1. Chapter 8
Comparative Politics I
Governmental Systems:
Democracy and Nondemocracy

2. Comparative Politics
The study of how governments, political groups, political
procedures, and citizenship vary across countries or
time periods.

3. Democracy and Nondemocracy

4. Spectrum of Government Power
• Perfect democracy
- Power in hands of the
people
• Democracy
• Limited democracy
• Authoritarianism
• Totalitarianism
• Perfect totalitarianism
- All power held by
government

6. Democracy
• From the Greek demokratía
- demos = “people”
- kratía = “government”
• Democracy does not always equal freedom.
• Democracy needs
• Thoughtful citizens
• Limits on power
• Rule of law
• Human and civil rights

7. Democracy:
Definition and Presuppositions
• Participatory • Protective Democracy
Democracy • Government not
• People free to participate tyrannical and oppressive
• Pluralist Democracy • Performance
• All people free to Democracy
participate • Governmental outputs
• Developmental reflective of the people’s
desires
Democracy
• People aware of their
role in process

8. Democracy
• “True” democracy
• A system in which all
citizens meet
periodically to elect
officials and
personally enact laws.
Representative democracy
– One in which the people do not rule directly
but through elected and accountable
representatives.

9. Elements of Democracy
• Popular accountability of government
• Political competition
• Alternation in power
• Popular representation
• Majority decision
• Right of dissent and
disobedience
• Political equality
• Popular consultation
• Free press

10. Democracy in Practice
• Even if all the
democratic criteria
are met, political
power will still not be
evenly distributed
• Few will have a lot
• And many will have
little

11. Elites
• The “top” or most
influential people
• Those who govern
• Elites make the actual decisions, and
ordinary citizens generally go along with
these decisions
• Key dispute:
• How much elites are accountable to masses.
• Elite theorists vs. pluralists

12. The Models

13. Nondemocracy:
Definition and Characteristics
• Antiparticipatory • Diverse in Leadership
• Governments deny • Family leadership
freedom of participation • Party leadership
by the people. • Military leadership
• May suppress various • Individual leadership
groups • Unclear lines of
• May produce laws and succession
policies not reflective of
the peoples’ desires

14. Totalitarianism
• All-encompassing
ideology
• A single party
• Organized terror
• Monopoly of communications
• Monopoly of weapons
• Controlled economy

15. Right-Wing Totalitarianism
• Aims to strengthen the
existing social order
and to glorify the state.
• Citizens directed
toward national glory
and war

16. Authoritarianism
• Diluted totalitarianism
• Governed by small group
• Does not attempt to control everything
• Rarely has firm ideology to sell
• Institutes command, obedience, order
• Has strict, hierarchical chain-of-command
• Allows little to no voice for citizens
• Has some trappings of democracy, with little
function

17. Latest Wave of Democracy
• Authoritarian regimes that enjoyed
strong economic growth
• Chile, South Korea, Taiwan
• Why?
• Middle class grows
• Have stake in system
• Want modification, not collapse of system
• Education levels rise
• Pluralism – citizens express interests
• Market teaches attitudes of democracy

18. China’s 1989 student protest in
Tiananmen Square

19. Latest Wave of Democracy
• Collapsed Communist regimes
whose economic growth
lagged
• Why?
• Poor economic growth
• Hard to reform totalitarian
systems
• System can’t bend
• If they admit system needs
changing, they admit that the
ideology was wrong, etc.

20. Theory of Democratic Peace
• No two
democracies have
ever fought each
other.
• If true, a more
democratic world
means a more
peaceful world.