russia.29 The business elite started to enter the political stage on a personal level after 1994, when their newly-formed business and financial groups had grown strong enough to carry sufficient economic and political influence.
Of the 21 members of the MBE, six have held high-level political positions in post-Soviet Russia (Table \(2\)).
Of these positions, the State Duma offered the greatest opportunity for businessmen to lobby for their commercial interests, and access to Russia's lower house was rumoured to be frequently facilitated by the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR).30 Many of Russia's business elite entered politics this way to lobby for their commercial interests, and the MBE were no exception. Ingush businessman Mikhail Gutseriev (16), for example, explicitly stated that he entered politics to further his business interests: 'I understood that we [. . . ] were getting too big to keep on fighting the chinovniks [bureaucrats]. We had to join them.'31 All four members of the MBE who were State Duma deputies were elected on the LDPR party list, despite the fact that ideologically the LDPR was highly racist and suspicious of what it referred to as the 'Southern problem'.32
Table \(2\): Political posts held by members of the Muslim business elite (Source: Author's own research files)
MBE member Political position Dates position held
Suleiman Kerimov State Duma deputy 1999-2007
Federation Council senator (representing the Republic of Dagestan) 2008-present
Mikhail Gutseriev State Duma deputy 1995-9
Sait-Salam Gutseriev State Duma deputy 1999-2008
Farkhad Akhmedov Federation Council senator (representing the Krasnodar Region 2004-7 and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region 2007-9) 2004-9
Arsen Kanokov State Duma deputy 2003-5
President of the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria 2005-13
Federation Council senator (representing the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria) 2013-present
Albert Shigabutdinov State Council member (for the Republic of Tatarstan) 2009-14
In addition to those who chose politics as a lobbying instrument, many businessmen never directly engaged in personal politics. As Russian scholar Andrei Yakovlev argues, there were in fact many businesses which deliberately kept their distance from the state.33 From the 2000s onwards, this strategy was adopted by more and more businesses as Putin discouraged the business elite from engaging in politics.34 They began to promote themselves as 'self-made' businessmen to counter the negative connotations of the term 'oligarch', and many spoke publicly about their lack of political activity. In a televised interview, Uzbek trader Iskander Makhmudov (21), for example, rejected the term 'oligarch', claiming he had no connection with the government.35
Outside the political arena, the business elite also promoted and supported their businesses through the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RUIE). This business association was arguably at its most influential in the aftermath of the August 1998 financial crisis, when many of the business elite joined the RUIE in an attempt to coordinate the general recovery of the Russian economy. Although significantly weakened under Putin, the RUIE has remained one of the primary lobbies for the business elite in Russia, and many of the MBE number among its management board and continue to engage with its various committees and councils. Vagit Alekperov (9) was one of the first high-profile members of the association's management board in September 2000 and has remained an active member since, alongside four other members of the MBE: Alisher Usmanov (3), Mikhail Gutseriev (16), Aras Agalarov (55) and Ziyavudin Magomedov (93).
The MBE have engaged far less actively with the recently established Association of Muslim Businessmen of the Russian Federation (AMBRF), founded in 2014 to represent and promote the commercial interests of Muslim businessmen in Russia and abroad. Unlike the Russian Jewish Congress (RJC), which was founded by a number of the Jewish business elite in 1996 to promote Jewish interests in Russia and which continues to be actively supported by these elite, the AMBRF currently has very limited interaction with members of the MBE.
Lobbying from within
Conversely, the MBE appear to have embraced one of the key modus operandi of Russia's business and political elite in the post-Soviet space by lobbying for their commercial interests using those who know them best: family.
A third of the MBE have more than one family member on the Forbes Russia list: the Gutserievs (Mikhail (16), Sait-Salam (48) and their nephew Mikhail Shishkhanov (46)), the Shaimievs (Radik (127) and Airat (126)) and the Bazhaevs (Musa (156) and Deni (155)). In Forbes Russia's 2017 calculation of the 10 wealthiest families in Russia, all three families were included, alongside Ziyavudin Magomedov (93) and his brother Magomed.36 The combined wealth of these four families was estimated by Forbes to be US \$15.3 billion, greater than the combined wealth of the remaining six families (US \$12.7 billion).
The majority of the MBE also involve their immediate family members in key (board-level) management positions, and the proportion of children brought in to run part of their businesses is high.37 Notably, Suleiman Kerimov's (45) son Said runs much of his business activities to enable him to continue his role on the Federation Council, and Aras Agalarov's (55) son Emin is Executive Vice President of Crocus Group. Female relatives have also been well-represented: Vagit Alekperov's (9) sister Nelli Alekperova is President of the Lukoil charity fund; Radik Shaimiev's (127) daughter Kamila was on the management board of TAIF, a decision that Kamila reports had been made by the family;38 and Rustem Sulteev's (131) daughter Diana is on the management board of another of his commercial interests, the Bank Avers. This contrasts with many other companies represented on the Forbes Russia list, where family members less frequently hold such senior positions.39
The importance of family for Muslims in business has been widely covered by scholars in the field. Rodney Wilson observed that there is a reluctance among Muslim businessmen to see family businesses moving to external shareholders.40 Indeed, Mikhail Gutseriev (16) has asserted that his business empire is a 'brotherhood' in which all assets, regardless of who acquired them, are divided between himself, his nephew Mikhail Shishkhanov (46) and brother Sait-Salam Gutseriev (48), with 51 per cent, 24.5 per cent and 24.5 per cent respectively.41 More recently, this has also included his son Said. Although Mikhail Gutseriev (16) does not acknowledge any Muslim influence in this structure, there is a similarity with the Islamic principle of musharakah. Literally meaning sharing, in the context of business musharakah refers to a joint enterprise in which partners (or parties) to the enterprise share profits and losses, regardless of the amount invested.
Giving back
In addition to understanding how Russia's business elite generated their initial wealth, scholars are increasingly examining how these businessmen spend it, a subject which has fascinated Western and Russian tabloid journalists since their glitzy displays of wealth in the early 1990s. Elisabeth Schimpfössl, in her research on Russia's social upper class, demonstrates that the rise of philanthropy is an important component in their current quest for 'culturedness',42 and like their non-Muslim counter parts, the MBE are active in their philanthropic activities, both through corporate social responsibility programmes and personal foundations.43
Philanthropy among the Russian business elite is typically focussed on a wide range of social initiatives - most prominently children, sport, culture, education and 2: Diversifying the super-rich - Forbes-listed Russians from a Muslim backgroundhealthcare44 - and a number of the MBE follow this model of charitable giving, such as Mikhail Gutseriev's (16) charitable foundation SAFMAR. Patriotism also plays an important role in the engagement in (and promotion of) these initiatives, and many of the more public acts of philanthropy directly or indirectly benefit the Russian state. In 2007, for example, one of the most philanthropic members of the MBE, Alisher Usmanov (3), bought all 450 lots at a Sotheby's Russian auction and donated them to Konstantinovsky Palace outside Saint Petersburg.45
A number of the MBE have expanded this national patriotism to a form of regional patriotism, which has not been evident in their business investments. This regional commitment to social development is most clearly illustrated in Dagestan and Chechnya, where the Dagestani businessman Suleiman Kerimov (45) and, until shortly after his arrest, his fellow Dagestani Ziyavudin Magomedov (93), and the Chechens Ruslan Baisarov (89) and Musa Bazhaev (156), invest considerable funds for social projects in the regions.46 As well as supporting a number of charities in Dagestan, Suleiman Kerimov (45) also supports charities promoting his ethnic clan, the Lezgins, and the Lezgin language.47
Whereas the business elite on the whole has remained somewhat conservative in its vocal support of religious organisations, many channel their support through charitable donations, in particular to the renovation of churches and other religious buildings.48 This is particularly visible among the MBE. Over half of the MBE have supported religious causes as part of their philanthropic activities and 11 have supported the construction of mosques. Philanthropy is considered a central tenet of many religions, and Islam is no exception. Many Muslims regard charity as a form of worship and, according to traditional conceptions of Islam, it is one of the five pillars of the faith.
The most active member of the MBE in his charitable support of religious and specifically Muslim organisations and institutions is Suleiman Kerimov (45), through his charitable foundation, The Suleiman Kerimov Foundation.49 In addition to buildings, the Suleiman Kerimov Foundation supports a number of different Muslim celebrations and religious festivals, sponsoring thousands of Dagestani pilgrims to travel to Mecca for Hajj each year. In 2011 a similar trip for inhabitants of the republic of Kabardino-Balkaria was organised and sponsored by the republic's former president, Arsen Kanokov (160). These events are similar to the activities of the RJC, which since 2012 has been organising pilgrimages to Israel to celebrate Passover.50 Unlike the Hajj pilgrimages, however, members of the Jewish business elite, including Mikhail Fridman (2) and Andrei Rappaport (67), regularly take part in the pilgrimage, spending three days in the desert in the run-up to Passover.51
Very few of the MBE, however, direct their religious philanthropic activities just at Muslim causes, and the majority, including Suleiman Kerimov (45), Ziyavudin Magomedov (93) and Arsen Kanokov (160), have also supported institutions of other religious denominations. Mikhail Gutseriev (16) has supported Russian Orthodoxy, Judaism and Buddhism, as well as Islam. This coincides with the central goals of Mikhail Gutseriev's (16) principal charitable foundation, SAFMAR, promoting the revival of spiritual values to achieve 'a constructive dialogue between [. . . ] traditional confessions in Russia'.52 This is in contrast to many of the Jewish business elite, such as the heads of the financial investment conglomerate, the Alfa Group, whose charitable activities in the area of religion solely focus on the support of Jewish causes and activities.
Other MBE highlight religious tolerance and diversity in Russia as the purpose of their religious charitable activities. Former president of the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, Arsen Kanokov (160), revealed in an interview with Anna Politkovskaya in 2005 that he wanted to promote religious tolerance in the republic by constructing Russian Orthodox churches and Muslim mosques in close proximity.53 Vagit Alekperov (9) has also used the construction of religious buildings to promote peaceful interaction between religious groups in areas where his company LUKoil operates,54 and Iskander Makhmudov's (21) metals and mining company UGMK details 'spiritual revival' as one of the principal goals of its corporate social responsibility.
Conclusion
It is within this last area of investigation - philanthropy - that we begin to see both marked similarities in the engagement of the MBE and clear distinctions with their non-Muslim counterparts. Over half the MBE support Muslim organisations, most frequently by financing mosques but also by supporting Hajj pilgrimages and Muslim festivals, and in recent years such donations have received growing support from local and federal authorities. Unlike their Jewish counterparts, the MBE's engagement with other religions shows an acute awareness of the historical and current challenges associated with a minority religion such as Islam in Russia, and a desire to improve its reputation and standing in the country.
Public acknowledgements of the influence of Islam on the MBE's business activities remain rare; only the Uzbek businessman Alisher Usmanov
(3) has reported that he had stopped trading cigarettes, a haram substance, in the 1990s because he was a Muslim. More indirect manifestations, however, appear in a range of areas, including the propensity for close family members to occupy senior management positions within the MBE's businesses and the similarity between the profit-sharing structures of Mikhail Gutseriev (16) and the Muslim business practices of musharakah. Suleiman Kerimov's (45) sponsorship of the Moscow Cathedral Mosque not only improved his relationship with the Kremlin,55 it strengthened his association with Russia's Muslim authorities, and following his arrest in France in November 2017 on charges of tax evasion, these authorities spoke out in his support. Political influence has often been sought by the business elite to promote their business interests and secure patronage from the state, but the support of both the federal and Muslim authorities in response to this act of religious philanthropy shows a level of engagement with the Muslim business community previously absent in Russia's early years of capitalism.
The intermittent influence of Muslim identities identified within this chapter highlights the importance of the study of religion in the context of Russia's business elite and their interaction with the capitalist dynamics of the country. One-third of the MBE identified during this research have been on the Forbes Russia rich list since it was launched in 2005, having survived numerous financial crises and regime changes since they first entered business in the early 1990s. They form part of what Alena Ledeneva describes as Russia's sistema, and the prominence and influence of these MBE on the business and political landscape of Russia will likely continue, if not grow, as Putin elevates Islam alongside Russian Orthodoxy as one of the country's central religions and seeks to maintain close control over Russia's ethnically Muslim regions.
1This and all further numbers in brackets refer to the 2016 Forbes Russia ranking assigned to the individuals.
2'Mosques should not become a museum', Russia Mufties Council, accessed 18 May 2018, muslim.ru/en/articles/142/3232/.
3As demonstrated by the renovation of the Russian Orthodox Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow in the 1990s: Marc Bennetts, I'm Going to Ruin Their Lives: Inside Putin's War on Russia's Opposition (London: Oneworld Publications, 2014), 134.
4Rich lists receive considerable criticism from individuals in academic and commercial circles alike. The addition of Sayfeddin Roustamov to the rich list in 2018, whose wealth had previously been hidden behind offshore companies, illustrates some of the limitations imposed by financial transparency and valuation. For discussion of the setbacks of rich lists and other sources of data on the rich, see: Anthony B. Atkinson, 'Concentration among the Rich', United Nations University 151 (2006): 5-10.
5To reflect the broad sociological approach to the terms 'Muslim' and 'Islam' used during this research, and to highlight the multiple dynamic factors that contribute to a definition, or self-definition of an individual as 'Muslim', I use the term 'Muslim identities', rather than the singular 'identity'.
6This is closest in form to Nasar Meer's reading of it as a 'quasi-ethnic sociological formation': Nasar Meer, Citizenship, Identity and the Politics of Multiculturalism: The Rise of Muslim Consciousness (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 62.
7William Rowe, 'Cultural Muslims: The Evolution of Muslim Identity in Soviet and Post-Soviet Central Asia', in Geographies of Muslim Identities: Diaspora, Gender and Belonging, ed. Cara Aitchinson, Mei-Po Kwan, and Peter Hopkins (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2007), 141-64.
8As illustrated in a study of contrasting Muslim identities in Tatarstan and Dagestan; see Elena Omelchenko and Gusel Sabirova, 'Islam and the Search for Identity', in Islam in Post-Soviet Russia, edited by Hilary Pilkington and Galina Yemelianova (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003), 167-82.
9Dominic Rubin, Russia's Muslim Heartlands - Islam in the Putin Era (Glasgow: C. Hurst & Co., 2018), 11.
10This was complemented with information from personally approved websites such as official company, charity or personal websites, and where necessary, secondary reporting from a wide range of journalistic and academic sources.
11For example, Aras Agalarov's son, Emin, has stated that he is a 'proud Muslim': Brian Boyd, 'Not Eminem: Just Emin', The Irish Times, 22 March 2015, accessed 21 May 2018, www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/not-eminem-just-emin-1.2147234.
12Mikhail Gutseriev, an ethnic Ingush, does not speak publicly about any religious affiliation, but the wedding of his son Said Gutseriev in 2016 and funeral of his other son Chingiskhan Gutseriev in 2007 both involved Muslim ceremonies. Ruslan Baisarov married his second wife, Kristina Orbakaite, according to Sharia law: Yuriy Nosovskiy, 'Multireligioznyi kokteil semi Orbakaite', Pravda, 12 November 2012, accessed 11 May 2018, http://www.pravda.ru/faith/religions/orthodoxy/12-11-2012/1134344-orbakaite-0/.
13Irina Reznik, 'Interv'yu: Alisher Usmanov, general'nyi direktor OOO 'Gazprominvestkholdinga', Vedomosti, 14 January 2003, accessed 20 May 2018, http://www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/articles/2003/01/14/intervyu-alisher-usmanov-generalnyj-direktor-ooo-gazprominvestholdinga.
14'Arsen Kanokov sleduet predpisaniyam islama', Islam News, 26 August 2011, accessed 23 May 2018, http://www.islamnews.ru/news-80481.html.
15See, for example, Chrystia Freeland, Sale of the Century: The Inside Story of the Second Russian Revolution (London: Little, Brown, 2000).
16See Reznik, 'Interv'yu: Alisher Usmanov'; Chrystia Freeland, 'Meet Mikhail', The Globe and Mail, 28 April 2000, accessed 12 May 2018, www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-magazine/meet-mikhail/article4163094/?page=all.
17For the full text see: A. Gromyko, 'Zakon SSSR ot 26 Maya 1988, No. 8998-XI "O kooperatsii v SSSR"', Base Garant, 26 May 1988, accessed 16 May 2018, base.garant.ru/10103075/.
18Here I use the term 'privileged' to include Communist Party members, Komsomol members and those born into families of the Soviet nomenklatura.
19Reznik, 'Interv'yu: Alisher Usmanov'.
20Inna Vysman, 'New Banking Legislation in Russia: Theoretical Adequacy, Practical Difficulties, and Potential Solutions', Fordham Law Review 62, no. 1 (1993): 265.
21Hans-Henning Schröder, 'El'tsin and the Oligarchs: The Role of Financial Groups in Russian Politics between 1993 and July 1998', Europe-Asia Studies 51, no. 6 (1999): 964.
22'Chem izvesten Mikhail Gutseriev', Kommersant, 24 April 2010, accessed 19 May 2018, http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1360325.
23Freeland, 'Meet Mikhail'.
24In March 2018, Ziyavudin Magomedov was arrested in Russia and charged with racketeering and embezzlement of state funds. Since then, further charges have been brought against him and his brother. Ziyavudin Magomedov denies the charges but remained in pre-trial custody in August 2019.
25Yekaterina Derbilova, 'K finansovym poteryam ya vsegda otnosilsya filosofski', Vedomosti, 6 February 2012, accessed 21 May 2018, www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/articles/2012/02/06/v_biznese_ya_sam_sebe_pomogayu_ziyavudin_magomedov_osnovnoj.
26Mintimir Shaimiev was President of the Republic of Tatarstan from 1990 to 2010.
27See, for example, Peter Rutland, Business and the State in Contemporary Russia (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001).
28Peter Rutland, 'Business Elites and Russian Economic Policy', Royal Institute of International Affairs (1992): 13.
29For a detailed analysis of sistema, see Alena V. Ledeneva, Can Russia Modernise? Sistema, Power Networks and Informal Governance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
30Elena Ivanova, 'Interv'yu: Vladimir Zhirinovsky, predsedatel LDPR', Vedomosti, 12 June 2007, accessed 21 May 2018, http://www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/articles/2007/07/12/intervyu-vladimir-zhirinovskij-predsedatel-ldpr.
31Freeland, Sale of the Century, 100-3.
32Zhirinovsky's 1993 political pamphlet 'The Last Dash to the South' proposed, among other things, the reoccupation of post-Soviet Central Asia and the Southern Caucasus and the annexation of Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan to Russia.
33Andrei Yakovlev, 'The Evolution of Business - State Interaction in Russia: From State Capture to Business Capture?' Europe-Asia Studies 58, no. 7 (2006): 1034.
34See, for example, Ben Aris, 'Oligarchs' Power over Kremlin Has Come to an End, Says Putin', The Telegraph, 29 July 2000, accessed on 11 May 2018, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/1350892/Oligarchs-power-over-Kremlin-has-come-to-an-end-says-Putin.html.
35Aleksandr Gentelev, 'Makhmudov: Ya ne oligarkh', YouTube, 21 November 2012, accessed 13 May 2018, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMnDh6hPU8A.
36Elena Berezandskaya, 'Bogateyshiye semeinye klany Rossii - 2017', Forbes Russia, 30 August 2017, accessed 19 May 2018, www.forbes.ru/milliardery-photogallery/349563-bogateyshie-semeynye-klany-rossii-2017-reyting-forbes?photo=9.
37High-profile examples among the non-Muslim elite include Igor Rotenberg, who took over a number of his father's businesses to limit the impact of US sanctions.
38Albert Galeev, 'Vnuchka pervovo prezidenta Tatarstana', Tatler, 19 February 2018, accessed 14 May 2018, http://www.tatler.ru/geroi/vnuchka-pervogo-prezidenta-tatarstana-kamilya-shajmieva-i-ee-modnye-startapy.
39A sample of the main companies of the top 10 businessmen on the list, for example, lists no immediate family members on the companies' board of directors. Companies searched: Novatek, Alfa Group, Metalloinvest, Norilsk Nickel, Severstal, Rusal, NLMK and Lukoil.
40Rodney Wilson, 'Islam and Business', Thunderbird International Business Review 48 (2006): 109-23.
41Maria Abakumova, 'Biznes pod podushkoi', Forbes Russia, 3 January 2016, accessed 7 April 2018, www.forbes.ru/forbes/issue/2016-01/308091-biznes-pod-podushkoi.
