 Okay, let me welcome you once again to Political Science 303. This morning we shall be talking about different models. Remember we talked about after a conceptual introduction we did talk about component procedures that there were two approaches to conceptualizing democracy. One was the procedural based approach and the other was, and the other model was the other approach was named, procedures versus outcomes, very good, procedures versus outcomes. And when we talk about the procedures we did talk about on the basis of Schmitzer and Carl's which was based on Robert Dahl's work titled Poliarchy that there were several component procedures. Modern political democracy is a system of governance in which rulers are held accountable for their actions in the public realm by citizens who are acting indirectly through mechanisms or procedures of competition and cooperation of their elected representatives. So here the issue is that we have these component procedures all of which are sine qua non of the system or in the system in the sense that all of them have to coexist simultaneously. So system of governance, rulers, public realm, citizens, cooperation, competition and representatives. So these are the, I mean this is Schmitzer and Carl's discussion on an elaboration in fact of Robert Dahl's work. Mind you the fallacies, problems of majority rule, tyranny of majority, okay so remember these terms, these are very important terms, most of which I know you've covered or you've been covering in other classes. So most of this is not unknown to you, okay. So think of this piece, this bit in the course as a refresher of what we need to know for us to be able to set a level playing field and even playing field to go over the case studies, okay. So any questions from here? Everything is clear, okay. I think we've discussed this quite thoroughly. This morning what I want to do is to start with Leiphardt's article which gives us a discussion on different models of democracy. How do you structure, organize your democracy? How do you model your democracy? How do you forge your democracy? Leiphardt says there are two ways of organizing your democracy, two ways of organizing your political system, democratic political system. One is the majoritarian model and the other is the consensual model. The trick here Leiphardt says or Leiphardt warns what we know as democracy in common parlance in public debates approximates to the majoritarian model, okay. So we tend to think in terms of majoritarian models but Leiphardt says this model exists in way much less number of states or political systems than this model. Though we tend to think of this model as the rule, in fact it is quite an exception. The rule is in empirical reality. The rule is the consensus model. He sets these two models as ideal types. So these are not necessarily real world types of democracy, real world models of democracy. But he says there are some cases, some countries which approximates to these ideal typical models, okay. So once we've covered this warning, let me go over what he means by the majoritarian model. What is, how do we define majority? How does one, how do you, how would we define majority? Majority in a class of 50, 26 which is 50% plus 1. This is one type of majority which is called, does anybody remember? This is one certain type of majority, simple majority, okay. So this is called simple majority or sometimes referred to as absolute majority. But there are other majorities possible. One is plurality, which would mean that's not it. I'm talking about plurality, that's qualified majority which I shall come back to. But plurality, when we talk about plurality in a class of 50, one group gets 20. One group gets 10, one group gets 10 and the other group gets 5 and the other, the final group gets 5. The plurality model centers on the 20, okay. So the largest group, the largest majority in the majorities, okay. So in all the groups. And the final is qualified majority, which is sometimes two-thirds and sometimes three-fourths. It depends on what we qualify that particular majority. It depends on the particular qualification of majority. But once again, let's come back to Leipart's models. Leipart says, the ideal typical majoritarian model concentrates power in the hands of the majority. And it has certain features. One important, one key feature of the majoritarian model is that there is one party controlling the cabinet. So one party in the legislature, one political party in the legislature, one single party controlling the cabinet, okay. So it is this party in the legislature controls the executive. This in turn means that this party, which is representing the executive, dominates the legislature. Is that clear? So one party controls cabinet. The party having parliamentary majority controls cabinet. And this also means that the executive, i.e. the cabinet, the government dominates the legislature. It doesn't have to be this much. It doesn't have to be this kind of a majority. It may be we may have a system like this, a very staggered system. We may even have this kind of a representation depending on the political system. But in most cases, we tend to think in ideal typical terms, two political parties represented by here, forming the cabinet, members of the cabinet, and this, the executive that is, the executive arm of government, dominates the legislature, okay. Which is quite clear. So then it seems that we are talking about the majoritarian model. But there are other features. There is a unicameral legislature. What does unicameral mean? What do you remember as unicameral? There is, you have only one chamber in the parliament. Do you know any parliament which has one single chamber? The Turkish parliament has one single chamber. Do you know of any parliament that has two chambers? Britain, I hear the US. Do I hear some other country? France, Germany, okay. So we, and also Japan which we shall be talking about. So these are all two chamber parliaments. If there is one cabinet, I'm sorry, if there's one chamber in the parliament, and if this party forms the cabinet, that means this party has absolute control over the legislature because there is no other chamber. This is the, it's a unicameral system, let's assume. There's one