Random Variable

Lijphart’s basic argument is that there are two major types of democracies – majoritarian democracies, based upon the Westminster model, and consensus democracies, to be found in Europe. He claims that consensus democracies provide better outcomes for people on a variety of indicators. I decided to try our one indicator, not mentioned in Patterns of Democracy [1] – poverty reduction.

Using data from the Luxembourg Income Study [2], and plotting the executive-parties dimension of democracies from Lijphart’s Patterns of Democracy produces the following graph:

My poor grasp of statistical tests tells me that scoring higher on Lijphart’s first dimension is positively correlated with effective poverty reduction at the 5% level, and that’s with the United States as a huge outlier.

* Relative effectiveness of income redistribution systems in poverty reduction around 1990, where poverty threshold = 60 per cent of median equivalent disposable income.

Make of that what you will.

[1]  Arend Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries (New Haven [Conn.]: Yale University Press, 1999).

[2]  J. Fritzell and V. M. Ritakallio, “Societal shifts and changed patterns of poverty,” Luxembourg Income Study working paper 393 (2004).

Update: Replaced Excel graphs with plots from R.

To get into the spirit of blogging again, perhaps I should start writing about my courses this year. So, first off, it’s Democracy and Authoritarianism, taught by David Styan.

We just had the introductory lecture, but next week we’re looking at military coups and will be talking about legitmacy for authoritarian regimes in the seminar.

My initial thoughts, without even bothering to do a cursory literature review:

In addition to the three types of legitimacy given by Weber [1], I’ve been thinking about a further three types of legitimacy for authoritarian regimes; goal-oriented, performance, and electoral.

Now, it would seem that these types of legitimacy are at least conditioned by the times, or in other words, are more timeless than Weber’s three types.

You might want to term this ideology, and leave it at that. However, you might want to consider some of the modern work on institutional norms. In particular, the work of Dimaggio and Powell [2]. Their claim is that under conditions of environmental uncertainty, competing firms start to mimic one another. I think this is the theoretical basis of Spruyt’s work on the sovereign state [3], but how would it apply in the context of authoritarian states. How about this scenario?

1. Country gains independence after colonialism, and inherits weak civil society.
2. Elites tasked with state-building under severe environmental uncertainty: Cold war, economic catching up with colonial nation-states, fear of international military action.
3. Just a few states (maybe even one or two) choosing authoritarianism might kick off isomorphism across a whole group of states.

What are the effects of theorising the legitimacy of authoritarian regimes in this way? It minimises the role of host population culture. However, not to say that elites can’t draw upon cultural repertoires to create organisational norms. It can also lead to regional organisational cultures through mimetic isomorphism (organisations copying each other).

This could part-way explain why goal and performance legitimated authoritarianism exists, but electoral legitimacy is even odder. Why hold elections when you’re going to rule with an iron fist anyway? Clearly an example of ritualistic behaviour, no? Let’s try Meyer and Rowan [4]. They believe that ceremonial behaviour is the effect of rigid organisational formal structure. However, what organisations do to remain effective, is to decouple formal structure from informal behaviour. They then retain legitimacy whilst operating efficiently (on their own terms).

Conclusion:

I am orgBorg.

1. Max Weber, Politics as a Vocation (Fortress Press, 1965). 

2. Paul J. DiMaggio and Walter W. Powell, “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields,” American Sociological Review 48, no. 2 (April 1983): 147-160.

3. H. Spruyt, The Sovereign State and Its Competitors: An analysis of systems change (Princeton University Press, 1994). 

4. J. W. Meyer and B. Rowan, “Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony,” American Journal of Sociology 83, no. 2 (1977): 340.

In my last post, I said that governments wont open up the free trade of food because domestic prices would increase, leading to discontent. But perhaps, I should make the point a bit stronger. Domestic consumers will starve.

Here’s Bryan Caplan, from his book The Myth of the Rational Voter:

“Maybe the rich are less protectionist because they are more rational; or perhaps income is a proxy for education or intelligence, and these make people more rational.”

Umm…maybe the rich are less protectionist because they’re the least likely to starve.

Final word from Daniel Davies (again), from the comments on Tyler’s response to Dani Rodrik:

[Just what is it that "we know reasonably well" that would indicate that a freer market in rice would raise its real price? Did you not agree in your own posting that freer trade would increase global supplies? How does this lead to a higher real price?]

Barkley, the World Bank estimates that Dani references are the best empirical work we have on this (rather important) question and they look pretty sound.

The global supply of rice is limited in the short term to the crop. Over the course of more than one growing season (a period of time during which it’s entirely possible to starve to death), freer trade in rice would tend to increase the supply. However, it is entirely possible for the following three states of affairs to hold simultaneously:

1) A larger global rice crop
2) A lower global price of rice in PPP terms.
3) In rice-producing countries, a higher relative cost of rice in terms of average wages.

(3) is clearly the problem, because it will lead to states of affairs where workers can’t afford to buy enough rice to eat. Which is what we call a “food crisis”, which was the whole motivating point.

Dani’s point is very clear here and quite obviously correct. An increase in the supply of rice doesn’t guarantee an increase in the ability of poor people to buy it. If rice is more expensive on the world market than it is in India, then if India opens up trade in rice, then the price of rice in India is going to go up. If Indonesia bans trade in rice, then the local price of rice is lower than it would be if Indonesian rice-growers were able to sell to Japanese rice-eaters instead of local peasants.

We might all, as Dani says, “want there to be free trade in rice”, but you pick your year for this sort of liberalisation, and you don’t pick a year in which the “adjustment issues” could involve hundreds of thousands of deaths from starvation.

A rare interview with German sociologist Jürgen Habermas makes it way onto YouTube (via SozLog). Like many, he makes the case for deliberative democracy.