42Elisabeth Schimpfössl, 'Russia's Social Upper Class: From Ostentation to Culturedness', The British Journal of Sociology 65, no. 1 (2014): 63-81.
43Six of the MBE have been decorated by the Russian state specifically for their charitable activities: Alisher Usmanov, Mikhail Gutseriev, Suleiman Kerimov, Aras Agalarov, Musa Bazhaev and Arsen Kanokov.
44Julia Khodorova, 'Philanthropy in Russian Society Today', International Journal of Not-forProfit Law 8, no. 3 (2006): 13-15.
45Luke Harding, 'Russian Oligarch Halts Auction to Buy Complete Rostropovich Art Collection', The Guardian, 18 September 2007, accessed 11 May 2018, www.theguardian.com/world/2007/sep/18/russia.artnews.
46Musa Bazhaev funds the Ziya ensemble, which is a children's dance ensemble in Chechnya. Ruslan Baisarov sponsored the construction of a ski resort in Chechnya. Ziyavudin Magomedov dedicated a section of his charitable foundation to My Dagestan. Suleiman Kerimov's charitable foundation is largely focused on education, children and religious causes in Dagestan.
47'Grants', Suleiman Kerimov Foundation, accessed 17 May 2018, http://www.kerimovfoundation.org/index.php?id=21.
48In this, Muslim traditions bear a close relationship to medieval Christian ones, whereby rulers and other wealthy patrons contribute to the construction of religious buildings.
49According to their 2014 annual return, 65 per cent of the foundation's donations were spent on religious charities.
50The first president of the RJC was Vladimir Gusinsky (1996-2001) who was one of the 'seven bankers'. The current presidium includes many businessmen represented on the Forbes Russia 2016 List, including Mikhail Fridman, Len Blavatnik, God Nisanov (mountain Jew from Azerbaijan), German Khan and Boris Mints.
51Niva Goldberg, 'Eighteen Russian Oligarchs Descending On Israeli Desert For Pesach', Jewish Business News, 10 April 2014, accessed on 23 May 2018, jewishbusinessnews.com/2014/04 /10/eighteen-russian-oligarchs-descending-on-israeli-desert-for-pesach/.
52'Annual Review 2016', SAFMAR, accessed 12 May 2018, safmarinvest.ru/userfiles/file /SAFMAR-AR-2016_ENG_interactive.pdf.
53Anna Politkovskaya, 'Arsen Kanokov: V respublike my imeem ne storoniki a sochustvuyushchikh', Novaya Gazeta, 31 October 2005, accessed 7 May 2018, politkovskaya.novayagazeta.ru/pub/2005/2005-094.shtml.
54Rustam Rakhmatullin, 'Sobornuyu mechet Kogalyma posetil president OAO LUKoil Vagit Yusufovich Alekperov', Musulmane Rossii, 5 March 2012, accessed 16 May 2018, http://www.dumrf.ru/common/regnews/2735.
55Magomed Shamkhalov, 'Mechet vyvela Suleimana Kerimova iz kremlevskoy opaly', On Kavkaz, 24 September 2015, accessed 7 May 2018, onkavkaz.com/news/287-mechet-vyvela-suleimana-kerimova-iz-kremlevskoi-opaly.html.
Bibliography
Abakumova, Maria. 'Biznes pod podushkoi'. Forbes Russia, 3 January 2016. Accessed 1 June 2016, http://www.forbes.ru/forbes/issue/2016-01/308091-biznes-pod-podushkoi.
Aitamurto, K. 'Protected and Controlled: Islam and "Desecularisation from Above"'. Europe-Asia Studies 68, no. 1 (2016): 182-202.
Aitchinson, C., M.-P. Kwan, and P. Hopkins, eds. Geographies of Muslim Identities: Diaspora, Gender and Belonging. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2007.
Aris, Ben. 'Oligarchs' power over Kremlin has come to an end, says Putin'. The Telegraph, 29 July 2000. Accessed 11 May 2018, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/1350892/Oligarchs-power-over-Kremlin-has-come-to-an-end-says-Putin.html.
'Arsen Kanokov sleduet predpisaniyam islama'. Islam News, 26 August 2011. Accessed 23 May 2018, http://www.islamnews.ru/news-80481.html.
Atkinson, Anthony B. 'Concentration among the Rich'. United Nations University 151 (2006): 5-10.
Bennetts, Marc. I'm Going to Ruin Their Lives: Inside Putin's War on Russia's Opposition. London: Oneworld Publications, 2014.
Berezandskaya, Elena. 'Bogateyshiye semeinye klany Rossii - 2017'. Forbes Russia, 30 August 2017. Accessed 19 May 2018, http://www.forbes.ru/milliardery-photogallery/349563-bogateyshie-semeynye-klany-rossii-2017-reyting-forbes?photo=9.
Boyd, Brian. 'Not Eminem. Just Emin'. The Irish Times, 22 March 2015. Accessed 21 May 2018, http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/not-eminem-just-emin-1.2147234.
'Chem izvesten Mikhail Gutseriev'. Kommersant, 24 April 2010. Accessed 19 May 2018, http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1360325.
Chua, Amy. World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability. London: Arrow, 2003.
Dawisha, Karen. Putin's Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia? New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014.
Derbilova, Yekaterina. 'K finansovym poteryam ya vsegda otnosilsya filosofski'. Vedomosti, 6 February 2012. Accessed 21 May 2018, http://www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/articles/2012/02/06/v_biznese_ya_sam_sebe_pomogayu_ziyavudin_magomedov_osnovnoj. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2014.
Duncan, P.J.S. 'Contemporary Russian Identity between East and West'. The Historical Journal 48, no. 1 (2005): 277-94.
Duncan, P.J.S. 'Oligarchs, Business and Russian Foreign Policy: From El'tsin to Putin'. Centre for the Study of Economic and Social Change in Europe 83 (2007).
Fortescue, Stephen. Russia's Oil Barons and Metals Magnates. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Freeland, Chrystia. 'Meet Mikhail'. The Globe and Mail, 28 April 2000. Accessed 12 May 2018, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-magazine/meet-mikhail/article4163094/?page=all.
Freeland, Chrystia. Sale of the Century: The Inside Story of the Second Russian Revolution. London: Little, Brown, 2000.
Frye, Timothy. 'Capture or Exchange? Business Lobbying in Russia'. Europe-Asia Studies 54, no. 7 (2010): 1017-36.
Galeev, Albert. 'Vnuchka pervovo prezidenta Tatarstana'. Tatler, 19 February 2018. Accessed 14 May 2018, http://www.tatler.ru/geroi/vnuchka-pervogo-prezidenta-tatarstana-kamilya-shajmieva-i-ee-modnye-startapy.
Gentelev, Aleksandr. 'Makhmudov: Ya ne oligarkh'. YouTube, 21 November 2012. Accessed 13 May 2018, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMnDh6hPU8A.
Goldberg, Niva. 'Eighteen Russian Oligarchs Descending on Israeli Desert for Pesach'. Jewish Business News, 10 April 2014. Accessed 23 May 2018, jewishbusinessnews.com/2014/04/10 /eighteen-russian-oligarchs-descending-on-israeli-desert-for-pesach/.
Gromyko, A. 'Zakon SSSR ot 26 Maya 1988, No. 8998-XI "O kooperatsii v SSSR"'. Base Garant, 26 May 1988. Accessed 16 May 2018, base.garant.ru/10103075/.
Hanson, Philip, and Elizabeth Teague. 'Big Business and the State in Russia'. Europe-Asia Studies 57, no. 5 (2005): 657-80.
Harding, Luke. 'Russian Oligarch Halts Auction to Buy Complete Rostropovich Art Collection'. The
Guardian, 18 September 2007. Accessed 11 May 2018, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/sep/18/russia.artnews.
Hunter, Shireen T. Islam in Russia: The Politics of Identity and Security. London: M.E. Sharpe, 2004. Ivanova, Elena. 'Interv'yu: Vladimir Zhirinovsky, predsedatel' LDPR'. Vedomosti, 12 June 2007. Accessed 21 May 2018, http://www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/articles/2007/07/12/intervyu-vladimir-zhirinovskij-predsedatel-ldpr.
Khodorova, Julia. 'Philanthropy in Russian Society Today'. International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law 8, no. 3 (2006): 13-15.
Kryshtanovskaya, Olga, and Stephen White. 'The Rise of the Russian Business Elite'. Communist and Post-Communist Studies 38, no. 3 (2005): 293-307.
Ledeneva, Alena V. Can Russia Modernise? Sistema, Power Networks and Informal Governance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Livshin, Alexander, and Richard Weitz. 'Civil Society and Philanthropy Under Putin'. International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law 8, no. 3 (2006): 7-12.
Malashenko, Alexey, and Aziza Nuritova. 'Islam in Russia'. Social Research 76, no. 1 (2009): 321-58.
Meer, Nasar. Citizenship, Identity and the Politics of Multiculturalism: The Rise of Muslim Consciousness. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Nosovskiy, Yuriy. 'Multireligioznyi kokteil semi Orbakaite'. Pravda, 12 November 2012. Accessed 11 May 2018, http://www.pravda.ru/faith/religions/orthodoxy/12-11-2012/1134344-orbakaite-0/.
Omelchenko, Elena, and Gusel Sabirova. 'Islam and the Search for Identity'. In Islam in Post-Soviet Russia, edited by Hilary Pilkington and Galina Yemelianova, 167-82, London: Routledge Curzon, 2003.
Politkovskaya, Anna. 'Arsen Kanokov: V respublike my imeem ne storoniki a sochustvuyushchikh'. Novaya Gazeta, 31 October 2005. Accessed 7 May 2018, politkovskaya.novayagazeta.ru/ pub/2005/2005-094.shtml.
Rakhmatullin, Rustam. 'Sobornuyu mechet Kogalyma posetil president OAO LUKoil Vagit Yusufovich Alekperov'. Musulmane Rossii, 5 March 2012. Accessed 16 May 2018, http://www.dumrf.ru/common/regnews/2735.
Reznik, Irina. 'Interv'yu: Alisher Usmanov, general'nyi direktor OOO 'Gazprominvestkholdinga'. Vedomosti, 14 January 2003. Accessed 20 May 2018, http://www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/articles/2003/01/14/intervyu-alisher-usmanov-generalnyj-direktor-ooo-gazprominvestholdinga.
Rowe, William, 'Cultural Muslims: The Evolution of Muslim Identity in Soviet and Post-Soviet Central Asia'. In Geographies of Muslim Identities: Diaspora, Gender and Belonging, edited by Cara Aitchinson, Mei-Po Kwan, and Peter Hopkins, 141-64. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2007.
Rubin, Dominic. Russia's Muslim Heartlands - Islam in the Putin Era. Glasgow: C. Hurst & Co., 2018.
Russia Mufties Council. 'Mosques Should Not Become a Museum'. Accessed 18 May 2018, muslim. ru/en/articles/142/3232/.
Rutland, Peter. Business and the State in Contemporary Russia. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001. Rutland, Peter. 'Business Elites and Russian Economic Policy'. Royal Institute of International Affairs (1992).
SAFMAR. 'Annual Review 2016'. SAFMAR. Accessed 12 May 2018, safmarinvest.ru/userfiles/file /SAFMAR-AR-2016_ENG_interactive.pdf.
Schimpfössl, Elisabeth. 'Russia's Social Upper Class: From Ostentation to Culturedness'. The British Journal of Sociology 65, no. 1 (2014): 63-81.
Schroder, Hans-Henning. 'El'tsin and the Oligarchs: The Role of Financial Groups in Russian Politics between 1993 and July 1998'. Europe-Asia Studies 51, no. 6 (1999): 957-88.
Shamkhalov, Magomed. 'Mechet vyvela Suleimana Kerimova iz kremlevskoy opaly'. On Kavkaz, 24 September 2015. Accessed 7 May 2018, onkavkaz.com/news/287-mechet-vyvela-suleimana-kerimova-iz-kremlevskoi-opaly.html.
Suleiman Kerimov Foundation. 'Grants'. Accessed 17 May 2018, http://www.kerimovfoundation.org/index.php?id=21.
Vysman, Inna. 'New Banking Legislation in Russia: Theoretical Adequacy, Practical Difficulties, and Potential Solutions'. Fordham Law Review 62, no. 1 (1993).
White, Stephen, Richard Sakwa, and Henry E. Hale, eds. Developments in Russian Politics 8.
Wilson, Rodney. 'Islam and Business'. Thunderbird International Business Review 48 (2006): 109-23.
Yakovlev, Andrei. 'The Evolution of Business - State Interaction in Russia: From State Capture to Business Capture?' Europe-Asia Studies 58, no. 7 (2006): 1033-56. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Socialism_Capitalism_and_Alternatives_(Duncan_and_Schimpfossl)/2%3A_Part_I_-_Capitalism_in_Action/2%3A_Diversifying_the_super-rich_-_Forbes-listed_Russians_from_a_Muslim_background.txt |
This chapter explores the philanthropic practices of Russian and British wealthy elites. The two differ significantly, from the context of their formation to their contemporary characteristics, yet, they also show important parallels: both countries have experienced ever-increasing and by now extreme inequality of wealth. A large proportion of this wealth is being concentrated in the hands of a small group of hyper-rich individuals. Both countries' economies have been stagnating in recent years. This has resulted in a politics of austerity, hastening the states' retreat from the provision of social infrastructure.
These parallels form the background against which we examine the two elites' philanthropic giving. Following a brief introduction to the history of first, the Russian, then the British hyper-rich and their formation, we set out to identify the major distinctions in their philanthropy and explore possible reasons and explanations for similarities and differences. We conclude with a discussion on what these practices might mean for society at large.
Concept and literature
As the importance of philanthropy has grown in recent decades, so too has the research into who is giving and why. An increasingly dominant stream of research within philanthropy studies has focused on the practical question of how to improve the methods and impact of charity endeavours. Philanthrocapitalists have been the most vocal advocates of effectivity in charity.1 The basic ideology behind any such approaches conceives wealth as a blessing: without wealthy people, so the argument goes, there cannot be any large-scale charitable initiatives.
A number of experts have challenged such logics, in particularly those of philanthrocapitalism, which they see as directly reinforcing social inequality.2 Their criticisms split broadly into two lines of argument. First, in many countries, charities and foundations receive tax relief and other forms of fiscal incentives. While on a small scale, initiatives of this kind might appear harmless, and even desirable, on a large scale and over the long term, such policies mean large losses of tax revenues to the treasury. This, together with money being distributed by the hyper-wealthy according to their whims, has detrimental effects on democracy. Wealthy individuals end up not only having a disproportionately larger say in the distribution of societal goods, but in fact they are subsidised by the taxpayer in doing so.3 Second, critics argue that the dynamics of philanthropy reinforce social inequality, rather than supporting those in need. This argument was forcefully presented in a 1990 study by Teresa Odendahl, who claimed that the rich primarily fund their own by directing their giving to organisations of particular interest to themselves, such as the educational institutions they graduated from.4 Odendahl's findings were subsequently substantiated by many other academics in a variety of contexts, among them Rob Reich, who found that private schools and public schools in wealthy areas receive far greater philanthropic support than similar schools in poor areas.5
Not unlike Odendahl and her successors, we seek to engage with philanthropy through the wider social context through which elite giving occurs; that is, we approach the topic through the study of elites. As a subfield of research into philanthropy, elite philanthropy studies have mostly focused on the United States, which reflects both the global distribution of wealth and the importance of philanthropy among wealthy Americans. Examples for scholars following this tradition are Francie Ostrower and Diana E. Kendall, who investigated philanthropy in the context of power relations, the legitimisation of privileges, the cementation of social dominance and wealth transfer across generations.6 Paul Schervish has devoted his work to contemplating the more philosophical aspects of giving among the wealthy and how conceptions of mortality inform the motives and aims of philanthropists.7
Following these approaches, we scrutinise the giving of the top business elites within two national and cultural settings. Scholars researching philanthropy in Britain are scattered all over the country, often in business schools or in third-sector organisations.8 As for Russia, research into philanthropy is nascent. With its rise in the 2000s and early 2010s, when Russia saw an extraordinary growth in elite philanthropy - partly thanks to the oil boom, partly forced by the Kremlin and Putin's call for 'social responsibility' - a small cohort of researchers, mostly based in think tanks and charity organisations, started documenting and researching rich people's giving.9
Methodology and empirical data
Our sample of philanthropists is drawn from the top 257 entries listed in the 2017 The Sunday Times rich list and the 200 richest individuals featured by Forbes Russia in 2017.10 Collectively, these individuals own an estimated £500 billion and \$459 billion respectively, with a minimum personal wealth of £500 million.
Studying the hyper-wealthy presents a number of methodological challenges. First, many of them are both highly visible and shrouded in mystery. An overall picture of their wealth can be easy to estimate, but the details are usually stubbornly elusive, with much of their fortunes dissolving into offshore tax havens and highly complex financial arrangements.11 Researchers are thus reliant on the annual rich lists produced by media organisations, among them The Sunday Times and Forbes.12 Rich list estimates are based on openly available information of publicly traded companies and include company holdings, land and property, significant artworks and other similar assets.13 Alongside money held offshore, much inherited wealth remains hidden. It is near impossible to identify wealth accumulated in the past and over generations, as shown by research into the estates of deceased hyper-rich individuals.14 Nevertheless, although the estimates produced by Forbes and The Sunday Times are by no means definitive, 'at least they exist', argues Thomas Piketty, and 'it would be absurd and counterproductive' to ignore these estimates and the overall trends they depict.15
In our data collection, we draw upon the template that Breeze and Lloyd employed in their 2013 study.16 We replaced a small number of their categories with some considered in The Sunday Times giving list. 'Instances' of giving, defined as either a major one-off public act of giving or continued financial support of a specific cause or charity, form the smallest research entity. Most of these instances are recorded in the public realm. We also include personal, but publicly accessible involvement with registered charities. Ignoring the exact amount given in each specific case obviously distorts the results towards frequency of donations to the detriment of the amount given. It nevertheless allows us to generate an overall snapshot of the areas the wealthy prioritise.
Specialisation versus oligarchization?
The most glaring difference between the two elites is the number of causes they give to. Our data showed that British philanthropists tend to specialise their activities on a small number of causes, whereas their Russian peers give strikingly widely. That is, the majority of the UK-based philanthropists confine their energy to a small number of concerns. They average three causes, with one of them standing out as their major effort and the others being additional pet projects. In contrast to that, rich Russians' donations are spread over nearly six different causes, without necessarily having one cause they focus on most.
This striking difference might have an explanation which goes well beyond the immanent tastes and preferences of wealthy philanthropists in both countries. We suggest that these diverse patterns could potentially indicate that wealthy Russians perpetuate a tendency to oligarchization in their giving, while the (much older and more established) British elite has long undergone a process of differentiation and specialisation.
Oligarchization: Russia's richest 200
Many of Russia's billionaires today rose to riches during the privatisation that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Those who did so and managed to seize large-scale industrial assets, which were formerly in state ownership, soon became known as the oligarchs. Their biggest political coup was to organise then-President Boris Yeltsin's re-election in 1996.17
Their grip on political power declined with the rise of Putin in the new century. Meanwhile, their overarching might being shattered, many of these oligarchs, as well as up-and-coming entrepreneurs, saw their personal wealth grow to astronomical levels, primarily thanks to rapidly rising oil prices. Soon into his rule, Putin ensured that these individuals committed to sustain Russia's infrastructure, which had shrunk dramatically after a decade of severe neglect. Under the slogan of 'social responsibility', Russia's super-wealthy were enlisted to contribute to state-approved projects, mostly in welfare and education. Philanthropic activities that ran counter to the Kremlin's interests were hamstrung. The most drastic reprimand was received by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whose independent choices are said to have been one of the triggers leading to his imprisonment in 2003. This so-called Khodorkovsky Affair taught the rest a long-lasting lesson as to what it takes to remain in Putin's good books.
