Robert Dahl

Chapter 17 and 18 in Democracy and its Critics

Chapter 17 How Polarchy Developed in Some Countries and Not Others -Countries vary enormously in the extent to which their governments meet the criteria of the democratic process or, more narrowly, sustain the institutions necessary to polyarchy. These institutions are: 1. Control over governmental decisions about policy is constitutionally vested in elected officials. 2. Elected officials are chosen and peacefully removed in relatively frequent, fair, and free elections in which coercion is quite limited. 3. Practically all adults have the right to vote in these elections. 4. Most adults have the right to run for the public offices for which candidates run in these elections. 5. Citizens have an effectively enforced right to freedom of expression, particularly political expression, including criticism of the officials, conduct of the government, the prevailing political, economic and social system, and the dominant ideology. 6. Citizens have access to alternative sources of information that are not monopolized by the government or any other single group. 7. Finally they have an effectively enforced right to form and join autonomous associations, including political associations, such as political parties and interest groups, that attempt to influence the government by competing in elections and by other peaceful means. -Full polyarchy is a 20 th century system. -Polyarchy has seen three periods of growth: 1776-1930, 1950-1959, and the 1980s. -During the first period, the institutions that distinguish polyarchy evolved in North America and Europe. Yet in most countries that reached the threshold of polyarchy by 1920, the institutions were often defective, by present standards, until the last third of the 19 th century or later. Of 17 European countries that were full or male polyarchies by 1920, only 7 had created elected governments independent of foreign control before 1850. 3 more established independent elections before 1900 and the remaining 7 only after 1900. Elections also failed to meet our present conception of what is required in order to be free and fair. In Great Britain, the secret ballot was only introduced in parliamentary and municipal elections until 1872. In the USA, secret ballot only adopted in 1884, and in France in 1913. Another obstacle to polyarchy in many European countries was the dependence of prime minster and cabinet on the approval of a monarch and in some cases a non-elective second chamber. France, Italy and Switzerland had cabinets or prime ministers fully responsible to an elective legislature before 1900. In Britain, power of House of Lords only modified in 1911. Until the 1920s, only New Zealand (1893) and Australia (1902) had extended suffrage to women in national elections. In France and Belgium ,women did not gain suffrage until after the Second World War (1945). In Switzerland, women were not allowed to vote 1971.

-Each decade from 1860 to 1920 saw an increase in the number of countries possessing all the institutions of polyarchy except an inclusive suffrage. By 1930, 18 full polyarchies and 3 male polyarchies existed, all either in Europe or in countries of predominantly European origins (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, USA) together with Costa Rica and Uruguay. -In the 1930s, authoritarian takeovers in Germany, Austria, and Spain together with Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, resulted in democracy being in a crisis becoming common place. There was a breakdown of polyarchies in what were seen as advanced European countries. -After World War 2, the number of countries governed by polyarchies that were now full polyarchies jumped to 36-40 countries. However in this same period, breakdowns and authoritarian takeovers also took place: in Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary in the 1940s, in Brazil, Ecuador and Peru in the 1960s, and in Chile, South Korea, Uruguay and Turkey in the 1970s. Meanwhile collapse of colonialism resulted in increase of nominally independent countries; these new countries typically began independence with a full set of democratic political institutions. However in many new countries polyarchy was soon replaced by authoritarianism such as in Africa. By the 1980s, only Botswana remained as a polyarchy. However in this period microstates in Caribbean and Pacific became polyarchies. By the mid-1980s, number of polyarchies had reached about 50 countries. -The most relevant patterns of development concerning conditions facilitating development of polyarchy are: 1. In a country with a nonpolyarchal regime, favourable conditions develop and persist. Therefore it is highly likely that a transition to polyarchy occurs, that the institutions of polyarchy are consolidated, and that the polyarchal system is stable. Thus, given favourable conditions, then a nonpolyarchal regime will become a stable polyarchy. 2. In a country with nonpolyarchal regime, favourable conditions do not develop or are weak. Therefore it is highly unlikely that at transition to polyarchy takes place and highly likely that a nonpolyarchal regime persists. 3. In a country with a nonpolyarchical regime, the conditions are mixed or temporarily favourable. If under these conditions polyarchy develops, the likely possibilities are: a. Polyarchy breaks down within a short time (less than 20 years), a transition to a nonpolyarchal regime occurs and a nonpolyarchal regime persists. b. Same as a, then, the nonpolyarchal regime also breaks down, another transition to polyarchy occurs (redemocratization), polyarchy is consolidated and persists. c. Polyarchy is not consolidated, and the system oscillates between polyarchy and nonpolyarchy. Chapter 18 Why Polyarchy developed in some countries and not others -In some political systems popularly chosen leaders have been able to exercise enough control over the military and police to permit the institutions of polyarchy to exist.