chamber. This means that this party in a way dominates in almost absolute terms the legislature. The executive dominates the legislature. So the majority model in ideal typical terms is one that concentrates power in the hands of the majority and one majority, almost like in absolute terms. It doesn't allow any sharing or dispersing of political power. It concentrates all kinds of powers. That means there is no competing majority. There's no competing majority in the legislature. A fourth key feature is that there is a unitary and centralized government. If all of these exist, plus, if the system, if the political system is a unitary political system and it is highly centralized, then this looks like the majority model says like part. In this case the parliament or the parliamentary majority has full control of the political system. That is to say there is no federal system in which there is vertical separation of powers. There are no regions, no local governments competing against the central government. It's a unitary political system, centralized political system. That means the majority that is represented here in the parliament, which gets reflected in the cabinet, i.e. the executive, has full control of the system. This jibes with the majoritarian conception or majoritarian model that Leiphardt is talking about. A fifth feature is that there is no constitutional limit on this majority. In the sense that there should not be a constitution at all, Leiphardt says, for the ideal typical model, or that we would have a very flexible constitution, or that we may have an unwritten constitution which would not impinge upon what the majority does. So in the ideal typical majoritarian model, Leiphardt says, there are no constitutional limits on what the majority does. What the executive does, what the parliamentary majority wishes to do, please. We'll do an example. We may have, as in the British case, we do not have one single piece, one single handbook of a constitutional document. There are different texts. There are different court cases. There is customary law, all kinds of cases coming together and forming the tradition, the constitutional tradition, and based on that tradition, the state functions, okay? As the case of Britain, as we shall be talking about later. The UK. New Zealand is another example. New Zealand, yes, which is similar to the Westminster, the British model. But the ideal typical model looks like the British case. New Zealand as an offshoot of Britain is another case. So no constitutional limits or flexible limits on what the majority does. Then comes, as a sixth feature, that there are no supreme court limits in majority, which means that a court does not have or there does not exist any court that has the authority, the competence to review the constitutionality of the legislation passed by the parliament, i.e. the majority. So there is no court which has the power of saying, Fairbottom, you can't do that. I'm not allowing that. There's no supreme court or a constitutional court which says, you majority, you passed this legislation in conformity with the executive, but I'm not allowing the implementation of it. In fact, I am considering it as null and void because it is against the constitution that I represent, that I defend as a watchdog, as an instrument, as a defender of this very important text. So Leipard says, in the majority, an ideal typical system, there does not exist any court like me which says, you can't do that, guys. So it doesn't exist in the system. So judicial review of pieces of legislation does not exist in the ideal typical majoritarian model. In general, in the majoritarian model, there is also a two-party system. That's also an implicit argument that Leipard makes. So this is what the majoritarian system in ideal typical terms look like. One approximation is New Zealand which looks like this system. But once again, Leipard says this is, you know, it's a model that exists approximately in empirical reality in New Zealand. The other model, the consensus model, it's quite the opposite of the majoritarian system or the majoritarian model. Whereas the majoritarian model concentrates power in the hands of the majority, the consensual model disperses, shares, divides power in the hands of many. So think of this as a centripetal system, you know, concentrating power in the system. And think of this as a centrifugal or centrifugal system which disperses power outwards to different elements that make up governance or the political system. So there would be in ideal typical terms one single party dominating the legislature. We would have a broad coalition government and we'd have different political parties represented in the parliament. So we almost never have, especially in ideal typical models. We don't have a two-party system here. We have a multi-party system, as I shall be discussing. But most of these will be represented in the one, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. So there is a broad coalition cabinet based on the parliamentary structure, based on the parliamentary divisions. So as opposed to the two-party model, we have multi-parties. And this colorfulness, this vibrance gets reflected in the executive, in the government, in the cabinet. This means that there is a way much more balanced relationship between the executive and the legislature. That there is no executive dominance by the cabinet of the legislature. Is that clear? Okay. So far, so good. So there is no executive dominance. There is a balanced cabinet-legislature relationship. A third feature of the consensus model is that there is generally a bicameral legislature as opposed to the unicameral legislatures. As we've just talked about, the case of the Bundestag and the Bundesrat in Germany, the case of the Diet in Japan, the case of the Congress in the U.S., okay? These are all examples of bicameral legislatures in which we have two different chambers. One political party may end up dominating one wing or one chamber, but in most cases it happens that the other political party, if there are only two, would dominate the other chamber. Okay? We'll do, I mean, when we discuss the case of the U.S., for example, especially you'll see what we shall be, I mean, you'll see examples