Philanthropic giving grew steadily throughout the 2000s. The 2008 global financial crisis did not slow this trend down significantly, and the wealthy's philanthropic spending shot up even more in the 2010s.18 By far not all of this generosity was down to political pressure; it was also due to a growing desire among the hyper-rich to improve their image and shake off a reputation for being ruthless and selfish.19
The first oligarch to set up his own foundation was Vladimir Potanin in 1999. Since then many others have followed, and today there are about 40 private foundations in Russia. This urge to set up foundations was initially down to the underdevelopment of Russian non-governmental organisations (NGOs), which were little trusted and deemed corrupt and hence unsuitable to be tasked with acting as intermediaries. Even though this has changed since, many philanthropists still reject the idea of outsourcing the operational side of their charity to intermediary charity organisations.20
In particular, since the economic crisis in December 2014, large privately run foundations have gained new meaning. A drop in oil prices and a stark devaluation of the rouble left regional budgets empty and people without jobs. In many regions, whole towns depend on one single business empire. In some regions, foundations attached to businesses have tried to absorb the harm done to the local population following their own recent downsizing and layoffs, without, however, increasing their budget.21 Concerns about the local population are only motivated by those business leaders' desire to preserve social peace; they are also triggered by a paternalism that is deeply anchored in Russian history. Serfdom was only abolished in Russian in 1861, comparatively late. A mentality of obedience and subordination among the peasantry, which made up over 80 per cent of the population, survived into the early twentieth century and returned during Soviet rule. Even the most ruthless business leader tends to have a certain understanding of history and suspects that the Russian people's obedience might in the long run rely on some minimum of care from above.
The role big foundations play in many Russian regions emerges in our data through a large percentage of causes classified as 'community giving'. Almost 20 per cent among Russia's richest 200 give to local causes, compared to just under 9 per cent among their UK counterparts. The overarching role of these foundations goes a long way to explain the wide range of causes over which the hyper-wealthy spread their philanthropic giving. To make sense, however, of why many of these foundations do not limit their activities to social care but often cover a whole range of cultural projects (15 per cent support the community arts) requires looking back into Soviet times.22
Philanthropy informed by the Soviet and post-Soviet past
Some individuals who run foundations have come to fancy themselves as moral leaders. One of their typical role models is the late nineteenth- century intelligentsia and their quest to enlighten the Russian people. Part and parcel of such re-enactments is to organise cultural projects and engage ordinary people in the foundation's fundraising to raise their civic understanding. Other endeavours simply aim at keeping the youth off the street.23
Odd, maybe even cynical, as such motives might seem, they are easily explained by the social backgrounds many wealthy Russians were born into - the Soviet intelligentsia - that is, professionals engaged in the cultural and educational sectors as well as academically trained medics, technicians and engineers. Reviving the Soviet intelligentsia values their parents held dear allows today's rich to construct a self-identity that has anchoring in the past.24 Highlighting Soviet intelligentsia background is less (self-) betrayal than it might seem at first. Rather, it illustrates a shift from an emphasis on supposedly being self-made to one foregrounding a cultured upbringing, bookishness, the arts, high morals and a strong work ethos.
Family backgrounds in the Soviet intelligentsia also partly explain why science research greatly enjoys support among the richest 200 Russians. Fourteen per cent of them fund science projects or fellowships, compared to only 3.5 per cent of their British peers. Another explanation for such a priority is that many of Russia's hyper-rich started their professional careers in Soviet science or engineering; many hold doctorates in these fields. This stands in sharp contrast to the UK hyper-rich. Among them, previous science careers are extremely rare; even educational trajectories beyond master's level are atypical. This might partly explain why UK philanthropists prioritise medical research (nearly 9 per cent). Such giving is often motivated by personal experience or incidents in one's family. In Russia, medical research is supported by only 1.5 per cent of the 200 richest Russians. These low numbers might stem from the reality that rich Russians do not use the health system in Russia, especially if seriously ill, but get treated abroad, which disperses their gratitude and health concerns over the globe.
Intelligentsia roots might also form one explanation as to why 24 per cent of the 200 richest give to religious causes, compared to only 6.6 per cent in the United Kingdom. Some intelligentsia circles in the Soviet Union were close to the religious underground, who tended to harbour anti-Soviet sentiments. The general religious revival since the 1990s, which is strongly connected to Russian national identity, may be another factor. Some cynically trace rich people's strong support for religion back to the 'unholy' methods by which many had accumulated their wealth; helping the church should wash away their sins. Especially the construction of churches has attracted a lot of rich people's money. Curious here is that, when people make donations to the renovation or construction of churches, their own faith might well be secondary. The Russian Orthodox Church receives donations from across the denominations, including Jews, Muslims and atheists.25
The most distinctive difference between Russian and British rich is the former's overwhelming support for children. Thirty-nine per cent of the 200 richest Russians give money to projects targeting children in one form or the other, compared to only 10 per cent among the richest 257 people in Britain. That makes 'children' the category leading by a large distance from art philanthropy, the second most popular cause at 31 per cent. In comparison, 'children' did not even make it into the first five of the causes supported by the UK-based rich.
This overwhelming concern about children, and only them, takes us back to the 1990s, when some of today's billionaires found themselves among the winners of the economic transformation. When asking rich Russians why they support children and not adults, one can often hear that this is because they consider children as the only trustworthy group in society. The distrust towards all the rest is a result of 70 years of Soviet rule, followed by the 1990s, which brought social cohesion to a breakdown, sharply raised the crime and mortality rates among new businessmen and pushed millions into poverty. Apart from that, support for children is seen as an investment in the future - unless the children are disabled. Despite the Russian Orthodox teaching to perform good deeds for the sake of passive alms takers,26 there is a clear priority among wealthy Russians to promote the strong, healthy and gifted over the weak and feeble.
Specialisation: The British elite
As Breeze points out, the United Kingdom sees herself as the birthplace of contemporary philanthropy, emerging from a strong tradition of charitable giving that developed over the course of the nineteenth century.27 Long predating the appearance of modern cultural attitudes were the legal structures that form the foundation of charities as we know them today. They were taking shape already in the sixth century AD with the common law tradition that allowed for early educational and religious institutions to be formed.28 By the late seventeenth century, the structure of the trust calcified into its modern legal form. This structure ensures that gifts may be left in perpetuity by distinguishing between a gift giver, the beneficiary of a gift and a trust who manages a gift on their behalf.29 This legal framework underpins the structure of charities today, and continues to be of crucial importance to their functioning; for example, by placing the ultimate responsibility for all of a charity's actions into the hands of its board of trustees.30
In the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, during the Industrial Revolution, practices of charity (as described by Breeze) began to take hold and became deeply rooted in culture and society. Charity was transformed from individual acts of kindness into recognisable and organised movements. This development was not limited to giving by the wealthy but took place across all levels of the social hierarchy.31 The means through which this occurred showed significant variation, from religious missions sponsored by churches to worker-organised 'friendly societies'. While many of these organisations' activities have been far broader than a strict charitable remit, it was through their common benevolent purpose that a new societal norm of charitable giving began to take shape.32
Those who owed their fortunes and elevated social positions to the toil of others were often particularly attuned to the damage that was being done in the heat of the Industrial Revolution. Indeed, many of today's leading charitable organisations in the United Kingdom, such as the Rowntree Foundation and the Peabody Trust, owe their origins to the fortunes of late nineteenth-century philanthropists.33 Strong religious fervour was a motivating factor for many such philanthropists, with industrialists like George Cadbury or Titus Salt seeking to alter the lives of their workers not only through charity, but through the creation of new 'utopian' towns in which their workers could live - a form of philanthropic giving antecedent to the corporate social responsibility of today.34 Tellingly, however, while these towns remain, their purpose has long been dismantled by the asset-stripping capitalism which Britain pioneered.35
The great levelling of the world wars ended the 'golden age' of philanthropy, when monumental personal fortunes foundered, and the political landscape shifted towards the nationalisation of societal goods. In this climate, charity and charitable organisations did not become obsolete, but their relevance and influence declined. In the words of historian David Owen, they turned into 'junior partners in the welfare firm'.36 Following the post-war consensus, the surviving charitable sector sought to transform itself to fit with the times and needs of a new era. As a result, by the early 1970s, when Britain emerged from the exceptional political and economic circumstances that followed the Second World War, the charitable sector had been transformed from Victorian values to a new system that favoured self-help, specialist conditions, lobbying and secularisation.37
The eruption of financial capital in the 1980s truly revived the function of philanthropy as a significant source of prestige for the elite. The financial deregulation of the Big Bang of 1986, and the neo-liberal economic policies that enabled it, allowed unrestrained fortunes to again be made on a tremendous scale and at a prodigious rate. With this dynamic, a new breed of philanthropists was created who eschewed the paternalism of previous Victorian benefactors to focus on the utility of their giving (either to themselves, or the recipients). Their ethos was in tune with the new values and standards of a rapidly professionalising and secularising charitable sector.
The landscape of who occupied the richest echelons of British society had also begun to change. A more international and commercially mobile elite emerged. Yet, far from fulfilling the meritocratic promises of the new neo-liberal ideology, the fortunes made following the Big Bang tended to be made by those who already possessed the necessary capital, both economic and cultural, to capture the value unlocked by this new economic environment.38 In other words, those at the pinnacle of this new hyper-wealthy elite were mostly drawn from the upper strata of society, which, while having shed the strict hierarchical posturing of their Victorian counterparts, place their family wealth and educational background far above the majority of British society.39
British philanthropists today
The explosion of wealth unlocked in this process is evident in the sources of wealth in our sample of the UK's hyper-wealthy. Among these 200 individuals, 18 per cent have primarily made their fortunes through finance, a percentage far higher than in any other industry.40 When property trading and holdings are taken into account as a source of wealth, this number increases to 41 per cent of our sample - a figure that demonstrates the importance of real estate as a driver of wealth inequality and the role of financialisation in swelling its value.41 Despite the new fortunes that have arisen in the United Kingdom in the last 30 years, little difference has been observed in the patterns of giving between 'emerging' and 'established' philanthropists.42
Britain's long tradition of giving, its economic clout and large number of multimillionaires, is reflected in the amount that elite philanthropists give. In 2014, donations made in the United Kingdom of over £1 million totalled £1.56 billion, compared to \$405 million in Russia.43 As mentioned earlier, British philanthropists are highly specialised in their giving, on average supporting only three causes, while their Russian counterparts give to nearly twice as many. This specialisation can be explained by at least four features that distinguish the UK elites from Russia's: First, many donors have distinctive corporate business backgrounds and prioritise 'effective' giving over a broader range of paternalistic support. Second, especially for the large proportion of philanthropists who have made their money in the financial sector, their motivations for giving remain detached from their primary moneymaking. Third, these factors are highly compatible with the long-established tradition of donating to intermediary organisations. The charity sector in the United Kingdom is highly developed, and charity organisations, NGOs and think tanks enjoy a great level of trust and support among the wealthy.44 Last but not least, the UK welfare system is still highly functional, which relieves wealthy donors of many social 'obligations' and allows them to pursue their pet projects.
The giving of UK philanthropists is noticeably more internationalised than that of Russia. In our UK sample, 10 per cent were actively involved in international aid and development efforts in the global south, compared to only 1 per cent of the Russian rich (all three of whom are exiles in London) who gave to projects outside of Russia. Among UK philanthropists, development aid concerns are on a par with giving towards children, which stands in stark contrast to the overwhelming support given to the young by Russian philanthropists. The internationalism of British donors is reflective of Britain's long history of international business and philanthropy beyond its own borders, much of which remains entangled with its colonial history.45 A similar pattern is evident in support for civil society organisations that are focused on human rights and social justice issues, to which 7 per cent of our British sample gave. (Of the 3.5 per cent of Russians who gave to causes that fell under the same category, their focus was strongly linked to their own backgrounds and biographies.46)
In a number of areas in which UK philanthropists are particularly active, their giving is skewed away from the needs and concerns of the most unfortunate. One area in which this is particularly evident is in giving to educational causes. In both our Russian and British sample, education is one of the most popular causes, standing at 27.5 per cent and 25 per cent respectively. What is remarkable in the United Kingdom, however, is that the vast majority of such donations flows into higher education. Indeed, in 2015 Coutts reported that higher education institutions had received 65 significant donations in the preceding year, totalling £485 million. By comparison, all other forms of non-university education received only nine such donations, amounting to a total of £27 million.47 The size of these donations and their discrepancy with philanthropy towards other forms of education demonstrate the power and prestige of elite universities and their alumni networks. Furthermore, many of these donations do not directly impact the educational remit of universities but are instead channelled towards capital works projects or research institutes, which can bear the name of the donor.48
A similar pattern of philanthropy targeting elite institutions can be seen in the arts. Compared to the 34 per cent of our Russian sample, only 14 per cent of our UK philanthropists were involved in providing significant support to the arts sector. The greatest difference between the two countries is in the type of art being supported. In the United Kingdom, the vast majority of arts philanthropy is focused on a small number of elite art institutions, many of them centred in London. Their involvement in the arts is primarily private collecting rather than charitable giving.49 Although Russia's rich display similar preferences, many foundations run by the wealthy have community art projects included in their set of social care projects, which account for almost half of their philanthropy in this sector. In contrast, in the UK, 'community art' was a category of philanthropy which we found not to be relevant.
Conclusion
Elite philanthropy was questioned most forcefully and explicitly by Odendahl in her 1990s study on American elites, who exposed their donations for education and art institutions as benefitting primarily their own and thus reproducing social inequality rather than fighting it. Scathing as this verdict might sound, none of it is down to 'character' or 'personality'. Piketty warns of our almost automated quest to identify the 'good' rich and attack the bad ones.50 Such attempts to separate the wheat from the chaff simply obscure a system that generates the glaring inequalities we see today and, in our case, the need for charity in the first place as well as the fact that the ability to provide help is in the hands of a small minority.
The most glaring difference between the giving of the richest 200 people on the Forbes Russia list and the richest 257 UK-based individuals and families as listed by The Sunday Times is clearly not grounded in personality, but in each country's respective economic and social history. British philanthropists' giving is specialised, which mirrors an economic structure that is highly developed, diversified and differentiated. In contrast, the natural-resources-dependent Russian economy is dominated by conglomerates, the portfolios of which cover a wide range of business activities. Many owners reign over their empires like mini-tsars. Having appeared during the course of Britain's industrialisation, charity organisations have acted as intermediaries between benefactors and beneficiaries since Victorian times. Russia's nascent civil society sector is still underdeveloped, little trusted and widely ignored by wealthy benefactors, who prefer running their own foundations and keeping them under tight control. Britain's hyper-rich are globalised in several senses of the word: in their composition, corporate activities, and history - both their colonial history and their involvement in world markets. In contrast, although highly dependent on exports and global finances, Russia's philanthropists are ideologically inward-looking. Their paternalistic attitudes to the people are based on reciprocity and compliance, something which is deeply ingrained in Orthodox traditions and stems from Byzantine ideas of almsgiving.
Acknowledgements
Elisabeth Schimpfössl is grateful to the Leverhulme Trust for enabling this research through the award of a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship.
1Matthew Bishop and Michael Green, Philanthrocapitalism: How the Rich Can Save the World and Why We Should Let Them (London: A. & C. Black, 2008). Other works in this tradition are: Joel Fleishman, Putting Wealth to Work: Philanthropy for Today or Investing for Tomorrow? (New York: PublicAffairs, 2017); Ács J Zoltán, Why Philanthropy Matters: How the Wealthy Give, and What it Means for Our Economic Well-Being (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013); Lester M. Salamon, ed., New Frontiers of Philanthropy: A Guide to the New Tools and Actors Reshaping Global Philanthropy and Social Investing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014); and Norime MacDonald and Luc Tayart de Borms, eds., Global Philanthropy (London: MF Publishing, 2010). Many major banks have been quick to respond to this trend by establishing philanthropy departments (see, for example: Bank of America, Coutts, Barclays, HSBC, JPMorgan, BNP Paribas).
2David Callahan, The Givers: Wealth, Power, and Philanthropy in a New Gilded Age (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017); Linsey McGoey, No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy (London: Verso, 2015); Linsey McGoey, 'Philanthrocapitalism and its critics', Poetics 40 (2012): 185-99; and Michael Edwards, Small Change: Why Business Won't Save the World (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2010).
3The US tax system follows this logic particularly actively, and with the most obvious cost for society. Elements of such fiscal arrangements can be found in most of the world's tax systems, however, including the United Kingdom. Critical voices have been raised in academic literature on that issue. See, for example, Iain Hay and Samantha Muller, 'Questioning Generosity in the Golden Age of Philanthropy: Towards Critical Geographies of Super-Philanthropy', Progress In Human Geography 38, no. 5 (2013): 635-53.
4Teresa Odendahl, Charity Begins at Home: Generosity and Self-Interest among the Philanthropic Elite (New York: Basic Books, 1990).
5Rob Reich, 'Philanthropy and its Uneasy Relation to Equality', in Taking Philanthropy Seriously: Beyond Noble Intentions to Responsible Giving, 27-59, ed. William Damon and Susan Verducci (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006).
6Francie Ostrower, Why the Wealthy Give: The Culture of Elite Philanthropy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995); and Diana E. Kendall, The Power of Good Deeds: Privileged Women and the Social Reproduction of the Upper Class (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002).
7Paul Schervish and Keith Whitaker, Wealth and the Will of God: Discerning the Use of Riches in the Service of Ultimate Purpose (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010); Paul Schervish, 'Major Donors, Major Motives: The People and Purposes Behind Major Gifts', New Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising 16 (1997): 85-112; and Paul Schervish, 'The Moral Biographies of the Wealthy and the Cultural Scripture of Wealth', in Wealth in Western Thought: The Case for and Against Riches, ed. Paul Schervish (Westport, CT: Praeger 1994), 167-208.
8An example for a centre based in a business school is the Centre for Charitable Giving and Philanthropy (CGAP) at Cass, City University of London. Other important places are the Marshall Institute at the London School of Economics and the Centre for Philanthropy at Kent University. The latter is home to Beth Breeze who, together with Theresa Lloyd, produced the most comprehensive overview of elite philanthropy in Britain: Richer Lives: Why Rich People Give (London: Directory of Social Change, 2013). This was preceded by Theresa Lloyd's Why Rich People Give (London: Association of Charitable Foundations, 2004). Charity organisations themselves also produce important research. See, for example, Rhodri Davies, Public Good by Private Means: How Philanthropy Shapes Britain (London: CAF, 2015).
9Leading in questions of elite philanthropy in Russia is Julia Khodorova, for example, with Russia Giving: Research on Individual Giving in Russia (Moscow: Charity Aid Foundation Russia, 2014). See also the results in the study carried out by the Skolkovo Center for Management, Issledovanie Vladel'tsev Kapitalov Rossii (Moscow: Center for Management, Wealth and Philanthropy, 2015). In the late 1990s, an early historical-philosophical discussion was launched by a seminal article by Natalia Dinello, 'Philanthropy in Russia and the United States: Elites and Philanthropy in Russia', International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 12, no. 1 (1998): 109-33. The rise of wealthy men's giving in the early 2000s, as well as their preferences for giving, were analysed by Jamey Gambrell in 'Philanthropy in Russia: New Money under Pressure', Carnegie Reporter 3, no. 1 (2004), www.carnegie.org/reporter/09/philanthropy/index.html, and Alexander Livshin and Richard Weitz, 'Civil Society and Philanthropy Under Putin', International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law 8, no. 3 (2006): 7-12.
10'The Sunday Times Rich List 2018', features. thesundaytimes.co.uk/richlist/live/richlist; and '200 Bogateishikh Biznesmenov Rossii 2017', www.forbes.ru/rating/342579-200-bogateyshih-biznesmenov-rossii-2017.
11Oliver Bullough, Moneyland: Why Thieves and Crooks Now Rule the World and How to Take It Back (London: Profile Books, 2018).
12Facundo Alvaredo, Anthony B. Atkinson, and Salvatore Morelli, 'The Challenge of Measuring UK Wealth Inequality in the 2000s', Fiscal Studies 37, no. 1 (2016): 13-33.
13Journalists themselves might regard their figures 'more of an art than a science', according to The Sunday Times rich list compiler Robert Watts, Skype interview, 13 May 2016. The Sunday Times rich list's rules of engagement: www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sunday-times-rich-list-2018-rules-of-engagement-nvw0lwzck.
14Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press 2014), 441-2.
15Piketty, Capital, 432; and Facundo Alvaredo, Anthony B. Atkinson, and Salvatore Morelli, 'Top Wealth Shares in the UK over More than a Century', Journal of Public Economics, In Honor of Sir Tony Atkinson (1944-2017), 162 (2018): 26-47.
16Breeze and Lloyd, Richer Lives, 108.
17Our definition of 'oligarchs' follows Jeffrey A. Winters, Oligarchy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
18'Million Dollar Donors Report 2014', Coutts 2015, accessed 15 January, philanthropy.coutts.com/en/reports/2014/russia/findings.html.