-The tendency to adopt the democratic process in governing the state has been stronger during periods when military organization and technology have required that large numbers of combatants be drawn from the general population. However development of nuclear weapons concentrated in relatively few hands has provided enormous resources of violent coercion a minority willing and able to use them for political ends. -Civilian control over the military and police is a necessary condition for polyarchy, and the failure of civilian control is sufficient to account for the existence of nondemocratic regimes in many countries. But civilian control is not sufficient for polyarchy, since some nondemocratic regimes also maintain civilian control over their military and police forces. Thus it is obvious that we cannot explain the presence of absence of polyarchy in a country by civilian control alone. -Historically, polyarchy has been strongly associated with a society marked by a host of interrelated characteristics: a relatively high level of income and wealth per capita, long-run growth in per capita income and wealth, a high level of urbanization, a rapidly declining or relatively small agricultural population, great occupational diversity, extensive literacy, a comparatively large number of persons who have attended institutions of higher education, an economic order in which production is mainly carried on by relatively autonomous firms whose decisions are strongly oriented towards national and international markets, and relatively high levels of conventional indiciators of well-being such as life expectancy. What are to call this type of society which is so favourable to polyarchy? Some of the essential qualtiies are perhaps best conveyed by the idea of modernity. Other aspects are captured by the dynamic nature of society and by its pluralist character. Therefore this particular society is referred to as a modern dynamic pluralist country (MDP). -Two general features of MDP society are favourable for polyarchy: 1. An MDP society disperses power, influence, authority, and control away from any single center towards a variety of individuals, groups, associations and organisations. 2 It fosters attitudes and beliefs favourable to democratic ideas. -As MDP societies have developed in one country after another then, they supported the development of polyarchy. -Polyarchies have developed in countries without MDP soci eties, so an MDP society is not strictly necessary to the existence of polyarchy. In India polyarchy was established when the population was overwhelmingly agricultural, illiterate, occupationally much less specialized than in an MDP country, and highly traditional and rule-bound in behaviour and beliefs. -As the strength and distinctiveness of a country s subcultures increase, the chances for polyarchy should decline. Subcultures are typically formed around

ethnic, religious, racial, linguistic, or regional differences and shared historical experience or ancestral myths. -Under certain conditions, polyarchy can survive and function fairly well despite extensive subcultural pluralism. One successful solution is consociational democracy. -Most significant examples of polyarchies persisting under conditions of extreme subcultural pluralism are Switzerland, Belgium, Austria and the Netherlands. With a few exceptions, Switzerland s 25 cantons are highly homogeneous internally with respect both to religion and language; as a consequence, the country as a whole is highly fragmented along territorial lines. How can persistence of polyarchy in these countries be accounted for despite subcultural cleavages? Political leaders created consociational arrangements for resolving conflicts, by which all important political decisions required agreement among the leaders of the major subcultures; as a result these systems prevented subcultural cleavages from producing explosive conflicts. -Lijphart identified four characteristics of consociational democracy. 1. Most important element is government by a grand coalition of the political leaders of all significant segments of the plural society. 2. Mutual veto: decisions affecting the vital interests of a subculture will not be taken without the agreement of its leaders. Thus the mutual veto constitutes a minority veto as well and a rejection of majority rule. 3. The major subcultures are represented in cabinets and other decision-making bodies roughly in proportion to their numbers; proportionality may extend also to civil service appointments. 4. Each subculture enjoys a high degree of autonomy in dealing with matters that are its exclusive concern. On all matters of common interest, decisions should be made by all of the segments with roughly proportional degrees of influence. On all other matters, however, the decisions and their execution can be left to the separate segments. -Consociationalism can succeed only in countries where the other conditions that favour polyarchy are present. In addition, political elites must believe that consociational arrangements are highly desirable and feasible, and they must possess the skills and incentives to make them work. Thus the absence of this in Lebanon in 1975 resulted in failure of consociationalism in 1975. Consociational arrangements are also favoured if the relative strength of the different subcultures, most notably the numbers in each, are politically somewhat in balance, or at any rate not so widely out of balance that one of them can nourish realistic hopes of governing without the collaboration of one or more of the others. -The greater the belief within a country in the legitimacy of the institutions of polyarchy, the greater the chances for polyarchy.

-A country with a political culture strongly favourable to polyarchy will make its way through crises that would bring about a breakdown of polyarchy in a country with less supportive political culture. -Even if all the conditions mentioned above existed in a country, it would not possess the institutions of a polyarchy if a more powerful country intervened to prevent them, i.e. USA intervened to overthrow elected government of Guatemala in 1954. However, if dominant country is itself a polyarchy, its rule may contribute to the development of local institutions favourable to polyarchy, as with Britain in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and the USA in the Phillipines. However the policies of the dominant country are likely to be influenced more strongly by strategic, economic and geopolitical considerations than by any special preference for democracy. Thus the military and economic interventions of the USA in Central America from 1898 onward typically weakened independence and popular governments and strengthened dictatorships. -A country is very likely to develop and sustain the institutions of polyarchy if: 1. the means of violent coercion are dispersed or neutralized; 2. it possesses an MDF society; 3. it is culturally homogeneous; 4. it is heterogeneous, and is not segmented into strong and distinctive subcultures, or if it is so segmented its leaders have succeeded in creating a consociational arrangement for managing subcultural conflicts; 5. It possesses a political culture and beliefs, particularly among political activities, that support the institutions of polyarchy; 6. it is not subject to intervention by a foreign power hostile to polyarchy.