of this, okay? So there are two chambers and, I mean, it's a bicameral legislature. There are, let's say, four political parties, and the elections for these chambers run at different times on different types of constituencies, and one or two parties may get represented or maybe representing the majority in the lower house, and the other parties would happen to be representing the majority in the upper house. So there would be some kind of an alternation, some kind of a difference asymmetry in terms of dominance, which means that in the bicameral legislature, it would be very rare if one single majority would be controlling the executive and also both houses of the parliament. These would be rare moments in history in the consensus model because the consensus model is geared towards producing other types of, other types of governance outcomes. So these would not exist in the consensus model unless there is an exception. In the consensus model, ideal typical cases, we generally see federal systems, highly decentralized systems, which bring a check and a balance on the central government. That is to say, regional governments, which have different powers, would be checking the power of the federal government, that there would be different levels or layers of government, that there would be multiple actors, which would mean that we would see a multi-level governance system. And in this multi-level governance system, there is no centralization of power. So vertically too, there is no power centralization. There is no unitary state. There is generally a federal state in which you see elements of decentralization. Although in the majoritarian system, there's no constitutional limits on what the majority does. In consensual systems, there are strict constitutions, rigid documents, in most cases pages and pages and pages, which really limit the powers, the privileges, the rights, and which really explains the duties, the responsibilities of different branches of government or how the state institutions are organized. So there is a rigid constitution on what all of these guys make. So the constitution really proscribes all of what they do. There are strict limits on what everyone does in the system. And in this system, there is almost always the possibility of a constitutional review. So there is a Supreme Court, a constitutional court, which may say, I'm not allowing it. I'm not playing game with you. Yes, you've passed this legislation, but even if you've passed this legislation in both chambers of your parliament, I see that it does not jibe with my text. So I ban it. I censor it. So you just can't implement this law. In fact, I consider it as non-existing. I consider it as void from the beginning, void of an issue. So I basically repeal it. It's null and void. It doesn't exist your legislation. If under certain circumstances, if you insist to pass it, there is a way. What could be the way? My constitution as is does not allow it, but you're the legislature. Both houses seem to agree on this piece of legislation, which is difficult to do. Change the constitution. So if you change the constitution, kudos. I'll be okay with it. As long as the change happens, according to the procedures that I represent, if you change the constitution, fine. So there is constitutional review, and there's a strong grip of the Supreme Court or the constitutional council or the constitutional court on both arms of the government, on the executive and by implication the legislature, the legislative branch of government. From here onwards, we talk about the political party system. In the consensus model, we talk about the, we talk about not two party systems, but mostly multiple parties existing. So we generally call this multi-party systems. So there are multiple parties. This is not a two-party system. It's quite self-explanatory. There are more than two parties competing for both houses of the parliament. But the trick is, what do these parties represent? These parties represent highly different, very different cleavages, which means that politics is divided into multiple dimensions. So the party system is multi-dimensional, which an empirical reality may mean that the party system may be divided across ethnic lines. The party system may be divided across religious lines. The party system may obviously be divided across left and right in terms of economic ideology. The party system may be divided against one another or parties may be divided against one another in terms of whether they are social liberals or social conservatives or liberals and conservatives and that and the other. So there are multiple dimensions, multiple cleavages in the system. The system may even be divided like it was the case in Italy, like the party Lega Nord, the Northern League. So the North says, you lazy Southerns, we don't want to play game with you. We want our own party to be represented in the parliament. So even regions, so there are regional differences in the party system, which are represented as clashing competing interests. So multi-dimensional party system means that there are many cleavages represented in the system, in the party system. There are many dimensions when you go to the polls as voters, as the electorate. You think in terms of many, many, many dimensions when you're casting your vote. It's not just economic or social ways of perception, patterns of behavior, normative judgments, value judgments, this, that, and the other. But there are other considerations that the typical voter will be thinking, will be reflecting on when he or she finds herself or himself before the polls. And finally, there is proportional representation. And the polar opposite of this system would be proportional representation on the one hand and what would be the opposite system, which really concentrates power. Do you guys remember? There is proportional representation. But there is also another system called the first past the post system. Sometimes referred to as the winner takes all system. Very good. Let's see how this system works very quickly. Let me remind you how the system runs. Again, I assume that all of you or most of you are familiar with this system. So please help me. In the proportional representation system, in the PR system, party