19Elisabeth Schimpfössl, Rich Russians: From Oligarchs to Bourgeoisie (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018). This was not unlike the robber barons of the late nineteenth century in the United States or the new entrepreneurs in the Victorian period. For the latter, see Dianne Sachko Macleod, Art and the Victorian Middle Class: Money and the Making of Cultural Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
20Khodorova, Russia Giving, 19.
21Irina Sedykh, the wife of metallurgy tycoon Anatolii Sedykh, the main shareholder of United Metallurgical Company (OMK), Russia's second-largest pipe producer and biggest maker of train wheels, in an interview with Elisabeth Schimpfössl on 11 June 2015, raised her awareness about the consequences layoffs have for those affected: Every single worker losing his job cannot look after the three (on average) people dependent on him, she said. She and her husband's charity foundation (OMK-Participation) try to mitigate the consequences.
22Theatre productions and cultural festivals feature prominently in the annual programme of the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. Mikhail Prokhorov led Russia's rich list in 2009 with assets of \$22.6 billion (down to \$8.9 billion in 2017). The foundation is led by his sister Irina Prokhorova, who is also the founder of New Literary Observer, the main intellectual journal and publishing house in Russia.
23Elisabeth Schimpfössl, 'Russian Philanthrocapitalism', Cultural Politics 12, no. 1 (2019).
24Schimpfössl, 'Russian Philanthrocapitalism'.
25Schimpfössl, Rich Russians, 107-10.
26Dinello, 'Philanthropy in Russia and the United States'.
27Beth Breeze, Peter Halfpenny, and Karl Wilding, 'Giving in the United Kingdom: Philanthropy Embedded in a Welfare State Society', in The Palgrave Handbook of Global Philanthropy, ed. Pamala Wiepking and Femida Handy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
28Frederic W. Maitland, 'The Origin of Uses', Harvard Law Review 8, no. 3 (1894): 127-37.
29John Langbein, 'The Contractarian Basis of the Law of Trusts', Yale Law Journal 105 (1995).
30Jeremy Kendall and Martin Knapp, 'Defining The Nonprofit Sector: The United Kingdom', in Working Papers of the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project, ed. Lester M. Salamon and Helmut K. Anheier (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies, 1993).
31Jeremy Kendall and Martin Knapp, The Voluntary Sector in the United Kingdom (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1995).
32David Owen, English Philanthropy, 1660-1960 (London: Oxford University Press, 1965).
33Owen, English Philanthropy.
34Craig N. Smith, 'Corporate Social Responsibility: Whether or How?' California Review of Management 45, no. 4 (2003): 52-76.
35See, for example, James Meek, Private Island: Why Britain Now Belongs to Someone Else (London: Verso, 2014).
36Owen, English Philanthropy.
37Kendall and Knapp, The Voluntary Sector.
38Stewart Lansley, 'Britain's Wealth Explosion', Accountancy Business and the Public Interest 5, no. 2 (2006): 2-15.
39Tom Nicholas, 'The Myth of Meritocracy: An Inquiry into the Social Origins of Britain's Business Leaders since 1850', Economic History Working Papers LSE 53/99 (1999).
40The next closest sources of wealth are retail and fashion at 7 per cent and pharmaceuticals at 3 per cent.
41Manuel B. Aalbers, The Financialization of Housing (London: Routledge, 2016).
42Breeze, Richer Lives, 107.
43To put these figures into a comparative perspective, there are 61,199 ultra-high net worth individuals (those with \$10 million+ in liquid assets) living in the UK, compared to 12,986 such individuals living in Russia. Anthony Shorrocks, James Davies, and Rodrigo Lluberas, World Wealth Report 2018 (London: Credit Suisse Research Institute, 2018).
44Breeze, Richer Lives, 211.
45David Lambert and Alan Lester, 'Geographies of Colonial Philanthropy', Progress in Human Geography 28, no. 3 (2004): 320-24.
46Among these donors, all bar two were involved in supporting the Jewish diaspora in the former Soviet space. Vladimir Melnikov is deeply devoted to his Russian-Orthodox faith and gives in this area. The only person who supports human rights causes in a more traditional sense of the term is the former long-term prisoner and London exile Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
47'Million Dollar Donors Report 2015', Coutts 2016, accessed 27 November 2018, http://philanthropy.coutts.com/en/reports/2015/executive-summary.html.
48On problematic donations within higher education, see Rob Reich, Just Giving: Why Philanthropy is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018).
49For a further discussion of this divide, see Alessia Zorloni, Art Wealth Management: Managing Private Art Collections (Berlin: Springer, 2016).
50Piketty, Capital, 443-47.
Bibliography
Aalbers, Manuel B. The Financialization of Housing. London: Routledge, 2016.
Alvaredo, Facundo, Anthony B. Atkinson, and Salvatore Morelli. 'The Challenge of Measuring UK Wealth Inequality in the 2000s'. Fiscal Studies 37, no. 1 (2016): 13-33.
Alvaredo, Facundo, Anthony B. Atkinson, and Salvatore Morelli. 'Top Wealth Shares in the UK over More Than a Century'. Journal of Public Economics, In Honor of Sir Tony Atkinson (1944-2017), 162 (2018): 26-47.
Bishop, Matthew, and Michael Green. Philanthrocapitalism: How the Rich Can Save the World and Why We Should Let Them. London: A. & C. Black, 2008.
Breeze, Beth, Peter Halfpenny, and Karl Wilding. 'Giving in the United Kingdom: Philanthropy Embedded in a Welfare Society.' In The Palgrave Handbook of Global Philanthropy, edited by Pamala Wiepking and Femida Handy, 285-306. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
Breeze, Beth, and Theresa Lloyd. Richer Lives: Why Rich People Give. London: Directory of Social Change, 2013.
Bullough, Oliver. Moneyland: Why Thieves and Crooks Now Rule the World and How to Take It Back. London: Profile Books, 2018.
Callahan, David. The Givers: Wealth, Power, and Philanthropy in a New Gilded Age. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017.
Davies, Rhodri. Public Good by Private Means: How Philanthropy Shapes Britain. London: CAF, 2015.
Dinello, Natalia. 'Philanthropy in Russia and the United States: Elites and Philanthropy in Russia'. International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 12, no. 1 (1998): 109-33.
Edwards, Michael. Small Change: Why Business Won't Save the World. San Francisco: BerrettKoehler Publishers, 2010.
Fleishman, Joel. Putting Wealth to Work: Philanthropy for Today or Investing for Tomorrow? New York: PublicAffairs, 2017.
Gambrell, Jamey. 'Philanthropy in Russia: New Money under Pressure'. Carnegie Reporter 3, no. 1 (2004).
Hay, Iain, and Samantha Muller. 'Questioning Generosity in the Golden Age of Philanthropy: Towards Critical Geographies of Super-Philanthropy'. Progress In Human Geography 38, no. 5 (2013): 635-53.
Kendall, Diana E. The Power of Good Deeds: Privileged Women and the Social Reproduction of the Upper Class. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.
Kendall, Jeremy, and Martin Knapp. 'Defining the Nonprofit Sector: The United Kingdom'. In Working Papers of the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project 5, edited by Lester M. Salamon and Helmut K. Anheier. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies, 1993.
Kendall, Jeremy, and Martin Knapp. The Voluntary Sector in the United Kingdom. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1995.
Khodorova, Julia. Russia Giving: Research on Individual Giving in Russia. Moscow: Charity Aid Foundation Russia, 2014.
Lambert, David, and Alan Lester. 'Geographies of Colonial Philanthropy'. Progress in Human Geography 28, no. 3 (2004): 320-24.
Langbein, John. 'The Contractarian Basis of the Law of Trusts'. Yale Law Journal 105 (1995): 625-75.
Lansley, Stewart. 'Britain's Wealth Explosion'. Accountancy Business and the Public Interest 5, no. 2 (2006): 2-15.
Livshin, Alexander, and Richard Weitz. 'Civil Society and Philanthropy Under Putin'. International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law 8/3 (2006): 7-12.
Lloyd, Theresa. Why Rich People Give. London: Association of Charitable Foundations, 2004.
MacDonald, Norime, and Luc Tayart de Borms, eds. Global Philanthropy. London: MF Publishing, 2010.
Macleod, Dianne Sachko. Art and the Victorian Middle Class: Money and the Making of Cultural Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Maitland, Frederic W. 'The Origin of Uses'. Harvard Law Review 8, no. 3 (1894): 127-37.
McGoey, Linsey. No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy. London: Verso, 2015.
McGoey, Linsey. 'Philanthrocapitalism and its critics'. Poetics 40 (2012): 185-99.
Meek, James, Private Island: Why Britain Now Belongs to Someone Else. London: Verso, 2014.
'Million Dollar Donors Report 2014'. Coutts 2015. Accessed 15 January 2015, philanthropy.coutts.com/en/reports/2014/russia/findings.html.
'Million Dollar Donors Report 2015'. Coutts 2016. Accessed 27 November 2018, philanthropy.coutts.com/en/reports/2015/executive-summary.html.
Nicholas, Tom. 'The Myth of Meritocracy: An Inquiry into the Social Origins of Britain's Business Leaders since 1850'. Economic History Working Papers LSE 53/99 (1999).
Odendahl, Teresa. Charity Begins at Home: Generosity and Self-Interest among the Philanthropic Elite. New York: Basic Books, 1990.
Ostrower, Francie. Why the Wealthy Give: The Culture of Elite Philanthropy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.
Owen, David. English Philanthropy, 1660-1960. London: Oxford University Press, 1965.
Piketty, Thomas. Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press 2014.
Reich, Rob. Just Giving: Why Philanthropy is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018.
Reich, Rob. 'Philanthropy and its Uneasy Relation to Equality'. In Taking Philanthropy Seriously: Beyond Noble Intentions to Responsible Giving, edited by William Damon and Susan Verducci, 27-49. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2006.
Salamon, Lester, ed. New Frontiers of Philanthropy: A Guide to the New Tools and Actors Reshaping Global Philanthropy and Social Investing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Schervish, Paul. 'Major Donors, Major Motives: The People and Purposes Behind Major Gifts'. New Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising 16 (1997): 85-112.
Schervish, Paul. 'The Moral Biographies of the Wealthy and the Cultural Scripture of Wealth'. In Wealth in Western Thought: The Case for and against Riches, edited by Paul Schervish, 167-208. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994.
Schervish, Paul, and Keith Whitaker. Wealth and the Will of God: Discerning the Use of Riches in the Service of Ultimate Purpose. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2010.
Schimpfössl, Elisabeth. Rich Russians: From Oligarchs to Bourgeoisie. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.
Schimpfössl, Elisabeth. 'Russian Philanthrocapitalism'. Cultural Politics 15, no. 1 (2019): 105-20.
Shorrocks, Anthony, James Davies, and Rodrigo Lluberas. World Wealth Report 2018. London: Credit Suisse Research Institute, 2018.
Skolkovo Center for Management. Issledovanie Vladel'tsev Kapitalov Rossii. Moscow: Center for Management, Wealth and Philanthropy, 2015.
Smith, Craig N. 'Corporate Social Responsibility: Whether or How?' California Review of Management 45, no. 4 (2003): 52-76.
'The Sunday Times Rich List 2018'. The Sunday Times. April 2018. Accessed 27 November 2018, features.thesundaytimes.co.uk/richlist/live/richlist.
'200 Bogateishikh Biznesmenov Rossii 2017'. Forbes Russia. May 2017. Accessed 27 November 2018, www.forbes.ru/rating/342579-200-bogateyshih-biznesmenov-rossii-2017.
Winters, Jeffrey A. Oligarchy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Zoltán, Ács J. Why Philanthropy Matters: How the Wealthy Give, and What it Means for Our Economic Well-Being. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013.
Zorloni, Alessia. Art Wealth Management: Managing Private Art Collections. Berlin: Springer, 2016. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Socialism_Capitalism_and_Alternatives_(Duncan_and_Schimpfossl)/2%3A_Part_I_-_Capitalism_in_Action/3%3A_The_culture_of_elite_philanthropy_-_Russia_and_the_United_Kingdom_compared.txt |
Introduction: Everyday practices and the public/private divide
This chapter investigates street hangouts known as birzha ('stock exchange' in Russian). Birzha is a form of male street socialisation which has been prominent in Georgia since Soviet times. Birzha is made up of young men sitting, chatting, drinking, exchanging items and securing various deals at street corners or other open spaces in urban neighbourhoods (although, as we shall see, the phenomenon has rural origins). Birzha is a 'school of the street'1 at which young men learn the foundational principles of Georgian manhood, but it is also deemed to be the initial step into a potential criminal career.2
This practice outlived the fall of socialism and navigated the troubled 1990s and the years following the 2003 Rose Revolution. At each of these recent historical stages, birzha has adapted to and counteracted different moral, social, political and economic orders. In different ways, these orders saw street hangouts as an eyesore in the framework of attempted modernisation projects from the top down - whether from a socialist or neo-liberal capitalist perspective.
Drawing upon research conducted in Georgia in 2008-2009, 2014 and 2017, as well as on the analyses by Georgian and international media and of relevant literature from social and political science, this chapter investigates transformations of birzha against such dramatically changing backgrounds. This analysis casts a light on the resilience and response of everyday practices embedded in specific moral, cultural and social grounds to different political and economic regimes, focusing in particular on the rise of neo-liberalism in the region as a purportedly successful doctrine to fix the flaws of post-communist societies.
My research identifies birzha as an ambivalent practice between the public and the private spheres. Following Lofland's reference to the Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language's definition of 'public space', I understand the 'public' as what is 'accessible or visible to all members of the community'.3 This definition does not apply only to physical, but also to social spaces, as well as to practices, institutions and resources. By contrast, the 'private' is accessible to and useable by only certain individuals and groups (for example, the family and the house as private space par excellence), and under certain conditions (such as payments for private education or private healthcare).
The ambivalent position of birzha between the public and the private realms is empirically illustrated by three instances. First, birzha hangouts flourish between the public streets of the neighbourhoods and the private space of the house. Second, mainstream political narratives throughout Georgia's recent history (in particular, since the 2003 Rose Revolution) have associated the informal networks of 'private' friendship and comradeship created at birzha with crime and corruption, which, especially during the 1990s 'transition' to market capitalism, had a strong grip on the public sphere of politics and economics.4 Finally, private relationships of trust, reciprocity and mutual responsibility underpinning birzha have worked as a fundamental form of psychological, social and material support amidst political and economic hardship, making up for public institutions' inability to cater for citizens' needs.5
The political narratives that underpinned the Rose Revolution and its aftermath considered the years between the fall of socialism and the political and social upheaval which brought Mikheil Saak'ashvili to power to be a flawed transition to capitalism and democracy. A system which was corrupt under communist rule outlived the demise of the Soviet Union, reproducing the same dynamics and often endorsing the same people who had served the previous regime. Greedy private interests encroached on public institutions and prevented the efficient delivery of public goods and services to the population. For 'real' change to take place and boost the country's 'modernisation', a thorough process of reforms needed to wipe out all the poisonous legacies of socialism and its immediate aftermath. Inspired by Western neo-liberalism, these reforms attempted to establish clear boundaries between the public and the private and targeted not only politics and economics, but also people's cultural and moral values, as well as everyday practices in which Georgian citizens engaged. While favouring private initiative and minimising the role of the state in economic affairs, the post-revolutionary government aimed to make public institutions transparent and accountable, and strengthened the rule of law and the image of the state as the main source of authority and order.6
In this context, birzha was out of place for two main reasons. First, street hangouts of young men lying about, drinking and engaging in dubious deals were at odds with the image of a clean and safe place and a rapidly modernising society, which the government wanted to transmit to its own citizens as well as to foreign observers, donors and policymakers. Second, practices providing informal support for people's everyday life would no longer be needed with efficient public institutions and a secured private sphere in which a market economy could flourish. A strong rule of law and a lively and flexible economy would create order and wealth for the ultimate benefit of all citizens.7
However, the bold neo-liberal reforms which the government implemented to modernise the country, and the authoritarian stance which social practices at odds with this project were dealt with, dismantled social security across society and undermined citizens' trust in the post-revolutionary political institutions' actual democratic and transparent nature. Deep inconsistencies at the heart of the government's modernisation project became increasingly apparent, eventually leading to the defeat of Saak'ashvili and his United National Movement (Ertiani Natsionaluri Modzraoba, or ENM) in the 2012 and 2013 elections.
After an overview of my research methods, this chapter presents birzha in its historical, cultural, spatial and social dimensions. I highlight the ambivalence of this practice as a fundamental institution for young male Georgians coming of age, but also as a semi-criminal phenomenon. I also analyse the blurred boundaries between public and private physical, social and political spaces along which birzha develops. Second, birzha is investigated in its ambivalent relationship with the cultural, social, political and economic order of the socialist era and the 1990s. The Soviet regime officially condemned birzha as a practice at odds with its principles. Yet, particularly in its late years, the system tolerated private practices and networks which catered for citizens' needs vis-à-vis a public sphere characterised by endemic shortage and political authoritarianism. In the 1990s, organised crime and corruption took over public institutions, while sheer poverty and civil and ethnic conflict ravaged the country. In this context, birzha played a vital role in the neighbourhood's life to facilitate informal access to goods and services, which the official system failed to provide. However, birzha was also 'part of the problem' inasmuch as links between street hangouts and the criminal world, which paralysed political and economic institutions and plagued society with violence, were apparent.
Third, the chapter discusses the post-Rose Revolution modernisation project and its attempts to establish clear-cut boundaries between the public and the private as an essential source of transparency, order and prosperity. This project identified birzha as opposed to the idea of lawabiding and hard-working citizens (and youth in particular) which the post-revolutionary political elites had in mind. Confident in its own popularity, the government dealt with birzha in an arbitrary way, targeting street hangouts with extreme harshness. However, failure to improve the life conditions of a large part of the population, and the oppressive nature that citizens increasingly ascribed to the government's attitudes and actions, alienated people's support from Saak'ashvili's leadership, uncovering contradictions in the post-revolutionary modernisation project.
In the conclusion, I highlight the resilience of birzha in today's Georgia, which indicates that the implementation of bold neo-liberal reforms, coupled with the arbitrary use of power against unwanted individuals and practices as a way to modernise the country, did not deliver the expected results. In a morally, culturally, socially, politically and economically fragmented context, many Georgian citizens still rely on ties developed through everyday practices to access material and non-material goods. These ties are often endowed with higher trust and respect than official institutions, which have largely failed to empower many people in their economic well-being and democratic participation, providing just a partial alternative with respect to the previous systems.
Researching birzha
My interest in birzha began in a fortuitous way. I was doing research in Tbilisi in 2008 and 2009 on a different topic and was being hosted by a family which lived in a residential neighbourhood on the outskirts of the capital, mostly made up of middle- and low-income households. I noticed that teenagers and young men hanging out in the streets were a permanent feature of that and other areas of Tbilisi. Residents referred to such gatherings, which seemed inseparable from the neighbourhood's physical and social landscape, as birzha. Regardless of people's various degrees of involvement in street life, knowledge of street norms was widespread among the neighbourhood's inhabitants. Stories and gossip about events concerning the local birzha circulated widely among locals.
Ordinary residents' acquaintance with birzha was essential for the outcomes of my research. 'Second-hand' information was provided by people detached from birzha in time and space, such as older men recalling their youthful experiences or mothers and wives worried about men wasting time in the street. Thanks to these respondents, I could partly counterbalance the limits imposed by the almost exclusively male access to birzha. Moreover, due to the status of birzha as a phenomenon more or less close to the criminal world, many of my friends and acquaintances warned me to stay away from 'those issues'. Birzha was considered, if not a dangerous business, at least a despicable reality with which respectable people (especially if female and a foreigner) should not get mixed up in. The association of birzha with semi-legal and illegal activities also meant that birzha members tended to be suspicious of a stranger's interest in their street community and therefore not keen to disclose information.
The analysis presented here is based on three main methods: (partial) observation of birzha as a feature of several of Tbilisi's neighbourhoods; perceptions and definitions collected in conversations with young male friends and acquaintances (aged 16 to 27), who were more or less closely related to birzha, but did not necessarily think of themselves as being part of it; narratives of birzha provided by outsiders (and, in some cases, former insiders), such as older men and women of all ages.
Birzha: Moral values and social norms of Georgian street communities
Birzha refers to groups of male teenagers or young men who meet regularly in urban open spaces such as squares, courtyards and playgrounds. The Russian word literally means 'stock exchange'. In Georgian, birzha is used colloquially; in the Dictionary of Georgian Slang, the term is defined as an 'open-pit gathering of idle youth'.8 The reference to the financial world may sound ironic as generally participants are economically inactive (students or unemployed). However, birzha is where valuable exchange of social capital takes place.
Another meaning of birzha from nineteenth-century Russian slang denotes a place where people line up in hope for a temporary job.9 Similarly, ethnographies of the post-Soviet space (in this case Lithuania) indicate that a group of men waiting in the street for informal short-term employment is called a 'darbo birzha', the formal Lithuanian term for 'unemployment agency'.10 The little literature available on the topic describes birzha as a pervasive phenomenon among urban male youth, a pivotal stage in the process of identification within local communities, as well as a potential initial step into a criminal career.11
In the context of Georgia, the understanding of birzha is disputed. According to several participants, birzha is neither exclusively male and juvenile nor peculiarly urban but is widely considered to be a phenomenon of rural origins, which was successfully urbanised. Literary sources point to the pre-Soviet institution of adoptive brotherhood (modzmeoba), in which spiritual kinship serves as the basis for social and political allegiances between Caucasian highlanders.12
Today, birzha is visible in the streets and squares in urban neighbourhoods, ubani in Georgian (sometimes also referred to as kvartali, from the Russian kvartal). Birzha spreads across the urban space, penetrating liminal areas. In the urban landscape, liminal spaces or 'interstices'13 are zones that 'are essentially away from a "public gaze" [sic] whilst simultaneously situated within a public space'.14 Liminal spaces occupy a 'minoritarian' position with respect to other spaces that are 'either more institutionalized, and therefore economically and legally powerful, or endowed with a stronger identity, and therefore more recognizable or typical'.15 Yet, liminality produces identities, practices, norms and power relations in its own right.
In the neighbourhoods of Tbilisi, variously sized groups of men populate the thresholds between house and street, between family and state: street corners, playgrounds, stairways, courtyards, block gates, cellars and basements. As a phenomenon pervasive in spaces which are neither public nor private, birzha lives in the tension between the private realm of domesticity and close relationships and the public sphere of the state and other official institutions. As will be discussed below, the moral, cultural, social, political and economic structure of birzha has generated practices that have represented an alternative, and often an opposition, to Georgia's official system at various stages of the country's recent history.16
Birzha is defined as the principal school for masculinity, which marks an essential stage in the transition from teenager to manhood.17 For males, membership in birzha comes as a birth right, regardless of ethnicity, religion or socio-economic status.18 Inclusion is conditional on compliance with street norms, whose pivotal points are honour, honesty, manly attitudes and respect for the elderly, and which are predicated on a rigid hierarchy of identities and roles. The fundamental authority in the birzha hierarchy is the dzveli bich'i ('old boy'), a young man aiming for a career in the criminal world.19 His key features are an utter disregard for official rules and authorities, mastery of street norms, proneness to using violence to solve conflicts, and prison experience. Dzveli bich'i status is regarded as the first level of a criminal hierarchy which culminates in the figure of the 'thief-in-law', k'anonieri kurdi, a semi-mythical kind of bandit that has its origins in Stalin's labour camps and developed in various forms across the Soviet Union.20
In my research, I came across flexible meanings of birzha, which transcend the narrow reference to semi-criminal street gangs. In the perspective of several of my participants, birzha partially overlapped with dzmak'atsoba.21 Dzmak'atsoba is a stronger and manlier relationship than the neutral 'friendship', megobroba, and refers to the link with a dzmak'atsi - from dzma ('brother') and k'atsi ('man'). In the words of Giorgi (42, profession unknown), a dzmak'atsi is 'more than a friend, more than a brother'. The strongest kind of dzmak'atsoba is with your 'friend from childhood' (bashvobis dzmak'atsi), and according to Giorgi, 'it's a friendship that should last forever, and it's really sad if you lose this mate'. A dzmak'atsi is someone to whom 'you can entrust your mother, your sister and your wife'. But if the mutual loyalty is betrayed, even such an important friend can become the most despised foe. In Giorgi's view, 'when a dzmak'atsi lets you down and betrays your trust, he ought to be killed. In my life I have learned that almost nobody is worthy of being called dzmak'atsi'.
As Giorgi's words indicate, trust is pivotal to personal ties within birzha, and to relationships between dzmak'atsi in general. These relationships oblige one to be totally honest with other birzha members, take responsibility for oneself and face the consequences of breaking street laws. Severe violations include deceiving or betraying birzha members, especially collaborating with the police or other state institutions; verbally offending or physically attacking another birzha member or somebody close to him (particularly a female member of his family); and letting down a dzmak'atsi and failing to respect older residents of the neighbourhood (whether or not affiliated to birzha). Yet, solidarity between dzmak'atsi is also intertwined with (sometimes physical) competitiveness between birzhas from different neighbourhoods and even members of the same birzha. Success in enhancing one's position among peers is linked to cunning behaviour, proneness to risks, mastery of street laws and strong ties with influential dzveli bich'i or the neighbourhood's elderly.
Relationships in the street are regulated by reciprocity. Birzha is informed by ongoing exchanges of material and non-material items. The term indicates multi-directional giving and taking, and business deals, both small and large, take place in the street. Sharing is a common feature: members of the street community are expected to circulate cigarettes, clothes and other belongings among peers. Since birzha mostly consist of young people, who usually do not own much, sharing is of high importance. Those who are better off than others (even if only temporarily, because they have found a short-term job or have taken a loan or received a gift from friends or family) make their resources available to the group.
Money can be used to purchase drinks and food, to pay for a taxi for a trip out of town, to feast in a restaurant or to go out to clubs or bars. In Tbilisi, a widespread custom is to buy fresh beer directly from the local brewery on the banks of the river Mt'k'vari and treat fellow birzha members to it, together with dry smoked fish and rye bread. One can often spot groups of men drinking beer on the brewery's premises, sitting on the pavement or on the parapet by the riverside. Others take large plastic bottles full of beer back to their neighbourhoods and share it with friends while sitting outdoors.
Birzha is a fundamental institution for young Georgian men to create close relationships with their peers across their neighbourhoods. These relationships are based on mutual trust, total dedication and honesty towards street communities, and a willingness to share goods, feelings and experiences with other birzha members. Streets and squares of Georgian cities and towns are the stage for equitable exchanges, through which young people come of age sharing moral, cultural and social values. However, while the exclusive and often hierarchical structure of birzha establishes strong ties within street communities, it cuts out other members of society. Furthermore, the more or less tight links between birzha and organised crime throughout recent Georgian history have contributed to create an image of street communities - variously emphasised by political authorities and partially resonating across the population - as idle and lost youths who encroach on public space for their murky and selfish business. The following section discusses the key features of the ambivalent relation between birzha and the official system in the Soviet era and throughout the 1990s.
Birzha under socialism and in the 1990s
In Soviet and post-Soviet times up to the Rose Revolution, birzha occupied the 'grey zones' between public and private social and physical spaces.22 The Soviet-type social and political structure envisages 'the realm of officialdom' on the one hand, including the ruling elite, apparat and nomenklatura, and 'the domestic realm of family and friendship' on the other hand, resting upon kinship ties, intimacy networks and shared value commitments. Yet, in between there is a '"social realm" encompassing the enormous and complex domain developing between the top level of the Party-state and family and friends networks - that is, the domain of work, routine administration, and "official" associational life'.23 Only on the surface is this intermediate space organised through ideological, meritocratic or authoritarian principles; its core structure develops 'along lines of bargaining, reciprocal favours, mutual dependencies, networks of connections, dissimulation, circumvention of regulations and procedures'.24 Although emerging from the private space of family and friend relationships, this 'private-public realm' or 'second public'25 is at the same time clearly separated from the official public.
In socialist systems, the public sphere largely overlapped with the state, and only activities controlled by the authorities were allowed publicly.26 In this context, the grey zones between public and private inhabited by birzha formed a niche relatively free of the system's regimentation. Birzha was an alternative form of youth association to those promoted by Soviet authorities, such as the Young Pioneers and the Komsomol.27 In contrast to public images of socialist youth as the most active part of the population in realising the collective goals of Soviet society, birzha valued loyalty to personal ties more highly than loyalty to the state and the Party. Images of hard-working and healthy Soviet youth clashed with the perceived inactivity and debauchery of birzha members.
In Soviet cityscapes, 'open "public" spaces [were] perceived as something alien and belonging to the state, not to the inhabitants', turning an ideal 'everyone's space' into 'no one's space'.28 Birzha catered for a different kind of collective interaction in urban spaces, as a way in which 'ordinary residents appropriated public places beyond the mainstream paradigms and master narratives of the city image'.29 By carving out social and physical grey zones partially spared from state control, birzha created spaces for those young men to whom socialist symbolic and material power was alien.30 However, while ideologically stigmatised by official authorities, birzha was hardly subject to actual repression from the Soviet state. The latter (especially in its later years) in fact tolerated informal networks and practices grounded in grey zones between the public and the private, inasmuch as citizens' access to informal means 'enabled the system to function and made it tolerable'.31
When the Soviet Union came to an end, in Georgia the public sphere of politics and the economy was taken over by the private interests of organised criminal groups or paramilitary squads. They infiltrated and paralysed the state, which prevented public institutions from fulfilling their basic functions.32 Corruption became pervasive in all aspects of public life, from politics and business to education, from the police to the health system. The blurred lines between public and private encouraged the abuse of public resources for the benefit of private interests.33 While pointing out the greed of corrupt politicians and businessmen as a major cause of the country's miserable conditions, citizens themselves often resorted to petty bribery as the easiest, and sometimes the only possible way to secure essential goods and services.34
The physical and social public space was ravaged by violence and decay.35 In a neighbourhood life of struggle and sharing, birzha had a prominent role. It facilitated access to goods and services which the shortcomings of official institutions otherwise made unattainable, moving easily within and across boundaries and merging the public with the private. In addition, birzha was a way for young men to cultivate ideas and practices of masculinity in a context in which unemployment, heavy drinking, criminality and drug addiction severely challenged men's ability to live up to the traditional male role of breadwinner and wise and honourable member of the community.36 On the one hand, many young men referred to being part of birzha in the 1990s and circumventing official rules as a form of protest against the system.37 On the other hand, birzha was linked to the criminal world, which had considerable political and economic power. As a result, in several citizens' perspectives birzha stood out more as an expression of, rather than a form of, resistance to corruption and violence.38
Clearing grey zones: Birzha after the Rose Revolution
Following the political narratives that surrounded the Rose Revolution, the system which developed out of the Soviet regime in the 1990s was democratic and capitalist in theory, but in fact offered no real alternative to what went before. Corruption and the prominent influence of organised crime in the political and economic sphere prevented the creation of accountable public institutions and a lively public realm in which citizens could participate. The development of secure private property and business, which would boost a market economy, was also hampered.
The post-revolutionary political leadership, which ruled the country from 2003 to 2012, envisaged the 'transition' from socialism to capitalism and democracy as a movement from backwardness to modernity. Transparency, as the opposite of the corrupt 'private use of public good',39 was the banner under which the government implemented reforms which aimed to get rid of ambivalent grey zones in politics, economics and the law. Following core neo-liberal principles, a vast process of privatisation and deregulation went hand in hand with a radical restructuring of public institutions and services, such as the police and local authorities.40
The modern and transparent society framed by post-revolutionary political narratives stood in opposition to the blurred boundaries informing citizens' relationship with the state and the rule of law. These narratives depicted the Georgian population as pervaded by a 'culture of informality', which supposedly affected all social mechanisms. People's habit of circumventing formal rules to 'get things done' was not a by- product of institutional inefficiencies, but a way of thinking that had corrupted citizens' moral principles. In an interview with the German filmmaker Stefan Tolz in 2013, Saak'ashvili attacked his people's way of relating to official rules, stressing that dramatic changes at the institutional level must go hand in hand with a radical transformation of the population's moral and cultural ground:
But everybody has to pay [taxes], it's [not] something that has ever been heard of here. Or when everybody had to put seatbelts on, unheard of in our part of the world. Or nobody could take bribes, you know, very unusual. And you know when you ask people say, even today when we did opinion polls and you ask people: What is a crime? People say: 'Oh killing somebody is a crime, raping is a crime, not paying taxes not really a crime, I mean just taking bribes, oh well, he has to feed his family, right? This official, he took like 500 euros, so what a big deal.' People were saying that in opinion polls. Overcoming that I guess, that takes a couple of generations.41
Many studies of both Soviet and 1990s Georgia discuss citizens' alienation from political institutions as a crucial factor in determining the spread of practices that circumvent official norms.42 It is argued that 'state laws have been avoided not only because they were bad but because the population could manage better without them'.43 The Rose Revolution, as depicted in collective narratives, political analyses and media coverage, was expected to reverse this trend, and 'perhaps for the first time in Georgia's modern history, establish the congruity of private and public well-being'.44
In the communist era, the mistrust which informed the relationship between state and citizens stemmed from the perception of public institutions as the expression of a hostile power. In the 1990s, the public sphere of the state, rather than representing the 'common good', was seen by citizens as the arena in which greedy officials fought for their private interests, neglecting the miserable conditions of a large part of the population. The Rose Revolution pledged to make the public realm, embodied by state institutions, finally accountable.
The modern public and private, which represented a radical alternative to the socialist system and its poisonous legacies, were to be inhabited by modern individuals. The ideal citizens of post-revolutionary Georgia were patriotic but also cosmopolitan, independent, ambitious and law-abiding. People's everyday practices mattered for defining social profiles that fitted, or did not fit, the country's radical renovation. Social practices had to conform to modernisation narratives, embodying trust in institutions, respect for the law, an ambitious way of thinking and an efficient lifestyle.45 Most importantly, people's practices were expected to stick to the clear-cut division between the public and the private.
For a number of reasons, the post-revolutionary government identified birzha as one of the main targets of its modernisation project. First, birzha was a blatant expression of the despised features of the past: petty crime, over-drinking, drug use and inactivity. Second, birzha and the criminal world competed with the state for moral, social, political, legal and economic authority - especially among the youth, whom the government had placed at the forefront of the modernisation project.46 An indication of the popularity of street life and the criminal world among young people is the fact that 25 per cent of Georgian schoolchildren interviewed in 1993 declared that they wanted to be thieves-in-law when they grew up.47
Third, young men who hung out in public spaces, getting drunk, talking loudly and negotiating dubious deals, spoiled the image of cleanness and safety which the government wanted external observers and visitors to see. Birzha embodied liminal use of public spaces, transcending the divide between the public and the private which the political leadership aimed to establish as a fundamental sign of the country's modernity.
The zero-tolerance approach taken by the government aimed to remove undesirable practices, of which birzha was a paradigmatic expression, and those who engaged in them from the city's physical and cultural landscape. In his 2006 address to parliament, Saak'ashvili referred to the tough policies being implemented against petty crime as aiming to 'clean our streets of this rubbish'.48 The Georgian Criminal Code was reformed to include harsher sanctions against petty theft and minor drugrelated offences.49 During Saak'ashvili's rule, many of my young male research participants were worried about the increasing presence of police patrols (p'at'ruli) in the streets.50 Some people avoided going out at night, even to the local shop. This behaviour was motivated by the belief that young males hanging out after a certain hour in certain areas were suspicious. Data confirm the government's repressive stance against people and practices considered unsuitable to the modernisation project. The harsh sanctions imposed for petty crime during Saak'ashvili's presidency led to the prison population becoming one of the highest per capita in the world.51
Conclusion: Everyday practices as the alternative?
The political order brought about by the Rose Revolution presented itself as the only real alternative to the flaws of the communist system, which had endured the fall of the Soviet Union and had precipitated the country into poverty, crime and conflict throughout the 1990s. Post-r evolutionary political narratives identified the blurred boundaries between the public and the private as an essential feature of these flaws and the main hindrance to the country's modernisation. Transparency and order were the foundational pillars not only of a projected modern society, politics and economics, but also of modern citizens' moral and cultural ground.
A large part of the population, however, questioned the means by which the government tried to modernise society. Many of my participants were disappointed by the developments of the Rose Revolution not only because of the lack of improvement in people's socio-economic conditions but also because they perceived state authority as an arbitrary power which made it dangerous to walk in the streets of the neighbourhood after dusk, discuss politics in public, or go to a protest rally.52 The growing inequality brought into place by swift privatisation and deregulation53 went hand in hand with the severe violation of democratic and civil liberties, regardless of the post-revolutionary government's official rhetoric. This increasingly alienated citizens' trust in post-revolutionary political elites and in the implementation of political and economic models which these elites believed to be the only viable alternative to the backwardness and lawlessness inherited from socialism and its aftermath.
Theoretical analyses and empirical contributions on everyday practices in post-socialism systems have called into question the fading away of these practices as a form of support resulting from the development of free market and democratic rights, which would provide a political and economic environment able to cater for the needs of all citizens. Instead, these studies have pointed out that, in spite of optimistic expectations, 'shock therapies' and subsequent economic policies implemented after the fall of socialism did not bring about immediate development and wellbeing for everyone, but in most cases had a devastating effect on the already precarious lives of millions of people. In such contexts, although changing to adapt to different circumstances, everyday practices have maintained their role as a means of psychological, social, political and economic support amidst growing inequality and uncertainty.54
Reforms implemented by the post-revolutionary government aimed to efface the ambivalence between the public and the private and introduce respect for the law, meritocracy, ambition and transparency as foundational values of modern Georgian society. Sanctions and repression targeted those individuals and social phenomena which did not fit this project. Yet, the post-revolutionary government's vision of the end of 'transition' as the demise of grey zones in favour of clear-cut distinctions proved to be inconsistent. Indeed, at the end of Saak'ashvili's rule in 2012, groups of young men hanging out at birzha had become a less conspicuous feature across the cityscape. Yet, the harsh policies implemented by the government against birzha did not have a long-term effect, and transformations in the prominence and visibility of street communities are more closely connected to increased social and geographical mobility among young people.55 In the years following the United National Movement's electoral defeat in 2012, birzha has proved to be a resilient practice among many young men coming of age. This happens in spite of enduring hostility from the political authorities and the ambivalent status of birzhas within their own neighbourhoods, in which they are met by residents' tolerance mixed with suspicion.56
Birzha's ability to adapt to and outlive different social, political and economic orders indicates that projects of top-down reform of a society have overlooked the importance and strength of everyday practices embedded in relationships of trust, reciprocity and solidarity. These practices develop from ties cultivated in the private sphere of the house, the neighbourhood, and the circle of friends and colleagues, but are also parallel and complementary to public institutions, catering for needs which the official system is unable, or unwilling, to fulfil. The case of post-Rose Revolution Georgia, while grounded in its own specifics, provides grounds for comparison with other countries in the post-socialist space which have experienced the rise of neo-liberalism and the importation of Western political and economic models as the best available options for moving forward from socialist legacies. As the analysis of birzha vis-à-vis the official system indicates, this approach has significant flaws, which call into question the suitability of such political and economic models for the realities to which they have been applied. The top-down implementation of several post-socialist reforms has often disregarded the role of embedded practices and relationships as fundamental cultural, social, political and economic alternatives to the official system. This obliviousness has contributed to create the fragmentation and marginalisation that different social and political contexts across the region experience today.
1J. Koehler, 'The School of the Street: Organising Diversity and Training Polytaxis in a (Post-)Soviet Periphery', Anthropology of East Europe Review 17, no. 2 (1999b): 41-55. See also J. Koehler, Die Schule der Strasse: Georgische Cliquen zwischen Kämpfen um Ehre und organisierter Kriminalität (Berlin: Das Arabische Buch, 1999a).
2C. Curro, 'Davabirzhaot! Conflicting Claims on Public Space in Tbilisi between Transparency and Opaqueness', International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 35, no. 7/8 (2015): 497-512. See also M. D. Frederiksen, 'Good Hearts or Big Bellies: Dzmak'atsoba and Images of Masculinity in the Republic of Georgia', in Young Men in Uncertain Times, edited by V. Amit and N. Dyck (New York: Berghahn Books, 2012), 165-87. See also E. Zakharova, 'Street Life in Tbilisi as a Factor of Male Socialization', Laboratorium: Russian Review of Social Research 2, no. 1 (2010).
3L. Lofland, The Public Realm: Exploring the City's Quintessential Social Territory (London: Routledge, 1998), 8.