A, party B, party C, party D, party E in one district, OK? The candidate of party A, or the candidate, and let's say there are in total, this district will send, how many parliamentarians? It's a large district. Let's say this district will send 10 MPs to the national parliament, OK? In total, in this district, which is implementing the proportional representation system, will be sending, will be selecting, will be electing 10 MPs to be sent to the national parliament. Let's say this candidate or this party, I'm sorry, gets 40% of the votes. This party gets 20% of the votes. Another 20%, 10%, how many left? Very nice. OK, so how many MPs? There will be in total 10 MPs. Party A will be sending four. Party B will be sending two. Party C, party D, party E, one. Let's assume that there is a national threshold of 10%. And party F gets 9%. Party E will be sending, how many to the parliament? That there is a national threshold of 10%. Party E will be sending, how many? Party F, I'm sorry, party F will be sending the effort. So they'll be sending no MP to the parliament. So all of these will be, these 10 MPs will be represented in the parliament. It seems to be clear, right? This looks like the model that you guys are thinking through in terms of this country, how this country, you know, the electoral system in this country. That's quite clear. What if this was a first pass the post system? Or winner takes all system? There will be different parties. Winner takes all or first pass the post. Party A, party B, party C, party D, party E. The number of MPs that this district will be sending to the parliament is very good. One. So this one MP will be going to the parliament to be represented. So party A gets 40%. Party B gets 39%. 39.9%. Party C gets 10%. Party D gets 3%. Party E gets 2%. Party F, G, blah, blah, blah, other percents. What happens here, ladies and gentlemen? Party A gets the one representative and no other gets any representative or any representation in the parliament, in this district. As you can see, these are smaller districts. These are larger districts. That's quite clear, right? So this system really amasses power to the largest party. In this sense, it quite jibes with the logic of the majoritarian system. Whereas this system produces a more colorful representation, which shares, distributes, divides power to many types of majorities, to many types of dimensions, or to many types of political parties representing different dimensions. So it really jibes with the consensus model. Is that, are these clear? I'm sure you've seen this before. I mean, it's not alien to you. But just to be on the safe side, I wish to show you that there are two, which light part says, there are two types of, two models of democracy, or organizing your democracy. And some elements, some key features really cuddle together to result in a configuration, let's say the consensus model, and others really cuddle together to produce another constellation or a configuration, the consensus model. A good example of the consensus model, like part says, is the country represented by CH. Which country is this? What does CH stand for? Very good. Confederation Elvatica, official languages of Switzerland How many? We've discussed this. One is Andromache. So as you can see, different cleavages, different regions, federal system, rigid constitution, constitutional review possible. We've got the cantons. We've got a multi-party system, multi or multiple dimensional party system. There is different kinds of proportional representation a balanced cabinet, legislature, relationship, broad coalition cabinet running the country almost all the time, most of the time. So these are examples of real world approximations of these two models. And we will have to keep these models in mind, for example, the electoral system, different methods of electing parliamentarians for the parliament. In mind, when we discuss the nuts and bolts of governance and policymaking, and interest representation and participation in the cases that we shall be seeing. And finally, like part says, once again, let me hammer this out very clearly. Majority rule of the majoritarian system he really warns us is seen among many of us as the only legitimate form or model of democracy. But in the empirical world, it is not the rule. It is quite the exception. So although we tend to think about democracy in terms of the majoritarian model, we are plain wrong when we look at how social reality is organized, how political reality is organized. Because of the fact that it is the consensus model, which represents the rule, which represents the majority of countries in terms of the political system, as opposed to the majority rule, which runs in less than 10, 15 states, in total, in fact, much less than 10. In fact, he says six, and then he expands further. The majority rule, he says, provides us with a very narrow and, in many respects, an unrealistic version or definition of democracy. And in that respect, it is a misleading conception of what democracy is. So we have to be very careful when we confront majoritarian systems and when organizing your political system, lawmakers should keep these at the back of their minds. Here is my final question on this piece, on this bit, on the introductory bit part of this course. Why were these articles appearing just in 1991? Are there any coincidence? Oh, very good. I see many hands. Yes, that these articles were written in 1991. Any other ideas? Or does anybody agree with that? The Berlin Wall, collapse of communism, it's time to write new constitutions. Schmitter and Carl says, the original longer version of this essay was written at the request of the United States Agency for International Development, which is not responsible for its content, blah, blah, blah. So mind you, these were written at a time, at a critical juncture, when we observed systems collapsing and that it was time to draft new constitutions. And these guys were saying, hey, look, let's be very careful when drafting constitutions. Look at what democracy is. And always keep in mind what democracy is not. And not only that, but also, let's look at existing models of democracy. Let's examine what works and what doesn't. Any questions? Have a nice weekend.