4G. Slade, Reorganising Crime: Mafia and Anti-Mafia in Post-Soviet Georgia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). See also G. Slade, 'The Threat of the Thief: Who Has Normative Influence in Georgian Society? Dispatches', Global Crime 8, no. 2 (2007): 172-79. See also A. K'up'at'adze, 'Georgia's Fight against Organized Crime: Success or Failure?', Caucasus Analytical Digest, 9 (2009): 9-12. See also A. K'ukhianidze, 'Corruption and Organized Crime in Georgia before and after the Rose Revolution', Central Asian Survey 28, no. 2 (2009): 215-34.
5J. Round and C. Williams, 'Coping with the Social Costs of "Transition": Everyday Life in Post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine', European Urban and Regional Studies 17, no. 2 (2010): 183-96. See also A. Smith and A. Rochovská, 'Domesticating Neo-Liberalism: Everyday Lives and the Geographies of Post-Socialist Transformations', Geoforum 38, no. 6 (2007): 1163-78; A. Ledeneva, Russia's Economy of Favours: Blat, Networking and Informal Exchange (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); M. E. Chatwin, Socio-Cultural Transformation and Foodways in the Republic of Georgia (Commack, NY: Nova Science Publishers, 1997).
6P. Evans and W. Sewell, 'The Neoliberal Era: Ideology, Policy, and Social Effects', in Social Resilience in the Neoliberal Era, edited by P. Hall and M. Lamont (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013): 35-68.
7D. Gugushvili, Do the Benefits of Growth Trickle down to Georgia's Poor? A Case for a Strong Welfare System (PhD thesis, University of Kent, 2014).
8L. Bregadze, Kartuli jargonis leksik'oni (Dictionary of Georgian Slang) (Tbilisi: Gapur Sulakauris Gamomtsemloba, 2005).
9Dal' 1955, as quoted in Zakharova, 'Street Life in Tbilisi'.
10I. Harboe Knudsen, 'The Lithuanian "Unemployment Agency": On Bomzhai and Informal Working Practices', in Ethnographies of Grey Zones in Eastern Europe: Relations, Borders and Invisibilities, edited by I. Harboe Knudsen and M. D. Frederiksen (London: Anthem Press, 2015), 141-56.
11C. Curro, 'A Critical Assessment of Informal Practices as Resistance: The Case of Birzha in Georgia', Caucasus Survey 5, no. 1 (2017): 65-84. See also C. Curro, 'From Goods to Emotions: The Transformation of Informal Practices in the Republic of Georgia', in The Informal Economy: Exploring Drivers and Practices, edited by I. Horodnic, P. Rodgers, C. Williams, and L. Momtazian (London: Routledge, 2017). See also Curro, 'Davabirzhaot!'; E. Zakharova, 'The Tbilisi Street as a Legal and Political Phenomenon in Georgia', in State and Legal Practice in the Caucasus, edited by S. Voell and I. Kaliszewska (London: Ashgate, 2015), 69-82; Zakharova, 'Street Life in Tbilisi'; M. D. Frederiksen, Young Men, Time, and Boredom in the Republic of Georgia (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2013); Frederiksen, 'Good Hearts or Big Bellies'; Koehler, 'The School of the Street'; Koehler, 'Die Schule der Strasse'.
12V. Bardavelidze, 'The Institution of Modzmeoba (Adoptive Brotherhood): An Aspect of the History of the Relations between Mountain and Valley Populations in Georgia', in Kinship and Marriage in the Soviet Union: Field Studies, edited by T. Dragadze (London: Routledge, 1984), 173-88.
13A. M. Brighenti, Urban Interstices: The Aesthetics and the Politics of the In-Between (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2013), xv.
14S. Parkin and R. Coomber, 'Public Injecting Drug Use and the Social Production of Harmful Practice in High-Rise Tower Blocks (London, UK): A Lefebvrian Analysis', Health and Place 17, no. 3 (2011): 717.
15Brighenti, 'Urban Interstices', xvi.
16Curro, 'A Critical Assessment of Informal Practices'.
17Zakharova, 'The Tbilisi Street'. See also Zakharova, 'Street Life in Tbilisi'; Koehler, 'The School of the Street'; Koehler, 'Die Schule der Strasse'.
18Zakharova, 'Street Life in Tbilisi'.
19J. Finckenauer and L. Kelly, 'Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Subcultures in the Former Soviet Union', International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice 16, no. 1-2 (1992): 247-61.
20Slade, 'The Threat of the Thief'. See also Slade, 'Reorganizing Crime'; Frederiksen, 'Young Men, Time and Boredom'; Zakharova, 'Street Life in Tbilisi'; K'up'at'adze, 'Georgia's Fight against Organized Crime';T. Frisby, 'The Rise of Organized Crime in Russia: Its Roots and Social Significance', Europe-Asia Studies 50, no. 1 (1998): 27-49.
21Frederiksen, 'Young Men, Time and Boredom'. See also Frederiksen, 'Good Hearts or Big Bellies'.
22Harboe Knudsen and Frederiksen, eds., 'Ethnographies of Grey Zones in Eastern Europe'. See also S. Roy 'The Grey Zone: The "Ordinary" Violence of Extraordinary Times', Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 14, no. 2 (2008): 316-33; A. Robertson, 'The Anthropology of Grey Zones', Ethnos 71, no. 4 (2006): 569-73.
23M. Garcelon, 'The Shadow of the Leviathan: Public and Private in Communist and PostCommunist Society', in Public and Private in Thought and Practice: Perspectives on a Grand Dichotomy, edited by J. Weintraub and K. Kumar (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997): 317 (emphasis in original).
24Garcelon, 'The Shadow of the Leviathan', 317.
25I. Oswald and V. Voronkov, 'The "Public-Private" Sphere in Soviet and Post-Soviet Society: Perception and Dynamics of "Public" and "Private" in Contemporary Russia', European Societies 6, no. 1 (2004): 97-117. See also E. Zdravomyslova and V. Voronkov, 'The Informal Public in Soviet Society: Double Morality at Work', Social Research 69, no. 1 (2002): 49-69.
26A. Zhelnina, 'Public Spaces as Spaces of Fear and Alienation? Youth in Public Spaces in St. Petersburg, Russia', Isaconf, 2nd ISA Forum of Sociology, Social Justice and Democratisation, 1-4 August 2012, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
27C. Walker and S. Stephenson, 'Youth and Social Change in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union', in Youth and Social Change in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, edited by C. Walker and S. Stephenson (London: Routledge, 2012), 1-13. See also Zakharova, 'Street Life in Tbilisi'.
28A. Zhelnina, 'Learning to Use "Public Space": Urban Space in Post-Soviet St. Petersburg', The Open Urban Studies Journal 6 (2013): 58.
29T. Darieva and W. Kaschuba, 'Sights and Signs of Postsocialist Urbanism in Eurasia: An Introduction', in Urban Spaces after Socialism: Ethnographies of Public Spaces in Eurasian Cities, edited by T. Darieva, W. Kaschuba, and M. Krebs (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2011): 11.
30J. Kubik, Power of Symbols against the Symbols of Power: The Rise of Solidarity and the Fall of State Socialism in Poland (University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 1994).
31Ledeneva, 'Russia's economy of favours', 3. See also G. Mars and Y. Altman, 'The Cultural Bases of Soviet Georgia's Second Economy', Soviet Studies 35, no. 4 (1983): 546-60.
32Slade, 'Reorganizing Crime'. See also K'up'at'adze, 'Georgia's Fight against Organized Crime'; K'ukhianidze, 'Corruption and Organized Crime in Georgia'.
33L. Shelley, E. Scott, and A. Latta, eds., Organized Crime and Corruption in Georgia (New York: Routledge, 2007).
34A. Polese, '"If I Receive It, It Is a Gift; if I Demand It, Then It Is a Bribe": On the Local Meaning of Economic Transactions in Post-Soviet Ukraine', Anthropology in Action 15, no. 3 (2008): 47-60.
35N. Dudwick, 'No Guests at Our Table: Social Fragmentation in Georgia', in When Things Fall Apart: Qualitative Studies of Poverty in the Former Soviet Union, edited by N. Dudwick, E. Gomart, and A. Marc (Washington, DC: World Bank Publications, 2002): 213-57.
36Curro, 'From Goods to Emotions'. See also Frederiksen, 'Good Hearts or Big Bellies'.
37Zakharova, 'Street Life in Tbilisi'.
38Curro, 'A Critical Assessment of Informal Practices'.
39See also Transparency International, working definition of corruption as 'the abuse of entrusted power for private gain', applying both to the public and the private sector, https://www.transparency.org/cpi2011/in_detail.
40L. Di Puppo, 'Police Reform in Georgia: Cracks in an Anti-Corruption Success Story', U4 Practice Insight 2 (2010): 1-5. See also K'up'at'adze, 'Georgia's Fight against Organized Crime'.
41Full Speed Westward [Film Documentary/Video], directed by S. Tolz (Germany: Cologne Filmproduktion, 2013).
42F. Muehlfried, 'A Taste of Mistrust', Ab Imperio 4 (2014): 63-68. See also S. Jones, 'The Rose Revolution: A Revolution without Revolutionaries?', Cambridge Review of International Affairs 19, no. 1 (2006): 33-48. See also K. Tuite, 'The Autocrat of the Banquet Table: The Political and Social Significance of the Georgian supra', Language, History and Cultural Identities in the Caucasus, 17-19 June 2005, IMER, Malmoe University, Sweden: 9-35; Chatwin, 'SocioCultural Transformation and Foodways'.
43Jones, 'The Rose Revolution', 44.
44Jones, 'The Rose Revolution', 44.
45C. Swader, The Capitalist Personality: Face-to-Face Sociality and Economic Change in the PostCommunist World (London: Routledge, 2013).
46D. Ó Beacháin, D. Polese, and A. Polese, '"Rocking the Vote": New Forms of Youth Organizations in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union', in Youth and Social Change in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, edited by C. Walker and S. Stephenson (London: Routledge, 2012), 108-24. See also Jones, 'The Rose Revolution'.
47Slade, 'The Threat of the Thief', 179.
48G. Slade, 'Georgian Prisons: Roots of Scandal', Open Democracy, available at https://www.opendemocracy.net/gavin-slade/georgias-prisons-roots-of-scandal, 2012; Civil.ge for 2006, https://civil.ge/archives/111714.
49A. Glonti, 'Reducing Imprisonment Rates and Prevention of Criminality in Contemporary Georgia', European Scientific Journal 8, no. 2 (2012): 91-98.
50Curro, 'Davabirzhaot!'.
51A. K'up'at'adze and G. Slade, 'The Failed Mental Revolution: Georgia, Crime, and Criminal Justice', Open Democracy, available at https://www.opendemocracy.net/gavin-slade-alexander-kupatadze/failed-mental-revolution-georgia-crime-and-criminal-justice, 2014. See also Slade, 'Georgian Prisons'.
52M. D. Frederiksen and K. Gotfredsen, Georgian Portraits: Essays on the Afterlives of a Revolution (London: Zero Books, 2017). See also P. Manning, 'Rose-Coloured Glasses? Colour Revolutions and Cartoon Chaos in Postsocialist Georgia', Cultural Anthropology 22, no. 2 (2007): 171-213.
53L. Rekhviashvili, 'Marketization and the Public-Private Divide', International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 35, no. 7/8 (2015): 478-96. See also N. Gujaraidze, 'Hidden Costs of Privatization' (Tbilisi: Green Alternative, 2014); Gugushvili, 'Do the Benefits of Growth Trickle down to Georgia's Poor?'.
54L. Rekhviashvili and A. Polese, 'Introduction: Informality and Power in the South Caucasus', Caucasus Survey 5, no. 1 (2017): 1-10. See also H. Aliyev, 'The Effects of the Saakashvili Era Reforms on Informal Practices in the Republic of Georgia', Studies of Transition States and Societies 6, no. 1 (2014): 19-33; J. Morris and A. Polese, The Informal Post-Socialist Economy: Embedded Practices and Livelihoods (London: Routledge, 2013); Round and Williams, 'Coping with the social costs of "transition"'; Smith and Rochovská, 'Domesticating Neo-Liberalism'; Ledeneva, 'Russia's Economy of Favours'.
55Curro, 'From Goods to Emotions'. See also Zakharova, 'Street Life in Tbilisi'; K. Roberts and G. Pollock, 'New Class Divisions in the New Market Economies: Evidence from the Careers of Young Adults in Post-Soviet Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia', Journal of Youth Studies 12, no. 5 (2009): 579-96.
56Curro, 'A Critical Assessment of Informal Practices'. See also Curro, 'From Goods to Emotions'; Curro, 'Davabirzhaot!'; Zakharova, 'Street Life in Tbilisi'; Zakharova, 'The Tbilisi Street'.
Bibliography
Aliyev, H. 'The Effects of the Saakashvili Era Reforms on Informal Practices in the Republic of Georgia'. Studies of Transition States and Societies 6, no. 1 (2014): 19-33.
Bardavelidze, V. 'The Institution of Modzmeoba (Adoptive Brotherhood): An Aspect of the History of the Relations between Mountain and Valley Populations in Georgia'. In Kinship and Marriage in the Soviet Union: Field Studies, edited by T. Dragadze, 173-88. London: Routledge, 1984.
Bregadze, L. Kartuli jargonis leksik'oni (Dictionary of Georgian Slang). Tbilisi: Gapur Sulakauris Gamomtsemloba, 2005.
Brighenti, A. M. Urban Interstices: The Aesthetics and the Politics of the In-Between. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2013.
Chatwin, M. E. Socio-Cultural Transformation and Foodways in the Republic of Georgia. Commack, NY: Nova Science Publishers, 1997.
Curro, C. 'A Critical Assessment of Informal Practices as Resistance: The Case of Birzha in Georgia'. Caucasus Survey 5, no. 1 (2017): 65-84.
Curro, C. 'Davabirzhaot! Conflicting Claims on Public Space in Tbilisi between Transparency and Opaqueness'. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 35, no. 7/8 (2015): 497-512.
Curro, C. 'From Goods to Emotions: The Transformation of Informal Practices in the Republic of Georgia', in The Informal Economy: Exploring Drivers and Practices, edited by I. Horodnic, P. Rodgers, C. Williams, and L. Momtazian. London: Routledge, 2017.
Darieva, T., and W. Kaschuba. 'Sights and Signs of Postsocialist Urbanism in Eurasia: An Introduction'. In Urban Spaces after Socialism: Ethnographies of Public Spaces in Eurasian Cities, edited by T. Darieva, W. Kaschuba, and M. Krebs, 9-30. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2011.
Di Puppo, L. 'Police Reform in Georgia: Cracks in an Anti-Corruption Success Story'. U4 Practice Insight 2 (2010): 1-5.
Dudwick, N. 'No Guests at Our Table: Social Fragmentation in Georgia'. In When Things Fall Apart: Qualitative Studies of Poverty in the Former Soviet Union, edited by N. Dudwick, E. Gomart, and A. Marc, 213-57. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications, 2002.
Dunn, E. C., and M. D. Frederiksen. 'Introduction'. Slavic Review 73, no. 2 (2014): 241-45.
Engvall, J. 'Against the Grain: How Georgia Fought Corruption and What It Means'. Washington, DC: Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program, 2012.
Evans, P., and W. Sewell. 'The Neoliberal Era: Ideology, Policy, and Social Effects'. In Social Resilience in the Neoliberal Era, edited by P. Hall and M. Lamont, 35-68. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Finckenauer, J., and L. Kelly. 'Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Subcultures in the Former Soviet Union'. International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice 16, no. 1-2 (1992): 247-61.
Frederiksen, M. D. 'Good Hearts or Big Bellies: Dzmak'atsoba and Images of Masculinity in the Republic of Georgia', in Young Men in Uncertain Times, edited by V. Amit and N. Dyck, 165-87. New York: Berghahn Books, 2012.
Frederiksen, M. D. Young Men, Time, and Boredom in the Republic of Georgia. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2013.
Frederiksen, M. D., and K. Gotfredsen. Georgian Portraits: Essays on the Afterlives of a Revolution. London: Zero Books, 2017.
Frisby, T. 'The Rise of Organized Crime in Russia: Its Roots and Social Significance', Europe-Asia Studies 50, no. 1 (1998): 27-49.
Garcelon, M. 'The Shadow of the Leviathan: Public and Private in Communist and Post-Communist Society'. In Public and Private in Thought and Practice: Perspectives on a Grand Dichotomy, edited by J. Weintraub and K. Kumar, 303-32. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.
Glonti, A. 'Reducing Imprisonment Rates and Prevention of Criminality in Contemporary Georgia'. European Scientific Journal 8, no. 2 (2012): 91-98.
Gugushvili, D. Do the Benefits of Growth Trickle down to Georgia's Poor? A Case for a Strong Welfare System. PhD thesis, University of Kent, 2014.
Gujaraidze, N. 'Hidden Costs of Privatization'. Tbilisi: Green Alternative, 2014.
Harboe Knudsen, I. 'The Lithuanian "Unemployment Agency": On Bomzhai and Informal Working Practices'. In Ethnographies of Grey Zones in Eastern Europe: Relations, Borders and Invisibilities, edited by I. Harboe Knudsen and M. D. Frederiksen, 141-56. London: Anthem Press, 2015.
Harboe Knudsen, I., and Frederiksen, M. D., eds. Ethnographies of Grey Zones in Eastern Europe. London: Anthem Press, 2015.
Jones, S. 'The Rose Revolution: A Revolution without Revolutionaries?', Cambridge Review of International Affairs 19, no. 1 (2006): 33-48.
Koehler, J. Die Schule der Strasse: Georgische Cliquen zwischen Kämpfen um Ehre und organisierter Kriminalität. Berlin: Das Arabische Buch, 1999a.
Koehler, J. 'The School of the Street: Organising Diversity and Training Polytaxis in a (Post-) Soviet Periphery'. Anthropology of East Europe Review 17, no. 2 (1999b): 41-55.
Kubik, J. Power of Symbols against the Symbols of Power: The Rise of Solidarity and the Fall of State Socialism in Poland. University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 1994.
K'ukhianidze, A. 'Corruption and Organized Crime in Georgia before and after the Rose Revolution'. Central Asian Survey 28, no. 2 (2009): 215-34.
K'up'at'adze, A. 'Georgia's Fight against Organized Crime: Success or Failure?'. Caucasus Analytical Digest, 9 (2009): 9-12.
K'up'at'adze, A., and G. Slade. 'The Failed Mental Revolution: Georgia, Crime, and Criminal Justice'. Open Democracy, available at https://www.opendemocracy.net/gavin-slade-alexander-kupatadze/failed-mental-revolution-georgia-crime-and-criminal-justice, 2014. Ledeneva, A. Russia's Economy of Favours: Blat, Networking and Informal Exchange. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Lofland, L. The Public Realm: Exploring the City's Quintessential Social Territory. London: Routledge, 1998.
Manning, P. 'Rose-Coloured Glasses? Colour Revolutions and Cartoon Chaos in Postsocialist Georgia'. Cultural Anthropology 22, no. 2 (2007): 171-213.
Mars, G., and Y. Altman, 'The Cultural Bases of Soviet Georgia's Second Economy'. Soviet Studies 35, no. 4 (1983): 546-60.
Morris, J., and A. Polese. The Informal Post-Socialist Economy: Embedded Practices and Livelihoods. London: Routledge, 2013.
Muehlfried, F. 'A Taste of Mistrust'. Ab Imperio 4 (2014): 63-68.
Ó Beacháin, D., D. Polese, and A. Polese. '"Rocking the Vote": New Forms of Youth Organizations in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union'. In Youth and Social Change in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, edited by C. Walker and S. Stephenson, 108-24. London: Routledge, 2012.
Oswald, I., and V. Voronkov. 'The "Public-Private" Sphere in Soviet and Post-Soviet Society: Perception and Dynamics of "Public" and "Private" in Contemporary Russia'. European Societies 6, no. 1 (2004): 97-117.
Parkin, S., and R. Coomber. 'Public Injecting Drug Use and the Social Production of Harmful Practice in High-Rise Tower Blocks (London, UK): A Lefebvrian Analysis'. Health and Place 17, no. 3 (2011): 717-26.
Polese, A. '"If I Receive It, It Is a Gift; if I Demand It, Then It Is a Bribe": On the Local Meaning of Economic Transactions in Post-Soviet Ukraine'. Anthropology in Action 15, no. 3 (2008): 47-60.
Rekhviashvili, L. 'Marketization and the Public-Private Divide'. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 35, no. 7/8 (2015): 478-96.
Rekhviashvili, L., and A. Polese. 'Introduction: Informality and Power in the South Caucasus'. Caucasus Survey 5, no. 1 (2017): 1-10.
Roberts, K., and G. Pollock. 'New Class Divisions in the New Market Economies: Evidence from the Careers of Young Adults in Post-Soviet Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia'. Journal of Youth Studies 12, no. 5 (2009): 579-96.
Robertson, A. 'The Anthropology of Grey Zones'. Ethnos 71, no. 4 (2006): 569-73.
Round, J., and C. Williams. 'Coping with the Social Costs of "Transition": Everyday Life in Post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine'. European Urban and Regional Studies 17, no. 2 (2010): 183-96.
Roy, S. 'The Grey Zone: The "Ordinary" Violence of Extraordinary Times'. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 14, no. 2 (2008): 316-33.
Shelley, L., E. Scott, and A. Latta, eds.. Organized Crime and Corruption in Georgia. New York: Routledge, 2007.
Slade, G. 'Georgian Prisons: Roots of Scandal', Open Democracy, available at https://www.opendemocracy.net/gavin-...ots-of-scandal, 2012.
Slade, G. Reorganising Crime: Mafia and Anti-Mafia in Post-Soviet Georgia. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Slade, G. 'The Threat of the Thief: Who Has Normative Influence in Georgian Society? Dispatches', Global Crime 8, no. 2 (2007): 172-79.
Smith, A., and A. Rochovská. 'Domesticating Neo-Liberalism: Everyday Lives and the Geographies of Post-Socialist Transformations', Geoforum 38, no. 6 (2007): 1163-78.
Swader, C. The Capitalist Personality: Face-to-Face Sociality and Economic Change in the Post- Communist World. London: Routledge, 2013.
Tolz, S., director. Full Speed Westward [Film Documentary/Video]. Germany: Cologne Filmproduktion, 2013.
Transparency International, https://www.transparency.org/cpi2011/in_detail.
Tuite, K. 'The Autocrat of the Banquet Table: The Political and Social Significance of the Georgian supra'. Language, History and Cultural Identities in the Caucasus, 17-19 June 2005, IMER, Malmoe University, Sweden: 9-35.
Walker, C., and S. Stephenson. 'Youth and Social Change in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union'. In Youth and Social Change in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, edited by C. Walker and S. Stephenson, 1-13. London: Routledge, 2012.
Zakharova, E. 'Street Life in Tbilisi as a Factor of Male Socialization'. Laboratorium: Russian Review of Social Research 2, no. 1 (2010).
Zakharova, E. 'The Tbilisi Street as a Legal and Political Phenomenon in Georgia'. In State and Legal Practice in the Caucasus, edited by S. Voell and I. Kaliszewska, 69-82. London: Ashgate, 2015.
Zdravomyslova, E., and V. Voronkov. 'The Informal Public in Soviet Society: Double Morality at Work'. Social Research 69, no. 1 (2002): 49-69.
Zhelnina, A. 'Learning to Use "Public Space": Urban Space in Post-Soviet St. Petersburg'. The Open Urban Studies Journal 6 (2013): 57-64.
Zhelnina, A. 'Public Spaces as Spaces of Fear and Alienation? Youth in Public Spaces in St. Petersburg, Russia'. Isaconf, 2nd ISA Forum of Sociology. Social Justice and Democratisation. 1-4 August 2012. University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Socialism_Capitalism_and_Alternatives_(Duncan_and_Schimpfossl)/2%3A_Part_I_-_Capitalism_in_Action/4%3A_Between_the_public_and_the_private_-_Socialism%2C_capitalism_and_street_socialisation.txt |
China's politicians like to emphasise that they are building a socialist market economy based on the ideology of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Unlike other post-communist transitions to capitalism, China's radical economic transformations during the neo-liberal era did not generate a large pool of economic losers. On the contrary, over the last three decades, seven hundred million Chinese escaped poverty. Yet at the same time, China's impressive economic growth has been associated with the rise of a wealthy elite, which gradually is being co-opted by the party-state. Relying on elite-level and survey data, this study goes beyond socio-demographic characteristics and investigates whether party membership, education, beliefs in upward mobility and support for an interventionist state correlate with income levels. The final section discusses the implications of the observed trends for the future of the Chinese economic model.
From planned economy to socialist market economy
Xi Jinping is the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and President and 'core leader' of the People's Republic of China (PRC). In October 2017, in front of the delegates of the XIX Party Congress, Xi gave an important speech entitled 'Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era'. Soon thereafter, the phrase 'Xi Jinping Thought' was incorporated into the party and state constitutions, an honour reserved so far only to Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. In his long speech, Xi promised to uphold socialism with Chinese characteristics in order to finish the country's 'socialist modernization and national rejuvenation' by 2050.1 The phrase 'socialism with Chinese characteristics' was coined by Deng Xiaoping three decades ago. Even though current officials mention it as the essential goal of the party-state, it is difficult to pinpoint its precise meaning. So far, the expression seems to refer to the transition of the Chinese planned economy to a socialist market economy, a hybrid system blending market and command economy elements.
During the last seven decades, China underwent two systemic transformations. From 1949 to 1976, under Mao's leadership, it largely followed the Soviet model of development. It collectivised agriculture, created its own heavy industry, eliminated private enterprises, controlled prices and monopolised foreign trade and state banking. These are classic command economy policies borrowed from the Soviet Union. After the Sino-Soviet split, China embarked on a course of gradual rapprochement with the United States. The stagnation of the early 1970s prompted some party officials to voice pro-market views, running against the prevailing statist ideology. Rejected by Mao, those market-friendly communists were quickly side-lined for their attempts to push the country onto the capitalist path.
After Mao's death, the reformers, including Deng Xiaoping, advanced to top positions in the party. Deng initiated the policy of reform and opening up (gaige kaifang), which remains the foundation of China's transition to market. The experiment of the special economic zones, though successful, generated fears among the ideological hardliners, who thought that the Middle Kingdom was moving toward capitalism. To defend his policy proposals against Maoist critiques, in 1982 Deng highlighted the need to adapt Western development models to local conditions:
In carrying out our modernization program, we must proceed from Chinese realities. Both in revolution and in construction, we should also learn from foreign countries and draw on their experience, but mechanical application of foreign experience and copying of foreign models will get us nowhere. We have had many lessons in this respect. We must integrate the universal truth of Marxism with the concrete realities of China, blaze a path of our own and build a socialism with Chinese characteristics.2
In 1983, Deng went even further suggesting that 'some people in rural areas and cities should be allowed to get rich before others'.3 Later on, at the XIV Party Congress, the party leaders officially endorsed the project of a socialist market economy. More recently, former CPC General Secretary Hu Jintao outlined in a key party congress speech that public ownership and the guiding role of the party in building a moderately prosperous society (xiaokang shehui) by 2020 remain two of the central elements of the existing economic system.4
Yet the evolution of China's socialist market economy remains a big unknown. It would be hazardous to speculate on its sustainability solely by deciphering the official party line. Within the development paradigm adopted by the party, the state will continue to play the major role in steering domestic economic transformation through five-year plans. Productivity gains and large-scale capital investment, combined with the propensity of Chinese households to save, have produced high rates of economic growth. In 2012, the private sector was responsible for 70 per cent of the country's manufacturing output and 80 per cent of the jobs in urban areas.5 So far, China's state-led development resembles the late-modernisation success stories of the 'four Asian tigers' - Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. During the next decade, the Chinese economy might slow down as the country abandons export-led growth and embraces a model of growth based on domestic consumption. Currently, China seems far from the chronic economic stagnation plaguing the command economies before their demise. As such, the idea that a communist-led China achieved economic growth without relying significantly on foreign direct investment and without dismantling the state, challenges the Washington consensus - the neo-liberal orthodoxy popular until recently among policymakers in some of the former Communist countries.6
When compared to other post-communist transitions, China's road to market differs in two respects. First, in some of the former communist countries, transitions to market have generated an anti-market backlash exploited by adept political entrepreneurs. By contrast, marketisation enjoys popular support in China. Some scholars characterised this phenomenon as "reforms without losers."7 According to World Bank data, in 1990, 756 million Chinese (66 per cent of the population) lived on less than US \$1.90/day (i.e., below the international poverty line).8 A quarter of a century later, using the same benchmark, the same data show that only 10 million Chinese (0.7 per cent of the population) were poor. Indeed, the state has enacted economic reforms allowing more than 700 million individuals to escape poverty. In doing so, it has profoundly altered the fabric of society and created a pro-market constituency.
Second, China's leaders adopted a dual-track approach, developing labour-intensive sectors and supporting exports, while protecting inefficient sectors from international competition. Such an approach enabled the political elites to harvest the fruits of trade liberalisation and avoid massive layoffs. In 1998, preparing its WTO accession, China was constrained to launch deeper market reforms. But even then, the state exited competitive sectors and privatised the smaller state-owned enterprises (SOEs), while keeping the large ones under its control (zhua da fang xiao). As a result of this increase in efficiency, higher revenues allowed the state to compensate the groups negatively impacted by economic reforms. That is why the Chinese political elites could pursue further marketisation without having to fear an anti-market backlash.
The future of the market in China depends to a large extent on the level of acceptance it enjoys in society. Among elites, there is a solid consensus on the necessity to continue reforms. But the cosy relationship between the indigenous capitalists and state officials amidst rising income disparities led some scholars to expect an outburst of social unrest. Whyte rejects such expectations as unrealistic and demonstrates that 'China's social volcano of potential anger at growing distributive injustice was clearly still dormant in 2009.'9 Survey data from 2012 confirm that 75 per cent of Chinese support market reforms despite the growing inequality.10
Nevertheless, the transition to market did breed dissatisfaction. Some intellectuals criticised the continuing privatisation of state property and the conspicuous consumption prevalent among the wealthy elites. Cui Zhiyuan, Gan Yang, Wang Shaoguang and Wang Hui formed the New Left (xin zuopai), a loose group calling for alternative models of development that would mitigate the negative side effects of the pro- market policies.11 Likewise, discontent with reforms is simmering among those who religiously revere Mao Zedong. When Mao Yushi, a liberal economist, published an article criticising Mao's economic policies, diehard Maoists requested that state authorities put him on trial.12 Despite such scattered pockets of discontent, popular support in favour of further marketisation remains strong.
The rise of the billionaires
Economic growth has been accompanied by the rise in wealth and income inequality. So that by now, the concentration of wealth in China has reached levels comparable to those in advanced capitalist countries. In 2016, the country's official Gini coefficient of 0.47 stood above the coefficients of the former Communist states.13 Moreover, for several years, income inequality in China remained higher than in the United States. Since 2008, as a result of governmental efforts, income inequality has slightly declined, but it still surpasses the levels observed in most of the developed countries.
The newly emerged billionaires situated at the top of the wealth distribution benefitted most from the economic transformations. Two organisations - Hurun and Forbes - identify and rank the Chinese magnates. As shown in figure $1$, their estimates diverge. Compared to Forbes, Hurun counts annually more Chinese billionaires. Despite some discrepancies, both graphs illustrate an unmistakable trend - the rapid rise of a national wealthy elite. In 2015, according to Hurun, more billionaires lived in China than in the United States.14
In the new context, private wealth may turn into a power resource. As certain individuals become extremely wealthy, they acquire more autonomy from the state and may use their resources to gain influence over regional officials. So far, the wealthy elites seem content to play the role of "allies of the state" rather than act as agents of change.15 But as Beijing continues to promote governors based in part on their economic performance, regional officials realise that the billionaires in their provinces are indispensable for the achievement of economic growth and the preservation of their power positions within the party-state.
Over the last three decades, the relationship between the party-state and entrepreneurs evolved from suspicion to co-optation. The 1989 Tiananmen protests constituted a watershed moment in this regard. Some entrepreneurs provided food and transportation for demonstrators, thus irritating the party hardliners. Consequently, from 1989 to 2002, entrepreneurs were banned from joining the party. Moreover, pro-privatisation advocates such as Zhao Ziyang, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC), were accused of over-empathising with the student protesters and lost their influence within the party. Interestingly enough, in 1991 the conservative faction was discussing the idea of establishing direct party ownership of state assets in order to prevent the formation of rival power centres.16 After a three-year hiatus, Deng's Southern Tour weakened the conservatives led by Chen Yun and market reforms accelerated again.17 In retrospect, it is noteworthy that the anti-market reaction after Tiananmen temporarily slowed down the transition to market, but did not lead to a wholesale reversal of reforms.
As the importance of the private sector grew, the mood in the party changed. To achieve a broader representation of societal interests, the party began courting and co-opting successful entrepreneurs. In 2002, the then CPC General Secretary Jiang Zemin formulated the doctrine of Three Represents, which encouraged the new social actors, among them businesspeople, to join the party.18 Five years later, 5 per cent of all party members were private entrepreneurs.19 In 2013, out of 85 million members, 25 million were farmers, herders and fishers; 20 million were management staff and technicians working in enterprises; 7 million were workers; and 7 million were state and party officials.20 The adoption of the Three Represents opened the doors of the CPC to the newly emerged billionaires, allowing the wealthy elites to gain representation in the party.
CPC's party-building strategy trailed the growth of the private sector as well. Non-public enterprises are required by law to set up party committees and cells. While the law has been in place for more than two decades, its strict implementation began a decade ago.21 In 2012, a party official triumphantly announced that 'party units have been established in about 983,000 private enterprises, including 47,000 foreign-funded companies'.22 Official data from 2017 show that the party has embedded itself in
1.88 million non-public enterprises and in 93 per cent of all SOEs.23 It follows then that the party has penetrated more than 10 per cent of all private enterprises. This pragmatic party-building strategy allowed CPC to establish its permanent presence in the private sector.
State institutions co-opt billionaires, too. Some of them become members of the National People's Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), others join state-sponsored business associations. In 2008, 17 billionaires joined the NPC, while in 2013, the figure nearly doubled.24 I reviewed the biographies of the top 100 wealthiest individuals identified by Hurun in 2015 and found out that 58 per cent held politically important offices in the past. So far, most of them are recruited by provincial people's congresses and regional party officials via invitation.25 Overall, the selection process lacks transparency as it is not entirely clear what criteria are used to pick the future NPC and CPPCC delegates.
The two parallel processes - the co-optation of the wealthy elites by the party and the de facto colonisation of the private sector with party cells - point to the growing interdependence of the political and wealthy elites. However, despite the CPC efforts, China's wealthy do not feel secure. In 2013, 60 per cent of high-net-worth individuals were seriously thinking about investment migration.26 For now, in the absence of an inheritance tax in China, billionaires can easily transfer wealth to their children. The fuerdai, the second generation of wealthy Chinese, compete with their parents' generation in attracting media attention to their consumerist excesses at home and abroad.
To survive, socialism with Chinese characteristics needs more frugality. Besides the offspring of the wealthy elites, party cadres at higher levels engage in conspicuous status-confirming behaviour. CPC is not interested in the transformation of the party and state officials into a new class of mandarins. In 2012, Xi promoted the 'eight-point regulation', a nervous effort to subject the behaviour of the party cadres to a set of thrift and integrity rules. The guidelines ban spending on luxury goods, impose stricter standards on the use of public funds, specify limits on travel expenses, prompt officials to organise modest banquets, prohibit the construction of extravagant government buildings and control the frequency of public appearances of the nomenklatura.27 By October 2017, the party recorded a total of 193,168 thrift violations and reprimanded 145,059 officials for disregarding the policy.28 While the crackdown on conspicuous consumption will not stem the tide of consumerism sweeping nowadays across China, it might moderately improve the public's perception of party officials.
Does it pay to be a party member?
It is unclear whether the rising income inequality will perpetuate itself and block social mobility in the future. Hence, an intriguing aspect of China's economic transition concerns the determinants of income at the household level. Are demographic characteristics, political affiliation, and certain beliefs linked to higher income groups?
Previous studies have identified a variety of income predictors. Xin proved that party membership has a minor, but positive impact on household wealth.29 Xie and Jin demonstrate that employment with the party-state exerts a positive effect on household wealth.30 Besides political ties, education might figure as a determinant of income.31 Traditionally, parents in China put a high premium on education, regarding it as a contributing factor to social mobility. Western university degrees are preferred over domestic ones. High-ranking officials send their offspring to American and European universities. For example, President Xi Jinping's daughter studied at Harvard. The son of Wen Jiabao, China's former head of government, and other princelings graduated from universities in the West. Upon the careful analysis of party careers, a recent study found out that the CPC promotes educated individuals to higher party positions.32
To further explore whether party affiliation and education influence economic success in the general population, I used statistical techniques to analyse survey data recently published by the Pew Research Center.33 Table $1$ displays the frequencies for each variable used in the analysis (see Appendix).
Since household income may be regarded as an important indicator of economic success, it figured as the dependent variable in this brief study. Respondents placed their household income within one of the following five brackets: 'less than 10,000 yuan' (14.4 per cent), '10,001-15,000 yuan' (4.9 per cent), '15,001-30,000 yuan' (25.9 per cent), '30,001-50,000 yuan' (14.7 per cent) and '50,001 and up' (36.2 per cent).34
Party membership and education figure as the main independent variables. Both party membership and education should be positively correlated with household income. Roughly 6 per cent of the respondents self-identified as party members, which corresponds to the percentage of party members in the overall population. Likewise, the level of education among respondents falls within one of the following seven categories: 'below primary school', 'primary school', 'junior school', 'high school', 'college', 'Bachelor's' and 'Master's'. Overall, 17 per cent of those interviewed received an undergraduate or graduate degree. To test whether other variables have an impact on household income, four demographic control variables were included in the analysis - gender, residence, region ('eastern', 'central' and 'western'), and ethnicity (Han and non-Han).35
Besides demographic characteristics, I was interested to test whether expectations about the role of the state in society are linked to income levels. To capture the preferences of the population regarding state intervention, survey respondents were asked the following question: What is more important in Chinese society: that everyone be free to pursue their life's goals without interference from the state or that the state plays an active role in society so as to guarantee that nobody is in need? Thirty-five per cent of the respondents prefer a less intrusive state (that is, freedom from state intervention), while 49 per cent opt for a stronger state providing for people in need (that is, equality). Even though most Chinese prefer state-sponsored redistribution and protection, one-third of the respondents opted for freedom from state intervention.
Beliefs in upward mobility may be associated with household income levels. To measure the belief in upward mobility, interviewees were asked the following question: How easy or difficult is it in China for a young person to get a better job and to become wealthier than his or her parents were - very easy, somewhat easy, somewhat difficult or very difficult? Fifty-seven per cent of respondents stated optimistically that it is easy/ somewhat easy to get a job and become wealthier than their parents.36
To test whether party membership, education, and mobility and statist beliefs predict household income levels, an ordered probit regression was implemented using STATA. I started the analysis with a baseline model and then entered additional variables of interest, as well as an interaction term. Table $2$ (see Appendix) displays detailed estimates of the effects of each of the variables on income levels. Age, education, residence, region, party membership, belief in upward mobility, and the interaction term between party affiliation and orientation towards the state predict household income.37
To ease the interpretation of results, I plot in figure $2$ the average marginal effects and predictive margins of the relevant predictors across the five income levels. Age has a negative effect on income, which is particularly notable at incomes above 30,000 yuan (figure $\PageIndex{2A}$). By contrast, education has a positive effect on income (figure $\PageIndex{2B}$). Specifically, education best predicts incomes above 50,000 yuan. Similarly, the chances to reach the upper income brackets are higher in cities and towns compared to villages. Given the existing literature on the urban-rural income gap, this finding is hardly surprising. Furthermore, in line with previous studies, regions matter as well. Compared to respondents situated in the Eastern region, those in the less developed Western and Central parts of the country are less likely to move up to higher income brackets.
Party membership has a significant and differentiated impact on income level. The odds ratio of 0.8 in Model 1 and Model 2 reveals that non-members compared to party members are 20 per cent less likely to have higher incomes. However, the predictive margins in figure $\PageIndex{2D}$ point to the non-linear effect of party membership across different income levels. While party membership seems clearly to be a bonus for households with incomes over 50,000 yuan, it has a slight negative impact on those in the first (below 10,000) and third income brackets (15,000-30,000). No effect can be observed in the case of the second (large X) and fourth income group (squares).
To track how the effect of party membership changes with age, I have plotted the predictive margins of party membership on income across age groups in Figure $\PageIndex{2C}$. For those in the highest income bracket, the bonus effect of party membership diminishes with age. By contrast, we observe a small increase in the impact of party membership on individuals in the first (under 10,000 yuan) and third income groups (15,000-30,000 yuan) over time.
The beliefs in upward mobility correlate incompletely with income levels. Such beliefs have no impact on the second and fourth income groups. On the other hand, the upper-income individuals think that it is relatively easy to climb up the economic ladder. Still, we cannot assert with certainty the direction of causality. It is not clear whether strong beliefs in upward mobility help these individuals reach the highest income bracket, or whether such beliefs are acquired after their income increases. When it comes to attitudes toward state intervention, the interaction term in Model 4 (see table $2$) between party membership and state intervention is significant beyond the 5 per cent level. Those in the lower income brackets who are unaffiliated with the party expect the state to protect those in need. Interestingly enough, this group exhibits stronger support for an interventionist welfare state compared to party members in the same income bracket.
Next, I was interested in exploring the relationship between social mobility beliefs and perceptions of economic change at the individual level. Intuitively, one would expect that the losers in the economic transition should hold weak beliefs in upward mobility. I ran a cross-tabulation to explore this conjecture (see figure $3$). To capture individual perceptions of economic change, survey participants were asked whether their financial situation has improved or deteriorated over the last five years. The majority of respondents mentioned that, compared to 2007, their financial situation was better in 2012. Sixty-two per cent of those who were better off stated that it was easier to find a job and get wealthy than during their parents' time. Surprisingly, 70 per cent of those who were worse off in 2012 believed that it was easy or somewhat easy to get wealthier than their parents. Thirty-seven per cent of those whose situation improved and 29 per cent of those worse off found it very difficult or somewhat difficult to get wealthy in China. If anything, compared to losers (that is, individuals whose economic situation deteriorated), the winners were slightly less confident that finding a job was easier than during their parents' time. Unexpectedly, we found that optimistic beliefs in intergenerational mobility remain resilient even when individuals face economic hardship.
Implications for the future of the China model
State-sponsored capitalism in China today is stuck midway between a command economy and a market system. The five-year plans, the guiding role of the CPC, the state-controlled banking sector, the dominance of the large state-owned corporations, all remind us of the traditional command economy. On the other hand, the rise of billionaires, the privatisation reforms, the growing private sector, the conspicuous consumption of Western luxury goods, the hard-budget constraints for small and medium enterprises, the support of free trade in an era of increasing American protectionism, and the heavy investments in US treasury bonds, all feature as novel elements of the socialist market system. So far, this mixed economy has produced high levels of economic growth as well as sharp wealth disparities.
Four implications can be drawn from this exploration of China's un equal economic growth. First, it is important to call attention to the flexibility of the CPC in the absence of real political liberalisation. It has slowly but surely adapted to the new economic environment. Knowing that private entrepreneurs complain about unfair competition from state-owned enterprises, key businesspeople from the private sector were invited to connect with the party-state. The party even began setting up cells within the leading domestic and foreign private companies. However, it is not the emergence of the private sector per se, but the conspicuous consumption patterns pervasive among the wealthy elites and party cadres that raise the greatest problem for the CPC. In the long run, despite the party-state's incontestable success in reducing poverty, consumerist excesses among political and economic elites might give rise to the perception that the existing socio-economic inequalities are unfair. To counteract this byproduct of economic growth, CPC's frugality campaign aims at aligning the behaviour of party officials with the egalitarian ethos of the official ideology.
Second, the relationship between politicians and capitalists is one of asymmetrical interdependence. The new wealthy elites and the party-state are already bound together by a dense web of institutional and structural ties. More than half of the 100 wealthiest Chinese occupy or have occupied a public office, among them Jack Ma, the wealthiest Chinese and founder of Alibaba. Crucially, they are co-opted to public positions after, rather than before, they become wealthy. There are only several cases in which party-state officials became billionaires after 'plunging into the sea' of commerce (xiahai). In their relationship with the party-state, the wealthy elites enjoy a privileged position. While the party-state may use coercion and engage in selective nationalisation, it largely depends on the wealthy elites to achieve economic growth, maintain high employment levels, ensure political stability and expand the country's global reach. With the nomenklatura firmly in power, China's insecure capitalists are nudged to expand and invest globally. Some of them hedge their bets and acquire a second citizenship, but in the long run, this interdependent relationship between the party-state and the extremely rich will inevitably consolidate into one of the cornerstones of the Chinese economic model.
Third, despite the existence of corrupt practices, the Chinese system incorporates meritocratic elements. The preceding statistical analysis has revealed that education, among other factors, functions as the strongest predictor of income. Undoubtedly, guanxi (that is, informal networks), as numerous scholars have pointed out, play an important role in Chinese society. Still, education stands out as more important than party affiliation as a determinant of income. The crucial ramification of this finding is that in the midst of radical economic transformations, the party-state successfully shaped an environment in which income is at least partially a function of education. In other words, the existing system tends to reward highly educated individuals.
Finally, these findings have to be interpreted in light of Xi's Chinese Dream initiative (Zhongguo meng) and the larger theme of national rejuvenation (Zhonghua minzu weida fuxing). Leaving aside their ideological content, both initiatives aim at instilling pride in China's economic accomplishments, always contrasted with the 'hundred years of national humiliation'. It is not clear whether the population has bought into the promise of the Chinese Dream, an expression conjuring up the middle-class American Dream. In this sense, it is remarkable that most Chinese hold robust, optimistic beliefs in upward mobility. The strong beliefs in upward mobility remain resilient even when an individual experiences a deterioration of her economic situation. Most Chinese perceive sufficient opportunities for upward mobility within the current hybrid system. Despite unequal growth, most of the population supports the mixed economy, while continuing to hold durable statist beliefs. At the same time, the resilient optimistic beliefs regarding upward mobility in the context of rising wealth and income inequality may simply be a matter of perception. Americans, for instance, hold extremely strong beliefs in the meritocracy of their economic system in spite of its low social mobility when compared to other Western economies. Further research would need to elucidate how the strong beliefs in upward mobility among China's population contribute to the stability of the current economic and political system. Until then, such perceptions should be cautiously interpreted as indicators of an optimistic popular mood prevailing inside the Middle Kingdom during its rapid economic rise.
Appendix
Table $1$: Frequencies of the independent and dependent variables (Source: Author's interviews)
Weighted N Percent
Dependent Variable
Household annual income
Less than 10,000 yuan
319
12.0
10,001 to 15,000 yuan 134 5.0
15,001 to 30,000 yuan
721
27.1
30,001 to 50,000 yuan
413
15.5
50,001 and up
1071
40.3
Total
2658
100.0
Factor
Gender
Female
1349
50.8
Male
1309
49.2
Total
2658
100.0
CPC member
No
2504
94.2
Yes
154
5.8
Total
2658
100.0
Ethnicity
Han
2543
95.7
Non-Han
115
4.3
Total
2658
100.0
Region
East
1473
55.4
Centre
608
22.9
West
577
21.7
Total
2658
100.0
Belief in Upward Mobility
Somewhat easy
1272
47.9
Somewhat difficult 823 31.0
Very easy
368
13.8
Very difficult
195
7.3
Total
2658
100.0
Residence
City
1080
40.6
Town
469
17.6
Rural location
1109
41.7
Total
2658
100.0
State Intervention
Nobody in need
1550
58.3
Freedom to pursue life's goals without interference
1108
41.7
Total
2658
100.0
Covariates
Age (Range)
18-86
2658
100.0
Education
Below primary school
112
4.2
Primary school
388
14.6
Junior school
835
31.4
High school
872
32.8
College
305
11.5
Bachelor's degree
140
5.3
Master's degree
6
.2
Total
2658
100
Table $2$: Determinants of income levels: Ordered probit regression results (Source: Author's interviews)
Notes: Effect estimates presented as odds ratios. Reference categories: $^a$Female, $^b$CPC member, $^c$Han Chinese, $^d$West, $^e$Village, $^f$Very difficult, $^g$CPC*State support.
Significance levels: $^*p \leq .05$, $^{**}p \leq .01$, $^{***}p \leq .001$
Model 1
Model 2
Model 3
Model 4
B
Exp (B)
B
Exp (B)
B
Exp (B)
B
Exp (B)
DV Intercepts
Lower income
.34
1.4
.31
1.36
.214
1.239
.48***
1.6
Middle
.65**
1.91
.619*
1.86
.525**
1.69
.79***
2.20
Upper middle
1.87***
6.48
1.84***
6.31
1.75***
5.768
2.02***
7.527
Upper income
2.49***
12.12
2.46***
11.79
2.38***
10.79
2.64***
14.12
Gender$^{a}$
-.001
.999
.001
1.001
-.006*
.994
.011
1.011
CPC member$^{b}$
-.220*
.803
-.219*
.803
-.208
.812
.480***
1.617
Ethnicity$^{c}$
.117
1.126
.114
1.121
.111
1.117
.123
1.131
Region$^{d}$
East
.681***
1.976
.676***
1.967
.667***
1.947
.657***
1.930
Central
.398***
1.488
.389***
1.476
.385***
1.470
.372***
1.252
Residence$^{e}$
City
1.81***
6.15
1.81***
6.14
1.84***
6.29
1.83***
6.24
Town
1.08***
2.95
1.08***
2.96
1.09***
2.98
1.08***
2.97
Age
-.004*
.996
-.004*
.996
-.004*
.996
-.004*
.996
Education
.277***
1.319
.277***
1.320
.277***
1.319
.281***
1.325
State support
-.041
.960
-.033
.967
.067
1.070
Upward Mobility$^{f}$
Very Easy
-.218*
.804
-.238*
.788
Somewhat Easy
-.027
.974
-.036
.964
Somewhat Difficult
-.166*
.847
-.175*
.840
Non-CPC Member*State support$^{g}$
-.67***
.508
Initial Log Likelihood
-3567.7
-3567.7
-3567.7
-3567.7
Log Likelihood
-2789.5
-2789.2
-2782.9
-2777.8
Likelihood Ratio
1736.2***
1736.9***
1749.3***
1759.6***
1'Backgrounder: Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era', Xinhua News Agency, 17 March 2018, accessed 4 March 2019, www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-03/17/c_137046261.html.
2Deng Xiaoping, 'Opening Speech at the Twelfth National Congress of the Communist Party of China', 1 September 1982, in Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping (1982-1992), vol. 3., ed. People's Daily, accessed 23 March 2018, http://www.people.com.cn/english/dengxp/contents3.html.
3Deng Xiaoping, Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping (1982-1992), accessed 23 March 2018, http://www.people.com.cn/english/dengxp/home.html.
4Hu Jintao, 'Report at the 18th Party Congress', Xinhua News Agency, 8 November 2012, accessed 21 December 2015, news.xinhuanet.com/english/special/18cpcnc/2012-11/17/c_131981259_3.htm.
5Nicholas Lardy, 'The Changing Role of the Private Sector in China', Proceedings of RBA Annual Conference, in Structural Change in China: Implications for Australia and the World Reserve Bank of Australia, ed. Iris Day and John Simon (2016), 37-41.
6Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014), 70.
7Lawrence J. Lau, Yingyi Qian, and Gérard Roland, 'Reform without Losers: An Interpretation of China's Dual-Track Approach to Transition'. Journal of Political Economy 108 (2000): 123; Justin Yifu Lin, Demystifying the Chinese Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 9.
8World Bank Poverty Data (Washington, DC: World Bank, October 2018), accessed 24 February 2019, http://povertydata.worldbank.org/poverty/country/CHN.
9Martin King Whyte and Dong-Kyun Im, 'Is the Social Volcano Still Dormant? Trends in Chinese Attitudes toward Inequality', Social Science Research 48, no. 1 (2014): 74.
10Pew Global Attitudes Survey (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2012), accessed 30 May 2015, www.pewglobal.org/category/datasets/2012/.
11Chaohua Wang, ed., One China, Many Paths (New York: Verso, 2003), 9-46.
12'Boundlessly Loyal to the Great Monster', The Economist, 26 May 2011. http://www.economist.com/node/18744533?story_id=18744533.
13OECD, Going for Growth: Economic Policy Reforms (Paris: OECD, 2017), 162, accessed 10 May 2018, www.oecd.org/eco/growth/Going-for-Growth-China-2017.pdf.
14Olivia Lowenberg, 'Beijing Has Now More Billionaires Than New York City', Christian Science Monitor, 24 February 2016, accessed 13 May 2018, www.csmonitor.com/Business/2016/0224/Beijing-now-has-more-billionaires-than-New-York-City-study-says; Rupert Hooge werf, 'Number of Billionaires in China 1999-2018', Hurun Organization, accessed 2 May 2018, www.hurun.net/en/ArticleShow.aspx?nid=14678.
15Jie Chen and Bruce J. Dickson, Allies of the State: China's Private Entrepreneurs and Democratic Change (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 25-35.
16Richard McGreggor, The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers (London: Penguin Books, 2010), 34-41.
17Ezra Vogel, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 664-90.
18Chen and Dickson, 28.
19Cheng Li, 'China's Communist Party State: The Structure and Dynamics of Power in Politics in China', in Politics in China, ed. William Joseph (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 178.
20'China's Communist Party Membership Exceeds 85 Million', Xinhua News Agency, 1 July 2013, accessed 1 May 2018, english.cpc.people.com.cn/206972/206974/8305636.html.
21TL (Scholar), interviewed by author, Taipei: National Chengchi University, 2 May 2016.
22'Entrepreneurs' Presence Grows at CPC Congress', China's Daily, 12 November 2012, accessed 15 May 2018, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012cpc/2012-11/12/content_15919473.htm.
23'CPC has 89.6 million members', Xinhua News Agency, 30 June 2018, accessed 5 March 2019, http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-06/30/c_137292146.htm.
24'Entrepreneurs' Presence', China's Daily.
25HT (Expert), interviewed by author, Taipei: National Taiwan University, 15 April 2016.
26Jennifer Zeng et al., 'China Private Wealth Report 2013' (China Merchants Bank and Bain & Company, 13 August 2013), 35, accessed 22 May 2018, www.bain.com/publications/articles/china-private-wealth-report-2013.aspx.
27'Central Government Convenes a Meeting Presided by Xi Jinping', People's Daily, 4 December 2012, accessed 18 April 2018, cpc.people.com.cn/n/2012/1205/c64094-19793530.html; 'China to Punish Extravagance in Official Galas', Xinhua News Agency, 15 August 2013, accessed 1 May 2018, english.cpc.people.com.cn/206972/206974/8365826.html.
28'Ba xiang guiding biaoqing bao shuaping pengyouquan shou ri dianji shubaiwan', Xinhua News Agency, 4 December 2017, accessed 5 April 2018, www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2017-12/04/c_1122051109.htm.
29Meng Xin, 'Political Capital and Wealth Accumulation', in China: New Engine of World Growth, ed. Ross Garnaut and Ligang Song (Canberra: ANU Press, 2012), 327.
30Yu Xie and Yongai Jin, 'Household Wealth in China', Chinese Sociological Review 47 (2015): 203-29.
31Biwei Su and Almas Heshmati, Analysis of the Determinants of Income and Income Gap between Urban and Rural China, Discussion Paper 7162 (Bonn: Institute for the Study of Labor, January 2013): 10.
32Victor Shih, Christopher Adolph, and Mingxing Liu, 'Getting Ahead in the Communist Party: Explaining the Advancement of Central Committee Members in China', American Political Science Review 106 (2012): 166-87.
33From 18 March to 15 April 2012, 3,177 face-to-face interviews were conducted in Mandarin with individuals aged 18 years and older. The data were collected via a multi-stage cluster sample stratified by China's three economic zones - east, west and centre (except Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Macao). The urban population, slightly overrepresented in the sample, comes from 12 cities and 12 towns located in the three regions. The survey's margin of error lies at +/− 4.3 per cent. Cases with missing information on certain variables were eliminated through list-wise deletion. The "Don't Know" and "No Response" categories of the outcome variable were coded as system-missing and excluded from the analysis. In all, 2,658 cases were suitable for the weighted regression analysis. See 'Pew Global Attitudes Survey', 18 March-20 April 2012.
34The incomes in the sample are slightly higher than those in the overall population. One potential reason for this minor discrepancy may be the overrepresentation of urban households. Since the distribution of income in the sample approximates the population incomes, the data were used without modifications. Out of the 3,177 respondents, 127 individuals either refused to answer the question on income or could not identify their income bracket. Hence, those cases were excluded from the analysis.
35In terms of ethnicity, 96 per cent of respondents declared themselves Han. Besides Han, 15 different ethnicities were mentioned by respondents. By collapsing all the minorities into a non-Han category, I created a binary variable called ethnicity. Han ethnics were coded as 1, while non-Han respondents were assigned a score of 2.
36In 2016, a Pew survey asked the following question: 'When children today in China grow up, do you think they will be better off or worse off financially than their parents?' Seventy-eight per cent of the respondents expected to be better off and only 11.5 per cent thought that their children will be 'worse off'. See Global Trends and Attitudes, Pew Research Center, Spring 2016.
37The explanatory power increased across the four models. The predictive power in Model 4 jumped from −3567.7 to the maximised log-likelihood value of −2777.9 at iteration 6. The likelihood ratio (LR) for the ordered probit model is significant at p < .001. The successive addition of predictors improves the likelihood ratio from 1736.2 (Model 1) to 1759.6 (Model 4).
Bibliography
Chen, Jie, and Bruce J. Dickson. Allies of the State: China's Private Entrepreneurs and Democratic Change. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010.
Deng Xiaoping, Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping (1982-1992). Edited by People's Daily Online. Vol. 3. Accessed 23 March 2018, http://www.people.com.cn/english/dengxp/home.html.
Lardy, Nicholas. 'The Changing Role of the Private Sector in China', Proceedings of RBA Annual Conference. In Structural Change in China: Implications for Australia and the World Reserve Bank of Australia. Edited by Iris Day and John Simon (2016).
Lau, Lawrence J., Yingyi Qian, and Gérard Roland. 'Reform without Losers: An Interpretation of China's Dual-Track Approach to Transition'. Journal of Political Economy 108 (2000): 121-43.
Li, Cheng. 'China's Communist Party State: The Structure and Dynamics of Power in Politics in China'. In Politics in China. Edited by William Joseph. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Lin, Justin Yifu. Demystifying the Chinese Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
McGreggor, Richard. The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers. London: Penguin Books, 2010.
National Bureau of Statistics. China Statistical Yearbook. Beijing: China Statistical Press. 2016.
OECD, Going for Growth: Economic Policy Reforms. Paris: OECD, 2017. Accessed 10 May 2018, http://www.oecd.org/eco/growth/Going-for-Growth-China-2017.pdf.
Piketty, Thomas. Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014.
Shih, Victor, Christopher Adolph, and Mingxing Liu. 'Getting Ahead in the Communist Party: Explaining the Advancement of Central Committee Members in China'. American Political Science Review 106 (2012): 166-87.
Sicular, Terry. The Challenge of High Inequality in China. Policy Brief. Washington, DC: The World Bank, August 2013.
Stratford, Kate, and Arianna Cowling. Chinese Household Income, Consumption and Savings. Bulletin, Sydney: Reserve Bank of Australia, September 2016.
Su, Biwei, and Almas Heshmati. Analysis of the Determinants of Income and Income Gap between Urban and Rural China. Discussion Paper 7162. Bonn: Institute for the Study of Labor, 2013.
Vogel, Ezra. Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011.
Wang, Chaohua, ed. One China, Many Paths. New York: Verso, 2003.
Whyte, Martin King, and Dong-Kyun Im. 'Is the Social Volcano Still Dormant? Trends in Chinese Attitudes toward Inequality'. Social Science Research 48, no. 1 (2014): 62-76.
Xie, Yu, and Yongai Jin. 'Household Wealth in China'. Chinese Sociological Review 47, no. 3 (2015): 203-29.
Xin, Meng. 'Political Capital and Wealth accumulation'. In China: New Engine of World Growth. Edited by Ross Garnaut and Ligang Song, 316-29. Canberra: ANU Press, 2012. | textbooks/socialsci/Political_Science_and_Civics/Socialism_Capitalism_and_Alternatives_(Duncan_and_Schimpfossl)/3%3A_Part_II_-_China_Today_and_as_a_Future_Alternative/5%3A_Making_it_in_China_-_The_determinants_of_economic_success_in_a_so.txt |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.